# The Red Book Magazine/Volume 36/Number 5/The Mistake of M. Bruette

Extracted from The Red Book Magazine, March 1921, pp. 23–27, 140–144. Accompanying illustrations by Frank Schoonover may be added later.
THE MISTAKE OF M. BRUETTE
By GEORGE T. MARSH
Illustrated by FRANK SCHOONOVER
Here is a man who knows the North at first hand and tells a story out of the heart of it.
JOHN GORDON stood on the high shore of Little Whale River where the last of the ebb ran swollen with snow-water from far Ungava Hills, watching the lazy flight of a squadron of snowy geese bound for their nesting-grounds in nameless Arctic islands. Behind him in the post clearing, husky sled-dogs sprawled on the young grass or reveled in the warmth of the laggard sun, for the spring had come late to the east coast of Hudson Bay.
As the geese faded into the haze, the factor at Whale River chanced to glance downstream where the huddled white buildings of the Northwest Company lay dim in the distance, to notice a small object moving on the river miles below.
“What in thunder are they bucking that tide for?” he said aloud. “In an hour they'd get the flood. I wonder where they're bound upriver with the big canoe?”
The factor turned back to the trade-house and busied himself with his clerk and half-breed Company men in preparation for the spring trade.
Two years before, the ships of the new Northwest Company had sailed through Hudson's Straits to the great subarctic bay and located trading-pests at the mouths of the important rivers where the Hudson's Bay Company had reigned, lord of the North, for two centuries. To lure the Cree and the Eskimo to their posts, they had offered higher values in barter for fur than the old Company would give; but at Whale River and Fort George the majority of the hunters had remained loyal.
Again, the following year, the Northwest traders had outbid their rivals, but the long years of square dealing of John Gordon, whom the Crees called “The Man with One Tongue,” had given him a hold on the red trappers not lightly to be broken.
Gordon's attention was attracted from a bale of blankets by the yelping of huskies down on the river shore.
“What's the matter with the dogs, Angus?” he asked his clerk. “Sounds like a canoe coming.”
The uproar of the huskies increased; then a Company servant opened the door of the trade-house to announce:
“Norwes' Companee canoe on de shore, Meester Gordon.”
Wondering at his rival's purpose in sending a canoe to Whale River, Gordon crossed the post clearing to meet his callers. Below, on the beach, six red voyageurs waited beside a big Peterborough canoe for the return of Monsieur Bruette, the Northwest Company factor, who was climbing the cliff path.
“Good day!” said Gordon dryly, as his caller reached the level of the post clearing.
“Bon jour, Monsieur Gordon. I hope you have good health.”
The Frenchman gave Gordon a military salute, for the employees of the rival company were all ex-army men.
“Fine! Same to you,” laconically returned the Scotchman, shaking hands; then he added: “Come over to my quarters, Mr. Bruette. You want to see me privately, I take it?”
“Yes, I would speek wiz you a leetle business.”
IN the factor's living-room, the agents of the rival fur-companies sat with a bottle of Scotch and Gordon's much-treasured and last box of cigars between them. In his two years residence below Whale River, the French factor of the Northwest Company had not paid the Hudson's Bay post: the honor of a call; but men marooned in the wide North welcome any break in the monotony of the wilderness life, even in the shape of a gossip with those who are fighting them for the fur-trade. So it was with Gordon. Whatever might prove to be the object of the visit of the canoe from below, he was glad of the chance to learn what manner of man had been sent to wrest from him the trade of the east coast.
Following casual comment on the severity of the winter and the large flights of geese and duck in the early spring, Monsieur Bruette clapped his glass on the table and proceeded to the business in hand.
“Monsieur Gordon, you have been long tam in dees country?”
“Twenty-six years in July, on this coast.”
“Ah!” The Frenchman shook his head, then went on: “A long, long tam, the best years of life of a man, ees eet not so?”
“Yes, I've put in a lifetime here.” The note of bitterness in Gordon's reply did not escape the eager ears of the other.
“You have made much business for the H. B. C., much monee, een all dese year, I am told.”
Gordon smiled at the trend the conversation was taking.
“Yes, Mr. Bruette, I've turned in big profits in my time.” Then the pride of the trader impelled him to add: “Bigger profits than this coast ever produced before!”
“I have heard it. Wiz de Indian and huskee you are a wizard—a genius.” Then, with an eloquent shrug of the shoulders, the Frenchman burst out: “But what do dese H. B. C. gentlemen do for you, Monsieur Gordon? I ask you dat? Dese men you give de travail of your bodee and soul for dese long, long year. For dese H. B. C. you mak de grand business, but how do dey mak de payment to you?”
The cards of Monsieur Bruette lay face up on the table. The reason for the presence of the canoe of the new company at Whale River Post was out. The Northwester had come bearing gifts.
“The Company is a hard master, but just, according to its lights,” parried Gordon. “In four years it will put me on half-pay for life, if I want to quit.”
Monsieur Bruette raised his hands in a gesture of disgust.
“Ah! A reward—magnifique! Because you are de beau trader, because you speek to de Cree and huskee lak one of dem, de Hudson's Bay keep you on de east coast till you are gray-haired old man. Den dese ver' good fat gentlemen toss you to de bush, lak old canoe, eh? Give you de grand pension of half-pay? Ha-ha! What a generositee!”
The Frenchman laughed loudly and long, while the barb of his irony pierced deeply the pride of Gordon.
“Do dey send you as inspector to Rupert or Moose or de wes'? Do dey say: 'Monsieur Gordon, you mak de beeg monee for us: we give you share; we raise your salarie'? Eh? No—no! Not de H. B. C.”
Monsieur Bruette had the grievance of Gordon at his tongue's end. As the seducer subtly expatiated on the Scotchman's cavalier treatment at the hands of the Company, the stone-hard face of Gordon gave no sign of the battle which raged within him—the battle between lifelong loyalty to the old organization and wild hopes for those he loved.
“No, Monsieur Gordon, eet ees not de habeet of de Hudson's Bay to divide wid dere men. Wid de H. B. C. eet ees: 'Get much and geeve leetle.' Ees eet not so?”
Gordon listened without protest to this scathing commentary on the methods of his superiors. Moreover, he was curious to learn what his caller had to offer as the price of his treason; so he threw out brusquely:
“You seem to know the facts, Mr. Bruette; suppose we get down to business.”
“Ver' good! I have heard you were a man of wise head.”
Monsieur Bruette rubbed his hands with satisfaction, evidently much relieved that this Scotchman, who was known from Hudson Straits to Norway House to possess an unusually stiff neck, should make his task so easy.
“Monsieur Gordon, de Nor'wes' Companee are fur-dealer, de most rich in de worl'. Een Siberia, Russia, Mongolia, we have our traders, an' now we have come to Canada, an' we have come to stay.”
The Frenchman leaned forward, lifting his voice dramatically.
“We want de bes' man on dees Bay. We want you.”
“What'll you give?” Gordon roughly cut in, scowling into face of the other as though listening to a deadly insult—and deep in his heart, he felt it was.
“De H. B. C. will keep you on dees coast, because dey need you here, but dey weel not pay you more than dey pay now—twelve hunder dollar.”
The-bushy eyebrows of the Scotchman lifted with surprise,
“De Nor'wes' companee weel geeve you two t'ousand dollar. for t'ree year, and den t'ree t'ousand as long as you stay. Dat ees better dan de H. B. C. pay deir inspector, eh?”
Gordon nodded. Truly, the Frenchman knew whereof he spoke.
“You forget my pension, Mr. Bruette. Four years more, and I can retire. If I go with your people, I lose that.”
For a moment Monsieur Bruette was occupied seemingly in a mental calculation. Then he replied:
“You are right, Monsieur Gordon. In dat case we would mak a contract wid you for ten year, if you weesh.”
“I would want a contract for fifteen years—I'm good for fifteen yet—and at three thousand a year. My service to commence, mind you, after this year's trade is over, and not until then.”
The gray eyes of Gordon bored into those of the man across table. If this Northwest Company was to buy him body and soul, they should pay the price. If he was to make his name a byword among Hudson's Bay men, the friends of a lifetime, for the desertion of the old company, it should cost them dear. Well, at any rate, the kiddies should have their chance at a schooling in Scotland. It justified him playing turncoat.
He looked up to see the curly red head of the youngest Gordon pass a window of the room in mad chase of a husky puppy. Yes, it was worth while. The bairns, bless them, should have a decent start in life. What cared he whether the next Christmas mail teams carried the news into every post in the North from Fading Waters to Lac Seul, that John Gordon had quit the old company for Northwest gold, the old company to whose interest for twenty-six years he had given the best of his body and brain. He could out hear the Scotch burr of many an old comrade of winter trail and summer voyage rasping out anathema upon his treason.
But after all, what did it matter? The Company had had its chance, had held John Gordon too lightly—and lost him. Others knew his worth—would pay well for his influence with the Crees. Why should he not go with the Northwest? A man was not a slave. And then the bairns, and the woman who had been his stanch helpmate through all the years—they would be provided for.
Monsieur Bruette broke into his revery.
“Monsieur Gordon, we weel mak' contract wid you for fifteen year, at t'ree thousand a year. We weesh you in all way satisfied. De Northwest Companee know the wort' of a man, eef de H. B. C. do not.”
“Very good,” said Gordon, drawing a deep breath. “I'll take a few days to consider this offer. When do you want to sign up?”
The Frenchman's face fell. “Why wait? I can write out de contract now. I have authoritee from Montreal. Let us shake hand over dees today, Monsieur Gordon,” he urged.
“No, I want a few days,” the Scotchman insisted. “I'll drop down to your place within the week with my answer.” Gordon's tone was final. The Frenchman was a judge of men, and knew the better than to protest further; so he bowed to the situation.
“Ver' good, den; but remember de grand chance we offair you. Better dan any H. B. C. inspector salary. Think it ovair carefulee, Monsieur Gordon. Eet ees de grand chance for you, eh?”
It was, indeed, the great opportunity for John Gordon, but the it was with mingled feelings of elation and sadness that he accompanied his guest back to his canoe on the beach, and saw him off with his red voyageurs.
“MOTHER, the bairns'll have their chance now, every last one of them.”
“What do you mean, John?” Gordon had eaten his supper in silence while the wise woman, who knew him, waited for the relaxation of his pipe for the explanation of the mysterious interview of the afternoon.
“They have offered me three thousand a year to leave the Company.” Gordon's eyes avoided his wife's surprised glance.
“Three thousand dollars a year?” Joan Gordon dropped her knitting.
“Yes, they seem to know the value of a man who can hold the trade even against the better prices of his competitors,” he said sullenly.
“And you accepted the offer?”
The note of apprehension in her voice flushed Gordon's bronzed face.
“Accepted it, Mother, when it means an education for the children and a snug nest-egg for our old age—a fifteen-year contract at three thousand, when the Company keeps me here on twelve hundred with a yearly, 'Thank you,' for the money I've made them? I'd be mad to refuse it.”
“Then it's settled; you're leaving the Company?”
Gordon stared blankly at the sober-faced woman before him. That she should treat this news, which meant so much for the future of herself and the children, as calamity rather than good fortune, was inexplicable.
“I told him I'd take a week to think it over.” Then he burst out impatiently: “But what's the matter with you? Don't you understand what this means to us?”
Joan Gordon rose to her feet and faced her husband.
“John Gordon,” she began slowly, “you know that I would work my fingers to the bone for the children: you know how I hope and pray for them. The people at Winnipeg may not have treated you as they should, but does that justify you, after twenty-six years, in deserting the old flag? Do you know what they will call our lads in the North Country when you and I are gone? 'The sons of Gordon, who was bought by the Northwest!'”
Gordon listened with eyes fixed on a crack in the floor to her stinging rebuke.
“You know deep in your heart, John, that some day you will despise yourself for this thing—for leaving the old company and the comrades of your youth, bad treatment or no. They will speak your name with contempt in every fur-post in the North: 'Gordon, who sold out and gave the Northwest their start on the east coast!'”
“Oh, the Indians and the huskies will stand by you right enough,” she continued. “You'll take them with you: I've no doubt of that. You'll earn your three thousand a year. But will it be worth it? I want the little ones to have their chance, but not that way, John, not that way.”
The perplexed factor took the sobbing woman into his arms.
“There, there, Mother! You're taking this thing too much to heart. I've a right to choose my employer, and the Northwest is free to hire me when the trade is over this spring. Plenty of Hudson's Bay men have turned free-traders in the west. The Company does not own me.”
“Oh, I know, John, but it's disloyal. Other men have not received their just due, but they haven't deserted. It—it seems as if I couldn't ever respect you again if you went over to the Northwest just for the money.”
TWO days passed, and Gordon was no nearer the solution of his problem. Still, the battle between loyalty to the old company, the habit of a lifetime. and outraged pride, buttressed by the flattering offer which had been made him, left him no peace of mind.
On the morning of the third day after the visit of Monsieur Bruette, the head Company voyageur Michel called through the trade-house door to those inside:
“Upriver canoe comin', one paddle!”
Later the canoe landed at the post, and the Cree voyageur hurried to the trade-house.
“Quay! Quay!” cried the newcomer, breathing hard from his recent exertion.
“Quay! What brings you downriver, Pierre, without your family?” Gordon asked in Cree as he shook hands with the old Indian.
“My family camp at Three Island Rapids. There are many tepees all from the Caribou Lakes,” the Indian replied in his native tongue. “One sleep ago we met there Batoche with a canoe from the new Company post. They carry a keg of burning water and wait for the canoes from Rivière de Loup. When the moon rose, I started and have not stopped to eat, that you might know.”
“What do you say, whisky?” cried the amazed Gordon. “The Northwest people are upriver meeting the Crees with whisky?”
“It is the truth. They have already given our young men this burning water, and they are all camped waiting for the Wolf River Crees.”
“The damned scoundrels! Listen to this, Angus.” Gordon turned with blazing eyes to his clerk, who was descending the ladder from the fur loft. “Pierre says the Northwesters met the first of the Crees at Three Island Rapids yesterday and are giving them whisky. They've camped, waiting for the upper Whale River hunters. Going to get the fur away from us this year by fair means or foul! What do you think of that?”
“Stealing the trade by getting the Crees drunk?” stormed the excited clerk. “The blackguards, to start ruining the Indians who haven't had a drop from this Company for two centuries. What are you doing about it?”
“What am I doing about it? What am I doing about it, man?” rasped Gordon, his Scotch blood afire. “Why, I'm leaving for Three Island Rapids as fast as you can throw a tent and grub into the big Peterborough. Call Michel and the men and get out a week's rations for six. I'll show the Northwest that John Gordon can't be dragooned by a scurvy trick like that.”
“Mother,” the factor cried, when he reached his quarters, “it's settled! We stay at Whale River with the old flag.”
“Why, what's happened, John?” Joan Gordon watched her husband hastily stow a few necessaries into a flour-bag.
“Bruette has made it easy for me. Thinking he had my hands tied with this contract, he loses no time rubbing it into the old Hudson's Bay by sending that half-breed Batoche upriver to meet the Crees and get them drunk.”
“The Northwest are giving the Indians liquor?”
“Yes, Bruette thinks because I've been badly treated, that I wont play square with the Company. I told him I wouldn't sign a contract until the spring trade was over, but he figures that I wont fight him for it. That's where Mr. Bruette blundered.”
“Oh, don't you see now, what he must think of you, John, even though he wants you?”
“I don't care what he thinks, Mother; I'm a Hudson's Bay man still; and this thing settles it. I stay one. I'm going upriver to show the Northwest that John Gordon can hold the Crees, drunk or sober, on this coast.”
Joan Gordon's eyes were bright with pride as she stood with hands on his shoulders:
“Now you're talking like my John Gordon! But be careful, wont you? If they're drinking, there may be trouble. Take plenty of men with you, John.”
“There'll be no trouble.”
Hastily bidding her good-by, the Scotchman found his head voyageur Michel and four Company Indians on the shore with the canoe.
“There'll be Government police from Ottawa on the east coast this summer, Angus,” he said to his clerk standing beside him. “Two thousand dollars' fine and a two-year jail sentence for giving whisky to an Indian, mind you. The Northwest are daily in more ways than one, lad.” The Scotchman smiled mysteriously to himself as he stepped into the boat.
“All got their guns, Michel?” he asked the bowman.
“Oua! All in de canoe—gun, tent, grub for seex day,” replied the big Cree, impatient to be off.
“Give them what's what, lads!” called Angus McKenzie from the shore; and at a word from the bowman, six narrow Cree blades dipped the water in unison, and the canoe shot up stream.
At the bend above the post Gordon waved a last good-by the little group on the high shore and turned again to his paddling. For the first time in three days his conscience was easy. The problem which had harassed his thoughts had been solved for him out of hand. A man, if not already bound, might honorably sell his services to the highest bidder, but for the agent of the North west Company to imagine that John Gordon, while still in the employ of the Hudson's Bay, would shut his eyes to this business and not make a fight for the spring trade! It made his blood hot to realize what manner of man they thought him. Gordon made the water foam behind the vicious lunge of his paddle.
FOR generations before the Government put a stop to the whisky traffic with the Indians, the Hudson's Bay Company had banned liquor at its northern posts. The Crees of the cast coast were as innocent as babes of the taste of whisky, and a little would put them beyond all control. Gordon bit his beard with rage as he pictured the bedlam which two days of intoxication would create in the camp at Three island Rapids.
Through the long afternoon and far into the twilight the voyageurs drove the canoe up the swift river, paddling, or poling where the current permitted, often compelled to track the boat from the shore with a long line. Forty miles away—two days travel—lay their goal. The factor had little hope of doing anything with the Crees at the Rapids, already debauched by Northwest liquor. True, there were old men there who, drunk or sober, would listen to John Gordon; but of the young men, inflamed with their first orgy, he despaired. Still, if he could reach the Cree camp before the upper Whale River and Rivière de Loup hunters arrived and were seduced by Batoche, he was confident of spoiling Monsieur Bruette's game.
He would push on upriver till he met the Crees, and his influence with the treaty-chief and the older men would turn them against the Northwesters and save the trade.
The late June dusk already blanketed the valley when the roar of the falls reached the ears of the weary crew of the canoe from the post. Since daylight master and men had fought the current of the swift river that they might reach their goal before another night fell, and they had barely won. As they rounded a bend, the thick spruce of the Three Islands massed black ahead.
When the canoe neared the islands, the factor made out, here and there, the shapes of tepees thrown into relief against the forest by. the flickering light of camp-fires. His hopes rose, for from the few fires, he knew that the upriver Crees had not yet arrived.
Beaching the canoe below the camp, Gordon started with Michel and his crew up the shore toward a group of Crees around a large fire. In the thickening dusk he stumbled over something soft. He stooped. It was a young Cree, dead drunk.
“By gar! Batoche, he lose no tam!” said Michel.
“There're plenty more of them lying around in the bush, no doubt, with nothing to show tomorrow for their winter's hunt but a headache. I guess we're too late to save this camp, Michel,” gloomily replied the factor as they continued on up the beach.
“Listen!” The two stopped in their tracks, while from the fire, a stone's throw away, rose a voice speaking in Cree.
At intervals maudlin shouts and laughter greeted the speaker.
“Batoche, he tell de Cree how de new companee love dem,” commented the bowman dryly.
For a space Gordon listened to the wild harangue of the half-breed emissary of his rival, before he strode forward, followed by Michel and his men. In the dusk the approach of the factor escaped notice until he had shouldered his way through squaws and men into the circle of light cast by the fire. Then an Indian exclaimed in Cree: “The Old Man from the Post!”
INSTANTLY a hush fell, as the Indians realized that the man whose word for years had been the law on Little Whale River stood among them. In his surprise the half-breed stared open-mouthed at the enraged Scotchman confronting him. The hiccough of a drunken Indian alone broke the silence. Then Gordon found his voice.
“So the new company loves the Crees, does it?” he bellowed shaking a huge fist in the face of Batoche, who drew back on the defensive, his left hand seeking the handle of his knife.
“The new company loves the Crees,” he cried in their native tongue, turning from the “breed” to the knot of excited Indians, “and to prove their love they send this man to you with burning water—this man I kicked out of Fort George ten long snows ago, because he lied to the Crees at the spring trade.”
“It is a lie!” protested the half-breed. Above the noise of the crowd rose the voice of an old Cree.
“He speaks the truth. The Man with One Tongue knows not how to lie.”
This defense of Gordon drew scattering shouts of approval, mingled with jeers from the younger men who resented the interference with their debauch.
“The new company loves the Crees,” repeated Gordon, while at his side Michel watched the discomfited half-breed through narrowed eyes; “so they send this man with his water of fire to steal away your brains and get your black fox and fisher and martin pelts without paying you in trade-goods. This summer the Fathers of Ottawa shall hear of this and will punish the new company, because the law forbids firewater. But Bruette will have your fur, and you will return to your hunting-grounds without tea and flour and shells for your guns, and your women will starve, and your children cry to you through the long snows, for your tepees will be empty.”
Again there were vehement protests from the young Crees, but the older men held them in check while Gordon went on:
“Many freezing moons you have toiled for this fur, but you drink it up in one sleep in the burning water they give you. You are fools and the sons of fools, to listen to this man whom I once beat with my own hands for trying to rob you.”
Stung into fury by the insult, the half-breed had his knife half out of its sheath when the iron fingers of Michel closed on his wrist, and a swart face was thrust menacingly into his:
“You make some trouble, Batoche, an I feex you—so!”
And the arm of Batoche was twisted in the grip of steel till the half-breed went pale with pain. The fight was out of him, for the strength of Michel was a tradition on Whale River.
“You, Jean Elkwan!” Gordon called to an old Cree on the outskirts of the throng. “You have traded with me for many snows. Do I speak the truth of the new company and their water of fire?”
“Always you have spoken with one tongue,” replied the old Cree. “The young men would not listen to us, but drank the stinging water. The next sun I go to the old fort to trade my fur.”
“I an' my sons go also!” spoke up and another.
The cowed half-breed broke in sullenly: “We have trade no whiskee here for de fur. Not one leetle skeen. Then he spoke in Cree: “Do not the new company offer better prices for your fur than the old company? Answer me that!”
“Yes!” shouted many voices.
Gordon could not deny it. The Northwest Company had outbid the Hudson's Bay, but he replied:
“Yes, to get your fur from the old company that has given your fathers and our fathers' fathers fair prices when it might have robbed you,—for you had to trade with us,—they have offered you more trade-goods in barter. But the new company blankets are as rotten as a tree without leaves; their sugar is mixed with the white sand of the Big Water; and much of their flour is not from the white heart of wheat. When the hunt failed, I gave you credit; when your children and wives fell sick, I cured them with medicine; and my word I have not broken to you. Go to the new company, give them your pelts for the poisoned water, and listen to the cries of your starving children through the next long snows.”
Realizing the futility of further argument, Gordon left the mob of red men and squaws and with his men returned to his canoe. Crossing below the rapids, he camped on the upper end of the portage.
LONG before day broke blue over the indigo ridges to the east, a canoe left the portage at Three Island Rapids and stole swiftly up the heavily shadowed shore of the river. With muffled thrust of their poles, the crew drove the craft against the current until the sleeping camp of Crees was out of earshot. Later the sun rose to lift the river mists shrouding a canoe driven with all the power in the toil-hardened backs and arms of five Cree voyageurs and a white man. On they hurried through the early morning, tracking, poling and paddling as though death itself followed swiftly behind the last bend.
The sun was hours up when the bowman, glancing upriver as he heaved on his pole, suddenly shouted:
“Quay! Quay! Cano'!”
“What is it, Michel” called Gordon from the stern.
The bowman, trailing his pole, stood motionless, gazing up stream.
“Ah-hah!” He turned to Gordon. “Cano' ees poleeng. Batoche he get start first.”
“What, a canoe traveling upriver?” Gordon was nonplused, for he had been confident on starting that every soul in the Cree camp lay deep in sleep.
“Batoche send dees canoe in de night to meet upriver Cree,” insisted Michel. “But we say bon jour to dem dees side of de Medicine Portage.”
“Come on, lads,” cried Gordon. “Batoche needs a lesson. Give it to her!”
The long spruce setting-poles bowed to the heave of the crew, and the race was on. But the half-breed's drunken Crees had small chance of long holding the lead from Gordon's seasoned voyageurs, picked for their endurance, who raced for the honor of the company.
Mile after mile the pursuit continued through the hours of the morning. Less and less grew the distance between the boats. The crew ahead was tiring and steadily coming back. Hardly a half-mile now separated them, and Michel's keen eyes now counted the flash of but four paddles. It was but a matter of time.
They had entered a long reach of quiet water, and at each lunge of the six narrow blades that struck as one, the nose of the Hudson's Bay boat broke the flat surface of the river in a deep ripple.
When a short rifle-shot divided the canoes, the crew ahead suddenly ceased paddling. Then the bowman of the pursuing boat saw them swiftly exchange their paddles for guns. Warning his crew, Michel reached for his own rifle. But Gordon, ignoring the threat of the Crees, steered the big canoe, carried by its momentum, straight alongside the craft of the winded Batoche, who sat with rifle on his knees, cursing the Hudson's Bay men between his gasps for breath.
“So you're up to the same old trick, eh?” sneered the factor, surveying the exhausted Crees and their leader, who glared at his enemy through small blood-shot eyes like a trapped wolverine.
“Going to feed the whisky in that keg there to the upriver Crees, are you, Batoche?”
The half-breed made a threatening movement with his gun, but Michel was out of his boat like a cat, and on him.
“Drop dat gun, or I'll feed de raven wid you!”
With the point of Michel's knife at his throat, Batoche let his gun slip from his knees. Having no stomach for a fight with the Hudson's Bay men, the Crees followed their leader's example.
“Toss that keg overboard, Michel!” ordered Gordon.
Releasing his man, Michel first picked up the gun and, despite the protest of its owner, dropped it into the river. After it, he tossed the cask; then, before the astonished Batoche sensed his purpose, the Herculean Company man seized him suddenly, and lifting the half-breed high in his arms, hurled him after the keg.
Before Batoche rose gasping to the surface, Michel had the guns of the Crees and was back in the Hudson's Bay boat.
“You'll get your guns at the post when you are sober,” Gordon announced to the protesting but overawed crew.
When the half-drowned Batoche was fished out of the river and into his boat, Gordon flung back, as he started upstream:
“Now, you Batoche, make tracks for Three Islands and tell them what we've done to you. If you want to start some bloodletting on this coast, go ahead. But be sure, you'll swing for it if you don't get a knife into you before they take you to Ottawa.” As the Hudson's Bay boat moved away, Gordon added: “Give my regards to Mr. Bruette and tell him for me that he's a poor judge of men.”
ON the following morning the far flash of many paddles announced to Gordon's men, poling leisurely upstream, the coming of the upper Whale River Crees. With the fur-brigade was old Joseph Kapiskau, treaty-chief, and stanch friend of the ancient company. Gathered on the shore, the Indians listened to Gordon's recital of the work of Batoche at Three Islands and of his defeat the previous day.
When Gordon had finished, Kapiskau addressed his people:
“Many long snows have fallen and vanished since the Man with One Tongue came to this country to trade with the Crees. In all that time his word to us has been unbroken. Always he has been our friend. The new company came with flattery and offered more of their goods for our fur than the old company, but we did not trust them, all of us but some young men who were fools traded our fur at the old fort.
“The new company say they love the Cree. But they lie; they love the pelts of the Cree hunters. This year to get our fur they send the double-tongued Batoche to poison our young men and steal their winter's hunt. We have but one friend. He is here. He gives not the burning water to our young men. Let us go to the old fort with him and trade our fur where our young men and women shall be safe from the water of fire.”
“En-h! en-h!” cried many voices in approval. Then others followed the treaty-chief, condemning the new company and expressing their confidence in Gordon.
The council over, the Scotchman gravely shook hands, in accordance with the Cree custom, with Kapiskau and the adults present; and the spring trade was saved for the Hudson's Bay Company.
ON their way down the river the voyageurs found the Three Islands camp deserted. Evidently Batoche had conducted his victims to the Northwest post. But when Gordon's crew sighted the Hudson's Bay buildings at Whale River, the bowman cried out:
“Look! De Cree, dey leeve dere fr'en' Batoche!”
Gordon's jaw dropped in amazement, for the post clearing was dotted with tepees. Michel was right, for the major part of the Cree camp at the Three Island Rapids had come, after all, to the old company to trade. Evidently the advice of their elders and headaches of the young men had turned them against the Northwest and their fire-water.
June passed, and one by one the tepees in the post clearing disappeared and the canoes returned upriver for the salmon-fishing at the rapids.
July brought the Company steamer with trade-goods and supplies, for the bay and inland posts, from the depot at Charlton Island, where the big ships from London and Montreal annually repaired with their cargoes for the east and south coasts, and in turn loaded the winter's spoil from a land reaching from Labrador, fifteen hundred miles west, to the frontiers of the Barren Grounds—a land that knows not the whistle of locomotive or the clamor of the cities of men.
Unknown to Gordon, who had made little of his defeat of the plans of Monsieur Bruette to his friend Captain Freakley of the steamer, Michel spent one entire July evening in regaling the delighted crew with the details of the affair, and furthermore hinted strongly that the Northwest in vain had offered fabulous sums for the services of the factor of Whale River.
The Northern summer waned and died on the east coast. Vanguards of the swift autumn, the snowy geese swept back to join the gray hosts already at the fall rendezvous on yellowing south-coast marshes. Hard in their wake, riding the first stinging northwesters, raced the brant from far Arctic islands to fatten on succulent goose-grass before their long pilgrimages south to their winter home on the great gulf.
The Whale River goose-boats, manned by Company Indians, were still away hunting the winter's supply. With its whitewashed buildings, high banked with earth, flanked by huge piles of split birch, and its stores snug behind the hewn walls of the trade-house, the little fur-post faced the withering cold of the Ungava winter, which, after a week of October Indian summer, would overnight spread a white pall.
ONE afternoon in late September the Company sled-dogs announced the arrival of a canoe. Shortly the door of the trade-house opened, and Gordon looked up from a year-old copy of the London Times.
“Good day! Good day! Peter! What brings you up the coast from Rupert this time of year?” The factor shook hands with the grinning half-breed voyageur and his crew.
“Ordair from Moose, Meester Gordon, to sen' canoe wid dees lettair to Whale Riviére, queek. We are seex sleep out from Rupert House.” The half-breed handed Gordon a packet.
“Great guns, man! Six sleeps? You've not wasted the daylight.”
Wondering what Company business demanded such speed from the picked crew of canoe-men from Rupert House, Gordon opened the oil-skin envelope and unfolded the letter it contained.
As he read, the bronzed face of the factor reddened under his heavy beard. In spite of himself, his hands shook. Once he glanced quickly at the voyageur, eying him curiously; then with a deep breath he hurried to his quarters.
“Mother!” he called, entering his house. Mail packet from Rupert is just in with this.”
Joan Gordon listened as her husband read:
“'Hudson's Bay Company, Office of the Commissioner, Winnipeg.
“'Dear Sir:
“'We have learned of your great service to the Company last spring, for which we thank you. For many years your knowledge of the east coast trade has been invaluable, and since the coming of the Northwest Company we have for some time contemplated making Whale River, Fort George and East Main a separate district under an inspector. I take pleasure in informing you that at our last meeting you were appointed inspector of the east coast posts at a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars per annum. Instructions, and so forth, will be forwarded by winter mail.
“'Thanking you for your past valuable services and excellent returns, I am,
    “'Andrew Mackay, Commissioner.'”
The eyes of the big Scotchman dimmed with tears as he opened his arms to the woman who sought them.
“The bairns have got their chance after all, Mother,” he said, “the bairns—”
Suddenly into the face of the factor crept a puzzled look.
“Why should they relay a fall packet up the coast with this letter, instead of waiting for the Christmas mail?” he mused. “I guess some one has put a flea in the ear of the Honorable Commissioner at Winnipeg. That offer from the Northwest must have leaked out, and they were worried.”
And when Gordon told his head man, Michel, of his good luck, the swart features of the Cree shaped a smile so mysterious, so illuminating, that the suspicious Scotchman hazarded:
“Michel, you told Captain Freakley, probably, but how did you know that the Northwest tried to hire me from the company?”
“Wal,” said Michel, straightening proudly to his six feet of muscle and bone “dey try to buy Michel too.”
The hands of white man and red met in a mighty grip.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1945, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 78 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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