Part 29 (2/2)
”And now I know,” she sobbed, ”that I have not even begun to pay!”
Suddenly she leaped to her feet and, das.h.i.+ng around the table placed herself between Lapierre and Chloe, who had listened white-lipped to her words. Once more the voice of the Louchoux girl rang through the room--high-pitched and thin with anger now--and the eyes that glared into the eyes of Lapierre blazed black with fury.
”You have lied to her! But you cannot harm her! With my own ears I heard your words! The same words I heard from your lips before, upon the banks of the far-off rivers, and the words are lies--lies--lies!”--the voice rose to a shriek--”the white woman is good! She is my friend! She has taught me much, and now, I will save her.”
With a swift movement she caught the carving-knife from the table and sprang toward the defenceless Lapierre. ”I will cut your heart in little bits and feed it to the dogs!”
Once more the hand of Big Lena wrenched the knife from the girl's grasp.
And once more the huge Swedish woman fixed Lapierre with her vacuous stare. Then slowly she raised her arm and pointed toward the door: ”Ju git! And never ju don't come back no more. Ay don't lat ju go 'cause Ay lak' ju, but Ay bane 'fraid dis leetle girl she cut ju up and feed ju to de dogs, and Ay no lak' for git dem dogs poison!”
And Lapierre tarried not for further orders. Pausing only to recover his hat from its peg on the wall, he opened the outer door and with one sidewise malevolent glance toward the little group at the table, slunk hurriedly from the room.
Hardly had the door closed behind him than Chloe, who had sat as one stunned during the girl's accusation and her later outburst of fury, leaped to her feet and seized her arm in a convulsive grip. ”Tell me!”
she cried; ”what do you mean? Speak! Speak, can't you? What is this you have said? What is it all about?”
”Why it is he, Pierre Lapierre. He is the free-trader of whom I told you. The man who--who deceived me into believing I was his wife.”
”But,” cried Chloe, staring at her in astonishment. ”I thought--I thought MacNair was the man!”
”No! No! No!” cried the girl. ”Not MacNair! Pierre Lapierre, he is the man! He who sat in that chair, and whose heart I would cut into tiny bits that you shall not be made to pay, even as I have paid, for listening to the words of his lips.”
”But,” faltered Chloe, ”I don't--I don't understand. Surely, you, fear MacNair. Surely, that night when he came into the room, carrying the wounded policeman, you fled from him in terror.”
”MacNair is a white man----”
”But why should you fear him?”
”I fear him,” she answered, ”because among the Indians--among the Louchoux--the people of my mother, and among the Eskimoes, he is called 'The Bad Man of the North.' I hated him because Lapierre taught me to hate him. I do not hate him now, nor do I fear him. But among the Indians and among the free-traders he is both hated and feared. He chases the free-traders from the rivers, and he kills them and destroys their whiskey. For he has said, like the men of the soldier-police, that the red man shall drink no whiskey. But the red men like the whiskey.
Their life is hard and they do not have much happiness, and the whiskey of the white man makes them happy. And in the days before MacNair they could get much whiskey, but now the free-traders fear him, and only sometimes do they dare to bring whiskey to the land of the far-off rivers.
”At the posts my people may trade for food and for guns and for clothing, but they may not buy whiskey. But the free-traders sell whiskey. Also they will trade for the women. But MacNair has said they shall not trade for the women. At times, when men think he is far away, he comes swooping through the North with his Snare Lake Indians at his heels, and they chase the free-traders from the rivers. And on the sh.o.r.es of the frozen sea he chases the whalemen from the Eskimo villages even to their s.h.i.+ps which lie far out from the coast, locked in the grip of the ice-pack.
”For these things I have hated and feared him. Since I have been here at the school I have learned much. Both from your teachings, and from talking with the women of MacNair's Indians. I know now that MacNair is good, and that the factors and the soldier-police and the priest spoke words of truth, and that Lapierre and the free-traders lied!”
As the Indian girl poured forth her story, Chloe Elliston listened as one in a dream. What was this she was saying, that it was Lapierre who sold whiskey to the Indians, and MacNair who stood firm, and struck mighty blows for the right of things? Surely, this girl's mind was unhinged--or, had something gone wrong with her own brain? Was it possible she had heard aright?
Suddenly she remembered the words of Corporal Ripley, when he asked her to withdraw the charge of murder against MacNair: ”In the North we know something of MacNair's work.” And again: ”We know the North needs men like MacNair.”
Could it be possible that after all--with the thought there flashed into the girl's mind the scene on Snare Lake. Had she not seen with her own eyes the evidence of this man's work among the Indians! With a gesture of appeal she turned to Big Lena.
”Surely, Lena, you remember that night on Snare Lake? You saw MacNair's Indians, drunk as fiends--and the buildings all on fire? You saw MacNair kicking and knocking them about? And you saw him fire the shots that killed two men? Speak, can't you? Did you see these things? Did I see them? Was I dreaming? Or am I dreaming now?”
Big Lena s.h.i.+fted her weight ponderously, and the stare of the china-blue eyes met steadily the half-startled eyes of the girl. ”Yah, Ay seen das all right. Dem Injuns dey awful drunk das night and MacNair he come 'long and schlap dem and kick dem 'round. But das gude for dem. Dey got it comin'. Dey should not ought to drink Lapierre's vhiskey.”
”Lapierre's whiskey!” cried the girl. ”Are you crazy?”
”Naw, Ay tank Ay ain't so crazy. Lapierre he fool ju long tam'.”
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