IV
THE CONJUROR
Morning breaks, one awakes refreshed and quiescent, and, wondering a little at the heats and disturbances of the day before, makes a fresh start. Mary was not to be seen about the fort, and Jack presently learned that she and Davy had departed on horseback at daybreak for the Indian camp at Swan Lake. He was relieved, for, after what had happened, the thought of having to meet Mary and adjust himself to a new footing made him uncomfortable.
Jack's self-love had received a serious blow, and he secretly longed for something to rehabilitate himself in his own eyes. At the same time he was not moved by any animosity toward Cranston, the instrument of his downfall; on the contrary, though he could not have explained it, he felt decidedly drawn toward the grim trader, and after a while he sheepishly entered the store in search of him. He found Cranston quite as diffident as himself, quite as anxious to let bygones be bygones. There was genuine warmth in his handclasp.
They made common cause in deriding the gubernatorial party.
"Lord love ye!" said Cranston. "Never was an outfit like to that! Card-tables, mind ye, and folding chairs, and hanging lamps, and a son-of-a-gun of a big oil-stove that burns blue blazes! Fancy accommodating that to a horse's back! I've sent out to round up all the company horses. They'll need half a regiment to carry that stuff."
"What's the governor's game up here?" asked Jack.
"You've got me," said Cranston. "Coal lands in the canyon, he says."
"That's pretty thin," said Jack. "It doesn't need a blooming governor and his train to look at a a bit of coal. There's plenty of coal nearer home."
"There's a piece about it in one of the papers the steamboat brought," said Cranston.
He found the place, and exhibited it to Jack, who read a fulsome account of how his honour Sir Bryson Trangmar had decided to spend the summer vacation of the legislature in touring the North of the province, with a view of looking into its natural resources; that the journey had been hastily determined upon, and was to be of a strictly non-official character, hence there were to be no ceremonies en route beyond the civilities extended to any private traveller; that this was only one more example of the democratic tendencies of our popular governor, etc.
"Natural resources," quoted Jack. "That's the ring in the cake!"
"You think the coal they're after has a yellow shine?" suggested Cranston.
Jack nodded. "Even a governor may catch that fever," he said. "By Gad!" he cried suddenly, "do you remember those two claim-salters—Beckford and Rowe their names were—who went out after the ice last May?"
"They stopped here," said Cranston. "I remember them."
"What if those two——" suggested Jack.
"Good Lord!" cried Cranston, "the governor himself!"
"If it's true," cried Jack, "it's the richest thing that ever happened! A hundred years from now they'll still be telling the story around the fires and splitting their sides over it. It's like Beckford, too; he was a humourist in his way. This is too good to miss. I believe I'll go back with them."
From discussing Sir Bryson's object they passed to Jack's own work in the Spirit River Pass. No better evidence of the progress these two had made in friendship could be had than Jack's willingness to tell Cranston of his "strike," the secret that a man guards closer than his crimes.
"I don't mind telling you that I have three good claims staked out," said Jack. "In case I should be stopped from filing them, I'll leave you a full description before I go. I'll leave you my little bag of dust too, to keep for me."
"You're serious about going back with them, then?" said Cranston.
Jack nodded. "I ought to go, anyway, to make sure they don't blanket anything of mine."
In due course Jack produced his little canvas bag, which the trader sealed, weighed, and receipted for.
"There's another thing I wanted to talk to you about," said Jack diffidently. "I can't hold these three claims myself. I want you to take one."
"Me?" exclaimed Cranston in great astonishment.
"Yes," stammered Jack, still more embarrassed. "For—for her, you know—Mary. I feel that I owe it to her. I want her to have it, anyway. She needn't know it came from me. It's a good claim."
Cranston would not hear of it, and they argued hotly.
"You're standing in your own daughter's light," said Jack at last. "I'm not giving you anything. It's for her. You haven't any right to deprive her of a good thing."
Cranston was silenced by this line; they finally shook hands on it, and turned with mutual relief to less embarrassing subjects. Jack had the comfortable sensation that in a measure he had squared himself with himself.
"Who's running the governor's camp?" asked Jack.
"They brought up Jean Paul Ascota from the Crossing."
"So!" said Jack, considerably interested. "The conjuror and medicine man, eh? I hear great tales of him from all the tribes. What is he?"
Cranston exhibited no love for the man under discussion. "His father and mother were half-breed Crees," he said. "He has a little place at the Crossing where he lives alone—he never married—but most of the time he is tripping; long hikes from Abittibi to the Skeena, and from the edge of the farming country clear to Herschel Island in the Arctic, generally alone. Too much business, and too mysterious for an Indian, I say. He's a strong man in his way, he has a certain power, you wouldn't overlook him in a crowd; but I doubt if he's up to any good. He's one of those natives that plays double, you know them, a white man wi' white men, and a red wi' the reds. Much too smooth and plausible for my taste. Lately he has got religion, and he goes around wi' a Bible in his pocket, which is plumb ridiculous, knowing what you and I know about his conjuring practices among the tribes."
"I've heard he's a good tripper," said Jack.
"Oh, none better," said Cranston. "I'll say that for him; there's no man knows the whole country like he does, or a better hand in a canoe, or with horses, or around the camp. But, look you, after all he's only an Indian. Here he's been with these people a week, and already his head is turned. They don't know what they're doing, so they defer to him in everything, and consequently the Indian's head is that swelled wi' giving orders to white men his feet can hardly keep the ground. Their camp is at a standstill."
"Hm!" said Jack; "it's a childish outfit, isn't it? It would be a kind of charity to take them in hand."
A little later Jack ran into the redoubtable Jean Paul Ascota himself, whom he immediately recognized from Cranston's description. As the trader had intimated, there was something strongly individual and peculiar in the aspect of the half-breed. He was a handsome man of forty-odd years, not above the average in height, but very broad and strong, and with regular, aquiline features. Though Cranston had said he was half-bred, there was no sign of the admixture of any white blood in his coppery skin, his straight black hair, and his savage, inscrutable eyes. He was dressed in a neatly fitting suit of black, and he wore "outside" shoes instead of the invariable moccasins. This ministerial habit was relieved by a fine blue shirt with a rolling collar and a red tie, and the whole was completed by the usual expensive felt hat with flaring, stiff brim. A Testament peeped out of one side-pocket.
But it was the strange look of his eyes that set the man apart, a still, rapt look, a shine as from close-hidden fires. They were savage, ecstatic, contemptuous eyes. When he looked at you, you had the feeling that there was a veil dropped between you, invisible to you, but engrossed with cabalistic symbols that he was studying while he appeared to be looking at you. In all this there was a certain amount of affectation. You could not deny the man's force, but there was something childish too in the egregious vanity which was perfectly evident.
He was sitting on a box in the midst of the camp disarray, smoking calmly, the only idle figure in sight. Tents, poles, and miscellaneous camp impedimenta were strewn on one side of the trail; on the other the deck-hands were piling the stores of the party. Sidney Vassall, with his inventory, assisted by Baldwin Ferrie, both in a state approaching distraction, were pawing over the boxes and bundles, searching for innumerable lost articles, that were lost again as soon as they were found.
Vassall was not a particularly sympathetic figure to Jack, but the sight of the white men stewing while the Indian loafed was too much for his Anglo-Saxon sense of the fitness of things. His choler promptly rose, and, drawing Vassall aside, he said:
"Look here, why do you let that beggar impose on you like this? You'll never be able to manage him if you knuckle down now."
Vassall was a typical A.D.C. from the provinces, much better fitted to a waxed floor than the field. The hero of a hundred drawing-rooms made rather a pathetic figure in his shapeless, many-pocketed "sporting" suit. His much-admired manner of indiscriminate, enthusiastic amiability seemed to have lost its potency up here.
"What can I do?" he said helplessly. "He says he can't work himself, or he won't be able to boss the Indians that are coming."
"Rubbish!" said Jack. "Everybody has to work on the trail. I'll put him to work for you. Show me how the tents go."
Vassall gratefully explained the arrangement. There was a square tent in the centre, with three smaller A-tents opening off. Jack measured the ground and drove the stakes. Then spreading the canvas on the ground, preparatory to raising it, he called cheerfully:
"Lend a hand here, Jean Paul. You hold up the poles while I pull the ropes."
The half-breed looked at him with cool, slow insolence, and dropping his eyes to his pipe, pressed the tobacco in the bowl with a delicate finger. He caught his hands around his knee, and leaned back with the expression of one enjoying a recondite joke.
Jack's face reddened. Promptly dropping the canvas, he strode toward the half-breed, his hands clenching as he went.
"Look here, you damned redskin!" he said, not too loud. "If you can't hear a civil request, I've a fist to back it up, understand? You get to work, quick, or I'll knock your head off!"
The native deck hands stopped dead to see what would happen. Out of the blue sky the thunderbolt of a crisis had fallen. Jean Paul, the object of their unbounded fear and respect, they invested with supernatural powers, and they looked to see the white man annihilated.
The breed slowly raised his eyes again, but this time they could not quite meet the blazing blue ones. There was a pregnant pause. Finally Jean Paul got up with a shrug of bravado, and followed Jack back to the tents. He was beaten without a blow on either side. A breath of astonishment escaped the other natives. Jean Paul heard it, and the iron entered his soul. The glance he bent on Jack's back glittered with the cold malignancy of a poisonous snake. It was all over in a few seconds and the course of the events for weeks to come was decided, a course involving, at the last, madness, murder, and suicide.
On the face of it the work proceeded smartly, and by lunch time the tents were raised, the furniture and the baggage stowed within, and Vassall's vexatious inventory checked complete. His effusive gratitude made Jack uncomfortable. Jack cut him short, and nonchalantly returned to his own camp, where he cooked his dinner and ate it alone.
Afterward, cleaning his gun by the fire, he reviewed the crowded events of the past twenty-four hours in the ever-delightful, off-hand, cocksure fashion of youth that the oldsters envy, while they smile at it. His glancing thoughts ran something like this:
"To be put to sleep like that! Damn! But I couldn't see what I was doing. If it hadn't been dark! ... At any rate, nobody knows. It's good he didn't black my eye. Cranston'll never tell. He's a square old head all right. I suppose it was coming to me. Damn! ... I like Cranston, though. He's making up to me now. He'd like me to marry the girl. She'd take me quick enough. Nice little thing, too. Fine eyes! But marriage! Not on your cartridge-belt! Not for Jack Chanty! The world is too full of sport. I haven't nearly had my fill! ... The governor's daughter! Rather a little strawberry, too. Professional angler. I know 'em. Got a whole bookful of fancy flies for men. Casts them prettily one after another till you rise, then plop! into her basket with the other dead fish. You'll never get me on your hook, little sister... I can play a little myself. If you let on you don't care, with that kind, it drives 'em wild.... Shouldn't wonder if she had old Frank going.... Rum start, meeting him up here. What a scared look he gave me. I wonder! ... He's changed.... Very likely it's politics, and graft, and getting on in the world. Doesn't want to associate too closely with a tough like me, now.... Oh, very well! These big-bugs can't put me out of face. I can show them a thing or two.... I put that Indian down in good shape. I have the trick of it. He's a queer one. They'll have trouble with him later. Women with them, too. Hell of an outfit to come up here, anyway."
Jack's meditations were interrupted by Frank Garrod, who came threading his way through the poplar saplings. Jack sprang up with a gladness only a little less hearty than upon their first meeting the night before.
"Hello, old fel'!" he cried. "Glad you looked me up! We can talk off here by ourselves."
But it appeared that Frank had come only for the purpose of carrying Jack back with him. Sir Bryson had expressed a wish to thank him for his assistance that morning. Jack frowned, and promptly declined the honour, but upon second thought he changed his mind. There was a plan growing in his head which necessitated a talk with Sir Bryson.
They made their way back together, Frank making an unhappy attempt to appear at his ease. He had something on his mind. He started to speak, faltered, and fell silent. But it troubled him still. Finally it came out.
"I say," he said in his jerky way, "as long as you want to keep your real name quiet, we had better not let on that we are old friends, eh?"
Jack looked at him quickly, all his enthusiasm of friendliness dying down.
"We can seem to become good friends by degrees," Garrod went on lamely. "It need only be a matter of a few days."
"Just as you like," said Jack coolly.
"But it's you I'm thinking of."
"You needn't," said Jack. "I don't care what people call me. You needn't be afraid that I'll trouble you with my society."
"You don't understand," Garrod murmured miserably.
However, in merely bringing the matter up he had accomplished his purpose, for Jack never acted quite the same to him afterward.
A little to one side of the tents they came upon a group of finished worldliness such as had never before been seen about Fort Cheever. From afar, the younger Cranston boys stared at it awestruck. Miss Trangmar and her companion sat in two of the folding chairs, basking in the sun, while Vassall and Baldwin Ferrie reclined on the grass at their feet, the former, his day's work behind him, now clad in impeccable flannels. The centre of the picture was naturally the little beauty, looking in her purple summer dress as desirable, as fragile, and as expensive as an orchid. At the sight of her Jack's nostrils expanded a little in spite of himself. Lovely ladies who metamorphosed themselves every day, not to speak of several times a day, were novel to him.
As the two men made to enter the main tent she called in her sweet, high voice: "Present our benefactor, Mr. Garrod."
Garrod brought Jack to her. Garrod was very much confused. "I——I"—he stammered, looking imploringly at Jack.
"They call me Jack Chanty," Jack said quietly, with his air of "take it or leave it."
"Miss Trangmar, Mrs. Worsley," Garrod murmured looking relieved.
Jack bowed stiffly.
"We are tremendously obliged," the little lady said, making her eyes big with gratitude. "Captain Vassall says he would never have got through without you."
A murmur of assent went round the circle. Jack would not out of sheer obstinacy make the polite and obvious reply. He looked at the elder lady. He liked her looks. She reminded him of an outspoken cousin of his boyhood. She was plain of feature and humorous-looking, very well dressed, and with an air of high tolerance for human failings.
"In pleasing Miss Trangmar you put us all under heavy obligations," said Baldwin Ferrie with a simper. He was a well-meaning little man.
"By Jove! yes," added Vassall; "when she's overcast we're all in shadow."
Everybody laughed agreeably.
"Mercy!" exclaimed Linda Trangmar, "one would think I had a fearful temper, and kept you all in fear of your lives!"
There was a chorus of disclaimers. Jack felt slightly nauseated. He looked away. The girl stole a wistful glance at his scornful profile, the plume of fair hair, the cold blue eyes, the resolute mouth. All of a sudden she had become conscious of the fulsome atmosphere, too. She wondered what secrets the proud youthful mask concealed. She wondered if there was a woman for whom the mask was dropped, and if she were prettier than herself.
Meanwhile Jack felt as if he were acting like a booby, standing there. He was impelled to say something, anything, to show them he was not overcome by their assured worldliness. He addressed himself to Vassall.
"You have had no trouble with the Indian, since?"
"None whatever," Vassall said. "He's gone off now with some of the people here."
Garrod took advantage of the next lull to say: "Sir Bryson is waiting for us."
Jack bowed again, and made a good retreat.
"I told you he was a gentleman," said Linda to Mrs. Worsley.
That lady had been impressed with the same fact, but she said cautiously, as became a chaperon: "His manner is rather brusque."
"But he has manner," remarked Linda slyly.
"We know nothing about him, my dear."
"That's just it," said Linda. "Fancy meeting a real mystery in these matter-of-fact days. I shall find out his right name."
"They say it's not polite to ask questions about a man's past in this country," suggested Vassall with a playful air.
"Nor safe," put in Mrs. Worsley.
"Who cares for safety?" cried Linda. "I came North for adventures, and I mean to have them! Isn't he handsome?" she added wickedly.
The two men assented without enthusiasm.
Within the main tent Sir Bryson was seated at a table, looking the very pink of official propriety. There were several piles of legal documents and miscellaneous papers before him, with which he appeared to be busily occupied. It was noticeable that his chief concern was to have the piles arranged with mathematical precision. He never finished shaking and patting them straight. At first he ignored Jack. Handing some papers to Garrod, he said:
"These are now ready to be sent, Mr. Garrod. Please bear in mind my various instructions concerning them."
Garrod retired to another table. He proceeded to fold and enclose the various documents, but from the tense poise of his head it was clear that he followed all that was said.
Sir Bryson now affected to become aware of Jack's presence with a little start. He looked him up and down as one might regard a fine horse he was called on to admire. "So this is the young man who was of so much assistance to us this morning?" he said with a smile of heavy benignity.
Jack suppressed an inclination to laugh in his face.
"We are very much obliged to you, young sir—very," said Sir Bryson grandly.
"It was nothing, sir," said Jack, smiling suddenly. He knew if he caught Garrod's eye he would burst out laughing.
"I now desire to ask you some questions relative to the big canyon," continued Sir Bryson. "I am told you know it."
"I have just come from there," said Jack.
"Is there a good trail?"
"I came by water. But I know the trail. It is well-travelled. There are no muskegs, and the crossings are easy."
"You know the canyon well?"
"I have been working above it for three months."
Sir Bryson favoured Jack with a beady glance. "Um!" he said. And then suddenly: "Are you free for the next month or so?"
Garrod raised his eyes with a terrified look.
"That depends," said Jack.
"Are you prepared to consider an offer to guide our party?"
Garrod bit his lips to keep back the protest that sprang to them.
"If it is sufficiently attractive," said Jack coolly.
Sir Bryson opened his eyes. "Three dollars a day, and everything found," he said sharply.
Jack smiled, and shook his head. "That is the ordinary pay of a white man in this country," he said. "This is a responsible job. I'd expect five at least."
Sir Bryson made a face of horror. "Out of the question!" he exclaimed.
"I'm not at all anxious for it at any price," said Jack. "It will be difficult. You are very badly provided——"
"We have everything!" cried Sir Bryson.
"Except necessities," said Jack. "Moreover, men should have been engaged in advance, good packers, boatmen, axemen. We can't get good material on the spur of the moment, and I have no wish to be blamed for what goes wrong by others' doing."
Sir Bryson puffed out his cheeks. "You take a good deal on yourself, young man," he said heatedly. "Let me ask you a few questions now if you please. What is your name?"
"I am known throughout the country as Jack Chanty."
"But your real name."
"I do not care to give it."
A long breath escaped slowly from between Garrod's clenched teeth, and he wiped his face.
The little governor swelled like a pouter pigeon. "Tut!" he exclaimed. "This is preposterous. Do you think I would entrust myself and my party to a nameless nobody from nowhere?"
Sir Bryson, pleased with the sound of this phrase, glanced over at Garrod for approval.
"I'm not after the job, Sir Bryson," said Jack coolly. "You opened the matter. I am known throughout the country. Ask Cranston."
Garrod, seeing his chief about to weaken, could no longer hold his peace. "Wouldn't it be as well to let the matter go over?" he suggested casually.
Sir Bryson turned on him very much annoyed. "Mr. Garrod, by your leave," he said crushingly. "I was about to make the suggestion myself. That will be all just now," he added to Jack.
Jack sauntered away to talk the matter over with Cranston.
Sir Bryson spoke his mind warmly to his secretary concerning the latter's interference. Garrod, however, relieved of Jack's presence, recovered a measure of sang-froid.
"I'm sorry," he said smoothly, "but I couldn't stand by and listen to the young ruffian browbeat you."
"Browbeat nothing," said the irate little governor. "Bargaining is bargaining! He stands out for as much as he can."
Garrod turned pale. "You're surely not thinking of engaging him!" he said.
"There's no one else," said Sir Bryson.
"But he's more insolent than the Indian," said Garrod nervously. "And who is he? what is he? Some nameless fugitive from justice!"
"You overlook the fact that he doesn't care whether I engage him or not," said Sir Bryson. "Our assurance lies in that."
"A shallow pretence," cried Garrod.
Sir Bryson turned squarely in his chair. "You seem to be strangely set against hiring this fellow," he said curiously.
Garrod was effectually silenced. With a gesture, he went on with his work.
Later he sought out Jack again. They sat on a bench at the edge of the bank, and Garrod suffered himself to answer some painful questions first, in order that he might not appear to be too eager to broach the subject that agitated his mind.
At last he said with an assumed heartiness in which there was something very painful to see: "I tell you it did me good to hear you giving the old man what for this afternoon. He leads me a dog's life!"
"Oh, that was only in the way of a dicker," said Jack carelessly. "He expected it. Any one could see he loves a bargain."
"Don't let yourself in for this one," said Garrod earnestly. "You'll repent it if you do. He'll interfere all the time, and insist on his own way, then blame you when things go wrong."
"The trouble with you is you're in awe of him because he's the Big Chief outside," said Jack. "That doesn't go up here."
"Then you mean to come?" faltered Garrod.
"If he accepts my terms," said Jack. "I don't mean to let myself go too cheap."
Garrod's head drooped. "Well—don't say I didn't warn you," he said in an odd, flat tone.
V
JACK HEARS ABOUT HIMSELF
Jack was subsequently engaged as chief guide to Sir Bryson's party. Days of strenuous preparation succeeded. For one thing the stores of the expedition had to undergo a rigid weeding-out process; the oil-stove, the bedsteads, the white flannels, and the parasols, etc., were left behind. There was a shortage of flour and bacon, which the store at Fort Cheever was in poor shape to supply. Last winter's grub was almost exhausted, and this winter's supply had not arrived. The Indians, who are the store's only customers, live off the land during the summer. Cranston stripped himself of what he had, and sent a messenger down the river with an urgent order for more to be sent up by the next boat.
Jack was hampered by a lack of support from his own party. Vassall and Baldwin Ferrie were willing enough but incapable. Garrod blew hot and cold, and altogether acted in a manner inexplicable to Jack. Only the man's obvious suffering prevented the two from coming to an open quarrel. Jack dismissed him with a contemptuous shrug. The little governor issued and countermanded his orders bewilderingly and any malcontent was always sure of a hearing from him. But Jean Paul Ascota, from whom Jack had most reason to expect mischief-making, gave him no trouble at all. This in itself might have warned him of danger, but he had too many other things to think about.
It cannot be said that Jack bore all his hindrances with exemplary patience. However, he had an effective weapon in his unconcern. When matters came to a deadlock he laughed, and, retiring to his own little camp, occupied himself with his banjo until some one came after him with an olive branch. They were absolutely dependent on him.
On the eighth day they finally got away. Mounting his horse, Jack took up a position on a little mound by the trail, and watched his company file past. For himself he had neglected none of the stage-trappings dear to the artistic sense of a young man. His horse was the best in the company and the best accoutred.
He had secured a pair of shaggy bearskin chaps and from his belt hung a gigantic .44 in a holster. He wore a dashing broad-brimmed "Stetson," and a gay silk handkerchief knotted loosely around his throat. The sight of him sitting there, hand on hip, with his scornful air, affected little Linda Trangmar like a slight stab. She bit her lip, called herself a fool, and spurred ahead.
Jean Paul Ascota rode at the head of the procession. Jack had seen the wisdom of propitiating him with this empty honour. The Indian had likewise seen to it that he obtained a good horse, and he rode like a careless Centaur. Passing Jack, his face was as blank as paper, but out of Jack's range of vision the black eyes narrowed balefully, the wide nostrils dilated, and the lips were tightly compressed.
Sir Bryson's party followed: the spruce little governor, an incongruous figure on his sorry cayuse; the two ladies, Garrod, Vassall, and Baldwin Ferrie. At the very start Sir Bryson objected to riding at the tail of Jean Paul's horse, and Jack was obliged to explain to him that there are certain rules of the trail which even a lieutenant-governor may not override. The place at the head belongs to him who can best follow or make a trail.
The two ladies wore khaki divided skirts that they had been obliged to contrive for themselves, since side-saddles are unknown in the country. In regard to Miss Trangmar and Mrs. Worsley, Jack had strongly urged that they be left at Fort Cheever, and in this matter Garrod had almost desperately supported him, volunteering to stay behind to look after them. His activity booted him nothing with his little mistress. When she heard of the suggestion she merely smiled and waited until she got her father alone. As a result here they were.
There was one more white member of the expedition of whom some explanation must be given: this was Thomas Jull, lately cook on the steamboat, and now transferred to the position of camp cook. The whole design of the journey had been threatened with extinction at Fort Cheever by the discovery that a cook had been forgotten. There was of course nothing of that kind to be obtained at the fort. Jull's cooking had all been done on stoves, but Jack, promising to initiate him into the mysteries of campfires, had tempted him to forsake his snug berth.
He was a fat, pale, and puffy creature of indeterminate age, who looked as if his growth had been forced in a cellar, but he was of a simple, willing nature, and he had conceived an enormous admiration for Jack, who was so different from himself. He had already acquired a nickname in the country from his habit of carrying his big head as if in momentary expectation of a blow. Humpy Jull he was to be henceforth.
Four Indian lads completed the party. This was barely sufficient to pack the horses and make camp, but as Jack had explained to Sir Bryson the best he could get were a poor lot, totally unaccustomed to any discipline, and a larger number of them would only have invited trouble. They must be worked hard, and kept under close subjection to the whites, he said. There were twenty laden horses, and five spare animals.
They climbed the steep high hill behind Fort Cheever and Jack, watching the train wind up before him, thrilled a little with satisfaction under his mask of careless hardihood. Notwithstanding all his preliminary difficulties, it was a businesslike-looking outfit. Besides, it is not given to many young men in their twenties to command a lieutenant-governor.
This was not really a hill, but the river-bank proper. From the top of it the prairie stretched back as far as the eye could reach, green as an emerald sea at this season, and starred with flowers. Here and there in the broad expanse grew coverts of poplar saplings and wolf-willow, making a parklike effect. The well-beaten trail mounted the smooth billows, and dipped into the troughs of the grassy sea like an endless brown ribbon spreading before them.
The progress of such a party is very slow. The laden pack-horses cannot be induced to travel above a slow, slow walk. Twice a day they must be unladen and turned out to forage; then caught and carefully packed again. On the first day a good deal of confusion attended these operations. Little by little Jack brought order out of chaos.
As the pack-train got under way after the first "spell" on the prairie, Jack, not generally so observant of such things, was struck by the look of weariness and pain in Garrod's white face. It was the face of a man whose nerves have reached the point of snapping. Jack did not see as far as that, but: "The old boy's in a bad way," he thought, with a return of his old kindness. After all, as youths, these two had been inseparable.
"I say, wait behind and ride with me," he said to Garrod. "We've scarcely had a chance to say anything to each other."
Garrod's start and the wild roll of his black eyes suggested nothing but terror at the idea, but there was no reasonable excuse he could offer. They rode side by side in the grass at some distance behind the last Indian.
"Do you know," said Jack, "I've never heard a word from home since the night I cleared out five years ago. Tell me everything that's happened."
"That's a large—a large order," stammered Garrod. "So many little things. I forget them. Nothing important. I left Montreal myself soon after you did."
"Why did you never answer my letter?" asked Jack. "You know I had no one to write to but you."
"I never got a letter," said Garrod quickly.
"That's funny," said Jack. "Letters don't often go astray."
"Don't you believe me?" demanded Garrod sharply.
Jack stared. "Why, sure!" he said. "What's biting you? You're in a rotten state of nerves," he went on. "Better chuck the life you're leading, and stay up here for a year or two. What's the matter with you?"
Garrod passed the back of his hand across his weary eyes. "Can't sleep," he muttered.
"Never heard of a man up here that couldn't do his eight hours a night," said Jack. "You'd better stay."
Garrod made no answer.
"You're not still hitting the old pace?" asked Jack.
Garrod shook his head.
"Gad! what a pair of young fools we were! Trying to cut a dash on bank-clerks' salaries! That girl did me a mighty good turn without meaning it when she chucked me for the millionaire. What's become of her, Frank?"
"She married him," Garrod said; "ruined him, divorced him, and married another millionaire."
Jack laughed carelessly. "Logical, eh? And that was what I broke my young heart over! Remember the night I said good-bye to you in the Bonaventure station, and blubbered like a kid? I said my life was over, 'member?—and I wasn't twenty-one yet. You were damn decent to me, Frank. You didn't laugh."
Garrod kept his head averted. His lips were very white.
"We went through quite a lot for a pair of kids," Jack went on. "We always stood by each other, though we were such idiots in other respects. What we needed was a good birching. It takes a year or two of working up here to put an only son straight with himself. Life is simple and natural up here; you're bound to see the right of things. Better stay, and get your health back, old man."
Garrod merely shook his head again.
"My uncle is dead," Jack went on. "I saw it in a paper."
"Yes," said Garrod.
"And left his pile to a blooming hospital! That's what I lost for clearing out, I suppose. Well, I don't regret it—much. That is, not the money. But I'm sorry the old boy passed out with a grouch against me. I thought he would understand. He had a square head. I've often thought there must have been something else. You were quite a favourite of his, Frank. Was there anything else?"
All this time Garrod had not looked at Jack. At the last question a wild and impatient look flashed in his sick eyes as if some power of endurance had snapped within him. He jerked his head toward the other man with desperate speech on his lips. It was never uttered, for at the same moment an exclamation broke from Jack, and clapping heels to his horse, he sprang ahead. One of the packs had slipped, and the animal that bore it was sitting in the trail like a dog.
After the pack had been readjusted, other things intervened, Garrod regained his own place in the procession, and Jack for the time being forgot that his question had not been answered.
Jack's dignity as the commander of the party often sat heavily upon him, and he was fond of dropping far behind in the trail, where he could loll in the saddle, and sing and whistle to his heart's ease. His spirits always rose when he was on the move, and the sun was shining.
Jack had a great store of old English ballads. On one such occasion he was informing high heaven of the merits of "Fair Hebe," when upon coming around a poplar bluff he was astonished to see Linda Trangmar standing beside her horse, listening with a smile of pretty malice. She had a bunch of pink flowers that she had gathered. Jack sharply called in the song, and blushed to his ears.
"Don't stop," she said. "What did Reason tell you about Fair Hebe?"
Jack made believe not to hear. Our hero hated to be made fun of. "It's dangerous to be left behind by the outfit," he said stiffly.
"I knew you were coming," she said coolly. "Besides, I got off to pick these flowers, and I couldn't get on again without being helped." She thrust the flowers in her belt. "Aren't they lovely? Like crushed strawberries. What are they called?"
"Painter's brush," said Jack laconically.
He lifted her on her horse. She was very light. It was difficult to believe that this pale and pretty little thing was a woman grown. She had a directness of speech that was only saved from downright impudence by her pretty childishness.
"Now we can talk," she said as they started their horses. "The truth is, I stayed behind on purpose to talk to you. I wish to make friends."
Jack, not knowing exactly what to say, said nothing.
She darted an appraising look at him. "Mr. Vassall says it's dangerous to ask a man questions about himself up here," she went on. "But I want to ask you some questions. May I? Do you mind?"
This was accompanied by a dazzling smile. Jack slowly grew red again. He hated himself for being put out of countenance by her impudence, nevertheless it cast him up high and dry.
She took his assent for granted. "In the first place, about your name," she chattered; "what am I to call you? Mr. Chanty would be ridiculous, and without the Mister it's too familiar."
"You don't have to bother about a handle to my name," he said. "Call me Jack, just as you speak to Jean Paul or Charlbogin, or any of the men about camp."
"That's different," she said. "I do not call Mr. Garrod, Frank, nor Captain Vassall, Sidney. You can make believe what you choose, but I know you are my kind of person. If you are a Canadian, I'm sure we know heaps and heaps of the same people."
Jack began to find himself. "If you insist on a respectable name call me Mr. 'Awkins," he said lightly.
"Pshaw! Is that the best you can invent?" she said.
It was a long time since Jack had played conversational battledore and shuttlecock. He found he liked it rather. "'Awkins is an honorable name," he said. "There's Sir 'Awkeye 'Awkins of 'Awkwood 'All, not to speak of 'Enery 'Awkins and Liza that everybody knows about. And over on this side there's Happy Hawkins. All relatives of mine."
The girl approved him because he played the foolish game without grinning foolishly, like most men. Indeed his lip still curled. "You do not resemble the 'Awkinses I have known," she said.
It appeared from this that the little lady could flatter men as well as queen it over them. Jack was sensible that he was being flattered, and being human, he found it not unpleasant. At the same time he was determined not to satisfy her curiosity.
"Sorry," he said. "For your sake I wish I would lay claim to Montmorenci or Featherstonehaugh. But 'Awkins is my name and 'umble is my station. I don't know any of the Vere de Veres, the Cholmondeleys or the Silligers here in Canada, only the toughs."
She did not laugh. Abandoning the direct line, she asked: "What do you do up here regularly?"
"Nothing regularly," he said with a smile. "A little of everything irregularly. I have horses across the mountains, and I make my living by packing freight to the trading posts, or for surveyors or private parties, wherever horses are needed. When I get a little ahead of the game like everybody else, I do a bit of prospecting. I have an eye on one or two things——"
"Gold?" she said with shining eyes. "Where?"
"That would be telling," said Jack, flicking his pony.
"Do you know anybody in Toronto?" she asked suddenly.
He smiled at her abrupt return to the main issue, and shook his head.
"In Montreal?"
His face changed a little. After a moment he said slyly: "I met a fellow across the mountains who was from Montreal."
"A gentleman?"
"More or less."
"What was his name?" she demanded.
"Malcolm Piers."
She looked at him with round eyes. "How exciting!" she cried.
"Exciting?" said Jack, very much taken aback.
"Why, yes," she said. "There can't be more than one by that name. It must have been Malcolm Piers the absconder."
Her last word had much the effect of a bomb explosion under Jack's horse. The animal reared violently, almost falling back on his rider. Linda was not sufficiently experienced on horseback to see that Jack's hand had spasmodically given the cruel Western bit a tremendous tug. The horse plunged and violently shook his head to free himself of the pain. When he finally came back to earth, the actions of the horse seemed sufficient to account for the sudden grimness of Jack's expression. His upper lip had disappeared, leaving only a thin, hard line.
"Goodness!" said Linda nervously. "These horses are unexpected."
"What did you call him?" asked Jack quietly.
"Absconder," she said innocently. "Malcolm Piers was the boy who stole five thousand dollars from the Bank of Canada, and was never heard of afterward. He was only twenty."
He looked at her stupidly. "Five thousand dollars!" he repeated more than once. "Why that's ridiculous!"
"Oh, no," she said eagerly. "Everybody knows the story. He disappeared, and so did the money. I heard all the particulars at the time, because my room-mate at Havergal was the sister of the girl they said he did it for. She wasn't to blame, poor thing. She proved that she had sent him about his business before it happened. She married a millionaire afterward. She's had heaps of trouble."
Jack's horse fretted and danced, and no answer was required of him.
"Fancy your meeting him," she said excitingly. "Do tell me about him. They said he was terribly good-looking. Was he?"
"Don't ask me," said Jack gruffly. "I'm no judge of a man's looks." He scarcely knew what he was saying. The terrible word rang in his head with a clangour as of blows on naked iron. "Absconder!"
"Do tell me about him," she repeated. "Criminals are so deadly interesting! When they're gentlemen. I mean. And he was so young!"
"You said everybody knows what he did," said Jack dully. "I never heard of it."
"I meant everybody in our world," she said. "It never got in the newspapers of course. Malcolm Piers's uncle was a director in the bank, and he made the shortage good. He died a year or so afterward, leaving everything to a hospital. If Malcolm Piers had only waited a little while he wouldn't have had to steal the money."
"Then he would have been a millionaire, too," said Jack, with a start of harsh laughter.
She didn't understand the allusion. She favoured him with a sharp glance. "Funny he should have told you his real name."
"Why not?" said Jack abstractedly. "He didn't consider that he had done any wrong!"
How ardently Jack wished her away so that he could think it out by himself. Little by little it was becoming clear to him, as if revealed by the baleful light of a flame. So that was why his uncle had cut him off? And Garrod had not answered his question. Garrod knew all about it. Garrod was the only person in the world who knew in advance that he had been going to clear out, never to return. Garrod was deep in debt at the time. Garrod had access to the bank's vault. This explained his strange, wild agitation at the time of their first meeting, and his actions ever since.
"What's become of him now?" Linda desired to know. She had to ask twice.
Jack heard her as from a great distance. He shrugged. "You can't keep track of men up here."
"Did he tell you his story?"
He nodded. "It was different from yours," he said grimly.
"Tell me."
"It is true that he was infatuated with a certain girl——"
"Yes, Amy——"
"Oh, never mind her name! It was difficult for him to keep up the pace she and her friends set, but she led him on. Finally she made up her mind that an old man with money was a better gamble than a young one with prospects only, and she coolly threw him over. It broke him all up. He was fool enough to love her. Everything he had known up to that time became hateful to him. So he lit out. But he took nothing with him. Indeed, he stripped himself of every cent, sold even his clothes to pay his debts around town before he went. He came West on an emigrant car. Out here he rode for his grub, he sold goods behind a counter, he even polished glasses behind a bar, until he got his head above water."
This was a long speech for Jack, and in delivering it he was betrayed into a dangerous heat. The girl watched him with a sparkle of mischievous excitement.
"A likely story," she said, tossing her head. "I know that old Mr. McInnes had to put up the money, and that he altered his will." She smiled provokingly. "Besides, it's much more interesting to think that Malcolm Piers took the money. Don't rob me of my favourite criminal."
Jack looked at her with his handsome brows drawn close together. Her flippancy sounded incredible to him. He hated her at that moment.
A horseman dropped out of his place in the train ahead and came trotting back toward them. It was Garrod. Seeing him, a deep, ugly red suffused Jack's neck and face, and a vein on his forehead stood out. But he screwed down the clamps of his self-control. Pride would not allow him to betray the secrets of his heart to the light-headed little girl who was angling for them. They were riding around another little poplar wood.
"Look!" he said in as near his natural voice as he could contrive. "In the shade the painter's brush grows yellow. Shall I get you some of those?"
"No, thank you," she said inattentively. "I like the others best. Tell me about Malcolm Piers——"
Garrod was now upon them. His harassed eye showed a new pain. He looked at Linda Trangmar with a dog's anxiety, and from her to Jack. Jack looked abroad over the prairie with his lips pursed up. His face was very red.
"Oh, Mr. Garrod, what do you think!" cried the girl. "This man met Malcolm Piers across the mountains. The boy who absconded from the Bank of Canada, you know. You used to know him, didn't you?"
There was a pause, dreadful to the two men.
"Oh, the little fool! The little fool!" thought Jack. Out of sheer mercifulness he kept his head averted from Garrod.
"What's the matter?" he heard her say sharply. "Help him!" she said to Jack.
This was too much. Making sure only that Garrod was able to keep his saddle, Jack muttered something about having to speak to Jean Paul, and rode away. His anger was swallowed up a pitying disgust. His passing glance into Garrod's face had revealed a depth of despair that it seemed unfair, shameful, he—the man's enemy—should be allowed to see.
VI
THE PRICE OF SLEEP
They camped for the night on a grassy terrace at the edge of a deep coulee in the prairie, through which a wasted stream made its way over a bed of round stones toward the big river. The only full-sized trees they had seen all day grew in the bottom of the coulee, which was so deep that nothing of the branches showed over the edge.
The horses were herded together, and unpacked in a wide circle. Each pack and saddle under its own cover was left in its place in the circle, against loading in the morning. As fast as unpacked the horses were turned out to fill themselves with the rich buffalo grass. The old mares who had mothered most of the bunch were hobbled and belled to keep the band together.
Jack, Jean Paul, and the Indian lads saw to the horses. Jack also directed Vassall's and Baldwin Ferrie's inexpert efforts with the tents, and between times he showed Humpy Jull how to make a fire.
Sir Bryson, Linda, and Mrs. Worsley, in three of the folding chairs which were the object of so much comment in the country, looked on at all this.
"I feel so useless," said Linda, following Jack's diverse activities, without appearing to. "Don't you suppose there is something we could do, Kate?"
"It all seems like such heavy work, dear," said Mrs. Worsley.
Sir Bryson, folding his hands upon his comfortable centre, beamed indulgently on the busy scene. "Nonsense, Linda," he said. "They are all paid for their exertions. You do not concern yourself with household matters at home."
"This is different," said Linda, a little sulkily. She was sorry she had spoken, but Sir Bryson would not let the matter drop so easily.
"How different?" he inquired.
"Oh! up here things seem to fall away from you," said Linda vaguely. "You get down to rock bottom."
"Your metaphors are mixed, my dear," said Sir Bryson pleasantly. "I don't understand you."
"It doesn't matter," she said indifferently.
"Now, for my part, I think this the most agreeable sight in the world," Sir Bryson went on. "All these people working to make us comfortable, and dinner coming on presently. It rests me. Fancy seeing one's dinner cooked before one's eyes. I hope Jull has washed his hands. I didn't see him do it."
Sir Bryson had no intention of making a joke, but Mrs. Worsley laughed.
"Speaking of dinner," continued Sir Bryson, "I hope there won't be any awkwardness about our guide."
"Jack Chanty?" said Linda quickly. "What about him?"
"My dear! I wish you wouldn't be so free with his vulgar name! Do you suppose he will expect to sit down with us?"
"Why not?" said Linda warmly. "It's the custom of the country. The whites eat together, and the Indians. Can't you see that things are different up here? There are no social distinctions."
"Then it is high time we introduced them," said Sir Bryson with the indulgent smile of one who closes the matter. "I shall ask Mr. Garrod to drop him a hint."
"You'll only make yourself ridiculous if you do," said Linda.
Mrs. Worsley spoke but seldom, and then to some purpose. She said now: "Do you know, I think the matter will probably adjust itself if we leave it alone."
And she was right. Nothing was further from Jack's desires than to sit down with the party in the big tent. Apart from other considerations he knew which side his bread was buttered on, and he chummed with the cook. Jack and Humpy slung their little tents side by side behind the fire, and Jack waited to eat with Humpy after the others were through.
It was Humpy Jull's debut as a waiter, and Sir Bryson was thereby likewise provided with a new experience. Humpy was very willing and good-natured. He was naturally a little flustered on this occasion, and with him it took the form of an increased flow of speech. To his simplicity, waiting on the table obligated him to play the host.
"Walk in, people," he said genially. "Sit down anywheres. You'll have to excuse me if I don't do things proper. I ain't had no experience at the table with ladies. I never did have no face, anyway. A child could put me out."
Sir Bryson became turkey red, and looked at his aide-de-camp. Vassall made believe not to see.
"I'll just set everything on the table," Humpy went on innocently, "and you dip right in for yourselves. The bannock ain't quite what it ought to be. I didn't have the time. When we get a settled camp I'll show you something better."
"How far have we made to-day?" Sir Bryson asked pointedly of Vassall to create a diversion.
Humpy took the answer upon himself. "Eighteen miles, Governor," he said. "We would have stopped at Mooseberry Spring two miles back, but Jack said there was no firewood thereabout. So we're late to-night."
"We have everything, thank you," said Sir Bryson icily. "You needn't wait."
"I don't mind, Governor," said Humpy heartily. "Jack and me ain't going to eat till you are through. I want to make sure you folks gets your fill."
"I think the bannock is very good, Mr. Jull," said Linda wickedly. "The raisins are so nice."
"I had 'em and I thought I might as well put 'em in," said Humpy, highly pleased. "Some finds it hard to make good baking-powder bannock, but it come natural to me. Jack, he baked it for me."
Sir Bryson ceased eating. It was Jack who prevented an explosion. Possibly suspecting what was going on within the tent, he called Humpy. Linda pricked up her ears at the sound.
Humpy ducked for the door. "If there's anything you want don't be afraid to sing out, Governor," he said.
Sir Bryson slowly resumed his normal colour. He made no reference to what had happened except to say severely: "Belinda, I'm surprised at you!"
"Oh! don't be stuffy, father," returned his daughter, inelegantly.
The members of Sir Bryson's suite were accustomed to these little passages.
When they issued from the tent Jack Chanty and Humpy were to be seen supping cheek by jowl beside the fire, and Linda said with a flash of intuition:
"I'll be bound, they're having a better supper than we had!"
She was only guessing, but as a matter of fact, in the case of a party as large as this, there are bound to be tidbits, such as a prairie-chicken, a fish or a rabbit, not sufficient to furnish the general table, and these naturally fall to the share of the cook and his chum.
Afterward, while the Indians washed the dishes, Jack smoked and Humpy talked. Humpy was the kind of innocent braggart that tells tall tales about nothing at all. He was grateful to Jack for even the appearance of listening, and Jack in turn was glad of the prattle that enabled him to keep his face while he thought his own thoughts.
"Last winter when the steamboat was laid up," said Humpy Jull, "I was teaming for the company down to Fort Ochre. Say, it's wild country around there. The fellers advised me not to leave my gun behind when I druv into the bush for poles. One day I was eatin' my lunch on a log in the bush when I hear a grizzily bear growl, right behind me. Yes, sir, a ding-gasted grizzily. I didn't see him. I didn't wait. I knew it was a grizzily bear because the fellers say them's the on'y kind that growls-like. Say, my skin crawled on me like insec's walkin' on my bare bones. I never stop runnin' till I get back to the fort. The hosses come in by themselves. Oh, I let 'em laugh. I tell you I wa'n't takin' no chances with a grizzily!"
Meanwhile Jack, for the first time in his life, was obliged to face a moral crisis. Other threatening crises hitherto he had managed to evade with youth's characteristic ingenuity in side-stepping the disagreeable. The first time that a young brain is held up in its happy-go-lucky career, and forced to think, is bound to be a painful experience.
Up to now Jack had taken his good name for granted. He had run away when he felt like it, meaning to go back when he was ready. Now, when he found it smirched he realized what an important thing a good name was. He raged in his mind, and justly at the man who had destroyed it; nevertheless a small voice whispered to him that it was partly his own fault. For the first time, too, he realized that his name was not his exclusive property; his father and mother had a share in it, though they were no longer of the world. He thought too of the streets of the city that was so dear to him, now filled with people who believed that Malcolm Piers was a thief.
The simplest thing was not to think about it at all, but go direct to Frank Garrod, and "have it out" with him. But Jack was obliged to recognize that this was no solution. Every time he had drawn near to Frank since the afternoon, Frank had cringed and shown his fangs like a sick animal, disgusting Jack, and making it impossible for him to speak to Frank in any connection. A look in Frank's desperate eyes was enough to show the futility of an appeal to his better feelings. "Besides, I couldn't beg him to set me right," Jack thought, his hands clenching, and the vein on his forehead swelling.
Force then suggested itself as the only recourse, and the natural one to Jack's direct nature. This was no good either. "He's a sick man," Jack thought. "He couldn't stand up to me. If I struck him——" A cold fear touched his heart at the thought that he had no way in the world of proving himself honest, except by means of a free and voluntary statement from a man who was obviously breaking, and even now scarcely sane.
The problem was too difficult for Jack to solve. He found himself wishing for an older head to put it to. More than once his thoughts turned to the wiser and older lady in Sir Bryson's party, to whom he had not yet spoken. "I wish I could make friends with her," he thought.
The second day on the trail was largely a repetition of the first. The routine of making and breaking camp proceeded more smoothly, that was all. On this day as they rose over and descended the endless shallow hills of the prairie, the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies rose into view off to the west.
Jack and Frank Garrod held no communication throughout the day. Garrod showed an increased disorder in his dress, and a more furtive manner. On the trail there were no secretarial duties to perform, and he kept out of the way of the other white members of the party. He had always been considered queer, and his increased queerness passed unnoticed except by Jack, who held the clue, and by Jean Paul Ascota. The half-breed watched Jack, watched Garrod, and drew his own conclusions.
Jean Paul on the face of things was turning out an admirable servant, capable, industrious, and respectful. The white men, including Jack, would have been greatly astonished could they have heard the substance of his low-voiced talk to the Indian lads around their own fire.
"I held my hand," he said in Cree, "because the time is not come to strike. One must suffer much and be patient for the cause. But I have not forgotten. Before I am through with him, Jack shall be kicked out of camp, and then he shall die. My medicine works slowly, but it is very sure.
"Jack is only one white man," he went on. With an ignorant, easily swayed, savage audience Jean Paul was superb in his effect of quiet intensity. "I will not let him spoil my plans against the race. The time is almost ripe now. I have visited the great tribe of the Blackfeet in the south. They are as many as the round stones in the bars when the big river is low. I have talked with the head men. They are ready. I have visited the Sarcees, the Stonies, the Bloods, and the Piegans; all are ready when I give the word. And are we not ready in the North, too? the Crees, the Beavers, the Sapis, the Kakisas, and all the peoples across the mountain. When Ascota sends out his messengers a fire shall sweep across the country that will consume every white man to soft ashes!"
Thus it went night after night. The four lads listened scowling, a hot sense of the wrongs of the red race burning in each breast. But it was like a fire in the grass, blazing up only to expire. They fell asleep and forgot all about it until Jean Paul talked again. Perhaps they sensed somehow that Jean Paul talked to them largely for the satisfaction he got out of his own eloquence.
To-night Jean Paul was watching Garrod. By and by Garrod wandered away from the campfires, and Jean Paul followed. Garrod mooned aimlessly around the tents with his head sunk on his breast, zigzagging to and fro in the grass, flinging himself down, only to get up and walk again. For a long time Jean Paul watched and followed him, crouching in the grass in the semi-darkness. Finally Garrod sat down at the edge of the coulee, and Jean Paul approached him openly.
"Fine night," he said with an off-hand air.
Garrod murmured an indistinguishable reply.
"Me, I lak' to walk in the night the same as you," Jean Paul went on in a voice indescribably smooth and insinuating. He sat beside the other man. "I lak' sit by one black hole lak' this and look. It is so deep! You feel bad?" he added.
"My head," murmured Garrod. "It gives me no rest."
"Um!" said Jean Paul. "I cure you. With my people I what you call doctor."
"Doctors can't do me any good," Garrod muttered.
"Me, I not the same lak' other doctors," said Jean Paul calmly. "First, I tell you what's the matter. Your body not sick; it's your, what you call, your soul."
Garrod looked at him with a start.
Jean Paul lowered his voice. "You hate!" he hissed.
"What damn nonsense is this?" said Garrod tremblingly.
"What's the use to make believe?" said Jean Paul with a shrug. "I doctor—conjuror they call me. I know. You know what I know."
Garrod weakened. "Know what?" he said. "How do you know?"
"I know because same way I hate," said Jean Paul softly.
Garrod breathed fast.
"Shall we put our hates together?" murmured Jean Paul.
But there was still life in Garrod's pride of race. "This is foolishness," he said contemptuously. "You're talking wild."
Jean Paul shrugged. "Ver' good," he said. "You know to-morrow or some day. There is plentee time."
"Keep out of my way," said Garrod. "I don't want to have anything to say to you."
The darkness swallowed Jean Paul's smile. He murmured velvetly: "Me, I t'ink you lak' ver' moch sleep to-night. Sleep all night."
Garrod partly broke down. "Oh, my God!" he murmured, dropping his head on his knees.
"You got your pipe?" asked Jean Paul. "Give me, and I fill it."
"What with?" demanded Garrod.
"A little weed I pick," said Jean Paul. "No hurt anybody."
"Here," said Garrod handing over his pipe with a jerk of bitter laughter; "if it does for me, so much the better!"
Jean Paul drew a little buckskin bag from an inner pocket, and filled the pipe with herb leaves that crackled as he pressed them into the bowl. Handing it back, he struck a match. Garrod puffed with an air of bravado, and a subtle, pungent odour spread around.
"It has a rotten taste," said Garrod.
"You do not smoke that for taste," said Jean Paul.
For several minutes nothing was said. Garrod nursed the pipe, taking the smoke with deeper, slower inhalations.
"That's good," he murmured at length. There was unspeakable relief, relaxation, ease, in his voice.
Jean Paul watched him narrowly. Garrod's figure slowly drooped, and the hand that carried the pipe to his mouth became uncertain.
"You got enough," said Jean Paul suddenly. "Come along. You can't sleep here."
Garrod protested sleepily, but the half-breed jerked him to his feet, and supporting him under one arm, directed his wavering, spastic footsteps back to the tents. Garrod shared a small tent with Vassall and Baldwin Ferrie. One end opened to the general tent, the other was accessible from outdoors. Jean Paul looked in; it was empty, and the flap on the inner side was down. In the big tent they were playing cards.
Garrod collapsed in a heap. Jean Paul deftly undressed him, and, rolling him in his blanket, left him dead to the world. Before leaving the tent he carefully knocked the ashes out of the pipe, and dropped it in the pocket of Garrod's coat. Immediately afterward Jean Paul in his neat black habit showed himself in the light of the fire. Sitting, he was seen to gravely adjust a pair of rimmed spectacles (his eyes were like a lynx's!) and apply himself to his daily chapter of the Testament before turning in.
In the morning Garrod awoke with a splitting head and a bad taste in his mouth. However, that seemed a small price to pay for nine hours of blessed forgetfulness.
There followed another day of prairie travel. Sir Bryson, when he wished to communicate with Jack, made Garrod his emissary, so that the two were obliged to meet and talk. On the approach of Garrod, Jack merely sucked in his lip, and stuck closely to the business of the day. These meetings were dreadful to Garrod. Only an indication of what he went through can be given. In the condition he was in he had to avoid the sharp-eyed Linda, and he was obliged to stand aside and see her ride off with Jack out of sight of the rest of the train. By nightfall his nerves were in strings again.
On this night after supper Jean Paul took pains to avoid him. Garrod was finally obliged to go to the Indians' fire after him.
"Look here, Jean Paul, I want to speak to you," he said sullenly.
Jean Paul, closing the book and taking off the spectacles with great deliberation, followed Garrod out of earshot of the others.
"I say give me another pipeful of that dope, Jean Paul," Garrod said in a conciliatory tone.
The half-breed had dropped his smooth air. "Ha! You come after it to-night," he sneered.
"Hang it! I'll pay you for it," snarled Garrod.
"My medicine not for sale," replied Jean Paul.
"Medicine?" sneered Garrod. "I'll give you five dollars for the little bagful."
Jean Paul shook his head.
"Ten! Twenty, then!"
Jean Paul merely smiled.
A white man could not possibly humble himself any further to a redskin. Garrod, with a miserable attempt at bravado, shrugged and turned away. Jean Paul stood looking after him, smiling. Garrod had not taken five paces before a fresh realization of the horrors of the night to come turned his pride to water. He came swiftly back.
"You said you were a doctor," he said in a breaking voice. "Good God! can't you see what it means to me! I've got to have it! I've got to have it! I can't live through another night without sleep!"
"Las' night you tol' me to kip away from you," drawled Jean Paul.
"Forget it, Jean Paul," begged Garrod. "I'll give you all the money I have for it. A pipeful for God's sake!"