The Gun-Brand, James B. Hendryx [i read a book TXT] 📗

Miss Elliston—can't you see—I am thinking of your welfare—of your safety; I have known you but a short time, as acquaintance is reckoned, but already you have become more to me than——"

Chloe interrupted him with a gesture.

"Don't—please—I——"

Lapierre ignored the protest, and, seizing her hand in both his own, spoke rapidly. "I will say it! I have known it from the moment of our first meeting. I love you! And I shall win you—and together we will——"

"Oh, don't—don't—not—now—please!"

The man bowed and released the hand. "I can wait," he said gravely. "But please—for your own good—take my advice. I know the North. I was born in the North, and am of the North. I have sought only to help you. Why do you refuse to profit by my experience? Must you endure what I have endured to learn what I offer freely to tell you? I shudder to think of It. The knowledge gleaned by experience may be the most lasting, but it is dearly purchased, and at a great loss—always." The man's voice was very earnest, and Chloe detected a note of mild reproach. She hastened to reply.

"I have profited by your advice—have learned much from what you have told me. I am under obligation to you. I appreciate your interest in—in my work, and am indeed grateful for what you have done to further it. But there are some things, I suppose, one must learn by experience. I may be silly and headstrong. I may be wrong. But I stand ready to pay the price. The loss will be mine. See!" she cried excitedly, "they are rolling up the logs for the store."

"Yes," answered the man gravely, "I bow to your wishes in the matter of your buildings. If you refuse to build a stockade we may erect a few more buildings—but as few as you can possibly manage with, Miss Elliston. I must hasten southward."

Chloe studied for some moments. "The store"—she checked them off upon her fingers—"the schoolhouse, two bunkhouses, we can leave off the bathrooms, the river and the lake will serve until winter."

Lapierre nodded, and the girl continued. "We can do without the laundry and the carpenter-shop, and the individual cabins. The Indians can set up their teepees in the clearing, and build the cabins and the other buildings later. But I would like a little cottage for myself, and Miss Penny, and Lena. We could make three rooms do. Can we have three rooms?"

Lapierre bowed low. "It shall be as you say," he replied. "And now, if you will excuse me, I shall see to it that these canaille work. LeFroy they do not fear."

He turned to go, and at that moment Chloe Elliston saw a look of terror flash into his eyes. Saw his fingers clutch and grope uncertainly at the gay scarf at his throat. Saw the muscles of his face work painfully. Saw his colour fade from rich tan to sickly yellow. An inarticulate, gurgling sound escaped his lips, and his eyes stared in horror toward a point beyond and behind her.

She turned swiftly and gazed into the face of a man who had approached unnoticed from the direction of the river, and stood a few paces distant with his eyes fixed upon her. As their glances met the man's gaze continued unflinching, and the soft-brimmed Stetson remained on his head. Her slender fingers clenched into her palms and, unconsciously, her chin thrust forward—for she knew intuitively that the man was "Brute" MacNair.

CHAPTER VI BRUTE MACNAIR

Estimates are formed, in a far greater measure than most of us care to admit, upon first impressions. Manifestly shallow and embryonic though we admit them to be, our first impressions crystallize, in nine cases out of ten, into our fixed or permanent opinions. And, after all, the reason for this absurdity is simple—egotism.

Our opinions, based upon first impressions—and we rarely pause to analyse first impressions—have become our opinions, the result, as we fondly imagine, of our judgment. Our judgment must be right—because it is our judgment. Therefore, unconsciously or consciously, every subsequent impression is bent to bolster up and sustain that judgment. We hate to be wrong. We hate to admit, even to ourselves, that we are wrong.

Strange, isn't it? How often we are right (permit the smile) in our estimate of people?

When Chloe Elliston turned to face MacNair among the stumps of the sunlit clearing, her opinion of the man had already been formed. He was Brute MacNair, one to be hated, despised. To be fought, conquered, and driven out of the North—for the good of the North. His influence was a malignant ulcer—a cancerous plague-spot, whose evil tentacles, reaching hidden and unseen, would slowly but surely fasten themselves upon the civilization of the North—sap its vitality—poison its blood.

In the flash of her first glance the girl's eyes took in every particular and detail of him. She noted the huge frame, broad, yet lean with the gaunt leanness of health, and endurance, and physical strength. The sinew-corded, bronzed hands that clenched slowly as his glance rested for a moment upon the face of Lapierre. The weather-tanned neck that rose, columnlike, from the open shirt-throat. The well-poised head. The prominent, high-bridged nose. The lantern jaw, whose rugged outline was but half-concealed by the roughly trimmed beard of inky blackness. And, the most dominant feature of all, the compelling magnetism of the steel-grey eyes of him—eyes, deep-set beneath heavy black brows that curved and met—eyes that stabbed, and bored, and probed, as if to penetrate to the ultimate motive. Hard eyes they were, whose directness of gaze spoke at once fearlessness and intolerance of opposition; spoke, also, of combat, rather than diplomacy; of the honest smashing of foes, rather than dissimulation.

Ail this the girl saw in the first moments of their meeting. She saw, too, that the eyes held a hostile gleam, and that she need expect from their owner no sympathy—no deference of sex. If war were to be between them, it would be a man's war, waged upon man's terms, in a man's country. No quarter would be given—Chloe's lips pressed tight—nor would any be asked.

The moments lengthened into an appreciable space of time and the man remained motionless, regarding her with that probing, searching stare. Lapierre he ignored after the first swift glance. Instinctively the girl knew that the man had no intention of being deliberately or studiously rude in standing thus in her presence with head covered, and eyeing her with those steel-grey, steel-hard eyes. Nevertheless, his attitude angered her, the more because she knew he did not intend to. And in this she was right—MacNair stared because he was silently taking her measure, and his hat remained upon his head because he knew of no reason why it should not remain upon his head.

Chloe was the first to speak, and in her voice was more than a trace of annoyance.

"Well, Mr. Mind-Reader, have you figured me out—why I am here, and——"

"No." The word boomed deeply from the man's throat, smashing the question that was intended to carry the sting of sarcasm. "Except that it is for no good—though you doubtless think it is for great good."

"Indeed!" The girl laughed a trifle sharply. "And who, then, is the judge?"

"I am." The calm assurance of the man fanned her rising anger, and, when she answered, her voice was low and steady, with the tonelessness of forced control.

"And your name, you Oligarch of the Far Outland? May I presume to ask your name?"

"Why ask? My name you already know. And upon the word of yon scum, you have judged. By the glint o' hate, as you looked into my eyes, I know—for one does not so welcome a stranger beyond the outposts. But, since you have asked, I will tell you; my name is MacNair—Robert MacNair, by my christening—Bob MacNair, in the speech of the country——"

"And, Brute MacNair, upon the Athabasca?"

"Yes. Brute MacNair—upon the Athabasca—and the Slave, and Mackenzie—and in the haunts of the whiskey-runners, and 'Fool' MacNair—in Winnipeg."

"And among the oppressed and the down-trodden? Among those whose heritage of freedom you have torn from them? What do they call you—those whom you have forced into serfdom?" For a fleeting instant the girl caught the faintest flicker, a tiny twinkle of amusement, in the steely eyes. But, when the man answered, his eyes were steady.

"They call me friend."

"Is their ignorance so abysmal?"

"They have scant time to learn from books—my Indians. They work."

"But, a year from now, when they have begun to learn, what will they call you then—your Indians?"

"A year from now—two years—-ten years—my Indians will call me—friend."

Chloe was about to speak, but MacNair interrupted her. "I have scant time for parley. I was starting for Mackay Lake, but when Old Elk reported two of yon scum's satellites hanging about, I dropped down the river. By your words it's a school you will be building. If it were a post I would have to take you more seriously——"

"There will be a—" Chloe felt the warning touch of Lapierre's finger at her back and ceased abruptly. MacNair continued, as if unmindful of the interruption.

"Build your school, by all means. 'Tis a spot well chosen by yon devil's spawn, and for his own ends. By your eyes you are honest in purpose—a fool's purpose—and a hare-brained carrying out of it. You are being used as a tool by Lapierre. You will not believe this—not yet. Later—perhaps, when it is too late—but, that is your affair—not mine. At the proper time I will crush Lapierre, and if you go down in the crash you will have yourself to thank. I have warned you. Yon snake has poisoned your mind against me. In your eyes I am foredamned—and well damned—which causes me no concern, and you, no doubt, much satisfaction.

"Build your school, but heed well my words. You'll not tamper, one way or another, with my Indians. One hundred and seventy miles north of here, upon Snare Lake, is my post. My Indians pass up and down the Yellow Knife. They are to pass unquestioned, unmolested, unproselyted. Confine your foolishness to the southward and I shall not interfere—carry it northward, and you shall hear from me.

"Should you find yourself in danger from your enemies—or, your friends"—he shot a swift glance toward Lapierre, who had remained a pace behind the girl—"send for me. Good day."

Chloe Elliston was furious. She had listened in a sort of dumb rage as the man's words stung, and stung again. MacNair's uncouth manner, his blunt brutality of speech, his scornful, even contemptuous reference to her work, and, most of all, his utter disregard of her, struck her to the very depths. As MacNair turned to go, she stayed him with a voice trembling with fury.

"Do you imagine, for an instant, I would stoop to seek your protection? I would die first! You have had things your own way too long, Mr. Brute MacNair! You think yourself secure, in your smug egotism. But the end is in sight. Your petty despotism is doomed. You have hoodwinked the authorities, bribed the police, connived with the Hudson Bay Company, bullied and browbeaten the Indians, cheated them out of their birthright of land and liberty, and have forced them into a peonage that has filled your pockets with gold."

She paused in her vehement outburst and glared defiantly at MacNair, as if to challenge a denial. But the man remained silent, and Chloe felt her face flush as the shadow of a twinkle played for a fleeting instant in the depths of the hard eyes. She fancied, even, that the lips behind the black beard smiled—ever so slightly,

"Oh, you needn't laugh! You think because I'm a woman you will be able to do as you please with me——"

"I did not laugh," answered the man gravely. "Why should I laugh? You take yourself seriously. You believe, even, that the things you have just spoken are true. They must be true. Has not Pierre Lapierre told you they are