The Law of the North Part 28

He broke the thongs of the packet like thread, rummaged the bundle, and found the doc.u.ments directed to him.

"Macleod will be here in two days," was his answer. "Now will you go!"

The intensity of Dunvegan bordered on savagery. Desiree slipped to the door. Outwardly conquered, she disappeared, but victory still lurked in her glance.

Basil Dreaulond wondered much at the chief trader's apparent mood, for he was always gentle in the extreme when dealing with women. The courier could not know that this was the bitterness of renunciation. He too went softly away and left Dunvegan alone.

An Indian had taken Baptiste Verenne's position as sentinel, and Baptiste, hurrying through the yard, met Basil coming out of the fort.

"Got de fiddle ready, Baptiste?" asked the tanned courier, grinning.

It was the custom at the posts to hold a dance upon the arrival of the packet. These festivals marked, as it were, the periods of relief and relaxation from the toil and danger of the long, arduous packet route.

"_Oui_, for sure t'ing," Verenne replied. "I be beeg mans dis night, _mon camarade_!"

And a big man Baptiste was as, perched high on a corner table, he drew the merry soul of him out across the strings of his instrument.

As he played, he smiled jubilantly down upon the light-hearted maze that filled the great floor of the trading room. The huge hall was decorated by the quick hands of women for the occasion. Varicolored ribbons ran round the walls after the manner of bunting and fell in festoons from the beamed ceiling. Candles stood in rows upon mantels and shelves, shedding soft, silver light from under tinselled shades. Evergreens were thrust in the fireplace and banked about with wild roses and the many flaming flowers of the wilderness. A sweet odor filled the air, an Eden smell, the fragrance of the untainted forest.

Riotously, exuberantly the frolic began. Blood pulsed hotly. Feet were free. Lips were ready. The Nor'westers' wives, the French-Canadian girls, the halfbreed women swung madly through the square and string dances with the Brondel men of their choice.

G.o.d of it all, Baptiste smiled perpetually over the tumult, quickening his music to a faster time, quivering the violin's fibres with sonorous volume. Mad hornpipes he shrilled out, sailors' tunes which Pete Connear stepped till the rafters shook with the clatter. Snappy reels he unwound in which Terence Burke led, throwing antics of Irish abandon that convulsed the throng. Also, Baptiste voiced the songs he loved, airs of his own race, dances he had whirled in old years with the belles of the Chaudiere and the Gatineau.

Out of sympathy for the prisoners, Glyndon and Follet, when all the amus.e.m.e.nt was going on above, Bruce Dunvegan had ordered them to be brought up. For the one evening they were allowed the freedom of the fort, but wherever they went two Indian guards stalked always at their elbows.

And Glyndon went most frequently where the rum flowed freest. After the abstinence imposed by confinement since the week-long debauch his thirst was a parching one. Half fuddled, he met Desiree threading her way through the crowd. He put out both hands awkwardly to bar her progress.

"What do you want?" she cried, drawing suddenly back as she would recoil from a snake.

"You," Glyndon answered thickly. "Can a man not speak with his wife?"

"Wife!" Desiree echoed. "Go find one of your halfbreed wenches. Speak with _her_!"

Disgust, contempt, revulsion were in Desiree's voice and manner. She darted aside and avoided him in the crowd.

Yet again he found her seated at a table between Dunvegan and Basil Dreaulond where she thought to be secure. He threw his arms about her neck, attempting a maudlin kiss, but instead of meeting her full, red lips his own insipid mouth met Dreaulond's great paw, swiftly thrust out to close upon his blotched cheekbones and whirl him into a seat on the courier's other side.

"Ba gosh, ma fren', you ain' be fit for kiss no woman," Basil observed sternly. "You got be mooch sobaire first. Eh, _mon ami_? Sit ver'

still--dat's w'at I said."

Inwardly flaming, Dunvegan remained immovable, as if the incident were none of his concern. But though apparently so calm he was the victim of raging emotions. The magnetic personality of the woman beside him was a poignant thing. Her propinquity proved masterful beyond belief. He could hear her heart beating under restraint; interpret the heaving of her bosom; feel the hot pulsing of her blood; read her very thoughts as her mind evolved them. Conscious of the spell which grew stronger with every minute, Bruce sat there unable to tear himself away.

Presently, seeking to divert his mind from the cause of the unrest, the chief trader opened a few bottles of aged wine which he had found in the cellars of Fort Brondel that were stored with the Nor'wester's liquor.

This he had carefully kept to celebrate the first visit of the Hudson's Bay Company's packet.

The amount was not large, yet a little to each the time-mellowed vintage brought from across the seas by way of Montreal went round.

"To the York Factory packet," Dunvegan cried, proposing the toast.

Cheers thundered out, hearty, loyal, sincere. Then reverently the toast was sipped.

"And Basil Dreaulond," Bruce added. A shout this time loud with great-hearted friendliness and comrades.h.i.+p! Strong pride of the northland race burned in their eyes as they drank to the finest type of it, the virile courier.

Now in fullness of spirit each voiced the toast that appealed to him personally.

"Scotia!--Scots wha hae!" shrilled two Highlanders of Dunvegan's band.

"The Emerald Isle," Terence Burke roared aggressively.

"The Eagle," yelled Pete Connear. "Drat your landsmen's eyes, drink with me. To the American Eagle and the salt of the sea!"

"_La France! La France!_" Voyageurs shrieked like mad.

"Old England," stammered Edwin Glyndon, pounding the table.

"Old fren's," spoke Basil Dreaulond, with quiet modesty.

"Old lovers!" Clear as a clarion Desiree's toast rang through the din, thrilling Dunvegan by its audacity, its fervor. As consuming flames her eyes drew him, withering stout resolves, melting his will. He bent his head lower, lower, glorying in the complete confession those two swift words had made.

"Ah, yes!" called Glyndon, leering evilly, "you seem to know that toast--too well."

She sprang from her seat in a fury. He sprang from his, ugly in his mood.

"You dog!" Her nostrils quivered. "You coward!"

"And liar!" Dunvegan's menacing face eager to avenge the insult rose behind her shoulder.

Uttering a wild, inarticulate cry, Glyndon struck the scornful face of the woman. Desiree gave a little moan and fell half stunned against the table.

The Brondel men roared in anger. As one man they sprang forward with the single purpose of rending Edwin Glyndon. But Dunvegan was quicker than they. White to his lips, he had leaped at the former clerk. His first savage impulse was to strike, to maim, to kill! One blow with all his mighty strength and Glyndon would never have spoken again.

Spoken! That was it. The quick realization pierced his brain even in the moment of obsessing anger. Glyndon was a prisoner. He must be produced before Malcolm Macleod. Macleod had questions to ask of him. Dead men could not answer questions.

Thus did sanity temper Dunvegan's rage. It was only his open palm that knocked the sot ten feet across the room.

Then fearfully he lifted Desiree. She stirred at the touch. The light of a smile came into the wan face with the red weal upon it. Her fort.i.tude permitted not the slightest expression of pain, and Dunvegan's soul went out to her at knowledge of her woman's bravery. What before had seemed to him as only his human weakness now became the strength of duty. As if she had been a child, he raised Desiree in his arms and left the gaping crowd.

A murmur ran among the men when he was gone. They scowled as Glyndon staggered up.

Came an instant's silence and the piping of a thin voice. "Now my toast!"

Everyone looked to see Gaspard Follet grinning like an ogre at the foot of the table. He thrust his owlish face over the board and shook the wine in his gla.s.s till in the light it sparkled like rubies.

"To the devil!" he chuckled.

The feasters started and sat back silent, grave, awed by the vital significance of that last toast.

Outside the challenge of the Indian sentinel interrupted the quiet. They heard the clatter of the gates. Someone had arrived.