The Heart of Unaga Part 30

"Sure," he nodded. "I get that." Then he added very deliberately.

"That's why you send your boys out scouting my trail."

Lorson laughed immoderately to hide the effect of the quietly spoken challenge.

"That's business, boy. I buy your stuff--all you can hand me. But if I can jump into your market, why--it's up to me."

"It certainly is up to you." The man lit his pipe and pressed down the tobacco with one of his powerful fingers. "It's up to you more than you know. I once sent back one of your boys. I shan't worry to send back any more. Best save their skins whole, Harris. You'll never jump my market till you can find a feller who can hit a trail such as you never dreamed of. And it's a trail they got to locate first."

The trader leant back in his chair and linked his fat fingers across his wide stomach. His eyes were twinkling as he regarded the visitor from the North. The smile was still in them, but there was a keen speculation in them, too.

"You can't blame me, boy," he said, with perfect amiability. "Hand me all the stuff I'm asking, and your market's as sacred as a woman's virtue. But you don't hand it me, or maybe you can't. Well, it's up to me to supply my needs any way I know. There's nothing crooked in that.

If you're reckoning to squeeze my market you can't kick if I try to open it wide. You see, Brand, this stuff _grows_. I guess it grows in plenty, because you admit you trade it, and I know the Northern neche well enough to guess he only trades sufficient for his needs. See? Well, I've the same right you have to get on to that source. If you know it, hand me what I'm asking for. If you don't, then you can't stop me trying to locate it for myself. If all business propositions were as straight as that there'd be no kick coming to anyone. As it is, the man who's got a kick is me--not you."

"I get all that," the visitor said, without relaxing his attention.

"There's no kick on the moral side of this thing. I never said there was. I said save your boys' skins whole. That's all. If you fancy jumping my claim, jump it, but I guess I don't need to tell you what to expect. You sit around here and order other folks to the job. It's they who're going to suffer. Not you."

"I pay them. They take it on with their darn eyes open," snapped the trader, his amiability slipping from him in a moment.

The other gathered a half smile at the display. He blew a great cloud of smoke, and removed his pipe.

"I'd best tell you something I haven't seen necessary to tell you before," he said. "And it's because I'm not yearning for any feller to get hurt in this thing. And, further, I'm telling you because you'll see the horse sense in cutting out sharp business for real business. There's a big source of this stuff. Oh, yes. I know that. I've been chasing it for fourteen years, and--I haven't found it. When I do--if I do, I'll hand you all you need, and save that weep you threatened. Meanwhile you're sinking dollars in a play that maybe fits your notion of business, but is going to snuff out uselessly the lights of some of your boys, who I agree 'ud be better off the earth. Here's where the horse sense comes in. I know all about this stuff, all there is to know. I know the folks, all of them, who can supply me. They wouldn't trade with your folks. They wouldn't trade with a soul but me. This is simple fact, and no sort of bluff. But the whole point is that I--I wish an outfit ready to face anything the North can hand me, with the confidence of the folks who know the source, have been chasing for it fourteen years and failed, while you, with a bunch of toughs who couldn't live five minutes on one of my winter trails, are guessing to do something that for fourteen years has beaten me. That's the horse sense I want to hand you, and I'm only handing it you so you don't pitchfork any more lives into the trouble that's waiting on them. They won't find it. I'll see to that, and what I don't see to the Northern trail will. If you don't see the sense of this, it's up to you, and anyway, as I'm needing to pull out early, I'll take a draft on the bank for those dollars. I'll be along down again this time next year."

He rose from his chair preparatory to departure, and picked up the warm seal cap he had flung aside.

For a moment the trader sat lost in thought. Then, quite suddenly, he stirred, and reached the check book lying on the desk. He wrote rapidly, and finally tore the draft from its counterfoil and blotted it. Then he looked up, and his smiling amiability was uppermost once more.

"Thanks, Brand," he said. "I'm not sure you aren't right. It's hoss sense anyway. You aren't given to talk most times. I wanted to know how you stood about that stuff. I'm glad you told me. What's more, I guess it's true. Still, what I figger to do in the future don't concern anyone but me. All I can say is I built this enterprise up on a definite hard rule. I never compromise with a rival trading concern, particularly with a free-trading outfit. I trade with 'em, but I'm out to beat 'em all the time."

The other accepted the draft and signed a receipt. Then he thrust his cap over his head and his steady eyes smiled down into the amiable face smiling up at him.

"That's all right, Harris," he said easily. "The feller who don't know wins a pot now and again. But it's the feller who knows wins in the long run. You back the game if you feel that way. You won't hand me a nightmare. Later you'll wake up and get a fresh dream. The game's lost before you start. So long."

Alroy Leclerc beamed on the man who was perhaps the greatest curiosity amongst the many to be found in Seal Bay. His "hotel" had sheltered the trader, who called himself Brand, for three days. A fact sufficiently unusual to stir the saloon-keeper to a high pitch of cordiality. For all his most liberal sources of revenue came from the scallywags of the town, Alroy, with sound instinct, infinitely preferred the custom of the stable men of the Northern world. Brand was more than desirable.

It was early morning. Much too early for Alroy. He felt lonely in the emptiness of the place. A grey daylight, peering in through the window of the office, scarcely lit the remote corners of the room. Brand had breakfasted by lamplight. The saloon-keeper was more than thankful for the comforting warmth of the great wood stove they were standing over.

"Guess it looks like bein' our last real cold snap," Alroy said, by way of making talk with a man who was always difficult. "We'll be running into May in a week. 'Tain't as easy with your folks. We git the warm wind of this darn old bay, with all that means, which," he added with a laugh, "is mostly rain. You'll be runnin' into cold right up to July."

The man from the trail was unrolling a bundle of notes for the settlement of the bill Alroy had presented. He glanced up with a smiling amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes.

"Guess that's as may be," he said indifferently. "We get fancy patterns where I come from."

He pa.s.sed the account and a number of bills to the other, and returned his roll to his pocket.

"And wher' may that be?" enquired the saloon-keeper, with as much indifference as his curiosity would permit.

"Just north," returned the other. "Guess you'll find that right.

Twenty-five fifty. I'll take a receipt."

Alroy turned hastily to the table supporting the hotel register, and, producing an ornate fountain pen, forthwith prepared to scratch a receipt, which was rarely enough demanded by his customers amongst the trail men.

"Sure," Brand went on, while the other bent over his unaccustomed work.

"We get all sorts. You can't figger anything this time of year, except it'll be a h.e.l.l of a sight more cussed than when winter's shut down tight. I once knew a red hot chinook that turned the whole darn country into a swamp in April, and never let it freeze up again. I once broke trail at Fort Duggan at the start of May on open water with the skitters running, like midsummer."

Alroy looked up.

"Duggan?" he questioned sharply. "That's the place Lorson opened up last spring. It's right on the edge of a territory they call Unaga, ain't it?

The boys were full of it last summer and were guessing what sort of murder lay behind his play."

Brand took the receipt the other handed him and folded it. He thrust it into a pocket inside his fur-lined tunic.

"Why?" he demanded, in the curt fashion that seemed so natural to him.

"Why?" Alroy laughed. "Well, the boys around here guess they know Lorson Harris, and ain't impressed with his virtues. You see, Fort Duggan, they reckon, is a b.u.m sort of location, eaten up by bugs an' a poor sort of neche race. There's an old fort there, ain't there? One o' them places where a hundred an' more years ago the old fur-traders stole, and looted, and murdered the darn neches, and mostly drank themselves to death when they didn't do it by shootin'. That don't figure a heap in the boys' reckonin'. What does, is the feller Lorson sent there. The yarn goes that this feller Nicol--David Nicol--that's his name, I reckon, has been working for the Seal Bay Trading for some years. He seems to be some crook, and Harris found him out. Guess he seems to have cost the Seal Bay outfit a big bunch of money. They were all for sending him down for penitentiary. Then a sort of miracle happened. Lorson begged off. Why? It ain't usually Lorson's way. Next thing happens is Lorson opens up Fort Duggan, and puts the tough in. So the boys are guessin'. There sure is some sort of murder behind it. Lorson don't miss things. His chances are mostly a cinch."

"Yes, he's pretty wise." The thoughtful eyes of the trail man were turned on the sides of the glowing stove so that the saloon-keeper had no chance of observing them. "You can't guess the things behind Lorson's smile," he went on. "But I reckon you can figger there's always something. As far as I can recollect of Fort Duggan--and I haven't been there these years--I'd say he's no mean judge. I always wondered when a big corporation would come along and open it up. There's big trade there in pelts. Still, it's a tough sort of place."

"From what I hear it can't be too tough for the feller Lorson's sent there. There'll be blood and murder amongst the neches there if they don't hand over easy."

Alroy laughed immoderately at the prospect he contemplated, and held out his hand in friendly farewell as his customer prepared to depart.

"Well, so long, Mister," he grinned amiably. "I guess there's things worse in the world than the shelter of this old shanty. Anyway I'd sooner you hit the Northern trail than me. I'll be mighty pleased to see you around come--next year."

"So long."

Alroy's cordiality found very little that was responsive in the other.

Perhaps the trail man understood its exact value. Perhaps he was simply indifferent. The saloon-keeper served a purpose, and was amply paid for his service. Anyway he shook hands, and departed without any other response.

Alroy watched him go. There was nothing else to do at this early hour with his entire establishment still abed, and Seal Bay's main thoroughfare still a desert of dirty, rutted snow, some foot or more deep. He stood in his doorway gazing out at the cheerless grey of early morning, watching with interest the handling of the three great dog trains which he had seen come into town with their laden sleds only three days before.

For all the cold and the early morning drear, for all he was of the life of the desolate sh.o.r.es of Seal Bay, for all the comings and goings of the men of the trails, for whom he mostly entertained a more or less profound contempt, for Alroy Leclerc there was still a fascination attached to the mysterious beyond to which these people belonged.

Somewhere out there was a great white world whose secrets he could only guess at. The life was a life he did not envy. He knew it by the thousand and one stories of disaster and miraculous escape he had listened to, but that was all. There was more in it, he knew. Much more.

It held fascinated the adventurous, untamed spirits of men whose superhuman efforts, yielding them little better than a pittance, still made possible the enormous profits of a parasitic world which battened upon them, and sucked them dry. Oh, yes. Whatever his sympathies he had a pretty wide understanding of the lives of these men. He also knew that he was one of the parasites which battened upon them. But he had no scruples. Nor had he envy. Only a sort of fascination which never failed at the sight of a sled, and a powerful train of well-handled dogs.

It was that which he looked upon now. He watched the two Indians stir the savage creatures from their crouching upon the snow. It was the harsh law of the club administered by skilled but merciless hands. The great, grey beasts, fully half wolf, understood nothing more gentle.

In moments only the whole of the three trains were alert and ready on their feet straining against the rawhide breast draws of their harness.

Then the white man shouted the word to "mush." The long hardwood poles of the men broke out the sleds from the frozen grip of snow, and the whole of the lightened outfit dashed off at a rapid, almost headlong gait.

For a few moments Alroy remained at his post gazing after them. Then of a sudden his attention was drawn in an opposite direction.

It was an incoming train. A single sled, heavily laden, but with only a team of three dogs, far inferior to those which had just pa.s.sed out of the town. They cut into the main thoroughfare out of a side turning and headed at once for the store of the Seal Bay Trading Company.

He looked for the owner. The owner was always his chief interest. He antic.i.p.ated that a liberal share of the value of the man's cargo would find its way across his counter, and the extent of his profit would depend on the man's ident.i.ty.

He was destined to receive the surprise of his life. He looked for an Indian, a half-breed, or a white man. Some well-known man of the trail.