# Before the Snow

Extracted from Western Story magazine, 7 Jan 1922, pp. 114–127. Title illustration may be omitted.
Before the Snow
By
A. M. Chisholm
IF you journey down the Little Pigeon by canoe from the height o' land, you shall come at sunset—if you have had moderate luck with rapids and the like—to a huge pine standing by the bank of the river on a tempting little flat. It is towering, enormous, a giant of its kind, rough-barked and venerable. It is heavily topped, and standing beneath it you may look up at a dense canopy of dark green, with never a glint of sunshine or sky striking through. Occasionally its odorous depths are invaded by garrulous crows or chattering squirrels, or more rarely an aristocratic marten; now and then a questing hawk alights on its feathery utmost top; otherwise, it is devoid of the smaller life.
Under its bushy top the ground, carpeted with fallen brown needles, is always dry. Far below, reaching out thirstily, its roots drink from living springs and from the river itself. On every side, save riverward, the little flat on which it stands is sheltered by wood of smaller growth—maple, birch, poplar, alder, and willow. In the middle of a howling, midwinter gale you can light a match there unshielded, so complete is the protection.
Through this lesser growth run the game trails, winding through swamps, through second growths, through hardwood, over Norway ridges, dipping down and rising up until they become faint, less trodden, and finally vanish.
Following these forest highways come the forest folk, sometimes by twos and threes, but more often singly; seldom hurried, always watchful, preferring to travel up wind when they may, ever intent on their business, be it food, water, safety, or love-making. Up and down them stray the slim, graceful red deer; the ungainly, lordly moose; the pig-eyed black bear; an occasional mountain lion; and many a huge-pawed lynx and ghostly timber wolf, with a host of lesser quality—fox, rabbit, fisher, wolverene, skunk, and porcupine.
Coming then at about the hour of sunset—which is the time when the sensible man thinks of making camp—to the big tree and this little flat so manifestly intended by Providence to spread blankets upon, the chances are that you will make the suggestion over your shoulder to the man in the other end of the canoe. But if he be Felix Desjardalais or Onesime Charron or Flatfoot McCarty or Moise Stick, or any one of the native born who use the Little Pigeon, he will tell you that it is not a good camping spot—which is manifestly a lie—and lean strongly against his paddle. And if you had eyes in the back of your head, you might see him bless himself hurriedly.
In the end you will camp after dark three or four miles farther on, in a spot which your judgment tells you is inferior in every way to the pine flat, and you will wonder why, and possibly ask why. And the chances are that Felix or Onesime or Flatfoot or Moise will either not tell you at all or merely lie again. But this is why:
Pierre Latour, thrusting strongly with stiffly outstretched arm and weight of shoulder on the paddle, swung his canoe around the bend above Burke's Landing and translated his satisfaction into purring blasphemy as the few log buildings that made up the Landing hove in sight. He laid the paddle across the gunwale and proceeded to fill his pipe leisurely, as one whose work is done.
The canoe, a light, roomy bark, was loaded to within three inches of the water and was consequently as unstable as a floating log. It was crammed with bundles, sacks, cooking utensils, tools, and traps; for Pierre Latour—better known as Latour Noir, from his exceeding swarthiness due to a dash of Indian blood, of which he was not proud—was down from the winter's hunt, and the canoe held not only his catch of skins, but most of his earthly belongings, since he did not intend to return again to the district in which he had just wintered.
For this there was a very good reason—namely, the suspicion of Baptiste Fish, a particularly vindictive and cunning old Cree, that Latour had, on one occasion, at least, robbed his traps.
There was no proof whatever of it, and there could be none. Baptiste had never even seen the silver fox whose beautiful robe was now carefully stowed in the canoe apart from skins of lower degree. Latour knew that, but he also knew that the suspicion would be good enough for Baptiste, who would in all probability shoot him if he visited that district again.
It was not that he was afraid. If he had greatly desired to trap there, he himself would have shot Baptiste, as a preliminary to peaceful enjoyment. But he considered that he had skimmed the cream from that territory; and in the event of a killing suspicion would point directly to him.
No, he reflected, eying the bale in which the fox pelt was carefully wrapped, he would not go back. He had trapped wickedly, wastefully as was his custom, fur-bearing female as well as male. But there was much country. When one place was exhausted, he would go to another. This one he would leave to old Baptiste. The leavings were good enough for a Cree. Perhaps next winter he would not trap at all, or, at any rate, not alone.
For there was Kathleen—Kathleen Burke, the daughter of Dennis Burke of the Landing—Kathleen with the great coils of golden-bronze hair, the cheeks of milk and wild roses, the eyes that mocked him waking and invited him softly in his lonely dreams through the interminable winter.
He had seen her grow from a slender slip of a child to a young woman, and he had made love to her after his fashion, bringing her moccasins embroidered with beads and dyed quills, garments of soft doeskin marvelously tanned, barbaric necklaces of claws and teeth, and even odd nuggets of gold that had passed from hand to hand among the scattered bands until their source had been forgotten, if it had ever been known. Also, he had given her choice skins of his trading and taking—glossy, shining furs, such as a princess or a queen might be proud to wear.
She had taken them and thanked him, and that was well. But when he would have spoken of love, she had put him off, fencing, parrying, deftly turning the talk, so that he was baffled and half angry.
Now he swore to himself that he would have no more of it. He would give her the silver fox skin, and he would ask her to marry him, taking her in his arms and kissing her lips, and she would consent. If she did not—ah, but he was no foolish youngster to let a girl say no to him. He was Pierre-Latour—Latour Noir, a man grown, and a dangerous one. Was there one within five hundred miles as strong, as swift of foot, as good a fighter,-as cunning, and as fearless? No, there was not one.
And his estimate of himself was not too high. Never, since he reached man's estate, had he met his match among men. To a great strength and power of endurance he united the marvelous activity of a wild animal, and he was absolutely fearless.
Bred to the long trail from his babyhood, inured to hardship, seasoned to danger, cunning in the craft of the wilderness, owing a temper that flamed to white heat at a wrong, real or fancied; vengeful, capable of any cold-blooded cruelty, he was admired and yet shunned by the men of the woods. None trusted him; almost ail feared him secretly; not one would hunt or trap with him. Therefore he wintered alone.
Burke's Landing was not imposing. It consisted of a few log houses merely. It was a tiny outpost of civilization, established some years before by Dennis Burke, who was at once storekeeper, fur trader, logger, prospector, and postmaster. And civilization seemed satisfied to allow the Landing-to remain an outpost.
Year after year there was little change. The logs of the houses turned from yellow to brown, from brown to gray, checked with the weather, warped a little, settled a little. The years shot Dennis Burke's hair with silver; took toll of the spring of his muscles, added to his girth. They took his wife from him, but they saw his daughter grow into a backwoods beauty who wrought havoc with the hearts of the young men.
As the bow of his canoe grounded, Latour stepped carelessly overside knee-deep in the water, and waded ashore. Wet moccasins were nothing to him. He drew the canoe a little higher and began to unload it. Suddenly he became aware that he was not alone.
Only a few feet away stood a stranger, a great lean man with a mane of tawny hair. He was bareheaded, and his attire was the ordinary one of the woods—flannel shirt, belted trousers, and moccasins—but it was plain in half a dozen ways that he was no ordinary woodsman. His eyes were as chilly, hard, and blue as a clear arctic sky, and they were also proud, mocking, and carelessly insolent. The attitude, the poise, the eyes—all advertised the entire self-confidence and strength of the man,
As Latour straightened up and looked, he felt an instinctive enmity stir within him. He did not analyze it, he did not try to explain it, but he knew that he saw an enemy. Perhaps the stranger had a similar feeling. Their eyes met in a hard, measuring stare as they appraised each other.
The tawny man nodded, and to Latour the nod expressed condescension, which was an insult.
“Bon jour, mon ami,” he said. “You have a heavy load.”
“Not ver' heavy.”
“Some furs, eh?”
“A few.”
“If you have anything out of the ordinary, a black or a silver fox, say, I might buy it.”
Latour glanced at him suspiciously. How did he know of that silver fox skin?
“M'sieu' is a trader, hey?”
“No, but I will pay a good price for a good skin.”
“I have one silver fox—yas,” said Latour, “but I do not sell heem.”
“You mean you have sold it?”
“No. But I do not sell heem.”
“Why not?”
“Because I do not choose,” said Latour, resenting the tone of the question more than the words themselves. “The skin he is mine, yas? Then I do wit' heem what I please.”
“All right; eat it if you like,” returned the other unpleasantly.
“I do not eat heem,” said Latour. “A skin of the silver fox is not to eat. He bring moche monnaie, heem. Me, I do not need monnaie, so I give heem away.”
“Well, I'll take it that way, to oblige you.”
Latour laughed. “M'sieu' is mak' the joke. That skin he is for the lady w'at is to marry wit' me.”
He announced it proudly. Not every man could give such a present to a fiancée. It was worth several hundred dollars, at the least. He felt that it would give him importance in the eyes of this stranger, whom he disliked. But the stranger threw back his head at the words, and emitted a deep-chested roar of laughter.
“M'sieu' laughs,” said Latour softly. “Et pourquoi? It ees so fonnee, then! Or per'aps M'sieu' does not believe me?”
“I laugh at a coincidence, my friend.”
Latour scowled. The word was strange to him, but he received the impression that it was an epithet, doubtless insulting, applied to himself.
“M'sieu',” he said, “I am not good man to fool wit', me!”
“Why, here is the coincidence and the joke,” the other explained. “I wish to buy a skin for the lady who is to marry me; you wish to keep the skin for the lady who is to marry you. It is clear as noonday that one lady must be disappointed. The only question is—which?”
Latour smiled unwillingly, and responded:
“I have sorrow, but it mus' be the lady of m'sieu'.”
“That,” said the stranger, “I am not so sure of. I usually get what I go after, and if this skin is a good one I want it. Will you show it to me?”
Latour did so. The stranger stroked the glistening fur and nodded.
“The skin is prime. Put your own price on it.”
“I do not sell.”
“Double the price. I will toss a coin, cut a pack of cards, or play you any game you like for the skin against its double value.”
“No,” Latour refused stubbornly, though the offer stirred his gambler's spirit.
“Or I will wrestle you or fight you for it on the same terms.”
Latour showed his teeth. “M'sieu', per'aps, does not know who I am, I am Pierre Latour—Latour Noir!”
The stranger did not seem impressed.
“My name is Roderick McLeod. You will take up my offer?”
But no. The offer was fair enough. He, Latour, had never been beaten. M'sieu' McLeod was big and strong. It would be a good fight. Men would talk of it for years. But he had not come to the Landing to fight, but for a softer game. A battered lover, even if victorious, made a poor wooer. The skin of the fox was necessary to him. M'sieu' would understand. Later, when his wooing was done, he would fight for the pure fun of it, to see which was the better man.
“Then it will be too late,” said McLeod. “And I never fight without good cause. So it would seem that, after all, I am not to have the skin. But suppose, Latour, your wooing does not prosper. Why look so black, man? There's many a slip 'twixt lip and lip, mon brave. True, also, that absence does not always make the heart grow fonder, and that while the cat is away the mice will play. The lady of your heart, Latour—la petite Corinne, or Suzanne, or Celeste, or Marie—she may by this time have another, a more favored lover, And then what will you do?”
“I kill heem,” gritted the trapper. The airy persiflage of the other was like hot irons on raw flesh.
“But the skin, Latour, the skin! After you have slain the lover and cursed the faithless lady, will you sell it me, or play me or fight me for it?”
“Yas, I will tell you when that time comes,” said Latour-grimly. “You are one fonnee feller, M'sieu' Rodrique McLeod. You have some fon wit' me now, hey? I tell you again I am not good man to fool wit'.”
“I'll have the skin yet!” cried McLeod. “Come, man! Play or fight for thrice the value of it, if you win!” But Latour turned away, cursing. The mockery beneath the words stung him. This McLeod, so sure, so self-confident, with his lightly flung gibes—after he had settled matters with Kathleen he would reckon with him.
His canoe unloaded and the cargo safely bestowed, he made a complete change of garments, putting on the garb of civilization that cramped and hindered the free play of his great muscles and supple limbs; and thus attired for conquest, with the skin of the silver fox neatly parceled under his arm, he sought Kathleen Burke.
II.
Beside the window in the large living room of her father's house, Kathleen Burke sat and watched the sun sinking behind the low, pine-clad hills. Its glory touched the surface of the river so that the dark waters blazed with crimson and gold.
To the girl it typified the path of life as it lay before her illumined by the light of her first love. For she was very happy, and her daydreams were those of life's springtime, fairylike, delicate, pure, and beautiful beyond the telling—dreams which, though they may never be realized, remain forever fragrant memories, sweetening the arid years of after life. And so, absorbed in happy thoughts, she uttered a little startled cry when a voice behind her said:
“Bon jour, Mees Kat'leen. I have return' once more.”
Pierre Latour stood just behind her, ungraceful in his ill-fitting, ready-made garments, his white teeth flashing in a smile.
“You startled me,” she said. “Why didn't you knock, Pierre Latour?”
“Pardon. I have knock two, t'ree tam, but you do not hear. I am ol' frien', is it not? I walk in.”
“Being careful not to make a noise. I don't like it.”
“If I mak' no noise, it is because all my life I have walk' soft-footed. The blame is not to me. I see you sit by the window an' regard the reever an' the woods. It ees one beautiful picture wat you mak'. You are more beautiful than ever before, Kat'leen.”
She made a gesture of distaste. “We'll leave my looks out of it, if you please. They don't matter to you.”
“Pardon! I am permit' to see, to admire. I am an ol' frien'. Behold”—he shook out the glossy, shining robe of the silver fox—'behold a leetle gift from the ol' frien'.”
Gloom fell upon him as she shook her head.
“I can't take it.”
“You cannot tak' heem! Pourquoi non? Before, you have taken gifts from me.”
“It is worth a lot of money. That is one reason.”
“Monnaie—pouf!” Latour made a lordly gesture. “What do I care? There are other, greater things. An' I am not a man to mak' poor gifts where I love.”
“Where you——” She paused, amazed and indignant. Recently she had heard things about him which, if true, forbade even toleration.
He nodded.
“Where I love—yas. I have love' you since a long tam, Kat'leen. I have watch' you grow to a woman, an' I have said not'ing. But all winter while I dwell in my leetle cabane in the beeg snows, I see your face each night in the fire. When I dream it ees of you. I mak' leetle marks on the wall, me, one for each day until I return; an' each night I cross one out. Now, at last, I am here, an' I go no more until you go wit' me.”
“But I'm not going with you,” she told him emphatically. “I can't marry you, Pierre. I never thought of it. Besides, I'm going to marry some one else.”
Amazed, incredulous, he swore a great oath.
“It ees not true, It cannot be. You are fool wit' me!”
“No, it is quite true.”
He scowled darkly, his fingers opening and shutting in passion, all the evil in him astir.
“You have smile' on me; you have tak' my gifts. Now you say, 'Bah! It is only Pierre Latour. He does not mattaire. When he ees no more use to me, I trow heem away.' But listen while I tol' you somet'ing! You shall marry wit' no man but me. I will not permit it. First, I will kill heem.”
Red flamed into the cheeks of the daughter of a hundred hot-tempered Burkes.
“Talk,” she said contemptuously, “the boasting of a half-breed.”
She regretted the taunt as she saw the spasm of rage that convulsed him. But before he could reply the door opened. Roderick McLeod stood on the threshold.
In a flash Latour comprehended. It needed not the sudden, glad light in Kathleen Burke's eyes to tell him that this was the man. And the other, too, looking at the man and the girl and at the skin of the fox lying unnoticed on the floor, knew.
Now the personal devil that abode with McLeod was that of mockery. He made a mock of life and death, of things human and divine. He could no more help it than he could help breathing. That this black French half-breed should aspire to the golden beauty of Kathleen Burke angered him. With his anger, tempering it, he saw the humor of the situation, but not its tragedy, its danger, which, indeed, he would have cared nothing for. His evil star being in the ascendant, he laughed. He might better have patted a a rabid wolf,
“Why,” he said, “it is my friend of the fox skin. And how goes the wooing, Latour? Has the lady been kind? No, I see by your face she has not. Tut, my friend, be more cheerful. The fortune of war! And now, perhaps, you will sell me the skin.”
“You knew,” said Latour, with stiff jaws; “all the time you knew.”
“Knew what?” said McLeod lightly. “Let us come to business, Latour. Revenons à nos moutons, or, to be more exact, to our fox skin. Alas, my friend, I am afraid that you will lose money, for furs vary in price. One year a certain fur is up; the next year it is down. And why? Because of fashion. And who sets the fashion? The ladies, God bless them! But just now it seems that the ladies do not like the fur of the silver fox. Therefore, I cannot offer you——”
Latour struck him on the mouth. The next instant McLeod had him by wrist and throat and slammed him up against the log wall with a force that almost drove the breath from his body. There, in a pale, deadly fury, holding him in a grip that defied even the Frenchman's great strength, he first shook him as a terrier shakes a rat, and then proceeded to choke him.
Kathleen threw her weight on her lover's arm. “Rod, Rod! Do you hear me? Let him go, I say! You are killing him.”
He smiled at her, a cold-eyed, devilish smile, but did not relax his grip.
“Why not? He struck me.”
“Yes, but you maddened him. Couldn't you see? It was your fault; it was cruel; it was not like you.”
He dropped Latour suddenly and stepped back.
“You're wrong,” he said deliberately. “It was exactly like me—or like the devil that bides in me and talks with my tongue. Every word you have said is true. So then I will do all that I can do—I will ask the pardon of the man who struck me.”
Latour drank in the blessed air with great gulps, filling his empty lungs. He leaned against the wall, his intensely black eyes watching every movement of the stronger man.
“You struck me with good cause,” said McLeod, “I ask your pardon for my words, of which I am ashamed. I ask you, too, to believe that this morning I had never even heard your name.”
Latour moistened his lips, and his voice was soft and smooth and deadly calm.
“It ees a leetle t'ing—a joke, ees it not—to tak' from a man the woman of his heart, to mak' fon of heem because she will no longer tak' hees gifts which once were welcome, to choke heem on hees neck? Ah, yas, a ver' fonnee joke! It ees to laugh—yas. It ees to be made smooth wit' a word. M'sieu' has but to say that he ees sorry, that ees all.”
“What more can I do?”
“M'sieu' still desires the skin, though fox pelts are down,” Latour purred softly. “Ver' well. He is mak' me one, two, tree offer for heem. M'sieu' per'aps remembaires. He will pay me monnaie, he will play me leetle game of card'—or one odder way. Bien! It ees the last offer w'at I tak'. M'sieu' comprehends?”
Indeed he understood perfectly. He had offered to fight for the skin.
“As you like,” he answered. “When will you take your pay?”
“I am poor man,' said Latour. “I will tak' heem to-night.” He stooped and picked up the fox pelt, stroking the fur lovingly. “The silver fox he is not plentee. It ees but two I have skin' since I am alive. But never have I skin' one yellow fox. That will be great pleasure—yas. Mees Kat'leen, au revoir. M'sieu', au revoir also. I await your coming outside.”
He was gone softly, with a baleful flash of black eyes.
“What did he mean?” the girl asked, “What offer did you make for the skin?”
“Only what I can well afford to pay,” answered McLeod.
Latour sat on a log in the swiftly descending twilight. He did not rise as McLeod stood in front of him.
“This is folly, Latour,” said the latter. “I am stronger than you, and I am a fighting man as well. I do not say it to boast, but I have beaten better men than you. You have felt my strength. Let us not be foolish. Set a price on the skin, and I will pay it and be done.”
“You have offer' to fight me for it. Ver' well. I tak' that offer.”
“I don't want to fight you. My offer was more or less of a joke. Besides, you have no chance against me. I know it, and so do you.”
“M'sieu' is ver' strong an' ver' queeck. Me, I am strong—mebbe not so strong as m'sieu'—but I am as queeck. We will not fight wit' the fist an' the foot, m'sieu'—we will fight wit' knives.”
“We'll do nothing of the sort,” said McLeod.
“Non?”
“No!”
“M'sieu',” Latour said softly, “ees one beeg, yellow coward. He ees strong—oh, yas!—an' he will fight one not so strong wit' hees fist or choke heem, but he fears the fight w'at is mak' even wit' leetle piece of steel. He is scare' that he will lose the life that is in hes beeg body.”
Roderick McLeod glared at him.
“I have been called hard things before,” he said, “and some of them were true. But never was I called a coward. If you must have it, you shall have it. I will fight with any weapons you choose.”
“That is bettaire,” said Latour. “Then you will get-a knife now, an' I will get mine, an' we will go into the dark woods together; an' one of us will come back—per'aps?”
“No—for there is law in this land,” McLeod refused. “I have no mind to hang for the killing of you. But I will do this, Monsieur le Métis. I will get me a knife, and I will go about my business; and my business will take me in ten minutes' time to the open space in front of the house of Joe Corriveau. If you attack me there, I will defend myself, and if I kill you I will be justified.”
“And if I kill you, I hang, is it not?”
“It is very possible. At any rate, I hope so,” said McLeod coldly.
Latour considered.
“It ees not the square deal—it ees the brace game. It ees that you wish to play wit' loaded dice. I am no fool, me. M'sieu'—I say it again—ees a coward. So I will geeve heem the chance to ron away. If he wishes to live, he will leave this contree before the dawn, an' he will leave Kat'leen, an' he will see neither again. I geeve heem this chance, for the contree is not beeg enough for both of us.”
“Then leave it,” said McLeod.
“You will not go?”
“No.”
“Bon!” said Latour. “I have given m'sieu' the chance to fight, but he will not fight; I have given heem the chance to ron, but he will not ron. Ver' well. M'sieu' the yellow fox will die——” He paused and considered. “Will m'sieu' say when he hopes to marry?”
McLeod laughed at him. “A barking dog! Will it help you to know? Then not before next spring. That will give you a margin of prophecy.”
“The yellow fox,” said Latour, “will never see the spring. He will die before the first snow.” He said it with absolute certainty, smiling to himself, the evil, turbulent soul of him looking from his eyes.
McLeod laughed once more harshly. “Threatened men live long, Monsieur le Métis. How will you kill me? Will you shoot me from ambush or stab me while I sleep?”
“Did I say that I would kill you?” asked Latour. “No. I said that you would die. A wise man would not wish to know the manner of his death.”
McLeod's patience, worn thin, snapped.
“Look to it that you do not meet your own,” he said snarlingly. “Do not drive me too far. I am no man to play with or threaten, Latour.”
Pierre Latour rose and made him a mocking bow. He waved his hand largely toward the north. “It is a beeg contree, but it is not beeg enough for us both. It is you or me. Remembaire!”
He turned his back on McLeod and strode into the dusk, soft-footed, gliding, malevolent, the incarnation of a hatred that bided its time. In the morning he was gone, and through the drowsy, full-leafed summer and the crisp, tanging autumn days there came no word of him. He seemed to have vanished in the immensity of his own land.
And yet, though he was not afraid, a Shadow seemed to haunt Roderick McLeod, striding at his elbow on trail and portage, squatting just behind him as he drove his canoe the length of lonely lakes, flitting just outside the circle of light thrown by his camp fire.
He did not connect it with the half-breed's threat. He had been threatened before, by men whose trade was killing, and he had survived. Though he remained watchful, it was from habit. Having no nerves, he attributed the Shadow to his eyes or his liver, neither of which had given him concern before.
Least of all did it occur to him that this impalpable, intangible something that seemed to haunt and yet hide from him might be a premonition, a warning, a mysterious message from that unknown world which surrounds life. And so winter drew nigh.
III.
McLeod's purpose was to find a timber area which he might obtain cheaply and then hold until advancing price and advancing settlement should make him a large profit. As a side issue he prospected, but without faith, This business took him into the lonely places, outside the beaten track, but always he clung to the neighborhood of streams, for these meant transportation for logs.
Toward the end of October, when the days shortened and crisped and the nights were clear and cold, the haunting Shadow drew a little closer. And there came to McLeod now and then the feeling that he was being followed. Yet he had no tangible evidence of it.
Once, years before, he had had the same feeling late one afternoon on a lonely winter's snowshoe trip. So strong was it that he had deliberately hidden and watched his back track, to find that he was being trailed by a mountain lion, gaunt and savage with famine. He shot this trailer, and was troubled no more. But then the sensation of being followed had lasted but an hour or two; this persisted day after day.
Remembering the episode of the cougar, in which his instinct had not played him false, he cached his canoe and spent one entire day in watching; but he saw only the natural play of forest life. Thereupon he came to the conclusion that the months of loneliness were affecting his nerves, and, never having recognized the existence of these in himself, he was angry, and refused to pay any attention to them.
Late in the fall, having found a stretch of timbered land to his liking, he turned his face south to the Landing and Kathleen Burke. A week or two with her, then a trip to the outside to obtain a title to this timber, after which he would return and be married in the spring—those were his plans.
The weather turned cold. When he had humped his canoe and scanty dunnage over a three-mile portage into the Pigeon, he knew that it was doubtful if he could make the Landing by water. From the deciduous trees every leaf had been stripped by howling gales. They lay thick on the forest floor, a rustling carpet, hateful to its dwellers, who prefer to walk silently, but a protection to the weak, since they gave warning of the approach of the strong.
After the gales came days of calm, with wan sunlight and snapping, sparkling nights through which the aurora thrust and flamed in columnar, upshooting streams and spears of vivid light, The water thickened, and the drip from the paddle blade lay on its surface in a thousand tiny quicksilver globules.
Thin rim ice lay along the shores, and formed where the water was currentless. Overhead, geese strung southward, holding little conversation among themselves, their energies bent to keeping the pace set by the great ganders at the head of their winged squadrons. The fur of the rabbits, already graying at the ears, turned white. All things, from the rotund little muskrats smoothing their coats on the shore beside the weed-draped shallows to an occasional great raven croaking solemnly out of the north, foretold the coming of winter.
So for three days McLeod put all his splendid strength into the paddle from daylight to dark; driving the slim craft downstream swiftly and steadily, taking bad water with the good, surging through rapids where the teeth of sunken rocks tore the racing current not a handbreadth from the frail skin of the flying canoe, and the upflung spray from great, blockading bowlders blew across his face.
On the evening of the third day on the Pigeon, just at sunset, when he was stiff and cramped from long hours in the canoe, he came to the great pine standing by the river, and, having camped there overnight before, he turned the bow of his canoe until it took the sand gently.
He rose slowly in the stern, straightening his stiffened knees, and as he did so he turned his head sharply, for it seemed to him that he had heard a faint rustle and a gentle sigh at his very ear. But there was nothing. He felt a sense of loss, of absence, and suddenly he knew. The Shadow that had companioned him for months had gone.
Nor was this all, for, as he stepped from the canoe, the face of Kathleen seemed to float toward him, the eyes pleading, the lips parted almost in speech. Involuntarily he took a pace forward and stretched out his arms. Then it, too, vanished, and he was alone with the wilderness and the falling night,
“A grown man—and visions!” he mocked himself, “The old women of the coast would say that I was fey. They tell of warnings to men of my house who have died in battle. Warnings? Bah! I'm in love, that's what it is—though God knows I've been in love often enough before. Natural affection, plus a meat and fish diet. Results—vision! Cure—marriage, vegetables, and pills.”
He laughed aloud, scorning the obscure, the occult, explaining the inexplicable by physiology after the manner of modern man, finding an easy solution of it in the intimate relations, between the human stomach, eyes, and brain.
McLeod picked up his blankets, grub sack, and ax, and carried them to the big pine. He started his fire, filled his pail, and hung it to boil, and then looked about for the best place to unroll his bed, finding the desired spot between two surface roots of the big tree.
Off to one side, close beside a fallen trunk, lay a cone-shaped heap of leaves as high as his waist. Evidently they had been gathered for a bed by some other traveler, and for some reason not apparent, had not been used. McLeod noted them with satisfaction, for they saved him trouble. Stooping, he spread his arms and thrust his hands deep into the bottom of the heap to gather it to his breast for transportation to the spot he had selected.
His hands came together, touching a foreign substance, hard, cold, serrated. Something gave. Instinctively, as an animal recoils from a suddenly suspected danger, McLeod bounded upward and backward, every nerve and sinew in his great body strung to the leap.
It was too late. There was the rasp of metal sliding on metal, a scurry of painted leaves, a sudden pang, an awful numbing blow, and his forearms were held in a grip of steel. Clamped on them, emerging from the leaves like a wild beast from its lair, came an enormous bear trap, toothed, two-springed, a hideous engine of torture and destruction. The high, backward bound was suddenly checked—so suddenly that McLeod was jerked forward and fell on his face. The trap was held by a chain fastened solidly.
A paradox of life is that only the little things of it find adequate expression in action and in speech. The big things stun and numb. A man will jump and swear at a pin prick; he will receive his death wound in dumb wonder. Deep in each the conviction is firmly planted that no great evil can come to him. When it comes he is at first incredulous. His mind, trained to unbelief, refuses to believe. It is the egoism of all life, its protest against extinction, futile but clinging, almost ineradicable, persisting to the last.
Thus McLeod rose to his feet and gazed in slow wonder at the jawed thing that pinioned his arms. If his hands had been free, he would have rubbed his eyes, to make sure that he saw correctly. That he should be taken in a trap like a wild beast was unbelievable. His mind staggered back from the shock, as yet incapable of meeting the situation fairly.
Streams of aching, intolerable anguish running up his arms brought the grim reality home. The pain gripped the very fibers of his being, turning him weak and sick, A deadly fear, the first real fear he had ever known, clutched at his heart. But he was a man of stern breed, and, clenching his teeth, he put the pain and the fear from him by a supreme effort of will and faced the situation,
First, he investigated the trap. It was a huge affair, larger than any he had ever seen. The toothed jaws of it were driven into the flesh of his arms with a grip that held him absolutely helpless. From one of the springs a particularly strong ring and chain led under the fallen tree. On the other side of the trunk it was secured to a small log some four feet in length.
The tree was large and tight against the ground, so that the clog log could not possible be dragged underneath it without much digging; and the soil, a mass of small roots and fibers, rendered that impossible save with free hands and tools.
The trap had been well set. No oubliette of the Middle Ages ever held a prisoner more securely. And yet the customary procedure is not to anchor the clog, but to leave it free so that while hampering the movements of the trapped animal it makes a plain trail for the trapper to follow; for if it is made fast a large beast will break the chain, or tear a foot loose, or even, in rare cases, gnaw it off.
Again, there was no bait, and why should a trap be set beneath a great heap of leaves?
But McLeod did not ask himself these questions. They were nothing to him. To get free—that was the problem, not how, or when, or why the trap had been set. He stooped until it touched the ground, and then knelt on the springs, putting his full weight on them, wrenching upward on his pinioned, lacerated arms in an endeavor to get more purchase.
The springs gave not at all. He lost his balance and toppled forward on his face.
Again and again he made the attempt. It was useless. In his heart he had known it before he had tried. The trap had been set by levers; only by similar means could the great springs be forced down sufficiently to release the jaws.
He flung himself on the frosty leaves, burying his face in them. The pain in his arms was not so great now. A merciful numbness had succeeded the waves of agony. It was bitterly cold, but he dropped into a species of torpor, scarcely to be called sleep. So he lay through the night. Now and then he stirred and moaned, but the dawn found him lying white with hoarfrost, motionless.
When the sun rose; pouring glad light upon a sparkling, bejeweled world, he raised a haggard face toward it. Hope had died within him. He was already of another world, a man who was as dead. He looked at the blackened space of his extinct fire, his blankets, his bag of food, his ax, his rifle—at the things which a few hours ago had meant comfort, subsistence, safety. He regarded them aloof, incuriously, as one who has passed the age of toys might regard the playthings of children. They no longer interested him.
But there was the river! He saw it, and was conscious of a great thirst. Oh, to walk down to the edge of it and bury his throbbing arms in the icy current and drink, drink, drink! As the desire of Dives for a cup of cold water, so was his longing. He licked the frost from the leaves within the tether of his chain.
IV.
Suddenly McLeod raised his bowed head and listened. Had his ears tricked him? No, for there it was again, the sound of a man's voice singing. Now he could hear the sound of a paddle. He shouted. The paddle stroke ceased. Then over the bank, beneath which lay his own canoe, appeared the figure of a man, bulky, swarthy—Pierre Latour.
Leisurely the half-breed approached until he stood by McLeod and looked down at him, McLeod stared back, and for a long moment of silence eye held eye without a waver. Then Latour spoke.
“An' so,” he said, “M'sieu' the yellow fox is caught in a trap; and the trap holds.”
“I am caught,” said McLeod, “Lever down these springs and loose me, Latour.”
The half-breed laughed exultantly.
“M'sieu' is strong. He may set himself free. I will not hinder.”
“I cannot free myself,” said McLeod, staring at him, the hope turning to ashes in his breast, “I have tried.”
“That,” said the other, “is true; for I saw it.”
“You saw it!”
Latour nodded. “For a mont' I have watch' M'sieu' day an' night. It is two, t'ree days since I set the trap. Las' night I am hidden close by.”
“You devil! You devil!”
“I set the trap, an' I catch the fox. Aha! I am good trapper, me, you bet. But it is easy. M'sieu' loves to sleep soft. Each night he rakes leaves for a bed. I have seen heem. So then I gather leaves for hees bed. Under them I place the trap. It is easy, lak to roll from one log. He comes, he takes the bait. Well, it is the feenish for m'sieu'.”
“You devil!” said McLeod again. He got to his feet and stood looking down at the trap clinging to his arms. He held them out. “See, my arms are swollen to the shoulder, bitten to the bone. My hands are as those of a dead man. I have had a night of torture. Is it not enough?”
Latour shrugged. “Once I gave M'sieu' hees choice—to fight or to ron or to die. He chose to die. Ver' well. He is now dying. He has leetle pain, yas. But when he dies it will cease.”
“True,” said McLeod; “true.”
His tone was quiet; but his downcast eyes flamed. Suddenly he swung his arms, pivoting as he did so. The trap struck Latour in the face, cutting his cheek, and sending him to the ground. With a lithe movement the half-breed rolled over and away. At the end of the chain McLeod raged like a frenzied dog, struggling to get at him.
Latour sat upon the log at a safe distance.
“Bon!” said he,. “bon! That is like a man. So I would have done. It is beeg pity m'sieu' would not fight.”
“Loose me now, and I will fight you,” said McLeod. “My hands would not hold a knife, but I will fight with such things as God gave me.”
“It is too late,” said Latour.
“Let us understand each other now,” said McLeod. “You have me. I am helpless. What are you going to do?”
“Not'ing.”
“You will let me die in this trap?”
“It is the good guess.”
McLeod turned from him and lay down. The half-breed built a fire close by and cooked and ate; afterward he smoked, watching his victim.
All day and all night there was no word spoken. Then suddenly McLeod's stoicism gave way like the going out of a dam. He heaved himself up, a pain-maddened beast, wrenching, struggling, leaping in the air from side to side; and when he fell from exhaustion he bit at the steel of the trap until his teeth broke.
Then an hour afterward he uttered Latour's name,
“I think,” he said feebly, “that I am dying, Latour. I cannot breathe. I have no strength to move more, There are letters—papers—in a bag hung around my neck. Open my shirt now and take them. I will tell you——” His voice failed.
The half-breed stooped, and his fingers fumbled at the neckband. Suddenly the dying man sprang to fierce action. With a snap he caught Latour's hand between his teeth, and at the same moment kicked his legs from under him. His own locked around them in a viselike grip. They rolled on the ground in silent, deadly, but most unequal combat.
It could not last. Latour, with his free hand, got his enemy by the throat and choked him till his jaws opened for air. He tore himself loose and stood up, wringing the hand mangled by the broken teeth, cursing him for a mad dog, and he half drew his knife,
McLeod, panting on the ground, jeered at him; piling insult on insult, raking three languages for epithets for him. The words stung and scorched, but Latour shoved his knife back and laughed.
“For sure you have the cunning of the fox,” he said,. “It ees hard to die slowly, hey! You try to mak' me give you queeck feenish wit' my knife, yas. I savez plentee, me. It ees no good, yellow fox!”
McLeod turned his face away and lay staring up into the sky, no grayer and colder than his own heart, from which the last hope—even the hope of speedy death—had fled. In the night he was delirious, babbling of many things which Latour did not understand, the ghosts of his stormy life having their will of his tongue.
Coma succeeded the delirium, and when that passed his mind was clear, though the flame of life was faint. Once more the Shadow squatted beside him, and now he knew it for the Shadow of Death, whose warning he had not heeded; and he welcomed its return, for he knew that the end was near. He had no pain, only a great weakness and a desire to rest.
He looked at Pierre Latour, hating him still, but with contempt, as one powerless to harm him more. And he spoke with the certainty of one who has seen the future clearly:
“The snow is very near, Latour, but I shall not see it fall nor feel its coolness. The pain is over now, and your revenge fails; for I go willingly, and the worst is past. But for you, you black devil, who sat by and saw me suffer while I lived, the bitterness of death is still to come. Strong you are, and young you are, and yet you shall never see the ice go out and the trees green-leafed again. Do not laugh, man, for I have already seen you die—and you were afraid! I lay this upon you, that when your end comes you shall see my face among the shadows beside you, and you shall tell to strangers the story of these days and nights, and go before God with the tale hot on your soul's lips!”
Latour laughed hollowly, for the words and their certainty chilled him.
“I shall die when my time comes, an' not before,” he said. “I have not fear, me. I am afraid of not'ing, A leetle while, an' Kat'leen will tire of waiting for the yellow fox. Then we will marry an' live until we are ol'.”
Then in McLeod's dying eyes the old fire of mockery lit for an instant.
“You fool!” he said, in tones barely audible, “I am going to her now!”
He sighed, stretched out his fettered arms, and lay still. Out of the gray overhead a great, white flake fluttered softly and rested on his cheek. Another and another followed it. The first snow was falling.
All day, by the big pine, the great flakes spilled and sifted steadily, muffling the leaves, softening the stark outlines of the bare-armed trees, weighting down the bushes, changing the aspect of the dark woods utterly; spreading a coverlet tenderly above the racked body of Roderick McLeod. There was a great, white silence, unbroken by breath of wind, by sound or motion of life.
Latour, after his enemy's passing, had wasted no time. In half an hour he was gone, driving his canoe with mighty strokes down the river running black between whitening banks. In due time he made Burke's Landing and swaggered into the store of Dennis Burke.
But years seemed to have fallen upon Burke. He nodded to Latour and immediately forgot him, staring at vacancy.
“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed the half-breed, “you are seeck, is it not?”
“I'm well enough,” said Burke slowly. “What is it you want?”
“Not'ing—now,” said Latour. “I call in to say bon jour, that is all. How ees Kat'leen?”
Burke stared at him, dull-eyed.
“She's dead—drowned from a canoe ten days ago,” he said.
If Felix or Onesime or Flatfoot or Moise cared to tell you the truth, they would tell you this story—tell it impressively beside the little camp fire, with many gestures of brown, paddle-calloused hands, and furtive glances into the yawning glooms without the circle of light.
They would add that McLeod's prophecy came true—that Pierre Latour died before the spring; also that he was afraid, and went hence shamefully, babbling confession to those who stood beside him, to ease his soul.
And if they told you the whole truth as they see it—what they one and all believe—it would be that Latour Noir and Rod McLeod still crouch o' nights by the shadow of the big pine, reënacting the tragedy that was the end of the one and the beginning of the end for the other, which they must do until the world ends, or until their bitter souls learn to respect and forgive and find peace thereby. Wherefore the big pine is accursed, and a place to be avoided.
But neither Felix nor Onesime, Flatfoot nor Moise will tell you these things, because they are simple men with a primitive belief in the powers of good and evil; and you, being able to read books and therefore the possessor of much wisdom, might laugh at them.
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 1960, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 63 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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