The Land of Frozen Suns: A Novel by Bertrand W. Sinclair
CHAPTER XVII--NINE POINTS OF THE LAW
A perceptible wind from out the east blew squarely in our teeth all theway down the Sicannie. Slight as it was, a man could no more face itsteadily than he could hold his nostrils to sulphur fumes blown from afunnel. All day it held us back from our best speed. Time and again wewere forced to halt in the lee of a wooded point, where with threshingof arms we drove the sluggish blood back into our numbing finger-tips.Twice the frost struck its fangs into my cheeks, despite the strap ofrabbit fur that covered my face between eyes and mouth. Barreau rubbedthe whitened places with snow till the returning blood stung like asearing iron. Twice I performed a like office for him. So it came thatnight had fallen when we lifted up our voices at the gate of thestockade. And while we waited for it to open, our dogs whining at thesnarl of their fellows inside, some one in the glimmer behind us hailedthe post in French. A minute later the frosty creak of snowshoes soundednear and a figure came striding on our track. As he reached us the gateswung open. A group of men stood just within. One held a lantern so thatthe light fell upon our faces--and, incidentally, their own. They werestrangers, to the last man. Barreau ripped out an oath. For a second wesurveyed each other. Then one of the men spoke to him who had come upwith us:
"Is there aught afoot?" he asked, with a marked Scotch accent.
"Not that I have seen, Donald," the other replied.
"Then," said the first, speaking to Barreau, "come ye in an' put by yourdogs. Dinna stand there as if ye looked for harm."
"I am very sure there will be no harm done us," Barreau drawled, unmovedin the face of this strange turn of affairs. "But I am of two mindsabout coming in."
The Scot shrugged his shoulders. "That's as ye like," he observed. "'Tisnot for me tae compel ye. 'Tis merely the factor's word that if ye came,he desired speech wi' ye. Ye will find him noo at the store."
Barreau considered this a moment. "Lead the way then, old Bannockburn,"he said lightly, "we will take our dog-team with us."
"Keep an eye to the rear, Bob," he muttered to me. "This may be a trap.But we've got to chance it to find out how things stand."
I nodded acquiescence to this; for I myself craved to know how the thinghad been brought to pass.
The group of men scattered. Save the Scot with the lantern, not one wasin sight when Barreau halted the dogs and turned the toboggan on itsside by the front of the store. Our lantern-bearer opened the door andstepped inside, motioning us to enter. My eyes swept the long room forsign of violent deeds. But there were none. The goods lay in theirorderly arrangement upon the shelves. The same up-piled boxes and balesthrew huge shadows to the far end. There was no change save in the menwho stood by the fire. Instead of Montell warming his coat-tails beforethe crackling blaze, a thin-faced man stood up before the fire; a tallman, overtopping Barreau and myself by a good four inches. He bowedcourteously, looking us over with keen eyes that were black as the longmustache-end he turned over and over on his forefinger. A thatch of hairwhite as the drifts that hid the frozen earth outside covered his head.He might have been the colonel of a crack cavalry regiment--a leader offighting men. His voice, when he spoke, bore a trace of the Gaul.
"Gentlemen," he greeted, "it is a very cold night outside. Come up tothe fire."
He pushed a stool and a box forward with his foot and turned to a small,swarthy individual who had so far hovered in the background.
"Leave us now, Dufour," he said. "And you, Donald, come again in a halfhour." "_Oui, M'sieu._" Dufour gathered up his coat and departedobediently, the Scot following.
As nonchalantly as if he were in the house of a friend Barreau drew hisbox up to the fire and sat down; thrust the parka hood back from hisface and held his hands out to the blaze. But I noticed that he laid therifle across his knees, and taking my cue from this I did the same whenI sat down. A faint smile flitted across the tall man's features. Healso drew a seat up to the fire on the opposite side of the hearth sothat he faced us.
"It is to Mr. Barreau I speak, is it not?" he inquired politely.
"It is," Barreau acknowledged. "And you, I take it, are Factor Le Noirof King Charles' House."
"The Black Factor, as they call me--yes," he smiled. "I am glad to havemet you, Mr. Barreau. You are a hardy man."
"I did not come seeking compliments," Barreau returned curtly. "Why areyou here--you and your _voyageurs_, making free with another man'shouse? And what have you done with Simon Montell and his daughter? andthe forty-odd men that were here two days ago?"
"One thing at a time," Le Noir answered imperturbably. "Is it possiblethat you do not know of the arrangement which was made?"
"It is obvious that there was an arrangement," Barreau snorted. "What Iwould know is the manner of its carrying out."
"To be brief, then," the other said, speaking very slowly anddistinctly, as if he measured out his words, "for a consideration SimonMontell has abandoned the field. While my Company permits no competitorin the trade, according to our charter, yet sometimes it is cheaper tobuy than to fight."
Barreau's shoulders stiffened. "Your charter is a dead letter," hedeclared. "You know it as well as I. That, however, is beside the point.You have made terms with Montell--but you have made none with me."
"Possession is nine points of the law," Le Noir returned tranquilly."Having bought we will now fight, if it be necessary. One does not paytwice for the same goods. Be wise, and seek redress from--well, if thefat man has tricked you, make _him_ pay."
"Suppose I choose instead to make the Company pay," Barreau drawled."What if I come to you with a hundred well-armed red men at my back?"
"Ah, it is of that I wished to speak with you," the Black Factor crossedhis legs and emphasized his remarks with a waggling forefinger. "Of thatvery thing. I know that you are not easily turned aside, but thistime--listen. To-night, here within these stockade walls, there are fourredcoat men from MacLeod. They have come seeking"--he pausedsignificantly--"you can guess whom they seek. Now, if, when you leavehere, your tracks should point to the Indian camps of the west--why,then the redcoats shall be shown it. And I will send twenty men to helpthem. But if you take the south trail these four will returnempty-handed."
Barreau sat a minute or two pondering this. "You win," he said atlength. "I am not the man to beat my fists on a stone. Give us flour andtea--and your word as a gentleman that the Police shall not be put onour track--and we quit the Sicannie."
"You shall have the tea and the flour," Le Noir agreed. "There are theshelves. Take what you want. I give my word for the Police. I would begof you to stay to-night, but these government men have sharp ears andeyes. Should they get a hint--I cannot put a blanket over the mouths ofmy men----" he spread his hands as if to indicate that anything mighthappen.
Throughout our brief stay Barreau's thinly veiled vigilance did not oncerelax. The supplies he selected I carried to the door while he stoodback watching me with his rifle slung in the hollow of his arm. If thiswary attitude irked Le Noir he passed it by. To me it seemed thatBarreau momentarily expected some overt act.
Eventually we had the food, a hundred pounds of flour, a square tin oftea, a little coffee, some salt and pepper and half a dozen extra pairsof moccasins lashed on the toboggan. Then he stirred up the surly dogsand we went crunching over the harsh snow to the stockade wall attendedby Donald and his lantern, and the Factor himself swathed to the heelsin a great coat of beaver.
At the drawing of the bar and the inward swing of the great gate,Barreau put a final question to Le Noir. "Tell me, if it is notbetraying a confidence," he said ironically, "how much Montell'sflitting cost the Company?"
"It is no secret," the Factor replied. "Sixty thousand dollars in goodBank of Montreal notes. A fair price."
"A fair price indeed," Barreau laughed "Good-night, M'sieu the Black."
The gate creaked to its close behind us as the dogs humped against thecollars. A hundred yards, and the glimmering night enfolded us; thestockade became a vague blur in the hazy whit
Barreau swung sharp to the west. This course he held for ten minutes ormore. Then down to the river, across it and up to the south flat. Herehe turned again and curtly bidding me drive the dogs, tramped on aheadpeering down at the unbroken snow as he went. We plodded thus till wewere once more abreast of the stockade. For a moment I lost sight ofBarreau; then he called to me and I came up with him standing with hisback to the cutting wind that still thrust from out the east like ared-hot spear.
He took the dog-whip from me without a word, swinging the leaderssouthward. In the uncertain light I could see no mark in the snow. Butunder my webbed shoes there was an uneven feeling, as if it weretrampled. We bore straight across the flat and angled up a long hill,and on the crest of it plunged into the gloomy aisles of the forest.Once among the spruce, Barreau halted the near-winded dogs for abreathing spell.
"We will go a few miles and make camp for the night," he said. "This isMontell's trail."
"The more miles the better," I rejoined. "I'm tired, but I have no wishto hobnob with the Policemen."
"Faugh!" he burst out. "There are no Policemen. That was as much a bluffas my hundred well-armed Indians. Le Noir is a poser. Do you think I'dever have gotten outside that stockade if there had been a redcoat athis call? Oh, no! That would have been the very chance for him--one thathe would have been slow to overlook. I know him. He's well named theBlack Factor. His heart is as black as his whiskers and the truth is notin him--when a lie can make or save a dollar for his god--which is theCompany. We have not quite done with him yet, I imagine. Hup there, youhuskies--the trail is long and we are two days behind!"