Half an hour later they were in Freddy Tarlton's office on the banks of the Little Big Swan, which tumbled past, swelled by the first rain of the early autumn. Freddy Tarlton, who had a gift of humour, entered into the spirit of the thing, and treated it seriously; but in vain did he protest that the large red seal with Her Majesty's head on it was unnecessary; Macavoy insisted, and wrote his name across it with a large indistinctness worthy of a king. Before the night was over everybody at Guidon Hill, save Hilton and Ida, knew what gift would come from Macavoy to the wedded pair.



II

The next morning was almost painfully beautiful, so delicate in its clearness, so exalted by the glory of the hills, so grand in the limitless stretch of the green-brown prairie north and south. It was a day for God's creatures to meet in, and speed away, and having flown round the boundaries of that spacious domain, to return again to the nest of home on the large plateau between the sea and the stars. Gathered about Ida's home was everybody who lived within a radius of a hundred miles. In the large front room all the presents were set: rich furs from the far north, cunningly carved bowls, rocking-chairs made by hand, knives, cooking utensils, a copy of Shakespeare in six volumes from the Protestant missionary who performed the ceremony, a nugget of gold from the Long Light River; and outside the door, a horse, Hilton's own present to his wife, on which was put Pierre's saddle, with its silver mounting and Ida's name branded deep on pommel and flap. When Macavoy arrived, a cheer went up, which was carried on waves of laughter into the house to Hilton and Ida, who even then were listening to the first words of the brief service which begins, "I charge you both if you do know any just cause or impediment—" and so on.

They did not turn to see what it was, for just at that moment they themselves were the very centre of the universe. Ida being deaf and dumb, it was necessary to interpret to her the words of the service by signs, as the missionary read it, and this was done by Pierre himself, the half-breed Catholic, the man who had brought Hilton and Ida together, for he and Ida had been old friends. After Father Corraine had taught her the language of signs, Pierre had learned them from her, until at last his gestures had become as vital as her own. The delicate precision of his every movement, the suggestiveness of look and motion, were suited to a language which was nearer to the instincts of his own nature than word of mouth. All men did not trust Pierre, but all women did; with those he had a touch of Machiavelli, with these he had no sign of Mephistopheles, and few were the occasions in his life when he showed outward tenderness to either: which was equally effective. He had learnt, or knew by instinct, that exclusiveness as to men and indifference as to women are the greatest influences on both. As he stood there, slowly interpreting to Ida, by graceful allusive signs, the words of the service, one could not think that behind his impassive face there was any feeling for the man or for the woman. He had that disdainful smile which men acquire who are all their lives aloof from the hopes of the hearthstone and acknowledge no laws but their own.

More than once the eyes of the girl filled with tears, as the pregnancy of some phrase in the service came home to her. Her face responded to Pierre's gestures, as do one's nerves to the delights of good music, and there was something so unique, so impressive in the ceremony, that the laughter which had greeted Macavoy passed away, and a dead silence; beginning from where the two stood, crept out until it covered all the prairie. Nothing was heard except Hilton's voice in strong tones saying, "I take thee to be my wedded wife," etc.; but when the last words of the service were said, and the newmade bride turned to her husband's embrace, and a little sound of joy broke from her lips, there was plenty of noise and laughter again, for Macavoy stood in the doorway, or rather outside it, stooping to look in upon the scene. Someone had lent him the cinch of a broncho and he had belted himself with it, no longer carrying his clothes about "on the underbrush." Hilton laughed and stretched out his hand. "Come in, King," he said, "come and wish us joy."

Macavoy parted the crowd easily, forcing his way, and instantly was stooping before the pair—for he could not stand upright in the room.

"Aw, now, Hilton, is it you, is it you, that's pluckin' the rose av the valley, snatchin' the stars out av the sky! aw, Hilton, the like o' that! Travel down I did yesterday from Fort Ste. Anne, and divil a word I knew till Pierre hit me in the eye wid it last night—and no time for a present, for a wedding-gift—no, aw no!"

Just here Ida reached up and touched him on the shoulder. He smiled down on her, puffing and blowing in his beard, bursting to speak to her, yet knowing no word by signs to say; but he nodded his head at her, and he patted Hilton's shoulder, and he took their hands and joined them together, hers on top of Hilton's, and shook them in one of his own till she almost winced. Presently, with a look at Hilton, who nodded in reply, Ida lifted her cheek to Macavoy to kiss—Macavoy, the idle, ill- cared-for, boisterous giant. His face became red like that of a child caught in an awkward act, and with an absurd shyness he stooped and touched her cheek. Then he turned to Hilton, and blurted out, "Aw, the rose o' the valley, the pride o' the wide wurruld! aw, the bloom o' the hills! I'd have kissed her dirty shoe. McQuire!"

A burst of laughter rolled out on the clear air of the prairie, and the hills seemed to stir with the pleasure of life. Then it was that Macavoy, following Hilton and Ida outside, suddenly stopped beside the horse, drew from his pocket the promissory note that Pierre had written, and said, "Yis, but all the weddin'-gifts aren't in. 'Tis nothin' I had to give-divil a cent in the wurruld, divil a pound av baccy, or a pot for the fire, or a bit av linin for the table; nothin' but meself and me dirty clothes, standin' seven fut three an me bare toes. What was I to do? There was only meself to give, so I give it free and hearty, and here it is wid the Queen's head an it, done in Mr. Tarlton's office. Ye'd better had had a dog, or a gun, or a ladder, or a horse, or a saddle, or a quart o' brown brandy; but such as it is I give it ye— I give it to the rose o' the valley and the star o' the wide wurruld."

In a loud voice he read the promissory note, and handed it to Ida. Men laughed till there were tears in their eyes, and a keg of whisky was opened; but somehow Ida did not laugh. She and Pierre had seen a serious side to Macavoy's gift: the childlike manliness in it. It went home to her woman's heart without a touch of ludicrousness, without a sound of laughter.



III

After a time the interest in this wedding-gift declined at Fort Guidon, and but three people remembered it with any singular distinctness—Ida, Pierre, and Macavoy. Pierre was interested, for in his primitive mind he knew that, however wild a promise, life is so wild in its events, there comes the hour for redemption of all I O U's.

Meanwhile, weeks, months, and even a couple of years passed, Macavoy and Pierre coming and going, sometimes together, sometimes not, in all manner of words at war, in all manner of fact at peace. And Ida, out of the bounty of her nature, gave the two vagabonds a place at her fireside whenever they chose to come. Perhaps, where speech was not given, a gift of divination entered into her instead, and she valued what others found useless, and held aloof from what others found good. She had powers which had ever been the admiration of Guidon Hill. Birds and animals were her friends—she called them her kinsmen. A peculiar sympathy joined them; so that when, at last, she tamed a white wild duck, and made it do the duties of a carrier-pigeon, no one thought it strange.

Up in the hills, beside the White Sun River, lived her sister and her sister's children; and, by and by, the duck carried messages back and forth, so that when, in the winter, Ida's health became delicate, she had comfort in the solicitude and cheerfulness of her sister, and the gaiety of the young birds of her nest, who sent Ida many a sprightly message and tales of their good vagrancy in the hills. In these days Pierre and Macavoy were little at the Post, save now and then to sit with Hilton beside the fire, waiting for spring and telling tales. Upon Hilton had settled that peaceful, abstracted expectancy which shows man at his best, as he waits for the time when, through the half-lights of his fatherhood, he shall see the broad fine dawn of motherhood spreading up the world— which, all being said and done, is that place called Home. Something gentle came over him while he grew stouter in body and in all other ways made a larger figure among the people of the West.

As Pierre said, whose wisdom was more to be trusted than his general morality, "It is strange that most men think not enough of themselves till a woman shows them how. But it is the great wonder that the woman does not despise him for it. Quel caractere! She has so often to show him his way like a babe, and yet she says to him, Mon grand homme! my master! my lord! Pshaw! I have often thought that women are half saints, half fools, and men half fools, half rogues. But Quelle vie!— what life! without a woman you are half a man; with one you are bound to a single spot in the world, you are tied by the leg, your wing is clipped—you cannot have all. Quelle vie—what life!"

To this Macavoy said: "Spit-spat! But what the devil good does all yer thinkin' do ye, Pierre? It's argufy here and argufy there, an' while yer at that, me an' the rest av us is squeezin' the fun out o' life. Aw, go 'long wid ye. Y'are only a bit o' hell and grammar, annyway. Wid all yer cuttin' and carvin' things to see the internals av thim, I'd do more to the call av a woman's finger than for all the logic and knowalogy y' ever chewed—an' there y'are, me little tailor o' jur'sprudince!"

"To the finger call of Hilton's wife, eh?"

Macavoy was not quite sure what Pierre's enigmatical tone meant. A wild light showed in his eyes, and his tongue blundered out: "Yis, Hilton's wife's finger, or a look av her eye, or nothin' at all. Aisy, aisy, ye wasp! Ye'd go stalkin' divils in hell for her yerself, so ye would. But the tongue av ye—but, it's gall to the tip."

"Maybe, my king. But I'd go hunting because I wanted; you because you must. You're a slave to come and to go, with a Queen's seal on the promissory."

Macavoy leaned back and roared. "Aw, that! The rose o' the valley—the joy o' the wurruld! S't, Pierre—" his voice grew softer on a sudden, as a fresh thought came to him—"did y' ever think that the child might be dumb like the mother?"

This was a day in the early spring, when the snows were melting in the hills, and freshets were sweeping down the valleys far and near. That night a warm heavy rain came on, and in the morning every stream and river was swollen to twice its size. The mountains seemed to have stripped themselves of snow, and the vivid sun began at once to colour the foothills with green. As Pierre and Macavoy stood at their door, looking out upon the earth cleansing itself, Macavoy suddenly said: "Aw, look, look, Pierre—her white duck off to the nest on Champak Hill!"

They both shaded their eyes with their hands. Circling round two or three times above the Post, the duck then stretched out its neck to the west, and floated away beyond Guidon Hill, and was hid from view.

Pierre, without a word, began cleaning his rifle, while Macavoy smoked, and sat looking into the distance, surveying the sweet warmth and light. His face blossomed with colour, and the look of his eyes was that of an irresponsible child. Once or twice he smiled and puffed in his beard, but perhaps that was involuntary, or was, maybe, a vague reflection of his dreams, themselves most vague, for he was only soaking in sun and air and life.

Within an hour they saw the wild duck-again passing the crest of Guidon, and they watched it sailing down to the Post, Pierre idly fondling the gun, Macavoy half roused from his dreams. But presently they were altogether roused, the gun was put away, and both were on their feet; for after the pigeon arrived there was a stir at the Post, and Hilton could be seen running from the store to his house, not far away.

"Something's wrong there," said Pierre.

"D'ye think 'twas the duck brought it?" asked Macavoy.

Without a word Pierre started away towards the Post, Macavoy following. As they did so, a half-breed boy came from the house, hurrying towards them.

Inside the house Hilton's wife lay in her bed, her great hour coming on before the time, because of ill news from beyond the Guidon. There was with her an old Frenchwoman, who herself, in her time, had brought many children into the world, whose heart brooded tenderly, if uncouthly, over the dumb girl. She it was who had handed to Hilton the paper the wild duck had brought, after Ida had read it and fallen in a faint on the floor.

The message that had felled the young wife was brief and awful. A cloud- burst had fallen on Champak Hill, had torn part of it away, and a part of this part had swept down into the path that led to the little house, having been stopped by some falling trees and a great boulder. It blocked the only way to escape above, and beneath, the river was creeping up to sweep away the little house. So, there the mother and her children waited (the father was in the farthest north), facing death below and above. The wild duck had carried the tale in its terrible simplicity. The last words were, "There mayn't be any help for me and my sweet chicks, but I am still hoping, and you must send a man or many. But send soon, for we are cut off, and the end may come any hour."

Macavoy and Pierre were soon at the Post, and knew from Hilton all there was to know. At once Pierre began to gather men, though what one or many could do none could say. Eight white men and three Indians watched the wild duck sailing away again from the bedroom window where Ida lay, to carry a word of comfort to Champak Hill. Before it went, Ida asked for Macavoy, and he was brought to her bedroom by Hilton. He saw a pale, almost unearthly, yet beautiful face, flushing and paling with a coming agony, looking up at him; and presently two trembling hands made those mystic signs which are the primal language of the soul. Hilton interpreted to him this: "I have sent for you. There is no man so big or strong as you in the north. I did not know that I should ever ask you to redeem the note. I want my gift, and I will give you your paper with the Queen's head on it. Those little lives, those pretty little dears, you will not see them die. If there is a way, any way, you will save them. Sometimes one man can do what twenty cannot. You were my wedding-gift: I claim you now."

She paused, and then motioned to the nurse, who laid the piece of brown paper in Macavoy's hand. He held it for a moment as delicately as if it were a fragile bit of glass, something that his huge fingers might crush by touching. Then he reached over and laid it on the bed beside her and said, looking Hilton in the eyes, "Tell her, the slip av a saint she is, if the breakin' av me bones, or the lettin' av me blood's what'll set all right at Champak Hill, let her mind be aisy—aw yis!"

Soon afterwards they were all on their way—all save Hilton, whose duty was beside this other danger, for the old nurse said that, "like as not," her life would hang upon the news from Champak Hill; and if ill came, his place was beside the speechless traveller on the Brink.

In a few hours the rescuers stood on the top of Champak Hill, looking down. There stood the little house, as it were, between two dooms. Even Pierre's face became drawn and pale as he saw what a very few hours or minutes might do. Macavoy had spoken no word, had answered no question since they had left the Post. There was in his eye the large seriousness, the intentness which might be found in the face of a brave boy, who had not learned fear, and yet saw a vast ditch of danger at which he must leap. There was ever before him the face of the dumb wife; there was in his ears the sound of pain that had followed him from Hilton's house out into the brilliant day.

The men stood helpless, and looked at each other. They could not say to the river that it must rise no farther, and they could not go to the house, nor let a rope down, and there was the crumbled moiety of the hill which blocked the way to the house: elsewhere it was sheer precipice without trees.

There was no corner in these hills that Macavoy and Pierre did not know, and at last, when despair seemed to settle on the group, Macavoy, having spoken a low word to Pierre, said: "There's wan way, an' maybe I can an' maybe I can't, but I'm fit to try. I'll go up the river to an aisy p'int a mile above, get in, and drift down to a p'int below there, thin climb up and loose the stuff."

Every man present knew the double danger: the swift headlong river, and the sudden rush of rocks and stones, which must be loosed on the side of the narrow ravine opposite the little house. Macavoy had nothing to say to the head-shakes of the others, and they did not try to dissuade him; for women and children were in the question, and there they were below beside the house, the children gathered round the mother, she waiting— waiting.

Macavoy, stripped to the waist, and carrying only a hatchet and a coil of rope tied round him, started away alone up the river. The others waited, now and again calling comfort to the woman below, though their words could not be heard. About half an hour passed, and then someone called out: "Here he comes!" Presently they could see the rough head and the bare shoulders of the giant in the wild churning stream. There was only one point where he could get a hold on the hillside—the jutting bole of a tree just beneath them, and beneath the dyke of rock and trees.

It was a great moment. The current swayed him out, but he plunged forward, catching at the bole. His hand seized a small branch. It held him an instant, as he was swung round, then it snapt. But the other hand clenched the bole, and to a loud cheer, which Pierre prompted, Macavoy drew himself up. After that they could not see him. He alone was studying the situation.

He found the key-rock to the dyked slide of earth. To loosen it was to divert the slide away, or partly away, from the little house. But it could not be loosened from above, if at all, and he himself would be in the path of the destroying hill.

"Aisy, aisy, Tim Macavoy," he said to himself. "It's the woman and the darlins av her, an' the rose o' the valley down there at the Post!"

A minute afterwards, having chopped down a hickory sapling, he began to pry at the boulder which held the mass. Presently a tree came crashing down, and a small rush of earth followed it, and the hearts of the men above and the woman and children below stood still for an instant. An hour passed as Macavoy toiled with a strange careful skill and a superhuman concentration. His body was all shining with sweat, and sweat dripped like water from his forehead. His eyes were on the keyrock and the pile, alert, measuring, intent. At last he paused. He looked round at the hills-down at the river, up at the sky-humanity was shut away from his sight. He was alone. A long hot breath broke from his pressed lips, stirring his big red beard. Then he gave a call, a long call that echoed through the hills weirdly and solemnly.

It reached the ears of those above like a greeting from an outside world. They answered, "Right, Macavoy!"

Years afterwards these men told how then there came in reply one word, ringing roundly through the hills—the note and symbol of a crisis, the fantastic cipher of a soul:

"M'Guire!"

There was a loud booming sound, the dyke was loosed, the ravine split into the swollen stream its choking mouthful of earth and rock; and a minute afterwards the path was clear to the top of Champak Hill. To it came the unharmed children and their mother, who, from the warm peak sent the wild duck "to the rose o' the valley," which, till the message came, was trembling on the stem of life. But Joy, that marvellous healer, kept it blooming with a little Eden bird nestling near, whose happy tongue was taught in after years to tell of the gift of the Simple King; who had redeemed, on demand, the promissory note for ever.



ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A human life he held to be a trifle in the big sum of time Fear of one's own wife is the worst fear in the world He never saw an insult unless he intended to avenge it Liars all men may be, but that's wid wimmin or landlords Men are like dogs—they worship him who beats them She valued what others found useless Women are half saints, half fools



A ROMANY OF THE SNOWS

BEING A CONTINUATION OF THE PERSONAL HISTORIES OF "PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE" AND THE LAST EXISTING RECORDS OF PRETTY PIERRE

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 2.

MALACHI THE LAKE OF THE GREAT SLAVE THE RED PATROL THE GOING OF THE WHITE SWAN AT BAMBER'S BOOM



MALACHI

"He'll swing just the same to-morrow. Exit Malachi!" said Freddy Tarlton gravely.

The door suddenly opened on the group of gossips, and a man stepped inside and took the only vacant seat near the fire. He glanced at none, but stretched out his hands to the heat, looking at the coals with drooping introspective eyes.

"Exit Malachi," he said presently in a soft ironical voice, but did not look up.

"By the holy poker, Pierre, where did you spring from?" asked Tarlton genially.

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and—" Pierre responded, with a little turn of his fingers.

"And the wind doesn't tell where it's been, but that's no reason Pierre shouldn't," urged the other.

Pierre shrugged his shoulders, but made no answer. "He was a tough," said a voice from the crowd. "To-morrow he'll get the breakfast he's paid for." Pierre turned and looked at the speaker with a cold inquisitive stare. "Mon Dieu!" he said presently, "here's this Gohawk playing preacher. What do you know of Malachi, Gohawk? What do any of you know about Malachi? A little of this, a little of that, a drink here, a game of euchre there, a ride after cattle, a hunt behind Guidon Hill!—But what is that? You have heard the cry of the eagle, you have seen him carry off a lamb, you have had a pot-shot at him, but what do you know of the eagle's nest? Mais non.

"The lamb is one thing, the nest is another. You don't know the eagle till you've been there. And you, Gohawk, would not understand, if you saw the nest. Such cancan!"

"Shut your mouth!" broke out Gohawk. "D'ye think I'm going to stand your—"

Freddy Tarlton laid a hand on his arm. "Keep quiet, Gohawk. What good will it do?" Then he said, "Tell us about the nest, Pierre; they're hanging him for the lamb in the morning."

"Who spoke for him at the trial?" Pierre asked.

"I did," said Tarlton. "I spoke as well as I could, but the game was dead against him from the start. The sheriff was popular, and young; young—that was the thing; handsome too, and the women, of course! It was sure from the start; besides, Malachi would say nothing—didn't seem to care."

"No, not to care," mused Pierre. "What did you say for him to the jury —I mean the devil of a thing to make them sit up and think, 'Poor Malachi!'—like that."

"Best speech y'ever heard," Gohawk interjected; "just emptied the words out, split 'em like peas, by gol! till he got to one place right before the end. Then he pulled up sudden, and it got so quiet you could 'a heard a pin drop. 'Gen'lemen of the jury,' says Freddy Tarlton here— gen'lemen, by gol! all that lot—Lagan and the rest! 'Gen'lemen of the jury,' he says, 'be you danged well sure that you're at one with God A'mighty in this; that you've got at the core of justice here; that you've got evidence to satisfy Him who you've all got to satisfy some day, or git out. Not evidence as to shootin', but evidence as to what that shootin' meant, an' whether it was meant to kill, an' what for. The case is like this, gen'lemen of the jury,' says Freddy Tarlton here. 'Two men are in a street alone. There's a shot, out comes everybody, and sees Fargo the sheriff laid along the ground, his mouth in the dust, and a full-up gun in his fingers. Not forty feet away stands Malachi with a gun smokin' in his fist. It seems to be the opinion that it was cussedness—just cussedness—that made Malachi turn the sheriff's boots to the sun. For Malachi was quarrelsome. I'll give you a quarter on that. And the sheriff was mettlesome, used to have high spirits, like as if he's lift himself over the fence with his bootstraps. So when Malachi come and saw the sheriff steppin' round in his paten' leathers, it give him the needle, and he got a bead on him—and away went Sheriff Fargo— right away! That seems to be the sense of the public.' And he stops again, soft and quick, and looks the twelve in the eyes at once. 'But,' says Freddy Tarlton here, 'are you goin' to hang a man on the little you know? Or are you goin' to credit him with somethin' of what you don't know? You haint got the inside of this thing, and Malachi doesn't let you know it, and God keeps quiet. But be danged well sure that you've got the bulge on iniquity here; for gen'lemen with pistols out in the street is one thing, and sittin' weavin' a rope in a court-room for a man's neck is another thing,' says Freddy Tarlton here. 'My client has refused to say one word this or that way, but don't be sure that Some One that knows the inside of things won't speak for him in the end.' Then he turns and looks at Malachi, and Malachi was standin' still and steady like a tree, but his face was white, and sweat poured on his forehead. 'If God has no voice to be heard for my client in this court-room to-day, is there no one on earth—no man or woman—who can speak for one who won't speak for himself?' says Freddy Tarlton here. Then, by gol! for the first time Malachi opened. 'There's no one,' he says. 'The speakin' is all for the sheriff. But I spoke once, and the sheriff didn't answer.' Not a bit of beg-yer-pardon in it. It struck cold. 'I leave his case in the hands of twelve true men,' says Freddy Tarlton here, and he sits down."

"So they said he must walk the air?" suggested Pierre.

"Without leavin' their seats," someone added instantly.

"So. But that speech of 'Freddy Tarlton here'?" "It was worth twelve drinks to me, no more, and nothing at all to Malachi," said Tarlton. "When I said I'd come to him to-night to cheer him up, he said he'd rather sleep. The missionary, too, he can make nothing of him. 'I don't need anyone here,' he says. 'I eat this off my own plate.' And that's the end of Malachi."

"Because there was no one to speak for him—eh? Well, well."

"If he'd said anything that'd justify the thing—make it a manslaughter business or a quarrel—then! But no, not a word, up or down, high or low. Exit Malachi!" rejoined Freddy Tarlton sorrowfully. "I wish he'd given me half a chance."

"I wish I'd been there," said Pierre, taking a match from Gohawk, and lighting his cigarette.

"To hear his speech?" asked Gohawk, nodding towards Tarlton.

"To tell the truth about it all. T'sh, you bats, you sheep, what have you in your skulls? When a man will not speak, will not lie to gain a case for his lawyer—or save himself, there is something! Now, listen to me, and I will tell you the story of Malachi. Then you shall judge.

"I never saw such a face as that girl had down there at Lachine in Quebec. I knew her when she was a child, and I knew Malachi when he was on the river with the rafts, the foreman of a gang. He had a look all open then as the sun—yes. Happy? Yes, as happy as a man ought to be. Well, the mother of the child died, and Malachi alone was left to take care of the little Norice. He left the river and went to work in the mills, so that he might be with the child; and when he got to be foreman there he used to bring her to the mill. He had a basket swung for her just inside the mill not far from him, right where she was in the shade; but if she stretched out her hand it would be in the sun. I've seen a hundred men turn to look at her where she swung, singing to herself, and then chuckle to themselves afterwards as they worked.

"When Trevoor, the owner, come one day, and saw her, he swore, and was going to sack Malachi, but the child—that little Norice—leaned over the basket, and offered him an apple. He looked for a minute, then he reached up, took the apple, turned round, and went out of the mill without a word—so. Next month when he come he walked straight to her, and handed up to her a box of toys and a silver whistle. 'That's to call me when you want me,' he said, as he put the whistle to her lips, and then he put the gold string of it round her neck. She was a wise little thing, that Norice, and noticed things. I don't believe that Trevoor or Malachi ever knew how sweet was the smell of the fresh sawdust till she held it to their noses; and it was she that had the saws—all sizes— start one after the other, making so strange a tune. She made up a little song about fairies and others to sing to that tune. And no one ever thought much about Indian Island, off beyond the sweating, baking piles of lumber, and the blistering logs and timbers in the bay, till she told stories about it. Sure enough, when you saw the shut doors and open windows of those empty houses, all white without in the sun and dark within, and not a human to be seen, you could believe almost anything. You can think how proud Malachi was. She used to get plenty of presents from the men who had no wives or children to care for—little silver and gold things as well as others. She was fond of them, but no, not vain. She loved the gold and silver for their own sake."

Pierre paused. "I knew a youngster once," said Gohawk, "that—"

Pierre waved his hand. "I am not through, M'sieu' Gohawk the talker. Years went on. Now she took care of the house of Malachi. She wore the whistle that Trevoor gave her. He kept saying to her still, 'If ever you need me, little Norice, blow it, and I will come.' He was droll, that M'sieu' Trevoor, at times. Well, she did not blow, but still he used to come every year, and always brought her something. One year he brought his nephew, a young fellow of about twenty-three. She did not whistle for him either, but he kept on coming. That was the beginning of 'Exit Malachi.' The man was clever and bad, the girl believing and good. He was young, but he knew how to win a woman's heart. When that is done, there is nothing more to do—she is yours for good or evil; and if a man, through a woman's love, makes her to sin, even his mother cannot be proud of him-no. But the man married Norice, and took her away to Madison, down in Wisconsin. Malachi was left alone—Malachi and Trevoor, for Trevoor felt towards her as a father.

"Alors, sorrow come to the girl, for her husband began to play cards and to drink, and he lost much money. There was the trouble—the two together. They lived in a hotel. One day a lady missed a diamond necklace from her room. Norice had been with her the evening before. Norice come into her own room the next afternoon, and found detectives searching. In her own jewel-case, which was tucked away in the pocket of an old dress, was found the necklace. She was arrested. She said nothing—for she waited for her husband, who was out of town that day. He only come in time to see her in court next morning. She did not deny anything; she was quiet, like Malachi. The man played his part well. He had hid the necklace where he thought it would be safe, but when it was found, he let the wife take the blame—a little innocent thing. People were sorry for them both. She was sent to jail. Her father was away in the Rocky Mountains, and he did not hear; Trevoor was in Europe. The husband got a divorce, and was gone. Norice was in jail for over a year, and then she was set free, for her health went bad, and her mind was going, they thought. She did not know till she come out that she was divorced. Then she nearly died. But then Trevoor come."

Freddy Tarlton's hands were cold with excitement, and his fingers trembled so he could hardly light a cigar.

"Go on, go on, Pierre," he said huskily.

"Trevoor said to her—he told me this himself—'Why did you not whistle for me, Norice? A word would have brought me from Europe.' 'No one could help me, no one at all,' she answered. Then Trevoor said, 'I know who did it, for he has robbed me too.' She sank in a heap on the floor. 'I could have borne it and anything for him, if he hadn't divorced me,' she said. Then they cleared her name before the world. But where was the man? No one knew. At last Malachi, in the Rocky Mountains, heard of her trouble, for Norice wrote to him, but told him not to do the man any harm, if he ever found him—ah, a woman, a woman! . . . But Malachi met the man one day at Guidon Hill, and shot him in the street."

"Fargo the sheriff!" roared half-a-dozen voices. "Yes; he had changed his name, had come up here, and because he was clever and spent money, and had a pull on someone,—got it at cards perhaps,—he was made sheriff."

"In God's name, why didn't Malachi speak?" said Tarlton; "why didn't he tell me this?"

"Because he and I had our own plans. The one evidence he wanted was Norice. If she would come to him in his danger, and in spite of his killing the man, good. If not, then he would die. Well, I went to find her and fetch her. I found her. There was no way to send word, so we had to come on as fast as we could. We have come just in time."

"Do you mean to say, Pierre, that she's here?" said Gohawk.

Pierre waved his hand emphatically. "And so we came on with a pardon."

Every man was on his feet, every man's tongue was loosed, and each ordered liquor for Pierre, and asked him where the girl was. Freddy Tarlton wrung his hand, and called a boy to go to his rooms and bring three bottles of wine, which he had kept for two years, to drink when he had won his first big case.

Gohawk was importunate. "Where is the girl, Pierre?" he urged.

"Such a fool as you are, Gohawk! She is with her father."

A half-hour later, in a large sitting-room, Freddy Tarlton was making eloquent toasts over the wine. As they all stood drinking to Pierre, the door opened from the hall-way, and Malachi stood before them. At his shoulder was a face, wistful, worn, yet with a kind of happiness too; and the eyes had depths which any man might be glad to drown his heart in.

Malachi stood still, not speaking, and an awe or awkwardness fell on the group at the table.

But Norice stepped forward a little, and said: "May we come in?"

In an instant Freddy Tarlton was by her side, and had her by the hand, her and her father, drawing them over.

His ardent, admiring look gave Norice thought for many a day.

And that night Pierre made an accurate prophecy.



THE LAKE OF THE GREAT SLAVE

When Tybalt the tale-gatherer asked why it was so called, Pierre said: "Because of the Great Slave;" and then paused.

Tybalt did not hurry Pierre, knowing his whims. If he wished to tell, he would in his own time; if not, nothing could draw it from him. It was nearly an hour before Pierre, eased off from the puzzle he was solving with bits of paper and obliged Tybalt. He began as if they had been speaking the moment before:

"They have said it is legend, but I know better. I have seen the records of the Company, and it is all there. I was at Fort O'Glory once, and in a box two hundred years old the factor and I found it. There were other papers, and some of them had large red seals, and a name scrawled along the end of the page."

Pierre shook his head, as if in contented musing. He was a born story- teller. Tybalt was aching with interest, for he scented a thing of note.

"How did any of those papers, signed with a scrawl, begin?" he asked.

"'To our dearly-beloved,' or something like that," answered Pierre. "There were letters also. Two of them were full of harsh words, and these were signed with the scrawl."

"What was that scrawl?" asked Tybalt.

Pierre stooped to the sand, and wrote two words with his finger. "Like that," he answered.

Tybalt looked intently for an instant, and then drew a long breath. "Charles Rex," he said, hardly above his breath.

Pierre gave him a suggestive sidelong glance. "That name was droll, eh?"

Tybalt's blood was tingling with the joy of discovery. "It is a great name," he said shortly.

"The Slave was great—the Indians said so at the last."

"But that was not the name of the Slave?"

"Mais non. Who said so! Charles Rex—like that! was the man who wrote the letters."

"To the Great Slave?"

Pierre made a gesture of impatience. "Very sure."

"Where are those letters now?"

"With the Governor of the Company." Tybalt cut the tobacco for his pipe savagely. "You'd have liked one of those papers?" asked Pierre provokingly.

"I'd give five hundred dollars for one," broke out Tybalt.

Pierre lifted his eyebrows. "T'sh, what's the good of five hundred dollars up here? What would you do with a letter like that?"

Tybalt laughed with a touch of irony, for Pierre was clearly "rubbing it in."

"Perhaps for a book?" gently asked Pierre.

"Yes, if you like."

"It is a pity. But there is a way."

"How?"

"Put me in the book. Then—"

"How does that touch the case?"

Pierre shrugged a shoulder gently, for he thought Tybalt was unusually obtuse. Tybalt thought so himself before the episode ended.

"Go on," he said, with clouded brow, but interested eye. Then, as if with sudden thought: "To whom were the letters addressed, Pierre?"

"Wait!" was the reply. "One letter said: 'Good cousin, We are evermore glad to have thee and thy most excelling mistress near us. So, fail us not at our cheerful doings, yonder at Highgate.' Another—a year after— said: 'Cousin, for the sweetening of our mind, get thee gone into some distant corner of our pasturage—the farthest doth please us most. We would not have thee on foreign ground, for we bear no ill-will to our brother princes, and yet we would not have thee near our garden of good loyal souls, for thou hast a rebel heart and a tongue of divers tunes. Thou lovest not the good old song of duty to thy prince. Obeying us, thy lady shall keep thine estates untouched; failing obedience, thou wilt make more than thy prince unhappy. Fare thee well.' That was the way of two letters," said Pierre.

"How do you remember so?"

Pierre shrugged a shoulder again. "It is easy with things like that."

"But word for word?"

"I learned it word for word."

"Now for the story of the Lake—if you won't tell me the name of the man."

"The name afterwards-perhaps. Well, he came to that farthest corner of the pasturage, to the Hudson's Bay country, two hundred years ago. What do you think? Was he so sick of all, that he would go so far he could never get back? Maybe those 'cheerful doings' at Highgate, eh? And the lady—who can tell?"

Tybalt seized Pierre's arm. "You know more. Damnation, can't you see I'm on needles to hear? Was there anything in the letters about the lady? Anything more than you've told?"

Pierre liked no man's hand on him. He glanced down at the eager fingers, and said coldly:

"You are a great man; you can tell a story in many ways, but I in one way alone, and that is my way—mais oui!"

"Very well, take your own time."

"Bien. I got the story from two heads. If you hear a thing like that from Indians, you call it 'legend'; if from the Company's papers, you call it 'history.' Well, in this there is not much difference. The papers tell precise the facts; the legend gives the feeling, is more true. How can you judge the facts if you don't know the feeling? No! what is bad turns good sometimes, when you know the how, the feeling, the place. Well, this story of the Great Slave—eh? . . . There is a race of Indians in the far north who have hair so brown like yours, m'sieu', and eyes no darker. It is said they are of those that lived at the Pole, before the sea swamped the Isthmus, and swallowed up so many islands. So. In those days the fair race came to the south for the first time, that is, far below the Circle. They had their women with them. I have seen those of to-day: fine and tall, with breasts like apples, and a cheek to tempt a man like you, m'sieu'; no grease in the hair—no, M'sieu' Tybalt."

Tybalt sat moveless under the obvious irony, but his eyes were fixed intently on Pierre, his mind ever travelling far ahead of the tale.

"Alors: the 'good cousin' of Charles Rex, he made a journey with two men to the Far-off Metal River, and one day this tribe from the north come on his camp. It was summer, and they were camping in the Valley of the Young Moon, more sweet, they say, than any in the north. The Indians cornered them. There was a fight, and one of the Company's men was killed, and five of the other. But when the king of the people of the Pole saw that the great man was fair of face, he called for the fight to stop.

"There was a big talk all by signs, and the king said for the great man to come and be one with them, for they liked his fair face—their forefathers were fair like him. He should have the noblest of their women for his wife, and be a prince among them. He would not go: so they drew away again and fought. A stone-axe brought the great man to the ground. He was stunned, not killed. Then the other man gave up, and said he would be one of them if they would take him. They would have killed him but for one of their women. She said that he should live to tell them tales of the south country and the strange people, when they came again to their camp-fires. So they let him live, and he was one of them. But the chief man, because he was stubborn and scorned them, and had killed the son of their king in the fight, they made a slave, and carried him north a captive, till they came to this lake—the Lake of the Great Slave.

"In all ways they tried him, but he would not yield, neither to wear their dress nor to worship their gods. He was robbed of his clothes, of his gold-handled dagger, his belt of silk and silver, his carbine with rich chasing, and all, and he was among them almost naked,—it was summer, as I said, yet defying them. He was taller by a head than any of them, and his white skin rippled in the sun like soft steel."

Tybalt was inclined to ask Pierre how he knew all this, but he held his peace. Pierre, as if divining his thoughts, continued:

"You ask how I know these things. Very good: there are the legends, and there were the papers of the Company. The Indians tried every way, but it was no use; he would have nothing to say to them. At last they came to this lake. Now something great occurred. The woman who had been the wife of the king's dead son, her heart went out in love of the Great Slave; but he never looked at her. One day there were great sports, for it was the feast of the Red Star. The young men did feats of strength, here on this ground where we sit. The king's wife called out for the Great Slave to measure strength with them all. He would not stir. The king commanded him; still he would not, but stood among them silent and looking far away over their heads. At last, two young men of good height and bone threw arrows at his bare breast. The blood came in spots. Then he gave a cry through his beard, and was on them like a lion. He caught them, one in each arm, swung them from the ground, and brought their heads together with a crash, breaking their skulls, and dropped them at his feet. Catching up a long spear, he waited for the rest. But they did not come, for, with a loud voice, the king told them to fall back, and went and felt the bodies of the men. One of them was dead; the other was his second son—he would live.

"'It is a great deed,' said the king, 'for these were no children, but strong men.'

"Then again he offered the Great Slave women to marry, and fifty tents of deerskin for the making of a village. But the Great Slave said no, and asked to be sent back to Fort O'Glory.

"The king refused. But that night, as he slept in his tent, the girl- widow came to him, waked him, and told him to follow her. He came forth, and she led him softly through the silent camp to that wood which we see over there. He told her she need not go on. Without a word, she reached over and kissed him on the breast. Then he understood. He told her that she could not come with him, for there was that lady in England—his wife, eh? But never mind, that will come. He was too great to save his life, or be free at the price. Some are born that way. They have their own commandments, and they keep them.

"He told her that she must go back. She gave a little cry, and sank down at his feet, saying that her life would be in danger if she went back.

"Then he told her to come, for it was in his mind to bring her to Fort O'Glory, where she could marry an Indian there. But now she would not go with him, and turned towards the village. A woman is a strange creature —yes, like that! He refused to go and leave her. She was in danger, and he would share it, whatever it might be. So, though she prayed him not, he went back with her; and when she saw that he would go in spite of all, she was glad: which is like a woman.

"When he entered the tent again, he guessed her danger, for he stepped over the bodies of two dead men. She had killed them. As she turned at the door to go to her own tent, another woman faced her. It was the wife of the king, who had suspected, and had now found out. Who can tell what it was? Jealousy, perhaps. The Great Slave could tell, maybe, if he could speak, for a man always knows when a woman sets him high. Anyhow, that was the way it stood. In a moment the girl was marched back to her tent, and all the camp heard a wicked lie of the widow of the king's son.

"To it there was an end after the way of their laws.

"The woman should die by fire, and the man, as the king might will. So there was a great gathering in the place where we are, and the king sat against that big white stone, which is now as it was then. Silence was called, and they brought the girl-widow forth. The king spoke:

"'Thou who hadst a prince for thy husband, didst go in the night to the tent of the slave who killed thy husband; whereby thou also becamest a slave, and didst shame the greatness which was given thee. Thou shalt die, as has been set in our laws.'

"The girl-widow rose, and spoke. 'I did not know, O king, that he whom thou madest a slave slew my husband, the prince of our people, and thy son. That was not told me. But had I known it, still would I have set him free, for thy son was killed in fair battle, and this man deserves not slavery or torture. I did seek the tent of the Great Slave, and it was to set him free—no more. For that did I go, and, for the rest, my soul is open to the Spirit Who Sees. I have done naught, and never did, nor ever will, that might shame a king, or the daughter of a king, or the wife of a king, or a woman. If to set a great captive free is death for me, then am I ready. I will answer all pure women in the far Camp of the Great Fires without fear. There is no more, O king, that I may say, but this: she who dies by fire, being of noble blood, may choose who shall light the faggots—is it not so?'

"Then the king replied: 'It is so. Such is our law.'

"There was counselling between the king and his oldest men, and so long were they handling the matter backwards and forwards that it seemed she might go free. But the king's wife, seeing, came and spoke to the king and the others, crying out for the honour of her dead son; so that in a moment of anger they all cried out for death.

"When the king said again to the girl that she must die by fire, she answered: 'It is as the gods will. But it is so, as I said, that I may choose who shall light the fires?'

"The king answered yes, and asked her whom she chose. She pointed towards the Great Slave. And all, even the king and his councillors, wondered, for they knew little of the heart of women. What is a man with a matter like that? Nothing—nothing at all. They would have set this for punishment: that she should ask for it was beyond them. Yes, even the king's wife—it was beyond her. But the girl herself, see you, was it not this way?—If she died by the hand of him she loved, then it would be easy, for she could forget the pain, in the thought that his heart would ache for her, and that at the very last he might care, and she should see it. She was great in her way also—that girl, two hundred years ago.

"Alors, they led her a little distance off,—there is the spot, where you see the ground heave a little, and the Great Slave was brought up. The king told him why the girl was to die. He went like stone, looking, looking at them. He knew that the girl's heart was like a little child's, and the shame and cruelty of the thing froze him silent for a minute, and the colour flew from his face to here and there on his body, as a flame on marble. The cords began to beat and throb in his neck and on his forehead, and his eyes gave out fire like flint on an arrow-head.

"Then he began to talk. He could not say much, for he knew so little of their language. But it was 'No!' every other word. 'No—no—no—no!' the words ringing from his chest. 'She is good!' he said. 'The other- no!' and he made a motion with his hand. 'She must not die—no! Evil? It is a lie! I will kill each man that says it, one by one, if he dares come forth. She tried to save me—well?' Then he made them know that he was of high place in a far country, and that a man like him would not tell a lie. That pleased the king, for he was proud, and he saw that the Slave was of better stuff than himself. Besides, the king was a brave man, and he had strength, and more than once he had laid his hand on the chest of the other, as one might on a grand animal. Perhaps, even then, they might have spared the girl was it not for the queen. She would not hear of it. Then they tried the Great Slave, and he was found guilty. The queen sent him word to beg for pardon. So he stood out and spoke to the queen. She sat up straight, with pride in her eyes, for was it not a great prince, as she thought, asking? But a cloud fell on her face, for he begged the girl's life. Since there must be death, let him die, and die by fire in her place! It was then two women cried out: the poor girl for joy—not at the thought that her life would be saved, but because she thought the man loved her now, or he would not offer to die for her; and the queen for hate, because she thought the same. You can guess the rest: they were both to die, though the king was sorry for the man.

"The king's speaker stood out and asked them if they had anything to say. The girl stepped forward, her face without any fear, but a kind of noble pride in it, and said: 'I am ready, O king.'

"The Great Slave bowed his head, and was thinking much. They asked him again, and he waved his hand at them. The king spoke up in anger, and then he smiled and said: 'O king, I am not ready; if I die, I die.' Then he fell to thinking again. But once more the king spoke: 'Thou shalt surely die, but not by fire, nor now; nor till we have come to our great camp in our own country. There thou shalt die. But the woman shall die at the going down of the sun. She shall die by fire, and thou shalt light the faggots for the burning.'

"The Great Slave said he would not do it, not though he should die a hundred deaths. Then the king said that it was the woman's right to choose who should start the fire, and he had given his word, which should not be broken.

"When the Great Slave heard this he was wild for a little, and then he guessed altogether what was in the girl's mind. Was not this the true thing in her, the very truest? Mais oui! That was what she wished— to die by his hand rather than by any other; and something troubled his breast, and a cloud came in his eyes, so that for a moment he could not see. He looked at the girl, so serious, eye to eye. Perhaps she understood. So, after a time, he got calm as the farthest light in the sky, his face shining among them all with a look none could read. He sat down, and wrote upon pieces of bark with a spear-point—those bits of bark I have seen also at Fort O'Glory. He pierced them through with dried strings of the slippery-elm tree, and with the king's consent gave them to the Company's man, who had become one of the people, telling him, if ever he was free, or could send them to the Company, he must do so. The man promised, and shame came upon him that he had let the other suffer alone; and he said he was willing to fight and die if the Great Slave gave the word. But he would not; and he urged that it was right for the man to save his life. For himself, no. It could never be; and if he must die, he must die.

"You see, a great man must always live alone and die alone, when there are only such people about him. So, now that the letters were written, he sat upon the ground and thought, looking often towards the girl, who was placed apart, with guards near. The king sat thinking also. He could not guess why the Great Slave should give the letters now, since he was not yet to die, nor could the Company's man show a reason when the king asked him. So the king waited, and told the guards to see that the Great Slave did not kill himself.

"But the queen wanted the death of the girl, and was glad beyond telling that the Slave must light the faggots. She was glad when she saw the young braves bring a long sapling from the forest, and, digging a hole, put it stoutly in the ground, and fetch wood, and heap it about.

"The Great Slave noted that the bark of the sapling had not been stripped, and more than once he measured, with his eye, the space between the stake and the shores of the Lake: he did this most private, so that no one saw but the girl.

"At last the time was come. The Lake was all rose and gold out there in the west, and the water so still so still. The cool, moist scent of the leaves and grass came out from the woods and up from the plain, and the world was so full of content that a man's heart could cry out, even as now, while we look—eh, is it not good? See the deer drinking on the other shore there!" Suddenly Pierre became silent, as if he had forgotten the story altogether. Tybalt was impatient, but he did not speak. He took a twig, and in the sand he wrote "Charles Rex." Pierre glanced down and saw it.

"There was beating of the little drums," he continued, "and the crying of the king's speaker; and soon all was ready, and the people gathered at a distance, and the king and the queen, and the chief men nearer; and the girl was brought forth.

"As they led her past the Great Slave, she looked into his eyes, and afterwards her heart was glad, for she knew that at the last he would be near her, and that his hand should light the fires. Two men tied her to the stake. Then the king's man cried out again, telling of her crime, and calling for her death. The Great Slave was brought near. No one knew that the palms of his hands had been rubbed in the sand for a purpose. When he was brought beside the stake, a torch was given him by his guards. He looked at the girl, and she smiled at him, and said: 'Good-bye. Forgive. I die not afraid, and happy.'

"He did not answer, but stooped and lit the sticks here and there. All at once he snatched a burning stick, and it and the torch he thrust, like lightning, in the faces of his guards, blinding them. Then he sprang to the stake, and, with a huge pull, tore it from the ground, girl and all, and rushed to the shore of the Lake, with her tied so in his arms.

"He had been so swift that, at first, no one stirred. He reached the shore, rushed into the water, dragging a boat out with one hand as he did so, and, putting the girl in, seized a paddle and was away with a start. A few strokes, and then he stopped, picked up a hatchet that was in the boat with many spears, and freed the girl. Then he paddled on, trusting, with a small hope, that through his great strength he could keep ahead till darkness came, and then, in the gloom, they might escape. The girl also seized an oar, and the canoe—the king's own canoe—came on like a swallow.

"But the tribe was after them in fifty canoes, some coming straight along, some spreading out to close in later. It was no equal game, for these people were so quick and strong with the oars, and they were a hundred or more to two. There could be but one end. It was what the Great Slave had looked for: to fight till the last breath. He should fight for the woman who had risked all for him—just a common woman of the north, but it seemed good to lose his life for her; and she would be happy to die with him.

"So they stood side by side when the spears and arrows fell round them, and they gave death and wounds for wounds in their own bodies. When, at last, the Indians climbed into the canoe, the Great Slave was dead of many wounds, and the woman, all gashed, lay with her lips to his wet, red cheek. She smiled as they dragged her away; and her soul hurried after his to the Camp of the Great Fires."

It was long before Tybalt spoke, but at last he said: If I could but tell it as you have told it to me, Pierre!" Pierre answered: "Tell it with your tongue, and this shall be nothing to it, for what am I? What English have I, a gipsy of the snows? But do not write it, mais non! Writing wanders from the matter. The eyes, and the tongue, and the time, that is the thing. But in a book—it will sound all cold and thin. It is for the north, for the camp-fire, for the big talk before a man rolls into his blanket, and is at peace. No, no writing, monsieur. Speak it everywhere with your tongue."

"And so I would, were my tongue as yours. Pierre, tell me more about the letters at Fort O'Glory. You know his name—what was it?"

"You said five hundred dollars for one of those letters. Is it not?"

"Yes." Tybalt had a new hope.

"T'sh! What do I want of five hundred dollars! But, here, answer me a question: Was the lady—his wife, she that was left in England—a good woman? Answer me out of your own sense, and from my story. If you say right you shall have a letter—one that I have by me."

Tybalt's heart leapt into his throat. After a little he said huskily: "She was a good woman—he believed her that, and so shall I."

"You think he could not have been so great unless, eh? And that 'Charles Rex,' what of him?"

"What good can it do to call him bad now?" Without a word, Pierre drew from a leather wallet a letter, and, by the light of the fast-setting sun, Tybalt read it, then read it again, and yet again.

"Poor soul! poor lady!" he said. "Was ever such another letter written to any man? And it came too late; this, with the king's recall, came too late!"

"So—so. He died out there where that wild duck flies—a Great Slave. Years after, the Company's man brought word of all."

Tybalt was looking at the name on the outside of the letter.

"How do they call that name?" asked Pierre. "It is like none I've seen —no."

Tybalt shook his head sorrowfully, and did not answer.



THE RED PATROL

St. Augustine's, Canterbury, had given him its licentiate's hood, the Bishop of Rupert's Land had ordained him, and the North had swallowed him up. He had gone forth with surplice, stole, hood, a sermon-case, the prayer-book, and that other Book of all. Indian camps, trappers' huts, and Company's posts had given him hospitality, and had heard him with patience and consideration. At first he wore the surplice, stole, and hood, took the eastward position, and intoned the service, and no man said him nay, but watched him curiously and was sorrowful—he was so youthful, clear of eye, and bent on doing heroical things.

But little by little there came a change. The hood was left behind at Fort O'Glory, where it provoked the derision of the Methodist missionary who followed him; the sermon-case stayed at Fort O'Battle; and at last the surplice itself was put by at the Company's post at Yellow Quill. He was too excited and in earnest at first to see the effect of his ministrations, but there came slowly over him the knowledge that he was talking into space. He felt something returning on him out of the air into which he talked, and buffeting him. It was the Spirit of the North, in which lives the terror, the large heart of things, the soul of the past. He awoke to his inadequacy, to the fact that all these men to whom he talked, listened, and only listened, and treated him with a gentleness which was almost pity—as one might a woman. He had talked doctrine, the Church, the sacraments, and at Fort O'Battle he faced definitely the futility of his work. What was to blame—the Church—religion—himself?

It was at Fort O'Battle that he met Pierre, and heard a voice say over his shoulder, as he walked out into the icy dusk: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness . . . and he had sackcloth about his loins, and his food was locusts and wild honey."

He turned to see Pierre, who in the large room of the Post had sat and watched him as he prayed and preached. He had remarked the keen, curious eye, the musing look, the habitual disdain at the lips. It had all touched him, confused him; and now he had a kind of anger.

"You know it so well, why don't you preach yourself?" he said feverishly.

"I have been preaching all my life," Pierre answered drily.

"The devil's games: cards and law-breaking; and you sneer at men who try to bring lost sheep into the fold."

"The fold of the Church—yes, I understand all that," Pierre answered. "I have heard you and the priests of my father's Church talk. Which is right? But as for me, I am a missionary. Cards, law-breaking—these are what I have done; but these are not what I have preached."

"What have you preached?" asked the other, walking on into the fast- gathering night, beyond the Post and the Indian lodges, into the wastes where frost and silence lived.

Pierre waved his hand towards space. "This," he said suggestively.

"What's this?" asked the other fretfully.

"The thing you feel round you here."

"I feel the cold," was the petulant reply.

"I feel the immense, the far off," said Pierre slowly.

The other did not understand as yet. "You've learned big words," he said disdainfully.

"No; big things," rejoined Pierre sharply—"a few."

"Let me hear you preach them," half snarled Sherburne.

"You will not like to hear them—no."

"I'm not likely to think about them one way or another," was the contemptuous reply.

Pierre's eyes half closed. The young, impetuous half-baked college man. To set his little knowledge against his own studious vagabondage! At that instant he determined to play a game and win; to turn this man into a vagabond also; to see John the Baptist become a Bedouin. He saw the doubt, the uncertainty, the shattered vanity in the youth's mind, the missionary's half retreat from his cause. A crisis was at hand. The youth was fretful with his great theme, instead of being severe upon himself. For days and days Pierre's presence had acted on Sherburne silently but forcibly. He had listened to the vagabond's philosophy, and knew that it was of a deeper—so much deeper—knowledge of life than he himself possessed, and he knew also that it was terribly true; he was not wise enough to see that it was only true in part. The influence had been insidious, delicate, cunning, and he himself was only "a voice crying in the wilderness," without the simple creed of that voice. He knew that the Methodist missionary was believed in more, if less liked, than himself. Pierre would work now with all the latent devilry of his nature to unseat the man from his saddle.

"You have missed the great thing, alors, though you have been up here two years," he said. "You do not feel, you do not know. What good have you done? Who has got on his knees and changed his life because of you? Who has told his beads or longed for the Mass because of you? Tell me, who has ever said, 'You have showed me how to live'? Even the women, though they cry sometimes when you sing-song the prayers, go on just the same when the little 'bless-you' is over. Why? Most of them know a better thing than you tell them. Here is the truth: you are little—eh, so very little. You never lied—direct; you never stole the waters that are sweet; you never knew the big dreams that come with wine in the dead of night; you never swore at your own soul and heard it laugh back at you; you never put your face in the breast of a woman—do not look so wild at me!—you never had a child; you never saw the world and yourself through the doors of real life. You never have said, 'I am tired; I am sick of all; I have seen all.' You have never felt what came after— understanding. Chut, your talk is for children—and missionaries. You are a prophet without a call, you are a leader without a man to lead, you are less than a child up here. For here the children feel a peace in their blood when the stars come out, and a joy in their brains when the dawn comes up and reaches a yellow hand to the Pole, and the west wind shouts at them. Holy Mother! we in the far north, we feel things, for all the great souls of the dead are up there at the Pole in the pleasant land, and we have seen the Scarlet Hunter and the Kimash Hills. You have seen nothing. You have only heard, and because, like a child, you have never sinned, you come and preach to us!"

The night was folding down fast, all the stars were shooting out into their places, and in the north the white lights of the aurora were flying to and fro. Pierre had spoken with a slow force and precision, yet, as he went on, his eyes almost became fixed on those shifting flames, and a deep look came into them, as he was moved by his own eloquence. Never in his life had he made so long a speech at once. He paused, and then said suddenly: "Come, let us run."

He broke into a long, sliding trot, and Sherburne did the same. With their arms gathered to their sides they ran for quite two miles without a word, until the heavy breathing of the clergyman brought Pierre up suddenly.

"You do not run well," he said; "you do not run with the whole body. You know so little. Did you ever think how much such men as Jacques Parfaite know? The earth they read like a book, the sky like an animal's ways, and a man's face like—like the writing on the wall."

"Like the writing on the wall," said Sherburne, musing; for, under the other's influence, his petulance was gone. He knew that he was not a part of this life, that he was ignorant of it; of, indeed, all that was vital in it and in men and women.

"I think you began this too soon. You should have waited; then you might have done good. But here we are wiser than you. You have no message— no real message—to give us; down in your heart you are not even sure of yourself."

Sherburne sighed. "I'm of no use," he said. "I'll get out. I'm no good at all."

Pierre's eyes glistened. He remembered how, the day before, this youth had said hot words about his card-playing; had called him—in effect— a thief; had treated him as an inferior, as became one who was of St. Augustine's, Canterbury.

"It is the great thing to be free," Pierre said, "that no man shall look for this or that of you. Just to do as far as you feel, as far as you are sure—that is the best. In this you are not sure—no. Hein, is it not?"

Sherburne did not answer. Anger, distrust, wretchedness, the spirit of the alien, loneliness, were alive in him. The magnetism of this deep penetrating man, possessed of a devil, was on him, and in spite of every reasonable instinct he turned to him for companionship.

"It's been a failure," he burst out, "and I'm sick of it—sick of it; but I can't give it up."

Pierre said nothing. They had come to what seemed a vast semicircle of ice and snow, a huge amphitheatre in the plains. It was wonderful: a great round wall on which the northern lights played, into which the stars peered. It was open towards the north, and in one side was a fissure shaped like a Gothic arch. Pierre pointed to it, and they did not speak till they had passed through it. Like great seats the steppes of snow ranged round, and in the centre was a kind of plateau of ice, as it might seem a stage or an altar. To the north there was a great opening, the lost arc of the circle, through which the mystery of the Pole swept in and out, or brooded there where no man may question it. Pierre stood and looked. Time and again he had been here, and had asked the same question: Who had ever sat on those frozen benches and looked down at the drama on that stage below? Who played the parts? Was it a farce or a sacrifice? To him had been given the sorrow of imagination, and he wondered and wondered. Or did they come still—those strange people, whoever they were—and watch ghostly gladiators at their fatal sport? If they came, when was it? Perhaps they were there now unseen. In spite of himself he shuddered. Who was the keeper of the house?

Through his mind there ran—pregnant to him for the first tine—a chanson of the Scarlet Hunter, the Red Patrol, who guarded the sleepers in the Kimash Hills against the time they should awake and possess the land once more: the friend of the lost, the lover of the vagabond, and of all who had no home:

"Strangers come to the outer walls— (Why do the sleepers stir?) Strangers enter the Judgment House— (Why do the sleepers sigh?) Slow they rise in their judgment seats, Sieve and measure the naked souls, Then with a blessing return to sleep— (Quiet the Judgment House.) Lone and sick are the vagrant souls— (When shall the world come home?)"

He reflected upon the words, and a feeling of awe came over him, for he had been in the White Valley and had seen the Scarlet Hunter. But there came at once also a sinister desire to play a game for this man's life- work here. He knew that the other was ready for any wild move; there was upon him the sense of failure and disgust; he was acted on by the magic of the night, the terrible delight of the scene, and that might be turned to advantage.

He said: "Am I not right? There is something in the world greater than the creeds and the book of the Mass. To be free and to enjoy, that is the thing. Never before have you felt what you feel here now. And I will show you more. I will teach you how to know, I will lead you through all the north and make you to understand the big things of life. Then, when you have known, you can return if you will. But now—see: I will tell you what I will do. Here on this great platform we will play a game of cards. There is a man whose life I can ruin. If you win I promise to leave him safe; and to go out of the far north for ever, to go back to Quebec"—he had a kind of gaming fever in his veins. "If I win, you give up the Church, leaving behind the prayerbook, the Bible and all, coming with me to do what I shall tell you, for the passing of twelve moons. It is a great stake—will you play it? Come"—he leaned forward, looking into the other's face—"will you play it? They drew lots—those people in the Bible. We will draw lots, and see, eh?—and see?"

"I accept the stake," said Sherburne, with a little gasp.

Without a word they went upon that platform, shaped like an altar, and Pierre at once drew out a pack of cards, shuffling them with his mittened hands. Then he knelt down and said, as he laid out the cards one by one till there were thirty: "Whoever gets the ace of hearts first, wins— hein?"

Sherburne nodded and knelt also. The cards lay back upwards in three rows. For a moment neither stirred. The white, metallic stars saw it, the small crescent moon beheld it, and the deep wonder of night made it strange and dreadful. Once or twice Sherburne looked round as though he felt others present, and once Pierre looked out to the wide portals, as though he saw some one entering. But there was nothing to the eye— nothing. Presently Pierre said: "Begin."

The other drew a card, then Pierre drew one, then the other, then Pierre again; and so on. How slow the game was! Neither hurried, but both, kneeling, looked and looked at the card long before drawing and turning it over. The stake was weighty, and Pierre loved the game more than he cared about the stake. Sherburne cared nothing about the game, but all his soul seemed set upon the hazard. There was not a sound out of the night, nothing stirring but the Spirit of the North. Twenty, twenty-five cards were drawn, and then Pierre paused.

"In a minute all will be settled," he said. "Will you go on, or will you pause?"

But Sherburne had got the madness of chance in his veins now, and he said: "Quick, quick, go on!" Pierre drew, but the great card held back. Sherburne drew, then Pierre again. There were three left. Sherburne's face was as white as the snow around him. His mouth was open, and a little white cloud of frosted breath came out. His hand hungered for the card, drew back, then seized it. A moan broke from him. Then Pierre, with a little weird laugh, reached out and turned over the ace of hearts!

They both stood up. Pierre put the cards in his pocket.

"You have lost," he said.

Sherburne threw back his head with a reckless laugh. The laugh seemed to echo and echo through the amphitheatre, and then from the frozen seats, the hillocks of ice and snow, there was a long, low sound, as of sorrow, and a voice came after:

"Sleep—sleep! Blessed be the just and the keepers of vows."

Sherburne stood shaking, as though he had seen a host of spirits. His eyes on the great seats of judgment, he said to Pierre:

"See, see, how they sit there, grey and cold and awful!"

But Pierre shook his head.

"There is nothing," he said, "nothing;" yet he knew that Sherburne was looking upon the men of judgment of the Kimash Hills, the sleepers. He looked round, half fearfully, for if here were those great children of the ages, where was the keeper of the house, the Red Patrol?

Even as he thought, a figure in scarlet with a noble face and a high pride of bearing stood before them, not far away. Sherburne clutched his arm.

Then the Red Patrol, the Scarlet Hunter spoke: "Why have you sinned your sins and broken your vows within our house of judgment? Know ye not that in the new springtime of the world ye shall be outcast, because ye have called the sleepers to judgment before their time? But I am the hunter of the lost. Go you," he said to Sherburne, pointing, "where a sick man lies in a hut in the Shikam Valley. In his soul find thine own again." Then to Pierre: "For thee, thou shalt know the desert and the storm and the lonely hills; thou shalt neither seek nor find. Go, and return no more."

The two men, Sherburne falteringly, stepped down and moved to the open plain. They turned at the great entrance and looked back. Where they had stood there rested on his long bow the Red Patrol. He raised it, and a flaming arrow flew through the sky towards the south. They followed its course, and when they looked back a little afterwards, the great judgment-house was empty, and the whole north was silent as the sleepers.

At dawn they came to the hut in the Shikam Valley, and there they found a trapper dying. He had sinned greatly, and he could not die without someone to show him how, to tell him what to say to the angel of the cross-roads.

Sherburne, kneeling by him, felt his own new soul moved by a holy fire, and, first praying for himself, he said to the sick man: "For if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Praying for both, his heart grew strong, and he heard the sick man say, ere he journeyed forth to the crossroads:

"You have shown me the way. I have peace."

"Speak for me in the Presence," said Sherburne softly.

The dying man could not answer, but that moment, as he journeyed forth on the Far Trail, he held Sherburne's hand.



THE GOING OF THE WHITE SWAN

"Why don't she come back, father?"

The man shook his head, his hand fumbled with the wolf-skin robe covering the child, and he made no reply. "She'd come if she knew I was hurted, wouldn't she?"

The father nodded, and then turned restlessly toward the door, as though expecting someone. The look was troubled, and the pipe he held was not alight, though he made a pretence of smoking.

"Suppose the wild cat had got me, she'd be sorry when she comes, wouldn't she?"

There was no reply yet, save by gesture, the language of primitive man; but the big body shivered a little, and the uncouth hand felt for a place in the bed where the lad's knee made a lump under the robe. He felt the little heap tenderly, but the child winced.

"S-sh, but that hurts! This wolf-skin's most too much on me, isn't it, father?"

The man softly, yet awkwardly too, lifted the robe, folded it back, and slowly uncovered the knee. The leg was worn away almost to skin and bone, but the knee itself was swollen with inflammation. He bathed it with some water, mixed with vinegar and herbs, then drew down the deer- skin shirt at the child's shoulder, and did the same with it. Both shoulder and knee bore the marks of teeth—where a huge wild cat had made havoc—and the body had long red scratches.

Presently the man shook his head sorrowfully, and covered up the small disfigured frame again, but this time with a tanned skin of the caribou. The flames of the huge wood fire dashed the walls and floor with a velvety red and black, and the large iron kettle, bought of the Company at Fort Sacrament, puffed out geysers of steam.

The place was a low but with parchment windows and rough mud-mortar lumped between the logs. Skins hung along two sides, with bullet-holes and knife-holes showing: of the great grey wolf, the red puma, the bronze hill-lion, the beaver, the bear, and the sable; and in one corner was a huge pile of them. Bare of the usual comforts as the room was, it had a sort of refinement also, joined to an inexpressible loneliness; you could scarce have told how or why.

"Father," said the boy, his face pinched with pain for a moment, "it hurts so all over, every once in a while."

His fingers caressed the leg just below the knee. "Father," he suddenly added, "what does it mean when you hear a bird sing in the middle of the night?" The woodsman looked down anxiously into the boy's face. "It hasn't no meaning, Dominique. There ain't such a thing on the Labrador Heights as a bird singin' in the night. That's only in warm countries where there's nightingales. So—bien sur!"

The boy had a wise, dreamy, speculative look. "Well, I guess it was a nightingale—it didn't sing like any I ever heard."

The look of nervousness deepened in the woodsman's face. "What did it sing like, Dominique?"

"So it made you shiver. You wanted it to go on, and yet you didn't want it. It was pretty, but you felt as if something was going to snap inside of you."

"When did you hear it, my son?"

"Twice last night—and—and I guess it was Sunday the other time. I don't know, for there hasn't been no Sunday up here since mother went away—has there?"

"Mebbe not."

The veins were beating like live cords in the man's throat and at his temples.

"'Twas just the same as Father Corraine bein' here, when mother had Sunday, wasn't it?"

The man made no reply, but a gloom drew down his forehead, and his lips doubled in as if he endured physical pain. He got to his feet and paced the floor. For weeks he had listened to the same kind of talk from this wounded, and, as he thought, dying son, and he was getting less and less able to bear it. The boy at nine years of age was, in manner of speech, the merest child, but his thoughts were sometimes large and wise. The only white child within a compass of three hundred miles or so; the lonely life of the hills and plains, so austere in winter, so melted to a sober joy in summer; listening to the talk of his elders at camp-fires and on the hunting-trail, when, even as an infant almost, he was swung in a blanket from a tree or was packed in the torch-crane of a canoe; and, more than all, the care of a good, loving—if passionate—little mother: all these had made him far wiser than his years. He had been hours upon hours each day alone with the birds, and squirrels, and wild animals, and something of the keen scent and instinct of the animal world had entered into his body and brain, so that he felt what he could not understand.

He saw that he had worried his father, and it troubled him. He thought of something. "Daddy," he said, "let me have it."

A smile struggled for life in the hunter's face, as he turned to the wall and took down the skin of a silver fox. He held it on his palm for a moment, looking at it in an interested, satisfied way, then he brought it over and put it into the child's hands; and the smile now shaped itself, as he saw an eager pale face buried in the soft fur.

"Good! good!" he said involuntarily.

"Bon! bon!" said the boy's voice from the fur, in the language of his mother, who added a strain of Indian blood to her French ancestry.

The two sat there, the man half-kneeling on the low bed, and stroking the fur very gently. It could scarcely be thought that such pride should be spent on a little pelt by a mere backwoodsman and his nine-year-old son. One has seen a woman fingering a splendid necklace, her eyes fascinated by the bunch of warm, deep jewels—a light not of mere vanity, or hunger, or avarice in her face—only the love of the beautiful thing. But this was an animal's skin. Did they feel the animal underneath it yet, giving it beauty, life, glory?

The silver-fox skin is the prize of the north, and this one was of the boy's own harvesting. While his father was away he saw the fox creeping by the hut. The joy of the hunter seized him, and guided his eye over the sights of his father's rifle, as he rested the barrel on the window- sill, and the animal was his! Now his finger ran into the hole made by the bullet, and he gave a little laugh of modest triumph. Minutes passed as they studied, felt, and admired the skin, the hunter proud of his son, the son alive with a primitive passion, which inflicts suffering to get the beautiful thing. Perhaps the tenderness as well as the wild passion of the animal gets into the hunter's blood, and tips his fingers at times with an exquisite kindness—as one has noted in a lion fondling her young, or in tigers as they sport upon the sands of the desert. This boy had seen his father shoot a splendid moose, and as it lay dying, drop down and kiss it in the neck for sheer love of its handsomeness. Death is no insult. It is the law of the primitive world—war, and love in war.

They sat there for a long time, not speaking, each busy in his own way: the boy full of imaginings, strange, half-heathen, half-angelic feelings; the man roaming in that savage, romantic, superstitious atmosphere which belongs to the north, and to the north alone. At last the boy lay back on the pillow, his finger still in the bullet-hole of the pelt. His eyes closed, and he seemed about to fall asleep, but presently looked up and whispered: "I haven't said my prayers, have I?"

The father shook his head in a sort of rude confusion.

"I can pray out loud if I want to, can't I?"

"Of course, Dominique." The man shrank a little.

"I forget a good many times, but I know one all right, for I said it when the bird was singing. It isn't one out of the book Father Corraine sent mother by Pretty Pierre; it's one she taught me out of her own head. P'r'aps I'd better say it."

"P'r'aps, if you want to." The voice was husky. The boy began:

"O bon Jesu, who died to save us from our sins, and to lead us to Thy country, where there is no cold, nor hunger, nor thirst, and where no one is afraid, listen to Thy child. . . . When the great winds and rains come down from the hills, do not let the floods drown us, nor the woods cover us, nor the snow-slide bury us; and do not let the prairie-fires burn us. Keep wild beasts from killing us in our sleep, and give us good hearts that we may not kill them in anger."

His finger twisted involuntarily into the bullet-hole in the pelt, and he paused a moment.

"Keep us from getting lost, O gracious Saviour." Again there was a pause, his eyes opened wide, and he said:

"Do you think mother's lost, father?"

A heavy broken breath came from the father, and he replied haltingly: "Mebbe, mebbe so."

Dominique's eyes closed again. "I'll make up some," he said slowly. "And if mother's lost, bring her back again to us, for everything's going wrong."

Again he paused, then went on with the prayer as it had been taught him.

"Teach us to hear Thee whenever Thou callest, and to see Thee when Thou visitest us, and let the blessed Mary and all the saints speak often to Thee for us. O Christ, hear us. Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ have mercy upon us. Amen."

Making the sign of the cross, he lay back, and said "I'll go to sleep now, I guess."

The man sat for a long time looking at the pale, shining face, at the blue veins showing painfully dark on the temples and forehead, at the firm little white hand, which was as brown as a butternut a few weeks before. The longer he sat, the deeper did his misery sink into his soul. His wife had gone, he knew not where, his child was wasting to death, and he had for his sorrows no inner consolation. He had ever had that touch of mystical imagination inseparable from the far north, yet he had none of that religious belief which swallowed up natural awe and turned it to the refining of life, and to the advantage of a man's soul. Now it was forced in upon him that his child was wiser than himself, wiser and safer. His life had been spent in the wastes, with rough deeds and rugged habits, and a youth of hardship, danger, and almost savage endurance, had given him a half-barbarian temperament, which could strike an angry blow at one moment and fondle to death at the next.

When he married sweet Lucette Barbond his religion reached little farther than a belief in the Scarlet Hunter of the Kimash Hills and those voices that could be heard calling in the night, till their time of sleep be past, and they should rise and reconquer the north.

Not even Father Corraine, whose ways were like those of his Master, could ever bring him to a more definite faith. His wife had at first striven with him, mourning yet loving. Sometimes the savage in him had broken out over the little creature, merely because barbaric tyranny was in him —torture followed by the passionate kiss. But how was she philosopher enough to understand the cause?