The Wilderness Trail Part 23

"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 l.u.s.ted.

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.

Pa.s.sing 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 coa.r.s.eness 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.