FUR
Quite early in the morning, Loseis, issuing out of her house, was
greatly astonished to see the door of the little fur warehouse standing
open, and the bales of fur being carried out by Gault’s Crees. This
warehouse flanked the store on the left hand side as you faced the
river; on the other side there was a similar building for the storage of
flour. Loseis’ breast grew hot at the sight; and without more ado, she
marched across. Gault was not in sight; Moale was directing the Crees.
“What does this mean?” demanded Loseis.
Moale turned his flat, inscrutable black eyes to the girl’s face. The
dash of Indian blood lent a touch of mystery to Moale’s olive face. It
was a comely face; but so expressionless it was impossible to tell the
man’s age. “I beg your pardon?” he said in his pleasant voice.
“You heard me!” said Loseis in a passion. “By what authority have you
broken into my warehouse, and helped yourself to my fur?”
It was quite true that Moale had opened one of the bales for no reason
except the pleasure of seeing and stroking the marvelous pelts of the
black foxes. He was a connoisseur. He said smoothly: “Mr. Gault’s
orders, Miss. I thought you knew.”
“I did not know,” said Loseis, “and I will trouble you to have the fur
carried back again, and the door locked.”
Moale scratched his head. “I’d be glad if you’d talk it over with Mr.
Gault,” he said.
Loseis imperiously beckoned to the nearest Cree. “Man!” she said, “tell
Gault that I would be glad to have a few words with him.”
While they waited for Gault, Moale busied himself with tying up the
opened bale. He did not speak; but he looked at Loseis curiously and
wistfully, when she was not aware of it.
Gault was presently to be seen approaching from the men’s house. He did
not hurry himself. “Good morning,” he said, raising his hat. His manner
had changed. He was still polite, but it was an insolent politeness. His
eyes were as hard as glass.
Loseis welcomed the change. It permitted her to come out into the open.
“Why did you give orders to get out my fur?” she asked.
“It must be sent outside without further delay,” said Gault coolly.
“Am I not to be consulted?” asked Loseis, running up her eye-brows.
“It did not seem worth while to do so,” said Gault. “You have set
yourself in opposition to me at every point. Just the same I have a
responsibility towards you that I am obliged to fulfill.”
“I am the mistress here,” said Loseis in a rage.
“You are not of age,” said Gault coolly.
“Well, you are not my guardian!”
“No. But whoever may take your affairs in charge, will look to me as the
only man on the spot, for an accounting. If the fur is not sent out at
once you would lose the market for an entire season.”
Loseis turned away biting her lip. Whenever he began to talk in this
vein with glib use of legal and business terms, she was helpless. Her
instinct told her that he was merely cloaking his evil intentions in
smooth words, but she had not experience enough to be able to strike
through to the truth.
“Besides,” Gault went on, “if we do not get the fur to the Crossing,
Gruber will get tired of waiting for it.”
Loseis caught at this. “So,” she said, “you are sending it to Gruber,
then?”
“I expect to,” said Gault cautiously, “but I must reserve myself full
freedom of action. He has got to satisfy me that he can dispose of it to
the best advantage of your interests.”
“When does it go?” asked Loseis.
“To-morrow morning.”
“By the usual route?”
“No. I am sending it to Fort Good Hope; and thence by my launch to the
Crossing.”
Loseis felt that here was a point she could stick on. “I would rather
have it go by pack train as usual, direct to the Crossing over the
prairie,” she said.
“That would take two weeks longer.”
“Just the same, I request you to send it in that manner.”
“I must decline.”
The red flags flew in Loseis’ cheeks. “You have said that it was my
fur,” she said. “Very well, I order you to send it out as I desire.”
Gault, cool and hard; frankly enjoying the spectacle of her anger, said:
“And I decline to do so.”
Loseis observing that she was furnishing him with enjoyment, contrived
by a miracle to control herself. “Thank you very much,” she said coolly.
“I was just trying to find out where I stood. Shall you accompany the
consignment?”
“No,” said Gault darkly, “I remain here to look after you.”
Loseis bowed, and marched back to her own house. Gault looked after her,
rubbing his lip. His thin mouth was twisted with anger and bitterness.
By God! there was a spirit in the girl! Never had she seemed so
desirable to him as at that moment. Moale too, looked after her with a
deep wistfulness in his mysterious eyes. The tang of red blood cut him
off from any hopes in that direction.
Loseis put her feet down like a little princess; but her eyes were
stinging with tears. She conducted an orderly retreat, while her heart
was bursting with mortification. It was intolerable to be so proud and
so helpless. Helpless! Helpless! Her sex, her loneliness, her ignorance
delivered her three times over into the power of this man. She was
certain now that he intended to rob her, and she could do nothing!
During the whole day the preparations went on. The pack-saddles were got
out; and the fur was divided into lots of a suitable size for a horse
load. Gault sent Moale to the Women’s House with a polite message
requesting Loseis to come to the store to issue the necessary grub. She
proudly handed over the key, telling them to take what they required,
and leave a memorandum of it.
In the afternoon the horses were rounded up. As many were put into the
corral as it would hold, and the rest picketed in the square. Upwards of
seventy horses were required for the entire outfit. To make any sort of
progress between twelve and fifteen men would be needed to pack and
unpack the horses twice a day. Moale and two of the Crees were going,
while the other two remained to wait upon Gault. Loseis observed that
Ahchoogah, Mittahgah and others of the Slavis who had accompanied the
fur train on other years, were working willingly enough with the horses.
This started a train of thought in her mind.
Gault is too strong for me, she told herself; why shouldn’t I trick him
if I can?
With the passing of danger, the three Slavi girls had come sidling back
into the kitchen of the Women’s House, and Loseis indifferently took
them in, partly because she was accustomed to having them wait on her;
and partly because they furnished a useful link with the Slavi village
below. She now called Mary-Belle to her.
“Can it be true,” she asked, “that Ahchoogah, Mittahgah, and other men
are going to Fort Good Hope? That place is dangerous for Slavi men.”
“Wah! they would not go to that place!” said Mary-Belle with a look of
terror. “There is bad medicine in that place! Gault has said if they
will drive the horses as far as the red spring, the water of which makes
men and horses sick and well again, he will give each man a Stetson hat
and a mouth-organ. Blackburn never had mouth-organs in his store. The
red spring is half way between the two rivers. Gault says for the Slavis
to leave the horses there and come home. Musqua (one of the Crees) is
riding fast to bring the Crees from Fort Good Hope. Moale and Watusk
(the other Cree) will watch the horses and the fur at the red spring
until they come. So there is no harm.”
Loseis let the subject drop.
After supper, choosing a moment when she believed that Gault and Moale
were still at the table, she went over to the store. Fastening the door
behind her, she climbed through the back window, and making her way down
to the creek shore, followed it down to the Slavi village. Of course if
Gault happened to look out of the end window of his house, he could see
her amongst the Slavis; but then it would be too late to interfere with
her purpose.
The air was still full of a pleasant warmth, and the Slavis having just
eaten, were squatting in groups outside the tepees, laughing and
chatting in their ceremonious way. It is only in the presence of a white
man that the Indian is taciturn. By this time the men had thrown off the
alcoholic poison which had made them sick for days, and a general
feeling of well-being was in the air. Fathers fondled their little sons,
and abused their womenfolk; and the latter accepted it with equanimity.
At the approach of Loseis a dread silence fell upon them, and they drew
a walled look over their dark faces. It was the first time she had
visited them since that terrible night, and they expected the worst. But
Loseis was bent on playing a part to-night. Her face was as smooth as
their own, and much blander. Allowing them to suppose that she had
forgotten what had happened, she addressed this one and that by name
with grave politeness; promised a mother medicine for her sick child,
and handed out peppermint lozenges to the little boys who were the idols
of the tribe. Nobody would have thought of giving the little girls
candy.
Loseis sat down on an overturned dug-out, with the manner of one who is
prepared to hold agreeable discourse. The Slavis began to gather round,
but always with that absurd pretense of not letting their left hands
know what their right hands were doing. Loseis was very wonderful to
them, too wonderful to inspire affection; awe was nearer the word.
At first she talked of the stage of water in the river; the promise of a
full crop of berries; the scarcity of rabbit; all subjects of first-rate
importance to the Slavis. Ahchoogah, the oldest man present, in order to
prove how bold he was, undertook to answer her politely to her face.
When Loseis perceived that she had gathered the audience she wanted, she
went on casually:
“The wind is from the setting sun. There will be no rain. It is well.
The men who are going to-morrow will see Fort Good Hope in five sleeps.”
A tremor of uneasiness passed through her listeners. “No, no!” said
Ahchoogah. “We are not going to Fort Good Hope. At the red spring we
will turn back.”
“That is Gault’s talk,” said Loseis courteously. “All know that Gault’s
talk hides a snare. When you get to the red spring you will not want to
turn back. Gault’s medicine will draw you on. It is very strong
medicine. It’s name is electricity. I know it, because Gault brought me
a little piece of it when he came here. The girls at my house have told
you that. It opens its eye in the dark.”
Loseis paused to allow this to sink in. She fancied that she perceived
fear behind the blank masks of the Slavis; but could not be sure. None
spoke.
“I have heard of many strange things at Fort Good Hope,” she went on
with an air of indifference that the Slavis could not outdo. “Men say
that Gault is Old Man’s partner. Old Man say to Gault; I lend you my
strong medicine, but when you die you must be a dog to my sledge. Gault
thinks he will cheat Old Man, by going away to the white man’s country
to die. Maybe so. I do not know such things. I hear them told.”
She paused again. The men looked down their noses. A woman crept to
Loseis’ feet, and twitched her skirt.
“Loseis, tell my son not to go,” she said tremulously.
“If he wants to go, what is that to me?” said Loseis with an air of
surprise. “He will see strange things. When Gault claps his hands—Wah!
there is light. Gault catches the voices of the air on his wires and
brings them into his room. He did that in my father’s house and I made
him stop, because I did not want the Powerful Ones to fix their eyes on
me! Etzooah has told you these things. At Fort Good Hope Gault keeps
great beasts fastened to the earth. They have fire in their bellies and
they do his bidding. When they open their mouths you can see the fire,
and steam hisses through their nostrils as from many kettles in one.
When they are hungry they scream so that a man falls flat on the ground
to hear it. These fiery beasts eat men too, and Gault is always worried
because he has no men to spare. So he is glad when strangers come to
Fort Good Hope.”
Loseis rose, feeling that she could hardly better this conclusion. She
held out her hand in turn to Ahchoogah, to Mittahgah, to Mahtsonza and
the others there that she knew were going next day. “Good-by. . . .
Good-by. You are good hunters. You bring me plenty of fur. I am sorry
that you go.”
She returned home. It was impossible to tell how the Slavis would react
next day; but she had done her best.
* * * * *
Early next morning Loseis was at her window. Nothing was changed. The
horses were still picketed in the square; and the Crees were lounging
about the doorway of the men’s house. The lordly Crees had no notion of
bestirring themselves while there were Slavis to do the hard work. By
and by Gault appeared in the doorway, and with vigorous pantomime of
anger evidently demanded to know why nothing had been started. He was
told; whereupon Etzooah was dispatched down to the Slavi village in a
hurry.
From the other window Loseis watched Etzooah haranguing the Slavis, and
expostulating with them. It was all in vain. He was finally obliged to
return cringing to Gault, shrugging, spreading out his hands in
significant by-play. Gault’s face turned black, and he aimed a furious
kick at Etzooah, that the wily redskin dodged. Gault went inside; while
Etzooah slipped around the house. Gault reappeared carrying an ugly
quirt. Summoning his Crees with a jerk of the head, he set off down the
rise. The tall redskins followed with cruel grins of anticipation.
Back at the end window, Loseis saw the miserable little Slavis driven
like sheep by the five tall men. But sheep were never used so brutally.
The sneaking Etzooah, reappearing from the creek-bed, pointed out the
wanted ones, who were driven up the rise with incontinent kicks and
cuffs, and the furious lashing of the whip. Squeezing their bodies
together to offer as small a mark as possible, the diminutive savages
darted this way and that, to find that they could only escape punishment
by running straight ahead. The Crees yelled with laughter. The Slavis,
cowering, made haste to start packing the horses, and Loseis made up her
mind that she had lost.
Oscillating between the two windows, she presently saw that the Slavis
below were striking their tepees, and piling everything pell-mell into
the canoes, and she took heart again. She knew the Slavis better than
Gault did. Either Gault did not notice what the people were about, or he
disdained them. There was no interference with them. They presently set
off in a cloud up-river, paddling as if the devil were behind them. So
precipitate was their departure that a small boy who had gone down
amongst the willows to set muskrat snares, returned to find his village
wiped off the flat. After prowling around to see if by chance any scraps
of food had been overlooked, the child set off composedly up-river by
the horse-track.
Soon afterwards Loseis perceived that Gault was having trouble with his
gang. In the process of saddling the pack-horses, some of the Slavis had
disappeared. The four Crees were sent off in different directions to
round them up. This was a fatal move, because Gault and Moale could not
possibly watch all the others, and Etzooah would always play double. The
Slavis, on their part, have an uncanny faculty of choosing the moment
when no eye is upon them to fade away silently: to slip behind a
building, to roll down the creek bank, to lose themselves in the bush of
the hillside. In spite of Gault’s whip, and his terrible voice, his crew
literally melted away before his eyes. After making long detours, they
would rejoin their people somewhere above. Even weakness is not without
its resources.
When the Crees returned empty-handed, the Slavis were reduced to five.
These were all but surrounded; nevertheless, it was presently discovered
that there were but four, without anybody being able to say what had
become of the fifth. In any case it would have been impossible for such
a small number of men to pack and unpack seventy horses twice a day.
Gault gave up. The remaining Slavis were dismissed with kicks, and the
trader, doubtless in a hellish rage, strode back to his house. Near the
door, the grinning Etzooah spoke to him. For an instant Gault showed a
murderous face in Loseis’ direction; then went inside. Loseis
experienced a feeling of the sweetest triumph.
However, within an hour, two of the Crees with their bedding and grub
set off on the easterly trail, and her heart sunk again. In four or five
days they would be back with a swarm of Crees from Fort Good Hope. What
good would four days do her? She had only succeeded in prolonging the
agony.
Seeing the last of their people disappear, the Slavi girls exhibited the
frantic, unreasoning fear of half-broken horses deserted by the herd.
Loseis scornfully let them go. They slipped around behind the Women’s
House, and were not seen again.
The pack-horses had been turned out again; and the fur carried back into
the little warehouse. The lock of the warehouse had been forced out of
respect to Gault’s pretense that the key was sealed up in Blackburn’s
desk, and no other lock was put on. The door was held shut by a propped
pole.
Meanwhile Gault had not returned the key to the store; and after waiting
a few hours, Loseis sent Mary-Lou across the square with a polite
request for it. The girl returned without it, and bearing a message
equally polite, to the effect that henceforward Gault would relieve Miss
Blackburn of the trouble of attending upon the store. Until her duly
constituted representative arrived, he would administer it together with
the rest of her property.
Loseis was never the one to take this lying down. She instantly marched
over to the store. The door was fastened with a padlock through staples.
Loseis bethought herself that there were crow-bars somewhere about the
post. However she found an easier way. Gault had overlooked the fact
that the little back window was out. Loseis climbed through, and
obtaining a file and a new lock from the store, returned to the front of
the building and set to work. It was a long job in her inexperienced
hands; but she was supported by the agreeable thought that Gault was
watching her. By the end of the afternoon she found herself inside.
Putting in the rear window, she fastened the new lock, and returned to
her house to supper dangling the keys from thumb and forefinger.
After supper Moale came over. Loseis received him at the outer door.
Whatever his private feelings may have been did not appear. He said in
an impassive voice:
“Mr. Gault instructs me to say that you and your girl must prepare to go
out to Fort Good Hope when the fur goes in four or five days’ time. He
can no longer take the responsibility of keeping you here while the
Slavis are in open rebellion.”
Loseis laughed scornfully. “He can always find respectable-sounding
words, can’t he?” she said. “You’re a white man, aren’t you? I should
think you would feel ashamed to be the carrier of such lying words.”
Moale’s face changed not a muscle. Some secret feeling made him proof
against her scorn. He was not altogether white. He had not looked
directly in her face.
Loseis’ temper got the better of her. “You tell Gault, I shan’t go!” she
cried.
In his even voice Moale said: “I am instructed to say that Mr. Gault is
prepared for that.”
Loseis shut the door.
During the hours that followed she walked up and down her room, half
beside herself with balked rage. What possible answer was there to this
latest threat of Gault’s. He had hinted at using force. He intended to
lay hands on her. To Loseis’ flaming blood there were only two possible
answers: to kill herself or to kill Gault. The first alternative she
immediately rejected; that was the counsel of weakness. Nothing would
please Gault better than for her to kill herself. She would kill Gault
then, before he should lay hands on her. But ah! _dared_ she take the
life of a white man? She had had so vivid an experience of death taking
a man in his strength.
Besides there were three other men. She could not hope to shoot them all
before she was seized. She would be carried out anyhow. She visualized
the horrors of a trial of which she knew so little; she imagined the
cloud of lies that would beat her down. She had no one to speak for her
but Mary-Lou; and Mary-Lou would never be allowed to speak. And if she
were, the simple red girl would be struck dumb with terror. Disgraced!
Disgraced! thought Loseis. Parted from Conacher without hope in this
life. She buried her face in her hands. I must not kill him! she thought
in terror. I must not let myself kill him. . . . But how can I help it
if he lays hands on me!
If Gault had come over without warning to seize her, Loseis would have
snatched up a gun, and shot him without thinking about it. But with
devilish cunning he had sent to tell her of his intention. He was giving
her four days in which to go mad with trying to find a way out when
there was none.
Mary-Lou was terrified by the expression on her mistress’ face. She held
out her arms imploringly. “Please . . . please to go to bed,” she
whispered. “You will sleep. To-morrow you feel better.”
“Sleep!” cried Loseis. “I shall never sleep again!”
“Please . . . please,” persisted Mary-Lou. “Please stop walking.”
“Go to bed, you,” said Loseis angrily. “Let me be by myself. Close the
door after you.”
Mary-Lou went sadly out.
Loseis pressed her knuckles against her temples. I must be quiet! she
told herself. I must think what I am doing! . . . Quiet! The only thing
that would quiet me would be to go across and call him to the door and
shoot him! Ah, then I could sleep! . . . I must not think such things! I
must not! I must always be telling myself it would not end things to
kill him; it would only begin worse things! . . . But what is the use? I
know I shall suddenly kill him! If he lays hands on me! . . . If I were
a man he would not dare! She flung her arms above her head. “O God! why
didn’t you make me a man! It is too hard to be a girl!”
* * * * *
It had been dark for some time. To-night the silence was even more
complete, for no child whimpered in the tepees, and no Slavi dog barked.
Loseis was pulled up all standing by hearing a gentle tapping on the
glass of the window alongside the kitchen door. These nights the inside
shutters were always closed. She instinctively flew to her gun which was
standing in the corner; but put it down again, smiling scornfully at
herself. It was not in this manner that an attack would be made.
Returning to the window, she said firmly: “Who is there?”
A whisper came winging back: “Conacher.”
Loseis’ heart failed her; her legs wavered under her; she struggled to
get her breath. Then in a flash life and joy came crowding back until
she felt as if she would burst. She clapped a hand over her mouth to
hold in the rising scream of joy. Gault must not know! “Oh, Paul! . . .
Oh, Paul!” she murmured, fumbling blindly for the latch of the door.