Back in De Seviere the gloom of the forest in bleak winter sat heavily
on every cabin.
Women went about with misty eyes and men were oddly silent.
Not one of all his people who did not love the whole-hearted factor with
his ready laugh, his sympathy in all the little life of the post, his
unfailing justice; not one who did not strive to keep away the haunting
visions of leaping flames above fagots, and all the ugly scenes that
imagination, abetted by grim reality, could conjure up.
On that fateful morning when the rising sun saw the slim canoes of the
Nakonkirhirinons trailing around the lower bend, Maren Le Moyne stood
by the little window in the small room to the east of the Baptiste cabin
and covered her face with her hands.
Great breaths lifted her breast, breaths that fluttered her open lips
and could not fill the gasping lungs beneath, that sounded in the little
room like tearless tearing sobs.
“Heavenly Mother!” she gasped between them; “Thou who art
woman...Mary...”
But the prayer hung aborted between the shuddering sighs.... Who shall
say that it is not such a cry, torn from the depths of the spirit
by instinct groping for its god, which reaches swiftest the Eternal
Infinite?
Until the last sound had faded into the morning, until the last little
ripple had widened to the shores and died among the willows, until the
screaming birds, startled from the edges of the river, had settled into
quiet, she stood so, fainting in her Gethsemane. She alone of all
the post had remained away from the great gate where was gathered the
populace at the nearest vantage point.
Silence of the young day hung in the palisade, a silence that cut the
soul with its tragic portent.
Even little Francette Moline, weeping openly, pressed close in the mass
and jerked with unconscious savagery of spirit the short ears of the
husky at her heels,--that Loup whom no man dared to touch save only the
master his fierce spirit must needs acknowledge. It had been DesCaut by
brutality. Now it was the little maid by love.
Strange cat of the woods, Francette could be as riotous in her
tenderness as in her enmity.
In the bastions Dupre and Garcon and Gifford watched the scene with the
grim quiet of men born in the wilderness, while at the portholes trapper
and voyageur and the venturers from Grand Portage handled their guns and
waited.
None knew what might happen, for these Indians were not to be judged by
any standard they knew.
Henri Baptiste held the trembling Marie in his arm, while Mora and Anon
and Ninette clung together in a white-faced group. A little way aside
Micene Bordoux comforted a frightened woman and held a child by the
hand.
Big Bard McLellan stood by a porthole, his eyes always pensive with his
own sadness, gazing with grave sorrow to where McElroy swung down the
slope between his captors.
Thus they watched his going, and he had been spared that sick pain had
he known.
When it was over, Prix Laroux turned back to the deserted factory and
stood hesitating on its step.
This was one of the crises which so commonly confronted the fur industry
in the North-west.
What had he a right to do?
The simple man considered carefully. What right but the right of
humanity to do the best for the many could send a servant into the seat
of power?
And yet who among them all was fitted?
Not the clerks, youths from the Bay, not the traders nor the trappers.
With a daring heart the venturer from Grand Portage went in across the
sill.
To a man the men of De Seviere rallied to him and council was held.
Everywhere in the trading-room, the living-room behind, were evidences
of the factor and Ridgar. It seemed as if the two men had but just
stepped out-were not in hostile hands drifting down the river toward an
unspeakable fate.
In the midst of the grave-faced council another step sounded on the
sill and once again Maren Le Moyne stood looking in at the factory door,
though this time there was no eager interest on her face, only a drawn
tenseness which cut to the heart of her leader like a knife.
“Come in, Maren,” he said in aching sympathy.
“Men,” she said straightly, “is there none among you who will turn a
hand to save his factor?”
Over every face her eyes travelled slowly, hot and burning.
In every face she read the same thing,--a pitying wonder at the folly of
her words.
“Aye,” spoke up Henri Corlier, grizzled and weathered by his years of
loyal service to the Great Company, “not a man among us, Ma'amselle, but
would give his life if it would serve. It would not serve.”
“And you?” her gaze shifted feverishly to Laroux; “you, Prix?”
“'Tis useless, Maren. What would you have us do?”
“Do?”
She straightened by the door, and the hand on the lintel gripped until
the nails went white.
“Do? Anything save sit with closed gates in safety while savages burn
your factor at the stake! The Hudson's Bay brigade comes from York this
very month. What easier than to meet it and get help of men and guns?”
“Nay,” said Laroux gently; “you do but dream, Maren.”
Whereat the girl turned abruptly from the doorway and went down among
the cabins.
Here and there in the doorways groups of women stood together, their
voices hushed and trouble in their eyes.
As Maren passed, seeing nothing to right or left, they looked in pity
upon her.
The heart of this woman was drifting with the canoes,--but with which
man?
“'Tis the gay Nor'wester with his golden curls,” whispered Tessa Bibye
sympathetically.
“The Nor'wester? 'Tis little you know, truly, Tessa,” said the young
wife of old Corlier. “What maid in her senses would look twice at yonder
be-laced dandy when a man like Anders McElroy stood near?”
“Aye, an' may the Good God have mercy on our factor!” whimpered a
withered old woman, wife of a trapper, making the sign of the cross;
“nor hold back His mercy from the other!”
Night seemed to fall early on Fort de Seviere, waiting sadly for its
healing touch on fevered hearts.
Throughout the long day a waiting hush had lain upon the post, an
expectancy of ill.
Over the dark forest the stars came out on a velvet sky, and a little
wind came out of the south, nightbirds called from the depths, and peace
spread over the Northland like a blanket.
While the twilight lasted with its gorgeous phantasmagoria there were
none of the accustomed sounds of pleasure in the post,--no fiddle
squeaked by the stockade wall, no happy laughter wafted from the cabins.
Even the sleepy children seemed to feel the strangeness and hushed their
peevish crying.
Night and darkness and loneliness held sway, and in one heart the
shadows of the world were gathered.
What was the meaning of this Life whose gift was Pain, where was the
glory of existence?
By the window to the east Maren Le Moyne stood in the darkness, with her
hands upon her breast and her face set after the manner of the dreamer
who follows his visions in simpleness of soul.
Once again a great call was sounding from the wilderness, as that which
lured her to the Whispering Hills had sounded since she could remember,
once more the Long Trail beckoned, and once more she answered, simply
and without fear.
She waited for the depth of night.
Long she stood at the little window, facing the east like some
worshipper, even until the wheeling stars spelled the mid hour.
To Marie she gave one thought,--child-like Marie with her dependence and
her loving heart. But Marie, to whom she had been all things, was safe
in the care of Henri. There remained only the dream of the Whispering
Hills and the illusive figure of a man,--an old man, sturdy of form and
with blue eyes set in swarthy darkness.
Poignant was the pain that assailed her at that memory. Would she ever
reach that shadowy country, ever fulfil the quest that was hers from the
beginning? Did she not wrong that ghostly figure which seemed to gaze
with reproach across the years? Her own blood called, and she turned
aside to follow the way of a stranger, an alien whose kiss had brought
her all sorrow.
And yet she was helpless as the water flowing to the sea. The primal
quest must wait. Her being turned to this younger man as the needle to
the pole, even though his words were false, his kiss a betrayal.
When the mid hour hung in silence over the wilderness a figure came out
of the darkness and stood at the gate beside that watcher, Cif Bordoux,
who paced its length with noiseless tread.
A strange figure it was, clad in garments that shone misty white in
the shadow, whose fringes fluttered in the warm wind and whose glowing
plastron glittered in the starlight.
“Cif Bordoux,” said the figure, “I would go without.”
Wondering and startled, Bordoux would have refused if he dared; but this
was the leader of the Long Trail and her word had been his law for many
moons, nor had he ever questioned her wisdom.
Therefore he drew the bolts and opened the gate the width of a man's
body, and Maren Le Moyne slipped outside the palisade into the night.
A rifle hung in her arm and a pouch of bullets dangled at her knee.
Swiftly and silently she pushed a canoe into the water at the landing,
stepped in, and with one deep dip of a paddle sent the frail craft out
to midstream. She did not turn her head for a farewell glance toward the
post, but set her face toward the way that led to the Pays d'en Haut and
the man who journeyed thither.
Deep and even her paddle took the sweet waters and the current shot her
forward like a racer. The dark shores flowed by in a long black ribbon
of soft shadow, their leaning grasses and foliage playing with the
ripples in endless dip and lift. No fear was in her, scarce any thought
of what she did, only an obeying of the call which simplified all
things.
McElroy was in danger, and she followed him.
That was all she knew, save the mighty sorrow of his falseness which
never left her day or night.
He had taught her love in that one passionate embrace in the forest, and
it was for all time.
What mattered it that he had turned from her for another? That was the
sorry tangle of the threads of Fate,--she had naught to do with it.
Love was born in her and it set a new law unto her being, the law of
service.
Every fibre in her revolted at thought of his death. If it was to be
done beneath the pitying Heaven, he should be saved. He must be helped
to escape. The other was insupportable. Nothing mattered in all the
world save that. Therefore she set herself, alone and fearless, to
follow the tribe of the Nakonkirhirinons to the far North if need be, to
hang on their flank like a wolverine, to take every chance the good
God might send. Chief of these was her hope of the Hudson's Bay brigade
which should be coming into the wilderness at this time of year.
Somewhere she must meet them and demand their help.
There was no rebellion in her, no hope of gain in what she did. Love was
of her own soul alone, since that evening by the factory when she had
seen the factor bend his head and kiss the little Francette.
No more did she think of his words in the forest, no more did she dream
of the wondrous glory of that first kiss.
Far apart and impersonal was McElroy now,--only she loved him with that
vast idolatry which seeks naught but the good of its idol.
Even if he loved Francette he must be saved for that happiness.
Therefore she knelt in a cockleshell alone on a rushing river and sped
through, a wilderness into appalling danger.
Such was the compelling power of that love which had come tardily to
her.