Nomads of the North Part 14

"I'll go," said Challoner, dropping a hand to Miki's head.

For half an hour after that MacDonnell told him the things he knew about Nanette Le Beau. When Challoner rose to go the Factor followed him to the door.

"Keep your eyes open for Durant," he warned. "That dog is worth more to him than all his winnings to-day, and they say his stakes were big. He won heavily from Grouse Piet, but the halfbreed is thick with him now.

I know it. So watch out."

Out in the open s.p.a.ce, in the light of the moon and stars, Challoner stood far a moment with Miki's forepaws resting against his breast. The dog's head was almost on a level with his shoulders.

"D'ye remember when you fell out of the canoe, Boy?" he asked softly.

"Remember how you 'n' the cub were tied in the bow, an' you got to sc.r.a.pping and fell overboard just above the rapids? Remember? By Jove!

those rapids pretty near got ME, too. I thought you were dead, sure--both of you. I wonder what happened to the cub?"

Miki whined in response, and his whole body trembled.

"And since then you've killed a man," added Challoner, as if he still could not quite believe. "And I'm to take you back to the woman. That's the funny thing about it. You're going back to HER, and if she says kill you--"

He dropped Miki's forefeet and went on to the cabin. At the threshold a low growl rose in Miki's throat. Challoner laughed, and opened the door. They went in, and the dog's growl was a menacing snarl. Challoner had left his lamp burning low, and in the light of it he saw Henri Durant and Grouse Piet waiting for him. He turned up the wick, and nodded.

"Good evening. Pretty late for a call, isn't it?"

Grouse Piet's stolid face did not change its expression. It struck Challoner, as he glanced at him, that in head and shoulders he bore a grotesque resemblance to a walrus. Durant's eyes were dully ablaze. His face was swollen where Challoner had struck him. Miki, stiffened to the hardness of a knot, and still snarling under his breath, had crawled under Challoner's bunk. Durant pointed to him.

"We've come after that dog," he said.

"You can't have him, Durant," replied Challoner, trying hard to make himself appear at ease in a situation that sent a chill up his back. As he spoke he was making up his mind why Grouse Piet had come with Durant. They were giants, both of them: more than that--monsters.

Instinctively he had faced them with the small table between them. "I'm sorry I lost my temper out there," he continued. "I shouldn't have struck you, Durant. It wasn't your fault--and I apologize. But the dog is mine. I lost him over in the Jackson's Knee country, and if Jacques Le Beau caught him in a trap, and sold him to you, he sold a dog that didn't belong to him. I'm willing to pay you back what you gave for him, just to be fair. How much was it?"

Grouse Piet had risen to his feet. Durant came to the opposite edge of the table, and leaned over it. Challoner wondered how a single blow had knocked him down.

"Non, he is not for sale." Durant's voice was low; so low that it seemed to choke him to get it out. It was filled with a repressed hatred. Challoner saw the great cords of his knotted hands bulging under the skin as he gripped the edge of the table. "M'sieu, we have come for that dog. Will you let us take him?"

"I will pay you back what you gave for him, Durant. I will add to the price."

"Non. He is mine. Will you give him back--NOW?"

"No!"

Scarcely was the word out of his mouth when Durant flung his whole weight and strength against the table. Challoner had not expected the move--just yet. With a bellow of rage and hatred Durant was upon him, and under the weight of the giant he crashed to the floor. With them went the table and lamp. There was a vivid splutter of flame and the cabin was in darkness, except where the moon-light flooded through the one window. Challoner had looked for something different. He had expected Durant to threaten before he acted, and, sizing up the two of them, he had decided to reach the edge of his bunk during the discussion. Under the pillow was his revolver. It was too late now.

Durant was on him, fumbling in the darkness for his throat, and as he flung one arm upward to get a hook around the Frenchman's neck he heard Grouse Piet throw the table back. The next instant they were rolling in the moonlight on the floor, and Challoner caught a glimpse of Grouse Piet's huge bulk bending over them. Durant's head was twisted under his arm, but one of the giant's hands had reached his throat. The halfbreed saw this, and he cried out something in a guttural voice. With a tremendous effort Challoner rolled himself and his adversary out of the patch of light into darkness again. Durant's thick neck cracked. Again Grouse Piet called out in that guttural, questioning voice. Challoner put every ounce of his energy into the crook of his arm, and Durant did not answer.

Then the weight of Grouse Piet fell upon them, and his great hands groped for Challoner's neck. His thick fingers found Durant's beard first, then fumbled for Challoner, and got their hold. Ten seconds of their terrific grip would have broken his neck. But the fingers never closed. A savage cry of agony burst from Grouse Piet's lips, and with that cry, ending almost in a scream, came the snap of great jaws and the rending snarl of fangs in the darkness. Durant heard, and with a great heave of his ma.s.sive body he broke free from Challoner's grip, and leapt to his feet. In a flash Challoner was at his bunk, facing his enemies with the revolver in his hand.

Everything had happened quickly. Scarcely more than a minute had pa.s.sed since the overturning of the table, and now, in the moment when the situation had turned in his favour, a sudden swift and sickening horror seized upon Challoner. b.l.o.o.d.y and terrible there rose before him the one scene he had witnessed that day in the big cage where Miki and the wolf-dog had fought. And there--in that darkness of the cabin--

He heard a moaning cry and the crash of a body to the floor.

"Miki, Miki," he cried. "Here! Here!"

He dropped his revolver and sprang to the door, flinging it wide open.

"For G.o.d's sake get out!" he cried. "GET OUT!"

A bulk dashed past him into the night. He knew it was Durant. Then he leapt to the dark shadows on the floor and dug his two hands into the loose hide at the back of Miki's neck, dragging him back, and shouting his name. He saw Grouse Piet crawling toward the door. He saw him rise to his feet, silhouetted for a moment against the starlight, and stagger out into the night. And then he felt Miki's weight slinking down to the floor, and under his hands the dog's muscles grew limp and saggy. For two or three minutes he continued to kneel beside him before he closed the cabin door and lighted another lamp. He set up the overturned table and placed the lamp on it. Miki had not moved. He lay flat on his belly, his head between his forepaws, looking up at Challoner with a mute appeal in his eyes.

Challoner reached out his two arms.

"Miki!"

In an instant Miki was up against him, his forefeet against his breast, and with his arms about the dog's shoulders Challoner's eyes took in the floor. On it were wet splashes and bits of torn clothing.

His arms closed more tightly.

"Miki, old boy, I'm much obliged," he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The next morning Challoner's outfit of three teams and four men left north and west for the Reindeer Lake country on the journey to his new post at the mouth of the Cochrane. An hour later Challoner struck due west with a light sledge and a five-dog team for the Jackson's Knee.

Behind him followed one of MacDonnell's Indians with the team that was to bring Nanette to Fort O' G.o.d.

He saw nothing more of Durant and Grouse Piet, and accepted MacDonnell's explanation that they had undoubtedly left the Post shortly after their a.s.sault upon him in the cabin. No doubt their disappearance had been hastened by the fact that a patrol of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police on its way to York Factory was expected at Fort O' G.o.d that day.

Not until the final moment of departure was Miki brought from the cabin and tied to the gee-bar of Challoner's sledge. When he saw the five dogs squatted on their haunches he grew rigid and the old snarl rose in his throat. Under Challoner's quieting words he quickly came to understand that these beasts were not enemies, and from a rather suspicious toleration of them he very soon began to take a new sort of interest in them. It was a friendly team, bred in the south and without the wolf strain.

Events had come to pa.s.s so swiftly and so vividly in Miki's life during the past twenty-four hours that for many miles after they left Fort O'

G.o.d his senses were in an unsettled state of antic.i.p.ation. His brain was filled with a jumble of strange and thrilling pictures. Very far away, and almost indistinct, were the pictures of things that had happened before he was made a prisoner by Jacques Le Beau. Even the memory of Neewa was fading under the thrill of events at Nanette's cabin and at Fort O' G.o.d. The pictures that blazed their way across his brain now were of men, and dogs, and many other things that he had never seen before. His world had suddenly transformed itself into a host of Henri Durants and Grouse Piets and Jacques Le Beaus, two-legged beasts who had clubbed him, and half killed him, and who had made him fight to keep the life in his body. He had tasted their blood in his vengeance. And he watched for them now. The pictures told him they were everywhere. He could imagine them as countless as the wolves, and as he had seen them crowded round the big cage in which he had slain the wolf-dog.

In all of this excited and distorted world there was only one Challoner, and one Nanette, and one baby. All else was a chaos of uncertainty and of dark menace. Twice when the Indian came up close behind them Miki whirled about with a savage snarl. Challoner watched him, and understood.

Of the pictures in his brain one stood out above all others, definite and unclouded, and that was the picture of Nanette. Yes, even above Challoner himself. There lived in him the consciousness of her gentle hands; her sweet, soft voice; the perfume of her hair and clothes and body--the WOMAN of her; and a part of the woman--as the hand is a part of the body--was the baby. It was this part of Miki that Challoner could not understand, and which puzzled him when they made camp that night. He sat for a long time beside the fire trying to bring back the old comradeship of the days of Miki's puppyhood. But he only partly succeeded. Miki was restive. Every nerve in his body seemed on edge.

Again and again he faced the west, and always when he sniffed the air in that direction there came a low whine in his throat.

That night, with doubt in his heart, Challoner fastened him near the tent with a tough rope of babiche.

For a long time after Challoner had gone to bed Miki sat on his haunches close to the spruce to which he was fastened. It must have been ten o'clock, and the night was so still that the snap of a dying ember in the fire was like the crack of a whip to his ears. Miki's eyes were wide open and alert. Near the slowly burning logs, wrapped in his thick blankets, he could make out the motionless form of the Indian, asleep. Back of him the sledge-dogs had wallowed their beds in the snow and were silent. The moon was almost straight overhead, and a mile or two away a wolf pointed his muzzle to the radiant glow of it and howled. The sound, like a distant calling voice, added new fire to the growing thrill in Miki's blood. He turned in the direction of the wailing voice. He wanted to call back. He wanted to throw up his head and cry out to the forests, and the moon, and the starlit sky. But only his jaws clicked, and he looked at the tent in which Challoner was sleeping. He dropped down upon his belly in the snow. But his head was still alert and listening. The moon had already begun its westward decline. The fire burned out until the logs were only a dull and slumbering glow; the hand of Challoner's watch pa.s.sed midnight, and still Miki was wide-eyed and restless in the thrill of the thing that was upon him. And then at last The Call that was coming to him from out of the night became his master, and he gnawed the babiche in two. It was the call of the Woman--of Nanette and the baby.

In his freedom Miki sniffed at the edge of Challoner's tent. His back sagged. His tail drooped. He knew that in this hour he was betraying the master for whom he had waited so long, and who had lived so vividly in his dreams. It was not reasoning, but an instinctive oppression of fact. He would come back. That conviction burned dully in his brain.

But now--to-night--he must go. He slunk off into the darkness. With the stealth of a fox he made his way between the sleeping dogs. Not until he was a quarter of a mile from the camp did he straighten out, and then a gray and fleeting shadow he sped westward under the light of the moon.

There was no hesitation in the manner of his going. Free of the pain of his wounds, strong-limbed, deep-lunged as the strongest wolf of the forests, he went on tirelessly. Rabbits bobbing out of his path did not make him pause; even the strong scent of a fisher-cat almost under his nose did not swerve him a foot from his trail. Through swamp and deep forest, over lake and stream, across open barren and charred burns his unerring sense of orientation led him on. Once he stopped to drink where the swift current of a creek kept the water open. Even then he gulped in haste--and shot on. The moon drifted lower and lower until it sank into oblivion. The stars began to fade away The little ones went out, and the big ones grew sleepy and dull. A great snow-ghostly gloom settled over the forest world.

In the six hours between midnight and dawn he covered thirty-five miles.

And then he stopped. Dropping on his belly beside a rock at the crest of a ridge he watched the birth of day. With drooling jaws and panting breath he rested, until at last the dull gold of the winter sun began to paint the eastern sky. And then came the first bars of vivid sunlight, shooting over the eastern ramparts as guns flash from behind their battlements, and Miki rose to his feet and surveyed the morning wonder of his world. Behind him was Fort O' G.o.d, fifty miles away; ahead of him the cabin--twenty. It was the cabin he faced as he went down from the ridge.

As the miles between him and the cabin grew fewer and fewer he felt again something of the oppression that had borne upon him at Challoner's tent. And yet it was different. He had run his race. He had answered The Call. And now, at the end, he was seized by a fear of what his welcome would be. For at the cabin he had killed a man--and the man had belonged to the woman. His progress became more hesitating.