Read Ebook: The Call of the North by White Stewart Edward

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Ebook has 764 lines and 37461 words, and 16 pages

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, calmly.

"It amuses you to be ignorant," replied the stranger, with some contempt. "Don't you think this farce is about played out? I do. If you think you're deceiving me any with this show of formality, you're mightily mistaken. Don't you suppose I knew what I was about when I came into this country? Don't you suppose I had weighed the risks and had made up my mind to take my medicine if I should be caught? Your methods are not quite so secret as you imagine. I know perfectly well what happens to Free Traders in Rupert's Land."

"You seem very certain of your information."

"Your men seem equally so," pointed out the stranger.

Galen Albret, at the beginning of the young man's longer speech, had sunk almost immediately into his passive calm--the calm of great elemental bodies, the calm of a force so vast as to rest motionless by the very static power of its mass. When he spoke again, it was in the tentative manner of his earlier interrogatory, committing himself not at all, seeking to plumb his opponent's knowledge.

"Why, if you have realized the gravity of your situation have you persisted after having been twice warned?" he inquired.

"Because you're not the boss of creation," replied the young man, bluntly.

Galen Albret merely raised his eyebrows.

"I've got as much business in this country as you have," continued the young man, his tone becoming more incisive. "You don't seem to realize that your charter of monopoly has expired. If the government was worth a damn it would see to you fellows. You have no more right to order me out of here than I would have to order you out. Suppose some old Husky up on Whale River should send you word that you weren't to trap in the Whale River district next winter. I'll bet you'd be there. You Hudson Bay men tried the same game out west It didn't work. You ask your western men if they ever heard of Ned Trent."

"Your success does not seem to have followed you here," suggested the Factor, ironically.

The young man smiled.

Ned Trent laughed outright. "You don't imagine there is any secret about that!" he marvelled. "Why, every child north of the Line knows that. You will send me away without arms, and with but a handful of provisions. If the wilderness and starvation fail, your runners will not. I shall never reach the Temiscamingues alive."

"The same old legend," commented Galen Albret in apparent amusement, "I heard it when I first came to this country. You'll find a dozen such in every Indian camp."

"Jo Bagneau, Morris Proctor, John May, William Jarvis," checked off the young man on his fingers.

"Personal enmity," replied the Factor.

He glanced up to meet the young man's steady, sceptical smile.

"You do not believe me?"

"Oh, if it amuses you." conceded the stranger.

"The thing is not even worth discussion."

"Remarkable sensation among our friends here for so idle a tale."

Galen Albret considered.

"You will remember that throughout you have forced this interview," he pointed out. "Now I must ask your definite promise to get out of this country and to stay out."

"No," replied Ned Trent.

"Then a means shall be found to make you!" threatened the Factor, his anger blazing at last.

"Ah," said the stranger softly.

Galen Albret raised his hand and let it fall. The bronzed and gaudily bedecked men filed out.

In the open air the men separated in quest of their various families or friends. The stranger lingered undecided for a moment on the top step of the veranda, and then wandered down the little street, if street it could be called where horses there were none. On the left ranged the square white-washed houses with their dooryards, the old church, the workshop. To the right was a broad grass-plot, and then the Moose, slipping by to the distant offing. Over a little bridge the stranger idled, looking curiously about him. The great trading-house attracted his attention, with its narrow picket lane leading to the door; the storehouse surrounded by a protective log fence; the fort itself, a medley of heavy-timbered stockades and square block-houses. After a moment he resumed his strolling. Everywhere he went the people looked at him, ceasing their varied occupations. No one spoke to him, no one hindered him. To all intents and purposes he was as free as the air. But all about the island flowed the barrier of the Moose, and beyond frowned the wilderness--strong as iron bars to an unarmed man.

Brooding on his imprisonment the Free Trader forgot his surroundings. The post, the river, the forest, the distant bay faded from his sight, and he fell into deep reflection. There remained nothing of physical consciousness but a sense of the grateful spring warmth from the declining sun. At length he became vaguely aware of something else. He glanced up. Right by him he saw a handsome French half-breed sprawled out in the sun against a building, looking him straight in the face and flashing up at him a friendly smile.

"Hullo," said Achille Picard, "you mus' been 'sleep. I call you two t'ree tam."

The prisoner seemed to find something grateful in the greeting even from the enemy's camp. Perhaps it merely happened upon the psychological moment for a response.

"Hullo," he returned, and seated himself by the man's side, lazily stretching himself in enjoyment of the reflected heat.

"You is come off Kettle Portage, eh," said Achille, "I t'ink so. You is come trade dose fur? Eet is bad beez-ness, dis Conjur' House. Ole' man he no lak' dat you trade dose fur. He's very hard, dat ole man."

"I beleef you," responded Achille, cheerfully; "w'at you call heem your nam'?"

"Ned Trent."

"It is a hard post. The winter travel is pretty tough."

"I beleef you."

"Right you are. Have there been men sent out since you came here?"

"I'm due to hit that trail myself, I suppose," said Ned Trent.

"I have t'ink so," acknowledged Achille, still with a tone of most engaging cheerfulness.

"Shall I be sent out at once, do you think?"

"Achille, you haven't anything against me--do you want me to die?"

The half-breed flashed his white teeth.

"Listen. I have nothing with me; but out at the front I am very rich. I will give you a hundred dollars, if you will help me to get away."

"I can' do eet," smiled Picard.

"Why not?"

"I'll make it two hundred--three hundred--five hundred."

"Wat you wan' me do?" hesitated Achille Picard at the last figure.

"Get me a rifle and some cartridges."

The half-breed rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and inhaled a deep breath.

"I can' do eet," he declared. "I can' do eet for t'ousand dollar--ten t'ousand. I don't t'ink you fin' anywan on dis settlement w'at can dare do eet. He is wan devil. He's count all de carabine on dis pos', an' w'en he is mees wan, he fin' out purty queek who is tak' heem."

"Steal one from someone else," suggested Trent.

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