The Wilderness Trail Part 33

Followed an uncanny stillness, which was broken only by the horrid sounds of the wounded and dying. Then, down the little declivity broke fifty men, cheering wildly, and a minute later the Hudson Bay Company took possession of its own. They found McTavish and Buxton pale and open-mouthed, regarding their arrival with blank faces. Behind them, the trench was a shambles. Before the barricade, Seguis sat dazedly, one leg pierced, and an arm helpless because of Timmins's bullet in his shoulder. One or two others rested on their elbows, half-conscious.

The newcomers spoke to McTavish, but he did not seem to hear them: his gaze was riveted on something that had started down the incline.

He saw a team of six magnificent dogs, dragging a polished cariole of wonderful workmans.h.i.+p. It was piled with furs, and from the curled enamel lip two little staffs arose, and on them fluttered the red flag of the Hudson Bay Company. Among the furs sat a man with a gray mustache and piercing blue eyes.

"Father!" cried Donald, and fell forward unconscious across the bullet-splintered logs.

CHAPTER XXVI

RENUNCIATION

"I'm proud of you, lad," were the first words that Donald recognized when he came to himself in the little shed-tent that quick hands had erected.

"I'm glad you came," was the simple reply. "They'd have done for us in another half-minute. I don't see why Seguis threw away so many lives trying to capture that fort."

"Dr. Craven says you mustn't talk for a bit, but you can listen while I tell you. Last night, Peter Rainy and I came upon the Fort Severn men in possession of the French traders' supply trains."

"Peter Rainy! Good old Peter! Is he back, too?"

"Yes, but you mustn't talk. Obey orders."

Donald smiled comfortably as he recognized the familiar, brusque speech, and closed his eyes.

"Yes, sir."

"All right. This morning, we had started up here, when he saw a man chasing away from us for dear life. One of the boys recognized him as Seguis, and figured that his men must have come down to try to rescue the trains, but that, when they saw the number in the party, they decided to return to their camp and fight in the last ditch. Naturally, when they found you in possession--and I must tell you that was a clever piece of work for a boy--they started in to drive you out. It was their only chance."

Donald smiled again. If he were fifty years old, he would always be a "boy" to his father.

"By that stubborn defense of yours, you have wiped the Free-Traders'

Brotherhood out of existence, as well as saved a lot of exceptionally fine furs (so I'm told) for the Company. I don't think the bullets made much headway against that toughness. I'm awfully sorry so many men lost their lives, and, of course, we'll look out for their families, if they have any.

"Now, about the matter that brought me here." The father plunged into this delicate subject with his son fearlessly, but with a deep breath, like a man diving into cold water. "I see, I've got to be pretty much alive if you and I are to get out of it with a whole skin. What I'd like to know is, how they saddle this half-breed on me."

"If you don't know, who does?" The eyes of the son were steady in their wordless accusation. "It's this way, father: If you never married this woman Maria, it ought to be easy enough to prove."

"I didn't marry her."

"Well, then, there oughtn't to be any trouble."

"Oh, yes, there ought, my boy. I didn't say she never had a place in my life."

Donald looked at his father with something of the elder man's piercing gaze, and understood.

"Then, there were--"

"Relations. Exactly! But no children. After three years, we agreed to separate, and she went back to her people, well provided for, for the rest of her life. She was considered to have done very well. Therefore, having Seguis forced upon me is no light matter."

"I hate to say it, father," Donald said, "but if you look at him carefully, you will see unmistakable signs that spell 'McTavish'

as plainly as though it were printed. You know, our family has very distinctive gray eyes and curly hair, with a lick of white on the crown. He has them both. But, tell me, what led you into any such relation? If you had warned me when I was old enough, I would have been prepared for it."

"My boy, I had none of the advantages that you have had all your life. I was born at a little post so far north that it has been abandoned now by the Company. Your grandfather was in charge there, and, when I was old enough, I went out with him, and learned to hunt. Then, later, when I was a man, I was put in charge of another little post on the Whale River, one of those spots where a solitary white man lives for all the winter months alone, only visited occasionally by a pa.s.sing Indian in need of supplies. Oh, if I had only realized then what I know now, that one's mistakes and wrong-doings bear their fruit in time! Well, at the fort, when the _brigade_ went up in the spring, I saw an Indian girl, descendant of a chief. You will understand me when I say that I turned away from the advances she made. Our family isn't that kind--I would marry no Indian. My mother was white, all our McTavish women are white. I would have nothing to do with her. But then, that lonely winter post! You've never known it, Donald, that awful solitariness!

The first winter I had a couple of papers a year old, and, when the _brigade_ went up to the fort, I could almost repeat them verbatim. That's how lonely it was!

"When I thought about that, perhaps I pushed matters a little myself. The girl's parents were dead, and she was knocked around considerably by an old hag who hadn't the heart either to let her starve or to treat her kindly. Well, we fixed it up. I left the fort when the time came, and she followed a week later--and that winter I wasn't alone. It was so for three winters. Then, she began to get shrewish and lose her looks, so I gave her money enough to make her independent (my father had left me something), and we separated with mutual satisfaction... That's the story, Donald."

"It's a hard story, father," said the young man, soberly. "There isn't much kindness in it; it's pure selfishness. Understand, I'm not preaching against the immorality of the thing; people up here are frankly either one or the other, and it's n.o.body's business much, except the missionary's. But, in the light of what has happened this winter, we would all be happier if you hadn't done it."

"I know it, my boy, I know it." The hardness of the commissioner's voice broke. "And, so far as I can see, we aren't out of the trouble yet. This man, Seguis, and old Maria may force us to the wall yet. I wonder if I could bribe them off?" He looked pleadingly at his son.

"I don't think so. The old woman is so ambitious for Seguis that she won't take anything but the whole cake, and, besides, why expose yourself to a system of everlasting blackmail, with the chance of their getting angry some time and squealing anyhow? We've got to force them to the wall some other way. When are you going to have a council, and settle this thing?"

"To-morrow morning, my boy;" and the commissioner rose.

Donald noted, with a little pang of sorrow, that his father's face looked older than he had ever seen it, and conjectured rightly that beneath the surface this gruff man, who had raised himself to second in command of the Company, was profoundly, abjectly miserable.

The elder McTavish rested his hand for a moment on his son's well shoulder.

"I'm going out now," he said. "I've tired you enough. Try to rest, or Craven will give me the deuce for rousing you... Oh, by the way, Donald, I know all that's happened between you and Fitzpatrick.

Rainy told me. I sent old Bill Thompson up here to command Fitzpatrick's presence, when I arrived. Pretty foxy fellow, old Bill; seemed to tell everything, and hear nothing, when it was really the other way about."

"So that was why he came up here so suddenly. Poor old man, he died game."

"And he lived game, which is more than I can say of some people higher up," was the gruff, self-condemnatory appreciation of the dead.

The commissioner was just opening the door of the tent when a bustle and shouting, mingled with the tinkle of sleigh-bells, announced the arrival of a dog-train.

"h.e.l.lo, father!" cried Donald, "who's that?"

"An old and loved friend of yours."

"If I've got a real friend except Peter Rainy, please show him in."

"It's Angus Fitzpatrick."

"Well, you can show him out; shoot him if you want to. By the way, any one with him?" The sense of dry humor that characterized the elder McTavish took in the situation at once. His eye twinkled briefly.

"There's a round bundle of furs on the sledge. Why?"

"Well, you show that bundle of furs which is my tent, and watch it come to life," was Donald's smiling order.

His father fussed and fumed in apparent rage for five minutes, and finally snapped out:

"Well, all right! But I always told your mother you would be spoiled, if she gratified every one of your whims." Wherewith, he disappeared outside.

The next morning found a small and solemn gathering in the large tent that Commissioner McTavish carried with him on his journeys _de luxe_. Present were Maria who had been rooted out of her tree like a bear; Seguis and Donald (both carried in), the commissioner, Angus Fitzpatrick, delirious with fever half the time, and Peter Rainy, gaunt with his record-breaking journey of fourteen hundred miles in four weeks. The day before, there had been a fervent, but quiet, reunion of the old Indian and his young master, in which the banter of the wounded man was barely removed from tears of grat.i.tude. Now, he sat on the edge of Donald's pile of skins, and smoked his vile pipe with complete contentment.