The Gun-Brand Part 23

Chloe spent an almost sleepless night, and it was with a feeling of distinct relief that she arose to find Lapierre upon the veranda. She noted a certain intense eagerness in the quarter-breed's voice as he greeted her.

"Ah, Miss Elliston!" he cried, seizing both her hands. "It seems that during my brief absence you have accomplished wonders! May I ask how you managed to bring about the downfall of the brute of the North, and at the same time win his Indians to your school?"

Under the enthusiasm of his words the girl's heart once more quickened with the sense of victory. She withdrew her hands from his clasp and gave a brief account of all that had happened since their parting on Snare Lake.

"Wonderful," breathed Lapierre at the conclusion of the recital. "And you are sure he was duly charged with the murder of the two Indians?"

Chloe nodded. "Yes, indeed I am sure!" she exclaimed. "The officer, Corporal Ripley, tried to get me to put off this charge until his other trial came up at the spring a.s.sizes. He said MacNair could give bail and secure his liberty on the liquor charges, and thus return to the North--and to his Indians."

Lapierre nodded eagerly. "Ah, did I not tell you, Miss Elliston, that the men of the Mounted are with him heart and soul? He owns them! You have done well not to withdraw the charge of murder."

"I offered to furnish him with an escort of Indians, but he refused them. I don't see how in the world he can expect to take MacNair to jail. He's a mere boy."

Lapierre laughed. "He'll take him to jail all right, you may rest a.s.sured as to that. He will not dare to allow him to escape, nor will MacNair try to escape. We have nothing to fear now until the trial.

It is extremely doubtful if we can make the murder charge stick, but it will serve to hold him during the winter, and I have no doubt when his case comes up in the spring we will be able to produce evidence that will insure conviction on the whiskey charges, which will mean at least a year or two in jail and the exaction of a heavy fine.

"In the meantime you will have succeeded in educating the Indians to a realization of the fact that they owe allegiance to no man. MacNair's power is broken. He will be discredited by the authorities, and hated by his own Indians--a veritable pariah of the wilderness. And now, Miss Elliston, I must hasten at once to the rivers. My interests there have long been neglected. I shall return as soon as possible, but my absence will necessarily be prolonged, for beside my own trading affairs and the getting out of the timber for new scows, I hope to procure such additional evidence as will insure the conviction of MacNair. LeFroy will remain with you here."

"Did you catch the whiskey runners?" Chloe asked.

Lapierre shook his head. "No," he answered, "they succeeded in eluding us among the islands at the eastern end of the lake. We were about to push our search to a conclusion when news reached us of MacNair's arrest, and we returned with all speed to the Yellow Knife."

Somehow, the man's words sounded unconvincing--the glib reply was too ready--too like the studied answer to an antic.i.p.ated question. She regarded him searchingly, but the simple directness of his gaze caused her own eyes to falter, and she turned into the house with a deep breath that was very like a sigh.

The sense of elation and self-confidence inspired by Lapierre's first words ebbed as it had ebbed before the unspoken rebuke of Big Lena, leaving her strangely depressed. With the joy of accomplishment dead within her, she drove herself to her work without enthusiasm. In all the world, nothing seemed worth while. She was unsure--unsure of Lapierre; unsure of herself; unsure of Big Lena--and, worst of all, unbelievable and preposterous as it seemed in the light of what she had witnessed with her own eyes, unsure of MacNair--of his villainy!

Before noon the first snow of the season started in a fall of light, feathery flakes, which gradually resolved themselves into fine, hard particles that were hurled and buffeted about by the blasts of a fitful wind.

For three days the blizzard raged--days in which Lapierre contrived to spend much time in Chloe's company, and during which the girl set about deliberately to study the quarter-breed, in the hope of placing definitely the defect in his make-up, the tangible reason for the growing sense of distrust with which she was coming to regard him.

But, try as she would, she could find no cause, no justification, for the uncomfortable and indefinable _something_ that was gradually developing into an actual doubt of his sincerity. She knew that the man had himself well in hand, for never by word or look did he express any open avowal of love, although a dozen times a day he managed subtly to show that his love had in no wise abated.

On the morning of the fourth day, with forest and lake and river buried beneath three feet of snow, Lapierre took the trail for the southward.

Before leaving, he sought out LeFroy in the storehouse.

"We have things our own way, but we must lie low for a while, at least.

MacNair is not licked yet--by a d.a.m.n' sight! He knows we furnished the booze to his Indians, and he will yell his head off to the Mounted, and we will have them dropping in on us all the winter. In the meantime leave the liquor where it is. Don't bring a gallon of it into this clearing. It will keep, and we can't take chances with the Mounted.

There will be enough in it for us, with what we can knock down here, and what the boys can take out of MacNair's diggings. They know the gold is there; most of them were in on the stampede when MacNair drove them back a few years ago. And when they find out that MacNair is in jail, there will be another stampede. And we will clean up big all around."

LeFroy, a man of few words, nodded sombrely, and Lapierre, who was impatient to be off to the rivers, failed to note that the nod was far more sombre than usual--failed, also, to note the pair of china-blue, fishlike eyes that stared impa.s.sively at him from behind the goods piled high upon the huge counter.

Once upon the trail, Lapierre lost no time. As pa.s.sed the word upon the Mackenzie, where the men who had heard of the arrest of MacNair waited in a frenzy of impatience for the signal that would send them flying over the snow to Snare Lake. Day and night the man travelled; from the Mackenzie southward the length of Slave and up the Athabasca.

And in his wake men, whose eyes fairly bulged with the greed of gold, jammed their outfits into packs and headed into the North.

At Athabasca Landing he sent a crew into the timber, and hastened on to Edmonton where he purchased a railway ticket for a point that had nothing whatever to do with his destination. That same night he boarded an east-bound train, and in an early hour of the morning, when the engine paused for water beside a tank that was the most conspicuous building of a little flat town in the heart of a peaceful farming community, he stepped unnoticed from the day coach and proceeded at once to the low, wooden hotel, where he was cautiously admitted through a rear door by the landlord himself, who was, incidentally, Lapierre's shrewdest and most effective whiskey runner.

It was this Tostoff: Russian by birth, and crook by nature, whose business it was to disguise the contraband whiskey into innocent-looking freight pieces. And, it was Tostoff who selected the men and stood responsible for the contraband's safe conduct over the first stage of its journey to the North.

Tostoff objected strenuously to the running of a consignment in winter, but Lapierre persisted, covering the ground step by step while the other listened with a scowl.

"It's this way, Tostoff: For years MacNair has been our chief stumbling-block. G.o.d knows we have trouble enough running the stuff past the Dominion police and the Mounted. But the danger from the authorities is small in comparison with the danger from MacNair."

Tostoff growled an a.s.sent. "And now," continued Lapierre, "for the first time we have him where we want him."

The Russian looked sceptical. "We got MacNair where we want him if he's dead," he grunted. "Who killed him?"

Lapierre made a gesture of impatience. "He is not dead. He's locked up in the Fort Saskatchewan jail."

For the first time Tostoff showed real interest. "What's against him?"

he asked eagerly.

"Murder, for one thing," answered Lapierre. "That will hold him without bail until the spring a.s.sizes. He will probably get out of that, though. But they are holding him also on four or five liquor charges."

"Liquor charges!" cried Tostoff, with an angry snort. "O-ho! so that's his game? That's why he's been bucking us--because he's got a line of his own!"

Lapierre laughed. "Not so fast, Tostoff, not so fast. It is a frame-up. That is, the charges are not, but the evidence is. I attended to that myself. I think we have enough on him to keep him out of the cold for a couple of winters to come. But you can't tell. And while we have him we will put the screws to him for all there is in it.

It is the chance of a lifetime. What we want now is evidence--and more evidence.

"Here is the scheme: You fix up a consignment, five or ten gallons, the usual way, and instead of shooting it in by the Athabasca, cut into the old trail on the Beaver and take it across the Methye portage to a _cache_ on the Clearwater. Brown's old cabin will about fill the bill.

We ought to be able to _cache_ the stuff by Christmas.

"In the meantime, I will slip up the river and tip it off to the Mounted at Fort McMurray that I got it straight from down below that MacNair is going to run in a batch over the Methye trail, and that it is to be _cached_ on the bank of the Clearwater on New Year's Day.

That will give your packers a week to make their getaway. And on New Year's Day the Mounted will find the stuff in the _cache_. There will be n.o.body to arrest, but they will have the evidence that will clinch the case against MacNair. And with MacNair behind the bars we will have things our own way north of sixty."

Tostoff shook his head dubiously.

"Bad business, Lapierre," he warned. "Winter trailing is bad business.

The snow tells tales. We haven't been caught yet. Why? Not because we've been lucky, but because we've been careful. Water leaves no trail. We've always run our stuff in in the summer. You say you've got the goods on MacNair. I say, let well enough alone. The Mounted ain't fools--they can read the sign in the snow."

Lapierre arose with a curse. "You white-livered clod!" he cried. "Who is running this scheme? You or I? Who delivers the whiskey to the Indians? And who pays you your money? I do the thinking for this outfit. I didn't come down here to _ask_ you to run this consignment.

I came here to _tell_ you to do it. This thing of playing safe is all right. I never told you to run a batch in the winter before, but this time you have got to take the chance."

Lapierre leaned closer and fixed the heavy-faced Russian with his gleaming black eyes. He spoke slowly so that the words fell distinctly from his lips. "You _cache_ that liquor on the Clearwater on Christmas Day. If you fail--well, you will join the others that have been dismissed from my service--see?"

Tostoff's only reply was a ponderous but expressive shrug, and without a word Lapierre turned and stepped out into the night.

CHAPTER XVIII

WHAT HAPPENED AT BROWN'S

It was the middle of December. Storm after storm had left the North cold and silent beneath its white covering of snow. A dog-team swung across the surface of the ice-locked Athabasca, and took the steep slope at Fort McMurray on a long slant.

Leaving the dogs in care of the musher, Pierre Lapierre loosened the thongs of his rackets, and, pus.h.i.+ng open the door, stamped noisily into the detachment quarters of the Mounted and advanced to the stove where two men were mending dog-harness. The men looked up.

"Speaking of the devil," grinned Constable Craig, with a glance toward Corporal Ripley, who greeted the newcomer with a curt nod. "Well, Lapierre, where'd you come from?"

Lapierre jerked his thumb toward the southward. "Up river," he answered. "Getting out timber for my scows." Removing his cap and mittens, the quarter-breed loosened his heavy moose-hide _parka_, beat the clinging snow from the coa.r.s.e hair, and drew a chair to the stove.