CORRIGAL BARES HIS SOUL
Before he left Fort Bruce John Corrigal had determined that he would
arrive at Fort James after dark. He wanted to catch Donald off his
guard, in a slack time of the year. In a lonely post, with one long,
dreary month following another, even strong men may break down.
Little things are the tokens, the crevices in the dykes against moral
disintegration which eventually become wide gaps. Corrigal knew the
effects of such isolation and because his own dykes had been guarded so
carefully he was the more intolerant of weakness in others.
This was not, however, a despicable attempt on his part to take
advantage of Donald. He would have done the same with any man of whom
he was suspicious and considered his plan only an impersonal effort to
gain information to which he was entitled. He felt no animosity--not
even prejudice. There was merely an opinion formed through years of
observation of the half-breed that sometime, in some crisis, the red
blood would predominate and the man would fail to meet the situation.
Yet when he burst in upon Donald late one winter afternoon he failed
to find what he expected. The post manager was cleanly shaven. His
clothing was neat and well cared for. He wore a linen collar and a tie,
evidence of the white man's superiority over his environment in every
lonely corner of the world.
The living room of the dwelling house was a distinct surprise to
Corrigal. While the curtains at the windows failed to give it a
feminine touch, they did relieve the bare monotony to which he was
accustomed. With the rows upon rows of books along the walls and the
rude but comfortable chairs, the room presented an effect wholly at
variance with what the district manager had looked for.
Donald was sitting at the big living room table when Corrigal entered.
Several books lay before him but he was busy with his ledgers and
reports.
"How do you do, sir," the young man said as he jumped to his feet.
There was no mistaking the genuineness of his surprise and yet
Corrigal could see that his failure to extend his hand was not due to
bewilderment. Donald was wholly at ease and there was a dignity in his
bearing that could not be misread.
Corrigal glanced quickly about the room and then at the post manager.
The nonfulfillment of his confident expectation produced surprise
rather than disappointment. He saw that he had anticipated too much.
"How are you, Norton," he said as he stepped forward and extended his
hand. "How's the fur?"
Donald shook hands formally and placed a chair beside the stove.
"I received word this afternoon that another raid has been made on Fort
James hunters' camps and that quite a bit of fur has been purchased,"
he said.
"Who is doing it?"
"The tripper who brought word couldn't tell me nor could he give any
hint as to who it might be."
"Why aren't you out there?"
"It was my intention to start to-morrow morning."
"Where did this happen?"
"On the western side of my territory."
"The Whitefish Lake side, eh?"
Donald nodded.
"It's Collinge," said Corrigal. "Millington has him badly beaten
and there's nothing else for the Keewatin man to do if he wants to
make a showing. But it's got to stop. We have enough difficulty with
the opposition without this promiscuous raiding. I'll send word to
Millington to watch Collinge and you get out there and see the hunters
who have been selling fur to his trippers. But stop it. Understand?"
"Certainly," Donald answered. "I tried in the fall to get information
from the hunters but for some reason they won't talk. I do know
they were given a good price--thirty or forty per cent more than we
can pay here, and the news of this has spread until there is much
dissatisfaction."
"It's Collinge, all right. And the hunters from whom he bought fur
received 'debt' here, of course?"
"All of them."
Corrigal jumped to his feet and strode up and down the room.
"Get out there as quickly as you can and find out about this," he
commanded. "Make those hunters talk. Learn what they received for their
fur and who is buying it. And when you do find out who it is, follow
him. Don't let him talk to a hunter alone. Spend the entire winter
at it if necessary but stamp it out. I won't have such a thing in my
district."
But Donald did not leave the post the next morning, nor did Corrigal.
It had been the district manager's intention to remain only over night.
Fort James was a place of bitter memories for him. He had not visited
it since that spring nearly thirty years before when he had returned to
find the dwelling house in ashes.
But a storm so furious that there could be no thought of travel kept
both men at the post and it was three days before they were able to
leave. That first morning Corrigal made an inspection. In silence he
walked about the buildings, through the trade shop and the warehouse.
He examined the books and reports and when he finished he knew that he
had never found a post so efficiently managed. Discipline was perfect.
Every task was attended to. Equipment was cared for.
He did not say anything that expressed surprise or pleasure. This was
not due to a petty desire to prove the truth of his theories, but
rather to an inherent sense of justice which made him unwilling to
hasten by an unwise word of praise what he believed was inevitable
downfall. Nor was he wholly without a sense of regret that one who
possessed in such abundance the qualities of a good fur trader was
doomed to ultimate failure by a circumstance over which he had no
control and the results of which he could not conquer.
This sense of regret deepened as the storm continued and they became,
despite the hostility each felt in the other, two storm-bound men,
alone in a vast wilderness. It was inevitable that they turn to other
topics than the affairs of the post. The second afternoon when Donald
returned from the trade shop he found Corrigal glancing through the
well worn books on the shelves.
"Did you ever go to school?" the district manager asked.
"No. Mrs. Layard taught me to read and write and guided me in my first
reading."
"I never suspected her tastes were so extensive."
"Philip Collinge, the Keewatin manager at Whitefish, introduced me to
many things."
"Collinge!" Corrigal exclaimed, partly in surprise and yet with a
contemptuous tone that aroused Donald. "I thought he had forgotten he
ever was a white man."
Donald started forward angrily but before he could utter the hot
defense that arose to his lips Corrigal said:
"Something queer about him, isn't there? University man, too, I've
heard, and yet he went to pieces."
"It's not that. It's only that he is more decent than most men would be
in his place."
"What do you mean? Isn't it rather that he shouldn't be in his place at
all?"
"I'll grant that. Philip was never made for fur land. He really belongs
at Oxford but his father, who is an earl, would rather have had a
failure at a distance than a plain pedagogue at home and packed him off
to Canada. Now----"
Donald paused, wondering just how much of his friend's history he
should tell this stranger.
"Now?" Corrigal prompted, less interested in Collinge's history than in
the new view he was getting of Donald.
"Now they'd like to have him back. The earl sent word by me when I was
in England two years ago that the slate was wiped clean and that they
wanted him to come home."
"And he didn't go?"
"Hardly. He's not the sort to abandon responsibilities."
"But his staying is all so useless. His post is next door to failure
and Millington says the mother is bringing up his boys like little
savages."
"He doesn't make that an excuse," Donald defended warmly. "Other white
men have. They skip out, shed all responsibility. It takes a real man
to stick and that is why Collinge isn't back in England now."
"You think he should stay here?" Corrigal asked.
"The man who doesn't is a coward."
All the bitterness of the past months was in Donald's voice. It had
been so unexpected. Neither had seen where the conversation was
carrying them. A month before Donald would not have believed he could
arraign and judge his unknown father before this coldly impersonal
superior.
The district manager studied Donald for a moment. His lips parted as if
he were about to speak and then he turned suddenly to the books before
them.
Many years before Corrigal had discovered that work could not fill all
his time, could not press back all the thoughts that kept crowding
to the surface, and he had turned to reading. That same savage
determination which had carried him to success in the fur trade made
him one of the most widely read men in the service. In Donald's library
several times he ran across books of authors who were his favorites. In
a short time he was discussing them without a thought of the strained
relations that had been developing and the next night he talked as he
never had before, abandoning himself to the only thing that shared his
devotion to the Hudson's Bay.
Just as Corrigal forgot himself and the demands of the company, so
did Donald forget the injustice of which he believed he was a victim.
They became two lonely men together, reveling in the mutual love for
books they had discovered, hungry for the stimulus of each other's
observations.
Not always did they agree. John Corrigal had the narrowness of the
self-taught, while Donald's perceptions had been incited and broadened
in his association with Philip. Often the district manager found
himself bested in an argument, his own ready mind outflanked by the
lightning attacks of the other. But he lowered his point gallantly and
by his silence and absorbed attention acknowledged his surrender.
Books led to other things, philosophical discussion, bits of psychology
and reminiscences and at last, under the spell of this strange
fellowship, Corrigal spoke for the first time of the fact that he had
once been post manager at Fort James. He mentioned it incidentally,
without thinking, and the next instant his manner changed. He hesitated
and his glance wandered to a window.
"I think the storm will break to-night," he said. "I hope so. I have
enjoyed my stay here, Norton, but I had intended to remain but one
night."
He was silent for a moment and when he went on his voice was low and
trembled slightly.
"It was not easy coming back, even after all these years. I was very
happy at Fort James until----It was while manager here that I married.
I brought my bride here. Two years afterward I went away to visit
an outpost. When I got back the dwelling house had burned. My wife,
helpless in bed, and my baby boy had been burned to death.
"I left before spring, on the rotting ice. I couldn't stay. I tried but
I couldn't. I let everything go to smash. It's the only time I ever
failed the Hudson's Bay but I simply couldn't stand it here, with that
black heap of ruins and what had been found in them.
"But I have made it up to the company. I have tried to think of nothing
but my work. I know men call me hard and cold. Perhaps I am. I don't
intend to be. I only know that something went out of me that day that
has never come back and that it has been only through work, through
burying myself in the service of the company, that I have escaped
madness."
Donald did not comment. There was nothing he could say. He knew that
Corrigal had suddenly bared his soul, had exposed his life tragedy, and
that he--he of a despised race--had been permitted to see the havoc
that had been wrought.
He felt that he had come very close to this man, and that the moment
was one that could never be repeated. For an instant he was tempted to
make the most of the intimacy--to tell his own story, his hopes and his
desires and how they had been blasted. He even was tempted to burst
forth with the truth about the fur raids, for he had gathered some
evidence against Millington, but his better judgment restrained him.
As Donald sat there in silence, Corrigal picked up a book and began
talking about it. His voice was normal. The moment when the spirits of
these two might have come together on a common ground of understanding
had passed. The next morning Corrigal was on his way before daylight.