THE MUTINEER
Three days out from the mounted police detachment the weather grew
suddenly cold and the first snow fell. Without preliminary warning,
winter had come. It swept down from the north, a mad trumpeter blowing
his blast at the head of a vengeful, icy column. On the morning of the
second day after the storm six inches of snow covered the earth.
Dick’s first act was to remove the packs from the ponies and place them
on the dog sleighs. This task took less than an hour. With the malemute
and husky teams transporting their supplies, they pushed on, discovering
that, despite the cold, they now made better progress. Dick drove the
mail sledge, while Sandy and Toma had charge of the team which conveyed
most of the medicine, not to mention the worthy and genial Dr. Brady
himself.
Brady was popular with everyone. Always in good spirits, he became known
for his wit and humor. Although considerably past middle age, he had
never contrived to outgrow the young man’s viewpoint. He felt like a boy
again. He talked and laughed and played pranks like a boy. To him this
incursion into a vast wilderness region was an experience long to be
remembered. He insisted upon doing a share of the work, soon learned to
drive a dog team and often took his turn in breaking trail.
For the most part, cloudy weather prevailed, with an occasional light
snowfall. The country was new to Dick and he was compelled to leave the
charting of their route to the guide who had joined their party just
previous to their departure.
The guide’s name was Martin Lamont. He was probably of French
extraction, although he claimed to be a full-blood Indian. For a native,
his skin was too light, his cheekbones too low, and, what was most
incredible of all, his dark hair was curly. His nose was large and
unsightly, while his lips were thin—thin and bloodless. A slight cast in
one hawk’s eye gave him a peculiar squint.
“He can’t help being so murderous-looking, I don’t suppose,” Sandy
declared one morning. “Just the same, that eye of his chills me to the
bone whenever he looks my way. And did you ever notice, Dick, that
horrible scar on his left cheek?”
“Yes,” Dick replied, “I’ve noticed it. But I think I could endure his
looks if only he had a more pleasant disposition. He seldom talks. When
he does, it’s usually a grunt or a snarl. A while ago he acted queerly
when I asked him to relieve one of the drivers, who was breaking trail.”
Dr. Brady was walking right behind the two boys and evidently had been
listening to their conversation, for, at this juncture, he suddenly
broke forth:
“He did act queerly—only I think I’d call it defiant. There was a
mutinous look in that squint eye of his.”
“It was unprovoked,” said Dick, a little bitterly. “I asked him in a
friendly way. It’s only fair that we should all take turn in breaking
trail. He’s the only one that seems to object.”
“But what did he say?” Sandy demanded impatiently.
“Nothing,” answered Dick. “Merely muttered something under his breath,
glared at me, then walked back behind the last team. He’s sulking there
now.”
“I can’t understand it,” Sandy wagged his head. “He volunteered his
services and yet doesn’t want to do his part. What would you say is
wrong with him, doctor?”
“Haven’t properly diagnosed his case yet,” grinned Brady, “although his
symptoms indicate a very serious condition. Offhand, I’d say that he
required immediate treatment.”
“He may get it,” Dick hinted darkly.
Sandy laughed. “Places you in a kind of bad position, doesn’t it, old
chap? First thing you know, you’ll lose face with the rest of this
outfit. That Nitchie is setting a mighty bad example.”
“Exactly what I think,” appended Brady. “You’re in charge here, aren’t
you, Dick?”
“Yes,” Dick nodded. “Worse luck. If it comes to a show-down of course,
I’ll have the police behind me. Still, I hate trouble. Sometimes I think
I’ll let Mr. Lamont have his own way, and again I feel that to do that
will only breed discontent among the others.”
Dick turned and looked up into the physician’s face.
“You’re older than I am, doctor. What would you suggest?”
Dr. Brady’s brow puckered.
“I’m sure I don’t know. I hate to advise you, my boy. You might be
inclined to follow it.”
“Out with it,” Dick laughed. “You’re putting me off. What would you do
if you were in my place?”
“I don’t like him,” said Dr. Brady, “and I never did. I’ve been watching
him ever since we left Mackenzie. His actions are suspicious. His
disposition is unbearable. He’s a hard and dirty customer. In spite of
which—if I were in your place—I think I’d have it out with him. But if
you do, I’m afraid there’ll be trouble.”
“You mean he’ll fight?”
“Yes, but not openly. He isn’t that type. He’ll wait his chance to get
even. It’s hard to say what he’d do.”
For a time they walked on in silence. Then Dick stepped out to one side
of the trail, a grim look on his face.
“Well, we’ll soon find out. I’m going back there now.”
Sandy’s eyes opened wide and his gaze followed his chum as he walked
back to the end of the line. Brady chuckled. The driver of the team
behind turned his head and grinned.
Lamont’s squint eye gleamed balefully as Dick approached. Probably the
man knew why Dick had come, sensed the other’s motive.
“A little while ago,” Dick spoke calmly, “I asked you in a nice way if
you wouldn’t help out in breaking trail. Why didn’t you go, Martin?”
“Don’ want to go,” grunted the miscreant.
“Why not?”
“What you think,” screeched Lamont, now in a flaming temper, “me be
guide an’ do all the work too? I tell him Mr. Police Inspector I go show
you the way. That’s all. No work! No break ’em trail! Nothing! Me big
fool if I go break ’em trail like you say.”
“No doubt,” said Dick, endeavoring to control himself. “Just the same, I
think you’ll go. All day yesterday you rode on one of the sleighs. You
didn’t walk a mile. Is that fair?”
“Sure,” the other answered maliciously. “Me guide here. That’s all I
do.”
“And I happen to be boss here with instructions from the man who hired
you. Either you’ll do your share of the work or you’ll leave this party.
Come now, which is it?”
“Me guide here,” reiterated Lamont. “Sorry you no like it, but I no
break trail.”
Dick was in a quandary. He was angry, yet also was he nonplused. He had
never encountered a situation like this. He wasn’t quite sure how to
proceed. He wished he had Brady at his side to advise him. He was
treading on ticklish ground.
“All right, you’ll have to leave the party, Lamont, you understand
that.”
Martin grinned across at him, a malevolent, maddening grin. It carried a
challenge. Dick’s hand fluttered toward the butt of his revolver, but he
caught himself in time.
“Lamont, I’m not fooling. I mean what I say. You’re leaving this party
tonight when we make camp. I’ll give you enough rations to take you back
to the Mackenzie.”
The guide’s eyes narrowed to two mere slits. There was something
venomous, snake-like in his stare.
“I no go back to the Mackenzie,” he retorted quickly. “I go where I
wish. That place I go is Keechewan Mission. How you think you stop me go
there?”
“Go there, if you like, but you’ll not go with us.”
“Mebbe not,” said Lamont stubbornly. “We see about that.”
Dick left the man and hurried back to the head of the column. His face
was grim and set as he rejoined Sandy and Dr. Brady. An angry flush had
mounted to his cheeks. His fists were clenched so hard that the nails
dug into the palms of his hands.
“Well,” said Sandy, his voice lowered and anxious, “what did he say?
What is he going to do?”
Dick could not trust himself to speak. Rage had overcome him.
“I’ll show him! I’ll show him!” the words kept singing through his
brain. “I’ll show him!” rang on the vengeful chant. “He’ll not make a
fool of me. Guide—paugh! I’ll show him!”
Then, happening to glance up, he saw that Dr. Brady was looking at
him—looking at him with friendly and yet appraising eyes. And in that
moment he felt somehow that his measure was being taken by that genial
but worldly-wise physician.
“He provoked me,” said Dick by way of apology. “Lost my temper. He
refuses to break trail, to work—to do anything at all except just loaf
around and point out the way to Keechewan Mission.”
“And what did you say to that?”
“I told him that I didn’t propose to put up with it. I said that he’d
have to go. Tonight, when we make camp, I’ll give him rations, send him
on his way. He’s through.”
“I don’t blame you. I think you’re doing the right thing,” declared Dr.
Brady. “We’ll be better off without him.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Sandy suddenly interjected. “You say
we’re better off without him—but are we? When he leaves us, who’ll show
us the way? Lamont is the only member of this party who has been to
Keechewan. There’s no trail. We can wander miles off our course, get
ourselves into all sorts of difficulties and dangers—freeze and starve
and heaven knows what. The Barrens is a horrible place in winter, a
death-trap if you don’t know it. My Uncle Walter has been there and he
told me about it. It makes me shiver to think about it. Well named the
Barren Lands. An eternity of snow and utter desolation. You simply
travel on and on and on—and get nowhere. Twenty years from now some
wandering Eskimo will kick your bleached skeleton out of his path.”
“Can’t help it,” said Dick stubbornly. “That man goes.”
“You’re in charge here, of course. I know it’s hard to put up with his
insolence and his bad example, still——”
“Yes,” said Dr. Brady, who had become very much interested in Sandy’s
point of view, “tell us the rest of it. I’m very anxious to hear.”
“There’s nothing more to tell,” confessed the young Scotchman. “I’m
merely asking Dick to think this thing over very carefully before he
comes to a decision. Even if we don’t get lost without a guide, we’re
certain to be delayed. You know what that means?”
“Delays mean human lives. Is that it? Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Yes. Inspector Cameron wants us to get through to Keechewan as quickly
as possible. It’s important. It’s imperative. What if we do have to
humor Lamont? Better to let him ride every foot of the way and lord it
over us than let all those poor devils die without a chance.”
“Sandy,” declared Dick—and his voice caught—“you’ve won me over. If I
dismissed Lamont now I’d—I’d have blood on my hands.”
Dr. Brady did not speak for a moment His face was grave and thoughtful.
“What do you think about it?” Dick asked.
“A peculiar situation,” finally admitted Brady. “Lamont ought to be
punished, of course. He’s a miserable bounder, to say the least. But——”
“Sandy’s logic and good sense has convinced you too.”
“Exactly.”
“We’ll have to keep that guide no matter what happens,”
“We’ll have to keep him,” said the doctor.
“Even if I’m compelled to apologize to him,” grimaced Dick, “and cook
his meals and wait on him hand and foot, we’ll have to keep him.”
“There’s no other way. You can punish him when you get to Keechewan, of
course. I’d suggest turning him over to the policeman up there, your
Corporal Rand.”
Silence settled down again, broken only by the cracking of whips and the
sharp cries of the dog drivers. The afternoon slowly wore on. An
overcast sky brought the darkness early. Yet they pushed on for nearly
an hour through the gloom before Dick gave orders to halt and make camp.
“We’ve made a record today,” exulted Sandy, as he came forward to assist
Dick in unharnessing the malemutes from the mail-sledge. “We must have
come nearly forty miles. With a good snow-crust, we’ll do even better
than that.”
Dick was about to answer, when he became aware of a form emerging from
the dark. A familiar voice accosted him:
“Is that you, Dick?”
“You bet! Why hello, Toma. Where’s your team?”
“I get ’em off harness already. Feed ’em fish. Bye-’n’-bye they crawl in
snowdrift an’ go to sleep.”
“Tired enough to do that myself,” declared Sandy. Toma came closer. He
took Dick’s arm.
“You know that fellow, Lamont,” he began eagerly.
“Yes, yes,” said Dick. “What’s he done now?”
“He tell ’em me to give you this,” answered Toma, placing something in
Dick’s hand.
A small, flat object of some flexible material, which felt like leather.
Dick fumbled in his pockets for a match and struck it. The sudden tiny
glare revealed nothing more than a piece of birch bark, blank on one
side, a pencilled scrawl on the other. Presently, with the help of
another match, he made out two words wholly unintelligible: “god by.”
“God by,” asked Dick perplexedly. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” answered the quick-witted Sandy in a voice that was
unusually calm, “that Lamont has left us. Can’t you see? Gone!”
“But this thing—these words, I mean—what——”
“He couldn’t spell. It’s ‘good-bye.’ He’s gone, I tell you.”
Bewildered, weary, disheartened, Dick stared miserably out into the
enveloping darkness.