The Call of the North Read online

  "Listen to me well," he commanded. "You shall make a count of all rifles in this place—at once. Let no one furnish this man with food or arms. You know the story of la Longue Traverse. This man shall take it. So inform my people, I, the Factor, decree it so. Prepare all things at once—understand, at once!"

  Ned Trent waited to hear no more, but sauntered from the room whistling gayly a boatman's song. His point was gained.

  Outside, the long Northern twilight with its beautiful shadows of crimson was descending from the upper regions of the east A light wind breathed up-river from the bay. The Free Trader drew his lungs full of the evening air.

  "Just the same, I think she will come," said he to himself. "La Longue Traverse, even at once, is a pretty slim chance. But this second string to my bow is better. I believe I'll get the rifle—if she comes!"

  Chapter Seven

  Virginia ran quickly up the narrow stairs to her own room, where she threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillows.

  As she had said, she was very much shaken. And, too, she way afraid.

  She could not understand. Heretofore she had moved among the men around her, pure, lofty, serene. Now at one blow all this crumbled. The stranger had outraged her finer feelings. He had insulted her father in her very presence;—for this she was angry. He had insulted herself;—for this she was afraid. He had demanded that she meet him again; but this—at least in the manner he had suggested—should not happen. And yet she confessed to herself a delicious wonder as to what he would do next, and a vague desire to see him again in order to find out. That she could not successfully combat this feeling made her angry at herself. And so in mingled fear, pride, anger, and longing she remained until Wishkobun, the Indian woman, glided in to dress her for the dinner whose formality she and her father consistently maintained. She fell to talking the soft Ojibway dialect, and in the conversation forgot some of her emotion and regained some of her calm.

  Her surface thoughts, at least, were compelled for the moment to occupy themselves with other things. The Indian woman had to tell her of the silver fox brought in by Mu-hi-ken, an Indian of her own tribe; of the retort Achille Picard had made when MacLane had taunted him; of the forest fire that had declared itself far to the east, and of the theories to account for it where no campers had been. Yet underneath the rambling chatter Virginia was aware of something new in her consciousness, something delicious but as yet vague. In the gayest moment of her half-jesting, half-affectionate gossip with the Indian woman, she felt its uplift catching her breath from beneath, so that for the tiniest instant she would pause as though in readiness for some message which nevertheless delayed. A fresh delight in the present moment held her, a fresh anticipation of the immediate future, though both delight and anticipation were based on something without her knowledge. That would come later.

  The sound of rapid footsteps echoed across the lower hall, a whistle ran into an air, sung gayly, with spirit;

  "J'ai perdu ma maitresse,

  Sans l'avoir merite,

  Pour un bouquet de roses

  Que je lui refusai.

  Li ya longtemps que je t'aime,

  Jamais je ne t'oublierai!"

  She fell abruptly silent, and spoke no more until she descended to the council-room where the table was now spread for dinner.

  Two silver candlesticks lit the place. The men were waiting for her when she entered, and at once took their seats in the worn, rude chairs. White linen and glittering silver adorned the service. Galen Albret occupied one end of the table, Virginia the other. On either side were Doctor and Mrs. Cockburn; McDonald, the Chief Trader; Richardson, the clerk, and Crane, the missionary of the Church of England. Matthews served with rigid precision in the order of importance, first the Factor, then Virginia, then the doctor, his wife, McDonald, the clerk, and Crane in due order. On entering a room the same precedence would have held good. Thus these people, six hundred miles as the crow flies from the nearest settlement, maintained their shadowy hold on civilization.

  The glass was fine, the silver massive, the linen dainty, Matthews waited faultlessly: but overhead hung the rough timbers of the wilderness post, across the river faintly could be heard the howling of wolves. The fare was rice, curry, salt pork, potatoes, and beans; for at this season the game was poor, and the fish hardly yet running with regularity.

  Throughout the meal Virginia sat in a singular abstraction. No conscious thoughts took shape in her mind, but nevertheless she seemed to herself to be occupied in considering weighty matters. When directly addressed, she answered sweetly. Much of the time she studied her father's face. She found it old. Those lines were already evident which, when first noted, bring a stab of surprised pain to the breast of a child—the droop of the mouth, the wrinkling of the temples, the patient weariness of the eyes. Virginia's own eyes filled with tears. The subjective passive state into which a newly born but not yet recognized love had cast her, inclined her to gentleness. She accepted facts as they came to her. For the moment she forgot the mere happenings of the day, and lived only in the resulting mood of them all. The new-comer inspired her no longer with anger nor sorrow, attraction nor fear. Her active emotions in abeyance, she floated dreamily on the clouds of a new estate.

  This very aloofness of spirit disinclined her for the company of the others after the meal was finished. The Factor closeted himself with Richardson. The doctor, lighting a cheroot, took his way across to his infirmary. McDonald, Crane, and Mrs. Cockburn entered the drawing-room and seated themselves near the piano. Virginia hesitated, then threw a shawl over her head and stepped out on the broad veranda.

  At once the vast, splendid beauty of the Northern night broke over her soul. Straight before her gleamed and flashed and ebbed and palpitated the aurora. One moment its long arms shot beyond the zenith; the next it had broken and rippled back like a brook of light to its arch over the Great Bear. Never for an instant was it still. Its restlessness stole away the quiet of the evening; but left it magnificent.

  In comparison with this coruscating dome of the infinite the earth had shrunken to a narrow black band of velvet, in which was nothing distinguishable until suddenly the sky-line broke in calm silhouettes of spruce and firs. And always the mighty River of the Moose, gleaming, jewelled, barbaric in its reflections, slipped by to the sea.

  So rapid and bewildering was the motion of these two great powers—the river and the sky—that the imagination could not believe in silence. It was as though the earth were full of shoutings and of tumults. And yet in reality the night was as still as a tropical evening. The wolves and the sledge-dogs answered each other undisturbed; the beautiful songs of the white-throats stole from the forest as divinely instinct as ever with the spirit of peace.

  Virginia leaned against the railing and looked upon it all. Her heart was big with emotions, many of which she could not name; her eyes were full of tears. Something had changed in her since yesterday, but she did not know what it was. The faint wise stars, the pale moon just sinking, the gentle south breeze could have told her, for they are old, old in the world's affairs. Occasionally a flash more than ordinarily brilliant would glint one of the bronze guns beneath the flag-staff. Then Virginia's heart would glint too. She imagined the reflection startled her.

  She stretched her arms out to the night, embracing its glories, sighing in sympathy with its meaning, which she did not know. She felt the desire of restlessness; yet she could not bear to go. But no thought of the stranger touched her, for you see as yet she did not understand.

  Then, quite naturally, she heard his voice in the darkness close to her knee. It seemed inevitable that he should be there; part of the restless, glorious night, part of her mood. She gave no start of surprise, but half closed her eyes and leaned her fair head against a pillar of the veranda. He sang in a sweet undertone an old chanson of voyage.

  "Par derrier ches man pere,

  Vole, mon coeur, vole!

  Par derrier' chez mon pere


  Li-ya-t-un, pommier doux."

  "Ah lady, lady mine," broke in the voice softly, "the night too is sweet, soft as thine eyes. Will you not greet me?"

  The girl made no sign. After a moment the song went on,

  "Trois filles d'un prince,

  Vole, mon coeur, vole!

  Trois filles d'un prince

  Sont endormies dessous."

  "Will not the princess leave her sisters of dreams?" whispered the voice, fantastically, "Will she not come?"

  Virginia shivered, and half-opened her eyes, but did not stir. It seemed that the darkness sighed, then became musical again.

  "La plus jeun' se reveille,

  Vole, mon coeur, vole!

  La plus jeun' se reveille

  —Ma Soeur, voila le jour!

  The song broke this time without a word of pleading. The girl opened her eyes wide and stared breathlessly straight before her at the singer.

  "—Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile,

  Vole, mon coeur, vole!

  Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile

  Qu' eclaire nos amours!"

  The last word rolled out through its passionate throat tones and died into silence.

  "Come!" repeated the man again, this time almost in the accents of command.

  She turned slowly and went to him, her eyes childlike and frightened, her lips wide, her face pale. When she stood face to face with him she swayed and almost fell.

  "What do you want with me?" she faltered, with a little sob.

  The man looked at her keenly, laughed, and exclaimed in an every-day, matter-of-fact voice:

  "Why, I really believe my song frightened you. It is only a boating song. Come, let us go and sit on the gun-carriages and talk."

  "Oh!" she gasped, a trifle hysterically. "Don't do that again!

  Please don't. I do not understand it! You must not!"

  He laughed again, but with a note of tenderness in his voice, and took her hand to lead her away, humming in an undertone the last couplet of his song:

  "Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile,

  Qu'eclaire nos amours!"

  Chapter Eight

  Virginia went with this man passively—to an appointment which, but an hour ago, she had promised herself she would not keep. Her inmost soul was stirred, just as before. Then it had been few words, now it was a little common song. But the strange power of the man held her close, so she realized that for the moment at least she would do as he desired. In the amazement and consternation of this thought she found time to offer up a little prayer, "Dear God, make him kind to me."

  They leaned against the old bronze guns, facing the river. He pulled her shawl about her, masterfully yet with gentleness, and then, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, he drew her to him until she rested against his shoulder. And she remained there, trembling, in suspense, glancing at him quickly, in birdlike, pleading glances, as though praying him to be kind. He took no notice after that, so the act seemed less like a caress than a matter of course. He began to talk, half-humorously, and little by little, as he went on, she forgot her fears, even her feeling of strangeness, and fell completely under the spell of his power.

  "My name is Ned Trent," he told her, "and I am from Quebec. I am a woods runner. I have journeyed far. I have been to the uttermost ends of the North even up beyond the Hills of Silence." And then, in his gay, half-mocking, yet musical voice he touched lightly on vast and distant things. He talked of the great Saskatchewan, of Peace River, and the delta of the Mackenzie, of the winter journeys beyond Great Bear Lake into the Land of the Little Sticks, and the half-mythical lake of Yamba Tooh. He spoke of life with the Dog Ribs and Yellow Knives, where the snow falls in midsummer. Before her eyes slowly spread, like a panorama, the whole extent of the great North, with its fierce, hardy men, its dreadful journeys by canoe and sledge, its frozen barrens, its mighty forests, its solemn charm. All at once this post of Conjurors House, a month in the wilderness as it was, seemed very small and tame and civilized for the simple reason that Death did not always compass it about.

  "It was very cold then," said Ned Trent "and very hard. Le grand frete [froid—cold] of winter had come. At night we had no other shelter than our blankets, and we could not keep a fire because the spruce burned too fast and threw too many coals. For a long time we shivered, curled up on our snowshoes; then fell heavily asleep, so that even the dogs fighting over us did not awaken us. Two or three times in the night we boiled tea. We had to thaw our moccasins each morning by thrusting them inside our shirts. Even the Indians were shivering and saying, 'Ed-sa, yazzi ed-sa'—'it is cold, very cold.' And when we came to Rae it was not much better. A roaring fire in the fireplace could not prevent the ink from freezing on the pen. This went on for five months."

  Thus he spoke, as one who says common things. He said little of himself, but as he went on in short, curt sentences the picture grew more distinct, and to Virginia the man became more and more prominent in it. She saw the dying and exhausted dogs, the frost-rimed, weary men; she heard the quick crunch, crunch, crunch of the snow-shoes hurrying ahead to break the trail; she felt the cruel torture of the mal de raquette, the shrivelling bite of the frost, the pain of snow blindness, the hunger that yet could not stomach the frozen fish nor the hairy, black caribou meat. One thing she could not conceive—the indomitable spirit of the men. She glanced timidly up at her companion's face.

  "The Company is a cruel master," she sighed at last, standing upright, then leaning against the carriage of the gun. He let her go without protest, almost without thought, it seemed.

  "But not mine," said he.

  She exclaimed, in astonishment, "Are you not of the Company?"

  "I am no man's man but my own," he answered, simply.

  "Then why do you stay in this dreadful North?" she asked.

  "Because I love it. It is my life. I want to go where no man has set foot before me; I want to stand alone under the sky; I want to show myself that nothing is too big for me—no difficulty, no hardship—nothing!"

  "Why did you come here, then? Here at least are forests so that you can keep warm. This is not so dreadful as the Coppermine, and the country of the Yellow Knives. Did you come here to try la Longue Traverse of which you spoke to-day?"

  He fell suddenly sombre, biting in reflection at his lip.

  "No—yes—why not?" he said, at length.

  "I know you will come out of it safely," said she; "I feel it. You are brave and used to travel. Won't you tell me about it?"

  He did not reply. After a moment she looked up in surprise. His brows were knit in reflection. He turned to her again, his eyes glowing into hers. Once more the fascination of the man grew big, overwhelmed her. She felt her heart flutter, her consciousness swim, her old terror returning.

  "Listen," said he. "I may come to you to-morrow and ask you to choose between your divine pity and what you might think to be your duty. Then I will tell you all there is to know of la Longue Traverse. Now it is a secret of the Company. You are a Factor's daughter; you know what that means." He dropped his head. "Ah, I am tired—tired with it all!" he cried, in a voice strangely unhappy. "But yesterday I played the game with all my old spirit; to-day the zest is gone! I no longer care." He felt the pressure of her hand. "Are you just a little sorry for me?" he asked. "Sorry for a weakness you do not understand? You must think me a fool."

  "I know you are unhappy," replied Virginia, gently. "I am truly sorry for that."

  "Are you? Are you, indeed?" he cried. "Unhappiness is worth such pity as yours." He brooded for a moment, then threw his hands out with what might have been a gesture of desperate indifference. Suddenly his mood changed in the whimsical, bewildering fashion of the man. "Ah, a star shoots!" he exclaimed, gayly. "That means a kiss!"

  Still laughing, he attempted to draw her to him. Angry, mortified, outraged, she fought herself free and leaped to her feet.

  "Oh!" she cried, in insulted anger.

  "Oh!" she cried, in a red
shame.

  "Oh!" she cried, in sorrow.

  Her calm broke. She burst into the violent sobbing of a child, and turned and ran hurriedly to the factory.

  Ned Trent stared after her a minute from beneath scowling brows.

  He stamped his moccasined foot impatiently.

  "Like a rat in a trap!" he jeered at himself. "Like a rat in a trap, Ned Trent! The fates are drawing around you close. You need just one little thing, and you cannot get it. Bribery is useless! Force is useless! Craft is useless! This afternoon I thought I saw another way. What I could get no other way I might get from this little girl. She is only a child. I believe I could touch her pity—ah, Ned Trent, Ned Trent, can you ever forget her frightened, white face begging you to be kind?" He paced back and forth between the two bronze guns with long, straight strides, like a panther in a cage. "Her aid is mine for the asking—but she makes it impossible to ask! I could not do it. Better try la Longue Traverse than take advantage of her pity—she'd surely get into trouble. What wonderful eyes she has. She thinks I am a brute—how she sobbed, as though her little heart had broken. Well, it was the only way to destroy her interest in me. I had to do it. Now she will despise me and forget me. It is better that she should think me a brute than that I should be always haunted by those pleading eyes." The door of the distant church house opened and closed. He smiled bitterly. "To be sure, I haven't tried that." he acknowledged. "Their teachings are singularly apropos to my case—mercy, justice, humanity—yes, and love of man. I'll try it. I'll call for help on the love of man, since I cannot on the love of woman. The love of woman—ah——yes."

  He set his feet reflectively toward the chapel.

  Chapter Nine

  After a moment he pushed open the door without ceremony, and entered. He bent his brows, studying the Reverend Archibald Crane, while the latter, looking up startled, turned pink.