CHAPTER XXVII
THE TRAP IS SPRUNG
The trading-room at Whale River was crowded with the treaty chiefs andolder men among the Cree hunters chosen by the factor to be present atthe hearing. Behind a huge table made from hewn spruce slabs, satInspector Wallace, Colin Gillies and McCain. In front and to one sidewere the swart half-breeds, Gaspard Lelac and his two sons. Facing themon the opposite side of the table was Jean Marcel, and behind him, hisadvisor, Pere Breton, with Julie; for she had insisted on being present,and the smitten Wallace had readily agreed. The remainder of the roomwas occupied by the Crees, expectant, consumed with curiosity, for ithad leaked out that certain matters connected with the tragedy on theGhost which, heretofore, had not been divulged, would that afternoon begiven light.
Among the assembled half-breeds and Crees there were two distinctfactions. Those who had readily accepted the story of the Lelacs withits sinister indictment of Marcel, among whom were the kinsmen ofAntoine Beaulieu; and those, who, knowing Jean Marcel, as well as hisunsavory accusers, had refused to accept the half-breeds' tale, and werewaiting with eagerness to hear Marcel's defense; for as yet, Marcel,under orders from Gillies, had refused to discuss the case. Outside thetrade-house, chattering groups of young men and Cree women weregathered, awaiting the outcome of the proceedings.
Rising, Colin Gillies called for silence and addressed the Crees intheir picturesque tongue:
"The long snows have come and gone. Famine and suffering have againvisited the hunters of Whale River. With the return of the rabbitplague, and the lack of deer, many of those who were here last year atthe spring trade have gone to join their fathers. The Company is sadthat its hunters and their families have suffered. Last autumn, threehunters went from this post to winter on the Ghost River. This springbut one returned. He is here now, for the reason that he travelled farinto the great barrens to streams which join the Big Water many, manysleeps to the northeast, where at last he found the returning deer.
"This spring, when the Ghost was free of ice, Gaspard Lelac and hissons, wishing to visit their kinsman, Joe Piquet, travelled to the campof the three hunters. What they found there they will now tell as theytold it to me when they came to Whale River. After you have learnedtheir story, Jean Marcel, the man who returned, will relate whathappened on the Ghost under the moons of the long snows.
"The Company has sent to visit Whale River its chief of the East Coast,Inspector Wallace. He will hear the stories of these men and decidewhich of them speaks with a double tongue. It is for you, also, whenthey have spoken, to say whether Gaspard Lelac and his sons bring thetruth to Whale River, or Jean Marcel. You know these men. Hear theirtalk and judge in your hearts between them. Gaspard Lelac has put theblood of Antoine Beaulieu and Joe Piquet on the head of Jean Marcel. Thefathers at Ottawa and the Chiefs of the Company at Winnipeg will notsuffer one of their children to go unpunished who takes the life ofanother.
"Listen to the speech of these men. Look with your eyes into their facesand upon what will be shown here, and judge who speaks with a doubletongue and who from an honest heart. Gaspard Lelac will now tell what hesaw and did."
As Gillies finished, a murmur of approval filled the room, followed by atense silence.
Lelac, a grizzled French half-breed with small, closely-set eyes, whichshifted here and there as he spoke, then rose and told in the Creetongue the story he had retailed daily for the previous month.
Wishing to visit his nephew Piquet, he said, and learn how he hadweathered the hard winter, in May Lelac and his sons had poled up theGhost to the camp. There they found an empty cache and part of theoutfits of Beaulieu and Piquet, the latter of which they at oncerecognized. Alarmed, they searched the vicinity of the camp, and bychance, discovered the body of Beaulieu buried under stones on theshore. There was a knife wound in his chest. They continued the searchin hope of finding Piquet, as his blankets and outfit, evidently unusedfor months and eaten by mice, were strong proof of his death, also; butfailed to find the body. Of the fur-packs and rifles of the two menthere was no trace, but a knife, identified later as belonging toAntoine, they brought back. There were no signs of the third man'soutfit about the camp. If the third man was alive, what were they tobelieve? Antoine was dead, and Piquet, also, for his blankets werethere. Someone had killed Antoine and Piquet. There was but one other,Marcel. So they travelled to Whale River with the news.
The sons of Lelac glibly corroborated the story of their father. Whenthey had finished, the trade-room buzzed with whispered comment.
At a nod from Wallace, Gillies questioned the older Lelac in Cree forthe benefit of the Indians.
"You say that these blankets here, this knife and cooking kit, and theclothes and bags, were all that you found at the camp--that there wereno fur and rifles on the cache?"
"These were all we found--nothing else," replied Lelac, his small eyeswavering before the gaze of the factor.
"You swear that you found nothing but these things," repeated Gillies,pointing to the articles on the floor in front of the table.
"Nothing."
The set face of Jean Marcel, which had remained expressionless duringthe Lelacs' statement, relaxed in a wide smile which did not escape manya shrewd pair of Cree eyes.
"Jean Marcel will now relate what passed on the Ghost through the moonsof the long snows."
With the announcement, there was much stirring and shuffling ofmoccasins accompanied by suppressed exclamations and muttering, amongthe expectant Crees. But when Marcel rose, squared his wide shoulders,and with head high ran his eyes over the assembled Crees, friendly andhostile, to rest at length on the Lelacs, his lips curled with anexpression of contempt, while the Indians and breeds relapsed intosilence.
Slowly, and in detail, Jean told in the Cree language how his partnershad gone up-river when he started south on the trail of the dog-thieves;how he recaptured Fleur, and later reached the Ghost at the"freeze-up." The tale of his nine-hundred-mile journey to the southcoast drew many an "Ah-hah!" of mingled surprise and admiration fromthose who remembered Marcel's voyage of the previous spring through thespirit-haunted valleys of the Salmon headwaters. With his familiaritywith the Cree mental make-up and his French instinct for dramaticvalues, he held them breathless by the narration of this Odyssey of thenorth.
Then Marcel described the long weeks when the three men foughtstarvation, with the deer and rabbits gone; how he travelled far intothe land of the Windigo in search of beaver; and finally, he came to thebreak with his partners. The hard feeling which developed at the camp onthe Ghost, Jean made no attempt to gloss over, but boldly told how theothers had not played fair with the food, and he had left them to fightout the winter alone. Of the death of Piquet he spoke as one speaks ofthe extermination of vermin. An assassin in the night, Piquet had cometo the tent of a sleeping man and the dog alone had saved his life.
They called his dog the "man-killer." Would they have asked less oftheir own huskies? he demanded. But if any of them doubted, and heunderstood that the Lelacs were among these, that his dog could havekilled Piquet, let them come to the tent in the Mission stockade bynight--and learn for themselves.
"_Nama_, no!" some Indian audibly protested, and for a space the roomwas a riot of laughter, for the Crees had seen Fleur, the "man-killer."
But when the narrative of Marcel reached the discovery of the deadAntoine, stabbed to the heart in the shack on the Ghost, his voice brokewith emotion. When he had found Antoine, killed in his sleep by Piquet,Marcel said that he had bitterly regretted that he had not takenBeaulieu with him, leaving Piquet to work out his own fate.
Then Jean described how he had lashed the body of Antoine, sewed in atent, on the platform cache, and placed the fur-packs and rifles besideit, when he left to go into the barrens for deer. Turning, the Frenchmanpointed his finger at the scowling Lelacs, and cried dramatically, "Whenyou came to the camp this spring, you did not find the body of AntoineBeaulieu buried on the shore; you found it on the cache sewed in a ten
t.If I had killed him would I not have hidden him somewhere in the snowwhere the starving lynx and wolverines would have done the rest? No, youfound Antoine on the cache, and beside him were his rifle and fur-packwith those of Joe Piquet. What did you do with them?"
His evil face distorted with rage, the elder Lelac snarled:
"You lie, you got de fur and rifle hid."
Suppressing the half-breeds, Wallace ordered Marcel to continue.
Jean finished his story with the account of his long journey into thebarrens beyond the Height-of-Land where the streams flowed northeastinstead of west, his meeting with the returning deer, when weak withstarvation, and his return to the Ghost to find that a canoe hadpreceded him there.
As he resumed his seat, the eyes of Julie Breton were bright with tears.The priest leaned and grasped Jean's hand, whispering: "Well done, JeanMarcel!"
It had been a dramatic narration and the audience, including InspectorWallace to whom it was interpreted by Gillies, had been impressed by thefrank and fearless manner of its telling.
Angus McCain and big Jules smiled widely as they caught Marcel's eyes.
Again Gillies rose. "Jules!" he called, and Duroc brought from anadjoining room a bundle of pelts, placing them on the long table.
Again the room hummed with the whispering of the curious audience. Thesurprised Lelacs, now in a panic, talked excitedly, heads together.
"Marcel, examine these pelts and if you notice anything about them,make a statement," said Gillies, conducting the examination for thebenefit of the Crees, in their native tongue, and translating toWallace.
With great care, as his Cree audience craned their necks to watch whatthe Frenchman was doing, Jean, first examining each pelt, slowly dividedthe bundle of skins into three separate heaps.
"Have you anything to say?"
"Yes, M'sieu. This large pile here, I know nothing about; but this heaphere, were all pelts trapped last winter by Antoine Beaulieu."
A murmur passed through the crowded room. Here surely was something ofinterest. Lelac rose and started to look at the pelts when big Julespushed him roughly back on the bench.
"You stay where you are, Lelac, or I'll put a guard over you!" raspedGillies.
"This pile here," continued Jean, "belonged to Joe Piquet."
"How do you recognize them?" demanded Gillies.
"All these have Antoine's mark, one little slit behind the rightfore-leg. These with two slits behind the left fore-leg were the peltsof Piquet. My mark was three slits in front of the left hind leg. Whenwe started trapping from the same camp, we agreed on these marks."
The air of the trade-room was heavy with suspense.
"You swear to these marks?"
"Yes, M'sieu."
"Francois Maskigan!" The treaty-chief of the South Branch Crees, a manof middle age, with great authority among the Indians, stepped forward.
"Francois, you have heard what Marcel says of the marks on these skins?"
The chief nodded, "_Enh_, yes."
"Look at them and see if he speaks rightly."
It took the Indian but a few minutes to check the distinguishing markson the pelts and examine the large pile which Marcel had said possessednone.
"Are the marks on these pelts as Marcel says?"
"Yes, they are there, these marks as he says."
The cowed Lelacs, their dark faces now twisted with fear, awaited thenext words of Gillies. Then the irate factor turned on them.
"Gaspard Lelac!" he roared. The face of Lelac paled to a sickly white ashis furtive eyes met the factor's.
"All this fur, here, you and your sons traded in last week; your ownfur, and the pelts of Beaulieu and Joe Piquet, dead men. I have heldthem separate from the rest. You are thieves and liars!"
The bomb had exploded. At the words of the factor, the trade-room becamea bedlam of chattering and excited Indians. In the north, to steal thefur of another is one of the cardinal sins. The supporters of Marcelloudly exulted in the turn the hearing had taken, while the deludedadherents of the Lelacs, maddened by the villainy of men who had stolenfrom the dead and accused another, loudly cursed the half-breeds.
Nonplussed, paralyzed by the trick of the factor, instigated by theadroit Marcel, the Lelacs sent murderous looks at Jean who smiledcontemptuously in their faces.
Gillies' deep bass quieted the uproar.
"Jules!" he called the second time. All were on tiptoe to learn whatfurther surprise the stalwart Jules had in store for them, when heentered the room with two rifles, which he laid on the table, while theLelacs stared in wide-eyed amazement.
"Where did you get these rifles?" asked Gillies.
"In the tepee of Lelac, just now, hidden under blankets."
"Whose rifles were they, Marcel?"
Marcel examined the guns.
"This 30-30 gun belonged to Piquet. This is the rifle of Antoine."
With a cry, a tall half-breed roughly shouldered his way to the front ofthe excited Crees.
"You thieves!" he cried, straining to reach the Lelacs with the knifewhich he held in his hand. But sinewy arms seized him and the frenzieduncle of Antoine Beaulieu was pushed, struggling, from the room.
It was the final straw. The mercurial Crees had turned as quickly fromthe Lelacs to Marcel as, in the first instance, they had credited thetale of the half-breeds. Now, with the Lelacs proven liars and thieves,Jean's explanation of the deaths of his partners, as Gillies foresaw,had, without corroboration, and on his word as a man, only, been at onceaccepted.
Calling for silence Gillies again spoke to the hunters.
"You have heard the words of these men. You have judged who has spokenwith a double tongue; who, with the guns of dead men hidden in a tepee,have traded their fur and put their blood upon the head of another. Doyou believe Jean Marcel when he says that Piquet killed Antoine Beaulieuand went out to kill him also, or do you believe the men who stole theguns and fur of a dead man which belong to his kinsmen?"
"_Enh! Enh!_ Jean Marcel speaks truth!" cried the Crees, and thechattering mob poured into the post clearing to carry the news to thecurious young men and the women, who waited.
Meanwhile Pere Breton embraced the happy Marcel while the uncheckedtears welled in Julie's eyes. Then Gillies and McCain wrung theFrenchman's hand until he grimaced. But the big Jules, patiently waitinghis turn, pounced upon Jean with a fierce hug and, in spite of hisprotests carrying him like a child in his great arms from thetrade-house, showed the man they had maligned, to the Crees, who nowloudly cheered him.
Turning to Gillies, the Inspector said gravely: "These Lelacs go southfor trial. I'll make an example of their thieving."
But Colin Gillies had no intention of having the half-breeds sent"outside" for trial, if he could prevent it. It would mean that Jean andhe, himself, with Jules, would have to go as witnesses. He could takecare of the Lelacs in his own way. He had punished men before.
"That would leave us very short-handed here. The famine has reduced thetrade this year a third. If we want to make a showing next season, wecan't spend six months travelling down below for a trial."
"Yes, that would mean your going and we can't afford to injure thetrade; but I ought to make a report on this murder business in famineyears."
"If you get the government into this, it will hurt us, Mr. Wallace. Whycan't we handle this matter as we have handled it for two centuries?"protested Gillies. "A report will only place the Company in a badlight--make them think we can't control the Crees."
"Well, perhaps you're right," admitted Wallace. "I'm out to make ashowing on the East Coast and I don't want to handicap you."
So Gillies had his way.
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