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

And yet, strangely enough, she experienced no revulsion, no horror,
no recoil even. He had merely become more aloof, more
incomprehensible; his purposes vaster, less susceptible to the
grasp of such as she. There may have been some basis for this
feeling, or it may have been merely the reflex glow of a joy that
made all other things seem insignificant.

As soon as might be after the meal Virginia slipped away, carrying
the rifle, the cartridges, the matches, and the salt. She was
cruelly frightened.

The night was providentially dark. No aurora threw its splendor
across the dome, and only a few rare stars peeped between the light
cirrus clouds. Virginia left behind her the buildings of the Post,
she passed in safety the tin-steepled chapel and the church house;
there remained only the Indian camp between her and the woods
trail. At once the dogs began to bark and howl, the fierce
_giddes_ lifting their pointed noses to the sky. The girl hurried
on, twinging far to the right through the grass. To her relief the
camp did not respond to the summons. An old crone or so appeared
in the flap of a teepee, eyes dazzled, to throw uselessly a billet
of wood or a volley of Cree abuse at the animals nearest. In a
moment Virginia entered the trail.

Here was no light at all. She had to proceed warily, feeling with
her moccasins for the beaten pathway, to which she returned with
infinite caution whenever she trod on grass or leaves. Though her
sight was dulled, her hearing was not. A thousand scurrying noises
swirled about her; a multitude of squeaks, whistles, snorts, and
whines attested that she disturbed the forest creatures at their
varied businesses; and underneath spoke an apparent dozen of
terrifying voices which were in reality only the winds and the
trees. Virginia knew that these things were not dangerous--that
day light would show them to be only deer-mice, hares, weasels,
bats, and owls--nevertheless, they had their effect. For about her
was cloying velvet blackness--not the closed-in blackness of a
room, where one feels the embrace of the four walls, but the
blackness of infinite space through which sweep mysterious currents
of air. After a long time she turned sharp to the left. After a
long time more she perceived a faint, opalescent glimmer in the
distance ahead. This she knew to be the river.

She felt her way onward, still cautiously, then she choked back a
scream and dropped her burden with a clatter to the ground. A dark
figure seemed to have risen mysteriously at her side.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," said Ned Trent, in guarded tones.
"I heard you coming. I thought you could hear me."

He picked up the fallen articles, running his hands over them
rapidly.

"Good," he whispered. "I got some moccasins to-day--traded a few
things I had in my pockets for them. I'm fixed."

"Have you a canoe?" she asked.

"Yes--here on the beach."

He preceded her down the few remaining yards of the trail. She
followed, already desolated at the thought of parting, for the
wilderness was very big. The bulk of the man partly blotted out
the lucent spot where the river was--now his arm, now his head, now
the breadth of his shoulders. This silhouette of him was dear to
her, the sound of his movements, the faint stir of his breathing
borne to her on the light breeze. Virginia's tender heart almost
overflowed with longing and fear for him.

They emerged on a little slope and at once pushed the canoe into
the current.

She accepted the aid of his hand for a moment, and sank to her
place, facing him He spurned lightly the shore, and so they were
adrift.

In a moment they seemed to be floating on a vast vapor of night,
infinitely remote from anywhere, surrounded by the silence that
might have been before the world's beginning. A faint splash could
have been a muskrat near at hand or a caribou far away. The paddle
rose and dipped with a faint _swish_, _swish_, and the steersman's
twist of it was taken up by the man's strong wrist so it did not
click against the gunwale; the bow of the craft divided the waters
with a murmuring so faint as to seem but the echo of a silence.
Neither spoke. Virginia watched him, her heart too full for words;
watched the full swing of his strong shoulders, the balance of his
body at the hips, the poise of his head against the dull sky. In a
moment more the parting would have to come. She dreaded it, and
yet she looked forward to it with a hungry joy. Then he would say
what she had seen in his eyes; then he would speak; then she would
hear the words that should comfort her in the days of waiting. For
a woman lives much for the present, and the moment's word is an
important thing.

The man swung his paddle steadily, throwing into the strokes a
wanton exuberance that showed how high his spirits ran. After a
time, when they were well out from the shore, he took a deep breath
of delight.

"Ah, you don't know how happy I am," he exulted, "you don't know!
To be free, to play the game, to match my wits against their--ah,
that is life!"

"I am sorry to see you go," she murmured, "very sorry. The days
will be full of terror until I know you are safe."

"Oh, yes," he answered: "but I'll get there, and I shall tell it
all to you at Quebec--at Quebec in August. It will he a brave
tale! You will be there--surely?"

"Yes," said the girl, softly; "I will be there--surely."

"Good! Feel the wind on your cheek? It is from the Southland,
where I am going. I have ventured--and I have not lost! It is
something not to lose, when one has ventured against many. They
have my goods--but I----"

"You?" repeated Virginia, as he hesitated.

"Ah, I don't go back empty-handed!" he tried. Her heart stood
still, then leaped in anticipation of what he would say. Her soul
hungered for the words, the words that should not only comfort her,
but should be to her the excuse for many things. She saw
him--shadowy, graceful against the dim gray of the river and
sky--lean ever so slightly toward her. But then he straightened
again to his paddle, and contented himself with repeating merely:
"Quebec--in August, then."

The canoe grated. Ned Trent with an exclamation drove his paddle
into the clay.

"Lucky the bottom is soft here," said he; "I did not realize we
were so close ashore."

He drew the canoe up on the shelving beach, helped Virginia out,
took his rifle, and so stood ready to depart.

"Leave the canoe just where we got in," he advised; "it is around
the point, you see, and that may fool them a. little."

"You are going." she said, dully. Then she came close to him and
looked up at him with her wonderful eyes. "Good-by."

"Good-by," said he.

Was this to be all? Had he nothing more to tell her? Was the word
to lack, the word she needed so much? She had given herself
unreservedly into this man's hands, and at parting he had no more
to say to her than "Good-by." Virginia's eyes were tearful, but
she would not let him know that. She felt that her heart would
break.

"Well, good-by," he said again after a moment, which he had spent
inspecting the heavens. "Ah, you don't know what it is to be free!
By to-morrow morning I shall be half-way to the Mattagami. I can
hardly wait to see it, for then I am safe! And then nex; day--why,
next day they won't know which of a dozen ways I've gone!" He was
full of the future, man fashion.

He took her hands, leaned over, and lightly kissed her on the
mouth. Instantly Virginia became wildly and unreasonably angry.
She could not have told herself why, but it was the lack of the
word she had wanted so much, the pain of feeling that he could go
like that, the thwarted bitterness of a longing that had grown
stronger than she had even yet realized.

Instinctively she leaped into the canoe, sending it spinning from
the bank.

"Ah, you had no _right_ to do that!" she cried. "I gave you no
_right_!"

Then, heedless of what he was saying, she began to paddle straight
from the shore, weeping bitterly, her face upraised, her hair in
her eyes, and the tears coursing unheeded down her cheeks.

Chapter Fourteen

Slower and slower her paddle dipped, lower and lower hung her head,
faster and faster flowed her tears. The instinctive recoil, the
passionate resentment had gone. In the bitterness of her spirit
she knew not what she thought except that she would give her soul
to see him again, to feel the touch of his lips once more. For she
could not make herself believe that this would ever come to pass.
He had gone like a phantom, like a dream, and the mists of life had
closed about him, showing no sign. He had vanished, and at once
she seemed to know that the episode was finished.

The canoe whispered against the soft clay bottom. She had arrived,
though how the crossing had been made she could not have told.
Slowly and sorrowfully she disembarked. Languidly she drew the
light craft beyond the stream's eager fingers. Then, her forces at
an end, she huddled down on the ground and gave herself up to
sorrow.

The life of the forest went on as though she were not there. A big
owl far off said hurriedly his _whoo-whoo-whoo_, as though he had
the message to deliver and wanted to finish the task. A smaller
owl near at hand cried _ko-ko-ko-oh_ with the intonation of a tin
horn. Across the river a lynx screamed, and was answered at once
by the ululations of wolves. On the island the _giddes_ howled
defiance. Then from above, clear, spiritual, floated the whistle
of shore birds arriving from the south. Close by sounded a rustle
of leaves, a sharp squeak; a tragedy had been consummated, and the
fierce little mink stared malevolently across the body of his
victim at the motionless figure on the beach.

Virginia, drowned in grief, knew of none of these things. She was
seeing again the clear brown face of the stranger, his curly brown
hair, his steel eyes, and the swing of his graceful figure. Now he
fronted the wondering _voyageurs_, one foot raised against the bow
of the _brigade_ canoe; now he stood straight and tall against the
light of the sitting-room door; now he emptied the vials of his
wrath and contempt on Archibald Crane's reverend head; now he
passed in the darkness, singing gayly the _chanson de canot_. But
more fondly she saw him as he swept his hat to the ground on
discovering her by the guns, as he bent his impassioned eyes on her
in the dim lamplight of their first interview, as he tossed his hat
aloft in the air when he had understood that she would be in
Quebec. She hugged the visions to her, and wept over them softly,
for she was now sure she would never see him again.

And she heard his voice, now laughing, now scornful, now mocking,
now indignant, now rich and solemn with feeling. He flouted the
people, he turned the shafts of his irony on her father, he scathed
the minister, he laughed at Louis Placide awakened from his sleep,
he sang, he told her of the land of desolation, he pleaded. She
could hear him calling her name--although he had never spoken
it--in low, tender tones, "Virginia! Virginia!" over and over again
softly, as though his soul were crying through his lips.

Then somehow, in a manner not to be comprehended, it was borne in
on her consciousness that he was indeed near her, and that he was
indeed calling her name. And at once she made him out, standing
dripping on the beach. A moment later she was in his arms.

"Ah!" he cried, in gladness; "you are here!"

He crushed her hungrily to him, unmindful of his wet clothes,
kissing her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, her chin, even the fragrant
corner of her throat exposed by the collar of her gown. She did
not struggle.

"Oh!" she murmured, "my dear, my dear! Why did you come back? Why
did you come?"

"Why did I come?" he repeated, passionately. "Why did I come? Can
you ask that? How could I help but come? You must have known I
would come. Surely you must have known! Didn't you hear me
calling you when you paddled away? I came to get the right. I
came to get your promise, your kisses, to hear you say the word, to
get you! I thought you understood. It was all so clear to me. I
thought you knew. That was why I was so glad to go, so eager to
get away that I could not even realize I was parting from you--so I
could the sooner reach Quebec--reach you! Don't you see how I
felt? All this present was merely something to get over, to pass
by, to put behind us until I got to Quebec in August--and you. I
looked forward so eagerly to that, I was so anxious to get away, I
was desirous of hastening on to the time when things could be
_sure_! Don't you understand?"

"Yes, I think I do," replied the girl, softly.

"And I thought of course you knew, I should not have kissed you
otherwise."

"How could I know?" she sighed. "You said nothing, and, oh! I
_wanted_ so to hear!"

And singularly enough he said nothing now, but they stood facing
each other hand in hand, while the great vibrant life they were now
touching so closely filled their hearts and eyes, and left them
faint. So they stood for hours or for seconds, they could not
tell, spirit-hushed, ecstatic. The girl realized that they must
part.

"You must go," she whispered brokenly, at last. "I do not want you
to, but you must."

She smiled up at him with trembling lips that whispered to her soul
that she must be brave.

"Now go," she nerved herself to say, releasing her hands.

"Tell me," he commanded.

"What?" she asked.

"What I most want to hear."

"I can tell you many things," said she, soberly, "but I do not know
which of them you want to hear. Ah, Ned. I can tell you that you
have come into a girl's life to make her very happy and very much
afraid. And that is a solemn thing; is it not?"

"Yes," said he.

"And I can tell you that this can never be undone. That is a
solemn thing, too, is it not?"

"Yes," said he.

"And that, according as you treat her, this girl will believe or
not believe in the goodness of all men or the badness of all men.
Ah, Ned, a woman's heart is fragile, and mine is in your keeping."

Her face was raised bravely and steadily to his. In the starlight
it shone white and pathetic. And her eyes were two liquid wells of
darkness in the shadow, and her half-parted lips were wistful and
childlike.

The man caught both her hands, again looking down on her. Then he
answered her, solemnly and humbly.

"Virginia," said he, "I am setting out on a perilous Journey. As I
deal with you, may God deal with me."

"Ah, that is as I like you," she breathed.

"Good-by," said he.

She raised her lips of her own accord, and he kissed them
reverently.

"Good-by," she murmured.

He turned away with an effort and ran down the beach to the canoe.

"Good-by, good-by," she murmured, under her breath. "Ah, good-by!
I love you! Oh, I do love you!"

Then suddenly from the bushes leaped dark figures. The still night
was broken by the sound of a violent scuffle--blows--a fall. She
heard Ned Trent's voice calling to her from the _melee_.

"Go back at once!" he commanded, clearly and steadily. "You can do
no good. I order you to go home before they search the woods."

But she crouched in dazed terror, her pupils wide to the dim light.
She saw them bind him, and stand waiting; she saw a canoe glide out
of the darkness; she saw the occupants of the canoe disembark; she
saw them exhibit her little rifle, and heard them explain in Cree,
that they had followed the man swimming. Then she knew that the
cause was lost, and fled as swiftly as she could through the forest.

Chapter Fifteen

Galen Albret had chosen to interrogate his recaptured prisoner
alone. He sat again, in the arm-chair of the Council Room. The
place was flooded with sun. It touched the high-lights of the
time-darkened, rough furniture, it picked out the brasses, it
glorified the whitewashed walls. In its uncompromising
illumination Me-en-gan, the bows-man, standing straight and tall
and silent by the door, studied his master's face and knew him to
be deeply angered.

For Galen Albret was at this moment called upon to deal with a
problem more subtle than any with which his policy had been puzzled
in thirty years. It was bad enough that, in repeated defiance of
his authority, this stranger should persist in his attempt to break
the Company's monopoly; it was bad enough that he had, when
captured, borne himself with so impudent an air of assurance; it
was bad enough that he should have made open love to the Factor's
daughter, should have laughed scornfully in the Factor's very face.
But now the case had become grave. In some mysterious manner he
had succeeded in corrupting one of the Company's servants.
Treachery was therefore to be dealt with.

Some facts Galen Albret had well in hand. Others eluded him
persistently. He had, of course, known promptly enough of the
disappearance of a canoe, and had thereupon dispatched his Indians
to the recapture. The Reverend Archibald Crane had reported that
two figures had been seen in the act of leaving camp, one by the
river, the other by the Woods Trail. But here the Factor's
investigations encountered a check. The rifle brought in by his
Indians, to his bewilderment, he recognized not at all. His
repeated cross-questionings, when they touched on the question of
Ned Trent's companion, got no farther than the Cree wooden
stolidity. No, they had seen no one, neither presence, sign, nor
trail. But Galen Albret, versed in the psychology of his savage
allies, knew they lied. He suspected them of clan loyalty to one
of their own number; and yet they had never failed him before.
Now, his heavy revolver at his right hand, he interviewed Ned
Trent, alone, except for the Indian by the portal.

As with the Indians, his cross-examination had borne scant results.
The best of his questions but involved him in a maze of baffling
surmises. Gradually his anger had mounted, until now the Indian at
the door knew by the wax-like appearance of the more prominent
places on his deeply carved countenance that he had nearly reached
the point of outbreak.

Swiftly, like the play of rapiers, the questions and answers broke
across the still room.

"You had aid," the Factor asserted, positively.

"You think so?"

"My Indians say you were alone. But where did you get this rifle?"

"I stole it."

"You were alone?"

Ned Trent paused for a barely appreciable instant. It was not
possible that the Indians had failed to establish the girl's
presence, and he feared a trap. Then he caught the expressive eye
of Me-en-gan at the door. Evidently Virginia had friends.

"I was alone," he repeated, confidently.

"That is a lie. For though my Indians were deceived, two people
were observed by my clergyman to leave the Post immediately before
I sent out to your capture. One rounded the island in a canoe; the
other took the Woods Trail."

"Bully for the Church," replied Trent, imperturbably. "Better
promote him to your scouts."

"Who was that second person?"

"Do you think I will tell you?"

"I think I'll find means to make you tell me!" burst out the Factor.

Ned Trent was silent.

"If you'll tell me the name of that man I'll let you go free. I'll
give you a permit to trade in the country. It touches my
authority--my discipline. The affair becomes a precedent. It is
vital."

Ned Trent fixed his eyes on the bay and hummed a little air, half
turning his shoulder to the older man.

The latter's face blazed with suppressed fury. Twice his hand
rested almost convulsively on the butt of his heavy revolver.

"Ned Trent," he cried, harshly, at last, "pay attention to me.
I've had enough of this. I swear if you do not tell me what I want
to know within five minutes, I'll hang you to-day!"

The young man spun on his heel.

"Hanging!" he cried. "You cannot mean that?"

The Free Trader measured him up and down, saw that his purpose was
sincere, and turned slowly pale under the bronze of his out-of-door
tan. Hanging is always a dreadful death, but in the Far North it
carries an extra stigma of ignominy with it, inasmuch as it is
resorted to only with the basest malefactors. Shooting is the
usual form of execution for all but the most despicable crimes. He
turned away with a little gesture.

"Well!" cried Albret.

Ned Trent locked his lips in a purposeful straight line of silence.
To such an outrage there could be nothing to say. The Factor
jerked his watch to the table.

"I said five minutes," he repeated. "I mean it."

The young man leaned against the side at the window, his arms
folded, his back to the room. Outside, the varied life of the Post
went forward under his eyes. He even noted with a surface interest
the fact that out across the river a loon was floating, and
remarked that never before had he seen one of those birds so far
north. Galen Albret struck the table with the flat of his hand.

"Done!" he cried. "This is the last chance I shall give you.
Speak at this instant or accept the consequences!"

Ned Trent turned sharply, as though breaking a thread that bound
him to the distant prospect beyond the window. For an instant he
stared enigmatically at his opponent. Then in the sweetest tones,

"Oh, go to the devil!" said he, and began to walk deliberately
toward the older man.

There lay between the window and the head of the table perhaps a
dozen ordinary Steps, for the room was large. The young man took
them slowly, his eyes fixed with burning intensity on the seated
figure, the muscles of his locomotion contracting and relaxing with
the smooth, stealthy continuity of a cat. Galen Albret again laid
hand on his revolver.

"Come no nearer," he commanded.

Me-en-gan left the door and glided along the wall. But the table
intervened between him and the Free Trader.

The latter paid no attention to the Factor's command. Galen Albret
suddenly raised his weapon from the table.

"Stop, or I'll fire!" he cried, sharply.

"I mean just that." said Ned Trent between his clenched teeth.

But ten feet separated the two men. Galen Albret levelled the
revolver. Ned Trent, watchful, prepared to spring. Me-en-gan,
near the foot of the table, gathered himself for attack.

Then suddenly the Free Trader relaxed his muscles, straightened his
back, and returned deliberately to the window. Facing about in
astonishment to discover the reason for this sudden change of
decision, the other two men looked into the face of Virginia
Albret, standing in the doorway of the other room.

"Father!" she cried.

"You must go back," said Ned Trent speaking clearly and
collectedly, in the hope of imposing his will on her obvious
excitement. "This is not an affair in which you should interfere.
Galen Albret, send her away."

The Factor had turned squarely in his heavy arm-chair to regard the
girl, a frown on his brows.

"Virginia," he commanded, in deliberate, stern tones of authority,
"leave the room. You have nothing to do with this case, and I do
not desire your interference."

Virginia stepped bravely beyond the portals, and stopped. Her
fingers were nervously interlocked, her lip trembled, in her cheeks
the color came and went, but her eyes met her father's, unfaltering.

"I have more to do with it than you think." she replied.

Instantly Ned Trent was at the table. "I really think this has
gone far enough," he interposed. "We have had our interview and
come to a decision. Miss Albret must not be permitted to
exaggerate a slight sentiment of pity into an interest in my
affairs. If she knew that such a demonstration only made it worse
for me I am sure she would say no more." He looked at her
appealingly across the Factor's shoulder.

Me-en-gan was already holding open the door. "You come," he
smiled, beseechingly.

But the Factor's suspicions were aroused.

"There is something in this," he decided. "I think you may stay,
Virginia."

"You are right," broke in the young man, desperately. "There is
something in it. Miss Albret knows who gave me the rifle, and she
was about to inform you of his identity. There is no need in
subjecting her to that distasteful ordeal. I am now ready to
confess to you. I beg you will ask her to leave the room."

Galen Albret, in the midst of these warring intentions, had sunk
into his customary impassive calm. The light had died from his
eyes, the expression from his face, the energy from his body. He
sat, an inert mass, void of initiative, his intelligence open to
what might be brought to his notice.

"Virginia, this is true?" his heavy, dead voice rumbled through his
beard. "You know who aided this man?"

Ned. Trent mutely appealed to her: her glance answered his.

"Yes, father," she replied.

"Who?"

"I did."

A dead silence fell on the room. Galen Albret's expression and
attitude did not change. Through dull, lifeless eyes, from behind
the heavy mask of his waxen face and white beard, he looked
steadily out upon nothing. Along either arm of the chair stretched
his own arms limp and heavy with inertia. In suspense the other
three inmates of the place watched him, waiting for some change.
It did not come. Finally his lips moved.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8