Carcajou Is Shocked
After Stefan had started away with Madge, Miss Sophy McGurn, who had
been on the watch, was delighted to see Mrs. Olsen coming to the
store. She greeted her customer more pleasantly than ever and served
her with a bag of beans, two spools of black thread and a pound of the
best oleo-butter. The older woman was nothing loath to talk, and
confirmed the girl's suspicion that Stefan had taken that young woman
to Hugo's. Mrs. Olsen insisted on the fact that her visitor was a real
pretty girl, though awfully thin and looking as if a breath would blow
her over. She also commented on the lack of suitable clothing for such
dreadful weather, and on the utter ignorance Madge seemed to display
of anything connected with Carcajou or, in fact, any part of Ontario.
When questioned, cautiously, she admitted that she knew no reason
whatever for the girl's coming, but she hastened to assert that Stefan
had said it was all right, which settled the question, and, with her
rather waddling gait, started off for her house again.
As soon as Stefan returned Sophy saw that he still had a woman on his
toboggan. She hurried to meet him and was grievously disappointed when
she found out it was Mrs. Carew. But she boldly went up to Stefan.
"Hello! Stefan!" she said. "Where did you leave your passenger of this
morning?"
"Hello! Sophy!" he answered, placidly. "I leaf de yong leddy vhere she
ban going, I tank."
"She isn't coming back to-night?"
"Mebbe yes, mebbe no," he answered, grabbing Mrs. Carew's bag and
hurrying with her into the station, for the engine's whistle announced
that he had made the journey with little or no time to spare.
Sophy made her way back to the store, meeting Mrs. Kilrea on her way.
To this lady she confided that a young woman had gone up to Hugo
Ennis' shack and had not returned. Wasn't it queer? And Mrs. Olsen had
said that she wasn't Hugo's wife or sister. Wasn't it funny? But of
course she supposed it was all right.
Mrs. Kilrea called on old Mrs. Follansbee, who told Mrs. McIntosh.
This lady was a Cree Indian that had become more or less civilized.
The white women would speak to her on account of her husband Aleck,
who was really a very nice man. At any rate all the ladies of Carcajou
were soon aware of the unusual happening, scenting strange news and
perhaps even a bit of scandal.
Big Stefan, having urged his team to their utmost, now fed them
carefully and locked them up in his shed, a local habit providing
against bloody fights that were objected to not so much on moral
principle as because these contests often resulted in the disabling of
valuable animals. It also prevented incursions among the few sheep of
the neighborhood or long hunts in which dogs indulged by themselves,
returning with sore feet and utterly unable to move for a day or two.
The animals, before falling asleep, were biting off the crackling
icicles that had formed in the hair growing between their padded toes.
The journey had not exhausted them in the slightest and on the morrow
they would be perfectly fit for further travel, if need be.
Neither was Stefan weary. After supper he quietly strolled over to the
store where some of Carcajou's choicest spirits were gathered, since
the village boasted no saloon. Here the news was discussed, as spread
out by the few who got a daily or weekly paper from Ottawa or Sudbury,
or gathered in the immediate neighborhood by the local gossips.
"Hello, Stefan!" exclaimed Miles Parker, who was supposed to watch
over the sawmill and see that the machinery didn't suffer too much
during the long period of disuse. "How did ye find the travelin'
to-day? See ye didn't manage ter freeze them whiskers off'n yer face,
did ye?"
"Dey're yoost vhere dey belongs, I tank," answered Stefan, quietly.
"Miss Sophy, if you haf time I take two plugs Lumberman's Joy
terbacker."
"Stefan he's so all-fired big he got to keep a chew on each side of
his face," explained Pat Kilrea, a first-rate mechanic who was then
busy with the construction of a little steamer that was to help tow
down to the mill some big booms of logs, as soon as the lake opened.
"He ain't able to get no satisfaction except from double action."
At this specimen of local wit and humor the others grinned but Stefan
remained quite unmoved. Miss Sophy waited on him, scanning his face,
eager to ask more questions, while she feared to say a word. It may
have been her conscience which made her uneasy. Of course she believed
that the precautions she had taken rendered it impossible for any one
to accuse her, or at any rate to prove anything. Still, a certain
anxiety remained, which she was unable to restrain. She would have
given a good deal to know what had taken place. Never had she doubted
that the scene would occur right there at the station in Carcajou.
That telegram had badly upset her plans, apparently. And then it was
queer that Hugo had not come down after receiving it, if only to try
to find out what it meant. Finally, one of the men, having none of her
reasons for keeping still, came forth with a direct question.
"I reckon you got out to Roarin' Falls all safe with that there pooty
gal, didn't ye?" he asked.
It was Joe Follansbee who had sought this information, being only too
eager to hint at something wrong on the part of a man he had long
deemed a rival. At his words, however, Sophy sniffed and turned up her
nose.
"I didn't see anything very pretty about her," she said.
"Well, I didn't see as how she was so real awful pretty," Joe hastened
to observe. "She ain't the style I admire, by no manner of means."
This strategic withdrawal was destined to meet with entire failure,
however. Sophy turned to the boxes of plug that were stored on the
shelves and pretended to busy herself with their order and symmetry.
But she was again listening, eagerly.
"What d'ye say, Stefan?" joined Pat Kilrea. "How'd she stand the trip?
Did ye see if her nose was still on her face when ye got there?"
"I tank so," opened Stefan, gravely, "but it wouldn't matter so much
vith de leddy. Maybe she ain't so much use for it like you haf for
yours, to stick into oder people's pusinesses."
Stefan continued to shave off curly bits from his plug, while the
laughter turned against the engineer. Carcajou, like a good many other
places, commonly favored the top-dog when it came to betting. The
answering grin in Pat's face was a rather sour one. If any other man
had spoken to him thus there might have been a lively fight, but no
one in Carcajou, and a good many miles around it, cared to engage in
fisticuffs with the Swede. A story was current of how he had once
manhandled four drunken lumberjacks, in spite of peavies and sticks of
cordwood.
"Well, you're getting to be a good deal of a lady's man, Stefan," said
Aleck McIntosh, a fellow who was supposed to be a scion of Scottish
nobility receiving remittances from his country. The most evident part
of his income, however, appeared to be contributed by his Cree wife,
who took in the little washing Carcajou indulged in and made the
finest moccasins in Ontario. "Going off with one and coming back with
another. I dare say you prefer carrying females to lugging the mails
around."
"Mebbe I likes it better but it's more hard on dem togs," asserted
Stefan, judicially.
"And--and ye left her at Hugo's shack, did ye?" ventured Pat again,
whereat Stefan nodded in assent and lighted his pipe.
"Did she say she was anyways related to him? His sister or something
like that?" persisted the engineer.
"Well, I tank she say somethin' about bein' his grandmother," retorted
Stefan, "but I can tell you something, Pat. If you vant so much know
all about it vhy you not put on your snowshoes an' tak' a run down
there. It ban a real nice little valk."
As Pat Kilrea suffered from the handicap of having been born with a
club-foot, which didn't prevent him from being an excellent man with
machinery but made walking rather burdensome for him, the others
guffawed again while the Swede opened the door and walked off, the
crusted snow crackling under his big feet.
"In course it's none of my business, like enough," said Pat,
virtuously, as he scratched a match on his trousers' leg, "but such
goings on don't seem right, nohow. 'Tain't right an' proper, because
it gives a bad example. I've knowed folks rid on a rail or even tarred
and feathered for the like of that."
Carcajou's sterling sense of propriety, as represented by half a dozen
male gossips, immediately agreed with him. The matter, they decided,
should be looked into.
"And--and what d'ye think about it, Miss Sophy?" asked Joe, desirous
of opening conversation again with the young woman and redeeming
himself.
"Things like that is beneath me to talk about," she asserted, coldly.
"And what's more, I don't care to hear about 'em. It--it's time ye got
back to the depot, Joe Follansbee and I'm goin' to close up anyways
and give ye all a chance to burn your own oil."
At this delicate invitation to vacate the premises the men rose and
trooped out. Once outside, however, they felt compelled in spite of
the bitter cold to comment a little further on the situation.
Sophy McGurn put up the large iron bar that was used to secure the
front door, when the store was closed. Then she put some papers away
in the safe under the counter and went up to the family sitting room,
where her mother was knitting and her father, with an open paper on
his lap and his spectacles pushed up over his forehead, was fast
asleep in a big and highly varnished oaken rocker trimmed with scarlet
plush.
"I'm goin' to bed," she announced; "good-night."
The old gentleman awoke with a start and the mother, looking over her
glasses, bade her good-night and sweet dreams, according to a
long-established formula.
"Don't know what's the matter with Sophy, she's that restless an'
nervous," said her mother.
"She always was, fur's I know," answered McGurn. "If she's gettin' the
complaint worse she must be sickenin' for something."
The subject of these remarks, once in her room, was in no hurry to woo
the slumber she had expressed a desire for. In her mind anxiety was
battling with anger and disappointment. Whether or not she really
loved Ennis, or had turned to him merely because his general ways and
appearance showed him to be a man of some breeding, with education
superior to the usual standard of Carcajou, such as she would have
been glad to marry, at any rate her brow narrowed, her lips closed
into a thin straight line and her hands were clenched tight. What she
had done would probably utterly prevent any renewal of the friendship
she had tried to establish, since Hugo would perhaps be run out of the
place. Moreover, that girl was really very pretty, in spite of what
she had said downstairs, and this stranger was now over there. Sophy
had expected to see her return with Stefan, perhaps also with Hugo,
and the girl's face would have shown marks of tears, and Hugo would
have been in a towering rage, and gradually the people of Carcajou
would have been made aware, somehow, of what had happened, and the
settler of Roaring Falls would be the butt of laughter, if not of
scurrilous remarks. But now the dark night had come and Carcajou was
very still under the starlight.
The old cat scratching at her door startled her. The profound silence
that followed appeared to irk her badly. After a long time there was
the shriek of the night-freight's whistle and the great rumbling of
the arriving train, the grinding of brakes, shouts that sounded
harshly, various loud thumps as cars were shunted off to the siding.
And then the train started again, groaning and clattering and heaving
up the grade through the cut, after which the intense stillness
returned and she lay awake, her eyes peering through darkness, her
senses all alert and her nerves a-quiver, until nearly the coming of
dawn.
But the men who had gone out, before scattering to their homes, had
reached a unanimous conclusion. It was true that excitement was rare
in Carcajou, but this was a matter of upholding the fair reputation of
the mill and four or five dozen shacks and frame houses that
constituted the village. It was decided that a committee must go over
to the Falls and investigate.
"I won't say but what Hugo Ennis he's been mostly all right, fur's we
know," acknowledged Phil Prouty of the section gang. "But then he
warn't brought up in these here parts an' he can't be allowed to flout
the morals o' this community in any sich way. If it's like we fears,
the gal'll have ter pack off an' him promise ter behave or leave the
country. Them's my sentiments. We better go to-morrow."
At this, however, there were some objections. It might be that on the
next day the young woman would return. Then their trip would be
useless. And then two days later would be Sunday, on which there would
be less interference with their occupations, especially as it was the
off day in church, where the services were held but twice a month. It
was voted to start then at an early hour. There was a strong team of
horses used to lumbering that could be trusted to manage the old
tote-road, drawing Sam Kerrigan's big sleigh.
"Hosses used ter do it," asserted the latter, "and they kin do it
again."
"Maybe Stefan'd take you up with them dogs of his, Kilrea," suggested
one of the men, grinning.
"No! And by the way, byes. Ye don't want ter let that there Swede know
nothin' of this. He's too thick with Hugo, he is, and we don't want
him around raisin' any ruction if there happens to be a bit o' loud
talk. He'd be liable to raise a rumpus, he would."
This appeared to be excellent strategy and it met with unanimous
approval. The men dispersed to their respective shacks and houses, to
discuss the matter further with their wives, in case any of them were
still awake. One or two of the sturdier ladies at once volunteered to
lend further dignity to the proceedings with their presence and could
not be dissuaded from joining the Carcajou Vigilantes.
In the meanwhile the unconscious objects of all these plans were
happily unaware of the fate in store for them. Madge, with a little
child that had snuggled into her arms, had found a forgetfulness that
was a blessing. In spite of her weariness and of the emotions she had
undergone, the good food and pure air had produced some effect upon
her. She slumbered perhaps more deeply and restfully than she had for
many long months. And Hugo Ennis, in pain, tossed in his bunk, his
mind racked with uneasy thoughts and his wounded shoulder throbbing,
till he slept also.