The Call of the North by Stewart Edward White
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Stewart Edward White >> The Call of the North
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"You seem very certain of your information."
"Your men seem equally so," pointed out the stranger.
Galen Albret, at the beginning of the young man's longer speech,
had sunk almost immediately into his passive calm--the calm of
great elemental bodies, the calm of a force so vast as to rest
motionless by the very static power of its mass. When he spoke
again, it was in the tentative manner of his earlier interrogatory,
committing himself not at all, seeking to plumb his opponent's
knowledge.
"Why, if you have realized the gravity of your situation have you
persisted after having been twice warned?" he inquired.
"Because you're not the boss of creation," replied the young man,
bluntly.
Galen Albret merely raised his eyebrows.
"I've got as much business in this country as you have," continued
the young man, his tone becoming more incisive. "You don't seem to
realize that your charter of monopoly has expired. If the
government was worth a damn it would see to you fellows. You have
no more right to order me out of here than I would have to order
you out. Suppose some old Husky up on Whale River should send you
word that you weren't to trap in the Whale River district next
winter. I'll bet you'd be there. You Hudson Bay men tried the
same game out west It didn't work. You ask your western men if
they ever heard of Ned Trent."
"Your success does not seem to have followed you here," suggested
the Factor, ironically.
The young man smiled.
"This _Longue Traverse_," went on Albret, "what is your idea there?
I have heard something of it. What is your information?"
Ned Trent laughed outright. "You don't imagine there is any secret
about that!" he marvelled. "Why, every child north of the Line
knows that. You will send me away without arms, and with but a
handful of provisions. If the wilderness and starvation fail, your
runners will not. I shall never reach the Temiscamingues alive."
"The same old legend," commented Galen Albret in apparent
amusement, "I heard it when I first came to this country. You'll
find a dozen such in every Indian camp."
"Jo Bagneau, Morris Proctor, John May, William Jarvis," checked off
the young man on his fingers.
"Personal enmity," replied the Factor.
He glanced up to meet the young man's steady, sceptical smile.
"You do not believe me?"
"Oh, if it amuses you." conceded the stranger.
"The thing is not even worth discussion."
"Remarkable sensation among our friends here for so idle a tale."
Galen Albret considered.
"You will remember that throughout you have forced this interview,"
he pointed out. "Now I must ask your definite promise to get out
of this country and to stay out."
"No," replied Ned Trent.
"Then a means shall be found to make you!" threatened the Factor,
his anger blazing at last.
"Ah," said the stranger softly.
Galen Albret raised his hand and let it fall. The bronzed and
gaudily bedecked men filed out.
Chapter Four
In the open air the men separated in quest of their various
families or friends. The stranger lingered undecided for a moment
on the top step of the veranda, and then wandered down the little
street, if street it could be called where horses there were none.
On the left ranged the square white-washed houses with their
dooryards, the old church, the workshop. To the right was a broad
grass-plot, and then the Moose, slipping by to the distant offing.
Over a little bridge the stranger idled, looking curiously about
him. The great trading-house attracted his attention, with its
narrow picket lane leading to the door; the storehouse surrounded
by a protective log fence; the fort itself, a medley of
heavy-timbered stockades and square block-houses. After a moment
he resumed his strolling. Everywhere he went the people looked at
him, ceasing their varied occupations. No one spoke to him, no one
hindered him. To all intents and purposes he was as free as the
air. But all about the island flowed the barrier of the Moose, and
beyond frowned the wilderness--strong as iron bars to an unarmed
man.
Brooding on his imprisonment the Free Trader forgot his
surroundings. The post, the river, the forest, the distant bay
faded from his sight, and he fell into deep reflection. There
remained nothing of physical consciousness but a sense of the
grateful spring warmth from the declining sun. At length he became
vaguely aware of something else. He glanced up. Right by him he
saw a handsome French half-breed sprawled out in the sun against a
building, looking him straight in the face and flashing up at him a
friendly smile.
"Hullo," said Achille Picard, "you mus' been 'sleep. I call you
two t'ree tam."
The prisoner seemed to find something grateful in the greeting even
from the enemy's camp. Perhaps it merely happened upon the
psychological moment for a response.
"Hullo," he returned, and seated himself by the man's side, lazily
stretching himself in enjoyment of the reflected heat.
"You is come off Kettle Portage, eh," said Achille, "I t'ink so.
You is come trade dose fur? Eet is bad beez-ness, dis Conjur'
House. Ole' man he no lak' dat you trade dose fur. He's very hard,
dat ole man."
"Yes," replied the stranger, "he has got to be, I suppose. This is
the country of _la Longue Traverse_."
"I beleef you," responded Achille, cheerfully; "w'at you call heem
your nam'?"
"Ned Trent."
"Me Achille--Achille Picard. I capitaine of dose dogs on dat
winter _brigade_."
"It is a hard post. The winter travel is pretty tough."
"I beleef you."
"Better to take _la Longue Traverse_ in summer, eh?"
"_La Longue Traverse_--hees not mattaire w'en yo tak heem."
"Right you are. Have there been men sent out since you came here?"
"_Ba oui_. Wan, two, t'ree. I don' remember. I t'ink Jo Bagneau.
Nobodee he don' know, but dat ole man an' hees _coureurs du bois_.
He ees wan ver' great man. Nobodee is know w'at he will do."
"I'm due to hit that trail myself, I suppose," said Ned Trent.
"I have t'ink so," acknowledged Achille, still with a tone of most
engaging cheerfulness.
"Shall I be sent out at once, do you think?"
"I don' know. Sometam' dat ole man ver' queek. Sometam' he ver'
slow. One day Injun mak' heem ver' mad; he let heem go, and shot
dat Injun right off. Noder tam he get mad on one _voyageur_, but
he don' keel heem queek; he bring heem here, mak' heem stay in dose
warm room, feed heem dose plaintee grub. Purty soon dose
_voyageur_ is get fat, is go sof'; he no good for dose trail. Ole
man he mak' heem go ver' far off, mos' to Whale Reever. Eet is
plaintee cole. Dat _voyageur_, he freeze to hees inside. Dey tell
me he feex heem like dat."
"Achille, you haven't anything against me--do you want me to die?"
The half-breed flashed his white teeth.
"Ba non," he replied, carelessly. "For w'at I want dat you die? I
t'ink you bus' up bad; _vous avez la mauvaise fortune."
"Listen. I have nothing with me; but out at the front I am very
rich. I will give you a hundred dollars, if you will help me to get
away."
"I can' do eet," smiled Picard.
"Why not?"
"Ole man he fin' dat out. He is wan devil, dat ole man. I lak
firs'-rate help you; I lak' dat hundred dollar. On Ojibway
countree dey make hees nam' _Wagosh_--dat mean fox. He know
everything."
"I'll make it two hundred--three hundred--five hundred."
"Wat you wan' me do?" hesitated Achille Picard at the last figure.
"Get me a rifle and some cartridges."
The half-breed rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and inhaled a deep
breath.
"I can' do eet," he declared. "I can' do eet for t'ousand
dollar--ten t'ousand. I don't t'ink you fin' anywan on dis
settlement w'at can dare do eet. He is wan devil. He's count all
de carabine on dis pos', an' w'en he is mees wan, he fin' out purty
queek who is tak' heem."
"Steal one from someone else," suggested Trent.
"He fin' out jess sam'," objected the half-breed, obstinately.
"You don' know heem. He mak' you geev yourself away, when he lak'
do dat." The smile had left the man's face. This was evidently
too serious a matter to be taken lightly.
"Well, come with me, then," urged Ned Trent, with some impatience.
"A thousand dollars I'll give you. With that you can be rich
somewhere else."
But the man was becoming more and more uneasy, glancing furtively
from left to right and back again, in an evident panic lest the
conversation be overheard, although the nearest dwelling-house was
a score of yards distant.
"Hush," he whispered. "You mustn't talk lak' dat. Dose ole man
fin' you out. You can' hide away from heem. Ole tam long ago,
Pierre Cadotte is stole feefteen skin of de otter--de
sea-otter--and he is sol' dem on Winnipeg. He is get 'bout
thousand beaver--five hunder' dollar. Den he is mak' dose longue
voyage wes'--ver' far wes'--_on dit_ Peace Reever. He is mak' heem
dose cabane, w'ere he is leev long tam wid wan man of Mackenzie.
He is call it hees nam' Dick Henderson. I is meet Dick Henderson
on Winnipeg las' year, w'en I mak' paddle on dem Factor Brigade,
an' dose High Commissionaire. He is tol' me wan night pret' late
he wake up all de queeck he can w'en he is hear wan noise in dose
cabane, an' he is see wan Injun, lak' phantome 'gainst de moon to
de door. Dick Henderson he is 'sleep, he don' know w'at he mus'
do. Does Injun is step ver' sof' an' go on bunk of Pierre Cadotte.
Pierre Cadotte is mak' de beeg cry. Dick Henderson say he no see
dose Injun no more, an' he fin' de door shut' _Ba_ Pierre Cadotte,
she's go dead. He is mak' wan beeg hole in hees ches'."
"Some enemy, some robber frightened Away because the Henderson man
woke up, probably," suggested Ned Trent.
The half-breed laid his hand impressively on the other's arm and
leaned forward until his bright black eyes were within a foot of
the other's face.
"Wen dose Injun is stan' heem in de moonlight, Dick Henderson is
see hees face. Dick Henderson is know all dose Injun. He is tole
me dat Injun is not Peace Reever Injun. Dick Henderson is say dose
Injun is Ojibway Injun--Ojibway Injun two t'ousand mile wes'--on
Peace Reever! Dat's curi's!"
"I was tell you nodder story--" went on Achille, after a moment.
"Never mind," interrupted the Trader. "I believe you."
"Maybee," said Achille cheerfully, "you stan' some show--not
moche--eef he sen' you out pret' queeck. Does small _perdrix_ is
yonge, an' dose duck. Maybee you is catch dem, maybee you is keel
dem wit' bow an' arrow. Dat's not beeg chance. You mus' geev dose
_coureurs de bois_ de sleep w'en you arrive. _Voila_, I geev you
my knife!"
He glanced rapidly to right and left, then slipped a small object
into the stranger's hand.
"_Ba_, I t'ink does ole man is know dat. I t'ink he kip you here
till tam w'en dose _perdrix_ and duck is all grow up beeg' nuff so
he can fly."
"I'm not watched," said the young man in eager tones: "I'll slip
away to-night."
"Dat no good," objected Picard. "Wat you do? S'pose you do dat,
dose _coureurs_ keel you _toute suite_. Dey is have good excuse,
an' you is have nothing to mak' de fight. You sleep away, and dose
ole man is sen' out plaintee Injun. Dey is fine you sure. _Ba_,
eef he sen' you out, den he sen' onlee two Injun. Maybee you fight
dem; I don' know. _Non, mon ami_, eef you is wan' get away w'en
dose ole man he don' know eet, you mus' have dose carabine. Den
you is have wan leetle chance. _Ba, eef you is not have heem dose
carabine, you mus' need dose leetle grub he geev you, and not
plaintee Injun follow you, onlee two."
"And I cannot get the rifle."
"An' dose ole man is don' sen' you out till eet is too late for
mak' de grub on de fores'. Dat's w'at I t'ink. Dat ees not fonny
for you."
Ned Trent's eyes were almost black with thought. Suddenly he threw
his head up.
"I'll make him send me out now," he asserted confidently.
"How you mak' eet him?"
"I'll talk turkey to him till he's so mad he can't see straight.
Then maybe he'll send me out right away."
"How you mak' eet him so mad? inquired Picard, with mild curiosity.
"Never you mind--I'll do it"
"_Ba oui_," ruminated Picard, "He is get mad pret' queeck. I t'ink
p'raps dat plan he go all right. You was get heem mad plaintee
easy. Den maybee he is sen' you out toute suite--maybee he is
shoot you."
"I'll take the chances--my friend."
"_Ba oui_," shrugged Achille Picard, "eet is wan chance."
He commenced to roll another cigarette.
Chapter Five
Having sat buried in thought for a full five minutes after the
traders of the winter posts had left him, Galen Albret thrust back
his chair and walked into a room, long, low, and heavily raftered,
strikingly unlike the Council Room. Its floor was overlaid with
dark rugs; a piano of ancient model filled one corner; pictures and
books broke the wall; the lamps and the windows were shaded, a
woman's work-basket and a tea-set occupied a large table. Only a
certain barbaric profusion of furs, the huge fireplace, and the
rough rafters of the ceiling differentiated the place from the
drawing-room of a well-to-do family anywhere.
Galen Albret sank heavily into a chair and struck a bell. A tall,
slightly stooped English servant, with correct side whiskers and
incompetent, watery blue eyes, answered. To him said the Factor:
"I wish to see Miss Albret."
A moment later Virginia entered the room.
"Let us have some tea, O-mi-mi," requested her father.
The girl moved gently about, preparing and lighting the lamp,
measuring the tea, her fair head bowed gracefully over her task,
her dark eyes pensive and but half following what she did. Finally
with a certain air of decision she seated herself on the arm of a
chair.
"Father," said she.
"Yes."
"A stranger came to-day with Louis Placide of Kettle Portage."
"Well?"
"He was treated strangely by our people, and he treated them
strangely in return. Why is that?"
"Who can tell?"
"What is his station? Is he a common trader? He does not look it."
"He is a man of intelligence and daring."
"Then why is he not our guest?"
Galen Albret did not answer. After a moment's pause he asked again
for his tea. The girl turned away impatiently. Here was a puzzle,
neither the _voyageurs_, nor Wishkobun her nurse, nor her father
would explain to her. The first had grinned stupidly; the second
had drawn her shawl across her face, the third asked for tea!
She handed her father the cup, hesitated, then ventured to inquire
whether she was forbidden to greet the stranger should the occasion
arise.
"He is a gentleman," replied her father.
She sipped her tea thoughtfully, her imagination stirring. Again
her recollection lingered over the clear bronze lines of the
stranger's face. Something vaguely familiar seemed to touch her
consciousness with ghostly fingers. She closed her eyes and tried
to clutch them. At once they were withdrawn. And then again, when
her attention wandered, they stole back, plucking appealingly at
the hem of her recollections.
The room was heavy-curtained, deep embrasured, for the house,
beneath its clap-boards, was of logs. Although out of doors the
clear spring sunshine still flooded the valley of the Moose;
within, the shadows had begun with velvet fingers to extinguish the
brighter lights. Virginia threw herself back on a chair in the
corner.
"Virginia," said Galen Albret, suddenly,
"Yes, father."
"You are no longer a child, but a woman. Would you like to go to
Quebec?"
She did not answer him at once, but pondered beneath close-knit
brows.
"Do you wish me to go, father?" she asked at length.
"You are eighteen. It is time you saw the world, time you learned
the ways of other people. But the journey is hard. I may not see
you again for some years. You go among strangers."
He fell silent again. Motionless he had been, except for the
mumbling of his lips beneath his beard.
"It shall be just as you wish," he added a moment later.
At once a conflict arose in the girl's mind between her restless
dreams and her affections. But beneath all the glitter of the
question there was really nothing to take her out. Here was her
father, here were the things she loved; yonder was novelty--and
loneliness.
Her existence at Conjuror's House was perhaps a little complex, but
it was familiar. She knew the people, and she took a daily and
unwearying delight in the kindness and simplicity of their bearing
toward herself. Each detail of life came to her in the round of
habit, wearing the garment of accustomed use. But of the world she
knew nothing except what she had been able to body forth from her
reading, and that had merely given her imagination something
tangible with which to feed her self-distrust.
"Must I decide at once?" she asked.
"If you go this year, it must be with the Abitibi _brigade_. You
have until then."
"Thank you, father." said the girl, sweetly.
The shadows stole their surroundings one by one, until only the
bright silver of the tea-service, and the glitter of polished wood,
and the square of the open door remained. Galen Albret became an
inert dark mass. Virginia's gray was lost in that of the twilight.
Time passed. The clock ticked on. Faintly sounds penetrated from
the kitchen, and still more faintly from out of doors. Then the
rectangle of the door-way was darkened by a man peering
uncertainly. The man wore his hat, from which slanted a slender
heron's plume; his shoulders were square; his thighs slim and
graceful.
Against the light, one caught the outline of the sash's tassel and
the fringe of his leggings.
"Are you there, Galen Albret?" he challenged.
The spell of twilight mystery broke. It seemed as if suddenly the
air had become surcharged with the vitality of opposition.
"What then?" countered the Factor's heavy, deliberate tones.
"True, I see you now," rejoined the visitor carelessly, as he flung
himself across the arm of a chair and swung one foot. "I do not
doubt you are convinced by this time of my intention."
"My recollection does not tell me what messenger I sent to ask this
interview."
"Correct," laughed the young man a little hardly. "You _didn't_
ask it. I attended to that myself. What you want doesn't concern
me in the least. What do you suppose I care what, or what not, any
of this crew wants? I'm master of my own ideas, anyway, thank God.
If you don't like what I do, you can always stop me." In the tone
of his voice was a distinct challenge. Galen Albret, it seemed,
chose to pass it by.
"True," he replied sombrely, after a barely perceptible pause to
mark his tacit displeasure. "It is your hour. Say on."
"I should like to know the date at which I take _la Longue
Traverse_."
"You persist in that nonsense?"
"Call my departure whatever you want to--I have the name for it.
When do I leave?"
"I have not decided."
"And in the meantime?"
"Do as you please."
"Ah, thanks for this generosity," cried the young man, in a tone of
declamatory sarcasm so artificial as fairly to scent the
elocutionary. "To do as I please--here--now there's a blessed
privilege! I may walk around where I want to, talk to such as have
a good word for me, punish those who have not! But do I err in
concluding that the state of your game law is such that it would be
useless to reclaim my rifle from the engaging Placide?"
"You have a fine instinct," approved the Factor.
"It is one of my valued possessions," rejoined the young man,
insolently. He struck a match, and by its light selected a
cigarette.
"I do not myself use tobacco in this room," suggested the older
speaker.
"I am curious to learn the limits of your forbearance," replied the
younger, proceeding to smoke.
He threw back his head and regarded his opponent with an open
challenge, daring him to become angry. The match went out.
Virginia, who had listened in growing anger and astonishment,
unable longer to refrain from defending the dignity of her usually
autocratic father, although he seemed little disposed to defend
himself, now intervened from her dark corner on the divan.
"Is the journey then so long, sir," she asked composedly, "that it
at once inspires such anticipations--and such bitterness?"
In an instant the man was on his feet, hat in hand, and the
cigarette had described a fiery curve into the empty hearth.
"I beg your pardon, sincerely," he cried, "I did not know you were
here!"
"You might better apologize to my father," replied Virginia.
The young man stepped forward and without asking permission,
lighted one of the tall lamps.
"The lady of the guns!" he marvelled softly to himself.
He moved across the room, looking down on her inscrutably, while
she looked up at him in composed expectation of an apology--and
Galen Albret sat motionless, in the shadow of his great arm-chair.
But after a moment her calm attention broke down. Something there
was about this man that stirred her emotions--whether of curiosity,
pity, indignation, or a slight defensive fear she was not
introspective enough to care to inquire. And yet the sensation was
not altogether unpleasant, and, as at the guns that afternoon, a
certain portion of her consciousness remained in sympathy with
whatever it was of mysterious attraction he represented to her. In
him she felt the dominant, as a wild creature of the woods
instinctively senses the master and drops its eyes. Resentment did
not leave her, but over it spread a film of confusion that robbed
it of its potency. In him, in his mood, in his words, in his
manner, was something that called out in direct appeal the more
primitive instincts hitherto dormant beneath her sense of
maidenhood, so that even at this vexed moment of conscious
opposition, her heart was ranging itself on his side.
Overpoweringly the feeling swept her that she was not acting in
accordance with her sense of fitness. She knew she should strike,
but was unable to give due force to the blow. In the confusion of
such a discovery, her eyelids fluttered and fell. And he saw, and,
understanding his power, dropped swiftly beside her on the broad
divan.
"You must pardon me, mademoiselle," he begun, his voice sinking to
a depth of rich music singularly caressing. "To you I may seem to
have small excuses, but when a man is vouchsafed a glimpse of
heaven only to be cast out the next instant into hell, he is not
always particular in the choice of words."
All the time his eyes sought hers, which avoided the challenge, and
the strong masculine charm of magnetism which he possessed in such
vital abundance overwhelmed her unaccustomed consciousness. Galen
Albret shifted uneasily, and shot a glance in their direction. The
stranger, perceiving this, lowered his voice in register and tone,
and went on with almost exaggerated earnestness.
"Surely you can forgive me, a desperate man, almost anything?"
"I do not understand," said Virginia, with a palpable effort.
Ned Trent leaned forward until his eager face was almost at her
shoulder.
"Perhaps not," he urged; "I cannot ask you to try. But suppose,
mademoiselle, you were in my case. Suppose your eyes--like
mine--have rested on nothing but a howling wilderness for dear
heaven knows how long; you come at last in sight of real houses,
real grass, real door-yard gardens just ready to blossom in the
spring, real food, real beds, real books, real men with whom to
exchange the sensible word, and something more, mademoiselle--a
woman such as one dreams of in the long forest nights under the
stars. And you know that while others, the lucky ones, may stay to
enjoy it all, you, the unfortunate, are condemned to leave it at
any moment for _la Longue Traverse_. Would not you, too, be
bitter, mademoiselle? Would not you too mock and sneer? Think,
mademoiselle, I have not even the little satisfaction of rousing
men's anger. I can insult them as I will, but they turn aside in
pity, saying one to another: 'Let us pleasure him in this, poor
fellow, for he is about to take _la Longue Traverse_.' That is why
your father accepts calmly from me what he would not from another."
Virginia sat bolt upright on the divan, her hands clasped in her
lap, her wonderful black eyes looking straight out before her,
trying to avoid her companion's insistent gaze. His attention was
fixed on her mobile and changing countenance, but he marked with
evident satisfaction Galen Albret's growing uneasiness. This was
evidenced only by a shifting of the feet, a tapping of the fingers,
a turning of the shaggy head--in such a man slight tokens are
significant. The silence deepened with the shadows drawing about
the single lamp, while Virginia attempted to maintain a breathing
advantage above the flood of strange emotions which the personality
of this man had swept down upon her.
"It does not seem--" objected the girl in bewilderment, "I do not
know--men are often out in this country for years at a time. Long
journeys are not unknown among us, We are used to undertaking them."
"But not _la Longue Traverse_," insisted the young man, sombrely.
"_La Longue Traverse_." she repeated in sweet perplexity.
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