ONISTAH READS SIGN
McRae fitted Jessie's snowshoes.
"You'll be hame before the dark, lass," he said, a little anxiously.
"Yes, Father."
The hunter turned to Onistah. "She's in your care, lad. Gin the
weather changes, or threatens to, let the traps go and strike for the
toon. You're no' to tak chances."
"Back assam weputch (very early)," promised the Blackfoot.
He was proud of the trust confided to him. To him McRae was a great
man. Among many of the trappers and the free traders the old Scot's
word was law. They came to him with their disputes for settlement and
abided by his decisions. For Angus was not only the patriarch of the
clan, if such a loose confederation of followers could be called a
clan; he was esteemed for his goodness and practical common sense.
Onistah's heart swelled with an emotion that was more than vanity. His
heart filled with gladness that Jessie should choose him as guide and
companion to snowshoe with her out into the white forests where her
traps were set. For the young Indian loved her dumbly, without any
hope of reward, in much the same way that some of her rough soldiers
must have loved Joan of Arc. Jessie was a mistress whose least whim he
felt it a duty to obey. He had worshiped her ever since he had seen
her, a little eager warm-hearted child, playing in his mother's
wigwam. She was as much beyond his reach as the North Star. Yet her
swift tender smile was for him just as it was for Fergus.
They shuffled out of the village into the forest that crept up to the
settlement on all sides. Soon they were deep in its shadows, pushing
along the edge of a muskeg which they skirted carefully in order not
to be hampered by its treacherous boggy footing.
Jessie wore a caribou-skin capote with the fur on as a protection
against the cold wind. Her moccasins were of smoked moose-skin
decorated with the flower-pattern bead embroidery so much in use among
the French half-breeds of the North. The socks inside them were of
duffle and the leggings of strouds, both materials manufactured for
the Hudson's Bay Company for its trappers.
The day was comparatively warm, but the snow was not slushy nor very
deep. None the less she was glad when they reached the trapping ground
and Onistah called a halt for dinner. She was tired, from the weight
of the snow on her shoes, and her feet were blistered by reason of the
lacings which cut into the duffle and the tender flesh inside.
Onistah built a fire of poplar, which presently crackled like a battle
front and shot red-hot coals at them in an irregular fusillade. Upon
this they made tea, heated pemmican and bannocks, and thawed a jar of
preserves Jessie had made the previous summer of service berries and
wild raspberries. Before it they dried their moccasins, socks, and
leggings.
Afterward they separated to make a round of the traps, agreeing to
meet an hour and a half later at the place of their dinner camp.
The Blackfoot found one of the small traps torn to pieces, probably by
a bear, for he saw its tracks in the snow. He rebuilt the snare
and baited it with parts of a rabbit he had shot. In one trap he
discovered a skunk and in another a timber wolf. When he came in sight
of the rendezvous, he was late.
Jessie was not there. He waited half an hour in growing anxiety before
he went to meet her. Night would fall soon. He must find her while it
was still light enough to follow her tracks. The disasters that might
have fallen upon her crowded his mind. A bear might have attacked her.
She might be lost or tangled in the swampy muskeg. Perhaps she had
accidentally shot herself.
As swiftly as he could he snowshoed through the forest, following the
plain trail she had left. It carried him to a trap from which she had
taken prey, for it was newly baited and the snow was sprinkled with
blood. Before he reached the second gin, the excitement in him
quickened. Some one in snowshoes had cut her path and had deflected
to pursue. Onistah knew that the one following was a white man. The
points of the shoes toed out. Crees toed in, just the same on webs as
in moccasins.
His imagination was active. What white man had any business in these
woods? Why should he leave that business to overtake Jessie McRae?
Onistah did not quite know why he was worried, but involuntarily he
quickened his pace.
Less than a quarter of a mile farther on, he read another chapter of
the story written in the trampled snow. There had been a struggle. His
mistress had been overpowered. He could see where she had been flung
into a white bank and dragged out of it. She had tried to run and had
got hardly a dozen yards before recapture. From that point the tracks
moved forward in a straight line, those of the smaller webs blotted
out by the ones made by the larger. The man was driving the girl
before him.
Who was he? Where was he taking her? For what purpose? Onistah could
not guess. He knew that McRae had made enemies, as any forceful
character on the frontier must. The Scotchman had kicked out lazy
ne'er-do-wells from his camp. As a free trader he had matched himself
against the Hudson's Bay Company. But of those at war with him few
would stoop to revenge themselves on his daughter. The Blackfoot had
not heard of the recent trouble between Whaley and the McRaes, nor had
the word reached him that Bully West was free again. Wherefore he was
puzzled at what the signs on the snow told him.
Yet he knew he had read them correctly. The final proof of it to him
was that Jessie broke trail and not the man. If he were a friend he
would lead the way. He was at her heels because he wanted to make sure
that she did not try to escape or to attack him.
The tracks led down into the muskeg. It was spitting snow, but he had
no difficulty in seeing where the trail led from hummock to hummock in
the miry earth. The going here was difficult, for the thick moss was
full of short, stiff brush that caught the webbed shoes and tripped
the traveler. It was hard to find level footing. The mounds were
uneven, and more than once Onistah plunged knee-deep from one into the
swamp.
He crossed the muskeg and climbed an ascent into the woods, swinging
sharply to the right. There was no uncertainty as to the direction of
the tracks in the snow. If they veered for a few yards, it was only to
miss a tree or to circle down timber. Whoever he might be, the man who
had taken Jessie prisoner knew exactly where he was going.
The Blackfoot knew by the impressions of the webs that he was a large,
heavy man. Once or twice he saw stains of tobacco juice on the snow.
The broken bits of a whiskey-bottle flung against a tree did not tend
to reassure him.
He saw smoke. It came from a tangle of undergrowth in a depression of
the forest. Very cautiously, with the patience of his race, he circled
round the cabin through the timber and crept up to it on hands and
knees. Every foot of the way he took advantage of such cover as was to
be had.
The window was a small, single-paned affair built in the end opposite
the door. Onistah edged close to it and listened. He heard the drone
of voices, one heavy and snarling, another low and persuasive.
His heart jumped at the sound of a third voice, a high-pitched treble.
He would have known it among a thousand. It had called to him in
the swirl of many a wind-swept storm. He had heard it on the long
traverse, in the stillness of the lone night, at lakeside camps built
far from any other human being. His imagination had heard it on
the summer breeze as he paddled across a sun-drenched lake in his
birch-bark canoe.
The Blackfoot raised his head till he could look through the window.
Jessie McRae sat on a stool facing him. Two men were in the room. One
strode heavily up and down while the other watched him warily.