Lords of the North Part 9

"Hang it!" said the first speaker. "We don't display our little amours----"

"No," broke in the other, "we just display our little contours and get snubbed, eh?"

The bearded youth flushed at the sally of laughter.

"Hang it!" he answered, pulling fiercely at his moustache. "She is a bit of statuary, so she is, as cold as marble. But there is no law against looking at a pretty bit of statuary, when it frames itself in a window in this wilderness."

To which, every man of the crowd said a hearty amen; and I walked off to stretch myself full length on a bench, resolving to have out a mirror from my packing case and get rid of those bristles that offended my chin. The men began to disperse to their quarters. The tardy twilight of the long summer evenings, peculiar to the far north, was gathering in the courtyard. As the night-wind sighed past, I felt the velvet caress of warm June air on my face and memory reverted to the innocent boyhood days of Laval. How far away those days seemed! Yet it was not so long ago. Surely it is knowledge, not time, that ages one, knowledge, that takes away the trusting innocence resulting from ignorance and gives in its place the distrustful innocence resulting from wisdom. I thought of the temptations that had come to me in the few short weeks I had been adrift, and how feebly I had resisted them. I asked myself if there were not in the moral compa.s.s of men, who wander by land, some guiding star, as there is for those who wander over sea. I gazed high above the sloping roofs for some sign of moon, or star. The sky was darkling and overcast; but in lowering my eyes from heaven to earth, I saw what I had missed before--a fair, white face framed in a window above the stoop directly opposite my bench. The face seemed to have a background of gold; for a wonderful ma.s.s of wavy hair cl.u.s.tered down from the blue-veined brow to the bit of white throat visible, where a gauzy piece of neck wear had been loosened. Evidently, this was the statuary described by the whiskered youth. But the statuary breathed. A bloom of living apple-blossoms was on the cheeks. The brows were black and arched. The very pose of the head was arch, and in the lips was a suggestion of archery, too,--Cupid's archery, though the upper lip was drawn almost too tight for the bow beneath to discharge the little G.o.d's shaft. Why did I do it? I do not know. Ask the young Nor'-Wester, who had worn a path beneath the selfsame window that very day, or the hosts of young men, who are still wearing paths beneath windows to this very day. I coughed and sat bolt upright on the bench with unnecessarily loud intimations of my presence. The fringe of black lashes did not even lift. I rose and with great show of indifference paraded solemnly five times past that window; but, in spite of my pompous indifference, by a sort of side-signalling, I learned that the owner of the heavy lashes was unaware of my existence. Thereupon, I sat down again. It _was_ a bit of statuary and a very pretty bit of statuary. As the youth said, there was no law against looking at a bit of statuary in this wilderness, and as the statuary did not know I was looking at it, I sat back to take my fill of that vision framed in the open window. The statuary, unknown to itself, had full meed of revenge; for it presently brought such a flood of longing to my heart, longings, not for this face, but for what this face represented--the innocence and love and purity of home, that I bowed dejectedly forward with moist eyes gazing at the ground.

"Hullo!" whispered a deep voice in my ear. "Are you mooning after the Little Statue already?"

When I looked up, the man had pa.s.sed, but the head in the window was leaning out and a pair of swimming, l.u.s.trous, gray eyes were gazing forward in a way that made me dizzy. "Ah," they said in a language that needed no speaking, "there are two of us, very, very home-sick."

"The guiding star for my moral compa.s.s," said I, under my breath.

Then the statue in a live fashion suddenly drew back into the dark room.

The window-shutter flung to, with a bang, and my vision was gone. I left the bench, made a shake-down on one of the store counters, and knew nothing more till the noise of brigades from the far north aroused the fort at an early hour Monday morning. The arrival of the Athabasca traders was the signal for tremendous activity. An army returning from victory could not have been received with greater acclaim. _Bourgeois_ and clerks tumbled promiscuously from every nook in the fort and rushing half-dressed towards the gates shouted welcome to the men, who had come from the outposts of the known world. They were a s.h.a.ggy, ragged-looking rabble, those traders from mountain fastnesses and the Arctic circle.

With long white hair, hatless some of them, with beards like oriental patriarchs, and dressed entirely in skins of the chase, from fringed coats to gorgeous moccasins, the unkempt monarchs of northern realms had the imperious bearing of princes.

"Is it you, really you, looking as old as your great grandfather? By Gad! So it is," came from one quondam friend.

"Powers above!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed another onlooker, "See that old Father Abraham! It's Tait! As you live, it's Tait! And he only went to the Athabasca ten years ago. He was thirty then, and now he's a hundred!"

"That's Wilson," says another. "Looks thin, doesn't he? Slim fare! He's the only man from Great Slave Lake that escaped being a meal for the Crees,--year of the famine; and they hadn't time to pick his bones!"

A running fire of such comments went along the spectators lining each side of the path. There was a sad side to the clamorous welcomes and handshakes and surprised recognitions. Had not these men gone north young and full of hope, as I was going? Now, news of the feud with the Hudson's Bay brought them out old before their time and more like the natives with whom they had traded than the white race they had left.

Here and there, strong men would fall in each other's arms and embrace like school-girls, covering their emotion with rounded oaths instead of terms of endearment.

All day the confusion of unloading boats continued. The dull tread of moccasined feet as Indians carried pack after pack from river bank to the fort, was ceaseless. Faster than the clerks could sort the furs great bundles were heaped on the floor. By noon, warehouses were crammed from bas.e.m.e.nt to attic. Ermine taken in mid-winter, when the fur was spotlessly white, but for the jet tail-tip, otter cut so deftly scarcely a tuft of fur had been wasted along the opened seam, silver fox, which had made the fortune of some lucky hunter--these and other rare furs, that were to minister to the luxury of kings, pa.s.sed from tawny carriers to sorters. Elsewhere, coa.r.s.e furs, obtained at greater risk, but owing to the abundance of big game, less valuable for the hunter, were sorted and valued. With a reckless underestimate of the beaver-skin, their unit of currency, Indians hung over counters bartering away the season's hunt. I frankly acknowledge the Company's clerks on such occasions could do a rushing business selling tawdry stuff at fabulous prices.

Meanwhile, in the main hall, the _Bourgeois_, or partners, of the great North-West Company were holding their annual General a.s.sembly behind closed doors. Clerks lowered their voices when they pa.s.sed that room, and well they might; for the rulers inside held despotic sway over a domain as large as Europe. And what were they decreeing? Who can tell?

The archives of the great fur companies are as jealously guarded as diplomatic doc.u.ments, and more remarkable for what they omit than what they state. Was the policy, that ended so tragically a year afterwards, adopted at this meeting? Great corporations have a fashion of keeping their mouths and their council doors tight shut and of leaving the public to infer that catastrophes come causeless. However that may be, I know that Duncan Cameron, a fiery Highlander and one of the keenest men in the North-West service, suddenly flung out of the a.s.sembly room with a pleased, determined look on his ruddy face.

"Are ye Rufus Gillespie?" he asked.

"That's my name, Sir."

"Then buckle on y'r armor, lad; for ye'll see the thick of the fight.

You're appointed to my department at Red River." And he left us.

"Lucky dog! I envy you! There'll be rare sport between Cameron and McDonell, when the two forts up in Red River begin to talk back to each other," exclaimed a Fort William man to me.

"Are you Gillespie?" asked a low, mellow, musical voice by my side. I turned to face a tall, dark, wiry man, with the swarthy complexion and intensely black eyes of one having strains of native blood. Among the _voyageurs_, I had become accustomed to the soft-spoken, melodious speech that betrays Indian parentage; and I believe if I were to encounter a descendant of the red race in China, or among the Latin peoples of Southern Europe, I could recognize Indian blood by that rhythmic trick of the native tongue.

"I'm Gillespie," I answered my keen-eyed questioner. "Who are you?"

"Cuthbert Grant, warden of the plains and leader of the _Bois-Brules_,"

was his terse response. "You're coming to our department at Fort Gibraltar, and I want you to give Father Holland a place in your canoes to come north with us. He's on his way to the Missouri."

At that instant Duncan Cameron came up to Grant and muttered something.

Both men at once went back to the council hall of the General a.s.sembly.

I heard the courtyard gossips vowing that the Hudson's Bay would cease its aggressions, now that Cameron and Cuthbert Grant were to lead the Nor'-Westers; but I made no inquiry. Next to keeping his own counsel and giving credence to no man, the fur trader learns to gain information only with ears and eyes, and to ask no questions. The scurrying turmoil in the fort lasted all day. At dusk, natives were expelled from the stockades and work stopped.

Grand was the foregathering around the supper table of the great dining hall that night. _Bourgeois_, clerks and traders from afar, explorers, from the four corners of the earth--a.s.sembled four hundred strong, buoyant and unrestrained, enthusiastically loyal to the company, and tingling with hilarious fellowship over this, the first reunion for twenty years. Though their manner and clothing be uncouth, men who have pa.s.sed a lifetime exploring northern wilds have that to say, which is worth hearing. So the feast was prolonged till candles sputtered low and pitch-pine f.a.gots flared out. Indeed, before the gathering broke up, flagons as well as candles had to be renewed. Lanterns swung from the black rafters of the ceiling. Tallow candles stood in solemn rows down the centre of each table, showing that men, not women, had prepared the banquet. Stuck in iron brackets against the walls were pine torches, that had been dipped in some resinous mixture and now flamed brightly with a smell not unlike incense. Tables lined the four walls of the hall and ran in the form of a cross athwart the middle of the room. Backless benches were on both sides of every table. At the end, chairs were placed, the seats of honor for famous _Bourgeois_. British flags had been draped across windows and colored bunting hung from rafter to rafter.

"Ah, mon! Is no this fine? This is worth living for! This is the company to serve!" Duncan Cameron exclaimed as he sank into one of the chairs at the head of the centre table. The Scotchman's heart softened before those platters of venison and wild fowl, and he almost broke into geniality. "Here, Gillespie, to my right," he called, motioning me to the edge of the bench at his elbow. "Here, Grant, opposite Gillespie!

Aye! an' is that you, Father Holland?" he cried to the stout, jovial priest, with shining brow and cheeks wrinkling in laughter, who followed Grant. "There's a place o' honor for men like you, Sir. Here!" and he gave the priest a chair beside himself.

The _Bourgeois_ seated, there was a scramble for the benches. Then the whole company with great zest and much noisy talk fell upon the viands with a will.

"Why, Cameron," began a northern winterer a few places below me, "it's taken me three months fast travelling to come from McKenzie River to Fort William. By Jove! Sir, 'twas cold enough to freeze your words solid as you spoke them, when we left Great Slave Lake. I'll bet if you men were up there now, you'd hear my voice thawing out and yelling get-epp to my huskies, and my huskies yelping back! Used a dog train, whole of March. Tied myself up in bag of buffalo robes at night and made the huskies lie across it to keep me from freezing. Got so hot, every pore in my body was a spouting fountain, and in the morning that moisture would freeze my buckskin stiff. Couldn't stand that; so I tried sleeping with my head out of the bag and froze my nose six nights out of seven."

The unfortunate nose corroborated his evidence.

"Ice was sloppy on the Saskatchewan, and I had to use pack-horses and take the trail. I was trusting to get provisions at Souris. You can imagine, then, how we felt towards the Hudson's Bays when we found they'd plundered our fort. We were without a bite for two days. Why, we took half a dozen Hudson's Bays in our quarters up north last winter, and saved them from starvation; and here we were, starving, that they might plunder and rob. I'm with you, Sir! I'm with you to the hilt against the thieves! There's a time for peace and there's a time for war, and I say this is a very good time for war!"

"Here's confusion to the old H. B. C's! Confusion, short life, no prosperity, and death to the Hudson's Bay!" yelled the young whiskered Nor'-Wester, springing to his feet on the bench and waving a drinking-cup round his head. Some of the youthful clerks were disposed to take their cue from this fire-eater and began strumming the table and applauding; but the _Bourgeois_ frowned on forward conduct.

"Check him, Grant!" growled Cameron in disapproval.

"Sit down, b.u.mptious babe!" said the priest, tugging the lad's coat.

"Here, you young show-off," whispered Grant, leaning across the priest, and he knocked the boy's feet from under him bringing him down to the bench with a thud.

"He needs more outdoor life, that young one! It goes to his head mighty fast," remarked Cameron. "What were you saying about your hard luck?"

and he turned to the northern winterer again.

"Call that hard luck?" broke in a mountaineer, laughing as if he considered hardships a joke. "We lived a month last winter on two meals a day; soup, out of snow-shoe thongs, first course; fried skins, second go; teaspoonful shredded fish, by way of an entree!"

The man wore a beaded buckskin suit, and his mellow intonation of words in the manner of the Indian tongue showed that he had almost lost English speech along with English customs. His recital caused no surprise.

"Been on short, rations myself," returned the northerner. "Don't like it! Isn't safe! Rips a man's nerves to the raw when Indians glare at him with hungry eyes eighteen hours out of the twenty-four."

"What was the matter?" drawled the mountaineer. "Hudson's Bay been tampering with your Indians? Now if you had a good Indian wife as I have, you could defy the beggars to turn trade away----"

"Aye, that's so," agreed the winterer, "I heard of a fellow on the Athabasca who had to marry a squaw before he could get a pair of racquets made; but that wasn't my trouble. Game was scarce."

"Game scarce on MacKenzie River?" A chorus of voices vented their surprise. To the outside world game is always scarce, reported scarce on MacKenzie River and everywhere else by the jealous fur traders; but these deceptions are not kept up among hunters fraternizing at the same banquet board.

"Mighty scarce. Some of the tribe died out from starvation. The Hudson's Bay in our district were in bad plight. We took six of them in--Hadn't heard of the Souris plunder, you may be sure."

"More fools they to go into the Athabasca," declared the mountaineer.

"Bigger fools to send another brigade there this year when they needn't expect help from us," interjected a third trader.

"You don't say they're sending another lot of men to the Athabasca!"

exclaimed the winterer.