Here is the canoe! Here we meet! The first
lesson! Delightful! Delightful!"
The next island below Split-up was known as Roubeau's Island, and was
separated from the former by a narrow back-channel. Here, when the
bottom had about dropped out of the trail, and with the dogs swimming
as often as not, arrived St. Vincent--the last man to travel the winter
trail. He went into the cabin of John Borg, a taciturn, gloomy
individual, prone to segregate himself from his kind. It was the
mischance of St. Vincent's life that of all cabins he chose Borg's for
an abiding-place against the break-up.
"All right," the man said, when questioned by him. "Throw your
blankets into the corner. Bella'll clear the litter out of the spare
bunk."
Not till evening did he speak again, and then, "You're big enough to do
your own cooking. When the woman's done with the stove you can fire
away."
The woman, or Bella, was a comely Indian girl, young, and the prettiest
St. Vincent had run across. Instead of the customary greased
swarthiness of the race, her skin was clear and of a light-bronze tone,
and her features less harsh, more felicitously curved, than those
common to the blood.
After supper, Borg, both elbows on table and huge misshapen hands
supporting chin and jaws, sat puffing stinking Siwash tobacco and
staring straight before him.
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