MacDonald stayed at Fort Hearne and built himself a cabin at the other
end of the post. He went off for a few days and returned with a retinue
of Slaveys. Then he began trading against the Company itself. He had a
way of dealing with the Indians that no other man had. He paid less,
rather than more, for their furs, and disdained to coddle them with
gifts and favors. Yet, when the peltry hunters caught a silver fox or
some other valuable fur, the prize went to the gruff giant’s shack
rather than to the Company’s warehouse. There was no competing with
him. One factor was sent to relieve another, but without avail. At last
the Commissioner himself braved the journey to the Fort, bought out
MacDonald, and set him up as head of the post.
Now, things began to hum at Fort Hearne. Never had such a factor been
seen as MacDonald. He spoke Dogrib and Chipewyan and Cree and French
as well as his father’s Orkney Island brogue: there was no hunter for
hundreds of miles with whom he could not converse in his own tongue.
He was on his feet from morning until night and kept every one else on
the go. As a freetrader he had beaten the Company at its own game. With
the Company’s prestige behind him he allowed no freetrader to raise
his head. By fair means none could compete, and who dared try force or
trickery against MacDonald? In the long winter evenings, when boresome
hours of sloth were whiled away with story telling, strange tales began
to circulate about the big factor. Since little or nothing was known of
his early life, imagination ran riot. Angus knew that the factor could
transform himself into a wolf, and hunt deer thus disguised. Casimir
pictured him in his youth, pulling cargo-laden scows, single-handed,
that were wont to be towed by a half-dozen strapping Indians. Jean
had it from an aunt that MacDonald had once swum a river in pursuit
of a bear, had stabbed it with a knife and carried the carcass twenty
miles to camp. Some said he was bulletproof, and others with a tincture
of Christian lore spoke of his pact with the devil. He grew into the
central figure of a new mythology.
The hero himself moved across his stage with the saturnine grandeur
of a Norse god. He never boasted, never faltered, never failed. He
ran unscathed through rapids never attempted since two parties of
canoemen had been capsized and drowned. He walked toward the cocked gun
of a drink-crazed competitor, and calmly knocked it out of his hand.
MacDonald did not know what it was to be afraid.
Between the trader and Pierre a curious relationship developed. The
factor of course used men as pawns, and knew a good lieutenant when he
saw one. But for Pierre he showed more consideration than was due to
even the best of assistants. Perhaps it was because Louise prompted
kindness to her former husband; perhaps there was some spontaneous
sentimentalism for a man he had wronged. However that might be, Pierre
became a sort of attendant-in-ordinary on MacDonald, his companion on
trips of inspection and the rarer jaunts of pleasure.
For Pierre, his sullen, imperious master became the one and only
subject of interest. He studied his habits and gestures and speech. He
had set out eager to detect weakness, but his prying skepticism had
changed to grudging admiration, and later to despondent amazement. He
had begun by hating his wife’s abductor, and he came to hate with an
ever intenser hatred the man who was without peer. It was not merely
the giant’s strength or dauntless courage, it was the way he had with
men. How he ordered about Casimir or Angus or Ramsay! A word was enough
to quell rebellion. Again and again, in the beginning, Pierre had
resolved to bid him defiance, yet when the moment came his resolution
had failed. Yes, people liked Pierre and after a fashion they respected
him, but that was a different thing. It was not in him to issue
commands to others. If he ever mustered courage to do so, they would
think he was putting on airs and laugh in his face, so that he would
slink off in shame and humiliation. Why were men born so different?
Why was he not born superior to the rest, like MacDonald? Why born at
all only to be lorded over by another? Thus he brooded and brooded for
hours at night, losing all hope and joy in life.
Then one day, unexpectedly, his despair was lifted. He had been on a
fruitless hunting trip with the factor, and the two were approaching
the post at the close of a rainy day. They were walking through a
dense wood. Both were drenched to the skin, and Pierre was nearly
exhausted. Suddenly, odd fancies crossed his mind. Weird tales of
childhood, retold round many a winter camp fire, surged in memory and
would not down. At dark, the forest was peopled with mysterious beings.
The Windigo were about then—cadaverous shapes with glaring eyes, and
feeders on human flesh. They lurked in the shadows of trees, and rose
upon wayfarers from the depths of the swamps. What chance of escape
when they had once sighted a victim? Rattling their skeletons, they
flitted after him faster than a hawk can fly, tore him apart like a
rabbit or swallowed him whole. The very wood Pierre was now traversing
had been once entered by a trapper who was never seen again. Pierre
began to feel oppressed by a sense of uncanniness. He peered cautiously
into the gathering darkness, then glanced eagerly behind him. He was
glad MacDonald was near. The great man could protect him if any one
could. Pierre felt reassured, yet it was best to take no chances, so he
hurried on.
Of a sudden there was a snapping of boughs, and he heard his name
called as if in mockery as a long form swished through the wood, and
a grim face was gaping at him not ten feet away. He turned in horror
and fled towards MacDonald, crying, “Windigo! Windigo!” as he pointed
at a spot ahead. But MacDonald did not smite the ogre with one of his
huge fists, or seek to grapple with it as he was said to have once
wrestled with a bear. His face turned an ashen hue, his mighty body
was quivering like an aspen. That was the half-breed of it. Then with
a bound he ran through the wood as fast as his legs would carry him,
down to the river bank and along the rocky water front, till at length
he caught sight of the big warehouse. There he paused panting, with the
cold perspiration on his forehead. Pierre had followed as swiftly as he
could, and at last overtook his master. Both were trembling from head
to foot and MacDonald kept muttering, “Windigo! Windigo!” Thus they
walked toward the Fort. And Pierre felt happier than he had ever been
since that wrestling bout when he had lost Louise: for all his way,
MacDonald was afraid of the Windigo!