The Huntress

"Well, wa't you waitin' for?" demanded Musq'oosis.

"Sam walkin' this way," she said with an inscrutable face. "Got no blanket. Be cold to-night, I think."

"Wa! More foolishness!" he cried. "Let him shake a little. Cure his hot mad maybe."

"White man get sick with cold," persisted Bela. "Not lak us. What good my waitin', if he get sick?"

Musq'oosis held up both his hands. "There is not'ing lak a woman!" he cried. "Go to your mot'er. I will paddle by the lake and give him a rabbit robe."

Bela's eyes flashed a warm look on him. She got up without speaking, and hastened away.

About half-past nine, while it was still light, Sam found himself walked out. He built a fire on the pine needles above the stony beach and sat down with his back against a tree. The goose provided him with another meal. He was two hours' journey beyond the mouth of Hah-wah-sepi.

Wading across the bar of that stream, he had guessed his proximity to the Indian village as described by Bela, but his pride would not allow him to apply there for shelter.

He had no reason to suppose that Bela had already got home, but he feared she might arrive before he could get away. Anyhow, he had plenty to eat, he told himself; it would be strange if he couldn't last a night or two without a covering.

He lay down by his fire, but, tired as he was, he could get no rest. Whichever way he lay, a cold chill from the earth struck to his marrow. He fell into a wretched, half-waking condition, tormented by images he could not control.

When he edged close enough to the fire to feel its warmth it was only to be brought leaping to his feet by sparks burning through his clothes. He finally gave it up and sat against the tree, hardening himself like an Indian to wait for dawn. His fagged nerves cried for tobacco. He had lost his pipe with his coat.

The lake stretched before him still and steely in the twilight. To-night the sun had withdrawn himself modestly and expeditiously, and the clear, cold face of the sky had an ominous look. The world was terribly empty. Sam received a new conception of solitude, and a heavy hand of discouragement was laid on his heart.

Suddenly he perceived that he was not alone. Close under the pine-walled shore a dugout was swimming toward him with infinite grace and smoothness. At the first sight his breast contracted, for it seemed to have sprung out of nothingness – then his heart joyfully leaped up. At such a moment anything human was welcome. A squat little figure was huddled amidships, swinging a paddle from side to side with long, stringy arms.

Sam perceived that the paddler was the aged hunchback who had once visited the camp at Nine-Mile Point across the lake. "Old Man of the Lake" they had called him. They had not learned his name.

A certain air of mystery enveloped him. When he stepped out on the stones with his long hair, his bent back, and his dingy blanket capote he looked like a mediæval grotesque – yet he had a dignity of his own, too.

"How?" he said, extending his hand.

Sam, dreading the inevitable questions, received him a little nervously.

"Glad to see you. Sit down by the fire. You travel late."

"I old," observed Musq'oosis calmly. "I go when men sleep."

He made himself comfortable by the fire. To Sam's thankfulness he did not appear to notice the white man's impoverished condition. He had excellent manners.

"Are you going far?" asked Sam.

The old man shrugged. "Jus' up and down," he replied. "I lak look about."

He drew out his pipe. To save himself Sam could not help glancing enviously toward it.

"You got no pipe?" asked the Indian.

"Lost it," admitted Sam ruefully.

"I got 'not'er pipe," said Musq'oosis. From the "fire-bag" hanging from his waist he produced a red-clay bowl such as the natives use, and a bundle of new reed stems. He fitted a reed to the bowl, and passed it to Sam. A bag of tobacco followed.

"A gift," he stated courteously.

"I say," objected Sam, blushing, "I haven't anything to give in return."

The old man waved his hand. "Plaintee tam mak' Musq'oosis a gift some day," he said.

Sam looked up at the name. "So you're Musq'oosis?" he asked, hardening a little.

"W'at you know about me?" queried the other mildly.

"Oh, nothing!" returned Sam. "Somebody told me about you."

"I guess it was Bela," said Musq'oosis. With kindly guile he added: "Where is she?"

"You can search me!" muttered Sam.

The tobacco was unexpectedly fragrant. "Ah, good!" exclaimed Sam with a glance of surprise.

"'Imperial Mixture,'" said Musq'oosis complacently. "I old. Not want moch. So I buy the best tobacco."

They settled down for a good talk by the fire. Musq'oosis continued to surprise Sam. On his visit to Nine-Mile Point the old man had been received with good-natured banter, which he returned in kind. Alone with Sam, he came out in quite a different character.

Sam made the discovery that a man may have dark skin yet be a philosopher and a gentleman. Musq'oosis talked of all things from tobacco to the differences in men.

"White man lak beaver. All tam work don' give a damn!" he observed. "Red man lak bear. Him lazy. Fat in summer, starve in winter. Got no sense at all."

Sam laughed. "You've got sense," he said.

Musq'oosis shrugged philosophically. "I not the same lak ot'er men. I got crooked back, weak legs. I got work sittin' down. So my head is busy."

He smoked with a reminiscent look.

"When I yo'ng I feel moch bad for cause I got crooked back. But when I old I think there is good in it. A strong man is lak a moose. Wa! So big and swift and 'an'some. All tam so busy, got no tam t'ink wit' his head inside. So w'en he get old his son put him down. He is poor then. But a weak man he got notin' to do but look lak eagle at ev'ryt'ing and remember what he see. So w'en he is old he rich inside. W'en a man get old bad turn to good. Me, w'en I was yo'ng I sore for cause no woman want me. Now I glad I got no old wife beat a drum wit' her tongue in my teepee."

"Women! You're right there!" cried Sam explosively. "They're no good. They're savages! Women confuse and weaken a man; spoil him for a man's work. I'm done with them!"

A slow smile lighted Musq'oosis ugly old face. "W'en a man talk lak that," he remarked, "I t'ink pretty soon some woman goin' get him sure."

"Never!" cried Sam. "Not me!"

"I t'ink so," persisted Musq'oosis. "Man say woman bad, all bad. Come a woman smile so sweet, he surprise; he say this one different from the ot'ers."

"Oh, I know how it is with most fellows!" admitted Sam. "Not with me. I've had my lesson."

"Maybe," agreed Musq'oosis, politely allowing the matter to drop.

By and by the old man yawned. "I t'ink I sleep little while," he said. "Can I sleep by your fire?"

"Sure!" returned Sam. "Make yourself at home."

Musq'oosis brought his blanket from the dugout. "You goin' sleep, too?" he asked.

"In a bit," replied Sam uneasily.

"Where your blanket?"

"Oh, I lost that, too," confessed Sam, blushing.

"I got a rabbit-skin robe," said Musq'oosis.

Returning to his boat, he brought Sam one of the soft, light coverings peculiar to the country. The foundation was a wide-meshed net of cord, to which had been tied hundreds of the fragile, downy pelts. Sam could stick his finger anywhere through the interstices, yet it was warmer than a blanket, double its weight.

"But this is valuable," protested Sam. "I can't take it."

"You goin' to the head of the lake," said Musq'oosis. "I want trade it at French outfit store. Tak' it to Mahwoolee, the trader. Say to him Musq'oosis send it for trade."

"Aren't you afraid I might steal it?" asked Sam curiously.

"Steal?" said the old man, surprised. "Nobody steal here. What's the use? Everything is known. If a man steal everybody know it. Where he goin' to go then?"

Sam continued to protest against using the robe, but Musq'oosis, waving his objections aside, calmly lay down in his blanket and closed his eyes. Sam presently followed suit. The rabbit-skin robe acted like a charm. A delicious warmth crept into his weary bones, and sleep overmastered his senses like a delicious perfume.

When he awoke the sun was high over the lake, and Musq'oosis had gone. A bag of tobacco was lying in his place.

At this era the "settlement" at the head of Caribou Lake consisted of the "French outfit," the "company post," the French Mission, the English Mission, and the police barracks, which last housed as many as three troopers.

These various establishments were strung around the shore of Beaver Bay for a distance of several miles. A few native shacks were attached to each. The principal group of buildings was comprised in the company post, which stood on a hill overlooking the bay, and still wore a military air, though the palisades had been torn down these many years.

The French outfit, the rival concern, was a much humbler affair. It stood half-way on the short stream which connects Beaver Bay with the lake proper, and was the first establishment reached by the traveller from outside. It consisted of two little houses built of lumber from the mission sawmill; the first house contained the store, the other across the road was known as the "Kitchen."

Mahooley pointed to them with pride as the only houses north of the landing built of boards, but they had a sad and awkward look there in the wilderness, notwithstanding.

Within the store of the French outfit, Stiffy, the trader, was audibly totting up his accounts in his little box at the rear, while Mahooley, his associate, sat with his chair tipped back and his heels on the cold stove. Their proper names were Henry Stiff and John Mahool, but as Stiffy and Mahooley they were known from Miwasa Landing to Fort Ochre.

The shelves of the store were sadly depleted; never was a store open for business with so little in it. A few canned goods of ancient vintages and a bolt or two of coloured cotton were all that could be seen. Nevertheless, the French outfit was a factor to be reckoned with.

There was no fur going now, and the astute Stiffy and Mahooley were content to let custom pass their door. Later on they would reach out for it.

Mahooley was bored and querulous. This was the dullest of dull seasons, for the natives were off pitching on their summer grounds, and travel from the outside world had not yet started.

Stiffy and Mahooley were a pair of "good hard guys," but here the resemblance ended. Stiffy was dry, scanty-haired, mercantile; Mahooley was noisy, red-faced, of a fleshly temperament, and a wag, according to his lights.

"I'd give a dollar for a new newspaper," growled Mahooley.

"That's you, always grousin' for nothin' to do!" said his partner. "Why don't you keep busy like me?"

"Say, if I was like you I'd walk down to the river here and I'd get in the scow and I'd push off, and when I got in the middle I'd say, 'Lord, crack this nut if you can! It's too much for me!' and I'd step off."

"Ah, shut up! You've made me lose a whole column!"

"Go to hell!"

Thus they bickered endlessly to pass the time.

Suddenly the door opened and a stranger entered, a white man.

As a rule, the slightest disturbance of their routine was heralded in advance by "moccasin telegraph," and this was like a bolt from the blue. Mahooley's chair came to the floor with a thump.

"Well, I'm damned!" he said, staring.

Stiffy came quickly out of his little box to see what was up.

"How are you?" began the stranger youth diffidently.

"Who the hell are you?" asked Mahooley.

"Sam Gladding."

"Is the York boat in? Nobody told me."

"No, I walked around the lake."

Mahooley looked him over from his worn-out moccasins to his bare head. "Well, you didn't bring much with you," he observed.

Sam frowned to hide his rising blushes. He offered the rabbit-skin robe to create a diversion.

"Musq'oosis sent it, eh?" said Mahooley. "Put it on the counter."

Sam came back to the red-faced man. "Can you give me a job?" he asked firmly.

"Hey, Stiffy," growled Mahooley. "Look what's askin' for a job!"

Stiffy laughed heartily. Thus he propitiated his irritable partner. It didn't cost anything. Sam, blushing, set his jaw and stood it out.

"What can you do?" Mahooley demanded.

"Any hard work."

"You don't look like one of these here Hercules."

"Try me."

"Lord, man!" said Mahooley. "Don't you see me here twiddling my thumbs. What for should I hire anybody? To twiddle 'em for me, maybe."

"You'll have a crowd here soon," persisted Sam. "Four men on their way in to take up land, and others following. There's a surveying gang coming up the river, too."

"Moreover, you ain't got good sense," Mahooley went on. "Comin' to a country like this without an outfit. Not so much as a chaw of bacon, or a blanket to lay over you nights. There ain't no free lunch up north, kid. What'll you do if I don't give you a job?"

"Go to the company," returned Sam.

"Go to the company?" cried Mahooley. "Go to hell, you mean. The company don't hire no tramps. That's a military organization, that is. Their men are hired and broke in outside. So what'll you do now?"

"I'll make out somehow," said Sam.

"There ain't no make out to it!" cried Mahooley, exasperated. "You ain't even got an axe to swing. There ain't nothin' for you but starve."

"Well, then, I'll bid you good day," said Sam stiffly.

"Hold on!" shouted the trader. "I ain't done with you yet. Is that manners, when you're askin' for a job?"

"You said you didn't have anything," muttered Sam.

"Never mind what I said. I ast you what you were goin' to do."

The badgered one began to bristle a little. "What's that to you?" he asked, scowling.

"A whole lot!" cried Mahooley. "You fellows have no consideration. You're always comin' up here and starvin' on us. Do you think that's nice for me? Why, the last fellow left a little pile of white bones beside the trail on the way to my girl's house, after the coyotes picked him clean. Every time I go up there I got to turn my head the other way."

Sam smiled stiffly at Mahooley's humour.

"Can you cook?" the trader asked.

Sam's heart sank. "So-so," he said.

"Well, I suppose I've got to let you cook for us and for the gang that's comin'. You'll find everything in the kitchen across the road. Go and get acquainted with it. By Gad! you can be thankful you run up against a soft-hearted man like me."

Sam murmured an inquiry concerning wages.

"Wages!" roared Mahooley with an outraged air. "Stiffy, would you look at what's askin' for wages! Go on, man! You're damned lucky if you get a skinful of grub every day. Grub comes high up here!"

Sam reflected that it would be well to submit until he learned the real situation in the settlement. "All right," he said, and turned to go.

"Hold on," cried Mahooley. "You ain't ast what we'll have for dinner."

Sam waited for instructions.

"Well, let me see," said Mahooley. He tipped a wink in his partner's direction. "What's your fancy, Stiffy."

"Oh, I leave the mean-you to you, Mahooley."

"Well, I guess you can give us some patty de foy grass, and squab on toast, and angel cake."

"Sure," said Sam. "How about a biscuit Tortoni for dessert?"

"Don't you give me no lip!" cried Mahooley.

CHAPTER XVI

AT THE SETTLEMENT

On the fourth day thereafter the long tedium of existence in the settlement began to be broken in earnest. Before they could digest the flavour of one event, something else happened. In the afternoon word came down to Stiffy and Mahooley that the bishop had arrived at the French Mission, bringing the sister of the company trader's wife under his care.

Likewise the Indian agent and the doctor had come to the police post. The whole party had arrived on horseback from the Tepiskow Lake district, where they had visited the Indians. Their boat was held up down the lake by adverse winds.

Before Stiffy and Mahooley had a chance to see any of these arrivals or hear their news, quite an imposing caravan hove in view across the river from the store, and shouted lustily for the ferry.

There were four wagons, each drawn by a good team, beside half a dozen loose horses. The horses were in condition, the wagons well laden. The entire outfit had a well-to-do air that earned the traders' respect even from across the river. Of the four men, one carried his arm in a sling.

Stiffy and Mahooley ferried them across team by team in the scow they kept for the purpose. The four hardy and muscular travellers were men according to the traders' understanding. They used the same scornful, jocular, profane tongue. Their very names were a recommendation: Big Jack Skinner, Black Shand Fraser, Husky Marr, and Young Joe Hagland, the ex-pugilist.

After the horses had been turned out to graze, they all gathered in the store for a gossip. The newcomers talked freely about their journey in, and its difficulties, avoiding only a certain period of their stay at Nine-Mile Point, and touching very briefly on their meeting with the Bishop. Something sore was hidden here.

When the bell rang for supper they trooped across the road. The kitchen in reality consisted of a mess-room downstairs with a dormitory overhead; the actual kitchen was in a lean-to behind. When the six men had seated themselves at the long trestle covered with oilcloth, the cook entered with a steaming bowl of rice.

Now, the cook had observed the new arrivals from the kitchen window, and had hardened himself for the meeting, but the travellers were unprepared. They stared at him, scowling. An odd silence fell on the table.

Mahooley looked curiously from one to another. "Do you know him?" he demanded.

Big Jack quickly recovered himself. He banged the table, and bared his big yellow teeth in a grin.

"On my soul, it's Sammy!" he cried. "How the hell did he get here? Here's Sammy, boys! What do you know about that! Sammy, the White Slave!"

A huge laugh greeted this sally. Sam set his jaw and doggedly went on bringing in the food.

"How are you, Sam?" asked Jack with mock solicitude. "Have you recovered from your terrible experience, poor fellow? My! My! That was an awful thing to happen to a good boy!"

Mahooley, laughing and highly mystified, demanded: "What's the con, boys?"

"Ain't you heard the story?" asked Jack with feigned surprise. "How that poor young boy was carried off by a brutal girl and kep' prisoner on an island?"

"Go 'way!" cried Mahooley, delighted.

"Honest to God he was!" affirmed Jack.

Joe and Husky not being able to think of any original contributions of wit, rang all the changes on "Sammy, the White Slave!" with fresh bursts of laughter. Shand said nothing. He laughed harshly.

"Who was the girl?" asked Mahooley.

They told him.

"Bela Charley!" he exclaimed. "The best looker on the lake! She has the name of a man-hater."

"I dare say," said Jack with a serious air. "But his fatal beauty was too much for her. You got to hand it to him for his looks, boys," he added, calling general attention to the tight-lipped Sam in his apron. "This here guy, Apollo, didn't have much on our Sam."

A highly coloured version of the story followed. In it Big Jack and his mates figured merely as disinterested onlookers. The teller, stimulated by applause, surpassed himself. They could not contain their mirth.

"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" cried Mahooley. "This is the richest I ever heard! It will never be forgotten!"

Sam went through with the meal, gritting his teeth, and crushing down the rage that bade fair to suffocate him. He disdained to challenge Jack's equivocal tale. The laughter of one's friends is hard enough to bear sometimes, still, it may be borne with a grin; but when it rings with scarcely concealed hate it stings like whips.

Sam was supposed to sit down at the table with them, but he would sooner have starved. The effort of holding himself in almost finished him.

When finally he cleared away, Mahooley said: "Come on and tell us your side now."

"Go to hell!" muttered Sam, and walked out of the back door.

He strode up the road without knowing or caring where he was going. He was moved merely by the impulse to put distance between him and his tormentors.

Completely and terribly possessed by his rage, as youths are, he felt that it would kill him if he could not do something to fight his way out of the hateful position he was in. But what could he do? He couldn't even sleep out of doors because he lacked a blanket. His poverty had him by the heels.

He came to himself to find that he was staring at the buildings of the company establishment mounted on a little hill. This was a mile from the French outfit. The sight suggested a possible way out of his difficulties. With an effort he collected his faculties and turned in.

The buildings formed three sides of a square open to a view across the bay. On Sam's left was the big warehouse; on the other side the store faced it, and the trader's house, behind a row of neat palings, closed the top. All the buildings were constructed of squared logs whitewashed. A lofty flagpole rose from the centre of the little square, with a tiny brass cannon at its base.

Sam saw the trader taking the air on his veranda with two ladies. The neat fence, the gravel path, the flower-beds, had a strange look in that country. A keen feeling of homesickness attacked the unhappy Sam. As he approached the veranda one of the ladies seemed vaguely familiar. She glided toward him with extended hand.

"Mr. Gladding!" she exclaimed. "So you got here before us. Glad to see you!" In a lower voice she added: "I wanted to tell you how much I sympathized with you the other day, but I had no chance. So glad you got out of it all right. I knew from the first that you were not to blame."

Sam was much taken aback. He bowed awkwardly. What did the woman want of him? Her over-impressive voice simply confused him. While she detained him, his eyes were seeking the trader.

"Can I speak to you?" he asked.

The other man rose. "Sure!" he said. "Come into the house."

He led the way into an office, and, turning, looked Sam over with a quizzical smile. His name was Gilbert Beattie, and he was a tall, lean, black Scotchman, in equal parts good-natured and grim.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Give me a job," replied Sam abruptly. "Anything."

"Aren't you working for the French outfit?"

"For my keep. That will never get me anywhere. I might as well be in slavery."

"Sorry," said Beattie. "This place is run in a different way. 'The Service,' we call it. The young fellows are indentured by the head office and sent to school, so to speak. I can't hire anybody without authority. You should have applied outside."

Sam's lip curled a little. A lot of good it did telling him that now.

"You seem to have made a bad start all around," Beattie continued, meaning it kindly. "Running away with that girl, or whichever way it was. That is hardly a recommendation to an employer."

"It wasn't my fault!" growled Sam desperately.

"Come, now," said Beattie, smiling. "You're not going to put it off on the girl, are you?"

Sam bowed, and made his way out of the house. As he returned down the path he saw Miss Mackall leaning on the gatepost, gazing out toward the sinking sun over Beaver Bay. There was no way of avoiding her.

She started slightly as he came behind her, and turned the face of a surprised dreamer. Seeing who it was, she broke into a winning smile, albeit a little sad, too. All this pretty play was lost on Sam, because he wasn't looking at her.

"It's you!" murmured Miss Mackall. "I had lost myself!"

Sam endeavoured to sidle around the gate. She laid a restraining hand upon it.

"Wait a minute," she said. "I want to speak to you. Oh, it's nothing at all, but I was sorry I had no chance the other day. It seemed to me as I looked at you standing there alone, that you needed a friend!"

"A friend!" – the word released a spring in Sam's overwrought breast. For the first time he looked full at her with warm eyes. God knew he needed a friend if ever a young man did.

Miss Mackall, observing the effect of her word, repeated it. "Such a humiliating position for a manly man to be placed in!" she went on.