CHAPTER X.
ANOTHER VISITOR.
Ambrose, having filled the day as best he could with small tasks, was smoking beside his fire and enviously watching his dog. Job had no cares to keep him wakeful. It was about eight o'clock, and still full day.
It was Ambrose's promise to visit Simon Grampierre that had kept him inactive all day. He did not wish to complicate the already delicate situation between Grampierre and Gaviller by an open visit to the former. He meant to go with Tole at dawn.
Suddenly Job raised his head and growled. In a moment Ambrose heard the sound of a horse approaching at a walk above. Thinking of Colina, his heart leaped—but she would never come at a walk! An instinct of wariness bade him sit where he was.
A mounted man appeared on the bank above. It was a breed forty-five years old perhaps, but vigorous and youthful still; good looking, well kept, with an agreeable manner; thus Ambrose's first impressions. The stranger rode a good horse.
"Well?" he said, looking down on Ambrose in surprise.
"Tie your horse and come down," said Ambrose politely. He welcomed the diversion. This man must have come from the fort. Perhaps he had news.
Face to face with the stranger, Ambrose was sensible that he had to deal with an uncommon character. There was something about him, he could not decide what, that distinguished him from every other man of Indian blood that Ambrose had ever met.
He wore a well-fitting suit of blue serge and a show of starched linen, in itself a distinguishing mark up north. "Quite a swell!" was Ambrose's inward comment.
"You are Ambrose Doane, I suppose?" he said in English as good as
Ambrose's own. Ambrose nodded.
"I knew you had dinner with Mr. Gaviller last night," the man went on, "but as you didn't drop in on us at the store to-day I supposed you had gone back. I didn't expect to find you here."
He was fluent for one of his color—too fluent the other man felt.
Ambrose was sizing him up with interest.
It finally came to him what the man's distinguishing quality was. It was his open look, an expression almost of benignity, absolutely foreign to the Indian character. Indians may give their eyes freely to one another, but a white man never sees beneath the glassy surface.
This Indian in look and manner resembled an English country gentleman, much sunburnt; or one of those university-bred East Indian potentates who affect motor-cars and polo ponies. Oddly enough his candid look affronted Ambrose. "It isn't natural," he told himself.
"I am Gordon Strange, bookkeeper at Fort Enterprise," the stranger volunteered.
The bookkeeper of a big trading-post is always second in command. Ambrose understood that he was in the presence of a person of consideration in the country.
"Sit down," he said. "Fill up your pipe."
Strange obeyed. "We're supposed to be red-hot rivals in business," he said with an agreeable laugh. "But that needn't prevent, eh? Funny I should stumble on you like this! I ride every night after supper—a man needs a bit of exercise after working all day in the store. I saw the light of your fire."
He was too anxious to have it understood that the meeting was accidental. Ambrose began to suspect that he had ridden out on purpose to see him.
The better men among the natives, such as Tole Grampierre, have a pride of their own; but they never presume to the same footing as the white men. Strange, however, talked as one gentleman to another.
There was nothing blatant in it; he had a well-bred man's care for the prejudices of another. Nevertheless, as they talked on Ambrose began to feel a curious repugnance to his visitor, that made him wary of his own speech.
"Too damn gentlemanly!" he said to himself.
"Why didn't you come in to see us to-day?" inquired Strange. "We don't expect a traveler to give us the go-by."
"Well," said Ambrose dryly, "I had an idea that my room would be preferred to my company."
"Nonsense!" said Strange, laughing. "We don't carry our business war as far as that. Why, we want to show you free-traders what a fine place we have, so we can crow over you a little. Anyway, you dined with Mr. Gaviller, didn't you?"
"John Gaviller would never let himself off any of the duties of hospitality," said Ambrose cautiously.
He was wondering how far Strange might be admitted to Gaviller's confidence. That he was being drawn out, Ambrose had no doubt at all, but he did not know just to what end.
Strange launched into extensive praises of John Gaviller. "I ought to know," he said in conclusion. "I've worked for him twenty-nine years. He taught me all I know. He's been a second father to me."
Ambrose felt as an honest man hearing an unnecessary and fulsome panegyric must feel, slightly nauseated. He said nothing.
Strange was quick to perceive the absence of enthusiasm. He laughed agreeably. "I suppose I can hardly expect you to chime in with me," he said. "The old man is death on free-traders!"
"I have nothing against him," said Ambrose quickly.
"Of course I don't always agree with him on matters of policy," Strange went on. "Curious, isn't it, how a man's ruling characteristic begins to get the better of him as he grows old.
"Mr. Gaviller is always just—but, well, a leetle hard. He's pushing the people a little too far lately. I tell him so to his face—I oppose him all I can. But of course he's the boss."
Ambrose began to feel an obscure and discomforting indignation at his visitor. He wished he would go.
"You really must see our plant before you go back," said Strange; "the model farm, the dairy herd, the flourmill, the sawmill. Will you come up to-morrow and let me take you about?"
His glibness had the effect of rendering Ambrose monosyllabic. "No," he said.
"Oh, I say," said Strange, laughing, "what did you come to Fort
Enterprise for if you feel that way about us?"
Under his careless air Ambrose thought he distinguished a certain eagerness to hear the answer. So he said nothing.
"I'm afraid you and the old gentleman must have had words," Strange went on, still smiling. "Take it from me, his bark is worse than his bite. If he broke out at you, he's sorry for it now. It takes half my time to fix up his little differences with the people here."
He paused to give the other an opportunity to speak. Ambrose remained mum.
"The old man certainly has a rough side to his tongue," murmured
Strange insinuatingly.
"You're jumping to conclusions," said Ambrose coolly. "John Gaviller gave me no cause for offense. I was well entertained at his house."
"U-m!" said Strange. He seemed rather at a loss. Presently he went on to tell in a careless voice of the coyote hunts they had. Afterward he casually inquired how long Ambrose meant to stay in the neighborhood.
"I don't know," was the blunt answer.
"Well, really!" said Strange with his laugh—the sound of it was becoming highly exasperating to Ambrose. "I don't want to pry into your affairs, but you must admit it looks queer for you to be camping here on the edge of the company reservation without ever coming in."
Ambrose was wroth with himself for not playing a better part, but the man affected him with such repugnance he could not bring himself to dissimulate, "Sorry," he said stiffly. "You'll have to make what you can of it."
Strange got up. His candid air now had a touch of manly pride. "Oh, I can take a hint!" he said. "Hanged if I know what you've got against me!"
"Nothing whatever," said Ambrose.
"I come to you in all friendliness—"
"Thought you said you stumbled on me," interrupted Ambrose.
"I mean of course when I saw you here I came in friendliness," Strange explained with dignity.
"Well, go in friendliness, and no harm done on either side," said
Ambrose coolly.
For a brief instant Strange lost his benignant air. "I've lived north all my life," he said. "And I never met with the like. We have different ideas about hospitality."
"Very likely," said Ambrose coolly. "Good night!"
When his visitor rode away Ambrose turned with relief to his dog. The sight of Job's honest ugliness was good to him.
"He's a cur, Job!" he said strongly. "A snake in the grass! An oily scoundrel! I don't know how I know it, but I know it! A square man would have punched me the way I talked to him."
Job wagged his tail in entire approval of his master's judgment.
Ambrose turned in, feeling better for having spoken his mind.
Nevertheless, as he lay waiting for sleep it occurred to him that he had been somewhat hasty. After all, he had nothing to go on. And, supposing Strange were what he thought him, how foolish he, Ambrose, had been to show his band.
If he had been craftier he might have learned things of value for him to know. Following this unsatisfactory train of thought, he fell asleep.
CHAPTER XI.
ALEXANDER SELKIRK AND FAMILY.
Again Ambrose was awakened by a furious barking from Job. It was even earlier than on the preceding morning. The sun was not up; the river was like a gray ghost.
Ambrose, expecting Tole, looked for a dugout. There was none in sight.
Job's agitated barks were addressed in the other direction.
Issuing from his tent, Ambrose beheld a quaint little man squatting on top of the bank like an image. He had an air of strange patience, as if he had been waiting for hours, and expected to wait.
His brown mask of a face changed not a line at the sight of Ambrose.
"What do you want?" demanded the white man.
"Please, I want spik wit' you," the little man softly replied.
"Come down here then," said Ambrose.
The early caller looked at Job apprehensively. Ambrose silenced the dog with a command, and the man came slowly down the bank, cringing a little.
The quaintness of aspect was largely due to the fact that he wore a coat and trousers originally designed for a tall, stout man. Ambrose suspected he had a child to deal with until he saw the wrinkles and the sophisticated eyes.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I Alexander Selkirk, me," was the answer.
Ambrose could not but smile at the misapplication of the sonorous
Scotch name to such a manikin.
"You Ambrose Doane?" the other said solemnly.
"Everybody seems to know me," said Ambrose.
Alexander stared at him with a sullen, walled, speculative regard, exactly, Ambrose thought, like a schoolboy facing an irate master, and wondering where the blow will fall.
To carry out this effect he was holding something inside his voluminous jacket, something that suggested contraband.
"What have you got there?" demanded Ambrose.
Without changing a muscle of his face, Alexander undid a button and produced a gleaming black pelt.
Ambrose gasped. It was a beautiful black fox. Such a prize does not come a trader's way once in three seasons. The last black fox Minot & Doane had secured brought twelve hundred dollars in London—and it was not so fine a specimen as this.
Lustrous, silky, black as anthracite; every hair in place, and not a white hair showing except the tuft at the end of the brush.
"Where did you get it?" Ambrose asked, amazed.
"I trap him, me, myself," said Alexander.
"When?"
"Las' Februar'."
"Are you offering it to me?" asked Ambrose, eying it desirously.
"'Ow much?" demanded Alexander, affecting a wall-eyed indifference.
Ambrose made a more careful examination. There was no doubt of it; the skin was perfect. He thrilled at the idea of returning with such a prize to his partner. He made a rapid calculation.
"Five hundred and fifty cash," he said. "Seven hundred fifty in trade."
A spark showed in Alexander's eyes.
"It is yours," he said.
"How can we make a trade?" asked Ambrose, perplexed. "John Gaviller would never honor any order of mine. I have no goods here to give you in trade."
"All right," said Alexander imperturbably. "I go to Moultrie to get goods."
"You, too," said Ambrose. "I can't import you all."
"I got go Moultrie, me," said Alexander. "I got trouble wit' Gaviller.
He starve me and my children. They sick."
"Starve you!"
"Gaviller say give no more debt till I bring him my black fox," Alexander went on apathetically. "Give no flour, no sugar, no meat, no tea. My brot'er feed us some. Gaviller say to him better not. So now we have nothing. We ongry."
This promised difficulties. Ambrose frowned. "Tell me the whole story," he said.
The little man was eying the grub-box wolfishly. Throwing back the cover, Ambrose offered him a cold bannock.
"Here," he said. "Eat and tell me."
Alexander without a word turned and scrambled up the bank and disappeared, clutching the loaf to his breast. The white man shouted after him without effect. He left the precious pelt behind him.
Ambrose shrugged philosophically. "You never can tell."
Presently Alexander came back, his seamy brown face as blank as ever. He vouchsafed no explanation. Ambrose affected not to notice him. He had long since found it to be the best way of getting what he wanted. The breed squatted on the stones, prepared to wait for the judgment-day, it seemed.
After a while he said with the wary, defiant look of a child beggar who expects to be refused, perhaps cuffed: "Give me 'not'er piece of bread."
Ambrose without a word broke his remaining bannock in two and gave him half. Alexander bolted it with incredible rapidity and sat as before, waiting.
Ambrose, wearying of this, dropped the pelt on his knees, saying: "Take your black fox. I cannot trade with you."
It had the desired effect. Alexander arose and put the skin inside the tent. "It is yours," he said. "Give me tobacco."
Ambrose tossed him his pouch.
When the little man got his pipe going, squatting on his heels as before, he told his tale. "Me spik Angleys no good," he said, fingering his Adam's apple, as if the defect was there. "Las' winter I ver' poor. All tam moch sick in my stummick. I catch him fine black fox. Wa! I say. I rich now.
"I tak' him John Gaviller. Gaviller say: 'Three hunder twenty dollar in trade.' Wa! That is not'in'. I am sick to hear it. Already I owe that debt on the book. Then I am mad. Gaviller t'ink for because I poor and sick I tak' little price. I t'ink no!
"So I tak' her home. The men they look at her. Wa! they say, she is miwasan—what you say, beauty? They say, don' give Gaviller that black fox, Sandy. He got pay more. So I keep her. Gaviller laugh. He say: 'You got give me that black fox soon. I not pay so moch in summer.'"
The apathetic way in which this was told affected Ambrose strongly. His face reddened with indignation. The story bore the hall-marks of truth.
Certainly the man's hunger was not feigned; likewise his eagerness to accept the moderate price Ambrose had offered him was significant. Ambrose scowled in his perplexity.
"Hanged if I know what to do for you!" he said. "I'll give you a receipt for the skin. I'll give you a little grub. Then you go home and stay until I can arrange something."
Alexander received this as if he had not heard it.
"You hear," said Ambrose. "Is that all right?"
"I got go Moultrie," the little man said stolidly.
"You can't!" cried Ambrose.
Alexander merely sat like an image.
This was highly exasperating to the white man. "You've got to go home,
I tell you," he cried.
"I not go home," the native said with strange apathy. "Gaviller kill me now."
"Nonsense!" cried Ambrose. "He has got to respect the law."
Alexander was unmoved. "He not give me no grub," he said. "I starve here."
This was unanswerable. Ambrose, divided between annoyance and compassion, fumed in silence. He himself had only enough food for a few days. The breed wore him out with his stolidity.
"Well, what do you want me to do?" he asked at last.
"Give me little flour," said Alexander. "I go to Moultrie."
"What will you do with your family?"
"I tak' them."
"How many?"
"My woman, my boy, my two girl, my baby."
"Good Lord!" cried Ambrose. "Have you a boat?"
"Non! There is timber down the river. I mak' a raf, me."
"It would take you two weeks to float down," cried Ambrose. "I have only thirty pounds of flour."
Alexander shrugged. "We ongry, anyway," he said. "We lak be ongry on the way."
Ambrose swore savagely under his breath. This was nearly hopeless. He strode up and down, thrashing his brains for a solution.
Alexander, squatting on his heels, waited apathetically for the verdict. He had shifted his burden to the white man.
"Where is your family?" demanded Ambrose.
Alexander looked over his shoulder and spoke a word in Cree. Instantly four heads appeared over the edge of the bank. Job barked once in startled and indignant protest, and went to Ambrose's heels.
Ambrose could not forbear a start of laughter at the suddenness of the apparition. It was like the genii in a pantomime bobbing up through the trapdoors.
"Come down," he said.
A distressful little procession faced him; they were gaunt, ragged, appallingly dirty, and terrified almost into a state of idiocy. First came the mother, a travesty of womanhood, dehumanized except for her tragic, terrified eyes.
A boy of sixteen followed her, ugly and misshapen as a gargoyle; he carried the baby in a sling on his back. Two timorous little girls came last.
They lugged their pitiful belongings with them—a few rags of bedding and clothes, some traps and snowshoes, and cooking utensils. The smaller girl bore a holy picture in a gaudy frame.
Ambrose's heart was wrung by the sight of so much misery. He stormed at Alexander. "Good God! What a state to get into. What's the matter with you that you can't keep them better than that? You've no right to marry and have children!"
Somehow they apprehended the compassion that animated his anger, and were not afraid of him. They lined up before him, mutely bespeaking his assistance.
Their faith in his power to rescue them was implicit. That was what made it impossible for him to refuse.
"Here," he said roughly. "You'll have to take my dugout. I'll get another from Grampierre. You can make Moultrie in six days in that if you work. That'll give you five pounds of flour a day—enough to keep you alive."
The word "dugout" galvanized Alexander into action. Without a glance in Ambrose's direction, he ran to the craft, and running it a little way into the water rocked it from side to side to satisfy himself there were no leaks.
Turning to his family he spoke a command in Cree, and forthwith they began to pitch their bundles in.
Ambrose was accustomed to the thanklessness of the humbler natives. They are like children, who look to the white man for everything, and take what they can get as a matter of course. Still he was a little nonplused by the excessive precipitation of this family.
It occurred to him there was something more in their desperate eagerness to get away than Alexander's tale explained. But having given his word, he could not take it back.
From father down to babe their faces expressed such relief and hope he had not the heart to rebuke them. Alexander came to him for the food, and he handed over all he had.
"Wait!" he said. "I will give you a letter for Peter Minot. Lord!" he inwardly added. "Peter won't thank me for dumping this on him!"
On a leaf of his note-book he scribbled a few lines to his partner explaining the situation.
"You understand," he said to Alexander, "out of your credit for the black fox, John Gaviller must be paid what you owe him."
Alexander nodded indifferently, mad to get away.
As Alexander's squaw was about to get in the dugout she paused on the stones and looked at Ambrose, her ugly, dark face working with emotion. Her eyes were as piteous as a wounded animal's. She flung up her hands in a gesture expressing her powerlessness to speak.
It seemed there was some gratitude in the family. Moved by a sudden impulse she caught up Ambrose's hand and pressed it passionately to her lips. The white man fell back astonished and abashed. Alexander paid no attention at all.
In less than ten minutes after Ambrose had given them the dugout the distressed family pushed off for a new land. Father and son paddled as if the devil were behind them.
"I wonder if I done the right thing?" mused Ambrose.
The Selkirks had not long disappeared down the river when Ambrose received another visitor. This was a surly native youth who, without greeting, handed him a note, and rode back to the fort. Ambrose's heart beat high as he examined the superscription.
He did not need to be told who had written it. But he was not prepared for the contents:
DEAR:
Come to me at once. Come directly to the house. I am in great trouble.
COLINA.
CHAPTER XII.
GATHERING SHADOWS.
Ambrose, hastening back to Gaviller's house with a heart full of anxiety, came upon Gordon Strange as he rounded the corner of the company store. The breed was at the door. Evidently he harbored no resentment, for his face lighted up at the sight of an old friend.
"Well!" he said. "So you came to see us."
Ambrose felt the same unregenerate impulse to punch the smooth face. However, with more circumspection than upon the previous occasion, he returned a civil answer.
"Have you heard?" asked Strange, with an expression of serious concern.
Ambrose reflected that Strange probably knew a message had been sent.
"Heard what?" he asked non-committally.
"Mr. Gaviller was taken sick last night."
"What's the matter with him?" asked Ambrose quickly.
Strange shrugged. "I do not know exactly. The doctor has not come out of the house since he was sent for. A stroke, I fancy."
"I will go to the house and inquire," said Ambrose.
He proceeded, telling himself that Strange had not got any change out of him this time. He was relieved by the breed's news; he had feared worse.
To be sure, it was terribly hard on Colina, but on his own account he could not feel much pain of mind over a sickness of Gaviller's.
The half-breed girl who admitted him showed a scared yellow face. Evidently the case was a serious one. She ushered him into the library. The aspect, the very smell of the little room, brought back the scene of two days before and set Ambrose's heart to beating.
Presently Colina came swiftly in, closing the door behind her. She was very pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She showed the unnatural self-possession that a brave woman forces on herself in the presence of a great emergency. Her eyes were tragic.
She came straight to his arms. She lowered her head and partly broke down and wept a little.
"Ah, it's so good to have some one to lean on!" she murmured.
"Your father—what is the matter with him?" asked Ambrose.
The look in her eyes and her piteous shaking warned him to expect something worse than the tale of an illness.
She lifted her white face.
"Father was shot last night," she said.
"Good God!" said Ambrose. "By whom?"
"We do not know."
"He's not—he's not—" Ambrose's tongue balked at the dreadful word.
She shook her head. "A dangerous wound, not necessarily fatal. We can't tell yet."
"You have no idea who did it?"
Colina schooled herself to give him a coherent account. The sight of her forced calmness, with those eyes, was inexpressibly painful to Ambrose.
"No. He went out after dinner. He said he had to see a man. He did not mention his name. He came back at dusk. I was on the veranda. He was walking as usual—perfectly straight. But one hand was pressed to his side.
"He passed me without speaking. I followed him in. In the passage he said: 'I am shot. Tell no one but Giddings. Then he collapsed in my arms. He has not spoken since."
Ambrose heard this with mixed feelings. His heart bled for Colina. Yet the grim thought would not down that the tyrannous old trader had received no more than his deserts. He soothed her with clumsy tenderness.
"Why do you want to keep it a secret?" he asked, after a while.
"Father wished it," said Colina. "We think he must have had a good reason. The doctor thinks it is best. There has been a good deal of trouble with the natives; many of them are ugly and rebellious. And we whites are so few!
"Father could keep them in hand. They are in such awe of him; they regard him as something almost more than mortal. If they learn that he is vulnerable—who knows what might happen!"
"I understand," said Ambrose grimly.
"So no one knows, not even the servants. I have hidden all the—things. Of course, the man who did it will never tell." The calm voice suddenly broke in a cry of agony. "Oh, Ambrose!"
He comforted her mutely.
"It is so dreadful to think that any one should hate him so!" said poor Colina. "So unjust! They are like his children. He is severe with them only for their good!"
Ambrose concealed a grim smile at this partial view of John Gaviller.
"He lies there so white and still," she went on. "It nearly breaks my heart to think how I have quarreled with him and gone against his wishes. If waiting on him day and night will ever make it up to him, I'll do it!"
Ambrose's breast stirred a little with resentment, but he kept his mouth shut. He understood that it was good for Colina to unburden her breast.
"Ah, thank God I have you!" she murmured.
They heard the doctor coming, and Colina drew away. She introduced the two men.
"Mr. Doane is my friend," she said. "He is one of us."
The doctor favored Ambrose with a glance of astonishment before making his professional announcement. Ambrose saw the typical hanger-on of a trading-post, a white man of Gaviller's age, careless in dress, with a humorous, intelligent face, showing the ravages of a weak will. At present, with the sole responsibility of an important case on his shoulders, he looked something like the man he was meant to be.
It was no time for commonplaces.
"John is conscious," he said directly. "He is showing remarkable resistance. There is no need for any immediate alarm. He wants to make a statement. I made the excuse of getting pencil and paper to come down. In a matter of such importance I think there should be another witness."
"I will go," said Colina.
Giddings shook his head. "Your father expressly forbade it," he said.
"He wishes to spare you."
Colina made an impatient gesture, but seemed to acquiesce.
"You go," she said to Ambrose.
Giddings looked doubtful, but said nothing.
"I'm afraid the sight of me—" Ambrose began.
"I don't mean that you should go in," said Colina. "If you stand in the doorway he cannot see you the way he lies."
Ambrose nodded and followed Giddings out.
"What is the wound?" he asked.
"Through the left lung. He will not die of the shot. I can't tell yet what may develop."
Ambrose halted at the open door of Gaviller's room. The windows looked out over the river, and the cooling northwest wind was wafted through. The hospital-like bareness of the room evinced a simple taste in the owner. The gimcracks he loved to make were all for the public rooms below.
The head of the bed was toward the door. On the pillow Ambrose could see the gray head, a little bald on the crown.
Giddings, after feeling his patient's pulse, sat down beside the bed with pad and pencil.
"I'm ready to take down what you say," he said.
The wounded man said in a weak but surprisingly clear voice:
"You understand this is not to be used unless the worst happens to me."
Giddings nodded.
"You must give me your word that no proceedings will be taken against the man I name—unless I die. I will not die. When I get up I will attend to him."
"I promise," said Giddings.
After a brief pause Gaviller said:
"I was shot by the breed known as Sandy Selkirk."
Ambrose sharply caught his breath. A great light broke upon him.
Gaviller went on:
"He caught a black fox last winter that he has persistently refused to give up to me. Out of sheer obstinacy he preferred to starve his family. Yesterday Strange told me he thought it likely Selkirk would try to dispose of the skin to Ambrose Doane, the free-trader who is hanging around the fort."
Giddings sent a startled glance toward the door.
"Strange said perhaps news of it had been carried down the river, and that was what Doane had come for. So I went to Selkirk's shack last night to get it. I consider it mine, because Selkirk already owes the company its value. Any attempt to dispose of it elsewhere would be the same as robbing me.
"Selkirk refused to give it up, and I took it. He shot me from behind.
There were no witnesses but his family. That is all I want to say."
"I have it," murmured Giddings.
The gray head rolled impatiently on the pillow. "Giddings, don't let that skin get away. I rely on you. Be firm. Be secret."
"I'll do my best," said the doctor.
He came to the door, ostensibly to close it, showing a scared face. "I didn't know what was coming," his lips shaped.
Ambrose nodded to him reassuringly, meaning to convey that nothing he had heard would influence his actions.
Giddings closed the door, and Ambrose returned down-stairs with a heart that sunk lower at each step. What he had at first regarded calmly enough as Gaviller's tragedy he now clearly saw was likely to prove tragic for himself.
It was useless to try to put Colina off.
"I must know!" she cried passionately. "I'm the head here now. I must know where we all stand."
Ambrose told her. To save her feelings he instinctively softened the harsher features. It did not do his own cause any good later.
"Oh, the wretch!" breathed Colina between set teeth. "I know him! A sneaking little scoundrel! Just the one to shoot from behind! To think we must let him go! That is the hardest."
Ambrose was silent.
"We must get the skin," she went on eagerly. "Giddings can't handle the natives. You do that for me."
"It is too late," said Ambrose grimly. "He is gone with it."
"Gone?" she exclaimed, with raised eyebrows. "How do you know?"
"He came to my camp at dawn," said Ambrose. Honesty compelling him, he added with a touch of defiance; "I gave him my dugout."
Colina shrank from him.
"You helped him get away!" she cried.
"I didn't know what had happened," he said indignantly.
"Of course not!" said Colina, with quick penitence.
But she did not return to him. Presently the frown came back; she began to breathe quickly. "You saw the skin; you must have talked with him. You took his part against father!"
Ambrose had nothing to say. He could have groaned aloud in his helplessness to avert the catastrophe that he saw coming.
It was as if a horrible, black-shrouded shape had stepped between him and Colina.
She, too, was aware of it. For an age-long moment they stared at each other with a kind of chilled terror.
Neither dared speak of what both were thinking.
At last Colina tried to wave the hideous fantom away.
"Ah, we mustn't quarrel now!" she said tremulously. "Couldn't the man be overtaken and the skin recovered?"
"Possibly," admitted Ambrose. "I wouldn't advise it."
Colina, freshly affronted, struggled with her anger.
"Let me explain," said Ambrose. "I agreed to take the skin from him, but on the understanding that out of the price Mr. Gaviller must be paid every cent of what was owing him." His reasonable air suddenly failed him. "Colina," he burst out imploringly, "it was worth more than double what your father offered! That was the trouble! What is a skin to us? I pledge myself to transmit whatever price it brings to your father. Won't that do?"
"Don't say anything more about it," said Colina painfully. "You're right; we mustn't quarrel about a thing like that."
A wretched constraint fell upon them. For the moment the catastrophe had been averted, but both felt it was only for the moment.
They had nothing to say to each other.
Finally Colina moved toward the door.
"I must see if anything is wanted up-stairs," she murmured. "Wait here for me."
CHAPTER XIII.
THE QUARREL.
When Colina returned she said immediately: "Ambrose, can you stay at
Fort Enterprise a little while longer?"
His heart leaped up. "As long as I can help you!" he cried.
They looked at each other wistfully. They wanted so much to be friends—but the black shape was still there in the room.
"I'd be glad to have you stay here in the house," said Colina.
Ambrose shook his head. "I'd much better stay in camp."
She acquiesced. "There are three white men here," she went on,
"Giddings, Macfarlane the policeman, and Mr. Pringle the missionary.
Each is all right in his way, but—"
"They're all in love with you," suggested Ambrose.
She smiled faintly. "How did you know?"
Ambrose shrugged. "Deduced it."
"You see I cannot take any of them into my confidence."
"Colina!" he said. "If you would only let me—"
"Ah, I want to!" she returned. "If only, only you will not abuse him—wounded and helpless as he is!"
Here was the black shape again.
"I suppose Gordon Strange will run the business," said Ambrose.
"Naturally," said Colina. "He knows everything about it."
"If you want my advice," Ambrose said diffidently, "do not trust him too far."
She looked at him in astonishment. "Mr. Strange is almost like one of the family. He's been father's right-hand man for years and years. Father says he's the best servant the company possesses."
"That may be," said Ambrose doggedly, "but a good servant makes a bad master. After all, he is not one of us. If you value my advice at all you will never let him know he is running things."
"How can I help it? I haven't told him yet what has happened; but Dr. Giddings and I agreed that he must be told. He never mixes with the natives."
"Of course he must know your father was wounded, but he needn't be told how seriously. If I were you I would make him inform me of every detail of the business on the pretext of repeating it to your father. And I would issue orders to him as if they came from your father's bed."
"How can I?" said Colina. "I know nothing of the business."
"I can help you," said Ambrose—"if you want me to. I know it."
"But, Ambrose," she objected, "what reason have you to feel so strongly against Mr. Strange?"
"No reason," he said; "only an instinct. I believe he's a crook."
"Father relies on him absolutely."
"Maybe his influence with your father was sometimes unfortunate."
Colina's eyebrows went up. "Influence! Father would hardly allow his judgment to be swayed by a breed."
"You're a woman," said Ambrose earnestly. "You should not despise these feelings that we have sometimes and cannot give a reason for. I saw Strange on my way here. I exchanged only half a dozen words with him, yet I am as sure as I can be that he was glad of the accident to your father and hopes to profit by it somehow."
Colina was still incredulous.
"Look what he wrote me this morning!" she cried. "It sounds so genuine."
She handed him a note from the desk. He read:
DEAR MISS COLINA:
They are saying that your father has been taken ill; that the doctor has been with him all night. I am more distressed than I can tell you. You know what he is to me! Do send me some word. He was so cheerful and well yesterday that I cannot believe it can be serious. Native gossip always magnifies everything.
If it is all right to speak to him about business, will you remind him that a deputation from the farmers is due at the store this morning to receive his final answer as to the price of wheat this year. As far as I know his intention is to offer one-fifty a bushel, but something may have come up to cause him to change his mind. Unless he is very ill, I would rather not take this responsibility upon myself.
Do let me have word from you.
G.S.
"Anybody can write letters," said Ambrose. "It sounds to me as if he was just trying to find out how bad your father is. He could easily put the farmers off."
"I can't believe he's as bad as you say," said Colina gravely. "Why, he was here long before I was born. But I will be prudent. With your help I'll try to run things myself."
Ambrose sent her a grateful glance—shot with apprehension. He dreaded what was still to come.
"This question of the price of the wheat," Colina went on; "we have to give him an answer or confess father is very ill."
Ambrose nodded gloomily.
"Fortunately that is easy," she continued; "for he spoke about it at dinner last night. He means to pay one-fifty." She moved toward the desk. "I'll send a note over at once."
The critical moment had arrived—even more swiftly than he feared. He could not think clearly, for the pain he felt.
"Ah, Colina, I love you!" he cried involuntarily.
She paused and smiled over her shoulder.
"I know," she said, surprised and gentle. "That's why you're here."
"I've got to advise you honestly," he cried, "no matter what trouble it makes."
"Of course," she said. "What's the matter, Ambrose?"
"You should offer them one-seventy-five for their wheat."
The eyebrows went up again. "Why?"
"It's only fair. Two dollars would be fairer."
"But father said one-fifty."
"Your father is wrong in this instance."
Colina frowned ominously.
"How do you know?" she demanded.
"I know the price of flour at the different posts," he said deprecatingly. "I know the risks that must be allowed for and the fair profit one expects."
"Do you mean to say that father is unfair?" she cried.
He was silent. An unlucky word had betrayed him. He could have bitten his tongue. Still, he reflected sullenly, it was bound to come. You can't make black white, however tenderly you describe it.
Colina sprang to her feet.
"Unfair!" she cried. "That is to say a cheat! You can say it while he is lying up-stairs desperately wounded!"
"Colina, be reasonable," he implored. "The fact that he is suffering can't make a wrong right."
"There is no wrong!" she cried. "What do you know about conditions here?"
"They come to my camp," he said simply, "one after another to beg me to help them."
"And you were not above it," she flashed back, "murderers and others!"
An honest anger fired Ambrose's eyes. "You're talking wildly," he said sternly. "I'm trying to help you."
Colina laughed.
With a great effort he commanded his temper, "What do you see yourself in your rides about the settlement?" he asked. "Poverty and wretchedness! How do you explain it when times are good—when this is known as the richest post in the north?"
Colina would have none of his reasoning. "These are just the dangerous ideas my father warned me against!" she cried passionately. "This is how you make the natives discontented and unruly!"
"You will not listen to me!" he cried in despair.
"Listen to you! I see him lying there—helpless. I am sick with compassion for him and with hatred against the creatures who did it. And you dare to attack him, to excuse them! I will not endure it!"
"I am not attacking him. Right or wrong, he has brought about a disastrous situation. He's the first to suffer. We're all standing on the edge of a volcano. We are five whites here, and three hundred miles from the nearest of our kind. If we want to save him and save ourselves we've got to face the facts."
Of this Colina heard one sentence. "Do you mean, to say that father brought this on himself?" she demanded, breathlessly angry.
Ambrose made a helpless gesture.
"I am to understand that you justify the breed?" she persisted.
"You have no right to put words into my mouth!"
Colina repeated like an automaton. "Do you think the breed was justified in shooting my father?"
"I will not answer."
"You've got to answer—before you and I go any farther!"
"Colina, think what you're doing!" he cried. "We must not quarrel."
"I'm not quarreling," she said with an odd, flinty quietness. "I'm trying to find out something necessary for me to know. You might as well answer. Do you think the breed was justified in shooting my father?"
Ambrose, baited beyond endurance, cried: "I do! He went into the man's house and laid hands on his property. Even a breed has rights."
Colina bowed her head as if in polite acceptance. "You had better go," she said in soft tones more terrible than a cry. "I am sorry I ever saw you!"
The bitterness of lovers' quarrels is in ratio with their passion for each other. These two loved with complete abandon, consequently each could wound the other maddeningly.
But the plant of their love, vigorous as it was, was not rooted in old acquaintance. When the top withered under the blasts of anger there was no store of life below. Now each was secretly terrified by the strangeness of the being to whom he had yielded his soul.
Ambrose, wild with pain, no longer recked what he said. "You make a man mad!" he cried. "You will not listen to reason. A thing must be so just because you want it that way. I rack my brains for words to save your feelings, and this is what I get! Very well, you shall have the bald truth."
"Leave the house!" cried Colina.
"Not until I have spoken out!"
She clapped her hands over her ears.
"That is childish!" he said scornfully. "You can hear me! Throughout the whole north your father is called the slave-driver!"
Colina faced him still and white. This was the very incandescence of anger. "Go!" she said. "I'm done with you!"
"One thing more," he said doggedly. "The price of wheat. I shouldn't have said anything about justice. Putting that aside, it will be good business for you to pay the farmers their price. Otherwise you'll have red rebellion on your hands!"
As Ambrose made for the door he met Gordon Strange coming in.
"Wait!" Colina commanded. "I want you to hear this."
It was impossible to tell from her set face what she meant to do,
Ambrose waited, hoping against hope.
"You want to know about the wheat?" said Colina.
"First, your father," said Strange, anxious and compassionate.
"He is not dangerously ill," said Colina.
"Ah!" said Strange. "Yes, the farmers are waiting."
Colina said clearly: "The price is to be one-fifty per bushel."
"That's what I thought," said Strange. "I will tell them." He went.
"Ah, Colina!" cried Ambrose brokenly.
She left the room slowly, as if he had not been there.
Ambrose could not have told how he got out of the house.
CHAPTER XIV.
SIMON GRAMPIERRE.
Ambrose lay in his tent with his head hidden in his arms, trying not to think. Job licked his hand unheeded. A hail from the river forced him to rouse himself. As he crawled out he instinctively cast a glance at the sun. It was mid-afternoon.
Tole Grampierre landed on the stones. "You are seeck!" he exclaimed, seeing Ambrose's face.
Though life loses all its savor, it must be carried on with a good air. "Mal de tête!" said Ambrose, making light of it. "It will soon pass."
Tole accepted the explanation. He told Ambrose that he had come that morning and found him gone. He had come back to tell him what the white man already knew—that, though Gaviller had been laid low by a mysterious stroke, he had sent word from his sick-bed that he would pay no more than one-fifty for wheat.
"The men are moch mad," Tole went on in his matter-of-fact way. "They not listen to my fat'er no more. Say he too old. All come to meet to our house to-night. There will be trouble. My fat'er send me for you. He say maybe you can stop the trouble."
"I stop it?" said Ambrose, laughing harshly. "What the devil can I do?"
Tole shrugged. "My fat'er say nobody but you can stop it."
It was clear to Ambrose that "trouble" signified danger to Colina.
"I'll come," he said apathetically.
"Where is your dugout?" asked Tole.
Ambrose explained.
"Bring all your things," said Tole. "You stay at our house now till you go back. My mot'er got good medicine. She cure mal de tête."
Ambrose reflected bitterly that Mrs. Grampierre's simples could hardly reach his complaint. Nevertheless, he was not anxious to be left alone—he was not one to nourish a sorrow. He packed up what remained of his outfit, and Tole stowed it in the dugout.
The Grampierre house was a mile and a half above the Company's establishment on the other side of the river. The two young men had, therefore, a three-mile paddle against the current.
Landing, Ambrose saw before him a low, wide-spreading house built of squared logs and whitewashed. Ample barns and outhouses spread around a rough square. The whole picture brought to mind a manor-house of earlier and simpler times.
The patriarch himself waited at the door. He was a fine figure of manhood—lean, straight, rugged as a jack-pine. He had the noble aquiline features of the red side of the house, and his dark face was wonderfully set off by a luxuriant, snowy thatch.
Ambrose, indifferent as he was, could not but be struck by the old man's beauty, and his dignity was equal to his good looks. Young Tole's naïve pride in his parent was explained.
Ambrose was introduced to a wide interior of a dignified bareness. This was the main room of the house; the kitchen they called it, though the cooking was done outside.
It was spotlessly clean; none too common a thing in the north. Clearly these people had their pride.
Still Ambrose was reminded of the difference between white and red, for the women of the house were ignored, and when later he sat down to sup with Simon and his five strong sons the wives waited humbly on the table.
Afterward the men sat before the door, smoking. Simon kept Ambrose at his right hand, and conversed with him as with an honored guest. He avoided all reference to what had brought him.
When Ambrose, not understanding the reason for his delicacy, asked about the coming meeting, Simon said:
"When all come you learn what every man thinks. I not want to shape your mind to my mind until all are here."
They came by ones and twos, a little company of twenty-odd. Many anomalies of race were exhibited. Some showed a Scotch cast of feature, some French, some purely Indian.
One or two might have been taken for white men had it not been for an odd cast of the eye. Yet it might happen the Indian and the white man were full brothers. The general character of the faces was stolid rather than passionate.
There was little talk.
The room having been cleared, they went inside. The women had disappeared. Simon Grampierre sat at an end of the room, with Ambrose at his right, and his sons ranged about him. The other men faced them from the body of the room.
There were not chairs for all, but indeed chairs suggested church, the trader's house, and other places of ceremony; and those without, squatting on their heels around the walls, were the happier.
Talk was slow to start. They kept their hats on and stolidly looked down their noses. When it began to grow dark a single little lamp was brought in and stood upon a dresser in the corner.
The wide room with its one spot of light and all the still, shadowy figures conveyed an effect of grimness.
Simon Grampierre opened the meeting. Out of courtesy to Ambrose all the talk was in English.
"Men!" said the patriarch. "John Gaviller send word that he will pay only one-fifty a bushel for our grain. We meet to talk and decide what to do. All must agree. In agreement there is strength.
"Already there has been much talk about our grain. I will waste no words now. For myself and my sons I pledge that we will not sell one bushel of grain less than dollar-seventy-five. What do the others say?"
One by one the men arose and repeated the pledge, each raising his right hand. Ambrose began to be aware that the stolidity masked a high emotional tension. It was his own presence that restrained them.
Simon rose again. "I have heard talk that you will spoil your grain," he said. "Some say let the cattle and horses in the field while it is green. Some say burn it when it gets ripe. That is foolish talk.
"Grain is as good as money or as fur. A man does not feed money to cattle nor burn up fur. I say cut your grain and thrash it and store it. Some one will buy it.
"Gaviller himself got to buy when he see we mean to stand together. He has made contracts to send flour to the far north. Who wants to speak?"
A little man of marked French characteristics sprang to his feet. His eyes flashed. "I speak!" he cried.
"This Jean Bateese Gagnon," explained Simon to Ambrose.
"Simon Grampierre say wait!" cried the little man passionately. "Always he say, 'Wait, wait, wait!' All right for Simon Grampierre to wait. He got plenty beef and potatoes and goods in his house. He can wait.
"What will a poor man do while he wait? What will I do—starve, and see my children starve? If we not sell grain we get no credit at the store. Where I get warm clothes for the winter and meat and sugar and powder for my gun?
"What do we wait for, un miracle? Do we wait for Gaviller's heart to soften? We wait a long tam for that I fink, me! While we wait I think Gaviller get busy. He say he come and cut our grain. Will we wait and let him?"
The old man interrupted here: "If Gaviller put his men on our land we fight," he said.
"Aha!" cried Jean Bateese. "He will not wait then. You say let us cut our grain and store it and wait for one to buy," he went on. "What will Gaviller do? I tell you. He will go to law! It is not the first time. He mak' the law to serve him.
"We all owe him for goods. He will send out and get law papers to say because we owe him money for goods our grain is his grain. If he got law-papers the police come and take our grain for him. Wat you say to t'at, hein?"
Old Simon was plainly disconcerted. He turned to Ambrose. "Will you speak?"
Ambrose's heart sank. How is a dead man to sway passionate, living men? However, he rose with the best assurance he could muster.
"I have only one thing to say," he began, conscious of the feebleness of his words. "John Gaviller is a sick man. I have seen the doctor. You cannot fight a sick man. I say do not accept his price—do not refuse it. The grain is not ripe yet. Wait till he is well."
A murmur of dissent went around the room. Ambrose being a stranger, there was a note of politeness in it.
Jean Bateese sprang to his feet again. "Ambrose Doane say wait!" he said. "He is good man. We lak him. But me, I am sick of waiting!
"To-day we hear John Gaviller is sick. All are sorry. All forget we have trouble wit' him. We wait to hear how he is. Wa! he say to us right out of his bed dollar-fifty or starve! Why should we wait till he get well? He does not wait!"
Another man, a burly, purple-cheeked son of earth, took up the harangue at the point where Jean Bateese dropped it. This was Jack Mackenzie, Simon said.
"Me, I am sick of waiting, too!" he cried. "Always we wait, and John Gaviller do what he like! Why he put down the price of grain? Why he do everything? It is to keep us in his debt. We can work till our backs break, but he fix it so we are still in debt.
"Because we can do not'ing when we are in his debt. We are his slaves! We got to break our slave chains. It is time to act. Now I say out loud what all are whispering: let us burn the store!"
Thirty men took a sharp breath between their teeth. There was a little silence; then quick cries of approval broke out. The meeting was with the speaker.
Ambrose, thinking of Colina, turned a little sick with apprehension.
Simon rose to still the noise, but Mackenzie held the floor.
"I know w'at Simon Grampierre goin' to say!" he cried, pointing. "He goin' to say if you break the law you fix yourselves. They send many police and put you all in jail. Simon Grampierre got good property. He not want lose it.
"Me, I say all right! I go to jail. There is a trial. Everything got come out. John Gaviller he cannot make slaves after that. I say let them send me to jail. My children will be free!"
The meeting went wild at this. Simon had lost control. Even his own sons, as could be read in their faces, sympathized with the speakers. The old man betrayed nothing in his face. He stood like a rock until he could get a hearing.
"Jack Mackenzie say I rich," he said proudly. "Say I think of my property first. I now say whatever we do, we do together. We will decide by vote. If you vote to burn the store I will put the fire to it myself!"
They cheered him to the echo. Some cried: "Burn the store!" Some cried: "Vote!" By this move Simon captured their attention again. He held up a hand for silence.
"Wait!" he said. "I have a little more to say. Jack Mackenzie say we got to break our chains. Those are true words! But how? If we burn the store we only rivet them tighter.
"Gaviller will cry these are bad men and lawbreakers. These are incendiaries! It is a word the white men hate. They will say do what you like to the incendiaries. They deserve no better."
The strange word intimidated them. But a voice cried defiantly: "Must we wait some more?" And their cries threatened to down the old man.
"No!" he cried in a voice that silenced them. "Here is Ambrose Doane!"
He paused for dramatic effect.
"I ask Ambrose Doane to our meeting to talk with us. I now say to him"—he turned to Ambrose—"you have heard these men. They are so much wronged they cannot see the right. They are so mad they don't know what they do.
"I ask, Ambrose Doane, will you save them from their madness? Will you help us break our chains? Buy our grain?"