Kitabı oku: «The Wilderness Trail», sayfa 11
Next morning, the sky had cleared, and there was a considerable show of activity in the camp, as though some secret orders had been issued. The men had not much more than finished breakfast when a trapper, who had been out still-hunting game at sunrise, came running in at the top of his speed, waving his rifle over his head. No sooner was he within reach than he was surrounded by a circle of the curious.
“There's the deuce to pay for somebody, boys,” he cried, “for I just found the body of Indian Tom, old Maria's son, out there in the woods. A bullet hole in the back did the trick. He was carrying a gun, but it's still loaded and his cartridge-belt's full, so he couldn't have done the job himself. I reached him just as he rattled off, so it wasn't very long ago. Now, I don't know who had it in for him. He was 'way beyond the sentry lines, and we're twenty miles from the other camp. … I wonder it any of the boys were out in the woods last night?”
Donald, who had not heard the first of the speech, caught the last sentence, and made inquiries. When he learned the facts, he laughed shortly.
“Well, boys,” he remarked, “I was out in the woods last night; in fact, I heard the shot that finished Indian Tom off.”
“Out in the woods? What were you doing out in the woods in a storm like that, McTavish?” someone demanded.
Donald hesitated, and bit his lip with vexation. He was trapped. It was next to the last thing in his mind to let Peter Rainy's departure and goal become known, and it was the last to let Jean's name be brought into any of his doings. But he was not a good liar, and he groped frantically for an adequate answer.
“Come on – out with it! Is it so hard to remember?” drawled Buxton.
Still, Donald could not say anything. He laughed uneasily, and a flush mounted to his hair.
“I guess, boys,” he finally blurted out, “I'd rather not say; it was a private matter.”
The men looked at one another, and were silent. Finally, one, bolder than the rest, cleared his throat.
“Didn't you give Tom an awful thrashing a little while back?” he asked, significantly.
The flush became deeper on McTavish's face.
“It's none of your darned business, my friend,” he replied, acidly. “But I'll answer your question. I did give him a good licking, and he deserved it. How did you find it out?
“I dunno. It's just one of those things that drifted in. I couldn't tell you now who sprung it. But I'm mighty sorry you did it.”
“Why?”
“Because, Captain McTavish, there is nothing to do but hold you on suspicion. That's the least charge that can be made against you. Andrew, go tell the factor what's happened, and say we'll bring McTavish in shortly.”
“Look here, boys, you're not going to try and put that Indian's death on me, are you?” Donald cried, aghast.
“Sorry, Mac; but what you yourself have admitted is enough to lock you up, accused of murder in the first degree.”
“Heaven!” groaned Donald to himself. “Can anything else come to me?”
A little later, as he looked down upon Angus Fitzpatrick, lying on the bed of boughs, it seemed as though the old man had had a turn for the worse. Donald recalled his grip on that wounded shoulder, and smiled inwardly with pleasure, for his spirit was still bitterly vindictive.
“Really, McTavish,” was the factor's firm greeting, “I never knew any one to come up before me as regularly and for as many varieties of crime as you do. Too bad you don't devote that splendid ingenuity to something worthy.”
Donald smiled pleasantly, and inquired after the injured shoulder, a question that turned the old man's sarcasm into fury, for he had scarcely slept the night before, what with the pain of his wound, and the nervous shock of the day.
“Well,” he snarled to the others, “what brings him here now?”
A spokesman told what had already occurred outside, and Fitzpatrick listened intently. With a few rapid questions, he made certain that Indian Tom could not have perpetrated the deed himself, either purposely or accidentally. Then, he turned to the accused.
“Just where were you when you heard the shot, as you claim?” he inquired, curtly.
Donald declared he had been at the edge of the camp, naming a certain spot, and the man who had found the body identified the place as well within gun-shot of the scene of the tragedy.
“Do you believe,” Fitzpatrick asked the hunter, “that a shot from the tree where McTavish was could have reached and killed Indian Tom?
“There's no doubt of it, sir.”
“Now, Captain McTavish, do you admit having had a personal encounter with this Indian not long since?
“I do.” And Donald detailed the incident, ending with this remark: “It would seem to me only ordinary common sense that Tom should go gunning for me, and not I for him.”
“Yes, but a great many people, when they know an Indian is on their trail, prefer to end matters themselves, rather than live in constant suspense and fear.”
“I have yet to live in suspense or fear of any man,” returned Donald significantly.
“Now, Captain McTavish,” the factor said, “will you please state what took you to the edge of the camp last night during a storm of such fierceness?”
“It was a private matter, solely, and I do not care to divulge it,” was the unsatisfactory reply.
“More may depend upon this than you think,” warned the factor, pawing at his beard with the old, familiar gesture. “I advise you to tell.”
“I refuse to do so, but give you my word of honor that I had no thought of Tom in mind. In fact, I had forgotten all about him. But I did hear the shot. It was not very distant, and I was not sure what the noise was. I waited for another, but none came.”
For another half-hour, the factor grilled his victim for further information. But in vain. Then, furious at his failure, he ordered McTavish placed under guard without parole, and in the next breath commanded a second log cabin to be built as a jail wherein to confine the prisoner.
“You have defied me long enough, McTavish,” he snarled, his eyes gleaming with an ugly light, “and, by the eternal, you shall pay for this. I'll make an example of you that the North country will not forget in years. Already, you deserve punishment for breaking out of Fort Severn; this is the last straw. We'll see whether the Company can be set at naught by every underling in its employ.”
“What do you intend to do?” Donald asked.
“I shall try you on this charge of murder.”
“How can you try me on such a charge when you are here avowedly at war? Tom, being the half-brother of Charley Seguis, naturally is an enemy. Men at war can't be tried for murder, if they kill an enemy.”
“Indian Tom wasn't killed in battle; he was far beyond our sentry lines. Your technicality has no weight,” retorted the factor, grimly. “I am resolved that this crime shall not go unpunished, just as I am resolved that Charley Seguis shall pay the penalty for the death of Cree Johnny, if I can ever lay hands on him. You shall have a fair trial, as is your due; but justice shall run its course.”
“How soon will this travesty take place?” asked McTavish bitterly.
The factor restrained his temper with difficulty.
“As soon as possible,” he declared savagely. Then, turning to the others present, he ordered: “Take him away.”
Already, outside, Donald could hear men attacking dead trees with their axes for material to build the little cabin that was to be his prison. His heart sank, for he felt instinctively that the shanty would be his last earthly habitation. At length, the factor had found what he wanted – an opportunity of legalizing the murder for which his heart lusted.
Donald's morbid fancy could see the skeleton of the gibbet and the hollow square of witnesses. He could feel the rope scratching his neck. He could both see and feel, most hideous of all, the piercing triumph in that dread hour of Fitzpatrick's gimlet eyes.
CHAPTER XIX
A FORCED MARCH
Charley Seguis entered the council chamber of the huge log house in the free-trader's camp at the lower end of Sturgeon Lake, and looked about him with satisfaction. Now, the square, bare-floored room could scarcely hold the men when he called them into meeting because of the bales of fur that were piled everywhere.
It had indeed been a successful winter for the free-traders, notwithstanding opposition; and, as is the case in so many new enterprises, there had been an enthusiasm and devotion to the cause that had given speed to snowshoes and accuracy to the aim of rifles. The catch was extraordinary.
Passing out into the open again, he met one of his men.
“The Frenchies ought to be here with their supplies pretty soon, chief,” the latter remarked; “we're running mighty low on flour and tea and tobacco.”
“I expect them any day,” was the reply. “Can we hold out a week longer?”
“No more than that, and, even so, we'll have to go on short rations.”
Although the situation was as yet not grave, it gave Seguis some concern. The negotiations with the French company that had bargained for the free-traders' furs were, this first winter, carried on under difficulties, for the company had not as yet been able to build a post for regular trading.
Arrangements had been made, however, to send a great dog-train of ten sledges north, loaded with supplies, that the hunters might replenish their failing stores. Because of the unsatisfactory trading arrangements, the men had not ventured far afield; and, now, because of the shortness of staple food, they had gathered at the settlement to restock before circling out on the hunt again. The opportunities for game at this time were the worst in the winter. Moose had “yarded up” – that is, gone into winter seclusion in some snowy corral farther north – and bears were enjoying their five or six months' nap beneath cozy tree-roots and five or six feet of snow. Caribou, always hard hunting, unless “mired” in deep snow, were few and far between.
The only real source of fresh food was the lake, where a number of men were constantly employed fishing through the ice. And even this was unsatisfactory, because a considerable amount was needed to keep so many men and dogs supplied. There was, however, an air of contentment and satisfaction in the camp, and the men waited patiently, though hungrily, for the arrival of the trains from the south.
When the commissary had left him, Charley Seguis's brow clouded with annoyance as he saw a bent, wizened female figure approaching him. The only woman In the camp, old Maria, had not fallen into obscurity for a moment. She always wanted something, and haggled and nagged until she got it. Seguis, the sterling white blood ascendant in him, could not always find the pride for her in his heart that a mother might wish of her son. Now, she fawned upon him and whined.
“Are you a man or a stick,” she complained, “that you let the blood of your brother go unavenged? It's nearly three weeks since some coward shot him, and you haven't made a move to find the guilty man.”
“Nor will I, until the business here is settled,” Seguis retorted, in a tone of finality. “Do you expect me to leave this camp when the traders are expected, and go on some wild-goose chase out of personal revenge? For my part, I think Tom would have been sorrowed over a little more if he hadn't been such a fool. Why he went gunning for McTavish out of pure spite, I don't see. We need every man we can get in this camp.”
Seguis was a remarkably fine-looking half-breed. He had the proud carriage and graceful movements of the Indian, combined with the bright eyes and more attractively shaped head of a Caucasian. His hair was smooth and black, but lacked the coarseness of his mother's race, while his brain and method of thinking were wholly that of his father. With this endowment there had come to him, early in life, an aspiration to rise above his own sort, a desire to be a thorough white man. And in this he had always been supported by his mother, who, knowing her past, carried in her heart bitterness fully the equal of Angus Fitzpatrick's. It was only when her elder son had reached manhood, and bore easily, as by right, the manners of the superior race that the idea of carrying him upward ruthlessly had come to her.
Catherine de' Medici placed three successive sons on the throne of France. Old Maria was less ambitious, but none the less unscrupulous, and her methods revealed an uncanny natural knowledge of diplomacy and statecraft. Her whole life was bound up in the achievements of Charley Seguis, and she rarely, if ever, considered the question of personal perquisites should her schemes result successfully. She was content to be the background of his operations; and the background of a picture, although it be subordinate to the main object, rarely goes absolutely unnoticed.
The strangest part of her plan lay in the fact that as yet Seguis was totally unaware of his parentage. In the cunning scheme she had evolved, it was her intention to remove Donald McTavish completely, though unostentatiously; then could come the great revelation and the noise of conquest. Reasoning thus, she had taken her story to Angus Fitzpatrick, anxious, hesitant, and fearful. But in him, to her great joy, she had found an arrogant and eager, ally. This had been during the summer. It was now the first of March, and time was flying. The work must be completed before the spring thaws. The loss of Tom was not the grief to her that she made pretense it was. Her references to it this morning had a deeper purpose. She continued the conversation, despite Seguis's tone of annoyance.
“Tom may have been a fool,” she croaked, “but you're hardly the person to say so. Perhaps you'd have changed your song, if he'd put that dog, McTavish, out of the way – curse his charmed life!”
Seguis laughed harshly.
“You did your best, and Tom did his; I suppose it is up to me next. But why do you imagine I would be so glad if the captain was disposed of? I've nothing against him.”
“No? What's the matter with you? You're as soft as a rotten tree! What were you hanging around Fort Severn for all last summer, without a look for the Indian girls? Why were you singing love-songs under the trees of nights? Why did you cease to eat, and carry around a face as long as a sick fox's, eh? Ah, you are angry, and you shift! And, yet, you ask me what you have against this McTavish! With him out of the way, there's no reason why you shouldn't – ”
“Hush, hush, mother! There are men coming. Don't talk so loud!” Seguis moved uncomfortably. “Leave me, now. There's some truth in what you say. I'll think it over.”
Old Maria, bent and shriveled, hobbled off, croaking, to hide the expression of malignant triumph on her leathery face. Her words had bitten deeper than Seguis cared to admit, even to himself. The short summer months, the hunter's love- and play-time, had been a season of misery for him, because of Jean Fitzpatrick's pure and beautiful face. Subconsciously, he knew that in mind and spirit he was her equal; the white strain in him, which now governed all his thoughts and actions, felt the call of its own blood. Hence, it had been with sad, rather than bitter, feelings that he witnessed Donald's courtship of the girl. More fiercely than ever, he realized the limitations of his kind. The bar sinister was a veritable millstone around his neck which dragged him down to a level he abhorred.
It was with a kind of gnawing hopelessness that he had gone away from the fort in the fall, and endeavored to forget his misery in the thousand activities of the free-traders' brotherhood. For McTavish personally, he had always retained a strong feeling of friendship, as was shown on the occasion of sending the Hudson Bay man forth on the Death Trail. But, now, the old hunger returned strong upon him at his mother's words, and he resolved to give himself every opportunity for contemplation of the dangerous theme.
Night came without the appearance of the looked-for French supply-trains, and, as usual, the camp retired early. As many of the men as possible used the small rooms in the great log house, which occupied two-thirds of its length. It was in one of these that Donald had been confined during his stay among the free-traders.
A high wind was blowing, and it was intensely cold. Suddenly, during the most terrible hours of the night, a frightened cry rang through the camp. Men, with heads and faces buried under mountainous blankets or in sleeping-bags, did not hear, and the shivering wretch who had tried to give the alarm ran frantically from room to room, rousing the sleepers. Those who were sheltered by shed-tents awoke to see a rosy light spreading across the snow where they lay – a light that was not the aurora. Then, upon the rushing wind sounded an ominous roar and a mighty crackling. The great log house was afire, and the wind exulted in the flames, tossing them back and forth and upward with fiendish glee. Shouting hoarsely, the trappers leaped, wet and steaming, out of their covers, and ran to the conflagration.
How the blaze had started was no mystery, for, in the little rooms the men occupied, each was permitted his tiny fire for cooking. Perhaps, the uneasy foot of a sleeper, perhaps a gust of wind between the chinks, had sent an ember underneath the inflammable logging of the walls.
Charley Seguis, although heavy with slumber, was among the first to run out of the building. In an instant, he took in the situation. With a lake like rock, and but one or two buckets, it was utterly impossible to check the flames with water; one or two men were making a desperate attempt to throw snow on the fire; but the wind whirled this away as fast as it was shot into the air. The building was doomed.
“Save the furs! Save the furs!” Seguis commanded at the top of his voice, and set an example by plunging into the council chamber, to reappear in a moment with two small bales of pelts. Instantly, the others followed his example.
Fortunately, the fire had started at the opposite end, so there was a fighting chance to save the valuable skins, although the flames were leaping along the beams with lightning rapidity. Presently, it was seen that the crowding of men endeavoring to pass in and out at the same time would be fatal to the contents of the wareroom, and Seguis, with a few rapid commands, formed a chain from the interior to a point well beyond the danger zone. He himself took the post of hazard in the midst of the piled pelts, and with quick thrusts of his arms kept a steady stream of bales flowing.
Such men as could not get on the pelt-brigade, he soon had rescuing bedding, traps, and other valuables from the little rooms, some of which were already seething infernos.
Urged by the high wind, the flames licked hungrily at the dry logs, and presently such a terrific heat radiated from the fire that the snow fled away in tiny rivulets, and the iron ground was laid bare. Fast as they worked, the men could not outspeed the devouring element. Flying embers clattered upon the tindery roof, and in a moment the whole top of the long structure was ablaze.
Charley Seguis, grabbing bales and passing them with both hands, suddenly brushed a six-inch ember from the pack of otter in front of him with a curse, and looked up. Here and there spots of fire dropped among the furs. He said nothing, but redoubled his efforts. In fifteen minutes, three-quarters of the work was done, and the drops of fire from above had become a steady rain.
“Get the chief out of there!” yelled someone. “The walls will fall on him!”
The man who was standing next the entrance shouted to Seguis, but all he got was a round cursing and a command to stay where he was. The half-breed was fighting now for more than a few bales of furs; he was fighting for the very existence of the free-traders. For, should their skins be lost, their value as an organization would be gone; and gone, too, all the labor of months, with its accompanying intrinsic worth.
Now, there were but twenty bales left; now, but fifteen. Seguis's hands were raw from burns, his fur cap smoldered in half-a-dozen places. But the man at the door was brave, and Seguis kept on. Ten – five! Could he hold out? Three – two! One! … Swearing horribly with agony, drenched with perspiration, Seguis burst out of the narrow doorway just as the walls collapsed inward from both sides.
Quick hands wrapped blankets about him, and beat out the fire in his cap. Still holding the last bale in his hand, he stood grimly, watching the destruction of the only free warehouse within five hundred miles. Higher and higher the flames mounted; the circle of men was driven slowly backward by the fearful heat; the surrounding snow was eaten away for fifty yards on every side.
Some activity was necessary lest the flying brands do damage to the shed-tents and the priceless bedding, but the work required only a few hands.
“Well, thank heaven, we saved the furs!” exclaimed the chief, at last.
“You saved 'em rather,” said a voice admiringly. Seguis interrupted, roughly.
“Tell the cook to make a couple of buckets of tea, and serve it around as soon as possible.”
“Pardon!” said the functionary referred to; “but there's no tea, or any other kind of provision in the camp. What little stock remained was stored in the far end of the building where the fire took hold first. I tried to get to it, but it was no use. There's no food.”
This was a serious state of affairs, for without his eternal hot tea the woodsman is almost as wretched as though tobacco had ceased to grow. And, now, it was almost a matter of life and death, for the men were mostly without shelter, and worn out with their long struggle. Charley Seguis walked up and down briskly for a while, thinking. The fire tumbled in upon itself with a great roar and geyser of sparks, throwing distant trees and forest aisles into quick relief. The first indications of dawn, almost obliterated by the brilliance of the blaze, now made themselves definitely evident. A few of the men, with rough fishing-tackle and axes, had already started toward the edge of the lake for the morning's catch.
Seguis watched them with somber eyes, pausing for a moment in his walk. Fish, fish, fish; nothing between starvation and life for forty men except that staple of fish. And suppose the French traders did not get through! Suppose something had gone wrong in that five hundred-odd miles to civilization!
Where, then? Where in this wilderness could he turn for abundant supplies easily secured – except one place. A grim smile set his face into hard lines. … Yes, he would go there. His mother's words of the day before returned to him. Perhaps he would see her! He called a man to him.
“Tell the boys to get ready to march. I'll leave five here to guard the furs. The rest of us are going up to the Hudson Bay camp, and get food. If we don't, we'll starve to death, or get scurvy, or something. Tell everybody to be ready at ten o'clock.”
