Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

Pack Animals by Peter Sellers

A past EQMM Readers Award winner, Peter Sellers returns this month with a tale based on a Cochrane to Moosonee canoe trip he took himself at age thirteen. Some of the story’s incidents are based on events that really happened, he told EQMM, and he has evoked the Canadian wilderness with a vividness that bespeaks experience there. Mr. Sellers has worked as an editor of mystery anthologies and has many published stories to his credit.

“I’d stay back from them dogs if I was you,” Nick said.

It was obvious that this was the only sensible course of action, the huskies snarling and yelping at the ends of their chains, lips drawn back, teeth sharp and long. But Doug wasn’t known for doing what was sensible. He’d been the first to see the pack, each dog tethered outside its wooden house about fifty yards back of Nick’s cabin. With a cry of “Puppies!” Doug had run along the path to the animals, and they’d surged out to meet him, stopping only when their chains pulled them up short.

“They’re like wolves,” I said.

Nick nodded. “Sled dogs, boy. They ain’t pets. They do what I tell ’em cause they’re scared of me. The wife can calm ’em, and my daughter some. But any of us was standing in among ’em and fell down, well now...” He spat on the mossy ground. “...you could use what’s left to bait a hook.” Then he walked back to the cabin, leaving Doug, Ian, Jerry, and me watching the dogs warily. Rick, who was scared of dogs, looked on from farther back.

Nick’s cabin was on a piece of land carved out from the endless forest of jack pine, spruce, and fir at the point where the Moose and Abitibi Rivers merged. From there the Moose flowed on alone, quickening past Moosonee and Moose Factory until it emptied into James Bay. Moosonee was where we were heading, on a two-week canoe trip that was the greatest adventure we’d had in our short lives. Seven of us were school kids, aged thirteen, like Jerry and me, to sixteen, like Doug and Rick, with whom I shared both canoe and tent. The other two were teachers, both keen and seasoned canoeists, who brought students out each summer for a wilderness education. Mr. Walker organized and led the trips, and Mr. Bishop, whom everyone called Bish, was second in command.

When I think back on it now, it seems unlikely that parents would let their children do such a thing these days. It was different back in 1970, long before cell phones and GPS. We set off without a life jacket among us. Nobody’s parents seemed to mind. They were told where we were going and when we’d be back, and that was that. We’d go days without seeing another person. There was nothing but the forest, so dense that you knew it’d take you only a few minutes to get lost for good.

The food was mostly freeze-dried because packets were easier to lug on portage than cans. The stuff tasted awful, though, and I imagine everybody was as hungry as I was most of the time.

There were a few tins. Mr. Walker would pack Irish stew as a special treat, and there’d be a couple of cans of syrup, doled out sparingly on pancakes. And there was always tinned ham.

Once, a bad storm blew up and kept us stuck in our tents for twenty-four hours. We huddled inside listening to the rain and the flapping canvas. There was no way to cook, so Mr. Walker gave each of the three tents a tinned ham and a tinned pound cake. I never could stand tinned ham with the slimy jelly that covered it. No matter how hungry I was, I wouldn’t eat that. I auctioned my share off, Doug paying me a quarter for it, and I survived the day on my piece of pound cake. I was glad to have the money because every so often we came across a fly-in fishing camp and we stocked up on candy then, dipping into the small amount of tuck money that each of us was allowed. An extra twenty-five cents offered increased possibilities. I didn’t want to be caught short when we got to Moosonee, either, where we could eat what we wanted. Everybody must have had the same images in their minds: feasts of hamburgers, French fries, milkshakes, and chocolate bars.

Cash aside, the whole storm episode was thrilling. We talked about the Maple Leafs and the Argonauts, speculated about girls — although Doug did so with the conviction that spoke of applied knowledge — and shared ghost stories and dirty jokes that I laughed at, although I didn’t always understand. Besieged by the lightning and thunder and the determined wind, we were united by the heady blend of the knowledge that disaster could strike at any second and the certainty that all would be fine. Good as the storm was, though, it wasn’t a patch on the bears.

We came upon a wide expanse of beach with a narrow inlet to the north. Most of the rest of the way along the river the forest crowded close to the shore. But at this one spot the trees thinned out and someone, probably Mr. Walker, who was always pointing out things that no one else had seen, noticed a large black bear on the side of the inlet farthest from the sand. Quietly the word spread, and we stopped paddling and watched as the bear dropped into the inlet and swam across to the beach. Only when it had climbed out, then walked back in the water and returned to its original place, did I notice two cubs huddled on the north side on the inlet, bending over the water, poised to jump in. The mother was obviously showing them how. I don’t know if anyone else had seen the cubs yet, but if they had they kept quiet about it. We were all silent, drifting slowly about thirty feet from shore, all paddles shipped except those of the sternsmen who used them to keep the canoes on a straight course.

Again, the mother bear jumped into the water and swam to the beach. This time one of the cubs followed. The second cub remained timidly on the far side of the inlet. It bounced back and forth in agitation. That was about the time that Doug finally noticed.

“Look!” he shouted, leaning over and causing the canoe to tip unsettlingly, “there are cubs!” He pointed at the bears. The mother, hearing the sudden noise from the river, turned and rose full up on her hind legs, roaring. This inspired the second cub, who flung himself into the water and swam madly to the beach. Together, the three bears ran for the trees. As the cubs reached the edge of the forest, the mother turned back, rose, and roared at us again. Then, with a final glare, she turned and followed her cubs into the trees.

We waited a few minutes before we beached the canoes. Everyone wanted to get a look at the footprints. We were all excited. Other than hearing moose crashing through the forest, this was the closest we’d been to any large wildlife. As we climbed ashore, Doug said, “Bring your paddles in case she comes back.” Preposterous as that was, we did it. We stood gazing at the deep, wide prints pressed into the sand, our flimsy beaver-tail paddles clenched in our small, smooth fists.

Doug wasn’t much of a canoeist, lily-dipping when Rick and I were digging in, but he was our comedian. That made up for a lot. He and Rick were as opposite as Maple Leafs and Habs fans. Rick was serious-minded, hardworking, and already clear on his path in life: medical school at the University of Toronto and then a specialty in internal medicine. The rest, Ian, Phil, Jerry, Paul, and I, were all different. Even so, it didn’t take many days in the wilderness to convince us that we had to get along somehow, no matter how much we might avoid one another back home.

Doug and Rick had trouble working that out. Doug was prone to borrowing things. I found this pair of sunglasses with one lens missing and wore them for a day or so, but somehow Doug got them and he wore them and they became his. At portages, he’d find ways to switch packs with you so he got the lighter one. It went on and on, but he was funny, for all that. He could make everyone laugh, except maybe Rick, and laughing made people forget about other things.

Rick didn’t laugh or joke around much. He was the best kid on the trip at handling a canoe, though. In his spare time, when the tents were pitched and dinner was cooking, Rick would take out one of the canoes and practice, working on his stroke and on getting maximum benefit from it. Sometimes we’d sit on the shore and watch him. Rick’s form was lovely — smooth and seemingly effortless. Doug wouldn’t watch. He’d just occasionally drift by, make a comment that got us chuckling, and go off somewhere else.

If there was tension between any of us, Mr. Walker didn’t interfere. He was easygoing most of the time. Every day he’d have us take a break from the day’s paddling and raft the canoes. While we drifted, Mr. Walker would smoke a pipe and talk about other trips he was planning. All of us had already been on trips along the Temagami River. The Abitibi was a step up. But Mr. Walker had higher ambitions still: a more advanced canoe trip on a mighty river like the Mackenzie or Coppermine.

In the evenings he would tell stories by the fire, usually about his tripping experiences when he was young. He wore his old bomber jacket, its leather nicked and scarred, but the sheepskin lining soft and warm. Mr. Walker called it the Breezy All-Weather, and about the greatest treat you could have on a trip, almost as great as a Dairy Milk bar, was the chance to wear the jacket for a few minutes. My turn came one evening when, after a moonlight swim, Jerry, Paul, and I had gone trembling up to the fire. He gave the jacket to each of us in turn and our trembling stopped.

There was trembling no jacket could stop, though, after we met Nick and pitched our tents near his cabin, his family, and his pack of dogs.

Where the Moose and Abitibi converge, the current is highly determined, its only goal to sweep as quickly as possible on to James Bay. Our little flotilla came from the Abitibi and had to fight its way across the width of the Moose to the far shore. Every foot was a struggle, even with all of us paddling hard — all except Doug, who still didn’t seem to be shifting enough water to move his own weight forward in a dead calm, let alone to overcome a persistent current. I was in the middle with Rick in the stern and I could feel Rick’s anger without having to turn and look. We were battling the current stubbornly when a voice beside me yelled, “Ship your paddles and grab on!”

My head had been bent with the strain of pushing back the water, and I hadn’t noticed the motorized freighter canoe pull up alongside. At the tiller was a bald man with a lined face. His hand, which looked like it could have held back a moose, was clamped on our gunwale. Without asking questions we did what he said, and he ferried us across the river to the calmness of shore.

He did this three times, bringing each canoe to safety. Then he drew his boat up next to Mr. Walker’s. “Getting late,” he called. “You got a place to camp?”

“We’re about to start looking for one,” Mr. Walker said.

“You can camp at my place. There’s lots of room.” Before Mr. Walker could answer, he turned downriver. After twenty yards he beached his canoe, and we followed. It was a steep climb up a beaten path to the clearing where his cabin stood. The clearing was surrounded by thick pine forest, with trails going off in different directions: one to the smokehouse; one to the sheds where, we were to discover later, he stored his sled, traps, and various other gear; and one to the dogs. There was a healthy woodpile, too, that implied long winters. It was while we were looking around that Doug noticed the dogs, and our rescuer spoke just in time to keep him from getting mauled.

His name was Nick Rempaul. He didn’t go around and introduce himself. He just gave a quiet mention of it to Mr. Walker and Bish, along with a handshake, and must have assumed that word would spread like it will. I don’t think he ever got any of our names, except maybe the teachers’. Maybe Doug’s and Rick’s, too, later on, but that would be guessing.

There was a woman in the cabin, which was big and surprisingly comfortable for a place so isolated. Nick was telling us that he was known to most folks along the river as Nick the Trapper. He showed us a letter that had been delivered to him from someone in the United States. Sure enough, the envelope was addressed to Nick the Trapper, Abitibi River, Canada. “Took a bit, but they got ’er to me,” he said. I thought what a remarkable character he must be.

“Saw you struggling out there,” he said to Mr. Walker. “You’re not the first.”

“No,” Mr. Walker said. “I’m not surprised. That’s a strong current.”

Nick nodded. “She’s stubborn, all right.” He clapped his big hands and rubbed them together. “Since you’re here and staying the night, have supper with us.”

“Food ain’t ready for this many guests,” the woman said before Mr. Walker could answer. She was sitting in a straight-backed chair in a corner of the room, smoking and repairing snowshoes. They were handmade, at least four feet long, and strung with some kind of gut that had snapped or torn. She was working slowly and carefully, and she did not take her eyes off her work as she spoke. Nick introduced her to us as his wife Faye, and she gave each of us a long, slow look. Doug was the only one who spoke to her, giving her a loud, “Howdy.” She replied with an even longer stare and a deep frown.

The offer of dinner had probably set everyone’s saliva flowing, but it dried up quickly when Mr. Walker said, “That’s all right. We’re already imposing. We’ve got our supplies, and it’s good for the boys to cook.”

Nick nodded and didn’t press, but he did add, “Well, leave some room and you can try some of my fish. There’s plenty of that.”

Mr. Walker said, “Thanks. I think the boys’d like that.”

“Speaking of grub, I better feed them dogs.” Nick got up, and as he went for the door a small posse of us followed him. This was a sight we did not want to miss.

Nick went to his smokehouse and came out with a pail full of raw meat. He walked toward the dogs and they came to the ends of their chains again, but this time whining, heads lowered. Nick reached into the pail and took out handfuls of meat — it might have been venison or moose — and tossed a piece to each dog in turn. He started with the biggest. “That’s Chinook,” Nick said as the dog rent and devoured the meat, keeping a watchful eye on the rest of the pack. “He’s my lead dog. Never let me down yet.” With the pail empty and the other dogs snarling and tearing at their meals, Nick started back to the smokehouse, talking as he moved away. “That’s something you need when you’re out in the wild.”

“A lead dog?” I asked.

“A partner that won’t let you down,” Nick said.

When we got back into the cabin there was a girl sitting there. I wondered where she’d been when we arrived — perhaps outside and she’d come in through the back door. “This is my daughter, Rebecca,” Nick said as he took his chair again and began filling a pipe.

She was a dark-haired girl who looked nineteen or twenty, although Doug told me later that she had just turned sixteen. She stood up as if she was about to walk towards us when Faye abruptly handed her a snowshoe. Rebecca started working on it, but I could tell she was not as focused on the task as her mother was.

Nick, gleeful and rich in anecdote, was talking about what it was like working a trap line. Doug wasn’t listening. He had walked over and squatted next to Rebecca. I guessed they were talking about snowshoes because when I glanced over Doug had his hand on the wooden frame and was rubbing it gently. Rick was nearby, too, watching with interest.

Faye started to say something to her daughter, but all she got out was a sharp “Rebecca!” before Nick said it was time he got the fish.

Out by the tents, we had dined on Gumpert’s freeze-dried mashed potatoes, freeze-dried beef Stroganoff, and freeze-dried fruit cocktail. After it was gone we were still hungry. Everyone but me was looking forward to the fish.

Nick served us deep-fried pickerel and smoked sturgeon. I didn’t care much for either. Fish is not one of my favorite things. The odd tuna sandwich is okay, and fish and chips are fine, but there’s a big difference between a piece of deep-fried halibut and a slab of smoky, dark-tasting sturgeon. And the pickerel was full of bones and you had to be careful eating it.

I nibbled, pretending to take bigger mouthfuls than I actually took, discreetly wrapping the uneaten fish in a serviette. All the guys were enjoying the extra food. Doug was clowning around, as usual. At one point he took a piece off Rick’s plate and popped it into his mouth when no one was looking — no one except me and Rebecca, who smiled, and Faye, who didn’t.

When the fish was done, we noticed that the dogs had started whining.

“What’s bothering them?” Rick asked.

“Maybe there’s a wolverine out there, or a cougar or something,” Doug said with excitement.

Nick puffed on his pipe. “It’s rain,” he said.

“Pardon me?” Mr. Walker said.

“I’ll show you.”

He got up and put on a lined, plaid jacket and took a flashlight off a shelf near the door. It had cooled down, with a brisk wind coming from the northwest. “You can feel it coming,” Nick said as he led us to the top of the path down to the river. “Dogs can smell it and it makes ’em riled.”

“Why?” Mr. Walker asked.

In answer Nick switched on the flashlight and pointed the beam at the trunk of a tree that grew up partway down the path. There was a plaque nailed to the tree. The words engraved on it were just visible: High water mark, May 17, 1966.

“Is that true?” Bish asked.

“Yep. Lots of rain, lots of runoff. Flood lasted three days. Dogs spent the whole time on top of their houses, no food. Now every time it rains they get aggrieved.” He turned off the flashlight as the first fat drops hit us.

“I hope that won’t happen tonight,” Doug said.

Nick snapped the flashlight on again suddenly, holding it under his chin, the beam pointing up. It was an old Hallowe’en trick, but it worked. The shadows cast by the crags and fissures on his face made him look scary and mean. “Well, if it does,” he said, “at least there’s lots to feed ’em.” Then he turned the light off again and walked back to the cabin, chuckling.

When he walked, he made no noise that I could hear. I asked about that later and he said, “It’s good to move quiet in the woods. When you’re hunting, silence can mean the difference between eating and going hungry. Everyone who lives here learns that or they leave.” He bent close to me and lowered his voice. “Or they die.”

Rebecca was walking with Doug, and I heard her say, “It’ll rain hard, but not for long.” The dogs didn’t seem to believe this. They were whining and crying like it was never going to stop. I still had the uneaten fish wrapped in paper, stuffed in my pocket. I thought it might make the dogs feel a little better. One of them, anyway. So while everyone else headed back inside, I walked through our campsite towards the doghouses. It was raining harder now, but the dogs forgot that and charged at me just as they had earlier in the day. I stopped walking in plenty of time, took the sturgeon out, and tossed it to Chinook. “There you go, boy,” I said as he snatched it from the air. Since the pickerel had bones, I threw it in the river. I wasn’t sure the dogs should have that and I didn’t wish them any harm.

Inside, Faye had a fire going. She had shifted her chair close to it and changed the angle so she got the heat. She faced the center of the room straight on instead of looking at it out of the corner of her eye.

The room was friendly and comforting. Bish, Phil, and Ian had a game of Monopoly going at the big dining table. Jerry and Paul were playing cribbage. It was like being at a cottage or a more conventional summer camp. Mr. Walker had joined Nick in smoking a pipe, and the aroma from the two briers was pleasant, an exotic spiciness that smelt of adventure.

Mr. Walker and Nick sat side by side in two bentwood rockers. Mr. Walker was asking the kind of questions you’d expect of a teacher. Where did Rebecca go to school? How did they get supplies in the winter? How had he seen the trapping business change over the years? I was half-listening to that conversation, enough to know that Rebecca spent her winters in town going to school but that she wasn’t going back in the fall. Nick said this in a way that indicated there had been some trouble, and I wondered if it had to do with low grades or lack of interest. Doug’s grades didn’t tend to be great, either. From year to year he just scraped by, and maybe that was something he and Rebecca had found in common.

Nick was saying that when the river froze twelve feet deep you could trek along it if need be. He tried to do that as little as possible, preferring to rely on his own devices.

“I guess you must not mind not seeing many people most of the year,” Mr. Walker was saying.

Nick laughed. “You’d be surprised how much coming and going there is through the woods. There’s too much company sometimes. Other times you get starved for it.”

Faye kept working, glancing at the Monopoly players, at her daughter, and at Doug. Rick was sitting by Rebecca, too. He was trying to talk with her in the serious way he had, but Doug kept making jokes. Doug could take just about anything that anyone said and make a joke out of it. Every time he did, Rebecca would turn away from Rick and look at him. Rick was persistent. He’d try a different tack and it would just start to look like Rebecca was getting interested when Doug would make another wisecrack and she’d switch her attention back to him. It was too bad, because Rick often had interesting things to say.

After a while, Rick stood up, walked over to Faye, and asked her about the snowshoes. She uttered a few grudging words, but then, as Rick expressed more interest, she relaxed. He sat beside her and she showed him what she was doing. Rebecca giggled with Doug.

Rick was the kind of guy that mothers loved. I’d hear it all the time from my own mother: “Rick is such a nice boy. He’s so polite.” He always knew what to say, and he asked questions as if he meant them. Doug, on the other hand, was the kind mothers barely tolerated. It was clear which of the two they’d rather you chum around with.

It was interesting to watch Rick and Faye. She explained technique and demonstrated it, and you knew Rick was taking it all in. However, they didn’t seem to be looking at one another entirely. Both of them were spending just as much time watching Rebecca and Doug.

About that point I went to use the outhouse. When I came back, Rick was talking to Faye about the dogs.

“Are they really as fierce as they seem?” he asked. “Is there some trick to managing them?”

I didn’t hear Faye’s answer, but she can’t have told him much. By the time I got back to my chair, she had finished talking. I have no idea how much about handling those dogs Rick learned in a few seconds. He picked things up fast, though. Anyway, he was on to another question and I distracted myself by thinking about apple pie with ice cream and a large glass of milk.

By nine o’clock, the rain had stopped. Normally, when we were camped in the woods, this was the time we turned in, anticipating an early start the next morning. But on this night, the occasion being special, Mr. Walker wasn’t urging us towards our tents. He seemed quite content to sit chatting with Nick, peppering him with questions and occasionally trying to interest the rest of us with his low-key, “Did you hear that, boys?” or, “Say, fellows, isn’t that something?” Having been too late to get in on the Monopoly game, I’d tune in and out of that conversation and then try to pick up snatches of what Doug and Rick were saying to Rebecca. Rick must have run out of things to discuss with Faye. Now, when he could squeeze some words in around Doug, he was telling Rebecca about what we’d seen and done on the trip. Doug, on the other hand, was telling her about life in Toronto. Her eyes shifted back and forth, but they showed the most spark when Doug laid out a new tidbit.

I didn’t notice when the rain ended. I was too busy sending out signals to Nick, trying to will him to offer us some cookies or chocolate cake, although I had no idea if trapper families were big cake eaters. If I had been paying attention, I would have realized that the dogs had stopped whining.

I only noticed when Rebecca said something about constellations.

“What about the clouds?” Rick asked.

Rebecca laughed. “They’ll have blown by already, or they will soon.”

“Can we see the Northern Lights?” Doug asked. This was a kind of private joke with Doug, who had got me and Jerry, at the beginning of the trip, with what was obviously an old trick. “Do you want to see the Northern Lights in the daytime?” he had asked. “Sure,” I replied with enthusiasm. He had me put my jacket over my head and, while he held one arm up toward the sky, he told me to look up the sleeve. Then he poured a cup of water down from the cuff. He’d laughed considerably over that.

“Not tonight,” Rebecca said. “But I can point out lots of constellations. Tell you what they mean.”

That sounded good. I decided to join them. When they stood to go outside, Faye called Rebecca over and whispered to her. Rebecca said something back, in a whisper, too, but one of those harsh ones that can be more startling than a shout. Doug distracted everyone by announcing, louder than I had been brought up to believe was polite, that he had to relieve himself. Faye gave him another cold stare.

With Doug already gone, Rick waited for Rebecca and followed her to the door. He seemed anxious to be away, as if he didn’t want to wait for Doug to return. I started after them. Faye was watching. I waved to her and pointed upwards, to signify the sky and the constellations, but this may have just got her wondering what I’d spotted on her ceiling, because she frowned.

Rick didn’t notice that I was tagging along until we were outside.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To see the constellations,” I said, glancing up. The clouds had largely scattered, leaving a few tattered remnants and a fresco of stars.

“No, you’re not,” Rick said. He sounded rushed and annoyed. That wasn’t like him. Usually Rick was calm and patient, especially with the younger kids. The only person who ever seemed to annoy him was Doug.

“Why not?” I asked. “I’m interested.”

“I don’t care,” Rick snapped. Then he turned and looked around. “Where’s Rebecca?”

Although I had seen her go along the path that led away from the doghouses, I was so disappointed and hurt that I pointed with certainty in the wrong direction, towards the pack. “Don’t follow me,” Rick said nervously, looking towards where the dogs lurked. After a hesitant moment, he went that way.

In trying to find Rebecca, Rick may have gone too close to the doghouses, because I heard them snarl briefly, but they settled down, probably satisfied that they had frightened off an intruder.

With the dogs quiet, the silence of the night struck me again. It was a reminder of what Nick said: that in this country you were alone and you had to rely on yourself and do what was necessary to survive. The darkness intensified the feeling, for, even with light from the cabin’s windows through the trees, it was darker than any night at home.

I was still standing there a minute later, staring at the sky and trying uselessly to sort out its mysteries for myself, when Doug came back.

“Where’s Rebecca?” he asked.

“Over there,” I said, showing him the route she’d taken. Then I went back to looking at the stars.

Mr. Walker was sitting next to Faye, a snowshoe in his hands. She was explaining how to string it properly, keeping the gut aligned in the right way and the tension sufficient. He bent to the task with the deep concentration he had, his pipe smoking away as if it were the chimney for the steam engine that powered his mind.

As Mr. Walker worked, Faye finished her snowshoe and took it into the back of the cabin. She must have gone to the outhouse afterwards, because I felt a breeze as if the back door had opened briefly and then been quietly closed.

The Monopoly game was still in full swing, although Bish had all his property mortgaged and was offering to do chores for people instead of paying rent when he landed on a St. James Place or a North Carolina Avenue chockablock with hotels.

I had been back inside for maybe five minutes when Rick came in. He looked angry, his mouth drawn thinly. He stopped inside the door and looked at Mr. Walker, as if thinking about speaking to him. But the teacher was so involved with the snowshoe that he had not noticed Rick, who came over and stood next to me, watching the board game.

“Did you see Doug after you saw me?” he asked, his voice low.

I sensed trouble, but I couldn’t lie about that. “Yes.”

“Did he go near the tents?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see him go in our tent?”

“No, I just saw him head in that direction. Why?”

“Because there’s fifty cents of mine missing. It was in a pocket of my pack and it’s gone.”

“Maybe you misplaced it,” I suggested.

“I don’t misplace money,” Rick said, and I was sure that was true. He was the orderly, organized type.

“Are you sure Doug took it?”

“You know Doug.”

“Are you going to tell Mr. Walker?” I looked over my shoulder to the snowshoe and the smoking brier.

“I’ll deal with it myself.” He stared at the board game for another moment, seeming to focus on the brightly colored bills in the bank. Then he went outside again.

It wasn’t much later that the screaming started. There was no way of telling who was screaming, it was so high-pitched and terrified. It was also mixed with the fiercest snarling and yelping yet from the dogs.

Everyone froze except Nick, who was out the door instantly. We followed, snowshoes and Monopoly forgotten. The screaming grew louder and more shrill. The snarling intensified. We burst outside in a loose pack and charged down the path to the dogs. Mr. Walker and Bish called for us to stay back, but we were all worked up and excited to find out what was going on. The screaming got worse, and we could hear Nick’s voice, strong and stern. What were we doing, I wondered, rushing pell-mell towards something dangerous and unknown? Unlike the day of the bears, we didn’t even have our paddles to protect us.

We came near the dogs, which had been whipped into a frenzy. At first it looked like they were all still tethered. Then we saw that Chinook and his chain were gone.

We stopped where we were and called out, “Doug! Rick!” The shrieking was still coming from beyond the tents.

Mr. Walker said, “Stay here, boys. Bish, stay with ’em,” and he went further up the trail, cautiously.

We stayed, but kept calling out. To our right, the bushes rustled. Everyone tensed up, prepared to run, but it wasn’t Chinook. It was Doug and Rebecca. They moved clumsily, holding each other and sobbing.

“Where’s Rick?” Bish asked.

Doug waved his arm in the direction Mr. Walker had gone. “There,” was all he could manage. He and Rebecca held each other tightly.

Then Mr. Walker called out, “Bish! Get up here!”

We all went and found Rick about fifty yards along the trail, still screaming, although the dog had stopped biting him. He was on the ground, writhing, torn and bloody. Mr. Walker had wrapped the Breezy All-Weather around him, but it could not cover all the wounds.

Chinook was a short distance away, straining at the chain, snarling and lunging at the boy on the ground. Nick had the chain wrapped twice around the trunk of a tree and held the loose end, like Hercules holding back Cerberus. There was strain in his face, but when he called to us his voice was calm. “Boys, tell Faye to get out here. We need some of her healing salve.”

To be honest, it looked like Rick needed more than salve, but if that was all they had, it would have to do. There was no need to go for Faye. She was there as if she’d been waiting, with bandages and a pottery container filled with thick, floral-smelling goo. Nick looked surprised to see her there so quickly.

When she saw Rick, she let out a wail, then ran to him and began tending his wounds. Her hands moved gently and she whispered words I couldn’t make out.

Nick said something, too, obviously aimed at the dog but spoken while he watched Faye bent over the savaged boy. “Bad,” he said. “Bad.”

Rick whimpered as Faye wrapped bandages around him. His legs, back, both arms, and one side of his face were torn open, and if the light had been better, God knows what of his inner workings we would have seen.

Rick must have passed out eventually, because he made no sound when Mr. Walker picked him up. We were all about to head back to the cabin when Nick said to me, “Bring my flashlight, boy.” It was lying on the ground a few feet from where he stood still holding the end of the chain. Chinook had calmed considerably now, but I was glad that Nick kept a tight grip.

When I had the flashlight, Nick told me to step back. He began unwinding the chain from the tree and creating a coil of it that dangled from one hand, careful not to let it go slack. Soon he had the dog on a short lead. “Follow me,” he said. “But shine the light on ahead, along the ground.” As he walked down the trail with the dog heeling, he looked like any man taking his pet out late at night. The only difference was the heavy chain instead of a slender leash.

Nick took a circuitous route around the other dogs, which were restless and snarling. When he came to the far doghouse he stopped. “Move around that way,” he said, indicating a course away from the pack, “then shine the light down here.” I was anxious to see where the dog had snapped its chain. When I aimed the light at the side of the doghouse, there was a thick iron ring anchored in the wood. No broken links hung from the ring. Nick knelt down and clipped the end of the unbroken chain to the ring and then told me to step further back. Only then did he stand and drop the chain. He walked over to me and took the flashlight and I followed him back to the cabin. All the way I wondered how that dog had got loose.

Rick survived the night, although his screams kept the rest of us awake. As soon as dawn broke, Nick and Mr. Walker loaded him into Nick’s freighter canoe. Faye was there with a blanket for him to lie on and a fur robe to cover him. She put her hand on his head briefly. Then the canoe set off downriver towards the hospital in Moose Factory. Doug was watching, too, but he had no jokes in him.

I watched the canoe until it reached a bend in the river and vanished. Even after, I stood there, a hint of guilt gnawing at my stomach. It had occurred to me during a period of sleeplessness, while Rick screamed and cried, that he must have released the dog. He must have swallowed his fear and unlatched the chain, thinking Chinook would attack Doug and punish him. I couldn’t quite figure out how he’d got close to the dogs without rousing them, but I was sure it had happened. Believing that made the fifty cents feel heavy in my pocket.