CHAPTER XIII
Donald Tastes Defeat
The picnic party, laughing and shouting, a gaily colored procession as it streamed across the great, green clearing, left at eleven o'clock. From a window Donald watched it depart in a fleet of huge freight canoes manned by a score of Indians and half-breeds.
He was still torn with the strain of his visit to the Layard home, the tumult of reawakened emotions, and now with this joyous scene before him and the deserted assembly room of "Bachelors' Hall" at his back there was pictured more vividly than in any of his brooding visions of the winter exactly what life held for him. Janet was there in that gay crowd, and Evelyn and Merton, Sandy Hay and Nicol MacKar and Harry Milner, all the post managers, Millington among them, and all the apprentice clerks and the people of the missions.
Gayety and laughter in their hearts, no black shadows hovering in the background, these people would always parade thus before him while he watched from dark corners. They had accepted him, had made him feel one of them, and then because he had dared to put forth his hand the invisible and unsurmountable barrier had been raised.
It was the moment of his greatest bitterness. Never had Nee-tah-wee-gan's prophecy flashed into his mind with such blinding, scorching significance, never had despair gripped him with such crushing, numbing force. He saw himself an outcast forever, destined to go on through solitary, dismal years without hope, without a future elevated in any way above the despairful present.
For a long time after the picnic party left Donald sat at the window. Mrs. Jamison's social activities had practically depopulated Fort Bruce that afternoon. He even remembered that only the half-breed and Indian employes were left, that like them he was cut off from all close association with what he had once believed was his own.
This thought remained with him throughout luncheon and afterwards as he again sat at the window and looked across the great enclosure, waiting until he saw John Corrigal walking from the dwelling house to his office.
At once Donald recalled their three days together at Fort James the previous winter, how he had caught a glimpse of the lonely soul of this man, and there came to him again that feeling of a kinship of spirit. Here, he knew, was one who had fought through to success despite a great and gnawing emptiness and in his desperation and loneliness he longed to talk to him, to derive if possible some shred of inspiration. He arose and walked quickly to the district office.
Corrigal was seated at his desk and he looked up in surprise when he saw Donald enter.
"I thought everyone had gone for the day," he said. "But I wanted to see you, Norton. I have just read your reports."
It was not what Donald had come for. The anguish in his own heart cried out for something that he felt this man could give.
"You have fallen off more this year than last," Corrigal continued. "What's the reason?"
"I can't tell you until——" Donald began.
"Can't tell me!" Corrigal interrupted sharply. "Do you mean to say that this has been going on for two years and you haven't stopped it or found out who is doing it?"
"I have known from the first who was doing it but——" Donald began.
"What! And you have let the company lose ten thousand dollars' worth of fur because you haven't acted?"
Donald was about to retort that the company had lost nothing, but he saw that Corrigal's sharp questions and his own short answers were leading in the wrong direction. For a moment he was silent as he considered what he should do. He had wanted to have Millington present when he made his charges and presented his proof. It was not only fair but it would be more conclusive. Further, his brigade had not arrived and his witnesses were with it.
But that momentary silence was fatal. When Corrigal left Fort James the previous winter he had decided that he would not act in Donald's case until he had learned how the fur raids were handled. He had been amazed by what he had seen of Donald's competency but his policy in regard to men of mixed blood had not been changed.
After leaving Fort James he had written to Millington, telling him what was happening and instructing him to keep a sharp watch on Collinge and report anything that indicated the sending of trippers outside the territory. Millington, quick to see his opportunity, had made a convincing and detailed statement of raids by Philip's trippers and as soon as Corrigal had glanced over the Fort James statements he knew how he would act. For him the matter had been settled automatically.
Thus, while his decision had already been reached, a sense of fairness had demanded that Donald be permitted to explain. But the young man's answers to questions, which he construed as being evasive, and now his silence, served only to confirm Corrigal's opinion.
"Norton!" he exclaimed with sudden passion, "you've sold out the Hudson's Bay! To help this squaw man, this weakling who isn't able to handle even his own private affairs, you've let him raid your territory, get fur that should go to the company and demoralize faithful hunters.
"It's the most astounding thing I ever heard of. What happened while you were at Whitefish Lake, I don't know. I do know what has been happening at Fort James for the last two years. It's nothing less than theft. The company has done everything for you, and if there were an ounce of gratitude or of decency in you, you could not have done this."
Donald forgot Millington and his own defense, forgot the bitterness and the anguish that had sent him to Corrigal's office. He knew only that after years of faithful service he had been accused of disloyalty to the Hudson's Bay Company—to the one thing in the world to which he could cling—and he was conscious of nothing except a consuming anger. He strode forward to the desk and leaned across it.
"You lie!" he cried. "No man can say that to me."
"Never mind the heroics," Corrigal said coldly. "They don't count. Nothing counts but the fur receipts and protection of the company's interests. I am satisfied that you have failed in both."
Donald recognized instantly what he faced—what he had faced since Corrigal's coming. Proof of Millington's duplicity became a minor matter. He felt that this man had planned from the first to oust him because of a prejudice.
"That's not what counts!" he cried savagely. "The only thing that counts with you is the question of my parentage."
Corrigal straightened in his chair.
"That will do!" he shouted. "I have been fair with you. I gave you a chance to prove yourself and you haven't done it. You are relieved of the managership of Fort James and Millington will take your place. He will end the difficulty there without trouble and without delay.
"And you can start to Winnipeg at once. I will give you a letter to the commissioner. He will send you to whichever district he sees fit, if he retains you in the service. That is all."
For a moment Donald was too stunned to speak or move. Gradually he understood that he had been deposed as a post manager in the Fort Bruce district, that he was to go out to Winnipeg under a cloud, that, discredited and distrusted, he would be sent to some lonely, distant spot, perhaps far down the Mackenzie River, among strange people, among strange Indians whose language and ways he did not know.
His thoughts flashed back to the time when he had talked to Merton Layard across the counter in the Kenogami trade shop, to the dream that had come to him in his fasting wigwam, to the prophecy Nee-tah-wee-gan had uttered. They swept on through the years of struggle and growing success, to the wonderful expanding years with Philip, to the coming of Janet.
Donald knew he had been successful, that he had been a faithful, efficient servant of the Hudson's Bay. He never had denied that Nee-tah-wee-gan was his mother, had never tried to hide that fact, and yet now, even when the Layards and Corrigal had turned against him, when he knew defeat was due solely to the blind prejudice of these three, he was more certain than ever that he was all white. He felt it. In that moment the thing he had dreamed became real.
Courage returned in a rushing flood. It brought coolness and an understanding of the situation. He even found time to extract a grim humor from it, for he was confident that once he had presented his case to Corrigal he would be reinstated at Fort James and his integrity and efficiency established. He remembered, too, how he had bested the district manager during those three storm-bound days and he knew he could do so again.
"Am I to understand that you are throwing me out of this district?" he asked quietly.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I've told you. You have been more than negligent. You have defrauded the company to help a free trader—this renegade friend of yours."
The contempt in Corrigal's tone threw Donald off his balance and drove him to passionate revolt.
"You know that's a lie!" he cried. "You know it is only an excuse. You know you are not capable of fairness. You know I can explain when my brigade gets in and I have the man who really is to blame here to face me. You know one of your idols will fall when I do explain. But most of all you are trying to ruin me for the simple reason that my mother's name isn't Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Brown or Mrs. Mac-something-or-other but just plain Nee-tah-wee-gan."
Corrigal had started to rise from his chair, his face white with anger, but at the mention of that last name he sank back and stared. Donald, gathering himself for a fresh onslaught, for his rage had been released at last, was about to rush on when Corrigal spoke.
"Nee-tah-wee-gan?"
He said it slowly as if a sudden thought, vague but compelling, had come to him. Donald saw the change in expression and his own thoughts rushed back to his boyhood in Pe-tah-bo's wigwam. He remembered how the hunter had often joked Nee-tah-wee-gan about his unknown father, he remembered the names mentioned and suddenly it occurred to him that among them was that of Corrigal.
"Yes!" he cried. "Nee-tah-wee-gan! You knew her here at Fort Bruce. Thirty years or more ago, before I was——"
He stopped. Anger had driven him to what he had said, blindly and heedlessly, and then his own words became revealing.
"So it was you!"
He could not speak above a whisper, so astounded was he by the thought, and then a rage more compelling than any he had ever known swept over him.
"You!" he cried hoarsely. "You, the man who has no faith in a half-breed! You, the righteous servant of the Hudson's Bay! You, who would kick a man to hell because his mother was a squaw, and all the time it was you, you who are responsible, you who are my father!"
The very ferocity of Donald's attack had driven Corrigal back but the last words brought him to his feet.
"That is not true!" he shouted. "I knew the Indian would show in you sometime. It always does. But you can't beat me that way. You can't blackmail me into keeping you. I'm not your father and you can't make anyone believe——"
He faltered in the last four words and then stopped, for he saw what he faced. Corrigal had always been a fighter, but in Donald's charge he recognized something he could never fight, something that would rise against him like a thick mist, elusive and unescapable, and his voice had betrayed his fear.
Donald instantly accepted it as an admission.
"Don't make a mistake, Corrigal," he retorted contemptuously. "No one will ever hear of it through me. Do you think I would boast that I am your son? Do you think I would take any pride in claiming you as a father? I'm only thankful it isn't known. Though Nee-tah-wee-gan is my mother, I never made an excuse or tried to evade the fact. I saw that I had to forget parentage and stand on my own two feet. I felt white and I considered myself so.
"And I won out. Duncan Mactavish knew I was a faithful servant of the company. Others knew it. I know I am a good post manager. My record proves it. And until this moment I have gone through life without shame or regret. But to claim you as a father! You, a hypocrite, a liar, a coward! You——"
He stopped, choked by anger, and in that moment of blind passion he thought only of vengeance.
"I know what you are now!" he rushed on. "You've fooled the north but you won't much longer. If I never do anything else so long as I live I'll show fur land exactly what you are. I haven't anything else to do—nothing else to live for. You are responsible for my being born. You have no one else to blame for the manner in which I am going to make you pay."
He turned abruptly and rushed from the office. Once outside he started across to "Bachelors' Hall" but a dry, cackling chuckle stopped him. He whirled to see Nee-tah-wee-gan huddled against the building.
Donald started back toward her. He had been certain Corrigal was his father and then the very desire that it be not true compelled the question he had never asked.
"Who was my father?" he demanded in Ojibwa.
Nee-tah-wee-gan stared inscrutably and he turned away.
"Did you think it was the 'big trader'?" she called after him.
"Do you mean it was Corrigal?"
Her black eyes glittered and then a cracked and twisted smile spread over her ugly face. With a sweeping gesture she drew her shawl over her head. Donald saw her shoulders shake and then, sick, beaten, he stumbled blindly toward "Bachelors' Hall."
He had gone only a little way when he heard the familiar hiss: "Keen nish-e-na-be!"