"Where have you been?" asked Beresford. "We've been looking for days."
"In a cabin on Bull Creek. Mr. Whaley took me there, but West followed."
"How did you get away?"
"We were out of food. They went hunting. West took my snowshoes. Onistah came. He saw them coming back and gave me his shoes. He went and hid in the woods. But they'll see his tracks. They'll find him. We must hurry back."
"Yes," agreed McRae. "I'm thinkin' if West finds the lad, he'll do him ill."
Morse spoke for the first time, his voice dry as a chip. "We'd better hurry on, Beresford and I. You and Miss McRae can bring the sled."
McRae hesitated, but assented. There might be desperate need of haste. "That'll be the best way. But you'll be carefu', lad. Yon West's a wolf. He'd as lief kill ye baith as look at ye."
The younger men were out of sight over the brow of the hill long before McRae and Jessie had the dogs harnessed.
"You'll ride, lass," the father announced.
She demurred. "We can go faster if I walk. Let me drive. Then you can break trail where the snow's soft."
"No. You'll ride, my dear. There's nae sic a hurry. The lads'll do what's to be done. On wi' ye."
Jessie got into the cariole and was bundled up to the tip of the nose with buffalo robes, the capote of her own fur being drawn over the head and face. For riding in the sub-Arctic winter is a freezing business.
"Marché,"[6] ordered McRae.
[Footnote: Most of the dogs of the North were trained by trappers who talked French and gave commands in that language. Hence even the Anglo-Saxon drivers used in driving a good many words of that language. (W.M.R.)]
Cuffy led the dogs up the hill, following the trail already broken. The train made good time, but to Jessie it seemed to crawl. She was tortured with anxiety for Onistah. An express could not have carried her fast enough. It was small comfort to tell herself that Onistah was a Blackfoot and knew every ruse of the woods. His tracks would lead straight to him and the veriest child could follow them. Nor could she persuade herself that Whaley would stand between him and West's anger. To the gambler Onistah was only a nitchie.
The train passed out of the woods to the shore of the lake. Here the going was better. The sun was down and the snow-crust held dogs and sled. A hundred fifty yards from the cabin McRae pulled up the team. He moved forward and examined the snow.
With a heave Jessie flung aside the robes that wrapped her and jumped from the cariole. An invisible hand seemed to clutch tightly at her throat. For what she and her father had seen were crimson splashes in the white. Some one or something had been killed or wounded here. Onistah, of course! He must have changed his mind, tried to follow her, and been shot by West as he was crossing the lake.
She groaned, her heart heavy.
McRae offered comfort. "He'll likely be only wounded. The lads wouldna hae moved him yet if he'd no' been livin'."
The train moved forward, Jessie running beside Angus.
Morse came to the door. He closed it behind him.
"Onistah?" cried Jessie.
"He's been—hurt. But we were in time. He'll get well."
"West shot him? We saw stains in the snow."
"No. He shot Whaley."
"Whaley?" echoed McRae.
"Yes. Wanted to get rid of him. Thought your daughter was hidden in the woods here. Afraid, too, that Whaley would give him up to the North-West Mounted."
"Then Whaley's dead?" the Scotchman asked.
"No. West hadn't time right then to finish the job. Pretty badly hurt, though. Shot in the side and in the thigh."
"And West?"
"We came too soon. He couldn't finish his deviltry. He lit out over the hill soon as he saw us."
They went into the house.
Jessie walked straight to where Onistah lay on the balsam boughs and knelt beside him. Beresford was putting on one of his feet a cloth soaked in caribou oil.
"What did he do to you?" she cried, a constriction of dread at her heart.
A ghost of a smile touched the immobile face of the native. "Apache stuff, he called it."
"But—"
"West burned his feet to make him tell where you were," Beresford told her gently.
"Oh!" she cried, in horror.
"Good old Onistah. He gamed it out. Wouldn't say a word. West saw us coming and hit the trail."
"Is he—is he—?"
"He's gone."
"I mean Onistah."
"Suffering to beat the band, but not a whimper out of him. He's not permanently hurt—be walking around in a week or two."
"You poor boy!" the girl cried softly, and she put her arm under the
Indian's head to lift it to an easier position.
The dumb lips of the Blackfoot did not thank her, but the dark eyes gave her the gratitude of a heart wholly hers.
All that night the house was a hospital. The country was one where men had learned to look after hurts without much professional aid. In a rough way Angus McRae was something of a doctor. He dressed the wounds of both the injured, using the small medical kit he had brought with him.
Whaley was a bit of a stoic himself. The philosophy of his class was to take good fortune or ill undemonstratively. He was lucky to be alive. Why whine about what must be?
But as the fever grew on him with the lengthening hours, he passed into delirium. Sometimes he groaned with pain. Again he fell into disconnected babble of early days. He was back again with his father and mother, living over his wild and erring youth.
"… Don't tell Mother. I'll square it all right if you keep it from her…. Rotten run of cards. Ninety-seven dollars. You'll have to wait, I tell you…. Mother, Mother, if you won't cry like that …"
McRae used the simple remedies he had. In themselves they were, he knew, of little value. He must rely on good nursing and the man's hardy constitution to pull him through.
With Morse and Beresford he discussed the best course to follow. It was decided that Morse should take Onistah and Jessie back to Faraway next day and return with a load of provisions. Whaley's fever must run its period. It was impossible to tell yet whether he would live or die, but for some days at least it would not be safe to move him.
CHAPTER XXIX
NOT GOING ALONE
"Morse, I've watched ye through four-five days of near-hell. I ken nane I'd rather tak wi' me as a lone companion on the long traverse. You're canny an' you're bold. That's why I'm trustin' my lass to your care. It's a short bit of a trip, an' far as I can see there's nae danger. But the fear's in me. That's the truth, man. Gie me your word you'll no' let her oot o' your sight till ye hand her ower to my wife at Faraway."
Angus clamped a heavy hand on the young man's shoulder. His blue eyes searched steadily those of the trader.
"I'll not let her twenty yards from me any time. That's a promise,
McRae," the trader said quietly.
Well wrapped from the wind, Onistah sat in the cariole.
Jessie kissed the Scotchman fondly, laughing at him the while. "You're a goose, Father. I'm all right. You take good care of yourself. That West might come back here."
"No chance of that. West will never come back except at the end of a rope. He's headed for the edge of the Barrens, or up that way somewhere," Beresford said. "And inside of a week I'll be north-bound on his trail myself."
Jessie was startled, a good deal distressed. "I'd let him go. He'll meet a bad end somewhere. If he never comes back, as you say he won't, then he'll not trouble us."
The soldier smiled grimly. "That's not the way of the Mounted. Get the fellow you're sent after. That's our motto. I've been assigned the job of bringing in West and I've got to get him."
"You don't mean you're going up there alone to bring back that—that wolf-man?"
"Oh, no," the trooper answered lightly. "I'll have a Cree along as a guide."
"A Cree," she scoffed. "What good will he be if you find West? He'll not help you against him at
all."
"Not what he's with me for. I'm not supposed to need any help to bring back one man."
"It's—it's just suicide to go after him alone," she persisted. "Look what he did to the guard at the prison, to Mr. Whaley, to Onistah! He's just awful—hardly human."
"The lad's under orders, lass," McRae told her. "Gin they send him into the North after West, he'll just have to go. He canna argy-bargy aboot it."
Jessie gave up, reluctantly.
The little cavalcade started. Morse drove. The girl brought up the rear.
Her mind was still on the hazard of the journey Beresford must take.
When Morse stopped to rest the dogs for a few moments, she tucked up
Onistah again and recurred to the subject.
"I don't think Win Beresford should go after West alone except for a Cree guide. The Inspector ought to send another constable with him. Or two more. If he knew that man—how cruel and savage he is—"
Tom Morse spoke quietly. "He's not going alone. I'll be with him."
She stared. "You?"
"Yes. Sworn in as a deputy constable."
"But—he didn't say you were going when I spoke to him about it a little while ago."
"He didn't know. I've made up my mind since."
In point of fact he had come to a decision three seconds before he announced it.
Her soft eyes applauded him. "That'll be fine. His friends won't worry so much if you're with him. But—of course you know it'll be a horrible trip—and dangerous."
"No picnic," he admitted.
She continued to look at him, her cheeks flushed and her face vivid.
"You must like Win a lot. Not many men would go."
"We're good friends," Morse answered dryly. "Anyhow, I owe West something on my own account."
The real reason why he was going he had not given. During the days she had been lost he had been on the rack of torture. He did not want her to suffer months of such mental distress while the man she loved was facing alone the peril of his grim work in the white Arctic desert.
They resumed the journey.
Jessie said no more. She would not mention the subject again probably. But it would be a great deal in her thoughts. She lived much of the time inside herself with her own imagination. This had the generosity and the enthusiasm of youth. She wanted to believe people fine and good and true. It warmed her to discover unexpected virtues in them.
Mid-afternoon brought them to Faraway. They drove down the main street of the village to McRae's house while the half-breeds cheered from the door of the Morse store.
Jessie burst into the big family room where Matapi-Koma sat bulging out from the only rocking-chair in the North woods.
"Oh, Mother—Mother!" the girl cried, and hugged the Cree woman with all the ardent young savagery of her nature.
The Indian woman's fat face crinkled to an expansive smile. She had stalwart sons of her own, but no daughters except this adopted child. Jessie was very dear to her.
In a dozen sentences the girl poured out her story, the words tumbling pell-mell over each other in headlong haste.
Matapi-Koma waddled out to the sled. "Onistah stay here," she said, and beamed on him. "Blackfoot all same Cree to Matapi-Koma when he friend Jessie. Angus send word nurse him till he well again."
Tom carried the Indian into the house so that his feet would not touch the ground. Jessie had stayed in to arrange the couch where Fergus usually slept.
She followed Morse to the door when he left. "We'll have some things to send back to Father when you go. I'll bring them down to the store to-morrow morning," she said. "And Mother wants you to come to supper to-night. Don't you dare say you're too busy."
He smiled at the intimate feminine fierceness of the injunction. The last few hours had put them on a somewhat different footing. He would accept such largesse as she was willing to offer. He recognized the spirit in which it was given. She wanted to show her appreciation of what he had done for her and was about to do for the man she loved. Nor would Morse meet her generosity in a churlish spirit.
"I'll be here when the gong rings," he told her heartily.
"Let's see. It's nearly three now. Say five o'clock," she decided.
"At five I'll be knockin' on the door."
She flashed at him a glance both shy and daring. "And I'll open it before you break through and bring it with you."
The trader went away with a queer warmth in his heart he had not known for many a day. The facts did not justify this elation, this swift exhilaration of blood, but to one who has starved for long any food is grateful.
Jessie flew back into the house. She had a busy two hours before her.
"Mother, Mr. Morse is coming to dinner. What's in the house?"
"Fergus brought a black-tail in yesterday."
"Good. I know what I'll have. But first off, I want a bath. Lots of hot water, and all foamy with soap. I've got to hurry. You can peel the potatoes if you like. And fix some of those young onions. They're nice. And Mother—I'll let you make the biscuits. That's all. I'll do the rest."
The girl touched a match to the fire that was set in her room. She brought a tin tub and hot water and towels. Slim and naked she stood before the roaring logs and reveled in her bath. The sense of cleanliness was a luxury delicious. When she had dressed herself from the soles of her feet up in clean clothes, she felt a new and self-respecting woman.
She did not pay much attention to the psychology of dress, but she knew that when she had on the pretty plaid that had come from Fort Benton, and when her heavy black hair was done up just right, she had twice the sex confidence she felt in old togs. Jessie would have denied indignantly that she was a coquette. None the less she was intent on conquest. She wanted this quiet, self-contained American to like her.
The look she had seen in his red-brown eyes at times tantalized her. She could not read it. That some current of feeling about her raced deep in him she divined, but she did not know what it was. He had a way of letting his steady gaze rest on her disturbingly. What was he thinking? Did he despise her? Was he, away down out of sight, the kind of man toward women that West and Whaley were? She wouldn't believe it. He had never taken an Indian woman to live with him. There was not even a rumor that he had ever taken an interest in any Cree girl. Of course she did not like him—not the way she did Win Beresford or even Onistah—but she was glad he held himself aloof. It would have greatly disappointed her to learn of any sordid intrigue involving him.
Jessie rolled up her sleeves and put on a big apron. She saw that the onions and the potatoes were started and the venison ready for broiling. From a chest of drawers she brought one of the new white linen tablecloths of which she was inordinately proud. She would not trust any one but herself to set the table. Morse had come from a good family. He knew about such things. She was not going to let him go away thinking Angus McRae's family were barbarians, even though his wife was a Cree and his children of the half-blood.
On the table she put a glass dish of wild-strawberry jam. In the summer she had picked the fruit herself, just as she had gathered the saskatoon berries sprinkled through the pemmican she was going to use for the rubaboo.
CHAPTER XXX
"M" FOR MORSE
Two in the village bathed that day. The other was Tom Morse. He discarded his serviceable moccasins, his caribou-skin capote with the fur on, his moose-skin trousers, and his picturesque blanket shirt. For these he substituted the ungainly clothes of civilization, a pair of square-toed boots, a store suit, a white shirt.
This was not the way Faraway dressed for gala occasions, but in several respects the trader did not choose to follow the habits of the North. At times he liked to remind himself that he was an American and not a French half-breed born in the woods.
As he had promised, he was at the McRaes' by the appointed hour.
Jessie opened to his knock.
The girl almost took his breath. He had not realized how attractive she was.
In her rough outdoor costumes she had a certain naïve boyishness, a very taking quality of vital energy that was sexless. But in the house dress she was wearing now, Jessie was wholly feminine. The little face, cameo-fine and clear-cut, the slender body, willow-straight, had the soft rounded curves that were a joy to the eye. He had always thought of her as dark, but to his surprise he found her amazingly fair for one of the métis blood.
A dimpled smile flashed him welcome. "You did come, then?"
"Is it the wrong night? Weren't you expectin' me?" he asked in pretended alarm.
"I was and I wasn't. It wouldn't have surprised me if you had decided you were too busy to come."
"Not when Miss Jessie McRae invites me."
"She invited you once before," the girl reminded him.
"Then she asked me because she thought she ought. Is that why I'm asked this time?"
She laughed. "You mustn't look a gift dinner in the mouth."
They were by this time in the big family room. She relieved him of his coat. He walked over to the couch upon which Onistah lay.
"How goes it? Tough sleddin'?" he asked.
The bronze face of the Blackfoot was immobile. He must still have been in great pain from the burnt feet, but he gave no sign of it.
"Onistah find good friends," he answered simply.
Tom looked round the room, and again there came to him the sense of home. Logs roared and snapped in the great fireplace. The table, set with the dishes and the plated silver McRae had imported from the States, stirred in him a pleasure that was almost poignant. The books, the organ, the quaint old engravings Angus had brought with him when he crossed the ocean: all of these touched the trader nearly. He was in exile, living a bachelor life under the most primitive conditions. The atmosphere of this house penetrated to every fiber of his being. It filled him with an acute hunger. Here were love and friendly intercourse and all the daily, homely routine that made life beautiful.
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