The Gun-Brand Part 6

"And the stockade?"

"There will be no stockade."

"No stockade! Are you crazy? If MacNair----"

"I will attend to MacNair, Mr. Lapierre."

"Do you imagine MacNair will stand quietly by and allow you to build a trading-post here on the Yellow Knife? Do you think he will listen to our explanation that this is a school and that the store is merely a plaything? I tell you he will countenance neither the school nor the post. Education for the natives is the last thing MacNair will stand for."

"As I told you, I will attend to MacNair. My people will not be armed.

The stockade would be silly."

Lapierre smiled; drew closer, and dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. "I can put one hundred rifles and ten thousand cartridges in the hands of your people in ten days' time."

"Thank you, Mr. Lapierre. I don't need your guns."

The man made a gesture of impatience. "If you choose to ignore MacNair, you must, at least, be prepared to handle the Indians who will crowd your counter like wolves when they hear you are underselling the H.B.C. When you explain that only those who are members of your school may trade at your post, you will be swamped with enrolments. You cannot teach the whole North.

"Those that you will be forced to turn away--what will they do? They will not understand. Instead of returning to their teepees, their nets, and their traplines, they will hang about your post, growing gaunter and hungrier with the pa.s.sing of the days. And the hunger that gnaws at their bellies will arouse the latent lawlessness of their hearts, and then--if MacNair has not already struck, he will strike then. For MacNair knows Indians and the workings of the Indian mind. He knows how the sullen hatred of their souls may be fanned into a mighty flame. His Indians will circulate among the hungry horde, and the banks of the Yellow Knife will be swept bare. MacNair will have struck. And with such consummate skill will his hand be disguised, that not the faintest breath of suspicion will point toward himself."

"I shall sell to all alike, while my goods last, whether they are members of my school or not----"

"That will be even worse than----"

"It seems you always think of the worst thing that could possibly happen," smiled the girl.

"'To fear the worst, oft cures the worst,'" quoted Lapierre.

"'Don't cross a bridge 'til you get to it' is not so cla.s.sic, perhaps, but it saves a lot of needless worry."

"'Foresight is better than hindsight' is equally uncla.s.sic, and infinitely better generals.h.i.+p. Bridges crossed at the last moment are generally crossed from the wrong end, I have noticed." The man leaned toward her and looked straight into her eyes. "Oh, Miss Elliston--can't you see--I am thinking of your welfare--of your safety; I have known you but a short time, as acquaintance is reckoned, but already you have become more to me than----"

Chloe interrupted him with a gesture.

"Don't--please--I----"

Lapierre ignored the protest, and, seizing her hand in both his own, spoke rapidly. "I will say it! I have known it from the moment of our first meeting. I love you! And I shall win you--and together we will----"

"Oh, don't--don't--not--now--please!"

The man bowed and released the hand. "I can wait," he said gravely.

"But please--for your own good--take my advice. I know the North. I was born in the North, and am of the North. I have sought only to help you.

Why do you refuse to profit by my experience? Must you endure what I have endured to learn what I offer freely to tell you? I shudder to think of It. The knowledge gleaned by experience may be the most lasting, but it is dearly purchased, and at a great loss--always." The man's voice was very earnest, and Chloe detected a note of mild reproach.

She hastened to reply.

"I _have_ profited by your advice--have learned much from what you have told me. I am under obligation to you. I appreciate your interest in--in my work, and am indeed grateful for what you have done to further it. But there are some things, I suppose, one _must_ learn by experience. I may be silly and headstrong. I may be wrong. But I stand ready to pay the price. The loss will be mine. See!" she cried excitedly, "they are rolling up the logs for the store."

"Yes," answered the man gravely, "I bow to your wishes in the matter of your buildings. If you refuse to build a stockade we may erect a few more buildings--but as few as you can possibly manage with, Miss Elliston. I must hasten southward."

Chloe studied for some moments. "The store"--she checked them off upon her fingers--"the schoolhouse, two bunkhouses, we can leave off the bathrooms, the river and the lake will serve until winter."

Lapierre nodded, and the girl continued. "We can do without the laundry and the carpenter-shop, and the individual cabins. The Indians can set up their teepees in the clearing, and build the cabins and the other buildings later. But I _would_ like a little cottage for myself, and Miss Penny, and Lena. We _could_ make three rooms do. Can we have three rooms?"

Lapierre bowed low. "It shall be as you say," he replied. "And now, if you will excuse me, I shall see to it that these _canaille_ work. LeFroy they do not fear."

He turned to go, and at that moment Chloe Elliston saw a look of terror flash into his eyes. Saw his fingers clutch and grope uncertainly at the gay scarf at his throat. Saw the muscles of his face work painfully.

Saw his colour fade from rich tan to sickly yellow. An inarticulate, gurgling sound escaped his lips, and his eyes stared in horror toward a point beyond and behind her.

She turned swiftly and gazed into the face of a man who had approached unnoticed from the direction of the river, and stood a few paces distant with his eyes fixed upon her. As their glances met the man's gaze continued unflinching, and the soft-brimmed Stetson remained on his head.

Her slender fingers clenched into her palms and, unconsciously, her chin thrust forward--for she knew intuitively that the man was "Brute" MacNair.

CHAPTER VI

BRUTE MACNAIR

Estimates are formed, in a far greater measure than most of us care to admit, upon first impressions. Manifestly shallow and embryonic though we admit them to be, our first impressions crystallize, in nine cases out of ten, into our fixed or permanent opinions. And, after all, the reason for this absurdity is simple--egotism.

Our opinions, based upon first impressions--and we rarely pause to a.n.a.lyse first impressions--have become _our opinions_, the result, as we fondly imagine, of our judgment. Our judgment must be right--because it is our judgment. Therefore, unconsciously or consciously, every subsequent impression is bent to bolster up and sustain that judgment. We hate to be wrong. We hate to admit, even to ourselves, that we are wrong.

Strange, isn't it? How often we are right (permit the smile) in our estimate of people?

When Chloe Elliston turned to face MacNair among the stumps of the sunlit clearing, her opinion of the man had already been formed. He was Brute MacNair, one to be hated, despised. To be fought, conquered, and driven out of the North--for the good of the North. His influence was a malignant ulcer--a cancerous plague-spot, whose evil tentacles, reaching hidden and unseen, would slowly but surely fasten themselves upon the civilization of the North--sap its vitality--poison its blood.

In the flash of her first glance the girl's eyes took in every particular and detail of him. She noted the huge frame, broad, yet lean with the gaunt leanness of health, and endurance, and physical strength. The sinew-corded, bronzed hands that clenched slowly as his glance rested for a moment upon the face of Lapierre. The weather-tanned neck that rose, columnlike, from the open s.h.i.+rt-throat.

The well-poised head. The prominent, high-bridged nose. The lantern jaw, whose rugged outline was but half-concealed by the roughly trimmed beard of inky blackness. And, the most dominant feature of all, the compelling magnetism of the steel-grey eyes of him--eyes, deep-set beneath heavy black brows that curved and met--eyes that stabbed, and bored, and probed, as if to penetrate to the ultimate motive. Hard eyes they were, whose directness of gaze spoke at once fearlessness and intolerance of opposition; spoke, also, of combat, rather than diplomacy; of the honest smas.h.i.+ng of foes, rather than dissimulation.

Ail this the girl saw in the first moments of their meeting. She saw, too, that the eyes held a hostile gleam, and that she need expect from their owner no sympathy--no deference of s.e.x. If war were to be between them, it would be a man's war, waged upon man's terms, in a man's country. No quarter would be given--Chloe's lips pressed tight--nor would any be asked.

The moments lengthened into an appreciable s.p.a.ce of time and the man remained motionless, regarding her with that probing, searching stare.

Lapierre he ignored after the first swift glance. Instinctively the girl knew that the man had no intention of being deliberately or studiously rude in standing thus in her presence with head covered, and eyeing her with those steel-grey, steel-hard eyes. Nevertheless, his att.i.tude angered her, the more because she knew he did not intend to.

And in this she was right--MacNair stared because he was silently taking her measure, and his hat remained upon his head because he knew of no reason why it should not remain upon his head.

Chloe was the first to speak, and in her voice was more than a trace of annoyance.

"Well, Mr. Mind-Reader, have you figured me out--why I am here, and----"

"No." The word boomed deeply from the man's throat, smas.h.i.+ng the question that was intended to carry the sting of sarcasm. "Except that it is for no good--though you doubtless think it is for great good."

"Indeed!" The girl laughed a trifle sharply. "And who, then, is the judge?"

"I am." The calm a.s.surance of the man fanned her rising anger, and, when she answered, her voice was low and steady, with the tonelessness of forced control.

"And your name, you Oligarch of the Far Outland? May I presume to ask your name?"

"Why ask? My name you already know. And upon the word of yon sc.u.m, you have judged. By the glint o' hate, as you looked into my eyes, I know--for one does not so welcome a stranger beyond the outposts. But, since you have asked, I will tell you; my name is MacNair--Robert MacNair, by my christening--Bob MacNair, in the speech of the country----"