TIDINGS OF WAR
As an auspicious omen on Kamattawa Indian summer came down with its
fragrant sigh and its transient flash of yellow radiance. Then the winds
fell strangely mute. Some unseen magic permeated the calm. Earth and air
lay breathless with the prophecy of change.
A little cold caress on his tanned cheek, a tang on his lips, a familiar
tingle in his sinews foretold the prophecy's fulfillment to Baptiste
Verenne when he sauntered in one night from his trail-blazing. He
inspected the sullen sky a moment and shook his head as he strode
through the gates to the blockhouse.
"Wintaire!" he announced briefly to Dunvegan. "She be comin' _vite_ on
de _nord_ wind, M'sieu'."
The chief trader tilted his browned face skyward and clutched the air
tentatively to get the feel of the weather.
"Not far off! Not far off, Baptiste," he calculated. "It may close in
any night, and we'll see a white world when we wake of a morning."
Verenne's arm slanted, pointing over the palisades.
"See dat?" he cried.
A circling wind, the first of many days, eddied the leaves lying against
the stockade, piled them in a wreath thirty feet high in the air with
gentle motion peculiarly distinctive to a close observer, then
ruthlessly disintegrated the whole.
"An dat?" Baptiste added.
A whizzing phalanx of wild geese blurred the distant horizon, bored like
a rocket from sky to sky, and pierced the invisible distance.
"W'en dey fly dat way," averred Baptiste, "de wintaire right on dere
tails! She be come _toute suite_, M'sieu'."
And it did! A greasy wrack of clouds masked the sunset. The north wind
blew out of the Arctic circle with a humming like vibrating wires. The
wraith of desolation went eerily shrieking round and round. Then out of
inky space the snow came down, driving fiercely on a forty-mile gale to
smother the gauntness of the rugged forest in a swirl of white. For
thirty-six hours the frozen flakes pelted the stout stockades. The snow
lay in foamy levels in the timber, ten feet deep in the hollows, and
wind-packed to tremendous hardness on the ice-bound lakes and rivers.
The days became less strenuous now in Fort Kamattawa. The nights grew
long. The Hudson's Bay men attended to their winter needs and
equipments, while the post Indians fashioned snowshoes with native
quickness and skill.
There came a brief, cold, sleety rain which settled the drifts and the
subsequent hard frosts formed a crust that made excellent tripping on
the raquettes. The first tripper over the trail was Basil Dreaulond
carrying Company dispatches on his way to Nelson House. He lurched in
one night in the midst of a whistling storm with his dog team and a
halfbreed assistant. The world outside the Fort was a shrieking
maelstrom of snow and cutting blasts. Inside the men sat close together
about the roaring fireplace.
So blinding was the tempest that Kamattawa's sentinel in the blockhouse
tower could see nothing from his frosted windows and did not mark the
courier's approach till Basil and the breed were hammering upon the
closed gates with their rifle-butts. Eugene Demorel slid back the
shutter in the watchtower and leaned out, his gun trained on the
entrance.
"De password," he bellowed. "Who comes dere?"
"_Diable_ tak' de password," roared Basil who was half frozen. "I'm
Dreaulond. Open dis gate queeck!"
On the inferno of the elements his words puffed up like faint echoes,
but Eugene Demorel knew the courier's tone. The stockade opened for a
second, a raging snowgap in the draught. Basil stumbled into the log
store.
"_Holá, camarade_," they greeted joyously. "How do you like the
weather?"
"_Mauvais_," groaned Dreaulond, leaning toward the flames. "_Saprie_,
but she be cold!"
Dunvegan took the papers Macleod had sent to him and read them. They
concerned ordinary matters of fort routine and gave him no news of the
home post.
"How is everything at Oxford House, Basil?" he inquired with
ill-concealed eagerness.
"Everyt'ing be quiet," returned the courier. "De Nor'westaires don' move
mooch."
His eyes, however, held a hint of private information, and the chief
trader did not miss the glance.
"Come to the trading room when you get warmed, Dreaulond," he requested.
"I'd like to see you."
"_Oui_," assented Basil. "W'en I get dis cold out ma bones."
Dunvegan disappeared. The Hudson's Bay men volleyed their questions at
Dreaulond. They were ravenous for word of their kind from whom the busy
months had cut them off. Between questions he slowly revolved before the
fireplace, warming his chest, scorching his back, sucking the heat into
his chilled marrow.
"Any news of the Factor's daughter?" Connear asked him.
"_Non!_" Basil frowned and added: "She's wit' Black Ferguson, I bet on
dat. She got de spirit of her _père_. She'd go to La Roche an' mak' heem
geeve her sheltaire."
"And Running Wolf gone over to him, too. We found that out. That whelp
Three Feathers made it hot enough for us at Du Loup." Connear spat
copiously into the snarling birch logs and grinned at the remembrance of
the fight. "How's the English clerk?" he asked after a minute. "Drinkin'
any?"
"Dey don' geeve heem any chance," replied Dreaulond. "Dat's de ordaire
from hees parents. An' we don't want drunk mans on de post at dis taim
of de great dangaire."
In Basil's tone they discovered an unwonted gravity, as if he had
knowledge of new developments which he was keeping from them.
"What's up?" asked Pete, always interested in secrets. "If there's
anything on foot, let us have it, for it's got to be bloomin' dull here.
I miss my grog. I'd give a month's pay for a good glass now."
"I don't know anyt'ing new," the courier returned. "Eef you want to
grog, go ovaire to de Nor'westaire. Dey drink her pretty free."
"Yes. Black Ferguson swears by it."
"Dis Black Ferguson wan devil," declared Dreaulond, passing into the
trading room. "Now he be run after Desirée Lazard, but she not be look
at heem!"
From his desk Dunvegan glanced steadily at the courier.
"No letter, Basil?" He bit his lip on the question.
"_Non_," replied his friend. "I'm sorry, me."
"Something's wrong," blurted the chief trader. "Tell me what it is. Has
the Nor'wester had speech with Desirée?" Dunvegan's voice was strained,
his fingers clenched white on the wood of his desk.
"Not dat," Basil explained awkwardly. "De dangaire is in anoder
quartaire! Desirée an' dis Edwin Glyndon dey togedder mooch--ver' mooch.
All de autumn taim dey canoe, dey walk, dey spik alone. Dat be not ma
beezness! _Vraiment_ dat none of ma affair. _Mais_, I t'ink you want
know, mebbe, an' I be tell you w'at I see. Dey togedder all de taim!"
Dreaulond stepped to the door. His actions like his sentences were brief
and full of significance. The chief trader's voice followed him, an odd,
low tone the courier had never heard him use.
"Thank you, Basil," was his only comment. "Thank you, for that
information."
Alone, he strode immediately into the darkness of his sleeping apartment
where he walked the floor, brooding gloomily. Dawn heard his footsteps
still falling.
Three days after Dreaulond's departure for Nelson House Maskwa, the
swiftest fort runner in the service, dashed over the bluffs, springing
madly on his long, webbed running shoes. He had out-distanced the trio
of breeds following with three dog teams, and he pushed dispatches of
importance into Dunvegan's hands.
"Half our number leave to-morrow for Oxford House," the chief trader
announced to his retainers as he read. "Men from two of the Nor'west
posts, Brondel and Dumarge, have sacked our fur trains from the
Shamattawa and the Wokattiwagan. The Factor will go to raze Fort
Dumarge. We outfit at Oxford House and move against Fort Brondel."
A cheer hit the rafters. Unprecedented activity followed. The breeds
blew in with the exhausted giddés. Recuperation came to these Company
dogs with the night's rest, and into the bitter dawn they were haled.
The cold struck nippingly at bare fingers that loaded arms and
travelling necessities on the sledges, lashed the moosehide covers over
the provender, and tied the stubborn babiche knots. Likewise the frost
squeezed the hands that harnessed the dogs. The giddés themselves whined
and stirred uneasily in the cold. They were eager for the rush that
would make their blood run warm.
Those of the Fort who were to stay behind helped in the work. Long
practice and consummate skill accomplished starting preparations in the
shortest possible time. The dog teams sprang through the gateway at the
release, and a shout of farewell thundered.
"_Bonheur, camarades!_" was the word. "_A Dieu! A Dieu!_"
"_Pour_ Shamattawa! _Pour_ Wokattiwagan!" rang the responses from the
loyal Hudson's Bay men.
"_Marche! Marche!_" called the breeds to the _giddés_, and the cavalcade
swung over the long trail.