Law of the North (Originally published as Empery)

  Produced by D Alexander, Mary Meehan, New and replacementimages from Google Print and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  LAW OF THE NORTH

  _Originally published under the title of_

  EMPERY

  _A Story of Love and Battle in Rupert's Land_

  BY SAMUEL ALEXANDER WHITE

  AUTHOR OF THE WILDCATTERS, THE STAMPEDERS, ETC.

  FRONTISPIECE IN COLORS BY THORNTON D. SKIDMORE

  NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS

  COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY

  All rights reserved

  THE PRIEST NOTED THE WEAPON'S MUZZLE THRUSTING DEEPERINTO THE POWDER]

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. THE BREED OF THE NORTH 9

  II. THE LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS 20

  III. AN ULTIMATUM 33

  IV. OMENS OF THE LAW 47

  V. DESIREE 66

  VI. IN THE BLOOD 80

  VII. LIEGES OF THE WILD 86

  VIII. THE NOR'WESTER'S FLESH 100

  IX. WHO RULES HIMSELF 115

  X. THE CAUSE INVINCIBLE 127

  XI. TIDINGS OF WAR 137

  XII. "YOU MAY COME IN A BLIZZARD!" 147

  XIII. A VOW THAT HELD 157

  XIV. THE IRON TRAIL 168

  XV. MASKWA'S FIND 181

  XVI. THE FIRST BLOW 193

  XVII. THE HEART OF THE SAVAGE 207

  XVIII. A DOUBLE SURPRISE 219

  XIX. NOT IN THE BONDS OF GOD 240

  XX. THE LONG LEAGUER 250

  XXI. BLACK FERGUSON'S WILE 274

  XXII. FAWN AND PANTHER 295

  XXIII. CONQUEST 315

  LAW OF THE NORTH

  CHAPTER I

  THE BREED OF THE NORTH

  Before Basil Dreaulond, the Hudson's Bay Company's courier, had won halfthe mile-long Nisgowan portage, the familiar noise of men toiling inpack-harness reached his ears. He stopped automatically and trained hishearing in mechanical analysis of the sound. This power had grown withinhim with every successive year of his wilderness life, and at once hewas aware that a party of considerable size was packing across theboulder-strewn strip of woodland separating Kinistina Creek from Lac DuLonge.

  The knowledge gave a wonderful quickness to the courier's rigid,listening figure. Swinging the canoe from his bulky shoulders, he hid itswiftly in the tamarack thicket which skirted the blazed passage. Thetump-line was as suddenly slipped from his sweating forehead, and thepack-sack vanished likewise. Then Dreaulond himself disappeared with aspring into the green growth like a grouse seeking tangled cover. Fromthe place of concealment sounded a metallic clink as he made ready hisweapons against the chance of discovery.

  The voyageur was doubtful whether the advancing men were from any of theHudson's Bay forts. They might well belong to some of the Northwest FurCompany's posts. If this were the case, Basil knew it would not beconducive to his own safety or, what was more important, to the welfareof the dispatches he carried to encounter single-handed a body ofNor'westers. He made for his convenience a peep-hole among the pungentboughs and scrutinized the axe-hewn path where one had to staggerknee-deep among flinty rock fragments, spear-like stumps, and a chaoticjumble of logs.

  Stooping to their burdens of canoes, dunnage, and arms, they came,thick-set giants with the knotted muscle, the clear vision, and thehealthy skin that the strenuous northland life bestows. While theyapproached slowly, footing arduously, almost painfully, every step ofthe trying way and guarding against slips which meant fractures orsix-month bruises, Dreaulond caught mingling gleams of color about theirattire. As these bright glints took on definition and were resolved intosashes and leggings of red and blue, the hiding courier made out thedress of his own Company's men. The cover, now no longer necessary, wasbrushed aside for a better view. In the lead he recognized the squareshoulders and mighty breadth of Bruce Dunvegan from Oxford House, a manof superior education and chief trader to Malcolm Macleod, the Factor.

  When Dunvegan with his hardy brigade of voyageurs came abreast thecourier's shelter, Dreaulond was seized with a sudden spirit of humor,and launched a long-drawn, far-carrying cry.

  "_Vive le Nor'westaire!_" he bellowed.

  As automatons, actuated by a single controlling spring, the men droppedwhatever they bore and leaped to shelter behind perpendicular rocks,huge logs, or bullet-proof stumps, only the ends of their rifles showinggrim and suggestive in silent menace. The discipline of defense whichfell upon them naturally without preconcerted thought, without volition,was pleasing to a man who loved his Company's interests as didDreaulond. His eyes sparkled with satisfaction, although he was mindedto keep up the artifice a little longer.

  "La Roche! _Pour_ La Roche!" he shouted, using the watchword of theNor'westers, the customary warning of dire and imminent trouble forHudson's Bay followers. While Basil raised the enemy's alarm, he rolledquickly behind a jutting boulder, thereby protecting himself from anyserious consequences that might follow his daring joke.

  Dunvegan's acute ear distinguished the rustling movement. A vivid tongueof flame leaped out of the shade from his rifle's muzzle, and themissile, twanging sharply through the branches, smote Dreaulond'sshielding granite with a wicked thud. Following their leader's cue, themen let loose a volley which filled the forest with uproar. Twigswhitened instantly to the bullet-scars. Chipped rocks split with a popand scuffled through the underbrush. Dreaulond chuckled dryly.

  "Hol' on dere, M'sieu's," he advised. "Kip dat good powdaire."

  "Who speaks?" shouted Dunvegan, the chief trader.

  "Basil Dreaulond," came the laughing answer. "He wan fren', _aussi_."

  Dunvegan knew the voyageur's voice, and he and his band quitted theircover.

  "Come out, Basil," he ordered. "What trick are you playing now?"

  The courier's face, a clean-cut mask of brown cunning, grinned at themfrom the fringing tamarack.

  "You be waste dose balls," he laughed. "Who you t'ink eet was? BlackFerguson, of de Nor'westaires, mebbe?"

  "You rascal," reproved Dunvegan, "your jokes will some day get you aroasting over the wrong fire."

  "_Non!_ I tak' de good care of maself. Black Ferguson an' hees men deydon' catch me wit' ma eyes shut."

  He stepped forth from his hiding place, a swart, sinewy son of theNorth, spawn of the wilderness, fit to face hazard and court risk in aland where danger rode round with the sun.

  A single glance of the courier's shrewd eyes took in every member of thegroup before him. One face was strange. Between tall Maskwa, the Ojibwayfort runner and the most trusted Indian in the service, and Wahbiscaw,the Cree bowsman, stood the alien. Just the fraction of a minute Basilpuzzled over him, then flashed his friendly grin at all his old friends.

  "_Bo' jou', bo' jou'_," he greeted, in the northland fashion.

  "_Bo jou'_, Dreaulond," they returned. "Good
journey?"

  "_Oui_," responded the courier. "I have no troubl' wit' deNor'westaires. Dey too mooch busy get ready for de wintaire trade,mebbe."

  "You've come over from Nelson House, have you?" questioned BruceDunvegan.

  "_Vraiment_," Basil answered, tapping the dispatch packet at his belt."W'at you doin'?"

  "Three things," the chief trader enumerated; "drafting a clerk fromNorway House, selecting a site for a new post to hold Fort La Roche incheck, and spying upon it and the other Northwesters' forts in hopes oflocating Macleod's daughter. We haven't succeeded in placing her yet."

  At which information Dreaulond's twinkling eyes assumed an expression ofdeepest gravity.

  "Ba gosh, dat's fonny t'ing," he commented. "You hunt an' not find. Ifind wit'out huntin'. I see dat girl in de Cree camp on de Katchawan."

  "What?" Dunvegan cried in great surprise. "She is in Running Wolf'scamp? What foolery is that? Is Black Ferguson with her there?"

  "_Non_, she be alone," the courier declared. "W'at she doin' I don'know. W'en I try learn dat, she lak wan speetfire, yes! She have demission education an' talk lak _diable_. She goin' have de Crees t'rowme out de camp. I kip quiet den! You goin' see her?"

  "At once!" exclaimed the chief trader, who, seemingly impelled by asudden feverish unrest, gave swift, tart orders to his men to take uptheir burdens. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

  "Dat for tell de Factor," Basil chided. "I no spik de idl' word lak wanold _femme_. How I know you be huntin' de girl?"

  "That's true," admitted Dunvegan. "You couldn't know our errand. I amsomewhat over-anxious, Basil, being in a hurry to finish this hunt andreturn to Oxford House."

  "I believe dat," confided Dreaulond, with meaning in his smile. "_Mais_,who dis new clerk?"

  The chief trader turned to his voyageurs, now shouldering their loadsand passing off in single file.

  "Glyndon," he called, "come over. This is Basil Dreaulond, the Company'sfinest courier. You may have heard of him at Norway."

  "Indeed, yes," Glyndon confirmed, losing his slight, well-formed hand inBasil's huge paw. "I heard him named with honor and with admiration."

  "Ha! dat easy t'ing to say!" exclaimed Dreaulond. "You be Engleesh? Younot for ver' long out?"

  "I arrived from England on the last ship," Glyndon responded. "They toldme there wouldn't be another for a year." He laughed ingenuously, as ifat something strangely outside his own experience.

  "The vessel comes but once in twelve months," explained Dunvegan, "tobring supplies and carry back the furs to market. We get our yearly mailwith the supplies."

  "It seems very odd," the clerk ventured. "This is a tremendous country,and I have everything to learn about it. Perhaps Dreaulond will teach methe elementals!"

  "At Oxford House he may," remarked the restive chief trader. "You canrenew the acquaintance there. Just now we have something more importantto do."

  "At Oxford House, then," Glyndon concluded as he followed the rest ofthe brigade.

  Dreaulond brought forth his canoe and pack-sack from the thicket. Beforeloading up he gazed shrewdly after the slender figure of the Englishclerk. He had not missed the lines of the aristocratic face; the large,hazel, womanish eyes; the cheek-marks of dissipation that even alately-acquired tan failed to conceal.

  "Dey send heem out?" Basil asked, pointing his arm in a directiondesigned to extend across the Atlantic.

  "Yes," answered Dunvegan, "his folks sent him here. He drank at home,and they want the Company to make a man of him. New environment! Theprimeval law of adaptation!"

  Dreaulond adjusted the tump-line and placed the canoe upon hisshoulders.

  "_Au revoir!_" he called.

  "_Au revoir_," echoed the chief trader.

  Basil bobbed on over the rough portage, pondering on Glyndon as he went.

  "Hees eyes too soft," was his conclusion. "Mooch too soft for dis beeg_Nord_!"