_Chapter One_
The girl stood on a bank above a river flowing north. At her back
crouched a dozen clean whitewashed buildings. Before her in
interminable journey, day after day, league on league into remoteness,
stretched the stern Northern wilderness, untrodden save by the
trappers, the Indians, and the beasts. Close about the little
settlement crept the balsams and spruce, the birch and poplar, behind
which lurked vast dreary muskegs, a chaos of bowlder-splits, the
forest. The girl had known nothing different for many years. Once a
summer the sailing ship from England felt its frozen way through the
Hudson Straits, down the Hudson Bay, to drop anchor in the mighty
River of the Moose. Once a summer a six-fathom canoe manned by a dozen
paddles struggled down the waters of the broken Abítibi. Once a year a
little band of red-sashed _voyageurs_ forced their exhausted
sledge-dogs across the ice from some unseen wilderness trail. That was
all.
Before her eyes the seasons changed, all grim, but one by the very
pathos of brevity sad. In the brief luxuriant summer came the Indians
to trade their pelts, came the keepers of the winter posts to rest,
came the ship from England bringing the articles of use or ornament
she had ordered a full year before. Within a short time all were gone,
into the wilderness, into the great unknown world. The snow fell; the
river and the bay froze. Strange men from the North glided silently
to the Factor's door, bearing the meat and pelts of the seal. Bitter
iron cold shackled the northland, the abode of desolation. Armies of
caribou drifted by, ghostly under the aurora, moose, lordly and
scornful, stalked majestically along the shore; wolves howled
invisible, or trotted dog-like in organized packs along the river
banks. Day and night the ice artillery thundered. Night and day the
fireplaces roared defiance to a frost they could not subdue, while the
people of desolation crouched beneath the tyranny of winter.
Then the upheaval of spring with the ice-jams and terrors, the Moose
roaring by untamable, the torrents rising, rising foot by foot to the
very dooryard of her father's house. Strange spirits were abroad at
night, howling, shrieking, cracking and groaning in voices of ice and
flood. Her Indian nurse told her of them all--of Maunabosho, the good;
of Nenaubosho the evil--in her lisping Ojibway dialect that sounded
like the softer voices of the forest.
At last the sudden subsidence of the waters; the splendid eager
blossoming of the land into new leaves, lush grasses, an abandon of
sweetbrier and hepatica. The air blew soft, a thousand singing birds
sprang from the soil, the wild goose cried in triumph. Overhead shone
the hot sun of the Northern summer.
From the wilderness came the _brigades_ bearing their pelts, the hardy
traders of the winter posts, striking hot the imagination through the
mysterious and lonely allurement of their callings. For a brief
season, transient as the flash of a loon's wing on the shadow of a
lake, the post was bright with the thronging of many people. The
Indians pitched their wigwams on the broad meadows below the bend; the
half-breeds sauntered about, flashing bright teeth and wicked dark
eyes at whom it might concern; the traders gazed stolidily over their
little black pipes, and uttered brief sentences through their thick
black beards. Everywhere was gay sound--the fiddle, the laugh, the
song; everywhere was gay color--the red sashes of the _voyageurs_, the
beaded moccasins and leggings of the _mètis_, the capotes of the
_brigade_, the variegated costumes of the Crees and Ojibways. Like the
wild roses around the edge of the muskegs, this brief flowering of the
year passed. Again the nights were long, again the frost crept down
from the eternal snow, again the wolves howled across barren wastes.
Just now the girl stood ankle-deep in green grasses, a bath of
sunlight falling about her, a tingle of salt wind humming up the river
from the bay's offing. She was clad in gray wool, and wore no hat. Her
soft hair, the color of ripe wheat, blew about her temples, shadowing
eyes of fathomless black. The wind had brought to the light and
delicate brown of her complexion a trace of color to match her lips,
whose scarlet did not fade after the ordinary and imperceptible manner
into the tinge of her skin, but continued vivid to the very edge; her
eyes were wide and unseeing. One hand rested idly on the breech of an
ornamented bronze field-gun.
McDonald, the chief trader, passed from the house to the store where
his bartering with the Indians was daily carried on; the other
Scotchman in the Post, Galen Albret, her father, and the head Factor
of all this region, paced back and forth across the veranda of the
factory, caressing his white beard; up by the stockade, young Achille
Picard tuned his whistle to the note of the curlew; across the meadow
from the church wandered Crane, the little Church of England
missionary, peering from short-sighted pale blue eyes; beyond the
coulee, Sarnier and his Indians _chock-chock-chocked_ away at the
seams of the long coast-trading bateau. The girl saw nothing, heard
nothing. She was dreaming, she was trying to remember.
In the lines of her slight figure, in its pose there by the old gun
over the old, old river, was the grace of gentle blood, the pride of
caste. Of all this region her father was the absolute lord, feared,
loved, obeyed by all its human creatures. When he went abroad, he
travelled in a state almost mediæval in its magnificence; when he
stopped at home, men came to him from the Albany, the Kenógami, the
Missináibe, the Mattágami, the Abítibi--from all the rivers of the
North--to receive his commands. Way was made for him, his lightest
word was attended. In his house dwelt ceremony, and of his house she
was the princess. Unconsciously she had taken the gracious habit of
command. She had come to value her smile, her word, to value herself.
The lady of a realm greater than the countries of Europe, she moved
serene, pure, lofty amid dependants.
And as the lady of this realm she did honor to her father's
guests--sitting stately behind the beautiful silver service, below the
portrait of the Company's greatest explorer, Sir George Simpson,
dispensing crude fare in gracious manner, listening silently to the
conversation, finally withdrawing at the last with a sweeping courtesy
to play soft, melancholy, and world-forgotten airs on the old piano,
brought over years before by the _Lady Head_, while the guests made
merry with the mellow port and ripe Manila cigars which the Company
supplied its servants. Then coffee, still with her natural Old World
charm of the _grande dame_. Such guests were not many, nor came often.
There was McTavish of Rupert's House, a three days' journey to the
northeast; Rand of Fort Albany, a week's travel to the northwest;
Mault of Fort George, ten days beyond either, all grizzled in the
Company's service. With them came their clerks, mostly English and
Scotch younger sons, with a vast respect for the Company, and a
vaster for their Factor's daughter. Once in two or three years
appeared the inspectors from Winnipeg, true lords of the North, with
their six-fathom canoes, their luxurious furs, their red banners
trailing like gonfalons in the water. Then this post of Conjuror's
House feasted and danced, undertook gay excursions, discussed in
public or private conclave weighty matters, grave and reverend
advices, cautions, and commands. They went. Desolation again crept in.
The girl dreamed. She was trying to remember. Far-off, half-forgotten
visions of brave, courtly men, of gracious, beautiful women, peopled
the clouds of her imaginings. She heard them again, as voices beneath
the roar of rapids, like far-away bells tinkling faintly through a
wind, pitying her, exclaiming over her; she saw them dim and
changing, as wraiths of a fog, as shadow pictures in a mist beneath
the moon, leaning to her with bright, shining eyes full of compassion
for the little girl who was to go so far away into an unknown land;
she felt them, as the touch of a breeze when the night is still,
fondling her, clasping her, tossing her aloft in farewell. One she
felt plainly--a gallant youth who held her up for all to see. One she
saw clearly--a dewy-eyed, lovely woman who murmured loving, broken
words. One she heard distinctly--a gentle voice that said, "God's love
be with you, little one, for you have far to go, and many days to pass
before you see Quebec again." And the girl's eyes suddenly swam
bright, for the northland was very dreary. She threw her palms out in
a gesture of weariness.
Then her arms dropped, her eyes widened, her head bent forward in the
attitude of listening.
"Achille!" she called, "Achille! Come here!"
The young fellow approached respectfully.
"Mademoiselle?" he asked.
"Don't you hear?" she said.
Faint, between intermittent silences, came the singing of men's voices
from the south.
"_Grace à Dieu_!" cried Achille. "Eet is so. Eet is dat _brigade_!"
He ran shouting toward the factory.
_Chapter Two_
Men, women, dogs, children sprang into sight from nowhere, and ran
pell-mell to the two cannon. Galen Albret, reappearing from the
factory, began to issue orders. Two men set about hoisting on the tall
flag-staff the blood-red banner of the Company. Speculation, excited
and earnest, arose among the men as to which of the branches of the
Moose this _brigade_ had hunted--the Abítibi, the Mattágami, or the
Missináibie. The half-breed women shaded their eyes. Mrs. Cockburn,
the doctor's wife, and the only other white woman in the settlement,
came and stood by Virginia Albret's side. Wishkobun, the Ojibway
woman from the south country, and Virginia's devoted familiar, took
her half-jealous stand on the other.
"It is the same every year. We always like to see them come," said
Mrs. Cockburn, in her monotonous low voice of resignation.
"Yes," replied Virginia, moving a little impatiently, for she
anticipated eagerly the picturesque coming of these men of the Silent
Places, and wished to savor the pleasure undistracted.
"Mi-di-mo-yay ka'-win-ni-shi-shin," said Wishkobun, quietly.
"Ae," replied Virginia, with a little laugh, patting the woman's brown
hand.
A shout arose. Around the bend shot a canoe. At once every paddle in
it was raised to a perpendicular salute, then all together dashed
into the water with the full strength of the _voyageurs_ wielding
them. The canoe fairly leaped through the cloud of spray. Another
rounded the bend, another double row of paddles flashed in the
sunlight, another crew, broke into a tumult of rapid exertion as they
raced the last quarter mile of the long journey. A third burst into
view, a fourth, a fifth. The silent river was alive with motion,
glittering with color. The canoes swept onward, like race-horses
straining against the rider. Now the spectators could make out plainly
the boatmen. It could be seen that they had decked themselves out for
the occasion. Their heads were bound with bright-colored fillets,
their necks with gay scarves. The paddles were adorned with gaudy
woollen streamers. New leggings, of holiday pattern, were
intermittently visible on the bowsmen and steersmen as they half rose
to give added force to their efforts.
At first the men sang their canoe songs, but as the swift rush of the
birch-barks brought them almost to their journey's end, they burst
into wild shrieks and whoops of delight.
All at once they were close to hand. The steersman rose to throw his
entire weight on the paddle. The canoe swung abruptly for the shore.
Those in it did not relax their exertions, but continued their
vigorous strokes until within a few yards of apparent destruction.
"Holá! holá!" they cried, thrusting their paddles straight down into
the water with a strong backward twist. The stout wood bent and
cracked. The canoe stopped short and the _voyageurs_ leaped ashore to
be swallowed up in the crowd that swarmed down upon them.
The races were about equally divided, and each acted after its
instincts--the Indian greeting his people quietly, and stalking away
to the privacy of his wigwam; the more volatile white catching his
wife or his sweetheart or his child to his arms. A swarm of Indian
women and half-grown children set about unloading the canoes.
Virginia's eyes ran over the crews of the various craft. She
recognized them all, of course, to the last Indian packer, for in so
small a community the personality and doings of even the humblest
members are well known to everyone. Long since she had identified the
_brigade_. It was of the Missináibie, the great river whose
head-waters rise a scant hundred feet from those that flow as many
miles south into Lake Superior. It drains a wild and rugged country
whose forests cling to bowlder hills, whose streams issue from
deep-riven gorges, where for many years the big gray wolves had
gathered in unusual abundance. She knew by heart the winter posts,
although she had never seen them. She could imagine the isolation of
such a place, and the intense loneliness of the solitary man condemned
to live through the dark Northern winters, seeing no one but the rare
Indians who might come in to trade with him for their pelts. She could
appreciate the wild joy of a return for a brief season to the company
of fellow-men.
When her glance fell upon the last of the canoes, it rested with a
flash of surprise. The craft was still floating idly, its bow barely
caught against the bank. The crew had deserted, but amidships, among
the packages of pelts and duffel, sat a stranger. The canoe was that
of the post at Kettle Portage.
She saw the stranger to be a young man with a clean-cut face, a trim
athletic figure dressed in the complete costume of the _voyageurs_,
and thin brown and muscular hands. When the canoe touched the bank he
had taken no part in the scramble to shore, and so had sat forgotten
and unnoticed save by the girl, his figure erect with something of the
Indian's stoical indifference. Then when, for a moment, he imagined
himself free from observation, his expression abruptly changed. His
hands clenched tense between his buckskin knees, his eyes glanced here
and there restlessly, and an indefinable shadow of something which
Virginia felt herself obtuse in labelling desperation, and yet to
which she discovered it impossible to fit a name, descended on his
features, darkening them. Twice he glanced away to the south. Twice he
ran his eye over the vociferating crowd on the narrow beach.
Absorbed in the silent drama of a man's unguarded expression, Virginia
leaned forward eagerly. In some vague manner it was borne in on her
that once before she had experienced the same emotion, had come into
contact with someone, something, that had affected her emotionally
just as this man did now. But she could not place it. Over and over
again she forced her mind to the very point of recollection, but
always it slipped back again from the verge of attainment. Then a
little movement, some thrust forward of the head, some nervous, rapid
shifting of the hands or feet, some unconscious poise of the
shoulders, brought the scene flashing before her--the white snow, the
still forest, the little square pen-trap, the wolverine, desperate but
cool, thrusting its blunt nose quickly here and there in baffled hope
of an orifice of escape. Somehow the man reminded her of the animal,
the fierce little woods marauder, trapped and hopeless, but scorning
to cower as would the gentler creatures of the forest.
Abruptly his expression changed again. His figure stiffened, the
muscles of his face turned iron. Virginia saw that someone on the
beach had pointed toward him. His mask was on.
The first burst of greeting was over. Here and there one or another of
the _brigade_ members jerked their heads in the stranger's direction,
explaining low-voiced to their companions. Soon all eyes turned
curiously toward the canoe. A hum of low-voiced comment took the
place of louder delight.
The stranger, finding himself generally observed, rose slowly to his
feet, picked his way with a certain exaggerated deliberation of
movement over the duffel lying in the bottom of the canoe, until he
reached the bow, where he paused, one foot lifted to the gunwale just
above the emblem of the painted star. Immediately a dead silence fell.
Groups shifted, drew apart, and together again, like the slow
agglomeration of sawdust on the surface of water, until at last they
formed in a semicircle of staring, whose centre was the bow of the
canoe and the stranger from Kettle Portage. The men scowled, the women
regarded him with a half-fearful curiosity.
Virginia Albret shivered in the shock of this sudden electric
polarity. The man seemed alone against a sullen, unexplained
hostility. The desperation she had thought to read but a moment before
had vanished utterly, leaving in its place a scornful indifference and
perhaps more than a trace of recklessness. He was ripe for an
outbreak. She did not in the least understand, but she knew it from
the depths of her woman's instinct, and unconsciously her sympathies
flowed out to this man, alone without a greeting where all others came
to their own.
For perhaps a full sixty seconds the new-comer stood uncertain what he
should do, or perhaps waiting for some word or act to tip the balance
of his decision. One after another those on shore felt the insolence
of his stare, and shifted uneasily. Then his deliberate scrutiny rose
to the group by the cannon. Virginia caught her breath sharply. In
spite of herself she could not turn away. The stranger's eye crossed
her own. She saw the hard look fade into pleased surprise. Instantly
his hat swept the gunwale of the canoe. He stepped magnificently
ashore. The crisis was over. Not a word had been spoken.
_Chapter Three_
Galen Albret sat in his rough-hewn arm-chair at the head of the table,
receiving the reports of his captains. The long, narrow room opened
before him, heavy raftered, massive, white, with a cavernous fireplace
at either end. Above him frowned Sir George's portrait, at his right
hand and his left stretched the row of home-made heavy chairs,
finished smooth and dull by two centuries of use.
His arms were laid along the arms of his seat; his shaggy head was
sunk forward until his beard swept the curve of his big chest; the
heavy tufts of hair above his eyes were drawn steadily together in a
frown of attention. One after another the men arose and spoke. He made
no movement, gave no sign, his short, powerful form blotted against
the lighter silhouette of his chair, only his eyes and the white of
his beard gleaming out of the dusk.
Kern of Old Brunswick House, Achard of New; Ki-wa-nee, the Indian of
Flying Post--these and others told briefly of many things, each in his
own language. To all Galen Albret listened in silence. Finally Louis
Placide from the post at Kettle Portage got to his feet. He too
reported of the trade,--so many "beaver" of tobacco, of powder, of
lead, of pork, of flour, of tea, given in exchange; so many mink,
otter, beaver, ermine, marten, and fisher pelts taken in return. Then
he paused and went on at greater length in regard to the stranger,
speaking evenly but with emphasis. When he had finished, Galen Albret
struck a bell at his elbow. Me-en-gan, the bowsman of the Factor's
canoe, entered, followed closely by the young man who had that
afternoon arrived.
He was dressed still in his costume of the _voyageur_--the loose
blouse shirt, the buckskin leggings and moccasins, the long tasselled
red sash. His head was as high and his glance as free, but now the
steel blue of his eye had become steady and wary, and two faint lines
had traced themselves between his brows. At his entrance a hush of
expectation fell. Galen Albret did not stir, but the others hitched
nearer the long, narrow table, and two or three leaned both elbows on
it the better to catch what should ensue.
Me-en-gan stopped by the door, but the stranger walked steadily the
length of the room until he faced the Factor. Then he paused and
waited collectedly for the other to speak.
This the Factor did not at once begin to do, but sat
impassive--apparently without thought--while the heavy breathing of
the men in the room marked off the seconds of time. Finally abruptly
Galen Albret's cavernous voice boomed forth. Something there was
strangely mysterious, cryptic, in the virile tones issuing from a bulk
so massive and inert. Galen Albret did not move, did not even raise
the heavy-lidded, dull stare of his eyes to the young man who stood
before him; hardly did his broad arched chest seem to rise and fall
with the respiration of speech; and yet each separate word leaped
forth alive, instinct with authority.
"Once at Leftfoot Lake, two Indians caught you asleep," he
pronounced. "They took your pelts and arms, and escorted you to
Sudbury. They were my Indians. Once on the upper Abítibi you were
stopped by a man named Herbert, who warned you from the country, after
relieving you of your entire outfit. He told you on parting what you
might expect if you should repeat the attempt--severe measures, the
severest. Herbert was my man. Now Louis Placide surprises you in a
rapids near Kettle Portage and brings you here."
During the slow delivering of these accurately spaced words, the
attitude of the men about the long, narrow table gradually changed.
Their curiosity had been great before, but now their intellectual
interest was awakened, for these were facts of which Louis Placide's
statement had given no inkling. Before them, for the dealing, was a
problem of the sort whose solution had earned for Galen Albret a
reputation in the north country. They glanced at one another to obtain
the sympathy of attention, then back toward their chief in anxious
expectation of his next words. The stranger, however, remained
unmoved. A faint smile had sketched the outline of his lips when first
the Factor began to speak. This smile he maintained to the end. As the
older man paused, he shrugged his shoulders.
"All of that is quite true," he admitted.
Even the unimaginative men of the Silent Places started at these
simple words, and vouchsafed to their speaker a more sympathetic
attention. For the tones in which they were delivered possessed that
deep, rich throat timbre which so often means power--personal
magnetism--deep, from the chest, with vibrant throat tones suggesting
a volume of sound which may in fact be only hinted by the loudness the
man at the moment sees fit to employ. Such a voice is a responsive
instrument on which emotion and mood play wonderfully seductive
strains.
"All of that is quite true," he repeated after a second's pause; "but
what has it to do with me? Why am I stopped and sent out from the free
forest? I am really curious to know your excuse."
"This," replied Galen Albret, weightily, "is my domain. I tolerate no
rivalry here."
"Your right?" demanded the young man, briefly.
"I have made the trade, and I intend to keep it."
"In other words, the strength of your good right arm," supplemented
the stranger, with the faintest hint of a sneer.
"That is neither here nor there," rejoined Galen Albret, "the point is
that I intend to keep it. I've had you sent out, but you have been too
stupid or too obstinate to take the hint. Now I have to warn you in
person. I shall send you out once more, but this time you must promise
me not to meddle with the trade again."
He paused for a response. The young man's smile merely became
accentuated.
"I have means of making my wishes felt," warned the Factor.
"Quite so," replied the young man, deliberately, "_La Longue
Traverse_."
At this unexpected pronouncement of that dread name two of the men
swore violently; the others thrust back their chairs and sat, their
arms rigidly braced against the table's edge, staring wide-eyed and
open-mouthed at the speaker. Only Galen Albret remained unmoved.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, calmly.
"It amuses you to be ignorant," replied the stranger, with some
contempt. "Don't you think this farce is about played out? I do. If
you think you're deceiving me any with this show of formality, you're
mightily mistaken. Don't you suppose I knew what I was about when I
came into this country? Don't you suppose I had weighed the risks and
had made up my mind to take my medicine if I should be caught? Your
methods are not quite so secret as you imagine. I know perfectly well
what happens to Free Traders in Rupert's Land."
"You seem very certain of your information."
"Your men seem equally so," pointed out the stranger.
Galen Albret, at the beginning of the young man's longer speech, had
sunk almost immediately into his passive calm--the calm of great
elemental bodies, the calm of a force so vast as to rest motionless by
the very static power of its mass. When he spoke again, it was in the
tentative manner of his earlier interrogatory, committing himself not
at all, seeking to plumb his opponent's knowledge.
"Why, if you have realized the gravity of your situation have you
persisted after having been twice warned?" he inquired.
"Because you're not the boss of creation," replied the young man,
bluntly.
Galen Albret merely raised his eyebrows.
[Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF THE FREE-TRADER. Scene from the play.]
"I've got as much business in this country as you have," continued
the young man, his tone becoming more incisive. "You don't seem to
realize that your charter of monopoly has expired. If the government
was worth a damn it would see to you fellows. You have no more right
to order me out of here than I would have to order you out. Suppose
some old Husky up on Whale River should send you word that you weren't
to trap in the Whale River district next winter. I'll bet you'd be
there. You Hudson Bay men tried the same game out west. It didn't
work. You ask your western men if they ever heard of Ned Trent."
"Your success does not seem to have followed you here," suggested the
Factor, ironically.
The young man smiled.
"This _Longue Traverse_," went on Albret, "what is your idea there? I
have heard something of it. What is your information?"
Ned Trent laughed outright. "You don't imagine there is any secret
about that!" he marvelled. "Why, every child north of the Line knows
that. You will send me away without arms, and with but a handful of
provisions. If the wilderness and starvation fail, your runners will
not. I shall never reach the Temiscamingues alive."
"The same old legend," commented Galen Albret in apparent amusement,
"I heard it when I first came to this country. You'll find a dozen
such in every Indian camp."
"Jo Bagneau, Morris Proctor, John May, William Jarvis," checked off
the young man on his fingers.
"Personal enmity," replied the Factor.
He glanced up to meet the young man's steady, sceptical smile.
"You do not believe me?"
"Oh, if it amuses you," conceded the stranger.
"The thing is not even worth discussion."
"Remarkable sensation among our friends here for so idle a tale."
Galen Albret considered.
"You will remember that throughout you have forced this interview," he
pointed out. "Now I must ask your definite promise to get out of this
country and to stay out."
"No," replied Ned Trent.
"Then a means shall be found to make you!" threatened the Factor, his
anger blazing at last.
"Ah," said the stranger softly.
Galen Albret raised his hand and let it fall. The bronzed and gaudily
bedecked men filed out.
_Chapter Four_
In the open air the men separated in quest of their various families
or friends. The stranger lingered undecided for a moment on the top
step of the veranda, and then wandered down the little street, if
street it could be called where horses there were none. On the left
ranged the square whitewashed houses with their dooryards, the old
church, the workshop. To the right was a broad grass-plot, and then
the Moose, slipping by to the distant offing. Over a little bridge the
stranger idled, looking curiously about him. The great trading-house
attracted his attention, with its narrow picket lane leading to the
door; the storehouse surrounded by a protective log fence; the fort
itself, a medley of heavy-timbered stockades and square block-houses.
After a moment he resumed his strolling. Everywhere he went the people
looked at him, ceasing their varied occupations. No one spoke to him,
no one hindered him. To all intents and purposes he was as free as the
air. But all about the island flowed the barrier of the Moose, and
beyond frowned the wilderness--strong as iron bars to an unarmed man.
Brooding on his imprisonment the Free Trader forgot his surroundings.
The post, the river, the forest, the distant bay faded from his sight,
and he fell into deep reflection. There remained nothing of physical
consciousness but a sense of the grateful spring warmth from the
declining sun. At length he became vaguely aware of something else.
He glanced up. Right by him he saw a handsome French half-breed
sprawled out in the sun against a building, looking him straight in
the face and flashing up at him a friendly smile.
"Hullo," said Achille Picard, "you mus' been 'sleep. I call you two
t'ree tam."
The prisoner seemed to find something grateful in the greeting even
from the enemy's camp. Perhaps it merely happened upon the
psychological moment for a response.
"Hullo," he returned, and seated himself by the man's side, lazily
stretching himself in enjoyment of the reflected heat.
"You is come off Kettle Portage, eh," said Achille, "I t'ink so. You
is come trade dose fur? Eet is bad beez-ness, dis Conjur' House. Ole'
man he no lak' dat you trade dose fur. He's very hard, dat ole man."
"Yes," replied the stranger, "he has got to be, I suppose. This is the
country of _la Longue Traverse_."
"I beleef you," responded Achille, cheerfully; "w'at you call heem
your nam'?"
"Ned Trent."
"Me Achille--Achille Picard. I capitaine of dose dogs on dat winter
_brigade_."
"It is a hard post. The winter travel is pretty tough."
"I beleef you."
"Better to take _la Longue Traverse_ in summer, eh?"
"_La Longue Traverse_--hees not mattaire w'en yo tak' heem."
"Right you are. Have there been men sent out since you came here?"
"_Bâ oui_. Wan, two, t'ree. I don' remember. I t'ink Jo Bagneau.
Nobodee he don' know, but dat ole man an' hees _coureurs du bois_. He
ees wan ver' great man. Nobodee is know w'at he will do."
"I'm due to hit that trail myself, I suppose," said Ned Trent.
"I have t'ink so," acknowledged Achille, still with a tone of most
engaging cheerfulness.
"Shall I be sent out at once, do you think?"
"I don' know. Sometam' dat ole man ver' queek. Sometam' he ver' slow.
One day Injun mak' heem ver' mad; he let heem go, and shot dat Injun
right off. Noder tam he get mad on one _voyageur_, but he don' keel
heem queek; he bring heem here, mak' heem stay in dose warm room, feed
heem dose plaintee grub. Purty soon dose _voyageur_ is get fat, is go
sof; he no good for dose trail. Ole man he mak' heem go ver' far off,
mos' to Whale Reever. Eet is plaintee cole. Dat _voyageur_, he freeze
to hees inside. Dey tell me he feex heem like dat."
"Achille, you haven't anything against me--do you want me to die?"
The half-breed flashed his white teeth.
"_Bâ non_," he replied, carelessly. "For w'at I want dat you die? I
t'ink you bus' up bad; _vous avez la mauvaise fortune_."
"Listen. I have nothing with me; but out at the front I am very rich.
I will give you a hundred dollars, if you will help me to get away."
"I can' do eet," smiled Picard.
"Why not?"
"Ole man he fin' dat out. He is wan devil, dat ole man. I lak
firs'-rate help you; I lak' dat hundred dollar. On Ojibway countree
dey make hees nam' _Wagosh_--dat mean fox. He know everyt'ing."
"I'll make it two hundred--three hundred--five hundred."
"W'at you wan' me do?" hesitated Achille Picard at the last figure.
"Get me a rifle and some cartridges."
The half-breed rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and inhaled a deep
breath.
"I can' do eet," he declared. "I can' do eet for t'ousand dollar--ten
t'ousand. I don't t'ink you fin' anywan on dis settlement w'at can
dare do eet. He is wan devil. He's count all de carabine on dis pos',
an' w'en he is mees wan, he fin' out purty queek who is tak' heem."
"Steal one from someone else," suggested Trent.
"He fin' out jess sam'," objected the half-breed, obstinately. "You
don' know heem. He mak' you geev yourself away, when he lak' do dat."
The smile had left the man's face. This was evidently too serious a
matter to be taken lightly.
"Well, come with me, then," urged Ned Trent, with some impatience. "A
thousand dollars I'll give you. With that you can be rich somewhere
else."
But the man was becoming more and more uneasy, glancing furtively from
left to right and back again, in an evident panic lest the
conversation be overheard, although the nearest dwelling-house was a
score of yards distant.
"Hush," he whispered. "You mustn't talk lak' dat. Dose ole man fin'
you out. You can' hide away from heem. Ole tam long ago, Pierre
Cadotte is stole feefteen skin of de otter--de sea-otter--and he is
sol' dem on Winnipeg. He is get 'bout t'ousand beaver--five hunder'
dollar. Den he is mak' dose longue voyage wes'--ver' far wes'--_on
dit_ Peace Reever. He is mak' heem dose cabane, w'ere he is leev long
tam wid wan man of Mackenzie. He is call it hees nam' Dick Henderson.
I is meet Dick Henderson on Winnipeg las' year, w'en I mak' paddle on
dem Factor Brigade, an' dose High Commissionaire. He is tol' me wan
night pret' late he wake up all de queeck he can w'en he is hear wan
noise in dose cabane, an' he is see wan Injun, lak' phantome 'gainst
de moon to de door. Dick Henderson he is 'sleep, he don' know w'at he
mus' do. Does Injun is step ver' sof' an' go on bunk of Pierre
Cadotte. Pierre Cadotte is mak' de beeg cry. Dick Henderson say he no
see dose Injun no more, an' he fin' de door shut. _Bâ_ Pierre Cadotte,
she's go dead. He is mak' wan beeg hole in hees ches'."
"Some enemy, some robber frightened away because the Henderson man
woke up, probably," suggested Ned Trent.
The half-breed laid his hand impressively on the other's arm and
leaned forward until his bright black eyes were within a foot of the
other's face.
"W'en dose Injun is stan' heem in de moonlight, Dick Henderson is see
hees face. Dick Henderson is know all dose Injun. He is tole me dat
Injun is not Peace Reever Injun. Dick Henderson is say dose Injun is
Ojibway Injun--Ojibway Injun two t'ousand mile wes'--on Peace Reever!
Dat's curi's!"
"I was tell you nodder story--" went on Achille, after a moment.
"Never mind," interrupted the Trader. "I believe you."
"Maybee," said Achille cheerfully, "you stan' some show--not
moche--eef he sen' you out pret' queeck. Does small _perdrix_ is
yonge, an' dose duck. Maybee you is catch dem, maybee you is keel dem
wit' bow an' arrow. Dat's not beeg chance. You mus' geev dose
_coureurs de bois_ de sleep w'en you arrive. _Voilà_, I geev you my
knife!"
He glanced rapidly to right and left, then slipped a small object into
the stranger's hand.
"_Bâ_, I t'ink does ole man is know dat. I t'ink he kip you here till
tam w'en dose _perdrix_ and duck is all grow up beeg' nuff so he can
fly."
"I'm not watched," said the young man in eager tones; "I'll slip away
to-night."
"Dat no good," objected Picard. "W'at you do? S'pose you do dat, dose
_coureurs_ keel you _toute suite_. Dey is have good excuse, an' you is
have nothing to mak' de fight. You sleep away, and dose ole man is
sen' out plaintee Injun. Dey is fine you sure. _Bâ_, eef he _sen'_ you
out, den he sen' onlee two Injun. Maybee you fight dem; I don' know.
_Non, mon ami_, eef you is wan' get away w'en dose ole man he don'
know eet, you mus' have dose carabine. Den you is have wan leetle
chance. _Bâ_, eef you is not have heem dose carabine, you mus' need
dose leetle grub he geev you, and not plaintee Injun follow you, onlee
two."
"And I cannot get the rifle."
"An' dose ole man is don' sen' you out till eet is too late for mak'
de grub on de fores'. Dat's w'at I t'ink. Dat ees not fonny for you."
Ned Trent's eyes were almost black with thought. Suddenly he threw his
head up.
"I'll make him send me out now," he asserted confidently.
"How you mak' eet him?"
"I'll talk turkey to him till he's so mad he can't see straight. Then
maybe he'll send me out right away."
"How you mak' eet him so mad?" inquired Picard, with mild curiosity.
"Never you mind--I'll do it."
"_Bâ oui_," ruminated Picard, "He is get mad pret' queeck. I t'ink
p'raps dat plan he go all right. You was get heem mad plaintee easy.
Den maybee he is sen' you out _toute suite_--maybee he is shoot you."
"I'll take the chances--my friend."
"_Bâ oui_," shrugged Achille Picard, "eet is wan chance."
He commenced to roll another cigarette.
_Chapter Five_
Having sat buried in thought for a full five minutes after the traders
of the winter posts had left him, Galen Albret thrust back his chair
and walked into a room, long, low, and heavily raftered, strikingly
unlike the Council Room. Its floor was overlaid with dark rugs; a
piano of ancient model filled one corner; pictures and books broke the
wall; the lamps and the windows were shaded; a woman's work-basket and
a tea-set occupied a large table. Only a certain barbaric profusion of
furs, the huge fireplace, and the rough rafters of the ceiling
differentiated the place from the drawing-room of a well-to-do family
anywhere.
Galen Albret sank heavily into a chair and struck a bell. A tall,
slightly stooped English servant, with correct side whiskers and
incompetent, watery blue eyes, answered. To him said the Factor:
"I wish to see Miss Albret."
A moment later Virginia entered the room.
"Let us have some tea, O-mi-mi," requested her father.
The girl moved gently about, preparing and lighting the lamp,
measuring the tea, her fair head bowed gracefully over her task, her
dark eyes pensive and but half following what she did. Finally with a
certain air of decision she seated herself on the arm of a chair.
"Father," said she.
"Yes."
"A stranger came to-day with Louis Placide of Kettle Portage."
"Well?"
"He was treated strangely by our people, and he treated them strangely
in return. Why is that?"
"Who can tell?"
"What is his station? Is he a common trader? He does not look it."
"He is a man of intelligence and daring."
"Then why is he not our guest?"
Galen Albret did not answer. After a moment's pause he asked again for
his tea. The girl turned away impatiently. Here was a puzzle, neither
the _voyageurs_, nor Wishkobun her nurse, nor her father would explain
to her. The first had grinned stupidly; the second had drawn her shawl
across her face, the third asked for tea!
She handed her father the cup, hesitated, then ventured to inquire
whether she was forbidden to greet the stranger should the occasion
arise.
"He is a gentleman," replied her father.
She sipped her tea thoughtfully, her imagination stirring. Again her
recollection lingered over the clear bronze lines of the stranger's
face. Something vaguely familiar seemed to touch her consciousness
with ghostly fingers. She closed her eyes and tried to clutch them. At
once they were withdrawn. And then again, when her attention wandered,
they stole back, plucking appealingly at the hem of her recollections.
The room was heavy-curtained, deep embrasured, for the house, beneath
its clap-boards, was of logs. Although out of doors the clear spring
sunshine still flooded the valley of the Moose; within, the shadows
had begun with velvet fingers to extinguish the brighter lights.
Virginia threw herself back on a chair in the corner.
"Virginia," said Galen Albret, suddenly.
"Yes, father."
"You are no longer a child, but a woman. Would you like to go to
Quebec?"
She did not answer him at once, but pondered beneath close-knit brows.
"Do you wish me to go, father?" she asked at length.
"You are eighteen. It is time you saw the world, time you learned the
ways of other people. But the journey is hard. I may not see you again
for some years. You go among strangers."
He fell silent again. Motionless he had been, except for the mumbling
of his lips beneath his beard.
"It shall be just as you wish," he added a moment later.
At once a conflict arose in the girl's mind between her restless
dreams and her affections. But beneath all the glitter of the question
there was really nothing to take her out. Here was her father, here
were the things she loved; yonder was novelty--and loneliness.
Her existence at Conjuror's House was perhaps a little complex, but it
was familiar. She knew the people, and she took a daily and unwearying
delight in the kindness and simplicity of their bearing toward
herself. Each detail of life came to her in the round of habit,
wearing the garment of accustomed use. But of the world she knew
nothing except what she had been able to body forth from her reading,
and that had merely given her imagination something tangible with
which to feed her self-distrust.
"Must I decide at once?" she asked.
"If you go this year, it must be with the Abítibi _brigade_. You have
until then."
"Thank you, father," said the girl, sweetly.
The shadows stole their surroundings one by one, until only the bright
silver of the tea-service, and the glitter of polished wood, and the
square of the open door remained. Galen Albret became an inert dark
mass. Virginia's gray was lost in that of the twilight.
Time passed. The clock ticked on. Faintly sounds penetrated from the
kitchen, and still more faintly from out of doors. Then the rectangle
of the doorway was darkened by a man peering uncertainly. The man wore
his hat, from which slanted a slender heron's plume; his shoulders
were square; his thighs slim and graceful. Against the light, one
caught the outline of the sash's tassel and the fringe of his
leggings.
"Are you there, Galen Albret?" he challenged.
The spell of twilight mystery broke. It seemed as if suddenly the air
had become surcharged with the vitality of opposition.
"What then?" countered the Factor's heavy, deliberate tones.
"True, I see you now," rejoined the visitor carelessly, as he flung
himself across the arm of a chair and swung one foot. "I do not doubt
you are convinced by this time of my intention."
"My recollection does not tell me what messenger I sent to ask this
interview."
[Illustration: "WHAT YOU WANT DOESN'T CONCERN ME IN THE LEAST." Scene
from the play.]
"Correct," laughed the young man a little hardly. "You _didn't_ ask
it. I attended to that myself. What _you_ want doesn't concern me in
the least. What do you suppose I care what, or what not, any of this
crew wants? I'm master of my own ideas, anyway, thank God. If you
don't like what I do, you can always stop me." In the tone of his
voice was a distinct challenge. Galen Albret, it seemed, chose to
pass it by.
"True," he replied sombrely, after a barely perceptible pause to mark
his tacit displeasure. "It is your hour. Say on."
"I should like to know the date at which I take _la Longue Traverse_".
"You persist in that nonsense?"
"Call my departure whatever you want to--I have the name for it. When
do I leave?"
"I have not decided."
"And in the meantime?"
"Do as you please."
"Ah, thanks for this generosity," cried the young man, in a tone of
declamatory sarcasm so artificial as fairly to scent the elocutionary.
"To do as I please--here--now there's a blessed privilege! I may walk
around where I want to, talk to such as have a good word for me,
punish those who have not! But do I err in concluding that the state
of your game law is such that it would be useless to reclaim my rifle
from the engaging Placide?"
"You have a fine instinct," approved the Factor.
"It is one of my valued possessions," rejoined the young man,
insolently. He struck a match, and by its light selected a cigarette.
"I do not myself use tobacco in this room," suggested the older
speaker.
"I am curious to learn the limits of your forbearance," replied the
younger, proceeding to smoke.
He threw back his head and regarded his opponent with an open
challenge, daring him to become angry. The match went out.
Virginia, who had listened in growing anger and astonishment, unable
longer to refrain from defending the dignity of her usually autocratic
father, although he seemed little disposed to defend himself, now
intervened from her dark corner on the divan.
"Is the journey then so long, sir," she asked composedly, "that it at
once inspires such anticipations--and such bitterness?"
In an instant the man was on his feet, hat in hand, and the cigarette
had described a fiery curve into the empty hearth.
"I beg your pardon, sincerely," he cried, "I did not know you were
here!"
"You might better apologize to my father," replied Virginia.
The young man stepped forward and, without asking permission, lighted
one of the tall lamps.
"The lady of the guns!" he marvelled softly to himself.
He moved across the room, looking down on her inscrutably, while she
looked up at him in composed expectation of an apology--and Galen
Albret sat motionless, in the shadow of his great arm-chair. But after
a moment her calm attention broke down. Something there was about this
man that stirred her emotions--whether of curiosity, pity,
indignation, or a slight defensive fear she was not introspective
enough to care to inquire. And yet the sensation was not altogether
unpleasant, and, as at the guns that afternoon, a certain portion of
her consciousness remained in sympathy with whatever it was of
mysterious attraction he represented to her. In him she felt the
dominant, as a wild creature of the woods instinctively senses the
master and drops its eyes. Resentment did not leave her, but over it
spread a film of confusion that robbed it of its potency. In him, in
his mood, in his words, in his manner, was something that called out
in direct appeal the more primitive instincts hitherto dormant beneath
her sense of maidenhood, so that even at this vexed moment of
conscious opposition, her heart was ranging itself on his side.
Overpoweringly the feeling swept her that she was not acting in
accordance with her sense of fitness. She knew she should strike, but
was unable to give due force to the blow. In the confusion of such a
discovery, her eyelids fluttered and fell. And he saw, and,
understanding his power, dropped swiftly beside her on the broad
divan.
"You must pardon me, mademoiselle," he begun, his voice sinking to a
depth of rich music singularly caressing. "To you I may seem to have
small excuses, but when a man is vouchsafed a glimpse of heaven only
to be cast out the next instant into hell, he is not always particular
in the choice of words."
All the time his eyes sought hers, which avoided the challenge, and
the strong masculine charm of magnetism which he possessed in such
vital abundance overwhelmed her unaccustomed consciousness. Galen
Albret shifted uneasily, and shot a glance in their direction. The
stranger, perceiving this, lowered his voice in register and tone, and
went on with almost exaggerated earnestness.
"Surely you can forgive me, a desperate man, almost anything?"
"I do not understand," said Virginia, with a palpable effort.
Ned Trent leaned forward until his eager face was almost at her
shoulder.
"Perhaps not," he urged; "I cannot ask you to try. But suppose,
mademoiselle, you were in my case. Suppose your eyes--like mine--have
rested on nothing but a howling wilderness for dear heaven knows how
long; you come at last in sight of real houses, real grass, real
dooryard gardens just ready to blossom in the spring, real food, real
beds, real books, real men with whom to exchange the sensible word,
and something more, mademoiselle--a woman such as one dreams of in the
long forest nights under the stars. And you know that while others,
the lucky ones, may stay to enjoy it all, you, the unfortunate, are
condemned to leave it at any moment for _la Longue Traverse_. Would
not you, too, be bitter, mademoiselle? Would not you too mock and
sneer? Think, mademoiselle, I have not even the little satisfaction of
rousing men's anger. I can insult them as I will, but they turn aside
in pity, saying one to another: 'Let us pleasure him in this, poor
fellow, for he is about to take _la Longue Traverse_.' That is why
your father accepts calmly from me what he would not from another."
Virginia sat bolt upright on the divan, her hands clasped in her lap,
her wonderful black eyes looking straight out before her, trying to
avoid her companion's insistent gaze. His attention was fixed on her
mobile and changing countenance, but he marked with evident
satisfaction Galen Albret's growing uneasiness. This was evidenced
only by a shifting of the feet, a tapping of the fingers, a turning
of the shaggy head--in such a man slight tokens are significant. The
silence deepened with the shadows drawing about the single lamp, while
Virginia attempted to maintain a breathing advantage above the flood
of strange emotions which the personality of this man had swept down
upon her.
"It does not seem--" objected the girl in bewilderment, "I do not
know--men are often out in this country for years at a time. Long
journeys are not unknown among us. We are used to undertaking them."
"But not _la Longue Traverse_," insisted the young man, sombrely.
"_La Longue Traverse_," she repeated in sweet perplexity.
"Sometimes called the Journey of Death," he explained.
She turned to look him in the eyes, a vague expression of puzzled fear
on her face.
"She has never heard of it," said Ned Trent to himself, and aloud:
"Men who undertake it leave comfort behind. They embrace hunger and
weariness, cold and disease. At the last they embrace death, and are
glad of his coming."
Something in his tone compelled belief; something in his face told her
that he was a man by whom the inevitable hardships of winter and
summer travel, fearful as they are, would be lightly endured. She
shuddered.
"This dreadful thing is necessary?" she asked.
"Alas, yes."
"I do not understand--"
"In the North few of us understand," agreed the young man with a hint
of bitterness seeping through his voice. "The mighty order, and so we
obey. But that is beside the point. I have not told you these things
to harrow you; I have tried to excuse myself for my actions. Does it
touch you a little? Am I forgiven?"
"I do not understand how such things can be," she objected in some
confusion, "why such journeys must exist. My mind cannot comprehend
your explanations."
The stranger leaned forward abruptly, his eyes blazing with the
magnetic personality of the man.
"But your heart?" he breathed.
It was the moment. "My heart--" she repeated, as though bewildered by
the intensity of his eyes, "my heart--ah--yes!"
Immediately the blood rushed over her face and throat in a torrent.
She snatched her eyes away, and cowered back in the corner, going red
and white by turns, now angry, now frightened, now bewildered, until
his gaze, half masterful, half pleading, again conquered hers. Galen
Albret had ceased tapping his chair. In the dim light he sat, staring
straight before him, massive, inert, grim.
"I believe you--" she murmured hurriedly at last. "I pity you!"
She rose. Quick as light he barred her passage.
"Don't! don't!" she pleaded. "I must go--you have shaken me--I--I do
not understand myself--"
"I must see you again," he whispered eagerly. "To-night--by the guns."
"No, no!"
"To-night," he insisted.
She raised her eyes to his, this time naked of defence, so that the
man saw down through their depths into her very soul.
"Oh," she begged, quivering, "let me pass. Don't you see--I'm going to
cry!"
_Chapter Six_
For a moment Ned Trent stared through the darkness into which Virginia
had disappeared. Then he turned a troubled face to the task he had set
himself, for the unexpectedly pathetic results of his fantastic
attempt had shaken him. Twice he half turned as though to follow her.
Then shaking his shoulders he bent his attention to the old man in the
shadow of the chair.
He was given no opportunity for further speech, however, for at the
sound of the closing door Galen Albret's impassivity had fallen from
him. He sprang to his feet. The whole aspect of the man suddenly
became electric, terrible. His eyes blazed; his heavy brows drew
spasmodically toward each other; his jaws worked, twisting his beard
into strange contortions; his massive frame straightened formidably;
and his voice rumbled from the arch of his deep chest in a torrent of
passionate sound.
"By God, young man!" he thundered, "you go too far! Take heed! I will
not stand this! Do not you presume to make love to my daughter before
my eyes!"
And Ned Trent, just within the dusky circle of lamplight, where the
bold, sneering lines of his face stood out in relief against the
twilight of the room, threw back his head and laughed. It was a clear
laugh, but low, and in it were all the devils of triumph, and of
insolence. Where the studied insult of words had failed, this single
cachinnation succeeded. The Trader saw his opponent's eyes narrow. For
a moment he thought the Factor was about to spring on him.
Then, with an effort that blackened his face with blood, Galen Albret
controlled himself, and fell to striking the call-bell violently and
repeatedly with the palm of his hand. After a moment Matthews, the
English servant, came running in. To him the Factor was at first
physically unable to utter a syllable. Then finally he managed to
ejaculate the name of his bowsman with such violence of gesture that
the frightened servant comprehended by sheer force of terror and ran
out again in search of Me-en-gan.
This supreme effort seemed to clear the way for speech. Galen Albret
began to address his opponent hoarsely in quick, disjointed
sentences, a gasp for breath between each.
"You revived an old legend--_la Longue Traverse_--the myth. It shall
be real--to--you--I will make it so. By God, you shall not defy
me--"
Ned Trent smiled. "You do not deceive me," he rejoined, coolly.
"Silence!" cried the Factor. "Silence!--You shall speak no more!--You
have said enough--"
Me-en-gan glided into the room. Galen Albret at once addressed him in
the Ojibway language, gaining control of himself as he went on.
"Listen to me well," he commanded. "You shall make a count of all
rifles in this place--at once. Let no one furnish this man with food
or arms. You know the story of _la Longue Traverse_. This man shall
take it. So inform my people. I, the Factor, decree it so. Prepare all
things at once--understand, _at once_!"
Ned Trent waited to hear no more, but sauntered from the room
whistling gayly a boatman's song. His point was gained.
Outside, the long Northern twilight with its beautiful shadows of
crimson was descending from the upper regions of the east. A light
wind breathed up-river from the bay. The Free Trader drew his lungs
full of the evening air.
"Just the same, I think she will come," said he to himself. "_La
Longue Traverse_, even at once, is a pretty slim chance. But this
second string to my bow is better. I believe I'll get the rifle--if
she comes!"
_Chapter Seven_
Virginia ran quickly up the narrow stairs to her own room, where she
threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillows.
As she had said, she was very much shaken. And, too, she was afraid.
She could not understand. Heretofore she had moved among the men
around her, pure, lofty, serene. Now at one blow all this crumbled.
The stranger had outraged her finer feelings. He had insulted her
father in her very presence;--for this she was angry. He had insulted
herself;--for this she was afraid. He had demanded that she meet him
again; but this--at least in the manner he had suggested--should not
happen. And yet she confessed to herself a delicious wonder as to what
he would do next, and a vague desire to see him again in order to find
out. That she could not successfully combat this feeling made her
angry at herself. And so in mingled fear, pride, anger, and longing
she remained until Wishkobun, the Indian woman, glided in to dress her
for the dinner whose formality she and her father consistently
maintained. She fell to talking the soft Ojibway dialect, and in the
conversation forgot some of her emotion and regained some of her calm.
Her surface thoughts, at least, were compelled for the moment to
occupy themselves with other things. The Indian woman had to tell her
of the silver fox brought in by Mu-hi-ken, an Indian of her own tribe;
of the retort Achille Picard had made when MacLane had taunted him;
of the forest fire that had declared itself far to the east, and of
the theories to account for it where no campers had been. Yet
underneath the rambling chatter Virginia was aware of something new in
her consciousness, something delicious but as yet vague. In the gayest
moment of her half-jesting, half-affectionate gossip with the Indian
woman, she felt its uplift catching her breath from beneath, so that
for the tiniest instant she would pause as though in readiness for
some message which nevertheless delayed. A fresh delight in the
present moment held her, a fresh anticipation of the immediate future,
though both delight and anticipation were based on something without
her knowledge. That would come later.
The sound of rapid footsteps echoed across the lower hall, a whistle
ran into an air, sung gayly, with spirit:
_"J'ai perdu ma maîtresse,
Sans l'avoir merité,
Pour un bouquet de roses
Que je lui refusai.
Li ya longtemps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai!"_
She fell abruptly silent, and spoke no more until she descended to the
council-room where the table was now spread for dinner.
Two silver candlesticks lit the place. The men were waiting for her
when she entered, and at once took their seats in the worn, rude
chairs. White linen and glittering silver adorned the service, Galen
Albret occupied one end of the table, Virginia the other. On either
side were Doctor and Mrs. Cockburn; McDonald, the Chief Trader;
Richardson, the clerk, and Crane, the missionary of the Church of
England. Matthews served with rigid precision in the order of
importance, first the Factor, then Virginia, then the doctor, his
wife, McDonald, the clerk, and Crane in due order. On entering a room
the same precedence would have held good. Thus these people, six
hundred miles as the crow flies from the nearest settlement,
maintained their shadowy hold on civilization.
The glass was fine, the silver massive, the linen dainty, Matthews
waited faultlessly: but overhead hung the rough timbers of the
wilderness post, across the river faintly could be heard the howling
of wolves. The fare was rice, curry, salt pork, potatoes, and beans;
for at this season the game was poor, and the fish hardly yet running
with regularity.
Throughout the meal Virginia sat in a singular abstraction. No
conscious thoughts took shape in her mind, but nevertheless she
seemed to herself to be occupied in considering weighty matters. When
directly addressed, she answered sweetly. Much of the time she studied
her father's face. She found it old. Those lines were already evident
which, when first noted, bring a stab of surprised pain to the breast
of a child--the droop of the mouth, the wrinkling of the temples, the
patient weariness of the eyes. Virginia's own eyes filled with tears.
The subjective passive state into which a newly born but not yet
recognized love had cast her, inclined her to gentleness. She accepted
facts as they came to her. For the moment she forgot the mere
happenings of the day, and lived only in the resulting mood of them
all. The new-comer inspired her no longer with anger nor sorrow,
attraction nor fear. Her active emotions in abeyance, she floated
dreamily on the clouds of a new estate.
This very aloofness of spirit disinclined her for the company of the
others after the meal was finished. The Factor closeted himself with
Richardson. The doctor, lighting a cheroot, took his way across to his
infirmary. McDonald, Crane, and Mrs. Cockburn entered the drawing-room
and seated themselves near the piano. Virginia hesitated, then threw a
shawl over her head and stepped out on the broad veranda.
At once the vast, splendid beauty of the Northern night broke over her
soul. Straight before her gleamed and flashed and ebbed and palpitated
the aurora. One moment its long arms shot beyond the zenith; the next
it had broken and rippled back like a brook of light to its arch over
the Great Bear. Never for an instant was it still. Its restlessness
stole away the quiet of the evening; but left it magnificent.
In comparison with this coruscating dome of the infinite the earth had
shrunken to a narrow black band of velvet, in which was nothing
distinguishable until suddenly the sky-line broke in calm silhouettes
of spruce and firs. And always the mighty River of the Moose,
gleaming, jewelled, barbaric in its reflections, slipped by to the
sea.
So rapid and bewildering was the motion of these two great powers--the
river and the sky--that the imagination could not believe in silence.
It was as though the earth were full of shoutings and of tumults. And
yet in reality the night was as still as a tropical evening. The
wolves and the sledge-dogs answered each other undisturbed; the
beautiful songs of the white-throats stole from the forest as
divinely instinct as ever with the spirit of peace.
Virginia leaned against the railing and looked upon it all. Her heart
was big with emotions, many of which she could not name; her eyes were
full of tears. Something had changed in her since yesterday, but she
did not know what it was. The faint wise stars, the pale moon just
sinking, the gentle south breeze could have told her, for they are
old, old in the world's affairs. Occasionally a flash more than
ordinarily brilliant would glint one of the bronze guns beneath the
flag-staff. Then Virginia's heart would glint too. She imagined the
reflection startled her.
She stretched her arms out to the night, embracing its glories,
sighing in sympathy with its meaning, which she did not know. She
felt the desire of restlessness; yet she could not bear to go. But no
thought of the stranger touched her, for you see as yet she did not
understand.
Then, quite naturally, she heard his voice in the darkness close to
her knee. It seemed inevitable that he should be there; part of the
restless, glorious night, part of her mood. She gave no start of
surprise, but half closed her eyes and leaned her fair head against a
pillar of the veranda. He sang in a sweet undertone an old _chanson_
of voyage.
_"Par derrièr' chez mon père,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Par derrièr' chez mon père
Li-ya-t-un pommier doux."_
"Ah lady, lady mine," broke in the voice softly, "the night too is
sweet, soft as thine eyes. Will you not greet me?"
The girl made no sign. After a moment the song went on.
_"Trois filles d'un prince,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Trois filles d'un prince
Sont endormies dessous."_
"Will not the princess leave her sisters of dreams?" whispered the
voice, fantastically. "Will she not come?"
Virginia shivered, and half-opened her eyes, but did not stir. It
seemed that the darkness sighed, then became musical again.
_"La plus jeun' se réveille,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
La plus jeun' se réveille
--Ma Soeur, voilà le jour!"_
The song broke this time without a word of pleading. The girl opened
her eyes wide and stared breathlessly straight before her at the
singer.
_"--Non, ce n'est qu'une étoile,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Non, ce n'est qu'une étoile
Qu'éclaire nos amours!"_
The last word rolled out through its passionate throat tones and died
into silence.
"Come!" repeated the man again, this time almost in the accents of
command.
She turned slowly and went to him, her eyes childlike and frightened,
her lips wide, her face pale. When she stood face to face with him she
swayed and almost fell.
"What do you want with me?" she faltered, with a little sob.
The man looked at her keenly, laughed, and exclaimed in an every-day,
matter-of-fact voice:
"Why, I really believe my song frightened you. It is only a boating
song. Come, let us go and sit on the gun-carriages and talk."
"Oh!" she gasped, a trifle hysterically. "Don't do that again! Please
don't. I do not understand it! You must not!"
He laughed again, but with a note of tenderness in his voice, and took
her hand to lead her away, humming in an undertone the last couplet of
his song:
_"Non, ce n'est qu'une étoile,
Qu'éclaire nos amours!"_
_Chapter Eight_
Virginia went with this man passively--to an appointment which, but an
hour ago, she had promised herself she would not keep. Her inmost soul
was stirred, just as before. Then it had been few words, now it was a
little common song. But the strange power of the man held her close,
so she realized that for the moment at least she would do as he
desired. In the amazement and consternation of this thought she found
time to offer up a little prayer: "Dear God, make him kind to me."
[Illustration: THE HALF-BREED SEEKS TO AVENGE HER FATHER. Scene from
the play.]
They leaned against the old bronze guns, facing the river. He pulled
her shawl about her, masterfully yet with gentleness, and then, as
though it was the most natural thing in the world, he drew her to him
until she rested against his shoulder. And she remained there,
trembling, in suspense, glancing at him quickly, in birdlike, pleading
glances, as though praying him to be kind. He took no notice after
that, so the act seemed less like a caress than a matter of course. He
began to talk, half-humorously, and little by little, as he went on,
she forgot her fears, even her feeling of strangeness, and fell
completely under the spell of his power.
"My name is Ned Trent," he told her, "and I am from Quebec. I am a
woods runner. I have journeyed far. I have been to the uttermost ends
of the North, even up beyond the Hills of Silence."
And then, in his gay, half-mocking, yet musical voice he touched
lightly on vast and distant things. He talked of the great
Saskatchewan, of Peace River, and the delta of the Mackenzie, of the
winter journeys beyond Great Bear Lake into the Land of the Little
Sticks, and the half-mythical lake of Yamba Tooh. He spoke of life
with the Dog Ribs and Yellow Knives, where the snow falls in
midsummer. Before her eyes slowly spread, like a panorama, the whole
extent of the great North, with its fierce, hardy men, its dreadful
journeys by canoe and sledge, its frozen barrens, its mighty forests,
its solemn charm. All at once this post of Conjuror's House, a month
in the wilderness as it was, seemed very small and tame and civilized
for the simple reason that Death did not always compass it about.
"It was very cold then," said Ned Trent, "and very hard. _Le grand
frête_[A] of winter had come. At night we had no other shelter than
our blankets, and we could not keep a fire because the spruce burned
too fast and threw too many coals. For a long time we shivered, curled
up on our snow-shoes; then fell heavily asleep, so that even the dogs
fighting over us did not awaken us. Two or three times in the night we
boiled tea. We had to thaw our moccasins each morning by thrusting
them inside our shirts. Even the Indians were shivering and saying,
'Ed-sa, yazzi ed-sa'--'it is cold, very cold.' And when we came to Rae
it was not much better. A roaring fire in the fireplace could not
prevent the ink from freezing on the pen. This went on for five
months."
[Footnote A: _Froid_--cold.]
Thus he spoke, as one who says common things. He said little of
himself, but as he went on in short, curt sentences the picture grew
more distinct, and to Virginia the man became more and more prominent
in it. She saw the dying and exhausted dogs, the frost-rimed, weary
men; she heard the quick _crunch, crunch, crunch_ of the snow-shoes
hurrying ahead to break the trail; she felt the cruel torture of the
_mal de raquette_, the shrivelling bite of the frost, the pain of snow
blindness, the hunger that yet could not stomach the frozen fish nor
the hairy, black caribou meat. One thing she could not conceive--the
indomitable spirit of the men. She glanced timidly up at her
companion's face.
"The Company is a cruel master," she sighed at last, standing upright,
then leaning against the carriage of the gun. He let her go without
protest, almost without thought, it seemed.
"But not mine," said he.