Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
THE MAID OF THE WHISPERING HILLS
By Vingie E. Roe
Published January, 1912
To
My Mother
Who Has Been My Constant Help
My Father
Who Was Proud Of Me
And
My Little Brother,
These Two Long Asleep On The Hill At Carney--
This Book Is Lovingly Inscribed
V. E. R.
Contents
I The Venturers
II The Spring
III New Homes
IV The Stranger From Civilisation
V Nor'westers
VI Spring Trade
VII Forest News
VIII First Dawn
IX Gold Fire
X The Saskatoon
XI Leaven At Work
XII The Nakonkirhirinons
XIII “A Skin For A Skin”
XIV Fellow Captives
XV Long Trail
XVI Travel
XVII The Compelling Power
XVIII “I Am A Stone To Your Foot, Ma'amselle”
XIX The Hudson's Bay Brigade
XX The Wolf And The Caribou
XXI Tightened Screws
XXII “Choose, White Woman!”
XXIII The Painted Post
XXIV The Stone To The Foot Of Love
XXV Answered Prayers
XXVI Sanctuary
XXVII Return
XXVIII The Old Dream Once More
XXIX Bitter Aloes
XXX The Land Of The Whispering Hills
CHAPTER I THE VENTURERS
“Mercy!” shrieked little Francette, her red-rose face aghast, “he will
begin before I can bring the help!”
Like a flash of flame the maid in her crimson skirt shot up the main way
of Fort de Seviere to where the factory lay asleep in the warm spring
sun.
On its log step, pipe in mouth, young Anders McElroy leaned against the
jamb and looked smilingly out upon his settlement. Peace lay softly upon
it, from the waters of the small stream to the east where nine canoes
lay bottom up upon the pebbly shore, to the great dark wall of the
forest shouldering near on three sides. To him ran little Francette,
light on her moccasined feet as the wind in the tender pine-tops,
her eloquent small hands outstretched and clutching at his sleeve
audaciously.
None other in all the post would have dared as much, for this smiling
young man with the blue eyes was the Law at Fort de Seviere, factor of
the Company and governor of the handful of humanity lost in the vast
region of the Assiniboine. But to Francette he was Power and Help, and
she thought of naught else, as it is not likely she would have done even
at another time.
“Oh, M'sieu!” she cried, gasping from her run, “come at once beyond the
great gate! Bois DesCaut,--Oh, brute of the world!--whips that great
grey husky leader of his team, because it did but snap at his heel
beneath an idle prod! Hasten, M'sieu! He drags it, glaring, along the
shore to where lie those clubs brought for the kettles!”
In the dark eyes upraised to him there swam a mist of tears and the
heart of the little maid tore at her breast in anguish.
The smile slipped swiftly from the factor's face, leaving it grave.
“Where, little one?” he asked.
“Beyond the palisade. But hurry, M'sieu,--for the love of God!”
At the great gate in the eastern wall he paused and looked either way.
To the southward all was peaceful. An aged Indian of the Assiniboines
squatted at the water's edge mending the broken bottom of a skin canoe,
and two voyageurs, gay in the matter of sash and crimson cap, lay lazily
beneath a drowsing tree.
To the northward there flashed into McElroy's vision one of those
pictures a man sees but few times and never forgets, a picture startling
in its clear-cut strength.
Against the mellow background of the weather-beaten stockade that
surrounded the post there stood two figures, a man and a woman, and
between the two there crouched with snarling lips and flaming eyes a
huge grey dog.
Tall he was, that man, tall and broad of shoulder, but the head of the
woman, shining like blue-black satin in the morning sun, was level with
his brows.
She leaned a trifle forward and her eyes held fast to his
passion-flooded face. It was evident that she had but just reached the
spot from the fact that the club, arrested in its upward swing, still
was poised in the air.
They faced each other and the factor stopped in his tracks.
“Quick, M'sieu!” begged Francette at his side, but he put out a
commanding hand and ceased to breathe.
“Hold!” said the tall young woman at last, and her voice cut cold and
clear in the sun-filled morning. “No more! You have whipped the dog
enough.”
The red face of the trapper flamed into purple and his lips opened for
an oath. Quick as the heat lightning that flutters on the waters of
Winipigoos in the hot summers the cruel club came down. McElroy heard
its dull impact, and the husky crumpled like a broken reed.
With stern face the factor started forward, while the little maid
covered her pretty eyes and whimpered.
But quicker than his stride retribution leaped to meet DesCaut.
He saw the woman's arm shoot out and her strong hand, smooth and tawny
as finest tanned buckskin, double itself hard and leap in where the jaw
turns downward into the curve of the throat.
The stroke of a man it was, clean and sharp and well delivered, and
DesCaut, catching his heel on a buried stone's sharp jut, went backward
with his head in the young grass of the sloping shore.
For a moment she stood as it had left her, leaning forward, and there
was a shine of satisfaction in her eyes.
Then as the man essayed to rise there was a mighty laughter from the two
youths on the river bank and the spell was broken.
McElroy went forward.
“DesCaut,” he said sharply, and his words cut like the lash of the long
dog-whips, “you deserves death but you have been beaten by a woman. Go,
and boast of your strength. It is sufficient.”
DesCaut stood a moment swaying drunkenly with the force of passion
within him, his lips snarling back from his teeth and his eyes measuring
the factor unsteadily then he snatched off the little cap he wore and
hurled it at him.
Turning on his heel he swung down toward the gate and the two voyageurs
now standing and still laughing merrily.
One look at his bloodshot eyes sobered their mirth, and Pierre Garcon
reached involuntarily for the knife in his sash.
But Bois DesCaut, savage to silence, swung past them into the fort.
McElroy watched him until he disappeared, fearing he knew not what.
Then he faced the little scene again.
Down on her knees little Francette had lifted the heavy head with its
dull eyes and pitiful hanging tongue, lifted it to her breast, weeping
and smoothing the short ears deaf to her soft words, and sat rocking to
and fro in an ecstasy of grief. Beyond SHE stood, that tall woman, stood
silent and frowning, looking down upon the two, and the factor saw with
a strange thrill that the hand, yet doubled, was flecked with blood.
“Ma'amselle,” he said, “is of the new people who arrived last night from
Portage la Prairie?”
Then they were lifted for the first time to his face, those dark eyes
smouldering like banked fires, and he saw their marvellous beauty.
“Of a surety,” she said slowly, and there was a subtle tone in her
deep-throated voice that made the blood stir vaguely within the factor's
veins, “does M'sieu have so many strangers passing through his gates
that he is at loss to place each one?”
And with that word she turned deliberately away, walked down toward the
gate, and entered the stockade.
McElroy watched her go, until the last glint of her sober dress, plain
and clinging easily to the magnificent shoulders that swung slightly
with her free walk, had passed from view. And not alone he, for the two
voyageurs alike gazed after her, this new-comer from the farther ways of
civilisation who dared the brute DesCaut and struck like a man.
Then the factor bent above the little Francette.
“Sh!” he said gently, “little one, let go. The dog is dead, poor beast.
Come away.”
But the maid would not give up the battered body, and with the audacity
of her beauty and life-long spoiling, besought the young factor for
help.
“There is yet life, M'sieu. See! The breath lifts in his sides. Is there
naught to be done when one sleeps, so? He is so strong at the sledges
and he did not whimper,--no, not once,--when DesCaut was beating him to
death. Is there nothing, M'sieu?”
Very pretty she was in her pleading, the little Francette, with her
misty eyes and the frank tears on her cheeks; and McElroy went to the
river and filled his cap with water. This he poured into the open
jaws and sopped over the blood-clotted head, wetting the limp feet and
watching for the life she so bravely proclaimed.
And presently it was there, twitching a battered muscle; lifting the
side with its broken ribs, fluttering the lids over the fierce eyes; for
this was Loup, the fiercest husky this side of the Athabasca.
With pity McElroy gathered up the great dog, staggering under the load,
for it was that of a big-framed man, and entered the post, the little
maid at has side. Near the gate a running crowd met them, for the tale
had spread apace and wondering eyes looked on.
Down to the southern wall where lived the family of Francette they went,
and the factor laid Loup in the shade of the cabin.
“If he lives, little one, he shall be yours,” said he, “for he is worth
a tender hand. We'll try its power.”
And as he turned away he caught a glimpse of the tall stranger looking
at them from a distance.
Small it was and crowded, this little trading post of the great Hudson's
Bay Company in that year of 1796, and a goodly stream of beaver found
its way through it to the mighty outside world.
Squatted alone on the shores of the Assiniboine, shouldering back the
wilderness with the spirit of the conqueror, it faced the rising sun
with its square stockade, strong and well built, log by log, its great,
brass-studded gate in the eastern centre, its four bastions rising at
its corners.
Here was a little world of itself, a small community of voyageurs,
trappers, coureurs du bois, and all those that cast their lot in the
wild places.
Adventurers from the Old World often passed through it on their way
to the farther west, lured by the tales of dreamers who spoke of the
Northwest Passage and the world that opened beyond the setting
sun; renegades of the lakes and forest came for and found its ready
hospitality, and into it came at all seasons those Indians whose skill
and cunning accounted for so much of that great fur trade which made for
wealth in the distant cities beyond the eastern sea.
Too small for a council, it gave allegiance wholly to its factor,
young Anders McElroy, at whose right hand for sage advice and honest
friendship stood that most admirable of men, Edmonton Ridgar, chief
trader and anything else from accountant to armourer. Beneath them and
in good command were some thirty able men whose families lived in the
neat log cabins within the stockade.
With its back to the western wall there stood in the centre the factory
itself, a good log building of somewhat spacious size; its big room,
divided by a breast-high solid railing, with a small gate in the middle,
serving as office and general receiving-place. Beyond the railing, in
the smaller space toward the north, there stood the great wooden desk
of the factor, its massive book of accounts always open on its face, its
hand-made drawers filled with the documents of the Company. Here
McElroy was wont to take account of the furs brought in, to distribute
recompense, and to enforce the simple law. Attached to this room on
the south was the great store-room, packed with those articles of
merchandise most likely to seem of worth in savage eyes and brought,
with such infinite labour by canoe and portage, from those favoured
lower points whose waters admitted the yearly ships--namely, rifles and
ammunition, knives of all sorts, bolts of bright cloth and beads of
the colour of the rainbow, great iron kettles such as might hang most
fittingly above an open fire, and bright woven garments made by hands
across seas.
At the back of the big room was the small one where McElroy and Ridgar
had their living, furnished scantily with a bed and table, an open
fireplace and crane, some rude, hand-made chairs, and a shelf of books.
And to this post of De Seviere had come in the dusk of the previous
night a little company of people.
They were tired and travel-stained, with their belongings in packs on
the shoulders of the men, and the joy of the venturer in their eager
faces.
From far down in the country below the Rainy River they had come,
pushing to the west in that hope of gain and desire of travel which
opens the wilderness of every land. They had met the factor at the great
gate and entered in to rest and feast, as is the rule of every fire. By
morning had come the leaders of the party to McElroy, and there had been
talk that ended in an agreement, and the tired venturers had dropped
their burden of progress.
When they had rested, there were to be three new cabins squeezed somehow
into the already overcrowded stockade, and five more men and six women
would belong to Fort de Seviere.
As he walked toward the factory the young man was thinking of all this.
Of a surety the tall girl, had come with the strangers, yet he had not
noticed her until that moment outside the stockade wall, when he had
caught the striking picture in the morning sun.
Name? Most certainly it would be in that list which the leader of the
party had promised him by noon. When he entered the big room the man was
there before him, a picturesque figure of a man, big and graceful and
dark of brow, with long black curls beneath his crimson cap. As McElroy
went forward he straightened up from his lounging position against the
railing and held out the paper he had promised.
“For enrollment, M'sieu,” he said simply.
The factor took the proffered slip and read eagerly down its length,
done neatly in a finished hand.
“Adventurers,” he read, “from Grand Portage on Lake Superior, bound for
the west,--agreed to stop for the length of one year at Fort de Seviere
on the Assiniboine River,--Prix Laroux and wife Ninette, Pierre and Cif
Bordoux and their wives Anon and Micene, Franz LeClede and wife Mora,
Henri Baptiste and wife Marie, and Maren Le Moyne, an unmarried woman
and sister to Marie Baptiste.”
A sudden little light flamed for a moment in the young factor's blue
eyes.
For some unknown reason it had pleased him, that last ingenious
sentence.
“Prix Laroux,” he said, turning to his new acquisition, “we will get to
the work of our contract.”