Law of the North (Originally published as Empery)

by Samuel Alexander White

  CHAPTER XIX

  NOT IN THE BONDS OF GOD

  "Who speaks!" called Dunvegan from the watchtower to the noisy fellowswho were shouting and beating upon the gates with the ostensible objectof awakening the sleepy post.

  "Messengers from Fort La Roche," they screeched.

  "La Roche? Ah! With what news?"

  "A message for Brondel's factor."

  "Well?"

  "Ferguson, our leader, orders his transfer to Fort La Roche. He is tooccupy the same position there."

  The chief trader roared outright with laughter.

  "It seems that I arrived none too soon," he commented ironically, halfto himself and half to Maskwa, standing silent by his shoulder.

  "Sir?" the couriers interrogated. But Bruce failing to answer, studiedsome sudden idea grimly and at length.

  "Strong Father," interrupted the Ojibway softly, "bid me open the gates,let these French Hearts enter, and thus make them prisoners."

  Dunvegan shook his head. "No," he returned. "They shall go back to LaRoche. The shock Ferguson receives will be well worth the warning."

  To the Nor'west messengers he cried whimsically: "The password?"

  "Marseillaise," they answered without hesitation.

  Again the chief trader chuckled, drawing something of humor from thesituation.

  "An hour ago that countersign would have let you in," he observed. "Nowit is of no use whatever for the post is in possession of the Hudson'sBay Company."

  He paused, looking into the up-turned, surprised faces of the couriersquite visible in the strengthening daylight.

  "Go back to Black Ferguson," Dunvegan directed. "Tell him that youdelivered the message he sent to the lord of Fort Brondel, but explainthat the lord of Fort Brondel is Bruce Dunvegan. Explain also that themen of the fort lie in babiche bonds; that Glyndon is a prisoner; thatGlyndon's wife is a captive. Announce to your leader the leaguer of FortDumarge. By the time he hears the news, it, too, will have fallen. Andadvise him in conclusion that the Hudson's Bay forces from these twoposts will shortly combine before La Roche's stockades."

  The Nor'west messengers fell away from the gates, astonishment masteringtheir speech.

  "Never fear," Dunvegan reassured them. "If I wished to take youprisoners it would have been done long ago. Now go back as I bade you.And one more message for Black Ferguson! Tell him he did a foolish thingin bribing a drunkard to join his ranks that he might steal thedrunkard's wife. Tell him that, and tell him Bruce Dunvegan said it."

  Swiftly the couriers retraced the track they had furrowed in thedeep-snowed slope. Their movements were furtive, and in spite of Bruce'sassurance of safety, they cast many backward glances.

  As the chief trader and the Ojibway quitted the watchtower, Maskwa spokein a voice of protestation.

  "Was that a wise doing, Strong Father?" he asked.

  "How, my brother?"

  "To send your enemy warning?"

  Dunvegan smiled. "I could not forbear the thrust," he declared. "I couldnot help but let him know that his well-made plans had miscarried; thatthe woman he thought to seize was again under the protection of themighty Company."

  Maskwa ruminated.

  "Then Strong Father has unknowingly accomplished what the French Heartwould have done," he mused aloud. "It is well. It is even better thanhaving Soft Eyes, the husband, fall in the fight."

  "Ah! you mistake my meaning, Maskwa," observed the chief traderhastily. "The woman is in my protection, not in my possession."

  "So!" the fort runner exclaimed with a slight inflection of surprise."The French Heart may steal, but Strong Father steals not. How is that?"

  "We are different men," answered Bruce, as they entered the store.

  Desiree still waited beside the door. Maskwa passed her by without alook, making his way toward the trading room. Had she had the beauty ofall the angels, her fairness would have commanded no homage from hiscunning, leathery heart.

  But Dunvegan, more susceptible, stopped at her word, his hungry eyesdwelling on her beauty, which even after the wearing night appearedfaultless.

  "Who were those messengers at the gates?" she inquired.

  "Men of Black Ferguson's with a drafting order for Brondel's factor."

  "Ah!" she gasped, "to--to----"

  "To La Roche," Bruce supplied. "You see I was right. I came just intime."

  With an impulsive, winning gesture Desiree put her hands in Dunvegan's.

  "I ought to be thankful," she began, brokenly. "And I am! Heaven knows Iam! But I should also be frank. After greeting you as I did in my room Imust explain."

  "Not unless you wish, unless----"

  "It is my wish, my will," she interrupted.

  "I need relief; I must give someone my confidence. Otherwise I shall gomad!"

  "There is another who should receive your confidence."

  "You think so?" she cried bitterly. "Even if he could comprehend nosingle word of it? If he were sunk in debauchery from the very day ofour marriage? From the moment of flight?"

  "What!" exclaimed the thunderstruck chief trader. "What's that you say?"

  Desiree tottered. "Let me sit down on this bench," she begged. "I'm weaksomehow and--and faint."

  Dunvegan leaned back against the store counter.

  "God," he breathed--"no wonder!"

  The woman looked up beneath the hand which soothed her hammeringtemples.

  "You love Glyndon," Bruce burst out unguardedly.

  Her fist descended viciously on the bench where she sat.

  "No! My God, who could--now?" Vehemence, abhorrence, disgust, filled hervoice.

  "You did," he persisted, rather cruelly and with an ultra-selfishmotive.

  "Infatuation," Desiree cried, "for the clean mask that he wore. Butlove?--Ah! no, can one love a sot, a beast?"

  "Tell me," Dunvegan urged.

  She caught her breath a few times helplessly in the stress of emotion,her eyes roving round the big store which held none but themselves. Hergaze stopped on Bruce's face. Her sentences came from her lipsmechanically.

  "I think his beauty and his old-world manners dazzled me," was herfrank, pride-dissolving confession. "For the time I--I forgot you,Bruce. I imagined I cared more for the other. My indecision could notbrook his mad wooing. For remember that change, absence, and pressureare the three things which convert any woman's will."

  Desiree paused, a pleading for pity in her glance.

  "I took refuge behind my vow," she continued after a second. "But thatgave me no stability. If I would marry him, he promised to leave OxfordHouse immediately and join the Nor'westers. You see Ferguson had alreadyapproached him through Gaspard Follet."

  "That," Dunvegan observed, "should have shown you his true character."

  "I was blind," she lamented. "I deemed it sacrifice. In a way it was, Isuppose. How could I know that the plan arranged by Ferguson throughGaspard Follet was the very thing that suited his evil intentions? Heoffered Edwin command of Brondel. I thought it safe enough to be thefactor's wife in a post removed from Fort La Roche."

  Bruce made a disdainful gesture. "Those messengers showed you how safeit was," he remarked acridly.

  "Father Brochet married us," Desiree went on stonily. "It was in theevening. At once we fled from Oxford House, the sentry thinking we wereonly taking a turn on the lake with the dogs. But in the forest aNor'west guide from Brondel met us with another sledge as agreed, andthe flight began in earnest. The Nor'wester had rum with him. I rode onone sledge. The thing I had married rode on the other, gulping down therum. You can imagine what happened!"

  "Ah!" breathed Dunvegan pityingly.

  "When we made camp near dawn he was drunk! He rolled off the sled, whilethe Nor'wester built a fire, in order to greet his bride----"

  Bruce's smothered oath interrupted.

  "What?" Desiree asked.

  "Nothing," he murmured, the veins of his neck swelling and nearlychoking him.

  "Instead," Desiree resumed, "he g
reeted my pistol muzzle. Day and nightsince he has greeted it also."

  Struck with the lightning significance of her speech, Bruce Dunveganleaped across the intervening floor space. Like some cherishedpossession of his own he snatched her palms. "Desiree! Desiree!" hepanted.

  The danger note was in his voice, the danger fire in his look.Recklessly she met the sweet menace. Facing each other for a longminute, secret thoughts were read to the full.

  "Yet you are married to him," breathed Dunvegan.

  "Not in the bonds of God!" she declared.