in February
the temperature did not rise above thirty degrees below zero, and remained
for the most of the time between fifty and sixty. From all points in the
wilderness reports of starvation came to the Company's posts. Traplines
could not be followed because of the intense cold. Moose, caribou, and even
the furred animals had buried themselves under the snow. Indians and
halfbreeds dragged themselves into the posts. Twice Roscoe saw mothers who
brought dead babies in their arms. One day a white trapper came in with
his dogs and sledge, and on the sledge, wrapped in a bear skin, was his
wife, who had died fifty miles back in the forest.

Late in January there came a sudden rise in the temperature, and Roscoe
prepared to take advantage of the change to strike south and westward
again, toward Nelson House. Dogs could not be had for love or money, so on
the first of February he set out on snowshoes with an Indian guide and two
weeks' supply of provisions. The fifth night, in the wild, Barren country
west of the Etawney, his Indian failed to keep up the fire, and when Roscoe
investigated he found him half dead with a strange sickness. Roscoe thought
of smallpox, the terrible plague that usually follows northern famine, and
a shiver ran through him. He made the Indian's balsam shelter snow and wind
proof, cut wood, and waited. The temperature fell again, and the cold
became intense. Each day the provisions grew less, and at last the time
came when Roscoe knew that he was standing face to face with the Great
Peril. He went farther and farther from camp in his search for game. But
there was no life. Even the brush sparrows and snow hawks were gone. Once
the thought came to him that he might take what food was left, and accept
the little chance that remained of saving himself. But the idea never got
further than a first thought. He kept to his post, and each day spent half
an hour in writing. On the twelfth day the Indian died. It was a terrible
day, the beginning of the second great storm of that winter. There was food
for another twenty-four hours, and Roscoe packed it, together with his
blankets and a little tinware. He wondered if the Indian had died of a
contagious disease. Anyway, he made up his mind to put out the warning for
others if they came that way, and over the dead Indian's balsam shelter he
planted a sapling, and at the end of the sapling he fastened a strip of red
cotton cloth--the plague-signal of the North.