THE HEART OF THE SAVAGE
Immediately the Oxford House men re-established the camp to suit their
own requirements. Then they devoted themselves to a long-delayed supper
till their ravenous appetites were fully appeased. The dogs of the
Nor'westers had been fed to keep them quiet. The turn of the newly
arrived teams came when the masters were satisfied. Baptiste Verenne and
the drivers arose, taking the allotted portion of thawed whitefish. They
took their dog whips also.
"_Ici, giddés_," Baptiste called.
The animals leaped forward on the instant, growling and slavering for
the whitefish. One meal in twenty-four hours was not in any wise
sufficient for their savage stomachs, and now it was three hours past
the end of that customary space of fasting. A sound kicking met their
energetic advance, and they were scattered out that they might be more
easily fed. Then the Nor'westers' dogs jumped in, making a tangle of
furry backs, bushy tails, and snapping jaws.
On these intruders the heavy whips smote viciously. They retreated,
thoroughly cowed, and with sharp commands, kicks, and blows the food was
at length distributed. The more cunning beasts bolted their two
whitefish in a flash and fought with slower comrades for their remaining
portion. Slowly the tumult died down and the dogs crept up close to the
lower end of the fire, where brush beds had been thrown for them.
Having indulged in a brief after-supper smoke, the Hudson's Bay men
began to prepare for immediate slumber. They removed their outer parkas
with the capotes and hung them on sticks to dry before the fire,
together with gauntlets, leggings, and traveling shoepacks.
They put on great, fur-lined sleeping moccasins and rolled themselves
in thick fur robes designed for preserving the body warmth during
slumber. Against the abnormal frost it was imperative to cover their
heads with the upper folds of these sleeping garments, as any part of
the face left exposed would be frozen in a solid mask by morning. Weary
with the long day's trail, the men lay motionless beside the banked-up
fires.
Only two, Dunvegan and Maskwa, remained sitting upright, talking
together in low tones over their plans, the crucial point of which was
not far away.
"At three in the morning we break camp," the chief trader announced. "By
nightfall we must be within sight of Brondel. I think with a few hours'
rest that we might take them by surprise in the very early dawn."
The Ojibway fort runner smoked slowly, pondering. He offered no word.
Squatting squarely on his haunches, he stared at the fire with a sort of
somnolent vacancy on his countenance. Yet the Indian brain was active!
Beneath their glassy surface lights his eyes studied future events. When
he saw things as clearly as his shrewd discernment demanded he would
speak, and not before!
"You understand, my brother," continued Dunvegan, "that it is necessary
for me to succeed in my enterprise. The seizure of this fort of the
French Hearts is so necessary to the Factor's whole plan that we cannot
think of failure. If I accomplish the capture he will join me after he
has taken Fort Dumarge. Then, together, we purpose to besiege the third,
last, and strongest of the Nor'west posts in our district."
Maskwa grunted noncommittally and for an instant took the pipe from his
lips.
"Fort La Roche of the French Hearts is powerful," he commented briefly.
"So powerful," supplemented Dunvegan, "that it will test even our
combined forces to rush its stockades. Otherwise it is impregnable. Fort
Dumarge must go, Maskwa; also Fort Brondel! The enemy's opposition must
be wiped out as we proceed. Having no harassing foes at our backs, we
will at the last stand an equal chance against the defenders of Fort La
Roche."
"So," remarked the Ojibway. "It is a good plan, Strong Father. And
should we stand inside La Roche we may see some old friends."
"That may be." The unconquered bitterness surged up in Dunvegan.
"No doubt we shall see the Wayward One, the daughter of Stern Father."
"Yes, doubtless."
"Also Soft Eyes, the traitor, who came from over the Big Waters."
"Aye, indeed," murmured Dunvegan, "and the Factor proposes to deal with
him. It will be dark dealing, I fancy, for Edwin Glyndon."
"We shall meet, too," Maskwa went on oratorically, "the wise Chief
Running Wolf and his hasty son, Three Feathers."
"In the fight we may meet them, for we know Running Wolf has added his
tribe's strength to that of Black Ferguson in defense of Fort La Roche."
"There at the last will we stalk the Black Ferguson in his lair,"
rejoiced the Ojibway. "It will be a good stalk, Strong Father. The old
wolf is worthy of a hard chase. And, Strong Father, there is one other
we shall see!"
"Whom?"
"The Fair One! The niece of old Pierre--her that Soft Eyes took to
wife!"
Dunvegan winced, finding no words. Maskwa voiced something that had
evolved in his facile mind.
"Strong Father is my brother," he declared, "and I have read my
brother's thoughts. It was his wish to place the Fair One at his own
fireside. That is still his desire, although he does not fulfill it. If
Strong Father were an Indian, it would swiftly be done. Yet the Indian's
ways are not the ways of the white man. He must not steal his brother's
wife till that brother dies. Is it not so, Strong Father?"
"Even so, Maskwa," sighed Dunvegan, burdened by his grim thoughts.
"Then Strong Father shall have the Fair One to wife. I, Maskwa, will see
when it comes to the last that Soft Eyes falls in the attack."
"No!" cried Dunvegan vehemently, "a thousand times, no! Not a prick of
the skin will you give Edwin Glyndon. I warn you once. Let that stay
your hand!"
The Ojibway grumbled at the adjuration of restraint, for although he did
not quite comprehend its moral motive he fully understood its
decisiveness.
"Be it so," he observed. "What I say is wisdom. I have also other wisdom
for Strong Father."
"How?"
"I would have him enter the gates of Fort Brondel by cunning."
"Explain, Maskwa," commanded the chief trader quietly.
"In the night of to-morrow let ten men drive this Niskitowaney fur train
inside the stockades, the rest of the Company's servants lying in wait
outside. When the gates are won, the rest is easy, Strong Father."
The chief trader turned to Maskwa with an exclamation of amazement.
"By Rupert's bones, but you are bold," he cried admiringly.
"The move of the bold often wins," remarked Maskwa.
Dunvegan revolved the project mentally, getting each separate point of
view.
"We'll do it," he rapped out, smashing a burnt stick-end into the coals
with a force that sent fresh flames roaring up. "Maskwa, we'll do it!"
"Good!" exclaimed the Ojibway, without elation. "But first we need the
password of the gates. If Strong Father allows, I will get it." He
motioned to the prone, blanket-wrapped prisoners alongside the fire.
"Get it," ordered the chief trader. "But no torture, remember!"
"So," promised Maskwa coolly. "I will frighten it from one of them."
He plucked the Worcester pistol out of Dunvegan's belt and went slowly
up the line. Presently he singled out the spokesman of the captives
lying completely muffled up in the sleeping robes. At the touch of
Maskwa's toe the Nor'wester sat erect, his black-bearded, swarthy face
full of evil glints. He was one of the scum that the younger fur company
had picked up to swell their none too formidable ranks.
The Ojibway squatted opposite this fellow, in whose charge the
Niskitowaney fur train had been traveling.
"The password at your fort," he commanded with abruptness and vigor.
A villainous oath was the response, an epithet that would have been a
vicious blow had the Nor'wester's arms been loose.
"The password!" Maskwa's voice kept even, but he stabbed the black man
through with the needle points of his concentrated gaze.
No response! The Ojibway brought the pistol into view and leveled it
with a precision more deadly than visual concentration.
"The password!" he repeated stonily for the third time.
"Shoot and be damned to you!" cried the Nor'wester, the swagger and
braggadocio which in his breed is a substitute for courage breaking
out. Swift as light came Maskwa's side-twist of the hand.
Bang! The pistol's scorch stung the Nor'wester's right ear.
Bang! Its red muzzle jet seared his left ear.
Bang! The round, fiendish mouth spat a white furrow through his black
hair.
The awakened camp, thinking of an attack, sat up and grasped weapons,
then put them furtively back, half ashamed of their mistake, and gazed
wonderingly at the strange tableau.
"French Heart, the next one goes through your head," warned the Ojibway.
"The password!"
The Nor'wester, staring into the deadly cylinder of steel, experienced a
prickly, spreading sensation in the nerves of the forehead just between
his eyes. He imagined the crashing impact of the leaden missile. He
already felt the oozy bullet-hole.
Maskwa's eyes lanced him with bloody light which the coals infused. His
spirit quivered under that knife. His nerves collapsed. He pitched
forward on his face, reiterating the password in choking gasps.
"Marseillaise," he panted. "Marseillaise!"
The Ojibway tossed the man's sleeping robes over his fear-shaken visage.
Abruptly he stalked back and dropped the pistol in Dunvegan's lap.
"You have heard, Strong Father?" he asked. "It is good! He spoke the
truth, because he dared not lie. In the night of to-morrow we will enter
the gates of the fort of the French Hearts with that password. I have
spoken!"
Like a snake Maskwa slid into his fur blankets. Dunvegan followed, and
the whole camp was soon still.
Gradually the banked logs of the fire broke in little falling rifts of
coals. Uncombated, the frost advanced and screened the red glow with a
gray hand. Across the valley of the Blazing Pine came the howling of
wolves. Then of a sudden the winter aurora leaped out of the north,
sweeping majestically from stars to earth-line. No rustling sound such
as is heard within the Arctic Circle accompanied its movement. It came
and vanished in mystic silence, only to reappear with twofold brilliance
and multitudinous variations of hue. Up in the zenith a corona of
dazzling splendor formed, and the miracle, continuing, left pulsating,
nebulous rays walking the far-off, frozen shores.
The immensity of the wilderness reaches gave field for unlimited
display. Flooded with resplendent light, the primal wastes of snow
reflected every colored bar, every glorious cloud, every celestial
flash. As a monstrous mirror to augment the radiance and multiply the
lambent gleams, the speckless crust stretched on and on. The very earth
seemed to acquire motion and to roll its snows in red and white
undulating waves.
Wrapped in the sleep of utter weariness, lost to the hard facts of life,
the sleepers lay in a realm of mysticism, of phantasmagoria. Thus all
night across the world blazed this carnival of flame.