Law of the North (Originally published as Empery), Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  AN ULTIMATUM

  The Cree bucks came slowly up the point, forming a sort of respectfulretinue to Running Wolf, his son, Three Feathers, and others of the headmen whose dignity of tribal status allowed them to stalk in front.

  Slovenly squaws and dirty, round-eyed children now appeared from thedark interiors of wigwams which before had shown no sign of life. Thesebegan to cluck their derision and to indulge in shrieking laughs ofridicule to the visible discomfiture of the hunters. Half-tamed curs asfierce looking as their wolf ancestors grew bold enough with the adventof the masters to issue from various hiding-places and organize asnapping charge upon Dunvegan. They rushed in a body, howling wickedlyand baring vicious, chisel-like fangs, but the chief trader plucked astick from a tepee fire and belabored their hard heads till theyretreated faster than they had charged.

  Wild uproar spread through the camp. The dogs' battle snarls werechanged to lugubrious wailings of defeat. Old women rated the mongrels,ordering them back to their places. The braves shouted injunctions ofsilence upon the squaws, while the children added to the climax byscuttling and shrieking out of sheer contagion.

  Running Wolf obtained quiet at last by a violence of gesture thatthreatened to tear his arms from their sockets. With the quiet came hisreprimand to his people, delivered in deep-throated Cree, and theirinstant assumption of meekness vouched for the acid quality of hisphrases. Then he approached Dunvegan, with Three Feathers at his heels.

  "_Bo' jou'_, Running Wolf; _bo' jou'_, Three Feathers," greeted thechief trader.

  "_Bo' jou'_, Strong Father," returned the Cree chieftain with gravepoliteness.

  Three Feathers did not speak, but contented himself with noddingsullenly. He was not a favorite with Dunvegan. Several times the two hadclashed in the process of trade, for Running Wolf's son was a spoiledchild of the wilderness grown up to ignorant and stubborn maturity. Herepresented the ambitious type of Indian, the dissentient, the inciter,the yeast of superstitious unrest fated to be the curse of his race.

  "Your hunting has been unrewarded," sympathized the chief trader,speaking to Running Wolf. He used the Cree dialect which he had acquiredin his years of dealing with the natives.

  "_Ae_," replied Running Wolf. "We did not find the caribou. Nor did wesee the trail of any other game."

  "How was that?" asked Dunvegan. "Your braves are wise in the ways of thecaribou, the moose, and all of the wild creatures. How is it theircunning brought them nothing?"

  "I do not know," the chief responded simply, "but the spirits were notkind to us. Perhaps the north wind told the caribou of our coming."

  "It was not so," spoke Three Feathers maliciously. "It was instead thebad magic of the white traders. The spirits also were kind, for theygave us no game and turned us from our hunting that our squaws might notbe stolen." He talked brazenly, having shrewdly guessed in his feverishbrain that Dunvegan's errand concerned the woman his father wished totake as a squaw.

  "Who steals our women?" cried Running Wolf, turning on his son with anexpression of vague alarm.

  "Ask the Strong Father there," Three Feathers directed, forcing theissue upon Dunvegan.

  "Yes, ask the Strong Father," interposed Flora Macleod, speaking also inCree. "Inquire whence he has journeyed. Question him as to why he hascome." She was quick to seize any advantage which might arise for herfrom the injuring of Running Wolf's pride.

  The chief looked searchingly at the trader and at the trader's brigade,as if to read their intent.

  "Strong Father," he declared, "the lodges of my people are open to you.My heart is right toward you in spite of the high words of my son andthe White Squaw. They would have me think you walk against my wigwams todo me harm. Tell them whence you have voyaged. Perhaps even now you arecome from the Stern Father by the Holy Lake!"

  "That is so," admitted Dunvegan. "I come from Oxford House and from theFactor, him you call the Stern Father. He has sent me here to do hisbidding."

  "_Ae_," snarled Three Feathers, interrupting impetuously. "He comes totake back the White Squaw. I see it in his eyes. He is a traitor and afoe!"

  Dunvegan seized the brave's arm with a vicious pinch.

  "You young hothead," he cried angrily, "you go too far. Keep behind withthe women till you get some wisdom!"

  His back-twist of the arm sent Three Feathers hurtling in among a groupof squaws about a tepee door, where he sprawled ingloriously with hisheels in the air.

  The downfall of the haughty son set the Indian women roaring afresh withlaughter, but the braves muttered ominously. Among them Three Featherswas a power growing nearer the usurping point which would shatter thefather's sane control of the tribe.

  Running Wolf himself gazed upon the incident quite unaffected. Hewatched his son rise from his ludicrous position, the hawk-like facemarred by hideous wrath and the beady eyes glittering with revengefullights. He observed Three Feathers slink out of sight in the crowd ofyoung bucks. And he nodded sagely.

  "So," he commented, "they learn wisdom and come to be head men. But whyhave you come, Strong Father, with so many canoes? Do you build a newpost? Or do you fight the French Hearts?" The French Hearts was his namefor the Nor'westers.

  "Neither," answered Dunvegan. "The Factor sent me many moons ago tofind his daughter and to bring her back to the Fort."

  "Ah-hah!" exclaimed Running Wolf. "Then it is even as Three Feathers,the hasty one, said! His guesses are greater than my wisdom."

  "Listen," urged the chief trader, putting a hand on the Cree's arm. "TheFactor did not know where the girl was. All he knew was that sheharkened to the wooing of Black Ferguson, our enemy. She made trystswith him in spite of our vigilance, and finally escaped to his forts andmarried him. Married him and bore a son to him in the face of Macleod'sblack wrath! You know the Stern Father, Running Wolf. You know how sucha thing would gripe. How he would writhe under the scorn of his foe andunder the northland's mocking laughter! You know?"

  "_Ae_," answered Running Wolf. "I know."

  "Then you understand. 'Go out,' he said to me. 'I will not brook it. Goout. I have never been bent by man or devil. Go out! Raze forts! Burn!Kill! But bring back her and her boy.' And that I will do, Running Wolf.I obey his orders. The White Squaw, as you call her, returns with me."

  A shade of anger crossed the Cree's copper-colored face. He drew back astep, his shoulders raised in haughty pride.

  "Thus at a late day, Strong Father," he said, "you have turned enemy tome and to my people!"

  "Not so," Dunvegan contradicted. "I am still your friend, as you havehad cause to know. But I have my orders. I must do the Stern Father'sbidding. Running Wolf, you say to your young men: 'Go forth and do sucha thing.' It is done as you command. You have power and wisdom to rule,and the braves, recognizing your authority and holding the tribe'sinterests at heart, will do your mission if they die in the doing. Is itnot so with your people, my friend?"

  "_Ae_," replied the chief with warmth. "It is so, for I have manytrusted ones."

  "Then"--Dunvegan was quick to follow up his advantage--"it is even sowith me. I do my duty to my Company and to my Factor, whom you rightlycall the Stern Father. Do you understand, Running Wolf?"

  "I understand," responded the Cree. "I see that you come in nobitterness, and the White Squaw shall go as you say."

  Flora Macleod was quick to voice her disapproval of his words.

  "Have you no spirit?" she cried wrathfully. "Do you give in when thereis a tribe at your back? Running Wolf, you haven't the courage of arabbit. Your son were fitter to rule these wigwams than such an old foolof a father! A pretty mind to guide a people!"

  "I give in to save my children trouble and strife," returned RunningWolf gravely. "I know Strong Father well. He would fight for as littleas a blanket stolen from his Company, although his heart is friendly.You shall go, White Squaw, but I go also. I go to take counsel with theStern Father, to ask that you abide in my lodge."

  The tone of his last statement t
old Dunvegan that on this point he wasadamant. Flora Macleod flounced back to her child, the wrath of her soulchoking at her lips.

  "Make ready," urged the chief trader. "We start at once."

  He waited by the chief's tepee while the two set about what slightpreparations were needed for departure and watched the clean-limbedbucks idling down to the Katchewan's bank. Three Feathers, brooding inhis spiteful anger, loitered with them, on edge to create a disturbance.Dunvegan saw that the Indians were massing at the landing-point, and heshouted a command to his men to keep them away.

  Pete Connear, an American and an ex-sailor who had drifted north by theRed River route and entered the Company's service, did as directed, butthe braves gave ground sullenly. Three Feathers himself becamevociferous.

  "Dogs and sons of dogs," he anathematized them, "you have hearts ofwater to steal about, capturing women."

  "Shut up," advised Connear dryly.

  "Salt Rat," Three Feathers sent back, stamping in impotent rage, "thereis no place for you here in the forest. Get away to your Big Waters."

  He emphasized his language with a swift-thrown palmful of slimy sand,which struck the ex-sailor squarely in the eyes. Connear roared like abull and leaped ashore from his birch-bark craft.

  "You bloomin' copper-hide," he bellowed in blind wrath, "I'll man-handleyou for that."

  Three Feathers was swift, but in anger Pete Connear was swifter. Almostbefore the young chief realized it the sailor was upon him. The Cree'swrists were pinned behind his back in the grip of Pete's left hand; hewas whirled over the sailor's knee and given as sound a spanking as evera recalcitrant child received.

  Connear's palm was hard with years of searing brine; and Three Featherswas blessed with no stoicism. He howled pitifully, while the Hudson'sBay men shouted in uproarious mirth.

  But the young bucks of the crowd failed to see the humor of thesituation. They gathered together with much muttering and gesturing.Dunvegan, shaking with laughter at the plight of Three Feathers, caughtthe signs of impending trouble and came running forward as Connearcompleted his enemy's chastisement.

  "There!" exclaimed the bespattered Pete. "I've slippered your hide, andnow I'll roll you in the scuppers just for sailor's luck!" He shot ThreeFeathers from his knee and sent him rolling down the bank into theriver, from which the young man pulled himself out as bedraggled as afur-soaked beaver.

  The Cree bucks charged on the instant at the lone sailorman, butDunvegan's arm waved as he ran, and like magic his men were out of theircanoes and lined up on the river margin with guns at full cock. Conneardanced a sailor's hornpipe in the center and hooted in delightfulanticipation of a fight.

  The crisis seemed inevitable. A trade-gun barked in the rear. Thebraves, with murder in their untamed hearts, shook out their weaponsready to throw their weight against Dunvegan's line, but a deep-throatedCree voice held them on the verge of their madness.

  "Stop!" called the vibrant voice of Running Wolf, "or I blast you withthe evil spirit."

  As one man the crowd turned and looked at the speaker.

  The old chief stood behind them with Flora and her child. He was arrayedin the robes of a medicine-maker, for Running Wolf was a man of magic aswell as a leader among his people. He carried the full equipment of ahead medicine-man of his tribe.

  The effect of his appearance on the malcontents was instantaneous. Armswhich had raised weapons dropped to the owner's sides. A great awe grewin the eyes of the braves. Running Wolf raised his medicine-wand,sweeping it in a half circle.

  "Go back to your lodges!" he ordered.

  The Crees obeyed. There arose no murmur, no protest.

  Dunvegan knew Running Wolf could not have done this thing by his powersof chieftainship. He marveled how in their wild bosoms the fear of theunknown overshadowed their defiance of the power of personality.Assuredly it was strong medicine.