Christmas On Big Rattle

THEODORE GOODRIDGE ROBERTS





ARCHER sat by the rude hearth of his Big Rattle camp, brooding in a sort

of tired contentment over the spitting fagots of var and glowing coals

of birch.



It was Christmas Eve. He had been out on his snowshoes all that day, and

all the day before, springing his traps along the streams and putting

his deadfalls out of commission--rather queer work for a trapper to be

about.



But Archer, despite all his gloomy manner, was really a sentimentalist,

who practised what he felt.



"Christmas is a season of peace on earth," he had told himself, while

demolishing the logs of a sinister deadfall with his axe; and now the

remembrance of his quixotic deed added a brightness to the fire and to

the rough, undecorated walls of the camp.



Outside, the wind ran high in the forest, breaking and sweeping tidelike

over the reefs of treetops.



The air was bitterly cold. Another voice, almost as fitful as the sough

of the wind, sounded across the night. It was the waters of Stone Arrow

Falls, above Big Rattle.



The frosts had drawn their bonds of ice and blankets of silencing snow

over all the rest of the stream, but the white and black face of the

falls still flashed from a window in the great house of crystal, and

threw out a voice of desolation.



Sacobie Bear, a full-blooded Micmac, uttered a grunt of relief when his

ears caught the bellow of Stone Arrow Falls. He stood still, and turned

his head from side to side, questioningly.



"Good!" he said. "Big Rattle off there, Archer's camp over there. I go

there. Good 'nough!"



He hitched his old smooth-bore rifle higher under his arm and continued

his journey. Sacobie had tramped many miles--all the way from

ice-imprisoned Fox Harbor. His papoose was sick. His squaw was hungry.

Sacobie's belt was drawn tight.



During all that weary journey his old rifle had not banged once,

although few eyes save those of timber-wolf and lynx were sharper in the

hunt than Sacobie's. The Indian was reeling with hunger and weakness,

but he held bravely on.



A white man, no matter how courageous and sinewy, would have been prone

in the snow by that time.



But Sacobie, with his head down and his round snowshoes padding!

padding! like the feet of a frightened duck, raced with death toward

the haven of Archer's cabin.



Archer was dreaming of a Christmas-time in a great faraway city when he

was startled by a rattle of snowshoes at his threshold and a soft

beating on his door, like weak blows from mittened hands. He sprang

across the cabin and pulled open the door.



A short, stooping figure shuffled in and reeled against him. A rifle in

a woollen case clattered at his feet.



"Mer' Christmas! How-do?" said a weary voice.



"Merry Christmas, brother!" replied Archer. Then, "Bless me, but it's

Sacobie Bear! Why, what's the matter, Sacobie?"



"Heap tired! Heap hungry!" replied the Micmac, sinking to the floor.



Archer lifted the Indian and carried him over to the bunk at the farther

end of the room. He filled his iron-pot spoon with brandy, and inserted

the point of it between Sacobie's unresisting jaws. Then he loosened the

Micmac's coat and shirt and belt. He removed his moccasins and stockings

and rubbed the straight thin feet with brandy.



After a while Sacobie Bear opened his eyes and gazed up at Archer.



"Good!" he said. "John Archer, he heap fine man, anyhow. Mighty good to

poor Injun Sacobie, too. Plenty tobac, I s'pose. Plenty rum, too."



"No more rum, my son," replied Archer, tossing what was left in the mug

against the log wall, and corking the bottle. "And no smoke until you

have had a feed. What do you say to bacon and tea? Or would tinned beef

suit you better?"



"Bacum," replied Sacobie.



He hoisted himself to his elbow, and wistfully sniffed the fumes of

brandy that came from the direction of his bare feet. "Heap waste of

good rum, me t'ink," he said.



"You ungrateful little beggar!" laughed Archer, as he pulled a frying

pan from under the bunk.



By the time the bacon was fried and the tea steeped, Sacobie was

sufficiently revived to leave the bunk and take a seat by the fire.



He ate as all hungry Indians do; and Archer looked on in wonder and

whimsical regret, remembering the miles and miles he had tramped with

that bacon on his back.



"Sacobie, you will kill yourself!" he protested.



"Sacobie no kill himself now," replied the Micmac, as he bolted a brown

slice and a mouthful of hard bread. "Sacobie more like to kill himself

when he empty. Want to live when he chock-full. Good fun. T'ank you for

more tea."



Archer filled the extended mug and poured in the molasses--"long

sweet'nin'" they call it in that region.



"What brings you so far from Fox Harbor this time of year?" inquired

Archer.



"Squaw sick. Papoose sick. Bote empty. Want good bacum to eat."



Archer smiled at the fire. "Any luck trapping?" he asked.



His guest shook his head and hid his face behind the upturned mug.



"Not much," he replied, presently.



He drew his sleeve across his mouth, and then produced a clay pipe from

a pocket in his shirt.



"Tobac?" he inquired.



Archer passed him a dark and heavy plug of tobacco.



"Knife?" queried Sacobie.



"Try your own knife on it," answered Archer, grinning.



With a sigh Sacobie produced his sheath-knife.



"You t'ink Sacobie heap big t'ief," he said, accusingly.



"Knives are easily lost--in people's pockets," replied Archer.



The two men talked for hours. Sacobie Bear was a great gossip for one of

his race. In fact, he had a Micmac nickname which, translated, meant

"the man who deafens his friends with much talk." Archer, however, was

pleased with his ready chatter and unforced humour.



But at last they both began to nod. The white man made up a bed on the

floor for Sacobie with a couple of caribou skins and a heavy blanket.

Then he gathered together a few plugs of tobacco, some tea, flour, and

dried fish.



Sacobie watched him with freshly aroused interest.



"More tobac, please," he said. "Squaw, he smoke, too."



Archer added a couple of sticks of the black leaf to the pile.



"Bacum, too," said the Micmac. "Bacum better nor fish, anyhow."



Archer shook his head.



"You'll have to do with the fish," he replied; "but I'll give you a tin

of condensed milk for the papoose."



"Ah, ah! Him good stuff!" exclaimed Sacobie.



Archer considered the provisions for a second or two.



Then, going over to a dunnage bag near his bunk, he pulled its contents

about until he found a bright red silk handkerchief and a red flannel

shirt. Their colour was too gaudy for his taste. "These things are for

your squaw," he said.



Sacobie was delighted. Archer tied the articles into a neat pack and

stood it in the corner, beside his guest's rifle.



"Now you had better turn in," he said, and blew out the light.



In ten minutes both men slept the sleep of the weary. The fire, a great

mass of red coals, faded and flushed like some fabulous jewel. The wind

washed over the cabin and fingered the eaves, and brushed furtive hands



against the door.



It was dawn when Archer awoke. He sat up in his bunk and looked about

the quiet, gray-lighted room. Sacobie Bear was nowhere to be seen.



He glanced at the corner by the door. Rifle and pack were both gone. He

looked up at the rafter where his slab of bacon was always hung. It,

too, was gone.



He jumped out of his bunk and ran to the door. Opening it, he looked

out. Not a breath of air stirred. In the east, saffron and scarlet,

broke the Christmas morning, and blue on the white surface of the world

lay the imprints of Sacobie's round snowshoes.



For a long time the trapper stood in the doorway in silence, looking out

at the stillness and beauty.



"Poor Sacobie!" he said, after a while. "Well, he's welcome to the

bacon, even if it is all I had."



He turned to light the fire and prepare breakfast. Something at the foot

of his bunk caught his eye.



He went over and took it up. It was a cured skin--a beautiful specimen

of fox. He turned it over, and on the white hide an uncultured hand had

written, with a charred stick, "Archer."



"Well, bless that old red-skin!" exclaimed the trapper, huskily. "Bless

his puckered eyes! Who'd have thought that I should get a Christmas

present?"