The Gun-Brand Part 31

For a moment Lapierre hesitated, gazing longingly toward the cottage as he debated in his mind the advisability of rus.h.i.+ng across the clearing and settling his score with Mary, the Louchoux girl, whose unexpected appearance had turned the tide so strongly against him.

"Better let well enough alone!" he growled savagely. "I must reach Lac du Mort ahead of MacNair." And he turned with a curse from the clearing to see an outlaw, with knife unsheathed, stooping over the unconscious form of Big Lena. The quarter-breed kicked the knife from the man's hand.

"Bring her along!" he ordered gruffly. "I will attend to her later."

And, despite the hurt of his bruised fingers, the man grinned as he noted the venomous gleam in the leader's eye. For not only was Lapierre thinking of the proselyting of LeFroy, who had been his most trusted lieutenant, but of his own disarming, and the meaning stare of the fishlike eyes that had prompted him to abandon his attempt to poison MacNair when wounded in Chloe Elusion's room.

It was yet early when, as had become her custom, the Louchoux girl dressed hurriedly and made her way to the kitchen to help Lena in the preparation of breakfast. To her surprise she found that the fire had not been lighted nor was Big Lena in the little room which had been built for her adjoining the kitchen.

The quick eyes of the girl noted that the bed had not been disturbed, and with a sudden fear in her heart she dashed to the door of Chloe's room, where, receiving no answer to her frantic knocking, she pushed open the door and entered. Chloe's bed had not been slept in, and her _parka_ was missing from its peg upon the wall.

As the Indian girl turned from the room, Harriet Penny's door opened, and she caught a glimpse of a night-capped head as the little spinster glanced timidly out to inquire into the unusual disturbance.

"Where have they gone?" cried the girl.

"Gone? Gone?" asked Miss Penny. "What do you mean? Who has gone?"

"She's gone--Miss Elliston--and Big Lena, too. They have not slept in their beds."

It took a half-minute for this bit of information to percolate Miss Penny's understanding, and when it did she uttered a shrill scream, banged her door, turned the key, and shot the bolt upon the inside.

Alone in the living-room, the last words Chloe had spoken to her flashed through the Indian girl's mind: "I can trust you to place this in MacNair's hands."

Without a second thought for Miss Penny, she rushed into her room, recovered the letter from its hiding-place beneath the pillow, thrust it into the bosom of her gown, and hastily prepared for the trail.

In the kitchen she made up a light pack of provisions, and, with no other thought than to find MacNair, opened the door and stepped out into the keen, frosty air. The girl knew only that Snare Lake lay somewhere up the river, but this gave her little concern, as no snow had fallen since MacNair had departed with his Indians a week before, and she knew his trail would be plain.

From her window Harriet Penny watched the departure of the girl, and before she was half-way across the clearing the little woman appeared in the doorway, commanding, begging, pleading in shrill falsetto, not to be left alone. Hearing the cries, the girl quickened her pace, and without so much as a backward glance pa.s.sed swiftly down the steep slope to the river.

Born to the snow-trail, the Louchoux girl made good time. During the month she had spent at Chloe's school she had for the first time in her life been sufficiently clothed and fed, and now with the young muscles of her body well nourished and in the pink of condition she fairly flew over the trail.

Hour after hour she kept up the pace without halting. She pa.s.sed the mouth of the small tributary upon which she had first seen Chloe. The place conjured vivid memories of the white woman and all she had done for her and meant to her--memories that served as a continual spur to her flying feet. It was well toward noon when, upon rounding a sharp bend, she came suddenly face to face with the Indians and the dog-teams that MacNair had despatched for provisions.

She bounded among them like a flash, singled out Wee Johnnie Tamarack, and proceeded to deluge the old man with an avalanche of words. When finally she paused for sheer lack of breath, the old Indian, who had understood but the smallest fragment of what she had said, remained obviously unimpressed. Whereupon the girl produced the letter, which she waved before his face, accompanying the act with another tirade of words of which the Indian understood less than he had of the previous outburst.

Wee Johnnie Tamarack took his orders only from MacNair. MacNair had said, "Go to the school for provisions," and to the school he must go.

Nevertheless, the sight of the letter impressed him. For in the Northland His Majesty's mail is held sacred and must be carried to its destination, though the heavens fall.

To the mind of Wee Johnnie Tamarack a letter was "mail," and the fact that its status might be altered by the absence of His Majesty's stamp upon its corner was an affair beyond the old man's comprehension.

Therefore he ordered the other Indians to continue their journey, and, motioning the girl to a place on the sled, headed his dogs northward and sent them skimming over the back-trail.

Wee Johnnie Tamarack was counted one of the best dog-mushers in the North, and as the girl had succeeded in implanting in the old man's mind an urgent need of haste, he exerted his talent to the utmost.

Mile after mile, behind the flying feet of the tireless _malamutes_, the sled-runners slipped smoothly over the crust of the ice-hard snow.

And at midnight of the second day they dashed across the smooth surface of the lake and brought up with a rush before the door of MacNair's own cabin, which luckily had been spared by the flames.

It was a record drive, for a "two-man" load--that drive of Wee Johnnie Tamarack's, having clipped twelve hours from a thirty-six-hour trail.

MacNair's door flew open to their frantic pounding. The girl thrust the letter into his hand, and with a supreme effort told what she knew of the disappearance of Chloe and Big Lena. Whereupon, she threw herself at full length upon the floor and immediately sank into a profound sleep.

MacNair fumbled upon the shelf for a candle and, lighting it, seated himself beside the table, and tore the envelope from the letter. Never in his life had the man read words penned by the hand of a woman. The fingers that held the letter trembled, and he wondered at the wild beating of his heart.

The story of the Louchoux girl had aroused in him a sudden fear. He wondered vaguely that the disappearance of Chloe Elliston could have caused the dull hurt in his breast. The pages in his hand were like no letter he had ever received. There was something personal--intimate--about them. His huge fingers gripped them lightly, and he turned them over and over in his hand, gazing almost in awe upon the bold, angular writing. Then, very slowly, he began to read the words.

Unconsciously, he read them aloud, and as he read a strange lump arose in his throat so that his voice became husky and the words faltered.

He read the letter through to the end. He leaped to his feet and strode rapidly up and down the room, his fists clenched and his breath coming in great gasps.

Bob MacNair was fighting. Fighting against an irresistible impulse--an impulse as new and strange to him as though born of another world--an impulse to find Chloe Elliston, to take her in his arms, and to crush her close against his wildly pounding heart.

Minutes pa.s.sed as the man strode up and down the length of the little room, and then once more he seated himself at the table and read the letter through.

"DEAR MR. MACNAIR:

"I cannot leave the North without this little word to you. I have learned many things since I last saw you--things I should have learned long ago. You were right about the Indians, about Lapierre, about _me_. I know now that I have been a fool. Lapierre always removed his hat in my presence, therefore he was a gentleman! Oh, what a fool I was!

"I will not attempt to apologize. I have been too _nasty_, and _hateful_, and _mean_ for any apology. You said once that some day we should be friends. I am reminding you of this because I want you to think of me as a friend. Wherever I may be, I will think of you--always. Of the splendid courage of the man who, surrounded by treachery and intrigue and the vicious attacks of the powers that prey, dares to stand upon his convictions and to fight alone for the good of the North--for the cause of those who will never be able to fight for themselves.

"It will not be necessary to tell you that I shall go straight to the headquarters of the Mounted and withdraw my charge against you. I have heard of your lawless raids into the far North; I think they are _splendid_! Keep the good work up! Shoot as straight as you can--as straight as you shot that night on Snare Lake. I should love to stand at your side and shoot, too. But that can never be.

"Just a word more. Lena is going to marry LeFroy; and, knowing Lena as I do, I think his reformation is a.s.sured. I am leaving everything to them. The contents of the storehouse will set them up as independent traders.

"And now farewell. I want you to have my most valued possession, the portrait of my grandfather, Tiger Elliston, the man I have always admired more than any other until----"

Until what? wondered MacNair. The word had been crossed out, and he finished the letter still wondering.

"When you look at the picture in its splintered frame, think sometimes of the 'fool moose-calf,' who, having succeeded by the narrowest margin in eluding the fangs of 'the wolf' is returning, wiser, to its mountains.

"Yours very truly--and very, very repentantly,

"CHLOE ELLISTON."

Bob MacNair lost his fight. He arose once more, his great frame trembling in the grip of a new thrill. He stretched his great arms to the southward in a silent sign of surrender. He sought not to dodge the issue, strange and wonderful as it seemed to him. He loved this woman--loved her as he knew he could love no other--as he had never dreamed it was in the heart of man to love.

And then, with the force of a blow, came the realization that this woman--his woman--was at that very instant, in all probability, at the mercy of a fiend who would stop at nothing to gain his own ends.

He leaped to the door.

"By G.o.d, I'll tear his heart out!" he roared as he wrenched at the latch. And the next instant the sh.o.r.es of Snare Lake echoed to the wild weird sound of the wolf-cry--the call of MacNair to his clan!

Other calls and other summons might be ignored upon provocation, but when the terrible wolf-cry shattered the silence of the forest MacNair's Indians rushed to his side.

Only death itself could deter them from fore-gathering at the sound of the wolf-cry. Before the echoes of MacNair's voice had died away dark forms were speeding through the moonlight. From all directions they came; from the cabins that yet remained standing, from the tents pitched close against the unburned walls of the stockade, from rude wickiups of skins and of brushwood.

Old men and young men they answered the call, and each in his hand bore a rifle. MacNair snapped a few quick orders. Men rushed to harness the dog-teams while others provisioned the sleds for the trail.