A Romany of the Snows Part 2

he added softly, all the roar gone from his throat. Then he went out, followed by Pierre.

Hatchett and Wiley looked at each other and laughed a little confusedly.

"What's that he said?" muttered Wiley. "Not more than two at a time, was it?"

"That was it. I don't know that it's what we bargained for, after all."

He looked round on the other settlers present, who had been awed by the childlike, earnest note in Macavoy's last words. They shook their heads now a little sagely; they weren't so sure that Pierre's little game was so jovial as it had promised.

Even Pierre had hardly looked for so much from his giant as yet. In a little while he had got Macavoy back to his old humour.

"What was I made for but war!" said the Irishman, "an' by war to kape thim at peace, wherever I am." Soon he was sufficiently restored in spirits to go with Pierre to Bareback's lodge, where, sitting at the tent door, with idlers about, he smoked with the chief and his braves.

Again Pierre worked upon him adroitly, and again he became loud in speech, and grandly patronising.

"I've stood by ye like a father, ye loafers," he said, "an' I give you my word, ye howlin' rogues--"

Here Bareback and a half-dozen braves came up suddenly from the ground, and the chief said fiercely: "You speak crooked things. We are no rogues. We will fight."

Macavoy's face ran red to his hair. He scratched his head a little foolishly, and gathered himself up. "Sure, 'twas only me tasin', darlins," he said, "but I'll be comin' again, when y'are not so narvis."

He turned to go away.

Pierre made a sign to Bareback, and the Indian touched the giant on the arm. "Will you fight?" said he.

"Not all o' ye at once," said Macavoy slowly, running his eye carefully along the half-dozen; "not more than three at a toime," he added with a simple sincerity, his voice again gone like the dove's. "At what time will it be convaynyint for ye?" he asked.

"At sunset," said the chief, "before the Fort." Macavoy nodded and walked away with Pierre, whose glance of approval at the Indians did not make them thoroughly happy.

To rouse the giant was not now so easy. He had already three engagements of violence for sunset. Pierre directed their steps by a roundabout to the Company's stores, and again there was a distinct improvement in the giant's spirits. Here at least he could be himself, he thought, here no one should say him nay. As if nerved by the idea, he plunged at once into boisterous raillery of the Chief Trader. "Oh, ho," he began, "me freebooter, me captain av the looters av the North!" The Trader snarled at him. "What d'ye mean, by such talk to me, sir? I've had enough--we've all had enough--of your brag and bounce; for you're all sweat and swill-pipe, and I give you this for your chewing, that though by the Company's rules I can't go out and fight you, you may have your pick of my men for it. I'll take my pay for your insults in pounded flesh--Irish pemmican!"

Macavoy's face became mottled with sudden rage. He roared, as, perhaps, he had never roared before: "Are ye all gone mad-mad-mad? I was jokin'

wid ye, whin I called ye this or that. But by the swill o' me pipe, and the sweat o' me skin, I'll drink the blood o' yees, Trader, me darlin'.

An' all I'll ask is, that ye mate me to-night whin the rest o' the pack is in front o' the Fort--but not more than four o' yees at a time--for little scrawney rats as y'are, too many o' yees wad be in me way." He wheeled and strode fiercely out. Pierre smiled gently.

"He's a great bully that, isn't he, Trader? There'll be fun in front of the Fort to-night. For he's only bragging, of course--eh?"

The Trader nodded with no great a.s.surance, and then Pierre said as a parting word: "You'll be there, of course--only four av ye!" and hurried out after Macavoy, humming to himself--

"For the King said this, and the Queen said that, But he walked away with their army, O!"

So far Pierre's plan had worked even better than he expected, though Macavoy's moods had not been altogether after his imaginings. He drew alongside the giant, who had suddenly grown quiet again. Macavoy turned and looked down at Pierre with the candour of a schoolboy, and his voice was very low:

"It's a long time ago, I'm thinkin'," he said, "since I lost me frinds--ages an' ages ago. For me frinds are me inimies now, an' that makes a man old. But I'll not say that it cripples his arm or humbles his back." He drew his arm up once or twice and shot it out straight into the air like a catapult. "It's all right," he added, very softly, "an', Half-breed, me b'y, if me frinds have turned inimies, why, I'm thinkin' me inimy has turned frind, for that I'm sure you were, an' this I'm certain y 'are. So here's the grip av me fist, an' y'll have it."

Pierre remembered that disconcerting, iron grip of friends.h.i.+p for many a day. He laughed to himself to think how he was turning the braggart into a warrior. "Well," said Pierre, "what about those five at Wonta's tent?"

"I'll be there whin the sun dips below the Little Red Hill," he said, as though his thoughts were far away, and he turned his face towards Wonta's tent. Presently he laughed out loud. "It's manny along day," he said, "since--"

Then he changed his thoughts. "They've spoke sharp words in me teeth,"

he continued, "and they'll pay for it. Bounce! sweat! brag! wind! is it?

There's dancin' beyant this night, me darlins!"

"Are you sure you'll not run away when they come on?" said Pierre, a little ironically.

"Is that the word av a frind?" replied Macavoy, a hand fumbling in his hair.

"Did you never run away when faced?" Pierre asked pitilessly.

"I never turned tail from a man, though, to be sure, it's been more talk than fight up here: Fort Ste. Anne's been but a graveyard for fun these years."

"Eh, well," persisted Pierre, "but did you never turn tail from a slip of a woman?"

The thing was said idly. Macavoy gathered his beard in his mouth, chewing it confusedly. "You've a keen tongue for a question," was his reply. "What for should anny man run from a woman?"

"When the furniture flies, an' the woman knows more of the world in a day than the man does in a year; and the man's a hulking bit of an Irishman--bien, then things are so and so!"

Macavoy drew back dazed, his big legs trembling. "Come into the shade of these maples," said Pierre, "for the sun has set you quaking a little,"

and he put out his hand to take Macavoy's arm.

The giant drew away from the hand, but walked on to the trees. His face seemed to have grown older by years on the moment. "What's this y'are sayin' to me?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely. "What do you know av--av that woman?"

"Malahide is a long way off," said Pierre, "but when one travels why shouldn't the other?"

Macavoy made a helpless motion with his lumbering hand. "Mother o'

saints," he said, "has it come to that, after all these years? Is she--tell me where she is, me frind, and you'll niver want an arm to fight for ye, an' the half av a blanket, while I have wan!"

"But you'll run as you did before, if I tell you, an' there'll be no fighting to-night, accordin' to the word you've given."

"No fightin', did ye say? an' run away, is it? Then this in your eye, that if ye'll bring an army, I'll fight till the skin is in rags on me bones, whin it's only men that's before me; but woman--and that wan!

Faith, I'd run, I'm thinkin', as I did, you know when--Don't tell me that she's here, man; arrah, don't say that!"

There was something pitiful and childlike in the big man's voice, so much so that Pierre, calculating gamester as he was, and working upon him as he had been for many weeks, felt a sudden pity, and dropping his fingers on the other's arm, said: "No, Macavoy, my friend, she is not here; but she is at Fort Ste. Anne--or was when I left there."

Macavoy groaned. "Does she know that I'm here?" he asked.

"I think not. Fort Ste. Anne is far away, and she may not hear."

"What--what is she doing?"

"Keeping your memory and Mr. Whelan's green." Then Pierre told him somewhat bluntly what he knew of Mrs. Macavoy.

"I'd rather face Ballzeb.o.o.b himself than her," said Macavoy. "An' she's sure to find me."

"Not if you do as I say."

"An' what is it ye say, little man?"

"Come away with me where she'll not find you."

"An' where's that, Pierre darlin'?"

"I'll tell you that when to-night's fighting's over. Have you a mind for Wonta?" he continued.