CHLOE WRITES A LETTER
When Bob MacNair, exasperated beyond all patience by Chloe Elliston's
foolish accusation, stamped angrily from the cottage, after depositing
the wounded Ripley upon the bed, he proceeded at once to the barracks,
where he sought out Wee Johnnie Tamarack, who informed him that Lapierre
was up on Snare Lake, at the head of a band of men who had already
succeeded in dotting the snow of the barren grounds with the black dumps
of many shafts. Whereupon he ordered Wee Johnnie Tamarack to assemble
the Indians at once at the storehouse.
No sooner had the old Indian departed upon his mission than the door of
the barracks was pushed violently open and Big Lena entered, dragging by
the arm the thoroughly cowed figure of LeFroy. At sight of the man who,
under Lapierre's orders, had wrought the destruction of his post at Snare
Lake, MacNair leaped forward with a snarl of anger. But before he could
reach the trembling man the form of Big Lena interposed, and MacNair
found himself swamped by a jargon of broken English that taxed to the
utmost his power of comprehension.
"Ju yoost vait vun meenit. Ay tal ju som'ting gude. Dis damn LeFroy, he
bane bad man. He vork by Lapierre, and he tak' de vhiskey to jour
Injuns, but he don't vork no more by Lapierre; he vork by me. Ay goin'
to marry him, and ju bet Ay keep him gude, or Ay bust de stove chunk
'crost his head. He vork by Mees Chloe now, and he lak ju gif him chance
to show he ain't no bad man no more."
Big Lena shook the man roughly by way of emphasis, and MacNair smiled as
he noted the foolish grin with which LeFroy submitted to the inevitable.
For years he had known LeFroy as a bad man, second only to Lapierre in
cunning and brutal cruelty; and to see him now, cowering under the
domination of his future spouse, was to MacNair the height of the
ridiculous--but MacNair was unmarried.
"All right," he growled, and LeFroy's relief at the happy termination of
the interview was plainly written upon his features, for this meeting had
not been of his own seeking. The memory of the shots which had taken off
two of his companions that night on Snare Lake, was still fresh, and in
his desire to avoid a meeting with MacNair he had sought refuge in the
kitchen. Whereupon Big Lena had taken matters into her own hands and
literally dragged him into MacNair's presence, replying to his terrified
protest that if MacNair was going to kill him, he was going to kill and
he might as well have it over with.
Thus it was that the relieved LeFroy leaped with alacrity to obey when, a
moment later, MacNair ordered him to the storehouse to break out the
necessary provisions for a ten-days' journey for all his Indians. So
well did the half-breed execute the order that upon MacNair's arrival at
the store-house he found LeFroy not only supplying provisions with a
lavish hand, but taking huge delight in passing out to the waiting
Indians Lapierre's Mauser rifles and ammunition.
When MacNair, with his Indians, reached Snare Lake, it was to find that
Pierre Lapierre had taken himself and his outlaws to the Lac du Mort
rendezvous. Whereupon he immediately despatched thirty Indians back to
LeFroy for the supplies necessary to follow Lapierre to his stronghold.
Awaiting the return of the supply train, MacNair employed his remaining
Indians in getting out logs for the rebuilding of his fort, and he smiled
grimly as his eyes roved over the dumps--the rich dumps which represented
two months' well-directed labour of a gang of a hundred men.
As Chloe Elliston sat in the little living-room and listened to the
impassioned words of Lapierre, the man's chance of winning her was far
better than at any time in the whole course of their acquaintance.
Without in the least realizing it, the girl had all along held a certain
regard for MacNair--a regard that was hard to explain, and that the girl
herself would have been the first to disavow. She hated him! And
yet--she was forced to admit even to herself, the man fascinated her.
But never until the moment of the realization of his true character, as
forced upon her by the action and words of the Louchoux girl, had she
entertained the slightest suspicion that she loved him. And with the
discovery had come a sense of shame and humiliation that had all but
broken her spirit.
Her hatred for MacNair was real enough now. That hatred, the shame and
humility, and the fact that Lapierre was pleading with her as he had
never pled before, were going far to convince the girl that her previous
estimate of the quarter-breed had been a mistaken estimate, and that he
was in truth the fine, clean, educated man of the North which on the
surface he appeared to be. A man whose aim it was to deal fairly and
honourably with the Indians, and who in reality had the best interests of
his people at heart.
No one but Chloe herself will ever know how near she came upon that
afternoon to yielding to his pleading, and laying her soul bare to him.
But something interposed--fate? Destiny? The materialist smiles
"supper." Be that as it may, had she yielded to Lapierre's plans, they
would have stolen from the school that very night and proceeded to Fort
Rae, to be married by the priest at the Mission. For Lapierre, fully
alive to the danger of delay, had eloquently pleaded his cause.
Not only was MacNair upon his trail--MacNair the relentless, the
indomitable--but also the word had passed in the North, and the men of
the Mounted--those inscrutable sentinels of the silence whose watchword
is "get the man"--were aroused to avenge a comrade. And Lapierre
realized with a chill in his heart that he was "the man"! His one chance
lay in a timely marriage with Chloe Elliston, and a quick dash for the
States. If the dash succeeded, he had nothing to fear. Even if it
failed, and he fell into the hands of the Mounted--with the Elliston
millions behind him, he felt he could snap his fingers in the face of the
law. Men of millions do not serve time.
For the men who awaited him in the Bastile du Mort, Lapierre gave no
thought. He would stand by them as long as it furthered his own ends to
stand by them. When they ceased to be a factor in his own safety, they
could shift for themselves, even as he, Lapierre, was shifting for
himself. Someone has said every man has his price. It is certain that
every man has his limit beyond which he may not go.
Lapierre, a man of consummate nerve, had put forth a final effort to save
himself. Had put forth the best effort that was in him to induce Chloe
Elliston to marry him. He had found the girl kinder, more receptive than
he had dared hope. His spirits arose to a point they had never before
attained. Success seemed within his grasp. Then, suddenly, just as his
fingers were about to close upon the prize--the prize that meant to him
life and plenty, instead of death--the Louchoux girl, a passing folly of
a bygone day, had suddenly risen up and confronted him--and he knew that
his cause was lost.
Lapierre had reached his limit of control, and when he turned at the
sound of the Indian girl's voice, his hand instinctively flew to his
belt. In his rage at the sudden turn of events, he became for the
instant a madman, whose one thought was to destroy her who had wrought
the harm. The next instant the snarl died upon his lips and his hand
dropped limply to his side. In two strides Big Lena was upon him and her
thick fingers bit deep into his shoulder as she spun him to face her--to
face the polished bit of the keen-edged ax which the huge woman
flourished carelessly within an inch of his nose.
The fingers released their grip, Lapierre's gun was jerked from its
holster, and a moment later thumped heavily upon the floor of the kitchen
fifteen feet away, while the woman pointed grimly toward the overturned
chair. Lapierre righted the chair, and as he sank into it, Chloe, who
had stared dumbfounded upon the scene, saw that little beads of sweat
stood out sharply against the pallor of his bloodless brow. As from a
great distance the words of the Louchoux girl fell upon her ears. She
was speaking rapidly, and the finger which she pointed at Lapierre
trembled violently.
"You lied!" cried the girl. "You have always lied! You lied when you
told me we were married. You lied when you said you would return! Since
coming to this school I have learned much. Many things have I learned
that I never knew before. When you said you would return, I believed
you--even as my mother believed my father when he went away in the ship
many years ago, and left me a babe in arms to live or to die among the
teepees of the Louchoux, the people of my mother, who was the mother of
his child. My mother has not been to the school, and she believes some
day my father will return. For many years she has waited, has starved,
and has suffered--always watching for my father's return. And the
factors have laughed, and the rivermen taunted her with being the mother
of a fatherless child! Ah, she has paid! Always the Indian women must
pay! And I have paid also. All my life have I been hungry, and in the
winter I have always been cold.
"Then you came with your laughing lips and your words of love and I went
with you, and you took me to distant rivers. All through the summer
there was plenty to eat in our teepee. I was happy, and for the first
time in my life my heart was glad--for I loved you! And then came the
winter, and the freezing up of the rivers, and the day you told me you
must return to the southward--to the land of the white men--without me.
And I believed you even when they told me you would not return. I was
brave--for that is the way of love, to believe, and to hope, and to be
brave."
The girl's voice faltered, and the trembling hand gripped the back of the
chair upon which she leaned heavily for support.
"All my life have I paid," she continued, bitterly. "Yet, it was not
enough. Years, when the children of the trappers had at times plenty to
eat I was always hungry and cold.
"When you came into my life I thought at last I had paid in full--that my
mother and I both had paid for her belief in the white man's word. Ah,
if I had known! I should have known, for well I remember, it was upon
the day before--before I went away with you--that I told you of my
father, and of how we always went North in the winter, knowing that again
his ship would winter in the ice of the Bufort Sea. And you heard the
story and laughed, and you said that my father would not return--that the
white men never return. And when I grew afraid, you told me that you
were part Indian. That your people were my people. I was a fool! I
listened to your words!"
The girl dropped heavily into her chair and buried her face in her arms.
"And now I know," she sobbed, "that I have not even begun to pay!"
Suddenly she leaped to her feet and, dashing around the table placed
herself between Lapierre and Chloe, who had listened white-lipped to her
words. Once more the voice of the Louchoux girl rang through the
room--high-pitched and thin with anger now--and the eyes that glared into
the eyes of Lapierre blazed black with fury.
"You have lied to her! But you cannot harm her! With my own ears I
heard your words! The same words I heard from your lips before, upon the
banks of the far-off rivers, and the words are lies--lies--lies!"--the
voice rose to a shriek--"the white woman is good! She is my friend! She
has taught me much, and now, I will save her."
With a swift movement she caught the carving-knife from the table and
sprang toward the defenceless Lapierre. "I will cut your heart in little
bits and feed it to the dogs!"
Once more the hand of Big Lena wrenched the knife from the girl's grasp.
And once more the huge Swedish woman fixed Lapierre with her vacuous
stare. Then slowly she raised her arm and pointed toward the door: "Ju
git! And never ju don't come back no more. Ay don't lat ju go 'cause Ay
lak' ju, but Ay bane 'fraid dis leetle girl she cut ju up and feed ju to
de dogs, and Ay no lak' for git dem dogs poison!"
And Lapierre tarried not for further orders. Pausing only to recover his
hat from its peg on the wall, he opened the outer door and with one
sidewise malevolent glance toward the little group at the table, slunk
hurriedly from the room.
Hardly had the door closed behind him than Chloe, who had sat as one
stunned during the girl's accusation and her later outburst of fury,
leaped to her feet and seized her arm in a convulsive grip. "Tell me!"
she cried; "what do you mean? Speak! Speak, can't you? What is this
you have said? What is it all about?"
"Why it is he, Pierre Lapierre. He is the free-trader of whom I told
you. The man who--who deceived me into believing I was his wife."
"But," cried Chloe, staring at her in astonishment. "I thought--I
thought MacNair was the man!"
"No! No! No!" cried the girl. "Not MacNair! Pierre Lapierre, he is
the man! He who sat in that chair, and whose heart I would cut into tiny
bits that you shall not be made to pay, even as I have paid, for
listening to the words of his lips."
"But," faltered Chloe, "I don't--I don't understand. Surely, you, fear
MacNair. Surely, that night when he came into the room, carrying the
wounded policeman, you fled from him in terror."
"MacNair is a white man----"
"But why should you fear him?"
"I fear him," she answered, "because among the Indians--among the
Louchoux--the people of my mother, and among the Eskimoes, he is called
'The Bad Man of the North.' I hated him because Lapierre taught me to
hate him. I do not hate him now, nor do I fear him. But among the
Indians and among the free-traders he is both hated and feared. He
chases the free-traders from the rivers, and he kills them and destroys
their whiskey. For he has said, like the men of the soldier-police, that
the red man shall drink no whiskey. But the red men like the whiskey.
Their life is hard and they do not have much happiness, and the whiskey
of the white man makes them happy. And in the days before MacNair they
could get much whiskey, but now the free-traders fear him, and only
sometimes do they dare to bring whiskey to the land of the far-off rivers.
"At the posts my people may trade for food and for guns and for clothing,
but they may not buy whiskey. But the free-traders sell whiskey. Also
they will trade for the women. But MacNair has said they shall not trade
for the women. At times, when men think he is far away, he comes
swooping through the North with his Snare Lake Indians at his heels, and
they chase the free-traders from the rivers. And on the shores of the
frozen sea he chases the whalemen from the Eskimo villages even to their
ships which lie far out from the coast, locked in the grip of the
ice-pack.
"For these things I have hated and feared him. Since I have been here at
the school I have learned much. Both from your teachings, and from
talking with the women of MacNair's Indians. I know now that MacNair is
good, and that the factors and the soldier-police and the priest spoke
words of truth, and that Lapierre and the free-traders lied!"
As the Indian girl poured forth her story, Chloe Elliston listened as one
in a dream. What was this she was saying, that it was Lapierre who sold
whiskey to the Indians, and MacNair who stood firm, and struck mighty
blows for the right of things? Surely, this girl's mind was
unhinged--or, had something gone wrong with her own brain? Was it
possible she had heard aright?
Suddenly she remembered the words of Corporal Ripley, when he asked her
to withdraw the charge of murder against MacNair: "In the North we know
something of MacNair's work." And again: "We know the North needs men
like MacNair."
Could it be possible that after all--with the thought there flashed into
the girl's mind the scene on Snare Lake. Had she not seen with her own
eyes the evidence of this man's work among the Indians! With a gesture
of appeal she turned to Big Lena.
"Surely, Lena, you remember that night on Snare Lake? You saw MacNair's
Indians, drunk as fiends--and the buildings all on fire? You saw MacNair
kicking and knocking them about? And you saw him fire the shots that
killed two men? Speak, can't you? Did you see these things? Did I see
them? Was I dreaming? Or am I dreaming now?"
Big Lena shifted her weight ponderously, and the stare of the china-blue
eyes met steadily the half-startled eyes of the girl. "Yah, Ay seen das
all right. Dem Injuns dey awful drunk das night and MacNair he come
'long and schlap dem and kick dem 'round. But das gude for dem. Dey got
it comin'. Dey should not ought to drink Lapierre's vhiskey."
"Lapierre's whiskey!" cried the girl. "Are you crazy?"
"Naw, Ay tank Ay ain't so crazy. Lapierre he fool ju long tam'."
"What do you mean," asked Chloe.
"Ah, das a'right," answered the woman. "He fool ju gude, but he ain't
fool Big Lena. Ay know all about him for a jear."
"But," pursued the girl, "Lapierre was with us that night!"
Lena shrugged. "Yah, Lapierre very smart. He send LeFroy 'long wit' das
vhiskey. Den v'en he know MacNair's Injuns git awful drunk, he tak' ju
'long for see it."
"LeFroy!" cried Chloe. "Why, LeFroy was off to the eastward trying to
run down some whiskey-runners."
Big Lena laughed derisively. "How ju fin' out?" she asked.
Chloe hesitated. "Why--why, Lapierre told me."
Again Big Lena laughed. "Yah, Lapierre tal ju, but, LeFroy, he don't
know nuthin' 'bout no vhiskey-runners. Only him and Lapierre dos all de
vhiskey-running in dis country. LeFroy, he tal me all 'bout das. He
tak' das vhiskey up dere and he sell it to MacNair's Injuns, and MacNair
shoot after him and kill two LeFroy's men. Ay goin' marry LeFroy, and he
tal me de trut'. He 'fraid to lie to me, or Ay break him in two.
LeFroy, he bane gude man now, he quit Lapierre. Ju bet ju if he don't
bane gude Ay gif him haal. Ay tal him it bane gude t'ing if MacNair kill
him das night.
"Den MacNair come on de school and brung de policeman, LeFroy he 'fraid
for scart, and he goin' hide in de kitchen, and Ay drag him out and brung
him 'long to see MacNair. LeFroy, he 'fraid lak' haal. He squeal
MacNair goin' kill him. But Ay tal him das ain't much loss annyhow. If
he goin' kill him it's besser he kill him now, den Ay ain't got to bodder
wit' him no more. But MacNair, he don't kill him. Ay tal him LeFroy
goin' to be gude man now, and den MacNair he laugh, and tal LeFroy to go
'long and git out de grub."
"But," cried Chloe, "you say you have known all about Lapierre for a
year, and you knew all the time that MacNair was right, and Lapierre was
wrong, and you let me go blindly on thinking Lapierre was my friend, and
treating MacNair as I did! Why didn't you tell me?"
"Ju got yoost so manny eyes lak' me!" retorted the woman. "Ju neffer ask
me vat Ay tank 'bout MacNair and 'bout Lapierre. And Ay neffer tal ju
das 'cause Ay tank it besser ju fin' out yourself. Ay know ju got to
fin' das out sometam'. Den ju believe it. Ju know lot 'bout vat stands
in de books, but das mos' lak' MacNair say: 'bout lot t'ing, you damn
fool!"
Chloe gasped. It was the longest speech Big Lena had ever made. And the
girl learned that when the big woman chose she could speak straight from
the shoulder.
Harriet Penny gasped also. She pushed back her chair, and shook an
outraged finger at Big Lena. "Go into the kitchen where you belong!" she
cried. "I really cannot permit such language in my presence. You are
unspeakably coarse!"
Chloe whirled on the little woman like a flash. "You shut up, Hat
Penny!" she snapped savagely. "You don't happen to do the permitting
around here. If your ears are too delicate to listen to _the truth_ you
better go into your own room and shut the door." And then crossing
swiftly to her own room, she opened the door, but before entering she
turned to Big Lena, "Make a pot of strong coffee," she ordered, "and
bring it to me here."
A few minutes later when the woman entered and deposited the tray
containing coffee-pot, cream-pitcher, and sugar-bowl upon the table, she
found Chloe striding up and down the room. There was a new light in the
girl's eyes, and, very much to Big Lena's surprise, she turned suddenly
upon her and throwing her arms about the massive shoulders, planted a
kiss squarely upon the wide, flat mouth.
"Ah, Lena," she cried, happily, "you--you are a dear!" And the Swedish
woman, with unexpected gentleness, patted the girl's shoulder, and as she
passed out of the door smiled broadly.
For an hour Chloe paced up and down the little room. At first she could
scarcely bring herself to realize that the two men, MacNair and Lapierre,
had changed places. She remembered that in that very room she had more
than once pictured that very thing. As the conviction grew upon her, her
pulse quickened. Never before had she been so supremely--so wildly
happy. There was a strange barbaric singing in her heart, as for the
first time she saw MacNair--the real MacNair at his true worth. MacNair,
the big man, the really great man, strong and brave, alone in the North
fighting, night and day, against the snarling wolves of the world-waste.
Fighting for the good of his Indians and the right of things as they
should be.
Her mind dwelt upon the fine courage and the patience of him. She
recalled the hurt look in his eyes when she ordered his arrest. She
remembered his words to the officer--words of kindly apology for her own
blind folly. She penetrated the rough exterior, and read the real
gentleness of his soul. And then, with a shame and mortification that
almost overwhelmed her, she saw herself as she must appear to him. She
recollected how she had accused him, had sneered at him, had called him a
liar and a thief, a murderer, and worse.
Tears streamed unheeded from her eyes as she recalled the unconscious
pathos of his words as he stood beside his mother's grave. And the look
of reproach with which he sank, to the ground when Lapierre's bullet laid
him low. Her heart thrilled at the memory of the blazing wrath of him,
the cold gleam of his eyes, the wicked snap of his iron jaw, as he said,
"I have taken the man-trail!" She remembered the words he had once
spoken: "When you have learned the North, we shall be friends." She
wondered now if possibly this thing could ever be? Had she learned the
North? Could she ever atone in his eyes for her cocksureness, her blind
egotism?
Chloe quickened her pace, as if to walk away and leave these things
behind. How she hated herself! It seemed to her, in her shame and
mortification, that she could never look into this man's eyes again. Her
glance strayed to the portrait of Tiger Elliston that stared down at her
from its bullet-shattered frame upon the wall. The eyes of the portrait
seemed to bore deep into her own, and the words of MacNair flashed
through her brain--the words he had used as he gazed into the eyes of
that selfsame portrait.
Unconsciously--fiercely she repeated those words aloud: "By God! Yon is
the face of a _man_!" She started at the sound of her own voice. And
then, like liquid flame, it seemed to the girl the blood of Tiger
Elliston seethed and boiled in her veins--spurring her on to _do_!
"Do what?" she questioned. "What was there left to _do_, for one who had
blundered so miserably?"
Like a flash came the answer. She had done MacNair a great wrong. She
must right that wrong, or at least admit it. She must own her error and
offer an apology.
Seating herself at the table, she seized a pen and wrote rapidly for a
long, long time. And then for a long time more she sat buried in
thought, and at the end of an hour she arose and tore up the pages she
had written, and sat down again and penned another letter which she
placed in an envelope addressed with the name of MacNair. This done she
took the letter, tiptoed across the living-room, and pushing open the
Louchoux girl's door entered and seated herself upon the edge of the bed.
The Indian girl was wide awake. A brown hand stole from beneath the
covers and clasped reassuringly about Chloe's fingers.
She handed the girl the letter.
"I can trust you," she said, "to place this in MacNair's hands. Go to
sleep now, I will talk further with you tomorrow." And with a hurried
good-night, Chloe returned to her own room.
She blew out the lamp and threw herself fully dressed upon the bed.
Sleep would not come. She stared long at the little patch of moonlight
that showed upon the bare floor. She tried to think, but her heart was
filled with a strange restlessness. Arising from the bed, she crossed to
the window and stared out across the moonlit clearing toward the dark
edge of the forest--the mysterious forest whose depths seemed black with
sinister mystery--whose trees bed-coned, stretching out their branches
like arms.
A strange restlessness came over her. The confines of the little room
seemed smothering--crushing her. Crossing to the row of pegs she drew on
her _parka_ and heavy mittens, and tiptoeing to the outer door, passed
out into the night, crossed the moonlit clearing, and stepped
half-fearfully into the deep shadow of the forest--to the call of the
beckoning arms.
As her form was swallowed up in the blackness, another form--a gigantic
figure that bore clutched in the grasp of a capable hand the helve of an
ax, upon the polished steel of whose double-bitted blade the moonbeams
gleamed cruelly--slipped from the door of the kitchen and followed
swiftly in the wake of the girl. Big Lena was taking no chances.