THE GREAT SAVAGE
Usak stood up from the camp fire that was more than welcome. He stood
with his broad back to the shelter of low scrub to leeward of which the
midday camp had been pitched, and gazed out over a wide expanse of
barren, windswept country. The threat overhanging the grey world was
very real. Winter was in the dense, ponderously moving clouds; it was in
the bite of the northerly wind, which was persistent and found the weak
spot in such human clothing as had not yet given place to the furs of
winter. The light of noonday, too, was sadly dull. For the hidden sun
had lost so much of its summer power, and its range of daily progress
had narrowed down to a line that was low on the horizon.
But the savage was unconcerned for the outlook of the day. He was
unconcerned for the sterile territory over which his long summer journey
had carried him. The man’s whole being was focussed upon the needs of
life. The needs of those who depended on him. The needs which were no
less his own. And for once a sense of satisfaction, of ease, was
all-pervading. His trade had been something more profitable than it had
been for years, and he understood that the needs of the coming winter,
and next year’s open season, looked like being comfortably provided for.
Oh, yes, there was much labour ahead.
His trade must be translated into the simple provisions which must
ultimately be obtained in far-off Placer. He knew all that. But it left
his staunch, fierce spirit unafraid. The means of obtaining the things
needed were in his hands. The rest was the simple battle with the winter
elements which had no terrors for his unimaginative mind.
It was the last lap of a journey of several months. Night would find him
in the shelter of his own home, with the voices of the white children,
who had become so much a part of his life, ringing in his ears. And
before he slept he knew that he would have witnessed the glad smile of
welcome and satisfaction in the white girl who was as the sun, moon, and
stars of his life. He would have told her of his good news, and together
they would have examined and appraised the values with which he had
returned from the far-off Eskimo camps which good fortune had flung into
his path.
So the grey world looked good. Even the naked undulations amongst which
the ribbon-like river wound its way had lost something of their
forbidding aspect. It was the world he knew, the world he had battled
with all his manhood. His satisfaction had translated it.
He stood for a moment or two, a figure of splendid manhood. His
far-gazing eyes looked out with something in them akin to that which
looks out of the sailor-man’s eyes. They were searching, reposeful and
steady with quiet confidence.
He turned at last at the sounds of movement at the fire, and, for a
moment, he watched the white youth, who was his companion, as he
collected the chattels out of which they had taken their midday meal.
Then he moved quickly to the boy’s side and took the pan and camp kettle
from his hands. And his actions were accompanied by a swift protest in a
voice that rarely softened.
“Him Injun work,” he said gruffly. And the manner of it left no doubt as
to the definite understanding of their relations. It was the man’s
fierce pride that his mission was to serve the white folk entrusted to
his care.
Clarence yielded, but his thin cheeks flushed. Then he laughed but
without mirth. He was a strapping youth of unusual physique. At sixteen
he was all the man his mother claimed for him, for somehow the hardship
of the trail had eaten into his youthful character and robbed it of the
boyhood his years should have made his. He was serious, completely
serious, and his freckled face and brown eyes looked something weary of
the labour thus early flung on him.
“It’s most always that way, Usak,” he grumbled sharply. “Nothin’s my
work you’ve got time to do.”
The Indian made no reply. He moved quickly over to the three great
caribou, standing ready for the trail, harnessed to their long, trailing
carryalls. They were fine, powerful bucks, long-trained to the work, and
their widespreading, downy antlers, now in full growth and almost ready
for their annual shedding, indicated their tally of years in the service
of the northern trail. He bestowed the gear in its allotted place in the
outfit and returned to the fire.
For a few moments he held out his brown hands to the warming embers,
squatting low on his haunches. Then he turned to the boy. His reply to
the youth’s challenge had been carefully considered.
“What you mak him this word?” he said, in his harsh way. “You my white
boss I lak him mak work for. It good. Oh, yes. Someday it come you grow
big white man lak to the good boss, Marty. I know. Then you think ’em
this dam Injun no good. Him mak white boy-work for him. No good. I,
whiteman, no work for Injun man. Oh no.” His black eyes smiled, and his
smile had no more softness in it than his frown. “I tell you,” he went
on. “_I_ think much big think. You mak big trail man bimeby. Bimeby Usak
die dead. Maybe he get kill ’em all up on winter trail. Who knows? Then
he think much for him Kid. He think much for him white-mother, Hesther.
Him say, Usak all dead. No matter. Him Clarence big fine trail man. Him
mak good all thing Usak no more do. So Usak not care the big spirit tak
him. So. Whiteman tell Injun all time work. It so. The good boss, Marty,
speak so. Injun man no good, never.”
Clarence turned quickly. He, too, was squatting over the welcome fire. A
sharp retort was on his lips. He knew that the Indian was his master on
the trail. He knew that the man was almost superhuman in his ability. He
knew that the man’s desire was just as he said. But somehow the spirit
in him refused to accept the other’s self-abnegation. Usak was his
teacher, not his servant. And somehow he felt there was no right, no
justice, for all the difference in colour, that this creature should so
humble himself by reason of that absurd difference.
But his lips closed again without a spoken word. He was held silent
under the sway of the man’s powerful influence. And so, as it was
always, Usak had his way.
After a moment the white youth accepted the position thrust on him.
“We best pull out?” he said almost diffidently.
The Indian nodded. Then his dark eyes smiled again, and his powerful
hands rubbed themselves together over the luxurious warmth.
“_I_ wait for that,” he said quietly. “You my boss. My good white boss.
Same lak the white-girl, Kid, an’ the good Marty. Sure we pull out. We
mak him the farm this night. It good. Much good.”
He rose to his full height without effort, and turned at once to the
waiting caribou.
* * * * *
The night was dark but the burden of cloud had completely dispersed. In
its place was a velvet sky studded with myriads of starry jewels. Then
away to the north the world was lit by a shadowy movement of northern
lights. The night was typical of the fall of the northern year, chill,
still, haunted, for all its perfect calm, by the fierce threat of the
approach of winter.
The ice-cold waters of the river lay behind the outfit. They had just
crossed the shallow ford where the stream played boisterously over the
boulder-strewn gravel bed. The labouring caribou were moving slowly up
the gentle incline of lichen-covered foreshore. And the Indian on the
lead, and the white youth trailing behind the last of the three beasts
of burden, knew that in less than two hours the last eight miles or so
of their summer-long journey would be accomplished.
Usak dropped back from his lead and permitted the caribou to pass him,
and took his place beside the leg-weary youth. For some time they paced
on in silence each absorbed in his own thought.
It was a great looking forward for both. Both were contemplating that
modest home they were approaching with feelings of something more than
content. Clarence was yearning for the boisterous companionship of his
brothers and sisters. The boy in him was crying out for the youth which
the rigours of the northern trail had so long denied him. The ramshackle
habitation which was his home possessed for him just now a splendour of
comfort, and ease, and delight such as only a starving imagination could
create about it. He was heart-sick and bodily weary with the
interminable labour which the long trail demanded.
With the Indian it was different. The joy of return for him had no
relation to any weariness of body or spirit. He was contemplating only
the good news which was carefully packed up on the primitive carryalls
to which the caribou were harnessed, and the happiness he looked to see
shining in the eyes of the whitewoman it was his mission to serve.
It was out of this spirit of happy satisfaction he had abandoned his
place at the head of the outfit, and dropped abreast of his white
companion. For once in his life it was his desire to talk. And the
inspiration came from the fulness of his savage heart.
“The white mother much glad bimeby,” he said, in his curious halting
fashion.
Clarence nodded. He paused a moment and ran his strong hands down the
legs of his buckskin nether garments. The ice cold water of the river
was partially squeezed out of them, but they remained saturated and
chilly to the sturdy legs they covered.
“Sure,” he said in brief agreement.
“I think much,” Usak went on. “This winter trail. You mak him with me?
Him Kid much good trail man. Plenty big white heart. She mak ’em good,
yes. But she much soft white woman. Winter trail him hard. Placer long
piece far. It no good. No. Clarence big trail man now. Snow. Ice. Storm.
It nothing to big trail man Clarence—now. You come mak him with Usak?
Then him Kid sleep good by the farm. All time much warm. All time much
eat good. Yes?”
The boy looked up into the darkly shadowed face in the starlit night as
they walked rapidly behind the great deer who were hurrying towards the
homestead which they knew lay ahead. For all his weariness a great pride
uplifted the youth. The desperate winter trail. The long trail which
hitherto had been steadily denied him by reason of his youth and lacking
experience. Usak had bid him face it. The vanity of the youth flamed up
in him.
“You mean that, Usak?” he demanded sharply. And the Indian realised the
tone.
“The winter trail for big man,” he said, subtly.
“Yes.”
Clarence drew a deep breath. Then after a moment he went on. And again
the Indian recognised and approved the new tone that rang in his voice.
“That goes, Usak,” he said. Then with sudden passionate energy: “I’m no
kid now,” he cried. “The winter trail I guess needs menfolk, not women
or kids. I’m with you, sure. And I play my hand right through. Say, I
go, but I go right. Ther’s goin’ to be no play. The work that’s yours is
yours. The work that’s mine’s mine. An’ I don’t let any feller do my
work on the trail. Not even you. Does that go? Say it right here an’
now.”
The smile that changed the Indian’s expression so little was there under
cover of the shadows of night.
“Him go all time, sure. You big boss whiteman mak him trade by Placer.
You say all time the thing we do. Oh, yes. That’s so. Usak—Sho!”
The man broke off and his final exclamation had in it the curious hiss
so indicative of a mind started profoundly and unpleasantly. He had
halted on the summit of a high ground roller and stood pointing out
ahead, somewhere on the opposite shore of the river where the twinkling
lights of camp fires were burning brightly. He stood awhile in deep,
concentrated contemplation, and his arm remained out-flung for his
companion’s benefit Clarence, too, was gazing at the amazing sight of
the twinkling, distant camp fires.
The same thought was in the mind of each. But it was the uncompromising
spirit of the savage that first gave it expression.
“Euralian!” he said, in a tone of devastating hatred.
Instantly the youth in the other cried out.
“Mum! She’s alone with the kids!”
* * * * *
Bill Wilder kicked the embers of the fire together. Then he leant over
to the driftwood stack and clawed several sticks from the pile. He flung
them on the fire and watched the stream of sparks fly upward on the
still night air.
It was the second night of camping on the gravel flats of the Caribou
River, and the last brief hour before seeking the fur-lined bags in
which the northern man is wont to sleep. Chilcoot and Wilder were
squatting side by side, Indian fashion, over the camp fire burning
adjacent to the tent they shared with the Irishman. And the latter faced
them beyond the fire, sprawled on the ground baked hard by the now
departed summer heat.
Talk had died out. These men rarely wasted words. They had long since
developed the silent habit which the northern solitudes so surely breed.
But even so, for once there was a sense of restraint in their silent
companionship. It was a restraint which arose from a sense of grievance
on the part of both Chilcoot and the Irishman. And it had developed from
the moment of quitting the mysterious habitation in the western hills.
The facts were simple enough from their point of view. Both the Irishman
and Chilcoot had been left in complete ignorance of their leader’s
adventures during his long night vigil in the deserted house. He had
returned to them only to order a hurried departure, and had definitely
avoided explanations in response to their eager inquiries by evasive
generalisations.
“I just don’t get the meaning of anything, anyway,” he had declared,
with a shake of the head. “Ther’s some queer secret to that shanty the
folks who own it don’t reckon to hand out. If we’d the time to pass on
up the creek maybe we’d locate the meaning of things. But we haven’t and
seemingly that darn house is empty, and there isn’t a thing to it to
tell us anything. No,” he said, “I’ve passed a long night in it and
taken chances I don’t usually reckon to take, and I’ve quit it feeling
like a feller who’s got through with a nightmare, an’ wonders what in
hell he’s eaten to give it him. I’m sick to death chasing ghosts, and
mean to quit right here. We’ll just need to report to our superiors,” he
smiled, “an’ leave ’em to investigate. Meanwhile we’ll get right on
after the stuff which seems to me to lie in one direction, and that’s
the location where the dead missioner worked around. We’ll beat it down
to the Caribou River for a last fling, and after that Placer’s the best
thing I know.”
Chilcoot who understood his friend through long years of experience and
association was by no means deceived. But his loyalty was the strongest
part of him. He read behind the man’s words. He saw and appreciated the
suggestion of excitement lying at the back of Wilder’s smiling eyes, and
understood that the claimed unproductiveness of the night’s vigil was
sheer subterfuge. Furthermore he realised that the hurriedly ordered
departure had been inspired by the events of the night. But he attempted
no further question. And even aided his friend in denying the torrent of
questioning which the Irishman did not scruple to pour out.
Mike’s reminders of the obvious oil and coal wealth of the black,
mysterious hills, and the queer soil of the whole region, left Wilder
unmoved. He agreed simply. But he dismissed the whole proposition as
being outside anything but the range of their natural curiosity. He
reminded the persistent creature that the territory was Alaskan, and
they were for the time being debarred from further investigation through
being enrolled officers of the Canadian Police.
So he had had his way and the eastward journey was embarked upon. And as
the waters of the oily creek passed away behind them, and the queer Fire
Hills dropped back into the distance he hugged his secrets of the night
to himself for the purpose of using them in the fashion he had already
designed. Thus his companions were left puzzled and dissatisfied.
All the way down the great waterway of the Hekor, Wilder had pondered
the position in which he found himself and the events which had led up
to it. The figures of the blinded Japanese and his little wife haunted
him. Then there was that carefully detailed chart which showed the
locality of the dead missionary’s discovery to be on the Caribou River.
And the thought of the Caribou had brought again into the forefront of
his vision the memory of the fair young white girl who had passed him up
the rapids which churned about its mouth, and with her parting farewell,
had flung her invitation at him to that home which was ten miles up from
the junction of the two rivers.
The memory of the Kid had been with him ever since he had first gazed
down into her wonderful blue eyes, and had realised the perfect rounded
figure of her womanhood under her mannish garb. He had always remembered
those peeping golden strands of hair, which, despite her best effort to
conceal them, never failed to escape from under the fur cap which was so
closely drawn down over her shapely head. Then her wonderful skill on
the water, her confidence and her pride in her achievement. He needed
nothing beyond those things. The girl had held him fascinated. She had
set all the youth in him afire. And now—now the wonder of it. The
chances of those remote hills had sent him racing down towards her home
full of a dream that surged through his senses with all the pristine
fire of his hitherto unstirred manhood.
He was thinking of her now. He was thinking of his visit to her home
that very noonday, the first of his arrival upon the river. As he sat
over the fire silently contemplating the depth of its ruddy heart with
calm unsmiling eyes, a passionate desire was stirring within him. Since
the moment of return to his camp on the gravel flats, with the picture
of that happy, unkempt home full of sturdy young life haunting him, he
had been concerned only for the sweet, blue, smiling eyes of the girl of
the northern wild.
He had heard the story of the courageous mother. He had heard the girl’s
story from her own pretty lips as they had walked, to the bank of the
river where he had left his canoe moored. And he had been filled with
only the greater admiration for the simple strength and courage with
which these devoted souls had embarked upon their tremendous struggle
for existence.
At last he knocked out his charred pipe and thrust it away into a
pocket. Again his hands were outspread to the blaze, but now his eyes
were directed to the red-headed creature beyond the fire. Wilder
suddenly cleared his throat. He began to speak, addressing himself to
the Irishman. And Chilcoot looked round from his contemplation of the
fire.
“You boys best listen awhile while I make a talk.” Wilder’s manner was
quiet enough, but there was that in his tone which impressed his
companions. “You’ve maybe both got a grouch on me. And I’ll admit I’d
feel the same if I were you. You’re both of you guessing all sorts of
bad med’cine about that business back there in the hills. You’re
reckoning I got visions I haven’t figured to pass on to you. Well, I
sort of feel like clearing things up some—I mean that old grouch.”
His eyes began to smile and he turned to the older man beside him and
shook his head.
“No,” he went on, “I’m not going to say a word about that night I passed
in that darn place. I’m just going to ask you boys to sort of forget it,
and forget your grouch. You just got to trust me same as you’ve done
right along, and maybe later, I’ll be able to hand you the story as I
know it. You, Chilcoot, know me, and I guess you’ll act that way without
a kick. It’ll be harder for Mike, who hasn’t worked with me the years
you have. Still, maybe I can make it easy even for him.”
He thrust out a foot and kicked the fire together while the two men
maintained their silent regard.
“The thing I’ve to talk about is the thing we got to do right here,” he
went on. “I’ve got it planned, and I want to hand you the schedule of
it. We’ve drawn a bad run of blanks for the stuff we’ve been chasing for
the past year, but the run’s ended. The stuff’s in sight. It’s right
here on these mud flats, for all the notion’ll seem plumb crazy to you
boys.”
The Irishman stirred and sat up.
“Ther’s gold on this darn—creek?” he cried incredulously.
“There surely is.”
Wilder’s tone had suddenly hardened.
“How’d you know that?”
Quick as a flash came the red-headed man’s question.
Wilder’s eyes responded coldly to the challenge. He shook his head.
“Ther’s no reason for me to hand you that, Mike,” he said sharply.
“Ther’s no reason for me to hand you a word that way. You signed a
partnership in this layout, with me to lead without question. The thing
that concerns you is the stuff. Here. You don’t believe that stuff is on
this creek. That’s so. I say it is. Our partnership doesn’t quit till
fall next year. Well, I guess I’m not yearning to hand you presents.
Guess you haven’t found it my way—”
“No.”
Mike grinned as he punctuated the other’s remark.
“Just so,” Wilder nodded. “That being so it’ll make you appreciate the
thing I’ll hand you now. I’ll pass you a bank draft for haf a million
dollars the day we set foot in Placer if we haven’t located that
missioner’s ‘strike’ somewhere along this mud-bottomed creek. An’ I’ll
call Chilcoot to witness that goes.”
The two men gazed eye to eye through the haze of smoke. Mike made no
movement, but a look of almost foolish doubt was in his mute regard of
the man who made his amazing offer. It was different with Chilcoot. He
turned almost with a jump.
“Say, you’re crazy, Bill,” he protested.
“I’m not,” Wilder snapped, while his gaze remained steadily fixed on the
face of the man beyond the fire. “Does it go, Mike?” he asked. “And does
it cut out your kick? That’s the thing I’m looking for. You get the
thing we’re looking for under my leadership, or I hand you haf a million
dollars a present. Well?”
The Irishman raised a hand and thrust his fur cap back from his
forehead. His amazement was almost ludicrous.
“Chilcoot’s right,” he blurted at last.
“He isn’t.”
“You—mean that?”
“Sure.”
The Irishman suddenly broke into a laugh of derision. “Well,” he cried,
“Chilcoot’s witness.” Then he flung up his hands. “Say, I haven’t any
sort of kick left in me. I don’t care a curse if you passed the night in
that darnation shanty with an army of murderin’ spooks. Gee! Haf a
million dollars. I’d hate to death a sight of that missioner’s ‘strike’
between now an’ next fall. Hand out your dope, Bill. You’re boss of this
layout. Haf a million! Gee!”
Wilder nodded. He turned at once to Chilcoot. He shook his head with
quiet confidence.
“I’m not crazy, boy,” he cried, in a tone of pleasant tolerance. “Do you
mind our ‘strike’ back there on Eighty-mile in those days when we were
worried keeping our bellies from rattling against our backbones? Get a
look into this darn swamp and think back. It’s twin to Eighty-mile. The
formation is like as two beans. The same mud, an’ granite, with the same
queer breaks of red gravel miles on a stretch. Ther’s that. But ther’s
more. That missioner lived right on this creek. It was his home country.
And he wasn’t the boy to chase around on a prospect. If he made a
‘strike’ it was on home territory that was always under his eye. And
you’ll mind he never mentioned Caribou in his yarns. He said Loon Creek,
which is far enough to keep prying eyes from getting around the real
location. Maybe he was wise for all they beat him. There it is anyway.
I’ve got a mighty hunch for this creek.”
He turned again to the fire, and thrust out his hands.
“An’ you reckon to stake a haf million on your notion?” Chilcoot cried
uneasily.
“I’ll play my luck.” Wilder nodded. “I’ll go further. I know the stuff
is here.”
“You know that?” Mike broke in.
“I surely do.”
“You reckon you ken set your finger on it?”
“More or less.”
The man with the flaming head suddenly sprang to his feet.
“More or—less!” he cried almost contemptuously in his headlong way.
Wilder remained unmoved.
“Here,” he said quietly spreading out his hand in an expressive gesture,
“we only got a matter of weeks to the freeze-up. We’re liable to snow
any day now, and every night ther’s frost. In awhile the ground’ll be
solid so we can’t break into it without more dynamite than we got
stowed. That being so, here’s the schedule. You, Mike, now you feel good
about it, ’ll need to beat up stream and locate prospect ground for next
spring. You’ll use the whole outfit and you’ll locate camp ground.
That’s your billet till the freeze-up, and you’ll need to make right up
to the head waters. Chilcoot and I’ll beat our own trail. An’ don’t
forget it, boy, Chilcoot’s witness ther’s haf a million for you if we
don’t make that ‘strike.’ Does it tickle you any?”
“Just plumb to death, chief.”
The Irishman was grinning from the roots of his flaming hair to a neck
that was none too clean. The last shadow of his discontent had vanished
from his expressive eyes. And even Chilcoot was smiling in his slow
fashion.
“That’s good,” said Wilder. “Guess we can roll into our—Hello! What
the—?”
He sat peering out down the river bank with a hand shading his eyes from
the firelight. Chilcoot too had turned searching into the night. The
Irishman, standing, was in possession of the better view.
“It’s two fellers comin’ up from the river,” he said. “An’ they got a
small kyak drawn up on the shore.”
* * * * *
The gathering about Wilder’s camp fire had been augmented. Five men sat
about it where before there had only been three. Of the newcomers one
was a white youth and the other was an Indian, who left Wilder’s stature
no more than ordinary. The newcomers were squatting on the river side of
the fire, slightly apart from the others. And they sat side by side,
closely, as though there remained a definite barrier of antagonism
between them and the strangers they had found on the river.
Usak sat with his long old rifle laid across his knees. Clarence was
armed, too, but his weapon was in the nature of a more modern sporting
rifle. Of the gold men one at least realised the personality of these
visitors in the night.
There had been no greeting. The Indian and his companion had approached
watchfully. They had reached the fire without a word. But their eyes had
been busy, and their minds full of searching questions. Forthwith they
had squatted. But only on their recognition that their hosts were
whitemen.
It was Wilder who broke up the strained silence. The moment the flame of
fire had lit up the white youth’s face recognition had been instant. The
likeness in it to the faces of those brothers and sisters he had
encountered that noonday left the identity of both him and his dusky
companion beyond question.
“You are Clarence,” he said, with quiet friendliness. Then his gaze
rested thoughtfully upon the inscrutable eyes, and harshly moulded
features of the Indian. “And you are Usak.”
It was the white youth who replied. He nodded while the Indian sat
searching the whitemen’s faces with a gaze that was almost lost in eyes
narrowed down to the merest slits.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“Gold men on the trail. My name’s Wilder. Bill Wilder.”
The Indian raised one arm and indicated the others.
“Him men, too? What you call ’em?”
His young white boss having answered the first question Usak had no
scruple but to take up the rest of the matter himself.
“Chilcoot Massy and Red Mike Partners with me. And we come from Placer.”
Wilder’s ready reply was in studied friendliness. But his keen eyes
searched the Indian’s face, which was completely expressionless. The
dusky face had neither friendliness nor antagonism. Yet it was potential
for either under the harsh mask which Nature had set upon it.
Chilcoot and Mike left the situation in the hands of their chief, and
simply sat waiting and curious. The white boy afforded them little
concern. It was the Indian, with his grim manner, and his long,
old-fashioned rifle that claimed their whole attention, as it did their
chief’s.
But Wilder was studying the man out of his knowledge of his malevolent
reputation. He knew he was confronting the dreaded creature who had
perpetrated his terrible vengeance upon those two people he had
encountered at the house in the hills. He knew it at once when he
recognised Clarence as one of the family he had visited that noonday.
And he was anxious to discover the impression his presence on the river
made upon the man.
He had not long to wait.
“You gold men,” Usak said, in a tone that was deep-throated and full of
the latent savage in him. “You come for gold? You come to Caribou.” He
shook his head, and his eyes suddenly opened wide, and their black
depths were full of that fierce resentment which was to be feared like a
cyclonic storm. “I tell you no!” he cried hotly. “Caribou is not for
whiteman gold man. No. It is for the white girl the good boss Marty
leave to the care of Usak. Him all mans quit Caribou quick. I say him.
I—Usak. You’m go quick as you come. You not go, then all mans get kill
up dead. It so. Him no gold on Caribou, an’ Caribou him for my good
white-girl boss, Kid.”
With his last word the man stood erect and his movement was without any
apparent effort. He stood a creature of mighty stature grasping a long
rifle that was dwarfed beside him. He deliberately spat in the fire and
turned away. Then it was, for the first time, he experienced the
authority he had forced on his white companion’s shoulders. Clarence,
too, had risen, but he did not turn away.
“Say, Usak, just stop right here,” he ordered sharply.
The Indian was startled. He turned again and waited at the boy’s
bidding, while his passionate eyes narrowed on the instant.
Clarence gave him no time to speak. He passed round the fire to Wilder
and thrust out a welcoming hand.
“I’m glad to meet you, sir,” he said, with an amiable boyish smile.
“Guess _I’m_ only a kid, but I can speak for my mother an’ the Kid. You
see, Usak’s our guardian around here. He’s the best thing to us that was
ever put into an Indian’s body. But he reckons this river and all the
territory around it belongs to my mother an’ the Kid, an’ hates the
sight of folks he thinks likely to do us hurt. You get that? But he
don’t quite understand things between whitefolk. I’m glad to welcome you
to our country, an’ I’ll be glad to welcome you by our home down the
river. And I guess Mum, and the Kid’ll feel that way, too. Maybe you’ll
forget Usak spat into your fire.”
Wilder took the boy’s hand in a powerful grip, and smiled up into his
ingenuous tired face.
“Why, sure,” he cried. “You don’t need to say another word. I’ve been
along this morning to pay my respects to your splendid mother, and
your—Kid. And seeing I’m located on this river of yours for the next
year, why, I’m hoping I’ll see a deal of you all. My friends here feel
that way, too. We’re not pirates come to steal anything you reckon is
yours, or to hand you a moment’s worry. That goes, an’ I guess your
mother’ll tell you the same.”
The boy stood for a moment a little overwhelmed by the easy, friendly
manner of the stranger. And in his confusion at his impulsive assertion
of authority over the Indian he resorted to the only thing his wit
suggested. He took refuge in a swift withdrawal.
“Thank you, sir,” he said lamely. “I guess we’ll get right on home. You
see, we’re just in off a summer trail.” He turned away and looked
squarely into the Indian’s face. “We’ll beat it home, Usak,” he said
shortly.
* * * * *
They watched the shadowy figures in silence as they passed down the
river bank and were swallowed up by the shadows of the chilly night.
Red Mike turned and grinned at his companions through the haze of smoke.
“That boy’s chock full of real sand,” he said with appreciation.
Chilcoot rubbed his gnarled hands.
“I’d sooner be up against the worst Euralian ever bred than that darn
redskin,” he said meditatively.
Wilder nodded and extended his hands over the fire.
“Yes,” he said, regarding the fire with serious eyes. “Or a whole darn
legion of ’em.”