A PENITENTIAL JOURNEY
"... Certain London parishes still receive £12 per annum
for fagots to burn heretics."--JOHN RICHARD GREEN.
The Boy slept that night in the Kachime beside a very moody, restless
host. Yagorsha dispensed with the formality of going to bed, and seemed
bent on doing what he could to keep other people awake. He sat
monologuing under the seal lamp till the Boy longed to throw the dish
of smouldering oil at his head. But strangely enough, when, through
sheer fatigue, his voice failed and his chin fell on his broad chest, a
lad of fourteen or so, who had also had difficulty to keep awake, would
jog Yagorsha's arm, repeating interrogatively the last phrase used,
whereon the old Story-Teller would rouse himself and begin afresh, with
an iteration of the previous statement. If the lad failed to keep him
going, one or other of the natives would stir uneasily, lift a head
from under his deerskin, and remonstrate. Yagorsha, opening his eyes
with a guilty start, would go on with the yarn. When morning came, and
the others waked, Yagorsha and the lad slept.
Nicholas and all the rest who shared the bench at night, and the fire
in the morning, seemed desperately depressed and glum. A heavy cloud
hung over Pymeut, for Pymeut was in disgrace.
About sunset the women came in with the kantaks and the lard-cans.
Yagorsha sat up and rubbed his eyes. He listened eagerly, while the
others questioned the women. The old Chief wasn't dead at all. No, he
was much better. Brother Paul had been about to all the house-bound
sick people, and given everybody medicine, and flour, and a terrible
scolding. Oh yes, he was angrier than anybody had ever been before.
Some natives from the school at Holy Cross were coming for him
tomorrow, and they were all going down river and across the southern
portage to the branch mission at Kuskoquim.
"Down river? Sure?"
Yes, sure. Brother Paul had not waited to come with those others, being
so anxious to bring medicine and things to Ol' Chief quick; and this
was how he was welcomed back to the scene of his labours. A Devil's
Dance was going on! That was what he called it.
"You savvy?" said Nicholas to his guest. "Brother Paul go plenty soon.
You wait."
I'll have company back to camp, was the Boy's first thought, and
then--would there be any fun in that after all? It was plain Brother
Paul was no such genial companion as Father Wills.
And so it was that he did not desert Nicholas, although Brother Paul's
companions failed to put in an appearance on the following morning.
However, on the third day after the incident of the Shamán (who seemed
to have vanished into thin air), Brother Paul shook the snow of Pymeut
from his feet, and with three Indians from the Holy Cross school and a
dog-team, he disappeared from the scene. Not till he had been gone some
time did Nicholas venture to return to the parental roof.
They found Muckluck subdued but smiling, and the old man astonishingly
better. It looked almost as if he had turned the corner, and was
getting well.
There was certainly something very like magic in such a recovery, but
it was quickly apparent that this aspect of the case was not what
occupied Nicholas, as he sat regarding his parent with a keen and
speculative eye. He asked him some question, and they discussed the
point volubly, Muckluck following the argument with close attention.
Presently it seemed that father and son were taking the guest into
consideration. Muckluck also turned to him now and then, and by-and-by
she said: "I think he go."
"Go where?"
"Holy Cross," said the old man eagerly.
"Brother Paul," Nicholas explained. "He go _down_ river. We get Holy
Cross--more quick."
"I see. Before he can get back. But why do you want to go?"
"See Father Brachet."
"Sister Winifred say: 'Always tell Father Brachet; then everything all
right,'" contributed Muckluck.
"You tell Pymeut belly solly," the old Chief said.
"Nicholas know he not able tell all like white man," Muckluck
continued. "Nicholas say you good--hey? you good?"
"Well--a--pretty tollable, thank you."
"You go with Nicholas; you make Father Brachet unnerstan'--forgive.
Tell Sister Winifred--" She stopped, perplexed, vaguely distrustful at
the Boy's chuckling.
"You think we can explain it all away, hey?" He made a gesture of happy
clearance. "Shamán and everything, hey?"
"Me no can," returned Nicholas, with engaging modesty. "_You_--" He
conveyed a limitless confidence.
"Well, I'll be jiggered if I don't try. How far is it?"
"Go slow--one sleep."
"Well, we won't go slow. We've got to do penance. When shall we start?"
"Too late now. Tomalla," said the Ol' Chief.
* * * * *
They got up very early--it seemed to the Boy like the middle of the
night--stole out of the dark Kachime, and hurried over the hard crust
that had formed on the last fall of snow, down the bleak, dim slope to
the Ol' Chief's, where they were to breakfast.
Not only Muckluck was up and doing, but the Ol' Chief seemed galvanised
into unwonted activity. He was doddering about between his bed and the
fire, laying out the most imposing parkis and fox-skins, fur blankets,
and a pair of seal-skin mittens, all of which, apparently, he had had
secreted under his bed, or between it and the wall.
They made a sumptuous breakfast of tea, the last of the bacon the Boy
had brought, and slapjacks.
The Boy kept looking from time to time at the display of furs. Father
Wills was right; he ought to buy a parki with a hood, but he had meant
to have the priest's advice, or Mac's, at least, before investing. Ol'
Chief watching him surreptitiously, and seeing he was no nearer making
an offer, felt he should have some encouragement. He picked up the
seal-skin mittens and held them out.
"Present," said Ol' Chief. "You tell Father Brachet us belly solly."
"Oh, I'll handle him without gloves," said the Boy, giving back the
mittens. But Ol' Chief wouldn't take them. He was holding up the
smaller of the two parkis.
"You no like?"
"Oh, very nice."
"You no buy?"
"You go sleep on trail," said Nicholas, rising briskly. "You die, no
parki."
The Boy laughed and shook his head, but still Ol' Chief held out the
deer-skin shirt, and caressed the wolf-fringe of the hood.
"Him cheap."
"How cheap?"
"Twenty-fi' dollah."
"Don't know as I call that cheap."
"Yes," said Nicholas. "St. Michael, him fifty dollah."
The Boy looked doubtful.
"I saw a parki there at the A. C. Store about like this for twenty."
"A. C. parki, peeluck," Nicholas said contemptuously. Then patting the
one his father held out, "You wear _him_ fifty winter."
"Lord forbid! Anyhow, I've only got about twenty dollars' worth of
tobacco and stuff along with me."
"Me come white camp," Nicholas volunteered. "Me get more fi' dollah."
"Oh, will you? Now, that's very kind of you." But Nicholas, impervious
to irony, held out the parki. The Boy laughed, and took it. Nicholas
stooped, picked up the fur mittens, and, laying them on the Boy's arm,
reiterated his father's "Present!" and then departed to the Kachime to
bring down the Boy's pack.
The Princess meanwhile had withdrawn to her own special corner, where
in the daytime appeared only a roll of plaited mats, and a little,
cheap, old hat-box, which she evidently prized most of all she had in
the world.
"You see? Lock!"
The Boy expressed surprise and admiration.
"No! Really! I call that fine."
"I got present for Father Brachet"; and turning over the rags and
nondescript rubbish of the hat-box, she produced an object whose use
was not immediately manifest. A section of walrus ivory about six
inches long had been cut in two. One of these curved halves had been
mounted on four ivory legs. In the upper flat side had been stuck, at
equal distances from the two ends and from each other, two delicate
branches of notched ivory, standing up like horns. Between these sat an
ivory mannikin, about three inches long, with a woeful countenance and
with arms held out like one beseeching mercy.
"It's fine," said the Boy, "but--a--what's it for? Just look pretty?"
"Wait, I show you." She dived into the hat-box, and fished up a bit of
battered pencil. With an air of pride, she placed the pencil across the
outstretched hands of the ivory suppliant, asking the Boy in dumb-show,
was not this a pen-rest that might be trusted to melt the heart of the
Holy Father?
"This way, too." She illustrated how anyone embarrassed by the
possession of more than one pencil could range them in tiers on the
ivory horns above the head of the Woeful One.
"I call that scrumptious! And he looks as if he was saying he was sorry
all the time."
She nodded, delighted that the Boy comprehended the subtle symbolism.
"One more!" she said, showing her dazzling teeth. Like a child playing
a game, she half shut the hat-box and hugged it lovingly. Then with
eyes sparkling, slowly the small hand crept in--was thrust down the
side and drew out with a rapturous "Ha!" a gaudy advertisement card,
setting forth the advantages of smoking "Kentucky Leaf" She looked at
it fondly. Then slowly, regretfully, all the fun gone now, she passed
it to the Boy.
"For Sister Winifred!" she said, like one who braces herself to make
some huge renunciation. "You tell her I send with my love, and I always
say my prayers. I very good. Hey? You tell Sister Winifred?"
"_Sure_," said the Boy.
The Ol' Chief was pulling the other parki over his head. Nicholas
reappeared with the visitor's effects. Under the Boy's eyes, he calmly
confiscated all the tea and tobacco. But nothing had been touched in
the owner's absence.
"Look here: just leave me enough tea to last till I get home. I'll make
it up to you."
Nicholas, after some reflection, agreed. Then he bustled about,
gathered together an armful of things, and handed the Boy a tea-kettle
and an axe.
"You bring--dogs all ready. Mush!" and he was gone.
To the Boy's surprise, while he and Muckluck were getting the food and
presents together, the lively Ol' Chief--so lately dying--made off, in
a fine new parki, on all fours, curious, no doubt, to watch the
preparations without.
But not a bit of it. The Ol' Chief's was a more intimate concern in the
expedition. When the Boy joined him, there he was sitting up in
Nicholas's sled, appallingly emaciated, but brisk as you please,
ordering the disposition of the axe and rifle along either side, the
tea-kettle and grub between his feet, showing how the deer-skin
blankets should be wrapped, and especially was he dictatorial about the
lashing of the mahout.
"How far's he comin'?" asked the Boy, astonished.
"All the way," said Muckluck. "He want to be _sure_."
Several bucks came running down from the Kachime, and stood about,
coughed and spat, and offered assistance or advice. When at last Ol'
Chief was satisfied with the way the raw walrus-hide was laced and
lashed, Nicholas cracked his whip and shouted, "Mush! God-damn! Mush!"
"Good-bye, Princess. We'll take care of your father, though I'm sure he
oughtn't to go."
"Oh yes," answered Muckluck confidently; then lower, "Shamán make all
well quick. Hey? Goo'-bye."
"Good-bye."
"Don't forget tell Sister Winifred I say my p--" But the Boy had to run
to keep up with the sled.
For some time he kept watching the Ol' Chief with unabated
astonishment, wondering if he'd die on the way. But, after all, the
open-air cure was tried for his trouble in various other parts of the
world--why not here?
There was no doubt about it, Nicholas had a capital team of dogs, and
knew how to drive them. Two-legged folk often had to trot pretty
briskly to keep up. Pymeut was soon out of sight.
"Nicholas, what'll you take for a couple o' your dogs?"
"No sell."
"Pay you a good long price."
"No sell."
"Well, will you help me to get a couple?"
"Me try"; but he spoke dubiously.
"What do they cost?"
"Good leader cost hunder and fifty in St. Michael."
"You don't mean dollahs?"
"Mean dollahs."
"Come off the roof!"
But Nicholas seemed to think there was no need.
"You mean that if I offer you a hundred and fifty dollahs for your
leader, straight off, this minute, you won't take it?"
"No, no take," said the Prince, stolidly.
And his friend reflected. Nicholas without a dog-team would be
practically a prisoner for eight months of the year, and not only that,
but a prisoner in danger of starving to death. After all, perhaps a
dog-team in such a country _was_ priceless, and the Ol' Chief was
travelling in truly royal style.
However, it was stinging cold, and running after those expensive dogs
was an occupation that palled. By-and-by, "How much is your sled
worth?" he asked Ol' Chief.
"Six sables," said the monarch.
* * * * *
It was a comfort to sight a settlement off there on the point.
"What's this place?"
"Fish-town."
"Pymeuts there?"
"No, all gone. Come back when salmon run."
Not a creature there, as Nicholas had foretold--a place built wilfully
on the most exposed point possible, bleak beyond belief. If you open
your mouth at this place on the Yukon, you have to swallow a hurricane.
The Boy choked, turned his back to spit out the throttling blast, and
when he could catch his breath inquired:
"This a good place for a village?"
"Bully. Wind come, blow muskeetah--"
Nicholas signified a remote destination with his whip.
"B'lieve you! This kind o' thing would discourage even a mosquito."
In the teeth of the blast they went past the Pymeut Summer Resort.
Unlike Pymeut proper, its cabins were built entirely above ground, of
logs unchinked, its roofs of watertight birch-bark.
A couple of hours farther on Nicholas permitted a halt on the edge of a
struggling little grove of dwarfed cotton-wood.
The kettle and things being withdrawn from various portions of the Ol'
Chief's person, he, once more warmly tucked up and tightly lashed down,
drew the edge of the outer coverlid up till it met the wolf-skin fringe
of his parki hood, and relapsed into slumber.
Nicholas chopped down enough green wood to make a hearth.
"What! bang on the snow?"
Nicholas nodded, laid the logs side by side, and on them built a fire
of the seasoned wood the Boy had gathered. They boiled the kettle, made
tea, and cooked some fish.
Ol' Chief waked up just in time to get his share. The Boy, who had kept
hanging about the dogs with unabated interest, had got up from the fire
to carry them the scraps, when Nicholas called out quite angrily, "No!
no feed dogs," and waved the Boy off.
"What! It's only some of my fish. Fish is what they eat, ain't it?"
"No feed now; wait till night."
"What for? They're hungry."
"You give fish--dogs no go any more."
Peremptorily he waved the Boy off, and fell to work at packing up. Not
understanding Nicholas's wisdom, the Boy was feeling a little sulky and
didn't help. He finished up the fish himself, then sat on his heels by
the fire, scorching his face while his back froze, or wheeling round
and singeing his new parki while his hands grew stiff in spite of
seal-skin mittens.
No, it was no fun camping with the temperature at thirty degrees below
zero--better to be trotting after those expensive and dinnerless dogs;
and he was glad when they started again.
But once beyond the scant shelter of the cottonwood, it was evident the
wind had risen. It was blowing straight out of the north and into their
faces. There were times when you could lean your whole weight against
the blast.
After sunset the air began to fill with particles of frozen snow. They
did not seem to fall, but continually to whirl about, and present
stinging points to the travellers' faces. Talking wasn't possible even
if you were in the humour, and the dead, blank silence of all nature,
unbroken hour after hour, became as nerve-wearing as the cold and
stinging wind. The Boy fell behind a little. Those places on his heels
that had been so badly galled had begun to be troublesome again. Well,
it wouldn't do any good to holla about it--the only thing to do was to
harden one's foolish feet. But in his heart he felt that all the
time-honoured conditions of a penitential journey were being complied
with, except on the part of the arch sinner. Ol' Chief seemed to be
getting on first-rate.
The dogs, hardly yet broken in to the winter's work, were growing
discouraged, travelling so long in the eye of the wind. And Nicholas,
in the kind of stolid depression that had taken possession of him,
seemed to have forgotten even to shout "Mush!" for a very long time.
By-and-by Ol' Chief called out sharply, and Nicholas seemed to wake up.
He stopped, looked back, and beckoned to his companion.
The Boy came slowly on.
"Why you no push?"
"Push what?"
"Handle-bar."
He went to the sled and illustrated, laying his hands on the
arrangement at the back that stood out like the handle behind a baby's
perambulator. The Boy remembered. Of course, there were usually two men
with each sled. One ran ahead and broke trail with snow-shoes, but that
wasn't necessary today, for the crust bore. But the other man's
business was to guide the sled from behind and keep it on the trail.
"Me gottah drive, you gottah push. Dogs heap tired."
Nicholas spoke severely. The Boy stared a moment at what he mentally
called "the nerve of the fella," laughed, and took hold, swallowing
Nicholas's intimation that he, after all, was far more considerate of
the dogs than the person merely sentimental, who had been willing to
share his dinner with them.
"How much farther?"
"Oh, pretty quick now."
The driver cracked his whip, called out to the dogs, and suddenly
turned off from the river course. Unerringly he followed an invisible
trail, turning sharply up a slough, and went zig-zagging on without
apparent plan. It was better going when they got to a frozen lake, and
the dogs seemed not to need so much encouragement. It would appear an
impossible task to steer accurately with so little light; but once on
the other side of the lake it was found that Nicholas had hit a
well-beaten track as neatly as a thread finds the needle's eye.
Far off, out of the dimness, came a sound--welcome because it was
something to break the silence but hardly cheerful in itself.
"Hear that, Nicholas?"
"Mission dogs."
Their own had already thrown up their noses and bettered the pace.
The barking of the dogs had not only announced the mission to the
travellers, but to the mission a stranger at the gates.
Before anything could be seen of the settlement, clumsy, fur-clad
figures had come running down the slope and across the ice, greeting
Nicholas with hilarity.
Indian or Esquimaux boys they seemed to be, who talked some jargon
understanded of the Pymeut pilot. The Boy, lifting tired eyes, saw
something white glimmering high in the air up on the right river bank.
In this light it refused to form part of any conceivable plan, but hung
there in the air detached, enigmatic, spectral. Below it, more on
humanity's level, could be dimly distinguished, now, the Mission
Buildings, apparently in two groups with an open space in the middle.
Where are the white people? wondered the Boy, childishly impatient.
Won't they come and welcome us? He followed the Esquimaux and Indians
from the river up to the left group of buildings. With the heathen
jargon beating on his ears, he looked up suddenly, and realized what
the white thing was that had shone out so far. In the middle of the
open space a wooden cross stood up, encrusted with frost crystals, and
lifting gleaming arms out of the gloom twenty feet or so above the
heads of the people.
"Funny thing for an Agnostic," he admitted to himself, "but I'm right
glad to see a Christian sign." And as he knocked at the door of the big
two-story log-house on the left he defended himself. "It's the
swing-back of the pendulum after a big dose of Pymeut and heathen
tricks. I welcome it as a mark of the white man." He looked over his
shoulder a little defiantly at the Holy Cross. Recognition of what the
high white apparition was had given him a queer jolt, stirring
unsuspected things in imagination and in memory. He had been accustomed
to see that symbol all his life, and it had never spoken to him before.
Up here it cried aloud and dominated the scene. "Humph!" he said to
himself, "to look at you a body'd think 'The Origin' had never been
written, and Spencer and Huxley had never been born.' He knocked again,
and again turned about to scan the cross.
"Just as much a superstition, just as much a fetich as Kaviak's
seal-plug or the Shamán's eagle feather. With long looking at a couple
of crossed sticks men grow as dazed, as hypnotized, as Pymeuts watching
a Shamán's ivory wand. All the same, I'm not sure that faith in 'First
Principles' would build a house like this in the Arctic Regions, and
it's convenient to find it here--if only they'd open the door."
He gave another thundering knock, and then nearly fell backwards into
the snow, for Brother Paul stood on the threshold holding up a lamp.
"I--a--oh! How do you do? Can I come in?"
Brother Paul, still with the look of the Avenging Angel on his pale,
young face, held the door open to let the Boy come in. Then, leaning
out into the night and lifting the lamp high, "Is that Nicholas?" he
said sternly.
But the Pymeuts and the school-boys had vanished. He came in and set
down the lamp.
"We--a--we heard you were going down river," said the Boy, tamely, for
he had not yet recovered himself after such an unexpected blow.
"Are you cold? Are you wet?" demanded Brother Paul, standing erect,
unwelcoming, by the table that held the lamp.
The Boy pulled himself together.
"Look here"--he turned away from the comforting stove and confronted
the Jesuit--"those Pymeuts are not only cold and wet and sick too, but
they're sorry. They've come to ask forgiveness."
"It's easily done."
Such scorn you would hardly expect from a follower of the meek
Galilean.
"No, not easily done, a penance like this. I know, for I've just
travelled that thirty miles with 'em over the ice from Pymeut."
"You? Yes, it amuses you."
The sombre eyes shone with a cold, disconcerting light.
"Well, to tell you the truth, I've been better amused."
The Boy looked down at his weary, wounded feet. And the others--where
were his fellow pilgrims? It struck him as comic that the upshot of the
journey should be that he was doing penance for the Pymeuts, but he
couldn't smile with that offended archangel in front of him.
"Thirty miles over the ice, in the face of a norther, hasn't been so
'easy' even for me. And I'm not old, nor sick--no, nor frightened,
Brother Paul."
He flung up his head, but his heart failed him even while he made the
boast. Silently, for a moment, they confronted each other.
"Where are you bound for?"
"I--a--" The Boy had a moment of wondering if he was expected to answer
"Hell," and he hesitated.
"Are you on your way up the river?"
"No--I" (was the man not going to let them rest their wicked bones
there a single night?)--"a--I--"
The frozen river and the wind-racked wood were as hospitable as the
beautiful face of the brother. Involuntarily the Boy shivered.
"I came to see the Father Superior."
He dropped back into a chair.
"The Father Superior is busy."
"I'll wait."
"And very tired."
"So'm I."
"--worn out with the long raging of the plague. I have waited till he
is less harassed to tell him about the Pymeuts' deliberate depravity.
Nicholas, too!--one of our own people, one of the first pupils of the
school, a communicant in the church; distinguished by a thousand
kindnesses. And this the return!"
"The return is that he takes his backsliding so to heart, he can't rest
without coming to confess and to beg the Father Superior--"
"I shall tell the Father Superior what I heard and saw. He will agree
that, for the sake of others who are trying to resist temptation, an
example should be made of Nicholas and of his father."
"And yet you nursed the old man and were kind to him, I believe, after
the offense."
"I--I thought you had killed him. But even you must see that we cannot
have a man received here as Nicholas was--the most favoured child of
the mission--who helps to perpetuate the degrading blasphemies of his
unhappy race. It's nothing to you; you even encourage--"
"'Pon my soul--" But Brother Paul struck in with an impassioned
earnestness:
"We spend a life-time making Christians of these people; and such as
you come here, and in a week undo the work of years."
"I--_I?_"
"It's only eighteen months since I myself came, but already I've
seen--" The torrent poured out with never a pause. "Last summer some
white prospectors bribed our best native teacher to leave us and become
a guide. He's a drunken wreck now somewhere up on the Yukon Flats. You
take our boys for pilots, you entice our girls away with trinkets--"
"Great Caesar! _I_ don't."
But vain was protest. For Brother Paul the visitor was not a particular
individual. He stood there for the type of the vicious white
adventurer.
The sunken eyes of the lay-brother, burning, impersonal, saw not a
particular young man and a case compounded of mixed elements, but--The
Enemy! against whom night and day he waged incessant warfare.
"The Fathers and Sisters wear out their lives to save these people. We
teach them with incredible pains the fundamental rules of civilization;
we teach them how to save their souls alive." The Boy had jumped up and
laid his hand on the door-knob. "_You_ come. You teach them to smoke--"
The Boy wheeled round.
"I don't smoke."
"... and to gamble."
"Nicholas taught _me_ to gamble. Brother Paul, I swear--"
"Yes, and to swear and get drunk, and so find the shortest way to
hell."
"Father Brachet! Father Wills!" a voice called without.
The door-knob turned under the Boy's hand, and before he could more
than draw back, a whiff of winter blew into the room, and a creature
stood there such as no man looks to find on his way to an Arctic gold
camp. A girl of twenty odd, with the face of a saint, dressed in the
black habit of the Order of St. Anne.
"Oh, Brother Paul! you are wanted--wanted quickly. I think Catherine is
worse; don't wait, or she'll die without--" And as suddenly as she came
the vision vanished, carrying Brother Paul in the wake of her streaming
veil.
The Boy sat down by the stove, cogitating how he should best set about
finding Nicholas to explain the failure of their mission.... What was
that? Voices from the other side. The opposite door opened and a man
appeared, with Nicholas and his father close behind, looking anything
but cast down or decently penitential.
"How do you do?" The white man's English had a strong French accent. He
shook hands with great cordiality. "We have heard of you from Father
Wills also. These Pymeut friends of ours say you have something to tell
me."
He spoke as though this something were expected to be highly
gratifying, and, indeed, the cheerfulness of Nicholas and his father
would indicate as much.
As the Boy, hesitating, did not accept the chair offered, smiling, the
Jesuit went on:
"Will you talk of zis matter--whatever it is--first, or will you first
go up and wash, and have our conference after supper?"
"No, thank you--a--Are you the Father Superior?"
He bowed a little ceremoniously, but still smiling.
"I am Father Brachet."
"Oh, well, Nicholas is right. The first thing to do is to explain why
we're here."
Was it the heat of the stove after the long hours of cold that made him
feel a little dizzy? He put up his hand to his head.
"I have told zem to take hot water upstairs," the Father was saying,
"and I zink a glass of toddy would be a good sing for you." He slightly
emphasised the "you," and turned as if to supplement the original
order.
"No, no!" the Boy called after him, choking a little, half with
suppressed merriment, half with nervous fatigue. "Father Brachet, if
you're kind to us, Brother Paul will never forgive you. We're all in
disgrace."
"Hein! What?"
"Yes, we're all desperately wicked."
"No, no," objected Nicholas, ready to go back on so tactless an
advocate.
"And Brother Paul has just been saying--"
"What is it, what is it?"
The Father Superior spoke a little sharply, and himself sat down in the
wooden armchair he before had placed for his white guest.
The three culprits stood in front of him on a dead level of iniquity.
"You see, Father Brachet, Ol' Chief has been very ill--"
"I know. Much as we needed him here, Paul insisted on hurrying back to
Pymeut"--he interrupted himself as readily as he had interrupted the
Boy--"but ze Ol' Chief looks lively enough."
"Yes; he--a--his spirits have been raised by--a--what you will think an
unwarrantable and wicked means."
Nicholas understood, at least, that objectionable word "wicked"
cropping up again, and he was not prepared to stand it from the Boy.
He grunted with displeasure, and said something low to his father.
"Brother Paul found them--found _us_ having a séance with the Shamán."
Father Brachet turned sharply to the natives.
"Ha! you go back to zat."
Nicholas came a step forward, twisting his mittens and rolling his eye
excitedly.
"Us no wicked. Shamán say he gottah scare off--" He waved his arm
against an invisible army. Then, as it were, stung into plain speaking:
"Shamán say _white man_ bring sickness--bring devils--"
"Maybe the old Orang Outang's right."
The Boy drew a tired breath, and sat down without bidding in one of the
wooden chairs. What an idiot he'd been not to take the hot grog and the
hot bath, and leave these people to fight their foolishness out among
themselves! It didn't concern him. And here was Nicholas talking away
comfortably in his own tongue, and the Father was answering. A native
opened the door and peeped in cautiously.
Nicholas paused.
"Hein!" said Father Brachet, "what is it!"
The Indian came in with two cups of hot tea and a cracker in each
saucer. He stopped at the priest's side.
"You get sick, too. Please take. Supper little late." He nodded to
Nicholas, and gave the white stranger the second cup. As he was going
out: "Same man here in July. You know"--he tapped himself on the left
side--"man with sore heart."
"Yansey?" said the priest quickly. "Well, what about Yansey?"
"He is here."
"But no! Wiz zose ozzers?"
"No, I think they took the dogs and deserted him. He's just been
brought in by our boys; they are back with the moose-meat. Sore heart
worse. He will die."
"Who's looking after him?"
"Brother Paul"; and he padded out of the room in his soft native shoes.
"Then Brother Paul has polished off Catherine," thought the Boy, "and
he won't waste much time over a sore heart. It behoves us to hurry up
with our penitence." This seemed to be Nicholas's view as well. He was
beginning again in his own tongue.
"You know we like best for you to practise your English," said the
priest gently; "I expect you speak very well after working so long on
ze John J. Healy."
"Yes," Nicholas straightened himself. "Me talk all same white man now."
(He gleamed at the Boy: "Don't suppose I need you and your perfidious
tongue.") "No; us Pymeuts no wicked!"
Again he turned away from the priest, and challenged the Boy to repeat
the slander. Then with an insinuating air, "Shamán no say you wicked,"
he reassured the Father. "Shamán say Holy Cross all right. Cheechalko
no good; Cheechalko bring devils; Cheechalko all same _him_," he wound
up, flinging subterfuge to the winds, and openly indicating his
faithless ambassador.
"Strikes me I'm gettin' the worst of this argument all round. Brother
Paul's been sailing into me on pretty much the same tack."
"No," said Nicholas, firmly; "Brother Paul no unnerstan'. _You_
unnerstan'." He came still nearer to the Father, speaking in a
friendly, confidential tone. "You savvy! Plague come on steamboat up
from St. Michael. One white man, he got coast sickness. Sun shining.
Salmon run big. Yukon full o' boats. Two days: no canoe on river. Men
all sit in tent like so." He let his mittens fall on the floor,
crouched on his heels, and rocked his head in his hands. Springing up,
he went on with slow, sorrowful emphasis: "Men begin die--"
"Zen we come," said the Father, "wiz nurses and proper medicine--"
Nicholas gave the ghost of a shrug, adding the damaging fact: "Sickness
come to Holy Cross."
The Father nodded.
"We've had to turn ze schools into wards for our patients," he
explained to the stranger. "We do little now but nurse ze sick and
prepare ze dying. Ze Muzzer Superieure has broken down after heroic
labours. Paul, I fear, is sickening too. Yes, it's true: ze disease
came to us from Pymeut."
In the Father's mind was the thought of contagion courageously faced in
order to succour "the least of these my brethren." In Nicholas's mind
was the perplexing fact that these white men could bring sickness, but
not stay it. Even the heap good people at Holy Cross were not saved by
their deaf and impotent God.
"Fathers sick, eight Sisters sick, boy die in school, three girl die.
Holy Cross people kind--" Again he made that almost French motion of
the shoulders. "Shamán say, 'Peeluck!' No good be kind to devils; scare
'em--make 'em run."
"Nicholas," the priest spoke wearily, "I am ashamed of you. I sought
you had learned better. Zat old Shamán--he is a rare old rogue. What
did you give him?"
Nicholas' mental processes may not have been flattering, but their
clearness was unmistakable. If Father Brachet was jealous of the rival
holy man's revenue, it was time to bring out the presents.
Ol' Chief had a fine lynx-skin over his arm. He advanced at a word from
Nicholas, and laid it down before the Father.
"No!" said Father Brachet, with startling suddenness; "take it away and
try to understand."
Nicholas approached trembling, but no doubt remembering how necessary
it had been to add to the Shamán's offering before he would consent to
listen with favour to Pymeut prayers, he pulled out of their respective
hiding--places about his person a carved ivory spoon and an embroidered
bird-skin pouch, advanced boldly under the fire of the Superior's keen
eyes and sharp words, and laid the further offering on the lynx-skin at
his feet.
"Take zem away," said the priest, interrupting his brief homily and
standing up. "Don't you understand yet zat we are your friends wizzout
money and wizzout price? We do not want zese sings. Shamán takes
ivories from ze poor, furs from ze shivering, and food from zem zat
starve. And he gives nossing in return--nossing! Take zese sings away;
no one wants zem at Holy Cross."
Ol' Chief wiped his eyes pathetically. Nicholas, the picture of
despair, turned in a speechless appeal to his despised ambassador.
Before anyone could speak, the door-knob rattled rudely, and the big
bullet-head of a white man was put in.
"Pardon, mon Père; cet homme qui vient de Minóok--faudrait le coucher
de suite--mais où, mon Dieu, où?"
While the Superior cogitated, "How-do, Brother Etienne?" said Nicholas,
and they nodded.
Brother Etienne brought the rest of his heavy body half inside the
door. He wore aged, weather-beaten breeches, and a black sweater over
an old hickory shirt.
"Ses compagnons l'ont laissé, là, je crois. Mais ça ne durera pas
longtemps."
"Faudra bien qu'il reste ici--je ne vois pas d'autre moyen," said the
Father. "Enfin--on verra. Attendez quelques instants."
"C'est bien." Brother Etienne went out.
Ol' Chief was pulling the Boy's sleeve during the little colloquy, and
saying, "You tell." But the Boy got up like one who means to make an
end.
"You haven't any time or strength for this--"
"Oh yes," said Father Brachet, smiling, and arresting the impetuous
movement. "Ziz is--part of it."
"Well," said the Boy, still hesitating, "they _are_ sorry, you know,
_really_ sorry."
"You sink so?" The question rang a little sceptically.
"Yes, I do, and I'm in a position to know. You'd forgive them if you'd
seen, as I did, how miserable and overwhelmed they were when Brother
Paul--when--I'm not saying it's the highest kind of religion that
they're so almighty afraid of losing your good opinion, but it--it
gives you a hold, doesn't it?" And then, as the Superior said nothing,
only kept intent eyes on the young face, the Boy wound up a little
angrily: "Unless, of course, you're like Brother Paul, ready to throw
away the power you've gained--"
"Paul serves a great and noble purpose--but--zese questions are--a--not
in his province." Still he bored into the young face with those kind
gimlets, his good little eyes, and--
"You are--one of us?" he asked, "of ze Church?"
"No, I--I'm afraid I'm not of any Church."
"Ah!"
"And I ought to take back 'afraid.' But I'm telling you the truth when
I say there never were honester penitents than the Pymeuts. The whole
Kachime's miserable. Even the girl, Ol' Chief's daughter she cried like
anything when she thought Sister--"
"Winifred?"
"Sister Winifred would be disappointed in her."
"Ah, yes; Sister Winifred has zem--" he held out his hand, spread the
fingers apart, and slowly, gently closed them. "Comme ça."
"But what's the good of it if Brother Paul--"
"Ah, it is not just zere Paul comes in. But I tell you, my son, Paul
does a work here no ozzer man has done so well."
"He is a flint--a fanatic."
"Fanatique!" He flung out an expressive hand. "It is a name, my son. It
often means no more but zat a man is in earnest. Out of such a 'flint'
we strike sparks, and many a generous fire is set alight. We all do
what we can here at Holy Cross, but Paul will do what we cannot."
"Well, give _me_--" He was on the point of saying "Father Wills," but
changed it to "a man who is tolerant."
"Tolerant? Zere are plenty to be tolerant, my son. Ze world is full.
But when you find a man zat can _care_, zat can be 'fanatique'--ah! It
is"--he came a little nearer--"it is but as if I would look at you and
say, 'He has earnest eyes! He will go far _whatever_ road he follow.'"
He drew off, smiling shrewdly. "You may live, my son, to be yourself
called 'fanatique.' Zen you will know how little--"
"I!" the Boy broke in. "You are pretty wide of the mark this time."
"Ah, perhaps! But zere are more trails zan ze Yukon for a fanatique.
You have zere somesing to show me?"
"I promised the girl that cried so--I promised her to bring the Sister
this." He had pulled out the picture. In spite of the careful wrapping,
it had got rather crumpled. The Father looked at it, and then a swift
glance passed between him and the Boy.
"You could see it was like pulling out teeth to part with it. Can it go
up there till the Sister sends for it?"
Father Brachet nodded, and the gorgeous worldling, counselling all men
to "Smoke Kentucky Leaf!" was set up in the high place of honour on the
mantel-shelf, beside a print of the Madonna and the Holy Child.
Nicholas cheered up at this, and Ol' Chief stopped wiping his eyes.
While the Boy stood at the mantel with his back to Father Brachet,
acting on a sudden impulse, he pulled the ivory pen-rest out of his
shirt, and stuck its various parts together, saying as he did so, "She
sent an offering to you, too. If the Ol' Chief an' I fail to convince
you of our penitence, we're all willin' to let this gentleman plead for
us." Whereupon he wheeled round and held up the Woeful One before the
Father's eyes.
The priest grasped the offering with an almost convulsive joy, and
instantly turned his back that the Pymeuts might not see the laugh that
twisted up his humorous old features. The penitents looked at each
other, and telegraphed in Pymeut that after all the Boy had come up to
time. The Father had refused the valuable lynx-skin and Nicholas'
superior spoon, but was ready, it appeared, to look with favour on
anything the Boy offered.
But very seriously the priest turned round upon the Pymeuts. "I will
just say a word to you before we wash and go in to supper." With a
kindly gravity he pronounced a few simple sentences about the
gentleness of Christ with the ignorant, but how offended the Heavenly
Father was when those who knew the true God descended to idolatrous
practices, and how entirely He could be depended upon to punish wicked
people.
Ol' Chief nodded vigorously and with sudden excitement. "Me jus' like
God."
"Hein?"
"Oh, yes. Me no stan' wicked people. When me young me kill two ol'
squaws--_witches!_" With an outward gesture of his lean claws he swept
these wicked ones off the face of the earth, like a besom of the Lord.
A sudden change had passed over the tired face of the priest. "Go, go!"
he called out, driving the Pymeuts forth as one shoos chickens out of a
garden. "Go to ze schoolhouse and get fed, for it's all you seem able
to get zere."
But the perplexed flight of the Pymeuts was arrested. Brother Paul and
Brother Etienne blocked the way with a stretcher. They all stood back
to let the little procession come in. Nobody noticed them further, but
the Pymeuts scuttled away the instant they could get by. The Boy,
equally forgotten, sat down in a corner, while the three priests
conferred in low-voiced French over the prostrate figure.
"Father Brachet," a weak voice came up from the floor.
Brother Paul hurried out, calling Brother Etienne softly from the door.
"I am here." The Superior came from the foot of the pallet, and knelt
down near the head.
"You--remember what you said last July?"
"About--"
"About making restitution."
"Yes."
"Well, I can do it now."
"I am glad."
"I've brought you the papers. That's why--I--_had_ to come. Will
you--take them--out of my--"
The priest unbuckled a travel-stained buckskin miner's belt and laid it
on the floor. All the many pockets were empty save the long one in the
middle. He unbuttoned the flap and took out some soiled, worn-looking
papers. "Are zese in proper form?" he asked, but the man seemed to have
dropped into unconsciousness. Hurriedly the priest added: "Zere is no
time to read zem. Ah! Mr.--will you come and witness zis last will and
testament?"
The Boy got up and stood near. The man from Minóok opened his eyes.
"Here!" The priest had got writing materials, and put a pen into the
slack hand, with a block of letter-paper under it.
"I--I'm no lawyer," said the faint voice, "but I think it's all--in
shape. Anyhow--you write--and I'll sign." He half closed his eyes, and
the paper slipped from under his hand. The Boy caught it, and set down
the faint words:--"will and bequeath to John M. Berg, Kansas City, my
right and title to claim No. 11 Above, Little Minóok, Yukon Ramparts--"
And the voice fell away into silence. They waited a moment, and the
Superior whispered:
"Can you sign it?"
The dull eyes opened. "Didn't I--?"
Father Brachet held him up; the Boy gave him the pen and steadied the
paper. "Thank you, Father. Obliged to you, too." He turned his dimming
eyes upon the Boy, who wrote his name in witness. "You--going to
Minóok?"
"I hope so."
The Father went to the writing-table, where he tied up and sealed the
packet.
"Anybody that's going to Minóok will have to hustle." The slang of
everyday energy sounded strangely from dying lips--almost a whisper,
and yet like a far-off bugle calling a captive to battle.
The Boy leaned down to catch the words, yet fainter:
"Good claims going like hot cakes."
"How much," the Boy asked, breathless, "did you get out of yours?"
"Waiting till summer. Nex' summer--" The eyelids fell.
"So it isn't a fake after all." The Boy stood up. "The camp's all
right!"
"You'll see. It will out-boom the Klondyke."
"Ha! How long have you been making the trip?"
"Since August."
The wild flame of enterprise sunk in the heart of the hearer.
"Since _August_?"
"No cash for steamers; we had a canoe. She went to pieces up by--" The
weak voice fell down into that deep gulf that yawns waiting for man's
last word.
"But there is gold at Minóok, you're sure? You've seen it?"
The Father Superior locked away the packet and stood up. But the Boy
was bending down fascinated, listening at the white lips. "There is
gold there?" he repeated.
Out of the gulf came faintly back like an echo:
"Plenty o' gold there--plenty o' gold."
"Jee-rusalem!" He stood up and found himself opposite the contemplative
face of the priest.
"We have neglected you, my son. Come upstairs to my room."
They went out, the old head bent, and full of thought; the young head
high, and full of dreams. Oh, to reach this Minóok, where there was
"plenty of gold, plenty of gold," before the spring floods brought
thousands. What did any risk matter? Think of the Pymeuts doing their
sixty miles over the ice just to apologise to Father Brachet for being
Pymeuts. This other, this white man's penance might, would involve a
greater mortification of the flesh. What then? The reward was
proportionate--"plenty of gold." The faint whisper filled the air.
A little more hardship, and the long process of fortune-building is
shortened to a few months. No more office grind. No more anxiety for
those one loves.
Gold, plenty of gold, while one is young and can spend it gaily--gold
to buy back the Orange Grove, to buy freedom and power, to buy wings,
and to buy happiness!
On the stairs they passed Brother Paul and the native.
"Supper in five minutes, Father."
The Superior nodded.
"There is a great deal to do," the native went on hurriedly to Paul.
"We've got to bury Catherine to-morrow--"
"And this man from Minóok," agreed Paul, pausing with his hand on the
door.