CHAPTER XXI
BLACK FERGUSON'S WILE
Brochet arranged it. The chief trader could not trust himself to lookupon Desiree's departure with the York Factory packet. The Brondelpeople cheered its going, but Dunvegan was not at the landing to see. Hehad shut himself up in the office.
That day he brooded dismally. That night he woke from troubled sleep,thinking he saw a nightmare. But the anxious features of the priest athis bedside were real. Real also the face of Basil Dreaulond! He had abandage on his head, stained with dried blood!
Dunvegan sat up with a jerk.
"What's wrong, Basil?" he shouted. "My God, men, speak!"
"Wan party Nor'westaires waylay de canoe express," stammered Basil. "Deymust been spyin' round de post! Got de packet an' de girl. An' takin'her to Ferguson at La Roche! Dey keel ma voyageurs, _mais_ I escape, me,in de woods."
The chief trader threw on his clothes and rushed for the door.
Brochet blocked him. "What now?" the priest demanded.
"Follow and----"
"No good dat," interrupted Dreaulond. "Dey got wan whole day start. Nogood!"
"We have men," cried Dunvegan wildly. "We must storm La Roche."
"Be wise!" Brochet urged, half angrily. "Twice your force couldn't stormLa Roche--and you know it!"
"We must try. Great God, do you think I'll leave her in that brute'spower? Every Brondel man marches at once!"
"No," thundered the priest. "You won't dare! You have the Factor'sorder. Don't dare wreck his plan through selfish desire. In another dayhe will be here. But move these men now to waste them in futileassaults and you halve his strength--you lose the Company's campaign!"
Dunvegan groaned. Well he knew that. Yet inactivity galled and tortured.
"Dey got dose prisonaires _aussi_," Basil put in.
"Are you crazed with your wound?" Dunvegan's eyes flashed.
"No. But I be see dem. Dis Glyndon an' Gaspard!"
"They were guarded," began the chief trader vehemently; "are guardednow--" but he broke off to see and to make sure.
Underground they looked into a cellar-dungeon, empty of captives. Stiffin death but without any marks of violence the Indian guards lay on thefloor. Dreaulond sniffed their lips.
"Dat _diable_ Gaspard geeve dem de dog-berry poison," he announced."Mus' be dropped in dere rum at de feast las' night."
It had been the duty of the guards to apportion the prisoners their foodas well as to watch them. Thus their absence had not been markedthrough the day. It was evident that their escape had been effected sometime after the supper and dance had ended when the Indians had succumbedto the fatal drink.
Dunvegan turned to his friends, the light of unshakeable determinationon his face.
"My men are the Company's!" he exclaimed. "My life is my own! I'm goingto La Roche. There may be a way. Somewhere there must be a means. EitherI'll carry Desiree Lazard over the stockades or the Nor'westers' gunswill riddle me."
They did not doubt him. They knew a million protests would not avail.
"An' me," cried Basil, thrilled by his courage. "I go for de _pacquet_.De Company's trippers dey ain' nevaire lost wan yet. I ain' goin' be defirst, me!"
"You lovable fools," reprimanded Brochet, tears in his eyes. "You havethe stuff in you that makes the northmen great. But don't go alone onthis mad mission! Let me go with you. For mark this, Bruce, where yourstrength or Dreaulond's cunning cannot prevail, my cloth may rendersome aid."
Thus across the chain of lakes and rivers three men went against LaRoche.
Paddling Indian fashion with both elbows held rigid and shouldersthrusting strongly forward at the end of each stroke, the travelersthreaded for miles the island channels of the Blazing Pine. BasilDreaulond had the bow, Dunvegan the stern. Father Brochet sat amidships.They took advantage of the current and made rapid progress, their bladeschurning the water in long half-circular swirls. Skilled canoeists theyaccepted the aid of every shore-eddy, every rushing chute, everynavigable cascade.
Down the Rapid Du Loup, a dangerous rock-split through which the riverleaped rather than ran, their craft was snubbed with extreme care. Thethree shared the toil of portaging over to Lac Du Longe where a bafflinghead-wind blew.
"Ba gosh, I no lak dat, me," protested Basil, pointing to the great,white-crested combers which cannonaded the beach. "An' look at dosestorm-clouds! _Saprie!_ she goin' thundaire an' lightnin'!"
But the chief trader would hear of no delay. Into the brunt of thetempest the bow was forced. Shooting the sheer wave-slopes, poisingdizzily on crests where momentum raised them, rocking sickeningly in thetrough of the swinging seas, the men rode in the teeth of the gale. Halfway across Du Longe the thunder and lightning Dreaulond had prophesiedburst with raucous bellowing, with vivid flame. The wind increased. Thelake became a boiling cauldron.
Basil called upon his last ounce of reserve strength to meet theemergency. Brochet muttered as if in prayer while the leaden-backedsurges lipped across the gunwales and the spume slashed across the bow.But grim as the storm-wraiths themselves Dunvegan held to his course,wet drops glistening on his cheeks, wind furies reflected from his eyes.By sunset they made the other shore, their craft ready to sink underwater which could not be bailed out fast enough.
Tired to the bone, their sleeping camp was as the camp of the dead thatnight. An owl hooted on the tent boughs. A big moose splashed in theshallows. A gray timber wolf growled over its kill on the shore. Butnothing quickened their dulled ears till dawn, red-eyed from hisyesterday revelry, stared through the spruce tops.
Then like the revolving of a treadmill came hours of monotonousstraight-water paddling, intervals of tracking and snubbing, occasionalpoling through cross-currents, swift, transient moments of hazardousrapid-running, and the hateful, staggering grind of slippery portages.
Across the Nisgowan; across the Wakibogan; across the Koo-wai-chew!Through Wenokona, through Burnt Lake, through Lake of Stars! At LittleHayes Rapid, a half-day's paddle from Fort La Roche, came their firstmishap. To Basil Dreaulond as bowsman the passage which he had often runseemed unfamiliar.
"I'm not be know dis, me," he cried as the canoe swung for a second inthe head-swirls before taking the meteor-like plunge downwards.
"You're joking," called the chief trader. His paddle urged. The craftshot forward.
"_Non_, ba gosh! Dat rock she be split wit' de frost an' de ice----" andhis voice went up in an alarmed yell.
"_Diable!_" he roared. "Undaire de nose!"
A desperate thrust of his blade, a tremendous straining did not avail toclear them. The canoe bow struck a fang of submerged rock with ahorrible, ripping sound. On the instant they capsized.
His lungs full of water and twin mill-races booming in his ears, FatherBrochet hung limply under Bruce Dunvegan's arm as the latter struggledup the bouldered side of the shallow channel. It was the most realisticdrowning sensation that he ever wished to experience. After them crawledthe bedraggled courier, hauling the gashed canoe beyond the hammeringeddies. Blood flowed over his temple. The battering he had received hadre-opened the wound in his head.
A sound whacking between the shoulders relieved the priest. Basil's hurtwas promptly staunched with balsam gum.
"_Mon Dieu_, dat be ver' close t'ing," he commented, shrugging hisshoulders.
"Aye," agreed the chief trader, regretfully eyeing the torn canoe bow."We might guard our lives a little better. There is someone in Fort LaRoche who needs them."
"_Oui_," returned Dreaulond, with deep significance, "an' eef I knowanyt'ing, mebbe she be get dem _aussi_."
"Maybe," assented the chief trader, unmoved.
The priest uttered a thankful sigh. "We are in the hands of God," hedeclared. "White-water or Nor'westers, it is all the same!"
Bruce made a fatalistic gesture.
"I believe you, Father; I believe you," he returned. "Nevertheless wemust always aid ourselves. Let us portage to the other end of the rapidand try to mend our canoe."
But first he fished their sunken outfit from the clear water of thechannel. Brochet went down and found the paddles where they had beencast upon the sand below Little Hayes Rapid. Dreaulond pushed over adead birch, heaping its dried husk and powdery center for a quick fire.
Then they stripped off their soaked garments and spread them upon therocks under the perpendicular sun of high noon. There the steamingclothes dried more quickly than would have been possible before theflames. It was time to eat. The hot meal of fried fish newly caught,bannocks baked from the already wetted flour, and tea proved welcome. Apipe or two formed the dessert.
After the meal the men set about the task of mending the canoe. A longrent grinned in the right side of the bow, a bad gash that would requirepatience in the gumming. Basil measured it tentatively and went off intothe forest to cut a strip of bark large enough to cover the openinggenerously. Dunvegan melted the pitch over the fire, getting it ready tocement the patch.
Basil returned. Skilfully the two accomplished the delicate work. Thepatch was gummed tight. Over all they spread an extra coat of pitch forsurety. Then the canoe was set aside in the shade for a space that thegum might cool and harden sufficiently against the water's friction.
The bark Dreaulond cut had fitted neatly, the gum stuck well. The finishof the thing pleased Basil. He gave vent to his satisfaction in acontented grunt as he lay back with lighted pipe among the greeningshrubs and ferns.
"_Bien!_" he exclaimed. "She be carry us lak wan new _batteau_. Lak_batteaux sur_ de old Saguenay--dat's long way from here, ba gosh! I seeheem some nights in ma dreams, me. An' dat's w'en de trails be ver' hardan' I'm ver' tired. Onlee las' night, _mes amis_, I see dat _cher_ oldSaguenay an' Lac Saint Jean."
"Was St. John anything like Du Longe?" asked Dunvegan whimsically.
Basil shivered at the comparison. "_Non_," he protested. "Du Longe wan_diable_. Saint Jean wan angel. _Par Dieu_, I be tell you, _mescamarades_, dose _lacs_ an' _rivieres_ on ma home ain' lak dese in disbeeg _Nord_. _Non, M'sieu'_ Brochet! Back dere I be go out for someleetl' pleasure; nevaire be t'ink of dangaire--she so peaceful an'sweet. _Mais_ oop here I always t'ink dis _Nord_ lak wan sharp enemywatchin' for take you off de guard, for catch you in some feex. Onlee destrong mans leeve in dis countree--you see dat. An' w'en I journey ondese _lacs_ an' _rivieres_ an' dese beeg woods, I kip de open eye, detight hand."
"Feeling that if you ever relax your vigilance, the North will hurl youdown," suggested Father Brochet.
"_Oui_, dat's way I feel. _Mais_ not dat way on ma home in de old days!Las' night I be dream I dreeft lak I used to dreeft from Lac Saint Jeandown de Saguenay. From Isle D'Alma to de Shipshaw--_oui_, an' all theway to Chicoutimi! All in ma new _batteau_!"
"And was there anyone in the bow?" ventured Dunvegan softly. He wasstrangely moved, recalling an ancient confidence of Dreaulond's.
"_Oui_," murmured Basil tenderly, "de _petite_ Therese, _ma fille_!"
"Man, man," cried Brochet earnestly, "haven't you forgotten yet? It isyears since you told us of that sorrow."
"_Non_, not w'ile I leeve," Dreaulond replied, a suspicious moisturegathering on his lashes. "She be wit' me las' night, de leetl' Therese,black-eyed, wit' de angel smile--Therese from the quiet, green graveyardon de hill of St. Gedeon."
Silently they marveled at him, this man of iron strength, but ofexquisite feeling, with poetic heart and temperament, who on the edge ofdanger could float with the dream-conjured vision of his dead child downbetween the water-cooled, moss-wrapped rocks of the Saguenay.
But Basil's attitude changed swiftly as he sensed one of those northernmenaces which he had mentioned minutes before. He rolled on his side andstared downstream.
"Who's dis?" His tone, low and harsh, seemed that of another person.
Bruce Dunvegan raised himself on one elbow, his face frowning in a cloudof smoke.
"A Nor'wester--curse it!" he muttered savagely. "Coming from La Roche!He cannot miss us here. For see he's on the portage. Keep a still tonguetill I speak and follow my lead. There is a chance that he may mistakeus."
The chief trader lay back again with an assumption of carelessindifference. The other two imitated it.
Meanwhile the Nor'wester was crossing the portage with a speed and easewhich showed that he was not overburdened by traveling gear. The linesof the canoe on his head bespoke a fast, light craft. His dunnage wasscant.
Ascending from the shore level to the hog-back of rock which ran alongparallel with Little Hayes Rapid till it dipped down to clear water atthe other end, the Nor'wester glimpsed beneath the broad band of thetump-line on his forehead the three strangers lolling beside their fire.Immediately he dropped his load, paused, and glared uncertainly.Dunvegan gave him a cheery call which reassured him.
"Knife me, but at first I was afraid you might be of the Hudson's Baypeople," he laughed, coming on and depositing his canoe and luggage withtheir own. "Yet that was a foolish idea, for one does not see Companymen so close to Fort La Roche. But your faces are strange to me!" Hepaused and puzzled them over. "To which of our parties do you belong?You're from the Labrador, I'll wager!"
Dunvegan took safer ground. "No," he answered. "We've come over from thePontiac with a priest for your district. From complaints at headquartersat Montreal it seems there has been a dearth of priests since FatherBeauseul died. So the Jesuits have sent you Father Marcin from theKeepawa Post."
Bruce nodded to Brochet by way of introduction, a narrowing of the eyewarning the priest to act the part. And the pseudo Father Marcin sat upand greeted the fellow gravely. It was lucky that Dunvegan had someknowledge of Nor'west affairs.
But the sight of Brochet's cloth on the Nor'wester was startling. Hestared a second, emitting a great pleased laugh.
"By all the gods, a priest!" he shouted. "What good fortune! As you say,there is a dearth of priests." Again he laughed that great, pleasedlaugh they could not understand. "A dearth of priests!"
He thrust out a hand. "I will never be any gladder to see you, FatherMarcin, than I am now. You have saved me a long paddle to WatchaimeneLake. There is one of your cloth there. I was going for him."
Brochet looked up sharply. "Who is dying?" he questioned.
"No one. It's Ferguson, our leader. He can't get a priest to marry himquick enough!"
Silence fell, a hateful, awkward, dangerous silence! Brochet looked atDunvegan. The latter's face was a mask. The pipe protruded rigidly fromone corner of his mouth. He betrayed no emotion, but the priest'sglance, falling to his bare arms, noted the quivering of the sinews.
"Why so much haste?" inquired Father Brochet, calmly assuming the taskof preserving the former indifference of the atmosphere.
The Nor'wester chuckled significantly. "It is natural," he answered."Ferguson has already waited a year in order to lay hands on his bride.For you must know she was under the guard of the Hudson's Bay till shemarried an English clerk in their service who was bribed to come over tothe Nor'west ranks and put in charge of Fort Brondel, which has sincebeen captured by the Company!"
"How came Black Ferguson to seize her, then?" the priest asked, drawingall possible information from the swart fellow.
"There was a feast in Brondel when the York Factory packet arrived.After the dance the English clerk escaped with a spy who was also aprisoner. Expecting that some of our men would be lurking about spyingon the fort, they sought and found them and gave them news. The clerk'swife, the lady Ferguson desired, was to go north with the canoe expressto York Factory. So our men waylaid it, capturing the packet and thewoman. The clerk, poor fool, thought she was being taken for himself."
"And was it not so?" cried Brochet. "They were married, you say! Doesthis lady lean toward bigamy?"
"They _were_ married, yes," admitted the Nor'wester, with a sinistermeaning. "She is now a widow."
All three men started, nearly betraying themselves. "A widow!" theyechoed.
"A widow indeed! The English clerk was shot by some of the packeteers."
"Dat wan dam lie!" shouted Basil, unwarily.
"Why? What do you know?" The Nor'wester looked askance at the voyageur'svehemence.
"I see dat in your eye," Dreaulond declared, quick to recover himself."We all be _bon amis_. Spik de truth, now!" He winked knowingly at thedark-faced man.
"Well," began the other, sheepishly, "it wasn't in the fight, that'strue. It happened afterwards. I was not with the party, but they say theEnglish clerk stumbled over his own gun."
"Where was he shot?" Dunvegan hurled the query almost ferociously.
"In the back, I heard!"
Bruce spat an oath. Brochet gave a sympathetic murmur. The couriergrowled inarticulately.
"_Mon Dieu_," he muttered under his breath, "dat's wan more count forM'sieu' Ferguson, wan more hell fire. I t'ink he be need de pries' forshrive, not for marry heem. Ba gosh, I do!"
The Nor'wester was obviously growing impatient.
"I must be going back if you are ready to move, Father Marcin," heasserted, "for Ferguson will question me as to where I found you, and ifhe thinks there has been any lagging, I shall pay the price."
Dunvegan's head moved the fraction of an inch in a nod perceptible onlyto Father Brochet. The latter quickly arose.
"I am ready to make all haste," he averred. "If I delay, I am perhapspermitting sin."
"As for you, my friends," spoke the Nor'wester, turning to the others,"there is nothing to hinder your coming also. They will give you goodcheer in La Roche. You may rest there a while and return at yourleisure."
"It would please us," replied Dunvegan, "but the Pontiac is a long wayfrom here. There is little use in adding extra miles to our labor. AndKeepawa Post cannot spare us for long. We will go back."
"Your plans are your own," the Nor'wester assented. "And I must paddleon. La Roche should see me by sunset."
They helped him launch his craft and load the duffle. Dunvegan addresseda last remark to him.
"You did not tell us," he observed carelessly, "how this lady takes yourleader's haste. The story has interested me."
"She pleaded for a little time against his eagerness," answered theNor'wester, "and she stalls him off thus. He has given her till thepriest's arrival, which time she is lucky to get! Also she is lucky tohave Father Marcin!" The man's chuckle implied much.
Dunvegan's jaw tightened. His pipe broken at his lips clattered on theflinty rocks.
"It was worn!" he exclaimed.
Brochet picked up the fallen portion. Showing no sign of wear, the amberwas fresh and thick. Proof of the volcanic feeling rioting in him,Dunvegan's strong teeth had bitten clear through the stem.
As the Nor'wester slipped his canoe into the water, Bruce whispered toBrochet.
"Do what you can," he begged. "We shall not be far behind you."
With ostentation the priest bade the two good-bye. The Nor'wester waveda paddle in farewell as his canoe shot round a bend. Two or three milesstart Basil and Dunvegan gave him before they launched their own craft.