ON THE TRAIL OF PIERRE LAPIERRE
Bob MacNair drove a terrific trail. He was known throughout the
Northland as a hard man to follow at any time. His huge muscles were
tireless at the paddle, and upon the rackets his long swinging stride
ate up the miles of the snow-trails. And when Bob MacNair was an a
hurry the man who undertook to keep up with him had his work cut out.
When he headed northward after his release from the Fort Saskatchewan
Jail, MacNair was in very much of a hurry. From daylight until far
into the dark he urged his malamutes to their utmost. And Corporal
Ripley, who was by no means a _chechako_, found himself taxed to the
limit of his endurance, although never by word or sign did he indicate
that the pace was other than of his own choosing.
Fort McMurray, a ten- to fourteen-day trip under good conditions, was
reached in seven days. Fort Chippewayan in three days more, and Fort
Resolution a week later--seventeen days from Athabasca Landing to Fort
Resolution--a record trip for a dog-train!
MacNair was known as a man of few words, but Ripley wondered at the
ominous silence with which his every attempt at conversation was met.
During the whole seventeen days of the snow-trail, MacNair scarcely
addressed a word to him--seemed almost oblivious to his presence.
Upon the last day, with the log buildings of Fort Resolution in sight,
MacNair suddenly halted the dogs and faced Corporal Ripley.
"Well, what's your program?" he asked shortly.
"My program," returned the other, "is to arrest Pierre Lapierre,"
"How are you going to do it?"
"I've got to locate him first, the details will work out later. I've
been counting a lot on your help and judgment in the matter."
"Don't do it!" snapped MacNair.
The other gazed at him in astonishment.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I'm not going to help you arrest Lapierre. He's mine! I
have sworn to get him, and, by God, I _will_ get him! From now on we
are working against each other."
Ripley flushed, and his eyes narrowed. "You mean," he exclaimed, "that
you defy the Mounted! That you refuse to help when you're called on?"
MacNair laughed. "You might put it that way, I suppose, but it don't
sound well. You know me, Ripley. You know when my word has
passed--when I've once started a thing--I'll see it through to the
limit. I've sworn to get Lapierre. And I tell you, he's mine! Unless
you get him first. You're a good man, Ripley, and you may do it--but
if you do, when you get back with him, you'll know you've been
somewhere."
The lines of Ripley's face softened; as a sporting proposition the
situation appealed to him. He thrust out his hand. "It's a go,
MacNair," he said, "and let the best man win!"
MacNair wrung the officer's hand in a mighty grip, and then just as he
was on the point of starting his dogs, paused and gazed thoughtfully
after the other who was making his way toward the little buildings of
Fort Resolution.
"Oh, Ripley," he called. The officer turned and retraced his steps.
"You've heard of Lapierre's fort to the eastward. Have you ever been
there?"
Ripley shook his head. "No, but I've heard he has one somewhere around
the east end of the lake."
MacNair laughed. "Yes, and if you hunted the east end of the lake for
it you could hunt a year without finding it. If you really want to
know where it is, come along, I'll show you. I happen to be going
there."
"What's the idea?" asked the officer, regarding MacNair quizzically.
"The idea is just this. Lapierre's no fool. He's got as good a chance
of getting me as I have of getting him. And if anything happens to me
you fellows will lose a lot of valuable time before you can locate that
fort. I don't know myself exactly why I'm taking you there, except
that--well, if anything should happen to me, Lapierre would--you see,
he might--that is---- Damn it!" he broke out wrathfully. "Can't you
see he'll have things his own way with _her_?"
Ripley grinned broadly. "Oh! So that's it, eh? Well, a fellow ought
to look out for his friends. She seemed right anxious to have _you_
put where nothing would hurt you."
"Shut up!" growled MacNair shortly. "And before we start there's one
little condition you must agree to. If we find Lapierre at the fort,
in return for my showing you the place, you've got to promise to make
no attempt to arrest him without first returning to Fort Resolution.
If I can't get him in the meantime I ought to lose."
"You're on," grinned Ripley, "I promise. But man, if he's there he
won't be alone! What chance will you have single-handed against a
whole gang of outlaws?"
MacNair smiled grimly. "That's my lookout. Remember, your word has
passed, and when we locate Lapierre, you head back for Fort Resolution."
The other nodded regretfully, and when MacNair turned away from the
fort and headed eastward along the south shore of the lake, the officer
fell silently in behind the dogs.
They camped late in a thicket on the shore of South Bay, and at
daylight headed straight across the vast snow-level, that stretched for
sixty miles in an unbroken surface of white. That night they camped on
the ice, and toward noon of the following day drew into the scrub
timber directly north of the extremity of Peththenneh Island.
Long after dark they made a fireless camp directly opposite the
stronghold of the outlaws on the shore of Lac du Mort. Circling the
lake next morning, they reconnoitred the black spruce swamp, and
working their way, inch by inch, passed cautiously between the dense
evergreens in the direction of the high promontory upon which Lapierre
had built his "Bastile du Mort."
Silence enveloped the swamp. An intense, all-pervading stillness,
accentuated by the low-hung snow-weighted branches through which the
men moved like dark phantoms in the grey half-light of the dawn. They
moved not with the stealthy, gliding movement of the Indian, but with
the slow caution of trained woodsmen, pausing every few moments to
scrutinize their surroundings, and to strain their ears for a sound
that would tell them that other lurking forms glided among the silent
aisles and vistas of the snow-shrouded swamp. But no sounds came to
them through the motionless air, and after an hour of stealthy advance,
they drew into the shelter of a huge spruce and peered through the
interstices of its snow-laden branches toward the log stockade that
Lapierre had thrown across the neck of his lofty peninsula.
Silent and grey and deserted loomed the barrier so cunningly devised as
to be almost indistinguishable at a distance of fifty yards. Snow lay
upon its top, and vertical ridges of snow clung to the crevices of the
upstanding palings.
A half-hour passed, while the two men remained motionless, and then,
satisfied that the fort was unoccupied, they stepped cautiously from
the shelter of their tree. The next instant, loud and clear,
shattering the intense silence with one sharp explosion of sound, rang
a shot. And Corporal Ripley, who was following close at the heels of
MacNair, staggered, clawed wildly for the butt of his service revolver
which protruded from its holster, and, with an imprecation on his lips
that ended in an unintelligible snarl, crashed headlong into the snow.
MacNair whirled as if upon a pivot, and with hardly a glance at the
prostrate form, dashed over the back-trail with the curious lumbering
strides of the man who would hurry on rackets. He had jerked off his
heavy mitten at the sound of the shot, and his bared hand clutched
firmly the butt of a blue-black automatic. A spruce-branch, suddenly
relieved of its snow, sprang upward with a swish, thirty yards away.
MacNair fired three times in rapid succession.
There was no answering shot, and he leaped forward, charging directly
toward the tree that concealed the hidden foe before the man could
reload; for by the roar of its discharge, MacNair knew that the weapon
was an old Hudson Bay muzzle-loading smoothbore--a primitive weapon of
the old North, but in the hands of an Indian, a weapon of terrible
execution at short range, where a roughly moulded bullet or a slug
rudely hammered from the solder melted from old tin cans tears its way
through the flesh, driven by three fingers of black powder.
Near the tree MacNair found the gun where its owner had hurled it into
the snow--found also the tracks of a pair of snowshoes, which headed
into the heart of the black spruce swamp. The tracks showed at a
glance that the lurking assassin was an Indian, that he was travelling
light, and that the chance of running him down was extremely remote.
Whereupon MacNair returned his automatic to its holster and bethought
himself of Ripley, who was lying back by the stockade with his face
buried in the snow.
Swiftly he retraced his steps, and, kneeling beside the wounded man,
raised him from the snow. Blood oozed from the corners of the
officer's lips, and, mingling with the snow, formed a red slush which
clung to the boyish cheek. With his knife MacNair cut through the
clothing and disclosed an ugly hole below the right shoulder-blade. He
bound up the wound, plugging the hole with suet chewed from a lump
which he carried in his pocket. Leaving Ripley upon his face to
prevent strangulation from the blood in his throat, he hastened to the
camp on the shore of the lake, harnessed the dogs, and returned to the
prostrate man; it was the work of a few moments to bind him securely
upon the sled. Skilfully MacNair guided his dogs through the maze of
the black spruce swamp, and, throwing caution to the winds, crossed the
lake, struck into the timber, and headed straight for Chloe Elliston's
school.
In the living-room of the little cottage on the Yellow Knife, Harriet
Penny and Mary, the Louchoux girl, sat sewing, while Chloe Elliston,
with chair pulled close to the table, read by the light of an oil-lamp
from a year-old magazine. If the Louchoux girl failed to follow the
intricacies of the plot, an observer would scarcely have known it. Nor
would he have guessed that less than two short months before this girl
had been a skin-clad native of the North who had mushed for thirty days
unattended through the heart of the barren grounds. So marvellously
had the girl improved and so desirously had she applied her needle,
that save for the beaded moccasins upon her feet, her clothing differed
in no essential detail from that of Chloe Elliston or of Harriet Penny.
Chloe paused in her reading, and the three occupants of the little room
stared inquiringly into each other's faces as a rough-voiced "Whoa!"
sounded from beyond the door. A moment of silence followed the
command, and then came the sounds of a heavy footfall upon the veranda.
The Louchoux girl sprang to the door, and as she wrenched it open the
yellow lamplight threw into bold relief the huge figure of a man, who,
bearing a blanket-wrapped form in his arms, staggered into the room,
and, without a word deposited his burden upon the floor. The man
looked up, and Chloe Elliston started back with an exclamation of angry
amazement. The man was Bob MacNair! And Chloe noticed that the
Louchoux girl, after one terrified glance into his face, fled
incontinently to the kitchen.
"You! You!" cried Chloe, groping for words.
The man interrupted her gruffly. "This is no time to talk. Corporal
Ripley has been shot. For three days I have burned up the snow getting
him here. He's hard hit, but the bleeding has stopped, and a good bed
and good nursing will pull him through."
As he snapped out the words, MacNair busied himself in removing the
wounded man's blankets and outer garments. Chloe gave some hurried
orders to Big Lena, and followed MacNair into her own room, where he
laid the wounded man upon her bed--the same he, himself, had once
occupied while recovering from the effect of Lapierre's bullet. Then
he straightened and faced Chloe, who stood regarding him with flashing
eyes.
"So you did get away from him after all?" she said, "and when he
followed you, you shot him! Just a boy--and you shot him in the back!"
The voice trembled with the scorn of her words. MacNair pushed roughly
past her.
"Don't be a damn fool!" he growled, and called over his shoulder:
"Better rest him up for three or four days, and send him down to Fort
Resolution. He'll stand the trip all right by that time, and the
doctor may want to poke around for that bullet." Suddenly he whirled
and faced her. "Where is Lapierre?" The words were a snarl.
"So you want to kill him, too? Do you think I would tell you if I
knew? You--you _murderer_! Oh, if I--" But the sentence was cut
short by the loud banging of the door. MacNair had returned into the
night.
An hour later, when she and Big Lena quitted the bedroom, Corporal
Ripley was breathing easily. Her thoughts turned at once to the
Louchoux girl. She recalled the look of terror that had crept into the
girl's eyes as she gazed into the upturned face of MacNair. With the
force of a blow a thought flashed through her brain, and she clutched
at the edge of the table for support. What was it the girl had told
her about the man who had deceived her into believing she was his wife?
He was a free-trader! MacNair was a free-trader! Could it be----
"No, no!" she gasped--"and yet----"
With an effort she crossed to the door of the girl's room and, pushing
it open, entered to find her cowering, wide-eyed between her blankets.
The sight of the beautiful, terrorized face did not need the
corroboration of the low, half-moaned words, "Oh, please, please, don't
let him get me!" to tell Chloe that her worst fears were realized.
"Do not be afraid, my dear," she faltered. "He cannot harm you now,"
and hurriedly closing the door, staggered across the living-room, threw
herself into a chair beside the table, and buried her face in her arms.
Harriet Penny opened her door and glanced timidly at the still figure
of the girl, and, deciding it were the better part of prudence not to
intrude, noiselessly closed her door. Hours later, Big Lena, entering
from the kitchen, regarded her mistress with a long vacant-faced stare,
and returned again to the kitchen. All through the night Chloe dozed
fitfully beside the table, but for the most part she was
widely--painfully--awake. Bitterly she reproached herself. Only she
knew the pain the discovery of MacNair's treachery had caused her. And
only she knew why the discovery had caused her pain.
Always she had believed she had hated this man. By all standards, she
should hate him. This great, elemental brute of the North who had
first attempted to ignore, and later to ridicule and to bully her.
This man who ruled his Indians with a rod of iron, who allowed them
full license in their debauchery, and then shot them down in cold
blood, who shot a boy in the back while in the act of doing his duty,
and who had called her a "damn fool" in her own house, and was even
then off on the trail of another man he had sworn to kill on sight. By
all the laws of justice, equity, and decency, she should hate this man!
She was conscious of no other feeling toward him than a burning,
unquenchable hate. And yet, deep down in her heart she knew--by the
pain of her discovery of his treachery--she knew she loved him, and
utterly she despised herself that this could be so.
Daylight softly dimmed the yellow lamplight of the room. The girl
arose, and, after a hurried glance at the sleeping Ripley, bathed her
eyes in cold water and passed into the kitchen, where Big Lena was busy
in the preparation of breakfast.
"Send LeFroy to me at once!" she ordered, and five minutes later, when
the man stood before her, she ordered him to summon all of MacNair's
Indians.
The man shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other as he
faced her upon the tiny veranda. "MacNair Injuns," he answered, "dem
gon' las' night. Dem gon' 'long wit' MacNair. Heem gon' for hunt
Pierre Lapierre!"