_ CHAPTER XXII. MANIKAWAN'S SACRIFICE
An examination of the surroundings made it plain that a band of eastern Mountaineer or Mingen Indians, in a starving condition, had visited the place; that one of them, already too far exhausted to be revived, had died; that the others, taking the food, had left his body uncared for and fled.
The disappointment was quite beyond expression. Had they been in good physical condition, a short three days' travel would now have carried them to the river tilt and safety. In their present weakened and starved condition at least twice that time would be consumed in the journey, and no food remained to help them on their way.
In deep depression Shad assisted Manikawan to stretch the deerskin covering upon the lodge, while Mookoomahn gathered wood for the fire. Clumsy with weakness, dizzy with disappointment, Shad reached to spread the skin, his snowshoes became entangled, he stumbled and fell. When he attempted to rise he discovered to his dismay that he had wrenched a knee, and when he attempted to walk he was scarcely able to hobble into the lodge.
The last bare chance of life fled, the last thread of flickering hope broken, Shad sank down, little caring for the pain, numb with a certainty of quickly impending death. He could not keep the pace of the Indians. He could not travel at all, and he could neither ask nor expect that they do otherwise than proceed as usual after a period of rest, and leave him to his fate.
Very early in the morning Shad heard a movement in the lodge, and realised that Mookoomahn and Manikawan were engaged in low and earnest conversation. This meant, he was sure, that they were going.
He vaguely wondered whether they would take the lodge with them and leave him to die the more quickly in the intense cold of the open, or whether they would leave it behind them as a weight now too great to be hauled farther upon their toboggan.
He did not care much. He was resigned to his fate. He suffered now no pain of body, save an occasional twitch of the knee when he moved. The hunger pain had gone. It would be sweet and restful, after all, to lie there and die peacefully. It would end the struggle for existence. There would be no more weary plodding over boundless snow wastes. The end of hope was the end of trouble and pain.
With his acceptance of the inevitable, and resignation to his fate, a great lassitude fell upon him. He was overcome with a drowsiness, and as the swish, swish of retreating snowshoes fell upon his ears he dropped into a heavy sleep.
It must have been hours later when Shad opened his eyes to behold sitting opposite him, across the fire, Manikawan. She smiled when she saw that he was awake, and he thought how thin and worn she looked, a mere shadow of the Manikawan he had first known.
Then there dawned upon his slowly-waking brain a realisation of the situation. She had resigned her chance of life to remain with him. He could not permit this. It was a useless waste of life. There was still hope that she might reach the tilts and safety. By remaining with him she was deliberately rejecting a possible opportunity to preserve herself. Much perturbed by this discovery, Shad sat up.
"Mookoomahn?" he asked, pointing toward the south.
"Mookoomahn," she answered, pointing in the same direction. "Manikawan," pointing at the fire, to indicate that Mookoomahn had gone but she had remained.
He protested by signs that she should follow Mookoomahn. He passed around the fire to where she sat, and grasped her arm in his bony fingers, in an attempt to compel her to do so; but she stubbornly shook her head, and, forced to submit, he resumed his seat. Both sorry and glad that he should not be left alone, he reached over and pressed her hand as an indication of his appreciation of her self-sacrifice.
Then she dipped from a kettle by the fire a cup of liquid, which she handed him. He sipped it, and, discovering that it was a weak broth, drank it. He looked at her inquiringly.
Turning again to the pail, she drew forth half a boiled ptarmigan, which she passed him.
"Let the friend of White Brother of the Snow eat. It is little, and it will not drive away the Spirit of Hunger, but it will help to keep away the evil Spirit of Starvation until White Brother of the Snow brings food to his friend."
He accepted it and ate, not ravenously, for his hunger now was not consuming, but with delicious relish. Manikawan did not eat, but he presumed that she had already had a like portion.
Shad was able to hobble, though with considerable pain, in and out of the lodge, and to assist in getting wood for the fire, and so far as she would permit him to do so he relieved her of the task.
The following morning and for four successive mornings the cup of broth and the portion of ptarmigan awaited him when he awoke. It was evident Manikawan had killed them with bow and arrow.
He never saw her eat. It was quite natural that she should have done so before he awoke of mornings, for he made no attempt at early rising.
But he noted with alarm that Manikawan was daily growing weaker. She staggered woefully at times when she walked, like one intoxicated. She was weaker than he, but this he ascribed to his stronger mentality.
By sheer force of will he put aside the insistent weakness, which he knew would get the better of him were he to resign himself to it. By the same force of will he injected into his being a degree of physical energy. But he was a white man, she only an Indian, and this could not be expected of her.
Then there came a day when he awoke to find her gone, and no broth or ptarmigan awaiting him. Later she tottered into the lodge, and empty-handed laid her bow and arrow aside.
The next morning she was lying prone, and the fire was nearly out, for the wood was gone.
"Poor girl," he said, "she is tired and has overslept;" and stealthily, that he might not disturb her, he stole out for the needed wood.
She was awake when he returned, and she tried to rise, but fell helplessly back upon her bed of boughs.
"Manikawan is weak like a little child," she said, in a low, uncertain voice. "But White Brother of the Snow will soon come. The suns are rising and setting. He will soon come. Let the friend of White Brother of the Snow have courage."
Shad brewed her some strong tea--a little still remaining. She drank it, and the hot stimulant presently gave her renewed strength.
But Shad was not deceived. Manikawan's words had sounded to him a prophecy of the impending end. Her voice and her rapidly failing strength told him that the Spirit of Hunger--the Gaunt Gray Wolf--was conquering; that the spirit most dreaded of all the spirits, Death, stood at last at the portal of the lodge, waiting to enter. _