Lords of the North

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CHAPTER XV

THE GOOD WHITE FATHER

For a week Hamilton and I had been busy in our respective lodges getting
peltries and personal belongings into shape for return to Red River. On
Saturday night, at least I counted it Saturday from the notches on my
doorpost, though Eric, grown morose and contradictory, maintained that
it was Sunday--we sat talking before the fire of my lodge. A dreary
raindrip pattered through the leaky roof and the soaked parchment tacked
across the window opening flapped monotonously against the pine logs.

Unfastening the moon-shaped medallion, which my uncle had given me, I
slowly spelled out the Nor'-Westers' motto--"Fortitude in Distress."

"For-ti-tude in Dis-tress," I repeated idly. "By Jove, Hamilton, we need
it, don't we?"

Eric's lips curled in scorn. Without answering, he impatiently kicked a
fallen brand back to the live coals. I know old saws are poor comfort to
people in distress, being chiefly applicable when they are not needed.

"What in the world can be keeping Father Holland?" I asked, leading off
on another tack. "Here we are almost into the summer, and never a sight
of him."

"Did you really expect him back alive from the Bloods?" sneered
Hamilton. He had unconsciously acquired a habit of expecting the worst.

"Certainly," I returned. "He's been among them before."

"Then all I have to say is, you're a fool!"

Poor Eric! He had informed me I was a fool so often in his ravings I had
grown quite used to the insult. He glared savagely at the fire, and if I
had not understood this bitterness towards the missionary, the next
remark was of a nature to enlighten me.

"I don't see why any man in his senses wants to save the soul of an
Indian," he broke out. "Let them go where they belong! Souls! They
haven't any souls, or if they have, it's the soul of a fiend----"

"By the bye, Eric," I interrupted, for this petulant ill-humor, that saw
naught but evil in everything, was becoming too frequent and always
ended in the same way--a night of semi-delirium, "by the bye, did you
see those fellows turning up soil for corn with a buffalo shoulder-blade
as a hoe?"

"I wish every damn Red a thousand feet under the soil, deeper than that,
if the temperature increases."

It was impossible to talk to Hamilton without provoking a quarrel.
Leaning back with hands clasped behind my head, I watched through
half-closed eyes his sad face darkling under stormy moods.

At last the rain succeeded in soaking through the parchment across the
window and the wind drove through a great split in chilling gusts that
added to the cabin's discomfort. I got up and jammed an old hat into the
hole. At the window I heard the shouting of Indians having a hilarious
night among the lodges and was amazed at the sound of discharging
firearms above the huzzas, for ammunition was scarce among the Mandanes.
The hubbub seemed to be coming towards our hut. I could see nothing
through the window slit, and lighting a pine fagot, shot back the
latch-bolt and threw open the door. A multitude of tawny, joyous,
upturned faces thronged to the steps. The crowd was surging about some
newcomer, and Chief Black Cat was prancing around in an ecstasy of
delight, firing away all his gunpowder in joyous demonstration. I lifted
my torch. The Indians fell back and forth strode Father Holland, his
face shining wet and abeam with pleasure. The Indians had been welcoming
"their good white father." As he dismissed his Mandane children we drew
him in and placed his soaked over-garments before the fire. Then we
proffered him all the delicacies of bachelors' quarters, and filled and
refilled his bowl with soup, and did not stop pouring out our lye-black
tea till he had drained the dregs of it.

Having satisfied his inner-man, we gave him the best stump-tree seat in
the cabin and sat back to listen. There was the awkward pause of
reunion, when friends have not had time to gather up the loose threads
of a parted past and weave them anew into stronger bands of comradeship.
Hamilton and the priest were strangers; but if the latter were as
overcome by the meeting after half a year's isolation as I was, the
silence was not surprising. To me it seemed the genial face was
unusually grave, and I noticed a long, horizontal scar across his
forehead.

"What's that, Father?" I asked, indicating the mark on his brow.

"Tush, youngster! Nothing! Nothing at all! Sampled scalping-knife on me;
thought better of it, kept me out of the martyr's crown."

"And left you your own!" cried Hamilton astonished at the priest's
careless stoicism.

"Left me my own," responded Father Holland.

"Do you mean to say the murderous----" I began.

"Tush, youngster! Be quiet!" said he. "Haven't many brethren come from
the same tribe more like warped branches than men? What am I, that I
should escape? Never speak of it again," and he continued his silent
study of the flames' play.

"Where are your Indians?" he asked abruptly.

"In the lodges. Shall I whistle for them?"

He did not answer, but leaned forward with elbows on his knees, rubbing
his chin vigorously first with one hand, then the other, still studying
the fire.

"How strong are the Mandanes?" he asked.

"Weak, weak," I answered. "Few hundred. It hasn't been worth while for
traders to come here for years."

"Was it worth while this year?"

"Not for trade."

"For anything else?" and he looked at Eric's dejected face.

"Nothing else," I put in hastily, fearing one of Hamilton's outbreaks.
"We've been completely off the track, might better have stayed in the
north----"

"No, you mightn't, not by any means," was his sharp retort. "I've been
in the Sioux lodges for three weeks."

With an inarticulate cry, Hamilton sprang to his feet. He was trembling
from head to foot and caught Father Holland roughly by the shoulder.

"Speak out, Sir! What of Miriam?" he demanded in dry, hard, rasping
tones.

"Well, well, safe and inviolate. So's the boy, a big boy now! May ye
have them both in y'r arms soon--soon--soon!" and again he fell to
studying the fire with an unhurried deliberation, that was torture to
Hamilton.

"Are they with you? Are they with you?" shouted Hamilton, hope bounding
up elastically to the wildest heights after his long depression. "Don't
keep me in suspense! I cannot bear it. Tell me where they are," he
pleaded. "Are they with you?" and his eyes burned into the priest's like
live coals. "Are--they--with--you?"

"No--Lord--no!" roared Father Holland, alarmed at Hamilton's violent
condition. "But," he added, seeing Eric reel dizzily, "but they're all
right! Now you keep quiet and don't scare the wits out of a body!
They're all right, I tell you, and I've come straight from them for the
ransom price."

"Get it, Rufus, get it!" shouted Hamilton to me, throwing his hands
distractedly to his head, a habit too common with him of late. "Get it!
Get it!" he kept calling, utterly beside himself.

"Sit down, will you?" thundered the priest, as if Eric's sitting down
would calm all agitation. "Sit down! Behave! Keep quiet, both of you, or
my tongue'll forget holy orders and give ye some good Irish eloquence!
What d' y' mane, scarin' the breath out of a body and blowing his ideas
to limbo? Keep quiet, now, and listen!"

"And did they," I cried, in spite of the injunction, "did they do that
to you?" pointing to the scar on his brow.

"Yes, they did."

"Because they saw you with me?"

"No, that's a brand for the faith, you conceited whelp, you--they
stopped their tortures because they saw you with me. Now, swell out,
Rufus, and gloat over your importance! I tell you it was the devil,
himself, snatched my martyr's crown."

"Le Grand Diable?"

"Le Grand Diable's own minion. I saw his devilish eyes leering from the
back o' the crowd, when I was tied to a stake. 'Bring that Indian to
me,' sez I, transfixing him with my gaze; for--you understand--I
couldn't point, my hands being tied. Troth! But ye should 'a' seen their
looks of amazement at me boldness! There was I, roped to that tree, like
a pig for the boiling pot, and sez I, 'Bring--that Indian--to me!' just
as though I was managing the execution," and the priest paused to enjoy
the recollection of the effects of his boldness.

"A squaw up with an old clout," he continued, "and slashed it across my
face, saying, 'Take that, pale face! Take that, man with a woman's
skirts on!' and 'Take that!' howled a young buck, fetching the flat of
his dagger across me forehead, close-cropped hair giving no grip for
scalping, not to mention a pate as bald as mine," and the priest roared
at his own joke, patting his bare crown affectionately.

"Though the blood was boilin' in me enraged veins and dribblin' down my
face like the rain to-night, by the help o' the Lord, I felt no pain.
Never flinchin' nor takin' heed o' that bold baste of a squaw, I bawled
like a bull of Bashan, 'Bring--that Indian--to me, coward-hearted
Sioux--d' y' fear an Iroquois? Bring him to me and I'll make him enrich
your tribe!'

"Faith! Their eyes grew big as a harvest moon and they brought Le Grand
Diable to me. Knowing his covetous heart, I told him if he still had the
woman and the child, I'd get him a big ransom. At that they all jangled
a bit, the old squaw clouting me with her filthy rag as if she wanted
to slap me to a peak. At length they let Le Grand Diable unfasten the
bands. With my hands tied behind my back, I was taken to his lodge.
Miriam and the boy were kept in a place behind the Sioux squaw's hut.
Once when the skin tied between blew up, I caught a glimpse of her poor
white face. The boy was playing round her feet. I was in a corner of the
lodge but was so grimed with grease and dirt, if she saw me she thought
I was some Indian captive and turned away her head. I told Le Grand
Diable in _habitant_ French--which the rascal understands--that I could
obtain a good ransom for his prisoners. He left me alone in the lodge
for some hours, I think to spy upon me and learn if I tried to speak to
Miriam; but I lay still as a log and pretended to sleep. When he came
back, he began bartering for the price; but I could make him no promises
as to the amount or time of payment, for I was not sure you were here,
and would not have him know where you are.

"He kept me hanging on for his answer during the whole week, and many a
time Miriam brushed past so close her skirts touched me; but that
she-male devil of his--may the Lord give them both a warm, front
seat!--was always watching and I could not speak. Miriam's face was
hidden under her shawl and she looked neither to the right, nor to the
left. I don't think she ever saw me. On condition you stay in your camp
and don't go to meet her, but send your two Indians alone for her with
your offer, he let me go. Here I am! Now, Rufus, where are your men? Off
with them bearing more gifts than the Queen of Sheba carried to
Solomon!"

* * * * *

From the hour that La Robe Noire and Little Fellow, laden with gaudy
trinkets and hunting outfits, departed for the Sioux lodges, Hamilton
was positively a madman. In the first place, he had been determined to
disguise himself as an Indian and go instead of La Robe Noire, whose
figure he resembled. To this, we would not listen. Le Grand Diable was
not the man to be tricked and there was no sense in ransoming Miriam for
a captive husband. Then, he persisted in riding part of the way with our
messengers, which necessitated my doing likewise. I had to snatch his
horse's bridle, wheel both our horses round and head homeward at a
gallop, before he would listen to reason and come back.

Round the lodges he was a ramping tiger. Twenty times a day he went from
our hut to the height of land commanding the north country, keeping me
on the run at his heels; and all night he beat around the cramped shack
as if it had been a cage. On the fourth day from the messengers'
departure, chains could not bind him. If all went well, they should be
with us at night. In defiance of Le Grand Diable's conditions, which an
arrow from an unseen marksman might enforce, Eric saddled his mare and
rode out to meet the men.

Of course Father Holland and I peltered after him; but it was only
because gathering darkness prevented travel that we prevailed on him to
dismount and await the Indians' coming at the edge of the village.

At last came the clank, clank of shod hoofs in the valley. The natives
used only unshod animals, so we recognized our men. Hamilton darted away
like a hare racing for cover.

"The Lord have mercy upon us!" groaned Father Holland. "Listen, lad!
There's only one horse!"

I threw myself to the earth and laying my ear to the turf strained for
every sound. The thud, thud of a single horse, fore and hind feet
striking the beaten trail in quick gallop, came distinctly up from the
valley.

"It may not be our men," said I, with sickening forebodings tugging at
throat and heart.

"I mistrusted them! I mistrusted the villains!" repeated the priest. "If
only you had enough Mandanes to ride down on them, but you're too weak.
There are at least two thousand Sioux."

Hamilton and Little Fellow, talking loudly and gesticulating, rode
crashing through the furze.

"I knew it! I knew it!" shouted Hamilton fiercely, "One of us should
have gone."

"What's wrong?" came from Father Holland in a voice so low and
unnaturally calm, I knew he feared the worst.

"Wrong!" yelled Hamilton, "They hold La Robe Noire as hostage and
demand five hundred pounds of ammunition, twenty guns and ten horses. Of
course, I should have gone----"

"And would it have mended matters if you'd been held hostage too?" I
demanded, utterly out of patience and at that stage when a little strain
makes a man strike his best friends. "You know very well, the men were
only sent to make an offer. You'd no right to expect everything on one
trip without any bargaining----"

"Shut up, boy!" exclaimed Father Holland. "Just when ye both need all
y'r wits, y'r scattering them to the four winds. Now, mind yourselves! I
don't like these terms! 'Tis the devil's own doing! Let's talk this
over!"

With a vast deal of the wordy eloquence that characterizes Indian
diplomacy, the tenor of Le Grand Diable's message was "His shot pouch
was light and his pipe cold; he hung down his head and the pipe of peace
had not been in the council; the Sioux were strangers and the whites
were their enemies; the pale-faces had been in their power and they had
always conveyed them on their journey with glad hearts and something to
eat." Finally, the Master of Life, likewise Earth, Air, Water, and Fire
were called on to witness that if the white men delivered five hundred
rounds of ammunition, twenty guns and ten horses, the white woman and
her child, likewise the two messengers, would be sent safely back to the
Mandane lodge; none but these two messengers would be permitted in the
Sioux camp; also, the Sioux would not answer for the lives of the white
men if they left the Mandane lodges. Let the white men, therefore, send
back the full ransom by the hands of the same messenger.

CHAPTER XVI

LE GRAND DIABLE SENDS BACK OUR MESSENGER

Father Holland advised caution and consideration before acting. A policy
of bargaining was his counsel.

"I don't like those terms, at all," he said, "too much like giving your
weapons to the enemy. I don't like all this."

He would temporize and rely on Le Grand Diable's covetous disposition
bringing him to our terms; but Hamilton would hear of neither caution
nor delay.

The ransom price was at once collected. Next morning, Little Fellow, on
a fresh mount with a string of laden horses on each side, went post
haste back to the Sioux.

In all conscience, Hamilton had been wild enough during the first
parley. His excitement now exceeded all bounds. The first two days, when
there was no possibility of Miriam's coming and Little Fellow could not
yet have reached the Sioux, I tore after Eric so often I lost count of
the races between our lodge and the north hill. The performance began
again on the third day, and I broke out with a piece of my mind, which
surprised him mightily.

"Look you here, Hamilton!" I exclaimed, rounding him back from the hill,
"Can't you stop this nonsense and sit still for only two days more, or
must I tie you up? You've tried to put me crazy all winter and, by Jove,
if you don't stop this, you'll finish the job----"

He gazed at me with the dumb look of a wounded animal and was too amazed
for words. Leaving me in mid-road, feeling myself a brute, he went
straight to his own hut. After that incident, he gave us no further
anxiety and kept an iron grip on his impatience. With me, anger had
given place to contrition. He remained much by himself until the night,
when our messengers were expected. Then he came across to my quarters,
where Father Holland and I were keyed up to the highest pitch. Putting
out his hand he said--

"Is it all right with us again, Rufus, old man?"

That speech nigh snapped the strained cords.

"Of course," said I, gripping the extended hand, and I immediately
coughed hard, to explain away the undue moisture welling into my eyes.

We all three sat as still and silent as a death-watch, Father Holland
fumbling and pretending to pore over some holy volume, Eric with fingers
tightly interlaced and upper teeth biting through lower lip, and I with
clenched fists dug into jacket pockets and a thousand imaginary sounds
singing wild tunes in my ears.

How the seconds crawled, and the minutes barely moved, and the hours
seemed to heap up in a blockade and crush us with their leaden weight!
Twice I sought relief for pent emotion by piling wood on the fire,
though the night was mild, and by breaking the glowing embers into a
shower of sparks. The soft, moccasined tread of Mandanes past our door
startled Father Holland so that his book fell to the floor, while I
shook like a leaf. Strange to say, Hamilton would not allow himself the
luxury of a single movement, though the lowered brows tightened and
teeth cut deeper into the under lip.

Dogs set up a barking at the other end of the village--a common enough
occurrence where half-starved curs roved in packs--but I could not
refrain from lounging with a show of indifference to the doorway, where
I peered through the moon-silvered dusk. As usual, the Indians with
shrill cry flew at the dogs to silence them. The noise seemed to be
annoying my companions and was certainly unnerving me, so I shut the
door and walked back to the fire.

The howl of dogs and squaws increased. I heard the angry undertone of
men's voices. A hoarse roar broke from the Mandane lodges and rolled
through the village like the sweep of coming hurricane. There was a
fleet rush, a swift pattering of something pursued running round the
rear of our lodge, with a shrieking mob of men and squaws after it. The
dogs were barking furiously and snapping at the heels of the thing,
whatever it was.

"A hostile!" exclaimed Hamilton, leaping up.

Hardly knowing what I did, I bounded towards the door and shot forward
the bolt, with a vague fear that blood might be spilled on our
threshold.

"For shame, man!" cried Father Holland, making to undo the latch.

But the words had not passed his lips when the parchment flap of the
window lifted. A voice screamed through the opening and in hurtled a
round, nameless, blood-soaked horror, rolling over and over in a red
trail, till it stopped with upturned, dead, glaring eyes and hideous,
gaping mouth, at the very feet of Hamilton.

It was the scalpless head of La Robe Noire. Our Indian had paid the
price of his own blood-lust and Diable's enmity.

Before the full enormity of the treachery--messengers murdered and
mutilated, ransom stolen and captives kept--had dawned on me, Father
Holland had broken open the door. He was rushing through the night
screaming for the Mandanes to catch the miscreant Sioux. When I turned
back, not daring to look at that awful object, Hamilton had fallen to
the hut floor in a dead faint.

* * * * *

And now may I be spared recalling what occurred on that terrible night!

Women luxuriate and men traffic in the wealth of the great west, but how
many give one languid thought to the years of bloody deeds by which the
west was won?

* * * * *

Before restoring Hamilton, it was necessary to remove that which was
unseemly; also to wash out certain stains on the hearth-stones; and
those things would have tried the courage of more iron-nerved men than
myself.

I should not have been surprised if Eric had come out of that faint, a
gibbering maniac; but I toiled over him with the courage of blank
hopelessness, pumping his arms up and down, forcing liquor between the
clenched teeth, splashing the cold, clammy face with water, and laving
his forehead. At last he opened his eyes wearily. Like a man ill at ease
with life, moaning, he turned his face to the wall.

Outside, it was as if the unleashed furies of hell fought to quench
their thirst in human blood. The clamor of those red demons was in my
ears and I was still working over Hamilton, loosening his jacket collar,
under-pillowing his chest, fanning him, and doing everything else I
could think of, to ease his labored breathing, when Father Holland burst
into the lodge, utterly unmanned and sobbing like a child.

"For the Lord's sake, Rufus," he cried, "for the Lord's sake, come and
help! They're murdering him! They're murdering him! 'Twas I who set them
on him, and I can't stop them! I can't stop them!"

"Let them murder him!" I returned, unconsciously demonstrating that the
civilized heart differs only in degree from the barbarian.

"Come, Rufus," he pleaded, "come, for the love of Frances, or your hands
will not be clean. There'll be blood on your hands when you go back to
her. Come, come!"

Out we rushed through the thronging Mandanes, now riotous with the lust
of blood. A ring of young bucks had been formed round the Sioux to keep
the crowd off. Naked, with arms pinioned, the victim stood motionless
and without fear.

"Good white father, he no understand," said the Mandanes, jostling the
weeping priest back from the circle of the young men. "Good white
father, he go home!" In spite of protest by word and act they roughly
shoved us to our lodge, the doomed man's death chant ringing in our ears
as they pushed us inside and clashed our door. In vain we had argued
they would incur the vengeance of the Sioux nation. Our voices were
drowned in the shout for blood--for blood!

The sigh of the wind brought mournful strains of the victim's dirge to
our lodge. I fastened the door, with robes against it to keep the sound
out. Then a smell of burning drifted through the window, and I
stop-gapped that, too, with more robes.

* * * * *

That the Sioux would wreak swift vengeance could not be doubted. As soon
as the murderous work was over, guides were with difficulty engaged.
Having fitted up a sort of prop in which I could tie Hamilton to the
saddle, I saw both Father Holland and Eric set out for Red River before
daybreak.

It was best they should go and I remain. If Miriam were still in the
country, stay I would, till she were safe; but I had no mind to see Eric
go mad or die before the rescue could be accomplished.

As they were leaving I took a piece of birch bark. On it I wrote with a
charred stick:--

"Greetings to my own dear love from her ever loyal and devoted
knight."

This, Father Holland bore to Frances Sutherland from me.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PRICE OF BLOOD

How many shapeless terrors can spring from the mind of man I never knew
till Eric and the priest left me alone in the Mandane village. Ever, on
closing my eyes, there rolled and rolled past, endlessly, without going
one pace beyond my sight, something too horrible to be contemplated.
When I looked about to assure myself the thing was not there--could not
possibly be there--memory flashed back the whole dreadful scene. Up
started glazed eyes from the hearth, the floor, and every dim nook in
the lodge. Thereupon I would rush into the village road, where the
shamefaced greetings of guilty Indians recalled another horror.

If I ventured into Le Grand Diable's power a fate worse than La Robe
Noire's awaited me. That there would be a hostile demonstration over the
Sioux messenger's death I was certain. Nothing that I offered could
induce any of the Indians to act as scouts or to reconnoiter the enemy's
encampment. I had, of my own will, chosen to remain, and now I found
myself with tied hands, fuming and gnashing against fate, conjuring up
all sorts of projects for the rescue of Miriam, and butting my head
against the impossible at every turn. Thus three weary days dragged
past.

Having reflected on the consequences of their outrage, the Mandanes
exhibited repentance of a characteristically human form--resentment
against the cause of their trouble. Unfortunately, I was the cause. From
the black looks of the young men I half suspected, if the Sioux chief
would accept me in lieu of material gifts, I might be presented as a
peace-offering. This would certainly not forward my quest, and prudence,
or cowardice--two things easily confused when one is in peril--counseled
discretion, and discretion seemed to counsel flight.

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