CHAPTER XV
THE NORTH SHORE
Into the bay that occupies the north-easterly corner of Caribou Lake empties a creek too small to have a name. To the left of its mouth, as one faces the lake, ends the long, pine-clad dune that stretches along the bottom of the lake from the intake of Musquasepi.
To the right as the shore turns westward the land rises a little and the forest begins. Back of the beach the little creek is masked by thickly springing willows.
An hour after the sun had passed the meridian the branches of the willows were softly parted, and Bela's pale face looked through, her eyes tense with anxiety. She searched the lake shore right and left. The wide expanse of sunny water and the bordering shore were empty.
Reassured, she came from behind the bushes, walking in the creek, and splashed down to the beach, still keeping wary eyes about her. She carried her gun in one hand, and over the other shoulder the carcass of a wild goose hung limply.
Standing in the creek, she anxiously searched the sand of the beach for tracks. Finding none, a breath of relief escaped her. She flung the dead goose in the sand. From this position she could see down the beach as far as the intake of the little river, two miles or more away.
Careless of the icy water flowing over her feet, she stood for a while straining her keen, anxious eyes in this direction. Finally she made out a tiny dark spot moving toward her on the sand.
She retreated up the creek and crouched behind the willows in the pose of lifeless stillness she had inherited from the red side of the house. The red people in the first place learned it from the wild creatures. She watched through the leaves.
A coyote trotting with his airy gait came along the top of the dune, looking for ill-considered trifles. He squatted on his haunches a couple of hundred yards away, and his tongue hung out.
He saw the dead goose below, a rich prize; but he also saw Bela, whom no human eyes could have discovered. He hoped she might go away. He was prepared to wait until dark if necessary. However, the approach of another two-legged figure along the beach behind him presently compelled him to retreat down the other side of the dune.
Sam appeared trudging through the sand, bare-headed, coatless, tight-lipped. His eyes likewise were fastened eagerly on the dead goose. Reaching it, he stirred it with his foot. Dropping to his knees, he smelled of it. So far so good. Presently he discovered the cause of its death, a wing shattered by a bullet.
Seeing no tracks anywhere near, he concluded that it had fallen wounded from the sky. As such it was treasure trove. He set to work to gather bits of driftwood, and started a fire. His bright eyes and the celerity of his movements testified to his hunger.
From her hiding-place Bela watched him with avid eyes. No mask on her face now. The eyes brooded over him, over the fair hair, the bare throat, the pale, hard young face, that showed the lassitude following on violent anger.
Her whole spirit visibly yearned toward him – but she was learning self-control in a hard school. When he began to pluck the goose she set her teeth hard and stole silently away up-stream.
In the Indian village beside Hah-wah-sepi, little, crooked Musq'oosis was squatting at the door of his teepee, making a fish net. This was work his nimble fingers could still perform better than any in the tribe. Meanwhile, he smoked and dwelt on the serene reminiscences of a well-spent life.
While he worked and meditated nothing in the surrounding scene escaped the glances of his keen, old eyes. For some time he had been aware of a woman's figure hiding behind the willows across the stream, and he knew it must be Bela, for there was no canoe on that side, but he would not give her any sign.
In Musq'oosis, as in all his race, there was a coy streak. Let the other person make the first move was his guiding maxim.
Finally the mournful, idiotic cry of a loon was raised across the stream. This was a signal they had used before. Musq'oosis started with well-simulated surprise, in case she should be watching him, and, rising, waddled soberly to his dugout. Nobody in the village above paid any particular attention to him. He crossed the stream.
Bela stepped into the bow of his boat. No greeting was exchanged. Each had the air of having parted but a few minutes before. Bela had learned Musq'oosis's own manner from him. If he wouldn't ask questions, neither would she volunteer information. Thus the two friends played the little comedy out.
Sitting at the door of his teepee, Bela said: "Let me eat. I have nothing since I get up to-day."
He put bread and smoked moose meat before her, and went on knotting his cords with an unconcerned air.
By and by Bela began to tell her story with the sullen, self-conscious air of a child expecting a scolding. But as she went on she was carried away by it, and her voice became warm and broken with emotion. Musq'oosis, working away, gave no sign, but the still turn of his head persuaded her he was not missing anything.
When she came to tell how she had fallen upon Sam while he slept the old man was betrayed into a sharp movement.
"What for you do that?" he demanded.
Bela came to a pause and hung her head. Tears dropped on her hands. "I don' know," she murmured. "He look so pretty sleepin' on the sand – so pretty! Moon shine in his face. I am pain in my heart. Don' know w'at to do, want him so bad. I t'ink I die if I got go 'way wit'out him. I t'ink – I don' know w'at I t'ink. Want him, that's all!"
"Tcha! White woman!" said Musq'oosis disgustedly.
During the rest of the tale he muttered and frowned and wagged his head impatiently. When she came to the scene of the hearing in Gagnon's shack he could no longer contain himself.
"Fool!" he cried. "I tell you all w'at to do. Many times I tell you not let a man see you want him. But you go ask him marry you before all the people! What you come to me for now?"
Bela hung her head in silence.
"You got white woman's sickness!" cried the old man with quaint scorn. "Tcha! Love!"
"Well, I am 'mos' white," muttered Bela sullenly. "Why you not tell me 'bout this sickness? Then I look out."
"There is no cure for a fool," growled Musq'oosis.
Bela finally raised her head.
"I am cure of my sickness now," she said, scowling. "I hate him!"
"Hate!" said the old man scornfully. "Your face is wet."
She dashed the tears from her cheeks. "When he ran out of Johnny Gagnon's," she went on, "I run after. I hold on him. He curse me. He throw me down. Since then I hate him. I lak make him hurt lak me. I want see him hurt bad!"
The old man looked incredulous. Questioning her sharply, he drew out the incident of the dead goose. He laughed scornfully.
"You hate him, but you got put food in his trail."
Bela hung her head. "I hate him!" she repeated doggedly.
Musq'oosis filled his pipe, and puffed at it meditatively for a while.
"You could get him," he said at last.
Bela looked at him with a new hope.
"But you got do w'at I tell you. Crying' won't get him. A man hates a cryin' woman. Mak' a dry face and let on you don' care 'bout him at all. All tam laugh at him. You can't do that, I guess. Too moch fool!"
Bela frowned resentfully. "I can do it," she declared.
"All right," said Musq'oosis, "Let him go now. Keep away from him a while. Let him forget his mad."
"All right," agreed Bela.
"Now go see your mot'er," commanded Musq'oosis. "She sicken for you. She is white, too."
Bela, however, made no move to go. She was painstakingly plucking blades of grass.
"Well, wa't you waitin' for?" demanded Musq'oosis.
"Sam walkin' this way," she said with an inscrutable face. "Got no blanket. Be cold to-night, I think."
"Wa! More foolishness!" he cried. "Let him shake a little. Cure his hot mad maybe."
"White man get sick with cold," persisted Bela. "Not lak us. What good my waitin', if he get sick?"
Musq'oosis held up both his hands. "There is not'ing lak a woman!" he cried. "Go to your mot'er. I will paddle by the lake and give him a rabbit robe."
Bela's eyes flashed a warm look on him. She got up without speaking, and hastened away.
About half-past nine, while it was still light, Sam found himself walked out. He built a fire on the pine needles above the stony beach and sat down with his back against a tree. The goose provided him with another meal. He was two hours' journey beyond the mouth of Hah-wah-sepi.
Wading across the bar of that stream, he had guessed his proximity to the Indian village as described by Bela, but his pride would not allow him to apply there for shelter.
He had no reason to suppose that Bela had already got home, but he feared she might arrive before he could get away. Anyhow, he had plenty to eat, he told himself; it would be strange if he couldn't last a night or two without a covering.
He lay down by his fire, but, tired as he was, he could get no rest. Whichever way he lay, a cold chill from the earth struck to his marrow. He fell into a wretched, half-waking condition, tormented by images he could not control.
When he edged close enough to the fire to feel its warmth it was only to be brought leaping to his feet by sparks burning through his clothes. He finally gave it up and sat against the tree, hardening himself like an Indian to wait for dawn. His fagged nerves cried for tobacco. He had lost his pipe with his coat.
The lake stretched before him still and steely in the twilight. To-night the sun had withdrawn himself modestly and expeditiously, and the clear, cold face of the sky had an ominous look. The world was terribly empty. Sam received a new conception of solitude, and a heavy hand of discouragement was laid on his heart.
Suddenly he perceived that he was not alone. Close under the pine-walled shore a dugout was swimming toward him with infinite grace and smoothness. At the first sight his breast contracted, for it seemed to have sprung out of nothingness – then his heart joyfully leaped up. At such a moment anything human was welcome. A squat little figure was huddled amidships, swinging a paddle from side to side with long, stringy arms.
Sam perceived that the paddler was the aged hunchback who had once visited the camp at Nine-Mile Point across the lake. "Old Man of the Lake" they had called him. They had not learned his name.
A certain air of mystery enveloped him. When he stepped out on the stones with his long hair, his bent back, and his dingy blanket capote he looked like a mediæval grotesque – yet he had a dignity of his own, too.
"How?" he said, extending his hand.
Sam, dreading the inevitable questions, received him a little nervously.
"Glad to see you. Sit down by the fire. You travel late."
"I old," observed Musq'oosis calmly. "I go when men sleep."
He made himself comfortable by the fire. To Sam's thankfulness he did not appear to notice the white man's impoverished condition. He had excellent manners.
"Are you going far?" asked Sam.
The old man shrugged. "Jus' up and down," he replied. "I lak look about."
He drew out his pipe. To save himself Sam could not help glancing enviously toward it.
"You got no pipe?" asked the Indian.
"Lost it," admitted Sam ruefully.
"I got 'not'er pipe," said Musq'oosis. From the "fire-bag" hanging from his waist he produced a red-clay bowl such as the natives use, and a bundle of new reed stems. He fitted a reed to the bowl, and passed it to Sam. A bag of tobacco followed.
"A gift," he stated courteously.
"I say," objected Sam, blushing, "I haven't anything to give in return."
The old man waved his hand. "Plaintee tam mak' Musq'oosis a gift some day," he said.
Sam looked up at the name. "So you're Musq'oosis?" he asked, hardening a little.
"W'at you know about me?" queried the other mildly.
"Oh, nothing!" returned Sam. "Somebody told me about you."
"I guess it was Bela," said Musq'oosis. With kindly guile he added: "Where is she?"
"You can search me!" muttered Sam.
The tobacco was unexpectedly fragrant. "Ah, good!" exclaimed Sam with a glance of surprise.
"'Imperial Mixture,'" said Musq'oosis complacently. "I old. Not want moch. So I buy the best tobacco."
They settled down for a good talk by the fire. Musq'oosis continued to surprise Sam. On his visit to Nine-Mile Point the old man had been received with good-natured banter, which he returned in kind. Alone with Sam, he came out in quite a different character.
Sam made the discovery that a man may have dark skin yet be a philosopher and a gentleman. Musq'oosis talked of all things from tobacco to the differences in men.
"White man lak beaver. All tam work don' give a damn!" he observed. "Red man lak bear. Him lazy. Fat in summer, starve in winter. Got no sense at all."
Sam laughed. "You've got sense," he said.
Musq'oosis shrugged philosophically. "I not the same lak ot'er men. I got crooked back, weak legs. I got work sittin' down. So my head is busy."
He smoked with a reminiscent look.
"When I yo'ng I feel moch bad for cause I got crooked back. But when I old I think there is good in it. A strong man is lak a moose. Wa! So big and swift and 'an'some. All tam so busy, got no tam t'ink wit' his head inside. So w'en he get old his son put him down. He is poor then. But a weak man he got notin' to do but look lak eagle at ev'ryt'ing and remember what he see. So w'en he is old he rich inside. W'en a man get old bad turn to good. Me, w'en I was yo'ng I sore for cause no woman want me. Now I glad I got no old wife beat a drum wit' her tongue in my teepee."
"Women! You're right there!" cried Sam explosively. "They're no good. They're savages! Women confuse and weaken a man; spoil him for a man's work. I'm done with them!"
A slow smile lighted Musq'oosis ugly old face. "W'en a man talk lak that," he remarked, "I t'ink pretty soon some woman goin' get him sure."
"Never!" cried Sam. "Not me!"
"I t'ink so," persisted Musq'oosis. "Man say woman bad, all bad. Come a woman smile so sweet, he surprise; he say this one different from the ot'ers."
"Oh, I know how it is with most fellows!" admitted Sam. "Not with me. I've had my lesson."
"Maybe," agreed Musq'oosis, politely allowing the matter to drop.
By and by the old man yawned. "I t'ink I sleep little while," he said. "Can I sleep by your fire?"
"Sure!" returned Sam. "Make yourself at home."
Musq'oosis brought his blanket from the dugout. "You goin' sleep, too?" he asked.
"In a bit," replied Sam uneasily.
"Where your blanket?"
"Oh, I lost that, too," confessed Sam, blushing.
"I got a rabbit-skin robe," said Musq'oosis.
Returning to his boat, he brought Sam one of the soft, light coverings peculiar to the country. The foundation was a wide-meshed net of cord, to which had been tied hundreds of the fragile, downy pelts. Sam could stick his finger anywhere through the interstices, yet it was warmer than a blanket, double its weight.
"But this is valuable," protested Sam. "I can't take it."
"You goin' to the head of the lake," said Musq'oosis. "I want trade it at French outfit store. Tak' it to Mahwoolee, the trader. Say to him Musq'oosis send it for trade."
"Aren't you afraid I might steal it?" asked Sam curiously.
"Steal?" said the old man, surprised. "Nobody steal here. What's the use? Everything is known. If a man steal everybody know it. Where he goin' to go then?"
Sam continued to protest against using the robe, but Musq'oosis, waving his objections aside, calmly lay down in his blanket and closed his eyes. Sam presently followed suit. The rabbit-skin robe acted like a charm. A delicious warmth crept into his weary bones, and sleep overmastered his senses like a delicious perfume.
When he awoke the sun was high over the lake, and Musq'oosis had gone. A bag of tobacco was lying in his place.
At this era the "settlement" at the head of Caribou Lake consisted of the "French outfit," the "company post," the French Mission, the English Mission, and the police barracks, which last housed as many as three troopers.
These various establishments were strung around the shore of Beaver Bay for a distance of several miles. A few native shacks were attached to each. The principal group of buildings was comprised in the company post, which stood on a hill overlooking the bay, and still wore a military air, though the palisades had been torn down these many years.
The French outfit, the rival concern, was a much humbler affair. It stood half-way on the short stream which connects Beaver Bay with the lake proper, and was the first establishment reached by the traveller from outside. It consisted of two little houses built of lumber from the mission sawmill; the first house contained the store, the other across the road was known as the "Kitchen."
Mahooley pointed to them with pride as the only houses north of the landing built of boards, but they had a sad and awkward look there in the wilderness, notwithstanding.
Within the store of the French outfit, Stiffy, the trader, was audibly totting up his accounts in his little box at the rear, while Mahooley, his associate, sat with his chair tipped back and his heels on the cold stove. Their proper names were Henry Stiff and John Mahool, but as Stiffy and Mahooley they were known from Miwasa Landing to Fort Ochre.
The shelves of the store were sadly depleted; never was a store open for business with so little in it. A few canned goods of ancient vintages and a bolt or two of coloured cotton were all that could be seen. Nevertheless, the French outfit was a factor to be reckoned with.
There was no fur going now, and the astute Stiffy and Mahooley were content to let custom pass their door. Later on they would reach out for it.
Mahooley was bored and querulous. This was the dullest of dull seasons, for the natives were off pitching on their summer grounds, and travel from the outside world had not yet started.
Stiffy and Mahooley were a pair of "good hard guys," but here the resemblance ended. Stiffy was dry, scanty-haired, mercantile; Mahooley was noisy, red-faced, of a fleshly temperament, and a wag, according to his lights.
"I'd give a dollar for a new newspaper," growled Mahooley.
"That's you, always grousin' for nothin' to do!" said his partner. "Why don't you keep busy like me?"
"Say, if I was like you I'd walk down to the river here and I'd get in the scow and I'd push off, and when I got in the middle I'd say, 'Lord, crack this nut if you can! It's too much for me!' and I'd step off."
"Ah, shut up! You've made me lose a whole column!"
"Go to hell!"
Thus they bickered endlessly to pass the time.
Suddenly the door opened and a stranger entered, a white man.
As a rule, the slightest disturbance of their routine was heralded in advance by "moccasin telegraph," and this was like a bolt from the blue. Mahooley's chair came to the floor with a thump.
"Well, I'm damned!" he said, staring.
Stiffy came quickly out of his little box to see what was up.
"How are you?" began the stranger youth diffidently.
"Who the hell are you?" asked Mahooley.
"Sam Gladding."
"Is the York boat in? Nobody told me."
"No, I walked around the lake."
Mahooley looked him over from his worn-out moccasins to his bare head. "Well, you didn't bring much with you," he observed.
Sam frowned to hide his rising blushes. He offered the rabbit-skin robe to create a diversion.
"Musq'oosis sent it, eh?" said Mahooley. "Put it on the counter."
Sam came back to the red-faced man. "Can you give me a job?" he asked firmly.
"Hey, Stiffy," growled Mahooley. "Look what's askin' for a job!"
Stiffy laughed heartily. Thus he propitiated his irritable partner. It didn't cost anything. Sam, blushing, set his jaw and stood it out.
"What can you do?" Mahooley demanded.
"Any hard work."
"You don't look like one of these here Hercules."
"Try me."
"Lord, man!" said Mahooley. "Don't you see me here twiddling my thumbs. What for should I hire anybody? To twiddle 'em for me, maybe."
"You'll have a crowd here soon," persisted Sam. "Four men on their way in to take up land, and others following. There's a surveying gang coming up the river, too."
"Moreover, you ain't got good sense," Mahooley went on. "Comin' to a country like this without an outfit. Not so much as a chaw of bacon, or a blanket to lay over you nights. There ain't no free lunch up north, kid. What'll you do if I don't give you a job?"
"Go to the company," returned Sam.
"Go to the company?" cried Mahooley. "Go to hell, you mean. The company don't hire no tramps. That's a military organization, that is. Their men are hired and broke in outside. So what'll you do now?"
"I'll make out somehow," said Sam.
"There ain't no make out to it!" cried Mahooley, exasperated. "You ain't even got an axe to swing. There ain't nothin' for you but starve."
"Well, then, I'll bid you good day," said Sam stiffly.
"Hold on!" shouted the trader. "I ain't done with you yet. Is that manners, when you're askin' for a job?"
"You said you didn't have anything," muttered Sam.
"Never mind what I said. I ast you what you were goin' to do."
The badgered one began to bristle a little. "What's that to you?" he asked, scowling.
"A whole lot!" cried Mahooley. "You fellows have no consideration. You're always comin' up here and starvin' on us. Do you think that's nice for me? Why, the last fellow left a little pile of white bones beside the trail on the way to my girl's house, after the coyotes picked him clean. Every time I go up there I got to turn my head the other way."
Sam smiled stiffly at Mahooley's humour.
"Can you cook?" the trader asked.
Sam's heart sank. "So-so," he said.
"Well, I suppose I've got to let you cook for us and for the gang that's comin'. You'll find everything in the kitchen across the road. Go and get acquainted with it. By Gad! you can be thankful you run up against a soft-hearted man like me."
Sam murmured an inquiry concerning wages.
"Wages!" roared Mahooley with an outraged air. "Stiffy, would you look at what's askin' for wages! Go on, man! You're damned lucky if you get a skinful of grub every day. Grub comes high up here!"
Sam reflected that it would be well to submit until he learned the real situation in the settlement. "All right," he said, and turned to go.
"Hold on," cried Mahooley. "You ain't ast what we'll have for dinner."
Sam waited for instructions.
"Well, let me see," said Mahooley. He tipped a wink in his partner's direction. "What's your fancy, Stiffy."
"Oh, I leave the mean-you to you, Mahooley."
"Well, I guess you can give us some patty de foy grass, and squab on toast, and angel cake."
"Sure," said Sam. "How about a biscuit Tortoni for dessert?"
"Don't you give me no lip!" cried Mahooley.