# The Red Book Magazine/Volume 37/Number 5/Once at Drowning River

Extracted from Red Book magazine, 1921 Sept, pp.70–74, 121, 122, 125, 126. Accompanying illustrations by Frank Schoonover omitted.
A vivid drama of life and love and death in the Far North, by the man who wrote “The Mistake of M. Bruette.”
Once at Drowning River
By George Marsh
Illustrated by'Frank Schoonover
“SO you're ordered to Fort Mamatawan, Stuart?”
McCloud, the factor at Fort Albany, smiled mysteriously.
“Do your realize?” he continued, “that you'll be living within three miles of the handsomest woman in North Country?”
Gordon Stuart, late factor at Whale River, far on the East coast, and bound for his new billet by way of the Albany and Drowning rivers, looked quizically at the speaker.
“Handsomest woman in the North at Mamatawan—what do you mean, McCloud?”
“I mean just that, man. Buried up on the east coast, you doubtless haven't heard of Mademoiselle Lecroix; but let me tell you, she's the sole topic of conversation here and at Moose when Company men get together.”
“Daughter of the French factor at their Drowning River post, I suppose?” suggested Stuart
“Yes. Hortense Lecroix is her name. Pretty name isn't it? And that's all there is to the story, old man. You'll be lucky if you every get more than a long-distance look at her. Old Lecroix watches her like a wolf—wont mix with our people at all. You'll have the pleasure of wintering in that God-forsaken country and never so much as a 'Bon jour, mademoiselle!' to break the monotony. Fraser was at Mamatawan three years and got just one look at her.”
“Have you seen her yourself, McCloud?”
“Oh, yes, she comes down with the fur-brigade to the French post here every summer.”
“Is she really a beauty, then?” Stuart was growing interested in his fair neighbor-to-be through the white silence of the coming winter on the lonely Drowning
“Man, she's nothing less. If I were her father, I'd keep her in a ten-foot dog-stockade, with good-looking women as scarce as they are in this country.”
Days later, the canoe of the new factor of Fort Mamatawan turned into the portage trail at the foot of the first white-water above the fork of the Albany and Drowning rivers. The Cree voyageurs were unloading the craft when suddenly Baptiste, the head man, looked up with a “Quay! Quay!”
Stuart turned from a pack he was lifting from the boat, to see a big Peterboro canoe emerging from the forest on the shoulders of four Indians .
Franch Companee fur-cano'!” exclaimed the head man, turning to Stuart.
The heart of the factor speeded its beat as he recalled the words of McCloud at Albany: “She comes with the fur every summer.”
“What luck!” he thought “She'll be with this outfit. I'll have a good look now.”
Barring a civil exchange of the Cree salutation, “Quay! Quay!” between the French company crew as they laid their canoe on the beach, and the Hudson's Bay men, there was a marked absence of the customary chatter and handshaking which follows the meeting of canoes in the North. The rivalry of the companies for the fur-trade wa plainly reflected in the attitude of their men.
When they had unloaded, Stuart's crew swung their canoe to their shoulders and started over the carry. But Stuart himself had no intention of abandoning his strategic position at the end of the portage. She would doubtless cross at once and wait on the shore for the loading of her. There he would have the chance to prove the truth of the gossip at Albany. There he would stay. So he proceeded to mark time by repacking his private duffle bags.
Shortly the French crew went back for their fur-packs, leaving Stuart alone.
Out of the spruce, down that age-traveled Indian portage, he mused, must come this Rose of the North. Eight years he had spent among the Eskimos and Crees in the solitudes of the east coast. It was eight years since he had been outside and seen a comely white woman at the settlements, for the few white women at Fort George and Whale River, whatever their virtues, were hardly beautiful. So he waited, thrilled with the thought of the daughter of his future rival; Stuart was but twenty-eight, and had imagination.
Presently he heard a woman's laughter back in the forest, and shortly a black-bearded man of middle age appeared, followed by a girl.
Stuart rose, and removing his felt hat, said: “Good morning!”
Lecroix nodded curtly, muttering an inaudible reply; but the girl, meeting the stranger's admiring eyes frankly, returned in the most musical voice Stuart had ever heard, a gracious: “Bon jour, monsieur!”
As they passed him, standing bareheaded, a vision of blue-black hair, knotted low on the neck, dusky eyes, and white, regular teeth etched itself into the memory of the Hudson's Bay man.
The two continued up the shore while Stuart's eager gaze followed the graceful figure of the girl, the lines of which not even the heavy corduroy jacket and skirt could quite hide.
“Yes,” he confided to himself, “they were right at Albany. And ere I am going to winter three miles away, with only the river between us—and never so much as a look at her.”
Lecroix and his daughter seated themselves on the shore with their backs to him and waited for their Indians. Clearly there was no place in this picture for a Hudson's Bay man; so Stuart made up a pack for his line and started over the carry, where he met the second canoe of the fur-brigade.
When he returned, he found the situation unchanged, and humored himself by calling:
“Good day, monsieur, mademoiselle! Bon voyage!”
The girl turned, and to his surprise he heard a lilting: “Au revoir, monsieur!”
Did that “Au revoir” have a meaning other than the conventional one, he wondered. She had said: “Till we meet again!” Was she lonely in that Drowning River post? How could she be otherwise?
With a thrill in his blood, the Scotchman turned and swung up the trail.
Halfway over the portage he met the voyageurs of the French company bent double under their packs of fur. Behind them strolled a Cree half-breed, from whose evil-looking face snapped the beady eyes of a mink.
As Stuart met him, the half-breed stopped.
“You new boss at Matagami?” he insolently threw out.
Gordon casually surveyed the Cree from matted hair to moccasins.
“Yes, I'm the new boss at Matagami,” he drawled.
“Well, I tell you somet'ing.” The half-breed moved nearer, shaking a finger in the factor's face. “You no mak' talk wid de fille of M'sieur Lecroix.”
The Scotch blood of Stuart was boiling, but he kept a grip on himself, for he was curious to know if the half-breed was acting under instructions from his chief at the end of the portage.
“I, Jacques Lafitte, head man for de Franch Companee, say to you: M'sieu' Hudson's Bay, you weel fin' plentee trouble eef you mak' talk wid de—”
Stuart's right fist met the half-breed's jaw in a fierce upper-cut, checking unfinished the insulting warning. Caroming off a big birch to the trail, Lafitte lay for a moment half dazed; then, wild with fury, he got to his feet with the snarl of a wolverine and rushed the waiting white man with his knife.
But Stuart had not lived eight years on the east coast in vain. He knew what was coming. As the maddened half-breed lunged, the Hudson's Bay man stepped aside and swung, with all the force of his one hundred and eighty pounds, to the ear. Plunging headlong, Lafitte crumpled up on the trail.
Gordon picked up the knife and tossing it into the bush, continued on to the upper end of the carry, convinced that the Cree had been acting under orders.
As his blood cooled, he berated himself for playing into Lecroix' hands. It was a pretty way to start in at Mamatawan with a feud on with the French for beating their head man. Now he had definitely cut himself off from seeing her again, except by chance.
Then he wondered what she would say when she heard the half-breed's lying version of the affair—what she would think.
The factor found his men waiting for him beside the loaded canoe. Calling Baptiste, his bow-man, aside, he told him what had happened on the portage.
“Ah-hah!"” Baptiste's swart features went grave. “Dat Black Jack, he mak' some trouble for dees. We have trouble wid heem ovair de Cree hunters, las' long snow.”
“He was surely looking for trouble today, Baptiste. I had to give it to him.”
“By Gar! Eet ees good t'ing you slap heem but Black Jack he not forget.”
FIVE days later Stuart was installed in the factor's quarters at Fort Mamatawan. From the clearing in front of the trade-house he could see far below, on the opposite shore, the whitewashed log buildings of the rival company; with his field-glass he could make out the people of the post moving about their duties. But it would be weeks before he might hope to catch a fleeting glimpse of the figure of the woman who had strangely possessed his thoughts from the moment he had first seen her.
September came, and the first frosts painted the ridges of the valley of the Drowning with the ochre and gold of birch and poplar, rimming the river shores with the red of the willows. Now the mists hung above the water in the still mornings, before the lifting sun, searching them out, rolled them back on the hills. Already, behind the trade-house and factor's quarters at the post, split birch was heaped high against the coming of the stinging northers and the pinch of the long cold.
His encounter with Black Jack had placed the new factor high in the estimation of the Crees who wintered at the post; but Andrew Scott, the clerk, and Baptiste knew Lafitte of old and repeatedly warned their chief that some day the half-breed would strike in the dark.
Nevertheless the Scotchman refused take Lafitte seriously. Many a time on the east coast he had compelled the respect of recalcitrant husky and Cree through the agency of a stone-hard nerve and a heavy fist. The threats of a rat-faced knife-fighter of Mamatawan country, he assured them, should not trouble his sleep. But what did harass his dreams was the graceful figure of a girl with heavy blue-black hair who had smiled and called tantalizingly, “Au revoir, monsieur!”
Then one night a company hunter, who had met them on the river, brought word that Monsieur Lecroix and his daughter had returned from Albany.
The next day Stuart took his shotgun and telling his clerk that he was going out for a mess of partridge, left the post by the down-river trail. Scott chuckled softly when he saw a pair of field-glasses slung from the shoulder of the factor—then straightway looked serious. This would never do: some day they would see Stuart prowling around across the river from the French post, and then Black Jack would try to get him from ambush.
Later the tall figure of Baptiste appeared in the doorway of the trade-house.
“Baptiste, what was old Joseph telling you this morning?”
“Old Joe he hunt down river two day back. He meet old woman from de Franch pos', at de fresh nets. She say Black Jack, he feel ver' bad; he say some day M'sieu' Stuar' goin' hear de bullet seeng round hees head.
“Do you know where Stuart is now? Well, he's cruising round in the bush down-river trying to get a look at Mademoiselle Lecroix through his glasses. He didn't tell me, but I know.”
Without a word Baptiste took his rifle from the gun-rack and left the trade-house.
At dusk Stuart returned, elated. For ten minutes, from the opposite shore, he had watched Hortense Lecroix playing with some husky puppies in the post clearing.
WITH October came a week of the magic, mellow days of Indian summer; then a sudden shift of the wind to the north, and night after night, fleeing myriads of geese from the great Bay swept noisily south across the face of the red moon. Each morning a film of ice edged the back waters of the river. Then the first snow-swirls, vanguards of the withering northers, drove down across the Kewatin barrens, and the valley of the Drowning lay white in the grip of the long snows
All too slowly the weeks of early winter dragged on for the restless factor of Fort Mamatawan. Marooned for years at Whale River, where the sole white woman was the matronly wife of the Church of England missionary, the romantic strain in his nature had been starved to the point where the society of any white girl, however plain, would have been agreeable. But to live through the dreary months of the long snows within a short dash with his dog-team, down the river trail, of a girl whose face haunted his dreams, and to be unable even to see her, became well-nigh unbearable. Formerly a great reader, he found books had ceased to hold his interest, for a laughing pair of long-lashed black eyes flashed at him from every page. The conversation of the amiable Andrew Scott palled on him, and he sat night after night silent, morose, gazing at the huge box-stove heated their quarters.
Stuart made no attempt to diagnose his symptoms: all he knew was that he wanted to see her, to talk to her again—this fair daughter of Lecroix.
Twice he took Baptiste and the dogs, and in a vain attempt to break the spell which she had cast upon him, traveled far into the muskeg country for caribou. But the toil of the winter trail through wind-whipped barrens brought but temporary surcease. On his return, the old longing to see her revived anew.
One wild night in December, Stuart sat smoking with Andrew Scott in their quarters. Driven by the northwester, powdery crystals of snow beat like shot against the windows. Suddenly above the clamor of the storm the yelping of the post dogs caused the factor to look up from his book.
“What's the matter with the dogs, Andrew? No Cree is crazy enough to travel in this weather.”
“Maybe a packet from Albany,” suggested Scott “Queer, though, they couldn't wait for the Christmas mail!”
Soon the entire canine population of Mamatawan joined in the uproar. Undoubtedly a dog team had turned in from the river-trail. Shortly lights appeared over in the trade-house; and Stuart had his hand on the latch of the door of his quarters when it swung back, admitting Baptiste in a smother of snow.
The deep-set eyes of the head man wore a puzzled expression as he said:
“Cree from de Franch pos' wid dees.” He handed his chief an envelope.
The address in feminine hand read: “Monsieur Gordon Stuart—Fort Mamatawan.”
A MESSAGE from her! So bewildered was the factor that he read the address again and again; then with fingers that fumbled, he managed to open the envelope.
What could be the meaning of it, sent on such a night, he wondered, his pulse racing.
The note written in English ran:
   Dear Monsieur Stuart
   My father is very ill. I am broken of heart. Oh monsieur,the Crees say you have skill with the sick. I have despair of his life. Will you come tonight? Will you help me? With greatest gratitude.
   Hortense Leacroix.
Stuart handed the note to Scott, his heart pounding with an indescribable joy. He was going to her. She needed him. In a half-hour he would be with her, helping her, consoling her.
Scott read the note, while the narrow eyes of Baptiste searched questioningly the faces of the white men.
“Wait!” Scott turned quizzically to Stuart. “This can't be a trap of Black Jack's to get you down-river and shoot you up from the shore?”
“Why, man alive,” rasped the factor, “no one else at that post could write that hand.” He seized the paper. “No one but a woman of education—look at it!”
Again Scott read the note.
“Yes, I believe you're right,” he admitted. Then he turned to Baptiste: “Did you know that the old man down-river was sick, Baptiste?”
“I, no; old Joseph tell me; he stop dere to talk to old woman t'ree, four day back.”
“This letter, Baptiste,” explained the factor, “says that Lecroix is very sick and asks me to go with medicine.”
The lean face of the half-breed shaped an inscrutable look as he shrugged his wide shoulders.
“Ah-hah! Eef you go, den Baptiste go and look out for Black Jack.”
“All right; we wont take the huskies; we don't want a dog-fight down there tonight,” said Stuart. Baptiste left the room.
“I can't help Lecroix, if he is very bad, Scott, but I'll take the medicine kit and do my best. It's fortunate my father was a surgeon back in Scotland and taught me to dress wounds and use the simple remedies. The Crees thought me a medicine man when I fixed up Esau's infected leg, but I know very little.”
Then Stuart's heart slowed down as a thought entered his mind: if her father died she would go home and he'd lose her.
His clenched teeth swelled the muscles of his strong jaw as he muttered, getting into his caribou-skin capote: “But I wont let the old man die.”
Shortly, the red messenger of Hortense Lecroix, followed by Baptiste and his chief, leaving the timbered shores which faded into the murk and the smother of snow, battled the fury of the northwester over the drifted river trail. Bent double, the better to buck the drive of the wind and shield their faces from the needle-pointed barrage of snow-crystals, keeping the trail solely by the feel of their snowshoes, the three white figures hurried on their errand of mercy—Baptiste carrying his uncased rifle pointing significantly into the back of the Cree.
They were halfway to the French post and close in to a thickly timbered point of shore toward which the trail swung as the river turned, when the Cree, leading, suddenly stopped, turned to Baptiste and pointed ahead.
The blurred outline of the figure of a man barred their way. Jamming the muzzle of his rifle into the Cree's back, Baptiste shouted “Marche!” and the bewildered Indian continued.
For an instant Stuart bitterly regretted leaving his gun at the post. If this, after all, were a game of Black Jack's, it would be up to Baptiste alone. Still, they could not see to shoot at ten yards, much less from the shore.
It was but a few steps to the unknown man in the trail, who stood with arms raised above his head as they approached.
Then Baptiste shouted, “Esau!” and the factor understood.
It was Esau, the Scotch-Cree from Mamatawan, who greeted them with:
“Black Jack lie close een hees hole dees sleep. I travel dat spruce for heem lak I hunt de moose.”
Stuart's frost-bitten features twisted into the effigy of a smile at the precaution the faithful Baptiste had taken against an ambush. He had sent Esau out secretly as a flank patrol to comb the “bush” alongshore.
tHE dogs of the French post howled a surly welcome as the party turned in from the river trail. Leaving Baptiste and Esau at the trade-house, where Black Jack Lafitte was conspicuous by his absence, Stuart went to the factor's quarters. Kicking off his snowshoes and beating the snow from capote and moccasins, he knocked. The door was opened by an Indian woman, who took his coat and led him to the living-room.
So this, he thought as he pushed back from his forehead the yellow hair wet from melted snow, was her home! Everywhere the room was eloquent with the feminine touch. The rude furniture, the walls, bore the mark of a woman's taste, a woman's genius for making a mere living place a home.
In a moment he was to see her, to talk to her—this girl whose face had haunted his dreams, this woman whose memory he could not banish from his waking thoughts. He could feel his heart in his throat—this hardy son of the North whose Scotch mother had given him the strain of the romantic in his nature. Then he heard the pat of moccasins, and turned to look into the dark eyes of Mademoiselle Lecroix.
“Monsieur Stuart!” she said with a slight accent, impulsively offering her hand. “You are so good to come on this night so terrible, so kind not to remember how my father forgot the courtesee of the French on the rivière summer.”
For an instant Stuart stood inarticulate. He looked long into the dark eyes which so frankly met his from which fear and nights of vigil beside the sick man had driven the laughter he remembered.
Then: “It is the law of the North, mademoiselle,” he said, “to give aid those who need it. I know little of medicine, but I'll do what I can, gladly.”
Momentarily the sadness left the dark eyes, which smiled up at him beneath their frame of luxuriant hair.
“You are veree good to us, monsieur.”
With an effort the factor pulled himself together for the work in hand.
“How long has your father been sick?” he asked.
“He has been wounded in the arm, monsieur, with his gun while hunting, six days ago.”
“Um! He has fever, and swelling in the arm—is delirious?”
“Yes, monsieur; he is delirious all today.”
Nodding, Stuart breathed a sigh of relief. Gunshot-wound infection—that was better than some strange malady he could not hope how to combat. He knew the treatment for infection from wounds—had operated in his crude way on Cree and Eskimo.
“His arm is so swollen, monsieur,” she continued, “and oh, such pain he has had, and fever. Say you can help heem, monsieur!”
Marooned in the pitiless North with a sick man rapidly growing worse, beyond the reach of medical aid, her nerves unstrung by days of worry, the girl turned away sobbing.
Stuart opened his kit and laid out the few surgical instruments it contained, some bandages and tablets.
“You would see him, monsieur?” she asked, recovering her self-control. “Come this way!”
Taking his thermometer, the factor followed Hortense Lecroix into a small bedroom where the sick man lay moaning in delirium. An examination of the wound in the forearm, the swollen lymphatic glands, the high temperature, all indicated immediate action necessary. Then he explained rapidly the situation to the anxious girl. If she would take the responsibility, he was willing to try to save Lecroix. He could not promise; it all depended on her father's vitality and general condition.
So it was agreed.
With the aid of Mademoiselle Lecroix and the Cree woman, Stuart opened, leaned and dressed the wound. Then insisting that Hortense Lecroix take some much-needed rest, he sat with the Indian woman in the living-room waiting to earn the effects of the operation on the temperature of the patient.
IN a few hours Lecroix' temperature had materially dropped. When Stuart told the silent servant what that meant, that Lecroix was better, the swarthy face of the Cree lighted in a smile, and for the first time that night she offered a remark:
“You good medicine man, m'sieu'! You weesh Ma'm'selle for squaw?”
Stuart knew the Indian character. He was not surprised by the bluntness of the question, but in the color of his bronzed face she had her answer.
“Ah-hah!” she said, nodding gravely. “You strong man, M'sieu' Stuar'. You feex Black Jack. He seeck een hees neck long tam. He keel you for sure, m'sieu'.”
Stuart had paid little attention to the warning of Baptiste, but this came from the inside. Black Jack was still nursing his revenge for the beating of the previous summer.
Glad of the turn of the conversation from Hortense Lecroix to Black Jack, Stuart amused himself by suggesting:
“You tell Black Jack that M'sieu' Stuart is big medicine man. He will put devils into Black Jack if he doesn't behave himself.”
This was not lost on the Cree, who, within a few hours, had been witness to the crude but seemingly successful efforts of the white magician.
The entrance of Hortense Lecroix put an end to the conversation.
The sick man was sleeping. His vitality was fighting off the poison, Stuart told the girl, now buoyed with hope. Looking outside, where the gray dawn streaked the east, Stuart saw that the snow had ceased with the wind.
With the assurance that he could do nothing more for her father, who was patently better, he promised to return later in the day. As the tall Scot took her hand at the door, she said:
“I shall nevair forget how kind, how good, monsieur, you have been.” Then she burst forth impulsively: “Oh, why ees there so much of hate een the world? We have lived so near as strangers een all this wilderness; now we shall be friends, monsieur, for you have saved the life of my dear father.”
“Yes, I hope we shall always be friends, mademoiselle.” Then he asked: “You were told of my meeting Lafitte last summer?”
“Oh, Monsieur Stuart, I know it was not the truth, what Lafitte told He insulted you. I do not like him; he is a bad man.”
“Yes, he insulted me. I am glad you did not believe whatever he said. I regretted having trouble with one of your father's men.”
“It ees nothing, monsieur.”
Stuart stood in the open door, about to pass out.
Then. voicing feebly that within his heart which clamored for expression, he said:
“One thing I should like to ask you, mademoiselle—did you mean, au revoir, on the portage that day we met?”
Her eyes dropped, then rose to his: “Yes, monsieur, I meant, au revoir, on the portage last summer.”
But as though embarrassed by her frankness, she added: “Why, because the companees are rivals for the fur, should we not be neighborly, monsieur?”
An impetuous answer rose to Stuart's lips, but he choked it; and with an “Au revoir, mademoiselle!” he went out into the morning.
WHEN Stuart started for the French post, alone, that afternoon, he carried his rifle. On his way he noticed a dark object moving in the scrub of the shore ahead. Reckless though his chief might be, that watchdog Baptiste was taking no chances
Stuart found his patient much improved. Lecroix' vitality was winning out. When Stuart entered the bedroom, Lecroix' black eyes under their bushy brows sought his.
“My daughter has told me, monsieur,” he said in a low voice. “You have great gratitude from me.” Then he turned his head away.
Evidently to owe his life to a Hudson's Bay man was an unpleasant pill for the proud Lecroix to swallow.
In the living-room Hortense, in whom joy in the factor's announcement that her father's rugged constitution was winning had already worked a miracle of change,, told Stuart something of her life. Lecroix, an officer of French colonial troops in Algeria, had on the death of her mother accepted a position with the fur company, bringing his daughter with him to Canada.
As she spoke of her life at Drowning River, with its short, magic summer, marked by the journey down the great Albany to the Bay; its winter, when, imprisoned in the white silence of the endless snows, she found her violin and books the sole comforters of the laggard days, the natural charm of the girl took deeper and deeper hold of the imagination of Stuart. Thrall to the magic with which she held him, the factor of Mamatawan, reticent with men, unconsciously revealed secret places of his nature hitherto inviolate.
The entrance of the Cree woman with a lamp brought Stuart to his feet
“Mademoiselle, forgive me. I have stayed too long.”
“No, monsieur,” she laughed, “you must not forget you are now both the friend and the docteur, and so, doubly welcome.”
That night Stuart swung home in the dark, singing an old Scotch ballad. He had won her confidence, her friendship, but—what of her heart? Well, time alone would tell.
AS the days passed, Lecroix grew rapidly better. Finally, when danger from infection had passed, Stuart sewed up the incisions which had saved the Frenchman's life, taking a surreptitious pleasure in making the grateful but taciturn Lecroix wince in the process.
But when the factor left his bed, his presence in the living-room put a speedy end to Stuart's têtes-à-tête with his daughter. Although profuse in his thanks for the service-done him, Lecroix' manner when the three were together unmistakably indicated that the growing friendship between his daughter and the Scotchman did not meet with his whole-hearted approval.
The Scotchman was making the last call on his patient in a medical capacity. He had come to take out his stitches. In fact, he had put off this task to the last possible moment. He was waiting for Lecroix to return from the trade-house and was alone with Hortense Lecroix for the first time since her father had left his bed.
“This is my last visit, mademoiselle,” he said, hoping to draw her out. “I came to remove the stitches from your father's arm. He will need me no more now.”
The dark eyes of the girl lifted in surprise.
“Last visit, monsieur? You will come still, as a friend, certainly. Will you not?”
This was his opening, and he took full advantage of it.
“Your father, mademoiselle, does not seem to approve my coming as a friend.”
“My father does not approve?” she broke in, a great wave of color sweeping her face to the crown of heavy hair. “I do not understand what you say. You have saved his life. You are my—our friend. He is very grateful—my father We desire you to see us—to come often.”
There was an insistent note in her voice, a tone of command that set hope high in his heart as he said: “I wish to come, very much, mademoiselle; but if your father does not desire it—”
The dark eyes were flashing now; her high spirit voiced itself in her words:
“My father is not impulsive, monsieur, but he and I wish you to come to us whenever you desire. We do not forget so soon, monsieur.” The voice of the girl broke slightly as she finished.
Stuart thrilled at the realization that she understood, and intended that her father's attitude should be ignored, that he should continue to come to Drowning River as a friend.
The entrance of Lecroix changed the subject.
As Stuart left to return home, Hortense Lecroix followed him to the door In a low tone, vibrant with sincerity, she said:
“Please, Monsieur Stuart, do not think us so base. You have made yourself my friend when you found me in despair. How could you think of such a thing? I—we wish you to come—often! Au revoir!”'
GORDON STUART was snowshoeng up the river, hugging to his heart those last intimate, half-whispered words:
“You have made yourself my friend, when you found me in despair.”
The light had begun to die when he reached the black spruce halfway to Mamatawan. He stopped for an instant to kick the balled snow from the meshes beneath his moccasins.
“She is my friend,” he said aloud “Some day, perhaps, she—”
A rifle-shot rang out on the freezing air. Stuart swayed a step forward stopped, then reeled into the trail. Two shots, close together, followed shortly in the spruce.
At last Black Jack had struck in the dark.
Presently a figure moved through the scrub on the shore and ran out on the ice toward the motionless form in the snow. The runner had approached within a few yards, when the rifle of the factor of Mamatawan exploded full in his face
Swerving to the rear of the man on the trail, the runner cried:
“Don't shoot, m'sieu'! Eet ees Baptiste!” And the head man dropped to his knees beside his half-conscious chief whose nerves, numbed by shock, had finally responded to the iron will in one supreme effort at self-defense.
“W'ere you heet?” hoarsely demanded Baptiste, whose swart features, twisted with fear, were smeared with fresh blood from a furrow through the scalp
But the factor of Mamatawan had passed beyond speech.
As Baptiste lifted the limp form, the crimsoned snow beneath the left shoulder marked the place of exit of the bullet Then, rapidly emptying the magazines of both rifles into the air, the sinewy Cree swung the heavy body of his chief to his back and started for home. A half-mile up the trail Esau, lashing a dog-team to the limit of their speed, met Baptiste and his burden.
“Meester Stuar'! By Gar! Black Jack. I hear de shot at de post!” he gasped as they put the unconscious Stuart, muffled in blankets, on the sled and urged the dogs upriver.
To the anxious questioning of Esau regarding Stuart's wound and the blood on Baptiste's face, the sole answer of the Cree had been: “Shot in shoulder! Wibatch! Quick! Marche!”
Near the post Andrew Scott, with an excited group of armed Company men, met the dog-team on the trail.
“Stuart, shot!” Scott groaned. “Black Jack's work!”
“Tak' heem to de post and feex de shoulder; eet bleed bad,” cried Baptiste; and while Scott and Esau hurried in to the post with the sled, the head man spoke to the clamoring group of Crees in their native tongue:
“My heart is sick. At the place of the black spruce Stuart was shot by Black Jack. I, Baptiste, knowing that some day this would be, was on the hill above, looking, but my eyes are the eyes of an old man, and I saw nothing. He lay in the small trees like a lynx watching the bull-moose whom he fears. When he shot, I quickly found him. He will not lie again in the young spruce like the coward lynx. He is there, now, in the snow. We shall go and take him on a sled as a present to the French.”
So they went to the black-timbered point where they found the frozen body of Lafitte lying near the shore, with its set face grimacing horribly in the death he had intended for another. A bullet through the heart and a crimson smear in the matted hair witnessed the fact that the eyes of Baptiste, after all, were not the eyes of an old man.
Then, escorted by Baptiste and a sullen file of Crees, Black Jack Lafitte made his last journey to Drowning River.
WHEN the head man reported back to Andrew Scott on his return from his grim mission, he found Stuart in bed, his wound dressed and bandaged, raving in the delirium of a high fever.
Standing beside his stricken chief, the tall half-breed muttered in remorse:
“Baptiste watch for dees t'ing, M'sieu' Stuar'. He know Black Jack. But Baptiste, he not know you go to Drowneen' Rivière today, so he get dere too slow. Wal, m'sieu', Black Jack, he fire hees las' shot from de bush.”
In the living quarters Scott drew from the Cree the details of the affair downriver.
“You say you got to the point as Stuart was coming up the trail, but didn't see anything?”
“Oui, I got dere too slow, or I fin' Black Jack's tracks in de snow w'en he come up rivière.
“W'en M'sieu' Stuar' reach de black spruce, I was on de ridge. Dere I see not'ing. Black Jack, he shoot from de shore, an' I see heem. Den I geeve heem w'at he geeve M'sieu' Stuar'.”
“When did you get that?” asked Scott, pointing to the blood-matted hair on Baptiste's forehead.
“Wal, I see Black Jack stiff on de snow lak a rabbit, and I run out on de ice to M'siew' Stuar'. I t'ink he dead too, but w'en I come close, he move an'—whish! I get de bullet een de hair. He t'ink Baptiste ees Black Jack.”
“Ah, that explains it! He was game to the end!”
“M'sieu' Stuar', he strong man for sure; he ver' seeck, but he shoot hees gun one tam and den he sleep. I fire eight, ten shot, and pack heem on de back for Mamatawan.”
“When you turned Black Jack's body over to Lecroix, what did he say?”
“He feel ver' bad. He say Stuar' save hees life, and now hees man, Black Jack, shoot M'sieu' Stuar'.”
“Did you see the Mademoiselle?”
“Oui, she run out an' ask de trouble. W'en she hear M'sieu' Stuar' shot, she look ver' seeck an' go to de house. W'at you t'ink, M'sieu' Stuar' he ver' bad?”
“Yes, he's got a dangerous wound, but I don't think the bullet touched his lungs. Esau and I stopped the bleeding with a compress.”
“You t'ink he leeve?”
“I don't know. He's got a good chance, with his strength.”
“Ah-hah!” The head man expelled the breath from his lungs in a deep sigh and shook his head. “Baptiste, he got dere too slow.”
Scott dressed the furrow in the Cree's scalp and sent him to his shack. Later, Esau was sitting up with Scott to take care of the sick man, whom they had bound to his bed with sheets to prevent his loosening the bandages in delirium. Out in the kitchen the cook swayed to and fro in her chair to the low wailing of a Cree dirge for the master when she, Indian-like, already numbered with the spirits of those who had taken the long trail from which there is no return.
The howling of the post dogs aroused the drowsy watchers.
“Who can that be, Esau?”
“Old man from below sen' dog-team to ask for de healt' of Meester Stuar',” suggested Esau ironically.
The clamor of the huskies increased, and after a space voices sounded outside.
Esau answered a gentle knock, to disclose in the doorway a woman muffled in furs, whose dark eyes, haunted with fear, questioned the blank face of Andrew Scott.
“I am Mademoiselle Lecroix,” she faltered. “Monsieur Stuart, is he terriblee hurt? Oh, tell me, monsieur, is there hope?”
“He is badly wounded, mademoiselle, but we trust he'll pull through. Wont you come in?”
Hortense Lecroix, followed by her Cree woman, entered the room.
“Will you take off your coat? It is hot in here,” stammered the confused Scott, his eyes wide with wonder at the loveliness of the girl and her presence at Mamatawan without her father.
“Thank you, monsieur!”
As she removed her fur hood, exposing the wealth of raven hair, Scott's face frankly reflected his admiration. It was clear indeed why Stuart had found it necessary to make so many trips to the French post.
A GROAN from the bedroom of the wounded man reached their ears. Hortense Lecroix turned a white face to the clerk.
“Monsieur, you are embarrassed that I come here alone, with my servant. It is much that I ask, but I ask it of you. I come to return to Monsieur Stuart the kindness he gave to my father—to me. I ask—I beg you to permit me to remain here and aid.”
At the unexpected request the dumfounded clerk flushed, coughed, then found his voice.
“I am sure, mademoiselle, you may stay; you can have my room there. It will be a great help to have a white woman. The Crees know so little—”
She interrupted: “We shall make no trouble. Just one room for my servant and myself. You are veree kind.”
Then she said: “May I see Monsieur Stuart, onlee one moment?”
Scott led her to the bedroom, where the fever-racked factor lay bandaged and bound.
The clerk heard her catch her breath as the dim light from a lamp fell on the flushed features of the man to whom, but a few hours before, she had said: “We do not forget so soon, monsieur.”
Hortense Lecroix had kept her word; she had not forgotten.
Then she left the bedroom.
SCOTT had urged Hortense Lecroix to get some rest, as he and Esau were to sit up with the sick man, when for the second time that night the dogs of Mamatawan started a furor of yelping outside.
“Your father, mademoiselle?” suggested Scott as she looked at him questioningly.
The features of Hortense Lecroix set with determination; her color returned, and the look of weariness changed to one of defiance as she said, going to the window and peering out into the starlit stockade:
“Monsieur, I regret to make you this unpleasantness. Will you be so kind as to leave my father and me alone when he arrives?” She turned to Scott with the wraith of a smile, but in her eyes flashed the fires of an indomitable will.
“If you will allow me to stay, monsieur, I shall not go back to Drowning Rivière so long as I may help Monsieur Stuart.”
Then Esau entered the room, followed by Lecroix, whose face and manner were marked by the great mental strain under which he labored. Ignoring the presence of his daughter, he said to Scott:
“Monsieur, I am in great distress to hear of Monsieur Stuart. I owe heem my life. To have heem attack' by one of my men, eet ees terrible. Lafitte had cause to die. Yes, it ees right!”
Then Lecroix lost his grip on himself and continued excitedly:
“But my daughter, she have no place here—a young woman een dese post! We have much gratitude to Monsieur Stuart. We have pain een our hearts for heem dat he ees wounded; but monsieur, eet ees not of proprietee for her to remain here, a girl unmarried.”
Hortense Lecroix watched her father during his speech, with level eyes which shone with the fixity of her purpose. When he ceased speaking and turned to her, she nodded to Scott, who straightway left the room with Esau.
Ten minutes later Lecroix left the factor's quarters, and lashing his dogs out to the river trail, disappeared into the night. His daughter had won.
Anxious days followed for those who watched at the bedside of the wounded man—days in which fever and delirium, and the failure of the wound to heal, made hope of his recovery seem futile. During this time of anxiety and despair the ministrations and aid of his tireless assistant had become indispensable to Andrew Scott. So cool and self-contained she seemed, and yet so gentle a nurse, that the curious clerk changed his mind daily as to whether Hortense Lecroix loved the man whose iron constitution was fighting doggedly for his life, or whether she had come to Mamatawan to pay a debt of honor—to make such recompense as lay in her power, to the man who had given her father back to her and had been so basely rewarded.
Then, one day came a change; the fever turned; the wound was healing; and one who had wandered out to the frontiers of death slowly retraced his steps.
One morning Gordon Stuart waked from a refreshing sleep, conscious of his surroundings.
“Then it was not a dream!” he sighed as Hortense Lecroix tiptoed lightly into the room in house-moccasins.
Her face lighted with surprise. He was better. He knew her.
“Dream, what do you mean?” she whispered, bending over him.
“Why, seeing you here. It seemed as if you had been here, when I waked this morning; but I thought it a dream.”
She smiled into the deep-set gray eyes in the haggard face, eyes that looked hungrily up at her
“Shish! You must not talk, monsieur. You need all your strength.” Then she swiftly left him.
And neither from the overjoyed Scott, nor the Cree woman who came for a moment to see him, could he obtain light on Hortense Lecroix' presence at Mamatawan. The house was under strict orders from the nurse not to talk to the man who so lately had fought his way out of the shadows. So Stuart gave it up, content in the wonder of it—the joy of knowing she had come to him in his dire need of her.
DAYS passed, and the people of Mamatawan were preparing for such a celebration of Christmas as the post had never known, for had not the Great Manitou given M'sieu' Stuart his life? The fur-hunters were gathering from the frozen valleys for the trade and revels. Daily the dog-teams from forest and muskeg jingled in to the post, and when the Crees learned how Black Jack Lafitte had met his deserts at the hands of Baptiste, and that the factor would live, tepee and trade-house rang with laughter and rejoicing.
The day before Christmas Stuart sat propped up in bed, his left shoulder still swathed in bandages.
She had removed his breakfast things, and he had called her back to the room. With his old strength slowly beating back through his body, Gordon Stuart would not be denied his wish that she linger and talk to him.
She returned to the room and sat in a chair near the bed.
“You look so well this morning, monsieur, that I shall talk to you a veree little so you will not be cross.”
“You treat me like a child, mademoiselle,” he protested. “For a week I've been able to talk all day, and yet you barely say good morning to me.”
The laughter faded from her eyes.
“Ah, monsieur, but you do not know how ill you have been with that terrible wound; for so long a time you were delirious.”
“Did I happen to mention, by any chance, the name of a dear friend of mine, Mademoiselle Lecroix?”
It was Stuart's turn to smile now, for he knew he had called to her, made love to her, laid bare to her the hunger of his heart all through those days of fever.
Her face was aflame but her eyes bravely laughed into his as she parred:
“Monsieur, a nurse should betray no secrets.”
Then he said gravely: “Mademoiselle, I have not had the opportunity to tell you how grateful I am—and how I owe my life to your coming here. You have not allowed me to say more than thank you but I want you to know now. It is you who worked the miracle. They have told me all.”
“Please, do not speak of it,” she protested. “Did you not come to the French companee, to strangers, and give back to me my father's life? And our thanks—how were they shown to you who had done thees thing? A servant of the French companee lies in hiding to give you your death. Oh, what a treachery—a gratitude!”
Gordon Stuart straightened on his pillow. Propped on his uninjured arm he strained toward her a white questioning face:
“Was it to pay this debt you felt you owed—was that the sole reason why you came here—to pay a debt?”
Checking a low sob with a quick catch of the breath, she turned her face to the window.
Then the yearning eyes of the wounded man lighted with a great joy as she stood over him, sank slowly to her knees and hid her flaming face in the coverlet.
Reverently Stuart reached out a trembling hand and touched the tumbled masses of her hair. She lifted a face illumined, transfigured, and crushed her lips against his.
Hortense Lecroix had given the factor of Mamatawan his answer.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.
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 79 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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