A PICTURE IN A LOCKET
It was characteristic of McRae that he had insisted on bringing Whaley
to his own home to recuperate. "It's nursin' you need, man, an' guid
food. Ye'll get baith at the hoose."
The trader protested, and was overruled. His Cree wife was not just
now able to look after him. McRae's wife and daughter made good his
promise, and the wounded man thrived under their care.
On an afternoon Whaley lay on the bed in his room smoking. Beside him
sat Lemoine, also puffing at a pipe. The trapper had brought to the
ex-gambler a strange tale of a locket and a ring he had seen bought
by a half-breed from a Blackfoot squaw who claimed to have had it
eighteen years. He had just finished telling of it when Jessie knocked
at the door and came into the room with a bowl of caribou broth.
Whaley pretended to resent this solicitude, but his objection was a
fraud. He liked this girl fussing over him. His attitude toward her
was wholly changed. Thinking of her as a white girl, he looked at her
with respect.
"No more slops," he said. "Bring me a good caribou steak and I'll say
thank you."
"You're to eat what Mother sends," she told him.
Lemoine had risen from the chair on which he had been sitting. He
stared at her, a queer look of puzzled astonishment in his eyes.
Jessie became aware of his gaze and flashed on him a look of
annoyance.
"Have you seen a ghost, Mr. Lemoine?" she asked.
"By gar, maybeso, Miss Jessie. The picture in the locket, it jus' lak
you--same hair, same eyes, same smile."
"What picture in what locket?"
"The locket I see at Whoop-Up, the one Pierre Roubideaux buy from old
Makoye-kin's squaw."
"A picture of a Blackfoot?"
"No-o. Maybe French--maybe from the 'Merican country. I do not know."
Whaley took the pipe from his mouth and sat up, the chill eyes in his
white face fixed and intent. "Go back to Whoop-Up, Lemoine. Buy
that locket and that ring for me from Pierre Roubideaux. See
Makoye-kin--and his squaw. Find out where she got it--and when. Run
down the whole story."
The trapper took off a fur cap and scratched his curly poll.
"Mais--pourquois? All that will take money, is it not so?"
"I'll let you have the money. Spend what you need, but account for it
to me afterward."
Jessie felt the irregular beat of a hammer inside her bosom. "What is
it you think, Mr. Whaley?" she cried softly.
"I don't know what I think. Probably nothing to it. But there's a
locket. We know that. With a picture that looks like you, Lemoine here
thinks. We'd better find out whose picture it is, hadn't we?"
"Yes, but--Do you mean that maybe it has something to do with me? How
can it? The sister of Stokimatis was my mother. Onistah is my cousin.
Ask Stokimatis. She knows. What could this woman of the picture be to
me?"
Jessie could not understand the fluttering pulse in her throat. She
had not doubted that her mother was a Blackfoot. All the romance of
her clouded birth centered around the unknown father who had died when
she was a baby. Stokimatis had not been very clear about that. She had
never met the man, according to the story she had told Sleeping Dawn.
Neither she nor those of her tribal group knew anything of him. Was
there a mystery about his life? In her childish dreams Jessie had
woven one. He was to her everything desirable, for he was the tie that
bound her to all the higher standards of life she craved.
"I don't know. Likely it's all a mare's nest. Find Stokimatis,
Lemoine, and bring her back with you. Well see what she can tell us.
And get the locket and the ring, with the story back of them."
Again Lemoine referred to the cost. He would have to take his
dog-train to Whoop-Up, and from there out to the creek where Pierre
Roubideaux was living. Makoye-kin and his family might be wintering
anywhere within a radius of a hundred miles. Was there any use in
going out on such a wild-hare chase?
Whaley thought there was and said so with finality. He did not give
his real reason, which was that he wanted to pay back to McRae and his
daughter the debt he owed. They had undoubtedly saved his life after
he had treated her outrageously. There was already one score to his
credit, of course. He had saved her from West. But he felt the balance
still tipped heavily against him. And he was a man who paid his debts.
It was this factor of his make-up--the obligation of old associations
laid upon him--that had taken him out to West with money, supplies,
and a dog-train to help his escape.
Jessie went out to find her father. Her eagerness to see him outflew
her steps. This was not a subject she could discuss with Matapi-Koma.
The Cree woman would not understand what a tremendous difference it
made if she could prove her blood was wholly of the superior race. Nor
could Jessie with tact raise such a point. It involved not only the
standing of Matapi-Koma herself, but also of her sons.
The girl found McRae in the storeroom looking over a bundle of
assorted pelts--marten, fox, mink, and beaver. The news tumbled from
her lips in excited exclamations.
"Oh, Father, guess! Mr. Lemoine saw a picture--a Blackfoot woman had
it--old Makoye-kin's wife--and she sold it. And he says it was like
me--exactly. Maybe it was my aunt--or some one. My father's sister!
Don't you think?"
"I'll ken what I think better gin ye'll just quiet doon an' tell me a'
aboot it, lass."
She told him. The Scotchman took what she had to say with no outward
sign of excitement. None the less his blood moved faster. He wanted
no change in the relations between them that would interfere with the
love she felt for him. To him it did not matter whether she was of the
pure blood or of the métis. He had always ignored the Indian in her.
She was a precious wildling of beauty and delight. By nature she was
of the ruling race. There was in her nothing servile or dependent,
none of the inertia that was so marked a mental characteristic of
the Blackfoot and the Cree. Her slender body was compact of fire and
spirit. She was alive to her finger-tips.
None the less he was glad on her account. Since it mattered to her
that she was a half-blood, he would rejoice, too, if she could prove
the contrary. Or, if she could trace her own father's family, he would
try to be glad for her.
With his rough forefinger he touched gently the tender curve of the
girl's cheek. "I'm thinkin' that gin ye find relatives across the
line, auld Angus McRae will be losin' his dawtie."
She flew into his arms, her warm, young face pressed against his
seamed cheek.
"Never--never! You're my father--always that no matter what I find.
You taught me to read and nursed me when I was sick. Always you've
cared for me and been good to me. I'll never have any real father but
you," she cried passionately.
He stroked her dark, abundant hair fondly. "My lass, I've gi'en ye all
the love any yin could gi'e his ain bairn. I doot I've been hard on ye
at times, but I'm a dour auld man an' fine ye ken my heart was woe for
ye when I was the strictest."
She could count on the fingers of one hand the times when he had said
as much. Of nature he was a bit of Scotch granite externally. He was
sentimental. Most of his race are. But he guarded the expression of it
as though it were a vice.
"Maybe Onistah has heard his mother say something about it," Jessie
suggested.
"Like enough. There'll be nae harm in askin' the lad."
But the Blackfoot had little to tell. He had been told by Stokimatis
that Sleeping Dawn was his cousin, but he had never quite believed it.
Once, when he had pressed his mother with questions, she had smiled
deeply and changed the subject. His feeling was, and had always been,
that there was some mystery about the girl's birth. Stokimatis either
knew what it was or had some hint of it.
His testimony at least tended to support the wild hopes flaming in the
girl's heart.
Lemoine started south for Whoop-Up at break of day.