XII
THE NINETY-MILE PORTAGE
The Settlement is upward of three miles from Grier's point. Avoidingthe houses for the present, Garth pitched his camp outside, well offthe trail. The first thing they learned was that the Bishop had gone on.This time they were not surprised; there seemed to be a fatality in it.The old problem confronted Garth anew.
"I think you should wait here," he suggested to Natalie; "and let meride on for you."
Natalie, as she always did when this question was brought up, merelylooked obstinate.
"It is likely we will miss him again at the Crossing," Garth went on;"and I have learned there are only one or two cabins there, and no whitewoman. It would be difficult for you."
Natalie's silence gave him no encouragement.
"But here," he urged, "you could stay with the wife of the inspector ofthe mounted police; while I go on and bring Mabyn back to you. I do notthink you should put yourself in his hands."
"He would not come with you," she said evasively.
"I promise to bring him," said Garth determinedly; "if he is alive."
"No!" she said with manifest agitation. "That is another reason!"
"What is?" he asked mystified.
"I--I could not have any trouble between you," she said in a low tone.
"But I promise to bring him safely," he said doggedly.
She still shook her head.
"I will go to the wife of the inspector," said Garth--"a woman in sucha position is sure to be the right sort--and I will explain our positionfrankly. She will be glad to take you in!"
Natalie shot an odd glance at him. "I will not let you," she saidquickly.
"But why?"
"The risk of the humiliation of a refusal is too great," she said. "Ido not doubt she is a good woman; I'm sure she rises splendidly to allthe demands of her position up here. But she _has_ a position to maintain,you see; no doubt she is bringing up girls. And me!"--Natalie turnedaway her head--"consider how extraordinary the story sounds! Only onewoman in a thousand would believe."
Garth turned a distressed face to her. "I have not taken care of youproperly," he cried remorsefully.
Natalie veiled her eyes; and her hand stole to her breast. "Let us nottalk about _that_!" she murmured unevenly.
Garth was perplexed and silent.
Natalie recovered herself presently; and looked at him with a mistyshine in her eyes. "Why do you worry?" she asked. "We're a thousandtimes better off than we were yesterday; for you have laid our enemyby the heels! Why mayn't I go on with you just the same as before?I cannot trust any one but you!"
How was Garth to resist such an appeal? Besides, there was nothing elseto do.
Garth might have lodged a complaint against Nick Grylls at the barracks;but any investigation would have seriously delayed their journey; and agreater reason against it was his care for Natalie's good name. It wasintolerable to him that the dear circumstances of their journey togethershould be made the subject of the common gossip of the North. It wasbetter to let those who saw Natalie on the trail speculate as theychose, rather than give them an opportunity to put their own coarseconstruction upon the truth. He was well assured Nick Grylls wouldsay nothing.
For the same reason, he decided to avoid the Settlement altogether.The two of them remained close in camp; and Charley was dispatched topurchase ponies and saddles, and what was needful to replenish theirstores. He returned with all they required; and during the afternooninstructed Garth how to pack the ponies and "throw" the immovablediamond hitch. Natalie in the meantime, constructed a divided skirtfor herself, since side-saddles are unknown in the North.
Their route now lay over the ninety-mile portage to Spirit RiverCrossing. The road, Garth learned, was straight, and, for theNorth, well-travelled. There were no forks or cross-trails, hence nopossibility of their missing the way. They set off before daybreak nextmorning. The parting with Charley was a wrench all around: but Garth wasfirm in insisting that the boy must go back, and put up his hay. In theeasy-going North it is only too easy to drop one's tools and start offon a jaunt. Charley bade them an abrupt good-bye; and bustled away tohide his tears.
In the mystical gloom which, in northern latitudes, precedes the summerdawn, Garth and Natalie, each leading a pack pony, rode through theSettlement, which straggled for several miles around the shore of MooseBay, a wide, shallow arm of the lake, once navigable, but now given overto the wild-fowl. The shacks were infinitely various; for in a landwhere every man builds for himself, a house quaintly expresses thecharacter of its owner. But one thing was common to all; no one wastesany ornament on his dwelling; and in the luxuriant greenness of thenorthern summer, the grim, solid little houses were a reminder ofthe coming cold.
Later in the day they passed the long, gradual climb over the heightof land separating the great watersheds of the Miwasa and the Spirit.On the other side they came to a flat country and of the same generalcharacter all the way. It was a shining day; and, being young, theyforgot their cares and rode gaily. For the most part the trail lay ina straight and lofty nave of aspen trees, rearing their slender, snowypillars sixty, eighty--even a hundred feet aloft; and mingling theirclusters of nimble, chattering leaves high overhead in the sun. Therewas nothing gloomy about this cathedral; the sun found a thousandapertures through which to launch his rays against the white pillars;while the green and mutable roof was bathed in almost intolerableradiance--it was a temple in green and white, Flora's colours.
Occasionally there were cloistered openings; sunny little meadowsinclining to a spring, where the wild pea-vine, plant beloved of horses,and infallible sign of a rich soil, grew knee-deep. Such an opening theylearned, however small, was quaintly dignified by the natives with thename of prairie.
Their ponies, each exhibiting a distinct individuality, afforded theexcuse for their amusement on the way. Garth's mount, that a previousowner had christened "Cyclops," and who was tall enough and bony enoughto be called a horse, was, like themselves, a stranger in the bush, andhis face offered a comical study in anxiety, willingness and stupidity,under these new conditions. Natalie rode a young sorrel rejoicing in thename of Caspar. He had a dull eye, a long, sheeplike nose and a waggingunder lip; and Natalie vowed he was half-witted. He would not rideabreast; but insisted on following; and he screamed with terror,if for an instant he lost sight of the other horses.
But it was the two pack horses that offered the most diverting study ofcharacter. When they left the Settlement behind, Garth cast off theirleaders. In Emmy, a rotund little mare, they had secured a treasure.Emmy had an indifferent air toward them, worthy of a breed; but unlikea breed, she was thoroughly business-like. Where the great mudholes ofunknown depth blocked the trail, and they must strike into the bush, sherequired no guidance. They laughed and admired, to see her stop, lookingthis way and that, and deliberately pick her way through, always withdue regard to the height and breadth of the pack on her back. Emmydeclined to be hurried; she had an air that said as plainly as words, ifthey didn't like her pace, they could leave her behind, and be hanged tothem!
The remaining animal was Emmy's son, a half-broken colt, whoseonly virtue was that he would not stray very far from his mother.Mistatimoosis was his mouthful of a name. He forgot his pack sometimes,and striking it full tilt against a tree, would be knocked endwise inthe trail, blinking and dismayed, as who should say, "Who hit me?" Thething that caused them the heartiest laughter was to see Mistatimoosis'sendless attempts to steal the leadership of the caravan from his mother.It was the only thing that could tempt Emmy out of her sedate pace. Ona fair piece of road the two of them would race at top speed for half amile; and the colt was continually making sly detours into the bush toget around his mother. But she kept him in his place behind.
The riders finding they could safely leave the packhorses to follow, hadridden ahead to spy out grass and water for the noon spell. They werewalking their horses over the turf bordering the trail, when suddenlyfrom among the trees came wi
th startling distinctness the sound of avoice. They reined up, astonished. It was the gentle, ambling voice ofa loquacious old man; and his conversation there in the wilderness wasas quiet and intimate as chimney-corner talk.
"I should say half-past eleven," they heard. "When Mr. Sun sits down onyonder spruce tree we'll make a break. So work your jaws good, Mother,old girl; and you Buck, my dear, stop looking around like a fool and getbusy! Meanwhile, we'll pack up the grub-box."
Garth and Natalie smiled at each other. There was nothing very alarmingabout this.
"Will you have a pipe of baccy now, Tom Lillywhite?" the same voiceresumed. "Thanks, old man, don't mind if I do! Is there any cut? No?Well shave it close."
There was a pause here, while the speaker presumably filled his pipe.Then some one drew an audible sigh of content; and a kind of dialoguetook place--though there was but the one voice full of quaint lifts andfalls. Garth and Natalie, smiling broadly, listened without shame.
"Ah! a fine day, a bellyful of bacon, and a pipeful of tobacco!--wouldyou change with a moneyed man, Tom Lillywhite?"
"Well I don't know, sir! Mebbe he don't enjoy his grub as much as us,havin' gen'ally the dyspepsy; but how about the winter, old sport, whenwe don't fetch up no stoppin'-house; and has to make a bed in the snow,hey? It's then a flannel bed-gown looks good to old bones; let alonewoolly slippers and a feather bed! Seems I wouldn't kick agin thejob of takin' care o' money in the winter time!"
"Ah! g'long with you, Tom Lillywhite! You'd a been dead long ago if youhad money! Swole up and bust with good eatin', y'old epicoor! You'd behavin' a pig killed fresh every week if you had money!"
"Say, b'lieve I would cut some dash if I had money! I'd build me a houseof lumber clear through, and I'd paint it all over, paint it blue! AndI'd have sawdust on the settin'-room floor and a brass spittoon in everycorner! 'Have a chair,' I'd say to stoppers, not lettin' on I was puffedup at all. 'Have a ten-cent seegar. Don't mention it! Don't mention it!I get a case full in every Fall!'"
Here there was a jolly chuckle.
Their packhorses joining them noisily, the dialogue was cut short.
"Some one comin'," said the voice.
Rounding the clump of bushes, Garth and Natalie found themselves in agrassy opening in the bush. An untraced wagon stood in the centre; andtwo horses browsed. Immediately under the bushes, an old man sat on theground. They instinctively looked around for the other persons broughtinto his conversation; but, save for the horses, he was alone.
At the sight of them his face lighted up with the pleased naivete ofa child. "How do! How do!" he said immediately, without getting up orraising his voice at all. "My horses are quiet. They won't tech yours.The spring is down there at the foot of the spruce. Just blow up my firea little and it will do for you." He seemed to take them entirely forgranted; and he spoke as if resuming a dropped conversation.
There was something very troll-like in the old figure, squatting on theground; in his bright, glancing eyes, in his incessant, matter-of-factloquacity, and the slight, peculiar gesticulation, with which heillustrated his talk. He was all of a colour; high moccasins, breeches,shirt and cap were weathered to the same grayish-brown shade--and thatmuch the colour of his skin. Against a background of withered grass,only his white hair would have been visible. He was like somegood-tempered, little familiar of the forest.
He stared hard at Natalie in his bright-eyed, impersonal way; and assoon as Garth, having made his horses comfortable, came to build up thefire, he started in with his questions.
"Where you going?"
"Spirit River Crossing," said Garth.
"Thinking of settling?"
Garth shook his head.
"No, you don't look like settlers. Company business, maybe?"
"No," said Garth.
"Police? Gov'ment survey?"
"Private business," said Garth--his usual answer to the question direct.
Baffled inquisitiveness, vice of the kindest natures, made the old man'sface ugly; and for a moment he looked like a wicked troll. For a littlewhile he preserved an offended silence; but then, probably recollectingthat he would hear the whole story at the Settlement, or simply becausehe could not keep still any longer, his face cleared, and he resumed hisengaging, inconsequential babble.
"See that horse over there, the buckskin? Best horse I ever had! Truebuckskin! Mark the zebra stripes round his legs, Miss; and the blackstripe on his backbone. You can't kill a buck; he's got more livesthan a cat. I call the old one Mother; she's good-natured, she is!"
"You're a freighter, I see," remarked Garth as a leader.
"Sure thing, stranger! Tom Lillywhite and his team is known to everysettler in the country! Been here thirty-five year; and always on themove! Never sleep in the same place two nights going! That wagon there,and the grub-box is my home. It's a variegated life!"
Garth bethought himself the old man would likely prove a valuable sourceof information. "You must know everybody in the country!" he said,feeling his way.
"None better!" said Tom Lillywhite, bridling with pride.
"Are there many white men at the Crossing?" asked Garth.
"Quite a crowd," said the old man; "eight or nine at the least. There'sthe two traders, and Mert Haywood the farmer, and old Turner the J. P.,and the priest, and the English missionary, and the school-master;that's seven. Then there's old man Mackensie but you wouldn't hardlycall him a white man--smoked too deep, and squaw-ridden."
"Is that all?" said Garth, disappointed of his quest.
"Well, there's a sort of another. He doesn't regularly belong to theCrossing but he comes into the store for his goods once or twict a year.I forgot him--most everybody's forgot him now. It's Bert Mabyn."
Garth and Natalie pricked up their ears; and their hearts began to beat.
"I got good cause to know Bert Mabyn, too," continued old Tom innocently;while the other two listened still as mice, and apprehensive ofdisclosures to be made. "But that's all past. I don't bear him no ill-willnow. He's a cur'us chap, a little teched I guess; but as pleasant a spokenand amoosin' a feller as another feller could want to have with him on theroad! Want to hear about him?"
Garth looked at Natalie dubiously.
"Yes," she said boldly.
"Well, it was three years ago," began Tom Lillywhite, with the zest ofthe true story-teller. "The Gov'ment sent four surveyin' parties in; andI had more'n I could do freightin' from the Settlement to the differentcamps. It was rough haulin', you understand, over the lines they cutthrough the bush, straight as a string over muskeg and coulee. Youcouldn't load over twenty hundredweight, and sometimes you had to dumphalf of that, and go back for it. But right good pay, Gov'ment pay is.
"I needed another team bad, and I see a good chance to get one on creditfrom Dick Staley, with the wagon and all; but I couldn't get no whitemen to drive it for me. A breed, you understand, soon kills your horseson you!
"Well, it might be I was settin' outside the French outfit, talkin' itover," he went on tranquilly, little suspecting with what meaning hisstory was charged for the two strangers; "when along comes a feller andasts for me. Say, he was a sight! He was wearin' black clothes, thoughit were a workin'-day; and all muddied and tore, showin' the skin under;and his coat was pinned acrost the neck, with a safety-pin 'cause hehadn't no shirt. He had a Sunday hat on too--all busted. At the besthe weren't no beauty; his teeth was out."
Natalie shuddered.
Garth, suffering for her, could not bear to meet her eyes. "Perhapsyou'd rather hear another story," he suggested.
She braced herself. "No! Go on!" she said.
"Soon as I see him, I knew who he was," continued old Tom; "for I hearthe fellers talk about a white man that took passage up from the Landingon Phillippe's boat. He let them pull him all the way; and when they gotto Grier's point, he hadn't no money. They took it out of his skin; andsay, when a white man is beat by a breed it's good-day to him up here!In a hundred years he couldn't live it down.
; "'Do you want to hire a man?' says he mumbling-like; he was too far downto meet your eye.
"'Hum!' says I thoughtful, 'I want a _man_,' I says.
"You should have heard the fellers laugh at that! They still talk aboutit! 'Tom Lillywhite, he wants a man', they say. It's quite a word in thecountry. 'Tom Lillywhite wants a _man_!'"
The old freighter went off into an interminable chuckling over theantique jest.
It was inexpressibly painful to Natalie to have Garth there, a witnessto her humiliation; but she would not stop the story-teller, nor letGarth stop him.
"However, thinks I, you can sometimes make a man out of unpromisin'mater'al," he resumed. "And in the end I took him for his grub. That wasBert Mabyn. For three months I didn't regret it; he was used to horses,and was first-rate company on the trail. I didn't give him no money--saidhe didn't want none--but I fed him up good, and he soon got fat and sassy.I give him other things too. I couldn't stand for the poor wretch ashiverin' by my fire in his buttoned-up coat, so I give him blankets;and afterward an outfit of clothes.
"What do you think was the first thing he ever ast me for?--a razorand a glass! And every day after that he used to shave hisself--everyday mind you, if we was in the thickest part of the bush! And forevertrimmin' of his nails, and polishin' 'em to make 'em shine! Wasn'tthat remarkable?
"He was a great talker. Nights around the fire he used to tell me allabout himself. Seems he comes of real high-toned folks outside; but wentto the bad young. Said he come West three years before that again, fullof good resolutions, which lasted just so long as his money. Since thenhe'd been a grub-rider 'round the ranches, and dish-washer in hotels,and, 'scusin' your presence, Miss, worse than that--but he hadn't noshame about it!
"I liked the feller. He wasn't no good, but he had that persuasive waywith him! And he knew so much more than me! You'd think a man 'ud feelshame to tell such stories on himself; but no! he'd make out as youought to like him for bein' such a good-for-nothing waster; and by Gum!in the end you did! Never see such a feller!
"Well, all summer we travelled, me and him; him always behind me on thetrail; and I hadn't any fault to find. But come September I had a rushlot up to Whitefish Lake; and at the same time there was some stuffwanted in a hurry in Pentland's camp over on the Great Smoky. So for thefirst time we divided. I sent him to Pentland's over this very trail!
"I got back long before he did. After a while word come from Pentland,where in thunder were the goods? It was after the first snow beforeMabyn come back. He was a wreck and the horses were just alive, and nomore. He told a story how his wagon capsized in the river, and he losteverything; but the whiskey gave the lie to that. By and by we foundhe'd buried a keg of it, outside the Settlement. In the Spring when itwas too late to do anything, it all come out through a breed. Seems awayup by Fort St. Pierre, he met one of them crooked traders, thatsometimes sneaks acrost the mountains; and he sold him the stuff for akeg of rot-gut. When I hear that I was thankful he brought back thehorses at all. The business near busted me; for I had to make good threehundred worth of groceries to Pentland; and sacrificed the second team,'count of the shape they were in. That was what Bert Mabyn cost _me_!"
"Didn't you have him arrested?" asked Garth indignantly.
Tom shrugged. "What were the use of that? The inspector was after me toprosecute; but it was too late to get my money back, and put flesh onthe horses--besides, I was too busy. Of course, it weren't just the sameas robbin' me in cold blood," he added in the tone of one who must befair; "for it were the whiskey, you see."
Natalie kept her face averted from the old man. "And what has become ofthis man since?" she asked, steadily controlling her voice.
"Oh, he hung around the Settlement, sponging on one and another till hewere kicked out; then he come down to the breeds. It was a great honourfor them to have a white man of any kind runnin' after them, you see, sothey put up with him. Then he drifted West, up Ostachegan way; andlately, I understand, he's taken up a deserted shack he found onClearwater Lake, away up on the bench there, northwest of the Spirit.There they tell me he lives all alone; but no one's seen him in a dog'sage."
* * * * *
Garth and Natalie avoided everything beyond the merest commonplaces toeach other until they were alone; and even after Tom Lillywhite, biddingthem farewell, had driven off, chirping to his horses, it was a longtime before either had the courage to make a move toward overcoming theghastly constraint his story had caused between them.
"Haven't we heard enough?" said Garth quietly at last. "Need you go anyfurther?"
Natalie in the interim had had time to pass her emotional crisis. Shewas very pale, and her eyes were big; but she was now calmer than he. "Ihave heard enough, surely," she said; "but after coming all this way itwould seem cowardly, wouldn't it, to be satisfied with hearsayevidence?--and there is still my promise to his mother."
Her tone impressed Garth with the utter hopelessness of trying todissuade her. "But how can I let you expose yourself to--to what we mayfind!" he groaned.
"I am not a child," said Natalie quietly. "And I shall not quail at themere sight of ugliness." She turned away from him. "Besides," she addedin a lower tone, "you know the worst now; and that was the hardest thingto bear--your hearing it I mean. No," she went on, facing him again,wistfully and valorously; "it promises to be _very_ ugly, but then Iundertook it, you see. I am going on."
They could not bear to meet each other's eyes; and miserably turningtheir backs, affected to busy themselves with small tasks. Natalie,quivering with the shame of the lash all unwittingly applied by old Tom,longed with an inexpressible longing to have Garth with a hint or a lookassure her that he loved her, and so, thrusting the wretch Mabyn out oftheir charmed circle, reinstate her in her self-respect. But poor Garthin his clumsy, masculine delicacy thought that to obtrude himself atsuch a moment would only hurt her more. He kept silent, and he avertedhis eyes, and Natalie, misunderstanding, tasted the very dregs ofshame.