PLANS

The cabin at The Jug had three rooms.  There was a square living-room, entered through an enclosed porch on its western grade.  At the end of the living-room opposite the entrance were two doors, one leading to Margaret’s room, the other to the room occupied by the boys.  Thomas himself slept in a bunk, resembling a ship’s bunk, built against the north wall.

The furnishings of the living-room consisted of a home-made table, a big box stove, three home-made chairs and some chests, which served the double purpose of storage places for clothing and seats.  A cupboard was built against the wall at the left of the entrance, and between two windows on the south side of the room, which looked out upon The Jug, was a shelf upon which Thomas kept his Bible and Margaret her sewing basket—­a little basket which she had woven herself from native grasses.  Behind the stove was a bench, upon which stood a bucket of water and the family wash basin, and over the basin hung a towel for general family use.

Pasted upon the walls were pictures from old newspapers and magazines.  There were no other decorations but these and snowy muslin curtains at the windows, but the floor, table, chairs—­all the woodwork, indeed—­were scoured to immaculate whiteness with sand and soap, and everything was spotlessly clean and tidy.  Despite the austere simplicity of the room and its furnishings, it possessed an indescribable atmosphere of cosy comfort.

Doctor Joe’s bed was spread upon the floor.  It was still candle-light when he was awakened by Thomas building a fire in the stove, for in this land of stern living there is no lolling in bed of mornings.

“Good-morning, Thomas,” said Doctor Joe, with a yawn and a stretch as he sat up.

“Marnin’,” said Thomas.

“How’s the morning, Thomas, fair for our trip to Fort Pelican?”

“Aye, ‘tis a fine marnin’,” announced Thomas, “but I were thinkin’ ’twould be better to wait over till to-morrow for the trip.  After your long voyage ’twould be a bit trying for you to turn back to-day to Fort Pelican without restin’ up, and I’m not doubtin’ a day whatever’ll do no harm to the potaters and things.”

“I believe you’re right, Thomas,” and Doctor Joe spoke with evident relief.  “I thought you’d be getting ready for the trapping and would like to get the Fort Pelican trip out of the way.  We’ll put the trip off till to-morrow.”

Doctor Joe dressed hurriedly, and went out to enjoy the cool, crisp morning.  Everything was white with hoarfrost.  The air was charged with the perfume of balsam and spruce and other sweet odours of the forest.  Doctor Joe took long, deep, delicious breaths as he looked about him at the familiar scene.

The last stars were fading in the growing light.  A low mist hung over The Jug, and beyond the haze lay the dark, heaving waters of Eskimo Bay.  In the distance beyond the Bay the high peaks of the Mealy Mountains rose out of the gloom, white with snow and looming above the dark forest at their base in cold and silent majesty.  Behind the cabin stretched the vast, mysterious, unbounded wilderness which held, hidden in its unmeasured depths, rivers and lakes and mountains that no man, save the wandering Indian, had ever looked upon—­great solitudes whose silence had remained unbroken through the ages.