Snowdrift Part 13

Camillo Bill motioned the three to a small table, and when they were seated he ordered the drinks: "We got a job to do," he announced, plunging straight into his subject, "An' we got to do it thorough."

"Meanin' which?" asked Bettles.

"Meanin' to kidnap a man, an' hide him out fer a year, an' make him work like h.e.l.l every minute he ain't sleepin' or eatin'."

"That sounds like a h.e.l.l of a contrack," opined Swift.w.a.ter Bill. "Who's goin' to keep him workin', an' what at, an' what for?"

"For the good of his soul," grinned Camillo, "The spark of a man's there yet--an' a d.a.m.n good man. But if we all don't git down an' blow like h.e.l.l the spark's goin' out."

"Clear as mulligan," grinned Moosehide Charlie.

Camillo Bill looked into the faces of his companions: "Anyone saw Ace-In-The-Hole, lately?" he asked.

Bettles shook his head, and Swift.w.a.ter Bill spoke up: "I seen him about a month ago--bought him a drink. He's on the toboggan."

Moosehide Charlie broke in: "I ain't seen him since spring when he saved me from gettin' doped in Cuter Malone's. Cuter floored him with a bottle an' Kitty an' I got him home an' she looked after him till he got better. I give her a sack of dust to give him, but he wouldn't take it--throw'd it out in the snow, an' Kitty dug it out an' brung it back.

If you all is figgerin' on gettin' up a stake fer him, let me in I'll go as high as the next."

Camillo Bill shook his head: "Nothin' doin' on the stake stuff. He wouldn't take it, an' if he did it would be the worst thing we could do to him. He'd blow it all in fer hooch. I went over to his cabin just now to turn back his claims. I've took out my million, an' only worked one of 'em. An' it ain't worked half out. They must be two or three million in 'em yet. Kitty told me the hooch had got him right--but she didn't tell it strong enough. He's in a h.e.l.l of a shape, an' thinks he's as good a man as he ever was. He's dirty, an' ragged, an' bloated with hooch an' broke--an' yet, by G.o.d--he's a man! When I seen how things was, I decided not to say anything about the claims because if he got holt of 'em now, he'd blow 'em in as fast as he could get out the dust.

But, after a while he asked me, an' I told him they'd petered out. He never batted an eye, but he says, 'Did you get out your million?

'Cause,' he says, 'if you didn't just tell me how much you're shy, an'

I'll make it good!' He thinks he's goin' somewhere over beyond the Mackenzie when the snow comes--but, h.e.l.l--he ain't in no shape to go nowheres. What we got to do is jest na'ch.e.l.ly steal him, an' put him in a cabin somewheres way out in the hills, an' hire a couple of guards for him, an' keep him workin' for a whole d.a.m.n year. It'll nearly kill him at first, but it'll put him back where he was, if it don't kill him--an'

if it does, it's better to die workin' than to freeze to death drunk like McMann did."

"I got the place to put him," said Swift.w.a.ter, "The claim's no good, but it's way to h.e.l.l an' gone from here, an' there's a cabin on it."

"Just the ticket," agreed Camillo.

"We better send out quite a bunch of hooch. So he can kind of taper off," suggested Moosehide Charlie.

"Taper--h.e.l.l!" cried Bettles, "If you taper off, you taper on agin. I know. The way to quit is to quit."

"We'll figger that out," laughed Camillo, "The best way is to ask the doc. I'll tend to that, an' I'll get a guard hired, an' see about grub an' tools and stuff. We'll meet here a week from tonight an' pull the deal off, an' Swift.w.a.ter he can go along fer guide--only you don't want to let him see you. I'll get guards that he don't know, an' that don't know him. We'll have to pay 'em pretty good, but it's worth it."

Old Bettles nodded: "He was a d.a.m.n good man, onct."

"An' he'll be agin'!" exclaimed Camillo, "If he lives through it. His heart's right."

And so they parted, little thinking that when they would gather for the carrying out of their scheme, Brent would have disappeared as completely as though the earth had swallowed him up.

CHAPTER IX

SNOWDRIFT RETURNS TO THE BAND

As Snowdrift plodded mile after mile, in her flight from the mission, her brain busied itself with her problem, and the first night beside her little campfire she laid her plans for the future. In her heart was no bitterness against old Wananebish--only compa.s.sion that resolved itself into an intense loyalty and a determination to stay with her and to lighten the burden that the years were heaping upon her. For she knew of the old woman's intense love for her, and the hards.h.i.+ps she willingly endured to keep her in school at the mission. The blame was the white man's blame--the blame of the man who was her father.

Her face burned hot and her eyes flashed as her hatred of white men grew upon her. Gladly would she have opened her veins and let out the last drop of white blood that coursed the length of them. At least she could renounce the white man's ways--his teachings, and his very language.

From now on she was Indian--and yet, again came that fleeting, elusive _memory_--always, ever since she had been a little girl there had been the _memory_, and when it came she would close her eyes, and press her hands to her head and try and try in vain to grasp it--to bring the picture clean-cut to her mind. Then the _memory_ would fade away--but it would return again, in a month--a year--always it would return--a log cabin--wind-tossed waters--a beautiful white woman who held her close--a big man with a beard upon his face like McTavish, the factor. At first she had told Wananebish of the _memory_, but she had laughed and said that it was the wives of the different factors and traders at the posts who were wont to make much of the little girl when the band came to trade. The explanation never quite satisfied Snowdrift, but she accepted it for want of a better. Was it a flash of memory from another existence? There was the book she had borrowed from Father Ambrose, the peculiar book that she did not understand, and that Father Ambrose said he did not understand, and did not want to understand, for it was all about some heathenish doctrine. She wondered if it could not be possible that people lived over and over again, as the book said, and if so, why couldn't they remember? Maybe last time she had been a white girl, and this time she was a half-breed, and the next time she would be an Indian--she wouldn't wait till next time! She was an Indian now. She hated the white men.

And so it went as hour on hour she worked her plans for the future. She knew that Wananebish was getting old, that she was losing her grip on the band. Many of the older ones had died, and many of the younger ones had deserted, and those who were left were dissatisfied, and always grumbling. There were only eighteen or twenty of them all told, now, and they preferred to hang about along the rivers, trapping just enough fur to make a scanty living and pay for the hooch that the free-traders brought in. They were a degenerate lot and old Wananebish had grown weary in trying to get them back into the barrens where there was gold.

They scoffed at the gold. There had been so little of it found in so many years of trying--yet she had not been able to get them to leave the vicinity of the river. But, now, to the river had come news of the great gold strike beyond the mountains to the westward. Snowdrift reasoned that if there were gold to the westward there would be gold also to the eastward, especially as Wananebish knew that it was there--had even found some of it long years ago. Maybe they would go, now--far back into the barrens, far, far away from Henri of the White Water.

Upon the fourth day after her departure from the mission, the girl walked into the camp of the little band of non-treaty Indians. Straight to the tepee of Wananebish, she went--to the only mother she had ever known. The old squaw received her with open arms, and with much wondering, for upon her last visit to the mission the good Sister Mercedes had told her that Snowdrift would go and continue her studies at the great convent in the far away land of the white man. It was the thing she had most feared to hear, yet, by not so much as the flicker of an eyelash did she betray her soul-hurt. All the long years of deception, during which MacFarlane's note book had lain wrapped in its waterproof wrappings and jealously guarded in the bottom of the moss bag had gone for naught. For it was to guard against the girl's going to the land of the white man that the deception had been practiced. None but she knew that no drop of Indian blood coursed through the veins of the girl, and she knew that once firmly established among her own people she would never return to the North. At that time she had almost yielded to the impulse to tell the truth to them, and to spread the proofs before them--almost, but not quite, for as long as the girl believed herself to be half Indian there was a chance that she would return, and so the squaw had held her peace, and now here was the girl herself--here in the tepee, and she had brought her all her belongings. Wananebish plied her with questions, but the girl's answers were brief, and spoken in the Indian tongue, a thing that greatly surprised and troubled the old woman, for since babyhood, the girl had despised the speech of the Indians.

The two prepared supper in silence, and in silence they ate it. And for a long time they sat close together and silent beside the mosquito smudge of punk and green twigs. The eyes of the old squaw closed and she crooned softly from pure joy, for here beside her was the only being in the world that she loved. Her own baby, the tiny red mite she had deposited that day upon the blanket in the far away post at Las.h.i.+ng Water, had died during that first winter. The crooning ceased abruptly, and the black, beady eyes flashed open. But why was she here? And for how long? She must know. Why did not the girl speak? The silence became unbearable even to this woman who all her life had been a creature of silence. Abruptly she asked the question: "Are you not going to the land of the white men?"

And quick as a flash came the answer in the Indian tongue: "_I hate the white men!_" The suppressed pa.s.sion behind the words brought a low inarticulate cry to the lips of the squaw. She reached for the sheath knife at her belt, and the sinews upon the back of the hand that grasped it stood out like whip cords. The black eyes glittered like the eyes of a snake, and the lips curled back in a snarl of hate, so that the yellow fangs gleamed in the wavering light of a tiny flame that flared from the smouldering fire.

Words came in a hoa.r.s.e croak: "Who is he? I will cut his heart out!"

Then the hand of the girl was laid soothingly upon her arm, and again she spoke words in the Indian tongue: "No, no, not that."

The old squaw's muscles relaxed as she felt the arm of the girl steal about her shoulders. The knife slipped back into its sheath, as her body was drawn close against the girl's. For a long time they sat thus in silence, and then the girl rose, for she was very tired. At the door of the tepee she paused: "There are some good white men," she said, "Tell me again, was my father a good white man?"

Still seated beside the fire the old squaw nodded slowly, "A good white man--yes. He is dead."

The eyes of the girl sought with penetrating glance the face beside the fire. Was there veiled meaning in those last words? Snowdrift thought not, and entering the tepee she crept between her blankets.

When the sound of the girl's breathing told that she slept old Wananebish stole noiselessly into the tepee and, emerging a moment later with the old moss bag, she poked at the fire with a stick, and threw on some dry twigs, and seated herself in the light of the flickering flames. She thrust her hand into the bag and withdrew a packet from which she undid the wrappings. Minutes pa.s.sed as she sat staring at the notebook of MacFarlane, and at the package of parchment deer-skin still secure in its original wrapping. For never had the squaw touched a dollar of the money left in her care for the maintainance and education of the girl. Poor as she was Wananebish had kept Snowdrift in school, had clothed and fed her solely by her own efforts, by the fruits of her hunting and trapping. All during the years she had starved, and saved, and driven shrewd bargains that the girl might receive education, even as she herself had received education.

And, now, tonight, she knew that the girl had been suddenly made to realize that she was one of those born out of wedlock, and the shame of it was heavy upon her. The old woman's heart beat warm as she realized that the girl held no blame for her--only an intense hatred for the white men, one of whose race had wrought the supposed wrong.

For a long time Wananebish sat beside the fire her heart torn by conflicting emotions. She knew right from wrong. She had not the excuse of ignorance of the ethics of conduct, for she, too, had been an apt pupil at the mission school. And for nearly nineteen years she had been living a lie. And during those years right had struggled against love a thousand times--and always love had won--the savage, selfish love that bade her keep the object of her affections with her in the Northland.

Upon the death of her baby soon after the visit of MacFarlane, her whole life centered upon the tiny white child. In the spring when the band moved, she had left false directions in the caribou skull beside the river, and instead of heading for Las.h.i.+ng Water to deliver the babe to old Molaire, she had headed northward, and upon the third day had come upon the remains of a sled, and a short distance farther on, a rifle, and a sheath knife--the same that now swung at her own belt, and which bore upon its inside surface, the legend "Murdo MacFarlane." A thousand times she had been upon the point of telling the girl of her parentage, and turning over to her the packet, but always the fear was upon her that she would forsake the North, and seek the land of her own people.

Years before, when she had entered the girl at the mission, she had smothered the temptation to tell all, and to deliver the packet to the priest. But instead, she invented the story of her illegitimate birth and accepted the shame. She knew from the first that Sister Mercedes doubted the tale, that she believed the girl to be white, but she stoutly held to her story, nor deviated from it so much as a hair's breadth, during years of periodical questioning.

But now? What should she do now that the girl herself was suffering under the stigma of her birth? Should she tell her the truth and deliver to her the packet of her father? If she did would not the girl turn upon her with hatred, even as she had turned against the people of her own race? Should she remain silent, still living the lie she had lived all these years, and thus keep at her side the girl she loved with the savage mother love of a wild beast? Was it not the girl's right to know who she was, and if she so willed, to go among her own people, and to go among them with unsullied name? Clearly this was her right. Wananebish admitted the right, and the admission strengthened her purpose. Slowly she rose from the fire and with the packet and the notebook in her hand, stepped to the door of the tepee and stood listening to the breathing of the sleeping girl. She would slip the packet beneath the blankets, and then--and then--she, herself would go away--and stay until the girl had gone out of the North. Then she would come back to her people. Her eyes swept the group of tepees that showed dimly in the starlight--back to her people! A great wave of revulsion and self-pity swept over her as she saw herself, old and unheeded, working desperately for the betterment of the little band of degenerates, waging almost single handed the losing battle against the whiskey runners. Suddenly she straightened, and the hand clutched tightly the packet. If Snowdrift stayed, might not the band yet be saved? What is it the white men say when they seek excuse for their misdeeds? Ah, yes, it is that the end justifies the means. As she repeated the old sophistry a gleam of hope lighted her eyes and she returned again to the fire. At least, the girl would remain at her side, and would care for her in her old age--only a few more years, and then she would die, and after that-- Carefully she rewrapped the packet and returned it to the moss bag. As always before the savage primal love triumphed over the ethics, and with a great weight lifted from her mind, the old squaw sought her blankets.

Heart and soul, during the remaining days of the summer, Snowdrift threw herself into the work of regenerating the little band of Indians. News of the great gold strike on the Yukon had reached the Mackenzie and these rumors the girl used to the utmost in her arguments in favor of a journey into the barrens. At first her efforts met with little encouragement, but her enthusiasm for the venture never lagged and gradually the opposition weakened before the persistence of her onslaughts.

When the brigade pa.s.sed northward, Henri of the White Water had promised the Indians he would return with hooch, and it was in antic.i.p.ation of this that the young men of the band were holding back. When, in August, word drifted up the river that a patrol of the mounted from Fort Simpson had come upon a certain _cache_, and that Henri of the White Water was even then southward bound under escort, the last of the opposition vanished. Without hooch one place was as good as another and if they should find gold--why they could return and buy much hooch, from some other whiskey runner. But, they asked, how about debt? Already they were in debt to the company, and until the debt was paid they could expect nothing, and a long trip into the barrens would call for much in the way of supplies.

McTavish, the bearded trader at Fort Good Hope, listened patiently until the girl finished her recital, and then his thick fingers toyed with the heavy inkstand upon his desk.

"I do' no' what to say, to ye, la.s.s," he began, "The Company holds me to account for the debt I give, an' half the band is already in my debt.

Ye're mither, auld Wananebish is gude for all she wants an' so are you, for ye're a gud la.s.s. Some of the others are gud too, but theer be some amongst them that I wad na trust for the worth of a buckshot. They've laid around the river too lang. They're a worthless, hooch-guzzlin'

outfit. They're na gude."

"But that's just why I want debt," cried the girl, "To get them away from the river. There's no hooch here now, and they will go. I, myself, will stand responsible for the debt."

The Scotchman regarded the eager face gravely: "Wheer wad ye tak them?"

he asked.

"Way to the eastward, beyond Bear Lake, there is a river. The trapping is good there, and there is gold----"