"Who told you?" he demanded, harshly. Then, without waiting for a reply, "It was that little preacher; I"ll have an interview with him!"
"No, no!" protested the girl. "It was not he. It was a friend. I had the right to know."
"You had no right!" he cried, vehemently. "You and life should have nothing to do with each other. There is a look in your eyes that was not in them yesterday, and the one who put it there is not your friend." He stood staring at her intently, as one who ponders what is best to do. Then very quietly he took her hands and drew her to a place beside him on the bowlder.
"I am going to tell you something, little girl," said he, "and you must listen quietly to the end. Perhaps at the last you may see more clearly than you do now.
"This old Company of yours has been established for a great many years. Back in old days, over two centuries ago, it pushed up into this wilderness to trade for its furs. That you know. And then it explored ever farther to the west and the north, until its servants stood on the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific and the stretches of the Arctic Ocean. And its servants loved it. Enduring immense hardships, cut off from their kind, outlining dimly with the eye of faith the structure of a mighty power, they loved it always. Thousands of men were in its employ, and so loyal were they that its secrets were safe and its prestige was defended, often to a lonely death.
I have known the Company and its servants for a long time, and if I had leisure I could instance a hundred examples of devotion and sacrifice beside which mere patriotism, would seem a little thing.
Men who had no country cleaved to her desolate posts, her lakes and rivers and forests; men who had no home ties felt the tug of her wild life at their hearts; men who had no G.o.d bowed in awe before her power and grandeur. The Company was a living thing.
"Rivals attempted her supremacy, and were defeated by the steadfastness of the men who received her meagre wages and looked to her as their one ideal. Her explorers were the bravest, her traders the most enterprising and single-minded, her factors and partners the most capable and potent in all the world. No country, no leader, no State ever received half the worship her sons gave her. The fierce Nor"westers, the traders of Montreal, the Company of the X Y, Astor himself, had to give way. For, although they were bold or reckless or crafty or able, they had not the ideal which raises such qualities to invincibility.
"And, little girl, nothing is wrong to men who have such an ideal before them. They see but one thing, and all means are good that help them to a.s.sure that one thing. They front the dangers, they overcome the hardships, they crush the rivals. b.l.o.o.d.y wars have taken place in these forests, ruthless deeds have been done, but the men who accomplished them held the deeds good. So for two hundred years, aided by the charter from the king, they have made good their undisputed right.
"Then the railroad entered the west. The charter of monopoly ran out. Through the Nip.i.s.sing, the Athabasca, the Edmonton, came the Free Traders--men who traded independently. These the Company could not control, so it competed--and to its credit its compet.i.tion has held its own. Even far into the Northwest, where the trails are long, the Free Traders have established their chains of supplies, entering into rivalry with the Company for a barter it has always considered its right. The medicine has been bitter, but the servants of the Company have adjusted themselves to the new conditions, and are holding their own.
"But one region still remains cut off from the outside world by a broad band of unexplored waste. The life here at Hudson"s Bay--although you may not know it--is exactly the same to-day that it was two hundred years ago. And here the Company makes its stand for a monopoly.
"At first it worked openly. But in the case of Guillaume Sayer, a daring and pugnacious _metis_, it got into trouble with the law.
Since that time it has wrapped itself in secrecy and mystery, carrying on its affairs behind the screen of five hundred miles of forest. Here it has still the power; no man can establish himself here, can even travel here, without its consent, for it controls the food and the Indians. The Free Trader enters, but he does not stay for long. The Company"s servants are mindful of their old fanatical ideal. Nothing is ever known, no orders are ever given, but something happens, find the man never ventures again.
"If he is an ordinary _metis_ or Canadian, he emerges from the forest starved, frightened, thankful. If his story is likely to be believed in high places, he never emerges at all. The dangers of wilderness travel are many: he succ.u.mbs to them. That is the whole story. Nothing definite is known; no instances can be proved; your father denies the legend and calls it a myth. The Company claims to be ignorant of it, perhaps its greater officers really are, but the legend holds so good that the journey has its name--_la Longue Traverse_.
"But remember this, no man is to blame--unless it is he who of knowledge takes the chances. It is a policy, a growth of centuries, an idea unchangeable to which the long services of many fierce and loyal men have given substance. A Factor cannot change it. If he did, the thing would be outside of nature, something not to be understood.
"I am here. I am to take _la Longue Traverse_. But no man is to blame. If the scheme of the thing is wrong, it has been so from the very beginning, from the time when King Charles set his signature to the charter of unlimited authority. The history of a thousand men gives the tradition power, gives it insistence. It is bigger than any one individual. It is as inevitable as that water should flow down hill."
He had spoken quietly, but very earnestly, still holding her two hands, and she had sat looking at him unblinking from eyes behind which pa.s.sed many thoughts. When he had finished, a short pause followed, at the end of which she asked unexpectedly,
"Last evening you told me that you might come to me and ask me to choose between my pity and what I might think to be my duty. What are you going to ask of me?"
"Nothing. I spoke idle words."
"Last evening I overheard you demand something of Mr. Crane," she pursued, without commenting on his answer. "When he refused you I heard you say these words "Here is where I should have received aid; I may have to get it where I should not." What was the aid you asked of him? and where else did you expect to get it?"
"The aid was something impossible to accord, and I did not expect to get it elsewhere. I said that in order to induce him to help me."
A wonderful light sprang to the girl"s eyes, but still she maintained her level voice.
"You asked him for a rifle with which to escape. You expected to get it of me. Deny it if you can."
Ned Trent looked at her keenly a moment, then dropped his eyes.
"It is true," said he.
"And the pity was to give you this weapon; and the duty was my duty to my father"s house."
"It is true," he repeated, dejectedly.
"And you lied to me when you said you had a rifle with which to journey _la Longue Traverse_."
"That too is true," he acknowledged.
When next she spoke her voice was not quite so well controlled.
"Why did you not ask me, as you intended? Why did you tell me these lies?"
The young man hesitated, looked her in the face, turned away, and murmured, "I could not."
"Why?" persisted the girl. "Why? You must tell me."
"Because," said Ned Trent--"because it could not be done. Every rifle in the place is known. Because you would be found out in this, and I do not know what your punishment might not be."
"You knew this before?" insisted Virginia, stonily.
"Yes."
"Then why did you change your mind?"
"When first I saw you by the gun," began Ned Trent, in a low voice, "I was a desperate man, clutching at the slightest chance. The thought crossed my mind then that I might use you. Then later I saw that I had some influence over you, and I made my plan. But last night----"
"Yes, last night?" urged Virginia, softly.
"Last night I paced the island, and I found out many things. One of them was that I could not."
"Even though this dreadful journey----"
"I would rather take my chances."
Again there was silence between them.
"It was a good lie," then said Virginia, gently--"a n.o.ble lie. And what you have told me to comfort me about my father has been n.o.bly said. And I believe you, for I have known the truth about your fate." He shut his lips grimly. "Why--why did you come?" she cried, pa.s.sionately. "Is the trade so good, are your needs then so great, that you must run these perils?"
"My needs," he replied. "No; I have enough."
"Then why?" she insisted.
"Because that old charter has long since expired, and now this country is as free for me as for the Company," he explained. "We are in a civilized century, and no man has a right to tell me where I shall or shall not go. Does the Company own the Indians and the creatures of the woods?" Something in the tone of his voice brought her eyes steadily to his for a moment.
"Is that all?" she asked at length.
He hesitated, looked away, looked back again.
"No, it is not," he confessed, in a low voice. "It is a thing I do not speak of. My father was a servant of this Company, a good, true servant. No man was more honest, more zealous, more loyal."
"I am sure of it," said Virginia, softly.
"But in some way that he never knew himself he made enemies in high places. The cowards did not meet him man to man, and so he never knew who they were. If he had, he would have killed them. But they worked against him always. He was given hard posts, inadequate supplies, scant help, and then he was held to account for what he could not do. Finally he left the company in disgrace--undeserved disgrace. He became a Free Trader in the days when to become a Free Trader was worse than attacking a grizzly with cubs. In three years he was killed. But when I grew to be a man "--he clenched his teeth--"by G.o.d! how I have prayed to know who did it." He brooded for a moment, then went on. "Still, I have accomplished something. I have traded in spite of your factors in many districts. One summer I pushed to the Coppermine in the teeth of them, and traded with the Yellow Knives for the robes of the musk-ox. And they knew me and feared my rivalry, these traders of the Company. No district of the far North but has felt the influence of my bartering. The traders of all districts--Fort au Liard, Lapierre"s House, Fort Rae, Ile a la Crosse, Portage la Loche, Lac la Biche, Jasper"s House, the House of the Touchwood Hills--all these, and many more, have heard of Ned Trent."