Back to Lac Bain, late in September, came MacDonald the map maker. For
ten days Gregson, the investigating agent, had been Bush McTaggart's
guest at the Post, and twice in that time it had come into Marie's mind
to creep upon him while he slept and kill him. The factor himself paid
little attention to her now, a fact which would have made her happy if
it had not been for Gregson. He was enraptured with the wild, sinuous
beauty of the Cree girl, and McTaggart, without jealousy, encouraged
him. He was tired of Marie.
McTaggart told Gregson this. He wanted to get rid of her, and if
he--Gregson--could possibly take her along with him it would be a great
favor. He explained why. A little later, when the deep snows came, he
was going to bring the daughter of Pierrot Du Quesne to the Post. In
the rottenness of their brotherhood he told of his visit, of the manner
of his reception, and of the incident at the chasm. In spite of all
this, he assured Gregson, Pierrot's girl would soon be at Lac Bain.
It was at this time that MacDonald came. He remained only one night,
and without knowing that he was adding fuel to a fire already
dangerously blazing, he gave the photograph he had taken of Nepeese to
the factor. It was a splendid picture.
"If you can get it down to that girl some day I'll be mightily
obliged," he said to McTaggart. "I promised her one. Her father's name
is Du Quesne--Pierrot Du Quesne. You probably know them. And the girl--"
His blood warmed as he described to McTaggart how beautiful she was
that day in her red dress, which appeared black in the photograph. He
did not guess how near McTaggart's blood was to the boiling point.
The next day MacDonald started for Norway House. McTaggart did not show
Gregson the picture. He kept it to himself and at night, under the glow
of his lamp, he looked at it with thoughts that filled him with a
growing resolution. There was but one way. The scheme had been in his
mind for weeks--and the picture determined him. He dared not whisper
his secret even to Gregson. But it was the one way. It would give him
Nepeese. Only--he must wait for the deep snows, the midwinter snows.
They buried their tragedies deepest.
McTaggart was glad when Gregson followed the map maker to Norway House.
Out of courtesy he accompanied him a day's journey on his way. When he
returned to the Post, Marie was gone. He was glad. He sent off a runner
with a load of presents for her people, and the message: "Don't beat
her. Keep her. She is free."
Along with the bustle and stir of the beginning of the trapping season
McTaggart began to prepare his house for the coming of Nepeese. He knew
what she liked in the way of cleanliness and a few other things. He had
the log walls painted white with the lead and oil that were intended
for his York boats. Certain partitions were torn down, and new ones
were built. The Indian wife of his chief runner made curtains for the
windows, and he confiscated a small phonograph that should have gone on
to Lac la Biche. He had no doubts, and he counted the days as they
passed.
Down on the Gray Loon Pierrot and Nepeese were busy at many things, so
busy that at times Pierrot's fears of the factor at Lac Bain were
almost forgotten, and they slipped out of the Willow's mind entirely.
It was the Red Moon, and both thrilled with the anticipation and
excitement of the winter hunt. Nepeese carefully dipped a hundred traps
in boiling caribou fat mixed with beaver grease, while Pierrot made
fresh deadfalls ready for setting on his trails. When he was gone more
than a day from the cabin, she was always with him.
But at the cabin there was much to do, for Pierrot, like all his
Northern brotherhood, did not begin to prepare until the keen tang of
autumn was in the air. There were snowshoes to be rewebbed with new
babiche; there was wood to be cut in readiness for the winter storms.
The cabin had to be banked, a new harness made, skinning knives
sharpened and winter moccasins to be manufactured--a hundred and one
affairs to be attended to, even to the repairing of the meat rack at
the back of the cabin, where, from the beginning of cold weather until
the end, would hang the haunches of deer, caribou, and moose for the
family larder and, when fish were scarce, the dogs' rations.
In the bustle of all these preparations Nepeese was compelled to give
less attention to Baree than she had during the preceding weeks. They
did not play so much; they no longer swam, for with the mornings there
was deep frost on the ground, and the water was turning icy cold. They
no longer wandered deep in the forest after flowers and berries. For
hours at a time Baree would now lie at the Willow's feet, watching her
slender fingers as they weaved swiftly in and out with her snowshoe
babiche. And now and then Nepeese would pause to lean over and put her
hand on his head, and talk to him for a moment--sometimes in her soft
Cree, sometimes in English or her father's French.
It was the Willow's voice which Baree had learned to understand, and
the movement of her lips, her gestures, the poise of her body, the
changing moods which brought shadow or sunlight into her face. He knew
what it meant when she smiled. He would shake himself, and often jump
about her in sympathetic rejoicing, when she laughed. Her happiness was
such a part of him that a stern word from her was worse than a blow.
Twice Pierrot had struck him, and twice Baree had leaped back and faced
him with bared fangs and an angry snarl, the crest along his back
standing up like a brush. Had one of the other dogs done this, Pierrot
would have half-killed him. It would have been mutiny, and the man must
be master. But Baree was always safe. A touch of the Willow's hand, a
word from her lips, and the crest slowly settled and the snarl went out
of his throat.
Pierrot was not at all displeased.
"Dieu. I will never go so far as to try and whip that out of him," he
told himself. "He is a barbarian--a wild beast--and her slave. For her
he would kill!"
So it turned out, through Pierrot himself--and without telling his
reason for it--that Baree did not become a sledge dog. He was allowed
his freedom, and was never tied, like the others. Nepeese was glad, but
did not guess the thought that was in Pierrot's mind. To himself
Pierrot chuckled. She would never know why he kept Baree always
suspicious of him, even to the point of hating him.
It required considerable skill and cunning on his part. With himself he
reasoned:
"If I make him hate me, he will hate all men. Mey-oo! That is good."
So he looked into the future--for Nepeese.
Now the tonic-filled days and cold, frosty nights of the Red Moon
brought about the big change in Baree. It was inevitable. Pierrot knew
that it would come, and the first night that Baree settled back on his
haunches and howled up at the Red Moon, Pierrot prepared Nepeese for it.
"He is a wild dog, ma Nepeese," he said to her. "He is half wolf, and
the Call will come to him strong. He will go into the forests. He will
disappear at times. But we must not fasten him. He will come back. Ka,
he will come back!" And he rubbed his hands in the moonglow until his
knuckles cracked.
The Call came to Baree like a thief entering slowly and cautiously into
a forbidden place. He did not understand it at first. It made him
nervous and uneasy, so restless that Nepeese frequently heard him whine
softly in his sleep. He was waiting for something. What was it? Pierrot
knew, and smiled in his inscrutable way.
And then it came. It was night, a glorious night filled with moon and
stars, under which the earth was whitening with a film of frost, when
they heard the first hunt call of the wolves. Now and then during the
summer there had come the lone wolf howl, but this was the tonguing of
the pack; and as it floated through the vast silence and mystery of the
night, a song of savagery that had come with each Red Moon down through
unending ages, Pierrot knew that at last had come that for which Baree
had been waiting.
In an instant Baree had sensed it. His muscles grew taut as pieces of
stretched rope as he stood up in the moonlight, facing the direction
from which floated the mystery and thrill of the sound. They could hear
him whining softly; and Pierrot, bending down so that he caught the
light of the night properly, could see him trembling.
"It is Mee-Koo!" he said in a whisper to Nepeese.
That was it, the call of the blood that was running swift in Baree's
veins--not alone the call of his species, but the call of Kazan and
Gray Wolf and of his forbears for generations unnumbered. It was the
voice of his people. So Pierrot had whispered, and he was right. In the
golden night the Willow was waiting, for it was she who had gambled
most, and it was she who must lose or win. She uttered no sound,
replied not to the low voice of Pierrot, but held her breath and
watched Baree as he slowly faded away, step by step, into the shadows.
In a few moments more he was gone. It was then that she stood straight,
and flung back her head, with eyes that glowed in rivalry with the
stars.
"Baree!" she called. "Baree! Baree! Baree!"
He must have been near the edge of the forest, for she had drawn a
slow, waiting breath or two before he was and he whined up into her
face. Nepeese put her hands to his head.
"You are right, mon pere," she said. "He will go to the wolves, but he
will come back. He will never leave me for long." With one hand still
on Baree's head, she pointed with the other into the pitlike blackness
of the forest. "Go to them, Baree!" she whispered. "But you must come
back. You must. Cheamao!"
With Pierrot she went into the cabin; the door closed silence. In it he
could hear the soft night sounds: the clinking of the chains to which
the dogs were fastened, the restless movement of their bodies, the
throbbing whir of a pair of wings, the breath of the night itself. For
to him this night, even in its stillness, seemed alive. Again he went
into it, and close to the forest once more he stopped to listen. The
wind had turned, and on it rode the wailing, blood-thrilling cry of the
pack. Far off to the west a lone wolf turned his muzzle to the sky and
answered that gathering call of his clan. And then out of the east came
a voice, so far beyond the cabin that it was like an echo dying away in
the vastness of the night.
A choking note gathered in Baree's throat. He threw up his head.
Straight above him was the Red Moon, inviting him to the thrill and
mystery of the open world.
The sound grew in his throat, and slowly it rose in volume until his
answer was rising to the stars. In their cabin Pierrot and the Willow
heard it. Pierrot shrugged his shoulders.
"He is gone," he said.
"Oui, he is gone, mon pere" replied Nepeese, peering through the window.