Jack Chanty. Footner Hulbert
that they all dream about. He led the talk in this direction.
"I suppose you've finished school," he said to Davy, as man to man. "Do you ever think of taking a trip outside?"
The boy hesitated before replying. "I think of it all the time," he said in a low, moved voice. "I feel bad every time the steamboat goes back without me. There is nothing for me here."
"You'll make it some day soon," said Jack heartily.
"I suppose you know Prince George well?" the boy said wistfully.
"Yes," said Jack, "but why stop at Prince George? That's not much of a town. You should see Montreal. That's where I was raised. There's a city for you! All built of stone. Magnificent banks and stores and office buildings ten, twelve, fourteen stories high, and more. You've seen a two-story house at the lake; imagine seven of them piled up one on top of another, with people working on every floor!"
"You're fooling us," said the boy. His and his sister's eyes were shining.
"No, I have seen pictures of them in the magazines," put in Mary quickly.
"There is Notre Dame Street," said Jack dreamily, "and Great St. James, and St. Catherine's, and St. Lawrence Main; I can see them now! Imagine miles of big show-windows lighted at night as bright as sunshine. Imagine thousands of moons hung right down in the street for the people to see by, and you have it!"
"How wonderful!" murmured Mary.
"There is an electric light at Fort Ochre," said the boy, "but I have not seen it working. They say when the trader claps his hands it shines, and when he claps them again it goes out."
Mary blushed for her brother's ignorance. "That's only to fool the Indians," she said quickly. "Of course there's some one behind the counter to turn it off and on."
Jack told them of railway trains and trolley cars; of mills that wove thousands of yards of cloth in a day, and machines that spit out pairs of boots all ready to put on. The old-fashioned fairy-tales are puerile beside such wonders as these—think of eating your dinner in a carriage that is being carried over the ground faster than the wild duck flies!—moreover, he assured them on his honour that it was all true.
"Tell us about theatres," said Mary. "The magazines have many stories about theatres, but they do not explain what they are."
"Well, a theatre's a son-of-a-gun of a big house with a high ceiling and the floor all full of chairs," said Jack. "Around the back there are galleries with more chairs. In the front there is a platform called the stage, and in front of the stage hangs a big curtain that is let down while the people are coming in, so you can't see what is behind it. It is all brightly lighted, and there's an orchestra, many fiddles and other kinds of music playing together in front of the stage. When the proper time comes the curtain is pulled up," he continued, "and you see the stage all arranged like a picture with beautifully painted scenery. Then the actors and actresses come out on the stage and tell a story to each other. They dance and sing, and make love, and have a deuce of a time generally. That's called a play."
"Is it nothing but making love?" asked Davy. "Don't they have anything about hunting, or having sport?"
"Sure!" said Jack. "War and soldiers and shooting, and everything you can think of."
"Are the actresses all as pretty as they say?" asked Mary diffidently.
"Not too close," said Jack. "But you see the lights, and the paint and powder, and the fine clothes show them up pretty fine."
"It gives them a great advantage," she commented.
Mary had other questions to ask about actresses. Davy was not especially interested in this subject, and soon as he got an opening therefor he said, looking sidewise at the leather case by the fire:
"I never heard the banjo played."
Jack instantly produced the instrument, and, tuning it, gave them song after song. Brother and sister listened entranced. Never in their lives had they met anybody like Jack Chanty. He was master of an insinuating tone not usually associated with the blatant banjo. Without looking at her, he sang love-songs to Mary that shook her breast. In her wonder and pleasure she unconsciously let fall the guard over her eyes, and Jack's heart beat fast at what he read there.
Warned at last by the darkness, Mary sprang up. "We must go," she said breathlessly.
Davy, who had come unwillingly, was more unwilling to go. But the hint of "father's" anger was sufficient to start him.
Jack detained Mary for an instant at the edge of the clearing. He dropped the air of the genial host. "I shall not be able to sleep to-night," he said swiftly.
"Nor I," she murmured. "Th—thinking of the theatre," she added lamely.
"When everybody is asleep," he pleaded, "come outside your house. I'll be waiting for you. I want to talk to you alone."
She made no answer, but raised her eyes for a moment to his, two deep, deep pools of wistfulness. "Ah, be good to me! Be good to me," they seemed to plead with him. Then she darted after her brother.
The look sobered Jack, but not for very long. "She'll come," he thought exultingly.
Left alone, he worked like a beaver, chopping and carrying wood for his fire. Under stress of emotion he turned instinctively to violent physical exertion for an outlet. He was more moved than he knew. In an hour, being then as dark as it would get, he exchanged the axe for the banjo, and, slinging it over his back, set forth.
The growth of young poplar stretched between his camp and the esplanade of grass surrounding the buildings of the fort. When he came to the edge of the trees the warehouse was the building nearest to him. Running across the intervening space, he took up his station in the shadow of the corner of it, where he could watch the trader's house. A path bordered by young cabbages and turnips led from the front door down to the gate in the palings. The three visible windows of the house were dark. At a little distance behind the house the sledge dogs of the company were tethered in a long row of kennels, but there was little danger of their giving an alarm, for they often broke into a frantic barking and howling for no reason except the intolerable ennui of their lives in the summer.
There is no moment of the day in lower latitudes that exactly corresponds to the fairylike night-long summer twilight of the North. The sunset glow does not fade entirely, but hour by hour moves around the Northern horizon to the east, where presently it heralds the sun's return. It is not dark, and it is not light. The world is a ghostly place. It is most like nights at home when the full moon is shining behind light clouds, but with this difference, that here it is the dimness of a great light that embraces the world, instead of the partial obscurity of a lesser.
Jack waited with his eyes glued to the door of the trader's house. There was not a breath stirring. There were no crickets, no katydids, no tree-toads to make the night companionable; only the hoot of an owl, and the far-off wail of a coyote to put an edge on the silence. It was cold, and for the time being the mosquitoes were discouraged. The stars twinkled sedulously like busy things.
Jack waited as a young man waits for a woman at night, with his ears strained to catch the whisper of her dress, a tremor in his muscles, and his heart beating thickly in his throat. The minutes passed heavily. Once the dogs raised an infernal clamour, and subsided again. A score of times he thought he saw her, but it was only a trick of his desirous eyes. He became cold to the bones, and his heart sunk. As a last resort he played the refrain of the last song he had sung her, played it so softly none but one who listened would be likely to hear. The windows of the house were open.
Then suddenly he sensed a figure appearing from behind the house, and his heart leapt. He lost it in the shadow of the house. He waited breathlessly, then played a note or two. The figure reappeared, running toward him, still in the shadow. It loomed big in the darkness. It started across the open space. Too late Jack saw his mistake. He had only time to fling the banjo behind him, before the man was upon him with a whispered oath.
Jack thought of a rival, and his breast burned. He defended