It was too late the night they reached home to see Douglas but the next morning he hurried through his breakfast, which was eaten by candle-light, and at break of day was off for Kenemish, where Douglas Campbell lived. He found the old man at home, and, with some fear of refusal, but still bravely, for he knew the kind-hearted old trapper would grant the request if he thought it were wise, explained his plan.
"You're a stalwart lad, Bob," said Douglas, looking at the boy critically from under his shaggy eyebrows. "An' how old may you be now? I 'most forgets--young folks grows up so fast."
"An' that's a young age for a lad to be so far in th' bush alone. But you'll be havin' somethin' happen t' you."
"I'll be rare careful, sir, an' you lets me ha' th' trail."
"I's said nothin' to he, sir, about it yet."
"Well, go ask he, an' he says yes, meet me at the post th' evenin' an' I'll speak wi' Mr. MacDonald t' give ye debt for your grub. Micmac John's wantin' th' trail, but I'm not thinkin' t' let he have un."
At first Bob's parents both opposed the project. The dangers were so great that his mother asserted that if he were to go she would not have an easy hour until she saw her boy again. But he put forth such strong arguments and plead so vigorously, and his disappointment was so manifest, that finally she withdrew her objections and his father said:
"Well, you may go, my son, an Douglas lets you have th' trail."
[Illustration: "Bob jumped out with the painter in his hand"]
So Bob, scarcely sixteen years of age, was to do a man's work and shoulder a man's burden, and he was glad that God had given him stature beyond his years, that he might do it. He could not remember when he had not driven dogs and cut wood and used a gun. He had done these things always. But now he was to rise to the higher plane of a full-fledged trapper and the spruce forest and the distant hills beyond the post seemed a great empire over which he was to rule. Those trackless fastnesses, with their wealth of fur, were to pay tribute to him, and he was happy in the thought that he had found a way to save little Emily from the lifelong existence of a poor crippled invalid. His buoyant spirit had stepped out of the old world of darkness and despair into a new world filled with light and love and beauty, in which the present troubles were but a passing cloud.