Gentlemen of the North/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
SUPERSTITION VERSUS RUM
FLAT MOUTH would not utter a word when I attempted to question him about the strange sound. I thought to betray him into some expression by making light of the incident and attributing it to some animal call. He smiled grimly and turned away from me. He knew that I knew no animal was ever heard in the Red River country to give voice to that peculiar cry.
The effect on the Crees was tremendous. Their expressed determination to fight the Chippewas and compel a return of the Voice was not repeated after White Buffalo called me to the gate to hear the wailing up the Pembina. They became meek and humble in bearing, and their leader pathetically explained:
"The new milk made us talk bad. We cannot fight against the Chippewa medicine. We only want to stay where we can hear the Voice."
For several nights I remained awake, hoping the phenomenon would be repeated. As nothing happened, the edge of my interest wore off and I became busy with the ordinary humdrum which occupies the attention of the bourgeois of a post, as the French called a manager. We turned the horses out to graze on the plains and fired the dead grass along the east bank of the river. Two skin canoes, loaded with beaten meat and a few skins, came down the Pembina from the hills hut. I sent back several kegs of mixed wine and orders for our man to keep the Indians there, to tell them they would get nothing to drink if they came to the post.
That the X. Y. was pursuing its silly policy of attempting to carry on trade without rum was again evidenced by the arrival of several small bands of Indians, Chippewas who were bringing their hunt to me although they had taken debts from the opposition. They denounced the X. Y. for refusing them liquor, and again I marvelled that Angus did not come to me and borrow a few kegs.
Then came the Rat with two prime packs of beaver. As he was still in the employ of the X. Y. I hesitated to trade, fearing he had stolen the skins, but they bore none of the MacKenzie marks, and finally I believed him when he insisted he was trading them in behalf of two tents of Crees who were afraid to visit me from fear of the Chippewas. And the Rat wanted rum.
I accommodated him and questioned him concerning affairs at the post. He was curiously silent; not a bit like his usual loquacious self. When he spoke it was to return evasive replies. To my pointblank query, "Isn't Angus planning to come here for liquor?" he replied—
"No, I don't think."
I next took up the Crees' fear of the Chippewas and demanded to know on what it was based. He shook his head. I decided they believed our Indians had stolen the Voice from Rivière Qu'Appelle, but as he did not touch on the subject, and as I was not anxious to have it revived, I held my tongue. I did say, however:
"Tell the Crees they are welcome here. No Chippewa will bother them when they bring in their hunt."
Presenting him with two quarts of liquor for bringing the trade, and a keg for the Crees, I saw the rascal to his canoe and was glad to be rid of him.
About the first of May old Tabashaw and seven other chiefs, including a Cree and two Assiniboins, descended upon me for their annual spring presents. I gave each a keg of liquor, a new coat, some red feathers and tobacco. The usual drinking match followed, keeping me busy for two days preventing murder. It was the Chippewas who seemed hungry for trouble, the others, especially the Crees, appearing to be cowed. Tabashaw, in particular, was in a mood to tickle the devil. Twice I took a knife away from him while a Cree sat with a bowed head, singing that he was not afraid to die.
This meek submission to a ranting scallywag like Tabashaw was not a bit like the Crees' ordinary behaviour and I could only attribute it to the theft of the Voice. However, although I kept with them and listened sharply to their words, I heard nothing said which would indicate the Chippewas felt they held any advantage in medicine. If the news of the Voice had penetrated the hills, none of my visitors revealed that fact. After the second day I drove the whole party back to the hills to finish their kegs and turned to stringing eighty fathoms of sturgeon net across the river. Flat Mouth, who was my helper on the opposite bank, ceased his labours and stared downstream. I turned my head and beheld two canoes, the clerk Angus occupying the first. The second held a figure heavily cloaked and with a capote drawn over the head.
I smiled grimly at Angus as he slowly paddled to the shore. He had been forced to come for the rum. If he had held off another month I would have cleaned up all the spring beaver in the department.
Angus jumped out, pulled up his canoe, turned and did a similar service for the second, and briefly announced—
"Miss Dearness, of the X. Y., come to talk with you."
With this astounding statement he walked rapidly towards the post, leaving me alone with the hooded figure.
More than one Northman had taken an Indian wife, and whenever Dearness's "woman" was mentioned I had taken it for granted that an Indian spouse was meant. Instead of his wife it was his daughter, the woman who had talked to me in three languages from behind the rawhide curtain at the X. Y. post. This discovery was so overwhelming that for a moment I forgot to be surprised at Dearness's departure without her.
"I am honoured," I began, bowing to her.
She threw back the capote, and I was stricken dumb at the revelation. Expecting to find a mixed blood, I could only stare foolishly at the clear skin, an English skin, and the glory of her red hair. There was no mistaking her being her father's daughter. For nearly a year I had seen only the coarse, greasy black hair of the Indians and the dishevelled locks of the few white men. Here was a head with a fiery nimbus. Not auburn or yellow, but red a red that would fire the heart of a warrior about to take the war-path. I have a vague recollection of a skirt of blue cloth, such as the Spanish far-south trade with the Missouri Indians, and a coat of dressed leather that fitted her superb figure snugly. But it was the hair that held my eyes, much as fire draws a moth.
"I didn't know you had been left behind," I heard myself observing. "Or did you and your father go only as far as the Forks?"
"I stayed behind to look after the post, to see it wasn't burned down, while the clerk was away," she answered, her blue eyes levelled on me with the utmost composure.
"Then Angus is only a clerk and you're the bourgeoise?"
"Quite correct! And your name is Franklin, according to the agreement you signed at the post. You represent Mr. Chabot here this summer."
"You and I are of equal rank. I represent the N. W.," I corrected.
"That makes it all the better." She smiled graciously and nodded her head. Then reproachfully, "You have been trading rum for skins which should have been traded at our post."
"I've traded rum for skins," I qualified. "Whether they should have gone to you is another question. It's customary to trade rum, you know."
"Rum would have kept the skins at the X. Y.," she quietly informed.
"Of course—I had no idea you were down there. Really, I had no idea you were you. The hunters spoke of the 'woman.' I supposed you were his wife."
"His Indian wife," she gravely amended.
I nodded and continued:
"I took it for granted Angus was there alone with the interpreter. I've been prepared to let him have a few kegs any time he asked for it. It wasn't my place to force it upon him, but you are more than welcome. How much do you want?"
"I don't want any. Some of the X. Y. stock is stored at the post."
I sank down on the nose of a canoe, almost doubting my ears. And her blue eyes were gathering storm signs, which was also bewildering.
"Well," I helplessly replied, "if you have rum and don't want any from the N. W., I don't see how I can help you. You've refused to trade rum for skins. Surely you're not going to make the startling suggestion that I do the same?"
"It would be a very sensible suggestion. I had thought of making it. Now I see it would be wasting my breath—that you would never consider it."
"Not for a second! Why, Miss Dearness, nothing but rum will bring in the skins. You know that. I can't imagine your father getting a hunt without using high wine. It's the one thing the Indian cannot resist."
"He has always used it and always will," she calmly admitted. "But I will not."
"Then you'll do no summer trading on the Red," I assured her.
"That doesn't follow," she murmured, half closing her eyes and watching me sleepily. "I'm only staying till my father returns."
"Does he know you're killing his trade in this way?"
"Not unless he has very strong medicine." Her teeth flashed in a smile.
"I see," I mumbled, my brains quite addled by the red of her hair and the deep blue of her eyes. "Of course."
"When I came here I was prompted by an impulse," she ran on. "Before I jumped ashore I knew my errand was foolish."
"Don't say that," I begged. "You've given me the greatest surprise in my life. Surprises up here are good for one."
"I've nothing to say to your trading rum," she imperturbably continued. "It's customary. But there are some skins owed the X. Y. on debts taken before my father left for the Forks. You had no right to trade for those. Even the rum was passed over for them."
"It's not nice, this taking skins owed on debts. But your father has had few scruples, if you'll forgive me for saying it."
"Black Chabot had none. I should never have come to see him."
This was either a compliment or a reflection on my youth. "I know the fur trade quite well," I said. "It isn't for the N. W. to safeguard the X. Y. interests. I can't imagine Sir Alexander MacKenzie going out of his way to prevent Simon McTavish losing a profit. This is a trading-post."
"Quite so—and you approve of Black Chabot's way of fighting women for their furs," she sneered.
"You know better. I have never fought with women. There is a vast difference between holding up a woman and taking her furs by force, whether she owes them on a debt or is free to trade where she will, and trading for skins voluntarily brought here."
"Then you refuse to stop trading with Indians who have not settled their debts with us?"
"I must. The proposition is absurd. Your father would never make such a request. When the X. Y. and the N. W. make a bargain to that effect, all well and good. But the liquor you have stored and won't use would bring in every debt owed you."
"I'm disappointed in you," she said.
It was on my tongue to say I was in no way disappointed in her, but there was something in her clear gaze, a strength in her simple dignity, that held me constrained and awkward. She made me feel as if I were very young and callow, a capacity some women have, I've discovered. I resented it.
"You can't prove your experiment a success if I stop trading rum," I argued. "If your medicine is strong, the only way you can prove it is by overcoming opposition."
"I believe I understand that much quite thoroughly," she gravely said, yet making me feel she was laughing at me all the time.
"Are you afraid of the Indians? Angus wouldn't be much help in time of danger. The Rat is—well—a rat."
"I'm not afraid. They never bother me. I come and go. I'm something of a mystery to them. They seem glad to keep clear of me when they see me outside the fort."
"Do you go any distance from the fort?"
"Oh, I go as I wish. I've been as far as Grandes Fourches in my canoe—alone. Several times I've gone on my horse to the Pembina and followed it to the hills. Now I'll be returning to the Scratching. But please remember, I think you're making a mistake in taking furs belonging to the X. Y."
"I shall have to risk it. You go up the Pembina. Do you sometimes sing when you're travelling alone?"
She gave me a quick little glance and admitted—
"I sing if I wish to."
"Then you're the medicine that has stolen the Voice from Rivière Qu'Appelle," I exclaimed, very proud I had solved the mystery.
"I have been on the River That Calls. I know the Indian story about the Voice. But I don't catch your meaning," she said, turning back and waiting for me to explain.
"Why, the Crees and Assiniboins say the Voice has left the river—probably high water and a change in air currents, perhaps just their imagination. The fact remains they believe the Voice has been stolen. They say the Chippewas' medicine took it away. They've heard you singing at night. That's a positive proof to them the Chippewas have the Voice a captive down here on the Red and its branches."
As I eagerly said all this she turned her head aside and half closed her eyes. If her clear-cut profile had not remained immobile I would have sworn she was laughing at me.
"Very interesting! Very real to the Indians, too. From what I've learned in going about with my father there are no unfair practices among rival posts," she murmured. "That is your code?"
"We have spoiled the Indians. We stop at nothing which does not involve premeditated murder. Your father, you know, advised Little Crane to kill me for preventing his trading our skins to you."
"Very likely, although I did not hear him," she coolly commented. "I'm glad to get your point of view. I've said I thought you were making a mistake in trading for our skins. I meant a mistake that would hurt you morally. Now I'll make a little prophecy. You've made a mistake in a business sense. I see fur coming back to the X. Y. post on the Scratching. And I thank you."
"For what?"
"For helping me bring the trade to our post."
Again she stared at me sleepily through her half-closed lids.
"So you've changed your mind. You will use the rum your father left behind."
"No, I'll trade superstitions."
I didn't catch her meaning.
"Superstition has brought many troubles to the Indians," I reminded.
"So it has to the whites. Superstition was here before the whites came, but we brought rum into the country. We're responsible for that."
Her quaint and prim notions concerning rum and Indians amused me. But as she amused, she also thrilled me. She was a white woman, wonderful to look at. She was well educated. She was refined. No wonder the impression she made on me grew stronger each moment I stared. The remarkable hair, the fine texture of her skin despite the Red River sun, wind and storms, all such may be found in many women. In addition to these physical charms, however, was an indefinable quality that Strangely affected me. I did not even know that I approved of her, but still she fascinated me.
My first thought was that she was masculine—this, perhaps, because of her composure—and I never cared for masculine women. Almost any white woman would look fair to a man marooned on the lower Red for a year. I could have fallen madly in love with Miss Dearness if she had been less pronounced. A colourless type would have permitted my hungry imagination to add all sorts of attributes, and, being in love with love, a commonplace woman would have become exalted. But Miss Dearness was a woman a man must like or dislike. Her personality was so strong that one's fancy could not add to, or take from it. There was no room for deceiving one's self.
Men long in the wilds will be overwhelmed by the femininity expressed by the first woman they meet on returning to civilization. Although I was hungry for the companionship of a woman, I could find no commonplaces about Miss Dearness which my zeal could transmute into ideals. She was what she was. It was almost as if she had been created for just one man and would repel all except her true mate. And he, meeting her, would wade through hell for her.
She also appealed to me in this fashion; unless a man was in love with her he would have no scruples in opposing her, just as I felt no scruples now in taking all the X. Y. trade I could get. This must have resulted from her air of self-dependence, the conviction that she did not need to be protected.
"You'll trade superstition," I repeated, groping for her meaning. "And I have helped you?"
"Superstition was here before rum. It's stronger. You may think you are holding them—you will hold them at times, when the rum is under their noses—but you'll learn that superstition has the first call on them. Yes, you have helped me immensely with your story of the Voice stolen from Rivière Qu'Appelle. I know the river and the strange song it makes at times. You tell me they heard me singing and thought it the lost Voice. I confess it. I took the Voice." And she paused to smile at me triumphantly.
"But what of it?" I asked, tingling beneath the electricity of her smile.
"If they would have it back, they must come to me—bring trade to me."
"Impossible!" I jeered, wondering how she could be so credulous. "You forget that I only have to tell them what you say to make them see they're mistaken."
"Tell them. I shall be obliged to you if you will. You have refused a very reasonable request in declining to stop trading for skins taken on X. Y. debts. Without intending to do so, you have given me the advantage. I'll strip your spring hunters of their furs. The N. W. will have some unpaid debts as well as the X. Y."
Tender, gentle women arouse one's pity when they attempt defiance. She struck sparks with every word.
"Rum against superstition," I challenged, hungering to trade with her and to best her.
Like the average man, my instinct toward the sex was to protect, but I was keen to humiliate this woman.
"So let it be. I'll wager all the furs I've taken on rum."
Without heeding me further she walked to her canoe and whistled a long quavering note. Angus came on the run around the corner of the potato-field stockade. He had been trained to leave her to look after herself, for he made no move to push off her canoe, although his bearing was as skulking as that of a whipped dog. Staring at me without seeing me, she sent her craft out into the current. Then, resting her paddle, she lifted her head and sounded a bell-like call that rose and fell and trilled far up the river with a strange sweetness. With never a glance at me she adjusted her capote and started down the river. And, as she went, she sounded the call again, distance giving it an eery note.
I was aroused from my meditations by the splash of a paddle above me. It was Flat Mouth, and now he was running toward me. I greeted him with a laugh and pointed after the woman, saying—
"There goes the white woman whose voice the foolish Crees and Assiniboins took to be the Voice of the Calling River."
The fellow's behaviour both irritated and amused me. His strong face showed a curious touch of timidity. His gaze followed the dancing canoe until a bend in the river snatched it from view.
"The white woman is very big medicine," he grunted, speaking to himself rather than to me.
"But she is the trader's daughter. She sings when she is out on the river. Foolish Indians heard her singing at night and thought it was a spirit's voice," I impatiently reminded.
"There was a spirit on the River That Calls. It is gone. This woman with the medicine hair"
The rest was a mumble I could not catch. He hurried to the stockade, forgetful of our unfinished task with the sturgeon net.
I was greatly disappointed in the Pillager chief. I had been with him on so many trips and always had found him so brave and loyal and sensible.
With a wealth of new thoughts I resumed my daily tasks. During that week Probos came up from the Reed, bringing women of several families to plant the potatoes, corn, squash and the like, and to burn the brush where we had cut last season's fuel.
Never in all my experiences on the river had I seen such tremendous flights of wild pigeons as now. From the southern to the northern horizon the heavens fairly throbbed with them, and their passage arched the sky and shut off the sunlight, leaving the plains in gloom. The Reed River Indians held some secret pow-wows concerning the pigeons. They had no rum, but I knew they were making medicines. Old Tabashaw unexpectedly arrived from the hills with Black Robe and the latter's family. The Robe hadn't a single skin and would give no answers when I inquired for his hunt.
Tabashaw asked for liquor and, despite my vow to give none except when skins had been killed, I measured him out a dram—just enough to make him mad for more. Then I asked him why the Robe came empty handed, and why the hillmen were not sending in anything. He was dying for another drink, but surprised me by simulating ignorance, talking vaguely about certain difficulties which I knew did not exist. The Robe got never a drop and, after hanging about the fort for several days, disappeared.
Shortly after his going I discovered that a nine-gallon keg was missing from my stock. It would never do to let an Indian get clear with stolen property, especially if it were rum. From Flat Mouth I learned the Robe had gone down the river. Believing he had made for the Reed camp, where he would go on a drunk with Probos's hunters, I put after him.
I lost a day at the Reed camp, waiting for some of the hunters to appear, only to learn the rascal had paused just long enough to cook and eat a sturgeon. Had the hunters suspected he had nine gallons of rum with him, he never would have taken it away. On leaving the Reed he had continued north, the hunters said.
I followed the west bank down to the Scratching, searching it carefully for signs of the thief. If I did not find him at the Scratching I intended searching the east bank going back. I landed a short distance above our abandoned post and cast about for a trace of him. Then, fearing lest he might get inside the fort and set it afire, I left the woods and ran to the post.
Entering the stockade, I found him asleep near the gate, but there was no sign of the keg. I kicked him awake and demanded to know where he had hidden the rum. He scrambled to his feet, intending, as I supposed, to lead me to the liquor. With the ferocity of a cornered Canada lynx he was on me, his knife slashing at my breast. My stout leather coat protected me long enough to bring up the end of my paddle under his chin.
Down he went, but was up again, insane from rum and rage. I feared I would have to kill the brute when Miss Dearness's voice, trilling and wailing, penetrated his black mood. He ceased fighting and the knife dropped from his limp hand.
I wheeled just as she reached the gate. One sweep of her blue eyes took in the situation. Puffing and panting from my exertions and anger, I do not suppose I presented a very pretty picture. Anyway, there was disdain in her glance, and before I could speak she was saying:
"It isn't for the X. Y. to return goods stolen from the N. W., but I suppose you want the liquor this Indian took. I saw him carrying a keg into the woods."
Then to the Robe, speaking his own tongue even better than I could, she commanded—
"Go!"
He ran to the timber and I ironically observed—
"I thank you for your good intentions, but you've allowed him to escape."
"If there is any liquor left he will bring it," she coldly retorted.
I smiled skeptically and lingered, not to get back the rum but to study her. She appeared to be oblivious of my presence, quite as much as if I had been something impersonal, as a tree or rock. I stared at her without any attempt to conceal my interest. I knew I should never feel satisfied until I had aroused her anger or her fear, I was in a frame of mind to dislike her exceedingly.
Something thudded behind me and I whirled and raised my paddle, only to find Black Robe sullenly standing beside the keg. I tipped it with my foot and knew that less than a quart had been taken. The expression of disgust on her face as she watched me make an inventory of the liquor was maddening. One might think she regarded me as an animal instead of a Northman in the making.
Her own father was famous—she would say "infamous" if he were not her father—for the big trades he made by means of alcohol and water. He was accused of one trick I never had been guilty of—using a mug half filled with tallow on an Indian too drunk to realize he wasn't getting a full drink. But then, Chabot did it, too. The annoying fact remained that by some influence she had compelled Black Robe to bring back the stolen liquor. I would have given twenty kegs if the rascal, on striking the woods, had kept on going. I wouldn't tickle her vanity by asking how she did it; I did say, however—
"I'll send down to you the next furs offered me by an Indian owing you a debt."
"Owing the X. Y.," she carelessly corrected. "Why not one of the packs received by you yesterday?"
"None came in yesterday," I informed.
"Then the day before," she went on, smiling.
"It's fully a week since any of my Indians have brought in a hunt," I explained. "No X. Y. Indians have offered me furs since your visit."
She opened wide her mouth and laughed with such a mocking lilt as to send the blood sizzling into my scrawny face. Sobering abruptly and with no trace of merriment in her lips or eyes, she coldly reminded—
"Superstition against rum."
Raising her fingers to her lips, she whistled an ear-splitting signal, and in twenty seconds Angus came running through the gate.
"How many skins have we traded this week, Angus?" she shot at him.
"Between sixty and seventy."
Had he told me that and she had not been present, I should have informed him he was a little liar. As it was, however, I clenched my teeth, knowing only too well he spoke by the book.
"And how many of them were brought by hunters owing N. W. debts?" she sweetly continued.
This made Angus uneasy. He did not want to answer. She snapped her eyes, and he replied—
"All but four of them, Miss Dearness."
"Now I understand why my Indians haven't come in," I confessed. "Yet it's only half a test. This thief has brought his hunt to you." I pointed at the Robe. "If he hadn't stolen the rum he would have returned here and stolen the skins back to trade to me for high wine. You've started a dangerous game. I shall stick to what I've told them—no rum without skins. Rum they will have, and they can't steal skins at our post. You're responsible for anything that happens down here."
"Mr. Franklin, you understand that you and I think alike on lots of things concerning the fur trade," timidly spoke up Angus.
"You go back to the post. We've left it alone in the Rat's care," she gently commanded, and Angus left us forthwith, accepting the rebuke without a word.
Her eyes were laughing as she faced about and confessed:
"The Crees and Assiniboins bring me trade as a bribe to me to send the Voice back to Rivière Qu'Appelle. The Chippewas bring their hunt to keep the Voice on the Red. So far as being in any danger, you should know I am a medicine woman to them. My hair is very great medicine. Old Tabashaw says I am a spirit-medicine. I have no sex for them."
"My, but you're a tearing beauty!" bawled Black Chabot's bull of a voice behind us. "No sex, eh? And I never guessed it. I blundered right by and never knew it."
I was amazed to behold him there on the Scratching when he should be on the Lake of the Woods or Rainy River. He had been drinking, of course, and never had I seen his eyes look more evil. He glared at the pliant figure of Miss Dearness until his gaze became defilement. She, cold as ice, did not flinch before his lecherous staring. I could not see that his brutal presence quickened her heart by a single beat.
"You did not go through with your brigade," she remarked. "Did you overtake the X. Y. and my father?"
"I overhauled the X. Y., all right," he hoarsely responded, edging a step closer to her. "That's how I learned you, his daughter, was here. All white—and a red head."
"Then you did overtake my father?" she demanded.
"I'd have to travel considerable to overtake him," he informed. "He's dead."
Her face went blank and with a little sigh she leaned limply against the stockade. With the grunt of a wild animal Chabot snarled—
"I come way back here to overtake you, my pretty."
It was beastly. He lunged forward to seize her. I shoved the paddle between his feet and brought him crashing down on his face, and as he fell I gave him a thump on the head. He lay very still, his face buried among the broad chips left from hewing the stockade timbers. Across the clean chips the blood trickled until I believed his fall, or my blow, had ruptured a blood-vessel.
"He's a black-hearted liar," I told her. "I haven't a doubt but what he's made it up out of whole cloth. Don't you be afraid. I shall kill him if he bothers you again. The N. W. would expect me to do it."
"Black-hearted, yet he told the truth," she whispered. "My father was suffering with incurable heart trouble. He knew it was only a question of time. He was very loyal to Sir Alexander and his partners, and he hoped to last until he could send someone out here to take over the post. He didn't dare send me while he stayed, for fear he would die before his successor could come. He had a horror of the post being without a master, so I stayed and he went."
She talked like one dazed, and yet she had not given way to her grief in the usual womanly way.
"Pack up," I directed. "I will have a canoeman here just as soon as I can make our post and start him off. He will be Flat Mouth. You can trust him absolutely. Take Angus with you; he'd be helpless up here alone. Flat Mouth will see you to the Forks. The rest of the trail is easy."
She pointed to Chabot, who was now showing signs of life, and directed,
"Take that away. Don't send your Indian."
"Your clerk is not voyageur enough to take you through alone," I protested. "Once the Indians learned you were leaving the country, taking the Voice with you, they might do anything."
She walked through the gate, and I followed her. She halted and wearily informed me:
"My father left me to look after the post until someone came. I shall stay. Good-bye! You'll get more skins now—just for what you did to that." She nodded toward the fence, behind which Black Chabot was trying to collect his drunken senses.
She was gone by the time he had managed to stagger through the gate. His long black beard was full of blood, a ghastly sight even in the fur country.
"Where is she?" he whispered, glaring about.
"Miss Dearness? She went back to the post to get her father's double-barrelled gun. Said something about shooting you on sight."
"I'll tame her," he vowed. "A regular red head! But I'll tame her. Come back a purpose to."
"Scarcely worth the game," I carelessly remarked. "A risk is a risk, and danger is a danger, but when she's got all the Chippewas, Crees and Assiniboins believing she's a great tribal medicine, when the whole outfit is willing to murder every white in the Northwest if she gives the word But what's the use of talking all this to you? You know your own business. You're old enough to take care of yourself."
He combed some of the blood from his beard and stared at his fingers curiously. Slanting his eyes at me, he muttered:
"How did I come to fall? Felt like something was mixed up with my feet—like something hit my head."
His low voice was the danger signal. I was carrying the keg on my left shoulder, the paddle in my right hand. I dropped the keg as if to rest me and shifted the paddle, leaving a hand free to snatch for my knife.
"Looked to me as if your last drink was what got mixed with your legs," I boldly replied.
He combed more blood from his beard and stole murderous glances at me. He knew I had mauled him over the head and he proposed to get even.
"Indians think she is big medicine, you say?"
"Ask any of them," I advised.
He picked up the keg and drank wolfishly; then he made for his canoe and, by some miracle, embarked. In spite of his drams he handled the paddle smartly. I placed the keg in my canoe and followed him. Instead of keeping inshore he swung out into midstream, where he had to contend against the full force of the current.
He had a reason in this, as I soon knew; it was to get a view of the X. Y. post. I trailed him, and we both beheld Miss Dearness standing on the shore, her face turned toward the north, looking down the path her father had taken for the last time. Her hair looked like a torch.
The sight of her seemed to drive him mad. He stood erect and shook his fist at her and raved:
"I'm coming back to get you! It'll even up what I owe Red Dearness."
I reached over with my paddle and gave his canoe a shove, and he shot into the water. I had hoped that the rushing of the river had smothered his beastly threat, but she must have heard it or at least have sensed it, for I saw her place her cupped hands to her mouth and I caught the long drawn out call. I saw the bush growth move and tremble close by her and heard her call out something in Chippewa. Then Black Chabot's distorted face bobbed above the muddy surface, and I caught his canoe and pushed it to him, holding the stern while he clambered in, swearing between his gasps.
"I'll settle with you for that when we get back to the post," he choked.
"I'm going to kill you when we get out of sight of the young woman," I promised him.
This was not an empty threat. His treatment of the girl left me cold and deliberate in my purpose to have done with him.
Without a word he turned and began paddling upstream. He had gained a lead of a rod or so when an arrow whipped from the bushes and hissed close to his wet beard. With a yelp and a howl he toppled backward and all but went overboard again. By the time he had scrambled back to his knees a second shaft stuck in the bow of the canoe.
Then came the girl's voice, clear as a bell, warning:
"Tell him he dies unless he goes downstream at once, Mr. Franklin. Tell him he dies if he comes back here before I have left the country."
I had no need of telling him, for he heard her. Snarling with rage, yet weak with fear, he hesitated, and a third arrow all but got him. The Black Robe, for I knew it must be he, was shooting marvellously straight for one so recently drunk. Howling like some wild animal caught in a trap, he frantically spun his craft about and, hugging the east bank, paddled for his life downstream, making for the Forks. I watched him till he was out of sight, but did not see any other arrows pursue him.
I half expected the Robe to take a shot at me, but he did not, although he had many opportunities had he so wished. Perhaps it would be better to say had she not forbid his doing so.
Thus closed Black Chabot's career in the Red River Country—expelled by a girl with fiery red hair. I had much to ponder over as I fought my way upstream.