There are times when death is a shock, but not a grief. And so it was
with Nanette Le Beau. With her own eyes she had looked upon the
terrible fate of her husband, and it was not in her gentle soul to weep
or wish him alive again. At last there had overtaken him what LE BON
DIEU had intended him to receive some day: justice. And for the baby's
sake more than her own Nanette was not sorry. Durant, whose soul was
only a little less wicked than the dead man's, had not even waited for
a prayer--had not asked her what to do. He had chopped a hole in the
frozen earth and had buried Le Beau almost before his body was cold.
And Nanette was not sorry for that. The Brute was gone. He was gone for
ever. He would never strike her again. And because of the baby she
offered up a prayer of gratitude to God.
In his prison-cage of sapling bars Miki cringed on his belly at the end
of his chain. He had scarcely moved since those terrible moments in
which he had torn the life out of the man-brute's throat. He had not
even growled at Durant when he dragged the body away. Upon him had
fallen a fearful and overwhelming oppression. He was not thinking of
his own brutal beatings, or of the death which Le Beau had been about
to inflict upon him with the club; he did not feel the presence of pain
in his bruised and battered body, nor in his bleeding jaws and
whip-lashed eyes. He was thinking of Nanette, the woman. Why had she
run away with that terrible cry when he killed the man-beast? Was it
not the man-beast who had struck her down, and whose hands were at her
white throat when he sprang the length of his chain and tore out his
jugular? Then why was it that she ran away, and did not come back?
He whimpered softly.
The afternoon was almost gone, and the early gloom of mid-winter night
in the Northland was settling thickly over the forests. In that gloom
the dark face of Durant appeared at the bars of Miki's prison.
Instinctively Miki had hated this foxhunter from the edge of the
Barrens, just as he had hated Le Beau, for in their brutish faces as
well as in their hearts they were like brothers. Yet he did not growl
at Durant as he peered through. He did not even move.
"UGH! LE DIABLE!" shuddered Durant.
Then he laughed. It was a low, terrible laugh, half smothered in his
coarse black beard, and it sent an odd chill through Miki.
He turned after that and went into the cabin.
Nanette rose to meet him, her great dark eyes glowing in a face dead
white. She had not yet risen above the shock of Le Beau's tragic death,
and yet in those eyes there was already something re-born. It had not
been there when Durant came to the cabin with Le Beau that afternoon.
He looked at her strangely as she stood with the baby in her arms. She
was another Nanette. He felt uneasy. Why was it that a few hours ago he
had laughed boldly when her husband had cursed her and said vile things
in her presence--and now he could not meet the steady gaze of her eyes?
DIEU! he had never before observed how lovely she was! He drew himself
together, and stated the business in his mind.
"You will not want the dog," he said. "I will take him away."
Nanette did not answer. She seemed scarcely to be breathing as she
looked at him. It seemed to him that she was waiting for him to
explain; and then the inspiration to lie leapt into his mind.
"You know, there was to be the big fight between HIS dog and mine at
Post Fort O' God at the New Year carnival," he went on, shuffling his
heavy feet. "For that, Jacques--your husband--was training the wild
dog. And when I saw that OOCHUN--that wolf devil--tearing at the bars
of the cage I knew he would kill my dog as a fox kills a rabbit. So we
struck a bargain, and for the two cross foxes and the ten red which I
have outside I bought him." (The VRAISEMBLANCE of his lie gave him
courage. It sounded like truth, and Jacques, the dead man, was not
there to repudiate his claim.) "So he is mine," he finished a little
exultantly, "and I will take him to the Post, and will fight him
against any dog or wolf in all the North. Shall I bring in the skins,
MADAME?"
"He is not for sale," said Nanette, the glow in her eyes deepening. "He
is my dog--mine and the baby's. Do you understand, Henri Durant? HE IS
NOT FOR SALE!"
"OUI," gasped Durant, amazed.
"And when you reach Post Fort O' God, m'sieu, you will tell LE FACTEUR
that Jacques is dead, and how he died, and say that some one must be
sent for the baby and me. We will stay here until then."
"OUI," said Durant again, backing to the door.
He had never seen her like that. He wondered how Jacques Le Beau could
swear at her, and strike her. For himself, he was afraid. Standing
there with those wonderful eyes and white face, with the baby in her
arms, and her shining hair over her breasts, she made him think of a
picture he had once seen of the Blessed Lady.
He went out through the door and back to the sapling cage where Miki
lay. Softly he spoke through the bars.
"OW, BETE" he called; "she will not sell you. She keeps you because you
fought for her, and killed MON AMI, Jacques Le Beau. And so I must take
you my own way. In a little while the moon will be up, and then I will
slip a noose over your head at the end of a pole, and will choke you so
quickly she will not hear a sound. And who will know where you are
gone, if the cage door is left open? And you will fight for me at Post
Fort 0' God. MON DIEU! how you will fight! I swear it will do the ghost
of Jacques Le Beau good to see what happens there."
He went away, to where he had left his light sledge and two dogs in the
edge of the timber, and waited for the moon to rise.
Still Miki did not move, A light had appeared in the window of the
cabin, and his eyes were fixed on it yearningly as the low whine
gathered in his throat again. His world no longer lay beyond that
window. The Woman and the baby had obliterated in him all desire but to
be with them.
In the cabin Nanette was thinking of him--and of Durant. The man's
words came to her again, vividly, significantly: "YOU WILL NOT WANT THE
DOG." Yes, all the forest people would say that same thing--even LE
FACTEUR himself, when he heard. SHE WOULD NOT WANT THE DOG! And why
not? Because he had killed Jacques Le Beau, her husband, in defence of
her? Because he had freed her from the bondage of The Brute? Because
God had sent him to the end of his chain in that terrible moment that
the baby Nanette might live, as the OTHER had not, and that she might
grow up with laughter on her lips instead of sobs? In her there rose
suddenly a thought that fanned the new flame in her heart. It MUST have
been LE BON DIEU! Others might doubt, but she--never. She recalled all
that Le Beau had told her about the wild dog--how for many days he had
robbed the traps, and the terrific fight he had made when at last he
was caught. And of all that The Brute had said there stood out most the
words he had spoken one day.
"He is a devil, but he was not born of wolf. NON, some time, a long
time ago, he was a white man's dog."