THE CHRISTMAS DANCE AT JIMMY FRIDAY’S 
then would he cut for home. He must 
be there in time for the dance—the 
Christmas Dance at Bear Island. He 
might even have time to buy his Christ- 
mas presents at the post—the ring, if 
nothing more. 
Jimmy fell asleep in the warm glow 
of the birch embers. At midnight a 
wind arose, and the stirring in the for- 
est woke him from his sleep. The air 
had changed and he sniffed in sudden 
interest. The keenness had gone out of 
the frost. It smelt like rain. “Kawin 
nishishin,’ he muttered. “No good. 
It will thaw; the snow will be as a wet 
blanket ; heavy, heavy.” 
Before dawn he was on his snow- 
shoes. The track was scarcely distin- 
guishable in the gloom. It was slow 
work, but the snow was dry as yet. As 
it grew lighter he lengthened his stride 
and leaning far forward broke into 
that strange trot, half shuffle, half 
plunge, the snowshoe lope of the 
Ojibwa. Loose-legged it is and tire- 
less, and the spring of the snowshoe 
frame is in it. The snow grew wet 
and soft and clung to the web of the 
shoes. The sky spread low over the 
forest, laden with gray. Rain was 
surely coming, rain and hard traveling. 
Suddenly Jimmy stopped in_ his 
tracks. A strange mark on the snow! 
It was as if the man had fallen on his 
knees, plunged forward, struggled to 
rise and rolled over on his side. Jimmy 
had seen a man before, a white man, 
stricken with mal de racquet who had 
made such foolish marks on the snow. 
“He’s tire out,” said Jimmy. “Why 
does he need to ‘mush! mush!’ like 
dis ?” 
He pushed on again, more curious 
now than ever. Two miles farther on, 
at the steep bank of a creek, he saw 
marks like that again, and then just a 
little farther lay the Man—asleep. 
“For sure he’s tire out las’ night,” 
whispered Jimmy. 
There he lay, the stranger, without 
covering, his big, bulging pack still 
strapped to his back, his snowshoes 
twisted about his ankles. 
493 
Jimmy recognized him before he 
stooped. The Syrian pedler who had 
stayed overnight at the lumber camp 
one week ago, the dark-featured, hook- 
nosed man with the black mustache, 
longer than any Frenchman’s; the 
greasy olive skin, and the coarse black 
stubble on his jaws and neck. He was 
making a round of all the camps he had 
told them, selling watches and jewelry 
and knives and little things in silk, and 
so forth, for women in the outlying 
bush settlements. He had been directed 
to follow the Sturgeon river down 
stream to the lower camps—and here 
he was on the Ombabika! He must 
have followed up the frozen Sturgeon 
instead of down, and lost himself. 
Jimmy stooped to untwist the snow- 
shoe from the man’s foot—the ankle 
was stiff. He was frozen! 
Jimmy stood upright on his shoes 
again, aghast. Not that he felt any 
superstitious fear about death. He 
bore a charm from the priest about his 
neck which dispelled all that. But 
what was he to do with the dead man? 
He had no dogs here, not even a hand 
toboggan. And the pedler’s pack was 
a load for a man itself. He bent to 
examine the pack, and an idea came to 
him like a flash of inspiration. Leather 
straps were buckled under the Syrian’s 
shoulders, knapsack fashion, and Jimmy 
loosened the fastenings and removed 
the pack.. He opened the flap, and his 
eyes glistened as he thrust his hand 
inside. 
Fully an hour did fascinated Jimmy 
Friday spend examining the contents 
of that big knapsack, laying the things 
out in the snow or on his coat spread 
out like a cloth. Finally he opened his 
own turkey and rearranged the con- 
tents of both. Then he strapped the 
two together and laid the bundle aside. 
With his ax he cut some brush and 
trimmed a young spruce sapling. Lay- 
ing the green boughs gently over the 
prostrate figure of the unfortunate 
Syrian, with his snowshoe he scraped 
snow over the brush and heaped up a 
mound. Planting the spruce pole in 
