JULES spread the news fast, and although a tremendous hurrying and
running about took place, still everything was done in an orderly way
and with significant purpose. The roofs of the buildings were quickly
covered with green wolf-hides as a protection against firebrands; the
women and children were placed in the strongest log house; tepees were
pulled down and the poles thrust sharp end upward against the stockade.
The gates were double-barred and braced, and big logs rolled against
them. The factor dealt out guns and ammunition, also axes to the men. In
an hour everything was ready; many of the Frenchmen had tied their
bright handkerchiefs over their foreheads, thrown off their mufflers,
and rolled up their shirt-sleeves, showing the weather-blackened and
muscle-knotted arms. The Indians were quiet and grave, the white men
joking and laughing, some in earnest, a few to hide their fear. The
squaws wept and wailed in unison in their strong house; their voices
sounding discordant and shrill, mingled with the tearful screams of
children. Then the factor came among the defenders.
“Me lads, do the best ye can, and God forgie us and them,” he said.
Then came the lull before the storm. Men stationed as sentries on four
sides of the stockade stared at the forests through the little spaces
between the logs. Only muffled cryings came from the women; the men,
with their guns, waited grimly for the attack.
Jules, a long, light axe in his hand, paced up and down under the
stockade, peering through here and there.
The farthest sentry moved his hand in signal. Jules ran to him and
looked. Men were moving rapidly among the tree trunks, but silently; as
Verbaux watched he saw them open out like a fan and skirt the edge of
the timber. He turned to the others and laid his fingers on his lips.
The attacking party came out into the clearing, advancing step by step
and listening. On they came till they reached the stockade. Something
pressed against the gate; it creaked lightly, a heavier shove made it
groan, then Gregoire’s rifle sounded loudly.
“Nor’ouest! Nor’ouest! Nor’ouest!” shouted the defenders.
Outside the upright logs rifles crashed merrily, their bullets whistling
and sighing across the yard. “Ah, diable!” screamed a Northwest voyageur
and fell, writhing, clutching at his chest.
Outside and in the shouts and curses grew and grew until the sound was
gigantic. Oaths, blasphemies, bitter curses, rang out while the guns
rattled on through the chinks in the logs. The choking powder smoke
burdened the air; it hung close and suffocating in the yard. A hand
appeared on the top of the stockade.
_Cludd!_ and Gregoire’s axe severed four of its fingers: they fell
inside, and lay on the snow waxen and bloody.
“Oh, Dieu! blessée!” groaned a huge trapper, Eugenois by name; he
staggered to and fro, gasping for air, reeling weakly, then he fell and
lay still.
Little by little the flames of battle, of hate, grew in Jules’s heart as
he saw his friends limping, falling about him.
Wild screams sounded from the squaws’ refuge; a bullet had found its way
in and had killed a child. The men’s fury redoubled. The smoke settled
lower and lower until figures were only as shadows flitting through it,
firing, loading, and firing again from the yard and building-tops. A
loud crash resounded thickly, and the splintering of wood; the big gates
were buckling under the impact of some strong material. _Crash!_
_crackle!_ _crack!_ The wood bent, sagged, broke, and fell inward bit by
bit.
“Here, lads, for God’s sake stand ’em off; think of yer squaws, me
lads!”
The factor’s voice sounded true and strong over the awful tumult.
Trappers rushed to him, working their rifles frantically, some wounded,
the bright red blood streaming from arms, sides, and faces. Big Indians,
stoic in their pain, hard hit, fired regularly at the men outside.
“Ha!” shouted a Canadian as he rolled off the store roof to the ground
below, striking it with a thud.
“At ’em, lads; gie it to ’em!” screamed the factor, seizing an axe and
striking hard at a face that showed over the wall. For a second the
growing gash showed livid and terrible, then the head sank. Always and
ever the rifles outside and within the stockade spat tongues of flame.
Incessantly their death missiles twanged and shrilled, striking logs and
living men. The yells and agonised cries grew fiercer and more wild;
then “Le feu!” Verbaux shouted, as he saw tongues of flame creeping,
licking, leaping over the logs of a shed. He tore off his shirt, wrapped
it about his hands, and beat at the flames; they scorched and burned
him, but he beat on; others joined him, leaping at the scarlet waves of
fire, and together they put them out and returned to the stockade. An
Indian near Verbaux dropped his rifle, swayed a moment, and tumbled
without a word.
“Hurrt bad?” shrieked Jules.
The black eyes looked into his, a spasm crossed the strong face, and it
was over.
From the trees themselves came a hail of bullets, humming,
_pi-i-i-inging_ in the yard. A hot thing passed through Jules’s forearm.
“Sacré-é-é-é!” he growled as he tied his handkerchief above the wound,
that dripped blood steadily. It ached, it burned, it seared his mind,
this wound. He became savage instead of defensive. Here and there forms
and faces tried to climb over the stockade.
“Çà toi!” Jules slashed powerfully at one of them, and felt his axe bite
deep; the handle was nearly wrenched from his grasp as the man fell, his
head split to the chin, and the hot red flow ran down the wooden handle
and covered Verbaux’s hand. “Bon!” he said to himself, and watched for
more.
“_Crang!_ _crash!_ _bang!_ _whi-i-i-i-ng!_ _crack!_ _pang-pang-pang!_”
sounded the guns without and within.
“I’m hit, lads!” the factor called, and tumbled to the bloody ground.
Jules and Gregoire ran to him. The heart’s flow ebbed in spurts from his
chest.
“Keep it up, me lads; gie it to ’em! Don’t gie up, Verbaux. I trust the
post to ye, lad. Good-b—” The brave man’s voice died away in a deep sigh
and he lay still.
In the midst of the turmoil, with death passing them close each instant,
the two pulled off their caps and muttered a prayer.
“Come, den,” Gregoire said, “la mort for touts!”
Everywhere men slashed and hacked wildly; loaded and fired with blood
fury, gnashing their teeth and howling in frenzy. A big dog ran round
and round in a circle, biting at a wound in his side and foaming at the
mouth; in his pain-blindness he fell against Gregoire; the latter with
one quick stroke of his axe severed the suffering beast’s head, picked
it up and hurled it at the figures that tried desperately to scale the
stockade. Then firebrands began dropping fast among and on the
buildings; here and there spouts of red showed that they had caught.
Verbaux put them out; he climbed on the highest shed and stood there
with bullets moaning through the air, seeking him, but he was not
afraid, and stamped out another blaze. He could see over the walls, and
counted many men in the attacking party; several lay on the snow, some
rolling and twisting, others motionless. Still the wind would not come,
and the sullen powder fumes hung like gray shrouds over everything, the
fighting, cursing forms rushing back and forth through them like
phantoms. Fifteen bodies lay inert in the yard, trampled on by the
defenders; there was no time or chance to carry them away.
A bullet breathed against Jules’s face, then another and another passed
close to his head. He looked at the trees across the clearing; jets of
thick blue smoke came from the green masses, opened out, then floated
upward grudgingly.
“En bas! En bas!” shrieked Gregoire at him from below, and he leaped
down into the thick of the defence.
“By Dieu! Dey goin’ keel nous, by dam’!” a trapper yelled, as he wiped
powder grains from his eyes with bloody hands.
Again the women broke into frantic cries and came rushing out into the
yard. Unnoticed, the corner of their refuge had caught from a brand, and
half the structure was blazing fiercely; flames leaped into the
smoke-thickened atmosphere, cleaving it with their forked tines, and the
heat was frightful. Higher and higher the flames danced and played; the
women crouched by the store, the children, dumb with fear, watched the
horrible scene with set eyes. A young squaw moaned pitifully and fell on
her side; the others chanted as they saw the red coming from under the
black hair. Jules went to the wounded girl, but she was dead.
“For dat Ah keel, bon Dieu!” and Verbaux cursed as he ran back to the
others. “Mes frères, ve go hout and keel!” he called loudly, a strange
note in the powerful voice. Every man able to stand ran to him; with
quick strokes they cut the weakened gates open and rushed out. A big
Indian came at Jules with reversed gun, trying to club him; Verbaux
parried the stroke, swung his axe underhand and drove the steel into the
other’s legs; the man sank, and tried to crawl away on his hands and
knees; Gregoire saw him and finished that life with a fearful blow on
the Indian’s skull. The Hudson Bay’s men could not get into the yard;
men fought hand to hand and in groups. The curses and shouts ceased
somewhat; only gasps and hoarse grunts could be heard above the roaring
of the burning house in the post. Some one made a lunge at Verbaux with
a knife; the keen blade slit his shirt and scratched the skin; before
Jules could retaliate a Northwester killed the man with the stock of his
gun.
“Bon le Nor’ouest! Bon! Bien fait!” Jules shouted as he saw that his men
were slowly forcing the others back to the edge of the timber. He
gripped his axe with both hands and leaped into the hardest of the
fight, pounding and slicing. Little by little the enemy were driven off.
“Los’! Sauf you’self dat can!” screamed a voice.
With one thought, what was left of the attacking party turned and fled,
running through the trees.
“Non! Non!” Jules yelled at those of his men who started to pursue. “Put
h’out de fir’!”
The men tore into the yard, and despite the heat and glare they pulled
down the burning building and stopped the advance of the conflagration
on other sheds that had caught.
The reeking smoke lifted and rolled away slowly, and the afternoon sun
shone clear on the scene.
No one spoke; disfigured bodies, some scorched and blackened, others
twisted in inconceivable shapes, were all over the yard. The smell of
clotting blood tainted the air; low cryings and monotonous chants
sounded as the women rocked to and fro over their dead. Broken rifles
and dismantled axe-heads were scattered about; quantities of
gun-waddings were everywhere. The logs showed little black-rimmed holes
where the unsuccessful lead had buried itself in the wood. Nearly all
the trappers were tying up wounds, grumbling and swearing. The smell of
burnt wood and cloth came strongly from the ruined shed, where nothing
but charred logs and twining smoke was left. Jules went the rounds and
took account. Nineteen dead, thirteen wounded, some badly.
“Ah t’ink dat dose man no come back ici ver’ immédiatement,” he said.
Then came the work of clearing up. In two hours the dead were heaped by
the gate to be taken out for burial, the tepees reset, fires started,
and the badly hurt stretched as comfortably as possible in the back of
the store. The widowed squaws sat by the heap of inanimate forms, their
heads dishevelled, dresses torn and awry; they wept and sobbed as they
kept up their ceaseless rocking.
Evening came; the shadows lengthened and blackened shade by shade.
Verbaux sat by the fire with Gregoire, Charles Chartier, Jacques
Pelisse, Jean Fainéant, Josèphe Hebert, Batiste Lafarge, and Morning
Star. They ate their supper silently. Verbaux’s arm bothered him; it
throbbed and pulsated painfully, and he moved it to and fro, as the
motion alleviated the aching. The chief lighted his long pipe and passed
it gravely to Jules, who puffed on it a few times and handed it back.
Then Morning Star spoke:
“Ah-ta-tah-ke-bou-tis-in [Big man of the fight], the great Manitou is
pleased. What are your orders?” The others looked at Jules curiously.
Verbaux sat thinking, pondering, when one of the sentries came up
hurriedly.
“Somme vone dey comme h’alon’!” he said. As he spoke a rapping was heard
on the reinforced gates.
“Laissez entre!” Jules said.
A small Canadian ran in, panting. He stopped when he saw the dead piled
near the gate, and his eyes widened at the sight of the burned building
and the bandaged men.
“Ah comme so queeck Ah can for to tell dat you goin’ be h’attack h’aga’n
von taime dam’ ver’ soon; Ah see vone hunder’ mans yes’day by Lac Plat.
Ah sneeek an’ leesten; dey say dey comme ici!” He sat down wearily; a
long silence ensued; every one looked at Jules. Morning Star puffed on
stoically.
The faint night breeze swung the smoke here and there, wafting it across
the men’s faces, that shone ruddy in the light. The lulling death-song
of the squaws floated on the wind; the sniffing and querulous bickerings
of the dogs came harshly on the night stillness. Bright spark-eyes from
the coals hastened to their end in the cooling atmosphere, and beyond in
the deep timber the trees sighed and their branches rubbed sibilantly
together. Verbaux was silent; the rest waited.
“Étoile du Matin, vat you say to dees?” he asked, in a few minutes.
Morning Star rose, and looking at the heavens that sparkled with the
diamond lights of the stars, he answered in a sing-song voice:
“Ah-ta-tah-ke-bou-tis-in, your words are heard by the Manitou; you ask,
he answers through me: do as you would do for the best”; and Morning
Star relapsed into silence again and smoked on.
Then sharply over the soothing quiet sounded the yelping bark of a fox.
Once, twice, thrice, the piercing note thrilled and echoed, then quiet,
with its suggestiveness of peace, fell over everything.
And Verbaux thought deeply: on one hand, his heart’s desire and his
cravings; on the other, his duty as he saw it. “Ah t’ink dat h’all mus’
go ’way, partir, f’om dees place; dere ees no de facteur, ve can no
stand h’off autre h’attack; Ah no desire stay ici; an’ Ah say, den, dat
to-mor’, v’en de sonne comme h’ovaire de tree, dat ve brûler dis poste,
dat vous h’all go, partez, to Maison du Lac, an’ dat moi, Ah go to
Reliance!”
Morning Star nodded, the others grunted their approval and betook
themselves to sleep and rest. So did Verbaux, and nothing moved in the
post but the four sentries that paced silently up and down, across, and
between the log openings.
The night was dark and the air damp and still; at daylight snow fell
swiftly; the cold white bits massed themselves on everything; shapes
grew, becoming distorted and vague. The soft murmuring of the trees as
they bowed to and fro in the light wind came faintly through the screens
of white; like veils of down, the big flakes floated to the earth,
silently and relentlessly. The sentries gathered together, and their
guttural whisperings sounded thick and muffled on the heavy air; one
lighted his pipe, and the faint glow of the match showed the four faces
close together, and cast thin shadows behind their ears. Up and down, up
and down they paced again, their figures moving by unseen motion in the
dim half-morning light. The smell of burnt wood was blown about by the
eddying draft that moved within the walls, seeking its way out. Then
from somewhere floated a cry—an unknown, indescribable tone that
vibrated, thrilled a moment, and died away.
“Qu’est-ce?” asked one of the Indians. No answer: the others were
listening. Only the snow silence could be heard; the minute settling of
the flakes on the logs, the drifting of the heavier ones against the
buildings, was audible; beyond these nothing was felt but the peace of
the coming of day, that hour when everything is truly still, when man
sleeps the heaviest, when animals are about to wake, but have not moved
from their night’s bed. The sentries watched from their loopholes and
saw the light come stronger and stronger; saw the outlines of the
clearing define themselves; saw the branches of the trees stand out
clearer and clearer from the mass and become separate; saw them bending
farther and farther with their load of white, and finally could see
through the dull gloom of the forest trunks, and discern the stillness
of everything. The atmosphere changed suddenly; it became steel-like in
its sting of cold. The falling snow was harder and the wind increased,
blowing it into the men’s faces in biting myriads. The light was
chilling and gray; comfortless and repellent. For a fleeting instant one
yellow ray of the coming sun forced itself athwart the pallid heavens,
then it was gone and all was bleak and stern again.
A fire was lighted by a tepee; voices came and went; then more fires
shone uncertainly through the changing, ever-falling white, and the post
was awake. Dull and lifeless seemed the inhabitants as they moved hither
and thither solemnly. For were they not to leave their homes to-day and
go into the Unknown of the wilderness? Breakfasts were eaten in quiet;
the flames that boiled the tea and cooked the meal alone gave life to
the cheerless scene. And afterward came the tearing down of homes, the
packing of necessities and little family treasures, the gathering of all
outside the stockade. Jules had arranged everything, and now he went,
firebrand in hand, from building to shed and building, setting them all
ablaze. As the lurid fires shot skyward he took off his fur cap and
muttered “Adieu!” with the rest. “Dieu soit veet’ you h’all!” he said
then, and gravely watched the trappers and their families as they
disappeared, with the wounded on the dog-teams, into the dense
timber-land beyond. He listened for their voices, and a feeling of
loneliness, of longing for some one, came over him with unpitying force.
The buildings burned with roars and crashings, and the billows of sparks
were lifted up and carried far into the snow air. And still he watched,
fascinated: shed by shed, log house by log house, the post caught,
flared, and fell before him. At last the stockade caught the
conflagration, and rings of fire crept slowly round it; and then it was
all gone but heaps of smouldering ashes.
“Adieu encore,” Jules said as he swung about and went off under the
thick trees, his snow-shoes sounding dully as he strode along.
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