The Wilderness Trail Part 4

And these men had violated all the canons of this discipline, frankly and completely, knowing the penalty, but evidently utterly careless of it. McTavish could not but feel a certain admiration for their daring. To him, as to nearly all of its servants, the Company was a huge, unseen, intangible force; a stern monster that demanded of its subjects such loyalty and unfaltering obedience as patriots rarely give their country's cause. A stern, but kindly, master in good repute, and a grim, relentless avenger in ill.

When he had finished his meal, Donald McTavish filled his pipe, and lay along the ground on his couch made of robes, awaiting events.

Barely half an hour later, footsteps sounded outside the door, and a pounding upon it brought him to his feet. Presently the timbers swung back, and a man stood in the opening.

"Come with me," the newcomer said, and McTavish preceded him down the narrow corridor that ran the length of the long building.

Two-thirds of the distance they had walked, when suddenly the walls fell away, and Donald found himself in a large, low room, bare-floored and cheerless, that occupied the other third. Smoky torches of wood standing out from crevices in the logs gave light, and around the wall he could see perhaps fifty men, standing or squatting. Directly before him at the opposite end was a sort of low platform, on which a huge stump served for a table, and another smaller one, behind it, for a chair. A lone man stood there, looking at him. Owing to the smoke and the dim light, McTavish could not at first make out his features. Then, with a start of amazement he recognized him.

It was Charley Seguis.

How had he got here? What was he doing here, this intelligent half-breed? These and a hundred other questions flashed through the prisoner's mind.

Suddenly, Seguis began to speak. He was a tall, finely-formed man, with a clearness of cut to his features that betokened English parentage on the one side, and the blood of chiefs on the other.

"We are in council to-night to decide what to do with Captain McTavish," he said slowly, using the excellent English at his command. "How he has come here, I do not know. Who told him of the Free-Traders' Brotherhood, I do not know. As one man against another, we have nothing against him. He was always good to us, and gave us large presents for our best skins. But he is one of the Hudson Bay men, and, therefore, something must be done. It must be done quickly. We are in council; each man shall have his say."

Donald's eyes had become more and more accustomed to the dimness in the huge room. Now, looking about, he saw great bales of pelts piled indiscriminately, thousands and thousands of dollars' worth.

So, these were free-traders! This was the magnet that had drawn the hardy trappers from their allegiance to the Hudson Bay! He shrugged his shoulders. Whatever happened to him, it was they who would suffer in the end, for this mighty, intangible thing, the Company, did not look kindly upon free-traders. Ever since 1859, when the monopoly legally expired, free-traders had been at war with the great concern, and in the Northwest had established a brisk and growing compet.i.tion.

But here, in the vast district between Labrador and the west sh.o.r.e of the bay, their invasions had, without exception, met with failure.

More than that, those brave men who had undertaken to beard this lion in his iron wilderness had very rarely returned to tell the tale of the bearding. Warned once or twice, the more timid retired, baffled and unsuccessful. Persistent, the trader fell a victim to gun "accidents," canoe "upsets," or even starvation carefully engineered by unseen, but competent, agents.

All these things were traditions of the Company, and McTavish had been brought up on them. He had never taken part in such doings, but he was certain in his own mind that they were not all fiction, for such fictions do not spring to life miraculously in regions where emotions are naked and primitive, and existence is pared down to the raw.

Here were men who had evidently banded themselves into a Free-Traders'

Brotherhood. How many had enlisted in its ranks besides those in this room, he had no idea; perhaps there were hundreds. It had evidently been well organized, for it had taken shape with amazing swiftness and certainty.

Jean had been right. This was more important, vastly more important, than the pursuit of a renegade half-breed... But that half-breed was himself at the head of the organization.

"That's what half an intelligence will do for a man!" said McTavish to himself, with contempt. "This fellow is just bright enough to be better than his cla.s.s. He therefore immediately sets himself up as a leader to buck the Company. G.o.d help him!"

But the captain's thoughts almost immediately turned to his own case. What was that old Indian saying? He listened.

"In the past history of the Company, when a rival appeared, there had been much killing. Murder, violence, Intrigue, conspiracy--all these have flourished when a rival took the field. We may look for them now, and he who strikes first forestalls the other. It is, of course, impossible for this Captain McTavish to reach Fort d.i.c.key or Fort Severn again. Three sentences from him, and we are discovered, and the chase begun. We are not strong enough yet for open conflict.

By spring, perhaps, but not now. McTavish must never tell. A strong arm, a well-directed blow--"

"But, my good brother, you do not counsel murder in cold blood?"

asked Seguis, in a tone of horror. "To kill our old friend, Captain McTavish, because he has happened to come upon us here--oh, no, no, no! It is impossible. But, yet," he added, "he must not tell what he has seen."

He turned to McTavish.

"Will you give an oath never to reveal what you have seen and heard here?"

"No," Donald said bluntly. "I won't."

"By refusal, you sign your own death-warrant," warned the half-breed, not unkindly. "For the sake of all of us, give this oath."

"Seguis," replied Donald, just as quietly, "you know you ask the impossible. Let's not waste any more time over it. Decide what you are going to do with me--and do it!"

"Why not keep him with us here a prisoner?" suggested an old buck; only to be cried down loudly as a doddering dotard, whose blood had turned to water.

"What?" one shouted, wrathfully. "Have another mouth to feed all winter, while the owner of it stays idle? Never! Anyone that eats with us must work."

For a long minute, Seguis sat with his chin in his hand, meditating.

Then, he ordered Donald's captors to take their prisoner back to the little room, saying:

"I have a plan in mind, which we must discuss--privately, out of the captain's hearing." He turned to the Hudson Bay man, and spoke decisively: "You shall hear our decision to-night, sir, whatever it is."

Without answer, Donald wheeled, and walked away in the company of his guards to the room that served as a cell, where again he was left in solitary confinement.

CHAPTER V

DEATH TRAIL

It was, perhaps, an hour later when Donald, just beginning to drowse before his little fire, heard someone approach and unlock his door, for the second time that night. In antic.i.p.ation of any desperate emergency, the captive sprang to his feet, and retreated to a corner of the room farthest from the door, watching with wary eyes for his visitor's appearance.

"Who is it?" he demanded, as the door was flung open.

"It's me, Charley Seguis," was the reply, in the voice of the half-breed. Even in this moment of stress, Donald noticed half-wonderingly the mellow cadences in the voice of this man of mixed blood. While speaking, Seguis had entered the room, and he now shut the door behind him. "I come friendly," he continued, with a suggestion of softness in his tones, though there was no lack of firmness. "I wish to talk friendly for half an hour. Will you sit with me by the fire?"

"I don't trust you, Seguis," retorted Donald, bluntly. "If you have been delegated by lot to kill me, do it at once. That would be the only possible kindliness from you to me. I can stand anything better than waiting... I am unarmed--as you know."

The half-breed shook his head slowly, as though in mourning that his intentions should be thus questioned.

"I don't come to harm you," he said at last, with a certain dignity.

"I've given you my word that I come friendly. I am armed, but that is to prevent your attacking me."

Donald uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of impatience.

"Absurd!" he exclaimed. "Why should I attack you?" For the instant, in realization of his own plight, he had forgotten that the original purpose of his quest had been the capture of this man who was now become his captor... But the half-breed's words recalled the fact forcibly enough.

"Don't you suppose, captain, that I've known you were on my trail for days? I have the sense to know that. But what brought you veering off the trail to Sturgeon Lake is beyond me."

Donald heaved a sigh of relief. At least, Jean's message was unknown to the leader of the free-traders, and there would be no risk of the girl's suffering in person for her loyal zeal. In this relief, his thoughts reverted curiously to the crime he had been sent to revenge.

"Did you kill Cree Johnny?" he demanded, abruptly.

The face of the half-breed remained immobile, inscrutable.

"I'll tell you nothing about that," was the crisp reply. "Let's talk of what is more important now, and that is yourself--and what's to become of you."

"As you will," Donald agreed, grudgingly. It wounded his self-esteem that this man should be able thus to manage the interview at pleasure. Yet, even while his anger mounted high, the Scotchman felt himself compelled to an involuntary admiration for the authoritative composure in the manner of one who, by the accident of birth, was no better than a barbarian--was, indeed, something worse, since the crossing of the civilized blood with the savage is usually a disastrous thing. This was the Hudson Bay man's first experience of indignity visited on himself, and, for that reason, he felt a double humiliation over the seriousness of his situation.

Exasperation grew in him over the fact that even now his many and varied emotions did not include in the least such repulsion as he had imagined a tete-a-tete with a murderer must produce. On the contrary, he was aware of an indefinable air of genuineness, of n.o.bility even, about this Montagnais Englishman. It was incredible, surely--none the less, it was true. Donald's instinct set him to wondering involuntarily whether, after all, the man before him could really be guilty of the crime charged. His reason rallied to argument that this fellow was of a vicious strain, capable of any treachery, of any cowardly violence. In such as Seguis, the vices of two races blend, for vice knows little distinction of tribe or creed; the mingling of a dozen bloods will but serve to strengthen the violence in each. The virtues, on the contrary, are matters of geography, in great part--to each race its own. They are p.r.o.ne to vanishing in the mixed blood. Usually, too, the civilized white man who degrades himself to mate with a savage woman is himself a wastrel, essentially evil, likely to beget nothing good.

Such reasoning is sound enough, in the main, as Donald, despite his bewilderment, knew well. Nevertheless, in this instance the product of miscegenation seemed to offer in his own person a subtle contradiction. The man stood in a serenity that proclaimed an a.s.sured self-respect. The dark eyes above the high cheekbones were glowing clearly, as they stared in level interrogation on the prisoner. The features, coa.r.s.e, yet of a pleasing harmoniousness, were set in lines of a strength that was at once calm and masterful.