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diff --git a/old/11426.txt b/old/11426.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..367cce7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11426.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4725 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Call of the North, by Stewart Edward White + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Call of the North + +Author: Stewart Edward White + +Release Date: March 3, 2004 [EBook #11426] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF THE NORTH *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + +THE CALL OF THE NORTH + + + + + Beyond the butternut, beyond the maple, + beyond the white pine and the red, beyond + the oak, the cedar, and the beech, beyond + even the white and yellow birches lies a + Land, and in that Land the shadows fall + crimson across the snow. + + + + +THE CALL OF THE NORTH + +Being a Dramatized Version of + +CONJURORS HOUSE +A Romance of the Free Forest + +BY + +Stewart Edward White + +AUTHOR OF THE WESTERNERS, +THE BLAZED TRAIL, +ETC. + + + + +THE CALL OF THE NORTH + + + + +Chapter One + +The girl stood on a bank above a river flowing north. At her back +crouched a dozen clean whitewashed buildings. Before her in +interminable journey, day after day, league on league into +remoteness, stretched the stern Northern wilderness, untrodden save +by the trappers, the Indians, and the beasts. Close about the +little settlement crept the balsams and spruce, the birch and +poplar, behind which lurked vast dreary muskegs, a chaos of +bowlder-splits, the forest. The girl had known nothing different +for many years. Once a summer the sailing ship from England felt +its frozen way through the Hudson Straits, down the Hudson Bay, to +drop anchor in the mighty River of the Moose. Once a summer a +six-fathom canoe manned by a dozen paddles struggled down the +waters of the broken Abitibi. Once a year a little band of +red-sashed _voyageurs_ forced their exhausted sledge-dogs across +the ice from some unseen wilderness trail. That was all. + +Before her eyes the seasons changed, all grim, but one by the very +pathos of brevity sad. In the brief luxuriant summer came the +Indians to trade their pelts, came the keepers of the winter posts +to rest, came the ship from England bringing the articles of use or +ornament she had ordered a full year before. Within a short time +all were gone, into the wilderness, into the great unknown world. +The snow fell; the river and the bay froze. Strange men from the +North glided silently to the Factor's door, bearing the meat and +pelts of the seal. Bitter iron cold shackled the northland, the +abode of desolation. Armies of caribou drifted by, ghostly under +the aurora, moose, lordly and scornful, stalked majestically along +the shore; wolves howled invisible, or trotted dog-like in +organized packs along the river banks. Day and night the ice +artillery thundered. Night and day the fireplaces roared defiance +to a frost they could not subdue, while the people of desolation +crouched beneath the tyranny of winter. + +Then the upheaval of spring with the ice-jams and terrors, the +Moose roaring by untamable, the torrents rising, rising foot by +foot to the very dooryard of her father's house. Strange spirits +were abroad at night, howling, shrieking, cracking and groaning in +voices of ice and flood. Her Indian nurse told her of them all--of +Mannabosho, the good; of Nenaubosho the evil--in her lisping +Ojibway dialect that sounded like the softer voices of the forest. + +At last the sudden subsidence of the waters; the splendid eager +blossoming of the land into new leaves, lush grasses, an abandon of +sweetbrier and hepatica. The air blew soft, a thousand singing +birds sprang from the soil, the wild goose cried in triumph. +Overhead shone the hot sun of the Northern summer. + +From the wilderness came the _brigades_ bearing their pelts, the +hardy traders of the winter posts, striking hot the imagination +through the mysterious and lonely allurement of their callings. +For a brief season, transient as the flash of a loon's wing on the +shadow of a lake, the post was bright with the thronging of many +people. The Indians pitched their wigwams on the broad meadows +below the bend; the half-breeds sauntered about, flashing bright +teeth and wicked dark eyes at whom it might concern; the traders +gazed stolidily over their little black pipes, and uttered brief +sentences through their thick black beards. Everywhere was gay +sound--the fiddle, the laugh, the song; everywhere was gay +color--the red sashes of the _voyageurs_, the beaded moccasins and +leggings of the _metis_, the capotes of the _brigade_, the +variegated costumes of the Crees and Ojibways. Like the wild roses +around the edge of the muskegs, this brief flowering of the year +passed. Again the nights were long, again the frost crept down +from the eternal snow, again the wolves howled across barren wastes. + +Just now the girl stood ankle-deep in green grasses, a bath of +sunlight falling about her, a tingle of salt wind humming up the +river from the bay's offing. She was clad in gray wool, and wore +no hat. Her soft hair, the color of ripe wheat, blew about her +temples, shadowing eyes of fathomless black. The wind had brought +to the light and delicate brown of her complexion a trace of color +to match her lips whose scarlet did not fade after the ordinary and +imperceptible manner into the tinge of her skin, but continued +vivid to the very edge; her eyes were wide and unseeing. One hand +rested idly on the breech of an ornamented bronze field-gun. + +McDonald, the chief trader, passed from the house to the store +where his bartering with the Indians was daily carried on; the +other Scotchman in the Post, Galen Albret, her father, and the head +Factor of all this region, paced back and forth across the veranda +of the factory, caressing his white beard; up by the stockade, +young Achille Picard tuned his whistle to the note of the curlew; +across the meadow from the church wandered Crane, the little Church +of England missionary, peering from short-sighted pale blue eyes; +beyond the coulee, Sarnier and his Indians _chock-chock-chocked_ +away at the seams of the long coast-trading bateau. The girl saw +nothing, heard nothing. She was dreaming, she was trying to +remember. + +In the lines of her slight figure, in its pose there by the old gun +over the old, old river, was the grace of gentle blood, the pride +of caste. Of all this region her father was the absolute lord, +feared, loved, obeyed by all its human creatures. When he went +abroad, he travelled in a state almost mediaeval in its +magnificence; when he stopped at home, men came to him from the +Albany, the Kenogami, the Missinaibe, the Mattagami, the +Abitibi--from all the rivers of the North--to receive his commands. +Way was made for him, his lightest word was attended. In his house +dwelt ceremony, and of his house she was the princess. +Unconsciously she bad taken the gracious habit of command. She had +come to value her smile, her word; to value herself. The lady of a +realm greater than the countries of Europe, she moved serene, pure, +lofty amid dependants. + +And as the lady of this realm she did honor to her father's +guests--sitting stately behind the beautiful silver service, below +the portrait of the Company's greatest explorer, Sir George +Simpson, dispensing crude fare in gracious manner, listening +silently to the conversation, finally withdrawing at the last with +a sweeping courtesy to play soft, melancholy, and world-forgotten +airs on the old piano, brought over years before by the _Lady +Head_, while the guests made merry with the mellow port and ripe +Manila cigars which the Company supplied its servants. Then +coffee, still with her natural Old World charm of the _grande +dame_. Such guests were not many, nor came often. There was +McTavish of Rupert's House, a three days' journey to the northeast; +Rand of Fort Albany, a week's travel to the northwest; Mault of +Fort George, ten days beyond either, all grizzled in the Company's +service. With them came their clerks, mostly English and Scotch +younger sons, with a vast respect for the Company, and a vaster for +their Factors daughter. Once in two or three years appeared the +inspectors from Winnipeg, true lords of the North, with their +six-fathom canoes, their luxurious furs, their red banners trailing +like gonfalons in the water. Then this post of Conjuror's House +feasted and danced, undertook gay excursions, discussed in public +or private conclave weighty matters, grave and reverend advices, +cautions, and commands. They went. Desolation again crept in. + +The girl dreamed. She was trying to remember. Far-off, +half-forgotten visions of brave, courtly men, of gracious, +beautiful women, peopled the clouds of her imaginings. She heard +them again, as voices beneath the roar of rapids, like far-away +bells tinkling faintly through a wind, pitying her, exclaiming over +her; she saw them dim and changing, as wraiths of a fog, as shadow +pictures in a mist beneath the moon, leaning to her with bright, +shining eyes full of compassion for the little girl who was to go +so far away into an unknown land; she felt them, as the touch of a +breeze when the night is still, fondling her, clasping her, tossing +her aloft in farewell. One she felt plainly--a gallant youth who +held her up for all to see. One she saw clearly--a dewy-eyed, +lovely woman who murmured loving, broken words. One she heard +distinctly--a gentle voice that said, "God's love be with you, +little one, for you have far to go, and many days to pass before +you see Quebec again." And the girl's eyes suddenly swam bright, +for the northland was very dreary. She threw her palms out in a +gesture of weariness. + +Then her arms dropped, her eyes widened, her head bent forward in +the attitude of listening. + +"Achille!" she called. "Achille! Come here!" + +The young fellow approached respectfully. + +"Mademoiselle?" he asked. + +"Don't you hear?" she said. + +Faint, between intermittent silences, came the singing of men's +voices from the south. + +"_Grace a Dieu_!" cried Achille. "Eet is so. Eet is dat +_brigade_!" + +He ran shouting toward the factory. + + + + +Chapter Two + +Men, women, dogs, children sprang into sight from nowhere, and ran +pell-mell to the two cannon. Galen Albret, reappearing from the +factory, began to issue orders. Two men set about hoisting on the +tall flag-staff the blood-red banner of the Company. Speculation, +excited and earnest, arose among the men as to which of the +branches of the Moose this _brigade_ had hunted--the Abitibi, the +Mattagami, or the Missinaibie. The half-breed women shaded their +eyes. Mrs. Cockburn, the doctor's wife, and the only other white +woman in the settlement, came and stood by Virginia Albret's side. +Wishkobun, the Ojibway woman from the south country, and Virginia's +devoted familiar, took her half-jealous stand on the other. + +"It is the same every year. We always like to see them come," said +Mrs. Cockburn, in her monotonous low voice of resignation. + +"Yes," replied Virginia, moving a little impatiently, for she +anticipated eagerly the picturesque coming of these men of the +Silent Places, and wished to savor the pleasure undistracted. + +"Mi-di-mo-yay ka'-win-ni-shi-shin," said Wishkobun, quietly. + +"Ae," replied Virginia, with a little laugh, patting the woman's +brown hand. + +A shout arose. Around the bend shot a canoe. At once every paddle +in it was raised to a perpendicular salute, then all together +dashed into the water with the full strength of the _voyageurs_ +wielding them. The canoe fairly leaped through the cloud of spray. +Another rounded the bend, another double row of paddles flashed in +the sunlight, another crew broke into a tumult of rapid exertion as +they raced the last quarter mile of the long journey. A third +burst into view, a fourth, a fifth. The silent river was alive +with motion, glittering with color. The canoes swept onward, like +race-horses straining against the rider. Now the spectators could +make out plainly the boatmen. It could be seen that they had +decked themselves out for the occasion. Their heads were bound +with bright-colored fillets, their necks with gay scarves. The +paddles were adorned with gaudy woollen streamers. New leggings, +of holiday pattern, were intermittently visible on the bowsmen and +steersmen as they half rose to give added force to their efforts. + +At first the men sang their canoe songs, but as the swift rush of +the birch-barks brought them almost to their journey's end, they +burst into wild shrieks and whoops of delight. + +All at once they were close to hand. The steersman rose to throw +his entire weight on the paddle. The canoe swung abruptly for the +shore. Those in it did not relax their exertions, but continued +their vigorous strokes until within a few yards of apparent +destruction. + +"Hola! hola!" they cried, thrusting their paddles straight down +into the water with a strong backward twist. The stout wood bent +and cracked. The canoe stopped short and the _voyageurs_ leaped +ashore to be swallowed up in the crowd that swarmed down upon them. + +The races were about equally divided, and each acted after its +instincts--the Indian greeting his people quietly, and stalking +away to the privacy of his wigwam; the more volatile white catching +his wife or his sweetheart or his child to his arms. A swarm of +Indian women and half-grown children set about unloading the +canoes. Virginia's eyes ran over the crews of the various craft. +She recognized them all, of course, to the last Indian packer, for +in so small a community the personality and doings of even the +humblest members are well known to everyone. Long since she had +identified the _brigade_. It was of the Missinaibie, the great +river whose head-waters rise a scant hundred feet from those that +flow as many miles south into Lake Superior. It drains a wild and +rugged country whose forests cling to bowlder hills, whose streams +issue from deep-riven gorges, where for many years the big gray +wolves had gathered in unusual abundance. She knew by heart the +winter posts, although she had never seen them. She could imagine +the isolation of such a place, and the intense loneliness of the +solitary man condemned to live through the dark Northern winters, +seeing no one but the rare Indians who might come in to trade with +him for their pelts. She could appreciate the wild joy of a return +for a brief season to the company of fellow-men. + +When her glance fell upon the last of the canoes, it rested with a +flash of surprise. The craft was still floating idly, its bow +barely caught against the bank. The crew had deserted, but +amidships, among the packages of pelts and duffel, sat a stranger, +The canoe was that of the post at Kettle Portage. + +She saw the stranger to be a young man with a clean-cut face, a +trim athletic figure dressed in the complete costume of the +_voyageurs_, and thin brown and muscular hands. When the canoe +touched the bank he had taken no part in the scramble to shore, and +so had sat forgotten and unnoticed save by the girl, his figure +erect with something of the Indian's stoical indifference. Then +when, for a moment, he imagined himself free from observation, his +expression abruptly changed. His hands clenched tense between his +buckskin knees, his eyes glanced here and there restlessly, and an +indefinable shadow of something which Virginia felt herself obtuse +in labelling desperation, and yet to which she discovered it +impossible to fit a name, descended on his features, darkening +them. Twice he glanced away to the south. Twice he ran his eye +over the vociferating crowd on the narrow beach. + +Absorbed in the silent drama of a man's unguarded expression, +Virginia leaned forward eagerly. In some vague manner it was borne +in on her that once before she had experienced the same emotion, +had come into contact with someone, something, that had affected +her emotionally just as this man did now. But she could not place +it. Over and over again she forced her mind to the very point of +recollection, but always it slipped back again from the verge of +attainment. Then a little movement, some thrust forward of the +head, some nervous, rapid shifting of the hands or feet, some +unconscious poise of the shoulders, brought the scene flashing +before her--the white snow, the still forest, the little square pen +trap, the wolverine, desperate but cool, thrusting its blunt nose +quickly here and there in baffled hope of an orifice of escape. +Somehow the man reminded her of the animal, the fierce little woods +marauder, trapped and hopeless, but scorning to cower as would the +gentler creatures of the forest. + +Abruptly his expression changed again. His figure stiffened, the +muscles of his face turned iron. Virginia saw that someone on the +beach had pointed toward him. His mask was on. + +The first burst of greeting was over. Here and there one or +another of the _brigade_ members jerked their heads in the +stranger's direction, explaining low-voiced to their companions. +Soon all eyes turned curiously toward the canoe. A hum of +low-voiced comment took the place of louder delight. + +The stranger, finding himself generally observed, rose slowly to +his feet, picked his way with a certain exaggerated deliberation of +movement over the duffel lying in the bottom of the canoe, until he +reached the bow, where he paused, one foot lifted to the gunwale +just above the emblem of the painted star. Immediately a dead +silence fell. Groups shifted, drew apart, and together again, like +the slow agglomeration of sawdust on the surface of water, until at +last they formed in a semicircle of staring, whose centre was the +bow of the canoe and the stranger from Kettle Portage. The men +scowled, the women regarded him with a half-fearful curiosity. + +Virginia Albret shivered in the shock of this sudden electric +polarity. The man seemed alone against a sullen, unexplained +hostility. The desperation she had thought to read but a moment +before had vanished utterly, leaving in its place a scornful +indifference and perhaps more than a trace of recklessness. He was +ripe for an outbreak. She did not in the least understand, but she +knew it from the depths of her woman's instinct, and unconsciously +her sympathies flowed out to this man, alone without a greeting +where all others came to their own. + +For perhaps a full sixty seconds the newcomer stood uncertain what +he should do, or perhaps waiting for some word or act to tip the +balance of his decision. One after another those on shore felt the +insolence of his stare, and shifted uneasily. Then his deliberate +scrutiny rose to the group by the cannon. Virginia caught her +breath sharply. In spite of herself she could not turn away. The +stranger's eye crossed her own. She saw the hard look fade into +pleased surprise. Instantly his hat swept the gunwale of the +canoe. He stepped magnificently ashore. The crisis was over. Not +a word had been spoken. + + + + +Chapter Three + +Galen Albret sat in his rough-hewn armchair at the head of the +table, receiving the reports of his captains. The long, narrow +room opened before him, heavy raftered, massive, white, with a +cavernous fireplace at either end. Above him frowned Sir George's +portrait, at his right hand and his left stretched the row of +home-made heavy chairs, finished smooth and dull by two centuries +of use. + +His arms were laid along the arms of his seat; his shaggy head was +sunk forward until his beard swept the curve of his big chest; the +heavy tufts of hair above his eyes were drawn steadily together in +a frown of attention. One after another the men arose and spoke. +He made no movement, gave no sign, his short, powerful form blotted +against the lighter silhouette of his chair, only his eyes and the +white of his beard gleaming out of the dusk. + +Kern of Old Brunswick House, Achard of New; Ki-wa-nee, the Indian +of Flying Post--these and others told briefly of many things, each +in his own language. To all Galen Albret listened in silence. +Finally Louis Placide from the post at Kettle Portage got to his +feet. He too reported of the trade,--so many "beaver" of tobacco, +of powder, of lead, of pork, of flour, of tea, given in exchange; +so many mink, otter, beaver, ermine, marten, and fisher pelts taken +in return. Then he paused and went on at greater length in regard +to the stranger, speaking evenly but with emphasis. When he had +finished. Galen Albret struck a bell at his elbow. Me-en-gan, the +bowsman of the factor's canoe, entered, followed closely by the +young man who had that afternoon arrived. + +He was dressed still in his costume of the _voyageur_--the loose +blouse shirt, the buckskin leggings and moccasins, the long +tasselled red sash. His head was as high and his glance as free, +but now the steel blue of his eye had become steady and wary, and +two faint lines had traced themselves between his brows. At his +entrance a hush of expectation fell. Galen Albret did not stir, +but the others hitched nearer the long, narrow table, and two or +three leaned both elbows on it the better to catch what should +ensue. + +Me-en-gan stopped by the door, but the stranger walked steadily the +length of the room until he faced the Factor. Then he paused and +waited collectedly for the other to speak. + +This the Factor did not at once begin to do, but sat +impassive--apparently without thought--while the heavy breathing of +the men in the room marked off the seconds of time. Finally +abruptly Galen Albret's cavernous voice boomed forth. Something +there was strangely mysterious, cryptic, in the virile tones +issuing from a bulk so massive and inert. Galen Albret did not +move, did not even raise the heavy-lidded, dull stare of his eyes +to the young man who stood before him; hardly did his broad arched +chest seem to rise and fall with the respiration of speech; and yet +each separate word leaped forth alive, instinct with authority. + +"Once at Leftfoot Lake, two Indians caught you asleep," he +pronounced. "They took your pelts and arms, and escorted you to +Sudbury. They were my Indians. Once on the upper Abitibi you were +stopped by a man named Herbert, who warned you from the country, +after relieving you of your entire outfit. He told you on parting +what you might expect if you should repeat the attempt--severe +measures, the severest. Herbert was my man. Now Louis Placide +surprises you in a rapids near Kettle Portage and brings you here." + +During the slow delivering of these accurately spaced words, the +attitude of the men about the long, narrow table gradually changed. +Their curiosity had been great before, but now their intellectual +interest was awakened, for these were facts of which Louis +Placide's statement had given no inkling. Before them, for the +dealing, was a problem of the sort whose solution had earned for +Galen Albret a reputation in the north country. They glanced at +one another to obtain the sympathy of attention, then back toward +their chief in anxious expectation of his next words. The +stranger, however, remained unmoved. A faint smile had sketched +the outline of his lips when first the Factor began to speak. This +smile he maintained to the end. As the older man paused, he +shrugged his shoulders. + +"All of that is quite true." he admitted. Even the unimaginative +men of the Silent Places started at these simple words, and +vouchsafed to their speaker a more sympathetic attention. For the +tones in which they were delivered possessed that deep, rich throat +timbre which so often means power--personal magnetism--deep, from +the chest, with vibrant throat tones suggesting a volume of sound +which may in fact be only hinted by the loudness the man at the +moment sees fit to employ. Such a voice is a responsive instrument +on which emotion and mood play wonderfully seductive strains. + +"All of that is quite true," he repeated after a second's pause; +"but what has it to do with me? Why am I stopped and sent out from +the free forest? I am really curious to know your excuse." + +"This," replied Galen Albret, weightily, "is my domain. I tolerate +no rivalry here." + +"Your right?" demanded the young man, briefly. + +"I have made the trade, and I intend to keep it." + +"In other words, the strength of your good right arm," supplemented +the stranger, with the faintest hint of a sneer. + +"That is neither here nor there," rejoined Galen Albret, "the point +is that I intend to keep it. I've had you sent out, but you have +been too stupid or too obstinate to take the hint. Now I have to +warn you in person. I shall send you out once more, but this time +you must promise me not to meddle with the trade again." + +He paused for a response. The young man's smile merely became +accentuated, + +"I have means of making my wishes felt," warned the Factor. + +"Quite so," replied the young man, deliberately, "_La Longue +Traverse_." + +At this unexpected pronouncement of that dread name two of the men +swore violently; the others thrust back their chairs and sat, their +arms rigidly braced against the table's edge, staring wide-eyed and +open-mouthed at the speaker. Only Galen Albret remained unmoved. + +"What do you mean by that?" he asked, calmly. + +"It amuses you to be ignorant," replied the stranger, with some +contempt. "Don't you think this farce is about played out? I do. +If you think you're deceiving me any with this show of formality, +you're mightily mistaken. Don't you suppose I knew what I was +about when I came into this country? Don't you suppose I had +weighed the risks and had made up my mind to take my medicine if I +should be caught? Your methods are not quite so secret as you +imagine. I know perfectly well what happens to Free Traders in +Rupert's Land." + +"You seem very certain of your information." + +"Your men seem equally so," pointed out the stranger. + +Galen Albret, at the beginning of the young man's longer speech, +had sunk almost immediately into his passive calm--the calm of +great elemental bodies, the calm of a force so vast as to rest +motionless by the very static power of its mass. When he spoke +again, it was in the tentative manner of his earlier interrogatory, +committing himself not at all, seeking to plumb his opponent's +knowledge. + +"Why, if you have realized the gravity of your situation have you +persisted after having been twice warned?" he inquired. + +"Because you're not the boss of creation," replied the young man, +bluntly. + +Galen Albret merely raised his eyebrows. + +"I've got as much business in this country as you have," continued +the young man, his tone becoming more incisive. "You don't seem to +realize that your charter of monopoly has expired. If the +government was worth a damn it would see to you fellows. You have +no more right to order me out of here than I would have to order +you out. Suppose some old Husky up on Whale River should send you +word that you weren't to trap in the Whale River district next +winter. I'll bet you'd be there. You Hudson Bay men tried the +same game out west It didn't work. You ask your western men if +they ever heard of Ned Trent." + +"Your success does not seem to have followed you here," suggested +the Factor, ironically. + +The young man smiled. + +"This _Longue Traverse_," went on Albret, "what is your idea there? +I have heard something of it. What is your information?" + +Ned Trent laughed outright. "You don't imagine there is any secret +about that!" he marvelled. "Why, every child north of the Line +knows that. You will send me away without arms, and with but a +handful of provisions. If the wilderness and starvation fail, your +runners will not. I shall never reach the Temiscamingues alive." + +"The same old legend," commented Galen Albret in apparent +amusement, "I heard it when I first came to this country. You'll +find a dozen such in every Indian camp." + +"Jo Bagneau, Morris Proctor, John May, William Jarvis," checked off +the young man on his fingers. + +"Personal enmity," replied the Factor. + +He glanced up to meet the young man's steady, sceptical smile. + +"You do not believe me?" + +"Oh, if it amuses you." conceded the stranger. + +"The thing is not even worth discussion." + +"Remarkable sensation among our friends here for so idle a tale." + +Galen Albret considered. + +"You will remember that throughout you have forced this interview," +he pointed out. "Now I must ask your definite promise to get out +of this country and to stay out." + +"No," replied Ned Trent. + +"Then a means shall be found to make you!" threatened the Factor, +his anger blazing at last. + +"Ah," said the stranger softly. + +Galen Albret raised his hand and let it fall. The bronzed and +gaudily bedecked men filed out. + + + + +Chapter Four + +In the open air the men separated in quest of their various +families or friends. The stranger lingered undecided for a moment +on the top step of the veranda, and then wandered down the little +street, if street it could be called where horses there were none. +On the left ranged the square white-washed houses with their +dooryards, the old church, the workshop. To the right was a broad +grass-plot, and then the Moose, slipping by to the distant offing. +Over a little bridge the stranger idled, looking curiously about +him. The great trading-house attracted his attention, with its +narrow picket lane leading to the door; the storehouse surrounded +by a protective log fence; the fort itself, a medley of +heavy-timbered stockades and square block-houses. After a moment +he resumed his strolling. Everywhere he went the people looked at +him, ceasing their varied occupations. No one spoke to him, no one +hindered him. To all intents and purposes he was as free as the +air. But all about the island flowed the barrier of the Moose, and +beyond frowned the wilderness--strong as iron bars to an unarmed +man. + +Brooding on his imprisonment the Free Trader forgot his +surroundings. The post, the river, the forest, the distant bay +faded from his sight, and he fell into deep reflection. There +remained nothing of physical consciousness but a sense of the +grateful spring warmth from the declining sun. At length he became +vaguely aware of something else. He glanced up. Right by him he +saw a handsome French half-breed sprawled out in the sun against a +building, looking him straight in the face and flashing up at him a +friendly smile. + +"Hullo," said Achille Picard, "you mus' been 'sleep. I call you +two t'ree tam." + +The prisoner seemed to find something grateful in the greeting even +from the enemy's camp. Perhaps it merely happened upon the +psychological moment for a response. + +"Hullo," he returned, and seated himself by the man's side, lazily +stretching himself in enjoyment of the reflected heat. + +"You is come off Kettle Portage, eh," said Achille, "I t'ink so. +You is come trade dose fur? Eet is bad beez-ness, dis Conjur' +House. Ole' man he no lak' dat you trade dose fur. He's very hard, +dat ole man." + +"Yes," replied the stranger, "he has got to be, I suppose. This is +the country of _la Longue Traverse_." + +"I beleef you," responded Achille, cheerfully; "w'at you call heem +your nam'?" + +"Ned Trent." + +"Me Achille--Achille Picard. I capitaine of dose dogs on dat +winter _brigade_." + +"It is a hard post. The winter travel is pretty tough." + +"I beleef you." + +"Better to take _la Longue Traverse_ in summer, eh?" + +"_La Longue Traverse_--hees not mattaire w'en yo tak heem." + +"Right you are. Have there been men sent out since you came here?" + +"_Ba oui_. Wan, two, t'ree. I don' remember. I t'ink Jo Bagneau. +Nobodee he don' know, but dat ole man an' hees _coureurs du bois_. +He ees wan ver' great man. Nobodee is know w'at he will do." + +"I'm due to hit that trail myself, I suppose," said Ned Trent. + +"I have t'ink so," acknowledged Achille, still with a tone of most +engaging cheerfulness. + +"Shall I be sent out at once, do you think?" + +"I don' know. Sometam' dat ole man ver' queek. Sometam' he ver' +slow. One day Injun mak' heem ver' mad; he let heem go, and shot +dat Injun right off. Noder tam he get mad on one _voyageur_, but +he don' keel heem queek; he bring heem here, mak' heem stay in dose +warm room, feed heem dose plaintee grub. Purty soon dose +_voyageur_ is get fat, is go sof'; he no good for dose trail. Ole +man he mak' heem go ver' far off, mos' to Whale Reever. Eet is +plaintee cole. Dat _voyageur_, he freeze to hees inside. Dey tell +me he feex heem like dat." + +"Achille, you haven't anything against me--do you want me to die?" + +The half-breed flashed his white teeth. + +"Ba non," he replied, carelessly. "For w'at I want dat you die? I +t'ink you bus' up bad; _vous avez la mauvaise fortune." + +"Listen. I have nothing with me; but out at the front I am very +rich. I will give you a hundred dollars, if you will help me to get +away." + +"I can' do eet," smiled Picard. + +"Why not?" + +"Ole man he fin' dat out. He is wan devil, dat ole man. I lak +firs'-rate help you; I lak' dat hundred dollar. On Ojibway +countree dey make hees nam' _Wagosh_--dat mean fox. He know +everything." + +"I'll make it two hundred--three hundred--five hundred." + +"Wat you wan' me do?" hesitated Achille Picard at the last figure. + +"Get me a rifle and some cartridges." + +The half-breed rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and inhaled a deep +breath. + +"I can' do eet," he declared. "I can' do eet for t'ousand +dollar--ten t'ousand. I don't t'ink you fin' anywan on dis +settlement w'at can dare do eet. He is wan devil. He's count all +de carabine on dis pos', an' w'en he is mees wan, he fin' out purty +queek who is tak' heem." + +"Steal one from someone else," suggested Trent. + +"He fin' out jess sam'," objected the half-breed, obstinately. +"You don' know heem. He mak' you geev yourself away, when he lak' +do dat." The smile had left the man's face. This was evidently +too serious a matter to be taken lightly. + +"Well, come with me, then," urged Ned Trent, with some impatience. +"A thousand dollars I'll give you. With that you can be rich +somewhere else." + +But the man was becoming more and more uneasy, glancing furtively +from left to right and back again, in an evident panic lest the +conversation be overheard, although the nearest dwelling-house was +a score of yards distant. + +"Hush," he whispered. "You mustn't talk lak' dat. Dose ole man +fin' you out. You can' hide away from heem. Ole tam long ago, +Pierre Cadotte is stole feefteen skin of de otter--de +sea-otter--and he is sol' dem on Winnipeg. He is get 'bout +thousand beaver--five hunder' dollar. Den he is mak' dose longue +voyage wes'--ver' far wes'--_on dit_ Peace Reever. He is mak' heem +dose cabane, w'ere he is leev long tam wid wan man of Mackenzie. +He is call it hees nam' Dick Henderson. I is meet Dick Henderson +on Winnipeg las' year, w'en I mak' paddle on dem Factor Brigade, +an' dose High Commissionaire. He is tol' me wan night pret' late +he wake up all de queeck he can w'en he is hear wan noise in dose +cabane, an' he is see wan Injun, lak' phantome 'gainst de moon to +de door. Dick Henderson he is 'sleep, he don' know w'at he mus' +do. Does Injun is step ver' sof' an' go on bunk of Pierre Cadotte. +Pierre Cadotte is mak' de beeg cry. Dick Henderson say he no see +dose Injun no more, an' he fin' de door shut' _Ba_ Pierre Cadotte, +she's go dead. He is mak' wan beeg hole in hees ches'." + +"Some enemy, some robber frightened Away because the Henderson man +woke up, probably," suggested Ned Trent. + +The half-breed laid his hand impressively on the other's arm and +leaned forward until his bright black eyes were within a foot of +the other's face. + +"Wen dose Injun is stan' heem in de moonlight, Dick Henderson is +see hees face. Dick Henderson is know all dose Injun. He is tole +me dat Injun is not Peace Reever Injun. Dick Henderson is say dose +Injun is Ojibway Injun--Ojibway Injun two t'ousand mile wes'--on +Peace Reever! Dat's curi's!" + +"I was tell you nodder story--" went on Achille, after a moment. + +"Never mind," interrupted the Trader. "I believe you." + +"Maybee," said Achille cheerfully, "you stan' some show--not +moche--eef he sen' you out pret' queeck. Does small _perdrix_ is +yonge, an' dose duck. Maybee you is catch dem, maybee you is keel +dem wit' bow an' arrow. Dat's not beeg chance. You mus' geev dose +_coureurs de bois_ de sleep w'en you arrive. _Voila_, I geev you +my knife!" + +He glanced rapidly to right and left, then slipped a small object +into the stranger's hand. + +"_Ba_, I t'ink does ole man is know dat. I t'ink he kip you here +till tam w'en dose _perdrix_ and duck is all grow up beeg' nuff so +he can fly." + +"I'm not watched," said the young man in eager tones: "I'll slip +away to-night." + +"Dat no good," objected Picard. "Wat you do? S'pose you do dat, +dose _coureurs_ keel you _toute suite_. Dey is have good excuse, +an' you is have nothing to mak' de fight. You sleep away, and dose +ole man is sen' out plaintee Injun. Dey is fine you sure. _Ba_, +eef he sen' you out, den he sen' onlee two Injun. Maybee you fight +dem; I don' know. _Non, mon ami_, eef you is wan' get away w'en +dose ole man he don' know eet, you mus' have dose carabine. Den +you is have wan leetle chance. _Ba, eef you is not have heem dose +carabine, you mus' need dose leetle grub he geev you, and not +plaintee Injun follow you, onlee two." + +"And I cannot get the rifle." + +"An' dose ole man is don' sen' you out till eet is too late for +mak' de grub on de fores'. Dat's w'at I t'ink. Dat ees not fonny +for you." + +Ned Trent's eyes were almost black with thought. Suddenly he threw +his head up. + +"I'll make him send me out now," he asserted confidently. + +"How you mak' eet him?" + +"I'll talk turkey to him till he's so mad he can't see straight. +Then maybe he'll send me out right away." + +"How you mak' eet him so mad? inquired Picard, with mild curiosity. + +"Never you mind--I'll do it" + +"_Ba oui_," ruminated Picard, "He is get mad pret' queeck. I t'ink +p'raps dat plan he go all right. You was get heem mad plaintee +easy. Den maybee he is sen' you out toute suite--maybee he is +shoot you." + +"I'll take the chances--my friend." + +"_Ba oui_," shrugged Achille Picard, "eet is wan chance." + +He commenced to roll another cigarette. + + + + +Chapter Five + +Having sat buried in thought for a full five minutes after the +traders of the winter posts had left him, Galen Albret thrust back +his chair and walked into a room, long, low, and heavily raftered, +strikingly unlike the Council Room. Its floor was overlaid with +dark rugs; a piano of ancient model filled one corner; pictures and +books broke the wall; the lamps and the windows were shaded, a +woman's work-basket and a tea-set occupied a large table. Only a +certain barbaric profusion of furs, the huge fireplace, and the +rough rafters of the ceiling differentiated the place from the +drawing-room of a well-to-do family anywhere. + +Galen Albret sank heavily into a chair and struck a bell. A tall, +slightly stooped English servant, with correct side whiskers and +incompetent, watery blue eyes, answered. To him said the Factor: + +"I wish to see Miss Albret." + +A moment later Virginia entered the room. + +"Let us have some tea, O-mi-mi," requested her father. + +The girl moved gently about, preparing and lighting the lamp, +measuring the tea, her fair head bowed gracefully over her task, +her dark eyes pensive and but half following what she did. Finally +with a certain air of decision she seated herself on the arm of a +chair. + +"Father," said she. + +"Yes." + +"A stranger came to-day with Louis Placide of Kettle Portage." + +"Well?" + +"He was treated strangely by our people, and he treated them +strangely in return. Why is that?" + +"Who can tell?" + +"What is his station? Is he a common trader? He does not look it." + +"He is a man of intelligence and daring." + +"Then why is he not our guest?" + +Galen Albret did not answer. After a moment's pause he asked again +for his tea. The girl turned away impatiently. Here was a puzzle, +neither the _voyageurs_, nor Wishkobun her nurse, nor her father +would explain to her. The first had grinned stupidly; the second +had drawn her shawl across her face, the third asked for tea! + +She handed her father the cup, hesitated, then ventured to inquire +whether she was forbidden to greet the stranger should the occasion +arise. + +"He is a gentleman," replied her father. + +She sipped her tea thoughtfully, her imagination stirring. Again +her recollection lingered over the clear bronze lines of the +stranger's face. Something vaguely familiar seemed to touch her +consciousness with ghostly fingers. She closed her eyes and tried +to clutch them. At once they were withdrawn. And then again, when +her attention wandered, they stole back, plucking appealingly at +the hem of her recollections. + +The room was heavy-curtained, deep embrasured, for the house, +beneath its clap-boards, was of logs. Although out of doors the +clear spring sunshine still flooded the valley of the Moose; +within, the shadows had begun with velvet fingers to extinguish the +brighter lights. Virginia threw herself back on a chair in the +corner. + +"Virginia," said Galen Albret, suddenly, + +"Yes, father." + +"You are no longer a child, but a woman. Would you like to go to +Quebec?" + +She did not answer him at once, but pondered beneath close-knit +brows. + +"Do you wish me to go, father?" she asked at length. + +"You are eighteen. It is time you saw the world, time you learned +the ways of other people. But the journey is hard. I may not see +you again for some years. You go among strangers." + +He fell silent again. Motionless he had been, except for the +mumbling of his lips beneath his beard. + +"It shall be just as you wish," he added a moment later. + +At once a conflict arose in the girl's mind between her restless +dreams and her affections. But beneath all the glitter of the +question there was really nothing to take her out. Here was her +father, here were the things she loved; yonder was novelty--and +loneliness. + +Her existence at Conjuror's House was perhaps a little complex, but +it was familiar. She knew the people, and she took a daily and +unwearying delight in the kindness and simplicity of their bearing +toward herself. Each detail of life came to her in the round of +habit, wearing the garment of accustomed use. But of the world she +knew nothing except what she had been able to body forth from her +reading, and that had merely given her imagination something +tangible with which to feed her self-distrust. + +"Must I decide at once?" she asked. + +"If you go this year, it must be with the Abitibi _brigade_. You +have until then." + +"Thank you, father." said the girl, sweetly. + +The shadows stole their surroundings one by one, until only the +bright silver of the tea-service, and the glitter of polished wood, +and the square of the open door remained. Galen Albret became an +inert dark mass. Virginia's gray was lost in that of the twilight. + +Time passed. The clock ticked on. Faintly sounds penetrated from +the kitchen, and still more faintly from out of doors. Then the +rectangle of the door-way was darkened by a man peering +uncertainly. The man wore his hat, from which slanted a slender +heron's plume; his shoulders were square; his thighs slim and +graceful. + +Against the light, one caught the outline of the sash's tassel and +the fringe of his leggings. + +"Are you there, Galen Albret?" he challenged. + +The spell of twilight mystery broke. It seemed as if suddenly the +air had become surcharged with the vitality of opposition. + +"What then?" countered the Factor's heavy, deliberate tones. + +"True, I see you now," rejoined the visitor carelessly, as he flung +himself across the arm of a chair and swung one foot. "I do not +doubt you are convinced by this time of my intention." + +"My recollection does not tell me what messenger I sent to ask this +interview." + +"Correct," laughed the young man a little hardly. "You _didn't_ +ask it. I attended to that myself. What you want doesn't concern +me in the least. What do you suppose I care what, or what not, any +of this crew wants? I'm master of my own ideas, anyway, thank God. +If you don't like what I do, you can always stop me." In the tone +of his voice was a distinct challenge. Galen Albret, it seemed, +chose to pass it by. + +"True," he replied sombrely, after a barely perceptible pause to +mark his tacit displeasure. "It is your hour. Say on." + +"I should like to know the date at which I take _la Longue +Traverse_." + +"You persist in that nonsense?" + +"Call my departure whatever you want to--I have the name for it. +When do I leave?" + +"I have not decided." + +"And in the meantime?" + +"Do as you please." + +"Ah, thanks for this generosity," cried the young man, in a tone of +declamatory sarcasm so artificial as fairly to scent the +elocutionary. "To do as I please--here--now there's a blessed +privilege! I may walk around where I want to, talk to such as have +a good word for me, punish those who have not! But do I err in +concluding that the state of your game law is such that it would be +useless to reclaim my rifle from the engaging Placide?" + +"You have a fine instinct," approved the Factor. + +"It is one of my valued possessions," rejoined the young man, +insolently. He struck a match, and by its light selected a +cigarette. + +"I do not myself use tobacco in this room," suggested the older +speaker. + +"I am curious to learn the limits of your forbearance," replied the +younger, proceeding to smoke. + +He threw back his head and regarded his opponent with an open +challenge, daring him to become angry. The match went out. + +Virginia, who had listened in growing anger and astonishment, +unable longer to refrain from defending the dignity of her usually +autocratic father, although he seemed little disposed to defend +himself, now intervened from her dark corner on the divan. + +"Is the journey then so long, sir," she asked composedly, "that it +at once inspires such anticipations--and such bitterness?" + +In an instant the man was on his feet, hat in hand, and the +cigarette had described a fiery curve into the empty hearth. + +"I beg your pardon, sincerely," he cried, "I did not know you were +here!" + +"You might better apologize to my father," replied Virginia. + +The young man stepped forward and without asking permission, +lighted one of the tall lamps. + +"The lady of the guns!" he marvelled softly to himself. + +He moved across the room, looking down on her inscrutably, while +she looked up at him in composed expectation of an apology--and +Galen Albret sat motionless, in the shadow of his great arm-chair. +But after a moment her calm attention broke down. Something there +was about this man that stirred her emotions--whether of curiosity, +pity, indignation, or a slight defensive fear she was not +introspective enough to care to inquire. And yet the sensation was +not altogether unpleasant, and, as at the guns that afternoon, a +certain portion of her consciousness remained in sympathy with +whatever it was of mysterious attraction he represented to her. In +him she felt the dominant, as a wild creature of the woods +instinctively senses the master and drops its eyes. Resentment did +not leave her, but over it spread a film of confusion that robbed +it of its potency. In him, in his mood, in his words, in his +manner, was something that called out in direct appeal the more +primitive instincts hitherto dormant beneath her sense of +maidenhood, so that even at this vexed moment of conscious +opposition, her heart was ranging itself on his side. +Overpoweringly the feeling swept her that she was not acting in +accordance with her sense of fitness. She knew she should strike, +but was unable to give due force to the blow. In the confusion of +such a discovery, her eyelids fluttered and fell. And he saw, and, +understanding his power, dropped swiftly beside her on the broad +divan. + +"You must pardon me, mademoiselle," he begun, his voice sinking to +a depth of rich music singularly caressing. "To you I may seem to +have small excuses, but when a man is vouchsafed a glimpse of +heaven only to be cast out the next instant into hell, he is not +always particular in the choice of words." + +All the time his eyes sought hers, which avoided the challenge, and +the strong masculine charm of magnetism which he possessed in such +vital abundance overwhelmed her unaccustomed consciousness. Galen +Albret shifted uneasily, and shot a glance in their direction. The +stranger, perceiving this, lowered his voice in register and tone, +and went on with almost exaggerated earnestness. + +"Surely you can forgive me, a desperate man, almost anything?" + +"I do not understand," said Virginia, with a palpable effort. + +Ned Trent leaned forward until his eager face was almost at her +shoulder. + +"Perhaps not," he urged; "I cannot ask you to try. But suppose, +mademoiselle, you were in my case. Suppose your eyes--like +mine--have rested on nothing but a howling wilderness for dear +heaven knows how long; you come at last in sight of real houses, +real grass, real door-yard gardens just ready to blossom in the +spring, real food, real beds, real books, real men with whom to +exchange the sensible word, and something more, mademoiselle--a +woman such as one dreams of in the long forest nights under the +stars. And you know that while others, the lucky ones, may stay to +enjoy it all, you, the unfortunate, are condemned to leave it at +any moment for _la Longue Traverse_. Would not you, too, be +bitter, mademoiselle? Would not you too mock and sneer? Think, +mademoiselle, I have not even the little satisfaction of rousing +men's anger. I can insult them as I will, but they turn aside in +pity, saying one to another: 'Let us pleasure him in this, poor +fellow, for he is about to take _la Longue Traverse_.' That is why +your father accepts calmly from me what he would not from another." + +Virginia sat bolt upright on the divan, her hands clasped in her +lap, her wonderful black eyes looking straight out before her, +trying to avoid her companion's insistent gaze. His attention was +fixed on her mobile and changing countenance, but he marked with +evident satisfaction Galen Albret's growing uneasiness. This was +evidenced only by a shifting of the feet, a tapping of the fingers, +a turning of the shaggy head--in such a man slight tokens are +significant. The silence deepened with the shadows drawing about +the single lamp, while Virginia attempted to maintain a breathing +advantage above the flood of strange emotions which the personality +of this man had swept down upon her. + +"It does not seem--" objected the girl in bewilderment, "I do not +know--men are often out in this country for years at a time. Long +journeys are not unknown among us, We are used to undertaking them." + +"But not _la Longue Traverse_," insisted the young man, sombrely. + +"_La Longue Traverse_." she repeated in sweet perplexity. + +"Sometimes called the Journey of Death," he explained. + +She turned to look him in the eyes, a vague expression of puzzled +fear on her face. + +"She has never heard of it," said Ned Trent to himself, and aloud: +"Men who undertake it leave comfort behind. They embrace hunger +and weariness, cold and disease. At the last they embrace death, +and are glad of his coming." + +Something in his tone compelled belief; something in his face told +her that he was a man by whom the inevitable hardships of winter +and summer travel, fearful as they are, would be lightly endured. +She shuddered. + +"This dreadful thing is necessary?" she asked. + +"Alas, yes." + +"I do not understand----" + +"In the North few of us understand," agreed the young man with a +hint of bitterness seeping through his voice. "The mighty order, +and so we obey. But that is beside the point. I have not told you +these things to harrow you; I have tried to excuse myself for my +actions. Does it touch you a little? Am I forgiven?" + +"I do not understand how such things can be," she objected in some +confusion, "why such journeys must exist. My mind cannot +comprehend your explanations." + +The stranger leaned forward abruptly, his eyes blazing with the +magnetic personality of the man. + +"But your heart?" he breathed. + +It was the moment. "My heart--" she repeated, as though bewildered +by the intensity of his eyes, "my heart--ah--yes!" + +Immediately the blood rushed over her face and throat in a torrent. +She snatched her eyes away, and cowered back in the corner, going +red and white by turns, now angry, now frightened, now bewildered, +until his gaze, half masterful, half pleading, again conquered +hers. Galen Albret had ceased tapping his chair. In the dim light +he sat, staring straight before him, massive, inert, grim. + +"I believe you--" she murmured hurriedly at last. "I pity you!" + +She rose. Quick as light he barred her passage. + +"Don't! don't!" she pleaded. "I must go--you have shaken me--I--I +do not understand myself----" + +"I must see you again," he whispered eagerly. "To-night--by the +guns." + +"No, no!" + +"To-night," he insisted. + +She raised her eyes to his, this time naked of defence, so that the +man saw down through their depths into her very soul. + +"Oh," she begged, quivering, "let me pass. Don't you see--I'm +going to cry!" + + + + +Chapter Six + +For a moment Ned Trent stared through the darkness into which +Virginia had disappeared. Then he turned a troubled face to the +task he had set himself, for the unexpectedly pathetic results of +his fantastic attempt had shaken him. Twice he half turned as +though to follow her. Then shaking his shoulders he bent his +attention to the old man in the shadow of the chair. + +He was given no opportunity for further speech, however, for at the +sound of the closing door Galen Albret's impassivity had fallen +from him. He sprang to his feet. The whole aspect of the man +suddenly became electric, terrible. His eyes blazed; his heavy +brows drew spasmodically toward each other; his jaws worked, +twisting his beard into strange contortions; his massive frame +straightened formidably; and his voice rumbled from the arch of his +deep chest in a torrent of passionate sound. + +"By God, young man!" he thundered, "you go too far! Take heed! I +will not stand this! Do not you presume to make love to my +daughter before my eyes!" + +And Ned Trent, just within the dusky circle of lamplight, where the +bold, sneering lines of Ins face stood out in relief against the +twilight of the room, threw back his head and laughed. It was a +clear laugh, but low, and in it were all the devils of triumph, and +of insolence. Where the studied insult of words had failed, this +single cachinnation succeeded. The Trade saw his opponent's eyes +narrow. For a moment he thought the Factor was about to spring on +him. + +Then, with an effort that blackened his face with blood, Galen +Albret controlled himself, and fell to striking the call-bell +violently and repeatedly with the palm of his hand. After a moment +Matthews, the English servant, came running in. To him the Factor +was at first physically unable to utter a syllable. Then finally +he managed to ejaculate the name of his bowsman with such violence +of gesture that the frightened servant comprehended by sheer force +of terror and ran out again in search of Me-en-gan. + +This supreme effort seemed to clear the way for speech. Galen +Albret began to address his opponent hoarsely in quick, disjointed +sentences, a gasp for breath between each. + +"You revived an old legend--_la Longue Traverse_--the myth. It +shall be real--to--you--I will make it so. By God, you shall not +defy me----" + +Ned Trent smiled. "You do not deceive me," he rejoined, coolly. + +"Silence!" cried the Factor. "Silence!--You shall speak no +more!--You have said enough----" + +Me-en-gan glided into the room. Galen Albret at once addressed him +in the Ojibway language, gaining control of himself as he went on. + +"Listen to me well," he commanded. "You shall make a count of all +rifles in this place--at once. Let no one furnish this man with +food or arms. You know the story of _la Longue Traverse_. This +man shall take it. So inform my people, I, the Factor, decree it +so. Prepare all things at once--understand, at once!" + +Ned Trent waited to hear no more, but sauntered from the room +whistling gayly a boatman's song. His point was gained. + +Outside, the long Northern twilight with its beautiful shadows of +crimson was descending from the upper regions of the east A light +wind breathed up-river from the bay. The Free Trader drew his +lungs full of the evening air. + +"Just the same, I think she will come," said he to himself. "_La +Longue Traverse_, even at once, is a pretty slim chance. But this +second string to my bow is better. I believe I'll get the +rifle--if she comes!" + + + + +Chapter Seven + +Virginia ran quickly up the narrow stairs to her own room, where +she threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillows. + +As she had said, she was very much shaken. And, too, she way +afraid. + +She could not understand. Heretofore she had moved among the men +around her, pure, lofty, serene. Now at one blow all this +crumbled. The stranger had outraged her finer feelings. He had +insulted her father in her very presence;--for this she was angry. +He had insulted herself;--for this she was afraid. He had demanded +that she meet him again; but this--at least in the manner he had +suggested--should not happen. And yet she confessed to herself a +delicious wonder as to what he would do next, and a vague desire to +see him again in order to find out. That she could not +successfully combat this feeling made her angry at herself. And so +in mingled fear, pride, anger, and longing she remained until +Wishkobun, the Indian woman, glided in to dress her for the dinner +whose formality she and her father consistently maintained. She +fell to talking the soft Ojibway dialect, and in the conversation +forgot some of her emotion and regained some of her calm. + +Her surface thoughts, at least, were compelled for the moment to +occupy themselves with other things. The Indian woman had to tell +her of the silver fox brought in by Mu-hi-ken, an Indian of her own +tribe; of the retort Achille Picard had made when MacLane had +taunted him; of the forest fire that had declared itself far to the +east, and of the theories to account for it where no campers had +been. Yet underneath the rambling chatter Virginia was aware of +something new in her consciousness, something delicious but as yet +vague. In the gayest moment of her half-jesting, half-affectionate +gossip with the Indian woman, she felt its uplift catching her +breath from beneath, so that for the tiniest instant she would +pause as though in readiness for some message which nevertheless +delayed. A fresh delight in the present moment held her, a fresh +anticipation of the immediate future, though both delight and +anticipation were based on something without her knowledge. That +would come later. + +The sound of rapid footsteps echoed across the lower hall, a +whistle ran into an air, sung gayly, with spirit; + + "J'ai perdu ma maitresse, + Sans l'avoir merite, + Pour un bouquet de roses + Que je lui refusai. + Li ya longtemps que je t'aime, + Jamais je ne t'oublierai!" + +She fell abruptly silent, and spoke no more until she descended to +the council-room where the table was now spread for dinner. + +Two silver candlesticks lit the place. The men were waiting for +her when she entered, and at once took their seats in the worn, +rude chairs. White linen and glittering silver adorned the +service. Galen Albret occupied one end of the table, Virginia the +other. On either side were Doctor and Mrs. Cockburn; McDonald, the +Chief Trader; Richardson, the clerk, and Crane, the missionary of +the Church of England. Matthews served with rigid precision in the +order of importance, first the Factor, then Virginia, then the +doctor, his wife, McDonald, the clerk, and Crane in due order. On +entering a room the same precedence would have held good. Thus +these people, six hundred miles as the crow flies from the nearest +settlement, maintained their shadowy hold on civilization. + +The glass was fine, the silver massive, the linen dainty, Matthews +waited faultlessly: but overhead hung the rough timbers of the +wilderness post, across the river faintly could be heard the +howling of wolves. The fare was rice, curry, salt pork, potatoes, +and beans; for at this season the game was poor, and the fish +hardly yet running with regularity. + +Throughout the meal Virginia sat in a singular abstraction. No +conscious thoughts took shape in her mind, but nevertheless she +seemed to herself to be occupied in considering weighty matters. +When directly addressed, she answered sweetly. Much of the time +she studied her father's face. She found it old. Those lines were +already evident which, when first noted, bring a stab of surprised +pain to the breast of a child--the droop of the mouth, the +wrinkling of the temples, the patient weariness of the eyes. +Virginia's own eyes filled with tears. The subjective passive +state into which a newly born but not yet recognized love had cast +her, inclined her to gentleness. She accepted facts as they came +to her. For the moment she forgot the mere happenings of the day, +and lived only in the resulting mood of them all. The new-comer +inspired her no longer with anger nor sorrow, attraction nor fear. +Her active emotions in abeyance, she floated dreamily on the clouds +of a new estate. + +This very aloofness of spirit disinclined her for the company of +the others after the meal was finished. The Factor closeted +himself with Richardson. The doctor, lighting a cheroot, took his +way across to his infirmary. McDonald, Crane, and Mrs. Cockburn +entered the drawing-room and seated themselves near the piano. +Virginia hesitated, then threw a shawl over her head and stepped +out on the broad veranda. + +At once the vast, splendid beauty of the Northern night broke over +her soul. Straight before her gleamed and flashed and ebbed and +palpitated the aurora. One moment its long arms shot beyond the +zenith; the next it had broken and rippled back like a brook of +light to its arch over the Great Bear. Never for an instant was it +still. Its restlessness stole away the quiet of the evening; but +left it magnificent. + +In comparison with this coruscating dome of the infinite the earth +had shrunken to a narrow black band of velvet, in which was nothing +distinguishable until suddenly the sky-line broke in calm +silhouettes of spruce and firs. And always the mighty River of the +Moose, gleaming, jewelled, barbaric in its reflections, slipped by +to the sea. + +So rapid and bewildering was the motion of these two great +powers--the river and the sky--that the imagination could not +believe in silence. It was as though the earth were full of +shoutings and of tumults. And yet in reality the night was as +still as a tropical evening. The wolves and the sledge-dogs +answered each other undisturbed; the beautiful songs of the +white-throats stole from the forest as divinely instinct as ever +with the spirit of peace. + +Virginia leaned against the railing and looked upon it all. Her +heart was big with emotions, many of which she could not name; her +eyes were full of tears. Something had changed in her since +yesterday, but she did not know what it was. The faint wise stars, +the pale moon just sinking, the gentle south breeze could have told +her, for they are old, old in the world's affairs. Occasionally a +flash more than ordinarily brilliant would glint one of the bronze +guns beneath the flag-staff. Then Virginia's heart would glint +too. She imagined the reflection startled her. + +She stretched her arms out to the night, embracing its glories, +sighing in sympathy with its meaning, which she did not know. She +felt the desire of restlessness; yet she could not bear to go. But +no thought of the stranger touched her, for you see as yet she did +not understand. + +Then, quite naturally, she heard his voice in the darkness close to +her knee. It seemed inevitable that he should be there; part of +the restless, glorious night, part of her mood. She gave no start +of surprise, but half closed her eyes and leaned her fair head +against a pillar of the veranda. He sang in a sweet undertone an +old chanson of voyage. + + "Par derrier ches man pere, + Vole, mon coeur, vole! + Par derrier' chez mon pere + Li-ya-t-un, pommier doux." + +"Ah lady, lady mine," broke in the voice softly, "the night too is +sweet, soft as thine eyes. Will you not greet me?" + +The girl made no sign. After a moment the song went on, + + "Trois filles d'un prince, + Vole, mon coeur, vole! + Trois filles d'un prince + Sont endormies dessous." + +"Will not the princess leave her sisters of dreams?" whispered the +voice, fantastically, "Will she not come?" + +Virginia shivered, and half-opened her eyes, but did not stir. It +seemed that the darkness sighed, then became musical again. + + "La plus jeun' se reveille, + Vole, mon coeur, vole! + La plus jeun' se reveille + --Ma Soeur, voila le jour! + +The song broke this time without a word of pleading. The girl +opened her eyes wide and stared breathlessly straight before her at +the singer. + + "--Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile, + Vole, mon coeur, vole! + Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile + Qu' eclaire nos amours!" + +The last word rolled out through its passionate throat tones and +died into silence. + +"Come!" repeated the man again, this time almost in the accents of +command. + +She turned slowly and went to him, her eyes childlike and +frightened, her lips wide, her face pale. When she stood face to +face with him she swayed and almost fell. + +"What do you want with me?" she faltered, with a little sob. + +The man looked at her keenly, laughed, and exclaimed in an +every-day, matter-of-fact voice: + +"Why, I really believe my song frightened you. It is only a +boating song. Come, let us go and sit on the gun-carriages and +talk." + +"Oh!" she gasped, a trifle hysterically. "Don't do that again! +Please don't. I do not understand it! You must not!" + +He laughed again, but with a note of tenderness in his voice, and +took her hand to lead her away, humming in an undertone the last +couplet of his song: + + "Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile, + Qu'eclaire nos amours!" + + + + +Chapter Eight + +Virginia went with this man passively--to an appointment which, but +an hour ago, she had promised herself she would not keep. Her +inmost soul was stirred, just as before. Then it had been few +words, now it was a little common song. But the strange power of +the man held her close, so she realized that for the moment at +least she would do as he desired. In the amazement and +consternation of this thought she found time to offer up a little +prayer, "Dear God, make him kind to me." + +They leaned against the old bronze guns, facing the river. He +pulled her shawl about her, masterfully yet with gentleness, and +then, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, he drew +her to him until she rested against his shoulder. And she remained +there, trembling, in suspense, glancing at him quickly, in +birdlike, pleading glances, as though praying him to be kind. He +took no notice after that, so the act seemed less like a caress +than a matter of course. He began to talk, half-humorously, and +little by little, as he went on, she forgot her fears, even her +feeling of strangeness, and fell completely under the spell of his +power. + +"My name is Ned Trent," he told her, "and I am from Quebec. I am a +woods runner. I have journeyed far. I have been to the uttermost +ends of the North even up beyond the Hills of Silence." And then, +in his gay, half-mocking, yet musical voice he touched lightly on +vast and distant things. He talked of the great Saskatchewan, of +Peace River, and the delta of the Mackenzie, of the winter journeys +beyond Great Bear Lake into the Land of the Little Sticks, and the +half-mythical lake of Yamba Tooh. He spoke of life with the Dog +Ribs and Yellow Knives, where the snow falls in midsummer. Before +her eyes slowly spread, like a panorama, the whole extent of the +great North, with its fierce, hardy men, its dreadful journeys by +canoe and sledge, its frozen barrens, its mighty forests, its +solemn charm. All at once this post of Conjurors House, a month in +the wilderness as it was, seemed very small and tame and civilized +for the simple reason that Death did not always compass it about. + +"It was very cold then," said Ned Trent "and very hard. _Le grand +frete_ [froid--cold] of winter had come. At night we had no other +shelter than our blankets, and we could not keep a fire because the +spruce burned too fast and threw too many coals. For a long time +we shivered, curled up on our snowshoes; then fell heavily asleep, +so that even the dogs fighting over us did not awaken us. Two or +three times in the night we boiled tea. We had to thaw our +moccasins each morning by thrusting them inside our shirts. Even +the Indians were shivering and saying, 'Ed-sa, yazzi ed-sa'--'it is +cold, very cold.' And when we came to Rae it was not much better. +A roaring fire in the fireplace could not prevent the ink from +freezing on the pen. This went on for five months." + +Thus he spoke, as one who says common things. He said little of +himself, but as he went on in short, curt sentences the picture +grew more distinct, and to Virginia the man became more and more +prominent in it. She saw the dying and exhausted dogs, the +frost-rimed, weary men; she heard the quick _crunch, crunch, +crunch_ of the snow-shoes hurrying ahead to break the trail; she +felt the cruel torture of the _mal de raquette_, the shrivelling +bite of the frost, the pain of snow blindness, the hunger that yet +could not stomach the frozen fish nor the hairy, black caribou +meat. One thing she could not conceive--the indomitable spirit of +the men. She glanced timidly up at her companion's face. + +"The Company is a cruel master," she sighed at last, standing +upright, then leaning against the carriage of the gun. He let her +go without protest, almost without thought, it seemed. + +"But not mine," said he. + +She exclaimed, in astonishment, "Are you not of the Company?" + +"I am no man's man but my own," he answered, simply. + +"Then why do you stay in this dreadful North?" she asked. + +"Because I love it. It is my life. I want to go where no man has +set foot before me; I want to stand alone under the sky; I want to +show myself that nothing is too big for me--no difficulty, no +hardship--nothing!" + +"Why did you come here, then? Here at least are forests so that +you can keep warm. This is not so dreadful as the Coppermine, and +the country of the Yellow Knives. Did you come here to try _la +Longue Traverse_ of which you spoke to-day?" + +He fell suddenly sombre, biting in reflection at his lip. + +"No--yes--why not?" he said, at length. + +"I know you will come out of it safely," said she; "I feel it. You +are brave and used to travel. Won't you tell me about it?" + +He did not reply. After a moment she looked up in surprise. His +brows were knit in reflection. He turned to her again, his eyes +glowing into hers. Once more the fascination of the man grew big, +overwhelmed her. She felt her heart flutter, her consciousness +swim, her old terror returning. + +"Listen," said he. "I may come to you to-morrow and ask you to +choose between your divine pity and what you might think to be your +duty. Then I will tell you all there is to know of _la Longue +Traverse_. Now it is a secret of the Company. You are a Factor's +daughter; you know what that means." He dropped his head. "Ah, I +am tired--tired with it all!" he cried, in a voice strangely +unhappy. "But yesterday I played the game with all my old spirit; +to-day the zest is gone! I no longer care." He felt the pressure +of her hand. "Are you just a little sorry for me?" he asked. +"Sorry for a weakness you do not understand? You must think me a +fool." + +"I know you are unhappy," replied Virginia, gently. "I am truly +sorry for that." + +"Are you? Are you, indeed?" he cried. "Unhappiness is worth such +pity as yours." He brooded for a moment, then threw his hands out +with what might have been a gesture of desperate indifference. +Suddenly his mood changed in the whimsical, bewildering fashion of +the man. "Ah, a star shoots!" he exclaimed, gayly. "That means a +kiss!" + +Still laughing, he attempted to draw her to him. Angry, mortified, +outraged, she fought herself free and leaped to her feet. + +"Oh!" she cried, in insulted anger. + +"Oh!" she cried, in a red shame. + +"_Oh!_" she cried, in sorrow. + +Her calm broke. She burst into the violent sobbing of a child, and +turned and ran hurriedly to the factory. + +Ned Trent stared after her a minute from beneath scowling brows. +He stamped his moccasined foot impatiently. + +"Like a rat in a trap!" he jeered at himself. "Like a rat in a +trap, Ned Trent! The fates are drawing around you close. You need +just one little thing, and you cannot get it. Bribery is useless! +Force is useless! Craft is useless! This afternoon I thought I +saw another way. What I could get no other way I might get from +this little girl. She is only a child. I believe I could touch +her pity--ah, Ned Trent, Ned Trent, can you ever forget her +frightened, white face begging you to be kind?" He paced back and +forth between the two bronze guns with long, straight strides, like +a panther in a cage. "Her aid is mine for the asking--but she +makes it impossible to ask! I could not do it. Better try _la +Longue Traverse_ than take advantage of her pity--she'd surely get +into trouble. What wonderful eyes she has. She thinks I am a +brute--how she sobbed, as though her little heart had broken. +Well, it was the only way to destroy her interest in me. I had to +do it. Now she will despise me and forget me. It is better that +she should think me a brute than that I should be always haunted by +those pleading eyes." The door of the distant church house opened +and closed. He smiled bitterly. "To be sure, I haven't tried +that." he acknowledged. "Their teachings are singularly apropos to +my case--mercy, justice, humanity--yes, and love of man. I'll try +it. I'll call for help on the love of man, since I cannot on the +love of woman. The love of woman--ah----yes." + +He set his feet reflectively toward the chapel. + + + + +Chapter Nine + +After a moment he pushed open the door without ceremony, and +entered. He bent his brows, studying the Reverend Archibald Crane, +while the latter, looking up startled, turned pink. + +He was a pink little man, anyway, the Reverend Archibald Crane, and +why, in the inscrutability of its wisdom, the Church had sent him +out to influence strong, grim men, the Church in its inscrutable +wisdom only knows. He wore at the moment a cambric English +boating-hat to protect his bald head from the draught, a full +clerical costume as far as the trousers, which were of lavender, +and a pair of beaded moccasins faced with red. His weak little +face was pink, and two tufts of side-whiskers were nearly so. A +heavy gold-headed cane stood at his hand. When he heard the door +open he exclaimed, before raising his head, "My, these first flies +of the season do bother me so!" and then looked startled. + +"Good-evening," greeted Ned Trent, stopping squarely in the centre +of the room. + +The clergyman spread his arms along the desk's edge in +embarrassment. + +"Good-evening," he returned, reluctantly. "Is there anything I can +do for you?" The visitor puzzled him, but was dressed as a +_voyageur_. The Reverend Archibald immediately resolved to treat +him as such. + +"I wish to introduce myself as Ned Trent," went on the Free Trader +with composure, "and I have broken in on your privacy this evening +only because I need your ministrations cruelly." + +"I am rejoiced that in your difficulties you turn to the +consolations of the Church," replied the other in the cordial tones +of the man who is always ready. "Pray be seated. He whose soul +thirsteth need offer no apology to the keeper of the spiritual +fountains." + +"Quite so," replied the stranger dryly, seating himself as +suggested, "only in this case my wants are temporal rather than +spiritual. They, however, seem to me fully within the province of +the Church.^ + +"The Church attempts within limits to aid those who are materially +in want," assured Crane, with official dignity. "Our resources are +small, but to the truly deserving we are always ready to give in +the spirit of true giving." + +"I am rejoiced to hear it," returned the young man, grimly; "you +will then have no difficulty in getting me so small a matter as a +rifle and about forty or fifty rounds of ammunition." + +A pause of astonishment ensued. + +"Why, really," ejaculated Crane, "I fail to see how that falls +within my jurisdiction in the slightest. You should see our +Trader, Mr. McDonald, in regard to all such things. Your request +addressed to me becomes extraordinary." + +"Not so much so when you know who I am. I told you my name is Ned +Trent, but I neglected to inform you further that I am a captured +Free Trader, condemned to _la Longue Traverse_, and that I have in +vain tried to procure elsewhere the means of escape." + +Then the clergyman understood. The full significance of the +intruder's presence flashed over his little pink face in a trouble +of uneasiness. The probable consequences of such a bit of charity +as his visitor proposed almost turned him sick with excitement. + +"You expect to have them of me!" he cried, getting his voice at +last. + +"Certainly," assured his interlocutor, crossing his legs +comfortably. "Don't you see the logic of events forces me to think +so? What other course is open to you? I am in this country +entirely within my legal rights as a citizen of the Canadian +Commonwealth. Unjustly, I am seized by a stronger power and +condemned unjustly to death. Surely you admit the injustice?" + +"Well, of course you know--the customs of the country--it is hardly +an abstract question--" stammered Crane, still without grasp on the +logic of his argument "But as an abstract question the injustice is +plain," resumed the Free Trader, imperturbably. "And against plain +injustice it strikes me there is but one course open to an +acknowledged institution of abstract--and concrete--morality. The +Church must set itself against immorality, and you, as the Church's +representative, must get me a rifle." + +"You forget one thing," rejoined Crane. + +"What is that?" + +"Such an aid would be a direct act of rebellion against authority +on my part, which would be severely punished. Of course," he +asserted, with conscious righteousness, "I should not consider that +for a moment as far ay my own personal safety is concerned. But my +cause would suffer. You forget, sir, that we are doing here a +great and good work. We have in our weekly congregational singing +over forty regular attendants from the aborigines; next year I hope +to build a church at Whale River, thus reaching the benighted +inhabitants of that distant region. All of this is a vital matter +in the service of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You suggest +that I endanger all this in order to right a single instance of +injustice. Of course we are told to love one another, but--" he +paused. + +"You have to compromise," finished the stranger for him. + +"Exactly." said the Reverend Crane. "Thank you; it is exactly +that. In order to accomplish what little good the Lord vouchsafes +to our poor efforts, we are obliged to overlook many things. +Otherwise we should not be allowed to stay here at all." + +"That is most interesting," agreed Ned Trent, with a rather biting +calm. "But is it not a little calculating? My slight familiarity +with religious history and literature has always led me to believe +that you are taught to embrace the right at any cost +whatsoever--that, if you give yourself unreservedly to justice, the +Lord will sustain you through all trials. I think at a pinch I +could even quote a text to that effect." + +"My dear fellow," objected the Reverend Archibald in gentle +protest, "you evidently do not understand the situation at all. I +feel I should be most untrue to my trust if I were to endanger in +any way the life-long labor of my predecessor. You must be able to +see that for yourself. It would destroy utterly my usefulness +here. They'd send me away. I couldn't go on with the work, I have +to think what is for the best." + +"There is some justice in what you say," admitted the stranger, "if +you persist in looking on this thing as a business proposition. +But it seems to my confessedly untrained mind that you missed the +point. 'Trust in the Lord,' saith the prophet. In fact, certain +rivals in your own field hold the doctrine you expound, and you +consider them wrong. 'To do evil that good may come' I seem to +recognize as a tenet of the Church of the Jesuits." + +"I protest. I really do protest," objected the clergyman, +scandalized. + +"All right," agreed Ned Trent, with good-natured contempt. "That +is not the point. Do you refuse?" + +"Can't you see?" begged the other. "I'm sure you are reasonable +enough to take the case on its broader side." + +"You refuse?" insisted Ned Trent. + +"It is not always easy to walk straightly before the Lord, and my +way is not always clear before me, but----" + +"You refuse!" cried Ned Trent, rising impatiently. + +The reverend Archibald Crane looked at his catechiser with a trace +of alarm. + +"I'm sorry; I'm afraid I must," he apologized. + +The stranger advanced until he touched the desk on the other side +of which the Reverend Archibald was sitting, where he stood for +some moments looking down on his opponent with an almost amused +expression of contempt. + +"You are an interesting little beast," he drawled, "and I've seen a +lot of your kind in my time. Here you preach every Sunday, to +whomever will listen to you, certain cut-and-dried doctrines you +don't believe practically in the least. Here for the first time +you have had a chance to apply them literally, and you hide behind +a lot of words. And while you're about it you may as well hear +what I have to say about your kind. I've had a pretty wide +experience in the North, and I know what I'm talking about. Your +work here among the Indians is rot, and every sensible man knows +it. You coop them up in your log-built houses, you force on them +clothes to which they are unaccustomed until they die of +consumption. Under your little tin-steepled imitation of +civilization, for which they are not fitted, they learn to beg, to +steal, to lie. I have travelled far, but I have yet to discover +what your kind are allowed on earth for. You are narrow-minded, +bigoted, intolerant, and without a scrap of real humanity to +ornament your mock religion. When you find you can't meddle with +other people's affairs enough at home you get sent where you can +get right in the business--and earn salvation for doing it. I +don't know just why I should say this to you, but it sort of does +me good to tell it. Once I heard one of your kind tell a sorrowing +mother that her little child had gone to hell because it had died +before he--the smug hypocrite--had sprinkled its little body with a +handful of water. There's humanity for you! It may interest you +to know that I thrashed that man then and there. You are all +alike; I know the breed. When there is found a real man among +you--and there are such--he is so different in everything, +including his religion, as to be really of another race. I came +here without the slightest expectation of getting what I asked for. +As I said before, I know your breed, and I know just how well your +two-thousand-year-old doctrines apply to practical cases. There is +another way, but I hated to use it. You'd take it quick enough, I +dare say. Here is where I should receive aid. I may have to get +it where I should not. You a man of God! Why, you poor little +insect, I can't even get angry at you!" + +He stood for a moment looking at the confused and troubled +clergyman. Then he went out. + + + + +Chapter Ten + +Almost immediately the door opened again, + +"You, Miss Albret!" cried Crane. + +"What does this mean?" demanded Virginia, imperiously. "Who is +that man? In what danger does he stand? What does he want a rifle +for? I insist on knowing." + +She stood straight and tall in the low room, her eyes flashing, her +head thrown back in the assured power of command. + +The Reverend Crane tried to temporize, hesitating over his words. +She cut him short. + +"That is nonsense. Everybody seems to know but myself. I am no +child. I came to consult you--my spiritual adviser--in regard to +this very case. Accidentally I overheard enough to justify me in +knowing more." + +The clergyman murmured something about the Company's secrets. +Again she cut him short. + +"Company's secrets! Since when has the Company confided in Andrew +Laviolette, in Wishkobun, in _you_?" + +"Possibly you would better ask your father," said Crane, with some +return of dignity. + +"It does not suit me to do so," replied she. "I insist that you +answer my questions. Who is this man?" + +"Ned Trent, he says." + +"I will not be put off in this way. _Who_ is he? _What_ is he?" + +"He is a Free Trader," replied the Reverend Crane with the air of a +man who throws down a bomb and is afraid of the consequences. To +his astonishment the bomb did not explode. + +"What is that?" she asked, simply. + +The man's jaw dropped and his eyes opened in astonishment. Here +was a density of ignorance in regard to the ordinary affairs of the +Post which could by no stretch of the imagination be ascribed to +chance. If Virginia Albret did not know the meaning of the term, +and all the tragic consequences it entailed, there could be but one +conclusion: Galen Albret had not intended that she should know. +She had purposely been left in ignorance, and a politic man would +hesitate long before daring to enlighten her. The Reverend Crane, +in sheer terror, became sullen. + +"A Free Trader is a man who trades in opposition to the Company," +said he, cautiously. + +"What great danger is he in?" the girl persisted with her catechism. + +"None that I am aware of," replied Crane, suavely. "He is a very +ill-balanced and excitable young man." + +Virginia's quick instincts recognized again the same barrier which, +with the people, with Wishkobun, with her father, had shut her so +effectively from the truth. Her power of femininity and position +had to give way before the man's fear for himself and of Galen +Albret's unexpressed wish. She asked a few more questions, +received a few more evasive replies, and left the little clergyman +to recover as best he might from a very trying evening. + +Out in the night the girl hesitated in two minds as to what to do +next. She was excited, and resolved to finish the affair, but she +could not bring her courage to the point of questioning her father. +That the stranger was in antagonism to the Company, that he +believed himself to be in danger on that account, that he wanted +succor, she saw clearly enough. But the whole affair was vague, +disquieting. She wanted to see it plainly, know its reasons. And +beneath her excitement she recognized, with a catch of the breath, +that she was afraid for him. She had not time now to ask herself +what it might mean; she only realized the presence of the fact. + +She turned instinctively in the direction of Doctor Cockburn's +house. Mrs. Cockburn was a plain little middle-aged woman with +parted gray hair and sweet, faded eyes. In the life of the place +she was a nonentity, and her tastes were homely and commonplace, +but Virginia liked her. + +She proved to be at home, the Doctor still at his dispensary, which +was well. Virginia entered a small log room, passed through it +immediately to a larger papered room, and sat down in a musty red +armchair. The building was one of the old regime, which meant that +its floor was of wide and rather uneven painted boards, its ceiling +low, its windows small, and its general lines of an irregular and +sagging rule-of-thumb tendency. The white wall-paper evidently +concealed squared logs. The present inhabitants, being possessed +at once of rather homely tastes and limited facilities, had +over-furnished the place with an infinitude of little +things--little rugs, little tables, little knit doilies, little +racks of photographs, little china ornaments, little spidery +what-nots, and shelves for books. + +Virginia seated herself, and went directly to the topic. + +"Mrs. Cockburn," she said, "you have always been very good to me, +always, ever since I came here as a little girl. I have not always +appreciated it, I am afraid, but I am in great trouble, and I want +your help." + +"What is it, dearie," asked the older woman, softly. "Of course I +will do anything I can." + +"I want you to tell me what all this mystery is--about the man who +to-day arrived from Kettle Portage, I mean. I have asked +everybody: I have tried by all means in my power to get somebody +somewhere to tell me. It is maddening--and I have a special reason +for wanting to know." + +The older woman was already gazing at her through troubled eyes. + +"It is a shame and a mistake to keep you so in ignorance!" she +broke out, "and I have said so always. There are many things you +have the right to know, although some of them would make you very +unhappy--as they do all of us poor women who have to live in this +land of dread. But in this I cannot, dearie." + +Virginia felt again the impalpable shadow of truth escaping her. +Baffled, confused, she began to lose her self-control. A dozen +times to-day she had reached after this thing, and always her +fingers had closed on empty air. She felt that she could not stand +the suspense of bewilderment a single instant longer. The tears +overflowed and rolled down her cheeks unheeded. + +"Oh, Mrs. Cockburn!" she cried. "Please! You do not know how +dreadful this thing has come to be to me just because it is made so +mysterious. Why has it been kept from me alone? It must have +something to do with me, and I can't stand this mystery, this +double-dealing, another minute. If you won't tell me, nobody will, +and I shall go on imagining--Oh, please have pity on me! I feel +the shadow of a tragedy. It comes out in everything, in everybody +to whom I turn. I see it in Wishkobun's avoidance of me, in my +father's silence, in Mr. Crane's confusion, in your +reluctance--yes, in the very reckless insolence of Mr. Trent +himself!"--her voice broke slightly. "If you will not tell me, I +shall go direct to my father," she ended, with more firmness. + +Mrs. Cockburn examined the girl's flushed face through kindly but +shrewd and experienced eyes. Then, with a caressing little murmur +of pity, she arose and seated herself on the arm of the red chair, +taking the girl's hand in hers. + +"I believe you mean it," she said, "and I am going to tell you +myself. There is much sorrow in it for you; but if you go to your +father it will only make it worse. I am doing what I should not. +It is shameful that such things happen in this nineteenth century, +but happen they do. The long and short of it is that the Factors +of this Post tolerate no competition in the country, and when a man +enters it for the purpose of trading with the Indians, he is +stopped and sent out." + +"There is nothing very bad about that." said Virginia, relieved. + +"No, my dear, not in that. But they say his arms and supplies are +taken from him, and he is given a bare handful of provisions. He +has to make a quick journey, and to starve at that. Once when I +was visiting out at the front, not many years ago, I saw one of +those men--they called him Jo Bagneau--and his condition was +pitiable--pitiable!" + +"But hardships can be endured. A man can escape." + +"Yes," almost whispered Mrs. Cockburn, looking about her +apprehensively, "but the story goes that there are some cases--when +the man is an old offender, or especially determined, or so +prominent as to be able to interest the law--no one breathes of +these cases here--but--_he never gets out_!" + +"What do you mean?" cried Virginia, harshly. + +"One dares not mean such things; but they are so. The hardships of +the wilderness are many, the dangers terrible--what more natural +than that a man should die of them in the forest? It is no one's +fault." + +"What do you mean?" repeated Virginia; "for God's sake speak +plainly!" + +"I dare not speak plainer than I know; and no one ever really +_knows_ anything about it--excepting the Indian who fires the shot, +or who watches the man until he dies of starvation." whispered Mrs. +Cockburn. + +"But--but!" cried the girl, grasping her companion's arm. "My +father! Does _he_ give such orders? _He_?" + +"No orders are given. The thing is understood. Certain runners, +whose turn it is, shadow the Free Trader. Your father is not +responsible; no one is responsible. It is the policy." + +"And this man----" + +"It has gone about that he is to take _la Longue Traverse_. He +knows it himself." + +"It is barbaric, horrible; it is murder." + +"My dear, it is all that; but this is the country of dread. You +have known the soft, bright side always--the picturesque men, the +laugh, the song. If you had seen as much of the harshness of +wilderness life as a doctor's wife must you would know that when +the storms of their great passions rage it is well to sit quiet at +your prayers." + +The girl's eyes were wide-fixed, staring at this first reality of +life. A thousand new thoughts jostled for recognition. Suddenly +her world had been swept from beneath her. The ancient +patriarchal, kindly rule had passed away, and in its place she was +forced to see a grim iron bond of death laid over her domain. And +her father--no longer the grave, kindly old man--had become the +ruthless tyrant. All these bright, laughing _voyageurs_, playmates +of her childhood, were in reality executioners of a savage +blood-law. She could not adjust herself to it. + +She got to her feet with an effort. "Thank you, Mrs. Cockburn," +she said, in a low voice. "I--I do not quite understand. But I +must go now. I must--I must see that my father's room is ready for +him." she finished, with the proud defensive instinct of the woman +who has been deeply touched. "You know I always do that myself." + +"Good-night, dearie," replied the older woman, understanding well +the girl's desire to shelter behind the commonplace. She leaned +forward and kissed her. "God keep and guide you. I hope I have +done right." + +"Yes," cried Virginia, with unexpected fire. "Yes, you did just +right! I ought to have been told long ago! They've kept me a +perfect child to whom everything has been bright and care-free and +simple. I--I feel that until this moment I have lacked my real +womanhood!" + +She bowed her head and passed through the log room into the outer +air. + +Her father, _her_ father, had willed this man's death, and so he +was to die! That explained many things--the young fellow's +insolence, his care-free recklessness, his passionate denunciation +of the Reverend Crane and the Reverend Crane's religion. He wanted +one little thing--the gift of a rifle wherewith to assure his +subsistence should he escape into the forest--and of all those at +Conjuror's House to whom he might turn for help, some were too hard +to give it to him, and some too afraid! He should have it! She, +the daughter of her father, would see to it that in this one +instance her father's sin should fail! Suddenly, in the white heat +of her emotion, she realized why these matters stirred her so +profoundly, and she stopped short and gasped with the shock of it. +It did not matter that she thwarted her father's will; it would not +matter if she should be discovered and punished as only these harsh +characters could punish. For the brave bearing, the brave jest, +the jaunty facing of death, the tender, low voice, the gay song, +the aurora-lit moment of his summons--all these had at last their +triumph. She knew that she loved him; and that if he were to die, +she would surely die too. + +And, oh, it must be that he loved her! Had she not heard it in the +music of his voice from the first?--the passion of his tones? the +dreamy, lyrical swing of his talk by the old bronze guns? + +Then she staggered sharply, and choked back a cry. For out of her +recollections leaped two sentences of his--the first careless, +imprudent, unforgivable; the second pregnant with meaning. "_Ah, a +star shoots_!" he had said. "_That means a kiss_!" and again, to +the clergyman, "_I came here without the slightest expectation of +getting what I asked for. There is another way, but I hate to use +it_." + +She was the other way! She saw it plainly. He did not love her, +but he saw that he could fascinate her, and he hoped to use her as +an aid to his escape. She threw her head up proudly. + +Then a man swung into view across the Northern Lights. Virginia +pressed back against the palings among the bushes until he should +have passed. It was Ned Trent, returning from a walk to the end of +the island. He was alone and unfollowed, and the girl realized +with a sudden grip at the heart that the wilderness itself was +sufficient safeguard against a man unarmed and unequipped. It was +not considered worth while even to watch him. Should he escape, +unarmed as he was, sure death by starvation awaited him in the land +of dread. + +As he entered the settlement he struck up an air. + + "Le fils du roi s'en va chassant, + En roulant ma boule, + Avec son grand fusil d'argent, + Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant." + +Almost immediately a window slid back, and an exasperated voice +cried out: + +"_Hola_ dere, w'at one time dam fool you for mak' de sing so late!" + +The voice went on imperturbably: + + "Avec son grand fusil d'argent, + En roulant ma boule, + Visa le noir, tua le blanc, + Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant." + +"_Sacre_!" shrieked the habitant. + +"Hello, Johnny Frenchman!" called Ned Trent, in his acid tones. +"That you? Be more polite, or I'll stand here and sing you the +whole of it." + +The window slammed shut. + +Ned Trent took up his walk again toward some designated +sleeping-place of his own, his song dying into the distance. + + "Visa le noir, tua le blanc, + En roulant ma boule, + O fils du roi, tu es mechant! + Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant." + +"And he can _sing_!" cried the girl bitterly to herself. "At such +a time! Oh, my dear God, help me, help me! I am the unhappiest +girl alive!" + + + + +Chapter Eleven + +Virginia did not sleep at all that night. She was reaching toward +her new self. Heretofore she had ruled those about her proudly, +secure in her power and influence. Now she saw that all along her +influence had in not one jot exceeded that of the winsome girl. +She had no real power at all. They went mercilessly on in the grim +way of their fathers, dealing justice even-handed according to +their own crude conceptions of it, without thought of God or man. +She turned hot all over as she saw herself in this new light--as +she saw those about her indulgently smiling at her airs of the +mistress of it. It angered her--though the smile might be +good-humored, even affectionate. + +And she shrank into herself with utter loathing when she remembered +Ned Trent. There indeed her woman's pride was hard stricken. She +recalled with burning cheeks how his intense voice had stirred her; +how his wishes had compelled her; she shivered pitifully as she +remembered the warmth of his shoulder touching carelessly her own. +If he had come to her honestly and asked her aid, she would have +given it; but this underhand pretence at love! It was unworthy of +him; and it was certainly most unworthy of her. What must he think +of her? How he must be laughing at her--and hoping that his spell +was working, so that he could get the coveted rifle and the forty +cartridges. + +"I hate him!" she cried to herself, the backs of her long, slender +hands pressed against her eyes. She meant that she loved him, but +for the purposes in hand one would do as well as the other. + +At earliest daylight she was up. Bathing her face and throat in +cold water, and hastily catching her beautiful light hair under a +cap, she slipped down stairs and out past the stockade to the +point. There she seated herself, a heavy shawl about her, and gave +herself up to reflection. She had approached silently, her +moccasins giving no sound. Presently she became aware that someone +was there before her. Looking toward the river she saw on the next +level below her a man, seated on a bowlder, and gazing to the south. + +His very soul was in his eyes. Virginia gasped at the change in him +since last she had seen him. The gay, mocking demeanor which had +seemed an essential part of his very flesh and blood had fallen +away from him, leaving a sad and lofty dignity that ennobled his +countenance. The lines of his face were stern, of his mouth +pathetic; his eyes yearned. He stared toward the south with an +almost mesmeric intensity, as though he hoped by sheer longing to +materialize a vision. Tears sprang to the girl's eyes at the +subtle pathos of his attitude. + +He stretched his arms wearily over his head, and sighed deeply and +looked up. His eyes rested on the girl without surprise; the +expression of his features did not change. + +"Pardon me," he said, simply. "To-day is my last of plenty. I am +up enjoying it." + +Virginia had anticipated the usual instantaneous transformation of +his manner when he should catch sight of her. Her resentment was +dispelled. In face of the vaster tragedies little considerations +gave way. + +"Do you leave--to-day?" she asked, in a low voice. + +"To-morrow morning, early," he corrected. "To-day I found my +provisions packed and laid at my door. It is a hint I know how to +take." + +"You have everything you need?" asked the girl, with an assumption +of indifference. + +He looked her in the eyes for a moment. + +"Everything," he lied, calmly. + +Virginia perceived that he lied, and her heart stood still with a +sudden hope that perhaps, at this eleventh hour, he might have +repented of his unworthy intentions toward herself. She leaned to +him over the edge of the little rise. + +"Have you a rifle--for _la Longue Traverse_?" she inquired, with +meaning. + +He stared at her a little the harder. + +"Why--why, surely," he replied, in a tone less confident. "Nobody +travels without a rifle in the North." + +She dropped swiftly down the slope and stood face to face with him. + +"Listen," she began, in her superb manner. "I know all there is to +know. You are a Free Trader, and you are to be sent to your death. +It is murder, and it is done by my father." She held her head +proudly, but the notes of her voice were straining. "I knew +nothing of this yesterday. I was a foolish girl who thought all +men were good and just, and that all those whom I knew were noble. +My eyes are open now. I see injustice being done by my own +household, and "--tears were trembling near her lashes, but she +blinked them back--"and I am no longer a foolish girl! You need +not try to deceive me. You must tell me what I can do, for I +cannot permit so great a wrong to be done by my father without +attempting to set it right." This was not what she had intended to +say, but suddenly the course was clear to her. The influence of +the man had again swept over her, drowning her will, filling her +with the old fear, which was now for the moment turned to pride by +the character of the situation. + +But to her surprise the man was thinking of something else. + +"Who told you?" he demanded, harshly. Then, without waiting for a +reply, "It was that little preacher; I'll have an interview with +him!" + +"No, no!" protested the girl. "It was not he. It was a friend. I +had the right to know." + +"You had no right!" he cried, vehemently. "You and life should +have nothing to do with each other. There is a look in your eyes +that was not in them yesterday, and the one who put it there is not +your friend." He stood staring at her intently, as one who ponders +what is best to do. Then very quietly he took her hands and drew +her to a place beside him on the bowlder. + +"I am going to tell you something, little girl," said he, "and you +must listen quietly to the end. Perhaps at the last you may see +more clearly than you do now. + +"This old Company of yours has been established for a great many +years. Back in old days, over two centuries ago, it pushed up into +this wilderness to trade for its furs. That you know. And then it +explored ever farther to the west and the north, until its servants +stood on the shores of the Pacific and the stretches of the Arctic +Ocean. And its servants loved it. Enduring immense hardships, cut +off from their kind, outlining dimly with the eye of faith the +structure of a mighty power, they loved it always. Thousands of +men were in its employ, and so loyal were they that its secrets +were safe and its prestige was defended, often to a lonely death. +I have known the Company and its servants for a long time, and if I +had leisure I could instance a hundred examples of devotion and +sacrifice beside which mere patriotism, would seem a little thing. +Men who had no country cleaved to her desolate posts, her lakes and +rivers and forests; men who had no home ties felt the tug of her +wild life at their hearts; men who had no God bowed in awe before +her power and grandeur. The Company was a living thing. + +"Rivals attempted her supremacy, and were defeated by the +steadfastness of the men who received her meagre wages and looked +to her as their one ideal. Her explorers were the bravest, her +traders the most enterprising and single-minded, her factors and +partners the most capable and potent in all the world. No country, +no leader, no State ever received half the worship her sons gave +her. The fierce Nor'westers, the traders of Montreal, the Company +of the X Y, Astor himself, had to give way. For, although they +were bold or reckless or crafty or able, they had not the ideal +which raises such qualities to invincibility. + +"And, little girl, nothing is wrong to men who have such an ideal +before them. They see but one thing, and all means are good that +help them to assure that one thing. They front the dangers, they +overcome the hardships, they crush the rivals. Bloody wars have +taken place in these forests, ruthless deeds have been done, but +the men who accomplished them held the deeds good. So for two +hundred years, aided by the charter from the king, they have made +good their undisputed right. + +"Then the railroad entered the west. The charter of monopoly ran +out. Through the Nipissing, the Athabasca, the Edmonton, came the +Free Traders--men who traded independently. These the Company +could not control, so it competed--and to its credit its +competition has held its own. Even far into the Northwest, where +the trails are long, the Free Traders have established their chains +of supplies, entering into rivalry with the Company for a barter it +has always considered its right. The medicine has been bitter, but +the servants of the Company have adjusted themselves to the new +conditions, and are holding their own. + +"But one region still remains cut off from the outside world by a +broad band of unexplored waste. The life here at Hudson's +Bay--although you may not know it--is exactly the same to-day that +it was two hundred years ago. And here the Company makes its stand +for a monopoly. + +"At first it worked openly. But in the case of Guillaume Sayer, a +daring and pugnacious _metis_, it got into trouble with the law. +Since that time it has wrapped itself in secrecy and mystery, +carrying on its affairs behind the screen of five hundred miles of +forest. Here it has still the power; no man can establish himself +here, can even travel here, without its consent, for it controls +the food and the Indians. The Free Trader enters, but he does not +stay for long. The Company's servants are mindful of their old +fanatical ideal. Nothing is ever known, no orders are ever given, +but something happens, find the man never ventures again. + +"If he is an ordinary _metis_ or Canadian, he emerges from the +forest starved, frightened, thankful. If his story is likely to be +believed in high places, he never emerges at all. The dangers of +wilderness travel are many: he succumbs to them. That is the whole +story. Nothing definite is known; no instances can be proved; your +father denies the legend and calls it a myth. The Company claims +to be ignorant of it, perhaps its greater officers really are, but +the legend holds so good that the journey has its name--_la Longue +Traverse_. + +"But remember this, no man is to blame--unless it is he who of +knowledge takes the chances. It is a policy, a growth of +centuries, an idea unchangeable to which the long services of many +fierce and loyal men have given substance. A Factor cannot change +it. If he did, the thing would be outside of nature, something not +to be understood. + +"I am here. I am to take _la Longue Traverse_. But no man is to +blame. If the scheme of the thing is wrong, it has been so from +the very beginning, from the time when King Charles set his +signature to the charter of unlimited authority. The history of a +thousand men gives the tradition power, gives it insistence. It is +bigger than any one individual. It is as inevitable as that water +should flow down hill." + +He had spoken quietly, but very earnestly, still holding her two +hands, and she had sat looking at him unblinking from eyes behind +which passed many thoughts. When he had finished, a short pause +followed, at the end of which she asked unexpectedly, + +"Last evening you told me that you might come to me and ask me to +choose between my pity and what I might think to be my duty. What +are you going to ask of me?" + +"Nothing. I spoke idle words." + +"Last evening I overheard you demand something of Mr. Crane," she +pursued, without commenting on his answer. "When he refused you I +heard you say these words 'Here is where I should have received +aid; I may have to get it where I should not.' What was the aid you +asked of him? and where else did you expect to get it?" + +"The aid was something impossible to accord, and I did not expect +to get it elsewhere. I said that in order to induce him to help +me." + +A wonderful light sprang to the girl's eyes, but still she +maintained her level voice. + +"You asked him for a rifle with which to escape. You expected to +get it of me. Deny it if you can." + +Ned Trent looked at her keenly a moment, then dropped his eyes. + +"It is true," said he. + +"And the pity was to give you this weapon; and the duty was my duty +to my father's house." + +"It is true," he repeated, dejectedly. + +"And you lied to me when you said you had a rifle with which to +journey _la Longue Traverse_." + +"That too is true," he acknowledged. + +When next she spoke her voice was not quite so well controlled. + +"Why did you not ask me, as you intended? Why did you tell me +these lies?" + +The young man hesitated, looked her in the face, turned away, and +murmured, "I could not." + +"Why?" persisted the girl. "Why? You must tell me." + +"Because," said Ned Trent--"because it could not be done. Every +rifle in the place is known. Because you would be found out in +this, and I do not know what your punishment might not be." + +"You knew this before?" insisted Virginia, stonily. + +"Yes." + +"Then why did you change your mind?" + +"When first I saw you by the gun," began Ned Trent, in a low voice, +"I was a desperate man, clutching at the slightest chance. The +thought crossed my mind then that I might use you. Then later I +saw that I had some influence over you, and I made my plan. But +last night----" + +"Yes, last night?" urged Virginia, softly. + +"Last night I paced the island, and I found out many things. One +of them was that I could not." + +"Even though this dreadful journey----" + +"I would rather take my chances." + +Again there was silence between them. + +"It was a good lie," then said Virginia, gently--"a noble lie. And +what you have told me to comfort me about my father has been nobly +said. And I believe you, for I have known the truth about your +fate." He shut his lips grimly. "Why--why did you come?" she +cried, passionately. "Is the trade so good, are your needs then so +great, that you must run these perils?" + +"My needs," he replied. "No; I have enough." + +"Then why?" she insisted. + +"Because that old charter has long since expired, and now this +country is as free for me as for the Company," he explained. "We +are in a civilized century, and no man has a right to tell me where +I shall or shall not go. Does the Company own the Indians and the +creatures of the woods?" Something in the tone of his voice +brought her eyes steadily to his for a moment. + +"Is that all?" she asked at length. + +He hesitated, looked away, looked back again. + +"No, it is not," he confessed, in a low voice. "It is a thing I do +not speak of. My father was a servant of this Company, a good, +true servant. No man was more honest, more zealous, more loyal." + +"I am sure of it," said Virginia, softly. + +"But in some way that he never knew himself he made enemies in high +places. The cowards did not meet him man to man, and so he never +knew who they were. If he had, he would have killed them. But +they worked against him always. He was given hard posts, +inadequate supplies, scant help, and then he was held to account +for what he could not do. Finally he left the company in +disgrace--undeserved disgrace. He became a Free Trader in the days +when to become a Free Trader was worse than attacking a grizzly +with cubs. In three years he was killed. But when I grew to be a +man "--he clenched his teeth--"by God! how I have prayed to know +who did it." He brooded for a moment, then went on. "Still, I +have accomplished something. I have traded in spite of your +factors in many districts. One summer I pushed to the Coppermine +in the teeth of them, and traded with the Yellow Knives for the +robes of the musk-ox. And they knew me and feared my rivalry, +these traders of the Company. No district of the far North but has +felt the influence of my bartering. The traders of all +districts--Fort au Liard, Lapierre's House, Fort Rae, Ile a la +Crosse, Portage la Loche, Lac la Biche, Jasper's House, the House +of the Touchwood Hills--all these, and many more, have heard of Ned +Trent." + +"Your father--you knew him well?" + +"No, but I remember him--a tall, dark man, with a smile always in +his eyes and a laugh on his lips. I was brought up at a school in +Winnipeg under a priest. Two or three times in the year my father +used to appear for a few days. I remember well the last time I saw +him. I was about thirteen years old. 'You are growing to be a +man,' said he; 'next year we will go out on the trail.' I never +saw him again." + +"What happened?" + +"Oh, he was just killed," replied Ned Trent, bitterly. + +The girl laid her hand on his arm with an appealing little gesture. + +"I am so sorry," said she. + +"I have no portrait of him," continued the Free Trader, after an +instant. "No gift from his hands; nothing at all of his but this." + +He showed her an ordinary little silver match-safe such as men use +in the North country. + +"They brought that to me at the last--the Indians who came to tell +my priest the news, and the priest, who was a good man, gave it to +me. I have carried it ever since." + +Virginia took it reverently. To her it had all the largeness that +envelops the symbol of a great passion. After a moment she looked +up in surprise. + +"Why!" she exclaimed, "this has a name carved on it!" + +"Yes," he replied. + +"But the name is Graehme Stewart." + +"Of course I could not bear my father's name in a country where it +was well known," he explained. + +"Of course," she agreed. Impulsively she raised her face to his, +her eyes shining. "To me all this is very fine," said she. + +He smiled a little sadly. "At least you know why I came." + +"Yes." she repeated, "I know why you came. But you are in trouble." + +"The chances of war." + +"And they have defeated you after all." + +"I shall start on _la Longue Traverse_ singing 'Rouli roulant.' +It's a small defeat, that.' + +"Listen," said she, rapidly. "When I was quite a small girl Mr. +McTavish, of Rupert's House, gave me a little rifle. I have never +used it, because I do not care to shoot. That rifle has never been +counted, and my father has long since forgotten all about it. You +must take that, and escape to-night. I will let you have it on one +condition--that you give me your solemn promise never to venture +into this country again." + +"Yes," he agreed, without enthusiasm nor surprise. + +She smiled happily at his gloomy face and listless attitude. + +"But I do not want to give up the little rifle entirely," she went +on, with dainty preciosity, watching him closely. "As I said, it +was a present, given to me when I was quite a small girl. You must +return it to me at Quebec, in August. Will you promise to do that?" + +He wheeled on her swift as light, the eagerness flashing back into +his face. + +"You are going to Quebec?" he cried. "My father wishes me to. I +have decided to do so. I shall start with the Abitibi _brigade_ in +July." + +He leaped to his feet. + +"I promise!" he exulted, "I promise! To-night, then! Bring the +rifle and the cartridges, and some matches, and a little salt. You +must take me across the river in a canoe, for I want them to guess +at where I strike the woods. I shall cover my trail. And with ten +hours' start, let them catch Ned Trent who can!" + +She laughed happily. + +"To-night, then. At the south of the island there is a trail, and +at the end of the trail a beach----" + +"I know!" he cried. + +"Meet me there as soon after dark as you can do so without danger." + +He threw his hat into the air and caught it, his face boyishly +upturned. Again that something, so vaguely familiar, plucked at +her with its ghostly, appealing fingers. She turned swiftly, and +seized them, and so found herself in possession of a memory out of +her far-off childhood. + +"I know you!" she cried. "I have seen you before this!" + +He bent his puzzled gaze upon her. + +"I was a very little girl," she explained, "and you but a lad. It +was at a party, I think, a great and brilliant party, for I +remember many beautiful women and fine men. You held me up in your +arms for people to see, because I was going on a long journey." + +"I remember, of course I do!" he exclaimed. + +A bell clanged, turning over and over, calling the Company's men to +their day. + +"Farewell." she said, hurriedly. "To-night." + +"To-night," he repeated. + +She glided rapidly through the grass, noiseless in her moccasined +feet. And as she went she heard his voice humming soft and low, + + "Isabeau s'y promene + Le long de son jardin, + Le long de son jardin, + Sur le bord de l'ile, + Le long de son jardin." + +"How could he _help_ singing," murmured Virginia, fondly. "Ah, +dear Heaven, but I am the happiest girl alive!" + +Such a difference can one night bring about. + + + + +Chapter Twelve + +The day rose and flooded the land with its fuller life. All +through the settlement the Post Indians and half-breeds set about +their tasks. Some aided Sarnier with his calking of the bateaux; +some worked in the fields; some mended or constructed in the +different shops. At eight o'clock the bell rang again, and they +ate breakfast. Then a group of seven, armed with muzzle-loading +"trade-guns" bound in brass, set out for the marshes in hopes of +geese. For the flight was arriving, and the Hudson Bay man knows +very well the flavor of goose-flesh, smoked, salted, and barrelled. + +Now the _voyageurs_ began to stroll into the sun. They were men of +leisure. Picturesque, handsome, careless, debonair, they wandered +back and forth, smoking their cigarettes, exhibiting their finery. +Indian women, wrinkled and careworn, plodded patiently about on +various businesses. Indian girls, full of fun and mischief, +drifted here and there in arm-locked groups of a dozen, smiling, +whispering among themselves, ready to collapse toward a common +centre of giggles if addressed by one of the numerous +woods-dandies. Indian men stalked singly, indifferent, stolid. +Indian children of all sizes and degrees of nakedness darted back +and forth, playing strange games. The sound of many voices rose +across the air. + +Once the voices moderated, when McDonald, the Chief Trader, walked +rapidly from the barracks building to the trading store; once they +died entirely into a hush of respect, when Galen Albret himself +appeared on the broad veranda of the factory. He stood for a +moment--bulked broad and black against the whitewash--his hands +clasped behind him, gazing abstractedly toward the distant bay. +Then he turned into the house to some mysterious and weighty +business of his own. The hubbub at once broke out again. + +Now about the mouth of the long picketed lane leading to the +massive trading store gathered a silent group, bearing packs. +These were Indians from the more immediate vicinity, desirous of +trading their skins. After a moment McDonald appeared in the +doorway, a hundred feet away, and raised his hand. Two of the +savages, and two only, trotted down the narrow picket lane, their +packs on their shoulders. + +McDonald ushered them into a big square room, where the bales were +undone and spread abroad. Deftly, silently the Trader sorted the +furs, placing to one side or the other the "primes," "seconds," and +"thirds" of each species. For a moment he calculated. Then he +stepped to a post whereon hung long strings of pierced wooden +counters, worn smooth by use. Swiftly he told the strings over. +To one of the Indians he gave one with these words: + +"Mu-hi-kun, my brother, here be pelts to the value of two hundred +'beaver.' Behold a string, then, of two hundred 'castors,' and in +addition I give my brother one fathom of tobacco." + +The Indian calculated rapidly, his eye abstracted. He had known +exactly the value of his catch, and what he would receive for it in +"castors," but had hoped for a larger "present," by which the +premium on the standard price is measured. + +"Ah hah," he exclaimed, finally, and stepped to one side. + +"Sak-we-su, my brother," went on McDonald, "here be pelts to the +value of three hundred 'beaver.' Behold a string, then, of three +hundred 'castors,' and because you have brought so fine a skin of +the otter, behold also a fathom of tobacco and a half sack of +flour." + +"Good!" ejaculated the Indian. + +The Trader then led them to stairs, up which they clambered to +where Davis, the Assistant Trader, kept store. There, barred by a +heavy wooden grill from the airy loft filled with bright calicoes, +sashes, pails, guns, blankets, clothes, and other ornamental and +useful things, Sak-we-su and Mu-hi-kun made their choice, trading +in the worn wooden "castors" on the string. So much flour, so much +tea, so much sugar and powder and lead, so much in clothing. Thus +were their simple needs supplied for the year to come. Then the +remainder they squandered on all sorts of useless things--beads, +silks, sashes, bright handkerchiefs, mirrors. And when the last +wooden "castor" was in they went down stairs and out the picket +lane, carrying their lighter purchases, but leaving the larger as +"debt," to be called for when needed. Two of their companions +mounted the stairs as they descended; and two more passed them in +the narrow picket lane. So the trade went on. + +At once Sak-we-su and Mu-hi-kun were surrounded. In detail they +told what they had done. Then in greater detail their friends told +what _they_ would have done, until after five minutes of +bewildering advice the disconsolate pair would have been only too +glad to have exchanged everything--if that had been allowed. + +Now the bell rang again. It was "smoke time." Everyone quit work +for a half-hour. The sun climbed higher in the heavens. The +laughing crews of idlers sprawled in the warmth, gambling, telling +stories, singing. Then one might have heard all the picturesque +songs of the Far North--"A la claire Fontaine"; "Ma Boule Roulant"; +"Par derrier' chez-mon Pere"; "Isabeau s'y promene"; "P'tite +Jeanneton"; "Luron, Lurette"; "Chante, Rossignol, chante"; the +ever-popular "Malbrouck"; "C'est la belle Francoise"; "Alouette"; +or the beautiful and tender "La Violette Dandine." They had good +voices, these _voyageurs_, with the French artistic instinct, and +it was fine to hear them. + +At noon the squaws set out to gather canoe gum on the mainland. +They sat huddled in the bottom of their old and leaky canoe, +reaching far over the sides to dip their paddles, irregularly +placed, silent, mysterious. They did not paddle with the unison of +the men, but each jabbed a little short stroke as the time suited +her, so that always some paddles were rising and some falling. +Into the distance thus they flapped like wounded birds; then +rounded a bend, and were gone. + +The sun swung over and down the slope, Dinner time had passed; +"smoke time" had come again. Squaws brought the first white-fish +of the season to the kitchen door of the factory, and Matthews +raised the hand of horror at the price they asked. Finally he +bought six of about three pounds each, giving in exchange tea to +the approximate value of twelve cents. The Indian women went away, +secretly pleased over their bargain. + +Down by the Indian camp suddenly broke the roar of a dog-fight. +Two of the sledge _giddes_ had come to teeth, and the friends of +both were assisting the cause. The idlers went to see, laughing, +shouting, running impromptu races. They sat on their haunches and +cheered ironically, and made small bets, and encouraged the frantic +old squaw hags who, at imminent risk, were trying to disintegrate +the snarling, rolling mass. Over in the high log stockade wherein +the Company's sledge animals were confined, other wolf-dogs howled +mournfully, desolated at missing the fun. + +And always the sun swung lower and lower toward the west, until +finally the long northern twilight fell, and the girl in the little +white bedroom at the factory bathed her face and whispered for the +hundredth time to her beating heart: + +"Night has come!" + + + + +Chapter Thirteen + +That evening at dinner Virginia studied her father's face again. +She saw the square settled line of the jaw under the beard, the +unwavering frown of the heavy eyebrows, the unblinking purpose of +the cavernous, mysterious eyes. Never had she felt herself very +close to this silent, inscrutable man, even in his moments of more +affectionate expansion. Now a gulf divided them. + +And yet, strangely enough, she experienced no revulsion, no horror, +no recoil even. He had merely become more aloof, more +incomprehensible; his purposes vaster, less susceptible to the +grasp of such as she. There may have been some basis for this +feeling, or it may have been merely the reflex glow of a joy that +made all other things seem insignificant. + +As soon as might be after the meal Virginia slipped away, carrying +the rifle, the cartridges, the matches, and the salt. She was +cruelly frightened. + +The night was providentially dark. No aurora threw its splendor +across the dome, and only a few rare stars peeped between the light +cirrus clouds. Virginia left behind her the buildings of the Post, +she passed in safety the tin-steepled chapel and the church house; +there remained only the Indian camp between her and the woods +trail. At once the dogs began to bark and howl, the fierce +_giddes_ lifting their pointed noses to the sky. The girl hurried +on, twinging far to the right through the grass. To her relief the +camp did not respond to the summons. An old crone or so appeared +in the flap of a teepee, eyes dazzled, to throw uselessly a billet +of wood or a volley of Cree abuse at the animals nearest. In a +moment Virginia entered the trail. + +Here was no light at all. She had to proceed warily, feeling with +her moccasins for the beaten pathway, to which she returned with +infinite caution whenever she trod on grass or leaves. Though her +sight was dulled, her hearing was not. A thousand scurrying noises +swirled about her; a multitude of squeaks, whistles, snorts, and +whines attested that she disturbed the forest creatures at their +varied businesses; and underneath spoke an apparent dozen of +terrifying voices which were in reality only the winds and the +trees. Virginia knew that these things were not dangerous--that +day light would show them to be only deer-mice, hares, weasels, +bats, and owls--nevertheless, they had their effect. For about her +was cloying velvet blackness--not the closed-in blackness of a +room, where one feels the embrace of the four walls, but the +blackness of infinite space through which sweep mysterious currents +of air. After a long time she turned sharp to the left. After a +long time more she perceived a faint, opalescent glimmer in the +distance ahead. This she knew to be the river. + +She felt her way onward, still cautiously, then she choked back a +scream and dropped her burden with a clatter to the ground. A dark +figure seemed to have risen mysteriously at her side. + +"I didn't mean to frighten you," said Ned Trent, in guarded tones. +"I heard you coming. I thought you could hear me." + +He picked up the fallen articles, running his hands over them +rapidly. + +"Good," he whispered. "I got some moccasins to-day--traded a few +things I had in my pockets for them. I'm fixed." + +"Have you a canoe?" she asked. + +"Yes--here on the beach." + +He preceded her down the few remaining yards of the trail. She +followed, already desolated at the thought of parting, for the +wilderness was very big. The bulk of the man partly blotted out +the lucent spot where the river was--now his arm, now his head, now +the breadth of his shoulders. This silhouette of him was dear to +her, the sound of his movements, the faint stir of his breathing +borne to her on the light breeze. Virginia's tender heart almost +overflowed with longing and fear for him. + +They emerged on a little slope and at once pushed the canoe into +the current. + +She accepted the aid of his hand for a moment, and sank to her +place, facing him He spurned lightly the shore, and so they were +adrift. + +In a moment they seemed to be floating on a vast vapor of night, +infinitely remote from anywhere, surrounded by the silence that +might have been before the world's beginning. A faint splash could +have been a muskrat near at hand or a caribou far away. The paddle +rose and dipped with a faint _swish_, _swish_, and the steersman's +twist of it was taken up by the man's strong wrist so it did not +click against the gunwale; the bow of the craft divided the waters +with a murmuring so faint as to seem but the echo of a silence. +Neither spoke. Virginia watched him, her heart too full for words; +watched the full swing of his strong shoulders, the balance of his +body at the hips, the poise of his head against the dull sky. In a +moment more the parting would have to come. She dreaded it, and +yet she looked forward to it with a hungry joy. Then he would say +what she had seen in his eyes; then he would speak; then she would +hear the words that should comfort her in the days of waiting. For +a woman lives much for the present, and the moment's word is an +important thing. + +The man swung his paddle steadily, throwing into the strokes a +wanton exuberance that showed how high his spirits ran. After a +time, when they were well out from the shore, he took a deep breath +of delight. + +"Ah, you don't know how happy I am," he exulted, "you don't know! +To be free, to play the game, to match my wits against their--ah, +that is life!" + +"I am sorry to see you go," she murmured, "very sorry. The days +will be full of terror until I know you are safe." + +"Oh, yes," he answered: "but I'll get there, and I shall tell it +all to you at Quebec--at Quebec in August. It will he a brave +tale! You will be there--surely?" + +"Yes," said the girl, softly; "I will be there--surely." + +"Good! Feel the wind on your cheek? It is from the Southland, +where I am going. I have ventured--and I have not lost! It is +something not to lose, when one has ventured against many. They +have my goods--but I----" + +"You?" repeated Virginia, as he hesitated. + +"Ah, I don't go back empty-handed!" he tried. Her heart stood +still, then leaped in anticipation of what he would say. Her soul +hungered for the words, the words that should not only comfort her, +but should be to her the excuse for many things. She saw +him--shadowy, graceful against the dim gray of the river and +sky--lean ever so slightly toward her. But then he straightened +again to his paddle, and contented himself with repeating merely: +"Quebec--in August, then." + +The canoe grated. Ned Trent with an exclamation drove his paddle +into the clay. + +"Lucky the bottom is soft here," said he; "I did not realize we +were so close ashore." + +He drew the canoe up on the shelving beach, helped Virginia out, +took his rifle, and so stood ready to depart. + +"Leave the canoe just where we got in," he advised; "it is around +the point, you see, and that may fool them a. little." + +"You are going." she said, dully. Then she came close to him and +looked up at him with her wonderful eyes. "Good-by." + +"Good-by," said he. + +Was this to be all? Had he nothing more to tell her? Was the word +to lack, the word she needed so much? She had given herself +unreservedly into this man's hands, and at parting he had no more +to say to her than "Good-by." Virginia's eyes were tearful, but +she would not let him know that. She felt that her heart would +break. + +"Well, good-by," he said again after a moment, which he had spent +inspecting the heavens. "Ah, you don't know what it is to be free! +By to-morrow morning I shall be half-way to the Mattagami. I can +hardly wait to see it, for then I am safe! And then nex; day--why, +next day they won't know which of a dozen ways I've gone!" He was +full of the future, man fashion. + +He took her hands, leaned over, and lightly kissed her on the +mouth. Instantly Virginia became wildly and unreasonably angry. +She could not have told herself why, but it was the lack of the +word she had wanted so much, the pain of feeling that he could go +like that, the thwarted bitterness of a longing that had grown +stronger than she had even yet realized. + +Instinctively she leaped into the canoe, sending it spinning from +the bank. + +"Ah, you had no _right_ to do that!" she cried. "I gave you no +_right_!" + +Then, heedless of what he was saying, she began to paddle straight +from the shore, weeping bitterly, her face upraised, her hair in +her eyes, and the tears coursing unheeded down her cheeks. + + + + +Chapter Fourteen + +Slower and slower her paddle dipped, lower and lower hung her head, +faster and faster flowed her tears. The instinctive recoil, the +passionate resentment had gone. In the bitterness of her spirit +she knew not what she thought except that she would give her soul +to see him again, to feel the touch of his lips once more. For she +could not make herself believe that this would ever come to pass. +He had gone like a phantom, like a dream, and the mists of life had +closed about him, showing no sign. He had vanished, and at once +she seemed to know that the episode was finished. + +The canoe whispered against the soft clay bottom. She had arrived, +though how the crossing had been made she could not have told. +Slowly and sorrowfully she disembarked. Languidly she drew the +light craft beyond the stream's eager fingers. Then, her forces at +an end, she huddled down on the ground and gave herself up to +sorrow. + +The life of the forest went on as though she were not there. A big +owl far off said hurriedly his _whoo-whoo-whoo_, as though he had +the message to deliver and wanted to finish the task. A smaller +owl near at hand cried _ko-ko-ko-oh_ with the intonation of a tin +horn. Across the river a lynx screamed, and was answered at once +by the ululations of wolves. On the island the _giddes_ howled +defiance. Then from above, clear, spiritual, floated the whistle +of shore birds arriving from the south. Close by sounded a rustle +of leaves, a sharp squeak; a tragedy had been consummated, and the +fierce little mink stared malevolently across the body of his +victim at the motionless figure on the beach. + +Virginia, drowned in grief, knew of none of these things. She was +seeing again the clear brown face of the stranger, his curly brown +hair, his steel eyes, and the swing of his graceful figure. Now he +fronted the wondering _voyageurs_, one foot raised against the bow +of the _brigade_ canoe; now he stood straight and tall against the +light of the sitting-room door; now he emptied the vials of his +wrath and contempt on Archibald Crane's reverend head; now he +passed in the darkness, singing gayly the _chanson de canot_. But +more fondly she saw him as he swept his hat to the ground on +discovering her by the guns, as he bent his impassioned eyes on her +in the dim lamplight of their first interview, as he tossed his hat +aloft in the air when he had understood that she would be in +Quebec. She hugged the visions to her, and wept over them softly, +for she was now sure she would never see him again. + +And she heard his voice, now laughing, now scornful, now mocking, +now indignant, now rich and solemn with feeling. He flouted the +people, he turned the shafts of his irony on her father, he scathed +the minister, he laughed at Louis Placide awakened from his sleep, +he sang, he told her of the land of desolation, he pleaded. She +could hear him calling her name--although he had never spoken +it--in low, tender tones, "Virginia! Virginia!" over and over again +softly, as though his soul were crying through his lips. + +Then somehow, in a manner not to be comprehended, it was borne in +on her consciousness that he was indeed near her, and that he was +indeed calling her name. And at once she made him out, standing +dripping on the beach. A moment later she was in his arms. + +"Ah!" he cried, in gladness; "you are here!" + +He crushed her hungrily to him, unmindful of his wet clothes, +kissing her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, her chin, even the fragrant +corner of her throat exposed by the collar of her gown. She did +not struggle. + +"Oh!" she murmured, "my dear, my dear! Why did you come back? Why +did you come?" + +"Why did I come?" he repeated, passionately. "Why did I come? Can +you ask that? How could I help but come? You must have known I +would come. Surely you must have known! Didn't you hear me +calling you when you paddled away? I came to get the right. I +came to get your promise, your kisses, to hear you say the word, to +get you! I thought you understood. It was all so clear to me. I +thought you knew. That was why I was so glad to go, so eager to +get away that I could not even realize I was parting from you--so I +could the sooner reach Quebec--reach you! Don't you see how I +felt? All this present was merely something to get over, to pass +by, to put behind us until I got to Quebec in August--and you. I +looked forward so eagerly to that, I was so anxious to get away, I +was desirous of hastening on to the time when things could be +_sure_! Don't you understand?" + +"Yes, I think I do," replied the girl, softly. + +"And I thought of course you knew, I should not have kissed you +otherwise." + +"How could I know?" she sighed. "You said nothing, and, oh! I +_wanted_ so to hear!" + +And singularly enough he said nothing now, but they stood facing +each other hand in hand, while the great vibrant life they were now +touching so closely filled their hearts and eyes, and left them +faint. So they stood for hours or for seconds, they could not +tell, spirit-hushed, ecstatic. The girl realized that they must +part. + +"You must go," she whispered brokenly, at last. "I do not want you +to, but you must." + +She smiled up at him with trembling lips that whispered to her soul +that she must be brave. + +"Now go," she nerved herself to say, releasing her hands. + +"Tell me," he commanded. + +"What?" she asked. + +"What I most want to hear." + +"I can tell you many things," said she, soberly, "but I do not know +which of them you want to hear. Ah, Ned. I can tell you that you +have come into a girl's life to make her very happy and very much +afraid. And that is a solemn thing; is it not?" + +"Yes," said he. + +"And I can tell you that this can never be undone. That is a +solemn thing, too, is it not?" + +"Yes," said he. + +"And that, according as you treat her, this girl will believe or +not believe in the goodness of all men or the badness of all men. +Ah, Ned, a woman's heart is fragile, and mine is in your keeping." + +Her face was raised bravely and steadily to his. In the starlight +it shone white and pathetic. And her eyes were two liquid wells of +darkness in the shadow, and her half-parted lips were wistful and +childlike. + +The man caught both her hands, again looking down on her. Then he +answered her, solemnly and humbly. + +"Virginia," said he, "I am setting out on a perilous Journey. As I +deal with you, may God deal with me." + +"Ah, that is as I like you," she breathed. + +"Good-by," said he. + +She raised her lips of her own accord, and he kissed them +reverently. + +"Good-by," she murmured. + +He turned away with an effort and ran down the beach to the canoe. + +"Good-by, good-by," she murmured, under her breath. "Ah, good-by! +I love you! Oh, I do love you!" + +Then suddenly from the bushes leaped dark figures. The still night +was broken by the sound of a violent scuffle--blows--a fall. She +heard Ned Trent's voice calling to her from the _melee_. + +"Go back at once!" he commanded, clearly and steadily. "You can do +no good. I order you to go home before they search the woods." + +But she crouched in dazed terror, her pupils wide to the dim light. +She saw them bind him, and stand waiting; she saw a canoe glide out +of the darkness; she saw the occupants of the canoe disembark; she +saw them exhibit her little rifle, and heard them explain in Cree, +that they had followed the man swimming. Then she knew that the +cause was lost, and fled as swiftly as she could through the forest. + + + + +Chapter Fifteen + +Galen Albret had chosen to interrogate his recaptured prisoner +alone. He sat again, in the arm-chair of the Council Room. The +place was flooded with sun. It touched the high-lights of the +time-darkened, rough furniture, it picked out the brasses, it +glorified the whitewashed walls. In its uncompromising +illumination Me-en-gan, the bows-man, standing straight and tall +and silent by the door, studied his master's face and knew him to +be deeply angered. + +For Galen Albret was at this moment called upon to deal with a +problem more subtle than any with which his policy had been puzzled +in thirty years. It was bad enough that, in repeated defiance of +his authority, this stranger should persist in his attempt to break +the Company's monopoly; it was bad enough that he had, when +captured, borne himself with so impudent an air of assurance; it +was bad enough that he should have made open love to the Factor's +daughter, should have laughed scornfully in the Factor's very face. +But now the case had become grave. In some mysterious manner he +had succeeded in corrupting one of the Company's servants. +Treachery was therefore to be dealt with. + +Some facts Galen Albret had well in hand. Others eluded him +persistently. He had, of course, known promptly enough of the +disappearance of a canoe, and had thereupon dispatched his Indians +to the recapture. The Reverend Archibald Crane had reported that +two figures had been seen in the act of leaving camp, one by the +river, the other by the Woods Trail. But here the Factor's +investigations encountered a check. The rifle brought in by his +Indians, to his bewilderment, he recognized not at all. His +repeated cross-questionings, when they touched on the question of +Ned Trent's companion, got no farther than the Cree wooden +stolidity. No, they had seen no one, neither presence, sign, nor +trail. But Galen Albret, versed in the psychology of his savage +allies, knew they lied. He suspected them of clan loyalty to one +of their own number; and yet they had never failed him before. +Now, his heavy revolver at his right hand, he interviewed Ned +Trent, alone, except for the Indian by the portal. + +As with the Indians, his cross-examination had borne scant results. +The best of his questions but involved him in a maze of baffling +surmises. Gradually his anger had mounted, until now the Indian at +the door knew by the wax-like appearance of the more prominent +places on his deeply carved countenance that he had nearly reached +the point of outbreak. + +Swiftly, like the play of rapiers, the questions and answers broke +across the still room. + +"You had aid," the Factor asserted, positively. + +"You think so?" + +"My Indians say you were alone. But where did you get this rifle?" + +"I stole it." + +"You were alone?" + +Ned Trent paused for a barely appreciable instant. It was not +possible that the Indians had failed to establish the girl's +presence, and he feared a trap. Then he caught the expressive eye +of Me-en-gan at the door. Evidently Virginia had friends. + +"I was alone," he repeated, confidently. + +"That is a lie. For though my Indians were deceived, two people +were observed by my clergyman to leave the Post immediately before +I sent out to your capture. One rounded the island in a canoe; the +other took the Woods Trail." + +"Bully for the Church," replied Trent, imperturbably. "Better +promote him to your scouts." + +"Who was that second person?" + +"Do you think I will tell you?" + +"I think I'll find means to make you tell me!" burst out the Factor. + +Ned Trent was silent. + +"If you'll tell me the name of that man I'll let you go free. I'll +give you a permit to trade in the country. It touches my +authority--my discipline. The affair becomes a precedent. It is +vital." + +Ned Trent fixed his eyes on the bay and hummed a little air, half +turning his shoulder to the older man. + +The latter's face blazed with suppressed fury. Twice his hand +rested almost convulsively on the butt of his heavy revolver. + +"Ned Trent," he cried, harshly, at last, "pay attention to me. +I've had enough of this. I swear if you do not tell me what I want +to know within five minutes, I'll hang you to-day!" + +The young man spun on his heel. + +"Hanging!" he cried. "You cannot mean that?" + +The Free Trader measured him up and down, saw that his purpose was +sincere, and turned slowly pale under the bronze of his out-of-door +tan. Hanging is always a dreadful death, but in the Far North it +carries an extra stigma of ignominy with it, inasmuch as it is +resorted to only with the basest malefactors. Shooting is the +usual form of execution for all but the most despicable crimes. He +turned away with a little gesture. + +"Well!" cried Albret. + +Ned Trent locked his lips in a purposeful straight line of silence. +To such an outrage there could be nothing to say. The Factor +jerked his watch to the table. + +"I said five minutes," he repeated. "I mean it." + +The young man leaned against the side at the window, his arms +folded, his back to the room. Outside, the varied life of the Post +went forward under his eyes. He even noted with a surface interest +the fact that out across the river a loon was floating, and +remarked that never before had he seen one of those birds so far +north. Galen Albret struck the table with the flat of his hand. + +"Done!" he cried. "This is the last chance I shall give you. +Speak at this instant or accept the consequences!" + +Ned Trent turned sharply, as though breaking a thread that bound +him to the distant prospect beyond the window. For an instant he +stared enigmatically at his opponent. Then in the sweetest tones, + +"Oh, go to the devil!" said he, and began to walk deliberately +toward the older man. + +There lay between the window and the head of the table perhaps a +dozen ordinary Steps, for the room was large. The young man took +them slowly, his eyes fixed with burning intensity on the seated +figure, the muscles of his locomotion contracting and relaxing with +the smooth, stealthy continuity of a cat. Galen Albret again laid +hand on his revolver. + +"Come no nearer," he commanded. + +Me-en-gan left the door and glided along the wall. But the table +intervened between him and the Free Trader. + +The latter paid no attention to the Factor's command. Galen Albret +suddenly raised his weapon from the table. + +"Stop, or I'll fire!" he cried, sharply. + +"I mean just that." said Ned Trent between his clenched teeth. + +But ten feet separated the two men. Galen Albret levelled the +revolver. Ned Trent, watchful, prepared to spring. Me-en-gan, +near the foot of the table, gathered himself for attack. + +Then suddenly the Free Trader relaxed his muscles, straightened his +back, and returned deliberately to the window. Facing about in +astonishment to discover the reason for this sudden change of +decision, the other two men looked into the face of Virginia +Albret, standing in the doorway of the other room. + +"Father!" she cried. + +"You must go back," said Ned Trent speaking clearly and +collectedly, in the hope of imposing his will on her obvious +excitement. "This is not an affair in which you should interfere. +Galen Albret, send her away." + +The Factor had turned squarely in his heavy arm-chair to regard the +girl, a frown on his brows. + +"Virginia," he commanded, in deliberate, stern tones of authority, +"leave the room. You have nothing to do with this case, and I do +not desire your interference." + +Virginia stepped bravely beyond the portals, and stopped. Her +fingers were nervously interlocked, her lip trembled, in her cheeks +the color came and went, but her eyes met her father's, unfaltering. + +"I have more to do with it than you think." she replied. + +Instantly Ned Trent was at the table. "I really think this has +gone far enough," he interposed. "We have had our interview and +come to a decision. Miss Albret must not be permitted to +exaggerate a slight sentiment of pity into an interest in my +affairs. If she knew that such a demonstration only made it worse +for me I am sure she would say no more." He looked at her +appealingly across the Factor's shoulder. + +Me-en-gan was already holding open the door. "You come," he +smiled, beseechingly. + +But the Factor's suspicions were aroused. + +"There is something in this," he decided. "I think you may stay, +Virginia." + +"You are right," broke in the young man, desperately. "There is +something in it. Miss Albret knows who gave me the rifle, and she +was about to inform you of his identity. There is no need in +subjecting her to that distasteful ordeal. I am now ready to +confess to you. I beg you will ask her to leave the room." + +Galen Albret, in the midst of these warring intentions, had sunk +into his customary impassive calm. The light had died from his +eyes, the expression from his face, the energy from his body. He +sat, an inert mass, void of initiative, his intelligence open to +what might be brought to his notice. + +"Virginia, this is true?" his heavy, dead voice rumbled through his +beard. "You know who aided this man?" + +Ned. Trent mutely appealed to her: her glance answered his. + +"Yes, father," she replied. + +"Who?" + +"I did." + +A dead silence fell on the room. Galen Albret's expression and +attitude did not change. Through dull, lifeless eyes, from behind +the heavy mask of his waxen face and white beard, he looked +steadily out upon nothing. Along either arm of the chair stretched +his own arms limp and heavy with inertia. In suspense the other +three inmates of the place watched him, waiting for some change. +It did not come. Finally his lips moved. + +"You?" he muttered, questioningly, + +"I," she repeated + +Another silence fell. + +"Why?" he asked at last. + +"Because it was an unjust thing. Because we could not think of +taking a life in that way, without some reason for it." + +"Why?" he persisted, taking no account of her reply. + +Virginia let her gaze slowly rest on the Free Trader, and her eyes +filled with a world of tenderness and trust. + +"Because I love him," said she, softly. + + + + +Chapter Sixteen + +After an instant Galen Albret turned slowly his massive head and +looked at her. He made no other movement, yet she staggered back +as though she had received a violent blow on the chest. + +"Father!" she gasped. + +Still slowly, gropingly, he arose to his feet, holding tight to the +edge of the table. Behind him unheeded the rough-built armchair +crashed to the floor. He stood there upright and motionless, +looking straight before him, his face formidable. At first his +speech was disjointed. The words came in widely punctuated gasps. +Then, as the wave of his emotion rolled back from the poise into +which the first shock of anger had thrown it, it escaped through +his lips in a constantly increasing stream of bitter words. + +"You--you love him," he cried. "You--my daughter! You have been--a +traitor--to me! You have dared--dared--deny that which my whole +life has affirmed! My own flesh and blood--when I thought the +nearest _metis_ of them all more loyal! You love this man--this +man who has insulted me, mocked me! You have taken his part +against me! You have deliberately placed yourself in the class of +those I would hang for such an offence! If you were not my +daughter I would hang you. Hang my own child!" Suddenly his rage +flared. "You little fool! Do you dare set your judgment against +mine? Do you dare interfere where I think well? Do you dare deny +my will? By the eternal, I'll show you, old as you are, that you +have still a father! Get to your room! Out of my sight!" He took +two steps forward, and so his eye fell on Ned Trent. He uttered a +scream of rage, and reached for the pistol. Fortunately the +abruptness of his movement when he arose had knocked it to the +floor, so now in the blindness of a red anger he could not see it. +He shrieked out an epithet and jumped forward, his arm drawn to +strike. Ned Trent leaped back into an attitude of defence. + +All three of those present had many times seen Galen Albret +possessed by his noted fits of anger, so striking in contrast to +his ordinary contained passivity. But always, though evidently in +a white heat of rage and given to violent action and decision, he +had retained the clearest command of his faculties, issuing +coherent and dreaded orders to those about him. Now he bad become +a raging wild beast. And for the spectators the sight had all the +horror of the unprecedented. + +But the younger man, too, had gradually heated to the point where +his ordinary careless indifference could give off sparks. The +interview had been baffling, the threats real and unjust, the turn +of affairs when Virginia Albret entered the room most exasperating +on the side of the undesirable and unforeseen. In foiled escape, +in thwarted expedient, his emotions had been many times excited, +and then eddied back on themselves. The potentialities of as blind +an anger as that of Galen Albret were in him. It only needed a +touch to loose the flood. The physical threat of a blow supplied +that touch. As the two men faced each other both were ripe for the +extreme of recklessness. + +But while Galen Albret looked to nothing less than murder, the +Free-Trader's individual genius turned to dead defiance and +resistance of will. While Galen Albret's countenance reflected the +height of passion, Trent was as smiling and cool and debonair as +though he had at that moment received from the older man an +extraordinary and particular favor. Only his eyes shot a baleful +blue flame, and his words, calmly enough delivered, showed the +extent to which his passion had cast policy to the winds. + +"Don't go too far! I warn you!" said he. As though the words had +projected him bodily forward, Galen Albret sprang to deliver his +blow. The Free Trader ducked rapidly, threw his shoulder across +the middle of the older man's body, and by the very superiority of +his position forced his antagonist to give ground. That the +struggle would have then continued body to body there can be no +doubt, had it not been for the fact that the Factor's retrogressive +movement brought his knees sharply against the edge of a chair +standing near the side of the table. Albret lost his balance, +wavered, and finally sat down violently. Ned Trent promptly pinned +him by the shoulder into powerless immobility. Me-en-gan had +possessed himself of the fallen pistol, but beyond keeping a +generally wary eye out for dangerous developments, did not offer to +interfere. Your Indian is in such a crisis a disciplinarian, and +he had received no orders. + +"Now," said Ned Trent, acidly, "I think this will stop right here. +You do not cut a very good figure, my dear sir," he laughed a +little. "You haven't cut a very good figure from the beginning, +you know. You forbade me to do various things, and I have done +them all. I traded with your Indians. I came and went in your +country. Do you think I have not been here often before I was +caught? And you forbade me to see your daughter again. I saw her +that very evening, and the next morning and the next evening." + +He stood, still holding Galen Albret immovably in the chair, +looking steadily and angrily into the leader's eyes, driving each +word home with the weight of his contained passion. The girl +touched his arm. + +"Hush! oh, hush!" she cried in a panic. "Do not anger him further!" + +"When you forbade me to make love to her," he continued, unheeding, +"I laughed at you." With a sudden, swift motion of his left arm he +drew her to him and touched her forehead with his lips. "Look! +Your commands have been rather ridiculous, sir. I seem to have had +the upper hand of you from first to last. Incidentally you have my +life. Oh, welcome! That is small pay and little satisfaction." + +He threw himself from the Factor and stepped back. + +Galen Albret sat still without attempting to renew the struggle. +The enforced few moments of inaction had restored to him his +self-control. He was still deeply angered, but the insanity of +rage had left him. Outwardly he was himself again. Only a rapid +heaving of his chest answered Ned Trent's quick breathing, as the +two men glared defiantly at each other in the pause that followed. + +"Very well, sir," said the Factor, curtly, at last. "Your time is +over. I find it unnecessary to hang you. You will start, on your +_Longue Traverse_ to-day." + +"Oh!" cried Virginia, in a low voice of agony, and fluttered to her +lover's side. + +"Hush! hush!" he soothed her. "There is a chance." + +"You think so?" broke in Galen Albret, harshly. And looking at his +set face and blazing eyes, they saw that there was no chance. The +Free Trader shrugged his shoulders. + +"You are going to do this thing, father," appealed Virginia, "after +what I have told you?" + +"My mind is made up." + +"I shall not survive him, father!" she threatened, in a low voice. +Then, as the Factor did not respond, "Do not misunderstand me. I +do not intend to survive him." + +"Silence! silence! silence!" cried Galen Albret, in a crescendo +outburst. "Silence! I will not be gainsaid! You have made your +choice! You are no longer a daughter of mine!" + +"Father!" cried Virginia, faintly, her lips going pale. + +"Don't speak to me! Don't look at me! Get out of here! Get out +of the place! I won't have you here another day--another hour! +By----" + +The girl hesitated for a moment, then ran to him, sinking on her +knees, and clasping his hand. + +"Father," she pleaded, "you are not yourself. This has been very +trying to you. To-morrow you will be sorry. But then it will be +too late. Think, while there is yet time. He has not committed a +crime. You yourself told me he was a man of intelligence and +daring--a gentleman; and surely, though he has been hasty, he has +acted with a brave spirit through it all. See, he will promise you +to go away quietly, to say nothing of all this, never to come into +this country again without your permission. He will do this if I +ask him, for he loves me. Look at me, father. Are you going to +treat your little girl so--your Virginia? You have never refused +me anything before. And this is the greatest thing in all my +life." She held his hand to her cheek and stroked it, murmuring +little feminine, caressing phrases, secure in her power of +witchery, which had never failed her before. The sound of her own +voice reassured her, the quietude of the man she pleaded with. A +lifetime of petting, of indulgence, threw its soothing influence +over her perturbation, convincing her that somehow all this storm +and stress must be phantasmagoric--a dream from which she was even +now awakening into a clearer day of happiness. "For you love me, +father," she concluded, and looked up daintily, with a pathetic, +coquettish tilt of her fair head, to peer into his face. + +Galen Albret snarled like a wild beast, throwing aside the girl, as +he did the chair in which he had been sitting. Ned Trent caught +her, reeling, in his arms. + +For as is often the case with passionate but strong temperaments, +though the Factor had attained a certain calm of control, the +turmoil of his deeper anger had not been in the least stilled. +Over it a crust of determination had formed--the determination to +make an end by the directest means in his autocratic power of this +galling opposition. The girl's pleading, instead of appealing to +him, had in reality but stirred his fury the more profoundly. It +had added a new fuel element to the fire. Heretofore his +consciousness had felt merely the thwarting of his pride, his +authority, his right to loyalty. Now his daughter's entreaty +brought home to him the bitter realization that he had been +attained on another side--that of his family affection. This man +had also killed for him his only child. For the child had +renounced him, had thrust him outside herself into the lonely and +ruined temple of his pride. At the first thought his face twisted +with emotion, then hardened to cold malice. + +"Love you!" he cried. "Love you! An unnatural child! An ingrate! +One who turns from me so lightly!" He laughed bitterly, eyeing her +with chilling scrutiny. "You dare recall my love for you!" +Suddenly he stood upright, levelling a heavy, trembling arm at her. +"You think an appeal to my love will save him! Fool!" + +Virginia's breath caught in her throat. She straightened, clutched +the neckband of her gown. Then her head fell slowly forward. She +had fainted in her lover's arms. + +They stood exactly so for an appreciable interval, bewildered by +the suddenness of this outcome; Galen Albret's hand outstretched in +denunciation; the girl like a broken lily, supported in the young +man's arms; he searching her face passionately for a sign of life; +Me-en-gan, straight and sorrowful, again at the door. + +Then the old man's arm dropped slowly, His gaze wavered. The lines +of his face relaxed. Twice he made an effort to turn away. All at +once his stubborn spirit broke; he uttered a cry, and sprang +forward to snatch the unconscious form hungrily into his bear +clasp, searching the girl's face, muttering incoherent things. + +"Quick!" he cried, aloud, the guttural sounds jostling one another +in his throat. "Get Wishkobun, quick!" + +Ned Trent looked at him with steady scorn, his arms folded. + +"Ah!" he dropped distinctly in deliberate monosyllables across the +surcharged atmosphere of the scene. "So it seems you have found +your heart, my friend!" + +Galen Albret glared wildly at him over the girl's fair head. + +"She is my daughter," he mumbled. + + + + +Chapter Seventeen + +They carried the unconscious girl into the dim-lighted apartment of +the curtained windows, and laid her on the divan. Wishkobun, +hastily summoned, unfastened the girl's dress at the throat. + +"It is a faint," she announced in her own tongue. "She will +recover in a few minutes; I will get some water." + +Ned Trent wiped the moisture from his forehead with his +handkerchief. The danger he had undergone coolly, but this +overcame his iron self-control. Galen Albret, like an anxious +bear, weaved back and forth the length of the couch. In him the +rumble of the storm was but just echoing into distance. + +"Go into the next room," he growled at the Free Trader, when +finally he noticed the latter's presence. + +Ned Trent hesitated. + +"Go, I say!" snarled the Factor. "You can do nothing here." He +followed the young man to the door, which he closed with his own +hand, and then turned back to the couch on which his daughter lay. +In the middle of the floor his foot clicked on some small object. +Mechanically lie picked it up. + +It proved to be a little silver match-safe of the sort universally +used in the Far North. Evidently the Free Trader had nipped it +from his pocket with his handkerchief, The Factor was about to +thrust it into his own pocket, when his eye caught lettering +roughly carved across one side. Still mechanically, he examined it +more closely, The lettering was that of a man's name. The man's +name was Graehme Stewart. + +Without thinking of what he did, he dropped the object on the small +table, and returned anxiously to the girl's side, cursing the +tardiness of the Indian woman. But in a moment Wishkobun returned. + +"Will she recover?" asked the Factor, distracted at the woman's +deliberate examination. + +The latter smiled her indulgent, slow smile. "But surely," she +assured him in her own tongue, "it is no more than if she cut her +finger. In a few breaths she will recover. Now I will go to the +house of the Cockburn for a morsel of the sweet wood [camphor] +which she must smell." She looked her inquiry for permission. + +"Sagaamig--go," assented Albret. + +Relieved in mind, he dropped into a chair. His eye caught the +little silver match-safe, He picked it up and fell to staring at +the rudely carved letters. + +He found that he was alone with his daughter--and the thoughts +aroused by the dozen letters of a man's name. + +All his life long he had been a hard man. His commands had been +autocratic; his anger formidable; his punishments severe, and +sometimes cruel. The quality of mercy was with him tenuous and +weak. He knew this, and if he did not exactly glory in it, he was +at least indifferent to its effect on his reputation with others. +But always he had been just. The victims of his displeasure might +complain that his retributive measures were harsh, that his +forgiveness could not be evoked by even the most extenuating of +circumstances, but not that his anger had ever been baseless or the +punishment undeserved. Thus he had held always his own +self-respect, and from his self-respect had proceeded his iron and +effective rule. + +So in the case of the young man with whom now his thoughts were +occupied. Twice he had warned him from the country without the +punishment which the third attempt rendered imperative. The events +succeeding his arrival at Conjuror's House warmed the Factor's +anger to the heat of almost preposterous retribution perhaps--for +after all a man's life is worth something, even in the wilds--but +it was actually retribution, and not merely a ruthless proof of +power. It might be justice as only the Factor saw it, but it was +still essentially justice--in the broader sense that to each act +had followed a definite consequence. Although another might have +condemned his conduct as unnecessarily harsh, Galen Albret's +conscience was satisfied and at rest. + +Nor had his resolution been permanently affected by either the +girl's threat to make away with herself or by his momentary +softening when she had fainted. The affair was thereby +complicated, but that was all. In the sincerity of the threat he +recognized his own iron nature, and was perhaps a little pleased at +its manifestation. He knew she intended to fulfil her promise not +to survive her lover, but at the moment this did not reach his +fears; it only aroused further his dogged opposition. + +The Free Trader's speech as he left the room, however, had touched +the one flaw in Galen Albret's confidence of righteousness. +Wearied with the struggles and the passions he had undergone, his +brain numbed, his will for the moment in abeyance, he seated +himself and contemplated the images those two words had called up. + +Graehme Stewart! That man he had first met at Fort Rae over twenty +years ago. It was but just after he had married Virginia's mother. +At once his imagination, with the keen pictorial power of those who +have dwelt long in the Silent Places, brought forward the other +scene--that of his wooing. He had driven his dogs into Fort la +Cloche after a hard day's run in seventy-five degrees of frost. +Weary, hungry, half-frozen, he had staggered into the fire-lit +room. Against the blaze he had caught for a moment a young girl's +profile, lost as she turned her face toward him in startled +question of his entrance. Men had cared for his dogs. The girl +had brought him hot tea. In the corner of the fire they two had +whispered one to the other--the already grizzled traveller of the +silent land, the fresh, brave north-maiden. At midnight, their +parkas drawn close about their faces in the fearful cold, they had +met outside the inclosure of the Post. An hour later they were +away under the aurora for Qu'Apelle. Galen Albret's nostrils +expanded as he heard the _crack, crack, crack_ of the remorseless +dog-whip whose sting drew him away from the vain pursuit. After +the marriage at Qu'Apelle they had gone a weary journey to Rae, and +there he had first seen Graehme Stewart. + +Fort Rae is on the northwestward arm of the Great Slave Lake in the +country of the Dog Ribs, only four degrees under the Arctic Circle. +It is a dreary spot, for the Barren Grounds are near. Men see only +the great lake, the great sky, the great gray country. They become +moody, fanciful. In the face of the silence they have little to +say. At Port Rae were old Jock Wilson, the Chief Trader; Father +Bonat, the priest; Andrew Levoy, the _metis_ clerk; four Dog Rib +teepees; Galen Albret and his bride; and Graehme Stewart. + +Jock Wilson was sixty-five; Father Bonat had no age; Andrew Levoy +possessed the years of dour silence. Only Graehme Stewart and +Elodie, bride of Albret, were young. In the great gray country +their lives were like spots of color on a mist. Galen Albret +finally became jealous. + +At first there was nothing to be done, but finally Levoy brought to +the older man proof of the younger's guilt. The harsh traveller +bowed his head and wept. But since he loved Elodie more than +himself--which was perhaps the only redeeming feature of this sorry +business--he said nothing, nor did more than to journey south to +Edmonton, leaving the younger man alone in Fort Rae to the White +Silence. But his soul was stirred. + +In the course of nature and of time Galen Albret had a daughter, +but lost a wife. It was no longer necessary for him to leave his +wrong unavenged. Then began a series of baffling hindrances which +resulted finally in his stooping to means repugnant to his open +sense of what was due himself. At the first he could not travel to +his enemy because of the child in his care; when finally he had +succeeded in placing the little girl where he would be satisfied to +leave her, he himself was suddenly and peremptorily called east to +take a post in Rupert's Land. He could not disobey and remain in +the Company, and the Company was more to him than life or revenue. +The little girl he left in Sacre Coeur of Quebec; he himself took +up his residence in the Hudson Bay country. After a few years, +becoming lonely for his own flesh and blood, he sent for his +daughter. There, as Factor, he gained a vast power, and this power +he turned into the channels of his hatred. Graehme Stewart felt +always against him the hand of influence. His posts in the +Company's service became intolerable. At length, in indignation +against continued injustice, oppression, and insult, he resigned, +broken in fortune and in prospects. He became one of the earliest +Free Traders on the Saskatchewan, devoting his energies to enraged +opposition of the Company which had wronged him. In the space of +three short years he had met a violent and striking death; for the +early days of the Free Trader were adventurous. Galen Albret's +revenge had struck home. + +Then in after years the Factor had again met with Andrew Levoy. +The man staggered into Conjuror's House late at night, He had +started from Winnipeg to descend the Albany River, but had met with +mishap and starvation. One by one his dogs had died. In some +blind fashion he pushed on for days after his strength and sanity +had left him. Mu-hi-kun had brought him in. His toes and fingers +had frozen and dropped off; his face was a mask of black +frost-bitten flesh, in which deep fissures opened to the raw. He +had gone snow-blind. Scarcely was he recognizable as a human being. + +From such a man in extremity could come nothing but the truth, so +Galen Albret believed him. Before Andrew Levoy died that night he +told of his deceit. The Factor left the room with the weight of a +crime on his conscience. For Graehme Stewart had been innocent of +any wrong toward him or his bride. + +Such was the story Galen Albret saw in the little silver match-box. +That was the one flaw in his consciousness of righteousness; the +one instance in a long career when his ruthless acts of punishment +or reprisal had not rested on rigid justice, and by the irony of +fate the one instance had touched him very near. Now here before +him was his enemy's son--he wondered that he had not discovered the +resemblance before--and he was about to visit on him the severest +punishment in his power. Was not this an opportunity vouchsafed +him to repair his ancient fault, to cleanse his conscience of the +one sin of the kind it would acknowledge? + +But then over him swept the same blur of jealousy that had resulted +in Graehme Stewart's undoing. This youth wooed his daughter; he +had won her affections away. Strangely enough Galen Albret +confused the new and the old; again youth cleaved to youth, leaving +age apart. Age felt fiercely the desire to maintain its own. The +Factor crushed the silver match-box between his great palms and +looked up. His daughter lay before him, still, lifeless. +Deliberately he rested his chin on his hands and contemplated her. + +The room, as always, was full of contrast; shafts of light, +dust-moted, bewildering, crossed from the embrasured windows, +throwing high-lights into prominence and shadows into impenetrable +darkness. They rendered the gray-clad figure of the girl vague and +ethereal, like a mist above a stream; they darkened the dull-hued +couch on which she rested into a liquid, impalpable black; they +hazed the draped background of the corner into a far-reaching +distance; so that finally to Galen Albret, staring with hypnotic +intensity, it came to seem that he looked upon a pure and +disembodied spirit sleeping sweetly--cradled on illimitable space. +The ordinary and familiar surroundings all disappeared. His +consciousness accepted nothing but the cameo profile of marble +white, the nimbus of golden haze about the head, the mist-like +suggestion of a body, and again the clear marble spot of the hands. +All else was a background of modulated depths. + +So gradually the old man's spirit, wearied by the stress of the +last hour, turned in on itself and began to create. The cameo +profile, the mist-like body, the marble hands remained; but now +Galen Albret saw other things as well. A dim, rare perfume was +wafted from some unseen space; indistinct flashes of light spotted +the darknesses; faint swells of music lifted the silence +intermittently. These things were small and still, and under the +external consciousness--like the voices one may hear beneath the +roar of a tumbling rapid--but gradually they defined themselves. +The perfume came to Galen Albret's nostrils on the wings of +incensed smoke; the flashes of light steadied to the ovals of +candle flames; the faint swells of music blended into +grand-breathed organ chords. He felt about him the dim awe of the +church, he saw the tapers burning at head and foot, the clear, calm +face of the dead, smiling faintly that at last it should be no more +disturbed. So had he looked all one night and all one day in the +long time ago. The Factor stretched his arms out to the figure on +the couch, but he called upon his wife, gone these twenty years. + +"Elodie! Elodie!" he murmured, softly. She had never known it, +thank God, but he had wronged her too. In all sorrow and sweet +heavenly pity he had believed that her youth had turned to the +youth of the other man. It had not been so. Did be not owe her, +too, some reparation? + +As though in answer to his appeal, or perhaps that merely the sound +of a human voice had broken the last shreds of her swoon, the girl +moved slightly. Galen Albret did not stir. Slowly Virginia turned +her head, until finally her wandering eyes met his, fixed on her +with passionate intensity. For a moment she stared at him, then +comprehension came to her along with memory. She cried out, and sat +upright in one violent motion. + +"He! He!" she cried. "Is he gone?" + +Instantly Galen Albret had her in his arms. + +"It is all right," he soothed, drawing her close to his great +breast. "All right. You are my own little girl." + + + + +Chapter Eighteen + +For perhaps ten minutes Ned Trent lingered near the door of the +Council Room until he had assured himself that Virginia was in no +serious danger. Then he began to pace the room examining minutely +the various objects that ornamented it. He paused longest at the +full length portrait of Sir George Simpson, the Company's great +traveller, with his mild blue eyes, his kindly face, denying the +potency of his official frown, his snowy hair and whiskers. The +painted man and the real man looked at each, other inquiringly. +The latter shook his head. "You travelled the wild country far," +said he, thoughtfully. "You knew many men of many lands. And +wherever you went they tell me you made friends. And yet, as you +embodied this Company to all these people, and so made for the +fanatical loyalty that is destroying me, I suppose you and I are +enemies!" He shrugged his shoulders whimsically and turned away. + +Thence he cast a fleeting glance out the window at the long reach +of the Moose and the blue bay gleaming in the distance. He tried +the outside door. It was locked. Taken with a new idea he +proceeded at once to the third door of the apartment. It opened. + +He found himself in a small and much-littered room containing a +desk, two chairs, a vast quantity of papers, a stuffed bird or so, +and a row of account-books. Evidently the Factor's private office, + +Ned Trent returned to the main room and listened intently for +several minutes. After that he ran back to the office and began +hastily to open and rummage, one after another, the drawers of the +desk. He discovered and concealed several bits of string, a +desk-knife, and a box of matches. Then he uttered a guarded +exclamation of delight. He had found a small revolver, and with it +part of a box of cartridges. + +"A chance!" he exulted: "a chance!" + +The game would be desperate. He would be forced first of all to +seek out and kill the men detailed to shadow him--a toy revolver +against rifles; white man against trained savages. And after that +he would have, with the cartridges remaining, to assure his +subsistence. Still it was a chance. + +He closed the drawers and the door, and resumed his seat in the +arm-chair by the council table. + +For over an hour thereafter he awaited the next move in the game. +He was already swinging up the pendulum arc. The case did not +appear utterly hopeless. He resolved, through Me-en-gan, whom he +divined as a friend of the girl's, to smuggle a message to Virginia +bidding her hope. Already his imagination had conducted him to +Quebec, when in August he would search her out and make her his own. + +Soon one of the Indian servants entered the room for the purpose of +conducting him to a smaller apartment, where he was left alone for +some time longer. Food was brought him. He ate heartily, for he +considered that wise. Then at last the summons for which he had +been so long in readiness. Me-en-gan himself entered the room, and +motioned him to follow. + +Ned Trent had already prepared his message on the back of an +envelope, writing ft with the lead of a cartridge. He now pressed +the bit of paper into the Indian's palm. + +"For O-mi-mi," he explained. + +Me-en-gan, bored him through with his bead-like eyes of the surface +lights. + +"Nin nissitotam," he agreed after a moment. + +He led the way. Ned Trent followed through the narrow, uncarpeted +hall with the faded photograph of Westminster, down the crooked +steep stairs with the creaking degrees, and finally into the +Council Room once more, with its heavy rafters, its two fireplaces, +its long table, and its narrow windows, + +"Beka--wait!" commanded Me-en-gan, and left him. + +Ned Trent had supposed he was being conducted to the canoe which +should bear him on the first stage of his long journey, but now he +seemed condemned again to take up the wearing uncertainty of +inaction. The interval was not long, however. Almost immediately +the other door opened and the Factor entered. + +His movements were abrupt and impatient, for with whatever grace +such a man yields to his better instincts the actual carrying out +of their conditions is a severe trial. For one thing it is a +species of emotional nakedness, invariably repugnant to the +self-contained. Ned Trent, observing this and misinterpreting its +cause, hugged the little revolver to his side with grim +satisfaction. The interview was likely to be stormy. If worst +came to worst, he was at least assured of reprisal before his own +end. + +The Factor walked directly to the head of the table and his +customary arm-chair, in which he disposed himself. + +"Sit down," he commanded the younger man, indicating a chair at his +elbow. + +The latter warily obeyed. + +Galen Albret hesitated appreciably. Then, as one would make a +plunge into cold water, quickly, in one motion, he laid on the +table something over which he held his hand. + +"You are wondering why I am interviewing you again," said he. "It +is because I have become aware of certain things. When you left me +a few hours ago you dropped this." He moved his hand to one side. +The silver match-safe lay on the table. + +"Yes, it is mine," agreed Ned Trent, + +"On one side is carved a name." + +"Yes." + +"Whose?" + +The Free Trader hesitated. "My father's," he said, at last. + +"I thought that must be so. You will understand when I tell you +that at one time I knew him very well." + +"You knew my father?" cried Ned Trent, excitedly. + +"Yes. At Fort Rae, and elsewhere. But I do not remember you." + +"I was brought up at Winnipeg," the other explained. + +"Once," pursued Galen Albret, "I did your father a wrong, +unintentionally, but nevertheless a great wrong. For that reason +and others I am going to give you your life." + +"What wrong?" demanded Ned Trent, with dawning excitement. + +"I forced him from the Company." + +"You!" + +"Yes, I. Proof was brought me that he had won from me my young +wife. It could not be doubted. I could not kill him. Afterward +the man who deceived me confessed. He is now dead." + +Ned Trent, gasping, rose slowly to his feet. One hand stole inside +his jacket and clutched the butt of the little pistol. + +"You did that," he cried, hoarsely. "You tell me of it yourself? +Do you wish to know the real reason for my coming into this +country, why I have traded in defiance of the Company throughout +the whole Far North? I have thought my father was persecuted by a +body of men, and though I could not do much, still I have +accomplished what I could to avenge him. Had I known that a single +man had done this--and you are that man!" + +He came a step nearer. Galen Albret regarded him steadily. + +"If I had known this before, I should never have rested until I had +hunted you down, until I had killed you, even in the midst of your +own people!" cried the Free Trader at last. + +Galen Albret drew his heavy revolver and laid it on the table. + +"Do so now," he said, quietly. + +A pause fell on them, pregnant with possibility. The Free Trader +dropped his head. + +"No," he groaned. "No, I cannot. She stands in the way!" + +"So that, after all," concluded the Factor, in a gentler tone than +he had yet employed, "we two shall part peaceably. I have wronged +you greatly, though without intention. Perhaps one balances the +other. We will let it pass." + +"Yes," agreed Ned Trent with an effort, "we will let it pass." + +They mused in silence, while the Factor drummed on the table with +the stubby fingers of his right hand. + +"I am dispatching to-day," he announced curtly at length, "the +Abitibi _brigade_. Matters of importance brought by runner from +Rupert's House force me to do so a month earlier than I had +expected. I shall send you out with that _brigade_." + +"Very well." + +"You will find your packs and arms in the canoe, quite intact." + +"Thank you." + +The Factor examined the young man's face with some deliberation. + +"You love my daughter truly?" he asked, quietly. + +"Yes," replied Ned Trent, also quietly. + +"That is well, for she loves you. And," went on the old man, +throwing his massive head back proudly, "my people love well! I +won her mother in a day, and nothing could stay us. God be +thanked, you are a man and brave and clean. Enough of that! I +place the _brigade_ under your command! You must be responsible +for it, for I am sending no other white--the crew are Indians and +_metis_." + +"All right," agreed Ned Trent, indifferently. + +"My daughter you will take to Sacre Coeur at Quebec." + +"Virginia!" cried the young man. + +"I am sending her to Quebec. I had not intended doing so until +July, but the matters from Rupert's House make it imperative now." + +"Virginia goes with me?" + +"Yes." + +"You consent? You----" + +"Young man," said Galen Albret, not unkindly, "I give my daughter +in your charge; that is all. You must take her to Sacre Coeur. +And you must be patient. Next year I shall resign, for I am +getting old, and then we shall see. That is all I can tell you +now." + +He arose abruptly. + +"Come," said he, "they are waiting." + +They threw wide the door and stepped out into the open. A breeze +from the north brought a draught of air like cold water in its +refreshment. The waters of the North sparkled and tossed in the +silvery sun. Ned Trent threw his arms wide in the physical delight +of a new freedom. + +But his companion was already descending the steps. He followed +across the square grass plot to the two bronze guns. A noise of +peoples came down the breeze. In a moment he saw them--the varied +multitude of the Post--gathered to speed the _brigade_ on its +distant journey. + +The little beach was crowded with the Company's people and with +Indians, talking eagerly, moving hither and yon in a shifting +kaleidoscope of brilliant color. Beyond the shore floated the long +canoe, with its curving ends and its emblazonment of the +five-pointed stars. Already its baggage was aboard, its crew in +place, ten men in whose caps slanted long, graceful feathers, which +proved them boatmen of a factor. The women sat amidships. + +When Galen Albret reached the edge of the plateau he stopped, and +laid his hand on the young man's arm. As yet they were +unperceived. Then a single man caught sight of them. He spoke to +another; the two informed still others. In an instant the bright +colors were dotted with upturned faces. + +"Listen," said Galen Albret, in his resonant chest-tones of +authority. "This is my son, and he must be obeyed. I give to him +the command of this _brigade_. See to it." + +Without troubling himself further as to the crowd below, Galen +Albret turned to his companion. + +"I will say good-by," said he, formally. + +"Good-by," replied Ned Trent. + +"All is at peace between us?" + +The Free Trader looked long into the man's sad eyes. The hard, +proud spirit, bowed in knightly expiation of its one fault, for the +first time in a long life of command looked out in petition. + +"All is at peace," repeated Ned Trent. + +They clasped hands. And Virginia, perceiving them so, threw them a +wonderful smile. + + + + +Chapter Nineteen + +Instantly the spell of inaction broke. The crowd recommenced its +babel of jests, advices, and farewells. Ned Trent swung down the +bank to the shore. The boatmen fixed the canoe on the very edge of +floating free. Two of them lifted the young man aboard to a place +on the furs by Virginia Albret's side. At once the crowd pressed +forward, filling up the empty spaces. + +Now Achille Picard bent his shoulders to lift into free water the +stem of the canoe from its touch on the bank. It floated, caught +gently by the back wash of the stronger off-shore current. + +"Good-by, dear," called Mrs. Cockburn. "Remember us!" + +She pressed the Doctor's arm closer to her side. The Doctor waved +his hand, not trusting his masculine self-control to speak. +McDonald, too, stood glum and dour, clasping his wrist behind his +back. Richardson was openly affected. For in Virginia's person +they saw sailing away from their bleak Northern lives the figure of +youth, and they knew that henceforth life must be even drearier. + +"Som' tam' yo' com' back sing heem de res' of dat song!" shouted +Louis Placide to his late captive. "I lak' hear heem!" + +But Galen Albret said nothing, made no sign. Silently and +steadily, run up by some invisible hand, the blood-red banner of +the Company fluttered to the mast-head. Before it, alone, bulked +huge against the sky, dominating the people in the symbolism of his +position there as he did in the realities of everyday life, the +Factor stood, his hands behind his back. Virginia rose to her feet +and stretched her arms out to the solitary figure. + +"Good-by! good-by!" she cried. + +A renewed tempest of cheers and shouts of adieu broke from those +ashore. The paddles dipped once, twice, thrice, and paused. With +one accord those on shore and those in the canoe raised their caps +and said, "Que Dieu vous benisse." A moment's silence followed, +during which the current of the mighty river bore the light craft a +few yards down stream. Then from the ten _voyageurs_ arose a great +shout. + +"Abitibi! Abitibi!" + +Their paddles struck in unison. The water swirled in white, +circular eddies. Instantly the canoe caught its momentum and began +to slip along against the sluggish current. Achille Picard raised +a high tenor voice, fixing the air, + + "En roulant ma boule roulante, + En roulant ma boule" + +And the _voyageurs_ swung into the quaint ballad of the fairy ducks +and the naughty prince with his magic gun. + + "Derrier' ches-nous y-a-t-un 'elang, + En roulant ma boule." + +The girl sank back, dabbing uncertainly at her eyes. "I shall +never see them again," she explained, wistfully. + +The canoe had now caught its speed. Conjuror's House was dropping +astern. The rhythm of the song quickened as the singers told of +how the king's son had aimed at the black duck but killed the white. + + "Ah fils du roi, tu es mechant, + En roulant ma boule, + Toutes les plumes s'en vont au vent, + Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant." + +"Way wik! way wik!" commanded Me-en-gan, sharply, from the bow. + +The men quickened their stroke and shot diagonally across the +current of an eddy. + +"Ni-shi-shin," said Me-en-gan. + +They fell back to the old stroke, rolling out their full-throated +measure. + + "Toutes les plumes s'en vont au vent, + En roulant ma boule, + Trois dames s'en vont les ramassant, + Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant." + +The canoe was now in the smooth rush of the first stretch of +swifter water. The men bent to their work with stiffened elbows. +Achille Picard flashed his white teeth back at the passengers. + +"Ah, mademoiselle, eet is wan long way," he panted. "C'est une +longue traverse!" + +The term was evidently descriptive, but the two smiled +significantly at each other. + +"So you do take _la Longue Traverse_, after all!" marvelled +Virginia. + +Ned Trent clasped her hand. + +"We take it together," he replied. + +Into the distance faded the Post. The canoe rounded a bend. It +was gone. Ahead of them lay their long journey. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Call of the North, by Stewart Edward White + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF THE NORTH *** + +***** This file should be named 11426.txt or 11426.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/4/2/11426/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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