Chapter II: Part 2

She raised her eyes to his, this time naked of defence, so that the man saw down through their depths into her very soul.

"Oh," she begged, quivering, "let me pass. Don't you see--I'm going to cry!"

Chapter Six

For a moment Ned Trent stared through the darkness into which Virginia had disappeared. Then he turned a troubled face to the task he had set himself, for the unexpectedly pathetic results of his fantastic attempt had shaken him. Twice he half turned as though to follow her. Then shaking his shoulders he bent his attention to the old man in the shadow of the chair.

He was given no opportunity for further speech, however, for at the sound of the closing door Galen Albret's impassivity had fallen from him. He sprang to his feet. The whole aspect of the man suddenly became electric, terrible. His eyes blazed; his heavy brows drew spasmodically toward each other; his jaws worked, twisting his beard into strange contortions; his massive frame straightened formidably; and his voice rumbled from the arch of his deep chest in a torrent of passionate sound.

"By God, young man!" he thundered, "you go too far! Take heed! I will not stand this! Do not you presume to make love to my daughter before my eyes!"

And Ned Trent, just within the dusky circle of lamplight, where the bold, sneering lines of Ins face stood out in relief against the twilight of the room, threw back his head and laughed. It was a clear laugh, but low, and in it were all the devils of triumph, and of insolence. Where the studied insult of words had failed, this single cachinnation succeeded. The Trade saw his opponent's eyes narrow. For a moment he thought the Factor was about to spring on him.

Then, with an effort that blackened his face with blood, Galen Albret controlled himself, and fell to striking the call-bell violently and repeatedly with the palm of his hand. After a moment Matthews, the English servant, came running in. To him the Factor was at first physically unable to utter a syllable. Then finally he managed to ejaculate the name of his bowsman with such violence of gesture that the frightened servant comprehended by sheer force of terror and ran out again in search of Me-en-gan.

This supreme effort seemed to clear the way for speech. Galen Albret began to address his opponent hoarsely in quick, disjointed sentences, a gasp for breath between each.

"You revived an old legend--_la Longue Traverse_--the myth. It shall be real--to--you--I will make it so. By God, you shall not defy me----"

Ned Trent smiled. "You do not deceive me," he rejoined, coolly.

"Silence!" cried the Factor. "Silence!--You shall speak no more!--You have said enough----"

Me-en-gan glided into the room. Galen Albret at once addressed him in the Ojibway language, gaining control of himself as he went on.

"Listen to me well," he commanded. "You shall make a count of all rifles in this place--at once. Let no one furnish this man with food or arms. You know the story of _la Longue Traverse_. This man shall take it. So inform my people, I, the Factor, decree it so. Prepare all things at once--understand, at once!"

Ned Trent waited to hear no more, but sauntered from the room whistling gayly a boatman's song. His point was gained.

Outside, the long Northern twilight with its beautiful shadows of crimson was descending from the upper regions of the east A light wind breathed up-river from the bay. The Free Trader drew his lungs full of the evening air.

"Just the same, I think she will come," said he to himself. "_La Longue Traverse_, even at once, is a pretty slim chance. But this second string to my bow is better. I believe I'll get the rifle--if she comes!"

Chapter Seven

Virginia ran quickly up the narrow stairs to her own room, where she threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillows.

As she had said, she was very much shaken. And, too, she way afraid.

She could not understand. Heretofore she had moved among the men around her, pure, lofty, serene. Now at one blow all this crumbled. The stranger had outraged her finer feelings. He had insulted her father in her very presence;--for this she was angry. He had insulted herself;--for this she was afraid. He had demanded that she meet him again; but this--at least in the manner he had suggested--should not happen. And yet she confessed to herself a delicious wonder as to what he would do next, and a vague desire to see him again in order to find out. That she could not successfully combat this feeling made her angry at herself. And so in mingled fear, pride, anger, and longing she remained until Wishkobun, the Indian woman, glided in to dress her for the dinner whose formality she and her father consistently maintained. She fell to talking the soft Ojibway dialect, and in the conversation forgot some of her emotion and regained some of her calm.

Her surface thoughts, at least, were compelled for the moment to occupy themselves with other things. The Indian woman had to tell her of the silver fox brought in by Mu-hi-ken, an Indian of her own tribe; of the retort Achille Picard had made when MacLane had taunted him; of the forest fire that had declared itself far to the east, and of the theories to account for it where no campers had been. Yet underneath the rambling chatter Virginia was aware of something new in her consciousness, something delicious but as yet vague. In the gayest moment of her half-jesting, half-affectionate gossip with the Indian woman, she felt its uplift catching her breath from beneath, so that for the tiniest instant she would pause as though in readiness for some message which nevertheless delayed. A fresh delight in the present moment held her, a fresh anticipation of the immediate future, though both delight and anticipation were based on something without her knowledge. That would come later.

The sound of rapid footsteps echoed across the lower hall, a whistle ran into an air, sung gayly, with spirit;

"J'ai perdu ma maitresse,
Sans l'avoir merite,
Pour un bouquet de roses
Que je lui refusai.
Li ya longtemps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai!"

She fell abruptly silent, and spoke no more until she descended to the council-room where the table was now spread for dinner.

Two silver candlesticks lit the place. The men were waiting for her when she entered, and at once took their seats in the worn, rude chairs. White linen and glittering silver adorned the service. Galen Albret occupied one end of the table, Virginia the other. On either side were Doctor and Mrs. Cockburn; McDonald, the Chief Trader; Richardson, the clerk, and Crane, the missionary of the Church of England. Matthews served with rigid precision in the order of importance, first the Factor, then Virginia, then the doctor, his wife, McDonald, the clerk, and Crane in due order. On entering a room the same precedence would have held good. Thus these people, six hundred miles as the crow flies from the nearest settlement, maintained their shadowy hold on civilization.

The glass was fine, the silver massive, the linen dainty, Matthews waited faultlessly: but overhead hung the rough timbers of the wilderness post, across the river faintly could be heard the howling of wolves. The fare was rice, curry, salt pork, potatoes, and beans; for at this season the game was poor, and the fish hardly yet running with regularity.

Throughout the meal Virginia sat in a singular abstraction. No conscious thoughts took shape in her mind, but nevertheless she seemed to herself to be occupied in considering weighty matters. When directly addressed, she answered sweetly. Much of the time she studied her father's face. She found it old. Those lines were already evident which, when first noted, bring a stab of surprised pain to the breast of a child--the droop of the mouth, the wrinkling of the temples, the patient weariness of the eyes. Virginia's own eyes filled with tears. The subjective passive state into which a newly born but not yet recognized love had cast her, inclined her to gentleness. She accepted facts as they came to her. For the moment she forgot the mere happenings of the day, and lived only in the resulting mood of them all. The new-comer inspired her no longer with anger nor sorrow, attraction nor fear. Her active emotions in abeyance, she floated dreamily on the clouds of a new estate.

This very aloofness of spirit disinclined her for the company of the others after the meal was finished. The Factor closeted himself with Richardson. The doctor, lighting a cheroot, took his way across to his infirmary. McDonald, Crane, and Mrs. Cockburn entered the drawing-room and seated themselves near the piano. Virginia hesitated, then threw a shawl over her head and stepped out on the broad veranda.

At once the vast, splendid beauty of the Northern night broke over her soul. Straight before her gleamed and flashed and ebbed and palpitated the aurora. One moment its long arms shot beyond the zenith; the next it had broken and rippled back like a brook of light to its arch over the Great Bear. Never for an instant was it still. Its restlessness stole away the quiet of the evening; but left it magnificent.

In comparison with this coruscating dome of the infinite the earth had shrunken to a narrow black band of velvet, in which was nothing distinguishable until suddenly the sky-line broke in calm silhouettes of spruce and firs. And always the mighty River of the Moose, gleaming, jewelled, barbaric in its reflections, slipped by to the sea.

So rapid and bewildering was the motion of these two great powers--the river and the sky--that the imagination could not believe in silence. It was as though the earth were full of shoutings and of tumults. And yet in reality the night was as still as a tropical evening. The wolves and the sledge-dogs answered each other undisturbed; the beautiful songs of the white-throats stole from the forest as divinely instinct as ever with the spirit of peace.

Virginia leaned against the railing and looked upon it all. Her heart was big with emotions, many of which she could not name; her eyes were full of tears. Something had changed in her since yesterday, but she did not know what it was. The faint wise stars, the pale moon just sinking, the gentle south breeze could have told her, for they are old, old in the world's affairs. Occasionally a flash more than ordinarily brilliant would glint one of the bronze guns beneath the flag-staff. Then Virginia's heart would glint too. She imagined the reflection startled her.

She stretched her arms out to the night, embracing its glories, sighing in sympathy with its meaning, which she did not know. She felt the desire of restlessness; yet she could not bear to go. But no thought of the stranger touched her, for you see as yet she did not understand.

Then, quite naturally, she heard his voice in the darkness close to her knee. It seemed inevitable that he should be there; part of the restless, glorious night, part of her mood. She gave no start of surprise, but half closed her eyes and leaned her fair head against a pillar of the veranda. He sang in a sweet undertone an old chanson of voyage.

"Par derrier ches man pere,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Par derrier' chez mon pere
Li-ya-t-un, pommier doux."

"Ah lady, lady mine," broke in the voice softly, "the night too is sweet, soft as thine eyes. Will you not greet me?"

The girl made no sign. After a moment the song went on,

"Trois filles d'un prince,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Trois filles d'un prince
Sont endormies dessous."

"Will not the princess leave her sisters of dreams?" whispered the voice, fantastically, "Will she not come?"

Virginia shivered, and half-opened her eyes, but did not stir. It seemed that the darkness sighed, then became musical again.

"La plus jeun' se reveille,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
La plus jeun' se reveille
--Ma Soeur, voila le jour!

The song broke this time without a word of pleading. The girl opened her eyes wide and stared breathlessly straight before her at the singer.

"--Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile
Qu' eclaire nos amours!"

The last word rolled out through its passionate throat tones and died into silence.

"Come!" repeated the man again, this time almost in the accents of command.

She turned slowly and went to him, her eyes childlike and frightened, her lips wide, her face pale. When she stood face to face with him she swayed and almost fell.

"What do you want with me?" she faltered, with a little sob.

The man looked at her keenly, laughed, and exclaimed in an every-day, matter-of-fact voice:

"Why, I really believe my song frightened you. It is only a boating song. Come, let us go and sit on the gun-carriages and talk."

"Oh!" she gasped, a trifle hysterically. "Don't do that again! Please don't. I do not understand it! You must not!"

He laughed again, but with a note of tenderness in his voice, and took her hand to lead her away, humming in an undertone the last couplet of his song:

"Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile,
Qu'eclaire nos amours!"

Chapter Eight

Virginia went with this man passively--to an appointment which, but an hour ago, she had promised herself she would not keep. Her inmost soul was stirred, just as before. Then it had been few words, now it was a little common song. But the strange power of the man held her close, so she realized that for the moment at least she would do as he desired. In the amazement and consternation of this thought she found time to offer up a little prayer, "Dear God, make him kind to me."

They leaned against the old bronze guns, facing the river. He pulled her shawl about her, masterfully yet with gentleness, and then, as though it was the most natural thing in the world, he drew her to him until she rested against his shoulder. And she remained there, trembling, in suspense, glancing at him quickly, in birdlike, pleading glances, as though praying him to be kind. He took no notice after that, so the act seemed less like a caress than a matter of course. He began to talk, half-humorously, and little by little, as he went on, she forgot her fears, even her feeling of strangeness, and fell completely under the spell of his power.

"My name is Ned Trent," he told her, "and I am from Quebec. I am a woods runner. I have journeyed far. I have been to the uttermost ends of the North even up beyond the Hills of Silence." And then, in his gay, half-mocking, yet musical voice he touched lightly on vast and distant things. He talked of the great Saskatchewan, of Peace River, and the delta of the Mackenzie, of the winter journeys beyond Great Bear Lake into the Land of the Little Sticks, and the half-mythical lake of Yamba Tooh. He spoke of life with the Dog Ribs and Yellow Knives, where the snow falls in midsummer. Before her eyes slowly spread, like a panorama, the whole extent of the great North, with its fierce, hardy men, its dreadful journeys by canoe and sledge, its frozen barrens, its mighty forests, its solemn charm. All at once this post of Conjurors House, a month in the wilderness as it was, seemed very small and tame and civilized for the simple reason that Death did not always compass it about.

"It was very cold then," said Ned Trent "and very hard. _Le grand frete_ [froid--cold] of winter had come. At night we had no other shelter than our blankets, and we could not keep a fire because the spruce burned too fast and threw too many coals. For a long time we shivered, curled up on our snowshoes; then fell heavily asleep, so that even the dogs fighting over us did not awaken us. Two or three times in the night we boiled tea. We had to thaw our moccasins each morning by thrusting them inside our shirts. Even the Indians were shivering and saying, 'Ed-sa, yazzi ed-sa'--'it is cold, very cold.' And when we came to Rae it was not much better. A roaring fire in the fireplace could not prevent the ink from freezing on the pen. This went on for five months."

Thus he spoke, as one who says common things. He said little of himself, but as he went on in short, curt sentences the picture grew more distinct, and to Virginia the man became more and more prominent in it. She saw the dying and exhausted dogs, the frost-rimed, weary men; she heard the quick _crunch, crunch, crunch_ of the snow-shoes hurrying ahead to break the trail; she felt the cruel torture of the _mal de raquette_, the shrivelling bite of the frost, the pain of snow blindness, the hunger that yet could not stomach the frozen fish nor the hairy, black caribou meat. One thing she could not conceive--the indomitable spirit of the men. She glanced timidly up at her companion's face.

"The Company is a cruel master," she sighed at last, standing upright, then leaning against the carriage of the gun. He let her go without protest, almost without thought, it seemed.

"But not mine," said he.

She exclaimed, in astonishment, "Are you not of the Company?"

"I am no man's man but my own," he answered, simply.

"Then why do you stay in this dreadful North?" she asked.

"Because I love it. It is my life. I want to go where no man has set foot before me; I want to stand alone under the sky; I want to show myself that nothing is too big for me--no difficulty, no hardship--nothing!"

"Why did you come here, then? Here at least are forests so that you can keep warm. This is not so dreadful as the Coppermine, and the country of the Yellow Knives. Did you come here to try _la Longue Traverse_ of which you spoke to-day?"

He fell suddenly sombre, biting in reflection at his lip.

"No--yes--why not?" he said, at length.

"I know you will come out of it safely," said she; "I feel it. You are brave and used to travel. Won't you tell me about it?"

He did not reply. After a moment she looked up in surprise. His brows were knit in reflection. He turned to her again, his eyes glowing into hers. Once more the fascination of the man grew big, overwhelmed her. She felt her heart flutter, her consciousness swim, her old terror returning.

"Listen," said he. "I may come to you to-morrow and ask you to choose between your divine pity and what you might think to be your duty. Then I will tell you all there is to know of _la Longue Traverse_. Now it is a secret of the Company. You are a Factor's daughter; you know what that means." He dropped his head. "Ah, I am tired--tired with it all!" he cried, in a voice strangely unhappy. "But yesterday I played the game with all my old spirit; to-day the zest is gone! I no longer care." He felt the pressure of her hand. "Are you just a little sorry for me?" he asked. "Sorry for a weakness you do not understand? You must think me a fool."

"I know you are unhappy," replied Virginia, gently. "I am truly sorry for that."

"Are you? Are you, indeed?" he cried. "Unhappiness is worth such pity as yours." He brooded for a moment, then threw his hands out with what might have been a gesture of desperate indifference. Suddenly his mood changed in the whimsical, bewildering fashion of the man. "Ah, a star shoots!" he exclaimed, gayly. "That means a kiss!"

Still laughing, he attempted to draw her to him. Angry, mortified, outraged, she fought herself free and leaped to her feet.

"Oh!" she cried, in insulted anger.

"Oh!" she cried, in a red shame.

"_Oh!_" she cried, in sorrow.

Her calm broke. She burst into the violent sobbing of a child, and turned and ran hurriedly to the factory.

Ned Trent stared after her a minute from beneath scowling brows. He stamped his moccasined foot impatiently.

"Like a rat in a trap!" he jeered at himself. "Like a rat in a trap, Ned Trent! The fates are drawing around you close. You need just one little thing, and you cannot get it. Bribery is useless! Force is useless! Craft is useless! This afternoon I thought I saw another way. What I could get no other way I might get from this little girl. She is only a child. I believe I could touch her pity--ah, Ned Trent, Ned Trent, can you ever forget her frightened, white face begging you to be kind?" He paced back and forth between the two bronze guns with long, straight strides, like a panther in a cage. "Her aid is mine for the asking--but she makes it impossible to ask! I could not do it. Better try _la Longue Traverse_ than take advantage of her pity--she'd surely get into trouble. What wonderful eyes she has. She thinks I am a brute--how she sobbed, as though her little heart had broken. Well, it was the only way to destroy her interest in me. I had to do it. Now she will despise me and forget me. It is better that she should think me a brute than that I should be always haunted by those pleading eyes." The door of the distant church house opened and closed. He smiled bitterly. "To be sure, I haven't tried that." he acknowledged. "Their teachings are singularly apropos to my case--mercy, justice, humanity--yes, and love of man. I'll try it. I'll call for help on the love of man, since I cannot on the love of woman. The love of woman--ah----yes."

He set his feet reflectively toward the chapel.

Chapter Nine

After a moment he pushed open the door without ceremony, and entered. He bent his brows, studying the Reverend Archibald Crane, while the latter, looking up startled, turned pink.

He was a pink little man, anyway, the Reverend Archibald Crane, and why, in the inscrutability of its wisdom, the Church had sent him out to influence strong, grim men, the Church in its inscrutable wisdom only knows. He wore at the moment a cambric English boating-hat to protect his bald head from the draught, a full clerical costume as far as the trousers, which were of lavender, and a pair of beaded moccasins faced with red. His weak little face was pink, and two tufts of side-whiskers were nearly so. A heavy gold-headed cane stood at his hand. When he heard the door open he exclaimed, before raising his head, "My, these first flies of the season do bother me so!" and then looked startled.

"Good-evening," greeted Ned Trent, stopping squarely in the centre of the room.

The clergyman spread his arms along the desk's edge in embarrassment.

"Good-evening," he returned, reluctantly. "Is there anything I can do for you?" The visitor puzzled him, but was dressed as a _voyageur_. The Reverend Archibald immediately resolved to treat him as such.

"I wish to introduce myself as Ned Trent," went on the Free Trader with composure, "and I have broken in on your privacy this evening only because I need your ministrations cruelly."

"I am rejoiced that in your difficulties you turn to the consolations of the Church," replied the other in the cordial tones of the man who is always ready. "Pray be seated. He whose soul thirsteth need offer no apology to the keeper of the spiritual fountains."

"Quite so," replied the stranger dryly, seating himself as suggested, "only in this case my wants are temporal rather than spiritual. They, however, seem to me fully within the province of the Church.^

"The Church attempts within limits to aid those who are materially in want," assured Crane, with official dignity. "Our resources are small, but to the truly deserving we are always ready to give in the spirit of true giving."

"I am rejoiced to hear it," returned the young man, grimly; "you will then have no difficulty in getting me so small a matter as a rifle and about forty or fifty rounds of ammunition."

A pause of astonishment ensued.

"Why, really," ejaculated Crane, "I fail to see how that falls within my jurisdiction in the slightest. You should see our Trader, Mr. McDonald, in regard to all such things. Your request addressed to me becomes extraordinary."

"Not so much so when you know who I am. I told you my name is Ned Trent, but I neglected to inform you further that I am a captured Free Trader, condemned to _la Longue Traverse_, and that I have in vain tried to procure elsewhere the means of escape."

Then the clergyman understood. The full significance of the intruder's presence flashed over his little pink face in a trouble of uneasiness. The probable consequences of such a bit of charity as his visitor proposed almost turned him sick with excitement.

"You expect to have them of me!" he cried, getting his voice at last.

"Certainly," assured his interlocutor, crossing his legs comfortably. "Don't you see the logic of events forces me to think so? What other course is open to you? I am in this country entirely within my legal rights as a citizen of the Canadian Commonwealth. Unjustly, I am seized by a stronger power and condemned unjustly to death. Surely you admit the injustice?"

"Well, of course you know--the customs of the country--it is hardly an abstract question--" stammered Crane, still without grasp on the logic of his argument "But as an abstract question the injustice is plain," resumed the Free Trader, imperturbably. "And against plain injustice it strikes me there is but one course open to an acknowledged institution of abstract--and concrete--morality. The Church must set itself against immorality, and you, as the Church's representative, must get me a rifle."

"You forget one thing," rejoined Crane.

"What is that?"

"Such an aid would be a direct act of rebellion against authority on my part, which would be severely punished. Of course," he asserted, with conscious righteousness, "I should not consider that for a moment as far ay my own personal safety is concerned. But my cause would suffer. You forget, sir, that we are doing here a great and good work. We have in our weekly congregational singing over forty regular attendants from the aborigines; next year I hope to build a church at Whale River, thus reaching the benighted inhabitants of that distant region. All of this is a vital matter in the service of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You suggest that I endanger all this in order to right a single instance of injustice. Of course we are told to love one another, but--" he paused.

"You have to compromise," finished the stranger for him.

"Exactly." said the Reverend Crane. "Thank you; it is exactly that. In order to accomplish what little good the Lord vouchsafes to our poor efforts, we are obliged to overlook many things. Otherwise we should not be allowed to stay here at all."

"That is most interesting," agreed Ned Trent, with a rather biting calm. "But is it not a little calculating? My slight familiarity with religious history and literature has always led me to believe that you are taught to embrace the right at any cost whatsoever--that, if you give yourself unreservedly to justice, the Lord will sustain you through all trials. I think at a pinch I could even quote a text to that effect."

"My dear fellow," objected the Reverend Archibald in gentle protest, "you evidently do not understand the situation at all. I feel I should be most untrue to my trust if I were to endanger in any way the life-long labor of my predecessor. You must be able to see that for yourself. It would destroy utterly my usefulness here. They'd send me away. I couldn't go on with the work, I have to think what is for the best."

"There is some justice in what you say," admitted the stranger, "if you persist in looking on this thing as a business proposition. But it seems to my confessedly untrained mind that you missed the point. 'Trust in the Lord,' saith the prophet. In fact, certain rivals in your own field hold the doctrine you expound, and you consider them wrong. 'To do evil that good may come' I seem to recognize as a tenet of the Church of the Jesuits."

"I protest. I really do protest," objected the clergyman, scandalized.

"All right," agreed Ned Trent, with good-natured contempt. "That is not the point. Do you refuse?"

"Can't you see?" begged the other. "I'm sure you are reasonable enough to take the case on its broader side."

"You refuse?" insisted Ned Trent.

"It is not always easy to walk straightly before the Lord, and my way is not always clear before me, but----"

"You refuse!" cried Ned Trent, rising impatiently.

The reverend Archibald Crane looked at his catechiser with a trace of alarm.

"I'm sorry; I'm afraid I must," he apologized.

The stranger advanced until he touched the desk on the other side of which the Reverend Archibald was sitting, where he stood for some moments looking down on his opponent with an almost amused expression of contempt.

"You are an interesting little beast," he drawled, "and I've seen a lot of your kind in my time. Here you preach every Sunday, to whomever will listen to you, certain cut-and-dried doctrines you don't believe practically in the least. Here for the first time you have had a chance to apply them literally, and you hide behind a lot of words. And while you're about it you may as well hear what I have to say about your kind. I've had a pretty wide experience in the North, and I know what I'm talking about. Your work here among the Indians is rot, and every sensible man knows it. You coop them up in your log-built houses, you force on them clothes to which they are unaccustomed until they die of consumption. Under your little tin-steepled imitation of civilization, for which they are not fitted, they learn to beg, to steal, to lie. I have travelled far, but I have yet to discover what your kind are allowed on earth for. You are narrow-minded, bigoted, intolerant, and without a scrap of real humanity to ornament your mock religion. When you find you can't meddle with other people's affairs enough at home you get sent where you can get right in the business--and earn salvation for doing it. I don't know just why I should say this to you, but it sort of does me good to tell it. Once I heard one of your kind tell a sorrowing mother that her little child had gone to hell because it had died before he--the smug hypocrite--had sprinkled its little body with a handful of water. There's humanity for you! It may interest you to know that I thrashed that man then and there. You are all alike; I know the breed. When there is found a real man among you--and there are such--he is so different in everything, including his religion, as to be really of another race. I came here without the slightest expectation of getting what I asked for. As I said before, I know your breed, and I know just how well your two-thousand-year-old doctrines apply to practical cases. There is another way, but I hated to use it. You'd take it quick enough, I dare say. Here is where I should receive aid. I may have to get it where I should not. You a man of God! Why, you poor little insect, I can't even get angry at you!"

He stood for a moment looking at the confused and troubled clergyman. Then he went out.

Chapter Ten

Almost immediately the door opened again,

"You, Miss Albret!" cried Crane.

"What does this mean?" demanded Virginia, imperiously. "Who is that man? In what danger does he stand? What does he want a rifle for? I insist on knowing."

She stood straight and tall in the low room, her eyes flashing, her head thrown back in the assured power of command.

The Reverend Crane tried to temporize, hesitating over his words. She cut him short.

"That is nonsense. Everybody seems to know but myself. I am no child. I came to consult you--my spiritual adviser--in regard to this very case. Accidentally I overheard enough to justify me in knowing more."

The clergyman murmured something about the Company's secrets. Again she cut him short.

"Company's secrets! Since when has the Company confided in Andrew Laviolette, in Wishkobun, in _you_?"

"Possibly you would better ask your father," said Crane, with some return of dignity.

"It does not suit me to do so," replied she. "I insist that you answer my questions. Who is this man?"

"Ned Trent, he says."

"I will not be put off in this way. _Who_ is he? _What_ is he?"

"He is a Free Trader," replied the Reverend Crane with the air of a man who throws down a bomb and is afraid of the consequences. To his astonishment the bomb did not explode.

"What is that?" she asked, simply.

The man's jaw dropped and his eyes opened in astonishment. Here was a density of ignorance in regard to the ordinary affairs of the Post which could by no stretch of the imagination be ascribed to chance. If Virginia Albret did not know the meaning of the term, and all the tragic consequences it entailed, there could be but one conclusion: Galen Albret had not intended that she should know. She had purposely been left in ignorance, and a politic man would hesitate long before daring to enlighten her. The Reverend Crane, in sheer terror, became sullen.

"A Free Trader is a man who trades in opposition to the Company," said he, cautiously.

"What great danger is he in?" the girl persisted with her catechism.

"None that I am aware of," replied Crane, suavely. "He is a very ill-balanced and excitable young man."

Virginia's quick instincts recognized again the same barrier which, with the people, with Wishkobun, with her father, had shut her so effectively from the truth. Her power of femininity and position had to give way before the man's fear for himself and of Galen Albret's unexpressed wish. She asked a few more questions, received a few more evasive replies, and left the little clergyman to recover as best he might from a very trying evening.

Out in the night the girl hesitated in two minds as to what to do next. She was excited, and resolved to finish the affair, but she could not bring her courage to the point of questioning her father. That the stranger was in antagonism to the Company, that he believed himself to be in danger on that account, that he wanted succor, she saw clearly enough. But the whole affair was vague, disquieting. She wanted to see it plainly, know its reasons. And beneath her excitement she recognized, with a catch of the breath, that she was afraid for him. She had not time now to ask herself what it might mean; she only realized the presence of the fact.

She turned instinctively in the direction of Doctor Cockburn's house. Mrs. Cockburn was a plain little middle-aged woman with parted gray hair and sweet, faded eyes. In the life of the place she was a nonentity, and her tastes were homely and commonplace, but Virginia liked her.

She proved to be at home, the Doctor still at his dispensary, which was well. Virginia entered a small log room, passed through it immediately to a larger papered room, and sat down in a musty red armchair. The building was one of the old regime, which meant that its floor was of wide and rather uneven painted boards, its ceiling low, its windows small, and its general lines of an irregular and sagging rule-of-thumb tendency. The white wall-paper evidently concealed squared logs. The present inhabitants, being possessed at once of rather homely tastes and limited facilities, had over-furnished the place with an infinitude of little things--little rugs, little tables, little knit doilies, little racks of photographs, little china ornaments, little spidery what-nots, and shelves for books.

Virginia seated herself, and went directly to the topic.

"Mrs. Cockburn," she said, "you have always been very good to me, always, ever since I came here as a little girl. I have not always appreciated it, I am afraid, but I am in great trouble, and I want your help."

"What is it, dearie," asked the older woman, softly. "Of course I will do anything I can."

"I want you to tell me what all this mystery is--about the man who to-day arrived from Kettle Portage, I mean. I have asked everybody: I have tried by all means in my power to get somebody somewhere to tell me. It is maddening--and I have a special reason for wanting to know."

The older woman was already gazing at her through troubled eyes.

"It is a shame and a mistake to keep you so in ignorance!" she broke out, "and I have said so always. There are many things you have the right to know, although some of them would make you very unhappy--as they do all of us poor women who have to live in this land of dread. But in this I cannot, dearie."

Virginia felt again the impalpable shadow of truth escaping her. Baffled, confused, she began to lose her self-control. A dozen times to-day she had reached after this thing, and always her fingers had closed on empty air. She felt that she could not stand the suspense of bewilderment a single instant longer. The tears overflowed and rolled down her cheeks unheeded.

"Oh, Mrs. Cockburn!" she cried. "Please! You do not know how dreadful this thing has come to be to me just because it is made so mysterious. Why has it been kept from me alone? It must have something to do with me, and I can't stand this mystery, this double-dealing, another minute. If you won't tell me, nobody will, and I shall go on imagining--Oh, please have pity on me! I feel the shadow of a tragedy. It comes out in everything, in everybody to whom I turn. I see it in Wishkobun's avoidance of me, in my father's silence, in Mr. Crane's confusion, in your reluctance--yes, in the very reckless insolence of Mr. Trent himself!"--her voice broke slightly. "If you will not tell me, I shall go direct to my father," she ended, with more firmness.

Mrs. Cockburn examined the girl's flushed face through kindly but shrewd and experienced eyes. Then, with a caressing little murmur of pity, she arose and seated herself on the arm of the red chair, taking the girl's hand in hers.

"I believe you mean it," she said, "and I am going to tell you myself. There is much sorrow in it for you; but if you go to your father it will only make it worse. I am doing what I should not. It is shameful that such things happen in this nineteenth century, but happen they do. The long and short of it is that the Factors of this Post tolerate no competition in the country, and when a man enters it for the purpose of trading with the Indians, he is stopped and sent out."

"There is nothing very bad about that." said Virginia, relieved.

"No, my dear, not in that. But they say his arms and supplies are taken from him, and he is given a bare handful of provisions. He has to make a quick journey, and to starve at that. Once when I was visiting out at the front, not many years ago, I saw one of those men--they called him Jo Bagneau--and his condition was pitiable--pitiable!"

"But hardships can be endured. A man can escape."

"Yes," almost whispered Mrs. Cockburn, looking about her apprehensively, "but the story goes that there are some cases--when the man is an old offender, or especially determined, or so prominent as to be able to interest the law--no one breathes of these cases here--but--_he never gets out_!"

"What do you mean?" cried Virginia, harshly.

"One dares not mean such things; but they are so. The hardships of the wilderness are many, the dangers terrible--what more natural than that a man should die of them in the forest? It is no one's fault."

"What do you mean?" repeated Virginia; "for God's sake speak plainly!"

"I dare not speak plainer than I know; and no one ever really _knows_ anything about it--excepting the Indian who fires the shot, or who watches the man until he dies of starvation." whispered Mrs. Cockburn.

"But--but!" cried the girl, grasping her companion's arm. "My father! Does _he_ give such orders? _He_?"

"No orders are given. The thing is understood. Certain runners, whose turn it is, shadow the Free Trader. Your father is not responsible; no one is responsible. It is the policy."

"And this man----"

"It has gone about that he is to take _la Longue Traverse_. He knows it himself."

"It is barbaric, horrible; it is murder."

"My dear, it is all that; but this is the country of dread. You have known the soft, bright side always--the picturesque men, the laugh, the song. If you had seen as much of the harshness of wilderness life as a doctor's wife must you would know that when the storms of their great passions rage it is well to sit quiet at your prayers."

The girl's eyes were wide-fixed, staring at this first reality of life. A thousand new thoughts jostled for recognition. Suddenly her world had been swept from beneath her. The ancient patriarchal, kindly rule had passed away, and in its place she was forced to see a grim iron bond of death laid over her domain. And her father--no longer the grave, kindly old man--had become the ruthless tyrant. All these bright, laughing _voyageurs_, playmates of her childhood, were in reality executioners of a savage blood-law. She could not adjust herself to it.

She got to her feet with an effort. "Thank you, Mrs. Cockburn," she said, in a low voice. "I--I do not quite understand. But I must go now. I must--I must see that my father's room is ready for him." she finished, with the proud defensive instinct of the woman who has been deeply touched. "You know I always do that myself."

"Good-night, dearie," replied the older woman, understanding well the girl's desire to shelter behind the commonplace. She leaned forward and kissed her. "God keep and guide you. I hope I have done right."

"Yes," cried Virginia, with unexpected fire. "Yes, you did just right! I ought to have been told long ago! They've kept me a perfect child to whom everything has been bright and care-free and simple. I--I feel that until this moment I have lacked my real womanhood!"

She bowed her head and passed through the log room into the outer air.

Her father, _her_ father, had willed this man's death, and so he was to die! That explained many things--the young fellow's insolence, his care-free recklessness, his passionate denunciation of the Reverend Crane and the Reverend Crane's religion. He wanted one little thing--the gift of a rifle wherewith to assure his subsistence should he escape into the forest--and of all those at Conjuror's House to whom he might turn for help, some were too hard to give it to him, and some too afraid! He should have it! She, the daughter of her father, would see to it that in this one instance her father's sin should fail! Suddenly, in the white heat of her emotion, she realized why these matters stirred her so profoundly, and she stopped short and gasped with the shock of it. It did not matter that she thwarted her father's will; it would not matter if she should be discovered and punished as only these harsh characters could punish. For the brave bearing, the brave jest, the jaunty facing of death, the tender, low voice, the gay song, the aurora-lit moment of his summons--all these had at last their triumph. She knew that she loved him; and that if he were to die, she would surely die too.

And, oh, it must be that he loved her! Had she not heard it in the music of his voice from the first?--the passion of his tones? the dreamy, lyrical swing of his talk by the old bronze guns?

Then she staggered sharply, and choked back a cry. For out of her recollections leaped two sentences of his--the first careless, imprudent, unforgivable; the second pregnant with meaning. "_Ah, a star shoots_!" he had said. "_That means a kiss_!" and again, to the clergyman, "_I came here without the slightest expectation of getting what I asked for. There is another way, but I hate to use it_."

She was the other way! She saw it plainly. He did not love her, but he saw that he could fascinate her, and he hoped to use her as an aid to his escape. She threw her head up proudly.

Then a man swung into view across the Northern Lights. Virginia pressed back against the palings among the bushes until he should have passed. It was Ned Trent, returning from a walk to the end of the island. He was alone and unfollowed, and the girl realized with a sudden grip at the heart that the wilderness itself was sufficient safeguard against a man unarmed and unequipped. It was not considered worth while even to watch him. Should he escape, unarmed as he was, sure death by starvation awaited him in the land of dread.

As he entered the settlement he struck up an air.

"Le fils du roi s'en va chassant,
En roulant ma boule,
Avec son grand fusil d'argent,
Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant."

Almost immediately a window slid back, and an exasperated voice cried out:

"_Hola_ dere, w'at one time dam fool you for mak' de sing so late!"

The voice went on imperturbably:

"Avec son grand fusil d'argent,
En roulant ma boule,
Visa le noir, tua le blanc,
Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant."

"_Sacre_!" shrieked the habitant.

"Hello, Johnny Frenchman!" called Ned Trent, in his acid tones. "That you? Be more polite, or I'll stand here and sing you the whole of it."

The window slammed shut.

Ned Trent took up his walk again toward some designated sleeping-place of his own, his song dying into the distance.

"Visa le noir, tua le blanc,
En roulant ma boule,
O fils du roi, tu es mechant!
Rouli roulant, ma boule roulant."

"And he can _sing_!" cried the girl bitterly to herself. "At such a time! Oh, my dear God, help me, help me! I am the unhappiest girl alive!"

Chapter Eleven

Virginia did not sleep at all that night. She was reaching toward her new self. Heretofore she had ruled those about her proudly, secure in her power and influence. Now she saw that all along her influence had in not one jot exceeded that of the winsome girl. She had no real power at all. They went mercilessly on in the grim way of their fathers, dealing justice even-handed according to their own crude conceptions of it, without thought of God or man. She turned hot all over as she saw herself in this new light--as she saw those about her indulgently smiling at her airs of the mistress of it. It angered her--though the smile might be good-humored, even affectionate.

And she shrank into herself with utter loathing when she remembered Ned Trent. There indeed her woman's pride was hard stricken. She recalled with burning cheeks how his intense voice had stirred her; how his wishes had compelled her; she shivered pitifully as she remembered the warmth of his shoulder touching carelessly her own. If he had come to her honestly and asked her aid, she would have given it; but this underhand pretence at love! It was unworthy of him; and it was certainly most unworthy of her. What must he think of her? How he must be laughing at her--and hoping that his spell was working, so that he could get the coveted rifle and the forty cartridges.

"I hate him!" she cried to herself, the backs of her long, slender hands pressed against her eyes. She meant that she loved him, but for the purposes in hand one would do as well as the other.

At earliest daylight she was up. Bathing her face and throat in cold water, and hastily catching her beautiful light hair under a cap, she slipped down stairs and out past the stockade to the point. There she seated herself, a heavy shawl about her, and gave herself up to reflection. She had approached silently, her moccasins giving no sound. Presently she became aware that someone was there before her. Looking toward the river she saw on the next level below her a man, seated on a bowlder, and gazing to the south.

His very soul was in his eyes. Virginia gasped at the change in him since last she had seen him. The gay, mocking demeanor which had seemed an essential part of his very flesh and blood had fallen away from him, leaving a sad and lofty dignity that ennobled his countenance. The lines of his face were stern, of his mouth pathetic; his eyes yearned. He stared toward the south with an almost mesmeric intensity, as though he hoped by sheer longing to materialize a vision. Tears sprang to the girl's eyes at the subtle pathos of his attitude.

He stretched his arms wearily over his head, and sighed deeply and looked up. His eyes rested on the girl without surprise; the expression of his features did not change.

"Pardon me," he said, simply. "To-day is my last of plenty. I am up enjoying it."

Virginia had anticipated the usual instantaneous transformation of his manner when he should catch sight of her. Her resentment was dispelled. In face of the vaster tragedies little considerations gave way.

"Do you leave--to-day?" she asked, in a low voice.

"To-morrow morning, early," he corrected. "To-day I found my provisions packed and laid at my door. It is a hint I know how to take."

"You have everything you need?" asked the girl, with an assumption of indifference.

He looked her in the eyes for a moment.

"Everything," he lied, calmly.

Virginia perceived that he lied, and her heart stood still with a sudden hope that perhaps, at this eleventh hour, he might have repented of his unworthy intentions toward herself. She leaned to him over the edge of the little rise.

"Have you a rifle--for _la Longue Traverse_?" she inquired, with meaning.

He stared at her a little the harder.

"Why--why, surely," he replied, in a tone less confident. "Nobody travels without a rifle in the North."

She dropped swiftly down the slope and stood face to face with him.

"Listen," she began, in her superb manner. "I know all there is to know. You are a Free Trader, and you are to be sent to your death. It is murder, and it is done by my father." She held her head proudly, but the notes of her voice were straining. "I knew nothing of this yesterday. I was a foolish girl who thought all men were good and just, and that all those whom I knew were noble. My eyes are open now. I see injustice being done by my own household, and "--tears were trembling near her lashes, but she blinked them back--"and I am no longer a foolish girl! You need not try to deceive me. You must tell me what I can do, for I cannot permit so great a wrong to be done by my father without attempting to set it right." This was not what she had intended to say, but suddenly the course was clear to her. The influence of the man had again swept over her, drowning her will, filling her with the old fear, which was now for the moment turned to pride by the character of the situation.

But to her surprise the man was thinking of something else.

"Who told you?" he demanded, harshly. Then, without waiting for a reply, "It was that little preacher; I'll have an interview with him!"

"No, no!" protested the girl. "It was not he. It was a friend. I had the right to know."

"You had no right!" he cried, vehemently. "You and life should have nothing to do with each other. There is a look in your eyes that was not in them yesterday, and the one who put it there is not your friend." He stood staring at her intently, as one who ponders what is best to do. Then very quietly he took her hands and drew her to a place beside him on the bowlder.