Affairs at the school were at a standstill. From a busy hive of activity, with the women and children showing marked improvement at their tasks, and the men happy in the felling of logs and the whip-sawing of lumber, the settlement had suddenly slumped into a disorganized hodge-podge of unrest and anxiety. MacNair's Indians had followed him into the North; their women and children brooded sullenly, and a feeling of unrest and expectancy pervaded the entire colony.
Among the inmates of the cottage the condition was even worse. With Harriet Penny hysterical and excited, Big Lena more glum and taciturn than usual, the Louchoux girl cowering in mortal dread of impending disaster, and Chloe herself disgusted, discouraged, nursing in her heart a consuming rage against Brute MacNair, the man who had wrought the harm, and who had been her evil genius since she had first set foot into the North.
Upon the afternoon of the day she despatched LeFroy to Fort Resolution with the wounded officer of the Mounted, Chloe stood at her little window gazing out over the wide sweep of the river and wondering how it all would end. Would MacNair find Lapierre, and would he kill him? Or would the Mounted heed the urgent appeal she despatched in care of LeFroy and arrive in time to recapture MacNair before he came upon his victim?
"If I only knew where to find him," she muttered, "I could warn him of his danger."
The next moment her eyes widened with amazement, and she pressed her face close against the glass; across the clearing from the direction of the river dashed a dog-team, with three men running before and three behind, while upon the sled, jaunty and smiling, and debonair as ever, sat Pierre Lapierre himself. With a flourish he swung the dogs up to the tiny veranda and stepped from the sled, and the next moment Chloe found herself standing in the little living-room with Lapierre bowing low over her hand. Harriet Penny was in the schoolhouse; the Louchoux girl was helping Big Lena in the kitchen, and for the first time in many moons Chloe Elliston felt glad that she was alone with Lapierre.
When at length she removed her hand from his grasp she stood for some moments regarding the clean-cut lines of his features, and then she smiled as she noted the trivial fact that he had removed his hat, and that he stood humbly before her with bared head. A great surge of feeling rushed over her as she realized how clean and good—how perfect this man seemed in comparison with the hulking brutality of MacNair. She motioned him to a seat beside the table, and drawing her chair close to his side, poured into his attentive and sympathetic ears all that she knew of MacNair's escape, of the shooting of Corporal Ripley, and his departure in the night with his Indians.
Lapierre listened, smiling inwardly at her version of the affair, and at the conclusion of her words leaned forward and took one of the slim brown hands in his. For a long, long time the girl listened in silence to the pleading of his lips; and the little room was filled with the passion of his low-voiced eloquence.
Neither was aware of the noiseless opening of a door, nor of the wide-eyed, girlish face that stared at them through the aperture, nor was either aware that the man's words were borne distinctly to the ears of the Louchoux girl. Nor could they note the change from an expression of startled surprise to slitlike, venomous points of fire that took place in the eyes of the listening girl—nor the clenching fists. Nor did they hear the soft, catlike tread with which the girl quit the door and crossed to the kitchen table. Nor could they see the cruel snarl of her lips as her fingers closed tightly about the haft of the huge butcher-knife, whose point was sharp and whose blade was keen. Nor did they hear the noiseless tread with which the girl again approached the door, swung wider now to admit the passage of her tense, lithe body. Nor did they see her crouch for a spring with the tight-clutched knife upraised and the gleaming slitlike eyes focused upon a point mid-way between Lapierre's shoulder-blades as his arm unconsciously came to rest upon the back of Chloe Elliston's chair.
For a long moment the girl poised, gloating—enjoying in its fulness the measure of her revenge. Before her, leaning in just the right attitude to receive upon his defenceless back the full force of the blow, sat the man who had deceived her. For not until she had listened to the low-voiced, impassioned words had she realized there had been any deception. With the realization came the hot, fierce flame of anger that seared her very soul. An anger engendered by her own wrong, and fanned to its fiercest by the knowledge that the man was at that moment seeking to deceive the white woman—the woman who had taught her much, and who with the keenest interest and gentleness had treated her as an equal.
She had come to love this white woman with the love that was greater than the love of life. And the words to which this woman was now listening were the same words, from the same lips, to which she herself had listened beside the cold waters of the far-off Mackenzie. Thus the Louchoux girl faced suddenly her first great problem. And to the half-savage mind of her the solution of the problem seemed very simple, very direct, and, had Big Lena not entered by way of the outer door at the precise moment that the girl crouched with uplifted knife, it would doubtless have been very effective.
But Big Lena did enter, and, with a swiftness of perception that belied the vacuous stare of the fishlike eyes, took in the situation at a glance; for LeFroy had already hinted to her of the relation which existed between his erstwhile superior and this girl from the land of the midnight sun. Whereupon Big Lena had kept her own counsel and had patiently bided her time, and now her time had come, and she was in no wise minded that the fulness of her vengeance should be marred by the untimely taking off of Lapierre. Swiftly she crossed the room, and as her strong fingers closed about the wrist of the Indian girl's upraised knife-arm, the other hand reached beyond and noiselessly closed the door between the two rooms.
The Louchoux girl whirled like a flash and sank her strong, white teeth deep in the rolled-sleeved forearm of the huge Swedish woman. But a thumb, inserted dextrously and with pressure in the little hollow behind the girl's ear, caused her jaws instantly to relax, and she stood trembling before the big woman, who regarded her with a tolerant grin, and the next moment laid a friendly hand upon her shoulder and, turning her gently about, guided her to a chair at the farther side of the room.
Followed then a quarter of an hour of earnest conversation, in which the older woman managed to convey, through the medium of her broken English, a realization that Lapierre's discomfiture could be encompassed much more effectively and in a thoroughly orthodox and less sanguinary manner.
The ethics of Big Lena's argument were undoubtedly beyond the Louchoux girl's comprehension; but because this woman had been good to her, and because she seemed greatly to desire this thing, the girl consented to abstain from violence, at least for the time being. A few minutes later, when Chloe Elliston opened the door and announced that Mr. Lapierre would join them at supper, she found the two women busily engaged in the final preparation of the meal.
Big Lena passed into the dining-room, which was also the living-room, and without deigning to notice Lapierre's presence, proceeded to lay the table for supper. Returning to the kitchen, she despatched the Indian girl to the storehouse upon an errand which would insure her absence until after Chloe and Lapierre and Harriet Penny had taken their places at the table.
Since her arrival at the school the Louchoux girl had been treated as "one of the family," and it was with a look of inquiry toward the girl's empty chair that Chloe seated herself with the others. Interpreting the look, Big Lena assured her that the girl would return in a few moments; and Chloe had just launched into an impassioned account of the virtues and the accomplishments of her ward, when the door opened and the girl herself entered the room and crossed swiftly to her accustomed place. As she stood with her hand on the back of her chair, Lapierre for the first time glanced into her face.
The quarter-breed was a man trained as few men are trained to meet emergencies, to face crises with an impassiveness of countenance that would shame the Sphinx. He had lost thousands across the green cloth of gambling-tables without batting an eye. He had faced death and had killed men with a face absolutely devoid of expression, and upon numerous occasions his nerve—the consummate sang-froid of him—had alone thrown off the suspicion that would have meant arrest upon charges which would have taken more than a lifetime to expiate. And as he sat at the little table beside Chloe Elliston, his eyes met unflinchingly the flashing, accusing gaze of the black eyes of the girl from the Northland—the girl who was his wife.
For a long moment their glances held, while the atmosphere of the little room became surcharged with the terrible portent of this silent battle of eyes. Harriet Penny gasped audibly; and as Chloe stared from one to the other of the white, tense faces before her, her brain seemed suddenly to numb, and the breath came short and quick between her parted lips to the rapid heaving of her bosom. The Louchoux girl's eyes seemed fairly to blaze with hate. The fingers of her hand dug into the wooden back of her chair until the knuckles whitened. She leaned far forward and, pointing directly into the face of the man, opened her lips to speak. It was then Lapierre's gaze wavered, for in that moment he realized that for him the game was lost.
With a half-smothered curse he leaped to his feet, overturning his chair, which banged sharply upon the plank floor. He glanced wildly about the little room as if seeking means of escape, and his eyes encountered the form of Big Lena, who stood stolidly in the doorway, blocking the exit. In a flash he noted the huge, bared forearm; noted, too, that one thick hand gripped tightly the helve of a chopping ax, with which she toyed lightly as if it were a little thing, while the thumb of her other hand played smoothly, but with a certain terrible significance, along the keen edge of its blade. Lapierre's glance flashed to her face and encountered the fishlike stare of the china-blue eyes, as he had encountered it once before. The eyes, as before, were expressionless upon their surface, but deep down—far into their depths—Lapierre caught a cold gleam of mockery. And then the Louchoux girl was speaking, and he turned upon her with a snarl.
CHAPTER XXII
CHLOE WRITES A LETTER
When Bob MacNair, exasperated beyond all patience by Chloe Elliston's foolish accusation, stamped angrily from the cottage, after depositing the wounded Ripley upon the bed, he proceeded at once to the barracks, where he sought out Wee Johnnie Tamarack, who informed him that Lapierre was up on Snare Lake, at the head of a band of men who had already succeeded in dotting the snow of the barren grounds with the black dumps of many shafts. Whereupon he ordered Wee Johnnie Tamarack to assemble the Indians at once at the storehouse.
No sooner had the old Indian departed upon his mission than the door of the barracks was pushed violently open and Big Lena entered, dragging by the arm the thoroughly cowed figure of LeFroy. At sight of the man who, under Lapierre's orders, had wrought the destruction of his post at Snare Lake, MacNair leaped forward with a snarl of anger. But before he could reach the trembling man the form of Big Lena interposed, and MacNair found himself swamped by a jargon of broken English that taxed to the utmost his power of comprehension.
"Ju yoost vait vun meenit. Ay tal ju som'ting gude. Dis damn LeFroy, he bane bad man. He vork by Lapierre, and he tak' de vhiskey to jour Injuns, but he don't vork no more by Lapierre; he vork by me. Ay goin' to marry him, and ju bet Ay keep him gude, or Ay bust de stove chunk 'crost his head. He vork by Mees Chloe now, and he lak ju gif him chance to show he ain't no bad man no more."
Big Lena shook the man roughly by way of emphasis, and MacNair smiled as he noted the foolish grin with which LeFroy submitted to the inevitable. For years he had known LeFroy as a bad man, second only to Lapierre in cunning and brutal cruelty; and to see him now, cowering under the domination of his future spouse, was to MacNair the height of the ridiculous—but MacNair was unmarried.
"All right," he growled, and LeFroy's relief at the happy termination of the interview was plainly written upon his features, for this meeting had not been of his own seeking. The memory of the shots which had taken off two of his companions that night on Snare Lake, was still fresh, and in his desire to avoid a meeting with MacNair he had sought refuge in the kitchen. Whereupon Big Lena had taken matters into her own hands and literally dragged him into MacNair's presence, replying to his terrified protest that if MacNair was going to kill him, he was going to kill and he might as well have it over with.
Thus it was that the relieved LeFroy leaped with alacrity to obey when, a moment later, MacNair ordered him to the storehouse to break out the necessary provisions for a ten-days' journey for all his Indians. So well did the half-breed execute the order that upon MacNair's arrival at the store-house he found LeFroy not only supplying provisions with a lavish hand, but taking huge delight in passing out to the waiting Indians Lapierre's Mauser rifles and ammunition.
When MacNair, with his Indians, reached Snare Lake, it was to find that Pierre Lapierre had taken himself and his outlaws to the Lac du Mort rendezvous. Whereupon he immediately despatched thirty Indians back to LeFroy for the supplies necessary to follow Lapierre to his stronghold. Awaiting the return of the supply train, MacNair employed his remaining Indians in getting out logs for the rebuilding of his fort, and he smiled grimly as his eyes roved over the dumps—the rich dumps which represented two months' well-directed labour of a gang of a hundred men.
As Chloe Elliston sat in the little living-room and listened to the impassioned words of Lapierre, the man's chance of winning her was far better than at any time in the whole course of their acquaintance. Without in the least realizing it, the girl had all along held a certain regard for MacNair—a regard that was hard to explain, and that the girl herself would have been the first to disavow. She hated him! And yet—she was forced to admit even to herself, the man fascinated her. But never until the moment of the realization of his true character, as forced upon her by the action and words of the Louchoux girl, had she entertained the slightest suspicion that she loved him. And with the discovery had come a sense of shame and humiliation that had all but broken her spirit.
Her hatred for MacNair was real enough now. That hatred, the shame and humility, and the fact that Lapierre was pleading with her as he had never pled before, were going far to convince the girl that her previous estimate of the quarter-breed had been a mistaken estimate, and that he was in truth the fine, clean, educated man of the North which on the surface he appeared to be. A man whose aim it was to deal fairly and honourably with the Indians, and who in reality had the best interests of his people at heart.
No one but Chloe herself will ever know how near she came upon that afternoon to yielding to his pleading, and laying her soul bare to him. But something interposed—fate? Destiny? The materialist smiles "supper." Be that as it may, had she yielded to Lapierre's plans, they would have stolen from the school that very night and proceeded to Fort Rae, to be married by the priest at the Mission. For Lapierre, fully alive to the danger of delay, had eloquently pleaded his cause.
Not only was MacNair upon his trail—MacNair the relentless, the indomitable—but also the word had passed in the North, and the men of the Mounted—those inscrutable sentinels of the silence whose watchword is "get the man"—were aroused to avenge a comrade. And Lapierre realized with a chill in his heart that he was "the man"! His one chance lay in a timely marriage with Chloe Elliston, and a quick dash for the States. If the dash succeeded, he had nothing to fear. Even if it failed, and he fell into the hands of the Mounted—with the Elliston millions behind him, he felt he could snap his fingers in the face of the law. Men of millions do not serve time.
For the men who awaited him in the Bastile du Mort, Lapierre gave no thought. He would stand by them as long as it furthered his own ends to stand by them. When they ceased to be a factor in his own safety, they could shift for themselves, even as he, Lapierre, was shifting for himself. Someone has said every man has his price. It is certain that every man has his limit beyond which he may not go.
Lapierre, a man of consummate nerve, had put forth a final effort to save himself. Had put forth the best effort that was in him to induce Chloe Elliston to marry him. He had found the girl kinder, more receptive than he had dared hope. His spirits arose to a point they had never before attained. Success seemed within his grasp. Then, suddenly, just as his fingers were about to close upon the prize—the prize that meant to him life and plenty, instead of death—the Louchoux girl, a passing folly of a bygone day, had suddenly risen up and confronted him—and he knew that his cause was lost.
Lapierre had reached his limit of control, and when he turned at the sound of the Indian girl's voice, his hand instinctively flew to his belt. In his rage at the sudden turn of events, he became for the instant a madman, whose one thought was to destroy her who had wrought the harm. The next instant the snarl died upon his lips and his hand dropped limply to his side. In two strides Big Lena was upon him and her thick fingers bit deep into his shoulder as she spun him to face her—to face the polished bit of the keen-edged ax which the huge woman flourished carelessly within an inch of his nose.
The fingers released their grip, Lapierre's gun was jerked from its holster, and a moment later thumped heavily upon the floor of the kitchen fifteen feet away, while the woman pointed grimly toward the overturned chair. Lapierre righted the chair, and as he sank into it, Chloe, who had stared dumbfounded upon the scene, saw that little beads of sweat stood out sharply against the pallor of his bloodless brow. As from a great distance the words of the Louchoux girl fell upon her ears. She was speaking rapidly, and the finger which she pointed at Lapierre trembled violently.
"You lied!" cried the girl. "You have always lied! You lied when you told me we were married. You lied when you said you would return! Since coming to this school I have learned much. Many things have I learned that I never knew before. When you said you would return, I believed you—even as my mother believed my father when he went away in the ship many years ago, and left me a babe in arms to live or to die among the teepees of the Louchoux, the people of my mother, who was the mother of his child. My mother has not been to the school, and she believes some day my father will return. For many years she has waited, has starved, and has suffered—always watching for my father's return. And the factors have laughed, and the rivermen taunted her with being the mother of a fatherless child! Ah, she has paid! Always the Indian women must pay! And I have paid also. All my life have I been hungry, and in the winter I have always been cold.
"Then you came with your laughing lips and your words of love and I went with you, and you took me to distant rivers. All through the summer there was plenty to eat in our teepee. I was happy, and for the first time in my life my heart was glad—for I loved you! And then came the winter, and the freezing up of the rivers, and the day you told me you must return to the southward—to the land of the white men—without me. And I believed you even when they told me you would not return. I was brave—for that is the way of love, to believe, and to hope, and to be brave."
The girl's voice faltered, and the trembling hand gripped the back of the chair upon which she leaned heavily for support.
"All my life have I paid," she continued, bitterly. "Yet, it was not enough. Years, when the children of the trappers had at times plenty to eat I was always hungry and cold.
"When you came into my life I thought at last I had paid in full—that my mother and I both had paid for her belief in the white man's word. Ah, if I had known! I should have known, for well I remember, it was upon the day before—before I went away with you—that I told you of my father, and of how we always went North in the winter, knowing that again his ship would winter in the ice of the Bufort Sea. And you heard the story and laughed, and you said that my father would not return—that the white men never return. And when I grew afraid, you told me that you were part Indian. That your people were my people. I was a fool! I listened to your words!"
The girl dropped heavily into her chair and buried her face in her arms.
"And now I know," she sobbed, "that I have not even begun to pay!"
Suddenly she leaped to her feet and, dashing around the table placed herself between Lapierre and Chloe, who had listened white-lipped to her words. Once more the voice of the Louchoux girl rang through the room—high-pitched and thin with anger now—and the eyes that glared into the eyes of Lapierre blazed black with fury.
"You have lied to her! But you cannot harm her! With my own ears I heard your words! The same words I heard from your lips before, upon the banks of the far-off rivers, and the words are lies—lies—lies!"—the voice rose to a shriek—"the white woman is good! She is my friend! She has taught me much, and now, I will save her."
With a swift movement she caught the carving-knife from the table and sprang toward the defenceless Lapierre. "I will cut your heart in little bits and feed it to the dogs!"
Once more the hand of Big Lena wrenched the knife from the girl's grasp. And once more the huge Swedish woman fixed Lapierre with her vacuous stare. Then slowly she raised her arm and pointed toward the door: "Ju git! And never ju don't come back no more. Ay don't lat ju go 'cause Ay lak' ju, but Ay bane 'fraid dis leetle girl she cut ju up and feed ju to de dogs, and Ay no lak' for git dem dogs poison!"
And Lapierre tarried not for further orders. Pausing only to recover his hat from its peg on the wall, he opened the outer door and with one sidewise malevolent glance toward the little group at the table, slunk hurriedly from the room.
Hardly had the door closed behind him than Chloe, who had sat as one stunned during the girl's accusation and her later outburst of fury, leaped to her feet and seized her arm in a convulsive grip. "Tell me!" she cried; "what do you mean? Speak! Speak, can't you? What is this you have said? What is it all about?"
"Why it is he, Pierre Lapierre. He is the free-trader of whom I told you. The man who—who deceived me into believing I was his wife."
"But," cried Chloe, staring at her in astonishment. "I thought—I thought MacNair was the man!"
"No! No! No!" cried the girl. "Not MacNair! Pierre Lapierre, he is the man! He who sat in that chair, and whose heart I would cut into tiny bits that you shall not be made to pay, even as I have paid, for listening to the words of his lips."
"But," faltered Chloe, "I don't—I don't understand. Surely, you, fear MacNair. Surely, that night when he came into the room, carrying the wounded policeman, you fled from him in terror."
"MacNair is a white man——"
"But why should you fear him?"
"I fear him," she answered, "because among the Indians—among the Louchoux—the people of my mother, and among the Eskimoes, he is called 'The Bad Man of the North.' I hated him because Lapierre taught me to hate him. I do not hate him now, nor do I fear him. But among the Indians and among the free-traders he is both hated and feared. He chases the free-traders from the rivers, and he kills them and destroys their whiskey. For he has said, like the men of the soldier-police, that the red man shall drink no whiskey. But the red men like the whiskey. Their life is hard and they do not have much happiness, and the whiskey of the white man makes them happy. And in the days before MacNair they could get much whiskey, but now the free-traders fear him, and only sometimes do they dare to bring whiskey to the land of the far-off rivers.
"At the posts my people may trade for food and for guns and for clothing, but they may not buy whiskey. But the free-traders sell whiskey. Also they will trade for the women. But MacNair has said they shall not trade for the women. At times, when men think he is far away, he comes swooping through the North with his Snare Lake Indians at his heels, and they chase the free-traders from the rivers. And on the shores of the frozen sea he chases the whalemen from the Eskimo villages even to their ships which lie far out from the coast, locked in the grip of the ice-pack.
"For these things I have hated and feared him. Since I have been here at the school I have learned much. Both from your teachings, and from talking with the women of MacNair's Indians. I know now that MacNair is good, and that the factors and the soldier-police and the priest spoke words of truth, and that Lapierre and the free-traders lied!"
As the Indian girl poured forth her story, Chloe Elliston listened as one in a dream. What was this she was saying, that it was Lapierre who sold whiskey to the Indians, and MacNair who stood firm, and struck mighty blows for the right of things? Surely, this girl's mind was unhinged—or, had something gone wrong with her own brain? Was it possible she had heard aright?
Suddenly she remembered the words of Corporal Ripley, when he asked her to withdraw the charge of murder against MacNair: "In the North we know something of MacNair's work." And again: "We know the North needs men like MacNair."
Could it be possible that after all—with the thought there flashed into the girl's mind the scene on Snare Lake. Had she not seen with her own eyes the evidence of this man's work among the Indians! With a gesture of appeal she turned to Big Lena.
"Surely, Lena, you remember that night on Snare Lake? You saw MacNair's Indians, drunk as fiends—and the buildings all on fire? You saw MacNair kicking and knocking them about? And you saw him fire the shots that killed two men? Speak, can't you? Did you see these things? Did I see them? Was I dreaming? Or am I dreaming now?"
Big Lena shifted her weight ponderously, and the stare of the china-blue eyes met steadily the half-startled eyes of the girl. "Yah, Ay seen das all right. Dem Injuns dey awful drunk das night and MacNair he come 'long and schlap dem and kick dem 'round. But das gude for dem. Dey got it comin'. Dey should not ought to drink Lapierre's vhiskey."
"Lapierre's whiskey!" cried the girl. "Are you crazy?"
"Naw, Ay tank Ay ain't so crazy. Lapierre he fool ju long tam'."
"What do you mean," asked Chloe.
"Ah, das a'right," answered the woman. "He fool ju gude, but he ain't fool Big Lena. Ay know all about him for a jear."
"But," pursued the girl, "Lapierre was with us that night!"
Lena shrugged. "Yah, Lapierre very smart. He send LeFroy 'long wit' das vhiskey. Den v'en he know MacNair's Injuns git awful drunk, he tak' ju 'long for see it."
"LeFroy!" cried Chloe. "Why, LeFroy was off to the eastward trying to run down some whiskey-runners."
Big Lena laughed derisively. "How ju fin' out?" she asked.
Chloe hesitated. "Why—why, Lapierre told me."
Again Big Lena laughed. "Yah, Lapierre tal ju, but, LeFroy, he don't know nuthin' 'bout no vhiskey-runners. Only him and Lapierre dos all de vhiskey-running in dis country. LeFroy, he tal me all 'bout das. He tak' das vhiskey up dere and he sell it to MacNair's Injuns, and MacNair shoot after him and kill two LeFroy's men. Ay goin' marry LeFroy, and he tal me de trut'. He 'fraid to lie to me, or Ay break him in two. LeFroy, he bane gude man now, he quit Lapierre. Ju bet ju if he don't bane gude Ay gif him haal. Ay tal him it bane gude t'ing if MacNair kill him das night.
"Den MacNair come on de school and brung de policeman, LeFroy he 'fraid for scart, and he goin' hide in de kitchen, and Ay drag him out and brung him 'long to see MacNair. LeFroy, he 'fraid lak' haal. He squeal MacNair goin' kill him. But Ay tal him das ain't much loss annyhow. If he goin' kill him it's besser he kill him now, den Ay ain't got to bodder wit' him no more. But MacNair, he don't kill him. Ay tal him LeFroy goin' to be gude man now, and den MacNair he laugh, and tal LeFroy to go 'long and git out de grub."
"But," cried Chloe, "you say you have known all about Lapierre for a year, and you knew all the time that MacNair was right, and Lapierre was wrong, and you let me go blindly on thinking Lapierre was my friend, and treating MacNair as I did! Why didn't you tell me?"
"Ju got yoost so manny eyes lak' me!" retorted the woman. "Ju neffer ask me vat Ay tank 'bout MacNair and 'bout Lapierre. And Ay neffer tal ju das 'cause Ay tank it besser ju fin' out yourself. Ay know ju got to fin' das out sometam'. Den ju believe it. Ju know lot 'bout vat stands in de books, but das mos' lak' MacNair say: 'bout lot t'ing, you damn fool!"
Chloe gasped. It was the longest speech Big Lena had ever made. And the girl learned that when the big woman chose she could speak straight from the shoulder.
Harriet Penny gasped also. She pushed back her chair, and shook an outraged finger at Big Lena. "Go into the kitchen where you belong!" she cried. "I really cannot permit such language in my presence. You are unspeakably coarse!"
Chloe whirled on the little woman like a flash. "You shut up, Hat Penny!" she snapped savagely. "You don't happen to do the permitting around here. If your ears are too delicate to listen to the truth you better go into your own room and shut the door." And then crossing swiftly to her own room, she opened the door, but before entering she turned to Big Lena, "Make a pot of strong coffee," she ordered, "and bring it to me here."
A few minutes later when the woman entered and deposited the tray containing coffee-pot, cream-pitcher, and sugar-bowl upon the table, she found Chloe striding up and down the room. There was a new light in the girl's eyes, and, very much to Big Lena's surprise, she turned suddenly upon her and throwing her arms about the massive shoulders, planted a kiss squarely upon the wide, flat mouth.
"Ah, Lena," she cried, happily, "you—you are a dear!" And the Swedish woman, with unexpected gentleness, patted the girl's shoulder, and as she passed out of the door smiled broadly.
For an hour Chloe paced up and down the little room. At first she could scarcely bring herself to realize that the two men, MacNair and Lapierre, had changed places. She remembered that in that very room she had more than once pictured that very thing. As the conviction grew upon her, her pulse quickened. Never before had she been so supremely—so wildly happy. There was a strange barbaric singing in her heart, as for the first time she saw MacNair—the real MacNair at his true worth. MacNair, the big man, the really great man, strong and brave, alone in the North fighting, night and day, against the snarling wolves of the world-waste. Fighting for the good of his Indians and the right of things as they should be.
Her mind dwelt upon the fine courage and the patience of him. She recalled the hurt look in his eyes when she ordered his arrest. She remembered his words to the officer—words of kindly apology for her own blind folly. She penetrated the rough exterior, and read the real gentleness of his soul. And then, with a shame and mortification that almost overwhelmed her, she saw herself as she must appear to him. She recollected how she had accused him, had sneered at him, had called him a liar and a thief, a murderer, and worse.
Tears streamed unheeded from her eyes as she recalled the unconscious pathos of his words as he stood beside his mother's grave. And the look of reproach with which he sank, to the ground when Lapierre's bullet laid him low. Her heart thrilled at the memory of the blazing wrath of him, the cold gleam of his eyes, the wicked snap of his iron jaw, as he said, "I have taken the man-trail!" She remembered the words he had once spoken: "When you have learned the North, we shall be friends." She wondered now if possibly this thing could ever be? Had she learned the North? Could she ever atone in his eyes for her cocksureness, her blind egotism?
Chloe quickened her pace, as if to walk away and leave these things behind. How she hated herself! It seemed to her, in her shame and mortification, that she could never look into this man's eyes again. Her glance strayed to the portrait of Tiger Elliston that stared down at her from its bullet-shattered frame upon the wall. The eyes of the portrait seemed to bore deep into her own, and the words of MacNair flashed through her brain—the words he had used as he gazed into the eyes of that selfsame portrait.
Unconsciously—fiercely she repeated those words aloud: "By God! Yon is the face of a man!" She started at the sound of her own voice. And then, like liquid flame, it seemed to the girl the blood of Tiger Elliston seethed and boiled in her veins—spurring her on to do!
"Do what?" she questioned. "What was there left to do, for one who had blundered so miserably?"
Like a flash came the answer. She had done MacNair a great wrong. She must right that wrong, or at least admit it. She must own her error and offer an apology.
Seating herself at the table, she seized a pen and wrote rapidly for a long, long time. And then for a long time more she sat buried in thought, and at the end of an hour she arose and tore up the pages she had written, and sat down again and penned another letter which she placed in an envelope addressed with the name of MacNair. This done she took the letter, tiptoed across the living-room, and pushing open the Louchoux girl's door entered and seated herself upon the edge of the bed. The Indian girl was wide awake. A brown hand stole from beneath the covers and clasped reassuringly about Chloe's fingers.
She handed the girl the letter.
"I can trust you," she said, "to place this in MacNair's hands. Go to sleep now, I will talk further with you tomorrow." And with a hurried good-night, Chloe returned to her own room.
She blew out the lamp and threw herself fully dressed upon the bed. Sleep would not come. She stared long at the little patch of moonlight that showed upon the bare floor. She tried to think, but her heart was filled with a strange restlessness. Arising from the bed, she crossed to the window and stared out across the moonlit clearing toward the dark edge of the forest—the mysterious forest whose depths seemed black with sinister mystery—whose trees bed-coned, stretching out their branches like arms.
A strange restlessness came over her. The confines of the little room seemed smothering—crushing her. Crossing to the row of pegs she drew on her parka and heavy mittens, and tiptoeing to the outer door, passed out into the night, crossed the moonlit clearing, and stepped half-fearfully into the deep shadow of the forest—to the call of the beckoning arms.
As her form was swallowed up in the blackness, another form—a gigantic figure that bore clutched in the grasp of a capable hand the helve of an ax, upon the polished steel of whose double-bitted blade the moonbeams gleamed cruelly—slipped from the door of the kitchen and followed swiftly in the wake of the girl. Big Lena was taking no chances.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE WOLF-CRY!
So sudden and unexpected had been Lapierre's dénouement at the hands of the Indian girl and Big Lena, that when he quitted Chloe Elliston's living-room the one thought in his mind was to return to his stronghold on Lac du Mort. For the first time the real seriousness of his situation forced itself upon him. He knew that no accident had brought the officer of the Mounted to the Lac du Mort stronghold in company with Bob MacNair, and he realized the utter futility of attempting an escape to the outside, since the shooting of the officer at the very walls of the stockade.
As the husband of Chloe Elliston, the thing might have been accomplished. But alone or in company with the half-dozen outlaws who had accompanied him to the school, never. There was but one course open to him: To return to Lac du Mort and make a stand against the authorities and against MacNair. And the fact that the man realized in all probability it would be his last stand, was borne to the understanding of the men who accompanied him.
These men knew nothing of the reason for Lapierre's trip to the school, but they were not slow to perceive that whatever the reason was, Lapierre had failed in its accomplishment. For they knew Lapierre as a man who rarely lost his temper.
They knew him as one equal to any emergency—one who would shoot a man down in cold blood for disobeying an order or relaxing vigilance, but who would shoot with a smile rather than a frown.
Thus when Lapierre joined them in their camp at the edge of the clearing, and with a torrent of unreasoning curses ordered the dogs harnessed and the outfit got under way for Lac du Mort, they knew their cause was at best a forlorn hope.
Darkness overtook them and they camped to await the rising of the late moon. While the men prepared the supper, Lapierre glowered upon his sled by the fire, occasionally leaping to his feet to stamp impatiently up and down upon the snow. The leader spoke no word and none ventured to address him. The meal was eaten in silence. At its conclusion the men took heart and sprang eagerly to obey an order—the order puzzled them not a little, but no man questioned it. For the command came crisp and sharp, and without profanity, in a voice they well knew. Lapierre was himself again, and his black eyes gleamed wickedly as he rolled a cigarette by the light of the rising moon.
The dogs were whirled upon the back-trail, and once more the outfit headed for the school upon the bank of the Yellow Knife. It was well toward midnight when Lapierre called a halt. They were close to the edge of the clearing. Leaving one man with the dogs and motioning the others to follow, he stole noiselessly from tree to tree until the dull square of light that glowed from the window of Chloe Elliston's room showed distinctly through the interlacing branches. The quarters of the Indians were shrouded in darkness. For a long time Lapierre stood staring at the little square of light, while his men, motionless as statues, blended into the shadows of the trees. The light was extinguished. The quarter-breed moved to the edge of the clearing and, seating himself upon the root of a gnarled banskian, rapidly outlined his plan.
Suddenly his form stiffened and he drew close against the trunk of his tree, motioning the others to do likewise. The door of the cottage had opened. A parka-clad figure stepped from the little veranda, paused uncertainly in the moonlight, and then, with light, swinging strides, moved directly toward the banskian. Lapierre's pulse quickened, and his lips twisted into an evil smile. That the figure was none other than Chloe Elliston was easily discernible in the bright moonlight, and with fiendish satisfaction the quarter-breed realized that the girl was playing directly into his hands. For, as he sat upon the sled beside the little camp-fire, his active brain had evolved a new scheme. If Chloe Elliston could not be made to accompany him willingly, why not unwillingly?
Lapierre believed that once safely entrenched behind the barriers of the Bastile du Mort, he could hold out for a matter of six months against any forces which were likely to attack him. He realized that his most serious danger was from MacNair and his Indians. For Lapierre knew MacNair. He knew that once upon his trail, MacNair would relentlessly stick to that trail—the trail that must end at a grave—many graves, in fact. For as the forces stood, Lapierre knew that many men must die, and bitterly he cursed LeFroy for disclosing to MacNair the whereabouts of the Mausers concealed in the storehouse.
The inevitable attack of the Mounted he knew would come later. For the man knew their methods. He knew that a small detachment, one officer, or perhaps two, would appear before the barricade and demand his surrender, and when surrender was refused, a report would go in to headquarters, and after that—Lapierre shrugged—well, that was a problem of tomorrow. In the meantime, if he held Chloe Elliston prisoner under threat of death, it was highly probable that he could deal to advantage with MacNair, and, at the proper time, with the Mounted. If not—Voilà! It was a fight to the death, anyway. And again Lapierre shrugged.
Nearer and nearer drew the unsuspecting figure of the girl. The man noted the haughty, almost arrogant beauty of her, as the moonlight played upon the firm resolute features, framed by the oval of her parka-hood. The next instant she paused in the shadow of his banskian, almost at his side. Lapierre sprang to his feet and stood facing her there in the snow. The smile of the thin lips hardened as he noted the sudden pallor of her face and the look of wild terror that flashed for a moment from her eyes. And then, almost on the instant, the girl's eyes narrowed, the firm white chin thrust forward, and the red lips curled into a sneer of infinite loathing and contempt. Instinctively, Lapierre knew that the hands within the heavy mittens had clenched into fighting fists. For an instant she faced him, and then, drawing away as if he were some grizzly, loathsome thing poisoning the air he breathed, she spoke. Her voice trembled with the fury of her words, and Lapierre winced to the lash of a woman's scorn.
"You—you dog!" she cried. "You dirty, low-lived cur! How dare you stand there grinning? How dare you show your face? Oh, if I were a man I would—I would strangle the life from your vile, sneaking body with my two hands!"
The words ended in a stifled cry. With a snarl, Lapierre sprang upon her, pinning her arms to her side. The next instant before his eyes loomed the form of Big Lena, who leaped toward him with upraised ax swung high. In the excitement of the moment, the man had not noted her approach. With a swift movement he succeeded in forcing the body of the girl between himself and the up-raised blade.
With a shrill cry of rage Lena dropped the ax and rushed to a grip. Sounded then a sickening thud, and the huge woman pitched face downward into the snow, while behind her one of Lapierre's outlaws tossed a heavy club into the bush and rushed to the assistance of his chief. The others came, and with incredible rapidity Chloe Elliston was gagged and bound hand and foot, and the men were carrying her to the waiting sled.
For a moment Lapierre hesitated, gazing longingly toward the cottage as he debated in his mind the advisability of rushing across the clearing and settling his score with Mary, the Louchoux girl, whose unexpected appearance had turned the tide so strongly against him.
"Better let well enough alone!" he growled savagely. "I must reach Lac du Mort ahead of MacNair." And he turned with a curse from the clearing to see an outlaw, with knife unsheathed, stooping over the unconscious form of Big Lena. The quarter-breed kicked the knife from the man's hand.
"Bring her along!" he ordered gruffly. "I will attend to her later." And, despite the hurt of his bruised fingers, the man grinned as he noted the venomous gleam in the leader's eye. For not only was Lapierre thinking of the proselyting of LeFroy, who had been his most trusted lieutenant, but of his own disarming, and the meaning stare of the fishlike eyes that had prompted him to abandon his attempt to poison MacNair when wounded in Chloe Elusion's room.