HOOLIAM
When the spring days came around, Stonor, whose business it was to keep
watch on such things, began to perceive an undercurrent of waywardness
among the Indians and breeds of the post. Teachers know how an epidemic
of naughtiness will sweep a class; this was much the same thing. There
was no actual outbreak; it was chiefly evinced in defiant looks and an
impudent swagger. It was difficult to trace back, for the red people
hang together solidly; a man with even a trace of red blood will rarely
admit a white man into the secrets of the race. Under questioning they
maintain a bland front that it is almost impossible to break down.
Stonor had long ago learned the folly of trying to get at what he wanted
by direct questioning.
He finally, as he thought, succeeded in locating the source of the
infection at Carcajou Point. Parties from the post rode up there with
suspicious frequency, and came back with a noticeably lowered moral
tone, licking their lips, so to speak. All the signs pointed to whisky.
At dawn of a morning in May, Stonor, without having advertised his
intention, set off for Carcajou on horseback. The land trail cut across
a wide sweep of the river, and on horseback one could make it in a day,
whereas it was a three days' paddle up-stream. Unfortunately he couldn't
take them by surprise, for Carcajou was on the other side of the river
from Enterprise, and Stonor must wait on the shore until they came over
after him.
As soon as he left the buildings of the post behind him Stonor's heart
was greatly lifted up. It was his first long ride of the season. The
trail led him through the poplar bush back to the bench, thence in a
bee-line across the prairie. The sun rose as he climbed the bench. The
prairie was not the "bald-headed" so dear to those who know it, but was
diversified with poplar bluffs, clumps of willow, and wild-rose-scrub in
the hollows. The crocuses were in bloom, the poplar trees hanging out
millions of emerald pendants, and the sky showed that exquisite, tender
luminousness that only the northern sky knows when the sun travels
towards the north. Only singing-birds were lacking to complete the idyl
of spring. Stonor, all alone in a beautiful world, lifted up his voice
to supply the missing praise.
Towards sunset he approached the shore of the river opposite Carcajou
Point, but as he didn't wish to arrive at night, he camped within
shelter of the woods. In the morning he signalled for a boat. They came
after him in a dug-out, and he swam his horse across.
A preliminary survey of the place revealed nothing out of the way. The
people who called themselves Beaver Indians were in reality the
scourings of half the tribes in the country, and it is doubtful if there
was an individual of pure red race among them. Physically they were a
sad lot, for Nature revenges herself swiftly on the offspring of
hybrids. Quaint ethnological differences were exhibited in the same
family; one brother would have a French physiognomy, another a Scottish
cast of feature, and a third the thick lips and flattened nose of a
negro. Their village was no less nondescript than its inhabitants,
merely a straggling row of shacks, thrown together anyhow, and roofed
with sods, now putting forth a brave growth of weeds. These houses were
intended for a winter residence only. In summer they "pitched around."
At present they were putting their dug-outs and canoes in order for a
migration.
Stonor was received on the beach by Shose (Joseph) Cardinal, a fine,
up-standing ancient of better physique than his sons and grandsons. In a
community of hairless men he was further distinguished by a straggling
grey beard. His wits were beginning to fail, but not yet his cunning. He
was extremely anxious to learn the reason for the policeman's coming.
For Stonor to tell him would have been to defeat his object; to lie
would have been to lower himself in their eyes; so Stonor took refuge in
an inscrutability as polite as the old man's own.
Stonor made a house-to-house canvass of the village, inquiring as to the
health and well-being of each household, as is the custom of his
service, and keeping his eyes open on his own account. He satisfied
himself that if there had been whisky there, it was drunk up by now.
Some of the men showed the sullen depressed air that follows on a
prolonged spree, but all were sober at present.
He was in one of the last houses of the village, when, out of the tail
of his eye, he saw a man quietly issue from the house next in order,
and, covered by the crowd around the door, make his way back to a house
already visited. Stonor, without saying anything, went back to that
house and found himself face to face with a young white man, a stranger,
who greeted him with an insolent grin.
"Who are you?" demanded the policeman.
"Hooliam."
"You have a white man's name. What is it?"
"Smith"--this with inimitable insolence, and a look around that bid for
the applause of the natives.
Stonor's lip curled at the spectacle of a white man's thus lowering
himself. "Come outside," he said sternly. "I want to talk to you."
He led the way to a place apart on the river bank, and the other, not
daring to defy him openly, followed with a swagger. With a stern glance
Stonor kept the tatterdemalion crowd at bay. Stonor coolly surveyed his
man in the sunlight and saw that he was not white, as he had supposed,
but a quarter or eighth breed. He was an uncommonly good-looking young
fellow in the hey-day of his youth, say, twenty-six. With his clear
olive skin, straight features and curly dark hair he looked not so much
like a breed as a man of one of the darker peoples of the Caucasian
race, an Italian or a Greek. There was a falcon-like quality in the
poise of his head, in his gaze, but the effect was marred by the
consciousness of evil, the irreconcilable look in the fine eyes.
"Bad clear through!" was Stonor's instinctive verdict.
"Where did you come from?" he demanded.
"Up river," was the casual reply. The man's English was as good as
Stonor's own.
"Answer me fully."
"From Sah-ko-da-tah prairie, if you know where that is. I came into that
country by way of Grande Prairie. I came from Winnipeg."
Stonor didn't believe a word of this, but had no means of confuting the
man on the spot. "How long have you been here?" he asked.
"A week or so. I didn't keep track."
"What is your business here?"
"I'm looking for a job."
"Among the Beavers? Why didn't you come to the trading-post?"
"I was coming, but they tell me John Gaviller's a hard man to work fer.
Thought I better keep clear of him."
"Gaviller's the only employer of labour hereabouts. If you don't like
him you'll have to look elsewhere."
"I can take up land, can't I?"
"Not here. This is treaty land. Plenty of good surveyed homesteads
around the post."
"Thanks. I prefer to pick my own location."
"I'll give you your choice. You can either come down to the post where I
can keep an eye on your doings, or go back up the river where you came
from."
"Do you call this a free country?"
"Never mind that. You're getting off easy. If you'd rather, I'll put you
under arrest and carry you down to the post for trial."
"On what charge?"
"Furnishing whisky to the Indians."
"It's a lie!" cried the man, hoping to provoke Stonor into revealing the
extent of his information.
But the policeman shrugged, and remained mum.
The other suddenly changed his front. "All right, I'll go if I have to,"
he said, with a conciliatory air. "To-morrow."
"You'll leave within an hour," said Stonor, consulting his watch. "I'll
see you off. Better get your things together."
The man still lingered, and Stonor saw an unspoken question in his eye,
a desire to ingratiate himself. Now Stonor, under his stern port as an
officer of the law, was intensely curious about the fellow. With his
good looks, his impudent assurance, his command of English, he was a
notable figure in that remote district. The policeman permitted himself
to unbend a little.
"What are you travelling in?" he asked.
"Dug-out." Encouraged by the policeman's altered manner, the self-styled
Hooliam went on, with an air of taking Stonor into his confidence:
"These niggers here are a funny lot, aren't they? Still believe in
magic."
"In what way?"
"Why, they're always talking about a White Medicine Man who lives beside
a river off to the north-west. Ernest Imbrie they call him. Do you know
him?"
"No."
"He's been to the post, hasn't he?"
"No."
"Well, how did he get into the country?"
"I don't know."
"These people say he works magic."
"Well, if anyone wants to believe that--!"
"What do they say about him down at the post?"
"Plenty of foolishness."
"But what?"
"You don't expect me to repeat foolish gossip, do you?"
"No, but what do you think about him?"
"I don't think."
"They say that Gaviller's lodged a complaint against him, and you're
going out there to arrest him as soon as it's fit to travel."
"That's a lie. There's no complaint against the man."
"But you are going out there, aren't you?"
"I can't discuss my movements with you."
"That means you are going. Is it true he sent in a whole bale of silver
foxes to the post?"
"Say, what's your interest in this man, anyway?" said Stonor, losing
patience.
"Nothing at all," said the breed carelessly. "These Indians are always
talking about him. It roused my curiosity, that's all."
"Suppose you satisfy my curiosity about yourself," suggested Stonor
meaningly.
The old light of impudent mockery returned to the comely dark face. "Me?
Oh, I'm only a no-account hobo," he said. "I'll have to be getting ready
now."
And so Stonor's curiosity remained unsatisfied. To have questioned the
man further would only have been to lower his dignity. True, he might
have arrested him, and forced him to give an account of himself, but the
processes of justice are difficult and expensive so far north, and the
policemen are instructed not to make arrests except when unavoidable. At
the moment it did not occur to Stonor but that the man's questions about
Imbrie were actuated by an idle curiosity.
When the hour was up, the entire population of Carcajou Point gathered
on the shore to witness Hooliam's departure. Stonor was there, too, of
course, standing grimly apart from the rabble. Of what they thought of
this summary deportation he could not be sure, but he suspected that if
the whisky were all gone, they would not care much one way or the other.
Hooliam was throwing his belongings in a dug-out of a different style
from that used by the Beavers. It was ornamented with a curved prow and
stern, such as Stonor had not before seen.
"Where did you get that boat?" he asked.
"I didn't steal it," answered Hooliam impudently. "Traded my horse for
it and some grub at Fort Cardigan."
Cardigan was a Company post on the Spirit a hundred miles or so above
the Crossing. Stonor saw that Hooliam was well provided with blankets,
grub, ammunition, etc., and that it was not Company goods.
When Hooliam was ready to embark, he addressed the crowd in an Indian
tongue which strongly resembled Beaver, which Stonor spoke, but had
different inflections. Freely translated, his words were:
"I go, men. The moose-berry (_i. e._, red-coat) wills it. I don't like
moose-berries. Little juice and much stone. To eat moose-berries draws a
man's mouth up like a tobacco-bag when the string is pulled."
They laughed, with deprecatory side-glances at the policeman. They were
not aware that he spoke their tongue. Stonor had no intention of letting
them know it, and kept an inscrutable face. They pushed off the dug-out,
and Hooliam, with a derisive wave of the hand, headed up river. All
remained on the shore, and Stonor, seeing that they expected something
more of Hooliam, remained also.
He had gone about a third of a mile when Stonor saw him bring the
dug-out around and ground her on the beach. He made no move to get out,
but a woman appeared from out of the shrubbery and got in. She was too
far away for Stonor to distinguish anything of her features; her figure
looked matronly.
"Who is that?" he asked sharply.
Several voices answered. "Hooliam's woman. Hooliam got old woman for his
woman"--with scornful laughter. Now that Hooliam was gone, they were
prepared to curry favour with the policeman.
Stonor was careful not to show the uneasiness he felt. This was his
first intimation that Hooliam had a companion. He considered following
him in another dug-out, but finally decided against it. The fact that he
had taken the woman aboard in plain sight smacked merely of bravado. A
long experience of the red race had taught Stonor that they love to
shroud their movements in mystery from the whites, and that in their
most mysterious acts there is not necessarily any significance.
Hooliam, with a wave of his paddle, resumed his journey, and presently
disappeared around a bend. Stonor turned on his heel and left the beach,
followed by the people. They awaited his next move somewhat
apprehensively, displaying an anxiety to please which suggested bad
consciences. Stonor, however, contented himself with offering some
private admonitions to Shose Cardinal, who seemed to take them in good
part. He then prepared to return to the post. The people speeded his
departure with relieved faces.
That night Stonor camped on the prairie half-way home. As he lay wooing
sleep under the stars, his horse cropping companionably near by, a new
thought caused him to sit up suddenly in his blankets.
"He mentioned the name Ernest Imbrie. The Indians never call him
anything but the White Medicine Man. And even if they had picked up the
name Imbrie at the post, they never speak of a man by his Christian
name. If they had heard the name Ernest I doubt if they could pronounce
it. Sounds as if he knew the name beforehand. Queer if there should be
any connection there. I wish I hadn't let him go so easily.--Oh, well,
it's too late to worry about it now. The steamboat will get to the
Crossing before he does. I'll drop a line to Lambert to keep an eye on
him."