BRUTE MACNAIR
Estimates are formed, in a far greater measure than most of us care to
admit, upon first impressions. Manifestly shallow and embryonic though
we admit them to be, our first impressions crystallize, in nine cases
out of ten, into our fixed or permanent opinions. And, after all, the
reason for this absurdity is simple--egotism.
Our opinions, based upon first impressions--and we rarely pause to
analyse first impressions--have become _our opinions_, the result, as
we fondly imagine, of our judgment. Our judgment must be
right--because it is our judgment. Therefore, unconsciously or
consciously, every subsequent impression is bent to bolster up and
sustain that judgment. We hate to be wrong. We hate to admit, even to
ourselves, that we are wrong.
Strange, isn't it? How often we are right (permit the smile) in our
estimate of people?
When Chloe Elliston turned to face MacNair among the stumps of the
sunlit clearing, her opinion of the man had already been formed. He
was Brute MacNair, one to be hated, despised. To be fought, conquered,
and driven out of the North--for the good of the North. His influence
was a malignant ulcer--a cancerous plague-spot, whose evil tentacles,
reaching hidden and unseen, would slowly but surely fasten themselves
upon the civilization of the North--sap its vitality--poison its blood.
In the flash of her first glance the girl's eyes took in every
particular and detail of him. She noted the huge frame, broad, yet
lean with the gaunt leanness of health, and endurance, and physical
strength. The sinew-corded, bronzed hands that clenched slowly as his
glance rested for a moment upon the face of Lapierre. The
weather-tanned neck that rose, columnlike, from the open shirt-throat.
The well-poised head. The prominent, high-bridged nose. The lantern
jaw, whose rugged outline was but half-concealed by the roughly trimmed
beard of inky blackness. And, the most dominant feature of all, the
compelling magnetism of the steel-grey eyes of him--eyes, deep-set
beneath heavy black brows that curved and met--eyes that stabbed, and
bored, and probed, as if to penetrate to the ultimate motive. Hard
eyes they were, whose directness of gaze spoke at once fearlessness and
intolerance of opposition; spoke, also, of combat, rather than
diplomacy; of the honest smashing of foes, rather than dissimulation.
Ail this the girl saw in the first moments of their meeting. She saw,
too, that the eyes held a hostile gleam, and that she need expect from
their owner no sympathy--no deference of sex. If war were to be
between them, it would be a man's war, waged upon man's terms, in a
man's country. No quarter would be given--Chloe's lips pressed
tight--nor would any be asked.
The moments lengthened into an appreciable space of time and the man
remained motionless, regarding her with that probing, searching stare.
Lapierre he ignored after the first swift glance. Instinctively the
girl knew that the man had no intention of being deliberately or
studiously rude in standing thus in her presence with head covered, and
eyeing her with those steel-grey, steel-hard eyes. Nevertheless, his
attitude angered her, the more because she knew he did not intend to.
And in this she was right--MacNair stared because he was silently
taking her measure, and his hat remained upon his head because he knew
of no reason why it should not remain upon his head.
Chloe was the first to speak, and in her voice was more than a trace of
annoyance.
"Well, Mr. Mind-Reader, have you figured me out--why I am here, and----"
"No." The word boomed deeply from the man's throat, smashing the
question that was intended to carry the sting of sarcasm. "Except that
it is for no good--though you doubtless think it is for great good."
"Indeed!" The girl laughed a trifle sharply. "And who, then, is the
judge?"
"I am." The calm assurance of the man fanned her rising anger, and,
when she answered, her voice was low and steady, with the tonelessness
of forced control.
"And your name, you Oligarch of the Far Outland? May I presume to ask
your name?"
"Why ask? My name you already know. And upon the word of yon scum,
you have judged. By the glint o' hate, as you looked into my eyes, I
know--for one does not so welcome a stranger beyond the outposts. But,
since you have asked, I will tell you; my name is MacNair--Robert
MacNair, by my christening--Bob MacNair, in the speech of the
country----"
"And, _Brute_ MacNair, upon the Athabasca?"
"Yes. Brute MacNair--upon the Athabasca--and the Slave, and
Mackenzie--and in the haunts of the whiskey-runners, and 'Fool'
MacNair--in Winnipeg."
"And among the oppressed and the down-trodden? Among those whose
heritage of freedom you have torn from them? What do they call
you--those whom you have forced into serfdom?" For a fleeting instant
the girl caught the faintest flicker, a tiny twinkle of amusement, in
the steely eyes. But, when the man answered, his eyes were steady.
"_They_ call me friend."
"Is their ignorance so abysmal?"
"They have scant time to learn from books--my Indians. They work."
"But, a year from now, when they have begun to learn, what will they
call you then--_your_ Indians?"
"A year from now--two years---ten years--my Indians will call
me--friend."
Chloe was about to speak, but MacNair interrupted her. "I have scant
time for parley. I was starting for Mackay Lake, but when Old Elk
reported two of yon scum's satellites hanging about, I dropped down the
river. By your words it's a school you will be building. If it were a
post I would have to take you more seriously----"
"There will be a--" Chloe felt the warning touch of Lapierre's finger
at her back and ceased abruptly. MacNair continued, as if unmindful of
the interruption.
"Build your school, by all means. 'Tis a spot well chosen by yon
devil's spawn, and for his own ends. By your eyes you are honest in
purpose--a fool's purpose--and a hare-brained carrying out of it. You
are being used as a tool by Lapierre. You will not believe this--not
yet. Later--perhaps, when it is too late--but, that is your
affair--not mine. At the proper time I will crush Lapierre, and if you
go down in the crash you will have yourself to thank. I have warned
you. Yon snake has poisoned your mind against me. In your eyes I am
foredamned--and well damned--which causes me no concern, and you, no
doubt, much satisfaction.
"Build your school, but heed well my words. You'll not tamper, one way
or another, with my Indians. One hundred and seventy miles north of
here, upon Snare Lake, is my post. My Indians pass up and down the
Yellow Knife. They are to pass unquestioned, unmolested, unproselyted.
Confine your foolishness to the southward and I shall not
interfere--carry it northward, and you shall hear from me.
"Should you find yourself in danger from your enemies--or, your
_friends_"--he shot a swift glance toward Lapierre, who had remained a
pace behind the girl--"send for me. Good day."
Chloe Elliston was furious. She had listened in a sort of dumb rage as
the man's words stung, and stung again. MacNair's uncouth manner, his
blunt brutality of speech, his scornful, even contemptuous reference to
her work, and, most of all, his utter disregard of her, struck her to
the very depths. As MacNair turned to go, she stayed him with a voice
trembling with fury.
"Do you imagine, for an instant, I would stoop to seek _your_
protection? I would die first! You have had things your own way too
long, Mr. Brute MacNair! You think yourself secure, in your smug
egotism. But the end is in sight. Your petty despotism is doomed.
You have hoodwinked the authorities, bribed the police, connived with
the Hudson Bay Company, bullied and browbeaten the Indians, cheated
them out of their birthright of land and liberty, and have forced them
into a peonage that has filled your pockets with gold."
She paused in her vehement outburst and glared defiantly at MacNair, as
if to challenge a denial. But the man remained silent, and Chloe felt
her face flush as the shadow of a twinkle played for a fleeting instant
in the depths of the hard eyes. She fancied, even, that the lips
behind the black beard smiled--ever so slightly,
"Oh, you needn't laugh! You think because I'm a woman you will be able
to do as you please with me----"
"I did not laugh," answered the man gravely. "Why should I laugh? You
take yourself seriously. You believe, even, that the things you have
just spoken are true. They _must_ be true. Has not Pierre Lapierre
_told_ you they are true? And, why should the fact that you are a
woman cause me to believe I could influence you? If an issue is at
stake, as you believe, what has sex to do with it? I have known no
women, except the squaws and the _kloochmen_ of the natives.
"You said, 'you think, because I am a woman, you will be able to do as
you please with me.' Are women, then, less honest than men? I do not
believe that. In my life I have known no women, but I have read of
them in books. I have not been to any school, but was taught by my
father, who, I think, was a very wise man. I learned from him, and
from the books, of which he left a great number. I have always
believed women to be uncommonly like men--very good, or very bad, or
very commonplace because they were afraid to be either. But, I have
not read that they are less honest than men."
"Thank you! Being a woman, I suppose I should consider myself
flattered. A year from this time you will know more about women---at
least, about _me_. You will have learned that I will not be
hoodwinked. I cannot be bribed. Nor can my silence, or acquiescence
in your villainy be bought. I will not connive with you. And you
cannot browbeat, nor bully, nor cheat me."
"Yes?"
"Yes. And of one thing I am glad. I shall expect no consideration at
your hands because I am a woman. You will fight me as you would fight
a man."
"Fight you? Why should I fight you? I have no quarrel with you. If
you choose to build a school here, or even a trading-post, I have no
disposition--no right to gainsay you. You will soon tire of your
experiment, and no harm will be done--the North will be unchanged. You
are nothing to me. I care nothing for your opinion of me--considering
its source, I am surprised it is not even worse."
"Impossible! And do not think that I have not had corroborative
evidence. Ocular evidence of your brutal treatment of Mr.
Lapierre--and did I not see with my own eyes the destruction of your
whiskey?"
"What nonsense are you speaking now? My whiskey! Woman--never yet
have I owned any whiskey."
Chloe sneered--"And the Indians--do they not hate you?"
"Yes, those Indians do--and well they may. Most of them have crossed
my path at some time or other. And most of them will cross it
again--at Lapierre's instigation. Some of them I shall have to kill."
"You speak lightly of murder."
"Murder?"
"Yes, murder! The murder of poor, ignorant savages. It is an ugly
word, isn't it? But why dissimulate? At least, we can call a spade a
spade. These men are human beings. Their right to life and happiness
is as good as yours or mine, and their souls are as----"
"Black as hell! Woman, from LeFroy down, you have collected about you
as pretty a gang of cut-throats and outlaws as could have been found in
all the North. Lapierre has seen to that. I do not envy you your
school. But as long as you can be turned to their profit your personal
safety will be assured. They are too cunning, by far, to kill the
goose that lays the golden egg."
"What a pretty speech! Your polish--your _savoir vivre_, does you
credit, I am sure."
"I do not understand what you are saying, but----"
"There are many things you do not understand now that perhaps you will
later. For instance, in the matter of the Indians--_your_ Indians, I
believe you call them--you have warned, or commanded, possibly, would
be the better word----"
"Yes," interrupted the man, "that is the better word----"
"Have commanded me not to--what was it you said--molest, question, or
proselyte them."
MacNair nodded. "I said that."
"And I say _this_!" flashed the girl. "I shall use every means in my
power to induce your Indians to attend my school. I shall teach them
that they are free. That they owe allegiance and servitude to no man.
That the land they inhabit is their land. That they are their own
masters. I shall offer them education, that they may be able to
compete on equal terms with the white men when this land ceases to lie
beyond the outposts. I shall show them that they are being robbed and
cheated and forced into ignominious serfdom. And mark you this: if I
can't reach them upon the river, I shall go to your village, or post,
or fort, or whatever you call your Snare Lake rendezvous, and I shall
point out to them their wrongs. I shall appeal to their better
natures--to their manhood, and womanhood. That's what I think of your
command! I do not fear you! I _despise_ you!"
MacNair nodded, gravely.
"I have already learned that women are as honest as men--more so, even,
than most men. You are honest, and you are earnest. You believe in
yourself, too. But you are more of a fool than I thought--more of a
fool than I thought any one could be. Lapierre is a great fool--but he
is neither honest nor earnest. He is just a fool--a wise fool, with
the cunning and vices of the wolf, but with none of the wolf's lean
virtues. You are an honest fool. You are like a young moose-calf,
who, because he happens to be born into the world, thinks the world was
made for him to be born into.
"Let us say the moose-calf was born upon a great mountain--a mountain
whose sides are crossed and recrossed by moose-trails--paths that wind
in and out among the trees, stamped by the hoofs of older and wiser
moose. Upon these paths the moose-calf tries his wobbly legs, and one
day finds himself gazing out upon a plain where grass is. He has no
use for grass--does not even know what grass is for. Only he sees no
paths out there. The grass covers a quagmire, but of quagmires the
moose-calf knows nothing, having been born upon a mountain.
"Being a fool, the moose-calf soon tires of the beaten paths. He
ventures downward toward the plain. A wolf, skulking through the scrub
at the foot of the mountain, encounters, by chance, the moose-calf.
The calf is fat. But, the wolf is cunning. He dares not harm the
moose-calf hard by the trails of the mountain. He becomes friendly,
and the fool moose-calf tells the wolf where he is bound. The wolf
offers to accompany him, and the moose-calf is glad--here is a
friend--one who is wiser than the moose-kind, for he fears not to
venture into the country of no trails.
"Between the mountain and the plain stands a tree. This tree the wolf
hates. Many squirrels work about its roots, and these squirrels are
fatter than the squirrels of the scrub, for the tree feeds them. But,
when the wolf would pounce upon them, they seek safety in the tree.
The moose-calf--the poor fool moose-calf--comes to this tree, and,
finding no paths curving around its base, becomes enraged because the
tree does not step aside and yield the right of way. He will charge
the tree! He does not know that the tree has been growing for many
years, and has become deeply rooted--immovable. The wolf looks on and
smiles. If the moose-calf butts the tree down, the wolf will get the
squirrels--and the calf. If the calf does not, the wolf will get the
calf."
MacNair ceased speaking and turned abruptly toward the river.
"My!" Chloe Elliston exclaimed. "Really, you are delightful, Mr. Brute
MacNair. During the half-hour or more of our acquaintance you have
called me, among other things, a fool, a goose, and a moose-calf. I
repeat that you are delightful, and honest, shall I say? No;
candid--for I know that you are not honest. But do tell me the rest of
the story. Don't leave it like The Lady or the Tiger. How will it
end? Are you a prophet, or merely an allegorist?"
MacNair, who was again facing her, answered without a smile. "I do not
know about the lady or the tiger, nor of what happened to either. If
they were pitted against each other, my bet would be laid on the tiger,
though my sympathy might be with the lady. I am not a prophet. I
cannot tell you the end of the story. Maybe the fool moose-calf will
butt its brains out against the trunk of the tree. That would be no
fault of the tree. The tree was there first, and was minding its own
business. Maybe the calf will butt and get hurt, and scamper for home.
Maybe it will succeed in eluding the fangs of the wolf, and reach its
mountain in safety. In such case it will have learned something.
"Maybe it will butt and butt against the tree until it dislodges a limb
from high among the branches, and the limb will fall to the ground and
crush, shall we say--the waiting wolf? And, maybe the calf will butt,
learn that the tree is immovable, swallow its hurt, and pass on, giving
the tree a wide berth--pass on into the quagmire, with the wolf licking
his chops, as grinning, he points out the way."
Chloe, in spite of herself, was intensely interested.
"But," she asked, "you are quite sure the tree is immovable?"
"Quite sure."
"Suppose, however, that this particular tree is rotten--rotten to the
heart? That the very roots that hold it in place are rotten? And that
the moose-calf butts 'til he butts it down--what then?"
There was a gleam of admiration in MacNair's eyes as he answered:
"If the tree is rotten it will fall. But it will fall to the mighty
push o' the winds o' God--and not to the puny butt of a moose-calf!"
Chloe Elliston was silent. The man was speaking again. "Good day to
you, madam, or miss, or whatever one respectfully calls a woman. As I
told you, I have known no women. I have lived always in the North.
Death robbed me of my mother before I was old enough to remember her.
The North, you see, is hard and relentless, even with those who know
her--and love her."
The girl felt a sudden surge of sympathy for this strange, outspoken
man of the Northland. She knew that the man had spoken, with no
thought of arousing sympathy, of the dead mother he had never known.
And in his voice was a note, not merely of deep regret, but of sadness.
"I am sorry," she managed to murmur.
"What?"
"About your mother, I mean."
The man nodded. "Yes. She was a good woman. My father told me of her
often. He loved her."
The simplicity of the man puzzled Chloe. She was at a loss to reply.
"I think--I believe--a moment ago, you asked my name."
"No."
"Oh!" The lines about the girl's mouth tightened. "Then I'll tell
you. I am Chloe Elliston--_Miss_ Chloe Elliston. The name means
nothing to you--now. A year hence it will mean much."
"Aye, maybe. I'll not say it won't. More like, though, it will be
forgot in half the time. The North has scant use for the passing whims
o' women!"