Chapter XVIII: Confusion

When he came to the Slavi village after his long walk, Etzooah crossed the ford, and sticking his head inside the first tepee, awakened the sleepers with a yell. He demanded to know if Yellow-Head and Blackburn’s daughter had been seen. A grumbling voice replied that they had taken a canoe and gone down river. Searching for a horse, Etzooah perceived that the whites in their haste had turned out their horses without unsaddling them. The sorrel mare eluded him; she disliked the Indian smell; but he caught the horse he had already ridden so far. It would serve for the short distance he had still to go. Refording the river, he proceeded along the trail.

It was not Gault’s habit to confide in his creatures any further than he was forced to. Etzooah’s job had been to steer the fur train east across the prairie and hit the big river at Fisher Point, where the fur could be picked up later by the launch and a scow from Good Hope. Etzooah might have guessed that a short shrift was waiting for Conacher at Blackburn’s Post, but he had been told nothing of the details of the plot, which, indeed, had been concocted after his departure. Etzooah expected to find Gault and his men camped within a mile or so of the Post, where he had left them earlier that day.

Ere he had gone two miles beyond the Slavi village, the miserable Indian rode fairly into the trap set for the white man. He was pounding along at a good rate over this well-traveled part of the trail, one knee hooked around the horn of his saddle, as was his custom. The thin line, stretched as taut as a wire across the trail, caught him under the chin, and lifted his body clear of the saddle. His knee held him; the horse reared; Etzooah’s head was dragged back between his shoulders. As the horse’s forefeet dropped back to the ground, there was a horrible soft crack heard. The man’s body came away from the saddle, and dropped limply in the trail. The terrified horse ran on.

There was a loud laugh of bravado amongst the trees. Gault stepped out into the trail. “Worked like a charm!” he said. “I think his neck is broke.”

Moale dropped to one knee beside the huddled body, and struck a match. “God! . . . It’s Etzooah!” he gasped.

“Etzooah! . . . Etzooah . . . !” said Gault stupidly.

The match had dropped from Moale’s nerveless fingers. He fumbled with another. At last the little flame sprang up. “Look!” he said. “Look!”

“God Almighty!” cried Gault. “What’s he doing back here?”

Moale was feeling under the man’s head. “He’ll never tell you,” he said grimly. “His neck is broke.”

Gault said anxiously: “See if he has the letter on him.”

A search revealed that the letter was gone.

“Then he has been to Conacher,” said Gault. “Drag him into the bush, and we’ll go get that white man.”

“If his body should be found . . .” suggested Moale. “Hadn’t we better drop the tree on him as planned for the other?”

“Hell! I’m not going to waste that trick on a redskin! I may want it later. Pitch him in the river. The current will carry him far beyond the sight of mankind.”

But as Moale started to obey, Gault changed his mind again. “Wait,” he said. “I’ll help you to hoist his body out of way of the coyotes. Conacher was the last man who saw Etzooah alive, understand? We will use that later.”

The Indian’s body, still warm, was hung over two spruce branches. The Crees were summoned to fetch the horses from their hiding-place, and Gault and his three men rode south.

It was full day and the Slavis were packing the horses, in the spongy meadow, when the four big men rode violently down the little pine-clad point. Instantly the Slavis jumped on horses and scattered far and wide in the sea of grass.

Gault had his eye on Tatateecha. “Let them go,” he shouted to his men. He caught the plump headman by the collar as he was climbing on a horse, and flung him in the grass. “Now then!” he said with an oath. “Where’s the white man?” It was a simple matter to signify Conacher’s curling yellow hair and blue eyes.

Another discomfiture awaited the furious trader. Tatateecha, delighted to find that Conacher, and not himself, was the object of Gault’s wrath, gave, in signs, a graphic and perfectly truthful account of how Etzooah had arrived the night before and had given Conacher a letter; and how Conacher after reading the letter had put Etzooah on a horse tied hand and foot and had ridden back, leading him. Tatateecha said nothing about the letter Conacher had given him, which was burning a hole in his stomach at that moment.

Gault swore violently, and Tatateecha edged out of reach of his boot. The trader was forced to apply to Moale in his perplexity. “What do you make of it?” he said. “Etzooah was not tied up when we found him?”

Moale shrugged. “One thing is clear,” he said, “We’ve passed Conacher somewhere.”

“Then catch fresh horses and we’ll ride back!” shouted Gault.

“The fur? . . .” suggested Moale, casting desirous eyes on the scattered bales.

“To hell with the fur! I’m going to get that white man first!”

At six o’clock in the morning they were back at the Slavi village. Splashing through the ford, the first native they came upon was a bent crone, too old to get out of the way. Out of her dim eyes she looked at Gault with indifferent scorn. In reply to the usual question about the white man with the curling hair the color of the sun, she told in signs that he had ridden there in the night when the paleness of the sky was in the north (midnight). Etzooah was not with him then. The white man turned out his horse, took a canoe, and paddled down river.

“Gone back to the girl,” growled Gault. “But what in hell could have warned him that we were laying for him in the trail!”

Moale suddenly perceived the well-known sorrel mare grazing amongst the other horses. She was still saddled and bridled. The eyes almost started out of his head. “Look!” he cried pointing.

It was one of the nastiest shocks that Gault had received. He stared at the animal with hanging jaw. “How did that mare get here?” he demanded hoarsely.

The old woman replied by signs that Loseis had come with Conacher in the night.

“What!” shouted Gault. “_What!_ . . . Why in hell didn’t you say so before?”

The very old woman looked at him calmly. Her glance said: You didn’t ask me!

The furious Gault was incapable of dealing with her. Moale, calmer and warier, plied her for further information. She described how Loseis had been up and down in the trail all day. Loseis must have seen Etzooah pass at midday, but she had not come back to the village for her horse until near evening.

“Then in God’s name what was she doing all afternoon?” muttered Gault, a certain fear striking into his rage.

Nothing further was to be learned here. The four men rode on in the direction of Blackburn’s Post. Moale and the two Crees gave their master a good dozen yards’ lead in the trail. The passions of hell were working in the trader’s black face. Moale was gray and the Indians yellowish with fatigue and apprehension. It was a safe guess that all three would have been glad then to get out of this ugly business; but they were bound to their master a hundred times over; there was no possibility of dissociating their fortunes from his. They were not bothered by moral scruples; but they feared that Gault’s passions had mastered him to such an extent that he was no longer capable of listening to the counsels of prudence.

At a point about a mile short from the Post, they turned out of the trail, and followed the summit of one of the gravelly ridges, picking their way slowly through the scrub. Soon the timber and brush became too thick for them to guide their horses through, and they were obliged to dismount and lead them. After a mile and a half of the roughest sort of going, which included the crossing of a gorge-like coulee, they came out on the trail to Fort Good Hope in a little prairie dotted with clumps of poplars. Here they had left their outfit the day before, and had turned out their remaining horses hobbled.

They cooked and ate a meal in sullen silence. Afterwards Gault dispatched Moale into the Post to spy out the situation.

“Tell her,” he said with stiff and bitter lips, “that I couldn’t rest for thinking of her alone there, and I sent back to ask if she was all right.”

Moale, in his impassive way, set off without expressing any opinion as to the usefulness of this errand.

He was back by the time the sun had completed a quarter of its journey across the sky. Gault was sitting hunched up in the grass almost precisely as he had left him. In twenty-four hours the trader had not slept. He sprang up at the sight of Moale.

“Well?” he demanded with cruel eagerness.

“I found the two girls in the Women’s House . . .” Moale began.

“Alone?” snarled Gault.

“Alone. Everything looked as usual. When I delivered your message, Loseis listened politely, but her eyes were full of hard laughter. She did not believe me.”

“What did she say?”

“She told me to thank you, and to tell you that there was nothing she required.”

“What then?”

“Conacher, having seen me come, came hurrying across from the men’s house.”

“Without concealment?”

“Why should there be any concealment? They cannot know that Etzooah is dead. They think Etzooah has told us all.”

“Damnation!” muttered the trader. “I am all in the dark! . . . Go on!”

“Conacher had a gun over his arm. . . .”

“A gun?” echoed Gault in angry alarm.

“A gun. I did not have any talk with Conacher. He left it to the girl.”

“What else did she say?”

“She asked me where we were camped. I replied that we had made but a short stage yesterday, because you were anxious about her. It amused her to hear me lie. She didn’t say anything; but only looked at the three-bar brand on my horse’s flank.”

Gault broke out in furious cursing. “You fool! Why didn’t you change to one of the horses we left here?”

“Those horses are not broke for riding.”

“You could have managed.”

“What difference does it make?” said Moale impassively. “They know all.”

“How _can_ they know?” cried Gault. “Go on!”

“I told her that we had come upon a bunch of her horses, and I had borrowed one to ride back, so I could save my own. She knew I was lying, of course. Her horses do not range on this side of the coulee. But she said nothing. She asked me politely if I would eat before riding back. I had just eaten, but I said I would, thinking I might learn something by staying.”

“The Beaver girl served me in the kitchen. While I was eating Loseis and Conacher were talking together outside the house. They talked low, but my ears are very sharp. I caught enough of the words to be able to piece together the sense of the whole. Conacher wanted to tell me everything, and try to win me to their side. I heard him say: ‘Insane with jealousy.’ He meant you. His idea was that there was no reason why I should risk my neck for you. But the girl would not agree. She said you had only sent me over there to get information, and if they told me anything it would be playing right into your hand. So nothing was told me. When I had eaten, some more polite speeches were made, and I rode away.”

“You think . . . ?” said Gault, knitting his brows.

“I am sure that they know all,” said Moale. “The girl must have been skulking in the woods yesterday afternoon. She has doubtless learned the Slavi tricks of hiding and moving softly. The way Conacher snatched up his gun shows what they expect of us.”

Gault revealed the big teeth in an ugly smile. “Well . . .” he said slowly, “we won’t disappoint them. We’re in so deep now, we’ve got to go the whole way. . . .”

“You mean . . . ?” asked Moale with his enigmatic eyes fixed intently on Gault’s face.

Gault nodded somberly. “The girl _and_ the man,” he said. “Before anybody comes in.”

Moale shrugged acquiescently.