CHAPTER X
A CAMP-FIRE TALE
Another surprise was waiting for Jessie. As soon as Onistah came intothe circle of light, he walked straight to the whiskey-smuggler.
"You save my life from Crees. Thanks," he said in English.
Onistah offered his hand.
The white man took it. He was embarrassed. "Oh, well, I kinda took ahand."
The Indian was not through. "Onistah never forget. He pay some day."
Tom waved this aside. "How's the leg? Seems to be all right now."
Swiftly Jessie turned to the Indian and asked him a question in thenative tongue. He answered. They exchanged another sentence or two.
The girl spoke to Morse. "Onistah is my brother. I too thank you," shesaid stiffly.
"Your brother! He's not Angus McRae's son, is he?"
"No. And I'm not his daughter--really. I'll tell you about that," shesaid with a touch of the defensive defiance that always came into hermanner when the subject of her birth was referred to.
She did, later, over the camp-fire.
It is fortunate that desire and opportunity do not always marchtogether. The constable and Morse had both been dead men if Bully Westcould have killed with a wish. Sleeping Dawn would have been on theroad to an existence worse than death. Instead, they sat in front ofthe coals of buffalo chips while the big smuggler and his companionsrode away from an ignominious field of battle.
When the constable and his prisoner had first struck camp, there hadbeen two of them. Now there were six. For in addition to Jessie McRae,the Blackfoot, and Barney, another had come out of the night andhailed them with a "Hello, the camp!" This last self-invited guest wasBrad Stearns, who had not ridden to Whoop-Up as he had announced, buthad watched events from a distance on the chance that he might be ofhelp to Tom Morse.
Jessie agreed with Beresford that she must stay in camp till morning.There was nothing else for her to do. She could not very well ride thenight out with Onistah on the road back to the fort. But she stayedwith great reluctance.
Her modesty was in arms. Never before had she, a girl alone, beenforced to make camp with five men as companions, all but one of themalmost strangers to her. The experience was one that shocked her senseof fitness.
She was troubled and distressed, and she showed it. Her impulsivenesshad swept her into an adventure that might have been tragic, thatstill held potentialities of disaster. For she could not forget thelook on West's face when he had sworn to get even with her. This manwas a terrible enemy, because of his boldness, his evil mind, and hislack of restraining conscience.
Yet even now she could not blame herself for what she had done. Theconstable's life was at stake. It had been necessary to move swiftlyand decisively.
Sitting before the fire, Sleeping Dawn began to tell her story. Shetold it to Beresford as an apology for having ridden forty miles withOnistah to save his life. It was, if he chose so to accept it, anexplanation of how she came to do so unwomanly a thing.
"Onistah's mother is my mother," she said. "When I was a baby my ownmother died. Stokimatis is her sister. I do not know who my fatherwas, but I have heard he was an American. Stokimatis took me to hertepee and I lived there with her and Onistah till I was five or six.Then Angus McRae saw me one day. He liked me, so he bought me forthree yards of tobacco, a looking-glass, and five wolf pelts."
It may perhaps have been by chance that the girl's eyes met those ofMorse. The blood burned beneath the tan of her dusky cheeks, but herproud eyes did not flinch while she told the damning facts about herparentage and life. She was of the metis, the child of an unknownfather. So far as she knew her mother had never been married. She hadbeen bought and sold like a negro slave in the South. Let any one thatwanted to despise her make the most of all this.
So far as any expression went Tom Morse looked hard as pig iron. Hedid not want to blunder, so he said nothing. But the girl would havebeen amazed if she could have read his thoughts. She seemed to him arare flower that has blossomed in a foul swamp.
"If Angus McRae took you for his daughter, it was because he lovedyou," Beresford said gently.
"Yes." The mobile face was suddenly tender with emotion. "What can anyfather do more than he has done for me? I learned to read and write athis knee. He taught me the old songs of Scotland that he's so fond of.He tried to make me good and true. Afterward he sent me to Winnipeg toschool for two years."
"Good for Angus McRae," the young soldier said.
She smiled, a little wistfully. "He wants me to be Scotch, but ofcourse I can't be that even though I sing 'Should auld acquaintance'to him. I'm what I am."
Ever since she had learned to think for herself, she had struggledagainst the sense of racial inferiority. Even in the Lone Lands menof education had crossed her path. There was Father Giguere, tall andaustere and filled with the wisdom of years, a scholar who had lefthis dear France to serve on the outposts of civilization. And therewas the old priest's devoted friend Philip Muir, of whom the story ranthat he was heir to a vast estate across the seas. Others she had seenat Winnipeg. And now this scarlet-coated soldier Beresford.
Instinctively she recognized the difference between them and thetrappers and traders who frequented the North woods. In her bed atnight she had more than once wept herself to sleep because life hadbuilt an impassable barrier between what she was and what she wantedto be.
"To the Scot nobody is quite like a Scot," Beresford admitted witha smile. "When he wants to make you one, Mr. McRae pays you a greatcompliment"
The girl flashed a look of gratitude at him and went on with herstory. "Whenever we are near Stokimatis, I go to see her. She hasalways been very fond of me. It wasn't really for money she sold me,but because she knew Angus McRae could bring me up better than shecould. I was with her to-day when Onistah came in and told us whatthis West was going to do. There wasn't time for me to reach Father. Icouldn't trust anybody at Whoop-Up, and I was afraid if Onistah camealone, you wouldn't believe him. You know how people are about--aboutIndians. So I saddled a horse and rode with him."
"That was fine of you. I'll never forget it, Miss McRae," the youngsoldier said quietly, his eyes for an instant full on hers. "I don'tthink I've ever met another girl who would have had the good sense andthe courage to do it."
Her eyes fell from his. She felt a queer delightful thrill run throughher blood. He still respected her, was even grateful to her for whatshe had done. No experience in the ways of men and maids warned herthat there was another cause for the quickened pulse. Youth had lookedinto the eyes of youth and made the world-old call of sex to sex.
In a little pocket opening from the draw Morse arranged blankets forthe girl's bed. He left Beresford to explain to her that she couldsleep there alone without fear, since a guard would keep watch againstany possible surprise attack.
When the soldier did tell her this, Jessie smiled back herreassurance. "I'm not afraid--not the least littlest bit," she saidbuoyantly. "I'll sleep right away."
But she did not. Jessie was awake to the finger-tips, her veins apulsewith the flow of rushing rivers of life. Her chaotic thoughts centeredabout two men. One had followed crooked trails for his own profit.There was something in him hard and unyielding as flint. He wouldgo to his chosen end, whatever that might be, over and through anyobstacles that might rise. But to-night, on her behalf, he had throwndown the gauntlet to Bully West, the most dreaded desperado on theborder. Why had he done it? Was he sorry because he had forced herfather to horsewhip her? Or was his warning merely the snarl of onewolf at another?
The other man was of a different stamp. He had brought with him fromthe world whence he had come a debonair friendliness, an ease ofmanner, a smile very boyish and charming. In his jaunty forage cap andscarlet jacket he was one to catch and hold the eye by reason of hisengaging personality. He too had fought her battle. She had heard him,in that casually careless way of his, try to take the blame of havingwounded West. Her happy thoughts went running out to him gratefully
.
Not the least cause of her gratitude was that there had not been theremotest hint in his manner that there was any difference between herand any white girl he might meet.
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