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Title: A backwoods princess
Author: Footner, Hulbert
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "A backwoods princess" ***
[Cover Illustration]
By HULBERT FOOTNER
__________________________
A Backwoods Princess
Madame Storey
Antennae
The Shanty Sled
The Under Dogs
The Wild Bird
Officer!
Ramshackle House
The Deaves Affair
The Owl Taxi
The Substitute Millionaire
Thieves’ Wit
New Rivers of the North
__________________________
NEW YORK:
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
A BACKWOODS
PRINCESS
By
HULBERT FOOTNER
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, _1926_,
BY HULBERT FOOTNER
A BACKWOODS PRINCESS
—Q—
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Catastrophe................ 9
II The Burial of Blackburn.... 22
III The Slaves Without a Master 30
IV At Fort Good Hope.......... 40
V Yellow-Head................ 51
VI The Dinner Party........... 64
VII The Cloven Hoof............ 79
VIII Heavenly Music............. 94
IX An Upset................... 102
X Contraband................. 118
XI A Meeting.................. 133
XII Fur........................ 140
XIII The Fur Goes Out........... 156
XIV The Discovery.............. 167
XV Shadowing.................. 179
XVI With Conacher.............. 190
XVII The Meeting................ 201
XVIII Confusion.................. 207
XIX Preparing for Danger....... 216
XX Besieged................... 228
XXI A Leap for Freedom......... 239
XXII The Search................. 255
XXIII Hunger..................... 273
XXIV Downstream................. 287
XXV Conclusion................. 305
A BACKWOODS PRINCESS
CHAPTER I
CATASTROPHE
Spring was in full tide at Blackburn’s Post, but Laurentia Blackburn and
the four Marys were confined to the Women’s House by rain. There sat the
girlish Princess surrounded by her handmaidens in the midst of a rude
magnificence which best sets off a beautiful woman. Her feet were hidden
in a superb polar bearskin which had come down from the Arctic in trade;
and the chair in which she sat was completely covered by the frosted
pelt of a grizzly, his huge head hanging down over the back. She was a
black-haired Princess with something untamed about her like the
creatures whose pelts decorated her chamber. Around her neck hung an
astonishing necklace of great pearls strung alternately with water-worn
nuggets of gold. Her black dress was worked at the neck and wrists with
an Indian design in brightly dyed porcupine quills.
The four Marys were Indian girls, small and comely, with glistening
copper faces, and raven hair drawn smoothly back from their brows. They
were clad alike in black cotton dresses, with doeskin moccasins upon
their feet; and a stranger would have been hard put to it to tell them
apart. However, he would presently have perceived that one of them stood
in quite a different relation to her mistress from the others. This was
Mary-Lou who was of the Beaver tribe, whereas the others were only
Slavis. She was the Princess’ foster sister. She could speak English.
All four girls looked at their mistress with fear and respect; but only
Mary-Lou’s face was capable of softening with love. She was reading
aloud from “The Lady of the Lake.”
The others were Mary-Belle; Mary-Rose and Mary-Ann. The first-named
crouched in front of the small fire which had been lighted to mitigate
the dampness out-of-doors. It was her task to see that it neither went
out, nor became hot enough to scorch the Princess’ face. The other two
sat on a bearskin engaged in embroidering velvet-soft moccasins with
gayly colored silks. None of them could understand a word of what
Mary-Lou was reading from the book; and the gentle, droning voice was
fatally conducive to sleep. The Princess watched them lazily through the
lowered fringe of her black lashes; and, when a head was seen to nod,
she exploded like a fire cracker.
“Sit up straight! Your head is going down between your shoulders! Before
you are twenty-five you will be the shape of a sack of hay! Your husband
if you ever get one at all will look for another wife!”
It especially terrified the girls to be scolded in the English they
could not understand. This particular rebuke was addressed to Mary-Belle
but all three of the Slavis cringed, and their dark eyes turned
helplessly this way and that like a frightened deer’s. Mary-Lou looked
apprehensive, too, expecting her turn to come next.
“Well, go on with the book,” said Loseis crossly. The name Laurentia,
being unmanageable on the tongue of the Indians, they had given her this
one, which means “little wild duck.”
The tremulous voice resumed.
“Oh, shut the book!” Loseis cried immediately afterwards. “It is a
foolish book! It tires my ears!”
“Shall I get another book?” faltered Mary-Lou.
“What’s the use? We have read them all. They are no better than this
book. All foolish, goody-goody books!”
All four red girls sat scared and silent.
Loseis jumped up as if she had strong springs in her legs. “Can’t you
say something, any of you? Are you all struck dumb? You can chatter fast
enough among yourselves when I am not there!” She amplified her remarks
in the Slavi tongue.
They were struck dumb indeed, then. They looked at each other
helplessly, each one mutely begging her neighbor to speak.
“Oh, leave me! leave me! you foolish pudding faces!” cried Loseis,
waving her hands. “Or I shall have to beat you!”
They faded into the kitchen with alacrity. Only Mary-Lou looked back.
“Mary-Lou, you stay here,” commanded Loseis. “I’ve got to have somebody
to talk to!”
Mary-Lou leaned shyly against the door frame; pleased at being called
back, yet terrified, too. Loseis paced up and down the room like a slim
black panther, her eyes shooting greenish sparks.
It was a broad, low room with but two tiny windows, glass being such a
difficult article to bring in seven hundred miles by pack train. There
was a capacious fireplace, cunningly built out of rounded stones from
the creek bed. The log walls had been plastered with clay, hardened now
almost to the consistency of brick; and overhead was spread a canvas
ceiling cloth to keep in the warmth. Walls and ceiling had been washed
with a warm terra cotta color, which made a rich background for the
beautiful furs. Over the carved bedstead in the corner was flung a robe
made of hundreds of raccoons’ tails, the black stripes worked into an
elaborate geometrical design. There were other robes made of otters’
skins, of lynx paws, of silver foxes. On the walls hung many beautiful
examples of Indian handicraft.
Glancing at the drooping head of the red girl, Loseis cried: “Mary-Lou,
you’ve got as much spirit as a lump of pemmican! When you sit by the
fire I wonder that you do not melt and run down in grease!”
Mary-Lou’s head went lower still, and her eyes filled.
Seeing this, Loseis became angrier still. “There you go! Of course
you’re _good_! That’s what makes me mad! Because I’m not good at all!
I’ve got the temper of a fiend! Well, do you suppose I enjoy losing it?
. . . I know I ought to say I’m sorry now, but it sticks in my throat!”
“I not want that,” murmured Mary-Lou. “I am lovin’ you anyway.”
“Well . . . I love you, too,” grumbled Loseis, shamefaced as a boy. “But
I wish you weren’t so humble. It’s bad for me. This is Blackburn’s Post
on Blackburn’s River; all this is Blackburn’s country, and I’m
Blackburn’s daughter. There is nobody to stand up to me. I am too young
to be the mistress. I don’t know anything. . . . That white man laughed
at me as one laughs at a child!”
Loseis had stopped her pacing. Her head hung down. “I ought to have a
white woman to tell me things,” she said wistfully. “In all my life I
have seen but one woman of my own kind. That was the governess my father
brought in for me. I used to mock her. But now I wish I had her back.
She had nice manners. . . . He laughed at me. . . .”
She strayed to the second little crooked window, which was at the end of
the room furthest from the fireplace. It overlooked a natural meadow
below, where the tepees of the Slavis were built upon both sides of a
creek which emptied into the main stream just beyond. In front of the
Post the main river described a great convex bend, so that Loseis could
look both up-stream and down. This bend was formed by a bold promontory
of a hill which forced the river to go around its base. The point of
this hill had been sliced off by the water, leaving a precipitous yellow
cut-bank facing the Post. On the summit, startlingly conspicuous against
a group of dark pine trees, was a fence of white palings enclosing a
tiny plot with a cross rising out of it. By day and by night too, that
grave dominated the Post.
“Ah! if only my mother had lived!” sighed Loseis.
“Let me read the book again,” suggested Mary-Lou, to divert her mind.
Loseis shook her head impatiently. She came away from the window. “I am
not in the humor for it. I guess it is too fine for me. . . .” She
resumed her uneven pacing. “Mary-Lou,” she suddenly cried in a voice
full of pain, “when a man and a woman love I am sure they do not think
such elegant thoughts as are in that book. Ah! the heart burns a hole in
your breast! It is impossible to think at all!”
The red girl’s eyes followed her, full of compassion.
Observing that look, Loseis said sharply: “You must not think I am in
love with that white man, Conacher. Oh, no! I was just imagining. I am
far from loving him. I hate him!”
“You are not hating Conacher,” murmured Mary-Lou sadly. “Why say that to
me?”
Loseis stamped her foot. “I tell you I hate him!” she cried. “That is
enough for you! . . . What right had he to treat me like a child? I am
Blackburn’s daughter. My father is the master of this country. And who
is this white man? A poor man in a canoe with only two servants! Nobody
ever heard of him before. My father was angry at his coming, and I was
angry. We do not want white men coming here to spoil the fur trade!”
Mary-Lou’s silence suggested that she was far from being convinced.
“A poor man with no outfit at all!” Loseis repeated louder. “Yet he held
his head as if he was as good as my father! He must be a fool. He talked
to me as if I was anybody at all, and his eyes laughed when I became
angry . . . !” In the midst of her tirade Loseis suddenly broke down.
“Oh, I wish I could forget him!” she cried, with the angry tears
springing to her eyes.
This sign of weakness gave Mary-Lou the courage to glide to her
mistress, and wreathe her arms about her. “I think Conacher was a good
man,” she whispered. “His eyes were true.”
These words were very sweet to Loseis; but she would not openly confess
it. However, she gave Mary-Lou a little squeeze, before withdrawing
herself from her arms. “No,” she said; “I shall stand by my father. My
father is the finest man living. Conacher is gone. I shall never see him
again. I shall quickly forget him.
“It was only because he took me by surprise,” she went on with an
eagerness in which there was something pathetically childlike. “When he
came paddling down our river with the two Beaver Indians I was like one
struck on the head. It was like a white man falling from the skies. No
white man ever came down our river before; and he so young and strong
and full of laughter! He wore no hat; and the sunlight was snared in his
yellow hair. I never saw hair like that. . . .”
“He like you, too, ver’ moch,” ventured Mary-Lou. “I was there when he
landed. I saw it burn up like fire in his blue eyes.”
“Yes, I saw that, too,” murmured Loseis, averting her face. “But why did
he change right away?”
“Because you treat him like poor, dirty Slavi,” said Mary-Lou. “No white
man take that.”
“That is because I was so confused,” whispered poor Loseis. She suddenly
covered her face with her hands. “Oh, what will he be thinking of me!”
she groaned.
Mary-Lou’s eyes were all sympathy; but she could think of nothing to
say.
Loseis drifted back to the window, where she stood with her back to
Mary-Lou. After awhile, without turning around, she said in an offhand,
experimental sort of voice: “I have a good mind to see him again.”
Mary-Lou merely gasped.
“Oh, not meaning anything in particular,” Loseis said quickly. “There
never could be anything between us. But just to show him that I am not a
redskin, and then leave him.”
“How could you see him?” faltered Mary-Lou.
“He is camped with his outfit alongside the Limestone Rapids, one
hundred miles down,” Loseis went on in that offhand voice. “He has to
break the rocks with a hammer, and study them where they split. It is
what they call a geologist. . . .” Her assumed indifference suddenly
collapsed. “Let us go to see him, Mary-Lou,” she blurted out
breathlessly. “We could make it in a long day’s paddling with the
current; three days to come back if we worked hard. We wouldn’t let him
know we had come to see him. We would say we were hunting. . . .”
“Oh! . . . Oh! . . .” gasped Mary-Lou. “Girls do not hunt.”
“He doesn’t know what _I_ do!” cried Loseis. “I _must_ see him! It kills
me to have him thinking that I am a common, ignorant sort of girl! Let
us start at daybreak to-morrow!”
“Oh, no! no!” whispered Mary-Lou, paralyzed by the very thought.
“Blackburn . . . Blackburn . . . !”
“He couldn’t say anything until we’d been and come,” said Loseis coolly.
“Anyhow, I’m not afraid of my father. My spirit is as strong as his. He
can’t shout _me_ down!”
“No! No!” reiterated the red girl. “If you go after him like that, he
think little of you.”
In her heart Loseis recognized the truth of this, and she fell into a
sullen silence. After awhile she said: “Then I will make him come back
here. I will send a message. . . . Oh, not a letter, you foolish girl!”
she added in response to Mary-Lou’s startled look.
“What kind of message?”
“I will make a little raft and send it floating down on the current,”
said Loseis dreamily. “I will set up a little stick on the raft, with a
ribbon tied to it, a piece of my hair. I think that will bring him back
. . .”
“Maybe it float past his camp in the nighttime,” said Mary-Lou, in her
soft, sad voice. “How you know?”
“Then I will send down two,” said Loseis. “One in the day and one in the
night. He will see one of them.”
Mary-Lou was astonished by the cleverness of this idea.
“And then when he comes back,” said Loseis quite coolly. “I will say
that I did not send it. I will say that it is a custom of the red girls
to make offerings to the Spirit of the River. I think that will make him
feel pretty small. But I shall not laugh at him. Oh, no! I shall be very
polite; polite and proud as Blackburn’s daughter ought to be. And I
shall send him away again.”
Mary-Lou looked somewhat dubious as to the feasibility of this program;
but held her tongue.
“I shall send him away again,” repeated Loseis with great firmness, “and
after that I shall think of no man but my father. Before Conacher came
my father was enough for me; and after he has gone my father will be
enough. I am lucky to have such a father; so handsome and brave and
strong-willed. . . .” Loseis suddenly became dreamy again. “But Conacher
was not afraid of my father. That young man was not afraid of my father.
I have never seen that before. . . .”
Mary-Lou permitted herself to smile tenderly.
Seeing it, Loseis colored up hotly, and became very firm again. “Never
mind that! There is nobody like my father! He is the finest man in the
world! I shall be a better daughter to him after this. I will do
everything he wants. Ah! my father is like a king . . . !”
Mary-Lou was suddenly drawn to the end window by some disquieting sounds
from the Slavi village below. She cried out in surprise: “Jimmy
Moosenose is running between the tepees.”
“What do I care?” said Loseis, annoyed by this interruption.
“He is running fast,” said Mary-Lou, her voice scaling up. “He speaks to
the people; they throw up their hands; they run after him; they fall
down. There is something the matter!”
Loseis, alarmed, ran to join her at the window. Together they watched
the old Indian come laboring up the little hill to the grassy bench on
which the buildings of the Post stood. Jimmy Moosenose was a Beaver
Indian, and Blackburn’s right-hand man by reason of being the only man
beside the trader himself, who could speak the English and the Slavi
tongues. There were no white men at Blackburn’s Post.
When Jimmy passed beyond range of their vision the girls transferred
themselves to the other window. The Indian struck across the grass
straight for their door. A tatterdemalion crowd of natives and dogs
streamed after him. Fear clutched at Loseis’ brave heart; and she became
as pale as paper. An instant later Jimmy Moosenose burst in. The others
dared not follow him through the door.
“What is the matter?” demanded Loseis haughtily.
At first the old man could only pant and groan, while his body rocked in
despair. Loseis seized him as if she would shake out the news by main
strength.
“Speak! Speak!” she cried.
“Blackburn . . . !” he gasped. “Blackburn . . . !”
“My father! Hurt! Take me to him!” said Loseis crisply. She made as if
to force her way out through the crowd.
“They . . . are bringing him,” faltered the old man.
Loseis fell back against the door frame. “Bringing him?” she echoed
faintly.
The old man’s chin was on his breast. “Blackburn dead!” he said.
Loseis’ arms dropped to her sides; her widened eyes were like tragic
black stars. “Dead?” she repeated in quite an ordinary voice. “That is
impossible!”
Speech came to the old man. “It was the black stallion,” he cried. “I
tell Blackburn, many tam I tell him that horse kill him some day. He
jus’ laugh. He say: ‘I lak master that horse.’ Wah! what good master
when both are dead! . . . It was the high cut-bank at Swallow Bend.
Blackburn, he spur that horse to edge of bank to mak’ him rear and
wheel. Blackburn he is laugh lak a boy. The horse is crazy mad. He put
his head down. He no stop. He jomp over. He jomp clear in the air. Wah!
when I see that, my legs are lak water! When I look over the bank there
is nothing but water. Both are gone. We get canoe. Down river I see
Blackburn’s leg stickin’ out. We pull him out. His neck is broke. . . .”
The crowd gathered outside the house, broke with a common impulse into a
weird, wordless chant of death, the women’s voices rising piercing
shrill. There was no sound of human grief in it; and the open-mouthed
copper-colored faces expressed nothing either; the bright, flat, black
eyes were as soulless as glass. They pointed their chins up like howling
dogs.
Loseis clapped her hands to her head. “Stop that ungodly noise!” she
cried.
Even old Jimmy looked scandalized. “They sing for Blackburn,” he
protested.
“Stop it! Stop it!” she cried. Forcing her way out, Loseis ran to meet
the cortège that was crawling up the rise towards Blackburn’s house.
CHAPTER II
THE BURIAL OF BLACKBURN
Hector Blackburn’s own room revealed a beautiful austerity fitting to
the chamber of death. It was plastered and ceiled like the room of
Loseis, but the color was a cool stone gray. The few articles of
furniture that it contained had all been constructed in the old style,
carved and polished by the owner himself, who had a taste that way. The
lustrous pelts were more sparingly used here.
The narrow bedstead with its four slender columns had been dragged into
the center of the room. Upon it lay the body of Hector Blackburn clad in
decent black clothes; his big hands crossed on his breast. Beside the
bed knelt Loseis, her rapt gaze fixed on her father’s face. Six feet two
in height, and forty-eight inches around the chest, he made a splendid
figure of death. There was not a white thread to be seen in his
spreading black beard, nor in the plentiful wavy hair of his crown. To
be sure, the high red color was strangely gone out of his transparent
cheeks; and the passionate features were composed into a look of haughty
peace. For sheer manhood, truly a father to be proud of.
Loseis thought of the feats of strength and daring that had made his
name famous throughout the Northwest Territories; how he had strangled a
full grown black bear with his naked hands; how he had leaped from his
canoe at the very brink of the American Falls and had brought safely
ashore an Indian who was clinging to a rock. He had been even more
remarkable for his strength of will. The last of the great free traders,
he had defied the power of the mighty Company, and had prospered
exceedingly. He held his vast territory against all comers, by the power
of his personality alone. Thinking of these things Loseis’ mind was
confused. There lay his still body before her eyes, but what had become
of the wild energy which had lately animated it? Surely, surely that
could not be blown out like a candle flame.
Dragging herself to her feet, she went into the adjoining kitchen. She
had had no opportunity to change her dress, but in an impulse of grief
had torn off the gay embroidery; and now she was all in black like the
corpse. In the kitchen Mary-Lou sat huddled on the floor, with her arms
wrapped around her head. Jimmy Moosenose stood beside the open door,
looking out, a withered, bent little figure, but still capable of
activity. As Loseis entered he said in an expressionless voice:
“They have gone.”
“Who?” asked Loseis sharply.
“The people; all the people.”
She ran to the door. It was true; every tepee was gone from the meadow
below. Except for certain litter abandoned in their haste there was no
sign that a village had ever stood there. The Slavis had taken flight
and vanished like a cloud of insects.
“Where have they gone?” demanded Loseis in astonishment. Though she had
been born amongst them she did not understand this inscrutable, timid,
savage race. It was impossible for any white man to know what went on
inside their cramped skulls, Blackburn used to say. He had ruled them
without making any attempt at understanding.
“Gone up river,” muttered Jimmy.
“For why?”
“They moch scare’.”
“But they are familiar with death. Death comes to all alike.”
Jimmy Moosenose cast an uneasy look towards the room where the dead man
lay. He was near enough akin to the Slavis to share in their fears.
“They think ver’ powerful strong spirit live in Blackburn’s body,” he
muttered. “Now that spirit free they not know what it do to them.”
“Oh, what nonsense!” cried Loseis helplessly.
“What we do now?” asked Jimmy fearfully.
Loseis looked him over. “Are you man enough to ride all night?” she
asked brusquely. “The trail is good.”
“What trail?” asked Jimmy with a terrified face.
“To Fort Good Hope to fetch the parson,” said Loseis in surprise.
“It is ondred-feefty mile,” faltered Jimmy.
“What of it? Two days to go and two to come. You can drive three spare
horses before you. I don’t care if you kill them all.”
“I not man enough for that,” said Jimmy shaking his head.
“Well six days to go and come then. I’d go myself, but I know you two
wouldn’t stay here alone.”
Jimmy’s and Mary-Lou’s frightened faces testified eloquently to that.
Jimmy shook his head. “No good! No good!” he said. “It is summer time
now. He no keep six days.”
Loseis groaned aloud. In her desperate helplessness she looked like a
little girl. “How can I bury him without a parson!” she cried.
“You have the parson’s little book,” said Jimmy. “You can say the
prayers from that. It is just as good.”
Loseis turned her back on them, that they might not see her childish,
twisted face. “Very well,” she said in a strangled voice; “I will be the
parson.”
“What I do now?” asked Jimmy Moosenose.
“First you must make a coffin.”
“There is no planks.”
“Oh, tear down the counter in the store!” cried Loseis with a burst of
irritation. “Must I think of everything?”
“You tell me how big?” asked Jimmy, with another glance of sullen terror
towards the inner room.
“Yes, I will measure,” said Loseis. “And the coffin must be covered all
over with good black cloth from the store. Mary-Lou will put it on with
tacks. And lined with white cloth. While you are making it I will go
across the river, and dig the grave. We will bury him to-morrow.”
“That is well,” said Jimmy with a look of relief. “Then the people come
back.”
“Ah, the people!” cried Loseis with a flash of angry scorn. “They are
well-named Slaves!”
At the end of May in the latitude of Blackburn’s Post it does not become
dark until nearly ten; and it was fully that hour before Loseis, having
completed her task, returned dog-weary, across the river. During the
balance of the night she sat wide-eyed and dry-eyed beside her dead, her
hands in her lap, planning in her childlike and passionate way how best
to conduct everything next day with dignity and honor.
At sun-up Jimmy Moosenose was despatched to the river shore to construct
a raft, the light bark canoes that they possessed not being sufficient
to ferry the coffin across. No flowers were available so early in the
season, and Mary-Lou was set to work to twist a handsome wreath of the
crisp green leaves of the high-bush cranberry. Neither Jimmy nor
Mary-Lou could be induced to enter Blackburn’s room, so Loseis herself
dragged the completed coffin in beside the bed; and she unaided, managed
somehow to lift the body into it. In life Hector Blackburn had weighed
more than two hundred pounds. It was Loseis, too, who nailed the lid on
the coffin with an aim no better than any other woman’s. Those crookedly
driven nails distressed her sorely.
When Jimmy came up from the river, they slipped short lengths of pole
under the coffin, and rolled it to the door. Outside the house, since
there was nothing in the nature of wheels at Blackburn’s Post, they
hitched an old horse directly to the coffin, and dragged it at a slow
pace over the grass down hill to the river. Jimmy led the horse, while
Loseis and Mary-Lou walked behind, steadying the coffin with ropes
affixed to each side. During this part of the journey Loseis was all
child. Every time the coffin [word missing in original] over an
unevenness her heart was in her mouth. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” she cried
involuntarily; and her agonized eyes seemed to add: “My darling! did
that hurt you?”
At the river edge they worked the coffin onto the raft with rollers and
short lengths of plank; and Loseis draped the Post flag upon it, and
placed the green wreath. Jimmy and Mary-Lou propelled the raft across
with long poles, while the slender, black-clad figure of Loseis stood
looking down at the coffin like a symbolical figure of Bereavement. In
her grief-drowned eyes there was a look of piteous pride, too; for the
black coffin with its flag and green wreath looked beautiful.
The smooth brown river moved down in silky eddies; the freshly budded
greens of poplar and willow made the shores lovely, backed by the grave,
unchanging tones of the evergreens. Behind them the low, solid buildings
of the Post crouched on the bench above the river with a sort of human
dignity; before them rose the steep grassy promontory with the waiting
grave on top. Over their heads smiled the Northern summer sky of an
enchanting tenderness of blue that is not revealed to lower latitudes.
Landing upon the further shore they caught another horse—there was no
lack of horses at Blackburn’s Post. In order to drag the coffin up the
rough, steep hill it was necessary to construct a travois of poles to
lift the front end clear of the ground. The horse was fastened between
the poles as between shafts. At the top of the hill Loseis had removed
the palings; and the new grave yawned beside the old one. She had dug
the shallow hole with sloping ends, that the horse might walk right
through, leaving his burden in its place.
The animal was then liberated; and Loseis stood on one side, prayer-book
in hand, with Jimmy Moosenose and Mary-Lou facing her on the other. It
was a meagerly attended burial for the great lord of that country.
Loseis read the noble prayers in a grave voice charged with emotion. The
sound of it caused the tears to run silently down the smooth cheeks of
Mary-Lou; but Jimmy merely looked uncomfortable. The feelings of white
people were strange to him. He had given his master a doglike devotion
while he lived; but he was dead now, and that was an end to it.
“Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of
misery,” read the brave young voice. “He cometh up and is cut down like
a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one
stay. In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for
succour but of Thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?”
When she came to the end of the service, Loseis dropped the book and
involuntarily broke into an extempore prayer, standing with straight
back and lifted face like an Indian, her arms at her sides. Her words
were hardly couched in the same humble strain as those of the book; but
the passionate sincerity of the speaker redeemed them from irreverence.
“O God, this is my father. He was a strong man, God, and you must make
allowances for him. You gave him a proud heart and a terrible anger when
he was crossed, and it would not be fair to judge him like common men.
He could have done anything he wanted here, because he was the master,
but he was always square. Every season he paid the Indians half as much
again for their fur as the Company would pay, and that is why the
Company traders spoke evil of him. He was hard and stern to the Indians,
but that was the only thing they could understand. How else could you
deal with a tribe of slaves? Be merciful to my father, O God! for he
would never ask mercy for himself; and let him see my mother again, for
that was all he wanted. Amen.”
Jimmy Moosenose picked up the spade with a businesslike air, and threw a
clod on the coffin. At the dreadful sound that it gave forth, a sharp
cry broke from Loseis. She wrapped her arms about her head and fled away
down the hill.
CHAPTER III
THE SLAVES WITHOUT A MASTER
When the three mourners landed again on their own side of the river,
Jimmy and Mary-Lou looked at Loseis at a loss. What to do next?
Rousing herself, Loseis said wearily: “Jimmy, you must fix up the
counter in the store. Fix it with split poles until we can make some
plank. Mary-Lou, fetch a hatchet and come with me.”
On the river shore some hundred yards downstream, hidden by a clump of
willows in case Jimmy Moosenose should be inclined to spy on what they
were doing, Mary-Lou under Loseis’ instructions built a tiny raft out of
dead branches. To the raft Loseis fixed a little pole to the top of
which she tied a streamer of black. She launched the raft on the
current, and with big, childish eyes watched it float around the bend.
“I am not sending for Conacher to come to me,” she said haughtily to
Mary-Lou. “But when a white man dies it is customary to let men
know. . . . To-night I will push off another one. One or the other he
will see.”
Within an hour the Slavis returned as mysteriously as they had departed.
They must have had an outlook posted to report upon the burial of
Blackburn. To Loseis their actions seemed perfectly senseless; for Jimmy
had said it was the spirit of Blackburn that they dreaded, yet as soon
as his body was hidden underground their fears departed. They set up the
tepees in their former places, and went about their usual occupations as
if nothing had happened. Loseis’ breast burned with anger; and she
wanted to go down and give them a piece of her mind. However, Jimmy
dissuaded her.
“No good! No good!” he said. “It is over now. They not understand white
man’s ways.”
There was a sharp ring of anxiety in his voice that caused Loseis to
stare in haughty surprise. She thoroughly despised the Slavis. However,
she said nothing. She and Mary-Lou went off to their house to sleep.
Down on the flat it was the women who were erecting the tepee poles, and
drawing the covers over them. They no longer used skins for this
purpose, Blackburn having persuaded them of the superior advantages of
the canvas that he sold. In the same way the whole tribe had learned to
wear white men’s clothes out of the store. While the women worked, the
men sat in groups smoking and talking in that queer clicking tongue that
few white men have ever mastered. Their talk was light and punctuated
with laughter; but it was clear from their uneasy glances towards the
white man’s buildings that they were not speaking their hearts. As a
matter of fact the Indians are quite as adept in insincere small talk as
their white brethren.
From time immemorial the Slavis have been known as a small, weak people;
and this particular branch, cut off from their fellows on the distant
shores of Blackburn’s River had further degenerated as a result of too
close inter-marriage. They were a weedy lot, and like all weak peoples,
shifty-eyed. As is always the case, the men showed up worse; hollow
chests and spindle shanks were the rule; the whole tribe could not
produce one stalwart, handsome youth. But they were not
poverty-stricken. They all wore good clothes, and lived in new,
weather-proof tepees. They hunted the best fur country in all the North,
and for twenty years Blackburn had jealously guarded it for them.
From where they sat Jimmy Moosenose could be seen splitting poles in
front of the store, and carrying them in. Without appearing to, the men
were all watching him. The groups of talkers fell silent. They could not
meet each other’s eyes. A curious look of dread flickered in their
faces; that which had directed the whole course of their lives for so
many years had been suddenly removed, and they were all at a stand.
By twos and threes they began to drift up the grassy rise, their vacant
eyes drifting this way and that. There was something peculiarly ominous
about their purposelessness, their lack of direction. They squatted down
on their hunkers, making a rough semi-circle about Jimmy. They no longer
spoke among themselves, nor did any volunteer to help Jimmy; they simply
squatted and stared at him with their unwinking animal-like eyes. Jimmy
affected to take no notice of them; but his forehead became moist with a
sudden fear. He was reminded that he was of alien blood to these people,
and that they were thirty to his one. And there were five times that
number more in their summer camp at Blackburn’s Lake.
At length the silence, the unwinking stares became more than Jimmy could
bear. “Where is Etzooah?” he asked, affecting indifference.
Etzooah was one whom Jimmy suspected of being a trouble maker. He was a
bigger man than the others; and was said to have Cree blood. More than
once in the past his sharpness had displeased Blackburn, who, however,
tolerated him because he was the best hunter in the tribe.
“Etzooah gone to the lake to see a girl,” said one.
From the way the others grinned it was clear this was a lie. Jimmy was
much troubled that they grinned openly in his face. Had Blackburn been
in the store behind him they would never have done that. Jimmy glanced
desirously in the direction of the Women’s House, and his watchers
marked that glance.
One said, affecting the stupid look of a crafty schoolboy: “Are you the
trader now?”
“No,” said Jimmy, “Loseis is the mistress here.”
The ugly little men bared their blackened teeth; and a squall of
laughter rocked them on their heels. There was no true merriment in the
sound. It ended as suddenly as it began. It struck an icy fear into
Jimmy’s breast. He was all alone; all alone.
“Go back to your lodges!” he said, drawing himself up, and imitating the
voice of Blackburn.
They neither moved nor spoke; but squatted there staring at him.
He dared not repeat the order. Shouldering his poles, he started into
the store. Of one accord the Slavis rose, and came pushing through the
door after him. Flinging down his poles, Jimmy spread out his arms to
bar their way.
“Get out!” he cried. “There is no trading to-day.”
Keeping their eyes fixed on his, they continued to push in. They walked
right into Jimmy, forcing him back. What was he to do? His instinct told
him that the moment he showed fight it would be all up with him. He
picked up one of his poles and started to nail it into place, grumbling
to himself, and making believe to ignore them.
They stood about the store watching him with affected sleepiness through
half-closed eyes. One of them, keeping his eyes fixed on Jimmy, thrust a
hand into an opened box and pulled it out full of dried apricots. All
the instincts of thirty years of trading were outraged by this act, and
Jimmy forgot his fears.
“Put it back!” he cried, brandishing the hammer. “Get out, you thieves!
You half-men, you dirty slaves!”
None moved, nor changed a muscle of his face. The man with the apricots
held them in his hand, waiting to see what Jimmy would _do_. What he
said was nothing to them. He might as well have been storming at the
wind. Finally, half beside himself with rage, Jimmy ran to the back of
the store where the guns were kept.
Instantly the little men sprang into noiseless activity. One picked up a
short length of pole, and darting after Jimmy on soft pads like a lynx,
hit him over the head with it, before he could turn. In a flash they
were all about him, their dark faces fixed in hideous grins, each trying
to strike. They used tinned goods for weapons; one secured the hammer;
one snatched up a heavy steel trap which he held poised aloft waiting
for Jimmy’s head to appear. The whole mass swayed from this side to
that, toppling over the goods on either side. Jimmy went down, and they
had to bend over to hit him. They were as voiceless as squirming
insects. There was no sound but the sickening blows that fell.
When they finally drew back a shapeless huddle was revealed, lying in
blood. Panic overtook the feather-headed Slavis, and they ran out of the
store to look anxiously in the direction of the Women’s House. Nothing
stirred there. They returned inside the store. They did not consult
together, but appeared to act as instinctively as animals. There was a
window at the back of the store. They pried it out frame and all, and
hastily shoved the broken body through the hole, careless of where it
fell. The instant it was out of sight they forgot about it, nor did they
trouble to put the window back.
Alone in the store, the Slavis betrayed a curious timidity. It seemed as
if the ghost of Hector Blackburn restrained them still. They overran the
place like ants, peering into everything, stroking the objects that they
desired, but forbearing as yet to pick them up. At intervals panic
seized them, and they swept in a cloud to the door to look over towards
the Women’s House. Some of the Slavi women and children had been
attracted from the tepees. These never ventured through the doors, but
hung about outside, expressing no concern one way or the other; merely
waiting to see how it all turned out.
At length one man ventured to eat of the dried apricots; another split
the top of a can of peaches with a hatchet; and instantly looting became
general. Boxes were smashed, and bags ripped open, pouring their
precious contents on the floor. Food in the North is not to be lightly
wasted. Articles of clothing were the chief prizes; the only way to
secure them was to put them on, one on top of another. Sometimes two
pulled at the same garment, snarling at each other. But they never
fought singly. They were dangerous only in the mass.
In the middle of this scene suddenly appeared Loseis, her black eyes
blazing. A terrified Mary-Lou cringed at her heels. Every Indian in the
store, dropping what he was about, instantly became as immobile and
watchful as a surprised animal. Loseis glared about her speechless. She
was as much aghast as she was angry, for such a scene was beyond
anything she had ever conceived of. But she was not afraid. She turned
to the door.
“Jimmy! Jimmy!” she called peremptorily.
She waited in vain for an answer.
“Where is Jimmy?” she demanded haughtily.
None answered her.
She dispatched Mary-Lou in search of him.
The situation was beyond words. Loseis’ eyes darted silent lightnings at
one man after another. The scattered Slavis slyly edged together. No
single pair of eyes could meet hers, but she could not cow more than one
man at a time; and the bright, inhuman eyes of the others remained fixed
on her face.
Finally with a magnificent gesture Loseis pointed to the door. “Get
out!” she said.
No man moved.
That was a terrible moment for the high-spirited girl. A look of
astonishment appeared in her eyes. Suddenly her face crimsoned with
rage; she flew at the nearest man, and started pommeling him with her
little fists. The man ducked under her blows, and sought to evade her.
He pulled another man in front of him; whereupon Loseis transferred her
blows to this one. All the others looked on with faces like masks. And
so it went. The mysterious prestige of the white blood sanctified her,
and they dared not strike back; they resisted her with that senseless
animal obstinacy that drives masters mad with rage. They were satisfied
to let her pommel them, knowing that she must tire of it in the end. And
what then? It was like fighting a cloud of flies. They would not be
driven out of the store. When one was driven out, as soon as Loseis went
for another, he returned.
She drew off at last. In that moment she knew the unspeakable agony of
an imperious will that finds itself balked. She nearly died of her rage.
But she faced it out. She admitted to herself that she was balked. The
last two days had matured her. Fortunately for her, under all the
passion and wilfulness of her nature there was a solid substratum of
commonsense. Commonsense warned her that it would be fatal to make the
least move in the direction of the guns at the back of the store. She
could not force the senseless savages to obey her; well, commonsense
suggested that she use guile. Loseis had an inspiration.
Just inside the door of the store, behind a rough screen of wood,
Blackburn had a little desk with a cover that lifted up. Loseis went to
it, and took out a sizable book stoutly bound in gray linen and red
leather. Every Slavi knew that book. It was Blackburn’s ledger. Loseis
appeared around the screen carrying the ledger; and up-ending a box
beside the door, sat herself upon it with the book spread on her knees.
“You wish to trade?” she said to the men at large. “It is good. Take
what you want. I will put it down in the book.”
The eyes of the Slavis bolted; and they moved uneasily. The spell of
their strangeness was broken. To their simple minds there was magic in
those scratches by which white men’s thoughts might be conveyed to any
distance that they chose; or stored up in a book to be brought out years
afterwards unchanged. In particular, Blackburn’s ledger had always been
held in superstitious awe as the source of his “strong medicine.”
Loseis looked at the man nearest her, and thumbed the pages of the book.
“Mahtsonza,” she said; “a Stetson hat; two skins. A Mackinaw coat; five
skins. Wah! you have two coats? Ten skins!”
Mahtsonza began to slide out of his stolen clothing.
Loseis turned to the next. “Ahchoogah; a bag of rice; one skin. The bag
is spoiled, and you must pay for all. You can carry it away.”
There was a sudden rush for the door; but Loseis, springing up, barred
the way. “I have all your names,” she cried. “Whatever is taken or
spoiled will be written down, and all must pay a share!”
Then she stood aside and let them slink by, a ridiculously crestfallen
crowd of little bravoes.
For the moment Loseis had won—but at no small cost. The instant they
were out, the reaction set in. All the strength seemed to run out of her
limbs; she sank down on the box covering her face with her hands. The
fact of her appalling solitariness was made clear to her. She dared not
look into the future.
Presently Mary-Lou came back. “No can find Jimmy,” she said. “Nobody see
him.”
Proceeding to the rear of the store to survey the damage, the two girls
came upon the wet, dark stain spreading over the floor. The instant she
saw it, Loseis knew what had happened and went very still; but Mary-Lou
cried out: “Look, the window is out!” and must needs stick her head
through the hole to look.
A piercing shriek broke from the red girl; she fell back half witless
with terror into Loseis’s arms.
CHAPTER IV
AT FORT GOOD HOPE
At Fort Good Hope on the big river, the free trader Andrew Gault and his
financial backer David Ogilvie, stood by the flagpole concluding their
business, while the steam-launch _Courier_ waited in the stream below to
carry Ogilvie down river.
Outside of the towns, Fort Good Hope was the most enterprising and
progressive Post in that country. The original log buildings were now
used as bunk-houses for the half-breed employees; while on one side rose
the magnificent dwelling of the trader, built of clapboards in the
“outside” style and having fancy porches with turned pillars; and on the
other side the equally modern store with plate glass windows imported at
God knows what expense and trouble; and a huge sign. This sign was the
occasion of considerable humor throughout the country, since there was
nobody who required to be told whose store it was.
This was by no means all of the improvements at Fort Good Hope. Gault
had built and now operated a steamboat on the river, which connected
with a line of wagons across the ninety-mile portage to Caribou Lake,
and so kept him in touch with the world. By means of the steamboat he
had imported an electric light plant, a sawmill and a steam process mill
for grinding and bolting flour. The land along the river was rich, and
Gault had established farmers there. They were only frozen out about one
year in three; and that was their loss, not Gault’s. His flour, raised
and milled on the spot, he was able to sell to the Indians at an
enormous profit.
In spite of all this, when Gault made up his accounts with Ogilvie, the
financier pursed up his mouth in a grudging fashion, and Gault who was a
bitter, proud man, ground his teeth with rage.
“Your improvements are fine, fine,” said Ogilvie dryly; “the Post looks
almost like a village on the railway. But my dear man, all this only
returns a beggarly ten or fifteen per cent on the investment. I need not
point out to you that our company is accustomed to receive two profits
on every transaction. In other words we do not want the cash that you
remit to us; we want fur. And I’m sorry to see that your consignments of
fur have been growing less every year.”
The trader was silent out of anger; and Ogilvie went on: “The history of
all the old posts is the same. With the advance of civilization the fur
is always retreating. With your steamboats and your sawmills you are
hastening the process, my dear Gault. At the other old posts as the fur
recedes they reach after it with sub-posts and trading stations. Why
don’t you do something of the sort? You are in a better strategic
position than any of them, because off to the northwest here you have a
vast land that is still written down unexplored on the maps. Why don’t
you get that fur?”
“As you know,” muttered Gault, “on the northwest I am blanketed by
Hector Blackburn.”
Ogilvie shrugged. “Why remain blanketed?” he asked.
“What do you propose?” asked Gault bitterly.
“Oh, the specific measures must be left to you,” said Ogilvie hastily.
“You are the man on the ground. But of course our company will back you
up in anything you undertake. The old rough stuff has gone out of
fashion, but the principle is the same. To put it bluntly, Gault: buy
him out or drive him out.”
“The entire resources of our company would not buy him out,” said Gault.
“The man is drunk with pride at having the name of the last free
trader.”
“Well then?” said Ogilvie meaningly.
“As to driving him out, I mean to do that; but I must await my
opportunity. He’s in an almost impregnable position.”
“Why did you let him get in such a position?” murmured Ogilvie. “You
were on the ground first.”
“He had all the luck,” said Gault bitterly.
“Why is his position so impregnable?”
“Well, for one thing he has a tribe of Indians completely under his
thumb. Those are the Slavis, the most ignorant and primitive race of
them all. Once they covered this whole country, but have gradually been
pushed back by the Crees and other tribes. They have some other name,
but I don’t know what it is. All the other Indians call them Slavis.
Well, Blackburn has got this people penned up in his own country, where
no whites can communicate with them. He deliberately trades on their
ignorance and superstition. He has persuaded them that I am a devil and
that black magic is worked at this Post, and no power under Heaven can
persuade them to come within fifty miles of me.”
Ogilvie laughed. “Not bad,” he said. “Why don’t you outbid him for fur?
That might work a miracle.”
“I have tried it,” said Gault grimly. “He is willing to go higher than
the company is willing to let me go.”
“But surely a year or two of that, with his ruinously expensive
transport would break him,” said Ogilvie.
“Blackburn is as rich as Crœsus,” said Gault bitterly; “and he’d risk
every cent of it to beat me. What is more, he is entirely independent of
transport. When they run out of food over there, he sends his cheaper
furs to me for flour, and I have to take them, because I need the fur.
Blackburn trades horses for fur. He has in the triangle between his
river, the foothills and the Mud River, a vast natural range for horses.
God knows how many thousands of head he has. The fame of them has spread
all over the country. He can afford to sell them cheap since they cost
him nothing. The Sikannis Indians bring their fur all the way from
British Columbia to trade for horses. The Indians from Wabiscaw and
eastward cross the river here right under my nose, carrying their fur to
Blackburn for horses.”
“You say you are awaiting your opportunity,” said Ogilvie; “how will you
know when that comes?”
“I have a spy at Blackburn’s Post,” said Gault. “It wasn’t easy to find
him, because nobody can speak their damned language but Blackburn. This
man, Etzooah, is the son of a Cree father and a Slavi mother, and is
able to mix with the Slavis as one of themselves.”
“What good do you expect that to do you?”
“Etzooah talks to the Slavis in my interest. However, that is not what I
am counting on.” Gault smiled disagreeably. “Blackburn is a headstrong,
passionate man, and a hard drinker. He treats the Slavis like dogs. He
believes there is nobody to call him to account. Some day he will go too
far. Then I’ll have the law on him. He runs his whole show
single-handed. Won’t tolerate a white man near him. Consequently if he
were removed, even for a while, the whole thing would fall into
confusion. That will be my chance.”
“I have heard there was a daughter,” said Ogilvie idly.
“Yes, a black-haired she-devil in her father’s own image!” said Gault.
“Well, good-by until next Spring,” said Ogilvie. “I wish you every
success. If Blackburn were out of the way this would be the greatest
Post in the country.” He looked around him with assumed regret. “You
have made so many improvements it would be a pity if we had to close you
out. But of course we must have the fur. . . . Good-by. . . . Good-by.
. . .”
Gault watched him go with rage and bitterness making his heart black.
Damn all financiers and officials who fattened on the labors of better
men than themselves! Gault had not told him the full history of his
relations with Hector Blackburn; but no doubt Ogilvie knew anyhow, for
it was common gossip throughout the fur country; how Gault and Blackburn
had come to grips a dozen times during the past twenty years, and Gault
had been invariably and humiliatingly worsted. He too, was a ruthless
and determined man, and when he thought over these things it was almost
more than he could bear.
* * * * *
Andrew Gault was a bachelor, living alone in his monstrosity of a yellow
clapboarded house. A handsome, lean, grizzled man in his early fifties,
with a cold and polished manner that one would hardly expect to find in
a fur-trader. It was a point of pride with Gault never to allow himself
to go slack. For all he was seven hundred miles from town, his house was
well-furnished, his servants well-trained. These last were of the Cree
tribe, a handsomer and more intelligent race than the miserable Slavis,
but not so manageable.
Some days after the visit of Ogilvie, Gault, having finished his
breakfast, remained sitting at the table, gloomily staring at the cloth,
and abstractedly crumbling pellets of bread. His mind was forever
traveling the same weary round without finding a way out. Thoughts of
Hector Blackburn poisoned his very being. How to get back at him; how to
ruin him. Ah! his enemy seemed to be intrenched at every point!
Blackburn could laugh at him. Stronger measures must be taken now, for
certain ruin stared Gault in the face. Somehow, Blackburn’s own weapons
must be turned against him. Could not the ignorant Slavis be incited to
rebellion? They must have their own medicine men or conjurers, and these
fellows could generally be bought. He, Gault, must get hold of Etzooah
before the next fur season set in.
Toma, Gault’s old house-servant entered the room. He was excited. “Wah!
Man come from Blackburn’s Post,” he announced.
To Gault this had the effect of a miracle. He sprang to his feet. “What
man?” he cried.
“Name Etzooah,” said Toma.
“Bring him to me! Bring him to me!” shouted Gault. “Let none else come
in until I call.”
Toma shuffled out of the room, and Gault had time to compose himself. It
was very bad policy of course, for a white man to betray his emotion
before a native. The trader reseated himself.
Etzooah came sidling around the door, awe-struck at finding himself
admitted to the great house, and exhibiting a witless grin. He was a
small man with a bullet head set between muscular shoulders. His thick
coarse hair was cut straight across his forehead in the Slavi style, and
straight around at his neck behind. He wore good store clothes with a
gay worsted sash about his middle. For business reasons the spy affected
an air of good-natured, giggling imbecility, which would deceive nobody
who knew the Indians. His little eyes were as quick and sharp as a
weasel’s.
“What news?” asked Gault curtly.
“Blackburn is dead,” said Etzooah, laughing heartily and silently.
Gault caught his breath. For an instant he lost all self-control. The
upper part of his body sprawled across the table; his eyes seemed to
start from his head. “Dead?” he gasped; “dead? . . . You are sure?”
“I see him die,” said Etzooah, with silent pantomime of delight. “Him
black horse jomp over high cut-bank. Him neck broke. Him drown
afterwards. When him pull out of river him head loose lak a berry on the
bush.” Etzooah illustrated.
A shock of joy does not kill. Gault stood up straight and arrogant; a
warm color came into his pale cheeks, and his eyes shone like a boy’s
again. “By God! this news is good to my ears!” he cried. “You shall
never go hungry, Etzooah. . . . When did it happen?”
“Two days,” said Etzooah. “At noon spell. Right away I tak’ two horses;
ride all night. Only stop for one little sleep yesterday.”
“Did anybody know you came?”
“No. I sneak away.”
“Hm!” said Gault stroking his chin. “Then they’ll know that you were my
man all the time. . . . Oh, what does it matter now! Everything is in my
hands. . . . Had Blackburn sent his fur out yet?”
“No. Roundin’ up pack horses when him kill.”
“Then that is _my_ fur now! . . . What will the Slavis do without their
master?”
Etzooah shrugged expressively. “No can tell. Slavis lak crazy children.
Not know what they do. Maybe they run wild now; kill the girl and steal
the store goods. No can tell.”
Gault’s face darkened. “By God!” he cried. “If the Slavis get out of
hand, it would bring in the police. I don’t want the police nosing into
this. I will ride back to-day. Toma! Toma! . . . You, Etzooah, eat in my
kitchen, and take a sleep. . . . Toma, you——————!”
The old man came shuffling in.
“Fetch Moale from the store. Bestir yourself! Afterwards get out my
riding-suit, my saddlebags, my traveling blankets, and all things
necessary for a journey!”
Joe Moale was the “bookkeeper” at Fort Good Hope, otherwise Gault’s
second in command. Technically a white man, a flavor of the red race
clung about him; he was probably a quarter breed. He was reputed to be a
relative of Gault’s. An educated man, as able and intelligent as any
white man in the company’s employ, he was as inscrutable as an Indian.
He was a well-built man of middle height, not uncomely in his wooden
fashion. It was impossible to guess his exact age, but he was much
younger than the trader. He served Gault with absolute and unquestioning
faithfulness, but there was no affection in the glance that he bent on
his master. With true redskin patience he was waiting for Gault to die.
“Blackburn is dead!” cried Gault, striding up and down in his dark
exultation.
“The news has already spread about the Post,” said Moale, unmoved.
“Can we both get away together?” asked Gault.
“Why not? The fur is all in. At this season Claggett can keep the
store.”
“Then I want you to come with me. We must start within an hour. Round up
the four smartest lads you can put your hands on, and a dozen of our
best horses. We must make a good appearance, you understand. Six of us
will be more than enough to handle the beggarly Slavis. . . . Blackburn
is dead!” he cried for the mere pleasure of repeating the words. “And
his business is ours!”
“What will you do about the girl?” asked Moale stolidly.
“Oh, a miss of eighteen,” said Gault contemptuously. “She will give me
no trouble . . . I’ll be her guardian, her trustee,” he added with a
satanic smile.
“She’ll be rich,” said Moale.
“Not when I’m through with her.”
“I’m not referring to the Post, nor the horses,” said Moale. “Blackburn
sends out near a hundred thousand dollars worth of fur per annum. He
don’t import but a fraction of that in goods. The balance must be salted
down somewhere.”
Gault stopped and stared. A new light of cupidity broke in his face.
“Why, sure!” he said, a little bemused with the glittering picture that
rose before his mind’s eye. “My mind must be wandering! Shouldn’t wonder
if it amounted to a million! . . .” He went on muttering to himself: “It
would be the best way anyhow. Nobody could question what I did then. And
I shouldn’t be doing it for the company neither but for myself!” His
voice suddenly rang out. “By God! I’ll marry the girl!”
Going to the sideboard, he examined his face anxiously in the mirror.
“Joe,” he said, “if you didn’t know my age, how old would you call me?”
Whatever Moale’s thoughts might have been, he concealed them. “About
thirty-eight,” he said.
“Hardly that,” said Gault confidently. “If it wasn’t for the gray in my
hair I could pass for thirty-five easy. I wish to God I could lay my
hands on some hair dye.”
“I can make a good black dye out of nutgalls,” said Moale.
“Well, go to it!” cried Gault. “Get a move on you now. We must sleep at
Blackburn’s Post to-morrow night . . . Oh, my God! suppose we were to
find that the Slavis had got out of hand and murdered the girl!”
CHAPTER V
YELLOW-HEAD
Loseis sat on a bench at the door of the store. The Princess was very
pale, and her lips were pressed tight together. In her brave, proud eyes
was to be seen the piteous, questioning look of a child: Why must I
suffer so much? Just inside the door of the store Mary-Lou was squatting
on the floor with her head buried in her arms. Loseis had to be brave
for both.
The buildings at Blackburn’s Post formed three sides of a grassy square,
the fourth side being open to the river. The store faced the river,
flanked by a warehouse on each side. On Loseis’ right was the Women’s
House, and opposite it Blackburn’s House and his stable. All the
buildings were constructed of logs, and roofed with sods, now sprouting
greenly. Nothing could have been rougher, nevertheless the buildings
seemed to belong in that place; and there was a pleasing harmony in
their arrangement. Out in the middle of the grassy square rose a tall
flagpole.
Loseis and Mary-Lou had taken up their abode in the store. At this
season of the year the stock of goods was much depleted, and Loseis was
in no great concern about losing what was left; but knowing the Indian
nature, she was well aware that if the Slavis were not prevented from
helping themselves, they would soon get out of hand altogether.
In the store there was plenty of food to their hand; as for water,
Loseis obtained it after dark by creeping down to the small stream where
it wound around the flank of the little plateau. All night a little lamp
burned in the window of the store. Night-attacks were not at all in the
Slavis’ line; but Loseis wished them to be reminded whenever they looked
that way, that somebody was on guard. All day the door of the store was
allowed to stand open; while the two girls permitted themselves to be
seen passing unconcernedly in and out, and performing their household
tasks out in front. Their only defense lay in this appearance of
unconcern.
Three days and three nights of cruel anxiety had passed, and the fourth
night was approaching. Loseis had not reflected much on her situation;
it simply wouldn’t bear thinking about. She had just gone ahead and done
what came to her hand at the moment. During the first night the body of
Jimmy Moosenose had disappeared. The Slavis either buried it hastily in
some out of the way spot, or threw it in the river. Like the children
they were, they believed that if only the body were hidden the crime
could never be brought home to them.
None of the Slavis had ever approached the store. Apparently they were
pursuing their ordinary avocations as if nothing had happened; the dogs
and the children fought; the women fished, cooked the meals, and made
moccasins; the men loafed and smoked. As she looked down at them the
sight of their inhuman indifference caused Loseis’ heart to burn.
Senseless animals! she ejaculated to herself a dozen times a day.
Mary-Lou came out of the store. The Indian girl was unable either to
apply her hands to any work or to sit still. Her copper face had become
grayish, and her eyes were distracted with terror. She looked down over
the tepees, biting her lip.
“More have come,” she said hoarsely.
“You imagine that,” said Loseis. “I have seen nobody come.”
“They not let you see them come,” said Mary-Lou. “Sleep in their
friends’ tepees. But I see more canoes in the creek.”
“Well, what of it?” said Loseis with a grand parade of indifference.
“They’re harmless.”
“Like coyotes,” said Mary-Lou. “They are sitting down to wait for us to
die!”
Loseis sprang up nervously. Her face was working. “You are like a raven
croaking all day!” she cried. “That does no good!”
Mary-Lou caught hold of Loseis imploringly. “Let us go from here!” she
begged. “All night I listen! . . . My brain is turned to ice. I don’t
know what I am doing! . . . As soon as it is dark let us take horses and
go. They not know until to-morrow that we are gone. Never catch us then.
It is only ondred-feefty mile to Fort Good Hope. . . .”
Loseis detached the clinging hands. “It’s no good going on this way,”
she said harshly. “I will not run from Slavis.”
Mary-Lou fell on her knees, clutching Loseis’ skirt, babbling
incoherently in her terror. Loseis raised her face to the sky, clenching
her teeth in despair. How much of this have I got to stand? she was
thinking.
Then she saw the Slavis begin to run to the river bank. “Look! Look!”
she cried. “Something is coming up the river!”
Mary-Lou scrambled to her feet. Whatever it was in the river, it was
approaching close under the bank. They could see nothing. The Slavis
were yelling and pointing.
“It is Conacher!” screamed Mary-Lou.
“NO! No! No!” cried Loseis in a voice as taut as an over-stretched
violin string. “It is just a Slavi coming up river. Anything is enough
to get them going.”
“It is Conacher!” screamed Mary-Lou. “If it was a Slavi they would run
down to the water. They stop on the bank. They are a little afraid. See!
they look at us. It is somebody for us. It is Conacher!”
Loseis felt that if she allowed herself to believe it and was then
disappointed, it would kill her. “No! No!” she said faintly. “It is too
soon!”
And then the yellow head rose above the bank.
Loseis collapsed suddenly on the bench and burst into tears. Her whole
body was shaken. Mary-Lou fell on her knees with a scream of joy.
“Conacher! . . . Conacher!”
Loseis struggled hard to regain her self-control. “Stop that noise!” she
said angrily. “Go into the store. He mustn’t think that we want him so
badly!”
Laughing and crying simultaneously, Mary-Lou went staggering into the
store.
Loseis remained on the bench watching, with her hands in her lap. The
tears were called in; and she furtively wiped away their traces.
Conacher had his two Beaver Indians with him. These lingered to
fraternize with the Slavis, while the white man came striding across the
natural meadow to the foot of the rise. He was bare-headed as usual. A
newcomer in the country, the fame of his curly, yellow pate had already
spread far and wide. Alongside the Slavis he loomed like a young giant.
Loseis had seen him take a Slavi man by the collar in each hand, and
lift them clear of the ground. To the waiting girl he was like a god
come in answer to her prayer.
She was very quiet when he reached her, her smile tremulous. The change
in her from the arrogant little Princess who had used him so
despitefully on his first visit was so striking, that at first Conacher
could only stand and stare. They never thought to greet each other.
Finally Conacher exhibited the little black streamer, limp from being
clutched in his warm hand.
“What does this mean?” he asked simply.
“My father is dead,” said Loseis. “Four days ago.”
“Oh, Heaven!” cried Conacher. “And you all alone here! What did you do?”
“I buried him,” said Loseis, spreading out her hands.
“_Yourself!_”
“There was no other to do it.”
“Oh, my God!”
Mary-Lou had crept out of the store again. “They kill Jimmy Moosenose,”
she said, nodding in the direction of the Slavis. “And break into the
store.”
“I put them out again,” said Loseis, quickly and proudly.
“Oh, God! what awful things have been happening here!” cried Conacher
aghast.
His sympathy caused Loseis to tremble dangerously again. “Oh, it will be
all right now,” she said swiftly. “One white man is enough to put fear
into the heart of these dogs.”
Conacher looked at that brave and piteous figure, and was caught up in a
very hurricane of the emotions. He was mad to enfold her in his arms; to
comfort the child, to love the woman, but a feeling of chivalry
restrained him. It appeared unseemly to intrude his love in the moment
of her grief; he turned away abruptly, searching distractedly in his
mind for some expedient to tide him over the dangerous moment.
“I must go fetch my fellows before they are contaminated by the Slavis,”
he said in a strangled voice, and strode away down the slope again.
“Ah, he does not love me,” murmured Loseis with extreme sadness.
“You are wrong,” said Mary-Lou. “It was speaking in his eyes.”
“No! No! No!” said Loseis violently. Nevertheless she was secretly
comforted.
She went bustling into the store. “Come! we will close up the store now,
and go to our own house. Conacher will be hungry. We must cook a big
meal. There is still some canned apples and canned butter in the store.
Ahchoogah brought in a moose to-day. I will take a haunch of it for
Conacher. I will take the biggest fish for Conacher, too. Be quick! Be
quick! I will go down and get the other Marys to help you. . . .”
Later, Loseis and Conacher were sitting at the door of the Women’s
House, while the appetizing odors came stealing out. A heavy constraint
was upon them; they could not meet each other’s eyes. The man, looking
down, marveled at the delicacy of Loseis’ shapely hands, lying loosely
in her lap. What a rare, fine creature to find in these rude
surroundings! Her beauty and her proud manner intimidated him. Who was
he to aspire so high? The girl wondered sadly why the man did not speak.
He had only to speak!
When he did speak it was not in the tone that she longed to hear. “What
are you going to do?” he asked, matter-of-fact.
To Loseis the solution was simplicity itself. Conacher was to stay
there, and everything go on as before. But it was not seemly for her to
propose this. She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said.
“But you must have thought something about what you would do,” he said
surprised. “You can’t stay here.”
Loseis’ heart sunk. She said nothing.
“Fort Good Hope cannot be but a hundred miles or so across the height of
land,” he went on.
“A hundred and fifty,” said Loseis.
“I have heard there’s a white woman at Fort Good Hope,” said Conacher.
“She’s the parson’s sister.”
“What do I want with the parson’s sister?” demanded Loseis with a spice
of resentment.
Conacher looked at her helplessly.
I would go to Fort Good Hope to the parson with Conacher if he asked me,
thought Loseis, and a deep blush overspread her neck and face. She
turned away her head to hide it.
“You can’t stay here,” he said.
“I am not going to give up my father’s Post, and allow the Slavis to
strip the store,” said Loseis with spirit. “Besides, the whole season’s
catch of fur is stored in the warehouse, waiting to be shipped outside.
It is worth many thousands of dollars.”
“How is it sent out?” asked Conacher.
“Every Spring when the grass is grown sufficiently to graze the horses,
it is sent overland by pack-horse to a warehouse that my father has on
the prairie near the crossing of the big river. That is three hundred
miles. Jimmy Moosenose was always sent with the horses and men. Seventy
horses and fifteen men beside the cook. In that warehouse they find the
grub for next year and the store goods which are put there by John
Gruber, my father’s outside man. They bring the grub back, and leave the
fur in the warehouse, and John Gruber gets it afterwards. My father
never allowed the Slavis to meet the Crees in John Gruber’s outfit. It
is time for them to start now. John Gruber will be waiting many days at
the Crossing.”
“But you’ve no one to send now,” said Conacher.
“Then I must go myself,” said Loseis.
“My God! not alone with a gang of redskins!” cried Conacher.
“They would not dare harm me,” said Loseis proudly.
“Maybe not,” cried Conacher violently. “But just the same I couldn’t
stand for that!”
Loseis’ sad heart looked up a little. He did care a little what became
of her.
And then he spoiled it by adding: “No white man could!”
“We must find somebody to go with you,” he presently went on; “and then
you can continue on outside with your father’s agent.”
“There is all the grub and store goods waiting to come in,” objected
Loseis.
“That will have to be sold,” said Conacher. “The Company will buy it.”
“There are all my father’s horses across the river,” said Loseis; “many
thousands of head. During the summer hay must be cut for them around the
shores of our lake; or next winter they will starve.”
“But my dear girl,” said Conacher, “you cannot go on doing business here
now that he is gone!”
“Why not?” demanded Loseis.
“Why . . . why . . .” stammered Conacher. “A woman trader! Why such a
thing was never heard of!”
“Well, it will be heard of now,” said Loseis.
Conacher ascribed this to mere bravado. What a spirited little thing she
was! Like a plucky boy; but with all the sweetness of a woman. “We must
send to Fort Good Hope for help,” he said.
“Do not speak to me again of Fort Good Hope!” said Loseis. “Gault, the
trader there, was my father’s enemy.”
Conacher knew nothing of the feuds of the country. “Yes, yes,” he said
soothingly; “but a tragedy like this wipes out old scores. Gault would
not take advantage of your situation.”
“You are an outsider,” she said. “You do not know Gault.”
“No man would!” insisted Conacher.
“I will not hand over my father’s Post to Gault!” cried Loseis. “That
would bring my father out of his grave!”
“Not hand it over to him,” protested Conacher. “But just let him advise
you. He is the only one that can tell you what is best to do; who can
arrange things. There is no other white man within hundreds of miles.”
Then it had to come out. “I already know what to do,” said Loseis, very
low. “If you would help me, we could do it all together.”
Conacher groaned, and clutched his head. “Oh, God! you don’t
understand!” he cried. “And what must you be thinking of me! What a
chance to be offered to a man, and I can’t take it!” He tried
desperately to explain to her. “You see, I am not free like the men of
this country. I am a government employee, tied hand and foot to my work.
My whole Summer’s work has been laid out for me. And my little piece is
only a part of a great survey of this whole country. I am appointed to
join with another party at Great Slave Lake on a certain date, and we in
turn must proceed up the Liard River to another rendezvous on the Yukon.
If I fail, the whole fails. Don’t you understand?”
She did not wholly understand. “I heard you tell it,” she said a little
sullenly.
Conacher jumped up, and paced the grass in an agony of indecision. He
was teetering on the brink. If Loseis had raised her eyes to his face,
he would have fallen at her feet, and allowed the government to go to
the devil. But she kept her eyes sullenly down. And then before either
spoke again, with a smart thudding of hoofs and creaking of saddle
leathers, a well-turned out company of six men and several spare horses
came down the trail behind the Post, and trotted out into the little
plaza.
* * * * *
Gault had caught sight of Conacher’s yellow head as soon as he came over
the brow of the hill. He reined up sharply, his face going pinched and
ugly. “A white man here!” he said furiously to Moale. “Who the devil can
he be?”
Moale drew up at his side. “That will be Conacher,” he said in his
unconcerned way. “I have heard talk of his yellow head.”
“A _young_ man!” said Gault; and cursed him thickly and fervently.
“He’s on a government survey down to Great Slave Lake and beyond,” said
Moale indifferently. “He won’t be able to interfere with us.”
But Gault rode down the hill with a black heart. The young man had got
in his innings first; and now fifty-three must stand comparison with
twenty-three, and the dyed black head be measured against the famous
golden one.
By the time he rode around the buildings of the Post his face was
perfectly composed and solicitous, of course. He sat his horse with
conscious grace. Flinging himself off, he tossed the reins to one of the
Crees, and came quickly to Loseis.
“Miss Blackburn,” he said, “the moment I heard of your terrible loss I
jumped on my horse to come to you. I cannot express to you how shocked
and grieved I am. Your father and I were not good friends, but that is
all past now. Believe me, I am most completely at your service.”
The watching Conacher considered that this was very handsomely said. How
much better than he could do it! he thought with a sigh. He had no
reason to share in Loseis’ suspicions of Gault. A load was lifted from
the young man’s heart. Gault’s fine outfit inspired confidence. Loseis
would be all right now, and he could go on about his work. But before he
left he would ask her to wait for him. The idea that this old man might
prove to be a rival, never entered Conacher’s honest heart.
Loseis received Gault with a manner no less finished and proud than his
own. “You are welcome,” she said gravely. “My father’s house”—she
indicated the building opposite—“is at your disposal. If you wish to
put up your horses the stable is behind it. Or you can turn them out
anywhere. Dinner here in half an hour.”
Gault bowing, expressed his thanks. He then turned inquiringly towards
Conacher.
That young man said: “I am Paul Conacher of the geological survey.”
Gault thrust out his hand with the appearance of the greatest
cordiality. “I am delighted to meet you,” he said. “It is a great
satisfaction to find that Miss Blackburn is not alone here.” He gave
Conacher a meaning glance that suggested as between man and man it would
be well for them to discuss the situation together.
This was quite in line with Conacher’s ideas, and the two walked off
together towards the house opposite. Loseis watched them go under stormy
brows. She saw Gault place his hand affectionately on the young man’s
shoulder, and her lip curled.
CHAPTER VI
THE DINNER PARTY
Gault and Conacher returned to the Women’s House for dinner. Gault had
changed to a well-cut black suit with linen of the finest quality, and a
little discreet but handsome jewelry. Poor Conacher, having no change,
showed up at a disadvantage beside him. When they beheld Loseis both men
caught their breath in astonishment. She was wearing one of the
“outside” dresses which her father had been accustomed to import that he
might have the pleasure of seeing her in them. This one was of black
velvet cunningly and simply draped, and showing no touch of color.
Around her neck hung a string of pearls that made Gault open his eyes;
not the one with the gold nuggets; but a long plain string of
beautifully matched stones. The innocent Conacher had no notion but that
it was a string of pearl beads such as his sisters wore.
The table was laid for four in Loseis’ own room. She seated Moale facing
her; Conacher at her right; Gault at her left. The trader who was
sensitive to these little things, bit his lip at this arrangement, but
was obliged to put up with it. Conacher never noticed that he had been
given the seat of honor. There was fine china and silver on the table;
and the food was wonderful, including delicacies which Gault himself
could not command at Fort Good Hope, such as currant jelly; the joint of
moose meat cunningly larded with bacon, and served with cranberry sauce;
an apple pie. The three comely Marys in black dresses and snowy aprons
moved noiselessly about the table, while Mary-Lou oversaw all in the
kitchen.
To Conacher, after weeks on the trail, it was like a taste of Heaven;
and Gault was obliged to confess to himself that the establishment while
rude, nevertheless had a better style than his own. Loseis with her hair
done up on top of her head looked like a Princess indeed, and the trader
gloated at the thought of seeing her enthroned at _his_ table. He
pictured a glorious future for Fort Good Hope. The thought of Conacher
gave him little concern now. He had put down the young man to his own
satisfaction as a fool.
The trader dominated the table. The lamplight was favorable to him, and
he knew it. None would have thought of terming him an old man. His
manner was perfection. Open-browed, courteous, half-apologetic, he kept
them entertained with stories of the country; and both of the young
people were to a certain extent fascinated by his charm. During the meal
business was not to be touched upon.
“Ah! what a privilege it is to have a lady at the table!” said Gault
wrinkling up his eyes, and showing his big white teeth.
(Rather like the wolf in the fairy-tale; thought Loseis; but I suppose
some would call him a fine-looking man.)
“Hear! Hear!” said Conacher. The young man felt like a hobbledehoy
alongside the elegant Gault; but he harbored no malice. Poor Conacher’s
heart was oppressed by the sight of Loseis in her bravery. Could this be
the rude little spitfire that he had dared to laugh at upon their first
meeting?
“That is what we miss in the North,” Gault went on; “the civilizing
touch of lovely woman! It is terrible the way men go to seed in this
country. It is a fact that when a man’s manners go, his morals are bound
to go too. Ah! my dear Miss Blackburn, if we had more like you to grace
our lonely posts we’d all be better men!”
(Why haven’t I the face to say such things? thought Conacher.)
Loseis smiled a little wanly. She was secretly confused by the trader’s
glibness. She had never known a man like this.
Later they sat down in front of the small fire that had been lighted to
drive away the evening chill; Loseis in her hammock-chair, the men on
either hand sitting stiffly in the straight-up-and-down chairs that
Blackburn had carved. What remained on the table was silently whisked
into the kitchen.
“You may smoke if you wish,” said Loseis.
Gault produced, wonder of wonders! a full cigar case, and offered it to
the younger man. The fragrance of the genuine Havana spread around.
“Well!” said Conacher; “I never expected to get anything like this north
of Fifty-eight.”
“Oh, with my improved transport,” said Gault carelessly, “I can have in
pretty much anything I want.”
It now became necessary to speak of business. Gault inquired if the
season’s fur had been sent out.
“No,” said Loseis.
The trader might almost be said to have purred upon hearing that.
Indeed, fearing himself that he might be betraying too much complacency
about the mouth, he rubbed his upper lip, and gave a little cough. “I
will charge myself with that,” he said comfortably. “Make your mind
quite easy.”
Loseis looked unhappy, but said nothing.
“Of course,” Gault went on with the air of one who must be fair at
whatever cost to himself, “being your father’s competitor, his rival as
you might say, it is not proper that I should be your sole advisor.”
Loseis looked at him in surprise. Dared he to speak of that? Her
confusion increased. This man was too much for her.
“I am mighty glad that Conacher is here,” said Gault.
“But I must return down the river to-night,” said Conacher. “I am
already many days behind my schedule.”
Loseis’ eyes were close-hid now. “To-night?” she echoed softly. “But you
paddled all last night to get here.”
Conacher affected to laugh, while his hungry eyes sought her averted
face. Loseis could have read there that he didn’t want to go; but she
wouldn’t look. “Oh, going downstream’s a cinch,” said Conacher. “Two of
us can sleep at a time in the dug-out, while the third man keeps her in
the middle of the current.”
Loseis was silent.
“To-night!” said Gault. “Ah, that’s too bad! . . . However, I can take
my measures before you go . . . Does your father employ a man of
business, a lawyer, outside?” he asked Loseis.
“None that I know of,” she said, “except John Gruber.”
“Ah, Gruber,” said Gault in his purring voice (Moale at the other end of
the row, listened to all this with a face like a sardonic mask), “an
excellent fellow, too. But too ignorant a man to serve you in this
crisis. . . . I am sure your father must have had wide interests outside
of the fur business,” he said insinuatingly.
“If he had, I know nothing about it,” said Loseis. “He got business
letters every year when the outfit came in, but he did not show them to
me. I know nothing of business.”
“Of course not,” said Gault soothingly. “Have you looked for those
letters since his death?” he asked, betraying more eagerness than was
perhaps in the best of taste.
“No,” said Loseis, shortly.
Gault was pulled up short. “Hm!” he said, stroking his chin. “Hm! . . .”
Finally he got a fresh start. “Well, if Blackburn employed an attorney
outside, Gruber will know his name. Gruber carried all his letters out,
and brought the answers back. I will write to Gruber. And if Blackburn
has no lawyer already, I will send for the best one obtainable, and will
arrange special means of transport for him. We’ll have him here in five
or six weeks at the outside. Lastly I will send for a sergeant and
detail of the police, so that the murder of Jimmy Moosenose can be
investigated. Until they come, in order that the Slavis may not take
fright, we will allow them to suppose that the murder has been
forgotten.”
Conacher nodded in agreement with this; Loseis felt that she was being
crowded to one side.
“I’ll start my letters off to Fort Good Hope at sun-up,” Gault went on.
“Unfortunately my steamboat has gone up to the head of navigation, and
won’t be back for a month; but by the time the messenger reaches the
post, my launch will have returned from carrying Mr. Ogilvie down to the
Chutes. The launch can make the Crossing in a week. Gruber will be
waiting there.”
It all sounded so businesslike and proper, Loseis could take no
exception to it. The smooth voice, arranging everything, afflicted her
with a sort of despair.
After some desultory talk, Gault arose, saying: “With your permission I
will go and write my letters now, so that Conacher may see them before
he goes.”
Loseis bowed in acquiescence. She thought: I can talk to Conacher while
he is away. But Gault looked sharply from one to another, and added in
his polite way: “I’d be glad of your help in composing them, Conacher.”
Loseis’ heart sunk. The two went out together arm in arm. Moale followed
his master as a matter of course.
Loseis was left staring into the fire. Mary-Lou came to the door and
looked at her full of loving solicitude; but Loseis made believe not to
know that she was there. The simple Mary-Lou could be of no help to her
in this situation. Loseis, whose nature it was to act instantaneously
without thinking, was all at sea on this flood of words. Everything was
mixed up in her mind. Maybe Gault is a true man, she thought; maybe he
means what he says. Conacher is satisfied. And if he is lying what can I
do anyhow? I know nothing.
In due course they returned (without Moale) and the letters were laid
before Loseis. It appeared that Gault packed a little typewriter in his
outfit, and Loseis, though she looked at the letters indifferently,
secretly marveled at the neat clear printing. How could one contend
against a man like this! She scarcely read the letters. The lengthy
sentences merely dizzied her.
It goes without saying that they were admirably expressed letters. There
is no need of reproducing them here, since Gault had not the slightest
intention of letting them reach their destinations. They were to be
conveniently lost en route.
“I am satisfied if Conacher is,” said Loseis.
“Mr. Gault has thought of everything,” said Conacher.
Soon Conacher said, affecting to make light of his heavy heart: “Well,
I’ve sent my men down to launch the dug-out. I must be getting aboard.”
Gault said quickly in his hearty way: “I’ll go down and see you off.”
Conacher looked wistfully at Loseis, and hesitated.
Loseis rebelled at last. She did not feel able to dispute Gault in
matters of business, but if he dared to interfere with her own private
concerns, let him look out! She stood up very quickly, and her chin went
up. “First I want to take Conacher to the store, and give him some grub
to take,” she said coolly. “You wait here, Mr. Gault.” Her eyes sought
his unafraid, and the trader’s eyes trailed away.
“Why of course!” he said in his hearty way. But his affable smile had a
sickly look now. As they went through the door he shot a baleful glance
after them. That was a black half hour for him, obliged to sit there,
grinding his big teeth and picturing the two young creatures together in
the dark. Just when everything had seemed to be going his way, too!
Outside, the black sky was crowded with stars big and little, all
focused on that pair of mortal lovers. The earth was so still one seemed
to hear the whisper of starlight. Loseis drew a great breath of relief.
Why that load was suddenly lifted from her breast she could not have
told. She involuntarily slipped her hand under Conacher’s arm, and he
pressed it hard against his ribs. They walked, pressing close together,
the blond head brooding low over the black one. There was no confession
of love. They were still afraid of that word. And anyhow this was
confession enough. With happiness their hearts became as breathlessly
still as the night.
“Let’s not go to the store,” whispered Conacher. “I don’t need any
grub.”
“I just said that,” whispered Loseis. “I wanted to be with you.”
“Oh, you dear! . . . you dear! . . . you dear!” he murmured tremulously.
Loseis pressed his arm. “Let’s go down on the flat,” she whispered. “He
might come to the door to watch us.”
They went down the grassy slope. For a long time they did not speak.
They walked at a snail’s pace, arms linked, hands clasped, and heads
leaning together. At last a little whimpering sound was heard from
Loseis. That brave heart owned its weakness at last.
“Oh, Paul!” she faltered. “Oh Paul, _must_ you go?”
“I must! I must!” he cried in pain. “But I will arrange things just as
quick as I can, and come back.”
“It will be so long!” she said sadly.
“But at least you are safe now.”
“Oh, safe . . . maybe!”
“If you are afraid, come with me. I will take care of you.”
“No,” she said quickly. “That would not be acting right towards my
father. . . . I am not afraid of any danger. But . . . but I cannot see
what is before me! I do not like that man!”
“He seems to be on the square,” said Conacher anxiously. “He has
provided for everything better than I could.”
“It is so terrible for me to have to be with somebody I do not like,”
said Loseis.
“You have your own house,” said Conacher. “And your girls. You need only
talk to him about business matters.”
“He is so ugly!” said Loseis.
“You silly girl!” said Conacher fondly. “Gault’s considered a very
fine-looking man!”
“Not to me! . . . You are beautiful, my Paul. In the dark I can see your
beauty!”
“Oh, Loseis! you must not say such things!” he said, genuinely
distressed. “It is not fitting from you to me!”
“Why?” she asked wilfully.
“Because . . . because . . . by comparison with you I . . . Oh, Loseis,
I ought to be kneeling at your feet!”
“What good would you be to my feet?” she asked, nestling against him. “I
like it better this way.”
Conacher laughed suddenly and delightedly in his throat.
“Well . . . ?” said Loseis, leaving her interrogation in the air.
“What is it?” he asked anxiously.
“Oh, you make me _say_ it!” she cried vexatiously. “Do you think I am
beautiful?”
The question rendered him nearly speechless. He pressed her hand hard
against his cheek. “Oh, Loseis!” he stammered. “I . . . I . . . you
. . . I can’t tell you. I’m just a blundering fool when it comes to
expressing my feelings. Why, you have made a new world for me. When I
think of your face it drives me out of my senses. I can’t think of the
words for it!”
She pillowed her cheek happily in the hollow inside his shoulder. “Then
you must find words!” she said. “You must never stop telling me. My ears
are greedy to hear it. Of all the world, I only care to be beautiful for
you!”
In sight of the darkly flowing river they came to a stop. They could
hear the murmuring voices of the two Beaver Indians at the water’s edge.
They drew apart. For a long while they stood there not touching each
other in dumb unhappiness and constraint. They were both new at this
lovemaking business.
“Well,” said Conacher at last, like a schoolboy trying to carry it off
flippantly, “I must make a break . . .”
“Oh!” she cried, hurt to the quick. “Is that all you care?”
He dropped his absurd pretense. “It is like death to leave you now,” he
murmured, brokenly.
“Well, good-by,” she said suddenly in an unnaturally high-pitched voice.
And turned as if to run forthwith.
He caught hold of her. “No! No!” he cried. “Not like this!”
She struggled in his arms. “Let me go! Let me go!” she whispered in a
desperate voice. “I can’t stand these good-bys. I like a thing ended
quickly. . . . Let me go!”
Holding her within one arm he tried to turn up her face to his. “Loseis
. . . dearest . . . before I go,” he whispered imploringly. “_Please_,
Loseis. . . . To remember all those lonely nights . . .”
She resisted with all her strength. “No! No! No! No! Not yet! If you
kiss me I shall never be able to let you go! . . . Ah, let me go while I
want to go!”
That naïve cry touched his heart. He released her. The instant she was
released she lost all her desire to run. She stood there in front of
him, very still.
“You had better go,” he said shakily.
“Put your hands behind your back!” she whispered breathlessly. “Stoop
down a little.”
He obeyed.
Like lightning her arms went around his neck, and her lips were pressed
hard against his. Then like a shadow she was gone. Through the dark her
caressing whisper came back to him.
“Come back soon, dear!”
* * * * *
When Loseis got back to the Women’s House, Gault was sitting there by
the fire, smoking a fresh cigar. He sprang up with a pleasant, fatherly
sort of smile. His eyes dwelt lightly on Loseis’s face, but she had an
impression just the same, that they were boring into her. Well, let them
bore! At the business of hiding her heart she was fully his match. She
showed him a smooth, untroubled face.
“Has he gone?” asked Gault.
“I expect so,” said Loseis. “I did not go down the hill with him.”
Gault rubbed his lip. He didn’t know whether or not to believe her.
He felt his way carefully. “Conacher seems like a fine young fellow,” he
remarked. “Have you known him long?”
Loseis remained standing by the fire. “Oh, he stopped here for three
days,” she said coolly. “But I scarcely saw him then.”
“How did he learn so soon of your father’s death?”
“I never thought to ask him,” said Loseis with a clear brow. “By
moccasin telegraph, I suppose. The Slavis are continually traveling up
and down the river.”
“It is too bad that he is in the government employ,” said Gault.
Loseis had no intention of discussing the man she loved with another
man. She remained silent. She had a good capacity for holding her
tongue. It was her only defense against Gault’s smooth talk; and it was
a better defense than she realized.
Gault was obliged to go on and answer the question without its having
been asked. “They never come to anything,” he said. “They are no more
than clerks all their lives.”
“So I have heard,” said Loseis indifferently.
Gault was deceived by her coolness. He argued that she was too young to
be able to hide her feelings so consummately. She did not care for the
young geologist. Their meetings had been too few and brief for any
serious damage to be worked. He began to feel better.
“How did you learn of my father’s death?” asked Loseis unexpectedly.
Gault determined to tell the truth, since it must become known anyway.
“The Indian Etzooah brought me the news. Did you not send him?”
“No,” said Loseis.
“Well!” said Gault with an air of astonishment. “I suppose he must have
started off blindly on his own account.”
“I didn’t know he could speak English,” said Loseis.
“He can’t. Only Cree.”
“Nobody here knew that he could speak Cree, either,” said Loseis.
Gault allowed the subject to drop. “While you were away I have been
sitting here thinking over your affairs,” he said, enveloping Loseis
with his smile.
Oh, Heaven! she thought; is he going to start talking again? How can I
endure it without Conacher here to keep me in countenance! In
desperation she feigned to hide a yawn behind her hand.
Gault had no recourse but to take the hint. “You are worn out!” he said
solicitously. “And no wonder. I will retire now. And to-morrow we can
talk.”
Loseis’ heart sunk. To-morrow!—and all the succeeding to-morrows!
Should she never be able to escape his talk! “You are very kind,” she
murmured politely.
“Good-night,” said Gault, offering her his hand.
Loseis either had to give him hers, or come to an open quarrel. With an
inward shiver of repulsion, she laid her hand within his, keeping her
eyes close hid. “Good-night,” she murmured.
Good God! how beautiful she is! thought Gault; with her mixture of
haughty pride and shyness (for so he took it). I’d take her if she
didn’t have a cent! A genuine desire was mingled with the calculation in
his eyes; he bared his teeth in what he intended to be an ardent smile.
In his youth Gault had been famous for his big white teeth, and he did
not realize that their luster was somewhat diminished. For a moment he
clung to the cool, limp hand.
“My dear, dear girl!” he murmured. “If you only knew how my heart goes
out to you in this hour of affliction. My only desire is to serve you!”
Loseis gritted her teeth in a torment of repulsion. Grinning at her in
that disgusting way, while his hard eyes sought to pry into her heart?
She could _feel_ his grin, though she kept her eyes down. Her hand
trembled with the desire to snatch itself away, and smack his leering
old face. But above all she was determined that Blackburn’s daughter
should not be revealed to this fine gentleman as a savage uncultured
girl, and she commanded her repulsion.
“Good-night . . . good-night,” repeated Gault with a touch of archness,
that looked to the future. He hastened out with a debonair swing.
Loseis’ fiery eyes bored holes in his back.
Crossing the grass, Gault exulted within himself. “A half-formed child,”
he thought; “an experienced man can make whatever he chooses of her! And
by God, what natural elegance! what pride! what beauty! I am in luck!”
While within the room he had just left, Loseis scowled at her offending
hand, and rubbed it violently on her skirt.
CHAPTER VII
THE CLOVEN HOOF
Next morning before Loseis had breakfasted, Gault was back at the
Women’s House, knocking deprecatingly at the door.
“I’m sorry to disturb you so early,” he said, “but I forgot something
last night; and I’m holding my messenger now until I can get it from
you.”
“What is that?” asked Loseis.
“May I come in?” he said smiling.
Loseis led the way into her room.
Gault had several sheets of paper in his hand. “If, as I suspect,” he
began in the smooth voice which so exasperated Loseis without her
knowing why, “Blackburn has sums of money lying in the bank outside,
that belongs to you, of course; but you could not draw against it unless
the bank was already in possession of your signature. Therefore, in
order to save time, I propose to send out several specimens of your
signature now. I will put them in the hands of your lawyer, who will in
turn pass them on to the bank.”
This sounded all right to Loseis, who proceeded to write her name on
each of the four blank sheets that Gault passed her. Loseis had had
small occasion to practice the art of handwriting, and it was but slowly
that she formed the great round letters of her official name.
_Laurentia Blackburn_
“Laurentia!” murmured Gault in a fond voice. “What an odd name.”
“I believe I was named after a chain of mountains,” said Loseis dryly.
“But how dignified and melodious!” he said. “Laurentia . . . Laurentia
. . . !”
She shot an irritated glance at him through her lashes. Had the man
nothing better to do than to stand there mouthing her name in that
ridiculous fashion! Loseis privately detested her name. Jane would have
been more to her fancy.
Gault gathered up the sheets, and made as if to go. At the door he
paused: “I say,” he said, like one speaking to a child, “isn’t there
something at Fort Good Hope that you would like my messenger to bring
back to you? I have a regular ‘outside’ store at Good Hope, you know.”
“Oh, no, thank you,” said Loseis quickly. “Nothing at all!”
“Just the same,” said Gault with that arch smile of his, “I will see if
we cannot find something that will please you!”
As he went through the door Loseis involuntarily flung up her arms
crying: “Oh, give me air! Give me air!”
Mary-Lou came running in to see what was the matter.
Loseis kicked a fur rug violently to one side, and banged open the
little window. “Oh, that man is like a bearskin tied over one’s head;
like a feather bed upon one!” she cried. Standing back from the window
she angrily apostrophized the receding figure of Gault. “Yes, you! you!
If I have to see you every day I shall suffocate!” Turning around and
beholding the amazed figure of Mary-Lou, Loseis suddenly embraced her,
and dropping her head on her shoulder, burst into tears.
“But what is the matter?” gasped Mary-Lou.
“I don’t know!” wailed Loseis. “I must be crazy! He speaks fair and
honest; he is always polite and kind . . . but . . . but I _can’t stand_
the man!”
* * * * *
Before the morning was out Gault was seen returning. Loseis, who had
persuaded herself that she was a fool, schooled herself to receive him
politely. He was accompanied this time by one of his Crees, who was
carrying a neat leather-covered box by its handle. Gault never performed
such menial tasks for himself. There was enough of the child in Loseis
to be rendered intensely curious by the sight of that box.
The trader dismissed his servant at the door, and brought the box in
himself. Upon being laid on the table and opened, a most fascinating and
complicated little machine was revealed, all shining with nickel-plate
and black lacquer. Loseis had not the remotest idea of what it was for.
“This is the typewriter; the writing-machine,” explained the trader. “I
have another one at the Post which I have sent for. In the meantime I
want to present this to you. I thought it might amuse you to practice on
it; and it will certainly save you time. Now that you are a business
woman, you will have many letters to write.”
Loseis’ heart was touched by this seeming act of kindness. She felt
remorseful. “That is very good of you,” she said, blushing. “It is true,
I am a miserable writer. But I shall never be able to learn this.”
“On the contrary,” said Gault. “It is very simple. Sit down at the table
and I will show you now.”
Loseis obeyed; and Gault drew up another chair close beside her. He
explained to her how to put the paper in; how to shift the carriage back
and forth; how to start a new line. For the rest all you had to do was
to strike the proper letters. In ten minutes Loseis had mastered the
idea of the thing. She was fascinated with this new toy (she had
possessed so few toys in her life) but was made horribly uncomfortable
by the enforced proximity of Gault’s head to her own. He was chewing
some sort of medicated candy that gave his breath a strong, pungent
odor. Loseis hated strong smells of every kind.
“Now let me try it all by myself,” she said.
“Go ahead! Go ahead!” he said, but did not withdraw himself at all. When
he saw her at a loss, he would grab hold of her finger and guide it to
the right key. Loseis shivered internally.
Finally her discomfort became more than she could bear. “I cannot do a
thing if you hang over me like that,” she said.
Gault leaned back in his chair with a great laugh. “So independent!” he
said teasingly.
However, he held himself away from her, and Loseis proceeded with her
slow punching of the keys. How strange and fascinating to see the words
stand up upon the paper! She had never possessed so marvelous a toy as
this. As soon as Gault was out of the way she would start a letter to
Conacher. How astonished he would be!
In a minute or two Gault’s head was as close as ever to hers. Loseis
tried to ignore the fact, but it was impossible to do so. She was aware,
through a subtle feminine sense, that he was not paying any attention to
the typewriter now. He was too still. She felt as if something precious
were being drawn from her that she had no intention of yielding to any
man save one.
“I’ll go on with this this afternoon,” she said nervously. “I have to do
something else now.” At the same time she attempted to slide sideways
out of her chair.
Gault caught her hand. “Ah, don’t stop,” he said a little thickly. “You
look like such a cunning little student, bending over your work. Where
did you get that wonderful black hair of yours . . . ?”
Loseis was up like a wild thing then, and backing off to the far end of
the room. “How dare you! How dare you!” she said breathlessly. “Take
yourself out of here, and your machine too! Or I’ll fling it after you!
Did you bring it here only as an excuse to insult me!”
Gault rose also. “Well!” he cried, laughing heartily. But there was an
ugly look in his eyes.
His laughter immediately brought about a reaction in Loseis. She
realized that she was making far too much of a trifle. This was not the
way for a well-born girl to act. She told herself that it was only
because she had come to love another man that she found this one
detestable. She lowered her head, and a hot blush flowed over her
cheeks.
“I am sorry,” she muttered unwillingly. “I am out of sorts this morning.
I did not mean what I said.” In the very act of saying this Loseis’
heart accused her of cowardice. She felt hopelessly confused. Oh, how
difficult it was to be well-bred and ladylike.
“Why, that’s all right!” cried Gault heartily. “It is perfectly natural
at such a time. I’m sorry I displeased you. I assure you I feel nothing
for you, but the deepest respect and sympathy! . . . I’ll leave you now.
Do amuse yourself with the typewriter.”
As he walked away from the house he murmured to himself: “A skittish
filly! I must proceed more slowly. Gad! it’s difficult though!” Thus he
deceived himself, as middle-aged gentlemen bent on gallantry are so apt
to do. He felt delightfully ardent. At the same time though, a nasty
little anxiety continued to plague the back of his mind.
Meanwhile Loseis paced up and down her room, wondering for the hundredth
time within the past twenty-four hours, what was the matter with her,
that she felt so hopelessly divided. This was a new feeling for her.
However the shining little typewriter _was_ fascinating. She presently
sat down to compose a letter to Conacher; and forgot her troubles.
Another little raft carried her letter downstream.
* * * * *
Every afternoon Loseis opened the store. It was a point of pride with
her to comport herself in all respects towards the Slavis as if nothing
had happened. She often visited their village, interesting herself in
all their concerns, as she considered fitting in a prudent mistress
towards her childish and feather-brained servants. They were shy with
her, and none came to trade at the store. Loseis, shrugging, was content
to bide her time. Hunger would tell in the end. For twenty years now,
the Slavis had been accustomed to the white man’s flour, tea and sugar,
and the present generation could not do without them.
Loseis and Mary-Lou sat on the bench outside the store. Mary-Lou had
been reading aloud, but her mistress had silenced her, because she
wished to think. Loseis was unpracticed in the exercise of thinking
things over, and she found it both difficult and painful. This was the
question on which she split: was Gault a scoundrel? All his acts and
words seemed to be above reproach; but Loseis’ heart stubbornly misgave
her. Could she trust her heart? She reflected that her father had never
betrayed any hesitation in calling Gault a scoundrel; but Loseis had had
plenty of examples of her father’s wrong-headedness. She adored him, but
had no great opinion of his judgment. It was by his strength and energy
that Blackburn had forged ahead, not by wisdom. And so the weary round
continued. To one of Loseis’ downright nature it was torture to remain
in a state of indecision.
At the door of Blackburn’s House fifty yards distant from where they
sat, the Indian Etzooah was to be seen ostentatiously cleaning a pair of
Gault’s boots. It suggested itself to Loseis as rather curious that
Gault should choose the ignorant Slavi for a body-servant, when he had
the more civilized Crees. She recollected that on various occasions
during the past few days she had seen Etzooah hanging about looking
self-conscious. The thought popped into her head that perhaps Gault had
set him as a spy on her movements. Well, supposing that to be so, here
was a chance to turn the tables on the trader. Through Etzooah she might
be able to learn if Gault had lied to her.
She called to Etzooah in her ordinary manner of offhand assurance. When
he came to her cringing and grinning in his imbecile fashion (you could
read nothing in that grin of the Slavis) she said coolly:
“I need a man. There are some goods in the store to be moved.”
Leading him inside, she had him shift some bags of flour from one place
to another. This done, she presented him with a plug of tobacco, and let
him know that he had done all she required. They returned outside, and
Loseis bade Mary-Lou go on with the reading.
Etzooah, as Loseis expected, did not leave them, but, making his face
perfectly vacant, squatted down in the grass at the other side of the
door, and proceeded to shave a pipeful of tobacco from the plug, careful
not to spill a crumb. Loseis allowed Mary-Lou to read for awhile, then
she started slightly as if a thought had just occurred to her, and
motioned to the girl to stop.
“Etzooah,” she said (speaking in the Slavi tongue of course) “it comes
to me that I have not thanked you for fetching Gault from Fort Good
Hope. That was well done.”
Etzooah grinned. “Gault is a good man,” he said.
“You speak truth,” said Loseis gravely. “How did it come that you set
off without telling me?”
“Wah!” said Etzooah, “you were attending upon the body of Blackburn. It
was not right for me to go to you at such a time. I just caught some
horses and went.”
“It was well thought of,” said Loseis. “How did you make yourself
understood to the white men?”
“I speak the Cree,” said Etzooah.
“Wah!” said Loseis politely. “That was not known to me.”
“My father was a Cree,” said Etzooah. “It is well known.”
“I had forgotten,” said Loseis.
Without changing a muscle of her face, or raising her voice at all,
Loseis shifted to English. “Etzooah,” she said, “the Slavis are saying
to each other that you were false to your own people. They are angry
because you brought Gault here. . . . Do not move suddenly or you are a
dead man. Mahtsonza is hiding behind the corner of the store with a gun
in his hands waiting to shoot you!”
Etzooah’s copper face changed to a livid ash-color. Suddenly with a
single movement he bounded to his feet, and inside the door of the
store. Loseis stood up with a scornful laugh.
“Go back to your master,” she said, pointing. “I only wished to find out
if you could speak English. You are a spy!”
Etzooah slunk away. Still only half convinced that he had been tricked,
he kept glancing fearfully over his shoulder.
Loseis was filled with a fierce exultation. Now she _knew_! No more
indecision. To be sure, when she reflected, her solitary and desperate
situation might well appall the stoutest heart; but at the moment she
was only aware of the relief of getting rid of that suffocating sense of
futility. Now she would know what to do! Her father was right about
Gault; and her own heart had not played her false.
She closed the store, and took Mary-Lou back to their house.
Loseis’ nature knew no half measures. Having recognized Gault as her
enemy, she was prepared to fight. She did not blink the danger of her
position. She no longer had any illusions about the fate of those
letters which the trader had so impressively despatched outside. She
realized that Gault himself stood between her and any possible succor,
and that he intended to keep her cut off from her kind until he should
have obtained what he wanted. Well, she quickly resolved upon a course
of action. Her only hope lay in bringing her wits into play. Gault must
not be allowed to suspect that she saw through his schemes. Etzooah, she
knew, would never dare confess to his master that he had betrayed
himself. There was a fatuous side to Gault’s character; and she must
play on that. Perhaps through his own folly she might defeat him in the
end.
Suddenly Loseis clapped her hands to her head with a cry of dismay. She
had suddenly recollected that all her father’s papers were in his desk
in the room where Gault was sleeping, and the desk was not even locked!
While he was alive of course, nobody would have dared venture into
Blackburn’s room uninvited, much less touch his papers. Loseis beat her
fists against her head, and groaned in bitterness. What an ignorant
childish fool she had been to neglect a thing so important!
She ran to the window to look across at the men’s house. She could not
tell whether Gault was within or not. On the spur of the moment she sent
Mary-Lou across to invite Gault and Moale to supper with her. Mary-Lou
returned to say that the two men had ridden up to the lake (ten miles
distant) to have a look at the Slavi village there. Loseis then ventured
across herself.
Etzooah was in the kitchen of the house. He received her with his
customary witless grin, and edged in front of the door to the inner room
as if to keep her out. Loseis caught her breath in astonishment, and her
eyes fairly blazed on the man.
“Stand aside, dog of a redskin!” she cried. “This is my father’s house,
and Gault is only a guest here at my pleasure!”
To the terrified Indian it seemed as if the little figure had grown a
foot. He slunk aside, and Loseis went into her father’s room, closing
the door after her.
Upon her first glance at the desk it was apparent to her that Gault had
stolen a march on her; though she did not immediately understand the
significance of what he had done. The desk was a handsome piece after
the Colonial style made by Blackburn himself. It had four drawers below,
and a flap which lifted down to form the writing table. The drawers and
the flap alike were fastened shut by strips of papers, caught down by
clots of sealing wax. Going closer Loseis saw that the wax had been
impressed with Gault’s ring.
Loseis smiled bitterly. Her first impulse was to tear open these flimsy
seals; but she held her hand. No; the damage was already done; if
anything had been abstracted, how was she to know? Better to keep Gault
in ignorance of the fact that she had been there. She did not believe
that Etzooah would tell him, unless it occurred to Gault to question
him. A Slavi never volunteers any information to a white man. The upshot
was that Loseis turned around, and went home.
The invitation to supper was repeated later. When Gault came over it was
a changed Loseis who greeted him. Her uncertainty was gone. Danger
stimulated her; all her faculties were sharpened. She had put on one of
her prettiest dresses; her dark eyes sparkled with topaz lights; and she
gave Gault smile for smile. The trader was charmed. She is coming
’round, he thought; I knew she would.
Moale saw deeper. His inscrutable eyes followed Loseis with a new
respect. Moale served his master very faithfully, but he was like the
Slavis in one respect; he never volunteered any information.
Supper was quite a jolly occasion. Loseis listened attentively to
Gault’s stories; and was prompt with her applause. The trader visibly
expanded; and Moale’s expression as he watched him became even more
sardonic than usual. During the course of the meal, Loseis said with an
innocent air:
“Mr. Gault, all my father’s papers are in that desk in your room. Will
you go over everything with me to-morrow, and explain it.”
He wagged a protesting hand in her direction. “No, no, no,” he said;
“nothing must be touched until the lawyer comes.”
“That cannot be for weeks yet,” said Loseis, “and in the meantime I am
curious to . . .”
“I have sealed the desk,” said Gault.
“Sealed my father’s desk?” said Loseis, opening her eyes wide.
“My dear girl, consider my position,” he said. “I am an interested party
in these matters—or at least I will be so considered; and I have to
lean over backwards in the effort to avoid anything which would look
like taking an unfair advantage. Imagine my feelings upon retiring that
first night, when I found myself alone in the room with all the private
papers of my late rival in business! I was shocked; shocked. If the desk
had been locked, and the key in your possession it would have been all
right; but upon trying it—for my own protection, I found that it was
open. Fortunately Moale was in the kitchen. I instantly called him in,
and sealed up the desk in his presence.”
“Why didn’t you let me know?” asked Loseis.
“It was late. You had retired.”
“Why didn’t you speak of it next day?”
“I never thought of it. It is customary when a man dies to seal up his
papers until his attorney can take charge. I did it as a matter of
course.”
“Perhaps his papers are not there after all,” said Loseis.
“Perhaps not,” said Gault, with a seeming open look. “I only moved the
cover with my thumb for about a quarter of an inch to find out if it was
locked. I know no more than the man in the moon what the desk contains.”
Loseis lowered her eyes. What a fool he must think me! she
thought—well, it is just as well that he should think me a fool.
“Did Blackburn possess a safe?” asked Gault.
“No,” said Loseis. “Nobody ever stole anything from my father.”
“I wish I could say the same,” said Gault ruefully. He went on to tell
the story of the Scotch half-breed who had brought a black fox skin to
his post to trade, and had then replaced it with a clumsy imitation,
almost under the trader’s nose. It appeared that he had worked the trick
in turn at every post on the big river; but was apprehended at Fort
McMaster on his way out. Loseis, smiling at the story, permitted Gault
to suppose that it had caused her to forget the sealed desk.
After the meal, Gault sent Moale away on a manifestly trumped-up errand.
Loseis was not sorry to see him go. She was a little afraid of his
unchanging, watchful gaze. He never spoke unless he were addressed. As
for Gault, it was curious that now she knew he was her enemy, she no
longer dreaded to be left alone with him.
She drew up the hammock-chair to the fire. “You must take this chair
to-night,” she said. “And light one of your delicious cigars. . . .
There,” she said presently, “that is just like the happy nights when my
father came to sit with me.”
Gault’s smile became a little bleak. He didn’t want to be regarded as a
father. He stole a look at Loseis to see if this could be an intentional
dig; but her face expressed only an innocent pleasure in seeing him
comfortable.
She perched herself on one of the straight-backed chairs beside him,
with her heels cocked up on the rungs. “Have you ever been married, Mr.
Gault?” she asked.
“No,” said the trader, a little uncertain as to what was coming next.
“Why not?” asked Loseis.
“Well,” said he, looking noble, “I could not bear to expose the kind of
woman that I wished to marry to my rude life in the wilderness.”
“How lonely you must have been!” murmured Loseis.
Gault felt reassured. This was the sort of talk a man had the right to
expect from a white woman. He settled himself for a comfortable heart to
heart talk by the fire. “Ah, yes,” he said with a far-away look; “I have
had my bitter times! People call me a hard man; they do not know! They
do not know!”
The corners of Loseis’ mouth twitched demurely. “Tell me all about
yourself,” she murmured.
CHAPTER VIII
HEAVENLY MUSIC
At noon of the fourth day after his setting-out, Gault’s messenger
returned from Fort Good Hope driving several laden pack-horses before
him. The horses were unpacked at the door of Blackburn’s House, and the
goods carried in. From their windows opposite, Loseis and the four Marys
full of curiosity, watched and speculated on the contents of the various
packages. The natural consequence of Blackburn’s having forbidden all
traffic across the height of land was that Fort Good Hope loomed in the
imagination of his people as a sort of fabulous place. Anything might
come from there.
By and by Gault was seen coming across the grass accompanied by a breed
with a canvas duffle bag over his shoulder.
“More presents for you!” cried Mary-Lou clasping her hands.
Loseis permitted all the girls to be present while the bag was unpacked.
Gault disregarded them. Thrusting his arm into the bag, he produced the
various articles with a tender and proprietary smile upon Loseis. The
Princess at such a moment was like any other young thing; breathless
with anticipation, all her difficulties and dangers forgotten. First
came several packages of novels, and an exclamation of pleasure escaped
her. Novels had been forbidden her; and she had had no more than
tantalizing tastes of their contents in the installments appearing in
the magazines which drifted to Blackburn’s Post from time to time. Next
came boxes of chocolates and other candies specially packed in tin. Next
bottles of perfumes of various sorts, and boxes of strongly-scented
soaps. As soon as Gault was out of the way, Loseis distributed these
amongst her hand-maids. Next a box of elegant writing paper; pink, with
gold edges.
“For you to write to me upon when I am gone,” said Gault with his fond
smile.
(May that be soon! thought Loseis.) Aloud she said: “How pretty!”
The most astonishing present came, as was most fitting, from the bottom
of the bag. From a little card-board box Gault took a shining nickel
cube, having a sort of cup at one end, covered with glass. When you
pressed a spring in the cube, light most miraculously appeared behind
the glass. Loseis took it gingerly in her hands, gazing at it with wide
and wondering eyes. The four red girls drew back, a little afraid.
“Of course you can’t get the full effect of it until dark,” said Gault.
“This is the electric light of which I have read,” said Loseis in a
hushed voice. “How strange and beautiful!”
“There’s a box of extra batteries when it gives out,” said the trader.
Batteries meant nothing to Loseis. The gleaming torch had laid a spell
upon her imagination. She switched it on and off. How strange, how
strange this little light that she summoned and dismissed with a touch
of her finger, like a fairy servant!
“If you went through the Slavi village some night with that in your hand
it would create a sensation,” said Gault laughing.
His laughter jarred on Loseis. “No use frightening them for nothing,”
she said. “I might need it some time.”
In the beginning it would have irked Loseis very much to receive these
presents from Gault, but now she felt no qualms. He is counting on
getting it back many times over, she thought.
During the course of the afternoon, Loseis and her girls were astonished
to see Gault’s men climbing to the roof of Blackburn’s House. Alongside
the chimney they affixed a tall pole. When it was up, wires were strung
from it to the top of the flagpole in the middle of the little plaza.
Loseis’ curiosity could no longer contain itself. She went across to ask
what they were doing.
“Wait until to-night,” said Gault, smiling. “You are dining with me
to-night. Afterwards there is to be a surprise.”
That dinner was full of new things for Loseis. A crowning touch was
supplied by a potted geranium in the center of the table, bearing three
scarlet blossoms. Never before had that flower bloomed at Blackburn’s
Post. A cry of admiration broke from Loseis.
“The parson’s sister sent it to you with her compliments,” said the
trader. “She has them blooming all winter in her parlor.”
Loseis’ heart suddenly went out to this unknown sister of her own color.
“What is she like?” she asked shyly.
“Oh, just what you’d expect a parson’s sister to be,” he said
indifferently.
The food was strange to Loseis; but for the most part highly agreeable.
First there was a queer, spicy soup. Mulligatawney, Gault called it, and
Loseis laughed at the ridiculous-sounding word. It must have come out of
a can, she reflected. This was followed by a great roast of beef which
is extraordinarily esteemed as an article of food up North, simply
because it is so hard to come by. (“A steer was slaughtered at Fort Good
Hope expressly for you,” said Gault to Loseis with a bow.) With the
roast beef were served potatoes and stewed tomatoes, both novel dishes
at Blackburn’s Post. For dessert came on a plum pudding, likewise out of
a can; and this Loseis considered the best thing she had ever tasted.
There were, besides, small dishes containing olives which the guest did
not like; and salted almonds which she did.
Pride forbade Loseis to betray any further curiosity concerning the
“surprise” but with every mouthful she took, she was thrillingly
conscious of an oblong box that rested on a small table at the side of
the room, covered by a cloth. That must be the surprise of course. It
had a most exciting shape.
After the table had been cleared, Gault sought to tease her, by lighting
up his cigar in leisurely fashion, while he talked of indifferent
matters. But he didn’t get any change out of Loseis, who sat quietly
with her hands in her lap, looking at the fire.
Finally he said: “Wouldn’t you like to know what is under that cloth?”
“Whenever you are ready,” said Loseis politely.
Gault laughed, and jerked the cloth away. Loseis beheld a beautiful box
of a polished red wood, having in the front of it several curious black
knobs with indicators and dials above them. The whole apparatus was
suggestive of magic. Gault began to turn the knobs, and Loseis, holding
her breath, prepared herself for anything to happen; red and green
flames perhaps, with a Jinn springing up in the middle.
When it came, it let her down suddenly from that awful suspense. It was
not startling at all, but sweet. Music mysteriously filled the room,
coming, not from that box, but from an unknown source. It melted the
heart with its sweetness. It resembled the music of a violin with which
Loseis was familiar, but infinitely fuller and richer, with strange,
deep undertones that caused delicious shivers to run up the girl’s
spine.
“Oh, what is it? What is it?” she murmured.
“Music from Heaven,” said Gault grinning.
For a moment she believed him. Closing her eyes, she gave herself up to
the entrancing sounds. It was too beautiful, too beautiful to be of this
earth. Yet it was not strange; it seemed like something she had always
been waiting for; it satisfied a longing. It caused her to think of her
father and of her lover. The thoughts of death and of love became
intermingled in her mind, intolerably sweet and bitter. The tears
swelled under her eyelids.
Then Gault destroyed the spell that he himself had evoked. “It’s coming
through fine, to-night,” he remarked to Moale. “No interference.”
Loseis dropped down to earth. A recollection came to her. “It is the
radio,” she said quietly. “I have read of that, too.”
It was a music of many voices, now loud, now soft; one voice then
another spoke above them all; then all were raised together. Shrill,
merry voices running up and down like laughter; voices as plaintive as
the laughter of loons at dusk; deep, sonorous voices that suggested
courage and endurance. Loseis tried in vain to pick out the tune. It had
a meaning; but one could not grasp it. It was like listening to the
whole world.
“What makes such music?” she whispered.
“Orchestra,” he said.
Loseis had met with this word in books; but she did not know the
meaning. She would not ask.
“A whole crowd of instruments together,” said Gault. “Little fiddles,
medium size fiddles, and big fiddles; wooden horns and brass horns of
every size and shape; and a row of drums.”
“Where is it coming from?” she asked.
“From the station in Calgary.”
Loseis was lifted up on the wings of wonder again. From Calgary! A
thousand miles away! She visualized the long ten miles ride to the Lake;
and tried to imagine a hundred times ten miles. It was too much; the
mind could not take it in. She thought of the night outside, and
suddenly it became clear to her why the silence of Northern nights was
so profoundly disturbing. It was not a silence at all; the night was
full of these voices from all over the world, winging through the sky,
and the heart was sensible to them, though the ears were deaf.
“How do you do it? How do you do it?” murmured Loseis.
“Oh, it would take old Marconi to explain that,” said the trader
laughing.
Ah! will Paul and I ever listen to such music together? thought Loseis.
The music came to an end. After a pause a man began to speak. This
affected Loseis even more strangely than the music. A man speaking to
them in a quiet, friendly voice, as if he was there beside them! And he
was not there. A spirit was amongst them without its body. Awe gripped
Loseis. She shivered, and looked over her shoulder. Gault watching her,
chuckled, and she shrank sharply into herself again.
The man was giving a humorous account of how he went with his wife to
buy a hat. He spoke of the crowds of people in the streets, and the
gayly decorated shop windows. Loseis was too much filled with wonder of
the voice to pay heed to the story. He said: “I met her at the Palliser
Hotel this afternoon.” Yet he was a thousand miles away! He said: “I
took her into the restaurant, and when she said she wasn’t hungry, I
prepared myself for the worst.” Gault and Moale laughed, and Loseis
looked at them in surprise. A thousand miles! A thousand miles.
It was a jolly, friendly voice that reassured the child’s heart of
Loseis. And it was clear that he was speaking to others whom he knew to
be as honest and kind as himself. Loseis had a sudden vision of the
populous, kindly world lying outside, and her breast yearned over it.
The friendly voice seemed to bring her so close, to admit her to that
world. But a realization of her loneliness swept over her. There was
that thousand miles of prairie, muskeg and forest lying between. Alone!
Alone! worse than alone, for she was hedged about with false and lying
men who wished her ill. Ah! If she could only communicate with the
honest people, they would not let her come to harm. Drawn quite out of
herself, Loseis rose to her feet, stretching out her arms.
“Oh, if I could only speak to him!” she murmured.
Gault laughed heartily. “That would require a whole transmitting
station,” he said. “Quite a different matter from getting it.”
Loseis dropped back in her chair. She glanced at the trader with
involuntary dislike. What a coarse animal under his fine manners! she
thought.
When the concert came to an end, Gault said: “To-morrow night, we’ll get
the Slavis into the kitchen, and spring it on them,” he said laughing.
“Lordy! what a scatteration there will be!”
Loseis got up to go. “You will do what you like, of course,” she said
coldly. “But do not expect me to come.”
“But why?” asked the surprised Gault.
“It’s a beautiful, wonderful thing,” said Loseis, looking wistfully at
the red box. “I should not care to see it made a mock of.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” said Gault quickly, “no Slavis! I brought this
over solely to give you pleasure, Princess!”
CHAPTER IX
AN UPSET
Gault and Moale were breakfasting in the men’s house.
“How about the fur here?” asked Moale.
“All in good time,” said his master.
“Have you got the key to the warehouse?”
“Yes. But of course I have to make out that it’s sealed up in the desk.”
“I don’t see what you expect to gain by that bit of flummery,” said
Moale.
“No?” said Gault sarcastically. “I am keeping the girl out of her
father’s papers, am I not? . . . I know what I am doing. Suppose some
one should come in here? Everything would be found in order; Blackburn’s
will, his accounts, his letters. I have taken nothing, because there was
nothing I wanted; it was sufficient for me to read it all.”
“What was in his will?” said Moale curiously.
“Oh, he left everything to the girl, of course. That doesn’t signify
anything, because if there was no will, the courts would award it to her
anyway.”
“Well, I’d like fine to have a look at that fur,” said Moale with
glittering eyes. Fur was his passion. If he had other passions, he kept
them hid.
“You are to keep away from the warehouse for the present,” said Gault
peremptorily.
“I have read the inventory,” said Moale. “There are ten black fox skins
of the first quality. I have never seen so many at one time. Those alone
will bring from a thousand to fifteen hundred each. Besides the silver
and the cross foxes; the mink, otter and fisher. The whole lot is worth
well above a hundred thousand at present prices.”
“Quite that,” said Gault. “But I’m playing for a bigger stake, and I
don’t intend to jeopardize it by making any premature move.”
“How much is the girl worth?” asked Moale slyly.
“I don’t know,” said the other coolly.
Moale lowered his eyes; he knew very well that Gault was lying; but did
not care to let him see that he knew. Presently he said: “The news of
Blackburn’s death will be all over by now. That fool Etzooah let it out
at our post before I could stop his mouth. And Conacher carried the news
north with him.”
“I had no thought of keeping it secret,” said Gault.
“How about Gruber, then? If you keep him waiting too long at the
Crossing, he’s likely to come down here to see what’s up.”
“I’ve written to Gruber telling him that if he will wait a few weeks,
I’ll send him the fur as soon as I can arrange matters.”
“Maybe that letter won’t satisfy him.”
“Well, if he comes he shall have the fur. It will be a good way of
getting him away from here again.”
“I should hate to see that fur get out of our hands,” said Moale.
“That’s real; that’s the goods! Whereas the other thing . . .” He
shrugged.
“You’re a fool,” said Gault contemptuously. “The girl is all but ready
to drop into my arms. All I need is a little time.”
Moale looked down at his plate again.
In spite of the confidence that Gault had expressed, this conversation
brought forward the little worrying anxiety that lingered in the back of
his mind. Here were the days passing one after another, and could it be
honestly said that he was making progress with Loseis? Sometimes he was
sure he was—sometimes not so sure. She was such a baffling creature; at
one moment as open and easily moved as a child and the next moment
revealing a maturity of mind and an originality that startled him. At
other times she was as provoking and secretive as an Indian. To be sure
of late she had been generally friendly, even sympathetic; but try as he
would, he could not get their relations on the man and woman plane, the
plane of courtship. Loseis eluded him like a sprite.
In his heart Gault cursed the time that must be wasted in wooing a
civilized miss. They managed such things better in a simpler state of
society, when the girl would have been hit over the head, and dragged
off without more ado. Women have never really become civilized, he
thought; they need to be beaten still. Well, having an eye to the
outside world, he could not actually do this, but should he not apply
the principle? Perhaps he had been too gentle, too considerate a wooer.
That only set her up in her own opinion. It was ridiculous to suppose
that a mere slip of a girl who didn’t know her own mind could resist a
mature and strong-willed man like himself. The time had come for him to
overbear her by the mere force of his personality. She would thank him
for it in the end. A Loseis, humbled and loving; Ah! what a seductive
picture!
Gault had his horse brought, and mounting, rode across to the Women’s
House, well aware that he appeared to the best advantage on a horse. He
knocked at the door without dismounting, and when Loseis appeared, she
was obliged to look up at him, proudly holding his seat, and making
believe to soothe his horse, while secretly fretting him with his off
heel. But no light of admiration appeared in Loseis’ clear eyes. She
took horsemanship as a matter of course.
“Will you ride up to the lake with me?” asked Gault. “I have grub for
two. I think you ought to show yourselves to the Slavis just to remind
them that you are the mistress here.”
Loseis cocked an eye at the sky. It was like an inverted bowl of palest
turquoise. “Surely!” she cried. “I’m longing for a ride. Give me five
minutes to change my skirt.”
Mary-Rose was sent running to fetch Loseis’ horse.
Loseis and her horse appeared simultaneously. This was the first time
that Gault had beheld the girl’s riding costume. It comprised Strathcona
boots; breeches; a blue flannel shirt; and a flat-brimmed man’s hat set
crookedly on one side of her head. The shirt was open at the neck, and
under the collar she had knotted a gay red and yellow kerchief. She
turned up her face to the sky, all open, drinking in the light with joy;
and Gault, observing her hair, softer and blacker than anything else in
Nature, the tender brilliance of her eyes, and her flower-petal lips,
felt a pain like a needle go through his breast, and lost his sense of
mastery.
He thought: The devil is in it, that she is able to hurt me so! She must
never be allowed to suspect her power.
Loseis vaulted on her horse. They trotted down the rise, and passing
between the tepees, splashed through the small stream. Clawing their way
up the further bank, their horses broke into a gallop in the clean
grass. Summer had pronounced her benediction on the North, and the world
was like a freshly painted picture. Loseis, who was ahead, sang out:
“Oh, what a day for a ride!” To herself she added: “If that was Conacher
pounding along behind, I should be the happiest girl alive!”
Their way led more or less close to the river. There were but two horse
trails leaving Blackburn’s Post; that to Fort Good Hope, and this one
which, after circling the easterly shore of Blackburn’s Lake, struck
south to the distant rendezvous near the Crossing. Rich bottom lands
alternated with occasional gravelly ridges to be crossed. Conversation
was impossible; for horses trained to the trail will not travel abreast;
however Gault, knowing that they would be out all day, was content to
bide his time.
Descending into a lush meadow, already fetlock deep in grass, Loseis
clapped heels to her horse, and set off, yelling like an Indian. Her
sorrel mare laid her ears back and went like the wind. She would have
yelled too if she could. The sight brought that needle-pain back to
Gault’s breast, by reminding him that his day for yelling and running
was forever past.
In another meadow they came upon a herd of horses quietly feeding, and
Loseis paused to look them over. These were the broken horses kept on
this side, while the wild horses ranged across the river. Blackburn on
the day he was killed, had been engaged in rounding up these horses to
take out the fur.
When they rode up on top of the ridge which formed the cut-bank known as
Swallow Bend, all Loseis’ gayety was quenched. She slipped out of her
saddle, and without speaking, handed her rein to Gault to hold. Creeping
to the edge of the bank, she looked over. In the gravelly stuff below
she could easily follow the marks where the horses had first struck, and
then rolled down into the water. A wild regret filled her heart, and her
tears ran fast.
They were still falling when she returned to Gault, and silently
received her rein. Her grief was as natural and spontaneous as her
gayety had been an hour before. The ageing man bit his lip and cursed
her in his heart for being so beautiful.
Just below the lake they forded the main stream through a brawling
shallow rapid, the Slavi village being on the other side. Scores of
tepees rose here, as well as several log shacks built in imitation of
the white man for winter use. Their coming was beheld from afar, and a
tremendous commotion arose in the village; the news was shrieked from
tepee to tepee. Upon their entrance a dead silence fell; and the Slavis,
like school children all adopted a look of vacant stupidity as a cover
for their embarrassment. Loseis did not dismount; but rode up and down,
speaking to this one and that.
Tatateecha, the head man of all the Slavis came to her stirrup. He was a
round little man, distinguished amongst all the tribe by his fleshiness.
The responsibilities of headship had given him more steadiness of
character too, but not much more. Loseis did not hold him accountable
for the excesses at the Post. Tatateecha made a flowery speech of
welcome to Loseis; and another to Gault.
“You are wasting your breath,” remarked Loseis. “He does not understand
your tongue.”
“Is he the trader now?” asked Tatateecha slyly.
“No!” said Loseis with a flash of her eyes. “He is my guest. . . . Do
you wish to trade with him?” she added.
“No! No!” said Tatateecha earnestly. “He has the name of a hard trader.
They tell me that the people at Fort Good Hope are always poor.”
“Very well, then,” said Loseis. “Serve me, and I will deal with you
justly and fairly as my father did. You never knew want when he was
alive.”
Tatateecha’s eyes twinkled. To be talking in this manner under the very
nose of the proud Gault appealed to the Slavi sense of humor.
“This man wishes me ill,” Loseis went on. “He would take my post from
me. I look to you and your people to be my friends, and help me to keep
what is my own.”
Tatateecha in his redskin style swore fealty. Unfortunately he was not
to be trusted far.
“I have another thing to say,” Loseis went on. “The man who fetched this
man into our country—I do not name him because this man would hear me;
you know the man I mean. That false person is this person’s spy, so
beware how you open your hearts to him. I have finished.”
Loseis and Gault rode on. They left Tatateecha looking rather scared,
but Loseis told herself that at least her speaking to him would do no
harm.
“What were you talking about?” asked Gault.
“Oh, he was apologizing for the way his people behaved in the store, and
I was telling him it had better not happen again,” said Loseis
carelessly.
Beyond the village the land rose to a low bluff which commanded a
prospect of the lake. Here they turned out their horses, and sat down in
the grass to eat. After the pleasant, diversified country they had
ridden through, an astonishing panorama met their eyes. The whole earth
suddenly flattened out. They were upon the only bit of high ground that
approached the lake. In front of them a sea of water and a sea of grass
stretched to the horizon; and it was impossible to say where the one
ended and the other began. On either hand in the far distance ran the
bordering hills. The only thing there was in sight to break that
tremendous flatness was a flock of wild swans a mile or more away,
fluttering their wings in the sun.
When they had satisfied their hunger, Gault bethought himself that it
was time to take a firm tone with Loseis. He said bluntly:
“Do you know, you’re a damn pretty girl.”
He prepared himself for an explosion; but Loseis surprised him again.
“Of course I know it,” she said coolly; looking at him with a slanting
smile.
“How do you know it? You’ve never seen any white girls.”
“Oh, one knows such things anyhow,” she said shrugging.
“Has any man ever told you?” demanded Gault.
“No,” said Loseis, clear-eyed as the sky; but thinking of Conacher
nevertheless.
“Well, I’m telling you,” said Gault.
“Thanks,” said Loseis with a quick smile.
The smile annoyed the trader. It seemed to express something other than
gratitude. “Do you know what they sometimes call me?” he asked.
Loseis shook her head.
“Kid-Glove Gault. An allusion to my manner, of course. Everybody knows
that it conceals an iron hand. I have been through a hard school, and I
have come out hard. I choose to be courteous because I despise those who
surround me. I have taught myself to stand alone.”
Loseis became very uncomfortable. Why does he tell me all this? she
thought.
“Look at me!” he said peremptorily.
She shook her head, pressing her lips together. If I did, I should burst
out laughing in his face, she thought.
Gault was not ill-pleased by her refusal. It seemed to testify to his
power. “There is another side to my nature,” he went on, “which I have
never revealed to a living soul. All the softer feelings which other men
scatter in a hundred directions I have saved up for one!”
Mercy! ejaculated Loseis to herself.
“But it is not to be given lightly,” said Gault. “I am a proud, jealous,
and violent man. I may be led by one whom I trust, but never driven. I
shall never let down my guard until I am assured that the one I have
chosen is worthy . . .”
This sort of talk put Loseis on pins and needles—she could not have
told why. Her body twitched, and her face was all drawn up in a knot of
comical distaste. She kept her head averted from Gault. Oh, if he would
_only_ stop! she was saying to herself.
“. . . of my confidence,” he went on; “such is my character. I am not
trying to excuse it. I have long been indifferent to both praise and
blame. The woman who places her hand in mine must . . .”
Loseis could stand no more. Springing to her feet, she ran back towards
the place where the horses were grazing.
“Excuse me a moment,” she called over her shoulder. “I must water my
horse.”
Gault with a black face had sprung up to follow her. But he checked
himself. That would be _too_ ludicrous for one of his years and dignity.
Besides, she could probably run faster than he. He ground his teeth with
rage. “A coquette!” he muttered. “By God! I’ll tame her!”
All the way home he glowered at her back, but Loseis could not see that.
After supper she went across to hear the radio concert in some
trepidation; but Gault received her with his usual smooth and
well-controlled face; and she felt relieved. He treated her with the
most exquisite courtesy. This high manner may have concealed terrible
fires within; but Loseis was not worrying about that. She gave herself
up to the music.
After it was over, Gault walked home with her. That rare day had been
succeeded by a still rarer night. Low in the southerly sky hung a great
round moon. Measured by the standards of southerly latitudes, the moon
behaves very eccentrically up there. After describing a short arc across
the southern sky, she would go down in an hour or so not far from where
she had risen. In the meantime she held the world in a breathless spell
of beauty. In that magical light the rude buildings of the Post created
a picture of old romance. There was a silvery bloom upon the grass; and
the velvety black shadows suggested unutterable meanings that caught at
the heart. The shadow of Gault’s house reached almost to Loseis’ door.
They paused there; and Loseis looked around her with a tight breast. (Is
he somewhere under this moon thinking of me?) “This is the night of the
whole year!” she said.
“Well, we are free, white, and twenty-one,” said Gault. “Why go to bed?
. . . The best place to see moonlight is on the river. Come out in a
canoe with me for an hour.”
Loseis’ intuition warned her not to go—but one does not always listen
to one’s intuitions. She was tempted. He can’t do any more than talk,
she thought; I guess I can stand it. I shall be looking at the
moonlight, and thinking of the other one. “Very well,” she said.
“Go in and get a coat,” he said. “I’ll come back for you in two
minutes.”
He hastened back to his own kitchen. One of his Crees was sent down to
the creek mouth to find a canoe. Of the others, one played a banjo and
all could sing the old-fashioned songs that are still current in the far
North. These were stationed on a bench outside the kitchen door with
orders to sing, _not loud_. After all there was something magnificent
about Gault. In his dark way he had imagination. But he was fifty-three
years old!
When they got down to the water’s edge the Cree was holding the canoe
for them to step into. By Gault’s orders he had chosen not one of the
usual bark canoes of the Slavis which are little more than paper boats,
but a dug-out of which there were several lying in the creek. These
heavier and roomier craft are however, no more stable than the others.
Loseis perceived that a nest of blankets and pillows had been arranged
for her in the bottom.
“Oh, I like to paddle,” she said.
“Give me the pleasure of looking at you in the moonlight,” murmured
Gault.
Again Loseis felt strong compunctions; but it seemed too ridiculous to
back out then; especially with the Indian looking on. She got in; and
Gault, taking his place in the stern, paddled out into the main stream.
Heading the canoe down river, he allowed it to drift. That brought
Loseis reclining under his eyes in the full shine of the moon; while he,
sitting up on the thwart, was blackly silhouetted against the light.
Presumably it was very lovely on the river—Loseis observed how the face
of the water seemed to be powdered with moon-dust; and at any other time
her heart would have been melted by the distant strumming of the banjo,
and the muted voices; but now it was all spoiled for her by that
silhouette. How could she think of Conacher while the other man’s eyes
were boring into her. She was sorry she had come. She became sorrier
when Gault began to speak.
“You are beautiful!” he said in a masterful voice. “I want you!”
At first Loseis was only conscious of astonishment.
“Want me?” she echoed blankly.
“To-morrow I shall send over to my Post for the parson,” he went on,
coolly. “He may bring his sister with him to attend upon you. We shall
be married in your house. It will be more fitting.”
Loseis was literally struck dumb. She sat up straight, trying to peer
into the shadowy face that was almost invisible to her, her mouth
hanging open like a child’s.
Gault laughed fondly. “Do not look so frightened,” he murmured. “I will
take good care of you . . . little sweetheart.”
A little strained note of laughter was surprised out of the girl. The
last word sounded so funny, shaped by those stiff old lips.
Gault ascribed it to nerves. It did not put him off at all. “As soon as
we are married,” he went on. “Let us take advantage of the Summer season
to make a trip outside. A handsome spirited girl like you will enjoy
seeing the cities. You shall have everything that your heart desires.
And we will be able to attend to the business of your father’s estate. I
don’t mean places like Edmonton or Calgary. What would you say to New
York . . . London?”
As he talked on a chill of terror struck to Loseis’ breast. He seemed so
very sure of himself! The fond, elderly voice made her feel like a
little girl again. “Do I _have to_ marry him?” she asked herself,
trembling.
The river was very high. The muddy borders which would show themselves
later, were now completely covered. The overhanging willows trailed
their branches in deep water. Without noticing it, they had drifted
close to the easterly shore.
Gault’s ardor increased. He dropped forward in the bottom of the
dug-out, and crept closer to Loseis. Putting a hand down on either side
of her for support and balance, he strained towards her. Loseis got a
hateful whiff of the scented breath again.
“Seal it with a kiss, sweetheart,” he murmured.
Loseis’ blood rebelled, and all uncertainty left her. She was no longer
the child, but an aroused woman. She wriggled her body further forward
in the dug-out, out of his reach.
“Easy! Easy!” he cried sharply; “or you’ll have us over!”
“Marry you!” cried Loseis with a burst of clear laughter that flayed him
raw. “You ugly old man! The husband I have chosen is not like you!”
Gault drew in his breath with a moan of rage; and, careless of the
danger, began to creep towards her. At that instant a willow branch
brushed against the girl’s hair. Springing up, Loseis embraced a whole
mass of the leaves within her arms, and swung herself out. Under the
violent propulsion of her body, the narrow craft rolled over in a
twinkling, and Gault was precipitated into the water.
Loseis sank into the icy water up to her neck, and hung there, dangling
from her branches. For a moment there was silence; then Gault’s head
emerged from the river, and the night was shattered by a roar for help.
Loseis saw him seize the canoe, and knew that he was in no danger of
drowning. He was no more than twenty feet from her, but drifting away on
the current.
Loseis worked her way along her slender branches, to thicker branches,
and finally gained a footing on firm ground. Gault, drifting downstream
continued to roar for help. Making her way across the flat below the
Post, Loseis met Moale, and the Crees running in response to their
master’s cries. The Slavi village was in an uproar.
“Gault is in the river,” said Loseis coolly. “He’s in no danger. Get
canoes and go after him.”
Reaching her own house Loseis found the terror-stricken girls huddled in
a group. At the sight of her drenched clothing, Mary-Lou clasped her
hands tragically.
“What has happened?” she gasped.
Loseis did not answer her immediately, but only leaned back against the
door with widening eyes. For suddenly she had realized what _had_
happened, and was appalled by the certain consequences. She alone there
with that pack of terrified girls!
“Bar the door,” she said. “Shutter the windows. We’ll have to stand a
siege now! . . . No, wait!” she cried as they moved to obey her. “We
must have weapons. The men won’t be back for half an hour. I’ll fetch
guns from the store!”
CHAPTER X
CONTRABAND
All night long Loseis and her girls listened in trepidation, but none
approached their house. In the morning, Loseis, disdaining to remain
under cover any longer, sallied out of the house to find Gault, and have
it out with him. Anything was better than uncertainty.
The trader was at breakfast in the kitchen of the men’s house. Seeing
Loseis at the door, he rose quickly, showing a smooth, composed face,
but with eyes as hard as agate. “Good morning,” he said with extreme
politeness; “I trust that you received no hurt from your ducking last
night. I was coming over directly to inquire. How inexcusably careless
of me! I shall never forgive myself!”
Loseis waved all this aside. “I should like a few words with you,” she
said as politely as he.
“Please come in,” said Gault. He indicated the inner room.
“I would be glad if you would step outside,” said Loseis.
“Certainly!”
They walked away from the door, followed by the sharp, secret glances of
the Crees. Gault rubbed his upper lip. Under the mask he wore, an
uneasiness made itself felt. Certainly he had not expected Loseis to
look him up, nor could he guess what was coming.
She wasted no words in coming to the point. “When you heard of my
father’s death you hastened over here to help me, you said. If your
intentions were good, I thank you.”
“Do you doubt it?” asked Gault sharply.
She spread out her hands. “What difference does that make now? Whether
you wished to help me or not it would be impossible under the present
circumstances.” She paused for a moment. It required a strong nerve to
say this to Andrew Gault. “I must therefore ask you to leave the Post as
soon as possible.”
There was a silence. Gault stared at her incredulously. In spite of his
iron self-control a blackish flush spread under his skin. Infernal
passions were raging under his mask. But he fought them down. He said
nothing. He fell back a step, that Loseis could not see his face without
turning squarely around.
“Well?” she said sharply. “Have you nothing to say?”
“What is there to say?” he murmured.
“You could refuse to go,” said Loseis proudly. “If you refused to go, of
course I could not make you.”
“I could not refuse,” said Gault with a sort of hollow reverberation of
his usual full and courteous tones. “You put me in an extraordinarily
difficult position. I do not think you should be left alone here; but of
course I cannot stay.”
“I shall manage very well,” said Loseis.
“I am sorry you think so badly of me,” said Gault.
“Oh, I shall not think badly of you, if you will only leave me alone,”
said Loseis quickly. “I shall always be grateful to you!”
Silence again. Gault literally ground his teeth. After awhile he was
able to say: “You are mixing up two things together.”
“You are mistaken,” said Loseis. “The two things are quite separate in
my mind. I have had all night to think them over.”
“Do you wish me to leave Mr. Moale here to assist you?” he asked.
“No, thank you,” said Loseis firmly. “Furthermore, I should be greatly
obliged if you would carry Etzooah back with you.”
For the fraction of a second the flames broke through Gault’s mask.
“Suppose you needed a messenger!” he cried.
“I should not choose Etzooah to be my messenger,” said Loseis quietly.
He quickly controlled himself. “Very well,” he said; “we will be off as
soon as we can get our traps together. Say to-morrow morning.”
“Oh, suit your convenience, of course,” said Loseis politely.
Gault’s expression changed. His hard eyes turned askance on the girl.
“Upon consideration,” he said, more smoothly than before, “I am sure we
will be able to get away late this afternoon. We can make our first camp
up on the prairie, where we will at least be out of your sight.”
Loseis bowed; and they parted out in the middle of the little square.
When Gault re-entered the kitchen of the men’s house, he did not speak.
The expression on his face was frightful to see. One by one the Crees,
making believe to have noticed nothing amiss, slipped outside. Even
Moale did not care to face that look. He sauntered out after the others.
Gault sat down as if to finish his meal; but he touched no food. He
merely sat there with his hands on the edge of the table and his head
lowered, thinking; thinking.
Finally he rose; and going into Blackburn’s room, coolly produced a key,
with which he opened a wall cupboard. From it he took an earthenware
jug, one of several on the shelves; and locking up the cupboard, carried
the jug back to the kitchen table. Removing the cork, he smelled of the
contents, but did not taste. It was a known thing in the country that
Gault was not a drinking man. He called out to have Etzooah sent to him.
When the grinning Indian stood before him, Gault said curtly: “This
afternoon, just before supper time, I shall be starting away from here.
You are to come with me.”
Etzooah nodded.
“Etzooah,” the trader continued, fixing his burning glance on the man,
“do the Slavis know the taste of whisky?”
“Wah!” said the Indian, showing his blackened teeth; “Tatateecha know
it. And some of the old men. Twenty-five years ago there was a party of
Klondikers went down this river. They had whisky. They hand it round.
Blackburn had whisky too, but he did not give the people any.”
“Can you teach the younger men to drink it?” asked Gault with an ugly
smile.
“Wah!” said Etzooah, with his silent laugh. “No need teach! All know
what whisky is. The story of the white man’s stomach-warming medicine is
often told over the fire.”
“Good!” said Gault. “When we leave here to-day, you may take them that
jug of Blackburn’s whisky. Let it be carried out of the house with the
other things when we are packing up. Just before we start, you may go
down behind the house, that the white women may not see you, and give it
to Mahtsonza for all. Do not tell them that I sent it. Say that you
found it in Blackburn’s room, and I never missed it, because I am not a
whisky-drinker.” Gault leaned across the table, and lowered his voice.
“And tell them as if not meaning anything by it, that there are four
more jugs in the little cupboard on the wall of Blackburn’s room.”
“All right,” said Etzooah, grinning still. “What if there is trouble
after?”
“I’ll take care of that,” said Gault coolly. He had recovered his
self-control.
“All right. All right,” said Etzooah.
* * * * *
During the course of the day, Loseis cast many an anxious glance across
the way. Certain obvious preparations for departure were immediately set
under way; the pole on the roof was taken down, and the wire rolled up
on spools; the pack-horses which had been turned out in the meadow
across the creek, were rounded up, and driven into the corral attached
to Blackburn’s stable. So much done, Gault could have left within an
hour had he chosen, but a long time passed before any further move was
made.
Finally, towards the end of the afternoon, the Crees began to carry
their bedding rolls out of the kitchen. The horses were led out and
saddled, their packs adjusted, and the hitches thrown. By five o’clock
all was ready for the start. After another wait, Gault came marching
over to the Women’s House. Loseis met him at the door.
Exhibiting his finest manner, he smiled politely. “I know this must be
disagreeable to you,” he said, “but I thought it better to keep up
appearances before my servants and yours. I have come to say good-by.”
“I was expecting you,” said Loseis. “I wish to return the various gifts
which you . . .”
“Oh, no!” said Gault sharply. “Do not put that slight upon me before
these redskins. Surely you have done enough. . . .”
“Oh,” said Loseis, “if you feel that way about it, it does not matter,
of course.”
He immediately recovered himself. “Let us appear to take a friendly
good-by of each other.”
“Surely,” said Loseis. “Perhaps you will take a letter out for me? I
understand that the mail is carried from Fort Good Hope every month.”
“Charmed!” said Gault.
She gave him the letter which had been written during the afternoon. It
was addressed to Gruber at the Crossing. She realized that if the first
letters had not been sent out, this one would hardly be allowed to go;
still, it was a chance that must not be neglected.
Gault, standing hat in hand, said with his polite smile: “I shall give
myself the pleasure of sending over from time to time, until assistance
reaches you from the outside. Though you repudiate it, I still feel
responsible for you.”
Loseis smiled back—a little quizzically. Is it worth it? her smile
said.
“Good-by,” said Gault, putting out his hand.
“Good-by,” said Loseis, letting hers lie within it.
He strode back to his waiting party, and swung himself into the saddle.
The Crees cried to the pack-horses, and all set off briskly out of the
inclosure, disappearing behind the store. Presently they were to be seen
on the trail above, trotting up the incline; smart, well-found,
arrogant, modeled upon the style of the old Company. Loseis breathed
more freely. To be sure, they were not gone yet, for Gault had said they
would camp for the night on the edge of the prairie. She was not in the
least deceived by his politeness. There would be another night of
anxiety to face, but not so keen as the previous night; for the violence
of his rage must have abated somewhat. Loseis realized that she had not
so much to fear from violence now, as from the man’s cold craft.
She went into her house. The supper was waiting. The thoughtless red
girls, thinking only that Gault was gone, were all smiles. Loseis had
Mary-Lou to sit down with her at table, in the effort to keep at bay
that ghastly feeling of solitude that crept over her like the coming of
night. Alone! Alone! Alone! And so long before she could hope for
succor! She gave the girls a highly comic account of Gault’s proposal
the night before, laughing loudly herself. Anything to keep the bogies
at bay!
It was about an hour afterwards when they first began to realize that
something was amiss in the Slavi village. There was an ungodly sound of
singing going on. The Slavis frequently made the twilight hours hideous
with their wordless chanting. Loseis was accustomed to it. To-night it
was different; it had an insane ring; they were burlesquing their own
performance, and screaming with laughter. It was significant too, that
the voices of the women were not to be heard. Loseis scarcely knew what
drunkenness meant, or she would have understood sooner.
She went to the little window at the end of the room which overlooked
the river flat. Though it was eight o’clock the sun had not yet dropped
out of sight. All the Slavi men were gathered in a rough circle around a
fire on the creek bank. There was no order in the company; some lay
about; some danced with extravagant gestures. The ordinary dance of the
Slavis was a decorous shuffle. The women were nowhere to be seen. Every
moment the scene became more confused, and the yelling louder.
Leaving the window, Loseis said: “I am going down to see what is the
matter.”
Mary-Lou flung herself upon her mistress: “No! No! No!” she cried in
despair.
Loseis was very pale. She firmly detached the clinging hands. “There is
nothing else to be done,” she said simply. “If I do not notice this, my
influence over them is gone!”
Loseis went sedately down the grassy rise, neither hurrying, nor hanging
back. Her back was straight; her face composed. Her look of proud scorn
lent a strange poignancy to her childishness. Her heart might have been
fluttering like a frightened child’s, but nobody could have guessed it.
Mary-Lou, seeing her face, wept aloud, without knowing what it was that
had moved her so.
As Loseis came near, the Slavis around the fire fell quiet and still.
Only one of them jumped up, and ran away, carrying something. Loseis
recognized the figure of Mahtsonza. He ran across the stepping-stones of
the creek, and climbed up the further bank. The rest of them were
orderly enough now: but their drunken, swimming eyes and hanging mouths
told a tale.
Loseis stepped into the middle of the circle. “What means this howling
that beats against my ears?” she demanded. “Are your brains full of ice?
(The Slavi phrase for insanity.) Is this a pack of coyotes or men?”
None answered her. They merely looked stupid.
Mahtsonza, a furlong off by this time, and feeling himself safe, turned
around exhibiting the earthenware jug. He insolently turned it up to his
lips.
Loseis recognized the style of the jug. Her heart sank at the young
man’s act of open defiance; but no muscle of her face changed. “Now I
understand,” she said coldly. “Blackburn’s whisky has been stolen.”
“No steal,” muttered the man called Ahchoogah. “It was a gift.”
“Who gave it?” demanded Loseis.
There was no answer.
Loseis stepped to the nearest tepee, and stuck her head through the
opening. Within, a crowd of dejected women and children, crouched around
a tiny fire on the ground.
“Where did they get it?” demanded Loseis.
A voice answered: “Etzooah brought it.”
All was clear to Loseis. She sickened with disgust that a man big and
powerful as Gault could stoop to so cowardly a trick.
Returning to the men she said in a voice of scorn: “Call Mahtsonza back.
Drink what is left. Drink until you lie like rotten logs! When you
return to yourselves you shall be punished!”
By this she meant that a fine would be entered against each man’s name
on the books. Letting her eyes sweep around the circle as if to fix each
face in her memory, she stepped out of the circle, and returned to her
house without looking back.
The moment the door closed after her, the yelling broke out again, now
with a clear note of defiance and derision. They wished her to
understand that though they could not face out her strong glance, behind
her back they spat at her. Looking out of the end window she could see
them capering about, indulging like children in an outrageous pantomime
of derision directed towards her house. Loseis quickly turned away. It
was a bitter, bitter dose for her pride to swallow. “They should be
whipped! They should be whipped!” she said, with the tears of anger
springing to her eyes.
However, she felt a little better when she reflected that there was only
one gallon of whisky between about forty men. It was only because they
were totally unused to the stuff that it had affected them as quickly
and so violently. The effect could not last long.
As on a former occasion at the suggestion of danger, Loseis found that
the three Slavi girls had quietly vanished. “Let them go!” she said
shrugging. “They would only be in our way.”
Loseis determined that she and Mary-Lou should sleep in the store. As
long as she could keep them out of the store, she held the whip hand.
When the two of them appeared outside the house, carrying their beds
across the square, jeers and yells greeted them from below. Mary-Lou’s
coppery cheeks turned grayish with fear; but Loseis’ chin went higher.
“Cowardly dogs!” she said. “If I went down there, their voices would dry
up in their throats.”
As soon as it began to grow dark, she set the lighted lamp in the window
of the store, to remind the Slavis that she was on guard.
Shortly afterwards the whole gang swept up into the little square within
the buildings. They all carried branches and sticks; one or two had
lighted brands from the fire below. Yelling and capering like demons,
they piled their fuel in the center of the space, and set fire to it. In
a few seconds the flames were leaping high, illuminating every corner of
the square, and throwing the fantastic leaping shadows of the savages
against the house fronts. Through the little window of the store, Loseis
watched them with a stony face. To bring their orgy within the very
confines of the Post! A hideous chill struck into her breast. If they
dared so far, what might they not dare!
Soon, like the savages they were, they lost interest in their bonfire.
The noise quieted down somewhat. Loseis ventured to hope that the effect
of the spirit might be beginning to wear off. The jug was not visible.
Presently she noticed that their attention was concentrated on her
father’s house. Some of them were nosing around it like animals; others
stood senselessly trying to peer through the dark panes; near the door a
man was haranguing his fellows, waving his hand towards the house,
Loseis could not hear his words.
The crowd around the door increased. Finally one ventured to put his
hand on the latch. The door was not locked. It swung inward, and all the
Slavis fell backward in affright. The same man who had opened the door,
crept back on all fours, and sticking his head inside, uttered a
senseless yell. The others shrieked with laughter. Still, they dared not
venture in. They gathered together in a close body outside the door, and
the sound of their jabbering reached Loseis faintly. Suddenly those at
the back began to push, and the first ones were thrust inside. Instantly
they all swept in. With a sickness of the heart, Loseis saw one run back
to the fire, and snatch up a pine branch with a burning end.
The girl groaned. It affected her like an act of sacrilege. Blackburn
was indeed dead when these miserable savages feared not to overrun his
house. She expected to see his private papers scattered out of the door;
she waited for the house to burst into flames.
However, destruction was not their present aim. They reappeared almost
immediately, yelling in triumph. He who came first held another jug
aloft; and others followed; Loseis counted: two . . . three . . . four!
Her chin went down on her breast. Well . . . this is the end, she
thought.
Mary-Lou had seen, too. “Quick! we must go!” she gasped. “They will kill
now! Quick! through the little window at the back!”
Loseis slowly shook her head. “No! You can go. I stay. As long as I am
here they will not dare to enter the store.”
“Look! Look!” cried Mary-Lou. “What they care now? They will kill you!”
“Maybe,” said Loseis somberly; “but I will not run from Slavis. You go.”
Mary-Lou dropped to her knees, and hid her face in Loseis’ skirt. “No!
No!” she whispered. “I never leave you.”
Pandemonium had broken loose outside. Some had rifled Blackburn’s wood
pile; and armful after armful of fresh fuel was thrown on the fire. The
Slavis took leave of what little humanity they had. The jugs were
snatched from hand to hand; tipped up to thirsty mouths; and snatched
away again. But even in their drunkenness they did not fight amongst
themselves. The fighting instinct was absent in this degenerate people.
It was an ugly thing to see the miserable little creatures, born under
the shadow of fear, and obliged to cringe to all men, now released of
their fears by whisky. They expressed their freedom by throwing their
heads back and howling like dogs; and by dancing around the fire with
legs and arms all abroad like jumping-jacks. The great, round moon,
rising a little higher to-night, looked down on this scene with her
accustomed serenity.
Finally they began to turn their attention to the store. At first they
did not dare to approach; but one or another would hide behind his
fellows and squall derisively in the direction of Loseis. The others
would laugh in the childish way of savages. These were merely animal
cries, without words. Later Loseis began to hear the word Burn! cried
from one to another. She shivered internally. Meanwhile the jugs were
still circulating, rousing them to a pitch of frenzy.
At last a man snatched up a stick with a burning end. Instantly a dozen
others followed his example. Loseis knocked out a pane of glass with her
elbow; and put the barrel of her gun through the hole.
But the Slavis never reached the store. Something caused them to freeze
where they stood. The whole mad, shifting scene suddenly became fixed
like a picture. Then they dropped their torches and fled; vanishing in
the silent manner peculiar to themselves. You could scarcely see how it
happened; you looked again, and they were not there. A moment or two
after the sound had reached their ears it came to Loseis within the
house. It was the distant pounding of many hoofs on the trail.
When Gault and his men rode into the little square, Loseis was standing
at the open door of the store. She still had the gun over her arm. Gault
flung himself off his horse.
“Good God! what has happened?” he cried. “I heard the racket clear to my
camp, and jumped on my horse. Are you hurt?”
Loseis slowly shook her head.
“Is any damage done?”
Loseis indicated the empty jugs lying scattered about. “None; except
that my father’s whisky has been drunk up,” she said dryly.
“My God!” cried Gault. “The brutes! I hated to leave you this afternoon,
but I didn’t expect to see my fears materialize this way. Now you see,
don’t you, that I was right. You cannot be left here alone.”
Loseis did not speak. She looked at him steadily, her lips curving in a
slow smile of scorn. She was thinking: Let him babble! It only makes him
out a fool. I shall not tell him all I know. To keep silence gives me a
power over him.
CHAPTER XI
A MEETING
Alongside a vast inland sea whose further shores were lost under the
horizon, a tall young white man was cooking his supper in the open. The
meal was going to be better than usual, for, having been camped in the
same spot for a week, he had been able to secure game. On a spit before
an ingeniously constructed fireplace of stones, a wild goose was
roasting. The young man turned the spit, and basted his fowl. He kept
the wooden spit from catching fire by the simple expedient of basting
that also. At a little distance two Indians looked on with covert scorn
at their master’s elaborate arrangements. What a lot of trouble to take
to eat! They had been content to impale their goose for awhile on a
stick inclined over the fire; whence they snatched it scorched on one
side and raw on the other.
The young man, while taking an innocent pleasure in his own ingenuity,
was thinking how unsatisfactory it was to cook your own dinner. When it
first began to sizzle you became weak with hunger; but the continued
spectacle took the fine edge off your appetite long before the meat was
done.
A dug-out nosed its slender length around a near point, and a shrill
hail electrified them all.
“Conacher, thank God!” cried the young man.
The two Indians ran down to the water’s edge; but their master would not
leave his goose which was browning beautifully.
From the dug-out landed an exactly similar outfit; that is to say a tall
young white man and two Indians. The two white men clasped hands, and
their eyes beamed on each other. However, they were shy of betraying
emotion before the reds, and their greeting was distinctly casual.
“Hello, old bean! Where the hell you been? The boss has gone down the
lake, leaving me to fetch you. Do you know that you’ve held up the whole
blooming survey?”
“It’s a long story,” said Conacher. “Oh boy! is that a roast goose I
see? Let me get my teeth into it, and then I’ll tell you.”
When they had thoroughly discussed the goose, they lighted their pipes;
and Alec Jordan invited Conacher to fire away. Jordan was about three
years older than Conacher; and they were tried friends. The Indians
around their own fire, were out of earshot.
“What delayed you?” said Jordan. “It was downstream work all the way.”
“Gad! it’s good to have a white man to talk to!” said Conacher. “I’m
damn thankful it’s you, old scout. I couldn’t have told the others.”
“But why this emotion?” asked Jordan humorously.
“Well, it concerns a woman,” said Conacher, looking away.
His friend’s face hardened. “An Indian?” he asked.
“No, damn you!” cried Conacher indignantly. “What do you think I am?”
Jordan opened his eyes. “But between here and the Rocky Mountains,” he
said, “around Blackburn’s Lake, and down Blackburn’s River, what else is
there?”
“There is Blackburn’s daughter?” murmured Conacher.
“Oho!” cried Jordan. “I forgot about her. . . . Indeed, I thought she
was still a little girl.”
“Don’t josh it!” muttered Conacher. “This is the real thing.”
“I’m sorry, old man,” said Jordan, touching his shoulder.
“Blackburn is dead,” said Conacher.
“I knew it,” said Jordan. “The boss knew it, too. But it never occurred
to us to connect your delay with his death. We figured you would have
been past his Post before the date of his death.”
“I was,” said Conacher. “But I went back.”
He went on to tell the whole story; how he had first come to Blackburn’s
Post, of the trader’s ungracious reception and the daughter’s scornful
one; how he had gone on down the river; how the little raft had come
floating by his camp with the pathetic black streamer; and how, yielding
to an impulse that he had scarcely understood, he had hastened
up-stream. He ended his story with the coming of Andrew Gault to
Blackburn’s Post.
“I could leave her then with an easier mind,” he said. “Gault knew
everything to do.”
“Sure,” said Jordan; but in so uncertain a tone, that Conacher asked him
sharply:
“What’s the matter?”
Jordan looked at him queerly; and the lover’s anxious heart was filled
with alarm.
“What are you keeping back?” he demanded.
“I don’t know as I ought to tell you,” said Jordan slowly.
“Why not?”
“It’s just gossip. We’ve got our work to do.”
“Do you put me or our work first?” demanded Conacher.
“Well, since you put it that way, you!” said Jordan.
“Then tell me.”
“But what can you do, now?”
“Never mind. You tell me, and I’ll make up my mind what I can do. I’m a
grown man.”
“Well,” said Jordan, “when you told me that Gault had come to the aid of
Blackburn’s daughter I couldn’t help but think it was like the wolf
coming to save the lamb.”
“Yes, I know,” said Conacher impatiently, “something of that sort
occurred to me, but hang it all! no white man could be blackguard enough
to take advantage of a young girl in that situation!”
Jordan smiled affectionately at his friend. “You’re young, my son,” he
murmured. “I don’t know as I would put it by Gault. . . . I suppose
you’ve never heard the full story of Blackburn and Gault?”
“No, how should I?” said Conacher. “Coming from the mountains.”
“True, this is your first season. I’ve been in the country three
summers, and I’ve picked up all the gossip. It’s one of the stock
stories of the country how Blackburn and Gault have been fighting each
other for twenty years, and Blackburn has beaten out Gault at every
turn. Gault had to obtain financial assistance outside. But here’s a new
piece of information that came to me pretty straight. Nothing can be
hidden in this country. It seems that Ogilvie, Gault’s backer, told
Gault on his last visit to Fort Good Hope that the Company would fire
him if he didn’t succeed in putting Blackburn out of business.”
Conacher’s face darkened with anxiety. “I wish I had known that!” he
muttered. “How did you hear of Blackburn’s death?”
“Yesterday, before the boss pulled out, we got mail from Good Hope by
the half-breed Modest Capeau. When he left the fort the news of
Blackburn’s death had come; and Gault had gone over there. . . .” Jordan
hesitated, with an embarrassed glance at his friend.
“Well, out with it!” said Conacher sharply.
Jordan shrugged. “According to the gossip at Fort Good Hope, Gault said
that he was going to marry the girl.”
Conacher jumped up. “Oh, my God!” he cried agitatedly. “That old man!
What the devil will I do!”
Jordan followed him. “How about the girl?” he asked.
“She loves me, Alec,” said Conacher simply.
Jordan gripped his shoulder. “Old fellow . . . you deserve to be happy!”
he said warmly.
“Happy!” cried Conacher bitterly. “I never should have left her!”
“But you had to leave her.”
“Oh hell, what does the government matter in a case like this. . . .
Wait a minute. I must try to think this out. How far can you trust this
gossip?”
“Well I’m bound to say this is more than common gossip,” admitted
Jordan. “It was Joe Moale, the man closest to Gault, who told the
fellows he had heard Gault swear that he would marry the girl. . . . But
she won’t have him, of course. No doubt everything will be all right.”
“Oh, God! don’t try to smooth things down!” cried Conacher. “She is
completely in his power. The only Indian who could speak English was
murdered . . . Of course she’ll reject him! And then what? Then what?
Oh, my God! think of the girl being left in the power of the man she had
turned down! . . . I never should have left her. But how could I stay
with all you waiting for me? . . . Well, it’s different now. I’ve done
the bit of work that was entrusted to me. I can put all the data in your
hands. After this they can get along without me if they have to. . . .”
“My God! Paul, what are you talking about?”
“I’m going back,” said Conacher quietly.
“You _can’t_ go back! Think of the row that would be kicked up!”
“I’ll have to face it.”
“You’ll lose your job. Where will you get another?”
“It’s true, nobody wants a geologist but the government. But I’m young;
I’ll make out somehow.”
“Oh, my God! this is terrible!” cried Jordan. “We’re so shorthanded
already!”
“Do you blame me?” demanded Conacher.
Jordan’s expression changed. “No, I don’t blame you, really,” he said.
“Go on back, and God bless you! . . . But it’s me that’s got to face the
boss. You know what he is. At the first mention of a girl he will think
the worst. He’s depending on your Indians, too.”
“Take them,” said Conacher. “Your dug-out is big enough to carry all
five. I couldn’t pay them anyhow. All I want of the government is enough
grub to see me through.”
“It’s foolhardy to travel alone!” cried Jordan.
“That’s all right,” said Conacher. “I’m not going to break a leg this
trip. I can’t afford to. The only thing that bothers me is, it’s all
up-stream work. I can’t make but twenty miles a day.”
“I wish it was me,” said Jordan enviously.
CHAPTER XII
FUR
Quite early in the morning, Loseis, issuing out of her house, was
greatly astonished to see the door of the little fur warehouse standing
open, and the bales of fur being carried out by Gault’s Crees. This
warehouse flanked the store on the left hand side as you faced the
river; on the other side there was a similar building for the storage of
flour. Loseis’ breast grew hot at the sight; and without more ado, she
marched across. Gault was not in sight; Moale was directing the Crees.
“What does this mean?” demanded Loseis.
Moale turned his flat, inscrutable black eyes to the girl’s face. The
dash of Indian blood lent a touch of mystery to Moale’s olive face. It
was a comely face; but so expressionless it was impossible to tell the
man’s age. “I beg your pardon?” he said in his pleasant voice.
“You heard me!” said Loseis in a passion. “By what authority have you
broken into my warehouse, and helped yourself to my fur?”
It was quite true that Moale had opened one of the bales for no reason
except the pleasure of seeing and stroking the marvelous pelts of the
black foxes. He was a connoisseur. He said smoothly: “Mr. Gault’s
orders, Miss. I thought you knew.”
“I did not know,” said Loseis, “and I will trouble you to have the fur
carried back again, and the door locked.”
Moale scratched his head. “I’d be glad if you’d talk it over with Mr.
Gault,” he said.
Loseis imperiously beckoned to the nearest Cree. “Man!” she said, “tell
Gault that I would be glad to have a few words with him.”
While they waited for Gault, Moale busied himself with tying up the
opened bale. He did not speak; but he looked at Loseis curiously and
wistfully, when she was not aware of it.
Gault was presently to be seen approaching from the men’s house. He did
not hurry himself. “Good morning,” he said, raising his hat. His manner
had changed. He was still polite, but it was an insolent politeness. His
eyes were as hard as glass.
Loseis welcomed the change. It permitted her to come out into the open.
“Why did you give orders to get out my fur?” she asked.
“It must be sent outside without further delay,” said Gault coolly.
“Am I not to be consulted?” asked Loseis, running up her eye-brows.
“It did not seem worth while to do so,” said Gault. “You have set
yourself in opposition to me at every point. Just the same I have a
responsibility towards you that I am obliged to fulfill.”
“I am the mistress here,” said Loseis in a rage.
“You are not of age,” said Gault coolly.
“Well, you are not my guardian!”
“No. But whoever may take your affairs in charge, will look to me as the
only man on the spot, for an accounting. If the fur is not sent out at
once you would lose the market for an entire season.”
Loseis turned away biting her lip. Whenever he began to talk in this
vein with glib use of legal and business terms, she was helpless. Her
instinct told her that he was merely cloaking his evil intentions in
smooth words, but she had not experience enough to be able to strike
through to the truth.
“Besides,” Gault went on, “if we do not get the fur to the Crossing,
Gruber will get tired of waiting for it.”
Loseis caught at this. “So,” she said, “you are sending it to Gruber,
then?”
“I expect to,” said Gault cautiously, “but I must reserve myself full
freedom of action. He has got to satisfy me that he can dispose of it to
the best advantage of your interests.”
“When does it go?” asked Loseis.
“To-morrow morning.”
“By the usual route?”
“No. I am sending it to Fort Good Hope; and thence by my launch to the
Crossing.”
Loseis felt that here was a point she could stick on. “I would rather
have it go by pack train as usual, direct to the Crossing over the
prairie,” she said.
“That would take two weeks longer.”
“Just the same, I request you to send it in that manner.”
“I must decline.”
The red flags flew in Loseis’ cheeks. “You have said that it was my
fur,” she said. “Very well, I order you to send it out as I desire.”
Gault, cool and hard; frankly enjoying the spectacle of her anger, said:
“And I decline to do so.”
Loseis observing that she was furnishing him with enjoyment, contrived
by a miracle to control herself. “Thank you very much,” she said coolly.
“I was just trying to find out where I stood. Shall you accompany the
consignment?”
“No,” said Gault darkly, “I remain here to look after you.”
Loseis bowed, and marched back to her own house. Gault looked after her,
rubbing his lip. His thin mouth was twisted with anger and bitterness.
By God! there was a spirit in the girl! Never had she seemed so
desirable to him as at that moment. Moale too, looked after her with a
deep wistfulness in his mysterious eyes. The tang of red blood cut him
off from any hopes in that direction.
Loseis put her feet down like a little princess; but her eyes were
stinging with tears. She conducted an orderly retreat, while her heart
was bursting with mortification. It was intolerable to be so proud and
so helpless. Helpless! Helpless! Her sex, her loneliness, her ignorance
delivered her three times over into the power of this man. She was
certain now that he intended to rob her, and she could do nothing!
During the whole day the preparations went on. The pack-saddles were got
out; and the fur was divided into lots of a suitable size for a horse
load. Gault sent Moale to the Women’s House with a polite message
requesting Loseis to come to the store to issue the necessary grub. She
proudly handed over the key, telling them to take what they required,
and leave a memorandum of it.
In the afternoon the horses were rounded up. As many were put into the
corral as it would hold, and the rest picketed in the square. Upwards of
seventy horses were required for the entire outfit. To make any sort of
progress between twelve and fifteen men would be needed to pack and
unpack the horses twice a day. Moale and two of the Crees were going,
while the other two remained to wait upon Gault. Loseis observed that
Ahchoogah, Mittahgah and others of the Slavis who had accompanied the
fur train on other years, were working willingly enough with the horses.
This started a train of thought in her mind.
Gault is too strong for me, she told herself; why shouldn’t I trick him
if I can?
With the passing of danger, the three Slavi girls had come sidling back
into the kitchen of the Women’s House, and Loseis indifferently took
them in, partly because she was accustomed to having them wait on her;
and partly because they furnished a useful link with the Slavi village
below. She now called Mary-Belle to her.
“Can it be true,” she asked, “that Ahchoogah, Mittahgah, and other men
are going to Fort Good Hope? That place is dangerous for Slavi men.”
“Wah! they would not go to that place!” said Mary-Belle with a look of
terror. “There is bad medicine in that place! Gault has said if they
will drive the horses as far as the red spring, the water of which makes
men and horses sick and well again, he will give each man a Stetson hat
and a mouth-organ. Blackburn never had mouth-organs in his store. The
red spring is half way between the two rivers. Gault says for the Slavis
to leave the horses there and come home. Musqua (one of the Crees) is
riding fast to bring the Crees from Fort Good Hope. Moale and Watusk
(the other Cree) will watch the horses and the fur at the red spring
until they come. So there is no harm.”
Loseis let the subject drop.
After supper, choosing a moment when she believed that Gault and Moale
were still at the table, she went over to the store. Fastening the door
behind her, she climbed through the back window, and making her way down
to the creek shore, followed it down to the Slavi village. Of course if
Gault happened to look out of the end window of his house, he could see
her amongst the Slavis; but then it would be too late to interfere with
her purpose.
The air was still full of a pleasant warmth, and the Slavis having just
eaten, were squatting in groups outside the tepees, laughing and
chatting in their ceremonious way. It is only in the presence of a white
man that the Indian is taciturn. By this time the men had thrown off the
alcoholic poison which had made them sick for days, and a general
feeling of well-being was in the air. Fathers fondled their little sons,
and abused their womenfolk; and the latter accepted it with equanimity.
At the approach of Loseis a dread silence fell upon them, and they drew
a walled look over their dark faces. It was the first time she had
visited them since that terrible night, and they expected the worst. But
Loseis was bent on playing a part to-night. Her face was as smooth as
their own, and much blander. Allowing them to suppose that she had
forgotten what had happened, she addressed this one and that by name
with grave politeness; promised a mother medicine for her sick child,
and handed out peppermint lozenges to the little boys who were the idols
of the tribe. Nobody would have thought of giving the little girls
candy.
Loseis sat down on an overturned dug-out, with the manner of one who is
prepared to hold agreeable discourse. The Slavis began to gather round,
but always with that absurd pretense of not letting their left hands
know what their right hands were doing. Loseis was very wonderful to
them, too wonderful to inspire affection; awe was nearer the word.
At first she talked of the stage of water in the river; the promise of a
full crop of berries; the scarcity of rabbit; all subjects of first-rate
importance to the Slavis. Ahchoogah, the oldest man present, in order to
prove how bold he was, undertook to answer her politely to her face.
When Loseis perceived that she had gathered the audience she wanted, she
went on casually:
“The wind is from the setting sun. There will be no rain. It is well.
The men who are going to-morrow will see Fort Good Hope in five sleeps.”
A tremor of uneasiness passed through her listeners. “No, no!” said
Ahchoogah. “We are not going to Fort Good Hope. At the red spring we
will turn back.”
“That is Gault’s talk,” said Loseis courteously. “All know that Gault’s
talk hides a snare. When you get to the red spring you will not want to
turn back. Gault’s medicine will draw you on. It is very strong
medicine. It’s name is electricity. I know it, because Gault brought me
a little piece of it when he came here. The girls at my house have told
you that. It opens its eye in the dark.”
Loseis paused to allow this to sink in. She fancied that she perceived
fear behind the blank masks of the Slavis; but could not be sure. None
spoke.
“I have heard of many strange things at Fort Good Hope,” she went on
with an air of indifference that the Slavis could not outdo. “Men say
that Gault is Old Man’s partner. Old Man say to Gault; I lend you my
strong medicine, but when you die you must be a dog to my sledge. Gault
thinks he will cheat Old Man, by going away to the white man’s country
to die. Maybe so. I do not know such things. I hear them told.”
She paused again. The men looked down their noses. A woman crept to
Loseis’ feet, and twitched her skirt.
“Loseis, tell my son not to go,” she said tremulously.
“If he wants to go, what is that to me?” said Loseis with an air of
surprise. “He will see strange things. When Gault claps his hands—Wah!
there is light. Gault catches the voices of the air on his wires and
brings them into his room. He did that in my father’s house and I made
him stop, because I did not want the Powerful Ones to fix their eyes on
me! Etzooah has told you these things. At Fort Good Hope Gault keeps
great beasts fastened to the earth. They have fire in their bellies and
they do his bidding. When they open their mouths you can see the fire,
and steam hisses through their nostrils as from many kettles in one.
When they are hungry they scream so that a man falls flat on the ground
to hear it. These fiery beasts eat men too, and Gault is always worried
because he has no men to spare. So he is glad when strangers come to
Fort Good Hope.”
Loseis rose, feeling that she could hardly better this conclusion. She
held out her hand in turn to Ahchoogah, to Mittahgah, to Mahtsonza and
the others there that she knew were going next day. “Good-by. . . .
Good-by. You are good hunters. You bring me plenty of fur. I am sorry
that you go.”
She returned home. It was impossible to tell how the Slavis would react
next day; but she had done her best.
* * * * *
Early next morning Loseis was at her window. Nothing was changed. The
horses were still picketed in the square; and the Crees were lounging
about the doorway of the men’s house. The lordly Crees had no notion of
bestirring themselves while there were Slavis to do the hard work. By
and by Gault appeared in the doorway, and with vigorous pantomime of
anger evidently demanded to know why nothing had been started. He was
told; whereupon Etzooah was dispatched down to the Slavi village in a
hurry.
From the other window Loseis watched Etzooah haranguing the Slavis, and
expostulating with them. It was all in vain. He was finally obliged to
return cringing to Gault, shrugging, spreading out his hands in
significant by-play. Gault’s face turned black, and he aimed a furious
kick at Etzooah, that the wily redskin dodged. Gault went inside; while
Etzooah slipped around the house. Gault reappeared carrying an ugly
quirt. Summoning his Crees with a jerk of the head, he set off down the
rise. The tall redskins followed with cruel grins of anticipation.
Back at the end window, Loseis saw the miserable little Slavis driven
like sheep by the five tall men. But sheep were never used so brutally.
The sneaking Etzooah, reappearing from the creek-bed, pointed out the
wanted ones, who were driven up the rise with incontinent kicks and
cuffs, and the furious lashing of the whip. Squeezing their bodies
together to offer as small a mark as possible, the diminutive savages
darted this way and that, to find that they could only escape punishment
by running straight ahead. The Crees yelled with laughter. The Slavis,
cowering, made haste to start packing the horses, and Loseis made up her
mind that she had lost.
Oscillating between the two windows, she presently saw that the Slavis
below were striking their tepees, and piling everything pell-mell into
the canoes, and she took heart again. She knew the Slavis better than
Gault did. Either Gault did not notice what the people were about, or he
disdained them. There was no interference with them. They presently set
off in a cloud up-river, paddling as if the devil were behind them. So
precipitate was their departure that a small boy who had gone down
amongst the willows to set muskrat snares, returned to find his village
wiped off the flat. After prowling around to see if by chance any scraps
of food had been overlooked, the child set off composedly up-river by
the horse-track.
Soon afterwards Loseis perceived that Gault was having trouble with his
gang. In the process of saddling the pack-horses, some of the Slavis had
disappeared. The four Crees were sent off in different directions to
round them up. This was a fatal move, because Gault and Moale could not
possibly watch all the others, and Etzooah would always play double. The
Slavis, on their part, have an uncanny faculty of choosing the moment
when no eye is upon them to fade away silently: to slip behind a
building, to roll down the creek bank, to lose themselves in the bush of
the hillside. In spite of Gault’s whip, and his terrible voice, his crew
literally melted away before his eyes. After making long detours, they
would rejoin their people somewhere above. Even weakness is not without
its resources.
When the Crees returned empty-handed, the Slavis were reduced to five.
These were all but surrounded; nevertheless, it was presently discovered
that there were but four, without anybody being able to say what had
become of the fifth. In any case it would have been impossible for such
a small number of men to pack and unpack seventy horses twice a day.
Gault gave up. The remaining Slavis were dismissed with kicks, and the
trader, doubtless in a hellish rage, strode back to his house. Near the
door, the grinning Etzooah spoke to him. For an instant Gault showed a
murderous face in Loseis’ direction; then went inside. Loseis
experienced a feeling of the sweetest triumph.
However, within an hour, two of the Crees with their bedding and grub
set off on the easterly trail, and her heart sunk again. In four or five
days they would be back with a swarm of Crees from Fort Good Hope. What
good would four days do her? She had only succeeded in prolonging the
agony.
Seeing the last of their people disappear, the Slavi girls exhibited the
frantic, unreasoning fear of half-broken horses deserted by the herd.
Loseis scornfully let them go. They slipped around behind the Women’s
House, and were not seen again.
The pack-horses had been turned out again; and the fur carried back into
the little warehouse. The lock of the warehouse had been forced out of
respect to Gault’s pretense that the key was sealed up in Blackburn’s
desk, and no other lock was put on. The door was held shut by a propped
pole.
Meanwhile Gault had not returned the key to the store; and after waiting
a few hours, Loseis sent Mary-Lou across the square with a polite
request for it. The girl returned without it, and bearing a message
equally polite, to the effect that henceforward Gault would relieve Miss
Blackburn of the trouble of attending upon the store. Until her duly
constituted representative arrived, he would administer it together with
the rest of her property.
Loseis was never the one to take this lying down. She instantly marched
over to the store. The door was fastened with a padlock through staples.
Loseis bethought herself that there were crow-bars somewhere about the
post. However she found an easier way. Gault had overlooked the fact
that the little back window was out. Loseis climbed through, and
obtaining a file and a new lock from the store, returned to the front of
the building and set to work. It was a long job in her inexperienced
hands; but she was supported by the agreeable thought that Gault was
watching her. By the end of the afternoon she found herself inside.
Putting in the rear window, she fastened the new lock, and returned to
her house to supper dangling the keys from thumb and forefinger.
After supper Moale came over. Loseis received him at the outer door.
Whatever his private feelings may have been did not appear. He said in
an impassive voice:
“Mr. Gault instructs me to say that you and your girl must prepare to go
out to Fort Good Hope when the fur goes in four or five days’ time. He
can no longer take the responsibility of keeping you here while the
Slavis are in open rebellion.”
Loseis laughed scornfully. “He can always find respectable-sounding
words, can’t he?” she said. “You’re a white man, aren’t you? I should
think you would feel ashamed to be the carrier of such lying words.”
Moale’s face changed not a muscle. Some secret feeling made him proof
against her scorn. He was not altogether white. He had not looked
directly in her face.
Loseis’ temper got the better of her. “You tell Gault, I shan’t go!” she
cried.
In his even voice Moale said: “I am instructed to say that Mr. Gault is
prepared for that.”
Loseis shut the door.
During the hours that followed she walked up and down her room, half
beside herself with balked rage. What possible answer was there to this
latest threat of Gault’s. He had hinted at using force. He intended to
lay hands on her. To Loseis’ flaming blood there were only two possible
answers: to kill herself or to kill Gault. The first alternative she
immediately rejected; that was the counsel of weakness. Nothing would
please Gault better than for her to kill herself. She would kill Gault
then, before he should lay hands on her. But ah! _dared_ she take the
life of a white man? She had had so vivid an experience of death taking
a man in his strength.
Besides there were three other men. She could not hope to shoot them all
before she was seized. She would be carried out anyhow. She visualized
the horrors of a trial of which she knew so little; she imagined the
cloud of lies that would beat her down. She had no one to speak for her
but Mary-Lou; and Mary-Lou would never be allowed to speak. And if she
were, the simple red girl would be struck dumb with terror. Disgraced!
Disgraced! thought Loseis. Parted from Conacher without hope in this
life. She buried her face in her hands. I must not kill him! she thought
in terror. I must not let myself kill him. . . . But how can I help it
if he lays hands on me!
If Gault had come over without warning to seize her, Loseis would have
snatched up a gun, and shot him without thinking about it. But with
devilish cunning he had sent to tell her of his intention. He was giving
her four days in which to go mad with trying to find a way out when
there was none.
Mary-Lou was terrified by the expression on her mistress’ face. She held
out her arms imploringly. “Please . . . please to go to bed,” she
whispered. “You will sleep. To-morrow you feel better.”
“Sleep!” cried Loseis. “I shall never sleep again!”
“Please . . . please,” persisted Mary-Lou. “Please stop walking.”
“Go to bed, you,” said Loseis angrily. “Let me be by myself. Close the
door after you.”
Mary-Lou went sadly out.
Loseis pressed her knuckles against her temples. I must be quiet! she
told herself. I must think what I am doing! . . . Quiet! The only thing
that would quiet me would be to go across and call him to the door and
shoot him! Ah, then I could sleep! . . . I must not think such things! I
must not! I must always be telling myself it would not end things to
kill him; it would only begin worse things! . . . But what is the use? I
know I shall suddenly kill him! If he lays hands on me! . . . If I were
a man he would not dare! She flung her arms above her head. “O God! why
didn’t you make me a man! It is too hard to be a girl!”
* * * * *
It had been dark for some time. To-night the silence was even more
complete, for no child whimpered in the tepees, and no Slavi dog barked.
Loseis was pulled up all standing by hearing a gentle tapping on the
glass of the window alongside the kitchen door. These nights the inside
shutters were always closed. She instinctively flew to her gun which was
standing in the corner; but put it down again, smiling scornfully at
herself. It was not in this manner that an attack would be made.
Returning to the window, she said firmly: “Who is there?”
A whisper came winging back: “Conacher.”
Loseis’ heart failed her; her legs wavered under her; she struggled to
get her breath. Then in a flash life and joy came crowding back until
she felt as if she would burst. She clapped a hand over her mouth to
hold in the rising scream of joy. Gault must not know! “Oh, Paul! . . .
Oh, Paul!” she murmured, fumbling blindly for the latch of the door.
CHAPTER XIII
THE FUR GOES OUT
Loseis and Paul Conacher sat on the great white bear rug before the
fire. Said Loseis, concluding her tale:
“He gave me to understand through Moale, that he would stop at nothing.”
“The scoundrel!” muttered Conacher. “He was trying to terrorize you. In
reality he cannot touch your rights here, unless you sign them away.”
“Sign?” said Loseis sharply. “I have signed my name four times on blank
sheets of paper for Gault. I had clean forgotten that.” She described
the circumstances.
“Obviously a trick,” said Conacher. “If you had known anything about
banking methods, you would have seen through it.”
“I am so ignorant!” said Loseis humbly.
“How could you be expected to know!” said Conacher. He mused. “I wonder
how in thunder he expects to use those signatures. . . . Were they at
the top, in the middle or at the bottom of the sheets?”
“Towards the bottom,” said Loseis. “He pointed his finger, and I wrote.”
“Of course!” said Conacher. “Then he could fill in anything he wanted
above your signature.”
Loseis leaned towards him. “What does it matter?” she said dreamily. “We
are together!”
“You darling!”
Loseis was too happy to remain sitting still. Springing up, she threw
back the little shutter. Outside it was broad day. “The day of my
happiness!” she murmured. Sticking her head through the kitchen door,
she called out: “Mary-Lou! Quick with my breakfast. I must set off!”
“So soon?” said Conacher. “It’s not four.”
“Gault mustn’t see me start. If he tried to interfere, you would be
drawn into it, and everything spoiled.”
“He’ll see you come back.”
“That doesn’t matter. I shall have settled everything with Tatateecha
then.”
“Can we depend upon the Slavis?” asked Conacher anxiously.
“If it was to fight, never! But to play a secret trick at night, oh,
yes! that’s just in their line.”
“And I?” asked Conacher.
“You must stay close to the house all day. This shall be your room now
. . . Ah! the happy room! Do not go near the windows. . . . Where did
you leave your dug-out last night?”
“Hidden under the willows about a furlong downstream. I thought I had
better communicate with you before showing myself.”
“You did right! . . . If the Slavis were here your dug-out would be
discovered within an hour, but Gault will never find it. . . . You must
sleep all you can to-day.”
“You must sleep too.”
“Ah! happiness has made me over! I need no sleep! . . . However, I will
be sensible. I will be back from the lake in three or four hours, and
will sleep all day in the kitchen. Neither of us will get any sleep
to-night.”
“I don’t altogether like your plan,” said Conacher frowning. “I should
be the one to stay here.”
“You are wrong in that,” said Loseis earnestly. “There is nothing of any
value here. All Gault cares about is the fur. The post of danger is with
the fur, and you have that.”
“Why shouldn’t you and I take it out together?”
“No! If I left the Post, it would give Gault an excuse to say that I had
given up my rights here.”
“But how can I leave you alone again?”
“Ah, nothing can harm me now!” cried Loseis. “I am guarded by happiness!
I will do everything quite willingly that Gault forces me to do, and
just be patient until you and Gruber come back. There is a sergeant of
police at the Crossing. Bring him back too. Oh, Gault will be quite
different when he knows that help is on the way. He has to think of the
law, then.”
Conacher was silenced: but he did not look altogether convinced. They
sat down to their breakfast.
“It is like being married!” said Loseis with a sigh of content.
“Mary-Lou, have you cooked enough for a man’s breakfast?”
Loseis’ own horse and her saddle were in the stable behind the men’s
house; therefore unavailable. Having improvised a halter out of a piece
of rope, she therefore set off on foot; and catching one of the broken
horses in the meadow beyond the creek, she rode it in the Indian
fashion, bareback.
* * * * *
At half-past eight she was back again. Turning the horse loose, she hid
the halter in a bush, and returned across the stepping-stones. Gault was
pacing up and down in front of his house. From this position he could
not see her until she started to mount the rise. It was impossible for
him to tell from what direction she had come. At sight of her,
notwithstanding his self-command, his face sharpened with curiosity; and
he changed his course in order to intercept her. Loseis was seized with
a slight sense of panic. He must not read anything in my face! she told
herself.
“Good morning,” said Gault, politely.
“Good morning,” returned Loseis. Alas! for all her care, she could feel
the dimples pressing into her cheeks, and she knew that her eyes were
shining. She kept her lids lowered, but that in itself was a giveaway,
for she had been accustomed heretofore to look Gault straight in the
eye.
By the brief silence which succeeded, she knew that his suspicions were
aroused. “You are up early,” he remarked in a carefully controlled
voice.
“I just went down to see if the Slavis had left a canoe that I could
use,” she said carelessly.
“I did not see you go,” said Gault.
“It must have been an hour ago,” said Loseis. “I went for a walk, the
morning was so pleasant.” (I should not be explaining things like this,
she thought. I ought to be proud and angry with him.)
“If you want a canoe my men will make one for you,” said Gault.
“Oh, no, thank you,” said Loseis quickly. “It was just a fancy. One must
have something to do.”
She had not stopped walking, and they came to her door. Loseis bowed.
“May I come in for a moment?” asked Gault.
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “We are not ready for visitors so early. But
if you wish to speak to me here I am.”
“Oh, it will keep until later,” said Gault. He touched his hat, and
watched her through the door.
Conacher was waiting for her in the inner room. Loseis flung herself in
his arms.
“Ah, you are really here!” she murmured. “It was not a dream! . . . If
Gault could see me now!” she added with a laugh, like a chime of little
bells.
Conacher pressed the hair back from her forehead. He had been watching
through the window, and his face was dark. “It makes me see red to have
that man speak to you,” he muttered. “What was he after?”
“Wanted to know where I’d been?” said Loseis. “Of course I didn’t tell
him. But I’m afraid I gave away a good deal in my face. I have him badly
worried. I hope it won’t cause him to sit up to-night, or set a watch on
us.”
“All is arranged then?”
“Yes. Tatateecha will land a hundred men in the second river meadow at
ten o’clock. They will wait there until it becomes dark. We’ll only have
about four hours of darkness, and the moon will be shining. It cannot be
helped; we must put our trust in silence. Slavis are the quietest
animals there are.”
A few hours later, Loseis, sleeping in the kitchen, was awakened by
Mary-Lou who said that Gault was coming across.
“He must be allowed to come in,” said Loseis. “Say that I am sleeping.
It will give me a moment to prepare.”
She hastened into the other room. Awakening Conacher, she said:
“Gault is coming. I must let him in here in order to put his suspicions
to sleep. Get under the bed.”
Conacher, still bemused with sleep, obeyed her; and Loseis, with a rapid
survey of the room, gathered up whatever was his, and thrust it after
him. The robe of raccoons’ tails hung down over the edge of the bed
concealing all. She went to the door.
“Come in,” she said, affecting to conceal a yawn.
“I am sorry to have disturbed you,” said Gault smoothly. His eyes swept
around the room, taking everything in. It was not that he expected to
find anyone there; he was merely trying to discover what secret source
of support Loseis had found. He gave her a hard look as much as to say:
What are you sleeping in the morning for?
Loseis, having had time to prepare, was fully mistress of herself. “Last
night I was too angry to sleep,” she said coolly.
“Hum!” said Gault, rubbing his lip. “That is what I came to talk to you
about.”
Loseis held herself in polite readiness to hear what he had to say.
“We mustn’t quarrel,” said Gault. He buttered his harsh voice; but his
eyes were still boring into the girl.
“I don’t wish to quarrel,” said Loseis mildly. “But when you tell me you
are going to banish me from my own home . . .”
“You refuse to co-operate with me,” said Gault, spreading out his hands.
“You don’t give me a chance,” said Loseis. Inwardly she was quaking
dangerously with laughter. If he knew what was under the bed!
“You are so young!” said Gault deprecatingly.
“However young I am,” said Loseis, “what is mine, is mine!”
“Well, I may have been a little too hasty,” said Gault with the air of
one who was making an immense concession. “Let us try to make a fresh
start.”
Loseis reflected that if she allowed a reconciliation to take place she
would never be able to get rid of him. “Perhaps I have been hasty, too,”
she said, “but I can’t forgive you yet. Give me another twenty-four
hours . . . Come to breakfast to-morrow, and I promise to meet you half
way.”
“Done!” cried Gault, showing all the big teeth. I am wearing her down!
he thought. Women do not mean all they say! “Expect me at eight,” he
said, making for the door.
Conacher crawled out from under the bed with a very red face. “It’s good
he went!” he growled. “I couldn’t have stood it much longer. . . . What
did you want to ask him to breakfast for?”
Loseis was charmed to see Conacher betraying jealousy. “While I have him
here no discovery is likely to be made,” she said. “Every hour’s start
that you can gain will help.”
“Well, I hope he comes after me, that’s all,” said Conacher grimly.
At ten o’clock that night Loseis and Mary-Lou came out of their house
arm in arm, and stood in front of the door linked together, gazing up at
the serene moon. Behind them crouched Conacher. Across the way Gault’s
house was in the blackest shadow, and they could not tell but that the
door might be standing open, and some one watching them from within.
Making out to be lost in contemplation of the moon, the two girls,
always taking care to present a double front to a possible watcher,
edged to the corner of the house. Conacher then darted around behind. He
was to make his way around the outside of the square and meet them
beside the creek in half an hour.
Loseis went back to close the door of her house, and the girls continued
their stroll. From the middle of the square they could make out that the
door of Gault’s house was closed. They descended to the bank of the main
stream, and came back again. Having by this maneuver satisfied
themselves that they were not being followed, they returned down the
rise, picked up Conacher at the creek, and crossed the meadow beyond.
Upon the gravelly ridge which bounded it on the other side, they came
upon Tatateecha and his silent men, squatting on the earth with their
backs to the moon like a patch of little bushes.
Conacher was presented to Tatateecha as the friend of Loseis who must be
obeyed in all things. Conacher himself could only issue his orders by
means of signs. Being a white man, and therefore not to be trusted where
absolute silence was required, he was sent down into the second meadow
to wait. The little Slavis deployed in the first meadow, and slowly
closing up, urged the horses slowly back over the ridge. In the second
meadow they could be packed without danger of arousing the sleepers at
the post. For this operation the light of the moon would be invaluable.
Led by Loseis, the whole tribe then crept back in single file through
the grass towards the Post. They crossed the creek, not by the
stepping-stones, but higher up, immediately below the steep bank at the
back of the men’s house and the little warehouse. Leaving her men at the
bottom of the bank, Loseis went up to make a reconnaissance. She crept
up to the wall of the men’s house, and rounding the front corner, edged,
a foot at a time to the door. Laying her ear to the crack, she was
rewarded by hearing heavy snores within. No watch was being kept. What
had Gault to fear from two girls?
Returning to her men, Loseis gave the signal, and the business of the
night began. Loseis herself removed the pole that propped the warehouse
door, and let it back softly against the wall. One of the Slavis was
posted close to the men’s house with instructions to croak like a
bull-bat if there was any sound of movement from within. Inside the
warehouse Loseis would have been thankful to use her electric torch, but
was afraid of precipitating a panic amongst the Slavis. However the fur
had all been divided into half loads for a horse, each half load being a
load for a man. Silently the endless procession wound in and out. A long
line of little men waited in the moonlight at the door. Nobody stumbled,
or dropped his load. There were a hundred bundles of fur. Afterwards the
pack-saddles, saddle-cloths, hitching-gear had to go. Loseis breathed a
little prayer of thankfulness when at last she propped the pole against
the closed door, exactly as it had been before.
There was still the grub to be got from the store; but as this was
passed out through the rear window, and carried away behind the
warehouse, the danger was not so great.
The easterly sky was full of cool light when the hitch was thrown over
the last pack, and pulled home. The head of the train had already
started. Tatateecha rode first to make the trail. Conacher lingered to
say good-by to Loseis. His heart failed him.
“Ah, come too,” he urged her. “Here are plenty of spare horses. Let me
take care of you!”
“No, no, dearest!” she said. “Before we had gone twenty miles Gault
would be up to us, and the Slavis would stampede. We’d have to wait for
Gault’s Crees after all. But if you can only get the Slavis fifty or
sixty miles from home into a strange country, you couldn’t drive them
away from the grub-boxes. I am hoping that two days may pass before
Gault discovers the loss of the fur.”
“He will see that the horses are gone,” objected Conacher.
“They are accustomed to wander from one meadow to another along the
river.”
The last Indian had passed out of sight. Conacher took the girl in his
arms. “You are asking the hardest thing in the world of me,” he groaned.
“And that is to leave you!”
“Ah! don’t make it harder for me,” faltered Loseis. “It is the only
way!”
“Damn the fur!” said Conacher. “It makes me out a mere fortune-hunter. I
wish you had nothing!”
“I’m not worrying about what you are,” said Loseis. “My heart tells me.
For myself, I care nothing about the fur. It was my father’s. I would
feel that I had been false to him, if I let Gault fool me out of it. I
could never respect myself. I am Blackburn’s daughter. I cannot allow
the name of Blackburn to become a joke in the country.”
“I’m only a tail to the Blackburn kite,” grumbled Conacher.
Loseis laughed a little, and pressed him close. “I shall make it up to
you,” she whispered. “You shall be my lord and master. Isn’t that
enough?”
“That makes me feel worse,” he said. “I’m not worthy. . . .”
Loseis put a loving hand over his mouth. “Enough of that talk,” she
said. “You love me, don’t you?”
“Until death,” he murmured.
“Me too, until death,” she whispered passionately. “That makes us equal.
This talk of fortunes and worthiness is less than nothing. . . . Now you
must go.”
“They ride so slowly,” pleaded Conacher.
“Get on your horse, dearest; I must not be seen returning to-day.”
Conacher obeyed with a heavy heart. He leaned out of the saddle for a
final embrace. They clung together.
“Good-by,” whispered Loseis. “Good-by, my dearest love. Come back soon!”
Swiftly withdrawing herself from him, she gave his horse a smart slap;
and it carried him away.
CHAPTER XIV
THE DISCOVERY
Dawn was rosy in the East when Loseis got home; but the moon had set,
and the little square within the buildings was full of shadows. There
was no stir of life about the men’s house; the door was still closed.
Loseis slipped thankfully within her own door. Mary-Lou, being of no
help in packing the horses, had been sent home some hours before.
In her first feeling of relief, Loseis threw herself on her bed, and was
instantly asleep. But at six her subconscious anxiety awoke her again;
and the instant she awakened, she was at the window. The door of the
men’s house now stood open; and the two tall Crees were respectively
splashing in a basin and brandishing a towel outside the door. They had
learned this trick from the white man. Etzooah squatted on the ground
near by, grinning derisively. The Slavis did not believe in washing. If
they ever yielded to this weakness, it was in secrecy.
One of the Crees went off to the stable; and presently returned leading
Gault’s own horse, a rangy, half-bred chestnut from the “outside.” Gault
appeared from the house fully accoutered, and Loseis’ heart seemed to
drop into a hole in her breast. Suppose he rode along the river trail;
any man not absolutely blind must perceive the marks of the passage of
the fur train. However, to her relief, he trotted diagonally across the
square, and started up the trail behind the store.
Freshening himself up to come courting again, thought Loseis with
curving lips.
Her next anxiety was that Moale, actuated by his passion for fine furs,
might visit the warehouse to look them over. But Moale did not appear
outside the cabin. Loseis saw smoke rising from the chimney, and
supposed that he must be acting as cook for the time being. So she left
the window to prepare herself for the day.
In due course Gault returned from his ride. He went within to refurbish
himself; and promptly on the stroke of eight was to be seen striding
across the square, very stiff and handsome and black.
Quite a picture, thought Loseis in a detached way; but not for my album.
She spoke through the door to Mary-Lou. “Let him wait in the kitchen for
a moment. We must not appear to be too eager.”
When she opened the door, Gault was standing there, hand on hip, looking
every inch the chief, and fully aware of it. He presented a smooth face
to her, with a hard and wary eye. He did not know exactly what to
expect. Loseis, making her own face expressionless, greeted him
politely.
“Come in,” she said.
The table was ready spread in the inner room, and they sat down to it,
outvying each other in cool politeness. Gault was thinking: She asked me
here this morning. It’s up to her to show her hand. And Loseis was
thinking: I have everything to gain by keeping him guessing. Let him
make the first move. So it was:
“This fried rabbit is delicious, Miss Blackburn.”
“I’m glad you like it. I was sorry there was no other fresh meat. The
Slavis say that a man may starve on rabbit.”
“The Slavis may say so: but it satisfies me. I can never get it cooked
so well as this. It needs a woman.”
“But I have read that the most famous cooks are always men.”
“Oh, I was speaking of our country. I have had many a good man cook on
the trail; but they seem to lose their cunning in a house.”
“My usual cook is the Slavi girl that I call Mary-Ann,” said Loseis.
“But she has run off with the others.”
Gault shrugged in a commiserating fashion. This was getting on dangerous
ground.
The trader was at a serious disadvantage in this fencing, because he
wanted the girl, wanted her intolerably, whereas she was indifferent to
him. Gault did not know the cause for it; but his senses were aware that
Loseis was revealing a new beauty these past two days. Her dark eyes
were fuller and more beaming; her very skin seemed to radiate a
mysterious quality of light. All this made the man a little sick at
heart; but he could not altogether give up hope, either. She asked me to
breakfast, he told himself; what does that mean but that she is
beginning to come round. Very often a woman is most scornful just at the
moment when she is preparing to give in. I should hang off a little now.
Meanwhile Loseis was thinking: Five hours! They will be making their
first spell. Fifteen miles. I told Tatateecha to cut it down to three
hours on the first day. Then five hours on the trail, and camp for the
night thirty miles from here. Gault’s Crees cannot arrive before
to-morrow night at the earliest. My people will then have sixty miles
start.
Loseis’ beauty teased Gault to such an extent that he was forced to make
overtures to bring a little warmth into that composed face. “Shall I
send to the lake village to fetch Mary-Ann back?” he asked.
“Oh, no!” said Loseis. “I prefer to ignore her. I shall be in a better
position to deal with her when she comes crawling back of her own
accord.”
“I was merely thinking of your comfort,” said Gault.
“You are very kind.”
Gault could no longer keep it in. “Well, am I forgiven!” he asked in a
jolly sort of way.
Loseis gave him no answering smile. “I am no longer angry with you,” she
said coolly. “I am just neutral. I am waiting to see what happens.”
Gault was a good deal dashed. She is just playing with me! he thought
angrily. But Oh God! that pure, pale skin, that proud averted glance!
With an immense effort he controlled himself. “There is no need for you
to leave this place,” he said with a reasonable air.
Instead of showing the gratitude that he expected, she said in a
slightly surprised voice: “Of course there isn’t!”
“But if we are to remain here together,” he said, nettled, “you must
make it possible for me to work with you.”
“It seems to me that you are putting the cart before the horse,” said
Loseis softly.
Gault ground his teeth together. This child to be taking such a tone to
him! “My dear girl!” he said loftily, “I must be the one to decide what
is best for us until some better qualified person appears.”
Loseis thought: I must not make him too angry. I must lead him along.
She said in a more amicable tone: “We are just talking in a circle.”
Gault contrived to laugh again. “Of course we are!” he cried. “Well,
what do you propose? You promised to meet me half way.”
“I will do anything that you suggest,” said Loseis with an alluring
mildness, “provided you explain the reasons for it.”
The blood rushed to Gault’s pale face. He had to restrain himself from
reaching for her hand. “That is all I could ask!” he cried.
“Yes,” Loseis slyly went on, “I will even go out to Fort Good Hope when
you send the fur, if it is necessary.”
A doubt occurred to the trader—this was such a violent face-about: but
she looked so adorable when she said it, that he waved the doubt away.
“Splendid!” he cried. “I now say to you that there is not the slightest
necessity for your going to Fort Good Hope!”
Loseis smiled at him at last, a slow, oblique, curious smile, having
infinitely more meaning than the trader suspected. It carried him clean
off his feet. His hand shot out.
“Shake!” he cried.
Loseis could not control the impulse of her blood that forced her to
rise suddenly (she had finished her breakfast) and to say with cool
distaste: “Oh, please not. I hate to paw.”
And Gault’s blood was aware of the true significance of that recoil, but
his vanity would not acknowledge it. He sat glowering at her half-hurt,
half-angry, a pathetic sight at fifty-three. “Oh, sorry,” he said in a
flat voice. “It is instinctive amongst men.”
“I know,” said Loseis, trying to smooth things over. “But I am not a
man. . . . Do smoke one of your delicious cigars. I have missed them
during the last few days.”
Gault allowed himself to be deceived. “My pet weakness!” he said,
smiling at Loseis rather killingly.
They were tempted outside. Loseis’ gaze involuntarily swept the heavens.
No cloud in sight; not the filmiest of vapors to dim the inverted bowl
of blue. There would be no rain for days. It was well.
“What are you expecting?” asked Gault smiling.
“Oh, nothing!” she said with a shrug. “My father always looked at the
sky when he came out of doors. I suppose I caught the habit from
him. . . . Shall we walk down to the river? Things have been so mixed up
lately, all my habits are broken up. I need exercise.”
“Delighted!” said Gault. “. . . There is not going to be any more
quarreling, is there?” he added with his fond smile.
“I hope not,” said Loseis demurely.
They paused at the edge of the river bank. The view was filled in by the
bold high point opposite, with the old grave and the new grave side by
side on top within the extended palings. The sight of the grassy mound
and the earthy mound aroused a poignant emotion in Loseis.
Do _they_ know what I am going through? she wondered. Ah! I hope not! I
should not want their peace to be disturbed!
Gault, watching the girl’s face, said with a heavy gravity: “I have not
yet had the opportunity to visit Blackburn’s grave. I trust I may be
permitted to pay that tribute. He was a great man!”
Loseis turned back from the river. She did not care to share her emotion
with _him_. The hypocritical words sickened her slightly. “Of course!”
she said coolly. “Why not?”
A hard nature! said Gault to himself.
However as they sauntered back through the grass, which was now
bestarred with pale crocuses, Loseis exerted herself to charm him, and
God knows that was not difficult. Matters went swimmingly again. Gault
expanded. He could see himself bending elegantly and solicitously to the
slim and lovely girl. It was a sensation one had never experienced in
that rude country.
As they mounted the rise to the little plateau, Gault was saying: “I am
expecting my men back to-morrow afternoon with some fresh supplies from
Good Hope. I trust you will give me the pleasure of dining with me. The
fare will not be as good as that you provide, but perhaps it will have
an element of novelty. . . .”
And at that moment they perceived Moale running towards them like a
madman.
Loseis’ heart sank. All her trouble to fool him was for nothing, then!
Immediately afterwards she went hard all over. Now for it! Well, let it
come!
“The fur is gone!” yelled Moale.
“_What!_” cried Gault, with an affronted air, that was almost comic.
“The warehouse is empty!” cried Moale waving his arms. “Gone! Gone! All
gone!” Nothing else could so have aroused that wooden man.
Gault and Loseis now stood at the top of the rise. The trader turned to
the girl with a towering look. “By God!” he said, softly at first, then
louder: “By God! . . . You have hidden the fur!”
Loseis, holding herself very straight, looked away with a maddening air
of unconcern, and held her tongue.
“She has sent it out!” cried Moale. “The saddles are gone; the horses
are gone! I have sent Watusk along the trail to pick up their tracks.”
“Where is the fur?” demanded Gault of Loseis.
She reflected that the truth was bound to come out immediately. “I have
sent it out,” she said coolly. “It was mine.”
The two men stared at her open-mouthed, bereft of speech. Finally Gault
got his breath back, and his anger.
“You foolish girl!” he cried. “You have lost it then! The Slavis are
useless without a leader.”
Loseis thought it just as well to let them know that they had more than
the Slavis to deal with. “They have a leader,” she said with an offhand
air. “My friend Mr. Conacher is in charge of the pack-train.” How sweet
it was to flick that name so carelessly in Gault’s rage-distorted face.
Another silence. Gault’s face looked perfectly witless in its
astonishment. Then it crimsoned, and the storm broke. In his passion the
man’s coarse nature brazenly revealed itself.
“You lying hussy!” he cried. “All the time you’ve been showing me your
demure face, you’ve been secretly receiving your lover! Lies! Lies!
Lies! Nothing but lies behind that smooth face! All morning you have
been lying to me to pave the way for his escape! . . .”
The girl faced him, surprised at first, then royal in her anger. “How
dare you!” she cried. “You accuse me of lying, you! _you!_ Why should I
not lie to you? You, whose whole presence here has been a lie since you
told me Etzooah could not speak English! You! with your mouth full of
hypocritical talk, pretending to be my friend while you plotted to rob
me! You unspeakable blackguard! It was lucky for me that I found a true
friend!”
Gault’s face turned blackish; and his lips drew back over his teeth. He
raised his clenched fists over his head as if to strike Loseis down. But
the scared Moale touched his arm, and the blow never descended. A
terrible shudder went through Gault’s frame. He turned and strode
stiffly away. At the door of his house he curtly dismissed Moale, and
went in alone.
Inside her own door, Loseis’ knees weakened under her, and she was glad
to sink into a chair. She covered her face in the effort to shut out
that truly frightful picture of rage. After all she was only a girl. Ah!
how thankful she would have been to have Conacher at her side then!
Her weakness was but momentary. She hastened to the window, standing far
enough back to keep her face from showing at the pane. It was essential
for her to know what Gault was going to do. Suppose he and his men rode
after Conacher, she would have to follow, and let the Post look after
itself. Impossible to remain inactive! Her horse was as good as the
best. Should she not ride at once to warn Conacher? Her horse was in the
stable with Gault’s horses. But there were other horses she might catch.
No! No! First she must see what Gault was going to do.
The Cree, Watusk, returned, and the four men were hanging around outside
the door, at a loss what to do. Suddenly Moale went in as if summoned by
a call. He immediately reappeared, spoke to the others, and they all
went into the corral and stable. In due course they came out leading all
of Gault’s remaining horses, eight in number, ready saddled; some to be
ridden, others to carry packs. They began to carry out their belongings
from the house.
Now I must start! thought Loseis in a fever. But a more prudent voice
restrained her. You mustn’t let Gault see what you’re going to do!
When the little train was ready, Gault came out of the house. To Loseis’
astonishment he kept on across the square. He was coming to speak to
her. She began to tremble all over. Just the same, she was glad that she
had stayed. She went to the door, and waited for him in an unconcerned
pose. He should never guess that her heart was pounding.
Gault had only partly succeeded in regaining his composure. He was
lividly pale; his lips moved with a curious stiffness; and there was an
ominous triangular furrow etched in his forehead. Without looking
directly at Loseis, he said in a controlled voice:
“I have done my best to look after your affairs. You have rejected my
efforts at every turn. Well, if you have found somebody else to advise
you, there is nothing further for me to do here. I am returning to Fort
Good Hope.”
With that, he faced about, and went to his horse. Loseis had not said
anything at all. The others were waiting in the saddle; and as soon as
Gault mounted they set off, Gault staring stiffly ahead of him, the
others looking askance at the girl lounging in the doorway. Around the
store, and up the side hill at the back.
The instant they were out of sight Loseis sprang into action. Without
waiting for so much as coat or hat, she ran across to the stable, and
flung saddle on her horse. It was perfectly evident to her that Gault
was still lying. If he had, as he pretended, given up in disgust, he
would have ridden away without a word. The fact that he felt it
necessary to advertise his giving up was to her proof positive that he
was not giving up at all.
Mary-Lou, seeing her mistress prepare to ride away, realized that she
would be left the last living soul at Blackburn’s Post. Panic seized
her. Running across the square, she met Loseis leading her horse out of
the stable.
“Take me! Take me!” she gasped.
Loseis was obliged to curb her headlong desire to be off. “Well . . .
well . . .” she said impatiently. “The buckskin is in the stable. I will
saddle him for you. Run back to the house. Fetch some grub. Shove my
riding clothes in a saddlebag. I’ll change on the trail.”
As she tightened girths, Loseis reflected: Etzooah is familiar with the
triangle of country between the two trails, from having trapped it in
the winter. There is no cross trail, but it would be possible to lead
their horses through the bush, and across the coulee. Take a little
time, though. I shall be on the southerly trail ahead of them. . . . But
suppose they steal back here first to spy on me . . . ?
A hard little smile wreathed Loseis’ lips. Hastily tying the horses to
the corral fence, she flew across the grass again. Meeting Mary-Lou
coming out of the house, she ordered her to put down the things, and
help her. In the house, Loseis tore the mattress off her bed, and
dragging it into the kitchen ripped it open. It was stuffed with moss.
Wetting the moss from the barrel of water which stood within the door,
she arranged it in the fireplace in such a way that it would smolder a
little at a time.
“That will last out the day,” she said smiling. “Come on; let’s go!”
CHAPTER XV
SHADOWING
Loseis and Mary-Lou rode hard through the river-meadows and over the
gravelly ridges. There was no danger that anyone who followed would be
able to pick out the prints of their horses’ hoofs in the confusion of
tracks left by the fur train. When they gained the shelter of the wooded
country, some six miles from the Post, Loseis pulled up to a walk. It is
impossible to think at a gallop. She wished to canvass all the
possibilities of the situation again.
She thought: The further they went along the trail before striking
across, the harder it would be to get over. Therefore if they intended
to come this way they would turn off as soon as possible. They would now
be behind me. . . . But I do not _know_ that Gault intends to ride after
the fur, though that is the likeliest thing for him to do. How foolish I
would look if I dashed ahead to warn Conacher, and then Gault never
came. Gault might be planning to steal back to the Post, and seize it.
Or he might have some devilish trick in mind that would never occur to
me. . . . I will not ride on until I make sure that he is on this trail.
It is impossible to hide with horses alongside a traveled trail. The
horses are certain to betray you by whinnying at the approach of other
horses. Therefore, Loseis was obliged to ride on four miles further to
the Slavi village at the foot of the lake. Here she sent Mary-Lou across
the river with instructions to turn the horses out, and to lose herself
amongst the Slavis.
Loseis walked back along the wooded trail, looking for a suitable place
of concealment. The river ran close alongside. On the river there was a
fringe of berry bushes at the base of the trees; but the water sparkled
through the interstices of the stems. No room to hide there. The other
side was more open; a thick brown carpet of pine needles that smothered
all undergrowth. Loseis began to run in feverish impatience. Suppose she
was surprised before she could hide herself.
At last in a place where the sun broke through, she came upon a thick
clump of the high-bush cranberry on the inshore side of the trail. She
walked up and down the trail surveying it from every angle. It would
serve! She crept in, careful to leave no tell-tale marks of her passage.
She constructed herself a little cave amongst the leaves, that would
permit of a certain freedom of movement without betraying her by a
rustle. Here she crouched within two yards of the trail.
It was very difficult to compose her impatient blood to wait. The
swollen river moved down, whispering and sucking under the bank.
Overhead a smooth, smoky-colored whisky-jack fluttered like a shadow
from branch to branch, cocking a suspicious eye down at her. Would he
betray her? thought Loseis anxiously. However he made up his mind after
awhile that she was a fixture, and faded away. In the distance Loseis
could hear the children and the dogs of the Slavi village. A dozen times
within a quarter hour Loseis looked at her watch; and each time put it
to her ear to make sure it had not stopped.
A whole hour passed, and another one on top of that. Loseis was
beginning to ask herself if she were not on a fool’s errand. What ought
she to do? What ought she to do? Then she heard a sound that caused all
uncertainty to vanish: hoof-beats on the hard-packed trail. It was then
two o’clock. As the sound drew closer her brow knitted; only one horse;
that was not what she had expected; why should they send one man in
pursuit of Conacher?
A minute later Etzooah rode by in the trail. He was not hurrying himself
at all; his horse was single-footing it gently; and the Indian rode with
his near leg thrown over the saddle horn, his body all relaxed and
shaking in the untidy native style. Etzooah, unaware of being observed,
looked thoroughly well pleased with himself. He hummed a chant under his
breath, and from force of habit his beady black eyes watched on every
side of him. Sharp as they were they perceived nothing amiss in the
clump of high-bush cranberry.
When he had passed, Loseis after making sure that there were no more
coming, issued out of her hiding place, and started back for her horse,
considering. Her first impulse was to ride after Etzooah, but she
dismissed it with a shake of the head. No! No personal danger threatened
Conacher from Etzooah’s coming. This was just part of some tricky game
that Gault was playing. Etzooah might safely be left to Conacher to
handle. She must find out what Gault was about. There lay the real
danger.
Obtaining her horse, and bidding Mary-Lou to remain where she was,
Loseis rode back towards the post. Having ridden about two miles, an
intuition warned her to dismount and lead her horse, that she might not
give undue warning of her passage. Shortly afterwards the mare suddenly
threw up her head and whickered. A moment later Loseis heard more
hoof-beats; several horses this time, pounding in a measured way that
suggested they were being ridden by men.
Turning her horse, Loseis mounted and rode back a hundred yards or so to
a small stream that fell into the river. Dismounting in the water, she
cut her mare sharply across the withers, sending her galloping on in the
direction of the Indian village. Wading up the little stream, she
presently climbed the bank, and making a detour among the pines, pressed
herself close in to the stem of a young tree, with branches growing down
to the ground. It was not a perfect hiding-place; she was further from
the trail.
The riders approached. They were walking their horses now. Gault, Moale
and one of the Crees; the other, Watusk, was missing. They had left
their pack-horses behind them. So they are not going far! thought
Loseis. Gault’s face, when he was alone with his men, wore an expression
that he had never permitted Loseis to see; a look of naked brutality
that made the girl shiver. It is the natural expression of that face,
she thought.
Even before she could see their faces, Loseis heard Gault and Moale
talking back and forth. The first words she heard distinctly were spoken
by Gault. He said:
“It must have been somewhere along here. I heard a horse run off along
the trail. I had not heard it before that. Sounded like some one might
have been waiting here.”
“A loose horse startled away by our coming,” suggested Moale. “There are
plenty of them along the river.”
“They don’t often run alone,” Gault pointed out.
“A Slavi, then. I suspect they prowl up and down this trail.”
“We don’t want them prowling around us,” growled the trader.
“Let Musqua cry like the Weh-ti-go,” said Moale.
The Cree, grinning, threw back his head and uttered the long-drawn,
wailing screech that is supposed to be the cry of that dreadful spirit.
“They will say that it is Blackburn,” said Moale chuckling.
There was a silence.
“We mustn’t go too far,” said Gault. “Or we’ll be on top of the Slavi
village.”
“What are you looking for?” asked Moale.
“A dead tree alongside the trail that we can pull over.”
For some reason these words struck a cold fear into Loseis’ breast. The
riders passed out of earshot.
The trail wound in and out among the trunks as woodland trails do, and
you could never see more than twenty-five yards or so ahead or behind.
As soon as the men had gone, Loseis issued from her hiding-place, and
started to follow on foot. She could still hear the murmur of their
voices but not what they said. The leisureliness of their progress
puzzled her. They were not going much further. What could they be up to?
And the remaining Cree; what had become of him?
She heard them pass through the little stream that crossed the trail. A
short distance beyond they stopped, apparently for the purpose of
holding a consultation. Loseis approached as close as she dared, but
could not make out their words. After awhile they left the trail. From
the sounds that reached her, Loseis understood that they were leading
their horses away amongst the trees. She went forward as far as the
stream, and ascended the bed of it, thus keeping roughly parallel with
the course they were taking.
For a couple of hundred yards back from the river, the forest was
perfectly flat, and for the most part clear of undergrowth. The ground
then rose steeply, and on the hillside young trees and bushes crowded
up. The little stream came down through a ravine full of bowlders.
Loseis, concentrating on the faculty of hearing, gathered that men and
horses had made their way back to the foot of the rise, where they had
gone into camp for a spell.
She climbed up the side of the ravine to a point well above their heads,
and then edged cautiously around the hill until she was directly over
the voices. Thereupon she began to let herself down softly, softly, an
inch at a time, choosing every foothold with circumspection, snaking her
body through the bushes with care not to create the slightest rustling.
Loseis as a child had not played with the Slavi children for nothing.
She discovered at last that they had established themselves at the base
of a gigantic bowlder embedded in the side of the hill. The smoke of
their little fire was rising over the top. Loseis, descending from
above, worked her body by slow degrees out on top of the bowlder, where
she lay perfectly hidden, about fifteen feet above their heads. It would
have been too risky to attempt to peep over the edge of the stone, but
whether she could see them was immaterial to her, so she could hear.
Her cautious progress around the hillside had consumed a good bit of
time, and when she arrived above the camp it was still. For a long time
she could hear nothing but the uneasy nosing of the horses, that had no
forage in that spot. They must have been tied, for they did not move
about. Loseis knew the men were still below her, for she detected a
faint aroma of tobacco, apart from the fumes of burning pine. At last,
startlingly, Gault’s quiet voice resolved itself out of the stillness.
He might have been speaking to herself.
“No, don’t put any more on. If any of the Slavis happen to be traveling
up on the bench, the smoke would attract them. Just keep it going until
we’re ready to eat.”
Moale asked: “When will you eat?”
Gault replied: “We can only eat once. Put it off until evening.”
Then silence again. Loseis feared that that which she so desired to hear
must already have been talked out between them.
By and by she heard a horse single-footing it rapidly in the trail.
“Here comes Watusk,” said Moale.
From the sounds which succeeded Loseis made out that Musqua had been
stationed alongside the trail to intercept Watusk. They could presently
be heard approaching with the horse, through the trees below. As soon as
they were within speaking distance Gault said sharply:
“Well?”
A voice, presumably Watusk’s, replied: “Blackburn’s daughter, and the
Beaver girl are at the post.”
The listening Loseis smiled to herself.
“Did you see them?” asked Gault.
“N’moya. They were in the house. How could I look in the house without
showing myself? There was smoke coming out of the chimney. For an hour I
watched it from the branches of a pine tree where the trail goes over
the hill.”
“Maybe Blackburn’s daughter had left the Indian behind.”
“N’moya.”
“Watusk is right,” put in Moale’s voice. “After everybody else was gone,
no Indian would stay there alone; not with that new-made grave in
sight!”
“It is well,” grumbled Gault.
There was more talk about eating. Gault indifferently told the breeds
they could take theirs if they wanted, but they would get no more until
morning.
More time passed. As is always the case with men waiting an event, they
found but little to say to each other. Sometimes the Crees discussed
their own concerns in low tones. Sometimes they all fell silent for so
long that Loseis supposed they had fallen asleep. Then suddenly Gault
and Moale took up the thread of a conversation as if it had been dropped
but a moment before.
“Couldn’t we hang a noose in the trail?” asked Moale.
“No way of keeping a noose spread,” returned Gault. “It’s better to
stretch the tracking line across the trail from tree to tree at such a
height that it will catch him under the chin. I hope it breaks his damn
neck. Most likely though, it will only yank him off his horse.”
Loseis’ blood slowly congealed as she listened. There could be no doubt
who the “him” was that they referred to.
“Then we’ll jump on him,” Gault went on; “and tie him up, and lay him in
the trail, and pull the tree over. I’ve got it all figured out. The
branches of that tree will stick out over the edge of the bank,
consequently the trunk will lie flat on the ground and break his back.”
“It may not kill him outright,” suggested Moale.
Loseis heard a horrible chuckle. Gault said: “Oh, I’ll stick around
until he dies. I don’t care if he lingers a bit. I hope he’ll have sense
enough to take in what I’ve got to tell him. If he lingers too long I’ll
stop his breath. You fellows can ride on. I’ve got the best horse. I’ll
overtake you. We’ll all have to ride like hell to get to Fort Good Hope
in time to establish a proper alibi.”
There was a brief silence, then:
“But there won’t be any trouble. Unless he’s found to-morrow, the
coyotes and the wolverines will have picked him clean. And in any case
the fallen tree, the broken back will tell their own tale. I’ll recover
the letter, of course, before I leave him.”
“Hadn’t we better keep a watch alongside the trail?” Moale asked
uneasily.
“Why?”
“He might come along before dark?”
“Impossible. I told Etzooah after he had located the camp, not to show
himself until the position of the sun showed eight o’clock. You can
trust a Slavi to keep cover. If Conacher jumped on his horse that minute
and ran him the whole way he couldn’t get back here till near midnight.”
At last they had named their intended victim!
“My only fear is that it may be daylight before he gets here,” said
Gault. “But of course we’ll get him anyhow.”
“He may suspect a trick, and not come at all.”
“Oh, sure!” said Gault unconcernedly. “But we had a damn persuasive
argument to use. If he don’t come by daylight we’ll go after him.”
“And afterwards,” said Moale, “what you going to do afterwards?”
Again the chuckle! “By and by I’ll ride back to Blackburn’s Post to
resume my courtship.”
“She’ll be mourning for the other one then.”
“What of it? It wouldn’t be the first time that a woman consoled herself
with the next best thing. It’s a very good time to tackle a woman. She’s
tender then.”
Loseis had heard enough. She commenced to work herself backward off the
rock. She inched her way up hill in the same manner that she had come
down. She was doubly careful now, for another life beside her own
depended on her success. When she had got high enough to be out of
earshot, she turned in the other direction from that she had come, and
making a wide detour, regained the trail a good furlong beyond Gault’s
camp, and set off to recover her horse.
CHAPTER XVI
WITH CONACHER
Conacher’s spirits rose somewhat with the sun. It was impossible for a
healthy man to be altogether miserable under that tender, beaming sky.
The lovely, changing prospects of the parklike country through which
Blackburn’s River flowed, made the heart swell. Conacher loved, and was
loved in return. An apparition of the exquisite Loseis continually swam
before his eyes. He was anxious; but he kept saying to himself as a
civilized man will: Oh well, nothing serious can happen nowadays.
In the more open places, it was thrilling to see the long, laden train
of horses stretching ahead; winding over a ridge; trotting down into the
bottoms. The imagination was arrested by the thought of the riches
stored in that endless succession of brown packs. It was like a picture
to illustrate an old fairy tale. Thoughts of Aladdin and Sindbad flitted
through the young man’s mind. Riches!—not represented by a trifling row
of figures in a book, but visibly spread before his eyes. Come to think
of it, Aladdin married a princess, too. An insipid miss in bloomers
according to the pictures; nothing like the darkly vivid Loseis!
Among other directions for the journey, Loseis had warned Conacher not
to allow the Slavis to cross the river to loiter in their village. It
occurred to the young man that he would not be able to prevent this
while he brought up the tail of the procession, so he took advantage of
one of the river meadows to urge his horse to the head of the line. By
Tatateecha’s crestfallen look at his approach, he judged that he had
acted rightly. It was his first good look at the rotund, greasy little
head man of the Slavis. Tatateecha was better favored than the run of
the Slavis; but that was not saying much. He had a neat, Buster Brown
hair-cut, and a red fillet bound around his brow.
Tatateecha edged his horse out of the line, and fell back to consult
with the next man. They were like a pair of children conspiring
together, with sharp, calculating glances at Conacher. The white man
affected not to notice them. Presently Tatateecha came back to him all
smiles. Conacher had had no experiences of the Slavis, but he knew
something about the Indian nature in general. He’s going to try to put
something over on me now, he thought.
Tatateecha by means of animated signs conveyed to Conacher that his
village lay a short way ahead; and that it would be the best place to
spell. Splendid grass for the horses.
“Not on your life!” said Conacher, with vigorous pantomime of denial. He
indicated to Tatateecha that there would be no spell until the sun had
traveled a space equal to two hours.
The Slavi broke into speech; but Conacher had him at a disadvantage
there, by not understanding a word of it. The white man continued to
point to the sun. Tatateecha became aggrieved; almost tearful in his
protestations. Then, bringing his horse close to Conacher’s he signified
with a winning air, that he himself was perfectly willing to go further;
but the rest of the men would refuse to go at all, unless they were
permitted to say good-by to their families. Conacher replied by signs
that if they refused to go and fetch the grub and ammunition, when the
snow covered the ground there would be no grub, no meat, and the people
would starve. This argument was unanswerable, and Tatateecha fell back
sulking.
Shortly afterwards the village hove in sight across the river. The
people lined up on the edge of the bank yelling; and Conacher’s men
yelled back. All knew that the white man could not understand their
tongue; and Conacher guessed that they were making pretty free with him.
It was a trying situation; but he preserved his imperturbable air.
The river issued out of the lake by means of a wide, shallow, brawling
rapid. At the present high stage of water, there was but one possible
place to ford, and this could not be managed even on horseback without
danger of a wetting. At the point where the trail forked, Conacher
backed his horse into the arm which ran down the bank, and held him
there blocking the way. The Slavis jabbered angrily from one to another;
the whole train was brought to a stand.
Tatateecha approached Conacher to expostulate. The white man pointed
with his whip down the main trail. Tatateecha attempting to speak again,
Conacher suddenly urged his horse forward, and cutting the Indian’s
horse smartly across the flank, sent him careering down the main trail,
the only way that was open. The train got in motion again. The other
Slavis, seeing that Conacher meant what he said, filed past him
sullenly. The people across the river fell silent. Conacher fell in at
the tail of the procession again. Ten minutes later his feather-headed
Slavis were singing and chaffing each other in the best temper
imaginable.
But Conacher had to keep a sharp look-out for deserters. Time and again,
one or another of the Slavis edged his horse in among the trees with the
object of circling around and gaining the trail behind Conacher. The
white man found that he could best defeat this maneuver by falling back
a quarter of a mile. In that position he would come face to face with
the astonished deserter, who thought he had already eluded him. Caught
in the act, they made no attempt to resist his commanding voice. When
they spelled at last, Conacher, without appearing to, anxiously counted
his men. He had lost one. With dinner in prospect there was no danger of
their making off. As soon as they had eaten he distributed plugs of
tobacco.
Upon reaching the lake the trail turned sharp to the eastward for some
miles. In order to provide a firm footing it had to encircle the edge of
the wooded country, far back from the water. The vast lake meadows at
this season were like a saturated sponge underfoot. For three sleeps,
Tatateecha explained, they would be traveling alongside these meadows;
and then, climbing through a pass in the hills, would come to the
prairie, where they would find the buffalo grass which made horses fat.
This bottom grass filled them up, but did not stick to their ribs.
Tatateecha was very ingenious in the sign language. When they spelled he
was perfectly good-humored again; attaching himself to Conacher like a
friendly child.
For two full hours they allowed the horses to feed, before rounding them
up again. Conacher would dearly have liked to sleep (as all the Slavis
did) but dared not. However, because of the tobacco he had handed out,
or because they were getting too far away from home, or for some other
reason, the Slavis appeared to have reconciled themselves. There were no
further attempts to desert. It was impossible to tell what was going on
inside their skulls.
Then for five hours longer they continued on their way. The character of
the route never changed. For mile after mile the brown ribbon of earth
threaded in and out amongst the trunks of the pines, climbing the little
unevenness of ground; crossing small water-courses. On their left hand
the vast sea of grass was generally in sight through the trees, with a
suggestion of water on the horizon; sometimes for considerable distances
the trail followed the actual line between grass and timber.
At about six o’clock they halted for the night. It seemed a pity not to
take advantage of the four remaining hours of daylight; but when
Conacher looked at the grass-fed horses, sweaty and drooping, he
perceived the necessity for camping. The horses were turned out in the
grass; the Slavis built their fire at the foot of the bank; while
Conacher spread his bed on top in a grove of pines running out to a
point, whence he could survey both horses and men.
He spent the early part of the evening fraternizing with his men amidst
great laughter when, as frequently happened, the language of signs broke
down. About eight o’clock he retired to his own little fire above, and
rolled up in a blanket. The sun had not yet sunk out of sight; but it
was planned to start at four next morning. As he lay there day-dreaming,
he was greatly astonished to see a Slavi Indian quietly approaching
between the trees at the back of the point.
He sat up. All the Slavis looked very much alike to him; but he
instantly recognized that this was not one of those who had accompanied
him all day. There was a suggestion of secrecy in his approach. A rather
better physical specimen than the average Slavi, his face bore the
childish, deceitful grin that was characteristic of them all. His teeth
were blackened and broken; on the whole, an unpleasant-looking
individual. He held out an envelope towards Conacher; and the young man
leaped to his feet full of a vague alarm.
“Who are you?” he asked involuntarily.
The Indian, grinning, shook his head like a dog, and pointed to his ear;
the usual sign for not understanding.
Conacher pointed to himself, and said “Conacher.” He then pointed to the
Indian.
“Saltahta,” said the man.
Conacher took the envelope. It bore no superscription. Tearing it open,
his heart was filled with warmth at the sight of Loseis’ signature in
big round characters. The letter had been written on the typewriter in
the stammering style of the beginner. Conacher had had such a letter
from Loseis down river. This one was brief.
“There is something wrong here. Gault is plotting mischief. I am afraid.
The man who takes this to you is a good man. Let him go with the outfit,
and you come back to me.”
As he read, all Conacher’s warmth was chilled. Suspicion leaped into his
mind full-grown. There was a vagueness about the letter that was not
like Loseis. Moreover he doubted if she would ever confess to being
afraid, even if she were afraid. And why should she sign her full name;
Laurentia Blackburn. On the other letter it had been simply Laurentia.
He remembered the sheets that Gault had made her sign for him, and
smiled to himself. Really, the plot was too transparent. He, Conacher,
was to be drawn off, and the fur diverted to Gault’s uses under guidance
of this Indian. Loseis had told him of a Slavi who was in Gault’s pay.
Suddenly putting his finger on the man’s breast, Conacher said:
“Etzooah.”
The Slavi looked at him with perfect, stupid blankness, and shook his
head. “Saltahta,” he repeated.
“Tatateecha!” called Conacher.
The little head man came climbing up the bank. Whatever his astonishment
at the sight of the newcomer, nothing showed in his face.
“Who is this man?” demanded Conacher, putting his finger on the Slavi.
“Saltahta,” said the newcomer quickly.
“Saltahta,” repeated Tatateecha like a parrot.
Conacher bit his lip. With a jerk of his head he dismissed Tatateecha.
The other man made as if to follow.
“You stay where you are!” cried Conacher.
Whether or not the man understood English, the gesture which accompanied
the words was amply significant, and he stopped in his tracks. He began
to whine pitifully in his own tongue, pointing to his lips and hugging
his stomach.
“I don’t give a damn how hungry you are,” said Conacher. “I mean to keep
you under my eye until I decide what to do.”
The Indian sat down at the foot of a tree, and pathetically exhibited
his empty pipe to the white man. Conacher tossed him the remainder of a
plug of tobacco, which he began to shave with an air of philosophic
indifference.
There was an agonizing struggle going on in Conacher’s breast. Though he
had every reason in the world to believe that letter a trick, he found
that he _could not disregard it_. There was still one chance in a
thousand that it was genuine, and it was a chance he could not take. He
had been unwilling enough in the first place to leave Loseis; this
little doubt tipped the scale. With that doubt of her safety in his mind
he recognized that it would be simply impossible for him to go on day
after day always putting a greater distance between them. “Oh, to hell
with the fur!” he said to himself; and in that moment his mind was made
up.
But he had no notion of swallowing Gault’s bait (if such it was) whole.
He lit a pipe to stimulate his mental processes, and puffed at it
leaning against a tree, and gazing down at the innocent-eyed Indian
speculatively. He thought: I shall take you back with me, my man.
Tatateecha is a good way from home now, and he’s been over this route
many times. He ought to be able to deliver the fur to Gruber. But in any
case I’d sooner trust him than you. Whether you like it or not, you
shall come back with me.
It seemed important to Conacher not to allow the newcomer to communicate
with the other Slavis. Removing the handkerchief from about his neck, he
therefore forced the astonished Indian to put his hands around the tree
behind him, and firmly bound his wrists together. The captive loudly and
plaintively protested; it was clear that things were not turning out in
the way that he expected.
Conacher then went down the bank to consult with Tatateecha. None of the
Slavis had rolled up for the night. Their faces were perfectly wooden;
but the white man sensed a certain strain in the atmosphere. Evidently
Tatateecha had told them of the newcomer’s arrival, and it had excited
them. As well as he could, Conacher signified to the head man that he
was going back to Blackburn’s Post; and that he wanted two of the least
tired horses to be caught.
Pointing up to the top of the bank, Tatateecha asked an eager question.
“He goes with me,” said Conacher, illustrating with signs.
He thought he saw a look of relief appear in the Slavi faces. However
they volunteered no information. Again he asked Tatateecha the man’s
name, and received the same answer: “Saltahta.” Strange creatures!
Apparently they knew of no way of dealing with the strong and terrifying
white man except to hide as much as possible from them.
Men were sent away to catch the required horses, and Conacher took out
pencil and note-book to write his letter to Gruber. He wished to do this
in the sight of Tatateecha, knowing what a superstitious reverence all
the remoter tribes have for the act of writing. And it was quite true
that Tatateecha, out of the corners of his eyes, followed every move of
the pencil with a look of uneasy awe. Conacher wrote:
“Hector Blackburn was killed on June 3rd by falling over a cliff
with his horse. Matthew Gault has come to Blackburn’s Post where
he is trying to take advantage of the helpless situation of
Blackburn’s daughter. She has written to you, but supposes that
the letter has not been allowed to go through. We are sending
you the fur in charge of Tatateecha because we have nobody else.
If you get this letter send us help quickly. Send the police if
possible; at any rate send white men. I have promised Tatateecha
a credit of one hundred skins if he places this letter in your
hands.”
“Paul Conacher, Dominion Geological Survey.”
Conacher inclosed this letter in the torn envelope, since he had no
other, and offered it to Tatateecha. The Indian received it gingerly and
wrapped it in a fold of the gay worsted sash he wore. Conacher explained
whom it was for, and told Tatateecha he should receive goods to the
value of a hundred skins when it was delivered. To convey the figure,
the white man patiently broke up tiny twigs to the required number.
Tatateecha’s eyes widened in delighted cupidity. In that moment he could
be depended on; the question was, could his feather-head hold to a
resolution long enough to carry it through?
The two horses were driven up on top of the bank. The Slavis jeered and
pointed at the predicament of the one who called himself Saltahta. If it
had been Tatateecha or Conacher himself, they would have done just the
same. By Conacher’s orders, they offered to feed the captive, but he
refused it. When his horse, which was found tied to a tree near by, was
led in, it was discovered that he had plenty of bread and meat tied to
his saddle.
Saddle and bridle were transferred to one of the fresher horses, and the
man was bidden to mount. His hands were tied behind him; and his feet
tied with a loose thong under the horse’s belly. The Slavis yelled in
derision, and slapped their thighs. Conacher would have given a good
deal to have understood the epithets they bestowed on the prisoner. A
leading rein was improvised out of a piece of tracking line. Tying
blanket and food to his own saddle, Conacher mounted, and rode off
leading the other horse.
For a long time he could hear the laughter of the Slavis. He wondered if
they could make any more of the situation than he could, or if their
laughter was as meaningless as it sounded. In the hands of these
crack-brained savages, he bitterly reflected, rested not only the fate
of that fortune in skins, but also the hope of Loseis and him receiving
help from the outside world.
CHAPTER XVII
THE MEETING
Three hours later the two horses were still jogging in the same manner
along the forest trail. In the beginning the prisoner had sought to make
as much trouble as possible by beating his heels against his horse’s
ribs, rendering the animal almost unmanageable. Conacher had then put
him in front, telling him to beat away, whereupon the Slavi had become
very quiet. The tiring horse hung back more and more, and in order to
make any progress at all, Conacher had been obliged to take the lead,
and pull the other after.
The moon was now high. Little moonlight penetrated through the trees,
but the general brightness made traveling easier. A slow trot was the
best that Conacher could get out of the horses. Even that pace was not
without danger at night. Had not the trail been freshly cleaned up that
day for the passage of the fur train, they could not have done it.
Conacher figured that he was within two or three miles of the Slavi
village. In two hours more he would make Blackburn’s Post. His heart
leaped at the thought of rousing Loseis up in the middle of the night.
How astonished she would be! He would hold her in his arms again! He
urged his horse forward, and gave the leading rein a jerk.
Not but what he had certain doubts, too, of his reception. Loseis might
blame him for returning; would want to send him away again perhaps.
Conacher firmly shook his head in the darkness. No! whatever the truth
of the situation, it was better for them to remain together. Nothing
should persuade him to leave her again.
As Conacher, dreaming, jogged along between the half-seen pillars of the
pines rising into obscurity, his wearied horse threw up his head and
whinnied. The rider instinctively drew up to listen. A sound of fear
broke from the man behind. Presently, out of the stillness of the forest
came a faint, answering whinny from ahead. Clapping heels to his horse,
Conacher rode to meet it.
The Slavi moaned in fear. “Stop!” he said. “It is not good. There is
nobody here.”
“Ha!” said Conacher. “You have found your English, eh?” He continued to
urge his horse forward.
They turned into a natural avenue through the trees where the moonlight
came flooding down. At the end of this glade, seen first as a dim gray
ghost, and gradually resolving itself into the lineaments of life, they
perceived a motionless horse and rider blocking the trail. For a second,
such a sight in that awful solitude caused even Conacher’s heart to
fail; but he did not pull up. As for the Indian, a strangled squall of
terror escaped him, and he fell to gibbering incoherently. He was
perfectly helpless. Tied as he was, he could not throw himself off his
horse without the certainty of being trampled.
Drawing closer, a wild, joyous suspicion sprang up in Conacher’s breast;
then certainty. It was Loseis in her boy’s dress, sitting astride the
sorrel mare. Flinging themselves off their horses, they flew to each
other’s arms, careless of the on-looker.
“Loseis, my darling!” murmured Conacher. “What are you doing here?”
She was all woman then. “Oh, Paul . . . Oh, Paul . . . !” she faltered.
“I came to warn you. Gault is waiting in the trail to kill you!”
“To kill me!” he echoed amazed.
A hasty, confused explanation took place. They lowered their voices that
the Indian might not overhear.
“I did not send you that letter,” said Loseis.
“I know it.”
“Why did you come back then?”
“I _had_ to come. . . . Do you blame me?”
“No! No! It is all right. If you had not come they would have ridden
after you. I can best take care of you here.”
Conacher laughed half in delight, half sorely. “You take care of me! I
like that! . . . How did you know they had sent me a letter?”
“I crept up to them in the woods. I listened.” She gave him the gist of
what she had overheard.
“Good God!” cried Conacher in his simplicity. “Think of anybody wanting
to kill _me_!” Catching hold of the leading line, he jerked the Indian
into the full moonlight. “Who is this man?” he said.
“Etzooah,” said Loseis with half a glance.
“I thought so,” said Conacher grimly. “According to the letter he was to
have gone with the outfit; but I thought I had better bring him with
me.”
“You did well,” said Loseis.
Tying the horses to trees, they walked away a little in the trail. For
awhile they were completely filled with the joy of being together again.
The difficulties ahead had to wait.
“Oh, my darling, when I realized that it was you, my heart nearly burst
with joy. It was so unexpected, so lovely to find you waiting quietly in
the moonlight!”
“Oh, Paul, it makes up for everything to have known you! I don’t care
what happens now.”
“You must have been waiting here alone for hours. How could you dare to
do it?”
“Why . . . I had to do it. I never thought twice about it.”
“You are the bravest girl in the world!”
“Oh, no! I’m just an ordinary girl who is in love with you.”
“I don’t deserve it!” he murmured.
“Well . . . neither do I!”
When they returned to earth, Conacher said simply: “What shall I do with
this Indian now? Put a bullet through his head?”
“Oh, no! no!” said Loseis nervously. “There must be no killing.”
“They started it,” said Conacher.
“I wanted to kill Gault myself,” said Loseis quaintly; “but I struggled
against it.”
Conacher laughed. “Little fire-eater!” he said, hugging her close.
“We must be serious now,” she said pushing him away.
“I’ll have to turn the man loose then,” said Conacher. “And let him find
his way to his friends on foot.”
“That will be best,” said Loseis. “They are waiting about four miles
from here. It will give us time to get out of the way.”
“The horses are so tired,” exclaimed Conacher. “And it must be eighteen
miles to the fur-camp. They will die under us before we get there.”
“But we are not going there,” said Loseis. “If I had meant that, I would
have ridden right through.”
“Where else can we go?” said Conacher, opening his eyes.
“Gault and his men would be up with us almost as soon as we broke camp
in the morning. The Slavis would run away. How could we protect
ourselves there in the open? Neither you nor I would ever be seen alive
again. How easy for Gault to explain that there had been an accident.
There would be no witnesses but his men.”
“What do you propose then?” said Conacher gravely.
“I have been thinking about it all these hours. We will go back to
Blackburn’s Post. There we will be on our own ground. There are strong
buildings to protect us, and plenty of grub and ammunition. It would be
more difficult for Gault to make out that there had been an accident
there.”
“Right!” said Conacher. “You have a head on you! Whatever happens we
will never be parted again.”
“Never!” she said going to his arms.
“One of us will not be left!”
“I swear it!” she said kissing him.
Conacher felt the strength of ten men coursing through his veins. “Come
on!” he said briskly. “How do you propose to get by the men waiting in
the trail?”
“We will take a canoe at the Slavi village. Mary-Lou is waiting there.
She will stick to us. She is not brave, but her heart is true.”
“Good!” said Conacher. “Now for this red-skinned blackguard. How about
taking him with us to the Post? Gault would then ride after the fur at
daybreak and we’d gain a day.”
“What good would that do us?” said Loseis. “He would be back at the Post
by night. And in the meantime the Slavis would be scattered. Tatateecha
is our best hope of getting help from the outside.”
“All right,” said Conacher. “But it goes against the grain to turn the
scoundrel loose.”
Taking out his knife, he proceeded to cut the cringing Indian’s bonds.
“You filthy wretch!” he cried; “you mangy, verminous coyote! If you got
your deserts I would be sticking this knife between your ribs! Go back
to your master and tell him . . .”
“Wait!” cried Loseis. “Not a word! Gault won’t know how much we know.
Let him guess!”
Conacher swallowed his anger. Etzooah slipped from his horse, and
crawled on the ground like a whipped cur.
Loseis and Conacher mounted and rode on, driving the third horse in
front of them. Etzooah, cramped from his long confinement in bonds,
staggered along slowly behind them.
CHAPTER XVIII
CONFUSION
When he came to the Slavi village after his long walk, Etzooah crossed
the ford, and sticking his head inside the first tepee, awakened the
sleepers with a yell. He demanded to know if Yellow-Head and Blackburn’s
daughter had been seen. A grumbling voice replied that they had taken a
canoe and gone down river. Searching for a horse, Etzooah perceived that
the whites in their haste had turned out their horses without unsaddling
them. The sorrel mare eluded him; she disliked the Indian smell; but he
caught the horse he had already ridden so far. It would serve for the
short distance he had still to go. Refording the river, he proceeded
along the trail.
It was not Gault’s habit to confide in his creatures any further than he
was forced to. Etzooah’s job had been to steer the fur train east across
the prairie and hit the big river at Fisher Point, where the fur could
be picked up later by the launch and a scow from Good Hope. Etzooah
might have guessed that a short shrift was waiting for Conacher at
Blackburn’s Post, but he had been told nothing of the details of the
plot, which, indeed, had been concocted after his departure. Etzooah
expected to find Gault and his men camped within a mile or so of the
Post, where he had left them earlier that day.
Ere he had gone two miles beyond the Slavi village, the miserable Indian
rode fairly into the trap set for the white man. He was pounding along
at a good rate over this well-traveled part of the trail, one knee
hooked around the horn of his saddle, as was his custom. The thin line,
stretched as taut as a wire across the trail, caught him under the chin,
and lifted his body clear of the saddle. His knee held him; the horse
reared; Etzooah’s head was dragged back between his shoulders. As the
horse’s forefeet dropped back to the ground, there was a horrible soft
crack heard. The man’s body came away from the saddle, and dropped
limply in the trail. The terrified horse ran on.
There was a loud laugh of bravado amongst the trees. Gault stepped out
into the trail. “Worked like a charm!” he said. “I think his neck is
broke.”
Moale dropped to one knee beside the huddled body, and struck a match.
“God! . . . It’s Etzooah!” he gasped.
“Etzooah! . . . Etzooah . . . !” said Gault stupidly.
The match had dropped from Moale’s nerveless fingers. He fumbled with
another. At last the little flame sprang up. “Look!” he said. “Look!”
“God Almighty!” cried Gault. “What’s he doing back here?”
Moale was feeling under the man’s head. “He’ll never tell you,” he said
grimly. “His neck is broke.”
Gault said anxiously: “See if he has the letter on him.”
A search revealed that the letter was gone.
“Then he has been to Conacher,” said Gault. “Drag him into the bush, and
we’ll go get that white man.”
“If his body should be found . . .” suggested Moale. “Hadn’t we better
drop the tree on him as planned for the other?”
“Hell! I’m not going to waste that trick on a redskin! I may want it
later. Pitch him in the river. The current will carry him far beyond the
sight of mankind.”
But as Moale started to obey, Gault changed his mind again. “Wait,” he
said. “I’ll help you to hoist his body out of way of the coyotes.
Conacher was the last man who saw Etzooah alive, understand? We will use
that later.”
The Indian’s body, still warm, was hung over two spruce branches. The
Crees were summoned to fetch the horses from their hiding-place, and
Gault and his three men rode south.
It was full day and the Slavis were packing the horses, in the spongy
meadow, when the four big men rode violently down the little pine-clad
point. Instantly the Slavis jumped on horses and scattered far and wide
in the sea of grass.
Gault had his eye on Tatateecha. “Let them go,” he shouted to his men.
He caught the plump headman by the collar as he was climbing on a horse,
and flung him in the grass. “Now then!” he said with an oath. “Where’s
the white man?” It was a simple matter to signify Conacher’s curling
yellow hair and blue eyes.
Another discomfiture awaited the furious trader. Tatateecha, delighted
to find that Conacher, and not himself, was the object of Gault’s wrath,
gave, in signs, a graphic and perfectly truthful account of how Etzooah
had arrived the night before and had given Conacher a letter; and how
Conacher after reading the letter had put Etzooah on a horse tied hand
and foot and had ridden back, leading him. Tatateecha said nothing about
the letter Conacher had given him, which was burning a hole in his
stomach at that moment.
Gault swore violently, and Tatateecha edged out of reach of his boot.
The trader was forced to apply to Moale in his perplexity. “What do you
make of it?” he said. “Etzooah was not tied up when we found him?”
Moale shrugged. “One thing is clear,” he said, “We’ve passed Conacher
somewhere.”
“Then catch fresh horses and we’ll ride back!” shouted Gault.
“The fur? . . .” suggested Moale, casting desirous eyes on the scattered
bales.
“To hell with the fur! I’m going to get that white man first!”
At six o’clock in the morning they were back at the Slavi village.
Splashing through the ford, the first native they came upon was a bent
crone, too old to get out of the way. Out of her dim eyes she looked at
Gault with indifferent scorn. In reply to the usual question about the
white man with the curling hair the color of the sun, she told in signs
that he had ridden there in the night when the paleness of the sky was
in the north (midnight). Etzooah was not with him then. The white man
turned out his horse, took a canoe, and paddled down river.
“Gone back to the girl,” growled Gault. “But what in hell could have
warned him that we were laying for him in the trail!”
Moale suddenly perceived the well-known sorrel mare grazing amongst the
other horses. She was still saddled and bridled. The eyes almost started
out of his head. “Look!” he cried pointing.
It was one of the nastiest shocks that Gault had received. He stared at
the animal with hanging jaw. “How did that mare get here?” he demanded
hoarsely.
The old woman replied by signs that Loseis had come with Conacher in the
night.
“What!” shouted Gault. “_What!_ . . . Why in hell didn’t you say so
before?”
The very old woman looked at him calmly. Her glance said: You didn’t ask
me!
The furious Gault was incapable of dealing with her. Moale, calmer and
warier, plied her for further information. She described how Loseis had
been up and down in the trail all day. Loseis must have seen Etzooah
pass at midday, but she had not come back to the village for her horse
until near evening.
“Then in God’s name what was she doing all afternoon?” muttered Gault, a
certain fear striking into his rage.
Nothing further was to be learned here. The four men rode on in the
direction of Blackburn’s Post. Moale and the two Crees gave their master
a good dozen yards’ lead in the trail. The passions of hell were working
in the trader’s black face. Moale was gray and the Indians yellowish
with fatigue and apprehension. It was a safe guess that all three would
have been glad then to get out of this ugly business; but they were
bound to their master a hundred times over; there was no possibility of
dissociating their fortunes from his. They were not bothered by moral
scruples; but they feared that Gault’s passions had mastered him to such
an extent that he was no longer capable of listening to the counsels of
prudence.
At a point about a mile short from the Post, they turned out of the
trail, and followed the summit of one of the gravelly ridges, picking
their way slowly through the scrub. Soon the timber and brush became too
thick for them to guide their horses through, and they were obliged to
dismount and lead them. After a mile and a half of the roughest sort of
going, which included the crossing of a gorge-like coulee, they came out
on the trail to Fort Good Hope in a little prairie dotted with clumps of
poplars. Here they had left their outfit the day before, and had turned
out their remaining horses hobbled.
They cooked and ate a meal in sullen silence. Afterwards Gault
dispatched Moale into the Post to spy out the situation.
“Tell her,” he said with stiff and bitter lips, “that I couldn’t rest
for thinking of her alone there, and I sent back to ask if she was all
right.”
Moale, in his impassive way, set off without expressing any opinion as
to the usefulness of this errand.
He was back by the time the sun had completed a quarter of its journey
across the sky. Gault was sitting hunched up in the grass almost
precisely as he had left him. In twenty-four hours the trader had not
slept. He sprang up at the sight of Moale.
“Well?” he demanded with cruel eagerness.
“I found the two girls in the Women’s House . . .” Moale began.
“Alone?” snarled Gault.
“Alone. Everything looked as usual. When I delivered your message,
Loseis listened politely, but her eyes were full of hard laughter. She
did not believe me.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me to thank you, and to tell you that there was nothing she
required.”
“What then?”
“Conacher, having seen me come, came hurrying across from the men’s
house.”
“Without concealment?”
“Why should there be any concealment? They cannot know that Etzooah is
dead. They think Etzooah has told us all.”
“Damnation!” muttered the trader. “I am all in the dark! . . . Go on!”
“Conacher had a gun over his arm. . . .”
“A gun?” echoed Gault in angry alarm.
“A gun. I did not have any talk with Conacher. He left it to the girl.”
“What else did she say?”
“She asked me where we were camped. I replied that we had made but a
short stage yesterday, because you were anxious about her. It amused her
to hear me lie. She didn’t say anything; but only looked at the
three-bar brand on my horse’s flank.”
Gault broke out in furious cursing. “You fool! Why didn’t you change to
one of the horses we left here?”
“Those horses are not broke for riding.”
“You could have managed.”
“What difference does it make?” said Moale impassively. “They know all.”
“How _can_ they know?” cried Gault. “Go on!”
“I told her that we had come upon a bunch of her horses, and I had
borrowed one to ride back, so I could save my own. She knew I was lying,
of course. Her horses do not range on this side of the coulee. But she
said nothing. She asked me politely if I would eat before riding back. I
had just eaten, but I said I would, thinking I might learn something by
staying.”
“The Beaver girl served me in the kitchen. While I was eating Loseis and
Conacher were talking together outside the house. They talked low, but
my ears are very sharp. I caught enough of the words to be able to piece
together the sense of the whole. Conacher wanted to tell me everything,
and try to win me to their side. I heard him say: ‘Insane with
jealousy.’ He meant you. His idea was that there was no reason why I
should risk my neck for you. But the girl would not agree. She said you
had only sent me over there to get information, and if they told me
anything it would be playing right into your hand. So nothing was told
me. When I had eaten, some more polite speeches were made, and I rode
away.”
“You think . . . ?” said Gault, knitting his brows.
“I am sure that they know all,” said Moale. “The girl must have been
skulking in the woods yesterday afternoon. She has doubtless learned the
Slavi tricks of hiding and moving softly. The way Conacher snatched up
his gun shows what they expect of us.”
Gault revealed the big teeth in an ugly smile. “Well . . .” he said
slowly, “we won’t disappoint them. We’re in so deep now, we’ve got to go
the whole way. . . .”
“You mean . . . ?” asked Moale with his enigmatic eyes fixed intently on
Gault’s face.
Gault nodded somberly. “The girl _and_ the man,” he said. “Before
anybody comes in.”
Moale shrugged acquiescently.
CHAPTER XIX
PREPARING FOR DANGER
As soon as Moale rode away Loseis, Conacher and Mary-Lou held a council.
The sense of common danger drew them very close together; their hearts
were soft towards each other. The whites treated the Indian girl exactly
as one of themselves. But poor Mary-Lou was not of much help to them.
Terror had her in its grip again.
The sunshine drew them outside the door of the Women’s House. Loseis
cast her eyes about the scene. “Ah! how beautiful the world is!” she
murmured. “Only men spoil it!”
“Cheer up!” said Conacher stoutly. “They haven’t got us yet!”
“I do not mind danger!” said Loseis quickly. “But such wickedness hurts
my breast. It spoils life!”
“I know,” said Conacher. “You cannot believe in it.”
“Well, never mind our feelings,” said Loseis with a shake of her black
mane. “What have we got to expect now?”
“We’ve got the time it will take Moale to ride to his master and
report,” said Conacher.
“But he’s waiting close by, of course,” said Loseis. “He may even be
watching us from the top of the hill.”
“The simplest thing would be for Gault to ride down and break in the
door with an ax,” said Conacher. “If he does, I’ll blow the top of his
head off,” he added grimly.
Loseis shook her head. “Gault never does the simple thing.”
“He may lose his head.”
“Moale is there to remind him to be cautious. . . . No! Gault will never
attack us in the open. Not while we stick together. I feel that from the
inside. He doesn’t care what you would think; but he is too conceited to
let me _see_ what a beast he can be.”
“When it came to the final point,” said Conacher, “I don’t believe he
could harm you.”
“He’s _got_ to kill me now,” said Loseis simply. “I know too much.”
Conacher walked around the Women’s House, studying it. When he returned
he said: “I think we had better make this our fortress. There are no
windows in the back; it will be the easiest building to defend. And more
comfortable for you girls. I’ll bring over my bed and bunk in the
kitchen. You two take the inner room. . . . That is, if you agree.”
“You are the captain,” said Loseis with a warm glance.
“Well, we won’t quarrel over who’s the boss,” said Conacher. “Our first
job must be to stock up with food, water, ammunition and firewood.”
They scattered to these tasks, glad to have something to occupy their
hands. Expecting momentarily to be interrupted, they worked hard and
swiftly, always keeping their ears sharpened for hoof-beats on the
trail. But there were no alarms. Midday came; they finished their work;
and Blackburn’s Post still basked undisturbed in the sunshine.
While Mary-Lou cooked the dinner, Conacher took stock of their supplies.
There was ample food, firewood and ammunition—they had taken care to
transfer the entire stock of ammunition from the store; but the water
supply gave him cause for anxiety. The entire stock of vessels capable
of holding water consisted of three small kegs, half a dozen pails and
some small pots. The Slavis carried water in birch-bark receptacles.
“Barely a week’s supply,” said Conacher ruefully.
“If the worst comes to the worst we’ll have to cut out washing,” said
Loseis smiling. “The Slavis get along without washing.”
After dinner they lounged in front of the house again. This was the
hardest time to put in. The uncertainty of what to expect kept them
keyed up to a painful pitch. Conacher wished to creep up to the top of
the hill to reconnoiter; but Loseis would not hear of it.
“Would you take me with you?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“No, of course not!” said Loseis. “You know very well we might walk
smack into a trap.”
They endlessly discussed their chances.
“If Tatateecha makes thirty miles again to-day,” said Conacher; “that
will complete one-fifth of the whole distance. . . .”
“Better not count too much on Tatateecha,” warned Loseis. “He is as
reliable as water.”
“I know,” said Conacher. “But there’s no harm in figuring. . . . Say he
makes the warehouse in eight more days. If Gruber started back
instantly—and of course he would on getting my letter; he could make
the return journey in five days, or even four if he had plenty of
horses. In twelve days then, we may begin to look for relief. After all
twelve days is not so much. . . .”
“But Gault will be counting those twelve days, too,” said Loseis in a
low tone. “He will not let them pass without acting.”
Seeing how the Indian girl’s head was hanging down, and her face
twitching, Loseis said kindly: “Mary-Lou, why don’t you take a horse,
and ride to the Slavi village? You can stay with the other Marys. You
would be quite safe there. And you can’t do us any good by staying
here.”
Mary-Lou, without looking up, slowly shook her head. “I not like live in
tepee,” she murmured. “Please, I want stay with you.”
Loseis gave her a hug. “Surely!” she said. “But I hate to see you so
broken up.”
“I all right,” said Mary-Lou in a strangled voice. She hastened into the
house.
Conacher and Loseis came together. They walked in the grass with linked
arms.
“Sweetheart,” murmured Conacher; “you hide it well, but you are
suffering too!”
“You mustn’t feel sorry for me,” said Loseis, “or I’ll feel sorry for
myself then. . . . It’s only not knowing what to expect! When I see what
I have to do, I’ll be all right.”
“If I could only get you away from it all!”
“I have been through it alone,” said Loseis. “Now I have you!”
Later in the afternoon Conacher was sitting by himself at the door,
still revolving their chances of receiving help from the outside, when
suddenly he perceived a bark canoe with two figures in it coming down
the river.
“By God! here’s something to break the suspense!” he cried, leaping up.
Loseis ran to the door. But when she saw the canoe her face showed no
relief nor gladness. She suspected who was in it.
And when the canoe landed in the creek mouth, presently an
all-too-familiar little rotund figure rose over the top of the bank.
“Tatateecha,” said Loseis in a listless voice.
Conacher’s face fell like a child’s. He groaned aloud in his anger and
disappointment. “Oh, the miserable cur!” he cried.
“What would you expect of a Slavi?” said Loseis, shrugging.
They waited for him in a bitter silence. Tatateecha came plodding up the
grassy rise with the air of a guilty schoolboy. His companion remained
in the canoe. Reaching the top, Tatateecha, with an absurd pretense of
not seeing Conacher and Loseis, headed straight across towards the
store. Loseis summoned him peremptorily. He came like a dog to get his
whipping, twisting his body, and grinning in sickening fear. Still
trying to make out that nothing was the matter, he said something to
Loseis that caused her to laugh a single bitter note.
“What is it?” demanded Conacher.
“He is out of tobacco,” said Loseis.
“Oh, my God!” cried Conacher. “Tobacco! When we were counting on him to
bring us help!”
Loseis held up a restraining hand. “You will only frighten him stupid,”
she said. “Let me find out what happened.”
The miserable Tatateecha told his story to Loseis, who translated it for
Conacher. “He says, early this morning when they were packing up for the
start, Gault, and his three big men suddenly rode into their camp, and
the Slavis jumped on horses and spread in every direction. Gault, when
he found you were gone, turned right back, but Tatateecha couldn’t round
up the Slavis by himself, he says. One by one they gained the trail and
galloped home; and there was nothing for it but for him to come home
too. . . . It may be true. It has the sound of truth.”
“Leaving all the fur and the pack-horses where they were, I suppose,”
said Conacher.
Loseis shrugged. “I expect that was bound to be lost,” she said.
“And he calls himself their head man . . . !”
Loseis concealed her bitter disappointment under a mask of indifference.
“He isn’t worth swearing at,” she said. “Give him a plug of tobacco, and
let him go.”
Tatateecha began to argue for two plugs of tobacco; Conacher with a
threatening gesture, sent him flying down the hill.
Supper time was approaching when all further uncertainty was put to an
end by the sound of many hoofs pounding down the trail above the Post.
Loseis and Conacher prudently retired within the house, and barring the
door, each took up a position at one of the little windows looking out
on the square. Mary-Lou declined to come to the window. Conacher was in
the kitchen; Loseis in her room, and the door open between. Conacher
opened his window. Between his feet rested the butt of his express
rifle; and he grasped the barrel in one hand.
Presently a numerous cavalcade rode into the grassy square. It seemed to
the watchers as if they would never stop coming. Besides Gault and Moale
they counted sixteen well-mounted Indians; big, able-looking fellows;
mostly having a claim to a distant white ancestor in all probability.
There were also several laden horses, and a number of spare ones.
“He’s brought his army against us!” said Conacher with scornful
laughter.
“They don’t know what they’re going to be used for,” answered Loseis.
“Might be a good thing for me to tell them,” suggested Conacher.
“Useless,” said Loseis. “There’s never been any police stationed at Fort
Good Hope, and they can conceive of no authority higher than Gault’s.”
Reining in, Gault pointed down to the river flat where the Slavi village
had lately stood. The Indians rode on down the grassy rise with their
pack-horses and spares; and began forthwith to make camp. Gault and
Moale were left sitting their horses side by side. Gault, well aware
that he was being watched, never looked towards the Women’s House. To
all appearances he was as ever, the elegant gentleman; perfectly turned
out; his face smooth and bland. He had allowed the rein to fall on his
horse’s neck. One hand rested on his hip; and with the other he
gesticulated gracefully towards the camp below, as he issued his
instructions to the deferential Moale.
“Quite the beau ideal,” said Loseis dryly at her little window.
“So that’s my would-be murderer!” said Conacher at his. “Gives you a
funny feeling to set eyes on him when you know.”
Moale dismounted and went to the door of the Men’s House, where he
knocked.
“Feeling his way,” said Conacher.
“It will be amusing to hear what excuse he gives for coming back here,”
said Loseis.
Conacher raised his gun. “Loseis,” he said soberly, “the quickest way to
end this matter would be for me to shoot him off his horse as he sits
there.”
Loseis ran to his side. “No, Paul, no!” she cried agitatedly.
“It would be the best way,” he insisted. “He means to kill us if he can.
Suppose he gets one of us and the other is left. I’m a pretty good shot.
I could get him easily now. It would end it. These other men have
nothing against us.”
“No! No! No!” she cried. “Not until he attacks us! I couldn’t bear it!”
Conacher allowed the butt of his gun to thump on the floor again. “Very
well,” he said a little sullenly. “Still, I think it would be the best
way.”
Receiving no answer at the door of the men’s house, Moale faced about,
and came towards them. Conacher and Loseis watched him with heads close
together. Moale’s comely olive face was, as always, perfectly
expressionless.
“What sort of man is this?” asked Conacher grimly.
“Who can tell?” said Loseis. “He is neither white nor red.”
They opened the door, and stood side by side within the frame to receive
him, Conacher with his gun across his arm. At sight of the gun Moale’s
eyes narrowed, but he made no reference to it in speech. Bowing to
Loseis, he said in his gentle voice:
“Mr. Gault wishes to know if he may speak with you?”
“But why not?” said Loseis coolly. “Speech is free.”
“If he comes unarmed,” added Conacher grimly.
Moale stabbed him with a lightning glance of his strange eyes, but did
not speak. Bowing to Loseis again, he turned and went back to Gault.
Loseis and Conacher remained standing in the doorway. The girl said
earnestly:
“Paul dear, when he comes, you must hold your anger in.”
“I’m not going to truckle to him,” said Conacher, angry already.
“Of course not! If we showed fear we would be lost. But if we become
angry they will use it as an excuse to attack us, and we will be lost,
too. We must show neither fear nor anger, but only coldness. My heart
tells me that.”
“Oh, you’re right, of course,” groaned Conacher; “but you’re asking
almost too much of flesh and blood!”
After a brief colloquy with Moale, Gault dismounted, and came striding
towards them with measured steps. He had retained the lordly air of the
old-time trader. His self-control was marvelous; he kept his head up,
and looked from Loseis to Conacher with brazen coolness. But there was a
sort of glassy guard over his eyes. You could not see into them.
“He has his nerve with him,” grumbled Conacher in unwilling admiration.
“Marching up to the gun like this, with empty hands.”
“He may have a pistol,” suggested Loseis.
“He’d have to draw it,” said Conacher coolly. “And my gun is in my
hands.”
As he drew close, Gault’s eyes flickered once. It must have been like a
knife in his breast to see Conacher and Loseis pressed together
companionably in the door of their house like a little family. But this
was the only sign of feeling he gave.
“Good evening,” he said to Loseis.
“Good evening,” returned Loseis.
Gault went on: “I was somewhat surprised to learn from Moale, when he
returned to me to-day, that Conacher was with you.”
“Were you?” said Loseis dryly.
“You told me that he had gone with the fur.”
This was too much for Conacher’s honest simplicity. “You know damned
well what brought me back!” he cried.
Loseis laid a restraining hand on his arm. Gault continued to look at
Loseis as if Conacher had not spoken. There was a silence which seemed
to bristle with pointing knives.
“Of course it was clear to me that the Slavis would never be able to
carry through alone,” Gault resumed. “And as I happened to meet the men
I had sent for from Fort Good Hope just then, I turned around and
brought them back with me, to offer them to you to take out your fur.
They are experienced and intelligent men, and can travel anywhere.”
Loseis took thought before answering. Why does he trouble to give me all
this palaver when he knows he has only to go and get the fur? It
occurred to her that candor on her part would be the best means of
disconcerting him. She said coolly:
“The Slavis have already returned. The fur has been abandoned at the
spot about thirty miles from here, where you saw it early this
morning. . . .”
Gault changed color slightly. He could not guess how she had learned
this so soon.
“Well, there it lies,” Loseis went on. “I do not mean to give you
permission to go and get it. On the other hand I cannot prevent you from
doing so.”
Gault appeared to be debating the question with himself. He finally
said: “It is clearly my duty to save this valuable property. I shall
therefore send the Crees after it to-morrow.”
“As you will,” said Loseis.
Gault made to go; and then turned back as if struck by a new thought. “I
shall be returning to my own post,” he said. “My first thought was to
send Moale out with the fur; but your situation cannot be very
comfortable here. If you and Conacher would like to accompany the fur
train, Moale may remain here to guard your property until you return.”
Loseis smiled coldly. So this was what he had been leading up to!
Conacher’s blue eyes widened with indignation. “Well, I’ll be damned!”
he cried. “If this doesn’t. . . .”
Loseis touched him warningly. “I thank you,” she said to Gault with hard
sweetness. “Mr. Conacher and I both thank you. We offer you all the
thanks that is due to your most generous offer. But _under the
circumstances_, we prefer to remain here.”
Gault’s face was like a wall. He bowed to Loseis, and left them.
“By God . . . !” began Conacher.
“Hush!” said Loseis. “Anger just gives him an opening to get angry too.
But coldness mixes him all up.”
“What a fool he must be to think . . .”
“He is not a fool,” interrupted Loseis. “He knew exactly what he was
doing. You see he was not sure if we knew that he meant murder. His
object was to find that out. Well, he did find out.”
CHAPTER XX
BESIEGED
A little tent of pale green silk, trim and elegant, was pitched for
Gault in the meadow below, a short distance from the big fire built by
the Crees. After supper they could see Gault seated in the place of
honor beside the fire, surrounded by his men. Apparently all was peace
and good-fellowship in that camp. The attitudes of the men suggested
story-telling, and hearty laughter.
“This is for our benefit,” said Loseis with a scornful smile.
“I shall watch through the night,” said Conacher.
“There will be no open attack.”
“Just the same, I’ll stay up.”
“I will take turns with you.”
However, Gault presently crept under his little tent; and the Crees one
by one rolled up in their blankets, and lay completely covered up in the
redskin manner like a long row of corpses along the edge of the creek
bank. The sun went down, and the great silence crept like long fingers
out of the darkening sky. The brief hours of darkness passed, and there
was no suspicious move nor sound from below. The last of the sunset glow
stole around the northern horizon towards the east. In due course the
sun rose again, and the camp below lay exactly as before.
Soon afterwards a great bustle began. They built up the fire,
breakfasted, caught their horses, and packed up. Moale and the main body
of the Crees crossed the creek, and galloped away over the trail to the
south. Gault and two men rode up the rise, crossed the little square
without a glance towards the Women’s House, and went on up the trail
behind the store.
“There are four men unaccounted for,” said Loseis suddenly. “Only ten
went with Moale. I counted them.”
“Let’s go out and take a look about,” said Conacher. “Whatever they are
plotting, it will take them a certain time to organize it. For a few
minutes anyhow, we will be safe.”
They left Mary-Lou, gray with terror, alone in the house. Conacher took
his gun. After their night-long vigil it was a delight to get out into
the open. Running down the grassy rise together, they joked at danger.
“Funny, here in my own place to be expecting to hear a bullet sing past
my ears,” said Loseis.
“’S all right if it sings past,” said Conacher, grinning.
As soon as Loseis looked over the creek bank she said: “There was a
damaged dug-out lying in the mud here. They have repaired it and gone in
it. They must have gone down river, close under the bank. We should have
seen them if they had gone up. I don’t know why they should go down
river.”
“I think I can explain that,” said Conacher. “There are three possible
ways of escape from this place; south by the trail to the lake and
beyond; east by the trail to Fort Good Hope; and north down the river.
All three ways are now watched by our enemies.”
“I never should have thought of going down river,” said Loseis. “There
is nothing there.”
“I have thought of it,” said Conacher. “It would be many hundreds of
miles to a post, but it’s a possibility. But with the river watched it
would be the most dangerous way of all. All they’d have to do would be
to smash our boat, or set it adrift in the current. It would be all day
with us then.”
“Just to keep us from escaping wouldn’t do Gault any good,” said Loseis.
“We have plenty of grub; and help is bound to arrive in the end. That
cannot be the whole of his plan.”
“Oh, no; not the whole of it,” said Conacher grimly. “Time will tell.”
Loseis shivered. “Let’s get back under cover,” she said.
Before returning to the house they made sure that Conacher’s dug-out was
still safe where he had left it hidden in the willows with the paddle in
the bottom.
“Who knows? It may come in handy,” he said.
The hours of that day dragged by with leaden feet. Nothing happened, and
that was the hardest thing to bear. All needed sleep; and all were too
highly keyed up to obtain it. Clouds had come up with the sun, and by
breakfast time a soft persistent rain was falling, driven in sheets by a
cold wind from the northeast. Sharp squalls swept across the little
square at intervals, almost blotting out the buildings opposite.
“Well, at any rate we’re better off than the other fellows,” said
Conacher with a grim chuckle. “We’ve got a roof over our heads.”
After breakfast in spite of Loseis’ protests, he took up his position in
the open doorway, with his gun across his knees. His view out of the
window was too much narrowed by the thickness of the log walls, he
explained.
“But you offer such a fair mark where you are!” complained Loseis.
“Nobody could shoot me here except from behind the house opposite,” said
Conacher. “In order to do that he’s got to show himself; and my eyes are
as quick as the next man’s.”
The house opposite bothered Conacher. “If they gained possession of it,
it would render our position untenable, as they say in the army
communiqués,” he said.
It transpired that there were staples in the door, and a padlock lying
somewhere within to fasten it. Conacher announced his intention of going
across to bar the shutters and lock the door.
And so it was done. Loseis stood at the door with her gun to cover his
passage to and fro across the little square.
Loseis and Conacher, half exasperated, half affectionate, disputed
endlessly over who should bear the heavier part of the burden.
“You _must_ sleep!” insisted Loseis. “It is to-night that the real
danger will come.”
“You sleep first,” said Conacher, “and I’ll promise to match whatever
you do, later.”
Towards the end of the afternoon the sky cleared, and the grass of the
little square steamed up in the warmth of the late sun.
“I’d give something to be able to run down to the river and back to
stretch my legs,” said Conacher longingly.
“Every foot of the flat is commanded from the bench to the north,” said
Loseis sharply.
“Very little danger of getting hit if I zigzagged,” said Conacher,
partly to tease her.
Loseis changed her tactics. “Very well, I’ll come too,” she said.
“Not on your life!” said Conacher; and the subject was dropped.
They ate their supper; the sun went down; and the great stillness
descended. Conacher closed and barred the door then; and went back to
the kitchen window. The window was open; and the slender black barrel of
his rifle stuck out across the thick log that formed its sill.
Accustomed as they were to the evening stillness, in this tense hour it
struck awe into their breasts as if it was the first time. They had an
indefinable feeling that whatever It was, It would come in this hushed
moment. Loseis was at her window; Mary-Lou was crouched on the floor at
the back of the room with her hands pressed to her mouth.
Presently they heard that sound which is always associated with the
sunset stillness of the Northwest; the long-drawn, intolerably mournful
howl of a coyote; a sound calculated to shake stretched nerves. It rose
startlingly close; in fact from the ravine through which the creek
flowed behind the men’s house opposite.
“That is no coyote,” said Loseis sharply. “They never come so close to
the Post.”
Mary-Lou moaned.
The cry was repeated; and was answered from down the river.
“That coyote is afloat in a canoe,” said Conacher with a grim chuckle.
“The men who went down the river to-day have been instructed to come
back at evening to watch us.”
Another heartrending howl was raised from the hill back of the store.
“The outposts are establishing communications,” said Conacher, carrying
it off lightly in order to hearten the girls. “Well, it’s a relief to
know what and where they are. At this God-awful moment of the day you
could imagine anything!”
For awhile the quavering cries went back and forth; then silence.
Darkness drew slowly in. At first the sky across the river was like a
sea of amber with one or two scraps of cloud floating in it like golden
ships. As the warmth gradually faded out it took on the hue of blued
steel. The moon was rising later now; to-night there would be an hour or
so of darkness before her coming. Conacher had to strain his eyes to
make out the details of the house across the way.
The slow minutes passed. In the big chimney the night-breeze kept up a
gentle, uneven murmuring that was like somebody speaking to somebody
else a little way off. Occasionally the man and the girl whispered from
room to room in the dark just to reassure themselves of the other’s warm
and breathing presence.
“Paul?”
“Yes, pardner?”
“There’s no need for both of us to be watching.”
“Well, you take a sleep, old girl.”
“Sleep!”
“My sentiments exactly!”
And later:
“Paul, do not remain at the window. Even though they cannot see you,
they will guess that you are there. It is like a bull’s eye in the side
of the house!”
“But I must be looking out!”
“Do as I do. Scrape away the clay, and use a chink between the logs for
a peep-hole.”
After that Paul lay full length on the floor of the kitchen, with his
rifle barrel poked out through the chink.
Suddenly his gun roared outside, blowing the night to pieces as it
seemed. A dreadful, low cry escaped from Mary-Lou.
“What was it?” whispered Loseis sharply.
“Man crawling towards the door of the men’s house.”
“Did you get him?”
“No,” said Conacher ruefully. “He streaked back around the corner. It
was the merest shadow. I shot too soon.”
There was another long wait, much harder to bear for nerves that still
recollected the explosion of that shot. Then they became aware by a
gentle grayness pervading the scene outside, that the moon had risen.
The orb itself was hidden by the buildings opposite.
“He’s gone into the little warehouse beyond the store,” said Conacher
suddenly. “The door has been opened. . . . Damn it! I should have locked
that door.”
“You couldn’t have locked it,” said Loseis. “They broke the staples.”
“I’ve a good mind to go over there and get him,” muttered Conacher.
“Right across the open, I suppose,” said Loseis bitterly.
“I might steal around behind the buildings.”
“There are probably others there.”
“If I sent a shot through the open door it would give him a good scare.”
“Nothing to be gained by scaring him.”
The edge of the moon peeped over the ridge of the men’s house. A few
minutes later she was shining directly into their faces. This had them
at a cruel disadvantage, for the other side of the square where one or
more of their enemies were lurking, was hidden in the deepest shadow.
Conacher swore helplessly under his breath.
By and by a cloud crept across the moon dimming her silvery glare.
“He’s come out of the warehouse,” said Conacher in surprise. “The door
is closed now. . . . I don’t understand that. Why should he come out
unless he had found a better place? What other place is there where he
could sit in hiding and watch us?”
There was no answer forthcoming. The moon came out again, bathing the
little square within the crouching buildings in her misty radiance. As
she rose higher their vision was the less obscured. Nothing stirred
outside. The earth was so still, one fancied one could feel its great
swing to the east. Time passed, and that fear against which the bravest
hearts are not proof, lay upon them heavier and heavier; the fear of the
unknown.
Conacher at his loophole muttered and swore under his breath. “When I
knew where he was it was all right. . . . This is hellish . . . !”
Finally, when the eastern sky was beginning to get ready for dawn, he
jumped up. “I can’t stand this,” he cried. “I’ve got to find out where
they are, and what they’re up to!”
Loseis found him in the dark. “Oh, hush!” she whispered. “Maybe there’s
an ear pressed against the back wall! . . . What are you going to do?”
Conacher put his lips to her ear. “Make a dummy, and show it at the
door,” he said. Even at that moment a chuckle sounded in his voice.
They closed the shutters, stuffed up their peep-holes and lighted a
lamp. Conacher tied a broom to the back of a chair with the brush
uppermost. He then tied a piece of firewood athwart the broom handle
just under the brush. This was for shoulders. They dared not use hammer
and nails. Upon this frame he hung one of Mary-Lou’s dresses, and
completed the figure by forcing a small cooking pot over the brush of
the broom, with a piece of white cloth hanging down in front to
represent a face. In the moonlight at a hundred paces distance they
judged that it would serve. Conacher blew out the light again.
“I’ll manipulate the chair,” he said to Loseis. “You go back to your
peep-hole. You must be watching for the flash in case he shoots.
Mary-Lou, you must open the door. There’s no danger if you keep behind
it.”
Conacher waited until Loseis was at her place. “All clear outside?” he
asked.
“I can see nothing,” she whispered.
“All right then, Mary.”
They could hear her gasping softly for breath, as she drew the door
slowly open. The night stole into the room. All three hearts were
beating furiously. Conacher, lying on the floor, grasped the legs of the
chair, and thrust it forward a little. At first he tipped it to
represent a face peeping around the doorframe, and quickly withdrew it.
After repeating this once or twice, he allowed the whole figure to show
in the doorway, swaying a little like a living body.
“Any movement across the way?” he whispered to Loseis.
“Nothing!”
Finally he allowed the figure to tip forward as if to peer outside the
door. From across the square two shots crashed out almost
simultaneously. One bullet shattered the chair back; the other buried
itself deep in the log wall across the kitchen. It was a relief to hear
those shots, waiting for them was so dreadful. Conacher jerked the
remains of the chair out of sight, and Mary-Lou slammed the door. All
three of them were panting for breath.
“Well?” demanded Conacher excitedly.
“They are inside my father’s house,” said Loseis desperately.
“Impossible!” he cried in dismay.
“Yes! They are doing the same as us. Shooting through chinks between the
logs.”
“How could they have got in? There are no windows in the back.”
“Who knows? Dug underneath the wall, maybe.”
For the first time Conacher showed discouragement. “Oh, God!” he
groaned. “By night or day they’ve got us covered!”
CHAPTER XXI
A LEAP FOR FREEDOM
On the third morning following, Loseis and Conacher were seated at a
little table in the kitchen of the Women’s House, with a scarcely
touched meal between them. In the inner room Mary-Lou was lying on a
mattress with her face turned towards the wall, asleep—or despairing.
In the kitchen all was in apple pie order; a fire burning on the
well-swept hearth with a small pot of water bubbling upon it; the
shutter of the little window flung back, and the sunshine streaming in;
outside all green and peaceful to the eye. There was nothing to indicate
the horror of the situation but the faces of the two at the table. Those
gaunt and gray young faces, deeply seamed and sunken eyed, told a tale
of seventy-two hours’ horror. Neither had had more than a snatch or two
of broken sleep. Three endless nights and days and no hope of relief. It
was the absence of hope which had aged them.
Conacher rested his cheek in his palm, and gloomily traced imaginary
lines on the oilcloth cover with his fork. Loseis’ eyes, which looked
truly enormous now, were fixed on the young man’s face, all tenderness.
“You have brought all this on your head through mixing in my miserable
affairs,” she murmured.
He looked up quickly. “Oh, don’t say a thing like that!” he protested,
hurt to the quick. “It seems to divide us. How can we be divided now?
Your fate is my fate and mine yours!”
Loseis looked down, somewhat comforted. But she yearned for more
explicit comfort still. “I wonder you do not hate me,” she whispered.
“Loseis!” he said sharply, “if you say such things to me, you will have
me blubbering like Mary-Lou. That would be a nice thing!” And the tears
actually stood in his eyes.
The sight of those tears was sweet to Loseis; but she went on
perversely: “Sometimes I think you do hate me. You do not like to look
at me any more. Always you turn your eyes away.”
Conacher turned his eyes away then. “The truth is, I can’t bear to look
at you,” he murmured. “Such a child as you are, and so plucky and proud;
never a word of complaint out of you. It drives me wild to think I can’t
save you from this!”
Loseis glided swiftly around the table, and caught his head against her
breast. “Ah, you blessed Paul!” she crooned, brooding over him. “I was
just trying to make you say again that you loved me. You mustn’t grieve
so over me. Think what it would be for me if you weren’t here!”
She dropped to her knees beside his chair. Speech would no longer serve
to convey their feelings. They snatched a moment of poignant happiness
out of the surrounding horror.
Finally Conacher, partly withdrawing himself from her arms, sat up
straight. “This can’t go on!” he said, striking the table.
“What is in your mind?” she asked anxiously.
“We have plenty of food,” he said, “and the water is still holding out;
but what is the use of it all? To be trapped like this would break
anybody’s nerve; knowing night and day that the guns were covering you.
If we stay here they’re certain to get us in the end. Time is passing.
If we give them no opportunity to pick us off, they’ll drive us out of
our shelter. They have only to build a fire against the back wall of
this house . . .”
“Oh, Heaven!” murmured Loseis.
“I don’t want to frighten you unnecessarily,” he said, stroking back her
hair; “but we’ve got to face the worst. I’ve been looking for it to
happen every night. That’s why I couldn’t sleep. How simple for Gault to
shoot us down as we ran out, and throw our bodies back on the fire . . .
I say we must make a break for it, while we are able to choose our own
time.”
“But where could we go?” faltered Loseis.
“I’ve been thinking about that. God knows, I have had plenty of time!
The three obvious ways out are closed to us, but there is a fourth way
. . .”
“Where?”
“Across the river and over the prairie to the north or northwest.”
“But that is the unknown country!” said Loseis with widening eyes. “No
white man has ever been across there!”
“True,” said Conacher; “but after all it’s just a country like any
other. And I’m accustomed to making my own way.”
“Nobody knows what is on the other side!”
“I know,” said Conacher. “It’s part of my job to map this country; and I
carry the existing map in my mind. Two or three hundred miles away—I
can only make a rough guess as to the distance; there is an important
river called the Mud River. We only have reports of it from the Indians.
But the name tells you what kind of a river it is. It must be a prairie
river like this one; fairly deep and moderately swift. If there are
cottonwood trees I could make a rough dug-out; or I could always make
rafts. The Mud River eventually falls into the Sinclair. It is up the
Sinclair River that my outfit is making its way at present. According to
their schedule they will make the mouth of the Mud River on July
fifteenth. That gives us a month. If we are too late we could follow
them up the Sinclair. They travel slow on account of the work they have
to do. It is the best chance I see. No woman has ever made such a
journey, but men have; and you are as plucky and strong as a boy.”
“I can do it if you can,” said Loseis quickly. “But how could we escape
from here with an outfit; grub, blankets, ax, gun, ammunition?”
“It would have to be a mighty slim outfit,” said Conacher. “I could feed
you with my gun if I had to.”
“Across the river there are only a few broken horses,” said Loseis. “We
could not be sure of finding them at the moment we needed them.”
“We may have to walk,” said Conacher.
“But when Gault missed us, he could swim his horses over. What chance
would we have then?”
“Not much of a one. . . . But a crazy idea has been coming back to me
again and again. Maybe the very craziness of it is in its favor. . . .”
“What is it?”
“If we could persuade Gault that we had committed suicide in our
desperation . . . . ?”
Loseis’ eyes widened like a child’s.
“Can you swim?” asked Conacher.
She sadly shook her head.
“Hm! that’s awkward. . . . But maybe I could manage. . . . There is that
little air pillow in my outfit. . . .”
They heard Mary-Lou approaching out of the next room, and drew apart.
“What on earth will we do with her?” whispered Loseis.
Conacher shook his head in complete perplexity. “We’ll talk it over
later,” he whispered.
Mary-Lou had come to clean up the breakfast dishes. The past four days
had made a shocking change in the appearance of the comely Indian girl.
She was too apathetic to resent being excluded from their counsels; and
Conacher and Loseis went on with their whispering.
All day they alternately whispered together, and parted from each other
to think over the matter afresh. To have this absorbing matter to talk
over relieved the tension; the hours passed more quickly. They surveyed
their plan from every angle, continually rejecting this expedient, and
accepting that. Little by little they built up a reasonable-seeming
structure. Of course the best plan they could make depended upon so many
chances for its success, that there were many moments when they
despaired. But at such moments Conacher would always say: “Still,
anything would be better than this!” Whereupon they would set their wits
to work afresh.
Some hours later Conacher said: “One thing is certain. It would have
twice as good a chance of success if we could prepare Gault’s mind
beforehand for such a thing to happen. We ought to send him a letter.”
“How could we send him a letter?” asked Loseis.
Recollecting the Indian trophies that hung on the walls of Loseis’ room,
Conacher went in there. Loseis, following, saw him take down a bow, and
test the string.
“It has hardened some,” he said: “But it will do.”
Loseis, getting the idea, smiled. “But would they dare to come out and
get it?” she asked.
“Oh, curiosity is a strong motive,” said Conacher. “And anyway, I have
suspected every night that they came part way across the square at the
darkest time before the moon comes up, to make sure that we didn’t slip
out.”
They sat down to concoct the letter. “You must write it,” said Conacher.
“It would be more effective.”
After a couple of hours’ work and many drafts, they produced the
following:
“TO GAULT:
“Why do you torture me so? I have never harmed you. Mary-Lou
died the first night, and we buried her under the floor. Our
water is gone. Conacher is acting so strangely I am afraid of
what he may do. He doesn’t know I am writing this. I will shoot
it over to you while he sleeps. If there is any decency or mercy
in your heart let me see you ride away from this place
to-morrow. I cannot stand this any longer.
“LAURENTIA BLACKBURN.”
Conacher and Loseis smiled grimly over this effusion. But Loseis quickly
frowned.
“I cannot bear to have him think I would whine for mercy like that,” she
murmured.
“Yes, but think of the pleasure of fooling him later,” Conacher pointed
out.
To send their letter they chose a moment after sunset, while there was
still light enough to aim it. Throwing open the door, they all stood
back on the chance of receiving a bullet from across the way: but their
enemies gave no sign. It fell to Loseis’ part to dispatch the letter,
since she was accustomed to handling the bow and arrow. The letter had
been fastened around the shaft with a thread. After waiting a moment or
two, Loseis took up her stand far enough back from the door so that she
could not possibly be seen. Drawing the bow-string to her ear, she let
it twang. The arrow sped across the open space, and stuck fast in the
wall of the men’s house, a few inches from the door. Conacher slammed
their door shut.
Next morning as soon as it became light, they perceived that the arrow
still remained fixed in the wall. Their hearts sunk, thinking that their
ruse had failed. But as the light strengthened Loseis’ sharp eyes
discovered that the white band around the shaft was gone.
“They have it!” she cried.
All day long they anxiously watched for any sign of activity on the part
of their enemies. If any reply had been made to their letter it might
have seriously embarrassed them, but none was made. As the endless,
endless day finally rounded towards its close, Conacher said grimly:
“It must be to-night.”
Loseis nodded.
They did not take Mary-Lou into their confidence until the latest
possible moment. They supped; and the dishes were washed. Finally when
Conacher began to lay out the bundles they were to carry, she had to be
told. The mind of the overwrought girl was distracted by the thought of
more danger.
“Let me stay here,” she moaned. “Let me stay here and die!”
“Why die?” said Conacher patiently. “We’re offering you a chance to
live!”
“I cannot do it!”
“You have the easiest part of all,” Loseis pointed out.
“We have told them that you are dead and buried,” said Conacher
laughing. “Whether they believe it or not, they’re not going to bother
about you until they catch Loseis and me. We have only got to run from
the door to the corner of the house. There’s not one chance in a hundred
they can get us in that space if we run abreast. Once around the corner
we are out of range until they can get out of the house.”
After long persuasion, Mary-Lou agreed to try it.
“Now listen,” said Conacher, with an appearance of great cheerfulness;
“here’s the plan. At the corner of the house we divide. Loseis and I run
down to the flat, and strike for my dug-out, while you hit directly into
the woods behind this house. You are to make your way entirely around
the Post by the side hill, and cross the creek, and make your way as
best you can to the Slavi village. Take your time to it. If you get
there by to-morrow night it will do. When it is dark to-morrow night
take three horses . . .”
“But not my horse,” put in Loseis. “She is too well known.”
“Three horses,” resumed Conacher; “and as much grub as Tatateecha will
let you have. . . .”
“They have plenty of smoked meat and smoked fish,” said Loseis.
“What place can I appoint for a meeting?” asked Conacher of Loseis.
“The Old Wives’ Slough. It is the furthest point that I have been with
my father. About ten miles west of here, and the same distance north of
the Slavi village.”
“Have you been there?” Conacher asked Mary-Lou.
She shook her head.
“Do you know the North Star?”
She nodded.
“Good! Then take the horses and the grub when it becomes dark to-morrow
night, and ride ten miles in the direction of the North Star to that
slough in the prairie.”
“There is a trail from the Slavi village,” put in Loseis.
“Loseis and I will be waiting for you there,” said Conacher.
“In the poplar bluff on the south side of the slough,” added Loseis.
“If we are not there,” added Conacher with a smile for Loseis’ benefit,
“why, turn around and ride back to the Slavi village.”
Conacher repeated these instructions over again, and made Mary-Lou say
it all after him. Both he and Loseis feared that in the unnerved red
girl they had but a broken reed to lean upon. However they had no other.
Once clear of that den of horror they hoped that she might recover
herself somewhat.
Then the packs were made. Each was to take a blanket with a small
package of food rolled up inside it. In addition Conacher had his gun
and an ammunition belt containing a hundred shells, and a small
cooking-pot packed with matches, tea and tobacco. Loseis was to take a
smaller belt of shells and a small ax. Mary-Lou was given Conacher’s
smaller gun and ammunition for it. Everything was to be strapped on
their backs, in order to leave both arms free.
“How shall we know the proper moment to start out?” asked Loseis.
“The moon does not rise to-night until after midnight,” said Conacher.
“The darkest time will be about two hours after sundown. I will mark a
candle and light it when the sun goes down. When it has burned two
inches we will make a break.”
“That will only give us an hour or so before the moon comes up.”
“The first few minutes will decide everything,” he said, smiling at her.
They were ready, of course, long before it was time to set out. Conacher
made it his job to keep up the spirits of his little party. He suggested
having another meal, but no one ate but himself. After that there was
nothing to do but sit down and look at the candle. Very hard on the
nerves. A half a dozen times Loseis sprang up like a haggard little
panther, crying:
“It’s perfectly dark. Let’s start.”
To which Conacher would always reply in his calm and cheerful style:
“No! When you settle on a thing, you must stick to it.”
As the candle burned down towards the fateful mark, the three pairs of
eyes were fixed on it in painful intensity, and three hearts rose slowly
into three throats. The last ten minutes were the hardest.
“Now!” said Conacher briskly, at last.
They adjusted their packs. Under her pack Loseis wore the deflated air
pillow fastened between her shoulders by a harness of twine contrived by
Conacher. Both Loseis and Conacher felt that this might well be the
moment of farewell, but neither spoke of it. It was all expressed in an
exchange of looks. Mary-Lou was piteously striving to get her breath.
Conacher’s last act before leaving was to throw a pailful of the
precious water on the fire, that no reflection of the glow might betray
them when the door was opened. The room was filled with hissing steam.
“Wait a moment,” whispered Conacher in the darkness. “They might
possibly have heard that sound. Give them time to forget it. . . . Me
first, then Loseis, then Mary-Lou. Take hands. Run like hell around the
corner of the house. . . . I am opening the door now. . . .”
They ran out and turned, putting every nerve into it. Instantly, the
guns across the grass roared out. They heard the twin bullets plug deep
into the logs behind them. The guns crashed again. They gained the
corner of the house unhurt. Immediately the cry of the coyote was raised
not a hundred yards away; almost in their ears it seemed. It was more
human than coyote. Their enemies were outside the house. Already they
could hear the sound of running feet. Other cries answered the first
one: from the hill behind; from the ravine; from the river.
Loseis gave Mary-Lou a gentle push; and the Indian girl disappeared
noiselessly into the bush back of the house. Conacher and Loseis took
hands and raced down the grassy rise. A voice behind them shouted in
English:
“There they go!”
Conacher whispered: “Make first for the creek; then double back towards
the willows!”
The surface of the natural meadow was rough, and Conacher went down
twice, but was up again like the recoil of a spring. Loseis had the
mysterious sure-footedness of an Indian. Behind them they heard their
pursuers falling and cursing. Gault’s voice shouted a command in Cree.
“He is telling them to make for the creek,” whispered Loseis.
When they had almost reached the edge of the creek bank, they turned
sharply to the right, and headed back obliquely across the flat towards
the point where the dug-out was hidden. They slackened their pace that
they might not betray their whereabouts by further falls. This maneuver
was successful for the moment. They heard their pursuers halt at the
creek bank. Gault called to men who were evidently approaching down the
bed of the creek.
The fugitives gained the river bank, and crawling under the thick
willows, presently stumbled on the dug-out lying in a fissure in the
earthen bank. So far so good. However, they were not unmindful of the
dug-out manned by four Crees somewhere out on the river; and they waited
awhile listening.
They heard them coming up-stream, paddling at a furious rate. They
passed close to the bank, not half a dozen yards from where Loseis and
Conacher were crouching. Conacher gave them a minute, then started to
slide the dug-out off the mud.
“They’ll see us!” whispered Loseis in alarm.
“Somebody must see us, or we can’t pull off the double suicide,” said
Conacher grimly.
They launched the dug-out and climbed in. Since the paddlers in the
other dug-out had their backs turned to them, they could have gained the
other shore unseen; but Conacher headed diagonally up-stream, laying
such a course that they must be at least heard by those gathered around
the mouth of the creek. And they were heard. A chorus of cries was
raised. Conacher then steered straight for the opposite shore. In a
moment they heard the other dug-out splashing after them.
Immediately to the north of the high-cut bank, there was a smallish flat
covered with grass, through the center of which a tiny stream wound its
way to the river. It was the usual willow-bordered rivulet flowing quite
deep between overhanging banks, which were held from caving in by the
roots of the thickly springing willows. The branches of the willows
interlaced overhead. This muskrat-haunted stream was an important factor
in the plans of the fugitives; but they were not ready to use it yet.
Conacher landed alongside its mouth. The instant the nose of the dug-out
touched, they were out. The other dug-out was already half way across
the river. They raced through the grass alongside the willow-bordered
stream, slipping out of their packs as they ran. A hundred yards or so
from the river, Conacher took both packs and boring through the outer
willows, tied the packs to branches overhanging the little stream.
Returning to Loseis, they doubled on their tracks, and ran for the steep
grassy rise which culminated in the bold knoll where the two graves
were. The Crees, having just landed, were stumbling through the grass at
a loss. Presently the fugitives were seen, as they wished to be. With
renewed cries to their friends across the river, the Crees set after
them. Gault’s roaring voice was heard from the river.
“They told him that we were running up the hill,” whispered Loseis; “and
he’s telling them to work around back, and head us off on top.”
“We may take our time then,” said Conacher, falling to a walk.
On top of the knoll they came to a stand. The little enclosure
containing the two graves was behind them; and behind that again, the
grove of pines. On either side the ground sloped steeply down, and in
front it broke off into nothingness.
“Well, here we are,” said Conacher lightly; “that was easy!”
“The hardest is before us,” murmured Loseis.
Stepping to the edge of the cut-bank, they looked over. The precipitous
slide of earth, almost as pale as snow at their feet, was gradually
swallowed in the murk. The fact that they could not see the bottom of
it, made the leap appear doubly terrible.
“Does your heart fail you, dear?” murmured Conacher.
“Not as long as you are beside me,” she whispered.
“Remember to let yourself go limp when you hit the dirt,” he said.
“Gravity will do the rest. I’ll be there before you, because I’m
heavier.”
He blew up the little air cushion that was strapped to her back.
They could hear the Crees working around the north side of the hill. It
was evidently expected that the fugitives meant to run back along the
top of the ridge. Below them the river revealed itself merely as a
grayish band, a shade or two lighter than its shores. They could just
make out the disturbance created by two furiously driven bark canoes
about to land below. These had headed for the south side of the hill.
There was some underbrush on that side; and when the occupants landed
they could be heard smashing through it. They were evidently working up
that side with the object of coming in touch with the other party.
“This is better than I could have hoped for,” said Conacher cheerfully.
“We have got them all on the hill.”
“Is it time to go now?” asked Loseis nervously.
“No! No! Wait until they are right on top of us.”
Somewhere back of them the two parties met on top of the ridge. There
was a whispered consultation, then a silence, very hard for the
listeners to bear. Conacher held Loseis’ hand tightly squeezed within
his own. Up there under the wide spreading night sky they became queerly
aware of their insignificance. A long silence; then from half a dozen
sounds their sharpened senses informed them that their enemies were
creeping towards them through the pines.
Loseis caught her breath sharply, and moved towards the edge.
“Steady, sweetheart,” whispered Conacher.
Suddenly there was an astonished cry of: “There!” and a rush of feet.
Loseis and Conacher cried out wildly, as they had rehearsed together:
“Good-by! . . . Good-by, all!” And leaped.
CHAPTER XXII
THE SEARCH
Loseis could never have described the sensations of that mad roll down
the cut-bank. As a matter of fact all sensation was whirled clean out of
her; and the first thing she knew was the mighty smack with which her
body hit the water. Water it seemed could be almost as hard as wood. She
went under.
As she rose again, gasping and wildly reaching, her fingers came in
contact with Conacher’s coat. In the first second she clutched him in a
deathlike grip; in the second she remembered he had told her they would
both drown, if she did so; and she released him. She discovered that the
air cushion was sufficient to hold her up.
Conacher whispered in her ear: “You are all right?”
“I . . . I think so,” she stuttered.
“Put your two hands lightly on my shoulders and I’ll tow you. Do not
splash.”
He swam softly down with the current.
In the first moment there was only silence from above. Then they heard
Gault’s excited voice:
“Quick! the canoes! Search for them in the river!”
The men came tearing pell-mell down the hill, and Conacher swam with all
his strength for the mouth of the little stream.
They gained it none too soon. Finding firm ground underfoot they waded
up-stream under the arching willows. The water was up to their waists.
They had to move at a snail’s pace to avoid splashing. As soon as the
upper part of their bodies was exposed to the air, they realized the
numbing cold of the water. Loseis clenched her teeth to keep them from
chattering.
Meanwhile the two dug-outs had been launched. The men shouted confusedly
at each other. Such a search was hopeless in the dark. They could hear
Gault savagely cursing his men. It was quite clear that he was not bent
upon rescuing the two, but upon making sure that they did not escape.
The voices softened in the distance, as the current carried the dug-outs
down. Conacher and Loseis could now permit themselves to move faster
through the water.
Conacher drew Loseis along with one hand, and held the other straight
over his head as they proceeded through the dark tunnel. An exclamation
of satisfaction escaped him as his hand came in contact with the hanging
packs. He took them down. A short distance further along there was a
break in the willows on the right-hand side, and a back-water whence
they climbed out in the grass. Streaming with water, they set off at a
jog trot to warm up.
The voices of Gault and the Crees were still receding. Simultaneously it
occurred to Conacher and Loseis that they could now permit themselves to
hope. Stopping, they flew into each other’s arms. It was a moist
embrace, but none the less rapturous. After the frightful strain of the
past days, the reaction was unnerving. In their joy and relief, they
both partly broke down; but neither was ashamed of showing emotion.
“Oh, my Paul!” murmured Loseis. “Perhaps we are going to be happy after
all!”
“Perhaps?” cried Conacher. “I should like to see anybody stop us now?”
He was not, however, quite so sure as all that.
The river flat gradually narrowed down to the typical coulee of the
prairies, with the little stream running in the bottom. As the ground
began to rise, the willows ceased, and the way became rough and stony.
Conacher struck obliquely up the steep side of the coulee to find better
going over the prairie. The moon rose as they gained the upper level,
throwing a strange misty glamour over that vast, fixed, rolling sea.
They pressed briskly ahead through the short buffalo grass which did not
impede the feet, keeping the North Star over their right shoulders.
Their clothes dried slowly; but the exercise of walking kept them warm.
Their hearts were light. The awful bare solitudes, rise behind rise in
endless succession, and the deathlike silence had no power to oppress
them now. How could they feel lonely walking hand in hand free under the
sky? Day stole upon them with enchanting beauty. The prairie was
sprinkled with wild roses and the rose madder flower that is called
painter’s brush. Prairie chickens fluttered from bush to bush
companionably; and little furry four-footed creatures scurried for the
shelter of their holes. Loseis sang as she walked; and Conacher cracked
his jokes.
The sun was rising behind them as they came to the edge of a wide,
saucer-like depression in the prairie, holding in the bottom an oval
pond of an astonishing blueness. It was dotted with snowy water fowl.
All the surrounding country dimpled like a vast cheek in smooth rounds
and hollows, was mantled with a tender green, grayish in the shadows. At
the left hand side of the lake grew a wide patch of poplar scrub; that
is to say, thousands of little saplings growing as thick as hair, and
putting forth leaves of so intense a green it was like a shout in the
morning. The whole picture was washed with rose color in the horizontal
rays of the rising sun.
Loseis drew a long breath. “I never realized how beautiful the prairie
was!” she murmured. “It never was so beautiful,” she amended, putting
her hand on Conacher’s arm. “How marvelous to one who has been a
prisoner! Even if they should catch us we shall have had this!”
“They’re not going to catch us,” said Conacher. “Not while I have a
hundred shells in my belt.”
Loseis pointed to the poplar scrub. “That’s the meeting place with
Mary-Lou to-night.”
“Too bad we have to waste the day waiting for her,” said Conacher. “We
won’t hang about there, it’s too obvious a hiding-place. The high ground
on the other side would be a good observation post. Tired?”
“Tired!” sang Loseis. “I am just beginning to feel that I have legs
again!”
They headed obliquely across the depression towards a swell of land to
the south that enjoyed a slight prominence in the gently rolling sea of
grass. The flat appearance of the prairie was deceptive. Some of these
insignificant bumps commanded a view for many miles.
Tucked down behind the rise they found a cozy hollow with another patch
of the vivid poplar scrub. They sat down at the edge of it to eat part
of the food they had brought.
While they were thus engaged, silently and with excellent appetite, a
brown bear came ambling placidly out from among the saplings. He looked
at them with a start of astonishment so comic that Loseis burst out
laughing; then with a great “Woof!” of indignation galloped away up the
rise.
Conacher had snatched up his gun. “Fresh meat!” he cried. But with a
reluctant shake of his head, he dropped it again.
“Why not?” asked Loseis.
“If we are searched for, the carcass would be found.”
When they had finished eating, Conacher said: “I’m sorry I cannot let
you have a fire; but the smoke would betray us for many miles around.
Creep in among the trees; take off your damp clothes; wrap up in your
blanket and sleep until I call you.”
“What are you going to do?” demanded Loseis, ready to quarrel with him
as usual over who should bear the brunt of the hardship.
“I’m going to roll up and sleep at the top of the rise behind a rose
bush,” said Conacher grinning. “If they send out a search party they may
be expected to appear in about two hours.”
“You are always talking about their searching for us,” said Loseis. “If
Gault thinks we are dead he will not look for us. If he thinks we are
not dead, we are certain to be caught in these empty spaces. Why worry?”
“There is a third alternative,” said Conacher. “Gault thinks we are
dead, but he cannot afford to take any chances. It seems to me he will
send out a party to scour the prairie just as a precaution. It is up to
us to keep out of their way until they are satisfied. It won’t be as bad
as if they _knew_ we were here.”
Loseis wished to be allowed to watch from the top of the rise, but
Conacher carried his point.
From behind the clump of roses that he had marked on the way over,
Conacher was able to survey an expanse of country that faded into gray
mist on the horizon. He slept for awhile as he had promised. It was
about nine o’clock by the sun, when he perceived the first horseman, no
more than a black dot far to the eastward; but a significantly shaped
dot. Presently he made out another, and another at wide intervals. The
nearest was about four miles distant.
Racing back down the rise, he called to Loseis. When she answered, he
said: “Dress as quickly as possible. We must move on.”
When she appeared from among the trees, he explained what he had seen.
“Unless I miss my guess,” he said, “they will divide and ride around the
high ground surrounding the slough until they meet again. That would
bring us right in their line of march. We must get over another rise.
You can see that they are combing the country as they come. What we
ought to do is to work around behind them.”
Hand in hand like a pair of children they headed south, bent almost
double as they climbed the rises, and racing free down the other side.
When they had put a couple of heights between them and the slough, they
began to work around towards the east. The prairie is not such a
desperate place for fugitives as it might seem. It is true that from the
high places you can see for many miles around: but there are always
hollows into which you cannot see until you are upon them. At a glance
it seems as if the bubbles of earth had been pushed up in meaningless
disorder; but such is not the case. Nature sees to it that the country
is drained. Every hollow opens into another. Conacher had the mapmaker’s
instinct for the contour of land, and he was never in doubt as to their
proper course. At the same time while they were hidden from their
enemies their enemies were hidden from them. It caused the heart to rise
in the throat to imagine a horseman suddenly appearing over the grass
close by.
After an hour’s walking and running, they came upon a good-sized patch
of rose scrub folded into the side of a rise. Conacher stopped to survey
it.
“A perfect hiding-place if you lay flat on the ground,” he said; “yet no
one would suppose it. Come on, let’s tackle the thorns.”
Inch by inch they threaded their painful way along the ground; careful
to rearrange the branches they had disturbed upon entering; and cutting
with their knives a little tunnel ahead. Finally in the thickest of the
patch they lay companionably on the warm, dry ground within whispering
distance of each other, and lapped in delicious fragrance. Themselves
concealed, they could see out more or less through interstices between
the leaves.
“One could fall asleep here, and dream of being in Paradise,” said
Loseis, sniffing.
“Yes,” said Conacher, disengaging a thorn; “and roll over and find one’s
self in the other place!”
They both dozed, and were awakened simultaneously by the sound of
thudding hoofs. They waited with fast-beating hearts. A dark-skinned
horseman rode into view along the top of the very rise against whose
side they lay. He was less than a hundred yards away; they could
distinguish every detail of his somewhat dandified dress.
“Watusk,” whispered Loseis.
At sight of the patch of scrub, the Cree reined up his horse, and sat
staring directly at them. It caused the goose-flesh to rise upon their
bodies; their hearts seemed to stop beating. With infinite caution
Conacher drew his gun into position.
“The horse first; then his rider,” he whispered.
But after debating a moment, the Cree clapped heels to his horse, and
rode on. Presently he disappeared. A long breath of thankfulness escaped
from the two hidden ones.
“He will never know how nearly his wife became a widow,” said Conacher.
“Well, they’ve checked this place off,” said Loseis. “Shall we stay
here?”
Conacher shook his head. “This will be his second big circle around the
slough,” he said. “If he repeats the maneuver he will pass to the south
of us. I don’t like the notion of being hemmed in. We’ve got to think of
to-night. If they are making the slough their headquarters they will
camp there. Unless we head Mary-Lou off she would ride right into them.”
“We must be close upon the trail between the Slavi village and the
slough,” said Loseis.
“But we’re still too near the slough. We must make further south.”
Once more they took to the grass. For several hours they saw no more of
the searchers. They made their last spell in a poplar bluff (as the
patches of scrub are called) overlooking the trail between the lake and
the slough, but much nearer the former.
They had not been there long when they were filled with disquietude by
the sight of another of the Crees approaching from the direction of the
Slavi village.
“He’s been in to look about,” said Conacher. “Natural enough.” As the
man drew closer he added with a certain relief: “He doesn’t look as if
he had discovered anything important. I guess Mary-Lou has side-stepped
him.”
Their thoughts were given a sudden new turn, when the Cree turning out
of the trail, put his horse directly for the bluff, Conacher and Loseis
hastily retreated within the thickest part of the miniature wood. The
Cree could not ride in among the little trees. Dismounting, he tied his
horse.
Then began a grim game of I Spy with death for the stakes. Conacher and
Loseis enjoyed a certain advantage, because they were aware of their
danger, while the redskin was not. He was merely following general
instructions to search all likely places of concealment. He was taking
no particular care to muffle the sound of his progress, and they could
generally follow it. When he went one way they went the other. But there
were harrowing periods when they could hear nothing. The bluff was over
an acre in extent, and it was impossible to see more than half a dozen
yards through the thickly springing stems. Once he caught them in a
corner, and they were almost forced out into the open. Another time they
actually had a glimpse of his passing. They stood frozen in their
tracks. With what thankful hearts they heard him return to his horse at
last. They flung themselves down to let the hideous strain relax.
They ate again. Satisfied now, that they had done their utmost, they
rolled up in their blankets, and slept for eight hours on end. It was
twilight when they awoke. They ate the last of the food they had
brought.
“It will be prairie chicken for breakfast if Mary-Lou doesn’t come,”
remarked Conacher.
“She will come if they have not taken her,” said Loseis confidently.
“What I am chiefly afraid of,” said Conacher, “is that she will pass
right out with fright when we rise beside the trail.”
“When we were children we used to signal to each other by imitating the
cry of the kill-dee,” said Loseis. “I will try that.”
When the stars came out they moved down beside the faint track worn in
the buffalo grass. Conacher, pulling his blanket around his shoulders,
squatted in the grass, smoking, and Loseis leaned her cheek against his
shoulder.
“How strange!” she murmured.
“What is, sweetheart?”
“Us two little things out here in the middle of the bald-headed. I feel
about an inch high under these stars.”
“Better than last night,” suggested Conacher.
“Rather! . . . Paul, if we ever have any children, I wonder if this will
mean anything to them?”
Conacher was more moved than he cared to show. Loseis, scarcely more
than a child herself, dreaming of having children of her own! “Surely!”
he said with assumed lightness. “Think how they’ll be able to put it
over the other kids! ‘My Ma and my Pa were chased by Injuns!’”
Loseis chuckled. “If we come through all right it will be a wonderful
thing to have shared,” she murmured. “It will help us over the tiresome
parts.”
“You’re a wise little duck!” he whispered.
“Why?”
“Other girls refuse to admit beforehand that there could be any tiresome
parts.”
“How do you know?” she asked quickly.
He swallowed his chuckle. “Oh, you learn these things from books, and
from other men,” he said.
“I know that I shall not be marrying an angel,” she said, nestling
against him; “and I assure you that you are not.”
“Angel enough for me!” he said, kissing her.
There was a vibration in the stillness. At first they thought it was a
trick of the desirous imagination; then by degrees they became sure.
Horses were approaching along the trail at a walk. The slowness of the
pace was eloquent of the red girl’s terrors, and of the loyalty and
strength of will that forced her out into the night in spite of her
terrors. Conacher and Loseis rose to their feet.
Finally they made out shadowy forms in the trail. Loseis uttered the
plaintive cry of the little bird that haunts the edges of the prairie
sloughs. The shadowy horses stopped. There was a moment of painful
suspense. It was not a natural place, of course, to find the kill-dee.
“Risk it!” whispered Conacher. “Speak to her!”
“Mary-Lou,” said Loseis softly; “we are here!”
There was no answer. They apprehended through the dark that the solitary
rider had slipped out of the saddle. Running forward they found her half
fainting, but clinging to the horses still.
She quickly recovered. Ah! what a joyful reunion that was! Sharers in
danger!—there is no other bond quite the same as this. They all babbled
at once. Loseis and Mary-Lou clung to each other weeping; Conacher
embraced them both indiscriminately.
“I so scare’!” Mary-Lou whispered in Loseis’ ear. “I know the Crees out
here somewhere. I t’ink they get you sure. But I got come jus’ the same.
When I see you in the trail I t’ink it is the Crees. I am near die
then!”
“You’re the bravest of any of us!” whispered Loseis. “Because you know
what fear is!”
While the girls whispered Conacher turned his attention to the horses.
Mary-Lou had brought the best procurable, and he was well-pleased. She
had brought a fair store of smoked meat and fish also, but not enough to
see them through, of course.
“Tatateecha t’ink I lyin’ till he see me start,” she explained.
“Let us ride,” said Conacher. “We can talk as we go.”
They mounted. The horses were still fresh and coquettish with the bit.
What a delight it was to feel good horseflesh between the knees once
more. Their breasts swelled with renewed hope.
“Which way?” asked Loseis.
“Southwest,” said Conacher; “because that is the direction they would
least expect us to take. At daylight we’ll turn, and lay our proper
course northwest. Save your horses.”
They set off at an easy trot. When the horses settled to their work,
they let the reins lie loose on their necks. It was safest to let these
prairie-bred beasts choose their own footing. Now the North Star must be
kept over the horse’s right flank. Conacher chose a bright star in the
southwest for a beacon. As they rode they exchanged experiences.
Mary-Lou said:
“Las’ night all the Crees around the post is after you, so I have no
trouble. I walk around the side of the hill, and cross the creek, and
climb the ridge. I hide in the bush till daylight. I hear you cry:
‘Good-by! Good-by!’ across the river. That cry it hurt my heart though I
know it is a fool. I t’ink maybe you break a leg on the cut-bank. In the
morning I see where some Crees is camp beside the trail, and I go around
them. Then I go back to the trail and run to the Slavi village. I am
there before the sun is half way up the sky. I sleep long.”
“What did you do when the Cree came in?” asked Loseis.
“Wah! He come down from the prairie when nobody is lookin’ that way. All
are scare’! I snatch up a shawl and put it over my head like the ot’er
women. I stay with the ot’er women. He not know me. Bam-bye he go back
again.”
The course they were following led them roughly parallel with
Blackburn’s Lake. When the moon rose they could see it palely gleaming
in the distance. It was an exhilarating ride; the wind created by their
own passage blew cool about their faces; the exercise of riding kept
them tingling. With every additional mile that they put between them and
their enemies their hearts rose. Conacher attempted to sing. But though
there was no danger in raising the voice here, the great brooding
silence was too much for him. In spite of themselves they talked in
undertones.
Just before dawn they spelled alongside a poplar bluff to allow the
horses to graze. Here the humans enjoyed the luxury of a fire again, and
the stimulus of hot food. Though the meal was only of smoked fish
without sauce or bread, such a complete sense of comfort is not to be
had under civilized conditions. They groaned at the necessity of
breaking camp.
After a two-hour rest they saddled, and turned at right angles to their
former course. The sun had risen in a cloudless sky, and the air was
like wine. At mid-morning they calculated that they were abreast of Old
Wives’ Slough again, but now many miles to the westward. Coming to
another sapphire-colored slough lying under a rather prominent rise to
the eastward, which had a well-grown poplar bluff on its slope, Conacher
called a halt for the balance of the day.
“We need sleep,” he said; “moreover it is just possible if they ride
west to-day, that they might catch sight of us from some height or
another. The horses will be well hidden alongside the bluff yonder.”
Picketing the horses to keep them from straying, they ate again. On this
occasion Loseis insisted on being allowed to stand the first watch; and
Conacher dispatched her to the top of the rise, while he rolled up in
his blanket.
In the afternoon he relieved her. From the top of the rise it was
evident that this was the highest point in many miles around. To
Conacher lying in the grass smoking, it seemed as if half the world was
spread before him. In that crystal clearness he could even trace the
line of the valley of Blackburn’s River. The easterly horizon was closed
in by the land rising on the other side of the river. The pale green sea
of the prairie between was always the same, and never quite the same.
Apparently every yard of it was open to his vision; but Conacher knew
from past experience that this was not so. Every swell of the land
melted so softly into the swell beyond that one could not guess the
hollow between. Conacher remembered the old-time stories of how the
Indians could steal up on the wagon-trains camped in the open prairie.
As if evoked by that thought he saw Indians riding towards him then. It
was what he was looking for and least desired to see. He glimpsed them
as they crossed a hollow; a moment later they trotted over a little
rise. There were three of them, they were less than a mile away; they
were heading directly for the spot where he lay. This time an encounter
could not be avoided. All his high hopes came tumbling down like a house
of cards.
Conacher ran down the hill to alarm his camp. There was no time to ride
away. Best for them to keep the shelter they had. A word told Loseis and
Mary-Lou what was upon them. They led the horses close up behind the
bluff of trees, and tied them. They scattered the remaining embers of
the fire, and beat them out. Conacher and Loseis took up a position
within the trees facing the summit of the rise, gun in hand. The girl’s
face was pale and resolute.
“I can shoot straight, too,” she said quietly.
They waited.
“All three of them are together now,” said Conacher. “We must get them
all. And their horses too. If we get them all it will be some time
before Gault learns what has happened. We will still have a chance.”
The three horsemen appeared at the top of the rise, and reined up. They
were quite at their ease. Each slung a leg over his saddle to rest, and
produced a pipe. There they stayed, silhouetted against the tender blue
sky. One had a pair of field-glasses which was passed from hand to hand.
Conacher and Loseis instinctively drew back a little further amongst the
saplings. Suddenly the horses behind them whinnied; and Conacher groaned
in bitterness of spirit.
However, at that moment a small troop of wild horses appeared out of a
depression to the north. Led by a bay stallion with arched neck and
streaming tail, they trotted past. In the chorus of neighing and
whinnying which arose, the sounds made by Conacher’s horses escaped the
notice of the Crees.
After what seemed like an age-long wait to the watchers hidden in the
poplars, the three Indians slipped out of their saddles, tightened
girths and mounted again.
“Now for it!” whispered Conacher. “Do not fire until they are within a
hundred feet. Bring down the horses first. You take the piebald and I’ll
take the other two.”
But to their amazement and delight the riders wheeled and disappeared
the way they had come. For a moment they stared at the empty place with
hanging mouths. Then Conacher made as if to run out from among the
trees. Loseis clutched him.
“It may be a trick!” she gasped.
They waited several minutes, not daring to rejoice yet.
“I _must_ go look!” said Conacher. “I must know what they are doing.”
Loseis made no further effort to restrain him; and he ran up to the top
of the rise, and flung himself down. At first he could see nothing but
grass. Then the three riders rose mysteriously out of the grass,
trotting away as they had come; showing their backs . . . their _backs_!
Conacher nearly choked with joy. He waited awhile yet to make doubly
sure. They disappeared and appeared again, holding steadily to the east.
They shrank to mere specks in the green sea.
Conacher leaped to his feet, and charged back down the hill, yelling and
brandishing his gun. Loseis snatched up her gun warily. Not until he
came close did she comprehend that this was a pantomime of joy. He swept
her clean off her feet in his embrace.
“They’ve gone back!” he shouted. “This was the outer edge of their
patrol. They’ve given up the search! After this we’ve got nothing to
contend with but nature!”
CHAPTER XXIII
HUNGER
Nature! They were to discover during the days that followed that she was
no mean antagonist. At first everything went delightfully; the sun
warmed and cheered them by day; the stars whispered at night. The moon
was swallowed up in the dawn now. On the shortest night of the year
there was scarcely any darkness; then the nights began to lengthen
imperceptibly. They rode and spelled and rode again. They built great
fires. The character of the country never changed. The sea of green
grass seemed to be limitless.
On the third day the horse that Conacher rode sickened mysteriously. On
the following morning it was incapable of bearing him. Loseis shook her
head ominously.
“It is a sort of distemper that attacks them in the summer,” she said.
“He will be sick for weeks. We might as well leave him. The others may
catch it from him.”
So Conacher was obliged to set out on foot. The sick horse screamed
piteously upon being left behind; and attempted to follow; but fell down
in the grass, where he lay struggling feebly and watching them with
raised head until they passed out of sight. They could not now hope to
make more than thirty or forty miles a day, though all took turns in
riding. And still there was no suggestion of their approach to a great
river. The prairie rolled on as before. As far as Conacher could tell
they had not yet even passed the crown of the watershed. They all had
their sickening moments of doubt. Suppose there was no river?
Loseis’ worst prognostications were fulfilled. The other two horses
sickened. By the sixth day they were all on foot. Mary-Lou’s moccasins
wore through; and they had nothing out of which to make new ones.
Fortunately both Loseis and Conacher wore boots. The prairie which
looked so smooth made rough walking for humans, and their progress was
cut down, Conacher figured, to between twenty and twenty-miles [missing
or incorrect word] a day. The eighth day passed without any sign of the
river of promise. Conacher estimated that they had covered nearly three
hundred miles.
They had met with no game on the prairie except the ubiquitous chickens.
Conacher was averse to wasting his precious bullets on such small
fowl—it is very easy to miss a prairie chicken with a rifle;
consequently they had depended on the meat and fish brought by Mary-Lou.
On the seventh day it was exhausted, and they ate chicken. On that
miserable eighth day some bad fairy waved a wand, and the chicken
disappeared from the prairie. During the entire day Conacher did not
obtain a shot. Consequently they went supperless to bed.
He was up at sunrise, ranging the prairie while the girls slept. But
with no luck. There was nothing living in sight except the gophers who
gained the shelter of their burrows ere he could come close enough to
hope to hit them with his clumsy gun. In desperation he did shoot at
gophers at last, only to plug the earth. When he returned to camp, the
girls, having heard the sound of his gun, awaited him with anticipatory
smiles, and he had the bitterness of showing them his empty hands. There
was no breakfast.
On this first morning it was easy to turn it into a joke.
“Anyway, I’m sick of meat,” said Loseis.
“My people lak go ’ongry for awhile,” said Mary-Lou. “Mak’ the big feed
taste better bam-bye.”
“Well, it’ll save a lot of time,” said Conacher with a sheepish grin. He
felt responsible for their plight.
They set forth briskly enough; but were very glad to rest when
mid-morning came. All of them were now feeling very painful gnawings,
but they concealed it from each other. Conacher prowled over the prairie
in vain. They listlessly resumed their march.
During the course of the afternoon they came unexpectedly to the lip of
a deep coulee with a trickle of water in the bottom. To Conacher’s
dismay it proved to be flowing in a southerly direction. This was
exactly opposite to what he expected. It was against all the theories as
to the lay of this unexplored land, and he was ready to despair.
However, there was nothing to do but to keep on the way they were going.
An hour later they crossed it again. The water was now flowing north,
and Conacher’s mind was somewhat relieved. Upon this second crossing
they found more water than before in the streamlet, and a fringe of
spruce trees, the first grown trees they had seen since leaving
Blackburn’s River. They also found, what was more important to them,
berry-bushes, and a patch of wild strawberries. Only the strawberries
were ripe. Before eating any, they carefully collected them in their
little cooking pot, and scrupulously divided them. There was about a
cupful apiece.
The berries were deliciously refreshing; but they seemed to have the
effect of still further sharpening the pangs of hunger. They searched
far up and down the coulee for more, but in vain. It was an isolated
patch of trees and bushes.
“Let us get on,” Conacher kept urging the girls. “We must reach a game
country before our strength fails.”
They wearily climbed the steep side of the coulee to the endless rolling
prairie again, that they now hated. On this day they suffered a keener
pain from hunger than during the days that followed. All three became
tight-lipped and silent. Their limbs were leaden; and progress was
painfully slow. Twice more they crossed the coulee. No more trees or
berries. It was now evident that the general course of the little stream
was northwest, which was in line with Conacher’s calculations. It was
undoubtedly a tributary of the big river they were seeking: but whether
the river were ten miles or a hundred miles further, it was impossible
to tell. It was exasperating in their fatigued condition to climb in and
out of the steep coulee so many times: but even so they made better time
than they could have done by following it throughout its crazy windings.
Seeing more spruce trees, they descended into it to spend the night, but
found no berries here. They heaped a great fire and made themselves soft
beds of spruce boughs: but their empty stomachs refused to be assuaged
by these luxuries. Mary-Lou cut three small strips from the top of one
of her worn-out moccasins, and boiled them, and handed them around.
“Chew,” she said. “It will stop the pains anyhow.”
Afterwards a curious false strength seemed to come to them. They felt no
desire to sleep, but sat up for hours around their fire under the
spruces, talking animatedly with flushed faces and bright eyes.
“When I was a kid,” said Conacher, “I had a grand-uncle in New York, who
was a great old high-liver. Never thought about anything but eats. He
knew all the best restaurants in the city, and what was the proper thing
to order in each place. He took me out to dinner a couple of times when
I was a boy. Once we went to Delmonico’s. I have never forgotten what we
ate that day. First oysters. I suppose you don’t know oysters, Loseis.
Well, they are the best eating there is. Slip down your throat like
velvet. Then a thick soup that was called potage Mongole. God knows what
was in it. It was a combination of all the most delicious flavors you
ever knew. Then there was something that was called Tournedos Henri
Quatre. It was like beef, but it was the sauce that made all the
difference. The French are wizards for sauces. We ended up with mince
pie; good old American mince pie; and there’s nothing better! Oh, what a
feed that was!”
“The best thing I ever tasted,” said Loseis vivaciously, “was roast pig.
Three years ago Jim Cornwall came through from the Crossing with dogs,
and brought my father a little frozen pig on his sled for Christmas. We
thawed him out and roasted him until his hide crackled. Oh, my dear! the
smell alone would drive you crazy; and the taste was better than
anything in the world. I can taste him now! Do you member, Mary-Lou?”
“I remember,” said Mary-Lou, closing her eyes. “I did taste that pig
meat. It was sweeter than young porcupine; it was sweeter than
moose-nose or the back-fat of caribou; it was sweeter than all meat.”
“And do you remember?” asked Loseis, “when they stuck the knife into him
how a little stream of juicy fat ran down?”
“We soaked it up with bread,” said Mary-Lou.
The subject was inexhaustible. They discussed it with anxious, drawn,
eager faces. It never occurred to them to laugh at each other or at
themselves. When they finally slept they dreamed of feasting.
Another day of misery followed no different from the day before, except
that the pangs of hunger were less sharp and more enervating. It was
hard to keep walking. It nearly broke Conacher’s heart to see the boyish
Loseis pressing on with set face, quite unconscious of how she was
staggering in her tracks. He took the second gun from her. She fought
like a little spitfire to regain it, weeping out of anger and weakness.
Her anger smoldered all the rest of the day, making the way even more
bitter. Mary-Lou stood starvation better than either of the whites. They
found another tantalizing patch of berries; and wasted hours looking for
more. As on the night before, their supper consisted of a small strip of
boiled hide apiece.
On the third day of starvation it seemed a wonder that they were able to
move at all. Nevertheless they staggered on for a few miles. To add to
their miseries it rained copiously; and their blankets soaked up some
additional pounds of water. All day a division existed between Conacher
and Loseis that was harder to bear than starvation. It was due to
nothing in the world but compassion. It made each tender heart rage to
behold the misery of the other. Especially Conacher’s, because he told
himself that no woman ought to be subjected to such an ordeal. He
supposed from Loseis’ black looks that she was blaming him for having
led her into this, and he was ready to blow his brains out.
The little stream having received a tributary from the south, flowed
with increased speed and volume. It now held a fairly straight course
for the northwest; and it became evident that the whole country was
sloping gently in that direction. The walls of the coulee gradually
became higher; in the bottom it was now continuously wooded; but they
felt too weak to climb down for a few berries. These changes in the
country suggested that they were approaching the bottom of the
watershed, and at midday from a rise in the prairie, Conacher at last
beheld a blue shadow athwart the westerly horizon which indicated the
valley of a considerable river. It seemed like a mockery now. It was a
good twenty-five miles distant, and in their weakened state that was
half a world away.
At the end of the day they made a detour from the coulee to visit a
small slough and a poplar bluff that they had marked from a rise. It was
a likely place to find bear. There was no bear, but the water of the
slough was sweet, and they determined to spend the night in that spot.
Will it be our last camp? Conacher thought with dread in his heart. The
sky was still threatening, and he constructed an inclined thatch of
poplar leaves, with a fire in front for the girls. They chewed their
strips of boiled hide. This finished one moccasin, except for the ragged
lower part, that Mary-Lou had bound round her foot. Afterwards, when
Loseis, with a cold face, turned to seek her blanket, Conacher felt that
he could bear no more.
“Loseis . . . !” he murmured heart-brokenly.
Mary-Lou vanished away amongst the little trees.
“What is it?” asked Loseis coldly.
“I cannot bear it . . . !”
“What?”
“Your look! . . . Forgive me!”
“For what must I forgive you?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it is that I have done that angers you. For
getting you into this scrape.”
Her face looked very small and pinched. It worked curiously with anger.
Her voice came unnaturally sharp: “Forgive you! What sort of talk is
this? Are you trying to make me feel worse than I feel already? Aren’t
you satisfied with doing most of the work, and walking twice as far to
hunt, and carrying a double load, but you must make me feel what a
burden I am by asking me to forgive you!”
He only dimly understood the torment of this proud nature. “But Loseis
. . . !” he protested, staring, “this is foolishness . . . !”
“Of course! of course! of course! I am a fool! That is well understood!”
“Listen to me,” he said doggedly. “You say I carry too heavy a burden.
Why add to it with your cold and angry looks? The weight of two guns is
nothing to me. It is your hard eyes that break me down.”
Loseis’ reply was to burst into tears.
He took her in his arms. “Don’t you love me any more?” he whispered.
She crept within his arms, but she abused him still. “You fool! it is
because I love you so, that I am always angry. It drives me wild to
think that I should spoil the life of a man like you!”
“But that’s nonsense!” said Conacher. “I am nothing in particular. A man
only has one life. How could he spend it better? We shall go together.
What else matters . . . Don’t you feel better now?”
“A little bit,” she admitted. “But to-morrow I shall be angry with you
again. You are too good and patient. If you turned hateful I should feel
better. It would even things up a little.”
“You’re a funny one!” he murmured.
However, the air _was_ cleared; and they rolled up in their blankets
with a bit of comfort at their hearts.
When Conacher awoke next morning a light rain was drifting down. He
pulled his blanket closer around him. Lying there like that one did not
suffer; it was warm; the pangs of hunger did not make themselves felt; a
comfortable numbness filled the frame. But the thought of getting up was
hideous. For a long time he lay struggling with it. Useless for him to
tell himself that he was the head of the party; the girls were dependent
on him; it was up to him to find them food; he felt that he _could not_
get up; the effort was too great.
In the end he had to get up. The first few moments were the worst. He
stood in the rain, swaying and nauseated, a black mist swimming before
his eyes. Each morning it was much worse. If he could conquer this first
weakness, he could go on through the day—but to-morrow morning! He
shook that thought away. He forced himself to walk up and down,
supporting himself by the little trees. After awhile he felt better.
Picking up his gun, he started on his hopeless circuit of the bluff.
He paused in front of the little shelter he had constructed for the
girls. They slept. Loseis was lying with her head pillowed on Mary-Lou’s
shoulder like a child. In her weakness she looked entirely the child,
the sick child. At the sight of those transparent cheeks and bluish
eyelids, Conacher’s breast was wrung with agony. The worst of overcoming
the physical weakness was, that one then began to think again, with
horrible clearness. How could he ask this exhausted child to go on any
further? She was dearer to him than his life. Would it not be kinder to
end her sufferings while she slept? She opened her eyes, and smiled at
him enchantingly. That smile capped his agony. Swallowing the groan that
was forced up by his breast, he smiled back, and staggered on.
Like all the prairie sloughs, this one lay in a dish-like depression
surrounded by a shallow rim of grass. Conacher had made half his round
of the bluff, when over this rim at a distance of about a hundred yards
appeared a lumbering black body of an astonishing bigness. For an
instant he thought his senses were failing him; he began to tremble
violently; but he quickly realized that it was a veritable bear. A
bear’s eye-sight is not very keen, and the animal had not seen him. He
drew back amongst the little trees, struggling to control his
excitement. You _can not_ miss him! he kept telling himself.
The bear was evidently making for the bluff to breakfast off poplar
bark. Conacher realized with a pang that he was directly in the wind of
the animal. The bear was in no hurry. He turned aside to snuff and
scratch at the roots of a clump of roses. He was the largest black bear
that Conacher had ever seen. The big head was dwarfed by his mighty
rump. His black pelt was grayed with moisture. The man’s mouth watered
ridiculously. The bear turned towards him, and his heart began to thump.
Then the animal changed his mind, and sauntered around the rim of the
bench. Conacher, stepping with infinite care, kept pace with him amongst
the little trees.
The bear disappeared over the edge of the rim, and Conacher’s heart
almost broke. Should I go after him? he asked himself. No! he is bound
to come to the bluff and the slough. The animal reappeared and hope
flared up anew. He was heading towards the bluff again. He was no longer
directly in Conacher’s wind, consequently the chance of getting him was
better. But the deliberation of the beast well-nigh maddened the man.
Bruin stood gazing off to the east as if he were debating the choice
between this and some other feeding ground. He sat up on his haunches,
and licked his paws. Finally he came lumbering towards the trees in a
businesslike manner. Conacher raised his gun.
Before the bear had made half the distance that separated them, though
Conacher had not moved, the animal’s mysterious instinct warned him of
the presence of danger. He stopped with a woof! of alarm, and turning in
his tracks, galloped back for the shelter of the rim. Conacher fired.
The bear’s broad beam offered him a goodly mark, and he knew by the
tremor that went through the animal that he had hit him: but it was not
in a vulnerable spot. He galloped on without a pause. He disappeared
over the encircling rim of grass. A voice seemed to cry inside Conacher:
“You have lost your last chance!”
He found strength to run as if he had not been starved for four days. As
he topped the rise, he saw the bear lying in the grass a hundred feet
away; and a great, calm thankfulness filled his breast. It was all
right! The animal was not dead, but disabled in his hind quarters. He
lay with his head between his paws awaiting the end. Conacher dispatched
him with a bullet through the brain.
Crying out: “A bear! I’ve got him!” Conacher dropped to his knees, and
started instanter to skin his prey. Presently Mary-Lou who was more
skillful at this job than he, relieved him. Loseis stood looking on like
a happy little ghost. They could not wait to skin the bear entire; but
cut off a piece of meat, and ran back to the fire with it.
Conacher kept saying over and over like an old woman: “Mind! Mind! Only
a little piece at first, or it will make you sick!”
“If there is meat, why not eat?” grumbled Mary-Lou.
Nevertheless she obeyed; and at first only three tiny pieces were set
upon pointed sticks to roast over the fire. It may be guessed that they
were not _very_ well cooked before they were eaten. Conacher and Loseis
nibbled them to make them go as far as possible. Mary-Lou saw no sense
at all in this proceeding, but loyally followed their example.
“Is that all?” said Loseis wistfully.
“Mary-Lou could put some small pieces in the pot and boil them,”
suggested Conacher. “The soup would be good for you.”
“Soup!” said Loseis, making a face.
“Well, by and by we will roast another little piece. To-morrow, if you
feel all right, you can eat all you want.”
There was no question of moving on that day. They ate a little more;
slept; and ate again. Conacher and Loseis sat happily side by side under
the shelter of the leaves, watching Mary-Lou cut off thin slabs of the
meat, and hang them in the smoke of the fire. The Indian girl also
contrived moccasins for herself out of squares of the hide.
Next morning they awoke with bounding pulses as if they had never known
what it was to starve. At breakfast time they feasted without stint.
Their cheeks seemed to have filled out over night; their eyes were
bright; their teeth gleaming. There was something so comical in the
sight of this abrupt transformation, that they continually burst out
laughing with their mouths full at the sight of each other’s joy.
They set out again laden with as much meat as they could carry.
CHAPTER XXIV
DOWNSTREAM
As they descended by imperceptible degrees towards the river, they could
no longer make out the line of its valley ahead. The bald-headed prairie
now began to take on a parklike aspect. Groups of graceful, full-grown
poplars with their greenish yellow bark became more and more numerous,
gradually leading them into a well-grown forest of aspen trees,
interspersed with spruce. But there were still grassy openings of all
sizes, from pretty glades to miniature prairies. Through the trackless
forest it was very slow going; giant raspberry bushes, now in blossom,
barred the way; rotting trunks lay prone in every direction; and vivid
moss treacherously masked the holes where the ancient stems had rotted
clean out of the ground.
As the afternoon wore on, and there was no end to this, no sign of any
river, a feeling of discouragement attacked them again. Could they have
been mistaken? And then without warning, they issued out of the trees on
to a grassy knoll; and there, with a magnificent effect of dramatic
surprise, lay the long-sought river at their very feet.
It was a thrilling moment. That view, so cunningly masked by the belt of
forest, was one of the finest views imaginable. It was a first-class
river. It flowed in the bottom of a valley at least six hundred feet
deep, and no more than half a mile across from rim to rim. From the
opposite rim, the prairie rolled on to the horizon. It was not so much a
valley as a deep, clean gash in the prairie. The side upon which they
stood was mantled with the deep green of spruce, while the other side
rolled up in fantastic knobs and terraces of buffalo grass.
The river poured a smooth, yellowish green flood through the bottom of
this mighty trough; just the color of poplar bark. It was broken by
several high islands, covered with spruce trees, which stemmed the
current like majestic ships. The point upon which they stood was on the
outside of a great bend, and they could look far up-stream, where the
river seemed to flatten out, and to issue dazzling and molten from the
afternoon sun itself.
Conacher’s first thought was: “Plenty of water! I’ll be able to make a
raft. We’ll have some easy days now.”
They gazed at the noble prospect with full hearts. Conacher in
particular was bursting with pride. He felt like the creator of that
river, because they had found it where he had said it would be.
“We happen to have hit it just right,” he said with a transparent air of
carelessness. “In years to come when there is a trail it will strike the
river here. Above here, you see, it flows east of north, and at this
point it swings around to the westward. That agrees with the Indian
reports. It is the only river east of the Rockies that has a westward
trend.”
“It is too beautiful to be called the Mud River,” said Loseis.
“After this it shall be Laurentia’s River.”
“Suppose there are rapids,” suggested the matter-of-fact Mary-Lou.
“It will probably flow smooth for two hundred miles,” said Conacher.
“Then it will strike the limestone outcrop that crosses the whole
country. We’ll find rapids, maybe cascades, there.”
“And we are the first whites to see it!” murmured Loseis.
“If I can bring him a good sketch map of it, it will put my boss in a
good humor,” said Conacher.
They made their way down to the water’s edge; and chose a camping spot
on a curious tongue of land pointing downstream. At the highest stage of
water it was an island; but it was now connected with the shore by a bar
of dried mud. On one side of them the resistless brown flood swept down
silently, its silken surface etched with eddies; on the other side there
was a quiet back-water which Conacher said would be ideal for
constructing the raft. He spent the remaining hours of daylight in
searching for the three big, dead trees that he required for that
purpose.
They slept in great comfort on heaps of spruce boughs, with a generous
fire between them. Even in July the nights were cold. In the silence of
the night they discovered that the smoothly flowing river had a voice.
It was neither a roar nor a whisper, but partook of the nature of both
sounds. Though scarcely audible, it was tremendous; like the breathing
and stirring of a mighty bed-fellow.
The entire following day was devoted to the construction of the raft.
Conacher cut down his trees; lopped off the branches; and chopped the
trunks in two. He then launched his logs, and floated them together.
During the earlier stages of his labor, he was often obliged to wade
thigh deep into the icy water. Since he had neither spikes to fasten the
logs, nor rope to lash them together, he was forced patiently to burn
holes in them with his ramrod, heated in the fire. Twenty-four such
holes had to be burned; and twelve neatly fitting wooden pegs shaped
with the ax. Two short lengths were laid across the six logs and pegged
down. The peg at each corner was allowed to stick up a few inches. A
flooring of poles was then laid on the crosspieces to keep the
passengers and their slender baggage dry. These poles were not fastened
down, but were held in place by the pegs at each corner. Conacher’s last
act was to burn a hole in each of the outside logs into which he drove a
stout forked branch to serve as a rowlock. The oars were merely small
spruce poles flattened with the ax at the broad end.
The builder surveyed his completed effort with a pride that was
difficult to conceal. “After all this work,” he said with his offhand
air, “I shall be good and sore if we have to abandon it in a few miles.”
“It is beautiful!” said Loseis.
For a touch of bravura Conacher made a little hearth of clay tiled with
flat stones on one end of his raft; and laid a fire ready to light. “So
we can boil our meat as we travel,” he explained.
“It is like a steamboat!” said Loseis.
They turned in early; and were ready to push off soon after sunrise the
following morning. This was the fourteenth morning after their departure
from the slough where their enemies had turned back. The raft proved to
possess ample buoyancy; they could move about on it with a certain
freedom. The floor of poles held them safely above danger of a wetting.
Mary-Lou lighted the fire, and put the breakfast on to cook.
Loseis and Conacher sculled out of the back-water. At the foot of the
island the current seized them as in a giant hand and drew them along.
They took their oars inboard. There was nothing further to do. The
tendency of the current itself was to draw them into the center of the
stream, and keep them there. They sat down on their blankets to survey
the scenery. The raft gyrated slowly in the eddies, giving them views up
and down stream without so much as having to turn their heads.
“This is better than walking,” said Conacher.
Loseis agreed that it was; nevertheless she looked with some trepidation
to see what each new bend of the unknown river had to show.
Conacher assured her on the word of a geologist that as long as it ran
between dirt banks there could be no serious obstruction to navigation;
when rocks appeared, then look out! He had note-book and compass out to
make memoranda of its course. He calculated that the current was running
about five miles an hour.
The sun was hot to-day; basking deliciously in its rays, the girl fell
into a comfortable doze. The scenery was beautiful and monotonous; they
looked at it, only partly aware of what they were looking at, a half
smile fixed on their lips. Thus they recuperated from the fatigues of
the past few days. Since the raft did not move through the water, but
with the water, it came to seem as if it was not moving at all. The raft
was the fixed point, and the shores were being slowly rolled past them
like a panorama on great spools.
This pleasant dream was rudely broken into by the sound of a hoarse roar
downstream.
“Rapid!” said Mary-Lou, moving towards an oar.
Loseis looked reproachfully at Conacher.
They edged the raft close inshore where they could land quickly if need
be.
“Let’s have a look at it before you call me a liar,” said Conacher.
Rounding the outside of a bend, they came in view of the white horses
leaping below. An exclamation of fear broke from the girls. Conacher
caught hold of a fallen tree to stay their progress while he studied the
white water.
“Nothing but a riffle,” he announced. “Its bark is worse than its bite.
This is a sharper bend than usual, and it’s just the water backing up on
the outside that makes all the fuss. Notice that all the waves are
regular and unbroken. Deep water. It will be perfectly safe to run it if
you are willing.”
“All right if you say so,” said Loseis.
They cast off from their tree. Conacher and Mary-Lou each stood up with
an oar, and Loseis crouched behind them.
“Head for the roughest part near the shore,” said Conacher, “and keep
her straight; that’s all.”
Their hearts beat fast as the shores began to slip by with
ever-increasing swiftness. The voice of the rapid was like that of a
ravening beast. There is no other feeling quite like that upon the brink
of a rapid. The feeling is: No power on earth can save me from it
now—well, what the hell! They were gripped by an exquisite fear.
Finally the heavy raft wriggled over the first and the biggest of those
strange, fixed billows and stuck her nose in the trough. A sheet of
spray flew back over them, whereupon they were seized by a mad
exhilaration, and all three yelled like demons. The raft bucked over the
short, steep billows like a rogue horse. Conacher and Mary-Lou were
forced to their knees; and the latter lost her oar. A moment later they
found themselves in smooth water, roaring with laughter.
As soon as they had eaten their supper that night, they pushed off
again. The girls slept while Conacher watched throughout the long
twilight. The sunset glow alternated with the cold eastern sky as the
raft waltzed gracefully in the eddies. They grounded her on a bar during
the few hours of darkness; and at dawn they pushed off again; the girls
watching now while Conacher slept. He awakened in the sunshine to find
them laughing at the antics of the bears on the steep banks.
For three days they traveled in this pleasant fashion. Mooseberries and
black currants were ripening now. The bushes grew thickly along the
edges of the water and wherever there were berries there were bears.
Drifting down silently on the raft, Conacher could always get a shot in
the early mornings. The berries made a welcome change from a diet of
meat exclusively.
As they traveled north the steep high banks gradually flattened down,
and the current of the river slackened. Finally the high banks
disappeared altogether; they could see nothing over the tops of the
poplars and pines that lined the water’s edge. The course of the stream
became very tortuous, and progress was slow.
“We’re evidently coming to something,” Conacher remarked. “This country
is a vast belt of silt deposited by the river as the result of some
obstruction ahead.”
On the fourth day the obstruction appeared in the form of a low wall of
limestone through which the river had finally succeeded in forcing a
passage. The rock walls were but three or four feet high, and the river
slipped between them very swiftly and smoothly with a curious growling
sound. On the other side the whole character of the country was changed.
Rock appeared everywhere; and the lush vegetation of the prairies was
gone.
They had not gone far before they came to a rapid, a real rapid this
one, with great bowlders sticking up out of it, that tore the current to
white tatters. Landing at a safe distance above, they walked down along
the shore to see if there was a possible channel through. Conacher was
naturally averse to abandoning the raft which had cost him such pains.
After a little study, he pointed out to the girls how it might be done.
“It would be foolish, though, to risk the guns and ammunition and the
ax. You girls carry the things along the shore, and I’ll take the raft
down.”
“Suppose you hit a rock?” said Loseis, paling.
“Why, I’d get a ducking, that’s all.”
He accomplished the feat without accident. To the watching Loseis he
made an extraordinarily gallant figure, standing on the raft, braced and
swaying to every movement; his resolute glance fixed ahead, while he
paddled madly to steer it around obstructions.
In the next rapid, an hour or so later, he was not so fortunate. The
raft, in spite of his efforts, slid up on a submerged shelf of rock, and
rearing on end, flung the loose poles in every direction. Conacher,
jumping clear of the wreck, went down with the current. The frame of the
raft followed him down; and he contrived to bring it ashore below; and
the paddle too. With some new poles the raft was as good as ever.
However, the rapids seemed to grow successively worse; and Loseis
forbade him to risk his neck in the next one. They sent the raft down
empty. After a mad voyage, battered back and forth on the bowlders, it
came through minus its poles, somewhat loosened up but still
practicable. They then camped for the night.
On the following day they were nosing along close to the shore with the
disquieting roar of a rapid in their ears, but apparently still at some
distance. The view down river was cut off by a low, stony hill, sparsely
covered with trees, around the base of which the stream wound its way.
Suddenly Conacher perceived that the current was sucking ominously
along-shore. That part of the shore was much cumbered with old down
trees. He drove the raft into the naked branches.
“Grab hold!” he said sharply to the girls.
They missed the first tree. Fine beads of perspiration broke out on
Conacher’s forehead. He perceived that in a dozen yards the raft would
be beyond his control. He seized the next overhanging branch, and wound
a leg around his improvised oarlock to hold the raft. The girls were now
fully alive to the danger. Mary-Lou climbed into the tree, and Loseis
swiftly passed her their precious few belongings. When everything was
ashore Conacher let the raft go, and it lumbered around the point with
surprising swiftness.
“That’s the last of it,” said Conacher sadly.
They climbed the stony hill. As they rounded the top, a hoarse, throaty
bellowing buffeted their ears; and a moment later a wild welter of white
water was spread before their eyes. They had seen nothing like this.
After rounding the hill the stream straightened out, and narrowing down
to a quarter of its usual width tumbled down as steeply as a flight of
stairs between high wooded banks. The impression of power was
overwhelming. The water was forced into great, regular billows which
looked to be fifteen feet high. Each billow or ridge of water converged
to a point in the middle; and the effect as one looked downstream was of
a series of blunt white arrows pointing up. No boat could have lived in
that turmoil. The raft—or what was left of it—was already out of
sight. The three looked at each other with scared and thankful faces. A
close call!
They now had to adjust their minds to traveling on foot again—and this
would not be anything like the rolling prairie! The first thing was to
roll up their packs, and strap them on their backs. They then descended
into the gorge; but found it impossible to make headway along the steep
side, impeded with stones and down timber. They were forced to climb a
hundred feet or so to level ground. This was scarcely better. Only those
who have tried to make their way through a trackless virgin forest can
appreciate the difficulties that faced them in the shape of undergrowth,
fallen trees and holes in the earth. The débris of ages was heaped in
their path. They guided themselves by the sound of the cascade upon
their left.
In a mile or so (which had all the effect of ten) the river fell quiet
again, and they pushed back to its bank. It was an open question which
was the more difficult going. Along the edge of the stream the dead
timber brought down by the freshets was left stranded in inextricable
tangles. Conacher finally chose a course parallel with the river bank,
and a few yards back from the edge. Here they were at least sure of a
supply of water. All day long it was a case of climbing over obstacles
or through them or chopping a way. Heart-breaking work. They camped
while it was still early, completely tired out.
For day after day this continued. There was no lack of dead timber to
make another raft: but the rapids followed each other in such close
succession that it seemed a waste of time. It was exasperating to have
to undergo such crushing labor with the stream running alongside ready
to carry them in the desired direction. “If I only had a dug-out!”
Conacher groaned a dozen times a day. But even if they could have taken
the time to make a dug-out, there was no suitable timber in that stony
land. The noise of their progress through the bush scared away all game;
and they would soon have gone hungry, had it not been for the smoked
meat which Mary-Lou had thoughtfully provided. Presently this gave out,
and they had to lay over for a day, while Conacher hunted a bear, along
the river. Their clothes were in rags.
In ten days Conacher figured that they had made about fifty miles: but
this was pure guesswork. It was now within two or three days of the time
when the surveying outfit was due at the mouth of the Mud River.
The three travelers were sitting gloomily on the shore of the river in a
spot where it flowed as smoothly and prettily between poplar and
birch-covered shores as a river in a civilized land where picnics might
be held. The view downstream was blocked by a graceful island. Suddenly
around that island came poking the nose of a birch-bark canoe with a
single paddler.
To those three that sight was like a blow between the eyes. They glanced
fearfully at each other for confirmation. It was a month since they had
seen others of their kind. They stared at the approaching canoe with
open mouths. Then Conacher jumped to his feet and hailed. The paddler
was arrested in mid-motion. He was no less startled by the meeting than
they. After a moment he came paddling gingerly towards them. They saw
that it was a white man, an odd, withered, brownish specimen, whose skin
was all of a color with his battered hat, and faded khaki jacket.
He grounded his canoe gently in the mud, and stepped out. An old smoked
pioneer with a comically injured look which never varied. They shook
hands gravely all around before a word was spoken.
“Who are you?” demanded Conacher and Loseis simultaneously.
“Bill Mitchell,” he replied with the shrug and the aggrieved look that
were characteristic of him. “Who the hell are you?”
“I am Conacher of the surveying outfit, and this is Miss Blackburn.”
“Blackburn’s daughter!” exclaimed the old man with widening eyes. “Do
you mean to tell me you’ve come down from Blackburn’s Post this away!”
Conacher was not anxious to go into lengthy explanations. “We’re
expecting to join my outfit on the Sinclair River,” he said quickly.
“How far are we from the Sinclair?”
“Matter of ten mile. There’s one rapid between.”
“Well, thank God!” cried Conacher fervently. “Have you seen the
surveying outfit?”
“Spelled with them three days since,” replied the old man. “They’re
working up-stream slow. Ought to be off the mouth of the Mud River some
time to-morrow.”
Conacher and Loseis exchanged a beaming look. All their troubles rolled
away. “Well, we didn’t manage that so badly,” said the former,
conceitedly.
“What are you doing here?” Conacher asked of the old man.
“Me?” he answered with his disgruntled look; “what do you think I’m
doin’? I’m prospectin’ this river. It ain’t never been prospected.”
“But when you get above the rapids it’s a prairie river,” said Conacher.
“We came through three hundred miles of it, and there’s likely three
hundred miles more above that.”
“Then I’ll work up to the mountains,” said the old man undisturbed.
“You fellows ought to study a little geology before you break your
hearts with a journey like this,” said Conacher nettled. “Nobody has
ever found any amount of gold on the easterly slope of the Rockies.”
“Mebbe this river comes right through the mountains like the Spirit and
the Sinclair,” said the old fellow obstinately.
“Look at it!” said Conacher. “There’s damned little snow water in that.
It’s pure prairie mud.”
“Oh, well, I’ve come so far I might as well go see,” he said calmly. “I
got all summer. All I want is to get into the mountains before I go into
winter quarters.”
Conacher gave him up. He described the upper reaches of the river for
his benefit. “How will you get your canoe around the big fall?” he
asked.
“Chop a trail through the bush, and then come back for it,” said the old
man calmly. “It don’t weigh but forty pound.”
Looking into his canoe they perceived that his entire worldly goods
consisted of three bags of flour, a box of ammunition, and a slim
dunnage bag of odds and ends. It appeared that his gun was of the same
caliber as that carried by Conacher. The old man looked at the other’s
still partly filled ammunition belt desirously.
“You’ll be joining your outfit to-morrow,” he said suggestively.
“Tell you what I’ll do,” said Conacher. “Cache your flour here, and
carry us down to the mouth of the river and it shall be yours.”
“Don’t mind ef I do,” said Bill Mitchell.
After the labors of the past days that last ten miles was like riding in
a taxi. They whisked the light canoe around the rapid with no trouble at
all. Below, the Mud River widened out and found its way into the
Sinclair through a miniature delta amongst low, grassy islands covered
with gigantic cottonwood trees that created a dim green twilight below.
Mitchell landed them on a pine-clad point that looked down a reach of
the greater river, several miles long. The old man did not get out.
“Won’t you spell with us?” asked Conacher politely.
The pioneer rubbed his hairy chin, and squinted down river as if he had
perceived something important down there. “I guess not,” he drawled.
“Got to be gettin’ along.” With a casual good-by, he pushed off and
resumed his solitary journey up-stream.
“What a strange creature!” murmured Loseis.
“It was the presence of a lady which embarrassed him,” said Conacher.
“He confided to me that he had not seen a white girl in seven years.”
* * * * *
Twenty-four hours later it was Conacher who perceived, down at the end
of the long reach, the flash of wet paddles in the sun.
“Here they come!” he cried.
The two girls ran to his side. For a long time they could make out
nothing but the regular flash of several paddles like heliograph
signals. Finally four little black objects took shape down river. The
watchers filled with a mounting excitement that became painful to bear;
their breasts were like dynamos humming higher and higher until the
pitch became unendurable. They had looked forward to this meeting
through such hardships and perils! there had been so many days when they
despaired of accomplishing it! But here they came at last; men of their
own kind; friends; rescuers. Conacher and Loseis felt as if their hearts
would crack with joy.
“My God! how astonished they’ll be!” said Conacher shakily.
The impulse to make the most of their friends’ astonishment was
irresistible; and the three drew back under cover of the trees. Soon
they were able to distinguish that the approaching party consisted of
three white men and eight Indians traveling in three big dug-outs, and a
rough, narrow scow that was being poled along close to the shore.
Finally Conacher recognized his especial friend.
“Alec Jordan!” he murmured with a tight, warm feeling around the heart.
“Good old Alec!”
They saw that the oncoming boats intended to make a landing directly at
their feet. It was an inevitable camping-place. The three dug-outs
grounded almost simultaneously on the shingle. As the white men rose in
their places, Conacher stepped out from among the trees.
“Hello, fellows!” he said in a casual voice.
They stared at him completely awe-struck. “My God!” they murmured in
hushed tones; and looked at each other. The Indians in the scow pushed
off in a panic and floated away on the current.
Conacher, pale with excitement, but grinning widely, stepped down the
bank. “I’m no ghost!” he cried. He marched up to Langmuir, the head of
the party. “I want to report for duty,” he said simply.
“Report . . . for duty!” stammered Langmuir clownishly.
Jordan was the first to recover from the shock. He flung his arms around
his friend. “Conacher! Conacher! _Conacher!_” he yelled, shaking him
violently as if to make certain that he was flesh and blood.
“How in hell did you get here?” demanded Langmuir in a voice of extreme
bitterness, which was not really bitter.
“Been waitin’ for you since yesterday,” said Conacher airily. “I cut
across the prairie north of Blackburn’s Post, and came down the Mud
River to head you off. Got a map of the river for you, chief, such as it
is.”
“Well, I’m damned!” said Langmuir solemnly. And the others echoed him in
varying tones: “I’m _damned_!”
Conacher was not yet done surprising them. As they turned to climb the
bank, he said somewhat nervously: “I’ve got a couple of guests with
me. . . .”
Loseis stepped into view above. In breeches and Stetson, smiling
merrily, yet a little apprehensively, too, she made an enchanting
figure. The rents in her clothes, the marks of hardship in her face,
only set off the bravery of her spirit. To those white men so long
parted from the women of their race, it was like a miracle.
“Miss Blackburn, gentlemen,” Conacher sang out. “Mr. Langmuir; Mr.
Jordan; Mr. Seely.”
They snatched off their hats. “Pleased to meet you,” they mumbled
sheepishly.
“Merciful Heaven! am I awake or dreaming!” Langmuir murmured to himself.
CHAPTER XXV
CONCLUSION
The meeting at the mouth of the Mud River was the beginning of a still
longer journey for Loseis. But it was never again allowed to become an
arduous one for her. All hands, white and red, joined together to smooth
her way. She reigned the undisputed Princess of Langmuir’s party,
holding them in subjection with her smile.
After a laborious month ascending the Sinclair, plotting the river and
collecting geological data and specimens, they came to a lonely trading
outpost on the Pacific side of the mountains, called Pinnacle House. It
stood amidst wild and beautiful surroundings in a deep green valley
between parallel ranges. The pointed limestone peaks gave it its name.
How strange it was to find such homely old friends as cabbages, onions
and potatoes growing in the trader’s garden!
The trader was away on his usual summer journey to bring in supplies;
and they found his house occupied at the moment by the Reverend Patrick
Geogehagen, a famous character of the country, better known as “Patsy.”
Patsy was a brawny, bright-eyed wrestler for the Lord, with
cherry-colored cheeks, and a spreading black beard that saved him the
trouble of wearing a necktie. It was his self-imposed duty to visit and
minister to those tribes of Indians who were too poor, too disreputable
or too far away to attract the attention of the regular missionaries.
When they hailed him he was cleaning his gun at the door of the single
log shack that served both for store and dwelling at Pinnacle House, and
there was nothing in his rough dress to indicate his calling. When he
introduced himself, Conacher looked at Loseis with a quick, smiling
question and Loseis answered it with a quick, smiling assent. Conacher
whispered shamefacedly to Patsy, who thereupon gave him a frightful clap
on the back, and roared:
“Delighted, my boy!”
Conacher took Langmuir aside. The chief wagged his head in perplexity;
and scratched it, and grumbled:
“What the deuce, Conny! Such a thing was never heard of in a party
engaged on field work! What will it look like in my report? Oh, Lord!
think of the explanations I will be called on to make to all the old
women in the Department!”
“Why should it appear in the report?” said Conacher. “It’s none of the
Government’s business. Have I been any the worse worker during the past
month?”
“No, no! you’ve worked like two! . . . Hm! that’s so. Why should it
appear? . . . Go ahead, my boy; and God bless you! I bags to give the
bride away.”
As a matter of fact, it _did not_ appear. The report of Langmuir’s party
is filed away with many others equally decorous, and nobody in the
Government ever suspected that they entertained a Princess during the
summer and celebrated a wedding.
There were no wedding garments in the outfit but a great shaving,
shearing, washing and brushing-up took place. The fellows decorated the
single room of the cabin with spruce branches and flowers from the
mountain side. Loseis had to be married in breeches and boots because it
was all she had. At least her clothes were neatly mended by this time.
Her smile was the smile of a happy bride; and nobody was aware of any
incongruity. Conacher looked as frightened as every well-disposed man is
supposed to be at his wedding; and large fat tears rolled down the
bridesmaid’s dark cheeks. Up to the moment of donning his vestments
Patsy joked outrageously; he then became the priest of God. In a free
and natural state of society these abrupt contrasts are perfectly well
understood. Nobody thought the less of Patsy because he was a man as
well as a priest.
Patsy and Mary-Lou conspired together to produce the wedding-feast; and
the result, considering the meager resources of Pinnacle House,
astonished everybody. They may have been short of the fixings, but they
had five kinds of game and fish; and to polish off with, a gigantic
roly-poly pudding stuffed with currant jam.
The speeches were no better nor worse than usual. Patsy said in part:
“Sure, friends, I shall look back on this as one of the happiest days of
me life! This morning I was not aware that you people as much as
existed; this afternoon you are established as the friends of me heart,
and shall never be absent from me heart while it beats. Even parsons get
discouraged sometimes, though none of ’em would ever admit it but a
renegade like me. This mornin’ I was sittin’ at the door of this house
trying to make up my mind whether to visit the scrofulous Louchoux
Indians to the northeast, or the flea-bitten Sikannis to the southeast,
and feelin’ ready to consign ’em both to perdition. Sure, in all the
world there is not such another lousy, thieving, crack-brained,
worthless congregation as me own, I was telling meself, when along you
came with this lovely girl to remind me of the existence of beauty in
the world, and this bold lad to refresh me with the sight of manliness!
Would I marry them? says he, blushing. Would I marry them? I was ready
to throw my cap in the air at such a chance! That is jam in the life of
a forgotten missionary. I consider that in joining these two I have
performed the best act of me life. The country ought to profit by it.
Here’s to the newly married pair! May they live long and obey the
scriptural injunction!”
To which Conacher answered:
“. . . Er . . . you fellows and the Reverend Patsy . . . I rise to say
. . . er . . . that is, to thank you . . . I’m not much of a speaker
. . .”
“No?” queried a sarcastic voice.
“That’s all right, Jordan. You can laugh. I’ll live to see you married
yet. . . . Where was I? . . . I only wanted to say, only you interrupt
me all the time . . . er . . . to thank you on behalf of Miss Blackburn
. . .”
Uproarious laughter drowned him out.
“What’s the matter with you all! . . . Oh, I see. I mean the lady beside
me, m-m-m-my w-w-w-wife. The late Miss Blackburn . . .”
Renewed laughter.
“Oh, to hell with you!” said Conacher plumping down in his seat
laughing. “If any man thinks he can make a better speech let’s hear it!”
Next morning they resumed their work on the river. For two weeks longer
they toiled up through or around the innumerable rapids, canyons,
whirlpools, and waterfalls of the upper Sinclair, before they finally
arrived at the little lake in which it took its source.
Here Langmuir gave Conacher leave to press on ahead while the party
cleaned up its work for the season. So Conacher, Loseis and Mary-Lou
crossed a famous pass and descending the mountain on the other side,
plunged all at once into the civilization which Loseis had never seen.
Everything in the busy little coast town was strange to her; the close
ranks of shops and houses; locomotives; automobiles; electric light and
water from a tap. The Princess was too aristocratic in spirit to betray
vulgar amazement; she merely looked and listened quietly. Not until she
was alone with her husband did she reveal the wonder and astonishment of
her childish heart. For the man it was a wonderful experience to
introduce so fresh and ardent a soul to the great world.
There was a short voyage by sea; then the return eastward by railroad
over the mountains to the city of Prince George.
In Prince George they had no difficulty in finding John Gruber, who when
he was not running Blackburn’s outfit into the country, or bringing out
his furs, ran a stable in town, and bought and sold horses. They found
him in his little office, a tall, strong man with a heavy, honest red
face, and a bald red poll surrounded by a fringe of red hair. Gruber had
not visited Blackburn’s Post since Loseis was a child; and he did not
immediately recognize her.
“I am Laurentia Blackburn,” she said.
“What!” cried Gruber, staring. “Why . . . of course you are! . . . Well,
I’m damned!”
“That’s what everybody says!” said Loseis with a rueful smile.
“Where did you come from?” demanded Gruber.
Loseis started to tell her story, but Gruber instantly silenced her.
“Wait! Wait!” he cried. “We must do everything regular and proper!”
Snatching up his hat, he hustled them through the streets to a tall
office building. Here after ascending in an elevator (a fresh marvel to
Loseis) they burst unceremoniously into the private office of a little,
round, white-haired old gentleman, startling him almost out of his wits.
“Here is Blackburn’s daughter!” shouted Gruber.
“God bless my soul!” cried the old gentleman, agitatedly removing his
glasses. “What proof have you of that?”
“I’ve got the proof of my own eyes!”
“Quietly! Quietly!” pleaded the old soul. “Sit down all. Let us proceed
in due order if you please.”
It turned out that this was Hector Blackburn’s lawyer, David Chichester.
In simple graphic sentences, Loseis told the two men her story, while
they glanced at each other in astonishment, and murmured in indignation
and sympathy.
When she had come to the end, Mr. Chichester said gravely: “We all felt
that there was something that needed to be explained; but we had nothing
to go on.”
“You have later news than mine,” said Loseis eagerly; “Mr. Gruber has
been into the country and out again. What has happened?”
The two men looked at each other again. Gruber said: “Show her the
newspaper, Mr. Chichester. That tells the whole story.”
From a drawer of his desk, Mr. Chichester produced a copy of the local
newspaper now some weeks old, folded in such a manner as to bring into
prominence the story that he desired them to read. They were instantly
aware of the staring headlines:
ROMANTIC TRAGEDY OF THE NORTH
Young Couple End All for Love
Loseis and Conacher read with their heads close together:
“John Gruber, the well-known horse-dealer and traveler of Prince George,
returned yesterday from his annual trip into northern Athabasca bringing
news of a strange and poignant tragedy at Blackburn’s Post, a distant
trading station in the unexplored portion of the province.
“For many years Mr. Gruber has acted as agent for Hector Blackburn, the
last of the powerful free traders, who maintained an almost baronial
state in the midst of his vast domain. Each year it has been Mr.
Gruber’s custom to take in the year’s supplies for the Post. At a point
about half way he would meet the outfit sent out by Hector Blackburn and
exchange the store goods for the season’s catch of furs. This year Mr.
Gruber waited in vain at the rendezvous. After several weeks had passed,
a rumor reached him that Hector Blackburn had been killed by an accident
early in June. He then pushed through the rest of the way to Blackburn’s
Post.
“He found Mr. Andrew Gault of Fort Good Hope, one of the best-known fur
traders in the country, in charge there. Mr. Gault was well-nigh
prostrated by a terrible happening which had taken place only two or
three days before Mr. Gruber’s arrival. Laurentia Blackburn, the late
trader’s only child, had killed herself by leaping from a high cliff
into the river, in company with her lover, a young man named Paul
Conacher attached to the Geological Survey.
“It was on June third that Hector Blackburn was killed by a fall from
his horse. His death left his daughter, a young girl, entirely alone and
unprotected in that savage spot. There were no other white persons at
Blackburn’s Post. Moreover it was surrounded by a tribe of ignorant
Indians who began to get out of hand as soon as the firm control of
Hector Blackburn was removed. Mr. Gault, hearing of these things,
immediately rode to the girl’s assistance from his Post one hundred and
fifty miles away.
“At first the girl evinced nothing but gratitude at his coming. She
freely put all her affairs into Mr. Gault’s experienced hands, giving
him a power of attorney to transact the necessary business. Mr. Gault
sent out for Hector Blackburn’s attorney who is the well-known lawyer,
Mr. David Chichester, of this city; but this letter unluckily was lost
somewhere on the long journey.
“A few days later the young man, Conacher, turned up at Blackburn’s
Post. He too had heard of Blackburn’s death, and was attracted by the
rich prize offered in his only child and heiress. A handsome young man,
of good address, his conquest of the inexperienced girl was all too
easy. Conacher wished to get her business into his own hands, and so
worked upon her mind with base insinuations that she turned against her
best friend, Mr. Gault.
“Mr. Gault meanwhile, as was clearly his duty, was preparing to send out
the season’s fur to Mr. Gruber. By every means in his power, Conacher
sought to prevent this. He was finally guilty of the murder of an Indian
named Etzooah, a messenger of Mr. Gault’s, under circumstances of
peculiar atrocity. The Indian was garroted as he rode through the woods,
by a line stretched across the trail by Conacher. It then became Mr.
Gault’s duty to apprehend the young man and send him out to justice. But
the infatuated girl sheltered him in her own house; and standing at the
door with a gun, dared Mr. Gault to come and take him.
“Mr. Gault sent out for the police; and in the meantime contented
himself with watching the house to prevent the murderer’s escape. His
messenger, taking a different route, passed Mr. Gruber on the way in;
and as a matter of fact the police arrived two days after Gruber. But
everything was over then. On the third night Conacher and the girl
escaped from the house, and obtaining possession of a dug-out, fled
across the river. Closely pursued by Mr. Gault, they sought a refuge on
top of a high cut-bank opposite the Post. When their pursuers closed in
on them, seeing capture, disgrace and separation ahead, they joined
hands and with a weird good-by ringing through the night, leaped over
the edge of the gravelly cliff and were drowned in the river below.
Though Mr. Gault searched for the bodies for many days, they were not
found.
“The police conducted an investigation into the sad circumstances. As a
result, Sergeant Ferrie in charge of the detail expressed himself as
satisfied that Mr. Gault had done all that any man could do in such an
inexpressibly distressing situation. Mr. Gault remains in charge of the
Post until such time as the Courts may issue letters of administration.
No heirs are known.”
Conacher and Loseis looked at each other in amazement.
“By Heaven! what an infernally clever story!” cried Conacher. “I am not
surprised that even the police were taken in.”
“God brought us through all our dangers especially so that we could show
this man up!” said Loseis.
“We must decide on a course of action,” said Mr. Chichester fussily.
“There can be but one course for my husband and me,” said Loseis
quickly. “We will start back for our Post to-morrow.”
“Naturally,” said Conacher.
The other two looked a little flabbergasted at this instant decision.
“The season is growing late,” objected Gruber. “Light snows have already
fallen. Ice will be running in the rivers by the time you get there.”
“But the trip _can_ be made!” said Loseis.
“Oh, yes, it can be made.”
“Then we’ll make it.”
“One moment,” said Mr. Chichester dryly. “I suppose you know that you
have other property beside the fur business.”
“Have I?” said Loseis.
He handed her a sort of statement from amongst his papers. Loseis looked
at it, and shook her head.
“I don’t understand it,” she said, passing it to Conacher.
As he studied it, Conacher’s face paled. “Good God!” he muttered.
“According to this you are worth over a million dollars. . . . Oh, after
what they have said about me, this is terrible!”
“You’ll have to make the best of it!” said Mr. Chichester with a dry
twinkle.
Loseis showed a face of quaint distress. “My dear Paul,” she murmured,
“I’m so sorry! So sorry! I didn’t know anything about it. It wasn’t my
fault, was it!”
* * * * *
Gruber, who headed the party, breathed with relief when he led them
through a pass in the hills down to the edge of the wide meadows
surrounding Blackburn’s Lake. October had come in; and during their long
ride across the prairie they had met with more than one snow-storm.
Fortunately for them the snow had melted; had it remained lying on the
prairie, or had they experienced one of the early blizzards that are not
unknown at this season, their position would have been serious. Now,
with the shelter of the timber at hand, they were safe.
The party was well outfitted of course; but even so, what with the snow,
the hard frosts at night and the raw, biting winds by day, traveling had
been intensely disagreeable. They carried a small tent for the two
women. Gruber had three hot-heads in his company who could not brook the
slightest delay. Besides Loseis and Conacher there was young Sergeant
Ferrie of the Mounted Police who was no less eager than the other two to
bring down retribution on the head of Andrew Gault. The policeman’s
professional pride had been wounded. With three troopers he had joined
the party at the Crossing. Mary-Lou was also of the party; and six Cree
half-breeds from Miwasa Landing. They had upwards of twenty horses.
They slept for the last time on the same little point of high land
running out into the meadows, where Conacher had been surprised by
Etzooah four months before. The days were growing short now. About
eleven o’clock next morning they were riding past the Slavi village on
the opposite side of the river. The inhabitants lined up to watch them
pass, in silent consternation. Even at the distance they could not have
failed to recognize Loseis and the famous yellow head of Conacher.
“Some of them could jump in a canoe and get to the Post with the aid of
the current before we could,” suggested Conacher.
“They have no love for Gault,” said Loseis. “There is no reason why they
should warn them. The Slavis never look for trouble.”
“Even if he should be warned, he’s got nowhere to run except back to his
own Post,” Gruber pointed out. “And there he’d only run into the arms of
the other party of police who went down the big river.”
“Just the same,” said Sergeant Ferrie, frowning, “I’ve no intention of
letting any other party take him. He belongs to me!”
They urged their weary horses on a little faster.
Suspecting that Gault might make a dash for freedom at the sight of
them, Ferrie determined to send a party across country to head him off
on the other trail. Two of the white troopers and two Crees were
allotted to this duty. They turned off on the same ridge a mile from the
Post that Gault had used. In order to give them time to reach their
post, the rest of the party halted for their midday meal in the hollow
beyond.
When they started out again, Ferrie took command. He wished Loseis and
Mary-Lou to remain in that spot with a guard; but Loseis would not hear
of it. Much to her disgust she was forced to bring up the rear of the
train. As they came in sight of the Post the men’s faces were grim. It
had a deserted look. Gault had never succeeded in persuading the Slavis
to return, and the grassy meadow below the buildings, yellow now, was
empty. When they cantered up into the little square within the
buildings, that was empty too: Women’s House, store, warehouses,
Blackburn’s House; doors closed and chimneys cold. The bars of the
corral were down.
The men paused to consult. Presently the sound of approaching hoofs was
heard; and the four men sent across country rode into the square,
driving before them four mounted Indians, who were immediately
recognizable as belonging to Gault; one of them indeed was Watusk, whom
Loseis and Conacher had good cause to remember. He was brought up to
Sergeant Ferrie.
“Where is Gault?” demanded the policeman.
“We leave him here, half hour ago,” answered Watusk sullenly. “He tell
us to go home.”
“Told you to go home!” said Ferrie, astonished.
“He know you are coming,” Watusk went on impassively. “This man
Hooliam,” pointing to one of his companions, “was at the Slavi village
to see a girl when you ride past. He jomp in a canoe and paddle fas’ to
tell Gault that Blackburn’s daughter and Yellowhead are not dead. They
are comin’ back with four red-coats.”
“What did Gault say to that?” Ferrie asked with a hard smile.
“He jus’ smile,” said Watusk. “He look on the groun’ and tap his leg
with his little whip. Bam-bye he say: ‘All right, boys. Get your horses
and ride home. I will wait here for them.’ And we go.”
“Then he’s still here!” cried Ferrie.
Watusk pointed to Blackburn’s house.
“Gault! Come out!” cried Ferrie in a strong voice.
There was no answer.
Ferrie tried the door of the house, and found it barred on the inside.
He signified to his men that they were to fetch one of the heavy poles
from the corral. Using it as a battering-ram, after two or three blows,
the door burst in. Ferrie and Conacher entered the house together.
They found Gault sitting upright in the kitchen in one of Blackburn’s
carved chairs. For one dreadful instant they thought that he was
laughing at them; in the next they perceived that he was dead. His
wide-open eyes were bereft of all sense; his lower jaw was hanging down
in a dreadful, idiotic grimace. Yet he sat as straight in the
high-backed chair as in life. It was only upon looking closer that they
discovered that the man with a strange, last impulse of vanity had tied
himself into the chair, that he might be discovered facing his enemies
in an upright position. There was a band of canvas around his chest! and
another around his forehead; the broad-brimmed Stetson was jammed
rakishly down on his head over the band. He had then shot himself
through the heart with a revolver, which had slipped from his hand to
the floor.
The young men jerked their hats off; and their grim faces softened a
little.
“Well, he’s paid,” said Conacher. “We can’t feel any more hard feelings
against him!”
“It’s better so,” said Ferrie. “Nobody would want this ugly case
advertised by a trial.”
Such was Andrew Gault’s requiem.
They returned outside the house, hat in hand, and all the others knew at
a glance what they had found.
If Gault in his strange preparations for death had hoped to leave upon
Loseis a last impression of his power, his aim was not realized. She
betrayed no wish to look at him again. Loseis’ verdict was more merciful
than the young men’s.
“So he is dead!” she murmured, clinging to Conacher’s arm. “He _would_
kill himself, of course. . . . Poor fellow! He had never known love when
he was young. When he was old love mocked him, and it drove him
mad. . . . Ah! how lucky _we_ are, my dearest dear!”
They returned to the house across the way where they had known such
dreadful days and nights. But the spell of dread was lifted now. Their
breasts were calm and free.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where
multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer
errors occur.
There are two occasions where a word appears to be missing in
the original printed book. These places have been marked with a
comment.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "A backwoods princess" ***
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