Chapter IV: At Fort Good Hope

At Fort Good Hope on the big river, the free trader Andrew Gault and his financial backer David Ogilvie, stood by the flagpole concluding their business, while the steam-launch _Courier_ waited in the stream below to carry Ogilvie down river.

Outside of the towns, Fort Good Hope was the most enterprising and progressive Post in that country. The original log buildings were now used as bunk-houses for the half-breed employees; while on one side rose the magnificent dwelling of the trader, built of clapboards in the “outside” style and having fancy porches with turned pillars; and on the other side the equally modern store with plate glass windows imported at God knows what expense and trouble; and a huge sign. This sign was the occasion of considerable humor throughout the country, since there was nobody who required to be told whose store it was.

This was by no means all of the improvements at Fort Good Hope. Gault had built and now operated a steamboat on the river, which connected with a line of wagons across the ninety-mile portage to Caribou Lake, and so kept him in touch with the world. By means of the steamboat he had imported an electric light plant, a sawmill and a steam process mill for grinding and bolting flour. The land along the river was rich, and Gault had established farmers there. They were only frozen out about one year in three; and that was their loss, not Gault’s. His flour, raised and milled on the spot, he was able to sell to the Indians at an enormous profit.

In spite of all this, when Gault made up his accounts with Ogilvie, the financier pursed up his mouth in a grudging fashion, and Gault who was a bitter, proud man, ground his teeth with rage.

“Your improvements are fine, fine,” said Ogilvie dryly; “the Post looks almost like a village on the railway. But my dear man, all this only returns a beggarly ten or fifteen per cent on the investment. I need not point out to you that our company is accustomed to receive two profits on every transaction. In other words we do not want the cash that you remit to us; we want fur. And I’m sorry to see that your consignments of fur have been growing less every year.”

The trader was silent out of anger; and Ogilvie went on: “The history of all the old posts is the same. With the advance of civilization the fur is always retreating. With your steamboats and your sawmills you are hastening the process, my dear Gault. At the other old posts as the fur recedes they reach after it with sub-posts and trading stations. Why don’t you do something of the sort? You are in a better strategic position than any of them, because off to the northwest here you have a vast land that is still written down unexplored on the maps. Why don’t you get that fur?”

“As you know,” muttered Gault, “on the northwest I am blanketed by Hector Blackburn.”

Ogilvie shrugged. “Why remain blanketed?” he asked.

“What do you propose?” asked Gault bitterly.

“Oh, the specific measures must be left to you,” said Ogilvie hastily. “You are the man on the ground. But of course our company will back you up in anything you undertake. The old rough stuff has gone out of fashion, but the principle is the same. To put it bluntly, Gault: buy him out or drive him out.”

“The entire resources of our company would not buy him out,” said Gault. “The man is drunk with pride at having the name of the last free trader.”

“Well then?” said Ogilvie meaningly.

“As to driving him out, I mean to do that; but I must await my opportunity. He’s in an almost impregnable position.”

“Why did you let him get in such a position?” murmured Ogilvie. “You were on the ground first.”

“He had all the luck,” said Gault bitterly.

“Why is his position so impregnable?”

“Well, for one thing he has a tribe of Indians completely under his thumb. Those are the Slavis, the most ignorant and primitive race of them all. Once they covered this whole country, but have gradually been pushed back by the Crees and other tribes. They have some other name, but I don’t know what it is. All the other Indians call them Slavis. Well, Blackburn has got this people penned up in his own country, where no whites can communicate with them. He deliberately trades on their ignorance and superstition. He has persuaded them that I am a devil and that black magic is worked at this Post, and no power under Heaven can persuade them to come within fifty miles of me.”

Ogilvie laughed. “Not bad,” he said. “Why don’t you outbid him for fur? That might work a miracle.”

“I have tried it,” said Gault grimly. “He is willing to go higher than the company is willing to let me go.”

“But surely a year or two of that, with his ruinously expensive transport would break him,” said Ogilvie.

“Blackburn is as rich as Crœsus,” said Gault bitterly; “and he’d risk every cent of it to beat me. What is more, he is entirely independent of transport. When they run out of food over there, he sends his cheaper furs to me for flour, and I have to take them, because I need the fur. Blackburn trades horses for fur. He has in the triangle between his river, the foothills and the Mud River, a vast natural range for horses. God knows how many thousands of head he has. The fame of them has spread all over the country. He can afford to sell them cheap since they cost him nothing. The Sikannis Indians bring their fur all the way from British Columbia to trade for horses. The Indians from Wabiscaw and eastward cross the river here right under my nose, carrying their fur to Blackburn for horses.”

“You say you are awaiting your opportunity,” said Ogilvie; “how will you know when that comes?”

“I have a spy at Blackburn’s Post,” said Gault. “It wasn’t easy to find him, because nobody can speak their damned language but Blackburn. This man, Etzooah, is the son of a Cree father and a Slavi mother, and is able to mix with the Slavis as one of themselves.”

“What good do you expect that to do you?”

“Etzooah talks to the Slavis in my interest. However, that is not what I am counting on.” Gault smiled disagreeably. “Blackburn is a headstrong, passionate man, and a hard drinker. He treats the Slavis like dogs. He believes there is nobody to call him to account. Some day he will go too far. Then I’ll have the law on him. He runs his whole show single-handed. Won’t tolerate a white man near him. Consequently if he were removed, even for a while, the whole thing would fall into confusion. That will be my chance.”

“I have heard there was a daughter,” said Ogilvie idly.

“Yes, a black-haired she-devil in her father’s own image!” said Gault.

“Well, good-by until next Spring,” said Ogilvie. “I wish you every success. If Blackburn were out of the way this would be the greatest Post in the country.” He looked around him with assumed regret. “You have made so many improvements it would be a pity if we had to close you out. But of course we must have the fur. . . . Good-by. . . . Good-by. . . .”

Gault watched him go with rage and bitterness making his heart black. Damn all financiers and officials who fattened on the labors of better men than themselves! Gault had not told him the full history of his relations with Hector Blackburn; but no doubt Ogilvie knew anyhow, for it was common gossip throughout the fur country; how Gault and Blackburn had come to grips a dozen times during the past twenty years, and Gault had been invariably and humiliatingly worsted. He too, was a ruthless and determined man, and when he thought over these things it was almost more than he could bear.

* * * * *

Andrew Gault was a bachelor, living alone in his monstrosity of a yellow clapboarded house. A handsome, lean, grizzled man in his early fifties, with a cold and polished manner that one would hardly expect to find in a fur-trader. It was a point of pride with Gault never to allow himself to go slack. For all he was seven hundred miles from town, his house was well-furnished, his servants well-trained. These last were of the Cree tribe, a handsomer and more intelligent race than the miserable Slavis, but not so manageable.

Some days after the visit of Ogilvie, Gault, having finished his breakfast, remained sitting at the table, gloomily staring at the cloth, and abstractedly crumbling pellets of bread. His mind was forever traveling the same weary round without finding a way out. Thoughts of Hector Blackburn poisoned his very being. How to get back at him; how to ruin him. Ah! his enemy seemed to be intrenched at every point! Blackburn could laugh at him. Stronger measures must be taken now, for certain ruin stared Gault in the face. Somehow, Blackburn’s own weapons must be turned against him. Could not the ignorant Slavis be incited to rebellion? They must have their own medicine men or conjurers, and these fellows could generally be bought. He, Gault, must get hold of Etzooah before the next fur season set in.

Toma, Gault’s old house-servant entered the room. He was excited. “Wah! Man come from Blackburn’s Post,” he announced.

To Gault this had the effect of a miracle. He sprang to his feet. “What man?” he cried.

“Name Etzooah,” said Toma.

“Bring him to me! Bring him to me!” shouted Gault. “Let none else come in until I call.”

Toma shuffled out of the room, and Gault had time to compose himself. It was very bad policy of course, for a white man to betray his emotion before a native. The trader reseated himself.

Etzooah came sidling around the door, awe-struck at finding himself admitted to the great house, and exhibiting a witless grin. He was a small man with a bullet head set between muscular shoulders. His thick coarse hair was cut straight across his forehead in the Slavi style, and straight around at his neck behind. He wore good store clothes with a gay worsted sash about his middle. For business reasons the spy affected an air of good-natured, giggling imbecility, which would deceive nobody who knew the Indians. His little eyes were as quick and sharp as a weasel’s.

“What news?” asked Gault curtly.

“Blackburn is dead,” said Etzooah, laughing heartily and silently.

Gault caught his breath. For an instant he lost all self-control. The upper part of his body sprawled across the table; his eyes seemed to start from his head. “Dead?” he gasped; “dead? . . . You are sure?”

“I see him die,” said Etzooah, with silent pantomime of delight. “Him black horse jomp over high cut-bank. Him neck broke. Him drown afterwards. When him pull out of river him head loose lak a berry on the bush.” Etzooah illustrated.

A shock of joy does not kill. Gault stood up straight and arrogant; a warm color came into his pale cheeks, and his eyes shone like a boy’s again. “By God! this news is good to my ears!” he cried. “You shall never go hungry, Etzooah. . . . When did it happen?”

“Two days,” said Etzooah. “At noon spell. Right away I tak’ two horses; ride all night. Only stop for one little sleep yesterday.”

“Did anybody know you came?”

“No. I sneak away.”

“Hm!” said Gault stroking his chin. “Then they’ll know that you were my man all the time. . . . Oh, what does it matter now! Everything is in my hands. . . . Had Blackburn sent his fur out yet?”

“No. Roundin’ up pack horses when him kill.”

“Then that is _my_ fur now! . . . What will the Slavis do without their master?”

Etzooah shrugged expressively. “No can tell. Slavis lak crazy children. Not know what they do. Maybe they run wild now; kill the girl and steal the store goods. No can tell.”

Gault’s face darkened. “By God!” he cried. “If the Slavis get out of hand, it would bring in the police. I don’t want the police nosing into this. I will ride back to-day. Toma! Toma! . . . You, Etzooah, eat in my kitchen, and take a sleep. . . . Toma, you——————!”

The old man came shuffling in.

“Fetch Moale from the store. Bestir yourself! Afterwards get out my riding-suit, my saddlebags, my traveling blankets, and all things necessary for a journey!”

Joe Moale was the “bookkeeper” at Fort Good Hope, otherwise Gault’s second in command. Technically a white man, a flavor of the red race clung about him; he was probably a quarter breed. He was reputed to be a relative of Gault’s. An educated man, as able and intelligent as any white man in the company’s employ, he was as inscrutable as an Indian. He was a well-built man of middle height, not uncomely in his wooden fashion. It was impossible to guess his exact age, but he was much younger than the trader. He served Gault with absolute and unquestioning faithfulness, but there was no affection in the glance that he bent on his master. With true redskin patience he was waiting for Gault to die.

“Blackburn is dead!” cried Gault, striding up and down in his dark exultation.

“The news has already spread about the Post,” said Moale, unmoved.

“Can we both get away together?” asked Gault.

“Why not? The fur is all in. At this season Claggett can keep the store.”

“Then I want you to come with me. We must start within an hour. Round up the four smartest lads you can put your hands on, and a dozen of our best horses. We must make a good appearance, you understand. Six of us will be more than enough to handle the beggarly Slavis. . . . Blackburn is dead!” he cried for the mere pleasure of repeating the words. “And his business is ours!”

“What will you do about the girl?” asked Moale stolidly.

“Oh, a miss of eighteen,” said Gault contemptuously. “She will give me no trouble . . . I’ll be her guardian, her trustee,” he added with a satanic smile.

“She’ll be rich,” said Moale.

“Not when I’m through with her.”

“I’m not referring to the Post, nor the horses,” said Moale. “Blackburn sends out near a hundred thousand dollars worth of fur per annum. He don’t import but a fraction of that in goods. The balance must be salted down somewhere.”

Gault stopped and stared. A new light of cupidity broke in his face. “Why, sure!” he said, a little bemused with the glittering picture that rose before his mind’s eye. “My mind must be wandering! Shouldn’t wonder if it amounted to a million! . . .” He went on muttering to himself: “It would be the best way anyhow. Nobody could question what I did then. And I shouldn’t be doing it for the company neither but for myself!” His voice suddenly rang out. “By God! I’ll marry the girl!”

Going to the sideboard, he examined his face anxiously in the mirror. “Joe,” he said, “if you didn’t know my age, how old would you call me?”

Whatever Moale’s thoughts might have been, he concealed them. “About thirty-eight,” he said.

“Hardly that,” said Gault confidently. “If it wasn’t for the gray in my hair I could pass for thirty-five easy. I wish to God I could lay my hands on some hair dye.”

“I can make a good black dye out of nutgalls,” said Moale.

“Well, go to it!” cried Gault. “Get a move on you now. We must sleep at Blackburn’s Post to-morrow night . . . Oh, my God! suppose we were to find that the Slavis had got out of hand and murdered the girl!”