Chapter IV: The Conjuror

Morning breaks, one awakes refreshed and quiescent, and, wondering a little at the heats and disturbances of the day before, makes a fresh start. Mary was not to be seen about the fort, and Jack presently learned that she and Davy had departed on horseback at daybreak for the Indian camp at Swan Lake. He was relieved, for, after what had happened, the thought of having to meet Mary and adjust himself to a new footing made him uncomfortable.

Jack's self-love had received a serious blow, and he secretly longed for something to rehabilitate himself in his own eyes. At the same time he was not moved by any animosity toward Cranston, the instrument of his downfall; on the contrary, though he could not have explained it, he felt decidedly drawn toward the grim trader, and after a while he sheepishly entered the store in search of him. He found Cranston quite as diffident as himself, quite as anxious to let bygones be bygones. There was genuine warmth in his handclasp.

They made common cause in deriding the gubernatorial party.

"Lord love ye!" said Cranston. "Never was an outfit like to that! Card-tables, mind ye, and folding chairs, and hanging lamps, and a son-of-a-gun of a big oil-stove that burns blue blazes! Fancy accommodating that to a horse's back! I've sent out to round up all the company horses. They'll need half a regiment to carry that stuff."

"What's the governor's game up here?" asked Jack.

"You've got me," said Cranston. "Coal lands in the canyon, he says."

"That's pretty thin," said Jack. "It doesn't need a blooming governor and his train to look at a a bit of coal. There's plenty of coal nearer home."

"There's a piece about it in one of the papers the steamboat brought," said Cranston.

He found the place, and exhibited it to Jack, who read a fulsome account of how his honour Sir Bryson Trangmar had decided to spend the summer vacation of the legislature in touring the North of the province, with a view of looking into its natural resources; that the journey had been hastily determined upon, and was to be of a strictly non-official character, hence there were to be no ceremonies en route beyond the civilities extended to any private traveller; that this was only one more example of the democratic tendencies of our popular governor, etc.

"Natural resources," quoted Jack. "That's the ring in the cake!"

"You think the coal they're after has a yellow shine?" suggested Cranston.

Jack nodded. "Even a governor may catch that fever," he said. "By Gad!" he cried suddenly, "do you remember those two claim-salters--Beckford and Rowe their names were--who went out after the ice last May?"

"They stopped here," said Cranston. "I remember them."

"What if those two----" suggested Jack.

"Good Lord!" cried Cranston, "the governor himself!"

"If it's true," cried Jack, "it's the richest thing that ever happened! A hundred years from now they'll still be telling the story around the fires and splitting their sides over it. It's like Beckford, too; he was a humourist in his way. This is too good to miss. I believe I'll go back with them."

From discussing Sir Bryson's object they passed to Jack's own work in the Spirit River Pass. No better evidence of the progress these two had made in friendship could be had than Jack's willingness to tell Cranston of his "strike," the secret that a man guards closer than his crimes.

"I don't mind telling you that I have three good claims staked out," said Jack. "In case I should be stopped from filing them, I'll leave you a full description before I go. I'll leave you my little bag of dust too, to keep for me."

"You're serious about going back with them, then?" said Cranston.

Jack nodded. "I ought to go, anyway, to make sure they don't blanket anything of mine."

In due course Jack produced his little canvas bag, which the trader sealed, weighed, and receipted for.

"There's another thing I wanted to talk to you about," said Jack diffidently. "I can't hold these three claims myself. I want you to take one."

"Me?" exclaimed Cranston in great astonishment.

"Yes," stammered Jack, still more embarrassed. "For--for her, you know--Mary. I feel that I owe it to her. I want her to have it, anyway. She needn't know it came from me. It's a good claim."

Cranston would not hear of it, and they argued hotly.

"You're standing in your own daughter's light," said Jack at last. "I'm not giving you anything. It's for her. You haven't any right to deprive her of a good thing."

Cranston was silenced by this line; they finally shook hands on it, and turned with mutual relief to less embarrassing subjects. Jack had the comfortable sensation that in a measure he had squared himself with himself.

"Who's running the governor's camp?" asked Jack.

"They brought up Jean Paul Ascota from the Crossing."

"So!" said Jack, considerably interested. "The conjuror and medicine man, eh? I hear great tales of him from all the tribes. What is he?"

Cranston exhibited no love for the man under discussion. "His father and mother were half-breed Crees," he said. "He has a little place at the Crossing where he lives alone--he never married--but most of the time he is tripping; long hikes from Abittibi to the Skeena, and from the edge of the farming country clear to Herschel Island in the Arctic, generally alone. Too much business, and too mysterious for an Indian, I say. He's a strong man in his way, he has a certain power, you wouldn't overlook him in a crowd; but I doubt if he's up to any good. He's one of those natives that plays double, you know them, a white man wi' white men, and a red wi' the reds. Much too smooth and plausible for my taste. Lately he has got religion, and he goes around wi' a Bible in his pocket, which is plumb ridiculous, knowing what you and I know about his conjuring practices among the tribes."

"I've heard he's a good tripper," said Jack.

"Oh, none better," said Cranston. "I'll say that for him; there's no man knows the whole country like he does, or a better hand in a canoe, or with horses, or around the camp. But, look you, after all he's only an Indian. Here he's been with these people a week, and already his head is turned. They don't know what they're doing, so they defer to him in everything, and consequently the Indian's head is that swelled wi' giving orders to white men his feet can hardly keep the ground. Their camp is at a standstill."

"Hm!" said Jack; "it's a childish outfit, isn't it? It would be a kind of charity to take them in hand."

A little later Jack ran into the redoubtable Jean Paul Ascota himself, whom he immediately recognized from Cranston's description. As the trader had intimated, there was something strongly individual and peculiar in the aspect of the half-breed. He was a handsome man of forty-odd years, not above the average in height, but very broad and strong, and with regular, aquiline features. Though Cranston had said he was half-bred, there was no sign of the admixture of any white blood in his coppery skin, his straight black hair, and his savage, inscrutable eyes. He was dressed in a neatly fitting suit of black, and he wore "outside" shoes instead of the invariable moccasins. This ministerial habit was relieved by a fine blue shirt with a rolling collar and a red tie, and the whole was completed by the usual expensive felt hat with flaring, stiff brim. A Testament peeped out of one side-pocket.

But it was the strange look of his eyes that set the man apart, a still, rapt look, a shine as from close-hidden fires. They were savage, ecstatic, contemptuous eyes. When he looked at you, you had the feeling that there was a veil dropped between you, invisible to you, but engrossed with cabalistic symbols that he was studying while he appeared to be looking at you. In all this there was a certain amount of affectation. You could not deny the man's force, but there was something childish too in the egregious vanity which was perfectly evident.

He was sitting on a box in the midst of the camp disarray, smoking calmly, the only idle figure in sight. Tents, poles, and miscellaneous camp impedimenta were strewn on one side of the trail; on the other the deck-hands were piling the stores of the party. Sidney Vassall, with his inventory, assisted by Baldwin Ferrie, both in a state approaching distraction, were pawing over the boxes and bundles, searching for innumerable lost articles, that were lost again as soon as they were found.

Vassall was not a particularly sympathetic figure to Jack, but the sight of the white men stewing while the Indian loafed was too much for his Anglo-Saxon sense of the fitness of things. His choler promptly rose, and, drawing Vassall aside, he said:

"Look here, why do you let that beggar impose on you like this? You'll never be able to manage him if you knuckle down now."

Vassall was a typical A.D.C. from the provinces, much better fitted to a waxed floor than the field. The hero of a hundred drawing-rooms made rather a pathetic figure in his shapeless, many-pocketed "sporting" suit. His much-admired manner of indiscriminate, enthusiastic amiability seemed to have lost its potency up here.

"What can I do?" he said helplessly. "He says he can't work himself, or he won't be able to boss the Indians that are coming."

"Rubbish!" said Jack. "Everybody has to work on the trail. I'll put him to work for you. Show me how the tents go."

Vassall gratefully explained the arrangement. There was a square tent in the centre, with three smaller A-tents opening off. Jack measured the ground and drove the stakes. Then spreading the canvas on the ground, preparatory to raising it, he called cheerfully:

"Lend a hand here, Jean Paul. You hold up the poles while I pull the ropes."

The half-breed looked at him with cool, slow insolence, and dropping his eyes to his pipe, pressed the tobacco in the bowl with a delicate finger. He caught his hands around his knee, and leaned back with the expression of one enjoying a recondite joke.

Jack's face reddened. Promptly dropping the canvas, he strode toward the half-breed, his hands clenching as he went.

"Look here, you damned redskin!" he said, not too loud. "If you can't hear a civil request, I've a fist to back it up, understand? You get to work, quick, or I'll knock your head off!"

The native deck hands stopped dead to see what would happen. Out of the blue sky the thunderbolt of a crisis had fallen. Jean Paul, the object of their unbounded fear and respect, they invested with supernatural powers, and they looked to see the white man annihilated.

The breed slowly raised his eyes again, but this time they could not quite meet the blazing blue ones. There was a pregnant pause. Finally Jean Paul got up with a shrug of bravado, and followed Jack back to the tents. He was beaten without a blow on either side. A breath of astonishment escaped the other natives. Jean Paul heard it, and the iron entered his soul. The glance he bent on Jack's back glittered with the cold malignancy of a poisonous snake. It was all over in a few seconds and the course of the events for weeks to come was decided, a course involving, at the last, madness, murder, and suicide.

On the face of it the work proceeded smartly, and by lunch time the tents were raised, the furniture and the baggage stowed within, and Vassall's vexatious inventory checked complete. His effusive gratitude made Jack uncomfortable. Jack cut him short, and nonchalantly returned to his own camp, where he cooked his dinner and ate it alone.

Afterward, cleaning his gun by the fire, he reviewed the crowded events of the past twenty-four hours in the ever-delightful, off-hand, cocksure fashion of youth that the oldsters envy, while they smile at it. His glancing thoughts ran something like this:

"To be put to sleep like that! Damn! But I couldn't see what I was doing. If it hadn't been dark! ... At any rate, nobody knows. It's good he didn't black my eye. Cranston'll never tell. He's a square old head all right. I suppose it was coming to me. Damn! ... I like Cranston, though. He's making up to me now. He'd like me to marry the girl. She'd take me quick enough. Nice little thing, too. Fine eyes! But marriage! Not on your cartridge-belt! Not for Jack Chanty! The world is too full of sport. I haven't nearly had my fill! ... The governor's daughter! Rather a little strawberry, too. Professional angler. I know 'em. Got a whole bookful of fancy flies for men. Casts them prettily one after another till you rise, then plop! into her basket with the other dead fish. You'll never get me on your hook, little sister... I can play a little myself. If you let on you don't care, with that kind, it drives 'em wild.... Shouldn't wonder if she had old Frank going.... Rum start, meeting him up here. What a scared look he gave me. I wonder! ... He's changed.... Very likely it's politics, and graft, and getting on in the world. Doesn't want to associate too closely with a tough like me, now.... Oh, very well! These big-bugs can't put me out of face. I can show them a thing or two.... I put that Indian down in good shape. I have the trick of it. He's a queer one. They'll have trouble with him later. Women with them, too. Hell of an outfit to come up here, anyway."

Jack's meditations were interrupted by Frank Garrod, who came threading his way through the poplar saplings. Jack sprang up with a gladness only a little less hearty than upon their first meeting the night before.

"Hello, old fel'!" he cried. "Glad you looked me up! We can talk off here by ourselves."

But it appeared that Frank had come only for the purpose of carrying Jack back with him. Sir Bryson had expressed a wish to thank him for his assistance that morning. Jack frowned, and promptly declined the honour, but upon second thought he changed his mind. There was a plan growing in his head which necessitated a talk with Sir Bryson.

They made their way back together, Frank making an unhappy attempt to appear at his ease. He had something on his mind. He started to speak, faltered, and fell silent. But it troubled him still. Finally it came out.

"I say," he said in his jerky way, "as long as you want to keep your real name quiet, we had better not let on that we are old friends, eh?"

Jack looked at him quickly, all his enthusiasm of friendliness dying down.

"We can seem to become good friends by degrees," Garrod went on lamely. "It need only be a matter of a few days."

"Just as you like," said Jack coolly.

"But it's you I'm thinking of."

"You needn't," said Jack. "I don't care what people call me. You needn't be afraid that I'll trouble you with my society."

"You don't understand," Garrod murmured miserably.

However, in merely bringing the matter up he had accomplished his purpose, for Jack never acted quite the same to him afterward.

A little to one side of the tents they came upon a group of finished worldliness such as had never before been seen about Fort Cheever. From afar, the younger Cranston boys stared at it awestruck. Miss Trangmar and her companion sat in two of the folding chairs, basking in the sun, while Vassall and Baldwin Ferrie reclined on the grass at their feet, the former, his day's work behind him, now clad in impeccable flannels. The centre of the picture was naturally the little beauty, looking in her purple summer dress as desirable, as fragile, and as expensive as an orchid. At the sight of her Jack's nostrils expanded a little in spite of himself. Lovely ladies who metamorphosed themselves every day, not to speak of several times a day, were novel to him.

As the two men made to enter the main tent she called in her sweet, high voice: "Present our benefactor, Mr. Garrod."

Garrod brought Jack to her. Garrod was very much confused. "I----I"--he stammered, looking imploringly at Jack.

"They call me Jack Chanty," Jack said quietly, with his air of "take it or leave it."

"Miss Trangmar, Mrs. Worsley," Garrod murmured looking relieved.

Jack bowed stiffly.

"We are tremendously obliged," the little lady said, making her eyes big with gratitude. "Captain Vassall says he would never have got through without you."

A murmur of assent went round the circle. Jack would not out of sheer obstinacy make the polite and obvious reply. He looked at the elder lady. He liked her looks. She reminded him of an outspoken cousin of his boyhood. She was plain of feature and humorous-looking, very well dressed, and with an air of high tolerance for human failings.

"In pleasing Miss Trangmar you put us all under heavy obligations," said Baldwin Ferrie with a simper. He was a well-meaning little man.

"By Jove! yes," added Vassall; "when she's overcast we're all in shadow."

Everybody laughed agreeably.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Linda Trangmar, "one would think I had a fearful temper, and kept you all in fear of your lives!"

There was a chorus of disclaimers. Jack felt slightly nauseated. He looked away. The girl stole a wistful glance at his scornful profile, the plume of fair hair, the cold blue eyes, the resolute mouth. All of a sudden she had become conscious of the fulsome atmosphere, too. She wondered what secrets the proud youthful mask concealed. She wondered if there was a woman for whom the mask was dropped, and if she were prettier than herself.

Meanwhile Jack felt as if he were acting like a booby, standing there. He was impelled to say something, anything, to show them he was not overcome by their assured worldliness. He addressed himself to Vassall.

"You have had no trouble with the Indian, since?"

"None whatever," Vassall said. "He's gone off now with some of the people here."

Garrod took advantage of the next lull to say: "Sir Bryson is waiting for us."

Jack bowed again, and made a good retreat.

"I told you he was a gentleman," said Linda to Mrs. Worsley.

That lady had been impressed with the same fact, but she said cautiously, as became a chaperon: "His manner is rather brusque."

"But he has manner," remarked Linda slyly.

"We know nothing about him, my dear."

"That's just it," said Linda. "Fancy meeting a real mystery in these matter-of-fact days. I shall find out his right name."

"They say it's not polite to ask questions about a man's past in this country," suggested Vassall with a playful air.

"Nor safe," put in Mrs. Worsley.

"Who cares for safety?" cried Linda. "I came North for adventures, and I mean to have them! Isn't he handsome?" she added wickedly.

The two men assented without enthusiasm.

Within the main tent Sir Bryson was seated at a table, looking the very pink of official propriety. There were several piles of legal documents and miscellaneous papers before him, with which he appeared to be busily occupied. It was noticeable that his chief concern was to have the piles arranged with mathematical precision. He never finished shaking and patting them straight. At first he ignored Jack. Handing some papers to Garrod, he said:

"These are now ready to be sent, Mr. Garrod. Please bear in mind my various instructions concerning them."

Garrod retired to another table. He proceeded to fold and enclose the various documents, but from the tense poise of his head it was clear that he followed all that was said.

Sir Bryson now affected to become aware of Jack's presence with a little start. He looked him up and down as one might regard a fine horse he was called on to admire. "So this is the young man who was of so much assistance to us this morning?" he said with a smile of heavy benignity.

Jack suppressed an inclination to laugh in his face.

"We are very much obliged to you, young sir--very," said Sir Bryson grandly.

"It was nothing, sir," said Jack, smiling suddenly. He knew if he caught Garrod's eye he would burst out laughing.

"I now desire to ask you some questions relative to the big canyon," continued Sir Bryson. "I am told you know it."

"I have just come from there," said Jack.

"Is there a good trail?"

"I came by water. But I know the trail. It is well-travelled. There are no muskegs, and the crossings are easy."

"You know the canyon well?"

"I have been working above it for three months."

Sir Bryson favoured Jack with a beady glance. "Um!" he said. And then suddenly: "Are you free for the next month or so?"

Garrod raised his eyes with a terrified look.

"That depends," said Jack.

"Are you prepared to consider an offer to guide our party?"

Garrod bit his lips to keep back the protest that sprang to them.

"If it is sufficiently attractive," said Jack coolly.

Sir Bryson opened his eyes. "Three dollars a day, and everything found," he said sharply.

Jack smiled, and shook his head. "That is the ordinary pay of a white man in this country," he said. "This is a responsible job. I'd expect five at least."

Sir Bryson made a face of horror. "Out of the question!" he exclaimed.

"I'm not at all anxious for it at any price," said Jack. "It will be difficult. You are very badly provided----"

"We have everything!" cried Sir Bryson.

"Except necessities," said Jack. "Moreover, men should have been engaged in advance, good packers, boatmen, axemen. We can't get good material on the spur of the moment, and I have no wish to be blamed for what goes wrong by others' doing."

Sir Bryson puffed out his cheeks. "You take a good deal on yourself, young man," he said heatedly. "Let me ask you a few questions now if you please. What is your name?"

"I am known throughout the country as Jack Chanty."

"But your real name."

"I do not care to give it."

A long breath escaped slowly from between Garrod's clenched teeth, and he wiped his face.

The little governor swelled like a pouter pigeon. "Tut!" he exclaimed. "This is preposterous. Do you think I would entrust myself and my party to a nameless nobody from nowhere?"

Sir Bryson, pleased with the sound of this phrase, glanced over at Garrod for approval.

"I'm not after the job, Sir Bryson," said Jack coolly. "You opened the matter. I am known throughout the country. Ask Cranston."

Garrod, seeing his chief about to weaken, could no longer hold his peace. "Wouldn't it be as well to let the matter go over?" he suggested casually.

Sir Bryson turned on him very much annoyed. "Mr. Garrod, by your leave," he said crushingly. "I was about to make the suggestion myself. That will be all just now," he added to Jack.

Jack sauntered away to talk the matter over with Cranston.

Sir Bryson spoke his mind warmly to his secretary concerning the latter's interference. Garrod, however, relieved of Jack's presence, recovered a measure of sang-froid.

"I'm sorry," he said smoothly, "but I couldn't stand by and listen to the young ruffian browbeat you."

"Browbeat nothing," said the irate little governor. "Bargaining is bargaining! He stands out for as much as he can."

Garrod turned pale. "You're surely not thinking of engaging him!" he said.

"There's no one else," said Sir Bryson.

"But he's more insolent than the Indian," said Garrod nervously. "And who is he? what is he? Some nameless fugitive from justice!"

"You overlook the fact that he doesn't care whether I engage him or not," said Sir Bryson. "Our assurance lies in that."

"A shallow pretence," cried Garrod.

Sir Bryson turned squarely in his chair. "You seem to be strangely set against hiring this fellow," he said curiously.

Garrod was effectually silenced. With a gesture, he went on with his work.

Later he sought out Jack again. They sat on a bench at the edge of the bank, and Garrod suffered himself to answer some painful questions first, in order that he might not appear to be too eager to broach the subject that agitated his mind.

At last he said with an assumed heartiness in which there was something very painful to see: "I tell you it did me good to hear you giving the old man what for this afternoon. He leads me a dog's life!"

"Oh, that was only in the way of a dicker," said Jack carelessly. "He expected it. Any one could see he loves a bargain."

"Don't let yourself in for this one," said Garrod earnestly. "You'll repent it if you do. He'll interfere all the time, and insist on his own way, then blame you when things go wrong."

"The trouble with you is you're in awe of him because he's the Big Chief outside," said Jack. "That doesn't go up here."

"Then you mean to come?" faltered Garrod.

"If he accepts my terms," said Jack. "I don't mean to let myself go too cheap."

Garrod's head drooped. "Well--don't say I didn't warn you," he said in an odd, flat tone.