Toilers of the Trails

by George Marsh

ON CAME THE STRANGE PAIR

TOILERS
OF THE TRAILS

BY
GEORGE MARSH

Illustrated by
Frank E. Schoonover

 

 

THE PENN PUBLISHING
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA
1921

 

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COPYRIGHT
1921 BY
THE PENN
PUBLISHING
COMPANY

 

For permission to reprint some of the stories in this volume, the author is indebted to the courtesy of the editors of Scribner's Magazine, The Century Magazine and The Red Book Magazine.

 

Contents

1. For the Great Father

   7

2. Out of the Mist

   39

3. A Little Tragedy at Coocoocache

   71

4. When the Prince Came Home

   102

5. With the Winter Mail

   131

6. The Valley of the Windigo

   155

7. The Quest of Narcisse Lablanche

   181

8. The Land of His Fathers

   207

9. The High Brotherhood

   233

 

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Illustrations

1. On came the strange pair

   Frontispiece

2. "I am François Hertel"

   80

3. "Dem papier say one t'ousand dollar"

   189

4. The Prince slashed with his sharp teeth

   109

5. The freezing man was dragged to safety

   122

6. "Up dere," he said, pointing with a shaking finger

   139

7. The rifle flew to his shoulder

   174

8. Again at his signal the crew thrust the boat forward

   221

9. Gordon drank in the beauty of the picture

   228

 

 

THE OLD CANOE

 

My seams gape wide, so I'm tossed aside
To rot on a lonely shore
While the leaves and mould like a shroud enfold.
For the last of my trails are o'er;
But I float in dreams on Northland streams
That never again I'll see.
As I lie on the marge of the old portage
With grief for company.

When the sunset gilds the timbered hills
That guard Timagami,
And the moonbeams play on far James Bay
By the brink of the frozen sea.
In phantom guise my spirit flies
As the dream-blades dip and swing
Where the waters flow from the Long Ago
In the spell of the beck'ning spring.

Do the cow-moose call on the Montreal
When the first frost bites the air.
And the mists unfold from the red and gold
That the autumn ridges wear?
When the white falls roar as they did of yore
On the Lady Evelyn,
Do the square-tail leap from the black pools deep
Where the pictured rocks begin?

Oh! the fur-fleets sing on Timiskaming
As the ashen paddles bend.
And the crews carouse at Rupert House
At the sullen winter's end;
But my days are done where the lean wolves run
And I ripple no more the path
Where the gray geese race 'cross the red moon's face
From the white wind's Arctic wrath.

Tho' the death-fraught way from the Saguenay
To the storied Nipigon
Once knew me well, now a crumbling shell
I watch the years roll on.
While in memory's haze I live the days
That forever are gone from me.
As I rot on the marge of the old portage
With grief for company.

—George Marsh.