LAPIERRE RETURNS FROM THE SOUTH
When Pierre Lapierre left Chloe Elliston's school after the completion
of the buildings, he proceeded at once to his own rendezvous on Lac du
Mort.
This shrewdly chosen stronghold was situated on a high, jutting point
that rose abruptly from the waters of the inland lake, which surrounded
it upon three sides. The land side was protected by an enormous black
spruce swamp. This headland terminated in a small, rock-rimmed
plateau, perhaps three acres in extent, and was so situated as to be
practically impregnable against the attack of an ordinary force; the
rim-rocks forming a natural barricade which reduced the necessity for
artificial fortification to a minimum. Across the neck of the tiny
peninsula, Lapierre had thrown a strong stockade of logs, and from the
lake access was had only by means of a narrow, one-man trail that
slanted and twisted among the rocks of the precipitous cliff side.
The plateau itself was sparsely covered with a growth of stunted spruce
and banskian, which served as a screen both for the stockade and the
long, low, fort-like building of logs, which was Lapierre's main cache
for the storing of fur, goods of barter, and contraband whiskey. The
fort was provisioned to withstand a siege, and it was there that the
crafty quarter-breed had succeeded in storing two hundred Mauser rifles
and many cases of ammunition. Among Lapierre's followers it was known
as the "Bastile du Mort." A safe haven of refuge for the hard-pressed,
and, in event of necessity, the one place in all the North where they
might hope indefinitely to defy their enemies.
The secret of this fort had been well guarded, and outside of
Lapierre's organized band, but one man knew its location--and few even
guessed its existence. There were vague rumours about the Hudson Bay
posts, and in the barracks of the Mounted, that Lapierre maintained
such a fort, but its location was accredited to one of the numerous
islands of the extreme western arm of Great Slave Lake.
Bob MacNair knew of the fort, and the rifles, and the whiskey. He
knew, also, that Lapierre did not know that he knew, and therein, at
the proper time, would lie his advantage. The Hudson Bay Company had
no vital interest in verifying the rumour, nor had the men of the
Mounted, for as yet Lapierre had succeeded in avoiding suspicion except
in the minds of a very few. And these few, realizing that if Lapierre
was an outlaw, he was by far the shrewdest and most dangerous outlaw
with whom they had ever been called upon to deal, were very careful to
keep their suspicions to themselves, until such time as they could
catch him with the goods--after that would come the business of
tracking him to his lair. And they knew to a certainty that the men
would not be wanting who could do this--no matter how shrewdly that
lair was concealed.
Upon arriving at Lac du Mort, Lapierre ordered the canoe-men to load
the fur, proceed at once to the mouth of Slave River, transfer it to
the scows, and immediately start upon the track-line journey to
Athabasca Landing. His own canoe he loaded with rifles and ammunition,
and returned to the Yellow Knife. It was then he learned that Chloe
had gone to Snare Lake, and while he little relished an incursion into
MacNair's domain, he secreted the rifles in the store-house and set out
forthwith to overtake her. Despite the fact that he knew the girl to
be strongly prejudiced against MacNair, Lapierre had no wish for her to
see his colony in its normal condition of peace and prosperity. And
so, pushing his canoemen to the limit of their endurance, he overtook
her as she talked with MacNair by the side of his mother's grave.
Creeping noiselessly through the scrub to the very edge of the tiny
clearing, Lapierre satisfied himself that MacNair was unattended by his
Indians. The man's back was turned toward him, and the quarter-breed
noticed that, as he talked, he leaned upon his rifle. It was a chance
in a thousand. Never before had he caught MacNair unprepared--and the
man's blood would be upon his own head. Drawing the revolver from its
holster, he timed his movements to the fraction of a second; and
deliberately snapped a twig, MacNair whirled like a flash, and Lapierre
fired. His bullet went an inch too high, and when Chloe insisted upon
carrying the wounded man to the school, Lapierre could but feebly
protest.
The journey down the Yellow Knife was a nightmare for the
quarter-breed, who momentarily expected an attack from MacNair's
Indians. Upon their safe arrival, however, his black eyes glittered
wickedly--at last MacNair was _his_. Fate had played directly into his
hands. He knew the attack was inevitable, and during the
excitement--well, LeFroy could be trusted to attend to MacNair. With
the rifles in the storehouse, MacNair's Indians would be beaten back,
and in the event of an investigation by the Mounted, the responsibility
would be laid at MacNair's door. But of that MacNair would never know,
for MacNair would have passed beyond.
Knowing that the vengeance of MacNair's Indians would not be long
delayed, Lapierre determined to be well away from the Yellow Knife when
the attack came. However, he had no wish to leave without first
assuring himself that the shooting of MacNair stood justified in the
eyes of the girl, and to that end he had called upon her in her cottage.
Then it was that chance seemed to offer a safe and certain means of
putting MacNair away, and he dropped the poisonous antiseptic tablets
into the medicine, only to have his plan frustrated by the unexpected
presence of Big Lena. He was not sure that the woman had seen his
action. But he took no chances, and with an apparent awkward movement
of his hat, destroyed the evidence, sought out LeFroy, who had already
been warned of the impending attack, and ordered him to place three or
four of his most dependable Indians in the cottage, with instructions
not only to protect Chloe, but to kill MacNair.
Then he hastened southward to overtake his scowmen, who were toiling at
the track-lines somewhere among the turbulent rapids of the Slave. And
indeed there was need of haste. The summer was well advanced. Six
hundred miles of track-line and portage lay between Great Slave Lake
and Athabasca Landing. And if he was to return with the many
scow-loads of supplies for Chloe Elliston's store before the water-way
became ice-locked, he had not a day nor an hour to lose.
At Point Brule he overtook the fur-laden scows, and at Smith Landing an
Indian runner reported the result of the fight, and the escape of
MacNair. Lapierre smothered his rage, and with twenty men at the
track-line of each scow, bored his way southward.
A month later the gaunt, hard-bitten outfit tied up at the Landing.
Lapierre disposed of his fur, purchased the supplies, and within a week
the outfit was again upon the river.
At the mouth of La Biche a half-dozen burlapped pieces were removed
from a _cache_ in a thicket of balsam and added to the outfit. And at
Fort Chippewayan the scows with their contents were examined by two
officers of the Mounted, and allowed to proceed on their way.
On the Yellow Knife, Chloe Elliston anxiously awaited Lapierre's
return. Under LeFroy's supervision the dormitories had been rebuilt,
and a few sorry-looking, one-room cabins erected, in which families of
Indians had taken up their abode.
Through the long days of the late summer and early fall, Indians had
passed and repassed upon the river, and always, in answer to the girl's
questioning, they spoke of the brutality of MacNair. Of how men were
made to work from daylight to dark in his mines. And of the fact that
no matter how hard they worked, they were always in his debt. They
told how he plied them with whiskey, and the hunger and misery of the
women and children. All this the girl learned through her interpreter,
LeFroy; and not a few of these Indians remained to take up their abode
in dormitories or cabins, until the little settlement boasted some
thirty or forty colonists.
It was hard, discouraging work, this striving to implant the rudiments
of education in the minds of the sullen, apathetic savages, whose chief
ambition was to gorge themselves into stupidity with food from the
storehouse. With the adults the case seemed hopeless. And, indeed,
the girl attempted little beyond instruction in the simplest principles
of personal and domestic cleanliness and order. Even this met with no
response, until she established a daily inspection, and it became known
that the filthy should also go hungry.
With the children, Chloe made some slight headway, but only at the
expense of unceasing, monotonous repetition, and even she was forced to
admit that the results were far from encouraging. The little savages
had no slightest conception of any pride or interest in their daily
tasks, but followed unvaryingly the line of least resistance as
delineated by a simple system of rewards and punishments.
The men had shown no aptitude for work of any kind, and now when the
ice skimmed thinly the edges of the lake and rivers, they collected
their traps and disappeared into the timber, cheerfully leaving the
women and children to be fed and cared for at the school. As the days
shortened and the nights grew longer, the girl realized, with
bitterness in her heart, that almost the only thing she had
accomplished along educational lines was the imperfect smattering of
the Indian tongue that she herself had acquired.
But her chiefest anxiety was a more material one, and Lapierre's
appearance with the supplies became a matter of the gravest importance,
for upon their departure the trappers had drawn heavily upon the
slender remaining stores, with a result that the little colony on the
Yellow Knife was already reduced to half rations, and was entirely
dependent upon the scows for the winter's supply of provisions.
Not since the night of the battle had Chloe heard directly from
MacNair. He had not visited the school, nor had he expressed a word of
regret or apology for the outrage. He ignored her existence
completely, and the girl guessed that many of the Indians who refused
her invitation to camp in the clearing, as they passed and repassed
upon the river, did so in obedience to MacNair's command.
In spite of her abhorrence for the man, she resented his total
disregard of her existence. Indeed, she would have welcomed a visit
from him, if for no other reason than because he was a white man. She
spent many hours in framing bitter denunciations to be used in event of
his appearance. But he did not appear, and resentment added to the
anger in her heart, until in her mind he became the embodiment of all
that was despicable, and brutish, and evil.
More than once she was upon the point of attempting another visit to
Snare Lake, and in all probability would have done so had not Big Lena
flatly refused to accompany her under any circumstances whatever. And
this attitude the huge Swedish woman stubbornly maintained, preserving
a haughty indifference alike to Chloe's taunts of cowardice, promise of
reward, and threats of dismissal. Whereupon Chloe broached the subject
to Harriet Penny, and that valiant soul promptly flew into hysteria, so
that for three days Chloe did double duty in the school. After that
she nursed her wrath in silence and brooded upon the wrongs of
MacNair's Indians.
This continued brooding was not without its effect upon the girl, and
slowly but surely destroyed her sense of proportion. No longer was the
education and civilization of the Indians the uppermost thought in her
mind. With Lapierre, she came to regard the crushing of MacNair's
power as the most important and altogether desirable undertaking that
could possibly be consummated.
While in this frame of mind, just at sunset of a keen October day, the
cry of "_la brigade! la brigade!_" reached her ears as she sat alone
in her room in the cottage, and rushing to the river bank she joined
the Indians who swarmed to the water's edge to welcome the huge freight
canoe that had rounded the point below the clearing. Chloe clapped her
hands in sheer joy and relief, for there, proud and erect, in the bow
of the canoe stood Lapierre, and behind him from bank to bank the
Yellow Knife fairly swarmed with other full-freighted canoes. The
supplies had arrived!
Even as the bow of his canoe scraped the bank, Lapierre was at her
side. Chloe felt her hand pressed between his--felt the grip of his
strong fingers, and flushed deeply as she realized that not alone
because of the supplies was she glad that he had come. And then, his
voice was in her ears, and she was listening as he told her how good it
was to stand once more at her side, and look into the face whose image
had spurred him to almost super-human effort, throughout the days and
the nights of the long river trail.
Lightly she answered him, and Lapierre's heart bounded at the warmth of
her welcome. He turned with a word to his canoemen, and Chloe noted
with admiration, how one and all they sprang to do his bidding. She
marvelled at his authority. Why did these men leap to obey his
slightest command, when LeFroy, to obtain even the half-hearted
obedience she required of her Indians, was forced to brow-beat and
bully them? Her heart warmed to the man as she thought of the slovenly
progress of her school. Here was one who could help her. One who
could point with the finger of a master of men to the weak spots in her
system.
Suddenly her brow clouded. For, as she looked upon Lapierre, the words
of MacNair flashed through her mind, as he stood weak from his wounds,
in the dimness of her fire-lit room. Her eyes hardened, and
unconsciously her chin thrust outward, as she realized that before she
could ask this man's aid, there were things he must explain.
Darkness settled, and at a word from Lapierre, fires flared out on the
beach and in the clearing, and by their light the long line of canoemen
conveyed the pieces upon their heads into the wide door of the
storehouse. It was a weird, fantastic scene. The long line of
pack-laden men, toiling up the bank between the rows of flaring fires,
to disappear in the storehouse; and the long line returning
empty-handed to toil again, to the storehouse. After a time Lapierre
called LeFroy to his side and uttered a few terse commands. The man
nodded, and took Lapierre's place at the head of the steep slope to the
river. The quarter-breed turned to the girl.
"Come," he said, smiling, "LeFroy can handle them now. May we not go
to your cottage? I would hear of your progress--the progress of your
school. And also," he bowed, "is it not possible that the great, what
do you call her, Lena, has prepared supper? I've eaten nothing since
morning."
"Forgive me!" cried the girl. "I had completely forgotten supper.
But, the men? Have they not eaten since morning?"
Lapierre smiled. "They will eat," he answered, "when their work is
done."
Supper over, the two seated themselves upon the little veranda. Along
the beach the fires still flared, and still the men, like a huge,
slow-moving endless chain, carried the supplies to the store-house.
Lapierre waved his hand toward the scene.
"You see now," he smiled, "why I built the storehouse so large?"
Chloe nodded, and regarded him intently. "Yes, I see that," she
answered gravely, "but there are things I do not see. Of course you
have heard of the attack by MacNair's Indians?"
Lapierre assented. "At Smith Landing I heard it," he answered, and
waited for her to proceed.
"Had you expected this attack?"
Lapierre glanced at her in well-feigned surprise.
"Had I expected it, Miss Elliston, do you think I would have gone to
the Southward? Would I have left you to the mercy of those brutes?
When I thought you were in danger on Snare Lake, did I----"
The girl interrupted him with a gesture. "No! No! I do not think you
anticipated the attack, but----"
Lapierre finished her sentence. "But, MacNair told you I did, and that
I had timed accurately my trip to the Southward? What else did he tell
you?"
"He told me," answered Chloe, "that had you not anticipated the attack
you would not have armed my Indians with Mausers. He said that my
Indians were armed to kill men, not animals." She paused and looked
directly into his eyes. "Mr. Lapierre, where did those rifles come
from?"
Lapierre answered without a moment's hesitation. "From my--_cache_ to
the westward." He leaned closer. "I told you once before," he said,
"that I could place a hundred guns in the hands of your Indians, and
you forbade me. While I could remain in the North, I bowed to your
wishes. I know the North and its people, and I knew you would be safer
with the rifles than without them. In event of an emergency, the fact
that your Indians were armed with guns that would shoot farther, and
harder, and faster, than the guns of your enemies, would offset, in a
great measure, their advantage in numbers. It seems that my judgment
was vindicated. I disobeyed you flatly. But, surely, you will not
blame me! Oh! If you knew----"
Chloe interrupted him.
"Don't!" she cried sharply. "Please--not that! I--I think I
understand. But there are still things I do not understand. Why did
one of my own Indians attempt to murder MacNair? And how did MacNair
know that he would attempt to murder him? He said you had ordered it
so. And the man was one of your Indians--one of those you left with
LeFroy."
Lapierre nodded. "Do you not see, Miss Elliston, that MacNair is
trying by every means in his power to discredit me in your eyes?
Apatawa, the Indian you--" Chloe shuddered as he paused, and he
hastened on--"The Indian who attempted to shoot MacNair, was originally
one of MacNair's own Indians--one of the few who dared to desert him.
And, for the wrongs he had suffered, he had sworn to kill MacNair."
"But, knowing that, why did LeFroy send him to the cottage?"
"That," answered Lapierre gravely, "is something I do not know. I must
first question LeFroy, and if I find that he thus treacherously
endangered the life of a wounded man, even though that man was MacNair,
who is his enemy, and likewise my enemy, I will teach him a lesson he
will not soon forget."
Chloe heaved a sigh of relief. "I am glad," she breathed softly, "that
you feel that way."
"Could you doubt it?" asked the man.
Chloe hesitated. "Yes," she answered, "I _did_ doubt it. How could I
help but doubt, when he warned me what would happen, and it all came
about as he said? I--I could not help but believe him. And now, one
thing more. Can you tell me why MacNair's Indians are willing to fight
to the death to save him from harm? If the things you tell me are
true, and I know that they are true, because during the summer I have
questioned many of MacNair's Indians, and they all tell the same story;
why do they fight for him?"
Lapierre considered. "That is one of those things," he answered, "that
men cannot explain. It is because of his hold upon them. Great
generals have had it--this power to sway men--to command them to
certain death, even though those men cursed the very ground their
commanders stood upon. MacNair is a powerful personality. In all the
North there is not his equal. I cannot explain it. It is a
psychological problem none can explain. For, although his Indians hate
him, they make no attempt to free themselves from his yoke, and they
will fight to the death in defense of him."
"It is hard to believe," answered Chloe, "hard to understand. And yet,
I think I do understand. He said of my grandfather, as he looked into
the eyes of his portrait on the wall: 'He was a fighter. He won to
victory over the bodies of his enemies.' That is MacNair's idea of
greatness."
Lapierre nodded, and when he looked into the face of the girl he noted
that her eyes flashed with purpose.
"Tell me," she continued almost sharply, "you are not afraid of
MacNair?"
For just an instant Lapierre hesitated. "No!" he answered. "I am not
afraid."
Chloe leaned toward him eagerly and placed a hand upon his arm, while
her eyes seemed to search his very thoughts. "Then you will go with me
to Snare Lake--to carry our war into the heart of the enemy's country?"
"To Snare Lake!" gasped the man.
"Yes, to Snare Lake. I shall never rest now until MacNair's power over
these poor savages is broken forever. Until they are free from the
yoke of oppression."
"But it would be suicide!" objected Lapierre. "No possible good can
come of it! To kill a lion, one does not thrust his head into the
lion's mouth in an effort to choke him to death. There are other ways."
Chloe laughed. "He will not harm us," she answered. "I am not going
to kill him as one would kill a lion. There has been blood enough
spilled already. As you say, there are other ways. We are going to
Snare Lake for the purpose of procuring evidence that will convict this
man in the courts."
"The courts!" cried Lapierre. "Where are the courts north of sixty?"
"North of sixty, or south of sixty, what matters it? There are courts,
and there are prisons awaiting such as he. Will you go with me, or
must I go alone?"
Lapierre glanced toward the flaring fires, where the endless line of
canoemen still toiled from the river to the storehouse. Slowly he
arose from his chair and extended his hand.
"I will go with you," he answered simply, "and now I will say good
night."