DEATH TRAIL
It was, perhaps, an hour later when Donald, just beginning to drowse
before his little fire, heard someone approach and unlock his door,
for the second time that night. In anticipation of any desperate
emergency, the captive sprang to his feet, and retreated to a corner
of the room farthest from the door, watching with wary eyes for
his visitor's appearance.
"Who is it?" he demanded, as the door was flung open.
"It's me, Charley Seguis," was the reply, in the voice of the
half-breed. Even in this moment of stress, Donald noticed
half-wonderingly the mellow cadences in the voice of this man of
mixed blood. While speaking, Seguis had entered the room, and he
now shut the door behind him. "I come friendly," he continued, with
a suggestion of softness in his tones, though there was no lack of
firmness. "I wish to talk friendly for half an hour. Will you sit
with me by the fire?"
"I don't trust you, Seguis," retorted Donald, bluntly. "If you have
been delegated by lot to kill me, do it at once. That would be the
only possible kindliness from you to me. I can stand anything better
than waiting... I am unarmed--as you know."
The half-breed shook his head slowly, as though in mourning that
his intentions should be thus questioned.
"I don't come to harm you," he said at last, with a certain dignity.
"I've given you my word that I come friendly. I am armed, but that
is to prevent your attacking me."
Donald uttered an ejaculation of impatience.
"Absurd!" he exclaimed. "Why should I attack you?" For the instant,
in realization of his own plight, he had forgotten that the original
purpose of his quest had been the capture of this man who was now
become his captor... But the half-breed's words recalled the fact
forcibly enough.
"Don't you suppose, captain, that I've known you were on my trail
for days? I have the sense to know that. But what brought you
veering off the trail to Sturgeon Lake is beyond me."
Donald heaved a sigh of relief. At least, Jean's message was unknown
to the leader of the free-traders, and there would be no risk of
the girl's suffering in person for her loyal zeal. In this relief,
his thoughts reverted curiously to the crime he had been sent to
revenge.
"Did you kill Cree Johnny?" he demanded, abruptly.
The face of the half-breed remained immobile, inscrutable.
"I'll tell you nothing about that," was the crisp reply. "Let's
talk of what is more important now, and that is yourself--and what's
to become of you."
"As you will," Donald agreed, grudgingly. It wounded his self-esteem
that this man should be able thus to manage the interview at
pleasure. Yet, even while his anger mounted high, the Scotchman
felt himself compelled to an involuntary admiration for the
authoritative composure in the manner of one who, by the accident
of birth, was no better than a barbarian--was, indeed, something
worse, since the crossing of the civilized blood with the savage
is usually a disastrous thing. This was the Hudson Bay man's first
experience of indignity visited on himself, and, for that reason,
he felt a double humiliation over the seriousness of his situation.
Exasperation grew in him over the fact that even now his many and
varied emotions did not include in the least such repulsion as he
had imagined a tete-a-tete with a murderer must produce. On
the contrary, he was aware of an indefinable air of genuineness,
of nobility even, about this Montagnais Englishman. It was incredible,
surely--none the less, it was true. Donald's instinct set him to
wondering involuntarily whether, after all, the man before him
could really be guilty of the crime charged. His reason rallied to
argument that this fellow was of a vicious strain, capable of any
treachery, of any cowardly violence. In such as Seguis, the vices
of two races blend, for vice knows little distinction of tribe or
creed; the mingling of a dozen bloods will but serve to strengthen
the violence in each. The virtues, on the contrary, are matters of
geography, in great part--to each race its own. They are prone to
vanishing in the mixed blood. Usually, too, the civilized white
man who degrades himself to mate with a savage woman is himself a
wastrel, essentially evil, likely to beget nothing good.
Such reasoning is sound enough, in the main, as Donald, despite
his bewilderment, knew well. Nevertheless, in this instance the
product of miscegenation seemed to offer in his own person a subtle
contradiction. The man stood in a serenity that proclaimed an
assured self-respect. The dark eyes above the high cheekbones were
glowing clearly, as they stared in level interrogation on the
prisoner. The features, coarse, yet of a pleasing harmoniousness,
were set in lines of a strength that was at once calm and masterful.
Whatever might be the blackness hidden in his heart, the half-breed's
outer seeming was one to command respect... In quick appreciation
of the truth, Donald was constrained to admit that his own conduct
thus far had not been of a sort to match the courtesy of his jailer.
"What do you want to say to me about myself?" he questioned, finally;
his voice came milder than hitherto.
Seguis answered immediately, with directness.
"After an hour in council, I come here, delegated by the brotherhood,
to make you a proposition." His gaze met that of his prisoner
fairly, as he continued: "The Hudson Bay Company is a hard master,
as you know very well. It expects more, and gives less, than any
other organization in the world. If it's hard to us, then it's
also hard to you. After your years with the Company, do you think
you've achieved the position you deserve? Certainly not! We're
all agreed on that." The half-breed appeared to hesitate for a
moment, then threw back his head proudly, in a gesture of resolve,
and continued with a new emphasis in his words.
"Can't you see that your superior, the factor at Fort Severn, hates
you bitterly? I, myself--I've seen things there. Last summer, I
was at the fort, you remember. I was there all the time you were.
I watched you--and Miss Jean--"
"Stop!" Donald interrupted, furiously... He fought back his rage
as best he might, and went on less violently. "Now, no more of this
beating about the bush. Just say what you have to say, and begone!"
Seguis remained wholly undisturbed by the outburst. At once, he
went on speaking, imperturbably:
"I was about to state," he said evenly, "that I have noticed the
factor's expression behind your back, and I want to warn you against
him. He's your superior, you know, Captain McTavish. Well, then,
how can you expect to rise in the Company, when he's your enemy?"
He paused, waiting for a reply.
Again, Donald experienced a sensation that was akin to dismay. He
had not expected such perspicacity on the part of one whom he had
contemptuously esteemed as merely a savage. Moreover, in addition
to his indignant confusion over the introduction of Jean's name
into the conversation, there was something vastly disturbing to
him in realization of the fact that his own belief of hostility on
the part of the factor was thus proven by the observation of the
half-breed. To hide his disconcertment, the young man ignored the
question of Seguis, and spoke sharply:
"Get to the point--if there is one!"
"The point's this," came the instant reply, uttered with a slight
show of asperity; "that we, the Brotherhood of Free-Traders, offer
you a position with us--at our head, if you'll take it. In other
words, I'll step down to second place--if you'll step up to first."
Donald stared at the speaker in amazement that any one should dare
in such fashion to suggest the possibility of his turning traitor.
Seguis, however, endured his angry scrutiny without any lessening
of the tranquillity that had characterized him throughout the
interview. So, since silent rebuke failed completely, the Hudson
Bay official was driven to verbal expression of his resentment.
"What cause have I ever given for you to believe that I was anything
but loyal to the Company?" he demanded, harshly.
"None," Seguis admitted.
"If I've given no cause for such an idea," Donald went on, fiercely,
"what reason have you to come here and insult me with such a
proposition as you've just offered?"
In his shame over a proposal that in itself contained an accusation
of disloyalty, the young man had thought only for himself. He gave
no heed to the significance of the suggested plan in its bearing
on the one who offered it. He failed altogether to appreciate the
sacrifice that Charley Seguis stood ready to make. The half-breed
was, in fact, as he had just declared, at the head of the organization
that called itself the Brotherhood of Free-Traders. Now, from his
own announcement, he was prepared to withdraw from the chief place,
in order to make room for Captain McTavish. It might well be believed
that the man had gratified his life's ambition in attaining such
eminence among his fellow foes of the Company, yet he was willing
to renounce his authority in favor of one whom he deemed worthy to
supersede him. Here, surely, was a course of action that had no
origin in selfishness, but sprang rather from some ideal of duty,
rudely shaped, perhaps, but vital in its influence... Yet, to all
this, Donald gave no concern just now, even though at his question
Seguis shrank as if from a physical blow.
Then, the half-breed straightened to the full of his height, and
spoke with coldness in which was a hint of scorn under unjust
accusation.
"I come to you, a prisoner and a burden on us," he said, bitterly.
"I come with courteous words, and, in return, I get insults. In
spite of your attitude, I'll give you another chance for your
life... Will you come into the brotherhood as its leader?"
The threatening phrase in the other's words had caught and held
Donald's attention with sinister intentness.
"What do you mean?" he demanded. "A chance for my life?"
The explanation was prompt, unequivocal.
"I mean that, if you don't accept this offer, your life isn't
worth--that!" With the word, Seguis snapped under his heel a
twig from the little fire. "Either you stay with us, and know
everything--or you go from us, to die with the secret!" The voice
was monotonous in its emotionless calm, but it was inexorable.
At the saying, a chill of fear fell on Donald, a fear formless at
the first; then, swiftly, taking malignant, fatal shape. Out of
memory leaped tales of terror, unbelieved, yet hideous. Now was
born a new credulity, begotten of dread. His face whitened a little,
and his eyes widened as he regarded the half-breed with growing
alarm. His voice quavered, despite his will, when he put the question
that was tormenting him:
"You don't mean that you'd send me on the--on the Death Trail?"
he cried, aghast. The enormity of the peril swept over him in a
flood, set him a-tremble. Though he questioned so wildly, he knew
the truth, and the awfulness of it put his manhood in revolt, made
him coward for the moment. The Death Trail! ... He had not been
prepared for that. To back against the wall, and fight to the end
like a trapped animal were one thing--a thing for which he had been
prepared... But, the Death Trail--!
Suddenly, with the incongruity that is frequent in a highly wrought
mind, his memory slipped back through the years to the time when
first he heard of this half-mythical thing, which was called the
Death Trail. He had run away from his nurse in Victoria Square, in
Montreal, and, after his recapture, the girl had threatened him
with the Death Trail as a punishment, should he ever repeat his
offense. That night, he had questioned his father, the commissioner
of the Company, as to this fearsome thing... And the commissioner
had merely laughed, unconcernedly.
"Oh, that, my boy!" he had exclaimed. "Why, that's an exploded
yarn. Some people say the Company sent free-traders to their deaths
that way. But who knows? Who can tell? I can't."
Then, the father had added some description as to the nature of
this rumored Death Trail: how a man with a knife, but no gun;
snowshoes, but no dogs; and not even a compass, was turned loose
in the forest with a few days' food on his back, and told to save
himself--how he wandered, starving and weakened day by day, until
the terrible cold snuffed out his life, or he was pulled down by
a roving wolf-pack.
And it was this fate that faced Donald now... The words of the
half-breed in answer to his question confirmed the dread suspicion.
"So the council has decided," came the quiet statement, in reply
to the prisoner's startled question. "We can't kill you outright.
To do that would be more than flesh and blood--even Indian flesh
and blood--could stand in your case, Captain McTavish. You've been
our friend for three years. You have never harmed us. We've traded
with you peaceably. But we can't keep you, and we can't let you
return with our secret. All that's left is the Death Trail. It's
the only way out for us... It has been decided on."
"No--oh, no!" Donald cried imploringly, suddenly impassioned by
the stark horror of this thing that stared at him out of the
darkness. "No, I beg of you. Anything but that! Tell off a squad;
take me out, and shoot me... Or, better yet, let me fight for my
life, somehow!"
Seguis shook his head in denial. There was commiseration in his
steady glance, but there was no suggestion of yielding in his voice
as he answered.
"For our own sakes, we can't," he explained concisely. "Any of
those things would bring us to the gallows, and we can't afford
that."
"Why should you care?" Donald retorted vindictively, with futile
fierceness. "You're going to swing anyway, as soon as another man
can get on your trail." He spoke with all the viciousness he could
contrive, hoping by insults to arouse the fury of the half-breed,
and thus provoke the fight for he longed.
But the keen mind of Seguis detected instantly the ruse, and he
merely smiled by way of answer, a smile that was half-pitiful,
half-mocking.
"You might try suicide," he suggested, with an intent of kindness.
"That way would spare the feelings of us all."
It was Donald's turn to shake his head in refusal now. As yet, such
an action on his part appeared impossible to him. The love of life
was too strong to permit the conceivability of such a choice. He
was too much the fighter to confess defeat, and so lay down his
life voluntarily. The McTavishes were not in the habit of giving
up any struggle before it was fairly begun... But the antagonism
aroused in him by the suggestion steadied his nerves, restored him
to some measure at least of his usual self-control.
"When do I go?" he asked. Face to face with the inevitable, a
desolate calm fell upon him.
"To-morrow morning," Seguis replied, stolidly. Then, abruptly,
the half-breed's manner softened, and he spoke in a different tone.
"We're all disappointed, Captain McTavish, that you won't join us.
We've been hoping for that--not for your death. And, perhaps, you
don't quite understand, after all. We're starting this brotherhood
honorably, with no malice toward any man. There's still hope for
you, if you'll give your oath not to divulge what you've learned
here, and not to follow me in this Cree Johnny affair. If you'll
do that, we'll give you your belongings, and set you on your way,
and--"
Donald held up his hand, with a gesture of finality.
"You know I can't do that," he said, drearily. "Don't make it any
harder for me. I understand your position now, in a way, and I
suppose I'll have to take my medicine. But let me warn you." His
tones grew menacing. "If I get out of this alive, though the chance
that I shall isn't one in a thousand, you will pay the penalty for
your crime."
The half-breed showed no trace of disturbance before the threat,
but moved away toward the door.
"I'll take the risk of that," he said quietly; and he went out of
the room.
Left to himself, Donald fell a prey to melancholy brooding for a
few brief moments, then resolutely cast the mood off his spirit.
He was little given to morbid reflections. Men whose lives are
daily liable to forfeit rarely are. It was characteristic of him
that, in this supreme hour of peril, his chief distress was over
the injury wrought on the Company he served, for which he was about
to lay down his life. If only he might send warning! If only, even
in his last minutes of life, he might meet a friendly trapper, tell
the great news, and send a messenger speeding north to Fort Severn,
or east to Fort Dickey! That much accomplished, he could resign
himself to die. ... Such the loyalty and devotion that this grim,
silent, far-reaching thing, the Company, breeds in its servants!
Of a sudden, another thought brought new bitterness to his soul,
for, despite all the masterfulness of his loyalty to the Company,
he was yet a man and a lover with a heart brimming over fondness
for the one woman. Now, it came to him that, were he indeed to die
somewhere out there in the wilderness, starved, frozen, alone, Jean
would never know how his last act had been in the faithful following
of her command. No, she could never know the truth concerning his
fate. There was poignant torment in the thought. It might be months,
years even, before his bleached, unrecognizable skeleton would be
found somewhere in the remotest waste, with the bones of a wolf or
two beside it, to indicate his desperate last stand.
With difficulty, McTavish shook off the evil thoughts that preyed
upon him, and stretched his blankets and robes on the hard earth.
Then, he cast more wood on his fire, and wrapped himself snugly,
covering his head completely, Indian fashion, to prevent his face
from freezing.
It was an hour before sleep came to him, and it seemed to him that
he had scarcely dropped off when he felt himself shaken by the
shoulder, and told to get up.
For a moment, Donald did not realize where he was, then the horrid
truth rushed in upon him with sickening reality, and he sat up,
blinking. His companion, he saw, was an Indian, who began to cook
breakfast over the fire, upon which he had thrown more wood
immediately after his entrance.
McTavish forced himself to eat heartily this last full meal he was,
perhaps, ever to know. Then, obeying the guttural words of the
Indian, he made his blankets into a pack, and unfalteringly followed
outside.
There, the men were gathered around a dog-train, with two trappers,
who, McTavish knew instinctively, were to be his companions for a
distance into the wilderness. Throwing his blankets on the sledge,
where he observed also a small pack of provisions, he climbed
aboard.
Now, Charley Seguis appeared, and offered the Hudson Bay man a last
chance. But Donald waved him aside, and requested that the start
be made at once. Then, without a sound except the tinkling of the
bells on the dogs' harness, the train got under way, and the last
thing the Scotchman saw as he plunged into the woods was the silent
group of men looking after him from in front of the big log house.
Straight north they took him, into the wildest country of all that
desolation. Through forest aisles, beside great expanses of muskeg,
over barren rock ridges, wound the unmarked trail. An army of
caribou, drifting south in the distance, was all the life the doomed
man saw in that long morning. Even the small live creatures seemed
to have deserted this maddening region.
At noon, they camped for an hour, and then, with scarcely a word,
took up the trail again. At last, when the darkness had begun to
come, one of the Indians halted the dogs, and motioned McTavish
off the sledge. While he was turning the dogs around, the other
laid the victim's pack on the snow and presented two knives--the
long, crooked hunter's knife, and the straight sheath-knife.
Then, with a grunt, they "mushed" the dogs on the back trail, and
left the Hudson Bay man alone for his grapple with the wilderness.
For a time, he stood there dazed. Then, the realization of his doom
rushed upon him, and, in mute desperation, he made a few swift
steps after the departed sledge as though he would overtake it.
But, in a moment, he recovered himself, and went back to where his
pitiful belongings rested on the crusted snow. The stern resolve,
the iron will that had made the McTavishes great, each in his
generation, returned to him, and, without a word, he faced forward
upon the Death Trail.