They camped for the night on a grassy terrace at the edge of a deep
coulee in the prairie, through which a wasted stream made its way over
a bed of round stones toward the big river. The only full-sized trees
they had seen all day grew in the bottom of the coulee, which was so
deep that nothing of the branches showed over the edge.
The horses were herded together, and unpacked in a wide circle. Each
pack and saddle under its own cover was left in its place in the
circle, against loading in the morning. As fast as unpacked the horses
were turned out to fill themselves with the rich buffalo grass. The
old mares who had mothered most of the bunch were hobbled and belled to
keep the band together.
Jack, Jean Paul, and the Indian lads saw to the horses. Jack also
directed Vassall's and Baldwin Ferrie's inexpert efforts with the
tents, and between times he showed Humpy Jull how to make a fire.
Sir Bryson, Linda, and Mrs. Worsley, in three of the folding chairs
which were the object of so much comment in the country, looked on at
all this.
"I feel so useless," said Linda, following Jack's diverse activities,
without appearing to. "Don't you suppose there is something we could
do, Kate?"
"It all seems like such heavy work, dear," said Mrs. Worsley.
Sir Bryson, folding his hands upon his comfortable centre, beamed
indulgently on the busy scene. "Nonsense, Linda," he said. "They are
all paid for their exertions. You do not concern yourself with
household matters at home."
"This is different," said Linda, a little sulkily. She was sorry she
had spoken, but Sir Bryson would not let the matter drop so easily.
"How different?" he inquired.
"Oh! up here things seem to fall away from you," said Linda vaguely.
"You get down to rock bottom."
"Your metaphors are mixed, my dear," said Sir Bryson pleasantly. "I
don't understand you."
"It doesn't matter," she said indifferently.
"Now, for my part, I think this the most agreeable sight in the world,"
Sir Bryson went on. "All these people working to make us comfortable,
and dinner coming on presently. It rests me. Fancy seeing one's
dinner cooked before one's eyes. I hope Jull has washed his hands. I
didn't see him do it."
Sir Bryson had no intention of making a joke, but Mrs. Worsley laughed.
"Speaking of dinner," continued Sir Bryson, "I hope there won't be any
awkwardness about our guide."
"Jack Chanty?" said Linda quickly. "What about him?"
"My dear! I wish you wouldn't be so free with his vulgar name! Do you
suppose he will expect to sit down with us?"
"Why not?" said Linda warmly. "It's the custom of the country. The
whites eat together, and the Indians. Can't you see that things are
different up here? There are no social distinctions."
"Then it is high time we introduced them," said Sir Bryson with the
indulgent smile of one who closes the matter. "I shall ask Mr. Garrod
to drop him a hint."
"You'll only make yourself ridiculous if you do," said Linda.
Mrs. Worsley spoke but seldom, and then to some purpose. She said now:
"Do you know, I think the matter will probably adjust itself if we
leave it alone."
And she was right. Nothing was further from Jack's desires than to sit
down with the party in the big tent. Apart from other considerations
he knew which side his bread was buttered on, and he chummed with the
cook. Jack and Humpy slung their little tents side by side behind the
fire, and Jack waited to eat with Humpy after the others were through.
It was Humpy Jull's debut as a waiter, and Sir Bryson was thereby
likewise provided with a new experience. Humpy was very willing and
good-natured. He was naturally a little flustered on this occasion,
and with him it took the form of an increased flow of speech. To his
simplicity, waiting on the table obligated him to play the host.
"Walk in, people," he said genially. "Sit down anywheres. You'll have
to excuse me if I don't do things proper. I ain't had no experience at
the table with ladies. I never did have no face, anyway. A child
could put me out."
Sir Bryson became turkey red, and looked at his aide-de-camp. Vassall
made believe not to see.
"I'll just set everything on the table," Humpy went on innocently, "and
you dip right in for yourselves. The bannock ain't quite what it ought
to be. I didn't have the time. When we get a settled camp I'll show
you something better."
"How far have we made to-day?" Sir Bryson asked pointedly of Vassall to
create a diversion.
Humpy took the answer upon himself. "Eighteen miles, Governor," he
said. "We would have stopped at Mooseberry Spring two miles back, but
Jack said there was no firewood thereabout. So we're late to-night."
"We have everything, thank you," said Sir Bryson icily. "You needn't
wait."
"I don't mind, Governor," said Humpy heartily. "Jack and me ain't
going to eat till you are through. I want to make sure you folks gets
your fill."
"I think the bannock is very good, Mr. Jull," said Linda wickedly.
"The raisins are so nice."
"I had 'em and I thought I might as well put 'em in," said Humpy,
highly pleased. "Some finds it hard to make good baking-powder
bannock, but it come natural to me. Jack, he baked it for me."
Sir Bryson ceased eating. It was Jack who prevented an explosion.
Possibly suspecting what was going on within the tent, he called Humpy.
Linda pricked up her ears at the sound.
Humpy ducked for the door. "If there's anything you want don't be
afraid to sing out, Governor," he said.
Sir Bryson slowly resumed his normal colour. He made no reference to
what had happened except to say severely: "Belinda, I'm surprised at
you!"
"Oh! don't be stuffy, father," returned his daughter, inelegantly.
The members of Sir Bryson's suite were accustomed to these little
passages.
When they issued from the tent Jack Chanty and Humpy were to be seen
supping cheek by jowl beside the fire, and Linda said with a flash of
intuition:
"I'll be bound, they're having a better supper than we had!"
She was only guessing, but as a matter of fact, in the case of a party
as large as this, there are bound to be tidbits, such as a
prairie-chicken, a fish or a rabbit, not sufficient to furnish the
general table, and these naturally fall to the share of the cook and
his chum.
Afterward, while the Indians washed the dishes, Jack smoked and Humpy
talked. Humpy was the kind of innocent braggart that tells tall tales
about nothing at all. He was grateful to Jack for even the appearance
of listening, and Jack in turn was glad of the prattle that enabled him
to keep his face while he thought his own thoughts.
"Last winter when the steamboat was laid up," said Humpy Jull, "I was
teaming for the company down to Fort Ochre. Say, it's wild country
around there. The fellers advised me not to leave my gun behind when I
druv into the bush for poles. One day I was eatin' my lunch on a log
in the bush when I hear a grizzily bear growl, right behind me. Yes,
sir, a ding-gasted grizzily. I didn't see him. I didn't wait. I knew
it was a grizzily bear because the fellers say them's the on'y kind
that growls-like. Say, my skin crawled on me like insec's walkin' on
my bare bones. I never stop runnin' till I get back to the fort. The
hosses come in by themselves. Oh, I let 'em laugh. I tell you I
wa'n't takin' no chances with a grizzily!"
Meanwhile Jack, for the first time in his life, was obliged to face a
moral crisis. Other threatening crises hitherto he had managed to
evade with youth's characteristic ingenuity in side-stepping the
disagreeable. The first time that a young brain is held up in its
happy-go-lucky career, and forced to think, is bound to be a painful
experience.
Up to now Jack had taken his good name for granted. He had run away
when he felt like it, meaning to go back when he was ready. Now, when
he found it smirched he realized what an important thing a good name
was. He raged in his mind, and justly at the man who had destroyed it;
nevertheless a small voice whispered to him that it was partly his own
fault. For the first time, too, he realized that his name was not his
exclusive property; his father and mother had a share in it, though
they were no longer of the world. He thought too of the streets of the
city that was so dear to him, now filled with people who believed that
Malcolm Piers was a thief.
The simplest thing was not to think about it at all, but go direct to
Frank Garrod, and "have it out" with him. But Jack was obliged to
recognize that this was no solution. Every time he had drawn near to
Frank since the afternoon, Frank had cringed and shown his fangs like a
sick animal, disgusting Jack, and making it impossible for him to speak
to Frank in any connection. A look in Frank's desperate eyes was
enough to show the futility of an appeal to his better feelings.
"Besides, I couldn't beg him to set me right," Jack thought, his hands
clenching, and the vein on his forehead swelling.
Force then suggested itself as the only recourse, and the natural one
to Jack's direct nature. This was no good either. "He's a sick man,"
Jack thought. "He couldn't stand up to me. If I struck him----" A
cold fear touched his heart at the thought that he had no way in the
world of proving himself honest, except by means of a free and
voluntary statement from a man who was obviously breaking, and even now
scarcely sane.
The problem was too difficult for Jack to solve. He found himself
wishing for an older head to put it to. More than once his thoughts
turned to the wiser and older lady in Sir Bryson's party, to whom he
had not yet spoken. "I wish I could make friends with her," he thought.
The second day on the trail was largely a repetition of the first. The
routine of making and breaking camp proceeded more smoothly, that was
all. On this day as they rose over and descended the endless shallow
hills of the prairie, the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies rose into
view off to the west.
Jack and Frank Garrod held no communication throughout the day. Garrod
showed an increased disorder in his dress, and a more furtive manner.
On the trail there were no secretarial duties to perform, and he kept
out of the way of the other white members of the party. He had always
been considered queer, and his increased queerness passed unnoticed
except by Jack, who held the clue, and by Jean Paul Ascota. The
half-breed watched Jack, watched Garrod, and drew his own conclusions.
Jean Paul on the face of things was turning out an admirable servant,
capable, industrious, and respectful. The white men, including Jack,
would have been greatly astonished could they have heard the substance
of his low-voiced talk to the Indian lads around their own fire.
"I held my hand," he said in Cree, "because the time is not come to
strike. One must suffer much and be patient for the cause. But I have
not forgotten. Before I am through with him, Jack shall be kicked out
of camp, and then he shall die. My medicine works slowly, but it is
very sure.
"Jack is only one white man," he went on. With an ignorant, easily
swayed, savage audience Jean Paul was superb in his effect of quiet
intensity. "I will not let him spoil my plans against the race. The
time is almost ripe now. I have visited the great tribe of the
Blackfeet in the south. They are as many as the round stones in the
bars when the big river is low. I have talked with the head men. They
are ready. I have visited the Sarcees, the Stonies, the Bloods, and
the Piegans; all are ready when I give the word. And are we not ready
in the North, too? the Crees, the Beavers, the Sapis, the Kakisas, and
all the peoples across the mountain. When Ascota sends out his
messengers a fire shall sweep across the country that will consume
every white man to soft ashes!"
Thus it went night after night. The four lads listened scowling, a hot
sense of the wrongs of the red race burning in each breast. But it was
like a fire in the grass, blazing up only to expire. They fell asleep
and forgot all about it until Jean Paul talked again. Perhaps they
sensed somehow that Jean Paul talked to them largely for the
satisfaction he got out of his own eloquence.
To-night Jean Paul was watching Garrod. By and by Garrod wandered away
from the campfires, and Jean Paul followed. Garrod mooned aimlessly
around the tents with his head sunk on his breast, zigzagging to and
fro in the grass, flinging himself down, only to get up and walk again.
For a long time Jean Paul watched and followed him, crouching in the
grass in the semi-darkness. Finally Garrod sat down at the edge of the
coulee, and Jean Paul approached him openly.
"Fine night," he said with an off-hand air.
Garrod murmured an indistinguishable reply.
"Me, I lak' to walk in the night the same as you," Jean Paul went on in
a voice indescribably smooth and insinuating. He sat beside the other
man. "I lak' sit by one black hole lak' this and look. It is so deep!
You feel bad?" he added.
"My head," murmured Garrod. "It gives me no rest."
"Um!" said Jean Paul. "I cure you. With my people I what you call
doctor."
"Doctors can't do me any good," Garrod muttered.
"Me, I not the same lak' other doctors," said Jean Paul calmly.
"First, I tell you what's the matter. Your body not sick; it's your,
what you call, your soul."
Garrod looked at him with a start.
Jean Paul lowered his voice. "You hate!" he hissed.
"What damn nonsense is this?" said Garrod tremblingly.
"What's the use to make believe?" said Jean Paul with a shrug. "I
doctor--conjuror they call me. I know. You know what I know."