Connie Morgan in the Fur Country Part 7

"Naw, I ain't hurt but can't you pick out no smoother trail? I'm all jiggled up!" In his relief at finding the man unharmed, Connie laughingly promised a smoother trail, and as he and the Indian pried him from between the rocks with a young tree, the boy noted that the frozen moose hide had scarcely been dented by its contact with the trees and rocks.

In the cabin the stove was crammed with wood and the man laid upon the floor close beside it, but it was nearly daylight the following morning before the hide had thawed sufficiently for the combined efforts of Connie and the Indian to unroll it. All night the two tended the fire and listened to the petty bickering and quarrelling of the two helpless partners, the man in the bunk taunting the other with being a fool for wrapping up in a green moose hide, and being in turn called a fool for chopping his own foot. It was disgusting in the extreme to Connie but at last the humour of the situation got the better of his disgust, and he roared with laughter, all of which served to bring down the combined reviling of both men upon his head.

When at last the man was extricated from his prison and found to be little the worse for his adventure, he uttered no word of thanks to his rescuers. Indeed, his first words were in the nature of an indirect accusation of theft.

"Whur's my marten?" he asked, eying them with suspicion.

"What marten? We didn't see any marten," answered the boy.

"Well, I hed one. Tuk it out of a trap just before I seen the moose.

It's funny you didn't see it." Connie answered nothing, and as the man devoured a huge breakfast without asking his rescuers to join him, he continued to mutter and growl about his lost marten. Daylight was breaking and Connie, bottling his wrath behind tight-pressed lips, rose abruptly, and prepared to depart.

"Whur you goin'?" asked the man, his cheeks distended with food. "You lay around here soakin' up heat all night; looks like you could anyways cut a little wood an' help worsh these dishes! An', say, don't you want to buy some moose meat? I'll sell you all you want fer two-bits a pound, an' cut it yerself."

For a moment Connie saw red. His fists clenched and he swallowed hard but once more his sense of humour a.s.serted itself, and looking the man squarely in the eye he burst into a roar of laughter, while 'Merican Joe, who possessed neither Connie's self-restraint nor his sense of humour, launched into an unflattering tirade of jumbled Indian, English, and jargon, that, could a single word of it have been understood, would have goaded even the craven _chechakos_ to warfare.

Two hours later, as they sat in their cozy tent, pitched five miles down the river, and devoured their breakfast, Connie grinned at his companion.

"Big difference in men--even in _chechakos_, ain't there, Joe?"

"Humph," grunted the Indian.

"No one else within two hundred miles of here--his partner crippled so he never could have found him if he tried, and he never would have tried--a few more hours and he would have been dead--we come along and find him--and he not only don't offer us a meal, but accuses us of stealing his marten--and offers to _sell_ us moose meat--at two-bits a pound! I wish some of the men I know could have the handling of those birds for about a month!"

"Humph! If mos' w'ite men I know got to han'le um dey ain' goin' live no mont'--you bet!"

"Anyway," laughed the boy, "we've sure learned the difference between _nerve_ and _bra.s.s_!"

CHAPTER V

THE PLAGUE FLAG IN THE SKY

It was nearly noon of the day following the departure of Connie Morgan and 'Merican Joe from the camp of the two _chechakos_.

The mountains had been left behind, and even the foothills had flattened to low, rolling ridges which protruded irregularly into snow-covered marshes among which the bed of the frozen river looped interminably. No breath of air stirred the scrub willows along the bank, upon whose naked branches a few dried and shrivelled leaves still clung.

'Merican Joe was travelling ahead breaking trail for his dogs and the boy saw him raise a mittened hand and brush at his cheek. A few minutes later the Indian thrashed his arms several times across his chest as though to restore circulation of the blood against extreme cold. But it was not cold. A moment later the boy brushed at his own cheek which stung disagreeably as though nipped by the frost. He glanced at the tiny thermometer that he kept lashed to the front of his toboggan. It registered zero, a temperature that should have rendered trailing even without the heavy parkas uncomfortably warm. Connie glanced backward toward the distant mountains that should have stood out clean-cut and distinct in the clear atmosphere, but they had disappeared from view although the sun shone dazzlingly bright from a cloudless sky. A dog whimpered uneasily, and Connie cracked his whip above the animal's head and noted that instead of the sharp snap that should have accompanied the motion, the sound reached his ears in a dull pop--noted, too, that the dogs paid no slightest heed to the sound, but plodded on methodically--slowly, as though they were tired. Connie was conscious of a growing la.s.situde--a strange heaviness that hardly amounted to weariness but which necessitated a distinct effort of brain to complete each muscle move.

Suddenly 'Merican Joe halted and, removing his mitten, drew his bare hand across his eyes. Connie noticed that the air seemed heavy and dead, and that he could hear his own breathing and the breathing of the dogs which had crouched with their bellies in the snow whimpering uneasily.

Wild-eyed, the Indian pointed aloft and Connie glanced upward. There was no hint of blue in the cloudless sky. The whole dome of the heavens glared with a garish, bra.s.sy sheen from which the sun blazed out with an unwholesome, metallic light that gleamed in glints of gold from millions of floating frost spicules. Even as the two stood gazing upward new suns formed in the burnished sky--false suns that blazed and danced and leaped together and re-formed.

With a cry of abject terror 'Merican Joe buried his face in his arms and stood trembling and moaning, "_Hyas skook.u.m kultus tamahnawus--mesahchee tamahnawus!_" (a very strong bad spirit--we are bewitched). The words puled haltingly from lips stiff with fright. The next moment the boy was beside him, thumping him on the back and choking him roughly:

"_Tamahnawus_ nothing!" he cried. "Buck up! Don't be a fool! I've seen it before. Three years ago--in the Lillimuit, it was. It's the white death. Waseche and I hid in an ice cave. Tonight will come the strong cold."

The boy's voice sounded strangely toneless and flat, and when he finished speaking he coughed. 'Merican Joe's hands had dropped to his side and he stood dumbly watching as Connie loosened the heavy woollen m.u.f.fler from his waist and wound it about the lower half of his face.

"Cover your mouth and don't talk," the boy commanded. "Breathe through your m.u.f.fler. We can still travel, but it will be hard. We will be very tired but we must find shelter--a cave--a cabin--a patch of timber--or tonight we will freeze--Look! Look!" he cried suddenly, pointing to the northward, "a mirage!"

Both stared awe-struck as the picture formed rapidly before their eyes and hung inverted in the bra.s.sy sky just above the horizon foreshortened by the sweep of a low, snow-buried ridge. Both had seen mirages before--mirages that, like a faulty gla.s.s, distorted shapes and outlines, and mirages that brought real and recognizable places into view like the one they were staring at in spell-bound fascination. So perfect in detail, and so close it hung in the heavy, dead air that it seemed as though they could reach out and touch it--a perfect inverted picture of what appeared to be a two or three mile sweep of valley, one side spa.r.s.ely wooded, and the other sloping gently upward into the same low-rolling ridge that formed their own northern horizon. Each stunted tree showed distinctly, and in the edge of the timber stood a cabin, with the smoke rising sluggishly from the chimney. They could see the pile of split firewood at its corner and even the waterhole chopped in the ice of the creek, with its path leading to the door. But it was not the waterhole, or the firewood, or the cabin itself that held them fascinated. It was the little square of scarlet cloth that hung limp and motionless and dejected from a stick thrust beneath the eave of the tiny cabin. It was a horrible thing to look upon for those two who knew its significance--that flag glowing like a splotch of blood there in the brazen sky with the false suns dancing above it.

"The plague flag!" cried Connie.

And almost in the same breath 'Merican Joe muttered:

"De red death!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "It was a terrible thing to look upon to those two who knew its significance--that flag glowing like a splotch of blood there in the brazen sky."

Drawn by Frank E. Schoonover]

Even as they spoke the cabin door opened and a man stepped out. His features were indistinguishable, but both could see that he was a large man, for his bulk had filled the doorway. He swung a heavy pack to a toboggan which stood waiting before the door with the dogs in harness.

The next moment the form of a woman appeared in the doorway. She evidently called to the man, for he halted abruptly and faced about, shook his fist at her and, turning, resumed his course, while with an appealing gesture the woman stretched out her arms toward him.

Then rapidly as it had formed, the picture faded and the two awe-struck watchers stood gazing at the frost spicules that glittered bra.s.sily in the unwholesome light of the false suns.

Once more the Indian buried his face in his arms and m.u.f.fled, moaning words fell from his lips: "De red death--de white death! It is _mesahchee tamahnawus_! We die! We die!"

Again Connie shook him roughly, and meeting with no response, beat his arms from his face with the loaded b.u.t.t of his dog whip.

"You're a crazy fool!" cried the boy, with his lips close to the Indian's ear. "We're _not_ going to die--anyway, not till we've had a run for our money! We're going to mush! Do you hear? _Mush!_ And we're going to keep on mushing till we find that cabin! And if you hang back or quit, I'm going to wind this walrus hide whip around you till I cut you in strips--do you get it?" And, without another word, the boy turned, whipped the dogs to their feet, and leaving the river abruptly, led off straight into the north across the low, snow-covered ridge.

Of the two brothers Bossuet, Victor, the elder, was loved in the North; and Rene was hated. And the reason for this lay in the men themselves.

Both were rivermen--good rivermen--and both laboured each year during the long days of the summer months, together with many other rivermen, in working the Hudson's Bay brigade of scows down the three great connecting rivers to the frozen sea. For between Athabasca Landing and Fort McPherson lie two thousand miles of wilderness--a wilderness whose needs are primitive but imperative, having to do with life and death.

And the supplies for this vast wilderness must go in without fail each year by the three rivers, the Athabasca, the Slave, and the Mackenzie.

These are not gentle rivers flowing smoothly between their banks, but are great torrents of turbulent waters that rush wildly into the North in miles upon miles of foaming white water, in sheer cascades, and in boiling, rock-ribbed rapids. So that the work of the rivermen is man's work requiring skill and iron nerve, and requiring also mighty muscles for the gruelling portages where cargoes must be carried piece by piece over rough foot trails, and in places even the heavy scows themselves must be man-hauled around cascades.

Seeing the two brothers together, the undiscriminating would unhesitatingly have picked Rene, with his picturesque, gaudy attire, his loud, ever-ready laughter, his boisterous, bull-throated _chansons_, and his self-confident air, as the typical man of the North. For beside him Victor, with faded overalls, his sockless feet thrust into worn shoes, his torn shirt, and his old black felt hat, cut a sorry figure.

But those who know recall the time that old Angus Forgan, the drunken trader of Big Stone, fell out of a scow at the head of the Rapids of the Drowned. They will tell you that of the twenty rivermen who witnessed the accident only two dared to attempt a rescue, and those two were Rene and Victor Bossuet. And that Rene, being the stronger, reached the struggling man first and, twisting his fingers into his collar, struck out for a flat shelf of rock that edged the first suck of the rapids.

They will tell you how he reached the rock and, throwing an arm upon its flat surface, endeavoured to pull himself up; but the grip of the current upon the two bodies was strong and after two or three attempts Rene released his grip on the drowning man's collar and clambered to safety. Then they will tell you how Victor, who had managed to gain sh.o.r.e when he saw Rene reach the rock, plunged in again, straight into the roaring chute, of how he reached Forgan in the nick of time, of how the two bodies disappeared completely from view in the foaming white water, and of how a quarter of a mile below, by means of Herculean effort and a bit of luck, Victor managed to gain the eddy of a side channel where he and his unconscious burden whirled round and round until the rivermen running along the bank managed to throw a rope and haul them both to safety.

Also, they will tell you of Gaspard Petrie, a great hulking bully of a man, who called himself "The Grizzly of the Athabasca," whose delight it was to pick fights and to beat his opponents into unconsciousness with his fists. And of how the mighty Petrie whose ill fame had spread the length of the three rivers, joined the brigade once at Fort McMurry and of how the boisterous Rene became the bright and shining mark of his attentions, and of the fight that sent Rene to the brush before he was "licked," after which Rene stood the taunts and insults of "The Grizzly of the Athabasca" for many days like the craven he was, before the eyes of all men, until one day Petrie used words that brought insult upon the mother of Rene--who was also the mother of Victor. Rene paid them no heed but Victor rose from his place beside the fire and slowly removed his mackinaw and his torn felt hat and, walking over to Petrie, demanded that he retract the words. "The Grizzly of the Athabasca" eyed him in astonishment, for Victor had been a figure in the brigade so insignificant as to have entirely escaped his attention. The ramping one threw out his huge chest and roared with laughter. "See!" he taunted, "the weasel defies the bear!" And with that he reached out and with his thumb and forefinger grasped Victor by the nose and jerked him roughly toward him.

The next instant the air rushed from his throat in a grunt of agonized surprise for the violent jerk on his nose seemed to release steel springs in Victor's body and before Petrie could release his grip both of Victor's fists and the heel of one shoe had been driven with all the force of mighty muscles directly into the bully's stomach. The unexpected onslaught staggered the huge bully, and then began the fight that ridded the rivers of Gaspard Petrie. In and out flashed the lighter man, landing a blow here and a kick there--round and round, and in and out. "The Grizzly of the Athabasca" roared with rage, and struck mighty blows that, had they landed, would have annihilated his opponent on the spot but they did not land. Victor seemed tireless and his blows rained faster and faster as his opponent's defence became slower and slower. At last, from sheer exhaustion, the heavy arms could no longer guard the writhing face and instantly Victor began to rain blow after blow upon eyes and nose and mouth until a few minutes later "The Grizzly of the Athabasca" collapsed entirely, and whimpering and puling, he retracted his words, and then amid the frenzied jeers of the rivermen, he made up his pack and slunk away into the bush--and the fame of Victor Bossuet travelled the length of the three rivers. Thus it was that Victor became known as the better man of the two. But it was in the winning of Helene Lacompte that he gained his final triumph. Rene had boasted upon the rivers that he would marry her,--boastings that reached the ears of the girl in her father's little cabin on Salt River and caused her to smile.

But as she smiled her thoughts were not of Rene and his gaudy clothing, his famous blue _capote_, his crimson scarf, and his long ta.s.selled cap of white wool--but of Victor--who spoke seldom, but saved his money each year and refrained from joining in the roistering drinking bouts of the rivermen.

Then one day at Fort Norman in the hearing of all the rivermen Rene boldly told her that he was coming to take her when the scows returned, and she laughingly replied that when she changed her name from Lacompte, she would take the name of Bossuet. Whereat Rene drank deeper, bragged the more boisterously, and to the envy of all men flaunted his good fortune before the eyes of the North. But Victor said nothing. He quit the brigade upon a pretext and when the scows returned Helene bore the name of Bossuet. For she and Victor had been married by the priest at the little mission and had gone to build their cabin upon a little unnamed river well back from the Mackenzie. For during the long winter months Victor worked hard at his trap lines, while Rene drank and gambled and squandered his summer wages among the towns of the provinces.

When Rene heard of the marriage he swore vengeance, for this thing had been a sore blow to his pride. All along the three rivers men talked of it, nor did they hesitate to taunt and make sport of Rene to his face.

He sought to make up in swashbuckling and boasting what he lacked in courage. So men came to hate him and it became harder and harder for him to obtain work. At last, in great anger, he quit the brigade altogether and for two summers he had been seen upon the rivers in a York boat of his own. The first winter after he left the brigade he spent money in the towns as usual, so the following summer the source of his income became a matter of interest to the Mounted Police. Certain of their findings made it inadvisable for Rene to appear again in the towns, and that autumn he spent in the outlands, avoiding the posts, stopping a day here--a week there, in the cabins of obscure trappers and camping the nights between, for he dared not show his face at any post. Then it was he bethought himself of his brother's cabin as a refuge and, for the time being laying aside thoughts of vengeance, he journeyed there.

He was welcomed by Victor and Helene and by the very small Victor who was now nearly a year old. Victor and Helene had heard of the threats of vengeance, but knowing Rene, they had smiled. Was not Rene a great boaster? And the very young Victor, who knew nothing of the threats, thought his big uncle a very brave figure in his blue _capote_, his red m.u.f.fler, and his white stocking cap of wool.