A FRAME-UP
News, of a kind, travels on the wings of the wind across wastes of the
farther land. Principalities may fall, nations crash, and kingdoms
sink into oblivion, and the North will neither know nor care. For the
North has its own problems--vital problems, human problems--and
therefore big. Elemental, portentous problems, having to do with life
and the eating of meat.
In the crash and shift of man-made governments; in the redistribution
of man-constituted authority, and man-gathered surplus of increment,
the North has no part. On the cold side of sixty there is no surplus,
and men think in terms of meat, and their possessions are meat-getting
possessions. Guns, nets, and traps, even of the best, insure but a
bare existence. And in the lean years, which are the seventh
years--the years of the rabbit plague--starvation stalks in the
teepees, and gaunt, sunken-eyed forms, dry-lipped, and with the skin
drawn tightly over protruding ribs, stiffen between shoddy blankets.
For even the philosophers of the land of God and the H.B.C. must eat to
live--if not this week, at least once next week.
The H.B.C., taking wise cognizance of the seventh year, extends it
credit--"debt" it is called in the outlands--but it puts no more wool
in its blankets, and for lack of food the body-fires burn low. But the
cold remains inexorable. And with the thermometer at seventy degrees
below zero, even in the years of plenty, when the philosophers eat
almost daily, there is little of comfort. With the thermometer at
seventy in the lean years, the suffering is diminished by the passing
of many philosophers.
The arrest of Bob MacNair was a matter of sovereign import to the
dwellers of the frozen places, and word of it swept like wildfire
through the land of the lakes and rivers. Yet in all the North those
upon whom it made the least impression were those most vitally
concerned--MacNair's own Indians. So quietly had the incident passed
that not one of them realized its importance.
With them MacNair was _God_. He was the _law_. He had taught them to
work, so that even in the lean years they and their wives and their
babies ate twice each day. He had said that they should continue to
eat twice each day, and therefore his departure was a matter of no
moment. They knew only that he had gone southward with the man of the
soldier-police. This was doubtless as he had commanded. They could
conceive of MacNair only as commanding. Therefore the
soldier-policeman had obeyed and accompanied him to the southward.
With no such complacency, however, was the arrest of MacNair regarded
by the henchmen of Lapierre. To them MacNair was not God, nor was he
the law. For these men knew well the long arm of the Mounted and what
lay at the end of the trail. Lean forms sped through the woods, and
the word passed from lip to lip in far places. It was whispered upon
the Slave, the Mackenzie, and the Athabasca, and it was told in the
provinces before MacNair and Ripley reached Fort Chippewayan. Along
the river, men talked excitedly, and impatiently awaited word from
Lapierre, while their eyes snapped with greed and their thoughts flew
to the gold in the sands of the barren grounds.
In the Bastile du Mort, a hundred miles to the eastward, Lapierre heard
the news from the lips of a breathless runner, but a scant ten hours
after Corporal Ripley and MacNair stepped from the door of the cottage.
And within the hour the quarter-breed was upon the trail, travelling
light, in company with LeFroy, who, fearing swift vengeance, had also
sought safety in the stronghold of the outlaws.
Chloe Elliston stood in the doorway and watched the broad form of Bob
MacNair swing across the clearing in company with Corporal Ripley. As
the men disappeared in the timber, a fierce joy of victory surged
through her veins. She had bared the mailed fist! Had wrested a
people from the hand of their oppressor! The Snare Lake Indians were
henceforth to be _her_ Indians! She had ridded the North of MacNair!
Every fibre of her sang with the exultation of it as she turned into
the room and encountered the fishlike stare of Big Lena.
The woman leaned, ponderous and silent, against the jamb of the door
giving into the kitchen. Her huge arms were folded tightly across her
breast, and, for some inexplicable reason, Chloe found the stare
disconcerting. The enthusiasm of her victory damped perceptibly. For
if the fish-eyed stare held nothing of reproach, it certainly held
nothing of approbation. Almost the girl read a condescending pity in
the stare of the china-blue eyes. The thought stung, and she faced the
other wrathfully.
"Well, for Heaven's sake say something! Don't stand there and stare
like a--a billikin! Can't you talk?"
"Yah, Ay tank Ay kin; but Ay von't--not yat."
"What do you mean?" cried the exasperated girl, as she flung herself
into a chair. But without deigning to answer, Big Lena turned heavily
into the kitchen, and closed the door with a bang that impoverished
invective--for volumes may be spoken--in the banging of a door. The
moment was inauspicious for the entrance of Harriet Penny. At best,
Chloe merely endured the little spinster, with her whining, hysterical
outbursts, and abject, unreasoning fear of God, man, the devil, and
everything else. "Oh, my dear, I am so glad!" piped the little woman,
rushing to the girl's side: "we need never fear him again, need we?"
"Nobody ever did fear him but you," retorted Chloe.
"But, Mr. Lapierre said----"
The girl arose with a gesture of impatience, and Miss Penny returned to
MacNair. "He is so big, and coarse, and horrible! I am sure even his
looks are enough to frighten a person to death."
Chloe sniffed. "I think he is handsome, and he is big and strong. I
like big people."
"But, my dear!" cried the horrified Miss Penny. "He--he kills Indians!"
"So do I!" snapped the girl, and stamped angrily into her own room,
where she threw herself upon the bed and gave way to bitter
reflections. She hated everyone. She hated MacNair, and Big Lena, and
Harriet Penny, and the officer of the Mounted. She hated Lapierre and
the Indians, too. And then, realizing the folly of her blind hatred,
she hated herself for hating. With an effort she regained her poise.
"MacNair is out of the way; and that's the main thing," she murmured.
She remembered his last words: "Beware of Pierre Lapierre," and her
eyes sought the man's hastily scribbled note that lay upon the table
where he had left it. She reread the note, and crumpling it in her
hand threw it to the floor. "He always manages to be some place else
when anything happens!" she exclaimed. "Oh, why couldn't it have been
the other way around? Why couldn't MacNair have been the one to have
the interest of the Indians at heart? And why couldn't Lapierre have
been the one to browbeat and bully them?"
She paced angrily up and down the room, and kicked viciously at the
little ball of paper that was Lapierre's note. "He couldn't browbeat
anything!" she exclaimed. "He's--he's--sometimes, I think, he's almost
_sneaking_, with his bland, courtly manners, and his suave tongue. Oh,
how I could hate that man! And how I--" she stopped suddenly, and with
clenched fists fixed her gaze upon the portrait of Tiger Elliston, and
as she looked the thin features that returned her stare seemed to
resolve into the rugged outlines of the face of Bob MacNair.
"He's big and strong, and he's not afraid," she murmured, and started
nervously at the knock with which Big Lena announced supper.
When Chloe appeared at the table five minutes later she was quite her
usual self. She even laughed at Harriet Penny's horrified narrative of
the fact that she had discovered several Indians in the act of affixing
runners to the collapsible bathtubs in anticipation of the coming snow.
Chloe spent an almost sleepless night, and it was with a feeling of
distinct relief that she arose to find Lapierre upon the veranda. She
noted a certain intense eagerness in the quarter-breed's voice as he
greeted her.
"Ah, Miss Elliston!" he cried, seizing both her hands. "It seems that
during my brief absence you have accomplished wonders! May I ask how
you managed to bring about the downfall of the brute of the North, and
at the same time win his Indians to your school?"
Under the enthusiasm of his words the girl's heart once more quickened
with the sense of victory. She withdrew her hands from his clasp and
gave a brief account of all that had happened since their parting on
Snare Lake.
"Wonderful," breathed Lapierre at the conclusion of the recital. "And
you are sure he was duly charged with the murder of the two Indians?"
Chloe nodded. "Yes, indeed I am sure!" she exclaimed. "The officer,
Corporal Ripley, tried to get me to put off this charge until his other
trial came up at the spring assizes. He said MacNair could give bail
and secure his liberty on the liquor charges, and thus return to the
North--and to his Indians."
Lapierre nodded eagerly. "Ah, did I not tell you, Miss Elliston, that
the men of the Mounted are with him heart and soul? He owns them! You
have done well not to withdraw the charge of murder."
"I offered to furnish him with an escort of Indians, but he refused
them. I don't see how in the world he can expect to take MacNair to
jail. He's a mere boy."
Lapierre laughed. "He'll take him to jail all right, you may rest
assured as to that. He will not dare to allow him to escape, nor will
MacNair try to escape. We have nothing to fear now until the trial.
It is extremely doubtful if we can make the murder charge stick, but it
will serve to hold him during the winter, and I have no doubt when his
case comes up in the spring we will be able to produce evidence that
will insure conviction on the whiskey charges, which will mean at least
a year or two in jail and the exaction of a heavy fine.
"In the meantime you will have succeeded in educating the Indians to a
realization of the fact that they owe allegiance to no man. MacNair's
power is broken. He will be discredited by the authorities, and hated
by his own Indians--a veritable pariah of the wilderness. And now,
Miss Elliston, I must hasten at once to the rivers. My interests there
have long been neglected. I shall return as soon as possible, but my
absence will necessarily be prolonged, for beside my own trading
affairs and the getting out of the timber for new scows, I hope to
procure such additional evidence as will insure the conviction of
MacNair. LeFroy will remain with you here."
"Did you catch the whiskey runners?" Chloe asked.
Lapierre shook his head. "No," he answered, "they succeeded in eluding
us among the islands at the eastern end of the lake. We were about to
push our search to a conclusion when news reached us of MacNair's
arrest, and we returned with all speed to the Yellow Knife."
Somehow, the man's words sounded unconvincing--the glib reply was too
ready--too like the studied answer to an anticipated question. She
regarded him searchingly, but the simple directness of his gaze caused
her own eyes to falter, and she turned into the house with a deep
breath that was very like a sigh.
The sense of elation and self-confidence inspired by Lapierre's first
words ebbed as it had ebbed before the unspoken rebuke of Big Lena,
leaving her strangely depressed. With the joy of accomplishment dead
within her, she drove herself to her work without enthusiasm. In all
the world, nothing seemed worth while. She was unsure--unsure of
Lapierre; unsure of herself; unsure of Big Lena--and, worst of all,
unbelievable and preposterous as it seemed in the light of what she had
witnessed with her own eyes, unsure of MacNair--of his villainy!
Before noon the first snow of the season started in a fall of light,
feathery flakes, which gradually resolved themselves into fine, hard
particles that were hurled and buffeted about by the blasts of a fitful
wind.
For three days the blizzard raged--days in which Lapierre contrived to
spend much time in Chloe's company, and during which the girl set about
deliberately to study the quarter-breed, in the hope of placing
definitely the defect in his make-up, the tangible reason for the
growing sense of distrust with which she was coming to regard him.
But, try as she would, she could find no cause, no justification, for
the uncomfortable and indefinable _something_ that was gradually
developing into an actual doubt of his sincerity. She knew that the
man had himself well in hand, for never by word or look did he express
any open avowal of love, although a dozen times a day he managed subtly
to show that his love had in no wise abated.
On the morning of the fourth day, with forest and lake and river buried
beneath three feet of snow, Lapierre took the trail for the southward.
Before leaving, he sought out LeFroy in the storehouse.
"We have things our own way, but we must lie low for a while, at least.
MacNair is not licked yet--by a damn' sight! He knows we furnished the
booze to his Indians, and he will yell his head off to the Mounted, and
we will have them dropping in on us all the winter. In the meantime
leave the liquor where it is. Don't bring a gallon of it into this
clearing. It will keep, and we can't take chances with the Mounted.
There will be enough in it for us, with what we can knock down here,
and what the boys can take out of MacNair's diggings. They know the
gold is there; most of them were in on the stampede when MacNair drove
them back a few years ago. And when they find out that MacNair is in
jail, there will be another stampede. And we will clean up big all
around."
LeFroy, a man of few words, nodded sombrely, and Lapierre, who was
impatient to be off to the rivers, failed to note that the nod was far
more sombre than usual--failed, also, to note the pair of china-blue,
fishlike eyes that stared impassively at him from behind the goods
piled high upon the huge counter.
Once upon the trail, Lapierre lost no time. As passed the word upon
the Mackenzie, where the men who had heard of the arrest of MacNair
waited in a frenzy of impatience for the signal that would send them
flying over the snow to Snare Lake. Day and night the man travelled;
from the Mackenzie southward the length of Slave and up the Athabasca.
And in his wake men, whose eyes fairly bulged with the greed of gold,
jammed their outfits into packs and headed into the North.
At Athabasca Landing he sent a crew into the timber, and hastened on to
Edmonton where he purchased a railway ticket for a point that had
nothing whatever to do with his destination. That same night he
boarded an east-bound train, and in an early hour of the morning, when
the engine paused for water beside a tank that was the most conspicuous
building of a little flat town in the heart of a peaceful farming
community, he stepped unnoticed from the day coach and proceeded at
once to the low, wooden hotel, where he was cautiously admitted through
a rear door by the landlord himself, who was, incidentally, Lapierre's
shrewdest and most effective whiskey runner.
It was this Tostoff: Russian by birth, and crook by nature, whose
business it was to disguise the contraband whiskey into
innocent-looking freight pieces. And, it was Tostoff who selected the
men and stood responsible for the contraband's safe conduct over the
first stage of its journey to the North.
Tostoff objected strenuously to the running of a consignment in winter,
but Lapierre persisted, covering the ground step by step while the
other listened with a scowl.
"It's this way, Tostoff: For years MacNair has been our chief
stumbling-block. God knows we have trouble enough running the stuff
past the Dominion police and the Mounted. But the danger from the
authorities is small in comparison with the danger from MacNair."
Tostoff growled an assent. "And now," continued Lapierre, "for the
first time we have him where we want him."
The Russian looked sceptical. "We got MacNair where we want him if
he's dead," he grunted. "Who killed him?"
Lapierre made a gesture of impatience. "He is not dead. He's locked
up in the Fort Saskatchewan jail."
For the first time Tostoff showed real interest. "What's against him?"
he asked eagerly.
"Murder, for one thing," answered Lapierre. "That will hold him
without bail until the spring assizes. He will probably get out of
that, though. But they are holding him also on four or five liquor
charges."
"Liquor charges!" cried Tostoff, with an angry snort. "O-ho! so that's
his game? That's why he's been bucking us--because he's got a line of
his own!"
Lapierre laughed. "Not so fast, Tostoff, not so fast. It is a
frame-up. That is, the charges are not, but the evidence is. I
attended to that myself. I think we have enough on him to keep him out
of the cold for a couple of winters to come. But you can't tell. And
while we have him we will put the screws to him for all there is in it.
It is the chance of a lifetime. What we want now is evidence--and more
evidence.
"Here is the scheme: You fix up a consignment, five or ten gallons, the
usual way, and instead of shooting it in by the Athabasca, cut into the
old trail on the Beaver and take it across the Methye portage to a
_cache_ on the Clearwater. Brown's old cabin will about fill the bill.
We ought to be able to _cache_ the stuff by Christmas.
"In the meantime, I will slip up the river and tip it off to the
Mounted at Fort McMurray that I got it straight from down below that
MacNair is going to run in a batch over the Methye trail, and that it
is to be _cached_ on the bank of the Clearwater on New Year's Day.
That will give your packers a week to make their getaway. And on New
Year's Day the Mounted will find the stuff in the _cache_. There will
be nobody to arrest, but they will have the evidence that will clinch
the case against MacNair. And with MacNair behind the bars we will
have things our own way north of sixty."
Tostoff shook his head dubiously.
"Bad business, Lapierre," he warned. "Winter trailing is bad business.
The snow tells tales. We haven't been caught yet. Why? Not because
we've been lucky, but because we've been careful. Water leaves no
trail. We've always run our stuff in in the summer. You say you've
got the goods on MacNair. I say, let well enough alone. The Mounted
ain't fools--they can read the sign in the snow."
Lapierre arose with a curse. "You white-livered clod!" he cried. "Who
is running this scheme? You or I? Who delivers the whiskey to the
Indians? And who pays you your money? I do the thinking for this
outfit. I didn't come down here to _ask_ you to run this consignment.
I came here to _tell_ you to do it. This thing of playing safe is all
right. I never told you to run a batch in the winter before, but this
time you have got to take the chance."
Lapierre leaned closer and fixed the heavy-faced Russian with his
gleaming black eyes. He spoke slowly so that the words fell distinctly
from his lips. "You _cache_ that liquor on the Clearwater on Christmas
Day. If you fail--well, you will join the others that have been
dismissed from my service--see?"
Tostoff's only reply was a ponderous but expressive shrug, and without
a word Lapierre turned and stepped out into the night.