CHAPTER VIII
THE NOR'WESTER'S FLESH
A deeper blot within the shadow which the headland cast upon the water,Dunvegan's craft silently rounded Caribou Point, beached softly upon thesand in the granite-walled cove, and spilled its crew into the aisles ofthe Black Forest. Beyond rose the craggy ridge called Mooswa Hill, alandmark to the Hudson's Bay men in times of quiet, a pillar of firewhen the Nor'westers struck.
The winter cabin Gaspard Follet had mentioned stood on a rock shoulderabove the cove. Pine and spruce crowded it. In springtime the shore icejammed to its threshold. The ooze and drip of the years were insidiouslyworking its ruin. But still the halfbreed and the voyageurs sometimesused it for a night's shelter on their journeys. Once it had saved thelife of Basil Dreaulond in a great blizzard. Exhausted, he had reachedit when he could never have made his remaining three miles to OxfordHouse.
A neck of the Black Forest hugged the incline where the hut stood.Marshy beaver meadows, fringing the Bay, hedged the timber line,spreading across to Mooswa ridge and giving no solid footing except whatwas afforded by a dam traversing the black water. This ridge fell awaygradually to where Oxford House was reared, but reaching the Hudson'sBay post by land from Caribou Point was precarious business in the darkfor no bridge, other than that which the beavers had built, spanned themorass. Hence the chief trader with his band had elected to come bywater.
Very warily they emerged from the shelter of the tree boles into theclearing where the cabin rested.
"Lie down," commanded Dunvegan, in a whisper. "And go slow! The fellowmay have friends with him."
They disappeared at once among the rock ferns, worming noiselessly upontheir faces toward the rough log shelter. The chinks of the logsstreamed candlelight, but no sound came from within. The night seemedholding its breath. The intense stillness was broken only by the leap ofmaska-longe on the distant bars and the rubbing of elbows in the fernybrake.
At the cabin's corner the chief trader touched three of his followersupon the shoulder. Immediately they obeyed his unspoken command,slipping cat-footed round the hut one to the back one to either side.Possessed of sudden, sardonic humor, Dunvegan stooped and whispered inthe ear of the dwarf whom they had taken at his word and brought along.
"Will you go in first?" he questioned, playing upon Gaspard's cowardlyspirit.
The Fool shuddered and shied. Stifling a laugh, the chief trader thrusthim to the rear of his line. His heavy kick flung the door back, and heleaped swiftly inside. The hut had an occupant! He rose from a blockseat at the sudden intrusion, striding uncertainly to the center of thefloor. Neither man spoke. Dunvegan's followers trooped in.
The chief trader's glance searched out the stranger's armament, therifle in the corner, the belt of pistols on the rude table. The pistolsDunvegan threw down at the butt of the leaning rifle. Then he whirledthe table itself across that corner of the room, cutting off access tothe weapons, and sat upon it. The tall, sturdily-built fellow watchedhim, unmoved. His crafty, blue eyes never wavered. He seemed consciousof no immediate danger.
"_Bon soir_," he spoke finally, giving them the greeting of the Northwith a southern accent.
"It's not good," returned Dunvegan, curtly. "This is the worst night youever struck in all your bad nights, Mr. Ferguson."
"Ferguson!" echoed the other in feigned surprise. Then he laughedcheerfully. "That isn't my name, and I'm not a Nor'wester. I'm a FreeTrader from the South. A Yank, if you must know--from Vermont! I'll getout now that the Company has spotted me. I have some regard for my pelt.Come, act square with me. The H. B. C. always gives a man a chance. It'sthe first offense, you know. I'll turn my canoe south on the minute."
"Hardly," replied the chief trader, coldly. "There's some one waitingfor you at Oxford House. You will not go far--if I am any judge of theFactor's designs." He folded his arms and swung his legs comfortablyunder the table.
To the Fool, he added: "Gaspard, is this the same person you saw?"
"By the Virgin, yes," quavered Follet, and hid himself behind Connear'sbowed legs between which there was vision enough for his immediateneeds.
"'Tis that devil of a Black Ferguson," the idiot piped from his vantageground. "He frightened me; he frightened me." Breaking into a foolishhabit of improvising rhymes, he shrieked:
"The devil's kin; the devil's son; And all the devils rolled in one!"
Dunvegan silenced him with a word and addressed the Irishman.
"Burke," he asked, "can you corroborate this poor fool's statement? Wewant the right man. The Factor won't forgive any blundering."
"Fair as a Dane wid the same blue eyes! It's him. It's Black Ferguson."
"Do I look black?" demanded the baited man angrily.
"_Saprie!_ We no be see you on de inside," was Basil Dreaulond's swiftanswer.
"I'm from the South," persisted the object of their quest, turning toBruce. "A Free Trader, I tell you." His gestures were of irritation.
Dunvegan smiled a cold, triumphant smile. He delighted in the loss ofhis enemy's cool demeanor, in the failure of his self-possession.
"Ferguson," he began, "you're a weak liar. Your accent betrays you. Wehave you identified to our satisfaction, and your next interview will bewith Macleod. I warn you that this first meeting with the Factor may beyour last and only one, so carry yourself accordingly!" Dunvegan brokeoff, waving an arm to his band. "Bind him!" he added.
The Hudson's Bay men closed in, but Black Ferguson fell back, a defiantsneer on his handsome face directed at the chief trader.
"One minute!" he parleyed insolently. "What's your name?"
"Bruce Dunvegan."
"I've heard of you," Ferguson sneered.
"Perhaps," chuckled the chief trader. "Most Nor'westers have. But Iwouldn't advise you to resist my men unless you want to get roughlyhandled."
"I've heard of you," the other repeated tauntingly; "heard of you as oneof the Company's bravest. Is this how you show your courage? You haveone, two, three--nine, without counting the dwarf. And you spring upon asolitary man. Dunvegan, you're a cursed coward!"
Before Dunvegan had felt the depressing gloom of the Nor'wester'sshadow. Now he felt the flaming insult of the Nor'wester's flesh.
Under that insult his blood stung as under the stroke of a dog-whip. Thescintillating fire grew in his darkened eyes. His teeth gleamed whitebetween his drawn lips.
"Back, men," was his snarling command. "I never ask you to do what I'mafraid to do myself."
He leaped from the table and strode across to his enemy.
Black Ferguson stood perfectly still till Dunvegan was almost upon him.Then he plunged low with a wolf-like spring. What grip the Nor'westertook the other men never knew, but they saw the chief trader's big formwhirled in the air under the tremendous leverage of some arm-and-leghold. When he came down, Dunvegan was flat on his face upon the floor.Black Ferguson sat astride his back, pinning the chief trader's arms tothe planks.
"You're quite helpless," Ferguson cried, laughing at his adversary andsneering at the circle of amazed men. "That's a wrestler's trick. Ilearned it in--in Vermont. What'll you do about that binding? Ifancy----"
A grip of iron on his throat killed the words. Ferguson gurgled andtwisted his head, casting his eyes down to see whose hands held him. Butthere were no hands. Dunvegan had swept his muscular legs up over hisback and crossed them in an unbreakable hold about the Nor'wester'sneck.
Like lightning he swung them down with all the power of his sinewy body.Torn from his momentary position as the upper dog, Black Fergusoncrashed to the floor. His head seemed nearly wrenched off. His breathwas hammered out. Dunvegan crouched on his chest, choking him intosubmission, but even in this strait he had voice enough to spring hisbig surprise.
"La Roche! La Roche!" he roared in a gasping shriek which sounded morelike the desperate death rattle in some wild throat than a human call."To me, comrades! To me!"
Something dashed out the candlelight. A gun roared in the doorway
. Thecabin rocked under a powerful assault. It all came in a whirl that dazedDunvegan's brain. He heard the chug of bullets through the rotten logs,the oaths of his men, the battle cry of the rushing Nor'westers who hadbeen craftily lying in wait.
"Damn you!" he cried to his prostrate antagonist, "this is your devilishtrap!"
In a flash he understood that Ferguson had got wind of their coming andlaid a trap for them. Dunvegan's force in his power, and Oxford Housewould be an easier prey! And Desiree Lazard an easier prey still! Amadness seized Dunvegan. He vowed that Black Ferguson should pay thepenalty! His fingers closed on the man's wind-pipe, but a falling beamhit him on the shoulder, hurling him away from his enemy and half-waythrough the door amid the rush of feet. There was little return shootingtill Dunvegan squirmed into the open. Then he began it with his pistols,leading a dash for the canoe and shouting the Hudson's Bay cry.
Their guns belching fire across the dark, the hardy band zigzaggedamong the trees, covering their retreat to the cove with a rattlingfusillade that kept the pursuing Nor'westers at a distance. Connear andBurke ran knee deep into the water with the big craft. Gaspard Folletwas the first to leap in, but he sank clean through the bottom with ahowl of dismay. Like a dripping rag they pulled him out, and Connearcompletely exhausted his store of sailor's expletives.
"Silence," ordered Dunvegan sharply. "What's wrong with you there?" TheNor'westers were shooting from the incline above the cove and theirbullets spat in the water.
"Hole in her as big as a whaleboat," Connear growled. "We're caught in atrap, and those blasted Nor'west lubbers know it."
It seemed that the enemy had worsted them at every turn. The lakeoffered no means of escape, neither did the morass, and the Nor'westersheld the slope. Dunvegan wondered why they had so easily fought theirway to the canoe. Now he knew the reason.
The Nor'west leader thought that he had them hemmed in, that theirextermination was already a decided fact. Then would come his surpriseof Oxford House! The scoundrel was brainy, without a doubt. His ruse hadbeen clever. But he had forgotten one thing--the topography of thecountry! There was a way out other than that up the incline and over themuzzles of the Nor'west rifles. The path lay across the black morasswhich ringed the Bay, and Dunvegan knew that path.
"Are we all here?" he asked suddenly of his men.
"All but Michael Barreau and Gray Eagle," Connear answered. "Someonecaved in Michael's head with a gun stock; Gray Eagle was shot--I saw himfall! And old Running Wolf fired the shot!"
"The Cree joined them, eh? I expected that. Where's Maskwa?"
"Here, Strong Father," called the Ojibway fort runner. "What is yourwill?"
"You know the beaver dam, the wall across the meadows?" Dunveganinquired. "You remember it, the new dam we found some moons ago?"
"I remember well," Maskwa answered solemnly. "Did not Strong Fathercarry me over that----"
"Never mind," the chief trader interrupted hastily. "If you remember theplace, lead these men to it. When you get across, hurry up Mooswa Hilland light the beacon. I'll come last! Now then, altogether with theguns! Give them a good volley to make them think we are preparing tostorm. Then slip away."
The fusillade boomed and roared. Return volleys belched out. Oxford Lakerumbled and quaked with a million echoes. Like heavy artillery the blackpowder thundered. Then dead silence fell. Expecting instant attack, theNor'westers lay close, but the inaction continuing, their scout workeddown close to the beach and found it deserted. At that moment Dunvegan'sfile was crossing the long beaver dam.
The Hudson's Bay men had their guns slung to their backs. All exceptMaskwa and the chief trader carried long poles in their hands, withwhich they saved themselves when they missed their footing and sank tothe armpits in the rubbish of the structure.
Maskwa was leading the line. Pete Connear walked next. When they hadreached the solid ridge and were waiting for the others, Connear pokedthe Ojibway's muscled back.
"What's that yarn you started to tell back there about bein' carriedover this rickety dam?" he asked.
"The day of the great wind, three moons ago," began Maskwaunemotionally, "Strong Father upset with me in my canoe out in the bigwaters beyond Caribou Point. I took the bad medicine, the cramp, and thelake spirits nearly had me. But Strong Father swam out with me, pumpedmy breath back, and carried me over the dam of the little wise ones tothe Company's post, for our canoe was in pieces on the rocks. StrongFather will not talk about it."
"By--the sailors'--god!" exclaimed Pete Connear slowly. Then hewhistled siren fashion in failure of further speech, while the tallOjibway bounded like a spikehorn up the Mooswa Hill.
When the last of Dunvegan's men had crossed the bridge built by nature'schildren, swift Maskwa had accomplished his mission. As they ran downthe ridge toward the post, the beacon flamed, a pillar of fire, againstthe dark sky.
On through the stockade gates under Nemaire's challenge they sped. Andthe Hudson's Bay stronghold shook itself into ready defense atDunvegan's news. But although they lay upon their arms, no attack came.Ferguson's intent had miscarried.
Yet the surprises of the night were not done. When Macleod made searchfor his daughter to see if she could throw any light on recent Nor'westmovements he found her gone and his own canoe missing from the landing.
Law of the North (Originally published as Empery) Page 8