In the Brooding Wild
“I’d have found all the plant fer big work,” went on the trader eagerly. “I’d have found the cash to do everything. I’d have found the labour. An’ us three ’ud have made a great syndicate. We’d ’a’ run it dead secret. Wi’ me in it we could ’a’ sent our gold down to the bank by the dogs, an’, bein’ as my shack’s so far from here, no one ’ud ever ’a’ found whar the yeller come from. It ’ud ’a’ been a real fine game–a jo-dandy game. An’ it’s worked clear out?” he asked again, as though to make certain that he had heard aright.
“Bottomed right down to the bedrock. Maybe ye’d like to see fer yourself?”
“Guess I ken take your word, boys; ye ain’t the sort to lie to a pal. I’m real sorry.” He paused and shifted his position. Then he went on with a slightly cunning look. “I ’lows you’re like to take a run down to Edmonton one o’ these days. A feller mostly likes to make things hum when he’s got a good wad.” Gagnon’s tone was purely conversational. But his object must have been plain to any one else. He was bitterly resentful at the working out of the placer mine, and his anger always sent his thoughts into crooked channels. His nature was a curious one; he was honest enough, although avaricious, while his own ends were served. It was different when he was balked.
“We don’t notion a city any,” said Nick, simply.
“Things is confusin’ to judge by the yarns folks tell,” added Ralph, with a shake of his shaggy head.
“Them fellers as comes up to your shack, Victor, mostly talks o’ drink, an’ shootin’, an’–an’ women,” Nick went on. “Guess the hills’ll do us. Maybe when we’ve done wi’ graft an’ feel that it ’ud be good to laze, likely we’ll go down an’ buy a homestead on the prairie. Maybe, I sez.”
Nick spoke dubiously, like a man who does not convince himself.
“Hah, that’s ’cause you’ve never been to a city,” said the Breed sharply.
“Jest so,” observed Ralph quietly, between the puffs at his pipe.
Gagnon laughed silently. His eyes were very bright and he looked from one brother to the other with appreciation. An idea had occurred to him and he was mentally probing the possibilities of carrying it out. What he saw pleased him, for he continued to smile.
“Well, well, maybe you’re right,” he said indulgently. Then silence fell.
Each man was rapt in his own thoughts, and talk without a definite object was foreign to at least two of the three. The brothers were waiting in their stolid Indian fashion for sleep to come. The trader was thinking hard behind his lowered eyelids, which were almost hidden by the thick smoke which rose from his pipe.
The fire burned down and was replenished. Ralph rose and gathered the pannikins and threw them into a biscuit-box. Then he laid out his blankets while Nick went over and bolted the door. Still the trader did not look up. When the two men had settled themselves comfortably in their blankets the other at last put his pipe away.
“No,” he said, as he too negotiated his blankets, “guess we want good sound men in these hills, anyway. I reckon you’ve no call to get visitin’ the prairie, boys; you’re the finest hunters I’ve ever known. D’ye know the name your shack here goes by among the down-landers? They call it the ‘Westley Injun Reserve.’”
“White Injuns,” said Nick, with a grin followed by a yawn.
“That’s what,” observed Victor, curling himself up in his blankets. “I’ve frequent heard tell of the White Squaw, but White Injuns sounds like as it wa’n’t jest possible. Howsum, they call you real white buck neches, an’ I ’lows ther’ ain’t no redskin in the world to stan’ beside you on the trail o’ a fur.”
The two men laughed at their friend’s rough tribute to their attainments. Ralph was the quieter of the two, but his appreciation was none the less. He was simple-hearted, but he knew his own worth when dealing with furs. Nick laughed loudly. It tickled him to be considered a White Indian at the calling which was his, for his whole pride was in his work.
Nick was not without a romantic side to his nature. The life of the mountains had imbued him with a half-savage superstition which revelled in the uncanny lore of such places. This was not the first time he had heard of a White Squaw, and, although he did not believe such a phenomenon possible, it appealed seductively to his love of the marvellous. Victor had turned over to sleep, but Nick was very wide awake and interested. He could not let such an opportunity slip. Victor was good at a yarn. And, besides, Victor knew more of the mountain-lore than any one else. So he roused the Breed again.
“You was sayin’ about a White Squaw, Victor,” he said, in a shamefaced manner. His bronzed cheeks were deeply flushed and he glanced over at his brother to see if he were laughing at him. Ralph was lying full length upon his blankets and his eyes were closed, so he went on. “Guess I’ve heerd tell of a White Squaw. Say, ain’t it that they reckon as she ain’t jest a human crittur?”
Victor opened his eyes and rolled over on his back. If there was one weakness he had it was the native half-breed love of romancing. He was ever ready to yarn. He revelled in it when he had a good audience. Nick was the very man for him, simple, honest, superstitious. So he sat up and answered readily enough.
“That’s jest how, pard. An’ it ain’t a yarn neither. It’s gospel truth. I know.”
“Hah!” ejaculated Nick, while a strange feeling passed down his spine. Ralph’s eyes had slowly opened, but the others did not notice him.
“I’ve seen her!” went on the trader emphatically.
“You’ve seen her!” said Nick, in an awed whisper.
An extra loud burst of the storming wind held the men silent a moment, then, as it died away, Victor went on.
“Yes, I see her with my own two eyes, an’ I ain’t like to ferget it neither. Say, ye’ve seen them Bible ’lustrations in my shanty? Them pictur’s o’ lovesome critturs wi’ feathery wings an’ sech?”
“I guess.”
“Wal, clip them wings sheer off, an’ you’ve got her dead right.”
“Mush! But she must be a dandy sight,” exclaimed Nick, with conviction. “How come ye to–”
“Guess it’s a long yarn, an’ maybe ye’re wantin’ to sleep.”
“Say, I ’lows I’d like that yarn, Victor. I ain’t worried for sleep, any.”
Nick deliberately refilled his pipe and lit it, and passed his tobacco to the trader. Victor took the pouch. Ralph’s eyes had closed again.
“You allus was a great one fer a yarn, Nick,” began the half-breed, with a laugh. “Guess you most allus gets me gassin’; but say, this ain’t no yarn, in a way. It’s the most cur’us bit o’ truth, as maybe you’ll presently allow. But I ain’t goin’ to tell it you if ye ain’t believin’, ’cause it’s the truth.” The trader’s face had become quite serious and he spoke with unusual earnestness. Nick was impressed, and Ralph’s eyes had opened again.
“Git goin’, pard; guess your word’s good fer me,” Nick said eagerly. “You was sayin’–”
“Ye’ve heard tell o’ the Moosefoot Injuns?” began the trader slowly. Nick nodded. “They’re a queer lot o’ neches. I used to do a deal o’ trade wi’ them on the Peace River, ’fore they was located on a reserve. They were the last o’ the old-time redskin hunters. Dessay they were the last to hunt the buffalo into the drives. They’re pretty fine men now, I guess, as neches go, but they ain’t nothin’ to what they was. I guess that don’t figger anyway, but they’re different from most Injuns, which is what I was coming to. Their chief ain’t a ‘brave,’ same as most, which, I ’lows, is unusual. Maybe that’s how it come they ain’t allus on the war-path, an’ maybe that’s how it come their river’s called Peace River. Their chief is a Med’cine Man; has been ever since they was drove across the mountains from British Columbia. They was pretty nigh wiped out when that happened, so they did away wi’ havin’ a ‘brave’ fer a chief, an’ took on a ‘Med’cine Man.’
“Wal, it ain’t quite clear how it come about, but the story, which is most gener’ly believed, says that the first Med’cine Man was pertic’ler cunnin’, an’ took real thick with the white folks’ way o’ doin’ things. Say, he learned his folk a deal o’ farmin’ an’ sech, an’ they took to trappin’ same as you understand it. There wa’n’t no scrappin’, nor war-path yowlin’; they jest come an’ settled right down an’ took on to the land. Wal, this feller, ’fore he died, got the Mission’ry on his trail, an’ got religion; but he couldn’t git dead clear o’ his med’cine, an’ he got to prophesyin’. He called all his folk together an’ took out his youngest squaw. She was a pretty crittur, sleek as an antelope fawn; I ’lows her pelt was nigh as smooth an’ soft. Her eyes were as black an’ big as a moose calf’s, an’ her hair was as fine as black fox fur. Wal, he up an’ spoke to them folk, an’ said as ther’ was a White Squaw comin’ amongst ’em who was goin’ to make ’em a great people; who was goin’ to lead ’em to victory agin their old enemies in British Columbia, where they’d go back to an’ live in peace. An’ he told ’em as this squaw was goin’ to be the instrument by which the comin’ of the White Squaw was to happen. Then they danced a Med’cine Dance about her, an’ he made med’cine for three days wi’out stoppin’. Then they built her a lodge o’ teepees in the heart o’ the forest, where she was to live by herself.
“Wal, time went on an’ the squaw give birth to a daughter, but she wa’n’t jest white, so the men took and killed her, I guess. Then came another; she was whiter than the first, but she didn’t jest please the folk, an’ they killed her too. Then came another, an’ another, each child whiter than the last, an’ they were all killed, ’cause I guess they wa’n’t jest white. Till the seventh come along. The seventh was the White Squaw. Say, fair as a pictur, wi’ black hair that shone in the sun, an’ wi’ eyes that blue as ’ud shame the summer sky.”
The half-breed paused, and sat staring with introspective gaze at the iron side of the stove. Nick was gazing at him all eyes and ears for the story. Ralph, too, was sitting up now.
“Wal, she was taken care of an’ treated like the queen she was. On’y the headman was allowed to look at her. She grew an’ grew, an’ all the tribe was thinkin’ of war, an’ gettin’ ready. They made ‘braves’ nigh every week, an’ their Sun Dances was the greatest ever known. They danced Ghost Dances, too, to keep away Evil Spirits, I guess, an’ things was goin’ real good. Then sudden comes the white folk, an’ after a bit they was all herded on to a Reserve an’ kep’ there. But that White Squaw never left her home in the forest, ’cause no one but the headman knew where she was. She was on’y a young girl then; I guess she’s grown now. Wal, fer years them pore critturs reckoned on her comin’ along an’ leadin’ them out on the war-path. But she didn’t come; she jest stayed right along with her mother in that forest, an’ didn’t budge.
“That’s the yarn as it stan’s,” Victor went on, after another pause, “but this is how I come to see her. It was winter, an’ I was tradin’ on the Reserve there. It was a fine, cold day, an’ the snow was good an’ hard, an’ I set out to hunt an old bull moose that was runnin’ with its mates in the location. I took two neches with me, an’ we had a slap-up time fer nigh on to a week. We hunted them moose hard the whole time, but never came up wi’ ’em. Then it came on to storm, an’ we pitched camp in a thick pine forest. We was there fer nigh on three days while it stormed a’mighty hard. Then it cleared an’ we set out, an’, wi’in fifty yards o’ our camp, we struck the trail o’ the moose. We went red-hot after them beasts, I’m figgerin’, an’ they took us into the thick o’ the forest. Then we got a couple o’ shots in; my slugs got home, but, fer awhiles, we lost them critturs. Next day we set out again, an’ at noon we was startled by hearin’ a shot fired by som’un else. We kep’ right on, an’ bimeby we came to a clearin’. There we saw four teepees an’ a shack o’ pine logs all smeared wi’ colour; but what came nigh to par’lyzin’ me was the sight o’ my moose lyin’ all o’ a heap on the ground, an’, standin’ beside its carcass, leanin’ on a long muzzle-loader, was a white woman. She was wearin’ the blanket right enough, but she was as white as you are. Say, she had six great huskies wi’ her, an’ four women. An’ when they see us they put hard into the woods. I was fer goin’ to have a look at the teepees, but my neches wouldn’t let me. They told me the lodge was sacred to the White Squaw, who we’d jest seen. An’ I ’lows, they neches wa’n’t jest easy till we cleared them woods.”
“An’ she was beautiful, an’–an’ fine?” asked Nick, as the trader ceased speaking. “Was she that beautiful as you’d heerd tell of?”
His voice was eager with suppressed excitement. His pipe had gone out, and he had forgotten everything but the story the Breed had told.
“Ay, that she was; her skin was as clear as the snow she trod on, an’ her eyes–gee! but I’ve never seen the like. Man, she was wonderful.”
Victor threw up his hands in a sort of ecstasy and looked up at the creaking roof.
“An’ her hair?” asked Nick, wonderingly.
“A black fox pelt was white aside it.”
“An’ didn’t ye foller her?”
The question came abruptly from Ralph, whom the others had forgotten.
“I didn’t jest know you was awake,” said Victor. “Wal, no, to own the truth, I ’lows I was scart to death wi’ what them neches said. Maybe I wa’n’t sorry to light out o’ them woods.”
They talked on for a few moments longer, then Ralph’s stertorous breathing told of sleep. Victor was not long in following his example. Nick sat smoking thoughtfully for some time; presently he rose and put out the lamp and stoked up the fire. Then he, too, rolled over in his blankets, and, thinking of the beautiful White Squaw, dropped off to sleep to continue his meditations in dreamland.
CHAPTER III.
THE QUEST OF THE WHITE SQUAW
Christmas had gone by and the new year was nearing the end of its first month. It was many weeks since Victor Gagnon had come to the Westley’s dugout on that stormy evening. But his visit had not been forgotten. The story of the White Squaw had made an impression upon Nick such as the half-breed could never have anticipated. Ralph had thought much of it too, but, left to himself, he would probably have forgotten it, or, at most, have merely remembered it as a good yarn.
But this he was not allowed to do. Nick was enthusiastic. The romance of the mountains was in his blood, and that blood was glowing with the primest life of man. The fire of youth had never been stirred within him, but it was there, as surely as it is in every human creature. Both men were nearing forty years of age, and, beyond the associations of the trader’s place, they had never mixed with their fellows.
The dream of this beautiful White Squaw had come to Nick; and, in the solitude of the forest, in the snow-bound wild, it remained with him, a vision of such joy as he had never before dreamed. The name of “woman” held for him suggestions of unknown delights, and the weird surroundings with which Victor had enveloped the lovely creature made the White Squaw a vision so alluring that his uncultured brain was incapable of shutting it out.
And thus it was, as he glided, ghost-like, through the forests or scaled the snowy crags in the course of his daily work, the memory of the mysterious creature remained with him. He thought of her as he set his traps; he thought of her, as, hard on the trail of moose, or deer, or wolf, or bear, he scoured the valleys and hills; in the shadow of the trees at twilight, in fancy he saw her lurking; even amidst the black, barren tree-trunks down by the river banks. His eyes and ears were ever alert with the half-dread expectation of seeing her or hearing her voice. The scene Victor had described of the white huntress leaning upon her rifle was the most vivid in his imagination, and he told himself that some day, in the chances of the chase, she might visit his valleys, his hills.
At night he would talk of her to his brother, and together they would chum the matter over, and slowly, in the more phlegmatic Ralph, Nick kindled the flame with which he himself was consumed.
And so the days wore on; a fresh zest was added to their toil. Each morning Ralph would set out with a vague but pleasurable anticipation of adventure. And as his mind succumbed to the strange influence of the White Squaw, it coloured for him what had been the commonplace events of his daily life. If a buck was started and rushed crashing through the forest growths, he would pause ere he raised his rifle to assure himself that it was not a woman, garbed in the parti-coloured blanket of the Moosefoot Indians, and with a face radiant as an angel’s. His slow-moving imagination was deeply stirred.
From the Beginning Nature has spoken in no uncertain language. “Man shall not live alone,” she says. Victor Gagnon had roused these two simple creatures. There was a woman in the world, other than the mother they had known, and they began to wonder why the mountains should be peopled only by the forest beasts and solitary man.
As February came the time dragged more heavily than these men had ever known it to drag before. They no longer sat and talked of the White Squaw, and speculated as to her identity, and the phenomenon of her birth, and her mission with regard to her tribe. Somehow the outspoken enthusiasm of Nick had subsided into silent brooding; and Ralph needed no longer the encouragement of his younger brother to urge him to think of the strange white creature. Each had taken the subject to himself, and nursed and fostered it in his own way.
The time was approaching for their visit to Gagnon’s store. This was the reason of the dragging days. Both men were eager for the visit, and the cause of their eagerness was not far to seek. They wished to see the half-breed and feed their passion on fresh words of the lovely creature who had so strangely possessed their imaginations.
They did not neglect the methodical routine of their duties. When night closed in Nick saw to the dogs. The great huskies obeyed only one master who fed them, who cared for them, who flogged them on the trail with club and whip; and that was Nick. Ralph they knew not. He cooked. He was the domestic of the abode, for he was of a slow nature which could deal with the small details of such work. Nick was too large and heavy in his mode of life to season a stew. But in the trapper’s craft it is probable that he was the better man.
The brothers’ nights were passed in long, Indian-like silence which ended in sleep. Tobacco scented the atmosphere of the hut with a heaviness that was depressing. Each man sat upon his blankets alternating between his pannikin of coffee and his pipe, with eyes lowered in deep thought, or turned upon the glowing stove in earnest, unseeing contemplation.
The night before the appointed day for starting came round. To-morrow they would be swinging along over the snowy earth with their dogs hauling their laden sled. The morrow would see them on their way to Little Choyeuse Creek, on the bank of which stood Victor Gagnon’s store.
There was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement in the doings of that night. There was much to be done, and the unusual activity almost seemed a bustle in so quiet an abode. Outside the door the sled stood piled with the furs which represented their winter’s catch. The dog harness was spread out, and all was in readiness. Inside the hut the two men were packing away the stuff they must leave behind. Although there was no fear of their home being invaded it was their custom to take certain precautions. In that hut were all their savings, to lose which would mean to lose the fruits of their life’s labours.
Nick had just moved a chest from the depths of the patchwork cupboard in which they kept their food. It was a small receptacle hewn out of a solid pine log. The lid was attached with heavy rawhide hinges, and was secured by an iron hasp held by a clumsy-looking padlock. He set it down upon his blankets.
“Wer’ll we put this?” he asked abruptly.
Ralph looked at it with his thoughtful eyes.
“It needs considerin’,” he observed. And he leant himself against a heavy table which stood by the wall.
“We ain’t opened it since last fall,” said Nick presently, after a long and steady survey of the object of their solicitude.
“No.”
“Ther’s a deal in it.”
Ralph groped at the neck of his shirt. Nick watched his brother’s movements.
“Maybe we’ll figure it up agin.”
Ralph fell in with his brother’s suggestion and drew out the key which was secured round his neck. He unlocked the rusty padlock and threw open the lid. The chest contained six small bags filled to bursting point and securely tied with rawhide; one bag, half-full and open; and a thick packet of Bank of Montreal bills.
Nick knelt down and took out the bills and set them on one side.
“Ther’s fi’ thousand dollars ther,” he said. “I ’lows they’ve been reckoned careful.” Then he picked up one of the bags and held it up for his brother’s inspection. “We tied them seven bags up all weighin’ equal, but we ain’t jest sure how much dust they hold. Seven,” he went on reflectively, “ther’s on’y six an’ a haf now, since them woodbugs got at ’em, ’fore we made this chest. I ’lows Victor’s ’cute to locate the dust in them furs. It wa’n’t a good layout wrappin’ the bags in black fox pelts. Howsum, I’d like to know the value o’ them bags. Weighs nigh on to three poun’, I’m guessin’.”
Ralph took the bag and weighed it in his hand.
“More,” he said. “Ther’s fi’ poun’ o’ weight ther’.”
“Guess them bags together means fifteen to twenty thousan’ dollars, sure,” said Nick, his eyes shining at the thought.
“I don’t rightly know,” said Ralph. “It’s a goodish wad, I ’lows.”
Nick returned the store to the chest which Ralph relocked.
“Where?” asked Nick, glancing round the hut in search of a secure hiding-place.
“We’ll dig a hole in the floor under my blankets,” said Ralph after a pause. “Maybe it’ll be tol’ble safe there.”
And for greater security the chest was so disposed. The work was quickly done, and the clay floor, with the aid of water, was smeared into its usual smooth appearance again. Then the brothers sought their rest.
At daybreak came the start. Nick harnessed the dogs, five great huskies who lived in the shelter of a rough shed outside the hut when it stormed, and curled themselves up in the snow, or prowled, baying the moon, when the night was fine. Fierce-looking brutes these with their long, keen muzzles, their high shoulders and deep chests, their drooping quarters which were massed with muscle right down to the higher sinews of their great feet. Their ferocity was chiefly the animal antagonism for their kind; with Nick they were easy enough to handle, for all had been well broken beneath the heavy lash which the man knew better than to spare.
While the dogs were being hitched into their places Ralph secured the door of the dugout. There were no half measures here. The door was nailed up securely, and a barrier of logs set before it. Then, when all was ready, the men took their poles and Nick broke out the frost-bound runners of the sled. At the magic word “Mush!” the dogs sprang at their breast-draws, and the sled glided away down the slope with Nick running beside it, and Ralph following close behind.
Down they dropped into the depths of the silent valley, Nick guiding his dogs by word of mouth alone. The lead dog, an especially vile-tempered husky, needed nothing but the oft-repeated “Gee” and “Haw” where no packed path was, and when anything approaching a trail was struck Nick issued no commands. These creatures of the wild knew their work, loved it, lived for it, as all who have seen them labouring over snow and ice must understand.
By the route they must take it was one hundred miles to Little Choyeuse Creek. One hundred miles of mountain and forest; one hundred miles of gloomy silence; one hundred miles of virgin snow, soft to the feet of the labouring dogs, giving them no foothold but the sheer anchorage of half-buried legs. It was a temper-trying journey for man and beast. The dogs snapped at each other’s heels, but the men remained silent, hugging their own thoughts and toiling amidst the pleasure of anticipation.
Skirting the forests wherever possible, and following the break of the mammoth pine-trees when no bald opening was to hand they sped along. The dogs hauled at the easy running sled, while, with long, gliding strides, the two men kept pace with them. The hills were faced by the sturdy dogs with the calm persistence of creatures who know their own indomitable powers of endurance, while the descents were made with a speed which was governed by the incessant use of Nick’s pole.