You"re from the Labrador, I"ll wager!"
Dunvegan took safer ground. "No," he answered. "We"ve come over from the Pontiac with a priest for your district. From complaints at headquarters at Montreal it seems there has been a dearth of priests since Father Beauseul died. So the Jesuits have sent you Father Marcin from the Keepawa Post."
Bruce nodded to Brochet by way of introduction, a narrowing of the eye warning the priest to act the part. And the pseudo Father Marcin sat up and greeted the fellow gravely. It was lucky that Dunvegan had some knowledge of Nor"west affairs.
But the sight of Brochet"s cloth on the Nor"wester was startling. He stared a second, emitting a great pleased laugh.
"By all the G.o.ds, a priest!" he shouted. "What good fortune! As you say, there is a dearth of priests." Again he laughed that great, pleased laugh they could not understand. "A dearth of priests!"
He thrust out a hand. "I will never be any gladder to see you, Father Marcin, than I am now. You have saved me a long paddle to Watchaimene Lake. There is one of your cloth there. I was going for him."
Brochet looked up sharply. "Who is dying?" he questioned.
"No one. It"s Ferguson, our leader. He can"t get a priest to marry him quick enough!"
Silence fell, a hateful, awkward, dangerous silence! Brochet looked at Dunvegan. The latter"s face was a mask. The pipe protruded rigidly from one corner of his mouth. He betrayed no emotion, but the priest"s glance, falling to his bare arms, noted the quivering of the sinews.
"Why so much haste?" inquired Father Brochet, calmly a.s.suming the task of preserving the former indifference of the atmosphere.
The Nor"wester chuckled significantly. "It is natural," he answered.
"Ferguson has already waited a year in order to lay hands on his bride.
For you must know she was under the guard of the Hudson"s Bay till she married an English clerk in their service who was bribed to come over to the Nor"west ranks and put in charge of Fort Brondel, which has since been captured by the Company!"
"How came Black Ferguson to seize her, then?" the priest asked, drawing all possible information from the swart fellow.
"There was a feast in Brondel when the York Factory packet arrived.
After the dance the English clerk escaped with a spy who was also a prisoner. Expecting that some of our men would be lurking about spying on the fort, they sought and found them and gave them news. The clerk"s wife, the lady Ferguson desired, was to go north with the canoe express to York Factory. So our men waylaid it, capturing the packet and the woman. The clerk, poor fool, thought she was being taken for himself."
"And was it not so?" cried Brochet. "They were married, you say! Does this lady lean toward bigamy?"
"They _were_ married, yes," admitted the Nor"wester, with a sinister meaning. "She is now a widow."
All three men started, nearly betraying themselves. "A widow!" they echoed.
"A widow indeed! The English clerk was shot by some of the packeteers."
"Dat wan dam lie!" shouted Basil, unwarily.
"Why? What do you know?" The Nor"wester looked askance at the voyageur"s vehemence.
"I see dat in your eye," Dreaulond declared, quick to recover himself.
"We all be _bon amis_. Spik de truth, now!" He winked knowingly at the dark-faced man.
"Well," began the other, sheepishly, "it wasn"t in the fight, that"s true. It happened afterwards. I was not with the party, but they say the English clerk stumbled over his own gun."
"Where was he shot?" Dunvegan hurled the query almost ferociously.
"In the back, I heard!"
Bruce spat an oath. Brochet gave a sympathetic murmur. The courier growled inarticulately.
"_Mon Dieu_," he muttered under his breath, "dat"s wan more count for M"sieu" Ferguson, wan more h.e.l.l fire. I t"ink he be need de pries" for shrive, not for marry heem. Ba gosh, I do!"
The Nor"wester was obviously growing impatient.
"I must be going back if you are ready to move, Father Marcin," he a.s.serted, "for Ferguson will question me as to where I found you, and if he thinks there has been any lagging, I shall pay the price."
Dunvegan"s head moved the fraction of an inch in a nod perceptible only to Father Brochet. The latter quickly arose.
"I am ready to make all haste," he averred. "If I delay, I am perhaps permitting sin."
"As for you, my friends," spoke the Nor"wester, turning to the others, "there is nothing to hinder your coming also. They will give you good cheer in La Roche. You may rest there a while and return at your leisure."
"It would please us," replied Dunvegan, "but the Pontiac is a long way from here. There is little use in adding extra miles to our labor. And Keepawa Post cannot spare us for long. We will go back."
"Your plans are your own," the Nor"wester a.s.sented. "And I must paddle on. La Roche should see me by sunset."
They helped him launch his craft and load the duffle. Dunvegan addressed a last remark to him.
"You did not tell us," he observed carelessly, "how this lady takes your leader"s haste. The story has interested me."
"She pleaded for a little time against his eagerness," answered the Nor"wester, "and she stalls him off thus. He has given her till the priest"s arrival, which time she is lucky to get! Also she is lucky to have Father Marcin!" The man"s chuckle implied much.
Dunvegan"s jaw tightened. His pipe broken at his lips clattered on the flinty rocks.
"It was worn!" he exclaimed.
Brochet picked up the fallen portion. Showing no sign of wear, the amber was fresh and thick. Proof of the volcanic feeling rioting in him, Dunvegan"s strong teeth had bitten clear through the stem.
As the Nor"wester slipped his canoe into the water, Bruce whispered to Brochet.
"Do what you can," he begged. "We shall not be far behind you."
With ostentation the priest bade the two good-bye. The Nor"wester waved a paddle in farewell as his canoe shot round a bend. Two or three miles start Basil and Dunvegan gave him before they launched their own craft.
CHAPTER XXII
FAWN AND PANTHER
Like a colossal casting in bronze Fort La Roche loomed against the b.l.o.o.d.y sunset. Brochet glimpsed it for the first time with a prescience of impending evil. Couchant on the serrated headland it lay some sixty feet above river level, commanding the waterway, grinning like a powerful monster, impregnable, austere, forbidding. Strongest of all the Nor"west posts, most cunningly built, most substantially fortified, the mere thought of bringing anyone over its stockades unresisted seemed maddest folly.
The priest had in his day seen many weird-looking dens bristling with defence, smacking of wrong-doing, smelling of spilled blood. But this impressed him above all as likely to be the abode of extreme malevolence. Even to enter it, he felt, would be like putting one"s head into a wild beast"s lair not knowing what minute it might be snapped off.
Brochet was glad at this crisis that he had never seen Black Ferguson.
He rejoiced that the Nor"west leader had had no opportunity to set eyes on him, for in such a contingency he could not hope to blind the man"s innate cunning and preserve his incognito. Recognition by two people he still had to fear. They were Flora Macleod and Gaspard Follet. Against this he drew up the hood of his black ca.s.sock to shade his features, formulating in his mind an excuse which embraced asthma and the dark evening mist for the moment when he should be questioned as to the cause.