The Woman from Outside

by Hulbert Footner

  CHAPTER XVIII

  A LETTER FROM MAJOR EGERTON TO HIS FRIEND ARTHUR DONCOURT, ESQ.

  MY DEAR DONCOURT:

  You ask me to tell you some of the circumstances underlying the Imbriemurder case of which you have read the account in the annual report ofthe R.N.W.M.P. just published. You are right in supposing that a strangeand moving tale is hidden behind the cold and formal phraseology of thereport.

  The first Imbrie was the Reverend Ernest, who went as a missionary tothe Sikannis Indians away back in '79. Up to that time these Indianswere absolutely uncivilized, and bore a reputation for savage cruelty. Isuppose that was what stimulated the good man's zeal. He left a saintlytradition behind him. The Sikannis live away up the corner of BritishColumbia, on the head-waters of the Stanley River, one of the mainbranches of the Spirit River. The Spirit River, as you may know, riseswest of the Rocky Mountains and breaks through. There is not a moreremote spot this side the Arctic Circle, nor one more difficult ofaccess.

  The missionary brought with him his son, John Imbrie, a boy justapproaching manhood. Very likely the danger of bringing up a boyabsolutely cut off from the women of his race never occurred to thefather. The inevitable happened. The boy fell in love with a handsomehalf-breed girl, the daughter of a wandering prospector and a Sikannisquaw, and married her out of hand. The heartbroken father was himselfcompelled to perform the ceremony. This was in 1886.

  The Imbries were so far cut off from their kind that in time they wereforgotten. The missionary supported himself by farming in a small wayand trading his surplus products with the Indians. John turned out to bea good farmer and they prospered. Their farm was the last outpost ofagriculture in that direction. From the time he went in with his fatherJohn did not see the outside world again until 1889, when he took hiswife and babies out, with a vain hope, I think, of trying to educate thewoman. Most of these marriages have tragic results, and this was noexception. During all the years in her husband's house this womanresisted every civilizing influence, except that she learned to deckherself out like a white woman.

  She bore her husband twin sons, who were christened Ernest and William.They bore a strong resemblance to each other, but as they began todevelop it appeared, as is so often the case in these mixed families,that Ernest had a white man's nature, and William a red man's. When thetime came they were sent out to Winnipeg to school, but William, true tothe savage nature, sickened in civilised surroundings, and had to besent home. On the other hand, Ernest proved to be a sufficiently aptscholar, and went on through school and college. During the whole periodbetween his thirteenth and his twenty-fourth year he was only home twoor three times. William remained at home and grew up in ignorance. JohnImbrie, the father, I gather, was a worthy man, but somewhat weak in hisfamily relations.

  Ernest went on to a medical college with the idea of practising amongthe Sikannis, who had no doctor. During his second year his father died,long before he could reach him, of course. He remained outside until hegot his diploma. Meanwhile his mother and brother quickly relapsed intoa state of savagery. They "pitched around" with the Indians, and thefarm which had been so painstakingly hewn out of the wilderness by thetwo preceding generations grew up in weeds.

  Ernest had a painful homecoming, I expect. However, he patiently set towork to restore his father's work. He managed to persuade his mother andbrother to return and live in white man's fashion, but they made hislife a hell for him, according to all accounts. They were insanelyjealous of his superior attainments. Neither did the Sikannis welcomeDoctor Ernest's ministrations. Since the death of the missionary theyhad been gradually slipping back into their ignorant ways, and now theyinstinctively took the part of the mother against the educated son. Onecan imagine what a dreary life the young medico lived among thesesavages. He has been described to me as a charming fellow, modest,kindly and plucky. And, by the way, I have not mentioned that theseyoung fellows were uncommonly good-looking. William, or, as the Indianssay, Hooliam, was one of the handsomest natives I ever saw.

  Meanwhile that remote country was being talked about outside on accountof the gold deposits along the upper reaches of the Stanley--largelymythically I believe. However that may be, prospectors began to stragglein, and in the summer of the year following Ernest's return fromcollege, the government sent in a surveyor, one Frank Starling, tosurvey the claims, and adjust disputes. Starling brought with him hisdaughter Clare, a young lady of adventurous disposition.

  Both the Imbrie boys fell in love with her according to their natures,thus further complicating the situation. Hooliam, the ignorant savage,could not aspire to her hand, of course, but the young doctor courtedher, and she looked kindly on him. I do not consider that she was everin love with him, though apart from the dark strain he was worthy of itas men go, a manly fellow!--but it was the hardness of his lot thattouched her heart. Like many a good woman before her, she was carriedaway by compassion for the dogged youth struggling against such hopelessodds.

  The father completed his work and took her out, and Ernest Imbriefollowed them. They were married in the early spring at Fort Edward onthe Campbell River, where the Starlings wintered. Ernest carried hisbride back by canoe, hundreds of miles through the wilderness.

  Their happiness, if indeed they were ever happy, was of brief duration.Whichever way you look at it, the situation was impossible. Ernest'smother, the breed woman, acted like a fiend incarnate, I have been told,and I can quite believe it, having witnessed some of her subsequentperformances. Then there was the brother-in-law always hanging aroundthe house, nursing his evil passion for his brother's wife. And in thebackground the ignorant, unfriendly Indians.

  The catastrophe was precipitated by a gross insult offered to the girlby her husband's brother. He broke into her room one night impudentlyassuming to masquerade as her husband. Her husband saved her from him,but in the shock to her nerves she experienced a revulsion against thelot of them--and small wonder!

  Her husband of his own free will took her back to her father. That's oneof the finest things in the story, for there's no question but that heloved her desperately. The loss of her broke his spirit, which hadendured so much. He never went back home. He felt, poor fellow, as if hewere cast out alike by reds and whites, and his instinct was to find aplace where he could bury himself far from all humankind.

  He was next heard of at Miwasa landing a thousand miles away, acrossthe mountains. Here he got employment with a york boat crew andtravelled with them down-stream some hundreds of miles north to GreatBuffalo Lake. Here he obtained a canoe from the Indians, and, with asmall store of grub, set off on his own. He made his way up the SwanRiver, an unexplored stream emptying into Great Buffalo Lake, as far asthe Great Falls, and there he built himself a shack.

  He could hardly have found a spot better suited to his purpose. No whiteman so far as known had ever visited those falls, and even the Indiansavoid the neighbourhood for superstitious reasons. But even here hecould not quite cut himself off from his kind. An epidemic of measlesbroke out among the Kakisa Indians up the river from him, and out ofpure humanity he went among them and cured them. These Indians weregrateful, strange to say; they almost deified the white man who hadappeared so strangely in their country.

  Meanwhile the wrong she had done him began to prey on his wife's mind.She could not rest under the thought that she had wrecked hisusefulness. Ernest Imbrie had, with the idea of keeping his mind fromrusting out in solitude, ordered certain papers and books sent to him atFort Enterprise. His wife learned of this address through his medicalcollege, and in the spring of the year following her marriage, that isto say the spring of the year just past, she set off in search of himwithout saying anything to anybody of her intention.

  She and her father were still at Fort Edward--have I said that the girlhad no mother?--and Hooliam Imbrie had been there, too, during thewinter, not daring to approach the girl precisely, but just hangingaround the neighbourhood. One can't help feeling for the poor wretch,bad as he was, he was har
d-hit, too. He bribed a native servant to showhim the letter giving his brother's address, and when the girl set off,he instantly guessed her errand, and determined to prevent theirmeeting.

  Now it is only a short distance from Fort Edward over the height of landto the source of the main southerly branch of the Spirit, and Hooliamwas therefore able to proceed direct to Fort Enterprise by canoe (ajourney of more than a thousand miles), pausing only to go up theStanley to pick up his mother, who was ripe for such an adventure. AtCarcajou Point, when they had almost reached Enterprise, they heard thelegend of the White Medicine Man off on the unknown Swan River, and theydecided to avoid Enterprise and hit straight across the prairie.

  Meanwhile the girl was obliged to make a long detour south to therailway, then across the mountains and north again by all sorts ofconveyances, with many delays. So Hooliam and his mother arrived a fewweeks before her, but they in turn were delayed at Swan Lake by thewoman's illness.

  You have read a transcript of the statements of this precious pair atthe hearing before me. Read it again, and observe the ingenious web oftruth and falsehood. For instance, it was true the woman fell sick atSwan Lake, and Hooliam after waiting awhile for her, finally went downthe river without her--only a few days in advance of Sergeant Stonor andErnest Imbrie's wife. As soon as Hooliam reached Swan Lake he began tomeet Indians who had seen his brother, and thereafter he was alwayshailed among them as the White Medicine Man. The Indians never troubledto explain to themselves how he had got to Swan Lake, because theyascribed magical powers to him anyway.

  What happened between the brothers when they met will never be known forcertain. Hooliam swears that he did not intend to kill Ernest, but thatthe deed was done in self-defence during a quarrel. However that maybe, Ernest was shot through the heart with a bullet from Hooliam's gun,and his body cast in the river.

  You have read the rest of the story; how Stonor arrived with Ernest'swife, and how, at the shock of beholding her husband's body, the poorgirl lost her memory. How Hooliam sought to escape up-stream, andStonor's confusion when he was told by an Indian that the White MedicineMan was still alive. How Hooliam kidnapped the girl from Stonor, andtried to win back to the mountains and his own country by way of theunexplored river.

  We established the fact that Hooliam did not tell his mother what hadhappened at the Great Falls. She thought that Hooliam had found Ernestgone still further north. You can see at the hearing how when Stonorfirst told of the murder, in her horror at the discovery that onebrother had killed the other the truth finally came out. Though she hadalways taken Hooliam's part she could not altogether deny her feelingfor the other son.

  Well, that's about all. I consider that they got off easily; Hooliamwith twenty years, and the woman with half that sentence; but in theman's case it was impossible to prove that the murder was a deliberateone, and though the woman certainly did her best to put Stonor out ofthe way, as it happened he escaped.

  You ask about the Indian woman, Mary Moosa, who served Stonor and Mrs.Imbrie so faithfully. We overtook her at Swan Lake on the way out. Soshe did not starve to death on the river, but recovered from her wound.

  When we got out as far as Caribou Lake we met Mrs. Imbrie's distractedfather coming in search of her. The meeting between them was veryaffecting. I am happy to say that the young lady has since recoveredher memory entirely, and at the last account was very well.

  You are curious to know what kind of fellow Stonor is. I can onlyanswer, an ornament to the service. Simple, manly and dependable as atrooper ought to be. With a splendid strong body and a good wit. Out ofsuch as he the glorious tradition of our force was built. They arebecoming more difficult to get, I am sorry to say. I had long had my eyeon him, and this affair settled it. I have recommended him for acommission. He is a man of good birth and education. Moreover I saw thatif we didn't commission him we'd lose him; for he wants to get married.As a result of the terrible trials they faced together he and ErnestImbrie's widow have conceived a deep affection for each other. Enlistedmen are not allowed to marry. They make a fine pair, Doncourt. It makesan old fellow sort of happy and weepy to see them together.

  Stonor is now at the Officers' School at General Headquarters, and if hepasses his examinations will be commissioned in the summer.

  We'll talk further about this interesting case when good fortune bringsus together again. In the meantime, my dear Doncourt,

  Yours faithfully, FRANK EGERTON.