The Heart of Unaga Part 49

"Him mak' him totem."

Keeko stood staring at the cross for some moments. Then she moved over to it and grasped it. It stirred in its setting. Then she left it, and returned to Lu-cana.

"He dared to set that up," she cried bitterly. "'In loving memory.'" She read the words before the name of her mother. "He dared to set up--that?"

Her eyes shone with a fierce light as she turned and looked into the squaw's face.

"Yes. Him set 'em up."

Lu-cana failed to understand that which lay at the back of Keeko's eyes.

She could not read the words on the totem. She did not know their meaning when she heard them. All she knew was that the white man had done this thing.

Keeko pointed at it.

"Guess I'll make a new--totem," she said, in a tone that was only cold and hard. "And we'll set it up. You and me, Lu-cana. And that one--that one," she repeated with bitter emphasis, "we'll break it, we'll smash it, and we'll burn it in the cook stove till there's nothing left."

Keeko remained for two months at the fort. And the length of her stay was the result of careful calculation, and the necessity which her final break from a.s.sociation with her step-father demanded. Then, too, there was the season to consider. Before she set out on her journey to Seal Bay the fierce winter of Unaga must have completely closed down. No storm or cold had terror for her. All she required was the case-hardening of the world, which would leave an iron surface upon which the dog trains could travel.

During those two months the force of Keeko's character developed with giant strides. She was alone, utterly alone. Her whole life depended upon her own powers to carry out the plans which had seemed almost simple while her mother was still alive. Now everything had suddenly changed. Inevitably, had there been a shadow of weakness in the girl it must have found her out, and tripped her into some pitfall, floundering.

But there was no such weakness.

From the first moment the enormous change wrought by her mother's death left her keenly understanding. Until the final break, her step-father must be humoured, conciliated. The thought was humiliating, but necessity urged. And she accepted the inevitable with simple courage.

Well enough was she aware of the danger in which she stood, and further the danger in which her required course placed her.

Had she known all that lay in the man's ruthless heart, had she been present at her mother's bedside, and listened to those talks which Lu-cana had told her of, had she had less youth and courage and a deeper understanding of the realities of life, it is likely that panic would have sent her fleeing headlong from a presence that filled her with nothing but loathing. But she had been spared all this knowledge, and Nicol saw to it that nothing should startle her, nothing should excite her distrust until, in the fulness of time, his purposes had fully ripened.

As it was he accepted the position which Keeko had created. He played his part as she played hers. And right up to the very last moment before the girl's departure for Seal Bay nothing was permitted to disturb the harmony between them.

The man gave her farewell and received the girl's calm response. He watched her Indians break out the two sleds on the bitterly frosted trail. He heard her sharp tones echoing through the still air as she gave the order to "mush." And all the while he stood smiling, while his eyes followed every movement of the girl's graceful, fur-clad body with the insensate l.u.s.t of an animal.

Robbed of all suspicion Keeko went forth with a heart high with hope.

Away out lay her cache of priceless furs to be picked up within the next few hours. All the great plan which she and her mother had so carefully prepared looked to be reaching fulfilment. She had only to sell her furs and return and pay over her step-father's due. It would be springtime then.

All her mind and heart turned to Marcel. Yes. He would be there. Far away up the river where the old grey skull of the moose was watching for her coming. And then--and then--But imagination carried her no further.

She was left longing only for that moment to come.

Nicol remained only long enough to see the runners of the hindmost sled vanish in a flurry of powdered snow round the limits of a woodland bluff. Then he turned back to the dark old fort, and the mask under which he had so carefully concealed himself fell away. Straightway he returned to his store to flood his senses with the raw spirit which alone made his degenerate life tolerable.

Winter was howling about the old fort. Drifts were piled feet deep against every obstruction that stood in the way of the driving snow. The fort was closed up. Every habitation was made fast against the onslaught of the elements Life was unstirring.

Far out in the woods bayed the fierce, famished timber wolf. The lighter but more doleful howl of coyote seemed to reply from every point of the compa.s.s. And amidst the rack of savage chorus came the harsh human voice that had little the better of the animal world in the pleasing quality of its note.

A train of three dogs hauling a light sled broke from the shadows of the forest. A single human figure on snow-shoes laboured along beside it. It was a figure entirely unrecognizable, except that it was human.

There was no pause, no uncertainty. The train came on and halted at a word of command at the doorway of the fort. In a moment the human figure was beating with its fur-mitted fists upon the door that had weathered the ages of storm.

The door was flung wide from within, and the blear eyes of Nicol peered out into the night-light. In a moment an exclamation of recognition broke from him.

"Alroy!" he cried. "'Tough' Alroy!" Then something of gladness at the prospect of companions.h.i.+p lit his eyes with a happier light. "Say, come right in," he invited, almost boisterously. "I'll send along some neches to see to your darn train."

Tough needed no second invitation. He smelt warmth, rest, and there was the promise in his mind of a good "souse." For the time he had had enough of Unaga. He had had enough of his employer, Lorson Harris. He had had enough of snow and ice, and the merciless cold of the twilit trail. G.o.d! but he was glad to leave it all behind him for the warmth of Nicol's store, and the raw spirit he knew was to be found there in generous quant.i.ties.

Half an hour later, divested of his furs, clad only in rough buckskin and pea-jacket, with feet encased in thick reindeer moccasins, Tough sat over the trader's stove with a pannikin of evil smelling rye whisky in his hand.

"Guess I've driven through h.e.l.l an' d.a.m.nation to git your darn report,"

he said, his wicked eyes beaming across the stove at his host on the far side of it.

"Lorson's blasted orders?"

"You mean blasted Lorson's orders!"

"Amen--or any other old chorus--to that," returned Nicol, with a gleam of brooding hate in his dark eyes. "Say, that swine has got all us fellers by the back o' the neck, and he twists us this way and that as he darn pleases, till we're well-nigh crazy. I'd give half a life to cut it--to make a break that would quit me of it all. But----"

"You're scared," Tough laughed, as he gulped at his spirit. "Guess we all are." Then he added as an after-thought: "I wonder. I don't know I would if--I dared. He's tough. He'd beat a dead man to pieces if he felt that way. He's plumb to the neck in work that 'ud shame a black, but he pays good for the doin' of it. And he reckons to pay you mighty well, if you put this thing through right. Best hand me your news. He don't want it wrote out."

Nicol leant back in his chair, and thrust his feet on the rail of the stove.

"No, he don't fancy a thing wrote out," he said. "And anyway I'm writin'

out nothing for Lorson Harris. He's got one piece of my paper, and I guess that's mostly why I'm here."

"And your summer trip?"

Tough recalled his host to the business in hand. He did it amiably, almost pleasantly, but such things were entirely upon the surface. Tough Alroy was Lorson's most trusted agent.

Nicol shook his head.

"Guess I didn't do all I figured to," he said. "You see, my fool woman took on and died. It cut the season short. But I located ther's a fort way out more than three hundred miles north-east of this lousy hole.

Yes, it's more than three hundred miles north-east. Might be even four hundred. And there are folks running it. White folks. Three of my Shaunekuk boys got it dead pat. They ran into an outfit of queer sort of Eskimo pelt hunters. They were hunting the territory away north, up along this darn river. And they came from that post to the north-east.

They said they were part of an outfit run by a feller named Brand. He was one of the white men running that post. They said these folk traded with Seal Bay. It was a big piece of luck. You see, the Shaunekuk never go into Unaga proper. They're scared to death of it. They make the forests along this river, that's all. Well, this outfit of queer Eskimo haven't ever been seen along this territory before. So you see I might have saved myself one h.e.l.l of a rush trip that only took me to a place where I got a sight of a mighty tough looking hill, all smoke and fire.

The three neches were out on their own and had their yarn waiting on me when I got back. That's my yarn, and all there is to it. Guess it's what Lorson Harris needs--until we make that fort, itself, for him."

Tough nodded. His wicked black eyes were serious, and, in their seriousness, were never more wicked.

"It'll do," he said. "Sure, it'll do. Guess it's a rough map of the trail we're chasing. But it's only the beginning. See, and listen close.

Lorson Harris don't care a curse for the trade you make here with these fool neches. You ain't here for that, whatever you happen to think.

You're here to make that trail. You're here to make that fort. And when you've made it, it's up to you to get possession of it. See? Lorson Harris means to bring that post right into his grip. There's a reason. A h.e.l.l of a reason. It's so big he's ready to dope out a hundred thousand dollars to the man who can blot out the fellers trading there, and grab their trade. He reckons you're the man to do it. Well?"

Tough was leaning forward. His manner was deadly earnest and intended to impress. His keen black eyes stared hard into the bloated features of the man beyond the stove. He waited, watchful, alert.

"A hundred thousand dollars!"

Nicol's astonishment was without feigning. Suddenly he bestirred himself. He felt there must be some trick in it all.