A CANOE floated swiftly down the Athabasca, its single occupant, now paddling leisurely, now pausing to trail his paddle as he watched the wooded shores of spruce, birch, and poplar sweep solemnly past, seemed contented with life as he found it. The sun hung low in the west, and the shadows of the trees crept longer, and ever longer across the stream in walls, and battlements, and far-flung spires, that danced and writhed grotesquely on the surface of the swiftly moving water. He rounded a wide bend, and from the top of a bank, a mile ahead, leaped a dozen dazzling points of flame -- the glory of the setting sun, caught and hurled back by the windows of the Roman Catholic Mission that stood proudly upon the east bank of the great river. The man in the canoe smiled: "I wonder how it is with the good Father Giroux?" he muttered. "It's a long time since I've seen him."
At the foot of the bank, he beached the canoe with a deft turn of his paddle, and, pulling it onto the rocky beach, ascended the bank by means of a well-worn path. On the wide grass plot that surrounded the flag pole in front of the buildings, a score of children of assorted sizes and bloods were playing at games. Full blooded little Indians of varied tribes, fractional bloods, and a scattering of white children all played together under the watchful eye of the good Sister Agatha, a worthy member of the devoted order of Grey Nuns.
The Sister smiled and nodded a greeting, as the man passed on up the path toward the porch, where a tall man in priestly garb, holding in his hand a long tobacco pipe, rose from his chair and peered beneath shading hand. A brave figure he presented, standing tall and erect despite his seventy years, with his delicately chiselled features, and the light of the setting sun touching his long locks with the sheen of molten silver.
As the man approached the two wooden steps that gave onto the screened porch, the good priest swung wide the door: "Ah, who but Corporal Downey! Welcome, my good friend! It is long since we have met." As always, Corporal Downey noted the peculiar timbre of the voice -- a voice that neither whined to its God, nor thundered against the sins of his people -- a voice that could soften to a caress, or harden to the temper of thin steel -- a voice low of pitch, but mighty of word in the lone land beyond the outposts. The voice of Father Giroux.
"Yes, Father -- too long. Three years, or is it four? Anyway, not since the reorganization of the Force." He seated himself and produced pipe and tobacco.
"And, how do you like the change?"
"For the better," answered the officer, as he held the flame of a match to his pipe.
The old priest smiled: "I thought, when time went on and I did not see you, that when the change came they had made you an Inspector, or even a Superintendent, and had given you a soft berth in the provinces."
Downey broke the match stick between his fingers, and slowly shook his head: "No. For nineteen years I have been Corporal Downey an' Corporal Downey I'll be -- to the end. I want no promotion. I've been in Ottawa, an' later in the Maritime Provinces. Some of the older men were needed in the territory where the Force was not known. But, my heart was not in it. I was homesick for this," he swept the timbered horizon with his arm, "an' when the chance came, I asked transfer, an' got it."
"Yes, son," answered the priest, "I know. Ten years ago, it was, after I had been thirty years in the North, I was called to Montreal." There was a momentary twinkle in the keen old eyes. "Doubtless, Montreal, too, has need of God -- but there be others more fitted to do His work in the cities. I, too, grew homesick for this, and I, too, asked transfer, and got it."
"It gets into a man's blood."
"Yes -- into his blood, and his heart, and his soul. In your heart, and in mine, Downey, our wilderness has taken the place of love of woman. It chains us to its bosom with invisible chains, as the love of woman chains men to their hearths and their firesides. And it is wondrously like a woman -- this great North of ours -- with its passions, and its storms, and its unutterable longing. With its pitiable helplessness, and its unreasoning demands. But, demanding much, it also gives much -- to those whose love it holds. The man has yet to live who understands woman -- and the man has yet to live who understands the North. For forty years, I have lived with her, have fought with her, and have loved her. She has surrendered to me as the bride of my bed, has tolerated me with the cold indifference of a stranger, and has fought me with the blind ferocity of the tiger. For forty years, I have sought to learn her innermost secrets, and the secrets of her children -- and I have failed -- as the man must fail who would seek to learn the true soul of a woman."
The officer laid a friendly hand on the elder man's knee: "But, Father -- you have not failed. The North is richer by the forty years of your service."
The priest nodded, slowly. "Yes, son, I do not mean that I believe my years have been wasted. The good God would not waste the lifetime of a man who has honestly tried to further His Kingdom upon the earth. It is in seeking to understand the soul of the North, that I have failed."
"Has it got a soul?" The words came slowly -- almost a growl. "Has a woman got a soul -- or a man?"
The eyes the old priest turned upon his friend were softly compassionate. "Son, it grieves me to hear those words from the lips of the man who, by the worth of his deeds, I have come to hold in higher regard than any other. Not the grief of my calling that such a doubt should exist -- but, a very personal grief that deep within your heart there lies a touch of bitterness. A canker spot that time has failed to entirely heal. I remember that in the earlier days of your service, it flared more often to the fore."
Downey answered nothing. Indeed it is doubtful if he even heard the softly uttered words of the priest. Around the corner of the house had stepped a girl. She halted, and unconscious of the two who were seated upon the porch, she gazed long and intently upon the glory of the crimson sunset. Then, impulsively, she stretched out her arms toward it. Downey sat as one petrified, his eyes drinking each line and lineament of the lithe young figure. The girl stood in perfect profile, the wind fanning lightly a truant lock of raven hair. That face! That gesture -- that unconscious thrusting out of her arms toward the setting sun! Youth outstretching eagerly to grasp the glory -- the mystery of the unknown.
Nineteen years vanished as though they had never been -- and young Downey -- Constable Downey -- stood upon the snow at the upper reach of the Clearwater portage and -- His pipe clattered noisily upon the floor, and as he stooped to recover it, the girl faced the porch, for the first time aware of its occupants. Her lips curved into a smile as her eyes sought those of the priest: "Isn't it beautiful, Father -- the sunset? Don't you love it ?"
"Yes, my daughter. I love the sunset, and the sunrise, and the times between. It is good to live, Marie."
The smile broadened. "Yes, Father -- it is good to live."
"And, how are you coming on with the work? Sister Agatha tells me you have far outstripped all others in your studies, and that she is allowing you to help the little ones."
"They are so cute -- those babies. 1 love them all -- and they try so hard to learn their little lessons. Most all of them can say words -- and some of them already know many letters. I must go, now -- it is time to help put them to bed."
For a space of moments, gripping his pipe in his hand, Corporal Downey sat staring at the spot where the girl had disappeared. Unnoting the other's abstraction, the priest gazed into the afterglow.
"Who is she?" The voice sounded flat, and toneless, so that the good Father glanced in surprise at his friend.
"Eh? Who? Marie? She is the daughter of a trapper who lives over on Eaglenest Lake. She has been with us, now two years -- a good girl, and bright -- the smartest, I have found in many years of teaching. She was eighteen years old when her father brought her into this country, and already, she loves it. For one not born to the life of the wilderness, that is in itself remarkable. Most young women would hate it." Once again a twinkle crept into the keen old eyes and the lips smiled: "A fine wife she will make for some man, Downey. Is it that you are looking for a wife? She deserves a better man than the most who pass this way."
The priest was quick to note that there was no answering smile on Corporal Downey's lips as he answered: "No, Father. Once -- long ago -- but, -- for many years I have been trying to forget."
A strong, thin hand reached out and rested lightly upon the speaker's shoulder, and the words of the priest came as if from afar: "I too, son -- for many, many years." A long silence fell upon them. The afterglow faded from the sky, and the deep twilight that is the summer night -- dark of the North, settled gradually upon them.
The following morning, the priest accompanied Downey to his canoe. They were fast friends, these two, the veteran officer holding the good priest's opinions and estimates in high regard. Drawing a note book from his pocket, he thumbed its pages. "Know an Injun called Luke Red Stone, or Luke Red Rock?" he asked.
"Yes, Luke Red Rock. I know him. He should be on Hay River now."
"We got word that he abandoned his blind wife in a storm last winter."
The priest nodded: "I think that is the truth. But I doubt you could prove anything on him. The woman was picked up, badly frosted, by some other Indians. She pulled through, and Luke Red Rock has taken her back. They would probably say that she wandered away and got lost."
"It won't hurt to throw a scare into him, though," opined Downey, and the priest agreed. "How about a white man -- Henry Harder? Know anything about him?"
"Yes, he is a bad man. I should like to see the North well rid of him. He worked here as a carpenter when we built the addition to the school. We caught him stealing lead, and sent him about his business. Later he sold an oil location, and has a trading store down river. I know he sells liquor to the Indians, but have not been able to get proof. He brought a Cree girl with him from a trip upriver last fall, and I made him marry her."
"Didn't he want to?" asked Downey, with a suggestion of a smile on his lips.
"No -- but, I changed his mind for him. They are married."
Downey's smile broadened to a grin. He would have liked to hear the story behind that simple statement, "I changed his mind for him," but, forebore to ask. Father Giroux knew his North -- its vicissitudes, its needs, and its requirements. Long experience, and an infinite understanding had taught him to meet its emergencies, by preference, in ways orthodox -- but meet them he would, if by necessity, in ways that needs must. For, the bold heart knew no meaning of fear, and despite his three score years and ten, the muscles of the slender, upright body were of the temper of spring steel. When Father Giroux struck, he struck for the right -- and many are the stories one may hear of him at campfires in the land of the lakes and the rivers.
"I'll take him on upriver with me when I go. We want him for desertion of his wife an' two minor children in Calgary. An' now, with bigamy against him, too, I guess you won't be bothered with him any further. just once more. C. Biggs ever hear of him?"
"Yes. Came down the river with Harder in a canoe. He worked on the new building, too. Was implicated in the theft of the lead. But, I was satisfied it was the older man's doings, Carl Biggs is only nineteen or twenty, so I kept him here when I bade the other be gone. He stayed all winter, chopping wood, and doing odd jobs. I broke my ankle and he waited on me hand and foot. While I was still laid up, word came of an Indian family in dire distress, some seventy or eighty miles inland. What must the boy do but go to their assistance, although, mind you, he knew nothing of winter travel -- and it was very cold. He made the trip and found that the man had been killed by his own gun that he was trying to rig as a spring gun. He brought the woman and three children, through the cold and the storm -- and that was a storm -- three days of it. This spring I found him employment on the Company steamboat. He is doing well. Always brings presents for those three little Indians when he comes this way. I have my eye on the boy, and I know there is a good man in the making. I am sorry he has run foul of the law. Is it of a serious nature? What is there against him?"
Very deliberately Corporal Downey produced from his pocket the stub of a pencil, and drew some lines across the page of his note book.
"There's nothin' against him," he answered, as he returned the book and the pencil to his pocket. "What there was against him was more of a prank than a crime. If the lad's makin' a good man, we'll let him go ahead an' finish the job." Downey stepped into his canoe and pushed it out into the current, and the old priest stood watching until he was swept out of sight along the bend of the river.
As the old man turned toward the path, he was surprised to see Marie standing at the top of the bank, her eyes fixed upon the point where the canoe had disappeared. He moved to the ascent of the steep path, and her eyes met his. She was smiling, an illusive sort of smile -- more the hint of a smile.
"That man of the police," she said, her eyes again on the distant bend, "I have not seen him before."
"No. That is Corporal Downey, for many years my friend. He is very wise -- one of the best men of the police, and be knows the North, and loves it."
"But," there were little wrinkles of perplexity between her eyebrows, "he is not old."
"He has been twenty years in the service. And, his hair is grey."
"But his eyes are young. The grey hair -- it is, maybe, that he has lived some great trouble, or has known some very great sorrow."
"It was long ago, then, for in the sixteen or eighteen years I have known him his hair has been grey, possibly a little greyer, now -- but, not much. But why are you not at your studies? And, why do you ask about Corporal Downey?" Was it a slight flush, or touch of morning sunlight that brushed her cheek?
She answered quickly: "Why, it is not time yet, for the studies? And, oh I don't know -- I like him -- so straight, and so strong looking -- and so -- clean."
"Yes, he is clean -- mind and body. He should be an Inspector, or a Superintendent."
"And, why isn't he, then?"
"That is his secret -- and the answer, he alone knows. Men know that he has steadfastly -- stubbornly refused promotion. Mayhap it has to do with the greying of his hair -- who knows? But, run along, now, my daughter, and attend yourself to your studies."
As the girl strode swiftly away, Father Giroux passed slowly along the path to his own quarters, filled his long pipe, took a book from its place, seated himself, and thoughtfully turned its pages. For a long time his eyes followed the printed page, but his mind took no heed of the words his eyes read. The good Father would have been pained had he realized that he was smiling benignly over the words of an austere Saint.