AN INTERVIEW
"Oh, forgive me!" Chloe cried, "I--I did not know that I was intruding
upon--sacred ground!" There was real concern in her voice, and the
lines of Bob MacNair's face softened.
"It is no matter," he said. "She who sleeps here will not be
disturbed."
The unlooked for gentleness of the man's tone, the simple dignity of
his words, went straight to Chloe Elliston's heart. She felt suddenly
ashamed of her air of flippant defiance, felt mean, and small, and
self-conscious. She forgot for the moment that this big, quiet man who
stood before her was rough, even boorish in his manner, and that he was
the oppressor and debaucher of Indians.
"A--a woman's grave?" faltered the girl.
"My mother's."
"Did _she_ live here, on Snare Lake?" Chloe asked in surprise, as her
glance swept the barren cliffs of its shore.
MacNair answered with the same softness of tone that somehow dispelled
all thought of his uncouthness. "No. She lived at Fort Norman, over
on the Mackenzie--that is, she died there. Her home, I think, was in
the Southland. My father used to tell me how she feared the
North---its snows and bitter cold, its roaring, foaming rivers, its
wild, fierce storms, and its wind-lashed lakes. She hated its rugged
cliffs and hills, its treeless barrens and its mean, scrubby timber.
She loved the warm, long summers, and the cities and people, and--" he
paused, knitting his brows--"and whatever there is to love in your land
of civilization. But she loved my father more than these--more than
she feared the North. My father was the factor at Fort Norman, so she
stayed in the North--and the North killed her. To live in the North,
one must love the North. She died calling for the green grass of her
Southland."
He ceased speaking and unconsciously stooped and plucked a few spears
of grass which he held in his palm and examined intently.
"Why should one die calling for the sight of grass?" he asked abruptly,
gazing into Chloe's eyes with a puzzled look.
The girl gazed directly, searchingly into MacNair's eyes. The naive
frankness of him--his utter simplicity--astounded her.
"Oh!" she cried, impulsively stepping forward. "It wasn't the
_grass_--it was--oh! _can't_ you _see_?" The man regarded her
wonderingly and shook his head.
"No," he answered gravely. "I can not see."
"It was--everything! Life--friends--home! The grass was only the
symbol--the tangible emblem that stood for life!" MacNair nodded, but,
by the look in his eye, Chloe knew that he did not understand and that
pride and a certain natural reserve sealed his lips from further
questioning.
"It is far to the Mackenzie," ventured the girl.
"Aye, far. After my father died I brought her here."
"You! Brought her here!" she exclaimed, staring in surprise into the
strong emotionless face.
The man nodded slowly. "In the winter it was--and I came
alone--dragging her body upon a sled----"
"But why----"
"Because I think she would have wished it so. If one hated the wild,
rugged cliffs and the rock-tossed rapids, would one wish to lie upon a
cliff with the rapids roaring, for ever and ever? I do not think that,
so I brought her here--away from the grey hills and the ceaseless roar
of the rapids."
"But the grass?"
"I brought that from the Southland. I failed many times before I found
a kind that would grow. It is little I can do for her, and she does
not know, but, somehow, it has made me feel--easier--I cannot tell you
exactly. I come here often."
"I think she _does_ know," said Chloe softly, and brushed hot tears
from her eyes. Could _this_ be the man whose crimes against the poor,
ignorant savages were the common knowledge of the North? Could this be
he whom men called Brute--this simple-spoken, straightforward, boyish
man who had endured hardships and spared no effort, that the mother he
had never known might lie in her eternal rest beneath the green sod of
her native land, far from the sights, and sounds that, in life, had
become a torture to her soul, and worn her, at last, to the grave?
"Mr.--MacNair." The hard note--the note of uncompromising
antagonism--had gone from her voice, and the man looked at her in
surprise. It was the first time she had addressed him without
prefixing the name Brute and emphasizing the prefix. He stood,
regarding her calmly, waiting for her to proceed. Somehow, Chloe found
that it had become very difficult for her to speak; to say the things
to this man that she had intended to say. "I cannot understand
you--your viewpoint."
"Why should you try? I ask no one to understand me. I care not what
people think."
"About the Indians, I mean----"
"The Indians? What do you know of my viewpoint in regard to the
Indians?" The man's face had hardened at her mention of the Indians.
"I know this!" exclaimed the girl. "That you are trading them whiskey!
With my own eyes I saw Mr. Lapierre smash your kegs--the kegs that were
cunningly disguised as bales of freight and marked with your name, and
I saw the whiskey spilled out upon the ground."
She paused, expecting a denial, but MacNair remained silent and again
she saw the peculiar twinkle in his eye as he waited for her to
proceed. "And I--you, yourself told me that you would kill some of Mr.
Lapierre's Indians! Do you call that justice--to kill men because they
happen to be in the employ of a rival trader--one who has as much right
to trade in the Northland as you have?"
Again she paused, but the man ignored her question.
"Go on," he said shortly.
"And you told me your Indians had to work so hard they had no time for
book-learning, and that the souls of the Indians were black as--as
hell."
"And I told you, also, that I have never owned any whiskey. Why do you
believe me in some things and not in others? It would seem more
consistent, Miss Chloe Elliston, for you either to believe or to
disbelieve me."
"But, I _saw_ the whiskey. And as for what you, yourself, told me--a
man will scarcely make himself out worse than he is."
"At least, I can scarcely make myself out worse than you believe me to
be." The twinkle was gone from MacNair's eyes now, and he spoke more
gruffly. "Of what use is all this talk? You are firmly convinced of
my character. Your opinion of me concerns me not at all. Even if I
were to attempt to make my position clear to you, you would not believe
anything I should tell you."
"What defence can there be to conduct such as yours?"
"Defence! Do you imagine I would stoop to defend my conduct to
_you_--to one who is, either wittingly or unwittingly, hand in glove
with Pierre Lapierre?"
The unconcealed scorn of the man's words stung Chloe to the quick.
"Pierre Lapierre is a man!" she cried with flashing eyes. "He is
neither afraid nor ashamed to declare his principles. He is the friend
of the Indians--and God knows they need a friend--living as they do by
sufferance of such men as you, and the men of the Hudson Bay Company!"
"You believe that, I think," MacNair said quietly. "I wonder if you
are really such a fool, or do you know Lapierre for what he is?"
"Yes!" exclaimed the girl, her face flushed. "I _do_ know him for what
he is! He is a _man_! He knows the North. I am learning the North,
and together we will drive you and your kind out of the North."
"You cannot do that," he said. "Lapierre, I will crush as I would
crush a snake. I bear you no ill will. As you say, you will learn the
North--for you will remain in the North. I told you once that you
would soon tire of your experiment, but I was wrong. Your eyes are the
eyes of a fighting man."
"Thank you, Mr.--MacNair----"
"Why not Brute MacNair?"
Chloe shook her head. "No," she said. "Not that--not after--I think I
shall call you Bob MacNair."
The man looked perplexed. "Women are not like men," he said, simply.
"I do not understand you at times. Tell me--why did you come into the
North?"
"I thought I had made that plain. I came to bring education to the
Indians. To do what I can to lighten their burden and to make it
possible for them to compete with the white man on the white man's
terms when this country shall bow before the inevitable advance of
civilization; when it has ceased to be the land beyond the outposts."
"We are working together then," answered, MacNair. "When you have
learned the North we shall be--friends."
"Never! I----"
"Because you will have learned," he continued, ignoring her protest,
"that education is the last thing the Indians need. If you can make
better trappers and hunters of them; teach them to work in mines,
timber, on the rivers, you will come nearer to solving their problem
than by giving them all the education in the world. No, Miss Chloe
Elliston, they can't play the white man's game--with the white man's
chips."
"But they can! In the States we----"
"Why didn't you stay in the States?"
"Because the government looks after the education of the
Indians--provides schools and universities, and----"
"And what do they turn out?"
"They turn out lawyers and doctors and engineers and ministers of the
gospel, and educated men in all walks of life. We have Indians in
Congress!"
"How many? And how many are lawyers and doctors and engineers and
ministers of the gospel? And how many can truthfully be said to be
'educated men in all walks of life'? A mere handful! Where one
succeeds, a hundred fail! And the others return to their reservation,
dissolute, dissatisfied, to live on the bounty of your government; you,
yourself, will admit that when an Indian does rise into a profession
for which his education has fitted him, he is an object of wonder--a
man to be written about in your newspapers and talked about in your
homes. And then your sentimentalists--your fools--hold him up as a
type! Not your educated Indians are reaping the benefit of your
government's belated attention, but those who are following the calling
for which nature has fitted them--stock-raising and small farming on
their allotted reservations. The educated ones know that the
government will feed and clothe them--why should they exert themselves?
"Here in the North, because the Indians have been dealt with sanely,
and not herded onto restricted reservations, and subjected to the
experiments of departmental fools well-intentioned--and otherwise--they
are infinitely better off. They are free to roam the woods, to hunt
and to trap and to fish, and they are contented. They remain at the
posts only long enough to do their trading, and return again to the
wilds. For the most part they are truthful and sober and honest. They
can obtain sufficient clothing and enough to eat. The lakes and the
rivers teem with fish, and the woods and the barrens abound with game,
"Contrast these with the Indians who have come more intimately into
contact with the whites. You can see them hanging about the depots and
the grogeries and rum shops of the railway towns, degenerate, diseased,
reduced to beggary and petty thievery. And you do not have to go to
the railway towns to see the effect of your civilization upon them.
Follow the great trade rivers! From source to mouth, their banks are
lined with the Indians who have come into contact with your
civilization!
"Go to any mission centre! Do you find that the Indian has taken
kindly to the doctrines it teaches? Do you find them happy,
God-fearing Indians who embraced Christianity and are living in accord
with its precepts? You do not! Except in a very few isolated cases,
like your lawyers and doctors of the states, you will find at the very
gates of the missions, be their denomination what they may, debauchery
and rascality in its most vicious forms. Read your answer there in the
vice-marked, ragged, emaciated hangers-on of the missions.
"I do not say that this harm is wrought wilfully--on the contrary, I
know it is not. They are noble and well-meaning men and women who
carry the gospel into the North. Many of them I know and respect and
admire--Father Desplaines, Father Crossett, the good Father O'Reiley,
and Duncan Fitzgilbert, of my mother's faith. These men are good men;
noble men, and the true friends of the Indians; in health and in
sickness, in plague, famine, and adversity these men shoulder the red
man's burden, feed, clothe, and doctor him, and nurse him back to
health--or bury him. With these I have no quarrel, nor with the
religion they teach--in its theory. It is not bad. It is good. These
men are my friends. They visit me, and are welcome whenever they come.
"Each of these has begged me to allow him to establish a mission among
my Indians. And my answer is always the same--'_No!_' And I point to
the mission centres already established. It is then they tell me that
the deplorable condition exists, not because of the mission, but
_despite_ it." He paused with a gesture of impatience. "_Because_!
_Despite_! A quibble of words! If the _fact_ remains, what difference
does it make whether it is _because_ or _despite_? It must be a great
comfort to the unfortunate one who is degraded, diseased, damned, to
know that his degradation, disease, and damnation, were wrought not
_because_, but _despite_. I think God laughs--even as he pities. But,
in spite of all they can do, the _fact_ remains. I do not ask you to
believe me. Go and see it with your own eyes, and then if you _dare_,
come back and establish another plague spot in God's own wilderness.
The Indian rapidly acquires all the white man's vices--and but few of
his virtues.
"Stop and think what it means to experiment with the future of a
people. To overthrow their traditions: to confute their beliefs and
superstitions, and to subvert their gods! And what do you offer them
in return? Other traditions; other beliefs; another God--and
education! Do you dare to assume the responsibility? Do you dare to
implant in the minds of these people an education--a culture--that will
render them for ever dissatisfied with their lot, and send many of them
to the land of the white man to engage in a feeble and hopeless
struggle after that which is, for them, unattainable?"
"But it is _not_ unattainable! They----"
"I know your sophisms; your fabrication of theory!" MacNair
interrupted her almost fiercely. "The _facts_! I have seen the
rum-sodden wrecks, the debauched and soul-warped men and women who hang
about your frontier towns, diseased in body and mind, and whose
greatest misfortune is that they live. These, Miss Chloe Elliston, are
the real monuments to your education. Do you dare to drive one hundred
to certain degradation that is worse than fiery hell, that you may
point with pride to one who shall attain to the white man's standard of
success?"
"That is not the truth! I do not believe it! I _will_ not believe it!"
The steel-grey eyes of the man bored deep into the shining eyes of
brown. "I know that you do not believe it. But you are wrong when you
say that you _will_ not believe it. You are honest and unafraid, and,
therefore, you will learn, and now, one thing further.
"We will say that you succeed in keeping your school, or post, or
mission, from this condition of debauchery--which you will not. What
then? Suppose you educate your Indians? There are no employers in the
North. None who buy education. The men who pay out money in the waste
places pay it for bone and brawn, not for brains; they have brains--or
something that answers the purpose--therefore, your educated Indian
must do one of two things--he must go where he can use his education or
he must remain where he is. In either event he will be the loser. If
he seeks the land of the white man, he must compete with the white man
on the white man's terms. He cannot do it. If he stays here in the
North he must continue to hunt, or trap, or work on the river, or in
the mines, or the timber, and he is ever afterward dissatisfied with
his lot. More, he has wasted the time he spent in filling his brain
with useless knowledge."
MacNair spoke rapidly and earnestly, and Chloe realized that he spoke
from his heart and also that he spoke from a certain knowledge of his
subject. She was at a loss for a reply. She could not dispute him,
for he had told her not to believe him; to go see for herself. She did
not believe MacNair, but in spite of herself she was impressed.
"The missionaries _are_ doing good! Their reports show----"
"Their reports show! Of course their reports show! Why shouldn't
they? Where do their reports go? To the people who pay them their
salaries! Do not understand me to say that in all cases these reports
are falsely made. They are not--that is, they are literally true. A
mission reports so many converts to Christianity during a certain
period of time. Well and good; the converts are there--they can
produce them. The Indians are not fools. If the white men want them
to profess Christianity, why they will profess Christianity--or
Hinduism or Mohammedanism. They will worship any god the white man
suggests--for a fancy waistcoat or a piece of salt pork. The white man
gives many gifts of clothing, and sometimes of food--to his converts.
Therefore, he shall not want for converts--while the clothing holds
out!"
"And _your_ Indians? Have they not suffered from their contact with
you?"
"No. They have not suffered. I know them, their needs and
requirements, and their virtues and failings. And they know me."
"Where is your fort?"
"Some distance above here on the shore of this lake."
"Will you take me there? Show me these Indians, that I may see for
myself that you have spoken the truth?"
"No. I told you you were to have nothing to do with my Indians. I
also warned my Indians against you--and your partner Lapierre. I
cannot warn them against you and then take you among them."
"Very well. I shall go myself, then. I came up here to see your fort
and the condition of your Indians. You knew I would come."
"No. I did not know that. I had not seen the fighting spirit in your
eyes then. Now I know that you will come--but not while I am here.
And when you do come you will be taken back to your own school. You
will not be harmed, for you are honest in your purpose. But you will,
nevertheless, be prevented from coming into contact with my Indians. I
will have none of Lapierre's spies hanging about, to the injury of my
people."
"Lapierre's spies! Do you think I am a spy? Lapierre's?"
"Not consciously, perhaps--but a spy, nevertheless. Lapierre may even
now be lurking near for the furtherance of some evil design."
Chloe suddenly realized that MacNair's boring, steel-grey eyes were
fixed upon her with a new intentness--as if to probe into the very
thoughts of her brain.
"Mr. Lapierre is far to the Southward," she said--and then, upon the
edge of the tiny clearing, a twig snapped. The man whirled, his rifle
jerked into position, there was a loud report, and Bob MacNair sank
slowly down upon the grass mound that was his mother's grave.