CONQUEST
A prayer on his lips, Brochet scrambled down the ladder. A curse on his,
Black Ferguson tumbled after. In the impetus of his descent the
Nor'wester hit the trapdoor over the ladder. It slammed shut, and the
place below was plunged in darkness except for the faint gleam which
fell from above through the other square. The candlelight came down like
a golden spray of phosphorescent liquid, bathing and making visible a
meager space in the middle of the lower floor. It was only the square of
light in the ceiling enlarged a few diameters, and the rest of the vast
room where boxes, barrels, and bales were piled in rows on the floor and
upon shelves on the walls remained black as pitch.
But Ferguson had no chance to go up and bring down the candle without
which he had so thoughtlessly descended. His quarry was too close to
escape.
"Do you find her, Father?" he called to the priest whom he could dimly
see searching where the weak light shone.
"No! Nor hear her!" Brochet's voice was bitterly harsh. "If she struck
these boxes, you have murdered her!"
"Aye; and if she struck the fur-bales, she is as lively as ever! Since
you don't see her there, she didn't strike the boxes. She's in this
cursed dark somewhere. What's more, she'll be out of it in a minute.
Watch the door, Father. I'll stand by the fur-chute. It's down; and it's
devilishly handy for her to slide into the water!"
Quickly he crossed the space of light and groped for the mouth of the
chute. He reached it. The cool, dank river air rising through it puffed
in his heated face.
"Wait a moment, Father. Wait till I strike a match!"
"In the name of Heaven, don't!" cried Brochet from the door where he
was secretly trying to loose the bar. "The kegs broke when they fell.
The powder's all over the floor."
Black Ferguson chuckled like a fiend. "Faint-hearted, Father? Take a
lesson from the girl. Powder or no powder, we must have light!"
The sulphur match crackled on the wall. Ferguson shielded the sputtering
blue flame with his hands, but even while he shielded it, the match was
struck from his fingers, and he was locked in a pair of powerful arms.
"Let go, priest!" he commanded laughingly. "Where in the devil did you
get such muscles?" He imagined Brochet had gripped him.
But his laugh and his voice died in the strain. He could only choke out
a curse and bend to his sudden mad struggle for freedom.
Over by the door Father Brochet heard the sounds of conflict, the hard
breathing, heavy trampling, smashing of boxes and barrels, crashing of
overturned goods. He thought it was Desirée striving against the
Nor'wester. He rushed to her aid, but the strong whirl of men's fighting
bodies hurled him into a corner. Almost under his feet Desirée gave a
frightened cry, and, stooping, the priest groped for her.
He gathered her in his arms. "Are you hurt, daughter? Are you hurt?"
"No, no," she assured him. "I landed on the fur-bales, and they were
soft. But, God of Heaven, what is happening?"
"It must be Dunvegan--and Ferguson. And one will kill the other!"
In the dark they crouched back from the stamping feet. Not a thing was
visible. They might have been in some medieval dungeon or charnel vault
where monsters of old were writhing in death-grapples. Desirée was
trembling all over. She clung to Brochet, her eyes straining for an
unrewarded glimpse of the furious antagonists. If she could only see!
That was what wracked her. The fear that invisible horror engenders
shattered her supersensitive nerves. On the verge of hysteria she
listened, praying for the end.
Then huge as giants in the spray of light she saw two men stagger into
the central space of the floor. She saw one man's body bend as willow in
the other's arms, heard it crack like a broken branch. Sweeter than any
sound she had ever heard, Dunvegan's voice rang clearly.
"A candle, Brochet! For Heaven's sake, a candle! It is either his neck
or his back. Pray God, his neck!"
The priest's cassock flapped up the ladder and flapped down again.
Fearfully he walked with the taper and held it tight; for destruction
was all around them, and the trampled powder lay on the floor like meal.
"Careful, Brochet!" warned the chief trader. "This way--this way. Ah!
it's his back."
Horrible to view, with his spine doubled back like the broken blade of a
jackknife, Black Ferguson was crumpled over a barrel. He looked as if he
could never move or speak again, and, placing the candle carefully on a
box, Father Brochet knelt hastily beside him.
"Help me, my son," he begged Dunvegan. "Raise him up. Surely he will let
me shrive him."
Shrive him! They reckoned without the Nor'wester's steel spirit. He
squirmed in their hands. As he saw Dunvegan's face bent over him he
snarled like a trapped wolf and uttered a demon-howl.
"La Roche!" he screamed loud enough to ring from ground to blockhouse
tower. "La Roche! To me, comrades! To me----"
The chief trader's palm stopped his mouth, but the mischief was done.
There arose a roar of trapper shouts and Cree gutturals. The yard
thundered with running feet. Brochet rushed to bar the door. Dunvegan
grasped Desirée's arm and sprang to the fur-chute.
"Quick!" he ordered. "Put your feet over the rim. Now sit down. Basil
has the canoe at the other end!"
He looped the rope around the girl's waist and swiftly lowered her like
a bale through the wooden spout. Hands below suddenly eased his burden.
The rope jerked twice, Dreaulond's signal that the descent was made, and
Dunvegan pulled the hemp up again with feverish haste. The coils writhed
and twisted on the floor behind him; the sweat of his climb and exertion
ran rivulets on bare arms and forehead.
"You next, Brochet!" he panted.
But there was sacrifice in the priest's eye. Men with torches were all
about the building. In a moment or two they would break in.
"Brochet! You next!"
"No, no, my son. Good-bye, and go. There is no time for both."
"You next, I said," roared Dunvegan. He leaped and seized the priest
bodily.
"Leave me, son!" Brochet tried to throw off the rope. "Your place is
with Desirée. They will not harm me."
Dunvegan whipped the cable over the priest's head and took a turn under
his armpits. "Harm you! They would rend you bone from bone. Black
Ferguson knows you now for an imposter. Into the chute you go!"
The building shook under the assault of the trappers and Crees. The
rafters rang with Ferguson's shouts as he urged the men on. Axe-blades
bit through the barred door.
The chief trader put forth his strength to steady Brochet's descent. He
was much heavier than Desirée, and the brunt of the drag came just when
he occupied the mouth of the chute before the rope could be eased over
the pulley. As the priest's head was disappearing, he cast up his eyes
and Dunvegan saw spring into them an intense horror.
"Look!" he shrieked. "Look!" and vanished down the pipe.
The chief trader threw a backward glance across his shoulder as hand
over hand he paid out the rope, and the sight he glimpsed turned icy
cold the hot sweat on his limbs. Black Ferguson, cripple as he was, had
possessed himself of the candle and was dragging his broken body along
the floor toward a heap of the trampled powder. Paralysis gripped the
Nor'wester's legs so that they trailed helplessly, but by means of his
tremendous strength of shoulders and arms he was wriggling his way,
clutching, pulling, heaving as one in death-throes. He had the candle in
his mouth, and he seemed to Dunvegan like some great, evil,
fiery-tongued, crawling monster.
Outside the building all was pandemonium. Inside dwelt awful suspense.
It was a moment to drive Dunvegan mad. The rope was not long enough to
allow him to back up and kick the candle out of Ferguson's mouth. If he
let go he would undoubtedly drown Brochet and capsize the two in the
canoe. He hung on grimly, measuring the Nor'wester's progress by
glancing back repeatedly, striving to pay out the cable faster than the
dragon-like thing could crawl.
Foot by foot he fed the rope. As it sagged loose, Black Ferguson had
gained his goal. His hand snatched the candle from his teeth and reached
out to lay wick to the granules.
When he saw the Nor'wester's arm go out, Dunvegan dived headforemost
down the chute. Like an otter he slid, and cried a warning as he shot
down. Barely in time did Basil catch it. A backward sweep of his paddle,
and a whizzing body splashed at his bow.
And simultaneous with the splash the cliffs rocked and thundered. Like a
volcano the hill vomited red fire through the pitchy night. In a blotch
of flame La Roche flew heavenward. A rain of wreckage fell upon the
water all around the chief trader.
"_Mon Dieu, camarade_, dive!" shouted Dreaulond, backing water.
He dove and came up again in the center of the river. There the courier
whirled the stern of the canoe into his grasp, and, unhurt, Dunvegan
raised himself over it. The last barrier between them gone, Desirée
crouched in his dripping arms.
Yet only an instant might heart beat against heart! Dunvegan thrust his
legs under the stern thwart and caught up a paddle.
"Drive, Basil," he urged. "Drive hard! I don't think there's a living
soul left, but we can't take any chances."
In dashed the blades, but hardly had they dipped a dozen strokes when a
string of lights starred the river round the first bend.
Dreaulond swore softly. "Nor'westers, ba gosh! Some been away!"
"Hug the shore," Dunvegan whispered. "We may slip past them without
their seeing us in this fog."
Paddling in silence, they worked their craft close against the rocky
wall of the farther shore. Prey to mingled hope and fear, the four
crouched low in the gunwales. The lights were still coming in file, and
in a moment the hiding ones could see a fleet of canoes with torches in
the bows. Swiftly the birch-barks skimmed the bloody streaks the torches
cast on the black water. They changed their course slightly, and the
leading one forged along within a few yards of Dunvegan's craft.
Discovery seemed certain. The chief trader whispered to Basil and felt
for his weapons in the canoe bottom. Voices of the oncoming men struck
sharp and clear through the moist air.
"It seemed like an earthquake!" someone was saying.
Instantly Dunvegan knew the voice--the Factor's! He dropped his weapons.
"Earthquake it sure was," a voice replied. "And the fort was on top of
it. Your men have saved you the trouble of a siege, Macleod. They sure
got to the powder!"
The pulses of the four leaped gladly. Now in the nebulous torch-glare
they could make out the faces and figures in the foremost craft. There
in the bow was Wahbiscaw, and behind him Malcolm Macleod. Amidships
Dunvegan saw Granger, the sandy-haired deputy he had met on Lake Lemeau
and again at Kabeke Bluffs. Aft was his swarthy, black-bearded
companion, Garfield. In his place as steersman squatted wise old Maskwa.
The keen-visaged Granger was casting piercing looks on all sides as they
plunged on. He timed his paddle strokes with an oft-repeated phrase.
"They got to the powder; they sure did!"
And Garfield's white teeth split his black beard. "Yes, and where in
thunder are they now?"
"Here," laughed Dunvegan, and from the gloom drove alongside them.
"Here. Keep down those guns!"
Granger, ever quick to defend, lowered his arms. "By the hinges of
hell!" he exclaimed. "You sneaked? You got to it and sneaked? Oh, what a
jolt! Oh, Lord, what a jolt!"
All around the other canoes glided up. The chief trader looked on the
faces of the Oxford House and Brondel men. The haggard, strained look in
their eyes told of paddling night and day from Fort Brondel. And they
had nearly made it! Dunvegan thanked God they hadn't.
As for the Hudson's Bay forces, they stared at the four in the canoe as
at people escaped from the Pit. But the Factor stirred them from
immobility.
"Ashore!" he ordered. "Ashore! Search the hill!"
"I'm afraid there's nothing to be found," observed Dunvegan, "except
perhaps a few wretches to be put out of their misery. I guess there were
tons of powder."
"How'd it happen?" Macleod demanded, as side by side their two canoes
nosed in to shore through the channel where the watergate was blown to
atoms.
"Ask Brochet. He was there from the first. He can tell you more than I."
So between Macleod and Granger, as they climbed the twisting path cut
through rock to the landing by the watergate, the priest walked,
outlining what had taken place. Behind them, with Dunvegan and Garfield,
toiled Desirée. She would not be left alone below. Maskwa and Wahbiscaw
had gone ahead with the rest of the Hudson's Bay men.
As they reached the top, Brochet finished his brief account of the
affair in the fur-house.
The Factor took it in silence. Not so Granger!
"The game old devil!" he cried. "He sure kept his nerve to the last.
But he has made himself thunderin' hard to identify. Eh, Macleod? I
guess you can't swear to his identity now!"
"You should have arrested him as soon as you placed him at La Roche,"
the Factor answered. "And found me afterwards."
"Don't talk nonsense! We'd look fine playing a single-handed game like
that, wouldn't we? It had to be worked a different way. You both had
assumed names. We didn't know which was which. So we had to nail our
plan in the middle and let it swing at both ends. You see how it swung?
If we had to take you, the Northwest Company would fight for us. If we
had to take Ferguson, the Hudson's Bay Company sure was at our backs!
Good Lord--what's here? A quarry?"
A quarry indeed it looked, a huge, black cave amid the rocks, the heart
of the granite headland blown out by a titanic blast. They stood on the
edge of the slope, gazing at the torches of the Hudson's Bay men as they
swarmed like gnomes in the bowels of the pit. They clustered and spread
and crawled here and there, round the sides of the chasm, up over its
lips, where ghostly as bale-fires little heaps of wreckage smoldered and
flamed.
Then the reluctant lights came back one by one, and the tale of the
bearers ran the same.
"Nothing!"
"Not a body!"
"Not a limb!"
Like a funeral bell Brochet's voice broke the grim silence. "Gone? All
gone? And unshriven! God rest their souls." He knelt on the rocks.
While he muttered a prayer, Maskwa strode out of the dark. He had no
torch, but he held something in his hands. Startled, the others craned
and peered. A dozen torches flashed over the Ojibway, and in his arms
the crimson light played upon a crumpled form.
"He breathes, Strong Father!"
Dunvegan sprang to one side of the burden, Granger to his other. As they
placed the mangled figure on the ground the head came by chance upon
the priest's knees.
"Ferguson!" Brochet whispered, awed. For though limbs and body were
crushed and torn, the face remained unmarred.
"Aye, and a job for you," murmured Dunvegan.
But Granger had leaped at the name, dragging Macleod by the arm.
"Look!" he urged. "Look! Will you swear to him?"
The red glare bathed the white face. The Factor's eyes focused on the
features and grew full of terrible light and would not come away.
"It's--it's--Funster," he choked.
Dunvegan saw his right hand clench and clutch the air. He held an
imaginary weapon. The old scar was ripped from his heart. He was the
primeval man, red with rage, thirsting for revenge, and baited blind
because vengeance had been torn from his grasp.
And as if under the electric prick of his tense words the Nor'wester
stirred. He muttered once and opened his eyelids. Straight up into
Macleod's awful face he stared, and his eyes suddenly gleamed with
recognition.
"My son--my boy?" demanded the Factor hoarsely.
The Nor'wester's lips strove a little and parted.
"Gaspard!" he groaned with his last breath.
THE END
* * * * *
NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFE BY
WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE
_MAVERICKS._
A tale of the western frontier, where the "rustler," whose depredations
are so keenly resented by the early settlers of the range, abounds. One
of the sweetest love stories ever told.
_A TEXAS RANGER._
How a member of the most dauntless border police force carried law into
the mesquite, saved the life of an innocent man after a series of
thrilling adventures, followed a fugitive to Wyoming, and then passed
through deadly peril to ultimate happiness.
_WYOMING._
In this vivid story of the outdoor West the author has captured the
breezy charm of "cattleland," and brings out the turbid life of the
frontier with all its engaging dash and vigor.
_RIDGWAY OF MONTANA._
The scene is laid in the mining centers of Montana, where politics and
mining industries are the religion of the country. The political
contest, the love scene, and the fine character drawing give this story
great strength and charm.
_BUCKY O'CONNOR._
Every chapter teems with wholesome, stirring adventures, replete with
the dashing spirit of the border, told with dramatic dash and absorbing
fascination of style and plot.
_CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT._
A story of Arizona; of swift-riding men and daring outlaws; of a bitter
feud between cattle-men and sheep-herders. The heroine is a most unusual
woman and her love story reaches a culmination that is fittingly
characteristic of the great free West.
_BRAND BLOTTERS._
A story of the Cattle Range. This story brings out the turbid life of
the frontier, with all its engaging dash and vigor, with a charming love
interest running through its 320 pages.
* * * * *
STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY
GENE STRATTON-PORTER
_LADDIE._ Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story
is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it
is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs
of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie, the
older brother whom Little Sister adores, and the Princess, an English
girl who has come to live in the neighborhood and about whose family
there hangs a mystery. There is a wedding midway in the book and a
double wedding at the close.
_THE HARVESTER._ Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.
"The Harvester," David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who
draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the
book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be
notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the
Harvester's whole being realizes that this is the highest point of life
which has come to him--there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic
quality.
_FRECKLES._ Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford.
Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he
takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great
Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to
the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The
Angel" are full of real sentiment.
_A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST._ Illustrated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda.
The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of
the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness
towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of
her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and
unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.
_AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW._ Illustrations in colors by Oliver Kemp.
The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The
story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love.
The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and
its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.
* * * * *
JOHN FOX, JR'S.
STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS
_THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE._
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
The "lonesome pine" from which the story takes its name was a tall tree
that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine
lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he
finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the
_foot-prints of a girl_. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and
the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young engineer a madder
chase than "the trail of the lonesome pine."
_THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME._
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as "Kingdom Come." It
is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often
springs the flower of civilization.
"Chad." the "little shepherd" did not know who he was nor whence he
came--he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood,
seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and
mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery--a charming waif,
by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in the
mountains.
_A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND._
Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of
moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the
heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two
impetuous young Southerners' fall under the spell of "The Blight's"
charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the
love making of the mountaineers.
Included in this volume is "Hell fer-Sartain" and other stories, some of
Mr. Fox's most entertaining Cumberland valley narratives.
* * * * *
JACK LONDON'S NOVELS
_JOHN BARLEYCORN._ Illustrated by H. T. Dunn.
This remarkable book is a record of the author's own amazing
experiences. This big, brawny world rover, who has been acquainted with
alcohol from boyhood, comes out boldly against John Barleycorn. It is a
string of exciting adventures, yet it forcefully conveys an unforgetable
idea and makes a typical Jack London book.
_THE VALLEY OF THE MOON._ Frontispiece by George Harper.
The story opens in the city slums where Billy Roberts, teamster and
ex-prize fighter, and Saxon Brown, laundry worker, meet and love and
marry. They tramp from one end of California to the other, and in the
Valley of the Moon find the farm paradise that is to be their salvation.
_BURNING DAYLIGHT._ Four illustrations.
The story of an adventurer who went to Alaska and laid the foundations
of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes to
the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and
recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. He then starts out as a
merciless exploiter on his own account. Finally he takes to drinking and
becomes a picture of degeneration. About this time he falls in love with
his stenographer and wins her heart but not her hand and then--but read
the story!
_A SON OF THE SUN._ Illustrated by A. O. Fischer and C. W. Ashley.
David Grief was once a light-haired, blue-eyed youth who came from
England to the South Seas in search of adventure. Tanned like a native
and as lithe as a tiger, he became a real son of the sun. The life
appealed to him and he remained and became very wealthy.
_THE CALL OF THE WILD._ Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles
Livingston Bull. Decorations by Charles E. Hooper.
A book of dog adventures as exciting as any man's exploits could be.
Here is excitement to stir the blood and here is picturesque color to
transport the reader to primitive scenes.
_THE SEA WOLF._ Illustrated by W. J. Aylward.
Told by a man whom Fate suddenly swings from his fastidious life into
the power of the brutal captain of a sealing schooner. A novel of
adventure warmed by a beautiful love episode that every reader will hail
with delight.
_WHITE FANG._ Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull.
"White Fang" is part dog, part wolf and all brute, living in the frozen
north; he gradually comes under the spell of man's companionship, and
surrenders all at the last in a fight with a bull dog. Thereafter he is
man's loving slave.