The Huntress Part 47

His stubborn spirit no longer answered to his need. He had the hopeless feeling that he had come to the end of his fight. What was the use of struggling back to the outside world? He had already tried that. He could not face the thought of enduring another such night, either. Better the surrounding wilderness--or the lake.

He heard the front door flung open and Mahooley's heavy step in the mess-room. He jumped up and put his back against the wall. His eyes instinctively sought for his sharpest knife. He did not purpose standing any more. However, the jocular leer had disappeared from the trader's red face. He looked merely business-like now.

"Ain't you finished the dishes? h.e.l.l, you're slow! I want you to take a team and go down to Grier's Point to load up for Graves."

Sam looked at him stupidly.

"Can't you hear me?" said Mahooley. "Get a move on you!"

"I can't get back here before dinner," muttered Sam.

"Who wants you back? One of the breed boys is goin' to cook.

Freighting's your job now. You can draw on the store for a coat and a pair of blankets. You'll get twelve and a half cents a hundredweight, so it's up to you to do your own hustling. Better sleep at the Point nights, so you can start early."

Sam's stiff lips tried to formulate thanks.

"Ah, cut it out!" said Mahooley. "It's just a business proposition."

CHAPTER XVII

AN APPARITION

On the way up the lake the surveyor's party had been driven to seek shelter in the mouth of Hah-wah-sepi by a westerly gale. They found the other York boat lying there. Its pa.s.sengers, the bishop, the Indian agent, and the doctor, after ministering to the tribe in their several ways, had ridden north to visit the people around Tepiskow Lake.

The Fish-Eaters were still in a state of considerable excitement. The Government annuities--five dollars a head--changed hands half a dozen times daily in the hazards of jack-pot. All other business was suspended.

Musq'oosis called upon the chief surveyor, and the white man was delighted with his red brother's native courtesy and philosophy.

When finally the wind died down Musq'oosis had only to drop a hint that he was thinking of travelling to the settlement to receive a hearty invitation. Musq'oosis, instructing two boys, Jeresis and Hooliam, to come after him with a dugout in two days' time, accepted it.

Whatever may have been going on inside Bela during the days that followed, nothing showed in her wooden face. Never, at least when any eye was upon her, did she c.o.c.k her head to listen for a canoe around the bend, nor go to the beach to look up the lake.

The Fish-Eaters were not especially curious concerning her. They had heard a native version of the happenings in Johnny Gagnon's shack from the boatmen, but had merely shrugged. Bela was crazy, anyway, they said.

Finally on the seventh day Musq'oosis and the two boys returned. Bela did not run to the creek. When the old man came to his teepee she was working around it with a highly indifferent air.

Once more they played their game of make-believe. Bela would not ask, and Musq'oosis would not tell without being asked. Bela was the one to give in.

"What you do up at settlement?" she asked carelessly.

"I fix everyt'ing good," replied Musq'oosis. "Buy team for Sam wit'

your money. Mahooley's black team."

"It's too good for Sam," said Bela scornfully.

The old man glanced at her with sly amus.e.m.e.nt, and shrugged. He volunteered no further information.

When Bela could stand it no longer she asked sullenly:

"You hear no news at the settlement?"

Musq'oosis laughed and took pity on her. He told her his story, suppressing only certain facts that he considered it unwise for her to know.

"I glad the men mak' mock of Sam," she said bitterly. "Maybe he get some sense now."

"Well, he all right now," observed Musq'oosis.

"All right!" she cried. "I guess he more foolish than before, now he got a team. I guess he think he bigges' man in the country."

Musq'oosis stared at her. "W'at's the matter wit' you? You send me all the way to get him team. Now you let on you mad 'cause he got it."

"I didn't send you," contradicted Bela. "You say yourself you go."

"I go because you say you got go if I don't go. I don't want you to mak' anot'er fool lak before. I go for 'cause you promise me you stay here."

It was impossible for poor Bela to justify her contradictions, so she kept silent.

"You lak a woman, all right," declared Musq'oosis scornfully.

Bela had an idea that she could obtain a freer account of what was happening at the settlement from Jeresis or Hooliam, but pride would not allow her to apply directly to them.

Whenever she saw either of the boys making the centre of a group she managed to invent some business in the neighbourhood. But the talk always became constrained at her approach, and she learned nothing.

The youngsters of the tribe were afraid of Bela. This had the effect of confirming her suspicion that there was something she needed to learn.

Word was pa.s.sed around camp that there would be a "singing" on the lake sh.o.r.e that night. Bela, who had her own ideas about singing, despised the crude chanting of her relatives and the monotonous accompaniment of the "stick-kettle"; nevertheless, she decided to attend on this occasion.

Waiting until the party was well under way, she joined it unostentatiously and sat down in the outer circle of women. None but those immediately around her saw her come.

These parties last all night or near it. It needs darkness to give the wild part-song its full effect, and to inspire the drummers to produce a voice of awe from the muttering tom-toms. They work up slowly.

During a pause in the singing, while the drummer held his stick-kettle over the fire to contract the skin, some one asked Jeresis if he had seen Bela's white man. This was what she was waiting for. She listened breathlessly.

"Yes," answered Jeresis.

"Is he big, fine man?"

"No, middle-size man. Not much. Other men call him white slave, 'cause Bela take him away."

"Bela is crazy," said another.

The speakers were unaware that she was present. The women around her eyed her curiously. Bela smiled disdainfully for their benefit.

"Other woman got him now," Jeresis went on indifferently.

The smile froze on Bela's face. A red-hot needle seemed thrust into her breast.