When we finally reached the top and slid out on
to the flat, we saw a man, who we supposed must be Mr. Ford, the
agent at the post, coming over the mud with his retinue of Eskimo
to meet us.
We were all on our feet now waiting. When he came within hearing,
I asked if he were Mr. Ford, and told him who I was and how I had
come there. Then came the, for me, great question, "Has the ship
been here?"
He said, "Yes."
"And gone again?"
"Yes. That is - what ship do you mean? Is there any other ship
expected here than the Company's ship?"
"No, it is the Company's ship I mean, the _Pelican_. Has she been
here?"
"Yes," he said, "she was here last September. I expect her in
September again, about the middle of the month or later."
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RECKONING
There are times when that which constitutes one's inner self seems
to cease. So it was with me at the moment Mr. Ford uttered those
last words. My heart should have swelled with emotion, but it did
not. I cannot remember any time in my life when I had less
feeling.
Mr. Ford was asking me to come with him to the post house, and
looking at my feet. Then George was seen to rummage in one of the
bags and out came my seal-skin boots which I had worn but once,
mainly because the woman at Northwest River post who made them had
paid me the undeserved compliment of making them too small. My
"larigans," which had long ago ceased to have any waterproof
qualities, were now exchanged for the seal-skins, and thus
fortified I stepped out into the slippery mud. So with a paddle as
staff in one hand and Mr. Ford supporting me by the other, I
completed my journey to the post.
At the foot of the hill below the house, Mrs. Ford stood waiting.
Her eyes shone like stars as she took my hand and said, "You are
very welcome, Mrs. Hubbard. Yours is the first white woman's face
I have seen for two years." We went on up the hill to the house.
I do not remember what we talked about, I only remember Mrs. Ford's
eyes, which were very blue and very beautiful now in her
excitement. And when we reached the little piazza and I turned to
look back, there were the men sitting quietly in the canoes. The
Eskimo had drawn canoes, men and outfit across the mud to where a
little stream slipped down over a gravelly bed, which offered
firmer footing, and were now coming in single file towards the post
each with a bag over his shoulder.
Why were the men sitting there? Why did they not come too?
Suddenly I realised that with our arrival at the post our positions
were reversed. They were my charges now. They had completed their
task and what a great thing they had done for me. They had brought
me safely, triumphantly on my long journey, and not a hair of my
head had been harmed. They had done it too with an innate courtesy
and gentleness that was beautiful, and I had left them without a
word. With a dull feeling of helplessness and limitation I thought
of how differently another would have done. No matter how I tried,
I could never be so generous and self-forgetful as he. In the hour
of disappointment and loneliness, even in the hour of death, he had
taken thought so generously for his companions. I, in the hour of
my triumph, had forgotten mine. We were like Light and Darkness
and with the light gone how deep was the darkness. Once I had
thought I stood up beside him, but in what a school had I learned
that I only reached to his feet. And now all my effort, though it
might achieve that which he would be glad and proud of, could never
bring him back.
I must go back to the men at once; and leaving Mr. and Mrs. Ford I
slipped down the hill again, and out along the little stream across
the cove. They came to meet me when they saw me coming and Heaven
alone knows how inadequate were the words with which I tried to
thank them. We came up the hill together now, and soon the tents
were pitched out among the willows. As I watched them from the
post window busy about their new camping ground, it was with a
feeling of genuine loneliness that I realised that I should not
again be one of the little party.
Later came the reckoning, which may be summed up as follows: -
_Length of Journey_: - 576 miles from post to post (with 30 miles
additional to Ungava Bay covered later in the post yacht Lily).
_Time_: - June 27th to August 27th. Forty-three days of actual
travelling, eighteen days in camp.
_Provisions_: - 750 lbs. to begin with, 392 lbs. of which was flour.
Surplus, including gifts to Nascaupee Indians, 150 lbs., 105 lbs.
of which was flour, making the average amount consumed by each
member of the party, 57 1/2 lbs.
_Results_: - The pioneer maps of the Nascaupee and George Rivers,
that of the Nascaupee showing Seal Lake and Lake Michikamau to be
in the same drainage basin and which geographers had supposed were
two distinct rivers, the Northwest and the Nascaupee, to be one and
the same, the outlet of Lake Michikamau carrying its waters through
Seal Lake and thence to Lake Melville; with some notes by the way
on the topography, geology, flora and fauna of the country
traversed.
