When he awoke the sun was high over the lake, and Musq'oosis had gone. A bag of tobacco was lying in his place.
At this era the "settlement" at the head of Caribou Lake consisted of the "French outfit," the "company post," the French Mission, the English Mission, and the police barracks, which last housed as many as three troopers.
These various establishments were strung around the shore of Beaver Bay for a distance of several miles. A few native shacks were attached to each. The principal group of buildings was comprised in the company post, which stood on a hill overlooking the bay, and still wore a military air, though the palisades had been torn down these many years.
The French outfit, the rival concern, was a much humbler affair. It stood half-way on the short stream which connects Beaver Bay with the lake proper, and was the first establishment reached by the travellerfrom outside. It consisted of two little houses built of lumber from the mission sawmill; the first house contained the store, the other across the road was known as the "Kitchen."
Mahooley pointed to them with pride as the only houses north of the landing built of boards, but they had a sad and awkward look there in the wilderness, notwithstanding.
Within the store of the French outfit, Stiffy, the trader, was audibly totting up his accounts in his little box at the rear, while Mahooley, his associate, sat with his chair tipped back and his heels on the cold stove. Their proper names were Henry Stiff and John Mahool, but as Stiffy and Mahooley they were known from Miwasa Landing to Fort Ochre.
The shelves of the store were sadly depleted; never was a store open for business with so little in it. A few canned goods of ancient vintages and a bolt or two of coloured cotton were all that could be seen. Nevertheless, the French outfit was a factor to be reckoned with.
There was no fur going now, and the astute Stiffy and Mahooley were content to let custom pass their door. Later on they would reach out for it.
Mahooley was bored and querulous. This was the dullest of dull seasons, for the natives were off pitching on their summer grounds, and travel from the outside world had not yet started.
Stiffy and Mahooley were a pair of "good hard guys," but here the resemblance ended. Stiffy was dry, scanty-haired, mercantile; Mahooley was noisy, red-faced, of a fleshly temperament, and a wag, according to his lights.
"I'd give a dollar for a new newspaper," growled Mahooley.
"That's you, always grousin' for nothin' to do!" said his partner. "Why don't you keep busy like me?"
"Say, if I was like you I'd walk down to the river here and I'd get in the scow and I'd push off, and when I got in the middle I'd say, 'Lord, crack this nut if you can! It's too much for me!' and I'd step off."
"Ah, shut up! You've made me lose a whole column!"
"Go to hell!"
Thus they bickered endlessly to pass the time.
Suddenly the door opened and a stranger entered, a white man.
As a rule, the slightest disturbance of their routine was heralded in advance by "moccasin telegraph," and this was like a bolt from the blue. Mahooley's chair came to the floor with a thump.
"Well, I'm damned!" he said, staring.
Stiffy came quickly out of his little box to see what was up.
"How are you?" began the stranger youth diffidently.
"Who the hell are you?" asked Mahooley.
"Sam Gladding."
"Is the York boat in? Nobody told me."
"No, I walked around the lake."
Mahooley looked him over from his worn-out moccasins to his bare head. "Well, you didn't bring much with you," he observed.
Sam frowned to hide his rising blushes. He offered the rabbit-skin robe to create a diversion.
"Musq'oosis sent it, eh?" said Mahooley. "Put it on the counter."
Sam came back to the red-faced man. "Can you give me a job?" he asked firmly.
"Hey, Stiffy," growled Mahooley. "Look what's askin' for a job!"
Stiffy laughed heartily. Thus he propitiated his irritable partner. It didn't cost anything. Sam, blushing, set his jaw and stood it out.
"What can you do?" Mahooley demanded.
"Any hard work."
"You don't look like one of these here Hercules."
"Try me."
"Lord, man!" said Mahooley. "Don't you see me here twiddling my thumbs. What for should I hire anybody? To twiddle 'em for me, maybe."
"You'll have a crowd here soon," persisted Sam. "Four men on their way in to take up land, and others following. There's a surveying gang coming up the river, too."
"Moreover, you ain't got good sense," Mahooley went on. "Comin' to a country like this without an outfit. Not so much as a chaw of bacon, or a blanket to lay over you nights. There ain't no free lunch up north, kid. What'll you do if I don't give you a job?"
"Go to the company," returned Sam.
"Go to the company?" cried Mahooley. "Go to hell, you mean. The company don't hire no tramps. That's a military organization, that is. Their men are hired and broke in outside. So what'll you do now?"
"I'll make out somehow," said Sam.
"There ain't no make out to it!" cried Mahooley, exasperated. "You ain't even got an axe to swing. There ain't nothin' for you but starve."
"Well, then, I'll bid you good day," said Sam stiffly.
"Hold on!" shouted the trader. "I ain't done with you yet. Is that manners, when you're askin' for a job?"
"You said you didn't have anything," muttered Sam.
"Never mind what I said. I ast you what you were goin' to do."
The badgered one began to bristle a little. "What's that to you?" he asked, scowling.
"A whole lot!" cried Mahooley. "You fellows have no consideration. You're always comin' up here and starvin' on us. Do you think that's nice for me? Why, the last fellow left a little pile of white bones beside the trail on the way to my girl's house, after the coyotes picked him clean. Every time I go up there I got to turn my head the other way."
Sam smiled stiffly at Mahooley's humour.
"Can you cook?" the trader asked.
Sam's heart sank. "So-so," he said.
"Well, I suppose I've got to let you cook for us and for the gang that's comin'. You'll find everything in the kitchen across the road. Go and get acquainted with it. By Gad! you can be thankful you run up against a soft-hearted man like me."
Sam murmured an inquiry concerning wages.
"Wages!" roared Mahooley with an outraged air. "Stiffy, would you look at what's askin' for wages! Go on, man! You're damned lucky if you get a skinful of grub every day. Grub comes high up here!"
Sam reflected that it would be well to submit until he learned the real situation in the settlement. "All right," he said, and turned to go.
"Hold on," cried Mahooley. "You ain't ast what we'll have for dinner."
Sam waited for instructions.
"Well, let me see," said Mahooley. He tipped a wink in his partner's direction. "What's your fancy, Stiffy."
"Oh, I leave the mean-you to you, Mahooley."
"Well, I guess you can give us some patty de foy grass, and squab on toast, and angel cake."
"Sure," said Sam. "How about abiscuit Tortonifor dessert?"
"Don't you give me no lip!" cried Mahooley.
On the fourth day thereafter the long tedium of existence in the settlement began to be broken in earnest. Before they could digest the flavour of one event, something else happened. In the afternoon word came down to Stiffy and Mahooley that the bishop had arrived at the French Mission, bringing the sister of the company trader's wife under his care.
Likewise the Indian agent and the doctor had come to the police post. The whole party had arrived on horseback from the Tepiskow Lake district, where they had visited the Indians. Their boat was held up down the lake by adverse winds.
Before Stiffy and Mahooley had a chance to see any of these arrivals or hear their news, quite an imposing caravan hove in view across the river from the store, and shouted lustily for the ferry.
There were four wagons, each drawn by a good team, beside half a dozen loose horses. The horses were in condition, the wagons well laden. The entire outfit had a well-to-do air that earned the traders' respect even from across the river. Of the four men, one carried his arm in a sling.
Stiffy and Mahooley ferried them across team by team in the scow they kept for the purpose. The four hardy and muscular travellers were men according to the traders' understanding. They used the same scornful, jocular, profane tongue. Their very names were arecommendation: Big Jack Skinner, Black Shand Fraser, Husky Marr, and Young Joe Hagland, the ex-pugilist.
After the horses had been turned out to graze, they all gathered in the store for a gossip. The newcomers talked freely about their journey in, and its difficulties, avoiding only a certain period of their stay at Nine-Mile Point, and touching very briefly on their meeting with the Bishop. Something sore was hidden here.
When the bell rang for supper they trooped across the road. The kitchen in reality consisted of a mess-room downstairs with a dormitory overhead; the actual kitchen was in a lean-to behind. When the six men had seated themselves at the long trestle covered with oilcloth, the cook entered with a steaming bowl of rice.
Now, the cook had observed the new arrivals from the kitchen window, and had hardened himself for the meeting, but the travellers were unprepared. They stared at him, scowling. An odd silence fell on the table.
Mahooley looked curiously from one to another. "Do you know him?" he demanded.
Big Jack quickly recovered himself. He banged the table, and bared his big yellow teeth in a grin.
"On my soul, it's Sammy!" he cried. "How the hell did he get here? Here's Sammy, boys! What do you know about that! Sammy, the White Slave!"
A huge laugh greeted this sally. Sam set his jaw and doggedly went on bringing in the food.
"How are you, Sam?" asked Jack with mock solicitude. "Have you recovered from your terrible experience, poor fellow? My! My! That was an awful thing to happen to a good boy!"
Mahooley, laughing and highly mystified, demanded: "What's the con, boys?"
"Ain't you heard the story?" asked Jack with feigned surprise. "How that poor young boy was carried off by a brutal girl and kep' prisoner on an island?"
"Go 'way!" cried Mahooley, delighted.
"Honest to God he was!" affirmed Jack.
Joe and Husky not being able to think of any original contributions of wit, rang all the changes on "Sammy, the White Slave!" with fresh bursts of laughter. Shand said nothing. He laughed harshly.
"Who was the girl?" asked Mahooley.
They told him.
"Bela Charley!" he exclaimed. "The best looker on the lake! She has the name of a man-hater."
"I dare say," said Jack with a serious air. "But his fatal beauty was too much for her. You got to hand it to him for his looks, boys," he added, calling general attention to the tight-lipped Sam in his apron. "This here guy, Apollo, didn't have much on our Sam."
A highly coloured version of the story followed. In it Big Jack and his mates figured merely as disinterested onlookers. The teller, stimulated by applause, surpassed himself. They could not contain their mirth.
"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" cried Mahooley. "This is the richest I ever heard! It will never be forgotten!"
Sam went through with the meal, gritting his teeth, and crushing down the rage that bade fair to suffocate him. He disdained to challenge Jack's equivocal tale. The laughter of one's friends is hard enough to bear sometimes, still, it may be borne with a grin; but when it rings with scarcely concealed hate it stings like whips.
Sam was supposed to sit down at the table with them, but he would sooner have starved. The effort of holding himself in almost finished him.
When finally he cleared away, Mahooley said: "Come on and tell us your side now."
"Go to hell!" muttered Sam, and walked out of the back door.
He strode up the road without knowing or caring where he was going. He was moved merely by the impulse to put distance between him and his tormentors.
Completely and terribly possessed by his rage, as youths are, he felt that it would kill him if he could not do something to fight his way out of the hateful position he was in. But what could he do? He couldn't even sleep out of doors because he lacked a blanket. His poverty had him by the heels.
He came to himself to find that he was staring at the buildings of the company establishment mounted on a little hill. This was a mile from the French outfit. The sight suggested a possible way out of his difficulties. With an effort he collected his faculties and turned in.
The buildings formed three sides of a square open to a view across the bay. On Sam's left was the big warehouse; on the other side the store faced it, and the trader's house, behind a row of neat palings, closed the top. All the buildings were constructed of squared logs whitewashed. A lofty flagpole rose from the centre of the little square, with a tiny brass cannon at its base.
Sam saw the trader taking the air on his veranda with two ladies. The neat fence, the gravel path, the flower-beds, had a strange look in that country. A keen feeling of homesickness attacked the unhappy Sam. As he approached the veranda one of the ladies seemed vaguely familiar. She glided toward him with extended hand.
"Mr. Gladding!" she exclaimed. "So you got here before us. Glad to see you!" In a lower voice she added: "I wanted to tell you how much I sympathized with you the other day, but I had no chance. So glad you got out of it all right. I knew from the first that you were not to blame."
Sam was much taken aback. He bowed awkwardly. What did the woman want of him? Her over-impressive voice simply confused him. While she detained him, his eyes were seeking the trader.
"Can I speak to you?" he asked.
The other man rose. "Sure!" he said. "Come into the house."
He led the way into an office, and, turning, looked Sam over with a quizzical smile. His name was Gilbert Beattie, and he was a tall, lean, black Scotchman, in equal parts good-natured and grim.
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
"Give me a job," replied Sam abruptly. "Anything."
"Aren't you working for the French outfit?"
"For my keep. That will never get me anywhere. I might as well be in slavery."
"Sorry," said Beattie. "This place is run in a different way. 'The Service,' we call it. The young fellows are indentured by the head office and sent to school, so to speak. I can't hire anybody without authority. You should have applied outside."
Sam's lip curled a little. A lot of good it did telling him that now.
"You seem to have made a bad start all around," Beattie continued, meaning it kindly. "Running away with that girl, or whichever way it was. That is hardly a recommendation to an employer."
"It wasn't my fault!" growled Sam desperately.
"Come, now," said Beattie, smiling. "You're not going to put it off on the girl, are you?"
Sam bowed, and made his way out of the house. As he returned down the path he saw Miss Mackall leaning on the gatepost, gazing out toward the sinking sun over Beaver Bay. There was no way of avoiding her.
She started slightly as he came behind her, and turned the face of a surprised dreamer. Seeing who it was, she broke into a winning smile, albeit a little sad, too. All this pretty play was lost on Sam, because he wasn't looking at her.
"It's you!" murmured Miss Mackall. "I had lost myself!"
Sam endeavoured to sidle around the gate. She laid a restraining hand upon it.
"Wait a minute," she said. "I want to speak to you. Oh, it's nothing at all, but I was sorry I had no chance the other day. It seemed to me as I looked at you standing there alone, that you needed a friend!"
"A friend!"—the word released a spring in Sam's overwrought breast. For the first time he looked full at her with warm eyes. God knew he needed a friend if ever a young man did.
Miss Mackall, observing the effect of her word, repeated it. "Such a humiliating position for a manly man to be placed in!" she went on.
Sam's heart expanded with gratitude. "That was kind of you," he murmured.
It did not occur to him that her position against the gatepost was carefully studied; that the smile was cloying, and that behind the inviting friendliness of her eyes lay the anxiety of a woman growing old. It was enough that she offered him kindness. Both the gift and the giver seemed beautiful.
"There is a bond between us!" she went on, half coquettish, half serious. "I felt it from the first moment I saw you. Arriving together as we did, in a strange and savage country. Ugh!"—a delicate shudder here. "You and I are not like these people. We must be friends!"
A humiliated and sore-hearted youth will swallow more than this. Sam lingered by the gate. At the same time, somewhere within, was a dim consciousness that it was not very nutritious food.
But it went to the right spot. It renewed his faith in himself a little. It gave him courage to face the night that he knew awaited him in the dormitory.
Events still followed fast at the settlement. Next morning a native came in to Stiffy and Mahooley's with the information that two York boats were coming up the lake in company. One was enough to make a gala day. Later came word that they had landed at Grier's Point. This was two miles east.
Owing to low water in the lake, laden boats could not come closer in. The first was the police boat, with supplies for the post and for the Indian agent. The second carried the Government surveyors, six strong, and forty hundredweight of implements and grub.
Presently the surveyors themselves arrived at the store, making a larger party of white men than had ever before gathered on Caribou Lake. The natives were in force also. Seeming to spring from nowhere, they gathered in quite a big crowd outside the store and peered through the windows at their betters.
Within, a great gossip was in progress. Especially was the story of Sammy, the White Slave, told and retold, amid uncontrollable laughter. At dinner-time they adjourned to the kitchen in a body to have a lookat the hero or victim of the tale, according to the way you looked at it.
It was considered that Sam did not take the chaffing in very good part, but they had to confess that he fed them adequately.
As soon afterward as riding horses could be secured, the whole party, excepting the traders, rode off around Beaver Bay. The Government land was to be laid off on the other side, and Big Jack and his pals were looking for locations there. As Graves, the chief surveyor, was mounting his horse, Mahooley said to him casually:
"How about freighting your outfit around?"
"Oh, that's all arranged for," was the answer.
Mahooley shrugged, supposing that the company had secured the contract outside.
When the excitement of the departure died away, Mahooley for the first time perceived a squat little figure in a blanket capote sitting patiently on the platform in front of the store.
"Musq'oosis!" he exclaimed. "Blest if I didn't overlook you in the shuffle. How did you come?"
"Graves bring me in his boat," Musq'oosis answered.
"Come on in."
"I come get trade for my rabbit-skin robe."
"Sure, what'll you have?"
"W'at you got?"
"Damn little. Take your choice."
After due observance on both sides of the time-honoured rules of bargaining, the matter was concluded, and Musq'oosis made a feint of gathering up his bundles. As a matter of fact, the old man had not yet reached what he had come for.
"What's your hurry?" said Mahooley. "Sit and talk a while."
This was not pure friendliness on the trader's part.He had a particular reason for wishing to cultivate the old Indian.
Musq'oosis allowed himself to be persuaded.
"Where's Bela?" asked Mahooley.
"Home."
"What's all this talk about her carrying off the cook?"
Musq'oosis shrugged. "Fellas got talk."
"Well, what are the rights of the case?"
"I don't know," he returned indifferently. "I not there. I guess I go see Beattie now."
"Sit down," said Mahooley. "What do you want to see Beattie for? Why don't you trade with me? Why don't you tell all the Fish-Eaters to come here? They do what you tell them."
"Maybe," said Musq'oosis, "but we always trade wit' Beattie."
"Time you made a change then. He thinks he's got you cinched."
"Gilbert Beattie my good friend."
"Hell! Ain't I your friend, too? You don't know me. Have a cigar. Sit down. What do you want to see Beattie about in such a rush?"
"I goin' buy team and wagon," said Musq'oosis calmly.
Mahooley laughed. "What are you goin' to do with it? I never heard of you as a driver."
"I goin' hire driver," asserted Musq'oosis. "I sit down; let ot'er man work for me. So I get rich."
This seemed more and more humorous to Mahooley.
"That's the right ticket," he said. "But where will you get the business for your team?"
By way of answer Musq'oosis produced a folded paper from inside the capote. Opening it, Mahooley read:
This is to certify that I have awarded the Indian Musq'oosis the contract to freight all my supplies from Grier's Point to my camp on Beaver Bay during the coming summer at twenty-five cents per hundredweight.
This is to certify that I have awarded the Indian Musq'oosis the contract to freight all my supplies from Grier's Point to my camp on Beaver Bay during the coming summer at twenty-five cents per hundredweight.
Richard Graves,
Dominion Surveyor.
Mahooley whistled. This was no longer a joke. He looked at the old man with new respect.
"Well, that's a sharp trick," he said. "How did you get it?"
"Graves my friend," replied Musq'oosis with dignity. "We talk moch comin' up. He say I got good sense." The old man got up.
"Sit down!" cried Mahooley. "I got as good horses as the company."
"Want too much price, I t'ink," said Musq'oosis.
"Let's talk it over. There's my black team, Sambo and Dinah."
This was what Musq'oosis wanted, but nothing of his desire showed in his face. "Too small," he said.
"Small nothing!" cried Mahooley. "Those horses are bred in the country. They will thrive on shavings. They run out all winter."
"How moch wit' wagon and harness?" asked Musq'oosis indifferently.
"Six hundred and fifty."
"Wa!" said Musq'oosis. "You t'ink you got race-horses. I give five-fifty."
"Nothing doing!"
"All right, I go see Beattie."
"Hold on."
Thus it raged back and forth all afternoon. Half a dozen times they went out to look at the horses. Musq'oosis had to admit they were a nervy pair, though small. A dozen times the negotiations were called off, only to be renewed again.
"Be reasonable," said Mahooley plaintively. "I suppose you want a year's credit. I've got to count that."
"I pay cash," said Musq'oosis calmly.
Mahooley stared. "Where the hell will you get it?"
"I got it now."
"Let me see it."
Musq'oosis declined.
Mahooley finally came down to six hundred, and Musq'oosis went up to five-seventy-eight. There they stuck for an hour.
"Five-seventy-eight!" said Mahooley sarcastically. "Why don't you add nineteen cents or so?"
"Tak' it or leave it," said Musq'oosis calmly.
Mahooley finally took it. "Now, let me see the colour of your money," he said.
Musq'oosis produced another little paper. This one read:
I promise to pay the Indian, Musq'oosis, five hundred and seventy-eight dollars ($578.00) on demand.
I promise to pay the Indian, Musq'oosis, five hundred and seventy-eight dollars ($578.00) on demand.
Gilbert Beattie.
Mahooley looked discomfited. He whistled.
"That's good money, ain't it?" asked Musq'oosis.
"Sure! Where did you get it?" demanded the trader. "I never heard of this."
"Beattie and me got business," replied Musq'oosis with dignity.
Mahooley was obliged to swallow his curiosity.
"Well, who are you going to get to drive?" he asked.
Musq'oosis's air for the first time became ingratiating."I tell you," he returned. "Let you and I mak' a deal. You want me do somesing. I want you do somesing."
"What is it?" demanded Mahooley suspiciously.
"You do w'at I want, I promise I tell the Fish-Eaters come to your store."
Mahooley's eyes gleamed. "Well, out with it!"
"I want you not tell nobody I buy your team. Nobody but Stiffy. I want hire white man to drive, see? Maybe he not lak work for red man. So you mak' out he workin' for you, see?"
"All right," agreed Mahooley. "That's easy. But who can you get?"
"Sam."
Mahooley indignantly exploded. Sam, the white slave, the butt of the whole camp, the tramp without a coat to his back or a hat to cover his head. He assured Musq'oosis more than once that he was crazy.
It may be that with his scorn was mixed a natural anxiety not to lose a cheap cook. Anyhow, Musq'oosis, calm and smiling, stuck to the point, and, of course, when it came to it the chance of getting the Fish-Eater's trade was too good to be missed. They finally shook hands on the deal.
Of the night that followed little need be said. As a result of the day's excitement the crowd stopping at the kitchen was in an uplifted state, anyway, and from some mysterious source a jug of illicit spirits was produced. It circulated in the bunk-room until far into the night.
They were not a hopelessly bad lot as men go, only uproarious. There was not one among them inhuman enough of himself to have tortured a fellow-creature, but in a crowd each dreaded to appear better than hisfellows, and it was a case of egging each other on. Sam, who had thought he had already drained his cup of bitterness, found that it could be filled afresh.
If he had been a tame spirit it would not have hurt him, and before this the game would have lost its zest for them. It was his helpless rage which nearly killed him, and which provided their fun. Mahooley, keeping what had happened to himself, led his tormentors. Sam was prevented from escaping the place.
Next morning, after he had fed them and they had gone out, he sat down in his kitchen, worn out and sick with discouragement, trying to think what to do.
This was his darkest hour. His brain was almost past clear thinking. His stubborn spirit no longer answered to his need. He had the hopeless feeling that he had come to the end of his fight. What was the use of struggling back to the outside world? He had already tried that. He could not face the thought of enduring another such night, either. Better the surrounding wilderness—or the lake.
He heard the front door flung open and Mahooley's heavy step in the mess-room. He jumped up and put his back against the wall. His eyes instinctively sought for his sharpest knife. He did not purpose standing any more. However, the jocular leer had disappeared from the trader's red face. He looked merely business-like now.
"Ain't you finished the dishes? Hell, you're slow! I want you to take a team and go down to Grier's Point to load up for Graves."
Sam looked at him stupidly.
"Can't you hear me?" said Mahooley. "Get a move on you!"
"I can't get back here before dinner," muttered Sam.
"Who wants you back? One of the breed boys is goin' to cook. Freighting's your job now. You can draw on the store for a coat and a pair of blankets. You'll get twelve and a half cents a hundredweight, so it's up to you to do your own hustling. Better sleep at the Point nights, so you can start early."
Sam's stiff lips tried to formulate thanks.
"Ah, cut it out!" said Mahooley. "It's just a business proposition."
On the way up the lake the surveyor's party had been driven to seek shelter in the mouth of Hah-wah-sepi by a westerly gale. They found the other York boat lying there. Its passengers, the bishop, the Indian agent, and the doctor, after ministering to the tribe in their several ways, had ridden north to visit the people around Tepiskow Lake.
The Fish-Eaters were still in a state of considerable excitement. The Government annuities—five dollars a head—changed hands half a dozen times daily in the hazards of jack-pot. All other business was suspended.
Musq'oosis called upon the chief surveyor, and the white man was delighted with his red brother's native courtesy and philosophy.
When finally the wind died down Musq'oosis had only to drop a hint that he was thinking of travelling to the settlement to receive a hearty invitation. Musq'oosis, instructing two boys, Jeresis and Hooliam, to come after him with a dugout in two days' time, accepted it.
Whatever may have been going on inside Bela during the days that followed, nothing showed in her wooden face. Never, at least when any eye was upon her, did she cock her head to listen for a canoe around the bend, nor go to the beach to look up the lake.
The Fish-Eaters were not especially curious concerning her. They had heard a native version of thehappenings in Johnny Gagnon's shack from the boatmen, but had merely shrugged. Bela was crazy, anyway, they said.
Finally on the seventh day Musq'oosis and the two boys returned. Bela did not run to the creek. When the old man came to his teepee she was working around it with a highly indifferent air.
Once more they played their game of make-believe. Bela would not ask, and Musq'oosis would not tell without being asked. Bela was the one to give in.
"What you do up at settlement?" she asked carelessly.
"I fix everyt'ing good," replied Musq'oosis. "Buy team for Sam wit' your money. Mahooley's black team."
"It's too good for Sam," said Bela scornfully.
The old man glanced at her with sly amusement, and shrugged. He volunteered no further information.
When Bela could stand it no longer she asked sullenly:
"You hear no news at the settlement?"
Musq'oosis laughed and took pity on her. He told her his story, suppressing only certain facts that he considered it unwise for her to know.
"I glad the men mak' mock of Sam," she said bitterly. "Maybe he get some sense now."
"Well, he all right now," observed Musq'oosis.
"All right!" she cried. "I guess he more foolish than before, now he got a team. I guess he think he bigges' man in the country."
Musq'oosis stared at her. "W'at's the matter wit' you? You send me all the way to get him team. Now you let on you mad 'cause he got it."
"I didn't send you," contradicted Bela. "You say yourself you go."
"I go because you say you got go if I don't go. I don't want you to mak' anot'er fool lak before. I go for 'cause you promise me you stay here."
It was impossible for poor Bela to justify her contradictions, so she kept silent.
"You lak a woman, all right," declared Musq'oosis scornfully.
Bela had an idea that she could obtain a freer account of what was happening at the settlement from Jeresis or Hooliam, but pride would not allow her to apply directly to them.
Whenever she saw either of the boys making the centre of a group she managed to invent some business in the neighbourhood. But the talk always became constrained at her approach, and she learned nothing. The youngsters of the tribe were afraid of Bela. This had the effect of confirming her suspicion that there was something she needed to learn.
Word was passed around camp that there would be a "singing" on the lake shore that night. Bela, who had her own ideas about singing, despised the crude chanting of her relatives and the monotonous accompaniment of the "stick-kettle"; nevertheless, she decided to attend on this occasion.
Waiting until the party was well under way, she joined it unostentatiously and sat down in the outer circle of women. None but those immediately around her saw her come.
These parties last all night or near it. It needs darkness to give the wild part-song its full effect, and to inspire the drummers to produce a voice of awe from the muttering tom-toms. They work up slowly.
During a pause in the singing, while the drummer held his stick-kettle over the fire to contract the skin, some one asked Jeresis if he had seen Bela's white man.This was what she was waiting for. She listened breathlessly.
"Yes," answered Jeresis.
"Is he big, fine man?"
"No, middle-size man. Not much. Other men call him white slave, 'cause Bela take him away."
"Bela is crazy," said another.
The speakers were unaware that she was present. The women around her eyed her curiously. Bela smiled disdainfully for their benefit.
"Other woman got him now," Jeresis went on indifferently.
The smile froze on Bela's face. A red-hot needle seemed thrust into her breast.
"Who?" someone asked.
"The white woman that was here. Make her head go this way, that way." Jeresis imitated.
"The chicadee woman," said another.
"I see them by the company fence," Jeresis went on idly. "She stand on one side. He stand on other side. They look foolish at each other, like white people do. She make the big eyes and talk soft talk. They say he goes up every night."
The matter was not of great interest to the company generally, and Jeresis's story was cut short by a renewed burst of singing. Bela continued to sit where she was, still as a stone woman, until she thought they had forgotten her. Then she slipped away in the dark.
Musq'oosis was awakened by being violently shaken. He sat up in his blanket in no amiable frame of mind.
"What's the matter?" he demanded.
Bela was past all make-believe of indifference now.
"I promise you I not go to settlement," she said breathlessly. "I come tell you I got go, anyhow. Igot tak' my promise back. I got go now—now! I got go quick!"
"Are you as crazy as they say?" demanded Musq'oosis.
"Yes, I am crazy," she stammered. "No, I am not crazy. I will go crazy if I stay here. You are a bad friend to me. You not tell me that white woman is after my man. I got go to-night!"
"Oh, hell!" said Musq'oosis.
"Give me back my promise!" begged Bela. "I got go now."
"Go to bed," said Musq'oosis. "We talk quiet to-morrow. I want sleep now. You mak' me tired!"
"I got go now, now!" she repeated.
"Listen to me," said Musq'oosis. "I not tell you that for cause it is only foolishness. She is an old woman. She jus' a fool-hen. Are you 'fraid of her?"
"She is white," said Bela. "She know more than me. She know how to catch a man. Me, I am not all white. I live wit' Indians. He think little of me for that. Yes, I am afraid of her. Give me my promise back. I not be foolish. I do everything you say. But I got go see."
"Well, if you got go, you got go," said Musq'oosis crossly. "Don't come to me after and ask what to do."
"Good-bye!" said Bela, flying out of the teepee.
One day as Mrs. Beattie and Miss Mackall were sewing together, the trader's wife took occasion to remonstrate very gently with her sister concerning Sam. Somehow of late Miss Mackall found herself down in the road mornings when Sam was due to pass with his load, and somehow she was back there again at night when he came home empty.
Mrs. Beattie was a quiet, wise, mellow kind of woman. "He's so young," she suggested.
Her sister cheerfully agreed. "Of course, a mere baby! That's why I can be friends with him. He's so utterly friendless. He needs a kind word from somebody."
"But don't you rather go out of your way to give it to him?" asked Mrs. Beattie very softly.
"Sister! How can you say such a thing?" said Miss Mackall in shocked tones. "A mere child like that—one would think—— Oh, how can you?"
Mrs. Beattie let the matter drop with a little sigh. She had not been home in fifteen years, and she found her elder sister much changed and difficult to understand. Somehow their positions had been reversed.
Later, at the table, Miss Mackall suggested with an off-hand air that the friendless young teamster might be asked to supper. Gilbert Beattie looked up quickly.
"This is the company house," he said in his grim way, "and we are, so to speak, public people. We must not give any occasion for silly gossip."
"Gossip?" echoed Miss Mackall, raising her eyebrows. "I don't understand you."
"Pardon me," said Beattie. "I think you do. Remember," he added with a grim twinkle, "the trader's sister must be like Cæsar's wife, above suspicion."
Miss Mackall tossed her head and finished her meal in silence. Persons of a romantic temperament really enjoy a little tyranny. It made her seem young and interesting to herself.
That afternoon she walked up the road a way and met Sam safely out of view of the house. Sam greeted her with a beaming smile.
It seemed to him that this was his one friend—the only soul he had to talk to. He was little disposedto find flaws in her. As for her age, he had never thought about it. Pressed for an answer, he would probably have said: "Oh, about thirty!"
"Hello!" he cried. "Climb in and drive back with me."
"I can't," she replied with a mysterious air.
"Why not?"
"I mustn't be seen with you so much."
"Why?"
"It seems people are beginning to talk about us. Isn't it too silly?"
Sam laughed harshly. "I'm used to it," he said. "Of course, it's a different thing for you."
"I don't care for myself," she returned. "But my brother-in-law——"
"He's been warning you against me, eh?" asked Sam bitterly. "Naturally, you have to attend to what he says. It's all right." He made as if to drive on.
Miss Mackall seemed to be about to throw herself in front of the horses.
"How can you?" she cried reproachfully. "You know I don't care what anybody says. But while I'm living in his house I have to——"
"Sure!" replied Sam sorely. "I won't trouble you——"
"If we could write to each other," she suggested, "and leave the letters in a safe place."
Sam shook his head. "Never was any hand at writing letters," he said deprecatingly. "I run dry when I take a pen. Besides, I have no place to write, nor anything to write with."
"There is another way," she murmured, "but I suppose I shouldn't speak of it."
"What way?" asked Sam.
"There's a trail from the back of our house directto Grier's Point. It is never used except when they bring supplies to the store in the summer. We keep very early hours. Everything is quiet by nine. I could slip out of the house and walk down the trail to meet you. We could talk a while, and I could be in again before dark."
Sam felt a little dubious, but how can a young man hold back in a matter of this kind? "All right, if you wish it," he agreed.
"I am only thinking of you," she said.
"I'll be there."
No better place for a tryst could have been found. No one ever had any occasion to use the back trail, and it was invisible for its whole length to travellers on the main road. After issuing from the woods of Grier's Point it crossed a wide flat among clumps of willows, and, climbing over the spur of a wooded hill, dropped in Beattie's back yard.
They met half-way across the flat in the tender dusk. The fairy light took away ten years of her age, and Sam experienced almost abona fidethrill of romance at the sight of her slender figure swaying over the meadow toward him.
In his gratitude for her kindness he really desired to feel more warmly toward her, which is a perilous state of mind for a young man to be in. He spread his coat for her to sit on, and dropped beside her in the grass.
"Smoke your pipe," she said. "It's more cosy."
He obeyed.
"I wish I had a cigarette myself," she added with a giggle.
"Do you smoke?" asked Sam, surprised.
"No," she confessed; "but all the girls do, nowadays."
"I don't like it," said Sam bluntly.
"Of course I was only joking," she returned hastily.
Their conversation was not very romantic. Sam, with the best intentions in the world, somehow frustrated her attempts in this direction. He was propped up on one elbow beside her.
"How thick and bright your hair is!" she murmured.
"You've got some hair yourself," returned Sam politely.
She quickly put both hands up. "Ah! don't look at it. A hair-dresser spoiled it. As a child it hung below my waist."
Sam not knowing exactly what to say to this, blew a cloud of smoke.
"What a perfect night!" she breathed.
"Great!" said Sam. "That near-horse of mine, Sambo, picked up a stone on the beach this morning. I didn't discover what was making him lame until we were half-way round the bay. I wish I knew more about horses. I pick up all I can, but you never can tell when these fellows are giving it to you straight."
"It's a shame the way they plague you!" she exclaimed warmly.
"Oh, it's nothing, now," replied Sam. "I can stand anything now that I've got a man's job. I'll make good yet. I think I can see a difference already. I think about it day and night. It's my dream. I mean, making good with these fellows. It isn't that I care so much about them either. But after what's happened. I've got to make them respect me!"
And so on, in entire innocence. Sam was aware of no feelings toward her save gratitude and friendliness. Nevertheless, it would not have been the first time it happened, if these safe and simple feelings had suddenlylanded him in an inextricable coil. Men are babies in such matters.
But nothing happened this night. Sam walked back with her to the foot of the hill, and they parted without touching hands.
"Shan't I see you through the wood?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Some one might see from the house. There's plenty of light yet. To-morrow night at the same time?"
"All right," said Sam.
She stood watching until he disappeared among the willows, then turned to mount the shallow hill. Down among the trunks of the big pines it was gloomier than she had expected. The patches of bright sky seemed immeasurably far overhead. The wood was full of whispers. She began to be sorry that she had let him go so soon, and hastened her steps.
Suddenly, as she neared the top of the hill, a human figure materialized in the trail before her. She was too much startled to scream. She stopped, petrified with terror, struggling to draw her breath. Its shadowy face was turned toward her. It was a very creature of night, still and voiceless. It blocked the way she had to pass. Her limbs shook under her, and a low moan of terror escaped her breast.
Finding a little strength at last, she made to dart among the trees so that she could encircle the apparition.
"Stop!" It commanded.
Miss Mackall fell half fainting against a tree.
The figure came closer to her, and she saw that it was a woman. A horrible prescience of what was coming still further demoralized her. Women do not require explanations in words. Miss Mackall recognizedthe adventuress of Musquasepi, and knew what she had come for. She sought to temporize.
"What do you want?" she faltered.
"I want kill you," said Bela softly. "My finger is hungry for the trigger."
She moved slightly, and a spot of light caught the barrel of the rifle over her arm. Miss Mackall moaned again.
"What did I ever do to you?" she wailed.
"You know," replied Bela grimly. "You tried tak' my man."
"How r-ridiculous!" stuttered Miss Mackall. "He isn't yours."
"Maybe," returned Bela. "Not yet. But no ot'er woman goin' get him from me."
"It isn't my fault if he wants me."
"Want you!" cried Bela scornfully. "An old woman! You try catch him lak he a fish!"
Miss Mackall broke into a low, hysterical weeping.
"Shut up!" said Bela. "Listen to w'at I say."
"Let me go! Let me go!" wept the other woman. "I'll scream!"
"No, you won't," said Bela coolly. "You not want Gilbert Beattie know you run out at night."
"I won't be murdered in cold blood! I won't! I won't!"
"Shut up!" said Bela. "I not goin' kill you jus' yet. Not if you do what I want."
Miss Mackall stopped weeping. "What do you want?" she asked eagerly.
"You got go 'way from here," said Bela coolly.
"What do you mean?"
"Bishop Lajeunesse goin' back down lake day after to-morrow. If you here after he gone I kill you."
A little assurance began to return to Miss Mackall. After all, it was not a supernatural, but a very human enemy with whom she had to deal.
"Are you crazy?" she demanded with quavering dignity.
"Yes," replied Bela calmly. "So they say."
"Oh!" sneered Miss Mackall. "Do you think I shall pay any attention to your threats? I have only to speak a word to my brother-in-law and you will be arrested."
"They got catch me first," said Bela. "No white man can follow me in the bush. I go where I want. Always I will follow you—wit' my gun."
The white woman's voice broke again. "If anything happened to me, you'd be tried and hung for murder!"
"What do a crazy woman care for that?" asked Bela.
Miss Mackall commenced to weep again.
Bela suddenly stepped aside. "Run home!" she said contemptuously. "Better pack your trunk."
Miss Mackall's legs suddenly recovered their function, and she sped up the trail like a released arrow. Never in her life had she run so fast. She fell into her room panting and trembling, and offered up a little prayer of thankfulness for the security of four walls and a locked door.
Next morning she was unable to get up in time to see Sam pass. She appeared at the dinner table pale and shaky, and pleaded a headache in explanation. During the meal she led the conversation by a round-about course to the subject of Indians.
"Do they ever go crazy?" she asked Gilbert Beattie, with an off-hand air.
"Yes, indeed," he answered. "It's one of the commonest troubles we have to deal with. They're fanatics by nature, anyway, and it doesn't take much to turnthe scale.Weh-ti-gois their word for insanity. Among the people around the lake there is an extraordinary superstition, which the priests have not been able to eradicate in two hundred years. The Indians say of an insane man that his brain is frozen. And they believe in their hearts that the only way to melt it is by drinking human blood—a woman's or a child's by preference. That is the real explanation of many an obscure tragedy up here."
Miss Mackall shuddered and ate no more.
Late that afternoon she managed to drag herself down to the road. She waited for Sam at the entrance to a patch of woods a little way toward the French outfit.
"What's the matter?" he exclaimed at the sight of her.
"Ah, don't look at me!" she said unhappily. "I've had an awful night. Sick headache. I just wanted to tell you not to come to-night."
"All right," said Sam. "To-morrow night?"
She shook her head. "I—I don't think I'll come any more. I don't think it's right."
"Just as you say," said Sam. "If you feel all right to-morrow afternoon, you might get a horse and ride around the bay."
"I—I'm afraid to ride alone," she faltered.
"Well," said Sam, ever quick to take offence, "if you don't want to see me again, of course——"
"I do! I do!" she cried. "I've got to have a talk with you. I don't know what to do!"
"Very well," he said stoutly. "I'll come up to the house to-morrow night. I guess there's no reason why I shouldn't."
"Yes, that is best," she agreed. "Drive on now."
Sam clucked to his team, and they started brisklydown the trail. "Lord, she looks about seventy!" he was thinking. Miss Mackall stood watching until they rounded the first bend. When she turned around, there stood Bela beside a big tree, a few feet to the side of the road. Evidently she had been hidden in the underbrush behind. Miss Mackall gasped in piteous terror and stood rooted to the spot.
Bela's face was as relentless as a high priestess's. "I listen if you goin' tell him 'bout me," she said. "If you tell him, I ready to shoot."
The other woman was speechless.
"You not goin' be here to-morrow night," Bela went on quietly. "Bishop Lajeunesse leave to-morrow morning."
Miss Mackall turned and flew up the trail.
The trader's house was built bungalow style, all the rooms on a floor. Miss Mackall's room was at the back of the house, her window facing the end of the back trail, where it issued from the woods. The nights were now mild and fragrant, and doors and windows stood wide. Locks are never used north of the landing. Or if they are, the key hangs hospitably within reach.
Miss Mackall, however, insisted on locking the doors and securing her window. There were no blinds, and she hung a petticoat inside the glass. Laughing at her old-maidish precautions, they let her have her way. As a further safeguard against nervousness during the night, she had one of her nieces to bed with her.
There was no sleep for her. In every little stir and breath she heard the footfall of her enemy. She was tormented by the suspicion that there was something lurking outside her window. She regretted leaving the petticoat up, for it prevented her seeing outside.She brooded on it until she felt as if she would go out of her mind, if she were not reassured.
Finally she mustered up sufficient courage to get out of bed and creep to the window. Holding her breath, she gathered the petticoat in her hand and smartly jerked it down. She found herself looking into the face of the native girl, who was peering through the glass. There was a little light in the sky behind her.
Bela sprang back, and Miss Mackall saw the gun-barrel. She uttered a piercing scream and fell fainting to the floor. The whole family rushed to her door. Hysterics succeeded. They could make nothing of her wild cries. When she recovered she was mum.
In the morning Gilbert Beattie and his wife discussed it soberly. "Nerves," said the man. "We'd best let her go out with the bishop, as she wants. This is no country for her. We might not get another chance this year to send her out with a proper escort."
"It's too bad!" sighed his wife. "I thought she would make such a good wife for one of the new men that are coming in now. They need wives so badly!"
"H-m!" said Gilbert.
Gilbert Beattie, driving home by way of the French outfit, after having seen his sister-in-law embark, found that another party of settlers had arrived. Many of the natives, attracted by news of these events, had also come in, and the settlement presented a scene of activity such as it had never known.
It gave the trader much food for thought. Clearly the old order was passing fast, and it behooved an enterprising merchant to adjust himself to the new. Beattie was no longer a young man, and he felt an honest anxiety for the future. Would he be able to maintain his supremacy?
When he reached his own store he found a handsome native girl waiting to see him. He had seen her before, but could not place her. He asked her name.
"Bela Charley," she answered.
"O-ho!" he said, looking at her with a fresh curiosity. "You are she, eh?" Whatever they might be saying about this girl, he commended the calm, self-respecting air with which she bore his scrutiny. "Do you want to trade?" he asked. "One of the clerks will wait on you."
She shook her head. "Want see you."
"What can I do for you?"
"Company got little house beside the road down there. Nobody livin' there."
"Well, what of it?"
"You let me live there?" she asked.
"You'd better go home to your people, my girl," he said grimly.
"I have left them," she returned coolly.
"What would you think of doing?" he asked curiously. "How could you make your living?"
"Plenty people here now," she said. "More comin'. I goin' keep stoppin'-house for meals."
"Alone?" he asked, frowning.
"Sure!" said Bela.
He shook his head. "It wouldn't do."
"Why?"
"You're too good-looking," he replied bluntly. "It wouldn't be respectable."
"I tak' care of myself," averred Bela. "Anybody say so."
"How about that story that's going the rounds now?"
"Moch lies, I guess."
"Very like; but it can't be done," he said firmly. "I can't have a scandal right in front of my wife's door."
"Good for trade," suggested Bela insinuatingly. "Mak' the new people come up here. Now they always hangin' round Stiffy and Mahooley's."
This argument was not without weight; nevertheless, Beattie continued to shake his head. "Can't do it unless you get a chaperon."
"Chaperon?" repeated Bela, puzzled.
"Get a respectable woman to come live with you, and I'll say all right."
Bela nodded and marched out of the store without wasting any further words.
In an hour she was back, bringing Mary, Bateese Otter's widow. Mary, according to the standards ofthe settlement, was a paragon of virtue. Gilbert Beattie grinned.
"Here is Mary Otter," said Bela calmly. "She poor. She goin' live with me. I guess she is respectable. She live in the mission before, and scrub the floors. Père Lacombe tell her come live wit' me. Is that all right?"
Since Bela had secured the sanction of the Church upon her enterprise, Beattie felt that the responsibility was no longer his. He gladly gave her her way.
The astonishing news spread up and down the road like lightning. Bela Charley was going to open a "resteraw." Here was a new and fascinating subject for gossip.
Nobody knew that Bela was in the settlement. Nobody had seen her come. Exactly like her, said those who were familiar with her exploits in the past. What would happen when Bela and Sam met again? others asked.
While everybody had helped this story on its rounds, no man believed that Bela had really carried off Sam. Funny that this girl should turn up almost at the moment of the other girl's departure! Nobody, however, suspected as yet that there was anything more than coincidence in this.
The main thing was Bela was known to be an A1 cook, and the grub at the French outfit was rotten. Mahooley himself confessed it.
Within two hours six men, including Big Jack and his pals, arrived for dinner. Bela was not at all discomposed. She had already laid in supplies from the company. Dinner would be ready for all who came, she said, six bits per man. Breakfast and supper, four bits.
To-day they would have to sit on the floor, but byto-morrow proper arrangements would be completed. No, there would be no accommodations for sleeping. Everybody must go home at ten o'clock. While they waited they could cut some good sods to mend the roof, if they wanted.
Some of the guests, thinking of the past, approached her somewhat diffidently; but if Bela harboured any resentment, she hid it well. She was the same to all, a wary, calm, efficient hostess.
Naturally the men were delighted to be given an opportunity to start fresh. Three of them laboured at the roof with a will. Husky, who only had one good arm, cleaned fish for her. The dinner, when it came on, was no disappointment.
Sam, rattling back over the rough trail that afternoon, stamped in his empty wagon-box and whistled cheerfully. Things were going well with him. The long, hard-working days in the open air were good for both health and spirits. He liked his job, and he was making money. He had conceived a great affection for his lively little team, and, lacking other companions, confided his hopes and fears in them.
Not that he had yet succeeded in winning from under the load of derision that had almost crushed him; the men still greeted him with their tongues in their cheeks. But now that he had a man's job, it was easier to bear.
He believed, too, that he was making progress with them. The hated gibe "white slave" was less frequently heard. Sam, passionately bent on making good in the community, weighed every shade of the men's manner toward him, like a lover his mistress's.
He met Big Jack and his pals driving back around the bay in Jack's wagon. They had staked out their land across the bay, but still spent most of their timein the settlement. Both drivers pulled up their horses.
The men hailed Sam with at least the appearance of good nature. As for Sam himself, he had made up his mind that since he was going to live among them, he would only make himself ridiculous by maintaining a sore and distant air. He was learning to give as good as he got.
"Heard the news?" asked Big Jack, glancing around at his companions, promising them a bit of sport.
"What news?" asked Sam warily.
"Your new girl has flew the coop."
"What do you mean?" demanded Sam, scowling.
"Wafted. Vamosed. Fluffed out. Beat it for the outside."
"Who are you talking about?"
"Beattie's wife's sister."
"Miss Mackall?"
"Went back with the bishop this morning."
Sam's face was a study in blank incredulity.
"Didn't you know she was goin'?" asked Jack with pretended concern. He turned to his mates. "Boys, this here's a serious matter. Looks like a regular lovers' quarrel. We ought to have broke it to him more gentle!"
"I don't believe it!" said Sam. "But if it is true, she's got a right to go when she likes without asking me." He made a move to drive on.
"Hold on!" cried Big Jack. "I've got another piece of news for you."
"Spit it out," snapped Sam, scornful and unconcerned.
"Your old girl's come to town. Ring out the new, ring in the old, as the song says. Lucky for you they didn't happen simultaneous."
This affected Sam more than the first item. In spiteof him, a red tide surged up from his neck. He scowled angrily at having to betray himself before them. They laughed derisively.
"I suppose you mean Bela," he said stiffly. "The settlement is free to her, I guess. She's no more mine than the other."
"Opened a resteraw in the shack below the company store," Big Jack went on. "We had our dinner there. Six bits a man. Better drop in to supper."