Part 9 (1/2)
The woman clutched at his arm and her breath came fast. ”Are you sure?”
she cried, a great hope dawning in her eyes. ”How can you tell?”
”It's all in the manual. Smallpox pimples feel hard, like shot, and they come first on the face and forehead, and there is always high fever and vomiting, and the pimples are always round. This is chicken pox, and it ain't dangerous, and I told you I used to be with the Mounted, and the Mounted is always sure. Now, what about this Rainy person that stole the little kid's milk?” But the woman was paying no attention. She was pacing up and down the floor with the baby hugged to her breast--laughing, crying, talking to the little one all in the same breath, holding him out at arm's length and then cuddling him close and smothering him with kisses. Then, suddenly, she laid the baby in his crib and turned to Connie who, in view of what he had seen, backed away in alarm until he stood against the door.
”Ah, you are the grand boy!” the woman exclaimed. ”You have saved the life of my little Victor! You are my friend. In four days comes my man--the little one's papa, and he will tell you better than I of our thanks. He is your friend for life. He is Victor Bossuet, and on the rivers is none like him. I will tell him all--how the little one is dying with the red death, and you come out of the strong cold with the frost in the nose and the cheeks, and you look on the little Victor who is dying, and say '_non_,' and pouf! the red death is gone, and the little baby has got only what you call chickiepok! See! Even now he is laughing!”
”He's all right,” smiled Connie. ”But you're way off about my curing him. He'd have been well as ever in a few days anyhow and you'd have had your scare for nothing.”
The woman's voluble protest was interrupted by a wail from the infant, and again her mood changed and she began to pace the floor wringing her hands. ”See, now he is hungry and there is nothing to feed him! Rene is a devil! He has taken the milk.”
”Hold on!” interrupted Connie. ”Was it canned milk? 'Cause if it was you don't need to worry. I've got about a dozen cans out there on the toboggan. Wait and I'll get it.” He turned to the Indian who had been a silent onlooker. ”Come on, Joe, crawl into your outfit. While I get the grub and blankets off the toboggans, you rustle the wood and water--and go kind of heavy on the wood, 'cause, believe me, there ain't any thermometer going to tell us how cold it will get tonight.”
A quarter of an hour later Connie dragged in a heavy canvas sack and two rolls of blankets just as 'Merican Joe stacked his last armful of wood high against the wall. ”I fed the dogs,” said the boy as he rummaged in the bag and handed the cans of milk one by one to the woman, ”and I could tell your husband is an old-timer by the looks of his dog shelter--warm and comfortable, and plenty of room for two teams. I can find out all I want to know about a man by the way he uses his dogs.”
”He is the best man on the rivers,” repeated the woman, her eyes s.h.i.+ning, as she opened a can of milk, carefully measured an amount, added water, and stirred it as it heated on the stove. Connie watched with interest as she fed it to the baby from a spoon. ”Again you have saved his life,” she said, as the last spoonful disappeared between the little lips.
”Aw, forget that!” exclaimed the boy, fidgeting uncomfortably. ”What I want is the dope on this Rainy--how did he come to swipe the kid's milk?
And where is he heading for? I'm in something of a hurry to get to Fort Norman, but I've got a hunch I'm due for a little side trip. He ain't going to be far ahead of me tomorrow. If he holes up today and tonight I'll catch up with him along about noon--and if he don't hole up--the white death will save me quite a bit of trouble.”
”Ah, that Rene!” exclaimed the woman, her face darkling with pa.s.sion, ”he is Victor's brother, and he is no good. He drinks and gambles and makes the big noise with his mouth. Bou, wou, wou! I am the big man! I can do this! I can do that! I am the best man in the world! Always he has lived in the towns in the winter and spent his money but this winter he came and lived with us because his money was gone. That is all right he is the brother of my husband. He is welcome. But one does not have to like him. But when my husband tells him to go to Fort Norman for food because we did not know there would be three, he made excuse, and my husband went and Rene stayed. Then the next day the little Victor was sick, and I saw the hand of the red death upon him and I told Rene that he should run fast after Victor and tell him. But he would not! He swore and cursed at his own ill luck and he ran from the house into the woods.
I made the plague flag and hung it out so that no traveller should come in and be in danger of the red death.
”By and by Rene came in from the woods in a terrible rage. He began to pack his outfit for the trail and I stayed close by the side of my little one for fear Rene would do him harm in his anger. At last he was ready and I was glad to see him go. I looked then and saw that he had taken all the food! Even the baby's milk he had taken! I rushed upon him then, but I am a woman and no match for a big man like Rene, and he laughed and pushed me away. I begged him to leave me some food, and he laughed the more--and on my knees I implored him to leave the baby's milk. But he would not. He said he had sworn vengeance upon Victor, and now he would take vengeance. He said, 'The brat will not need the milk for he will die anyway, and you will die, and Victor will follow me, and I will lead him to a place I know, and then he will die also.' It was then I rushed for the gun, but Rene had placed it in his pack. And I told him he must not go from a plague house, for he would spread the terrible red death in all the North. But he laughed and said he would show the North that he, Rene Bossuet, was a G.o.d who could spread death along the rivers. He would cause it to sweep like a flame among the rivermen who hated him, and among the men of the Mounted.”
The woman paused and Connie saw that a look of wonderful contentment had come into her eyes.
”The good G.o.d did not listen to the curses of Rene,” she said, simply, ”for as I lay on the floor I prayed to Him and He sent you to me, straight out of the frozen places where in the winter no men are. Tell me, did not the good G.o.d tell you to come to me--to save the little baby's life?” There was a look of awed wonder in the woman's eyes, and suddenly Connie remembered the mirage with the blazing plague flag in the sky.
”Yes,” he answered, reverently, ”I guess maybe He did.”
That night the wind came, the aurora flashed and hissed in the heavens, and early in the morning when Connie opened the door the air was alive with the keen tang of the North. Hastily he made up his pack for the trail. Most of the grub he left behind, and when the woman protested he laughed, and lied n.o.bly, in that he told her that they had far too much grub for their needs. While 'Merican Joe looked solemnly on and said nothing.
With the blessing of the woman ringing in their ears they started on the trail of Rene Bossuet. When they were out of sight of the cabin, the Indian halted and looked straight into the boy's eyes.
”We have one day's grub, for a three-day's trail if we hit straight for Fort Norman,” he announced. ”Why then do we follow this man's trail? He has done nothing to us! Why do you always take upon yourself the troubles of others?”
”Where would _you_ have been if I didn't?” flashed the boy angrily. ”And where would the trapper have been and that woman and little baby? When I first struck Alaska I was just a little kid with torn clothes and only eight dollars and I thought I didn't have a friend in the world. And then, at Anvik, I found that every one of the big men of the North was my friend! And ever since that time I have been trying to pay back the debt I owe the men of the North--and I'll keep on trying till I die!”
With a shrug 'Merican Joe started his dogs and took up the trail. Two hours later Connie took the lead, and pointed to the tracks in the snow.
”He's slowing up,” he exclaimed. ”If we don't strike his camp within a half an hour, we'll strike--something else!”
A few minutes later both halted abruptly. Before them was a wide place in the snow that had been trampled by many feet--the soft padded feet of the wolf pack. A toboggan, with its pack still securely lashed, stood at the end of Rene Bossuet's trail. Small sc.r.a.ps of leather showed where the dogs had been torn from the harness. Connie closed his eyes and pictured to himself what had happened there, in the night, in the sound of the roaring wind, and in the changing lights of the brilliantly flas.h.i.+ng aurora. Then he opened his eyes and stepped out into the trampled s.p.a.ce and gazed thoughtfully down upon the few scattered bits that lay strewn about upon the snow--a grinning skull, deeply gored here and there with fang marks, the gnawed ends of bones, and here and there ravellings and tiny patches of vivid blue cloth. And as he fastened the toboggan behind his own and swung the dogs onto the back-trail, he paused once more and smiled grimly:
”He had always lived in the North,” he said, ”but he didn't know the North. He ran like the coward he was from the red death when there was no danger. And not only that, but he stole the food from a woman and a sick baby. He thought he could get away with it--'way up here. But there's something in the silent places that men don't understand--and never will understand. I've heard men speak of it. And now I have seen it--the working of the justice of the North!”
CHAPTER VII
AT FORT NORMAN
No trading post in all the North is more beautifully situated than Fort Norman. The snug buildings of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northern Trading Company are located upon a high bank, at the foot of which the mighty Mackenzie rushes northward to the frozen sea. On a clear day the Rocky Mountains are plainly visible, and a half mile below the post, Bear River, the swift running outlet to Great Bear Lake, flows into the Mackenzie. It is to Fort Norman that the Indians from up and down the great river, from the mountains to the westward, and from Great Bear Lake, and a thousand other lakes and rivers, named and unnamed, to the eastward, come each year to trade their furs. And it was there that Connie Morgan and 'Merican Joe arrived just thirty-seven days after they pulled out of Dawson.