The Land of Frozen Suns Part 17

"Suppose I choose instead to make the Company pay," Barreau drawled.

"What if I come to you with a hundred well-armed red men at my back?"

"Ah, it is of that I wished to speak with you," the Black Factor crossed his legs and emphasized his remarks with a waggling forefinger. "Of that very thing. I know that you are not easily turned aside, but this time-listen. To-night, here within these stockade walls, there are four redcoat men from MacLeod. They have come seeking"-he paused significantly-"you can guess whom they seek. Now, if, when you leave here, your tracks should point to the Indian camps of the west-why, then the redcoats shall be shown it. And I will send twenty men to help them.

But if you take the south trail these four will return empty-handed."

Barreau sat a minute or two pondering this. "You win," he said at length. "I am not the man to beat my fists on a stone. Give us flour and tea-and your word as a gentleman that the Police shall not be put on our track-and we quit the Sicannie."

"You shall have the tea and the flour," Le Noir agreed. "There are the shelves. Take what you want. I give my word for the Police. I would beg of you to stay to-night, but these government men have sharp ears and eyes. Should they get a hint-I cannot put a blanket over the mouths of my men--" he spread his hands as if to indicate that anything might happen.

Throughout our brief stay Barreau's thinly veiled vigilance did not once relax. The supplies he selected I carried to the door while he stood back watching me with his rifle slung in the hollow of his arm. If this wary att.i.tude irked Le Noir he pa.s.sed it by. To me it seemed that Barreau momentarily expected some overt act.

Eventually we had the food, a hundred pounds of flour, a square tin of tea, a little coffee, some salt and pepper and half a dozen extra pairs of moccasins lashed on the toboggan. Then he stirred up the surly dogs and we went crunching over the harsh snow to the stockade wall attended by Donald and his lantern, and the Factor himself swathed to the heels in a great coat of beaver.

At the drawing of the bar and the inward swing of the great gate, Barreau put a final question to Le Noir. "Tell me, if it is not betraying a confidence," he said ironically, "how much Montell's flitting cost the Company?"

"It is no secret," the Factor replied. "Sixty thousand dollars in good Bank of Montreal notes. A fair price."

"A fair price indeed," Barreau laughed "Good-night, M'sieu the Black."

The gate creaked to its close behind us as the dogs humped against the collars. A hundred yards, and the glimmering night enfolded us; the stockade became a vague blur in the hazy white.

Barreau swung sharp to the west. This course he held for ten minutes or more. Then down to the river, across it and up to the south flat. Here he turned again and curtly bidding me drive the dogs, tramped on ahead peering down at the unbroken snow as he went. We plodded thus till we were once more abreast of the stockade. For a moment I lost sight of Barreau; then he called to me and I came up with him standing with his back to the cutting wind that still thrust from out the east like a red-hot spear.

He took the dog-whip from me without a word, swinging the leaders southward. In the uncertain light I could see no mark in the snow. But under my webbed shoes there was an uneven feeling, as if it were trampled. We bore straight across the flat and angled up a long hill, and on the crest of it plunged into the gloomy aisles of the forest.

Once among the spruce, Barreau halted the near-winded dogs for a breathing spell.

"We will go a few miles and make camp for the night," he said. "This is Montell's trail."

"The more miles the better," I rejoined. "I'm tired, but I have no wish to hobn.o.b with the Policemen."

"Faugh!" he burst out. "There are no Policemen. That was as much a bluff as my hundred well-armed Indians. Le Noir is a poser. Do you think I'd ever have gotten outside that stockade if there had been a redcoat at his call? Oh, no! That would have been the very chance for him-one that he would have been slow to overlook. I know him. He's well named the Black Factor. His heart is as black as his whiskers and the truth is not in him-when a lie can make or save a dollar for his G.o.d-which is the Company. We have not quite done with him yet, I imagine. Hup there, you huskies-the trail is long and we are two days behind!"

CHAPTER XVIII-THE LONG ARM OF THE COMPANY

The fourth day out, at a noon camp by a spring that still defied the frost, Barreau straightened up suddenly from his stooping over the frying-pan.

"Listen," he said.

His ears were but little keener than mine, for even as he spoke I caught a sound that was becoming familiar from daily hearing: the soft _pluff_, _pluff_ of snowshoes. In the thick woods, where no sweeping winds could swirl it here and there and pile it in hard smooth banks, the snow was spread evenly, a loose, three-foot layer, as yet uncrusted. Upon this the foot of man gave but little sound, even where there was a semblance of trail. So that almost in the instant that we heard and turned our heads we could see those who came toward us. Three men and two women-facing back upon the trail we followed.

The men I recognized at once. One was Cullen, the bookkeeping automaton; the other two were half-breed packers. They halted at sight of us, and from their actions I believe they would have turned tail if Barreau had not called to them. Then they came up to the fire.

"Where now?" Barreau demanded.

"We go back on ze pos', M'sieu," one of the breeds declared.

"What of the others?" Barreau asked sharply. "And why do you turn back?"

"Because Ah'm not weesh for follow ze fat trader an' die een som'

s...o...b..nk, me," the breed retorted sullenly. "M'sieu Barreau knows zat ze Companie has taken ze pos', eh?"

"I do," Barreau answered. "Go on."

"Ze Black Factor hees say to heem, 'w'y not you stay teel ze spreeng,'

but M'sieu Montell hees not stay, an' hees mak talk for us to com' wees heem on ze sout' trail. Eet don' mak no diff'rence to me, jus' so Ah'm geet pay, so Ah'm tak ze ol' woman an' com' long. Montell hees heet 'er up lak h.e.l.l. Ever' seeng she's all right. Zen las' night som'body hees mak sneak on ze camp an' poison ze dog-ever' las' one-an' hees steal som' of ze grub, too. Zees morneeng w'en Jacques Larue an' me am start out for foller dees feller's track, hees lay for us an' tak shot at us.

Firs' pop hees heet Larue-keel heem dead, jus' lak snap ze feenger. Ah'm not go on after zat. MacLeod she's too dam' far for mak ze treep wit' no dog for pull ze outfeet. Not me. Ah'm gon' back on ze pos'. Ze Companie hees geev me chance for mak leeveeng. For why som'body hees poison ze dog an' bushwhack us Ah don' can say; but Ah know for sure Montell hees dam' crazee for try to go on."

"You, too, eh, Cullen?" Barreau observed. "Oh, you are certainly brave men."

"He was a fool to start," Cullen bristled; the first time I had ever seen a flash of spirit from the man of figures, "and I am not fool enough to follow him when it is plain that he is deliberately matching himself against something bigger than he is. There was no reason for starting on such a hard trip. The Hudson's Bay men did us no harm. The factor did advise him to stay there till spring opened-I heard him, myself. But he was bound to be gone. Whoever is d.o.g.g.i.ng him means business, and I have no wish to die in a s...o...b..nk-as Jean puts it."

"How was the taking of the post managed?" Barreau asked him next.

Cullen shook his head. "I don't know," he mumbled. "It was just at daylight of the morning you left for Three Wolves camp. Somebody yelled, and I ran out of the cookhouse where I sat eating breakfast. The yard was full of Company men. And when I got to the store why there was Montell making terms with the Company chief; a tall, black-mustached man. We started within an hour of that. Montell seemed in great haste.

He is determined to go on. I felt sorry for Miss Montell. I tried to show him the madness of attempting to walk several hundred miles with only what supplies we could carry on our shoulders. _He_ wouldn't turn back, though."

"For a very good reason," Barreau commented. "Which a man who knew as much of our affairs as you did, Cullen, should have guessed. Well, be on your way. Doubtless the Black Factor will welcome your coming."

The three men had laid down the shoulder-packs with which they were burdened. They re-slung them, and pa.s.sed on with furtive sidelong glances; the women followed, dragging a lightly loaded toboggan.

"Rats _will_ quit a doomed ship," Barreau remarked. Then he resumed his turning of the meat that sizzled in the pan.

"We will soon come up with them," he said, when we had eaten and were putting the dogs to the toboggan again. "They cannot make time from their morning camp."

The beaten track was an advantage. Now, since the returning party had added a final touch to it, we laid aside our snowshoes and followed in the wake of the dogs, half the time at a jogging trot. In little more than an hour of this we came to the place where Montell had lost his dogs-and his followers. The huskies lay about the trodden campground, stiff in the snow. Scattered around the cleared circles where the tents had stood overnight were dishes, articles of food, bedding. Montell had discarded all but absolute essentials. A toboggan and its useless dog-harness stood upended, against a tree.

"So much for loss of motive power," Barreau said grimly. "It is a pity to leave all this, but we are loaded to the limit now. If we should lose our dogs--" he left the sentence unfinished.

And so we pa.s.sed by the abandoned goods and followed on the trail that led beyond. There is a marked difference between the path beaten through snow by seven persons with three full dog-teams, and that made by one man and a slight girl, dragging a toboggan by hand. Barreau took to his snowshoes again, and strode ahead. I kept the dogs crowding close on his heels. It was the time of year when, in that lat.i.tude, the hours of daylight numbered less than five. Thus it was but a brief span from noon to night. And nearing the gray hour of twilight he checked the straining huskies and myself with a gesture. Out of the woods ahead uprose the faint squeal of a toboggan-bottom sliding over the frosty snow.

Barreau's eyebrows drew together under his hood.

"It's a hundred to one that there will be fireworks the moment I'm recognized," he muttered finally. "But I can see no other way. Come on."

A hundred yards farther I caught my first glimpse of the two figures, Montell's huge body bent forward as he tugged at his load. Barreau increased his speed. We were up with them in a half minute more. Montell whirled with a growl half alarm, half defiance. He threw up the rifle in his hands. But Barreau was too quick for him, and the weapon was wrenched out of his grasp before he could use it. With an inarticulate bellow Montell shook himself free of the shoulder-rope by which he drew the toboggan and threw himself bodily upon Barreau, striking, pawing, blaspheming terribly. Strangely enough Jessie made no move, nor even cried out at the sight. She stood like one fascinated by that brute spectacle. It did not endure for long. The great bulk of Montell bore Barreau backward, but only for a moment. He ducked a wild swing that had power enough behind it to have broken his neck, came up under Montell's clutching arms and struck him once under the chin-a lifting blow, with all the force of his muscular body centered therein. It staggered the big man. And as I stepped forward, meditating interference, Barreau jammed him backward over our loaded toboggan, and held him there helpless.

He pinned him thus for a second; then suddenly released him. Montell stood up, a thin stream of blood trickling from one nostril. He glowered sullenly, but the ferocious gleam of pa.s.sion had died out of his eyes.

"Get a fire built," Barreau ordered, "and a tent pitched. We shall camp here to-night. Make no more wild breaks like that, unless you want to be overtaken with sudden death. When we are warm I have something to say to you."

Twilight merged into gray night, and the red blaze of the fire we built glowed on the surrounding trees and the canvas of the tent. A pot of melted snow bubbled and shed steam. Close by it a piece of moose-flesh thawed in the heat. Jessie, still mute, sat on a piece of canvas I spread for her, and held her hands to the flame.

"Now," Barreau challenged Montell, "is a good time for explanations.

Only facts, no matter how they gall you, will serve. Speak up. First begin at the beginning, and tell the truth-to her." He motioned to Jessie. She started slightly. A half dozen times I had noticed her looking first at myself and then at Barreau, and there was wonder and something else in her heavy-lashed eyes. Now she flashed a glance of inquiry at her father. For a moment I thought she was about to speak.