Chapter XXIX: The Fruit of Manikawan's Sacrifice

At length the break-up came, much as it always comes in that country. The sun, grown strong and bold, vanquished the Spirit of Frost. The snow became a sea of slush, and water covered the ice of lakes and river. Finally the clouds opened, and for a week rain fell in a deluge.

A thousand new streams sprang into being, rushing in white torrents to join the swollen river. Cascades fell from every ledge and parapet. Now and again a great boulder was loosened and went crashing down a hillside with terrifying roar. The river, freed from its ice shackles, overflowed its banks, and in the wild, unrestrained ardour of its new power uprooted trees and washed them away upon its turbulent bosom as it dashed madly seaward.

One day, when the rain had ceased and the waters had somewhat subsided, Ungava Bob and Shad Trowbridge, accompanied by Mookoomahn, turned northward in Shad's canoe to the Great Lake, following the route which Manikawan had taken several months before in her journey to the river tilt.

Manikawan's body was found as they had left it, and undisturbed. It was lowered from its rude platform, and they laid it in its final resting-place in a grave among the spruce trees not far from her father's lodge. Over the grave a cairn of boulders was raised, and surmounted by a tablet of wood upon which was carved simply the word "MANIKAWAN."

Then they parted, Mookoomahn to turn northward in his long and lonely journey to join his people, Bob and Shad to return to the river tilt, and homeward.

It was on an afternoon late in June when the browned and weather-beaten voyageurs turned their boat into Wolf Bight. What a long, long time had elapsed, it seemed to Shad, since that foggy morning in August when they had left the little cabin and said farewell to the tearful group upon the shore; and how homelike and restful the cabin looked now! What an age of experience had passed since that night when Bob pulled him out of the Bay, and introduced him, shivering and wet, to its hospitable shelter and warmth.

As they approached the shore a glad shout was heard, and a moment later Emily--who had that very day reached home from St. Johns--and Bessie, who was there to meet her, came running to the landing, with Mrs. Gray and Richard and Douglas Campbell at their heels.

Emily laughed and cried with delight, quite smothering Bob with kisses, and when she relinquished him to her mother she kissed each of the other brown faces. Bob was quite impartial, and when his mother released him Bessie was not forgotten in his greeting.

The most important, and therefore the first piece of news to be imparted, was the partnership agreement between Shad and Bob. Douglas at once prophesied success, and when, a fortnight later, Bob and Richard took passage with Shad to St. Johns, Douglas accompanied them as expert adviser in the selection of a trading vessel and the necessary supplies for their posts.

* * * * *

The firm of Trowbridge and Gray began operations with the establishment of stations in the interior, as originally designed. Dick Blake was engaged to take charge of the post at the northerly end of the Great Lake, where he quickly built up a large and lucrative trade with both Nascaupee and Mountaineer Indians.

The river tilt was enlarged, and became a trading station and supply base for the interior, over which Ed Matheson presided.

Bill Campbell, during the open season of navigation, had command of the brigades of Indians employed to transport goods from Wolf Bight to the interior posts, and during the midwinter months conducted a sub-post and storehouse situated at the southerly end of the Great Lake, not far from Manikawan's grave.

With the interior trade in such able hands, Ungava Bob devoted his attention to the Bay trade, and it is needless to say that the trappers of the region prospered.

Richard, in command of the trim schooner "Manikawan," also opened a profitable trade with livyeres and Eskimos of the coast.

Shad Trowbridge, after graduation from college, quickly developed into an able business man, and personally attended to the purchase of supplies and the sale of products.

Trowbridge and Gray made mistakes, as was to be expected, and had their ups and downs, but in the end they succeeded, and the firm is known to-day from Boston to Hudson's Straits as one of the most honourable and substantial concerns in the North.

At the very beginning of their career Shad and Bob adopted as their trademark the picture of an Indian maiden with bow raised and arrow poised ready for its flight, and beneath it the word "Manikawan." With this constantly before them Shad declared they could never stray from the original object of their enterprise, and could never forget the lesson taught by Manikawan's heroic sacrifice. And never since the firm began business have Manikawan's people failed to receive relief in times of need, and never has there been a repetition of the awful year of starvation.

"'Tis wonderfully strange, Bessie, how things come about," Bob sometimes says to his wife, in their cosy home at St. Johns. "I used to think the Lord had forgotten me sometimes, but I always found later that those were the times He was nearest to me."

"The Lord has always been very close to you, Bob," Bessie invariably replies.

Emily, at the earnest solicitation of Shad, was permitted to finish her education in Boston under the chaperonage of Shad's sister, and developed into a charming and accomplished woman, though she never lost her love for the little cabin at Wolf Bight.

But the failures and successes of Trowbridge and Gray, and the experiences of Emily in the new and greater world which she entered, are stories by themselves, and each would require a volume to relate.

THE END

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