"Yes," she repeated, "I know why you came. But you are in trouble."
"The chances of war."
"And they have defeated you after all."
"I shall start on _la Longue Traverse_ singing 'Rouli roulant.' It's a
small defeat, that."
"Listen," said she, rapidly. "When I was quite a small girl Mr.
McTavish, of Rupert's House, gave me a little rifle. I have never used
it, because I do not care to shoot. That rifle has never been
counted, and my father has long since forgotten all about it. You must
take that, and escape to-night. I will let you have it on one
condition--that you give me your solemn promise never to venture into
this country again."
"Yes," he agreed, without enthusiasm nor surprise.
She smiled happily at his gloomy face and listless attitude.
"But I do not want to give up the little rifle entirely," she went on,
with dainty preciosity, watching him closely. "As I said, it was a
present, given to me when I was quite a small girl. You must return it
to me at Quebec, in August. Will you promise to do that?"
He wheeled on her swift as light, the eagerness flashing back into his
face.
"You are going to Quebec?" he cried.
"My father wishes me to. I have decided to do so. I shall start with
the Abítibi _brigade_ in July."
He leaped to his feet.
"I promise!" he exulted, "I promise! To-night, then! Bring the rifle
and the cartridges, and some matches, and a little salt. You must take
me across the river in a canoe, for I want them to guess at where I
strike the woods. I shall cover my trail. And with ten hours' start,
let them catch Ned Trent who can!"
She laughed happily.
"To-night, then. At the south of the island there is a trail, and at
the end of the trail a beach--"
"I know!" he cried.
"Meet me there as soon after dark as you can do so without danger."
He threw his hat into the air and caught it, his face boyishly
upturned. Again that something, so vaguely familiar, plucked at her
with its ghostly, appealing fingers. She turned swiftly, and seized
them, and so found herself in possession of a memory out of her
far-off childhood.
"I know you!" she cried. "I have seen you before this!"
He bent his puzzled gaze upon her.
"I was a very little girl," she explained, "and you but a lad. It was
at a party, I think, a great and brilliant party, for I remember many
beautiful women and fine men. You held me up in your arms for people
to see, because I was going on a long journey."
"I remember, of course I do!" he exclaimed.
A bell clanged, turning over and over, calling the Company's men to
their day.
"Farewell," she said, hurriedly. "To-night."
"To-night," he repeated.
She glided rapidly through the grass, noiseless in her moccasined
feet. And as she went she heard his voice humming soft and low,
"_Isabeau s'y promène
Le long de son jardin,
Le long de son jardin,
Sur le bord de l'île,
Le long de son jardin_."
"How could he _help_ singing," murmured Virginia, fondly. "Ah, dear
Heaven, but I am the happiest girl alive!"
Such a difference can one night bring about.
_Chapter Twelve_
The day rose and flooded the land with its fuller life. All through
the settlement the Post Indians and half-breeds set about their tasks.
Some aided Sarnier with his calking of the bateaux; some worked in the
fields; some mended or constructed in the different shops. At eight
o'clock the bell rang again, and they ate breakfast. Then a group of
seven, armed with muzzle-loading "trade-guns" bound in brass, set out
for the marshes in hopes of geese. For the flight was arriving, and
the Hudson Bay man knows very well the flavor of goose-flesh, smoked,
salted, and barrelled.
Now the _voyageurs_ began to stroll into the sun. They were men of
leisure. Picturesque, handsome, careless, debonair, they wandered back
and forth, smoking their cigarettes, exhibiting their finery. Indian
women, wrinkled and careworn, plodded patiently about on various
businesses. Indian girls, full of fun and mischief, drifted here and
there in arm-locked groups of a dozen, smiling, whispering among
themselves, ready to collapse toward a common centre of giggles if
addressed by one of the numerous woods-dandies, Indian men stalked
singly, indifferent, stolid. Indian children of all sizes and degrees
of nakedness darted back and forth, playing strange games. The sound
of many voices rose across the air.
Once the voices moderated, when McDonald, the Chief Trader, walked
rapidly from the barracks building to the trading store; once they
died entirely into a hush of respect, when Galen Albret himself
appeared on the broad veranda of the factory. He stood for a
moment--hulked broad and black against the whitewash--his hands
clasped behind him, gazing abstractedly toward the distant bay. Then
he turned into the house to some mysterious and weighty business of
his own. The hubbub at once broke out again.
Now about the mouth of the long picketed lane leading to the massive
trading store gathered a silent group, bearing packs. These were
Indians from the more immediate vicinity, desirous of trading their
skins. After a moment McDonald appeared in the doorway, a hundred feet
away, and raised his hand. Two of the savages, and two only, trotted
down the narrow picket lane, their packs on their shoulders.
McDonald ushered them into a big square room, where the bales were
undone and spread abroad. Deftly, silently the Trader sorted the furs,
placing to one side or the other the "primes," "seconds," and "thirds"
of each species. For a moment he calculated. Then he stepped to a post
whereon hung long strings of pierced wooden counters, worn smooth by
use. Swiftly he told the strings over. To one of the Indians he gave
one with these words:
"Mu-hi-kun, my brother, here be pelts to the value of two hundred
'beaver.' Behold a string, then, of two hundred 'castors,' and in
addition I give my brother one fathom of tobacco."
The Indian calculated rapidly, his eye abstracted. He had known
exactly the value of his catch, and what he would receive for it in
"castors," but had hoped for a larger "present," by which the premium
on the standard price is measured.
"Ah hah," he exclaimed, finally, and stepped to one side.
"Sak-we-su, my brother," went on McDonald, "here be pelts to the value
of three hundred 'beaver.' Behold a string, then, of three hundred
'castors,' and because you have brought so fine a skin of the otter,
behold also a fathom of tobacco and a half sack of flour."
"Good!" ejaculated the Indian.
The Trader then led them to stairs, up which they clambered to where
Davis, the Assistant Trader, kept store. There, barred by a heavy
wooden grill from the airy loft filled with bright calicoes, sashes,
pails, guns, blankets, clothes, and other ornamental and useful
things, Sak-we-su and Mu-hi-kun made their choice, trading in the worn
wooden "castors" on the string. So much flour, so much tea, so much
sugar and powder and lead, so much in clothing. Thus were their simple
needs supplied for the year to come. Then the remainder they
squandered on all sorts of useless things--beads, silks, sashes,
bright handkerchiefs, mirrors. And when the last wooden "castor" was
in they went down stairs and out the picket lane, carrying their
lighter purchases, but leaving the larger as "debt," to be called for
when needed. Two of their companions mounted the stairs as they
descended; and two more passed them in the narrow picket lane. So the
trade went on.
At once Sak-we-su and Mu-hi-kun were surrounded. In detail they told
what they had done. Then in greater detail their friends told what
_they_ would have done, until after five minutes of bewildering advice
the disconsolate pair would have been only too glad to have exchanged
everything--if that had been allowed.
Now the bell rang again. It was "smoke time." Everyone quit work for a
half-hour. The sun climbed higher in the heavens. The laughing crews
of idlers sprawled in the warmth, gambling, telling stories, singing.
Then one might have heard all the picturesque songs of the Far
North--"A la claire Fontaine"; "Ma Boule Roulant"; "Par derrièr'
chez-mon Père"; "Isabeau s'y promène"; "P'tite Jeanneton"; "Luron,
Lurette"; "Chante, Rossignol, chante"; the ever-popular "Malbrouck";
"C'est la belle Françoise"; "Alouette"; or the beautiful and tender
"La Violette Dandine." They had good voices, these _voyageurs_, with
the French artistic instinct, and it was fine to hear them.
At noon the squaws set out to gather canoe gum on the mainland. They
sat huddled in the bottom of their old and leaky canoe, reaching far
over the sides to dip their paddles, irregularly placed, silent,
mysterious. They did not paddle with the unison of the men, but each
jabbed a little short stroke as the time suited her, so that always
some paddles were rising and some falling. Into the distance thus they
flapped like wounded birds; then rounded a bend, and were gone.
The sun swung over and down the slope. Dinner time had passed; "smoke
time" had come again. Squaws brought the first white-fish of the
season to the kitchen door of the factory, and Matthews raised the
hand of horror at the price they asked. Finally he bought six of about
three pounds each, giving in exchange tea to the approximate value of
twelve cents. The Indian women went away, secretly pleased over their
bargain.
Down by the Indian camp suddenly broke the roar of a dog-fight. Two of
the sledge _giddés_ had come to teeth, and the friends of both were
assisting the cause. The idlers went to see, laughing, shouting,
running impromptu races. They sat on their haunches and cheered
ironically, and made small bets, and encouraged the frantic old squaw
hags who, at imminent risk, were trying to disintegrate the snarling,
rolling mass. Over in the high log stockade wherein the Company's
sledge animals were confined, other wolf-dogs howled mournfully,
desolated at missing the fun.
And always the sun swung lower and lower toward the west, until
finally the long northern twilight fell, and the girl in the little
white bedroom at the factory bathed her face and whispered for the
hundredth time to her beating heart:
"Night has come!"
_Chapter Thirteen_
That evening at dinner Virginia studied her father's face again. She
saw the square settled line of the jaw under the beard, the unwavering
frown of the heavy eyebrows, the unblinking purpose of the cavernous,
mysterious eyes. Never had she felt herself very close to this silent,
inscrutable man, even in his moments of more affectionate expansion.
Now a gulf divided them.
And yet, strangely enough, she experienced no revulsion, no horror, no
recoil even. He had merely become more aloof, more incomprehensible;
his purposes vaster, less susceptible to the grasp of such as she.
There may have been some basis for this feeling, or it may have been
merely the reflex glow of a joy that made all other things seem
insignificant.
As soon as might be after the meal Virginia slipped away, carrying the
rifle, the cartridges, the matches, and the salt. She was cruelly
frightened.
The night was providentially dark. No aurora threw its splendor across
the dome, and only a few rare stars peeped between the light cirrus
clouds. Virginia left behind her the buildings of the Post, she passed
in safety the tin-steepled chapel and the church house; there remained
only the Indian camp between her and the woods trail. At once the dogs
began to bark and howl, the fierce _giddés_ lifting their pointed
noses to the sky. The girl hurried on, swinging far to the right
through the grass. To her relief the camp did not respond to the
summons. An old crone or so appeared in the flap of a teepee, eyes
dazzled, to throw uselessly a billet of wood or a volley of Cree abuse
at the animals nearest. In a moment Virginia entered the trail.
Here was no light at all. She had to proceed warily, feeling with her
moccasins for the beaten pathway, to which she returned with infinite
caution whenever she trod on grass or leaves. Though her sight was
dulled, her hearing was not. A thousand scurrying noises swirled about
her; a multitude of squeaks, whistles, snorts, and whines attested
that she disturbed the forest creatures at their varied businesses;
and underneath spoke an apparent dozen of terrifying voices which were
in reality only the winds and the trees. Virginia knew that these
things were not dangerous--that daylight would show them to be only
deer-mice, hares, weasels, bats, and owls--nevertheless, they had
their effect. For about her was cloying velvet blackness--not the
closed-in blackness of a room, where one feels the embrace of the four
walls, but the blackness of infinite space through which sweep
mysterious currents of air. After a long time she turned sharp to the
left. After a long time more she perceived a faint, opalescent glimmer
in the distance ahead. This she knew to be the river.
She felt her way onward, still cautiously; then she choked back a
scream and dropped her burden with a clatter to the ground. A dark
figure seemed to have risen mysteriously at her side.
"I didn't mean to frighten you," said Ned Trent, in guarded tones. "I
heard you coming. I thought you could hear me."
He picked up the fallen articles, running his hands over them rapidly.
"Good," he whispered. "I got some moccasins to-day--traded a few
things I had in my pockets for them. I'm fixed."
"Have you a canoe?" she asked.
"Yes--here on the beach."
He preceded her down the few remaining yards of the trail. She
followed, already desolated at the thought of parting, for the
wilderness was very big. The bulk of the man partly blotted out the
lucent spot where the river was--now his arm, now his head, now the
breadth of his shoulders. This silhouette of him was dear to her, the
sound of his movements, the faint stir of his breathing borne to her
on the light breeze. Virginia's tender heart almost overflowed with
longing and fear for him.
They emerged on a little slope and at once pushed the canoe into the
current.
She accepted the aid of his hand for a moment, and sank to her place,
facing him. He spurned lightly the shore, and so they were adrift.
In a moment they seemed to be floating on a vast vapor of night,
infinitely remote from anywhere, surrounded by the silence that might
have been before the world's beginning. A faint splash could have been
a muskrat near at hand or a caribou far away. The paddle rose and
dipped with a faint _swish, swish_, and the steersman's twist of it
was taken up by the man's strong wrist so it did not click against the
gunwale; the bow of the craft divided the waters with a murmuring so
faint as to seem but the echo of a silence. Neither spoke. Virginia
watched him, her heart too full for words; watched the full swing of
his strong shoulders, the balance of his body at the hips, the poise
of his head against the dull sky. In a moment more the parting would
have to come. She dreaded it, and yet she looked forward to it with a
hungry joy. Then he would say what she had seen in his eyes; then he
would speak; then she would hear the words that should comfort her in
the days of waiting. For a woman lives much for the present, and the
moment's word is an important thing.
The man swung his paddle steadily, throwing into the strokes a wanton
exuberance that showed how high his spirits ran. After a time, when
they were well out from the shore, he took a deep breath of delight.
"Ah, you don't know how happy I am," he exulted, "you don't know! To
be free, to play the game, to match my wits against theirs--ah, that
is life!"
"I am sorry to see you go," she murmured, "very sorry. The days will
be full of terror until I know you are safe."
"Oh, yes," he answered; "but I'll get there, and I shall tell it all
to you at Quebec--at Quebec in August. It will be a brave tale! You
will be there--surely?"
"Yes," said the girl, softly; "I will be there--surely."
"Good! Feel the wind on your cheek? It is from the Southland, where I
am going. I have ventured--and I have not lost! It is something not to
lose, when one has ventured against many. They have my goods--but
I--"
"You?" repeated Virginia, as he hesitated.
"Ah, I don't go back empty-handed!" he cried. Her heart stood still,
then leaped in anticipation of what he would say. Her soul hungered
for the words, the words that should not only comfort her, but should
be to her the excuse for many things. She saw him--shadowy, graceful
against the dim gray of the river and sky--lean ever so slightly
toward her. But then he straightened again to his paddle, and
contented himself with repeating merely: "Quebec--in August, then."
The canoe grated. Ned Trent with an exclamation drove his paddle into
the clay.
"Lucky the bottom is soft here," said he; "I did not realize we were
so close ashore."
He drew the canoe up on the shelving beach, helped Virginia out, took
his rifle, and so stood ready to depart.
"Leave the canoe just where we got in," he advised; "it is around the
point, you see, and that may fool them a little."
"You are going," she said, dully. Then she came close to him and
looked up at him with her wonderful eyes. "Good-by."
"Good-by," said he.
Was this to be all? Had he nothing more to tell her? Was the word to
lack, the word she needed so much? She had given herself unreservedly
into this man's hands, and at parting he had no more to say to her
than "Good-by." Virginia's eyes were tearful, but she would not let
him know that. She felt that her heart would break.
"Well, good-by," he said again after a moment, which he had spent
inspecting the heavens. "Ah, you don't _know_ what it is to be free!
By to-morrow morning I shall be half-way to the Mattágami. I can
hardly wait to see it, for then I am safe! And then next day--why,
next day they won't know which of a dozen ways I've gone!" He was
full of the future, man-fashion.
He took her hands, leaned over, and lightly kissed her on the mouth.
Instantly Virginia became wildly and unreasonably angry. She could not
have told herself why, but it was the lack of the word she had wanted
so much, the pain of feeling that he could go like that, the thwarted
bitterness of a longing that had grown stronger than she had even yet
realized.
Instinctively she leaped into the canoe, sending it spinning from the
bank.
"Ah, you had no _right_ to do that!" she cried. "I gave you no
_right_!"
Then, heedless of what he was saying, she began to paddle straight
from the shore, weeping bitterly, her face upraised, her hair in her
eyes, and the tears coursing unheeded down her cheeks.
_Chapter Fourteen_
Slower and slower her paddle dipped, lower and lower hung her head,
faster and faster flowed her tears. The instinctive recoil, the
passionate resentment had gone. In the bitterness of her spirit she
knew not what she thought except that she would give her soul to see
him again, to feel the touch of his lips once more. For she could not
make herself believe that this would ever come to pass. He had gone
like a phantom, like a dream, and the mists of life had closed about
him, showing no sign. He had vanished, and at once she seemed to know
that the episode was finished.
The canoe whispered against the soft clay bottom. She had arrived,
though how the crossing had been made she could not have told. Slowly
and sorrowfully she disembarked. Languidly she drew the light craft
beyond the stream's eager fingers. Then, her forces at an end, she
huddled down on the ground and gave herself up to sorrow.
The life of the forest went on as though she were not there. A big owl
far off said hurriedly his _whoo-whoo-whoo_, as though he had the
message to deliver and wanted to finish the task. A smaller owl near
at hand cried _ko-ko-ko-oh_ with the intonation of a tin horn. Across
the river a lynx screamed, and was answered at once by the ululations
of wolves. On the island the _giddés_ howled defiance. Then from
above, clear, spiritual, floated the whistle of shore birds arriving
from the south. Close by sounded a rustle of leaves, a sharp squeak;
a tragedy had been consummated, and the fierce little mink stared
malevolently across the body of his victim at the motionless figure on
the beach.
Virginia, drowned in grief, knew of none of these things. She was
seeing again the clear brown face of the stranger, his curly brown
hair, his steel eyes, and the swing of his graceful figure. Now he
fronted the wondering _voyageurs_, one foot raised against the bow of
the _brigade_ canoe; now he stood straight and tall against the light
of the sitting-room door; now he emptied the vials of his wrath and
contempt on Archibald Crane's reverend head; now he passed in the
darkness, singing gayly the _chanson de canôt_. But more fondly she
saw him as he swept his hat to the ground on discovering her by the
guns, as he bent his impassioned eyes on her in the dim lamplight of
their first interview, as he tossed his hat aloft in the air when he
had understood that she would be in Quebec. She hugged the visions to
her, and wept over them softly, for she was now sure she would never
see him again.
And she heard his voice, now laughing, now scornful, now mocking, now
indignant, now rich and solemn with feeling. He flouted the people, he
turned the shafts of his irony on her father, he scathed the minister,
he laughed at Louis Placide awakened from his sleep, he sang, he told
her of the land of desolation, he pleaded. She could hear him calling
her name--although he had never spoken it--in low, tender tones,
"Virginia! Virginia!" over and over again softly, as though his soul
were crying through his lips.
Then somehow, in a manner not to be comprehended, it was borne in on
her consciousness that he was indeed near her, and that he was indeed
calling her name. And at once she made him out, standing dripping on
the beach. A moment later she was in his arms.
"Ah!" he cried, in gladness; "you are here!"
He crushed her hungrily to him, unmindful of his wet clothes, kissing
her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, her chin, even the fragrant corner of
her throat exposed by the collar of her gown. She did not struggle.
"Oh!" she murmured, "my dear, my dear! Why did you come back? Why did
you come?"
"Why did I come?" he repeated, passionately. "Why did I come? Can you
ask that? How could I help but come? You must have known I would come.
Surely you must have known! Didn't you hear me calling you when you
paddled away? I came to get the right. I came to get your promise,
your kisses, to hear you say the word, to get you! I thought you
understood. It was all so clear to me. I thought you knew. That was
why I was so glad to go, so eager to get away that I could not even
realize I was parting from you--so I could the sooner reach
Quebec--reach you! Don't you see how I felt? All this present was
merely something to get over, to pass by, to put behind us until I got
to Quebec in August--and you. I looked forward so eagerly to that, I
was so anxious to get away, I was desirous of hastening on to the time
when things could be _sure_! Don't you understand?"
"Yes, I think I do," replied the girl, softly.
"And I thought of course you knew. I should not have kissed you
otherwise."
"How could I know?" she sighed. "You said nothing, and, oh! I _wanted_
so to hear!"
And singularly enough he said nothing now, but they stood facing each
other hand in hand, while the great vibrant life they were now
touching so closely filled their hearts and eyes, and left them faint.
So they stood for hours or for seconds, they could not tell,
spirit-hushed, ecstatic. The girl realized that they must part.
"You must go," she whispered brokenly, at last. "I do not want you to,
but you must."
She smiled up at him with trembling lips that whispered to her soul
that she must be brave.
"Now go," she nerved herself to say, releasing her hands.
"Tell me," he commanded.
"What?" she asked.
"What I most want to hear."
"I can tell you many things," said she, soberly, "but I do not know
which of them you want to hear. Ah, Ned, I can tell you that you have
come into a girl's life to make her very happy and very much afraid.
And that is a solemn thing; is it not?"
"Yes," said he.
"And I can tell you that this can never be undone. That is a solemn
thing, too, is it not?"
"Yes," said he.
"And that, according as you treat her, this girl will believe or not
believe in the goodness of all men or the badness of all men. Ah, Ned,
a woman's heart is fragile, and mine is in your keeping."
Her face was raised bravely and steadily to his. In the starlight it
shone white and pathetic. And her eyes were two liquid wells of
darkness in the shadow, and her half-parted lips were wistful and
childlike.
The man caught both her hands, again looking down on her. Then he
answered her, solemnly and humbly.
"Virginia," said he, "I am setting out on a perilous journey. As I
deal with you, may God deal with me."
"Ah, that is as I like you," she breathed.
"Good-by," said he.
She raised her lips of her own accord, and he kissed them reverently.
"Good-by," she murmured.
He turned away with an effort and ran down the beach to the canoe.
"Good-by, good-by," she murmured, under her breath. "Ah, good-by! I
love you! Oh, I do love you!"
[Illustration: "GO HOME BEFORE THEY SEARCH THE WOODS." Scene from the
play.]
Then suddenly from the bushes leaped dark figures. The still night was
broken by the sound of a violent scuffle--blows--a fall. She heard Ned
Trent's voice calling to her from the _mêlée_.
"Go back at once!" he commanded, clearly and steadily. "You can do no
good. I order you to go home before they search the woods."
But she crouched in dazed terror, her pupils wide to the dim light.
She saw them bind him, and stand waiting; she saw a canoe glide out
of the darkness; she saw the occupants of the canoe disembark; she saw
them exhibit her little rifle, and heard them explain in Cree, that
they had followed the man swimming. Then she knew that the cause was
lost, and fled as swiftly as she could through the forest.
_Chapter Fifteen_
Galen Albret had chosen to interrogate his recaptured prisoner alone.
He sat again in the arm-chair of the Council Room. The place was
flooded with sun. It touched the high-lights of the time-darkened,
rough furniture, it picked out the brasses, it glorified the
whitewashed walls. In its uncompromising illumination Me-en-gan, the
bowsman, standing straight and tall and silent by the door, studied
his master's face and knew him to be deeply angered.
For Galen Albret was at this moment called upon to deal with a problem
more subtle than any with which his policy had been puzzled in thirty
years. It was bad enough that, in repeated defiance of his authority,
this stranger should persist in his attempt to break the Company's
monopoly; it was bad enough that he had, when captured, borne himself
with so impudent an air of assurance; it was bad enough that he should
have made open love to the Factor's daughter, should have laughed
scornfully in the Factor's very face. But now the case had become
grave. In some mysterious manner he had succeeded in corrupting one of
the Company's servants. Treachery was therefore to be dealt with.
Some facts Galen Albret had well in hand. Others eluded him
persistently. He had, of course, known promptly enough of the
disappearance of a canoe, and had thereupon dispatched his Indians to
the recapture. The Reverend Archibald Crane had reported that two
figures had been seen in the act of leaving camp, one by the river, the
other by the Woods Trail. But here the Factor's investigations
encountered a check. The rifle brought in by his Indians, to his
bewilderment, he recognized not at all. His repeated cross-questionings,
when they touched on the question of Ned Trent's companion, got no
farther than the Cree wooden stolidity. No, they had seen no one,
neither presence, sign, nor trail. But Galen Albret, versed in the
psychology of his savage allies, knew they lied. He suspected them of
clan loyalty to one of their own number; and yet they had never failed
him before. Now, his heavy revolver at his right hand, he interviewed
Ned Trent, alone, except for the Indian by the portal.
As with the Indians, his cross-examination had borne scant results.
The best of his questions but involved him in a maze of baffling
surmises. Gradually his anger had mounted, until now the Indian at the
door knew by the wax-like appearance of the more prominent places on
his deeply carved countenance that he had nearly reached the point of
outbreak.
Swiftly, like the play of rapiers, the questions and answers broke
across the still room.
"You had aid," the Factor asserted, positively.
"You think so?"
"My Indians say you were alone. But where did you get this rifle?"
"I stole it."
"You were alone?"
Ned Trent paused for a barely appreciable instant. It was not possible
that the Indians had failed to establish the girl's presence, and he
feared a trap. Then he caught the expressive eye of Me-en-gan at the
door. Evidently Virginia had friends.
"I was alone," he repeated, confidently.
"That is a lie. For though my Indians were deceived, two people were
observed by my clergyman to leave the Post immediately before I sent
out to your capture. One rounded the island in a canoe; the other took
the Woods Trail."
"Bully for the Church," replied Trent, imperturbably. "Better promote
him to your scouts."
"Who was that second person?"
"Do you think I will tell you?"
"I think I'll find means to make you tell me!" burst out the Factor.
Ned Trent was silent.
"If you'll tell me the name of that man I'll let you go free. I'll
give you a permit to trade in the country. It touches my
authority--my discipline. The affair becomes a precedent. It is
vital."
Ned Trent fixed his eyes on the bay and hummed a little air, half
turning his shoulder to the older man.
The latter's face blazed with suppressed fury. Twice his hand rested
almost convulsively on the butt of his heavy revolver.
"Ned Trent," he cried, harshly, at last, "pay attention to me. I've
had enough of this. I swear if you do not tell me what I want to know
within five minutes, I'll hang you to-day!"
The young man spun on his heel.
"Hanging!" he cried. "You cannot mean that?"
The Free Trader measured him up and down, saw that his purpose was
sincere, and turned slowly pale under the bronze of his out-of-door
tan. Hanging is always a dreadful death, but in the Far North it
carries an extra stigma of ignominy with it, inasmuch as it is
resorted to only with the basest malefactors. Shooting is the usual
form of execution for all but the most despicable crimes. He turned
away with a little gesture.
"Well!" cried Albret.
Ned Trent locked his lips in a purposeful straight line of silence. To
such an outrage there could be nothing to say. The Factor jerked his
watch to the table.
"I said five minutes," he repeated. "I mean it."
[Illustration: "GO TO THE DEVIL!" Scene from the play.]
The young man leaned against the side of the window, his arms folded,
his back to the room. Outside, the varied life of the Post went
forward under his eyes. He even noted with a surface interest the fact
that out across the river a loon was floating, and remarked that
never before had he seen one of those birds so far north. Galen Albret
struck the table with the flat of his hand.
"Done!" he cried, "This is the last chance I shall give you. Speak at
this instant or accept the consequences!"
Ned Trent turned sharply, as though breaking a thread that bound him
to the distant prospect beyond the window. For an instant he stared
enigmatically at his opponent. Then in the sweetest tones,
"Oh, go to the devil!" said he, and began to walk deliberately toward
the older man.
There lay between the window and the head of the table perhaps a dozen
ordinary steps, for the room was large. The young man took them
slowly, his eyes fixed with burning intensity on the seated figure,
the muscles of his locomotion contracting and relaxing with the
smooth, stealthy continuity of a cat. Galen Albret again laid hand on
his revolver.
"Come no nearer," he commanded.
Me-en-gan left the door and glided along the wall. But the table
intervened between him and the Free Trader.
The latter paid no attention to the Factor's command. Galen Albret
suddenly raised his weapon from the table.
"Stop, or I'll fire!" he cried, sharply.
"I mean just that," said Ned Trent between his clenched teeth.
But ten feet separated the two men. Galen Albret levelled the
revolver. Ned Trent, watchful, prepared to spring. Me-en-gan, near the
foot of the table, gathered himself for attack.
Then suddenly the Free Trader relaxed his muscles, straightened his
back, and returned deliberately to the window. Facing about in
astonishment to discover the reason for this sudden change of
decision, the other two men looked into the face of Virginia Albret,
standing in the doorway of the other room.
"Father!" she cried.
"You must go back," said Ned Trent, speaking clearly and collectedly,
in the hope of imposing his will on her obvious excitement. "This is
not an affair in which you should interfere. Galen Albret, send her
away."
The Factor had turned squarely in his heavy arm-chair to regard the
girl, a frown on his brows.
"Virginia," he commanded, in deliberate, stern tones of authority,
"leave the room. You have nothing to do with this case, and I do not
desire your interference."
Virginia stepped bravely beyond the portals, and stopped. Her fingers
were nervously interlocked, her lip trembled, in her cheeks the color
came and went, but her eyes met her father's, unfaltering.
"I have more to do with it than you think," she replied.
Instantly Ned Trent was at the table. "I really think this has gone
far enough," he interposed. "We have had our interview, and come to a
decision. Miss Albret must not be permitted to exaggerate a slight
sentiment of pity into an interest in my affairs. If she knew that
such a demonstration only made it worse for me I am sure she would say
no more." He looked at her appealingly across the Factor's shoulder.
Me-en-gan was already holding open the door. "You come," he smiled,
beseechingly.
But the Factor's suspicions were aroused.
[Illustration: "I HAVE MORE TO DO WITH IT THAN YOU THINK!" Scene from
the play.]
"There is something in this," he decided. "I think you may stay,
Virginia."
"You are right," broke in the young man, desperately. "There is
something in it. Miss Albret knows who gave me the rifle, and she was
about to inform you of his identity. There is no need in subjecting
her to that distasteful ordeal. I am now ready to confess to you. I
beg you will ask her to leave the room."
Galen Albret, in the midst of these warring intentions, had sunk into
his customary impassive calm. The light had died from his eyes, the
expression from his face, the energy from his body. He sat, an inert
mass, void of initiative, his intelligence open to what might be
brought to his notice.
"Virginia, this is true?" his heavy, dead voice rumbled through his
beard. "You know who aided this man?"
Ned Trent mutely appealed to her; her glance answered his.
"Yes, father," she replied.
"Who?"
"I did."
A dead silence fell on the room. Galen Albret's expression and
attitude did not change. Through dull, lifeless eyes, from behind the
heavy mask of his waxen face and white beard, he looked steadily out
upon nothing. Along either arm of the chair stretched his own arms
limp and heavy with inertia. In suspense the other three inmates of
the place watched him, waiting for some change. It did not come.
Finally his lips moved.
"You?" he muttered, questioningly.
"I," she repeated.
Another silence fell.
"Why?" he asked at last.
"Because it was an unjust thing. Because we could not think of taking
a life in that way, without some reason for it."
"Why?" he persisted, taking no account of her reply.
Virginia let her gaze slowly rest on the Free Trader, and her eyes
filled with a world of tenderness and trust.
"Because I love him," said she, softly.
_Chapter Sixteen_
After an instant Galen Albret turned slowly his massive head and
looked at her. He made no other movement, yet she staggered back as
though she had received a violent blow on the chest.
"Father!" she gasped.
Still slowly, gropingly, he arose to his feet, holding tight to the
edge of the table. Behind him unheeded the rough-built arm-chair
crashed to the floor. He stood there upright and motionless, looking
straight before him, his face formidable. At first his speech was
disjointed. The words came in widely punctuated gasps. Then, as the
wave of his emotion rolled back from the poise into which the first
shock of anger had thrown it, it escaped through his lips in a
constantly increasing stream of bitter words.
"You--you love him," he cried. "You--my daughter! You have been--a
traitor--to me! You have dared--dared--deny that which my whole life
has affirmed! My own flesh and blood--when I thought the nearest
_mètis_ of them all more loyal! You love this man--this man who has
insulted me, mocked me! You have taken his part against me! You have
deliberately placed yourself in the class of those I would hang for
such an offence! If you were not my daughter I would hang you. Hang my
own child!" Suddenly his rage flared. "You little fool! Do you dare
set your judgment against mine? Do you dare interfere where I think
well? Do you dare deny my will? By the eternal, I'll show you, old as
you are, that you have still a father! Get to your room! Out of my
sight!" He took two steps forward, and so his eye fell on Ned Trent.
He uttered a scream of rage, and reached for the pistol. Fortunately
the abruptness of his movement when he arose had knocked it to the
floor, so now in the blindness of a red anger he could not see it. He
shrieked out an epithet and jumped forward, his arm drawn to strike.
Ned Trent leaped back into an attitude of defence.
All three of those present had many times seen Galen Albret possessed
by his noted fits of anger, so striking in contrast to his ordinary
contained passivity. But always, though evidently in a white heat of
rage and given to violent action and decision, he had retained the
clearest command of his faculties, issuing coherent and dreaded
orders to those about him. Now he had become a raging wild beast. And
for the spectators the sight had all the horror of the unprecedented.
But the younger man, too, had gradually heated to the point where his
ordinary careless indifference could give off sparks. The interview
had been baffling, the threats real and unjust, the turn of affairs
when Virginia Albret entered the room most exasperating on the side of
the undesirable and unforeseen. In foiled escape, in thwarted
expedient, his emotions had been many times excited, and then eddied
back on themselves. The potentialities of as blind an anger as that of
Galen Albret were in him. It only needed a touch to loose the flood.
The physical threat of a blow supplied that touch. As the two men
faced each other both were ripe for the extreme of recklessness.
But while Galen Albret looked to nothing less than murder, the
Free-Trader's individual genius turned to dead defiance and resistance
of will. While Galen Albret's countenance reflected the height of
passion, Trent was as smiling and cool and debonair as though he had
at that moment received from the older man an extraordinary and
particular favor. Only his eyes shot a baleful blue flame, and his
words, calmly enough delivered, showed the extent to which his passion
had cast policy to the winds.
"Don't go too far! I warn you!" said he.
As though the words had projected him bodily forward, Galen Albret
sprang to deliver his blow. The Free Trader ducked rapidly, threw his
shoulder across the middle of the older man's body, and by the very
superiority of his position forced his antagonist to give ground. That
the struggle would have then continued body to body there can be no
doubt, had it not been for the fact that the Factor's retrogressive
movement brought his knees sharply against the edge of a chair
standing near the side of the table. Albret lost his balance, wavered,
and finally sat down violently. Ned Trent promptly pinned him by the
shoulder into powerless immobility. Me-en-gan had possessed himself of
the fallen pistol, but beyond keeping a generally wary eye out for
dangerous developments, did not offer to interfere. Your Indian is in
such a crisis a disciplinarian, and he had received no orders.
"Now," said Ned Trent, acidly, "I think this will stop right here. You
do not cut a very good figure, my dear sir," he laughed a little.
"You haven't cut a very good figure from the beginning, you know. You
forbade me to do various things, and I have done them all. I traded
with your Indians. I came and went in your country. Do you think I
have not been here often before I was caught? And you forbade me to
see your daughter again. I saw her that very evening, and the next
morning and the next evening."
He stood, still holding Galen Albret immovably in the chair, looking
steadily and angrily into the Factor's eyes, driving each word home
with the weight of his contained passion. The girl touched his arm.
"Hush! oh, hush!" she cried in a panic. "Do not anger him further!"
"When you forbade me to make love to her," he continued, unheeding, "I
laughed at you." With a sudden, swift motion of his left arm he drew
her to him and touched her forehead with his lips. "Look! Your
commands have been rather ridiculous, sir. I seem to have had the
upper hand of you from first to last. Incidentally you have my life.
Oh, welcome! That is small pay and little satisfaction."
He threw himself from the Factor and stepped back.
Galen Albret sat still without attempting to renew the struggle. The
enforced few moments of inaction had restored to him his self-control.
He was still deeply angered, but the insanity of rage had left him.
Outwardly he was himself again. Only a rapid heaving of his chest
answered Ned Trent's quick breathing, as the two men glared defiantly
at each other in the pause that followed.
"Very well, sir," said the Factor, curtly, at last. "Your time is
over. I find it unnecessary to hang you. You will start on your
_Longue Traverse_ to-day."
"Oh!" cried Virginia, in a low voice of agony, and fluttered to her
lover's side.
"Hush! hush!" he soothed her. "There is a chance."
"You think so?" broke in Galen Albret, harshly. And looking at his set
face and blazing eyes, they saw that there was no chance. The Free
Trader shrugged his shoulders.
"You are going to do this thing, father," appealed Virginia, "after
what I have told you?"
"My mind is made up."
"I shall not survive him, father!" she threatened, in a low voice.
Then, as the Factor did not respond, "Do not misunderstand me. I do
not intend to survive him."
"Silence! silence! silence!" cried Galen Albret, in a crescendo
outburst. "Silence! I will not be gainsaid! You have made your choice!
You are no longer a daughter of mine!"
"Father!" cried Virginia, faintly, her lips going pale.
"Don't speak to me! Don't look at me! Get out of here! Get out of the
place! I won't have you here another day--another hour! By--"
The girl hesitated for a moment, then ran to him, sinking on her
knees, and clasping his hand.
"Father," she pleaded, "you are not yourself. This has been very
trying to you. To-morrow you will be sorry. But then it will be too
late. Think, while there is yet time. He has not committed a crime.
You yourself told me he was a man of intelligence and daring--a
gentleman; and surely, though he has been hasty, he has acted with a
brave spirit through it all. See, he will promise you to go away
quietly, to say nothing of all this, never to come into this country
again without your permission. He will do this if I ask him, for he
loves me. Look at me, father. Are you going to treat your little girl
so--your Virginia? You have never refused me anything before. And this
is the greatest thing in all my life." She held his hand to her cheek
and stroked it, murmuring little feminine, caressing phrases, secure
in her power of witchery, which had never failed her before. The sound
of her own voice reassured her, the quietude of the man she pleaded
with. A lifetime of petting, of indulgence, threw its soothing
influence over her perturbation, convincing her that somehow all this
storm and stress must be phantasmagoric--a dream from which she was
even now awakening into a clearer day of happiness. "For you love me,
father," she concluded, and looked up daintily, with a pathetic,
coquettish tilt of her fair head, to peer into his face.
Galen Albret snarled like a wild beast, throwing aside the girl, as he
did the chair in which he had been sitting. Ned Trent caught her,
reeling, in his arms.
For, as is often the case with passionate but strong temperaments,
though the Factor had attained a certain calm of control, the turmoil
of his deeper anger had not been in the least stilled. Over it a crust
of determination had formed--the determination to make an end by the
directest means in his autocratic power of this galling opposition.
The girl's pleading, instead of appealing to him, had in reality but
stirred his fury the more profoundly. It had added a new fuel element
to the fire. Heretofore his consciousness had felt merely the
thwarting of his pride, his authority, his right to loyalty. Now his
daughter's entreaty brought home to him the bitter realization that he
had been attained on another side--that of his family affection. This
man had also killed for him his only child. For the child had
renounced him, had thrust him outside herself into the lonely and
ruined temple of his pride. At the first thought his face twisted with
emotion, then hardened to cold malice.
"Love you!" he cried. "Love you! An unnatural child! An ingrate! One
who turns from me so lightly!" He laughed bitterly, eyeing her with
chilling scrutiny. "You dare recall my love for you!" Suddenly he
stood upright, levelling a heavy, trembling arm at her. "You think an
appeal to my love will save him! Fool!"
Virginia's breath caught in her throat. She straightened, clutched the
neckband of her gown. Then her head fell slowly forward. She had
fainted in her lover's arms.
They stood exactly so for an appreciable interval, bewildered by the
suddenness of this outcome; Galen Albret's hand out-stretched in
denunciation; the girl like a broken lily, supported in the young
man's arms; he searching her face passionately for a sign of life;
Me-en-gan, straight and sorrowful, again at the door.
Then the old man's arm dropped slowly. His gaze wavered. The lines of
his face relaxed. Twice he made an effort to turn away. All at once
his stubborn spirit broke; he uttered a cry, and sprang forward to
snatch the unconscious form hungrily into his bear clasp, searching
the girl's face, muttering incoherent things.
"Quick!" he cried, aloud, the guttural sounds jostling one another in
his throat. "Get Wishkobun, quick!"
Ned Trent looked at him with steady scorn, his arms folded.
"Ah!" he dropped distinctly in deliberate monosyllables across the
surcharged atmosphere of the scene. "So it seems you have found your
heart, my friend!"
Galen Albret glared wildly at him over the girl's fair head.
"She is my daughter," he mumbled.
_Chapter Seventeen_
They carried the unconscious girl into the dim-lighted apartment of
the curtained windows, and laid her on the divan. Wishkobun, hastily
summoned, unfastened the girl's dress at the throat.
"It is a faint," she announced in her own tongue. "She will recover in
a few minutes; I will get some water."
Ned Trent wiped the moisture from his forehead with his handkerchief.
The danger he had undergone coolly, but this overcame his iron
self-control. Galen Albret, like an anxious bear, weaved back and
forth the length of the couch. In him the rumble of the storm was but
just echoing into distance.
"Go into the next room," he growled at the Free Trader, when finally
he noticed the latter's presence.
Ned Trent hesitated.
"Go, I say!" snarled the Factor. "You can do nothing here." He
followed the young man to the door, which he closed with his own hand,
and then turned back to the couch on which his daughter lay. In the
middle of the floor his foot clicked on some small object.
Mechanically he picked it up.
It proved to be a little silver match-safe of the sort universally
used in the Far North. Evidently the Free Trader had flipped it from
his pocket with his handkerchief. The Factor was about to thrust it
into his own pocket, when his eye caught lettering roughly carved
across one side. Still mechanically, he examined it more closely. The
lettering was that of a man's name. The man's name was Graehme
Stewart.
Without thinking of what he did, he dropped the object on the small
table, and returned anxiously to the girl's side, cursing the
tardiness of the Indian woman. But in a moment Wishkobun returned.
"Will she recover?" asked the Factor, distracted at the woman's
deliberate examination.
The latter smiled her indulgent, slow smile. "But surely," she assured
him in her own tongue, "it is no more than if she cut her finger. In a
few breaths she will recover. Now I will go to the house of the
Cockburn for a morsel of the sweet wood[A] which she must smell." She
looked her inquiry for permission.
[Footnote A: Camphor.]
"Sagaamig--go," assented Albret.
Relieved in mind, he dropped into a chair. His eye caught the little
silver match-safe. He picked it up and fell to staring at the rudely
carved letters.
He found that he was alone with his daughter--and the thoughts aroused
by the dozen letters of a man's name.
All his life long he had been a hard man. His commands had been
autocratic; his anger formidable; his punishments severe, and
sometimes cruel. The quality of mercy was with him tenuous and weak.
He knew this, and if he did not exactly glory in it, he was at least
indifferent to its effect on his reputation with others. But always he
had been just. The victims of his displeasure might complain that his
retributive measures were harsh, that his forgiveness could not be
evoked by even the most extenuating of circumstances, but not that
his anger had ever been baseless or the punishment undeserved. Thus he
had held always his own self-respect, and from his self-respect had
proceeded his iron and effective rule.
So in the case of the young man with whom now his thoughts were
occupied. Twice he had warned him from the country without the
punishment which the third attempt rendered imperative. The events
succeeding his arrival at Conjuror's House warmed the Factor's anger
to the heat of almost preposterous retribution perhaps--for after all
a man's life is worth something, even in the wilds--but it was
actually retribution, and not merely a ruthless proof of power. It
might be justice as only the Factor saw it, but it was still
essentially justice--in the broader sense that to each act had
followed a definite consequence. Although another might have
condemned his conduct as unnecessarily harsh, Galen Albret's
conscience was satisfied and at rest.
Nor had his resolution been permanently affected by either the girl's
threat to make away with herself or by his momentary softening when
she had fainted. The affair was thereby complicated, but that was all.
In the sincerity of the threat he recognized his own iron nature, and
was perhaps a little pleased at its manifestation. He knew she
intended to fulfil her promise not to survive her lover, but at the
moment this did not reach his fears; it only aroused further his
dogged opposition.
The Free Trader's speech as he left the room, however, had touched the
one flaw in Galen Albret's confidence of righteousness. Wearied with
the struggles and the passions he had undergone, his brain numbed,
his will for the moment in abeyance, he seated himself and
contemplated the images those two words had called up.
Graehme Stewart! That man he had first met at Fort Rae over twenty
years ago. It was but just after he had married Virginia's mother. At
once his imagination, with the keen pictorial power of those who have
dwelt long in the Silent Places, brought forward the other scene--that
of his wooing. He had driven his dogs into Fort la Cloche after a hard
day's run in seventy-five degrees of frost. Weary, hungry,
half-frozen, he had staggered into the fire-lit room. Against the
blaze he had caught for a moment a young girl's profile, lost as she
turned her face toward him in startled question of his entrance. Men
had cared for his dogs. The girl had brought him hot tea. In the
corner of the fire they two had whispered one to the other--the
already grizzled traveller of the silent land, the fresh, brave
north-maiden. At midnight, their parkas drawn close about their faces
in the fearful cold, they had met outside the inclosure of the Post.
An hour later they were away under the aurora for Qu'Apelle. Galen
Albret's nostrils expanded as he heard the _crack, crack, crack_ of
the remorseless dog-whip whose sting drew him away from the vain
pursuit. After the marriage at Qu'Apelle they had gone a weary journey
to Rae, and there he had first seen Graehme Stewart.
Fort Rae is on the northwestward arm of the Great Slave Lake in the
country of the Dog Ribs, only four degrees under the Arctic Circle. It
is a dreary spot, for the Barren Grounds are near. Men see only the
great lake, the great sky, the great gray country. They become moody,
fanciful. In the face of the silence they have little to say. At Fort
Rae were old Jock Wilson, the Chief Trader; Father Bonat, the priest;
Andrew Levoy, the _mètis_ clerk; four Dog Rib teepees; Galen Albret
and his bride; and Graehme Stewart.
Jock Wilson was sixty-five; Father Bonat had no age; Andrew Levoy
possessed the years of dour silence. Only Graehme Stewart and Elodie,
bride of Albret, were young. In the great gray country their lives
were like spots of color on a mist. Galen Albret finally became
jealous.
At first there was nothing to be done; but finally Levoy brought to
the older man proof of the younger's guilt. The harsh traveller bowed
his head and wept. But since he loved Elodie more than himself which
was perhaps the only redeeming feature of this sorry business--he said
nothing, nor did more than to journey south to Edmonton, leaving the
younger man alone in Fort Rae to the White Silence. But his soul was
stirred.
In the course of nature and of time Galen Albret had a daughter, but
lost a wife. It was no longer necessary for him to leave his wrong
unavenged. Then began a series of baffling hindrances which resulted
finally in his stooping to means repugnant to his open sense of what
was due himself. At the first he could not travel to his enemy because
of the child in his care; when finally he had succeeded in placing the
little girl where he would be satisfied to leave her, he himself was
suddenly and peremptorily called east to take a post in Rupert's Land.
He could not disobey and remain in the Company, and the Company was
more to him than life or revenge. The little girl he left in Sacré
Coeur of Quebec; he himself took up his residence in the Hudson Bay
country. After a few years, becoming lonely for his own flesh and
blood, he sent for his daughter. There, as Factor, he gained a vast
power; and this power he turned into the channels of his hatred.
Graehme Stewart felt always against him the hand of influence. His
posts in the Company's service became intolerable. At length, in
indignation against continued injustice, oppression, and insult, he
resigned, broken in fortune and in prospects. He became one of the
earliest Free Traders on the Saskatchewan, devoting his energies to
enraged opposition of the Company which had wronged him. In the space
of three short years he had met a violent and striking death; for the
early days of the Free Trader were adventurous. Galen Albret's
revenge had struck home.
Then in after years the Factor had again met with Andrew Levoy. The
man staggered into Conjuror's House late at night. He had started from
Winnipeg to descend the Albany River, but had met with mishap and
starvation. One by one his dogs had died. In some blind fashion he
pushed on for days after his strength and sanity had left him.
Mu-hi-kun had brought him in. His toes and fingers had frozen and
dropped off; his face was a mask of black frost-bitten flesh, in which
deep fissures opened to the raw. He had gone snow-blind. Scarcely was
he recognizable as a human being.
From such a man in extremity could come nothing but the truth, so
Galen Albret believed him. Before Andrew Levoy died that night he told
of his deceit. The Factor left the room with the weight of a crime on
his conscience. For Graehme Stewart had been innocent of any wrong
toward him or his bride.
Such was the story Galen Albret saw in the little silver match-box.
That was the one flaw in his consciousness of righteousness; the one
instance in a long career when his ruthless acts of punishment or
reprisal had not rested on rigid justice, and by the irony of fate the
one instance had touched him very near. Now here before him was his
enemy's son--he wondered that he had not discovered the resemblance
before--and he was about to visit on him the severest punishment in
his power. Was not this an opportunity vouchsafed him to repair his
ancient fault, to cleanse his conscience of the one sin of the kind it
would acknowledge?
But then over him swept the same blur of jealousy that had resulted in
Graehme Stewart's undoing. This youth wooed his daughter; he had won
her affections away. Strangely enough Galen Albret confused the new
and the old; again youth cleaved to youth, leaving age apart. Age felt
fiercely the desire to maintain its own. The Factor crushed the silver
match-box between his great palms and looked up. His daughter lay
before him, still, lifeless. Deliberately he rested his chin on his
hands and contemplated her.
The room, as always, was full of contrast; shafts of light,
dust-moted, bewildering, crossed from the embrasured windows, throwing
high-lights into prominence and shadows into impenetrable darkness.
They rendered the gray-clad figure of the girl vague and ethereal,
like a mist above a stream; they darkened the dull-hued couch on which
she rested into a liquid, impalpable black; they hazed the draped
background of the corner into a far-reaching distance; so that finally
to Galen Albret, staring with hypnotic intensity, it came to seem that
he looked upon a pure and disembodied spirit sleeping sweetly--cradled
on illimitable space. The ordinary and familiar surroundings all
disappeared. His consciousness accepted nothing but the cameo profile
of marble white, the nimbus of golden haze about the head, the
mist-like suggestion of a body, and again the clear marble spot of the
hands. All else was a background of modulated depths.
So gradually the old man's spirit, wearied by the stress of the last
hour, turned in on itself and began to create. The cameo profile, the
mist-like body, the marble hands remained; but now Galen Albret saw
other things as well. A dim, rare perfume was wafted from some unseen
space; indistinct flashes of light spotted the darknesses; faint
swells of music lifted the silence intermittently. These things were
small and still, and under the external consciousness--like the voices
one may hear beneath the roar of a tumbling rapid--but gradually they
defined themselves. The perfume came to Galen Albret's nostrils on the
wings of incensed smoke; the flashes of light steadied to the ovals of
candle flames; the faint swells of music blended into grand-breathed
organ chords. He felt about him the dim awe of the church, he saw the
tapers burning at head and foot, the clear, calm face of the dead,
smiling faintly that at last it should be no more disturbed. So had he
looked all one night and all one day in the long time ago. The Factor
stretched his arms out to the figure on the couch, but he called upon
his wife, gone these twenty years.
"Elodie! Elodie!" he murmured, softly.
She had never known it, thank God, but he had wronged her too. In all
sorrow and sweet heavenly pity he had believed that her youth had
turned to the youth of the other man. It had not been so. Did he not
owe her, too, some reparation?
As though in answer to his appeal, or perhaps that merely the sound of
a human voice had broken the last shreds of her swoon, the girl moved
slightly. Galen Albret did not stir. Slowly Virginia turned her head,
until finally her wandering eyes met his, fixed on her with passionate
intensity. For a moment she stared at him, then comprehension came to
her along with memory. She cried out, and sat upright in one violent
motion.
"He! He!" she cried. "Is he gone?"
Instantly Galen Albret had her in his arms.
"It is all right," he soothed, drawing her close to his great breast.
"All right. You are my own little girl."
_Chapter Eighteen_
For perhaps ten minutes Ned Trent lingered near the door of the
Council Room until he had assured himself that Virginia was in no
serious danger. Then he began to pace the room, examining minutely the
various objects that ornamented it. He paused longest at the
full-length portrait of Sir George Simpson, the Company's great
traveller, with his mild blue eyes, his kindly face, denying the
potency of his official frown, his snowy hair and whiskers. The
painted man and the real man looked at each other inquiringly. The
latter shook his head.
"You travelled the wild country far," said he, thoughtfully. "You
knew many men of many lands. And wherever you went they tell me you
made friends. And yet, as you embodied this Company to all these
people, and so made for the fanatical loyalty that is destroying me, I
suppose you and I are enemies!" He shrugged his shoulders whimsically
and turned away.
Thence he cast a fleeting glance out the window at the long reach of
the Moose and the blue bay gleaming in the distance. He tried the
outside door. It was locked. Taken with a new idea he proceeded at
once to the third door of the apartment. It opened.
He found himself in a small and much-littered room containing a desk,
two chairs, a vast quantity of papers, a stuffed bird or so, and a row
of account-books. Evidently the Factor's private office.
Ned Trent returned to the main room and listened intently for several
minutes. After that he ran back to the office and began hastily to
open and rummage, one after another, the drawers of the desk. He
discovered and concealed several bits of string, a desk-knife, and a
box of matches. Then he uttered a guarded exclamation of delight. He
had found a small revolver, and with it part of a box of cartridges.
"A chance!" he exulted: "a chance!"
The game would be desperate. He would be forced first of all to seek
out and kill the men detailed to shadow him--a toy revolver against
rifles; white man against trained savages. And after that he would
have, with the cartridges remaining, to assure his subsistence. Still
it was a chance.
He closed the drawers and the door, and resumed his seat in the
arm-chair by the council table.
For over an hour thereafter he awaited the next move in the game. He
was already swinging up the pendulum arc. The case did not appear
utterly hopeless. He resolved, through Me-en-gan, whom he divined as a
friend of the girl's, to smuggle a message to Virginia bidding her
hope. Already his imagination had conducted him to Quebec, when in
August he would search her out and make her his own.
Soon one of the Indian servants entered the room for the purpose of
conducting him to a smaller apartment, where he was left alone for
some time longer. Food was brought him. He ate heartily, for he
considered that wise. Then at last the summons for which he had been
so long in readiness. Me-en-gan himself entered the room, and motioned
him to follow.
[Illustration: "DO SO NOW!" Scene from the play.]
Ned Trent had already prepared his message on the back of an
envelope, writing it with the lead of a cartridge. He now pressed the
bit of paper into the Indian's palm.
"For O-mi-mi," he explained.
Me-en-gan bored him through with his bead-like eyes of the surface
lights.
"Nin nissitotam," he agreed after a moment.
He led the way. Ned Trent followed through the narrow, uncarpeted hall
with the faded photograph of Westminster, down the crooked steep
stairs with the creaking degrees, and finally into the Council Room
once more, with its heavy rafters, its two fireplaces, its long table,
and its narrow windows.
"Beka--wait!" commanded Me-en-gan, and left him.
Ned Trent had supposed he was being conducted to the canoe which
should bear him on the first stage of his long journey, but now he
seemed condemned again to take up the wearing uncertainty of inaction.
The interval was not long, however. Almost immediately the other door
opened and the Factor entered.
His movements were abrupt and impatient, for with whatever grace such
a man yields to his better instincts the actual carrying out of their
conditions is a severe trial. For one thing it is a species of
emotional nakedness, invariably repugnant to the self-contained. Ned
Trent, observing this and misinterpreting its cause, hugged the little
revolver to his side with grim satisfaction. The interview was likely
to be stormy. If worst came to worst, he was at least assured of
reprisal before his own end.
The Factor walked directly to the head of the table and his customary
arm-chair, in which he disposed himself.
"Sit down," he commanded the younger man, indicating a chair at his
elbow.
The latter warily obeyed.
Galen Albret hesitated appreciably. Then, as one would make a plunge
into cold water, quickly, in one motion, he laid on the table
something over which he held his hand.
"You are wondering why I am interviewing you again," said he. "It is
because I have become aware of certain things. When you left me a few
hours ago you dropped this." He moved his hand to one side. The silver
match-safe lay on the table.
"Yes, it is mine," agreed Ned Trent.
"On one side is carved a name."
"Yes."
"Whose?"
The Free Trader hesitated. "My father's," he said, at last.
"I thought that must be so. You will understand when I tell you that
at one time I knew him very well."
"You knew my father?" cried Ned Trent, excitedly.
"Yes. At Fort Rae, and elsewhere. But I do not remember you."
"I was brought up at Winnipeg," the other explained.
"Once," pursued Galen Albret, "I did your father a wrong,
unintentionally, but nevertheless a great wrong. For that reason and
others I am going to give you your life."
"What wrong?" demanded Ned Trent, with dawning excitement.
"I forced him from the Company."
"You!"
"Yes, I. Proof was brought me that he had won from me my young wife.
It could not be doubted. I could not kill him. Afterward the man who
deceived me confessed. He is now dead."
Ned Trent, gasping, rose slowly to his feet. One hand stole inside his
jacket and clutched the butt of the little pistol.
"You did that," he cried, hoarsely. "You tell me of it yourself? Do
you wish to know the real reason for my coming into this country, why
I have traded in defiance of the Company throughout the whole Far
North? I have thought my father was persecuted by a body of men, and
though I could not do much, still I have accomplished what I could to
avenge him. Had I known that a single man had done this--and you are
that man!"
He came a step nearer. Galen Albret regarded him steadily.
"If I had known this before, I should never have rested until I had
hunted you down, until I had killed you, even in the midst of your own
people!" cried the Free Trader at last.
Galen Albret drew his heavy revolver and laid it on the table.
"Do so now," he said, quietly.
A pause fell on them, pregnant with possibility. The Free Trader
dropped his head.
"No," he groaned. "No, I cannot. She stands in the way!"
"So that, after all," concluded the Factor, in a gentler tone than he
had yet employed, "we two shall part peaceably. I have wronged you
greatly, though without intention. Perhaps one balances the other. We
will let it pass."
"Yes," agreed Ned Trent with an effort, "we will let it pass."
They mused in silence, while the Factor drummed on the table with the
stubby fingers of his right hand.
"I am dispatching to-day," he announced curtly at length, "the Abítibi
_brigade_. Matters of importance brought by runner from Rupert's House
force me to do so a month earlier than I had expected. I shall send
you out with that _brigade_."
"Very well."
"You will find your packs and arms in the canoe, quite intact."
"Thank you."
The Factor examined the young man's face with some deliberation.
"You love my daughter truly?" he asked, quietly.
"Yes," replied Ned Trent, also quietly.
"That is well, for she loves you. And," went on the old man, throwing
his massive head back proudly, "my people love well! I won her mother
in a day, and nothing could stay us. God be thanked, you are a man and
brave and clean. Enough of that! I place the _brigade_ under your
command! You must be responsible for it, for I am sending no other
white--the crew are Indians and _mètis_."
"All right," agreed Ned Trent, indifferently.
"My daughter you will take to Sacré Coeur at Quebec."
"Virginia!" cried the young man.
"I am sending her to Quebec. I had not intended doing so until July,
but the matters from Rupert's House make it imperative now."
"Virginia goes with me?"
"Yes."
"You consent? You--"
"Young man," said Galen Albret, not unkindly, "I give my daughter in
your charge; that is all. You must take her to Sacré Coeur. And you
must be patient. Next year I shall resign, for I am getting old, and
then we shall see. That is all I can tell you now."
He arose abruptly.
"Come," said he, "they are waiting."
They threw wide the door and stepped out into the open. A breeze from
the north brought a draught of air like cold water in its refreshment.
The waters of the North sparkled and tossed in the silvery sun. Ned
Trent threw his arms wide in the physical delight of a new freedom.
But his companion was already descending the steps. He followed across
the square grass plot to the two bronze guns. A noise of peoples came
down the breeze. In a moment he saw them--the varied multitude of the
Post--gathered to speed the _brigade_ on its distant journey.
The little beach was crowded with the Company's people and with
Indians, talking eagerly, moving hither and yon in a shifting
kaleidoscope of brilliant color. Beyond the shore floated the long
canoe, with its curving ends and its emblazonment of the five-pointed
stars. Already its baggage was aboard, its crew in place, ten men in
whose caps slanted long, graceful feathers, which proved them boatmen
of a factor. The women sat amidships.
When Galen Albret reached the edge of the plateau he stopped, and laid
his hand on the young man's arm. As yet they were unperceived. Then a
single man caught sight of them. He spoke to another; the two
informed still others. In an instant the bright colors were dotted
with upturned faces.
"Listen," said Galen Albret, in his resonant chest-tones of authority.
"This is my son, and he must be obeyed. I give to him the command of
this _brigade_. See to it."
Without troubling himself further as to the crowd below, Galen Albret
turned to his companion.
"I will say good-by," said he, formally.
"Good-by," replied Ned Trent.
"All is at peace between us?"
The Free Trader looked long into the man's sad eyes. The hard, proud
spirit, bowed in knightly expiation of its one fault, for the first
time in a long life of command looked out in petition.
"All is at peace," repeated Ned Trent.
They clasped hands. And Virginia, perceiving them so, threw them a
wonderful smile.
_Chapter Nineteen_
Instantly the spell of inaction broke. The crowd recommenced its babel
of jests, advices, and farewells. Ned Trent swung down the bank to the
shore. The boatmen fixed the canoe on the very edge of floating free.
Two of them lifted the young man aboard to a place on the furs by
Virginia Albret's side. At once the crowd pressed forward, filling up
the empty spaces.
Now Achille Picard bent his shoulders to lift into free water the stem
of the canoe from its touch on the bank. It floated, caught gently by
the back wash of the stronger off-shore current.
"Good-by, dear," called Mrs. Cockburn. "Remember us!"
She pressed the Doctor's arm closer to her side. The Doctor waved his
hand, not trusting his masculine self-control to speak. McDonald, too,
stood glum and dour, clasping his wrist behind his back. Richardson
was openly affected. For in Virginia's person they saw sailing away
from their bleak Northern lives the figure of youth, and they knew
that henceforth life must be even drearier.
"Som' tam' yo' com' back sing heem de res' of dat song!" shouted Louis
Placide to his late captive. "I lak' hear heem!"
But Galen Albret said nothing, made no sign. Silently and steadily,
run up by some invisible hand, the blood-red banner of the Company
fluttered to the mast-head. Before it, alone, bulked huge against the
sky, dominating the people in the symbolism of his position there as
he did in the realities of every-day life, the Factor stood, his hands
behind his back. Virginia rose to her feet and stretched her arms out
to the solitary figure.
"Good-by! good-by!" she cried.
A renewed tempest of cheers and shouts of adieu broke from those
ashore. The paddles dipped once, twice, thrice, and paused. With one
accord those on shore and those in the canoe raised their caps and
said, "Que Dieu vous benisse." A moment's silence followed, during
which the current of the mighty river bore the light craft a few yards
down stream. Then from the ten _voyageurs_ arose a great shout.
"Abítibi! Abítibi!"
Their paddles struck in unison. The water swirled in white, circular
eddies. Instantly the canoe caught its momentum and began to slip
along against the sluggish current. Achille Picard raised a high tenor
voice, fixing the air,
"_En roulant ma boule roulante,
En roulant ma boule_."
And the _voyageurs_ swung into the quaint ballad of the fairy ducks
and the naughty prince with his magic gun.
_"Derrièr' chez-nous y-a-t-un 'ètang,
En roulant ma boule."_
The girl sank back, dabbing uncertainly at her eyes. "I shall never
see them again," she explained, wistfully.
The canoe had now caught its speed. Conjuror's House was dropping
astern. The rhythm of the song quickened as the singers told of how
the king's son had aimed at the black duck but killed the white.
_"Ah fils du roi, tu es mèchant,
En roulant ma boule,
Toutes les plumes s'en vont au vent,
Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant."_
"Way wik! way wik!" commanded Me-en-gan, sharply, from the bow.
The men quickened their stroke and shot diagonally across the current
of an eddy.
"Ni-shi-shin," said Me-en-gan.
They fell back to the old stroke, rolling out their full-throated
measure.
_"Toutes les plumes s'en vont au vent,
En roulant ma boule,
Trois dames s'en vont les ramassant,
Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant."_
The canoe was now in the smooth rush of the first stretch of swifter
water. The men bent to their work with stiffened elbows. Achille
Picard flashed his white teeth back at the passengers,
"Ah, mademoiselle, eet is wan long way," he panted. "C'est une longue
traverse!"
The term was evidently descriptive, but the two smiled significantly
at each other.
"So you do take _la Longue Traverse_, after all!" marvelled Virginia.
Ned Trent clasped her hand.
"We take it together," he replied.
Into the distance faded the Post. The canoe rounded a bend. It was
gone. Ahead of them lay their long journey.