Hugh Gaspard rose next morning with his mind set upon the accomplishment
of his tasks. First he must finish his picture, and then he must get
that Indian woman away from the country. Both of these things must be
done and done today. Before all else he must finish the picture, because
it had gripped him and he could not escape from it, but chiefly because
he was somehow conscious of an overmastering eagerness to do what he
knew would bring to his wife’s face that look of joy and pride in him
which during the last twenty-four hours had become intensely desirable.
It was as if he had a foreboding that for him that look might never
appear again.
The morning hours his wife spent in bed, hearing Paul’s lessons. Through
the open doors of her bedroom and his studio he could hear their voices,
the high, clear, eager, questioning voice of the boy and the gentle
tones of the mother in reply. Coming into the living room for a fresh
supply of tobacco, he heard the boy reciting the Catechism which was
always the first lesson in the morning.
“Every sin _a_serveth God’s wrath and curse, both in this life and that
which is _a_come——”
“_To_ come, dear,” corrected the mother.
“To come,” repeated Paul. “Does that mean in hell, Mother?” the clear,
high voice demanded cheerfully.
There was a pause, then, “Yes, dear. Now say it again, ‘What does every
sin deserve?’” The answer was given with fair correctness.
“But God doesn’t ever send any one to hell, Mother, does He? Asa Sleeman
says it’s a fire worse’n the lime kiln—an’ He wouldn’t do that, would
He? He couldn’t, you know.”
“What makes you think so, dear?” asked the mother anxiously. The man
listened, breathless.
“Because no one would ever sin more’n four hundred and ninety times a
day, would he? An’ that means in half a day, because he sleeps almost
half a day, and that would be four hundred and ninety times in half a
day.”
“What in the world do you mean, Paul? Four hundred and ninety times?”
“Why, Mother, don’t you remember what Jesus said to the _a_sciples?”
Paul had difficulty with his dental and other initial consonants.
“What was that? I forget,” replied the bewildered mother.
“Oh, Mother, I didn’t _a_ppose you would forget that—our very last
lesson.”
“Read it to me, Paul,” said the gentle voice.
“Here it is, Mother,” cried the boy. The father could hear him turning
the leaves of the big Bible. “Then came Peter and said to Him, Lord, how
oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven
times? Jesus said unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but,
Until seventy times seven.’ There, Mother—‘Seventy times seven,’ four
hundred and ninety times,” cried the boy triumphantly. “And everybody is
sorry some time for his sins, isn’t he? Anyway, He said four hundred and
ninety times, so that’s all right. Four hundred and ninety times in one
day; that’s from seven to seven, _a_cause he couldn’t sin in his sleep,
Mother. So I guess He’d just forgive the very worstest man in the whole
world, wouldn’t He, Mother?”
“Yes, dear, I believe he would.” There was a note of joyous relief in
her voice. She had escaped once more from another of those terrible
theological dilemmas into which her eager young son was so frequently
forcing her.
“I know He would _a_cause you would me. Mother, would you, four hundred
and ninety times in one day?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Five hundred times?”
“Yes, dear.”
“A thousand million times?”
“Yes, dear, you know I would.”
“An’ God’s just as good as you, Mother, isn’t He?”
“Oh, my dear, don’t say that. I am not good.”
“You are, Mother,” shouted the boy indignantly. “You’re just as good as
God.”
“Hush, dear, hush! Don’t speak like that. God is perfect, you know. No!
No! Don’t say that again.”
“All right, Mother, but I know all the same. Anyway, seventy times seven
is four hundred and ninety.”
“Yes, my boy, always remember that as long as you live. And whatever you
do or whatever happens, remember that.”
“Sure thing! Certainly, I mean, Mother,” cried the boy, hastily
correcting his form of speech at the look in his mother’s face. “Seventy
times seven is four hundred and ninety, anyway.”
The man in the living room picked up the tobacco pouch and retreated
softly to his studio. “Seventy times seven—sure thing.” The words rang
like a bell in his soul. Even if she did come to know, perhaps she too
would forgive. He found himself passionately agreeing with the boy.
“You’re just as good as God,” in spite of the blasphemy of it. He went
at his work again, closing the door behind him. Somehow the colours were
brighter, the light effects more striking, though well he knew that in
the background of his mind, as in his picture, there were those deep
shadows that no light could pierce. He knew there was hell. He had had a
look into its lurid depths within the last twenty-four hours, and he was
haunted by the terror that he might know something more of it before
long. But “four hundred and ninety times! Seventy times seven! A
thousand million times!” Yes, for her innocent little boy. But for him?
Still, seventy times seven was four hundred and ninety. He must finish
that picture today, and at his work he went with furious zeal. He had
never done such good work, and he had come to the finishing touches. He
heard Paul planning with his mother for a ride down the valley, perhaps
the following day. His heart rose in new hope. She would be well again.
But at the very earliest moment he would take her away to the best
doctor at Home that money could command. Could she bear the long
journey—nearly four thousand miles by land and three thousand by sea?
There was that very clever Old Country surgeon in Vancouver everybody
was speaking of. Why had he never thought of him? His mind had always
gone to the great surgeons of the homeland. But that young McPhail! Why
not consult him? He would take her to Vancouver at once. Hour after hour
he spent, re-touching the canvas here and there, prancing back and
forward with light, eager steps. In his absorption he forgot all but the
wonderful scene before him. The door opened softly and his wife entered.
He heard nothing.
“Oh, Hugh! how wonderful!” she breathed in ecstasy.
He flung down his brush. “It is finished!” he muttered in an undertone.
“And it is good. My best!” He sat looking at it with a detached and
critical eye. “Yes, it really is not half bad.”
“Half bad!” returned his wife, with indignant scorn. “It ought to be in
the Academy!”
“I’ve seen a lot worse there too,” said her husband.
“Of course you have, and few better.”
“My dear, you have a wonderful eye! Two of them indeed!” He turned
toward her, smiling quizzically.
“Oh, you may smile! But I know pictures a little,” she exclaimed
defiantly.
“God forbid I should deny it! If you were only on the hanging committee!
But, heigh, oh!” he yawned, stretching mightily. “I am fair done. I
think I shall take a gun down the valley right after lunch.”
“You must be, and you have earned a real holiday. And, Hugh, darling,”
she came to him with hands lifted, “I know you finished this just for
me.” Her face was shining with an inner light, as she locked her hands
about his neck.
He stood a moment, looking into her eyes, then gathered her gently into
his arms and carried her to a chair, holding her to him.
“Well, I did,” he said, his voice a little uncertain. “And,” he added,
kissing her, “it was worth while.”
She settled down into his arms with a little sigh.
“We are very happy, Hugh. I am afraid sometimes we are too happy.”
“Too happy? I can ‘thole’ a lot o’ yon,” he answered cheerily. “But,” he
added suddenly, letting into his voice a deeper tone, “as for you, you
jolly well deserve all there is going. Now a little rest before lunch,
while I get out my gun.” He laid her on a lounge, covered her with a
wrap and left her, with a smile of pride and ineffable joy illuminating
the beauty of her face.
After a hasty lunch Gaspard looked in upon her, found her sleeping
quietly and with the adumbration of that same smile still lingering
about her, then taking his gun set forth to the completion of the other
task he had set himself for the day. A disturbing factor in his day’s
problem he had learned from old Jinny. Paul had gone off with the
Sleeman children, Asa and Adelina, on their ponies for the day, and the
boy had spoken of a visit to the Indian camp. Of course, he could send
the children off on some chase, but none the less it was a complication
which added to the difficulty of a situation sufficiently complex
already. He did not, however, anticipate much trouble with Onawata. Her
love for him and her native Indian pride would work together to further
his purpose. As to the old chief, he was an uncertain and possibly
refractory element. A Chippewayan chief of ancient lineage, proud of his
race and rank, he had kept his tribe aloof from the life and manners of
the white man. He had seen the degradation of other tribes through
contact with white civilisation and, following the tradition of his
ancestors, he had built up in his people a fear of the white man’s power
and a contempt for his vices. On the plains of the far north land his
people could meet with the white man on equal terms without fear, and at
the trading post he could hold his own in shrewd bargaining for the
products of trap and gun. He permitted no mingling of blood strains in
his tribe, no half-breed could find a home in his wigwams. Next to his
passion for his people, his love for his daughter held place with him.
Her mother, an Athabascan princess of great beauty and intelligence,
trained in one of the out-post Anglican mission schools, had captured
his youthful fancy and had held his heart in loyal allegiance for twenty
years, until her death twenty-two years ago in giving birth to her only
child, Onawata, who, growing up into beautiful girlhood, took her
mother’s place in her father’s heart and became the very light of his
eyes, the joy of his heart.
He had not sent her to the mission school. He wanted her kept pure
Indian. But he had cleverly cajoled the missionary into setting up among
his tribe a kind of extension branch of his school, the principal pupil
of which was the chief’s daughter. Her extraordinary intelligence,
stimulated by her father’s ambition for her, enabled her to overcome
with remarkable ease and rapidity the initial difficulty of language in
acquiring knowledge. She learned to read, to write, to do simple sums,
and, not only so, but succeeded in bullying her father into the same
knowledge. So that at seventeen she was a sweet, clean, well educated
Indian maid of rare intelligence and rarer beauty, the pride of the
tribe which she ruled like a queen and the centre and delight of her
father’s life.
Frankly, Gaspard was afraid to meet the old chief. He relied upon
Onawata’s influence with him, but it was with very considerable
trepidation that he strode into the Indian camp.
A strange scene spread itself before his eyes. On a grassy bench, a
little removed from the river bank, were pitched two tents before which
were grouped two Indians and at a little distance the chief with his
daughter, all intent upon the doings of a group of children and their
ponies upon the grass plot before them. The children were dismounted,
and their ponies standing, held by their trailing reins, all but Paul,
who with the little four-year old Indian child in his arms was galloping
up and down the sward to the shrieking delight of the children standing
by.
“The Sleeman youngsters and Peg Pelham,” he said to himself, as he stood
watching. “By Jove! That boy is a rider,” he added as his eyes followed
the galloping pony with its double load, careering up and down. Almost
as he spoke the pony reached the turn, turned on its hind legs and was
swinging back on its return trip, when the Sleeman boy sprang forward
with a shout, waving his hat. With a quick side jump the pony’s feet
struck the overhanging cut-bank, broke through, plunged wildly and
disappeared, crashing into the underbrush some ten feet below.
Swift as a flash of light, the old chief sprang for the bank, but before
him was Gaspard who, clearing the bank with a single leap, was at the
head of the struggling pony and, with one hand holding it quiet, grasped
with the other the Indian child and, sheltering it with his own body
from the kicks of the struggling pony, pulled it clear of danger. It was
bravely and cleverly done.
“Paul,” he shouted, peering among the underbrush for his son, “where are
you?”
“Huh,” grunted the chief, whose quick eye had caught sight of the boy
farther down the bank, lying motionless at the root of an old birch
stump. With one leap the chief was over the pony and at the boy’s side.
Swiftly he lifted the boy, carried him down to the river’s edge and laid
him gently down. Then reaching down he scooped up a double handful of
water and dashed it into the still, white face. A gasping sob, a shudder
of the limbs, and the eyes opened upon the chief’s face, then quietly
closed again.
“Huh, Kawin! Good!” grunted the chief, whose hands were swiftly moving
over the boy’s legs and arms. “Good,” said the chief again, giving place
to the boy’s father who had handed over the Indian child to its mother.
“Hello, old boy!” said Gaspard. “All right?”
“All r-i-i-ght,” said the boy with a deep sigh. “I’m a-w-f-u-l sle-epy.”
Gaspard reached down to gather him up in his arms.
“No!” said the chief, placing his hand on Gaspard’s arm. “No! Lie
down—good. Better soon—five minutes.” And Gaspard, kneeling there,
waited with white, anxious face. The chief spoke a few words to his
daughter who was standing near with her child in her arms. She hurried
away and came back in a few moments with a tin cup. The chief took it
from her.
“Good,” he said with a grunt. “Good. Drink.” Gaspard looked at the stuff
doubtfully, then at the girl.
“Yes, it is good. The Indians know it is good,” she said quietly.
Gaspard took the cup and waited till Paul opened his eyes again.
“Here, old chap, drink this,” he said, lifting the boy’s head.
“My! Daddy, that’s awful _a_gusting stuff,” he said, screwing up his
face.
“Good,” said the chief with emphasis. “Drink. Make all better.”
“Shall I, Daddy?” said the boy.
“The chief says so, Paul, and he knows.”
The boy’s eyes went round the circle of faces till they came to the
Indian girl’s, then rested there. She smiled at him, and took the cup
from his father’s hand.
“Drink it,” she said in a quiet voice. “My little boy drinks it. It will
do you good.” He drank it up at once.
“Where’s Joseph?” he asked suddenly when he had lain some minutes
quietly. “He went over too, didn’t he?” Joseph was the name of his pinto
pony, so called in Scriptural reminiscence of the earliest recorded
Joseph, with his coat of many colours.
“He’s perfectly all right—clumsy little beggar,” said his father.
“And the baby?” said Paul, sitting bolt upright and wide awake.
“He is here and safe,” replied the mother. “Your father saved him,” she
added in a voice that somehow carried a thrilling tone.
“Did you, Daddy? That was fine.”
“Pshaw! I just jerked the baby free from Joseph’s feet,” answered his
father almost gruffly.
“Good man! Smart man!” said the chief. “Jump like deer!”
“I guess the angels were smarter’n you, Daddy,” observed the boy
dreamily.
“Angels? What do you——? Oh, I see,” laughed the father.
“Yes, Mother says they just sweep down and keep us from bumping too
hard. They do, don’t they, Daddy?” enquired the boy, seeking assurance
in his father’s eyes.
“Why—ah—certainly they do. They got a wing in the way of that old stump
sure enough. But are you all right now, old man? Any headache? Arms all
right?’ Legs? Back? All sound, eh?” Paul, moving his various limbs in
response to his father’s questioning, found them all entire, without
bruise or fracture.
They all climbed to the grassy plot above, Paul refusing to be carried,
and found waiting them only one little girl, her face showing dead white
against the aureole of her bronze-gold hair.
“Hello, Peg,” grinned Paul. “Where’s Asa and Adelina?”
The little girl, looking very tiny in her riding breeches, gulped very
hard once or twice, then rushing at Paul flung herself upon him in a
storm of tears.
“Oh, Paul, they said you were dead,” she sobbed, clinging to him. “But
you’re not! You’re not!”
“Oh, rot, Peg.” Paul cast sheepish eye round the group as he
disentangled himself from the clinging arms. “Don’t be a silly. What’s a
fling from a horse? Lots of chaps get that.”
The little girl drew away from him, hurt and ashamed, and went slowly
toward her pony.
“Where are you going, Peg?” said Paul.
“None of your business,” she flung at him, leading her pony toward a
convenient stump.
“Peggy!” called Gaspard. Slowly she turned her face toward him. “Peggy,
will you do something for me?” He walked over toward her. “Peggy, I want
you to take Paul home for me. He is quite all right, I think, but I
would feel safer if you were with him. Will you?”
“Yes, Uncle Hugh,” said the little girl, her self-respect much restored.
“And, Paul—sure you feel all right?” enquired his father.
“Sure thing. Perfeckly all right, Daddy,” replied the boy stoutly.
“Well, then, ride slowly home together. Don’t race. And don’t tell
Mother anything about the accident, about what’s happened, till I
return. I don’t want her frightened. You understand, Paul, don’t you? I
can trust you, eh?”
“Yes, Daddy, you can trust me.” And, sitting his pony very straight and
gripping tight with his knees, he set off, crying out, “Good-bye, all!
Come along, Peg.”
“Good-bye, Uncle Hugh. Good-bye, little baby. Good-bye, all,” cried Peg,
putting her horse to a gallop to overtake Paul who was just disappearing
round a turn in the trail.