TWO MEN OF THE NORTH
TWO MEN OF THE NORTH
TWO MEN OF THE NORTH
“Guess we got an hour to talk, Marty. Hesther won’t be through her chores in an hour.”
Le Gros nodded.
“Your Hesther’s a good soul, and I’d hate to scare her.”
“Sure. That’s how I feel. I make it you’ve a heap of trouble back of your head.”
“Yes.”
The missionary settled himself more comfortably in the hard chair he had turned from the supper table. He had set it in the shade of the printed cotton curtain that adorned the parlor window.
Jim McLeod was less concerned for the glaring evening sunlight. He sat facing it, bulking clumsily on a chair a size too small for him. His pale blue eyes gazed out of the window which was closely barred with mosquito-netting.
The last of the supper things had been cleared from the table, and the sounds penetrating the thin, boarded walls of the room told of the labours of the busy housewife going on in the lean-to kitchen beyond. There was no need for these added labours which Hesther inflicted upon herself. There were native women who worked about the store quite capable of relieving her. But Hesther understood that the men wanted to talk in private.
Besides, it was her happy philosophy that God made woman to care for the creature comforts of her man, and to relegate that duty, all those duties connected therewith, would be an offence which nothing could condone.
Le Gros removed his pipe from his mouth. His eyes were full of reflective unease.
“Yes,” he reiterated, “and I guess it’s trouble enough to scare more than a woman.”
He thrust a hand into a pocket of his coat. He pulled out a little canvas bag and unfastened the string about its top. He peered at the yellow fragmentary contents. It was of several ounces of gold dust, that wonderful alluvial dust ranging in size from sheer dust to nuggets the size of a schoolboy’s marbles.
He passed the bag across to the trader.
“Get a look at that,” he said. “It’s the wash-up of a single panning. Just one. I only showed you the two big nuggets before—when I—lied to you where I made the ‘strike.’”
“Lied? You didn’t get it on Loon Creek?”
“No.”
Jim took possession of the bag of dust. He peered into its golden depths. And the man observing him noted the keen lighting of his eyes, and the instant, absorbed interest that took possession of him. After a moment the trader looked up.
“One panning?” he demanded incredulously.
“One panning.”
Jim drew a deep breath. It was an expression of that curious covetous thrill at the sight of unmeasured wealth which is so human. He weighed the bag in his hand.
“Ther’s more than three ounces of stuff here,” he said, gazing into the dark eyes opposite him. “Guess it’s nearer four.” Again he breathed deeply. “One panning!” he exclaimed. Then followed an ejaculation which said far more than any words.
Marty Le Gros nodded.
“You reckon it’s this bringing them down—our way,” he said. “That’s what Usak reckons, too. Maybe I feel you’re both right—now. I was a fool to give my yarn out. I should have held it tight, and just let you know quietly. Yes, I see it now. You see, I didn’t think. I guess I didn’t understand the temptation of it. When I lit on that ‘strike’ it scarcely interested me a thing, and I didn’t see why it should worry anybody else. I forgot human nature. No, it wasn’t till the gold spirit suddenly hit me that I realised anything. And when it did it made me lie—even to you.”
Jim twisted up the neck of the bag and re-set the lashings about it. Then, with a regretful sigh, he passed the coveted treasure back to its owner.
“Let’s see. How long is it since you handed out your yarn? It’s more’n two months. Two months,” he repeated thoughtfully. “They’ve had two months on Loon Creek, an’ they’ve drawn blank. There—Yes, I see. They’re coming back on you. They started by way of your Mission, an’ they mean you to git a grip on their way of handlin’ the thing. Man, it sets my blood red hot. They’ve cleaned this region out of furs, an’ every other old trade, so I’m sittin’ around waitin’ for my people to close us down, and now—this. Is there no help? Ain’t ther’ a thing we can do? God! It makes me hot.”
The blue eyes were fiercely alight. There was no wavering in them now. Passionate desire to fight was stirring in the trader. And somehow his emotion seemed to rob his body of its appearance of physical ungainliness.
The missionary seemed less disturbed as he set the bag back in his pocket. He had passed through his bad time. Now his decision was taken. Now he was no longer the missionary but a simple man of single purpose which he intended to put through in such way as lay within his power, aided by the friendship of Jim McLeod.
A shadowy smile lit his eyes.
“Yes. It’s the gold now,” he said, with an expressive gesture. “But,” he went on, with a shake of the head, “for the life of me I can’t get behind the minds of these mysterious northern—devils. Why, why in the name of all that’s sane and human should these Euralians descend on a pitiful bunch of poor, simple fisher-folk, and butcher and burn them off the face of the earth? It’s senseless, inhuman barbarity. Nothing else. If they want my secret, if they want the truth I denied to you as well as the rest, it’s here, in my head,” he said, tapping his broad forehead with a forefinger. “Not out there with those poor dead creatures who never harmed a soul on God’s earth. If they want it they must come to me. And when they come they—won’t get it.”
The man was transformed. Not for a moment had he raised his voice to any tone of bravado or defiance. Cold decision was shining in his eyes and displayed itself in the clip of his jaws as he returned his pipe to his mouth. Jim waited. His moment of passionate protest had passed. He was absorbed in that which he felt was yet to come.
“Here, listen, Jim,” Le Gros went on, after the briefest pause, with a sharp intake of breath which revealed something of the reality of the emotions he was labouring under. “You’re my good friend, and I want to tell you things right here and now, to-night. That’s why I came over in a hurry. You’ve always known me as a missionary. The man in me was kind of lost. That’s so. But now you’ve got to know me as a man. You were the first I told of my ‘strike.’ You were the first I showed those nuggets to. And you guessed they were worth five thousand dollars between ’em.”
“All o’ that. Maybe ten thousand dollars.”
Jim’s fleshy lips fondled the words.
“When I showed you that stuff I was the missionary. The thing began to fall off when I watched you looking at them. But it wasn’t till some of the trailmen, and even the Indians, heard the story, and showed their amazing lust for the thing I’d discovered, that I got a full grip on all that yellow stuff meant. Then I forgot to be a missionary and was just a man the same as they were. I was startled, shocked. I was half scared. I saw at a glance I’d made a bad break in telling my story, and so, when you all asked me the whereabouts of the strike, I—lied.”
He paused, passing a hand over his forehead, and smoothed back his ample black hair.
“An’ it wasn’t Loon Creek?”
Jim smiled as he put his question.
“I’m glad,” he added as the other shook his head.
“You’re glad?”
“I surely am.” Jim spread out his hands. “Here, Marty,” he cried, “I was sick to death hearing you hand out your yarn to the boys. I kind of saw a rush for Loon Creek comin’ along and beating you—an’ me—right out of everything. Knowing you I thought it was truth. But I’m mighty glad you—lied.”
Le Gros sat back in his chair. His eyes turned from the man before him.
“Knowing me?” he said, with a gentle smile of irony. “I wonder.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know myself. No, you didn’t know me. I’m different now. Quite different. And it’s that gold changed me. Do you know how—why? No.” He shook his head. “I guess you don’t. I’ll tell you. It’s Felice. My little Felice. And that’s why I came right over to see you, and tell you the things in my mind.”
Jim shifted his chair as the other paused. He leant forward with his forearms resting on his knees. The thought of the gold was deep in his mind. There was personal, selfish interest in him as well as interest for that which the other had to tell him about his baby, Felice.
Marty drew a deep breath. His eyes turned from the man before him. The intensity of Jim’s regard left him with an added realisation of the power that gold exercises over the simplest, the best of humanity.
“If I live, Jim, I’m going to let you into this ‘strike.’ Maybe it’ll help you, and leave you free of your Company,” he said gently. “You shall be in it what you folk call ‘fifty-fifty.’ If I die you shall be in it the same way, only it’ll be with my baby girl. And for that I want to set an obligation on you. Can you stand for an obligation?”
“Anything for you, Marty,” Jim replied at once, and earnestly. “Anything for you,” he repeated. “And I’ll put it through with the last breath of life.”
“Good.” The missionary’s gaze came back to the trader’s face, and a smiling relief shone in his eyes. He nodded. “You see, with these wretched Euralians on the war path, and with me standing around in their path, you can never tell. Maybe I’ll live. Maybe I won’t. If I live you’ll be up to your neck in this ‘strike’ anyway. If I die you’ll work it for Felice, and hand her her ‘fifty’ of it when the time comes. Is it good?”
“It’s so good I can’t tell you.”
“Will you swear to do this, Jim? Will you swear on—on the thing you hold most sacred?”
“I’ll swear it on the little life that’s just goin’ to be born to Hesther an’ me. If a thing happens to you, Marty, so you lose the daylight, your little Felice shall be seen right, and all you can wish for her shall be done, though you never tell me a thing of this ‘strike.’”
The simple honesty looking out of Jim’s eyes eased the troubled heart of the older man. He nodded.
“I knew it would be that way. I’m glad,” he said. “I’m not passing you thanks. No thanks could tell you the thing you’ve made me feel, Jim.” He laughed shortly. “Thanks? I guess it would be an insult when a boy like you is ready to set himself to carrying the whole of another feller’s burden.”
Again he passed a hand over his hair.
“This is how I’ve planned, Jim,” he went on, after a moment. “I’m going right back home now, and I’m going to pass some hours drawing out the plan and general map of the ‘strike.’ I’ll write it out in the last detail. Then I’ll set it in a sealed packet and hand it to you. You’ll have it, and keep it, and you won’t open it while I’m alive. It’s just so the thing shan’t be lost if they kill me up. See? If I live we’ll work this thing together at ‘fifty-fifty.’ That way there won’t be need for you to open up those plans. Do you get it? The whole thing is just a precaution for you and my little Felice. You see, if I pass over I’ve nothing else to hand that poor little kiddie. It’s her bit of luck.”
Jim sat back in his chair and began to refill his pipe which had gone out. For some moments his stirring emotions prevented speech, while the smiling eyes of the missionary watched his busy, clumsy fingers. At last, however, he looked up. And as he did so he thrust the tobacco hard into the bowl of his pipe, and the force of his action was no less than the headlong rush of words that surged to his lips.
“Oh, it’s Hell! Simple Hell!” he cried passionately. “What have we done that we should be cursed by these murdering Euralians. They’re not going to get you, Marty. We’ve got to fix that. Come right over here. Quit your shanty, an’ bring Felice, an’ Pri-loo, an’ Usak right over here. It’s no sort of swell place, this old frame house the Company’s set up for me. But the stockade outside it stands firm twelve feet high right around. And I’ve guns an’ things plenty to defend it. I can corral plenty trailmen who’d be glad enough to scrap these folk, and we could fight ’em an’ beat ’em, till we get help from Placer where the p’lice can collect a posse of ‘specials.’ We’re not goin’ to sit down under this thing. It’s not my way. An’ it’s not goin’ to be your way. We’ll fight. Come right over to-morrow, Marty. We’ll just be crazy for you to come, and—”
Le Gros interrupted him with a gesture.
“That’s all right boy,” he said. “I know just how you feel and I’m glad. But you don’t know the thing you’re trying to bring on your Hesther, and your unborn baby. You haven’t seen the thing I’ve seen. You haven’t seen old men and women, butchered and mutilated, lying stark on the ground. You haven’t seen babes scattered around legless, armless, headless. And the young men and young women—gone.” He shook his head, and the horror of recollection was in his eyes. “No. You haven’t seen those things, and you haven’t remembered that I carry this curse about with me. Sheltering here I bring it to your door. To you, and your Hesther, and your babe. With me across the river there you’re free and safe. No. I stand or fall by my wits, my luck, my own efforts. You are doing for me the only thing I ask in safeguarding my secret and caring for little Felice. That’s what I ask. And you’ve promised me. That’s all, Jim, my friend, and now I’ll get along back and fix those plans.”
He rose from his chair, tall, strong and completely calm. And the trader rose, too, and gazed up into the other’s face.
“I’ll take all those chances, Marty,” he said deliberately.
“And Hesther?”
“And my unborn baby. Yes.”
Marty Le Gros thrust out his hand and the two men gripped.
“You’re a good friend, Jim. But my mind’s made up. While I’ve life I’ll fight my own fight. When I’m dead please God you’ll do—what I can’t. So long Jim,” he added wringing the fleshy hand he was still gripping. “I’ll be along over with those plans before you eat your breakfast.”