0N the river, Corporal Downey trailed his paddle more than usual as the shores slipped smoothly past. God! Could there be born into the world two people so nearly alike? A trifle taller, this one, a trifle softer of voice, maybe -- twenty years is a long time to preserve each tiny minute detail of -- a memory. But the hair, the eyes, the lips -- and that impulsive throwing out of her arms to the sunset! Her age, too, would be about the same as she stood that day on the snow at the head of the Clearwater portage. "Margot," the name forced itself from between his lips, and again -- "Margot." It was always thus that he thought of her. Not, as he first saw her, standing beside her three dogs, with her axe in her hand and the Christmas tree lying on the snow. Nor, as she had looked while they had hunted together. Nor, seated opposite him at the whist table. Nor, as she had looked that tragic day he had hastened so eagerly to tell her of his promotion -- only to have her explain, with tears in her eyes, and a pitiful quaver in her voice, that she was the wife of Murdo MacFarlane. Nor, as he had seen her when duty took him to Lashing Water, after that day -- once when she was heavy with Murdo MacFarlane's child -- and once on the day the wandering Indian woman had left the nugget of gold that sent Murdo northward into the unknown, taking Margot, and the little Margot -- she was little more than a year old, the baby -- on the fatal journey from which none of them ever returned.
Years later, Downey had found a rotting cabin, far in the barren lands to the northward, beside the waters of a nameless lake, and hard by the cabin, on a high knoll that gave out over the lake, a single grave with a small wooden slab, and burned into the wood was the single word: MARGOT. Miles from the cabin on a stretch of treeless plain, he had come upon bits of bleached and wolf-gnawed human bones and a weather-wrecked sled that he knew for MacFarlane's. Whereupon, he had returned to the grave, cleared it of berry bushes and scrub, and transplanted wild flowers upon its half-sunken mound. And there he established his shrine, and there he returned whenever circumstances would permit, cutting the bushes, renewing the wildflowers, lying beside it by the hour -- thinking -- thinking -- And, when, upon one of these visits, he found the wooden slab rotted off, he did not replace it, but left it lying there, half buried in the mould among the wildflowers.
But, always, he thought of her as she stood that day at the portage, with the words of love warm on her lips, and her promise to wait for him warm in his heart.
"I've been tryin' for years to forget," he muttered, as he dug his paddle savagely into the water, "an' -- then -- last night -- she stood there not quite just the same -- But, God! How like her! Who is she? I don't believe he even told me her name -- Marie -- he said -- the daughter of a trapper over on Eaglenest Lake. Marie -- that's a good name -- French name -- Margot was French. What is it they believe in India about reincarnation, or whatever they call it -- damn nonsense. There can't any religion prove that when you're dead you ain't dead. Where's the good of all this heaven an' hell an' reincarnation, an' souls, an' stuff? A man gets all the heaven an' hell that's comin' to him right here on this earth. Mine's been mostly hell -- but -- it could be -- different. Look at Gus Janier, an' young Davey Fallon, Davey Gaunt, he should be -- look at the fine women they got -- an' they're happy. If happiness isn't heaven -- an' unhappiness hell, I don't know what you'd call it. But -- I'm a fool -- an old man like me -- old enough to be her father -- thinkin' stuff like that. I'll keep away from the mission -- that's what I'll do. Her eyes got kind of dark an' soft, an' she smiled when she was talkin' about those little kids she was teachin' -- an' putting to bed -- she loves little babies -- tell by the way she talked -- You damned old fool! You're forty-two years old! You'll never see her again. Can't you ever forget anything?"
Ten miles farther on, high hills showed to the westward. "Birch Mountains," he murmured to himself, as though testing his memory of the geography of the country. "Just in behind them lies Eaglenest Lake. Damn Eaglenest Lake! Wonder what sort of an outfit this trapper's got over there? Didn't know there was any white trapper over around Eaglenest. Wonder what kind of a fellow her father would be? An' what her mother's like. She's all white -- any one can see that. Wouldn't hurt just to slip over an' see -- ought to know as much as you can about the folks up here -- might come in handy, lots of ways." And so, Corporal Downey turned his canoe shoreward, and, an hour later, was poling up the Moose River, somewhere about the headwaters of which lay Eaglenest Lake.
Three days later, he pushed out onto the waters of the lake that lies next but one to the end of the chain which forms the headwaters of Moose River. It is a small lake -- a beautiful lake,, with its background of highland and spruce swamp merging into the distance. Downey lighted his pipe, and, picking up his paddle, began leisurely to skirt the shore. A mile farther on, he found what he was seeking -- a canoe drawn up on a strip of shingle that lay between the water's edge and a high bank. Drawing his own canoe beside the other, he followed the path that ascended the slope at an easy grade. "Quite a bit of work to cut this path," he muttered. "Most of 'em wouldn't have bothered." At the top of the bank he paused, and stared about him in astonishment. Corporal Downey had lived many years in the North, and this cabin was like no trapper's cabin he had ever seen. More nearly it resembled the cabins he had seen on the shores of Ontario lakes which had become famous as summer resorts. Fifty feet back from the edge of the bank it stood in the centre of an area of perhaps an acre from which the underbrush had been carefully removed, and the trees left standing. A miniature park which effectively set off the lines of the cabin. Of peeled logs, it was, beautifully fitted and cornered, with broad projecting eaves, and-wonder of wonders, a porch, cosily screened. The windows were screened also, and Downey noticed that they stood open to allow a full sweep of air through the house. "Kind of figured it would be different -- bound to be different -- but nothin' like this."
He approached the porch door and tapped lightly with his knuckles. There was no response, and he seated himself upon a rustic bench artistically fashioned from white birch, and removing his hat, allowed the breeze to ripple his hair. He had sat thus for, perhaps, a quarter of an hour, when suddenly, as if from nowhere, a man stepped before him. The officer, trained by long experience to catch the slightest sound, had no intimation of the other's approach. The man, smiling, bowed low: "Welcome, sir, to my chateau. I am honored by a visit from a man of the soldier police. Of your accomplishments I have heard much. Your organization is feared and respected through the land."
Downey, who had risen to his feet, acknowledged the compliment with a smile: "We do -- what we do," he answered. "I suppose there's nothin' that couldn't be done better."
"Such modesty! But, I do not admit that. For myself -- I like to think that what I do, could be done better by no man."
The officer's smile broadened. As this cabin was like no trapper's cabin he had ever seen -- so was this man like no trapper he had ever seen -- this man who looked thirty -- but may have been sixty. "I guess when it comes to cabin buildin', you're about right, at that."
"So you like it -- my little cabin? And, I like it. What is to do, is to do well -- or not at all, eh? Yes -- it is a good cabin."
"Build it all alone?"
"No, no -- my daughter, the little Marie -- she is now at the mission of the good Father Giroux -- she helped me. A long time it took -- for we did our work well. And we laughed, and we sang, and we rested, and we talked, and were happy -- for were we not building our home? It is long since we had a home -- very long -- never a real home -- for a cabaret is not a proper home. We come from France. But, here I stand, gabbling like a silly woman, and forgetting entirely that we should be talking over a glass of wine. You do not disdain a glass of wine? It is good wine -- I, myself, made it from berries that grow. Not strong wine -- but good. Only the juice of the berries."
In the cozy living room, the man paused with an air of pardonable pride: "Everything, you see, we ourselves made with our hands -- only the windows are the work of others -- the windows and the stoves -- the cooking stove in the kitchen, and the two small stoves for the bedrooms -- for, in winter it is very cold." He excused himself, leaving Downey to an inspection of the room. A door standing open at either end revealed the interiors of the two small bedrooms, while the door through which the man had passed evidently led to a kitchen. In the center of the rear wall was a huge fireplace of stone, with a broad mantle shelf above, and over that, a pair of caribou horns set into the mortar to serve as a rack for a half dozen guns of different calibres. The floor was of whip-sawed lumber, planed, and beautifully polished, and the ceiling beamed in natural wood. All furniture, chairs, tables, beds, were of hand manufacture, and their fashioning showed the trapper to be a craftsman of no mean ability. "An' she helped to build it," was the thought uppermost in Corporal Downey's mind, "helped cut, an' peel, an' roll up the logs -- helped whipsaw the flooring, an' the tops for the tables -- man's work -- an' her, a girl like that!"
His host returned bearing a pitcher and two glasses. "Is it not that we should sit on the porch? I love to sit and to look out over the lake. It is very lonely here when my little Marie is away. This lake of mine -- it talks to me of many things when I am lonely."
Downey nodded understanding. "How long have you lived here," he asked.
"It is now three and a half years since I left France. I have lived here more than two years."
"But your speech -- you don't talk like one who has so recently come from France."
"Ha!" The man snapped his fingers with a peculiar outflinging of his arm. "But I have spoken the English as much as the French tongue for twenty-thirty years. I have not lived in France except for the two years before I came here, since I was a small lad."
Corporal Downey instinctively liked this man, with the merry, devil-may-care twinkle in his eye, and who, despite his loneliness, laughed easily, and often. As they sipped the wine he encouraged his host to talk: "But, why should you leave France an' build a home in the middle of the bush, far from the companionship of men? You are no trapper."
As if glad of the opportunity to talk, the Frenchman laughed and refilled the glasses: "My name is Pierre Molaire, and --"
"Molaire!" The name exploded upon Downey's lips -- and he stared unseeing at the man before him. In his brain rose two pictures -- the girl beside the porch of Father Giroux's cottage, with her arms outstretched to the sunset -- and the other girl -- years before -- on the snow at the head of the portage.
"Yes, Molaire," the other answered, glancing curiously into his face. "Is it a name you know?"
"Aye, a name I know," answered Downey, sombrely. "Rather, a name I once knew -- well. But, its owner is dead these many years. Jules Molaire -- he was factor at Lashing Water."
"My brother," announced the man. "He was many years older than I. He left home when I was but a baby. I never knew him, save through the letters he wrote at rare intervals to our mother. I was a reckless lad -- the Molaire blood is reckless' -- restless blood. I left home when but a lad to seek adventure. I had read of the adventures of many men -- of Pizarro, of Vasco de Gama, of Balboa, of the Buccaneers, and of that greatest of all adventurers -- Napoleon. These are men who have lived! Who fought and conquered, or who were themselves conquered by the turn of inevitable circumstance. And whether they conquered, or were conquered, makes no difference to them now. They loved life. They lived -- drank deeply of life in its fullness -- and are gone, as we all must go.
"I, too, would live -- and so I ran away to seek adventure among the ships of the sea, and among the peoples of many lands. I have travelled far, and yon. In Algiers, in China, in South America, and among the islands of Polynesia, I sought adventure. Were I to tell of the sights I have seen -- of the things I have done, most men would say 'here is one who has found adventure.' But, it seems not so to me. Always there has been something beyond -- something of higher adventure of which I have never tasted. Always there has been the craving within me to do that which I have not done. To find the great adventure that should satisfy my soul. On my body are the scars of wars -- and other scars in the receiving of which most men would have found satisfaction of their love of adventure. And in parts of the world are men who carry scars of my infliction. Also, some men are dead, that died at my hand -- but, always in the fairness of open fighting. I have looked death in the face many times, and have laughed, and have called it good. Yet, I have never been satisfied. I married -- but, there was no adventure in that. I was off again upon my world chasing. When my daughter was fifteen I returned to France, and bought a small cabaret and for two years I lived the life of a marchand de vin. But that was no adventure, and my heart longed to be away from there -- to find its great adventure.
"Whether the tales I had told had fired her blood, or whether it was but the desire to be with me, I do not know -- but my wife, too, would go with me out into the world -- she, too, would seek adventure by my side. Well enough -- it was a sorry business, and dull -- the little cabaret -- and only a bare living.
"It was then I bethought me of my brother Jules, and of the letters I had heard read as a boy. I remembered he had written of many strange things in the Northland. I could not recall exactly of what he wrote -- the mother was dead, and the letters gone. But there were tales of fighting the cold, and of being lost -- of Indians, and the romance of the fur trade -- of searching for gold, and of wild brave doings in the camps. 'Maybe,' I said, 'maybe, we shall find the great adventure in that land of cold and snow, among the camps of Indians, and of the men who dig for gold.' So we sold out the little cabaret and made ready to sail for Canada, and almost upon the eve of our departure a small mouse ran out from behind the stones of the fireplace, and my wife screamed and jumped upon her chair, and the chair toppled over and she fell, striking the back of her head -- and died. Thus, she found her great adventure in the fear of a small mouse -- which is a great adventure, after all -- a greater than I have known.
"So, with the little Marie, I came to Canada. At the offices of the Hudson's Bay Company they told me my brother had been dead for many years. They would give me no work to do, for I knew nothing of fur. My money was almost gone, so I worked here and there. But there was no adventure in spiking down the rails of a railroad, nor yet in driving the early morning wagon of one who sells milk -- I, who have fought in wars, and have seen men die, could not end my days thus. It was then I remembered the gold that was said to lie in the sands of the rivers of the North. I came away from the settlements, and am now seeking adventure in the search for gold. Also, I trap, having learned something of the art from the Indians. But, there is no adventure in trapping -- only a living -- but, one must live. And there is small adventure in the search for gold -- only hard work. But when I find gold, maybe I shall find, also adventure -- if not in the finding, maybe in the spending. What think you, may adventure be bought at a price?" The keen eyes were twinkling, and the man's lips smiled. But Downey did not smile.
"Yes," he answered, gravely, "always at a price. But not for gold. Often the price is paid in lives."
The man shrugged, and with the peculiar out-fling of his hand, which Downey had noticed before, he snapped his fingers. "And a fair price for a truly great adventure. Is it not fitting that a man's great adventure should be his last?"
"Why, I suppose so," smiled Downey. "But, if it costs him his life, he don't get much time to enjoy the adventure."
"Wrong! Wrong! The joy of adventure comes of living the moments of that adventure. A bygone adventure is -- ashes. To think upon it is but to wish in vain to recall it. To boast of it is but the vapid mouthing of a braggart. Of the adventures I have had, I cannot recall one to live its scenes again, except in memory -- and memory is -- ashes. Only in the seeking of new adventure does one live. You, who know this land -- tell me -- is there adventure here, or there?"
"I suppose there is," smiled Downey. "I've never hunted it, outside the general run of duty."
"Aha, there you have it -- in the run of duty! You, too, love adventure, else you would not be in the police. Tell me, do you love this travelling afar in the wild places -- or, do you desire a more comfortable desk at some detachment in the settlements?"
"They kept me down there for quite a while," grinned Downey, "I asked for transfer."
"Because in you, too, is born the love of adventure! Which would you rather do, match your brain and your nerves against the machinations of some super-rogue, whose wit and resource, and boldness matched your own -- or go fetch in some sniveling youngster whose heart had turned to water at sight of a uniform?"
"A man acting under orders, must take his duties as they come," answered the officer, noncommittally.
"Most certainly. However, if there should be choice ----
"Why, then a man would naturally take the detail that held the more of interest."
"Which means the greater chance for adventure -- is it not?"
The officer smiled: "Puttin' it that way, I suppose so -- yes."
"Ah, yes -- for love of adventure, alone, a man might even break the laws of the land, eh?"
"Laws are broke for greed, or for revenge, not just for sport."
"But he. who would break a law that another should lose to his own gain would be but a sorry wight in whose soul would be no room for love of great adventure."
"He'd be takin' too long a chance," Downey hazarded, "breakin' the law for sport-the game wouldn't be worth the candle."
"But men risk their lives gladly for the sport of adventure, and consider the game well worth the candle even if they lose."
"Aye -- but, mind you -- losin' life is one thing, and spendin' long years in prison is another. For such a man, prison would be hell."
"And he would never go to hell! Such a man would play the game to the end -- he would never be taken alive."
"Maybe not," admitted the officer. And so the chat ran on till the shadows lengthened, and Molaire went into the kitchen to prepare supper, for it was agreed that Downey should remain at the cabin until morning, before resuming his journey. "You shall have the room of the little Marie. Always when you come this way there will be a room and a hearty welcome from Molaire -- and I hope you will come often, for I am a lonely man -- yet a man who enjoys friends."
And as Downey sat alone on the porch and smoked, staring out over the lake toward the sunset, he pondered many things. His liking for his host had grown with the passing of the hours, and he wondered at the vagary of mind that would impel a man of intelligence and of broad understanding to bury himself in the wilderness to seek gold -- not for gold's sake nor for what gold could bring -- but purely for the sake of adventure.
Corporal Downey departed the next morning, and, during the days and weeks of the long river trail, his thoughts turned often to Pierre Molaire -- but most of all to "the little Marie."