As Mooswa tramped down the wide roadbed of frozen river, Francois, up at
The Landing, was doing very much as the Bull Moose had feared.
He had weathered the blizzard, lying huddled up with his dogs in the
shelter of a cut-bank, not daring to stir even for food till the fury of
the icy blast had passed. He had even come to The Landing with a full
resolve to go back immediately after he had secured his outfit; alas!
for the carrying out of it, he was but an easily influenced Half-breed.
At The Landing were several of his own kind down from Little Slave Lake
with the first kill of Winter fur. With these the possession of money
or goods always meant an opportunity for gambling.
Francois had a "debt credit" at the Hudson's Bay Company's store equal
to the value of his needs; any Trapper who has kept his slate clean in
the Company's accounts can usually get credit for a small outfit.
When the Half-breed had completed his purchase, the Factor tossed him a
large plug of smoking tobacco, which was the usual terminal act of a
deal in goods in any of the Company's posts.
Francois filled his pipe, sat down by the hot box-stove with its roaring
fire of dry Poplar-wood, and smoked, and spat, and dilated upon the
severity of the blizzard, and regaled the other occupants of the Trading
Post with stories of Wolverine's depredations. Suddenly he ceased
speaking, held the pipe in his hand hesitatingly, and straightened his
head up in a listening attitude. The deep, sonorous, monotonous
"tum-tum, tum-tum, tum-tum" of a gambling outfit's drum-music came
sleepily to his acute listening ear. It was like a blast from the
huntsman's horn to a fox-hound; it tingled in his blood, and sent a
longing creeping through his veins.
"There goes that Nichie outfit from Slave Lake again," cried the Factor,
angrily. "They've gambled for three nights; if the police were here I'd
have a stop put to it."
Francois tried to close his ears to the coaxing, throbbing, skin-covered
tambourine the gambling party's music-maker was hammering that still,
frosty night; but his hearing only became acuter, for it centred more
and more on the thing he was trying to keep from his mind. Even the
"Huh, huh!--huh, huh!--huh, huh!--huh, huh!" of the half-dozen Indians
who sat about a blazing camp-fire, and rocked their bodies and swayed
their arms in rhythmic time, came to him with malevolent fascination.
"I t'ink me I go sleep," Francois said, knocking the ashes from his
pipe, and putting it in his bead-worked deerskin fire-bag.
"You'd better pull out sharp in the morning," commanded the Factor;
"young McGregor will be running short of grub before you get back."
"I roun' up ever' t'ing to-night," returned Francois, "an' hit de trail
firs' t'ing in de mornin', soor. I make me de S'ack in t'ree day."
Outside, the "Tum-tum" called to him; the "Huh, huh!" pleaded with him
like the voice of a siren. He would go and sit by their fire just for a
little, the Breed reasoned--not play! for more than once he had been
stripped to his very shirt when luck set against him. True, other times
he had accumulated furs, and dogs, and guns, even the caribou-skin
coats, and Cow-boy hats--fine valuable hats worth ten dollars a
piece,--when fortune smiled and he had guessed unerringly in which hand
his opponent-player had hidden the cartridge shell, or whatever other
token they used.
"Huh-huh! Francois! Huh, Boy--Welcome!" went round the circle of
squatting figures when the Half-breed stood amongst them. The musician
stopped beating his instrument; solemnly each player and onlooker held
out a hand and gave Francois one sharp jerk of greeting. Two rows of men
sat facing each other, a big blanket over their knees; room was made for
the new arrival.
"S'pose I not gamble to-night me," said Francois, hesitatingly.
They laughed in astonishment--doubtingly.
"S'pose you 'fraid you lose, Man-who-saves-his-money," cried a Saltaux
Indian, disdainfully.
Now a Breed or an Indian must not be accused of being afraid of
anything; if he be, and submit to it, he is undone for all time. Half
their bravery is due to this same moral cowardice. Francois hesitated,
and the others, ignoring him, drew the blanket over their knees; the
player secreted the tokens, and drawing forth his hands crossed his
arms, always waving them in rhythmic time to the tum-tum. Then the
Man-who-guesses in the opposite party indicated with his fingers where
he thought the tokens were hidden.
It wasn't in human blood to stand out against this thing--not
generations of gambler blood, and Francois cried, half fiercely: "Make
room, Brothers! We'll see who's afraid."
That was the beginning. In the end, which came toward daylight,
Francois had neither grub-stake, nor rifle, nor train-dogs. Time after
time he took in exchange for some asset a little bundle of Red-willow
counter sticks; time after time the little sticks, some long and some
short, dwindled until they were all gone. The evil fate that had been
his down at the trapping stuck to him in gambling.
Broken, and half numbed by loss of sleep and a sense of impending
disaster, brought on by his despoiled condition, Francois crawled off to
a friend's tepee, laid down like a train-dog, and fell asleep.