Chapter 4

The man's voice was anxious and unconvincing, his eyes had a hungry, hunted look. The legend of the White Swan had to do with the passing of a human soul. The swan had come in--would it go out alone? He touched the boy's hand--it was hot with fever; he felt the pulse--it ran high; he watched the face--it had a glowing light. Something stirred within him, and passed like a wave to the farthest courses of his being. Through his misery he had touched the garment of the Master of Souls. As though a voice said to him there, "Someone hath touched me," he got to his feet, and, with a sudden blind humility, lit two candles, placed them on a shelf in a corner before a porcelain figure of the Virgin, as he had seen his wife do. Then he picked a small handful of fresh spruce twigs from a branch over the chimney, and laid them beside the candles. After a short pause he came slowly to the head of the boy's bed. Very solemnly he touched the foot of the Christ on the cross with the tips of his fingers, and brought them to his lips with an indescribable reverence. After a moment, standing with eyes fixed on the face of the crucified figure, he said, in a shaking voice:

"Pardon, bon Jesu! Sauvez mon enfant! Ne me laissez pas seul!"

The boy looked up with eyes again grown unnaturally heavy, and said:

"Amen! . . . Bon Jesu ! . . . Encore! Encore, mon pere!"

The boy slept. The father stood still by the bed for a time, but at last slowly turned and went toward the fire.

Outside, two figures were approaching the hut--a man and a woman; yet at first glance the man might easily have been taken for a woman, because of the long black robe which he wore, and because his hair fell loose on his shoulders and his face was clean-shaven.

"Have patience, my daughter," said the man. "Do not enter till I call you. But stand close to the door, if you will, and hear all."

So saying he raised his hand as in a kind of benediction, passed to the door, and after tapping very softly, opened it, entered, and closed it behind him-not so quickly, however, but that the woman caught a glimpse of the father and the boy. In her eyes there was the divine look of motherhood.

"Peace be to this house!" said the man gently as he stepped forward from the door.

The father, startled, turned shrinkingly on him, as if he had seen a spirit.

"M'sieu' le cure!" he said in French, with an accent much poorer than that of the priest, or even of his own son. He had learned French from his wife; he himself was English.

The priest's quick eye had taken in the lighted candles at the little shrine, even as he saw the painfully changed aspect of the man.

"The wife and child, Bagot?" he asked, looking round. "Ah, the boy!" he added, and going toward the bed, continued, presently, in a low voice: "Dominique is ill?"

Bagot nodded, and then answered: "A wild-cat and then fever, Father Corraine."

The priest felt the boy's pulse softly, then with a close personal look he spoke hardly above his breath, yet distinctly too:

"Your wife, Bagot?"

"She is not here, m'sieu'." The voice was low and gloomy.

"Where is she, Bagot?"

"I do not know, m'sieu'."

"When did you see her last?"

"Four weeks ago, m'sieu'."

"That was September, this is October--winter. On the ranches they let their cattle loose upon the plains in winter, knowing not where they go, yet looking for them to return in the spring. But a woman--a woman and a wife--is different. . . . Bagot, you have been a rough, hard man, and you have been a stranger to your God, but I thought you loved your wife and child!"

The hunter's hands clenched, and a wicked light flashed up into his eyes; but the calm, benignant gaze of the other cooled the tempest in his veins. The priest sat down on the couch where the child lay, and took the fevered hand in his very softly.

"Stay where you are, Bagot," he said; "just there where you are, and tell me what your trouble is, and why your wife is not here. . . . Say all honestly--by the name of the Christ!" he added, lifting up a large iron crucifix that hung on his breast.

Bagot sat down on a bench near the fireplace, the light playing on his bronzed, powerful face, his eyes shining beneath his heavy brows like two coals. After a moment he began:

"I don't know how it started. I'd lost a lot of pelts--stolen they were, down on the Child o' Sin River. Well, she was hasty and nervous, like as not--she always was brisker and more sudden than I am. I--I laid my powder-horn and whisky-flask-up there!"

He pointed to the little shrine of the Virgin, where now his candles were burning. The priest's grave eyes did not change expression at all, but looked out wisely, as though he understood everything before it was told.

Bagot continued: "I didn't notice it, but she had put some flowers there. She said something with an edge, her face all snapping angry, threw the things down, and called me a heathen and a wicked heretic--and I don't say now but she'd a right to do it. But I let out then, for them stolen pelts were rasping me on the raw. I said something pretty rough, and made as if I was goin' to break her in two--just fetched up my hands, and went like this!--" With a singular simplicity he made a wild gesture with his hands, and an animal-like snarl came from his throat. Then he looked at the priest with the honest intensity of a boy.

"Yes, that is what you did--what was it you said which was 'pretty rough'?"

There was a slight hesitation, then came the reply: "I said there was enough powder spilt on the floor to kill all the priests in heaven."

A fire suddenly shot up into Father Corraine's face, and his lips tightened for an instant, but presently he was as before, and he said:

"How that will face you one day, Bagot! Go on. What else?"

Sweat began to break out on Bagot's face, and he spoke as though he were carrying a heavy weight on his shoulders, low and brokenly.

"Then I said, 'And if virgins has it so fine, why didn't you stay one?'"

"Blasphemer!" said the priest in a stern, reproachful voice, his face turning a little pale, and he brought the crucifix to his lips. "To the mother of your child--shame! What more?"

She threw up her hands to her ears with a wild cry, ran out of the house, down the hills, and away. I went to the door and watched her as long as I could see her, and waited for her to come back--but she never did.

"I've hunted and hunted, but I can't find her." Then, with a sudden thought, "Do you know anything of her, m'sieu'?"

The priest appeared not to hear the question. Turning for a moment toward the boy who now was in a deep sleep, he looked at him intently. Presently he spoke.

"Ever since I married you and Lucette Barbond, you have stood in the way of her duty, Bagot. How well I remember that first day when you knelt before me! Was ever so sweet and good a girl--with her golden eyes and the look of summer in her face, and her heart all pure! Nothing had spoiled her--you cannot spoil such women--God is in their hearts. But you, what have you cared? One day you would fondle her, and the next you were a savage--and she, so gentle, so gentle all the time. Then, for her religion and the faith of her child--she has fought for it, prayed for it, suffered for it. You thought you had no need, for you had so much happiness, which you did not deserve--that was it. But she: with all a woman suffers, how can she bear life--and man--without God? No, it is not possible. And you thought you and your few superstitions were enough for her.--Ah, poor fool! She should worship you! So selfish, so small, for a man who knows in his heart how great God is.--You did not love her."

"By the Heaven above, yes!" said Bagot, half starting to his feet.

"Ah, 'by the Heaven above,' no! nor the child. For true love is unselfish and patient, and where it is the stronger, it cares for the weaker; but it was your wife who was unselfish, patient, and cared for you. Every time she said an ave she thought of you, and her every thanks to the good God had you therein. They know you well in heaven, Bagot-- through your wife. Did you ever pray--ever since I married you to her?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"An hour or so ago."

Once again the priest's eyes glanced towards the lighted candles.

Presently he said: "You asked me if I had heard anything of your wife. Listen, and be patient while you listen. . . . Three weeks ago I was camping on the Sundust Plains, over against the Young Sky River. In the morning, as I was lighting a fire outside my tent, my young Cree Indian with me, I saw coming over the crest of a land-wave, from the very lips of the sunrise, as it were, a band of Indians. I could not quite make them out. I hoisted my little flag on the tent, and they hurried on to me. I did not know the tribe--they had come from near Hudson's Bay. They spoke Chinook, and I could understand them. Well, as they came near I saw that they had a woman with them."

Bagot leaned forward, his body strained, every muscle tense. "A woman?" he said, as if breathing gave him sorrow--"my wife?"

"Your wife."

"Quick! Quick! Go on--oh, go on, m'sieu'--good father."

"She fell at my feet, begging me to save her. . . . I waved her off."

The sweat dropped from Bagot's forehead, a low growl broke from him, and he made such a motion as a lion might make at its prey.

"You wouldn't--wouldn't save her--you coward!" He ground the words out.

The priest raised his palm against the other's violence. "Hush! . . . She drew away, saying that God and man had deserted her. . . . We had breakfast, the chief and I. Afterwards, when the chief had eaten much and was in good humour, I asked him where he had got the woman. He said that he had found her on the plains she had lost her way. I told him then that I wanted to buy her. He said to me, 'What does a priest want of a woman?' I said that I wished to give her back to her husband. He said that he had found her, and she was his, and that he would marry her when they reached the great camp of the tribe. I was patient. It would not do to make him angry. I wrote down on a piece of bark the things that I would give him for her: an order on the Company at Fort o' Sin for shot, blankets, and beads. He said no."

The priest paused. Bagot's face was all swimming with sweat, his body was rigid, but the veins of his neck knotted and twisted.

"For the love of God, go on!" he said hoarsely. "Yes, 'for the love of God.' I have no money, I am poor, but the Company will always honour my orders, for I pay sometimes, by the help of Christ. Bien, I added some things to the list: a saddle, a rifle, and some flannel. But no, he would not. Once more I put many things down. It was a big bill-- it would keep me poor for five years.--To save your wife, John Bagot, you who drove her from your door, blaspheming, and railing at such as I. . . . I offered the things, and told him that was all that I could give. After a little he shook his head, and said that he must have the woman for his wife. I did not know what to add. I said--'She is white, and the white people will never rest till they have killed you all, if you do this thing. The Company will track you down.' Then he said, 'The whites must catch me and fight me before they kill me.' . . . What was there to do?"

Bagot came near to the priest, bending over him savagely.

"You let her stay with them--you with hands like a man!"

"Hush!" was the calm, reproving answer. "I was one man, they were twenty."

"Where was your God to help you, then?"

"Her God and mine was with me."

Bagot's eyes blazed. "Why didn't you offer rum--rum? They'd have done it for that--one--five--ten kegs of rum!"

He swayed to and fro in his excitement, yet their voices hardly rose above a hoarse whisper all the time. "You forget," answered the priest, "that it is against the law, and that as a priest of my order, I am vowed to give no rum to an Indian."

"A vow? A vow? Name of God! what is a vow beside a woman--my wife?"

His misery and his rage were pitiful to see.

"Perjure my soul? Offer rum? Break my vow in the face of the enemies of God's Church? What have you done for me that I should do this for you, John Bagot?"

"Coward!" was the man's despairing cry, with a sudden threatening movement. "Christ Himself would have broke a vow to save her."

The grave, kind eyes of the priest met the other's fierce gaze, and quieted the wild storm that was about to break.

"Who am I that I should teach my Master?" he said solemnly. "What would you give Christ, Bagot, if He had saved her to you?"

The man shook with grief, and tears rushed from his eyes, so suddenly and fully had a new emotion passed through him.

"Give--give?" he cried; "I would give twenty years of my life!"

The figure of the priest stretched up with a gentle grandeur. Holding out the iron crucifix, he said: "On your knees and swear it, John Bagot."

There was something inspiring, commanding, in the voice and manner, and Bagot, with a new hope rushing through his veins, knelt and repeated his words.

The priest turned to the door, and called, "Madame Lucette!"

The boy, hearing, waked, and sat up in bed suddenly. "Mother! mother!" he cried, as the door flew open. The mother came to her husband's arms, laughing and weeping, and an instant afterwards was pouring out her love and anxiety over her child.

Father Corraine now faced the man, and with a soft exaltation of voice and manner, said:

"John Bagot, in the name of Christ, I demand twenty years of your life-- of love and obedience of God. I broke my vow, I perjured my soul, I bought your wife with ten kegs of rum!"

The tall hunter dropped again to his knees, and caught the priest's hand to kiss it.

"No, no--this!" the priest said, and laid his iron crucifix against the other's lips.

Dominique's voice came clearly through the room: "Mother, I saw the white swan fly away through the door when you came in."

"My dear, my dear," she said, "there was no white swan." But she clasped the boy to her breast protectingly, and whispered an ave.

"Peace be to this house," said the voice of the priest. And there was peace: for the child lived, and the man has loved, and has kept his vow, even unto this day.

For the visions of the boy, who can know the divers ways in which God speaks to the children of men?

AT BAMBER'S BOOM

His trouble came upon him when he was old. To the hour of its coming he had been of shrewd and humourous disposition. He had married late in life, and his wife had died, leaving him one child--a girl. She grew to womanhood, bringing him daily joy. She was beloved in the settlement; and there was no one at Bamber's Boom, in the valley of the Madawaska, but was startled and sorry when it turned out that Dugard, the river- boss, was married. He floated away down the river, with his rafts and drives of logs, leaving the girl sick and shamed. They knew she was sick at heart, because she grew pale and silent; they did not know for some months how shamed she was. Then it was that Mrs. Lauder, the sister of the Roman Catholic missionary, Father Halen, being a woman of notable character and kindness, visited her and begged her to tell all.

Though the girl--Nora--was a Protestant, Mrs. Lauder did this: but it brought sore grief to her. At first she could hardly bear to look at the girl's face, it was so hopeless, so numb to the world: it had the indifference of despair. Rumour now became hateful fact. When the old man was told, he gave one great cry, then sat down, his hands pressed hard between his knees, his body trembling, his eyes staring before him.

It was Father Halen who told him. He did it as man to man, and not as a priest, having travelled fifty miles for the purpose. "George Magor," said he, "it's bad, I know, but bear it--with the help of God. And be kind to the girl."

The old man answered nothing. "My friend," the priest continued, "I hope you'll forgive me for telling you. I thought 'twould be better from me, than to have it thrown at you in the settlement. We've been friends one way and another, and my heart aches for you, and my prayers go with you."

The old man raised his sunken eyes, all their keen humour gone, and spoke as though each word were dug from his heart. "Say no more, Father Halen." Then he reached out, caught the priest's hand in his gnarled fingers, and wrung it.

The father never spoke a harsh word to the girl. Otherwise he seemed to harden into stone. When the Protestant missionary came, he would not see him. The child was born before the river-drivers came along again the next year with their rafts and logs. There was a feeling abroad that it would be ill for Dugard if he chanced to camp at Bamber's Boom. The look of the old man's face was ominous, and he was known to have an iron will.

Dugard was a handsome man, half French, half Scotch, swarthy and admirably made. He was proud of his strength, and showily fearless in danger. For there were dangerous hours to the river life: when, for instance, a mass of logs became jammed at a rapids, and must be loosened; or a crib struck into the wrong channel, or, failing to enter a slide straight, came at a nasty angle to it, its timbers wrenched and tore apart, and its crew, with their great oars, were plumped into the busy current. He had been known to stand singly in some perilous spot when one log, the key to the jam, must be shifted to set free the great tumbled pile. He did everything with a dash. The handspike was waved and thrust into the best leverage, the long robust cry, "O-hee-hee-hoi!" rolled over the waters, there was a devil's jumble of logs, and he played a desperate game with them, tossing here, leaping there, balancing elsewhere, till, reaching the smooth rush of logs in the current, he ran across them to the shore as they spun beneath his feet.

His gang of river-drivers, with their big drives of logs, came sweeping down one beautiful day of early summer, red-shifted, shouting, good- tempered. It was about this time that Pierre came to know Magor.

It was the old man's duty to keep the booms of several great lumbering companies, and to watch the logs when the river-drivers were engaged elsewhere. Occasionally he took a place with the men, helping to make cribs and rafts. Dugard worked for one lumber company, Magor for others. Many in the settlement showed Dugard how much he was despised. Some warned him that Magor had said he would break him into pieces; it seemed possible that Dugard might have a bad hour with the people of Bamber's Boom. Dugard, though he swelled and strutted, showed by a furtive eye and a sinister watchfulness that he felt himself in an atmosphere of danger. But he spoke of his wickedness lightly as, "A slip--a little accident, mon ami."

Pierre said to him one day: "Bien, Dugard, you are a bold man to come here again. Or is it that you think old men are cowards?"

Dugard, blustering, laid his hand suddenly upon his case-knife.

Pierre laughed softly, contemptuously, came over, and throwing out his perfectly formed but not robust chest in the fashion of Dugard, added: "Ho, ho, monsieur the butcher, take your time at that. There is too much blood in your carcass. You have quarrels plenty on your hands without this. Come, don't be a fool and a scoundrel too."

Dugard grinned uneasily, and tried to turn the thing off as a joke, and Pierre, who laughed still a little more, said: "It would be amusing to see old Magor and Dugard fight. It would be--so equal." There was a keen edge to Pierre's tones, but Dugard dared not resent it.

One day Magor and Dugard must meet. The square-timber of the two companies had got tangled at a certain point, and gangs from both must set them loose. They were camped some distance from each other. There was rivalry between them, and it was hinted that if any trouble came from the meeting of Magor and Dugard the gangs would pay off old scores with each other. Pierre wished to prevent this. It seemed to him that the two men should stand alone in the affair. He said as much here and there to members of both camps, for he was free of both: a tribute to his genius at poker.

The girl, Nora, was apprehensive--for her father; she hated the other man now. Pierre was courteous to her, scrupulous in word and look, and fond of her child. He had always shown a gentleness to children, which seemed little compatible with his character; but for this young outlaw in the world he had something more. He even laboured carefully to turn the girl's father in its favour; but as yet to little purpose. He was thought ful of the girl too. He only went to the house when he knew her father was present, or when she was away. Once while he was there, Father Halen and his sister, Mrs. Lauder, came. They found Pierre with the child, rocking the cradle, and humming as he did so an old song of the coureurs de bois:

"Out of the hills comes a little white deer, Poor little vaurien, o, ci, ci! Come to my home, to my home down here, Sister and brother and child o' me Poor little, poor little vaurien!"

Pierre was alone, save for the old woman who had cared for the home since Nora's trouble came. The priest was anxious lest any harm should come from Dugard's presence at Bamber's Boom. He knew Pierre's doubtful reputation, but still he knew he could speak freely and would be answered honestly. "What will happen?" he abruptly asked.

"What neither you nor I should try to prevent, m'sieu'," was Pierre's reply.

"Magor will do the man injury?"

"What would you have? Put the matter on your own hearthstone, eh? . . . Pardon, if I say these things bluntly." Pierre still lightly rocked the cradle with one foot.

"But vengeance is in God's hands."

"M'sieu'," said the half-breed, "vengeance also is man's, else why did we ten men from Fort Cypress track down the Indians who murdered your brother, the good priest, and kill them one by one?"

Father Halen caught his sister as she swayed, and helped her to a chair, then turned a sad face on Pierre. "Were you--were you one of that ten?" he asked, overcome; and he held out his hand.

The two river-driving camps joined at Mud Cat Point, where was the crush of great timber. The two men did not at first come face to face, but it was noticed by Pierre, who smoked on the bank while the others worked, that the old man watched his enemy closely. The work of undoing the great twist of logs was exciting, and they fell on each other with a great sound as they were pried off, and went sliding, grinding, into the water. At one spot they were piled together, massive and high. These were left to the last.

It was here that the two met. Old Magor's face was quiet, if a little haggard; and his eyes looked out from under his shaggy brows piercingly. Dugard's manner was swaggering, and he swore horribly at his gang. Presently he stood at a point alone, working at an obstinate log. He was at the foot of an incline of timber, and he was not aware that Magor had suddenly appeared at the top of that incline. He heard his name called out sharply. Swinging round, he saw Magor thrusting a handspike under a huge timber, hanging at the top of the incline. He was standing in a hollow, a kind of trench. He was shaken with fear, for he saw the old man's design. He gave a cry and made as if to jump out of the way, but with a laugh Magor threw his whole weight on the handspike, the great timber slid swiftly down and crushed Dugard from his thighs to his feet, breaking his legs terribly. The old man called down at him: "A slip--a little accident, mon ami!" Then, shouldering his handspike, he made his way through the silent gangs to the shore, and so on homewards.