CHAPTER XII
A FIGHT IN THE NIGHT
The days immediately following Lapierre's departure were busy days for Chloe Elliston. The word had passed along the lakes and the rivers, and stolid, sullen-faced Indians stole in from the scrub to gaze apathetically at the buildings on the banks of the Yellow Knife. Chloe with pain-staking repetition, through LeFroy as interpreter, explained to each the object of her school; with the result that a goodly number remained and lost no time in installing themselves in the commodious barracks.
On the evening of the second day the girl tiptoed into the sick-room and, bending over MacNair, was startled to encounter the steady gaze of the steel-grey eyes. "I thought you never would come to," she smiled. "You see, I don't know much about surgery, and I was afraid perhaps—"
"Perhaps Lapierre had done his work well?"
Chloe started at the weak, almost gentle tones of the gruff voice she had learned to associate with this man of the North. She flushed as she met the steady, disconcerting stare of the grey eyes. "He shot on the spur of the moment. He thought you were going to shoot him."
"And he shot from—far to the Southward?"
"Oh! You do not think—you do not believe that I deliberately lied to you! That I knew Lapierre was on Snare Lake!" The words fell from her lips with an intense eagerness that carried the ring of sincerity. The hard look faded from the man's eyes, and the bearded lips suggested just the shadow of a smile.
"No," he answered weakly; "I do not think that. But tell me, how long have I been this way? And what has happened? For I remember nothing—after the world turned black. I am surprised that Lapierre missed me. He has the reputation for killing—at his own range."
"But he didn't miss you!" cried the girl in surprise. "It was his bullet that—that made the world turn black."
"Aye; but it was a miss, just the same, and a miss, I am thinking, that will cost him dear. He should have killed me."
"Please do not talk," said the girl in sudden alarm, and taking the medicine from the table, held the spoon to the man's lips. He swallowed its contents, and was about to speak when Chloe interrupted him. "Please do not talk," she begged, "and I'll tell you what happened. There is not much to tell: after we bound up your wounds we brought you here, where I could give you proper care. It took three days to do this, and two days have passed since we arrived."
"I knew I was in your——"
Chloe flushed deeply. "Yes, in my room," she hastened to interrupt him; "but you must not talk. It was the only place I knew where you could be quiet and—and safe."
"But, Lapierre—why did he allow it?"
Chloe flushed. "Allow it! I do not take orders from Mr. Lapierre, nor from you, nor from anybody else. This is my school; this cottage is mine; I'll do as I please with it, and I'll bring who I please into it without asking permission from any one."
While she was speaking, the man's glance strayed from her flashing eyes to the face of a tarnished, smoke-blackened portrait that showed indistinct in the dull lamplight of the little room. Chloe's glance followed MacNair's, and as the little clock ticked sharply, both stared in silence into the lean, lined features of Tiger Elliston.
"Your eyes," murmured the man—"sometimes they are like that." Suddenly his voice strengthened. He continued to gaze at the face in the dull gold frame. With an effort he withdrew an arm from beneath the cover and pointed with a finger that trembled weakly. "I should like to have known him," he said. "By God, yon is the face of a man!"
"My grandfather," muttered the girl.
"You'll love the North—when you know it," said MacNair. "Tell me, did Lapierre advise you to bring me here?"
"No," answered Chloe, "he did not. He—he said to leave you; that your Indians would care for you."
"And my Indians—did they not follow you?" Chloe shook her head. Once more MacNair bent a searching glance upon the girl's face. "Where is Lapierre?" he asked.
"He is gone," Chloe answered. "Two days ago he left for the——" She hesitated as there flashed through her brain the moment on Snare Lake when, once before, she had answered MacNair's question in almost the same words. "He said he was going to the southward," she corrected.
MacNair smiled. "I think, this time, he has gone. But why he left without killing me I cannot understand. Lapierre has made a mistake."
"You do him an injustice! Mr. Lapierre does not want to kill you. He is sorry he was forced to shoot; but, as he said, it was your life or his. And now please do be quiet, or I must leave you to yourself."
MacNair closed his eyes, and, seating herself by the table, Chloe stared silently into the face of the portrait until the man's deep, regular breathing told her that he slept.
Slowly the moments passed, and the girl's gaze roved from the face of the portrait along the walls of the little room. Suddenly her eyes dilated in horror; for there, tight pressed against an upper pane of the window, whose lower sash was daintily curtained with chintz, appeared a dark, scowling face—the face of an Indian, which she instantly recognized as one of the two who had accompanied MacNair upon his first visit to her clearing.
Even as she looked the face vanished, leaving the girl staring wide-eyed at the black square of the window. Curbing her impulse to awake MacNair, she stole softly from the room and, unlocking the outer door, sped swiftly through the darkness toward the little square of light that glowed from the window of the store.
The distance was not great from the door of the cottage to the soft square of radiance that showed distinctly in the darkness. But even as Chloe ran, the light was suddenly extinguished, and the outlines of the big storehouse loomed vague and huge and indistinct against the black background of the encircling scrub. The girl stopped abruptly and stared uncertainly into the darkness. Her heart beat wildly. A strange sense of terror came over her as she stood alone, surrounded by the blackness of the clearing. Why had LeFroy extinguished his light? And why was the night so still?
She strained to catch the familiar sounds of the wilderness—the little night sounds to which she had grown accustomed: the bellowing of frogs in the sedges, the chirp of tree-toads, and the harsh squawk of startled night-fowls. Even the air seemed unnaturally still, and the ceaseless drone of the mosquitoes served but to intensify the unnatural silence. The mosquitoes broke the spell of the nameless terror, and she slapped viciously at her face and neck.
"I'm a fool," she muttered; "a perfect fool! LeFroy puts out his light every night and—and what if there are no sounds? I'm just listening for something to be afraid of."
She glanced backward toward her own cottage where the light still glowed from the window. It was reassuring, that little square of yellow lamp-light that shone softly from the window of her room. She was not afraid now. She would return to the cottage and lock the door. She shuddered at the thought. Before her rose the vision of that dark, shadowy face, tight-pressed against the glass. Instinctively she knew that Indian was not alone. There were others, and—once more her eyes swept the blackness.
Suddenly the question flashed through her brain: Why should these Indians seek to avenge MacNair—the man who held the power of life and death over them—who had practically forced them into servitude? Then, swift as the question, flashed the answer: It was not to avenge MacNair they came, but, knowing he was helpless, to strike the blow that would free themselves from the yoke. Had Lapierre known this? Had he left, knowing that the man's own Indians would finish the work his bullet had only half completed? No! Lapierre would not have done that. Did he not say: "I am glad I did not kill him"? He was thinking only of my safety.
"We'll be safe enough till morning," she muttered. "Surely I have read somewhere that Indians never attack in the night. Tomorrow we must hide MacNair where they cannot find him. They will murder him, now that he is wounded. How they must hate him! Must hate the man who has oppressed and debauched and cheated them!"
The girl had nearly reached the door of the cottage when once more she halted, rooted in her tracks. Out of the unnatural silence of the night, close upon the edge of the clearing, boomed the cry of the great horned owl. It was a sound she had often heard here in the northern night—this hooting of an owl; but, somehow, this sound was different. Once more her heart thumped wildly against her ribs. Her fists clenched, and she peered tensely toward the wall of the scrub timber that showed silent and black and impenetrable in the little light of the stars. Again the portentous silence and then—was it fancy, or were there shapes, stealthy, elusive, shadowy, moving along the wall of the intense blackness?
A light suddenly flashed from the window of the storehouse. It disappeared. The great door banged sharply, and out of the blackness sounded a rush of moccasined feet, padding the earth as they ran.
From the edge of the timber—from the direction of the shadowy shapes—came a long, thin spurt of flame, and the silence was broken by the roar of a smooth-bore rifle. The next instant the roar was increased tenfold, and from the loopholes high on the walls of the storehouse flashed other thin red spurts of flame.
Terror-stricken, Chloe dashed for the cottage. Along the entire length of the timber-line, spikes of flame belched forth, and the crash and roar of rifles drowned the rush of the moccasin feet. A form dashed past her in the darkness, and then another, forcing Chloe from the path. The terrified girl realized that these forms were speeding straight for the door of the cottage. Her first thought was for MacNair. He would be murdered as he slept.
She redoubled her efforts, feeling blindly in the darkness for the path that led toward the square of light. In her ears sounded the sharp jangle of smashing glass. Her foot caught in a vine, and she crashed heavily forward almost at the door. All about her guns roared; from the edge of the scrub, from the river-bank, and from the corners of the long log dormitories. Bullets whined above her like angry mosquitoes, and thudded dully against the logs of the cottage.
Again sounded the sharp jangle of glass. She struggled to her knees, and was hurled backward as the huge form of an Indian tripped over her and sprawled, cursing, at her side. The door of the cottage burst suddenly open, and in the long quadrangle of light the forms of the two Indians who had passed her stood out distinctly. The girl gave a quick, short sob of relief. They were LeFroy's Indians! At the sound the man on the ground thrust his face close to hers and with a quick grunt of surprise scrambled to his feet. Chloe felt her arm seized, and realized that she was being dragged toward the door of the cottage through which the other two Indians had disappeared. She was jerked roughly across the threshold, and lay huddled up on the floor. The Indian released his hold on her arm and, stepping across her body, reached for the door.
Outside, the roar of the guns was incessant. Suddenly, close at hand, Chloe heard a quick, wicked spat, and the Indian reeled from the doorway, whirled as on a pivot, and crashed, face downward, across the table. There was a loud rattle of porcelain dishes, a rifle rang sharply upon the floor boards, and Chloe gazed in horrid fascination as the limp form of the Indian slipped slowly from the table. Its momentum increased, and the back of the man's head struck the floor with a sickening thump. The face turned toward her—a face wet and dripping with the rich red blood that oozed thickly from the irregular hole in the forehead where the soft, round ball from a smooth bore had torn into the brain. The wide eyes stared stonily into her own. The jaws sagged open, and the nearly severed tongue protruded from between the fang-like yellow teeth.
Someone blew out the lamp. The door slammed shut. Chloe felt strong hands beneath her shoulders; the voice of Big Lena sounded in her ears, and she was being guided through the pitch blackness to the door of her own room. The lamp by the bedside had also been extinguished, and the girl glanced toward the window, which showed in the feeble starlight a pattern of jagged panes. One of the Indians who had preceded her into the cottage thrust the barrel of a rifle through the aperture and fired rapidly at the flashes of flame in the clearing.
In the other room someone was shrieking, and Chloe recognized the voice of Harriet Penny. Big Lena left her side, and a moment later the shrieking ceased, or, rather, quieted to a series of terrified, choking grunts and muffled cries, as though something soft and thick had been forcibly applied as a gag. Chloe groped her way blindly toward the bed, where she had left the wounded man. Her feet stumbled awkwardly through the confusion of debris that was the wreck of the over-turned medicine table.
"Are you hurt?" she gasped as she sank trembling upon the edge of the bed. Close beside her sounded the sharp snap of metal as the Indian jammed fresh cartridges into his magazine.
"No!" said a voice in her ear. "I'm not hurt. Are you?" Chloe shook her head, forgetting that in the intense blackness she had returned no answer. There was a movement upon the bed; a huge hand closed roughly about her arm. The Indian was firing again.
"Tell me, are you hurt?" rasped a voice in her ear. And her arm was shaken almost fiercely.
"No!" she managed to gasp, struggling to free herself. "But oh, it's all too, too horrible, too awful! There is a dead man in the other room. He is one of LeFroy's Indians. One of my Indians, and they shot him!"
"I'm damned glad of it!" growled MacNair thickly, and Chloe leaped from the bed. The coarse brutality of the man was inconceivable. In her mingled emotion of rage and loathing, she hated this man with a fierce, savage hatred that could kill. She knew now why men called him Brute MacNair. The name fitted! These Indians had rushed from the security of the fortlike storehouse upon the first intimation of danger to protect the defenseless quartet in the cottage—the three women and the wounded, helpless man. In the very doorway of the cottage one had been killed—killed facing the enemy—the savage blood-thirsty horde who, having learned of the plight of their oppressor, had taken the warpath to venge their wrongs. Surely MacNair must know that this man had died as much in the defense of him as of the women. And yet, when he learned of the death of this man, he had said: "I am damned glad of it!"
How long Chloe stood there speechless, trembling, with her heart fairly bursting with rage, she did not know. Time ceased to be. Suddenly she realized that the room was no longer in intense darkness. Objects appeared dim and indistinct: the bed with the wounded man, the contents of the table strewn in confusion upon the floor, and the Indian shooting from the window. Then the flare of flames met her eyes. The walls of the storehouse stood out distinctly from its black background of timber. Savage forms appeared in the clearing, gliding stealthily from stump to stump.
The light grew brighter. She could hear now, mingled with the sharp crack of the rifles, the dull roar of flames. The dormitories were burning! This added to her consuming rage. Her eyes seemed fairly to glow as she fixed them upon the pale face of MacNair, who had struggled to a sitting posture. She took a step toward the bed. A dull red spot showed on either cheek. A bullet ripped through the window and splintered the dull gold frame of Tiger Elliston's portrait, but the girl had lost all sense of fear. She shook her clenched fist in the bearded face of the man, and her voice quavered high and thin.
"You—you—damn you!" she cried. "I wish I'd left you back there to the mercy of your savages! You're a brute—a fiend! It would serve you right if I should give you up to them! He—the man who was killed—was trying to save you from the righteous wrath of those you have ground down and oppressed!"
MacNair ignored her words, and as his eyes met hers squarely, they betrayed not the slightest emotion. The pallid features showed tense and drawn in the growing firelight. His gaze projected past her to the lean face of Tiger Elliston.
"You are a fighter at heart," he said slowly addressing the girl. "You are his flesh and blood and he was a fighter. He won to victory over the bodies of his enemies. In his eyes I can see it."
"He was no coward!" flashed the girl. "He never won to victory over the bodies of his friends!" With an effort the man reached for his clothing, which hung from a peg near the head of the bed.
"Where are you going?" cried the girl sharply.
"I am going," MacNair answered gravely, looking straight into her eyes, "to take my Indians back to Snare Lake."
"They will kill you!" she cried impulsively.
"They will not!" MacNair smiled; "but if they do, you will be glad. Did you not say——"
The girl faced swiftly away, and at the same moment the Indian at the window staggered backward, dropping his rifle and cursing horribly in the only English he knew, as he clutched frantically at his shoulder. Chloe turned. MacNair was lacing his boots. He raised himself weakly to his feet, swaying uncertainly, with his hand pressed against his chest, and laughed harshly into the pain-twisted features of the Indian.
"When the last of yon dogs gets his bullet, I can leave this place in safety."
"What do you mean?" cried the girl, her eyes blazing.
"I mean," rasped the man, "that you are a fool! You have listened to Lapierre and you have easily become his dupe. There is no Indian in his employ who would not kill me. They have had their orders. Have you stopped to reflect that the brave Lapierre did not himself remain to stem this attack? To protect me from my Indians?"
The sneer in MacNair's voice was not lost upon the girl, who drew herself up haughtily.
"Mr. Lapierre," she answered, "could hardly be charged with anticipating this attack, nor could he be blamed for not altering his plans to fight your battles."
MacNair laughed. "The idea of Lapierre fighting my battles is, indeed, unique. And you may be sure that Lapierre will not fight his own battles—as long as he can find others to fight them for him. Miss Elliston, this attack was anticipated. Lapierre knew to a certainty that when my Indians read the signs, and learned what had happened there on the shore of Snare Lake, their vengeance would not be delayed." He looked straight into the eyes of the girl. "Did you arm your Indians?"
"I did not!" answered Chloe. "I brought no guns."
"Then where did your Indians get their rifles?"
"Well, really, Mr. MacNair, I cannot tell you. Possibly at the same place your Indians got theirs. The Indians, who have come to me here are hunters and trappers. Is it so extraordinary that men who are hunters should own guns?"
"Your ignorance would be amusing, if it were not tragic!" retorted MacNair. And picking up the gun which the wounded Indian had dropped, held it before the eyes of the girl. "The hunters of the North, Miss Elliston, do not equip themselves with Mausers."
"With Mausers!" cried the girl. "You mean——"
"I mean just this," broke in MacNair, "that your Indians were armed to kill men, not animals. With, or without, your knowledge or sanction, your Indians have been supplied with the best rifles obtainable. Your school is Lapierre's fort!" Thrusting the rifle into the hands of the girl, he brushed past her and with difficulty made his way through the intervening room to the outer door, which he threw open.
Chloe followed. Outside the firing continued with undiminished intensity, but the girl was conscious of no sense of fear. Her eyes swept the room, flooded now by the glare of the flaring flames. Beside the stove stood Big Lena, an ax gripped tightly in her strong hands. The remaining Indian lay upon the floor, firing slowly through a loophole punched in the chinking. At the doorway MacNair turned, and in the strong light Chloe noticed that his face was haggard and drawn with pain.
"I thank you." he said, touching his bandaged chest, "for your nursing. It has probably saved my life."
"Come back! They will kill you!" MacNair ignored her warning. "You have one redeeming feature," cried the girl. "At least, you are as brutal toward yourself as toward others."
MacNair laughed harshly. "I thank you," he said and staggered out into the fire-lit clearing. Dully, Chloe noticed that the Indian who had been firing from the floor slipped stealthily through the doorway and, dropping to his knee, raised his rifle. The next instant the girl's eyes widened in horror. The gun was pointed squarely at MacNair's back. She tried to cry out, but no sound came. It seemed minutes that the Indian sighted as he knelt there in the clearing. And then—he pulled the trigger. There was a sharp, metallic click, followed by a muttered imprecation. The man jerked down the rifle and reaching into his pocket, produced long yellow cartridges, which he jammed into the magazine.
The horror of it! The diabolical deliberation of the man spurred the girl to a fury she had never known. In that moment her one thought was to kill—to kill with her hands—to rend—to tear—and to maim! For the first time she realized that the thing in her hand was a gun.
Again the Indian was raising his rifle. The girl twisted and jerked at the bolt of her own gun. It was locked. The next instant, with a loud, animal-like cry, she leaped for the doorway, trampling, as she passed, with a wild, fierce joy upon the upturned staring face of the dead Indian.
Out in the clearing the flames roared and crackled. Rifles spat. And before her the Indian was again lining his sights. Grasping the heavy rifle by the barrel, Chloe whirled it high above her and brought it down with a crash upon the head of the kneeling savage. The man crumpled as dead men crumple—in an ugly, twisted heap. Fierce, swift exultation shot through the girl's brain as she stood beside the formless thing on the ground. She looked up—squarely into the eyes of MacNair, who had turned at the sound of her outcry.
"I said you would fight!" called the man. "I have seen it in your eyes. They are the eyes of the man on the wall."
Then, abruptly, he turned and disappeared in the direction of the river.
CHAPTER XIII
LAPIERRE RETURNS FROM THE SOUTH
When Pierre Lapierre left Chloe Elliston's school after the completion of the buildings, he proceeded at once to his own rendezvous on Lac du Mort.
This shrewdly chosen stronghold was situated on a high, jutting point that rose abruptly from the waters of the inland lake, which surrounded it upon three sides. The land side was protected by an enormous black spruce swamp. This headland terminated in a small, rock-rimmed plateau, perhaps three acres in extent, and was so situated as to be practically impregnable against the attack of an ordinary force; the rim-rocks forming a natural barricade which reduced the necessity for artificial fortification to a minimum. Across the neck of the tiny peninsula, Lapierre had thrown a strong stockade of logs, and from the lake access was had only by means of a narrow, one-man trail that slanted and twisted among the rocks of the precipitous cliff side.
The plateau itself was sparsely covered with a growth of stunted spruce and banskian, which served as a screen both for the stockade and the long, low, fort-like building of logs, which was Lapierre's main cache for the storing of fur, goods of barter, and contraband whiskey. The fort was provisioned to withstand a siege, and it was there that the crafty quarter-breed had succeeded in storing two hundred Mauser rifles and many cases of ammunition. Among Lapierre's followers it was known as the "Bastile du Mort." A safe haven of refuge for the hard-pressed, and, in event of necessity, the one place in all the North where they might hope indefinitely to defy their enemies.
The secret of this fort had been well guarded, and outside of Lapierre's organized band, but one man knew its location—and few even guessed its existence. There were vague rumours about the Hudson Bay posts, and in the barracks of the Mounted, that Lapierre maintained such a fort, but its location was accredited to one of the numerous islands of the extreme western arm of Great Slave Lake.
Bob MacNair knew of the fort, and the rifles, and the whiskey. He knew, also, that Lapierre did not know that he knew, and therein, at the proper time, would lie his advantage. The Hudson Bay Company had no vital interest in verifying the rumour, nor had the men of the Mounted, for as yet Lapierre had succeeded in avoiding suspicion except in the minds of a very few. And these few, realizing that if Lapierre was an outlaw, he was by far the shrewdest and most dangerous outlaw with whom they had ever been called upon to deal, were very careful to keep their suspicions to themselves, until such time as they could catch him with the goods—after that would come the business of tracking him to his lair. And they knew to a certainty that the men would not be wanting who could do this—no matter how shrewdly that lair was concealed.
Upon arriving at Lac du Mort, Lapierre ordered the canoe-men to load the fur, proceed at once to the mouth of Slave River, transfer it to the scows, and immediately start upon the track-line journey to Athabasca Landing. His own canoe he loaded with rifles and ammunition, and returned to the Yellow Knife. It was then he learned that Chloe had gone to Snare Lake, and while he little relished an incursion into MacNair's domain, he secreted the rifles in the store-house and set out forthwith to overtake her. Despite the fact that he knew the girl to be strongly prejudiced against MacNair, Lapierre had no wish for her to see his colony in its normal condition of peace and prosperity. And so, pushing his canoemen to the limit of their endurance, he overtook her as she talked with MacNair by the side of his mother's grave.
Creeping noiselessly through the scrub to the very edge of the tiny clearing, Lapierre satisfied himself that MacNair was unattended by his Indians. The man's back was turned toward him, and the quarter-breed noticed that, as he talked, he leaned upon his rifle. It was a chance in a thousand. Never before had he caught MacNair unprepared—and the man's blood would be upon his own head. Drawing the revolver from its holster, he timed his movements to the fraction of a second; and deliberately snapped a twig, MacNair whirled like a flash, and Lapierre fired. His bullet went an inch too high, and when Chloe insisted upon carrying the wounded man to the school, Lapierre could but feebly protest.
The journey down the Yellow Knife was a nightmare for the quarter-breed, who momentarily expected an attack from MacNair's Indians. Upon their safe arrival, however, his black eyes glittered wickedly—at last MacNair was his. Fate had played directly into his hands. He knew the attack was inevitable, and during the excitement—well, LeFroy could be trusted to attend to MacNair. With the rifles in the storehouse, MacNair's Indians would be beaten back, and in the event of an investigation by the Mounted, the responsibility would be laid at MacNair's door. But of that MacNair would never know, for MacNair would have passed beyond.
Knowing that the vengeance of MacNair's Indians would not be long delayed, Lapierre determined to be well away from the Yellow Knife when the attack came. However, he had no wish to leave without first assuring himself that the shooting of MacNair stood justified in the eyes of the girl, and to that end he had called upon her in her cottage.
Then it was that chance seemed to offer a safe and certain means of putting MacNair away, and he dropped the poisonous antiseptic tablets into the medicine, only to have his plan frustrated by the unexpected presence of Big Lena. He was not sure that the woman had seen his action. But he took no chances, and with an apparent awkward movement of his hat, destroyed the evidence, sought out LeFroy, who had already been warned of the impending attack, and ordered him to place three or four of his most dependable Indians in the cottage, with instructions not only to protect Chloe, but to kill MacNair.
Then he hastened southward to overtake his scowmen, who were toiling at the track-lines somewhere among the turbulent rapids of the Slave. And indeed there was need of haste. The summer was well advanced. Six hundred miles of track-line and portage lay between Great Slave Lake and Athabasca Landing. And if he was to return with the many scow-loads of supplies for Chloe Elliston's store before the water-way became ice-locked, he had not a day nor an hour to lose.
At Point Brule he overtook the fur-laden scows, and at Smith Landing an Indian runner reported the result of the fight, and the escape of MacNair. Lapierre smothered his rage, and with twenty men at the track-line of each scow, bored his way southward.
A month later the gaunt, hard-bitten outfit tied up at the Landing. Lapierre disposed of his fur, purchased the supplies, and within a week the outfit was again upon the river.
At the mouth of La Biche a half-dozen burlapped pieces were removed from a cache in a thicket of balsam and added to the outfit. And at Fort Chippewayan the scows with their contents were examined by two officers of the Mounted, and allowed to proceed on their way.
On the Yellow Knife, Chloe Elliston anxiously awaited Lapierre's return. Under LeFroy's supervision the dormitories had been rebuilt, and a few sorry-looking, one-room cabins erected, in which families of Indians had taken up their abode.
Through the long days of the late summer and early fall, Indians had passed and repassed upon the river, and always, in answer to the girl's questioning, they spoke of the brutality of MacNair. Of how men were made to work from daylight to dark in his mines. And of the fact that no matter how hard they worked, they were always in his debt. They told how he plied them with whiskey, and the hunger and misery of the women and children. All this the girl learned through her interpreter, LeFroy; and not a few of these Indians remained to take up their abode in dormitories or cabins, until the little settlement boasted some thirty or forty colonists.
It was hard, discouraging work, this striving to implant the rudiments of education in the minds of the sullen, apathetic savages, whose chief ambition was to gorge themselves into stupidity with food from the storehouse. With the adults the case seemed hopeless. And, indeed, the girl attempted little beyond instruction in the simplest principles of personal and domestic cleanliness and order. Even this met with no response, until she established a daily inspection, and it became known that the filthy should also go hungry.
With the children, Chloe made some slight headway, but only at the expense of unceasing, monotonous repetition, and even she was forced to admit that the results were far from encouraging. The little savages had no slightest conception of any pride or interest in their daily tasks, but followed unvaryingly the line of least resistance as delineated by a simple system of rewards and punishments.
The men had shown no aptitude for work of any kind, and now when the ice skimmed thinly the edges of the lake and rivers, they collected their traps and disappeared into the timber, cheerfully leaving the women and children to be fed and cared for at the school. As the days shortened and the nights grew longer, the girl realized, with bitterness in her heart, that almost the only thing she had accomplished along educational lines was the imperfect smattering of the Indian tongue that she herself had acquired.
But her chiefest anxiety was a more material one, and Lapierre's appearance with the supplies became a matter of the gravest importance, for upon their departure the trappers had drawn heavily upon the slender remaining stores, with a result that the little colony on the Yellow Knife was already reduced to half rations, and was entirely dependent upon the scows for the winter's supply of provisions.
Not since the night of the battle had Chloe heard directly from MacNair. He had not visited the school, nor had he expressed a word of regret or apology for the outrage. He ignored her existence completely, and the girl guessed that many of the Indians who refused her invitation to camp in the clearing, as they passed and repassed upon the river, did so in obedience to MacNair's command.
In spite of her abhorrence for the man, she resented his total disregard of her existence. Indeed, she would have welcomed a visit from him, if for no other reason than because he was a white man. She spent many hours in framing bitter denunciations to be used in event of his appearance. But he did not appear, and resentment added to the anger in her heart, until in her mind he became the embodiment of all that was despicable, and brutish, and evil.
More than once she was upon the point of attempting another visit to Snare Lake, and in all probability would have done so had not Big Lena flatly refused to accompany her under any circumstances whatever. And this attitude the huge Swedish woman stubbornly maintained, preserving a haughty indifference alike to Chloe's taunts of cowardice, promise of reward, and threats of dismissal. Whereupon Chloe broached the subject to Harriet Penny, and that valiant soul promptly flew into hysteria, so that for three days Chloe did double duty in the school. After that she nursed her wrath in silence and brooded upon the wrongs of MacNair's Indians.
This continued brooding was not without its effect upon the girl, and slowly but surely destroyed her sense of proportion. No longer was the education and civilization of the Indians the uppermost thought in her mind. With Lapierre, she came to regard the crushing of MacNair's power as the most important and altogether desirable undertaking that could possibly be consummated.
While in this frame of mind, just at sunset of a keen October day, the cry of "la brigade! la brigade!" reached her ears as she sat alone in her room in the cottage, and rushing to the river bank she joined the Indians who swarmed to the water's edge to welcome the huge freight canoe that had rounded the point below the clearing. Chloe clapped her hands in sheer joy and relief, for there, proud and erect, in the bow of the canoe stood Lapierre, and behind him from bank to bank the Yellow Knife fairly swarmed with other full-freighted canoes. The supplies had arrived!
Even as the bow of his canoe scraped the bank, Lapierre was at her side. Chloe felt her hand pressed between his—felt the grip of his strong fingers, and flushed deeply as she realized that not alone because of the supplies was she glad that he had come. And then, his voice was in her ears, and she was listening as he told her how good it was to stand once more at her side, and look into the face whose image had spurred him to almost super-human effort, throughout the days and the nights of the long river trail.
Lightly she answered him, and Lapierre's heart bounded at the warmth of her welcome. He turned with a word to his canoemen, and Chloe noted with admiration, how one and all they sprang to do his bidding. She marvelled at his authority. Why did these men leap to obey his slightest command, when LeFroy, to obtain even the half-hearted obedience she required of her Indians, was forced to brow-beat and bully them? Her heart warmed to the man as she thought of the slovenly progress of her school. Here was one who could help her. One who could point with the finger of a master of men to the weak spots in her system.
Suddenly her brow clouded. For, as she looked upon Lapierre, the words of MacNair flashed through her mind, as he stood weak from his wounds, in the dimness of her fire-lit room. Her eyes hardened, and unconsciously her chin thrust outward, as she realized that before she could ask this man's aid, there were things he must explain.
Darkness settled, and at a word from Lapierre, fires flared out on the beach and in the clearing, and by their light the long line of canoemen conveyed the pieces upon their heads into the wide door of the storehouse. It was a weird, fantastic scene. The long line of pack-laden men, toiling up the bank between the rows of flaring fires, to disappear in the storehouse; and the long line returning empty-handed to toil again, to the storehouse. After a time Lapierre called LeFroy to his side and uttered a few terse commands. The man nodded, and took Lapierre's place at the head of the steep slope to the river. The quarter-breed turned to the girl.
"Come," he said, smiling, "LeFroy can handle them now. May we not go to your cottage? I would hear of your progress—the progress of your school. And also," he bowed, "is it not possible that the great, what do you call her, Lena, has prepared supper? I've eaten nothing since morning."
"Forgive me!" cried the girl. "I had completely forgotten supper. But, the men? Have they not eaten since morning?"
Lapierre smiled. "They will eat," he answered, "when their work is done."
Supper over, the two seated themselves upon the little veranda. Along the beach the fires still flared, and still the men, like a huge, slow-moving endless chain, carried the supplies to the store-house. Lapierre waved his hand toward the scene.
"You see now," he smiled, "why I built the storehouse so large?"
Chloe nodded, and regarded him intently. "Yes, I see that," she answered gravely, "but there are things I do not see. Of course you have heard of the attack by MacNair's Indians?"
Lapierre assented. "At Smith Landing I heard it," he answered, and waited for her to proceed.
"Had you expected this attack?"
Lapierre glanced at her in well-feigned surprise.
"Had I expected it, Miss Elliston, do you think I would have gone to the Southward? Would I have left you to the mercy of those brutes? When I thought you were in danger on Snare Lake, did I——"
The girl interrupted him with a gesture. "No! No! I do not think you anticipated the attack, but——"
Lapierre finished her sentence. "But, MacNair told you I did, and that I had timed accurately my trip to the Southward? What else did he tell you?"
"He told me," answered Chloe, "that had you not anticipated the attack you would not have armed my Indians with Mausers. He said that my Indians were armed to kill men, not animals." She paused and looked directly into his eyes. "Mr. Lapierre, where did those rifles come from?"
Lapierre answered without a moment's hesitation. "From my—cache to the westward." He leaned closer. "I told you once before," he said, "that I could place a hundred guns in the hands of your Indians, and you forbade me. While I could remain in the North, I bowed to your wishes. I know the North and its people, and I knew you would be safer with the rifles than without them. In event of an emergency, the fact that your Indians were armed with guns that would shoot farther, and harder, and faster, than the guns of your enemies, would offset, in a great measure, their advantage in numbers. It seems that my judgment was vindicated. I disobeyed you flatly. But, surely, you will not blame me! Oh! If you knew——"
Chloe interrupted him.
"Don't!" she cried sharply. "Please—not that! I—I think I understand. But there are still things I do not understand. Why did one of my own Indians attempt to murder MacNair? And how did MacNair know that he would attempt to murder him? He said you had ordered it so. And the man was one of your Indians—one of those you left with LeFroy."
Lapierre nodded. "Do you not see, Miss Elliston, that MacNair is trying by every means in his power to discredit me in your eyes? Apatawa, the Indian you—" Chloe shuddered as he paused, and he hastened on—"The Indian who attempted to shoot MacNair, was originally one of MacNair's own Indians—one of the few who dared to desert him. And, for the wrongs he had suffered, he had sworn to kill MacNair."
"But, knowing that, why did LeFroy send him to the cottage?"
"That," answered Lapierre gravely, "is something I do not know. I must first question LeFroy, and if I find that he thus treacherously endangered the life of a wounded man, even though that man was MacNair, who is his enemy, and likewise my enemy, I will teach him a lesson he will not soon forget."
Chloe heaved a sigh of relief. "I am glad," she breathed softly, "that you feel that way."
"Could you doubt it?" asked the man.
Chloe hesitated. "Yes," she answered, "I did doubt it. How could I help but doubt, when he warned me what would happen, and it all came about as he said? I—I could not help but believe him. And now, one thing more. Can you tell me why MacNair's Indians are willing to fight to the death to save him from harm? If the things you tell me are true, and I know that they are true, because during the summer I have questioned many of MacNair's Indians, and they all tell the same story; why do they fight for him?"
Lapierre considered. "That is one of those things," he answered, "that men cannot explain. It is because of his hold upon them. Great generals have had it—this power to sway men—to command them to certain death, even though those men cursed the very ground their commanders stood upon. MacNair is a powerful personality. In all the North there is not his equal. I cannot explain it. It is a psychological problem none can explain. For, although his Indians hate him, they make no attempt to free themselves from his yoke, and they will fight to the death in defense of him."
"It is hard to believe," answered Chloe, "hard to understand. And yet, I think I do understand. He said of my grandfather, as he looked into the eyes of his portrait on the wall: 'He was a fighter. He won to victory over the bodies of his enemies.' That is MacNair's idea of greatness."
Lapierre nodded, and when he looked into the face of the girl he noted that her eyes flashed with purpose.
"Tell me," she continued almost sharply, "you are not afraid of MacNair?"
For just an instant Lapierre hesitated. "No!" he answered. "I am not afraid."
Chloe leaned toward him eagerly and placed a hand upon his arm, while her eyes seemed to search his very thoughts. "Then you will go with me to Snare Lake—to carry our war into the heart of the enemy's country?"
"To Snare Lake!" gasped the man.
"Yes, to Snare Lake. I shall never rest now until MacNair's power over these poor savages is broken forever. Until they are free from the yoke of oppression."
"But it would be suicide!" objected Lapierre. "No possible good can come of it! To kill a lion, one does not thrust his head into the lion's mouth in an effort to choke him to death. There are other ways."
Chloe laughed. "He will not harm us," she answered. "I am not going to kill him as one would kill a lion. There has been blood enough spilled already. As you say, there are other ways. We are going to Snare Lake for the purpose of procuring evidence that will convict this man in the courts."
"The courts!" cried Lapierre. "Where are the courts north of sixty?"
"North of sixty, or south of sixty, what matters it? There are courts, and there are prisons awaiting such as he. Will you go with me, or must I go alone?"
Lapierre glanced toward the flaring fires, where the endless line of canoemen still toiled from the river to the storehouse. Slowly he arose from his chair and extended his hand.
"I will go with you," he answered simply, "and now I will say good night."