Father Jose loved humanity because it was humanity. Creed and race made no difference to him. It was his way to stand beside the stile of Life ready to help any, and everybody, over it who needed his help. He saw little beyond that. He concerned himself with no doctrine in the process. Help--physical, moral. That was his creed. And every day of his life he lived up to it.
The habits of the white folk at St. Agatha Mission varied little enough from day to day. It was the custom to foregather at Mrs. Mowbray"s home in the evening. After which, with unfailing regularity, Murray McTavish was wont to join the little priest in his Mission House for a few minutes before retiring for the night to his sleeping quarters up at the Fort.
It was eleven o"clock, and the two men were together now in the shanty which served the priest as a home.
It was a pathetic parody of all that home usually conveys. The comfort of it was only the comfort radiating from the contentment of the owner in it. Its structure was powerful to resist storm. Its furnishing was that which the priest had been able to manufacture himself. But the stove had been a present from Allan Mowbray. The walls were whitened with a lime wash which disguised the primitive plaster filling in between the lateral logs. There were some photographs pinned up to help disguise other defects. There were odds and ends of bookshelves hung about, all laden to the limit of their capacity with a library which had been laboriously collected during the long life of Mission work. Four rough chairs formed the seating accommodation. A table, made with a great expenditure of labor, and covered with an old blanket, served as a desk. Then, at the far end of the room, under a cotton ceiling, to save them from the dust from the thatch above, stood four trestle beds, each with ample blankets spread over it. Three of these were for wayfarers, and the fourth, in emergency, for the same purpose. Otherwise the fourth was Father Jose"s own bed. Behind this building, and opening out of it, was a kitchen. This was the entire habitation of a man who had dedicated his life to the service of others.
Murray was sitting at the other side of the stove and his bulky figure was only partly visible to the priest from behind the stovepipe. Both men were smoking their final pipe before retiring. The priest was listening to the trader in that watchful manner of one deeply interested. They were talking of Alec, and the prospects of the new decision. Murray"s thoughts were finding harsh expression.
"Say, we"re all between the devil and the deep sea," he said, with a hard laugh. "The boy"s only fit to be tied to a woman"s strings.
That"s how I see it. Just as I see the other side of it. He"s got to be allowed to make his own gait. If he doesn"t, why--things are just going to break some way."
The priest nodded. He was troubled, and his trouble looked out of his keen eyes.
"Yes," he agreed. "And the devil"s mostly in the deep waters, too.
It"s devil all around."
"Sure it is." Murray bent down to the stove and lit a twist of paper for his pipe. "Do you know the thing that"s going to happen? When we get clear away from here, and that boy"s pocket is filled with the bills his ma has handed him, I"ll have as much hold on him as he"s going to have on those dollars. If I b.u.t.t in he"ll send me to h.e.l.l quick. And if I don"t feel like taking his dope lying down there"ll be something like murder done. If I"m any judge of boys, or men, that kid"s going to find every muck hole in Leaping Horse--and there"s some--and he"s going to wallow in "em till some one comes along and hauls him clear of the filth. What he"s going to be like after--why, the thought makes me sweat! And Allan--Allan was my friend."
"But--you advised his mother?" The priest"s eyes were searching.
Murray crushed his paper tight in his hand.
"How"d you have done?" he demanded shortly.
The priest weighed his words before replying.
"The same as you," he said at last. "Life"s full up of pot holes. We can"t learn to navigate right if we don"t fall into some of them. I"ve taught that boy from his first days. He"s the makings of anything, in a way. He can"t be kept here. He"s got to get out, and work off his youthful insanity. Whatever comes of it, it won"t be so bad as if he stopped around. I think you"ve done the best." He sighed. "We must hope, and watch, and--be ready to help when the signal comes. G.o.d grant he comes to no----"
He broke off and turned towards the heavy closed door of the shanty, in response to a sharp knocking. In a moment he was on his feet as the door was thrust open, and two familiar figures pushed their way in.
"Why, John Kars, this is the best sight I"ve had in weeks," cried the priest, with cordiality in every tone of his voice, and every feature of his honest face. "And, Dr. Bill, too? This is fine. Come right in."
The Padre"s cordiality found full reflection in his visitors" faces as they wrung his hand.
"It"s been some hustle getting here," said Kars. "There wasn"t a chance sending on word. We made the landing, and came right along up.
Ha, Murray. Say, we"re in luck."
Both men shook hands with the factor, while the priest drew up the other chairs to the stove, which he replenished with a fresh supply of logs from the corner of the room.
"But I guess we"re birds of bad omen," Kars went on, addressing Murray in particular. "The neches are out on Bell River, and they sniped us right along down to within twenty miles of the Fort."
"The Bell River neches within twenty miles of the Fort?"
It was the priest who answered him. His question was full of alarm.
He was thinking of the women of the Mission, white as well as colored.
Murray remained silent while Kars and Bill dropped wearily into the chairs set for them. Then, as the great bulk of the man he disliked settled itself, and he held out his chilled hands to the comforting stove, his voice broke the silence which followed on the priest"s expression of alarm.
"Best tell us it right away. We"ll need to act quick," he said, his eyes shining under the emotion stirring him.
Kars looked across at the gross figure which suggested so little of the man"s real energy. His steady eyes were unreadable. His thoughts were his own, masked as emphatically as any Indian chief"s at a council.
"They handed me this," he said, with a hard laugh, indicating the bandage which still surrounded his neck, although his wound had almost completely healed under the skilful treatment of Dr. Bill. "We hit their trail nearly two days from Bell River. They"d ma.s.sacred an outfit of traveling Indians, and burnt their camp out. However, we kept ahead of them, and made the headwaters of the river. But we didn"t shake "em. Not by a sight. They hung on our trail, I guess, for nearly three weeks. We lost "em twenty miles back. That"s all."
Bill and the priest sat with eyes on Murray. The responsibility of the post was his. Kars, too, seemed to be looking to the factor.
Murray gave no outward sign for some moments. His dark eyes were burning with the deep fires which belonged to them. He sat still.
Quite still. Then he spoke, and something of the force of the man rang in his words.
"We got the arms for an outfit. But I don"t guess we got enough for defence of the post. It can"t come to that. We daren"t let it. I"m getting a big outfit up this fall. Meanwhile, we"ll need to get busy."
He pulled out his timepiece and studied it deliberately. Then he closed its case with a snap and stood up. He looked down into Kars"
watchful eyes.
"They"re on the river? Twenty miles back?"
His questions came sharply, and Kars nodded.
"They"re in big force?"
Again Kars made a sign, but this time in the negative.
"I don"t think it," he said.
"Right. I"ll be on the trail in an hour."
The factor turned to the Padre.
"Say, just rouse out the boys while I get other things fixed. There isn"t a minute to waste."
He waited for no reply, but turned at once to Kars and Bill.
"Maybe you fellers"ll keep your outfit right here. There"s the women-folk. It"s in case of--accident?"
"I"ll join you, and leave Bill, here, with the Padre and the outfit."
Kars" suggestion came on the instant.
But Murray vetoed it promptly. He shook his head.
"It"s up to me," he said curtly. Then he became more expansive.
"You"ve had yours. I"m looking for mine. I"m getting out for the sake of the women-folk. That"s why I"m asking you to stop right here. You can"t tell. Maybe they"ll need all the help we can hand them. I"ve always figgered on this play. Best act my way."
There was something like a flicker of the eyelid as Kars acquiesced with a nod. Except for that his rugged face was deadly serious. He filled his pipe with a leisureliness which seemed incompatible with the conditions of the moment. Bill seemed to be engrossed in the study of the stove. Murray had turned to the Padre.
"Not a word to the women. We don"t need to scare them. This thing"s got to be fixed sudden and sharp."
A moment later he was gone.