CHAPTER 11
While lovely Nepeese was still shuddering over her thrilling experienceunder the rock--while Pierrot still offered grateful thanks in hisprayers for her deliverance and Baree was becoming more and more afixture at the beaver pond--Bush McTaggart was perfecting a littlescheme of his own up at Post Lac Bain, about forty miles north andwest. McTaggart had been factor at Lac Bain for seven years. In thecompany's books down in Winnipeg he was counted a remarkably successfulman. The expense of his post was below the average, and his semiannualreport of furs always ranked among the first. After his name, kept onfile in the main office, was one notation which said: "Gets more out ofa dollar than any other man north of God's Lake."
The Indians knew why this was so. They called him Napao Wetikoo--theman-devil. This was under their breath--a name whispered sinisterly inthe glow of tepee fires, or spoken softly where not even the windsmight carry it to the ears of Bush McTaggart. They feared him; theyhated him. They died of starvation and sickness, and the tighter BushMcTaggart clenched the fingers of his iron rule, the more meekly, itseemed to him, did they respond to his mastery. His was a small soul,hidden in the hulk of a brute, which rejoiced in power. And here--withthe raw wilderness on four sides of him--his power knew no end. The bigcompany was behind him. It had made him king of a domain in which therewas little law except his own. And in return he gave back to thecompany bales and bundles of furs beyond their expectation. It was notfor them to have suspicions. They were a thousand or more milesaway--and dollars were what counted.
Gregson might have told. Gregson was the investigating agent of thatdistrict, who visited McTaggart once each year. He might have reportedthat the Indians called McTaggart Napao Wetikoo because he gave themonly half price for their furs. He might have told the company quiteplainly that he kept the people of the trap lines at the edge ofstarvation through every month of the winter, that he had them on theirknees with his hands at their throats--putting the truth in a mild andpretty way--and that he always had a woman or a girl, Indian orhalf-breed, living with him at the Post. But Gregson enjoyed his visitstoo much at Lac Bain. Always he could count on two weeks of coarsepleasures. And in addition to that, his own womenfolk at home wore arich treasure of fur that came to them from McTaggart.
One evening, a week after the adventure of Nepeese and Baree under therock, McTaggart sat under the glow of an oil lamp in his "store." Hehad sent his little pippin-faced English clerk to bed, and he wasalone. For six weeks there had been in him a great unrest. It was justsix weeks ago that Pierrot had brought Nepeese on her first visit toLac Bain since McTaggart had been factor there. She had taken hisbreath away. Since then he had been able to think of nothing but her.Twice in that six weeks he had gone down to Pierrot's cabin. Tomorrowhe was going again. Marie, the slim Cree girl over in his cabin, he hadforgotten--just as a dozen others before Marie had slipped out of hismemory. It was Nepeese now. He had never seen anything quite sobeautiful as Pierrot's girl.
Audibly he cursed Pierrot as he looked at a sheet of paper under hishand, on which for an hour or more he had been making notes out of wornand dusty company ledgers. It was Pierrot who stood in his way.Pierrot's father, according to those notes, had been a full-bloodedFrenchman. Therefore Pierrot was half French, and Nepeese was quarterFrench--though she was so beautiful he could have sworn there was notmore than a drop or two of Indian blood in her veins. If they had beenall Indian--Chipewyan, Cree, Ojibway, Dog Rib--anything--there wouldhave been no trouble at all in the matter. He would have bent them tohis power, and Nepeese would have come to his cabin, as Marie had comesix months ago. But there was the accursed French of it! Pierrot andNepeese were different. And yet--
He smiled grimly, and his hands clenched tighter. After all, was nothis power sufficient? Would even Pierrot dare stand up against that? IfPierrot objected, he would drive him from the country--from thetrapping regions that had come down to him as heritage from father andgrandfather, and even before their day. He would make of Pierrot awanderer and an outcast, as he had made wanderers and outcasts of ascore of others who had lost his favor. No other Post would sell to orbuy from Pierrot if Le Bete--the black cross--was put after his name.That was his power--a law of the factors that had come down through thecenturies. It was a tremendous power for evil. It had brought himMarie, the slim, dark-eyed Cree girl, who hated him--and who in spiteof her hatred "kept house for him."
That was the polite way of explaining her presence if explanations wereever necessary. McTaggart looked again at the notes he had made on thesheet of paper. Pierrot's trapping country, his own property accordingto the common law of the wilderness, was very valuable. During the lastseven years he had received an average of a thousand dollars a year forhis furs, for McTaggart had been unable to cheat Pierrot quite ascompletely as he had cheated the Indians. A thousand dollars a year!Pierrot would think twice before he gave that up. McTaggart chuckled ashe crumpled the paper in his hand and prepared to put out the light.Under his close-cropped beard his reddish face blazed with the firethat was in his blood. It was an unpleasant face--like iron, merciless,filled with the look that gave him his name of Napao Wetikoo. His eyesgleamed, and he drew a quick breath as he put out the light.
He chuckled again as he made his way through the darkness to the door.Nepeese as good as belonged to him. He, would have her if itcost--PIERROT'S LIFE. And--WHY NOT? It was all so easy. A shot on alonely trap line, a single knife thrust--and who would know? Who wouldguess where Pierrot had gone? And it would all be Pierrot's fault. Forthe last time he had seen Pierrot, he had made an honest proposition:he would marry Nepeese. Yes, even that. He had told Pierrot so. He hadtold Pierrot that when the latter was his father-in-law, he would payhim double price for furs.
And Pierrot had stared--had stared with that strange, stunned look inhis face, like a man dazed by a blow from a club. And so if he did notget Nepeese without trouble it would all be Pierrot's fault. TomorrowMcTaggart would start again for the half-breed's country. And the nextday Pierrot would have an answer for him. Bush McTaggart chuckled againas he went to bed.
Until the next to the last day Pierrot said nothing to Nepeese aboutwhat had passed between him and the factor at Lac Bain. Then he toldher.
"He is a beast--a man-devil," he said, when he had finished. "I wouldrather see you out there--with her--dead." And he pointed to the tallspruce under which the princess mother lay.
Nepeese had not uttered a sound. But her eyes had grown bigger anddarker, and there was a flush in her cheeks which Pierrot had neverseen there before. She stood up when he had finished, and she seemedtaller to him. Never had she looked quite so much like a woman, andPierrot's eyes were deep-shadowed with fear and uneasiness as hewatched her while she gazed off into the northwest--toward Lac Bain.
She was wonderful, this slip of a girl-woman. Her beauty troubled him.He had seen the look in Bush McTaggart's eyes. He had heard the thrillin McTaggart's voice. He had caught the desire of a beast inMcTaggart's face. It had frightened him at first. But now--he was notfrightened. He was uneasy, but his hands were clenched. In his heartthere was a smoldering fire. At last Nepeese turned and came and satdown beside him again, at his feet.
"He is coming tomorrow, ma cherie," he said. "What shall I tell him?"
The Willow's lips were red. Her eyes shone. But she did not look up ather father.
"Nothing, Nootawe--except that you are to say to him that I am the oneto whom he must come--for what he seeks."
Pierrot bent over and caught her smiling. The sun went down. His heartsank with it, like cold lead.
From Lac Bain to Pierrot's cabin the trail cut within half a mile ofthe beaver pond, a dozen miles from where Pierrot lived. And it washere, on a twist of the creek in which Wakayoo had caught fish forBaree, that Bush McTaggart made his camp for the night. Only twentymiles of the journey could be made by canoe, and as McTaggart wastraveling the last stretch afoot, his camp was a simple affair--a fewcut balsams, a light blanket, a small fire. Before he pre
pared hissupper, the factor drew a number of copper wire snares from his smallpack and spent half an hour in setting them in rabbit runways. Thismethod of securing meat was far less arduous than carrying a gun in hotweather, and it was certain. Half a dozen snares were good for at leastthree rabbits, and one of these three was sure to be young and tenderenough for the frying pan. After he had placed his snares McTaggart seta skillet of bacon over the coals and boiled his coffee.
Of all the odors of a camp, the smell of bacon reaches farthest in theforest. It needs no wind. It drifts on its own wings. On a still nighta fox will sniff it a mile away--twice that far if the air is moving inthe right direction. It was this smell of bacon that came to Bareewhere he lay in his hollow on top of the beaver dam.
Since his experience in the canyon and the death of Wakayoo, he had notfared particularly well. Caution had kept him near the pond, and he hadlived almost entirely on crayfish. This new aroma that came with thenight wind roused his hunger. But it was elusive: now he could smellit--the next instant it was gone. He left the dam and began questingfor the source of it in the forest, until after a time he lost italtogether. McTaggart had finished frying his bacon and was eating it.
It was a splendid night that followed. Perhaps Baree would have sleptthrough it in his nest on the top of the dam if the bacon smell had notstirred the new hunger in him. Since his adventure in the canyon, thedeeper forest had held a dread for him, especially at night. But thisnight was like a pale, golden day. It was moonless; but the stars shonelike a billion distant lamps, flooding the world in a soft and billowysea of light. A gentle whisper of wind made pleasant sounds in thetreetops. Beyond that it was very quiet, for it was Puskowepesim--theMolting Moon--and the wolves were not hunting, the owls had lost theirvoice, the foxes slunk with the silence of shadows, and even thebeavers had begun to cease their labors. The horns of the moose, thedeer, and the caribou were in tender velvet, and they moved but littleand fought not at all. It was late July, Molting Moon of the Cree, Moonof Silence for the Chipewyan.
In this silence Baree began to hunt. He stirred up a family ofhalf-grown partridges, but they escaped him. He pursued a rabbit thatwas swifter than he. For an hour he had no luck. Then he heard a soundthat made every drop of blood in him thrill. He was close toMcTaggart's camp, and what he had heard was a rabbit in one ofMcTaggart's snares. He came out into a little starlit open and there hesaw the rabbit going through a most marvelous pantomime. It amazed himfor a moment, and he stopped in his tracks.
Wapoos, the rabbit, had run his furry head into the snare, and hisfirst frightened jump had "shot" the sapling to which the copper wirewas attached so that he was now hung half in mid-air, with only hishind feet touching the ground. And there he was dancing madly while thenoose about his neck slowly choked him to death.
Baree gave a sort of gasp. He could understand nothing of the part thatthe wire and the sapling were playing in this curious game. All hecould see was that Wapoos was hopping and dancing about on his hindlegs in a most puzzling and unrabbitlike fashion. It may be that hethought it some sort of play. In this instance, however, he did notregard Wapoos as he had looked on Umisk the beaver. He knew that Wapoosmade mighty fine eating, and after another moment or two of hesitationhe darted upon his prey.
Wapoos, half gone already, made almost no struggle, and in the glow ofthe stars Baree finished him, and for half an hour afterward he feasted.
McTaggart had heard no sound, for the snare into which Wapoos had runhis head was the one set farthest from his camp. Beside the smolderingcoals of his fire he sat with his back to a tree, smoking his blackpipe and dreaming covetously of Nepeese, while Baree continued hisnight wandering. Baree no longer had the desire to hunt. He was toofull. But he nosed in and out of the starlit spaces, enjoying immenselythe stillness and the golden glow of the night. He was following arabbit-run when he came to a place where two fallen logs left a trailno wider than his body. He squeezed through; something tightened abouthis neck. There was a sudden snap--a swish as the sapling was releasedfrom its "trigger"--and Baree was jerked off his feet so suddenly thathe had no time to conjecture as to what was happening.
The yelp in his throat died in a gurgle, and the next moment he wasgoing through the pantomimic actions of Wapoos, who was having hisvengeance inside him. For the life of him Baree could not keep fromdancing about, while the wire grew tighter and tighter about his neck.When he snapped at the wire and flung the weight of his body to theground, the sapling would bend obligingly, and then--in itsrebound--would yank him for an instant completely off the earth.Furiously he struggled. It was a miracle that the fine wire held him.In a few moments more it must have broken--but McTaggart had heard him!The factor caught up his blanket and a heavy stick as he hurried towardthe snare. It was not a rabbit making those sounds--he knew that.Perhaps a fishercat--a lynx, a fox, a young wolf--
It was the wolf he thought of first when he saw Baree at the end of thewire. He dropped the blanket and raised the club. If there had beenclouds overhead, or the stars had been less brilliant, Baree would havedied as surely as Wapoos had died. With the club raised over his headMcTaggart saw in time the white star, the white-tipped ear, and the jetblack of Baree's coat.
With a swift movement he exchanged the club for the blanket.
In that hour, could McTaggart have looked ahead to the days that wereto come, he would have used the club. Could he have foreseen the greattragedy in which Baree was to play a vital part, wrecking his hopes anddestroying his world, he would have beaten him to a pulp there underthe light of the stars. And Baree, could he have foreseen what was tohappen between this brute with a white skin and the most beautifulthing in the forests, would have fought even more bitterly before hesurrendered himself to the smothering embrace of the factor's blanket.On this night Fate had played a strange hand for them both, and onlythat Fate, and perhaps the stars above, held a knowledge of what itsoutcome was to be.