A SHUFFLING OF ALLEGIANCE
Time was when Fort Douglas rang as loudly with mirth of assembled
traders as ever Fort William's council hall. Often have I heard veterans
of the Hudson's Bay service relate how the master of revels used to fill
an ample jar with corn and quaff a beaker of liquor for every grain in
the drinker's hour-glass.
"How stands the hour-glass?" the governor of the feast, who was
frequently also the governor of the company, would roar out in
stentorian tones, that made themselves heard above the drunken brawl.
"High, Your Honor, high," some flunkey of the drinking bout would bawl
back.
Thereupon, another grain was picked from the jar, another flagon tossed
down and the revel went on. This was a usual occurrence before and after
the conflict with the Nor'-Westers. But the night that I climbed the
stairs of the main warehouse and, mustering up assurance, stepped into
the hall as if I belonged to the fort, or the fort belonged to me, there
was a different scene. A wounded man lay on a litter at the end of the
long, low room; and the traders sitting on the benches against the
walls, or standing aimlessly about, were talking in suppressed tones.
Scotchmen, driven from their farms by the _Bois-Brulés_, hung around in
anxious groups. The lanterns, suspended on iron hooks from mid-rafter,
gave but a dusky light, and I vainly scanned many faces for Eric
Hamilton. That he was wounded, I knew. I was stealing stealthily towards
the stretcher at the far end of the place, when a deep voice burred
rough salutation in my ear.
"Hoo are ye, gillie?" It was a shaggy-browed, bluff Scotchman, who
evidently took me in my tartan disguise for a Highland lad. Whether he
meant, "How are you," or "Who are you," I was not certain. Afraid my
tongue might betray me, I muttered back an indistinct response. The Scot
was either suspicious, or offended by my churlishness. I slipped off
quickly to a dark corner, but I saw him eying me closely. A youth
brushed past humming a ditty, which seemed strangely out of place in
those surroundings. He stood an elbow's length from me and kicked
moccasined heels against the floor in the way of light-headed lads. Both
the air and figure of the young fellow vaguely recalled somebody, but
his back was towards me. I was measuring my comrade, wondering if I
might inquire where Hamilton could be found, when the lad turned, and I
was face to face with the whiskered babe of Fort William. He gave a
long, low whistle.
"Gad!" he gasped. "Do my eyes tell lies? As I live, 'tis your very self!
Hang it, now, I thought you were one of those solid bodies wouldn't do
any turn-coating----"
"Turn-coating!" I repeated in amazement.
"One of those dray-horse, old reliables, wouldn't kick over the traces,
not if the boss pumped his arms off licking you! Hang it! I'm not that
sort! By gad, I'm not! I've got too many oats! I can't stand being jawed
and gee-hawed by Dunc. Cameron; so when the old Gov. threatened to dock
me for being full, I just kicked up my heels and came. But say! I didn't
think you would, Gillespie!"
"No?" said I, keeping my own counsel and waiting for the Nor'-West
deserter to proceed.
"What 'd y' do it for, Gillespie? You're as sober as cold water! Was it
old Cameron?"
"You're not talking straight, babe," said I. "You know Cameron doesn't
nag his men. What did _you_ do it for?"
"Eh?" and the lad gave a laugh over my challenge of his veracity. "See
here, old pal, I'll tell you if you tell me."
"Go ahead with your end of the contract!"
"Well, then, look here. We're not in this wilderness for glory. I knock
down to the highest bidder----"
"Hudson's Bay is _not_ the highest bidder."
"Not unless you happen to have information they want."
"Oh! That's the way of it, is it?" So the boy was selling Nor'-Westers'
secrets.
"You can bet your last beaver-skin it is! Do you think I was old
Cam's private secretary for nothin'? Not I! I say--get your wares
as you may and sell 'em to the highest bidder. So here I am, snugly
berthed, with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs, all through
judicious--distribution--of--information." And the boy gurgled with
pleasure over his own cleverness. "And say, Gillespie, I'm in regular
clover! The Little Statue's here, all alone! Dad's gone to Pembina to
the buffalo hunt. I've got ahead of all you fellows. I'm going to
introduce a French-chap, a friend of mine."
"You'd much better break his bones," was my advice. It needed no great
speculation to guess who the Frenchman was; and in the hands of that
crafty rake this prattling babe would be as putty.
"Pah! You're jealous, Gillespie! We're right on the inside track!"
"Lots of confidential talks with her, I suppose?"
"Talks! Pah! You gross fatty! Why, Gillespie, what do you know of such
things? Laplante can win a girl by just looking at her--French way, you
know--he can pose better than a poem!"
"Blockhead," I ground out between my teeth, a feeling taking possession
of me, which is designated "indignation" in the first person but
jealousy in the second and third. "You stupid simpleton, that Laplante
is a villain who will turn your addled pate and work you as an old wife
kneads dough."
"What do you know about Laplante?" he demanded hotly.
"I know he is an accomplished blackguard," I answered quietly, "and if
you want to spoil your chances with the Little Statue, just prance round
in his company."
The lad was too much surprised to speak.
"Where's Hamilton?" I asked.
"Find him for yourself," said he, going off in a huff.
I edged cautiously near enough the wounded man to see that he was not
Hamilton. Near the litter was a group of clerks.
"They're fools," one clerk was informing the others. "Cameron sent word
he'd have McDonell dead or alive. If he doesn't give himself up, this
fort'll go and the whole settlement be massacred."
"Been altogether too high-handed anyway," answered another. "I'm loyal
to my company; but Lord Selkirk can't set up a military despotism here.
Been altogether better if we'd left the Nor'-Westers alone."
"It's all the fault of that cocky little martinet," declared a third.
"I say," exclaimed a man joining the group, "d' y' hear the news? All
the chiefs in there--" jerking his thumb towards a side door--"are
advising Captain McDonell to give himself up and save the fort."
"Good thing. Who'll miss him? He'll only get a free trip to Montreal,"
remarked one of the aggressives in this group. "I tell you, men, both
companies have gone a deal too far in this little slap-back game to be
keen for legal investigation. Why, at Souris, everybody knows----"
He lowered his voice and I unconsciously moved from my dark corner to
hear the rest.
"Hoo are ye, gillie?" said the burly Scot in my ear.
Turning, I found the canny swain had followed me on an investigating
tour. Again I gave him an inarticulate reply and lost myself among other
coteries. Was the man spying on me? I reflected that if "the chiefs"--as
the Hudson's Bay man had called them--were in the side room, Eric
Hamilton would be among these conferring with the governor. As I
approached the door, I noticed my Scotch friend had taken some one into
his confidence and two men were now on my tracks. Lifting the latch, I
gave a gentle, cautious push and the hinges swung so quietly I had
slipped into the room before those inside or out could prevent me. I
found myself in the middle of a long apartment with low, sloping
ceiling, and deep window recesses. It had evidently been partitioned off
from the main hall; for the wall, ceiling and floor made an exact
triangle. At one end of the place was a table. Round this was a group of
men deeply engrossed in some sort of conference. Sitting on the window
sills and lounging round the box stove behind the table were others of
our rival's service. I saw at once it would be difficult to have access
to Hamilton. He was lying on a stretcher within talking range of the
table and had one arm in a sling. Now, I hold it is harder for the
unpractised man to play the spy with everything in his favor, than for
the adept to act that rôle against the impossible. One is without the
art that foils detection. The other can defy detection. So I stood
inside with my hand on the door lest the click of the closing latch
should rouse attention, but had no thought of prying into Hudson's Bay
secrets.
"Your Honor," began Hamilton in a lifeless manner, which told me his
search had been bootless, and he turned languidly towards a puffy,
crusty, military gentleman, whom, from the respect shown him, I judged
to be Governor McDonell. "Duncan Cameron's warrant for the arrest is
perfectly legal. If Your Honor should surrender yourself, you will save
Fort Douglas for the Hudson's Bay Company. Besides, the whole arrest
will prove a farce. The law in Lower Canada provides no machinery for
the trial of cases occurring----" Here Hamilton came to a blank and
unexpected stop, for his eyes suddenly alighted on me with a look that
forbade recognition, and fled furtively back to the group it the table.
I understood and kept silent.
"For the trial of cases occurring?" asked the governor sharply.
"Occurring--here," added Hamilton, shooting out the last word as if his
arm had given him a sudden twinge. "And so I say, Your Honor will lose
nothing by giving yourself up to the Nor'-Westers, and will save Fort
Douglas for the Hudson's Bay."
"The doctor tells me it's a compound fracture. You'll find it painful,
Mr. Hamilton," said Governor McDonell sympathetically, and he turned to
the papers over which the group were conferring. "I'm no great hand in
winning victories by showing the white flag," began the gallant captain,
"but if a free trip from here to Montreal satisfies those fools, I'll
go."
"Well said! Bravo! Your Honor," exclaimed a shaggy member of the
council, bringing his fist down on the table with a thud. "I call that
diplomacy, outmanoeuvring the enemy! Your Honor sets an example for
abiding by the law; you obey the warrant. They must follow the example
and leave Fort Douglas alone."
"Besides, I can let His Lordship know from Montreal just what
reinforcements are needed here," continued Captain McDonell, with a
curious disregard for the law which he professed to be obeying, and a
faithful zeal for Lord Selkirk.
Hamilton was looking anxiously at me with an expression of warning which
I could not fully read. Then I felt, what every one must have felt at
some time, that a third person was watching us both. Following Eric's
glance to a dark window recess directly opposite the door where I stood,
I was horrified and riveted by the beady, glistening, insolent eyes of
Louis Laplante, gazing out of the dusk with an expression of rakish
amusement, the amusement of a spider when a fly walks into its web.
Taken unawares I have ever been more or less of what Mr. Jack MacKenzie
was wont to call "a stupid loon!" On discovering Laplante I promptly
sustained my reputation by letting the door fly to with a sharp click
that startled the whole room-full. Whereat Louis Laplante gave a low,
soft laugh.
"What do you want here, man?" demanded Governor McDonell's sharp voice.
Jerking off my cap, I saluted.
"My man, Your Honor," interjected Eric quietly. "Come here, Rufus," he
commanded, motioning me to his side with the hauteur of a master towards
a servant. And Louis Laplante rose and tip-toed after me with a tigerish
malice that recalled the surly squaw.
"Oh, Eric!" I cried out eagerly. "Are you hurt, and at such a time?"
Unconsciously I was playing into Louis' hands, for he stood by the
stove, laughing nonchalantly.
Thereupon Eric ground out some imprecation at my stupidity.
"There's been a shuffling of allegiance, I hear," he said with a queer
misleading look straight at Laplante. "We've recruits from Fort
Gibraltar."
Eric's words, curiously enough, banished triumph from Laplante's face
and the Frenchman's expression was one of puzzled suspicion. From Eric's
impassive features, he could read nothing. What Hamilton was driving at,
I should presently learn; but to find out I would no more take my eyes
from Laplante's than from a tiger about to spring. At once, to get my
attention, Hamilton brought a stick down on my toes with a sharpness
that made me leap. By all the codes of nudges and kicks and such
signaling, it is a principle that a blow at one end of human anatomy
drives through the density of the other extremity. It dawned on me that
Eric was trying to persuade Laplante I had deserted Nor'-Westers for the
Hudson's Bay. The ethics of his attempt I do not defend. It was after
the facile fashion of an intriguing era. A sharper weapon was presently
given us against Louis Laplante; for when I grasped Eric's stick to stay
the raps against my feet, I felt the handle rough with carving.
"What are these carvings, may I inquire, Sir?" I asked, assuming the
strangeness, which Eric's signals had directed, but never moving my eyes
from Laplante. The villain who had befooled me in the gorge and eluded
me in the forest, and now tormented Frances Sutherland, winced under my
watchfulness.
"The carvings!" answered Eric, annoyed that I did not return his plain
signals and determined to get my eye. "Pray look for yourself! Where are
your eyes?"
"I can't see in this poor light, Sir; but I also have a strangely carved
thing--a spear-head. Now if this head has no handle and this handle has
no head--they might fit," I went on watching Laplante, whose saucy
assurance was deserting him.
"Spear-head!" exclaimed Hamilton, beginning to understand I too had my
design. "Where did you find it?"
"Trying to bury itself in my head." I returned. At this, Laplante, the
knave, smiled graciously in my very face.
"But it didn't succeed?" asked Hamilton.
"No--it mistook me for a tree, missed the mark and went into the tree;
just as another friend of mine mistook me for a tree, hit the mark and
ran into me," and I smiled back at Laplante. His face clouded. That
reference to the scene on the beach, where his Hudson's Bay despatches
were stolen, was too much for his hot blood. "Here it is," I continued,
pulling the spear-head out of my plaid. I had brought it to Hamilton,
hoping to identify our enemy, and we did. "Please see if they fit, Sir?
We might identify our--friends!" and I searched the furtive, guilty eyes
of the Frenchman.
"Dat frien'," muttered Louis with a threatening look at me, "dat frien'
of Mister Hamilton he spike good English for Scot' youth."
Now Louis, as I remembered from Laval days, never mixed his English and
French, except when he was in passion furious beyond all control.
"Fit!" cried Hamilton. "They're a perfect fit, and both carved the same,
too."
"With what?"
"Eagles," answered Eric, puzzled at my drift, and Louis Laplante wore
the last look of the tiger before it springs.
"And eagles," said I, defying the spring, "signify that both the
spear-head and the spear-handle belong to the Sioux chief whose
daughter"--and I lowered my voice to a whisper which only Laplante and
Hamilton could hear--"is married--to Le--Grand--Diable!"
"What!" came Hamilton's low cry of agony. Forgetting the fractured arm,
he sprang erect.
And Louis Laplante staggered back in the dark as if we had struck him.
"Laplante! Laplante! Where's that Frenchman? Bring him up here!" called
Governor McDonell's fussy, angry tones.
Coming when it did, this demand was to Louis a bolt of judgment; and he
joined the conference with a face as gray as ashes.
"Now about those stolen despatches! We want to know the truth! Were you
drunk, or were you not? Who has them?" Captain McDonell arraigned the
Frenchman with a fire of questions that would have confused any other
culprit but Louis.
"Eric," I whispered, taking advantage of the respite offered by Louis'
examination. "We found Laplante at _Pointe a la Croix_. He was drunk. He
confessed Miriam is held by Diable's squaw. Then we discovered someone
was listening to the confession and pursued the eavesdropper into the
bush. When we came back, Laplante had been carried off. I found one of
my canoemen had your lost fowling-piece, and it was he who had listened
and carried off the drunk sot and tried to send that spear-head into me
at the Sault. 'Twas Diable, Eric! Father Holland, a priest in our
company, told me of the white woman on Lake Winnipeg. Did you find
this--" indicating the spear handle--"there?"
Eric, cold, white and trembling, only whispered an affirmative.
"Was that all?"
"All," he answered, a strange, fierce look coming over his face, as the
full import of my news forced home on him. "Was--was--Laplante--in
that?" he asked, gripping my arm in his unwounded hand with foreboding
force.
"Not that we know of. Only Diable. But Louis is friendly with the Sioux,
and if we only keep him in sight we may track them."
"I'll--keep--him--in sight," muttered Hamilton in low, slow words.
"Hush, Eric!" I whispered. "If we harm him, he may mislead us. Let us
watch him and track him!"
"He's asking leave to go trapping in the Sioux country. Can you go as
trader for your people? To the buffalo hunt first, then, south? I'll
watch here, if he stays; you, there, if he goes, and he shall tell us
all he knows or--"
"Hush, man," I urged. "Listen!"
"Where," Governor McDonell was thundering at Laplante, "where are the
parties that stole those despatches?"
The question brought both Hamilton and myself to the table. We went
forward where we could see Laplante's face without being seen by his
questioners.
"If I answer, Your Honor," began the Frenchman, taking the captain's
bluster for what it was worth and holding out doggedly for his own
rights, "I'll be given leave to trap with the Sioux?"
"Certainly, man. Speak out."
"The parties--that stole--those despatches," Laplante was answering
slowly. At this stage he looked at his interlocutor as if to question
the sincerity of the guarantee and he saw me standing screwing the
spear-head on the tell-tale handle. I patted the spear-head, smiled
blandly back, and with my eyes dared him to go on. He paused, bit his
lip and flushed.
"No lies, no roguery, or I'll have you at the whipping-post," roared the
governor. "Speak up. Where are the parties?"
"Near about here," stammered Louis, "and you may ask your new
turn-coat."
I was betrayed! Betrayed and trapped; but he should not go free! I would
have shouted out, but Hamilton's hand silenced me.
"Here!" exclaimed the astounded governor. "Go call that young
Nor'-Wester! If _he_ backs up y'r story, _he_ was Cameron's secretary,
you can go to the buffalo hunt."
That response upset Louis' bearings. He had expected the governor would
refer to me; but the command let him out of an awkward place and he
darted from the room, as Hamilton and I supposed,--simpletons that we
were with that rogue!--to find the young Nor'-Wester. This turn of
affairs gave me my chance. If the young Nor'-Wester and Laplante came
together, my disguise as Highlander and turn-coat would be stripped from
me and I should be trapped indeed.
"Good-by, old boy!" and I gripped Hamilton's hand. "If he stays, he's
your game. When he goes, he's mine. Good luck to us both! You'll come
south when you're better."
Then I bolted through the main hall thinking to elude the canny Scots,
but saw both men in the stairway waiting to intercept me. When I ran
down a flight of side stairs, they dashed to trap me at the gate. At the
doorway a man lounged against me. The lantern light fell on a pointed
beard. It was Laplante, leaning against the wall for support and shaking
with laughter.
"You again, old tombstone! Whither away so fast?" and he made to hold
me. "I'm in a hurry myself! My last night under a roof, ha! ha! Wait
till I make my grand farewell! We both did well, did the grand, ho! ho!
But I must leave a fair demoiselle!"
"Let go," and I threw him off.
"Take that, you ramping donkey, you Anglo-Saxon animal," and he aimed a
kick in my direction. Though I could ill spare the time to do it, I
turned. All the pent-up strength, from the walk with Frances Sutherland
rushed into my clenched fist and Louis Laplante went down with a thud
across the doorway. There was the sish-rip of a knife being thrust
through my boot, but the blade broke and I rushed past the prostrate
form.
Certain of waylaying me, the Scots were dodging about the gate; but by
running in the shadow of the warehouse to the rear of the court, I gave
both the slip. I had no chance to reconnoitre, but dug my hunting-knife
into the stockade, hoisted myself up the wooden wall, got a grip of the
top and threw myself over, escaping with no greater loss than boots
pulled off before climbing the palisade, and the Highland cap which
stuck fast to a picket as I alighted below. At dawn, bootless and
hatless, I came in sight of Fort Gibraltar and Father Holland, who was
scanning the prairie for my return, came running to greet me.
"The tip-top o' the mornin' to the renegade! I thought ye'd been
scalped--and so ye have been--nearly--only they mistook y'r hat for the
wool o' y'r crown. Boots gone too! Out wid your midnight pranks."
A succession of welcoming thuds accompanied the tirade. As breath
returned, I gasped out a brief account of the night.
"And now," he exclaimed triumphantly, "I have news to translate ye to a
sivinth hiven! Och! But it's clane cracked ye'll be when ye hear it.
Now, who's appointed to trade with the buffalo hunters but y'r very
self?"
It was with difficulty I refrained from embracing the bearer of such
good tidings.
"Be easy," he commanded. "Ye'll need these demonstrations, I'm
thinkin'--huntin' one lass and losin' y'r heart to another."
We arranged he should go to Fort Douglas for Frances Sutherland and I
was to set out later. They were to ride along the river-path south of
the forks where I could join them. I, myself, picked out and paid for
two extra horses, one a quiet little cayuse with ambling action, the
other, a muscular broncho. I had the satisfaction of seeing Father
Holland mounted on the latter setting out for Fort Douglas, while the
Indian pony wearing an empty side-saddle trotted along in tow.
The information I brought back from Fort Douglas delayed any more
hostile demonstrations against the Hudson's Bay. That very morning,
before I had finished breakfast, Governor McDonell rode over to Fort
Gibraltar, and on condition that Fort Douglas be left unmolested gave
himself up to the Nor'-Westers. At noon, when I was riding off to the
buffalo hunt and the Missouri, I saw the captain, smiling and debonair,
embarking--or rather being embarked--with North-West brigades, to be
sent on a free trip two thousand five hundred miles to Montreal.
"A safe voyage to ye," said Duncan Cameron, commander of Nor'-Westers,
as the ex-governor of Red River settled himself in a canoe. "A safe
voyage to ye, mon!"
"And a prosperous return," was the ironical answer of the dauntless
ruler over the Hudson's Bay.
"Sure now, Rufus," said Father Holland to me a year afterwards, "'twas a
prosperous return he had!"
Fortunately, I had my choice of scouts, and, by dangling the prospects
of a buffalo hunt before La Robe Noire and Little Fellow, tempted them
to come with me.