Nomads of the North Part 13

Miki looked as though he might be dying. Durant had opened the door and had slipped a rope over his head, and outside the cage Miki stood swaying on his feet, red with blood, and half blind. His flesh was red and bleeding in a dozen places, and a stream of blood trickled from his mouth. A cry of horror rose to the young white man's lips as he looked down at him.

And then, almost in the same breath, there came a still stranger cry.

"Good G.o.d! Miki--Miki--Miki--"

Beating upon his brain as if from a vast distance, coming to him through the blindness of his wounds, Miki heard that voice.

The VOICE! THE voice that had lived with him in all his dreams, the voice he had waited for, and searched for, and knew that some day he would find. The voice of Challoner, his master!

He dropped on his belly, whining, trying to see through the film of blood in his eyes; and lying there, wounded almost unto death, his tail thumped the ground in recognition. And then, to the amazement of all who beheld, Challoner was down upon his knees beside him, and his arms were about him, and Miki's lacerated tongue was reaching for his hands, his face, his clothes.

"Miki--Miki--Miki!"

Durant's hand fell heavily upon Challoner's shoulder.

It was like the touch of a red-hot iron to Challoner. In a flash he was on his feet, facing him.

"He's mine," Challoner cried, trying to hold back his pa.s.sion. "He's mine you--you devil!"

And then, powerless to hold back his desire for vengeance, his clenched fist swung like a rock to Durant's heavy jaw, and the Frenchman went to the ground. For a moment Challoner stood over him, but he did not move.

Fiercely he turned upon Grouse Piet and the crowd. Miki was cringing at his feet again. Pointing to him, Challoner cried loudly, so all could hear.

"He's my dog. Where this beast got him I don't know. But he's mine.

Look for yourselves! See--see him lick my hand. Would he do that for HIM? And look at that ear. There's no other ear in all the north cut like that. I lost him almost a year ago, but I'd know him among ten thousand by that ear. By G.o.d!--if I had known--"

He elbowed his way through the breeds and Indians, leading Miki by the rope Durant had slipped over the dog's head. He went to MacDonnell, and told him what had happened. He told of the preceding spring, and of the accident in which Miki and the bear cub were lost from his canoe and swept over the waterfall. After registering his claim against whatever Durant might have to say he went to the shack in which he was staying at Fort 0' G.o.d.

An hour later Challoner sat with Miki's big head between his two hands, and talked to him. He had bathed and dressed his wounds, and Miki could see. His eyes were on his master's face, and his hard tail thumped the floor. Both were oblivious of the sounds of the revellers outside; the cries of men, the shouting of boys, the laughter of women, and the incessant barking of dogs. In Challoner's eyes there was a soft glow.

"Miki, old boy, you haven't forgotten a thing--not a dam' thing, have you? You were nothing but an onery-legged pup then, but you didn't forget! Remember what I told you, that I was going to take you and the cub down to the Girl? Do you remember? The Girl I said was an angel, and 'd love you to death, and all that? Well, I'm glad something happened--and you didn't go. It wasn't the same when I got back, an'

SHE wasn't the same, Miki. Lord, she'd got married, AND HAD TWO KIDS!

Think of that, old scout--TWO! How the deuce could she have taken care of you and the cub, eh? And nothing else was the same, Boy. Three years in G.o.d's Country--up here where you burst your lungs just for the fun of drinking in air--changed me a lot, I guess. Inside a week I wanted to come back, Miki. Yessir, I was SICK to come back. So I came. And we're going to stick now, Miki. You're going with me up to that new Post the Company has given me. From now on we're pals. Understand, old scout, we're PALS!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It was late the night of the big feast at Post Fort O' G.o.d that MacDonnell, the factor, sent for Challoner. Challoner was preparing for bed when an Indian boy pounded on the door of his shack and a moment later gave him the message. He looked at his watch. It was eleven o'clock. What could the Factor want of him at that hour, he wondered?

Flat on his belly near the warm box stove Miki watched his new-found master speculatively as he pulled on his boots. His eyes were wide open now. Challoner had washed from him the blood of the terrific fight of that afternoon.

"Something to do with that devil of a Durant," growled Challoner, looking at the battle-scarred dog. "Well, if he hopes to get YOU again, Miki, he's barking up the wrong tree. You're MINE!"

Miki thumped his hard tail on the floor and wriggled toward his master in mute adoration. Together they went out into the night.

It was a night of white moonlight and a mult.i.tude of stars. The four great fires over which the caribou had roasted for the savage barbecue that day were still burning brightly. In the edge of the forest that ringed in the Post were the smouldering embers of a score of smaller fires. Back of these fires were faintly outlined the gray shadows of teepees and tents. In these shelters the three hundred halfbreeds and Indians who had come in from the forest trails to the New Year carnival at the Post were sleeping. Only here and there was there a movement of life. Even the dogs were quiet after the earlier hours of excitement and gluttony.

Past the big fires, with their huge spits still standing, Challoner pa.s.sed toward the Factor's quarters. Miki sniffed at the freshly picked bones. Beyond these bones there was no sign of the two thousand pounds of flesh that had roasted that day on the spits. Men, women, children, and dogs had stuffed themselves until there was nothing left. It was the silence of Mutai--the "belly G.o.d"--the G.o.d who eats himself to sleep each night--that hovered strangely over this Post of Fort O' G.o.d, three hundred miles from civilization.

There was a light in the Factor's room, and Challoner entered with Miki at his heels. MacDonnell, the Scotchman, was puffing moodily on his pipe. There was a worried look in his ruddy face as the younger man seated himself, and his eyes were on Miki.

"Durant has been here," he said. "He's ugly. I'm afraid of trouble. If you hadn't struck him--"

Challoner shrugged his shoulders as he filled his own pipe from the Factor's tobacco.

"You see--you don't just understand the situation at Fort 0' G.o.d," went on MacDonnell. "There's been a big dog fight here at New Year for the last fifty years. It's become a part of history, a part of Fort O' G.o.d itself, and that's why in my own fifteen years here I haven't tried to stop it. I believe it would bring on a sort of--revolution. I'd wager a half of my people would go to another post with their furs. That's why all the sympathy seems to be with Durant. Even Grouse Piet, his rival, tells him he's a fool to let you get away with him that way. Durant says that dog is HIS."

MacDonnell nodded at Miki, lying at Challoner's feet.

"Then he lies," said Challoner quietly.

"He says he bought him of Jacques Le Beau."

"Then Le Beau sold a dog that didn't belong to him."

For a moment MacDonnell was silent. Then he said:

"But that wasn't what I had you come over for, Challoner. Durant told me something that froze my blood to-night. Your outfit starts for your post up in the Reindeer Lake county to-morrow, doesn't it?"

"In the morning."

"Then could you, with one of my Indians and a team, arrange to swing around by way of the Jackson's Knee? You'd lose a week, but you could overtake your outfit before it reached the Reindeer--and it would be a mighty big favour to me. There's a--a h.e.l.l of a thing happened over there."

Again he looked at Miki.

"GAWD!" he breathed.

Challoner waited. He thought he saw a shudder pa.s.s through the Factor's shoulders.

"I'd go myself--I ought to, but this frosted lung of mine has made me sit tight this winter, Challoner. I OUGHT to go. Why--(a sudden glow shot into his eyes)--I knew this Nanette Le Beau when she was SO HIGH, fifteen years ago. I watched her grow up, Challoner. If I hadn't been married--then--I'd have fallen in love with her. Do you know her, Challoner? Did you ever see Nanette Le Beau?"

Challoner shook his head.

"An angel--if G.o.d ever made one," declared MacDonnell through his red beard. "She lived over beyond the Jackson's Knee with her father. And he died, froze to death crossing Red Eye Lake one night. I've always thought Jacques Le Beau MADE her marry him after that. Or else she didn't know, or was crazed, or frightened at being alone. Anyway, she married him. It was five years ago I saw her last. Now and then I've heard things, but I didn't believe--not all of them. I didn't believe that Le Beau beat her, and knocked her down when he wanted to. I didn't believe he dragged her through the snow by her hair one day until she was nearly dead. They were just rumours, and he was seventy miles away.

But I believe them now. Durant came from their place, and I guess he told me a whole lot of the truth--to save that dog."

Again he looked at Miki.

"You see, Durant tells me that Le Beau caught the dog in one of his traps, took him to his cabin, and tortured him into shape for the big fight. When Durant came he was so taken with the dog that he bought him, and it was while Le Beau was driving the dog mad in his cage to show his temper that Nanette interfered. Le Beau knocked her down, and then jumped on her and was pulling her hair and choking her when the dog went for him and killed him. That's the story. Durant told me the truth through fear that I'd have the dog shot if he was an out-and-out murderer. And that's why I want you to go by way of the Jackson's Knee.

I want you to investigate, and I want you to do what you can for Nanette Le Beau. My Indian will bring her back to Port O' G.o.d."

With Scotch stoicism MacDonnell had repressed whatever excitement he may have felt. He spoke quietly. But the curious shudder went through his shoulders again. Challoner stared at him in blank amazement.

"You mean to say that Miki--this dog--has killed a man?"

"Yes. He killed him, Durant says, just as he killed Grouse Piet's wolf-dog in the big fight to-day. UGH!" As Challoner's eyes fell slowly upon Miki, the Factor added: "But Grouse Piet's dog was better than the man. If what I hear about Le Beau was true he's better dead than alive.

Challoner, if you didn't think it too much trouble, and could go that way--and see Nanette--"