The Gun-Brand - James B. Hendryx (ap literature book list txt) 📗

At first she dismissed it with a laugh. Of all people in the world, she thought, these two, the heavy, unimaginative Swedish woman, and the leathern-skinned, taciturn wood-rover, would be the last to listen to the call of romance.

Chloe was really fond of the huge, silent woman who had followed her without question into the unknown wilderness of the Northland, even as she had accompanied her without protest through the maze of the far South Seas. With all her averseness to speech and her vacuous, fishy stare, the girl had long since learned that Big Lena was both loyal and efficient and shrewd. But, Big Lena as a wife! Chloe smiled broadly at the thought.

"Poor LeFroy," she pitied. "But it would be the best thing in the world for him. 'The perpetuity of the red race will be attained only through its amalgamation with the white,'" she quoted; the trite banality of one of the numerous theorists she had studied before starting into the North.

Of LeFroy she knew little. He seemed a half-breed of more than average intelligence, and as for the rest—she would leave that to Lena. On the whole, she rather approved of the arrangement, not alone upon the amalgamation theory, but because she entertained not the slightest doubt as to who would rule the prospective family. She could depend upon Big Lena's loyalty, and her marriage to one of their number would therefore become a very important factor in the attitude of the Indians towards the school.

Gradually, the women of the Slave Lake Indians taking the cue from their northern sisters, began to show an appreciation of the girl's efforts in their behalf. An appreciation that manifested itself in little tokens of friendship, exquisitely beaded moccasins, shyly presented, and a pair of quill-embroidered leggings laid upon her desk by a squaw who slipped hurriedly away. Thus the way was paved for a closer intimacy which quickly grew into an eager willingness among the Indians to help her in the mastering of their own language.

As this intimacy grew, the barrier which is the chief stumbling-block of missionaries and teachers who seek to carry enlightenment into the lean lone land, gradually dissolved. The women with whom Chloe came in contact ceased to be Indians en masse; they became people—personalities—each with her own capability and propensity for the working of good or harm. With this realization vanished the last vestige of aloofness and reserve. And, thereafter, many of the women broke bread by invitation at Chloe's own table.

The one thing that remained incomprehensible to the girl was the idolatrous regard in which MacNair was held by his own Indians. To them he was a superman—the one great man among all white men. His word was accepted without question. Upon leaving for the southward MacNair had told the men to work, therefore they worked unceasingly. Also he had told the women and the children to obey without question the words of the white kloochman, and therefore they absorbed her teaching with painstaking care.

Time and again the girl tried to obtain the admission that MacNair was in the habit of supplying his Indians with whiskey, and always she received the same answer. "MacNair sells no whiskey. He hates whiskey. And many times has he killed men for selling whiskey to his people."

At first these replies exasperated the girl beyond measure. She set them down as stereotyped answers in which they had been carefully coached. But as time went on and the women, whose word she had come to hold in regard, remained unshaken in their statements, an uncomfortable doubt assailed her—a doubt that, despite herself, she fostered. A doubt that caused her to ponder long of nights as she lay in her little room listening to the droning voices of LeFroy and Big Lena as they talked by the stove in the kitchen.

Strange fancies and pictures the girl built up as she lay, half waking, half dreaming between her blankets. Pictures in which MacNair, misjudged, hated, fighting against fearful odds, came clean through the ruck and muck with which his enemies had endeavoured to smother him, and proved himself the man he might have been; fancies and pictures that dulled into a pain that was very like a heartache, as the vivid picture—the real picture—which she herself had seen with her own eyes that night on Snare Lake, arose always to her mind.

The tang of the northern air bit into the girl's blood. She spent much time in the open and became proficient and tireless in the use of snowshoes and skis. Daily her excursions into the surrounding timber grew longer, and she was never so happy as when swinging with strong, wide strides on her fat thong-strung rackets, or sliding with the speed of the wind down some steep slope of the river-bank, on her smoothly polished skis.

It was upon one of these solitary excursions, when her steps had carried her many miles along the winding course of a small tributary of the Yellow Knife, that the girl became so fascinated in her exploration she failed utterly to note the passage of time until a sharp bend of the little river brought her face to face with the low-hung winter sun, which was just on the point of disappearing behind the shrub pines of a long, low ridge.

With a start she brought up short and glanced fearfully about her. Darkness was very near, and she had travelled straight into the wilderness almost since early dawn. Without a moment's delay she turned and retraced her steps. But even as her hurrying feet carried her over the back-trail she realized that night would overtake her before she could hope to reach the larger river.

The thought of a night spent alone in the timber at first terrified her. She sought to increase her pace, but her muscles were tired, her footsteps dragged, and the rackets clung to her feet like inexorable weights which sought to drag her down, down into the soft whiteness of the snow.

Darkness gathered, and the back-trail dimmed. Twice she fell and regained her feet with an effort. Suddenly rounding a sharp bend, she crashed heavily among the dead branches of a fallen tree. When at length she regained her feet, the last vestige of daylight had vanished. Her own snowshoe tracks were indiscernible upon the white snow. She was off the trail!

Something warm and wet trickled along her cheek. She jerked off her mittens and with fingers tingling in the cold, keen air, picked bits of bark from the edges of the ragged wound where the end of a broken branch had snagged the soft flesh of her face. The wound stung, and she held a handful of snow against it until the pain dulled under the numbing chill.

Stories of the night-prowling wolf-pack, and the sinister, man-eating loup cervier, crowded her brain. She must build a fire. She felt through her pocket for the glass bottle of matches, only to find that her fingers were too numb to remove the cork. She replaced the vial and, drawing on her mittens, beat her hands together until the blood tingled to her finger-tips. How she wished now that she had heeded the advice of LeFroy, who had cautioned against venturing into the woods without a light camp ax slung to her belt.

Laboriously she set about gathering bark and light twigs which she piled in the shelter of a cut-bank, and when at last a feeble flame flickered weakly among the thin twigs she added larger branches which she broke and twisted from the limbs of the dead trees. Her camp-fire assumed a healthy proportion, and the flare of it upon the snow was encouraging.

At the end of an hour, Chloe removed her rackets and dropped wearily onto the snow beside the fire-wood which she had piled conveniently close to the blaze. Never in her life had she been so utterly weary, but she realized that for her that night there could be no sleep. And no sooner had the realization forced itself upon her than she fell sound asleep with her head upon the pile of fire-wood.

She awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright, staring in bewilderment at her fire—and beyond the fire where, only a few feet distant, a hooded shape stood dimly outlined against the snow. Chloe's garments, dampened by the exertion of the earlier hours, had chilled her through while she slept, and as she stared wide-eyed at the apparition beyond the fire, the figure drew closer and the chill of the dampened garments seemed to clutch with icy fingers at her heart. She nerved herself for a supreme effort and arose stiffly to her knees, and then suddenly the figure resolved itself into the form of a girl—an Indian girl—but a girl as different from the Indians of her school as day is different from night.

As the girl advanced she smiled, and Chloe noted that her teeth were strong and even and white, and that dark eyes glowed softly from a face as light almost as her own.

"Do not 'fraid," said the girl in a low, rich voice. "I'm not hurt you. I'm see you fire, I'm com' 'cross to fin'. Den, ver' queek you com' 'wake, an' I'm see you de one I'm want."

"The one you want!" cried Chloe, edging closer to the fire. "What do you mean? Who are you? And why should you want me?"

"Me—I'm Mary. I'm com' ver' far. I'm com' from de people of my modder. De Louchoux on de lower Mackenzie. I'm com' to fin' de school. I'm hear about dat school."

"The lower Mackenzie!" cried Chloe in astonishment. "I should think you have come very far."

The girl nodded. "Ver' far," she repeated. "T'irty-two sleep I'm on de trail."

"Alone!"

"Alone," she assented. "I'm com' for learn de ways of de white women."

Chloe motioned the girl closer, and then, seized by a sudden chill, shivered violently. The girl noticed the paroxysm, and, dropping to her knees by Chloe's side, spoke hurriedly.

"You col'," she said. "You got no blanket. You los'."

Without waiting for a reply, she hurried to a light pack-sled which stood nearby upon the snow. A moment later she returned with a heavy pair of blankets which she spread at Chloe's side, and then, throwing more wood upon the fire, began rapidly to remove the girl's clothing. Within a very short space of time, Chloe found herself lying warm and comfortable between the blankets, while her damp garments were drying upon sticks thrust close to the blaze. She watched the Indian girl as she moved swiftly and capably about her task, and when the last garment was hung upon its stick she motioned the girl to her side.

"Why did you come so far to my school?" she asked. "Surely you have been to school. You speak English. You are not a full-blood Indian."

The girl's eyes sought the shadows beyond the firelight, and, as her lips framed a reply, Chloe marvelled at the weird beauty of her.

"I go to school on de Mission, two years at Fort MacPherson. I learn to spik de Englis'. My fadder, heem Englis', but I'm never see heem. Many years ago he com' in de beeg boat dat com' for ketch de whale an' got lock in de ice in de Bufort Sea. In de spring de boat go 'way, an' my fadder go 'long, too. He tell my modder he com' back nex' winter. Dat many years ago—nineteen years. Many boats com' every year, but my fadder no com' back. My modder she t'ink he com' back som' day, an' every fall my modder she tak' me 'way from Fort MacPherson and we go up on de coast an' build de igloo. An' every day she set an' watch while de ships com' in, but my fadder no com' back. My modder t'ink he sure com' back, he fin' her waitin' when he com'. She say, mebe so he ketch 'm many whale. Mebe so he