PIERRE LAPIERRE
A half-hour later, when Chloe again ventured from the tent, all
evidence of the struggle had disappeared. The bodies of the two dead
men had been removed, and the canoemen were busily engaged in gathering
together and restoring the freight pieces that had been ripped open by
the scowmen.
Lapierre advanced to meet her, his carefully creased Stetson in hand.
"I have sent word for the other scows to come on at once, and in the
meantime, while my men attend to the freight, may we not talk?"
Chloe assented, and the two seated themselves upon a log. It was then,
for the first time that the girl noticed that one side of Lapierre's
face--the side he had managed to keep turned from her--was battered and
disfigured by some recent misadventure. Noticed, too, the really fine
features of him--the dark, deep-set eyes that seemed to smoulder in
their depths, the thin, aquiline nose, the shapely lips, the clean-cut
lines of cheek and jaw.
"You have been hurt!" she cried. "You have met with an accident!"
The man smiled, a smile in which cynicism blended with amusement.
"Hardly an accident, I think, Miss Elliston, and, in any event, of
small consequence." He shrugged a dismissal of the subject, and his
voice assumed a light gaiety of tone.
"May we not become better acquainted, we two, who meet in this far
place, where travellers are few and worth the knowing?" There was no
cynicism in his smile now, and without waiting for a reply he
continued: "My name you already know. I have only to add that I am an
adventurer in the wilds--explorer of _hinterlands_, free-trader,
freighter, sometime prospector--casual cavalier." He rose, swept the
Stetson from his head, and bowed with mock solemnity.
"And now, fair lady, may I presume to inquire your mission in this land
of magnificent wastes?" Chloe's laughter was genuine as it was
spontaneous.
Lapierre's light banter acted as a tonic to the girl's nerves, harassed
as they were by a month's travel through the fly-bitten wilderness.
More--he interested her. He was different. As different from the
half-breeds and Indian canoemen with whom she had been thrown as his
speech was from the throaty guttural by means of which they exchanged
their primitive ideas.
"Pray pause, Sir Cavalier," she smiled, falling easily into the gaiety
of the man's mood. "I have ventured into your wilderness upon a most
unpoetic mission. Merely the establishment of a school for the
education and betterment of the Indians of the North."
A moment of silence followed the girl's words--a moment in which she
was sure a hard, hostile gleam leaped into the man's eyes. A trick of
fancy doubtless, she thought, for the next instant it had vanished.
When he spoke, his air of light raillery was gone, but his lips
smiled--a smile that seemed to the girl a trifle forced.
"Ah, yes, Miss Elliston. May I ask at whose instigation this school is
to be established--and where?" He was not looking at her now, his eyes
sought the river, and his face showed only a rather finely moulded
chin, smooth-shaven--and the lips, with their smile that almost sneered.
Instantly Chloe felt that a barrier had sprung up between herself and
this mysterious stranger who had appeared so opportunely out of the
Northern bush. Who was he? What was the meaning of the old factor's
whispered warning? And why should the mention of her school awake
disapproval, or arouse his antagonism? Vaguely she realized that the
sudden change in this man's attitude hurt. The displeasure, and
opposition, and ridicule of her own people, and the surly indifference
of the rivermen, she had overridden or ignored. This man she could not
ignore. Like herself, he was an adventurer of untrodden ways. A man
of fancy, of education and light-hearted raillery, and yet, a strong
man, withal--a man of moment, evidently.
She remembered the sharp, quick words of authority--the words that
caused the villainous Vermilion to whirl with a snarl of fear.
Remembered also, the swift sure shot that had ended Vermilion's career,
his absolute mastery of the situation, his lack of excitement or
braggadocio, and the expressed regret over the necessity for killing
the man. Remembered the abject terror in the eyes of those who fled
into the bush at his appearance, and the servility of the canoemen.
As she glanced into the half-turned face of the man, Chloe saw that the
sneering smile had faded from the thin lips as he waited her answer.
"At _my own_ instigation." There was an underlying hardness of
defiance in her words, and the firm, sun-reddened chin unconsciously
thrust forward beneath the encircling mosquito net. She paused, but
the man, expressionless, continued to gaze out over the surface of the
river.
"I do not know exactly _where_," she continued, "but it will be
_somewhere_. Wherever it will do the most good. Upon the bank of some
river, or lake, perhaps, where the people of the wilderness may come
and receive that which is theirs of right----"
"Theirs of right?" The man looked into her face, and Chloe saw that the
thin lips again smiled--this time with a quizzical smile that hinted at
tolerant amusement. The smile stung.
"Yes, theirs of right!" she flashed. "The education that was freely
offered to me, and to you--and of which we availed ourselves."
For a long time the man continued to gaze in silence, and, when at
length he spoke, it was to ask an entirely irrelevant question.
"Miss Elliston, you have heard my name before?"
The question came as a surprise, and for a moment Chloe hesitated.
Then frankly, and looking straight into his eyes she answered:
"Yes, I have."
The man nodded, "I knew you had." He turned his injured eye quickly
from the dazzle of the sunlight that flashed from the surface of the
river, and Chloe saw that it was discoloured and bloodshot. She arose,
and stepping to his side laid her hand upon his arm.
"You _are_ hurt," she said earnestly, "your eye gives you pain."
Beneath her fingers the girl felt the play of strong muscles as the arm
pressed against her hand. Their eyes met, and her heart quickened with
a strange new thrill. Hastily she averted her glance and then---- The
man's arm suddenly was withdrawn and Chloe saw that his fist had
clinched. With a rush the words brought back to him the scene in the
trading-room of the post at Fort Rae. The low, log-room, piled high
with the goods of barter. The great cannon stove. The two groups of
dark-visaged Indians--his own Chippewayans, and MacNair's Yellow
Knives, who stared in stolid indifference. The trembling, excited
clerk. The grim chief trader, and the stern-faced factor who watched
with approving eyes while two men fought in the wide cleared space
between the rough counter and the high-piled bales of woollens and
strouds.
Chloe Elliston drew back aghast. The thin lips of the man had twisted
into a snarl of rage, and a living, bestial hate seemed fairly to blaze
from the smouldering eyes, as Lapierre's thoughts dwelt upon the
closing moments of that fight, when he felt himself giving ground
before the hammering, smashing blows of Bob MacNair's big fists. Felt
the tightening of the huge arms like steel bands about his body when he
rushed to a clinch--bands that crushed and burned so that each sobbing
breath seemed a blade, white-hot from the furnace, stabbing and searing
into his tortured lungs. Felt the vital force and strength of him ebb
and weaken so that the lean, slender fingers that groped for MacNair's
throat closed feebly and dropped limp to dangle impotently from his
nerveless arms. Felt the sudden release of the torturing bands of
steel, the life-giving inrush of cool air, the dull pain as his dizzy
body rocked to the shock of a crashing blow upon the jaw, the blazing
flash of the blow that closed his eye, and, then--more soul-searing,
and of deeper hurt than the blows that battered and marred--the feel of
thick fingers twisted into the collar of his soft shirt. Felt himself
shaken with an incredible ferocity that whipped his ankles against
floor and counter edge. And, the crowning indignity of all--felt
himself dragged like a flayed carcass the full length of the room, out
of the door, and jerked to his feet upon the verge of the steep descent
to the lake. Felt the propelling impact of the heavy boot that sent
him crashing headlong into the underbrush through which he rolled and
tumbled like a mealbag, to bring up suddenly in the cold water.
The whole scene passed through his brain as dreams flash--almost within
the batting of an eye. Half-consciously, he saw the girl's sudden
start, and the look of alarm upon her face as she drew back from the
glare of his hate-flashing eyes and the bestial snarl of his lips.
With an effort he composed himself:
"Pardon, Miss Elliston, I have frightened you with an uncouth show of
savagery. It is a rough, hard country--this land of the wolf and the
caribou. Primal instincts and brutish passions here are
unrestrained--a fact responsible for my present battered appearance.
For, as I said, it was no accident that marred me thus, unless,
perchance, the prowling of the brute across my path may be attributed
to accident--rather, I believe it was timed."
"The brute! Who, or what is the brute? And why should he harm you?"
"MacNair is his name--Bob MacNair." There was a certain tense hardness
in the man's tone, and Chloe was conscious that the smouldering eyes
were regarding her searchingly.
"MacNair," said the girl, "why, that is the name on those bales!"
"What bales?"
"The bales in the scow--they are on the river-bank now."
"My scows carrying MacNair's freight!" cried the man, and motioning her
to accompany him he walked rapidly to the bank where lay the four or
five pieces, upon which Chloe had read the name. Lapierre dropped to
his knees and regarded the pieces intently, suddenly he leaped to his
feet with a laugh and called in the Indian tongue to one of his
canoemen. The man brought him an ax, and raising it high, Lapierre
brought it crashing upon the innocent-looking freight piece. There was
a sound of smashing staves, a gurgle of liquid, and the strong odour of
whiskey assailed their nostrils.
The piece was a keg, cunningly disguised as to shape, and covered with
burlap. One by one the man attacked the other pieces marked with the
name of MacNair, and as each cask was smashed, the whiskey gurgled and
splashed and seeped into the ground. Chloe watched breathlessly until
Lapierre finished, and with a smile of grim satisfaction, tossed the ax
upon the ground.
"There is one consignment of firewater that will never be delivered,"
he said.
"What does it mean?" asked Chloe, and Lapierre noticed that her eyes
were alight with interest. "Who is this MacNair, and----"
For answer Lapierre took her gently by the arm and led her back to the
log.
"MacNair," he began, "is the most atrocious tyrant that ever breathed.
Like myself, he is a free-trader--that is, he is not in the employ of
the Hudson Bay Company. He is rich, and owns a permanent post of his
own, to the northward, on Snare Lake, while I vend my wares under God's
own canopy, here and there upon the banks of lakes and rivers."
"But why should he attack you?"
The man shrugged. "Why? Because he hates me. He hates any one who
deals fairly with the Indians. His own Indians, a band of the Yellow
Knives, together with an onscouring of Tantsawhoots, Beavers, Dog-ribs,
Strongbows, Hares, Brushwoods, Sheep, and Huskies, he holds in abject
peonage. Year in and year out he forces them to dig in his mines for
their bare existence. Over on the Athabasca they call him Brute
MacNair, and among the Loucheaux and Huskies he is known as
The-Bad-Man-of-the-North.
"He pays no cash for labour, nor for fur, and he sees to it that his
Indians are always hopelessly in his debt. He trades them whiskey.
They are his. His to work, and to cheat, and to debauch, and to vent
his rage upon--for his passions are the wild, unbridled passions of the
fighting wolf. He kills! He maims! Or he allows to live! The
Indians are his, body and soul. Their wives and their children are
his. He owns them. _He_ is the law!
"He warned me out of the North. I ignored that warning. The land is
broad and free. There is room for all, therefore I brought in my goods
and traded. And, because I refused to grind the poor savages under the
iron heel of oppression, because I offer a meagre trifle over and above
what is necessary for their bare existence, the brute hates me. He
came upon me at Fort Rae, and there, in the presence of the factor, his
clerk, and his chief trader, he fell upon me and beat me so that for
three days I lay unable to travel."
"But the others!" interrupted the girl, "the factor and his men! Why
did they allow it?"
Again the gleam of hate flashed in the man's eyes. "They allowed it
because they are in league with him. They fear him. They fear his
hold upon the Indians. So long as he maintains a permanent post a
hundred and seventy-five miles to the northward--more than two hundred
and fifty by the water trail--they know that he will not seriously
injure the trade at Fort Rae. With me it is different. I trade here,
and there, wherever the children of the wilderness are to be found.
Therefore I am hated by the men of the Hudson Bay Company who would
have been only too glad had MacNair killed me."
Chloe, who had listened eagerly to every word, leaped to her feet and
looked at Lapierre with shining eyes. "Oh! I think it is splendid!
You are brave, and you stand for the right of things! For the welfare
of the Indians! I see now why the factor warned me against you! He
wanted to discredit you."
Lapierre smiled. "The factor? What factor? And what did he tell you?"
"The factor at the Landing. 'Beware of Pierre Lapierre,' he said; and
when I asked him who Pierre Lapierre was, and why I should beware of
him, he shrugged his shoulders and would say nothing."
Lapierre nodded. "Ah yes--the company men--the factors and traders
have no love for the free-trader. We cannot blame them. It is
tradition. For nearly two and one-half centuries the company has stood
for power and authority in the outlands--and has reaped the profits of
the wild places. Let us be generous. It is an old and respectable
institution. It deals fairly enough with the Indians--by its own
measure of fairness, it is true--but fairly enough. With the company I
have no quarrel.
"But with MacNair--" he stopped abruptly and shrugged. The gleam of
hate that flashed in his eyes always at the mention of the name faded.
"But why speak of him--surely there are more pleasant subjects," he
smiled, "for instance your school--it interests me greatly."
"Interests you! I thought it displeased you! Surely a look of
annoyance or suspicion leaped from your eyes when I mentioned my
mission."
The man laughed lightly. "Yes? And can you blame me--when I thought
you were in league with Brute MacNair? For, since his post was
established, no independent save myself has dared to encroach upon even
the borders of his empire."
Chloe Elliston flushed deeply. "And you thought I would league myself
with a man like _that_?"
"Only for a moment. Stop and think. All my life I have lived in the
North, and, except for a few scattered priests and missionaries, no one
has pushed beyond the outposts for any purpose other than for gain.
And the trader's gain is the Indian's loss--for, few deal fairly.
Therefore, when I came upon your big outfit upon the very threshold of
MacNair's domain, I thought, of course, this was some new machination
of the brute. Even now I do not understand--the expense, and all. The
Indians cannot afford to pay for education."
It was the girl's turn to laugh. A rippling, light-hearted laugh--the
laughter of courage and youth. The barrier that had suddenly loomed
between herself and this man of the North vanished in a breath. He had
shown her her work, had pointed out to her a foeman worthy of her
steel. She darted a swift glance toward Lapierre who sat staring into
the fire. Would not this man prove an invaluable ally in her war of
deliverance?
"Do not trouble yourself about the expense," she smiled. "I have
money--'oodles of it,' as we used to say in school--millions, if I need
them! And I'm going to fight this Brute MacNair until I drive him out
of the North! And you? Will you help me to rid the country of this
scourge and free the people from his tyranny? Together we could work
wonders. For your heart is with the Indians, as mine is."
Again the girl glanced into the man's face and saw that the deep-set
black eyes fairly glittered with enthusiasm and eagerness--an eagerness
and enthusiasm that a keener observer than Chloe Elliston might have
noticed, sprang into being suspiciously coincident with her mention of
the millions. Lapierre did not answer at once, but deftly rolled a
cigarette. The end of the cigarette glowed brightly as he filled his
lungs and blew a plume of grey smoke into the air.
"Allow me a little time to think. For this is a move of importance,
and to be undertaken not lightly. It is no easy task you have set
yourself. It is possible you will not win--highly probable, in fact,
for----"
"But I _shall_ win! I am _right_--and upon my winning depends the
future of a people! Think it over until tomorrow, if you will, but--"
She paused abruptly, and her soft, hazel eyes peered searchingly into
the depths of the restless black ones. "Your sympathies _are_ with the
Indians, aren't they?"
Lapierre tossed the half-smoked cigarette onto the ground. "Can you
doubt it?" The man's eyes were not gleaming now, and into their depths
had crept a look of ineffable sadness.
"They are my people," he said softly. "Miss Elliston, _I am an
Indian_!"