Part 17 (1/2)
”Suppose I choose instead to make the Company pay,” Barreau drawled.
”What if I come to you with a hundred well-armed red men at my back?”
”Ah, it is of that I wished to speak with you,” the Black Factor crossed his legs and emphasized his remarks with a waggling forefinger. ”Of that very thing. I know that you are not easily turned aside, but this time-listen. To-night, here within these stockade walls, there are four redcoat men from MacLeod. They have come seeking”-he paused significantly-”you can guess whom they seek. Now, if, when you leave here, your tracks should point to the Indian camps of the west-why, then the redcoats shall be shown it. And I will send twenty men to help them.
But if you take the south trail these four will return empty-handed.”
Barreau sat a minute or two pondering this. ”You win,” he said at length. ”I am not the man to beat my fists on a stone. Give us flour and tea-and your word as a gentleman that the Police shall not be put on our track-and we quit the Sicannie.”
”You shall have the tea and the flour,” Le Noir agreed. ”There are the shelves. Take what you want. I give my word for the Police. I would beg of you to stay to-night, but these government men have sharp ears and eyes. Should they get a hint-I cannot put a blanket over the mouths of my men--” he spread his hands as if to indicate that anything might happen.
Throughout our brief stay Barreau's thinly veiled vigilance did not once relax. The supplies he selected I carried to the door while he stood back watching me with his rifle slung in the hollow of his arm. If this wary att.i.tude irked Le Noir he pa.s.sed it by. To me it seemed that Barreau momentarily expected some overt act.
Eventually we had the food, a hundred pounds of flour, a square tin of tea, a little coffee, some salt and pepper and half a dozen extra pairs of moccasins lashed on the toboggan. Then he stirred up the surly dogs and we went crunching over the harsh snow to the stockade wall attended by Donald and his lantern, and the Factor himself swathed to the heels in a great coat of beaver.
At the drawing of the bar and the inward swing of the great gate, Barreau put a final question to Le Noir. ”Tell me, if it is not betraying a confidence,” he said ironically, ”how much Montell's flitting cost the Company?”
”It is no secret,” the Factor replied. ”Sixty thousand dollars in good Bank of Montreal notes. A fair price.”
”A fair price indeed,” Barreau laughed ”Good-night, M'sieu the Black.”
The gate creaked to its close behind us as the dogs humped against the collars. A hundred yards, and the glimmering night enfolded us; the stockade became a vague blur in the hazy white.
Barreau swung sharp to the west. This course he held for ten minutes or more. Then down to the river, across it and up to the south flat. Here he turned again and curtly bidding me drive the dogs, tramped on ahead peering down at the unbroken snow as he went. We plodded thus till we were once more abreast of the stockade. For a moment I lost sight of Barreau; then he called to me and I came up with him standing with his back to the cutting wind that still thrust from out the east like a red-hot spear.
He took the dog-whip from me without a word, swinging the leaders southward. In the uncertain light I could see no mark in the snow. But under my webbed shoes there was an uneven feeling, as if it were trampled. We bore straight across the flat and angled up a long hill, and on the crest of it plunged into the gloomy aisles of the forest.
Once among the spruce, Barreau halted the near-winded dogs for a breathing spell.
”We will go a few miles and make camp for the night,” he said. ”This is Montell's trail.”
”The more miles the better,” I rejoined. ”I'm tired, but I have no wish to hobn.o.b with the Policemen.”
”Faugh!” he burst out. ”There are no Policemen. That was as much a bluff as my hundred well-armed Indians. Le Noir is a poser. Do you think I'd ever have gotten outside that stockade if there had been a redcoat at his call? Oh, no! That would have been the very chance for him-one that he would have been slow to overlook. I know him. He's well named the Black Factor. His heart is as black as his whiskers and the truth is not in him-when a lie can make or save a dollar for his G.o.d-which is the Company. We have not quite done with him yet, I imagine. Hup there, you huskies-the trail is long and we are two days behind!”
CHAPTER XVIII-THE LONG ARM OF THE COMPANY
The fourth day out, at a noon camp by a spring that still defied the frost, Barreau straightened up suddenly from his stooping over the frying-pan.
”Listen,” he said.
His ears were but little keener than mine, for even as he spoke I caught a sound that was becoming familiar from daily hearing: the soft _pluff_, _pluff_ of snowshoes. In the thick woods, where no sweeping winds could swirl it here and there and pile it in hard smooth banks, the snow was spread evenly, a loose, three-foot layer, as yet uncrusted. Upon this the foot of man gave but little sound, even where there was a semblance of trail. So that almost in the instant that we heard and turned our heads we could see those who came toward us. Three men and two women-facing back upon the trail we followed.
The men I recognized at once. One was Cullen, the bookkeeping automaton; the other two were half-breed packers. They halted at sight of us, and from their actions I believe they would have turned tail if Barreau had not called to them. Then they came up to the fire.
”Where now?” Barreau demanded.
”We go back on ze pos', M'sieu,” one of the breeds declared.
”What of the others?” Barreau asked sharply. ”And why do you turn back?”
”Because Ah'm not weesh for follow ze fat trader an' die een som'