Man Size Part 21

A pair of cold eyes in a white, bloodless face watched her beneath thin black brows. A shock ran through her, as though she had been drenched with icy water. She s.h.i.+vered. There was a sinister menace in that steady, level gaze. More than once she had felt it. Deep in her heart she knew, from the world-old experience of her s.e.x, that the man desired her, that he was biding his time with the patience and the ruthlessness of a panther. "Poker" Whaley had in him a power of dangerous evil notable in a country where bad men were not scarce.

The officer whispered news to Jessie. "Bully West broke jail two weeks ago. He killed a guard. We're here looking for him."

"He hasn't been here. At least I haven't heard it," she answered hurriedly.

For Whaley, in his slow, feline fas.h.i.+on, was moving toward them.

Bluntly the gambler claimed his right. "Ooche-me-gou-kesigow," he said.

The girl shook her head. "Are you a Cree, Mr. Whaley?"

For that he had an answer. "Is Beresford?"

"Mr. Beresford is a stranger. He didn't know the custom--that it doesn't apply to me except with Indians. I was taken by surprise."

Whaley was a man of parts. He had been educated for a priest, but had kicked over the traces. There was in him too much of the Lucifer for the narrow trail the father of a parish must follow.

He bowed. "Then I must content myself with a dance."

Jessie hesitated. It was known that he was a libertine. The devotion of his young Cree wife was repaid with sneers and the whiplash. But he was an ill man to make an enemy of. For her family's sake rather than her own she yielded reluctantly.

Though a heavy-set man, he was an excellent waltzer. He moved evenly and powerfully. But in the girl's heart resentment flamed. She knew he was holding her too close to him, taking advantage of her modesty in a way she could not escape without public protest.

"I'm faint," she told him after they had danced a few minutes.

"Oh, you'll be all right," he said, still swinging her to the music.

She stopped. "No, I've had enough." Jessie had caught sight of her brother Fergus at the other end of the room. She joined him. Tom Morse was standing by his side.

Whaley nodded indifferently toward the men and smiled at Jessie, but that cold lip smile showed neither warmth nor friendliness. "We'll dance again--many times," he said.

The girl's eyes flashed. "We'll have to ask Mrs. Whaley about that. I don't see her here to-night. I hope she's quite well."

It was impossible to tell from the chill, expressionless face of the squaw-man whether her barb had stung or not. "She's where she belongs, at home in the kitchen. It's her business to be well. I reckon she is.

I don't ask her."

"You're not a demonstrative husband, then?"

"Husband!" He shrugged his shoulders insolently. "Oh, well! What's in a name?"

She knew the convenient code of his kind. They took to themselves Indian wives, with or without some form of marriage ceremony, and flung them aside when they grew tired of the tie or found it galling.

There was another kind of squaw-man, the type represented by her father. He had joined his life to that of Matapi-Koma for better or worse until such time as death should separate them.

In Jessie's bosom a generous indignation burned. There was a reason why just now Whaley should give his wife much care and affection.

She turned her shoulder and began to talk with Fergus and Tom Morse, definitely excluding the gambler from the conversation.

He was not one to be embarra.s.sed by a snub. He held his ground, narrowed eyes watching her with the vigilant patience of the panther he sometimes made her think of. Presently he forced a reentry.

"What's this I hear about Bully West escaping from jail?"

Fergus answered. "Two-three weeks ago. Killed a guard, they say. He was headin' west an' north last word they had of him."

All of them were thinking the same thing, that the man would reach Faraway if he could, lie hidden till he had rustled an outfit, then strike out with a dog team deeper into the Lone Lands.

"Here's wis.h.i.+n' him luck," his partner said coolly.

"All the luck he deserves," amended Morse quietly.

"You can't keep a good man down," Whaley boasted, looking straight at the other Indian trader. "I wouldn't wonder but what he'll pay a few debts when he gets here."

Tom smiled and offered another suggestion. "If he gets here and has time. He'll have to hurry."

His gaze s.h.i.+fted across the room to Beresford, alert, gay, indomitable, and as implacable as fate.

CHAPTER XVI

A BUSINESS DEAL

It was thirty below zero. The packed snow crunched under the feet of Morse as he moved down what served Faraway for a main street. The clock in the store registered mid-afternoon, but within a few minutes the sub-Arctic sun would set, night would fall, and aurora lights would glow in the west.

Four false suns were visible around the true one, the whole forming a cross of five orbs. Each of these swam in perpendicular segments of a circle of prismatic colors. Even as the young man looked, the lowest of the cl.u.s.ter lights plunged out of sight. By the time he had reached the McRae house, darkness hung over the white and frozen land.

Jessie opened the door to his knock and led him into the living-room of the family, where also the trapper's household ate and Fergus slept. It was a rough enough place, with its mud-c.h.i.n.ked log walls and its floor of whipsawed lumber. But directly opposite the door was a log-piled hearth that radiated comfort and cheerfulness. Buffalo robes served as rugs and upon the walls had been hung furs of silver fox, timber wolves, mink, and beaver. On a shelf was a small library of not more than twenty-five books, but they were ones that only a lover of good reading would have chosen. Shakespeare and Burns held honored places there. Scott's poems and three or four of his novels were in the collection. In worn leather bindings were "Tristram Shandy,"

and Smollett's "Complete History of England." Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" shouldered Butler's "Hudibras" and Baxter's "The Saint's Everlasting Rest." Into this choice company one frivolous modern novel had stolen its way. "Nicholas Nickleby" had been brought from Winnipeg by Jessie when she returned from school. The girl had read them all from cover to cover, most of them many times. Angus too knew them all, with the exception of the upstart "storybook" written by a London newspaper man of whom he had never before heard.

"I'm alone," Jessie explained. "Father and Fergus have gone out to the traps. They'll not be back till to-morrow. Mother's with Mrs. Whaley."

Tom knew that the trader's wife was not well. She was expecting to be confined in a few weeks.

He was embarra.s.sed at being alone with the girl inside the walls of a house. His relations with Angus McRae reached civility, but not cordiality. The stern old Scotchman had never invited him to drop in and call. He resented the fact that through the instrumentality of Morse he had been forced to horsewhip the la.s.s he loved, and the trader knew he was not forgiven his share in the episode and probably never would be. Now Tom had come only because a matter of business had to be settled one way or the other at once.

"Blandoine is leavin' for Whoop-Up in the mornin'. I came to see your father about those robes. If we buy, it'll have to be now. I can send 'em down with Blandoine," he explained.

She nodded, briskly. "Father said you could have them at your price if you'll pay what he asked for those not split. They're good hides--cows and young bulls."[5]

[Footnote 5: A split robe was one cut down the middle and sewn together with sinews. The ones skinned from the animal in a single piece were much more valuable, but the native women usually prepared the hides the other way because of the weight in handling. One of the reasons the Indians gave the missionaries in favor of polygamy was that one wife could not dress a buffalo robe without a.s.sistance. The braves themselves did not condescend to menial labor of this kind.

(W.M.R.)]

"It's a deal," the fur-trader said promptly. "Glad to get 'em, though I'm payin' all I can afford for the split ones."

"I'll get the key to the storehouse," Jessie said.

She walked out of the room with the springy, feather-footed step that distinguished her among all the women that he knew. In a few moments she was back. Instead of giving him the key, she put it down on the table near his hand.

Beneath the tan the dark blood beat into his face. He knew she had done this in order not to run the risk of touching him.