He who would hear that paradox of impossibilities—silence become vocal—must traverse the vast wastes of the prairie by night. As a mother quiets a fretful child, so the illimitable calm lulls tumultuous thoughts. The wind moving through empty solitudes comes with a sigh of unutterable loneliness. Unconsciously, men listen for some faint rustling from the gauzy, wavering streamers that fire northern skies. The dullest ear can almost fancy sounds from the noiseless wheeling of planets through the overspanning vaulted blue; and human speech seems sacrilege.
Though the language of the prairie be not in words, some message is surely uttered; for the people of the plains wear the far-away look of communion with the unseen and the unheard. The fine sensibility of the white woman, perhaps, shows the impress of the vast solitudes most readily, and the gravely repressed nature of the Indian least; but all plain-dwellers have learned to catch the voice of the prairie. I, myself, know the message well, though I may no more put it into words than the song love sings in one'sheart. Love, says the poet, is infinite. So is the space of the prairie. That, I suppose, is why both are too boundless for the limitation of speech.
Night after night, with only a grassy swish and deadened tread over the turf breaking stillness, we journeyed northward. Occasionally, like the chirp of cricket in a dry well, life sounded through emptiness. Skulking coyotes, seeking prey among earth mounds, or night hawks, lilting solitarily in vaulted mid-heaven, uttered cries that pierced the vast blue. Owls flapped stupidly up from our horses' feet. Hungry kites wheeled above lonely Indian graves, or perched on the scaffolding, where the dead lay swathed in skins.
Reflecting on my experiences with the Mandanes and the Sioux, I was disposed to upbraid fate as a senseless thing with no thread of purpose through life's hopeless jumble. Now, something in the calm of the plains, or the certainty of our unerring star-guides, quieted my unrest. Besides, was I not returning to one who was peerless? That hope speedily eclipsed all interests. That was purpose enough for my life. Forthwith, I began comparing lustrous gray eyes to the stars, and tracing a woman's figure in the diaphanous northern lights. One face ever gleamed through the dusk at my horse's head and beckoned northward. I do not think her presence left me for an instant on that homeward journey. But, indeed, I should not set down these extravagances, which each may recallin his own case, only I would have others judge whether she influenced me, or I, her.
Thus we traveled northward, journeying by night as long as we were in the Sioux territory. Once in the land of the Assiniboines, we rode day and night to the limit of our horses' endurance. Remembering the Hudson's Bay outrage at the Souris, and having also heard from Mandane runners of a raid planned by our rivals against the North-West fort at Pembina, I steered wide of both places, following the old Missouri trail midway between the Red and Souris rivers. It may have been because we traveled at night, but I did not encounter a single person, native or white, till we came close to the Red and were less than a day's journey from Fort Gibraltar. On the river trail, we overtook some Hudson's Bay trappers. The fellows would not answer a single question about events during the year and scampered away from us as if we carried smallpox, which had thinned the population a few years before.
"That's bad!" said I aloud, as the men fled down the river bank, where we could not follow. Little Fellow looked as solemn as a grave-stone. He shook his head with ominous wisdom that foresees all evil but refuses to prophesy.
"Bother to you, Little Fellow!" I exclaimed. "What do you mean? What's up?"
Again the Indian shook his head with dark mutterings, looking mighty solemn, but he would not share his foreknowledge. We met moreHudson's Bay men, and their conduct was unmistakably suspicious. On a sudden seeing us, they reined up their horses, wheeled and galloped off without a word.
"I don't like that! I emphatically don't!" I piloted my broncho to a slight roll of the prairie, where we could reconnoitre. Distinctly there was the spot where the two rivers met. Intervening shrubbery confused my bearings. I rose in my stirrups, while Little Fellow stood erect on his horse's back.
"Little Fellow!" I cried, exasperated with myself, "Where's Fort Gibraltar? I see where it ought to be, where the towers ought to be higher than that brush, but where's the fort?"
The Indian screened his eyes and gazed forward. Then he came down with a thud, abruptly re-straddling his horse, and uttered one explosive word—"Smoke."
"Smoke? I don't see smoke! Where's the fort?"
"No fort," said he.
"You're daft!" I informed him, with the engaging frankness of a master for a servant. "There—is—a fort, and you know it—we're both lost—that's more! A fine Indian you are, to get lost!"
Little Fellow scrambled with alacrity to the ground. Picking up two small switches, he propped them against each other.
"Fort!" he said, laconically, pointing to the switches.
"L'anglais!" he cried, thrusting out his foot, which signified Hudson's Bay.
"No fort!" he shouted, kicking the switches into the air. "No fort!" and he looked with speechless disgust at the vacancy.
Now I knew what he meant. Fort Gibraltar had been destroyed by Hudson's Bay men. We had no alternative but to strike west along the Assiniboine, on the chance of meeting some Nor'-Westers before reaching the company's quarters at the Portage. That post, too, might be destroyed; but where were Hamilton and Father Holland? Danger, or no danger, I must learn more of the doings in Red River. Also, there were reasons why I wished to visit the settlers of Fort Douglas. We camped on the south side of the Assiniboine a few miles from the Red, and Little Fellow went to some neighboring half-breeds for a canoe.
And a strange story he brought back! A great man, second only to the king—so the half-breeds said—had come from England to rule over Assiniboia. He boasted the shock of his power would be felt from Montreal to Athabasca. He would drive out all Nor'-Westers. This personage, I afterwards learned, was the amiable Governor Semple, who succeeded Captain Miles McDonell. Already, as a hunter chases a deer, had the great governor chased Nor'-Westers from Red River. Did Little Fellow doubt their word? Where was Fort Gibraltar? Let Little Fellow look and see for himself if aught but masonryand charred walls stood where Fort Gibraltar had been! Let him seek the rafters of the Nor-Westers' fort in the new walls of Fort Douglas! Pembina, too, had fallen before the Hudson's Bay men. Since the coming of the great governor, nothing could stand before the English.
But wait! It was not all over! The war drum was beating in the tents of all theBois-Brulés! The great governor should be taught that even the king's arms could not prevail against theBois-Brulés! Was there smoke of battle? TheBois-Bruléswould be there! TheBois-Bruléshad wrongs to avenge. They would not be turned out of their forts for nothing! Knives would be unsheathed. There were full powder-bags! There was a grand gathering ofBois-Brulésat the Portage. They, themselves, were on the way there. Let Little Fellow and the white trader join them! Let them be wary; for the English were watchful! Great things were to be done by theBois-Brulésbefore another moon—and Little Fellow's eyes snapped fire as he related their vauntings.
I was inclined to regard the report as a fairy tale. If the half-breeds were arming and the English watchful, the distrust of the Hudson's Bay men was explained. A nomad, himself, the Indian may be willing enough to share running rights over the land of his fathers; but when the newcomer not only usurps possession, but imposes the yoke of laws on the native, the resentment of the dusky race is easily fanned to that pointwhich civilized men call rebellion. I could readily understand how the Hudson's Bay proclamations forbidding the sale of furs to rivals, when these rivals were friends by marriage and treaty with the natives, roused all the bloodthirsty fury of the Indian nature. Nor'-Westers' forts were being plundered. Why should theBois-Brulésnot pillage Hudson's Bay posts? Each company was stealing the cargo of its rival, as boats passed and repassed the different forts. Why should the half-breed not have his share of the booty? The most peace-loving dog can be set a-fighting; and the fight-loving Indian finds it very difficult indeed, to keep the peace. This, the great fur companies had not yet realized; and the lesson was to be driven home to them with irresistible force.
The half-breeds also had news of a priest bringing a delirious man to Fort Douglas. The description seemed to fit Hamilton and Father Holland. Whatever truth might be in the rumors of an uprising, I must ascertain whether or not Frances Sutherland would be safe. Leaving Little Fellow to guard our horses, at sundown I pushed my canoe into the Assiniboine just east of the rapids. Paddling swiftly with the current, I kept close to the south bank, where overhanging willows concealed one side of the river.
As I swung out into the Red, true to theBois-Brulés'report, I saw only blackened chimneys and ruined walls on the site of Fort Gibraltar. Heading towards the right bank, I hugged the nakedcliff on the side opposite Fort Douglas, and trusted the rising mist to conceal me. Thus, I slipped past cannon, pointing threateningly from the Hudson's Bay post, recrossed to the wooded west bank again, and paddled on till I caught a glimpse of a little, square, whitewashed house in a grove of fine old trees. This I knew, from Frances Sutherland's description, was her father's place.
Mooring among the shrubbery I had no patience to hunt for beaten path; but digging my feet into soft clay and catching branches with both hands, I clambered up the cliff and found myself in a thicket not a stone's throw from the door. The house was in darkness. My heart sank at a possibility which hardly framed itself to a thought. Was the apparition in the Mandane lodge some portent? Had I not read, or heard, of departed spirits hovering near loved ones? I had no courage to think more.
Suddenly the door flung open. Involuntarily, I slipped behind the bushes, but dusk hid the approaching figure. Whoever it was made no noise. I felt, rather than heard, her coming, and knew no man could walk so silently. It must be a woman. Then my chest stifled and I heard my own heart-beats. Garments fluttered past the branches of my hiding-place. She of whom I had dreamed by night and thought by day and hoped whether sleeping, or waking, paused, not an arm's length away.
Toying with the tip of the branch, which I wasgripping for dear life, she looked languorously through the foliage towards the river. At first I thought myself the victim of another hallucination, but would not stir lest the vision should vanish. She sighed audibly, and I knew this was no spectre. Then I trembled all the more, for my sudden appearance might alarm her.
I should wait until she went back to the house—another of my brave vows to keep myself in hand!—then walk up noisily, giving due warning, and knock at the door. The keeping of that resolution demanded all my strength of will; for she was so near I could have clasped her in my arms without an effort. Indeed, it took a very great effort to refrain from doing so.
"Heigh-ho," said a low voice with the ripple of a sunny brook tinkling over pebbles, "but it's a long day—and a long, long week—and a long, long, long month—and oh!—a century of years since——" and the voice broke in a sigh.
I think—though I would not set this down as a fact—that a certain small foot, which once stamped two strong men into obedience, now vented its impatience at a twig on the grass. By the code of eastern proprieties, I may not say that the dainty toe-tip first kicked the offensive little branch and then crunched it deep in the turf.
"I hate this lonely country," said the voice, with the vim of water-fret against an obstinate stone. "Wonder what it's like in the Mandane land! I'm sure it's nicer there."
Now I affirm there is not a youth living who would not at some time give his right hand to know a woman's exact interpretation of that word "nicer." For my part, it set me clutching the branch with such ferocity, off snapped the thing with the sharp splintering of a breaking stick. The voice gave a gasp and she jumped aside with nervous trepidation.
"Whatever—was that? I am—not frightened." No one was accusing her. "I won't go in! I won't let myself be frightened! There! The very idea!" And three or four sharp stamps followed in quick succession; but she was shivering.
"I declare the house is so lonely, a ghost would be live company." And she looked doubtfully from the dark house to the quivering poplars. "I'd rather be out here with the tree-toads and owls and bats than in there alone, even if they do frighten me! Anyway, I'm not frightened! It's just some stupid hop-and-go-spring thing at the base of our brains that makes us jump at mice and rats." But the hands interlocking at her back twitched and clasped and unclasped in a way that showed the automatic brain-spring was still active.
"It's getting worse every day. I can't stand it much longer, looking and looking till I'm half blind and no one but Indian riders all day long. Why doesn't he come? Oh! I know something is wrong."
"Afraid of the Metis," thought I, "and expecting her father. A fine father to leave his daughteralone in the house with the half-breeds threatening a raid. She needs some one else to take care of her." This, on after thought, I know was unjust to her father; for pioneers obey necessity first and chivalry second.
"If he would only come!" she repeated in a half whisper.
"Hope he doesn't," thought I.
"For a week I've been dreaming such fearful things! I see him sinking in green water, stretching his hands to me and I can't reach out to save him. On Sunday he seemed to be running along a black, awful precipice. I caught him in my arms to hold him back, but he dragged me over and I screamed myself awake. Sometimes, he is in a black cave and I can't find any door to let him out. Or he lies bound in some dungeon, and when I stoop to cut the cords, he begins to sink down, down, down through the dark, where I can't follow. I leap after him and always waken with such a dizzy start. Oh! I know he has been in trouble. Something is wrong! His thoughts are reaching out to me and I am so gross and stupid I can't hear what his spirit says. If I could only get away from things, the clatter of everyday things that dull one's inner hearing, perhaps I might know! I feel as if he spoke in a foreign language, but the words he uses I can't make out. All to-day, he has seemed so near! Why does he not come home to me?"
"Mighty fond daughter," thought I, with a jealous pang. She was fumbling among the intricatedraperies, where women conceal pockets, and presently brought out something in the palm of her hand.
"I wouldn't have him know how foolish I am," and she laid the thing gently against her cheek.
Now I had never given Frances Sutherland a gift of any sort whatever; and my heart was pierced with anguish that cannot be described. I was, indeed, falling over a precipice and her arms were not holding me back but dragging me over. Would that I, like the dreamer, could awaken with a start. In all conscience, I was dizzy enough; and every pressure of that hateful object to her face bound me faster in a dungeon of utter hopelessness. My sweet day-dreams and midnight rhapsodies trooped back to mock at me. I felt that I must bow broken under anguish or else steel myself and shout back cynical derision to the whole wan troop of torturing regrets. And all the time, she was caressing that thing in her hand and looking down at it with a fondness, which I—poor fool—thought that I alone could inspire. I suppose if I could have crept away unobserved, I would have gone from her presence hardened and embittered; but I must play out the hateful part of eavesdropper to the end.
She opened the hand to feast her eyes on the treasure, and I craned forward, playing the sneak without a pang of shame, but the dusk foiled me.
Then the low, mellow, vibrant tones, whose very music would have intoxicated duller fools than I—'tis ever a comfort to know there are greaterfools—broke in melody: "To my own dear love from her ever loyal and devoted knight," and she held her opened hand high. 'Twas my birch-bark message which Father Holland had carried north. I suddenly went insane with a great overcharge of joy, that paralyzed all motion.
"Dear love—wherever are you?" asked a voice that throbbed with longing.
Can any man blame me for breaking through the thicket and my resolution and discretion and all?
"Here—beloved!" I sprang from the bush.
She gave a cry of affright and would have fallen, but my arms were about her and my lips giving silent proof that I was no wraith.
What next we said I do not remember. With her head on my shoulder and I doing the only thing a man could do to stem her tears, I completely lost track of the order of things. I do not believe either of us was calm enough for words for some time after the meeting. It was she who regained mental poise first.
"Rufus!" she exclaimed, breaking away from me, "You're not a sensible man at all."
"Never said I was," I returned.
"If you dothat," she answered, ignoring my remark and receding farther, "I'll never stop crying."
"Then cry on forever!"
With womanly ingratitude, she promptly called me "a goose" and other irrelevant names.
The rest of our talk that evening I do notintend to set down. In the first place, it was best understood by only two. In the second, it could not be transcribed; and in the third, it was all a deal too sacred.
We did, however, become impersonal for short intervals.
"I feel as if there were some storm in the air," said Frances Sutherland. "The half-breeds are excited. They are riding past the settlement in scores every day. O, Rufus, I know something is wrong."
"So do I," was my rejoinder. I was thinking of the strange gossip of the Assiniboine encampment.
"Do you think theBois-Bruléswould plunder your boats?" she asked innocently, ignorant that the malcontents were Nor'-Westers.
"No," said I. "What boats?"
"Why, Nor'-West boats, of course, coming up Red River from Fort William to go up the Assiniboine for the winter's supplies. They're coming in a few days. My father told me so."
"Is Mr. Sutherland an H. B. C. or Nor'-Wester?" I asked in the slang of the company talk.
"I don't know," she answered. "I don't think he knows himself. He says there are numbers of men like that, and they all know there is to be a raid. Why, Rufus, there are men down the river every day watching for the Nor'-Westers' Fort William express." "Where do the men come from?" I questioned,vainly trying to patch some connection between plots for a raid on North-West boats and plots for a fight by Nor'-West followers.
"From Fort Douglas, of course."
"H. B. C.'s, my dear. You must go to Fort Douglas at once. There will be a fight. You must go to-morrow with your father, or with me to-night," I urged, thinking I should take myself off and notify my company of the intended pillaging.
"With you?" she laughed. "Father will be home in an hour. Are you sure about a fight!"
"Quite," said I, trembling for her safety. This certainty of mine has been quoted to prove premeditation on the Nor'-Westers' part; but I meant nothing of the sort. I only felt there was unrest on both sides, and that she must be out of harm's way.
Truly, I have seldom had a harder duty to perform than to leave Frances alone in that dark house to go and inform my company of the plot.
Many times I said good-by before going to the canoe and times unnumbered ran back from the river to repeat some warning and necessitate another farewell.
"Rufus, dear," she said, "this is about the twentieth time. You mustn't come back again."
"Then good-by for the twenty-first," said I, and came away feeling like a young priest anointed for some holy purpose.
I declare now, as I declared before the courtsof the land, that in hastening to the Portage with news of the Hudson's Bay's intention to intercept the Nor'-Westers' express from Fort William, I had no other thought but the faithful serving of my company. I knew what suffering the destruction of Souris had entailed in Athabasca, and was determined our brave fellows should not starve in the coming winter through my negligence.
Could I foresee that simple act of mine was to let loose all the punishment the Hudson's Bay had been heaping up against the day of judgment?
What tempted me to moor opposite the ruins of Fort Gibraltar? What tempts the fly into the spider's web and the fish with a wide ocean for play-ground into one small net? I know there is a consoling fashion of ascribing our blunders to the inscrutable wisdom of a long-suffering Providence; but common-sense forbids I should call evil good, deify my errors, and give thanks for what befalls me solely through my own fault.
Bare posts hacked to the ground were all that remained of Fort Gibraltar's old wall. I had not gone many paces across the former courtyard, when voices sounded from the gravel-pit that had once done duty as a cellar. The next thing I noticed was the shaggy face of Louis Laplante bobbing above the ground. With other vagabond wanderers, the Frenchman had evidently been rummaging old Nor'-West vaults.
"Tra-la, comrade," he shouted, leaping out of the cellar as soon as he saw me. "I, Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, am resurrecting. I was a Plante! Now I'm aLouis d'or, fresh coined from the golden vein of dazzling wit.Once we were men, but they drowned us in a wine-barrel like your lucky dog of an English prince. Now we're earth-goblins re-incarnate! Behold gnomes of the mine! Knaves of the nethermost depths, tra-la! Vampires that suck the blood of whisky-cellars and float to the skies with dusky wings and dizzy heads! Laugh with us, old solemncholy! See the ground spin! Laugh, I say, or be a hitching-post, and we'll dance the May-pole round you! We're vampires, comrade, and you're our cousin, for you're a bat," and Louis applauded his joke with loud, tipsy laughter and staggered up to me drunk as a lord. His heavy breath and bloodshot eyes testified what he had found under the rubbish heaps of Fort Gibraltar's cellar. Embracing me with the affection of a long-lost brother, he rattled on with a befuddled, meaningless jargon.
"So the knife cut well, did it? And the Sioux did not eat you by inches, beginning with your thumbs? Ha! Très bien! Very good taste! You were not meant for feasts, my solemncholy? Some men are monuments. That's you, mine frien'! Some are champagne bottles that uncork, zip, fizz, froth, stars dancing round your head! That's me! 'Tis I, Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, am that champagne bottle!"
Pausing for breath, he drew himself erect with ridiculous pomposity. Now there are times when the bravest and wisest thing a brave and wise man can do is take to his heels. I have heard my Uncle Jack MacKenzie say that vice and liquor andfolly are best frustrated by flight; and all three seemed to be embodied in Louis Laplante that night. A stupid sort of curiosity made me dally with the mischief brewing in him, just as the fly plays with the spider-web, or the fish with a baited hook.
"There's a fountain-spout in Nor'-West vaults for those who know where to tap the spigot, eh, Louis?" I asked.
"I'm a Hudson's Bay man and to the conqueror comes the tribute," returned Louis, sweeping me a courtly bow.
"I hope such a generous conqueror draws all the tribute he deserves. Do you remember how you saved my life twice from the Sioux, Louis?"
"Generous," shouted the Frenchman, drawing himself up proudly, "generous to mine enemy, always magnificent, grand, superb, as becomes the son of a seigneur! Now I pay you back, rich, well, generous."
"Nonsense, Louis," I expostulated. "'Tis I who am in your debt. I owe you my life twice over. How shall I pay you?" and I made to go down to my canoe.
"Pay me?" demanded Louis, thrusting himself across my path in a menacing attitude. "Stand and pay me like a man!"
"I am standing," I laughed. "Now, how shall I pay you?"
"Strike!" ordered Louis, launching out a blow which I barely missed. "Strike, I say, for kicking me, the son of a seigneur, like a pig!"
At that, half a dozen more drunken vagabonds of the Hudson's Bay service reeled up from the cellar pit; and I began to understand I was in for as much mischief as a young man could desire. The fellows were about us in a circle, and now, that it was too late, I was quite prepared like the fly and the fish to seek safety in flight.
"Sink his canoe," suggested one; and I saw that borrowed craft swamped.
"Strike!Sacredie!I pay you back generous," roared Louis. "How can I, Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, strike a man who won't hit back?"
"And how can I strike a man who saved my life?" I urged, trying to mollify him. "See here, Louis, I'm on a message for my company to-night. I can't wait. Some other day you can pay me all you like—not to-night, some-other-time——"
"Some-oder-time! No—never! Some-oder-time—'tis the way I pay my own debts, always some-oder-time, and I never not pay at all. You no some-oder-time me, comrade! Louis knows some-oder-time too well! He quit his cups some-oder-time and he never quit, not at all! He quit wild Indian some-oder-time, and he never quit, not at all! And he go home and say his confess to the curé some-oder-time, and he never go, not at all! And he settle down with a wife and become a grand seigneur some-oder-time, and he never settle down at all!"
"Good night, Laplante! I have business forthe company. I must go," I interrupted, trying to brush through the group that surrounded us.
"So have we business for the company, the Hudson's Bay Company, and you can't go," chimed in one of the least intoxicated of the rival trappers; and they closed about me so that I had not striking room.
"Are you men looking for trouble?" I asked, involuntarily fingering my pistol belt.
"No—we're looking for the Nor'-West brigade billed to pass from Fort William to Athabasca," jeered the boldest of the crowd, a red-faced, middle-aged man with blear eyes. "We're looking for the Nor'-Westers' express," and he laughed insolently.
"You don't expect to find our brigades in Fort Gibraltar's cellar," said I, backing away from them and piecing this latest information to what I had already heard of plots and conspiracies.
Forthwith I felt strong hands gripping both my arms like a vise and the coils of a rope were about me with the swiftness of a lasso. My first impulse was to struggle against the outrage; but I was beginning to learn the service of open ears and a closed mouth was often more valuable than a fighter's blows. Already I had ascertained from their own lips that the Hudson's Bay intended to molest our north-bound brigade.
"Well," said I, with a laugh, which surprised the rascals mightily, "now you've captured your elephant, what do you propose to do with him?"
Without answering, the men shambled down tothe landing place of the fort, jostling me along between the red-faced man and Louis Laplante.
"I consider this a scurvy trick, Louis," said I. "You've let me into a pretty scrape with your idiotic heroics about paying back a fancied grudge. To save a mouse from the tigers, Louis, and then feed him to your cats! Fie, man! I like your son-of-a-seigneur ideas of honor!"
"Ingrate! Low-born ingrate," snapped the Frenchman, preparing to strike one of his dramatic attitudes, "if I were not the son of a seigneur, and you a man with bound arms, you should swallow those words," and he squared up to me for a second time. "If you won't fight, you shan't run away——"
"Off with your French brag," ordered the soberest of the Hudson's Bay men, catching Louis by the scruff of his coat and spinning him out of the way. "There'll be neither fighting nor running away. It is to Fort Douglas we'll take our fine spy."
The words stung, but I muffled my indignation.
"I'll go with pleasure," I returned, thinking that Frances Sutherland and Hamilton and Father Holland were good enough company to compensate for any captivity. "With pleasure, and 'tis not the first time I'll have found friends in the Hudson's Bay fort."
At that speech, the red-faced man, who seemed to be the ringleader, eyed me narrowly. We all embarked on a rickety raft, that would, I declare, have drowned any six sober men who riskedtheir lives on it; but drunk men and children seem to do what sober, grown folk may not are.
How Louis Laplante was for fighting a duelen routewith the man, who spoke of "French brag" and was only dissuaded from his purpose by the raft suddenly teetering at an angle of forty-five degrees with the water, which threatened to toboggan us all into mid-river; how I was then stationed in the centre and the other men distributed equally on each side of the raft to maintain balance; how we swung out into the Red, rocking with each shifting of the crew and were treated to a volley of objurgations from the red-faced man—I do not intend to relate. This sort of melodrama may be seen wherever there are drunken men, a raft and a river. The men poled only fitfully, and we were driven solely by the current. It was dark long before we had neared Fort Douglas and the waters swished past with an inky, glassy sheen that vividly recalled the murky pool about the beaver-dam. And yet I had no fear, but drifted along utterly indifferent to the termination of the freakish escapade in which I had become involved. Nature mercifully sets a limit to human capacity for suffering; and I felt I had reached that limit. Nothing worse could happen than had happened, at least, so I told myself, and I awaited with cynical curiosity what might take place inside the Hudson's Bay fort. Then a shaft of lantern light pierced the dark, striking aslant the river, and the menbegan poling hard for Fort Douglas wharf. We struck the landing with a bump, disembarked, passed the sentinel at the gate and were at the entrance to the main building.
"You kick me here," said Louis. "I pay you back here!"
"What are you going to do with him?" asked the soberest man of the red-faced leader.
"Hand him over to Governor Semple for a spy."
"The governor's abed. Besides, they don't want him about to hear H. B. secrets when the Nor'-West brigade's a-coming! You'd better get sobered up, yez hed! That's my advice to yez, before going to Governor Semple," and the prudent trapper led the way inside. To the fore was the main stairway, on the right the closed store, and on the left a small apartment which the governor had fitted up as a private office. For some unaccountable reason—the same reason, I suppose, that mischief is always awaiting the mischief-maker—the door to this office had been left ajar and a light burned inside. 'Twas Louis, ever alert, when mischief was abroad, who tip-toed over to the open door, poked his head in and motioned his drunken companions across the sacred precincts of Governor Semple's private room. I was loath to be a party to this mad nonsense, but the fly and the fish should have thought of results before venturing too near strange coils. The red-faced fellow gave me a push. The sober man muttered, "Better come, or they'll raise arow," and we were all within the forbidden place, the door shut and bolted.
To city folk, used to the luxuries of the east, I dare say that office would have seemed mean enough. But the men had been so long away from leather chairs, hair-cloth sofa, wall mirror, wine decanter and other odds and ends which furnish a gentleman's living apartments that the very memory of such things had faded, and that small room, with its old-country air, seemed the vestibule to another world.
"Sump—too—uss—ain't it?" asked the sober man with bated breath and obvious distrust of his tongue.
"Mag—nee—feque! M. Louis Laplante, look you there," cried the Frenchman, catching sight of his full figure in the mirror and instantly striking a pose of admiration. Then he twirled fiercely at both ends of his mustache till it stood out with the wire finish of a Parisian dandy.
The red-faced fellow had permitted me, with arms still tied, to walk across the room and sit on the hair-cloth sofa. He was lolling back in the governor's armchair, playing the lord and puffing one of Mr. Semple's fine pipes.
"We are gentlemen adventurers of the ancient and honorable Hudson's Bay Company, gentlemen adventurers," he roared, bringing his fist down with a thud on the desk. "We hereby decree that the Fort William brigade be captured, that the whisky be freely given to every dry-throated lad in the Hudson's Bay Company, thatthe Nor'-Westers be sent down the Red on a raft, that this meeting raftify this dissolution, afterwards moving—seconding—and unanimously amending——"
"Adjourning—you mean," interrupted one of the orator's audience.
"I say," called one, who had been dazed by the splendor, "how do you tell which is the lookin' glass and which is the window?" And he looked from the window on one side to its exact reflection, length and width, directly opposite.
The puzzle was left unsolved; for just then Louis Laplante found a flask of liquor and speedily divided its contents among the crowd—which was not calculated to clear up mysteries of windows and mirrors among those addle-pates. Dull wit may be sport for drunken men, but it is mighty flat to an onlooker, and I was out of patience with their carousal.
"The governor will be back here presently, Louis," said I.
"Tired of being a tombstone, ha—ha! Better be a champagne bottle!" he laughed with slightly thickened articulation and increased unsteadiness in his gait.
"If you don't hide that bottle in your hand, there'll be a big head and a sore head for you men to-morrow morning." I rose to try and get them out of the office; but a sober man with tied arms among a drunken crew is at a disadvantage.
"Ha—old—wise—sh—head! To—be—sh—shure! Whur—d'—y'—hide—it?"
"Throw it out of the window," said I, without the slightest idea of leading him into mischief.
"Whish—whish—ish—the window, Rufush?" asked Louis imploringly.
The last potion had done its work and Louis was passing from the jovial to the pensive stage. He would presently reach a mood which might be ugly enough for a companion in bonds. Was it this prospect, I wonder, or the mischievous spirit pervading the very air from the time I reached the ruins that suggested a way out of my dilemma?
"Throw it out of the window," said I, ignoring his question and shoving him off.
"Whish—ish—the window—dammie?" he asked, holding the bottle irresolutely and looking in befuddled distraction from side to side of the room.
"Thur—both—windows—fur as I see," said the man, who had been sober, but was no longer so.
"Throw it through the back window! Folks comin' in at the door won't see it."
The red-faced man got up to investigate, and all faith in my plan died within me; but the lantern light was dusky and the red-faced man could no longer navigate a course from window to mirror.
"There's a winder there," said he, scratching his head and looking at the window reflected in perfect proportion on the mirrored surface.
"And there's a winder there," he declared, pointing at the real window. "They're both winders and they're both lookin'-glasses, for I see us all in both of them. This place is haunted. Lem-me out!"
"Take thish, then," cried Louis, shoving the bottle towards him and floundering across to the door to bar the way. "Take thish, or tell me whish—ish—the window."
"Both winders, I tell you, and both lookin'-glasses," vowed the man. The other four fellows declined to express an opinion for the very good reason that two were asleep and two befuddled beyond questioning.
"See here, Louis," I exclaimed, "there's only one way to tell where to throw that bottle."
"Yesh, Rufush," and he came to me as if I were his only friend on earth.
"The bottle will go through the window and it won't go through the mirror," I began.
"Dammie—I knew that," he snapped out, ready to weep.
"Well—you undo these things," nodding to the ropes about my arms, "and I'll find out which opens, and the one that opens is the window, and you can throw out the bottle."
"The very thing, Rufush, wise—sh—head—old—old—ol' solemncholy," and he ripped the ropes off me.
Now I offer no excuse for what I did. I could have opened that window and let myself out some distance ahead of the bottle, without involvingLouis and his gang in greater mischief. What I did was not out of spite to the governor of a rival company; but mischief, as I said, was in the very air. Besides, the knaves had delayed me far into midnight, and I had no scruples about giving each twenty-four hours in the fort guardroom. I took a precautionary inspection of the window-sash. Yes, I was sure I could leap through, carrying out sash and all.
"Hurry—ol' tombshtone—governor—sh-comin'," urged Louis.
I made towards the window and fumbled at the sash.
"This doesn't open," said I, which was quite true, for I did not try to budge it. Then I went across to the mirror. "Neither does this," said I.
"Wha'—wha'—'ll—we do—Rufush?"
"I'll tell you. You can jump through a window but not through a glass. Now you count—one two—three,"—this to the red-faced man—"and when you say 'three' I'll give a run and jump. If I fall back, you'll know it's the mirror, and fling the bottle quick through the other. Ready, count!"
"One," said the red-faced man.
Louis raised his arm and I prepared for a dash.
"Two!"
Louis brought back his arm to gain stronger sweep.
"Three!"
I gave a leap and made as though I had fallenback. There was the pistol-shot splintering of bottle and mirror crashing down to the floor. The window frame gave with a burst, and I was outside rushing past the sleepy sentinel, who poured out a volley of curses after me.
As well play pussy-wants-a-corner with a tiger as make-believe war with an Indian. In both cases the fun may become ghastly earnest with no time for cry-quits. So it was with the great fur-trading companies at the beginning of this century. Each held the Indian in subjection and thought to use him with daring impunity against its rival. And each was caught in the meshes of its own merry game.
I, as a Nor'-Wester, of course, consider that the lawless acts of the Hudson's Bay had been for three years educating the natives up to the tragedy of June 19, 1816. But this is wholly a partisan, opinion. Certainly both companies have lied outrageously about the results of their quarrels. The truth is Hudson's Bay and Nor'-Westers were playing war with the Indian. Consequences having exceeded all calculation, both companies would fain free themselves of blame.
For instance, it has been said the Hudson's Bay people had no intention of intercepting the North-West brigade bound up the Red and Assiniboine for the interior—this assertion despite the fact our rivals had pillaged every North-Westfort that could be attacked. Now I acknowledge the Nor'-Westers disclaim hostile purpose in the rally of three hundredBois-Brulésto the Portage; but this sits not well with the warlike appearance of these armed plain rangers, who sallied forth to protect the Fort William express. Nor does it agree with the expectations of the Indian rabble, who flocked on our rear like carrion birds keen for the spoils of battle. Both companies had—as it were—leveled and cocked their weapon. To send it off needed but a spark, and a slight misunderstanding ignited that spark.
My arrival at the Portage had the instantaneous effect of sending two strong battalions ofBois-Bruléshot-foot across country to meet the Fort William express before it could reach Fort Douglas. They were to convoy it overland to a point on the Assiniboine where it could be reshipped. To the second of these parties, I attached myself. I was anxious to attempt a visit to Hamilton. There was some one else whom I hoped to find at Fort Douglas; so I refused to rest at the Portage, though I had been in my saddle almost constantly for twenty days.
When we set out, I confess I did not like the look of things. Those Indians smeared with paint and decked out with the feathered war-cap kept increasing to our rear. There were the eagles! Where was the carcass? The presence of these sinister fellows, hot with the lust of blood, had ominous significance. Among the half-breeds there was unconcealed excitement.
Shortly before we struck off the Assiniboine trail northward for the Red, in order to meet the expected brigade beyond Fort Douglas, some of our people slipped back to the Indian rabble. When they reappeared, they were togged out in native war-gear with too many tomahawks and pistols for the good of those who might interfere with our mission. There was no misunderstanding the ugly temper of the men. Here, I wish to testify that explicit orders were given for the forces to avoid passing near Fort Douglas, or in any way provoking conflict. There was placed in charge of our division the most powerful plain-ranger in the service of the company, the one person of all others, who might control the natives in case of an outbreak—and that man was Cuthbert Grant. Pierre, the minstrel, and six clerks were also in the party; but what could a handful of moderate men do with a horde of Indians and Metis wrought up to a fury of revenge?
"Now, deuce take those rascals! What are they doing?" exclaimed Grant angrily, as we left the river trail and skirted round a slough of Frog Plains on the side remote from Fort Douglas. Our forces were following in straggling disorder. The first battalions of theBois-Brulés, which had already rounded the marsh, were now in the settlement on Red River bank. It was to them that Grant referred. Commanding a halt and raising his spy-glass, he took an anxious survey of the foreground.
"There's something seriously wrong," he said."Strikes me we're near a powder mine! Here, Gillespie, you look!" He handed the field-glass to me.
A great commotion was visible among the settlers. Ox-carts packed with people were jolting in hurried confusion towards Fort Douglas. Behind, tore a motley throng of men, women and children, running like a frightened flock of sheep. Whatever the cause of alarm, our men were not molesting them; for I watched the horsemen proceeding leisurely to the appointed rendezvous, till the last rider disappeared among the woods of the river path.
"Scared! Badly scared! That's all, Grant," said I. "You've no idea what wild stories are going the rounds of the settlement about theBois-Brulés!"
"And you've no idea, young man, what wild stories are going the rounds of theBois-Brulésabout the settlement," was Grant's moody reply.
My chance acquaintance with the Assiniboine encampment had given me some idea, but I did not tell Grant so.
"Perhaps they've taken a few old fellows prisoners to ensure the fort's good behavior, while we save our bacon," I suggested.
"If they have, those Highlanders will go to Fort Douglas shining bald as a red ball," answered the plain-ranger.
In this, Grant did his people injustice; for of those prisoners taken by the advance guard, not a hair of their heads was injured. The warden wasnervously apprehensive. This was unusual with him; and I have since wondered if his dark forebodings arose from better knowledge of theBois-Brulésthan I possessed, or from some premonition.
"There'd be some reason for uneasiness, if you weren't here to control them, Grant," said I, nodding towards the Indians and Metis.
"One man against a host! What can I do?" he asked gloomily.
"Good gracious, man! Do! Why, do what you came to do! Whatever's the matter with you?"
The swarthy face had turned a ghastly, yellowish tint and he did not answer.
"'Pon my honor," I exclaimed. "Are you ill, man?"
"'Tisn't that! When I went to sleep, last night, there were—corpses all round me. I thought I was in a charnel house and——"
"Good gracious, Grant!" I shuddered out. "Don't you go off your head next! Leave that for us green chaps! Besides, the Indians were raising stench enough with a dog-stew to fill any brain with fumes. For goodness' sake, let's go on, meet those fellows with the brigade, secure that express and get off this 'powder mine'—as you call it."
"By all means!" Grant responded, giving the order, and we moved forward but only at snail pace; for I think he wanted to give the settlers plenty of time to reach the fort.
By five o'clock in the afternoon we had almost rounded the slough and were gradually closing towards the wooded ground of the river bank. We were within ear-shot of the settlers. They were flying past with terrified cries of "The half-breeds! The half-breeds!" when I heard Grant groan from sheer alarm and mutter—
"Look! Look! The lambs coming to meet the wolves!"
To this day I cannot account for the madness of the thing. There, some twenty, or thirty Hudson's Bay men—mere youths most of them—were coming with all speed to head us off from the river path, at a wooded point called Seven Oaks. What this pigmy band thought it could do against our armed men, I do not know. The blunder on their part was so unexpected and inexcusable, it never dawned on us the panic-stricken settlers had spread a report of raid, and these poor valiant defenders had come out to protect the colony. If that be the true explanation of their rash conduct in tempting conflict, what were they thinking about to leave the walls of their fort during danger? My own opinion is that with Lord Selkirk's presumptuous claims to exclusive possession in Red River and the recent high-handed success of the Hudson's Bay, the men of Fort Douglas were so flushed with pride they did not realize the risk of a brush with theBois-Brulés. Much, too, may be attributed to Governor Semple's inexperience; but it was very evident the purpose of the force deliberatelyblocking our path was not peaceable. If the Hudson's Bay blundered in coming out to challenge us, so did we, I frankly admit; for we regarded the advance as an audacious trick to hold us back till the Fort William express could be captured.
Now that the thing he feared had come, all hesitancy vanished from Grant's manner. Steeled and cool like the leader he was, he sternly commanded the surging Metis to keep back. Straggling Indians and half-breeds dashed to our fore-ranks with the rush of a tempest and chafed hotly against the warden. At a word from Grant, the men swung across the enemy's course sickle-shape; but they were furious at this disciplined restraint. From horn to horn of the crescent, rode the plain-ranger, lashing horses back to the circle and shaking his fist in the quailing face of many a bold rebel.
Both sides advanced within a short distance of each other. We could see that Governor Semple, himself, was leading the Hudson's Bay men. Immediately, Boucher, a North-West clerk, was sent forward to parley. Now, I hold the Nor'-Westers would not have done that if their purpose had been hostile; but Boucher rode out waving his hand and calling—
"What do you want? What do you want?"
"What do you want, yourself?" came Governor Semple's reply with some heat and not a little insolence.
"We want our fort," demanded Boucher,slightly taken aback, but thoroughly angered. His horse was prancing restively within pistol range of the governor.
"Go to your fort, then! Go to your fort!" returned Semple with stinging contempt in manner and voice.
He might as well have told us to go to Gehenna; for the fort was scattered to the four winds.
"The fool!" muttered Grant. "The fool! Let him answer for the consequences. Their blood be on their own heads."
Whether theBois-Brulés, who had lashed their horses into a lather of foam and were cursing out threats in the ominous undertone that precedes a storm-burst, now encroached upon the neutral ground in spite of Grant, or were led gradually forward by the warden as the Hudson's Bay governor's hostility increased, I did not in the excitement of the moment observe. One thing is certain, while the quarrel between the Hudson's Bay governor and the North-West clerk was becoming more furious, our surging cohorts were closing in on the little band like an irresistible tidal wave. I could make out several Hudson's Bay faces, that seemed to remind me of my Fort Douglas visit; but of the rabble of Nor'-Westers andBois-Brulésdisguised in hideous war-gear, I dare avow not twenty of us were recognizable.
"Miserable rogue!" Boucher was shouting, utterly beside himself with rage and flourishing his gun directly over the governor's head, "Miserable rogue! Why have you destroyed our fort?"
"Call him off, Grant! Call him off, or it's all up!" I begged, seeing the parley go from bad to worse; but Grant was busy with theBois-Brulésand did not hear.
"Wretch!" Governor Semple exclaimed in a loud voice. "Dare you to speak so to me!" and he caught Boucher's bridle, throwing the horse back on its haunches.
Boucher, agile as a cat, slipped to the ground.
"Arrest him, men!" commanded the governor. "Arrest him at once!"
But the clerk was around the other side of the horse, with his gun leveled across its back.
Whether, when Boucher jumped down, our bloodthirsty knaves thought him shot and broke from Grant's control to be avenged, or whether Lieutenant Holt of the Hudson's Bay at that unfortunate juncture discharged his weapon by accident, will never be known.
Instantaneously, as if by signal, our men with a yell burst from the ranks, leaped from their saddles and using horses as breast-work, fired volley after volley into the governor's party. The neighing and plunging of the frenzied horses added to the tumult. The Hudson's Bay men were shouting out incoherent protest; but what they said was drowned in the shrill war-cry of the Indians. Just for an instant, I thought I recognized one particular voice in that shrieking babel, which flashed back memory of loud, derisive laughter over a camp fire and at the buffalo hunt; but all else was forgotten in the terrible consciousness that ourmen's murderous onslaught was deluging the prairie with innocent blood.
Throwing himself between theBois-Brulésand the retreating band, the warden implored his followers to grant truce. As well plead with wild beasts. The half-breeds were deaf to commands, and in vain their leader argued with blows. The shooting had been of a blind sort, and few shots did more than wound; but the natives were venting the pent-up hate of three years and would give no quarter. From musketry volleys the fight had become hand-to-hand butchery.
I had dismounted and was beating the scoundrels back with the butt end of my gun, begging, commanding, abjuring them to desist, when a Hudson's Bay youth swayed forward and fell wounded at my feet. There was the baffled, anguished scream of some poor wounded fellow driven to bay, and I saw Laplante across the field, covered with blood, reeling and staggering back from a dozen red-skin furies, who pressed upon their fagged victim, snatching at his throat like hounds at the neck of a beaten stag. With a bound across the prostrate form of the youth, I ran to the Frenchman's aid. Louis saw me coming and struck out so valiantly, the wretched cowards darted back just as I have seen a miserable pack of open-mouthed curs dodge the last desperate sweep of antlered head. That gave me my chance, and I fell on their rear with all the might I could put in my muscle, bringing the flat of my gun down with a crash on crested head-toggery,and striking right and left at Louis' assailants.
"Ah—mon Dieu—comrade," sobbed Louis, falling in my arms from sheer exhaustion, while the tears trickled down in a white furrow over his blood-splashed cheeks, "mon Dieu—comrade, but you pay me back generous!"
"Tutts, man, this is no time for settling old scores and playing the grand! Run for your life. Run to the woods and swim the river!" With that, I flung him from me; for I heard the main body of our force approaching. "Run," I urged, giving the Frenchman a push.
"The run—ha—ha—my old spark," laughed Louis with a tearful, lack-life sort of mirth, "the run—it has all run out," and with a pitiful reel down he fell in a heap.
I caught him under the armpits, hoisted him to my shoulders, and made with all speed for the wooded river bank. My pace was a tumble more than a run down the river cliff, but I left the man at the very water's edge, where he could presently strike out for the far side and regain Fort Douglas by swimming across again. Then I hurried to the battle-field in search of the wounded youth whom I had left. As I bent above him, the poor lad rolled over, gazing up piteously with the death-look on his face; and I recognized the young Nor'-Wester who had picked flowers with me for Frances Sutherland and afterwards deserted to the Hudson's Bay. The boy moaned and moved his lips as if speaking, but I heard nosound. Stooping on one knee, I took his head on the other and bent to listen; but he swooned away. Afraid to leave him—for the savages were wreaking indescribable barbarities on the fallen—I picked him up. His arms and head fell back limply as if he were dead, and holding him thus, I again dashed for the fringe of woods. Rogers of the Hudson's Bay staggered against me wounded, with both hands thrown up ready to surrender. He was pleading in broken French for mercy; but two half-breeds, one with cocked pistol, the other with knife, rushed upon him. I turned away that I might not see; but the man's unavailing entreaties yet ring in my ears. Farther on, Governor Semple lay, with lacerated arm and broken thigh. He was calling to Grant, "I'm not mortally wounded! If you could get me conveyed to the fort I think I would live!"
Then I got away from the field and laid my charge in the woods. Poor lad! The pallor of death was on every feature. Tearing open his coat and taking letters from an inner pocket to send to relatives, I saw a knife-stab in his chest, which no mortal could survive. Battle is pitiless. I hurriedly left the dying boy and went back to the living, ordering a French half-breed to guard him.
"See that no one mutilates this body," said I, "and I'll reward you."
My shout seemed to recall the lad's consciousness. Whether he fully understood the terrible significance of my words, I could not tell; but heopened his eyes with a reproachful glazed stare; and that was the last I saw of him.
Knowing Grant would have difficulty in obtaining carriers for Governor Semple, and only too anxious to gain access to Fort Douglas, I ran with haste towards the recumbent form of the fallen leader. Grant was at some distance scouring the field for reliable men, and while I was yet twenty or thirty yards away an Indian glided up.
"Dog!" he hissed in the prostrate man's face. "You have caused all this! You shall not live! Dog that you are!"
Then something caught my feet. I stumbled and fell. There was the flare of a pistol shot in Governor Semple's face and a slight cry. The next moment I was by his side. The shot had taken effect in the breast. The body was yet hot with life; but there was neither breath, nor heart beat.
A few of the Hudson's Bay band gained hiding in the shrubbery and escaped by swimming across to the east bank of the Red, but the remnant tried to reach the fort across the plain. Calling me, Grant, now utterly distracted, directed his efforts to this quarter. I with difficulty captured my horse and galloped off to join the warden. Our riders were circling round something not far from the fort walls and Grant was tearing over the prairie, commanding them to retire. It seems, when Governor Semple discovered the strength of our forces, he sent some of his men back to Fort Douglas for a field-piece. Poor Semplewith his European ideas of Indian warfare! TheBois-Brulésdid not wait for that field-piece. The messengers had trundled it out only a short distance from the gateway, when they met the fugitives flying back with news of the massacre. Under protection of the cannon, the men made a plucky retreat to the fort, though theBois-Brulésharassed them to the very walls. This disappearance—or rather extermination—of the enemy, as well as the presence of the field-gun, which was a new terror to the Indians, gave Grant his opportunity. He at once rounded the men up and led them off to Frog Plains, on the other side of the swamp. Here we encamped for the night, and were subsequently joined by the first division ofBois-Brulés.