_ CHAPTER XX. THE WOLF AND THE CARIBOU
Northward along Nelson River went the concourse of the Nakonkirhirinons, turning westward into the chain of little lakes above Winnipeg of which Dupre had spoken, sweeping forward over portage and dalle, and after them came the lone canoe, leaping the leagues like a loup-garou, for it never rested.
Day and night it shot forward, pulled by sturdy arms, half its people sleeping curled between thwarts, the other half manning the paddles, stopping for snatched rations, reading the signs of passing. So it crept forward upon the thing it sought, untiring, eager, absurd in its daring and its hope.
Like an embodiment of that very absurdity of courage so dear to the hearts of these men, the girl sat in the prow, taking a hand in the work with the best of them, beaconing the way as she had done before her venturers of Grand Portage, firing them with her calm certainty, binding them to her more firmly with each day.
To each bit of courtesy done eagerly to her there was her grave "I thank you,"--at each portage and line her hand to the rope, her shoulder to the pack, and all in the simple unconsciousness of her womanhood that made her what she was,--a leader.
Before forty-eight hours had passed they would have followed her to the brink of death,--to the Pays d'en Haut, to the heart of an hostile camp.
They fixed their eyes on her shining braids, bare to the sun, and anticipated her commands, obeyed her few words implicitly, and who shall say that many a dream did not weave itself around her in the summer days, for every man in the boat was young.
Who knew?
Perhaps the Nakonkirhirinons had already yielded to the savage wrath that takes a "skin for a skin,"--perhaps they had passed somewhere in the forest, hidden from view from the water, the too well-known blackened stake, the trodden circle. Perhaps there was no factor of Fort de Seviere.
Only Marc Dupre, nearest Maren in every change and arrangement, had no such thoughts. Dreams enough he wove in all surety, but they had to do with the blinding heights of sacrifice, the wistful valleys of renunciation.
His heart was full to overflowing with idolatry. From shadow and fireglow his dark eyes looked upon her with a love that had passed far beyond the need of word or touch, that buoyed her up and supported her in strength and purity, like the silver cloud beneath the feet of the Madonna.
And Maren, too, dreamed her dreams, for she had dreamed since the days of the forge in Grand Portage, and they were sad as death. No more did she list the sound of a western wind in the bending grass of a far country, the rush of virgin rivers, the whisper of pine-clad hills. The joy of the great quest was dead within her, the love of forest and stream, the lure of trail and trace. Sadness sat upon her like a garment. She only knew the pain that had birth that night in De Seviere when she sought McElroy to disclaim the giver of the red flower and found him kissing the red-rose cheek of the little Francette.
So went forth this little barque o' dreams.
Meanwhile what of the two men who journeyed ahead?
With each day they lost a little of the love of life, for with the cunning which gave them their hazy fame the Nakonkirhirinons were tightening the screws of cruelty.
Work beyond a man's strength was meted out to them. Alone in a long canoe heavily laden, McElroy and De Courtenay were forced to keep the pace set by the boats, each of which carried five men. Blisters came in their hands, broke and rose again, sweat poured from their straining bodies, and if they fell slow a spear-prod from the boat behind sent them forward.
How much more exquisite could be made the torture of a victim already worn to the ragged edge, how much sooner the scream be wrung from his throat. With each passing league that brought them nearer the end of the journey could be seen the fiendish eagerness rearing in the glittering eyes.
Turn and turn they took, these two, of the hindmost seat in the canoe, for the back of each was unspeakable from the spear-prods. Without a word McElroy took his punishment as the lagging became more pronounced from arms overtaxed at the paddles, but the long-haired adventurer from the Saskatchewan taunted them to their faces.
Taunt and fling were unavailing. Of an unearthly poise were these savages from the distant north. With grinning good humour they withheld their anger, knowing full well that time would doubly repay.
Here and there among them appeared those worst monsters of the wilds, INDIANS WITH BLUE EYES AND SQUARED-OUT TOES.
Far up ahead went forward the canoe of the dead chief, with Edmonton Ridgar sitting in silence among the blackened warriors.
Never once did he glance backward, never once at the night camps did he come near his factor.
Throughout the long days McElroy pondered this in his heart and turned it over and over without satisfaction. Unable to form any conclusion he fell to thinking of their friendship and of the gentle nature of the man, the unbending faith of him.
It was all a sorry riddle.
"Brace up, M'sieu," De Courtenay would laugh, even in the midst of exhaustion; "sing,--smile,--perhaps it will be only the stake, not something worse. Console yourself, as do I, with--memories."
And McElroy would say nothing, trying in his heart to hold back his wrath against this man for whose death he was to be responsible.
So went the uneven chase. Day's march of the savages and night's rest on the green shores, mummying fires in the big tepee and the captives lying in the sleep of exhaustion with one guard pacing the lodge opening,--day's pursuit of the lone canoe, brief landings for tea made at a micmac fire, scanning of lake and river and forest, night's unceasing forging ahead with Maren asleep in the prow, her head on Dupre's blanket.
When the last hard portage was made which carried them into Deer River, the girl looked to the west with a sudden fire of the old passion in her eyes.
"So, M'sieu?" she said to Dupre, "it lies yonder, the Land of the Whispering Hills? Would God our course lay there!"
And Dupre, wondering, answered, "Aye, at the Athabasca," for it was to McElroy alone that she had uncovered her soul concerning the great quest.
In Deer River the signs began to be plainer and fresher, showing the passing of the Indians,--here a camp but two days deserted, there scraps of refuse not yet cleared away by forest scavengers, and the pursuers knew they drew close to danger and excitement.
All day the men of Mowbray's brigade bent to the paddles in growing eagerness, and at the evening's stop Maren spoke to them, gathered around with cold rations in their hands, for no fire was lighted now.
"To-morrow we will overtake the Nakonkirhirinons," she said simply, as if that meant no more than speaking a brother brigade of Hudson's Bays, "and then will come the time of action. At night-camp we will make our effort of deliverance. You, Alloybeau, and you, McDonald, will keep within my call whatever happens, while Frith and Brilliers and Wilson will stay with the canoe, ready for instant flight. M'sieu," she laid a hand on Dupre's arm and her voice deepened softly, "is scout and captain and he goes at my side. More I cannot say until we know the lie of land to-morrow."
So they again took boat, this little band of venturers than whom there were no more daring threaders of the wilderness in all the vast unknown country; and Maren sat in the prow, her hands idle in her lap, for she had paddled since four by the sun.
Beside her, huddled half under the feet of Wilson on the foremost thwart, Dupre watched the stars as they came out in a turquoise sky, for the sleep that was due him would not come. He thought of the morrow and what it would bring, and the sadness in his heart grew with the deepening shades.
The fringed garment of white doeskin lay under his elbow and a fold of it brushed his cheek, and, boy that he was, its touch brought the quick tears to his eyes.
"Ma'amselle," he said presently, when the turquoise had faded to purple and the purple to velvet black, with the stars like a dowager's diamonds thickset upon it, "Ma'amselle, what think you is behind the stars?"
Maren turned her face to him like a sweet young moon, pale in the night.
"Behind the stars? Why, Heaven, M'sieu, where all is glory; Heaven assuredly."
"Aye. Where all is glory. Yes, for those who keep the holy mandates, whose hearts are pure as that heaven itself. For such as you. Oh, Holy Mother!--" his voice fell to a whisper; "there is no heaven, Ma'amselle, so pure as the white heart of you! But for him whose days have gone like the butterfly's flight from one prodigal joy to the next, whose heart has known neither love of God nor love of a good woman, save for a little space, whose tongue has boasted and blasphemed, and whose life has been worth no jot of good,--what, think you, a waits so lost a man as this?"
The light "whoosh,--sst--whoosh" of the dipping paddles, the occasional rattle of a handle on a gunwale, formed a blending background against which his low words were distinguishable only to the girl beside him.
She looked long into his upturned face. The wistfulness sat heavy upon it. The youthfulness of this dashing trapper of the posts and settlements came out plain in the starlight. She saw again the pliant strength beneath the slender grace, caught the suggestion of contradicting forces that she had felt one day in Marie's doorway when young Dupre swung up the main way of Fort de Seviere, and beneath it all she saw that which had caused her to say on that first morning of the long trail when he faced her in the hidden cove, "Would it had been given me to love you, M'sieu!"
All this passed through her aching heart, and presently she said with a little catch in her deep voice,
"What awaits a man like this? A man who has done all these things and who speaks of their folly, who thinks of God in the nighttimes, whose heart turns with longing to that land behind the stars, and who gives,"--she paused a moment,--"I cannot say the rest,--But--but--Oh, there awaits this man the smile of that Christ of the Seven Scars, the loving tears of Our Lady of Sorrows, the very grace of the Good God!"
"Truly,--Ma'amselle?" asked Marc Dupre wistfully, "in your heart--not out of its goodness?"
"In my heart of hearts I think this, M'sieu."
They fell silent for a long time, while the stars travelled with them in the broken water and the ripples lapped and sucked at the shores and the swift stream hurried to the bay.
At length the trapper tentatively raised his hand and touched the bare arm of Maren where it shone brown beneath the white of the fringed sleeve.
"I thank you for those words, Ma'amselle," he said simply; "they are healing as the Confessional to my ragged soul." _