Chapter IX: An Upset

Gault and Moale were breakfasting in the men’s house.

“How about the fur here?” asked Moale.

“All in good time,” said his master.

“Have you got the key to the warehouse?”

“Yes. But of course I have to make out that it’s sealed up in the desk.”

“I don’t see what you expect to gain by that bit of flummery,” said Moale.

“No?” said Gault sarcastically. “I am keeping the girl out of her father’s papers, am I not? . . . I know what I am doing. Suppose some one should come in here? Everything would be found in order; Blackburn’s will, his accounts, his letters. I have taken nothing, because there was nothing I wanted; it was sufficient for me to read it all.”

“What was in his will?” said Moale curiously.

“Oh, he left everything to the girl, of course. That doesn’t signify anything, because if there was no will, the courts would award it to her anyway.”

“Well, I’d like fine to have a look at that fur,” said Moale with glittering eyes. Fur was his passion. If he had other passions, he kept them hid.

“You are to keep away from the warehouse for the present,” said Gault peremptorily.

“I have read the inventory,” said Moale. “There are ten black fox skins of the first quality. I have never seen so many at one time. Those alone will bring from a thousand to fifteen hundred each. Besides the silver and the cross foxes; the mink, otter and fisher. The whole lot is worth well above a hundred thousand at present prices.”

“Quite that,” said Gault. “But I’m playing for a bigger stake, and I don’t intend to jeopardize it by making any premature move.”

“How much is the girl worth?” asked Moale slyly.

“I don’t know,” said the other coolly.

Moale lowered his eyes; he knew very well that Gault was lying; but did not care to let him see that he knew. Presently he said: “The news of Blackburn’s death will be all over by now. That fool Etzooah let it out at our post before I could stop his mouth. And Conacher carried the news north with him.”

“I had no thought of keeping it secret,” said Gault.

“How about Gruber, then? If you keep him waiting too long at the Crossing, he’s likely to come down here to see what’s up.”

“I’ve written to Gruber telling him that if he will wait a few weeks, I’ll send him the fur as soon as I can arrange matters.”

“Maybe that letter won’t satisfy him.”

“Well, if he comes he shall have the fur. It will be a good way of getting him away from here again.”

“I should hate to see that fur get out of our hands,” said Moale. “That’s real; that’s the goods! Whereas the other thing . . .” He shrugged.

“You’re a fool,” said Gault contemptuously. “The girl is all but ready to drop into my arms. All I need is a little time.”

Moale looked down at his plate again.

In spite of the confidence that Gault had expressed, this conversation brought forward the little worrying anxiety that lingered in the back of his mind. Here were the days passing one after another, and could it be honestly said that he was making progress with Loseis? Sometimes he was sure he was—sometimes not so sure. She was such a baffling creature; at one moment as open and easily moved as a child and the next moment revealing a maturity of mind and an originality that startled him. At other times she was as provoking and secretive as an Indian. To be sure of late she had been generally friendly, even sympathetic; but try as he would, he could not get their relations on the man and woman plane, the plane of courtship. Loseis eluded him like a sprite.

In his heart Gault cursed the time that must be wasted in wooing a civilized miss. They managed such things better in a simpler state of society, when the girl would have been hit over the head, and dragged off without more ado. Women have never really become civilized, he thought; they need to be beaten still. Well, having an eye to the outside world, he could not actually do this, but should he not apply the principle? Perhaps he had been too gentle, too considerate a wooer. That only set her up in her own opinion. It was ridiculous to suppose that a mere slip of a girl who didn’t know her own mind could resist a mature and strong-willed man like himself. The time had come for him to overbear her by the mere force of his personality. She would thank him for it in the end. A Loseis, humbled and loving; Ah! what a seductive picture!

Gault had his horse brought, and mounting, rode across to the Women’s House, well aware that he appeared to the best advantage on a horse. He knocked at the door without dismounting, and when Loseis appeared, she was obliged to look up at him, proudly holding his seat, and making believe to soothe his horse, while secretly fretting him with his off heel. But no light of admiration appeared in Loseis’ clear eyes. She took horsemanship as a matter of course.

“Will you ride up to the lake with me?” asked Gault. “I have grub for two. I think you ought to show yourselves to the Slavis just to remind them that you are the mistress here.”

Loseis cocked an eye at the sky. It was like an inverted bowl of palest turquoise. “Surely!” she cried. “I’m longing for a ride. Give me five minutes to change my skirt.”

Mary-Rose was sent running to fetch Loseis’ horse.

Loseis and her horse appeared simultaneously. This was the first time that Gault had beheld the girl’s riding costume. It comprised Strathcona boots; breeches; a blue flannel shirt; and a flat-brimmed man’s hat set crookedly on one side of her head. The shirt was open at the neck, and under the collar she had knotted a gay red and yellow kerchief. She turned up her face to the sky, all open, drinking in the light with joy; and Gault, observing her hair, softer and blacker than anything else in Nature, the tender brilliance of her eyes, and her flower-petal lips, felt a pain like a needle go through his breast, and lost his sense of mastery.

He thought: The devil is in it, that she is able to hurt me so! She must never be allowed to suspect her power.

Loseis vaulted on her horse. They trotted down the rise, and passing between the tepees, splashed through the small stream. Clawing their way up the further bank, their horses broke into a gallop in the clean grass. Summer had pronounced her benediction on the North, and the world was like a freshly painted picture. Loseis, who was ahead, sang out:

“Oh, what a day for a ride!” To herself she added: “If that was Conacher pounding along behind, I should be the happiest girl alive!”

Their way led more or less close to the river. There were but two horse trails leaving Blackburn’s Post; that to Fort Good Hope, and this one which, after circling the easterly shore of Blackburn’s Lake, struck south to the distant rendezvous near the Crossing. Rich bottom lands alternated with occasional gravelly ridges to be crossed. Conversation was impossible; for horses trained to the trail will not travel abreast; however Gault, knowing that they would be out all day, was content to bide his time.

Descending into a lush meadow, already fetlock deep in grass, Loseis clapped heels to her horse, and set off, yelling like an Indian. Her sorrel mare laid her ears back and went like the wind. She would have yelled too if she could. The sight brought that needle-pain back to Gault’s breast, by reminding him that his day for yelling and running was forever past.

In another meadow they came upon a herd of horses quietly feeding, and Loseis paused to look them over. These were the broken horses kept on this side, while the wild horses ranged across the river. Blackburn on the day he was killed, had been engaged in rounding up these horses to take out the fur.

When they rode up on top of the ridge which formed the cut-bank known as Swallow Bend, all Loseis’ gayety was quenched. She slipped out of her saddle, and without speaking, handed her rein to Gault to hold. Creeping to the edge of the bank, she looked over. In the gravelly stuff below she could easily follow the marks where the horses had first struck, and then rolled down into the water. A wild regret filled her heart, and her tears ran fast.

They were still falling when she returned to Gault, and silently received her rein. Her grief was as natural and spontaneous as her gayety had been an hour before. The ageing man bit his lip and cursed her in his heart for being so beautiful.

Just below the lake they forded the main stream through a brawling shallow rapid, the Slavi village being on the other side. Scores of tepees rose here, as well as several log shacks built in imitation of the white man for winter use. Their coming was beheld from afar, and a tremendous commotion arose in the village; the news was shrieked from tepee to tepee. Upon their entrance a dead silence fell; and the Slavis, like school children all adopted a look of vacant stupidity as a cover for their embarrassment. Loseis did not dismount; but rode up and down, speaking to this one and that.

Tatateecha, the head man of all the Slavis came to her stirrup. He was a round little man, distinguished amongst all the tribe by his fleshiness. The responsibilities of headship had given him more steadiness of character too, but not much more. Loseis did not hold him accountable for the excesses at the Post. Tatateecha made a flowery speech of welcome to Loseis; and another to Gault.

“You are wasting your breath,” remarked Loseis. “He does not understand your tongue.”

“Is he the trader now?” asked Tatateecha slyly.

“No!” said Loseis with a flash of her eyes. “He is my guest. . . . Do you wish to trade with him?” she added.

“No! No!” said Tatateecha earnestly. “He has the name of a hard trader. They tell me that the people at Fort Good Hope are always poor.”

“Very well, then,” said Loseis. “Serve me, and I will deal with you justly and fairly as my father did. You never knew want when he was alive.”

Tatateecha’s eyes twinkled. To be talking in this manner under the very nose of the proud Gault appealed to the Slavi sense of humor.

“This man wishes me ill,” Loseis went on. “He would take my post from me. I look to you and your people to be my friends, and help me to keep what is my own.”

Tatateecha in his redskin style swore fealty. Unfortunately he was not to be trusted far.

“I have another thing to say,” Loseis went on. “The man who fetched this man into our country—I do not name him because this man would hear me; you know the man I mean. That false person is this person’s spy, so beware how you open your hearts to him. I have finished.”

Loseis and Gault rode on. They left Tatateecha looking rather scared, but Loseis told herself that at least her speaking to him would do no harm.

“What were you talking about?” asked Gault.

“Oh, he was apologizing for the way his people behaved in the store, and I was telling him it had better not happen again,” said Loseis carelessly.

Beyond the village the land rose to a low bluff which commanded a prospect of the lake. Here they turned out their horses, and sat down in the grass to eat. After the pleasant, diversified country they had ridden through, an astonishing panorama met their eyes. The whole earth suddenly flattened out. They were upon the only bit of high ground that approached the lake. In front of them a sea of water and a sea of grass stretched to the horizon; and it was impossible to say where the one ended and the other began. On either hand in the far distance ran the bordering hills. The only thing there was in sight to break that tremendous flatness was a flock of wild swans a mile or more away, fluttering their wings in the sun.

When they had satisfied their hunger, Gault bethought himself that it was time to take a firm tone with Loseis. He said bluntly:

“Do you know, you’re a damn pretty girl.”

He prepared himself for an explosion; but Loseis surprised him again.

“Of course I know it,” she said coolly; looking at him with a slanting smile.

“How do you know it? You’ve never seen any white girls.”

“Oh, one knows such things anyhow,” she said shrugging.

“Has any man ever told you?” demanded Gault.

“No,” said Loseis, clear-eyed as the sky; but thinking of Conacher nevertheless.

“Well, I’m telling you,” said Gault.

“Thanks,” said Loseis with a quick smile.

The smile annoyed the trader. It seemed to express something other than gratitude. “Do you know what they sometimes call me?” he asked.

Loseis shook her head.

“Kid-Glove Gault. An allusion to my manner, of course. Everybody knows that it conceals an iron hand. I have been through a hard school, and I have come out hard. I choose to be courteous because I despise those who surround me. I have taught myself to stand alone.”

Loseis became very uncomfortable. Why does he tell me all this? she thought.

“Look at me!” he said peremptorily.

She shook her head, pressing her lips together. If I did, I should burst out laughing in his face, she thought.

Gault was not ill-pleased by her refusal. It seemed to testify to his power. “There is another side to my nature,” he went on, “which I have never revealed to a living soul. All the softer feelings which other men scatter in a hundred directions I have saved up for one!”

Mercy! ejaculated Loseis to herself.

“But it is not to be given lightly,” said Gault. “I am a proud, jealous, and violent man. I may be led by one whom I trust, but never driven. I shall never let down my guard until I am assured that the one I have chosen is worthy . . .”

This sort of talk put Loseis on pins and needles—she could not have told why. Her body twitched, and her face was all drawn up in a knot of comical distaste. She kept her head averted from Gault. Oh, if he would _only_ stop! she was saying to herself.

“. . . of my confidence,” he went on; “such is my character. I am not trying to excuse it. I have long been indifferent to both praise and blame. The woman who places her hand in mine must . . .”

Loseis could stand no more. Springing to her feet, she ran back towards the place where the horses were grazing.

“Excuse me a moment,” she called over her shoulder. “I must water my horse.”

Gault with a black face had sprung up to follow her. But he checked himself. That would be _too_ ludicrous for one of his years and dignity. Besides, she could probably run faster than he. He ground his teeth with rage. “A coquette!” he muttered. “By God! I’ll tame her!”

All the way home he glowered at her back, but Loseis could not see that.

After supper she went across to hear the radio concert in some trepidation; but Gault received her with his usual smooth and well-controlled face; and she felt relieved. He treated her with the most exquisite courtesy. This high manner may have concealed terrible fires within; but Loseis was not worrying about that. She gave herself up to the music.

After it was over, Gault walked home with her. That rare day had been succeeded by a still rarer night. Low in the southerly sky hung a great round moon. Measured by the standards of southerly latitudes, the moon behaves very eccentrically up there. After describing a short arc across the southern sky, she would go down in an hour or so not far from where she had risen. In the meantime she held the world in a breathless spell of beauty. In that magical light the rude buildings of the Post created a picture of old romance. There was a silvery bloom upon the grass; and the velvety black shadows suggested unutterable meanings that caught at the heart. The shadow of Gault’s house reached almost to Loseis’ door.

They paused there; and Loseis looked around her with a tight breast. (Is he somewhere under this moon thinking of me?) “This is the night of the whole year!” she said.

“Well, we are free, white, and twenty-one,” said Gault. “Why go to bed? . . . The best place to see moonlight is on the river. Come out in a canoe with me for an hour.”

Loseis’ intuition warned her not to go—but one does not always listen to one’s intuitions. She was tempted. He can’t do any more than talk, she thought; I guess I can stand it. I shall be looking at the moonlight, and thinking of the other one. “Very well,” she said.

“Go in and get a coat,” he said. “I’ll come back for you in two minutes.”

He hastened back to his own kitchen. One of his Crees was sent down to the creek mouth to find a canoe. Of the others, one played a banjo and all could sing the old-fashioned songs that are still current in the far North. These were stationed on a bench outside the kitchen door with orders to sing, _not loud_. After all there was something magnificent about Gault. In his dark way he had imagination. But he was fifty-three years old!

When they got down to the water’s edge the Cree was holding the canoe for them to step into. By Gault’s orders he had chosen not one of the usual bark canoes of the Slavis which are little more than paper boats, but a dug-out of which there were several lying in the creek. These heavier and roomier craft are however, no more stable than the others. Loseis perceived that a nest of blankets and pillows had been arranged for her in the bottom.

“Oh, I like to paddle,” she said.

“Give me the pleasure of looking at you in the moonlight,” murmured Gault.

Again Loseis felt strong compunctions; but it seemed too ridiculous to back out then; especially with the Indian looking on. She got in; and Gault, taking his place in the stern, paddled out into the main stream.

Heading the canoe down river, he allowed it to drift. That brought Loseis reclining under his eyes in the full shine of the moon; while he, sitting up on the thwart, was blackly silhouetted against the light. Presumably it was very lovely on the river—Loseis observed how the face of the water seemed to be powdered with moon-dust; and at any other time her heart would have been melted by the distant strumming of the banjo, and the muted voices; but now it was all spoiled for her by that silhouette. How could she think of Conacher while the other man’s eyes were boring into her. She was sorry she had come. She became sorrier when Gault began to speak.

“You are beautiful!” he said in a masterful voice. “I want you!”

At first Loseis was only conscious of astonishment.

“Want me?” she echoed blankly.

“To-morrow I shall send over to my Post for the parson,” he went on, coolly. “He may bring his sister with him to attend upon you. We shall be married in your house. It will be more fitting.”

Loseis was literally struck dumb. She sat up straight, trying to peer into the shadowy face that was almost invisible to her, her mouth hanging open like a child’s.

Gault laughed fondly. “Do not look so frightened,” he murmured. “I will take good care of you . . . little sweetheart.”

A little strained note of laughter was surprised out of the girl. The last word sounded so funny, shaped by those stiff old lips.

Gault ascribed it to nerves. It did not put him off at all. “As soon as we are married,” he went on. “Let us take advantage of the Summer season to make a trip outside. A handsome spirited girl like you will enjoy seeing the cities. You shall have everything that your heart desires. And we will be able to attend to the business of your father’s estate. I don’t mean places like Edmonton or Calgary. What would you say to New York . . . London?”

As he talked on a chill of terror struck to Loseis’ breast. He seemed so very sure of himself! The fond, elderly voice made her feel like a little girl again. “Do I _have to_ marry him?” she asked herself, trembling.

The river was very high. The muddy borders which would show themselves later, were now completely covered. The overhanging willows trailed their branches in deep water. Without noticing it, they had drifted close to the easterly shore.

Gault’s ardor increased. He dropped forward in the bottom of the dug-out, and crept closer to Loseis. Putting a hand down on either side of her for support and balance, he strained towards her. Loseis got a hateful whiff of the scented breath again.

“Seal it with a kiss, sweetheart,” he murmured.

Loseis’ blood rebelled, and all uncertainty left her. She was no longer the child, but an aroused woman. She wriggled her body further forward in the dug-out, out of his reach.

“Easy! Easy!” he cried sharply; “or you’ll have us over!”

“Marry you!” cried Loseis with a burst of clear laughter that flayed him raw. “You ugly old man! The husband I have chosen is not like you!”

Gault drew in his breath with a moan of rage; and, careless of the danger, began to creep towards her. At that instant a willow branch brushed against the girl’s hair. Springing up, Loseis embraced a whole mass of the leaves within her arms, and swung herself out. Under the violent propulsion of her body, the narrow craft rolled over in a twinkling, and Gault was precipitated into the water.

Loseis sank into the icy water up to her neck, and hung there, dangling from her branches. For a moment there was silence; then Gault’s head emerged from the river, and the night was shattered by a roar for help. Loseis saw him seize the canoe, and knew that he was in no danger of drowning. He was no more than twenty feet from her, but drifting away on the current.

Loseis worked her way along her slender branches, to thicker branches, and finally gained a footing on firm ground. Gault, drifting downstream continued to roar for help. Making her way across the flat below the Post, Loseis met Moale, and the Crees running in response to their master’s cries. The Slavi village was in an uproar.

“Gault is in the river,” said Loseis coolly. “He’s in no danger. Get canoes and go after him.”

Reaching her own house Loseis found the terror-stricken girls huddled in a group. At the sight of her drenched clothing, Mary-Lou clasped her hands tragically.

“What has happened?” she gasped.

Loseis did not answer her immediately, but only leaned back against the door with widening eyes. For suddenly she had realized what _had_ happened, and was appalled by the certain consequences. She alone there with that pack of terrified girls!

“Bar the door,” she said. “Shutter the windows. We’ll have to stand a siege now! . . . No, wait!” she cried as they moved to obey her. “We must have weapons. The men won’t be back for half an hour. I’ll fetch guns from the store!”