The news that one Pitt River Pete was wanted by the police, by the
"bulls," spread fast through the town and into Shack City. As soon
as they heard, and as soon as Indian Annie was chuckling grossly over
the possible delight of seeing Pete hanged, the police came down and
searched every hole and corner in the sawdust swamp. They routed out
Annie almost the first of the lot, and she screamed insults at them
as they searched her den.
"Kahta you damn plisman tink I hide Pete?" she yelled. "Pete hyu
mesachie, him damn bad Siwash; if him come I say 'mahsh, klatawa, go,
you damn thief.' Oh, you damn plisman, what for you make mess my
house? You tink Pete him one pin I hide him lik' dat?"
They bade her dry up and when she refused they took her by the scruff
of the neck and bundled her outside. She sat in sawdust and yelled
till they left her shack and searched the others. They found
nothing, of course, but they found out one thing, and that was the
readiness of most of the men of the Mill, Siwashes or Whites, to give
away Pete with both hands. For they, at any rate, were certain that
it was he who had spiked the logs and killed poor old Skookum
Charlie. And since he had killed a Chinaman, too, all the men from
the Flowery Kingdom were ready to do the same. Old Wong said so to
the "damned plismen." But as the Chinamen relied on the police to
save them from abuse and injury, they were even readier to help than
the Siwashes.
"Supposee we savvy Pete, we tellee you allo tim'," said Wong. "My
tink Pete damn bad man, spikee logs, killee my flin Fan. Fan velly
good man, my flin, and Pete spoilum 'tumach,' killee him dead. All
light, we come tellee."
There wasn't a doubt about it, that if Pete turned up in Shack-Town
he would be given away, and though the police went away empty-handed
they had high hopes of nailing him shortly.
They had had a considerable pow-pow that morning in the Engine-Room
before work started up and there wasn't a soul found there to say a
word for Pete. This was natural enough.
"A man that'll spike logs ain't a human being, boys," said Long Mac
seriously.
"Killing his own tilikums," said Shorty Gibbs. "It was horrid seein'
pore old Skookum!"
"The Chinky was horridest," said Tenas Billy. "I picked him up."
"So you did," said Shorty. "But what d'ye think Pete's doin'?"
"He'll be on the scoot."
"To be sure, but where?"
"Oh, to hell and gone out of this."
"That's your tumtum. It ain't mine by a mile. If he's been spoilin'
Ned Quin's face what'll he do 'bout George, eh?"
Mac intervened.
"Waal, boys, these Injuns are a rotten crowd. You can't bet on what
they'll do. Some o' them don't care a damn if their klootchmen quit.
I know, for I've run with 'em on the Eastern Slope o' the Rockies and
on the plains. Sometimes they will though."
He told a ghastly tale.
"Pete's a holy terror, that's what," said Tenas Billy. "I never give
him credit for sand, I admit, but he has it."
"Sand be damned," said Long Mac; "he hasn't sand. It's only Injun
temper. I know 'em. They ain't sandy in the way we speak of it,
boys. Bein' sandy is bein' cool. Pete don't do notion' unless he's
mad. None of 'em do, at least none of these fish-fed coast Injuns.
They's a measly crowd."
The men chewed on that.
"Nevertheless," said Shorty, considering the matter fully, "I'd
rather be me than George Quin with Pete loose on the tear. The man
that spiked our boom and hunted old Cultus Muckamuck's steers into a
dry cañon and then hammered him to pulp with a club mayn't have sand,
but he's dangerous."
"He's the kind of Johnny that'd fire the Mill," said Ginger White,
who so far had held his tongue.
"White's on the target," said Mac as the whistle blew. But he forgot
about it when the song and the dance of the day commenced. There's
fine forgetfulness in work.
Quin was as foolish as the rest of them. That is to say, he talked
to the police and came to the conclusion that Pete wasn't likely to
be on hand now and for ever after. He knew what Mac knew and
despised the average Coast Indian. It was true enough they weren't
up to much unless they were "full," full, that is, of liquor. And a
man like Quin knew by instinct the weakness there was in such as
Pete, in spite of his now bloody record. For Quin had a fine square
jaw and Pete hadn't. But then Quin was incapable of underhand night
work. And he didn't know that Pete was like a rat in a trap, as a
criminal is in British Columbia. And there was another thing. He
knew that Ned wasn't dead, by any means. It never occurred to him
that Pete believed he had killed Cultus and must be desperate if he
wasn't out of the country.
"I wish the swine was dead," said George Quin. "I believe I'd marry
Jenny."
She had twined herself round his heart, and when he saw her nursing
the one child he had ever been father of he was as soft as cream with
her. Not a soul about the City would have believed it was George
Quin if they had seen him with his naked boy in his arms. Only the
Chinamen knew about it, for Sam told them, being delighted, as they
all are, with male offspring. They really sympathised with the big
boss as they thought of their own wives far away in "China-side" and
the children some of them hadn't seen. Old Wong wept secretly, for
he had worked and gone home to marry a wife, and she had died. It
wasn't likely he would ever make enough money to buy another, unless
he got it by gambling. He was as bad at that as old Papp, the
German, who still hadn't made sufficient to go home to "California,"
in spite of all his work, and those muscles which made him feel as if
he would "braig dings" if he didn't toil.
Yes, tilikum, George Quin, "Tchorch," was happy, as happy as he could
be.
And Jenny was nearly as happy as she could be. Her child was a gift
from heaven, even if heaven frowned as it gave her the beautiful boy.
She never saw the Bible or the horrid pictures and she saw instead
the scripture of the child's pure flesh hourly and read the dark
language of her man's heart. He adored what she had given him, and
she knew, as a woman may know, that underneath his awkward roughness
and his careless ways, sometimes not wholly gentle, there was real
love for her and the wish to be good. And when he sat with her and
smoked, she caught the paternal look of full satisfaction that he
feigned to hide from himself. What a boy it was!
He was as fat as a prairie chicken, and as full of life as a
fresh-run salmon. How pink he showed in hot water: how he squealed
like a dear little pig and kicked his crumpled dimpled legs! Was
there ever such a boy before?
"Oh, Tchorch, see," said Jenny. She showed him the baby's thick dark
hair. The child was a garden of delight that she cultivated all day
long.
But she never forgot "Tchorch," who had been so good to her, and had
taken her to Victoria and driven her about in a fine carriage: who
had showed her the world. If she had only been his wife the whole
earth could have offered her nothing.
And yet behind her was the dark shadow of Pete. George never spoke
of him, and if he had known that Sam did he would have kicked the
Chinaman from the house to the Mill. Yet it wasn't Sam's fault,
though he was a chatterbox and always ready for "talkee" at any time.
Jenny asked him about things. She knew that men said it was Pete who
had spiked the logs. Sam told her of the death of his poor
countryman. She wept bitterly about Skookum, who had always been a
kind, thick-headed chap, very good to his klootchman. She had now
taken up with another who wasn't good to her.
"Poor old Skookum," said Jenny. Oh, it was dreadful of Pete. And
yet it was her fault.
But she had her boy! Oh, not for anything, not for life or heaven or
all the round world contained of good, would she have parted with her
child and George's. She hadn't lived before. And now "Tchorch"
loved her so much more. He was so satisfied, so content to sit and
smoke. Her Indian blood was happy to see her man sit solemnly and
puff the clouds into the air without a word.
Now she knew of the search for Pete, and knew what he had done, just
as she knew what wicked Ned had done to poor Mary. She hated Ned,
and was sure he was utterly bad. Nevertheless, Mary had gone back to
him. That she knew was natural.
"Poor Mary loves him," she said, "but she has no baby!"
If the sky was clear, it was for her little boy: when the breezes
blew they were for him: the beauty of the river was his: the
loveliness of stars and the goodness of her milk were the gifts of
God, who was not angry with her but only sorrowful because she was
not married.
"He would marry me if----"
Oh, yes, if Pete were dead! She could not say it, but could not help
the bad thought rising within her. To be married to George! She
trembled to think of it.
In her heaven Pete was the dark cloud. Perhaps her constant thought
of him put it into George's head to say, as he did say, very suddenly
that same night--
"I wish I could marry you, tenas!"
She crept to his knee, and laid her head on his hand. She got more
beautiful every day, more gentle, more tender.
"There's not a spark of vice in the little woman," said her man, with
tears in his eyes. He said he was a damn fool and spoke gruffly next
time. But she understood her Chief, her great man, and was pleased
to serve his gruffest speech.
"If only that cursed Siwash was dead," said George.
But if he wasn't he would either be in the "pen" for years or would
be seen no more on the Fraser River. That seemed certain.
And still George was uneasy. It was impossible to say where the man
was. The belief of the police that he had escaped out of the country
went for nothing. British Columbia might be a mouse-trap, but it was
a handy place for holing up in, and the brush alongside the river
would have hidden a thousand. George had a talk about the matter
with Long Mac, who was the only one of the workers in his Mill who
had brains beyond his daily task.
"What do you think, McClellan?" asked the Tyee.
Mac's eyes showed that he could think.
"He's a dangerous skunk, that's my tumtum, Mr. Quin," said Mac. He
told him what Ginger White had said and Quin frowned heavily.
"Fire my Mill!"
The Mill was his life, and till Jenny had borne him a child it had
been his true and lasting passion. There was a fascination about it
and the work of it that he loved. The scent of the lumber: the sound
of the saws: the rush of the work: the hustling of the men, made
something beyond words. The Mill was a live thing, warm, strong,
adequate, equal to its work. It filled Quin's alert, strong mind.
"Fire my Mill!"
That was Long Mac's "tumtum," his thought, his notion.
"If he ain't really skipped out, that's what a cuss like Pete would
do to you, Sir," said Mac. "He's made a holy record for himself,
ain't he? We know he spiked the logs and killed poor Skookum, and
there ain't the shadder of a doubt he fixed your brother's cattle.
And then he's laid him out, and started off down here. They traced
him to Ruby Creek, and it's tol'ble sure he kapsuallowed a canoe
there. But no one's got on his tracks. It's bad luck there's been
such a mighty poor salmon run this year, or he'd ha' been seen on the
River."
As it was, the lordly tyee salmon, the quinnat, had been making a
poor show in the Fraser that year, as he will at intervals, more or
less regular. The canneries were fairly frozen out and shut down.
The river was empty of boats and men.
"I'll set another night-watchman on," said Quin. "There's something
in what you say, McClellan. The police are damn fools, though."
"I'll take a night or two at it myself, if you like, Mr. Quin," said
Long Mac.
"You're the very man," replied Quin.
That night Pete got his hidden dug-out into the water. But his chief
thoughts were not of the Mill.