AGAINST GREAT ODDS
Two days after his interview with Janet, Donald disappeared from Fort
Bruce. He went in the night and it was thirty-six hours before his
absence was discovered. Immediately the tension in the Hudson's Bay
increased. Corrigal rushed his post managers back to their stations and
each man was resolved to fight.
Yet the old spirit of battle of the Hudson's Bay was lacking. That
spirit had always been arrogant, confident, sometimes supercilious, and
often it had carried the great company to victory through the sheer
belief of its servants that Hudson's Bay was unconquerable.
Now there was a new attitude. It was not alone that the Keewatin
Company had made serious inroads at three posts. It was no longer the
whirlwind campaign Donald had waged or his recognized ability as a fur
man. It was not the unexpected that was feared in the coming winter.
Rather it was the spirit that Donald himself had introduced into the
fight for pelts.
Men's minds persisted in going back to the battle with Millington,
to the charges that Nee-tah-wee-gan had screamed across the great
enclosure, to Corrigal's grim silence, to the Layards' reticence and
to the lonely figure in the new buildings down the shore. This last
perhaps more than anything else influenced them. There was something
ominous in Donald's intensity, in his silence and in his long hours
of toil, but still more in what they believed was seething within his
brain.
For no one doubted but that Donald's attack was actuated solely by
hatred of Corrigal and a desire for revenge. They pictured the first as
bitter and all-consuming, the second as a blazing, implacable, driving
force of such intensity that even the mighty Hudson's Bay would feel
its impact. There was something sinister in it, something unreal, and
the very fact that each man sympathized with Donald, although perhaps
unconsciously, heightened the impression.
No one knew whether this aspect of the situation affected Corrigal.
Though his men found him more approachable, none accused him of seeking
favor in his last resort. His back was to the wall--for no district
manager survives two unsuccessful years--and yet he seemed to look
forward to the winter with eagerness.
"He's fooled us," said Nicol MacKar the night before his departure.
"He's made us think he cares about nothing except the company and it's
the fight that gets him. He's been a different man since this happened."
"He made me think of a horse going to the post in the Derby when I
talked to him this afternoon," said Harry Milner. "Why, the old chap
was actually champing his bit and rearing on his hind legs. I fancy
he's a regular sport after all and likes a little competition."
"Yes, and maybe it's something else," Sandy Hay declared. "Who is the
one person a man can take a licking from and smile?"
"What do you mean?" Nicol demanded.
"Only that the old hag, Nee-tah-wee-gan, told the truth a year ago."
"Corrigal never did deny it," suggested Milner.
"Nor has Donald ever boasted of it," Sandy added. "There's blood in
this fight, lads, and it's Nicol and Millington and me that are going
to get spattered."
* * * * *
Before the lakes and rivers froze over that fall John Corrigal left
Fort Bruce. Special messengers traveling in fast canoes had brought the
news he expected. Donald had not extended his activities. He had not
built new posts but would concentrate on Whitefish Lake, Fort James
and Kenogami, the three places with which he was thoroughly familiar.
Accordingly Corrigal had departed at once to be on the firing line at
the beginning of the winter.
At Whitefish Lake he found that Donald had shifted Philip Collinge to
Fort James and that a French Canadian, Joe Barrere, had taken his place.
"I don't understand that," Corrigal pondered. "Millington had Collinge
thoroughly licked here at Whitefish."
"Yes, and Norton has always licked Millington," MacKar answered. "This
winter he'll do it again. It's at Fort James that you can look for
trouble. Donald has more than one iron in the fire."
"You mean he hates Millington as well as me?"
"I don't know as Donald hates him exactly. A man doesn't hate a snake,
still he gets a strange sort of pleasure out of killing one."
Nicol apparently had ignored Corrigal's first reference to the personal
relations between the district manager and Donald, but he watched
closely to see what effect his statement had.
"I imagine he classes me with Millington," Corrigal said.
"I'm not in the lad's confidence. I haven't seen him since the day of
that fight at Fort Bruce. He set himself up against the whole white
race then."
"That's the Indian in him," insisted Corrigal.
"Maybe, but the Indian or something else, you couldn't blame him. I'd
have run amuck myself," declared Nicol.
"You mean that he didn't have a square deal?"
"Do you think he did?"
Nicol had been in the service as long as Corrigal and he was thoroughly
of the old school. He had no fear of the district manager and he waited
calmly for what he believed would be an outburst. But apparently
Corrigal was unruffled.
"I'd do the same thing again," he said quietly. "I believe I was right.
Was Norton here this fall?"
"Yes, for a week. Then he went on to Fort James."
"Suppose he won a lot of hunters?"
"I don't know whether it was Donald or the Frenchman. Barrere is an
uncanny brute. He doesn't seem to do much. For a time when the hunters
were outfitting I couldn't see that he did anything but sit in the
sun and tell them stories. He can talk Ojibwa better than I can talk
English and he had the whole band laughing."
"I suppose he talked those hunters into taking 'debt' from him?"
"He did and I don't know how he did it. I was talking to them myself
all the time and I thought I'd lined up about all we lost last winter.
But he got them and a few more."
Corrigal went on to Fort James. Millington had glowing reports--so
glowing the district manager spent a day going over the books to verify
them. They showed that the Hudson's Bay was regaining lost ground. When
Corrigal learned that Donald had gone to Kenogami he hurried there,
finishing the long journey on the new ice. He found Sandy Hay in much
the same plight as Nicol MacKar.
"You've got to face the situation," Sandy declared after his
discouraging report. "When it comes to straight trading, Norton's got
us licked. He knows every hunter at the three posts and they know him
and believe in him. They'll trust him in anything. The only move that
will win is to boost prices for fur."
This was the unfailing weapon of the Hudson's Bay. More than one free
trader, limited in the scope of his operations by slight capital, had
fallen before the vast resources of the great company. In a way it was
an acknowledgment of defeat, this swinging of the heavy bludgeon, and
Sandy had expected that his suggestion would arouse Corrigal's anger.
But the district manager continued to stare out of the window.
"Norton has gained such headway," he said at last, "that that method,
if made effective, will wipe out the profits of the entire district for
two years at least."
Sandy whistled.
"Then there's only one thing to do," he said. "You will have to take
him back."
Corrigal's unruffled manner, which had perplexed Sandy, vanished
instantly.
"Take him back!" he shouted. "Take a man into the service who has
done what he has to the company? The Hudson's Bay means nothing to
him--nothing does but his desire for revenge. He's a half-breed run
amuck because I pulled the props of sentiment out from under him. No, I
won't surrender."
All the pride of the great company was Corrigal's. He seemed even to
have forgotten that last scene when Donald had scorned him.
"We've got a stiff fight here," he continued more mildly, "but Norton
will burn himself up. He can't last. Even if he does we can whip him.
We've got to, Sandy. Do you hear? The Hudson's Bay never lost a fight
like this. It can't."
There was a desperate note in his voice and Sandy realized that
Corrigal was driven, not by fear of a personal defeat, but by the
thought of the great company being forced to make terms, stooping to
recognize the strength of a vengeful opponent.
"No," the district manager concluded after a moment, "we won't take him
back. The Hudson's Bay doesn't give in so easily. It crushes a man like
Norton, and it's going to do that now."
Thus with the first snow and the first ice Corrigal began to fight as
he never had before. He drew on every resource, his long experience,
his knowledge of Indian character and the driving power that had always
won for him in the past. He thought only of Kenogami, Fort James and
Whitefish Lake. He wore out dogs and half-breed drivers, traveling
from one post to another. He spent sleepless nights in devising ways
to thwart and trick the opposition. He drove the post managers as
ceaselessly as he drove himself.
His efforts began to have an effect. For a time the decision hung
in the balance and then the strong tide that had set in toward the
Keewatin Company the previous winter began to ebb. Slowly but surely
all three of the embattled Hudson's Bay posts gained headway.
In the middle of December a messenger came through with a letter
from the commissioner in Winnipeg. It was a short letter--amazingly
short for one that had required such effort and hardship in its
passage through more than a thousand miles of wilderness. Tersely it
instructed the district manager: "Get that man Norton back into the
service without delay."
Corrigal smiled grimly when he read it, thrust it into a pocket and
redoubled his efforts. Suddenly, as if Donald himself had known of the
arrival of the order, that young man seemed to attack all along the
line. There was something demoniacal in the fury with which he forced
the fight and there was something uncanny about the manner in which he
met every move with a counter thrust.
Norton was everywhere, seemingly, at once. If Corrigal made the journey
between two posts in three days, he made it in two. If Corrigal slipped
away secretly he arrived at his destination only to find Donald there
ahead of him. If he devised some clever scheme to win hunters he
discovered that Donald had already put it into practice.
Corrigal knew Donald was not paying higher prices for fur or selling
goods for less than the Hudson's Bay--a fact which only stung the more
because he sensed in it a reflection of his own secret determination to
fight the thing out man to man, to make it a test of individual ability
and not of the resources of the two companies. He forgot the letter in
his pocket and plunged anew into the struggle, not only with renewed
energy but with a zest he had never known before and which he could not
have explained.
Yet he found himself baffled at every turn. He saw Philip Collinge, who
had been down and out, a failure, suddenly develop into more than a
match for the wily Millington. He saw Joe Barrere, once an itinerant
free trader with nothing back of him, continue his easy, laughing,
story-telling way and reap a rich harvest of pelts. He saw Sandy Hay,
steady, reliable, often brilliant, struggling almost helplessly in the
presence of the unknown Jack Harlan, a young fellow Donald had brought
from Winnipeg to run the Kenogami post.
The previous winter the Hudson's Bay post managers had sensed the
unusual in the conflict, had glimpsed Donald's fanatical driving force
and had been awed by it. Now, as Corrigal hurried from post to post, as
his spy system uncovered new and constantly distressing facts, as the
ledgers and monthly statements stamped "true" upon rumor after rumor,
the cumulative effect was inevitable.
Gradually, for all fur land is under the influence of the dreary,
brooding, spirit-filled north, Corrigal's viewpoint began to be tinged
by the common conception of Donald. He tried to throw off this new
thought, to convince himself that no such force could win, and he
started on a swift round of the three posts. After a conference with
Nicol MacKar he jumped back to Fort James.
"You want to remember I'm fighting two men, not one," Millington said
when he had finished his report. "I don't know what has happened to
Collinge. When I saw him last at Whitefish Lake he was done for. Now
he's a moose."
Corrigal did not comment. Millington babbled on:
"And Norton! I don't know what he's doing at Kenogami and Whitefish but
it can't be a great deal because he spends so much time here. Early as
it is, I know he has made two trips this winter and each time he has
come in with a toboggan load of fur. He's going right out among the
hunters, leaving Collinge to run the post. And Collinge does it."
Corrigal went on to Kenogami. He made a quick trip of it, for he found
a freshly broken trail, a fact that impressed upon him through each of
the one hundred and fifty miles that Donald was just ahead. As he sat
in his cariole, wrapped snugly while a half-breed driver sped at the
rear, it seemed that he had been doing nothing else since the first
ice but follow, that the young man he had not seen since their last
interview at Fort Bruce a year and a half before was always just ahead,
always arriving somewhere first, always striking the first blow.
At Kenogami Sandy Hay was as blunt as Millington had been.
"I could handle Harlan," he declared. "Left alone, Jack couldn't dent
us here. But Norton's on his tail all the time. He makes another man of
him. Donald himself is really running the post. He's district manager,
post manager and tripper besides. He got in here yesterday afternoon
and this morning at four o'clock he was off again, out in the bush,
talking to the hunters, buying their fur. He'll be back here in a few
days with a toboggan piled high."
Corrigal said nothing. He had gotten the point. Not only had his
adversary outgeneraled him but he had worked far harder. He had
succeeded in instilling a fighting spirit in his men. These were the
facts--facts that had been impressed upon him time and again since the
winter began. In addition there was the other side of it--something
vindictive, something of the supernatural.
Corrigal remained at Kenogami three days. He knew he had come to the
point where he must at least compromise. Fighter though he was, victor
though he always had been, he began to see that the situation was
getting beyond him. He had believed that if he swung all the mighty
power of the Hudson's Bay into line he could crush this young upstart,
but there was a bad year behind him, the letter from the commissioner
in his pocket, and the memory of that last interview with Donald.
He started back to Fort James. Not only had he seen that Donald was
concentrating on Millington but he had begun to suspect the young
Englishman. Something wasn't right at Fort James, though he had been
unable to get a hint as to what it was.
The first night out from Kenogami he camped late, but even later, when
he was smoking his after-supper pipe beside the fire, the dogs began to
growl and soon he heard the tinkle of bells. A few moments later a team
dashed out of the darkness and instantly bedlam broke loose.
In the confusion Corrigal waited anxiously. He suspected at once that
new orders were being rushed through from Winnipeg and he feared what
they might be. But as the drivers hurried to quiet their snarling
animals, a figure strode into the firelight and he recognized Norton.
"Oh!" Donald exclaimed when he saw Corrigal, "I expected to find my own
team here waiting for me."
He stared at the older man for an instant and then turned back toward
the trail. Corrigal did not speak. He knew that he should. He wanted
to. But even as he groped for an opening he heard Donald's sharp
command and the strange team dashed past the camp and on towards
Kenogami. Donald was running ahead, his driver at the rear, and the
toboggan was high and bulging with fur.
Few things have a stronger effect on a Hudson's Bay man than the sight
of fur in the hands of the opposition, yet in that moment the thing
that impressed Corrigal most was the appearance of Donald himself.
He had stood there in the firelight, his parka hood thrown back, his
head high, his chest extended by his exertions on the trail. His face
had hardened instantly when he saw Corrigal but it was not drawn by
weariness. The black shadows and the red light had brought it out,
heightening the effect of the strong features and giving an impression
of force and will that could not be subdued.
For a long time that night Donald's face haunted Corrigal. He had
expected to see hate and cunning, exultation and contempt. He had been
confident that when they did meet there would be a sneer, even a
taunt, perhaps vilification. Instead there had been only dignity, quiet
confidence and undeniable strength. There had been no desire to remain
and revel in victory. Only a quick explanation and immediate departure.
This impression remained with Corrigal the next day as he sped on
toward Fort James. At daylight when he stopped for breakfast his dogs
again began to growl and he heard the tinkle of sleigh bells. A moment
later a team of magnificent huskies, dogs undoubtedly imported from the
far north, dashed past. Running ahead of them was Donald.
It was a little thing, being passed by another dog team, and yet in
that instant it pictured clearly for Corrigal what the entire winter
would be like. Late the night before Donald had been speeding toward
Kenogami with a big load of fur. Now he was traveling swiftly toward
Fort James. He had met his own team, sent on the harvest of pelts and
was off to a new post and fresh conquests.
Corrigal leaped to his feet.
"Oh, Norton!" he called, bellowing above the clamor of the dogs.
Donald halted and looked back. Corrigal went forward until he was out
of hearing of the drivers and then beckoned Donald to him.
It had been Corrigal's impulse in that first moment to capitulate but
as the younger man walked up, alert, confident and wholly at ease, his
own pride and that inherent pride of the great company forbade. The
cold, hard mask he had always worn dropped into place.
"It's about time we got together," he began.
Donald did not speak. He only waited and his very silence made
Corrigal's task more difficult.
"The commissioner has written me to ask you to come back to the
company," the Hudson's Bay man continued.
"In your district?" Donald asked quietly.
"Yes."
Donald remained silent.
"Well?" Corrigal demanded at last.
"Of course the commissioner knows why I left the service?"
"Not unless you told him when you were in Winnipeg."
"I had nothing to tell him."
For a moment neither man spoke. It was evident that Donald was waiting,
yet there was not a trace of arrogance in his manner. Corrigal, who had
been prepared for something wholly different, could not adjust himself
to conditions which he had never believed possible.
He had pictured a savage desire for revenge, an overconfident bearing,
a sneering, bitter, venomous expression. Instead he found a dignity
equal to his own, a complete absence of rancor and contempt and, more
than anything else, he sensed a purpose so powerful it ignored any
personal issue. Nothing that had happened, Donald's undeniable success,
his dashing, sweeping campaign or the fire and vigor of his attack,
had impressed Corrigal so much as the young man's appearance.
Outwardly calm, the mask still in place, the district manager stood
there trying to find a way out of a perplexing situation. In that
moment he saw what he must do but his pride did not succumb easily.
While he struggled Donald spoke.
"I don't believe we can get together, Corrigal," he said as he turned
away.
He walked back to his dog team, sat down on the partly loaded toboggan
and was off. He did it quietly and simply, without any show of
defiance. Corrigal stood still, staring after him until he was out of
sight around a bend in the trail.