At about eight o'clock one evening of the early summer a group of men
were seated on a grass-plot overlooking a broad river. The sun was just
setting through the forest fringe directly behind them.
Of this group some reclined in the short grass, others lay flat on the
bank's slope, while still others leaned against the carriages of two
highly ornamented field-guns, whose embossed muzzles gaped silently at
an eastern shore nearly two miles distant.
The men were busy with soft-voiced talk, punctuating their remarks with
low laughter of a singularly infectious character. It was strange
speech, richly embroidered with the musical names of places, with
unfamiliar names of beasts, and with unintelligible names of things.
Kenógami, Mamátawan, Wenebógan, Kapúskasíng, the silver-fox, the
sea-otter, the sable, the wolverine, the musk-ox, parka, babiche,
tump-line, giddés,--these and others sang like arrows cleaving the
atmosphere of commoner words. In the distant woods the white-throats and
olive thrushes called in a language hardly less intelligible.
There scarcely needed the row of glistening birch-barks below the men,
the warehouse with its picketed lane, the tall flag-staff, the
block-house stockade, the half-bred women chatting over the low fences
of the log-houses, the squaws wandering to and fro in picturesque
silence, the Indian children playing noisily or standing in awe before
the veranda of the white house, to inform the initiated that this little
forest- and river-girt settlement was a post of the Honourable the
Hudson's Bay Company. The time of sunset and the direction of the
river's flow would have indicated a high latitude. The mile-long meadow,
with its Indian camp, the oval of forest, the immense breadth of the
river identified the place as Conjuror's House. Thus the blue water in
the distance was James Bay, the river was the Moose; enjoying his Manila
cheroot on the Factory veranda with the other officers of the Company
was Galen Albret, and these men lounging on the river bank were the
Company's post-keepers and runners, the travellers of the Silent Places.
They were of every age and dressed in a variety of styles. All wore
ornamented moccasins, bead garters, and red sashes of worsted. As to the
rest, each followed his taste. So in the group could be seen bare heads,
fillet-bound heads, covered heads; shirt sleeves, woollen jerseys, and
long, beautiful blanket coats. Two things, however, proved them akin.
They all possessed a lean, wiry hardness of muscle and frame, a
hawk-like glance of the eye, an almost emaciated spareness of flesh on
the cheeks. They all smoked pipes of strong plug tobacco.
Whether the bronze of their faces, thrown into relief by the evening
glow, the frowning steadiness of their eyes, or more fancifully the
background of the guns, the flag-staff and the stockade was most
responsible, the militant impression persisted strongly. These were the
veterans of an hundred battles. They were of the stuff forlorn hopes are
fashioned from. A great enemy, a powerful enemy, an enemy to be
respected and feared had hardened them to the unyielding. The adversary
could almost be measured, the bitterness of the struggle almost be
gauged from the scars of their spirits; the harshness of it, the cruelty
of it, the wonderful immensity of it that should so fashion the souls
and flesh of men. For to the bearing of these loungers clung that hint
of greater things which is never lacking to those who have called the
deeps of man's nature to the conquering.
The sun dipped to the horizon, and over the landscape slipped the
beautiful north-country haze of crimson. From the distant forest sounded
a single mournful wolf-howl. At once the sledge-dogs answered in chorus.
The twilight descended. The men gradually fell silent, smoking their
pipes, savouring the sharp snow-tang, grateful to their toughened
senses, that still lingered in the air.
Suddenly out of the dimness loomed the tall form of an Indian, advancing
with long, straight strides. In a moment he was among them responding
composedly to their greetings.
"Bo' jou', bo' jou', Me-en-gen," said they.
"Bo' jou', bo' jou'," said he.
He touched two of the men lightly on the shoulder. They arose, for they
knew him as the bowsman of the Factor's canoe, and so understood that
Galen Albret desired their presence.
Me-en-gen led the way in silence, across the grass-plot, past the
flag-staff, to the foot of the steps leading to the Factory veranda.
There the Indian left them. They mounted the steps. A voice halted them
in the square of light cast through an intervening room from a lighted
inner apartment.
The veranda was wide and low; railed in; and, except for the square of
light, cast in dimness. A dozen men sat in chairs, smoking. Across the
shaft of light the smoke eddied strangely. A woman's voice accompanied
softly the tinkle of a piano inside. The sounds, like the lamplight,
were softened by the distance of the intervening room.
Of the men on the veranda Galen Albret's identity alone was evident.
Grim, four-square, inert, his very way of sitting his chair, as though
it were a seat of judgment and he the interpreter of some fierce
blood-law, betrayed him. From under the bushy white tufts of his
eyebrows the woodsmen felt the search of his inspection. Unconsciously
they squared their shoulders.
The older had some fifty-five or sixty years, though his frame was
still straight and athletic. A narrow-brimmed slouch hat shadowed quiet,
gray eyes, a hawk nose, a long sweeping white mustache. His hands were
tanned to a hard mahogany-brown carved into veins, cords, and gnarled
joints. He had kindly humour in the wrinkles of his eyes, the slowly
developed imagination of the forest-dweller in the deliberation of their
gaze, and an evident hard and wiry endurance. His dress, from the rough
pea-jacket to the unornamented moccasins, was severely plain.
His companion was hardly more than a boy in years, though more than a
man in physical development. In every respect he seemed to be especially
adapted to the rigours of northern life. The broad arch of his chest,
the plump smoothness of his muscles, above all, the full roundness of
his throat indicated that warmth-giving blood, and plenty of it, would
be pumped generously to every part of his body. His face from any point
of view but one revealed a handsome, jaunty boy, whose beard was still a
shade. But when he looked at one directly, the immaturity fell away.
This might have been because of a certain confidence of experience
beyond what most boys of twenty can know, or it might have been the
result merely of a physical peculiarity. For his eyes were so
extraordinarily close together that they seemed by their very proximity
to pinch the bridge of his nose, and in addition, they possessed a queer
slant or cast which twinkled perpetually now in one, now in the other.
It invested him at once with an air singularly remote and singularly
determined. But at once when he looked away the old boyishness returned,
enhanced further by a certain youthful barbarity in the details of his
dress--a slanted heron's feather in his hat, a beaded knife-sheath, an
excess of ornamentation on his garters and moccasins, and the like.
In a moment one of the men on the veranda began to talk. It was not
Galen Albret, though Galen Albret had summoned them, but MacDonald, his
Chief Trader and his right-hand man. Galen Albret himself made no sign,
but sat, his head sunk forward, watching the men's faces from his
cavernous eyes.
"You have been called for especial duty," began MacDonald, shortly. "It
is volunteer duty, and you need not go unless you want to. We have
called you because you have the reputation of never having failed. That
is not much for you, Herron, because you are young. Still we believe in
you. But you, Bolton, are an old hand on the Trail, and it means a good
deal."
Galen Albret stirred. MacDonald shot a glance in his direction and
hastened on.
"I am going to tell you what we want. If you don't care to tackle the
job, you must know nothing about it. That is distinctly understood?"
He hitched forward nearer the light, scanning the men carefully. They
nodded.
"Sure!" added Herron.
"That's all right. Do you men remember Jingoss, the Ojibway, who
outfitted here a year ago last summer?"
"Him they calls th' Weasel?" inquired Sam Bolton.
"That's the one. Do you remember him well? how he looks?"
"Yes," nodded Sam and Dick Herron together.
"We've got to have that Indian."
"Where is he?" asked Herron. Sam Bolton remained silent.
"That is for you to find out." MacDonald then went on to explain
himself, hitching his chair still nearer, and lowering his voice. "A
year ago last summer," said he, "he got his 'debt' at the store of two
hundred castors[1] which he was to pay off in pelts the following
spring. He never came back. I don't think he intends to. The example is
bad. It has never happened to us before. Too many Indians get credit at
this Post. If this man is allowed to go unpunished, we'll be due for all
sorts of trouble with our other creditors. Not only he, but all the rest
of them, must be made to feel that an embezzler is going to be caught,
every time. They all know he's stolen that debt, and they're waiting to
see what we're going to do about it. I tell you this so you'll know that
it's important."
[Footnote 1: One hundred dollars.]
"You want us to catch him?" said Bolton, more as a comment than an
inquiry.
"Catch him, and catch him alive!" corrected MacDonald. "There must be no
shooting. We've got to punish him in a way that will make him an
example. We've got to allow our Indians 'debt' in order to keep them. If
we run too great a risk of loss, we cannot do it. That is a grave
problem. In case of success you shall have double pay for the time you
are gone, and be raised two ranks in the service. Will you do it?"
Sam Bolton passed his emaciated, gnarled hand gropingly across his
mouth, his usual precursor of speech. But Galen Albret abruptly
interposed, speaking directly, with authority, as was his habit.
"Hold on," said he, "I want no doubt. If you accept this, you must not
fail. Either you must come back with that Indian, or you need not come
back at all. I won't accept any excuses for failure. I won't accept any
failure. It does not matter if it takes ten years. _I want that man_."
Abruptly he fell silent. After a moment MacDonald resumed his speech.
"Think well. Let me know in the morning."
Bolton again passed his hand gropingly before his mouth.
"No need to wait for me," said he; "I'll do it."
Dick Herron suddenly laughed aloud, startling to flight the gravities of
the moment.
"If Sam here's got her figured out, I've no need to worry," he asserted.
"I'm with you."
"Very well," agreed MacDonald. "Remember, this must be kept quiet. Come
to me for what you need."
"I will say good-by to you now," said Galen Albret. "I do not wish to be
seen talking to you to-morrow."
The woodsmen stepped forward, and solemnly shook Galen Albret's hand. He
did not arise to greet these men he was sending out into the Silent
Places, for he was the Factor, and not to many is it given to rule a
country so rich and extended. They nodded in turn to the taciturn
smokers, then glided away into the darkness on silent, moccasined feet.
The night had fallen. Here and there through the gloom shone a lamp.
Across the north was a dim glow of phosphorescence, precursor of the
aurora, from which occasionally trembled for an instant a single shaft
of light. The group by the bronze field-cannon were humming softly the
sweet and tender cadences of _La Violette dandine_.
Instinctively the two woodsmen paused on the hither side of rejoining
their companions. Bolton's eyes were already clouded with the trouble of
his speculation. Dick Herron glanced at his comrade quizzically, the
strange cast flickering in the wind of his thought.
"Oh, Sam!" said he.
"What?" asked the older man, rousing.
"Strikes me that by the time we get through drawin' that double pay on
this job, we'll be rich men--and old!"