"No letter, Basil?" He bit his lip on the question.
"_Non_," replied his friend. "I"m sorry, me."
"Something"s wrong," blurted the chief trader. "Tell me what it is. Has the Nor"wester had speech with Desiree?" Dunvegan"s voice was strained, his fingers clenched white on the wood of his desk.
"Not dat," Basil explained awkwardly. "De dangaire is in anoder quartaire! Desiree an" dis Edwin Glyndon dey togedder mooch--ver" mooch.
All de autumn taim dey canoe, dey walk, dey spik alone. Dat be not ma beezness! _Vraiment_ dat none of ma affair. _Mais_, I t"ink you want know, mebbe, an" I be tell you w"at I see. Dey togedder all de taim!"
Dreaulond stepped to the door. His actions like his sentences were brief and full of significance. The chief trader"s voice followed him, an odd, low tone the courier had never heard him use.
"Thank you, Basil," was his only comment. "Thank you, for that information."
Alone, he strode immediately into the darkness of his sleeping apartment where he walked the floor, brooding gloomily. Dawn heard his footsteps still falling.
Three days after Dreaulond"s departure for Nelson House Maskwa, the swiftest fort runner in the service, dashed over the bluffs, springing madly on his long, webbed running shoes. He had out-distanced the trio of breeds following with three dog teams, and he pushed dispatches of importance into Dunvegan"s hands.
"Half our number leave to-morrow for Oxford House," the chief trader announced to his retainers as he read. "Men from two of the Nor"west posts, Brondel and Dumarge, have sacked our fur trains from the Shamattawa and the Wokattiwagan. The Factor will go to raze Fort Dumarge. We outfit at Oxford House and move against Fort Brondel."
A cheer hit the rafters. Unprecedented activity followed. The breeds blew in with the exhausted giddes. Recuperation came to these Company dogs with the night"s rest, and into the bitter dawn they were haled.
The cold struck nippingly at bare fingers that loaded arms and travelling necessities on the sledges, lashed the moosehide covers over the provender, and tied the stubborn babiche knots. Likewise the frost squeezed the hands that harnessed the dogs. The giddes themselves whined and stirred uneasily in the cold. They were eager for the rush that would make their blood run warm.
Those of the Fort who were to stay behind helped in the work. Long practice and consummate skill accomplished starting preparations in the shortest possible time. The dog teams sprang through the gateway at the release, and a shout of farewell thundered.
"_Bonheur, camarades!_" was the word. "_A Dieu! A Dieu!_"
"_Pour_ Shamattawa! _Pour_ Wokattiwagan!" rang the responses from the loyal Hudson"s Bay men.
"_Marche! Marche!_" called the breeds to the _giddes_, and the cavalcade swung over the long trail.
CHAPTER XII
"YOU MAY COME IN A BLIZZARD!"
"_Voyez les_ Kamattawa trains," shrieked Maurice Nicolet, the cache runner, speeding through the storm-thrashed gates of Oxford House.
"_Mon Dieu_, dat so?" exclaimed Clement Nemaire. "In dis blizzard? W"ere you be see dem, Maurice?"
""Cross de _lac_! W"en de snow she stop fallin" some, I see dose trains wan meenit come ovaire de trail."
"Run!" Nemaire admonished. "Tell de Factor dat, queeck!"
The cache runner bolted into the trading room. Macleod was not there.
Donald Muir, the a.s.sistant trader, held charge.
"_Les_ Kamattawa trains," he howled. "M"sieu", dey be come ovaire de _lac_."
Bargaining ceased. Trade slipped from the men"s minds. Donald Muir jumped up and squinted through the open doorway, distinguishing nothing in the swishing cloud-rifts of snow. He turned back with a shiver and jammed the latch viciously.
"Maurice, ye fule," he ridiculed. "I"ve na doot ye"ll be seein" ghosts next! Ye dinna glint onything but a herd o" caribou driftin" before the storm."
"_Ba, oui_," persisted Nicolet, "w"en de storm she be sheeft wan leetl"
bit an" de cloud break oop, I see dose trains "cross de _lac_.
_Vraiment_, dat"s so!" Maurice nodded his head energetically and added a string of French superlatives.
"Fetch me the gla.s.s," ordered old Donald Muir.
A man brought the gla.s.s, a long ship"s telescope which Pete Connear had bestowed upon Oxford House. In spite of having seen hard service, it was a good gla.s.s, and the same lens that had picked out many a foresail upon the high seas now searched the whirling smother which enveloped the frozen surface of Oxford Lake for signs of the men from Kamattawa.
Donald Muir wedged the rattling door with his knees and sighted through the open slit, the hissing snow-eddies spitting in his beard.
"Yon"s a glint o" dogs!" he exclaimed. "Noo the snaw"s smoorin" in. I doot, I doot--Ah! yes, I maun believe ye"re richt, Nicolet! Aye, mon, ye"re richt. I can tell the stride o" yon lang-legged fort runner Maskwa an" the bulk o" Dunvegan. Spread yersels, ye fules--they"re here!"
Boring through undeterred, breaking the trail for the teams, taking the brunt of the blizzard came the tireless Ojibway fort runner. The body bent double against the wind, the lurch of hips, the spring from the heel, the toe-twist of the lifting shoe, all bespoke the experienced tripper. Maskwa was old and wise on the trails!
A string of gray dots, the dog teams and the Kamattawa men crawled after. Up the bank they plunged and scurried through the stockade, scattering the loose drifts like foam.
"Hu! Hu! Hu!" shrieked the Indian dog drivers, directing the teams to the trading door with a tremendous cracking of their long lashes. There the _giddes_ halted, whimpering in the traces. The arms and equipments were thrown inside. The storm-harried travelers stumbled after.
"Maurice, ye fule," fumed Donald Muir, "fire up. Dinna stan" there wi"
yer mouth open! Fire up, mon, fire up! Can ye no see it"s heat they want?" The fussy, kind hearted a.s.sistant trader seized Dunvegan"s arm and hustled his superior to his room where he had thoughtfully prepared a set of dry garments.
"Yon"s wha" ye need," he declared. "Ye"ll feel warmer wi" a change." His att.i.tude was full of solicitude hidden by a sort of proprietorship that Dunvegan had long ago come to recognize.
"You"re like a mother to me, Donald," he laughed. "But I"m really wet through with hard work. The change of clothing is well thought of."
"The Factor wants tae confer wi" ye as soon as ye feel fit," announced the Scot. "I masel maun see tae the outfits."
He bustled off, sending halfbreeds with the dog teams to the log building where the Company"s _giddes_ were kept, ordering food for men and animals, bestowing general comfort upon the Kamattawa stalwarts crouched around the fireplace.
Sandy Stewart, the lowland Scot, had been left in charge of the newly-built Fort. The rest of Dunvegan"s tired followers were here. The flames licked the bronzed, familiar faces of Pete Connear, Terence Burke, Baptiste Verenne, Maskwa, Wahbiscaw, the hardy halfbreeds, the trusted post Indians, the faithful _metis_.
Loyal to the Company, they were here at the Company"s call. And they had come as Desiree Lazard had idly prophesied.
"Kip back," Maurice Nicolet ordered the Oxford House loungers round the fire. "Let dese men have more room. You be well fed, warm--full of _tabac_ smoke. Kip back. Better go ovaire to de store."
The permanent group obeyed. The new arrivals moved closer. Maurice stoked up, jamming huge birch logs into the cavernous stone pit till it roared and throbbed like a giant engine. Every flicker of the warming fire draught sent the shivers over their frames, the reaction that comes of thorough chilling.
"Ba gosh," chattered Baptiste Verenne, "dis ees de wors" blizzard yet.
_Saprie_, leesten dat, _mes camarades_!"
A tree crashed thunderously in the forest. Gathering momentum over the level sweep of Oxford Lake, the blasts struck the stockade with a sound like the rumbling of a thousand ice jams. The buildings rocked to the storm"s wrath. Monstrous drifts threatened to bury them completely. The baffled frost, denied entrance, blew its angry, congealing breath inch-thick upon the blurred window panes.
"Sound lak de spreeng, eh?" grinned Baptiste.
"We"ll run into a calm in the morning," Pete Connear prophesied knowingly. "She"s been blowin" for fifty hours now. You"ll see the wind drop about midnight."