E-text prepared by Roger Frank from page images generously made available
by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/luckofkid00cull
THE LUCK OF THE KID
by
RIDGWELL CULLUM
Author of
“The Heart of Unaga,” “The Man in the Twilight,” etc.
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York & London
The Knickerbocker Press
1923
Copyright, 1923
by
Ridgwell Cullum
Made in the United States of America
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Happy Recollection
Of
OUR EARLY BOYHOOD
THIS, MY TWENTY-FIRST BOOK, IS DEDICATED
IN DEEPEST AFFECTION TO
MY BROTHERS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
PART I
I North of “Sixty”
II The Holocaust
III The Planning of Le Gros
IV Two Men of the North
V The Luck of the Kid
VI The Euralians
VII The Vengeance of Usak
VIII The Valley of the Fire Hills
PART II
I Placer City
II The Cheechakos
III Reindeer Farm
IV Within the Circle
V The House in the Valley of the Fire Hills
VI The Eyes in the Night
VII The Dream Hill
VIII Bill Wilder Re-appears
IX The Great Savage
X Days of Promise
XI Children of the North
XII Youth Supreme
XIII A Whiteman’s Purpose
XIV A Whiteman’s Word
XV The Irony of Fate
XVI The End of the Long Trail
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LUCK OF THE KID
PART I
CHAPTER I
NORTH OF “SIXTY”
The sub-Arctic summer was at its height. The swelter of heat was of
almost tropical intensity. No wisp of cloud marred the perfect purity of
the steely blue sky, and no breath of wind relieved the intemperate
scorch of the blazing sun.
The two men on the river bank gave no heed to the oppressive heat. For
the moment they seemed concerned with nothing but their ease, and the
swarming flies, and the voracious attacks of the mosquitoes from which
the smoke of their camp fire did its best to protect them. Down below
them, a few yards away, their walrus-hide kyak lay moored to the bank of
the river, whose sluggish, oily-moving waters flowed gently northward
towards the far-off fields of eternal ice. It was noon, and a rough
midday meal had been prepared and disposed of. Now they were smoking
away a leisurely hour before resuming their journey.
The younger of the two flung away the end of a cigarette with a movement
that was almost violent in its impatience. He turned a pair of narrow
black eyes upon his companion, and their sparkle of resentment shone
fiercely in sharp contrast against the dusky skin of their setting.
“It’s no use blinding ourselves, sir,” he said, speaking rapidly in the
tongue of the whiteman, with only the faintest suspicion of native
halting. “It’s here. But we’ve missed it. And another’s found it.”
He was a youthful creature something short of the completion of his
second decade. But that which he lacked in years he made up for in the
alertness of purpose that looked out of his keen eyes. He was
dark-skinned, its hue something between yellow and olive. He had
prominent, broad cheek bones like those of all the natives of Canada’s
extreme north. Yet his face differed from the general low type of the
Eskimo. There was refinement in every detail of it. There was something
that suggested a race quite foreign, but curiously akin.
“Marty Le Gros? Yes?”
The older man stirred. He had been lounging full length on the ground so
that the smoke of the camp fire rolled heavily across him, and kept him
safe from the torment of winged insects. Now he sat up like the other,
and crossing his legs tucked his booted feet under him.
He was older than his companion by more than twenty years. But the
likeness between them was profound. He, too, was dusky. He, too, had the
broad, high cheek bones. He was of similar stature, short and broad.
Then, too, his hair was black and cut short like the other’s, so short,
indeed, that it bristled crisply over the crown of his bare head with
the effect of a wire brush. He, too, was clad in the rough buckskin of
the trail with no detail that could have distinguished him from the
native. The only difference between the two was in age, and the colour
of their eyes. The older man’s eyes were a sheer anachronism. They were
a curious gleaming yellow, whose tawny depths shone with a subtle
reflection of the brilliant sunshine.
“Tell me of it again, Sate,” he went on, knocking out the red clay pipe
he had been smoking, and re-filling it from a beaded buckskin pouch.
But the youth was impatient, and the quick flash of his black eyes was
full of scorn for the unruffled composure of the other.
“He’s beaten us, father,” he cried. “He has it. I have seen.” He spread
out his hands in an expressive gesture. And they were lean, delicate
hands that were almost womanish. “This priest-man with his say-so of
religion. He search all the time. It is the only thing he think of.
Gold! Well, he get it.”
He finished up with a laugh that only expressed fierce chagrin.
“And he get it here on this Loon Creek, that you make us waste three
months’ search on, son?”
The father shook his head. And his eyes were cold, and the whole
expression of his set features mask-like. The youth flung out his hands.
“I go down for trade to Fort Cupar. This missionary, Marty Le Gros, is
there. He show this thing. Two great nuggets, clear yellow gold. Big?
They must be one hundred ounces each. No. Much more. And he tell the
story to McLeod, who drinks so much, that he find them on Loon Creek. I
hear him tell. I listen all the time. They don’t know me. They think I
am a fool Eskimo. I let them think. Well? Where is it on Loon Creek? We
go up. We come down. There is no sign anywhere. No work. The man lies,
for all his religion. Or we are the fools we do not think we are.”
Sate turned his searching eyes on the northern distance, where the broad
stream merged itself into the purple of low, far-off hills.
It was a scene common enough to the lower lands of Canada’s extreme
north. There was nothing of barren desolation. There were no great
hills, no great primordial forests along the broad valley of Loon Creek.
But it was a widespread park land of woodland bluffs of hardy conifers
dotting a brilliant-hued carpet of myriads of Arctic flowers, and long
sun-forced grasses, and lichens of every shade of green. It was Nature’s
own secret flower garden, far out of the common human track, where,
throughout the ages, she had spent her efforts in enriching the soil,
till, under an almost tropical summer heat, it yielded a display of
vivid colour such as could never have been matched in any wilderness
under southern skies.
The older man observed him keenly.
“Sate, my son,” he said at last, “you are discontented. Why? This man
has a secret. He has gold. Gold is the thing we look for. Not all the
time, but between our trade which makes us rich, and our people rich. We
are masters of the north country. It is ours by right of the thing we
do. It must be ours. And all its secrets. This man’s secret. We must
have it, too.”
The man spoke quietly. He spoke without a smile, without emotion. His
tawny eyes were expressionless, for all the blaze of light the sun
reflected in them.
“You are right to be discontented,” he went on, after the briefest
pause. “But I look no longer on Loon Creek or any other creek. We get
this secret from Marty Le Gros. I promise that.”
“How?”
The youth’s quick eyes were searching his father’s face. He had listened
to the thing he had hoped to hear. And now he was stirred to a keen
expectancy that was without impatience.
The other shrugged his powerful shoulders.
“He will tell it to us—himself.”
The black eyes of the youth abruptly shifted their gaze. Something in
the curious eyes of his parent communicated the purpose lying behind his
words. But it was insufficient to satisfy his headlong impulse.
“He? He tell his secret to—us?”
There was derision in the challenge.
“Yes. He will tell—when I ask him.”
“But it is far south and west. It is beyond—our territory. It is within
the reach of the northern police. There is big risk for you to ask him
the—question.”
Again the man with the yellow eyes shook his head.
“Your mother looked for you to be a girl. Maybe her wish had certain
effect. Risk? There is no risk. I see none. It is simple. I bend this
man to my will. If he will not bend I break him. Yes. He is white. That
is as it should be. Someday—sometime the whites of this country will
bend, or break before us. They know that. They fear that. The thing they
do not yet know is that they bend now. This man, Le Gros, we will see to
him without delay.”
He rose from his cross-legged position almost without an effort. He
stood up erect, a short, broad-shouldered, virile specimen of manhood in
his hard trail clothing. Then he moved swiftly down towards the light
canoe at the water’s edge.
The youth, Sate, was slow to follow him. He watched the sturdy figure
with unsmiling eyes. He resented the imputation upon his courage. He
resented the taunt his father had flung. But his feelings carried
nothing deeper than the natural resentment of a war-like, high-strung
spirit.
He understood his father. He knew him for a creature of iron nerve, and
a will that drove him without mercy. More than that he admitted the
man’s right to say the thing he chose to his son. His attitude was one
of curious filial submission whatever the hurt he suffered. He may have
been inspired by affection, or it may simply have been an expression of
the filial obedience and subservience native to the race from which he
sprang. But the taunt hurt him sorely. And he jumped to a decision as
violent as it was impulsive.
He leapt to his feet, slight, active as a panther, and hastily descended
to the water’s edge and joined his parent.
“You think me like a woman, father? You think that?” he demanded hotly.
The other turned eyes that gained nothing of gentleness from their
smile.
“No,” he said, and bent again to his work of hauling the little craft
clear of the drift-wood that had accumulated about it.
The youth breathed a deep sigh. It was an expression of relief.
“We put that question to this Le Gros soon? Yes?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Sate nodded, and a great light shone in his black eyes. They were fierce
with exultation.
“Then we must waste no time. The way is long. There are many miles to
Fox Bluff.” He laughed. “Le Gros,” he went on. “It is a French name, and
it means—Tcha!” he exclaimed with all the impetuous feeling which drove
him like a whirlwind. “We show him what it means.”
The man with the tawny eyes looked up from his work. For one moment he
gazed searchingly into the dark face of his son. Then he returned again
to his work without a word.
CHAPTER II
THE HOLOCAUST
“Man, I’d sooner they’d put out my eyes, or cut out my tongue. I’d
sooner they’d set my body to everlasting torture. Look! Look there! Yes,
and there! Oh, God! It’s everywhere the same.” A shaking hand was
outthrust. “Dead! Mutilated! Old men! Old women! And poor little bits of
life that had only just begun. The barbarity! The monstrousness!”
Marty Le Gros, the missionary of the Hekor River, spoke in a tone that
was almost choking with grief. His eyes, so dark and wide, were full of
the horror upon which they gazed. His Gallic temperament was stirred to
its depths. The heart of the man was overflowing with pity and grief,
and outraged parental affection.
Usak, the Indian, his servant, stood beside him. He offered no verbal
comment. His only reply to the white-man was a low, fierce, inarticulate
grunt, which was like the growl of some savage beast.
The men were standing at the entrance to a wide clearing. The great
Hekor River flowed behind them, where the canoe they had just left swung
to the stream, moored at the crude landing stage of native manufacture.
They were gazing upon the setting of a little Eskimo encampment. It was
one of the far flung Missions which claimed the spiritual service of Le
Gros. He had only just arrived from his headquarters at Fox Bluff, on
the river, near by to Fort Cupar the trading post, on his monthly visit,
and the hideous destruction he had discovered left him completely
staggered and helpless.
The devastation of the settlement was complete. Dotted about the
clearing, grimly silhouetted against a background of dull green woods,
stood the charred remains of a dozen and more log shanties. Broken and
burnt timbers littered the open ground, and filled the room spaces where
the roofs had fallen. Every habitation was burnt out stark. Not even the
crude household goods had been spared.
But this was the least of the horror the two men gazed upon. The human
aspect of the destruction was a thousand-fold more appalling. The ground
was littered with mutilated dead. As the missionary had said, there were
old men, old women, and babes torn from their mothers’ arms. Silent and
still, death reigned everywhere. The young men? The young women? There
was no sign of these. And therein lay a further horror which the
onlookers were swift to appreciate.
The hideous fascination of the scene held them. But at last it was Usak
who broke from under its spell.
“Euralians!” he cried fiercely. And again in his voice rang that note
which sounded like the goaded fury of some creature of the forest.
The Euralians!
To the mind of every far northwestern man, in that territory which lies
hundreds of miles beyond the efficient protection of the northern
police, the name of this people was sufficient to set stirring a chill
of unvoiced terror that was something superstitious. Who they were? It
was almost impossible to say. It was still a problem in the minds of
even the farthest travelled trail men and fur hunters. But they were
known to all as a scourge of the far flung border which divides Alaska
from the extreme north of Yukon Territory.
The threat they imposed on the region was constantly growing. It had
grown lately from the marauding of mere seal ground and fur poachers,
who came down out of the iron fastnesses beyond the Arctic fringes of
Alaska, where they lived hidden in security beyond the reach of the
strong arm of the United States law, into a murder scourge threatening
all human life and property within reach of their ruthless operations.
Hitherto, Le Gros had only known them from the tales told by the native
pelt hunters, the men who came down to trade at Fort Cupar. He knew no
more and no less than the rest of the handful of white folks who peopled
the region. The stories he had had to listen to, for all their
corroborative nature, were, he knew, for the most part founded upon
hearsay. He had listened to them. He always listened to these
adventurers. But somehow his gentle, philosophic mind had left him
missing something of the awe and dread which beset the hearts of the men
whose lurid stories took vivid colour from the stirring emotions which
inspired them.
But now, now he was wide awake to the reality of the terror he had so
largely attributed to superstitious exaggeration. Now he knew that no
story he had ever listened to could compare with the reality. He was
gazing upon a scene of hideous murder and wanton, savage destruction
that utterly beggared description.
His feelings were torn to shreds, and his heart cried out in agony of
helpless pity.
These poor benighted folk, these simple, peaceful Eskimo, amiable,
industrious, yearning only for the betterment he was able by his simple
ministrations to bring into their lives. What were they to claim such
barbarity from a savage horde? What had they? What had they done?
Nothing. Simply nothing. They were fisher-folk who spent their lives in
the hunt, asking only to be left in peace to work out the years of their
desperately hard-lived lives. Now—now they were utterly wiped out, a
pitiful sacrifice to the insensate lust of this mysterious scourge.
Le Gros thrust his cap from his broad forehead. It was a gesture of
impotent despair.
“God in Heaven!” he cried, and the words seemed to be literally wrung
from him.
“It no use to call Him.”
The Indian’s retort came on the instant. And his tone was harshly
ironical.
“What I tell you plenty time,” he went on sharply. “The great God. He
look down. He see this thing. He do nothing. No. It this way. Man do
this. Yes. Man do this. Man must punish this dam Euralian. I know.”
The missionary turned from the slaughter ground. He searched the
Indian’s broad, dusky face. It was a striking face, high-boned and full
of the eagle keenness of the man’s Sioux Indian forbears. He was a
creature of enormous stature, lean, spare and of tremendous muscle. For
all he was civilized, for all he was educated, this devoted servant
lacked nothing of the savage which belonged to his red-skinned
ancestors.
Servant and master these two comrades in a common cause stood in sharp
contrast. Usak was a savage and nothing could make him otherwise. Usak
was a man of fierce, hot passions. The other, the whiteman, except for
his great stature, was in direct antithesis. The missionary was moulded
in the gentlest form. He was no priest. He represented no set
denomination of religion. He was a simple man of compassionate heart who
had devoted his life to the service of his less fortunate fellow
creatures where such service might help them towards enlightenment and
bodily and spiritual comfort.
He had been five years on his present mission at Fox Bluff. He had come
there of his own choice supported by the staunch devotion of a young
wife who was no less prepared to sacrifice herself. But now he stood
almost alone, but not quite. For though death had swiftly robbed him of
a wife’s devotion, it had left him with the priceless possession they
had both so ardently yearned. The motherless Felice was at home now in
the care of Pri-loo, the childless wife of Usak, who had gladly mothered
the motherless babe.
Even as he gazed into the Indian’s furious eyes Le Gros’ mind had leaped
back to his home at Fox Bluff. A sudden fear was clutching at his heart.
Oh, he knew that Fox Bluff was far away to the east and south. He knew
that the journey thither from the spot where they stood was a full seven
days’ of hard paddling on the great river behind them. But Pri-loo and
his infant child were alone in his home. They were utterly without
protection except for the folk at the near-by Fort. And these Euralians,
if they so desired, what was to stop them with the broad highway of the
river which was open to all?
He shook his head endeavouring to stifle the fears that had suddenly
beset him.
“You’re wrong, Usak,” he said quietly. “God sees all. He will punish—in
his own good time.”
Usak’s fierce eyes snapped.
“You say that? Oh, yes. You say that all the time, boss,” he cried. “I
tell you—no. You my good boss. You mak me man to know everything so as a
whiteman knows. You show me all thing. You teach me. You mak me build
big reindeer farm so I live good, an’ Pri-loo eat plenty all time. Oh
yes. I read. I write. I mak figgers. You mak me do this thing. You, my
good boss. I mak for you all the time. I big heart for you. That so. But
no. I tell you—No! The great God not know this thing. He not know this
Euralian wher’ he come from. No. Not no more as you he know this thing.
But I know. I—Usak. I know ’em all, everything.”
At another time the missionary would have listened to the man’s quaint
egoism with partly shocked amusement. His final statement, however,
startled him out of every other feeling.
“You know the hiding-place of these—fiends?” he demanded sharply.
Usak nodded. A curious vanity was shining in the dark eyes which looked
straight into the whiteman’s.
“I know him—yes,” he said.
“You’ve never told a thing of this before?”
There was doubt in the missionary’s tone, and in the regard of his brown
eyes.
“I know him,” Usak returned shortly. Then, in a moment, he flung out his
great hands in a vehement gesture. “I say I know him—an’ we go kill ’em
all up.”
All doubt was swept from the missionary’s mind. He understood the
passionate savagery underlying the Indian’s veneer of civilization. The
man was in desperate earnest.
“No.” Le Gros’ denial came sharply. Then his gaze drifted back to the
scene of destruction, and a deep sigh escaped him. “No,” he reiterated
simply. “This is not for us. It is for the police. If you know the
hiding-place of these—”
“No good, boss. No,” Usak cried, in fierce disappointment. “The p’lice?
No. They so far.” He held up one hand with two fingers thrusting
upwards. “One—two p’lice by Placer. An’ Placer many days far off. No
good.” He shrugged his great shoulders. “Us mans all dead. Yes. Pri-loo
all dead. Felice dead, too. All mans dead when p’lice come. I know. You
not know. You good man. You not think this thing. Usak bad man Indian.
He think this thing all time. Listen. I tell you, boss, my good boss. I
say the thing in my mind. The thing I know.”
He broke off and glanced in the direction of the river, and his eyes
dwelt on the gently rocking canoe. He turned again, and his thoughtful
eyes came once more to the scene of horror that infuriated his savage
heart. He was like a man preparing to face something of desperate
consequence. Something that might grievously disturb the relations in
which he stood to the man to whom he believed himself to owe everything
he now treasured in life. At last his hands stirred. They were raised,
and moved automatically under emotions which no words of his were
adequate to express.
“I big trail man,” he began. “I travel far. I go by the big ice, by the
big hills, by the big water. I mak trade with all mans Eskimo. I mak big
reindeer trade with him Eskimo, same as you show me, boss. So I go far,
far all time. So I know this Euralian better as ’em all. I not say. Oh,
no. It not good. Now I say. This mans Euralian look all time for all
thing. Furs? Yes. They steal ’em furs, an’ kill ’em up all Eskimo. So
Eskimo all big scare. Gold? Yes. They look for him all same, too. Oil?
Yes. Coal? Yes. All this thing they look, look for all time. Him mans
not Eskimo. They not Indian. They not whiteman. No. They damn foreign
devil so as I not know. Him all mans live in whiteman house all time.
Big house. I know. I find him house.”
The man’s unease had passed. He was absorbed in the thing he had to
tell. Suddenly after a moment’s pause, he raised a hand pointing so that
his wondering companion turned again to the spectacle he would gladly
have avoided.
“Boss, you mak ’em this thing! You mak ’em kill all up! You!”
“I?”
Le Gros’ horrified gaze swept back to the face of the accusing man. The
Indian was fiercely smiling. He nodded.
“You mak ’em this, but you not know. You not know nothing,” he said in a
tone that was almost gentle. “Oh, I say ’em this way, but I not mean you
kill ’em all up. You? No. Listen, boss,” he went on, coming close up and
lowering his harsh tones. “You kill ’em all up because you tell all the
mans you mak big find gold on Loon Creek. Boss, you tell the mans. You
think all mans good like so as you. So you not hide this thing. You tell
’em, an’ you show big piece gold—two. Now you know how you kill ’em all
up.”
Usak waited. The amazement in the eyes of the missionary gave place to a
grave look of understanding.
“You mean that my story of the discovery of gold I made has
caused—this?” He shook his head, and the question in his mild eyes was
urgent. “How? Tell me, Usak, and tell it quick.”
The Indian nodded.
“Oh, it easy. Yes. You tell the story. It go far. It go quick. All mans
know it. Gold! The good boss, Le Gros, find gold! Him Euralian. Ears,
eyes, they all time everywhere. Him hear, too. Maybe him _see_, too. I
not say. Him mak big think. Him say: ‘This man, this good boss, him find
gold! How we get it? How we rob him, an’ steal ’em all up gold! Euralian
think. It easy. Le Gros good man. Us go. Us kill ’em all up him Mission.
One Mission. Two Mission. All Mission. Then us go kill up all mans at
Fort Cupar. Kill up Marty Le Gros an’ Usak. Then we get ’em all this
gold.’”
There was fierce conviction in every word the man said. For all the
crudeness of his argument, if argument it could be called, the force of
his convictions carried weight even with a man who was normally devoid
of suspicion. Then, too, there was still the horror of the spectacle in
the clearing to yield its effect. But greater than all the other’s
conviction or argument, greater than all else, was the missionary’s
surge of terror for the safety of his little baby daughter with her
nurse back there in his home.
Le Gros breathed deeply. His dark eyes were full of the gravest anxiety.
For the moment he had forgotten everything but the personal danger he
had suddenly realised to be threatening.
Usak was watching him. He understood the thing that was stirring behind
the whiteman’s troubled eyes. He had driven home his conviction and he
was satisfied. Now he awaited agreement with his desire that they should
themselves go and deal with these fierce marauders. He saw no reason for
hesitation. He saw nothing in his desire that could make it impossible,
hopeless. But then he was a savage and only applied calm reason when
passion left him undisturbed. The only thing to satisfy his present mood
was to go, even singlehanded if necessary, and retaliate slaughter for
slaughter.
Finally it was he again who broke the silence. The spirit driving him
would not permit of long restraint.
“Us go, boss?” he urged.
Marty Le Gros suddenly bestirred himself. He shook his head.
“No,” he said. Then he pointed at the scene in front of them.
“We do this thing. The poor dead things must be hidden up. They were
Christians, and we must give them Christian burial. After that we go. We
go back home. There is my little Felice. There is your Pri-loo. They
must be made safe.”
The man’s decision was irrevocable. The Indian recognised the tone and
understood. But his disappointment was intense.
“Us not go?” he cried. His words were accompanied by a sound that was
like a laugh, a harsh, derisive laugh. “So,” he said. “We bury ’em all
these people. Yes. The good boss say so. Then we go home, an’ mak safe
Felice. We mak safe Pri-loo. Then us all get kill up—sure.”
CHAPTER III
THE PLANNING OF LE GROS
It was still broad daylight for all the lateness of the hour. At this
time of year darkness was unknown on the Hekor River. The sky was
brilliant, with its cloudless summer blue shining with midday splendour.
Marty Le Gros was standing in the doorway of his log-built home, a home
of considerable dimensions and comfort for his own hands, and those
gentle hands of his dead wife, had erected every carefully trimmed log
of it. He had only that day returned, sick at heart with the hideous
recollection of the tragedy of his far-off Mission.
He was gazing out over the bosom of the sluggish river, so broad, so
peacefully smiling as it stole gently away on its never-ending task of
feeding the distant lake whose demands upon it seemed quite insatiable.
His mind was gravely troubled, and it was planning the thing which had
so suddenly become imperative. In a moment it seemed all the peace, all
the quiet delight of his years of ardent labour amongst the Eskimo had
been utterly rent and dispelled. He had been caught up in the tide of
Usak’s savage understanding of the position of imminent danger in which
he and all his belongings were standing. The thing he contemplated must
be done, and done at once.
The evening hour, for all its midday brilliance, was no less peaceful
than the hours of sundown in lower latitudes. He had learned to love
every mood of this far northern world from its bitter storms of winter
to the tropical heat of its fly and mosquito-ridden summer. It was the
appeal of the remote silence of it all; it was the breadth of that wide
northern world so far beyond the sheer pretences of civilization; it was
the freedom, the sense of manhood it inspired. Its appeal had never once
failed him even though it had robbed him of that tender companionship of
the woman whose only thought in the world had been for him and his
self-sacrificing labours.
At another time, with the perfect content of a mind at ease, he would
have stood there smoking his well-charred pipe contemplating the beauty
of this world he had made his own. But all that was changed now. The
beauty, the calm of it all, only aggravated his moody unease.
Beyond the mile-wide river the western hills rose up to dizzy,
snow-capped heights. Their far off slopes were buried under the torn
beds of ages-old glacial fields, or lay hidden behind the dark
forest-belts of primordial growth. The sight of them urged him with
added alarm. He was facing the west, searching beyond the Alaskan
border, and somewhere out there, hidden within those scarce trodden
fastnesses lay the pulsing heart of the thing he had suddenly come to
fear. Usak had warned him. Usak had convinced him on the seven day
paddle down the river. So it was that those far-off ramparts, with their
towering serrated crowns lost in the heavy mists enshrouding them, no
longer appealed in their beauty. Their appeal had changed to one of
serious dread.
He avoided them deliberately. His gaze came back to the nearer distance
of the river, and just beyond it where the old fur-trading post, which
gave its name to the region, stood out dark and staunch as it had stood
for more than a century. A heavy stockade of logs, which the storms of
the years had failed to destroy, encompassed it. The sight of the
stockade filled him with a satisfaction it had never inspired before. He
drew a deep breath. Yes, he was glad because of it. He felt that those
old pelt hunters had built well and with great wisdom.
Then the wide river slipping away so gently southward. It was the road
highway of man in these remotenesses, passing along just here between
low foreshores of attenuated grasses and lichen-covered boulders, lit by
the blaze of colour from myriads of tiny Arctic flowers. It was very,
very beautiful. But its beauty was of less concern now than another
thought. Just as it was a possible approach for the danger he knew to be
threatening, so it was the broad highway of escape should necessity
demand.
For the time Le Gros was no longer the missionary. He was no less a
simple adventurer than those others who peopled the region. Spiritual
things had no longer place in his thought. Temporal matters held him.
His motherless child was there behind him in his home in the care of the
faithful Pri-loo.
Gold! He wondered. What was the curse that clung to the dull yellow
creation of those fierce terrestrial fires? A painful trepidation took
possession of him as he thought of the tremendous richness of the
discovery which the merest chance had flung into his hands. It had
seemed absurd, curiously absurd, even at the time. He had had no desire
for any of it. He had not yielded himself to the hardship and
self-sacrifice of the life of a sub-Arctic missionary and retained any
desire for the things which gold would yield him. Perhaps for this very
reason an ironical fate had forced her favours upon him.
He had been well-nigh staggered at the wealth of his discovery, and he
had laughed in sheer amazed amusement that of all people such should
fall to his lot. The discovery had been his alone. Not even Usak had
shared in it. There had been no reason for secrecy, so he had been
prepared to give the story of it broadcast to the world.
He had shown his specimens, and he had enjoyed the mystery with which he
had enshrouded his discovery when he displayed them to Jim McLeod, the
factor at Fort Cupar, and a small gathering of trailmen. This had been
at first. And chance alone had saved him from revealing the locality of
his discovery. It came in a flash when he had witnessed the staggering
effect which the two great nuggets he offered for inspection had had
upon his audience. In that moment he had realised something of the
potentiality of the thing that was his.
Instantly re-action set in. Instantly he was himself transformed. The
missionary fell from him. He remembered his baby girl, and became at
once a plain adventurer and—father. Someday Felice would grow to
womanhood. Someday he would no longer be there to tend and care for her.
What could he give her that she might be freed from the hardships
waiting upon a lonely girl in a world that had so little of comfort and
sympathy to bestow upon the weak? Nothing. So, when they pressed him for
the locality whence came his discovery, he—deliberately lied.
More than ever now was he concerned for his secret. More than ever was
he concerned for the thing which the savage understanding of Usak had
instilled into his simple mind. His secret must be safeguarded at once.
Whatever the future might have in store for him personally he must make
safe this thing for—little Felice.
A sound came to him from within the house. It was the movement of the
moccasined feet of Usak’s woman, Pri-loo. He spoke over his shoulder
without leaving the doorway.
“Does she sleep, Pri-loo?” he inquired in a low voice. The answer came
in the woman’s deep, velvet tones.
“She sleep, boss.”
The man bestirred himself. He turned about, and the woman’s dusky beauty
came under his urgent gaze.
“Then I go,” he said. “I’m going right over to see Jim McLeod, at the
Fort. You just sit around till Usak comes back from the farm. You won’t
quit this doorway till he comes along. That so? I’ll be back in a while,
anyway. Felice’ll be all right? You’ll see to it?”
“Oh, yes. Sure. Felice all right. Pri-loo not quit. No.”
There was smiling confidence and assurance in the woman’s wide eyes, so
dark and gentle, yet so full of the savage she really was.
“Good.” Marty Le Gros reached out his hand and patted the woman’s
rounded shoulder under the elaborately beaded buckskin tunic she had
never abandoned for the less serviceable raiment of the whitewoman.
“Then I go.”
The missionary nodded and passed out. And the squaw stood in his place
in the doorway gazing after him as he hurried down to the canoe which
lay moored at the river bank.
* * * * *
The scene about the Fort was one of leisurely activity. The day’s work
was nearly completed for all the sun was high in the heavens. The smoke
of camp fires was lolling upon the still evening air, and the smell of
cooking food pervaded the entire neighbourhood.
Now the store had emptied of its human, bartering freight, and with the
close of the day’s trading, Jim McLeod and his young wife, like all the
rest, were about to retire to their evening meal.
The man was leaning on the long counter contemplating the narrow day
book in which he recorded his transactions with the Eskimo, and those
other trailmen who were regular customers. His wife, Hesther, young,
slight and almost pretty, was standing in the open doorway regarding the
simple camp scenes going on within the walls of the great stockade which
surrounded their home. She was simply clad in a waist and skirt of some
rough plaid material. Her soft brown eyes were alight and smiling, and
their colour closely matched the wealth of brown hair coiled neatly
about her head.
“Nearly through, Jim?” she inquired after awhile.
The man at the counter looked up.
“It ain’t so bad as it’s been,” he said. “But it’s short. A hell of a
piece short of what it should be.” He moved out from behind his counter
and came to the woman’s side. “You know, Hes, I went into things last
night. We’re three hundred seals down on the year and I’d hate to tell
you the number of foxes we’re short. We’re gettin’ the left-overs.
That’s it. Those darn Euralians skin the pore fools of Eskimo out of the
best, an’ we get the stuff they ain’t no use for. It’s a God’s shame,
gal. If it goes on ther’s jest one thing in sight. We’ll be beatin’ it
back to civilization, an’ chasing up a grub stake. The company’ll shut
this post right down—sure.”
The man glanced uneasily about him. His pale blue eyes were troubled as
he surveyed the shelves laden with gaudy trading truck, and finally came
to rest on the small pile of furs baled behind the counter ready for the
storeroom. He understood his position well enough. He held it by
results. The Fur Valley Trading Company was no philanthropic
institution. If Fort Cupar showed no profit then Fort Cupar, so far as
their enterprise was concerned, would be closed down.
He was worried. He knew that a time was coming in the comparatively near
future when Hesther would need all the comfort and ease that he could
afford her. If the Company closed down as it had been threatening him,
it would, he felt, be something in the nature of a tragedy to them.
The woman smiled round into his somewhat fat face.
“Don’t you feel sore, Jim,” she said in her cheerful inspiriting way.
“Maybe the Good God hands us folk out our trials, but I guess He’s
mighty good in passing us compensations. Our compensation’s coming
along, boy. An’ I’m looking forward to that time so I don’t hardly know
how to wait for it.”
Jim’s blue eyes wavered before the steadfast encouragement in his wife’s
confident, slightly self-conscious smile.
“Yes,” he said, and turned away again to the inadequate pile of furs
that troubled him.
Nature had been less than kind to Jim McLeod. His body was ungainly with
fat for all his youth. His face was puffy and almost gross, which the
habit of clean shaving left painfully evident. In reality the man was
keen and purposeful. He was kindly and intensely honest. His one serious
weakness, the thing that had driven him to join up with the hard life of
the northern adventurers was an unfortunate and wholly irresistible
addiction to alcohol. In civilization he had failed utterly for that
reason alone, and so, with his young wife, he had fled from temptation
whither he hoped and believed his curse would be unable to follow him.
“You see, Jim,” Hesther went on reassuringly, “if they close us down,
what then? I guess we’ll be only little worse off. They’ve got to see us
down to our home town, and we can try again. We—”
The man interrupted her with a quick shake of the head.
“I don’t quit this north country,” he said definitely. “Ther’s things
here if we can only hit ’em. And besides it’s my only chance. An’, Hes,
it’s your only chance—with me. You know what I mean, dear.” He nodded.
“Sure you do, gal. It means drink an’ hell—down there. It means—”
The girl laughed happily.
“Have you escaped it here, Jim?” She shook her head. “But I don’t worry
so I have you. You’re mine. You’re my husband,” she went on softly. “God
gave you to me, an’ whatever you are, or do, why I guess I’d rather have
you than any good angel man who lived on tea and pie-talk. Please God
you’ll quit the drink someday. You can’t go on trying like you do
without making good in the end. But even if you didn’t—well, you’re just
mine anyway.”
Jim smiled tenderly into his wife’s up-turned face. And he stooped and
kissed the pretty, ready lips. And somehow half his trouble seemed to
vanish with the thought of the beautiful mother heart that would so soon
be called upon to exercise its natural functions. This frail,
warm-hearted, courageous creature was his staunch rock of support. And
her simple inspiriting philosophy was the hope which always urged him
on.
“That’s fine, my dear,” he said. “You’re the best in the world, but you
can’t conjure furs so we can keep this darn old ship afloat. But it
don’t do to think that way. We’ll jest think of that baby of ours that’s
comin’ an’ do our best, an’—Say!” He broke off pointing through the
doorway and beyond the gateway of the great stockade in the direction of
the river. “Ther’s Marty comin’ along up from the river—and—he’s in one
hell of a hurry.”
The girl turned at once, her gaze following the pointing finger. The
great figure of the missionary was hastily approaching. The sight of his
hurry was sufficiently unusual to impress them both.
“I didn’t know he’d got back.” Hesther’s tone was thoughtful.
Jim shook his head.
“He wasn’t due back for two weeks.”
“Is there—? Do you think—?”
“I guess ther’s something worrying sure. He don’t—”
The man broke off and placed an arm about the woman’s shoulder.
“Say best run along, Hes, an’ see about food. I’ll ask him to eat with
us.”
The wife needed no second bidding. She understood. She nodded smilingly
and hurried away.
* * * * *
The two men were standing beside the counter. Jim McLeod had his broad
back turned to it, and his fat hands, stretched out on either side of
him, were gripping the over-hanging edge of it. His pale eyes were
gazing abstractedly out through the doorway searching the brilliant
distance beyond the river, while a surge of vivid thought was speeding
through his brain.
Marty Le Gros was intent upon his friend. His dark eyes were riveted
upon the fleshy features of the man upon whom he knew he must depend.
There was a silence between them now. It was the silence which falls and
endures only under the profoundest pre-occupation. The store in which
they stood, the simple frame structure set up on the ruins of the
old-time Fort, which it had displaced, was forgotten. The lavish stock
of trading truck, the diminished pile of furs. Neither had cognizance of
the things about them. They were concerned only with the thing which
Marty had told of. The desperate slaughter, the destruction of his
Mission, seven days higher up the river.
After awhile Jim stirred. His gaze came back to the surroundings in
which they stood. He glanced over the big room with its boarded walls,
adorned here and there with fierce, highly-coloured showcards which he
had fastened up to entertain his simple customers. His wavering eyes
paused at the great iron stove which in winter made life possible. They
passed on and finally rested on the simple modern doorway through which
his young wife had not long passed on her way to prepare food. Here they
remained, for he was thinking of her and of their baby so soon to be
born. Finally he yielded his hold on the counter and turned on the man
who had told of the horror he had so recently witnessed.
“It’s bad, Marty,” he said in a low tone. “It’s so bad it’s got me
scared. Why? Why? Say, it don’t leave me guessing. Does it you?”
He looked searchingly into the steady, dark eyes of the man he had come
to regard above all others.
“No,” he went on emphatically. “You’re not guessing. They’ve heard of
your gold—these cursed Euralians. This is their way of doin’ things
sure. They’ll be along down on us—next.”
The door opened at the far end of the store. Hesther stood for a moment
framed in the opening. She gazed quickly at the two men, and realised
something of the urgency under which they were labouring. In a moment
she forced a smile to her eyes.
“Supper’s fixed, Jim,” she said quietly. “Marty’ll join us—sure. Will
you both come right along?”
CHAPTER IV
TWO MEN OF THE NORTH
“Guess we got an hour to talk, Marty. Hesther won’t be through her
chores in an hour.”
Le Gros nodded.
“Your Hesther’s a good soul, and I’d hate to scare her.”
“Sure. That’s how I feel. I make it you’ve a heap of trouble back of
your head.”
“Yes.”
The missionary settled himself more comfortably in the hard chair he had
turned from the supper table. He had set it in the shade of the printed
cotton curtain that adorned the parlor window.
Jim McLeod was less concerned for the glaring evening sunlight. He sat
facing it, bulking clumsily on a chair a size too small for him. His
pale blue eyes gazed out of the window which was closely barred with
mosquito-netting.
The last of the supper things had been cleared from the table, and the
sounds penetrating the thin, boarded walls of the room told of the
labours of the busy housewife going on in the lean-to kitchen beyond.
There was no need for these added labours which Hesther inflicted upon
herself. There were native women who worked about the store quite
capable of relieving her. But Hesther understood that the men wanted to
talk in private.
Besides, it was her happy philosophy that God made woman to care for the
creature comforts of her man, and to relegate that duty, all those
duties connected therewith, would be an offence which nothing could
condone.
Le Gros removed his pipe from his mouth. His eyes were full of
reflective unease.
“Yes,” he reiterated, “and I guess it’s trouble enough to scare more
than a woman.”
He thrust a hand into a pocket of his coat. He pulled out a little
canvas bag and unfastened the string about its top. He peered at the
yellow fragmentary contents. It was of several ounces of gold dust, that
wonderful alluvial dust ranging in size from sheer dust to nuggets the
size of a schoolboy’s marbles.
He passed the bag across to the trader.
“Get a look at that,” he said. “It’s the wash-up of a single panning.
Just one. I only showed you the two big nuggets before—when I—lied to
you where I made the ‘strike.’”
“Lied? You didn’t get it on Loon Creek?”
“No.”
Jim took possession of the bag of dust. He peered into its golden
depths. And the man observing him noted the keen lighting of his eyes,
and the instant, absorbed interest that took possession of him. After a
moment the trader looked up.
“One panning?” he demanded incredulously.
“One panning.”
Jim drew a deep breath. It was an expression of that curious covetous
thrill at the sight of unmeasured wealth which is so human. He weighed
the bag in his hand.
“Ther’s more than three ounces of stuff here,” he said, gazing into the
dark eyes opposite him. “Guess it’s nearer four.” Again he breathed
deeply. “One panning!” he exclaimed. Then followed an ejaculation which
said far more than any words.
Marty Le Gros nodded.
“You reckon it’s this bringing them down—our way,” he said. “That’s what
Usak reckons, too. Maybe I feel you’re both right—now. I was a fool to
give my yarn out. I should have held it tight, and just let you know
quietly. Yes, I see it now. You see, I didn’t think. I guess I didn’t
understand the temptation of it. When I lit on that ‘strike’ it scarcely
interested me a thing, and I didn’t see why it should worry anybody
else. I forgot human nature. No, it wasn’t till the gold spirit suddenly
hit me that I realised anything. And when it did it made me lie—even to
you.”
Jim twisted up the neck of the bag and re-set the lashings about it.
Then, with a regretful sigh, he passed the coveted treasure back to its
owner.
“Let’s see. How long is it since you handed out your yarn? It’s more’n
two months. Two months,” he repeated thoughtfully. “They’ve had two
months on Loon Creek, an’ they’ve drawn blank. There—Yes, I see. They’re
coming back on you. They started by way of your Mission, an’ they mean
you to git a grip on their way of handlin’ the thing. Man, it sets my
blood red hot. They’ve cleaned this region out of furs, an’ every other
old trade, so I’m sittin’ around waitin’ for my people to close us down,
and now—this. Is there no help? Ain’t ther’ a thing we can do? God! It
makes me hot.”
The blue eyes were fiercely alight. There was no wavering in them now.
Passionate desire to fight was stirring in the trader. And somehow his
emotion seemed to rob his body of its appearance of physical
ungainliness.
The missionary seemed less disturbed as he set the bag back in his
pocket. He had passed through his bad time. Now his decision was taken.
Now he was no longer the missionary but a simple man of single purpose
which he intended to put through in such way as lay within his power,
aided by the friendship of Jim McLeod.
A shadowy smile lit his eyes.
“Yes. It’s the gold now,” he said, with an expressive gesture. “But,” he
went on, with a shake of the head, “for the life of me I can’t get
behind the minds of these mysterious northern—devils. Why, why in the
name of all that’s sane and human should these Euralians descend on a
pitiful bunch of poor, simple fisher-folk, and butcher and burn them off
the face of the earth? It’s senseless, inhuman barbarity. Nothing else.
If they want my secret, if they want the truth I denied to you as well
as the rest, it’s here, in my head,” he said, tapping his broad forehead
with a forefinger. “Not out there with those poor dead creatures who
never harmed a soul on God’s earth. If they want it they must come to
me. And when they come they—won’t get it.”
The man was transformed. Not for a moment had he raised his voice to any
tone of bravado or defiance. Cold decision was shining in his eyes and
displayed itself in the clip of his jaws as he returned his pipe to his
mouth. Jim waited. His moment of passionate protest had passed. He was
absorbed in that which he felt was yet to come.
“Here, listen, Jim,” Le Gros went on, after the briefest pause, with a
sharp intake of breath which revealed something of the reality of the
emotions he was labouring under. “You’re my good friend, and I want to
tell you things right here and now, to-night. That’s why I came over in
a hurry. You’ve always known me as a missionary. The man in me was kind
of lost. That’s so. But now you’ve got to know me as a man. You were the
first I told of my ‘strike.’ You were the first I showed those nuggets
to. And you guessed they were worth five thousand dollars between ’em.”
“All o’ that. Maybe ten thousand dollars.”
Jim’s fleshy lips fondled the words.
“When I showed you that stuff I was the missionary. The thing began to
fall off when I watched you looking at them. But it wasn’t till some of
the trailmen, and even the Indians, heard the story, and showed their
amazing lust for the thing I’d discovered, that I got a full grip on all
that yellow stuff meant. Then I forgot to be a missionary and was just a
man the same as they were. I was startled, shocked. I was half scared. I
saw at a glance I’d made a bad break in telling my story, and so, when
you all asked me the whereabouts of the strike, I—lied.”
He paused, passing a hand over his forehead, and smoothed back his ample
black hair.
“An’ it wasn’t Loon Creek?”
Jim smiled as he put his question.
“I’m glad,” he added as the other shook his head.
“You’re glad?”
“I surely am.” Jim spread out his hands. “Here, Marty,” he cried, “I was
sick to death hearing you hand out your yarn to the boys. I kind of saw
a rush for Loon Creek comin’ along and beating you—an’ me—right out of
everything. Knowing you I thought it was truth. But I’m mighty glad
you—lied.”
Le Gros sat back in his chair. His eyes turned from the man before him.
“Knowing me?” he said, with a gentle smile of irony. “I wonder.” He
shook his head. “I didn’t know myself. No, you didn’t know me. I’m
different now. Quite different. And it’s that gold changed me. Do you
know how—why? No.” He shook his head. “I guess you don’t. I’ll tell you.
It’s Felice. My little Felice. And that’s why I came right over to see
you, and tell you the things in my mind.”
Jim shifted his chair as the other paused. He leant forward with his
forearms resting on his knees. The thought of the gold was deep in his
mind. There was personal, selfish interest in him as well as interest
for that which the other had to tell him about his baby, Felice.
Marty drew a deep breath. His eyes turned from the man before him. The
intensity of Jim’s regard left him with an added realisation of the
power that gold exercises over the simplest, the best of humanity.
“If I live, Jim, I’m going to let you into this ‘strike.’ Maybe it’ll
help you, and leave you free of your Company,” he said gently. “You
shall be in it what you folk call ‘fifty-fifty.’ If I die you shall be
in it the same way, only it’ll be with my baby girl. And for that I want
to set an obligation on you. Can you stand for an obligation?”
“Anything for you, Marty,” Jim replied at once, and earnestly. “Anything
for you,” he repeated. “And I’ll put it through with the last breath of
life.”
“Good.” The missionary’s gaze came back to the trader’s face, and a
smiling relief shone in his eyes. He nodded. “You see, with these
wretched Euralians on the war path, and with me standing around in their
path, you can never tell. Maybe I’ll live. Maybe I won’t. If I live
you’ll be up to your neck in this ‘strike’ anyway. If I die you’ll work
it for Felice, and hand her her ‘fifty’ of it when the time comes. Is it
good?”
“It’s so good I can’t tell you.”
“Will you swear to do this, Jim? Will you swear on—on the thing you hold
most sacred?”
“I’ll swear it on the little life that’s just goin’ to be born to
Hesther an’ me. If a thing happens to you, Marty, so you lose the
daylight, your little Felice shall be seen right, and all you can wish
for her shall be done, though you never tell me a thing of this
‘strike.’”
The simple honesty looking out of Jim’s eyes eased the troubled heart of
the older man. He nodded.
“I knew it would be that way. I’m glad,” he said. “I’m not passing you
thanks. No thanks could tell you the thing you’ve made me feel, Jim.” He
laughed shortly. “Thanks? I guess it would be an insult when a boy like
you is ready to set himself to carrying the whole of another feller’s
burden.”
Again he passed a hand over his hair.
“This is how I’ve planned, Jim,” he went on, after a moment. “I’m going
right back home now, and I’m going to pass some hours drawing out the
plan and general map of the ‘strike.’ I’ll write it out in the last
detail. Then I’ll set it in a sealed packet and hand it to you. You’ll
have it, and keep it, and you won’t open it while I’m alive. It’s just
so the thing shan’t be lost if they kill me up. See? If I live we’ll
work this thing together at ‘fifty-fifty.’ That way there won’t be need
for you to open up those plans. Do you get it? The whole thing is just a
precaution for you and my little Felice. You see, if I pass over I’ve
nothing else to hand that poor little kiddie. It’s her bit of luck.”
Jim sat back in his chair and began to refill his pipe which had gone
out. For some moments his stirring emotions prevented speech, while the
smiling eyes of the missionary watched his busy, clumsy fingers. At
last, however, he looked up. And as he did so he thrust the tobacco hard
into the bowl of his pipe, and the force of his action was no less than
the headlong rush of words that surged to his lips.
“Oh, it’s Hell! Simple Hell!” he cried passionately. “What have we done
that we should be cursed by these murdering Euralians. They’re not going
to get you, Marty. We’ve got to fix that. Come right over here. Quit
your shanty, an’ bring Felice, an’ Pri-loo, an’ Usak right over here.
It’s no sort of swell place, this old frame house the Company’s set up
for me. But the stockade outside it stands firm twelve feet high right
around. And I’ve guns an’ things plenty to defend it. I can corral
plenty trailmen who’d be glad enough to scrap these folk, and we could
fight ’em an’ beat ’em, till we get help from Placer where the p’lice
can collect a posse of ‘specials.’ We’re not goin’ to sit down under
this thing. It’s not my way. An’ it’s not goin’ to be your way. We’ll
fight. Come right over to-morrow, Marty. We’ll just be crazy for you to
come, and—”
Le Gros interrupted him with a gesture.
“That’s all right boy,” he said. “I know just how you feel and I’m glad.
But you don’t know the thing you’re trying to bring on your Hesther, and
your unborn baby. You haven’t seen the thing I’ve seen. You haven’t seen
old men and women, butchered and mutilated, lying stark on the ground.
You haven’t seen babes scattered around legless, armless, headless. And
the young men and young women—gone.” He shook his head, and the horror
of recollection was in his eyes. “No. You haven’t seen those things, and
you haven’t remembered that I carry this curse about with me. Sheltering
here I bring it to your door. To you, and your Hesther, and your babe.
With me across the river there you’re free and safe. No. I stand or fall
by my wits, my luck, my own efforts. You are doing for me the only thing
I ask in safeguarding my secret and caring for little Felice. That’s
what I ask. And you’ve promised me. That’s all, Jim, my friend, and now
I’ll get along back and fix those plans.”
He rose from his chair, tall, strong and completely calm. And the trader
rose, too, and gazed up into the other’s face.
“I’ll take all those chances, Marty,” he said deliberately.
“And Hesther?”
“And my unborn baby. Yes.”
Marty Le Gros thrust out his hand and the two men gripped.
“You’re a good friend, Jim. But my mind’s made up. While I’ve life I’ll
fight my own fight. When I’m dead please God you’ll do—what I can’t. So
long Jim,” he added wringing the fleshy hand he was still gripping.
“I’ll be along over with those plans before you eat your breakfast.”
CHAPTER V
THE LUCK OF THE KID
The brilliant June night was like a midsummer day. The deathless sun
knew no rest for all the Arctic world was wrapt in slumber. The
stillness of it all, the perfect quiet; it was a world of serene
solitude, with only the sounds which came from unseen creatures, and the
rustle of stirred vegetation caught on a gentle zephyr, to whisper of
the life prevailing.
Marty Le Gros was back in his own home. He was at the little table which
served him for such writing as his work as missionary entailed. It was a
simple apartment characteristic of the habitation he had set up. The
walls were plastered with a dun-coloured mud smoothed down but retaining
all its crudeness which nothing could disguise. The room was of
considerable extent. Its furnishing was no less primitive than its
walls, but also no less robust. Every article was of his own design and
manufacture, and that which it lacked in refinement it made up in
substance. Chairs were rawhide-strung, square and solid. The table had
legs of saplings, and a top that was made from packing cases obtained
from Jim McLeod. The ceiling above his head was of cotton. So were the
two windows which were flung open to admit air through the mosquito
netting beyond them.
Yes, it was all very crude. Nevertheless it lost nothing of its sense of
home. The floor was strewn with sun-dried furs, and there were shelves
of well-read books. The man’s simple sleeping bunk was curtained off in
one corner near by to the doorway which communicated with a lesser room
where slept his motherless child. And there was still another doorway
which led to a third room. It was the kitchen place where Usak and
Pri-loo slept, and where the latter prepared such food as was needed.
There was no sound in the place but that of the man’s occasional
movements and the scratching of the pen with which he was working.
Felice was asleep in the next room in the cot which he and his dead wife
had long since fashioned and adorned. Pri-loo, awaiting the return of
her man from the reindeer farm, which was his work, had finally yielded
her vigil and retired to her blankets in the kitchen. It was the calving
season down at the farm, and as likely as not Usak would not return to
her for many hours.
The missionary had applied himself to his task with that close
concentration which betokened the urgency of his desire. He had been at
work for over an hour. Now he sat with his great body hunched over the
table, and, with poised pen, was at last regarding his completed work.
The large sheet of paper stared back at his darkly brooding eyes, and
the careful tracery on its surface spread from one end of it to the
other. It was the drawing of a wide, winding river. And along its entire
course was dotted every detail of natural formation which his keen
memory supplied him with. Hills were carefully drawn. Woodland bluffs
were marked with due regard to their extent. Everything that could serve
to guide the explorer was there set out. Every title for each natural
feature was inscribed, and one wide stretch of river foreshore was
outlined in red ink and inscribed with the words “mouth of creek.”
It was complete. It was complete with that care and consideration which
spoke of the tremendous anxiety lying behind the man’s purpose.
At last he abandoned his scrutiny and a deep sigh escaped him. Then he
leisurely picked up his tobacco bag and began to fill his pipe. Leaning
back in his chair his gaze sought the daylight beyond the window, and in
a moment he became absorbed in profound, wakeful dreaming and his pipe
remained forgotten.
He had reached another great crisis in his simple life. He knew it. He
understood to the last detail the ominous significance of the thing he
had just completed. His thought began by searching ahead, but swiftly it
was caught and flung back into the deep channels of memory such as never
fail to claim when the heart of man is deeply stirred.
A wide panorama of the past swept into his view. It began, as everything
seemed to begin with him now, at that time when he and his young wife
had taken their final decision to move northwards where their spiritual
desires could find expression in the wilderness of untamed Nature. He
remembered, how keenly he remembered, the surge of thrilling
anticipation with which they had embarked on their mission. The bitter
hardships they had had to endure, and the merciless labours that had
been theirs to make even their simple lives possible here on the Hekor
River, which followed so nearly the course of the Arctic Circle. He
remembered the selfless kindness of Jim McLeod and his gentle wife. How
they had helped him with everything that lay in their power. Yes, it was
a happy memory which eased the strain of the thing besetting him now.
Then had come that first great happiness and finally disaster. Jim was
looking forward now to just the same moment in his life. That first-born
child. It was an ineffaceable landmark in the life of any man.
He sighed. He was contemplating again the tragedy which had followed
hard in the wake of his overwhelming happiness. Poor little Jean. Poor,
poor little woman.
Her happiness was short enough lived, and his— In his simple, earnest
fashion he prayed God that Jim and Hesther should never know a similar
disaster. He wondered if little Jean knew of the thing he was doing now.
And if she would have approved had she been there to witness it. Yes.
Somehow he felt that her full approval would have been his. It was for
Felice. He desired nothing for himself but to be permitted to carry on
the labours of his Mission. But for Felice—
He stirred uneasily. The scene of his devastated Mission lit again
before his mental gaze and tortured him. And suddenly he sat up and
carefully folded the annotated map he had prepared. He finally enclosed
it in a piece of American cloth, tied it up securely, and sealed it with
the fragment of wax he had discovered for that purpose. Then he stood up
and gazed about him. His dark eyes took in every happy detail of the
home which had served him so long. And presently the man of peace found
himself contemplating the cartridge belt, with its two great revolvers
protruding from their holsters, which was hanging from its nail on the
log wall.
For some moments he regarded it without any change of expression. Then
of a sudden he stirred and moved quickly over to it. He removed first
one gun from its holster, then the other. He examined them. They were
old-fashioned, and their chambers were empty. Very deliberately, almost
reluctantly, he loaded them in each chamber. Then with another sigh he
returned them to the holsters where they belonged.
He turned away quickly. It was as though he detested the thing he had
just done and was anxious to rid himself of the memory of it. So he
passed into the room which he had always shared with his wife, but which
now was given up to the atom of humanity which was the priceless
treasure of his life.
* * * * *
The man was sitting on the stool set beside the simple bedcot. It was
the stool which Pri-loo was wont to occupy when watching over the
slumbers of the child she had taken to her mother heart. He was gazing
down upon the sleeping babe as she lay there under the coloured blankets
and patch-work quilt which was the daintiest covering with which he had
been able to provide her.
Fair-haired and sweetly cherubic the child lay breathing in that calm,
almost imperceptible fashion so sure an indication of perfect health.
Her colouring was exquisite. A subtle tracery of blue veins was plainly
visible beneath the delicate, fair skin. She was sweetly pretty, and her
brief four years of life had afforded her a generous development
sufficient to satisfy the most exacting parent.
The man’s dark eyes were infinitely tender as he regarded the sleeping
child. Gold? There was no treasure in the world comparable with that,
which, with her dying effort, his well-loved wife had presented him.
Felice—little Felice. The smiling, prattling creature, the thought of
whose wide blue eyes was unfailing in lightening even the darkest
shadows which the cares of her father’s life imposed upon him.
He feasted himself now on the beauty which was so like to that of the
mother who had given up her life for his desire. And as he gazed a surge
of deep, tender feeling recalled a hundred happy memories. And so for
awhile he was filled with smiling thought.
But it passed. It passed with a suddenness that left a cold dew of fear
upon his brow for all the warmth of the Arctic summer night. For even as
memory had transported him to the days wherein his life had known no
shadow, so it had brought him again to the recollection of the scene of
mutilation he had witnessed at his Mission. There he had seen children,
younger even than Felice, lying upon the ground limbless, headless,
almost unrecognisable trunks.
An unconscious movement stirred him, and he shook his head as though in
denial of his thought. Then he gazed down upon the sealed packet he was
carrying in his hand. For long moments he looked at it, and then, of a
sudden, his eyes came back to the face of the sleeping babe, and words
came in a low, tender whisper.
“No, kiddie,” he murmured, “not while I have life. My poor Jean gave you
to me, little bit. And you’re just mine. All I am in the world will
defend you from harm such—such as—God! No. Not that. Psha! No, it
couldn’t be.” He wiped his forehead with a hand that was unsteady. Then
he forced a smile to his eyes just as he forced his fears back and
strove to think of the thing he had spent so many hours preparing. He
held up the packet in his hand before the child’s closed eyes. “This
wasn’t sent my way for nothing,” he whispered. “It’s your luck, little
kid. Yours. It’s for you, half of it. And—and if I should fail—well,
there’s others’ll see you get it. My little kiddie. My little—”
He broke off. The man’s tender admonition died on his lips which closed
almost with a snap. His whole attitude underwent a change. He sat rigid
and listening, and his dark eyes were turned as though seeking to peer
over his shoulder.
It was a sound. A sound that came from beyond the outer room. It was not
from the direction of the kitchen place where Usak might be returning
home. No. It came from beyond the front door of the shanty which was not
the way Usak would come.
The missionary made no movement. Every sense was straining, every
faculty was alert. Sounds came in the night. It was a common enough
thing. But he had that in his mind now which gave to any sound in the
night the possibility of a new interpretation.
The moments passed. The tension eased. And again the fathers eyes came
back to the face of the sleeping child. But it was only for an instant.
Of a sudden he dropped the sealed packet into the child’s cot and leapt
to his feet.
Headlong he ran for the open doorway, and the purpose in his mind was
obvious. He passed it, and ran for the loaded guns hanging upon the wall
of his room. But he failed to reach them. A shot rang out and he
stumbled. Putting forth a superhuman effort he sought to recover
himself. But his legs gave under him and he crashed to the floor with
the first tearful cry of his wakened child ringing in his ears.
CHAPTER VI
THE EURALIANS
Marty Le Gros lay sprawled on the ground. He had scarcely moved from the
position in which he had fallen. Pri-loo, her handsome eyes aflame with
fierce anger, was standing just within the doorway leading to the
kitchen place. A man stood guard over her, a small dark-skinned creature
whose eyes slanted with a suggestion of Mongol obliqueness. It was
obvious that she was only held silent under threat of the gun that her
guard held ready. Two other dark-skinned strangers moved about the
living room clearly searching, and a third stood looking on, propped
against the table which served the missionary for writing. Beyond the
movements of the searching men, and such disturbance as the process of
their work entailed, and the insistent cries of the child Felice in the
adjoining room, an ominous silence prevailed.
The expression of the almost yellow eyes of the man at the table was
intense with cold, deliberate purpose. It was without one gleam of pity
for the fallen missionary. It was without concern for the angry woman
held silent in the doorway. He was regarding only the movements of the
men acting under his orders. He, like the man in charge of Pri-loo, was
clad in the ordinary garb customary to whitemen of the northern trail.
But the others, the searchers, had no such pretensions. They were in the
rough clothing native to the Eskimo when Arctic summer prevails.
After awhile the terrified cries of the suddenly awakened Felice died
down to the intermittent sobs which so surely claim the sympathies of
the mother-heart. Even Pri-loo’s fierce native anger yielded before
their appeal. Distress stirred her, and only the threatening gun held
her from rushing to comfort the helpless babe who was her treasured
charge.
The great prone figure of the missionary on the ground stirred. It was
the preliminary to returning consciousness. Quite abruptly his head was
raised. Then, by a great effort, he propped himself on to his elbow and
gazed about him. Finally his dark, troubled eyes came to rest on the
face of the still figure of the man who stood regarding him.
There was a searching pause while eye met eye. Then the missionary
sought to moisten his lips with a tongue little less parched.
“Well?” he demanded in the low, husky voice of a man whose strength is
rapidly waning.
The man at the table turned to the searchers whose task seemed complete.
“Nothing?” he said. And his tone was almost without question.
One of the searchers offered a negative gesture. There was no verbal
reply.
“So.”
The man at the table inclined his dark, close-cropped head and turned
again to the man on the ground.
“You’re going to tell us of that gold ‘strike,’ Le Gros,” he said
simply, without the slightest sign of foreign or native accent. “You’re
going to tell us right away. Because if you don’t we’ve a way of making
you. Do you get that? You’d better get it. It’ll be easier for you and
for those belonging to you. We’ve come many miles to hear about that
‘strike,’ and we aren’t returning empty-handed. Do you fancy handing
your story? Or—”
“You’ll get nothing from me.”
Marty Le Gros’ voice had suddenly become harsh and furious. All his
ebbing strength was flung into his retort.
The man with the cold eyes shook his head.
“I shall,” he said, with calm decision. “I’m not here to ask twice.
You’ve seen the—remains—of your Mission, ’way up the river. Doesn’t that
tell you about things? It should—if you have sense.”
The man’s threat was the more deeply sinister for the frigidity of his
tone.
The missionary’s eyes lit. For all his growing weakness, for all the
suffering the wound in his side was causing him, a tinge of hot colour
mounted to his pallid cheeks.
“I tell you you’ll get nothing from me,” he said, and the strength of
his voice had ominously lessened. He raised his body till he was
supporting himself on one hand which rested in the pool of his own
life-blood staining the earthen floor. His dark eyes were fiercely
defiant as they gazed up at the other.
The Euralian leader nodded.
“We’ll see.” Then he pointed at Pri-loo standing in the doorway watching
the pitiful duel, hardly realising the full meaning of what she beheld.
“You see her? Watch!”
There was a sign. It was given on the instant. And the dying man gasped
in horror.
“Your woman, eh?” The Euralian went on. “Well, she won’t be any longer.
Are you going to—speak?”
“She’s not my woman. She’s the wife of Usak. If—if you harm her
it’s—it’s sheer, wanton—”
The words died on the missionary’s lips. There was a sharp report. It
was the gun of the man guarding Pri-loo fired at close range. It rang
out tremendously in the narrow confines of the room. The foster-mother
of Felice was shot through the head, which was completely shattered. The
poor dead creature dropped where she stood, without a sound, without a
cry. To the last moment of her staunch life her angry eyes had defied
her captors.
The dying missionary reeled. He would have fallen again to the ground.
But the searchers were beside him, and they seized and held him lest he
should miss a single detail of that which was intended for his
infliction.
“Are you going to—say about it?”
The Euralian’s eyes lit as he made his taunting demand. The tearful
cries of the terrified Felice were again raised in response to the
deafening report of the gun that had slain her foster-mother.
But Marty Le Gros’ strength was oozing through the wound that had laid
him low. The shock of the hideous massacre of the helpless Pri-loo was
overwhelming. Consciousness was nearing its extremity.
“Not a word.”
The retort was whispered. The missionary had no strength for more.
The man at the table bestirred himself. Perhaps he realised that
opportunity was slipping away from him. A swift, imperative sign to the
youth who had slain Pri-loo, and the next moment he had passed into the
room whence came the redoubled cries of the distracted Felice.
The closing eyes of the dying man widened on the instant. A surge of
hopeless terror stared out of their dark depths. His lolling head was
lifted erect and it turned in the direction of the door through which
the Euralian had vanished. In supreme anguish he realised the thing
contemplated. His child! Felice! In a spasm of recollection he saw again
the headless trunks of the children of his Mission. The man at the table
was forgotten. His own sufferings. Even he had forgotten the thing he
was trying to safeguard. Felice! His babe! They—
“If the woman wasn’t yours, Le Gros, the child is,” the man at the table
taunted. “Well? Will you—talk?”
The terrible yellow eyes were irresistible. There was no escape from
them. And Marty Le Gros forgot everything but the anguish which the
taunt inspired.
“Not her! Not that!” he cried. “Yes,” he went on urgently. “You can have
it. For God’s sake spare—”
He gasped and his head lolled helplessly. But again he rallied.
“The plans? The plans you made to-night? Where are they? Quick!”
The man at the table had moved. He had approached his victim. His voice
was fiercely urgent for he realised the thing that was happening.
“They’re—there,” Marty Le Gros gasped. “They’re—in—her—”
It was his supreme effort, and it remained uncompleted. His words died
away in a gasping jumble of sounds that rattled in his throat. For one
brief spasm his arms struggled with the men supporting him. Then his
head lolled forward again, and his body limpened. A moment later the
supporting hands were removed and Marty Le Gros fell back on the
ground—dead.
* * * * *
The yellow eyes of the leader were turned on the young man who had just
re-entered the room bearing in his arms the screaming Felice.
“Too late,” he said coldly. “You’ve blundered, Sate. It was that clumsy
shot of yours. Maybe you’ll learn someday. Tcha!”
Sate dropped the screaming child roughly to the ground. His black eyes
sparkled. There was triumph as well as resentment in them.
“That so? Oh, yes. Well, here are the plans. He sealed them when they
were finished. We saw that. Eh?”
He held out the packet he had found in Felice’s cot, and the older man
accepted it without a sign. In a moment he withdrew a sheath knife and
severed the fastenings. Flinging off the outer cover he unfolded the
contents. A glance was sufficient and he looked up without a smile.
“Set fire to the place,” he ordered coldly.
Then he glanced down at the dead man. Felice had crawled up close to the
body of her father. Her baby arms were thrust about his neck as though
clinging to him for protection. Or maybe it was only in that fond baby
fashion she had long since learned. Her cries had wholly ceased. Even in
death the comfort of her father’s presence and proximity were all
sufficient to banish her every terror.
“Take her out,” he ordered, without a shadow of softening. “Set her
somewhere near by in the bluff. Maybe the folk across the river will
come along and find her when they see the fire. If they don’t, well,
maybe the—wolves will.”
* * * * *
Usak gazed about him in a hopeless amazement. He was standing before the
smoking remains of Marty Le Gros’ Mission. He had hastened home from the
farm which lay several miles away to the east. In the midst of his work
amongst his herd of reindeer he had suddenly observed the smoke cloud
lolling heavily upon the near horizon, and without a moment’s hesitation
he had abandoned the new-born fawn he was attending to ascertain its
cause.
He had been filled with alarm at the sight. There was nothing he knew of
in the neighbourhood to fire but the bluff that sheltered the Mission
and the house itself. So he had come at once at a speed that only he
could have achieved.
His worst fears were realised. It was not the sheltering bluff. That was
still standing. It was the house itself, that home which had been his
shelter as well as that of those others.
For some moments he contemplated the scene without any attempt at active
investigation. It almost seemed as if his keen wit had somehow become
dulled under the shock of his discovery. Just at first it was the fire
itself that pre-occupied. Somehow he did not associate it with disaster
to the occupants. That did not occur to him. Doubtless at the back of
his mind lay the conviction that the missionary, and Pri-loo, and little
Felice had crossed the river and gone to McLeod’s store for shelter.
That was at first.
A light breeze drifted the smoke down upon him. For a moment he was
enveloped in it. Then it passed. A fresh current of wind—a cross
current—drifted it back whence it came, and the man which the passing of
the smoke revealed had somehow been transformed.
Amazement was no longer in his black eyes. They were alight and burning
with a passion of anxiety. That cloud of smoke had borne upon his
sensitive nostrils the smell of burning flesh.
Usak moved up to the charred walls. They were hot and smoking. Most of
them were in a state of wreckage, for the roof had fallen and many of
the logs had crashed from the tops of the walls. He passed round them, a
swift-moving, silent figure seeking access where the smouldering fire
would permit. The back door of the kitchen-place was impossible. Flames
were still devouring that which remained. The windows were surrounded
with hot, fiery timbers. The front door giving on to the sitting room
alone seemed possible. But here again was fire, though it had almost
burnt out.
But the man’s mood was not such as to leave him standing before
obstacles. In his half savage heart was a native terror of fire. But
just now all that was completely overborne by emotions that were
irresistible. The smell of burning flesh was strong in his nostrils, he
even fancied he could taste something of it on his lips.
Just for one instant he paused before the doorway measuring the chances
of it all. Then he leapt forward and vanished into the smoking ruin.
* * * * *
Jim McLeod was standing in the doorway of his store. He had been roused
from sleep by a furious hammering on the door. He had flung on a heavy
skin coat over his night clothes and hastily thrust a gun in each pocket
of it. Then he had cautiously proceeded to investigate, for the memory
of his long talk with Marty Le Gros was still with him.
But his apprehensions had been swiftly allayed, or at least changed, for
the harsh deep tones of Usak had replied to his challenge through the
barred door.
Now he was listening to the thing the Indian had to say and the horror
of the story he listened to found reflection in his pale blue eyes.
“They’ve killed ’em an’ burnt ’em out?” he cried incredulously as the
furious man broke off the torrent of the first rush of his story.
Usak’s black eyes were aflame with a light that was bordering on frenzy.
The infant Felice, wrapped in a blanket, was in his arms and clinging to
him with her tiny arms about the man’s trunk-like neck, silent,
wide-eyed, but content with a presence understood and loved.
“Here I tell you. I tell you quick so no time is lost. I work by the
farm all night. So. It is the season when I work that way. The young
deer need me. Oh, yes. So I work. Then I mak look up in the corral.
There is smoke to the west. Smoke. I look some more, an’ I think quick.
Smoke? Fire? What burns that way? Two things, maybe. The bluff. The
house of Marty Le Gros. So I mak quick getaway. Oh, yes. Very quick.
Then I come by the house. It all burn. Yes. No house. Only burning logs
all break up. So I stand an’ think. An’ while I stand I smell. So. I
smell the cooking of meat. Meat. First I have think Marty an’ Pri-loo
mak big getaway to here. Then, when I smell this thing, I think—no. Not
getaway.”
“They were—burnt?”
Jim’s horror added fuel to the fire of Usak’s surging frenzy. He nodded.
“Yes. They burn. They burn all up. But not so they die. Oh, no.” The
Indian shook his head, and the brooding light in his black eyes suddenly
blazed up afresh. “Listen,” he cried, in his fierce way. “I tell you.
I—Usak. I see him all. I go mad. Oh, yes. I think of Pri-loo. I think of
little Felice. I think of the good Marty. So I go into the house just
wher’ I can. I go by the door which him burn right out. Then I find ’em.
Then I find ’em all dead. An’ the fire cook ’em lak—meat.”
The great rough creature thrust the greasy fur cap back from his
forehead. There was sweat on his low brow. But it was the sweat inspired
by his fierce emotions.
He turned away in desperation, and so his black eyes were hidden from
the search of the trader’s. A curious feeling of helplessness in the
midst of the storm of rage besetting him threatened overwhelming. There
was a moment even when the soft arms about his neck seemed to be
stifling him. But his weakness passed in a flash. The next moment the
furious onslaught of the savage in him held sway.
“But the fire not kill him,” he cried, his tone lowered to something
like a snarl of savagery. “I look. I find ’em, Pri-loo. My woman. I find
her, yes, an’ I think I go crazy sure. They kill her—my woman. My good
woman. They shoot her by the head. It all break up. Oh, yes. My woman.
They kill her—dead.” His voice died out and his black eyes were turned
away again to hide that which looked out of them. But in a moment he
went on. “Then I find him. The good boss, Marty. Him belly all shoot to
pieces. Oh, yes. They kill him all up dead, too. Then I look for Felice.
Little Felice.” His arms tightened about the child nestling against his
shoulder. “No Felice. She all gone. I think maybe they eat her. I think.
I look. No. No Felice. So I go out an’ think some more. I stand by
bluff. Then I find ’em. She mak big cry out. She by the bluff. So I find
her. They throw her in the bush in the blanket of my woman, Pri-loo.”
The man paused again and a deep breath said far more of the thing he was
enduring than his words told. After a moment he nodded his head, and his
lank, black hair brushed the fair face of the child in his arms.
“So I bring her, an’ you tak her. You, an’ your good whitewoman tak her
like your own. I go. I find this Euralian mans. I know ’em wher’ they
camp. Oh, yes. Usak big hunter. Shoot plenty much good. I kill ’em all
up dead. They kill ’em my woman, Pri-loo. My good woman. They kill ’em
my good boss, Marty. So I kill ’em, too. Now I go. You tak Felice.
Bimeby I come back when all Euralian kill dead. Then I tak Felice. I
raise her like the good boss, by the farm. It for her. Yes. That farm.
Marty love little Felice all the time. He mak all good thing for Felice.
So I mak same all good thing, too. That so.”
Jim McLeod made no attempt to reply. Somehow it seemed impossible even
to offer comment in face of the terrible story the man had brought to
him, and the simple irrevocable purpose in his spoken determination. He
held out his arms to receive the murdered man’s child, and Usak, with
infinite gentleness, released himself from the clinging arms so
reluctant to part from him.
“You tak ’em. Yes,” he said as he passed the babe over. “Bimeby I come
back. Sure.”
Jim folded the child to his broad bosom in clumsy, unaccustomed fashion.
He was hardly conscious of the thing he did. His horrified imagination
was absorbed by the terrible scene he was witnessing through the eyes of
the Indian. Quite suddenly his mind leapt back to the thing Marty had
intended and had been at such pains to discuss with him, and his
question came on the instant.
“Everything? Everything was burnt out? There was nothing left? Books?
Papers?”
“Him all burn up. Oh yes.”
Felice began to cry. In a moment her little chubby hands were beating
her protest against the broad bosom of the trader. The sight of her
rebellion somehow had a softening effect on the coloured man, and he
spoke in a manner and in a tone of gentleness which must have seemed
impossible in him a moment before.
But even his encouragement was without effect. The child’s cries rose to
a fierce, healthly pitch of screaming which promptly called forth
protest from the trail dogs about the camps within the stockade. For
some moments pandemonium reigned, and in the midst of it the voice of
Hesther, who had hurried from her bed, brought comfort to her helpless
husband.
“For goodness’ sake!” she cried at the sight of the terrified child in
her husband’s arms. “Are you crazy, Jim, havin’ that pore baby
gal—Felice? Little Felice? Say, what—? Here, pass her to me.”
The trader made no demur. In a moment the distracted child was exchanged
into his wife’s outstretched arms which tenderly embraced and snuggled
her close to her soft motherly bosom.
The men looked on held silent by Hesther’s presence.
The child’s cries were quickly hushed, and the dogs abandoned their
savage, responsive chorus. Hesther looked searchingly up into Jim’s
troubled face. Then her gentle, inquiring eyes passed on to scrutinize
the face of the Indian.
“Tell me,” she demanded. And her words were addressed to Usak, as she
rocked the child to and fro in her arms.
But Usak was reluctant. He averted his gaze while the whiteman became
pre-occupied with the broad expanse of the river beyond the gateway of
the stockade.
“Something’s happened,” she went on urgently. “What is it? I’ve got to
know. I shall know it later, anyhow, Jim!”
The trader shook his head. But it was different with the Indian. His
eyes came back to the woman’s face and he nodded.
“Sure. You know him bimeby,” he said quietly. “Maybe your man tell him
all now. I tell him. He know this thing. Yes. Now I go. I go hunt all
him Euralian mans. I find ’em. I kill ’em all up dead, same lak him kill
up Pri-loo, an’ my good boss, Marty. I go now. Bimeby I come back, an’ I
mak all good thing for little Felice. I not come back, then you mak
raise ’em Felice lak your child. That so.”
CHAPTER VII
THE VENGEANCE OF USAK
The towering Alaskan hills overshadowed the broad waterway of the Hekor
River. From the level of the water the shores rose up monstrously. There
were precipitate, sterile, encompassing walls of granite that rose
hundreds of feet without a break. And back of them, mounting by dizzy
slopes, the great hills raised their snow-crowned crests till the misty
cloud line enveloped them. The world was grey, and dark, and something
overwhelming towards the headwaters of the great river. It was a
territory barren of everything but the tattered clothing of scattered
primordial forest bluffs clinging to sheer slopes, or safely engulfed in
the shelter of deep, shadowed ravines. It was a scene of crude grandeur
in which Nature had designed no place for man.
Yet man refused Her denial. Man with his simple skill and profound
daring. No rampart set up by Nature was sufficient to bar the way.
A small kyak was driving against the stream of waters surging at its
prow. It was driven with irresistible skill and power, for the man at
the paddle was consuming with passionate desire and purpose. For days
and days he had driven on up against a stream that was growing in speed
with every passing mile. He knew the thing confronting him. He knew
every inch of the great waterway’s rugged course. Every shoal, every
rapid was an open book to him. So, too, were the shelters and easements
where the stream yielded its strength. The man behind the paddle faced
his task with the supreme confidence of knowledge and conscious power.
And so he neared the canyon of the Grand Falls without the smallest
perturbation.
A mere speck in the immensity of its surrounding the kyak glided on.
Here it rocked on a ruffled surface, there it passed, perfectly poised,
a ghostly shadow upon a smooth mirror-like surface. The dip of the man’s
paddle was precise and rhythmic. Every ounce of strength was in every
stroke, and every stroke yielded its full of propulsion. For Usak was a
master of river craft, and understood the needs of the journey that
still lay ahead of him.
His goal was still far off. It was less than a day since he had crossed
the unmarked border which opened the gates of Alaska to him. He knew
there must be more than another nightless day pass before he reached the
toilsome portage where stood the mighty Falls which emptied themselves
from the summit of the barrier which he had yet to scale. The goal he
sought lay hidden away up amidst those high lands where the drainings of
the snow-clad hills foregathered before hurling themselves to feed the
river below. But time mattered nothing to his Indian mind. He asked
nothing of the great world about him. He sought no favours or clemency.
The spur of his savage heart drove him, and death alone could deny him.
As he had already driven throughout the endless Arctic days so he would
continue to drive until his task was accomplished.
The man’s dark face was hard bitten by his mood. Fierce resolve looked
out of eyes that brooded as he gazed alertly over the waters. The soul
of the man was afire with the instincts and desires of centuries of
savage forbears, just as his mental faculties were similarly keyed for
their achievement.
Not a detail of the world about him that might affect his labours
escaped the eagle vision of his wide eyes, and his swift understanding
taught him how to avail himself of every clemency which the scheme of
Nature vouchsafed.
So the kyak progressed seemingly with inadequate speed, but in reality
little less swiftly than the speed of the avenging creature’s desire. It
gained incredible way against the surge of water that split upon its
prow. And as the shadows of the mighty walls enveloped it, and grew ever
more and more threatening, the man at the paddle laboured on without
pause or hesitation, certain of the course, certain of his powers,
certain that no earthly barrier was staunch enough to seriously obstruct
him.
* * * * *
The kyak was hauled out of the water. It lay there on a shelving
foreshore strewn with grey, broken granite, a graceful thing, so small
and light as to look utterly inadequate in face of the terrific race of
troubled waters that was speeding by. It was set ready for the portage.
The man’s simple outfit was securely lashed amidships, and his precious
rifle, long old-fashioned, but well cared for, was made fast to the
struts that held the frail craft to its shape.
The Indian was standing at the water’s edge. He was gazing up-river
where its course was a dead straight canyon several miles in length. It
was wide, tremendously wide. But so high were its sides that its breadth
became dwarfed. It was a gloomy, threatening passage of black, broken
water, whose rushing torrent no canoe could face.
But the awe of the scene left Usak untouched. It was not the sheer
cliffs that concerned him. It was not the swirling race of water
blackened by the shadows. It was neither the might of the great river,
nor the vastness of the hill country about it that pre-occupied him. It
was the far-off white wall of mist and spray at the head of the passage,
and the dull distant thunder of the Falls, the Grand Falls, the picture
of whose might had lain hidden from the eyes of man throughout the
centuries.
He stood for long contemplating the mysterious far-off. His object was
uncertain. Perhaps the wonder of it had power to stir him. Perhaps he
was not insensible to the might of the things about him for all the
absorbing passion that filled him. Perhaps he was contemplating with a
sense of triumph this last barrier which still remained to be
surmounted.
At last he turned away. He came back to the burden which he knew he had
to shoulder. He measured the little vessel, and the stowage of his
outfit, with a keen eye for the necessity of his work. And that which
had been done left him completely satisfied.
He bent down. He gripped the gunwale of the little craft and tilted it.
Then with a swift, twisting movement he lifted, and, rearing his great
body erect again, the vessel was safely set where his muscular neck
checked it to a perfect balance.
* * * * *
It was the wide smooth waters of a high perched mountain lake. Its
expanse was dwarfed by the great hills on every hand. Its surface shone
like a mirror in the brilliant sunshine, yet it was without one single
grace to temper the fierce austerity of its tremendous setting. On the
hillsides there were dark veins which suggested the tattered remnants of
Nature’s effort to clothe their naked sides. There were low fringes of
attenuated vegetation marking the line where land and water met. But the
main aspect was one of barren hills crowned about their lofty summits
with eternal snow, and the grey fields of glacial ice that never
entirely yielded up possession of the earth they held prisoned.
Usak’s kyak was hugging the southern shore. Now his paddle dipped
leisurely, for he had no stream with which to battle and his eyes were
searching every yard of the dishevelled scrub which screened the shore.
Slowly the little craft crept on. There was no uncertainty in its
progress. It was simply that the man sought for the thing he knew he
would find and had no desire to waste a single moment of precious time
through careless oversight.
He was rounding a headland. The fringe of scrub had faded out, leaving
only the grey rock that sank sheer into the depths of the water. In a
moment he flung power into the dip of his paddle and the kyak shot
ahead. There was current here. Swift, crossing current that strove to
head his craft put for the bosom of the lake. The man counted with
prompt skill, and a savage satisfaction shone in his eyes.
Passing the headland he gazed upon the thing he had been searching. It
was a narrow inlet debouching from a wide rift in the rampart of hills.
In a moment his vessel shot head on to the current. Then, swiftly, it
passed from view of the open lake between the sheltered banks which were
heavily overgrown by unbroken stretches of dense pine-wood bluffs.
* * * * *
An amazing transformation left the sterile setting of the mountain lake
forgotten. Farther and farther, deeper and deeper into the hills the
country seemed to change as by magic. East and west of the valley the
hills rose up sheltering the gracious vegetation that looked to belong
to latitudes hundreds of miles to the south, and a heat prevailed that
was even greater than the intemperate Arctic summer.
Usak needed no explanation of the phenomenon. He knew that he was in the
region of the great Fire Hills of the North. Hills that were always
burning, whether in the depths of winter or the height of summer. And
the heat of the earthly fires transformed the countryside into an oasis
of verdant charm, a jewel of Nature set in the cold iron of the North.
* * * * *
A large habitation stood in the heart of a wide clearing in the forest.
It was deep hidden from the waterway which split up the length of the
valley. Nearly a mile of narrow roadway cut through the forest alone
gave access to the river. And the course of the roadway was winding, and
its debouchment on the river was left screened with trees. The object of
the latter must have been clear to the simplest mind. A perfect secrecy
had been achieved, and the great house lay hidden within the forest.
It was a remarkable building whose only relation to the country in which
it stood was the material of its construction. Its two lofty stories
were built of lateral, rough-hewn green logs. It was of logs carefully
dovetailed, from the ground to the summit of a central tower which rose
to the height of the forest trees about it. Its walls rambled over a
wide extent of ground, and dotted about its main building were a number
of lesser buildings, both habitations and accommodation for material. It
was rather like a log-built feudal fortress surrounded by, and
protecting, the homes of its workers and dependents.
A figure was moving cautiously through the woods beyond the clearing.
The moccasined feet gave out no sound as it passed from tree to tree or
sought the shelter of such dense clumps of undergrowth as presented
themselves. The buckskin-clad creature crouched low as he moved, and the
colour of his garments seemed to merge itself into the general hue about
him. Now and again he paused for long contemplative moments. And in
these he searched closely with keen, purposeful black eyes that nothing
escaped.
He was seeking every sign of life the place might afford. And so far he
had discovered none. There were one or two prowling dogs, great husky,
trail dogs, searching leisurely for that offal which seems to be the
sole purpose of their resting moments, but that was all.
He was gazing upon the main frontage of the building which faced the
south with a long, deep, heavily constructed verandah running its entire
length. The several windows which gave on to it, covered with mosquito
netting, were wide open to admit such cooling breeze as might chance in
the heat of the day. But the rich curtains hung limply over them
undisturbed by the slightest movement. It was the same with the windows
of the upper story. They, too, were wide open, but again the curtains
were unmoving. The searcher’s eyes passed over the lounging chairs on
the verandah. None were occupied, yet each and all looked to be standing
ready.
He passed on. Making a wide detour within the shelter of the woods he
passed round to the western side of the building. Here there were other
habitations. Many were mere log shanties, cabins such as the searcher
knew by heart. The cabin of whiteman or coloured in a country where
makeshift ruled.
Again there was no sign of life. There was not even a dog prowling loose
in this direction. Maybe those who peopled these cabins were resting in
the heat. Maybe—but the searching man was concerned with no such
speculation. The thing was largely as he had expected to find it, but he
desired to re-assure himself. He moved on rapidly. From every point of
the compass his searching eyes surveyed the scene, and finally he came
back to the spot where his prolonged search had started. He was
satisfied.
He stood for a moment while he made his final preparations. They were
simple, savagely simple. He moved the belt about his waist, and the two
long hunting knives thrusting from their sheaths were brought to the
front where they remained ready to each hand. Then he thrust one hand
into a voluminous pocket in his buckskin and withdrew a heavy pistol. It
was a modern pistol, such as one would hardly expect to find in the
dark-skinned hands of the native bred. This he examined with care and
deliberation. Then he thrust it back whence it came, and moved swiftly
out into the open.
The quick eyes of a scavenging dog discovered him and a low snarl
accompanied the canine discovery. Instantly a well-aimed stone silenced
the creature and sent it slinking to cover.
The point the man had selected for his approach had been deliberately
chosen. It was a door that stood ajar on the north side of the house. It
obviously admitted to the kitchen place of the building.
With the vanishing of the man through the doorway the lifelessness of
the place which had been momentarily broken descended upon it again. The
still air hummed with the somnolent drone of myriads of winged insects.
The hush of the surrounding forest seemed to crowd down upon it. The
very breathlessness of the day seemed to suggest the utter impossibility
of stirring life.
After a moment, the deathly silence was broken. A sound came hard in the
wake of the passing man. It was a curious, half-stifled cry, and it came
from the direction of the open doorway. It was low, inarticulate, but it
was human. It suggested much and betrayed nothing. Then as it died out
the engulfing silence descended once more and it remained unbroken.
* * * * *
The wide central hall was unlit by any visible window, yet the light was
perfectly distributed and ample. Furthermore it was the light of day
without one gleam of the dazzling sunshine.
It was a spacious apartment, lofty and square. Its walls were covered
with rich hangings of simple eastern design. They were unusually
tasteful and delicate, and obviously the handiwork of home manufacture.
The floor of the room was of polished yellow pine littered with a wealth
of natural furs without any mountings. Every skin was native to the
north of Alaska, and the variety was extensive. In the centre of the
room stood a large, open, log fire set up on a built hearth, above which
rose a chimney passing straight up through the timbered ceiling in the
fashion of an inverted funnel. For all the summer heat the fire was
alight, smouldering pleasantly, a heap of white wood ash yielding a
delightful aroma as the thin spiral of smoke drifted leisurely up into
the mouth of the funnel above it.
About the walls stood several low couches. They were loaded with silken
cushions adorned in a fashion similar to the hangings upon the wall with
a lavish display of the representations of brilliant-hued flowers, and
birds, amongst which chrysanthemum, wistaria, and longbilled,
long-legged storks were very prominent.
The only other furnishings in the place were a magnificent pair of
oriental vases standing on carved wood plinths, a large bookcase that
was also a desk with an armchair before it, and two great, manifold
wooden screens with elaborate, incised designs decorating their panels.
In the shelter of one of the latter a small woman was seated on a couch
surrounded by the materials of the delicate embroidery she was engaged
upon. She was seated with her feet tucked under her, and a book lay in
her lap. But she was neither reading nor sewing now. Her dark eyes were
raised alertly. They were gazing steadily at an angle of the room where
a curtain hung in heavy folds over what was clearly a doorway.
The solitary occupant of the room was not young. She was nearing middle
life, yet she bore small enough traces of her years. She was pretty for
all the large tortoise-shell rimmed glasses she was wearing. Her jet
black hair, dressed closely to her shapely head, bore not a trace of
greying, and the small mouth and softly tinted cheeks were as fresh and
delicate as a young girl’s.
At the moment a keen look of enquiry was revealed through her large
glasses as she regarded the covered doorway. Nor was her look without a
suggestion of unease. For a sound had reached her a moment before,
which, in the silence of the house about her, had suggested a cry—a cry
of pain. Even a call for help.
Apparently, however, she dismissed the idea. For she presently bent over
the work she had laid aside in the interest of the book she had been
reading.
She was not easily disturbed. She was accustomed to long periods of
almost complete solitude. There were two servants in the house. She knew
that. Men who were fully capable of safeguarding the place, even though
the rest of the folk were abroad on their labours. No. A long life in
the remote fastnesses of the northern Alaskan hills had taught her many
things, and amongst the things she had learnt was that perfect immunity
from intrusion was vouchsafed to the home which had been provided for
her. There were times, even, when she felt that her lot resembled that
of a closely guarded prisoner.
She plied her needle with the skill and rapidity of long practice. The
chrysanthemum she was working was rapidly developing its full beauty
under her delicate hands. Then suddenly she dropped her hands into her
lap and raised her eyes again to the doorway.
There was no mistaking her expression now. A voiceless alarm gazed out
through her glasses. There was a sound of hurried approach. Someone was
running beyond the doorway. They were approaching—
The curtain was abruptly dragged aside. A man lurched into the room. He
was a smallish, elderly man, dark-skinned and eastern-looking. He was
clad in the ordinary garments of civilization, and wore a short apron
about his waist. He stood for a moment clinging to the curtain for
support. Agony looked out of his black eyes, and his lined face was
distorted. He sought to make a gesture with one hand and nearly fell.
Then a sound broke from his lips. It was one word. Only one. And that
barely articulate.
“Es—cape!” he cried.
With a last gasping effort his hand released its hold on the curtain and
he crashed to the floor. And as he fell a stream of blood trickled on to
the immaculate woodwork from somewhere in the region of his neck.
The woman was on her feet. A wild panic shone in the eyes behind her
glasses. She stood there a pretty, pathetic, helpless little figure.
Escape!
The word was ringing in her ears as she gazed in horror upon the still,
fallen figure of the man who had brought her warning as the last
faithful act of his life.
Escape! What did it mean? What could it mean?
She abruptly turned away. She bent down and gathered up her sewing and
her book. Then she passed rapidly behind the screen which sheltered her
couch. Only for one instant did she pause before passing out of view. It
was to regard again, with a gaze that was filled with horror and terror,
the poor thing that had brought her warning.
* * * * *
Usak was standing in the middle of the great room. He was gazing about
him. His dark eyes were aflame with furious desire. His great body
bulked enormously and his rough clothing left him a sinister figure in a
place of such lavish refinement.
He took in every detail of the place, and at last his fierce eyes came
to rest on the dead creature lying just within the doorway. He stared at
it without pity or remorse. Without a sign of added emotion. His thin
lips were shut tight and the muscles of his jaws stood out with the
intensity of their grip. That was all.
After awhile he moved away. He passed over to the couch sheltered by the
screen. He bent over it searching closely, and from among the cushions
drew some fragments of sewing silk and cuttings of material. He gazed at
them. But he was not thinking of them. He was thinking of another woman,
a woman whose hands had been accustomed to ply a needle, and to cut out
material. But the material was different. It was less refined, rougher.
In Usak’s mind Pri-loo’s sewing was mostly to do with the buckskin and
beads so dear to the Indian heart.
He flung the things aside. Then he hurried from the room, passing again
the doorway through which he had followed the man he had slain.
CHAPTER VIII
THE VALLEY OF THE FIRE HILLS
The sun blazed down on a silent world. The glare was merciless, and the
heat, by reason of the weight of moisture saturating the atmosphere of
the valley, was almost a torture.
The stillness of the world was awesome. The hum of insect life
accentuated it, and so, too, with the murmur of summer waters, which is
the real music of the silent places. The breathlessness of it all
suggested suspense, threat. So it is always in the great hill countries.
The sense of threat is ever present to the human mind, driving men to
seek companionship, even if it be only association with the creatures
who are there to bear his burdens.
Threat was stirring acutely now. It was in the profound quiet, in the
saturating heat; it was in the portentous silence wrapt about the hidden
habitation which the man at the water’s edge had just left behind him.
Leaning on his old-fashioned rifle the Indian, Usak, was gazing out
northwards over the winding course of the river. His dark eyes were
alert, fiercely alert. No detail of the scene escaped his searching gaze
as he followed the little water-course on its way to the mountain lake
beyond. He searched it closely right up to the great bend where stood
the three isolated fire hills. His Indian mind was calculating; it was
seeking answers to doubts and questions besetting him. For he knew that
on the result of his right thinking now depended the achievement he had
marked out for himself.
Quite motionless he stood for many minutes. Yet for all his great height
and the physical strength of his muscular body his presence was without
effect upon the immense solitude of the world about him. It had no more
impression than had one single creature amongst the myriads of flies and
mosquitoes swarming hungrily about his dark head.
The house in the woods behind him was no longer of any concern. There,
as he had set out to do, he had already worked his fierce will. It was
sufficient. That which was yet to be accomplished he knew to lie on the
waterway approach, and his mind was focussed upon the three black,
smoking hills which he had passed on his way from the distant lake.
He stirred out of his deep contemplation. He raised his rifle and slung
it upon his buckskin-clad shoulder. Then he turned about, and raised one
lean, brown hand. It was an expressive gesture. There was something in
it similar to the shoulder-shrug of callous indifference. He passed on
down the river.
* * * * *
The canoe was making its leisurely way up the river. The dip of the
paddles was easy; it was rhythmic and full of the music so perfectly in
tune with Nature in her gentler mood. The vessel was long and low, and
built for rapid, heavy transport where the waters were not always at
rest, and the battle with the elements was fierce and unrelenting. It
was the hide-built craft native to the Eskimo, whose life is spent in
the Polar hunt.
The vessel was served by eight paddles. But there were two other
occupants lounging amidships against the rolls of blankets and furs
which were part of their camp outfit. These two were talking in low
voices while the men at the paddles, stripped to the waist, squat,
powerful, yellow-skinned creatures whose muscles rippled in response to
their efforts under a skin that shone like satin, remained concerned
only for their labours.
“There will be a big noise—later.”
The snapping eyes of the younger man were half smiling as he
contemplated the shimmering waters of the river ahead. The man beside
him stirred. His curious eyes lit with a gleam of irony as he withdrew
his gaze from the distant smoke cloud which lolled ponderously on the
still air.
“Oh, yes. There will be a big noise,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter.
Maybe p’lice will come.” He laughed coldly. “An’ when they come—what?
Later they go away. Later it is forgotten. Winter comes and everything
is forgotten. It is the way of this far-north country. Only is this
country for the man who lives in it. Not for those who mark it on a map,
and say—‘it is mine.’ No. It is for us, Sate. It is ours. We make the
law which says the thing we desire must be ours. Le Gros was a big fool.
But it would have been useless to have his secret and leave him living.
One word, and they would have flooded the country with white trash from
every corner of the earth. It will not be that way now. We wait for the
p’lice to come. We wait for them to go. Then this thing is ours, the
same as all the rest.”
Sate turned his dark eyes upon the strong profile of his father.
“Yes,” he agreed, while his eyes questioned.
There was usually a question in his eyes when regarding his parent; a
question in his hot impulsive mind when he listened to the cold tone of
authority that was always addressed to him. The filial attitude of the
youth was no more than skin deep.
“You have the plans safe?” he inquired presently, while he watched the
brown fingers of the other filling the familiar red-clay pipe. “You have
not passed them for me to read?”
The tone was a complaint, and it brought the curious regard of the tawny
eyes to the discontented face. For a moment Sate confronted them boldly.
Then he yielded, and his gaze was turned upon the scenes of the river.
“You will see them when—it is necessary.”
A dark fire was burning behind the boy’s pre-occupied gaze. Nor was it
likely that the father failed to understand the mood his denial had
aroused. He watched the lowering of the black brows, the savage setting
of the youthful jaws, and a shadowy smile that had nothing pleasant in
it made its way to his cold eyes.
For all his surge of feeling Sate continued to regard the surrounding
mountains through which they were passing. There was not a detail of the
course of this little, hidden river that held even a passing interest
for the youth. His whole life had been lived within the Valley of the
Fire Hills and its beauty, the mystery of it affected him no more
congenially than might a prisoner be affected by the bare walls and iron
bars of his cell. His heart and mind were in fierce rebellion. He was
chafing impotently. But he was held silent, for he dared not pit himself
against the iron will, the inhuman cruelty which he knew to lie behind
the cold eyes which, in his brief twenty years of life, he had only
learned to obey through fear.
The man beside him had lit his pipe without a shadow of concern, and now
he sat smoking it like any native, with its stem supported by his strong
jaws thrust in the centre of his hard mouth. He held the little bowl in
both hands.
The vessel passed out of the shadow of the canyon, and the welcome shade
gave place to the blazing heat of full sunlight. The sky was without a
cloud except for the overhanging smoke patch. The great hills had
suddenly leapt back and the world had become radiant with a hundred
verdant hues, and the soft purple of the distance.
It was the arena of the Fire Hills. They stood up in the heart of it,
three of them. Three comparatively low, expansive hummocks dwarfed by
the tremendous altitude of the surrounding mountain ring. Standing
widely separated on the low flat, about which the shrunken summer river
skirted, they stood ominous, black and smoking. They were bare to the
basaltic rock which was their whole structure, burnt black by the
centuries of fire contained within their troubled hearts. They were
stark, hideous, like malevolent dwarfs, monstrous and threatening,
frowning down upon a world made gracious the year round by reason of
their own involuntary beneficence.
The man removed his pipe from between his lips and inclined his head in
the direction of the smoking hills.
“An hour more,” he said.
Sate’s reply came without glancing round.
“Yes,” he said.
His eyes, too, were on the three hills. It would have been impossible
for it to have been otherwise. Their great ugly shoulders rose high
above the belt of forest trees which lined the left bank of the river,
and the smoke cloud hung heavily over the summits, till their appearance
was like that of giant mushrooms. The smoke was motionless, dense,
threatening.
“It’s thick,” the father observed reflectively. “We need a wind to carry
it away. If the weather changes it’ll come down in a fog. They’re
queer—those hills. Someday they’ll—”
The sharp crack of a rifle rang out. The man in the prow of the vessel
jerked forward in the act of dipping his paddle, and sprawled with his
body lolling over the vessel’s side.
The man with the yellow eyes scrambled to his feet and Sate sat up. For
one tense moment every eye was turned upon the belt of trees that lined
the shore masking the base of the Fire Hills. The shot had come from
that direction, but there was nothing, no sign of any sort to give a
clue to the whereabouts of the man who had fired with such murderous
accuracy.
The man standing amidships gave a sharp order. His crew had quit
paddling in the complete confusion into which the attack had flung them.
And, in a moment, the paddles dipped again, but only seven of them.
Sate passed forward to the wounded man, and his father waited, still
standing, for the result of his investigations. It was some time before
the youth gave a sign. But at last he dragged the fallen body into the
boat and laid it out in the bottom of it.
“Well?”
The demand came sharply. But the tawny eyes were still steadily
searching the wood-clad bank of the river.
“Dead.”
Sate’s reply was no less sharp.
“Drop him overboard. We’ve no room for dead men. Take the paddle
yourself, Sate.” After delivering his order the man amidships turned
about and spoke in a foreign tongue to the man in the stern. Instantly
the prow of the vessel swung towards the shore.
Again a shot rang out. This time it was the man whose paddle had changed
the vessel’s course who was the victim. He lolled forward like a tired
man at the finish of the stroke of his paddle. Then he crumpled,
collapsing against the man in front of him, shot through the heart.
* * * * *
The dusky figure was moving rapidly down the shadowed aisles of leafless
tree-trunks. Its movements were almost without sound. They were the
stealthy, swift movements of the Indian in pursuit of a wary quarry.
Every now and again Usak paused in the shelter of a great forest bole,
and his fierce eyes searched for opening in the barrier of undergrowth
that hid the waters of the river beyond. His patience seemed
inexhaustible. Effort was unrelaxing. He was spurred by a lust that was
all-consuming.
So he kept pace with the moving vessel that was behind him on the river.
His object was to keep ever ahead of it, not remaining a second longer
at any given point than his purpose demanded. On, and on, with the
swift, silent gait of the hunter, he passed from tree to tree but never
did he permit himself to pass out of gunshot of his quarry.
He paused at a fallen tree. To the right of him, looking down the river,
was a narrow break in the tangle of undergrowth. He rested his queer,
long rifle and searched over the sights, holding a definite spot on the
shining waters covered. The man was deadly in his deliberation. Twice he
re-adjusted his sights. Then at last, apparently satisfied, stretched
prone on the ground under cover of the protecting tree trunk, he waited
with the weapon pressed hard into his shoulder, his lean tenacious
finger on the trigger, and an eye, that displayed no shadow of mercy,
glancing over his sights.
The moments passed in deathly silence. The trees above him creaked in
the super-heated twilight. But none of the forest sounds distracted him.
His keen ears were listening for one familiar sound. His searching eyes
were waiting for one vision in the narrow opening of the undergrowth.
The sound came. And into the open flashed the prow of the approaching
canoe. It was more than two hundred yards from the man’s place of
concealment, but the distance had been calculated to a fraction with the
skill of a great hunter. The finger pressed the trigger.
The hidden man leaped to his feet, a grim look of satisfaction shining
in his eyes. He had witnessed the thing he desired. He had seen the man
at the vessel’s prow fall forward. And he knew it was the man who had
taken the place of an earlier victim.
He was off on the run as an answering shot rang out, and he heard the
spat of a bullet strike one of the tree trunks somewhere behind him.
There was another shot, and another. But each shot found its home in the
upstanding tree-trunks far in the rear of him, and left him grimly
unconcerned. It was a battle to the death in a fashion of which he was
absolutely master. It mattered not to him if the canoe continued on its
course, or retreated, or if the enemy abandoned the river and sought to
continue the fight in the twilight of the forests. He knew he held him
at his mercy on this great bend of the river. For the far bank was
walled by the granite of the great hills which closed in the arena of
the Fire Hills. There was no escape.
After awhile he paused again at the foot of a tree that had been rudely
storm-blasted. Its crown was shorn and lay a vast tangle on the ground
beside it. In a moment, with rifle slung, he had swarmed the broken
trunk and lodged himself in the lower branches which still remained. He
gazed out over the top of the undergrowth, and a great length of the
sweep of the river was spread out before his hungry eyes. The canoe was
just entering his field of vision. He settled himself with his back to
the tree-trunk, and his knees were bent in a squatting posture with his
feet supported on a projecting limb which also helped to screen him from
those on the river. He adjusted his sights and prepared to hurl death
from his hiding-place.
Slowly he pressed the trigger and his ancient weapon faithfully
responded. The ivory sights were unfailing to an eye behind which burned
so fierce a desire. He saw the result even with the rifle still pressed
to his shoulder, and unconsciously he pronounced the triumphant thought
in his mind.
“Four!”
He re-loaded. The canoe was in full view now, and the temptation was
irresistible. Again he pressed the trigger, and another life had passed.
He lowered his weapon and watched. The short man amidships was about to
answer. He saw a rifle raised. The shot echoed against the granite walls
behind it. And something like a smile lit the hunter’s eyes, for the man
had fired into the forest far below where he was securely seated.
Instantly he re-loaded, and, a moment later, a sixth victim fell to his
lethal weapon.
He dropped from his “crow’s nest” and ran on through the dark aisles
that hid him so well. Every foot of the way was mapped in his mind. He
had laid his trail with the skill of a man who, knowing his craft, will
not yield one fraction of his advantage. So he passed on to where the
forest narrowed down by reason of the Fire Hill, whose ponderous slopes
came down almost to the river bank.
He passed from the forest and began the ascent of the hill. Here there
was no cover but the rough, protruding boulders on the blackened slopes.
But he had reached a point of calculated recklessness when he knew he
must court greater chances for the success he desired. There had been
ten men in the canoe when first he had welcomed the sight of it upon the
river. Ten men, all of whom had participated in the wanton destruction
of everything in the world that had meant life, and hope, and home to
him. Now there were only four.
The canoe was within a mile of its destination, and he had decided
before that destination was reached only one single man of its
complement must remain alive. His purpose was implacable. Vengeance
consumed the man. And it was the vengeance that only the savage heart of
a creature of his ancestry could have contemplated.
He passed on up the slope with the speed of some swiftfooted forest
creature. And the smoke haze rising from the summit partially obscured
the drab of his clothing against the blackened ground. Up towards the
belching crown he moved, but ever with a glance flung backward lest the
increasing density of the smoke cloud should mar his view of the things
below.
At last he came to a halt. The point had been reached when he dared
proceed no farther. The haze, in the brilliant air, was sufficient to
screen him without obscuring his vision of the river. So he took up a
position behind a boulder, and leant upon it with his rifle supported
for steadiness on its clean-cut surface. For some moments he watched the
fierce efforts of the remainder of the crew of the canoe to make the
shelter of the house something less than a mile away to his left.
Yes, there were four of them only. And all four were paddling literally
for their lives. He watched them closely, a devilish smile lighting his
satisfied eyes. And he saw that the rhythm of their stroke had been
lost, and the speed of the vessel was infinitely slow. Oh, yes, he
understood. Panic had done its work. The panic inspired by complete
impotence. They were there a target for just so long as they were in the
open of the river. There was no shelter for them anywhere. The granite
of the far wall of the river cut off escape, and the forest on the
hither side contained the deadly, unseen danger. So there was nothing
left them but to race on, zigzagging a course down the river in the hope
of escape from the deadly fire.
He re-adjusted the sights of his rifle and judged his distance. Slowly
and very deliberately he pressed the trigger. The shot passed over the
canoe. He re-loaded without concern, and his second shot left only three
paddles dipping. The man in the bow of the boat squatted drooping and
clutching for support.
He waited for the final result of his shot, and it came as the man
yielded his hold and dropped helplessly into the bottom of the boat.
Again he laid his weapon. Two more shots rang out from the smoke shroud
of the burning hill. Then, after a brief interval, two more carried
their deadly burden. The man re-loaded again and again till a pile of
empty shells lay close beside him. Then, at last, he rose from his
crouching position and stretched his cramping limbs. He slung his hot
rifle upon his shoulder, and stood gazing down upon the slowly moving
boat as it laboured over the water. He was completely satisfied. Now
there was left but one man to drive the heavy vessel to the haven which
should mean shelter from his murderous sniping.
* * * * *
The man with the yellow eyes drove hard with his paddle and the nose of
the vessel thrust deep into the mud of the landing. For a moment he
remained kneeling, supported against the strut where he had laboured. He
made no attempt to leave his post. Only he gazed along down the river
bank at the screen of bush which lined it. There was no emotion visible
in his mask-like face. There was nothing in his eyes to tell of the
swift, urgent thought behind them.
After awhile his gaze was withdrawn to the grim freight of his vessel.
Then he stood up quickly and moved forward. Four bodies were lying
huddled in the bottom of the canoe. With three of them he was completely
unconcerned. But with the fourth it was different. He stood for a moment
gazing down unemotionally at the dead body of the youthful Sate. Then he
stooped, and, gathering it in his powerful arms, carried it quickly
ashore. He laid it gently down on a vivid bed of Arctic wild flowers and
stood over it in silent contemplation.
His pre-occupation was intense. But he gave no sign. Such emotions as
were his were his alone. They were stirring in a heart deep hidden. And
his tawny eyes masked no less surely now than was always their habit.
A sound disturbed him at last, and he turned like a panther ready for
anything it might portend. But the flash of alertness died out of his
eyes at the sight of a woman’s small figure as it broke its way through
the bush in the direction of the house which was his home.
The pretty face the man was looking into was drawn and haggard. The
slanting eyes were full of a terror that even the long awaited return of
her man could not banish. The woman had run to him with little, hurried
strides and hands outstretched in piteous appeal.
“Hela!” she cried. And into the pronunciation of the man’s name, and in
the pitch of her voice she contrived to fling a world of woman’s
terrified despair.
For once the man’s eyes revealed something of that which was passing
behind them.
“Tell me, Crysa,” he demanded urgently. “Tell me quick.”
The distraught woman stood clinging to the arm which made no effort to
yield her support. She broke at once into hysterical speech in a foreign
tongue.
“They have killed them all. Even the dogs. There is not one left.
All—all are killed. Myso, Oto, Lalman. Oh, they murder them with the
knife. I hid in the secret place. It was Oto who gave me warning with
his dying words. He was dead—all dead in a moment. I can see the blood
on the floor now. Devils came to the house. An army of them. They—Oh!”
she cried breaking off the torrent of her disjointed story in a spasm of
new horror.
Her gaze had fallen on the still, prone figure at her man’s feet. Her
hands dropped from his arm. She moved a step from him, and bending
forward, peered down.
“Dead, too,” she said, in a low hushed voice. “Dead!”
Then she recognized the dark features of the boy who was her son.
Suddenly a piercing cry broke the silence of the woods about them, and
echoed against the far walls that shut in the river.
“Sate!” she cried. “Our Sate!” And in a moment she had flung her frail
body upon the still figure stretched upon its bed of wild flowers.
The man looked on. He watched the delicate hands as they beat the ground
in his wife’s paroxysm of grief. He listened to her demented shrieks of
lamentation. But he gave no sign; he offered no comfort. Maybe he found
himself simply helpless. Maybe in his hard, unyielding mood he felt it
best that the woman’s storm of grief should spend itself. Perhaps, even,
the disaster of his journey home had left him indifferent to everything
else. Certainly his cruel eyes were without any softening, without any
expression but that which was usual to them.
The woman’s lamentations died down to heart-racked sobs, and the man
turned away. He passed slowly down to the boat, so deeply nosed into the
mud, and the lessening cries of the distracted mother pursued him. But
he no longer gave heed to them.
He laid hold of the canoe and set to hauling it clear of the water.
Once, twice, thrice he heaved with all the strength of his powerful
body. The boat was half way up the bank. Then, as he lay to the work
again, a cry that was something like a snarl broke from him. Some great
body had leapt on him from behind. His hold was torn loose from his
task, and he was flung bodily, with terrific force, sprawling amidst the
radiant flowers that littered the river bank. The dark, avenging figure
of the Indian, Usak, stood over him.
For one brief instant eye searched eye. No word passed the lips of
either. It was a moment of furious challenge, a moment of murderous
purpose. It passed. And its passing came with the lunging of the Indian
as he precipitated himself upon his victim.
They lay writhing, and twisting, and struggling on the ground. No vocal
sound, no sound but the sound of furious movement came in the struggle.
The Indian was uppermost, as he had intended to be from the moment and
the method of his attack. He had one object, and one object only.
The Indian’s great size and strength were overwhelming with the other
caught at a disadvantage. Then the man with the yellow eyes was fully
two decades older. Usak was lithe, active as a wild cat, with all the
bulk of a greater forest beast. Then there was his simple, terrible
purpose.
It was done, finished in a few awful moments. A sound broke from the man
underneath the Indian’s body. It was a half-stifled choking cry. It was
inarticulate except that it was a cry of pain and suffering for which
there could be no other expression. And instantly all struggling ceased.
The arms of the man underneath fell away. Usak leapt to his feet and his
savage eyes glowered down on the writhing body on the ground. For a
moment he watched the tortured creature, effortless except for the
physical contortions of unspeakable suffering. And presently he heard
the thing he had awaited. It was a faint, low moaning forced at last
from between the blinded man’s stubbornly pressed lips.
Fierce, harsh words leapt in answer to the sound, and the Indian spoke
out of the original savagery that was his.
“So! Euralian Chief!” he cried exultantly. “You not know all this you
mak, or you not mak it so. No. I tell you this—I, Usak. You come kill my
woman, Pri-loo. You kill my good boss, Marty Le Gros. You come to steal.
But you not steal. Only you kill my woman, Pri-loo, an’ my good boss. So
I, Usak, come. I kill up all the mans, everything. But not so I kill
your woman. Not so I kill you. Oh, no. That for bimeby. Now I tak out
your eyes. If I kill up your woman you die. No good. No. So I leave you
your woman. She lie there by your son. She look this way now to see the
thing I do. Bimeby she come. She forget the son I shoot all up. She
remember only her man who will live in darkness. It good. It just how I
think. Bimeby she come. She mak you live. She, your woman. She lead you
by the hand. She feed you. She mak you see through her eyes. So you know
the hell you show to me. Oh, yes. It black hell for you. No light no
more. Your folk come. They find you. You not see them. Nothing. Then
they go leave you. An’ so you live—in hell. Bimeby I come. Big long time
I come. An’ when I come I kill you. I kill you an’ your woman all up
dead, same as you kill my woman, Pri-loo. Now I go. I go an’ think,
think, how I mak kill you—sometime.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART II
FIFTEEN YEARS LATER
CHAPTER I
PLACER CITY
Bill Wilder smiled in an abstracted, wry sort of fashion as he strode
down the boarded sidewalk, which was no more than sufficient for its
original purpose of saving pedestrians from wallowing in the mire and
stagnant water of the unmade main throughfare of Placer City.
He was on his way to his office from his house. His house was built well
beyond the tattered city’s limits with a view to escape from the sordid
atmosphere of the northern gold city, which in the long years of
acquaintance he had learned to detest.
Bill Wilder was the wealthiest gold man in a city of extreme wealth. Ten
years of abounding success had transformed a youth of barely eighteen,
lean, large, angular, yearning with every wholesome human desire, into a
man of twenty-eight, glutted and overburdened with a fortune and mining
interests the extent of which even he found it well nigh impossible to
estimate. In ten years, under the driving force of inflexible resolve,
backed by amazing good fortune, he had achieved at an age when the
generality of men are only approaching the threshold of affairs that
really matter.
But somehow his success had brought him little enough joy. It had
brought him labour that was incessant. It had made it possible that
every whim of his could be satisfied by the stroke of the pen. But
instead of satisfaction, he reminded himself that somehow his life had
become completely and utterly empty, and he yearned to set the clock
back to those long, arduous, struggling days, when hope and resolve had
been able to drive him to greater and greater exertions, with a
pocket-book that was almost as lean and hungry as his stomach.
His smile now was inspired by the memory of a brief interview he had
just had on his way down, in the hall of the McKinley Hotel, with a
Hebrew acquaintance, a wealthy and influential saloon-proprietor. A.
Feldman had spent half-an-hour in endeavouring to get him to join forces
in the erection of a new dance hall that was intended to eclipse
anything of the kind in the country in size, splendour, and profits. His
reply had been curt. It had been harsh in its bitter condemnation. And
the memory of the Jew’s hopeless stare of amazement was with him now.
“Not on your life, Feldman,” he had said in conclusion. “I’m a gold man.
No better and no worse. I’m not a brothel keeper.”
His smile passed, and he gazed about him at the moving traffic surging
along the miserable highway under the dazzling sunlight of a perfect
spring day. He had no particular claim to good looks. His face was
strong, and his expression open. There was a certain angularity about
his clean-shaven features, and a simple directness in his clear-gazing
grey eyes. He looked a typical gold man without pretence or display, and
from the careless roughness of his tweed clothing no one would have
taken him for a man who counted his wealth in millions of dollars.
But that was the man. Achievement was the sole purpose of his life. And
it must be the achievement of a great body and muscles rather than the
subtle scheming of the acute commercial mind which he by no means
lacked.
The life of this mushroom northern city only stirred him to repugnance.
He was no prude. He had tasted of the life in the fevered moments of
youth. But he knew, he had strong reason to know, there was nothing in
it that money could not buy, from the governing corporation to the women
and gunmen who haunted the dance halls, except the Mounted Police
detachment. And somehow the knowledge had become completely hateful to
him.
He had migrated to the place during one of its early “rushes,” when it
was only a few degrees removed from a mining camp. A whirlwind rush of
humanity had swept down upon it bearing him on its tide. And he had
remained to witness its leaping development into an established city of
wealth and wanton freedom. Later he had participated in an attempt at
real government by the saner element of its people, and the making safe
of life and property. With them he had hoped. He had looked on at the
mushroom growth of great hotels and offices, and greater and more
elaborate halls of public entertainment. Then, with those others, he had
watched the wreckage of the new authority under pressure of vested
interests, and witnessed the passing of the moment or moral uplift. The
falling back into a mire of corruption had been literally headlong.
The city had grown up in the wide valley of the Hekor River at the point
where the first alluvial strike had been made. It was at a point where
the river widened out before dispersing its northern waters into a great
lake surrounded by the lofty range of hills which had created it. It
followed the usual lines of all these improvised northern places of
habitation. It was designed in a rectangular fashion based on one
interminable main thoroughfare, which was the centre of haphazard
development. The road had sidewalks, but for the rest it remained
unconstructed. Vehicular traffic wallowed in mire during the spring,
jolted and bumped over a broken, dusty surface in summer, and, in
winter, enjoyed a foundation of snow on which to travel that frequently
stood five and six feet in depth.
The whole place was hopelessly straggling and unkempt. Lofty seven- and
eight-storied buildings looked down on the log shanties and frame
hutments grovelling at their feet in that incongruous fashion which
never seems to disturb the human sense of fitness. There were even men
amongst its cosmopolitan people who found joy in the disparity. But
these were mainly the folk who owned or had designed the greater
structures.
Throughout the long winter night the place was ablaze with electric
light, a never-ending source of joy to the crude pioneering mind. Arc
lamps lit the main thoroughfare, while a multitude of winking signs
served to guide the unwary to those accommodating dens waiting to
unloose inflated bank rolls. During the six months of summer daylight
this service was unnecessary. And only the cold light standards, and the
hideous framing of the signs, and the tawdry decorations of the places
of entertainment were left to replace the winter splendour.
Bill Wilder knew it all by heart, from the elaborate Elysee, down to the
meanest cabaret from which a drunken miner would be fortunate to escape
with nothing worse than a vanished store of “dust.” He hated it. The
knowledge of the life that went on every hour of the twenty-four
sickened and bored him. He longed for the free, wholesome, hard-living
life of the outworld beyond the sordid prison bars which his fortune had
set up about him.
It was always the same now. Month in, month out, there was nothing but
the solitude of his home and the work of the office in the great
commercial block he had built, or the pastimes of the dance hall and
gambling hell.
He wanted none of it. His great body was rusting with disuse, while the
mental effort of the administration of his affairs was fast robbing his
sober senses of all joy of life. He yearned for the open with all its
privations. He wanted the canoe nosing into the secret places of the far
world. The burden of the battle against Nature in her fiercest mood was
something to be desired. And so, too, with the howl of the deadly
blizzard beyond the flap door of a flimsy tent. At this moment Placer
City and all its alleged attractions were anathema to the man on the
sidewalk.
He came to an abrupt halt. His grey eyes were turned on the elaborate
entrance doors of the Elysee on the opposite side of the road. It was
disgorging its freight into the smiling spring sunlight, a throng of men
and painted women who had spent the daylit night drinking, and dancing,
and gambling. He watched them out of sheer disgust. Here at something
like ten in the morning, when the sidewalks were thronged with business
traffic, they were just about to seek their homes for that brief
sufficiency of rest which would enable them to return to another night
of loose pleasure. For all he was on the youthful side of thirty, for
all he was inured to the life of the city, for all his blood was no less
warm, and rich, and swift flowing, the sight mingled pity with disgust
and left him depressed and even saddened. The terrible falseness of it;
the price that must be ultimately paid. The bill of interest that would
be presented by an outraged Nature later on would mean overwhelming
bankruptcy for the majority. He turned away and collided with an officer
of the police.
Superintendent Raymes stepped clear and laughed.
“Bill Wilder gawking at the Elysee’s throw-outs? Guess you aren’t
yearning to join that bunch?”
“No.”
Bill replied without any responsive laugh. Superintendent Raymes was his
oldest friend in Placer City. A brisk, dapper man of medium height he
was almost dwarfed by Wilder’s great size. He was approaching middle
life, and already a slight greying tinged the dark hair below his smart
forage cap. He was wearing a black-braided patrol jacket, and the
yellow-striped breeches and top-boots so familiar in the regions under
the control of the Mounted Police.
Raymes shook his head.
“No. That’s only for the sharks and darn fools that life seems to set
around like the sands on the sea shore. Can you beat it? Look at ’em
piling into the rigs. They’re sick and mighty weary, and they’ll be at
it again in a few hours. It beats me the way those poor women keep
going. As for the boys—God help ’em when those vultures have wrung them
dry. Where are you making?”
“Just the office.”
Again Raymes laughed.
“Sounds like the cemetery.”
A smile returned to the eyes of the gold man.
“That’s how it seems to me,” he said, as they walked on together. “The
cemetery of all that’s worth while. It’s tough, Raymes. I’m sick to
death counting dollars and looking at that sort of stuff.” He jerked his
head in the direction of the Elysee. “I tell you I’m going to make a
break. I’ve just got to. It’s that or go crazy. I guess I love this
Northland to death for all the flies, and skitters, and the other
things, but I can’t face its cities any longer without qualifying for
the bughouse.”
The policeman remained silent in face of the man’s desperate,
half-laughing earnestness. He knew Wilder’s moods. He understood that
tremendous fighting spirit which was consuming all his peace of mind.
They passed on down the sidewalk.
It was not a little curious how these two men had come together in
intimate friendship. It had begun when Raymes was only an Inspector and
Wilder was only beginning to realise the burden of a wealth that grew
like a snowball. They had found themselves in deadly opposition as a
result of a desperate outbreak of lawlessness on a big new “strike” for
which the gold man had been responsible. The position had been gravely
threatening. There had been murder, and claim jumping, and the whole
camp was on edge and threatening something like civil warfare. In the
absence of police there was no authority to control the camp. Realising
the seriousness of the position Wilder had jumped in. Organizing his
men, and collecting others who could be relied on, he armed them for the
task, and forthwith launched his forces against the marauding gunmen who
had established a reign of terror. There was no mercy and only summary
justice. Every offender was dealt with on the spot, and, in the end, the
camp was swept clean.
When it was all over the gold man found the consequences of his action
were far more serious than his logic had suggested. He had to face the
tribunal of Placer City and render a complete accounting, with Inspector
Raymes, keenly jealous of the law of which he was guardian, in deadly
opposition. It had been a bitter fight. But Wilder’s downright honesty,
his frank sincerity had finally broken down the police officer’s case
and left him victor in a battle that had been fought out mainly on
technicalities. And in the end, in place of the bitter antagonism which
might well have arisen between them, a bond of great friendship was
founded, based on a deep, mutual admiration for the purpose by which
both were inspired.
All this had taken place about five years earlier. And since that time
their regard for each other had ripened to an intimacy that had never
known set-back.
Raymes was deeply concerned for his friend’s outburst.
“Yes, Bill,” he said presently. “It’s tough on a boy like you. You
collected your dust too quick. You haven’t the temper of a millionaire.
You aren’t the man to sit around spinning every darn dollar into two,
and grousing because you can’t make three of it.” He laughed. “You’re
the kind of hoss built for the race track of life. You weren’t made to
stand around in the barn waiting to haul a swell buggy by way of
exercise. That break away is the thing for you, only I’ll hate to lose
you out of this darn sink.”
Bill nodded and smiled, and the whole of his boyish face lighted up.
“That’s the best I’ve listened to in months,” he said. “I guessed you’d
say I was all sorts of a darn fool not fancying stopping round and
counting my dollars. But this ‘sink’ as you rightly call it. I’m a bit
of a kid to you. Maybe I’m a long-headed kid in a way. But a sink don’t
count much on that. If you live in a sink at my age there’s a mighty big
chance you’ll sooner or later join up with the sort of muck you mostly
find in a sink. And the thought scares me.”
The policeman glanced round with twinkling eyes.
“You can always sit around on top. You can breathe good air that way and
enjoy the sunlight.”
The other shrugged.
“An’ risk falling in when it gets you—well asleep. No, George. You were
right first time. I’ll make the break an’ get out of the way of any
chance of—mishap.”
They had reached the square frame building of the police post and paused
at the door.
“There mustn’t be any mishap,” Raymes said smiling up into the earnest
face of the man for whom he felt some sort of responsibility. “Are you
yearning for that office of yours? Or do you feel like wasting an hour
while I talk.”
Bill looked keenly down into the other’s twinkling eyes.
“What’s the game?” he asked with a directness that was almost brusque.
Then he laughed. “But there, I guess I’m mostly ready to listen when
George Raymes fancies talking. It isn’t every oyster that’s full of
pearls. Sure. I’ll be glad of the excuse to dodge the office.”
The superintendent shook his head and his smile passed, leaving his face
set and purposeful.
“Typhoid’s a deal more prevalent in oysters than pearls,” he said
grimly. “Come right in.”
* * * * *
It was a bare, comfortless office, clean scrubbed and dusted but quite
without anything in its furnishing to indicate the superior rank of the
man who used it. It was characteristic, however, of the men whose
ceaseless activities alone contrive that the northern outlands shall
escape the worst riot of human temper. The boarded walls were hung with
files. A small iron safe stood in one corner of the room, and a large
woodstove occupied another. There was a roll-top desk near by the one
window that lit the room, and a plain wooden cupboard stood against the
wall directly behind the chair which Superintendent Raymes occupied.
There were two or three Windsor chairs about the walls, and the only
luxury the room afforded was a large rocker-chair into which Bill Wilder
had sprawled his great body.
On the desk in front of the officer was a musty-looking file of papers.
It was unopened at the moment for the man was contemplating one of
several letters that lay beside it. He was leaning back in his revolving
chair, and a curious, thoughtful look was in his reflective eyes. Bill
Wilder was removing the paper band from the cigar the other had forced
upon him.
Raymes looked up after awhile and sat regarding the man with the cigar.
“So you’re going to sell out, Bill,” he said quietly. “You’re going to
sell out everything, all your interests, and—quit?”
“And make some sort of use of a life that’s creaking with rust in every
blamed joint.”
Bill thrust the cigar into his mouth and prepared to light it.
The other shook his head.
“We mustn’t lose you, Bill. You’re the only feller in this muck hole we
can’t do without. I’m not thinking of Placer City only. I’m thinking of
this great old north country to which—you belong.”
The policeman watched the cloud of smoke which the gold man’s powerful
lungs exhaled. He saw the match extinguish, and followed its flight as
it was flung into the cuspidor which stood beside the stove. He was
thinking hard and wondering. He was not quite sure how best to deal with
the thing he had in his mind.
Bill smiled.
“That’s like you, George,” he said. “If I listened to you, and took you
seriously, I’d guess I’m some feller—with dollars or without. But you’re
right when you say I belong to this old north country. I’d hate quitting
it. I’d hate it bad. If I could locate a real use for myself in it I’d
sooner serve it than any other. And the tougher the service the better
it would make me feel. Gee! I’m soft and flabby like some darn fish
that’s been stewing in the sun.”
“I know.” The policeman forced a laugh. He had made up his mind. “Here,
I’ve a mighty interesting letter come along. It’s from the Fur Valley
Corporation. Do you know ’em? They’ve a big range of trading posts up
an’ down the country. They’ve got one on the Hekor, away up north on the
edge of the Arctic. It’s mainly been a seal trading post, and they
collect sable and fox up that way. This letter says they’re closing it
down. There’s a reason. And they fancied handing it on to me. Do you
feel like taking a read of it? It’s quite short. These folk are business
people without a big imagination so they keep to plain facts.”
Bill reached out and took the proffered letter. It was dated Seattle,
and was clearly from the head office of the company. He glanced at the
signature to it and noted the paper heading. Then he read slowly and
carefully, for he knew that George Raymes had serious reason for handing
it to him.
Dear Sir,
In the ordinary course of business we should not think of
troubling you, a distinguished officer of the incomparable force
to which you belong, with the contents of this letter. Although
it is merely to notify our intention of closing down our trading
post, Fort Cupar, at Fox Bluff, on the Hekor River, which is
within one hundred miles of the Alaskan boundary, there are
reasons lying behind the simple fact such as we feel you, in
your official capacity, will be interested to hear.
Put as briefly as possible these are the reasons.
Fort Cupar at Fox Bluff has been one of our fur-trading posts,
yielding us a very fair harvest of Beaver, Fox, Sable, Seal. Up
to some eighteen years ago we had reason to consider it our most
profitable post. Then came a slump. This came suddenly. And,
according to our factor’s interpretation, it was simply, and
solely due to the appearance of a large band of foreign
poachers, who, without scruple for humanity, or international
honesty, terrorized the Eskimo into passing them their trade at
starvation values, or, if they refused, robbed them with the
utmost violence.
These reports at the time were duly passed on to the
headquarters of the police, and were, I believe, carefully
looked into. But for reasons of which we have no cognizance,
possibly the far inaccessibility of the country, possibly
because these poachers were located on the United States side of
the Alaskan border, possibly under pressure of work in the
various gold regions, which is the primary duty of your
officers, these poachers were permitted to continue their
depredations, which, as far as we can ascertain, involved
amongst other crimes that of almost wholesale murder.
Our concern now is to tell you that for the last fifteen to
eighteen years we have struggled to carry on our post in this
region in the hope that things would ultimately straighten
themselves out, and our trade return to its normal prosperity.
But this has not been the case. Apparently, from our factor’s
reports, the methods of these poachers, who seem to be a race of
Alaskan Eskimo, who are known as the Euralians, have changed
only in process but not in effect. Now they seem to be divided
up into lone bands of marauders, frequently at war with each
other. There seems to be no controlling chief as there was in
years gone by. They operate within the Arctic Circle, and only
amongst the Eskimo of that region. And the one time descents
upon the more southern communities of whites and natives no
longer take place. Meanwhile, however, all trade in the furs we
desire is at an end. Therefore we are reluctantly forced to
close down, and thus another serious blow to the Canadian fur
trade is involved.
I am, Sir,
Yours truly,
For The Fur Valley Corporation
James Steely
General Manager.
Bill looked up from his reading and encountered the searching gaze of
his friend.
“There’s a nasty bite in that ‘brief’,” the policeman smiled.
The gold man nodded seriously.
“Not more than I’d have put in it if I’d been general manager of that
corporation.”
“No. And you’d have been right. That letter’s mighty reasonable, and I’m
with the feller who wrote it.”
Superintendent Raymes turned to his desk and opened the rusty-looking
file that was lying in front of him.
“You know, Bill, that letter got me right away. But I was a bit
helpless. Here, now, you sit right there and smoke that cheap cigar I
pushed at you while I do a talk. I’ve got a yarn to hand you that’ll
maybe set you thinking hard.”
He sat back tilting his chair, and the rusty file lay open on his lap.
The papers it held had lost their pristine whiteness. There were
distinct signs of age in their hues.
“You know I’ve only had charge of Placer City for something like seven
years, and things have been so darned busy since I first got around I
haven’t had a great chance of looking into the remoter things my
predecessor left behind him. Eighteen years of police life is liable to
accumulate a bunch of stories it would take a lifetime reading.
“However,” he went, glancing down at the file, “when I received that
letter I got tremendously busy hunting up old records, and, after nearly
a day’s work I came to the conclusion that I’d opened up one of the
worst stories, and one of the most important, that I’d found in years. I
found story after story of these Euralians. They mostly came from Fort
Cupar at Fox Bluff, but they also came from simple, uneducated trappers,
and from whitemen who adventured northward of here after gold. They came
from all sorts of folk, and one and all corroborated all that that
letter contains besides presenting many lurid pictures of the doings of
these toughs which that letter only hints at.”
He removed several sheets of discoloured foolscap from the file. They
were pinned together.
“I’ve selected this report which is dated fifteen years ago. It comes
from a man named Jim McLeod, and he was factor for the Fur Valley
Corporation at Fort Cupar at that time. It’s one of several reports he
sent down from time to time pointing the conditions of his district, and
giving pretty red-hot accounts of the terror which these Euralians had
created there. But I’m not going to worry you with all that stuff. I’ll
simply tell you that the terror of these folk was very real. That these
marauders were undoubtedly at that time a large well-organised outfit
who had completely succeeded in cleaning up the furs of that region and
were passing them over the Alaskan border into foreign hands.
“This is a long report and I’m not going to read it to you. I’m just
going to hand it you in my own words. It’s a bad story, but it’s full of
an interest that’ll appeal to you. Fifteen years ago there was a swell
sort of missionary feller up at Fox Bluff, a great friend of the man who
wrote this report. His name was Marty Le Gros. He wasn’t a real
churchman, but just a good sort of boy who was yearning to hand help to
the Eskimo and Indians. I gather, at the time this story occurred, he
was a widower with a baby girl of about four years. He also had an
Indian called Usak, and his squaw, working for him about his house. The
squaw was kind of foster-mother to the kid. Well, this report tells how
in chasing over the country visiting his Missions this Le Gros happened
on a most amazing gold ‘strike.’ It doesn’t say how or just where. But
it says that the missionary showed this factor man two chunks of pure
gold, and a bunch of dust that well nigh paralysed him. Le Gros being a
simple sort of feller didn’t worry to keep his news to himself, but
blurted his story broadcast, and I gather the only thing he didn’t tell
about it was the actual whereabouts of the ‘strike.’ Apparently he let
it be understood that Loon Creek was the locality without giving any
exact particulars. This man gives such a brief sketch of this gold
business I sort of feel he wasn’t anxious to say too much. The reason’s
a bit obvious. And anyway I haven’t ever heard of a rush in that
direction. So the news never got around down here. But it seems to have
got to the ears of these Euralian poachers and set them crazy to jump in
on him with both feet.
“Now this is what happened,” Raymes went on, after a brief reflective
pause, while Bill sat still, absorbed in the interest which the magic of
a gold discovery had for him. His cigar had gone out. “Up to that time
the Euralians and their doings were well enough known to these people,
but only by hearsay. These ruffians had never operated as far south-east
as Fox Bluff and Fort Cupar. Well, the missionary was out on the trail
on a visit to some of his Missions with his man, Usak. He arrived at one
of them on the Hekor. It was a settlement of fishing Indians. The whole
camp was burned out, and the old men, and women, and infants had been
butchered to death. Further, from their complete absence, it is supposed
the young men and women had been carried off into captivity for slavery
and harlotry. There was no doubt of its being the work of these
Euralians. The whole thing was characteristic of every known story of
them. Le Gros returned home in a panic.
“He came to McLeod and told him the story of it, and together they
realised that it was merely prelude to something further. They got it
into their heads that it was the Euralian method of embarking on a
campaign to get the secret of Le Gros’ gold discovery. You see? Terror.
They meant to terrorize Le Gros, and I gather they succeeded. But he
meant to fight. You see, he reckoned this ‘strike’ was for his child. He
wanted it for her. Well, these two made it up between them to outwit
these folk. The missionary crossed the river to his home to prepare a
map of his discovery which he was to place in McLeod’s hands for the
benefit of his child and McLeod, in half shares, should anything happen
to him, Le Gros. Something did happen. It happened the same night.
Apparently before the map could be drawn. Sure enough the Euralians
descended on the missionary’s house. They killed Le Gros, and they
killed the squaw foster-mother. The Indian, Usak, was away from home and
so escaped. The child was left alive, flung into an adjacent bluff, and
the whole place was burned to the ground. That’s the story in brief. I
daresay there’s a heap more to it, but it’s not in that report, and it’s
not in subsequent reports, or in other records of my predecessor.
“It would seem that this boy, McLeod, died about eight years after all
this happened and was succeeded by another factor for his company. In
the meantime my predecessor had sent a patrol up to investigate. The
only result of this investigation was a complete corroboration of
McLeod’s report, with practically nothing added to it beyond an urgent
report on the necessity for definite international action on the subject
of these Euralians who came in from Alaska. After that the thing seems
to have passed out of my predecessor’s hands. It seems it was taken up
by Ottawa with the usual result—pigeon-holed. Does it get you? There it
is, a great gold discovery, somewhere up there on the Hekor, I suppose,
and the mystery of this people filching our trade through a process of
outrageous crime. Somewhere up there there’s a girl-child, white—she’d
be about nineteen or twenty now—lost to the white world to which she
belongs. But above all, from my point of view, there’s a problem. Who
are these Euralians, and what becomes of the wealth of furs they steal?
Remember they were at one time at least an _organised_ outfit.” The
policeman replaced the file on his desk and returned the report to its
place. And the pre-occupation he displayed was a plain index of the
depth of interest he had in the problem which had presented itself to
his searching mind. Bill Wilder struck a match and re-lit his cigar.
“That’s a story of the country I know and love,” he said quietly. “It’s
a story of the real Northland. Not the story of one of these muck-holes
which are like boils in the face of civilization. I guess you haven’t
passed me the whole thing you’ve got in your mind, George.”
“No.”
The policeman swung round in his chair and faced the clear gazing grey
eyes of the man whose enormous wealth had still left him the youthful
enthusiasm for the battle of the strong which had first driven him to
the outlands of the North.
“Will you pass me the—rest?”
Bill smiled.
“Sure I will, if you’ve nothing to ask, nothing to comment on that
story.”
“It’ll keep. Maybe I’ll have a whole big heap to talk when you’re
through with your—proposition.”
Raymes nodded. He, too, was smiling. He spread out his hands.
“You want to quit. You want to sell out and pass on where you can make
some use of the life that’s creaking with rust in every joint. Well,
it’s easy. Don’t quit. Don’t sell out. Take a trip north where there’s a
big ‘strike’ waiting on a feller with a nose for gold. Where there’s a
mighty big mystery to be cleaned up, and the hard justice of this iron
country to be handed out to a crowd of devils who’ve battened on its
wealth and are sucking the life out of its vitals. Is it good enough?
You’ll be able to forget the dollars you’re forced to count daily in
this city. You’ll lose sight of the Feldman crowd and the brothels they
set going to hand them a stake. It’s the open, where God’s pure air’s
blowing. Where there’s room for you to move, and breathe, and live, and
where you can hit mighty hard when the mood takes you, and you can feel
good all over that you’re doing something for the country you like best.
This thing’s my job, but I haven’t the troops or time to fix it the way
I should. I’m so crowded to the square inch I don’t know how to breathe
right. I haven’t any sort of right offering you this thing. I know that,
and I guess you’re wise it’s so. But it don’t matter. I do offer it to
you, Bill, and it’s because I know you. I offer it you because you’re
the feller to put it through, and because you’re a feller we can’t
afford to lose out of our territory. Well?”
The police officer’s manner had become seriously earnest, and the other
remained silent for some moments buried in deep thought. George Raymes
waited. He watched for the passing of the gold man’s deep consideration.
He understood that the thing he required of him was no light task and
looked like involving a tremendous sacrifice.
At last Bill’s cigar stump was flung into the cuspidor, and the
policeman realised that a decision had been arrived at. The gold man
looked up, and a whimsical smile lit his clear eyes.
“If I was crazy enough to take a holt on this thing I don’t just
see—I’ve no authority. I’m no policeman. I’m just a bum civilian without
police training. You boys are red-hot on the trail of crime. It’s your
job, and I guess there’s no folk in the world better at it. But—”
“You’ve forgotten,” Raymes broke in. “There’s the trail of a gold
‘strike’ in this. And Bill Wilder’s got the whole country beaten a mile
on a trail of that nature. Make that ‘strike’ an’ I guess you’ll locate
the rest in the process. I’m asking for that from you.”
Wilder laughed. It was the clear, ringing laugh of the youth he really
was. It was a laugh of appreciation at the simple tactics of his friend.
It was a laugh of rising enthusiasm.
“But the authority,” he protested.
Raymes took him up on the instant.
“I have power to enrol ‘specials.’”
The other’s grey eyes lit. Again his laugh rang out. “Yes. I forgot. Of
course you can enrol ‘specials.’” Suddenly he sprang from the depths of
the rocker, and left it violently disturbed. He stood erect, bulking
largely, and a flush of excitement dyed his weather-stained cheeks. “Of
course you can,” he cried. “Yes. I’ll get after it. A gold trail! A
bunch of toughs! A girl—a white girl! Ye Gods! I’m after it. You can
swear me in on any old thing from a Bible to a harvester. That’s all I
need. I’ll find my own outfit, and I’ll get busy right away and collect
up my old partner Chilcoot Massy. I’ll get right off now down to my
office and start fixing things, and I’ll be back again after supper
to-night. But I warn you you’ll need to answer a hundred mighty tiresome
questions, and pass me all the literature you’ve collected on this
subject when I come back. Say, the gold trail again! I’m just tickled to
death.”