The Call Of The North Part 12

Indian children of all sizes and degrees of nakedness darted back and forth, playing strange games. The sound of many voices rose across the air.

Once the voices moderated, when McDonald, the Chief Trader, walked rapidly from the barracks building to the trading store; once they died entirely into a hush of respect, when Galen Albret himself appeared on the broad veranda of the factory. He stood for a moment--bulked broad and black against the whitewash--his hands clasped behind him, gazing abstractedly toward the distant bay.

Then he turned into the house to some mysterious and weighty business of his own. The hubbub at once broke out again.

Now about the mouth of the long picketed lane leading to the ma.s.sive trading store gathered a silent group, bearing packs.

These were Indians from the more immediate vicinity, desirous of trading their skins. After a moment McDonald appeared in the doorway, a hundred feet away, and raised his hand. Two of the savages, and two only, trotted down the narrow picket lane, their packs on their shoulders.

McDonald ushered them into a big square room, where the bales were undone and spread abroad. Deftly, silently the Trader sorted the furs, placing to one side or the other the "primes," "seconds," and "thirds" of each species. For a moment he calculated. Then he stepped to a post whereon hung long strings of pierced wooden counters, worn smooth by use. Swiftly he told the strings over.

To one of the Indians he gave one with these words:

"Mu-hi-kun, my brother, here be pelts to the value of two hundred 'beaver.' Behold a string, then, of two hundred 'castors,' and in addition I give my brother one fathom of tobacco."

The Indian calculated rapidly, his eye abstracted. He had known exactly the value of his catch, and what he would receive for it in "castors," but had hoped for a larger "present," by which the premium on the standard price is measured.

"Ah hah," he exclaimed, finally, and stepped to one side.

"Sak-we-su, my brother," went on McDonald, "here be pelts to the value of three hundred 'beaver.' Behold a string, then, of three hundred 'castors,' and because you have brought so fine a skin of the otter, behold also a fathom of tobacco and a half sack of flour."

"Good!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Indian.

The Trader then led them to stairs, up which they clambered to where Davis, the a.s.sistant Trader, kept store. There, barred by a heavy wooden grill from the airy loft filled with bright calicoes, sashes, pails, guns, blankets, clothes, and other ornamental and useful things, Sak-we-su and Mu-hi-kun made their choice, trading in the worn wooden "castors" on the string. So much flour, so much tea, so much sugar and powder and lead, so much in clothing. Thus were their simple needs supplied for the year to come. Then the remainder they squandered on all sorts of useless things--beads, silks, sashes, bright handkerchiefs, mirrors. And when the last wooden "castor" was in they went down stairs and out the picket lane, carrying their lighter purchases, but leaving the larger as "debt," to be called for when needed. Two of their companions mounted the stairs as they descended; and two more pa.s.sed them in the narrow picket lane. So the trade went on.

At once Sak-we-su and Mu-hi-kun were surrounded. In detail they told what they had done. Then in greater detail their friends told what _they_ would have done, until after five minutes of bewildering advice the disconsolate pair would have been only too glad to have exchanged everything--if that had been allowed.

Now the bell rang again. It was "smoke time." Everyone quit work for a half-hour. The sun climbed higher in the heavens. The laughing crews of idlers sprawled in the warmth, gambling, telling stories, singing. Then one might have heard all the picturesque songs of the Far North--"A la claire Fontaine"; "Ma Boule Roulant"; "Par derrier' chez-mon Pere"; "Isabeau s'y promene"; "P't.i.te Jeanneton"; "Luron, Lurette"; "Chante, Rossignol, chante"; the ever-popular "Malbrouck"; "C'est la belle Francoise"; "Alouette"; or the beautiful and tender "La Violette Dandine." They had good voices, these _voyageurs_, with the French artistic instinct, and it was fine to hear them.

At noon the squaws set out to gather canoe gum on the mainland.

They sat huddled in the bottom of their old and leaky canoe, reaching far over the sides to dip their paddles, irregularly placed, silent, mysterious. They did not paddle with the unison of the men, but each jabbed a little short stroke as the time suited her, so that always some paddles were rising and some falling.

Into the distance thus they flapped like wounded birds; then rounded a bend, and were gone.

The sun swung over and down the slope, Dinner time had pa.s.sed; "smoke time" had come again. Squaws brought the first white-fish of the season to the kitchen door of the factory, and Matthews raised the hand of horror at the price they asked. Finally he bought six of about three pounds each, giving in exchange tea to the approximate value of twelve cents. The Indian women went away, secretly pleased over their bargain.

Down by the Indian camp suddenly broke the roar of a dog-fight.

Two of the sledge _giddes_ had come to teeth, and the friends of both were a.s.sisting the cause. The idlers went to see, laughing, shouting, running impromptu races. They sat on their haunches and cheered ironically, and made small bets, and encouraged the frantic old squaw hags who, at imminent risk, were trying to disintegrate the snarling, rolling ma.s.s. Over in the high log stockade wherein the Company's sledge animals were confined, other wolf-dogs howled mournfully, desolated at missing the fun.

And always the sun swung lower and lower toward the west, until finally the long northern twilight fell, and the girl in the little white bedroom at the factory bathed her face and whispered for the hundredth time to her beating heart:

"Night has come!"

Chapter Thirteen

That evening at dinner Virginia studied her father's face again.

She saw the square settled line of the jaw under the beard, the unwavering frown of the heavy eyebrows, the unblinking purpose of the cavernous, mysterious eyes. Never had she felt herself very close to this silent, inscrutable man, even in his moments of more affectionate expansion. Now a gulf divided them.

And yet, strangely enough, she experienced no revulsion, no horror, no recoil even. He had merely become more aloof, more incomprehensible; his purposes vaster, less susceptible to the grasp of such as she. There may have been some basis for this feeling, or it may have been merely the reflex glow of a joy that made all other things seem insignificant.

As soon as might be after the meal Virginia slipped away, carrying the rifle, the cartridges, the matches, and the salt. She was cruelly frightened.

The night was providentially dark. No aurora threw its splendor across the dome, and only a few rare stars peeped between the light cirrus clouds. Virginia left behind her the buildings of the Post, she pa.s.sed in safety the tin-steepled chapel and the church house; there remained only the Indian camp between her and the woods trail. At once the dogs began to bark and howl, the fierce _giddes_ lifting their pointed noses to the sky. The girl hurried on, twinging far to the right through the gra.s.s. To her relief the camp did not respond to the summons. An old crone or so appeared in the flap of a teepee, eyes dazzled, to throw uselessly a billet of wood or a volley of Cree abuse at the animals nearest. In a moment Virginia entered the trail.

Here was no light at all. She had to proceed warily, feeling with her moccasins for the beaten pathway, to which she returned with infinite caution whenever she trod on gra.s.s or leaves. Though her sight was dulled, her hearing was not. A thousand scurrying noises swirled about her; a mult.i.tude of squeaks, whistles, snorts, and whines attested that she disturbed the forest creatures at their varied businesses; and underneath spoke an apparent dozen of terrifying voices which were in reality only the winds and the trees. Virginia knew that these things were not dangerous--that day light would show them to be only deer-mice, hares, weasels, bats, and owls--nevertheless, they had their effect. For about her was cloying velvet blackness--not the closed-in blackness of a room, where one feels the embrace of the four walls, but the blackness of infinite s.p.a.ce through which sweep mysterious currents of air. After a long time she turned sharp to the left. After a long time more she perceived a faint, opalescent glimmer in the distance ahead. This she knew to be the river.

She felt her way onward, still cautiously, then she choked back a scream and dropped her burden with a clatter to the ground. A dark figure seemed to have risen mysteriously at her side.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," said Ned Trent, in guarded tones.

"I heard you coming. I thought you could hear me."

He picked up the fallen articles, running his hands over them rapidly.

"Good," he whispered. "I got some moccasins to-day--traded a few things I had in my pockets for them. I'm fixed."

"Have you a canoe?" she asked.

"Yes--here on the beach."

He preceded her down the few remaining yards of the trail. She followed, already desolated at the thought of parting, for the wilderness was very big. The bulk of the man partly blotted out the lucent spot where the river was--now his arm, now his head, now the breadth of his shoulders. This silhouette of him was dear to her, the sound of his movements, the faint stir of his breathing borne to her on the light breeze. Virginia's tender heart almost overflowed with longing and fear for him.

They emerged on a little slope and at once pushed the canoe into the current.

She accepted the aid of his hand for a moment, and sank to her place, facing him He spurned lightly the sh.o.r.e, and so they were adrift.

In a moment they seemed to be floating on a vast vapor of night, infinitely remote from anywhere, surrounded by the silence that might have been before the world's beginning. A faint splash could have been a muskrat near at hand or a caribou far away. The paddle rose and dipped with a faint _swish_, _swish_, and the steersman's twist of it was taken up by the man's strong wrist so it did not click against the gunwale; the bow of the craft divided the waters with a murmuring so faint as to seem but the echo of a silence.

Neither spoke. Virginia watched him, her heart too full for words; watched the full swing of his strong shoulders, the balance of his body at the hips, the poise of his head against the dull sky. In a moment more the parting would have to come. She dreaded it, and yet she looked forward to it with a hungry joy. Then he would say what she had seen in his eyes; then he would speak; then she would hear the words that should comfort her in the days of waiting. For a woman lives much for the present, and the moment's word is an important thing.

The man swung his paddle steadily, throwing into the strokes a wanton exuberance that showed how high his spirits ran. After a time, when they were well out from the sh.o.r.e, he took a deep breath of delight.

"Ah, you don't know how happy I am," he exulted, "you don't know!

To be free, to play the game, to match my wits against their--ah, that is life!"

"I am sorry to see you go," she murmured, "very sorry. The days will be full of terror until I know you are safe."

"Oh, yes," he answered: "but I'll get there, and I shall tell it all to you at Quebec--at Quebec in August. It will he a brave tale! You will be there--surely?"

"Yes," said the girl, softly; "I will be there--surely."

"Good! Feel the wind on your cheek? It is from the Southland, where I am going. I have ventured--and I have not lost! It is something not to lose, when one has ventured against many. They have my goods--but I----"

"You?" repeated Virginia, as he hesitated.

"Ah, I don't go back empty-handed!" he tried. Her heart stood still, then leaped in antic.i.p.ation of what he would say. Her soul hungered for the words, the words that should not only comfort her, but should be to her the excuse for many things. She saw him--shadowy, graceful against the dim gray of the river and sky--lean ever so slightly toward her. But then he straightened again to his paddle, and contented himself with repeating merely: "Quebec--in August, then."

The canoe grated. Ned Trent with an exclamation drove his paddle into the clay.

"Lucky the bottom is soft here," said he; "I did not realize we were so close ash.o.r.e."

He drew the canoe up on the shelving beach, helped Virginia out, took his rifle, and so stood ready to depart.