The Land of Frozen Suns Part 13

CHAPTER XIV-INTEREST ON A DEBT

They filed past the store, a weary looking squad, Montell's fat jowl drawn into sullen lines, the men not wholly free of a certain furtive bearing. Observing them I could very well enter into their feelings. My brief experience between Benton and MacLeod had taught me something of the fear that stalks at the elbow of a hunted man. The girl looked up at Barreau and me, and for the first time there was no curl to her lip, no scornful gleam in her eyes. Only a momentary flash of interest. Then the listless, impersonal expression came back to her face. She walked at her father's elbow like one utterly worn out. The men branched off to the bunkhouse. Montell and his daughter went straight to their cabin.

"I think he is beginning to have a profound respect for the Company,"

Barreau told me that night as we sat over our fire. "They have set him thinking. It seems that none of his men could get so much as a glimpse of a moccasin track. Still, their saddle horses and pack-mules were systematically shot down, until they were afoot again. After that they were not molested. He knows that his whole party could as easily have been put out of the way. That seems to have put the fear of G.o.d into the lot of them. They can't understand the object. I don't, myself, altogether. But I could hazard a close guess, I think."

All that night and the next day the big snowflakes came gyrating down.

The temperature remained the same, just short of freezing, and a dead calm lay over the land. Then it faired gradually. With the clearing sky the feathery snowfall melted and disappeared. Upon its pa.s.sing the night frosts took on a keener edge. Little vagrant gusts of wind went frolicking through the open s.p.a.ces in the woods, fluttering the dry, fallen leaves into tiny heaps and scattering them again. Sometimes of a night these same whisperings of the North rattled the bare limbs of the cottonwoods and birch till the miles of forest seemed to voice a protesting murmur. Steadily the cold grew, and the sun rode lower on its diurnal pa.s.sage. Save the pine and spruce and scattered cedars the great woods s.h.i.+vered in their nakedness, lacking the white robe which the North dons at such season. And presently that came also, with the deep-throated whoop of a north-east gale to herald its coming. In one night the Sicannie froze from bank to bank; at daybreak the wind drove curling streamers of loose snow across its gla.s.sy surface, to pile in frosty windows at the foot of the south slope.

During this period we of the post settled into a routine of minor tasks.

There were fires to keep against the cold. From dawn to dusk, somewhere within the stockade or on the timbered hill above, the clink of an axeblade on frosty wood rang like a bell. That, and water for cooking, and caring for the stock now housed in the long stable, kept time from hanging heavy on the hands of the men. Barreau and I gravitated between our cabin and the store.

Montell sulked for a week after that last failure to reach the south.

Then he emerged from his sh.e.l.l of silence, and became ponderously genial, talkative-a metamorphosis which Barreau regarded with frank contempt. He spoke to Montell no oftener than was necessary, and when he did speak his tongue was barbed. Openly and unequivocally he despised and distrusted his flesh-burdened partner, and he made no effort to hide the fact. For the most part Montell took his sneering unmoved, or grinned pacifically, but there were times when his red face went purple and his puffy eyelids would droop till the pupils glinted through mere slits, like a cat about to pounce. Then it would be Barreau's turn to smile, in his slow ironic way.

Of the girl, who kept close to the cabin she and her father shared, no word ever pa.s.sed between the two. Nor did she meet Barreau or myself face to face for a matter of three weeks. Our sight of each was from a distance, and from that distance, with a blanket coat to her heels and a fur cap pulled over her ears, it was hard to distinguish her from one of the few half-breed women who had followed their men into the North. In what way Montell accounted for our presence, I did not know, nor how he explained Barreau's a.s.sured position about the post. It may be that she did not notice this incongruity on the part of a supposed fugitive; it may be that Montell was a plausible liar. At any rate, upon the few occasions when we three came near enough to recognize each other, she appeared calmly indifferent. Barreau and I ate in the big cookhouse with the rest of the men. Montell and his daughter had their meals served in the cabin. So we-at least I will speak for myself, for Barreau maintained a stony front and absolute silence on the subject-were saved the embarra.s.sment of meeting three times daily.

Montell himself became very friendly toward me. Bit by bit he drew from me the story of my wanderings, and shook his head over it, a.s.suring me that Missouri river sternwheel men were a hard lot. Once he became reminiscent and spoke of his dead wife and her people with a poorly concealed pride in the alliance. His palpable satisfaction amused me. It seemed odd that a man of his rugged type, a hard-headed business buccaneer, should have that fatuous overestimation of wealth and so-called "blood." But he had it to the n'th degree. I dare say it was his one weak spot. She was a Charbonne, of the old New Orleans Charbonnes, originally a Hugenot family, but for the last generation or two of St. Louis, he told me; and in the telling he shed his natural carelessness of speech, and spoke in the stilted, exactly-phrased English in which he might have addressed the aristocratic parent of his bride. I knew more or less of the St. Louis Charbonnes myself, and I wondered that I had never heard of Montell or his daughter. Barreau smiled when I spoke of this later.

"That's Montell all over," he drawled. "Marrying a Charbonne stands out as one of the big things he has accomplished. He can't help boasting of it now and then. I imagine that if he were dying in a s...o...b..nk that thought would cheer him in his last hour. He regards it as a distinct achievement. He was a big, perfectly-formed, good-looking brute when he met her, and from all I know it was a case of two strong natures brus.h.i.+ng aside all obstacles. I've heard that the Charbonnes were furious over what they considered the rankest sort of mesalliance-but they were married, and so far as I know she never discovered his very obvious clay feet. She died in child-birth-the second child. The family has kept up a desultory intercourse with him for the girl's sake. They recognize her as their own blood, and tolerate him on that account."

A day or two after this Barreau rigged up a dog-team and left the post, bound for a point down the river, where they had established two Frenchmen with some trading goods, on the chance of getting into touch with some few lodges that hunted in that territory. He took one man, and I tramped a few miles with them, for the sake of the snowshoe practice of which I was sadly in need. It looked easy to go stalking over the drifts on those webbed ovals, but it was trying work for a novice I discovered at my first attempt. There was a certain free, swinging stride, which I had yet to master. So it happened that I did not return to the post until that chill hour between sundown and dark.

I was aware that the fire in our cabin was long dead, and the room corresponding in temperature to an ice-box, but I was in no mood for the ultra-friendly conversation Montell had been favoring me with of late.

For which reason I eschewed the blaze that I knew was crackling on the store hearth and made straight for my own quarters.

The day's work was at an end. Besides myself not a soul moved within the frosty area of the stockade. The doors of every building were shut tight against the sharp-toothed cold. This I noted almost mechanically. I was beginning to develop the woodsman's faculty of observing detail, without conscious purpose. With my mind busy about the prospect of getting a fire started in the shortest possible s.p.a.ce of time my gaze for a moment rested on the Montell cabin, as I stopped at my own door. At that instant Jessie Montell stepped outside, a shawl thrown over her head, carrying in one hand some object covered with a white cloth.

The dogs must have been lying at the end of the cabin. The slam of the door had barely sounded when she was confronted by one wolf-like brute.

He faced her boldly, his nose pointed inquisitively toward the thing she carried. She made a threatening gesture and spoke sharply to him, whereat the husky retreated a foot or two-and was instantly reinforced by half a dozen of his fellows. The girl lifted her hand a little higher and berated them, her clear voice reproaching them for their lack of manners. And then of a sudden one c.o.c.k-eared brute sprang at the thing she carried. He missed, and one of the others had a try. She gave ground, holding above her head what I now saw was a plate; and immediately the snarling pack was snapping at her skirts and she was cut off from the door. I could hear the click of their white fangs as I ran.

She backed against the wall, scolding them in a voice that betrayed some alarm.

I reached her on the double-quick, when I saw that the dogs meant mischief. The short-tempered devils turned on me in a body with the first blow I struck. One after the other I knocked galley-west and crooked with the barrel of my rifle, and shortly emerged victorious from the melee, but with my leggings ripped in divers places and the left sleeve of my _parka_ slit as if with a knife. From this last the blood streamed forth merrily, flowing down over my mitten and dripping redly on the trampled snow. Prior to that my experience of vicious dogs had been with those which grabbed and held on. The slas.h.i.+ng wolfish snap of the husky was new to me. I stood looking at my gashed arm in some astonishment.

"Why, they've bitten you," the girl exclaimed, with a sharp intake of her breath. "Let me see?"

She spread apart the opening in my buckskin sleeve and frowned at sight of the torn flesh, meanwhile balancing on her other hand the plate of meat that had caused the onslaught. Most women, I found time to reflect, would have dropped it at the first intention, but she had clung to it as a miser clings to his gold.

"Come in and let me tie that up," she commanded peremptorily, and flung open the door, giving me little chance to debate whether I would or no.

And I followed her in, as much through a sudden desire to see a little more of this very capable and impulsive young lady, as to have the sharp sting of the wound allayed.

She brought water in a basin, a sponge, and a piece of clean linen which she speedily reduced to strips; and after helping me remove the _parka_ proceeded to dress the gash in my forearm with deft tenderness. During this ministering to my need we were both silent. When it was done she tilted her head on one side and surveyed her handiwork, for all the world like a small bird perched on a limb and looking down. This fanciful notion struck me as rather absurd, and the more I thought of it the more absurd it seemed, till I found myself smiling broadly. Likening Jessie Montell to a saucy bird was, in a way, a very far-fetched comparison. She was distinctly unbirdlike-apart from that trick of tipping her head sidewise and gazing speculatively at whatsoever interested her.

"I'm really and truly sorry I got you into such a sc.r.a.pe," she apologized sweetly. "I suppose I should have thrown the meat to those ferocious things. But dear me, I'd toiled so over it, getting it thawed and fixed for papa's supper, that I hated to see it literally go to the dogs. You mustn't let the cold get into that cut. You'll have a nasty sore if you do."

"Oh, I'll see that the cold doesn't have a chance at it," I a.s.sured her.

"And you don't need to feel guilty on my account. I'd rather it was my arm than yours. I'm only too glad to pay a little interest on my debt."

She looked puzzled for a second.

"Oh," she said then, "you mean that time on the _Moon_. There's no debt to me. Those ruffians would have paid little heed to me. Mr. Barreau--"

She colored and broke off abruptly, with an impatient gesture.

"Papa has been telling me about you," she changed the subject. "Another St. Louis unfortunate"-smilingly-"aren't you. As the Scotch say, I feel 'verra weel acquent.i.t.' Your mother and my aunt Lois were more or less intimate. So that I know you by proxy, in a way."

I don't recollect just what reply I made. If she were trying to put me at my ease she made a woeful mess of it the very next minute, for she demanded to know, with embarra.s.sing directness:

"Why in the world didn't you stand your ground at Benton? Whatever possessed you to cross the line?"

"Well, you see-I-it was--" and there I halted lamely. I couldn't discuss the ethics of my flight with this self-sufficient young woman. My grounds for self-justification in that particular instance, were rather untenable. I couldn't explain the psychology of the thing to her, when I couldn't quite grasp it myself. I couldn't honestly admit that I had refused to stay and face the consequences of Tupper's sudden end at my hands because I was overwhelmed with fear. I didn't believe that myself.

Even if I had believed it, I would have been ashamed to admit frankly to that gray-eyed girl that I had run away because I was afraid. It had been a peculiar situation for me, one that I could hardly attempt to make clear to her. With Barreau it had been different. He seemed to understand, to divine how and why I did such and such a thing at such a time and place, with but a meager explanation from me. Certain effects invariably led him intuitively to first causes.

Moreover, with her I seemed to be put upon the defensive. I found myself reflecting on what she would do in such a case, and instantly deciding that Miss Jessie Montell would defy the devil and all his works if she thought herself in the right. In addition thereto I felt that she was unconsciously appraising me and cla.s.sing me as a weakling; and that, added to my own half-formed conviction that in time of trial I was likely to prove so, made me a most uncomfortable individual for a few moments. Montell's entrance saved me from a rather unwelcome situation.

There is no knowing how deep a tangle I should have got myself into-she was so uncompromisingly direct. Montell, however, opened the door at the crucial period, and she turned to him with a recital of the huskies'

outbreak, lighting a cl.u.s.ter of candles as she talked.

"If you don't shut up those ferocious brutes, or feed them a little oftener," she concluded, "they'll devour somebody one of these days, and there won't be so much as a moccasin left to tell the tale." At which extravagant forecast we all three laughed, and I felt myself equal to the occasion once more.

The upshot of this dog episode was that I stayed to supper with them, and went to my own cabin rather late in the evening.

CHAPTER XV-STRANGERS TWAIN

My arm was somewhat swollen, and it throbbed like an ulcerated tooth, when I got up the following morning, but I made s.h.i.+ft to build a fire.

When the icy chill was banished from the room, I dressed, and was getting what comfort I could out of a smoke when Montell knocked at my door, bringing a cold gust of air when he entered.

"Oho," said he, "stirrin' round, eh? This ain't much like home, is it?

How's the arm?"

I told him briefly, having little inclination to enlarge on that theme-the pain was sufficient without the aggravation of discussing it.

"Uh-huh," he grunted. "Now you just come along to the shack and have Jess fix it up again. She's pretty near as good as a doctor. And seein'

she's partly responsible, it's no more'n fair. There ain't no use you makin' a hermit of yourself."

I attempted to dodge this invitation, which seemed to savor of command.

Montell's semi-jocoseness rather jarred on me. For one thing his heartiness didn't quite ring true. Possibly I misjudged him. He could have had no particular motive for posing on my account. But I got the impression that his solicitude was of the lip rather than of the heart.

While I had pa.s.sed a very pleasant evening with them, I did not contemplate making myself at home in the Montell cabin, by any means. I had a vague feeling that it involved disloyalty to Barreau. Montell, however, was quite insistent, and as I had no forthright reason for being churlish I ended by going with him.

He made a great fuss at helping me off with my coat, and while he hovered over me in his ponderous way Miss Montell came out of the other room. She nodded to me and smiled a greeting, whereupon he, busying himself with hanging my coat and hat upon a peg, plunged into a jesting account of my reluctance to leave my own fireside, relating with much detail what he said and what I said, and how I owed it to my arm to have it well cared for, and so on-till I wearied of his gabble. I don't think she listened half the time. She moved about the room, getting a basin and warm water and other first, or perhaps I should say second, aids to the injured. And she washed and bandaged afresh the laceration, with an impersonal absorption in the task that I half resented.

When she had finished, breakfast, hot from the cookhouse, was brought by one of the "breed" women, and Miss Montell seated herself at the table and airily waved her father and myself to places on her right and left.

That was how I came to break bread with them a second time, and it was not the last by any means. In the ensuing five or six days I wore a distinct path between my cabin and theirs. Montell made it a point to descend upon me at some hour of the day, and, after all, I was not so loth. I am constrained to admit that Jessie Montell was the one bright spot in those dreary, monotonous days. With Barreau gone, I was a lonely mortal indeed. Those evenings at Montell's pa.s.sed away many a leaden-footed hour. After that first time Jessie never challenged me in that imperious, judicial manner, anent my Benton escapade. We spoke of it, to be sure, but in terms dispa.s.sionate, uncritical. When Montell was about, he and I played cribbage. When she and I were alone, we talked.

We discovered a similar taste in books, a mutual acquaintance or two in St. Louis. And we gravely discussed the prospects of getting home in the spring. Naturally, she was a rabid partisan, hating the Hudson's Bay Company with outspoken frankness. Moreover, she spoke confidently of her father's power to beat them at their own game, notwithstanding the strong hand shown by the Company so shortly before. Of Barreau's part in the war for pelts, she seemed profoundly ignorant. His name never pa.s.sed her lips.