X.--CUPIDITY VS. LOYALTY
And all this time the chief constable of St. Marys was speculating inproperty with steadily increasing success. So crafty was he that fewpeople in the town knew it. When the fourth year of Clark's regime wascompleted, Manson had made profits that astonished him. His purchasescovered both farm and town lands, and amongst the latter was a mortgageon the vine clad cottage of Fisette. But not a man in his circle wouldhave guessed that what prompted the acquisition of the Fisette mortgagewas Manson's remembrance of a friendly joke about a Unitarian wolf; ajoke which still lived and set up a minute but unceasing irritation.Now, at any time, Manson might be in a position to teach the bishop alesson.
It fell on a day that he was at the head of the old portage leadinground the rapids. Here he had recently acquired an option on aconsiderable acreage, calculating that before long a new town wouldspring up in the shadow of the works, and, just as he pushed throughthe underbrush and came out on the gravel beach, he caught the flash ofa paddle a mile away. He was hot and breathless and, lighting his bigpipe, sat in the shade, his ruminative eye on the fast approachingcanoe. Twenty minutes later it touched the shore, and Fisette, leaningforward on the thwarts, surveyed him with black and lustrous eyes.
Manson nodded. He did not speak at once. It was palpable that Fisettehad been prospecting, and always in the north country the returningprospector brings with him a peculiar fascination. He is the herald ofthe hitherto unknown. It was also understood that Fisette was workingfor Clark.
The half breed brought the side of his canoe delicately against thesand and, stepping lightly out, began to unload, greeting Manson with alow-voiced "Good morning." Ax, paddles, dunnage bag, shed tent, thesehe laid neatly and, last of all, a small sack of samples, the weight ofwhich, however he disguised it, swelled the veins in his temples. Hewas stooping to swing this on his shoulders when Manson spoke.
"Sit down a minute and have a smoke."
Fisette did not want to sit down. There was that in the sack and inhis brain which he greatly desired to evacuate in the proper place andat the earliest possible moment. But a little reflection demonstratedthat undue haste would be suspicious. Inwardly disturbed at the sightand manner of Manson, he laid the sack gently down. There came theslightest creak of metallic fragments.
"Had a good trip?" hazarded the big man carelessly.
"Pretty fair."
"Pretty rough country up there?" Manson waved his arm northwest.
Fisette grunted. "About the same over there."
He glanced into the northeast.
"Been rooting about for over a year now, haven't you?"
The halfbreed grinned. "Since I was so high." He indicated a statureof two feet.
"Come far this time?"
There was a little pause while Fisette sheared thin shavings of tobaccofrom a dog-eared plug. He rolled them into a ball between his tawnypalms, thoughtfully unpicked the ball, re-rolled it more loosely,abstracted a match from the inside band of his tattered hat and beganto suck wetly at a gurgling pipe. "What's that?" he said presently.
"I asked you did you come far?"
"Guess not so far as it seemed. Pretty bad bush."
Manson hesitated, then, in a flash, saw through the breed's assumptionof indifference. Clark had been looking for iron for more than a year.All St. Marys knew that. Now, glancing covertly at the angularprojectings of the bulging sack, the constable jumped to hisconclusion. Fisette had found it and was on his way to report andprove the discovery.
"I often wonder," he remarked casually, "what keeps you fellows going.I never met a prospector yet who gave in that he was licked, and mightyfew of them found anything. They always claim they would have had itif they could have stayed out a bit longer. Take iron, for instance.Fellows have gone out after iron for years right from here and they allthought they had it, but they didn't. There was Joe Lalonde and PeteNanoosh and the rest of them. Same story over again. There's no ironhere anyway. The country rock is wrong--a mining engineer told methat."
Fisette did not move nor did his expression change. His insides seemedon fire. He would have given much to be on his way to Clark's office,but something in his Indian blood whispered warningly. Moments passed.Presently he got up a little stiffly.
"I guess I'll go now."
Manson yawned. "All right, I'm going that way myself."
Sudden irresolution appeared on the brown face. "Oh, well, I guessthere's no hurry." He sat down and took out his last match.
The big man chuckled. "Look here, Fisette, I suppose you know I'vebeen buying property around town?"
"So?"
"Yes, and the other day I bought a thousand-dollar mortgage. It's theone on your land. I guess you remember it?"
A sense of uncertainty fell over the half-breed. He knew that he oweda thousand dollars and had owed it for years. Every six months he paidthirty dollars to a lawyer and forgot all about it for the next six.To his mind the document with the seals, beside one of which he hadtraced a painful signature, was a forbidding thing, typical of theauthority of pale faces over brown. Then, quite suddenly, heremembered that next year he would have to pay off the whole thousand,and, moreover, pay it to Manson.
"Is that so? I guess you're quite a rich man?"
Manson smiled grimly. "No, not a rich man, but--" he paused, felt verydeliberately in his coat and, taking out a fat pocketbook, slowlyextracted a bill. It was for one hundred dollars. "I'll bet you thisthat there is no iron within seventy-five miles of St. Marys." Hesmoothed the bill on his broad knee.
The half breed gulped. Only once before had he seen so much money inone note, and that was after he had signed the mortgage. Clark gavehim fifty dollars a month and his grub, and had promised more if hesucceeded. He had found iron ore. It was good enough to win the bet,but was it good enough for Clark? and if it was not good enough forClark the mortgage would have to be met out of nothing.
"Well?" came Manson's deep voice.
Fine beads of sweat appeared on the dusky forehead. A sinewy handcrept toward the sack, but just as he touched it there arose within himsomething very old and vibrant and compelling. Slowly he yielded toit. He saw Clark's gray eyes and heard his magnetic voice. Hedistinguished his own voice given in promise, Clark had alwaysencouraged him, no matter how often he returned empty handed, and now,looking broodingly at Manson, the half breed perceived the type thatfor centuries had defrauded his ancestors with poor bargains andglittering worthlessness. All that was good in Fisette, all the savagehonor of that vanishing race whose blood flowed in his veins, all theunquestioning fidelity of his half naked forebears, rose in violentprotest. He might be sold out, but not by any means would he sell out.
"Go to hell," he Said thickly.
Manson laughed awkwardly, slid the bill back into the fat pocketbook,and heaved up his great bulk.
"Come on, I haven't got a hundred dollars to throw away. I suppose youthought I was in earnest."
Fisette shook his head. Just at that moment he was harboring nosuppositions, but had determined to go home without stopping at theworks. He swung the sack over his shoulder.
"Go ahead."
Manson drew a long breath and stepped into the narrow trail. Behindhim came the half breed, the neck of the sack drawn tight and its sharpcontents drilling into his back. He was carrying two hundred pounds offreshly broken ore. He said nothing, but kept his black eyes fixed onthe figure just in front of him. A little further on he stumbled overa root, recovered himself with a violent effort, and at that momentheard with dismay a ripping sound close behind his ear. In the nextinstant the load spilled on the soft earth.
Manson, twenty feet away, turned at the sound and stood staring until,his face lighting with a triumphant smile, he stepped back. He hadrecognized ore, and it looked like iron ore. Forgetting about Fisette,he moved nearer, his large dark eyes shining with excitement, and justthen came a blinding slap. Fisette had swung the empty sa
ck hardagainst his face.
"You don't come here. Stand still." The half-breed was crouchingbeside the ore like a bear on its hind legs.
"Won't I?" The constable smarted with pain and charged with suddenpassion. He came on, leaning a little forward, his great knotted handstwitching, his shoulders curved in a slow segment of power. When hewas within six feet, Fisette screamed like a cat and darted at histhroat.
They fought silently with bare hands. Manson, heavier than the breedby fifty pounds, was reputed one of the strongest men in the district,but he was matched with an adversary who had drawn into himself theendurance of the wilderness and the quick resiliency of the youngspruce tree. Were it only a contest of sheer force, Manson had wonoutright. Now, as his veins swelled and his arms stiffened aroundFisette's pliant body, the latter seemed to convert itself into a massof steel springs that somehow evaded compression. With feet sinking inthe soft soil, crashing through the under-growth with no words but onlythe heart breaking gasp of supreme effort, they fought on. Once Mansonthought he had conquered as his hands, closing behind the breed's back,locked in a deadly grip, with great muscles contracted, but just as itseemed the breed's ribs must crack there came an eel-like wriggle. Theconstable's arms were empty and again he felt the lean brown fingers athis bull-like neck. Once more he strove for that crushing clasp and,as Fisette darted in, opened his arms wide, took the punishment of asavage blow in the face, and closing his embrace, enwrapped his enemyin a suffocating hug. It was to the death, for a brown thumb wasdigging into his thorax and he felt sick and giddy.
Seconds passed. The violent expansion of Fisette's chest workedpalpitating beneath the great arms, and, just ere endurance reached itslimit and the trees began to swim before Manson's eyes, his littlefinger touched the haft of the sheath knife that hung at Fisette'sback. The touch ran through Fisette's laboring frame like fire, for hehad reached the point where the world seemed dipped in blood. SlowlyManson pushed down his hand, never relaxing his titanic embrace. Butthe instant his fingers closed on the knife the half breed's backcurved like a mighty bow, the thick fingers creaked, cracked andyielded, the deadly grip was burst asunder, and Manson, sick andstaggering, saw Fisette free and crouching in front of him, the knifein his hand and murder in his eyes. A moment later he looked up.Fisette was sitting on his chest, and running his thumb along the razoredge of the blade. There was a little blood at the corner of his mouthand his cheek was scratched. Otherwise he was undisturbed.
"Well?" he grunted presently, staring through half-closed lids.
Manson was pumping air into a laboring breast.
"I'm licked," he panted after a while.
"Say that again." The breed's eyes opened wider.
Manson said it while his soul revolted within him, but he would getFisette later on. Then there gleamed in the breed's dark eyes aflicker of Indian fury, and Manson breathed an inarticulate prayer asthe knife approached his throat, until as though from a great distancehe heard a voice.
"You not going to tell any one I find iron. You swear that or I killyou here."
The constable's brain began to rock giddily. Fisette in his presentcondition would not hesitate to kill. He knew that. "I swear it," hepanted unsteadily, "on my honor."
Fisette bared his white teeth. "Your honor no good. You swear by Godand the Mother of God."
Manson repeated it, his breath coming more steadily. He had been neardeath, but as he stared at his conqueror he felt a contemptuous pityfor him. Fisette had moved away and was fumbling in his pockets.Presently he looked up. "You got a match?"
Manson searched, while his relaxing muscles trembled like quicksilver.He found a match and held it out.
"Now go to hell!" said the half-breed calmly, and recommenced theritual of smoke.