A Romany of the Snows Part 3

"I've a mind for Wonta an' many another as fine, but I'm a married man,"

he said, "by priest an' by book; an' I can't forget that, though the woman's to me as the pit below."

Pierre looked curiously at him. "You're a wonderful fool," he said, "but I'm not sure that I like you less for that. There was Shon M'Gann--but it is no matter." He sighed and continued: "When to-night is over, you shall have work and fun that you've been fattening for this many a year, and the woman'll not find you, be sure of that. Besides--" he whispered in Macavoy's ear.

"Poor divil, poor divil, she'd always a throat for that; but it's a horrible death to die, I'm thinkin'." Macavoy's chin dropped on his breast.

When the sun was falling below Little Red Hill, Macavoy came to Wonta's tent. Pierre was not far away. What occurred in the tent Pierre never quite knew, but presently he saw Wonta run out in a frightened way, followed by the five half-breeds, who carried themselves awkwardly.

Behind them again, with head shaking from one side to the other, travelled Macavoy; and they all marched away towards the Fort. "Well,"

said Pierre to Wonta, "he is amusing, eh?--so big a coward, eh?"

"No, no," she said, "you are wrong. He is no coward. He is a great brave. He spoke like a little child, but he said he would fight them all when--"

"When their turn came," interposed Pierre, with a fine "bead" of humour in his voice; "well, you see he has much to do." He pointed towards the Fort, where people were gathering fast. The strange news had gone abroad, and the settlement, laughing joyously, came to see Macavoy swagger; they did not think there would be fighting.

Those whom Macavoy had challenged were not so sure. When the giant reached the open s.p.a.ce in front of the Fort, he looked slowly round him.

A great change had come over him. His skin seemed drawn together more firmly, and running himself up finely to his full height, he looked no longer the lounging braggart. Pierre measured him with his eye, and chuckled to himself. Macavoy stripped himself of his coat and waistcoat, and rolled up his sleeves. His shirt was flying at the chest.

He beckoned to Pierre.

"Are you standin' me frind in this?" he said. "Now and after," said Pierre.

His voice was very simple. "I never felt as I do since the day the coast-guardsmin dropped on me in Ireland far away, an' I drew blood an every wan o' them--fine beautiful b'ys they looked--stretchen' out on the ground wan by wan. D'ye know the double-an'-twist?" he suddenly added, "for it's a honey trick whin they gather in an you, an' you can't be layin' out wid yer fists. It plays the divil wid the spines av thim.

Will ye have a drop av drink--cold water, man--near, an' a sponge betune whiles? For there's manny in the play--makin' up for lost time. Come on," he added to the two settlers, who stood not far away, "for ye began the trouble, an' we'll settle accordin' to a, b, c."

Wiley and Hatchett were there. Responding to his call, they stepped forward, though they had now little relish for the matter. They were pale, but they stripped their coats and waistcoats, and Wiley stepped bravely in front of Macavoy. The giant looked down on him, arms folded.

"I said two of you," he crooned, as if speaking to a woman. Hatchett stepped forward also. An instant after the settlers were lying on the ground at different angles, bruised and dismayed, and little likely to carry on the war. Macavoy took a pail of water from the ground, drank from it lightly, and waited. None other of his opponents stirred.

"There's three Injins," he said, "three rid divils, that wants showin'

the way to their happy huntin' grounds.... Sure, y'are comin', ain't you, me darlins?" he added coaxingly, and he stretched himself, as if to make ready.

Bareback, the chief, now harangued the three Indians, and they stepped forth warily. They had determined on strategic wrestling, and not on the instant activity of fists. But their wiliness was useless, for Macavoy's double-and-twist came near to lessening the Indian population of Fort O'Angel. It only broke a leg and an arm, however. The Irishman came out of the tangle of battle with a wild kind of light in his eye, his beard all torn, and face battered. A shout of laughter, admiration and wonder went up from the crowd. There was a moment's pause, and then Macavoy, whose blood ran high, stood forth again. The Trader came to him.

"Must this go on?" he said; "haven't you had your fill of it?"

Had he touched Macavoy with a word of humour the matter might have ended there; but now the giant spoke loud, so all could hear.

"Had me fill av it, Trader, me angel? I'm only gittin' the taste av it.

An' ye'll plaze bring on yer men--four it was--for the feed av Irish pemmican."

The Trader turned and swore at Pierre, who smiled enigmatically. Soon after, two of the best fighters of the Company's men stood forth.

Macavoy shook his head. "Four, I said, an' four I'll have, or I'll ate the heads aff these."

Shamed, the Trader sent forth two more. All on an instant the four made a rush on the giant; and there was a stiff minute after, in which it was not clear that he was happy. Blows rattled on him, and one or two he got on the head, just as he tossed a man spinning senseless across the gra.s.s, which sent him staggering backwards for a moment, sick and stunned.

Pierre called over to him swiftly: "Remember Malahide!"

This acted on him like a charm. There never was seen such a shattered bundle of men as came out from his hands a few minutes later. As for himself, he had but a rag or two on him, but stood unmindful of his state, and the fever of battle untameable on him. The women drew away.

"Now, me babes o' the wood," he shouted, "that sit at the feet av the finest Injin woman in the North,--though she's no frind o' mine--and aren't fit to kiss her moccasin, come an wid you, till I have me fun wid your spines."

But a shout went up, and the crowd pointed. There were the five half-breeds running away across the plains.

The game was over.

"Here's some clothes, man; for Heaven's sake put them on," said the Trader.

Then the giant became conscious of his condition, and like a timid girl he hurried into the clothing.

The crowd would have carried him on their shoulders, but he would have none of it.

"I've only wan frind here," he said, "an' it's Pierre, an' to his shanty I go an' no other."

"Come, mon ami," said Pierre, "for to-morrow we travel far."

"And what for that?" said Macavoy.

Pierre whispered in his ear: "To make you a king, my lovely bully."

THE FILIBUSTER

Pierre had determined to establish a kingdom, not for gain, but for conquest's sake. But because he knew that the thing would pall, he took with him Macavoy the giant, to make him king instead. But first he made Macavoy from a lovely bully, a bulk of good-natured brag, into a Hercules of fight; for, having made him insult--and be insulted by--near a score of men at Fort O'Angel, he also made him fight them by twos, threes, and fours, all on a summer's evening, and send them away broken.

Macavoy would have hesitated to go with Pierre, were it not that he feared a woman. Not that he had wronged her; she had wronged him: she had married him. And the fear of one's own wife is the worst fear in the world.

But though his heart went out to women, and his tongue was of the race that beguiles, he stood to his "lines" like a man, and people wondered.

Even Wonta, the daughter of Foot-in-the-Sun, only bent him, she could not break him to her will. Pierre turned her shy coaxing into irony--that was on the day when all Fort O'Angel conspired to prove Macavoy a child and not a warrior. But when she saw what she had done, and that the giant was greater than his years of brag, she repented, and hung a dead coyote at Pierre's door as a sign of her contempt.

Pierre watched Macavoy, sitting with a sponge of vinegar to his head, for he had had nasty joltings in his great fight. A little laugh came crinkling up to the half-breed's lips, but dissolved into silence.

"We'll start in the morning," he said.

Macavoy looked up. "Whin you plaze; but a word in your ear; are you sure she'll not follow us?"

"She doesn't know. Fort Ste. Anne is in the south, and Fort Comfort, where we go, is far north."

"But if she kem!" the big man persisted.

"You will be a king; you can do as other kings have done," Pierre chuckled.

The other shook his head. "Says Father Nolan to me," says he, "tis till death us do part, an' no man put asunder'; an' I'll stand by that, though I'd slice out the bist tin years av me life, if I niver saw her face again."

"But the girl, Wonta--what a queen she'd make!"

"Marry her yourself, and be king yourself, and be d.a.m.ned to you! For she, like the rest, laughed in me face, whin I told thim of the day whin I--"

"That's nothing. She hung a dead coyote at my door. You don't know women. There'll be your breed and hers abroad in the land one day."

Macavoy stretched to his feet--he was so tall that he could not stand upright in the room. He towered over Pierre, who blandly eyed him. "I've another word for your ear," he said darkly. "Keep clear av the likes o' that wid me. For I've swallowed a tribe av divils. It's fightin' you want. Well, I'll do it--I've an itch for the throats av men, but a fool I'll be no more wid wimin, white or red--that h.e.l.l-cat that spoilt me life an' killed me child, or--"