Chapter XIII: The Fur Goes Out

Loseis and Paul Conacher sat on the great white bear rug before the fire. Said Loseis, concluding her tale:

“He gave me to understand through Moale, that he would stop at nothing.”

“The scoundrel!” muttered Conacher. “He was trying to terrorize you. In reality he cannot touch your rights here, unless you sign them away.”

“Sign?” said Loseis sharply. “I have signed my name four times on blank sheets of paper for Gault. I had clean forgotten that.” She described the circumstances.

“Obviously a trick,” said Conacher. “If you had known anything about banking methods, you would have seen through it.”

“I am so ignorant!” said Loseis humbly.

“How could you be expected to know!” said Conacher. He mused. “I wonder how in thunder he expects to use those signatures. . . . Were they at the top, in the middle or at the bottom of the sheets?”

“Towards the bottom,” said Loseis. “He pointed his finger, and I wrote.”

“Of course!” said Conacher. “Then he could fill in anything he wanted above your signature.”

Loseis leaned towards him. “What does it matter?” she said dreamily. “We are together!”

“You darling!”

Loseis was too happy to remain sitting still. Springing up, she threw back the little shutter. Outside it was broad day. “The day of my happiness!” she murmured. Sticking her head through the kitchen door, she called out: “Mary-Lou! Quick with my breakfast. I must set off!”

“So soon?” said Conacher. “It’s not four.”

“Gault mustn’t see me start. If he tried to interfere, you would be drawn into it, and everything spoiled.”

“He’ll see you come back.”

“That doesn’t matter. I shall have settled everything with Tatateecha then.”

“Can we depend upon the Slavis?” asked Conacher anxiously.

“If it was to fight, never! But to play a secret trick at night, oh, yes! that’s just in their line.”

“And I?” asked Conacher.

“You must stay close to the house all day. This shall be your room now . . . Ah! the happy room! Do not go near the windows. . . . Where did you leave your dug-out last night?”

“Hidden under the willows about a furlong downstream. I thought I had better communicate with you before showing myself.”

“You did right! . . . If the Slavis were here your dug-out would be discovered within an hour, but Gault will never find it. . . . You must sleep all you can to-day.”

“You must sleep too.”

“Ah! happiness has made me over! I need no sleep! . . . However, I will be sensible. I will be back from the lake in three or four hours, and will sleep all day in the kitchen. Neither of us will get any sleep to-night.”

“I don’t altogether like your plan,” said Conacher frowning. “I should be the one to stay here.”

“You are wrong in that,” said Loseis earnestly. “There is nothing of any value here. All Gault cares about is the fur. The post of danger is with the fur, and you have that.”

“Why shouldn’t you and I take it out together?”

“No! If I left the Post, it would give Gault an excuse to say that I had given up my rights here.”

“But how can I leave you alone again?”

“Ah, nothing can harm me now!” cried Loseis. “I am guarded by happiness! I will do everything quite willingly that Gault forces me to do, and just be patient until you and Gruber come back. There is a sergeant of police at the Crossing. Bring him back too. Oh, Gault will be quite different when he knows that help is on the way. He has to think of the law, then.”

Conacher was silenced: but he did not look altogether convinced. They sat down to their breakfast.

“It is like being married!” said Loseis with a sigh of content. “Mary-Lou, have you cooked enough for a man’s breakfast?”

Loseis’ own horse and her saddle were in the stable behind the men’s house; therefore unavailable. Having improvised a halter out of a piece of rope, she therefore set off on foot; and catching one of the broken horses in the meadow beyond the creek, she rode it in the Indian fashion, bareback.

* * * * *

At half-past eight she was back again. Turning the horse loose, she hid the halter in a bush, and returned across the stepping-stones. Gault was pacing up and down in front of his house. From this position he could not see her until she started to mount the rise. It was impossible for him to tell from what direction she had come. At sight of her, notwithstanding his self-command, his face sharpened with curiosity; and he changed his course in order to intercept her. Loseis was seized with a slight sense of panic. He must not read anything in my face! she told herself.

“Good morning,” said Gault, politely.

“Good morning,” returned Loseis. Alas! for all her care, she could feel the dimples pressing into her cheeks, and she knew that her eyes were shining. She kept her lids lowered, but that in itself was a giveaway, for she had been accustomed heretofore to look Gault straight in the eye.

By the brief silence which succeeded, she knew that his suspicions were aroused. “You are up early,” he remarked in a carefully controlled voice.

“I just went down to see if the Slavis had left a canoe that I could use,” she said carelessly.

“I did not see you go,” said Gault.

“It must have been an hour ago,” said Loseis. “I went for a walk, the morning was so pleasant.” (I should not be explaining things like this, she thought. I ought to be proud and angry with him.)

“If you want a canoe my men will make one for you,” said Gault.

“Oh, no, thank you,” said Loseis quickly. “It was just a fancy. One must have something to do.”

She had not stopped walking, and they came to her door. Loseis bowed.

“May I come in for a moment?” asked Gault.

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “We are not ready for visitors so early. But if you wish to speak to me here I am.”

“Oh, it will keep until later,” said Gault. He touched his hat, and watched her through the door.

Conacher was waiting for her in the inner room. Loseis flung herself in his arms.

“Ah, you are really here!” she murmured. “It was not a dream! . . . If Gault could see me now!” she added with a laugh, like a chime of little bells.

Conacher pressed the hair back from her forehead. He had been watching through the window, and his face was dark. “It makes me see red to have that man speak to you,” he muttered. “What was he after?”

“Wanted to know where I’d been?” said Loseis. “Of course I didn’t tell him. But I’m afraid I gave away a good deal in my face. I have him badly worried. I hope it won’t cause him to sit up to-night, or set a watch on us.”

“All is arranged then?”

“Yes. Tatateecha will land a hundred men in the second river meadow at ten o’clock. They will wait there until it becomes dark. We’ll only have about four hours of darkness, and the moon will be shining. It cannot be helped; we must put our trust in silence. Slavis are the quietest animals there are.”

A few hours later, Loseis, sleeping in the kitchen, was awakened by Mary-Lou who said that Gault was coming across.

“He must be allowed to come in,” said Loseis. “Say that I am sleeping. It will give me a moment to prepare.”

She hastened into the other room. Awakening Conacher, she said:

“Gault is coming. I must let him in here in order to put his suspicions to sleep. Get under the bed.”

Conacher, still bemused with sleep, obeyed her; and Loseis, with a rapid survey of the room, gathered up whatever was his, and thrust it after him. The robe of raccoons’ tails hung down over the edge of the bed concealing all. She went to the door.

“Come in,” she said, affecting to conceal a yawn.

“I am sorry to have disturbed you,” said Gault smoothly. His eyes swept around the room, taking everything in. It was not that he expected to find anyone there; he was merely trying to discover what secret source of support Loseis had found. He gave her a hard look as much as to say: What are you sleeping in the morning for?

Loseis, having had time to prepare, was fully mistress of herself. “Last night I was too angry to sleep,” she said coolly.

“Hum!” said Gault, rubbing his lip. “That is what I came to talk to you about.”

Loseis held herself in polite readiness to hear what he had to say.

“We mustn’t quarrel,” said Gault. He buttered his harsh voice; but his eyes were still boring into the girl.

“I don’t wish to quarrel,” said Loseis mildly. “But when you tell me you are going to banish me from my own home . . .”

“You refuse to co-operate with me,” said Gault, spreading out his hands.

“You don’t give me a chance,” said Loseis. Inwardly she was quaking dangerously with laughter. If he knew what was under the bed!

“You are so young!” said Gault deprecatingly.

“However young I am,” said Loseis, “what is mine, is mine!”

“Well, I may have been a little too hasty,” said Gault with the air of one who was making an immense concession. “Let us try to make a fresh start.”

Loseis reflected that if she allowed a reconciliation to take place she would never be able to get rid of him. “Perhaps I have been hasty, too,” she said, “but I can’t forgive you yet. Give me another twenty-four hours . . . Come to breakfast to-morrow, and I promise to meet you half way.”

“Done!” cried Gault, showing all the big teeth. I am wearing her down! he thought. Women do not mean all they say! “Expect me at eight,” he said, making for the door.

Conacher crawled out from under the bed with a very red face. “It’s good he went!” he growled. “I couldn’t have stood it much longer. . . . What did you want to ask him to breakfast for?”

Loseis was charmed to see Conacher betraying jealousy. “While I have him here no discovery is likely to be made,” she said. “Every hour’s start that you can gain will help.”

“Well, I hope he comes after me, that’s all,” said Conacher grimly.

At ten o’clock that night Loseis and Mary-Lou came out of their house arm in arm, and stood in front of the door linked together, gazing up at the serene moon. Behind them crouched Conacher. Across the way Gault’s house was in the blackest shadow, and they could not tell but that the door might be standing open, and some one watching them from within. Making out to be lost in contemplation of the moon, the two girls, always taking care to present a double front to a possible watcher, edged to the corner of the house. Conacher then darted around behind. He was to make his way around the outside of the square and meet them beside the creek in half an hour.

Loseis went back to close the door of her house, and the girls continued their stroll. From the middle of the square they could make out that the door of Gault’s house was closed. They descended to the bank of the main stream, and came back again. Having by this maneuver satisfied themselves that they were not being followed, they returned down the rise, picked up Conacher at the creek, and crossed the meadow beyond. Upon the gravelly ridge which bounded it on the other side, they came upon Tatateecha and his silent men, squatting on the earth with their backs to the moon like a patch of little bushes.

Conacher was presented to Tatateecha as the friend of Loseis who must be obeyed in all things. Conacher himself could only issue his orders by means of signs. Being a white man, and therefore not to be trusted where absolute silence was required, he was sent down into the second meadow to wait. The little Slavis deployed in the first meadow, and slowly closing up, urged the horses slowly back over the ridge. In the second meadow they could be packed without danger of arousing the sleepers at the post. For this operation the light of the moon would be invaluable.

Led by Loseis, the whole tribe then crept back in single file through the grass towards the Post. They crossed the creek, not by the stepping-stones, but higher up, immediately below the steep bank at the back of the men’s house and the little warehouse. Leaving her men at the bottom of the bank, Loseis went up to make a reconnaissance. She crept up to the wall of the men’s house, and rounding the front corner, edged, a foot at a time to the door. Laying her ear to the crack, she was rewarded by hearing heavy snores within. No watch was being kept. What had Gault to fear from two girls?

Returning to her men, Loseis gave the signal, and the business of the night began. Loseis herself removed the pole that propped the warehouse door, and let it back softly against the wall. One of the Slavis was posted close to the men’s house with instructions to croak like a bull-bat if there was any sound of movement from within. Inside the warehouse Loseis would have been thankful to use her electric torch, but was afraid of precipitating a panic amongst the Slavis. However the fur had all been divided into half loads for a horse, each half load being a load for a man. Silently the endless procession wound in and out. A long line of little men waited in the moonlight at the door. Nobody stumbled, or dropped his load. There were a hundred bundles of fur. Afterwards the pack-saddles, saddle-cloths, hitching-gear had to go. Loseis breathed a little prayer of thankfulness when at last she propped the pole against the closed door, exactly as it had been before.

There was still the grub to be got from the store; but as this was passed out through the rear window, and carried away behind the warehouse, the danger was not so great.

The easterly sky was full of cool light when the hitch was thrown over the last pack, and pulled home. The head of the train had already started. Tatateecha rode first to make the trail. Conacher lingered to say good-by to Loseis. His heart failed him.

“Ah, come too,” he urged her. “Here are plenty of spare horses. Let me take care of you!”

“No, no, dearest!” she said. “Before we had gone twenty miles Gault would be up to us, and the Slavis would stampede. We’d have to wait for Gault’s Crees after all. But if you can only get the Slavis fifty or sixty miles from home into a strange country, you couldn’t drive them away from the grub-boxes. I am hoping that two days may pass before Gault discovers the loss of the fur.”

“He will see that the horses are gone,” objected Conacher.

“They are accustomed to wander from one meadow to another along the river.”

The last Indian had passed out of sight. Conacher took the girl in his arms. “You are asking the hardest thing in the world of me,” he groaned. “And that is to leave you!”

“Ah! don’t make it harder for me,” faltered Loseis. “It is the only way!”

“Damn the fur!” said Conacher. “It makes me out a mere fortune-hunter. I wish you had nothing!”

“I’m not worrying about what you are,” said Loseis. “My heart tells me. For myself, I care nothing about the fur. It was my father’s. I would feel that I had been false to him, if I let Gault fool me out of it. I could never respect myself. I am Blackburn’s daughter. I cannot allow the name of Blackburn to become a joke in the country.”

“I’m only a tail to the Blackburn kite,” grumbled Conacher.

Loseis laughed a little, and pressed him close. “I shall make it up to you,” she whispered. “You shall be my lord and master. Isn’t that enough?”

“That makes me feel worse,” he said. “I’m not worthy. . . .”

Loseis put a loving hand over his mouth. “Enough of that talk,” she said. “You love me, don’t you?”

“Until death,” he murmured.

“Me too, until death,” she whispered passionately. “That makes us equal. This talk of fortunes and worthiness is less than nothing. . . . Now you must go.”

“They ride so slowly,” pleaded Conacher.

“Get on your horse, dearest; I must not be seen returning to-day.”

Conacher obeyed with a heavy heart. He leaned out of the saddle for a final embrace. They clung together.

“Good-by,” whispered Loseis. “Good-by, my dearest love. Come back soon!”

Swiftly withdrawing herself from him, she gave his horse a smart slap; and it carried him away.