The Call of the North by Stewart Edward White
S >>
Stewart Edward White >> The Call of the North
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8
"Pardon me," he said, simply. "To-day is my last of plenty. I am
up enjoying it."
Virginia had anticipated the usual instantaneous transformation of
his manner when he should catch sight of her. Her resentment was
dispelled. In face of the vaster tragedies little considerations
gave way.
"Do you leave--to-day?" she asked, in a low voice.
"To-morrow morning, early," he corrected. "To-day I found my
provisions packed and laid at my door. It is a hint I know how to
take."
"You have everything you need?" asked the girl, with an assumption
of indifference.
He looked her in the eyes for a moment.
"Everything," he lied, calmly.
Virginia perceived that he lied, and her heart stood still with a
sudden hope that perhaps, at this eleventh hour, he might have
repented of his unworthy intentions toward herself. She leaned to
him over the edge of the little rise.
"Have you a rifle--for _la Longue Traverse_?" she inquired, with
meaning.
He stared at her a little the harder.
"Why--why, surely," he replied, in a tone less confident. "Nobody
travels without a rifle in the North."
She dropped swiftly down the slope and stood face to face with him.
"Listen," she began, in her superb manner. "I know all there is to
know. You are a Free Trader, and you are to be sent to your death.
It is murder, and it is done by my father." She held her head
proudly, but the notes of her voice were straining. "I knew
nothing of this yesterday. I was a foolish girl who thought all
men were good and just, and that all those whom I knew were noble.
My eyes are open now. I see injustice being done by my own
household, and "--tears were trembling near her lashes, but she
blinked them back--"and I am no longer a foolish girl! You need
not try to deceive me. You must tell me what I can do, for I
cannot permit so great a wrong to be done by my father without
attempting to set it right." This was not what she had intended to
say, but suddenly the course was clear to her. The influence of
the man had again swept over her, drowning her will, filling her
with the old fear, which was now for the moment turned to pride by
the character of the situation.
But to her surprise the man was thinking of something else.
"Who told you?" he demanded, harshly. Then, without waiting for a
reply, "It was that little preacher; I'll have an interview with
him!"
"No, no!" protested the girl. "It was not he. It was a friend. I
had the right to know."
"You had no right!" he cried, vehemently. "You and life should
have nothing to do with each other. There is a look in your eyes
that was not in them yesterday, and the one who put it there is not
your friend." He stood staring at her intently, as one who ponders
what is best to do. Then very quietly he took her hands and drew
her to a place beside him on the bowlder.
"I am going to tell you something, little girl," said he, "and you
must listen quietly to the end. Perhaps at the last you may see
more clearly than you do now.
"This old Company of yours has been established for a great many
years. Back in old days, over two centuries ago, it pushed up into
this wilderness to trade for its furs. That you know. And then it
explored ever farther to the west and the north, until its servants
stood on the shores of the Pacific and the stretches of the Arctic
Ocean. And its servants loved it. Enduring immense hardships, cut
off from their kind, outlining dimly with the eye of faith the
structure of a mighty power, they loved it always. Thousands of
men were in its employ, and so loyal were they that its secrets
were safe and its prestige was defended, often to a lonely death.
I have known the Company and its servants for a long time, and if I
had leisure I could instance a hundred examples of devotion and
sacrifice beside which mere patriotism, would seem a little thing.
Men who had no country cleaved to her desolate posts, her lakes and
rivers and forests; men who had no home ties felt the tug of her
wild life at their hearts; men who had no God bowed in awe before
her power and grandeur. The Company was a living thing.
"Rivals attempted her supremacy, and were defeated by the
steadfastness of the men who received her meagre wages and looked
to her as their one ideal. Her explorers were the bravest, her
traders the most enterprising and single-minded, her factors and
partners the most capable and potent in all the world. No country,
no leader, no State ever received half the worship her sons gave
her. The fierce Nor'westers, the traders of Montreal, the Company
of the X Y, Astor himself, had to give way. For, although they
were bold or reckless or crafty or able, they had not the ideal
which raises such qualities to invincibility.
"And, little girl, nothing is wrong to men who have such an ideal
before them. They see but one thing, and all means are good that
help them to assure that one thing. They front the dangers, they
overcome the hardships, they crush the rivals. Bloody wars have
taken place in these forests, ruthless deeds have been done, but
the men who accomplished them held the deeds good. So for two
hundred years, aided by the charter from the king, they have made
good their undisputed right.
"Then the railroad entered the west. The charter of monopoly ran
out. Through the Nipissing, the Athabasca, the Edmonton, came the
Free Traders--men who traded independently. These the Company
could not control, so it competed--and to its credit its
competition has held its own. Even far into the Northwest, where
the trails are long, the Free Traders have established their chains
of supplies, entering into rivalry with the Company for a barter it
has always considered its right. The medicine has been bitter, but
the servants of the Company have adjusted themselves to the new
conditions, and are holding their own.
"But one region still remains cut off from the outside world by a
broad band of unexplored waste. The life here at Hudson's
Bay--although you may not know it--is exactly the same to-day that
it was two hundred years ago. And here the Company makes its stand
for a monopoly.
"At first it worked openly. But in the case of Guillaume Sayer, a
daring and pugnacious _metis_, it got into trouble with the law.
Since that time it has wrapped itself in secrecy and mystery,
carrying on its affairs behind the screen of five hundred miles of
forest. Here it has still the power; no man can establish himself
here, can even travel here, without its consent, for it controls
the food and the Indians. The Free Trader enters, but he does not
stay for long. The Company's servants are mindful of their old
fanatical ideal. Nothing is ever known, no orders are ever given,
but something happens, find the man never ventures again.
"If he is an ordinary _metis_ or Canadian, he emerges from the
forest starved, frightened, thankful. If his story is likely to be
believed in high places, he never emerges at all. The dangers of
wilderness travel are many: he succumbs to them. That is the whole
story. Nothing definite is known; no instances can be proved; your
father denies the legend and calls it a myth. The Company claims
to be ignorant of it, perhaps its greater officers really are, but
the legend holds so good that the journey has its name--_la Longue
Traverse_.
"But remember this, no man is to blame--unless it is he who of
knowledge takes the chances. It is a policy, a growth of
centuries, an idea unchangeable to which the long services of many
fierce and loyal men have given substance. A Factor cannot change
it. If he did, the thing would be outside of nature, something not
to be understood.
"I am here. I am to take _la Longue Traverse_. But no man is to
blame. If the scheme of the thing is wrong, it has been so from
the very beginning, from the time when King Charles set his
signature to the charter of unlimited authority. The history of a
thousand men gives the tradition power, gives it insistence. It is
bigger than any one individual. It is as inevitable as that water
should flow down hill."
He had spoken quietly, but very earnestly, still holding her two
hands, and she had sat looking at him unblinking from eyes behind
which passed many thoughts. When he had finished, a short pause
followed, at the end of which she asked unexpectedly,
"Last evening you told me that you might come to me and ask me to
choose between my pity and what I might think to be my duty. What
are you going to ask of me?"
"Nothing. I spoke idle words."
"Last evening I overheard you demand something of Mr. Crane," she
pursued, without commenting on his answer. "When he refused you I
heard you say these words 'Here is where I should have received
aid; I may have to get it where I should not.' What was the aid you
asked of him? and where else did you expect to get it?"
"The aid was something impossible to accord, and I did not expect
to get it elsewhere. I said that in order to induce him to help
me."
A wonderful light sprang to the girl's eyes, but still she
maintained her level voice.
"You asked him for a rifle with which to escape. You expected to
get it of me. Deny it if you can."
Ned Trent looked at her keenly a moment, then dropped his eyes.
"It is true," said he.
"And the pity was to give you this weapon; and the duty was my duty
to my father's house."
"It is true," he repeated, dejectedly.
"And you lied to me when you said you had a rifle with which to
journey _la Longue Traverse_."
"That too is true," he acknowledged.
When next she spoke her voice was not quite so well controlled.
"Why did you not ask me, as you intended? Why did you tell me
these lies?"
The young man hesitated, looked her in the face, turned away, and
murmured, "I could not."
"Why?" persisted the girl. "Why? You must tell me."
"Because," said Ned Trent--"because it could not be done. Every
rifle in the place is known. Because you would be found out in
this, and I do not know what your punishment might not be."
"You knew this before?" insisted Virginia, stonily.
"Yes."
"Then why did you change your mind?"
"When first I saw you by the gun," began Ned Trent, in a low voice,
"I was a desperate man, clutching at the slightest chance. The
thought crossed my mind then that I might use you. Then later I
saw that I had some influence over you, and I made my plan. But
last night----"
"Yes, last night?" urged Virginia, softly.
"Last night I paced the island, and I found out many things. One
of them was that I could not."
"Even though this dreadful journey----"
"I would rather take my chances."
Again there was silence between them.
"It was a good lie," then said Virginia, gently--"a noble lie. And
what you have told me to comfort me about my father has been nobly
said. And I believe you, for I have known the truth about your
fate." He shut his lips grimly. "Why--why did you come?" she
cried, passionately. "Is the trade so good, are your needs then so
great, that you must run these perils?"
"My needs," he replied. "No; I have enough."
"Then why?" she insisted.
"Because that old charter has long since expired, and now this
country is as free for me as for the Company," he explained. "We
are in a civilized century, and no man has a right to tell me where
I shall or shall not go. Does the Company own the Indians and the
creatures of the woods?" Something in the tone of his voice
brought her eyes steadily to his for a moment.
"Is that all?" she asked at length.
He hesitated, looked away, looked back again.
"No, it is not," he confessed, in a low voice. "It is a thing I do
not speak of. My father was a servant of this Company, a good,
true servant. No man was more honest, more zealous, more loyal."
"I am sure of it," said Virginia, softly.
"But in some way that he never knew himself he made enemies in high
places. The cowards did not meet him man to man, and so he never
knew who they were. If he had, he would have killed them. But
they worked against him always. He was given hard posts,
inadequate supplies, scant help, and then he was held to account
for what he could not do. Finally he left the company in
disgrace--undeserved disgrace. He became a Free Trader in the days
when to become a Free Trader was worse than attacking a grizzly
with cubs. In three years he was killed. But when I grew to be a
man "--he clenched his teeth--"by God! how I have prayed to know
who did it." He brooded for a moment, then went on. "Still, I
have accomplished something. I have traded in spite of your
factors in many districts. One summer I pushed to the Coppermine
in the teeth of them, and traded with the Yellow Knives for the
robes of the musk-ox. And they knew me and feared my rivalry,
these traders of the Company. No district of the far North but has
felt the influence of my bartering. The traders of all
districts--Fort au Liard, Lapierre's House, Fort Rae, Ile a la
Crosse, Portage la Loche, Lac la Biche, Jasper's House, the House
of the Touchwood Hills--all these, and many more, have heard of Ned
Trent."
"Your father--you knew him well?"
"No, but I remember him--a tall, dark man, with a smile always in
his eyes and a laugh on his lips. I was brought up at a school in
Winnipeg under a priest. Two or three times in the year my father
used to appear for a few days. I remember well the last time I saw
him. I was about thirteen years old. 'You are growing to be a
man,' said he; 'next year we will go out on the trail.' I never
saw him again."
"What happened?"
"Oh, he was just killed," replied Ned Trent, bitterly.
The girl laid her hand on his arm with an appealing little gesture.
"I am so sorry," said she.
"I have no portrait of him," continued the Free Trader, after an
instant. "No gift from his hands; nothing at all of his but this."
He showed her an ordinary little silver match-safe such as men use
in the North country.
"They brought that to me at the last--the Indians who came to tell
my priest the news, and the priest, who was a good man, gave it to
me. I have carried it ever since."
Virginia took it reverently. To her it had all the largeness that
envelops the symbol of a great passion. After a moment she looked
up in surprise.
"Why!" she exclaimed, "this has a name carved on it!"
"Yes," he replied.
"But the name is Graehme Stewart."
"Of course I could not bear my father's name in a country where it
was well known," he explained.
"Of course," she agreed. Impulsively she raised her face to his,
her eyes shining. "To me all this is very fine," said she.
He smiled a little sadly. "At least you know why I came."
"Yes." she repeated, "I know why you came. But you are in trouble."
"The chances of war."
"And they have defeated you after all."
"I shall start on _la Longue Traverse_ singing 'Rouli roulant.'
It's a small defeat, that.'
"Listen," said she, rapidly. "When I was quite a small girl Mr.
McTavish, of Rupert's House, gave me a little rifle. I have never
used it, because I do not care to shoot. That rifle has never been
counted, and my father has long since forgotten all about it. You
must take that, and escape to-night. I will let you have it on one
condition--that you give me your solemn promise never to venture
into this country again."
"Yes," he agreed, without enthusiasm nor surprise.
She smiled happily at his gloomy face and listless attitude.
"But I do not want to give up the little rifle entirely," she went
on, with dainty preciosity, watching him closely. "As I said, it
was a present, given to me when I was quite a small girl. You must
return it to me at Quebec, in August. Will you promise to do that?"
He wheeled on her swift as light, the eagerness flashing back into
his face.
"You are going to Quebec?" he cried. "My father wishes me to. I
have decided to do so. I shall start with the Abitibi _brigade_ in
July."
He leaped to his feet.
"I promise!" he exulted, "I promise! To-night, then! Bring the
rifle and the cartridges, and some matches, and a little salt. You
must take me across the river in a canoe, for I want them to guess
at where I strike the woods. I shall cover my trail. And with ten
hours' start, let them catch Ned Trent who can!"
She laughed happily.
"To-night, then. At the south of the island there is a trail, and
at the end of the trail a beach----"
"I know!" he cried.
"Meet me there as soon after dark as you can do so without danger."
He threw his hat into the air and caught it, his face boyishly
upturned. Again that something, so vaguely familiar, plucked at
her with its ghostly, appealing fingers. She turned swiftly, and
seized them, and so found herself in possession of a memory out of
her far-off childhood.
"I know you!" she cried. "I have seen you before this!"
He bent his puzzled gaze upon her.
"I was a very little girl," she explained, "and you but a lad. It
was at a party, I think, a great and brilliant party, for I
remember many beautiful women and fine men. You held me up in your
arms for people to see, because I was going on a long journey."
"I remember, of course I do!" he exclaimed.
A bell clanged, turning over and over, calling the Company's men to
their day.
"Farewell." she said, hurriedly. "To-night."
"To-night," he repeated.
She glided rapidly through the grass, noiseless in her moccasined
feet. And as she went she heard his voice humming soft and low,
"Isabeau s'y promene
Le long de son jardin,
Le long de son jardin,
Sur le bord de l'ile,
Le long de son jardin."
"How could he _help_ singing," murmured Virginia, fondly. "Ah,
dear Heaven, but I am the happiest girl alive!"
Such a difference can one night bring about.
Chapter Twelve
The day rose and flooded the land with its fuller life. All
through the settlement the Post Indians and half-breeds set about
their tasks. Some aided Sarnier with his calking of the bateaux;
some worked in the fields; some mended or constructed in the
different shops. At eight o'clock the bell rang again, and they
ate breakfast. Then a group of seven, armed with muzzle-loading
"trade-guns" bound in brass, set out for the marshes in hopes of
geese. For the flight was arriving, and the Hudson Bay man knows
very well the flavor of goose-flesh, smoked, salted, and barrelled.
Now the _voyageurs_ began to stroll into the sun. They were men of
leisure. Picturesque, handsome, careless, debonair, they wandered
back and forth, smoking their cigarettes, exhibiting their finery.
Indian women, wrinkled and careworn, plodded patiently about on
various businesses. Indian girls, full of fun and mischief,
drifted here and there in arm-locked groups of a dozen, smiling,
whispering among themselves, ready to collapse toward a common
centre of giggles if addressed by one of the numerous
woods-dandies. Indian men stalked singly, indifferent, stolid.
Indian children of all sizes and degrees of nakedness darted back
and forth, playing strange games. The sound of many voices rose
across the air.
Once the voices moderated, when McDonald, the Chief Trader, walked
rapidly from the barracks building to the trading store; once they
died entirely into a hush of respect, when Galen Albret himself
appeared on the broad veranda of the factory. He stood for a
moment--bulked broad and black against the whitewash--his hands
clasped behind him, gazing abstractedly toward the distant bay.
Then he turned into the house to some mysterious and weighty
business of his own. The hubbub at once broke out again.
Now about the mouth of the long picketed lane leading to the
massive trading store gathered a silent group, bearing packs.
These were Indians from the more immediate vicinity, desirous of
trading their skins. After a moment McDonald appeared in the
doorway, a hundred feet away, and raised his hand. Two of the
savages, and two only, trotted down the narrow picket lane, their
packs on their shoulders.
McDonald ushered them into a big square room, where the bales were
undone and spread abroad. Deftly, silently the Trader sorted the
furs, placing to one side or the other the "primes," "seconds," and
"thirds" of each species. For a moment he calculated. Then he
stepped to a post whereon hung long strings of pierced wooden
counters, worn smooth by use. Swiftly he told the strings over.
To one of the Indians he gave one with these words:
"Mu-hi-kun, my brother, here be pelts to the value of two hundred
'beaver.' Behold a string, then, of two hundred 'castors,' and in
addition I give my brother one fathom of tobacco."
The Indian calculated rapidly, his eye abstracted. He had known
exactly the value of his catch, and what he would receive for it in
"castors," but had hoped for a larger "present," by which the
premium on the standard price is measured.
"Ah hah," he exclaimed, finally, and stepped to one side.
"Sak-we-su, my brother," went on McDonald, "here be pelts to the
value of three hundred 'beaver.' Behold a string, then, of three
hundred 'castors,' and because you have brought so fine a skin of
the otter, behold also a fathom of tobacco and a half sack of
flour."
"Good!" ejaculated the Indian.
The Trader then led them to stairs, up which they clambered to
where Davis, the Assistant Trader, kept store. There, barred by a
heavy wooden grill from the airy loft filled with bright calicoes,
sashes, pails, guns, blankets, clothes, and other ornamental and
useful things, Sak-we-su and Mu-hi-kun made their choice, trading
in the worn wooden "castors" on the string. So much flour, so much
tea, so much sugar and powder and lead, so much in clothing. Thus
were their simple needs supplied for the year to come. Then the
remainder they squandered on all sorts of useless things--beads,
silks, sashes, bright handkerchiefs, mirrors. And when the last
wooden "castor" was in they went down stairs and out the picket
lane, carrying their lighter purchases, but leaving the larger as
"debt," to be called for when needed. Two of their companions
mounted the stairs as they descended; and two more passed them in
the narrow picket lane. So the trade went on.
At once Sak-we-su and Mu-hi-kun were surrounded. In detail they
told what they had done. Then in greater detail their friends told
what _they_ would have done, until after five minutes of
bewildering advice the disconsolate pair would have been only too
glad to have exchanged everything--if that had been allowed.
Now the bell rang again. It was "smoke time." Everyone quit work
for a half-hour. The sun climbed higher in the heavens. The
laughing crews of idlers sprawled in the warmth, gambling, telling
stories, singing. Then one might have heard all the picturesque
songs of the Far North--"A la claire Fontaine"; "Ma Boule Roulant";
"Par derrier' chez-mon Pere"; "Isabeau s'y promene"; "P'tite
Jeanneton"; "Luron, Lurette"; "Chante, Rossignol, chante"; the
ever-popular "Malbrouck"; "C'est la belle Francoise"; "Alouette";
or the beautiful and tender "La Violette Dandine." They had good
voices, these _voyageurs_, with the French artistic instinct, and
it was fine to hear them.
At noon the squaws set out to gather canoe gum on the mainland.
They sat huddled in the bottom of their old and leaky canoe,
reaching far over the sides to dip their paddles, irregularly
placed, silent, mysterious. They did not paddle with the unison of
the men, but each jabbed a little short stroke as the time suited
her, so that always some paddles were rising and some falling.
Into the distance thus they flapped like wounded birds; then
rounded a bend, and were gone.
The sun swung over and down the slope, Dinner time had passed;
"smoke time" had come again. Squaws brought the first white-fish
of the season to the kitchen door of the factory, and Matthews
raised the hand of horror at the price they asked. Finally he
bought six of about three pounds each, giving in exchange tea to
the approximate value of twelve cents. The Indian women went away,
secretly pleased over their bargain.
Down by the Indian camp suddenly broke the roar of a dog-fight.
Two of the sledge _giddes_ had come to teeth, and the friends of
both were assisting the cause. The idlers went to see, laughing,
shouting, running impromptu races. They sat on their haunches and
cheered ironically, and made small bets, and encouraged the frantic
old squaw hags who, at imminent risk, were trying to disintegrate
the snarling, rolling mass. Over in the high log stockade wherein
the Company's sledge animals were confined, other wolf-dogs howled
mournfully, desolated at missing the fun.
And always the sun swung lower and lower toward the west, until
finally the long northern twilight fell, and the girl in the little
white bedroom at the factory bathed her face and whispered for the
hundredth time to her beating heart:
"Night has come!"
Chapter Thirteen
That evening at dinner Virginia studied her father's face again.
She saw the square settled line of the jaw under the beard, the
unwavering frown of the heavy eyebrows, the unblinking purpose of
the cavernous, mysterious eyes. Never had she felt herself very
close to this silent, inscrutable man, even in his moments of more
affectionate expansion. Now a gulf divided them.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8