"Good Lord!" was his amazed exclamation. "Who in all the angels"
category is that?"
Dunvegan turned to see Lazard"s niece hurrying toward the building.
"That? Oh, Desiree Lazard!" he answered, striving ineffectually to keep his stirring blood from crimsoning his tan. "She"s a ward of old Pierre since her father died. Pierre is her uncle."
"My word!" Glyndon gasped, and could say no more; although his chin went nervously up and down while Desiree Lazard approached.
She walked without perceptible effort in that easy rhythm of movement peculiar to wilderness-born women. Her hair, dun-gold as the morning sky behind, was pinned in a loose knot and parted in the center, letting the shimmer and wave of the tresses play upon either side like shallow-water ripples over sun-browned gravel. Forehead, cheeks, nose and mouth held serene beauty in their perfect chiselling, while her eyes shone like twin lakes of the north, sapphire-blue beneath the morning sun.
So sincere were the men in the unconscious homage they paid to her fairness that they did not move aside to let her enter the door. She stopped and gazed inquiringly at the stranger. And the pair gazed at her. They marvelled at the luxurious development of throat, bosom, and arms, clearly revealed by a tight-fitting chamois waist with open neck and rolled-up sleeves, and at the trim, full contour of her healthy body from the tops of her shoulders to the hem of her doeskin skirt and on down the well-filled leggins to moccasined feet which would hardly have covered a man"s palm.
"Good morning, Bruce," she said demurely. "Good morning, monsieur----"
"Glyndon--Edwin Glyndon," supplemented the clerk, eagerly. He was delighted to find that ceremony was an unknown thing in the posts and that each greeted a neighbor whether formally acquainted or not.
"I have told Glyndon you are Pierre"s niece," Dunvegan interposed. "He has been drafted from Norway House as our clerk and will henceforth be one of us."
"Ah! Monsieur will find the society of Oxford House limited after living in London," laughed Desiree.
"More limited, but a.s.suredly not less desirable," Glyndon returned gallantly; and the dwelling of his soft eyes on the girl brought the rose to her cheeks.
"Come," she cried peremptorily to hide her confusion, "let me go in and get my things or I shall be late for ma.s.s."
Dunvegan thought to wait upon her, but the English clerk sprang in first.
"It is for me to serve," he declared. "I must learn my business."
And the chief trader experienced a pang of intense jealousy as he watched the laughter and badinage of the two across the counter while Desiree made her purchases. He glowered in dark envy and strode out on to the steps. When the girl danced gaily over the threshold, he did not speak.
Glyndon rejoined him, his eyes devouring the lithe, swinging form of Desiree Lazard as she rushed home humming a little French song under her breath.
"Jove!" he exclaimed. "Did you ever see such a figure? Look at the inswell of the torso to the waist and the outswell over the hips----"
But Dunvegan"s hand falling like a great weight on his shoulder cut short the speech. Glyndon felt that grip clear through his body; felt his collar bone bend beneath the chief trader"s thumb, and he winced.
"Glyndon, never admire a woman in that way," Bruce warned. "Never, I say! Do you understand me?"
The English clerk slunk back under the powerful menace in Dunvegan"s glance.
"Oh!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed with swift intuition. "I didn"t know that you----"
"That"ll do," the chief trader cut in. "You don"t know anything yet. Try not to bother your head! Go on over to the Mission House!" He started Edwin Glyndon down the path.
Malcolm Macleod for the first time in twenty years had entered the chapel, not for the service but for the christening. Dunvegan left the store in charge of his _metis_ clerk and followed.
Was he going for the service? Perhaps, for he was a good man, and his religious creed was not a narrow one. Was he going for the christening also? Undoubtedly, for he was to stand sponsor for the child.
But in the depths of his being something cried a third reason.
Across the flat ground which served as the trading house yard lay the chapel. Roughly built after the fashion of northern missions, its very ruggedness suggested the strength of the faith for which it stood as symbol.
As Dunvegan approached the steps, people were already filing rapidly through the narrow doorway. A medley of types was there. Acorn-headed squaws pattered in. Morose Indians filed after. Women, children, and settlers drifted through the doorway. The Hudson"s Bay men slouched over. Trappers and halfbreeds filled the single aisle. At the end of a rough bench in one front corner of the building sat the Factor, dour and unyielding. His head was bowed. Not a muscle of his body moved. Perched on the opposite end of that seat was Gaspard Follet, the Fool who had drifted in from nowhere to the post about a year before. It was the Fool"s delight to go about hearing everything through dog-like ears, seeing everything through owlish eyes.
None could find out who or what he was, or whence he had come. Yet many at Oxford House contended that he was not so simple as he appeared.
They declared that he was as wise as themselves and only kept up the sham to get an easy living. In proof of their contention these suspicious ones set forth his glibness of tongue when he pleased, for on occasion he could talk as well as Brochet.
As Dunvegan seated himself not far from Pierre Lazard and his niece, the ma.s.s began in solemn intonation.
"_In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti_," began Father Brochet, the ma.s.s book supported where the black ca.s.sock bulged over his portly waist.
The clear voice of the clerk answered with sonorous "amens", and the responses rose in chorus.
Dunvegan looked at the Factor. The latter seemed unconscious that an earnest service was progressing. Sunk in stony oblivion, he appeared absolutely motionless, his chest neither rising nor falling as he breathed.
The long, familiar service was finally concluded, and those who had taken no part other than as mere listeners sat up with an expectant shuffle. Flora Macleod moved to the front with her child and stood before the altar. Father Brochet looked down upon her. There was no reproach in his mien. Experience had taught him that in such a case as this, women followed their own hearts even to fleeing from their parents.
A hush brooded over the chapel"s interior, a sort of awkward silence, a dread of things running awry! The child"s whimper broke it, and Flora swayed the boy in her arms to quiet him.
Brochet spoke when she finished, his clear voice carrying to the door and even outside where some latecomers unable to find seats were grouped on the slab of rough stone which served for a step.
"Who is the male parent, the father of the child?" he asked in the natural course of the ceremony.
Deep silence reigned. Flora Macleod"s lips closed tightly, indicating that out of stubbornness she would not speak the name. People looked at the Factor, and he turned from his immobility with the att.i.tude of a sleeping bear suddenly prodded into angry activity.
"Black Ferguson," he snarled, sidling over a foot or so upon the bench.
"The name this child is to bear with honor through life?" Father Brochet continued.
"Honor?" grunted Macleod. "I don"t know about that. No doubt he will inherit the spirit of disobedience from his mother. Call him Charles Ian Macleod! There will be no Ferguson in it."
A murmur stirred the a.s.semblage at the Factor"s rude remark, but they dared not add protest to their surprises. Dunvegan of course, had expected it from the first.
"Who stands as sponsor for this infant?" asked the priest.
Macleod swung himself half round and nodded to Dunvegan. Bruce rose to his feet, seeing with surprise that Gaspard, the Fool, had also raised himself up by jumping upon the seat.
"Who stands sponsor?"
"I," squealed the idiot. "Also, he can have my name, for if the truth came out, it is as good as anyone"s and----"
He got no farther for old Pierre Lazard pulled the foolish dwarf off his perch before the angry Factor could strike him and pushed him unceremoniously to the door amid the suppressed chuckles of the a.s.sembly.
"Again, who stands sponsor?" inquired the unruffled Father Brochet.
"I do," spoke Dunvegan.
"Do you, Charles Ian Macleod, renounce the devil, his angels and all their evil works?"