S

OME people think that no lie should ever be condoned. Other people -and good people, too -think that there are occasions when a little white lie may be forgiven. I do not pretend to be able to pass competent judgment on the subject. But I once knew a devout and God-fearing old Scotch Presbyterian who had told such a lie to relieve the anguish of a fellow man, and seemed to have no twinges of conscience over it. There was a long story leading up to it, and at the time of my hearing this story the old Scotchman was acting as guide to our hunting party up in the North Woods. He didn't tell it voluntarily, by any means; but the "Governor," who had known him for years, finally induced him to let us have it, although it was very evident that Old Mac would rather not talk about it.

"It happened away up in old Prince Rupert's Land, at a Hudson's Bay Company Post, when I was just a boy," the old man began. "Of course you young fellows don't know anything about the old Bay Company's posts, and the Factors who controlled them. That was before '59, when the wilderness was thrown open to everybody. But until that time those woods were the property of the Hudson's Bay Company. Right down in the heart of the wilderness, so far from the nearest settlements that it took a good month to get to them, the Company would station a Factor. This man would gather his trappers about him, get a few log houses piled together, and set up a trading post. where he exchanged all sorts of trinkets, liquor, and outfits, for the pelts brought in by his trappers. He was a king in the

full meaning of the word, for he had more power over his subjects and his territory than any king on earth. He could dictate just what he pleased about anything he pleased, and woe to the man who stood against him. Of course there was one way the way of the frontier-of disputing his authority. A Factor, even in Her Majesty's service, is not bullet-proof. But the Factor was quite as well aware of that as the next man; and so he always had about him a bodyguard of one or two faithful followers, like any other king.

"You mustn't get the idea from this that these Factors were tyrants, as a rule. No tyrant could have lived long in the wilderness, bodyguard or no bodyguard. But they had almost unlimited power, nevertheless, backed by the Government of Great Britain.

"The greatest crime in that country, next to actual murder, was for any trapper who was working for another fur company, or an independent trapper, to use the lands owned by the Hudson's Bay Company. You see a dishonest trapper, if not restrained in some way, could come to one of the fur-trading stations and get a full outfit of supplies on credit-supplies that had cost a great amount of money and labor to drag into the wilderness-with the understanding that he was to return later in the season and deliver his pelts to the Factor who had advanced him the outfit. Then when this man had made his catch, he could travel to some post of a rival company farther south where he owed nothing, and sell his furs, leaving the first Factor in the lurch. As there were no law-courts to appeal to in all that great new wilderness, it was necessary to have terribly severe wood-laws-laws so severe that even the most reckless frontiersmen

would heed them. And so it happened more than once when a trapper was found on forbidden territory, that he was sent on the 'long trail,' and nobody ever heard of him again.

"It was quite within the power of the Factor, all the woodsmen believed, to condemn a man to death, and have him hanged or shot, if he chose. But the Factors rarely did this. Yet they had a way of accomplishing the same thingone that left them a little clearer conscience afterwards, perhaps and this was the 'long trail' sentence. Some morning a Factor would send for the culprit he intended getting rid of, give him a two-days' ration of meal and meat, and turn him loose in the wilderness without a gun, to make his way to the settlements three hundred miles away, if he could. No one, of course, dared to help the condemned man in any way. And furthermore, nobody wanted to, as a rule; for the Factor's trappers were usually loyal, and the criminal likely to be a disreputable character. And so this man would be obliged to strike into the wilderness, with almost certain death staring him in the face-death from starvation and exposure.

"Didn't a man ever succeed in getting through? Well, that is just what I am coming to. Once a man did get through. The same man got through twice, in fact. But the people at the Post never knew it the second time. All they knew was that just after this man, Jack Martin, started on his second 'long trail,' the Factor who had condemned him, and the half-breed, Black Pierre, who hated him and was following him, disappeared and were never heard of again.

"All this happened when I was just a boy; and probably Martin wasn't the wonderful fellow that he seemed to me then. But he certainly was a big, goodnatured man, a 'Yankee' who had been everywhere and had seen everything, it seemed to me. He wandered into our Post one day, having hunted his way from the States. He was not exactly a trapper, you see, although he had no right in the territory after he had refused the Factor's offer to take an outfit and trap for the Company. The Factor made this offer as a matter of form, as he always did, for he didn't like this Yankee at all, although

everybody else seemed to. And Martin didn't like the Factor, either-a 'blustering Britisher, anyhow,' as he said. In fact he didn't like anything that was British; and he denied the right of Her Majesty, or anybody else, to draw an imaginary line around any section of country and say that nobody should go there and make his living by hunting, or any other way, if he chose.

"It shocked most of the Queen's subjects at the Post to hear such talk, of course. But all the same most of them liked this Martin. He was a man anyone might like. He was a good talker, a first class hunter, a fine athlete, and a terrible fighter-as Black Pierre discovered, when Martin found the half-breed beating his wife one day, and gave him a good pummeling in consequence. It was this last thing that made Martin a great favorite with all the women at the Post. And, indirectly, it was the cause of his being sentenced to the 'long trail,' a little later.

"Most of the women at the Post were squaws, or 'breeds,' you know. Even the Factor's wife was an Indian, a girl perhaps twenty years old. I suppose she wouldn't have been considered a beauty anywhere in civilization, but in the North, where women were scarce, she surely was one. And the Factor, as an old man sometimes will, made a fool of himself over her, turned her head completely, and spoiled her by humoring all her silly whims.

"Now, I don't believe that Jack Martin ever cared a rap about her, or ever pretended so to her or any one else. He was amused at the fifty-year-old Factor making a fool of himself, and he may have pretended some things to annoy him. But the foolish squaw took it into her head to fall in love with Martin, or at least to pretend so, perhaps just to plague her lord.

"If the Factor had only taken a good, strong birch switch and laid it across the young woman's shoulders a few times, as almost any other husband up there would have done, the trouble would have ended right there. But he didn't. He brooded over the matter, grew greener and greener and more suspicious and jealous every day, until finally he was desperate. And so one day in October he ordered every man in the Post to come to the store and turn in his rifle, Martin among the rest. Then

when there was no chance of any one smuggling a gun into Martin's hands, he sentenced him to go on the 'long trail.'

"Martin,' he said, 'you're an outlaw, prowling around the Hudson's Bay Company territory, with no business to be here. So I'll give you just fifteen minutes to start for the settlements or any other place you please, just so it's off my grounds. Here's your rations.' And with that he tossed a little bundle of meal and bacon over the counter.

“This came to us all like a bolt from a clear sky, and Martin was the only man there who wasn't staggered completely. His face turned pale, to be sure, but his eyes flashed, his hand went to the handle of his hunting knife, and he started toward the Factor. Then he stopped himself, and forced a little smile-not a nice one.

"I thought this was coming,' he said to the Factor, with a sneer. 'An old fool and a young wife-and all kinds of trouble. But your trouble has just begun,' he added, leaning across the counter and snapping his fingers in the Factor's face. 'I go on the long trail, but I will come back sometime, mark my words-and then we'll settle this score in a different way.' And with that he took his little bundle, shook hands with everyone but the Factor and Black Pierre-he offered to shake hands with Pierre, but the Black one refusedand disappeared into the woods.

"That winter was a long, cold one, and a very gloomy one at the Post. None of us could forget that somewhere out there in the woods was what had once been Jack Martin. And in the long winter nights when the wolves howled, and the trees moaned in the wind, there were a good many of us who lay huddled in our furcovered bunks, and thought, and thought, of him. How did he finally leave the great woods? Did he roam, wild-eyed and gaunt, gnawing at roots and vines, until from sheer exhaustion he fell down and died? Or did some forest rover, lynx or wolf, mercifully shorten his misery?

"The Factor was gloomy also, that winter. His conscience bothered him sorely, I think-almost as much as the caprices of his Indian wife. And as for her-well, what can you expect of an Indian squaw who is made a fool of by a great man like a Factor?

"The winter dragged through, and when spring and summer came, with everything bright and beautiful, the Post had regained its old time cheerfulness. And then one day in October, about a year from the time that Jack Martin had started on his journey, who should come walking out of the woods, laughing and shouting greetings, but Jack Martin himself.

"His coming raised a load momentarily from our hearts-a load that soon settled again. For we knew the Factor too well

to think that there was even the smallest chance of his forgiving this second offense, when he had not condoned the other. As for Martin, he took no pains to smooth the feathers of the Factor. Straight to his door he went, and, smiling and bowing in mock courtesy, he said:

"Mr. Factor, you see I am a man of my word. I said I would come, and I have.'

"The Factor's face was like a ghost's, and he staggered against the door post in surprise. Then when he saw that it was Jack Martin in flesh and blood, he turned purple with rage, and without a word slammed the door in his face.

"That night Martin slept in a little cabin with the door bolted on the outside and two men standing guard. His rifle had been taken from him and he was held a prisoner. Yet he sang and joked with his friends in the early evening before he went to bed in the guarded house. But he did not tell how he had conquered the 'long trail' the year before. No one could draw a word from him about it. When we asked he simply laughed and shook his head.

"So all through that evening and all night long this strange man seemed happy, when all our hearts were breaking—all but Black Pierre's and the Factor's. For we all knew, and Martin knew, that he could expect no mercy. This time the Factor would see that he did not come back from the 'long trail.'

"Early the next morning the Factor called all the men to a meeting-all but Martin. Then he told us that Martin would be sent on the trail again. But this time he must not return. He made no mention of just what was to happen, but we all knew what he meant. A man, or perhaps two men, would follow him on the trail, keeping just a few hours behind, and

'see that he did not return or get through.' Who would these two men be?

"If the Factor gave an order there was no refusing. But men who went on such an errand against their own wishes would not be likely to do their work well. So thought the Factor. And so he called for volunteers. One man in all the room full spoke out his willingness. It was of course Black Pierre. After that for a full minute there was silence in the room. Then McKeever, the old, faithful Company trapper, spoke:

"Pierre is the man for the work,' he said. 'He can be sure of his game when Martin is weak from hunger; and his heart will not fail him, for he knows that Martin will have no weapon. Pierre alone is the man for the work.' And with that McKeever strode from the room, and all the others but Black Pierre followed.

"And so that morning Jack Martin shook hands with us all again-all but the Factor and Black Pierre-and marched into the woods smiling. And two hours later, when no one was watching, Black Pierre took his rifle and a good supply of food and followed Martin's fresh tracks into the woods. Then in the afternoon the Factor went out for a walk as was his custom every day. And that was the last the Post ever saw or heard of any of those three men. Day after day, week after week, we looked and waited and wondered, and still none of them came. And then the old trappers shook their heads and said that a judgment had been sent as a punishment.

"For my own part I was heartsick of everything about the Post. I had passed through enough to make me a thoughtful boy without this last. My mother, whom I could just remember, had died on the way to the Post from the South; and two years before my father died in the woods all alone. Then this awful blotting out of three lives-the Factor and Martin, who seemed very great men to me, and Black Pierre whom I despised-all this made me hate everything about the place. And so, just as soon as I could get an outfit, and against the advice of my friends, I started trapping, took enough pelts the first winter to pay for my outfit, and left the North forever. It was in the fall of that year that I got acquainted with the 'Governor' in these woods, and began reading his

books, trying to learn some new things and forget some old.

"Just twenty years after that, one winter day, a man came to the logging-camp where I was working. He was doing some prospecting for a company down in the States, and was looking over the camps and making bids for the timber in our vicinity. The minute I saw him I knew him. The face that had been driven into my memory for years-that I saw in my dreams hundreds of times in the North Woods-couldn't escape me. It was Jack Martin-old and thin, with sorrow written on every line of his face-but Jack Martin all the same. And he remembered me when I told him my name and where I had known him. I was the first person from the Company's Post that he had seen since that lonely fall day when he took his little package of meal and hit the 'long trail.'

"That evening in my cabin he told, for the first time I believe, the story of his escape. It seems that while none of us had suspected that the Factor was contemplating getting rid of Martin the first time he was sent away, Martin himself had had a feeling that something of the kind was going to happen. He had managed, therefore, to get hold of a little meal and some salt meat, and had hidden them half a day's journey from the Post on the trail toward the settlements. He had also secured some fish-hooks, and fastened them carefully in the thick crown of his cap, along with a supply of strong line. Of course he knew that in case he was condemned to the 'long trail' he would have no weapon with which to secure meat; but there were many streams to cross on the journey, and from these he hoped to supply himself with enough food to take him through.

"And so when finally he was ordered out to his death tramp of four weeks in the wilderness he went with a lighter heart than could be expected, for he had at least a fighting chance. As it proved he had just that, and no more. The terrible story of that fight with death still remained a nightmare to him. Day after day he had plodded, husbanding his little supply of meal, and fishing the streams as he passed them. To pause for fishing meant dangerous loss of time; yet without fish he faced certain starvation. And so he com