I could not look back to know if that were the lad, but ran aimlessly towards the scene of the Seven Oaks fray. As I approached, there was a great flapping of wings. Up rose buzzards, scolding in angry discord at my interruption. A pack of wolves skulked a few feet off and eyed me impatiently, boldly waiting to return when I left. The impudence of the brutes enraged me and I let go half a dozen charges, which sent them to a more respectful distance. Here were more bodies like the first. I counted eight within a stone's throw, and there were twice as many between Seven Oaks and the fort. Where they lay, I could tell very well; for hawks wheeled with harsh cries overhead and there was a vague movement of wolfish shapes along the ground.

What possessed me to hover about that dreadful scene, I cannot imagine, unless the fear of those creatures returning; but I did not carry a thing with which I could bury the dead. Involuntarily, I sought out Rogers and Governor Semple; for I had seen the death of each. It was when seeking these, that I thought I distinguished the faintest motion of one figure still clothed and lying apart from the others.

The sight riveted me to the spot.

Surely it was a mistake! The form could not have moved! It must have been some error of vision, or trick of the shadowy starlight; but I could not take my eyes from the prostrate form. Again the body moved—distinctly moved—beyond possibility of fancy, the chest heaving up and sinking like a man struggling but unable to rise. With the ghastly dead and the ravening wolves all about, the movement of that wounded man was strangely terrifying and my knees knocked with fear, as I ran to his aid.

The man was an Indian, but his face I could not see; for one hand staunched a wound in his head and the other gripped a knife with which he had been defending himself. My first thought was that he must be a Nor'-Wester, or his body would not have escaped the common fate; but if a Nor'-Wester, why had he been left on the field? So I concluded he was one of the camp-followers, who had joined our forces for plunder and come to a merited end. Still he was a man; and I stooped to examine him with a view to getting him on my horse and taking him back to the camp.

At first he was unconscious of my presence. Gently I tried to remove the left hand from his forehead, but at the touch, out struck the right hand in vicious thrusts of the hunting-knife, one blind cut barely missing my arm.

"Hold, man!" I cried, "I'm no foe, but a friend!" and I caught the right arm tightly.

At the sound of my voice, the left hand swung out revealing a frightful gash; and the next thing I knew, his left arm had encircled my neck like the coil of a strangler, five fingers were digging into the flesh of my throat and Le Grand Diable was making frantic efforts to free his right hand and plunge that dagger into me. The shock of the discovery threw me off guard, and for a moment there was a struggle, but only for a moment. Then the wounded man fell back, writhing in pain, his face contorted with agony and hate. I do not think he could see me. He must have been blind from that wound. I stood back, but his knife still cut the air.

"Le Grand Diable! Fool!" I said, "I will not harm you! I give you the white man's word, I will not hurt you!"

The right arm fell limp and still. Had I, by some strange irony, been led to this spot that I might witness the death of my foe? Was this the end of that long career of evil?

"Le Grand Diable!" I cried, going a pace nearer, which seemed to bring back the ebbing life. "Le Grand Diable! You cannot stay here among the wolves. Tell me whereto find Miriam and I'll take you back to the camp! Tell me and no one shall harm you! I will save you!"

The thin lips moved. He was saying, or trying to say, something.

"Speak louder!" and I bent over him. "Speak the truth and I take you to the camp!"

The lips were still moving, but I could not hear a sound.

"Speak louder!" I shouted. "Where is Miriam? Where is the white woman?" I put my ear to his lips, fearful that life might slip away before I could hear.

There was a snarl through the glistening set teeth. The prostrate body gave an upward lurch. With one swift, treacherous thrust, he drove his knife into my coat-sleeve, grazing my forearm. The effort cost him his life. He sank down with a groan. The sightless, bloodshot eyes opened. Le Grand Diable would never more feign death.

I jerked the knife from my coat, hurled it from me, sprang up and fled from the field as if it had been infected with a pest, or I pursued by gends. Never looking back and with superstitious dread of the dead Indian's evil spirit, I tore on and on till, breath-spent and exhausted, I threw myself down with the North-West camp-fires in sight.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] It should scarcely be necessary for the author to state that these are the sentiments of the Indian poet expressing the views of the savage towards the white man, and not the white man towards the savage. The poem is as close a translation of the original ballad sung by Pierre in Metis dialect the night of the massacre, as could be given. The Indian nature is more in harmony with the hawk and the coyote than with the white man; hence the references. Other thoughts embodied in this crude lay are taken directly from the refrains of the trappers chanted at that time.

[B] Governor Semple unadvisedly boasted that the shock of his power would be felt from Montreal to Athabasca.



CHAPTER XXIV

FORT DOUGLAS CHANGES MASTERS

I suppose there are times in the life of every one, even the strongest—and I am not that—when a feather's weight added to a burden may snap power of endurance. I had reached that stage before encountering Le Grand Diable on the field of massacre at Seven Oaks. With the events in the Mandane country, the long, hard ride northward and this latest terrible culmination of strife between Nor'-Westers and Hudson's Bay, the past month had been altogether too hard packed for my well-being. The madness of northern traders no longer amazed me.

An old nurse of my young days, whom I remember chiefly by her ramrod back and sharp tongue, used to say, "Nerves! nerves! nothing but nerves!" She thanked God she was born before the doctors had discovered nerves. Though neurotic theories had not been sufficiently elaborated for me to ascribe my state to the most refined of modern ills—nervous prostration—I was aware, as I dragged over the prairie with the horse at the end of a trailing bridle rein, that something was seriously out of tune. It was daylight before I caught the frightened broncho and no knock-kneed coward ever shook more, as I vainly tried to vault into the saddle, and after a dozen false plunges at the stirrup, gave up the attempt and footed it back to camp. There was a daze between my eyes, which the over-weary know well, and in the brain-whirl, I could distinguish only two thoughts, Where was Miriam—and Father Holland's prediction—"Benedicite! The Lord shall be your avenger! He shall deliver that evil one into the power of the punisher."

Thus, I reached the camp, picketed the horse, threw myself down in the tent and slept without a break from the morning of the 20th till mid-day of the 21st. I was awakened by the Bois-Brules returning from a demonstration before the gateway of Fort Douglas. Going to the tent door, I saw that Pritchard, one of the captive Hudson's Bay men, had been brought back from a conference with the enemy. From his account, the Hudson's Bay people seemed to be holding out against us; but the settlers, realizing the danger of Indian warfare, to a man favored surrender. Had it not been for Grant, there would have been no farther parley; but on news that settlers were pressing for capitulation, the warden again despatched Pritchard to the Hudson's Bay post. In the hope of gaining access to Frances Sutherland and Eric Hamilton I accompanied him. Such was the terror prevailing within the walls, in spite of Pritchard's assurance regarding my friendly purpose, admission was flatly denied me. I contented myself with verbal messages that Hamilton and Father Holland must remain. I could guarantee their safety. The same offer I made to Frances, but told her to do what was best for herself and her father. When Pritchard came out, I knew from his face that Fort Douglas was ours. Hamilton and Father Holland would stay, he reported; but Mistress Sutherland bade him say that after Seven Oaks her father had no friendly feeling for Nor'-Westers, and she could not let him go forth alone. Terms were stipulated between the two companies with due advantage to our side from the recent victory and the formal surrender of Fort Douglas took place the following day.

"What are you going to do with the settlers, Cuthbert?" I asked of the warden before the capitulation.

"Aye! That's a question," was the grim response.

"Why not leave them in the fort till things quiet down?"

"With all the Indians of Red River in possession of that fort?" asked Grant, sarcastically. "Were a few Nor'-Westers so successful in holding back the Metis at Seven Oaks, you'd like to see that experiment repeated?"

"'Twill be worse, Grant, if you let them go back to their farms."

"They'll not do that, if I'm warden of the plains," he declared with great determination. "We'll have to send them down the Red to the lake till that fool of a Scotch nobleman decides what to do with his fine colonists."

"But, Grant, you don't mean to send them up north in this cold country. They may not reach Hudson's Bay in time to catch the company ship to Scotland! Why, man, it's sheer murder to expose those people to a winter up there without a thing to shelter them!"

"To my mind, freezing is not quite so bad as a massacre. If they won't take our boats to the States, or Canada, what else can Nor'-Westers do?"

And what else, indeed? I could not answer Grant's question, though I know every effort we made to induce those people to go south instead of north has been misrepresented as an infamous attempt to expel Selkirk settlers from Red River. Truly, I hope I may never see a sadder sight than the going forth of those colonists to the shelterless plain. It was disastrous enough for them to be driven from their native heath; but to be lured away to this far country for the purpose of becoming buffers between rival fur-traders, who would stop at nothing, and to be sacrificed as victims for their company's criminal policy—I speak as a Nor'-Wester—was immeasurably cruel.

Grant was, of course, on hand for the surrender, and he wisely kept the plain-rangers at a safe distance. Clerks lined each side of the path to the gate, and I pressed forward for a glimpse of Frances Sutherland. There was the jar of a heavy bolt shot back. Confused noises sounded from the courtyard. The gates swung open, and out marched the sheriff of Assiniboia, bearing in one hand a pole with a white sheet tacked to the end for a flag of truce, and in the other the fort keys. Behind, sullen and dejected, followed a band of Hudson's Bay men. Grant stepped up to meet the sheriff. The terms of capitulation were again stated, and there was some signing of paper. Of those things my recollection is indistinct; for I was straining my eyes towards the groups of settlers inside the walls. When I looked back to the conferring leaders the silence was so intense a pinfall could have been heard. The keys of the fort were being handed to the Nor'-Westers and the Hudson's Bay men had turned away their faces that they might not see. The vanquished then passed quickly to the barges at the river. Each of the six drunken fellows, whom I had last seen in the late Governor Semple's office, the Highlanders who had spied upon me when I visited Fort Douglas but a year before, the clerks whom I had heard talking that night in the great hall, and many others with whom I had but a chance acquaintance, filed down to the river. Seeing all ready, with a North-West clerk at the prow of each boat to warn away marauders, the men came back for settlers and wounded comrades. I would have proffered my assistance to some of the burdened people on the chance of a word with Frances Sutherland, but the colonists proudly resented any kind offices from a Nor'-Wester. I saw Louis Laplante come limping out, leaning on the arm of the red-faced man, whose eye quailed when it met mine. Poor Louis looked sadly battered, with his head in a white bandage, one arm in a sling, and a dejected stoop to his shoulders that was unusual with him.

"This is too bad, Louis," said I, hurrying forward. "I forgot to send word about you. You might as well have stayed in the fort till your wounds healed. Won't you come back?"

Louis stole a furtive, sheepish glance at me, hung his head and looked away with a suspicion of moisture about his eyes.

"You always were a brute to fight at Laval! I might trick you at first, but you always ended by giving me the throw," he answered disconsolately.

"Nonsense, Louis." I was astounded at the note of reproach in his voice. "We're even now—let by-gones be by-gones! You helped me, I helped you. You trapped me into the fort, I tricked you into breaking a mirror and laying up a peck of trouble for yourself. Surely you don't treasure any grudge yet?"

He shook his head without looking at me.

"I don't understand. Let us begin over again. Come, forget old scores, come back to the fort till you're well."

"Pah!" said Louis with a sudden, strange impatience which I could not fathom. "You understand some day and turn upon me and strike and give me more throw."

"All right, comrade, treasure your wrath! Only I thought two men, who had saved each other's lives, might be friends and bury old quarrels."

"You not know," he blurted out in a broken voice.

"Not know what?" I asked impatiently. "I tell you I forgive all and I had thought you might do as much——"

"Do as much!" he interrupted fiercely. "O mon Dieu!" he cried, with a sob that shook his frame. "Take me away! Take me away!" he begged the man on whose arm he was leaning; and with those enigmatical words he passed to the nearest boat.

While I was yet gazing in mute amazement after Louis Laplante, wondering whether his strange emotion were revenge, or remorse, the women and children marched forth with the men protecting each side. The empty threats of half-breeds to butcher every settler in Red River had evidently reached the ears of the women. Some trembled so they could scarcely walk and others stared at us with the reproach of murder in their eyes, gazing in horror at our guilty hands. At last I caught sight of Frances Sutherland. She was well to the rear of the sad procession, leaning on the arm of a tall, sturdy, erect man whom I recognized as her father. I would have forced my way to her side at once, but a swift glance forbade me. A gleam of love flashed to the gray eyes for an instant, then father and daughter had passed.

"Little did I think," the harsh, rasping voice of the father was saying, "that daughter of mine would give her heart to a murderer. Which of these cut-throats may I claim for a son?"

"Hush, father," she whispered. "Remember he warned us to the fort and took me to Pembina." She was as pale as death.

"Aye! Aye! We're under obligations to strange benefactors when times go awry!" he returned bitterly.

"O father! Don't! You'll think differently when you know——" but a hulking lout stumbled between us, and I missed the rest.

They were at the boats and an old Highlander was causing a blockade by his inability to lift a great bale into the barge.

"Let me give you a lift," said I, stepping forward and taking hold of the thing.

"Friend, or foe?" asked the Scot, before he would accept my aid.

"Friend, of course," and I braced myself to give the package a hoist.

"Hudson's Bay, or Nor'-Wester?" pursued the settler, determined to take no help from the hated enemy.

"Nor'-Wester, but what does that matter? A friend all the same! Yo heave! Up with it!"

"Neffer!" roared the man in a towering passion, and he gave me a push that sent me knocking into the crowd on the landing. Involuntarily, I threw out my arm to save a fall and caught a woman's outstretched hand. It was Frances Sutherland's and I thrilled with the message she could not speak.

"I beg your pardon, Mistress Sutherland," said I, as soon as I could find speech, and I stepped back tingling with embarrassment and delight.

"A civil-tongued young man, indeed," remarked the father, sarcastically, with a severe scrutiny of my retreating person. "A civil-tongued young man to know your name so readily, Frances! Pray, who is he?"

"Oh! Some Nor'-Wester," answered Frances, the white cheeks blushing red, and she stepped quickly forward to the gang-plank. "Some Nor'-Wester, I suppose!" she repeated unconcernedly, but the flush had suffused her neck and was not unnoticed by the father's keen eyes.

Then they seated themselves at the prow beside the Nor'-Wester appointed to accompany the boat; and I saw that Louis Laplante was sitting directly opposite Frances Sutherland, with his eyes fixed on her face in a bold gaze, that instantly quenched any kindness I may have felt towards him. How I regretted my thoughtlessness in not having forestalled myself in the Sutherlands' barge. The next best thing was to go along with Grant, who was preparing to ride on the river bank and escort the company beyond all danger.

"You coming too?" asked Grant sharply, as I joined him.

"If you don't mind."

"Think two are necessary?"

"Not when one of the two is Grant," I answered, which pleased him, "but as my heart goes down the lake with those barges——"

"Hut-tutt—man," interrupted Grant. "War's bad enough without love; but come if you like."

As the boats sheered off from the wharf, Grant and I rode along the river trail. I saw Frances looking after me with surprise, and I think she must have known my purpose, though she did not respond when I signalled to her.

"Stop that!" commanded Grant peremptorily. "You did that very slyly, Rufus, but if they see you, there'll be all sorts of suspicion about collusion."

The river path ran into the bush, winding in and out of woods, so we caught only occasional glimpses of the boats; but I fancied her eyes were ever towards the bank where we rode, and I could distinctly see that the Frenchman's face was buried in his arms above one of the squarish packets opposite the Sutherlands.

"Is it the same lass," asked Grant, after we had been riding for more than an hour, "is it the same lass that was disguised as an Indian girl at Fort Gibraltar?"

His question astonished me. I thought her disguise too complete even for his sharp penetration; but I was learning that nothing escaped the warden's notice. Indeed, I have found it not unusual for young people at a certain stage of their careers to imagine all the rest of the world blind.

"The same," I answered, wondering much.

"You took her back to Fort Douglas. Did you hear anything special in the fort that night?"

"Nothing but that McDonell was likely to surrender. How did you know I was there?"

"Spies," he answered laconically. "The old voyageurs don't change masters often for nothing. If you hadn't been stuck off in the Mandane country, you'd have learned a bit of our methods. Her father used to favor the Nor'-Westers. What has changed him?"

"Seven Oaks changed him," I returned tersely.

"Aye! Aye! That was terrible," and his face darkened. "Terrible! Terrible! It will change many," and the rest of his talk was full of gloomy portents and forebodings of blame likely to fall upon him for the massacre; but I think history has cleared and justified Grant's part in that awful work. Suddenly he turned to me.

"There's pleasure in this ride for you. There's none for me. Will ye follow the boats alone and see that no harm comes to them?"

"Certainly," said I, and the warden wheeled his horse and galloped back towards Fort Douglas.

For an hour after he left, the trail was among the woods, and when I finally reached a clearing and could see the boats, there was cause enough for regret that the warden had gone. A great outcry came from the Sutherlands' boat and Louis Laplante was on his feet gesticulating excitedly and talking in loud tones to the rowers.

"Hullo, there!" I shouted, riding to the very water's edge and flourishing my pistol. "Stop your nonsense, there! What's wrong?"

"There's a French papist demands to have speech wi' ye," called Mr. Sutherland.

"Bring him ashore," I returned.

The boat headed about and approached the bank. Then the rowers ceased pulling; for the water was shallow, and we were within speaking distance.

"Now, Louis, what do you mean by this nonsense?" I began.

In answer, the Frenchman leaped out of the boat and waded ashore.

"Let them go on," he said, scrambling up the cliff in a staggering, faint fashion.

"If you meant to stay at the fort, why didn't you decide sooner?" I demanded roughly.

"I didn't." This doggedly and with downcast eyes.

"Then you go down the lake with the rest and no skulking!"

"Gillespie," answered Louis in a low tone, "there's strength of an ox in you, but not the wit. Let them go on! Simpleton, I tell you of Miriam."

His words recalled the real reason of my presence in the north country; for my quest had indeed been eclipsed by the fearful events of the past week. I signalled the rowers to go without him, waved a last farewell to Frances Sutherland, and turned to see Louis Laplante throw himself on the grass and cry like a schoolboy. Dismounting I knelt beside him.

"Cheer up, old boy," said I, with the usual vacuity of thought and stupidity of expression at such times. "Cheer up! Seven Oaks has knocked you out. I knew you shouldn't make this trip till you were strong again. Why, man, you have enough cuts to undo the pluck of a giant-killer!"

Louis was not paying the slightest attention to me. He was mumbling to himself and I wondered if he were in a fever.

"The priest, the Irish priest in the fort, he say to me: 'Wicked fellow, you be tortured forever and ever in the furnace, if you not undo what you did in the gorge!' What care Louis Laplante for the fire? Pah! What care Louis for wounds and cuts and threats? Pah! The fire not half so hot as the hell inside! The cuts not half so sharp as the thinks that prick and sting and lash from morn'g to night, night to morn'g! Pah! Something inside say: 'Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, a dog! A cur! Toad! Reptile!' Then I try stand up straight and give the lie, but it say: 'Pah! Louis Laplante!' The Irish priest, he say, 'You repent!' What care Louis for repents? Pah! But her eyes, they look and look and look like two steel-gray stars! Sometime they caress and he want to pray! Sometime they stab and he shiver; but they always shine like stars of heaven and the priest, he say, 'You be shut out of heaven!' If the angel all have stars, steel glittering stars, for eyes, heaven worth for trying! The priest, he say, 'You go to abode of torture!' Torture! Pah! More torture than 'nough here. Angels with stars in their heads, more better. But the stars stab through—through—through——"

"Bother the stars," said I to myself. "What of Miriam?" I asked, interrupting his penitential confidences.

His references to steel-gray eyes and stars and angels somehow put me in no good mood, for a reason with which most men, but few women, will sympathize.

"Stupid ox!" He spat out the words with unspeakable impatience at my obtuseness. "What of Miriam! Why the priest and the starry eyes and the something inside, they all say, 'Go and get Miriam! Where's the white woman? You lied! You let her go! Get her—get her—get her!' What of Miriam? Pah!"

After that angry outburst, the fountains of his sorrow seemed to dry up and he became more the old, nonchalant Louis whom I knew.

"Where is Miriam?" I asked.

He ignored my question and went on reasoning with himself.

"No more peace—no more quiet—no more sing and rollick till he get Miriam!"

Was the fellow really delirious? The boats were disappearing from view. I could wait no longer.

"Louis," said I, "if you have anything to say, say it quick! I can't wait longer."

"You know I lie to you in the gorge?" and he looked straight at me.

"Certainly," I answered, "and I punished you pretty well for it twice."

"You know what that lie mean"—and he hesitated—"mean to her—to Miriam?"

"Yes, Louis, I know."

"And you forgive all? Call all even?"

"As far as I'm concerned—yes—Louis! God Almighty alone can forgive the suffering you have caused her."

Then Louis Laplante leaped up and, catching my hand, looked long and steadily into my eyes.

"I go and find her," he muttered in a low, tense voice. "I follow their trail—I keep her from suffer—I bring them all back—back here in the bush on this river—I bring her back, or I kill Louis Laplante!"

"Old comrade—you were always generous," I began; but the words choked in my throat.

"I know not where they are, but I find them! I know not how soon—perhaps a year—but I bring them back! Go on with the boats," and he dropped my hand.

"I can't leave you here," I protested.

"You come back this way," he said. "May be you find me."

Poor Louis! His tongue tripped in its old evasive ways even at the moment of his penitence, which goes to prove—I suppose—that we are all the sum total of the thing called habit, that even spontaneous acts are evidences of the summed result of past years. I did not expect to find him when I came back, and I did not. He had vanished into the woods like the wild creature that he was; but I was placing a strange, reasonless reliance on his promise to find Miriam.

When I caught up with the boats, the river was widening so that attack would be impossible, and I did not ride far. Heading my horse about, I spurred back to Fort Douglas. Passing Seven Oaks, I saw some of the Hudson's Bay men, who had remained burying the dead—not removing them. That was impossible after the wolves and three days of a blistering sun.

I told Hamilton of neither Le Grand Diable's death, nor Louis Laplante's promise. He had suffered disappointments enough and could ill stand any sort of excitement. I found him walking about in the up-stairs hall, but his own grief had deadened him to the fortunes of the warring companies.

"Confound you, boy! Tell me the truth!" said Father Holland to me afterwards in the courtyard.

Le Grand Diable's death and Louis Laplante's promise seemed to make a great impression on the priest.

"I tell you the Lord delivered that evil one into the hands of the punisher; and of the innocent, the Lord, Himself, is the defender. Await His purpose! Await His time!"

"Mighty long time," said I, with the bitter impatience of youth.

"Quiet, youngster! I tell you she shall be delivered!"

* * * * *

At last the Nor-Westers' Fort William brigade with its sixty men and numerous well-loaded canoes—whose cargoes had been the bone of contention between Hudson's Bay and Nor'-Westers at Seven Oaks—arrived at Fort Douglas. The newcomers were surprised to find us in possession of the enemy's fort. The last news they had heard was of wanton and successful aggression on the part of Lord Selkirk's Company; and I think the extra crews sent north were quite as much for purposes of defence as swift travel. But the gravity of affairs startled the men from Fort William; for they, themselves, had astounding news. Lord Selkirk was on his way north with munitions of war and an army of mercenaries formerly of the De Meurons' regiment, numbering two hundred, some said three or four hundred men; but this was an exaggeration. For what was he coming to Red River in this warlike fashion? His purpose would probably show itself. Also, if his intent were hostile, would not Seven Oaks massacre afford him the very pretence he wanted for chastising Nor'-Westers out of the country? The canoemen had met the ejected settlers bound up the lake; and with them, whom did they see but the bellicose Captain Miles McDonell, given free passage but a year before to Montreal and now on "the prosperous return," which he, himself, had prophesied?

The settlers' news of Seven Oaks sent the brave captain hurrying southward to inform Lord Selkirk of the massacre.

We had had a victory; but how long would it last? Truly the sky was darkening and few of us felt hopeful about the bursting of the storm.



CHAPTER XXV

HIS LORDSHIP TO THE RESCUE

Even at the hour of our triumph, we Nor'-Westers knew that we had yet to reckon with Lord Selkirk; and a speedy reckoning the indomitable nobleman brought about. The massacre at Seven Oaks afforded our rivals the very pretext they desired. Clothed with the authority of an officer of the law, Lord Selkirk hurried northward; and a personage of his importance could not venture into the wilderness without a strong body-guard. At least, that was the excuse given for the retinue of two or three hundred mercenaries decked out in all the regimentals of war, whom Lord Selkirk brought with him to the north. A more rascally, daring crew of ragamuffins could not have been found to defend Selkirk's side of the gentlemen adventurers' feud. The men were the offscourings of European armies engaged in the Napoleonic wars, and came directly from the old De Meurons' regiment. The information which the Fort William brigade brought of Selkirk's approach, also explained why that same brigade hastened back to the defence of Nor'-West quarters on Lake Superior; and their help was needed. News of events at Fort William came to us in the Red River department tardily. First, there was a vague rumor among the Indian voyageurs, who were ever gliding back and forward on the labyrinthine waters of that north land like the birds of passage overhead. Then came definite reports from freemen who had been expelled from Fort William; and we could no longer doubt that Nor'-West headquarters, with all the wealth of furs and provisions therein had fallen into the hands of the Hudson's Bay forces. Afterwards came warning from our Bourgeois, driven out of Fort William, for Fort Douglas to be prepared. Lord Selkirk would only rest long enough at Fort William to take possession of everything worth possessing, in the name of the law—for was he not a justice of the peace?—and in the name of the law would he move with like intent against Fort Douglas. To the earl's credit, be it said, that his victories were bloodless; but they were bloodless because the Nor'-Westers had no mind to unleash those redskin bloodhounds a second time, preferring to suffer loss rather than resort to violence. Nevertheless, we called in every available hand of the Nor'-West staff to man Fort Douglas against attack. But summer dragged into autumn and autumn into winter, and no Lord Selkirk. Then we began to think ourselves secure; for the streams were frozen to a depth of four feet like adamant, and unless Selkirk were a madman, he would not attempt to bring his soldiers north by dog-train during the bitter cold of mid-winter. But 'tis ever the policy of the astute madman to discount the enemy's calculations; and Selkirk utterly discounted ours by sending his hardy, dare-devil De Meurons across country under the leadership of that prince of braggarts, Captain D'Orsonnens. Indeed, we had only heard the rumor of their coming, when we awakened one morning after an obscure, stormy night to find them encamped at St. James, westward on the Assiniboine River. Day after day the menacing force remained quiet and inoffensive, and we began to look upon these notorious ruffians as harmless. For our part, vigilance was not lacking. Sentinels were posted in the towers day and night. Nor'-West spies shadowed every movement of the enemy; and it was seriously considered whether we should not open communication with D'Orsonnens to ascertain what he wanted; but, truth to say, we knew very well what he wanted, and had had such a surfeit of blood, we were not anxious to re-open hostilities.

As for Hamilton, I can hardly call his life at Fort Douglas anything more than a mere existence. A blow stuns, but one may recover. Repeated failure gradually benumbs hope and willpower and effort, like some ghoulish vampire sucking away a man's life-blood till he faint and die from very inanition. The blow, poor Eric had suffered, when he lost Miriam; the repeated failure, when we could not restore her; and I saw this strong, athletic man slowly succumb as to some insidious, paralyzing disease. The thought of effort seemed to burden him. He would silently mope by the hour in some dark corner of Fort Douglas, or wander aimlessly about the courtyard, muttering and talking to himself. He was weary and fatigued without a stroke of work; and what little sleep he snatched from wakeful vigils seemed to give him no rest. His food, he thrust from him with the petulance of a child; and at every suggestion I could make, he sneered with a quiet, gentle insistence that was utterly discomfiting. To be sure, I had Father Holland's boisterous good cheer as a counter-irritant; for the priest had remained at Fort Douglas, and was ministering to the tribes of the Red and Assiniboine. But it was on her, who had been my guiding star and hope and inspiration from the first, that I mainly depended. As hard, merciless winter closed in, I could not think of those shelterless colonists driven to the lake, without shuddering at the distress I knew they must suffer; and I despatched a runner, urging them to return to Red River, and giving personal guarantee for their safety. Among those, who came back, were the Sutherlands; and if my quest had entailed far greater hardship than it did, that quiet interval with leisure to spend much time at the Selkirk settlement would have repaid all suffering. After sundown, I was free from fort duties. Tying on snow-shoes after the manner of the natives, I would speed over the whitened drifts of billowy snow. The surface, melted by the sun-glare of mid-day and encrusted with brittle, glistening ice, never gave under my weight; and, oddly enough, my way always led to the Sutherland homestead. After the coming of the De Meurons, Frances used to expostulate against what she called my foolhardiness in making these evening visits; but their presence made no difference to me.

"I don't believe those drones intend doing anything very dreadful, after all, sir," I remarked one night to Frances Sutherland's father, referring to the soldiers.

Following his daughter's directions I had been coming very early, also very often, with the object of accustoming the dour Scotchman to my staying late; and he had softened enough towards me to take part in occasional argument.

"Don't believe they intend doing a thing, sir," I reiterated.

Pushing his spectacles up on his forehead, he closed the book of sermons, which he had been reading, and puckered his brows as if he were compromising a hard point with conscience, which, indeed, I afterwards knew, was exactly what he had been doing.

"Aye," said he, "aye, aye, young man. But I'm thinking ye'll no do y'r company ony harm by speerin' after the designs o' fightin' men who make ladders."

"Oh!" I cried, all alert for information. "Have they been making ladders?"

He pulled the spectacles down on his nose and deliberately reopened the book of sermons.

"Of that, I canna say," he replied.

Only once again did he emerge from his readings. I had risen to go. Frances usually accompanied me to the outer door, where I tied my snow-shoes and took a farewell unobserved by the father; but when I opened the door, such a blast of wind and snow drove in, I instantly clapped it shut again and began tying the racquets on inside.

"O Rufus!" exclaimed Frances, "you can't go back to Fort Douglas in that storm!"

Then we both noticed for the first time that a hurricane of wind was rocking the little house to its foundations.

"Did that spring up all of a sudden?" I cried. "I never saw a blizzard do that before."

"I'm afraid, Rufus, we were not noticing."

"No, we were otherwise interested," said I, innocently enough; but she laughed.

"You can't go," she declared.

"The wind will be on my back," I assured her. "I'll be all right," and I went on lacing the snow-shoe thongs about my ankle.

The book of sermons shut with a snap and the father turned towards us.

"Let no one say any man left the Sutherland hearth on such a night! Put by those senseless things," and he pointed to the snow-shoes.

"But those ladders," I interposed. "Let no one say when the enemy came Rufus Gillespie was absent from his citadel!"

The wind roared round the house corners like a storm at sea; and the father looked down at me with a strange, quizzical expression.

"Ye're a headstrong young man, Rufus Gillespie," said the hard-set mouth. "Ye maun knock a hole in the head, or the wall! Will ye go?"

"Knock the hole in the wall," I laughed back. "Of course I go."

"Then, tak' the dogs," said he, with a sparkle of kindliness in the cold eyes. So it came that I set out in the Sutherlands' dog-sled with a supply of robes to defy biting frost.

And I needed them every one. Old settlers, describing winter storms, have been accused of an imagination as expansive as the prairie; but I affirm no man could exaggerate the fury of a blizzard on the unbroken prairie. To one thing only may it be likened—a hurricane at sea. People in lands boxed off at short compass by mountain ridges forget with what violence a wind sweeping half a continent can disport itself. In the boisterous roar of the gale, my shouts to the dogs were a feeble whisper caught from my lips and lost in the shrieking wind. The fine snowy particles were a powdered ice that drove through seams of clothing and cut one's skin like a whip lash. Without the fringe of woods along the river bank to guide me, it would have been madness to set out by day, and worse than madness by night; but I kept the dogs close to the woods. The trees broke the wind and prevented me losing all sense of direction in the tornado whirl of open prairie. Not enough snow had fallen on the hard-crusted drifts to impede the dogs. They scarcely sank and with the wind on their backs dashed ahead till the woods were passed and we were on the bare plains. No light could be seen through the storm, but I knew I was within a short distance of the fort gate and wheeled the dogs toward the river flats of the left. The creatures seemed to scent human presence. They leaped forward and brought the sleigh against the wall with a knock that rolled me out.

"Good fellows;" I cried, springing up, uncertain where I was.

The huskies crouched around my feet almost tripping me and I felt through the snowy darkness against the stockades, stake by stake.

Ah! There was a post! Here were close-fitted boards—here, iron-lining—this must be the gate; but where was the lantern that hung behind? A gust of wind might have extinguished the light; so I drubbed loudly on the gate and shouted to the sentry, who should have been inside.

The wind lulled for a moment and up burst wild shouting from the courtyard intermingled with the jeers of Frenchmen and cries of terror from our people. Then I knew judgment had come for the deeds at Seven Oaks. The gale broke again with a hissing of serpents, or red irons, and the howling wind rose in shrill, angry bursts. Hugging the wall, while the dogs whined behind, I ran towards the rear. Men jostled through the snowy dark, and I was among the De Meurons. They were too busy scaling the stockade on the ladders of which I had heard to notice an intruder. Taking advantage of the storm, I mounted a ladder, vaulted over the pickets and alighted in the courtyard. Here all was noise, flight, pursuit and confusion. I made for the main hall, where valuable papers were kept, and at the door, cannoned against one of our men, who shrieked with fright and begged for mercy.

"Coward!" said I, giving him a cuff. "What has happened?"

A flare fell on us both, and he recognized me.

"The De Meurons!" he gasped. "The De Meurons!"

I left him bawling out his fear and rushed inside.

"What has happened?" I asked, tripping up a clerk who was flying through the hallway.

"The De Meurons!" he gasped. "The De Meurons!"

"Stop!" I commanded, grasping the lap of his coat. "What—has—happened?"

"The De Meurons!" This was fairly screamed.

I shook him till he sputtered something more.

"They've captured the fort—our people didn't want to shed blood——"

"And threw down their guns," I interjected, disgusted beyond word.

"Threw down their guns," he repeated, as though that were a praiseworthy action. "The s-s-sentinels—saw the court—full—full—full of s-soldiers!"

"Full of soldiers!" I thundered. "There are not a hundred in the gang."

Thereupon I gave the caitiff a toss that sent him reeling against the wall, and dashed up-stairs for the papers. All was darkness, and I nigh broke my neck over a coffin-shaped rough box made for one of the trappers, who had died in the fort. Why was the thing lying there, anyway? The man should have been put into it and buried at once without any drinking bout and dead wake, I reflected with some sharpness, as I rubbed my bruised shins and shoved the box aside. Shouts rang up from the courtyard. Heavy feet trampled in the hall below. Hamilton, as a Hudson's Bay man, and Father Holland, I knew, were perfectly safe. But I was far from safe. Why were they not there to help me, I wondered, with the sort of rage we all vent on our friends when we are cornered and they at ease. I fumbled across the apartment, found the right desk, pried the drawer open with my knife, and was in the very act of seizing the documents when I saw my own shadow on the floor. Lantern light burst with a glare through the gloom of the doorway.



CHAPTER XXVI

FATHER HOLLAND AND I IN THE TOILS

Behind the lantern was a face with terrified eyes and gaping mouth. It was the priest, his genial countenance a very picture of fear.

"What's wrong, Father?" I asked. "You needn't be alarmed; you're all right."

"But I am alarmed, for you're all wrong! Lord, boy, why didn't ye stay with that peppery Scotchman? What did Frances mane by lettin' you out to-night?" and he shaded the light of the lantern with his hand.

"I wanted these things," I explained.

"Ye want a broad thumpin', I'm thinkin', ye rattle-pate, to risk y'r precious noodle here to-night," he whispered, coming forward and fussing about me with all the maternal anxiety of a hen over her only chicken.

"Listen," said I. "The whole mob's coming in."

"Go!" he urged, pushing me from the desk over which I still fumbled.

"Run for those dogs of mercenaries!" I protested.

"Ye swash-buckler! Ye stiff-necked braggart!" bawled the priest. "Out wid y'r nonsense, and what good are y' thinkin' ye'll do—? Stir your stumps, y' stoopid spalpeen!"

"Listen," I urged, undisturbed by the tongue-thrashing that stormed about my ears. In the babel of voices I thought I had heard some one call my name.

"Run, Rufus! Run for y'r life, boy!" urged Father Holland, apparently thinking the ruffians had come solely for me.

"Run yourself, Father; run yourself, and see how you like it," and I tucked the documents inside my coat.

"Divil a bit I'll run," returned the priest.

"Hark!"

The De Meurons' leaders were shouting orders to their men. Above the screams of people fleeing in terror through passage-ways, came a shrill bugle-call.

"Go—go—go—Rufus!" begged Father Holland in a paroxysm of fear. "Go!" he pleaded, pushing me towards the door.

"I won't!" and I jerked away from him. "There, now." I caught up a club and loaded pistol.

The Nor'-Westers had no time to defend themselves. Almost before my stubborn defiance was uttered, the building was filled with a mob of intoxicated De Meurons. Rushing everywhere with fixed bayonets and cursing at the top of their voices, they threatened death to all Nor'-Westers. There was a loud scuffling of men forcing their way through the defended hall downstairs.

"Go, Rufus, go! Think of Frances! Save yourself," urged the priest.

It was too late. I could not escape by the hall. Noisy feet were already trampling up the stairs and the clank of armed men filled every passage.

"Jee-les-pee! Jee-les-pee! Seven Oaks!" bawled a French voice from the half-way landing, and a multitude of men with torches dashed up the stairs. I took a stand to defend myself; for I thought I might be charged with implication in the massacre.

"Jee-les-pee," roared the voices. "Where is Gillespie?" thundered a leader.

"That's you, Rufus, lad! Down with you!" muttered the priest. Before I knew his purpose, he had tripped my feet from under me and knocked me flat on the floor. Overturning the empty coffin-box, he clapped it above my whole length, imprisoning me with the snap and celerity of a mouse-trap. Then I heard the thud of two hundred avoirdupois seating itself on top of the case. The man above my person had whisked out a book of prayers, and with lantern on the desk was conning over devotions, which, I am sure, must have been read with the manual upside down; for bits of the pater noster, service of the mass, and vesper psalms were uttered in a disconnected jumble, though I could not but apply the words to my own case.

"Libera nos a malo—ora pro nobis, peccatoribus—ab hoste maligno defende me—ab homine iniquo et doloso erue me—peccator videbit et irascetur—desiderium peccatorum peribit——" came from the priest with torrent speed.

"Jee-les-pee! Jee-les-pee!" roared a dozen throats above the half-way landing. Then came the stamp of many feet to the door.

"Wait, men!" Hamilton's voice commanded. "I'll see if he's here!"

"Simulacra gentium argentum et aurum, opera manuum hominum," like hailstones rattled the Latin words down on my prison.

"One moment, men," came Eric's voice; but he could not hold them back. In burst the door with a rush, and immediately the room was crowded with vociferating French soldiers.

"Manus habent, et non palpabunt; pedes——"

"Is Gillespie here?" interrupted Hamilton, without the slightest recognition of the priest in his tones.

"Pedes habent et non ambulabunt; non clamabunt in gutture suo," muttered the priest, finishing his verse; then to the men with a stiffness which I did not think Father Holland could ever assume—

"How often must I be disturbed by men seeking that young scoundrel? Look at this place, fairly topsy-turvy with their hunt! Faith! The room is before you. Look and see!" and with a great indifference he went on with his devotions.

"Similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea——"

"Some one here before us?" interrupted an Englishman with some suspicion.

"Two parties here before ye," answered the priest, icily, as if these repeated questions rumpled ecclesiastical dignity, and he gabbled on with the psalm, "similes illis fiant qui faciunt ea, et omnes——"

"If we lifted that box," interrupted the persistent Englishman, "what might there be?"

"If ye lift that box," answered Father Holland with massive solemnity—and I confess every hair on my body bristled as he rose—"If ye lift that box there might be a powr—dead—body," which was very true; for I still held the cocked pistol in hand and would have shot the first man daring to molest me.

But the priest's indifference was not so great as it appeared. I could tell from a tremor in his voice that he was greatly disturbed; and he certainly lost his place altogether in the vesper psalm.

"Requiescat in pace," were his next words, uttered in funereal gravity. Singularly enough, they seemed to fit the situation.

Father Holland's prompt offer to have the rough box examined satisfied the searchers, and there were no further demands.

"Oh," said the Englishman, taken aback, "I beg your pardon, sir! No offence meant."

"No offence," replied the priest, reseating himself. "Benedicite——"

"Sittin' on the coffin!" blurted out the voice of an English youth as the weight of the priest again came down heavily on my prison; and again I breathed easily.

"Come on, men!" shouted Hamilton, apprehensive of more curiosity. "We're wasting time! He may be escaping by the basement window!"

"Jam hiems transiit, imber abiit et recessit; surge, amica mea, et veni!" droned the priest, and the whole company clattered downstairs.

"Quick!—Out with you!" commanded Father Holland. "Speed to y'r heels, and blessing on the last o' ye!"

I dashed down the stairs and was bolting through the doorway when some one shouted, "There he is!"

"Run, Gillespie!" cried some one else—one of our men, I suppose—and I had plunged into the storm and raced for the ladders at the rear stockades with a pack of pursuers at my heels. The snow drifts were in my favor, for with my moccasins, I leaped lightly forward, while the booted soldiers floundered deep. I eluded my pursuers and was half-way up a ladder when a soldier's head suddenly appeared above the wall on the other side. Then a bayonet prodded me in the chest and I fell heavily backwards to the ground.

* * * * *

I was captured.

That is all there is to say. No man dilates with pleasure over that part of his life when he was vanquished. It is not pleasant to have weapons of defence wrested from one's hands, to feel soldiers standing upon one's wrists and rifling pockets.

It is hard to feel every inch the man on the horizontal.

In truth, when the soldiers picked me up without ceremony, or gentleness, and bundling me up the stairs of the main hall, flung me into a miserable pen, with windows iron-barred to mid-sash, I was but a sorry hero. My tormentors did not shackle me; I was spared that humiliation.

"There!" exclaimed a Hudson's Bay man, throwing lantern-light across the dismal low roof as I fell sprawling into the room. "That'll cool the young hot-head," and all the French soldiers laughed at my discomfiture.

They chained and locked the door on the outside. I heard the soldiers' steps reverberating through the empty passages, and was alone in a sort of prison-room, used during the regime of the petty tyrant McDonell. It was cold enough to cool any hot-head, and mine was very hot indeed. I knew the apartment well. Nor'-Westers had used it as a fur storeroom. The wind came through the crevices of the board walls and piled miniature drifts on the floor-cracks, all the while rattling loose timbers like a saw-mill. The roof was but a few feet high, and I crept to the window, finding all the small panes coated with two inches of hoar-frost. Whether the iron bars outside ran across, or up and down, I could not remember; but the fact would make a difference to a man trying to escape. Much as I disliked to break the glass letting in more cold, there was only one way of finding out about those bars. I raised my foot for an outward kick, but remembering I wore only the moccasins with which I had been snowshoeing, I struck my fist through instead, and shattered the whole upper half of the window. I broke away cross-pieces that might obstruct outward passage, and leaning down put my hand on the sharp points of upright spikes. So intense was the frost, the skin of my finger tips stuck to the iron, and I drew my hand in, with the sting of a fresh burn.

It was unfortunate about those bars. I could not possibly get past them down to the ground without making a ladder from my great-coat. I groped round the room hoping that some of the canvas in which we tied the peltries, might be lying about. There was nothing of the sort, or I missed it in the dark. Quickly tearing my coat into strips, I knotted triple plies together and fastened the upper end to the crosspiece of the lower window. Feet first, I poked myself out, caught the strands with both hands, and like a flash struck ground below with badly skinned palms. That reminded me I had left my mits in the prison room.

The storm had driven the soldiers inside. I did not encounter a soul in the courtyard, and had no difficulty in letting myself out by the main gate.

I whistled for the dogs. They came huddling from the ladders where I had left them, the sleigh still trailing at their heels. One poor animal was so benumbed I cut him from the traces and left him to die. Gathering up the robes, I shook them free of snow, replaced them in the sleigh and led the string of dogs down to the river. It would be bitterly cold facing that sweep of unbroken wind in mid-river; but the trail over ice would permit greater speed, and with the high banks on each side the dogs could not go astray.

To an overruling Providence, and to the instincts of the dogs, I owe my life. The creatures had not gone ten sleigh-lengths when I felt the loss of my coat, and giving one final shout to them, I lay back on the sleigh and covered myself, head and all, under the robes, trusting the huskies to find their way home.

I do not like to recall that return to the Sutherlands. The man, who is frozen to death, knows nothing of the cruelties of northern cold. The icy hand, that takes his life, does not torture, but deadens the victim into an everlasting, easy, painless sleep. This I know, for I felt the deadly frost-slumber, and fought against it. Aching hands and feet stopped paining and became utterly feelingless; and the deadening thing began creeping inch by inch up the stiffening limbs the life centres, till a great drowsiness began to overpower body and mind. Realizing what this meant, I sprang from the sleigh and stopped the dogs. I tried to grip the empty traces of the dead one, but my hands were too feeble; so I twisted the rope round my arm, gave the word, and raced off abreast the dog train. The creatures went faster with lightened sleigh, but every step I took was a knife-thrust through half-frozen awakening limbs. Not the man who is frozen to death, but the man who is half-frozen and thawed back to life, knows the cruelties of northern cold.

In a stupefied way, I was aware the dogs had taken a sudden turn to the left and were scrambling up the bank. Here my strength failed or I tripped; for I only remember being dragged through the snow, rolling over and over, to a doorway, where the huskies stopped and set up a great whining. Somehow, I floundered to my feet. With a blaze of light that blinded me, the door flew open and I fell across the threshold unconscious.

* * * * *

Need I say what door opened, what hands drew me in and chafed life into the benumbed being?

"What was the matter, Rufus Gillespie?" asked a bluff voice the next morning. I had awakened from what seemed a long, troubled sleep and vaguely wondered where I was.

"What happened to ye, Rufus Gillespie?" and the man's hand took hold of my wrist to feel my pulse.

"Don't, father! you'll hurt him!" said a voice that was music to my ears, and a woman's hand, whose touch was healing, began bathing my blistered palms.

At once I knew where I was and forgot pain. In few and confused words I tried to relate what had happened.

"The country's yours, Mr. Sutherland," said I, too weak, thick-tongued and deliriously happy for speech.

"Much to be thankful for," was the Scotchman's comment. "Seven Oaks is avenged. It would ill 'a' become a Sutherland to give his daughter's hand to a conqueror, but I would na' say I'd refuse a wife to a man beaten as you were, Rufus Gillespie," and he strode off to attend to outdoor work.

And what next took place, I refrain from relating; for lovers' eloquence is only eloquent to lovers.



CHAPTER XXVII

UNDER ONE ROOF

Nature is not unlike a bank. When drafts exceed deposits comes a protest, and not infrequently, after the protest, bankruptcy. From the buffalo hunt to the recapture of Fort Douglas by the Hudson's Bay soldiers, drafts on that essential part of a human being called stamina had been very heavy with me. Now came the casting-up of accounts, and my bill was minus reserve strength, with a balance of debt on the wrong side.

The morning after the escape from Fort Douglas, when Mr. Sutherland strode off, leaving his daughter alone with me, I remember very well that Frances abruptly began putting my pillow to rights. Instead of keeping wide awake, as I should by all the codes of romance and common sense, I—poor fool—at once swooned, with a vague, glimmering consciousness that I was dying and this, perhaps, was the first blissful glimpse into paradise. When I came to my senses, Mr. Sutherland was again standing by the bedside with a half-shamed look of compassion under his shaggy brows.

"How far," I began, with a curious inability to use my wits and tongue, "how far—I mean how long have I been asleep, sir?"

"Hoots, mon! Dinna claver in that feckless fashion! It's months, lad, sin' ye opened y'r mouth wi' onything but daft gab."

"Months!" I gasped out. "Have I been here for months?"

"Aye, months. The plain was snaw-white when ye began y'r bit nappie. Noo, d'ye no hear the clack o' the geese through yon open window?"

I tried to turn to that side of the little room, where a great wave of fresh, clear air blew from the prairie. For some reason my head refused to revolve. Stooping, the elder man gently raised the sheet and rolled me over so that I faced the sweet freshness of an open, sunny view.

"Did I rive ye sore, lad?" asked the voice with a gruffness in strange contradiction to the gentleness of the touch.

Now I hold that however rasping a man's words may be, if he handle the sick with gentleness, there is much goodness under the rough surface. Thoughtlessness and stupidity, I know, are patent excuses for half the unkindness and sorrow of life. But thoughtlessness and stupidity are also responsible for most of life's brutality and crime. Not spiteful intentions alone, but the dulled, brutalized, deadened sensibilities—that go under the names of thoughtlessness and stupidity—make a man treat something weaker than himself with roughness, or in an excessive degree, qualify for murder. When the harsh voice asked, "Do I rive ye sore?" I began to understand how surface roughness is as often caused by life's asperities as by the inner dullness akin to the brute.

Indeed, if my thoughts had not been so intent on the daughter, I could have found Mr. Sutherland's character a wonderfully interesting study. The infinite capacity of a canny Scot for keeping his mouth shut I never realized till I knew Mr. Sutherland. For instance, now that consciousness had returned, I noticed that the father himself, and not the daughter, did all the waiting on me even to the carrying of my meals.

"How is your daughter, Mr. Sutherland?" I asked, surely a natural enough question to merit a civil reply.

"Aye—is it Frances y'r speerin' after?" he answered, meeting my question with a question; and he deigned not another word. But I lay in wait for him at the next meal.

"I haven't seen your daughter yet, Mr. Sutherland," I stuttered out with a deal of blushing. "I haven't even heard her about the house."

"No?" he asked with a show of surprise. "Have ye no seen Frances?" And that was all the satisfaction I got.

Between the dinner hour and supper time I conjured up various plots to hoodwink paternal caution.

"Mr. Sutherland," I began, "I have a message for your daughter."

"Aye," said he.

"I wish her to hear it personally."

"Aye."

"When may I see her?"

"Ye maun bide patient, lad!"

"But the message is urgent." That was true; for had not forty-eight hours passed since I had regained consciousness and I had heard neither her footsteps nor her voice?

"Aye," said the imperturbable father.

"Very urgent, Mr. Sutherland," I added.

"Aye."

"When may I see her, Sir?"

"All in guid time. Ye maun bide quiet, lad."

"The message cannot wait," I declared. "It must be given at once."

"Then deleever it word for word to me, young mon, and I'll trudge off to Frances."

"Your daughter is not at home?"

"What words wu'l ye have me bear to her, lad?" he asked.

That was too much for a youth in a peevish state of convalescence. What lover could send his heart's eloquence by word of mouth with a peppery, prosaic father?

"Tell Mistress Sutherland I must see her at once," I quickly responded with a flash of temper that was ever wont to flare up when put to the test.

"Aye," he answered, with an amused look in the cold, steel eyes. "I'll deleever y'r message when—when"—and he hesitated in a way suggestive of eternity—"I'll deleever y'r message when I see her."

At that I turned my face to the wall in the bitterness of spirit which only the invalid, with all the strength of a man in his whims and the weakness of an infant in his body, knows. I spent a feverish, restless night, with the hard-faced Scotchman watching from his armchair at my bedside. Once, when I suddenly awakened from sleep, or delirium, his eyes were fastened on my face with a gleam of grave kindliness.

"Mr. Sutherland," I cried, with all the impatience of a child, "please tell me, where is your daughter?"

"I sent her to a neighbor, sin' ye came to y'r senses, lad," said he. "Ye hae kept her about ye night and day sin' ye gaed daft, and losh, mon, ye hae gabbled wild talk enough to turn the head o' ony lassie clean daft. An' ye claver sic' nonsense when ye're daft, what would ye say when ye're sane? Hoots, mon, ye maun learn to haud y'r tongue——"

"Mr. Sutherland," I interrupted in a great heat, quite forgetful of his hospitality, "I'm sorry to be the means of driving your daughter from her home. I beg you to send me back to Fort Douglas——"

"Haud quiet," he ordered with a wave of his hand. "An' wa'd ye have me expose the head of a mitherless bairn to a' the clack o' the auld geese in the settlement? Temper y'r ardor wi' discretion, lad! 'Twas but the day before yesterday she left and she was sair done wi' nursing you and losing of sleep! Till ye're fair y'rsel' again and up, and she's weel and rosy wi' full sleep, bide patient!"

That speech sent my face to the wall again; but this time not in anger. And that dogged fashion Mr. Sutherland had of taking his own way did me many a good turn. Often have I heard those bragging captains of the Hudson's Bay mercenaries swagger into the little cottage sitting-room, while I lay in bed on the other side of the thin board partition, and relate to Mr. Sutherland all the incidents of their day's search for me.

"So many pounds sterling for the man who captures the rascal," declares D'Orsonnens.

"Aye, 'tis a goodly price for one poor rattle-pate," says Mr. Sutherland.

Whereupon, D'Orsonnens swears the price is more than my poor empty head is worth, and proceeds to describe me in terms which Mr. Sutherland will only tolerate when thundered from an orthodox pulpit.

"I'd have ye understand, Sir," he would declare with great dignity, "I'll have no papistical profanity under my roof."

Forthwith, he would show D'Orsonnens the door, lecturing the astonished soldier on the errors of Romanism; for whatever Mr. Sutherland deemed evil, from oaths to theological errors, he attributed directly to the pope.

"The ne'er-do-weel can hawk naething frae me," said he when relating the incident.

Once I heard a Fort Douglas man observe that, as the search had proved futile, I must have fallen into one of the air-holes of the ice.

"Nae doot the headstrong young mon is' gettin' what he deserves. I warrant he's warm in his present abode," answered Mr. Sutherland.

On another occasion D'Orsonnens asked who the man was that Mr. Sutherland's daughter had been nursing all winter.

"A puir body driven from Fort Douglas by those bloodthirsty villains," answered Mr. Sutherland, giving his visitor a strong toddy; and he at once improved the occasion by taking down a volume and reading the French officer a series of selections against Romanism. After that D'Orsonnens came no more.

"I hope I did not tell Nor'-West secrets in a Hudson's Bay house when I was delirious, Mr. Sutherland," I remarked.

The Scotchman had lugged me from bed in a gentle, lumbering, well-meant fashion, and I was sitting up for the first time.

"Ye're no the mon wi' a leak t' y'r mouth. I dinna say, though, ye're aye as discreet wi' the thoughts o' y'r heart as y'r head! Ye need na fash y'r noodle wi' remorse aboot company secrets. I canna say ye'll no fret aboot some other things ye hae told. A' the winter lang, 'twas Frances and stars and spooks and speerits and bogies and statues and graven images—wha' are forbidden by the Holy Scriptures—till the lassie thought ye gane clean daft! 'Twas a bonnie e'e, like silver stars; or a bit blush, like the pippin; or laughter, like a wimplin' brook; or lips, like posies; or hair, like links o' gold; and mair o' the like till the lassie came rinnin' oot o' y'r room, fair red wi' shame! Losh, mon, ye maun keep a still tongue in y'r head and not blab oot y'r thoughts o' a wife till she believes na mon can hae peace wi'out her. I wad na hae ye abate one jot o' all ye think, for her price is far above rubies; but hae a care wi' y'r grand talk! After ye gang to the kirk, lad, na mon can keep that up."

His warning I laughed to the winds, as youth the world over has ever laughed sage counsels of chilling age.

I can compare my recovery only to the swift transition of seasons in those northern latitudes. Without any lingering spring, the cold grayness of long, tense winter gives place to a radiant sun-burst of warm, yellow light. The uplands have long since been blown bare of snow by the March winds, and through the tangle of matted turf shoot myriad purple cups of the prairie anemone, while the russet grass takes on emerald tints. One day the last blizzard may be sweeping a white trail of stormy majesty across the prairie; the next a fragrance of flowers rises from the steaming earth and the snow-filled ravines have become miniature lakes reflecting the dazzle of a sunny sky and fleece clouds.

My convalescence was similar to the coming of summer. Without any weary fluctuation from well to ill, and ill to well—which sickens the heart with a deferred hope—all my old-time strength came back with the glow of that year's June sun.

"There's nae accountin' for some wilful folk, lad," was Mr. Sutherland's remark, one evening after I was able to leave my room. "Ye hae risen frae y'r bed like the crocus frae snaw. An' Frances were hangin' aboot y'r pillow, lad, I'm nae sure y'd be up sae dapper and smart."

"I thought my nurse was to return when I was able to be up," I answered, strolling to the cottage door.

"Come back frae the door, lad. Dinna show y'rsel' tae the enemy. There be more speerin' for ye than hae love for y'r health. Have y'r wits aboot ye! Dinna be frettin' y'rsel' for Frances! The lassies aye rin fast enow tae the mon wi' sense to hold his ain!"

With that advice he motioned me to the only armchair in the room, and sitting down on the outer step to keep watch, began reading some theological disputation aloud.

"Odds, lad, ye should see the papist so'diers rin when I hae Calvin by me," he remarked.

"It's a pity you can't lay the theological thunderers on the doorstep to drive stray De Meurons off. Then you could come in and take this chair yourself," I answered, sitting back where no visitor could see me.

But Mr. Sutherland did not hear. He was deep in polemics, rolling out stout threats, that used Scriptural texts as a cudgel, with a zest that testified enjoyment. "The wicked bend their bow," began the rasping voice; but when he cleared his throat, preparatory to the main argument, my thoughts went wandering far from the reader on the steps. As one whose dream is jarred by outward sound, I heard his tones quaver.

"Aye, Frances, 'tis you," he said, and away he went, pounding at the sophistries of some straw enemy.

A shadow was on the threshold, and before I had recalled my listless fancy, in tripped Frances Sutherland, herself, feigning not to see me. The gray eyes were veiled in the misty fashion of those fluffy things women wear, which let through all beauty, but bar out intrusion. I do not mean she wore a veil: veils and frills were not seen among the colonists in those days. But the heavy lashes hung low in the slumbrous, dreamy way that sees all and reveals nothing. Instinctively I started up, with wild thoughts thronging to my lips. At the same moment Mr. Sutherland did the most chivalrous thing I have seen in homespun or broadcloth.

"Hoots wi' y'r giddy claver," said he, before I had spoken a word; and walking off, he sat down at some distance.

Thereupon his daughter laughed merrily with a whole quiver of dangerous archery about her lips.

"That is the nearest to an untruth I have ever heard him tell," she said, which mightily relieved my embarrassment.

"Why did he say that?" I asked, with my usual stupidity.

"I am sure I cannot say," and looking straight at me, she let go the barbed shaft, that lies hidden in fair eyes for unwary mortals.

"Sit down," she commanded, sinking into the chair I had vacated. "Sit down, Rufus, please!" This with an after-shot of alarm from the heavy lashes; for if a woman's eyes may speak, so may a man's, and their language is sometimes bolder.

"Thanks," and I sat down on the arm of that same chair.

For once in my life I had sense to keep my tongue still; for, if I had spoken, I must have let bolt some impetuous thing better left unsaid.

"Rufus," she began, in the low, thrilling tones that had enthralled me from the first, "do you know I was your sole nurse all the time you were delirious?"

"No wonder I was delirious! Dolt, that I was, to have been delirious!" thought I to myself; but I choked down the foolish rejoinder and endeavored to look as wise as if my head had been ballasted with the weight of a patriarch's wisdom instead of ballooning about like a kite run wild.

"I think I know all your secrets."

"Oh!" A man usually has some secrets he would rather not share; and though I had not swung the full tether of wild west freedom—thanks solely to her, not to me—I trembled at recollection of the passes that come to every man's life when he has been near enough the precipice to know the sensation of falling without going over.

"You talked incessantly of Miriam and Mr. Hamilton and Father Holland."

"And what did I say about Frances?"

"You said things about Frances that made her tremble."

"Tremble? What a brute, and you waiting on me day and——"

"Hush," she broke in. "Tremble because I am just a woman and not an angel, just a woman and not a star. We women are mortals just as you men are. Sometimes we're fools as well as mortals, just as you men are; but I don't think we're knaves quite so often, because we're denied the opportunity and hedged about and not tempted."

As she gently stripped away the pretty hypocrisies with which lovers delude themselves and lay up store for disappointment, I began to discount that old belief about truth and knowledge rendering a woman mannish and arrogant and assertive.

"You men marry women, expecting them to be angels, and very often the angel's highest ambition is to be considered a doll. Then your hope goes out and your faith——"

"But, Frances," I cried, "if any sensible man had his choice of an angel and a fair, good woman——"

"Be sure to say fair, or he'd grumble because he hadn't a doll," she laughed.

"No levity! If he had choice of angels and stars and a good woman, he'd choose the woman. The star is mighty far away and cold and steely. The angel's a deal too perfect to know sympathy with faults and blunders. I tell you, Little Statue, life is only moil and toil, unless love transmutes the base metal of hard duty into the pure gold of unalloyed delight."

"That's why I tremble. I must do more than angel or star! Oh, Rufus, if I can only live up to what you think I am—and you can live up to what I think you are, life will be worth living."

"That's love's leverage," said I.

Then there was silence; for the sun had set and the father was no longer reading. Shadows deepened into twilight, and twilight into gloaming. And it was the hour when the brooding spirit of the vast prairie solitudes fills the stillness of night with voiceless eloquence. Why should I attempt to transcribe the silent music of the prairie at twilight, which every plain-dweller knows and none but a plain-dweller may understand? What wonder that the race native to this boundless land hears the rustling of spirits in the night wind, the sigh of those who have lost their way to the happy hunting-ground, and the wail of little ones whose feet are bruised on the shadow trail? What wonder the gauzy northern lights are bands of marshaling warriors and the stars torches lighting those who ride the plains of heaven? Indeed, I defy a white man with all the discipline of science and reason to restrain the wanderings of mystic fancy during the hours of sunset on the prairie.

There is, I affirm, no such thing as time for lovers. If they have watches and clocks, the wretched things run too fast; and if the sun himself stood still in sympathy, time would not be long. So I confess I have no record of time that night Frances Sutherland returned to her home and Mr. Sutherland kept guard at the door. When he had passed the threshold impatiently twice, I recollected with regret that it was impossible to read theology in the dark. The third time he thrust his head in.

"Mind y'rselves," he called. "I hear men coming frae the river, a pretty hour, indeed, for visitin'. Frances, go ben and see yon back window's open!"

"The soldiers from the fort," cried Frances with a little gasp.

"Don't move," said I. "They can't see me here. It's dark. I want to hear what they say and the window is open. Indeed, Frances, I'm an expert at window-jumping," and I had begun to tell her of my scrape with Louis' drunken comrades in Fort Douglas, when I heard Mr. Sutherland's grating tones according the newcomers a curious welcome. "Ye swearin', blasphemin', rampag'us, carousin' infidel, ye'll no darken my doorway this night. Y'r French gab may be foul wi' oaths for all I ken; but ye'll no come into my hoose! An' you, Sir, a blind leader o' the blind, a disciple o' Beelzebub, wi' y'r Babylonish idolatries, wi' y'r incense that fair stinks in the nostrils o' decent folk, wi' y'r images and mummery and crossin' o' y'rsel', wi' y'r pagan, popish practises, wi' y'r skirts and petticoats, I'll no hae ye on my premises, no, not an' ye leave y'r religion outside! An' you, Meester Hamilton, a respectable Protestant, I'm fair surprised to see ye in sic' company."

"'Tis Eric and Father Holland and Laplante," I shouted, springing to my feet and rushing to the doorway, but Frances put herself before me.

"Keep back," she whispered. "The priest and Mr. Hamilton have been here before; but father would not let them in. The other man may be a De Meuron. Be careful, Rufus! There's a price on your head."

"Ho—ho—my Ursus Major, prime guardian of Ursa Major, first of the heavenly constellations in the north," insolently laughed Louis Laplante through the dusk.

"Let me pass, Frances," I begged, thrusting her gently aside, but her trembling hands still clung to my arm.

"Impertinent rascal," rasped the irate Scotchman. "I'd have ye understand my name's Sutherland, not Major Ursus. I'll no bide wi' y'r impudence! Leave this place——"

"The Bruin growls," interrupted Louis with a laugh, and I heard Mr. Sutherland's gasp of amazed rage at the lengths of the Frenchman's insolence.

"I must, dearest," I whispered, disengaging the slender hands from my arm; and I flung out into the dusk.

In the gloom, my approach was unnoticed; and when I came upon the group, Father Holland had laid his hand upon Mr. Sutherland's shoulder and in a low, tense voice was uttering words, which—thank an all-bountiful Providence!—have no sectarian limits.

"And the King shall answer and say unto them, 'I was a stranger and ye took me not in: naked and ye clothed me not: sick and in prison and ye visited me not. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me'——"

"Dinna con Holy Writ to me, Sir," interrupted Mr. Sutherland, throwing the priest's hand off and jerking back.

Then Louis Laplante saw me. There was a long, low whistle.

"Ye daft gommerel," gasped Mr. Sutherland, facing me with unutterable disgust. "Ye daft gommerel! A' my care and fret, waste—gane clean to waste. I wash m' hands o' ye——"

But Louis had knocked the Scotchman aside and tumbled into my arms, half laughing, half crying and altogether as hysterical as was his wont.

"I pay you back at las', my comrade! Ha—old solemncholy! You thought the bird of passage, he come not back at all! But the birds return! So does Louis! He decoy-duck the whole covey! You generous? No more not generous than the son of a seigneur, mine enemy! You give life? He give life! You give liberty! So does Louis! You help one able help himself? Louis help one not able help himself! Ha! Tres bien! Noblesse oblige! La Gloire! She—near! She here! She where I, Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, snare that she-devil, trap that fox, trick the tigress! Ha—ol' tombstone! Noblesse oblige—I say! She near—she here," and he flung up both arms like a frenzied maniac.

"Man! Are you mad?" I demanded, uncertain whether he were apostrophizing Diable's squaw, or abstract glory. "Speak out!" I shouted, shaking him by the shoulder.

"These—are they all friends?" asked Louis, suddenly cooled and looking suspiciously at the group.

"All," said I, still holding him by the shoulder.

"That—that thing—that bear—that bruin—he a friend?" and Louis pointed to Mr. Sutherland.

"Friend to the core," said I, laying both hands upon his shoulders. "Core with prickles outside," gibed Louis.

"Louis," I commanded, utterly out of patience, "what of Miriam? Speak plain, man! Have you brought the tribe as you promised?"

It must have been mention of Miriam's name, for the white, drawn face of Eric Hamilton bent over my shoulder and fiery, glowing eyes burned into the very soul of the Frenchman. Louis staggered back as if red irons had been thrust in his face.

"Sacredie," said he, backing against Father Holland, "I am no murderer."

It was then I observed that Frances Sutherland had followed me. Her slender white fingers were about the bronzed hand of the French adventurer.

"Monsieur Laplante will tell us what he knows," she said softly, and she waited for his answer.

"The daughter of L'Aigle," he replied slowly and collectedly, all the while feasting upon that fair face, "comes down the Red with her tribe and captives, many captive women. They pass here to-night. They camp south the rapids, this side of the rapids. Last night I leave them. I run forward, I find Le Petit Garcon—how you call him?—Leetle Fellow? He take me to the priest. He bring canoe here. He wait now for carry us down. We must go to the rapids—to the camp! There my contract! My bargain, it is finished," and he shrugged his shoulders, for Frances had removed her hand from his.

Whether Louis Laplante's excitable nature were momentarily unbalanced by the success of his feat, I leave to psychologists. Whether some premonition of his impending fate had wrought upon him strangely, let psychical speculators decide. Or whether Louis, the sly rogue, worked up the whole situation for the purpose of drawing Frances Sutherland into the scene—which is what I myself suspect—I refer to private judgment, and merely set down the incidents as they occurred. That was how Louis Laplante told us of bringing Diable's squaw and her captives back to Red River. And that was how Father Holland and Eric and Louis and Mr. Sutherland and myself came to be embarking with a camping outfit for a canoe-trip down the river.

"Have the Indians passed, or are they to come?" I asked Louis as Mr. Sutherland and Eric settled themselves in a swift, light canoe, leaving the rest of us to take our places in a larger craft, where Little Fellow, gurgling pleased recognition of me, acted as steersman.

"They come later. The fast canoe go forward and camp. We watch behind," ordered Louis, winking at me significantly.

I saw Frances step to her father's canoe.

"You're no coming, Frances," he protested, querulously.

"Don't say that, father. I never disobeyed you in my life, and I am coming! Don't tell me not to! Push out, Mr. Hamilton," and she picked up a paddle and I saw the canoe dart swiftly forward into mid-current, where the darkness enveloped it; and we followed fast in its wake.

"Louis," said I, trying to fathom the meaning of his wink, "are those Indians to come yet?"

"No. Simpleton—you think Louis a fool?" he asked.

"Why did you lie to them?"

"Get them out of the way."

"Why?"

"Because, stupid, some ones they be killed to-night! The Englishman, he have a wife—he not be killed! Mademoiselle—she love a poor fool—or break her pretty heart! The father—he needed to stick-pin you both—so you never want for to fight each other," and Louis laughed low like the purr of water on his paddle-blade.

"Faith, lad," cried the priest, who had been unnaturally silent, because, I suppose, he was among aliens to his faith, "faith, lad, 'tis a good heart ye have, if ye'd but cut loose from the binding past. May this night put an end to your devil pranks!"

* * * * *

And that night did!



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE LAST OF LOUIS' ADVENTURES

I think, perhaps, the reason good enterprises fail so often where evil ventures succeed, is that the good man blunders forward, trusting to the merits of his cause, where the evil manipulator proceeds warily as a cat over broken glass. And so, altogether apart from his services as guide, I felt Louis Laplante's presence on the river a distinct advantage.

"The Lord is with us, lad. She shall be delivered! The Lord is with us; but don't you bungle His plans!" ejaculated Father Holland for the twentieth time; and each time the French trapper looked waggishly over his shoulder at me and winked.

"Bungle! Pah!" Louis clapped his paddle athwart the canoe and laughed a low, sly, defiant laugh. "Bungle! Pah! Catch Louis bungle his cards, ha, ha! Trumps! He play trumps—he hold his hand low—careless—nodings in it—he keep quiet—nodings worth play in his hand—but his sleeve—ha, ha!" and Louis laughed softly and winked at the full moon.