by Unknown
West drove the team. Tom either broke trail or followed. He came across plenty of tracks, but most of them were old ones. He recognized the spoor of deer, bear, and innumerable rabbits. Toward noon fresh caribou tracks crossed their path. The slot pointed south. Over a soft and rotting trail Morse swung round in pursuit.
They made heavy going of it. He had to break trail through slushy snow. His shoes broke through the crust and clogged with the sludgy stuff so that his feet were greatly weighted. Fatigue pressed like a load on his shoulders. The dogs and West wallowed behind.
By night probably the trail would be much better, but they dared not wait till then. The caribou would not stop to suit the convenience of the hunters. This might be the last shot in the locker. Every dragging lift of the webs carried Morse farther from camp, but food had to be found and in quantity.
It was close to dusk when Tom guessed they were getting near the herd. He tied the train to a tree and pushed on with West. Just before nightfall he sighted the herd grazing on muskeg moss. There were about a dozen in all. The wind was fortunately right.
Tom motioned to West not to follow him. On hands and knees the hunter crept forward, taking advantage of such cover as he could find. It was a slow, cold business, but he was not here for pleasure. A mistake might mean the difference between life and death for him and Win Beresford.
For a stalker to determine the precise moment when to shoot is usually a nice decision. Perhaps he can gain another dozen yards on his prey. On the other hand, by moving closer he may startle them and lose his chance. With so much at stake Tom felt for the second time in his life the palsy that goes with buck fever.
A buck flung up his head and sniffed toward the hidden danger. Tom knew the sign of startled doubt. Instantly his trembling ceased. He aimed carefully and fired. The deer dropped in its tracks. Again he fired--twice--three times. The last shot was a wild one, sent on a hundredth chance. The herd vanished in the gathering darkness.
Tom swung forward exultant, his webs swishing swiftly over the snow. He had dropped two. A second buck had fallen, risen, run fifty yards, and come to earth again. The hunter's rifle was ready in case either of the caribou sprang up. He found the first one dead, the other badly wounded. At once he put the buck out of its pain.
West came slouching out of the woods at Tom's signal. Directed by the officer, he made a fire and prepared for business. The stars were out as they dressed the meat and cooked a large steak on the coals. Afterward they hung the caribou from the limb of a spruce, drawing them high enough so that no prowling wolves could reach the game.
With the coming of night the temperature had fallen and the snow hardened. The crust held beneath their webs as they returned to the sled. West wanted to camp where the deer had been killed. He protested, with oaths, in his usual savage growl, that he was dead tired and could not travel another step.
But he did. Beneath the stars the hunters mushed twenty miles back to camp. They made much better progress by reason of the frozen trail and the good meal they had eaten.
It was daybreak when Morse sighted the camp-fire smoke. His heart leaped. Beresford must have been able to keep it alive with fuel. Therefore he had been alive an hour or two ago at most.
Dogs and men trudged into camp ready to drop with fatigue.
Beresford, from where he lay, waved a hand at Tom. "Any luck?" he asked.
"Two caribou."
"Good. I'll be ready for a steak to-morrow."
Morse looked at him anxiously. The glaze had left his eyes. He was no longer burning up with fever. Both voice and movements seemed stronger than they had been twenty-four hours earlier.
"Bully for you, Win," he answered.
CHAPTER XXXIX
A CREE RUNNER BRINGS NEWS
"Don't you worry about that lad, Jessie. He's got as many lives as a cat--and then some. I've knew him ever since he was knee-high to a grasshopper."
Brad Stearns was talking. He sat in the big family room at the McRae house and puffed clouds of tobacco, smoke to the rafters.
"Meaning Mr. Beresford?" asked Jessie demurely. She was patching a pair of leather trousers for Fergus and she did not raise her eyes from the work.
"Meanin' Tom Morse," the old-timer said. "Not but what Beresford's a good lad too. Sand in his craw an' a kick like a mule in his fist. But he was brought up somewheres in the East, an' o' course he's a leetle mite less tough than Tom. No, sir. Tom'll bob up one o' these here days good as ever. Don't you worry none about that. Why, he ain't been gone but--lemme see, a week or so better'n four months. When a man's got to go to the North Pole an' back, four months--"
Beneath her long lashes the girl slanted a swift look at Brad. "That makes twice you've told me in two minutes not to worry about Mr. Morse. Do I look peaked? Am I lying awake nights thinking about him, do you think?" She held up the renewed trousers and surveyed her handiwork critically.
Brad gazed at her through narrowed lids. "I'll be doggoned if I know whether you are or you ain't. I'd bet a pair o' red-topped boots it's one of them lads. 'Course Beresford's got a red coat an' spurs that jingle an' a fine line o' talk. Tom he ain't got ary one o' the three. But if it's a man you're lookin' for, a two-fisted man who--"
A wave of mirth crossed Jessie's face like a ripple on still water. Her voice mimicked his. "Why do you want to saw off an old maid on that two-fisted man you've knew ever since he was knee-high to a grasshopper? What did he ever do to you that was so doggoned mean?"
"Now looky here, you can laugh at me all you've a mind to. All I'm sayin' is--"
"Oh, I'm not laughing at you," she interposed hurriedly with an assumption of anxiety her bubbling eyes belied. "If you could show me how to get your two-fisted man when he comes back--or even the one with the red coat and the spurs and the fine line of talk--"
"I ain't sayin' he ain't a man from the ground up too," Brad broke in. "Considerin' his opportunities he's a right hefty young fellow. But Tom Morse he--"
"That's it exactly. Tom Morse he--"
"Keep right on makin' fun o' me. Tom Morse he's a man outa ten thousand, an' I don't know as I'm coverin' enough population at that."
"And you're willing to make a squaw-man of him. Oh, Mr. Stearns!"
He looked at her severely. "You got no license to talk thataway, Jessie McRae. You're Angus McRae's daughter an' you been to Winnipeg to school. Anyways, after what Lemoine found out--"
"What did he find out? Pierre Roubideaux couldn't tell him anything about the locket and the ring. Makoye-kin said he got it from his brother who was one of a party that massacred an American outfit of trappers headed for Peace River. He doesn't know whether the picture of the woman in the locket was that of one of the women in the camp. All we've learned is that I look like a picture of a white woman found in a locket nearly twenty years ago. That doesn't take us very far, does it?"
"Well, Stokimatis may know something. When Onistah comes back with her, we'll get the facts straight."
McRae came into the room. "News, lass," he cried, and his voice rang. "A Cree runner's just down frae Northern Lights. He says the lads were picked up by some trappers near Desolation. One o' them's been badly hurt, but he's on the mend. Which yin I dinna ken. What wi' starvation an' blizzards an' battles they've had a tough time. But the word is they're doing fine noo."
"West?" asked Brad. "Did they get him?"
"They got him. Dragged him back to Desolation with a rope round his neck. Hung on to him while they were slam-bangin' through blizzards an' runnin' a race wi' death to get back before they starved. Found him up i' the Barrens somewhere, the story is. He'll be hangit at the proper time an' place. It's in the Word. 'They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' Matthew 26:52."
Brad let out the exultant rebel yell he had learned years before in the Confederate army. "What'd I tell you about that boy? Ain't I knowed him since he was a li'l' bit of a tad? He's a go-getter, Tom is. Y'betcha!"
Jessie's heart was singing too, but she c
ould not forbear a friendly gibe at him. "I suppose Win Beresford wasn't there at all. He hadn't a thing to do with it, had he?"
The old cowpuncher raised a protesting hand. "I ain't said a word against him. Now have I, McRae? Nothin' a-tall. All I done said was that I been tellin' everybody Tom would sure enough bring back Bully West with him."
The girl laughed. "You're daffy about that boy you brought up by hand. I'll not argue with you."
"They're both good lads," the Scotchman summed up, and passed to his second bit of news. "Onistah and Stokimatis are in frae the Blackfoot country. They stoppit at the store, but they'll be alang presently. I had a word wi' Onistah. We'll wait for him here."
"Did he say what he'd found out?" Jessie cried.
"Only that he had brought back the truth. That'll be the lad knockin' at the door."
Jessie opened, to let in Onistah and his mother. Stokimatis and the girl gravitated into each other's arms, as is the way with women who are fond of each other. The Indian is stolid, but Jessie had the habit of impetuosity, of letting her feelings sweep her into demonstration. Even the native women she loved were not proof against it.
McRae questioned Stokimatis.
Without waste of words the mother of Onistah told the story she had traveled hundreds of miles to tell.
Sleeping Dawn was not the child of her sister. When the attack had been made on the white trappers bound for Peace River, the mother of a baby had slipped the infant under an iron kettle. After the massacre her sister had found the wailing little atom of humanity. The Indian woman had recently lost her own child. She hid the babe and afterward was permitted to adopt it. When a few months later she died of smallpox, Stokimatis had inherited the care of the little one. She had named it Sleeping Dawn. Later, when the famine year came, she had sold the child to Angus McRae.
That was all she knew. But it was enough for Jessie. She did not know who her parents had been. She never would know, beyond the fact that they were Americans and that her mother had been a beautiful girl whose eyes laughed and danced. But this knowledge made a tremendous difference to her. She belonged to the ruling race and not to the métis, just as much as Win Beresford and Tom Morse did.
She tried to hide her joy, was indeed ashamed of it. For any expression of it seemed like a reproach to Matapi-Koma and Onistah and Stokimatis, to her brother Fergus and in a sense even to her father. None the less her blood beat fast. What she had just found out meant that she could aspire to the civilization of the whites, that she had before her an outlook, was not to be hampered by the limitations imposed upon her by race.
The heart in the girl sang a song of sunshine dancing on grass, of meadowlarks flinging out their carefree notes of joy. Through it like a golden thread ran for a motif little melodies that had to do with a man who had staggered into Fort Desolation out of the frozen North, sick and starved and perhaps wounded, but still indomitably captain of his soul.
CHAPTER XL
"MALBROUCK S'EN VA-T-EN GUERRE"
Inspector MacLean was present in person when the two man-hunters of the North-West Mounted returned to Faraway. Their reception was in the nature of a pageant. Gayly dressed voyageurs and trappers, singing old river songs that had been handed down to them from their fathers, unharnessed the dogs and dragged the cariole into town. In it sat Beresford, still unfit for long and heavy mushing. Beside it slouched West, head down, hands tied behind his back, the eyes from the matted face sending sidling messages of hate at the capering crowd. At his heels moved Morse, grim and tireless, an unromantic figure of dominant efficiency.
Long before the worn travelers and their escort reached the village, Jessie could hear the gay lilt of the chantey that heralded their coming:
"Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre, Mironton-ton-ton, mirontaine."
The girl hummed it herself, heart athrob with excitement. She found herself joining in the cheer of welcome that rose joyously when the cavalcade drew into sight. In her cheeks fluttered eager flags of greeting. Tears brimmed the soft eyes, so that she could hardly distinguish Tom Morse and Win Beresford, the one lean and gaunt and grim, the other pale and hollow-eyed from illness, but scattering smiles of largesse. For her heart was crying, in a paraphrase of the great parable, "He was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."
Beresford caught sight of the Inspector's face and chuckled like a schoolboy caught in mischief. This gay procession, with its half-breeds in tri-colored woolen coats, its gay-plumed voyageurs suggesting gallant troubadours of old in slashed belts and tassels, was not quite the sort of return to set Inspector MacLean cheering. Externally, at least, he was a piece of military machinery. A trooper did his work, and that ended it. In the North-West Mounted it was not necessary to make a gala day of it because a constable brought in his man. If he didn't bring him in--well, that would be another and a sadder story for the officer who fell down on the assignment.
As soon as Beresford and Morse had disposed of their prisoner and shaken off their exuberant friends, they reported to the Inspector. He sat at a desk and listened dryly to their story. Not till they had finished did he make any comment.
"You'll have a week's furlough to recuperate, Constable Beresford. After that report to the Writing-on-Stone detachment for orders. Here's a voucher for your pay, Special Constable Morse. I'll say to you both that it was a difficult job well done." He hesitated a moment, then proceeded to free his mind. "As for this Roman triumph business--victory procession with prisoners chained to your chariot wheels--quite unnecessary, I call it."
Beresford explained, smilingly. "We really couldn't help it, sir. They were bound to make a Roman holiday out of us whether we wanted to or not. You know how excitable the French are. Had to have their little frolic out of it."
"Not the way the Mounted does business. You know that, Beresford. We don't want any fuss and feathers--any fol-de-rol--this mironton-ton-ton stuff. Damn it, sir, you liked it. I could see you eat it up. D'you s'pose I haven't eyes in my head?"
The veneer of sobriety Beresford imposed on his countenance refused to stay put.
MacLean fumed on. "Hmp! Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre, eh? Very pretty. Very romantic, no doubt. But damned sentimental tommyrot, just the same."
"Yes, sir," agreed the constable, barking into a cough just in time to cut off a laugh.
"Get out!" ordered the Inspector, and there was the glimmer of a friendly smile in his own eyes. "And I'll expect you both to dine with me to-night. Six o'clock sharp. I'll hear that wonderful story in more detail. And take care of yourself, Beresford. You don't look strong yet. I'll make that week two or three if necessary."
"Thank you, sir."
"Hmp! Don't thank me. Earned it, didn't you? What are you hanging around for? Get out!"
Constable Beresford had his revenge. As he passed the window, Inspector MacLean heard him singing. The words that drifted to the commissioned office! were familiar.
"Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre, Mironton-ton-ton, mirontaine."
MacLean smiled at the irrepressible youngster. Like most people, he responded to the charm of Winthrop Beresford. He could forgive him a touch of debonair impudence if necessary.
It happened that his heart was just now very warm toward both these young fellows. They had come through hell and had upheld the best traditions of the Force. Between the lines of the story they had told he gathered that they had shaved the edge of disaster a dozen times. But they had stuck to their guns like soldiers. They had fought it out week after week, hanging to their man with bulldog pluck. And when at last they were found almost starving in camp, they were dividing their last rabbit with the fellow they were bringing out to be hanged.
The Inspector walked to the window and looked down the street after them. His lips moved, but no sound came from them. The rhythmic motion of them might have suggested, if there had been anybody present to observe, that his mind was running on the old river song.
"Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre, Mironton-ton-ton, miron
taine."
CHAPTER XLI
SENSE AND NONSENSE
Beresford speaking, to an audience of one, who listened with soft dark eyes aglow and sparkling.
"He's the best scout ever came over the border, Jessie. Trusty as steel, stands the gaff without whining, backs his friends to the limit, and plays the game out till the last card's dealt and the last trick lost. Tom Morse is a man in fifty thousand."
"I know another," she murmured. "Every word you've said is true for him too."
"He's a wonder, that other." admitted the soldier dryly. "But we're talking about Tom now. I tell you that iron man dragged West and me out of the Barrens by the scruff of our necks. Wouldn't give up. Wouldn't quit. The yellow in West came out half a dozen times. When the ten-day blizzard caught us, he lay down and yelped like a cur. I wouldn't have given a plugged six-pence for our chances. But Tom went out into it, during a little lull, and brought back with him a timber wolf. How he found it, how he killed it, Heaven alone knows. He was coated with ice from head to foot. That wolf kept us and the dogs alive for a week. Each day, when the howling of the blizzard died down a bit, Tom made West go down with him to the creek and get wood. It must have been a terrible hour. They'd come back so done up, so frozen, they could hardly stagger in with their jags of pine for the fire. I never heard the man complain--not once. He stood up to it the way Tom Sayers used to."