ON THE FRONTIER OF DESPAIR
The compulsion of life had denied Jessie the niceness given girls by
the complexities of modern civilization. She had been brought up close
to raw stark nature. The habits of animals were familiar to her and
the vices of the biped man.
A traveler in the sub-Arctic is forced by the deadly cold of the North
into a near intimacy of living with his fellows. Jessie had more than
once taken a long sled journey with her father. On one occasion she
had slept in a filthy Indian wigwam with a dozen natives all breathing
the same foul, unventilated air. Again she had huddled up against the
dogs, with her father and two French half-breeds, to keep in her the
spark of life a blizzard's breath was trying to blow out.
On such a trip some of the common decencies of existence are dropped.
The extreme low temperature makes it impossible for one to wash either
face or hands without the skin chapping and breaking. Food at which
one would revolt under other circumstances is devoured eagerly.
Jessie was the kind of girl such a life had made her, with
modifications in the direction of fineness induced by McRae's sturdy
character, her schooling at Winnipeg, and the higher plane of the
family standard. As might have been expected, she had courage, energy,
and that quality of decisive action bred by primitive conditions.
But she had retained, too, a cleanness of spirit hardly to be looked
for in such a primeval daughter of Eve. Her imagination and her
reading had saved the girl's sweet modesty. A certain detachment made
it possible for her to ignore the squalor of the actual and see it
only as a surface triviality, to let her mind dwell in inner concepts
of goodness and beauty while bestiality crossed the path she trod.
So when she found in one of the gins a lynx savage with the pain of
bruised flesh and broken bone snapped by the jaws of the trap,
the girl did what needed to be done swiftly and with a minimum of
reluctance.
She was close to the second trap when the sound of webs slithering
along the snow brought her up short. Her first thought was that
Onistah had changed his mind and followed her, but as soon as the
snowshoer came out of the thick timber, she saw that he was not an
Indian.
He was a huge man, and he bulked larger by reason of the heavy furs
that enveloped him. His rate of travel was rapid enough, but there was
about the gait an awkward slouch that reminded her of a grizzly. Some
sullenness of temperament seemed to find expression in the fellow's
movements.
The hood of his fur was drawn well forward over the face. He wore blue
glasses, as a protection against snow-blindness apparently. Jessie
smiled, judging him a tenderfoot; for except in March and April there
is small danger of the sun glare which destroys sight. Yet he hardly
looked like a newcomer to the North. For one thing he used the web
shoes as an expert does. Before he stopped beside her, she was
prepared to revise a too hasty opinion.
Jessie recoiled at the last moment, even before she recognized him. It
was too late to take precautions now. He caught her by the wrist and
tore off his glasses, at the same time shaking back the hood.
"Glad to death to meet up with you, missie," he grinned evilly through
broken, tobacco-stained teeth.
The blood drenched out of her heart. She looked at the man, silent
and despairing. His presence here could mean to her nothing less than
disaster. The girl's white lips tried to frame words they could not
utter.
"Took by surprise, ain't you?" he jeered. "But plumb pleased to see
old Bully West again, eh? It's a damn long lane that ain't got a crook
in it somewheres. An' here we are at the turn together, jus' you'n'
me, comfy, like I done promised it would be when I last seen you."
She writhed in a swift, abortive attempt to break his hold.
He threw back his head in a roar of laughter, then with a twist of his
fingers brought his captive to the knees.
Sharp teeth flashed in a gleam of white. He gave a roar of pain and
tore away his hand. She had bit him savagely in the wrist, as she had
once done with another man on a memorable occasion.
"Goddlemighty!" he bellowed. "You damn li'l' hell-cat!"
She was on her feet and away instantly. But one of the snowshoes had
come off in the struggle. At each step she took the left foot plunged
through the white crust and impeded progress.
In a dozen strides he had reached her. A great arm swung round and
buffeted the runner on the side of the head. The blow lifted the girl
from her feet and flung her into a drift two yards away.
She looked up, dazed from the shock. The man was standing over her, a
huge, threatening, ill-shaped Colossus.
"Get up!" he ordered harshly, and seized her by the shoulder.
She found herself on her feet, either because she had risen or because
he had jerked her up. A ringing in the head and a nausea made for
dizziness.
"I'll learn you!" he exploded with curses. "Try that again an' I'll
beat yore head off. You're Bully West's woman, un'erstand? When I say
'Come!' step lively. When I say 'Go!' get a move on you."
"I'll not." Despite her fear she faced him with spirit. "My friends
are near. They'll come and settle, with you for this."
He put a check on his temper. Very likely what she said was true. It
was not reasonable to suppose that she was alone in the forest many
miles from Faraway. She had come, of course, to look at the traps, but
some one must have accompanied her. Who? And how many? The skulking
caution of his wild-beast nature asserted itself. He had better play
safe. Time enough to tame the girl when he had her deep in the Lone
Lands far from any other human being except himself. Just now the
first need was to put many miles between them and the inevitable
pursuit.
"Come," he said. "We'll go."
She started back for the snowshoe that had been torn off. Beside it
lay her rifle. If she could get hold of it again--
The great hulk moved beside her, his thumb and fingers round the back
of her neck. Before they reached the weapon, he twisted her aside so
cruelly that a flame of pain ran down her spine. She cried out.
He laughed as he stooped for the gun and the web. "Don' play none o'
yore monkey tricks on Bully West. He knew it all 'fore you was born."
The pressure of his grip swung Jessie to the left. He gave her a push
that sent her reeling and flung at her the snowshoe.
"Hump yoreself now."
She knelt and adjusted the web. She would have fought if there had
been the least chance of success. But there was none. Nor could she
run away. The fellow was a callous, black-hearted ruffian. He would
shoot her down rather than see her escape. If she became stubborn and
refused to move, he would cheerfully torture her until she screamed
with agony. There was nothing he would like better. No, for the
present she must take orders.
"Hit the trail, missie. Down past that big tree," he snapped.
"Where are you taking me?"
"Don't ask me questions. Do like I tell you."
The girl took one look at his heavy, brutal face and did as she
was told. Onistah would find her. When she did not show up at the
rendezvous, he would follow her trail and discover that something was
amiss. Good old Onistah never had failed her. He was true as tried
steel and in all the North woods there was no better tracker.
There would be a fight. If West saw him first, he would shoot the
Blackfoot at sight. She did not need to guess that. He would do it for
two reasons. The first was the general one that he did not want any of
her friends to know where he was. The more specific one was that he
already had a grudge against the young Indian that he would be glad to
pay once for all.
Jessie's one hope was that Onistah would hasten to the rescue. Yet she
dreaded the moment of his coming. He was a gentle soul, one of Father
Giguère's converts. It was altogether likely that he would walk into
the camp of the escaped convict openly and become a victim of the
murderer's guile. Onistah did not lack courage. He would fight if he
had to do so. Indeed, she knew that he would go through fire to save
her. But bravery was not enough. She could almost have wished that her
foster-brother was as full of devilish treachery as the huge ape-man
slouching at her heels. Then the chances of the battle would be more
even.
The desperado drove her down into the muskeg, directing the girl's
course with a flow of obscene and ribald profanity.
It is doubtful if she heard him. As her lithe, supple limbs carried
her from one moss hump to another, she was busy with the problem of
escape. She must get away soon. Every hour increased the danger. The
sun would sink shortly. If she were still this ruffian's prisoner
when the long Arctic night fell, she would suffer the tortures of the
damned. She faced the fact squarely, though her cheeks blanched at the
prospect and the heart inside her withered.
From the sloping side of a hummock her foot slipped and she slid into
the icy bog to her knees. Within a few minutes duffles and leggings
were frozen and she was suffering at each step.
Out of the muskeg they came into the woods. A flake of snow fell on
Jessie's cheek and chilled her blood. For she knew that if it came on
to snow before Onistah took the trail or even before he reached the
place to which West was taking her, the chances of a rescue would be
very much diminished. A storm would wipe out the tracks they had made.
"Swing back o' the rock and into the brush," West growled. Then, as
she took the narrow trail through the brush that had grown up among
half a dozen small down trees, he barked a question: "Whadjasay yore
Injun name was?"
"My name is Jessie McRae," she answered with a flash of angry pride.
"You know who I am--the daughter of Angus McRae. And if you do me any
harm, he'll hunt you down and kill you like a wolf."
He caught her by the arm and whirled the girl round. His big yellow
canines snapped like tusks and he snarled at her through clenched
jaws. "Did you hear yore master's voice? I said, what was yore squaw
name?"
She almost shrieked from the pain of his fingers' savage clutch into
her flesh. The courage died out of her arteries.
"Sleeping Dawn they called me."
"Too long," he pronounced. "I'll call you Dawn." The sight of her
terror of him, the foretaste of the triumph he was to enjoy, restored
him for a moment to a brutal good-humor. "An' when I yell 'Dawn' at
you o' mornin's, it'll be for you to hump yoreself an' git up to build
the fires and rustle breakfast. I'll treat you fine if you behave, but
if you git sulky, you'll taste the dog-whip. I'm boss. You'll have
a heluva time if you don't come runnin' when I snap my fingers.
Un'erstand?"
She broke down in a wailing appeal to whatever good there was in him.
"Let me go back to Father! I know you've broke prison. If you're good
to me, he'll help you escape. You know he has friends everywhere.
They'll hide you from the red-coats. He'll give you an outfit to get
away--money--anything you want. Oh, let me go, and--and--"
He grinned, and the sight of his evil mirth told her she had failed.
"Didn't I tell you I'd git you right some day? Didn't I promise Angus
McRae I'd pay him back aplenty for kickin' me outa his hide camp?
Ain't you the lil' hell-cat that busted my whiskey-kegs, that ran to
the red-coat spy an' told him where the cache was, that shot me up
when I set out to dry-gulch him, as you might say? Where do you figure
you got a license to expect Bully West to listen to Sunday-school pap
about being good to you? You're my squaw, an' lucky at that you got a
real two-fisted man. Hell's hinges! What's eatin' you?"
"Never!" she cried. "It's true what I told you once. I'd rather die.
Oh, if you've got a spark of manhood in you, don't make me kill
myself. I'm just a girl. If I ever did you wrong, I'm sorry. I'll make
it right. My father--"
"Listen." His raucous voice cut through her entreaties. "I've heard
more'n plenty about McRae. All I want o' him is to get a bead on
him once with a rifle. Get me? Now this other talk--about killin'
yoreself--nothin' to it a-tall. Go to it if tha's how you feel. Yore
huntin'-knife's right there in yore belt." He reached forward and
plucked it from its sheath, then handed it to her blade first,
stepping back a pace at once to make sure she did not use it on him.
"You got yore chance now. Kill away. I'll stand right here an' see
nobody interferes with you."
She shifted the knife and gripped the handle. A tumult seethed in
her brain. She saw nothing but that evil, grinning face, hideous and
menacing. For a moment murder boiled up in her, red-hot and sinister.
If she could kill him now as he stood jeering at her--drive the blade
into that thick bull neck....
The madness passed. She could not do it even if it were within
her power. The urge to kill was not strong enough. It was not
overwhelming. And in the next thought she knew, too, that she could
not kill herself either. The blind need to live, the animal impulse of
self-preservation, at whatever cost, whatever shame, was as yet more
powerful than the horror of the fate impending.
She flung the knife down into the snow in a fury of disgust and
self-contempt.
His head went back in a characteristic roar of revolting mirth. He had
won. Bully West knew how to conquer 'em, no matter how wild they were.
With feet dragging, head drooped, and spirits at the zero hour, Jessie
moved down a ravine into sight of a cabin. Smoke rose from the chimney
languidly.
"Home," announced West.
To the girl, at the edge of desperation, that log house appeared as
the grave of her youth. All the pride and glory and joy that had made
life so vital a thing were to be buried here. When next she came out
into the sunlight she would be a broken creature--the property of this
horrible caricature of a man.
Her captor opened the door and pushed the girl inside.
She stood on the threshold, eyes dilating, heart suddenly athrob with
hope.
A man sitting on a stool before the open fire turned his head to see
who had come in.