Thus thrown upon my own resources, I betook myself to the roomy cabin
where the cook reigned supreme. Thence, with breakfast disposed of, to
the store. I found there a small, bewhiskered man bowed over a ledger,
and a dozen husky packers stowing goods on the shelves. The clerical
person gazed at me over a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles in a
colorless, uninterested sort of way. I took him to be the bookkeeping
machine of the concern, and such proved to be the case. And when I asked
for "George," prudently refraining from mention of surnames he told me
primly that "Mr. Barreau" had gone up the river, leaving word that I was
to make myself at home in the meantime. Having delivered himself of this
message, he resumed his task. So I continued my round of the post until
I located old Ben Wise. What between chatting with Ben, and sundry games
of seven-up with one or two of the others whom I knew, and long spells
of sitting alone in the cabin smoking over the fire, I managed to murder
time for three days. At the end of which period Barreau returned.
He did not come alone, but at the head of a veritable flotilla of
birch-bark canoes, laden with a picturesque mixture of Indians, squaws,
round-faced pappooses, sharp-nosed dogs, and the household goods
pertaining to these. By the appearance of things I inferred that he had
been out to jog up the natives who had signified willingness to trade
with the house of Montell. They beached the canoes, and pitched their
lodges along the river bank, a little way from the stockade. In the two
hours of daylight following the arrival of the vanguard other little
parties came slipping quietly around the curve of the Sicannie, pitched
their camps, and set about cooking food. The flat was speckled with
twinkling dots of fire when dark vanquished the long twilight.
Barreau was tired, and had little to tell. I had come by a new deck of
cards through favor of the colorless Mr. Cullen, and we played a silent
game or two of euchre that night before turning in. By dawn we had
breakfasted and were at the store, and the copper-skinned men of the
lodges began to come in and cast their eyes upon such things as they
desired.
All forenoon I watched this silent outfitting of the hunters, saw this
one and that stand wrapped to the ears in his gaudy blanket, seeming not
to see or to be conscious of aught that transpired. Then of a sudden he
would point abruptly to a certain article, a trap or two, maybe, a caddy
of tea, a flask of powder, and emit a guttural sound that Barreau
interpreted to Cullen, who would solemnly make an entry in his notebook.
When the red brother had reached his trading limit, his squaw took the
burden of his purchases on her back, and he strode forth wrapped in a
dignity even more striking than his blanket, she following meekly at his
heels.
"How do you manage to keep track of them all?" I asked Barreau, as we
sat at dinner. "Suppose these Indians that you outfit now don't show up
again? Can you trust them so absolutely? For my part I can hardly tell
one from another."
"You'd find out that they have distinct individual characteristics,"
Barreau replied, "if you were with them long. I know most of these
fellows well enough to pick them out of a crowd. In fact, a good many of
them won't trade except with me--which is one strong hold I have over my
slippery partner. And so far as trusting them, an Indian's word is good
as gold. For every dollar's worth of stuff we let them have this fall
they'll bring ten dollars' worth of pelts next spring--unless it is an
extraordinary winter. Anyway, we don't stand to lose a great deal on
what we trust them for. Where we will make money will be in the spring
trade. They'll have plenty of furs left after their debt is paid, and
they'll want guns and more powder, flour and tea for the summer,
tobacco, and clothes and gew-gaws for the women and pappooses. If the
winter is normal we're going to have a big trade; bigger even than I
thought. I wouldn't mind," he concluded, with a short laugh, "if Montell
had to go clear to Benton, and got snowed in there. That would eliminate
one dangerous factor. But that's too much to hope for."
"It's a long trip," I reflected. "He can't get to the Missouri in time
to send his daughter down on the last boat, even. The river will freeze
any day now. Benton would be a dreary place for her to stay alone, I
should think. He may stay there with her."
"Not likely," Barreau contended. "As it happens, she knows one or two
rather nice families who are wintering at Benton, and she'll be apt to
stay with them. He has been altogether too keen to have his finger in
this winter's pie--when it wasn't needed there. No, the old fox has
something up his sleeve--something that he's been leading up to ever
since we left Benton. He'll be back, if he has to come on his hands and
knees."
Barreau was right. Montell did come back, and the date of his return was
only something more than forty-eight hours from the time of that
conversation. We were stretched upon our respective bunks, I listening
to Barreau's talk of long-dead traders who had undertaken to buck the
Hudson's Bay Company, when some one tapped on the door; and at Barreau's
laconic "come in," who but Montell himself should enter! He shut the
door carefully behind him, and waddled to a seat. Barreau raised on one
elbow.
"You!" he said sharply. "Back here already? What has happened now?"
Montell took off his hat and threw it petulantly on the floor. The
expression on his face was sour as curdled milk.
"We couldn't make it, that's all," he growled. "I guess the H. B. C.'s
gettin' busy all at once. Anyhow, we got headed off."
"How?" Barreau demanded.
Montell flung out his hands expressively.
"Easiest way in the world," he sputtered wrathfully. "Some feller with a
good eye just trailed us up, and killed off our stock--shot 'em one by
one. Finally we was afoot. So we turned back. Couldn't walk clear to
MacLeod. Damn 'em, anyway!"
"No one hurt?" Barreau asked quietly.
"Barrin' blistered feet--no," Montell snapped.
His gaze involuntarily travelled to his own broad, shapeless feet, and a
smile flickered across Barreau's countenance. There was a momentary
lull.
"What are you going to do now?" Barreau inquired next.
"I'm goin' to take eight men, by God! and a string of mules, and hit it
in the mornin'," Montell exploded. "I ain't goin' to have that girl
winter here, if I know it. And I ain't goin' to be headed off from
nothin' by the Hudson Bay or any other damned outfit. I'll show them
bushwhackin' parties a trick or two. They'll find old Montell ain't so
slow. I just come over here to let you know I was back, George, so's you
wouldn't be gettin' into the foreground to-morrow mornin' when we're
fixin' to start. You might just as well be accommodatin'."
"Oh, to be sure. As a favor from one gentleman to another," Barreau
observed sarcastically. "Anything to oblige. But if I were you I should
not try it again--not till you can take the outfit lock, stock, and
barrel. You may find it only a waste of mules, if not worse. Evidently
the Company is minded to pen the lot of us here, and teach us a lesson."
"Just so the girl's out of it," Montell muttered defiantly, "they got my
permission to go ahead with their teachin'. We've held our own for quite
a spell. But I got to get her clear. So I'm goin' to tackle it again."
"Very well," Barreau said indifferently. "But you had better take a few
pair of snowshoes. You may need them."
"Maybe so," Montell returned. "But I bet I get a scalp or two if they go
to settin' us afoot _this_ trip." And he gathered up his hat and left
the cabin.
Barreau lay back on his bed a long time without remark. Then he said
aloud, apropos of nothing in particular:
"I shouldn't be surprised if that was the way of it."
I looked over at him, and catching my interrogative gaze, he went on.
"I've simply been doing a bit of inductive reasoning. Taking things as
they are in this country what more natural than that the Hudson's Bay
Company should have become alarmed lest we grow to a formidable
competitor, and have simply made up their minds that we must be ousted,
by hook or by crook. They have a way of keeping posted, you know. I
shouldn't be surprised if one or two of the men on our payroll were
Company spotters. Here is Montell and his daughter, and myself. They
might reason that by driving him back and intimidating him, forcing him
to winter here, and then harassing us in every conceivable way till
spring, they may make us glad to quit. For instance, they could try to
kill off our stock and poison our dogs. And if there was a chance to
burn us out, why that would be the finishing touch. I shouldn't be
surprised if that is their scheme. And then along in the winter they
might even go so far as to have the Mounted Police pull one chestnut out
of the fire for them, by revealing my whereabouts."
"How does it come," I asked, in some surprise, "that they haven't done
that before, if they know that George Barreau, the fur-trader, is
Slowfoot George of the MacLeod country?"
"For the very good reason that they want no Mounted Policemen in this
neck of the woods," he said decidedly. "They don't want to establish a
precedent. They have lorded it in the North for generations, and so long
as they continue to do so the Canadian government will permit it. Once
the Police begin to come here, the Company authority is at an end. Also
their monopoly--for a Mounted Police post up here would mean open
country, and a swarm of free traders. Of course, what I said, is mere
theory, but I might be on the right track. If I am, we may look for
merry times here this winter, and you and I may have to take to the deep
snows before spring."
"Suppose--while we're theorizing," I ventured, "that Montell had an idea
he could get along without you--if he wants to settle your chances of
sharing in the profits, as you think--why mightn't he give the Police a
quiet hint, if he gets through?"
"I can very well imagine him doing that," Barreau responded
thoughtfully. "But he can't make it go without me; at least, not just
yet. And I do not think he will get through, for all his determination."
I kept Barreau's prophecy in mind. Days of busy outfitting slipped by; I
kept no track of the hunters who indebted themselves to the post, but
they came and went by scores. The days merged into a week. At the end of
it a black ruck of clouds came scudding out of the west. Thick and
lowering they gathered over head, and one day at noon, while Barreau and
I stood in the doorway of the store, watching a great multitude of damp
snowflakes come eddying down through the still air, Montell, his
daughter, and the eight men, came plodding afoot to the gate of the
stockade.