With the going of Black Roger also went the oppressive loneliness which
had gripped Carrigan, and as he stood listening to the low voices
outside, the undeniable truth came to him that he did not hate this man
as he wanted to hate him. He was a murderer, and a scoundrel in another
way, but he felt irresistibly the impulse to like him and to feel sorry
for him. He made an effort to shake off the feeling, but a small voice
which he could not quiet persisted in telling him that more than one
good man had committed what the law called murder, and that perhaps he
didn't fully understand what he had seen through the cabin window on
the raft. And yet, when unstirred by this impulse, he knew the evidence
was damning.
But his loneliness was gone. With Audemard's visit had come an
unexpected thrill, the revival of an almost feverish anticipation, the
promise of impending things that stirred his blood as he thought of
them. "You will understand strange things then," Roger Audemard had
said, and something in his voice had been like a key unlocking
mysterious doors for the first time. And then, "Wait, as patiently as
you can!" Out of the basket on the table seemed to come to him a
whispering echo of that same word--wait! He laid his hands upon it, and
a pulse of life came with the imagined whispering. It was from
Marie-Anne. It seemed as though the warmth of her hands were still
there, and as he removed the cloth the sweet breath of her came to him.
And then, in the next instant, he was trying to laugh at himself and
trying equally hard to call himself a fool, for it was the breath of
newly-baked things which her fingers had made.
Yet never had he felt the warmth of her presence more strangely in his
heart. He did not try to explain to himself why Roger Audemard's visit
had broken down things which had seemed insurmountable an hour ago.
Analysis was impossible, because he knew the transformation within
himself was without a shred of reason. But it had come, and with it his
imprisonment took on another form. Where before there had been thought
of escape and a scheming to jail Black Roger, there filled him now an
intense desire to reach the Yellowknife and the Chateau Boulain.
It was after midnight when he went to bed, and he was up with the early
dawn. With the first break of day the bateau men were preparing their
breakfast. David was glad. He was eager for the day's work to begin,
and in that eagerness he pounded on the door and called out to Joe
Clamart that he was ready for his breakfast with the rest of them, but
that he wanted only hot coffee to go with what Black Roger had brought
to him in the basket.
That afternoon the bateau passed Fort McMurray, and before the sun was
well down in the west Carrigan saw the green slopes of Thickwood Hills
and the rising peaks of Birch Mountains. He laughed outright as he
thought of Corporal Anderson and Constable Frazer at Fort McMurray,
whose chief duty was to watch the big waterway. How their eyes would
pop if they could see through the padlocked door of his prison! But he
had no inclination to be discovered now. He wanted to go on, and with a
growing exultation he saw there was no intention on the part of the
bateau's crew to loiter on the way. There was no stop at noon, and the
tie-up did not come until the last glow of day was darkening into the
gloom of night in the sky. For sixteen hours the bateau had traveled
steadily, and it could not have made less than sixty miles as the river
ran. The raft, David figured, had not traveled a third of the distance.
The fact that the bateau's progress would bring him to Chateau Boulain
many days, and perhaps weeks, before Black Roger and Marie-Anne could
arrive on the raft did not check his enthusiasm. It was this interval
between their arrivals which held a great speculative promise for him.
In that time, if his efficiency had not entirely deserted him, he would
surely make discoveries of importance.
Day after day the journey continued without rest. On the fourth day
after leaving Fort McMurray it was Joe Clamart who brought in David's
supper, and he grunted a protest at his long hours of muscle-breaking
labor at the sweeps. When David questioned him he shrugged his
shoulders, and his mouth closed tight as a clam. On the fifth, the
bateau crossed the narrow western neck of Lake Athabasca, slipping past
Chipewyan in the night, and on the sixth it entered the Slave River. It
was the fourteenth day when the bateau entered Great Slave Lake, and
the second night after that, as dusk gathered thickly between the
forest walls of the Yellowknife, David knew that at last they had
reached the mouth of the dark and mysterious stream which led to the
still more mysterious domain of Black Roger Audemard.
That night the rejoicing of the bateau men ashore was that of men who
had come out from under a strain and were throwing off its tension for
the first time in many days. A great fire was built, and the men sang
and laughed and shouted as they piled wood upon it. In the flare of
this fire a smaller one was built, and kettles and pans were soon
bubbling and sizzling over it, and a great coffee pot that held two
gallons sent out its steam laden with an aroma that mingled joyously
with the balsam and cedar smells in the air. David could see the whole
thing from his window, and when Joe Clamart came in with supper, he
found the meat they were cooking over the fire was fresh moose steak.
As there had been no trading or firing of guns coming down, he was
puzzled and when he asked where the meat had come from Joe Clamart only
shrugged his shoulders and winked an eye, and went out singing about
the allouette bird that had everything plucked from it, one by one. But
David noticed there were never more than four men ashore at the same
time. At least one was always aboard the bateau, watching his door and
windows.
And he, too, felt the thrill of an excitement working subtly within
him, and this thrill pounded in swifter running blood when he saw the
men about the fire jump to their feet suddenly and go to meet new and
shadowy figures that came up indistinctly just in the edge of the
forest gloom. There they mingled and were lost in identity for a long
time, and David wondered if the newcomers were of the people of Chateau
Boulain. After that, Bateese and Joe Clamart and two others stamped out
the fires and came over the plank to the bateau to sleep. David
followed their example and went to bed.
The cook fires were burning again before the gray dawn was broken by a
tint of the sun, and when the voices of many men roused David, he went
to his window and saw a dozen figures where last night there had been
only four. When it grew lighter he recognized none of them. All were
strangers. Then he realized the significance of their presence. The
bateau had been traveling north, but downstream. Now it would still
travel north, but the water of the Yellow-knife flowed south into Great
Slave Lake, and the bateau must be towed. He caught a glimpse of the
two big York boats a little later, and six rowers to a boat, and after
that the bateau set out slowly but steadily upstream.
For hours David was at one window or the other, with something of awe
working inside him as he saw what they were passing through--and
between. He fancied the water trail was like an entrance into a
forbidden land, a region of vast and unbroken mystery, a country of
enchantment, possibly of death, shut out from the world he had known.
For the stream narrowed, and the forest along the shores was so dense
he could not see into it. The tree-tops hung in a tangled canopy
overhead, and a gloom of twilight filled the channel below, so that
where the sun shot through, it was like filtered moonlight shining on
black oil. There was no sound except the dull, steady beat of the
rowers' oars, and the ripple of water along the sides of the bateau.
The men did not sing or laugh, and if they talked it must have been in
whispers. There was no cry of birds from ashore. And once David saw Joe
Clamart's face as he passed the window, and it was set and hard and
filled with the superstition of a man who was passing through a
devil-country.
And then suddenly the end of it came. A flood of sunlight burst in at
the windows, and all at once voices came from ahead, a laugh, a shout,
and a yell of rejoicing from the bateau, and Joe Clamart started again
the everlasting song of the allouette bird that was plucked of
everything it had. Carrigan found himself grinning. They were a queer
people, these bred-in-the-blood northerners--still moved by the
superstitions of children. Yet he conceded that the awesome deadness of
the forest passage had put strange thoughts into his own heart.
Before nightfall Bateese and Joe Clamart came in and tied his arms
behind him, and he was taken ashore with the rumble of a waterfall in
his ears. For two hours he watched the labors of the men as they
beached the bateau on long rollers of smooth birch and rolled it foot
by foot over a cleared trail until it was launched again above the
waterfall. Then he was led back into the cabin and his arms freed. That
night he went to sleep with the music of the waterfall in his ears.
The second day the Yellowknife seemed to be no longer a river, but a
narrow lake, and the third day the rowers came into the Nine Lake
country at noon, and until another dusk the bateau threaded its way
through twisting channels and impenetrable forests, and beached at last
at the edge of a great open where the timber had been cut. There was
more excitement here, but it was too dark for David to understand the
meaning of it. There were many voices; dogs barked. Then voices were at
his door, a key rattled in the lock, and it opened. David saw Bateese
and Joe Clamart first. And then, to his amazement, Black Roger Audemard
stood there, smiling at him and nodding good-evening.
It was impossible for David to repress his astonishment.
"Welcome to Chateau Boulain," greeted Black Roger. "You are surprised?
Well, I beat you out by half a dozen hours--in a canoe, m'sieu. It is
only courtesy that I should be here to give you welcome!"
Behind him Bateese and Joe Clamart were grinning widely, and then both
came in, and Joe Clamart picked up his dunnage-sack and threw it over
his shoulder.
"If you will come with us, m'sieu--"
David followed, and when he stepped ashore there were Bateese, and Joe
Clamart and one other behind him, and three or four shadowy figures
ahead, with Black Roger walking at his side. There were no more voices,
and the dog had ceased barking. Ahead was a wall of darkness, which was
the deep black forest beyond the clearing, and into it led a trail
which they followed. It was a path worn smooth by the travel of many
feet, and for a mile not a star broke through the tree-tops overhead,
nor did a flash of light break the utter chaos of the way but once,
when Joe Clamart lighted his pipe. No one spoke. Even Black Roger was
silent, and David found no word to say.
At the end of the mile the trees began to open above their heads, and
they soon came to the edge of the timber. In the darkness David caught
his breath. Dead ahead, not a rifle shot away, was the Chateau Boulain.
He knew it before Black Roger had said a word. He guessed it by the
lighted windows, full a score of them, without a curtain drawn to shut
out their illumination from the night. He could see nothing but these
lights, yet they measured off a mighty place to be built of logs in the
heart of a wilderness, and at his side he heard Black Roger chuckling
in low exultation.
"Our home, m'sieu," he said. "Tomorrow, when you see it in the light of
day, you will say it is the finest chateau in the north--all built of
sweet cedar where birch is not used, so that even in the deep snows it
gives us the perfume of springtime and flowers."
David did not answer, and in a moment Audemard said:
"Only on Christmas and New Year and at birthdays and wedding feasts is
it lighted up like that. Tonight it is in your honor, M'sieu David."
Again he laughed softly, and under his breath he added, "And there is
some one waiting for you there whom you will be surprised to see!"
David's heart gave a jump. There was meaning in Black Roger's words and
no double twist to what he meant. Marie-Anne had come ahead with her
husband!
Now, as they passed on to the brilliantly lighted chateau, David made
out the indistinct outlines of other buildings almost hidden in the
out-creeping shadows of the forest-edges, with now and then a ray of
light to show people were in them. But there was a brooding silence
over it all which made him wonder, for there was no voice, no bark of
dog, not even the opening or closing of a door. As they drew nearer, he
saw a great veranda reaching the length of the chateau, with screening
to keep out the summer pests of mosquitoes and flies and the night
prowling insects attracted by light. Into this they went, up wide birch
steps, and ahead of them was a door so heavy it looked like the postern
gate of a castle. Black Roger opened it, and in a moment David stood
beside him in a dimly lighted hall where the mounted heads of wild
beasts looked down like startled things from the gloom of the walls.
And then David heard the low, sweet notes of a piano coming to them
very faintly.
He looked at Black Roger. A smile was on the lips of the chateau
master; his head was up, and his eyes glowed with pride and joy as the
music came to him. He spoke no word, but laid a hand on David's arm and
led him toward it, while Bateese and Joe Clamart remained standing at
the entrance to the hall. David's feet trod in thick rugs of fur; he
saw the dim luster of polished birch and cedar in the walls, and over
his head the ceiling was rich and matched, as in the bateau cabin. They
drew nearer to the music and came to a closed door. This Black Roger
opened very quietly, as if anxious not to disturb the one who was
playing.
They entered, and David held his breath. It was a great room he stood
in, thirty feet or more from end to end, and scarcely less in width--a
room brilliant with light, sumptuous in its comfort, sweet with the
perfume of wild-flowers, and with a great black fireplace at the end of
it, from over which there stared at him the glass eyes of a monster
moose. Then he saw the figure at the piano, and something rose up
quickly and choked him when his eyes told him it was not Marie-Anne. It
was a slim, beautiful figure in a soft and shimmering white gown, and
its head was glowing gold in the lamplight.