Part 10 (1/2)

Lapierre nodded, scowling. He trusted LeFroy; and having recognized in him one as unscrupulous and nearly as resourceful and penetrating as himself, had placed him in charge of the canoemen, the men who, in the words of the leader, ”kept cases on the North,” and to whose lot fell the final distribution of the whiskey to the Indians. But so, also, had he trusted the boasting, flaunting Vermilion.

”All right; but keep your eye on him,” he said, smiling sardonically, ”and you may learn a lesson. Now you listen to me. You are to stay here. Miss Elliston wants you for her chief trader. Make out your list of supplies--fill that storehouse up with stuff. She wants you to undersell the H.B.C.--and you do it. Get the trade in here--see? Keep your prices down to just below Company prices, and then skin 'em on the fur--and--well, I don't need to tell you how. Give 'em plenty of debt and we'll fix the books. Pick put a half-dozen of your best men and keep 'em here. Tell 'em to obey Miss Elliston's orders; and whatever you do, keep cases on MacNair. But don't start anything. Pa.s.s the word out and fill up her school. Give her plenty to do, and keep 'em orderly. I'll handle the canoemen and pick up the fur, and then I've got to drop down the river and run in the supplies. I'll run in some rifles, and some of the _stuff_, too.”

LeFroy looked at his chief in surprise.

”Vermilion--she got ten keg on de scow--” he began.

Lapierre laughed.

”Vermilion, eh? Do you know where Vermilion is?”

LeFroy shook his head.

”He's in h.e.l.l--that's where _he_ is--I dismissed him from my service.

He didn't run straight. Some others went along with him--and there are more to follow. Vermilion thought he could double-cross me and get away with it.” And again he laughed.

LeFroy shuddered and made no comment. Lapierre continued:

”Make out your list of supplies, and if I don't show up in the mean time, meet me at the mouth of the Slave three weeks from today. I've got to count days if I get back before the freeze-up. And remember this--you are working for Miss Elliston; we've got a big thing if we work it right; we've got MacNair where we want him at last. She thinks he's running in whiskey and raising h.e.l.l with the Indians north of here. Keep her thinking so; and later, when it comes to a show-down--well, she is not only rich, but she's in good at Ottawa--see?”

LeFroy nodded. He was a man of few words, was LeFroy; dour and taciturn, but a man of brains and one who stood in wholesome fear of his master.

”And now,” continued Lapierre, ”break camp and load the canoes. I must pull out tonight. Pick out your men and move 'em at once into the barracks. You understand everything now?”

”_Oui_,” answered LeFroy, and stepping from the tent, pa.s.sed swiftly from fire to fire, issuing commands in low guttural. Lapierre rolled a cigarette, and taking a guitar from its case, seated himself upon his blankets and played with the hand of a master as he sang a love-song of old France. All about him sounded the clatter of lodge-poles, the thud of packs, and the splas.h.i.+ng of water as the big canoes were pushed into the river and loaded.

Presently LeFroy's head thrust in at the entrance. He spoke no word; Lapierre sang on, and the head was withdrawn. When the song was finished the sounds from the outside had ceased. Lapierre carefully replaced his guitar in its case, drew a heavy revolver from its holster, threw it open, and twirled the cylinder with his thumb, examining carefully its chambers. His brows drew together and his lips twisted into a diabolical smile.

Lapierre was a man who took no chances. What was one Indian, more or less, beside the absolute integrity of his organization? He stepped outside, and instantly the guy-ropes of the tent were loosened; the canvas slouched to the ground and was folded into a neat pack. The blankets were made into a compact roll, with the precious guitar in the centre and deposited in the head canoe. Lapierre glanced swiftly about him; nothing but the dying fires and the abandoned lodge-poles indicated the existence of the camp. On the sh.o.r.e the canoemen, leaning on their paddles, awaited the word of command.

He stepped to the water's edge, where, Apaw the Indian, stood with the others. For just a moment the baleful eyes of Lapierre fixed the silent figure; then his words cut sharply upon the silence.

”Apaw--_Chahco yahkwa_!” The Indian advanced, evidently proud of having been singled out by the chief, and stood before him, paddle in hand. Lapierre spoke no word; seconds pa.s.sed, the silence grew intense. The hand that gripped the paddle shook suddenly; and then, looking straight into the man's eyes, Lapierre drew his revolver and fired. There was a quick spurt of red flame--the sound of the shot rang sharp, and rang again as the opposite bank of the river hurled back the sound. The Indian pitched heavily forward and fell across his paddle, snapping it in two.

Lapierre glanced over the impa.s.sive faces of the canoemen.

”This man was a traitor,” he said in their own language. ”I have dismissed him from my service. Weight him and shove off!”

The quarter-breed stepped into his canoe. The canoemen bound heavy stones to the legs of the dead Indian, laid the body upon the camp equipage amids.h.i.+p, and silently took their places.

During the evening meal, Chloe was unusually silent, answering Miss Penny's observations and queries in short, detached monosyllables.

Later she stole out alone to a high, rocky headland that commanded a sweeping view of the river, and sat with her back against the broad trunk of a twisted banskian.

The long Northern twilight hung about her like a pall--seemed enveloping, smothering her. No faintest breath of air stirred the piny needles above her, nor ruffled the surface of the river, whose black waters, far below, flowed broad and deep and silent--smoothly--like a river of oil. Ominously hushed, secretive, it slipped out of the motionless dark. Silently portentous, it faded again into the dark, the mysterious half-dark, where the gradually deepening twilight blended the distance into the enshrouding pall of gloom. Involuntarily the girl shuddered and started nervously at the splash of an otter. A billion mosquitoes droned their unceasing monotone. The low sound was everywhere--among the branches of the gnarled banskian, above the surface of the river, and on and on and on, to whine thinly between the little stars.

It was not at all the woman who would conquer a wilderness, that huddled in a dejected little heap at the foot of the banskian; but a very miserable and depressed girl, who swallowed hard to keep down the growing lump in her throat, and bit her lip, and stared with wide eyes toward the southward. Hot tears--tears of bitter, heart-sickening loneliness--filled her eyes and trickled unheeded down her cheeks beneath the tightly drawn mosquito-net.

Darkness deepened, imperceptibly, surely, fore-shortening the horizon, and by just so much increasing the distance that separated her from her people.