Part 10 (2/2)

”So they stood side by side when the spears and arrows fell round them, and they gave death and wounds for wounds in their own bodies. When, at last, the Indians climbed into the canoe, the Great Slave was dead of many wounds, and the woman, all gashed, lay with her lips to his wet, red cheek. She smiled as they dragged her away; and her soul hurried after his to the Camp of the Great Fires.”

It was long before Tybalt spoke, but at last he said: ”If I could but tell it as you have told it to me, Pierre!” Pierre answered: ”Tell it with your tongue, and this shall be nothing to it, for what am I? What English have I, a gipsy of the snows? But do not write it, mais non!

Writing wanders from the matter. The eyes, and the tongue, and the time, that is the thing. But in a book--it will sound all cold and thin. It is for the north, for the camp-fire, for the big talk before a man rolls into his blanket, and is at peace. No, no writing, monsieur. Speak it everywhere with your tongue.”

”And so I would, were my tongue as yours. Pierre, tell me more about the letters at Fort O'Glory. You know his name--what was it?”

”You said five hundred dollars for one of those letters. Is it not?”

”Yes.” Tybalt had a new hope.

”T's.h.!.+ What do I want of five hundred dollars! But, here, answer me a question: Was the lady--his wife, she that was left in England--a good woman? Answer me out of your own sense, and from my story. If you say right you shall have a letter--one that I have by me.”

Tybalt's heart leapt into his throat. After a little he said huskily: ”She was a good woman--he believed her that, and so shall I.”

”You think he could not have been so great unless, eh? And that 'Charles Rex,' what of him?”

”What good can it do to call him bad now?” Without a word, Pierre drew from a leather wallet a letter, and, by the light of the fast-setting sun, Tybalt read it, then read it again, and yet again.

”Poor soul! poor lady!” he said. ”Was ever such another letter written to any man? And it came too late; this, with the king's recall, came too late!”

”So--so. He died out there where that wild duck flies--a Great Slave.

Years after, the Company's man brought word of all.”

Tybalt was looking at the name on the outside of the letter.

”How do they call that name?” asked Pierre. ”It is like none I've seen--no.”

Tybalt shook his head sorrowfully, and did not answer.

THE RED PATROL

St. Augustine's, Canterbury, had given him its licentiate's hood, the Bishop of Rupert's Land had ordained him, and the North had swallowed him up. He had gone forth with surplice, stole, hood, a sermon-case, the prayer-book, and that other Book of all. Indian camps, trappers' huts, and Company's posts had given him hospitality, and had heard him with patience and consideration. At first he wore the surplice, stole, and hood, took the eastward position, and intoned the service, and no man said him nay, but watched him curiously and was sorrowful--he was so youthful, clear of eye, and bent on doing heroical things.

But little by little there came a change. The hood was left behind at Fort O'Glory, where it provoked the derision of the Methodist missionary who followed him; the sermon-case stayed at Fort O'Battle; and at last the surplice itself was put by at the Company's post at Yellow Quill.

He was too excited and in earnest at first to see the effect of his ministrations, but there came slowly over him the knowledge that he was talking into s.p.a.ce. He felt something returning on him out of the air into which he talked, and buffeting him. It was the Spirit of the North, in which lives the terror, the large heart of things, the soul of the past. He awoke to his inadequacy, to the fact that all these men to whom he talked, listened, and only listened, and treated him with a gentleness which was almost pity--as one might a woman. He had talked doctrine, the Church, the sacraments, and at Fort O'Battle he faced definitely the futility of his work. What was to blame--the Church--religion--himself?

It was at Fort O'Battle that he met Pierre, and heard a voice say over his shoulder, as he walked out into the icy dusk: ”The voice of one crying in the wilderness... and he had sackcloth about his loins, and his food was locusts and wild honey.”

He turned to see Pierre, who in the large room of the Post had sat and watched him as he prayed and preached. He had remarked the keen, curious eye, the musing look, the habitual disdain at the lips. It had all touched him, confused him; and now he had a kind of anger.

”You know it so well, why don't you preach yourself?” he said feverishly.

”I have been preaching all my life,” Pierre answered drily.

”The devil's games: cards and law-breaking; and you sneer at men who try to bring lost sheep into the fold.”

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