The Wolf's Long Howl, Stanley Waterloo [best pdf ebook reader TXT] 📗

at her neck and waist.

Spring came at last, and Red Dog and Bigbeam set off upon their journey to the factor's, as did other Indians from other localities for five hundred miles about. It was a dreadful journey, the hardships of which were undergone with characteristic Indian stoicism. There were break-downs of the sledges, there were blizzards in which the travelers almost perished, there was sickness among the dogs; and when finally the point was reached where the river was fairly open, and where the big canoe, _cached_ from the preceding season, could be launched and the load bestowed within it, there followed miserable adventures and misadventures, until, limping and pinched of face, the Indian and his squaw drew their boat to land upon the shore beside the trading post.

The trading posts of the Northwest Territory vary little in their manner of construction. They are built of logs as long as can be conveniently obtained, and consist of three divisions, the front a store with a rude counter, behind this the living-rooms of the factor and his assistants, and in the rear the great storeroom for the year's supplies. The front or trading room is usually well lighted by windows set in the side, for it is well to have good light when fine furs are to be passed upon. The trading room of McGlenn offered no exception to the rule, and his window seats were good resting places for the casual barterer.

Indians were thronging about and in the post as Red Dog and Bigbeam lugged their bale of furs up the bank and into the big room. There was jabbering among the bucks, while the squaws stood silently about, and among the most violent of the jabberers was Little Peter, who had already talked with the factor and by magnificent lying had almost convinced him that his own territory was the best for a new post. Unfortunately, though, for Little Peter, his efforts and those of his band had been somewhat lax during the winter, and the catch they brought did not in all respects sustain his story. Red Dog and Bigbeam mingled with the other Indians, and Red Dog was soon engaged in a violent controversy with his rival, while Bigbeam stood silent among the squaws. But Bigbeam was very tired; she had wielded the paddle for many days, she had lost sleep and her eyelids were heavy; nature was too strong; she edged away from the line of squaws, settled down into one of the window seats, her broad back filling completely its lower half, and drifted away into such dreamland as comes to the burdened and uncomplaining Indian women of the Northwest.

Down a pathway leading beside the storehouse came McGlenn, the factor, and his assistant, Johnson. They reached the window wherein Bigbeam was reposing and stopped in their tracks! They could not believe their eyes! Were they in Bond or Regent Street again! Never had they seen such magnificent display of costly furs before, never one so barbaric, unique and striking, and, withal, so honest in its richness! They did not hesitate a moment. They rushed around to the main entrance, tore their way profanely through the dense groups of Indians, and reached the window wherein they had seen displayed the marvel. Then they started back appalled! The interior appearance of that window afforded, perhaps, as vivid and complaining contrast to its exterior as had ever been presented since views had rivalry. The thongs about the neck of the swart Bigbeam had become undone, and her normal front filled all the window's broad interior. That front, to put it mildly, though picturesque, was not attractive. It afforded an area of greasy and dirty brown cuticle and of moose skin, if possible dirtier and greasier still. The two white men could not understand themselves. Was there witchcraft about; had they been drinking too much of the Scotch whisky in the stores? They forced their way outside and looked at the window again, and discovered that they were sane. There, pressed closely against the window by the weight of the sleeping Bigbeam, still extended in all its glory the wonderful robe of furs. Again they entered the post and unceremoniously pulled from her pleasant resting place the helpmate of Red Dog, the hunter. The cloak was seized upon and the two men hurried with it to the inner apartments, where it was studied carefully and with vigorous expressions of admiration.

"He's got it!" exclaimed McGlenn. "He's got it, the foxy rascal! It's only a trick of Red Dog's; but the buck who knows furs as well as that and who lives in a region where such furs can be found, and who's been sharp enough to utilize his squaw for a scheme like this, deserves the new post anyhow. You'll have to go up there, Johnson, and take some of the voyageurs with you, as soon as the river is open to the head, and establish a new post there. There'll be profit in it." Then Red Dog was ordered to come in.

How, recognizing the effect already produced upon the factor by Bigbeam's cloak, Red Dog waxed eloquent in description of the fur producing facilities of his region cannot here be described at length. From the picture he drew vehemently in bad French-Canadian language it would appear that the otter and the beaver fought together for mere breathing places in the streams, that the sable and the marten and the ermine were household pets, and that as for the foxes, blue and silver gray, they were so numerous that the spruce grouse had learned to build their nests in trees! Turning his regard from his own country, he referred to that of Little Peter. He described Little Peter as a desperate character with a black heart and with no skill at all in the capture of wild things. As to Little Peter's country, it was absurd to talk about it! It was a desolate waste of rocks and shrub, whereon even the little snowbirds could not live, and where the few bad Indians who found a home there subsisted upon roots alone. It was a great oration.

The factor and his assistant listened and laughed and made allowances, but did not alter the decision reached. Red Dog was told that the new post would be established in his own hunting grounds. As a special favor, he was given a quart bottle of whisky and ordered sternly to conduct himself as well as he could under the circumstances. Never was prouder Indian than Red Dog when he emerged from the storeroom. Before the day had ended, his furs were all disposed of, including the marvelous cloak, and in his big canoe were stored away quantities of powder and bullets and tobacco, and other things appertaining to the comfort of the North-western Indian. In place of her cloak of furs Bigbeam wore a blanket so gorgeous of coloring that even the brilliantly hued wood ducks envied her as they swept by overhead. In the bottom of the canoe lay Red Dog. He had secured more whisky, and was as the dead who know not. He would awake on the morrow with a headache, perhaps, but with a proud consciousness that he had accomplished the feat of a statesman for himself and for his band. Bigbeam rowed steadily toward home, crooning some barbarous old half-song of her race. She was very happy.


MARKHAM'S EXPERIENCE

Markham awoke late for the simple reason that it had been nearly morning when he went to bed. He awoke lying flat upon his back, and looked up dreamily at the pattern on the ceiling It was unfamiliar and that set his mind at work, and gradually he recognized where he was and why he was there. He reasoned idly that it must be as late as ten o'clock in the forenoon, and knew that by reaching out his arm he could open the shutter of the hotel window, admitting the sunlight and affording a view over the park and the blue lake, but he was laggard about it. There was a pleasure in debating the matter with himself. He could hear bells, the whistling of steamers and locomotives, the rumble of carriages and the murmur which comes from many distant voices. He recognized that another day in a great city was fairly on, and that the thousands were in motion while he lay listless.

He forgot the sounds and thought about himself. He acknowledged, though with a certain lenience of judgment, the absurdity of being where he was. He should have shown more resolve, he admitted, at 2 A.M., and have gone to his lodgings, a mile or so away. But he had been doing good work the night before; that, at least, should, he felt, be counted to his credit. Payne had come on from Washington with a duty of moment to perform, and had called upon Markham to assist him. Years had passed since they had worked together and it was a pleasure to renew the combination. How well they understood each other's methods, and how easily confident they felt united! They had been dilatory with what they had to accomplish, so self-conscious of their force were they, and had justified themselves gracefully in the event. They had strolled forth after their labor, the last dispatch sent, had smoked and become reminiscent, and had been soaked by a summer rain. They had been boys again. Of the two, Markham had been the more buoyant and more reckless. He had been a sick man, though still upon his legs and among his fellows, when Payne had found him. Things had been going wrong with Markham. His equation with Her had been disturbed.

It had been a test, there was no doubt of that, especially of the woman, the relations between Markham and her who had come to be more to him than he had ever before known or imagined one human being could be to another. She loved him; she had confessed that in a sweet, womanly way, but there was an obstacle between them. Before she could become his, there was something for him to accomplish; something hard, perplexing, and difficult in every way. He had not been idle. He had laid the foundations for his structure of happiness, but foundations do not reveal themselves as do upper stories, and she could not see the careful stonework. The domes and minarets of the castle for which she may have longed were not in sight. He alone knew what had been his work, but she was hardly satisfied. And, then, suddenly, because of a disturbing fancy, founded on a fact which was yet not a fact in its relations, she had become another being. One thing, meaning much, she had done, which took from the man his strength. It was as if his heart had been drained of its blood. He was not himself. He groped mentally. Was there no faithful love in woman; no love like his, which could not help itself and was without alternative? Were women less than men, and was calculation or instability a possibility with the sweetest and the noblest of them? No boy was this; he had known very many women very well, but he was helpless as a babe in the new world he had found when he met this one who had become so much. She had changed him mentally and morally, and even physically, for he had been a careless liver, and she had turned him from his drifting into a better course. She had made him, and now, had he been a weaker man, she would have unmade him. And he had become ill because of it, and almost desperate. Then came the evidence that she was a woman, as good women are dreamed of, after