Hulbert Footner - The Fur Bringers

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THE FUR BRINGERS

A STORY OF THE CANADIAN NORTHWEST

by

HULBERT FOOTNER

Author of "Jack Chanty," "Thieves Wit," "A Substitute Millionaire," etc.

NEW YORK

THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY

1920

Copyright, 1920, by

THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the U.S.A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I JUNE FEVER
II FORT ENTERPRISE
III COLINA
IV THE MEETING
V AN INVITATION TO DINE
VI THE DINNER
VII TWO INTERVIEWS
VIII IN AMBROSE'S CAMP
IX LOVERS
X ANOTHER VISITOR
XI ALEXANDER SELKIRK AND FAMILY
XII GATHERING SHADOWS
XIII THE QUARREL
XIV SIMON GRAMPIERRE
XV THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
XVI COLINA COMMANDS
XVII THE STAFF OF LIFE
XVIII A BLOODLESS CAPTURE
XIX WOMAN'S WEAPONS
XX UNDERCURRENTS
XXI THE SUBTLETY OF GORDON STRANGE
XXII THE "TEA DANCE"
XXIII FIRE AND RAPINE
XXIV COLINA RELENTS
XXV ACCUSED
XXVI CONVICTED
XXVII A CHANGE OF JAILERS
XXVIII A GLEAM OF HOPE
XXIX NESIS
XXX FREE
XXXI THE ALARM
XXXII THE TRAP
XXXIII THE TEST
XXXIV ANOTHER CHANGE OF JAILERS
XXXV THE JAIL VISITOR
XXXVI COLINA'S ENTERPRISE
XXXVII MARTA
XXXVIII THE FINDING OF NESIS
XXXIX THE TRIAL
XL AM UNEXPECTED WITNESS
XLI FROM DUMB LIPS
XLII THE AVENGING OF NESIS
XLIII NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS

THE FUR BRINGERS

CHAPTER I.

JUNE FEVER.

The firm of Minot & Doane sat on the doorsill of its store on Lake
Miwasa smoking its after-supper pipes.

It was seven o'clock of a brilliant day in June. The westering sun
shone comfortably on the world, and a soft breeze kept the mosquitoes
at bay.

Moreover, the tobacco was of the best the store afforded; yet there was
no peace between the two. They bickered like schoolboys kept indoors.

"How many link-skins in the bale you made up today?" asked Peter Minot.

"Three-seventy-two," his young partner answered in a surly tone that
was in itself a provocation.

"I made it three-seventy-three," said Peter curtly.

"What's the difference?" demanded Ambrose Doane.

"Seven dollars," said Peter dryly.

"Well, you can claim the extra one, can't you," snarled Ambrose, "and
make an allowance if it's found short?"

"That's not the way I like to do business!"

"Too bad about you!"

The older man frowned darkly, clamped his teeth upon his pipe, and held
his tongue.

His silence was an additional aggravation to the other. "What do you
want me to do," he burst out with an amount of passion absurdly
disproportionate to the matter at issue, "cut it open and count it over
and bale it up again?"

"To blazes with it!" said Peter. "I want you to keep your temper!"

"I'm sick of this!" cried Ambrose with the wilful abandon of one
hopelessly in the wrong. "You're at me from morning till night!
Nothing I do is right. Why can't you leave me alone?"

Peter took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at his young partner in
astonishment. His face turned a dull brick color and his blue eyes
snapped.

He spoke in a voice of portentous softness: "Who the hell do you think
you are? A little gorramighty? To make a mistake is natural; to fly
into a temper when it is discovered is childish. What's the matter
with you these past ten days, anyway? A man can't look at you but you
begin to bark and froth. You'd best go off by yourself a while and eat
grass to cool your blood!"

Having delivered himself, Peter pulled deeply at his pipe and gazed
across the lake with a scowl of honest resentment.

It was a long speech to come from Peter, and it went unexpectedly to
the point. Ambrose was silenced. For a long time neither spoke.

Little by little the angry red faded out of Peter's cheeks and neck,
and his forehead smoothed itself. Stealing a glance at young Ambrose,
the blue eyes began to twinkle.

"Say!" he said suddenly.

Ambrose twisted petulantly and muttered in his throat.

"Stick out your tongue!" commanded Peter.

Ambrose stared at him in angry stupefaction. "What the deuce--"

"No," said Peter, "you're not sick. Your eyeballs is as clean as new
milk; your skin is as pink as a spanked baby. No, you're not sick, so
to speak!"

There was another silence, Ambrose squirming a little and blushing
under Peter's calm, speculative gaze.

"Have you anything against me?" Peter finally inquired. "If you have,
out with it!"

The young man shook his head unhappily.

"Forget it then!" cried Peter with a scornful, kindly grin. "You
ornery worthless Slavi, you! You Shushwap! You Siwash! Change your
face or you'll give the dog distemper!"

Ambrose laughed sheepishly and stole a glance at his partner. There
was pain in his bold eyes, and the wish to bare it to his friend as to
a surgeon; but he dreaded Peter's laughter.

There was another long silence. The atmosphere was now much clearer.

Peter, having come to a conclusion, removed his pipe and spoke again:
"I know what's the matter with you."

"What?" muttered Ambrose.

"You've got the June fever."

Ambrose made no comment.

"I mind it when I was your age," Peter continued; "when the ice goes
out of the lake and the poplar-trees hang out their little earrings,
that's when a man catches it--when Molly Cottontail puts on her brown
jacket and Skinny Weasel a yellow one. The south wind brings the
microbe along with it, and it multiplies in the warm earth. Gee! It
makes even an old feller like me poetical. After six months of winter
it's hell!"

Still Ambrose kept his eyes down and said nothing.

Peter smoked on, and his eyes became reminiscent. "I mind it well," he
continued, "the second spring I was in the country. The first year I
didn't notice it so much, but the second year--when the warm weather
come I was like a wild man. I saw red! I wanted to fight every man I
laid eyes on. I felt like I would go clean off my head if I couldn't
smash something!"

Ambrose broke in on Peter's reminiscences. He seemed scarcely to have
heard.

"I don't know what's the matter with me!" he cried bitterly. "I can't
seem to settle down to anything lately. I've got no use for myself at
all. I get so cranky, anybody that speaks to me I want to punch them.
God knows I need company, too. It is certainly square of you to put up
with me the way you do. I appreciate it--"

"Aw, bosh!" muttered Peter.

"I've tried to work it off!" cried Ambrose. "You know I've worked,
though I've generally made a mess of things because I can't keep my
mind on anything. My head goes round like a top. Half the time I'm in
a daze. I feel as if I was going crazy. I don't know what is the
matter with me!"

"Twenty-five years old," murmured Peter; "in the pink of condition!
I'm telling you what's the matter with you. It's a plain case of June
fever. Ask any of the fellows up here."

"What am I going to do?" said Ambrose. "As it is, I work till I'm
ready to drop."

"I mind when I had it," said Peter, "I came to a camp of French
half-breeds on Musquasepi, and I saw Eva Lajeunesse for the first time.
It was like a blow between the eyes. You do not know what she looked
like then. I didn't think about it this way or that; I just up and
married her. I was glad to get her!

"Man to man I'll not deny I ain't been sorry sometimes," he went on;
"who ain't, sometimes? But, on the whole, after all these years, how
could I have done any better? She's good enough for me. A man worries
about his children sometimes; but I guess if they go straight there's a
place for them, though they are dusky. Eva, she has her bad points,
but she's been real good to me. How can I be but grateful!"

This was a rare and unusual confidence for Peter to offer his young
partner. Ambrose, flattered and embarrassed, did not know what to say,
and said nothing.

He was right, for if he had referred to it, Peter would have been
obliged to turn it into a joke. As it was, they smoked on in
understanding silence. Finally Peter went on:

"You see, I gave right in. You're different; you want to fight the
thing. Blest if I know what to tell you."

"Eva and I don't get on very well," said Ambrose shamefacedly. "She
doesn't like me around the house. But I respect her. You know that."

"Sure," said Peter.

"I couldn't do it, Peter," Ambrose went on after a while with seeming
irrelevance--howsoever Peter understood. "God knows it's not because I
think myself any better than anybody else, or because I think a man
does for himself by marrying a--by marrying up here. But I just
couldn't do it, that's all."

"No offense," said Peter. "Every man must chop his own trail. I won't
say but what you're right. But what are you going to do? A man can't
live and die alone."

"I don't know," said Ambrose.

"Tell you what," said Peter; "you take the furs out on the steamboat."

"I won't," said Ambrose quickly. "I went out last year. It's your
turn."

"But I'm contented here," said Peter.

Ambrose shook his head. "It wouldn't do me any real good," he said.
"It makes it worse after. It did last year. I couldn't bring a white
wife up here."

"Well, sir, it's a problem," said Peter with a weighty shake of the
head.

This serious, sentimental kind of talk was a strain on both partners.
Ambrose made haste to drop the subject.

"I believe I'll start the new warehouse to-morrow," he said. "I like
to work with logs. First, I must measure the ground and make a working
plan."

Peter was not sorry to be diverted. "Hadn't we better get lumber from
the 'Company' mill?" he suggested. "Looks like up to date somehow."

"A board shack looks rotten in the woods?" said Ambrose.

"You're so gol-durn artistic," said Peter quizzically.

Minot & Doane's store was a long log shack with a sod roof sprouting a
fine crop of weeds. The original shack had been added to on one side,
then on the other. There was a pleasing diversity of outline in the
main building and its wings. The whole crouched low on the ground as
though for warmth.

Three crooked little windows and three doors so low that a short man
had to duck his head under the lintels, faced the lake. The middle
door gave ingress to the store proper; the door on the right was the
entrance to Peter Minot's household quarters; while that on the left
opened to a large room used variously for stores and bunks.

Farther to the left stood the little shack that housed Ambrose Doane in
bachelor solitude, and a few steps beyond, the long, low, log stable
for the use of the freighters in winter.

Seen from the lake the low, spreading buildings in the rough clearing
among gigantic pines were not unpleasing. Rough as they were, they
fulfilled the first aim of all architecture; they were suitable to the
site.

The traveler by water landed on a stony beach, climbed a low bank and
followed a crooked path to the door of the store. On either hand
potato and onion patches flourished among the stumps.

From the door-sill where the partners sat, the farther shore of the
lake could be seen merely as a delicate line of tree tops poised in the
air.

Off to the right their own shore made out in a shallow, sweeping curve,
ending half a mile away in a bold hill-point where the Company's post
of Fort Moultrie had stood for two hundred years commanding the western
end of the lake and its outlet, Great Buffalo River.

To one who should compare the outward aspects of the two
establishments, Minot & Doane's offered a ludicrous contrast to the
imposing white buildings of Fort Moultrie, arranged military-wise on
the grassy promontory; nevertheless, as is not infrequently the case
elsewhere, the humbler store did the larger trade.

The coming of Peter Minot ten years before had worked a kind of
revolution in the country. He had brought war into the very stronghold
of the arrogant fur monopoly, and had succeeded in establishing himself
next door. The results were far-reaching. Formerly the Indian sat
humbly on the step with his furs until the trader was pleased to open
his door; whereas now when the Indian landed, the trader ran down the
hill with outstretched hand.

Far and wide Minot & Doane were known as the "free-traders"; and some
of their customers journeyed for three hundred miles to trade in the
little log store.

The partners were roused by a shrill hail from up the shore. Grateful
for the interruption, they hastened to the edge of the bank.

Summer is the dull season in the fur trade. Most of the firm's
customers were "pitching off" among the hills, and visitors were rare
enough to be notable.

"Poly Goussard," said Ambrose after an instant's examination of the
dug-out nosing alongshore. Ambrose's keenness of vision was already
known in a land of keen-eyed men.

"Taking his woman to see her folks," added Peter.

Soon the long, slender canoe grounded on the stones below them. It
contained in addition to all the worldly goods of the family, a swarthy
French half-breed, his Cree wife and three coppery infants in pink
calico sunbonnets.

The man climbing over his family indiscriminately, landed and came up
the bank with outstretched hand. The woman and children remained
sitting like statues in their narrow craft, staring unwinkingly at the
white men.

Mrs. Goussard as a full-blooded Cree was considerably below Peter's
half-breed wife in the social scale, and she knew better than to make a
call uninvited. Even in the north, woman, the conservator, maintains
the distinctions.

"Stay all night," urged Peter when formal greetings had been exchanged.
"Bring your family ashore."

Poly Goussard shook his head. Poly had a chest like a barrel, a face
the color of Baldwin apples and a pair of rolling, gleaming, sloe-black
eyes. His head of curly black hair was famous; some one had called him
the "Newfoundland dog."

"I promise my wife I sleep wit' her folks to-night," he said. "It is
ten miles yet. I jus' come ashore for a little talk."

"Fine!" said Peter, "we're spoiling for news. Come on up to the store
and have a cigar."

Seven hundred miles from the railway a cigar is something of a
phenomenon. Poly Goussard displayed twenty dazzling teeth and made
haste to follow. The three men entered the store and found seats on
boxes and bales.

CHAPTER II.

FORT ENTERPRISE.

"Me, I work all winter at Fort Enterprise," said Poly.

"So I heard," said Peter. "You've had quite a trip."

The rosy half-breed shrugged. "It is easy. Jus' floatin' down the
Spirit River six days."

"What kind of a job did they give you at Enterprise?" asked Peter.

"I drove a team, me, haulin' logs to the saw-mill," said Poly. "There
is plentee work at Fort Enterprise."

"The Company's most profitable post," remarked Peter to Ambrose. "They
have everything their own way there." The look which accompanied this
suggested to Ambrose it would be a good place for Minot & Doane to
start a branch.

"What did you think of the place, Poly?" asked Ambrose.

The half-breed flung up his hands and dramatically rolled his eyes.

"_Wa_! _Wa_! _Towasasuak_! It is a gran' place! Jus' lak outside!
Trader him live in great big house all make of smooth boards and paint'
yellow and red lak the sun! Never I see before such a tall house, and
so many rooms inside full of fine chairs and tables so smoot' and shiny.

"He is so reech he put blankets on the floor to walk on, w'at you call
carrpitt. Every day he has a white cloth on the table, and a little
one to wipe his hands! I have seen it! And silver dishes!"

"There is style for you!" said Peter, with a whimsical roll of his eye
in Ambrose's direction.

"There is moch farming by the river at Fort Enterprise," Poly went on;
"and plaintee grain grow. There is a mill to grind flour. Steam mak'
it go lak the steamboat. They eat eggs and butter at Fort Enterprise,
and think not'ing of it. Christmas I have turkey and cranberry sauce.
I am going back, me."

"They say the trader John Gaviller is a hard man," suggested Peter.

Poly shrugged elaborately. "Maybe. He owe me not'ing. Me, I would
not farm for him nor trade my fur at his store. Those people are his
slaves. But he pay a strong man good wages. I will tak' his wages and
snap my fingers!

"But wait!" cried Poly with a sparkling eye. "The 'mos' won'erful
thing I see at Fort Enterprise--Wa!--the laktrek light! Her shine in
little bottles lak pop, but not so big. John Gaviller, him clap his
hands, so! and Wa! she shine!

"Indians, him t'ink it is magic. But I am no fool. I know John
Gaviller make the laktrek in an engine in the mill. Me, I have seen
that engine. I see blue fire inside lak falling stars.

"Gaviller send the laktrek to the store inside a wire. He send some to
his house too. They said it cook the dinner, but I think that is a
lie. If a man touch that wire they say he will jomp to the roof! Me?
I did not try it."

Peter chuckled. "Good man!" he said.

The wonders of Fort Enterprise were not new to Ambrose. Other
travelers the preceding summer had brought the same tale. With the air
that politeness demanded he only half listened, and pursued his own
thoughts.

On the other hand Peter, who delighted in his humble friends, drew out
Poly fully. The half-breed told about the bringing in of the winter's
catch of fur; of the launching of the great steamboat for the summer
season, and many other things.

"Enterprise is sure a wonderful place!" said Peter encouragingly.

"There is something else," said Poly proudly. "At Fort Enterprise
there is a white girl!"

The simple sentence had the effect of the ringing of an alarm going
inside the dreamy Ambrose. He drew a careful mask over his face, and
leaned farther into the shadow.

"So!" said Peter with a glance in the direction of his young partner.
"That is news! Who is she?"

"Colina Gaviller, the trader's daughter," said Poly.

"Is she real white?" asked Peter cautiously.

"White as raspberry flowers!" asseverated Poly with extravagant
gestures; "white as clouds in the summer! white as sugar! Her hair is
lak golden-rod; her eyes blue lak the lake when the wind blows over it
in the morning!"

Peter glanced again at his partner, but Ambrose was farthest from the
window, and there was nothing to be read in his face.

"Sure," said Peter; "but was her mother a white woman ?"

"They say so," said Poly. "Her long tam dead."

"When did the girl come?" asked Peter.

"Las' fall before the freeze-up," said Poly. "She come down the Spirit
River from the Crossing on a raf'. Michel Trudeau and his wife, they
bring her. Her fat'er he not know she comin'. Her fat'er want her
live outside and be a lady. She say 'no!' She say ladies mak' her
sick.' Michel tell me she say that.

"She want always to ride and paddle a canoe and hunt. Michel say she
is more brave as a man! John Gaviller say she got go out again this
summer. She say 'no!' She is not afraid of him. Me, I t'ink she lak
to be the only white girl in the country, lak a queen."

"How old is she?" inquired Peter.

"Twenty years, Michel say," answered Poly. "Ah! she is beautiful!" he
went on. "She walk the groun' as sof' and proud and pretty as fine
yong horse! She sit her horse like a flower on its stem. Me and her
good frens too. She say she lak me for cause I am simple. Often in
the winter she ride out wit' my team and hunt in the bush while I am
load up."

"What did Eelip say to that?" Peter inquired facetiously. Eelip was
Poly's wife.

"Eelip?" queried Poly, surprised. "Colina is the trader's daughter,"
he carefully explained. "She live in the big house. I would cut off
my hand to serve her."

"I suppose Miss Colina has plenty of suitors?" said Peter.

Ambrose hung with suspended breath on the reply.

Poly shook his curly pate. "Who is there for her?" he demanded.
"Macfarlane the policeman is too fat; the doctor is too old, his hair
is white; the parson is a little, scary man. All are afraid of her;
her proud eye mak' a man feel weak inside. There are no ot'er white
men there. She is a woman. She mus' have a master. There is no man
in the country strong enough for that!"

There was a brief silence in the cabin while Poly relighted his cigar.
Ambrose had given no sign of being affected by Poly's tale beyond a
slight quivering of the nostrils. But Peter watching him slyly, saw
him raise his lids for a moment and saw his dark eyes glowing like
coals in a pit. Peter chuckled inwardly, and said:

"Tell us some more about her."

Ambrose's heart warmed gratefully toward his partner. He thirsted for
more like a desert traveler for water, but he dared not speak for fear
of what he might betray.

"I will tell you 'ow she save Michel Trudeau's life," said Poly,
nothing loath, "I am the first to come down the river this summer or
you would hear it before. Many times Michel is tell me this story.
Never I heard such a story before. A woman to save a man!

"Wa! Every Saturday night Michel tell it at the store. And John
Gaviller give him two dollars of tobacco, the best. I guess Michel is
glad the trader's daughter save him. Old man proud, lak he is save
Michel himself!"

Poly Goussard, having smoked the cigar to within half an inch of his
lips, regretfully threw the half inch out the door. He paused, and
coughed suggestively. A second cigar being forthcoming, he took the
time to light it with tenderest care. Meanwhile, Ambrose kicked the
bale on which he sat with an impatient heel.

"It was the Tuesday after Easter," Poly finally began. "It was when
the men went out to visit their traps again after big time at the fort.
There was moch frash snow fall, and heavy going for the dogs. Colina
Gaviller she moch friends with Michel Trudeau for because he was bring
her in on his raf las' fall.

"Often she go with him lak she go with me. Michel carry her up on his
sledge, and she hunt aroun' while he visit his traps. Michel trap up
on the bench three mile from the fort. He not get much fur so near,
but live home in a warm house, and work for day's wages for John
Gaviller."

Poly paragraphed his story with luxurious puffs at the cigar and
careful attention to keep it burning evenly.

"So on Tuesday after Easter they go out toget'er. Colina Gaviller ride
on the sledge and Michel he break trail ahead. Come to the bench,
leave the dogs in a shelter Michel build in a poplar bluff. Michel go
to see his traps, and Colina walk away on her snowshoes wit' her little
gun.

"Michel not ver' good lok that day. In his first trap find fool-hen
catch herself. He is mad. Second trap is little cross-fox; third trap
nothin' 'tall!

"Come to fourth trap, wa! see somesing black on the snow! Wa! Wa!
Him heart jomp up! Think him got black fox sure! But no! It is too
big. Come close and look. What is he catch you think? It is a black
bear!

"Everybody know some tam a bear wake up too soon in winter and come out
of his hole and roll aroun' lak he was drunk. He can't find somesing
to eat nowhere, and don' know what to do!

"This bear him catch his paw in Michel's little fox trap. It was chain
to a little tree. Bear too weak to pull his paw out or break the
chain. He lie down lak dead.

"Michel him ver' mad. Him think got no lok at all after Easter. For
'cause that bear is poor as a bird out of the egg. Michel mak' a noise
to wake him up. But always he lie still lak dead. Michel think all
right.

"Bam-by he lean over with his knife. Wa! Bear jomp up lak he was burn
wit' fire! Little chain break and before Michel can tak a breath, bear
fetch him a crack with the steel trap acrost his head!

"Wa! Wa! Michel's forehead is bus' open from here to here lak that!
Michel drop his knife in the snow. Him get ver' sick. Warm blood run
all down his eyes, and he can't see not'ing no more.

"Bear grab Michel round his body and squeeze him pretty near till his
eyes jomp out. Michel say a little prayer then. Him say him awful
sorry he ain't confessed this year.

"But always he fight that bear and fight some more. Always he is try
get his hands aroun' that hairy throat. Bear tear Michel's shoulder
with his teeth. Michel feel the hot blood run down inside his shirt
and get cold.

"Michel, him always thinkin' Colina is not far, but he will not call to
her. She is only a girl him say; she can't do not'ing to a crazy bear.
Bear hurt her too, maybe, and John Gaviller is mad for that.

"So Michel he jus' fight. He is ver' tire' now. And always they
stamping and tumbling and rolling in the snow, and big red spots drop
all aroun'.

"Colina, she tell me the end of it. Colina say she is walkin' sof' in
the poplar bush looking sharp and all tam listen for game. All is ver'
quiet in the bush.

"Bam-by she hear a fonny little noise way off. Twigs crackling, and
somesing bumping and tromping in the snow. Colina think it is big game
and go quick. Some tam she stop and listen. Bam-by she hear fonny
snarling and grunting. She know there is a fight and she is a little
scare. But she go more fas'.

"Wa! Wa! What a sight she sec there! Poor Michel he pretty near
done. She can't see his face no more for blood. She think he got no
face now. Michel he see her come, and say to her loud as he can: 'Go
way! Go way! You get hurt and John Gaviller give me hell!'

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