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diff --git a/41962-0.txt b/41962-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6cbcf11 --- /dev/null +++ b/41962-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6942 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41962 *** + + LAW OF THE NORTH + + _Originally published under the title of_ + + EMPERY + + _A Story of Love and Battle in Rupert's Land_ + + BY SAMUEL ALEXANDER WHITE + + AUTHOR OF THE WILDCATTERS, THE STAMPEDERS, ETC. + + + FRONTISPIECE IN COLORS BY + THORNTON D. SKIDMORE + + NEW YORK + GROSSET & DUNLAP + PUBLISHERS + + COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY + OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY + + All rights reserved + + + + +[Illustration: THE PRIEST NOTED THE WEAPON'S MUZZLE THRUSTING DEEPER +INTO THE POWDER] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE BREED OF THE NORTH 9 + + II. THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS 20 + + III. AN ULTIMATUM 33 + + IV. OMENS OF THE LAW 47 + + V. DESIRÉE 66 + + VI. IN THE BLOOD 80 + + VII. LIEGES OF THE WILD 86 + + VIII. THE NOR'WESTER'S FLESH 100 + + IX. WHO RULES HIMSELF 115 + + X. THE CAUSE INVINCIBLE 127 + + XI. TIDINGS OF WAR 137 + + XII. "YOU MAY COME IN A BLIZZARD!" 147 + + XIII. A VOW THAT HELD 157 + + XIV. THE IRON TRAIL 168 + + XV. MASKWA'S FIND 181 + + XVI. THE FIRST BLOW 193 + + XVII. THE HEART OF THE SAVAGE 207 + + XVIII. A DOUBLE SURPRISE 219 + + XIX. NOT IN THE BONDS OF GOD 240 + + XX. THE LONG LEAGUER 250 + + XXI. BLACK FERGUSON'S WILE 274 + + XXII. FAWN AND PANTHER 295 + + XXIII. CONQUEST 315 + + + + +LAW OF THE NORTH + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE BREED OF THE NORTH + + +Before Basil Dreaulond, the Hudson's Bay Company's courier, had won half +the mile-long Nisgowan portage, the familiar noise of men toiling in +pack-harness reached his ears. He stopped automatically and trained his +hearing in mechanical analysis of the sound. This power had grown within +him with every successive year of his wilderness life, and at once he +was aware that a party of considerable size was packing across the +boulder-strewn strip of woodland separating Kinistina Creek from Lac Du +Longe. + +The knowledge gave a wonderful quickness to the courier's rigid, +listening figure. Swinging the canoe from his bulky shoulders, he hid it +swiftly in the tamarack thicket which skirted the blazed passage. The +tump-line was as suddenly slipped from his sweating forehead, and the +pack-sack vanished likewise. Then Dreaulond himself disappeared with a +spring into the green growth like a grouse seeking tangled cover. From +the place of concealment sounded a metallic clink as he made ready his +weapons against the chance of discovery. + +The voyageur was doubtful whether the advancing men were from any of the +Hudson's Bay forts. They might well belong to some of the Northwest Fur +Company's posts. If this were the case, Basil knew it would not be +conducive to his own safety or, what was more important, to the welfare +of the dispatches he carried to encounter single-handed a body of +Nor'westers. He made for his convenience a peep-hole among the pungent +boughs and scrutinized the axe-hewn path where one had to stagger +knee-deep among flinty rock fragments, spear-like stumps, and a chaotic +jumble of logs. + +Stooping to their burdens of canoes, dunnage, and arms, they came, +thick-set giants with the knotted muscle, the clear vision, and the +healthy skin that the strenuous northland life bestows. While they +approached slowly, footing arduously, almost painfully, every step of +the trying way and guarding against slips which meant fractures or +six-month bruises, Dreaulond caught mingling gleams of color about their +attire. As these bright glints took on definition and were resolved into +sashes and leggings of red and blue, the hiding courier made out the +dress of his own Company's men. The cover, now no longer necessary, was +brushed aside for a better view. In the lead he recognized the square +shoulders and mighty breadth of Bruce Dunvegan from Oxford House, a man +of superior education and chief trader to Malcolm Macleod, the Factor. + +When Dunvegan with his hardy brigade of voyageurs came abreast the +courier's shelter, Dreaulond was seized with a sudden spirit of humor, +and launched a long-drawn, far-carrying cry. + +"_Vive le Nor'westaire!_" he bellowed. + +As automatons, actuated by a single controlling spring, the men dropped +whatever they bore and leaped to shelter behind perpendicular rocks, +huge logs, or bullet-proof stumps, only the ends of their rifles showing +grim and suggestive in silent menace. The discipline of defense which +fell upon them naturally without preconcerted thought, without volition, +was pleasing to a man who loved his Company's interests as did +Dreaulond. His eyes sparkled with satisfaction, although he was minded +to keep up the artifice a little longer. + +"La Roche! _Pour_ La Roche!" he shouted, using the watchword of the +Nor'westers, the customary warning of dire and imminent trouble for +Hudson's Bay followers. While Basil raised the enemy's alarm, he rolled +quickly behind a jutting boulder, thereby protecting himself from any +serious consequences that might follow his daring joke. + +Dunvegan's acute ear distinguished the rustling movement. A vivid tongue +of flame leaped out of the shade from his rifle's muzzle, and the +missile, twanging sharply through the branches, smote Dreaulond's +shielding granite with a wicked thud. Following their leader's cue, the +men let loose a volley which filled the forest with uproar. Twigs +whitened instantly to the bullet-scars. Chipped rocks split with a pop +and scuffled through the underbrush. Dreaulond chuckled dryly. + +"Hol' on dere, M'sieu's," he advised. "Kip dat good powdaire." + +"Who speaks?" shouted Dunvegan, the chief trader. + +"Basil Dreaulond," came the laughing answer. "He wan fren', _aussi_." + +Dunvegan knew the voyageur's voice, and he and his band quitted their +cover. + +"Come out, Basil," he ordered. "What trick are you playing now?" + +The courier's face, a clean-cut mask of brown cunning, grinned at them +from the fringing tamarack. + +"You be waste dose balls," he laughed. "Who you t'ink eet was? Black +Ferguson, of de Nor'westaires, mebbe?" + +"You rascal," reproved Dunvegan, "your jokes will some day get you a +roasting over the wrong fire." + +"_Non!_ I tak' de good care of maself. Black Ferguson an' hees men dey +don' catch me wit' ma eyes shut." + +He stepped forth from his hiding place, a swart, sinewy son of the +North, spawn of the wilderness, fit to face hazard and court risk in a +land where danger rode round with the sun. + +A single glance of the courier's shrewd eyes took in every member of the +group before him. One face was strange. Between tall Maskwa, the Ojibway +fort runner and the most trusted Indian in the service, and Wahbiscaw, +the Cree bowsman, stood the alien. Just the fraction of a minute Basil +puzzled over him, then flashed his friendly grin at all his old friends. + +"_Bo' jou', bo' jou'_," he greeted, in the northland fashion. + +"_Bo jou'_, Dreaulond," they returned. "Good journey?" + +"_Oui_," responded the courier. "I have no troubl' wit' de +Nor'westaires. Dey too mooch busy get ready for de wintaire trade, +mebbe." + +"You've come over from Nelson House, have you?" questioned Bruce +Dunvegan. + +"_Vraiment_," Basil answered, tapping the dispatch packet at his belt. +"W'at you doin'?" + +"Three things," the chief trader enumerated; "drafting a clerk from +Norway House, selecting a site for a new post to hold Fort La Roche in +check, and spying upon it and the other Northwesters' forts in hopes of +locating Macleod's daughter. We haven't succeeded in placing her yet." + +At which information Dreaulond's twinkling eyes assumed an expression of +deepest gravity. + +"Ba gosh, dat's fonny t'ing," he commented. "You hunt an' not find. I +find wit'out huntin'. I see dat girl in de Cree camp on de Katchawan." + +"What?" Dunvegan cried in great surprise. "She is in Running Wolf's +camp? What foolery is that? Is Black Ferguson with her there?" + +"_Non_, she be alone," the courier declared. "W'at she doin' I don' +know. W'en I try learn dat, she lak wan speetfire, yes! She have de +mission education an' talk lak _diable_. She goin' have de Crees t'row +me out de camp. I kip quiet den! You goin' see her?" + +"At once!" exclaimed the chief trader, who, seemingly impelled by a +sudden feverish unrest, gave swift, tart orders to his men to take up +their burdens. "Why didn't you tell me this before?" + +"Dat for tell de Factor," Basil chided. "I no spik de idl' word lak wan +old _femme_. How I know you be huntin' de girl?" + +"That's true," admitted Dunvegan. "You couldn't know our errand. I am +somewhat over-anxious, Basil, being in a hurry to finish this hunt and +return to Oxford House." + +"I believe dat," confided Dreaulond, with meaning in his smile. "_Mais_, +who dis new clerk?" + +The chief trader turned to his voyageurs, now shouldering their loads +and passing off in single file. + +"Glyndon," he called, "come over. This is Basil Dreaulond, the Company's +finest courier. You may have heard of him at Norway." + +"Indeed, yes," Glyndon confirmed, losing his slight, well-formed hand in +Basil's huge paw. "I heard him named with honor and with admiration." + +"Ha! dat easy t'ing to say!" exclaimed Dreaulond. "You be Engleesh? You +not for ver' long out?" + +"I arrived from England on the last ship," Glyndon responded. "They told +me there wouldn't be another for a year." He laughed ingenuously, as if +at something strangely outside his own experience. + +"The vessel comes but once in twelve months," explained Dunvegan, "to +bring supplies and carry back the furs to market. We get our yearly mail +with the supplies." + +"It seems very odd," the clerk ventured. "This is a tremendous country, +and I have everything to learn about it. Perhaps Dreaulond will teach me +the elementals!" + +"At Oxford House he may," remarked the restive chief trader. "You can +renew the acquaintance there. Just now we have something more important +to do." + +"At Oxford House, then," Glyndon concluded as he followed the rest of +the brigade. + +Dreaulond brought forth his canoe and pack-sack from the thicket. Before +loading up he gazed shrewdly after the slender figure of the English +clerk. He had not missed the lines of the aristocratic face; the large, +hazel, womanish eyes; the cheek-marks of dissipation that even a +lately-acquired tan failed to conceal. + +"Dey send heem out?" Basil asked, pointing his arm in a direction +designed to extend across the Atlantic. + +"Yes," answered Dunvegan, "his folks sent him here. He drank at home, +and they want the Company to make a man of him. New environment! The +primeval law of adaptation!" + +Dreaulond adjusted the tump-line and placed the canoe upon his +shoulders. + +"_Au revoir!_" he called. + +"_Au revoir_," echoed the chief trader. + +Basil bobbed on over the rough portage, pondering on Glyndon as he went. + +"Hees eyes too soft," was his conclusion. "Mooch too soft for dis beeg +_Nord_!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS + + +Dunvegan lifted the flap of the Cree wigwam and knew that the third of +his missions was ended. Within the primitive tepee on a pile of +rabbit-skin blankets sat Flora Macleod, the Factor's fugitive daughter. +Her personal appearance bordered on the squalid, for toilette +necessaries were lacking in the tent. Her eyes shone defiantly into the +chief trader's, glinting dark like her coal-black hair. + +Altogether, Bruce thought her somber eyes and swarthy skin held but +little difference from those of the Indians who ruled these lodges on +the Katchawan. To her breast she hugged a bundled infant whose blue +eyes and fair skin bespoke its white fathering. + +"What brought you here?" she demanded, with an almost ferocious +abruptness. + +"You," answered Dunvegan. "You and the boy. Your father will have you +wife to no Nor'wester. Nor will he have his daughter's son bear a +Nor'wester's name. He intends giving the babe his own----" + +"He does?" Flora interrupted, the glow in her eyes flaming till they +blazed with anger. + +"Yes. As for you--I cannot say. We all know the Factor is a stern, hard +man." + +"I will never go back to his punishment." + +Dunvegan's face hardened. "You must! I am under orders to take you at +any cost; and there are the means!" His brown, muscled hand indicated +the canoe brigade nosing the serrated river bank and filled with his +sinewed northmen whose combined might seemed quite sufficient to carry +away bodily the pole and skin structures which made up the Cree camp. + +"You coward!" exclaimed the girl malignantly, releasing her neck from +its attitude of craned inspection and hushing the child's sudden +whimper. "You are both cowards, you and the one who sent you. You slip +in here with a score of voyageurs while the men are away after caribou. +I say you are nothing but a coward, Bruce Dunvegan!" + +The chief trader's handsome face flushed to a deeper tint under its +bronze, but he kept his patience. + +"Hardly that," he objected. "We happened to meet Dreaulond, the +Company's courier, on the Nisgowan portage, and he told me of your +whereabouts. I was glad of the meeting, since this brigade has been +searching for a long while, and in these bitter times the posts have +need of all their men. However, there was no secret about our coming; in +fact, we shall not dip a paddle till Running Wolf returns. The Company +cannot afford to lose the trade of his tribe through any real or fancied +offense in taking you away." + +"Dreaulond told you," Flora Macleod repeated spitefully. "He has an old +woman's tongue. Basil Dreaulond is a gossip!" + +"No," declared the chief trader, "he talks wisely when he talks at all, +and many an act of justice follows his words on the trail. He wondered, +though, at seeing you in the lodge of Running Wolf. What has Black +Ferguson, a Nor'wester, to do with our Indians?" + +"Nothing," snapped the girl. "He deserted me here." + +"Ah!" Dunvegan exclaimed. "I thought as much. But you were legally +married?" + +"Father Merceraux, the Nor'west priest, married us." + +Bruce's face brightened. "That's good. I know Merceraux. So there could +have been no trickery. You have a copy of his register?" + +"Yes," answered Flora. "I treasure that--and the child." + +"So will the Factor," Bruce observed. + +The daughter frowned at the repeated mention of the grim one who would +pronounce judgment on her for disobeying his orders. "I hate him," she +declared; "I hate----" + +"Stop!" interrupted Dunvegan harshly. "I don't want your confidences. +And take a little advice from me. Don't set your spirit up against his. +I know him--perhaps better than you. I myself rather fear to tell him of +your desertion." + +"Fear!" exclaimed Flora, her glance running over Dunvegan's massive, +six-foot frame. "You never felt it. But let Malcolm MacLeod take care. I +have power here. Running Wolf wishes me to stay. The tribe I can twist +like a river weed. And the Nor'west Company is very active in gaining +ground. So let the lord of Oxford House consider. I can stir up trouble +for him." + +Gazing at the defiant daughter, Bruce did not doubt her ability for +provoking mischief. Flora Macleod had not that perfection of womanly +beauty which makes abject slaves of men, but she possessed what is +perhaps a greater gift. She had inherently a natural authority, a +mastery, a fire of conquest which enabled her to subordinate many minds +to a single dominance. This was her most apparent talent, not wasting in +concealment but growing to supremacy through the frequency of its use. +And here, Dunvegan knew, she would not scruple in the using if the dour +Factor forced her to extremities. + +"Why does Running Wolf wish you to stay?" he asked. + +"Superstition," Flora replied, and she laughed contemptuously. "They +have had hard hunting and game has been scarce. They think I'll change +their luck. And, more than that, Running Wolf hopes I may some time +marry him----" + +"Marry him!" echoed the chief trader. "Are you crazy? Or is he?" + +"He is," Macleod's daughter responded with harsh merriment. "He wants to +get the Factor's permission." Her voice was bitterly contemptuous. + +Dunvegan frowned blackly. "If he mentions that to Macleod he will raise +a storm with speech for thunder and blows for lightning. You are Black +Ferguson's wife. That fact cannot be got over." + +"He got over it," snapped Flora. + +"And why?" demanded the chief trader. "There must have been a reason. +Surely his wooing and marrying was more than a simple whim to thwart +Macleod. Surely there was a reason, and a good one, for this swift +divorce!" + +"There was," admitted Flora grimly, Her eyes burned up into Dunvegan's +with fierce irony. "A good reason. He set eyes on your own ideal." + +"My own ideal!" exclaimed Dunvegan, making a poor pretence of ignorance. +"I hardly catch your meaning." + +"No?" Flora sneered. "Paddling down Lake Lemeau, as we hunted, who did +we encounter but Desirée Lazard, with her Uncle Pierre and his men. +Desirée Lazard, you understand! The ripest beauty of Oxford House, the +breaker of Hudson's Bay hearts, and the very idol of one Dunvegan." +Flora's harsh, grating chuckle, seeming to come more from the dark, +unfathomable eyes than from the thin-lipped mouth, held the essence of +taunt. + +At the pointedness of her speech Bruce Dunvegan's tanned skin took on a +deeper flame of red even than that caused by her charge of cowardice. He +could not well retort, but as his fingers involuntarily clenched he +wished a man had done the baiting. + +"Desirée's beauty struck him suddenly and blindingly, like the morning +sun over the Blood Flats," the girl went on, more impersonally. "I give +Desirée her due! No northman has ever looked upon her unmoved, and +Ferguson is the most beastially susceptible of them all. She was like +red wine in his eyes. I think if he had had a few more paddlers he would +have attacked Pierre Lazard's men with the idea of carrying her away by +force." + +"Didn't Lazard attack him?" cried the chief trader. "He reported +sighting and chasing the Nor'wester; and Pierre does not lie." + +"Nor I," returned Flora Macleod--"when there is no need! Pierre feared +our small party was but in advance of a Nor'west force and hung off on +guard and ready for a skirmish. When he found that nothing was following +our three canoes he did give chase, but we were lightly loaded, and left +them easily. However, the mischief was done. Ferguson desired Lazard's +niece as he had desired no other thing in all his life. My release came +that night in camp. Black Ferguson and his paddlers were gone before I +awoke in the morning. So I came here for shelter." + +"Damnation to his black heart!" exclaimed Dunvegan. "Is there nothing of +the man about this Nor'wester? Had he no thought of your rights and the +rights of the child?" + +The Factor's daughter flung a gesture of the arms riverward, a motion +vindictive in the extreme. "I," she averred, "was a cast-off rag. The +boy was nothing more. You know Ferguson has no heart--only impulse. He +appears to have gone mad over Desirée Lazard." + +"Much good it will do him if we have our hands on him!" + +"But what if you haven't?" + +"We can trust Desirée at the fort." + +"Perhaps. But, remember, one person at Oxford House made trysts and kept +them in spite of guards and gates." + +Bruce smiled grimly. "And her reward?" he asked, and cursed himself +instantly because of the pain that momentarily changed the girl's +expression. He had, as it were, a glimpse of her soul in that moment and +knew that for all her waywardness she was inwardly true. Blessed with a +more merciful environment, she would doubtless have been a transformed +woman. + +"Watch Desirée well," she warned. "Black Ferguson is hard on her trail, +and she is too fine to be lorded by such a beast." + +Dunvegan paced some awkward steps before the Cree tents, his glance +wandering uncertainly to the waiting brigade by the Katchawan's bank. + +"I haven't the right," he complained. + +"Win it," she flashed. "You are the pick of the Company's men. If you +weren't you would not be Malcolm Macleod's chief trader." + +"She is a Nor'wester at heart. Her father died in their service, and his +spirit is in her. She cherishes his pride of allegiance. Desirée vows +she will never wed a man of the H. B. C. Her vow stands!" + +"Tut!" mocked Flora. "A woman's whim easily changed! She stays under the +Company's roof with her uncle, a servant of the same organization. Does +that fit in with her vow? A fig for such vows!" + +"She has no other relative and no place else to live," asserted the +chief trader. "As for her resolve, it is proof against changing, for +I--have tested it." + +"Then," observed Macleod's daughter, "the Nor'wester has a good chance +of marrying her. Here are the Cree men coming back!" + +Over the ridge which rimmed the camp with a rampart of spruce the +Indians dropped, one by one, bounding lightly from rock to rock in +noiseless buckskins. They threaded the birch belt and crossed the cedar +"slash," swung around the long beaver meadow below, and emerged upon the +flat river point supporting their camp. The chief trader saw they were +carrying nothing except weapons. + +"They have left the carrying of the game for the squaws," he observed. + +"No," cried Flora, "I can tell by their faces that the hunt has failed. +They have found no caribou and are in a bad mood. You had better leave +me here." + +"Not if we have to fight the whole tribe," declared Dunvegan. + +But his eyes, only, saw the Crees coming up to the sun-scalded camp. His +mental vision focused on the image of Desirée Lazard. He had told Basil +Dreaulond that he was anxious to complete his mission and return to +Oxford House. And Basil had smiled, knowing well why! Now was he doubly +anxious. Flora's news had a perturbing effect. He hungered for a sight +of Desirée singing gayly within the stockades. He yearned for the chance +of conflict to sweep the Nor'wester's shadow from her path. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +AN ULTIMATUM + + +The Cree bucks came slowly up the point, forming a sort of respectful +retinue to Running Wolf, his son, Three Feathers, and others of the head +men whose dignity of tribal status allowed them to stalk in front. + +Slovenly squaws and dirty, round-eyed children now appeared from the +dark interiors of wigwams which before had shown no sign of life. These +began to cluck their derision and to indulge in shrieking laughs of +ridicule to the visible discomfiture of the hunters. Half-tamed curs as +fierce looking as their wolf ancestors grew bold enough with the advent +of the masters to issue from various hiding-places and organize a +snapping charge upon Dunvegan. They rushed in a body, howling wickedly +and baring vicious, chisel-like fangs, but the chief trader plucked a +stick from a tepee fire and belabored their hard heads till they +retreated faster than they had charged. + +Wild uproar spread through the camp. The dogs' battle snarls were +changed to lugubrious wailings of defeat. Old women rated the mongrels, +ordering them back to their places. The braves shouted injunctions of +silence upon the squaws, while the children added to the climax by +scuttling and shrieking out of sheer contagion. + +Running Wolf obtained quiet at last by a violence of gesture that +threatened to tear his arms from their sockets. With the quiet came his +reprimand to his people, delivered in deep-throated Cree, and their +instant assumption of meekness vouched for the acid quality of his +phrases. Then he approached Dunvegan, with Three Feathers at his heels. + +"_Bo' jou'_, Running Wolf; _bo' jou'_, Three Feathers," greeted the +chief trader. + +"_Bo' jou'_, Strong Father," returned the Cree chieftain with grave +politeness. + +Three Feathers did not speak, but contented himself with nodding +sullenly. He was not a favorite with Dunvegan. Several times the two had +clashed in the process of trade, for Running Wolf's son was a spoiled +child of the wilderness grown up to ignorant and stubborn maturity. He +represented the ambitious type of Indian, the dissentient, the inciter, +the yeast of superstitious unrest fated to be the curse of his race. + +"Your hunting has been unrewarded," sympathized the chief trader, +speaking to Running Wolf. He used the Cree dialect which he had acquired +in his years of dealing with the natives. + +"_Ae_," replied Running Wolf. "We did not find the caribou. Nor did we +see the trail of any other game." + +"How was that?" asked Dunvegan. "Your braves are wise in the ways of the +caribou, the moose, and all of the wild creatures. How is it their +cunning brought them nothing?" + +"I do not know," the chief responded simply, "but the spirits were not +kind to us. Perhaps the north wind told the caribou of our coming." + +"It was not so," spoke Three Feathers maliciously. "It was instead the +bad magic of the white traders. The spirits also were kind, for they +gave us no game and turned us from our hunting that our squaws might not +be stolen." He talked brazenly, having shrewdly guessed in his feverish +brain that Dunvegan's errand concerned the woman his father wished to +take as a squaw. + +"Who steals our women?" cried Running Wolf, turning on his son with an +expression of vague alarm. + +"Ask the Strong Father there," Three Feathers directed, forcing the +issue upon Dunvegan. + +"Yes, ask the Strong Father," interposed Flora Macleod, speaking also in +Cree. "Inquire whence he has journeyed. Question him as to why he has +come." She was quick to seize any advantage which might arise for her +from the injuring of Running Wolf's pride. + +The chief looked searchingly at the trader and at the trader's brigade, +as if to read their intent. + +"Strong Father," he declared, "the lodges of my people are open to you. +My heart is right toward you in spite of the high words of my son and +the White Squaw. They would have me think you walk against my wigwams to +do me harm. Tell them whence you have voyaged. Perhaps even now you are +come from the Stern Father by the Holy Lake!" + +"That is so," admitted Dunvegan. "I come from Oxford House and from the +Factor, him you call the Stern Father. He has sent me here to do his +bidding." + +"_Ae_," snarled Three Feathers, interrupting impetuously. "He comes to +take back the White Squaw. I see it in his eyes. He is a traitor and a +foe!" + +Dunvegan seized the brave's arm with a vicious pinch. + +"You young hothead," he cried angrily, "you go too far. Keep behind with +the women till you get some wisdom!" + +His back-twist of the arm sent Three Feathers hurtling in among a group +of squaws about a tepee door, where he sprawled ingloriously with his +heels in the air. + +The downfall of the haughty son set the Indian women roaring afresh with +laughter, but the braves muttered ominously. Among them Three Feathers +was a power growing nearer the usurping point which would shatter the +father's sane control of the tribe. + +Running Wolf himself gazed upon the incident quite unaffected. He +watched his son rise from his ludicrous position, the hawk-like face +marred by hideous wrath and the beady eyes glittering with revengeful +lights. He observed Three Feathers slink out of sight in the crowd of +young bucks. And he nodded sagely. + +"So," he commented, "they learn wisdom and come to be head men. But why +have you come, Strong Father, with so many canoes? Do you build a new +post? Or do you fight the French Hearts?" The French Hearts was his name +for the Nor'westers. + +"Neither," answered Dunvegan. "The Factor sent me many moons ago to +find his daughter and to bring her back to the Fort." + +"Ah-hah!" exclaimed Running Wolf. "Then it is even as Three Feathers, +the hasty one, said! His guesses are greater than my wisdom." + +"Listen," urged the chief trader, putting a hand on the Cree's arm. "The +Factor did not know where the girl was. All he knew was that she +harkened to the wooing of Black Ferguson, our enemy. She made trysts +with him in spite of our vigilance, and finally escaped to his forts and +married him. Married him and bore a son to him in the face of Macleod's +black wrath! You know the Stern Father, Running Wolf. You know how such +a thing would gripe. How he would writhe under the scorn of his foe and +under the northland's mocking laughter! You know?" + +"_Ae_," answered Running Wolf. "I know." + +"Then you understand. 'Go out,' he said to me. 'I will not brook it. Go +out. I have never been bent by man or devil. Go out! Raze forts! Burn! +Kill! But bring back her and her boy.' And that I will do, Running Wolf. +I obey his orders. The White Squaw, as you call her, returns with me." + +A shade of anger crossed the Cree's copper-colored face. He drew back a +step, his shoulders raised in haughty pride. + +"Thus at a late day, Strong Father," he said, "you have turned enemy to +me and to my people!" + +"Not so," Dunvegan contradicted. "I am still your friend, as you have +had cause to know. But I have my orders. I must do the Stern Father's +bidding. Running Wolf, you say to your young men: 'Go forth and do such +a thing.' It is done as you command. You have power and wisdom to rule, +and the braves, recognizing your authority and holding the tribe's +interests at heart, will do your mission if they die in the doing. Is it +not so with your people, my friend?" + +"_Ae_," replied the chief with warmth. "It is so, for I have many +trusted ones." + +"Then"--Dunvegan was quick to follow up his advantage--"it is even so +with me. I do my duty to my Company and to my Factor, whom you rightly +call the Stern Father. Do you understand, Running Wolf?" + +"I understand," responded the Cree. "I see that you come in no +bitterness, and the White Squaw shall go as you say." + +Flora Macleod was quick to voice her disapproval of his words. + +"Have you no spirit?" she cried wrathfully. "Do you give in when there +is a tribe at your back? Running Wolf, you haven't the courage of a +rabbit. Your son were fitter to rule these wigwams than such an old fool +of a father! A pretty mind to guide a people!" + +"I give in to save my children trouble and strife," returned Running +Wolf gravely. "I know Strong Father well. He would fight for as little +as a blanket stolen from his Company, although his heart is friendly. +You shall go, White Squaw, but I go also. I go to take counsel with the +Stern Father, to ask that you abide in my lodge." + +The tone of his last statement told Dunvegan that on this point he was +adamant. Flora Macleod flounced back to her child, the wrath of her soul +choking at her lips. + +"Make ready," urged the chief trader. "We start at once." + +He waited by the chief's tepee while the two set about what slight +preparations were needed for departure and watched the clean-limbed +bucks idling down to the Katchewan's bank. Three Feathers, brooding in +his spiteful anger, loitered with them, on edge to create a disturbance. +Dunvegan saw that the Indians were massing at the landing-point, and he +shouted a command to his men to keep them away. + +Pete Connear, an American and an ex-sailor who had drifted north by the +Red River route and entered the Company's service, did as directed, but +the braves gave ground sullenly. Three Feathers himself became +vociferous. + +"Dogs and sons of dogs," he anathematized them, "you have hearts of +water to steal about, capturing women." + +"Shut up," advised Connear dryly. + +"Salt Rat," Three Feathers sent back, stamping in impotent rage, "there +is no place for you here in the forest. Get away to your Big Waters." + +He emphasized his language with a swift-thrown palmful of slimy sand, +which struck the ex-sailor squarely in the eyes. Connear roared like a +bull and leaped ashore from his birch-bark craft. + +"You bloomin' copper-hide," he bellowed in blind wrath, "I'll man-handle +you for that." + +Three Feathers was swift, but in anger Pete Connear was swifter. Almost +before the young chief realized it the sailor was upon him. The Cree's +wrists were pinned behind his back in the grip of Pete's left hand; he +was whirled over the sailor's knee and given as sound a spanking as ever +a recalcitrant child received. + +Connear's palm was hard with years of searing brine; and Three Feathers +was blessed with no stoicism. He howled pitifully, while the Hudson's +Bay men shouted in uproarious mirth. + +But the young bucks of the crowd failed to see the humor of the +situation. They gathered together with much muttering and gesturing. +Dunvegan, shaking with laughter at the plight of Three Feathers, caught +the signs of impending trouble and came running forward as Connear +completed his enemy's chastisement. + +"There!" exclaimed the bespattered Pete. "I've slippered your hide, and +now I'll roll you in the scuppers just for sailor's luck!" He shot Three +Feathers from his knee and sent him rolling down the bank into the +river, from which the young man pulled himself out as bedraggled as a +fur-soaked beaver. + +The Cree bucks charged on the instant at the lone sailorman, but +Dunvegan's arm waved as he ran, and like magic his men were out of their +canoes and lined up on the river margin with guns at full cock. Connear +danced a sailor's hornpipe in the center and hooted in delightful +anticipation of a fight. + +The crisis seemed inevitable. A trade-gun barked in the rear. The +braves, with murder in their untamed hearts, shook out their weapons +ready to throw their weight against Dunvegan's line, but a deep-throated +Cree voice held them on the verge of their madness. + +"Stop!" called the vibrant voice of Running Wolf, "or I blast you with +the evil spirit." + +As one man the crowd turned and looked at the speaker. + +The old chief stood behind them with Flora and her child. He was arrayed +in the robes of a medicine-maker, for Running Wolf was a man of magic as +well as a leader among his people. He carried the full equipment of a +head medicine-man of his tribe. + +The effect of his appearance on the malcontents was instantaneous. Arms +which had raised weapons dropped to the owner's sides. A great awe grew +in the eyes of the braves. Running Wolf raised his medicine-wand, +sweeping it in a half circle. + +"Go back to your lodges!" he ordered. + +The Crees obeyed. There arose no murmur, no protest. + +Dunvegan knew Running Wolf could not have done this thing by his powers +of chieftainship. He marveled how in their wild bosoms the fear of the +unknown overshadowed their defiance of the power of personality. +Assuredly it was strong medicine. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +OMENS OF THE LAW + + +The chief took the indicated place in Dunvegan's canoe with Flora and +her boy. These sat amidships. Wahbiscaw was in his place as bowsman. +Bruce himself occupied the stern. At a sign from him the whole brigade +floated off, the prows pointing up the swift-flowing Katchawan. Thus for +an hour the paddles dipped in rhythm. They threaded the river's island +channels and won through its rushing chutes. Where the rapids proved too +swift for paddles they poled the craft up with long spruce poles. Few +words were spoken. It was the custom to travel in silence. One reason +for this was that Nor'west traders might be lurking anywhere. Another +was that game might be encountered around any of the many river bends. + +But the brigade left the Katchawan without a sight of game and entered +the mouth of Lake Lemeau. Maskwa, the Ojibway fort runner, stood erect, +sentinel-like, in the canoe behind Dunvegan, his keen eyes searching the +lake waters for sign of friend or foe. Quite suddenly he sat down. + +"Canoe, Strong Father," he grunted gutturally. + +"Where?" the chief trader asked. + +"Below Bear Island." + +Quietly Dunvegan shifted his bow till the canoe bore a course which +would bring them directly in the path of the strange craft. He had no +idea whose it might be. It might belong to some trapper or to some +Indian of their own Company. It might belong to the Nor'westers. It +might carry free traders. Whatever it was, it was his duty to find out. + +Warm yellow the bark shone as the distance lessened. Sapphire glints +flashed out as the paddles flickered after each plunge. Soon the men of +the brigade could see that the craft contained four figures, but it was +Maskwa's long-range vision which discerned their nationalities. + +"Ojibways, two; white men, two," he announced. "Good paddlers." + +And so it proved when they drew near. Dunvegan saw, seated behind the +native bowsman, a keen-visaged, lean, athletic man of forty. He had a +smooth face, sandy hair, eyes of a cold, hard blue, a beak nose, and +great, sinewed arms. About him was the stamp of the frontier. +Instinctively at first glimpse the chief trader catalogued him as one +who had seen much frontier fighting, who had handled guns and bad men +running amuck with guns. + +Fit mate for him looked the one sitting toward the stern. He was +abnormally broad of shoulder, stocky, powerful, black-bearded, +black-eyed. The sun had smoked him till he was as swarthy as the Ojibway +steersman. Of the two white men he looked the more dangerous, for there +was no humor in his steady eyes. His companion's gaze, cold and hard as +it was, held something of a quizzical gleam. Perhaps it was the hollows +under those eyes that gave him that appearance. + +As Dunvegan's craft met the other almost bow to bow and slipped ahead, +the gunwales grated gently. Bruce closed a hand on the gunwales of the +other and the two canoes drifted as one. + +The sandy-haired man's semi-humorous eyes flashed a quick look aboard, +and then he smiled. "You sure couldn't do that, stranger, if my pardner +and me hadn't decided to speak to you," he observed. + +"Couldn't I?" challenged Dunvegan. He scrutinized men and outfit. "Free +traders, I suppose?" + +"Guess again." + +"Nor'westers, eh?" + +"You got another guess coming yet." + +"Oh, quit it, Granger," the black-bearded man broke in, stirring +impatiently among the dunnage bags. "You're wasting time. Show him the +star." + +The sandy-haired one twisted his suspender band. Dunvegan saw the badge +of a United States Marshal. + +"It's genuine, stranger. And we're sure not here for our health. Are we, +Garfield?" + +"No," growled the black-bearded marshal. "A show-down's the thing that +we're after." + +"You fooled me," laughed Dunvegan. "But you had better exhibit your +papers. My Factor is death on free traders; and I have to report to him, +you know." + +"Who's your Factor?" the smooth-faced marshal asked as he dived into the +pocket of his buckskin coat that was stuffed under the forward thwart. + +"Macleod, of Oxford House." + +"Macleod, eh? Macleod!" rumbled Granger while he searched. "Don't know +him. But we sure will when we get to his post. We've been up around the +Bay forts. When we've done Norway House and the posts out that way we'll +be across to Oxford. See you again, then. Hello, here's the papers!" + +He handed Dunvegan two frayed documents. As he scanned them the chief +trader saw they were genuine enough. The first was an order of the +chief district factor of the Hudson's Bay Company declaring all forts +open to the bearers. The second was a similar mandate of the Northwest +Fur Company for use in their posts and issued from the headquarters in +Montreal. + +"These are through passes," smiled Dunvegan, handing them back. "I know +the chief district factor's signature. And it seems you are equipped for +a hunt in Nor'west country as well. Is there anything I can do for you?" + +"You've done all you can do--let us see you and your men," grinned +Granger. "That's all we wanted. Eh, Garfield?" + +"That's all," Garfield agreed, condescending to laugh so that his +gleaming white teeth split his black beard. "Hit her up there, you +bucks," he commanded the Ojibways. + +The Indians seized their paddles. Dunvegan let go the gunwales. "Good +luck," he nodded. + +"Hold on," yelled Granger suddenly. "Maybe I ought to say more. A hint +from you would sure save us some miles. Here, look at this!" + +He dived again into the buckskin coat and handed a photograph across the +water gap. + +"Do you know him?" he demanded, keenly reading the chief trader's face. +"Mind, I don't say he's what we're after. I don't say he's done +anything. Do you know him? He's in the service of one of these fur +companies." + +The picture Dunvegan looked at was that of a bare-faced man in robust +health, a strong man who was in the super-strength of his prime. The +eyes were vivid, clear as crystal, sharp as steel. The chief trader felt +that the glance of the living original would cut like a knife. These +eyes puzzled him with a sense of vague familiarity, but the face he +scanned was the face of no one in his memory-gallery. + +He shook his head, and oddly enough he felt a reluctance, a +disappointment in denial. "I don't know him," he decided, and handed the +photograph back. + +Like a hawk Granger had watched his face. He read truth in it. "Oh, +well!" he exclaimed whimsically. "The way of the transgressor and the +marshal is sure hard." Once more his quizzical expression flashed forth +as he twirled his paddle aloft in good-by. + +"Shake, stranger," he threw back in final farewell, while the long craft +leaped under the Ojibways' strokes. "Shake! Till I see you at Oxford +House!" + +Flora Macleod watched the solitary canoe drop away out of sight. Then, +when it was gone, she leaned forward to the chief trader's shoulder. + +"Was that last answer of yours lie or loyalty?" she asked with strange +timidity. + +Dunvegan turned a surprised face. "It was ignorance," he amended. He saw +Flora's cheeks pale, her eyes full of a haunting fear. + +"What's wrong?" he demanded in astonishment. + +"That picture--I--I saw it, too." + +"Well?" + +"It was my father's!" + +Dawn set a wall of flame on Oxford Lake. Out of this solar furnace +drifted a fleet of canoes black as charred logs against the cardinal +blaze. Clement Nemaire, sentinel at the stockade gates of Oxford House, +caught sight of the craft in the immense distance advancing with a +motion which, though scarcely discernible, nevertheless brought them +gradually into large perspective. His black eyes, keen as lenses, +steadily watched the approaching flotilla while it breasted Caribou +Point and crossed the outer rim of the Bay. When the fleet drew opposite +Mooswa Hill, the mighty rampart upon whose crest a brushwood beacon +stood always piled ready for firing by the Hudson's Bay fort runners as +a warning message of impending Nor'west attacks, Clement made out the +sharp, black line of a flagstaff in the bow of the foremost canoe. From +the staff's tip a long standard bellied like a sail in the cross wind, +its vivid hue blending with the fiery background, and Nemaire knew the +familiar blood-red banner of his Company. + +"De brigade!" he shouted for all the post to hear. "_Holá!_ De beeg +brigade!" + +Every soul of Oxford House sprang forth at his cry. In a heterogeneous +crowd the people spread to the landing at the lake-shore. White traders, +fair-skinned women, full-blooded Indians, halfbreeds, squaws, papooses, +huskies,[1] all mingled in polyglot confusion. Curs barked; children +squealed; native tongues chattered in many languages. Eager expectancy, +intense interest, was the sensation of each human being or animal that +waited on the beach. Their wild hearts, keyed to a love of the vast +places, to a worship of all the attributes of wilderness life, could +never welcome a brigade unmoved. That distinct institution of the +Hudson's Bay Company was a thing which they idolized and revered. The +crowd in a fever of joyous excitement pressed to the very water's edge +and shifted the length of the landing. Each minute of waiting they +filled with clamor and gesticulation, the hum of voices growing to a +roar as Dunvegan's brigade approached within hailing distance. + +[Footnote 1: Eskimo sledge dogs.] + +But behind them a heavy step sounded on the veranda of the Factor's +house, and looking, they saw the square-set bulk of Malcolm Macleod. A +hush blanketed the confusion. Not a foot or tongue stirred by the +lake-edge. So deep was the stillness that the slight wash of the +plunging canoes could be heard distinctly. The Factor did not speak, but +his bushy eyebrows lowered and the piercing gaze of his steely, black +eyes was concentrated on the scene. His iron hands, symbols of the man, +gripped the railing tightly. Like the crowd, he waited; but while their +impelling motive was curiosity, Macleod's was judgment. + +The fleet of canoes lined for the landing, the figures of the occupants +growing clear. The throng could now see that the chief trader and +Wahbiscaw, his bowsman, had two passengers in the foremost craft. When +they became recognizable as Flora Macleod and Running Wolf, whispers of +wonder and speculation began to circulate. Discussion ran like the +murmur of low waters from Father Brochet, the black-cassocked, +unobtrusive priest on the outer rim of the gathering, to rude Gaspard +Follet, the owl-faced, dwarf-shaped, half-witted fool who sat on the end +of the landing with bare feet in the water, that he might be closest to +the incomers. + +Conversing in a little group beside Father Brochet stood Desirée Lazard, +the fairest of Oxford House; Pierre, her uncle, and Basil Dreaulond. As +the brigade touched the bank, the rushing people blotted it out. The +paddlers leaped ashore, stretched cramped limbs, and were swallowed up +in the throng. Presently the mighty figure of Bruce Dunvegan emerged, +leading Running Wolf and Flora Macleod from the landing toward the +Factor's house. + +Contrary to his usual custom, Malcolm Macleod did not turn into his +council room to receive the report and do his questioning. The fact that +the runaway daughter appeared before him accounted for his coming down a +few steps to await the trio. + +"You've succeeded," he growled unceremoniously, bending his angry +glance, not upon the chief trader, but upon Flora, who returned a stare +of equal intensity. + +"Not altogether," complained Dunvegan. "Things are not as clear as I +could wish. I found the girl in Running Wolf's lodge. I understand Black +Ferguson deserted her near the Cree camp." + +Macleod's habitually active brain seemed slow in comprehending the +statement. The tight lines of his mouth relaxed, and his jaws jarred +apart in an attitude of sheer amazement. + +"Stern Father," Running Wolf hastened to add, "it is my wish and the +White Squaw's wish that she remain in my lodge. As for the sun and the +stars and the south wind is my worship for her. I have come for your +consent." He bowed in his brief oratorical delivery and smoothed his +medicine-maker's dress. + +"Consent!--Squaw!" boomed Macleod, blank astonishment giving way under +the swift rush of his tremendous rage. "You d--d Cree demigod--that's my +consent!" And his strong hands hurled Running Wolf headlong from the +veranda steps almost to the rim of the gaping crowd. + +The old warrior picked himself up in a frenzy of spirit and, forgetting +all traditions and restraints, rushed insanely at the Factor. But +Dunvegan blocked his path and grasped the uplifted hand. + +"Don't do that, Running Wolf," he warned. "You can only work your own +ruin. A blow would mean your death!" + +Chest heaving, eyes blazing, the Cree chieftain strained a moment after +his insulter. Dunvegan's strength forced him back and instilled some +substance of sanity. When he found his voice, his speech trembled with +hate. + +"You are Stern Father now," he hissed in Cree, "but I can change it to +Soft Father----" + +Macleod took a step forward as if on sudden impulse to crush once for +all a defiance flung in his teeth, but he caught the look of entreaty +for lenience in the chief trader's eyes. He halted. Yet Running Wolf was +not to be appeased. He glared vindictively into the very face of the +lord of Oxford House. + +"Soft Father you shall be," he declared. "I go to the French Hearts. We +will meet again before many moons. Then my hands shall hurl. My words +shall curse. You shall be as the broken pot of clay, as the water of +melting ice, as the pool of blood where the big moose falls." + +The chief's momentarily-lost stoicism was regained. His dignity, which +the red man seldom loses, had returned. + +Dunvegan, his hands still upon the Cree's arms, felt the change in him, +felt him straighten with pride. He released his grip. + +Running Wolf stepped quietly back. "I go," he announced without emotion. +"I go, but when the French Hearts are climbing stockades and burning +posts about your ears, I will be with them. Then when I have rolled you +stiff in your blanket will I take the White Squaw to my wigwam!" + +He whirled at the last word and stalked to the beach. Flora Macleod +looked upon him with eyes that lightened. + +"You old fire-eater," she laughed hysterically, "I almost love you for +those words." Her glance shifted to Dunvegan who had grasped her arm +that she might not follow the Cree chieftain if she were so inclined. +"Don't you?" she asked. + +"He is to be admired," the chief trader admitted. + +But Malcolm Macleod swore a fearful oath in which there was no semblance +of admiration as they watched Running Wolf glide out upon Oxford Lake in +a canoe borrowed from some Crees formerly of his tribe on the Katchawan. + +"Let the cursed traitor go over to the side of the Nor'westers!" he +cried. "Let him help Black Ferguson and his sneaking dogs! I have no +fear of them. I'm not afraid of man or devil. And why should I trouble +myself about a picket of ragged Frenchmen! Bah! I can handle them as I +handled the Cree. I'm lord of this country. Every man knows it. Every +man _must_ know it!" + +As everyone at this and all the other northern posts understood, Malcolm +Macleod was ruled by twin passions: pride and hate. He paid homage to +no other emotion, idol, or deity. Fear could not touch his heart. Love +was long ago crushed out. The tentacles of greed never held him. He had +no dread of the evil machinations of hell. Neither did he recognize such +a thing as divine providence. His Bible that in his half-forgotten past +had been fingered nightly lay upon an unused upper shelf in his council +room, sepulchred in twenty years of dust. + +Fallen into silent brooding, the Factor stared at the disappearing speck +upon the vast water, the speck which was Running Wolf and his craft. +Dunvegan had to arouse him. + +"The woman and the child," he prompted. "What is to be done with them?" + +Macleod wheeled. "See that she gets no canoe to leave the post," was his +curt order. "She goes out with Abbé DuCerne to the nunnery at Montreal +before the frost closes in." + +As some fierce interpreter of high-latitude laws he pronounced the +judgment, and Flora Macleod's spirit crumpled under its weight. It came +suddenly--this most appalling thing that could happen to a lover of +liberty. For once in her life she had no defiant retort for the man she +accepted as her father. At the vision of veil, cowl, and white walls, +things some people loved, her eyes dilated in horror. The woman's heart +throbbed sickeningly. Her tongue refused its mission of protest. Her +knees gave way, letting her slip to the ground. There she lay, sobbing, +the boy clasped close in her arms. + +"Don't lie there," the Factor commanded roughly. "Get that child ready +for the morning mass. I'll see that it is christened and given my own +name. There'll be no Fergusons among my kin." + +Full of sympathy, Dunvegan raised Flora Macleod to her feet and urged +her to go inside, but she stubbornly refused to enter the house. + +"Let her stay out then," cried her father, with a fresh burst of anger. +"Or let her find a better house." + +"There is Basil's," ventured the chief trader. + +"Aye, there is Basil's, if it suits her." Macleod shrugged his mighty +shoulders in bitter unconcern. + +So Bruce told her to go to Dreaulond's cabin, where he knew she would be +well cared for by the courier's gentle wife. Then he turned again to the +moody Factor. + +"I am afraid we have lost Running Wolf's trade," he observed. + +"He will come back. He fears me, as they all do. And if he goes to the +Nor'westers, remember, we shall soon crush them. When they are swept out +of the country, where else can the old fool trade?" + +"But he may fight with them," Bruce persisted. + +"Perhaps. However, they will need more than Running Wolf's aid to rout +the Ancient and Honorable, the Hudson's Bay Company." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +DESIRÉE + + +The mass bell's solemn chime pealed forth from the squat tower of the +Mission House, echoed against a thousand different rock peaks of the +shoreline and rolled resonantly over Oxford's bosom till distance killed +the sound and the tone was lost in the splash of whitecaps jumping like +silvery salmon beyond the Bay. + +Since Carman, the Church of England missionary, had perished in the +winter's last blizzard on Lone Wolf Lake and the Company had failed as +yet to get a minister in his place, the spiritual welfare of Oxford +House was entirely in the hands of Father Brochet. Protestant and +Catholic, disciple and pagan, zealot and scorner alike attended the +kindly priest's services and sought his generous aid in many private +matters. + +With the bell's summons they came singly, in twos or threes, and in +groups of varying size to take part in, or view the morning mass as well +as to see the christening of Flora Macleod's child. + +Bruce Dunvegan left his business in the trading room of the Hudson's Bay +Store and stepped out into the dewy sunshine. The auroral flame which +had licked the waters of Oxford Lake was gone. He saw the horizon as a +sheet of molten gold floating the coppery disc of the sun. From wet +rocks the writhing mists twisted and uncoiled, while the breeze which +crooned over the outer reach of the lake and raised the crested swells +beat in with little darts and lanceolate charges, puffing the fog-smoke +like the muzzle-jets of rifles. + +As the chief trader contemplated the magnificent splendor of the watery +vista before him, he thrilled with the indefinable magic of the outland. +He inhaled a huge breath and threw his arms wide, the action nearly +upsetting the balance of Edwin Glyndon, the new clerk, who had emerged +at his side. + +"Ha! Your pardon!" exclaimed Dunvegan, laughing. "These northern +sunrises get into my blood like wine. You'll feel it before you are very +long here. Going over to the Mission?" + +"I wouldn't mind," returned Glyndon. "It's all so new to me, and I +wasn't at Norway long enough to see much. Do you attend?" + +"We all drop in," the chief trader informed him. "Brochet's faith has +many adherents, but of course you don't have to take part unless your +inclinations run that way. You are a Church of England man, I suppose!" + +"Oh, yes--quite an orthodox one," laughed Glyndon bitterly. "Didn't you +know I drank myself and parents into disgrace at home? That's why they +sent me out here--away from the evil ruts, you understand! And I fancy +it might not be so hard to be a good Churchman in this wilderness. At +any rate the chances are increased." + +"This is the best opportunity that you will ever find," Dunvegan +declared. "If you want to go straight and live clean, the way is easy. +It seems to me these lake breezes, these pine woods, these outdoor days +are a long way removed from temptation." + +He swung his hands illustratively from the sheen of Oxford's surface to +the dark green of the Black Forest, which loomed in somber mystery on +Caribou Point, and looked into the clerk's soft eyes. But Edwin Glyndon +was staring over the chief trader's shoulder at someone coming up the +path to the store. + +"Good Lord!" was his amazed exclamation. "Who in all the angels' +category is that?" + +Dunvegan turned to see Lazard's niece hurrying toward the building. + +"That? Oh, Desirée Lazard!" he answered, striving ineffectually to keep +his stirring blood from crimsoning his tan. "She's a ward of old Pierre +since her father died. Pierre is her uncle." + +"My word!" Glyndon gasped, and could say no more; although his chin went +nervously up and down while Desirée Lazard approached. + +She walked without perceptible effort in that easy rhythm of movement +peculiar to wilderness-born women. Her hair, dun-gold as the morning sky +behind, was pinned in a loose knot and parted in the center, letting the +shimmer and wave of the tresses play upon either side like shallow-water +ripples over sun-browned gravel. Forehead, cheeks, nose and mouth held +serene beauty in their perfect chiselling, while her eyes shone like +twin lakes of the north, sapphire-blue beneath the morning sun. + +So sincere were the men in the unconscious homage they paid to her +fairness that they did not move aside to let her enter the door. She +stopped and gazed inquiringly at the stranger. And the pair gazed at +her. They marvelled at the luxurious development of throat, bosom, and +arms, clearly revealed by a tight-fitting chamois waist with open neck +and rolled-up sleeves, and at the trim, full contour of her healthy body +from the tops of her shoulders to the hem of her doeskin skirt and on +down the well-filled leggins to moccasined feet which would hardly have +covered a man's palm. + +"Good morning, Bruce," she said demurely. "Good morning, monsieur----" + +"Glyndon--Edwin Glyndon," supplemented the clerk, eagerly. He was +delighted to find that ceremony was an unknown thing in the posts and +that each greeted a neighbor whether formally acquainted or not. + +"I have told Glyndon you are Pierre's niece," Dunvegan interposed. "He +has been drafted from Norway House as our clerk and will henceforth be +one of us." + +"Ah! Monsieur will find the society of Oxford House limited after living +in London," laughed Desirée. + +"More limited, but assuredly not less desirable," Glyndon returned +gallantly; and the dwelling of his soft eyes on the girl brought the +rose to her cheeks. + +"Come," she cried peremptorily to hide her confusion, "let me go in and +get my things or I shall be late for mass." + +Dunvegan thought to wait upon her, but the English clerk sprang in +first. + +"It is for me to serve," he declared. "I must learn my business." + +And the chief trader experienced a pang of intense jealousy as he +watched the laughter and badinage of the two across the counter while +Desirée made her purchases. He glowered in dark envy and strode out on +to the steps. When the girl danced gaily over the threshold, he did not +speak. + +Glyndon rejoined him, his eyes devouring the lithe, swinging form of +Desirée Lazard as she rushed home humming a little French song under her +breath. + +"Jove!" he exclaimed. "Did you ever see such a figure? Look at the +inswell of the torso to the waist and the outswell over the hips----" + +But Dunvegan's hand falling like a great weight on his shoulder cut +short the speech. Glyndon felt that grip clear through his body; felt +his collar bone bend beneath the chief trader's thumb, and he winced. + +"Glyndon, never admire a woman in that way," Bruce warned. "Never, I +say! Do you understand me?" + +The English clerk slunk back under the powerful menace in Dunvegan's +glance. + +"Oh!" he ejaculated with swift intuition. "I didn't know that you----" + +"That'll do," the chief trader cut in. "You don't know anything yet. Try +not to bother your head! Go on over to the Mission House!" He started +Edwin Glyndon down the path. + +Malcolm Macleod for the first time in twenty years had entered the +chapel, not for the service but for the christening. Dunvegan left the +store in charge of his _mètis_ clerk and followed. + +Was he going for the service? Perhaps, for he was a good man, and his +religious creed was not a narrow one. Was he going for the christening +also? Undoubtedly, for he was to stand sponsor for the child. + +But in the depths of his being something cried a third reason. + +Across the flat ground which served as the trading house yard lay the +chapel. Roughly built after the fashion of northern missions, its very +ruggedness suggested the strength of the faith for which it stood as +symbol. + +As Dunvegan approached the steps, people were already filing rapidly +through the narrow doorway. A medley of types was there. Acorn-headed +squaws pattered in. Morose Indians filed after. Women, children, and +settlers drifted through the doorway. The Hudson's Bay men slouched +over. Trappers and halfbreeds filled the single aisle. At the end of a +rough bench in one front corner of the building sat the Factor, dour and +unyielding. His head was bowed. Not a muscle of his body moved. Perched +on the opposite end of that seat was Gaspard Follet, the Fool who had +drifted in from nowhere to the post about a year before. It was the +Fool's delight to go about hearing everything through dog-like ears, +seeing everything through owlish eyes. + +None could find out who or what he was, or whence he had come. Yet many +at Oxford House contended that he was not so simple as he appeared. +They declared that he was as wise as themselves and only kept up the +sham to get an easy living. In proof of their contention these +suspicious ones set forth his glibness of tongue when he pleased, for on +occasion he could talk as well as Brochet. + +As Dunvegan seated himself not far from Pierre Lazard and his niece, the +mass began in solemn intonation. + +"_In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti_," began Father Brochet, +the mass book supported where the black cassock bulged over his portly +waist. + +The clear voice of the clerk answered with sonorous "amens", and the +responses rose in chorus. + +Dunvegan looked at the Factor. The latter seemed unconscious that an +earnest service was progressing. Sunk in stony oblivion, he appeared +absolutely motionless, his chest neither rising nor falling as he +breathed. + +The long, familiar service was finally concluded, and those who had +taken no part other than as mere listeners sat up with an expectant +shuffle. Flora Macleod moved to the front with her child and stood +before the altar. Father Brochet looked down upon her. There was no +reproach in his mièn. Experience had taught him that in such a case as +this, women followed their own hearts even to fleeing from their +parents. + +A hush brooded over the chapel's interior, a sort of awkward silence, a +dread of things running awry! The child's whimper broke it, and Flora +swayed the boy in her arms to quiet him. + +Brochet spoke when she finished, his clear voice carrying to the door +and even outside where some latecomers unable to find seats were grouped +on the slab of rough stone which served for a step. + +"Who is the male parent, the father of the child?" he asked in the +natural course of the ceremony. + +Deep silence reigned. Flora Macleod's lips closed tightly, indicating +that out of stubbornness she would not speak the name. People looked at +the Factor, and he turned from his immobility with the attitude of a +sleeping bear suddenly prodded into angry activity. + +"Black Ferguson," he snarled, sidling over a foot or so upon the bench. + +"The name this child is to bear with honor through life?" Father Brochet +continued. + +"Honor?" grunted Macleod. "I don't know about that. No doubt he will +inherit the spirit of disobedience from his mother. Call him Charles Ian +Macleod! There will be no Ferguson in it." + +A murmur stirred the assemblage at the Factor's rude remark, but they +dared not add protest to their surprises. Dunvegan of course, had +expected it from the first. + +"Who stands as sponsor for this infant?" asked the priest. + +Macleod swung himself half round and nodded to Dunvegan. Bruce rose to +his feet, seeing with surprise that Gaspard, the Fool, had also raised +himself up by jumping upon the seat. + +"Who stands sponsor?" + +"I," squealed the idiot. "Also, he can have my name, for if the truth +came out, it is as good as anyone's and----" + +He got no farther for old Pierre Lazard pulled the foolish dwarf off his +perch before the angry Factor could strike him and pushed him +unceremoniously to the door amid the suppressed chuckles of the +assembly. + +"Again, who stands sponsor?" inquired the unruffled Father Brochet. + +"I do," spoke Dunvegan. + +"Do you, Charles Ian Macleod, renounce the devil, his angels and all +their evil works?" + +"I do," Dunvegan, as sponsor, replied. + +"Do you believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost?" + +"I believe!" + +"It is well," observed Brochet. "We may now proceed with the service of +baptism. Behold in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the +Holy Ghost I baptize you Charles Ian Macleod. And may the good Lord's +mercy lead your feet in honorable paths." + +"Amen! Amen! Amen!" rang the responses in many tongues throughout the +chapel. + +With the chanting of a hymn the people poured forth. Flora disappeared +instantly with her child, waiting for no birth offering. + +The Factor was equally swift in effacing himself from the unfamiliar +Mission House. One of his desires had been fulfilled. There remained the +other, and the consummation of that one promised to be a harder matter. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN THE BLOOD + + +Dunvegan hastened after Desirée Lazard and overtook her near her uncle's +cabin. Pierre himself had gone in ahead. + +"Wait a moment, Desirée," he begged. "I want you to promise me +something. I'll have no peace till you do. Macleod has ordered me to +build at once the new post on the site I selected----" + +"Kamattawa?" she queried. + +"Yes. It is to hold the Nor'westers in check." + +Desirée smiled. "The company of my father!" she reproved gently. + +"Would that there were no need to fight them!" Dunvegan breathed. "Would +that I might stay here! But I cannot. And it is torture for me to go +with fear and doubt in my mind. I want your solemn promise that this +man Ferguson shall have no speech with you." + +"Why?" She was looking at him with her head turned sidewise like a saucy +bird. + +"Why?" Bruce echoed. "Surely you don't mean that. You know what he is. +You saw to-day what he has done. They say he is hard set after you. And +your heart should recoil from the very idea. Why? You don't mean it, +Desirée. You are not that shallow!" + +Her eyes suddenly softened. "Forgive me, Bruce. I was only tormenting +you. I promise. I freely promise." She thrust both hands in his. + +Dunvegan's blood leaped at the contact, but he controlled himself. +"That's well, Desirée," he murmured. "That's so much gained. And what I +gain I never lose. Perhaps when I come back I may gain still more!" + +His gaze had a hunger in it. The whole strong manliness of his honest +nature was pleading for what she had hitherto denied him. Desirée felt +the strength of his passion and lowered her glance. + +There were people passing, but foot by foot in her maddening elusiveness +Desirée had drawn from the trail till she was hidden behind the outer +cabin door which swung half open. Dunvegan, his shoulders wedged in the +opening, tried to read her face. + +"In a few days I'll be gone to build Kamattawa," he went on. "Give me +some hope before I go. Don't send me away without a shred of +encouragement, Desirée." + +Wide-eyed she gazed at him. She was flushed, her manner all uncertain. +Her breath came quickly. Abruptly she flung out her arms in a swift +gesture of pity. + +"Bruce," she cried, "it might be some time--if--if things were +different." + +"How?" + +"If you didn't hold so strongly to the Hudson's Bay Company." + +Dunvegan stepped back, his lips closed grimly. + +"Would you--ever break your allegiance?" Desirée faltered. + +"Never while my blood runs!" + +"Oh, your proud spirit!" she lamented. "And mine as proud! It's no use, +Bruce. It's no use." + +She sprang up on the steps, but Dunvegan caught her by the arms. + +"Don't," she protested. "There are people passing." + +"They can't see," he replied feverishly. "You musn't go like this +without telling me more. Why will you keep this barrier between us?" + +"I have vowed I will never wed a man except he be of my own company." + +"But why? What is the loyalty of old service to a woman?" + +"As much as to a man. Remember every man of the companies was bred of +woman. It is a matter of blood. And loyalty to the Northwest Company is +in my blood." + +Because the feminine soul of her was beyond his understanding, the chief +trader was smitten with bitterness and anger. "And you will forever +swear by these Nor'westers?" he demanded. "You will swear by a lot of +frontier ruffians herded under the leadership of such a scoundrel as +Black Ferguson? Tell me that!" + +"I must," Desirée answered. + +Dunvegan turned on his heel without another word. + +But Desirée was flying after him as he reached the trail. Her hand was +on his shoulder. + +"Bruce," she panted. + +He stopped. His face was cold, impassive. + +"Well?" + +"I must because--my--my father died with them. His spirit is in me." +Both her hands were on his shoulders now. She was very much in earnest, +and it hurt her that he should in any way misconstrue her motives. +"There are times," she continued, "when I feel I hate the Hudson's Bay +Company and all its servants. But at those times I always have to amend +my hatred. Not _all_ its servants! Don't you understand?" + +She let him fathom her eyes, and he understood. There he caught a gleam +of something he had never surprised before. The joy of the discovery +ran through him like exultant fire. + +He prisoned both the wrists at his shoulders. "Desirée, you care! You +care a little!" + +"Yes," she breathed, and still unwillingly, "I care--a little!" + +With the partial confession she wrenched free and rushed blindly +indoors. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +LIEGES OF THE WILD + + +Lieges of the most gigantic trust the world would ever see, the Hudson's +Bay men filled Dunvegan's trading room when the long northern twilight +fell upon the post. From above the chief trader's desk the Company's +coat-of-arms, roughly carved on an oaken shield, looked down upon its +hardy followers. The bold insignia seemed symbolic of the supremacy, the +power, the privilege invested in that mighty institution. + +Well might the Company pride itself on the sovereignty of a vast domain. +Well might the Factors call themselves true lords of the North! The +rights King Charles the Second had granted them extended over a +territory of two and one-quarter million square miles, an empire +one-third the size of Europe. All other subjects of the Crown were +expressly forbidden to visit or trade in this immense tract. Violation +of the edict meant that trespassers ran the risk of sudden decease under +the judgment of the Company's servants. For these were entrusted not +only with the absolute proprietorship, supreme monarchy, and exclusive +traffic of that undefined country known as Rupert's Land, which +comprised all the regions discovered or to be discovered within the +gates of Hudson's Strait, but also with the power of life and death over +every aborigine or Christian who adventured there. + +The only exemption along this line had been made a century after the +erection of the corporation in 1670, consisting primarily of gallant +Prince Rupert and his dare-devil associates, when provision of letters +patent was made for those of the kingdom of New France, who had pushed +northward to the shores of Hudson's Bay, whereby any actual possessions +of any Christian prince or state were protected and withheld from the +Company's operation. These claims were confirmed in 1697 by the Treaty +of Ryswick, only to be abandoned by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. But +still voyageurs of the adventurous heart wet their paddle blades in the +Saskatchewan's sinuous waters, winding on the far quest of peltries +toward the barrier of the Rockies. Conquest and cession interrupted such +overland enterprises, but shrewd English business heads began later +systematically to direct these undertakings till the pursuit finally led +to the formation in 1783 of the Northwest Fur Company of Montreal. + +Secure in its possession, strong in its kingship until now, the Hudson's +Bay institution suddenly saw a dangerous rival invade its hitherto +unmolested precincts, and the whole energy of the vast corporation was +drawn upon to combat the ever encroaching Nor'westers. It was not to be +supposed that the first lords of the North who had thrown their posts +far across the basin of the Coppermine would give ground before the +younger organization. Nor was it credible that the adventurers, who had +ascended the Mackenzie to the grim Arctic Ocean and pushed down to the +Pacific by scaling the Rocky Mountains would stand aloof from a +literally open country which would glut them with gain. One company's +desires were as compelling as the other's. In temerity and endurance +they were equally matched. The only issue could be a violent and bloody +competition till one giant broke the hold of the adversary. + +In the very heart of the contention, in one of the richest trading +districts, Malcolm Macleod found himself locking arms with the +redoubtable enemy of his corporation. These were the days of sudden +surprises and stern reprisals; of secret plottings and bloody +skirmishes. A Hudson's Bay fort was beleaguered; a Nor'west fur train +sacked. Or, again, it was a stroke in the dark when a picket was wiped +out, or an entire brigade destroyed. + +Ably seconded by Bruce Dunvegan, the Factor upheld the interests of +Oxford House and the Hudson's Bay Company with an iron hand. The problem +of the Nor'west advance faced him. Black Ferguson, one of the rival +organization's leaders, had established a footing in the Katchawan +Valley and built a fortified post, Fort La Roche, which was now the +stronghold of the Nor'westers in that country. From there by secret +trysts in which only a wayward girl would have indulged, Black Ferguson +had enticed Macleod's daughter from under his very nose--enticed and +deserted! + +Alone in his council room Malcolm Macleod's black wrath boiled under the +powerful insult. He had never seen Black Ferguson, but he promised +himself that he should soon feast his eyes upon the Nor'wester trussed +up in thongs with the fear of swift death confronting him. Macleod was +only biding his time till Dunvegan should rear up Fort Kamattawa, the +new post with which he intended to shut out Nor'westers from the +Katchawan Valley. With Kamattawa as a base he would wipe Fort La Roche +off the district. + +The same possibility was being discussed by Bruce Dunvegan and his men +as they smoked their evening pipes in the hazy light of the trading +room. + +"Give me the least opportunity to strike the Nor'westers in the Valley, +and I'll strike hard enough to crush Black Ferguson's fort," the chief +trader declared. "When Kamattawa is finished, the Factor expects to +capture La Roche, but if we ever get a chance in the meantime, we'll +take it, and take it quick. Eh, men?" + +They nodded grimly. They loved deeds more than words, and Bruce knew +they were as eager as himself. + +Sandy Stewart, the Lowland Scot of the canny head, at length broke +silence, quitting his pipe long enough to utter a brief sentence: "We'll +no be shuttin' oor eyes as we build." His own gray eyes twinkled +craftily through the steel haze of the Company's tobacco. + +Pete Connear was sprawling in sailor's attitude, his back on a bench, +his knees drawn up to his chin. He shifted his legs to speak. + +"Why not send a spy among them?" he suggested. "There are lots of +strange men in our service who could play the part." + +"Too dangerous," commented the chief trader seriously. "Any man who +enters an enemy's fort these days is putting his neck in a noose. +Moreover it's impossible on both sides. The Nor'westers trust no +stranger. Neither do we." + +"We trusted yon gossoon Follet," put in Terence Burke, who had a brogue +which was hard to smother. + +"Bah! he's a fool." + +"He talks loike a lawyer whin he plases. I think he's a deep wan." + +"It's his idiocy. Gaspard is harmless. You see they could no more put a +spy into Oxford House than we could employ a traitor to mingle in their +ranks at La Roche. We must watch for our opening, daylight or dark, and +catch Black Ferguson dozing. I'd give a thousand castors to lay hands on +him right now!" + +Basil Dreaulond emitted a low chuckle and beat his moccasin with the +bowl of his pipe. + +"Nobody don' nevaire catch dat man," he observed. "Ferguson mooch too +smart; he got de heart lak wan black fox. De fellow w'at goin' git de +bes' of heem mus' spik wit' _le diable_, yes!" + +"Faith," Burke laughed, "he'd be spakin' wid his-self 'cause it's the +divil in per-rson is me frind Black Ferguson. Oi clapped eyes on him +wanst at Montreal." + +"What did he look like, Terence?" asked Pete Connear. Even as the +Factor, none of the other men had seen the troublesome Nor'wester at +close range. The nearest vision they had had of him was in the gun-smoke +of a skirmish or in the semi-darkness of a midnight raid. + +"Fair as a Dane wid the same blue eyes," the Irishman answered. + +"Listen till that, would ye!" cried Stewart. "An' why maun they gae +callin' him 'Black' Ferguson?" + +"Hees soul," explained Dreaulond tersely. "Everyt'ing dis man do be +black as _diable_. Tak' more dan wan t'ousand pries' confess heem out of +hell!" + +"Kind of brother to Captain Kidd, or a cousin of old Morgan's, eh!" +remarked Pete Connear. "Pretty figure to have leading the other side. +I'd think the Nor'west Company would put a decent man in charge." + +"He's just the sort they want," Dunvegan declared. "They know they're +beyond their rights and trespassing on ours. They want a man who will +stop at nothing. In Black Ferguson they have him!" + +Even as Dunvegan finished speaking a scuffle arose at the door. + +"What's that?" the chief trader demanded. + +"Sounds like a husky," observed Pete Connear. + +They could hear snarling and groaning with now and then a whimper of +fear as from a frightened animal. + +"No, it's a human voice," declared Dunvegan. He strode across the room +and kicked up the latch. + +The door swung back swiftly and in bounded the weird shape of Gaspard +Follet, the little idiot. He dashed forward as if propelled from a +catapult, but the chief trader's peremptory voice halted him. + +"Stop," Dunvegan commanded. "What in Rupert's name is the matter with +you?" + +Gaspard stood speechless. His owlish eyes glared in a perfect frenzy of +real or simulated terror, and he hopped from one foot to the other in +the center of the floor, hunching his dwarfed shoulders with a horrid, +convulsive movement. + +For the most part amazed silence struck the men, but Maskwa, the Ojibway +fort runner, regarded Follet with the superstition of his race and +jabbered in guttural accents. + +"The Little Fool has seen a god," he asserted in Ojibway. "He has spoken +with Nenaubosho!" + +"_Non_," was Basil Dreaulond's more commonplace explanation. "De mad +_giddés_ bite heem. Dis Gaspard goin' crazy lak' dose yelpin' beas'." + +But the chief trader bade them speculate in silence. + +"Speak, Follet," he urged. "Take a long breath and you'll get it out. +Something's tried your nerves!" + +"Ah!" gasped the Fool between his chattering teeth. "I have been +frightened. I have been frightened." He crossed himself a score of times +and shut out an imaginary vision by holding claw-like fingers before his +great, staring eyes. + +"Speak out," ordered Dunvegan sternly. "Where have you been all day? I +haven't seen you since Pierre Lazard put you out of the Mission House +this morning." + +"In the Black Forest," answered the dwarf. "I went in a canoe to be +alone, for they put me out of the chapel. Who was it? Oh, yes, old +Pierre. I will remember that. I went in a canoe and I saw a devil." + +"What was it?" asked Bruce, smiling. + +"I--I forget." Gaspard beat his forehead in a vain attempt at +recollection. + +The chief trader was well acquainted with the Fool's frequent +pilgrimages here and there, his harmless adventures, his constant lapses +of memory. Where others sometimes doubted, he believed Follet's +imbecility was genuine. Else why was it kept up? + +"You had better do your wandering within the stockades," he advised. +"The woods aren't altogether safe for pleasure jaunts." + +"Who would harm a silly head?" mumbled Gaspard. + +"That's no protection. Your head might be taken off first and its sanity +inquired into afterwards. That's a peculiar habit these roaming +Nor'westers have." + +"The Nor'westers!" echoed Gaspard Follet, in a strident scream, his +whole face lighting with the gleam of certain knowledge born of +suggestion. "One of them was the devil I saw in the Black Forest in the +winter cabin. Name of the Virgin, how he frightened me! Now I remember +well. It was the worst of them all. Any of you would have run as I did. +Don't tell me you wouldn't! Ferguson sits in yon cabin!" + +The floor shook with the spring of the men to their feet. Dunvegan had +instantly leaped the length of the room and lifted the dwarf in his +hands, shaking him to search out the truth of the statement. + +"Do you lie?" he cried tensely. "Speak! Is this an idiot's fancy?" + +Gaspard wriggled. His face no longer bore vacancy of expression. The +flush of real intelligence mantled it. + +"No, by the cross," he vowed. "I speak truth. I know what I saw. If you +think I lie, take me there. Should the Black Nor'wester not sit in the +cabin as I say, you may kill me." + +Because Gaspard Follet was above all things a coward, this offer forced +immediate conviction upon the group. As the chief trader set the fool +upon his feet, he turned and saw Malcolm Macleod's form bulking broad in +the doorway. + +"You have heard?" + +"I have heard." The Factor's tone boomed out, savage, exultant. The +order that followed was given with a swiftness as sinister as it was +explicit. + +"Take a dozen men," he directed briefly. "Bring me the Nor'wester, +living or dead. You understand?" Again he spaced the words for them: +"Living--or--dead!" + +Clement Nemaire swung wide the stockade gates. Bearing a forty-foot fur +canoe, Dunvegan and his men filed out on their mission. The entrance +closed behind the mysterious going. + +"_Bon fortune_," whispered Nemaire. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE NOR'WESTER'S FLESH + + +A deeper blot within the shadow which the headland cast upon the water, +Dunvegan's craft silently rounded Caribou Point, beached softly upon the +sand in the granite-walled cove, and spilled its crew into the aisles of +the Black Forest. Beyond rose the craggy ridge called Mooswa Hill, a +landmark to the Hudson's Bay men in times of quiet, a pillar of fire +when the Nor'westers struck. + +The winter cabin Gaspard Follet had mentioned stood on a rock shoulder +above the cove. Pine and spruce crowded it. In springtime the shore ice +jammed to its threshold. The ooze and drip of the years were insidiously +working its ruin. But still the halfbreed and the voyageurs sometimes +used it for a night's shelter on their journeys. Once it had saved the +life of Basil Dreaulond in a great blizzard. Exhausted, he had reached +it when he could never have made his remaining three miles to Oxford +House. + +A neck of the Black Forest hugged the incline where the hut stood. +Marshy beaver meadows, fringing the Bay, hedged the timber line, +spreading across to Mooswa ridge and giving no solid footing except what +was afforded by a dam traversing the black water. This ridge fell away +gradually to where Oxford House was reared, but reaching the Hudson's +Bay post by land from Caribou Point was precarious business in the dark +for no bridge, other than that which the beavers had built, spanned the +morass. Hence the chief trader with his band had elected to come by +water. + +Very warily they emerged from the shelter of the tree boles into the +clearing where the cabin rested. + +"Lie down," commanded Dunvegan, in a whisper. "And go slow! The fellow +may have friends with him." + +They disappeared at once among the rock ferns, worming noiselessly upon +their faces toward the rough log shelter. The chinks of the logs +streamed candlelight, but no sound came from within. The night seemed +holding its breath. The intense stillness was broken only by the leap of +maska-longe on the distant bars and the rubbing of elbows in the ferny +brake. + +At the cabin's corner the chief trader touched three of his followers +upon the shoulder. Immediately they obeyed his unspoken command, +slipping cat-footed round the hut one to the back one to either side. +Possessed of sudden, sardonic humor, Dunvegan stooped and whispered in +the ear of the dwarf whom they had taken at his word and brought along. + +"Will you go in first?" he questioned, playing upon Gaspard's cowardly +spirit. + +The Fool shuddered and shied. Stifling a laugh, the chief trader thrust +him to the rear of his line. His heavy kick flung the door back, and he +leaped swiftly inside. The hut had an occupant! He rose from a block +seat at the sudden intrusion, striding uncertainly to the center of the +floor. Neither man spoke. Dunvegan's followers trooped in. + +The chief trader's glance searched out the stranger's armament, the +rifle in the corner, the belt of pistols on the rude table. The pistols +Dunvegan threw down at the butt of the leaning rifle. Then he whirled +the table itself across that corner of the room, cutting off access to +the weapons, and sat upon it. The tall, sturdily-built fellow watched +him, unmoved. His crafty, blue eyes never wavered. He seemed conscious +of no immediate danger. + +"_Bon soir_," he spoke finally, giving them the greeting of the North +with a southern accent. + +"It's not good," returned Dunvegan, curtly. "This is the worst night you +ever struck in all your bad nights, Mr. Ferguson." + +"Ferguson!" echoed the other in feigned surprise. Then he laughed +cheerfully. "That isn't my name, and I'm not a Nor'wester. I'm a Free +Trader from the South. A Yank, if you must know--from Vermont! I'll get +out now that the Company has spotted me. I have some regard for my pelt. +Come, act square with me. The H. B. C. always gives a man a chance. It's +the first offense, you know. I'll turn my canoe south on the minute." + +"Hardly," replied the chief trader, coldly. "There's some one waiting +for you at Oxford House. You will not go far--if I am any judge of the +Factor's designs." He folded his arms and swung his legs comfortably +under the table. + +To the Fool, he added: "Gaspard, is this the same person you saw?" + +"By the Virgin, yes," quavered Follet, and hid himself behind Connear's +bowed legs between which there was vision enough for his immediate +needs. + +"'Tis that devil of a Black Ferguson," the idiot piped from his vantage +ground. "He frightened me; he frightened me." Breaking into a foolish +habit of improvising rhymes, he shrieked: + + "The devil's kin; the devil's son; + And all the devils rolled in one!" + +Dunvegan silenced him with a word and addressed the Irishman. + +"Burke," he asked, "can you corroborate this poor fool's statement? We +want the right man. The Factor won't forgive any blundering." + +"Fair as a Dane wid the same blue eyes! It's him. It's Black Ferguson." + +"Do I look black?" demanded the baited man angrily. + +"_Saprie!_ We no be see you on de inside," was Basil Dreaulond's swift +answer. + +"I'm from the South," persisted the object of their quest, turning to +Bruce. "A Free Trader, I tell you." His gestures were of irritation. + +Dunvegan smiled a cold, triumphant smile. He delighted in the loss of +his enemy's cool demeanor, in the failure of his self-possession. + +"Ferguson," he began, "you're a weak liar. Your accent betrays you. We +have you identified to our satisfaction, and your next interview will be +with Macleod. I warn you that this first meeting with the Factor may be +your last and only one, so carry yourself accordingly!" Dunvegan broke +off, waving an arm to his band. "Bind him!" he added. + +The Hudson's Bay men closed in, but Black Ferguson fell back, a defiant +sneer on his handsome face directed at the chief trader. + +"One minute!" he parleyed insolently. "What's your name?" + +"Bruce Dunvegan." + +"I've heard of you," Ferguson sneered. + +"Perhaps," chuckled the chief trader. "Most Nor'westers have. But I +wouldn't advise you to resist my men unless you want to get roughly +handled." + +"I've heard of you," the other repeated tauntingly; "heard of you as one +of the Company's bravest. Is this how you show your courage? You have +one, two, three--nine, without counting the dwarf. And you spring upon a +solitary man. Dunvegan, you're a cursed coward!" + +Before Dunvegan had felt the depressing gloom of the Nor'wester's +shadow. Now he felt the flaming insult of the Nor'wester's flesh. + +Under that insult his blood stung as under the stroke of a dog-whip. The +scintillating fire grew in his darkened eyes. His teeth gleamed white +between his drawn lips. + +"Back, men," was his snarling command. "I never ask you to do what I'm +afraid to do myself." + +He leaped from the table and strode across to his enemy. + +Black Ferguson stood perfectly still till Dunvegan was almost upon him. +Then he plunged low with a wolf-like spring. What grip the Nor'wester +took the other men never knew, but they saw the chief trader's big form +whirled in the air under the tremendous leverage of some arm-and-leg +hold. When he came down, Dunvegan was flat on his face upon the floor. +Black Ferguson sat astride his back, pinning the chief trader's arms to +the planks. + +"You're quite helpless," Ferguson cried, laughing at his adversary and +sneering at the circle of amazed men. "That's a wrestler's trick. I +learned it in--in Vermont. What'll you do about that binding? I +fancy----" + +A grip of iron on his throat killed the words. Ferguson gurgled and +twisted his head, casting his eyes down to see whose hands held him. But +there were no hands. Dunvegan had swept his muscular legs up over his +back and crossed them in an unbreakable hold about the Nor'wester's +neck. + +Like lightning he swung them down with all the power of his sinewy body. +Torn from his momentary position as the upper dog, Black Ferguson +crashed to the floor. His head seemed nearly wrenched off. His breath +was hammered out. Dunvegan crouched on his chest, choking him into +submission, but even in this strait he had voice enough to spring his +big surprise. + +"La Roche! La Roche!" he roared in a gasping shriek which sounded more +like the desperate death rattle in some wild throat than a human call. +"To me, comrades! To me!" + +Something dashed out the candlelight. A gun roared in the doorway. The +cabin rocked under a powerful assault. It all came in a whirl that dazed +Dunvegan's brain. He heard the chug of bullets through the rotten logs, +the oaths of his men, the battle cry of the rushing Nor'westers who had +been craftily lying in wait. + +"Damn you!" he cried to his prostrate antagonist, "this is your devilish +trap!" + +In a flash he understood that Ferguson had got wind of their coming and +laid a trap for them. Dunvegan's force in his power, and Oxford House +would be an easier prey! And Desirée Lazard an easier prey still! A +madness seized Dunvegan. He vowed that Black Ferguson should pay the +penalty! His fingers closed on the man's wind-pipe, but a falling beam +hit him on the shoulder, hurling him away from his enemy and half-way +through the door amid the rush of feet. There was little return shooting +till Dunvegan squirmed into the open. Then he began it with his pistols, +leading a dash for the canoe and shouting the Hudson's Bay cry. + +Their guns belching fire across the dark, the hardy band zigzagged +among the trees, covering their retreat to the cove with a rattling +fusillade that kept the pursuing Nor'westers at a distance. Connear and +Burke ran knee deep into the water with the big craft. Gaspard Follet +was the first to leap in, but he sank clean through the bottom with a +howl of dismay. Like a dripping rag they pulled him out, and Connear +completely exhausted his store of sailor's expletives. + +"Silence," ordered Dunvegan sharply. "What's wrong with you there?" The +Nor'westers were shooting from the incline above the cove and their +bullets spat in the water. + +"Hole in her as big as a whaleboat," Connear growled. "We're caught in a +trap, and those blasted Nor'west lubbers know it." + +It seemed that the enemy had worsted them at every turn. The lake +offered no means of escape, neither did the morass, and the Nor'westers +held the slope. Dunvegan wondered why they had so easily fought their +way to the canoe. Now he knew the reason. + +The Nor'west leader thought that he had them hemmed in, that their +extermination was already a decided fact. Then would come his surprise +of Oxford House! The scoundrel was brainy, without a doubt. His ruse had +been clever. But he had forgotten one thing--the topography of the +country! There was a way out other than that up the incline and over the +muzzles of the Nor'west rifles. The path lay across the black morass +which ringed the Bay, and Dunvegan knew that path. + +"Are we all here?" he asked suddenly of his men. + +"All but Michael Barreau and Gray Eagle," Connear answered. "Someone +caved in Michael's head with a gun stock; Gray Eagle was shot--I saw him +fall! And old Running Wolf fired the shot!" + +"The Cree joined them, eh? I expected that. Where's Maskwa?" + +"Here, Strong Father," called the Ojibway fort runner. "What is your +will?" + +"You know the beaver dam, the wall across the meadows?" Dunvegan +inquired. "You remember it, the new dam we found some moons ago?" + +"I remember well," Maskwa answered solemnly. "Did not Strong Father +carry me over that----" + +"Never mind," the chief trader interrupted hastily. "If you remember the +place, lead these men to it. When you get across, hurry up Mooswa Hill +and light the beacon. I'll come last! Now then, altogether with the +guns! Give them a good volley to make them think we are preparing to +storm. Then slip away." + +The fusillade boomed and roared. Return volleys belched out. Oxford Lake +rumbled and quaked with a million echoes. Like heavy artillery the black +powder thundered. Then dead silence fell. Expecting instant attack, the +Nor'westers lay close, but the inaction continuing, their scout worked +down close to the beach and found it deserted. At that moment Dunvegan's +file was crossing the long beaver dam. + +The Hudson's Bay men had their guns slung to their backs. All except +Maskwa and the chief trader carried long poles in their hands, with +which they saved themselves when they missed their footing and sank to +the armpits in the rubbish of the structure. + +Maskwa was leading the line. Pete Connear walked next. When they had +reached the solid ridge and were waiting for the others, Connear poked +the Ojibway's muscled back. + +"What's that yarn you started to tell back there about bein' carried +over this rickety dam?" he asked. + +"The day of the great wind, three moons ago," began Maskwa +unemotionally, "Strong Father upset with me in my canoe out in the big +waters beyond Caribou Point. I took the bad medicine, the cramp, and the +lake spirits nearly had me. But Strong Father swam out with me, pumped +my breath back, and carried me over the dam of the little wise ones to +the Company's post, for our canoe was in pieces on the rocks. Strong +Father will not talk about it." + +"By--the sailors'--god!" exclaimed Pete Connear slowly. Then he +whistled siren fashion in failure of further speech, while the tall +Ojibway bounded like a spikehorn up the Mooswa Hill. + +When the last of Dunvegan's men had crossed the bridge built by nature's +children, swift Maskwa had accomplished his mission. As they ran down +the ridge toward the post, the beacon flamed, a pillar of fire, against +the dark sky. + +On through the stockade gates under Nemaire's challenge they sped. And +the Hudson's Bay stronghold shook itself into ready defense at +Dunvegan's news. But although they lay upon their arms, no attack came. +Ferguson's intent had miscarried. + +Yet the surprises of the night were not done. When Macleod made search +for his daughter to see if she could throw any light on recent Nor'west +movements he found her gone and his own canoe missing from the landing. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +WHO RULES HIMSELF + + +"You won your battle the other evening," remarked Father Brochet to +Dunvegan a few days after. "Take care you do not lose this one." + +Brochet's finger was levelled on the trail below the Hudson's Bay +Company's store. + +The chief trader stared and frowned. The two figures strolling over the +path, Edwin Glyndon to his morning's business as clerk and Desirée +Lazard for small purchases which were now growing very frequent, had +been too much together of late to suit the chief trader's taste. + +"Brochet," he spoke darkly, "I'm jealous of that fellow. I hate his +cursed good looks, his woman's eyes, his easy manners! And mark this, +Father, I could have him drafted in a minute to our farthest post. Often +I'm tempted to do it!" + +The kindly priest laid a hand on Dunvegan's arm, feeling the chief +trader's muscles tighten under his inward emotions. + +"Son," Brochet observed, "these are strenuous hours with the agents of +two great companies striving for the overlordship. But in the midst of +all the conflicts, the defeats, the triumphs, who is the real victor?" + +"The Hudson's Bay Company," declared Dunvegan loyally. + +The priest laughed. "Not the material conqueror," he explained. "I mean +what sort of spirit holds the real supremacy?" + +"The man with the heaviest hand," was the chief trader's practical +answer. + +"No," Brochet contradicted, "the man who rules himself! If you sent away +this handsome Edwin Glyndon out of envy, you would be only indulging +your own petty hate. Conquer your passions, my son. That is the true +kingship! If you cannot win a woman's will on your merits, don't win it +at all. No benefit ever came of such a victory gained by nothing but +strength or craft." + +Dunvegan paced uneasily in front of his trading room, his eyes glancing +furtively toward the blank doorway of the store through which Glyndon +and Desirée had disappeared. + +"Yet I go this afternoon with my men to build Kamattawa, leaving a free +field to him," he brooded. "Is that not giving Glyndon an advantage +which you advise me not to take myself. The rule works both ways it +seems to me." + +"That," Brochet declared judicially, "is the natural course of things. +The other is quite different. Have you any objection to his work as a +clerk?" + +"None! He handles the books and the pen better than any we ever had." + +"Then it would be an injustice," the priest concluded. "Glyndon deserves +his chance. How about his vice?" + +"There is no opportunity to pamper his appetite here," laughed Dunvegan. +"If he were alongside the Nor'wester's free rum barrel, I would not +answer for him. But I trust your judgment, Brochet. Things stay as they +are. Now I must finish my trading with the Indians or I shall not get +away on schedule." + +"I intend paddling with you a little way to bid you farewell," the +priest announced as he started over the trail. "It may be I shall have +someone with me in my canoe." + +His brown eyes twinkled. The suspicion of a smile curved his lips. +Dunvegan, looking sharply at him, flushed, and a hopeful gleam lighted +his countenance. + +"Father," he said slowly, "you have wisdom beyond all years. That would +please me very much." + +He watched the portly form pass on and wondered at the big heart that +beat under the black cassock. + +"Dunvegan!" called the deep voice of Malcolm Macleod. + +The chief trader turned about to see the Factor standing on the veranda +of his house, the sunlight flooding his broad shoulders. "How many +Indians have yet to get their debt?" he asked. + +"Twenty," Bruce replied. "Eight Ojibways and a dozen Wood Crees." + +"Are they all in?" + +"All but Running Wolf's tribe! The other Indian camps are ready to +strike their tepees. The twenty men are waiting outside the yard." + +"Run them off as fast as possible," the Factor ordered. "I'll attend to +the preparations of your brigade myself in order that nothing may be +lacking. Noon should see you started." + +Dunvegan ascended the steps with a sigh. + +"Oh, yes!" shouted Macleod, halting him. "What about Beaver Tail the +Iroquois who failed to return the required value of pelts in the +spring?" + +"I cut him off the Company's book as you ordered." + +"Give him his full debt," the Factor said. "The poor devil has been +sickly, I understand, and not up to his usual prowess as a hunter. We'll +let him have another chance!" + +It was an unexpected freak of generosity in Macleod's adamant nature. +The chief trader raised his eyebrows, expressing involuntary surprise, +but he made no comment. From his trading room door he beckoned to the +assembled group of Indian trappers beyond the tall palings enclosing the +yard. A pair of Ojibways stalked forward, Big Otter, the great old +hunter who had been on the Company's list for thirty years, and Running +Fire, on the trail a scant three winters and just beginning to acquire +fame as a trapper. In friendly fashion Dunvegan looked into their spare, +smoky faces and hawk-like eyes which seemed to hold only surface lights. + +"Running Fire, my brother," he commenced, "your debt on the Company's +books is three hundred beaver. Here I give you three hundred castors to +trade in what you will. Take them, my brother, and because you are so +faithful on the hunt I add ten castors more. Does it satisfy you, +Running Fire?" + +"Surely," spoke the Ojibway. "Strong Father has the kind heart. Behold +when the snows melt will I bring him a pack mightier than ever." + +He took the string of wooden castors Dunvegan offered and, nodding his +satisfaction, strode off to the store where he would barter the counters +which represented half-dollars in money value for the supplies he would +require during his winter's hunt. There he would buy powder and ball, +clothing, blankets. He would stock up with sugar, tea, and flour. A +wonderful knife or axe might take his fancy. And what remained of his +purse would be squandered on fascinating, but useless, finery. + +Big Otter traded next. The way he leaned over Dunvegan's counter showed +that they were old friends. + +"Now comes my weak brother, he of the old limbs, the aged bones, the +waning strength," bantered the chief trader. "For him there is a debt of +one hundred castors recorded." + +But Big Otter smiled at Dunvegan's joke, knowing that his limbs were +sound as any young buck's, remembering that his catch ran well over +three hundred. + +"Strong Father's tongue makes merry," he returned. "Where is the +youthful brave who can follow my tracks?" + +"I don't know him," admitted the chief trader, laughing, "but Running +Fire is making a mighty name. Some fine day he may follow you." + +Big Otter sniffed in contradiction. "Let us wait and see," he suggested. + +Dunvegan passed over a string of castors longer than the previous one. + +"Three hundred and fifty castors is your debt, great one," he smiled, +"and to them I add twenty. Thus you stand high with us. But in return +for the present you must tell me how you manage to keep your peace of +mind, your strength of body." + +The unweakened Ojibway chuckled quietly. + +"I love not," he answered. "I hate not. I dream not." + +Abruptly he strode out. + +And Dunvegan, pondering, wondered if ever was born the white man who +could thus get his debt in life. + +All the long forenoon the Indian trappers came to get their credit. The +six remaining Ojibways filed up. Appeared the twelve Wood Crees. The +emaciated Iroquois Beaver Tail came humbly and in gratitude. But Running +Wolf's band from the Katchawan failed to arrive. Not a hunter of his +tribe showed face in the palisaded yard. No canoe from his camps touched +prow on Oxford shore. + +Although Malcolm Macleod had before boasted his unconcern at such an +issue, the confronting of the stern truth weighed upon his taciturn +spirits. The Cree chief had fallen in with Black Ferguson's party and +joined it, because he had been seen fighting in their ranks but a few +nights earlier. The fact that none of his kind had reported showed that +Running Wolf had reached them by messenger. Doubtless by now the fiery +Three Feathers and his brethren had swelled the Nor'west forces. + +This knowledge plunged Macleod in a black mood. He rushed the +preparations for the departure of the brigade. He commanded. He rebuked. +He disciplined. He rated and cursed till even the hardy voyageurs +sweated under the yoke. But when the noon hour was come, he had them +marshalled on the beach all ready for their journey. + +Loaded to the water's edge with supplies, dunnage, and arms, the big +fleet of canoes pointed over Oxford's waters. The crowd cheered madly, +dinning farewells and firing continual _feu-de-joies_. They thrilled at +the sight of the brawn going forth to build Kamattawa to shut out the +Nor'westers from the Valley. These looked able to do it; brown-armed +white men; swarthy post Indians; the hardy _mètis_; the dashing +voyageurs. The watchers' pulses leaped with admiration for the +indefatigable leader who had travelled thus at the head of countless +brigades on some stern mission for the Company. For him they raised a +stormy cry of appreciation which was heartily echoed back by the men of +the fleet. + +But Dunvegan heeded not the uproarious approbation. The last glance he +cast back centered on one handsome, smiling face in the throng, the face +of Edwin Glyndon. Two other faces he missed, and his eyes looked ahead, +searching the island-dotted expanse of water. + +Many miles of silver surface Oxford Lake unrolled before them; many +long, peaceful, shining miles! An intense calm mirrored it. The fiery, +autumn sun glazed the whole. The vivid shores floated double along its +sides. The sky lay down in its depths with great fish swimming among the +white clouds; while so still swooned the water that the very veining and +shading of color in the reflected foliage could be definitely traced. + +As over silvered glass was the passing of the brigade. Each blotch of +canoe bottom, each bit of overhanging duffle, each quivering sinew +straining on the paddle flashed up from below. + +Lightening the labor of their stroke, the debonair voyageurs broke into +their familiar boating song: + +"_En roulant ma boule roulante----_" + +And chanting more swiftly, they sang in voices which blended with the +artistic charm nature alone can give: + + "_Ah fils du roi, tu es mèchant, + En roulant ma boule, + Toutes les plumes s'en vont au vent, + Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant._" + +By Windy Island they quickened their pace, chorusing loudly: + + "_En roulant ma boule roulante, + En roulant ma boule; + Derrière chez-nous y-a-t-un' ètang; + En roulant ma boule._" + +So the brigade went. And Oxford House crouched low in the distance. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE CAUSE INVINCIBLE + + +Off Caribou Point Wahbiscaw, the bowsman of Dunvegan's canoe, cried out +sharply in his native tongue. The craft turned aside from a jagged reef +of rock that poked like a pike's nose almost to the surface. Then they +sped on with increasing rapidity. The Cree knew every channel, every +fang, every shoal, every bar in the shallows of Oxford Lake. And of +every other lake and river in his district there was a map in his mind. + +It is the unequalled gift of the true red man to remember country over +which he has travelled but once. Not only does he recall the trails or +the waterways but the things which go to make those trails or waterways. +He can place the smooth current, the broken, the rapid, the eddy, the +rocks, the bends of shore. Even the Indian youth quickly acquires such +power of recollection. The retentive faculty is developed to an enormous +degree by those who roam in the wilderness. + +Ahead of the brigade loomed Wasita Island, a cliff of crag and spruce +sunk to its knees in some volcanic crater which had opened under it +aeons ago. Its headlands were scarred and seamed, old in time, marked +with the brand of chaos that had once rocked the mighty northland as the +tornado rocks the balsams. + +Dunvegan, mechanically doing his work as steersman, scanned the shores +for a glimpse of a canoe. At last he placed it on the island margin +drawn up in a little cove called Spirit Bay. It was directly in the +course of the brigade. His heart beats quickened. + +"Faster," he commanded the paddlers, and steered closer to the island +shore. + +"Spirit Bay?" questioned the stolid Cree bowsman. + +"So!" answered his leader. He made a motion for the rest of the fleet +to continue on its way. + +The chief trader's canoe slipped over a white sandbar and nosed in +against the rock alongside the other empty craft which required no tying +in the absence of any lake swell. + +"Behold the canoe of _ayume-aookemou_, the praying man," spoke +Wahbiscaw, puzzled. + +But with a command for him to wait in silence Dunvegan was climbing the +rocks. Up on the peak of the boulder-like island he found Desirée and +Father Brochet. + +"See," she laughed, her beauty increased tenfold by the splendor of sun +and sky, "we have come this far to bid you farewell. Are you not +grateful? It is far to come to say a sentence or two!" + +She gave him her hands, smiling saucily into his eyes. No vision he had +ever seen or dreamed of was so entrancing, so tempting, and yet so +human! + +"Grateful? Ah--yes!" he breathed. "But pray God you may come this far +to meet me on my return! Would you?" He retained the hands that made +him quiver. + +"Who knows?" Desirée pouted teasingly. "The snows will be lying deep. +You may come in a blizzard! Who knows?" + +Like a red ring her lips allured. Father Brochet piously turned his +back. If there was a passionate kiss, he did not see it. He heard only +the heart strain in Dunvegan's voice; saw only the great yearning in his +eyes. + +"Your vow?" he asked. "Will you hold it till I come?" + +"Yes--and after," she plagued. + +"Till I come," Dunvegan pleaded. + +"Yes," Desirée answered, softening. "I told you I would never marry a +Hudson's Bay man." + +"Keep it well, then," he adjured--"till I come!" + +It took effort to release her warm palms! Dunvegan turned hastily to the +priest. + +"Good-bye, Brochet." Their hands welded. + +"_A Dieu_," murmured his friend. + +There was a mist in Dunvegan's eyes as he walked. Father Brochet noted +that he stumbled a little in reaching the canoe. + +"Wik! Wik!" Wahbiscaw called. The craft slanted through the channel and +was gone. + +Brochet, watching closely, saw a great void grow in Desirée's eyes. + +"Ah," he mused, "if this had been return!" + +September smiled between the scarlet curtains of the moose maples upon +Dunvegan's arrival in the Katchawan Valley. October glared through the +bare lattice work of the branches at the upstanding walls of trading +room, store and blockhouse. November swept wrathfully down the open +forest lanes, blustering a frosty challenge to the hive of men toiling +at the roofing over, the gabling in, the palisading. + +But the challenge rang too late. Kamattawa's stockades grinned back +undaunted. Behind them crouched the broad-bulked buildings, +weather-proof, grim, impregnable alike to destructive elements and +predatory foes. + +There still remained the finer inside work; the flooring, the store +shelving, the compartment shaping, the counter making for the trading +room, the stairs of the same and the grill in the supply loft above. But +all this could be accomplished with comparative luxury in the warmth of +the fireplaces whose birch flames crackled defiance to the cold. + +The incidents of the Hudson's Bay men's journey to the Valley and the +log of events during the post's building stand in bold orthography upon +the daybook of the Fort. One hundred spacious pages the story covers. +And because Bruce Dunvegan was not given to write of trifles, the sheets +claim a sequence of bold facts which prompt the imagination with the +allurement of boundless suggestion. + +For instance, there is a line telling that they encountered a squall on +Trout Lake. But the yellow paper says nothing of how for hours they +bucked the monstrous seas which broke over the canoe bows till each +bailer's muscles cramped under the strain of clearing shipped water, or +how the craft, sliding meteor-like down the passed surge crests, slapped +and pounded in the wave troughs till the bottoms broke in rents and the +daring crews won the shore race with death by a scant paddle's stroke. + +Likewise a brief obituary states that Gabriel Fonderel was killed in a +skirmish with some of Running Wolf's tribe at the Channel Du Loup. Yet +there is no word of how the now hostile Crees, strong in numbers and led +by the fiery Three Feathers held back Dunvegan's men for four days till +finally the chief trader ran the rocky passage in the dark beneath a +vicious fire that wounded a half-dozen voyageurs besides snuffing out +Fonderel's breath. + +Two burnings of the unfinished palisades by stealthy enemies; three +night attacks of combined bodies of Nor'westers and Running Wolf's +Crees; the finding of a full powder bag standing among the flour sacks +drying before the fire--all these were mildly noted! + +But between the brief lines of this daybook which reposed upon +Dunvegan's desk in the trading room of Fort Kamattawa could be read the +whole round of a virile, courageous existence; could be felt the pulse +of danger and hidden menace; could be witnessed the keen drama of the +inimical wilderness conflict. Crowded into these northmen's short span +of months were years of endeavor. They took cognizance of no restraining +limits to this and that undertaking. Theirs were the herculean things, +the endless creations, the hot ambitions. Out of the vast resources of +the northland they established a well-defined era, a cycle of supremacy, +an epoch of undying history which would round their full conquest of the +land. + +The powerful instruments of their healthy bodies were applied by the +shrewdness of their concentrated minds, guarded always by the blessing +of sane leadership. Through his wise counsels Bruce Dunvegan conserved +the powers of his retainers and turned them along the required channels, +directing brain and sinew, blood and spirit, to the profit of the +Ancient and Honorable Company. + +Over every part of the Fort hung his rigid, progressive discipline. At +daybreak all the post Indians, the voyageurs, the H. B. C. servants were +engaged upon their various tasks, fashioning, constructing, finishing! +They labored with care, but with the merriest of dispositions. At seven +they breakfasted. In an hour the hum of work rose again. Leisure could +wait for the deep winter snows! + +Outside the trading room a great flagstaff was reared before the ground +froze too solidly. Up the pine stick ran the Company's crimson ensign, +marking another step of conquest, flinging defiance to the Nor'westers, +shutting out the stronghold of Fort La Roche from the Katchawan Valley. + +Tumultuous cheering greeted the first flap of the banner. Shouts more +sincere than patriotic cries rang out loudly. The Company's adherents +but voiced their allegiance. + +"_Vive La Compagnie!_" exulted the impetuous Baptiste Verenne, a +typical voyageur. + +"_Grace à Dieu!_" pealed his comrades, stridently--"_Grace à Dieu!_" +Like some wild orison to an invisible god--the Company god it might +be--their musical tongues chanted the phrase. + +Could the Nor'westers have seen these outland sons thus greet their +flag, chests big with the emotional breath of love, cheeks bright with +the inspiring blood that comes of proud prestige, eyes burning with the +fire of eternal loyalty, they would have stopped to think. Could Black +Ferguson have witnessed the scene, he would have understood that he was +combating not iron determination alone; not reckless strength, not +unswerving pertinacity, but a stern faith in a power so vast as to be +almost beyond comprehension; a belief in a precedence dominant and +complete, a love of an ideal which even death could not conquer because +it extended beyond through that exalted medium of heroism. And where the +ideal is raised to the clear eye of faith rests the cause invincible. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +TIDINGS OF WAR + + +As an auspicious omen on Kamattawa Indian summer came down with its +fragrant sigh and its transient flash of yellow radiance. Then the winds +fell strangely mute. Some unseen magic permeated the calm. Earth and air +lay breathless with the prophecy of change. + +A little cold caress on his tanned cheek, a tang on his lips, a familiar +tingle in his sinews foretold the prophecy's fulfillment to Baptiste +Verenne when he sauntered in one night from his trail-blazing. He +inspected the sullen sky a moment and shook his head as he strode +through the gates to the blockhouse. + +"Wintaire!" he announced briefly to Dunvegan. "She be comin' _vite_ on +de _nord_ wind, M'sieu'." + +The chief trader tilted his browned face skyward and clutched the air +tentatively to get the feel of the weather. + +"Not far off! Not far off, Baptiste," he calculated. "It may close in +any night, and we'll see a white world when we wake of a morning." + +Verenne's arm slanted, pointing over the palisades. + +"See dat?" he cried. + +A circling wind, the first of many days, eddied the leaves lying against +the stockade, piled them in a wreath thirty feet high in the air with +gentle motion peculiarly distinctive to a close observer, then +ruthlessly disintegrated the whole. + +"An dat?" Baptiste added. + +A whizzing phalanx of wild geese blurred the distant horizon, bored like +a rocket from sky to sky, and pierced the invisible distance. + +"W'en dey fly dat way," averred Baptiste, "de wintaire right on dere +tails! She be come _toute suite_, M'sieu'." + +And it did! A greasy wrack of clouds masked the sunset. The north wind +blew out of the Arctic circle with a humming like vibrating wires. The +wraith of desolation went eerily shrieking round and round. Then out of +inky space the snow came down, driving fiercely on a forty-mile gale to +smother the gauntness of the rugged forest in a swirl of white. For +thirty-six hours the frozen flakes pelted the stout stockades. The snow +lay in foamy levels in the timber, ten feet deep in the hollows, and +wind-packed to tremendous hardness on the ice-bound lakes and rivers. + +The days became less strenuous now in Fort Kamattawa. The nights grew +long. The Hudson's Bay men attended to their winter needs and +equipments, while the post Indians fashioned snowshoes with native +quickness and skill. + +There came a brief, cold, sleety rain which settled the drifts and the +subsequent hard frosts formed a crust that made excellent tripping on +the raquettes. The first tripper over the trail was Basil Dreaulond +carrying Company dispatches on his way to Nelson House. He lurched in +one night in the midst of a whistling storm with his dog team and a +halfbreed assistant. The world outside the Fort was a shrieking +maelstrom of snow and cutting blasts. Inside the men sat close together +about the roaring fireplace. + +So blinding was the tempest that Kamattawa's sentinel in the blockhouse +tower could see nothing from his frosted windows and did not mark the +courier's approach till Basil and the breed were hammering upon the +closed gates with their rifle-butts. Eugene Demorel slid back the +shutter in the watchtower and leaned out, his gun trained on the +entrance. + +"De password," he bellowed. "Who comes dere?" + +"_Diable_ tak' de password," roared Basil who was half frozen. "I'm +Dreaulond. Open dis gate queeck!" + +On the inferno of the elements his words puffed up like faint echoes, +but Eugene Demorel knew the courier's tone. The stockade opened for a +second, a raging snowgap in the draught. Basil stumbled into the log +store. + +"_Holá, camarade_," they greeted joyously. "How do you like the +weather?" + +"_Mauvais_," groaned Dreaulond, leaning toward the flames. "_Saprie_, +but she be cold!" + +Dunvegan took the papers Macleod had sent to him and read them. They +concerned ordinary matters of fort routine and gave him no news of the +home post. + +"How is everything at Oxford House, Basil?" he inquired with +ill-concealed eagerness. + +"Everyt'ing be quiet," returned the courier. "De Nor'westaires don' move +mooch." + +His eyes, however, held a hint of private information, and the chief +trader did not miss the glance. + +"Come to the trading room when you get warmed, Dreaulond," he requested. +"I'd like to see you." + +"_Oui_," assented Basil. "W'en I get dis cold out ma bones." + +Dunvegan disappeared. The Hudson's Bay men volleyed their questions at +Dreaulond. They were ravenous for word of their kind from whom the busy +months had cut them off. Between questions he slowly revolved before the +fireplace, warming his chest, scorching his back, sucking the heat into +his chilled marrow. + +"Any news of the Factor's daughter?" Connear asked him. + +"_Non!_" Basil frowned and added: "She's wit' Black Ferguson, I bet on +dat. She got de spirit of her _père_. She'd go to La Roche an' mak' heem +geeve her sheltaire." + +"And Running Wolf gone over to him, too. We found that out. That whelp +Three Feathers made it hot enough for us at Du Loup." Connear spat +copiously into the snarling birch logs and grinned at the remembrance of +the fight. "How's the English clerk?" he asked after a minute. "Drinkin' +any?" + +"Dey don' geeve heem any chance," replied Dreaulond. "Dat's de ordaire +from hees parents. An' we don't want drunk mans on de post at dis taim +of de great dangaire." + +In Basil's tone they discovered an unwonted gravity, as if he had +knowledge of new developments which he was keeping from them. + +"What's up?" asked Pete, always interested in secrets. "If there's +anything on foot, let us have it, for it's got to be bloomin' dull here. +I miss my grog. I'd give a month's pay for a good glass now." + +"I don't know anyt'ing new," the courier returned. "Eef you want to +grog, go ovaire to de Nor'westaire. Dey drink her pretty free." + +"Yes. Black Ferguson swears by it." + +"Dis Black Ferguson wan devil," declared Dreaulond, passing into the +trading room. "Now he be run after Desirée Lazard, but she not be look +at heem!" + +From his desk Dunvegan glanced steadily at the courier. + +"No letter, Basil?" He bit his lip on the question. + +"_Non_," replied his friend. "I'm sorry, me." + +"Something's wrong," blurted the chief trader. "Tell me what it is. Has +the Nor'wester had speech with Desirée?" Dunvegan's voice was strained, +his fingers clenched white on the wood of his desk. + +"Not dat," Basil explained awkwardly. "De dangaire is in anoder +quartaire! Desirée an' dis Edwin Glyndon dey togedder mooch--ver' mooch. +All de autumn taim dey canoe, dey walk, dey spik alone. Dat be not ma +beezness! _Vraiment_ dat none of ma affair. _Mais_, I t'ink you want +know, mebbe, an' I be tell you w'at I see. Dey togedder all de taim!" + +Dreaulond stepped to the door. His actions like his sentences were brief +and full of significance. The chief trader's voice followed him, an odd, +low tone the courier had never heard him use. + +"Thank you, Basil," was his only comment. "Thank you, for that +information." + +Alone, he strode immediately into the darkness of his sleeping apartment +where he walked the floor, brooding gloomily. Dawn heard his footsteps +still falling. + +Three days after Dreaulond's departure for Nelson House Maskwa, the +swiftest fort runner in the service, dashed over the bluffs, springing +madly on his long, webbed running shoes. He had out-distanced the trio +of breeds following with three dog teams, and he pushed dispatches of +importance into Dunvegan's hands. + +"Half our number leave to-morrow for Oxford House," the chief trader +announced to his retainers as he read. "Men from two of the Nor'west +posts, Brondel and Dumarge, have sacked our fur trains from the +Shamattawa and the Wokattiwagan. The Factor will go to raze Fort +Dumarge. We outfit at Oxford House and move against Fort Brondel." + +A cheer hit the rafters. Unprecedented activity followed. The breeds +blew in with the exhausted giddés. Recuperation came to these Company +dogs with the night's rest, and into the bitter dawn they were haled. +The cold struck nippingly at bare fingers that loaded arms and +travelling necessities on the sledges, lashed the moosehide covers over +the provender, and tied the stubborn babiche knots. Likewise the frost +squeezed the hands that harnessed the dogs. The giddés themselves whined +and stirred uneasily in the cold. They were eager for the rush that +would make their blood run warm. + +Those of the Fort who were to stay behind helped in the work. Long +practice and consummate skill accomplished starting preparations in the +shortest possible time. The dog teams sprang through the gateway at the +release, and a shout of farewell thundered. + +"_Bonheur, camarades!_" was the word. "_A Dieu! A Dieu!_" + +"_Pour_ Shamattawa! _Pour_ Wokattiwagan!" rang the responses from the +loyal Hudson's Bay men. + +"_Marche! Marche!_" called the breeds to the _giddés_, and the cavalcade +swung over the long trail. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +"YOU MAY COME IN A BLIZZARD!" + + +"_Voyez les_ Kamattawa trains," shrieked Maurice Nicolet, the cache +runner, speeding through the storm-thrashed gates of Oxford House. + +"_Mon Dieu_, dat so?" exclaimed Clement Nemaire. "In dis blizzard? W'ere +you be see dem, Maurice?" + +"'Cross de _lac_! W'en de snow she stop fallin' some, I see dose trains +wan meenit come ovaire de trail." + +"Run!" Nemaire admonished. "Tell de Factor dat, queeck!" + +The cache runner bolted into the trading room. Macleod was not there. +Donald Muir, the assistant trader, held charge. + +"_Les_ Kamattawa trains," he howled. "M'sieu', dey be come ovaire de +_lac_." + +Bargaining ceased. Trade slipped from the men's minds. Donald Muir +jumped up and squinted through the open doorway, distinguishing nothing +in the swishing cloud-rifts of snow. He turned back with a shiver and +jammed the latch viciously. + +"Maurice, ye fule," he ridiculed. "I've na doot ye'll be seein' ghosts +next! Ye dinna glint onything but a herd o' caribou driftin' before the +storm." + +"_Bâ, oui_," persisted Nicolet, "w'en de storm she be sheeft wan leetl' +bit an' de cloud break oop, I see dose trains 'cross de _lac_. +_Vraiment_, dat's so!" Maurice nodded his head energetically and added a +string of French superlatives. + +"Fetch me the glass," ordered old Donald Muir. + +A man brought the glass, a long ship's telescope which Pete Connear had +bestowed upon Oxford House. In spite of having seen hard service, it was +a good glass, and the same lens that had picked out many a foresail upon +the high seas now searched the whirling smother which enveloped the +frozen surface of Oxford Lake for signs of the men from Kamattawa. +Donald Muir wedged the rattling door with his knees and sighted through +the open slit, the hissing snow-eddies spitting in his beard. + +"Yon's a glint o' dogs!" he exclaimed. "Noo the snaw's smoorin' in. I +doot, I doot--Ah! yes, I maun believe ye're richt, Nicolet! Aye, mon, +ye're richt. I can tell the stride o' yon lang-legged fort runner Maskwa +an' the bulk o' Dunvegan. Spread yersels, ye fules--they're here!" + +Boring through undeterred, breaking the trail for the teams, taking the +brunt of the blizzard came the tireless Ojibway fort runner. The body +bent double against the wind, the lurch of hips, the spring from the +heel, the toe-twist of the lifting shoe, all bespoke the experienced +tripper. Maskwa was old and wise on the trails! + +A string of gray dots, the dog teams and the Kamattawa men crawled +after. Up the bank they plunged and scurried through the stockade, +scattering the loose drifts like foam. + +"Hu! Hu! Hu!" shrieked the Indian dog drivers, directing the teams to +the trading door with a tremendous cracking of their long lashes. There +the _giddés_ halted, whimpering in the traces. The arms and equipments +were thrown inside. The storm-harried travelers stumbled after. + +"Maurice, ye fule," fumed Donald Muir, "fire up. Dinna stan' there wi' +yer mouth open! Fire up, mon, fire up! Can ye no see it's heat they +want?" The fussy, kind hearted assistant trader seized Dunvegan's arm +and hustled his superior to his room where he had thoughtfully prepared +a set of dry garments. + +"Yon's wha' ye need," he declared. "Ye'll feel warmer wi' a change." His +attitude was full of solicitude hidden by a sort of proprietorship that +Dunvegan had long ago come to recognize. + +"You're like a mother to me, Donald," he laughed. "But I'm really wet +through with hard work. The change of clothing is well thought of." + +"The Factor wants tae confer wi' ye as soon as ye feel fit," announced +the Scot. "I masel maun see tae the outfits." + +He bustled off, sending halfbreeds with the dog teams to the log +building where the Company's _giddés_ were kept, ordering food for men +and animals, bestowing general comfort upon the Kamattawa stalwarts +crouched around the fireplace. + +Sandy Stewart, the lowland Scot, had been left in charge of the +newly-built Fort. The rest of Dunvegan's tired followers were here. The +flames licked the bronzed, familiar faces of Pete Connear, Terence +Burke, Baptiste Verenne, Maskwa, Wahbiscaw, the hardy halfbreeds, the +trusted post Indians, the faithful _mètis_. + +Loyal to the Company, they were here at the Company's call. And they had +come as Desirée Lazard had idly prophesied. + +"Kip back," Maurice Nicolet ordered the Oxford House loungers round the +fire. "Let dese men have more room. You be well fed, warm--full of +_tabac_ smoke. Kip back. Better go ovaire to de store." + +The permanent group obeyed. The new arrivals moved closer. Maurice +stoked up, jamming huge birch logs into the cavernous stone pit till it +roared and throbbed like a giant engine. Every flicker of the warming +fire draught sent the shivers over their frames, the reaction that comes +of thorough chilling. + +"Ba gosh," chattered Baptiste Verenne, "dis ees de wors' blizzard yet. +_Saprie_, leesten dat, _mes camarades_!" + +A tree crashed thunderously in the forest. Gathering momentum over the +level sweep of Oxford Lake, the blasts struck the stockade with a sound +like the rumbling of a thousand ice jams. The buildings rocked to the +storm's wrath. Monstrous drifts threatened to bury them completely. The +baffled frost, denied entrance, blew its angry, congealing breath +inch-thick upon the blurred window panes. + +"Sound lak de spreeng, eh?" grinned Baptiste. + +"We'll run into a calm in the morning," Pete Connear prophesied +knowingly. "She's been blowin' for fifty hours now. You'll see the wind +drop about midnight." + +Verenne made a gesture of unbelief. "Mebbe," he grunted, "mebbe." + +"I know it," growled Connear. "Let me tell you, Frenchy, that I've +weathered more gales than you ever heard of. It'll be calm to-morrow and +colder than a Belle Isle ice-berg." He lighted the pipe he had filled +and lay back within the heat circle blowing clouds of contentment. + +Dunvegan dressed hastily. He was anxious to get out and go through his +interview with the Factor in order that he might then have some time to +pay a visit to a certain small cabin below the Chapel. He had not seen +Edwin Glyndon, the clerk when he came in. Bruce wondered jealously if +the young Englishman was at the Lazard home. The words of Basil +Dreaulond, given as a friendly hint, had worked in him with the yeast of +unrest, stirring up misgivings, forebodings, positive fears. + +When Bruce crossed the trading room, he looked for Glyndon again, but +the latter was not to be seen. + +"Where's the clerk?" he asked, addressing his retainers sprawling close +to the ruddy logs in the fireplace. + +"Don't know," Connear answered. "I haven't seen him. Guess he's with the +other Oxford House men. They're over at the store. Old Donald's gone +across to start the packing." + +"Better have your things dry and your gear all ready to-night," was the +chief trader's parting advice. "Unless there is a change of plans, we +start at dawn for Fort Brondel." + +While he made his way to the Factor's house, the terrific wind seemed +lessening in velocity, and the snow was settling in straighter lines. +Yet the swaying forest held its dejected droop. The air had still that +voice of wild desolation, symbolic of sorrow, of heart-break, of +desecration. + +Seated somberly at the table in his council room, Malcolm Macleod did +not speak at Dunvegan's entrance. The chief trader, quite accustomed to +the Factor's vagaries, waited unconcernedly on Macleod's whim. Buried +in his dark ruminations, the Factor sat immovable, his knitted eyebrows +meeting, his piercing black eyes focused on the table center. Suddenly +he banged the top with his fist. + +"The girl Flora," he bellowed. "Any trace, any sight of her?" + +"None," Dunvegan answered calmly. "I don't think we'll see her again +till we stand inside the stockades of Fort La Roche." + +"Which will be soon," grated Macleod, with sinister emphasis. "I'll +stand there, mind you, before spring runs out. I swear it by all the +saints and devils of heaven and hell!" The oath was heartily backed by +his malignant face and the suggestive gnash of strong teeth behind +tightened lips. + +The chief trader drew some closely written sheets from his pocket. + +"Here is my report," he ventured by way of getting Macleod's mind lifted +from his hateful brooding. "This is the record of my daybook in +duplicate. It will tell you everything. While good fortune blessed us +at Kamattawa, things seem to have gone badly with you here." + +"Gone badly," echoed the Factor, sneeringly. "I call the loss of two fur +trains, ten men, and a clerk hellish." + +"Clerk? Was Glyndon with them? Did he fall in the fight?" Eager +curiosity was mingled with Dunvegan's great astonishment. + +"No," growled Macleod, "he wasn't with the fur trains. How could he be? +Just a week ago to-day he married Lazard's niece, and they fled +together." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A VOW THAT HELD + + +As a man who gets a knife blade in the ribs Dunvegan settled back in his +chair. In spite of his tremendous self control, the pallor crept up +through his tan. His eyes widened and remained so, staring glazily. The +Factor could not help but notice the change. He gazed a moment above the +pages he held. + +"What's the matter?" he demanded in genuine surprise. Then recollection +coming, he added: "Yes, I remember now. Let that be a lesson to you, +Dunvegan. Don't trust a woman out of your sight! I speak from hard +experience." + +The chief trader pulled his pithless limbs together with an effort. + +"There is a mistake somewhere," he began in a quiet, hollow voice. "What +you say cannot have happened." + +"Why?" + +"As you know, Desirée's feeling leaned toward the Nor'westers. She +registered a vow that she would never marry a Hudson's Bay man." + +"Neither did she!" + +"Great God," breathed Dunvegan, "don't fool with riddles! Speak it out!" + +"She didn't marry a Hudson's Bay man," Macleod asserted grimly. "That +damned traitor of a Glyndon turned Nor'wester and fled. Now do you +understand?" + +Amid a tumultuous rush of mingling feelings, condemnation, anger, +jealousy, despair, Dunvegan understood to the bitter full. For several +silent minutes he sat there, fighting his conflicting emotions, getting +a grip on himself. The Factor read on at the duplicate sheets with +stolid absorption. + +"Who married them?" was the question that interrupted. Dunvegan had +forced his vocal chords into mechanical action. + +"Father Brochet," muttered Macleod, not looking up. + +"And where are they, do you know?" + +"Not I," snarled the Factor, stopping his study of the report. "Most +likely they are now in the Nor'west fort at La Roche." + +"With Black Ferguson! Oh my God!" Bruce leaped to his feet and paced and +re-paced the council room with long, savage strides. The Factor watched +him, smiling cynically, as if at the discovery of some new trait in the +man. A dozen times the chief trader tramped the floor. Then he whirled +in the middle of a stride. + +"This thing was planned," he averred. "The clerk was approached from the +outside." + +"I know that." Macleod's eyes darkened and narrowed a little. + +"By whom?" + +"It is obvious." + +"The Nor'westers--directly?" + +"Undoubtedly." The Factor laid down the report upon the council table. +Dunvegan resumed his frantic walk, again pausing uncertainly. + +"But the means--the means!" he exclaimed petulantly. + +Macleod's teeth snapped shut and opened grudgingly for his speech. + +"Ha!" he gritted. "God pity the means--if I discover it! We have had +spies sneaking about Oxford House. Sometimes I think they must have been +inside the stockades, although that is a wild thought. Be this fact as +it may, the truth remains that Glyndon was approached directly by an +agent of the Nor'westers. Under the powerful combination of the enemy's +inducements and the girl's persuasions his desertion must have been a +comparatively easy matter." + +"Curse his soft eyes!" cried the chief trader. "We might have known +better than trust him. Good Lord, and they sent him away from London +temptations in order that the Company might give him a certificate of +manhood! How, in heaven's name, could a man be made from a bit of slime, +a rotten shell, and a colored rag? Betrayal must have been born in him! +Did you order no pursuit?" + +The Factor shook his shaggy hair as he gathered up the papers. + +"They had twenty hours start and good dogs," he explained. "Besides, +they fled while it was snowing and left no trail." + +"Where's Brochet?" demanded Dunvegan suddenly and irrelevantly. + +"Somewhere down Blazing Pine River on a mission to sick Indians," +Malcolm Macleod replied. "He left shortly after it happened." + +At the end of this questioning, with the little dream-things he had +fashioned scattered to the far compass points as the blizzard outside +had scattered the snow flakes, Dunvegan felt the sickening of supreme +despair. No visible resource stretched before him. He relapsed into +sullen inertia. + +"Is this all?" the Factor asked, placing his duplicate sheets in +numbered sequence. + +"All but one other thing." + +"And that?" + +Dunvegan hesitated. "When I brought Flora Macleod and Running Wolf +here," he commenced awkwardly, "I met a strange canoe on Lake Lemeau. In +that canoe with two Indian paddlers were two United States marshals +named Granger and Garfield. Their passes were good. Their papers I +requested of them." + +The chief trader paused to note the effect of his words on Macleod. But +there was no effect except that the Factor had squared his bulk in his +council chair as if to face an emergency. + +"Go on," he urged grimly. + +"It seemed they were searching for a man whom they suspected of living +in this wilderness under an assumed name. They had his photograph!" + +Malcolm Macleod shifted forward in a startled fashion. + +"You saw that photograph?" + +"I did." + +"You knew it?" + +"No." + +The movement of the Factor's body was swiftly reversed. He breathed +deeply with something of relief, a relief that fled at the chief +trader's next statement. + +"I did not know the original of the picture," Dunvegan asserted, "but I +was told who it was." + +"By whom?" The question shot like a bullet. + +"By Flora Macleod. Privately, you understand! Her information was given +me after these two marshals had gone." + +"Whose picture was it?" Macleod asked doggedly, with the manner of +putting an issue to the test. + +"Your own," the chief trader answered, "at the age of thirty." + +Expecting a dynamic outburst, Dunvegan was completely surprised at the +Factor's stoic composure. The massive limbs never offered to spring from +the chair; the face preserved its rigid, inscrutable lines. + +"You were satisfied with that information, were you?" Macleod +interrogated. + +"Yes." + +"It satisfies you still?" + +"It does." + +"You did not mention the circumstance at the time," the Factor went on. +"Why refer to it now?" + +Dunvegan leaned his arms on the table directly opposite Macleod, +meeting unafraid the piercing glances of those electric eyes, the eyes +which he could now recognize as belonging to the original of the +photograph. + +"Because it is now necessary," he answered. "If it were not, I would not +have opened the subject. In the space of another day, or two, those +deputies will make Oxford House. At this moment they are laid up beyond +Kabeke Bluffs, not caring to face the blizzard. We passed them there." + +Macleod was half out of his chair, an unspoken question blazing from +those magnetic eyes. Dunvegan answered it with hauteur and a little +scorn. + +"I'm no informer," he declared. "Somehow they've got trace of you at the +other forts. These men had official entry to both Hudson's Bay and +Nor'west posts, and they must have covered the territory pretty well." + +"Why do you tell me this?" demanded Macleod, with sudden asperity. + +"Out of a sense of duty." + +"You think me a hunted criminal?" The Factor's tone held resentment and +bitterness which was probably impersonal. + +"I forbear to think," answered Dunvegan. "Your affairs are none of my +business." + +"Yet you serve me! Why serve a man with a supposed stain upon him? Why +not follow, rather, our friend Glyndon's move?" + +"I serve the Company," was the chief trader's response. "The moral +status of the Company's officers cannot effect that fundamental +duty--service." + +The Factor looked long at Dunvegan, marveling at his integrity, his lack +of low curiosity, his allegiance. + +"Bruce," he said--and it was not often he used the Christian +name--"you're one of the true, northern breed, the shut-mouthed men! Let +me tell you a little phase of American life. Twenty years ago there +lived over there in one of the big cities a family by the name of +Macfarlane. The family consisted of the husband and wife, a daughter, +and a son. There was also an intruding element, and this intruder was +named James Funster. You see, Funster had loved Macfarlane's wife before +she married, and even after the marriage he could not like an honorable +man get over his passion. Do you follow me?" + +Dunvegan nodded. He had guessed this much from former hints Macleod had +given him. + +"Well," continued the Factor, "project your thoughts ahead. Imagine the +mad things that come into the brain of the infatuated. Imagine also +Macfarlane's horror at what happened. One day he was away with his +daughter. On his return he found his wife murdered and the son stolen. +Without a doubt it was Funster's work. But notice how Fate acted! +Suspicion fell upon the husband, suggesting the motive of jealousy. He +fled, and the blot still rests on his name." + +"How old were the children?" asked Dunvegan, excitedly. + +"They were very young," Macleod answered evasively; "just a year between +them. I think I have said enough to show you that I am no criminal. That +was twenty years ago, but the false accusation follows me." + +"And you," ventured Bruce--"you are Macfarlane!" + +"I am Alexander Macfarlane." + +"And where is Funster?" + +"Ah!" grated Macleod. "Tell _me_ that." + +Dunvegan rose up, his own sorrow overshadowed by the portentous +resurrection of an old tragedy. + +"You are innocent," he cried, "and those men will be here to-morrow or +the next day." + +"And to-morrow, or the next day I shall be at Fort Dumarge!" + +"But they can follow." + +"Let them! Or let them await me here! What good will it do? They came in +on a long trail, but by Heaven they may go out on a longer one." + +Dunvegan stared at the dark, glowering visage and shivered +involuntarily. + +"What one?" he asked under his breath, although he knew. + +"_La longue traverse_," the Factor decreed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE IRON TRAIL + + +Pluff! Pluff! The crunching of Maskwa's snowshoes sounded back through +the bitter starlight of the dawn. Taking advantage with his skilful +heel-spring of the resilience of the taut shoe webbing and the +elasticity of the curved frames, Maskwa ran easily in a long, lurching +stride. The shifting of his whole weight from one foot to the other sank +his raquettes in the snow with uniform pressure. The ankle's side-swing +came with unfailing precision. The Ojibway traveled like a machine, +perfectly poised and full of potential strength. Thus he could run if +need be from sun to sun. + +Behind him in the broken trail galloped the first of the six dog teams +that carried the outfits. Five halfbreed track beaters packed the snow +in front of the other sledges. Six Indians drove. At intervals the +positions were shifted, each team taking its turn at the lead where lay +the heaviest toil. + +"Mush! Mush!" cried the Indian dog drivers. Crack! Crack! snapped the +whips in weird staccato. These sounds with the noises of travel were the +only ones to echo through the white stillness. For the rest the Hudson's +Bay men went in silence because the cold was that awful cold that +strangles the northern world before sunrise. Its frigid hands seemed to +catch their chests and clamp their lungs tight. A gauntlet removed to +allow the fastening of a moccasin lace, the adjustment of the parka +hood, or the clearing of iced eyelashes left the bare fingers numbed by +the cruel frost which bit through the flesh and lacerated the tense +nerves beneath. Through many a dawn-hour had these northmen fought this +freezing horror. On countless trails had they come face to face with +this death masked ice spirit. Well they knew their capabilities. +Closely they guarded their energies. With all his relentless power and +subtlety the frost fiend might not take them unawares! + +Steadily moved the long line of men across the wind-packed surface of +Oxford Lake, their bodies leaning forward at identical angles, their +limbs swinging with machine-like regularity. Shoulders heaving at their +collars, the dog teams ran in their own peculiar fashion, heads down, +tongues lolling between steaming jaws. So exactly alike the outfits +seemed that the hindmost ones might have been the oft-repeated shadow of +the foremost brushing back across the snows, indistinct, vague beneath +the waning starlight. + +Quitting Oxford Lake at Kowasin Inlet, the trains ascended Kabeke Ridge +that they might make the descent on the other side to the smooth ice of +Blazing Pine River which would afford them easy progress for many miles. +Among the trees of the crest the cavalcade lost definition. The men were +merely shadows on the snow, flicking ghost-like between the silhouetted +tree trunks. The dogs were wolfish things sneaking low to the ground. +The utter silence of the morning was ethereal in its intangibility. +Sharp detonations of frost-split trees brought contrasts that ripped the +screen of silence with weird, unearthly noises. A phosphorescent glimmer +smeared the crust. Little shadowy shapes began to dance before the men's +snow-stung eyes. A suggestion of mirages drifted here and there, +mocking, oppressive, supernatural, phantasmagoric. + +Where the course of march led from the elevated ridge to the low river +surface the incline fell so sharply that extreme care was necessary to +make the descent in safety. The Indian dog drivers whipped up their +teams to force them in a direct line, while some clung to the sledges +that they might not break away wildly and over-run the rushing _giddés_. +The plunge beat up a cloud of foaming snow particles. Sled after sled +shot down. The men half coasted, half ran with amazing speed on the +feathery slope. An immense groove in the white covering of the mountain +side showed after them. They turned down Blazing Pine, on the banks of +which was the Indian encampment that Father Brochet had gone to visit in +his mission of administering to the sick. + +Maskwa, the tireless, still broke the trail. Dunvegan sent forward Black +Fox, a sinewy Salteaux Indian, to relieve him for a space, but the +Ojibway smiled a little and refused. + +"Strong Father," protested Black Fox, dropping back, "this Maskwa the +swift one will not listen. Nor will he give me the task. His legs are of +iron, and his lungs are spirit's lungs--they breathe forever! Strong +Father, there is none like him from Wenipak to the Big Waters." + +"That's true, Black Fox," commented the leader of the expedition, "but +he should take some rest." + +Dunvegan sped forward till he was running side by side with the Ojibway. + +"Maskwa, my brother," he urged, "take the easy place for an hour. It is +not well to punish yourself!" + +The fort runner smiled again. He had ideal features for an Indian, and +the stamp of noble lineage was set upon the bold curve of brow, nose, +and chin. + +"Strong Father," he replied, "it is not hard for me. I will keep on, for +I would have my own eyes search the trail ahead. There are spies about. +Let Strong Father mark how the fur trains were sought out and set upon! +Mark how the French Hearts took council to surprise Oxford House! We +have need to keep the clear eye. We must go swiftly but craftily. +Therefore, Strong Father, let Maskwa have the lead. His sight will not +fail you." + +The Ojibway's dark face glowed earnestly in the golden haze of light +which heralded the near appearance of the sun. He was running as easily +and breathing as quietly as he had done in the first mile they +traversed. + +"As you will," conceded Dunvegan. "You have my trust!" + +The chief trader dropped back in turn with the main body. Maskwa spurted +far ahead, performing the duty of scout as well as that of track +beater. Before the Nor'westers could compass another surprise they would +have to reckon with the cunning Ojibway. + +Steadily on went the file of dog trains. The men were feeling the cold +less. By this time extreme exertion had infused a warm glow in each +man's frame. Every part of the human anatomy responded to the strong +blood coursing in the veins. An excess of virile strength permeated the +muscles. An effervescence of buoyancy toned up the nerves. + +Eyes gleaming brighter for the fringe of filmed ice above, lips blowing +cloud-breaths, clothes frost rimmed from over-activity, these Hudson's +Bay giants held on their way. Soon they came to the branching of the +Blazing Pine River and continued down the tributary which curved by the +Indian village lying three hours' journey below the junction point. + +At last the belated sun rose over the spruce trees, glaring with a sort +of amazed, fiery wrath upon these travelers who had taken advantage of +his slumber to win so many miles of their hard march. But the wrath +subsided, lost in the rosy day dreams that wrapped earth and sky in a +brilliant winter mist. Radiating beams created the impression of +cheerful heat. The whole range of imaginable colors, multiplied by +tinting and blending, wove and shifted in a vast web of living fire +across the opal clouds. A stupendous panorama lay the wilderness world, +exhaling color, displaying jewels, wrapping itself in beauteous +necromancy! + +In the late forenoon Maskwa sighted the Indian village in the middle +distance. Dunvegan decided to make mid-day camp there. He gave the order +to his men, an order that was received with great alacrity. + +"_Chac! Chac! Chac!_" yelled the drivers to the _giddés_, enforcing the +order with splitting reports from the long lashes of their dog whips. + +Gleefully and dutifully the sledge animals turned toward the Cree tepees +pitched permanently in the warm shelter of a pine forest to the left of +the river. At the thought of rest, a good meal, and a smoke the Hudson's +Bay men dashed forward jauntily, eager to make the bivouac. But an +Indian, running out of the winter wigwams, stopped Maskwa from entering +the village by a peculiar motion of his crossed hands. The others saw +the fort runner halt in his tracks and draw away, while a momentary +conference in the native dialect took place. + +The Ojibway beckoned to Dunvegan who ran up hastily. + +"Strong Father," spoke Maskwa quickly, "an Indian has come to this +village and he has fever. We cannot enter. Else will the fever spirit +destroy our own men." + +"Where's Father Brochet?" Bruce demanded, speaking in Cree. "Where's the +priest--the praying man. Bid him come forth!" + +On the summons Father Brochet appeared. His greetings were none the less +cheerful for the distance that intervened between the friends. + +"It wouldn't be wise to come in," the priest called, "and risk exposure +to infection. This case isn't so bad, but you know the dangers. The +Indian came from the tribe on Loon Lake, and some of his fellows up +there are sick with the same thing. When I get him in shape so that the +Indian women can bring him through, I am going up to see after the +others." + +"Loon Lake!" exclaimed Dunvegan. "That's up beyond Fort Brondel. You'd +better be careful when you are in the Nor'west haunts." + +"The Nor'westers don't trouble the men of God," returned Brochet simply. +"I have no fear of them! We are indispensable to both Hudson's Bay +servants and Nor'westers!" He smiled grimly at the significance of his +plain words. + +"But lately men on our side have died unshriven," the chief trader +observed bitterly. "There is a chance that the same may happen to the +enemy." + +"You are heading for Brondel?" + +"With all haste! The sack of the Wokattiwagan train will be speedily +and thoroughly avenged." + +"And the Factor has set out to raze Dumarge as he planned?" + +"Yes. We both have hoped to surprise the Nor'west forts for, failing +that, we must sit down to a long siege." + +Brochet shivered a little even in the sheltered place where he stood. + +"It is ill weather for a siege," he commented, "and the Nor'westers are +as cunning as wolves. You know, I suppose, about--about Glyndon?" + +Dunvegan's face was hard as a mask. By this time he had curbed his +emotion tightly. + +"I know--that is, I heard," he answered slowly. "Tell me all about that +marriage, Brochet!" + +The priest raised his hand in a deprecating fashion and shook his head +out of sad pity for his friend's disappointment. + +"There is nothing to tell," was his low response. "It was a swift, eager +wooing--a sort of autumn dream! The golden woods and the white moons +were theirs for an uninterrupted, rapturous space. The fascination was +intense. Its durability I cannot judge. The climax compelled their +marriage. My hope is that Glyndon may prove worthy!" + +"Amen," Dunvegan breathed. He seemed desirous of hearing no more, and +signaled for the trains to move on. + +"If on your return from Loon Lake the Company's banner flaps over Fort +Brondel, give me a call," was his parting word to Father Brochet. + +"Indeed, yes," the kindly priest promised. "And watch carefully, my son! +Guard your person against the enemy, and guard your passions as well. +Remember that he who conquers himself is greater than the lord of all +the Hudson's Bay districts." + +Three miles farther the cavalcade wound with the frozen river. Dunvegan, +brooding within himself as had been his custom of late, took little note +of its progress. The leadership had devolved for the moment upon Maskwa. +Presently the tall Ojibway answered the call of his stomach. He stopped +beneath a jutting headland and looked once at the sun. Then with his +native stoicism and abruptness he twisted his heels from the loops of +his snowshoes. + +"Camp here!" he decided. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +MASKWA'S FIND + + +A fork of fire leaped up under the quick hands of the Indians. The dead +spruce boughs crackled merrily. Baptiste Verenne lay back on a pile of +green branches before the flames and hummed to the kettles that they +might the more quickly melt their contents of snow into steam and boil +the tea. His high tenor voice chanted the air of _L'Exilé_, a song of +far-off France. Very softly and dreamily he sang: + + "_Combien j'ai douce souvenance + Du joli lieu de ma naissance! + Ma coeur, qu'ils étaient beaux, les jours de France! + O mon pays! sois mes amours, + O mon pays! sois mes amours. Toujours!_" + +Over the spruce fire the kettles began to drone to his music as he went +on more tenderly: + + "_Te souvient-il que notre mère, + Au foyer de notre chaumière, + Nous pressait sur son coeur joyeux + Ma chère? + Et nous baisions ses blancs cheveux. + Tous deux._" + +Almost while Baptiste sang, the meal was ready. The Hudson's Bay men +thawed their strips of jerked caribou over the coals and washed the meat +down with small pails of hot tea. They snatched a few whiffs from their +pipes before the command to march was given. + +The afternoon sun shed abundance of light but afforded no warmth. The +traveling was through a cheerless cold that intensified by degrees. The +toil of marching had begun to tell on the men; they moved with less +elasticity, their limbs began to lag as from some indefinable hindering +pressure. This pressure seemed to come from without like unfriendly +hands holding them back, but they knew it was really the weakening +fibers protesting from within. + +Only three of the travelers were untouched by this peculiar lethargy. +Maskwa ran as ever with his unchanging, lurching stride. Dunvegan, +knowing not the hint of weariness, traveled mechanically, his mind +dwelling on personal things. And Baptiste Verenne still hummed of his +sunny France, asking: + + "_Te souvient-il du lac tranquille + Que' effleurait l'hirondelle agile, + Du vent qui courbait le roseau Mobile, + Et du soleil couchant sur l'eau. Si beau? + Ma coeur, te souv_----" + +"G'wan, Baptiste, ye Frinch rogue," cried Terence Burke, "ye've no +sister here to ask that. An' phwat the divil's the use o' askin'? Shure +it's not France but Greenland we're in. An' it's on a howly treadmill o' +snow we're walkin'." + +Pete Connear kicked the Irishman's calves from behind with the toes of +his snowshoes. + +"Walk faster, man," he urged. "It makes it twice as easy and the frost +doesn't touch you then." + +But Terence shivered in the trail. The sweat of the morning's travel had +chilled on him at the noonday halt, and he felt the lowering temperature +keenly. + +"It's so beastly cowld," he groaned dismally, "that me thoughts freeze +'fore Oi can express thim." + +The sailor kicked him again to cheer him on. "Bucko! Bucko!" he growled. + +And Baptiste Verenne, smiling, flashed white teeth over his shoulder and +remarked: + +"Mebbe you don' lak remembaire somet'ing lak dat in your own countree! +Eh, dat so, M'sieu Burke?" + +Terence frowned. Baptiste's smile grew more mischievous as he continued: + + "_Te souvient-il de cette amie, + Douce compagne de ma vie? + Dans les bois, en cueillant la fleur Jolie, + Hélène appuyait sur mon coeur. Son coeur._ + + _Oh, qui rendra mon Hélène, + Et la montagne, et le grand chêne? + Leur souvenir fait tous les jours ma peine. + Mon pays sera mes amours. Toujours!_" + +The latter half of the day wore to a desolate grayness. The Hudson's Bay +force was now in Nor'west country, and a strict lookout had to be +maintained. Night approached quickly as the sun dipped. Maskwa, keeping +closer to the main body, signaled that he had found something. Dunvegan +ran up to him hastily. + +The Indian stood pointing to the tracks made by a single person on +snowshoes. The marks lay diagonally across their line of progress. + +"Strong Father, see," Maskwa requested. + +"Some trapper," commented the chief trader. "The shoes are Ojibway +pattern." + +"Yes," assented Maskwa, quietly. "I made the shoes." + +Dunvegan scanned him sharply in the gathering dark. + +"You?" he cried, astonished. "How do you know that?" + +"By the knots," Maskwa answered, stooping to point out little dents in +the snow pattern. "See how they lie in a curve? No one but Maskwa makes +them that way!" + +"Whose feet?" demanded Dunvegan, with swift suspicion. "Whose feet are +in those shoes?" + +The fort runner felt the pressed flakes gently before speaking. He arose +immediately from the stooping posture. + +"The Little Fool's," was his response. "And he has just passed here!" + +"Gaspard Follet's tracks!" exclaimed the chief trader incredulously. +"Maskwa, are you sure you are not mistaken?" + +"I am not mistaken, Strong Father," the Ojibway declared gravely. "In +the summer moons I made the shoes for the Little Fool. Give me leave to +follow. I will bring him to you. He is no farther away than the ridge of +balsam." + +"Go," ordered Dunvegan curtly. + +The fort runner launched himself into the gloom of the stunted +shrubbery. Bunching where their leader was halted, the Hudson's Bay men +waited silently. Presently there sounded the double crunch of two pairs +of raquettes on the brittle crust. The branches of the dwarfed +evergreens swayed. Maskwa strode out, dragging a diminutive figure by +one arm. + +"Here, Strong Father, is the Little Fool," he announced without emotion. + +At the sight of the Oxford House men Gaspard Follet began to utter a +series of joyous squeals. + +"Blessed be the Virgin," he cried. "Here is safety. Oh! name of the dead +saints, I was lost, lost--lost!" + +He sprang to Dunvegan, ingratiating himself, praising, fawning, +beseeching. The Ojibway fort runner looked grimly at the antics of his +prize. + +"The Little Fool is glad to meet with the Company's servants," he +observed in ironic fashion. "It gives him great joy." + +Dunvegan looked into Maskwa's face, quite surprised at the tone. + +"Why not?" he questioned. + +"That did not dwell in his mind until I caught him," the Indian +declared. "Neither was the Little Fool lost." + +"What do you mean, Maskwa?" Dunvegan asked. "My brother, you speak in +riddles. Gaspard has evidently wandered from Oxford House and lost his +way." To the idiot, he added: "Do you know where you are at all?" + +"No, no," moaned Gaspard piteously. "I was lost, I tell you. I do not +know this country." + +The Ojibway fort runner grunted in derision. "Strong Father," he said, +"the Little Fool was not lost as you believe. He has been following the +Caribou Ridge all day. And Strong Father will remember that the trail on +the Caribou Ridges, though it cannot be traveled with dog teams, +shortens by half the distance to the fort of the French Hearts where we +journey. That is how the Little Fool thought to reach it first!" + +The Indian stopped his speech abruptly and took a stride onward as if +this circumstance was no concern of his. Dunvegan halted him, crying +out: + +"Hold there, Maskwa! Do you pretend to suspect Gaspard?" + +Maskwa made a gesture of complete unconcern. "I have spoken," he +returned placidly. + +"Why," fumed Dunvegan, "such a thing in my estimation is +incredible--preposterous! The idea of that dwarf, that idiot----No! It's +too ridiculous!" + +"I have spoken," repeated Maskwa, in the same even key. + +When the chief trader attempted to question him by way of discovering +his exact meaning, the Ojibway maintained a stubborn silence which he +broke only with a suggestion about the night camp. + +"Turn to the ridge of balsam, Strong Father," he advised. "We shall +find it good to rest there." + +Dunvegan accepted his trusted runner's hint. He knew that the Indian eye +read wilderness signs which no white man living could ever interpret. He +understood that the Indian brain gleaned an intelligence from inanimate +things which the greatest mind of civilization could never comprehend. +Therefore he was content to follow the native wisdom and follow it +unseeingly, for at Maskwa's word he had walked blindly to his own +ultimate advantage some hundreds of times. + +So the Oxford House men diverged from their course on the first track +that Gaspard Follet had tramped in the snowy ridge where it crossed +Blazing Pine River. The Ojibway went ahead, and, when lost to the view +of his fellows among the timber, he paralleled Gaspard's trail at some +distance first on one side and then on the other. Soon he found what he +sought and tramped on to the balsams, grunting with great satisfaction. + +When Dunvegan and his retainers reached the balsam ridge, Maskwa stood +there awaiting them. He called the chief trader aside. + +"Strong Father," he began in a low voice, "does a lost man throw away +his rifle and his food?" + +"No! Great heavens, no!" exclaimed Dunvegan. "Why?" + +Maskwa put his hand into a green tree and held out two objects. + +"Because here is the rifle and the pack-sack of the Little Fool." + +The chief trader wheeled with hot accusations for Gaspard Follet, but +Maskwa checked them. + +"Softly, Strong Father," was his caution. "I have something else to show +you first." + +"But he is the spy," murmured Dunvegan, trying to keep his voice down in +spite of his anger. "I see it all now--curse his blithering impudence! +What dolts we have been at Oxford House! And he fooled Malcolm Macleod. +Good Lord, what infants, what imbeciles! A fool, a dwarf, an idiot to +get the best of us! Maskwa, I think we need some guidance such as +yours." + +"The Little One is a dwarf," conceded Maskwa, "but he is not an idiot. +Neither is he a fool, though the name comes easily to my tongue. Strong +Father, he has the wisdom of the beaver, and the heart of the fox. But +at last he is trapped!" + +"I'll bind him," declared Dunvegan, full of vexation and self-contempt. +"I'll tie the rat fast lest he outwit the elephants." + +"Wait," begged the Ojibway fort runner. "Come to the top of the ridge of +balsam first. Then we can bind the Little Fool." + +Maskwa pushed through the trees with a slouching movement. He set his +shoes without the slightest noise in the soft, deep undersnows of the +evergreens. Dunvegan did likewise, taking care to snap no twig. On the +crest which commanded the open valley the Ojibway pushed aside the thick +branches hanging screen-like over the edge. + +"Strong Father, look!" he directed. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE FIRST BLOW + + +Mechanically Dunvegan counted the dog teams that crossed the valley +before his gaze. Five great sleds he made out, sleds piled high with +huge bales of furs. Two men accompanied each sledge, a driver and an +armed guard. Evidently the train was going into camp under the shoulders +of the Caribou Ridges. + +"Strong Father did not think that any of the French Hearts were so +near?" ventured Maskwa quietly. + +"No," the chief trader muttered, "I did not. Ah! they are halting. It is +well that they did not get sight of us, Maskwa, for I fancy we could +never catch them if those big teams once started galloping." + +The Ojibway nodded gravely as he peered, animal-like, between two large +tree trunks. + +"That is why I bade Strong Father keep with the ridge," he replied. "On +the River of the Blazing Pine the French Hearts would have seen us +easily where the valleys meet." + +"You knew it was coming?" Dunvegan cried in amazement. "This +Niskitowaney train?" + +"Even so, Strong Father." + +"How?" + +"By the actions of the Little Fool." + +"What was Gaspard doing?" + +The fort runner pointed to a ledge of rock that jutted out on the +highest point of the hill. + +"The Little Fool stood there, waiting," he observed. "He had seen the +fur train of the French Hearts coming and thought to travel with them to +their fort. But soon his thoughts were changed. He saw me and +disappeared in the trees. When I caught him, he had no food or rifle. +Yet I brought them to you, Strong Father. + +"He is a little devil as well as a little fool," Maskwa summed up. "He +deserves no pity. Mark you, Strong Father, he has been the right hand of +that wicked French Heart, the Black Ferguson. Does Strong Father +remember the ambush on Caribou Point when we thought to take the leader? +Who brought the news? Who led us there? Who had planned the surprise +with the French Hearts? None but the Little Fool! Who gave them notice +of the movements of our fur trains? The Little Fool! Who warned the +Crees to fall upon you as you journeyed to Kamattawa? Why, Strong +Father, it is always the Little Fool. And his weak brain seems stronger +than the wisdom of the Stern Father and his servants. He has laughed at +us all." + +"Yes," grumbled Dunvegan, "he has fooled us for a time. But that time is +gone." + +"While the wolf lives, his teeth may still rend," Maskwa philosophized. +"Let the Little Fool die! Else will he work Strong Father greater harm." + +The calm suggestion brought an expression of repugnance to the chief +trader's face. + +"I can't do that!" he objected. + +"It is well," remarked the Ojibway. "I have counseled." + +"As a prisoner he cannot do us any harm," Dunvegan persisted. + +"I have counseled," Maskwa repeated. "When Strong Father wishes it had +been done he will remember my counsel." + +He dismissed the subject with habitual unconcern and devoted a few +minutes to spying upon the camping preparations of the Nor'west fur +train. With the movements of skilled woodsmen they set about it. First +of all, they stepped out of their snowshoe loops and diligently used the +raquettes as shovels, clearing the snow away and banking it up till a +long rectangle of ground lay bare. While some thickly carpeted the +cleared space with balsam brush taken from the foot of the ridge others +chopped dead pines into firewood and built a long stringer of flame the +entire length of the camp ground. + +Then the dogs were unharnessed and the sledges drawn up by thongs into +handy trees out of reach of these huskies, who otherwise would destroy +the furs while the men slept. After that the Nor'west drivers and guards +threw themselves down by the fires to prepare their supper of dried meat +and tea, having already stuck the dogs' portion of frozen whitefish upon +twigs to thaw by the fierce blaze. + +From the height Dunvegan and Maskwa watched it all. + +"They know how to make camp, all right," the chief trader observed. + +The Ojibway nodded briefly. "They have also traveled many trails," he +supplemented judicially. + +"And since it is a good camp we will not need to change it," continued +Dunvegan significantly. + +"It is well," grunted Maskwa. He shook the screening boughs back in +place and turned about, adding: "When the dark falls thickly, we will +come this way again." + +The Oxford House men were growing impatient in the increasing cold, but +they received the news of the Nor'west fur train's proximity with +jubilation. The frost was becoming so intense that to do without a fire +even for a few hours proved impossible; so the whole force backtrailed a +mile as a precaution and huddled over a hastily built pyramid of lighted +spruce branches. The Caribou Ridges, looming up, shut off the flames +from the Nor'westers' view. Also, Dunvegan posted an Indian lookout on +the height above the other bivouac to carry warning of any untoward +move. The dogs' jaws were tied with strips of buckskin that they might +not growl or bark, for sounds carried far in the frosty air. + +Attention was now paid to Gaspard Follet, and he was placed in the +custody of two Hudson's Bay men, who had orders to shoot him on his +first attempt at escape. He still kept up his pretense of foolish wits, +but a sinister threat from Dunvegan silenced his idiotic whining. The +chief trader did not condescend to parley with Follet nor tell him of +what he was suspected. He simply ordered the dwarf into strict charge. +It was the business of Malcolm Macleod, the Factor, to judge him. + +The hour of waiting while the gray twilight thickened to black dark +became oppressive. The Oxford House men chafed under the restraint and +the silence. Other than murmurings and flame noises no sounds came from +around the fire. Terence Burke had soaked himself through and through +with the radiating heat. Complacently he pawed his limbs. Now these +limbs, reinvigorated, cried out for active work as loudly as his hungry +stomach cried for hearty food. + +He whispered to Connear: "'Tis a bloomin' wake we're at. Phwat's the use +o' dallyin' loike this? Why don't we take these Nor'west divils by the +scruffs o' their necks an' shake them? They're outnumbered four to wan!" + +"Mind your own business," growled Connear. "You keep mixin' yourself up +with every plan that's being made. You're too fresh! Keep your own +place, you Irish lubber, and don't try runnin' the whole show!" + +Baptiste Verenne flashed his customary grin, with the attribute of ivory +teeth. + +"_Oui_," he commented, "kip de place an' go ver' cautious. Dat's de way +in dis countree. You see, we mus' spring on dose mans _vite_ w'en dey +not t'ink! Geeve dem no taim harness de fas' dogs. Dat's onlee way we +get dem." + +"It's a slow sphring," Terence complained. "If the recoil's as slow as +the sphring, bewitch me if divil a thing comes av it." + +"Shut up," commanded Connear tersely. "Your mouth's as big as the Irish +sea." + +"Yes," snapped Burke, "an' it's swallowed better sailors than yerself." + +Baptiste made an angry gesture for quiet and motioned furtively to where +Dunvegan stood silently warming himself on the other side of the fire. + +"_Saprie!_ You be stubborn mans!" he snarled contemptuously. + +But now the order came to move. Several Indians were left with the +sledges and the newly-made prisoner. The rest of the men filed off in +the direction of the balsam ridge. Its crest was reached silently and in +perfect order. There the men paused at a point directly over the camp +they purposed to rush. + +Maskwa, with Dunvegan, surveyed the slope, contemplating the moment of +descent. Far below they could see the line of crackling fire with the +banked snow at the sides glowing pink beneath the blaze. Etched out +dully against each fitful flame, the squatting figures crouched low. At +times a hand was cleanly outlined in the white upper light as it raised +food to mouth. A tea pail passing down the line of men flashed +intermittently. + +"Now while they eat is the time, Strong Father," the Ojibway fort runner +murmured. "They think only of their stomachs, and their arms are not +handy. If we are swift and sure on our feet not a shot need be fired." + +"Very well," assented Dunvegan. "You lead. I will stay on your heels." + +"Let the men make no sound," warned Maskwa. "We go without noise as +close as possible. As soon as their dogs scent us we must spring like +the hungry panther." + +The chief trader passed a whispered caution to his retainers. + +"Keep close to us," he adjured, "and rush when we rush! Grasp the +fellows and prevent them from shooting! There is no need for bloodshed, +and we cannot afford to lose any of our number. Every man we have will +be needed at Fort Brondel!" + +There was a faint, dissatisfied murmur at this command. Fresh in the +minds of the Hudson's Bay men were the accounts given by survivors of +the bloody sacking of the Wokattiwagan and Shamattawa fur trains. They +would have liked a sanguinary reprisal, but they knew better than to +disobey any order of Dunvegan's. So they relinquished their vengeful +anticipations and followed watchfully. + +Down the snowy hillside they dropped, noiseless as shadows. No figure at +the fire stirred from its eating; no dog voiced alarm. The balsams were +left behind and the men entered scrubby spruces, where they found +better cover. + +The camp was no more than a little dome of light walled in by +impenetrable darkness. The night crowded to its red ramparts, full of +mystery, unreadable, sinister, fear-compelling. And, crowding like the +night, came the Oxford House force, with all the advantage of position +that the inky darkness gave. + +Slowly, their nerves growing more tense at every step, they worked +through the spruces. Each yard they advanced increased the strain. A +little drumming noise began to vibrate in the men's throats. An almost +inaudible sound it was, but to their own strained hearing it rose in a +roar. Closer and closer they stole till, seeing their enemies so +plainly, the idea that they themselves must be seen impressed itself +with ever-increasing power. + +Maskwa treaded the evergreen aisles like a swift wraith. Holding the +ends of each other's sashes, the rest walked in single file after him. +So great was the curb on their feelings, so suffocating the silence, +that some would have gained immense relief by uttering tremendous +shouts. But they dared not! The first outcry must come from the camp. +The alarm would ring out unexpectedly, and the invaders waited for that +moment and wrestled with their tingling senses. + +Forty paces!--the impaled whitefish before the fires looked ludicrously +large, like young sharks. Thirty paces!--the ruddy blaze limned the +dark, lean-featured countenances of the Nor'westers, resting in natural +unconsciousness of impending disaster. Twenty-five!--the nervous tension +snapped with a sudden mental jerk that set every sinew in the men's +bodies tingling! + +The suspicious huskies blew loudly and growled. Instinctively the +Nor'west guards reached quickly for their guns, only to be seized by the +shoulders and hurled back into the snow. The camp turned instantly to a +mass of rolling, grappling bodies. Red coals kicked into the banks sent +forth hissing steam clouds. Feet stamped and plunged and twisted here +and there, throwing up white spurts of snow, knocking burning branches +through the air, tripping opponents with savage force. + +The struggle took place practically in silence except for the uneasy +snarling of the dogs and the heavy breathing and occasional oaths of the +men. Often a knife blade gleamed redly as it poised for a blow. The thud +of steel on flesh and the groan of pain followed. + +Then, bringing the climax of brute savagery, the growling huskies +charged, indifferent whether their chisel-like fangs sliced master or +master's foe. But they had waited too long! The moment when their +assault might have seriously hindered the Hudson's Bay men--in the +initial minute of the fight--was past. A half dozen of Dunvegan's +followers sprang out of the mêlée, and, catching up dog whips, flayed +neutrality through their tough hides. + +The cowing of the Nor'westers' huskies was coincident with the +overpowering of the Nor'westers themselves. Held in the grip of two, and +often three, antagonists each of the guards and the Indian drivers was +subdued, bound, and laid beside the raked-up fire. + +In a sullen line they lay, beaten but full of stubborn enmity. To that +line Dunvegan added Gaspard Follet when the Company's sledges came on. +The capture of the Niskitowaney fur train was complete. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE HEART OF THE SAVAGE + + +Immediately the Oxford House men re-established the camp to suit their +own requirements. Then they devoted themselves to a long-delayed supper +till their ravenous appetites were fully appeased. The dogs of the +Nor'westers had been fed to keep them quiet. The turn of the newly +arrived teams came when the masters were satisfied. Baptiste Verenne and +the drivers arose, taking the allotted portion of thawed whitefish. They +took their dog whips also. + +"_Ici, giddés_," Baptiste called. + +The animals leaped forward on the instant, growling and slavering for +the whitefish. One meal in twenty-four hours was not in any wise +sufficient for their savage stomachs, and now it was three hours past +the end of that customary space of fasting. A sound kicking met their +energetic advance, and they were scattered out that they might be more +easily fed. Then the Nor'westers' dogs jumped in, making a tangle of +furry backs, bushy tails, and snapping jaws. + +On these intruders the heavy whips smote viciously. They retreated, +thoroughly cowed, and with sharp commands, kicks, and blows the food was +at length distributed. The more cunning beasts bolted their two +whitefish in a flash and fought with slower comrades for their remaining +portion. Slowly the tumult died down and the dogs crept up close to the +lower end of the fire, where brush beds had been thrown for them. + +Having indulged in a brief after-supper smoke, the Hudson's Bay men +began to prepare for immediate slumber. They removed their outer parkas +with the capotes and hung them on sticks to dry before the fire, +together with gauntlets, leggings, and traveling shoepacks. + +They put on great, fur-lined sleeping moccasins and rolled themselves +in thick fur robes designed for preserving the body warmth during +slumber. Against the abnormal frost it was imperative to cover their +heads with the upper folds of these sleeping garments, as any part of +the face left exposed would be frozen in a solid mask by morning. Weary +with the long day's trail, the men lay motionless beside the banked-up +fires. + +Only two, Dunvegan and Maskwa, remained sitting upright, talking +together in low tones over their plans, the crucial point of which was +not far away. + +"At three in the morning we break camp," the chief trader announced. "By +nightfall we must be within sight of Brondel. I think with a few hours' +rest that we might take them by surprise in the very early dawn." + +The Ojibway fort runner smoked slowly, pondering. He offered no word. +Squatting squarely on his haunches, he stared at the fire with a sort of +somnolent vacancy on his countenance. Yet the Indian brain was active! +Beneath their glassy surface lights his eyes studied future events. When +he saw things as clearly as his shrewd discernment demanded he would +speak, and not before! + +"You understand, my brother," continued Dunvegan, "that it is necessary +for me to succeed in my enterprise. The seizure of this fort of the +French Hearts is so necessary to the Factor's whole plan that we cannot +think of failure. If I accomplish the capture he will join me after he +has taken Fort Dumarge. Then, together, we purpose to besiege the third, +last, and strongest of the Nor'west posts in our district." + +Maskwa grunted noncommittally and for an instant took the pipe from his +lips. + +"Fort La Roche of the French Hearts is powerful," he commented briefly. + +"So powerful," supplemented Dunvegan, "that it will test even our +combined forces to rush its stockades. Otherwise it is impregnable. Fort +Dumarge must go, Maskwa; also Fort Brondel! The enemy's opposition must +be wiped out as we proceed. Having no harassing foes at our backs, we +will at the last stand an equal chance against the defenders of Fort La +Roche." + +"So," remarked the Ojibway. "It is a good plan, Strong Father. And +should we stand inside La Roche we may see some old friends." + +"That may be." The unconquered bitterness surged up in Dunvegan. + +"No doubt we shall see the Wayward One, the daughter of Stern Father." + +"Yes, doubtless." + +"Also Soft Eyes, the traitor, who came from over the Big Waters." + +"Aye, indeed," murmured Dunvegan, "and the Factor proposes to deal with +him. It will be dark dealing, I fancy, for Edwin Glyndon." + +"We shall meet, too," Maskwa went on oratorically, "the wise Chief +Running Wolf and his hasty son, Three Feathers." + +"In the fight we may meet them, for we know Running Wolf has added his +tribe's strength to that of Black Ferguson in defense of Fort La Roche." + +"There at the last will we stalk the Black Ferguson in his lair," +rejoiced the Ojibway. "It will be a good stalk, Strong Father. The old +wolf is worthy of a hard chase. And, Strong Father, there is one other +we shall see!" + +"Whom?" + +"The Fair One! The niece of old Pierre--her that Soft Eyes took to +wife!" + +Dunvegan winced, finding no words. Maskwa voiced something that had +evolved in his facile mind. + +"Strong Father is my brother," he declared, "and I have read my +brother's thoughts. It was his wish to place the Fair One at his own +fireside. That is still his desire, although he does not fulfill it. If +Strong Father were an Indian, it would swiftly be done. Yet the Indian's +ways are not the ways of the white man. He must not steal his brother's +wife till that brother dies. Is it not so, Strong Father?" + +"Even so, Maskwa," sighed Dunvegan, burdened by his grim thoughts. + +"Then Strong Father shall have the Fair One to wife. I, Maskwa, will see +when it comes to the last that Soft Eyes falls in the attack." + +"No!" cried Dunvegan vehemently, "a thousand times, no! Not a prick of +the skin will you give Edwin Glyndon. I warn you once. Let that stay +your hand!" + +The Ojibway grumbled at the adjuration of restraint, for although he did +not quite comprehend its moral motive he fully understood its +decisiveness. + +"Be it so," he observed. "What I say is wisdom. I have also other wisdom +for Strong Father." + +"How?" + +"I would have him enter the gates of Fort Brondel by cunning." + +"Explain, Maskwa," commanded the chief trader quietly. + +"In the night of to-morrow let ten men drive this Niskitowaney fur train +inside the stockades, the rest of the Company's servants lying in wait +outside. When the gates are won, the rest is easy, Strong Father." + +The chief trader turned to Maskwa with an exclamation of amazement. + +"By Rupert's bones, but you are bold," he cried admiringly. + +"The move of the bold often wins," remarked Maskwa. + +Dunvegan revolved the project mentally, getting each separate point of +view. + +"We'll do it," he rapped out, smashing a burnt stick-end into the coals +with a force that sent fresh flames roaring up. "Maskwa, we'll do it!" + +"Good!" exclaimed the Ojibway, without elation. "But first we need the +password of the gates. If Strong Father allows, I will get it." He +motioned to the prone, blanket-wrapped prisoners alongside the fire. + +"Get it," ordered the chief trader. "But no torture, remember!" + +"So," promised Maskwa coolly. "I will frighten it from one of them." + +He plucked the Worcester pistol out of Dunvegan's belt and went slowly +up the line. Presently he singled out the spokesman of the captives +lying completely muffled up in the sleeping robes. At the touch of +Maskwa's toe the Nor'wester sat erect, his black-bearded, swarthy face +full of evil glints. He was one of the scum that the younger fur company +had picked up to swell their none too formidable ranks. + +The Ojibway squatted opposite this fellow, in whose charge the +Niskitowaney fur train had been traveling. + +"The password at your fort," he commanded with abruptness and vigor. + +A villainous oath was the response, an epithet that would have been a +vicious blow had the Nor'wester's arms been loose. + +"The password!" Maskwa's voice kept even, but he stabbed the black man +through with the needle points of his concentrated gaze. + +No response! The Ojibway brought the pistol into view and leveled it +with a precision more deadly than visual concentration. + +"The password!" he repeated stonily for the third time. + +"Shoot and be damned to you!" cried the Nor'wester, the swagger and +braggadocio which in his breed is a substitute for courage breaking +out. Swift as light came Maskwa's side-twist of the hand. + +Bang! The pistol's scorch stung the Nor'wester's right ear. + +Bang! Its red muzzle jet seared his left ear. + +Bang! The round, fiendish mouth spat a white furrow through his black +hair. + +The awakened camp, thinking of an attack, sat up and grasped weapons, +then put them furtively back, half ashamed of their mistake, and gazed +wonderingly at the strange tableau. + +"French Heart, the next one goes through your head," warned the Ojibway. +"The password!" + +The Nor'wester, staring into the deadly cylinder of steel, experienced a +prickly, spreading sensation in the nerves of the forehead just between +his eyes. He imagined the crashing impact of the leaden missile. He +already felt the oozy bullet-hole. + +Maskwa's eyes lanced him with bloody light which the coals infused. His +spirit quivered under that knife. His nerves collapsed. He pitched +forward on his face, reiterating the password in choking gasps. + +"Marseillaise," he panted. "Marseillaise!" + +The Ojibway tossed the man's sleeping robes over his fear-shaken visage. +Abruptly he stalked back and dropped the pistol in Dunvegan's lap. + +"You have heard, Strong Father?" he asked. "It is good! He spoke the +truth, because he dared not lie. In the night of to-morrow we will enter +the gates of the fort of the French Hearts with that password. I have +spoken!" + +Like a snake Maskwa slid into his fur blankets. Dunvegan followed, and +the whole camp was soon still. + +Gradually the banked logs of the fire broke in little falling rifts of +coals. Uncombated, the frost advanced and screened the red glow with a +gray hand. Across the valley of the Blazing Pine came the howling of +wolves. Then of a sudden the winter aurora leaped out of the north, +sweeping majestically from stars to earth-line. No rustling sound such +as is heard within the Arctic Circle accompanied its movement. It came +and vanished in mystic silence, only to reappear with twofold brilliance +and multitudinous variations of hue. Up in the zenith a corona of +dazzling splendor formed, and the miracle, continuing, left pulsating, +nebulous rays walking the far-off, frozen shores. + +The immensity of the wilderness reaches gave field for unlimited +display. Flooded with resplendent light, the primal wastes of snow +reflected every colored bar, every glorious cloud, every celestial +flash. As a monstrous mirror to augment the radiance and multiply the +lambent gleams, the speckless crust stretched on and on. The very earth +seemed to acquire motion and to roll its snows in red and white +undulating waves. + +Wrapped in the sleep of utter weariness, lost to the hard facts of life, +the sleepers lay in a realm of mysticism, of phantasmagoria. Thus all +night across the world blazed this carnival of flame. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A DOUBLE SURPRISE. + + +"_Arrêtez!_" The sentinel's challenge from the gates of Fort Brondel +rang out sharply in the near-dawn. + +Through the blinding smother of great, soft-falling snowflakes he had +heard rather than seen the advance of a dog train toiling up the rising +ground upon which the post was situated. It came, he thought, as a +Nor'west train would come, making no unnecessary clamor, but without any +precautions for secrecy. The storm-laden air choked the first cry of the +watchman, preventing it from reaching the clogged ears of the +approaching party. Again his hail was lifted up. + +"_Holá! Arrêtez!_" he commanded, the strident tone cutting the snow. + +Instantly the leading team pulled up. The others lined behind it. +Brondel's sentinel could discern five bulky sledges, each accompanied by +a driver and a guard with rifle on shoulder. Their faces and garments +plastered thickly by moist flakes, the men looked like tall, white +stumps suddenly moved out of the forest and set before the stockades. +Identities were impossibly vague in the storm and in the gray dark which +preceded the morning. + +"_Qui vive?_" asked the keeper of the post gate doubtfully. + +"The Niskitowaney fur train," answered the muffled voice of one of the +halfbreeds who drove. + +"The password?" + +"Marseillaise!" + +The gate bars rattled with release; a gap yawned in the stockade. + +"_Entrez_," came the permission. + +Walking with the leading sledge, Maskwa whirled as he passed the +sentinel and felled him with a quick blow of the rifle butt. Quickly he +removed the unconscious man's weapons and threw him on the sled. + +"Strong Father, the thing is easy, as I told you," the Ojibway muttered +to the first snow-coated giant guard, who was in reality Bruce Dunvegan. + +"Too easy," was Bruce's answer. "Listen! There is no stir about the +buildings, no sound. That puzzles me, Maskwa." + +"Men sleep soundest just before the light breaks," explained the fort +runner in a tone of satisfaction. + +"Perhaps." Dunvegan's tone was doubtful. + +As they stood in the palisade entrance, listening keenly for any cry +which would mean their discovery, the pulses of the Hudson's Bay men +surged faster and faster. The cold chill of the storm-beaten atmosphere +changed suddenly to an electric glow. The fever of waiting strain +flushed their bodies. They began to breathe hard and shift weapons from +left hands to armpits and back again. + +But no clamor beat out of the post structures; a ghostly blur they lay, +walled round with gigantic drifts. The only vibration which +communicated itself to the ear was the velvet brushing of falling snow +against the high stockades. + +Faces turned in the direction whence they had come, the ten figures with +the dog teams remained poised in perfect silence, anxious, eager, +expectant. Then, quite near, the wilderness voice they awaited spoke out +abruptly. + +"Yir-r-r-ee-ee!" echoed the weird, panicky screech of a lynx. + +Maskwa curved his hands about his mouth and replied with the horned +owl's full-throated whoop. + +"Kee-yoo-oo-oo-oo!" he quavered in a quick, ever-diminishing tremolo. + +At the pre-arranged signal the rest of the Oxford House force moved +swiftly up and passed through Brondel's guardless gate. Two Indians had +been left with the bound prisoners and the Nor'west sledge teams in the +fringe of the timber. + +"Are you ready, men?" Dunvegan asked. + +"Aye, aye, sir," cried Connear quaintly. "This is what we have all been +waiting for." + +To the chief trader it was an incredible thing that they reached the +buildings in the center of the yard without any alarm being raised. The +_giddés_ whined. Instantly a howling response arose from the quarters +where the fort dogs were kept. Gripping their arms tightly, the invaders +waited for the uproar that should follow the huskies' wailing and for +the man-to-man struggle which must succeed the awakening of the post. + +No uproar came! The expected onslaught failed to materialize! + +Even Maskwa became mystified. "Strong Father," he whispered, "this is +beyond my wisdom." + +"And mine," admitted Dunvegan, worried as well as puzzled by the utter +lack of the expected developments. + +"Can the post be deserted? Have they had warning and fled?" + +"No! In case of warning the stockades would have been lined with +fighters. There is something extraordinarily wrong about the place. A +sentinel isn't set in a deserted fort, you know. And yet, why is there +no sign of life? Maskwa, it's uncanny!" + +Although totally unfamiliar with the ground and the plan of Fort +Brondel, Dunvegan decided to investigate without delay. He pressed open +the door of the dark building in front of him, the latch offering no +resistance. + +"Come," he ordered. "If any man is clumsy enough to make a noise let him +stay outside!" + +Within the silent room, Dunvegan drew a candle-end and a match from his +inner pocket and struck a light. The faint beams showed that he was in +the store of the Northwest Fur Company's post. Shelves held neat arrays +of goods; orderly piles of bales and boxes were ranged about the walls; +but no person could be seen. + +As many men as the store was capable of accommodating crowded after +Dunvegan. In their shoepacks they walked soft-footed as panthers. + +"These French Hearts must sleep as the dead," murmured Maskwa. + +"Yes, or else they hide somewhere to pistol the half of us at a stroke," +the chief trader returned. + +He lighted a fresh candle taken from a shelf. Its larger glimmer +projected giant shadows of the men upon the farther end of the store. +The huge silhouettes loomed up with a mysterious vagueness suggestive of +the advent of the real human figures. Dunvegan's followers passed their +own surmises to each other in low, husky whispers, remarking on such a +chance as their leader had recognized. + +"If they are hiding in order to get to close quarters," observed +Connear, "they'll be sorry in the end. For we can hit in a clinch as +well as they can. Eh, Terence Burke?" + +"Yes, me enemy," muttered the vigorous-minded Irishman, whom no strange +situation could abash, "an' if it's thim same Donnybrook Fair tricks +they're after, they'll find me rifle butt makes a mighty foine +black-thorn." + +Baptiste Verenne spoke to Black Fox, the Salteaux Indian, in a soft +aside. + +"Black Fox, you be son of beeg medicine-mans," he whispered. "Mebbe you +be tell us w'at dis mean. Spik de wise word an' say w'y de Nor'westaires +don' joomp out for keel us queeck." + +But the Salteaux shook his head. + +"The French Hearts are fools and snakes," he replied. "Their ways are +dark as the ways of evil spirits. Therefore they cannot be read." + +"Dat mooch I be know, me," confided Baptiste. + +Numerous whispers were making a very audible rustle. Bruce Dunvegan held +up his hand for silence. He began to examine what lay beyond the other +two of the three doors in the store. + +Throwing open the one on the right, his candle gleam flashed across a +large, empty floor. According to the custom of new forts built purely +for aggressive purposes, Dunvegan judged that store, blockhouse, and +trading-room adjoined or were connected by passages. This section, he +presumed, was the blockhouse. + +A hasty survey proved his conclusion correct. The light played around +the rough walls, revealing weapons, trophies of the chase and the +various equipments used in wilderness life throughout the different +seasons. But, like the store, the blockhouse was without occupants of +any kind. + +Dunvegan made a quick decision and gave a quicker order. + +"Bring lights," was his command. "Let half your number hold the +blockhouse and half occupy the store. It will take an army of +Nor'westers to oust us now." + +Immediately the chief trader's directions were carried out. The men +assigned themselves promptly in equal bodies to both buildings. + +There remained the trading-room and the factor's quarters to search. +Dunvegan concluded that there was no separate house for the factor of +the post, because a stairway led up through the store ceiling. He +surmised that the residential apartments of the one in command of +Brondel lay above. Gently he opened the door in the left-hand wall of +the store and saw a long, gloomy passageway. + +"No light," Bruce commented. "Nothing there either, it seems!" + +He closed the door again and set foot on the stairs. + +"Guard those entrances well," was his adjuration. "Don't stir unless you +get a signal from me. I'm going up to awaken the lord of Fort Brondel, +whoever he may be, and let him know that he is a prisoner of the +Hudson's Bay Company." + +Slowly Dunvegan ascended the stairway and reached the upper floor. He +still had the candle in his hand, its pale flame revealing a sort of +living-room which held a table, a stove, chairs, shelves of books, a +lounge covered with fur robes, a large wooden cupboard, a pair of +leather-padded stools, a writing-desk in the corner. The furnishings +were plain, though comfortable; they seemed such as any hard-working +factor might possess. + +Treading softly, the chief trader crossed to the door at the other end +and pushed on it. It remained fast, bolted inside. He put his ear to +the wood. No sound! + +Dunvegan stepped back a stride. Rising with a swift movement on the toes +of the left foot, he planted his right sole flatly against the door with +a straight, powerful body jolt. There came the crunching noise of metal +tearing through hard wood, and the barrier swung back trembling on its +hinges. + +Instantly the wind of suction puffed out the candle. Bruce growled and +smothered a low imprecation. Stepping cautiously to the side of the jamb +beyond the range of any sudden missile which might be sent through the +open doorway, he fumbled in his pockets for a match. He scratched it +hurriedly against the wall, his eyes searching the gloom for a sign of +the sleeper whom he must have awakened. He dabbed the match to the wick, +and gazed more eagerly. But no figure launched from the blackness beyond +the threshold; there arose not even a rustle to show that someone's +slumber had been broken. To the listening Dunvegan there was something +weird in this circumstance. He wondered if he should find the sleeping +chamber as he had found the store and the blockhouse--empty! + +His pondering, like his hesitation, occupied only a second. The air of +uncertainty left a tinge of suspense which Bruce hastened to dispel. +Feeling some subtle magnetism, some unaccountable sensation of a +familiar presence, some tremendous unknown climax which his heart +acknowledged blindly, he strode abruptly into the dark apartment, his +one hand holding the light well to the side, the other clasping the +weapon in his belt. + +"Another step, you beast, and husband or no husband, I'll kill you!" + +Bitter as acid was the woman's voice which hurled the threat. Across the +flickering candle rays Dunvegan's startled glance met a leveled pistol +and beyond that the beautiful, defiant eyes of Desirée Lazard. + +The unintelligible cry rising within the man choked in his dry throat. +He gasped and trembled, causing the white light to play over bedstead, +coverlet, and the loose-frocked figure crouching behind. His physical +courage and indomitable will, sufficient to face the fierce Nor'westers +within the very walls of their stronghold, was displaced by a nerveless +weakness that banished self-control. + +"One more step," she warned, marking his restless muscular twitching. "I +mean it. As God hears me, I mean it!" + +Dunvegan's mind was battling chaotically with amazement at Desirée's +presence, with wonder at her attitude, with a thousand conflicting +emotions, each inspired by some swift-passing thought. Joy, doubt, +jealousy, malice, love, judgment, forgiveness--these all mingled, held +momentary sway, separated one by one and disappeared. Out of this chaos +of human feeling Bruce retained no reigning passion. Wisely he let the +hot mixture of mad ideas spend itself and give way to his usual cool +reserve. Therein rested his salvation. + +He still held the candle to one side, and his face was not clear. Even +his figure remained shadowy in the sputtering gleam. That, he knew, +accounted for Desirée's mistaking him for her husband. + +Now deliberately and with a steady hand he moved his light to the front +so that its glimmer yellowed his wind-tanned face. + +"Bruce!" Her voice was pitched in the unnatural, hysterical scream of a +person struggling with a nightmare. + +The sense of the dramatic leaped through the blood of both. Dunvegan +glowed with the hectic pulse of old desire, but his cold reserve was +maintained by a nerve-wrenching effort. + +"You do not dream," he ventured in a measured tone. "I am a strict +reality, though an intruding one." + +At the sound of his voice Desirée dropped her loaded pistol on the bed. +Her tense body shivered, as if at escape from menace or danger. She +covered her face with her hands. The full bosom worked in a paroxysm of +sobs. + +"My God! My God!" she moaned, her words coming like a prayer. + +Dunvegan set the candle on a nearby stool and leaned back with folded +arms against the door jamb. Thus could he the better control himself, +for Desirée's weeping tore his fibres. Irrelevantly he noted that she +was not prepared for slumber, but wore a flowing, open-throated day +dress. This fact added to Bruce's mystification. + +Presently Desirée glanced up, an expression of fear succeeding the +despair in her face. She rushed swiftly across the chamber to Dunvegan, +her hands extended appealingly. + +"Go," she pleaded. "Go before someone hears you! How you learned--how +you got here is nothing. Only go! Do you know what danger you stand in?" + +"No," Bruce answered grimly. "I am not aware of any." + +Her beauty even in tears burned its image in his tortured soul. To clasp +her tight would have given both physical and mental relief, but his +fingers clenched hard on his flexed biceps; he did not unfold his arms. + +"Are you mad?" she cried earnestly, tempestuously. "You enter a +Nor'west fort! You force in the door of the factor's apartment! And +why? How did you find out I was here--and alone?" + +"I didn't find out. Till two minutes ago I thought you were in Fort La +Roche." + +"La Roche!" she echoed with astonishment. "Why there?" + +"According to Black Ferguson's plan as I read it." + +Desirée looked searchingly at the chief trader for a half-minute. + +"What do you know?" was her suspicious question, barbed with a slight +resentment of his curt words. + +"I know, first, that Black Ferguson was informed by Gaspard Follet of +your favoring Glyndon; second, that the clerk was approached through +Follet, and bribed to join the Nor'west ranks with his wife; third, that +the foregoing was but a design of Black Ferguson's to get you beyond the +stockades of Oxford House and in a place where he could lay hands on +you." + +"But he can't," protested Desirée. "I am--you see, I was married." + +"Can't!" Dunvegan exploded. The tone of the one word was eloquent +conviction. He added darkly: "It is well that I have come in time." + +"Ah! no," she cried, the fear for his safety, momentarily forgotten, +returning. "You must leave instantly. I will lead you down in silence. +Come!" + +Her hand was throbbing on his arm, her hot breath beating up against his +cheeks. Bruce freed himself, fighting to keep his feelings in check. + +"There is no need," he returned. "I shall not stir from here." + +She scanned his face. No madness was visible in it. Bruce laughed. + +"I am quite sane," he answered her. + +"You are in Fort Brondel," Desirée announced severely. "A Nor'west +fort----" + +"Your pardon," Dunvegan interrupted. "A Hudson's Bay fort!" + +"Now you are surely mad." + +A slight timidity touched her. She drew back. + +"Mad enough to have taken this post! I command forty-odd men in the +rooms below." + +Incredulity widened Desirée's eyes, but the chief trader's manner was +convincing. She murmured a little in astonishment. + +"We--of the post?" she stammered. + +"Taken, too! The men become my prisoners--when I find them. You also are +a captive!" + +"Thank God!" Desirée cried, flushing to the temples. "Thank God!" + +It was Bruce's turn for bewilderment. The ecstatic fervor of the woman's +voice astounded him. + +"What talk!" he exclaimed. "Prisoners don't generally rejoice. Yet this +post seems the place of riddles to-night. Oddest of all to me is the +fact that I have met with no opposition--except from yourself!" + +He smiled, bowing courteously. Desirée smiled too, wanly and without the +least approach to mirth. + +"Come," she suggested. "I will show you why." + +Taking the candle, she led the way across the living room, down the +stairs, and through the great store which belonged to the Northwest Fur +Company. Under the wondering gaze of the men they passed and entered the +passage into which Bruce Dunvegan had glanced before. This passageway +extended for many paces. A closed door stopped their progress at the +farther end. Desirée laid her finger tips against it. + +"The garrison of Fort Brondel is in there," she murmured. + +"The trading room?" + +"Yes." + +"I had better call my fighters. And you? Wouldn't it be well for you to +go back? There may be violence, and----" + +"No necessity whatever," Desirée interrupted cynically. "They will not +strike a blow. I can vouch for that." + +An instant she paused, as if summoning her will power to do a hateful +thing. Then she swung the door sharply back and held her light inside. + +"Look!" she commanded with bitter irony. + +Dunvegan looked. The scene in the huge interior of the trading room +struck him with disgust as well as surprise. Around the long, rough +table over a score of men and halfbreed women lay in drunken stupor. A +liquor barrel crowned the board. At the table's end one man's debauched +face lay on the breast of his halfbreed Bacchante of the revel. Bruce +recognized the features of Glyndon, enpurpled and drink-puffed. The rest +of the revelers had fallen into every imaginable attitude expressive of +uncontrolled muscle and befuddled mind. + +The stench of spirits was overpowering. Dunvegan drew Desirée back. + +"This is sickening," he cried. + +She gazed at Bruce with an intensity that went to the heart of him. The +look awakened glad, magnetic throbs, yet left uneasy forebodings for the +future because her eyes prophesied things which could never be. + +"Now you know," she replied, pointing at the table. "I have shown you +why." + +And in her words Dunvegan read the answer to more than one riddle. + +Someone moved behind them ostentatiously in order to attract attention. +Bruce turned quickly. The tall Ojibway fort runner stood there. + +"What is it, Maskwa?" + +"Two messengers clamoring at the gates, Strong Father. What is your +will?" + +"I will go with you, my brother," the chief trader decided. "It is well +to see who they are, myself." He walked with Desirée back into the +store. + +"Bind the drunken Nor'westers in the trading room," he ordered the men. +"Come, Maskwa," he added to the Ojibway. + +The fort runner stalked at his back through the snowy yard. Desirée +stood and watched them from the door, while away in the east the light +of dawn grew little by little. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +NOT IN THE BONDS OF GOD + + +"Who speaks!" called Dunvegan from the watchtower to the noisy fellows +who were shouting and beating upon the gates with the ostensible object +of awakening the sleepy post. + +"Messengers from Fort La Roche," they screeched. + +"La Roche? Ah! With what news?" + +"A message for Brondel's factor." + +"Well?" + +"Ferguson, our leader, orders his transfer to Fort La Roche. He is to +occupy the same position there." + +The chief trader roared outright with laughter. + +"It seems that I arrived none too soon," he commented ironically, half +to himself and half to Maskwa, standing silent by his shoulder. + +"Sir?" the couriers interrogated. But Bruce failing to answer, studied +some sudden idea grimly and at length. + +"Strong Father," interrupted the Ojibway softly, "bid me open the gates, +let these French Hearts enter, and thus make them prisoners." + +Dunvegan shook his head. "No," he returned. "They shall go back to La +Roche. The shock Ferguson receives will be well worth the warning." + +To the Nor'west messengers he cried whimsically: "The password?" + +"Marseillaise," they answered without hesitation. + +Again the chief trader chuckled, drawing something of humor from the +situation. + +"An hour ago that countersign would have let you in," he observed. "Now +it is of no use whatever for the post is in possession of the Hudson's +Bay Company." + +He paused, looking into the up-turned, surprised faces of the couriers +quite visible in the strengthening daylight. + +"Go back to Black Ferguson," Dunvegan directed. "Tell him that you +delivered the message he sent to the lord of Fort Brondel, but explain +that the lord of Fort Brondel is Bruce Dunvegan. Explain also that the +men of the fort lie in babiche bonds; that Glyndon is a prisoner; that +Glyndon's wife is a captive. Announce to your leader the leaguer of Fort +Dumarge. By the time he hears the news, it, too, will have fallen. And +advise him in conclusion that the Hudson's Bay forces from these two +posts will shortly combine before La Roche's stockades." + +The Nor'west messengers fell away from the gates, astonishment mastering +their speech. + +"Never fear," Dunvegan reassured them. "If I wished to take you +prisoners it would have been done long ago. Now go back as I bade you. +And one more message for Black Ferguson! Tell him he did a foolish thing +in bribing a drunkard to join his ranks that he might steal the +drunkard's wife. Tell him that, and tell him Bruce Dunvegan said it." + +Swiftly the couriers retraced the track they had furrowed in the +deep-snowed slope. Their movements were furtive, and in spite of Bruce's +assurance of safety, they cast many backward glances. + +As the chief trader and the Ojibway quitted the watchtower, Maskwa spoke +in a voice of protestation. + +"Was that a wise doing, Strong Father?" he asked. + +"How, my brother?" + +"To send your enemy warning?" + +Dunvegan smiled. "I could not forbear the thrust," he declared. "I could +not help but let him know that his well-made plans had miscarried; that +the woman he thought to seize was again under the protection of the +mighty Company." + +Maskwa ruminated. + +"Then Strong Father has unknowingly accomplished what the French Heart +would have done," he mused aloud. "It is well. It is even better than +having Soft Eyes, the husband, fall in the fight." + +"Ah! you mistake my meaning, Maskwa," observed the chief trader +hastily. "The woman is in my protection, not in my possession." + +"So!" the fort runner exclaimed with a slight inflection of surprise. +"The French Heart may steal, but Strong Father steals not. How is that?" + +"We are different men," answered Bruce, as they entered the store. + +Desirée still waited beside the door. Maskwa passed her by without a +look, making his way toward the trading room. Had she had the beauty of +all the angels, her fairness would have commanded no homage from his +cunning, leathery heart. + +But Dunvegan, more susceptible, stopped at her word, his hungry eyes +dwelling on her beauty, which even after the wearing night appeared +faultless. + +"Who were those messengers at the gates?" she inquired. + +"Men of Black Ferguson's with a drafting order for Brondel's factor." + +"Ah!" she gasped, "to--to----" + +"To La Roche," Bruce supplied. "You see I was right. I came just in +time." + +With an impulsive, winning gesture Desirée put her hands in Dunvegan's. + +"I ought to be thankful," she began, brokenly. "And I am! Heaven knows I +am! But I should also be frank. After greeting you as I did in my room I +must explain." + +"Not unless you wish, unless----" + +"It is my wish, my will," she interrupted. + +"I need relief; I must give someone my confidence. Otherwise I shall go +mad!" + +"There is another who should receive your confidence." + +"You think so?" she cried bitterly. "Even if he could comprehend no +single word of it? If he were sunk in debauchery from the very day of +our marriage? From the moment of flight?" + +"What!" exclaimed the thunderstruck chief trader. "What's that you say?" + +Desirée tottered. "Let me sit down on this bench," she begged. "I'm weak +somehow and--and faint." + +Dunvegan leaned back against the store counter. + +"God," he breathed--"no wonder!" + +The woman looked up beneath the hand which soothed her hammering +temples. + +"You love Glyndon," Bruce burst out unguardedly. + +Her fist descended viciously on the bench where she sat. + +"No! My God, who could--now?" Vehemence, abhorrence, disgust, filled her +voice. + +"You did," he persisted, rather cruelly and with an ultra-selfish +motive. + +"Infatuation," Desirée cried, "for the clean mask that he wore. But +love?--Ah! no, can one love a sot, a beast?" + +"Tell me," Dunvegan urged. + +She caught her breath a few times helplessly in the stress of emotion, +her eyes roving round the big store which held none but themselves. Her +gaze stopped on Bruce's face. Her sentences came from her lips +mechanically. + +"I think his beauty and his old-world manners dazzled me," was her +frank, pride-dissolving confession. "For the time I--I forgot you, +Bruce. I imagined I cared more for the other. My indecision could not +brook his mad wooing. For remember that change, absence, and pressure +are the three things which convert any woman's will." + +Desirée paused, a pleading for pity in her glance. + +"I took refuge behind my vow," she continued after a second. "But that +gave me no stability. If I would marry him, he promised to leave Oxford +House immediately and join the Nor'westers. You see Ferguson had already +approached him through Gaspard Follet." + +"That," Dunvegan observed, "should have shown you his true character." + +"I was blind," she lamented. "I deemed it sacrifice. In a way it was, I +suppose. How could I know that the plan arranged by Ferguson through +Gaspard Follet was the very thing that suited his evil intentions? He +offered Edwin command of Brondel. I thought it safe enough to be the +factor's wife in a post removed from Fort La Roche." + +Bruce made a disdainful gesture. "Those messengers showed you how safe +it was," he remarked acridly. + +"Father Brochet married us," Desirée went on stonily. "It was in the +evening. At once we fled from Oxford House, the sentry thinking we were +only taking a turn on the lake with the dogs. But in the forest a +Nor'west guide from Brondel met us with another sledge as agreed, and +the flight began in earnest. The Nor'wester had rum with him. I rode on +one sledge. The thing I had married rode on the other, gulping down the +rum. You can imagine what happened!" + +"Ah!" breathed Dunvegan pityingly. + +"When we made camp near dawn he was drunk! He rolled off the sled, while +the Nor'wester built a fire, in order to greet his bride----" + +Bruce's smothered oath interrupted. + +"What?" Desirée asked. + +"Nothing," he murmured, the veins of his neck swelling and nearly +choking him. + +"Instead," Desirée resumed, "he greeted my pistol muzzle. Day and night +since he has greeted it also." + +Struck with the lightning significance of her speech, Bruce Dunvegan +leaped across the intervening floor space. Like some cherished +possession of his own he snatched her palms. "Desirée! Desirée!" he +panted. + +The danger note was in his voice, the danger fire in his look. +Recklessly she met the sweet menace. Facing each other for a long +minute, secret thoughts were read to the full. + +"Yet you are married to him," breathed Dunvegan. + +"Not in the bonds of God!" she declared. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE LONG LEAGUER + + +Shackled with cold, iron fetters that chilled the earth to its marrow, +the mighty northland lay desolate beneath the brief sunshine, fantastic +under the auroras. Past Fort Brondel the ghostly caribou hordes drifted +rank on rank, coming from the foodless spaces, going where subsistence +permitted. In phantom packs the wolves howled by, trailing the swift +moose across the crusted barrens. Four-legged creatures which never +hibernate foraged farther south where the snows were thinner. The winged +terrors of the air followed them, preying as opportunity afforded. +Survival was ordained for only the strong, the fierce-fanged, the +predatory. Indented in the white surface of the forest aisles were +ptarmigans' tracks and over these the long, shallow furrows left by +swooping owls' wings. + +A homely spot of life and warmth amid this vast desolation was the post +of Brondel. All the Nor'west prisoners except Gaspard Follet, Glyndon, +and Desirée had been transferred in care of a strong guard to Oxford +House where they were confined under very strict surveillance in the +blockhouse. The men of the guard returning brought news of how Malcolm +Macleod, failing to surprise Fort Dumarge and rush its stockades, was +besieging the place, hoping to starve it into surrender. + +Dunvegan had hastened a messenger to Macleod, informing him of the +capture of Brondel. The Factor dispatched a runner back with orders for +Bruce to be ready to move on La Roche when Macleod should send him word +of his coming on the completion of his own project. Realizing the danger +in which he stood from the overwhelming power of his own desires, +Dunvegan prayed in his heart for the fall of Fort Dumarge and the advent +of the Factor. He thought he could find respite and ultimate safety in +the call which would summon him to the attack of La Roche away from the +lure of Desirée Lazard. + +But monotonously the short days slipped into long nights, and still no +word came from Malcolm Macleod. Dumarge was proving stubborn. + +Nor did the tiresome fort routine offer the chief trader any relief. The +unspeakable desolation all about, the inactivity, the eternal waiting, +waiting for a command which failed to come, wore down by degrees the +control Dunvegan had exercised over his emotions up to this stage. His +pent-up passion was gradually gaining in volume. He knew that its +torrent must soon sweep him away, beating to atoms the barrier of moral +code which was now but an undermined protection. He was facing the +certain issue, understanding the immensity of his struggle, seeing no +chance of escape. + +True, he contemplated asking permission of the Factor to send Glyndon +and Desirée to Oxford House. But over this he hesitated long, fearing +that beyond his guard Black Ferguson's cunning might prevail and that +Desirée might fall into the Nor'wester's grip. But finally, driven to +desperation, Bruce started a runner on the trail to the beleaguering +camp outside the palisades of Dumarge, requesting the transfer of the +prisoners to the home post. + +Fate seemed determined to torture, to tempt, to break Dunvegan. Macleod +would not hear of such a proceeding. His answer was that neither Edwin +Glyndon nor Gaspard Follet must pass from confinement or out of the +chief trader's sight. The one-time clerk and the spy, possessing +Nor'west secrets and intimate knowledge of the enemy's affairs, were +captives far too valuable in the Factor's eyes to be given the remotest +opportunity of obtaining freedom. When he should have extracted +much-desired information from them, Macleod planned to deal them the +deserts their actions had merited. Death he had decreed for Gaspard, a +hundred lashes from dried moosehide thongs, a lone journey to York +Factory, and a homeward working passage on a fur barque were promised +the puerile drunkard. Incidentally the runner whom Bruce had sent out +mentioned the presence of two strange men at Oxford House. + +"What sort of men were they?" he asked the halfbreed courier. + +"W'ite mans, ver' strong," replied the shrewd breed. "Look lak dey come +from ovaire de Beeg Wenipak." + +And Dunvegan knew that Granger and Garfield, the hardy deputies, also +awaited the success of Malcolm Macleod. Like shadows since the first had +they moved across the northern reaches from obscurity to certainty, from +vagueness to tangibility, omens of a coming law in the wilderness! + +Also like a shadow Desirée Lazard flitted free before the chief trader +in Fort Brondel. Bitter through her utter disillusionment, swept by a +fire as compelling as that against which Bruce Dunvegan battled, she +cared not how high ran the tide of feeling. With a woman's instinctive +pride in her powers she smiled on the re-awakening of the old love, +thrilled to its magnifying intensity, responded with a half guilty +ecstacy to its fierce, measureless strength. + +Listening in the fort, Desirée would hear Bruce's rifle talking as he +hunted through the lonely woods. It spoke to her of misery, pain, and +yearning. Secretly she rejoiced. Then at night her eyes shone across to +him through the birch logs' glow. Her hair gleamed like the candlelight. +Her lips allured through the half-dusk surrounding the crooning +fireplace. + +Maskwa, the wise old Ojibway, watching them thus evening after evening +as the long winter months slipped away, nodded darkly. + +"Nenaubosho is working in them," he observed to himself. "Soft Eyes will +lose his wife unless Stern Father comes to move us." + +But Fort Dumarge, feeling the pinch of hunger, still held firm against +Malcolm Macleod. + +As ever the evenings came round. Desirée's spell grew stronger. The +attitude of the two began to be marked by all in the fort as the curb +loosened imperceptibly, but surely. Out of hearing in the blockhouse or +the trading room, the Hudson's Bay men commented on their leader's +strange--to them--fight against his own inclination. A hard-bitten +crowd, each followed impulse in the main. The only restriction they +acknowledged was the Company's discipline. They were north of +fifty-three, and they scorned the fine points of ecclesiastics. Two +ruling powers they knew: red blood and a strong arm. + +Because Bruce Dunvegan held the upper hand and wanted Desirée Lazard as +he wanted nothing else on earth, they marveled that he did not get rid +of the prisoner and marry her. Behind the screen of hundreds of miles of +forest they had seen the thing done many times before, and no one in the +outside world was the wiser. + +"He goin' crazy eef somet'ing don' be happen," whispered Baptiste +Verenne, one night when the winter had nearly run its course. + +"'Tis always a woman as raises the divil," announced Terence Burke. "Oi +was engaged wanst meself, an' Rosie O'Shea niver gave me a minnit's +peace till the day she bruk it." + +"Hold on there," Connear cried. "You mean _you_ never gave _her_ a +minute's peace. 'Twould be South Sea hell to live with you, +Terence--even for a man!" + +"Ye ear-ringed cannibal," returned Terence belligerently. "Divil a woman +_would_ live wid ye, fer she'd be turned to rock salt by yer briny +tongue." + +Connear stuck out the offending member beneath his pipe stem. + +"No woman will ever have the chance to do it," he declared. "I've been +in a few ports in my time. I've had my lesson." + +"Now you spik," smiled Baptiste. "You be t'ink of dat tale you told +'bout dat native girl w'en your boat she be stop at--w'at you +call?--dose Solomon Isle!" + +"Yes," the ex-sailor replied. "Made love to me in the second watch and +stabbed me in the back with one hand to leave the way clear for her +tribe to murder the crew and loot the vessel." + +"Oi didn't hear that, Peter," Burke prompted. "Go on wid it." + +"Nothing to go on with," snapped Connear. "She pinked me too high up. +Knife-point struck the shoulder blade, and my pistol went off before she +could give the signal yell." + +"An' then?" Terence was interested. + +"Nothin', I said. The crew rolled out. The night was so warm that they +didn't care to sleep any more. Oh, yes, and there was a village funeral +in the mornin'!" + +"Whose?" + +"The girl's, you blockhead. Died of fever--a night attack!" + +"Howly Banshees!" stammered Burke. + +Baptiste Verenne crossed himself. + +"So," nodded Maskwa, unmoved. "Soft Eyes might die of fever, or cold, or +the Red Death!" + +South winds full of strange magic ate away the snows. Blinking evilly, +the muskegs laughed in little gurglings and sucking sounds. The forest +pools brimmed with black water. Fresh, blue reservoirs the big lakes +shimmered, while rivers swirled in brown, sinuous torrents. + +Spring! The mallards shot overhead like emerald bullets. + +Spring! The geese ran a compass line across the world. + +Spring! The blood of every Northerner, man or woman, rioted madly, +leaping untamable as the Blazing Pine River roaring past Fort Brondel. + +Through some swift necromancy the frozen wilderness turned to an +arboreal paradise. Bird songs fell sweet on ears tuned to brawling +blizzards. Music of rapid and waterfall seemed heavenly after the +eternal hissing of the wind-freighted drifts. Hotly shone the sun, +pouring vitality into the earth. Responsive the bloom came, wonderful, +profligate, luxurious. + +Gay as any of the mating birds Baptiste Verenne sang about the Post. And +when even the veins of squaw and husky thrilled with excess of vigor, +the tremendous swelling and merging of the passion that absorbed Desirée +and Dunvegan could be vaguely gauged. As surely as the glowing warmth +of spring was increasing to febrile summer heat, the man was being drawn +to the woman. The distance between them gradually lessened. Dumarge had +not fallen. + +Then from the South in the dusk of an evening came the canoe express +bearing the York Factory Packet in charge of Basil Dreaulond. Since +Brondel now belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, that place had been +added to the posts of call. + +Baptiste Verenne sighted Basil and his bronzed paddlers far up the +Blazing Pine before ever they reached the landing. Instantly Fort +Brondel was in an uproar, but in accordance with the rule in troublesome +times no one passed beyond the stockade to greet arrivals. The dangers +of surprise was not courted. + +Yet Baptiste had not been mistaken. Dreaulond and his men hailed the +post cheerily. + +"_Holá!_" was the cry. "_Voyez le pacquet de la Compagnie._" + +"_Oui, mes camarades_," shouted Verenne as sentinel from the high +stockades. "_Entrez! Entrez vite!_" + +Joyfully Brondel received them. "_Lettres par le Grand Pays_," shrieked +the volatile French-Canadians. + +Bruce Dunvegan met Dreaulond in the store where he had his office as +factor of the fort. + +"What news?" he questioned, gripping Basil's brown palm. + +"Dumarge she be taken," replied the smiling courier. + +"When?" Pain not joy filled Dunvegan to his bewilderment. He began to +think that he did not really understand himself or his feelings. + +"'Fore I leave," Dreaulond responded. "De Factor send de word in de +_pacquet_." + +A startled, feminine cry echoed behind the men. Bruce swung on his heel. +Her eyes brooding with half-formed fear, Desirée Lazard was regarding +them. + +The chief trader motioned her out. She did not obey. + +"He has won? The Factor has won at last?" Her manner was that of a +person who faces a calamity long-feared, hard-hated. + +Dully Bruce nodded. + +"The papers!" she exclaimed. "Open them! See when the force moves." + +He broke the thongs of the packet like thread, rummaged the bundle, and +found the documents directed to him. + +"Macleod will be here in two days," was his answer. "Now will you go!" + +The intensity of Dunvegan bordered on savagery. Desirée slipped to the +door. Outwardly conquered, she disappeared, but victory still lurked in +her glance. + +Basil Dreaulond wondered much at the chief trader's apparent mood, for +he was always gentle in the extreme when dealing with women. The courier +could not know that this was the bitterness of renunciation. He too went +softly away and left Dunvegan alone. + +An Indian had taken Baptiste Verenne's position as sentinel, and +Baptiste, hurrying through the yard, met Basil coming out of the fort. + +"Got de fiddle ready, Baptiste?" asked the tanned courier, grinning. + +It was the custom at the posts to hold a dance upon the arrival of the +packet. These festivals marked, as it were, the periods of relief and +relaxation from the toil and danger of the long, arduous packet route. + +"_Oui_, for sure t'ing," Verenne replied. "I be beeg mans dis night, +_mon camarade_!" + +And a big man Baptiste was as, perched high on a corner table, he drew +the merry soul of him out across the strings of his instrument. + +As he played, he smiled jubilantly down upon the light-hearted maze that +filled the great floor of the trading room. The huge hall was decorated +by the quick hands of women for the occasion. Varicolored ribbons ran +round the walls after the manner of bunting and fell in festoons from +the beamed ceiling. Candles stood in rows upon mantels and shelves, +shedding soft, silver light from under tinselled shades. Evergreens +were thrust in the fireplace and banked about with wild roses and the +many flaming flowers of the wilderness. A sweet odor filled the air, an +Eden smell, the fragrance of the untainted forest. + +Riotously, exuberantly the frolic began. Blood pulsed hotly. Feet were +free. Lips were ready. The Nor'westers' wives, the French-Canadian +girls, the halfbreed women swung madly through the square and string +dances with the Brondel men of their choice. + +God of it all, Baptiste smiled perpetually over the tumult, quickening +his music to a faster time, quivering the violin's fibres with sonorous +volume. Mad hornpipes he shrilled out, sailors' tunes which Pete Connear +stepped till the rafters shook with the clatter. Snappy reels he unwound +in which Terence Burke led, throwing antics of Irish abandon that +convulsed the throng. Also, Baptiste voiced the songs he loved, airs of +his own race, dances he had whirled in old years with the belles of the +Chaudiere and the Gatineau. + +Out of sympathy for the prisoners, Glyndon and Follet, when all the +amusement was going on above, Bruce Dunvegan had ordered them to be +brought up. For the one evening they were allowed the freedom of the +fort, but wherever they went two Indian guards stalked always at their +elbows. + +And Glyndon went most frequently where the rum flowed freest. After the +abstinence imposed by confinement since the week-long debauch his thirst +was a parching one. Half fuddled, he met Desirée threading her way +through the crowd. He put out both hands awkwardly to bar her progress. + +"What do you want?" she cried, drawing suddenly back as she would recoil +from a snake. + +"You," Glyndon answered thickly. "Can a man not speak with his wife?" + +"Wife!" Desirée echoed. "Go find one of your halfbreed wenches. Speak +with _her_!" + +Disgust, contempt, revulsion were in Desirée's voice and manner. She +darted aside and avoided him in the crowd. + +Yet again he found her seated at a table between Dunvegan and Basil +Dreaulond where she thought to be secure. He threw his arms about her +neck, attempting a maudlin kiss, but instead of meeting her full, red +lips his own insipid mouth met Dreaulond's great paw, swiftly thrust out +to close upon his blotched cheekbones and whirl him into a seat on the +courier's other side. + +"Ba gosh, ma fren', you ain' be fit for kiss no woman," Basil observed +sternly. "You got be mooch sobaire first. Eh, _mon ami_? Sit ver' +still--dat's w'at I said." + +Inwardly flaming, Dunvegan remained immovable, as if the incident were +none of his concern. But though apparently so calm he was the victim of +raging emotions. The magnetic personality of the woman beside him was a +poignant thing. Her propinquity proved masterful beyond belief. He could +hear her heart beating under restraint; interpret the heaving of her +bosom; feel the hot pulsing of her blood; read her very thoughts as her +mind evolved them. Conscious of the spell which grew stronger with every +minute, Bruce sat there unable to tear himself away. + +Presently, seeking to divert his mind from the cause of the unrest, the +chief trader opened a few bottles of aged wine which he had found in the +cellars of Fort Brondel that were stored with the Nor'wester's liquor. +This he had carefully kept to celebrate the first visit of the Hudson's +Bay Company's packet. + +The amount was not large, yet a little to each the time-mellowed vintage +brought from across the seas by way of Montreal went round. + +"To the York Factory packet," Dunvegan cried, proposing the toast. + +Cheers thundered out, hearty, loyal, sincere. Then reverently the toast +was sipped. + +"And Basil Dreaulond," Bruce added. A shout this time loud with +great-hearted friendliness and comradeship! Strong pride of the +northland race burned in their eyes as they drank to the finest type of +it, the virile courier. + +Now in fullness of spirit each voiced the toast that appealed to him +personally. + +"Scotia!--Scots wha hae!" shrilled two Highlanders of Dunvegan's band. + +"The Emerald Isle," Terence Burke roared aggressively. + +"The Eagle," yelled Pete Connear. "Drat your landsmen's eyes, drink with +me. To the American Eagle and the salt of the sea!" + +"_La France! La France!_" Voyageurs shrieked like mad. + +"Old England," stammered Edwin Glyndon, pounding the table. + +"Old fren's," spoke Basil Dreaulond, with quiet modesty. + +"Old lovers!" Clear as a clarion Desirée's toast rang through the din, +thrilling Dunvegan by its audacity, its fervor. As consuming flames her +eyes drew him, withering stout resolves, melting his will. He bent his +head lower, lower, glorying in the complete confession those two swift +words had made. + +"Ah, yes!" called Glyndon, leering evilly, "you seem to know that +toast--too well." + +She sprang from her seat in a fury. He sprang from his, ugly in his +mood. + +"You dog!" Her nostrils quivered. "You coward!" + +"And liar!" Dunvegan's menacing face eager to avenge the insult rose +behind her shoulder. + +Uttering a wild, inarticulate cry, Glyndon struck the scornful face of +the woman. Desirée gave a little moan and fell half stunned against the +table. + +The Brondel men roared in anger. As one man they sprang forward with the +single purpose of rending Edwin Glyndon. But Dunvegan was quicker than +they. White to his lips, he had leaped at the former clerk. His first +savage impulse was to strike, to maim, to kill! One blow with all his +mighty strength and Glyndon would never have spoken again. + +Spoken! That was it. The quick realization pierced his brain even in the +moment of obsessing anger. Glyndon was a prisoner. He must be produced +before Malcolm Macleod. Macleod had questions to ask of him. Dead men +could not answer questions. + +Thus did sanity temper Dunvegan's rage. It was only his open palm that +knocked the sot ten feet across the room. + +Then fearfully he lifted Desirée. She stirred at the touch. The light of +a smile came into the wan face with the red weal upon it. Her fortitude +permitted not the slightest expression of pain, and Dunvegan's soul went +out to her at knowledge of her woman's bravery. What before had seemed +to him as only his human weakness now became the strength of duty. As if +she had been a child, he raised Desirée in his arms and left the gaping +crowd. + +A murmur ran among the men when he was gone. They scowled as Glyndon +staggered up. + +Came an instant's silence and the piping of a thin voice. "Now my +toast!" + +Everyone looked to see Gaspard Follet grinning like an ogre at the foot +of the table. He thrust his owlish face over the board and shook the +wine in his glass till in the light it sparkled like rubies. + +"To the devil!" he chuckled. + +The feasters started and sat back silent, grave, awed by the vital +significance of that last toast. + +Outside the challenge of the Indian sentinel interrupted the quiet. They +heard the clatter of the gates. Someone had arrived. + +In the living room above the store where he had ascended on the first +strange night of his coming into Brondel, Dunvegan laid Desirée on the +lounge covered with fur robes. He sat by her, tenderly bathing the red +weal with some soothing herbal mixture that the squaws were accustomed +to brew. It relieved the pain, and she smiled up at him, her lustrous +eyes innocent with their depth of love. + +"By the God that makes and breaks hearts," Dunvegan breathed, "you'll +never look on him again. You belong to me by first and only right of +worship." + +There sounded a step on the stairs. Whoever had arrived was coming up. + +The door opened softly. Father Brochet stepped in. + +"My son, my son," he murmured reproachfully but compassionately. + +They had told him all below. He came across the room, clasping hands +with Bruce, greeting Desirée parentally. + +"Go to bed, child," he ordered kindly, assuming authority over the odd +situation. "You look tired out. Go to bed! Bruce and I want to talk." + +Wondering at her own obedience, Desirée vanished into the adjoining +chamber. Marveling at his own sufferance, Dunvegan watched her go. + +He turned to Brochet. "Everything unexpected seems to be happening +to-night!" he exclaimed. "But I didn't think you were near. Where have +you come from, Father?" + +"From Loon Lake." + +"You knew we had captured Fort Brondel, then?" + +"Yes. The Indians gave me the news. As I was on my return journey to +Oxford House, I thought I would pay you a call according to my promise. +It seems, my son, that I have arrived very opportunely. You have ruled +yourself for many months! Are you, in one mad moment, going to lose +your grip?" + +He linked an arm in the chief trader's and walked the floor with him, +talking, talking, priming him with the wisdom of his saner years till +Desirée in the next room fell asleep to the sound of their voices and +the regular shuffle of their feet. + +And by dawn Father Brochet felt the pulse of victory. Something of +soul-light replaced the fevered gleam in Dunvegan's eyes. Not yet had he +lost his grip! + +"But she must go to her uncle, Pierre Lazard," he declared. "Seeing her, +I cannot keep this strength you have given me." + +"Pierre is at York Factory," the priest replied. "He could not bide the +post long after his niece was gone. So Macleod let him go to the +Factory. He passed through my Indian camp at Loon Lake before the winter +trails broke." + +"So much the better," sighed Dunvegan, with relief. "There she will be +safe from Black Ferguson. She can go in the canoe express with Basil +Dreaulond and his packeteers." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +BLACK FERGUSON'S WILE + + +Brochet arranged it. The chief trader could not trust himself to look +upon Desirée's departure with the York Factory packet. The Brondel +people cheered its going, but Dunvegan was not at the landing to see. He +had shut himself up in the office. + +That day he brooded dismally. That night he woke from troubled sleep, +thinking he saw a nightmare. But the anxious features of the priest at +his bedside were real. Real also the face of Basil Dreaulond! He had a +bandage on his head, stained with dried blood! + +Dunvegan sat up with a jerk. + +"What's wrong, Basil?" he shouted. "My God, men, speak!" + +"Wan party Nor'westaires waylay de canoe express," stammered Basil. "Dey +must been spyin' round de post! Got de packet an' de girl. An' takin' +her to Ferguson at La Roche! Dey keel ma voyageurs, _mais_ I escape, me, +in de woods." + +The chief trader threw on his clothes and rushed for the door. + +Brochet blocked him. "What now?" the priest demanded. + +"Follow and----" + +"No good dat," interrupted Dreaulond. "Dey got wan whole day start. No +good!" + +"We have men," cried Dunvegan wildly. "We must storm La Roche." + +"Be wise!" Brochet urged, half angrily. "Twice your force couldn't storm +La Roche--and you know it!" + +"We must try. Great God, do you think I'll leave her in that brute's +power? Every Brondel man marches at once!" + +"No," thundered the priest. "You won't dare! You have the Factor's +order. Don't dare wreck his plan through selfish desire. In another day +he will be here. But move these men now to waste them in futile +assaults and you halve his strength--you lose the Company's campaign!" + +Dunvegan groaned. Well he knew that. Yet inactivity galled and tortured. + +"Dey got dose prisonaires _aussi_," Basil put in. + +"Are you crazed with your wound?" Dunvegan's eyes flashed. + +"No. But I be see dem. Dis Glyndon an' Gaspard!" + +"They were guarded," began the chief trader vehemently; "are guarded +now--" but he broke off to see and to make sure. + +Underground they looked into a cellar-dungeon, empty of captives. Stiff +in death but without any marks of violence the Indian guards lay on the +floor. Dreaulond sniffed their lips. + +"Dat _diable_ Gaspard geeve dem de dog-berry poison," he announced. +"Mus' be dropped in dere rum at de feast las' night." + +It had been the duty of the guards to apportion the prisoners their food +as well as to watch them. Thus their absence had not been marked +through the day. It was evident that their escape had been effected some +time after the supper and dance had ended when the Indians had succumbed +to the fatal drink. + +Dunvegan turned to his friends, the light of unshakeable determination +on his face. + +"My men are the Company's!" he exclaimed. "My life is my own! I'm going +to La Roche. There may be a way. Somewhere there must be a means. Either +I'll carry Desirée Lazard over the stockades or the Nor'westers' guns +will riddle me." + +They did not doubt him. They knew a million protests would not avail. + +"An' me," cried Basil, thrilled by his courage. "I go for de _pacquet_. +De Company's trippers dey ain' nevaire lost wan yet. I ain' goin' be de +first, me!" + +"You lovable fools," reprimanded Brochet, tears in his eyes. "You have +the stuff in you that makes the northmen great. But don't go alone on +this mad mission! Let me go with you. For mark this, Bruce, where your +strength or Dreaulond's cunning cannot prevail, my cloth may render +some aid." + +Thus across the chain of lakes and rivers three men went against La +Roche. + +Paddling Indian fashion with both elbows held rigid and shoulders +thrusting strongly forward at the end of each stroke, the travelers +threaded for miles the island channels of the Blazing Pine. Basil +Dreaulond had the bow, Dunvegan the stern. Father Brochet sat amidships. +They took advantage of the current and made rapid progress, their blades +churning the water in long half-circular swirls. Skilled canoeists they +accepted the aid of every shore-eddy, every rushing chute, every +navigable cascade. + +Down the Rapid Du Loup, a dangerous rock-split through which the river +leaped rather than ran, their craft was snubbed with extreme care. The +three shared the toil of portaging over to Lac Du Longe where a baffling +head-wind blew. + +"Ba gosh, I no lak dat, me," protested Basil, pointing to the great, +white-crested combers which cannonaded the beach. "An' look at dose +storm-clouds! _Saprie!_ she goin' thundaire an' lightnin'!" + +But the chief trader would hear of no delay. Into the brunt of the +tempest the bow was forced. Shooting the sheer wave-slopes, poising +dizzily on crests where momentum raised them, rocking sickeningly in the +trough of the swinging seas, the men rode in the teeth of the gale. Half +way across Du Longe the thunder and lightning Dreaulond had prophesied +burst with raucous bellowing, with vivid flame. The wind increased. The +lake became a boiling cauldron. + +Basil called upon his last ounce of reserve strength to meet the +emergency. Brochet muttered as if in prayer while the leaden-backed +surges lipped across the gunwales and the spume slashed across the bow. +But grim as the storm-wraiths themselves Dunvegan held to his course, +wet drops glistening on his cheeks, wind furies reflected from his eyes. +By sunset they made the other shore, their craft ready to sink under +water which could not be bailed out fast enough. + +Tired to the bone, their sleeping camp was as the camp of the dead that +night. An owl hooted on the tent boughs. A big moose splashed in the +shallows. A gray timber wolf growled over its kill on the shore. But +nothing quickened their dulled ears till dawn, red-eyed from his +yesterday revelry, stared through the spruce tops. + +Then like the revolving of a treadmill came hours of monotonous +straight-water paddling, intervals of tracking and snubbing, occasional +poling through cross-currents, swift, transient moments of hazardous +rapid-running, and the hateful, staggering grind of slippery portages. + +Across the Nisgowan; across the Wakibogan; across the Koo-wai-chew! +Through Wenokona, through Burnt Lake, through Lake of Stars! At Little +Hayes Rapid, a half-day's paddle from Fort La Roche, came their first +mishap. To Basil Dreaulond as bowsman the passage which he had often run +seemed unfamiliar. + +"I'm not be know dis, me," he cried as the canoe swung for a second in +the head-swirls before taking the meteor-like plunge downwards. + +"You're joking," called the chief trader. His paddle urged. The craft +shot forward. + +"_Non_, ba gosh! Dat rock she be split wit' de frost an' de ice----" and +his voice went up in an alarmed yell. + +"_Diable!_" he roared. "Undaire de nose!" + +A desperate thrust of his blade, a tremendous straining did not avail to +clear them. The canoe bow struck a fang of submerged rock with a +horrible, ripping sound. On the instant they capsized. + +His lungs full of water and twin mill-races booming in his ears, Father +Brochet hung limply under Bruce Dunvegan's arm as the latter struggled +up the bouldered side of the shallow channel. It was the most realistic +drowning sensation that he ever wished to experience. After them crawled +the bedraggled courier, hauling the gashed canoe beyond the hammering +eddies. Blood flowed over his temple. The battering he had received had +re-opened the wound in his head. + +A sound whacking between the shoulders relieved the priest. Basil's hurt +was promptly staunched with balsam gum. + +"_Mon Dieu_, dat be ver' close t'ing," he commented, shrugging his +shoulders. + +"Aye," agreed the chief trader, regretfully eyeing the torn canoe bow. +"We might guard our lives a little better. There is someone in Fort La +Roche who needs them." + +"_Oui_," returned Dreaulond, with deep significance, "an' eef I know +anyt'ing, mebbe she be get dem _aussi_." + +"Maybe," assented the chief trader, unmoved. + +The priest uttered a thankful sigh. "We are in the hands of God," he +declared. "White-water or Nor'westers, it is all the same!" + +Bruce made a fatalistic gesture. + +"I believe you, Father; I believe you," he returned. "Nevertheless we +must always aid ourselves. Let us portage to the other end of the rapid +and try to mend our canoe." + +But first he fished their sunken outfit from the clear water of the +channel. Brochet went down and found the paddles where they had been +cast upon the sand below Little Hayes Rapid. Dreaulond pushed over a +dead birch, heaping its dried husk and powdery center for a quick fire. + +Then they stripped off their soaked garments and spread them upon the +rocks under the perpendicular sun of high noon. There the steaming +clothes dried more quickly than would have been possible before the +flames. It was time to eat. The hot meal of fried fish newly caught, +bannocks baked from the already wetted flour, and tea proved welcome. A +pipe or two formed the dessert. + +After the meal the men set about the task of mending the canoe. A long +rent grinned in the right side of the bow, a bad gash that would require +patience in the gumming. Basil measured it tentatively and went off into +the forest to cut a strip of bark large enough to cover the opening +generously. Dunvegan melted the pitch over the fire, getting it ready to +cement the patch. + +Basil returned. Skilfully the two accomplished the delicate work. The +patch was gummed tight. Over all they spread an extra coat of pitch for +surety. Then the canoe was set aside in the shade for a space that the +gum might cool and harden sufficiently against the water's friction. + +The bark Dreaulond cut had fitted neatly, the gum stuck well. The finish +of the thing pleased Basil. He gave vent to his satisfaction in a +contented grunt as he lay back with lighted pipe among the greening +shrubs and ferns. + +"_Bien!_" he exclaimed. "She be carry us lak wan new _batteau_. Lak +_batteaux sur_ de old Saguenay--dat's long way from here, ba gosh! I see +heem some nights in ma dreams, me. An' dat's w'en de trails be ver' hard +an' I'm ver' tired. Onlee las' night, _mes amis_, I see dat _cher_ old +Saguenay an' Lac Saint Jean." + +"Was St. John anything like Du Longe?" asked Dunvegan whimsically. + +Basil shivered at the comparison. "_Non_," he protested. "Du Longe wan +_diable_. Saint Jean wan angel. _Par Dieu_, I be tell you, _mes +camarades_, dose _lacs_ an' _rivières_ on ma home ain' lak dese in dis +beeg _Nord_. _Non, M'sieu'_ Brochet! Back dere I be go out for some +leetl' pleasure; nevaire be t'ink of dangaire--she so peaceful an' +sweet. _Mais_ oop here I always t'ink dis _Nord_ lak wan sharp enemy +watchin' for take you off de guard, for catch you in some feex. Onlee de +strong mans leeve in dis countree--you see dat. An' w'en I journey on +dese _lacs_ an' _rivières_ an' dese beeg woods, I kip de open eye, de +tight hand." + +"Feeling that if you ever relax your vigilance, the North will hurl you +down," suggested Father Brochet. + +"_Oui_, dat's way I feel. _Mais_ not dat way on ma home in de old days! +Las' night I be dream I dreeft lak I used to dreeft from Lac Saint Jean +down de Saguenay. From Isle D'Almâ to de Shipshaw--_oui_, an' all the +way to Chicoutimi! All in ma new _batteau_!" + +"And was there anyone in the bow?" ventured Dunvegan softly. He was +strangely moved, recalling an ancient confidence of Dreaulond's. + +"_Oui_," murmured Basil tenderly, "de _petite_ Therese, _ma fille_!" + +"Man, man," cried Brochet earnestly, "haven't you forgotten yet? It is +years since you told us of that sorrow." + +"_Non_, not w'ile I leeve," Dreaulond replied, a suspicious moisture +gathering on his lashes. "She be wit' me las' night, de leetl' Therese, +black-eyed, wit' de angel smile--Therese from the quiet, green graveyard +on de hill of St. Gédéon." + +Silently they marveled at him, this man of iron strength, but of +exquisite feeling, with poetic heart and temperament, who on the edge of +danger could float with the dream-conjured vision of his dead child down +between the water-cooled, moss-wrapped rocks of the Saguenay. + +But Basil's attitude changed swiftly as he sensed one of those northern +menaces which he had mentioned minutes before. He rolled on his side and +stared downstream. + +"Who's dis?" His tone, low and harsh, seemed that of another person. + +Bruce Dunvegan raised himself on one elbow, his face frowning in a cloud +of smoke. + +"A Nor'wester--curse it!" he muttered savagely. "Coming from La Roche! +He cannot miss us here. For see he's on the portage. Keep a still tongue +till I speak and follow my lead. There is a chance that he may mistake +us." + +The chief trader lay back again with an assumption of careless +indifference. The other two imitated it. + +Meanwhile the Nor'wester was crossing the portage with a speed and ease +which showed that he was not overburdened by traveling gear. The lines +of the canoe on his head bespoke a fast, light craft. His dunnage was +scant. + +Ascending from the shore level to the hog-back of rock which ran along +parallel with Little Hayes Rapid till it dipped down to clear water at +the other end, the Nor'wester glimpsed beneath the broad band of the +tump-line on his forehead the three strangers lolling beside their fire. +Immediately he dropped his load, paused, and glared uncertainly. +Dunvegan gave him a cheery call which reassured him. + +"Knife me, but at first I was afraid you might be of the Hudson's Bay +people," he laughed, coming on and depositing his canoe and luggage with +their own. "Yet that was a foolish idea, for one does not see Company +men so close to Fort La Roche. But your faces are strange to me!" He +paused and puzzled them over. "To which of our parties do you belong? +You're from the Labrador, I'll wager!" + +Dunvegan took safer ground. "No," he answered. "We've come over from the +Pontiac with a priest for your district. From complaints at headquarters +at Montreal it seems there has been a dearth of priests since Father +Beauseul died. So the Jesuits have sent you Father Marcin from the +Keepawa Post." + +Bruce nodded to Brochet by way of introduction, a narrowing of the eye +warning the priest to act the part. And the pseudo Father Marcin sat up +and greeted the fellow gravely. It was lucky that Dunvegan had some +knowledge of Nor'west affairs. + +But the sight of Brochet's cloth on the Nor'wester was startling. He +stared a second, emitting a great pleased laugh. + +"By all the gods, a priest!" he shouted. "What good fortune! As you say, +there is a dearth of priests." Again he laughed that great, pleased +laugh they could not understand. "A dearth of priests!" + +He thrust out a hand. "I will never be any gladder to see you, Father +Marcin, than I am now. You have saved me a long paddle to Watchaimene +Lake. There is one of your cloth there. I was going for him." + +Brochet looked up sharply. "Who is dying?" he questioned. + +"No one. It's Ferguson, our leader. He can't get a priest to marry him +quick enough!" + +Silence fell, a hateful, awkward, dangerous silence! Brochet looked at +Dunvegan. The latter's face was a mask. The pipe protruded rigidly from +one corner of his mouth. He betrayed no emotion, but the priest's +glance, falling to his bare arms, noted the quivering of the sinews. + +"Why so much haste?" inquired Father Brochet, calmly assuming the task +of preserving the former indifference of the atmosphere. + +The Nor'wester chuckled significantly. "It is natural," he answered. +"Ferguson has already waited a year in order to lay hands on his bride. +For you must know she was under the guard of the Hudson's Bay till she +married an English clerk in their service who was bribed to come over to +the Nor'west ranks and put in charge of Fort Brondel, which has since +been captured by the Company!" + +"How came Black Ferguson to seize her, then?" the priest asked, drawing +all possible information from the swart fellow. + +"There was a feast in Brondel when the York Factory packet arrived. +After the dance the English clerk escaped with a spy who was also a +prisoner. Expecting that some of our men would be lurking about spying +on the fort, they sought and found them and gave them news. The clerk's +wife, the lady Ferguson desired, was to go north with the canoe express +to York Factory. So our men waylaid it, capturing the packet and the +woman. The clerk, poor fool, thought she was being taken for himself." + +"And was it not so?" cried Brochet. "They were married, you say! Does +this lady lean toward bigamy?" + +"They _were_ married, yes," admitted the Nor'wester, with a sinister +meaning. "She is now a widow." + +All three men started, nearly betraying themselves. "A widow!" they +echoed. + +"A widow indeed! The English clerk was shot by some of the packeteers." + +"Dat wan dam lie!" shouted Basil, unwarily. + +"Why? What do you know?" The Nor'wester looked askance at the voyageur's +vehemence. + +"I see dat in your eye," Dreaulond declared, quick to recover himself. +"We all be _bon amis_. Spik de truth, now!" He winked knowingly at the +dark-faced man. + +"Well," began the other, sheepishly, "it wasn't in the fight, that's +true. It happened afterwards. I was not with the party, but they say the +English clerk stumbled over his own gun." + +"Where was he shot?" Dunvegan hurled the query almost ferociously. + +"In the back, I heard!" + +Bruce spat an oath. Brochet gave a sympathetic murmur. The courier +growled inarticulately. + +"_Mon Dieu_," he muttered under his breath, "dat's wan more count for +M'sieu' Ferguson, wan more hell fire. I t'ink he be need de pries' for +shrive, not for marry heem. Ba gosh, I do!" + +The Nor'wester was obviously growing impatient. + +"I must be going back if you are ready to move, Father Marcin," he +asserted, "for Ferguson will question me as to where I found you, and if +he thinks there has been any lagging, I shall pay the price." + +Dunvegan's head moved the fraction of an inch in a nod perceptible only +to Father Brochet. The latter quickly arose. + +"I am ready to make all haste," he averred. "If I delay, I am perhaps +permitting sin." + +"As for you, my friends," spoke the Nor'wester, turning to the others, +"there is nothing to hinder your coming also. They will give you good +cheer in La Roche. You may rest there a while and return at your +leisure." + +"It would please us," replied Dunvegan, "but the Pontiac is a long way +from here. There is little use in adding extra miles to our labor. And +Keepawa Post cannot spare us for long. We will go back." + +"Your plans are your own," the Nor'wester assented. "And I must paddle +on. La Roche should see me by sunset." + +They helped him launch his craft and load the duffle. Dunvegan addressed +a last remark to him. + +"You did not tell us," he observed carelessly, "how this lady takes your +leader's haste. The story has interested me." + +"She pleaded for a little time against his eagerness," answered the +Nor'wester, "and she stalls him off thus. He has given her till the +priest's arrival, which time she is lucky to get! Also she is lucky to +have Father Marcin!" The man's chuckle implied much. + +Dunvegan's jaw tightened. His pipe broken at his lips clattered on the +flinty rocks. + +"It was worn!" he exclaimed. + +Brochet picked up the fallen portion. Showing no sign of wear, the amber +was fresh and thick. Proof of the volcanic feeling rioting in him, +Dunvegan's strong teeth had bitten clear through the stem. + +As the Nor'wester slipped his canoe into the water, Bruce whispered to +Brochet. + +"Do what you can," he begged. "We shall not be far behind you." + +With ostentation the priest bade the two good-bye. The Nor'wester waved +a paddle in farewell as his canoe shot round a bend. Two or three miles +start Basil and Dunvegan gave him before they launched their own craft. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +FAWN AND PANTHER + + +Like a colossal casting in bronze Fort La Roche loomed against the +bloody sunset. Brochet glimpsed it for the first time with a prescience +of impending evil. Couchant on the serrated headland it lay some sixty +feet above river level, commanding the waterway, grinning like a +powerful monster, impregnable, austere, forbidding. Strongest of all the +Nor'west posts, most cunningly built, most substantially fortified, the +mere thought of bringing anyone over its stockades unresisted seemed +maddest folly. + +The priest had in his day seen many weird-looking dens bristling with +defence, smacking of wrong-doing, smelling of spilled blood. But this +impressed him above all as likely to be the abode of extreme +malevolence. Even to enter it, he felt, would be like putting one's head +into a wild beast's lair not knowing what minute it might be snapped +off. + +Brochet was glad at this crisis that he had never seen Black Ferguson. +He rejoiced that the Nor'west leader had had no opportunity to set eyes +on him, for in such a contingency he could not hope to blind the man's +innate cunning and preserve his incognito. Recognition by two people he +still had to fear. They were Flora Macleod and Gaspard Follet. Against +this he drew up the hood of his black cassock to shade his features, +formulating in his mind an excuse which embraced asthma and the dark +evening mist for the moment when he should be questioned as to the +cause. + +Under the lee of the headland the Nor'wester's canoe drifted. +Backwatering with his rigidly held paddle, he lay to below the +rivergate. A loud voice hailed them from the watchtower. + +"Halloo! Who comes?" + +"It is Black Ferguson himself," whispered the Nor'west man to Brochet, +studying the tall figure poised on the high wall. "He finds it harder to +wait than he thought." + +Then, lifting up his shout, Ferguson's messenger answered his leader. + +"Cartienne!" he roared. "Cartienne comes. And with a priest!" + +Wide swung the watergate in the space of a breath. Black Ferguson seemed +to have fallen from the watchtower so quickly did he accomplish the +descent. His eager face peered at them from the dusky landing. + +"By all the saints, Cartienne!" he laughed, mightily pleased. "What did +you use? Witchcraft?" + +The messenger explained. Voluble with blessings on his good luck, +Ferguson dismissed Cartienne and haled the priest off to the store, in a +room above which Desirée Lazard was confined. + +"No supper, Father," he joked, "till you have seen my bride-to-be. And +knife me, she'll give you an appetite! I'll warrant that. After supper +you shall marry us." + +"Is she so fair, then?" ventured Brochet. + +"Fair? I'll take my oath you saw none like her in all the Pontiac, +Father Marcin. But you shall judge for yourself! Here is the place. Let +me lead the way aloft." + +Brochet looked round as he followed Ferguson up the stairway and saw, +coming into the building with some trappers to barter goods, the +familiar, hideous figure of Gaspard Follet. He swiftly turned his back +and pulled the hood tighter. The spy's bellowing laugh made him flinch +with the sickening feeling of discovery, but immediately he was ashamed +of the falsity of his alarm. Gaspard's mirth held no hint of wicked +triumph; nothing but harsh deviltry as he stared a second upon Ferguson +and the black cassocked one. + +"A priest, a marriage and afterwards--h--l!" Brochet heard the dwarf +cheerfully prophesy to the trappers. Again his mawkish laugh vibrated +among the hewn rafters. + +Above the Nor'west leader quickly crossed the room and indicated a door. + +"Here, Father! Cover your eyes lest her beauty blind you!" The tone was +exultant as well as bantering. + +He fumbled with the bolt, failed to shoot it, and stooped to examine, +for the dark was gathering thickly so that small things could not be +easily seen. + +"The devil!" he cried amazedly. "It's unlocked! Now what cursed trickery +is this?" + +Kicked back without ceremony, the door banged and quivered. Ferguson +bounded inside, the breathless priest on his heels. A single candle, +burning serenely, lighted an empty room. + +"Legions of fiends and devils!" blasphemed the angry Nor'wester, +blundering round in sheer astonishment. "Escaped? It can't be, Father +Marcin! She could not have gone through the store. My men would have +seen. And yonder door, the only other way out, leads into the upper part +of the fur-house where the powder is stored. It is locked! What +traitor----" + +The grating of a key interrupted him. Ferguson whirled at the sound. The +door he had mentioned had opened and closed softly. Flora, paler than +when Brochet had last seen her and with the shadow of disappointment in +her eyes, quietly broke the key in the lock. She failed to recognize the +priest whose face was partly concealed by his hood. + +"You--you!" Ferguson shrieked, choking with terrible wrath. + +"I," she answered unflinchingly. "I told you that you would never marry +her. Neither shall you! Had I been able to spirit her out of La Roche, +it would have been done. Failing that, I have placed her beyond your +earthly reach. You cannot kiss her living lips!" + +"What! You she-fiend," shouted the Nor'wester, thoughts of evil dealing +leaping into his bewildered brain, "do you dare tell me----" + +But Flora stopped him with an imperious gesture. + +"Don't misunderstand me," she returned contemptuously. "Go look for her +in the powder-room." + +At that, enlightenment swept him. He leaped forward, madly incensed, +with fists clenched to strike her. Father Brochet had just time to throw +himself between. + +"Softly," the priest cautioned, whispering low that the Factor's +daughter might not know his voice; "you must not offer a blow to a +woman. I thought a prospective bridegroom had been more gentle with the +sex." + +"Your pardon, Father," he begged. + +But he was barely containing himself. The judgment for the woman who was +his wife leaped out. + +"I'll suffer you here no longer," he snarled. "Leave La Roche at dawn. +That's my last word to you!" + +But the gleaming devil in his eye leered back at him in the steady +contemptuous gaze of Malcolm Macleod's daughter. + +Downstairs in wild, inconsiderate haste the Nor'wester dragged the +priest. Dark had fallen on La Roche, a deep darkness of velvety, +impenetrable gloom peculiar to the North. A drifting pall of mist that +beaded the stockades and dripped from the blockhouse eaves added to the +intensity of the night. Suggestive of tragedy, symbolic of disaster, +prophetic of unknown calamity, the weird atmosphere chilled the men as +with a breath of fatalism. Both felt it, but neither stopped long enough +to analyze the feeling. Brochet attributed the odd sensation to his +delicate position which in the event of discovery would become fatal. +Black Ferguson thought the impression was simply attendant upon his +abnormal excitement as he raced across the yard to the fur-house. + +There the priest sweated with a very natural fear when they met a group +of Indians who had been storing bales by torchlight. Trooping back from +their work, the red gleam licking across their coppery features, Brochet +saw Running Wolf, his hot-tempered son Three Feathers and others of the +Cree tribe from the Katchawan. + +Veering a little, the priest walked on Ferguson's right side on the edge +of the ring of light. Thus he avoided encountering them fairly and +escaped keen eyes that would have undoubtedly recognized him even under +his muffling capote. + +"_Bo' jou', bo' jou'_," the Crees grunted, and stalked on. + +Into the fur-house between rows of strong-odored pelts the Nor'wester +hurried through the dark with Brochet. Up the long ladder which was wide +enough for both to climb abreast they hastened. Ferguson threw back the +ceiling trapdoor with a resounding clang. The tableau that met the two +men's eyes as they pushed up their heads was one to be stamped indelibly +on their memories. + +A candle gleaming beside her in a sconce on the wall, Desirée Lazard +crouched behind a heap of powder kegs in the middle of the room. The top +of the central keg had been broken in. The powder's black crystals shone +with an awesome refraction of light. And, white-lipped, tense-fibered, +Desirée held the great pistol in her hand so that its muzzle was buried +in the deadly stuff. + +Her eyes lightened with recognition at sight of Brochet's colorless face +in the dark square of the trapdoor's space. But, being behind Ferguson's +shoulder, he placed a finger on his lips so that the girl understood and +gave no sign. + +First the Nor'wester cursed in helplessness and baffled anger. Then his +powers of entreaty were exhausted to no betterment. His handsome, +diabolical countenance was set with a rigid glare almost maniacal in +distortion. + +"Are you mad, girl?" he screamed, his voice more animal-like than human. + +"No, but you are," Desirée retorted scornfully, "if you think to +approach me. Remember! A crook of my finger and Fort La Roche goes!" + +To Brochet it was splendid--the soft woman holding at certain bay the +wily Nor'wester whom none had ever baffled before. Her courage sent a +glow through his own frame, but instantly he shivered at the thought +that this could not last any great length of time. The situation was +impossible. Yet such as it was, Desirée was mistress of it! + +"The minute that you or your men show foot above those ladder rungs, I +fire," she declared with an intense earnestness which the Nor'wester did +not for an instant doubt. "Your priest there may come up. But no +other!" + +Devil that he was, Black Ferguson began to test her nerve, prancing on +the rounds upward, ever upward, showing his waist, his hips, knees, even +ankles, while Father Brochet trembled for the sake of the girl. He +expected every instant to hear the thunderous reverberation that would +carry destruction and death. Once the Nor'west leader rose on the last +rung till his boot-tops levelled the floor, balanced thus, grinning to +see how little he had to spare. + +The priest noted Desirée's hand whitening on the pistol butt, noted the +weapon's muzzle thrusting deeper into the powder. Involuntarily his +fingertips went to his ears. But the explosion did not come. Laughing a +grim, satisfied laugh, Black Ferguson dropped down a rung or so +alongside Brochet. + +"You should not do that," the latter reproved. "A slip of your foot or a +nervous quiver of the girl's hand and we would all be in Heaven!" + +"You and the girl might, Father. I would be in a fitter place." + +Ferguson's face was insolent. He had no fear, neither had he any +reverence. + +"Hard as you are," the priest went on, "I give you credit for your +courage." + +"Give Desirée credit too! There is a woman of steel, Father. A fit mate +for a Nor'wester!" + +"But most unwilling, it seems!" + +"Her will must break." + +Black Ferguson turned again to glimpse her fully. He played again his +trick of mounting the ladder rungs. + +Brochet thought the Nor'wester was baiting her out of sardonic +recklessness. This was partially the truth, but had the priest followed +Black Ferguson's eyes more closely, he would have seen that the cunning +giant had an ulterior purpose in his baiting. Once more he dropped back +to Brochet's side without betraying that purpose. + +"Beautiful and brave!" he gloated. "Brave and beautiful! Did you ever +see her like, Father Marcin? I'll wager not. Not even in the Pontiac! +Yet look what madness it is--this standing at bay. I don't want her +destroyed. Nor the fort. She knows that. But how long can she play this +pretty game? Soon she will need food, and with that she-fiend who +planted her here gone, she will never get it. What then? What then, my +worthy priest? You see it is no use. Go up and reason with her, Father. +You have wisdom. She will listen. As for me I can wait a little longer!" + +He urged Brochet through the opening and closed the trapdoor. His heavy +boots clattered down the ladder. The outer door of the fur-house opened +and shut. + +Dropping her weapon, Desirée swayed forward on unsteady feet and, +sobbing with nerve-strain, collapsed on the priest's breast. + +"My child, my child," murmured Father Brochet. + +And when she lay a little quieter in his arms, he whispered in her ear a +word about Dunvegan and Dreaulond. + +"They can't be far off," he explained. "A few miles behind Cartienne's +canoe! That would be all--just enough to keep well out of sight or +sound. And I shouldn't wonder if they're about La Roche now!" + +"But what can two men do?" cried Desirée, utterly hopeless. "He--he will +only sacrifice himself. And for me in the end it will be this." She +motioned to the powder, and then drawing away from Brochet with a return +of strength went and seated herself upon the keg. + +"You had--you had the pistol," ventured the priest. + +"Yes," she returned quietly, "but I could not use it even on a beast. +You yourself would not have me use it so, Father!" + +"No, daughter, not so! Nor yet the other way--the powder! Pray God he +gives Dunvegan strength to do something." + +Brochet paced up and down in a distracted manner. There was little he +could say. Reason with her the Nor'wester had ordered! The priest would +rather see her press the trigger above the keg than reason her into the +arms of the Nor'wester lord. He began to question her as to the details +of the attack upon the York Factory packet. Desirée explained how they +had been waylaid, for since she was in the hands of the victors after +the skirmish she could better learn how they had fulfilled their plans +than could Basil Dreaulond who had escaped. She shuddered when she told +of the accident to Glyndon which happened afterwards as they made speed +to Fort La Roche. + +For accident it was in Desirée's eyes. How could she know that the men +of the party had had their orders from Black Ferguson before they +departed on their mission? Father Brochet did not enlighten her. + +She went on to tell of the arrival at the Nor'west stronghold, of +Ferguson's greeting with his offer of marriage. Her eyes flashed as she +spoke of it. + +"Did you ever see a panther stalk a fawn?" she cried. "That was it! But +I defied him. I scorned him. I--I spurned him. Yet defiance seemed only +to increase his appetite. He laughed at my fear. He roared at my fury. +He thrust me into a locked chamber to change my mind before the priest +arrived. He said I was lucky to have a priest----" + +She paused, interrupted by a slight sound which seemed to come up from +the river. The wall trembled never so slightly. "What is it?" she +whispered. + +Brochet had stepped swiftly to the other end of the powder room and laid +ear to a loop-hole. Suddenly his left hand beckoned. Desirée tip-toed +across. + +"What?" she panted. "Who?" She breathed in little gasps. + +"I don't know, daughter," murmured the priest, his voice tremulous with +excitement. "Dunvegan--maybe. He swore he would carry you over these +walls." + +"What madness!" Desirée gasped. "Think of the cliffs. The stockades are +fifty feet above the water. It would require a miracle!" + +"You forget there is a God who still works miracles. And through earthly +instruments! Remember the fur-chute!" + +"But it is drawn up every night," the girl protested. + +"To-night it cannot be, for the noise is coming from it. The Crees and +voyageurs were unloading fur-bales. They have been careless and left it +down. Or perhaps they have not finished. Pray Heaven they may not come +back too soon!" + +Undoubtedly the noise, as of someone crawling, was coming from the +fur-chute, the long box-pipe of pine that projected like a spout from +the lower room of the fur-house and slanted down over the stockades to +within a few feet of the river's surface. It was used for the loading +and unloading of pelts carried in canoes, the huge bales being hoisted +or lowered by a stout rope which ran through the center on a pulley. The +height of Fort La Roche above the water made such a contrivance +necessary. It effected a tremendous saving of time and portaging up the +steep. + +The only drawback was that it afforded means of ingress to enemies, +since an active man could pull himself up by the rope, and this the +Nor'westers had overcome by hinging the fur-house end on a great wooden +pin. Thus at will the spout could be raised like the arm of a derrick +out of reach from anyone below. + +That the chute was not raised now could hardly have been an oversight. +Brochet knew that Ferguson was far too careful for that. It must mean +that there was still work to be done. The priest sweated at every +distant echo of voice or footfall for fear it heralded the return of the +Nor'west voyageurs. + +The scraping, crawling noise continued. While they strained to hear, +their ears tense as those of listening deer, they caught a faint +metallic sound from the room downstairs. + +"Bolts," muttered Brochet, straightening up suddenly. "Now what does +that mean?" + +He was shown! The trapdoor behind them flew open and Black Ferguson's +head and shoulders rose up. He had worked the ruse of coming back +unheard. In his hand the priest could see a piece of binding cord drawn +taut as if fastened to something under the powder-room's floor. + +"Ho! Ho!" His huge laugh reverberated among the rafters. "Ho! Ho!" + +Desirée dashed toward the kegs, but the Nor'wester swiftly jerked on the +cord he held. A gap yawned in the floor before her feet. Kegs and pistol +tumbled down into the fur-room. + +"Ho! Ho!" roared Ferguson. "It's an old trapdoor where the ladder used +to be. I put a string to the bolt. What do you think of my reasoning, +Father? Better than yours, what?" + +He had reached the floor and was rushing across to them. + +"The candle, Father! The candle!" Desirée shrieked. For keg on keg of +powder, many of them open, was still up-piled around the room. + +She sprang for it. Black Ferguson sprang also and wrested the flaming +taper from her fingers. Still laughing, he shoved her aside with one +great paw and replaced the light in the sconce on the wall. + +"There's a spitfire, Father Marcin," he exulted. "There's spirit for +you. It's the spirit I want. By heaven you'll marry us now. I ask no +better chancel." + +And he leaped after the retreating girl. + +"Wait till I get her in these arms," he cried hoarsely, his cheeks +aflame, his eyes shining with desire. "Else will she not stand quiet for +the vows!" + +Fawn and panther!--the comparison Desirée herself had made! As tawny, as +cruel, as strong, and as fierce to feed as any beast of prey the +Nor'wester ran round the yawning floor-gap to seize her. As slim, as +supple, as tender as any fawn Desirée crouched and trembled an instant +before him. Then she leaped straight down through the opening. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +CONQUEST + + +A prayer on his lips, Brochet scrambled down the ladder. A curse on his, +Black Ferguson tumbled after. In the impetus of his descent the +Nor'wester hit the trapdoor over the ladder. It slammed shut, and the +place below was plunged in darkness except for the faint gleam which +fell from above through the other square. The candlelight came down like +a golden spray of phosphorescent liquid, bathing and making visible a +meager space in the middle of the lower floor. It was only the square of +light in the ceiling enlarged a few diameters, and the rest of the vast +room where boxes, barrels, and bales were piled in rows on the floor and +upon shelves on the walls remained black as pitch. + +But Ferguson had no chance to go up and bring down the candle without +which he had so thoughtlessly descended. His quarry was too close to +escape. + +"Do you find her, Father?" he called to the priest whom he could dimly +see searching where the weak light shone. + +"No! Nor hear her!" Brochet's voice was bitterly harsh. "If she struck +these boxes, you have murdered her!" + +"Aye; and if she struck the fur-bales, she is as lively as ever! Since +you don't see her there, she didn't strike the boxes. She's in this +cursed dark somewhere. What's more, she'll be out of it in a minute. +Watch the door, Father. I'll stand by the fur-chute. It's down; and it's +devilishly handy for her to slide into the water!" + +Quickly he crossed the space of light and groped for the mouth of the +chute. He reached it. The cool, dank river air rising through it puffed +in his heated face. + +"Wait a moment, Father. Wait till I strike a match!" + +"In the name of Heaven, don't!" cried Brochet from the door where he +was secretly trying to loose the bar. "The kegs broke when they fell. +The powder's all over the floor." + +Black Ferguson chuckled like a fiend. "Faint-hearted, Father? Take a +lesson from the girl. Powder or no powder, we must have light!" + +The sulphur match crackled on the wall. Ferguson shielded the sputtering +blue flame with his hands, but even while he shielded it, the match was +struck from his fingers, and he was locked in a pair of powerful arms. + +"Let go, priest!" he commanded laughingly. "Where in the devil did you +get such muscles?" He imagined Brochet had gripped him. + +But his laugh and his voice died in the strain. He could only choke out +a curse and bend to his sudden mad struggle for freedom. + +Over by the door Father Brochet heard the sounds of conflict, the hard +breathing, heavy trampling, smashing of boxes and barrels, crashing of +overturned goods. He thought it was Desirée striving against the +Nor'wester. He rushed to her aid, but the strong whirl of men's fighting +bodies hurled him into a corner. Almost under his feet Desirée gave a +frightened cry, and, stooping, the priest groped for her. + +He gathered her in his arms. "Are you hurt, daughter? Are you hurt?" + +"No, no," she assured him. "I landed on the fur-bales, and they were +soft. But, God of Heaven, what is happening?" + +"It must be Dunvegan--and Ferguson. And one will kill the other!" + +In the dark they crouched back from the stamping feet. Not a thing was +visible. They might have been in some medieval dungeon or charnel vault +where monsters of old were writhing in death-grapples. Desirée was +trembling all over. She clung to Brochet, her eyes straining for an +unrewarded glimpse of the furious antagonists. If she could only see! +That was what wracked her. The fear that invisible horror engenders +shattered her supersensitive nerves. On the verge of hysteria she +listened, praying for the end. + +Then huge as giants in the spray of light she saw two men stagger into +the central space of the floor. She saw one man's body bend as willow in +the other's arms, heard it crack like a broken branch. Sweeter than any +sound she had ever heard, Dunvegan's voice rang clearly. + +"A candle, Brochet! For Heaven's sake, a candle! It is either his neck +or his back. Pray God, his neck!" + +The priest's cassock flapped up the ladder and flapped down again. +Fearfully he walked with the taper and held it tight; for destruction +was all around them, and the trampled powder lay on the floor like meal. + +"Careful, Brochet!" warned the chief trader. "This way--this way. Ah! +it's his back." + +Horrible to view, with his spine doubled back like the broken blade of a +jackknife, Black Ferguson was crumpled over a barrel. He looked as if he +could never move or speak again, and, placing the candle carefully on a +box, Father Brochet knelt hastily beside him. + +"Help me, my son," he begged Dunvegan. "Raise him up. Surely he will let +me shrive him." + +Shrive him! They reckoned without the Nor'wester's steel spirit. He +squirmed in their hands. As he saw Dunvegan's face bent over him he +snarled like a trapped wolf and uttered a demon-howl. + +"La Roche!" he screamed loud enough to ring from ground to blockhouse +tower. "La Roche! To me, comrades! To me----" + +The chief trader's palm stopped his mouth, but the mischief was done. +There arose a roar of trapper shouts and Cree gutturals. The yard +thundered with running feet. Brochet rushed to bar the door. Dunvegan +grasped Desirée's arm and sprang to the fur-chute. + +"Quick!" he ordered. "Put your feet over the rim. Now sit down. Basil +has the canoe at the other end!" + +He looped the rope around the girl's waist and swiftly lowered her like +a bale through the wooden spout. Hands below suddenly eased his burden. +The rope jerked twice, Dreaulond's signal that the descent was made, and +Dunvegan pulled the hemp up again with feverish haste. The coils writhed +and twisted on the floor behind him; the sweat of his climb and exertion +ran rivulets on bare arms and forehead. + +"You next, Brochet!" he panted. + +But there was sacrifice in the priest's eye. Men with torches were all +about the building. In a moment or two they would break in. + +"Brochet! You next!" + +"No, no, my son. Good-bye, and go. There is no time for both." + +"You next, I said," roared Dunvegan. He leaped and seized the priest +bodily. + +"Leave me, son!" Brochet tried to throw off the rope. "Your place is +with Desirée. They will not harm me." + +Dunvegan whipped the cable over the priest's head and took a turn under +his armpits. "Harm you! They would rend you bone from bone. Black +Ferguson knows you now for an imposter. Into the chute you go!" + +The building shook under the assault of the trappers and Crees. The +rafters rang with Ferguson's shouts as he urged the men on. Axe-blades +bit through the barred door. + +The chief trader put forth his strength to steady Brochet's descent. He +was much heavier than Desirée, and the brunt of the drag came just when +he occupied the mouth of the chute before the rope could be eased over +the pulley. As the priest's head was disappearing, he cast up his eyes +and Dunvegan saw spring into them an intense horror. + +"Look!" he shrieked. "Look!" and vanished down the pipe. + +The chief trader threw a backward glance across his shoulder as hand +over hand he paid out the rope, and the sight he glimpsed turned icy +cold the hot sweat on his limbs. Black Ferguson, cripple as he was, had +possessed himself of the candle and was dragging his broken body along +the floor toward a heap of the trampled powder. Paralysis gripped the +Nor'wester's legs so that they trailed helplessly, but by means of his +tremendous strength of shoulders and arms he was wriggling his way, +clutching, pulling, heaving as one in death-throes. He had the candle in +his mouth, and he seemed to Dunvegan like some great, evil, +fiery-tongued, crawling monster. + +Outside the building all was pandemonium. Inside dwelt awful suspense. +It was a moment to drive Dunvegan mad. The rope was not long enough to +allow him to back up and kick the candle out of Ferguson's mouth. If he +let go he would undoubtedly drown Brochet and capsize the two in the +canoe. He hung on grimly, measuring the Nor'wester's progress by +glancing back repeatedly, striving to pay out the cable faster than the +dragon-like thing could crawl. + +Foot by foot he fed the rope. As it sagged loose, Black Ferguson had +gained his goal. His hand snatched the candle from his teeth and reached +out to lay wick to the granules. + +When he saw the Nor'wester's arm go out, Dunvegan dived headforemost +down the chute. Like an otter he slid, and cried a warning as he shot +down. Barely in time did Basil catch it. A backward sweep of his paddle, +and a whizzing body splashed at his bow. + +And simultaneous with the splash the cliffs rocked and thundered. Like a +volcano the hill vomited red fire through the pitchy night. In a blotch +of flame La Roche flew heavenward. A rain of wreckage fell upon the +water all around the chief trader. + +"_Mon Dieu, camarade_, dive!" shouted Dreaulond, backing water. + +He dove and came up again in the center of the river. There the courier +whirled the stern of the canoe into his grasp, and, unhurt, Dunvegan +raised himself over it. The last barrier between them gone, Desirée +crouched in his dripping arms. + +Yet only an instant might heart beat against heart! Dunvegan thrust his +legs under the stern thwart and caught up a paddle. + +"Drive, Basil," he urged. "Drive hard! I don't think there's a living +soul left, but we can't take any chances." + +In dashed the blades, but hardly had they dipped a dozen strokes when a +string of lights starred the river round the first bend. + +Dreaulond swore softly. "Nor'westers, ba gosh! Some been away!" + +"Hug the shore," Dunvegan whispered. "We may slip past them without +their seeing us in this fog." + +Paddling in silence, they worked their craft close against the rocky +wall of the farther shore. Prey to mingled hope and fear, the four +crouched low in the gunwales. The lights were still coming in file, and +in a moment the hiding ones could see a fleet of canoes with torches in +the bows. Swiftly the birch-barks skimmed the bloody streaks the torches +cast on the black water. They changed their course slightly, and the +leading one forged along within a few yards of Dunvegan's craft. + +Discovery seemed certain. The chief trader whispered to Basil and felt +for his weapons in the canoe bottom. Voices of the oncoming men struck +sharp and clear through the moist air. + +"It seemed like an earthquake!" someone was saying. + +Instantly Dunvegan knew the voice--the Factor's! He dropped his weapons. + +"Earthquake it sure was," a voice replied. "And the fort was on top of +it. Your men have saved you the trouble of a siege, Macleod. They sure +got to the powder!" + +The pulses of the four leaped gladly. Now in the nebulous torch-glare +they could make out the faces and figures in the foremost craft. There +in the bow was Wahbiscaw, and behind him Malcolm Macleod. Amidships +Dunvegan saw Granger, the sandy-haired deputy he had met on Lake Lemeau +and again at Kabeke Bluffs. Aft was his swarthy, black-bearded +companion, Garfield. In his place as steersman squatted wise old Maskwa. + +The keen-visaged Granger was casting piercing looks on all sides as they +plunged on. He timed his paddle strokes with an oft-repeated phrase. + +"They got to the powder; they sure did!" + +And Garfield's white teeth split his black beard. "Yes, and where in +thunder are they now?" + +"Here," laughed Dunvegan, and from the gloom drove alongside them. +"Here. Keep down those guns!" + +Granger, ever quick to defend, lowered his arms. "By the hinges of +hell!" he exclaimed. "You sneaked? You got to it and sneaked? Oh, what a +jolt! Oh, Lord, what a jolt!" + +All around the other canoes glided up. The chief trader looked on the +faces of the Oxford House and Brondel men. The haggard, strained look in +their eyes told of paddling night and day from Fort Brondel. And they +had nearly made it! Dunvegan thanked God they hadn't. + +As for the Hudson's Bay forces, they stared at the four in the canoe as +at people escaped from the Pit. But the Factor stirred them from +immobility. + +"Ashore!" he ordered. "Ashore! Search the hill!" + +"I'm afraid there's nothing to be found," observed Dunvegan, "except +perhaps a few wretches to be put out of their misery. I guess there were +tons of powder." + +"How'd it happen?" Macleod demanded, as side by side their two canoes +nosed in to shore through the channel where the watergate was blown to +atoms. + +"Ask Brochet. He was there from the first. He can tell you more than I." + +So between Macleod and Granger, as they climbed the twisting path cut +through rock to the landing by the watergate, the priest walked, +outlining what had taken place. Behind them, with Dunvegan and Garfield, +toiled Desirée. She would not be left alone below. Maskwa and Wahbiscaw +had gone ahead with the rest of the Hudson's Bay men. + +As they reached the top, Brochet finished his brief account of the +affair in the fur-house. + +The Factor took it in silence. Not so Granger! + +"The game old devil!" he cried. "He sure kept his nerve to the last. +But he has made himself thunderin' hard to identify. Eh, Macleod? I +guess you can't swear to his identity now!" + +"You should have arrested him as soon as you placed him at La Roche," +the Factor answered. "And found me afterwards." + +"Don't talk nonsense! We'd look fine playing a single-handed game like +that, wouldn't we? It had to be worked a different way. You both had +assumed names. We didn't know which was which. So we had to nail our +plan in the middle and let it swing at both ends. You see how it swung? +If we had to take you, the Northwest Company would fight for us. If we +had to take Ferguson, the Hudson's Bay Company sure was at our backs! +Good Lord--what's here? A quarry?" + +A quarry indeed it looked, a huge, black cave amid the rocks, the heart +of the granite headland blown out by a titanic blast. They stood on the +edge of the slope, gazing at the torches of the Hudson's Bay men as they +swarmed like gnomes in the bowels of the pit. They clustered and spread +and crawled here and there, round the sides of the chasm, up over its +lips, where ghostly as bale-fires little heaps of wreckage smoldered and +flamed. + +Then the reluctant lights came back one by one, and the tale of the +bearers ran the same. + +"Nothing!" + +"Not a body!" + +"Not a limb!" + +Like a funeral bell Brochet's voice broke the grim silence. "Gone? All +gone? And unshriven! God rest their souls." He knelt on the rocks. + +While he muttered a prayer, Maskwa strode out of the dark. He had no +torch, but he held something in his hands. Startled, the others craned +and peered. A dozen torches flashed over the Ojibway, and in his arms +the crimson light played upon a crumpled form. + +"He breathes, Strong Father!" + +Dunvegan sprang to one side of the burden, Granger to his other. As they +placed the mangled figure on the ground the head came by chance upon +the priest's knees. + +"Ferguson!" Brochet whispered, awed. For though limbs and body were +crushed and torn, the face remained unmarred. + +"Aye, and a job for you," murmured Dunvegan. + +But Granger had leaped at the name, dragging Macleod by the arm. + +"Look!" he urged. "Look! Will you swear to him?" + +The red glare bathed the white face. The Factor's eyes focused on the +features and grew full of terrible light and would not come away. + +"It's--it's--Funster," he choked. + +Dunvegan saw his right hand clench and clutch the air. He held an +imaginary weapon. The old scar was ripped from his heart. He was the +primeval man, red with rage, thirsting for revenge, and baited blind +because vengeance had been torn from his grasp. + +And as if under the electric prick of his tense words the Nor'wester +stirred. He muttered once and opened his eyelids. Straight up into +Macleod's awful face he stared, and his eyes suddenly gleamed with +recognition. + +"My son--my boy?" demanded the Factor hoarsely. + +The Nor'wester's lips strove a little and parted. + +"Gaspard!" he groaned with his last breath. + +THE END + + * * * * * + +NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFE BY + +WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE + + +_MAVERICKS._ + +A tale of the western frontier, where the "rustler," whose depredations +are so keenly resented by the early settlers of the range, abounds. One +of the sweetest love stories ever told. + +_A TEXAS RANGER._ + +How a member of the most dauntless border police force carried law into +the mesquite, saved the life of an innocent man after a series of +thrilling adventures, followed a fugitive to Wyoming, and then passed +through deadly peril to ultimate happiness. + +_WYOMING._ + +In this vivid story of the outdoor West the author has captured the +breezy charm of "cattleland," and brings out the turbid life of the +frontier with all its engaging dash and vigor. + +_RIDGWAY OF MONTANA._ + +The scene is laid in the mining centers of Montana, where politics and +mining industries are the religion of the country. The political +contest, the love scene, and the fine character drawing give this story +great strength and charm. + +_BUCKY O'CONNOR._ + +Every chapter teems with wholesome, stirring adventures, replete with +the dashing spirit of the border, told with dramatic dash and absorbing +fascination of style and plot. + +_CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT._ + +A story of Arizona; of swift-riding men and daring outlaws; of a bitter +feud between cattle-men and sheep-herders. The heroine is a most unusual +woman and her love story reaches a culmination that is fittingly +characteristic of the great free West. + +_BRAND BLOTTERS._ + +A story of the Cattle Range. This story brings out the turbid life of +the frontier, with all its engaging dash and vigor, with a charming love +interest running through its 320 pages. + + * * * * * + +STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY + +GENE STRATTON-PORTER + + +_LADDIE._ Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer. + +This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story +is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it +is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs +of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie, the +older brother whom Little Sister adores, and the Princess, an English +girl who has come to live in the neighborhood and about whose family +there hangs a mystery. There is a wedding midway in the book and a +double wedding at the close. + + +_THE HARVESTER._ Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. + +"The Harvester," David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who +draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the +book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be +notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the +Harvester's whole being realizes that this is the highest point of life +which has come to him--there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic +quality. + + +_FRECKLES._ Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford. + +Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he +takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great +Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to +the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The +Angel" are full of real sentiment. + + +_A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST._ Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda. + +The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of +the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness +towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of +her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and +unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage. + + +_AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW._ Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp. + +The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The +story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. +The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and +its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all. + + * * * * * + +JOHN FOX, JR'S. + +STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS + + +_THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE._ + +Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. + +The "lonesome pine" from which the story takes its name was a tall tree +that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine +lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he +finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the +_foot-prints of a girl_. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and +the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young engineer a madder +chase than "the trail of the lonesome pine." + + +_THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME._ + +Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. + +This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as "Kingdom Come." It +is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often +springs the flower of civilization. + +"Chad." the "little shepherd" did not know who he was nor whence he +came--he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, +seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and +mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery--a charming waif, +by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in the +mountains. + + +_A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND._ + +Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. + +The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of +moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the +heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two +impetuous young Southerners' fall under the spell of "The Blight's" +charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the +love making of the mountaineers. + +Included in this volume is "Hell fer-Sartain" and other stories, some of +Mr. Fox's most entertaining Cumberland valley narratives. + + * * * * * + +JACK LONDON'S NOVELS + + +_JOHN BARLEYCORN._ Illustrated by H. T. Dunn. + +This remarkable book is a record of the author's own amazing +experiences. This big, brawny world rover, who has been acquainted with +alcohol from boyhood, comes out boldly against John Barleycorn. It is a +string of exciting adventures, yet it forcefully conveys an unforgetable +idea and makes a typical Jack London book. + +_THE VALLEY OF THE MOON._ Frontispiece by George Harper. + +The story opens in the city slums where Billy Roberts, teamster and +ex-prize fighter, and Saxon Brown, laundry worker, meet and love and +marry. They tramp from one end of California to the other, and in the +Valley of the Moon find the farm paradise that is to be their salvation. + +_BURNING DAYLIGHT._ Four illustrations. + +The story of an adventurer who went to Alaska and laid the foundations +of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes to +the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and +recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. He then starts out as a +merciless exploiter on his own account. Finally he takes to drinking and +becomes a picture of degeneration. About this time he falls in love with +his stenographer and wins her heart but not her hand and then--but read +the story! + +_A SON OF THE SUN._ Illustrated by A. O. Fischer and C. W. Ashley. + +David Grief was once a light-haired, blue-eyed youth who came from +England to the South Seas in search of adventure. Tanned like a native +and as lithe as a tiger, he became a real son of the sun. The life +appealed to him and he remained and became very wealthy. + +_THE CALL OF THE WILD._ Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles +Livingston Bull. Decorations by Charles E. Hooper. + +A book of dog adventures as exciting as any man's exploits could be. +Here is excitement to stir the blood and here is picturesque color to +transport the reader to primitive scenes. + +_THE SEA WOLF._ Illustrated by W. J. Aylward. + +Told by a man whom Fate suddenly swings from his fastidious life into +the power of the brutal captain of a sealing schooner. A novel of +adventure warmed by a beautiful love episode that every reader will hail +with delight. + +_WHITE FANG._ Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull. + +"White Fang" is part dog, part wolf and all brute, living in the frozen +north; he gradually comes under the spell of man's companionship, and +surrenders all at the last in a fight with a bull dog. Thereafter he is +man's loving slave. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Law of the North (Originally +published as Empery), by Samuel Alexander White + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41962 *** |