CHAPTER XIX
A FORCED MARCH
Charley Seguis entered the council chamber of the huge log house
in the free-trader's camp at the lower end of Sturgeon Lake, and
looked about him with satisfaction. Now, the square, bare-floored
room could scarcely hold the men when he called them into meeting
because of the bales of fur that were piled everywhere.
It had indeed been a successful winter for the free-traders,
notwithstanding opposition; and, as is the case in so many new
enterprises, there had been an enthusiasm and devotion to the cause
that had given speed to snowshoes and accuracy to the aim of rifles.
The catch was extraordinary.
Passing out into the open again, he met one of his men.
“The Frenchies ought to be here with their supplies pretty soon,
chief,” the latter remarked; “we're running mighty low on flour
and tea and tobacco.”
“I expect them any day,” was the reply. “Can we hold out a week
longer?”
“No more than that, and, even so, we'll have to go on short rations.”
Although the situation was as yet not grave, it gave Seguis some
concern. The negotiations with the French company that had bargained
for the free-traders' furs were, this first winter, carried on
under difficulties, for the company had not as yet been able to
build a post for regular trading.
Arrangements had been made, however, to send a great dog-train of
ten sledges north, loaded with supplies, that the hunters might
replenish their failing stores. Because of the unsatisfactory
trading arrangements, the men had not ventured far afield; and,
now, because of the shortness of staple food, they had gathered at
the settlement to restock before circling out on the hunt again.
The opportunities for game at this time were the worst in the
winter. Moose had “yarded up”—that is, gone into winter seclusion
in some snowy corral farther north—and bears were enjoying their
five or six months' nap beneath cozy tree-roots and five or six
feet of snow. Caribou, always hard hunting, unless “mired” in deep
snow, were few and far between.
The only real source of fresh food was the lake, where a number of
men were constantly employed fishing through the ice. And even this
was unsatisfactory, because a considerable amount was needed to
keep so many men and dogs supplied. There was, however, an air of
contentment and satisfaction in the camp, and the men waited
patiently, though hungrily, for the arrival of the trains from
the south.
When the commissary had left him, Charley Seguis's brow clouded
with annoyance as he saw a bent, wizened female figure approaching
him. The only woman In the camp, old Maria, had not fallen into
obscurity for a moment. She always wanted something, and haggled
and nagged until she got it. Seguis, the sterling white blood
ascendant in him, could not always find the pride for her in his
heart that a mother might wish of her son. Now, she fawned upon
him and whined.
“Are you a man or a stick,” she complained, “that you let the blood
of your brother go unavenged? It's nearly three weeks since some
coward shot him, and you haven't made a move to find the guilty
man.”
“Nor will I, until the business here is settled,” Seguis retorted,
in a tone of finality. “Do you expect me to leave this camp when
the traders are expected, and go on some wild-goose chase out of
personal revenge? For my part, I think Tom would have been sorrowed
over a little more if he hadn't been such a fool. Why he went
gunning for McTavish out of pure spite, I don't see. We need every
man we can get in this camp.”
Seguis was a remarkably fine-looking half-breed. He had the proud
carriage and graceful movements of the Indian, combined with the
bright eyes and more attractively shaped head of a Caucasian. His
hair was smooth and black, but lacked the coarseness of his mother's
race, while his brain and method of thinking were wholly that of
his father. With this endowment there had come to him, early in
life, an aspiration to rise above his own sort, a desire to be a
thorough white man. And in this he had always been supported by
his mother, who, knowing her past, carried in her heart bitterness
fully the equal of Angus Fitzpatrick's. It was only when her elder
son had reached manhood, and bore easily, as by right, the manners
of the superior race that the idea of carrying him upward ruthlessly
had come to her.
Catherine de' Medici placed three successive sons on the throne of
France. Old Maria was less ambitious, but none the less unscrupulous,
and her methods revealed an uncanny natural knowledge of diplomacy
and statecraft. Her whole life was bound up in the achievements of
Charley Seguis, and she rarely, if ever, considered the question
of personal perquisites should her schemes result successfully.
She was content to be the background of his operations; and the
background of a picture, although it be subordinate to the main
object, rarely goes absolutely unnoticed.
The strangest part of her plan lay in the fact that as yet Seguis
was totally unaware of his parentage. In the cunning scheme she
had evolved, it was her intention to remove Donald McTavish
completely, though unostentatiously; then could come the great
revelation and the noise of conquest. Reasoning thus, she had taken
her story to Angus Fitzpatrick, anxious, hesitant, and fearful.
But in him, to her great joy, she had found an arrogant and eager,
ally. This had been during the summer. It was now the first of
March, and time was flying. The work must be completed before the
spring thaws. The loss of Tom was not the grief to her that she
made pretense it was. Her references to it this morning had a deeper
purpose. She continued the conversation, despite Seguis's tone of
annoyance.
“Tom may have been a fool,” she croaked, “but you're hardly the
person to say so. Perhaps you'd have changed your song, if he'd
put that dog, McTavish, out of the way—curse his charmed life!”
Seguis laughed harshly.
“You did your best, and Tom did his; I suppose it is up to me next.
But why do you imagine I would be so glad if the captain was disposed
of? I've nothing against him.”
“No? What's the matter with you? You're as soft as a rotten tree!
What were you hanging around Fort Severn for all last summer,
without a look for the Indian girls? Why were you singing love-songs
under the trees of nights? Why did you cease to eat, and carry
around a face as long as a sick fox's, eh? Ah, you are angry, and
you shift! And, yet, you ask me what you have against this McTavish!
With him out of the way, there's no reason why you shouldn't—”
“Hush, hush, mother! There are men coming. Don't talk so loud!”
Seguis moved uncomfortably. “Leave me, now. There's some truth in
what you say. I'll think it over.”
Old Maria, bent and shriveled, hobbled off, croaking, to hide the
expression of malignant triumph on her leathery face. Her words
had bitten deeper than Seguis cared to admit, even to himself. The
short summer months, the hunter's love- and play-time, had been a
season of misery for him, because of Jean Fitzpatrick's pure and
beautiful face. Subconsciously, he knew that in mind and spirit
he was her equal; the white strain in him, which now governed all
his thoughts and actions, felt the call of its own blood. Hence,
it had been with sad, rather than bitter, feelings that he witnessed
Donald's courtship of the girl. More fiercely than ever, he realized
the limitations of his kind. The bar sinister was a veritable
millstone around his neck which dragged him down to a level he
abhorred.
It was with a kind of gnawing hopelessness that he had gone away
from the fort in the fall, and endeavored to forget his misery in
the thousand activities of the free-traders' brotherhood. For
McTavish personally, he had always retained a strong feeling of
friendship, as was shown on the occasion of sending the Hudson Bay
man forth on the Death Trail. But, now, the old hunger returned
strong upon him at his mother's words, and he resolved to give
himself every opportunity for contemplation of the dangerous theme.
Night came without the appearance of the looked-for French
supply-trains, and, as usual, the camp retired early. As many of
the men as possible used the small rooms in the great log house,
which occupied two-thirds of its length. It was in one of these
that Donald had been confined during his stay among the free-traders.
A high wind was blowing, and it was intensely cold. Suddenly, during
the most terrible hours of the night, a frightened cry rang through
the camp. Men, with heads and faces buried under mountainous
blankets or in sleeping-bags, did not hear, and the shivering wretch
who had tried to give the alarm ran frantically from room to room,
rousing the sleepers. Those who were sheltered by shed-tents awoke
to see a rosy light spreading across the snow where they lay—a
light that was not the aurora. Then, upon the rushing wind sounded
an ominous roar and a mighty crackling. The great log house was
afire, and the wind exulted in the flames, tossing them back and
forth and upward with fiendish glee. Shouting hoarsely, the trappers
leaped, wet and steaming, out of their covers, and ran to the
conflagration.
How the blaze had started was no mystery, for, in the little rooms
the men occupied, each was permitted his tiny fire for cooking.
Perhaps, the uneasy foot of a sleeper, perhaps a gust of wind
between the chinks, had sent an ember underneath the inflammable
logging of the walls.
Charley Seguis, although heavy with slumber, was among the first
to run out of the building. In an instant, he took in the situation.
With a lake like rock, and but one or two buckets, it was utterly
impossible to check the flames with water; one or two men were
making a desperate attempt to throw snow on the fire; but the wind
whirled this away as fast as it was shot into the air. The building
was doomed.
“Save the furs! Save the furs!” Seguis commanded at the top of his
voice, and set an example by plunging into the council chamber, to
reappear in a moment with two small bales of pelts. Instantly, the
others followed his example.
Fortunately, the fire had started at the opposite end, so there
was a fighting chance to save the valuable skins, although the
flames were leaping along the beams with lightning rapidity.
Presently, it was seen that the crowding of men endeavoring to pass
in and out at the same time would be fatal to the contents of the
wareroom, and Seguis, with a few rapid commands, formed a chain
from the interior to a point well beyond the danger zone. He himself
took the post of hazard in the midst of the piled pelts, and with
quick thrusts of his arms kept a steady stream of bales flowing.
Such men as could not get on the pelt-brigade, he soon had rescuing
bedding, traps, and other valuables from the little rooms, some of
which were already seething infernos.
Urged by the high wind, the flames licked hungrily at the dry logs,
and presently such a terrific heat radiated from the fire that the
snow fled away in tiny rivulets, and the iron ground was laid bare.
Fast as they worked, the men could not outspeed the devouring
element. Flying embers clattered upon the tindery roof, and in a
moment the whole top of the long structure was ablaze.
Charley Seguis, grabbing bales and passing them with both hands,
suddenly brushed a six-inch ember from the pack of otter in front
of him with a curse, and looked up. Here and there spots of fire
dropped among the furs. He said nothing, but redoubled his efforts.
In fifteen minutes, three-quarters of the work was done, and the
drops of fire from above had become a steady rain.
“Get the chief out of there!” yelled someone. “The walls will
fall on him!”
The man who was standing next the entrance shouted to Seguis, but
all he got was a round cursing and a command to stay where he was.
The half-breed was fighting now for more than a few bales of furs;
he was fighting for the very existence of the free-traders. For,
should their skins be lost, their value as an organization would
be gone; and gone, too, all the labor of months, with its accompanying
intrinsic worth.
Now, there were but twenty bales left; now, but fifteen. Seguis's
hands were raw from burns, his fur cap smoldered in half-a-dozen
places. But the man at the door was brave, and Seguis kept on.
Ten—five! Could he hold out? Three—two! One! ... Swearing horribly
with agony, drenched with perspiration, Seguis burst out of the
narrow doorway just as the walls collapsed inward from both sides.
Quick hands wrapped blankets about him, and beat out the fire in
his cap. Still holding the last bale in his hand, he stood grimly,
watching the destruction of the only free warehouse within five
hundred miles. Higher and higher the flames mounted; the circle of
men was driven slowly backward by the fearful heat; the surrounding
snow was eaten away for fifty yards on every side.
Some activity was necessary lest the flying brands do damage to
the shed-tents and the priceless bedding, but the work required
only a few hands.
“Well, thank heaven, we saved the furs!” exclaimed the chief,
at last.
“You saved 'em rather,” said a voice admiringly. Seguis interrupted,
roughly.
“Tell the cook to make a couple of buckets of tea, and serve it
around as soon as possible.”
“Pardon!” said the functionary referred to; “but there's no tea,
or any other kind of provision in the camp. What little stock
remained was stored in the far end of the building where the fire
took hold first. I tried to get to it, but it was no use. There's
no food.”
This was a serious state of affairs, for without his eternal hot
tea the woodsman is almost as wretched as though tobacco had ceased
to grow. And, now, it was almost a matter of life and death, for
the men were mostly without shelter, and worn out with their long
struggle. Charley Seguis walked up and down briskly for a while,
thinking. The fire tumbled in upon itself with a great roar and
geyser of sparks, throwing distant trees and forest aisles into
quick relief. The first indications of dawn, almost obliterated by
the brilliance of the blaze, now made themselves definitely evident.
A few of the men, with rough fishing-tackle and axes, had already
started toward the edge of the lake for the morning's catch.
Seguis watched them with somber eyes, pausing for a moment in his
walk. Fish, fish, fish; nothing between starvation and life for
forty men except that staple of fish. And suppose the French traders
did not get through! Suppose something had gone wrong in that five
hundred-odd miles to civilization!
Where, then? Where in this wilderness could he turn for abundant
supplies easily secured—except one place. A grim smile set his
face into hard lines. ... Yes, he would go there. His mother's
words of the day before returned to him. Perhaps he would see
her! He called a man to him.
“Tell the boys to get ready to march. I'll leave five here to guard
the furs. The rest of us are going up to the Hudson Bay camp, and
get food. If we don't, we'll starve to death, or get scurvy, or
something. Tell everybody to be ready at ten o'clock.”
