The Huntress Part 44

There were four wagons, each drawn by a good team, beside half a dozen loose horses. The horses were in condition, the wagons well laden. The entire outfit had a well-to-do air that earned the traders' respect even from across the river. Of the four men, one carried his arm in a sling.

Stiffy and Mahooley ferried them across team by team in the scow they kept for the purpose. The four hardy and muscular travellers were men according to the traders' understanding. They used the same scornful, jocular, profane tongue. Their very names were a recommendation: Big Jack Skinner, Black Shand Fraser, Husky Marr, and Young Joe Hagland, the ex-pugilist.

After the horses had been turned out to graze, they all gathered in the store for a gossip. The newcomers talked freely about their journey in, and its difficulties, avoiding only a certain period of their stay at Nine-Mile Point, and touching very briefly on their meeting with the Bishop. Something sore was hidden here.

When the bell rang for supper they trooped across the road. The kitchen in reality consisted of a mess-room downstairs with a dormitory overhead; the actual kitchen was in a lean-to behind. When the six men had seated themselves at the long trestle covered with oilcloth, the cook entered with a steaming bowl of rice.

Now, the cook had observed the new arrivals from the kitchen window, and had hardened himself for the meeting, but the travellers were unprepared. They stared at him, scowling. An odd silence fell on the table.

Mahooley looked curiously from one to another. "Do you know him?" he demanded.

Big Jack quickly recovered himself. He banged the table, and bared his big yellow teeth in a grin.

"On my soul, it's Sammy!" he cried. "How the h.e.l.l did he get here?

Here's Sammy, boys! What do you know about that! Sammy, the White Slave!"

A huge laugh greeted this sally. Sam set his jaw and doggedly went on bringing in the food.

"How are you, Sam?" asked Jack with mock solicitude. "Have you recovered from your terrible experience, poor fellow? My! My! That was an awful thing to happen to a good boy!"

Mahooley, laughing and highly mystified, demanded: "What's the con, boys?"

"Ain't you heard the story?" asked Jack with feigned surprise. "How that poor young boy was carried off by a brutal girl and kep' prisoner on an island?"

"Go 'way!" cried Mahooley, delighted.

"Honest to G.o.d he was!" affirmed Jack.

Joe and Husky not being able to think of any original contributions of wit, rang all the changes on "Sammy, the White Slave!" with fresh bursts of laughter. Shand said nothing. He laughed harshly.

"Who was the girl?" asked Mahooley.

They told him.

"Bela Charley!" he exclaimed. "The best looker on the lake! She has the name of a man-hater."

"I dare say," said Jack with a serious air. "But his fatal beauty was too much for her. You got to hand it to him for his looks, boys," he added, calling general attention to the tight-lipped Sam in his ap.r.o.n.

"This here guy, Apollo, didn't have much on our Sam."

A highly coloured version of the story followed. In it Big Jack and his mates figured merely as disinterested onlookers. The teller, stimulated by applause, surpa.s.sed himself. They could not contain their mirth.

"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" cried Mahooley. "This is the richest I ever heard! It will never be forgotten!"

Sam went through with the meal, gritting his teeth, and crushing down the rage that bade fair to suffocate him. He disdained to challenge Jack's equivocal tale. The laughter of one's friends is hard enough to bear sometimes, still, it may be borne with a grin; but when it rings with scarcely concealed hate it stings like whips.

Sam was supposed to sit down at the table with them, but he would sooner have starved. The effort of holding himself in almost finished him.

When finally he cleared away, Mahooley said: "Come on and tell us your side now."

"Go to h.e.l.l!" muttered Sam, and walked out of the back door.

He strode up the road without knowing or caring where he was going. He was moved merely by the impulse to put distance between him and his tormentors.

Completely and terribly possessed by his rage, as youths are, he felt that it would kill him if he could not do something to fight his way out of the hateful position he was in. But what could he do? He couldn't even sleep out of doors because he lacked a blanket. His poverty had him by the heels.

He came to himself to find that he was staring at the buildings of the company establishment mounted on a little hill. This was a mile from the French outfit. The sight suggested a possible way out of his difficulties. With an effort he collected his faculties and turned in.

The buildings formed three sides of a square open to a view across the bay. On Sam's left was the big warehouse; on the other side the store faced it, and the trader's house, behind a row of neat palings, closed the top. All the buildings were constructed of squared logs whitewashed. A lofty flagpole rose from the centre of the little square, with a tiny bra.s.s cannon at its base.

Sam saw the trader taking the air on his veranda with two ladies. The neat fence, the gravel path, the flower-beds, had a strange look in that country. A keen feeling of homesickness attacked the unhappy Sam.

As he approached the veranda one of the ladies seemed vaguely familiar. She glided toward him with extended hand.

"Mr. Gladding!" she exclaimed. "So you got here before us. Glad to see you!" In a lower voice she added: "I wanted to tell you how much I sympathized with you the other day, but I had no chance. So glad you got out of it all right. I knew from the first that you were not to blame."

Sam was much taken aback. He bowed awkwardly. What did the woman want of him? Her over-impressive voice simply confused him. While she detained him, his eyes were seeking the trader.

"Can I speak to you?" he asked.

The other man rose. "Sure!" he said. "Come into the house."

He led the way into an office, and, turning, looked Sam over with a quizzical smile. His name was Gilbert Beattie, and he was a tall, lean, black Scotchman, in equal parts good-natured and grim.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Give me a job," replied Sam abruptly. "Anything."

"Aren't you working for the French outfit?"

"For my keep. That will never get me anywhere. I might as well be in slavery."

"Sorry," said Beattie. "This place is run in a different way. 'The Service,' we call it. The young fellows are indentured by the head office and sent to school, so to speak. I can't hire anybody without authority. You should have applied outside."

Sam's lip curled a little. A lot of good it did telling him that now.

"You seem to have made a bad start all around," Beattie continued, meaning it kindly. "Running away with that girl, or whichever way it was. That is hardly a recommendation to an employer."

"It wasn't my fault!" growled Sam desperately.

"Come, now," said Beattie, smiling. "You're not going to put it off on the girl, are you?"

Sam bowed, and made his way out of the house. As he returned down the path he saw Miss Mackall leaning on the gatepost, gazing out toward the sinking sun over Beaver Bay. There was no way of avoiding her.

She started slightly as he came behind her, and turned the face of a surprised dreamer. Seeing who it was, she broke into a winning smile, albeit a little sad, too. All this pretty play was lost on Sam, because he wasn't looking at her.

"It's you!" murmured Miss Mackall. "I had lost myself!"

Sam endeavoured to sidle around the gate. She laid a restraining hand upon it.

"Wait a minute," she said. "I want to speak to you. Oh, it's nothing at all, but I was sorry I had no chance the other day. It seemed to me as I looked at you standing there alone, that you needed a friend!"