Lords of the North

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"Indeed," said I icily, in no mood for raillery.

"Like _them_ for friends, not enemies, to be protected by _them_,
not--not bitten," the voice continued with a provoking emphasis of the
plural "_them_."

"Yes," said I, with equal emphasis of the obnoxious plural. "Ladies find
_them_ useful at times."

That fling silenced her and I felt a shiver run down the arm on my
sleeve.

"Why, you're shivering," I blundered out. "You must let me put this
round you," and I pulled off the plaid and would have placed it on her
shoulders, but she resisted.

"I am not in the least cold," she answered frigidly--which is the only
untruth I ever heard her tell--"and you shall not say '_must_' to me,"
and she took her hand from my arm. She spoke with a tremor that warned
me not to insist. Then I knew why she had shivered.

"Please forgive, Miss Sutherland," I begged. "I'm such a maladroit
animal."

"I quite agree with you, a maladroit mastiff with teeth!"

Mastiff! That insult again! I did not reproffer my arm. We strode
forward once more, she with her face turned sideways remote from me, I
with my face sideways remote from her, and the plaid trailing from my
hand by way of showing her she could have it if she wished. We must have
paced along in this amiable, post-matrimonial fashion for quite a
quarter of the mile we had to go, and I was awkwardly conscious of
suppressed laughing from her side. It was the rippling voice, that
always seemed to me like fountain splash in the sunshine, which broke
silence again.

"Really," said the low, thrilling, musical witchery by my side, "really,
it's the most wonderful story I have ever heard!"

"Story?" I queried, stopping stock still and gaping at her.

"Perfectly wonderful! So intensely interesting and delightful."

"Interesting and delightful?" I interrogated in sheer amazement. This
girl utterly dumfounded me, and in the conceit of youth I thought it
strange that any girl could dumfound me.

"What an interesting life you have had, to be sure!"

"I have had?"

"Yes, don't you know you've been talking in torrents for the past ten
minutes? No? Do you forget?" and she laughed tremulously either from
embarrassment, or cold.

"Well!" said I, befooled into good-humor and laughing back. "If you give
me a day's warning, I'll try to keep up with you."

"Ah! There! I've put you through the ice at last! It's been such hard
work!"

"And I come up badly doused!"

"Stimulated too! You're doing well already!"

"My thanks to my instructor," and catching the spirit of her mockery, I
swept her a courtly bow.

"There! There!" she cried, dropping raillery as soon as I took it up.
"You were cross at the window. I was cross on the flats. You nearly
wrenched my hand off----"

"Can you blame me?" I asked. "And to pay me back you turned my head and
stole my heart----"

"Hush!" she interrupted. "Let's clean the slate and begin again."

"With all my heart, if you'll wear this tartan and stop shivering." I
was not ready to consent to an unconditional surrender.

"I hate your 'ifs' and 'buts' and so-much-given-for-so-much-got," she
exclaimed with an impatient, little stamp, "but--but--" she added
inconsistently, "if--if--you'll keep one end of the plaid for yourself,
I'll take the other."

"Ho--ho! I like 'ifs' and 'buts.' Have you more of that kind?" I
laughed, whisking the fold about us both. Drawing her hand into mine, I
kept it there.

"It isn't so cold as--as that, is it?" asked the voice under the plaid.

"Quite," I returned valiantly, tightening my clasp. She laughed a low,
mellow laugh that set my heart beating to the tune of a trip-hammer. I
felt a great intoxication of strength that might have razed Fort Douglas
to the ground and conquered the whole world, which, I dare say, other
young men have felt when the same kind of weight hung upon their
protection.

"Oh! Little Statue! Why have you been so hard on us?" I began.

"_Us?_" she asked.

"Me--then," and I gulped down my embarrassment.

"Because----"

"Because what?"

"No _what_. Just because!" She was astonished that her decisive reason
did not satisfy.

"Because! A woman's reason!" I scoffed.

"Because! It's the best and wisest and most wholesome reason ever
invented. Think what it avoids saying and what wisdom may be behind
it!"

"Only wisdom?"

"You be careful! There'll be another cold plunge! Tell me about your
friend's wife, Miriam," she answered, changing the subject.

And when I related my strange mission and she murmured, "How
noble," I became a very Samson of strength, ready to vanquish
an army of Philistine admirers with the jawbone of my inflated
self-confidence--provided, always, one queen of the combat were looking
on.

"Are you cold, now?" I asked, though the trembling had ceased.

No, she was not cold. She was quite comfortable, and the answer came in
vibrant tones which were as wine to a young man's heart.

"Are you tired, Frances?" and the "No" was accompanied by a little
laugh, which spurred more questioning for no other purpose than to hear
the music of her voice. Now, what was there in those replies to cause
happiness? Why have inane answers to inane, timorous questions
transformed earth into paradise and mortals into angels?

"Do you find the way very far--Frances?" The flavor of some names tempts
repeated tasting.

"Very far?" came the response in an amused voice, "find it very far? Yes
I do, quite far--oh! No--I don't. Oh! I don't know!" She broke into a
joyous laugh at her own confusion, gaining more self-possession as I
lost mine; and out she slipped from the plaid.

"I wish it were a thousand times farther," and I gazed ruefully at the
folds that trailed empty.

What other absurd things I might have said, I cannot tell; but we were
at the fort and I had to wrap the tartan disguise about myself.
Stooping, I picked a bunch of dog-roses growing by the path, then felt
foolish, for I had not the courage to give them to her, and dropped them
without her knowledge. She gave the password at the gate. I was taken
for a Selkirk Highlander and we easily gained entrance.

A man brushed past us in the gloom of the courtyard. He looked
impudently down into her face. It was Laplante, and my whole frame
filled with a furious resentment which I had not guessed could be
possible with me.

"That Frenchman," she whispered, but his figure vanished among the
buildings. She showed me the council hall where Eric could be found.

"And where do you go?" I asked stupidly.

She indicated the quarters where the settlers had taken refuge. I led
her to the door.

"Are you sure you'll be safe?"

"Oh! Yes, quite, as long as the settlers are here; and you, you will let
me know when the priest sets out for Pembina?"

I vowed more emphatically than the case required that she should know.

"Are there no dark halls in there, unsafe for you?" I questioned.

"None," and she went up the first step of the doorway.

"Are you sure you're safe?" I also mounted a step.

"Yes, quite, thank you," and she retreated farther, "and you, have you
forgotten you came to see Mr. Hamilton?"

"Why--so I did," I stammered out absently.

She was on the top step, pulling the latch-string of the great door.

"Stop! Frances--dear!" I cried.

She stood motionless and I felt that this last rashness of an unruly
tongue--too frank by far--had finished me.

"What? Can I do anything to repay you for your trouble in bringing me
here?"

"I've been repaid," I answered, "but indeed, indeed, long live the
Queen! May it please Her Majesty to grant a token to her leal and
devoted knight----"

"What is thy request?" she asked laughingly. "What token doth the knight
covet?"

"The token that goes with _good-nights_," and I ventured a pace up the
stairs.

"There, Sir Knight," she returned, hastily putting out her hand, which
was not what I wanted, but to which I gratefully paid my devoir. "Art
satisfied?" she asked.

"Till the Queen deigns more," and I paused for a reply.

She lingered on the threshold as if she meant to come down to me, then
with a quick turn vanished behind the gloomy doors, taking all the
light of my world with her; but I heard a voice, as of some happy bird
in springtime, trilling from the hall where she had gone, and a new song
made music in my own heart.

CHAPTER XI

A SHUFFLING OF ALLEGIANCE

Time was when Fort Douglas rang as loudly with mirth of assembled
traders as ever Fort William's council hall. Often have I heard veterans
of the Hudson's Bay service relate how the master of revels used to fill
an ample jar with corn and quaff a beaker of liquor for every grain in
the drinker's hour-glass.

"How stands the hour-glass?" the governor of the feast, who was
frequently also the governor of the company, would roar out in
stentorian tones, that made themselves heard above the drunken brawl.

"High, Your Honor, high," some flunkey of the drinking bout would bawl
back.

Thereupon, another grain was picked from the jar, another flagon tossed
down and the revel went on. This was a usual occurrence before and after
the conflict with the Nor'-Westers. But the night that I climbed the
stairs of the main warehouse and, mustering up assurance, stepped into
the hall as if I belonged to the fort, or the fort belonged to me, there
was a different scene. A wounded man lay on a litter at the end of the
long, low room; and the traders sitting on the benches against the
walls, or standing aimlessly about, were talking in suppressed tones.
Scotchmen, driven from their farms by the _Bois-Brules_, hung around in
anxious groups. The lanterns, suspended on iron hooks from mid-rafter,
gave but a dusky light, and I vainly scanned many faces for Eric
Hamilton. That he was wounded, I knew. I was stealing stealthily towards
the stretcher at the far end of the place, when a deep voice burred
rough salutation in my ear.

"Hoo are ye, gillie?" It was a shaggy-browed, bluff Scotchman, who
evidently took me in my tartan disguise for a Highland lad. Whether he
meant, "How are you," or "Who are you," I was not certain. Afraid my
tongue might betray me, I muttered back an indistinct response. The Scot
was either suspicious, or offended by my churlishness. I slipped off
quickly to a dark corner, but I saw him eying me closely. A youth
brushed past humming a ditty, which seemed strangely out of place in
those surroundings. He stood an elbow's length from me and kicked
moccasined heels against the floor in the way of light-headed lads. Both
the air and figure of the young fellow vaguely recalled somebody, but
his back was towards me. I was measuring my comrade, wondering if I
might inquire where Hamilton could be found, when the lad turned, and I
was face to face with the whiskered babe of Fort William. He gave a
long, low whistle.

"Gad!" he gasped. "Do my eyes tell lies? As I live, 'tis your very self!
Hang it, now, I thought you were one of those solid bodies wouldn't do
any turn-coating----"

"Turn-coating!" I repeated in amazement.

"One of those dray-horse, old reliables, wouldn't kick over the traces,
not if the boss pumped his arms off licking you! Hang it! I'm not that
sort! By gad, I'm not! I've got too many oats! I can't stand being jawed
and gee-hawed by Dunc. Cameron; so when the old Gov. threatened to dock
me for being full, I just kicked up my heels and came. But say! I didn't
think you would, Gillespie!"

"No?" said I, keeping my own counsel and waiting for the Nor'-West
deserter to proceed.

"What 'd y' do it for, Gillespie? You're as sober as cold water! Was it
old Cameron?"

"You're not talking straight, babe," said I. "You know Cameron doesn't
nag his men. What did _you_ do it for?"

"Eh?" and the lad gave a laugh over my challenge of his veracity. "See
here, old pal, I'll tell you if you tell me."

"Go ahead with your end of the contract!"

"Well, then, look here. We're not in this wilderness for glory. I knock
down to the highest bidder----"

"Hudson's Bay is _not_ the highest bidder."

"Not unless you happen to have information they want."

"Oh! That's the way of it, is it?" So the boy was selling Nor'-Westers'
secrets.

"You can bet your last beaver-skin it is! Do you think I was old
Cam's private secretary for nothin'? Not I! I say--get your wares
as you may and sell 'em to the highest bidder. So here I am, snugly
berthed, with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs, all through
judicious--distribution--of--information." And the boy gurgled with
pleasure over his own cleverness. "And say, Gillespie, I'm in regular
clover! The Little Statue's here, all alone! Dad's gone to Pembina to
the buffalo hunt. I've got ahead of all you fellows. I'm going to
introduce a French-chap, a friend of mine."

"You'd much better break his bones," was my advice. It needed no great
speculation to guess who the Frenchman was; and in the hands of that
crafty rake this prattling babe would be as putty.

"Pah! You're jealous, Gillespie! We're right on the inside track!"

"Lots of confidential talks with her, I suppose?"

"Talks! Pah! You gross fatty! Why, Gillespie, what do you know of such
things? Laplante can win a girl by just looking at her--French way, you
know--he can pose better than a poem!"

"Blockhead," I ground out between my teeth, a feeling taking possession
of me, which is designated "indignation" in the first person but
jealousy in the second and third. "You stupid simpleton, that Laplante
is a villain who will turn your addled pate and work you as an old wife
kneads dough."

"What do you know about Laplante?" he demanded hotly.

"I know he is an accomplished blackguard," I answered quietly, "and if
you want to spoil your chances with the Little Statue, just prance round
in his company."

The lad was too much surprised to speak.

"Where's Hamilton?" I asked.

"Find him for yourself," said he, going off in a huff.

I edged cautiously near enough the wounded man to see that he was not
Hamilton. Near the litter was a group of clerks.

"They're fools," one clerk was informing the others. "Cameron sent word
he'd have McDonell dead or alive. If he doesn't give himself up, this
fort'll go and the whole settlement be massacred."

"Been altogether too high-handed anyway," answered another. "I'm loyal
to my company; but Lord Selkirk can't set up a military despotism here.
Been altogether better if we'd left the Nor'-Westers alone."

"It's all the fault of that cocky little martinet," declared a third.

"I say," exclaimed a man joining the group, "d' y' hear the news? All
the chiefs in there--" jerking his thumb towards a side door--"are
advising Captain McDonell to give himself up and save the fort."

"Good thing. Who'll miss him? He'll only get a free trip to Montreal,"
remarked one of the aggressives in this group. "I tell you, men, both
companies have gone a deal too far in this little slap-back game to be
keen for legal investigation. Why, at Souris, everybody knows----"

He lowered his voice and I unconsciously moved from my dark corner to
hear the rest.

"Hoo are ye, gillie?" said the burly Scot in my ear.

Turning, I found the canny swain had followed me on an investigating
tour. Again I gave him an inarticulate reply and lost myself among other
coteries. Was the man spying on me? I reflected that if "the chiefs"--as
the Hudson's Bay man had called them--were in the side room, Eric
Hamilton would be among these conferring with the governor. As I
approached the door, I noticed my Scotch friend had taken some one into
his confidence and two men were now on my tracks. Lifting the latch, I
gave a gentle, cautious push and the hinges swung so quietly I had
slipped into the room before those inside or out could prevent me. I
found myself in the middle of a long apartment with low, sloping
ceiling, and deep window recesses. It had evidently been partitioned off
from the main hall; for the wall, ceiling and floor made an exact
triangle. At one end of the place was a table. Round this was a group of
men deeply engrossed in some sort of conference. Sitting on the window
sills and lounging round the box stove behind the table were others of
our rival's service. I saw at once it would be difficult to have access
to Hamilton. He was lying on a stretcher within talking range of the
table and had one arm in a sling. Now, I hold it is harder for the
unpractised man to play the spy with everything in his favor, than for
the adept to act that role against the impossible. One is without the
art that foils detection. The other can defy detection. So I stood
inside with my hand on the door lest the click of the closing latch
should rouse attention, but had no thought of prying into Hudson's Bay
secrets.

"Your Honor," began Hamilton in a lifeless manner, which told me his
search had been bootless, and he turned languidly towards a puffy,
crusty, military gentleman, whom, from the respect shown him, I judged
to be Governor McDonell. "Duncan Cameron's warrant for the arrest is
perfectly legal. If Your Honor should surrender yourself, you will save
Fort Douglas for the Hudson's Bay Company. Besides, the whole arrest
will prove a farce. The law in Lower Canada provides no machinery for
the trial of cases occurring----" Here Hamilton came to a blank and
unexpected stop, for his eyes suddenly alighted on me with a look that
forbade recognition, and fled furtively back to the group it the table.
I understood and kept silent.

"For the trial of cases occurring?" asked the governor sharply.

"Occurring--here," added Hamilton, shooting out the last word as if his
arm had given him a sudden twinge. "And so I say, Your Honor will lose
nothing by giving yourself up to the Nor'-Westers, and will save Fort
Douglas for the Hudson's Bay."

"The doctor tells me it's a compound fracture. You'll find it painful,
Mr. Hamilton," said Governor McDonell sympathetically, and he turned to
the papers over which the group were conferring. "I'm no great hand in
winning victories by showing the white flag," began the gallant captain,
"but if a free trip from here to Montreal satisfies those fools, I'll
go."

"Well said! Bravo! Your Honor," exclaimed a shaggy member of the
council, bringing his fist down on the table with a thud. "I call that
diplomacy, outmanoeuvring the enemy! Your Honor sets an example for
abiding by the law; you obey the warrant. They must follow the example
and leave Fort Douglas alone."

"Besides, I can let His Lordship know from Montreal just what
reinforcements are needed here," continued Captain McDonell, with a
curious disregard for the law which he professed to be obeying, and a
faithful zeal for Lord Selkirk.

Hamilton was looking anxiously at me with an expression of warning which
I could not fully read. Then I felt, what every one must have felt at
some time, that a third person was watching us both. Following Eric's
glance to a dark window recess directly opposite the door where I stood,
I was horrified and riveted by the beady, glistening, insolent eyes of
Louis Laplante, gazing out of the dusk with an expression of rakish
amusement, the amusement of a spider when a fly walks into its web.
Taken unawares I have ever been more or less of what Mr. Jack MacKenzie
was wont to call "a stupid loon!" On discovering Laplante I promptly
sustained my reputation by letting the door fly to with a sharp click
that startled the whole room-full. Whereat Louis Laplante gave a low,
soft laugh.

"What do you want here, man?" demanded Governor McDonell's sharp voice.

Jerking off my cap, I saluted.

"My man, Your Honor," interjected Eric quietly. "Come here, Rufus," he
commanded, motioning me to his side with the hauteur of a master towards
a servant. And Louis Laplante rose and tip-toed after me with a tigerish
malice that recalled the surly squaw.

"Oh, Eric!" I cried out eagerly. "Are you hurt, and at such a time?"
Unconsciously I was playing into Louis' hands, for he stood by the
stove, laughing nonchalantly.

Thereupon Eric ground out some imprecation at my stupidity.

"There's been a shuffling of allegiance, I hear," he said with a queer
misleading look straight at Laplante. "We've recruits from Fort
Gibraltar."

Eric's words, curiously enough, banished triumph from Laplante's face
and the Frenchman's expression was one of puzzled suspicion. From Eric's
impassive features, he could read nothing. What Hamilton was driving at,
I should presently learn; but to find out I would no more take my eyes
from Laplante's than from a tiger about to spring. At once, to get my
attention, Hamilton brought a stick down on my toes with a sharpness
that made me leap. By all the codes of nudges and kicks and such
signaling, it is a principle that a blow at one end of human anatomy
drives through the density of the other extremity. It dawned on me that
Eric was trying to persuade Laplante I had deserted Nor'-Westers for the
Hudson's Bay. The ethics of his attempt I do not defend. It was after
the facile fashion of an intriguing era. A sharper weapon was presently
given us against Louis Laplante; for when I grasped Eric's stick to stay
the raps against my feet, I felt the handle rough with carving.

"What are these carvings, may I inquire, Sir?" I asked, assuming the
strangeness, which Eric's signals had directed, but never moving my eyes
from Laplante. The villain who had befooled me in the gorge and eluded
me in the forest, and now tormented Frances Sutherland, winced under my
watchfulness.

"The carvings!" answered Eric, annoyed that I did not return his plain
signals and determined to get my eye. "Pray look for yourself! Where are
your eyes?"

"I can't see in this poor light, Sir; but I also have a strangely carved
thing--a spear-head. Now if this head has no handle and this handle has
no head--they might fit," I went on watching Laplante, whose saucy
assurance was deserting him.

"Spear-head!" exclaimed Hamilton, beginning to understand I too had my
design. "Where did you find it?"

"Trying to bury itself in my head." I returned. At this, Laplante, the
knave, smiled graciously in my very face.

"But it didn't succeed?" asked Hamilton.

"No--it mistook me for a tree, missed the mark and went into the tree;
just as another friend of mine mistook me for a tree, hit the mark and
ran into me," and I smiled back at Laplante. His face clouded. That
reference to the scene on the beach, where his Hudson's Bay despatches
were stolen, was too much for his hot blood. "Here it is," I continued,
pulling the spear-head out of my plaid. I had brought it to Hamilton,
hoping to identify our enemy, and we did. "Please see if they fit, Sir?
We might identify our--friends!" and I searched the furtive, guilty eyes
of the Frenchman.

"Dat frien'," muttered Louis with a threatening look at me, "dat frien'
of Mister Hamilton he spike good English for Scot' youth."

Now Louis, as I remembered from Laval days, never mixed his English and
French, except when he was in passion furious beyond all control.

"Fit!" cried Hamilton. "They're a perfect fit, and both carved the same,
too."

"With what?"

"Eagles," answered Eric, puzzled at my drift, and Louis Laplante wore
the last look of the tiger before it springs.

"And eagles," said I, defying the spring, "signify that both the
spear-head and the spear-handle belong to the Sioux chief whose
daughter"--and I lowered my voice to a whisper which only Laplante and
Hamilton could hear--"is married--to Le--Grand--Diable!"

"What!" came Hamilton's low cry of agony. Forgetting the fractured arm,
he sprang erect.

And Louis Laplante staggered back in the dark as if we had struck him.

"Laplante! Laplante! Where's that Frenchman? Bring him up here!" called
Governor McDonell's fussy, angry tones.

Coming when it did, this demand was to Louis a bolt of judgment; and he
joined the conference with a face as gray as ashes.

"Now about those stolen despatches! We want to know the truth! Were you
drunk, or were you not? Who has them?" Captain McDonell arraigned the
Frenchman with a fire of questions that would have confused any other
culprit but Louis.

"Eric," I whispered, taking advantage of the respite offered by Louis'
examination. "We found Laplante at _Pointe a la Croix_. He was drunk. He
confessed Miriam is held by Diable's squaw. Then we discovered someone
was listening to the confession and pursued the eavesdropper into the
bush. When we came back, Laplante had been carried off. I found one of
my canoemen had your lost fowling-piece, and it was he who had listened
and carried off the drunk sot and tried to send that spear-head into me
at the Sault. 'Twas Diable, Eric! Father Holland, a priest in our
company, told me of the white woman on Lake Winnipeg. Did you find
this--" indicating the spear handle--"there?"

Eric, cold, white and trembling, only whispered an affirmative.

"Was that all?"

"All," he answered, a strange, fierce look coming over his face, as the
full import of my news forced home on him. "Was--was--Laplante--in
that?" he asked, gripping my arm in his unwounded hand with foreboding
force.

"Not that we know of. Only Diable. But Louis is friendly with the Sioux,
and if we only keep him in sight we may track them."

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