Part 4

“Do I mind Joey Fagge? Why, course I do. There ain’t any old-timer who can’t tell you something ’bout him. He was the cutest ole Sam-Peter west, and they tell how he could smell out gold, same as these miracle chaps down south fetch water outer the ground, or shoot it outer the sky, or some such durned trick. No one knows where he finished, though I’ve heard tell how he got caught in a storm on this very lake and was drownded.”

“Did he die rich?”

“Ever heard of a miner who did?” said the captain, laughing hoarsely. “Last time I saw Joey he was flyin’ off the handle in Main Street, Fort Garry. Seems some American chap had bested him upon a real-estate bargain, an’ the old man took that sort of thing bad. He was a good-natured ole chap too. I know that, ’cause I was in Garry time of the boom, and I know a yarn if you want to listen.”

The mate was besieging my ear, but my attention was not for him. I edged towards Bob Lennie, that I might hear all I could concerning the man my father had been accused of murdering.

“A young Englishman came inter Garry ’bout the middle of the fun,” went on the captain. “Ye see, he fancied he was goin’ to look out for a job, but when he saw the cash an’ champagne-water a-flowin’ around, an’ found lots o’ folks happy to stand him drinks and leave him the change if he wanted it, he started to quit his thoughts of work, an’ surmised he’d struck an almightily soft way of living. Time came, of course, when he found himself gettin’ left dry on the rocks, an’ as he hadn’t near enough at the week-end to fix up his hotel bill, he nat’rally walked into the bar at mornin’ wi’ the idea of runnin’ outer what he _had_ got. After takin’ a doctor’s prescription, he moved ’way up the street, spoilin’ for excitement, an’ presently he pulled up at Central Hall, where a big real-estate sale was going on. The boy’s brain must have ben a bit in wool, ’cause he started biddin’ for a parcel of land, and sudden-like the lot was knocked down to him. D’rectly he found the other fellers had quit, you can believe me he made back to the hotel, to find out a cool place to set down in; but call me what you like, Mac, if a chap didn’t come round, jest as fast as his legs would bring him, to offer to take the property off the boy’s hands at the price it had ben knocked down. And he hadn’t time to call this chap his brother before up came another, wi’ two or three more ’most tumblin’ after him, an’ every one cappin’ the offer of the man before him. A boom had struck that bit of property sudden, an’ it had ben knocked down before the bis’ness fellers could get around to Central Hall. Course the young chap was ready to scream, but he had the sense to pretend hatin’ to part wi’ the property, an’ he hung on until he got a wonderful big price, they say. Nobody worried over a few extra hundreds those days. Well, I saw him later on, an’ old man Fagge was drinking champagne-water wi’ him, an’ talkin’ to him like a father, an’ advisin’ him to stuff his valise, an’ make east outer the racket, before he flung away that pile he’d jest made by the biggest and almightiest hunk of luck outside creation.”

“Did he go?” I broke in.

“I guess so,” said Bob Lennie. “Anyhow, I never saw him around no more. Now, I call that real good of ole Joey to advise that young fool to get home, when he’d the brain to get all that pile inter his own pocket. Put that down on the credit side when anyone starts slingin’ things ’gainst old man’s character, I say.”

At the Tecumseh House, where Father Lacombe was also staying, we learnt at dinner that the priest was unwell.

“Got what he calls a chill,” announced the proprietor, adding, “He can keep it while he stops here. He won’t spend nothing for the good of the house.”

After the mid-day meal we went up to the room which we shared between us, closed the door, and sat on our respective shake-downs, there being no chairs, to discuss business. We had brought over from the Yellow Sands store the greater part of our supplies and tools, but there were still necessary articles to be added to our packs, and these were all obtainable at Gull. MacCaskill was paying my expenses as well as his own, and now that I began to understand the meaning of the thin slips of paper which he smoothed and fingered so deliberately, I felt uncomfortable at being dependent upon his savings, the more so when he said, “We’ll want to be careful, Rupe. The bank ain’t any too muscular.”

I suggested that we should camp out upon the mainland for the remainder of our time; but my partner demurred, because he thought it advisable to watch and wait in Gull.

“You’ve got brains, boy,” the factor went on.

“Where do you say Redpath is?”

I thought awhile before replying shortly, “Here.”

“That’s what I’m sayin’ all the time. Olaffson and he are hidin’ some place, and I guess they’re spyin’ upon us. How are they going to cross Lake Peace? They won’t have the gall to face us on the _Carillon_.”

I suggested that, as they had stolen a canoe from Yellow Sands, they might make away with one of the steam-tugs used at Gull to take out the lumber scows.

“Takin’ a tug outer Gull ain’t the same trick as stealin’ a canoe from a nitchi camp. There’s too many folks around, and they might be hanged for stealin’ hereabouts.”

“I should know that canoe again,” I said, and well I might, for I had paddled Akshelah in it many a time. “It’s not around here.”

“Pshaw! They’d have broke it up, and used it on the camp fire. Professional rascals don’t take risks. Look-a-here! We’ve got the nickels to stand this racket, but after we’ve bought our cornmeal, an’ bacon, an’ dried fruit, an’ a few little tools, an’ paid our passage across, we won’t have a lot to gamble with. The best we can do is to move along easy, watchin’ and not worryin’, and if Redpath’s on the ground when we strike it, there’ll be a fight if he’s awkward. If we can fix up things so as to work our claims apart, without scrappin’, that’s our line. If Redpath won’t have that, it’s throw up hands, and the best partners scoop the pool.”

Then the factor produced a pack of cards, and we played poker, and after that went to sleep upon our shake-downs.

It was almost dark when we awoke, and took to smoking to pass the time. Rain was still beating, but the wind had lessened, and a wet mist hung over the lake. It was cold, and I felt miserable; MacCaskill looked depressed, and we were both silent. Thus an hour of unutterable dreariness dragged away.

MacCaskill coughed suddenly, opened the box-stove, spat into it, and flung away the stub of his cigar.

“Swallowed a bit of leaf,” he growled. “Sets a man ’gainst smokin’ for a while.” He laughed grimly, and rubbed his hands. “Cheer up, Rupe; it’s Sunday, lad.”

“What about it?” I asked, for I had never been brought to look upon one day as different from another, apart from good or foul weather.

“Why, on Sunday evenings I gen’rally get as dolesome as a gibcat. Mem’ries, I guess, but you ain’t got enough past to make any of them. When I was away in the bush I kep’ track of the days easy. Whenever a fit of the megrims came on ’bout lights down, I’d know ’twas Sunday. It gen’rally worked out right. I come out clean and fresh Monday morning, but Sunday night I get hipped reg’lar. Say! What’ll you do, if old man’s notion pans out?”

“Follow your lead,” I said.

I expected the old fellow to laugh, but the dolesome fit was on him, and he became more surly than ever.

“I went home ’bout eight winters ago,” he said morosely.

I saw that he was in the mood to talk, so I settled myself to listen.

“I went home,” he repeated. “Away east to St. Catherine’s. That’s in Ontario, and ’twas a daisy of a place when I was your number. I went home. D’rectly ye shift outer any place ye get forgotten. See? Rainin’ yet, I guess?”

“Yes, it’s still raining,” I said.

“Well, it’ll do no harm, maybe. You see, when you come back to an old home ye expect to find a place kep’ for ye. Understand?” He gave me no time to reply. “Well now, I left St. Catherine’s when I was a younker, and got a post north in the Company. ’Twas a far better thing then than ’tis to-day, and I reckoned I’d stop a few years, make a leetle pile, come home when I was thirty, and marry Maimie Flett, who was waitin’ for me. Pretty little gal, Maimie. Had a way of lookin’ at me sideways. She was goin’ to wait for me. Wind’s comin’ up again, I guess?”

“Maybe,” I said, though I had not noticed any change.

“You see, those years got slippin’ away as though they’d ben oiled for it. I worked steady, an’ I saved a bit, but that pile seemed to be awful slow in mountin’ up. Life was in front of me, anyhow, and I said, ‘No matter, there’s a fine time a-comin’.’ I wasn’t going east, not till I was able to marry Maimie. The years got tumblin’ along one over the other so quick, Rupe, and Maimie she writ slower, and then she quit. Must have ben tiresome for the gal, and she hadn’t leisure like me, maybe.” The factor stopped, bent, and rubbed his leg.

“You went home?” I suggested.

He repeated the words after me slowly.

“Came upon me one day sudden,” he went on. “Me muscles had always ben good and worked easy, and I was comfortable in the wind, and right on me food and sleep. One evening, I mind it was wet and cold, I made to pick up a log to carry in to bucksaw. I just gave it a good heave on to me shoulder, and hot snakes jumped right through me, and run all along me back, and I let that log drop. I couldn’t have carried that log, Rupe, not if it had ben a bar of gold. You see, I was comin’ on fifty, an’ that pain was rheumatics. Old man had ’em bad, and you mind how Antoine used to rub him wi’ some of his medicine truck. That night I got smokin’, same as usual, in the Fort, and I stopped over it longer, ’cause I’d taken a new pipe from the store, and a new pipe smokes longer than the old ’un, and I got seein’ the smoke a-twistin’ around, and presently I seemed to see Maimie, and she was lookin’ at me sideways, and she was sayin’, ‘Why! ’tis never you, Andy! They’ll be callin’ you “old man” when you come down to St. Catherine’s.’ You see, Rupe, I’d got an old chap sudden, an’ I found it out sudden-like.”

I had nothing to say to this, because I was young and strong.

“You miss life by waitin’ for it, Rupe. You’ve got to take, an’ never wait. I took me leave anyhow, and went east to see the old place again. I was a sort of fool, ’cause I reckoned to find things same as I minded ’em, and Maimie a little bit of a gal, wi’ a way of lookin’ at me sideways. I came in on the Grand Trunk, and I got out at the depôt, and stood lonesome, and peeked around, jest as awkward as a fly in a glass of beer. You see, I’d known everyone in St. Catherine’s my time. I said to a feller, ‘What’s the name of this place, anyhow?’ and he said, ‘St. Catherine’s, stranger,’ and that took the wind outer me. ’Twas an almighty big town, an’ I’d left a village; an’ the valley was choked wi’ buildings, like summer fallow wi’ Russian thistle, an’ there wasn’t any folks to mind Andy MacCaskill. There wasn’t a face to gimme a smile, Rupe. Not an ole pard to call out, ‘Seems like ole times havin’ you around again.’ That’s what my goin’ home was.”

“And what about the girl?” I said.

“Never heard tell of her,” answered the factor morosely.

His mood changed in a moment, and we sprang together from our shake-downs. Above the beating of the rain and the wind, above the shouts of the drinkers below, came the noise of a nearer scuffle, with the brutal laugh of coarse men, the tread of heavy boots, and a feminine voice, half pleading, half in anger. There were no women in Gull!

The passage was gloomy, because evening was closing, and there was only one window to give light, but I had no need to look twice to see a girl, her head and fine hair half-wrapped in a dripping shawl, and this girl struggling in the hands of a half-drunk crowd of lumbermen, shouting their rough jests and brutal suggestions. A beautiful girl in the camp of Gull!

I knew her before I could see her face, and when I did see her rain-marked features, they were more beautiful than ever. She was my faithful maid, my Akshelah!

She put out an arm, the other was held, and called to me:

“I have followed; I have followed, and it has been hard!”

The factor’s story of his life was hot upon my ears, and I heard him saying, “You’ve got to take, and never wait.”

I acted upon this precept. I scattered that rough gang, and sent the men reeling back each way. I rescued Akshelah, swung her lithe figure into our room, where MacCaskill stood bewildered, and stood in the doorway, my arms out, holding at defiance the lumber station of Gull.

AN AFFAIR WITH JAKE PETERSSEN

It had often been my lot to fight the animals and the elements, but now for the first time I faced my fellow-creatures, every one my superior in experience of the world, and every one apparently my inferior in muscle. As I glanced them over I knew that I was strong enough to break most of them up like so many corn-stalks. I could have shouted as depression left me, and glorious life throbbed along every muscle of each limb. There was not a weak spot in my body. My eye was so true that a man might have indicated a spot twenty feet distant and I could have jumped cleanly upon that mark. I was exhilarated as I stood in the doorway, with the whole camp against me. I was soon to learn how fickle a crowd can be.

Behind me stood Akshelah, so that her breath caressed my neck. I put out my hand and pushed her back. The factor stood against the side wall, peering into the passage, fetching breath suddenly.

“I guess you’ll quit, an’ give over the gal, stranger,” a big-bodied man confronted and advised me.

“She’s mine,” I said, and I was glad to find my voice steady and clear.

“She’s come around here,” went on the representative of public opinion. “An’ now she’s a-comin’ down to the saloon to dance to us.”

“I’ll see you all darned,” I said quietly.

A babel of tongues hummed round my head. A mighty shadow appeared to fall, and for one moment I cooled and weakened. A huge negro pushed aside the big-bodied man, and stood within hand-grip of me. He was a hideous creature, his face scarred, his front teeth gone, one ear frozen off, and when he moved I saw that his mighty body was supple and packed with muscle. He wore a loose cotton shirt and white pants, which exaggerated his great size. This apparition glowed upon me with small malevolent eyes, and said:

“’Pears like, stranger, you forgot hittin’ dis chile. Hit him on de nose an’ eye. You take what you give, eh?”

I understood that I was being challenged, and replied: “I guess.”

“You gimme de gal, an’ stop de trubble?” suggested the fearful creature.

I merely replied: “She’s mine.”

“That’s so, boys,” bellowed the revived factor. “The gal’s his, and she followed down here to find him. Where I come from, a feller’s got a right to his own gal.”

“He knocked us around,” said a voice.

“Hit me on de nose an’ eye,” repeated the negro. “No man hit dis chile, an’ not git it back. I’m ready fo’ you.” He slapped his arm. “No knives, no shootin’. Jest strip an’ scrap, and de best scrapper take de gal.”

“I’m ready,” I said.

Old MacCaskill was at my elbow, and Akshelah between us. My partner was cold with excitement.

“The boys’ll be just, Rupe, if you show devil,” he whispered. “It’s Jake Peterssen you’ve got to fight, and they say he’s never ben bested. Keep quiet, and don’t waste yourself. Get at his neck, if you can, and if you can’t, get at the side of his jaw. Mind that--mind, the side of the jaw hard.”

The saw-mills were stopping, because the gloom of the night hung around Gull. The news flew about like thistle seed in a windy fall. The mob surged and shouted round us, as we passed from Tecumseh House into the cold rain, and down to a long shed used for meetings and dances, on the brink of the high rocks that made an eyebrow to the lake. The wind howled round this exposed spot, and I could hear the beat of the waves, the lash of clouds of spray, and the sullen song of the shifting shingle, while the crowd poured in to take up their stand on tables and barrels, and a score of greasy lanterns were being lighted and hoisted to the roof. The floor was of well-trodden soil, and while we were being made ready a procession of men appeared with sacks of lake sand, which they poured and levelled upon the space reserved for the fight. I was shivering from head to foot, but it was with excitement and muscular strength, not fear. Akshelah was as white as the sand, and MacCaskill looked eighty when he began to strip me.

“This ain’t like knockin’ down Redpath,” he muttered hoarsely. “Keep his fist outer your neck and jaw, an’ mind your stomach. Love o’ Heaven, mind your stomach! If he touches your wind you’ve got to go down.”

A couple of coarse-faced men came up, chewing tobacco.

“Out er the way, old man,” said one.

They took me in hand, stripped me to the waist; and one of them took off his belt and strapped me, saying, as he pulled it in:

“Shout when it starts to pinch.”

When I was stripped I found myself the centre of a great deal of attention. My skin was fair and hairless, my arms so slight, that I could have felt ashamed of my appearance; indeed, at first I thought my examiners were bent upon ridicule, as first one horny hand and then another patted my chest and pinched my forearm or the back of my leg. But it was not so.

One man, with a sharp, pinched face, turned from me, expectorated, and remarked to the negro:

“If he gits a fair holt on yer, Jake, mercy on yer soul! He ain’t got one ounce of fat under all his skin.”

My opponent’s arms were like trunks of trees, and his neck resembled a polished iron cylinder. When I looked at him I thought that if I should get at his neck I should do nothing but tear the skin off my knuckles.

We were oiled from chin to waist with fresh fish-oil, and then the Master of Ceremonies came out and told me the rules. Anything above the waist was fair fight, either catching or hitting, except kicking and biting, and the use of the nails. The catch might be made with the hand or the arm, but the hit only with the clenched fist. There would be no intervals, and the fight would continue until one of us should be disabled for twenty-five seconds.

The hubbub was indescribable; but once it dropped, when a startling black figure, well wrapped up, pushed in quietly. It was Father Lacombe; and a great shout uprose when it became published that the priest had come with no idea of interference, but to see fair play.

The voices went up again, shouting out bets or making jests, until I took my stand opposite my gigantic opponent, and then they dropped to deep murmurs and whisperings which, when the word had been given, became merely deep and long breathings. The familiar beat of the wind and waves cheered me from outside.

Akshelah stood unmolested beside MacCaskill, and I knew no one would take any notice of her until the fight was done. There was a certain morality in the camp of Gull. If I won, the girl would be resigned to me, and not a man would insult her; if I lost, the camp at Yellow Sands would mourn for her as one who had passed away from them.

The negro and I stood watching one another, each starting in response to any movement on the other’s part. His great body shone in the lamplight, and the oil glistened on his outstretched arms. There was a knife scar where his neck came to the shoulder above the collar-bone, and I determined to hit that if I had the chance. It makes a man wince to feel an old wound struck. I was magnificently cool; my excitement had passed, and my brain was as clear as my own little river of Yellow Sands.

With a surprisingly rapid motion the negro dashed upon me, and I bent, when he made feint with his right arm, and met the crashing blow of his left fist with my forearm.

A cold, numbing sensation raced through me, but I swung my arm sharply, and the pain was gone in an instant; and springing up, I caught the great body and cannoned against it, swinging him round.

He fell on his knee; but this was a trick, for when I pressed on he came up and opened himself by hitting me full in the shoulder, and I staggered back, but steadied myself in time.

Again we stood facing each other as at first, only breathing a little faster.

It was my turn to make the advance, and I did so, making sure of every foothold in the sand. The negro worked round as I came on, and I hovered in front of him, until I became fascinated by a grotesque face which had been tattooed upon his chest. It seemed to me that I had two adversaries to contend with, the negro and his mascott. After dodging I slipped round sharply, sprang into the air, hitting away his arm, and had him gripped by the waist, his right arm fastened to his side. Silence was broken for the first time as we swung together, I trying to capture his free arm, and he endeavouring to stun me with it. While this arm was upraised I hit him upon the scar as well as I could at close quarters, then dashed my head to one side, striking his flat face with my cheek, and avoiding at the same time the blow which just grazed my shoulder. Hanging on, I dashed my knee into his stomach, but in doing so lost my hold. He got in a blow upon my forehead that knocked me to the sand. I was up, literally at a rebound, and just in time to avoid another blow, which, if successful, would have ended the contest. We stood again as at first, and I heard a far-away voice mutter, “Waste him, yer young fool!”

I was grateful for the hint. Unless I came to receive a knock-down blow, I could last for ever. I had no waste flesh to carry. I was hard and sound, while my adversary was heavy, and comparatively short of wind. He had drunk plenty of corn whisky in his time, while my system was entirely free from alcohol. I could see his great neck palpitating already, and his mouth was open. Obviously I was wasting myself by trying to throw his massive bulk. I determined to make him move, and to wait for the opportunity of reaching his windpipe. So I came to close quarters and kept at my opponent, worrying him like a dog, and he watched me with his small, half-closed eyes, and hit at me with his superior science while I skirmished, doubtless with the hope that one of these mighty blows might reach the fatal spot and lay me out. But I was too careful of the vital parts, and though the heavy hammering on my shoulders jarred and weakened me, I retained my presence of mind and kept my system, and stayed by him, always feigning an attack, but never wearing myself by striking. His dark hands were stained with my blood, which I could feel trickling over my face. I had to wipe it away from my eyes, knowing what nobody else did, that I was as strong as at the beginning, and the letting of a little blood would do me good after the forced inaction of the past few days.

“Jake’s winnin’!” shouted a triumphant voice, though I had lost sight of all spectators. “Drinks to the crowd on Jake.”

“Take yer,” called another. “Listen at the breathin’. The young ’un ain’t in trouble, an’, be Heaven, he could throw a locomotive.”