THE "STRAY" BEYOND THE MUSKEG
The Foss River Settlement nestles in one of those shallow
hollows--scarcely a valley and which yet must be designated by such a
term--in which the Canadian North-West abounds.
We are speaking now of the wilder and less-inhabited parts of the great
country, where grain-growing is only incidental, and the prevailing
industry is stock-raising. Where the land gradually rises towards the
maze-like foothills before the mighty crags of the Rockies themselves be
reached. A part where yet is to be heard of the romantic crimes of the
cattle-raiders; a part to where civilization has already turned its
face, but where civilizaton has yet to mature. In such a country is
situate the Foss River Settlement.
The settlement itself is like dozens of others of its kind. There is the
school-house, standing by itself, apart from other buildings, as if in
proud distinction for its classic vocation. There is the church, or
rather chapel, where every denomination holds its services. A saloon,
where four per cent. beer and prohibition whiskey of the worst
description is openly sold over the bar; where you can buy poker "chips"
to any amount, and can sit down and play from daylight till dark, from
dark to daylight. A blacksmith and wheelwright; a baker; a carpenter; a
doctor who is also a druggist; a store where one can buy every article
of dry goods at exorbitant prices--and on credit; and then, besides all
this, well beyond the township limit there is a half-breed settlement, a
place which even to this day is a necessary evil and a constant thorn
in the side of that smart, efficient force--the North-West Mounted
Police.
Lablache's store stands in the center of the settlement, facing on to
the market-place--the latter a vague, undefined space of waste ground on
which vendors of produce are wont to draw up their wagons. The store is
a massive building of great extent. Its proportions rise superior to its
surroundings, as if to indicate in a measure its owner's worldly status
in the district It is built entirely of stone, and roofed with
slate--the only building of such construction in the settlement.
A wonderful center of business is Lablache's store--the chief one for a
radius of fifty miles. Nearly the whole building is given up to the
stocking of goods, and only at the back of the building is to be found a
small office which answers the multifarious purposes of office, parlor,
dining-room, smoking-room--in short, every necessity of its owner,
except bedroom, which occupies a mere recess partitioned off by thin
matchwood boarding.
Wealthy as Lablache was known to be he spent little or no money upon
himself beyond just sufficient to purchase the bare necessities of life.
He had few requirements which could not be satisfied under the headings
of tobacco and food--both of which he indulged himself freely. The
saloon provided the latter, and as for the former, trade price was best
suited to his inclinations, and so he drew upon his stock. He was a
curious man, was Verner Lablache--a man who understood the golden value
of silence. He never even spoke of his nationality. Foss River was
content to call him curious--some people preferred other words to
express their opinion.
Lablache had known John Allandale for years. Who, in Foss River, had he
not known for years? Lablache would have liked to call old John his
friend, but somehow "Poker" John had never responded to the
money-lender's advances. Lablache showed no resentment. If he cared at
all he was careful to keep his feelings hidden. One thing is certain,
however, he allowed himself to think long and often of old John--and his
household. Often, when in the deepest stress of his far-reaching work,
he would heave his great bulk back in his chair and allow those fishy,
lashless, sphinx-like eyes of his to gaze out of his window in the
direction of the Foss River Ranch. His window faced in the direction of
John's house, which was plainly visible on the slope which bounded the
southern side of the settlement.
And so it came about a few days later, in one of these digressions of
thought, that the money-lender, gazing out towards the ranch, beheld a
horseman riding slowly up to the veranda of the Allandale's house. There
was nothing uncommon in the incident, but the sight riveted his
attention, and an evil light came into his usually expressionless eyes.
He recognized the horseman as the Hon. Bunning-Ford.
Lablache swung round on his revolving chair, and, in doing so, kicked
over a paper-basket. The rapidity of his movement was hardly to be
expected in one of his bulk. His thin eyebrows drew together in an ugly
frown.
"What does he want?" he muttered, under his heavy breath.
He hazarded no answer to his own question. It was answered for him. He
saw the figure of a woman step out on to the veranda.
The money-lender rose swiftly to his feet and took a pair of
field-glasses from their case. Adjusting them he gazed long and
earnestly at the house on the hill.
Jacky was talking to "Lord" Bill. She was habited in her dungaree skirt
and buckskin bodice. Presently Bill dismounted and passed into the
house.
Lablache shut his glasses with a snap and turned away from the window.
For some time he stood gazing straight before him and a swift torrent of
thought flowed through his active brain. Then, with the directness of
one whose mind is made up, he went over to a small safe which stood in
a corner of the room. From this he took an account book. The cover bore
the legend "Private." He laid it upon the table, and, for some moments,
bent over it as he scanned its pages.
He paused at an account headed John Allandale. The figures of this
account were very large, totalling into six figures. The balance against
the rancher was enormous. Lablache gave a satisfied grunt as he turned
over to another account.
"Safe--safe enough. Safe as the Day of Doom," he said slowly. His mouth
worked with a cruel smile.
He paused at the account of Bunning-Ford.
"Twenty thousand dollars--um," the look of satisfaction was changed. He
looked less pleased, but none the less cruel. "Not enough--let me see.
His place is worth fifty thousand dollars. Stock another thirty
thousand. I hold thirty-five thousand on first mortgage for the Calford
Trust and Loan Co." He smiled significantly. "This bill of sale for
twenty thousand is in my own name. Total, fifty-five thousand. Sell him
up and there would still be a margin. No, not yet, my friend."
He closed the book and put it away. Then he walked to the window.
Bunning-Ford's horse was still standing outside the house.
"He must be dealt with soon," he muttered.
And in those words was concentrated a world of hate and cruel purpose.
Who shall say of what a man's disposition is composed? Who shall
penetrate those complex feelings which go to make a man what his secret
consciousness knows himself to be? Not even the man himself can tell the
why and wherefore of his passions and motives. It is a matter beyond the
human ken. It is a matter which neither science nor learning can tell us
of. Verner Lablache was possessed of all that prosperity could give him.
He was wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, and no pleasure which money
could buy was beyond his reach. He knew, only too well, that when the
moment came, and he wished it, he could set out for any of the great
centers of fashion and society, and there purchase for himself a wife
who would fulfill the requirements of the most fastidious. In his own
arrogant mind he went further, and protested that he could choose whom
he would and she would be his. But this method he set aside as too
simple, and, instead, had decided to select for his wife a girl whom he
had watched grow up to womanhood from the first day that she had opened
her great, wondering eyes upon the world. And thus far he had been
thwarted. All his wealth went for nothing. The whim of this girl he had
chosen was more powerful in this matter than was gold--the gold he
loved. But Lablache was not the man to sit down and admit of defeat; he
meant to marry Joaquina Allandale willy-nilly. Love was impossible to
such a man as he. He had conceived an absorbing passion for her, it is
true, but love--as it is generally understood--no. He was not a young
man--the victim of a passion, fierce but transient. He was matured in
all respects--in mind and body. His passion was lasting, if impure, and
he meant to take to himself the girl-wife. Nothing should stand in his
way.
He turned back to his desk, but not to work.
In the meantime the object of his forcible attentions was holding an
interesting _tête-à-tête_ with the man against whom he fostered an evil
purpose.
Jacky was seated at a table in the pleasant sitting-room of her uncle's
house. Spread out before her were several open stock books, from which
she was endeavoring to estimate the probable number of "beeves" which
the early spring would produce. This was a task which she always liked
to do herself before the round-up was complete, so as the easier to sort
the animals into their various pastures when they should come in. Her
visitor was standing with his back to the stove, in typical Canadian
fashion. He was, clad in a pair of well-worn chaps drawn over a pair of
moleskin trousers, and wore a gray tweed coat and waistcoat over a soft
cotton shirt, of the "collar attached" type. As he stood there the stoop
of his shoulders was very pronounced. His fair hair was carefully
brushed, and although his face was slightly weather-stained, still, it
was quite easy to imagine the distinguished figure he would be, clad in
all the solemn pomp of broadcloth and the silk glaze of fashionable
society in the neighborhood of Bond Street.
The girl was not looking at her books. She was looking up and smiling at
a remark her companion had just made.
"And so your friend, Pat Nabob, is going up into the mountains after
gold. Does he know anything about prospecting?"
"I think so--he's had some experience."
Jacky became serious. She rose and turned to the window, which commanded
a perfect view of the distant peaks of the Rockies, towering high above
the broad, level expanse of the great muskeg. With her back still turned
to him she fired an abrupt question.
"Say, Bill, guess 'Pickles' has some other reason for this mad scheme.
What is it? You can't tell me he's going just for love of the adventure
of the thing. Now, let's hear the truth."
Unobserved by the girl, her companion shrugged his shoulders.
"If you want his reason you'd better ask him, Jacky. I can only
surmise."
"So can I." Jacky turned sharply. "I'll tell you why he's going, Bill,
and you can bet your last cent I'm right. Lablache is at the bottom of
it. He's at the bottom of everything that causes people to leave Foss
River. He's a blood-sucker."
Bunning-Ford nodded. He was rarely expansive. Moreover, he knew he could
add nothing to what the girl had said. She expressed his sentiments
fully. There was a pause. Jacky was keenly eyeing the tall thin figure
at the stove.
"Why did you come to tell me of this?" she asked at last.
"Thought you'd like to know. You like 'Pickles.'"
"Yes--Bill, you are thinking of going with him."
Her companion laughed uneasily. This girl was very keen.
"I didn't say so."
"No, but still you are thinking of doing so. See here, Bill, tell me all
about it."
Bill coughed. Then he turned, and stooping, shook the ashes from the
stove and opened the damper.
"Beastly cold in here," he remarked inconsequently.
"Yes--but, out with it."
Bill stood up and turned his indolent eyes upon his interrogator.
"I wasn't thinking of going--to the mountains."
"Where then?"
"To the Yukon."
"Ah!"
In spite of herself the girl could not help the exclamation.
"Why?" she went on a moment later.
"Well, if you must have it, I shan't be able to last out this
summer--unless a stroke of luck falls to my share."
"Financially?"
"Financially."
"Lablache?"
"Lablache--and the Calford Trust Co."
"The same thing," with conviction.
"Exactly--the same thing."
"And you stand?"
"If I meet the interest on my mortgages it will take away every head of
fat cattle I can scrape together, and then I cannot pay Lablache other
debts which fall due in two weeks' time." He quietly drew out his
tobacco-pouch and rolled a cigarette. He seemed quite indifferent to his
difficulties. "If I realize on the ranch now there'll be something left
for me. If I go on, by the end of the summer there won't be."
"I suppose you mean that you will be deeper in debt."
He smiled in his own peculiarly lazy fashion as he held a lighted match
to his cigarette.
"Just so. I shall owe Lablache more," he said, between spasmodic draws
at his tobacco.
"Lablache has wonderful luck at cards."
"Yes," shortly.
Jacky returned to the table and sat down. She turned the pages of a
stock book idly. She was thinking and the expression of her dark,
determined little face indicated the unpleasant nature of her thoughts.
Presently she looked up and encountered the steady gaze of her
companion. They were great friends--these two. In that glance each read
in the other's mind something of a mutual thought. Jacky, with womanly
readiness, put part of it into words.
"No one ever seems to win against him, Bill. Guess he makes a steady
income out of poker."
The man nodded and gulped down a deep inhalation from his cigarette.
"Wonderful luck," the girl went on.
"Some people call it 'luck,'" put in Bill, quietly, but with a curious
purse of the lips.
"What do you call it?" sharply.
Bunning-Ford refused to commit himself. He contented himself with
blowing the ash from his cigarette and crossing over to the window,
where he stood looking out. He had come there that afternoon with a
half-formed intention of telling this girl something which every girl
must hope to hear sooner or later in her life. He had come there with
the intention of ending, one way or the other, a
friendship--_camaraderie_--whatever you please to call it, by telling
this hardy girl of the prairie the old, old story over again. He loved
this woman with an intensity that very few would have credited him with.
Who could associate lazy, good-natured, careless "Lord" Bill with
serious love? Certainly not his friends. And yet such was the case, and
for that reason had he come. The affairs of Pat Nabob were but a
subterfuge. And now he found it impossible to pronounce the words he had
so carefully thought out. Jacky was not the woman to approach easily
with sentiment, she was so "deucedly practical." So Bill said to
himself. It was useless to speculate upon her feelings. This girl never
allowed anything approaching sentiment to appear upon the surface. She
knew better than to do so. She had the grave responsibility of her
uncle's ranch upon her shoulders, therefore all men must be kept at
arm's length. She was in every sense a woman, passionate, loyal, loving.
But in addition nature had endowed her with a spirit which rose superior
to feminine attributes and feelings. The blood in her veins--her life on
the prairie--her tender care and solicitude for her uncle, of whose
failings and weaknesses she was painfully aware, had caused her to put
from her all thoughts of love and marriage. Her life must be devoted to
him, and while he lived she was determined that no thought of self
should interfere with her self-imposed duty.
At last "Lord" Bill broke the silence which had fallen upon the room
after the girl's unanswered question. His remark seemed irrevelant and
inconsequent.
"There's a horse on the other side of the muskeg. Who's is it?"
Jacky was at his side in an instant. So suddenly had she bounded from
the table, that her companion turned, with that lazy glance of his, and
looked keenly at her. He failed to understand her excitement. She had
snatched up a pair of field-glasses and had already leveled them at the
distant object.
She looked long and earnestly across the miry waste. Then she turned to
her companion with a strange look in her beautiful gray eyes.
"Bill, I've seen that horse before. Four days ago. I've looked for it
ever since, but couldn't see it. I'm going to round it up."
"Eh? How?"
Bill was looking out across the muskeg again.
"Guess I'm going right across there this evening," the girl said
quietly.
"Across the muskeg?" Her companion was roused out of himself. His
usually lazy gray eyes were gleaming brightly. "Impossible!"
"Not at all, Bill," she replied, with an easy smile. "I know the path."
"But I thought there was only one man who ever knew that mythical path,
and--he is dead."
"Quite right, Bill--only one _man_."
"Then the old stories--"
There was a peculiar expression on the man's face. The girl interrupted
him with a gay laugh.
"Bother the 'old stories.' I'm going across there this evening after
tea--coming?"
Bunning-Ford looked across at the clock--the hands pointed to half-past
one. He was silent for a minute. Then he said,--
"I'll be with you at four if--if you'll tell me all about--"
"Peter Retief--yes, I'll tell you as we go, Bill. What are you going to
do until then?"
"I'm going down to the saloon to meet 'Pickles,' your pet aversion,
Pedro Mancha, and we're going to find a fourth."
"Ah, poker?"
"Yes, poker."
"I'm sorry, Bill. But be here at four sharp and I'll tell you all about
it. See here, boy, 'mum's' the word."
The craving of the Hon. Bunning-Ford's life was excitement. His
temperament bordered on the lethargic. He felt that unless he could
obtain excitement life was utterly unbearable. He had sought it all over
the world before he had adopted the life of a rancher. Here in the West
of Canada he had found something of what he sought. There was the big
game shooting in the mountains, and the pursuit of the "grizzly" is the
most wildly enthralling chase in the world. There was the taming and
"breaking" of the wild and furious "broncho"--the most exemplary
"bucking" horse in the world. There was the "round-up" and handling of
cattle which never failed to give unlimited excitement. And then, at all
times, was the inevitable poker, that king of all excitements among card
games. The West of Canada had pleased "Lord" Bill as did no other
country, and so he had invested the remains of his younger son's portion
in stock.
He had asked for excitement and Canada had responded generously. Bill
had found more than excitement, he had found love; and had found a
wealth of real friendship rarely equaled in the busy cities of
civilization.
In the midst of all these things which, seeking, he had found, came this
suggestion from a girl. The muskeg--the cruel, relentless muskeg, that
mire, dreaded and shunned by white men and natives alike. It could be
crossed by a secret, path. The thought pleased him. And none knew of
this path except a man who was dead and this girl he loved. There was a
strange excitement in the thought of such a journey.
"Lord" Bill, ignoring his stirrup, vaulted into his saddle, and, as he
swung his horse round and headed towards the settlement, he wondered
what the day would bring forth.
"Confound the cards," he muttered, as he rode away.
And it was the first time in his life that he had reluctantly
contemplated a gamble.
Had he only known it, a turning-point in his life was rapidly
approaching--a turning-point which would lead to events which, if told
as about to occur in the nineteenth century, would surely bring down
derision upon the head of the teller. And yet would the derided one have
right on his side.