He could not look into the future with any confidence-why, he would have found it impossible to explain. Everything apparently combined to reassure him. In spite of the great rigour of the winter, his little colony was in excellent health. No quarrels had arisen amongst the colonists, and their zeal and enthusiasm was still unabated. The surrounding districts were well stocked with game, the harvest of furs had surpassed his expectations, and the Company might well be satisfied with the result of the enterprise. Even if no fresh supply of provisions arrived, the resources of the country were such that the prospect of a second winter need awake no misgivings. Why, then, was Lieutenant Hobson losing hope and confidence?
He and Mrs Barnett had many a talk on the subject; and the latter did all she could to raise the drooping spirits of the commanding officer, urging upon him all the considerations enumerated above; and one day walking with him along the beach, she pleaded the cause of Cape Bathurst and the factory, built at the cost of-so much suffering, with more than usual eloquence.
"Yes, yes, madam, you are right," replied Hobson; "but we can't help our presentiments. I am no visionary. Twenty times in my soldier's life I have been in critical circumstances, and have never lost presence of mind for one instant; and now for the first time in my life I am uneasy about the future. If I had to face a positive danger, I should have no fear; but a vague uncertain peril of which I have only a presentiment "
"What danger do you mean?" inquired Mrs Barnett; "a danger from men, from animals, or the elements?"
"Of animals I have no dread whatever, madam; it is for them to tremble before the hunters of Cape Bathurst, nor do I fear men; these districts are frequented by none but Esquimaux, and the Indians seldom venture so far north."
"Besides, Lieutenant," said Mrs Barnett, "the Canadians, whose arrival you so much feared in the fine season, have never appeared."
"I am very sorry for it, madam."
"What! you regret the absence of the rivals who are so evidently hostile to your Company?"
"Madam, I am both glad and sorry that they have not come; that will of course puzzle you. But observe that the expected convoy from Fort Reliance has not arrived. It is the same with. the agents of the St Louis Fur Company; they might have come, and they have not done so. Not a single Esquimaux has visited this part of the coast during the summer either"-
"And what do you conclude from all this?" inquired Mrs Barnett.
"I conclude that it is not so easy to get to Cape Bathurst or to Fort Hope as we could wish."
The lady looked into the Lieutenant's anxious face, struck with the melancholy and significant intonation of the word easy.
"Lieutenant Hobson," she said earnestly, "if you fear neither men nor animals, I must conclude that your anxiety has reference to the elements."
"Madam," he replied, "I do not know if my spirit be broken, or if my presentiments blind me, but there seems to me to be something uncanny about this district. If I had known it better I should not have settled down in it. I have already called your attention to certain peculiarities, which to me appear inexplicable; the total absence of stones everywhere, and the clear-cut line of the coast. I can't make out about the primitive formation of this end of the continent. I know that the vicinity of a volcano may cause some phenomena; but you remember what I said to you on the subject of the tides?"
"Oh yes, perfectly."
"Where the sea ought according to the observations of explorers in these latitudes, to have risen fifteen or twenty feet, it has scarcely risen one !"
"Yes; but that you accounted for by the irregular distribution of land and the narrowness of the straits."
"I tried to account for it, that is all," replied Hobson; "but the day before yesterday I noticed a still more extraordinary phenomenon, which I cannot even try to explain, and I doubt if the greatest savants could do so either."
Mrs Barnett looked inquiringly at Hobson.