Connie Morgan in the Fur Country Part 9

The woman clutched at his arm and her breath came fast. "Are you sure?"

she cried, a great hope dawning in her eyes. "How can you tell?"

"It's all in the manual. Smallpox pimples feel hard, like shot, and they come first on the face and forehead, and there is always high fever and vomiting, and the pimples are always round. This is chicken pox, and it ain't dangerous, and I told you I used to be with the Mounted, and the Mounted is always sure. Now, what about this Rainy person that stole the little kid's milk?" But the woman was paying no attention. She was pacing up and down the floor with the baby hugged to her breast--laughing, crying, talking to the little one all in the same breath, holding him out at arm's length and then cuddling him close and smothering him with kisses. Then, suddenly, she laid the baby in his crib and turned to Connie who, in view of what he had seen, backed away in alarm until he stood against the door.

"Ah, you are the grand boy!" the woman exclaimed. "You have saved the life of my little Victor! You are my friend. In four days comes my man--the little one's papa, and he will tell you better than I of our thanks. He is your friend for life. He is Victor Bossuet, and on the rivers is none like him. I will tell him all--how the little one is dying with the red death, and you come out of the strong cold with the frost in the nose and the cheeks, and you look on the little Victor who is dying, and say '_non_,' and pouf! the red death is gone, and the little baby has got only what you call chickiepok! See! Even now he is laughing!"

"He's all right," smiled Connie. "But you're way off about my curing him. He'd have been well as ever in a few days anyhow and you'd have had your scare for nothing."

The woman's voluble protest was interrupted by a wail from the infant, and again her mood changed and she began to pace the floor wringing her hands. "See, now he is hungry and there is nothing to feed him! Rene is a devil! He has taken the milk."

"Hold on!" interrupted Connie. "Was it canned milk? 'Cause if it was you don't need to worry. I've got about a dozen cans out there on the toboggan. Wait and I'll get it." He turned to the Indian who had been a silent onlooker. "Come on, Joe, crawl into your outfit. While I get the grub and blankets off the toboggans, you rustle the wood and water--and go kind of heavy on the wood, 'cause, believe me, there ain't any thermometer going to tell us how cold it will get tonight."

A quarter of an hour later Connie dragged in a heavy canvas sack and two rolls of blankets just as 'Merican Joe stacked his last armful of wood high against the wall. "I fed the dogs," said the boy as he rummaged in the bag and handed the cans of milk one by one to the woman, "and I could tell your husband is an old-timer by the looks of his dog shelter--warm and comfortable, and plenty of room for two teams. I can find out all I want to know about a man by the way he uses his dogs."

"He is the best man on the rivers," repeated the woman, her eyes shining, as she opened a can of milk, carefully measured an amount, added water, and stirred it as it heated on the stove. Connie watched with interest as she fed it to the baby from a spoon. "Again you have saved his life," she said, as the last spoonful disappeared between the little lips.

"Aw, forget that!" exclaimed the boy, fidgeting uncomfortably. "What I want is the dope on this Rainy--how did he come to swipe the kid's milk?

And where is he heading for? I'm in something of a hurry to get to Fort Norman, but I've got a hunch I'm due for a little side trip. He ain't going to be far ahead of me tomorrow. If he holes up today and tonight I'll catch up with him along about noon--and if he don't hole up--the white death will save me quite a bit of trouble."

"Ah, that Rene!" exclaimed the woman, her face darkling with pa.s.sion, "he is Victor's brother, and he is no good. He drinks and gambles and makes the big noise with his mouth. Bou, wou, wou! I am the big man! I can do this! I can do that! I am the best man in the world! Always he has lived in the towns in the winter and spent his money but this winter he came and lived with us because his money was gone. That is all right he is the brother of my husband. He is welcome. But one does not have to like him. But when my husband tells him to go to Fort Norman for food because we did not know there would be three, he made excuse, and my husband went and Rene stayed. Then the next day the little Victor was sick, and I saw the hand of the red death upon him and I told Rene that he should run fast after Victor and tell him. But he would not! He swore and cursed at his own ill luck and he ran from the house into the woods.

I made the plague flag and hung it out so that no traveller should come in and be in danger of the red death.

"By and by Rene came in from the woods in a terrible rage. He began to pack his outfit for the trail and I stayed close by the side of my little one for fear Rene would do him harm in his anger. At last he was ready and I was glad to see him go. I looked then and saw that he had taken all the food! Even the baby's milk he had taken! I rushed upon him then, but I am a woman and no match for a big man like Rene, and he laughed and pushed me away. I begged him to leave me some food, and he laughed the more--and on my knees I implored him to leave the baby's milk. But he would not. He said he had sworn vengeance upon Victor, and now he would take vengeance. He said, 'The brat will not need the milk for he will die anyway, and you will die, and Victor will follow me, and I will lead him to a place I know, and then he will die also.' It was then I rushed for the gun, but Rene had placed it in his pack. And I told him he must not go from a plague house, for he would spread the terrible red death in all the North. But he laughed and said he would show the North that he, Rene Bossuet, was a G.o.d who could spread death along the rivers. He would cause it to sweep like a flame among the rivermen who hated him, and among the men of the Mounted."

The woman paused and Connie saw that a look of wonderful contentment had come into her eyes.

"The good G.o.d did not listen to the curses of Rene," she said, simply, "for as I lay on the floor I prayed to Him and He sent you to me, straight out of the frozen places where in the winter no men are. Tell me, did not the good G.o.d tell you to come to me--to save the little baby's life?" There was a look of awed wonder in the woman's eyes, and suddenly Connie remembered the mirage with the blazing plague flag in the sky.

"Yes," he answered, reverently, "I guess maybe He did."

That night the wind came, the aurora flashed and hissed in the heavens, and early in the morning when Connie opened the door the air was alive with the keen tang of the North. Hastily he made up his pack for the trail. Most of the grub he left behind, and when the woman protested he laughed, and lied n.o.bly, in that he told her that they had far too much grub for their needs. While 'Merican Joe looked solemnly on and said nothing.

With the blessing of the woman ringing in their ears they started on the trail of Rene Bossuet. When they were out of sight of the cabin, the Indian halted and looked straight into the boy's eyes.

"We have one day's grub, for a three-day's trail if we hit straight for Fort Norman," he announced. "Why then do we follow this man's trail? He has done nothing to us! Why do you always take upon yourself the troubles of others?"

"Where would _you_ have been if I didn't?" flashed the boy angrily. "And where would the trapper have been and that woman and little baby? When I first struck Alaska I was just a little kid with torn clothes and only eight dollars and I thought I didn't have a friend in the world. And then, at Anvik, I found that every one of the big men of the North was my friend! And ever since that time I have been trying to pay back the debt I owe the men of the North--and I'll keep on trying till I die!"

With a shrug 'Merican Joe started his dogs and took up the trail. Two hours later Connie took the lead, and pointed to the tracks in the snow.

"He's slowing up," he exclaimed. "If we don't strike his camp within a half an hour, we'll strike--something else!"

A few minutes later both halted abruptly. Before them was a wide place in the snow that had been trampled by many feet--the soft padded feet of the wolf pack. A toboggan, with its pack still securely lashed, stood at the end of Rene Bossuet's trail. Small sc.r.a.ps of leather showed where the dogs had been torn from the harness. Connie closed his eyes and pictured to himself what had happened there, in the night, in the sound of the roaring wind, and in the changing lights of the brilliantly flashing aurora. Then he opened his eyes and stepped out into the trampled s.p.a.ce and gazed thoughtfully down upon the few scattered bits that lay strewn about upon the snow--a grinning skull, deeply gored here and there with fang marks, the gnawed ends of bones, and here and there ravellings and tiny patches of vivid blue cloth. And as he fastened the toboggan behind his own and swung the dogs onto the back-trail, he paused once more and smiled grimly:

"He had always lived in the North," he said, "but he didn't know the North. He ran like the coward he was from the red death when there was no danger. And not only that, but he stole the food from a woman and a sick baby. He thought he could get away with it--'way up here. But there's something in the silent places that men don't understand--and never will understand. I've heard men speak of it. And now I have seen it--the working of the justice of the North!"

CHAPTER VII

AT FORT NORMAN

No trading post in all the North is more beautifully situated than Fort Norman. The snug buildings of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northern Trading Company are located upon a high bank, at the foot of which the mighty Mackenzie rushes northward to the frozen sea. On a clear day the Rocky Mountains are plainly visible, and a half mile below the post, Bear River, the swift running outlet to Great Bear Lake, flows into the Mackenzie. It is to Fort Norman that the Indians from up and down the great river, from the mountains to the westward, and from Great Bear Lake, and a thousand other lakes and rivers, named and unnamed, to the eastward, come each year to trade their furs. And it was there that Connie Morgan and 'Merican Joe arrived just thirty-seven days after they pulled out of Dawson.

Except at the time of the holiday trading, winter visitors are few at the isolated post, and the two were heartily welcomed by the agents of the rival trading companies, and by the two priests of the little Roman Catholic Mission.

Connie learned from the representatives of both companies that from all indications fur would be plentiful that year, but both expressed doubt that Fort Norman would get its share of the trading.

"It's this way," explained McTavish, a huge, bearded Scot, as they sat about the fur trader's roaring stove upon the evening of their arrival.

"The mountain Indians--the moose eaters, from the westward--are trading on the Yukon. They claim they get better prices over there an' maybe they do. The Yukon traders get the goods into the country cheaper, an'

they could sell them cheaper, an' I ain't blamin' the Indians for tradin' where they can do best. But, now comes reports of a free trader that has trailed up the Coppermine from the coast to trade amongst the caribou eaters to the eastward. If that's so--an' he gets 'em to trade with him--G.o.d help those Indians along towards spring."

The man relapsed into silence and Connie grinned to himself. "They've had it all their way up here for so long it makes them mad if anybody else comes in for a share of their profits," thought the boy. Aloud, he asked innocently:

"What's the matter with the free traders?"

McTavish frowned, and Berl Hansen, the Dane who managed the affairs of the Northern Trading Company's post, laughed harshly.

"Go down along the railroads, boy," he said, "if you want to see the handiwork of the free traders, an' look at the Indians that has dealt with 'em. You can see 'em hanging around them railroad towns, that was once posts where they handled good clean furs. Them Injuns an' their fathers before 'em was good trappers--an' look at 'em now!"

"Yes," interrupted Connie, "but they are the victims of the bootleggers and the whiskey runners! How about the free trader that won't handle liquor?"

"There ain't no such a free trader!" exclaimed Hansen, angrily. "They're a pack of lying, thievin'----"

"There, there, Berl, lad!" rumbled McTavish, checking the irate Dane, who had fairly launched upon his favourite theme. "Ye're right, in the main--but the lad's question was a fair one an' deserves a fair answer.

I'm an older man, an' I've be'n thirty years in the service of the Company. Let me talk a bit, for there are a few traders that for aught I know are honest men an' no rum peddlers. But, there's reasons why they don't last long." The old Scotchman paused, whittled deliberately at his plug tobacco, and filled his pipe. "It's this way," he began. "We'll suppose this trader over on the Coppermine is a legitimate trader. We will handle his case fairly, an' to do that we must consider first the Hudson's Bay Company. For two hundred an' fifty years we have been traders of the North--we know the needs of the North--an' we supply them. The Indian's interests are our interests, and we trade nothing but the best goods. For two centuries an' a half we have studied the North and we have dealt fairly. And may I say here," with a glance toward Hansen, "that there are several other companies with sound financial backing and established posts that have profited by our experience and also supply only the best of goods, and deal fairly. With them we have no quarrel--honest compet.i.tion, of course, we have--but no quarrel.

Comes now the free trader. He is a man of small capital. His goods are cheap, they are of inferior quality. He cannot give 'debt,' as the credit of the North is called. He cannot carry a large number of Indians for six months or a year as we do. If he attempts it, his creditors press him and he goes to the wall--or the Indians find out before time for payment comes that the goods are inferior, and they repudiate their debt. It is bad all around--bad for the Indians, bad for the free traders, and bad for us----"

"I should think it would be good for you," interrupted Connie.

The factor shook his head: "I told you the Indians' interests are our interests. I will show you. Take it at this very post. We will suppose that the beaver are becoming scarce around here; what do we do? We say to the Indians, 'Do not kill any beaver this year and next year.' And they obey us--why? Because we will not buy any beaver here during that time. They will not kill what they cannot sell. Then, when the beavers have become numerous again, we resume trade in them. Were it not for this policy, many fur-bearing animals that once were numerous would now be extinct.

"But--suppose there are free traders in the country--we will pay nothing for beavers, so they begin to buy them cheap--they can name their own price, and the Indians will keep on killing them. The Indian says: 'It is better that I should sell this beaver now at six skins than that my neighbour should sell him in two years at twelve skins.' Then, soon, there are no more beavers left in that part of the country. Another thing, in the fur posts our word is law. We tell the Indians when they can begin to take fur, and when they must stop. The result is we handle only clean, prime pelts with the flesh side white as paper. With the free trader a pelt is a pelt, prime or unprime, it makes no difference.

So the killing goes merrily on where the free traders are--and soon all the fur-bearing animals are exterminated from that section. What does the free trader care? He loads his fly-by-night outfit into canoes or a York boat, and pa.s.ses on to lay waste another section, leaving the poor Indians to face the rigours of the coming winter with ruined credit, cheap, inadequate clothing, cheap food, and worthless trinkets, and their hunting grounds barren of game."

"But," objected Connie, "suppose a free trader dealt in goods as good as yours----"

McTavish laughed. "I have yet to see that trader in thirty years'

experience. Admit that his goods did measure up to our standard. What would he have to charge for them? We buy in vast quant.i.ties--in some cases we take the entire output of factories, and we have an established system of transportation to get it into the wilds. No free trader can compete with us--cost plus freight would ruin him, especially as he must allow the Indians a debt."

"How much debt do they get?"

"That depends upon several things. First of all upon the Indian--his reputation for honesty, and his reputation as a hunter. It also depends upon the size of his family, the distance of his hunting ground from the post, and his general prospects for the season. It varies from one hundred to five or six hundred, and in exceptional cases even to a thousand skins."

"What do you mean by a skin?"

"A skin," explained McTavish, "is our unit of trade. Instead of saying a certain thing is worth so many dollars, we say it is worth so many 'skins' or 'made beaver.'. At this post the value of the made beaver is a half-dollar." The factor opened a drawer and drew forth a handful of bra.s.s tokens which he handed to Connie for inspection. "These are skins, or made beaver. We offer an Indian so many skins for his pack of furs.

He has little idea of what we mean when we tell him he has five hundred skins' worth of fur, so we count out five hundred of these made beaver--he can see them, can feel them--the value of his catch is immediately reduced to something concrete--something he can understand--then we take away the amount of his debt, and if there are still some made beaver remaining, he knows he has something left over to spend for finery and frippery. Rarely does he use these extra skins for the purchase of food or necessary clothing--he contracts a new debt for that. But, wait till spring when the Indians come in, and you will witness the trading for yourself. It is then you will see why it is that the free trader has small chance of doing business at a profit north of sixty."