 17 They carried the unconscious girl into the dim-lighted apartment of the curtained windows and laid her on the die-van. Wischkoband hastily summoned unfastened the girl's dress at the throat. "'It is a faint,' she announced in her own tongue. "'She will recover in a few minutes. I will get some water.' Ned Trent wiped the moisture from his forehead with his handkerchief. The danger he had undergone coolly, but this overcame his iron self-control. Galen Albert, like an anxious bear, weaved back and forth the length of the couch. In him the rumble of the storm was but just echoing into distance. "'Go into the next room,' he growled at the free trader, when finally he noticed the latter's presence. Ned Trent hesitated. "'Go,' I say, snarled the factor. You can do nothing here.' He followed the young man to the door, which he closed with his own hand, and then turned back to the couch on which his daughter lay. In the middle of the floor his foot clicked on some small object. Mechanically he picked it up. It proved to be a little silver match safe of the sort universally used in the far north. Evidently the free trader had flipped it from his pocket with his handkerchief. The factor was about to thrust it into his own pocket when his eye caught lettering roughly carved across one side. Still mechanically he examined it more closely. The lettering was that of a man's name. The man's name was Graham Stewart. Without thinking of what he did he dropped the object on the small table and returned anxiously to the girl's side, cursing the tardiness of the Indian woman. But in a moment Wishcobin returned. "'Will she recover?' asked the factor, distracted at the woman's deliberate examination. The latter smiled her indulgent, slow smile. "'But surely,' she assured him in her own tongue. It is no more than if she cut her finger. In a few breaths she will recover. Now I will go to the house of the cockburn for a morsel of the sweet wood which she must smell.' She looked her inquiry for permission. "'Sagamig, go!' assented Albert. Relieved in mind he dropped into a chair. His eye caught the little silver match safe. He picked it up and fell to staring at the rudely carved letters. He found that he was alone with his daughter and the thoughts aroused by the dozen letters of a man's name. All his life long he had been a hard man. His commands had been autocratic, his anger formidable, his punishments severe and sometimes cruel. The quality of mercy was with him tenuous and weak. He knew this, and if he did not exactly glory in it, he was at least indifferent to its effect on his reputation with others. But always he had been just. The victims of his displeasure might complain that his retributive measures were harsh, that his forgiveness could not be evoked by even the most extenuating of circumstances, but not that his anger had ever been baseless or the punishment undeserved. Thus he had held always his own self-respect and from his self-respect had preceded his iron and effective rule. So in the case of the young man with whom now his thoughts were occupied, twice he had warned him from the country without the punishment which the third attempt rendered imperative. The events succeeding his arrival at Conjurer's house warmed the factor's anger to the heat of almost preposterous retribution, perhaps, for after all a man's life is worth something even in the wilds. But it was actually retribution and not merely a ruthless proof of power. It might be justice as only the factor saw it, but it was still essentially justice in the broader sense that to each act had followed a definite consequence. Although another might have condemned his conduct as unnecessarily harsh, Helen Albert's conscience was satisfied and at rest. Nor had his resolution been permanently affected by either the girl's threat to make away with herself or by his momentary softening when she had fainted. The affair was thereby complicated, but that was all. In the sincerity of the threat he recognized his own iron nature and was perhaps a little pleased at its manifestation. He knew she intended to fulfill her promise not to survive her lover, but at the moment this did not reach his fears. It only aroused further his dogged opposition. The free trader's speech, as he left the room, however, had touched the one flaw in Galen Albert's confidence of righteousness. Weiried with the struggles and the passions he had undergone, his brain numbed, his will for the moment in abeyance, he seated himself and contemplated the images those two words had called up. Graham Steward. That man he had first met at Fort Ray over twenty years ago. It was but just after he had married Virginia's mother. At once his imagination, with the keen pictorial power of those who have dwelt long in the silent places, brought forward the other scene, that of his wooing. He had driven his dogs into Fort LaCloche after a hard day's run in seventy-five degrees of frost. Weary, hungry, half frozen, he had staggered into the fire-lit room. Against the blaze he had caught for a moment a young girl's profile, lost as she turned her face toward him in a startled question of his entrance. Men had cared for his dogs. The girl had brought him hot tea. In the corner of the fire they too had whispered one to the other, the already grizzled traveller of the silent land, the fresh, brave North Maiden. At midnight their parkas drawn close about their faces in the fearful cold they had met outside the enclosure of the post. An hour later they were away under the aurora for Capelle. Galen Albrecht's nostrils expanded as he heard the crack, crack, crack of the remorseless dog-whip whose sting drew him away from the vain pursuit. After the marriage at Capelle they had gone a weary journey to Ray, and there he had first seen Graham Stewart. Fort Ray is on the northwestward arm of the Great Slave Lake in the country of the dog-ribs, only four degrees under the Arctic circle. It is a dreary spot, for the barren grounds are near. Men see only the Great Lake, the Great Sky, the Great Gray Country. They become moody, fanciful. In the face of the silence they have little to say. At Fort Ray were old Jock Wilson, the chief trader, Father Bonah, the priest, Andrew Levoix, the Metis clerk, four dog-rib tipis, Galen Albrecht and his bride, and Graham Stewart. Jock Wilson was sixty-five. Father Bonah had no age. Andrew Levoix possessed the years of dour silence. Only Graham Stewart and Elodie, bride of Albrecht, were young. In the Great Gray Country their lives were like spots of color on a mist. Galen Albrecht finally became jealous. At first there was nothing to be done, but finally Levoix brought to the older man proof of the younger's guilt. The harsh traveler bowed his head and wept. But since he loved Elodie more than himself, which was perhaps the only redeeming feature of this sorry business, he said nothing, nor did more than to journey south to Edmonton, leaving the younger man alone in Fort Ray to the white silence. But his soul was stirred. In the course of nature and of time Galen Albrecht had a daughter, but lost a wife. It was no longer necessary for him to leave his wrong un-avenged. Then began a series of baffling hindrances which resulted finally in his stooping to means repugnant to his open sense of what was due himself. At the first he could not travel to his enemy because of the child and his care. When finally he had succeeded in placing the little girl where he would be satisfied to leave her, he himself was suddenly and peremptorily called east to take a post in Rupert's land. He could not disobey and remain in the company, and the company was more to him than life or revenge. The little girl he left in Sacre-Cœur of Quebec, he himself took up his residences in the Hudson Bay country. After a few years, becoming lonely for his own flesh and blood, he sent for his daughter. There, as factor, he gained a vast power, and this power he turned into the channels of his hatred. Graham Stewart felt always against him the hand of influence. His posts in the company's service became intolerable. At length, an indignation against continued injustice, oppression, and insult, he resigned, broken in fortune and in prospects. He became one of the earliest free traders on the Saskatchewan, devoting his energies to enraged opposition of the company which had wronged him. In the space of three short years he had met a violent and striking death. For the early days of the free trader were adventurous. Galen Albrecht's revenge had struck home. Then in after years the factor had again met with Andrew Levois. The man staggered into Conjurer's house late at night. He had started from Winnipeg to descend the Albany River, but had met with mishap and starvation. One by one his dogs had died. In some blind fashion he pushed on for days after his strength and sanity had left him. Muhikun had brought him in. His toes and fingers had frozen and dropped off. His face was a mask of black, frost-bitten flesh in which deep fishers opened to the raw. He had gone snow-blind. Scarcely was he recognizable as a human being. From such a man in extremity could come nothing but the truth, so Galen Albrecht believed him. Before Andrew Levois died that night he told of his deceit. The factor left the room with the weight of a crime on his conscience, for Graham Stewart had been innocent of any wrong toward him or his bride. Such was the story Galen Albrecht saw in the little silver matchbox. That was the one flaw in his consciousness of righteousness, the one instance in a long career when his ruthless acts of punishment or reprisal had not rested on rigid justice, and by the irony of fate the one instance had touched him very near. Now here before him was his enemy's son. He wondered that he had not discovered the resemblance before, and he was about to visit on him the severest punishment in his power. Was not this an opportunity vouchsafed him to repair his ancient fault, to cleanse his conscience of the one sin of the kind it would acknowledge? But then over him swept the same blur of jealousy that had resulted in Graham Stewart's undoing. This youth wooed his daughter. He had won her affections away. Strangely enough Galen Albrecht confused the new and the old, again youth cleave to youth, leaving age apart. Age felt fiercely the desire to maintain its own. The factor crushed the silver matchbox between his great palms and looked up. His daughter lay before him, still, lifeless. Deliberately he rested his chin on his hands and contemplated her. The room, as always, was full of contrast. Shafts of light, dust-motored, bewildering, crossed from the embrasured windows, throwing highlights into prominence and shadows into impenetrable darkness. They rendered the gray-clad figure of the girl vague and ethereal, like a mist above a stream. They darkened the dull-hued couch on which she rested into a liquid, impelpable black. They hazed the draped background of the corner into a far-reaching distance, so that finally to Galen Albrecht, staring with hypnotic intensity, it came to seem that he looked upon a pure and disembodied spirit sleeping sweetly, cradled on in illimitable space. The ordinary and familiar surroundings all disappeared. His consciousness accepted nothing but the cameo profile of marble white, the nimbus of golden haze about the head, the mist-like suggestion of a body, and again the clear marble spot of the hands. All else was a background of modulated depths. So gradually the old man's spirit, wearied by the stress of the last hour, turned in on itself and began to create. The cameo profile, the mist-like body, the marble hands remained. But now Galen Albrecht saw other things as well. A dim, rare perfume was wafted from some unseen space. Indistinct flashes of light spotted the darknesses. Faint swells of music lifted the silence intermittently. These things were small and still, and under the external consciousness, like the voices one may hear beneath the roar of a tumbling rapid, but gradually they defined themselves. The perfume came to Galen Albrecht's nostrils on the wings of incensed smoke. The flashes of light steadied to the ovals of candle-flames. The faint swells of music blended into grand-breathed organ cords. He felt about him the dim awe of the church. He saw the tapers burning at head and foot, the clear, calm face of the dead, smiling faintly that, at last, it should be no more disturbed. So had he looked all one night and all one day in the long time ago. The factor stretched his arms out to the figure on the couch, but he called upon his wife, gone these twenty years. "'Ello, Di! Ello, Di!' he murmured softly. She had never known it, thank God, but he had wronged her, too. In all sorrow and sweet heavenly pity he had believed that her youth had turned to the youth of the other man. It had not been so. Did he not owe her, too, some reparation?' As though in answer to his appeal, or perhaps that merely the sound of a human voice had broken the last shreds of her swoon, the girl moved slightly. Galen Albrecht did not stir. Slowly Virginia turned her head, until finally her wandering eyes met his, fixed on her with passionate intensity. For a moment she stared at him. Then comprehension came to her along with memory. She cried out and sat upright in one violent motion. "'He! He!' she cried. "'Is he gone?' Instantly Galen Albrecht had her in his arms. "'It is all right,' he soothed, drawing her close to his great breast. "'All right! You are my own little girl!' End of Chapter 17. For perhaps ten minutes Ned Trent lingered near the door of the council room until he had assured himself that Virginia was in no serious danger. Then he began to pace the room, examining minutely the various objects that ornamented it. He paused longest at the full-length portrait of Sir George Simpson, the company's great traveller, with his mild blue eyes, his kindly face, denying the potency of his official frown, his snowy hair and whiskers. The painted man and the real man looked at each other inquiringly. The latter shook his head. "'You travelled the wild country far,' said he thoughtfully. "'You knew many men of many lands. And wherever you went, they tell me you made friends. And yet, as you embodied this company to all these people, and so made for the fanatical loyalty that is destroying me, I suppose you and I are enemies!' He shrugged his shoulders whimsically and turned away. Thence he cast a fleeting glance out the window at the long reach of the moose and the blue bay gleaming in the distance. He tried the outside door. It was locked. Taken with a new idea, he proceeded at once to the third door of the apartment. It opened. He found himself in a small and much littered room containing a desk, two chairs, a vast quantity of papers, a stuffed bird or so, and a row of account books. Evidently the factor's private office. Ned Trent returned to the main room and listened intently for several minutes. After that he ran back to the office and began hastily to open and rummage, one after another the drawers of the desk. He discovered and concealed several bits of string, a desk knife, and a box of matches. Then he uttered a guarded exclamation of delight. He had found a small revolver and with it part of a box of cartridges. A chance! he exalted. A chance! The game would be desperate. He would be forced, first of all, to seek out and kill them in detail to shadow him, a toy revolver against rifles, white man against train savages. And after that he would have, with the cartridges remaining, to assure his subsistence. Still it was a chance. He closed the drawers and the door and resumed his seat in the armchair by the council table. For over an hour thereafter he awaited the next move in the game. He was already swinging up the pendulum arc. The case did not appear utterly hopeless. He resolved, through Mayangan, whom he defined as a friend of the girls, to smuggle a message to Virginia bidding her hope. Already his imagination had conducted him to Quebec when in August he would search her out and make her his own. Soon one of the Indian servants entered the room for the purpose of conducting him to a smaller apartment where he was left alone for some time longer. Food was brought him. He ate heartily, for he considered that wise. Then at last the summons for which he had been so long in readiness. Mayangan himself entered the room and motioned him to follow. Ned Trent had already prepared his message on the back of an envelope, writing it with the lead of a cartridge. He now pressed the bit of paper into the Indian's palm. For omimi, he explained. Mayangan bored him through with his bead-like eyes of the surface lights. He led the way. Ned Trent followed through the narrow, uncorpeted hall with the faded photograph of Westminster, down the crooked steep stairs with the creaking degrees, and finally into the council-room once more, with its heavy rafters, its two fireplaces, its long table, and its narrow windows. Bicca, wait! commanded Mayangan and left him. Ned Trent had supposed he was being conducted to the canoe which should bear him on the first stage of his long journey, but now he seemed condemned again to take up the wearing uncertainty of inaction. The interval was not long, however. Almost immediately the other door opened and the factor entered. His movements were abrupt and impatient, for with whatever grace such a man yields to his better instinct, the actual carrying out of their conditions is a severe trial. For one thing it is a species of emotional nakedness, invariably repugnant to the self-contained. Ned Trent, observing this and misinterpreting its cause, hugged the little revolver to his side with grim satisfaction. The interview was likely to be stormy. If worst came to worst he was at least assured of reprisal before his own end. The factor walked directly to the head of the table and his customary arm-chair in which he disposed himself. "'Sit down,' he commanded the younger man, indicating a chair at his elbow. The latter, warily obeyed. Galen Albert hesitated appreciably. Then, as one might make a plunge into cold water, quickly, in one motion, he laid on the table something over which he held his hand. "'You are wondering why I am interviewing you again,' said he. "'It is because I have become aware of certain things.' "'When you left me a few hours ago, you dropped this,' he moved his hand to one side. The silver mat safe lay on the table. "'Yes, it is mine,' agreed Ned Trent. "'On one side is carved a name.' "'Yes.' "'Who's?' "'The free trader hesitated.' "'My father's,' he said at last. "'I thought that must be so. You will understand when I tell you that at one time I knew him very well.' "'You knew my father?' cried Ned Trent excitedly. "'Yes, at Fort Ray and elsewhere. But I do not remember you.' "'I was brought up at Winnipeg,' the other explained. "'Once,' pursued Galen Albert, "'I did your father a wrong, unintentionally, but nevertheless a great wrong. For that reason and others I am going to give you your life.' "'What wrong?' demanded Ned Trent, with dawning excitement. "'I forced him from the company.' "'You!' "'Yes, I. Proof was brought me that he had won from me my young wife. It could not be doubted. I could not kill him. Afterward the man who deceived me confessed. He is now dead.' Ned Trent, gasping, rose slowly to his feet. One hand stole inside his jacket and clutched the butt of the little pistol. "'You did that?' he cried hoarsely. "'You tell me of it yourself? Do you wish to know the real reason for my coming into this country? Why I have traded in defiance of the company throughout the whole far north? I have thought my father was persecuted by a body of men, and though I could not do much, still I have accomplished what I could to avenge him. Had I known that a single man had done this, and you are that man!' He came a step nearer. Galen Albert regarded him steadily. "'If I had known this before, I should never have rested until I had hunted you down, until I had killed you, even in the midst of your own people!' cried the free trader at last. Galen Albert drew his heavy revolver and laid it on the table. "'Do so now!' he said quietly. A pause fell on them, pregnant with possibility. The free trader dropped his head. "'No,' he groaned. "'No, I cannot. She stands in the way.' "'So that, after all,' concluded the factor, in a gentler tone that he had yet employed, we too shall part peaceably. I have wronged you greatly, though without intention. Perhaps one balances the other. We will let it pass.' "'Yes,' agreed Ned Trent with an effort, we will let it pass.' They mused in silence, while the factor drummed on the table with the stubby fingers of his right hand. "'I am dispatching to-day,' he announced curtly at length, the Abidibi Brigade. Matters of importance brought by runner from Rupert's house forced me to do so a month earlier than I had expected. I shall send you out with that brigade.' "'Very well. You will find your packs and arms in the canoe, quite intact.' "'Thank you.' The factor examined the young man's face with some deliberation. "'You love my daughter, truly?' he asked quietly. "'Yes,' replied Ned Trent, also quietly. "'That is well, for she loves you.' "'And,' went on the old man, throwing his massive head back proudly, "'my people love well. I won her mother in a day, and nothing could stay us. God be thanked, you are a man and brave and clean. "'Enough of that. I place the brigade under your command. "'You must be responsible for it, for I am sending no other white. The crew are Indians and Métis.' "'All right,' agreed Ned Trent, indifferently. "'My daughter, you will take to Sacre-de-Cœur at Québec.' "'Virginia!' cried the young man. "'I am sending her to Québec. I had not intended doing so until July, but the matters from Rupert's house make it imperative now.' "'Virginia goes with me?' "'Yes.' "'You consent?' "'You—' "'Young man,' said Galen Albright, not unkindly. "'I give my daughter in your charge. That is all. You must take her to Sacre-de-Cœur, and you must be patient. Next year I shall resign, for I am getting old, and then we shall see. That is all I can tell you now.' He rose abruptly. "'Come,' said he. They are waiting.' They threw wide the door and stepped out into the open. A breeze from the north brought a draft of air like cold water in its refreshment. The waters of the north sparkled and tossed in the silvery sun. Ned Trent threw his arms wide in the physical delight of a new freedom. But his companion was already descending the steps. He followed across the square grass plot to the two bronze guns. A noise of peoples came down the breeze. In a moment he saw them, the varied multitude of the post, gathered to speed the brigade on its distant journey. The little beach was crowded with the company's people and with Indians, talking eagerly, moving hither and yon in a shifting kaleidoscope of brilliant color. Beyond the shore floated the long canoe, with its curving ends and its emblazement of the five-pointed stars. Already its baggage was aboard, its crew in place, ten men in whose caps slanted long, graceful feathers, which proved them boatmen of a factor. The women sat amid ships. When Galen Albright reached the edge of the plateau, he stopped and laid his hand on the young man's arm. As yet they were unperceived. Then a single man caught sight of them. He spoke to another. The two informed still others. In an instant the bright colors were dotted with upturned faces. Listen! said Galen Albright in his resonant chest tones of authority. This is my son, and he must be obeyed. I give to him the command of this brigade. See to it. Without troubling himself further as to the crowd below, Galen Albright turned to his companion. I will say good-bye, said he, formally. Good-bye, replied Ned Trent. All is at peace between us. The free trader looked long into the man's sad eyes. The hard, proud spirit bowed in nightly expiation of its one fault, for the first time in a long life of command looked out in petition. All is at peace, repeated Ned Trent. They clasped hands, and Virginia, perceiving them so, threw them a wonderful smile. End of Chapter 18, Recording by Roger Maline Chapter 19 of Conjurer's House, A Romance of the Free Forest This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline Conjurer's House, A Romance of the Free Forest By Stuart Edward White Chapter 19 Instantly the spell of inaction broke. The crowd recommended its babble of jests, advices, and farewells. Ned Trent swung down the bank to the shore. The boatman fixed the canoe on the very edge of floating free. Two of them lifted the young man aboard to a place on the furs by Virginia Albert's side. At once the crowd pressed forward, filling up the empty spaces. Now Achille Picard bent his shoulders to lift into free water the stem of the canoe from its touch on the bank. It floated, caught gently by the back wash of the stronger offshore current. Good-bye, dear! called Mrs. Cockburn. Remember us! She pressed the doctor's arm closer to her side. The doctor waved his hand, not trusting his masculine self-control to speak. MacDonald, too, stood glum and dour, clasping his wrist behind his back. Richardson was openly affected. For in Virginia's person they saw sailing away from their bleak northern lives the figure of youth. And they knew that henceforth life must be even drearier. Some time you'll come back, sing him de recidas song! shouted Louis Placide to his late captive. I like hear him! But Gail and Albert said nothing, made no sign. Silently and steadily, run up by some invisible hand, the blood-red banner of the company fluttered to the masthead. Before it, alone, bolt huge against the sky, dominating the people in the symbolism of his position there as he did in the realities of everyday life, the factor stood, his hands behind his back. Virginia rose to her feet, and stretched her arms out to the solitary figure. Good-bye! Good-bye! she cried. A renewed tempest of cheers and shouts of adieu broke from those ashore. The paddles dipped once, twice, thrice, and paused. With one accord those on shore and those in the canoe raised their caps, and said, A moment's silence followed, during which the current of the mighty river bore the light-craft a few yards downstream. Then from the ten voyageurs arose a great shout, Abitibi! Abitibi! Their paddles struck in unison. The water swirled in white circular eddies. Instantly the canoe caught its momentum and began to slip along against the sluggish current. Achilles Picard raised a high tenor voice, fixing the air. Arroulant, ma boule, roulant! Arroulant, ma boule! And the voyageurs swung into the quaint ballad of the fairy ducks and the naughty prince with his magic gun. Derrière chez nous, il y a ton étang! Arroulant, ma boule! The girl sank back, dabbing uncertainly at her eyes. I shall never see them again, she explained wistfully. The canoe had now caught at speed. Conjurer's house was dropping a stern. The rhythm of the song quickened as the singers told of how the king's son had aimed at the black duck but killed the white. Ah, fi droit, tu es méchant! Arroulant, ma boule! Toutes les plumes sont vents au vent! Roulis, roulant, ma boule, roulant! Wé wik! Wé wik! commanded me engun sharply from the bow. The men quickened to their stroke and shot diagonally across the current of an eddy. N'est chez chien, said me engun. They fell back to the old stroke, rolling out their full-throated measure. Toutes les plumes sont vents au vent! Arroulant, ma boule! Trois dames sont vents les ramassants! Roulis, roulant, ma boule, roulant! The canoe was now in the smooth rush of the first stretch of swifter water. The men bent to their work with stiffened elbows. Achille Picard flashed his white teeth back at the passengers. Ah, mademoiselle, it is one long way! he panted. C'est une longue traverse! The term was evidently descriptive, but the two smiled significantly at each other. So you do take the longue traverse after all, marveled Virginia. Ned Trent clasped her hand. We take it together, he replied. Into the distance faded the post. The canoe rounded a bend. It was gone. Ahead of them lay their long journey, the end. End of Chapter 19, Recording by Roger Maline End of Conjurer's House, A Romance of the Free Forest by Stuart Edward White