When McElroy's eyes fell upon the woman he loved the breath was stopped
in his throat. For a moment it seemed he would suffocate with the surge
of emotions that choked him. Then a great sigh filled his lungs and a
cry was forced from him which pierced the uproar like an arrow.
“Maren!” he cried, in anguish; “Maren!”
It drew her eyes as the pole the faithful needle, and across the fire
they stared wide-eyed at each other.
Then De Courtenay's silver voice cut them apart.
“Again, Ma'amselle!” he cried, with the old magic of his smile. “Do
you bring by any chance a red flower to the council of the
Nakonkirhirinons?”
But the Indians closed in around her, pulling and plucking at her with
eager fingers, and they saw her fighting among them like a man.
McElroy for the first time loosed his tongue in blasphemy and cursed
like a madman, tugging at the bonds which held him.
“'Tis all in a day's march, M'sieu,” said De Courtenay, “and the sweet
spirit of Ma'amselle is like to cross the Styx with us.”
But for the first time, also, there was in his tone a note of weariness,
a breath of sadness that sang under the light words with infinite
pathos.
The new attraction drew the crowd, and the old ones were left in
solitude, while the Nakonkirhirinons surged and scrambled for a look
at the white woman fallen from a clear sky, leagues from where they had
seen her. Half-breeds, dissolute renegades, and Indians, they pushed
and peered and in many a face was already burning the excitement of her
beauty, especially those of the savage Bois-Brules.
McElroy prayed aloud to God for the heavens to fall, for some great
disaster.
But soon it became apparent that something of importance was to take
place. A hundred headmen gathered in knots and there was dissension
and brawling and once near a riot, while the girl stood in a circle of
malodorous, leering humans with her back against a tree, warding off
hands with man-like blows.
There was no order in the tribe. Negansahima, whose iron hand had ruled
with power and justice above the average, was dead. The new chief had
not yet come into power with fitting ceremony, and thus the old men of
the tribe were for the moment authority, and, as too many cooks spoil
the broth, so too many rulers breed dissension.
But finally a conclusion was reached.
A hundred hands scurried into preparation and the shouts were filled
with anticipation.
In the open space a post was set up, tall as a man's head and some
two feet thick, adzed flat on one side and painted in two sections,
perpendicularly, one half in red, the other in black. A medicine man,
hideous in adornments of buffalo horns and bearskin, approached De
Courtenay and with a feather painted on his bare breast a circle of
black with little red flames within.
McElroy was decorated in like manner, save that his circle was red and
it enclosed a death-maul, a dozen little arrows, and two knives.
Thus was foreshadowed the manner of their death.
Then arose a babble of voices.
“The White Doe! The White Doe that runs in the forest! Now shall She who
Follows decide!”
And into the midst of the vast circle once more Maren Le Moyne was
brought. She stood panting as they drew back and left her, and McElroy
looked upon her as he had never looked upon living being in all his
days.
There was the same high head, shining in the light, the same tall form
sweet in its rounded womanhood, the same strong shoulders, and from
them hung the white garment that he had carried to her door that day,
in spring. He had wondered then if he would ever see it cling to the
swelling breast, set up the round throat from its foamy fringe. And
thus he saw it again as he had dreamed, though, Holy Mother! in what sad
plight!
She had told him she would wear it. She had relied upon it to help her
get to De Courtenay! Of what depth and glory must be the love that sent
her after the savages! Even in the stress of the moment the old pain
came back an hundredfold. But events went forward and he had soon no
time to think.
They drew a line upon the earth as they had done before, squabbling
over its distance from the painted post; Bois-Brules, their keen eyes
gleaming, haggling for a greater stretch, and presently Maren stood upon
that line and they had pressed into her hand a bright new hatchet, one
of those bought from McElroy himself in the first days of trading.
Then an Indian, naked and painted like a fiend, whose toes turned out,
stepped forth and spoke in good English.
“Woman Who Follows,” he said distinctly, “one of these two dogs is a
murderer,--having killed the Great Chief when his people came in
peace to trade at the Fort. Therefore, one of them must die. The
Nakonkirhirinons take a skin for a skin,--not two skins for one. So did
the Great Chief teach his people. But none know which hand is red with
his blood. For two sleeps and a sun have the braves given them the
tests,--the Test of the Flying Knives, the Test of the Pine Splinters,
the Test of the Little Lines, but neither has shown Colour of the Dog's
Blood. Therefore, justice waits. Now has Wiskend-jac, the Great Spirit,
sent the White Doe from the forest to decide. Throw, White Woman, and
where the tomahawk strikes shall Death sit. Hi-a-wo!”
The renegade stepped back and a silence like death itself fell upon the
assembly.
Then did the colour drain out of the soft cheeks under the berry stain
and the girl from Grand Portage stand fingering the bright hatchet
in her hand. Her eyes went to McElroy's face and then to that of the
cavalier leaning forward between his swinging curls, and both men saw
the shine that was like light behind black marble, so mystic was it and
thrilling, beginning to flicker in them.
“Bravo!” cried De Courtenay, his brilliant face aglow with the splendid
hazard. “Bravo! We are akin, Ma'amselle,--both venturers, and my blood
leaps to your spirit! Throw, Sweetheart, throw! And may the gods of
Chance guide your hand!”
“Think not of me, Maren!” cried McElroy, in deadly earnest. “You owe me
naught! Throw for M'sieu, whose peril is my doing!”
For many moments she stood so, fingering the white handle of the weapon,
and there was no sound in all the vast assemblage save the crackle of
the flames. Then they saw her muscles tauten throughout her whole
young body, saw her draw herself up to her full height, and again for a
second's space she stood still. In that moment she had deliberately put
herself back in the surging turmoil of Grand Portage, was listening to
the words of old Pierre Vernaise: “Well done, Little Maid! Again now!
Into the cleft! Into the cleft! Ah-a! Little One, well done! Alas, but
you beat your old teacher!”--was feeling again the surge of a childhood
triumph which scorned to bring nearer that wilderness of her dreams.
With a swift motion her arm shot up and forward and the tomahawk left
her hand, flying straight as an arrow for the target. It struck with a
clean impact and stood, the handle a little raised and the point well
set in the green wood. There was a rush of the medicine men, who seemed
to act as judges, and then a silence. Peering, bending near to look
closer, they gathered with confusion of voices and presently stepped
back, that all might see.
Neither in black nor red, but directly between the two, the blade
cleaved cleanly down the dividing-line.
They surged forward, gathering round like flies with buzzing and
excitement, examining it from all sides, while the girl stood upon the
line with her hands shut hard beside her.
She did not glance again at the two men beside the fire.
A sachem pulled out the hatchet and carried it back to her, while the
circle formed and widened again.
Again she stood at poise, again they saw the tension of her body, again
the little wait, while the two men held their breath and De Courtenay's
eyes were shining like stars.
“A fitting close!” he was saying to himself, in that joy which was of
his venturer's soul and knew not time or place. “Heart of my Life! What
a close to a merry span!”
Again the swift, sure motion, unmeasured of the brain, coming out of
habit and pure instinct, again the “thud” of the strike, again the rush,
and again the wondering buzz of talk.
Once more the hatchet stood upon the line between the black and the red,
directly in its own cleft!
There was wondering comment, gesticulation, and swarthy faces turned
upon the woman on the line.
Once more the sachem in his waving feathers and tinkling ornaments drew
the blade from the post and gravely carried it back to her.
Excitement was riding high in the eager faces bending forward on
all sides, and everywhere a growing admiration. A tribe of prowess
themselves, the Nakonikirhirinons knew a clever feat when they saw it.
For the third time the tall woman in the beaded garment took the hatchet
and squared her shoulders.
“What does it mean?” McElroy was thinking wildly; “why does she not save
him while there is time?” And, even as the words went through his brain,
something snapped therein and he was conscious of the circle of faces in
the forest edge waving in grotesque undulations, of the arm of Maren as
it straightened forward, of the flash of the hatchet as it flew for the
painted post, and then of great darkness sewn with a thousand stars.
As Maren had raised her hand for the throw, from somewhere out of the
darkness behind the fire a stone death-maul had hurtled, aimed at her
wrist, but he who threw was sorry of sight as a drunken man, for it
struck the head of McElroy instead and he sagged down against the
moosehide thongs, even as the hatchet once more clicked snugly in its
former cleft.
Then from all the concourse there went up a shout, half in anger and
half in wild applause.
“Nik-o-men-wa!” they cried; “the Thrower of the Seven Tribes! But the
White Doe plays with the decree of Gitche Manitou! Bring the spear!
Fetch forth the spears, oh, Men of Wisdom!”
But in the midst of the excitement a figure walked slowly forth in the
light and held up a hand for silence.
It was Edmonton Ridgar.
Reluctantly they obeyed, sullenly, as if bound by a bond against their
will.
In the sudden hush he spoke.
“What do ye here, my brothers?” he asked, and waited.
There was no reply from the mass before him.
“Wherefore is the spirit of my Father vexed that it disturbs my watch
inside the death-lodge?”
The small rustling of the excited crowd ceased in every quarter.
They stilled themselves in a peculiar manner.
“Oh, ye sachems and Men of Wisdom,” he said, turning to the headmen
gathered together, “come ye to the tepee of Negansahima and behold what
ye have done!”
Slowly, as he had come, the chief trader of De Seviere turned about
and passed out of the light. One by one, in utter silence, their faces
changed in a moment into masks of uneasiness, the sachems and medicine
men rose and followed. In the wavering shadows thrown by the central
fire the big tepee stood in awesome majesty. Ridgar raised the flap and
entered, dropping it as the savages filed in to the number of all it
would hold.
“See!” he said dramatically.
Over the bier of piled skins which held the wrapped and smoke-dried
figure of the dead chief there danced upon the darkness, eerie in
pale-green living fire, the ghost of the crested and sweeping head-dress
that he had worn in life.
There was never a word among them, but, with one accord, after one
awe-struck look at the ghostly thing, they fled the lodge in a mass.
For several moments Ridgar stood in the darkness as those outside peered
fearfully in, and, when the last moccasin had slipped silently away,
he reached up and took down the fearsome thing, folding it beside the
chief.
“We were wise together, old friend,” he said sadly; “would I had your
knowledge and your power.”
Outside the word was spreading wildly.
“The spirit of Negansahima rests not in the lodge! The medicine men have
not dreamed true! Silence in the camp while They who Dream repair to the
forest fastnesses and seek true wisdom!”
And while the sachems and the headmen, the beaters of the tom-toms, and
those who tended the Sacred fires of the Dreamers formed into procession
and slowly filed out into the forest, Edmonton Ridgar drew a long breath
of relief. Maren had postponed the sure culmination of the tests by her
clever feat, he had postponed it a little longer by his own. Full well
he knew that the girl could not go on forever after the manner of her
beginning. She knew the hatchet, but would she know the spear, the
arrow, and the Test of the Flaming Ring? Sooner or later she would fail,
and then would come the last orgy of the rites of a Skin for a Skin. He
thought of the whimsical fate which so oddly gave the “Pro pelle cutem”
of the H. B. C. to this unknown tribe of the North, and flayed one with
the other.
This night was the last wherein there lay one chance of help for the two
men and this woman who had so strangely followed from the post, and he
lay in the darkness of the death-lodge watching the hushing of the camp,
the loosing of the captives, the carrying of his factor, a limp
figure, to the lodge of captives on the edge, the leading thither of De
Courtenay and Maren.
“Fool woman!” he said in his heart; “sweet, brave, loving fool with the
woman's heart and the man's simple courage!”