"Not while he's down," he muttered.
Bela, following close, drew Sam's hands together and bound his wrists with her strips of hide.
Sam, seeing her, cried out: "You've sold me out again! I might have known it!"
Bela, fearing his words might start Jack thinking things over, cried out hysterically: "I got you now! You think you run away, eh? You done wit' me! You laugh w'en I cry. I fix you for that! I put you where you can't hurt no more girls!"
To Jack and Joe it seemed natural under the circumstances. Sam glared at her in angry amazement, and opened his mouth to reply. But thinking better of it, he set his jaw and kept quiet.
He submitted to superior force, and they immediately started back on the long walk to the boats. There was little said en route. Only Joe, unable to contain his rancour, occasionally burst out in brutal reviling. Sam smiled at him. More than once Big Jack was called on to restrain Joe's fist.
"A bargain is a bargain," he reminded him.
Bela, bringing up the rear, glared at the back of Joe's head with pure savage hatred. When any of them chanced to look at her, her face was wholly stolid.
Black Shand's face lightened as they brought Sam over the bank.
"So it was on the level," he remarked.
It was now some time past noon, and the word was given to eat before embarking. Sam, with his bound hands in his lap, sat on a great sod which had fallen from the bank above, and watched the others curiously and warily.
He had cooled down. So many things had happened to him during the past two days that his capacity for anger and astonishment was pretty well used up. He now felt more like a spectator than the leading man in the drama.
Finally, Bela, with a highly indifferent air, came to him with a plate of food which she put on his knees. Evidently he was expected to feed himself as best he could with his hands tied. Bela, avoiding his eyes, whispered swiftly:
"I your friend, Sam. Jus' foolin' them. Wait and see."
Sam laughed scornfully. The other men looked over, and Bela had to go back.
Sam had no compunction against eating their food. Scorning them all, he fully intended to get the better of them yet. Meanwhile he was wondering what had taken place between them. He could not interpret the relations between Bela and the three men. They were apparently neither friendly nor inimical.
Afterward a discussion arose as to their disposition between the two boats. The rowboat was not big enough to carry them all.
"Lay him in the dugout," Bela said indifferently. "I paddle him."
"No you don't," said Joe quickly. "He goes with the men."
"All right," said Bela, shrugging. "You come wit' me."
This arrangement pleased Joe very well, and by it Bela succeeded in parting him from Sam.
The two boats proceeded together down the smoothly flowing, willow-bordered stream. Shand and Jack took turns at sculling the larger craft, and Bela loafed on her paddle that they might keep up with her.
The view was as confined and unvarying as the banks of a canal, except that canals commonly are straight, while this watercourse twisted like Archimedes's screw. The only breaks in the endless panorama of cut-banks, mud-flats, willows, and grass were the occasional little inlets, gay with aquatic flowers.
Bela was most at home kneeling in the stern of her dugout. Joe, sitting opposite, watched her graceful action with a kindling eye.
"Drop behind a bit," he whispered. "I want to talk to you. Are you listening?"
She seemed not to have heard. Nevertheless the other boat drew away a little.
"Look here," Joe began with what he intended to be an ingratiating air, "this is a bad business for you. I'm not saying I blame you. Just the same your price has gone down, see? Do you get me?"
Bela lowered her eyes and watched the little whirl-pools in the train of her paddle. "I un'erstan'," she murmured.
"After an affair like this men look on a girl as fair game. I ain't saying it's right, but it's so. You want to look out for those other fellows now."
"I look out," said Bela.
"Come with me and I'll keep you from them," Joe went on, trying to speak carelessly; meanwhile his eyes were burning. "Of course, you can't expect me to marry you now, but I'll keep you in better style than you've ever known. There's nothing mean about me."
Bela raised her eyes and dropped them quickly. There was a spark in their depths that would have warned a man less vain than Joe. She said nothing.
"Well, is it a go?" he breathlessly demanded.
"I don't know," said Bela slowly. Her voice gave nothing away. "I got get married if I can."
"Who would marry you now?" cried Joe.
"I don't know. Somebody, I guess. Pretty near every man I see want marry me."
Joe sneered. "Not now! Not when this gets about."
"Maybe the big man want marry me," she suggested. "Or the black one."
Joe laughed scornfully. At the same time a horrible anxiety attacked him. Those two were old; they couldn't afford to be so particular as he. One of them might —
"Any'ow I not go wit' you now," said Bela. "Plenty time."
"You'd better look out for yourself," Joe burst out, "or you'll get in worse than you are already. You'll be sorry then."
"All right," she returned calmly.
Joe sat fuming. Anger and balked desire made his comely, brutal face look absurd and piteous. It was like a wilful child denied the moon. Joe could never resist his emotions. Whether or not Bela had guessed it, it was bound to come.
"Oh, hell!" he cried. "Look here, if Jack or Shand offer to marry you, I'll match them, see? Is that a go? You'd sooner have me, wouldn't you? I'm young."
Bela neither smiled nor frowned. "I think about it," she said.
"No you don't!" he cried. "You've got to promise now or I'll withdraw it!"
"I tell you somesing," said Bela, concealing the wicked sparkle in her eye. "I not want the big man. Not want the black man either. I tell you, if I marry any of the three, I tak' you."
Conceited Joe swallowed it whole. "I'm satisfied," he cried. "By George, I'd like to bind it with a kiss!"
"Look out, you turn us over," said Bela coolly. "The water moch cold."
Joe was quite carried away. "You beauty!" he cried. "Your skin is like cream. Your hair is like black velvet. You sit there as proud as a leading lady. I can't wait for you!"
"I ain't promise not'ing yet," said Bela warningly.
Johnny Gagnon's place was at the strategic point on Musquasepi where the forest ended and the meadows began. In the winter-time the freighters left the ice here, and headed straight across the bottom lands for the lake.
Gagnon kept a stopping-house for the freighters. It was the last house on the route to the head of the lake seventy-five miles away, excepting the shack at Nine-Mile Point, which had never been occupied until Big Jack and his party camped there.
Besides being a strategic point, it was one of those natural sites for a homestead that men pick out when there is a whole land to choose from. The bank rolled up gradually from the water's edge, and Gagnon's whole establishment was revealed from the river – dwelling, bunk-house, stable – all built of logs and crouching low on the ground as if for warmth.
The buildings had been there so long they had become a part of the landscape. The log walls were weathered to a silvery grey, and the vigorously sprouting sod roofs repeated the note of the surrounding grass.
On this particular afternoon there was something afoot at Johnny Gagnon's. The different members of the large family were running about like ants in a disturbed hill. A cloud of dust was issuing from the house door, propelled by a resolute broom.
Innumerable pails of water were being carried up from the river, and windows and children washed impartially. One of the big boys was burning rubbish; another was making a landing-stage of logs on the muddy shore.
In any other place such a spasm of house-cleaning need excite no remark, but among the happy-go-lucky natives of the north it is portentous. Clearly a festival was imminent.
Such was the sight that met the eyes of those in the rowboat and the dugout as they came around the bend above. Johnny Gagnon himself came running down to meet them. He was a little man, purely Indian in feature and colouring, but betraying a vivacity which suggested the French ancestor who had provided him with a surname.
The surname lasts longer than most white characteristics. It is a prized possession up north. If a man has a surname he votes.
Johnny was a vivacious Indian. Such anomalies are not uncommon on the border of the wilderness. His sloe-black eyes were prone to snap and twinkle, and his lips to part over dazzling teeth.
His hands helped out his tongue in the immemorial Latin style. Though he was the father of four strapping sons and several marriageable girls, not to speak of the smaller fry, time had left surprisingly few marks on him.
Johnny held up his hands at the sight of Sam, bound. He was delighted to have this additional excitement added to his brimming store.
"Wa! a prisoner!" he cried. "Good! we will have a trial. You must tell me all. You come back just right. Big tam! Big tam! Never was so much fun in my house before!"
"What's up?" asked Jack.
"Big crowd comin' to-morrow!" replied the excited Johnny Gagnon. "Trackin' up rapids to-day. Send a fellow up ahead ask my wife bake plenty bread."
"Who all is it?"
Johnny counted them off on his fingers: "Bishop Lajeunesse and two priests. Every year come to marry and baptize. That's three. Four, Indian agent. Him come pay Indians gov'ment money by the treaty. Got big bag money. Five, gov'ment doctor. He look at him for sick. It is in the treaty. Six, seven, Sergeant Coulson and 'not'er policeman. They go round wit' agent and ask all if any man do wrong to him. That is seven white men comin'! But wait! But wait! There is something else beside!"
"What?" asked Jack.
"A white woman!" announced Johnny triumphantly.
Bela frowned and stole a side glance at Sam. The men having lately come from the land of white women were not especially impressed.
"Only one white woman here before," Johnny went on. "Her comp'ny trader's wife. This her sister. Call Mees Mackall. Her old, but got no 'osban' at all. That is fonny thing I t'ink. Boys say all tam talk, laugh, nod head. Call her chicadee-woman."
Bela looked relieved at this description.
Sam, hearing of the expected company, smiled. Surely, with the law and the church at hand, an honest man had nothing to fear. He glanced at Bela a little triumphantly, but she made her face inscrutable to him.
Somewhat to his surprise he perceived that Jack and the other men were also pleased at the news. There was something here he did not understand.
CHAPTER XIV
AT JOHNNY GAGNON'S
Sam, tied hand and foot, was confined in the bunk-house at Gagnon's. All the heavy hours of his imprisonment were charged up against Bela, and by morning the score was a heavy one.
Big Jack, or one of the other men, was always in the room or at the door, and Bela had no opportunity to approach the prisoner.
Bela slept in the main house with the Gagnon girls. Before the general turning in that night Big Jack and Black Shand each contrived to separate her from the others long enough to make a proposal similar to Joe's. In each case Bela returned the same answer.
Next morning they were all early astir. The Gagnon boys put on clean blue-gingham shirts and red woollen sashes, and the girls tied their sable locks with orange and cerise ribbons. The cheeks of both boys and girls bore a high polish.
Squaw Gagnon tacked up lace window curtains for a final touch and brought out a square of carpet for the bishop to rest his reverend feet upon. To this household it was the greatest day in the year, and the sun was shining like the shiniest-cheeked Gagnon of them all. The younger children kept careful watch on Sam. He was an attraction fortuitously added to the big show.
Johnny Gagnon himself was the most excited of the family.
"You come jus' right!" he was continually exclaiming to Jack. "They stop all day now. Have trial in my house. Maybe stay to-night, too. I wish we had a fiddle. We could dance. But we can slap and sing any'ow."
The girls giggled delightedly at this suggestion.
Each one of the white men thought: "Dance at my wedding, maybe!" and glanced covertly at Bela. Bela looked out of the window.
"What! dance with the bishop here?" said Jack, affecting to be scandalized.
"Sure!" cried Johnny. "Bishop Lajeunesse no long-chin religieux. Bishop say let yo'ng folks have a good time. Laugh and mak' fun wherever he go. He is a man!"
Early as they were they no sooner finished breakfast than they heard a shrill hail from down river. Every soul about the place excepting Sam dropped what he was about and scampered down to the water's edge.
Presently around the bend below appeared the tracking crew, slipping in the ooze, scrambling over fallen trunks, plunging through willows. Behind them trailed the long, thin line that must be kept taut, whatever the obstruction. Finally the York boat poked its nose lazily into view like a gigantic duck.
The other four of the crew stood upon the cargo with long poles to fend her off the shore, and the steersman was mounted on a little platform astern wielding an immense sweep. In the waist stood the passengers. As the celebrities were recognized a shout went up from the shore.
There was the bishop with red buttons, and the ordinary priests with black. There were the police in their gay, scarlet tunics; the Indian agent with his bag of money, and the doctor with his bag of tools. Finally there was the blue hat with ostrich feathers that was already famous in the country.
Before the summer was out, news of that hat travelled all the way to the Arctic Ocean. Any one of these passengers would have made a gala day for Johnny Gagnon's family. To have them all at once was almost more than they could take in.
The tracking crew was on the opposite bank. Coiling up their line and jumping aboard, all hands poled her across. The bishop, gathering his cassock around his waist, was the first to leap ashore.
He was a little man, radiating goodness and fun. He had round, ruddy cheeks, looking as if the half of an apple had been glued to each side of his face, and a spreading, crinkly brown beard.
"Bienvenue! Bienvenue!" Cried Johnny Gagnon with sweeping obeisances.
"Well, Johnny, have you got a new one for me?" asked his lordship with a twinkle.
The river bank became a scene of delightful confusion; black cassocks, red tunics, orange ribbons, and blue ostrich feathers all mingled. The two slender boy priests showed strange hirsute adornments. One had a face like a round white doily with brown fringe; the other was spotted with hair like new grass.
The agent and the doctor were ordinary looking men. They did not add to the picturesqueness of the scene, but each carried a bag which was charged with romance for the natives.
The two policemen were almost as young as the boy-priests, but bigger and redder and clean-shaven. Here the eyes of the Gagnon girls lingered longest.
The greatest sensation, naturally, was created by the blue hat. It was the last to come ashore. It lingered on the gunwale with an appealing turn manwards until a red arm was offered on one side, a black arm on the other, whereupon it hopped ashore with a coy wag to the right and to the left. It was not hard to see why the boatmen had christened her the "chicadee-woman."
Young Joe, catching a glimpse of the face beneath, muttered "School-marm!" impolitely.
The natives, however, made no such distinctions. To them she was just a white woman, only the second they had ever seen. They had no means of knowing whether they came more beautiful than this.
Miss Mackall, booted, hatted, and corseted in town, was the headliner of the show.
The experience to one all her life lost in a crowd of women was novel and a little intoxicating. The blue hat waggled and cocked alarmingly. The wearer, exulting in the consciousness that everybody was looking at her, saw nothing of this strange land she was in.
As soon as the general hand-shaking was over, Big Jack addressed himself to Sergeant Coulson. "I've got a prisoner for you, sergeant."
Coulson instantly stiffened into an arm of the law. "What charge?" he asked.
"I don't know exactly the legal name of it. He carried off a girl against her will. This girl!" – pointing to Bela. "Regularly tied her up and carried her off in a canoe, and kept her prisoner on an island in the lake."
The policeman was startled under his military air. "Is this true?" he asked Bela.
Bela, without saying anything, allowed him to suppose that it was.
"We'll have a hearing at once," said Coulson. "Gagnon, can we use your shack?"
Could he use it!
"Aristide! Michel! Maria!" shrieked Johnny. "Run, you turtles! Carry ever't'ing outside. Tak' down the stove!"
Bishop Lajeunesse went to Bela with kind eyes.
"My poor girl!" he said in her own tongue. "Have you had a bad time?"
"Wait," murmured Bela deprecatingly. "I tell everything in there."
"Mercy! Abducted!" cried Miss Mackall with an inquisitive stare. "She's bold enough about it. Not a trace of shame!"
"I'm afraid this will hardly be suitable for you to hear," murmured the doctor, who had constituted himself one of Miss Mackall's gallants. "Will you wait in the boat?"
"A trial! I wouldn't miss it for worlds," she retorted. "Which is the criminal? One of her own sort, I suppose. Fancy! carrying her off!"
Within a few minutes the Gagnon household effects were heaped out of doors, and the stage set for the "trial." It was strange how the squatty little shack with its crooked windows and doors instantly took on the look of a court.
All the seats were ranged across one end between the two doors for the policemen and the guests of honour.
Both doors were left open to give light to the proceedings, and a great bar of sunlight fell athwart the dusty floor.
Coulson sat in the middle with a table before him, and the other policeman at his left with note-book and pencil to take down the evidence. Both youngsters as the representatives of authority wore an air of gravity beyond their years.
Miss Mackall sat at the other side of Coulson, ever making play with the ostrich feathers. The doctor and the Indian agent were next her.
At the other end of the line sat Bishop Lajeunesse. He had sent the boy-priests back to the boat to repack the baggage. Whatever their feelings, they had obeyed with a cheerful air.
Of all those present only the bishop showed any compassion. Bela stood near him, and he occasionally leaned forward and patted her arm. She received it with an odd look, at once grateful and apprehensive.
The body of the room was filled with the natives, including the Gagnon family, the boatmen, and the servants, all squatting on the floor facing the table of justice. While they waited for the appearance of the prisoner they occupied themselves with Miss Mackall's gloves and parasol, and the artificial bouquet at her girdle. No such articles as these had ever been seen before on Musquasepi.
Sam was led in with his hands tied before him. He held his head high. Jack left him standing in front of the table, and Jack, Shand, and Joe took up positions by the door across the room from Bela.
Feeling their importance in the scene, all looked a little self-righteous. Occasionally they relieved their feelings by spitting outside the door. Sam did not look greatly concerned; his conscience was clear. True, he felt the degradation of the bound wrists, but must he not presently be triumphantly vindicated? He had been waiting for this moment all night.
"Mercy! Not at all what I expected!" whispered Miss Mackall to the doctor. "The handsome wretch! Fancy! Carrying her off like what do you call him. Much too good for her. It's her they should punish!"
The proceedings were opened by a formal questioning.
"Name?"
"Samuel Gladding."
"Age?"
"Twenty-four."
"Nativity?"
"American. Born in Orange, New Jersey."
"Citizen of Canada?"
"No."
"First came to Canada?"
"February 18 last."
"Arrived at Caribou Lake?"
"May 3. Travelling with Messrs. Skinner, Marr, Hagland, and Fraser in the capacity of cook."
During the course of the questioning the prisoner gradually apprehended that the sentiment of the room was against him. The suspicion crept into his mind that it might not be so easy as he had thought to clear himself.
"You are charged with having abducted this girl Bela," Coulson went on, "and keeping her a prisoner on Eagle Island. It is your right to waive examination, in which case I shall send you out to Miwasa Landing for trial. Do you wish to proceed?"
"Yes," said Sam.
Young Coulson's legal formula failed him here. "Well, what have you got to say for yourself?" he asked quite humanly.
As Sam was about to defend himself it suddenly rushed over him what a comic figure he would make, accusing a girl of abducting him. He closed his mouth and blushed crimson. Big Jack and his pals smiled at each other meaningly.
"Well?" demanded Coulson.
"It's not true," mumbled Sam.
"Didn't you go with her?"
"Yes – but – "
"But what?"
"I had to."
"What do you mean?"
There was no help for it.
"It was she carried me off!" Sam burst out.
There was an instant's silence in the room. The white men stared at the unexpected answer. The red people hardly understood it.
"What do you mean?" demanded Coulson, scowling.
"Just what I said!" cried Sam recklessly. "Jumped on me when I was asleep; tied me hand and foot, and bundled me in her canoe."
There was a great burst of derisive laughter. The decorum of the court was entirely destroyed. Never had such an original defence been heard. Coulson and his clerk laughed with the rest. Even the bishop had to laugh, albeit indignantly. Jack, Shand, and Joe fairly doubled up by the door. Sam stood through it, blushing and glaring around at his tormentors.
"I believe him!" cried Miss Mackall; but nobody heard her.
When order was restored, Coulson said with a shake in his throat: "You hardly expect us to believe that, do you?"
"I don't care whether you believe it or not!" returned Sam hotly. "Let me question her, and I'll show you. I guess that's my right, isn't it?"
"Certainly," said Coulson stiffly. "Stand aside for a while, and let her tell her story without interruption. You can question her when she is through."
All the white people except the white woman looked at the girl with sympathetic eyes. Bela's face was pale, and one hand was pressed to her breast to control the agitated tenant there.
To be obliged to speak out before so many white people was a terrible ordeal for the girl of the lake. She suspected, too, that there would be some difficult questions to answer – and there was no Musq'oosis to advise her. Alas, if she had taken his advice she would not have been here at all!
"Go ahead," said Coulson sympathetically.
Bela drew a steadying breath and raised her head. Pointing at Sam with unconscious dramatic effect, she said clearly: "He speak true. I carry him off."
Again there was a silence in the court, while the spectators gaped in pure astonishment. The three men by the door scowled in an ugly fashion. Sam himself was surprised by her candour. He looked at her suspiciously, wondering what she was preparing for him.
Coulson regretted his sympathy. "What do you mean?" he demanded sharply. "Is this a joke?"
Bela shook her head. "I tie him up and tak' him away lak he say."
"Then what is all this about? What did you do it for?" asked the policeman.
This was the question Bela dreaded. A stubborn look came over her face. "He is my friend," she said. "I hear those ot'er men say they hate him. Say they goin' kill him and nobody know. I t'ink if I tell Sam that, he jus' laugh. So I got tak' him away myself to save him."
The white spectators leaned forward, mystified and breathlessly attentive. Here was a brand-new story which did not fit any of the time-honoured court-room situations. The bishop looked sad. He suspected from her face that she was lying. Jack, Shand, and Joe could not contain their angry exclamations.
"It's a lie!" cried Jack. "The cook was nothing to us, neither one way or the other. Of course, after we thought he carried her off, we were sore, naturally."
"She's just trying to shield him now!" cried Joe furiously.
"Well, I can't hold him if she doesn't want him held," said Coulson.
"She told me yesterday she wanted him punished," insisted Jack.
"One moment," said Coulson. "I'll get to the bottom of this." He returned to Bela with a severe air. "Is that true?"
"Yes; I tell him that," admitted Bela.
"What did you do that for?"
"He" – pointing to Sam – "run away from me." Here the spectators smiled. "I not strong enough to catch him. So I mak' them catch him. I mak' them bring him to the police so all is known. They cannot hurt him if all is known."
The bishop, watching Bela, was sadly puzzled. Poor Bela herself, if he had known, was confused between the truths and the untruths.
"Why should they want to hurt him?" demanded Coulson.
"I don' know." Here she was evasive again.
"What were you doing in their camp in the first place?" he asked.
"I jus' travellin'," said Bela.
"But you stayed there long enough to make friends. How long were you there?"
"Three – four days."
"What did you stay for?"
"Not'ing," said Bela sullenly.
"That's no answer. You must have known the risks a girl ran in a camp of men."
"I tak' care of myself all right."
"Answer my question," he insisted. "What did you stay there for?"
"I not stay in their house," she parried.
"Never mind that. What did you stay around there for?"
Bela was cornered. True to her wild nature, her eyes turned desirously toward the open door. The bishop laid a hand on her arm.
"Tell the truth, my daughter," he said gently. "No one shall harm you."
Bela turned to him. "I am 'mos' white," she explained, as if he were the only reasonable person present. "I lak be wit' white people."
Here a titter passed over the native audience at what they considered her presumption. Bela's eyes flashed scorn on them. She forgot her terrors.
"I am not one of these!" she cried. "I am white! I want marry a white man!"
An odd start of surprised laughter escaped the white spectators. They glanced at each other to make sure they had heard aright.
"Oh!" cried Coulson. "Now we're getting down to it. The prisoner here was the one you picked out?"
"Yes!" answered Bela defiantly. "He is the best man."
"Well – " exclaimed Coulson.
Suddenly the richness of the situation broke on the spectators, and a gale of laughter swept through the room.
The bishop laughed, too, though he patted Bela's arm encouragingly. At least, she was telling the truth now. It was too extraordinary to be otherwise.
Only the three men by the door did not laugh. With eyes full of hate, they glared at the girl and at the prisoner.
Big Jack, the most astute of the three, was the first to recover himself. It occurred to him that unless the rest of the story were prevented from coming out, their humiliation would be complete and abject.
With a glance of warning at his companions, he threw back his head and laughed louder than any. Shand and Joe, comprehending, followed suit. Their laughter had a bitter ring, but in a gale of laughter the difference passed unnoticed.
The prisoner turned white to his lips. He preserved an unnatural calmness. Only his wild, pained eyes betrayed the blinding, maddening rage that was consuming him.
Bela, whose eyes were only for him, turned pale to match. "Sam," she whispered imploringly.
"Cut me loose," he said thickly.
She looked about her. One passed her a knife, with which she cut his bonds, all the time searching his face with her terrified eyes, seeking to discover what he meant to do.
"I suppose I am free to go," he said stiffly to Coulson.
"Sure!" answered the policeman. He was kindly now – grateful, indeed, for the magnificent joke which had been provided.
"Sam! Sam!" Bela murmured piteously.
The spectators eagerly watched for the final scene of the humorous and original drama. Bela, unconscious of everybody but one man, made a lovely, appealing figure.
"Sam," she whispered, "now you know I your friend. Don' go! Wait little while. Sam – here is the bishop. Marry me, and let them laugh!"
Sam flung off the timid arm. "Marry you!" he cried with a quiet bitterness that burned like lye. "I'd sooner jump into the river!"
Empty-handed and hatless, he strode out of the shack.
"Sam, wait!" she cried, despairingly flying after.