It was the beginning of August--the Flying-up Moon--when Pierrot
returned from Lac Bain, and in three days more it would be the Willow's
seventeenth birthday. He brought back with him many things for
Nepeese--ribbons for her hair, real shoes, which she wore at times like
the two Englishwomen at Nelson House, and chief glory of all, some
wonderful red cloth for a dress. In the three winters she had spent at
the mission these women had made much of Nepeese. They had taught her
to sew as well as to spell and read and pray, and at times there came
to the Willow a compelling desire to do as they did.
So for three days Nepeese worked hard on her new dress and on her
birthday she stood before Pierrot in a fashion that took his breath
away. She had piled her hair in great coils on the crown of her head,
as Yvonne, the younger of the Englishwomen, had taught her, and in the
rich jet of it had half buried a vivid sprig of the crimson fireflower.
Under this, and the glow in her eyes, and the red flush of her lips and
cheeks came the wonderful red dress, fitted to the slim and sinuous
beauty of her form--as the style had been two winters ago at Nelson
House. And below the dress, which reached just below the knees--Nepeese
had quite forgotten the proper length, or else her material had run
out--came the coup de maitre of her toilet, real stockings and the gay
shoes with high heels! She was a vision before which the gods of the
forests might have felt their hearts stop beating. Pierrot turned her
round and round without a word, but smiling. When she left him,
however, followed by Baree, and limping a little because of the
tightness of her shoes, the smile faded from his face, leaving it cold
and bleak.
"Mon Dieu," he whispered to himself in French, with a thought that was
like a sharp stab at his heart, "she is not of her mother's blood--non.
It is French. She is--yes--like an angel."
A change had come over Pierrot. During the three days she had been
engaged in her dressmaking, Nepeese had been quite too excited to
notice this change, and Pierrot had tried to keep it from her. He had
been away ten days on the trip to Lac Bain, and he brought back to
Nepeese the joyous news that M'sieu McTaggart was very sick with
pechipoo--the blood poison--news that made the Willow clap her hands
and laugh happily. But he knew that the factor would get well, and that
he would come again to their cabin on the Gray Loon. And when next time
he came--
It was while he was thinking of this that his face grew cold and hard,
and his eyes burned. And he was thinking of it on this her birthday,
even as her laughter floated to him like a song. Dieu, in spite of her
seventeen years, she was nothing but a child--a baby! She could not
guess his horrible visions. And the dread of awakening her for all time
from that beautiful childhood kept him from telling her the whole truth
so that she might have understood fully and completely. Non, it should
not be that. His soul beat with a great and gentle love. He, Pierrot Du
Quesne, would do the watching. And she should laugh and sing and
play--and have no share in the black forebodings that had come to spoil
his life.
On this day there came up from the south MacDonald, the government map
maker. He was gray and grizzled, with a great, free laugh and a clean
heart. Two days he remained with Pierrot. He told Nepeese of his
daughters at home, of their mother, whom he worshiped more than
anything else on earth--and before he went on in his quest of the last
timber line of Banksian pine, he took pictures of the Willow as he had
first seen her on her birthday: her hair piled in glossy coils, her red
dress, the high-heeled shoes. He carried the negatives on with him,
promising Pierrot that he would get a picture back in some way. Thus
fate works in its strange and apparently innocent ways as it spins its
webs of tragedy.
For many weeks after MacDonald's visit there followed tranquil days on
the Gray Loon. They were wonderful days for Baree. At first he was
suspicious of Pierrot. After a little he tolerated him, and at last
accepted him as a part of the cabin--and Nepeese. It was the Willow
whose shadow he became. Pierrot noted the attachment with the deepest
satisfaction.
"Ah, in a few months more, if he should leap at the throat of M'sieu
the Factor," he said to himself one day.
In September, when he was six months old, Baree was almost as large as
Gray Wolf--big-boned, long-fanged, with a deep chest, and jaws that
could already crack a bone as if it were a stick. He was with Nepeese
whenever and wherever she moved. They swam together in the two
pools--the pool in the forest and the pool between the chasm walls. At
first it alarmed Baree to see Nepeese dive from the rock wall over
which she had pushed McTaggart, but at the end of a month she had
taught him to plunge after her through that twenty feet of space.
It was late in August when Baree saw the first of his kind outside of
Kazan and Gray Wolf. During the summer Pierrot allowed his dogs to run
at large on a small island in the center of a lake two or three miles
away, and twice a week he netted fish for them. On one of these trips
Nepeese accompanied him and took Baree with her. Pierrot carried his
long caribou-gut whip. He expected a fight. But there was none. Baree
joined the pack in their rush for fish, and ate with them. This pleased
Pierrot more than ever.
"He will make a great sledge dog," he chuckled. "It is best to leave
him for a week with the pack, ma Nepeese."
Reluctantly Nepeese gave her consent. While the dogs were still at
their fish, they started homeward. Their canoe had slipped away before
Baree discovered the trick they had played on him. Instantly he leaped
into the water and swam after them--and the Willow helped him into his
canoe.
Early in September a passing Indian brought Pierrot word of Bush
McTaggart. The factor had been very sick. He had almost died from the
blood poison, but he was well now. With the first exhilarating tang of
autumn in the air a new dread oppressed Pierrot. But at present he said
nothing of what was in his mind to Nepeese. The Willow had almost
forgotten the factor from Lac Bain, for the glory and thrill of
wilderness autumn was in her blood. She went on long trips with
Pierrot, helping him to blaze out the new trap lines that would be used
when the first snows came, and on these journeys she was always
accompanied by Baree.
Most of Nepeese's spare hours she spent in training him for the sledge.
She began with a babiche string and a stick. It was a whole day before
she could induce Baree to drag this stick without turning at every
other step to snap and growl at it. Then she fastened another length of
babiche to him, and made him drag two sticks. Thus little by little she
trained him to the sledge harness, until at the end of a fortnight he
was tugging heroically at anything she had a mind to fasten him to.
Pierrot brought home two of the dogs from the island, and Baree was put
into training with these, and helped to drag the empty sledge. Nepeese
was delighted. On the day the first light snow fell she clapped her
hands and cried to Pierrot:
"By midwinter I will have him the finest dog in the pack, mon pere!"
This was the time for Pierrot to say what was in his mind. He smiled.
Diantre--would not that beast the factor fall into the very devil of a
rage when he found how he had been cheated! And yet--
He tried to make his voice quiet and commonplace.
"I am going to send you down to the school at Nelson House again this
winter, ma cherie," he said. "Baree will help draw you down on the
first good snow."
The Willow was tying a knot in Baree's babiche, and she rose slowly to
her feet and looked at Pierrot. Her eyes were big and dark and steady.
"I am not going, mon pere!"
It was the first time Nepeese had ever said that to Pierrot--in just
that way. It thrilled him. And he could scarcely face the look in her
eyes. He was not good at bluffing. She saw what was in his face; it
seemed to him that she was reading what was in his mind, and that she
grew a little taller as she stood there. Certainly her breath came
quicker, and he could see the throb of her breast. Nepeese did not wait
for him to gather speech.
"I am not going!" she repeated with even greater finality, and bent
again over Baree.
With a shrug of his shoulders Pierrot watched her. After all, was he
not glad? Would his heart not have turned sick if she had been happy at
the thought of leaving him? He moved to her side and with great
gentleness laid a hand on her glossy head. Up from under it the Willow
smiled at him. Between them they heard the click of Baree's jaws as he
rested his muzzle on the Willow's arm. For the first time in weeks the
world seemed suddenly filled with sunshine for Pierrot. When he went
back to the cabin he held his head higher. Nepeese would not leave him!
He laughed softly. He rubbed his hands together. His fear of the factor
from Lac Bain was gone. From the cabin door he looked back at Nepeese
and Baree.
"The Saints be blessed!" he murmured. "Now--now--it is Pierrot Du
Quesne who knows what to do!"