THE LONG LEAGUER
Shackled with cold, iron fetters that chilled the earth to its marrow,
the mighty northland lay desolate beneath the brief sunshine, fantastic
under the auroras. Past Fort Brondel the ghostly caribou hordes drifted
rank on rank, coming from the foodless spaces, going where subsistence
permitted. In phantom packs the wolves howled by, trailing the swift
moose across the crusted barrens. Four-legged creatures which never
hibernate foraged farther south where the snows were thinner. The winged
terrors of the air followed them, preying as opportunity afforded.
Survival was ordained for only the strong, the fierce-fanged, the
predatory. Indented in the white surface of the forest aisles were
ptarmigans' tracks and over these the long, shallow furrows left by
swooping owls' wings.
A homely spot of life and warmth amid this vast desolation was the post
of Brondel. All the Nor'west prisoners except Gaspard Follet, Glyndon,
and Desirée had been transferred in care of a strong guard to Oxford
House where they were confined under very strict surveillance in the
blockhouse. The men of the guard returning brought news of how Malcolm
Macleod, failing to surprise Fort Dumarge and rush its stockades, was
besieging the place, hoping to starve it into surrender.
Dunvegan had hastened a messenger to Macleod, informing him of the
capture of Brondel. The Factor dispatched a runner back with orders for
Bruce to be ready to move on La Roche when Macleod should send him word
of his coming on the completion of his own project. Realizing the danger
in which he stood from the overwhelming power of his own desires,
Dunvegan prayed in his heart for the fall of Fort Dumarge and the advent
of the Factor. He thought he could find respite and ultimate safety in
the call which would summon him to the attack of La Roche away from the
lure of Desirée Lazard.
But monotonously the short days slipped into long nights, and still no
word came from Malcolm Macleod. Dumarge was proving stubborn.
Nor did the tiresome fort routine offer the chief trader any relief. The
unspeakable desolation all about, the inactivity, the eternal waiting,
waiting for a command which failed to come, wore down by degrees the
control Dunvegan had exercised over his emotions up to this stage. His
pent-up passion was gradually gaining in volume. He knew that its
torrent must soon sweep him away, beating to atoms the barrier of moral
code which was now but an undermined protection. He was facing the
certain issue, understanding the immensity of his struggle, seeing no
chance of escape.
True, he contemplated asking permission of the Factor to send Glyndon
and Desirée to Oxford House. But over this he hesitated long, fearing
that beyond his guard Black Ferguson's cunning might prevail and that
Desirée might fall into the Nor'wester's grip. But finally, driven to
desperation, Bruce started a runner on the trail to the beleaguering
camp outside the palisades of Dumarge, requesting the transfer of the
prisoners to the home post.
Fate seemed determined to torture, to tempt, to break Dunvegan. Macleod
would not hear of such a proceeding. His answer was that neither Edwin
Glyndon nor Gaspard Follet must pass from confinement or out of the
chief trader's sight. The one-time clerk and the spy, possessing
Nor'west secrets and intimate knowledge of the enemy's affairs, were
captives far too valuable in the Factor's eyes to be given the remotest
opportunity of obtaining freedom. When he should have extracted
much-desired information from them, Macleod planned to deal them the
deserts their actions had merited. Death he had decreed for Gaspard, a
hundred lashes from dried moosehide thongs, a lone journey to York
Factory, and a homeward working passage on a fur barque were promised
the puerile drunkard. Incidentally the runner whom Bruce had sent out
mentioned the presence of two strange men at Oxford House.
"What sort of men were they?" he asked the halfbreed courier.
"W'ite mans, ver' strong," replied the shrewd breed. "Look lak dey come
from ovaire de Beeg Wenipak."
And Dunvegan knew that Granger and Garfield, the hardy deputies, also
awaited the success of Malcolm Macleod. Like shadows since the first had
they moved across the northern reaches from obscurity to certainty, from
vagueness to tangibility, omens of a coming law in the wilderness!
Also like a shadow Desirée Lazard flitted free before the chief trader
in Fort Brondel. Bitter through her utter disillusionment, swept by a
fire as compelling as that against which Bruce Dunvegan battled, she
cared not how high ran the tide of feeling. With a woman's instinctive
pride in her powers she smiled on the re-awakening of the old love,
thrilled to its magnifying intensity, responded with a half guilty
ecstacy to its fierce, measureless strength.
Listening in the fort, Desirée would hear Bruce's rifle talking as he
hunted through the lonely woods. It spoke to her of misery, pain, and
yearning. Secretly she rejoiced. Then at night her eyes shone across to
him through the birch logs' glow. Her hair gleamed like the candlelight.
Her lips allured through the half-dusk surrounding the crooning
fireplace.
Maskwa, the wise old Ojibway, watching them thus evening after evening
as the long winter months slipped away, nodded darkly.
"Nenaubosho is working in them," he observed to himself. "Soft Eyes will
lose his wife unless Stern Father comes to move us."
But Fort Dumarge, feeling the pinch of hunger, still held firm against
Malcolm Macleod.
As ever the evenings came round. Desirée's spell grew stronger. The
attitude of the two began to be marked by all in the fort as the curb
loosened imperceptibly, but surely. Out of hearing in the blockhouse or
the trading room, the Hudson's Bay men commented on their leader's
strange--to them--fight against his own inclination. A hard-bitten
crowd, each followed impulse in the main. The only restriction they
acknowledged was the Company's discipline. They were north of
fifty-three, and they scorned the fine points of ecclesiastics. Two
ruling powers they knew: red blood and a strong arm.
Because Bruce Dunvegan held the upper hand and wanted Desirée Lazard as
he wanted nothing else on earth, they marveled that he did not get rid
of the prisoner and marry her. Behind the screen of hundreds of miles of
forest they had seen the thing done many times before, and no one in the
outside world was the wiser.
"He goin' crazy eef somet'ing don' be happen," whispered Baptiste
Verenne, one night when the winter had nearly run its course.
"'Tis always a woman as raises the divil," announced Terence Burke. "Oi
was engaged wanst meself, an' Rosie O'Shea niver gave me a minnit's
peace till the day she bruk it."
"Hold on there," Connear cried. "You mean _you_ never gave _her_ a
minute's peace. 'Twould be South Sea hell to live with you,
Terence--even for a man!"
"Ye ear-ringed cannibal," returned Terence belligerently. "Divil a woman
_would_ live wid ye, fer she'd be turned to rock salt by yer briny
tongue."
Connear stuck out the offending member beneath his pipe stem.
"No woman will ever have the chance to do it," he declared. "I've been
in a few ports in my time. I've had my lesson."
"Now you spik," smiled Baptiste. "You be t'ink of dat tale you told
'bout dat native girl w'en your boat she be stop at--w'at you
call?--dose Solomon Isle!"
"Yes," the ex-sailor replied. "Made love to me in the second watch and
stabbed me in the back with one hand to leave the way clear for her
tribe to murder the crew and loot the vessel."
"Oi didn't hear that, Peter," Burke prompted. "Go on wid it."
"Nothing to go on with," snapped Connear. "She pinked me too high up.
Knife-point struck the shoulder blade, and my pistol went off before she
could give the signal yell."
"An' then?" Terence was interested.
"Nothin', I said. The crew rolled out. The night was so warm that they
didn't care to sleep any more. Oh, yes, and there was a village funeral
in the mornin'!"
"Whose?"
"The girl's, you blockhead. Died of fever--a night attack!"
"Howly Banshees!" stammered Burke.
Baptiste Verenne crossed himself.
"So," nodded Maskwa, unmoved. "Soft Eyes might die of fever, or cold, or
the Red Death!"
South winds full of strange magic ate away the snows. Blinking evilly,
the muskegs laughed in little gurglings and sucking sounds. The forest
pools brimmed with black water. Fresh, blue reservoirs the big lakes
shimmered, while rivers swirled in brown, sinuous torrents.
Spring! The mallards shot overhead like emerald bullets.
Spring! The geese ran a compass line across the world.
Spring! The blood of every Northerner, man or woman, rioted madly,
leaping untamable as the Blazing Pine River roaring past Fort Brondel.
Through some swift necromancy the frozen wilderness turned to an
arboreal paradise. Bird songs fell sweet on ears tuned to brawling
blizzards. Music of rapid and waterfall seemed heavenly after the
eternal hissing of the wind-freighted drifts. Hotly shone the sun,
pouring vitality into the earth. Responsive the bloom came, wonderful,
profligate, luxurious.
Gay as any of the mating birds Baptiste Verenne sang about the Post. And
when even the veins of squaw and husky thrilled with excess of vigor,
the tremendous swelling and merging of the passion that absorbed Desirée
and Dunvegan could be vaguely gauged. As surely as the glowing warmth
of spring was increasing to febrile summer heat, the man was being drawn
to the woman. The distance between them gradually lessened. Dumarge had
not fallen.
Then from the South in the dusk of an evening came the canoe express
bearing the York Factory Packet in charge of Basil Dreaulond. Since
Brondel now belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, that place had been
added to the posts of call.
Baptiste Verenne sighted Basil and his bronzed paddlers far up the
Blazing Pine before ever they reached the landing. Instantly Fort
Brondel was in an uproar, but in accordance with the rule in troublesome
times no one passed beyond the stockade to greet arrivals. The dangers
of surprise was not courted.
Yet Baptiste had not been mistaken. Dreaulond and his men hailed the
post cheerily.
"_Holá!_" was the cry. "_Voyez le pacquet de la Compagnie._"
"_Oui, mes camarades_," shouted Verenne as sentinel from the high
stockades. "_Entrez! Entrez vite!_"
Joyfully Brondel received them. "_Lettres par le Grand Pays_," shrieked
the volatile French-Canadians.
Bruce Dunvegan met Dreaulond in the store where he had his office as
factor of the fort.
"What news?" he questioned, gripping Basil's brown palm.
"Dumarge she be taken," replied the smiling courier.
"When?" Pain not joy filled Dunvegan to his bewilderment. He began to
think that he did not really understand himself or his feelings.
"'Fore I leave," Dreaulond responded. "De Factor send de word in de
_pacquet_."
A startled, feminine cry echoed behind the men. Bruce swung on his heel.
Her eyes brooding with half-formed fear, Desirée Lazard was regarding
them.
The chief trader motioned her out. She did not obey.
"He has won? The Factor has won at last?" Her manner was that of a
person who faces a calamity long-feared, hard-hated.
Dully Bruce nodded.
"The papers!" she exclaimed. "Open them! See when the force moves."
He broke the thongs of the packet like thread, rummaged the bundle, and
found the documents directed to him.
"Macleod will be here in two days," was his answer. "Now will you go!"
The intensity of Dunvegan bordered on savagery. Desirée slipped to the
door. Outwardly conquered, she disappeared, but victory still lurked in
her glance.
Basil Dreaulond wondered much at the chief trader's apparent mood, for
he was always gentle in the extreme when dealing with women. The courier
could not know that this was the bitterness of renunciation. He too went
softly away and left Dunvegan alone.
An Indian had taken Baptiste Verenne's position as sentinel, and
Baptiste, hurrying through the yard, met Basil coming out of the fort.
"Got de fiddle ready, Baptiste?" asked the tanned courier, grinning.
It was the custom at the posts to hold a dance upon the arrival of the
packet. These festivals marked, as it were, the periods of relief and
relaxation from the toil and danger of the long, arduous packet route.
"_Oui_, for sure t'ing," Verenne replied. "I be beeg mans dis night,
_mon camarade_!"
And a big man Baptiste was as, perched high on a corner table, he drew
the merry soul of him out across the strings of his instrument.
As he played, he smiled jubilantly down upon the light-hearted maze that
filled the great floor of the trading room. The huge hall was decorated
by the quick hands of women for the occasion. Varicolored ribbons ran
round the walls after the manner of bunting and fell in festoons from
the beamed ceiling. Candles stood in rows upon mantels and shelves,
shedding soft, silver light from under tinselled shades. Evergreens
were thrust in the fireplace and banked about with wild roses and the
many flaming flowers of the wilderness. A sweet odor filled the air, an
Eden smell, the fragrance of the untainted forest.
Riotously, exuberantly the frolic began. Blood pulsed hotly. Feet were
free. Lips were ready. The Nor'westers' wives, the French-Canadian
girls, the halfbreed women swung madly through the square and string
dances with the Brondel men of their choice.
God of it all, Baptiste smiled perpetually over the tumult, quickening
his music to a faster time, quivering the violin's fibres with sonorous
volume. Mad hornpipes he shrilled out, sailors' tunes which Pete Connear
stepped till the rafters shook with the clatter. Snappy reels he unwound
in which Terence Burke led, throwing antics of Irish abandon that
convulsed the throng. Also, Baptiste voiced the songs he loved, airs of
his own race, dances he had whirled in old years with the belles of the
Chaudiere and the Gatineau.
Out of sympathy for the prisoners, Glyndon and Follet, when all the
amusement was going on above, Bruce Dunvegan had ordered them to be
brought up. For the one evening they were allowed the freedom of the
fort, but wherever they went two Indian guards stalked always at their
elbows.
And Glyndon went most frequently where the rum flowed freest. After the
abstinence imposed by confinement since the week-long debauch his thirst
was a parching one. Half fuddled, he met Desirée threading her way
through the crowd. He put out both hands awkwardly to bar her progress.
"What do you want?" she cried, drawing suddenly back as she would recoil
from a snake.
"You," Glyndon answered thickly. "Can a man not speak with his wife?"
"Wife!" Desirée echoed. "Go find one of your halfbreed wenches. Speak
with _her_!"
Disgust, contempt, revulsion were in Desirée's voice and manner. She
darted aside and avoided him in the crowd.
Yet again he found her seated at a table between Dunvegan and Basil
Dreaulond where she thought to be secure. He threw his arms about her
neck, attempting a maudlin kiss, but instead of meeting her full, red
lips his own insipid mouth met Dreaulond's great paw, swiftly thrust out
to close upon his blotched cheekbones and whirl him into a seat on the
courier's other side.
"Ba gosh, ma fren', you ain' be fit for kiss no woman," Basil observed
sternly. "You got be mooch sobaire first. Eh, _mon ami_? Sit ver'
still--dat's w'at I said."
Inwardly flaming, Dunvegan remained immovable, as if the incident were
none of his concern. But though apparently so calm he was the victim of
raging emotions. The magnetic personality of the woman beside him was a
poignant thing. Her propinquity proved masterful beyond belief. He could
hear her heart beating under restraint; interpret the heaving of her
bosom; feel the hot pulsing of her blood; read her very thoughts as her
mind evolved them. Conscious of the spell which grew stronger with every
minute, Bruce sat there unable to tear himself away.
Presently, seeking to divert his mind from the cause of the unrest, the
chief trader opened a few bottles of aged wine which he had found in the
cellars of Fort Brondel that were stored with the Nor'wester's liquor.
This he had carefully kept to celebrate the first visit of the Hudson's
Bay Company's packet.
The amount was not large, yet a little to each the time-mellowed vintage
brought from across the seas by way of Montreal went round.
"To the York Factory packet," Dunvegan cried, proposing the toast.
Cheers thundered out, hearty, loyal, sincere. Then reverently the toast
was sipped.
"And Basil Dreaulond," Bruce added. A shout this time loud with
great-hearted friendliness and comradeship! Strong pride of the
northland race burned in their eyes as they drank to the finest type of
it, the virile courier.
Now in fullness of spirit each voiced the toast that appealed to him
personally.
"Scotia!--Scots wha hae!" shrilled two Highlanders of Dunvegan's band.
"The Emerald Isle," Terence Burke roared aggressively.
"The Eagle," yelled Pete Connear. "Drat your landsmen's eyes, drink with
me. To the American Eagle and the salt of the sea!"
"_La France! La France!_" Voyageurs shrieked like mad.
"Old England," stammered Edwin Glyndon, pounding the table.
"Old fren's," spoke Basil Dreaulond, with quiet modesty.
"Old lovers!" Clear as a clarion Desirée's toast rang through the din,
thrilling Dunvegan by its audacity, its fervor. As consuming flames her
eyes drew him, withering stout resolves, melting his will. He bent his
head lower, lower, glorying in the complete confession those two swift
words had made.
"Ah, yes!" called Glyndon, leering evilly, "you seem to know that
toast--too well."
She sprang from her seat in a fury. He sprang from his, ugly in his
mood.
"You dog!" Her nostrils quivered. "You coward!"
"And liar!" Dunvegan's menacing face eager to avenge the insult rose
behind her shoulder.
Uttering a wild, inarticulate cry, Glyndon struck the scornful face of
the woman. Desirée gave a little moan and fell half stunned against the
table.
The Brondel men roared in anger. As one man they sprang forward with the
single purpose of rending Edwin Glyndon. But Dunvegan was quicker than
they. White to his lips, he had leaped at the former clerk. His first
savage impulse was to strike, to maim, to kill! One blow with all his
mighty strength and Glyndon would never have spoken again.
Spoken! That was it. The quick realization pierced his brain even in the
moment of obsessing anger. Glyndon was a prisoner. He must be produced
before Malcolm Macleod. Macleod had questions to ask of him. Dead men
could not answer questions.
Thus did sanity temper Dunvegan's rage. It was only his open palm that
knocked the sot ten feet across the room.
Then fearfully he lifted Desirée. She stirred at the touch. The light of
a smile came into the wan face with the red weal upon it. Her fortitude
permitted not the slightest expression of pain, and Dunvegan's soul went
out to her at knowledge of her woman's bravery. What before had seemed
to him as only his human weakness now became the strength of duty. As if
she had been a child, he raised Desirée in his arms and left the gaping
crowd.
A murmur ran among the men when he was gone. They scowled as Glyndon
staggered up.
Came an instant's silence and the piping of a thin voice. "Now my
toast!"
Everyone looked to see Gaspard Follet grinning like an ogre at the foot
of the table. He thrust his owlish face over the board and shook the
wine in his glass till in the light it sparkled like rubies.
"To the devil!" he chuckled.
The feasters started and sat back silent, grave, awed by the vital
significance of that last toast.
Outside the challenge of the Indian sentinel interrupted the quiet. They
heard the clatter of the gates. Someone had arrived.
In the living room above the store where he had ascended on the first
strange night of his coming into Brondel, Dunvegan laid Desirée on the
lounge covered with fur robes. He sat by her, tenderly bathing the red
weal with some soothing herbal mixture that the squaws were accustomed
to brew. It relieved the pain, and she smiled up at him, her lustrous
eyes innocent with their depth of love.
"By the God that makes and breaks hearts," Dunvegan breathed, "you'll
never look on him again. You belong to me by first and only right of
worship."
There sounded a step on the stairs. Whoever had arrived was coming up.
The door opened softly. Father Brochet stepped in.
"My son, my son," he murmured reproachfully but compassionately.
They had told him all below. He came across the room, clasping hands
with Bruce, greeting Desirée parentally.
"Go to bed, child," he ordered kindly, assuming authority over the odd
situation. "You look tired out. Go to bed! Bruce and I want to talk."
Wondering at her own obedience, Desirée vanished into the adjoining
chamber. Marveling at his own sufferance, Dunvegan watched her go.
He turned to Brochet. "Everything unexpected seems to be happening
to-night!" he exclaimed. "But I didn't think you were near. Where have
you come from, Father?"
"From Loon Lake."
"You knew we had captured Fort Brondel, then?"
"Yes. The Indians gave me the news. As I was on my return journey to
Oxford House, I thought I would pay you a call according to my promise.
It seems, my son, that I have arrived very opportunely. You have ruled
yourself for many months! Are you, in one mad moment, going to lose
your grip?"
He linked an arm in the chief trader's and walked the floor with him,
talking, talking, priming him with the wisdom of his saner years till
Desirée in the next room fell asleep to the sound of their voices and
the regular shuffle of their feet.
And by dawn Father Brochet felt the pulse of victory. Something of
soul-light replaced the fevered gleam in Dunvegan's eyes. Not yet had he
lost his grip!
"But she must go to her uncle, Pierre Lazard," he declared. "Seeing her,
I cannot keep this strength you have given me."
"Pierre is at York Factory," the priest replied. "He could not bide the
post long after his niece was gone. So Macleod let him go to the
Factory. He passed through my Indian camp at Loon Lake before the winter
trails broke."
"So much the better," sighed Dunvegan, with relief. "There she will be
safe from Black Ferguson. She can go in the canoe express with Basil
Dreaulond and his packeteers."