[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D. W. ]

A ROMANY OF THE SNOWS

BEING A CONTINUATION OF THE PERSONAL HISTORIES OF "PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE"AND THE LAST EXISTING RECORDS OF PRETTY PIERRE

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 4. 

LITTLE BABICHEAT POINT O' BUGLESTHE SPOIL OF THE PUMATHE TRAIL OF THE SUN DOGSTHE PILOT OF BELLE AMOUR

LITTLE BABICHE

"No, no, m'sieu' the governor, they did not tell you right. I was withhim, and I have known Little Babiche fifteen years--as long as I've knownyou. . . . It was against the time when down in your world there theyhave feastings, and in the churches the grand songs and many candles onthe altars. Yes, Noel, that is the word--the day of the Great Birth. You shall hear how strange it all was--the thing, the time, the end ofit. "

The governor of the great Company settled back in a chair, his powerfulface seamed by years, his hair grey and thick still, his keen, steadyeyes burning under shaggy brows. He had himself spent long solitaryyears in the wild fastnesses of the north. He fastened his dark eyes onPierre, and said: "Monsieur Pierre, I shall be glad to hear. It was atthe time of Noel--yes?"

Pierre began: "You have seen it beautiful and cold in the north, butnever so cold and beautiful as it was last year. The world was whitewith sun and ice, the frost never melting, the sun never warming--justa glitter, so lovely, so deadly. If only you could keep the heart warm, you were not afraid. But if once--just for a moment--the blood ran outfrom the heart and did not come in again, the frost clamped the doorsshut, and there was an end of all. Ah, m'sieu', when the north clinchesa man's heart in anger there is no pain like it--for a moment. "

"Yes, yes; and Little Babiche?"

"For ten years he carried the mails along the route of Fort St. Mary, Fort O'Glory, Fort St. Saviour, and Fort Perseverance within the circle-just one mail once a year, but that was enough. There he was with hisEsquimaux dogs on the trail, going and coming, with a laugh and a wordfor anyone that crossed his track. 'Good-day, Babiche' 'Good-day, m'sieu'. ' 'How do you, Babiche?' 'Well, thank the Lord, m'sieu'. ''Where to and where from, Babiche?' 'To the Great Fort by the old trail, from the Far-off River, m'sieu'. ' 'Come safe along, Babiche. ' 'Merci, m'sieu'; the good God travels north, m'sieu'. ' 'Adieu, Babiche. ' 'Adieu, m'sieu'. ' That is about the way of the thing, year after year. Sometimesa night at a hut or a post, but mostly alone--alone, except for the dogs. He slept with them, and they slept on the mails--to guard: as thoughthere should be highwaymen on the Prairie of the Ten Stars! But no, itwas his way, m'sieu'. Now and again I crossed him on the trail, for haveI not travelled to every corner of the north? We were not so greatfriends, for--well, Babiche is a man who says his aves, and never was aloafer, and there was no reason why he should have love for me; but wewere good company when we met. I knew him when he was a boy down on theChaudiere, and he always had a heart like a lion-and a woman. I had seenhim fight, I had seen him suffer cold, and I had heard him sing. 

"Well, I was up last fall to Fort St. Saviour. Ho, how dull was it!Macgregor, the trader there, has brains like rubber. So I said, I willgo down to Fort O'Glory. I knew someone would be there--it is nearer theworld. So I started away with four dogs and plenty of jerked buffalo, and so much brown brandy as Macgregor could squeeze out of his eye!Never, never were there such days--the frost shaking like steel andsilver as it powdered the sunlight, the white level of snow lifting andfalling, and falling and lifting, the sky so great a travel away, the airwhich made you cry out with pain one minute and gave you joy the next. And all so wild, so lonely! Yet I have seen hanging in those plainscities all blue and red with millions of lights showing, and voices, voices everywhere, like the singing of soft masses. After a time in thatcold up there you are no longer yourself--no. You move in a dream. "Ehbien, m'sieu', there came, I thought, a dream to me one evening--well, perhaps one afternoon, for the days are short--so short, the sun justcoming over a little bend of sky, and sinking down like a big orangeball. I come out of a tumble of little hills, and there over on theplains I saw a sight! Ragged hills of ice were thrown up, as if they'dbeen heaved out by the breaking earth, jutting here and there likewedges--like the teeth of a world. Alors, on one crag, shaped as ananvil, I saw what struck me like a blow, and I felt the blood shoot outof my heart and leave it dry. I was for a minute like a pump with nowater in its throat to work the piston and fetch the stream up. I gotsick and numb. There on that anvil of snow and ice I saw a big whitebear, one such as you shall see within the Arctic Circle, his long nosefetching out towards that bleeding sun in the sky, his white coatshining. But that was not the thing--there was another. At the feet ofthe bear was a body, and one clawed foot was on that body--of a man. Soclear was the air, the red sun shining on the face as it was turnedtowards me, that I wonder I did not at once know whose it was. Youcannot think, m'sieu', what that was like--no. But all at once Iremembered the Chant of the Scarlet Hunter. I spoke it quick, and theblood came creeping back in here. " He tapped his chest with his slightforefinger. 

"What was the chant?" asked the governor, who had scarce stirred amuscle since the tale began. Pierre made a little gesture ofdeprecation. "Ah, it is perhaps a thing of foolishness, as you maythink--"

"No, no. I have heard and seen in my day, " urged the governor. 

"So? Good. Yes, I remember, you told me years ago, m'sieu'. . . . 

 "The blinding Trail and Night and Cold are man's: mine is the trail that finds the Ancient Lodge. Morning and Night they travel with me; my camp is set by the pines, its fires are burning--are burning. The lost, they shall sit by my fires, and the fearful ones shall seek, and the sick shall abide. I am the Hunter, the Son of the North; I am thy lover where no man may love thee. With me thou shalt journey, and thine the Safe Tent. 

"As I said, the blood came back to my heart. I turned to my dogs, andgave them a cut with the whip to see if I dreamed. They sat back andsnarled, and their wild red eyes, the same as mine, kept looking at thebear and the quiet man on the anvil of ice and snow. Tell me, can youthink of anything like it?--the strange light, the white bear of thePole, that has no friends at all except the shooting stars, the great iceplains, the quick night hurrying on, the silence--such silence as no mancan think! I have seen trouble flying at me in a hundred ways, but thiswas different--yes. We come to the foot of the little hill. Still thebear not stir. As I went up, feeling for my knives and my gun, the dogsbegan to snarl with anger, and for one little step I shivered, for thething seem not natural. I was about two hundred feet away from the bearwhen it turned slow round at me, lifting its foot from the body. Thedogs all at once come huddling about me, and I dropped on my knee to takeaim, but the bear stole away from the man and come moving down past us atan angle, making for the plain. I could see his deep shining eyes, andthe steam roll from his nose in long puffs. Very slow and heavy, like asif he see no one and care for no one, he shambled down, and in a minutewas gone behind a boulder. I ran on to the man--"

The governor was leaning forward, looking intently, and said now: "It'slike a wild dream--but the north--the north is near to the Strangest ofAll!"

"I knelt down and lifted him up in my arms, all a great bundle of fursand wool, and I got my hand at last to his wrist. He was alive. It wasLittle Babiche! Part of his face was frozen stiff. I rubbed out thefrost with snow, and then I forced some brandy into his mouth, good oldH. B. C. Brandy, --and began to call to him: 'Babiche! Babiche! Comeback, Babiche! The wolf's at the pot, Babiche!' That's the way to calla hunter to his share of meat. I was afraid, for the sleep of cold isthe sleep of death, and it is hard to call the soul back to this world. But I called, and kept calling, and got him on his feet, with my armround him. I gave him more brandy; and at last I almost shrieked in hisear. Little by little I saw his face take on the look of waking life. It was like the dawn creeping over white hills and spreading into day. I said to myself: What a thing it will be if I can fetch him back!For I never knew one to come back after the sleep had settled on them. It is too comfortable--all pain gone, all trouble, the world forgot, justa kind weight in all the body, as you go sinking down, down to thevalley, where the long hands of old comrades beckon to you, and theirsoft, high voices cry, 'Hello! hello-o!'" Pierre nodded his headtowards the distance, and a musing smile divided his lips on his whiteteeth. Presently he folded a cigarette, and went on:

"I had saved something to the last, as the great test, as the one thingto open his eyes wide, if they could be opened at all. Alors, there wasno time to lose, for the wolf of Night was driving the red glow-worm downbehind the world, and I knew that when darkness came altogether--darknessand night--there would be no help for him. Mon Dieu! how one sleeps inthe night of the north, in the beautiful wide silence! . . . So, m'sieu', just when I thought it was the time, I called, 'Corinne!Corinne!' Then once again I said, 'P'tite Corinne! P'tite Corinne!Come home! come home! P'tite Corinne!' I could see the fight in thejail of sleep. But at last he killed his jailer; the doors in his brainflew open, and his mind came out through his wide eyes. But he was blinda little and dazed, though it was getting dark quick. I struck his backhard, and spoke loud from a song that we used to sing on the Chaudiere--Babiche and all of us, years ago. Mon Dieu! how I remember those days--

 "'Which is the way that the sun goes? The way that my little one come. Which is the good path over the hills? The path that leads to my little one's home-- To my little one's home, m'sieu', m'sieu'!'

"That did it. 'Corinne, ma p'tite Corinne!' he said; but he did not lookat me--only stretch out his hands. I caught them, and shook them, andshook him, and made him take a step forward; then I slap him on the backagain, and said loud: 'Come, come, Babiche, don't you know me? SeeBabiche, the snow's no sleeping-bunk, and a polar bear's no good friend. ''Corinne!' he went on, soft and slow. 'Ma p'tite Corinne!' He smiled tohimself; and I said, 'Where've you been, Babiche? Lucky I found you, oryou'd have been sleeping till the Great Mass. ' Then he looked at mestraight in the eyes, and something wild shot out of his. His handstretched over and caught me by the shoulder, perhaps to steady himself, perhaps because he wanted to feel something human. Then he looked roundslow-all round the plain, as if to find something. At that moment alittle of the sun crept back, and looked up over the wall of ice, makinga glow of yellow and red for a moment; and never, north or south, have Iseen such beauty--so delicate, so awful. It was like a world that itsMaker had built in a fit of joy, and then got tired of, and broke inpieces, and blew out all its fires, and left--ah yes--like that!And out in the distance I--I only saw a bear travelling eastwards. "

The governor said slowly:

 And I took My staff Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break My covenant which I had made with all the people. 

"Yes--like that. " Pierre continued: "Babiche turned to me with a littlelaugh, which was a sob too. 'Where is it, Pierre?' said he. I knew hemeant the bear. 'Gone to look for another man, ' I said, with a gay look, for I saw that he was troubled. 'Come, ' said he at once. As we went, hesaw my dogs. He stopped short and shook a little, and tears came intohis eyes. 'What is it, Babiche?' said I. He looked back towards thesouth. 'My dogs--Brandy-wine, Come-along, 'Poleon, and the rest--diedone night all of an hour. One by one they crawl over to where I lay inmy fur bag, and die there, huddling by me--and such cries--such cries!There was poison or something in the frozen fish I'd given them. I lovedthem every one; and then there was the mails, the year's mails--howshould they be brought on? That was a bad thought, for I had nevermissed--never in ten years. There was one bunch of letters which thegovernor said to me was worth more than all the rest of the mails puttogether, and I was to bring it to Fort St. Saviour, or not show my faceto him again. I leave the dogs there in the snow, and come on with thesled, carrying all the mails. Ah, the blessed saints, how heavy the sledgot, and how lonely it was! Nothing to speak to--no one, no thing, dayafter day. At last I go to cry to the dogs, "Come-along! 'Poleon!Brandy-wine!"--like that! I think I see them there, but they never barkand they never snarl, and they never spring to the snap of the whip. .. . I was alone. Oh, my head! my head! If there was only something aliveto look at, besides the wide white plain, and the bare hills of ice, andthe sun-dogs in the sky! Now I was wild, next hour I was like a child, then I gnash my teeth like a wolf at the sun, and at last I got on myknees. The tears froze my eyelids shut, but I kept saying, "Ah, my greatFriend, my Jesu, just something, something with the breath of life!Leave me not all alone!" and I got sleepier all the time. 

"'I was sinking, sinking, so quiet and easy, when all at once I feltsomething beside me; I could hear it breathing, but I could not open myeyes at first, for, as I say, the lashes were froze. Something touch me, smell me, and a nose was push against my chest. I put out my hand ver'soft and touch it. I had no fear, I was so glad I could have hug it, butI did not--I drew back my hand quiet and rub my eyes. In a little I cansee. There stand the thing--a polar bear--not ten feet away, its redeyes shining. On my knees I spoke to it, talk to it, as I would to aman. It was like a great wild dog, fierce, yet kind, and I fed it withthe fish which had been for Brandy-wine and the rest--but not to kill it!and it did not die. That night I lie down in my bag--no, I was notafraid! The bear lie beside me, between me and the sled. Ah, it waswarm! Day after day we travel together, and camp together at night--ah, sweet Sainte Anne, how good it was, myself and the wild beast suchfriends, alone in the north! But to-day--a little while ago--somethingwent wrong with me, and I got sick in the head, a swimming like a tidewash in and out. I fall down-asleep. When I wake I find you here besideme--that is all. The bear must have drag me here. '"

Pierre stuck a splinter into the fire to light another cigarette, andpaused as if expecting the governor to speak, but no word coming, hecontinued: "I had my arm around him while we talked and come slowly downthe hill. Soon he stopped and said, 'This is the place. ' It was a caveof ice, and we went in. Nothing was there to see except the sled. Babiche stopped short. It come to him now that his good comrade wasgone. He turned, and looked out, and called, but there was only theempty night, the ice, and the stars. Then he come back, sat down on thesled, and the tears fall. . . . I lit my spirit-lamp, boiled coffee, got pemmican from my bag, and I tried to make him eat. No. He wouldonly drink the coffee. At last he said to me, 'What day is this, Pierre?' 'It is the day of the Great Birth, Babiche, ' I said. He madethe sign of the cross, and was quiet, so quiet! but he smile to himself, and kept saying in a whisper: 'Ma p'tite Corinne! Ma p'tite Corinne!'The next day we come on safe, and in a week I was back at Fort St. Saviour with Babiche and all the mails, and that most wonderful letterof the governor's. "

"The letter was to tell a factor that his sick child in the hospital atQuebec was well, " the governor responded quietly. "Who was 'Ma p'titeCorinne, ' Pierre?"

"His wife--in heaven; and his child--on the Chaudiere, m'sieu'. Thechild came and the mother went on the same day of the Great Birth. Hehas a soft heart--that Babiche!"

"And the white bear--so strange a thing!"

"M'sieu', who can tell? The world is young up here. When it was allyoung, man and beast were good comrades, maybe. "

"Ah, maybe. What shall be done with Little Babiche, Pierre?"

"He will never be the same again on the old trail, m'sieu'!"

There was silence for a long time, but at last the governor said, musing, almost tenderly, for he never had a child: "Ma p'tite Corinne!--LittleBabiche shall live near his child, Pierre. I will see to that. "

Pierre said no word, but got up, took off his hat to the governor, andsat down again. 

AT POINT O' BUGLES

"John York, John York, where art thou gone, John York?"

"What's that, Pierre?" said Sir Duke Lawless, starting to his feet andpeering round. 

"Hush!" was Pierre's reply. "Wait for the rest. . . . There!"

"King of my heart, king of my heart, I am out on the trail of thybugles. "

Sir Duke was about to speak, but Pierre lifted a hand in warning, andthen through the still night there came the long cry of a bugle, rising, falling, strangely clear, echoing and echoing again, and dying away. Amoment, and the call was repeated, with the same effect, and again athird time; then all was still, save for the flight of birds roused fromthe desire of night, and the long breath of some animal in the woodssinking back to sleep. 

Their camp was pitched on the south shore of Hudson's Bay, many leaguesto the west of Rupert House, not far from the Moose River. Looking northwas the wide expanse of the bay, dotted with sterile islands here andthere; to the east were the barren steppes of Labrador, and all roundthem the calm, incisive air of a late September, when winter begins toshake out his frosty curtains and hang them on the cornice of the north, despite the high protests of the sun. The two adventurers had cometogether after years of separation, and Sir Duke had urged Pierre to fareaway with him to Hudson's Bay, which he had never seen, although he hadshares in the great Company, left him by his uncle the admiral. 

They were camped in a hollow, to the right a clump of hardy trees, withno great deal of foliage, but some stoutness; to the left a long fingerof land running out into the water like a wedge, the most eastern pointof the western shore of Hudson's Bay. It was high and bold, and, somehow, had a fine dignity and beauty. From it a path led away north toa great log-fort called King's House. 

Lawless saw Pierre half rise and turn his head, listening. Presently he, too, heard the sound-the soft crash of crisp grass under the feet. Heraised himself to a sitting posture and waited. 

Presently a tall figure came out of the dusk into the light of theirfire, and a long arm waved a greeting at them. Both Lawless and Pierrerose to their feet. The stranger was dressed in buckskin, he carried arifle, and around his shoulder was a strong yellow cord, from which hunga bugle. 

"How!" he said, with a nod, and drew near the fire, stretching out hishands to the blaze. 

"How!" said Lawless and Pierre. 

After a moment Lawless drew from his blanket a flask of brandy, andwithout a word handed it over the fire. The fingers of the two men metin the flicker of flames, a sort of bond by fire, and the stranger raisedthe flask. 

"Chin-chin, " he said, and drank, breathing a long sigh of satisfactionafterwards as he handed it back; but it was Pierre that took it, andagain fingers touched in the bond of fire. Pierre passed the flask toLawless, who lifted it. 

"Chin-chin, " he said, drank, and gave the flask to Pierre again, who didas did the others, and said "Chin-chin" also. 

By that salutation of the east, given in the far north, Lawless knew thathe had met one who had lighted fires where men are many and close to themile as holes in a sieve. 

They all sat down, and tobacco went round, the stranger offering his, while the two others, with true hospitality, accepted. 

"We heard you over there--it was you?" said Lawless, nodding towardsPoint o' Bugles, and glancing at the bugle the other carried. 

"Yes, it was I, " was the reply. "Someone always does it twice a year: onthe 25th September and the 25th March. I've done it now without a breakfor ten years, until it has got to be a sort of religion with me, and thewhole thing's as real as if King George and John York were talking. As Itramp to the point or swing away back, in summer barefooted, in winter onmy snowshoes, to myself I seem to be John York on the trail of the king'sbugles. I've thought so much about the whole thing, I've read so many ofJohn York's letters--and how many times one of the King's!--that now Iscarcely know which is the bare story, and which the bit's I've dreamedas I've tramped over the plains or sat in the quiet at King's House, spelling out little by little the man's life, from the cues I found inhis journal, in the Company's papers, and in that one letter of theKing's. "

Pierre's eyes were now more keen than those of Lawless: for years he hadknown vaguely of this legend of Point o' Bugles. 

"You know it all, " he said--"begin at the beginning: how and when youfirst heard, how you got the real story, and never mind which is takenfrom the papers and which from your own mind--if it all fits in it is alltrue, for the lie never fits in right with the square truth. If you havethe footprints and the handprints you can tell the whole man; if you havethe horns of a deer you know it as if you had killed it, skinned it, andpotted it. "

The stranger stretched himself before the fire, nodding at his hosts ashe did so, and then began:

"Well, a word about myself first, " he said, "so you'll know just whereyou are. I was full up of life in London town and India, and that's afact. I'd plenty of friends and little money, and my will wasn't equalto the task of keeping out of the hands of the Jews. I didn't know whatto do, but I had to go somewhere, that was clear. Where? An accidentdecided it. I came across an old journal of my great-grandfather, JohnYork, --my name's Dick Adderley, --and just as if a chain had been putround my leg and I'd been jerked over by the tipping of the world, I hadto come to Hudson's Bay. John York's journal was a thing to sit upnights to read. It came back to England after he'd had his fill ofHudson's Bay and the earth beneath, and had gone, as he himself said onthe last page of the journal, to follow the king's buglers in 'the landthat is far off. ' God and the devil were strong in old John York. I didn't lose much time after I'd read the journal. I went to Hudson'sBay house in London, got a place in the Company, by the help of thegovernor himself, and came out. I've learned the rest of the history ofold John York--the part that never got to England; for here at King'sHouse there's a holy tradition that the real John York belongs to it andto it alone. "

Adderley laughed a little. "King's House guards John York's memory, andit's as fresh and real here now as though he'd died yesterday; thoughit's forgotten in England, and by most who bear his name, and the presentPrince of Wales maybe never heard of the roan who was a close friend ofthe Prince Regent, the First Gentleman of Europe. "

"That sounds sweet gossip, " said Lawless, with a smile; "we're waiting. "

Adderley continued: "John York was an honest man, of wholesome sport, jovial, and never shirking with the wine, commendable in his appetite, of rollicking soul and proud temper, and a gay dog altogether--gay, butto be trusted, too, for he had a royal heart. In the coltish days of thePrince Regent he was a boon comrade, but never did he stoop to flattery, nor would he hedge when truth should be spoken, as ofttimes it was neededwith the royal blade, for at times he would forget that a prince was yeta man, topped with the accident of a crown. Never prince had truerfriend, and so in his best hours he thought, himself, and if he ever wasjust and showed his better part, it was to the bold country gentleman whonever minced praise or blame, but said his say and devil take the end ofit. In truth, the Prince was wilful, and once he did a thing which mighthave given a twist to the fate of England. Hot for the love of women, and with some dash of real romance in him too, else even as a prince hemight have had shallower love and service, --he called John York one dayand said:

"'To-night at seven, Squire John, you'll stand with me while I put theseal on the Gates of Eden;' and, when the other did not guess his import, added: 'Sir Mark Selby is your neighbour--his daughter's for my arms to-night. You know her, handsome Sally Selby--she's for your prince, forgood or ill. '

"John York did not understand at first, for he could not think the Princehad anything in mind but some hot escapade of love. When MistressSelby's name was mentioned his heart stood still, for she had been hischoice, the dear apple of his eye, since she had bloomed towardswomanhood. He had set all his hopes upon her, tarrying till she shouldhave seen some little life before he asked her for his wife. He had herfather's Godspeed to his wooing, for he was a man whom all men knewhonest and generous as the sun, and only choleric with the mean thing. She, also, had given him good cause to think that he should one day takeher to his home, a loved and honoured wife. His impulse, when her namepassed the Prince's lips, was to draw his sword, for he would have calledan emperor to account; but presently he saw the real meaning of thespeech: that the Prince would marry her that night. "

Here the story-teller paused again, and Pierre said softly, inquiringly:

"You began to speak in your own way, and you've come to another way--likegoing from an almanac to the Mass. "

The other smiled. "That's so. I've heard it told by old Shearton atKing's House, who speaks as if he'd stepped out of Shakespeare, andsomehow I seem to hear him talking, and I tell it as he told it last yearto the governor of the Company. Besides, I've listened these seven yearsto his style. "

"It's a strange beginning--unwritten history of England, " said Sir Dukemusingly. 

"You shall hear stranger things yet, " answered Adderley. "John Yorkcould hardly believe it at first, for the thought of such a thing neverhad place in his mind. Besides, the Prince knew how he had looked uponthe lady, and he could not have thought his comrade would come in betweenhim and his happiness. Perhaps it was the difficulty, adding spice tothe affair, that sent the Prince to the appeal of private marriage to winthe lady, and John York always held that he loved her truly then, thefirst and only real affection of his life. The lady--who can tell whatwon her over from the honest gentleman to the faithless prince? Thatsoul of vanity which wraps about the real soul of every woman fell downat last before the highest office in the land, and the gifted bearer ofthe office. But the noble spirit in her brought him to offer marriage, when he might otherwise have offered, say, a barony. There is a recordof that and more in John York's Memoirs which I will tell you, for theyhave settled in my mind like an old song, and I learned them long ago. I give you John York's words written by his own hands:

"'I did not think when I beheld thee last, dearest flower of the world'sgarden, that I should see thee bloom in that wide field, rank with thesorrows of royal favour. How did my foolish eyes fill with tears when Iwatched thee, all rose and gold in thy cheeks and hair, the light fallingon thee through the chapel window, putting thy pure palm into myprince's, swearing thy life away, selling the very blossoms of earth'sorchards for the brier beauty of a hidden vineyard! I saw the flyingglories of thy cheeks, the halcyon weather of thy smile, the delicatelifting of thy bosom, the dear gaiety of thy step, and, at that moment, I mourned for thy sake that thou wert not the dullest wench in the land, for then thou hadst been spared thy miseries, thou hadst been saved thetorture-boot of a lost love and a disacknowledged wifedom. Yet I couldnot hide from me that thou wert happy at that great moment, when he sworeto love and cherish thee, till death you parted. 

"Ah, George, my prince, my king, how wickedly thou didst break thy vowswith both of us who loved thee well, through good and ill report--forthey spake evil of thee, George; ay, the meanest of thy subjects spakelightly of their king--when with that sweet soul secretly hid away inthe farthest corner of thy kingdom, thou soughtst divorce from thy laterCaroline, whom thou, unfaithful, didst charge with infidelity. When, atlast, thou didst turn again to the partner of thy youth, thy true wife inthe eyes of God, it was too late. Thou didst promise me that thouwouldst never take another wife, never put our dear heart away, thoughshe could not--after our miserable laws--bear thee princes. Thou didstbreak thy promise, yet she forgave thee, and I forgave thee, for well weknew that thou wouldst pay a heavy reckoning, and that in the hour whenthou shouldst cry to us we might not come to thee; that in the days whenage and sorrow and vast troubles should oppress thee, thou wouldst longfor the true hearts who loved thee for thyself and not for aught thouwudst give, or aught that thou wert, save as a man. 

"'When thou didst proclaim thy purpose to take Caroline to wife, Ipleaded with thee, I was wroth with thee. Thy one plea was succession. Succession! Succession! What were a hundred dynasties beside thatprecious life, eaten by shame and sorrow? It were easy for others, notthy children, to come after thee, to rule as well as thee, as must evennow be the case, for thou hast no lawful child save that one in theloneliest corner of thy English vineyard--alack! alack! I warned theeGeorge, I pleaded, and thou didst drive me out with words ill-suited tothy friend who loved thee. 

"'I did not fear thee, I would have forced thee to thy knees or made theefight me, had not some good spirit cried to my heart that thou wert herhusband, and that we both had loved thee. I dared not listen to thebrutal thing thou hintedst at--that now I might fatten where I hadhungered. Thou hadst to answer for the baseness of that thought to theKing of kings, when thou wentest forth alone, no subject, courtier, friend, wife, or child to do thee service, journeying--not en prince, George; no, not en prince! but as a naked soul to God. 

"'Thou saidst to me: "Get thee gone, John York, where I shall no more seethee. " And when I returned, "Wouldst thou have me leave thy country, sir?" thou answeredst: "Blow thy quarrelsome soul to the stars where myfarthest bugle cries. " Then I said: "I go, sir, till thou callest meagain--and after; but not till thou hast honoured the child of thy honestwedlock; till thou hast secured thy wife to the end of her life againstall manner of trouble save the shame of thy disloyalty. " There was nomore for me to do, for my deep love itself forbade my staying longerwithin reach of the noble deserted soul. And so I saw the chastenedglory of her face no more, nor evermore beheld her perfectness. '"

Adderley paused once more, and, after refilling his pipe in silence, continued:

"That was the heart of the thing. His soul sickened of the rank world, as he called it, and he came out to the Hudson's Bay country, leaving hisestates in care of his nephew, but taking many stores and great chests ofclothes and a shipload of furniture, instruments of music, more than athousand books, some good pictures, and great stores of wine. Here hecame and stayed, an officer of the Company, building King's House, andfilling it with all the fine things he had brought with him, making inthis far north a little palace in the wilderness. Here he lived, hisgreat heart growing greater in this wide sinewy world, King's House aplace of pilgrimage for all the Company's men in the north; a noblegentleman in a sweet exile, loving what he could no more, what he did nomore, see. 

"Twice a year he went to that point yonder and blew this bugle, no manknew why or wherefore, year in, year out, till 1817. Then there came aletter to him with great seals, which began: 'John York, John York, where art thou gone, John York?' There followed a score of sorrowfulsentences, full of petulance, too, for it was as John York foretold, hisprince longed for the 'true souls' whom he had cast off. But he calledtoo late, for the neglected wife died from the shock of her prince'slonging message to her, and when, by the same mail, John York knew that, he would not go back to England to the King. But twice every year hewent to yonder point and spoke out the King's words to him: 'John York, John York, where art thou gone, John York?' and gave the words of his ownletter in reply: 'King of my heart, king of my heart, I am out on thetrail of thy bugles. ' To this he added three calls of the bugle, as youhave heard. "

Adderley handed the bugle to Lawless, who looked at it with deep interestand passed it on to Pierre. "When he died, " Adderley continued, "he leftthe house, the fittings, and the stores to the officers of the Companywho should be stationed there, with a sum of money yearly, provided thattwice in twelve months the bugle should be blown as you have heard it, and those words called out. "

"Why did he do that?" asked Lawless, nodding towards the point. 

"Why do they swing the censers at the Mass?" interjected Pierre. "Manhas signs for memories, and one man seeing another's sign will rememberhis own. "

"You stay because you like it--at King's House?" asked Lawless ofAdderley. 

The other stretched himself lazily to the fire and, "I am at home, " hesaid. "I have no cares. I had all there was of that other world; I'venot had enough of this. You'll come with me to King's House to-morrow?"he added. 

To their quick assent he rejoined: "You'll never want to leave. You'llstay on. "

To this Lawless replied, shaking his head: "I have a wife and child inEngland. "

But Pierre did not reply. He lifted the bugle, mutely asking a questionof Adderley, who as mutely replied, and then, with it in his hand, leftthe other two beside the fire. 

A few minutes later they heard, with three calls of the bugle from thepoint afterwards, Pierre's voice: "John York, John York, where art thougone, John York?"

Then came the reply:

"King of my heart, king of my heart, I am out on the trail of thybugles. "

THE SPOIL OF THE PUMA

Just at the point where the Peace River first hugs the vast outpost hillsof the Rockies, before it hurries timorously on, through an unexploredregion, to Fort St. John, there stood a hut. It faced the west, and wasbuilt half-way up Clear Mountain. In winter it had snows above it andbelow it; in summer it had snow above it and a very fair stretch of treesand grass, while the river flowed on the same, winter and summer. It wasa lonely country. Travelling north, you would have come to the TurnagainRiver; west, to the Frying Pan Mountains; south, to a goodly land. Butfrom the hut you had no outlook towards the south; your eye came plumpagainst a hard lofty hill, like a wall between heaven and earth. It isstrange, too, that, when you are in the far north, you do not looktowards the south until the north turns an iron hand upon you and refusesthe hospitality of food and fire; your eyes are drawn towards the Pole bythat charm--deadly and beautiful--for which men have given up threepoints of the compass, with their pleasures and ease, to seek a gravesolitude, broken only by the beat of a musk-ox's hoofs, the long breathof the caribou, or the wild cry of the puma. 

Sir Duke Lawless had felt this charm, and had sworn that one day he wouldagain leave his home in Devon and his house in Pont Street, and, findingPierre, Shon M'Gann, and others of his old comrades, together they wouldtravel into those austere yet pleasant wilds. He kept his word, foundShon M'Gann, and on an autumn day of a year not so long ago lounged inthis hut on Clear Mountain. They had had three months of travel andsport, and were filled, but not sated, with the joy of the hunter. Theywere very comfortable, for their host, Pourcette, the French Canadian, had fire and meat in plenty, and, if silent, was attentive to theircomfort--a little, black-bearded, grey-headed man, with heavy brows oversmall vigilant eyes, deft with his fingers, and an excellent sportsman, as could be told from the skins heaped in all the corners of the largehut. 

The skins were not those of mere foxes or martens or deer, but ofmountain lions and grizzlies. There were besides many soft, tiger-likeskins, which Sir Duke did not recognise. He kept looking at them, and atlast went over and examined one. 

"What's this, Monsieur Pourcette?" he said, feeling it as it lay on thetop of the pile. 

The little man pushed the log on the fireplace with his moccasined footbefore he replied: "Of a puma, m'sieu'. "

Sir Duke smoothed it with his hand. "I didn't know there were pumashere. "

"Faith, Sir Duke--"

Sir Duke Lawless turned on Shon quickly. "You're forgetting again, Shon. There's no 'Sir Dukes' between us. What you were to me years ago on thewally-by-track and the buffalo-trail, you are now, and I'm the same also:M'Gann and Lawless, and no other. "

"Well, then, Lawless, it's true enough as he says it, for I've seen morethan wan skin brought in, though I niver clapped eye on the beast alive. There's few men go huntin' them av their own free will, not more thanthey do grizzlies; but, bedad, this French gintleman has either the lucko' the world, or the gift o' that man ye tould me of, that slew the wildboars in anciency. Look at that, now: there's thirty or forty puma-skins, and I'd take my oath there isn't another man in the country that'sshot half that in his lifetime. "

Pourcette's eyes were on the skins, not on the men, and he did not appearto listen. He sat leaning forward, with a strange look on his face. Presently he got up, came over, and stroked the skins softly. A queerchuckling noise came from his throat. 

"It was good sport?" asked Lawless, feeling a new interest in him. 

"The grandest sport--but it is not so easy, " answered the old man. "Thegrizzly comes on you bold and strong; you know your danger right away, and have it out. So. But the puma comes--God, how the puma comes!" Hebroke off, his eyes burning bright under his bushy brows and his bodyarranging itself into an attitude of expectation and alertness. 

"You have travelled far. The sun goes down. You build a fire and cookyour meat, and then good tea and the tabac. It is ver' fine. You hearthe loon crying on the water, or the last whistle of the heron up thepass. The lights in the sky come out and shine through a thin mist--there is nothing like that mist, it is so fine and soft. Allons. Youare sleepy. You bless the good God. You stretch pine branches, wrap inyour blanket, and lie down to sleep. If it is winter and you have afriend, you lie close. It is all quiet. As you sleep, something comes. It slides along the ground on its belly, like a snake. It is a pity ifyou have not ears that feel--the whole body as ears. For there is aswift lunge, a snarl--ah, you should hear it! the thing has you by thethroat, and there is an end!"

The old man had acted all the scenes: a sidelong glance, a littlegesture, a movement of the body, a quick, harsh breath--without emphaticexcitement, yet with a reality and force that fascinated his twolisteners. When he paused, Shon let go a long breath, and Lawless lookedwith keen inquiry at their entertainer. This almost unnatural, yetquiet, intensity had behind it something besides the mere spirit of thesportsman. Such exhibitions of feeling generally have an unusualpersonal interest to give them point and meaning. 

"Yes, that's wonderful, Pourcette, " he said; "but that's when the pumahas things its own way. How is it when these come off?" He stroked thesoft furs under his hand. 

The man laughed, yet without a sound--the inward, stealthy laugh, as froma knowledge wicked in its very suggestiveness. His eyes ran from Lawlessto Shon, and back again. He put his hand on his mouth, as though forsilence, stole noiselessly over to the wall, took down his gun quietly, and turned round. Then he spoke softly:

"To kill the puma, you must watch--always watch. You will see his yelloweyes sometimes in a tree: you must be ready before he springs. You willhear his breath at night as you pretend to sleep, and you wait till yousee his foot steal out of the shadow--then you have him. From a mountainwall you watch in the morning, and, when you see him, you follow, andfollow, and do not rest till you have found him. You must never missfire, for he has great strength and a mad tooth. But when you have gothim, he is worth all. You cannot eat the grizzly--he is too thick andcoarse; but the puma--well, you had him from the pot to-night. Was henot good?"

Lawless's brows ran up in surprise. Shon spoke quickly:

"Heaven above!" he burst out. "Was it puma we had betune the teeth?And what's puma but an almighty cat? Sure, though, it wint as tinderas pullets, for all that--but I wish you hadn't tould us. "

The old man stood leaning on his gun, his chin on his hands, as theycovered the muzzle, his eyes fixed on something in his memory, the visionof incidents he had lived or seen. 

Lawless went over to the fire and relit his pipe. Shon followed him. They both watched Pourcette. "D'ye think he's mad?" asked Shon in awhisper. Lawless shook his head: "Mad? No. But there's more in thispuma-hunting than appears. How long has he lived here, did he say?"

"Four years; and, durin' that time, yours and mine are the only whitefaces he has seen, except one. "

"Except one. Well, whose was the one? That might be interesting. Maybethere's a story in that. "

"Faith, Lawless, there's a story worth the hearin', I'm thinkin', toevery white man in this country. For the three years I was in themounted police, I could count a story for all the days o' the calendar--and not all o' them would make you happy to hear. "

Pourcette turned round to them. He seemed to be listening to Shon'swords. Going to the wall, he hung up the rifle; then he came to the fireand stood holding out his hands to the blaze. He did not look in theleast mad, but like a man who was dominated by some one thought, moreor less weird. Short and slight, and a little bent, but more from habit--the habit of listening and watching--than from age, his face had astern kind of earnestness and loneliness, and nothing at all of insanity. 

Presently Lawless went to a corner and from his kit drew forth a flask. The old man saw, and immediately brought out a wooden cup. There weretwo on the shelf, and Shon pointed to the other. Pourcette took nonotice. Shon went over to get it, but Pourcette laid a hand on his arm:"Not that. "

"For ornamint!" said Shon, laughing, and then his eyes were arrested bya suit of buckskin and a cap of beaver, hanging on the wall. He turnedthem over, and then suddenly drew back his hand, for he saw in the backof the jacket a knife-slit. There was blood also on the buckskin. 

"Holy Mary!" he said, and retreated. Lawless had not noticed; he waspouring out the liquor. He had handed the cup first to Pourcette, whoraised it towards a gun hung above the fireplace, and said somethingunder his breath. 

"A dramatic little fellow, " thought Lawless; "the spirit of hisforefathers--a good deal of heart, a little of the poseur. "

Then hearing Shon's exclamation, he turned. 

"It's an ugly sight, " said Shon, pointing to the jacket. They bothlooked at Pourcette, expecting him to speak. The old man reached to thecoat, and, turning it so that the cut and the blood were hid, ran hishand down it caressingly. "Ah, poor Jo! poor Jo Gordineer!" he said;then he came over once more to the fire, sat down, and held out his handsto the fire, shaking his head. 

"For God's sake, Lawless, give me a drink!" said Shon. Their eyes met, and there was the same look in the faces of both. When Shon had drunk, he said: "So, that's what's come to our old friend, Jo: dead--killed ormurdered--"

"Don't speak so loud, " said Lawless. "Let us get the story from himfirst. "

Years before, when Shon M'Gann and Pierre and Lawless had sojourned inthe Pipi Valley, Jo Gordineer had been with them, as stupid and true aman as ever drew in his buckle in a hungry land, or let it out to munchcorn and oil. When Lawless returned to find Shon and others of hiscompanions, he had asked for Gordineer. But not Shon nor anyone elsecould tell aught of him; he had wandered north to outlying goldfields, and then had disappeared completely. But there, as it would seem, hiscoat and cap hung, and his rifle, dust-covered, kept guard over the fire. 

Shon went over to the coat, did as Pourcette had done, and said: "Is itgone y'are, Jo, wid your slow tongue and your big heart? Wan by wan thelads are off. "

Pourcette, without any warning, began speaking, but in a very quiet toneat first, as if unconscious of the others:

"Poor Jo Gordineer! Yes, he is gone. He was my friend--so tall, andsuch a hunter! We were at the Ding Dong goldfields together. When luckwent bad, I said to him: 'Come, we will go where there is plenty of wildmeat, and a summer more beautiful than in the south. ' I did not want topart from him, for once, when some miner stole my claim, and I fought, hestood by me. But in some things he was a little child. That was fromhis big heart. Well, he would go, he said; and we came away. "

He suddenly became silent; and shook his head, and spoke under hisbreath. 

"Yes, " said Lawless quietly, "you went away. What then?"

He looked up quickly, as though just aware of their presence, andcontinued:

"Well, the other followed, as I said, and--"

"No, Pourcette, " interposed Lawless, "you didn't say. Who was the otherthat followed?"

The old man looked at him gravely, and a little severely, and continued:

"As I said, Gawdor followed--he and an Indian. Gawdor thought we weregoing for gold, because I had said I knew a place in the north wherethere was gold in a river--I know the place, but that is no matter. Wedid not go for gold just then. Gawdor hated Jo Gordineer. There was ahalf-breed girl. She was fine to look at. She would have gone toGordineer if he had beckoned, any time; but he waited--he was very slow, except with his finger on a gun; he waited too long. 

"Gawdor was mad for the girl. He knew why her feet came slow to the doorwhen he knocked. He would have quarrelled with Jo, if he had dared;Gordineer was too quick a shot. He would have killed him from behind;but it was known in the camp that he was no friend of Gordineer, and itwas not safe. "

Again Pourcette was silent. Lawless put on his knee a new pipe, filledwith tobacco. The little man took it, lighted it, and smoked on insilence for a time undisturbed. Shon broke the silence, by a whisper toLawless:

"Jo was a quiet man, as patient as a priest; but when his blood came up, there was trouble in the land. Do you remimber whin--"

Lawless interrupted him and motioned towards Pourcette. The old man, after a few puffs, held the pipe on his knee, disregarding it. Lawlesssilently offered him some more whisky, but he shook his head. Presently, he again took up the thread:

"Bien, we travelled slow up through the smoky river country, and beyondinto a wild land. We had bully sport as we went. Sometimes I heardshots far away behind us; but Gordineer said it was my guess, for we sawnobody. But I had a feeling. Never mind. At last we come to the PeaceRiver. It was in the early autumn like this, when the land is full ofcomfort. What is there like it? Nothing. The mountains have colourslike a girl's eyes; the smell of the trees is sweet like a child'sbreath, and the grass feels for the foot and lifts it with a little softspring. We said we could live here for ever. We built this house highup, as you see, first, because it is good to live high--it puts life inthe blood; and, as Gordineer said, it is noble to look far over theworld, every time your house-door is open, or the parchment is down fromthe window. We killed wapiti and caribou without number, and cached themfor our food. We caught fish in the river, and made tea out of the brownberry--it is very good. We had flour, a little, which we had broughtwith us, and I went to Fort St. John and got more. Since then, down inthe valley, I have wheat every summer; for the Chinook winds blow acrossthe mountains and soften the bitter cold. 

"Well, for that journey to Fort St. John. When I got back I found Gawdorwith Gordineer. He said he had come north to hunt. His Indian had left, and he had lost his way. Gordineer believed him. He never lied himself. I said nothing, but watched. After a time he asked where the gold-fieldwas. I told him, and he started away--it was about fifty miles to thenorth. He went, and on his way back he come here. He say he could notfind the place, and was going south. I know he lied. At this time I sawthat Gordineer was changed. He was slow in the head, and so, when hebegan thinking up here, it made him lonely. It is always in a fine landlike this, where game is plenty, and the heart dances for joy in yourthroat, and you sit by the fire--that you think of some woman who wouldbe glad to draw in and tie the strings of the tent-curtain, or fasten thelatch of the door upon you two alone. "

Perhaps some memory stirred within the old man, other than that of hisdead comrade, for he sighed, muffled his mouth in his beard, and thensmiled in a distant way at the fire. The pure truth of what he said camehome to Shon M'Gann and Sir Duke Lawless; for both, in days gone by, hadsat at camp-fires in silent plains, and thought upon women from whom theybelieved they were parted for ever, yet who were only kept from them fora time, to give them happier days. They were thinking of these two womennow. They scarcely knew how long they sat there thinking. Time passesswiftly when thoughts are cheerful, or are only tinged with the softmelancholy of a brief separation. Memory is man's greatest friend andworst enemy. 

At last the old man continued: "I saw the thing grew on him. He was notsulky, but he stare much in the fire at night. In the daytime he wasdifferen'. A hunter thinks only of his sport. Gawdor watched him. Gordineer's hand was steady; his nerve was all right. I have seen himstand still till a grizzly come within twice the length of his gun. Thenhe would twist his mouth, and fire into the mortal spot. Once we wereout in the Wide Wing pass. We had never had such a day. Gordineer makegrand shots, better than my own; and men have said I can shoot like thedevil--ha! ha!" He chuckled to himself noiselessly, and said in awhisper "Twenty grizzlies, and fifty pumas!"

Then he rubbed his hands softly on his knees, and spoke aloud again:"Ici, I was proud of him. We were standing together on a ledge of rock. Gawdor was not far away. Gawdor was a poor hunter, and I knew he waswild at Gordineer's great luck. .. . A splendid bull-wapiti come out on arock across the gully. It was a long shot. I did not think Gordineercould make it; I was not sure that I could--the wind was blowing and therange was long. But he draw up his gun like lightning, and fire all atonce. The bull dropped clean over the cliff, and tumbled dead upon therocks below. It was fine. But, then, Gordineer slung his gun under hisarm, and say: 'That is enough. I am going to the hut. '

"He went away. That night he did not talk. The next morning, when Isay, 'We will be off again to the pass, ' he shake his head. He wouldnot go. He would shoot no more, he said. I understood: it was the girl. He was wide awake at last. Gawdor understanded also. He know thatGordineer would go to the south--to her. 

"I was sorry; but it was no use. Gawdor went with me to the pass. Whenwe come back, Jo was gone. On a bit of birch-bark he had put where hewas going, and the way he would take. He said he would come back to me--ah, the brave comrade! Gawdor say nothing, but his looks were black. I had a feeling. I sat up all night, smoking. I was not afraid, but Iknow Gawdor had found the valley of gold, and he might put a knife in me, because to know of such a thing alone is fine. Just at dawn, he got upand go out. He did not come back. 

"I waited, and at last went to the pass. In the afternoon, just as I wasrounding the corner of a cliff, there was a shot--then another. Thefirst went by my head; the second caught me along the ribs, but not togreat hurt. Still, I fell from the shock, and lost some blood. It wasGawdor; he thought he had killed me. 

"When I come to myself I bound up the little furrow in the flesh, andstart away. I know that Gawdor would follow Gordineer. I follow him, knowing the way he must take. I have never forget the next night. I had to travel hard, and I track him by his fires and other things. When sunset come, I do not stop. I was in a valley, and I push on. There was a little moon. At last I saw a light ahead-a camp-fire, Iknow. I was weak, and could have dropped; but a dread was on me. 

"I come to the fire. I saw a man lying near it. Just as I saw him, hewas trying to rise. But, as he did so, something sprang out of theshadow upon him, at his throat. I saw him raise his hand, and strike itwith a knife. The thing let go, and then I fire--but only scratched, Ithink. It was a puma. It sprang away again, into the darkness. I ranto the man, and raised him. It was my friend. He looked up at me andshake his head. He was torn at the throat. .. . But there was somethingelse--a wound in the back. He was stooping over the fire when he wasstabbed, and he fell. He saw that it was Gawdor. He had been left fordead, as I was. Nom de Dieu! just when I come and could have save him, the puma come also. It is the best men who have such luck. I have seenit often. I used to wonder they did not curse God. "

He crossed himself and mumbled something. Lawless rose, and walked upand down the room once or twice, pulling at his beard and frowning. Hiseyes were wet. Shon kept blowing into his closed hand and blinking atthe fire. Pourcette got up and took down the gun from the chimney. Hebrushed off the dust with his coat-sleeve, and fondled it, shaking hishead at it a little. As he began to speak again, Lawless sat down. 

"Now I know why they do not curse. Something curses for them. Jo giveme a word for her, and say 'Well, it is all right; but I wish I hadkilled the puma. ' There was nothing more. . . . I followed Gawdorfor days. I know that he would go and get someone, and go back to thegold. I thought at last I had missed him; but no. I had made up my mindwhat to do when I found him. One night, just as the moon was showingover the hills, I come upon him. I was quiet as a puma. I have a stoutcord in my pocket, and another about my body. Just as he was stoopingover the fire, as Gordineer did, I sprang upon him, clasping him aboutthe neck, and bringing him to the ground. He could not get me off. I amsmall, but I have a grip. Then, too, I had one hand at his throat. Itwas no use to struggle. The cord and a knife were in my teeth. It was agreat trick, but his breath was well gone, and I fastened his hands. Itwas no use to struggle. I tied his feet and legs. Then I carried him toa tree and bound him tight. I unfastened his hands again and tied themround the tree. Then I built a great fire not far away. He begged atfirst and cried. But I was hard. He got wild, and at last when I leavehim he cursed! It was like nothing I ever heard. He was a devil. . . I come back after I have carry the message to the poor girl--it is a sadthing to see the first great grief of the young! Gawdor was not there. The pumas and others had been with him. 

"There was more to do. I wanted to kill that puma which set its teeth inthe throat of my friend. I hunted the woods where it had happened, beating everywhere, thinking that, perhaps, it was dead. There was notmuch blood on the leaves, so I guessed that it had not died. I huntedfrom that spot, and killed many--many. I saw that they began to movenorth. At last I got back here. From here I have hunted and killed themslow; but never that one with a wound in the shoulder from Jo's knife. Still, I can wait. There is nothing like patience for the hunter andfor the man who would have blood for blood. "

He paused, and Lawless spoke. "And when you have killed that puma, Pourcette--if you ever do-what then?"

Pourcette fondled the gun, then rose and hung it up again before hereplied. 

"Then I will go to Fort St. John, to the girl--she is there with herfather--and sell all the skins to the factor, and give her the money. "He waved his hand round the room. "There are many skins here, but I havemore cached not far away. Once a year I go to the Fort for flour andbullets. A dog-team and a bois-brule bring them, and then I am alone asbefore. When all that is done I will come back. "

"And then, Pourcette?" said Shon. 

"Then I will hang that one skin over the chimney where his gun is--and goout and kill more pumas. What else can one do? When I stop killing Ishall be killed. A million pumas and their skins are not worth the lifeof my friend. "

Lawless looked round the room, at the wooden cup, the gun, thebloodstained clothes on the wall, and the skins. He got up, came over, and touched Pourcette on the shoulder. 

"Little man, " he said, "give it up, and come with me. Come to Fort St. John, sell the skins, give the money to the girl, and then let us travelto the Barren Grounds together, and from there to the south countryagain. You will go mad up here. You have killed enough--Gawdor and manypumas. If Jo could speak, he would say, Give it up. I knew Jo. He wasmy good friend before he was yours--mine and M'Gann's here--and wesearched for him to travel with us. He would have done so, I think, forwe had sport and trouble of one kind and another together. And he wouldhave asked you to come also. Well, do so, little man. We haven't toldyou our names. I am Sir Duke Lawless, and this is Shon M'Gann. "

Pourcette nodded: "I do not know how it come to me, but I was sure fromthe first you are his friends. He speak often of you and of two others--where are they?"

Lawless replied, and, at the name of Pretty Pierre, Shon hid his foreheadin his hand, in a troubled way. "And you will come with us, " saidLawless, "away from this loneliness?"

"It is not lonely, " was the reply. "To hear the thrum of the pigeon, thewhistle of the hawk, the chatter of the black squirrel, and the long cryof the eagle, is not lonely. Then, there is the river and the pines--allmusic; and for what the eye sees, God has been good; and to kill pumas ismy joy. . . . So, I cannot go. These hills are mine. Few strangerscome, and none stop but me. Still, to-morrow or any day, I will show youthe way to the valley where the gold is. Perhaps riches is there, perhaps not, you shall find. "

Lawless saw that it was no use to press the matter. The old man had butone idea, and nothing could ever change it. Solitude fixes our heartsimmovably on things--call it madness, what you will. In busy life wehave no real or lasting dreams, no ideals. We have to go to the primevalhills and the wild plains for them. When we leave the hills and theplains, we lose them again. Shon was, however, for the valley of gold. He was a poor man, and it would be a joyful thing for him if one day hecould empty ample gold into his wife's lap. Lawless was not greedy, buthe and good gold were not at variance. 

"See, " said Shon, "the valley's the thing. We can hunt as we go, and ifthere's gold for the scrapin', why, there y'are--fill up and come again. If not, divil the harm done. So here's thumbs up to go, say I. But Iwish, Lawless, I wish that I'd niver known how Jo wint off, an' I wishwe were all t'gither agin, as down in the Pipi Valley. "

"There's nothing stands in this world, Shon, but the faith of comradesand the truth of good women. The rest hangs by a hair. I'll go to thevalley with you. It's many a day since I washed my luck in a gold-pan. "

"I will take you there, " said Pourcette, suddenly rising, and, withshy abrupt motions grasping their hands and immediately letting themgo again. "I will take you to-morrow. " Then he spread skins upon thefloor, put wood upon the fire, and the three were soon asleep. 

The next morning, just as the sun came laboriously over the white peak ofa mountain, and looked down into the great gulch beneath the hut, thethree started. For many hours they crept along the side of the mountain, then came slowly down upon pine-crested hills, and over to where a smallplain stretched out. It was Pourcette's little farm. Its position wassuch that it caught the sun always, and was protected from the north andeast winds. Tall shafts of Indian corn with their yellow tassels werestill standing, and the stubble of the field where the sickle had beenshowed in the distance like a carpet of gold. It seemed strange toLawless that this old man beside him should be thus peaceful in hishabits, the most primitive and arcadian of farmers, and yet one whosetrade was blood--whose one purpose in life was destruction and vengeance. 

They pushed on. Towards the end of the day they came upon a little herdof caribou, and had excellent sport. Lawless noticed that Pourcetteseemed scarcely to take any aim at all, so swift and decisive was hishandling of the gun. They skinned the deer and cached them, and took upthe journey again. For four days they travelled and hunted alternately. Pourcette had shot two mountain lions, but they had seen no pumas. 

On the morning of the fifth day they came upon the valley where the goldwas. There was no doubt about it. A beautiful little stream ran throughit, and its bed was sprinkled with gold--a goodly sight to a poor manlike Shon, interesting enough to Lawless. For days, while Lawless andPourcette hunted, Shon laboured like a galley-slave, making the littlespecks into piles, and now and again crowning a pile with a nugget. Thefever of the hunter had passed from him, and another fever was on him. The others urged him to come away. The winter would soon be hard onthem; he must go, and he and Lawless would return in the spring. 

Prevailing on him at last, they started back to Clear Mountain. Thefirst day Shon was abstracted. He carried the gold he had gathered in abag wound about his body. It was heavy, and he could not travel fast. One morning, Pourcette, who had been off in the hills, came to say thathe had sighted a little herd of wapiti. Shon had fallen and sprained hisarm the evening before (gold is heavy to carry), and he did not go withthe others. He stayed and dreamed of his good fortune, and of his home. In the late afternoon he lay down in the sun beside the camp-fire andfell asleep from much thinking. Lawless and Pourcette had littlesuccess. The herd had gone before they arrived. They beat the hills, and turned back to camp at last, without fret, like good sportsmen. At apoint they separated, to come down upon the camp at different angles, inthe hope of still getting a shot. The camp lay exposed upon a platformof the mountain. 

Lawless came out upon a ledge of rock opposite the camp, a gulch lyingbetween. He looked across. He was in the shadow, the other wall of thegulch was in the sun. The air was incomparably clear and fresh, with anautumnal freshness. Everything stood out distinct and sharply outlined, nothing flat or blurred. He saw the camp, and the fire, with the smokequivering up in a diffusing blue column, Shon lying beside it. He leanedupon his rifle musingly. The shadows of the pines were blue and cold, but the tops of them were burnished with the cordial sun, and a glacier-field, somehow, took on a rose and violet light, reflected, maybe, fromthe soft-complexioned sky. He drew in a long breath of delight, andwidened his line of vision. 

Suddenly, something he saw made him lurch backward. At an angle inalmost equal distance from him and Shon, upon a small peninsula of rock, a strange thing was happening. Old Pourcette was kneeling, engaged withhis moccasin. Behind him was the sun, against which he was abruptlydefined, looking larger than usual. Clear space and air soft with colourwere about him. Across this space, on a little sloping plateau near him, there crept an animal. It seemed to Lawless that he could see the lithestealthiness of its muscles and the ripple of its skin. But that wasimagination, because he was too far away. He cried out, and swung hisgun shoulderwards in desperation. But, at the moment, Pourcette turnedsharply round, saw his danger, caught his gun, and fired as the pumasprang. There had been no chance for aim, and the beast was onlywounded. It dropped upon the man. He let the gun fall; it rolled andfell over the cliff. Then came a scene, wicked in its peril toPourcette, for whom no aid could come, though two men stood watching thegreat fight--Shon M'Gann, awake now, and Lawless--with their guns silentin their hands. They dare not fire, for fear of injuring the man, andthey could not reach him in time to be of help. 

There against the weird solitary sky the man and the puma fought. Whenthe animal dropped on him, Pourcette caught it by the throat with bothhands, and held back its fangs; but its claws were furrowing the flesh ofhis breast and legs. His long arms were of immense strength, and thoughthe pain of his torn flesh was great he struggled grandly with the beast, and bore it away, from his body. As he did so he slightly changed theposition of one hand. It came upon a welt-a scar. When he felt that, new courage and strength seemed given him. He gave a low growl like ananimal, and then, letting go one hand, caught at the knife in his belt. As he did so the puma sprang away from him, and crouched upon the rock, making ready for another leap. Lawless and Shon could see its tailcurving and beating. But now, to their astonishment, the man was theaggressor. He was filled with a fury which knows nothing of fear. Thewelt his fingers had felt burned them. 

He came slowly upon the puma. Lawless could see the hard glitter of hisknife. The puma's teeth sawed together, its claws picked at the rocks, its body curved for a spring. The man sprang first, and ran the knifein; but not into a mortal corner. Once more they locked. The man'sfingers were again at the puma's throat, and they swayed together, theclaws of the beast making surface havoc. But now as they stood up, tothe eyes of the fearful watchers inextricably mixed, the man lunged againwith his knife, and this time straight into the heart of the murderer. The puma loosened, quivered, fell back dead. The man rose to his feetwith a cry, and his hands stretched above his head, as it were in a kindof ecstasy. Shon forgot his gold and ran; Lawless hurried also. 

When the two men got to the spot they found Pourcette binding up hiswounds. He came to his feet, heedless of his hurts, and grasped theirhands. "Come, come, my friends, and see, " he cried. 

He pulled forward the loose skin on the puma's breast and showed them thescar of a knife-wound above the one his own knife had made. 

"I've got the other murderer, " he said; "Gordineer's knife went in here. Sacre, but it is good!"

Pourcette's flesh needed little medicine; he did not feel his pain andstiffness. When they reached Clear Mountain, bringing with them the skinwhich was to hang above the fireplace, Pourcette prepared to go to FortSt. John, as he had said he would, to sell all the skins and give theproceeds to the girl. 

"When that's done, " said Lawless, "you will have no reason for stayinghere. If you will come with us after, we will go to the Fort with you. We three will then come back in the spring to the valley of gold forsport and riches. "

He spoke lightly, yet seriously too. The old man shook his head. "I have thought, " he said. "I cannot go to the south. I am a hunternow, nothing more. I have been long alone; I do not wish for change. I shall remain at Clear Mountain when these skins have gone to Fort St. John, and if you come to me in the spring or at any time, my door willopen to you, and I will share all with you. Gordineer was a good man. You are good men. I'll remember you, but I can't go with you--no. 

"Some day you would leave me to go to the women who wait for you, and thenI should be alone again. I will not change--vraiment!"

On the morning they left, he took Jo Gordineer's cup from the shelf, andfrom a hidden place brought out a flask half filled with liquor. Hepoured out a little in the cup gravely, and handed it to Lawless, butLawless gave it back to him. 

"You must drink from it, " he said, "not me. "

He held out the cup of his own flask. When each of the three had ashare, the old man raised his long arm solemnly, and said in a tone sogentle that the others hardly recognised his voice: "To a lost comrade!"They drank in silence. 

"A little gentleman!" said Lawless, under his breath. When they wereready to start, Lawless said to him at the last: "What will you do here, comrade, as the days go on?"

"There are pumas in the mountains, " he replied. They parted from himupon the ledge where the great fight had occurred, and travelled into theeast. Turning many times, they saw him still standing there. At a pointwhere they must lose sight of him, they looked for the last time. He wasalone with his solitary hills, leaning on his rifle. They fired twoshots into the air. They saw him raise his rifle, and two faint reportscame in reply. He became again immovable: as much a part of those hillsas the shining glacier; never to leave them. 

In silence the two rounded the cliff, and saw him no more. 

THE TRAIL OF THE SUN DOGS

Swell, you see, " said Jacques Parfaite, as he gave Whiskey Wine, theleading dog, a cut with the whip and twisted his patois to the uses ofnarrative, "he has been alone there at the old Fort for a long time. Iremember when I first see him. It was in the summer. The world smellsweet if you looked this way or that. If you drew in your breath quickfrom the top of a hill you felt a great man. Ridley, the chief trader, and myself have come to the Fort on our way to the Mackenzie River. Inthe yard of the Fort the grass have grown tall, and sprung in the cracksunder the doors and windows; the Fort have not been use for a long time. Once there was plenty of buffalo near, and the caribou sometimes; butthey were all gone--only a few. The Indians never went that way, onlywhen the seasons were the best. The Company have close the Post; it didnot pay. Still, it was pleasant after a long tramp to come to even anempty fort. We know dam' well there is food buried in the yard or underthe floor, and it would be droll to open the place for a day--Lost Man'sTavern, we called it. Well--"

"Well, what?" said Sir Duke Lawless, who had travelled up to the BarrenGrounds for the sake of adventure and game; and, with his old friend, Shon M'Gann, had trusted himself to the excellent care of JacquesParfaite, the half-breed. 

Jacques cocked his head on one side and shook it wisely and mysteriously. "Tres bien, we trailed through the long grass, pried open the shuttersand door, and went in. It is cool in the north of an evening, as youknow. We build a fire, and soon there is very fine times. Ridley priedup the floor, and we found good things. Holy! but it was a feast. Wehad a little rum also. As we talk and a great laugh swim round, therecome a noise behind us like shuffling feet. We got to our legs quick. Mon Dieu, a strange sight! A man stand looking at us with something inhis face that make my fingers cold all at once--a look--well you wouldthink it was carved in stone--it never change. Once I was at Fort Garry;the Church of St. Mary is there. They have a picture in it of the greatscoundrel Judas as he went to hang himself. Judas was a fool--what wasthirty dollars!--you give me hunder' to take you to the Barren Grounds. Pah!"

The half-breed chuckled, shook his head sagely, swore half-way throughhis vocabulary at Whiskey Wine, gratefully received a pipe of tobaccofrom Shon M'Gann, and continued: "He come in on us slow and still, andpush out long thin hands, the fingers bent like claws, towards the pot. He was starving. Yes, it was so; but I nearly laugh. It was spring--a man is a fool to starve in the spring. But he was differen'. Therewas a cause. The factor give him soup from the pot and a little rum. Hewas mad for meat, but that would have kill him--yes. He did not look atyou like a man. 

"When you are starving, you are an animal. But there was something morewith this. --He made the flesh creep, he was so thin, and strange, andsulky--eh, is that a word when the face looks dark and never smiles? So. He would not talk. When we ask him where he come from, he points to thenorth; when we ask him where he is going, he shake his head as he notknow. A man is mad not to know where he travel to up here; somethingcomes quick to him unless, and it is not good to die too soon. Thetrader said, 'Come with us. ' He shake his head, No. 'P'r'aps you wantto stay here, ' said Ridley loud, showing his teeth all in a minute. Henod. Then the trader laugh thick in his throat and give him more soup. After, he try to make the man talk; but he was stubborn like that dirtyWhiskey Wine--ah, sacre bleu!"

Whiskey Wine had his usual portion of whip and anathema before Jacquesagain took up the thread. "It was no use. He would not talk. When thetrader get angry once more, he turned to me, and the look in his facemake me sorry. I swore--Ridley did not mind that, I was thick friendswith him. I say, 'Keep still. It is no good. He has had bad times. He has been lost, and seen mad things. He will never be again like whenGod make him. ' Very well, I spoke true. He was like a sun dog. "

"What's that ye say, Parfaite?" said Shon--"a sun dog?"

Sir Duke Lawless, puzzled, listened eagerly for the reply. 

The half-breed in delight ran before them, cracking his whip and jinglingthe bells at his knees. "Ah, that's it! It is a name we have for some. You do not know? It is easy. In the high-up country"--pointing north"--you see sometimes many suns. But it is not many after all; it is onlyone; and the rest are the same as your face in looking-glasses--one, two, three, plenty. You see?"

"Yes, " said Sir Duke, "reflections of the real sun. " Parfaite tapped himon the arm. "So: you have the thing. Well, this man is not himself--hehave left himself where he seen his bad times. It makes your flesh creepsometimes when you see the sun dogs in the sky--this man did the same. You shall see him tonight. "

Sir Duke looked at the little half-breed, and wondered that the productof so crude a civilisation should be so little crude in his imagination. "What happened?" he asked. 

"Nothing happened. But the man could not sleep. He sit before the fire, his eyes moving here and there, and sometimes he shiver. Well, I watchhim. In the morning we leave him there, and he has been there eversince--the only man at the Fort. The Indians do not go; they fear him;but there is no harm in him. He is old now. In an hour we'll be there. "

The sun was hanging, with one shoulder up like a great red peering dwarf, on the far side of a long hillock of stunted pines, when the threearrived at the Fort. The yard was still as Parfaite had described it--full of rank grass, through which one path trailed to the open door. Onthe stockade walls grass grew, as though where men will not live like menNature labours to smother. The shutters of the window were not open;light only entered through narrow openings in them, made for the needs ofpossible attacks by Indians in the far past. One would have sworn thatanyone dwelling there was more like the dead than the living. Yet ithad, too, something of the peace of the lonely graveyard. There was noone in the Fort; but there were signs of life--skins piled here andthere, a few utensils, a bench, a hammock for food swung from therafters, a low fire burning in the chimney, and a rude spear stretched onthe wall. 

"Sure, the place gives you shivers!" said Shon. "Open go these windows. Put wood on the fire, Parfaite; cook the meat that we've brought, and noother, me boy; and whin we're filled wid a meal and the love o' God, bring in your Lost Man, or Sun Dog, or whativer's he by name or nature. "

While Parfaite and Shon busied themselves, Lawless wandered out with hisgun, and, drawn on by the clear joyous air of the evening, walked along apath made by the same feet that had travelled the yard of the Fort. Hefollowed it almost unconsciously at first, thinking of the strangehistories that the far north hoards in its fastnesses, wondering whatsingular fate had driven the host of this secluded tavern--farthest fromthe pleasant south country, nearest to the Pole--to stand, as it were, a sentinel at the raw outposts of the world. He looked down at the trailwhere he was walking with a kind of awe, which even his cheerful commonsense could not dismiss. 

He came to the top of a ridge on which were a handful of meagre trees. Leaning on his gun, he looked straight away into the farthest distance. On the left was a blurred edge of pines, with tops like ungainly tendrilsfeeling for the sky. On the right was a long bare stretch of hillsveiled in the thin smoke of the evening, and between, straight beforehim, was a wide lane of unknown country, billowing away to where it frozeinto the vast archipelago that closes with the summit of the world. Heexperienced now that weird charm which has drawn so many into Arcticwilds and gathered the eyes of millions longingly. Wife, child, London, civilisation, were forgotten for the moment. He was under a spell which, once felt, lingers in your veins always. 

At length his look drew away from the glimmering distance, and hesuddenly became conscious of human presence. Here, almost at his feet, was a man, also looking out along that slumbering waste. He was dressedin skins, his arms were folded across his breast, his chin bent low, andhe gazed up and out from deep eyes shadowed by strong brows. Lawless sawthe shoulders of the watcher heave and shake once or twice, and then avoice with a deep aching trouble in it spoke; but at first he could catchno words. Presently, however, he heard distinctly, for the man raisedhis hands high above his head, and the words fell painfully: "Am I mybrother's keeper?"

Then a low harsh laugh came from him, and he was silent again. Lawlessdid not move. At last the man turned round, and, seeing him standingmotionless, his gun in his hands, he gave a hoarse cry. Then he stoodstill. "If you have come to kill, do not wait, " he said; "I am ready. "

At the sound of Lawless's reassuring voice he recovered, and began, in stumbling words, to excuse himself. His face was as Jacques Parfaitehad described it: trouble of some terrible kind was furrowed in it, and, though his body was stalwart, he looked as if he had lived a century. His eyes dwelt on Sir Duke Lawless for a moment, and then, coming nearer, he said, "You are an Englishman?"

Lawless held out his hand in greeting, yet he was not sorry when theother replied: "The hand of no man in greeting. Are you alone?"

When he had been told, he turned towards the Fort, and silently they madetheir way to it. At the door he turned and said to Lawless, "My name--toyou--is Detmold. "

The greeting between Jacques and his sombre host was notable forits extreme brevity; with Shon McGann for its hesitation--Shon'simpressionable Irish nature was awed by the look of the man, though hehad seen some strange things in the north. Darkness was on them by thistime, and the host lighted bowls of fat with wicks of deer's tendons, andby the light of these and the fire they ate their supper. Parfaitebeguiled the evening with tales of the north, always interesting toLawless; to which Shon added many a shrewd word of humour--for he hadrecovered quickly from his first timidity in the presence of thestranger. 

As time went on Jacques saw that their host's eyes were frequently fixedon Sir Duke in a half-eager, musing way, and he got Shon away to bed andleft the two together. 

"You are a singular man. Why do you live here?" said Lawless. Then hewent straight to the heart of the thing. "What trouble have you had, ofwhat crime are you guilty?"

The man rose to his feet, shaking, and walked to and fro in the room fora time, more than once trying to speak, but failing. He beckoned toLawless, and opened the door. Lawless took his hat and followed himalong the trail they had travelled before supper until they came to theridge where they had met. The man faced the north, the moon glisteningcoldly on his grey hair. He spoke with incredible weight and slowness:

"I tell you--for you are one who understands men, and you come from alife that I once knew well. I know of your people. I was of goodfamily--"

"I know the name, " said Sir Duke quietly, at the same time fumbling inhis memory for flying bits of gossip and history which he could notinstantly find. 

"There were two brothers of us. I was the younger. A ship was going tothe Arctic Sea. " He pointed into the north. "We were both young andambitious. He was in the army, I the navy. We went with the expedition. At first it was all beautiful and grand, and it seemed noble to searchfor those others who had gone into that land and never come back. Butour ship got locked in the ice, and then came great trouble. A year wentby and we did not get free; then another year began. . . . Four of usset out for the south. Two died. My brother and I were left--"

Lawless exclaimed. He now remembered how general sympathy went out to awell-known county family when it was announced that two of its memberswere lost in the Arctic regions. 

Detmold continued: "I was the stronger. He grew weaker and weaker. Itwas awful to live those days: the endless snow and cold, the long nightswhen you could only hear the whirring of meteors, the bright sun whichdid not warm you, nor even when many suns, the reflections of itself, followed it--the mocking sun dogs, no more the sun than I am what mymother brought into the world. . . . We walked like dumb men, for thedreadful cold fills the heart with bitterness. I think I grew to hatehim because he could not travel faster, that days were lost, and deathcrept on so pitilessly. Sometimes I had a mad wish to kill him. May younever know suffering that begets such things! I laughed as I sat besidehim, and saw him sink to sleep and die. . . . I think I could havesaved him. When he was gone I--what do men do sometimes when starvationis on them, and they have a hunger of hell to live? I did that shamelessthing--and he was my brother! . . . I lived, and was saved. "

Lawless shrank away from the man, but words of horror got no farther thanhis throat. And he was glad afterwards that it was so; for when helooked again at this woful relic of humanity before him he felt a strangepity. 

"God's hand is on me to punish, " said the man. "It will never be lifted. Death were easy: I bear the infamy of living. "

Lawless reached out and caught him gently by the shoulders. "Poorfellow! poor Detmold!" he said. For an instant the sorrowful facelighted, the square chin trembled, and the hands thrust out towardsLawless, but suddenly dropped. 

"Go, " he said humbly, "and leave me here. We must not meet again. . . I have had one moment of respite. . . . Go. "

Without a word, Lawless turned and made his way to the Fort. In themorning the three comrades started on their journey again; but no onesped them on their way or watched them as they went. 

THE PILOT OF BELLE AMOUR

He lived in a hut on a jutting crag of the Cliff of the King. You couldget to it by a hard climb up a precipitous pathway, or by a ladder ofropes which swung from his cottage door down the cliff-side to the sands. The bay that washed the sands was called Belle Amour. The cliff washuge, sombre; it had a terrible granite moroseness. If you travelledback from its edge until you stood within the very heart of Labrador, youwould add step upon step of barrenness and austerity. 

Only at seasons did the bay share the gloom of the cliff. When out ofits shadow it was, in summer, very bright and playful, sometimesboisterous, often idle, coquetting with the sands. There was a greatdifference between the cliff and the bay: the cliff was only as itappeared, but the bay was a shameless hypocrite. For under one shoulderit hid a range of reefs, and, at a spot where the shadows of the cliffnever reached it, and the sun played with a grim kind of joy, a longneedle of rock ran up at an angle under the water, waiting to pierceirresistibly the adventurous ship that, in some mad moment, should creepto its shores. 

The man was more like the cliff than the bay: stern, powerful, brooding. His only companions were the Indians, who in summer-time came and went, getting stores of him, which he in turn got from a post of the Hudson'sBay Company, seventy miles up the coast. At one time the Company, impressed by the number of skins brought to them by the pilot, and thestores he bought of them, had thought of establishing a post at BelleAmour; but they saw that his dealings with them were fair and that he hadsmall gain, and they decided to use him as an unofficial agent, and reapwhat profit was to be had as things stood. Kenyon, the Company's agent, who had the Post, was keen to know why Gaspard the pilot lived at BelleAmour. No white man sojourned near him, and he saw no one save now andthen a priest who travelled silently among the Indians, or somefisherman, hunter, or woodsman, who, for pleasure or from pure adventure, ran into the bay and tasted the hospitality tucked away on a ledge of theCliff of the King. 

To Kenyon, Gaspard was unresponsive, however adroit the catechism. Father Corraine also, who sometimes stepped across the dark threshold ofGaspard's hut, would have, for the man's soul's sake, dug out the heartof his secret; but Gaspard, open with food, fire, blanket, and tirelessattendance, closed like the doors of a dungeon when the priest would haveread him. At the name of good Ste. Anne he would make the sacredgesture, and would take a blessing when the priest passed from his hutto go again into the wilds; but when pressed to disclose his mind andhistory, he would always say: "M'sieu', I have nothing to confess. "After a number of years the priest ceased to ask him, and he remainedwith the secret of his life, inscrutable and silent. 

Being vigilant, one would have seen, however, that he lived in some landof memory or anticipation, beyond his life of daily toil and usualdealing. The hut seemed to have been built at a point where east andwest and south the great gulf could be seen and watched. It seemedalmost ludicrous that a man should call himself a pilot on a coast and ata bay where a pilot was scarce needed once a year. But he was known asGaspard the pilot, and on those rare occasions when a vessel did anchorin the bay, he performed his duties with such a certainty as to leaveunguessed how many deathtraps crouched near that shore. At such times, however, Gaspard seemed to look twenty years younger. A light would comeinto his face, a stalwart kind of pride sit on him, though beneath therelurked a strange, sardonic look in his deep eyes--such a grim furtivenessas though he should say: "If I but twist my finger we are all for thefishes. " But he kept his secret and waited. He never seemed to tire oflooking down the gulf, as though expecting some ship. If one appearedand passed on, he merely nodded his head, hung up his glass, returned tohis work, or, sitting by the door, talked to himself in low, strangetones. If one came near, making as if it would enter the bay, a hungryjoy possessed him. If a storm was on, the joy was the greater. No pilotever ventured to a ship on such rough seas as Gaspard ventured for smallprofit or glory. 

Behind it all lay his secret. There came one day a man who discoveredit. 

It was Pierre, the half-breed adventurer. There was no point in all thewild northland which Pierre had not touched. He loved it as he loved thegame of life. He never said so of it, but he never said so of the gameof life, and he played it with a deep subterranean joy. He had had hisway with the musk-ox in the Arctic Circle; with the white bear at thefoot of Alaskan Hills; with the seal in Baffin's Bay; with the puma onthe slope of the Pacific; and now at last he had come upon the trail ofLabrador. Its sternness, its moodiness pleased him. He smiled at it thecomprehending smile of the man who has fingered the nerves and the heartof men and things. As a traveller, wandering through a prison, looksupon its grim cells and dungeons with the eye of unembarrassed freedom, finding no direful significance in the clank of its iron, so Pierretravelled down with a handful of Indians through the hard fastnesses ofthat country, and, at last, alone, came upon the bay of Belle Amour. 

There was in him some antique touch of refinement and temperament which, in all his evil days and deeds and moments of shy nobility, could findits way into the souls of men with whom the world had had an awkwardhour. He was a man of little speech, but he had that rare persuasivepenetration which unlocked the doors of trouble, despair, and tragedy. Men who would never have confessed to a priest confessed to him. In hisevery fibre was the granite of the Indian nature, which looked uponpunishment with stoic satisfaction. 

In the heart of Labrador he had heard of Gaspard, and had travelled tothat point in the compass where he could find him. One day when the sunwas fighting hard to make a pathway of light in front of Gaspard's hut, Pierre rounded a corner of the cliff and fronted Gaspard as he sat there, his eyes idling gloomily with the sea. They said little to each other--in new lands hospitality has not need of speech. When Gaspard and Pierrelooked each other in the eyes they knew that one word between them was asa hundred with other men. The heart knows its confessor, and theconfessor knows the shadowed eye that broods upon some ghostly secret;and when these are face to face there comes a merciless concision ofunderstanding. 

"From where away?" said Gaspard, as he handed some tobacco to Pierre. 

"From Hudson's Bay, down the Red Wolf Plains, along the hills, across thecoast country, here. "

"Why?" Gaspard eyed Pierre's small kit with curiosity; then flung up apiercing, furtive look. Pierre shrugged his shoulders. 

"Adventure, adventure, " he answered. "The land"--he pointed north, west, and east--"is all mine. I am the citizen of every village and every campof the great north. "

The old man turned his head towards a spot up the shore of Belle Amour, before he turned to Pierre again, with a strange look, and said: "Wheredo you go?"

Pierre followed his gaze to that point in the shore, felt theundercurrent of vague meaning in his voice, guessed what was his cue, andsaid: "Somewhere, sometime; but now only Belle Amour. I have had a longtravel. I have found an open door. I will stay--if you please--hein?If you please?"

Gaspard brooded. "It is lonely, " he replied. "This day it is allbright; the sun shines and the little gay waves crinkle to the shore. But, mon Dieu! sometimes it is all black and ugly with storm. The wavescome grinding, booming in along the gridiron rocks"--he smiled a grimsmile--"break through the teeth of the reefs, and split with a roar ofhell upon the cliff. And all the time, and all the time, "--his voice gotlow with a kind of devilish joy, --"there is a finger--Jesu! you shouldsee that finger of the devil stretch up from the bowels of the earth, waiting, waiting for something to come out of the storm. And then--andthen you can hear a wild laugh come out of the land, come up from thesea, come down from the sky--all waiting, waiting for something! No, no, you would not stay here. "

Pierre looked again to that point in the shore towards which Gaspard'seyes had been cast. The sun was shining hard just then, and the stern, sharp rocks, tumbling awkwardly back into the waste behind, had aninsolent harshness. Day perched garishly there. Yet now and then thestaring light was broken by sudden and deep shadows--great fissures inthe rocks and lanes between. These gave Pierre a suggestion, though why, he could not say. He knew that when men live lives of patient, gloomyvigilance, they generally have something to watch and guard. Why shouldGaspard remain here year after year? His occupation was nominally apilot in a bay rarely touched by vessels, and then only for shelter. A pilot need not take his daily life with such brooding seriousness. In body he was like flexible metal, all cord and muscle. He gave theimpression of bigness, though he was small in stature. Yet, as Pierrestudied him, he saw something that made him guess the man had had abouthim one day a woman, perhaps a child; no man could carry that lookunless. If a woman has looked at you from day to day, something of her, some reflection of her face, passes to yours and stays there; and if achild has held your hand long, or hung about your knees, it gives you akind of gentle wariness as you step about your home. 

Pierre knew that a man will cherish with a deep, eternal purpose a memoryof a woman or a child, when, no matter how compelling his cue to rememberwhere a man is concerned, he will yield it up in the end to time. Certain speculations arranged themselves definitely in Pierre's mind:there was a woman, maybe a child once; there was some sorrowful mysteryabout them; there was a point in the shore that had held the old man'seyes strangely; there was the bay with that fantastic "finger of thedevil" stretching up from the bowels of the world. Behind the symbol laythe Thing what was it?

Long time he looked out upon the gulf, then his eyes drew into the bayand stayed there, seeing mechanically, as a hundred fancies went throughhis mind. There were reefs of which the old man had spoken. He couldguess from the colour and movement of the water where they were. Thefinger of the devil--was it not real? A finger of rock, waiting as theold man said--for what?

Gaspard touched his shoulder. He rose and went with him into the gloomycabin. They ate and drank in silence. When the meal was finished theysat smoking till night fell. Then the pilot lit a fire, and drew hisrough chair to the door. Though it was only late summer, it was cold inthe shade of the cliff. Long time they sat. Now and again Pierreintercepted the quick, elusive glance of his silent host. Once the pilottook the pipe from his mouth, and leaned his hands on his knees as ifabout to speak. But he did not. 

Pierre saw that the time was ripe for speech. So he said, as though heknew something: "It is a long time since it happened?"

Gaspard, brooding, answered: "Yes, a long time--too long. " Then, as if suddenly awakened to the strangeness of the question, he added, in a startled way: " What do you know? Tell me quick what you know. "

"I know nothing except what comes to me here, pilot, "--Pierre touched hisforehead, " but there is a thing--I am not sure what. There was a woman--perhaps a child; there is something on the shore; there is a hidden pointof rock in the bay; and you are waiting for a ship--for the ship, and itdoes not come--isn't that so?"

Gaspard got to his feet, and peered into Pierre's immobile face. Theireyes met. 

"Mon Dieu!" said the pilot, his hand catching the smoke away frombetween them, "you are a droll man; you have a wonderful mind. You arecold like ice, and still there is in you a look of fire. "

"Sit down, " answered Pierre quietly, "and tell me all. Perhaps I couldthink it out little by little; but it might take too long--and what isthe good?"

Slowly Gaspard obeyed. Both hands rested on his knees, and he staredabstractedly into the fire. Pierre thrust forward the tobacco-bag. Hishand lifted, took the tobacco, and then his eyes came keenly to Pierre's. He was about to speak. . . . "Fill your pipe first, " said the half-breedcoolly. The old man did so abstractedly. When the pipe was lighted, Pierre said: "Now!"

"I have never told the story, never--not even to Pere Corraine. But Iknow, I have it here"--he put his hand to his forehead, as did Pierre--"that you will be silent. " Pierre nodded. 

"She was fine to see. Her eyes were black as beads; and when she laughit was all music. I was so happy! We lived on the island of the AuxCoudres, far up there at Quebec. It was a wild place. There weresmugglers and others there--maybe pirates. But she was like a saint ofGod among all. I was lucky man. I was pilot, and took ships out to sea, and brought them in safe up the gulf. It is not all easy, for there aremad places. Once or twice when a wild storm was on I could not land atCap Martin, and was carried out to sea and over to France. . . . Well, that was not so bad; there was plenty to eat and drink, nothing todo. But when I marry it was differen'. I was afraid of being carriedaway and leave my wife--the belle Mamette--alone long time. You see, I was young, and she was ver' beautiful. "

He paused and caught his hand over his mouth as though to stop a sound:the lines of his face deepened. Presently he puffed his pipe so hardthat the smoke and the sparks hid him in a cloud through which he spoke. "When the child was born--Holy Mother! have you ever felt the hand ofyour own child in yours, and looked at the mother, as she lies there allpale and shining between the quilts?"

He paused. Pierre's eyes dropped to the floor. Gaspard continued:"Well, it is a great thing, and the babe was born quick one day when wewere all alone. A thing like that gives you wonder. Then I could notbear to go away with the ships, and at last I said: 'One month, and thenthe ice fills the gulf, and there will be no more ships for the winter. That will be the last for me. I will be pilot no more-no. ' She was ver'happy, and a laugh ran over her little white teeth. Mon Dieu, I stopthat laugh pretty quick--in fine way!"

He seemed for an instant to forget his great trouble, and his face wentto warm sunshine like a boy's; but it was as sun playing on a scarredfortress. Presently the light faded out of his face and left it likeiron smouldering from the bellows. 

"Well, " he said, "you see there was a ship to go almost the last of theseason, and I said to my wife, 'Mamette, it is the last time I shall bepilot. You must come with me and bring the child, and they will put usoff at Father Point, and then we will come back slow to the village onthe good Ste. Anne and live there ver' quiet. ' When I say that to hershe laugh back at me and say, 'Beau! beau!' and she laugh in the child'seyes, and speak--nom de Dieu! she speak so gentle and light--and say tothe child: 'Would you like go with your father a pretty journey down thegulf?' And the little child laugh back at her, and shake its soft brownhair over its head. They were both so glad to go. I went to the captainof the ship. I say to him, 'I will take my wife and my little child, andwhen we come to Father Point we will go ashore. ' Bien, the captain laughbig, and it was all right. That was long time ago--long time. "

He paused again, threw his head back with a despairing toss, his chindropped on his breast, his hands clasped between his knees, and his pipe, laid beside him on the bench, was forgotten. 

Pierre quietly put some wood upon the fire, opened his kit, drew outfrom it a little flask of rum and laid it upon the bench beside the pipe. A long time passed. At last Gaspard roused himself with a long sigh, turned and picked up the pipe, but, seeing the flask of rum, lifted it, and took one long swallow before he began to fill and light his pipe. There came into his voice something of iron hardness as he continued hisstory. 

"Alors, we went into the boat. As we travelled down the gulf a greatstorm came out of the north. We thought it would pass, but it stayed on. When we got to the last place where the pilot could land, the waves wererunning like hills to the shore, and no boat could live between the shipand the point. For myself, it was nothing--I am a strong man and a greatswimmer. But when a man has a wife and a child, it is differen'. So theship went on out into the ocean with us. Well, we laugh a little, andthink what a great brain I had when I say to my wife: 'Come and bring thechild for the last voyage of Gaspard the pilot. ' You see, there we wereon board the ship, everything ver' good, plenty to eat, much to drink, tosmoke, all the time. The sailors, they were ver' funny, and to see themtake my child, my little Babette, and play with her as she roll on thedeck--merci, it was gran'! So I say to my wife:

"'This will be bon voyage for all. ' But a woman, she has not the mindlike a man. When a man laugh in the sun and think nothing of evil, awoman laugh too, but there come a little quick sob to her lips. You askher why, and she cannot tell. She know that something will happen. Aman has great idee, a woman great sight. So my wife, she turn her faceaway all sad from me then, and she was right--she was right!

"One day in the ocean we pass a ship--only two days out. The ship signalus. I say to my wife: 'Ha, ha! now we can go back, maybe, to the goodSte. Anne. ' Well, the ships come close together, and the captain of theother ship he have something importan' with ours. He ask if there willbe chance of pilot into the gulf, because it is the first time that hevisit Quebec. The captain swing round and call to me. I go up. I bringmy wife and my little Babette; and that was how we sail back to the greatgulf. 

"When my wife step on board that ship I see her face get pale, andsomething strange in her eyes. I ask her why; she do not know, but shehug Babette close to her breast with a kind of fear. A long, low, blackship, it could run through every sea. Soon the captain come to me andsay: 'You know the coast, the north coast of the gulf, from Labrador toQuebec?' I tell him yes. 'Well, ' he say, 'do you know of a bay where fewships enter safe?' I think a moment and I tell him of Belle Amour. Thenhe say, ver' quick: 'That is the place; we will go to the bay of BelleAmour. ' He was ver' kind to my face; he give my wife and child goodberth, plenty to eat and drink, and once more I laugh; but my wife--therewas in her face something I not understan'. It is not easy to understan'a woman. We got to the bay. I had pride: I was young. I was the bestpilot in the St. Lawrence, and I took in the ship between the reefs ofthe bay, where they run like a gridiron, and I laugh when I swing theship all ver' quick to the right, after we pass the reefs, and make acurve round--something. The captain pull me up and ask why. But I nevertell him that. I not know why I never tell him. But the good God putthe thought into my head, and I keep it to this hour, and it never leaveme, never--never!"

He slowly rubbed his hands up and down his knees, took another sip ofrum, and went on:

"I brought the ship close up to the shore, and we go to anchor. All thatnight I see the light of a fire on the shore. So I slide down and swimto the shore. Under a little arch of rocks something was going on. I could not tell, but I know from the sound that they are to burysomething. Then, all at once, it come to me--this is a pirate ship!I come closer and closer to the light, and then I see a dreadful thing. There was the captain and the mate, and another. They turn quick upontwo other men--two sailors--and kill them. Then they take the bodiesand wound them round some casks in a great hole, and cover it all up. I understan'. It is the old legend that a dead body will keep gold allto itself, so that no one shall find it. Mon Dieu!"--his voice droppedlow and shook in his throat--"I give one little cry at the sight, andthen they see me. There were three. They were armed; they sprang uponme and tied me. Then they fling me beside the fire, and they cover upthe hole with the gold and the bodies. 

"When that was done they take me back to the ship, then with pistols atmy head they make me pilot the ship out into the bay again. As we wentthey make a chart of the place. We travel along the coast for one day;and then a great storm of snow come, and the captain say to me: 'Steerus into harbour. ' When we are at anchor, they take me and my wife, andlittle child and put us ashore alone, with a storm and the bare rocks andthe dreadful night, and leave us there, that we shall never tell thesecret of the gold. That night my wife and my child die in the snow. "

Here his voice became strained and slow. "After a long time I work myway to an Injin camp. For months I was a child in strength, all my fleshgone. When the spring come I went and dug a deeper grave for my wife, and p'tite Babette, and leave them there, where they had died. But Icome to the bay of Belle Amour, because I knew some day the man with thedevil's heart would come back for his gold, and then would arrive mytime--the hour of God!"

He paused. "The hour of God, " he repeated slowly. "I have waitedtwenty years, but he has not come; yet I know that he will come. I feelit here"--he touched his forehead; "I know it here"--he tapped his heart. "Once where my heart was, there is only one thing, and it is hate, and Iknow--I know--that he will come. And when he comes--" He raised his armhigh above his head, laughed wildly, paused, let the hand drop, and thenfell to staring into the fire. 

Pierre again placed the flask of rum between his fingers. But Gaspardput it down, caught his arms together across his breast, and never turnedhis face from the fire. Midnight came, and still they sat there silent. No man had a greater gift in waiting than Pierre. Many a time his lifehad been a swivel, upon which the comedies and tragedies of others hadturned. He neither loved nor feared men: sometimes he pitied them. Hepitied Gaspard. He knew what it is to have the heartstrings stretchedout, one by one, by the hand of a Gorgon, while the feet are chained tothe rocking world. 

Not till the darkest hour of the morning did the two leave their silentwatch and go to bed. The sun had crept stealthily to the door of the butbefore they rose again. Pierre laid his hand upon Gaspard's shoulder asthey travelled out into the morning, and said: "My friend, I understand. Your secret is safe with me; you shall take me to the place where thegold is buried, but it shall wait there until the time is ripe. What isgold to me? Nothing. To find gold--that is the trick of any fool. Towin it or to earn it is the only game. Let the bodies rot about thegold. You and I will wait. I have many friends in the northland, butthere is no face in any tent door looking for me. You are alone: well, I will stay with you. Who can tell--perhaps it is near at hand--the hourof God!"

The huge hard hand of Gaspard swallowed the small hand of Pierre, and, ina voice scarcely above a whisper, he answered: "You shall be my comrade. I have told you all, as I have never told it to my God. I do not fearyou about the gold--it is all cursed. You are not like other men; I willtrust you. Some time you also have had the throat of a man in yourfingers, and watched the life spring out of his eyes, and leave them allempty. When men feel like that, what is gold--what is anything! Thereis food in the bay and on the hills. 

"We will live together, you and I. Come and I will show you the place ofhell. "

Together they journeyed down the crag and along the beach to the placewhere the gold, the grim god of this world, was fortressed and bastionedby its victims. 

The days went on; the weeks and months ambled by. Still the twolived together. Little speech passed between them, save that speechof comrades, who use more the sign than the tongue. It seemed to Pierreafter a time that Gaspard's wrongs were almost his own. Yet with thisdifference: he must stand by and let the avenger be the executioner;he must be the spectator merely. 

Sometimes he went inland and brought back moose, caribou, and the skinsof other animals, thus assisting Gaspard in his dealings with the greatCompany. But again there were days when he did nothing but lie on theskins at the hut's door, or saunter in the shadows and the sunlight. Notsince he had come to Gaspard had a ship passed the bay or sought toanchor in it. 

But there came a day. It was the early summer. The snow had shrunkfrom the ardent sun, and had swilled away to the gulf, leaving the tendergrass showing. The moss on the rocks had changed from brown to green, and the vagrant birds had fluttered back from the south. The winter'sfurs had been carried away in the early spring to the Company's post, by a detachment of coureurs de bois. There was little left to do. Thismorning they sat in the sun looking out upon the gulf. Presently Gaspardrose and went into the hut. Pierre's eyes still lazily scanned thewater. As he looked he saw a vessel rounding a point in the distance. Suppose this was the ship of the pirate and murderer? The fancy divertedhim. His eyes drew away from the indistinct craft--first to the reefs, and then to that spot where the colossal needle stretched up under thewater. It was as Pierre speculated. Brigond, the French pirate, who hadhidden his gold at such shameless cost, was, after twenty years in thegalleys at Toulon, come back to find his treasure. He had doubted littlethat he would find it. The lonely spot, the superstition concerning deadbodies, the supposed doom of Gaspard, all ran in his favour. His littlecraft came on, manned by as vile a mob as ever mutinied or built awrecker's fire. 

When the ship got within a short distance of the bay, Pierre rose andcalled. Gaspard came to the door. "There's work to do, pilot, " he said. Gaspard felt the thrill of his voice, and flashed a look out to the gulf. He raised his hands with a gasp. "I feel it, " he said: "it is the hourof God!"

He started to the rope ladder of the cliff, then wheeled suddenly andcame back to Pierre. "You must not come, " he said. "Stay here andwatch; you shall see great things. " His voice had a round, deep tone. He caught both Pierre's hands in his and added: "It is for my wife andchild; I have no fear. Adieu, my friend! When you see the good PereCorraine say to him--but no, it is no matter--there is One greater!"

Once again he caught Pierre hard by the shoulder, then ran to the cliffand swung down the ladder. All at once there shot through Pierre's bodyan impulse, and his eyes lighted with excitement. He sprang towards thecliff. "Gaspard, come back!" he called; then paused, and, with anenigmatical smile, shrugged his shoulders, drew back, and waited. 

The vessel was hove to outside the bay, as if hesitating. Brigond wasconsidering whether it were better, with his scant chart, to attempt thebay, or to take small boats and make for the shore. He remembered thereefs, but he did not know of the needle of rock. Presently he sawGaspard's boat coming. "Someone who knows the bay, " he said; "I see ahut on the cliff. "

"Hello, who are you?" Brigond called down as Gaspard drew alongside. 

"A Hudson's Bay Company's man, " answered Gaspard. 

"How many are there of you?"

"Myself alone. "

"Can you pilot us in?"

"I know the way. "

"Come up. "

Gaspard remembered Brigond, and he veiled his eyes lest the hate he feltshould reveal him. No one could have recognised him as the young pilotof twenty years before. Then his face was cheerful and bright, and inhis eye was the fire of youth. Now a thick beard and furrowing lines hidall the look of the past. His voice, too, was desolate and distant. 

Brigond clapped him on the shoulder. "How long have you lived offthere?" he asked, as he jerked his finger towards the shore. 

"A good many years. "

"Did anything strange ever happen there?" Gaspard felt his heartcontract again, as it did when Brigond's hand touched his shoulder. 

"Nothing strange is known. "

A vicious joy came into Brigond's face. His fingers opened and shut. "Safe, by the holy heaven!" he grunted. 

"'By the holy heaven!'" repeated Gaspard, under his breath. 

They walked forward. Almost as they did so there came a big puff of windacross the bay: one of those sudden currents that run in from the oceanand the gulf stream. Gaspard saw, and smiled. In a moment the vessel'snose was towards the bay, and she sailed in, dipping a shoulder to thesudden foam. On she came past reef and bar, a pretty tumbril to theslaughter. The spray feathered up to her sails, the sun caught her ondeck and beam; she was running dead for the needle of rock. 

Brigond stood at Gaspard's side. All at once Gaspard made the sacredgesture and said, in a low tone, as if only to himself: "Pardon, moncapitaine, mon Jesu!" Then he turned triumphantly, fiercely, uponBrigond. The pirate was startled. "What's the matter?" he said. 

Not Gaspard, but the needle rock replied. There was a sudden shock; thevessel stood still and shivered; lurched, swung shoulder downwards, reeled and struggled. Instantly she began to sink. 

"The boats! lower the boats!" cried Brigond. "This cursed fool has runus on a rock!"

The waves, running high, now swept over the deck. Brigond started aft, but Gaspard sprang before him. "Stand back!" he called. "Where you areyou die!"

Brigond, wild with terror and rage, ran at him. Gaspard caught him as hecame. With vast strength he lifted him and dashed him to the deck. "Diethere, murderer!" he cried. 

Brigond crouched upon the deck, looking at him with fearful eyes. "Who-are you?" he asked. 

"I am Gaspard the pilot. I have waited for you twenty years. Up there, in the snow, my wife and child died. Here, in this bay, you die. "

There was noise and racketing behind them, but they two heard nothing. The one was alone with his terror, the other with his soul. Once, twice, thrice, the vessel heaved, then went suddenly still. 

Gaspard understood. One look at his victim, then he made the sacredgesture again, and folded his arms. Pierre, from the height of thecliff, looking down, saw the vessel dip at the bow, and then the watersdivided and swallowed it up. 

"Gaspard should have lived, " he said. "But--who can tell! PerhapsMamette was waiting for him. "

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Have you ever felt the hand of your own child in yoursMemory is man's greatest friend and worst enemySolitude fixes our hearts immovably on thingsWhen a man laugh in the sun and think nothing of evil