CHAPTER XIX--THE STRENGTH OF MEN--AND THEIR WEAKNESS
No wind could reach us where we sat. At the worst, a gale could littlemore than set the tree-tops swaying, so thick stood the surroundingtimber. But the blasting cold pressed in everywhere. Our backs chilledto freezing while our faces were hot from nearness to the flame.
Presently, at Barreau's suggestion, we set up Montell's tent--fashionedafter an Indian lodge--in the center of which could be built a smallfire. This was for her. We chopped a pile of dry wood and placed itwithin. By that time the moose meat was thawed so that we could haggleoff ragged slices. These I fried while Barreau mixed a bannock andcooked it in an open pan. Also we had tea. Jessie shook her head when Ioffered her food. Willy-nilly, her eyes kept drifting to the silentfigure opposite.
"You _must_ eat," Barreau broke in harshly upon my fruitless coaxing."Food means strength. You can't walk out of these woods on an emptystomach, and we can't carry you."
A swarm of angry words surged to my tongue's end--and died unspoken.Right willingly would I have voiced a blunt opinion of his brutaldirectness--to a grief-stricken girl, at such a time--but she flashedhim a queer half-pleading look, and meekly accepted the plate I heldbefore her. He had gained my point for me, but the hard, domineeringtone grated. I felt a sudden, keen resentment against him. To protectand shield her from everything had at once become a task in which Idesired no other man's aid.
"Now let us see how much of the truth is in the Black Factor," Barreaubegan, when we had cleaned our plates and laid them in the grub-box.
He turned down the canvas with which I had covered Montell, and openedthe front of the buckskin shirt. Jessie stirred uneasily. She seemedabout to protest, then settled back and stared blankly into the fire.Deliberately, methodically, Barreau went through the dead man's pockets.These proved empty. Feeling carefully he at last found that which hesought, pinned securely to Montell's undershirt, beneath one arm. Hebrought the package to our side of the fire, considered a moment andopened it. Flat, the breadth of one's hand, little over six inches inlength, it revealed bills laid smoothly together like a deck of cards.Barreau counted them slowly. One--two--three--four--on up to sixty; eacha thousand-dollar Bank of Montreal note. He snapped the rubber band backover them and slid the sheaf back into its heavy envelope.
"Le Noir did not draw such a long bow, after all," he observed, to noone in particular. "Yet this is more than they offered me. Well, I daresay they felt that it would not be long----" He broke off, with a shrugof his shoulders. Then he put the package away in a pocket under his_parka_. Jessie watched him closely, but said nothing. A puzzled lookreplaced her former apathy.
That night we slept with the dogs tied inside our tent, and the toboggandrawn up beside our bed. I did not ask Barreau his reason for this. Icould hazard a fair guess. Whosoever had deprived Montell of his dogs,might now be awaiting a chance to do a like favor for us. I would havetalked to him of this but there was a restraint between us that hadnever arisen before. And so I held my peace.
I fell asleep at last, for all the silent guest that lay by the foot ofour bed. What time I wakened I cannot say. The moon-glare fell on thecanvas and cast a hazy light over the tent interior. And as I lay there,half-minded to get up and build a fire Barreau stirred beside me, andspoke.
"Last night was Christmas Eve," he muttered. "To-day--Peace on earth,good-will to men! Merry Christmas. What a game--what a game!"
He turned over. We lay quite still for a long time. Then in that deadhush a husky whined, and Barreau sat up with a whispered oath, his voicetrembling, and struck savagely at the dog. The sudden spasm of ragesubtly communicated itself to me. I lay quivering in the blankets. If Ihad moved it would have been to turn and strike him as he had struck thedog. It passed presently, and left me wondering. I got up then anddressed. So did Barreau. We built a fire and sat by it, thawing meat,melting snow for tea, cooking bannock; all in silence, like folk whoinvoluntarily lower their voices in a great empty church, the depths ofa mine, or the presence of death. Afraid to speak? I laughed at thefancy, and looked up at the raucous sound of my own voice, to findBarreau scowling blackly--at the sound, I thought.
Before long Jessie came shivering to the fire. The rigors of the Northbreed a wolfish hunger. We ate huge quantities of bannock andmoose-meat. That done we laid Montell's body at the base of a spruce,and piled upon it a great heap of brush. Jessie viewed the abandonmentcalmly enough--she knew the necessity. Then we packed and put the dogsto the toboggan, increasing the load of food from Montell's supply andleaving behind our tent and some few things we could not haul. Barreauwent ahead, bearing straight south, setting his snowshoes down heel totoe, beating a path for the straining dogs. Fierce work it was, thattrail-breaking. My turn at it came in due course. Thus we forged ahead,the black surrounding forest and the white floor of it irradiated by themoonbeams. Away behind us the Aurora flashed across the Polar horizon, aweird blazon of light, silky, shimmering, vari-colored, dying one momentto a pin-point leaping the next like sheet lightning to the height ofthe North Star. This died at the dawn. Over the frost-gleaming tree-topsthe sun rose and bleared at us through the frost-haze. "And thatinverted Bowl they call the Sky, whereunder crawling, cooped, we liveand die----" The Tentmaker's rhyme came to me and droned over and overin my brain. The "Bowl" arched over us, a faded blue, coldly beautiful.
At our noon camp a gun snapped among the trees, and a dog fellsprawling. As we sprang to our feet another husky doubled up. Barreaucaught the remaining two by the collars and flung a square of canvasover them. A third shot missed. He caught up his rifle and plunged intothe timber. An hour or more we waited. When he returned I had thetoboggan ready for the road.
"I got his track," he said between mouthfuls of the food I had keptwarm. "One man. He struck straight east when he saw me start. There maybe more though. It is not like the Company to put all its eggs in onebasket."
"You think the Company is behind this?" I asked.
"Who else?" he jeered. "Isn't this money worth some trouble? And who butthe Company men know of it?"
"Why bother with dogs if that is so?" I replied. "The same bullets woulddo for us."
"Very true," Barreau admitted, "but there is a heavy debit against mefor this last four years of baiting the Hudson's Bay, and this would beof a piece with the Black Factor's methods. Their way--his way is thepolicy of the Company--to an end is often oblique. Only by driving abargain could they have taken the post--Montell could have fought themall winter. Even though they bought it cheaply, I do not think they hadany intention of letting him get away with money. Le Noir paid--and putme on the trail; at the same time this bushwhacker held Montell back sothat we overtook him--otherwise, with two days' start, he might havebeaten us to the Police country, where we would not dare follow. Can youappreciate the sardonic humor that would draw out our misery to the lastpossible pang, instead of making one clean sweep? Le Noir knows how theNorth will deal with us, once we are reduced to carrying our food andbedding on our backs. He has based his calculations on that fact. Thesebreeds of his can hover about us and live where we shall likely perish.Then there will be no prima facie evidence of actual murder, and theCompany will have attained its end. They have done this to others; wecan hardly be exempt. If we seem likely to reach the outer world, itwill be time enough then for killing. Either way, the Company wins. Iwish to God it would snow. We might shake them off then."
We harnessed the two remaining dogs and pushed on. There was nothingelse to do. Either in camp or on trail the huskies, to say nothing ofourselves, were at the mercy of that hidden marksman. So we kept ourway, praying only for a sight of him, or for a thick swirl of snow tohide the betraying tracks we made. We moved slowly, the lugging of thedogs eked out by myself with a rope. Barreau broke trail. Jessie broughtup the rear.
At sundown, midway of a tiny open space in the woods, our two dogs wereshot down. Barreau whirled in his tracks, stood a moment glaringfuriously. Then, with a fatalistic shrug of his shoulders, h
e stooped,cut loose the dead brutes, harness and all, and laid hold of the ropewith me.
That night we were not disturbed. Jessie slept in the little round tent.Barreau and I burrowed with our bedding under the snow beside the fire.The time of arising found me with eyes that had not closed; and thenight of wakefulness, the nearness of a danger that hovered unseen,stirred me to black, unreasoning anger. I wanted to shout curses at theNorth, at the Hudson's Bay Company, at Barreau--at everything. And bythe snap of his eye, the quick scowl at trivial things, I think Barreauwas in as black a mood as I. The girl sensed it, too. She shrank fromboth of us. So to the trail again, and the weary drag of theshoulder-rope.
At noon we ate the last of our moose-meat, and when next we crossedmoose-tracks in the snow, Barreau ordered me in a surly tone to keepstraight south, and set out with his rifle.
It was slow work and heavy to lug that load alone. Jessie went ahead,but her weight was not enough to crush the loose particles to any degreeof firmness. For every quarter mile gained we sat down upon the load torest, sweat standing in drops upon my face and freezing in pellets as itstood. And at one of these halts I fell to studying the small oval faceframed in the _parka_-hood beside me. The sad, tired look of it cut me.There was a stout heart, to be sure, in that small body. But it waskilling work for men--I gritted my teeth at the mesh of circumstance.
"If you were only out of this," I murmured.
I looked up quickly at a crunching sound, and there was Barreau,empty-handed. I shall never forget the glare in his eyes at sight of mestanding there with one hand resting lightly on her shoulder. There wasno word said. He took up the rope with me, and we went on.
"Where in the name of Heaven are you heading for?" something spurred meto ask of him. The tone was rasping, but I could not make it otherwise.
"To the Peace," he snapped back. "Then west through the mountains, downthe Fraser, toward the Sound country. D'ye think I intend to walk intothe arms of the Police?"
"You might do worse," some demon of irritability prompted me to snarl.
He looked back at me over his shoulder, slackening speed. For a moment Ithought he would turn on me then and there, and my shoulder-musclesstiffened. There was a thrill in the thought. But he only muttered:
"Get a grip on yourself, man."
Just at the first lowering of dusk, in my peering over Barreau'sshoulder I spotted the shovel-antlers of a moose beside a clump ofscraggy willows. I dropped the rope, snatched for my rifle and fired asBarreau turned to see what I was about. I had drawn a bead on the broadside of him as he made the first plunge, and he dropped.
"Well, that's meat," Barreau said. "And it means camp."
He drew the toboggan up against a heavy stand of spruce, and taking asnowshoe shovel-wise fell to baring the earth for a fire base. I took myskinning knife and went to the fallen moose. Jessie moved about,gathering dry twigs to start a fire.
Once at the moose and hastily flaying the hide from the steaming meat myattention became centered on the task. For a time I was absorbed in theproblem of getting a hind quarter skinned and slashed clear before myfingers froze. Happening at length to glance campward, I saw in thefirelight Barreau towering over Jessie, talking, his speech punctuatedby an occasional gesture. His voice carried faintly to me. I stood upand watched. Reason hid its head, abashed, crowded into the backgroundby a swift flood of passion. I could not think coherently. I could onlystand there blinking, furious--over what I did not quite know, nor pauseto inquire of myself. For the nonce I was as primitive in my emotions asany naked cave-dweller that ever saw his mate threatened by anothermale. And when I saw her shrink from him, saw him catch at her arm, Iplunged for the fire.
"You damned cub!" he flashed, and struck at me as I rushed at him. I hadno very distinct idea of what I was going to do when I ran at him,except that I would make him leave _her_ alone. But when he smashed atme with that wolf-like drawing apart of his lips--I knew then. I wasgoing to kill him, to take his head in my hands and batter it againstone of those rough-barked trees. I evaded the first swing of his fist bya quick turn of my head. After that I do not recollect the progress ofevents with any degree of clearness, except that I gave and took blowswhile the forest reeled drunkenly about me. The same fierce rage inwhich I had fought that last fight with Tupper burned in my heart. Iwanted to rend and destroy, and nothing short of that would satisfy. Andpresently I had Barreau down in the snow, smashing insanely at his facewith one hand, choking the breath out of him with the other. This Iremember; remember, too, hearing a cry behind me. With that myrecollection of the struggle blurs completely.
I was lying beside the fire, Jessie rubbing my forehead with snow inlieu of water, when I again became cognizant of my surroundings. Barreaustood on the other side of the fire, putting on fresh wood.
"I'm sorry, sorry, Bob," she whispered, and her eyes were moist. "Butyou know I couldn't stand by and see you--it would have been murder."
I sat up at that. Across the top of my head a great welt was now risen.My face, I could feel, was puffed and bruised. I looked at Barreau moreclosely; his features were battered even worse than mine.
"Did you hit me with an axe, or was it a tree?" I asked peevishly. "Thatis the way my head feels."
"The rifle," she stammered. "I--it was--I didn't want to hurt you, Bob,but the rifle was so heavy. I couldn't make you stop any other way; youwouldn't listen to me, even."
So that was the way of it! I got to my feet. Save a dull ache in my headand the smarting of my bruised face, I felt equal to anything--and thephysical pain was as nothing to the hurt of my pride. To be felled by awoman--the woman I loved--I did love her, and therein lay the hurt ofher action. I could hardly understand it, and yet--strange paradox--Idid not trouble myself to understand. My brain was in no condition forsolving problems of that sort. I was not concerned with the why; thefact was enough.
If I had been the unformed boy who cowered before those two hairy-fistedslave-drivers aboard the _New Moon_--but I was not; I never could beagain. The Trouble Trail had hardened more than my bone and sinew; andthe last seven days of it, the dreary plodding over unbroken wastes,amid forbidding woods, utter silence, and cold bitter beyond Words, hadkeyed me to a fearful pitch. There was a kink to my mental processes; Isaw things awry. In all the world there seemed to be none left but usthree; two men and a woman, and each of us desiring the woman so that wewere ready to fly at each other's throats. Standing there by the fire Icould see how it would be, I thought. Unless the unseen enemy whohovered about us cut it short with his rifle, we were foredoomed tomaddening weeks, perhaps months, of each other's company. Though she hadjeered at him and flaunted her contempt for him at both MacLeod and thepost, Jessie had put by that hostile, bitter spirit. To me, it seemed asif she were in deadly fear of Barreau. She shrank from him, both hisword and look. And I must stand like a buffer between. Weeks ofsuspicion, of trifling, jealous actions, of simmering hate that wouldbubble up in hot words and sudden blows; I did not like the prospect.
"I have a mind to settle it all, right here and now!"
I did not know until the words were out that I had spoken aloud. As aspark falling in loose powder, so was the effect of that sentence upon aspirit as turbulent and as sorely tried as his.
"Settle it then, settle it," he rose to his feet and shouted at me."There is your gun behind you."
I blurted an oath and reached for the rifle, and as my fingers closedabout it Jessie flung herself on me.
"No, no, _no_," she screamed, "I won't let you. Oh, oh, for God's sakebe men, not murdering brutes. Think of me if you won't think of your ownlives. Stop it, stop it! Put down those guns!"
She clung to me desperately, hampering my hands. He could have killed mewith ease. I could see him across the fire, waiting, his Winchesterhalf-raised, the fire-glow lighting up his face with its blazing eyesand parted lips, teeth set tight together. And I could not free myselfof that clinging, crying girl. Not at once, without hurting her. Mad asI was, I had no wish to do th
at. At length, however, I loosened herclinging arms, and pushed her away. But she was quick as a steel trap.She caught the barrel of my rifle as I swung it up, and before I couldbreak her frenzied grip the second time, a voice in the dark nearbybroke in upon us with startling clearness.
"Hello, folks, hello!"
The sound of feet in the crisp snow, the squeaking crunch of toboggans,other voices; these things uprose at hand. I ceased to struggle withJessie. But only when a man stepped into the circle of firelight, withothers dimly outlined behind him, did she release her hold on my gun.Barreau had already let the butt of his drop to his feet. He stoodlooking from me to the stranger, his hands resting on the muzzle.
"How-de-do, everybody."
The man stopped at the fire and looked us over. He was short, heavilybuilt. Under the close-drawn _parka_ hood we could see little of hisface. He was dressed after the fashion, the necessity rather, of theNorth. His eyes suddenly became riveted on me.
"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed.
He reached into a pocket and took out a pair of glasses wrapped in asilk handkerchief. The lenses he rubbed hastily with the silk, and stuckthem upon the bridge of his nose. I could hear him mumbling to himself.A half dozen men edged up behind him.
"God bless me," he repeated. "Without a doubt, it _is_ Bob Sumner.Somewhat the worse for wear, but Bob, sure enough. Ha, you young dog,I've had a merry chase after you. Don't even know me, do you?"
He pushed back the hood of his _parka_. The voice had only puzzled me.But I recognized that cheerful, rubicund countenance with its bushyblack eyebrows; and the thing that favored me most in my recollectionwas a half-smoked, unlighted cigar tucked in one corner of his mouth. Itwas my banker guardian, Bolton of St. Louis.
----
Wakening out of the first doze I had fallen into through that long nightI was constrained to rise and poke my head out of the tent in which Islept to make sure that I had not dreamed it all. For the event savoredof a bolt from a clear sky. I could scarcely believe that only a fewhours back I had listened to the details of its accomplishment; howBolton had in the fullness of time received both my letters; how he hadtraced me step by step from MacLeod north, and how he had only locatedme on the Sicannie River, through the aid of the Hudson's Bay Company.He was on his way to the post. Our meeting was purely accidental. And soon. From the tent I saw a lone sentinel plying the fire. I slipped onthe few clothes I had taken off, and sat down beside the cheery crackleof the blaze, to meditate upon the miracle. I was sane enough to shudderat what might have been, if Barreau and I had had a few minutes longer.
In an hour all the camp was awake. Bolton's cook prepared breakfast, andwe ate by candle-light in a tent warmed by a sheet-iron stove. How one'spoint of view shuffles like the needle of a compass! A tent with a stovein it, where one could be thoroughly comfortable, impressed me as thepyramid-point of luxury.
After that there was the confusion of tearing up camp and loading ahalf-dozen dog-teams. Jessie sat by the great fire that was kept upoutside, and her face was troubled. Barreau, I noticed, drew Bolton alittle way off, where the two of them stood talking earnestly together,Bolton expostulating, Barreau urging. Directly after that I saw Barreauwith two of Bolton's men to help him, load one of the dog-teams overagain. He led it to one side; his snowshoes lying on the load. Then hecame over to Jessie. Reaching within his _parka_ he drew forth thepackage he had taken off Montell's body, and held it out to her.
"Girl," he said, and there was that in his voice which gave me a suddenpang, and sent a flush of shame to my cheek, "here is your father'smoney. There is no need for me to take care of it now. Good-bye."
She stared up at him, making no move to take the package, and so with alittle gesture he dropped it at her feet and turned away. And as he laidhold of the dog-whip she sprang to her feet and ran after him.
"George, George!" If ever a cry sounded a note of pain, that did. Itmade me wince. He whirled on his heel, and the dog-whip fell unheeded inthe snow.
"Oh, oh," she panted, "I can't take that. It isn't mine. It'sblood-money. And--and if you go by yourself, I shall go with you."
"With me," he held her by the shoulder, looking down into her upturnedface. Never before had I seen such a variety of expression on hisfeatures, in so short a span of time, hope, tenderness, puzzlement, apanorama of emotions. "I'm an outlaw. There's a price on my head--youknow that. And you yourself have said--ah, I won't repeat the things youhave said. You know--you knew you were stabbing me when----"
"I know, I know!" she cried. "I believed those things then. Oh, youcan't tell how it hurt me to think that all the time you had beenplaying a double part--fooling my father and myself. But now I _know_. Iknow the whole wretched business; or at least enough to understand. Igot into his papers back there on the Sicannie. There were things thatamazed me--after that--I stormed at him till he told me the truth; partof it. You don't know how sorry I am for those horrible, unwomanlythings I said to you. How could I know? He lied so consistently--even atthe last he lied to me--told me that the Company men had taken the postby surprise, that we were lucky to get away with our lives. I believedthat until I saw you find that money. Then I knew that he had sold youout--his partner. I've been a little beast," she sobbed, "and I've beenafraid to tell you. Oh, you don't know how much I wanted to tell you;but I was afraid. I'm not afraid now. If you are going to strike outalone, I shall go, too."
He bent and kissed her gravely.
"The Northwest is no place for me, Jess," he said. "I cannot cross it inthe winter without being seen or trailed, and there is no getting out ofthat jail-break, if I am caught. I must go over the mountains, and so tothe south, where there are no Police. You cannot come. Bolton, and--andBob will see you safe to St. Louis. If nothing happens I shall be therein the spring."
She laid her head against his breast and sobbed, wailing over him beforeus all. I bit my lip at the sight, and putting my pride in my pocketwent over to them.
"Barreau," I said, "I don't, and probably never will, understand awoman. You win, and I wish you luck. But unless you hold a grudge longerthan I do, there's no need for you to play a lone hand. Let the deadpast bury its dead, and we will all go over the mountains together. Ihave no wish to take a chance with the Police again, myself. You andBolton seem to forget that I'm just as deep in the mud as you are in themire."
Barreau stood looking fixedly at me for a few seconds. Then he held outhis hand, and the old, humorous smile that had been absent from his facefor many a day once more wrinkled the corners of his mouth.
"Bob," he said, "I reckon that you and I are hard men to beat--at anygame we play."
----
That, to all intents and purposes, ends my story. We did cross themountains, and traverse the vast, silent slopes that fall away to theblue Pacific. Bolton had gilded the palm of the Hudson's Bay Company inhis search for me, and so they considerately dropped their feud withBarreau--at least there was no more shooting of dogs, nor any effort torecover the money that cost Montell his life. Or perhaps they judged itunwise to meddle with a party like ours.
So, by wide detour, we came at last to St. Louis. There Barreau andJessie were married, and departed thence upon their honeymoon. Whentheir train had pulled out, I went with Bolton back to his office in thebank. He seated himself in the very chair he had occupied the day I cameand saddled the burden of my affairs upon him. He cocked his feet up onthe desk, lighted a cigar and leaned back.
"Well, Robert," he finally broke into my meditations, "how about thisschool question? Have you decided where you're going to try for a B. A.?And when? What about it?"
"I can take up college any time," I responded. "Just now--well, I'mgoing to the ranch. A season in the cow camps will teach me something;and I would like to run the business just as my father did. I don'tthink I'll slip back so that I can't take up study again. Anyway, theschools have no monopoly of knowledge; there's a wonderful lot ofthings, I've
discovered, that a fellow has to teach himself."
He surveyed me in silence a few minutes, his cigar pointed rakishlyaloft, his eyes half shut. Then he took the weed between his thumb andforefinger and delivered himself of this sapient observation:
"You'll do, Bob. As a matter of fact, the North made a man of you."
I made no answer to that. I could not help reflecting, a triflebitterly, that there were penalties attached to the attaining ofmanhood--in my case, at least.
THE END.
The Land of Frozen Suns: A Novel Page 19
