CHAPTER IX
Corrigal Drives His Men
Before Donald had been gone an hour all Fort Bruce was buzzing with the possible reasons for his sudden departure. In "Bachelors' Hall" post managers and apprentice clerks spoke of it in subdued tones. They realized that the subject touched their own problems very closely, that it was an indication of what they might expect from this new, cold, driving, ruthless superior who had come to take the place of kindly, understanding old Duncan Mactavish.
Nicol MacKar knew Corrigal had sent for Donald and that immediately after the interview the young man had made his preparations for departure, and because Nicol himself had never made a conspicuous success as a post manager he related what he had seen with more or less perturbation.
"Good Lord!" Sandy Hay of Kenogami exclaimed. "If he's riding Donald, what can the rest of us expect? The only thing that makes me feel at all safe is the fact that there is no opposition at Kenogami."
"There is no reason to fear Corrigal," Millington declared confidently. "You'll like him after you get to know him. As I told you when I saw him coming, there's just one thing he asks, 'Get the fur.'"
"If Donald Norton can't get it, no one in the district can," Sandy retorted.
"Perhaps," Millington agreed indifferently. Then he added slowly, "And perhaps he's blown up."
Sandy glanced quickly at the young Englishman. He had sensed this antagonism long before and because he was a fur trader and accustomed both to see and to feel, several significant episodes had not escaped him that summer.
"Be careful that when he does blow up it isn't under you," he warned. "And Corrigal will discover there's dynamite in that lad, too. I'll back Donald."
Millington grinned and Sandy added significantly: "In anything."
It chanced that Millington had called at the Layard home the previous afternoon before Evelyn had recovered from her trying interview with Donald and he had made a very shrewd guess as to what had happened. He knew, too, what the memory of such a blow as Donald had received would do during a long, lonely, brooding winter. He felt that he had cleverly pulled the props from under Donald's dreams.
"Don't risk any money, Sandy," he advised.
"Corrigal's a fool!" Sandy snapped.
"He's not a sentimentalist," Millington answered as he walked out. "Remember what I told you. There wasn't a half-breed post manager in the Saskatchewan district."
"You know, if it weren't for little things like that I'd never remember that Donald has an Indian mother," drawled Harry Milner of Lynx Head Falls post.
"Yes, and Millington's the only one who ever does remember it," Sandy growled.
An apprentice clerk appeared in the doorway and surveyed the assembled post managers with an impish grin.
"Mr. John Corrigal, lord high ruler of Fort Bruce and its people," he began with exaggerated formality, "has commanded the presence of——"
He stopped and began to search through a bundle of papers, casting sly, delighted glances at the perturbed group before him.
"The presence of——"
"Out with it, you brat!" Sandy shouted. "Who does he want now?"
"Mr. Alexander Hay, immediately, in the throne room."
The others laughed as Sandy started to his feet.
"I'll get your things packed so you won't lose any time," Harry Milner offered.
"And I'll look up your canoemen for you," Nicol MacKar added.
It was thus that the subject of Donald's departure received a general application and Donald himself only brief consideration in the minds of the other post managers. No one else was hurried away, but men who had pursued the old ways for a lifetime suddenly found themselves face to face with a new situation, under the sway of a man who thought only of fur.
So long as they remained at Fort Bruce Corrigal spent every available minute helping them plan the winter's campaign and inciting them to increased effort. They departed for the long months alone with the feeling that they were being driven, not led, and they missed the kindly, understanding spirit of Duncan Mactavish—that sympathy which lonely men should have if they are to remain loyal.
It was this that drove Donald from their minds, robbed him of their compassion. Merton Layard alone retained a feeling of resentment which grew until it finally drove him to expression.
"Look here, John," he burst forth one day in the district manager's office, "you're making a big mistake with Donald Norton."
"Mistake?" Corrigal repeated coldly.
"Of course it's a mistake. If you'd taken the trouble to inquire, or look over the records, you'd have seen he's the best fur buyer in this district. What sort of work do you think he's going to do when you send him out as you did?"
"I expect he's going to show himself to be exactly what he is—a half-breed."
"That's all rot. There's nothing of the half-breed in him."
"His mother's a squaw and that's enough for me."
"Then all I've got to say is that you're acting like a bigoted fool."
Corrigal started from his chair but before he could speak Merton rushed on.
"I don't know what's happened to you. We were apprentice clerks together. You were a warm-hearted, altogether likable chap. Everyone was your friend. Now you turn up here as hard and cold as ice. I don't know whether it's a pose or what, but I'm going to tell you now that you've a fair start toward wrecking this district."
"That's enough, Layard," Corrigal interrupted harshly. "So long as I'm head of this district I'm responsible to the company alone and I choose my own course. You and the rest of the men may as well understand now that this sentimental rubbish doesn't go. Nothing counts but results."
"Exactly!" Merton exclaimed. "And you'll learn that without sentiment you can't succeed. You ought to know it. You've been with the company long enough. The trouble with you is that something's died in you."
Corrigal was leaning across his desk, tense with anger, but with the last words he suddenly sank back and there was a flash of pain in his eyes.
Merton knew what it meant. He knew this man had tried to drown his sorrow in work, that ever since the death of his wife and son he had submerged himself in the ceaseless combing of a huge kingdom for pelts.
All fur land knew Corrigal's story. After tragedy had wiped his life clean of all other interests, he had consecrated himself to the great company, living it, breathing it, becoming the Hudson's Bay itself, yet far more impersonal and coldly efficient than the great organization he served.
Though more than fifty years old the onerous life of the winter trails held no terrors for him. He traveled constantly, supervising the work of his managers, devising new ways to rout the opposition and always, in his office, in distant posts, at a lowly hunter's wigwam, thinking, thinking of nothing but fur.
Layard knew all this but his own anger was great.
"Don't you suppose the men in this district understand?" he demanded. "They're truly loyal to the company. You think you are, but they don't think so. They sense something else in you, sense that you've made a heartless machine of yourself, and they know Donald is a victim of prejudice and of nothing else."
"Now that we're back to the point of the discussion," Corrigal said coldly, "I'll tell you exactly why I acted as I did with Norton. The Fort James fur receipts were dropping. He admitted to me that someone raided his territory on the western side and that he did nothing to stop it."
"I won't believe that of him."
"No? And who is on the western side, in a position to do it, and who would he permit to operate unopposed? No one but that squaw man friend of his, Collinge."
Though he did not believe this, Layard was too astonished to protest.
"Let me tell you something," Corrigal continued. "I have no prejudice against Norton, no animosity. But I do know, after years of observation of the half-breed, that sometime, in some crisis, the red blood will predominate. I'm not alone in this. The company feels it and so long as I'm in charge of this district the interests of the Hudson's Bay will not be jeopardized because of sentiment.
"But I've given Norton his chance—another year to make good, though I haven't much hope. There's always a breaking point with a half-breed. A top, no matter how fast it may spin, ultimately will topple. In Norton's actions I have found a characteristic wobbling."
Layard was silent for a moment. He couldn't understand, couldn't imagine Donald letting anyone get fur from the company, but his faith rallied.
"I don't know what's been happening at Fort James," he said at last, "but I do know Donald and that such a thing as you suspect is impossible. But if you're as impersonal as you claim, you'll give him a chance to prove you're wrong." With this he stalked out of Corrigal's office.
Layard did not talk to Corrigal on the subject again. He determined to wait until the next summer when Donald returned and then warn him of Corrigal's attitude.
Meanwhile the district manager was waiting impatiently for the first ice. Early in January he arrived unexpectedly at Whitefish Lake but Millington, knowing his habits, was ready for him. Books, monthly statements, the trade shop, everything was in excellent shape. Millington was a clever fur trader. In the fall he had engineered a coup which had caught Philip Collinge napping and he was exuberant over the prospects of a record winter.
Corrigal remained only a day. He had confidence in Millington's ability and a quick survey told him that everything was going well. The morning of his departure he went to the trade shop, where Millington had gone to see a hunter. As he waited for his half-breed drivers to bring the dog teams to the door, Nee-tah-wee-gan entered.
The district manager was leaning against the counter studying the shelves and gave her scant attention. She was just an old Indian woman, thin, bent, apparently feeble. Her head was wrapped in a shawl that half hid her face.
But Millington, glancing up from the fur he was grading, was held by the light in her eyes. He knew she was venomous and he had often teased her into outbursts of rage but never had he seen such hatred blaze from human eyes as she now directed at the back of the unconscious district manager. It fascinated him, but his quick mind was instantly alert. Then he heard the tinkling of dog bells and the shouts of drivers and Corrigal thrust out his hand.
"Good-by," he said. "I want to get to Fort James as quickly as possible. Don't know whether I'll be back this winter or not."
Millington leaped over the counter and followed him outside.
"Did you see that old woman in the shop?" he asked, as he helped tuck the robes about his superior in the gaudily decorated cariole.
"Didn't notice her. Why?"
"She's Norton's mother."
"Oh, yes. Still lives here, eh?"
"Seven years now. I don't know why she didn't go on to Fort James with him."
"Are her rations still charged to his account?"
"Of course."
Corrigal nodded to the drivers, they cried "march-on!" and the two teams dashed down to the ice.
Millington watched them for a moment and then turned back to the trade shop. Directly in front of him, looking out of a window, was Nee-tah-wee-gan. But she did not seem to see him. Her eyes were turned toward the departing dog teams and Millington shivered in the light of the hatred they expressed.
He went on into the store. The hunter had gone outside to witness in awed silence the departure of the supreme ruler of his world. Nee-tah-wee-gan had not moved from the window.
"You don't seem to like the new chief," Millington said in Ojibwa.
"It is John Corrigal?" she demanded in a low voice.
"Yes, John Corrigal. He is a great man."
Nee-tah-wee-gan made a frightful grimace and turned again to the window. Millington, always quick to gather impressions, looked at her sharply. Just then the door opened and the hunter entered. The trader waved him out with a frown and the door closed again.
"You knew Corrigal when he was at Fort James," Millington said.
Nee-tah-wee-gan did not indicate that she had heard.
"Perhaps you knew him at Fort Bruce, too," he continued, suddenly recalling idle gossip he had heard several years before.
Again she ignored him.
"Corrigal is a great chief," he said. "He has been a great chief in the company for many years. But he does not sit at Fort Bruce. All the time he is on the trails, visiting the posts. Now he is going to Fort James."
Nee-tah-wee-gan wheeled toward him and the venomous light no longer shone in her eyes. For the first time Millington saw them bright with joy but with a joy more diabolical than her hate had ever been.
"Now?" she demanded. "He goes to Fort James?"
She did not wait for his affirmation but burst into a peal of laughter that chilled him.
"It has come!" she shrieked. "It has come! For thirty years I have waited for that—for that and the rest that will follow."
Again she laughed, beating her thin, hollow chest as she did so, laughed until Millington, awed by her outburst, shivered and drew back.
"Tell me," Nee-tah-wee-gan demanded, "is it true what the hunters said when they came with the brigade, what your canoemen told us, that the 'big trader,' this new one, this John Corrigal, wants only white men to run his posts? Is it true that he does not trust an Indian?"
Millington nodded and again the woman burst into laughter. For a moment she swayed back and forth and then as if weakened by the excess of her diabolical mirth she sank to a heap on the floor. Millington, appalled by her actions, watched her in silence.
At last she looked up. Her laughter had ceased but her eyes were still bright with the fiendish joy.
"Then he will not have Wen-dah-ban run a post for him," she said. "He will hear Wen-dah-ban is the son of me, an Indian woman, and he will not want him. He will scorn him. He will tell him he is an Indian and no good. He will tell him to go back to his own people where he belongs."
She stopped, her eyes glowing, her body suddenly rigid, her bony hands clenched before her.
Millington leaned forward eagerly.
"Do you want Corrigal to drive him back to a wigwam?" he whispered.
Nee-tah-wee-gan, still staring, did not seem to hear.
"The 'big trader' will do that?" she cried suddenly. "He will do that to Wen-dah-ban, to his own son!"