CHAPTER IV
THE WOLFERS
When Tom Morse reached camp he found Bully West stamping about in aheady rage. The fellow was a giant of a man, almost muscle-bound inhis huge solidity. His shoulders were rounded with the heavy pack ofknotted sinews they carried. His legs were bowed from much riding. Itwas his boast that he could bend a silver dollar double in the palm ofhis hand. Men had seen him twist the tail rod of a wagon into a knot.Sober, he was a sulky, domineering brute with the instincts of abully. In liquor, the least difference of opinion became for him acause of quarrel.
Most men gave him a wide berth, and for the sake of peace acceptedsneers and insults that made the blood boil.
"Where you been all this time?" he growled.
"Ploughin' around over the plains."
"Didn't you hear me callin'?"
"D'you call? I've been quite a ways from camp. Bumped into AngusMcRae's buffalo-hunting outfit. He wants to see us to-morrow."
"What for?"
"Something about to-night's business. Seems he knows who did it.Offers to settle for what we lost."
Bully West stopped in his stride, feet straddled, head thrust forward."What's that?"
"Like I say. We're to call on him to-morrow for a settlement, you 'n'me."
"Did McRae bust our barrels?"
"He knows something about it. Didn't have time to talk long with him.I hustled right back to tell you."
"He can come here if he wants to see me," West announced.
This called for no answer and Tom gave it none. He moved across to thespot where the oxen were picketed and made sure the pins were stillfast. Presently he rolled his blanket round him and looked up into asky all stars. Usually he dropped asleep as soon as his head touchedthe seat of the saddle he used as a pillow. But to-night he lay awakefor hours. He could not get out of his mind the girl he had met andtaken to punishment. A dozen pictures of her rose before him, all ofthem mental snapshots snatched from his experience of the night. Nowhe was struggling to hold her down, his knees clamped to her writhing,muscular torso. Again he held her by the strong, velvet-smooth armswhile her eyes blazed fury and defiance at him. Or her stinging wordspelted him as she breasted the hill slopes with supple ease. Mostvivid of all were the ones at her father's camp, especially those whenshe was under the torture of the whip.
No wonder she hated him for what he had done to her.
He shook himself into a more comfortable position and began to countstars.... Ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven.... What was the useof stressing the affair, anyhow? She was only a half-breed. Inten years she would be fat, shapeless, dirty, and repellent. Herconversation would be reduced to grunts. The glance he had had at hermother was illuminating.
Where was he?... One hundred eleven, twelve, thirteen.... Women hadnot obtruded much into his life. He had lived in the wind and the sunof the outdoors, much of the time in the saddle. Lawless he was,but there was a clean strain in his blood. He had always felt anindifferent contempt for a squaw-man. An American declassed himselfwhen he went in for that sort of thing, even if he legalized theunion by some form of marriage. In spite of her magnificent physicalinheritance of health and vitality, in spite of the quick andpassionate spirit that informed her, she would be the product of herenvironment and ancestry, held close to barbarism all her life. Theman who mated with her would be dragged down to her level.
Two hundred three, four, five.... How game she had been! She hadplayed it out like a thoroughbred, even to telling her father that hewas to use the horsewhip in punishing her. He had never before seen acreature so splendid or so spirited. Squaw or no squaw, he took offhis hat to her.
The sun had climbed the hilltop when Morse wakened.
"Come an' get it!" Barney the cook was yelling at him.
Bully West had changed his mind about not going to thebuffalo-hunter's camp.
"You 'n' Brad'll stay here, Barney, while me 'n' Tom are gone," hegave orders. "And you'll keep a sharp lookout for raiders. If any oneshows up that you're dubious of, plug him and ask questions afterward.Un'erstand?"
"I hear ye," replied Barney, a small cock-eyed man with a malevolentgrin. "An' we'll do just that, boss."
Long before the traders reached it, the camp of the buffalo-huntersadvertised its presence by the stench of decaying animal matter.Hundreds of hides were pegged to the ground. Men and women, squattingon their heels, scraped bits of fat from the drying skins. Already atrain of fifty Red River carts[3] stood ready for the homeward start,loaded with robes tied down by means of rawhide strips to stand thejolting across the plains. Not far away other women were makingpemmican of fried buffalo meat and fat, pounded together and packedwith hot grease in skin bags. This food was a staple winter diet andhad too a market value for trade to the Hudson's Bay Company, whichshipped thousands of sacks yearly to its northern posts on the Peaceand the Mackenzie Rivers.
[Footnote 3: The Red River cart was a primitive two-wheeled affair,made entirely of wood, without nails or metal tires. It was usuallydrawn by an ox. (W.M.R.)]
The children and the sound of their laughter gave the camp a domestictouch. Some of the brown, half-naked youngsters, their skinsglistening in the warm sun, were at work doing odd jobs. Others, tooyoung to fetch and carry, played with a litter of puppies or with awolf cub that had been caught and tamed.
The whole bustling scene was characteristic of time and place. A scoreof such outfits, each with its Red River carts and its oxen, its dogs,its women and children, traveled to the plains each spring to huntthe bison. They killed thousands upon thousands of them, for it tookseveral animals to make a sack of pemmican weighing one hundred fiftypounds. The waste was enormous, since only the choicest cuts of meatwere used.
Already the buffalo were diminishing in numbers. Vast hordes stillroamed the plains. They could be killed by scores and hundreds. Butthe end was near. It had been several years since Colonel Dodgereported that he had halted his party of railroad builders two daysto let a herd of over half a million bison pass. Such a sight was nolonger possible. The pressure of the hunters had divided the game intothe northern and the southern herds. Within four or five years theslaughter was to be so great that only a few groups of buffalo wouldbe left.
The significance of this extermination lay largely in its applicationto the Indians. The plains tribes were fed and clothed and armed andhoused by means of the buffalo. Even the canoes of the lake Indianswere made from buffalo skins. The failure of the supply reduced thenatives from warriors to beggars.
McRae came forward to meet the traders, the sleeves of his shirtrolled to the elbows of his muscular brown arms. He stroked a greatred beard and nodded gruffly. It was not in his dour honest nature topretend that he was glad to see them when he was not.
"Well, I'm here," growled West, interlarding a few oaths as anecessary corollary of his speech. "What's it all about, McRae? Whatdo you know about the smashing of our barrels?"
"I'll settle any reasonable damage," the hunter said.
Bully West frowned. He spread his legs deliberately, folded his arms,and spat tobacco juice upon a clean hide drying in the sun. "Hold yorehawsses a minute. The damage'll be enough. Don't you worry about that.But first off, I aim to know who raided our camp. Then I reckon I'llwhop him till he's wore to a frazzle."
Under heavy, grizzled brows McRae looked long at him. Both wereoutstanding figures by reason of personality and physique. One was aconstructive force, the other destructive. There was a suggestion ofthe gorilla in West's long arms matted with hair, in the muscles ofback and shoulders so gnarled and knotted that they gave him almosta deformed appearance. Big and broad though he was, the Scot was thesmaller. But power harnessed and controlled expressed itself in everymotion of the body. Moreover, the blue eyes that looked straight andhard out of the ruddy face told of coordination between mind andmatter.
Angus McRae was that rare product, an honest, outspoken man. He soughtto do justice to all with whom he had dealings. Part of West's demandwas fair,
he reflected. The trader had a right to know all the factsin the case. But the old Hudson's Bay trapper had a great reluctanceto tell them. His instinct to protect Jessie was strong.
"I've saved ye the trouble, Mr. West. The guilty yin was o' my ainfamily. Your young man will tell ye I've done a' the horsewhippin'that's necessary."
The big trail boss looked blackly at his helper. He would settle withMorse at the proper time. Now he had other business on hand.
"Come clean, McRae. Who was it? There'll be nothin' doin' till I knowthat," he growled.
"My daughter."
West glared at him, for once astonished out of profanity.
"What?"
"My daughter Jessie."
"Goddlemighty, d'ja mean to tell me a girl did it?" He threw back hishead in a roar of Homeric laughter. "Ever hear the beat of that? Adamn li'l' Injun squaw playin' her tricks on Bully West! If she wasmine I'd tickle her back for it."
The eyes in the Scotchman's granite face flashed. "Man, can you neversay twa-three words withoot profanity? This is a God-fearin' camp.There's nae place here for those who tak His name in vain."
"Smashed 'em with her own hands--is that what you mean? I'll give itto her that she's a plucky li'l' devil, even if she is a nitchie."
McRae reproved him stiffly. "You'll please to remember that you'retalking of my daughter, Mr. West. I'll allow no such language aboother. You're here to settle a business matter. What do ye put thedamage at?"
They agreed on a price, to be paid in hides delivered at Whoop-Up.West turned and went straddling to the place where he and Morse hadleft their horses. On the way he came face to face with a girl, alithe, dusky young creature, Indian brown, the tan of a hundredsummer suns and winds painted on the oval of her lifted chin. She wascarrying a package of sacks to the place where the pemmican was beingmade.
West's eyes narrowed. They traveled up and down her slender body. Theygloated on her.
After one scornful glance which swept over and ignored Morse, the girllooked angrily at the man barring her way. Slowly the blood burnedinto her cheeks. For there was that in the trader's smoldering eyesthat would have insulted any modest maiden.
"You Jessie McRae?" he demanded, struck of a sudden with an idea.
"Yes."
"You smashed my whiskey-barrels?"
"My father has told you. If he says so, isn't that enough?"
He slapped an immense hand on his thigh, hugely diverted. "You damnli'l' high-steppin' filly! Why? What in hell 'd I ever do to you?"
Angus McRae strode forward, eyes blazing. He had married a Cree woman,had paid for her to her father seven ponies, a yard of tobacco, and abottle of whiskey. His own two-fisted sons were metis. The Indian inthem showed more plainly than the Celt. Their father accepted the factwithout resentment. But there was in his heart a queer feeling aboutthe little lass he had adopted. Her light, springing step, the lift ofthe throat and the fearlessness of the eye, the instinct in her forcleanliness of mind and body, carried him back forty years to the landof heather, to a memory of the laird's daughter whom he had worshipedwith the hopeless adoration of a red-headed gillie. It had been theone romance of his life, and somehow it had reincarnated itself inhis love for the half-breed girl. To him it seemed a contradiction ofnature that Jessie should be related to the flat-footed squaws whowere slaves to their lords. He could not reconcile his heart to theknowledge that she was of mixed blood. She was too fine, too dainty,of too free and imperious a spirit.
"Your horses are up the hill, Mr. West," he said pointedly.
It is doubtful whether the trader heard. He could not keep hisdesirous eyes from the girl.
"Is she a half or a quarter-breed?" he asked McRae.
"That'll be her business and mine, sir. Will you please tak the road?"The hunter spoke quietly, restraining himself from an outbreak. Buthis voice carried an edge.
"By Gad, she's some clipper," West said, aloud to himself, just asthough the girl had not been present.
"Will you leave my daughter oot o' your talk, man?" warned theScotchman.
"What's ailin' you?" West's sulky, insolent eyes turned on thebuffalo-hunter. "A nitchie's a nitchie. Me, I talk straight. But I aimto be reasonable too. I don't like a woman less because she's got thedevil in her. Bully West knows how to tame 'em so they'll eat outa hishand. I've took a fancy to yore girl. Tha's right, McRae."
"You may go to the tent, Jessie," the girl's father told her. He washolding his temper in leash with difficulty.
"Wait a mo." The big trader held out his arm to bar the way. "Don'tpush on yore reins, McRae. I'm makin' you a proposition. Me, I'mlookin' for a wife, an' this here breed girl of yours suits me. Giveher to me an' I'll call the whole thing square. Couldn't say fairerthan that, could I?"
The rugged hunter looked at the big malformed border ruffian withrepulsion. "Man, you gi'e me a scunner," he said. "Have done wi' thisfoolishness an' be gone. The lass is no' for you or the like o' you."
"Hell's hinges, you ain't standin' there tellin' me that a Cree breedis too good for Bully West, are you?" roared the big whiskey-runner.
"A hundred times too good for you. I'd rather see the lass dead inher coffin than have her life ruined by you," McRae answered in deadearnest.
"You don't get me right, Mac," answered the smuggler, swallowing hisrage. "I know yore religious notions. We'll stand up before a skypilot and have this done right. I aim to treat this girl handsome."
Jessie had turned away at her father's command. Now she turned swiftlyupon the trader, eyes flashing. "I'd rather Father would drive aknife in my heart than let me be married to a wolfer!" she criedpassionately.
His eyes, untrammeled by decency, narrowed to feast on the brownimmature beauty of her youth.
"Tha' so?" he jeered. "Well, the time's comin' when you'll go down onyore pretty knees an' beg me not to leave you. It'll be me 'n' you oneo' these days. Make up yore mind to that."
"Never! Never! I'd die first!" she exploded.
Bully West showed his broken, tobacco-stained teeth in a mirthlessgrin. "We'll see about that, dearie."
"March, lass. Your mother'll be needin' you," McRae said sharply.
The girl looked at West, then at Morse. From the scorn of that glanceshe might have been a queen and they the riffraff of the land. Shewalked to the tent. Not once did she look back.
"You've had your answer both from her and me. Let that be an end o'it," McRae said with finality.
The trader's anger ripped out in a crackle of obscene oaths. Theygarnished the questions that he snarled. "Wha's the matter with me?Why ain't I good enough for yore half-breed litter?"
It was a spark to gunpowder. The oaths, the insult, the wholedegrading episode, combined to drive McRae out of the self-restrainthe had imposed on himself. He took one step forward. With a wide sweepof the clenched fist he buffeted the smuggler on the ear. Taken bysurprise, West went spinning against the wheel of a cart.
The man's head sank between his shoulders and thrust forward. A soundthat might have come from an infuriated grizzly rumbled from the hairythroat. His hand reached for a revolver.
Morse leaped like a crouched cat. Both hands caught at West's arm. Theold hunter was scarcely an instant behind him. His fingers closed onthe wrist just above the weapon.
"Hands off," he ordered Morse. "This is no' your quarrel."
The youngster's eyes met the blazing blue ones of the Scot. Hisfingers loosened their hold. He stepped back.
The two big men strained. One fought with every ounce of power in himto twist the arm from him till the cords and sinews strained; theother to prevent this and to free the wrist. It was a test of sheerstrength.
Each labored, breathing deep, his whole energy centered on cooerdinatedeffort of every muscle. They struggled in silence except for thesnarling grunts of the whiskey-runner.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the wrist began to turn fromMcRae. Sweat beads gathered on West's face. He fought furiously tohold his own. But the arm turned
inexorably.
The trader groaned. As the cords tightened and shoots of torturingpain ran up the arm, the huge body of the man writhed. The revolverfell from his paralyzed fingers. His wobbling knees sagged andcollapsed.
McRae's fingers loosened as the man slid down and caught the bull-likethroat. His grip tightened. West fought savagely to break it. He couldas soon have freed himself from the clamp of a vice.
The Scotchman shook him till he was black in the face, then flung himreeling away.
"Get oot, ye yellow wolf!" he roared. "Or fegs! I'll break every bonein your hulkin' body. Oot o' my camp, the pair o' you!"
West, strangling, gasped for air, as does a catfish on the bank. Heleaned on the cart wheel until he was able to stand. The help of Morsehe brushed aside with a sputtered oath. His eyes never left the manwho had beaten him. He snarled hike a whipped wolf. The hunter'smetaphor had been an apt one. The horrible lust to kill was stamped onhis distorted, grinning face, but for the present the will alone wasnot enough.
McRae's foot was on the revolver. His son Fergus, a swarthy,good-looking youngster, had come up and was standing quietly behindhis father. Other hunters were converging toward their chief.
The Indian trader swore a furious oath of vengeance. Morse tried tolead him away.
"Some day I'll get yore squaw girl right, McRae, an' then God helpher," he threatened.
The bully lurched straddling away.
Morse, a sardonic grin on his lean face, followed him over the hill.