For a moment the whole evening scene, red with the late light, was set
in the mould of immobility. The two fighting men at sound of that cry
following hard upon the shot stopped rigidly, still clasped in the grip
of rage, the women staring wide-eyed from the wall, the Bois-Brules, the
leaning eager faces of the wild Nakonkirhirinons, the figure of the
girl in the foreground, all, all were stricken into stillness by that
dirge-like cry. For only the fraction of a second it held, that tense
waiting.
Then from nine hundred throats there shot up to the sky, turquoise
and pink and calm, such a sound as all the northland knew,--the wild
blood-cry of the savage.
It filled the arching aisles of the shouldering forest, rolled down the
breast of the river, and echoed in the cabins of the post, and with it
there broke loose the leashed wildness of the Indians. There was one
vast surging around the lodge where Ridgar knelt with the figure of the
chief in his arms, another where a tumbling horde fought to get to the
factor and De Courtenay.
At the stockade gate Prix Laroux, swift of foot and strong as twenty men
in the exigency of the moment, swept the women into his arms and rushed
them within the post. Above the hideous turmoil his voice rose in
carrying command,
“Into the post! Into the post,--every man inside! Man the rampart!”
It fell on ears startled into apathy by the suddenness of the tragic
happening, and there was a wild confusion of white people pulling out
of the mass like threads, all headed for the open gate. Swift as light
those guards of the guns on the rampart sprang to place, the watcher of
the portal swung the great studded gate ready for the clanging close,
and, in a twinkling, so alert to peril do they become who pierce the
wilderness, there were without only that howling mass of savages, De
Courtenay, McElroy, and Edmonton Ridgar gazing with dimmed vision into
the fast glazing eyes of the dying chief.
Only they? Standing where she had leaped at the cavalier's kiss, her
eyes wide, her lips apart, was Maren Le Moyne. In the hurrying rush of
frantic people she had been forgotten and she was utterly helpless.
As in a dream she saw the leaping forms close in upon the two men who
fought for her, knew that those of De Seviere were pouring past her to
safety, heard the boom of the great gate as it swung into place, and for
her life she could move neither hand nor foot. Her body stood frozen
as in those horrid dreams of night when one is conscious, yet held, in a
clutch of steel.
Over the heaving heads with their waving eagle feathers she saw the head
and shoulders of De Courtenay rise, tipped sidewise so that his long
curls swung clear, shining in the light, and already he was bound with
thongs of hide.
She saw his handsome face again sparkling with that smile that was so
brilliant and that bore such infinite shades of meaning.
Now it was full of devil-may-care, as if he shrugged his shoulders at a
loss at cards, and in that second it fell upon her standing in horror.
“Ah, Ma'amselle!” he called, across the surging feathers; “the tune
changes! But you have my heart, and I,--I have one kiss! Adieu, my Maid
of the Long Trail! The chance was worth its turning.”
Then the shining head sank into the mass and she heard no more.
She was conscious only of a giant form lurching, red-eyed and yelling,
out of the turmoil, of brown hands that clutched her arms, and of
another form which shot past her. For the second time in a few moments
one man had reached for her and another flung himself to her rescue. She
saw the Indian reel back with a red line spurting across his eyes,
felt herself lifted and flung across a shoulder, and knew that the gate
behind was swinging open. The next instant she slid down to her feet
with her face in the buckskin shirt of Marc Dupre, who leaned shaking
against the stockade wall and held her in a grip like steel, while Henri
Corlier shot the bolts into place.
Huddled in white groups were the women, some of them already raising
their voices in weeping, others silent with the training of the women
of the wilderness. The men faced each other with lips drawn tight and
breath that came swiftly. Prix Laroux, his dark eyes cool and sharp,
looked swiftly over the populace as they stood, for with that first shot
every man in Fort de Seviere had rushed to the gate, and in that first
moment of getting breath he calculated their strength and their ability.
A leader born himself, he was looking for a leader among McElroy's men;
but, with that intrepid factor himself gone and Edmonton Ridgar also,
there was nowhere a man with the signs of leadership upon him.
Through Prix's mind this went while they stood listening to the
death-wail that was beginning to rise from the tepees without.
Then he quietly took command, knowing himself to be best fitted.
“Corlier,” he said quietly, “leave the gate to Cif Bordoux. Take one man
and get to the southwest bastion. You, Gifford,” turning to that young
clerk who worked in the sorting-room, “man the northwest. Garcon and
Dupre will take the forward two. The rest will stand ready with guns and
ammunition along the four walls and at the gates. We know not what will
transpire.”
As if their factor spoke, the men of De Seviere turned to obey, feeling
that strange compelling which causes men to follow one man to death on
the field of battle, and which is surely the gift of God.
Out of his shaking arms Marc Dupre loosed Maren, the trembling lessening
as the danger passed. That sight of the defenceless girl among the
Indians had shaken him like a leaf in the wind, had nerved his arms with
iron, had worked in him both with strength and weakness.
Now he looked into her eyes and said never a word, for once again he saw
that they were dazed and void of knowledge.
As he set her upon her own strength, she swayed. Her eyes went round the
hushed groups of faces with wild searching. At last they found the face
of her leader, and clung there, dark and dull.
“Prix!” she cried. “Prix! Open the gate!”
“I cannot, Maren,” he said quietly; “'twould be but madness.”
“But they are without!”
All horror was in the cry.
“They are among the Indians!”
“Aye,--and may the good God have mercy on them!”
Laroux hastily made the sign of the cross.
“We must guard the post, Maren.”
“But--” She turned her eyes slowly around from face to face and not a
woman there but read her secret plain, the open script of love,--but for
which man?
“But-they-will--be--” She did not finish the sentence, staring at
Laroux. Once she moistened her lips.
“They will--Prix,--as I am your leader, open that gate!”
With sudden reviving the daze went out of her features and the old light
came back to her eyes, the far-seeing, undaunted light that had beaconed
the long way from Grand Portage. She was every inch the leader again,
tall, straight against the logs, her brown arm pointing imperiously to
the closed gate.
“Open, I say!”
For a moment Laroux faced her squarely, the man who had tied himself to
her hand, pledged himself to forge the way to the Whispering Hills, who
followed her compelling leadership as these lesser men had turned to
follow his but now. Then he set his will to hers.
“I will not,” he said quietly.
With no more words she flung herself upon the gate and tore at the
chains, her strong hands able as a man's. As the sight of her in peril
had worked for both weakness and strength in Dupre, so had McElroy's
plight affected her. That helpless moment was the one defection of her
dauntless life.
Now again she was herself, reaching for the thing of the moment, and the
roar outside the palisade, constantly rising in volume, in menace and
savagery, brushed out of her brain every cloud of shock. Laroux caught
her from behind, pinioning her arms.
“Maren,” he said quietly, “hear me. Out there are five hundred warriors
wild as the heart of the Pays d'en Haut, howling over the body of their
dying chief. What would be the opening of the gate but the massacre of
all within? Could forty men take the factor from them? There would be
but as many more scalps on their belts as there are heads within the
post. See you not, Maren?”
In his iron grip the girl stood still, breathing heavily. As he ceased
speaking a great sigh came from her lips, a sigh like a sob.
“Aye,” she said brokenly, “I see,--I see! Mary Mother! Let me go, Prix.
I see.”
Laroux loosed her, knowing that the moment was past, and went at once
about his duties of throwing the post into a state of defence.
Once more strong and quiet, Maren went to the cabin by the gate. Here
Marie knelt at her bed with a crucifix grasped in her shaking hands, her
face white as milk and prayers on her trembling lips.
“Maren!” she gasped, with the child's appeal to the stronger nature.
“Oh, Maren, what will befall? For love of God, what will befall?”
“Hush, Marie,” answered Maren; “'tis but a tragedy of the wild. Naught
will befall us of the post.”
“But those without? What is that roaring of many throats? Little Jean
Bleaureau but now ran past crying that the Nakonkirhirinons were killing
the factor”
“No!” Marie jumped at the word like one shot, so wild and sudden it was.
“No! No! Not yet!”
Even in the stress of the moment Marie stared open-mouthed at her
sister.
“Holy Mother! It is love,--that cry! You love the factor!”
“Hush!” whispered Maren, dry-lipped.
The roar from the river bank had sharpened itself into one point of
utterance which pierced the calm heavens in a mingling of native speech,
French and broken English from Nakonkirhirinon and halfbreed, and, worse
than both, dissolute “white Indian,” and its burden was,
“A skin for a skin!”