CHAPTER XII
Donald Builds a Defense
Although Donald had failed to take advantage of the withdrawal of that hardened shell which had grown around the soul of John Corrigal, when the man and not the servant of the great company had been revealed, the visit of the district manager had helped him nevertheless, for it had shown him the way out.
Since his return from Fort Bruce Donald had been making a terrific struggle to effect a readjustment with life. Alone, crushed by the solitude, facing a future of ostracism and prejudice, he had often been on the verge of giving up the fight. So far as Janet was concerned, he had already reached a conclusion. From the moment he had read Evelyn's decision in her face that afternoon at Fort Bruce he had been hopeless.
That Janet might care, that she might be willing to disregard parental opinion, that love might sweep her past all obstacles, did not occur to him. In Donald's mind the whole question had resolved itself into a matter of race, not of individuals. He saw only a huge, unsurmountable barrier of fear, of blind, unjust, unreasoning prejudice, and he saw himself outside this barrier, the predestined and helpless victim of the situation, doomed to forego forever that which his heart most desired.
Now with this example of Corrigal—his life wiped clean of everything that was dear to him—who still had struggled on, filling the empty space with thoughts of the great company, making it mate and child and life itself to him, Donald saw that he could fight back his own brooding, devouring bitterness by using the energizing tonic of achievement as a weapon. Even Corrigal's lack of faith in men of mixed blood acted as a spur and he determined to prove that inherent impulses and desires count more than race.
He had sensed, too, that Corrigal's attitude toward him was not due to personal animosity but to a business policy and he felt certain that he could compel an admission of his ability and, in one field at least, could make his fasting dream come true. It was a task he owed that lonely boy who had come from Nee-tah-wee-gan's wigwam and had proclaimed so passionately to Merton Layard that he felt all white.
Yet Donald grasped most eagerly at the flimsiest straw of all. In that one moment of Corrigal's self-revelation he had glimpsed the possibility of a certain kinship of spirit. They were two lonely souls, destined to go on to the end without hope of happiness, and while Donald could not analyze his emotions he felt drawn to this man in an irresistible manner, sensing that somewhere was a common plane of understanding.
While Donald was lifted from despondency by this vague, spiritual force he was not left wholly without hatred. He was young and instinctively he sought to personify an emotion, to find an individual to represent the abstract thing, and that individual became Dale Millington. It was Millington who had tried to bar the way, who had gone to Corrigal with the story of Nee-tah-wee-gan and who, he strongly suspected, had had something to do with Evelyn Layard's sudden change of heart. Now it was Millington who attempted to discredit him as a fur man.
The Englishman's raids on his territory brought exultation rather than fear. Millington's very eagerness to accomplish his purpose was his greatest weakness, and Donald, seeing not only the opportunity to establish himself with the district manager but to discredit Millington, plunged confidently into the task of obtaining evidence.
He succeeded as he knew he would succeed. He lay hidden in a wigwam while a Whitefish Lake tripper bargained with the hunter. He heard a price forty per cent above the real value offered for fur. He heard the hunter, carefully coached, draw damaging admissions from Millington's employe, and among other pieces of fur which he saw change hands was one silver gray fox pelt that had been marked for identification.
Savagely exultant in his victory, Donald pressed the Fort James opposition harder than ever. All his knowledge of the Indian character and of the fur game, all the methods he had used in the past and new ones of his own devising, were employed against the Keewatin Company and in addition he brought to his task a fierceness and an aggressiveness he had never used before. That spirit which had carried him from his fasting wigwam swelled to a sterner and more compelling influence of his life.
Despite all he could do, however, the last bit of fur received in June failed to bring the Fort James total up to the usual mark. Millington had won more than Donald had been able to get from an already greatly weakened opposition. The final report showed a falling off slightly greater than the previous year.
This did not disturb Donald. He knew that in Corrigal's mind it would make Millington's offense the greater, and when at last he started for Fort Bruce he was confident he could prove his point even before a prejudiced tribunal. There was the marked fur which would be found in the Whitefish Lake bales. In a Fort James York boat crew were three hunters who had sold fur to a Whitefish Lake tripper and would testify to it.
To make his proof still more convincing, Donald went out of his way to stop at Whitefish Lake. Millington had already departed for Fort Bruce and it was an easy matter to loosen the tongue of the tripper who had made the raids. The man had been threatened with dismissal on a trumped-up charge and then had been kept on provided he would get fur from Fort James hunters and keep his mouth shut about it.
Philip Collinge was not at the Keewatin post but he had left a letter on the chance that Donald would come that way. In it was a brief account of Nee-tah-wee-gan's sudden departure from Whitefish Lake as soon as the ice went out.
"I haven't any proof," Philip wrote, "but all the gossip among the employes is to the effect that Millington drove her away. It is known that he was in the habit of visiting her quite often in her cabin and several times they were heard quarreling.
"I got in touch with Nee-tah-wee-gan before she left but she wouldn't talk. She always hated me, you know. Where she went, I have no idea. Some of the employes at the Bay saw her paddle away early one morning. Perhaps she went to Fort James and you know all about it ere this."
Donald gave little heed to this information. He ascribed Nee-tah-wee-gan's departure to Millington's general campaign against him and resumed his journey to Fort Bruce, arriving late one night. He went at once to "Bachelors' Hall" and to bed.
The next morning he was warmly greeted by the post managers and apprentice clerks. Millington was there but he offered nothing except a curt, "How are you, Norton?" and then turned to Sandy Hay.
"The Keewatin Company is on its last legs at Whitefish Lake," he said loudly. "Collinge won't be there long and I doubt if the company keeps up the post after another winter. My report shows the biggest business ever done, and let me tell you something, Sandy. If you want to get along well with John Corrigal, show an increase every year. It's all he thinks about."
"You mean you are getting more fur than Norton did when he was there?" Sandy demanded.
"It ran close to five thousand dollars more last winter."
"Then all I've got to say is that you went outside your territory to get it."
"I'm not a fool," Millington replied easily, though his glance shifted quickly to Donald, who was talking to several clerks. "Corrigal would never stand for a thing like that."
Donald heard but he did not indicate that he had. As soon as he could he left for the district office, taking his reports with him. Corrigal was busy with another post manager when he entered and only shook hands, accepted the reports and said that he would talk later. His manner was cordial though as impersonal as always.
From the district office Donald went at once to the Layard home. He knew he must see them, must see Janet, and he had determined to do so as early as possible and establish at once the basis upon which they could meet during his short stay at Fort Bruce.
He found it easier that he had expected, meeting only Evelyn and Merton, for Janet was not at home. There was a sincerity in their welcome despite most evident signs of strain. But the strain vanished when Donald's manner set them more at ease and Evelyn's eyes lighted as she realized that the crisis had been passed. Merton, man-like, tried to appear normal by plunging into a discussion of fur.
"I ought to warn you," he said after they had talked for a few minutes, "that Corrigal is prejudiced against you. He ascribes it to overconfidence, says that you've gone up too fast and are taking things easy now. He told me that the Fort James fur receipts fell off last year and that your mid-winter reports showed further decline."
"That is right," Donald answered quietly. "The receipts were still lower this year."
Both Merton and Evelyn started. They had come to know Corrigal quite thoroughly in the year he had been at Fort Bruce and immediately they feared the worst.
"I doubt if he'll send you back there," Merton said.
Donald smiled confidently and told them in detail what had happened, of the evidence he had gathered, of the case he would present to Corrigal as soon as his brigade arrived.
"Of course, I won't do it until I have Millington present," he concluded. "I have all the facts. He can't get out of it."
"Good!" Evelyn cried. "That will expose him for exactly what he is. And if I know Corrigal at all he'll not have any mercy for a man who uses the company in such a way."
"Millington has killed himself," Merton agreed. "I haven't——"
He stopped as Janet entered the room.
"Donald!" she exclaimed. "When did you come?"
There was no strain here, no effort to smooth over a crisis. Her eyes, her tense body, her heightened color, everything about her expressed undeniably her joy in seeing Donald and before that joy Donald found his carefully prepared defenses crumpling, discovered that the emotion he believed he had controlled was rising to overwhelm him.
Mechanically he arose and mechanically he held out his hand as she rushed forward to greet him. But when her soft fingers touched his, when he found her so close, her bright, eager face so near his own, all the fight went out of him. More completely than ever he was a victim of Janet's charm.
He tried to speak but no words came. His face flushed and he believed his very soul was exposed to those three. Then he heard Janet's voice, felt her handclasp loosen, understood that she had turned to a chair and sat down.
"You are just in time for the picnic," she said. "You must come. Practically everyone in Fort Bruce is going. Mrs. Jamison of the Methodist Mission arranged it and of course she will want you."
The thought came to Donald that this was one of the things he had determined not to do. He wanted to. He wondered if he could stay away.
"I am sorry," he said, and because he had forced himself to speak his voice was rather hard, "but I must see Corrigal this afternoon."
"Oh, but you will be here a month and there will be plenty of time to talk to him," Janet protested.
"Corrigal likes to do things in a hurry," Donald answered. "He made the appointment when I saw him a few minutes ago."
Janet did not press the matter. There was a coolness in Donald's manner, due to his effort to control himself, which rebuffed her. Her elation vanished.
"Very well," she said, and she turned to her mother. "You are going, aren't you, dear? Mrs. Jamison told me that you and father must come."
The conversation turned to other things. Donald spoke little. He seldom glanced toward Janet. He felt that he could not and as soon as possible he excused himself and went back to "Bachelors' Hall."