Samuel Alexander White

“ Through this lane a fresh-faced girl of twenty-four or -five pushed from the rear, the rustle of her canary-satin dress and the tap-tap of her dainty pumps falling with strange distinctness across the silence of the Saxon.
"Winnie, shake hands with an old friend of yours!" yawned Bassett.
White-Pass-City Winnie gave one swift, curious glance at the woman by the stove and recoiled, her nose in the air.
"Me? Shake with Blera Sark? Not much! And if I'd shamed as good a man as Eric Sark for a cur like Jose Cantine I'd spare my old friends the sight of my face!" ”

“ Yet amid a horde of mighty fishers Taylor maintained his reputation as the greatest of them all. No man hauled more quintals at a single haul than he, and no man sent such catches slithering along old Peter's chutes. Between hauls he and his crew worked on the Graywing. Like Cortereal of old he cut tall masts from the hills, and when everything was in readiness all Château turned out to restep the schooner and dance on her deck and old Peter's wharf in her honor as they christened her brand-new canvas with strong waters of the North. ”

“ Off Caribou Point Wahbiscaw, the bowsman of Dunvegan's canoe, cried out sharply in his native tongue. The craft turned aside from a jagged reef of rock that poked like a pike's nose almost to the surface. Then they sped on with increasing rapidity. The Cree knew every channel, every fang, every shoal, every bar in the shallows of Oxford Lake. And of every other lake and river in his district there was a map in his mind.
It is the unequalled gift of the true red man to remember country over which he has travelled but once. ”

“ It was wild work in a wall of spray for a moment, and Marie caught her breath, her eyes on Taylor like a true Viking in storm or boarding clinging to the stump of the foremast, his fair head steel-haloed by his ax, hurling the wreckage adrift while the wind rose, bringing with it the menace of floe-ice hurtling down. The Esperance, in as bad a plight as they, threatened every moment to drift down on them. Her crew had hauled Pellier and Beauport aboard and were cutting their own wreckage free when the Graywing slowly righted and Marie drew her breath again. ”

“ You've got to get him going by pure persuasion."
"Go on and persuade, then," laughed Strickland. We haven't had a miracle in camp for a year."
"I can't do it alone," explained Cronin. "No more can Gayle, Thorpe, and me do it ourselves. We need our help, Strickland, and yours, Gunderhein. And we need the help of a sucker as slender and supple as an eel."
"That's Thorpe Calgour," decided Strickland. "He's the youngest man here, and the slenderest. And anybody who's tackled him knows how supple he is. You've no objections to playing eel for Cronin, have you, Thorpe?" ”

“ They stared at the breast of the whizzing slide, and the aurora, flaming abruptly, painted darkly against the white the out lines of a man, five huskies, and a sled. Like a phantom dog-train it seemed, riding a ghost-trail through snow-swept space; but, when it hit a felled pine-tree, careened and came to rest upon the crest of the hog-back above Ten-Mile Cache, Sark and Bassett knew it for a material-outfit. ”

“ As if suddenly revealed by a lightning flash Jose and Blera glimpsed them right ahead, the murderous hunt-pack from Tutchi's Village sweeping the river-ice one hundred strong with one lone cross-fox straining from their jaws. An instant they glimpsed them, then in the belly of the bend, fox, team, sled and hunt-pack collided in a heap.
Cantine had loosened his grip on the sled to grasp the rifle in defense, and the smashing impact catapulted him clear into the heart of the horde. ”

“ Peter finished with a diabolical chuckle at his own and Pellier's cleverness—Pellier the man of honor and fairness who fell before a mighty temptation when it came to the stake of Marie.
Taylor felt a pang like the thrust of ice in his heart. Then a red-hot surge of anger flooded over him.
"You devil, Peter!" he roared, wrenching to get his arms free from the binding seine. "You cold-blooded, shoal-born, shoal-slimed cod! First you barter her, and then you try to marry her by a trick. ”

“ As Taylor straightened himself up on the Auk's deck he saw through the black snarl of her mainsheets the wings of another schooner all silver in the moonlight.
"Brown," he yelled, taking it at first for the Graywing. "Brown—but hold on, it's not my schooner! It's the Esperance."
"Oui, the Esperance, and quite at your service, Capitaine Taylor," spoke an even voice from the stern of the Auk. ”

“ But Thorpe had dived for it under the Yukon stove, and it was he who swung it on the 10-inch window, cutting into the sill to enlarge the space. The cabin was of logs. The sill log was big and stubbornly knotty. Thorpe wrestled with it for ten long minutes, and during every one of those minutes the other men hung upon his blows, their shoulders involuntarily heaving with his, their lips mumbling imprecations with his, for in the whipsawed bunk house only a dozen yards away they could hear the hurried movements and the rustling of dried pelts. ”

“ The rowboat had lost way while he made fast. The mail sacks jerked across his gunwale and splashed in the inlet. But, the slack quickly taken up, they rose again, dripping, up the Seattle's side.
GAYLE, his eyes fixed trancelike, watched them till they vanished over the rail. Then he sat down with a thump on the seat amidships and stared at the waves drifting him back upon Dyea Beach. He had no strength left to lift an oar, but he could see Wilson and Healey there filtering brandy between Hess's teeth—and two others. The boat finally thudded on the icy beach. ”

“ A deeper blot within the shadow which the headland cast upon the water, Dunvegan's craft silently rounded Caribou Point, beached softly upon the sand in the granite-walled cove, and spilled its crew into the aisles of the Black Forest. Beyond rose the craggy ridge called Mooswa Hill, a landmark to the Hudson's Bay men in times of quiet, a pillar of fire when the Nor'westers struck.
The winter cabin Gaspard Follet had mentioned stood on a rock shoulder above the cove. Pine and spruce crowded it. In springtime the shore ice jammed to its threshold. ”

“ Yet old Peter might have been a sovereign in a palace so merrily he laughed at Taylor's account of Beauport's trickery. The predicament of the sly Jacques filled the hardy old mariner with delight.
"Ciel!" he chortled. "That Jacques Beauport! He is the wily rascal. No fool, Jacques, when it comes to anything he wants. But he is caught this time. But wait—you will see. Admiral Pellier is a man of honor and fairness. Oui, and a man of discipline. He will draw the truth from Jacques as a man corkscrews a bottle of brandy. ”

“ The big foresail, sagging overside, held her like a sea-anchor, while the Graywing swept clear and apparently unharmed, luffed up in the gale of wind.
Taylor, heaving his dory alongside with his one undamaged oar, rose on the crest of a wave. Kerrigan and Patterson, waiting tackles in hand, hooked on and brought him, Marie, dory and all on deck with a run.
"We've lost our trap, and we'll lose our schooner too, if we don't get to shelter!" Taylor shouted the moment he struck the deck. "Crack on all you've got and run into Château!" ”

“ Once into the gloom, Sark could not gage his partner’s progress, but he had seen how the gang was heeling him and he began to have forebodings. He had a half-notion to rush off and back Tom up in the staking, but a wave of wisdom told him that he dared not leave the outfit. A tampering with the unguarded team or sledge might work worse disaster than a loss of time in locating. So all he could do was to sit tight and breathe a prayer after Bassett for a smooth way for his feet. ”

“ Marie flushed scarlet, her face like some rare, delicate crimson flower among the silver gleam of the cod, and Taylor saw the fire leap to her eyes as she shot a wicked side-glance at her father. Taylor himself had only one thought—to get her out of that mess, but he was too shrewd to try to bully old Peter or to appeal to his better nature. Laval was not a man to be bullied or influenced by appeals. ”

“ Brochet muttered as if in prayer while the leaden-backed surges lipped across the gunwales and the spume slashed across the bow. But grim as the storm-wraiths themselves Dunvegan held to his course, wet drops glistening on his cheeks, wind furies reflected from his eyes. By sunset they made the other shore, their craft ready to sink under water which could not be bailed out fast enough.
Tired to the bone, their sleeping camp was as the camp of the dead that night. An owl hooted on the tent boughs. A big moose splashed in the shallows. A gray timber wolf growled over its kill on the shore. ”

“ Rapidly they traced in the huskies, whining resentfully at being lashed and dragged from the warmth of the cabin out into a temperature of fifty-five below, and cast themselves on the sled.
"Mush!" roared Cantine, bringing down the whip.
Under the dreaded lash the shivering team dashed down the bank and headed up the ice of the Klokhok. The steel-shod sled-runners shrieked a shrill tune. The ice boomed to their flying passage.
High in the heavens overhead flashed the brilliant stars and the mid-Winter aurora. There was in the hearts of Blera and Jose no remorse, no regret, not even pity. ”

“ From her funnel swirled a trailing banner of smoke, and round her all Dawson City congregated in a mournful mob. Alabama knew what the smoke and the mob meant. Steam was up. Upon a tide of tears the Victorian was sailing for the Outside, and the Outside was to him a place of safety where no Satanic inhabitant of the heart of the Dome could massacre him or treacherous friends entomb him alive. So with the vantage of the Victorian's deck in view he dashed frantically toward the water front.
Captain Cambonne, living up to the tip Cronin Hess had given him, was on the watch from the pilot house. ”

“ It was beautiful work, a new team galloping where the old had been, done in the flicker of an eye like the shift of a sleight-of-hand artist, and though it spelled defeat for him, Sark could not help but admire the dexterity of the exploit.
“Tom, they’re sure old-timers, all!” he breathed, as his partner hurled his team by the bluff onto the rubble of rough ice which stretched across the Klondike’s mouth clear from Klondike City to Dawson itself, half a mile north on the other bank. “No matter how hard we crowd them, they always have a side-step left. It’s up to Fate and you. ”

“ Instead of answering further, Cronin Hess choked in an ever-rising paroxysm of mirth. Other men all round him choked also. Pandemonium reigned in the court room, while Inspector Strickland nearly split the table with his pounding gavel.
"Order! Order!" Strickland shouted. "I will not have disorder here. I'll fine you all for contempt of court. Stop that laughter this minute."
"It isn't laughter, inspector," wept Thorpe in all humility. "They're choking with the smoke."
"Then open the door and clear the smoke out," directed Strickland. "It's enough to strangle anyone." ”

“ It is the governor takes the Long Traverse.”
“Aye,” nodded Steene, “Governor Burnham instead of me. And at dawn there will be another traverse for the factor's daughter and me—the long traverse to the south. Light a fire for her and another to melt pitch to mend the canoe. It must be ready at dawn, for the gale will die out with the sun.”
Swiftly the Ojibways carried their battered canoe up the rocks and gathered wood for a fire. Close to the leaping flames in a nook sheltered from the lusty draft leaned Steene and Clara Travis, drying their soaked clothes in the heat. ”

“ Also like a shadow Desirée Lazard flitted free before the chief trader in Fort Brondel. Bitter through her utter disillusionment, swept by a fire as compelling as that against which Bruce Dunvegan battled, she cared not how high ran the tide of feeling. With a woman's instinctive pride in her powers she smiled on the re-awakening of the old love, thrilled to its magnifying intensity, responded with a half guilty ecstacy to its fierce, measureless strength. ”

“ The fire was out in the Yukon stove, the table shoved behind the stove and both concealed by a strip of canvas. Walls and ceiling were plastered with flour, and salt covered the floor like snow. In the center of the floor yawned a black gap where a seven-foot plank had been lifted. Through the gap rose a chill air, for the cabin sat sidewise on the incline, one of its sills supported by piles, and underneath the gap was open hillside.
"Ugh!" gasped Ryan, as the frosty air struck him. "You boys are sure strong on ventilation. That breeze ought to wake anybody." ”

“ The bitter resentment they nursed against Bassett who had ejected them from Happy Camp and against all the rest who had consented to that ejection blazed into a sort of savagery, a hatred of their own breed which mocked and tantalized and ostracized them.
Every man of that breed bound inward had a vision before his eyes and a hope in his heart. Each worked in a frenzy and performed prodigies of toil for the attainment of his vision and the realizing of his high ambition, but the jaded souls of Cantine and Blera did not respond to any such spur. ”

“ It was monotonous, agonizing labor that continued mile after mile, hour after hour, with no sound but the hissing swish of the snowshoes, the creak of frozen shoepacks, the grating churn of the sledge runners, the complaint of a lagging husky under the lash, and, embroiling all, the angry brawl of the blizzard. They camped far up the Yukon at midnight and cooked and ravenously ate bacon and flapjacks and drank hot coffee. The huskies sat in a ring about the fire and greedily watched their masters. ”

“ What is the loyalty of old service to a woman?"
"As much as to a man. Remember every man of the companies was bred of woman. It is a matter of blood. And loyalty to the Northwest Company is in my blood."
Because the feminine soul of her was beyond his understanding, the chief trader was smitten with bitterness and anger. "And you will forever swear by these Nor'westers?" he demanded. "You will swear by a lot of frontier ruffians herded under the leadership of such a scoundrel as Black Ferguson? Tell me that!"
"I must," Desirée answered.
Dunvegan turned on his heel without another word. ”

“ Dropping her weapon, Desirée swayed forward on unsteady feet and, sobbing with nerve-strain, collapsed on the priest's breast.
"My child, my child," murmured Father Brochet.
And when she lay a little quieter in his arms, he whispered in her ear a word about Dunvegan and Dreaulond.
"They can't be far off," he explained. "A few miles behind Cartienne's canoe! That would be all—just enough to keep well out of sight or sound. And I shouldn't wonder if they're about La Roche now!"
"But what can two men do?" cried Desirée, utterly hopeless. "He—he will only sacrifice himself. ”

“ But the gleaming devil in his eye leered back at him in the steady contemptuous gaze of Malcolm Macleod's daughter.
Downstairs in wild, inconsiderate haste the Nor'wester dragged the priest. Dark had fallen on La Roche, a deep darkness of velvety, impenetrable gloom peculiar to the North. A drifting pall of mist that beaded the stockades and dripped from the blockhouse eaves added to the intensity of the night. Suggestive of tragedy, symbolic of disaster, prophetic of unknown calamity, the weird atmosphere chilled the men as with a breath of fatalism. ”

“ Brochet contradicted, "the man who rules himself! If you sent away this handsome Edwin Glyndon out of envy, you would be only indulging your own petty hate. Conquer your passions, my son. That is the true kingship! If you cannot win a woman's will on your merits, don't win it at all. No benefit ever came of such a victory gained by nothing but strength or craft."
Dunvegan paced uneasily in front of his trading room, his eyes glancing furtively toward the blank doorway of the store through which Glyndon and Desirée had disappeared. ”

“ Connear danced a sailor's hornpipe in the center and hooted in delightful anticipation of a fight.
The crisis seemed inevitable. A trade-gun barked in the rear. The braves, with murder in their untamed hearts, shook out their weapons ready to throw their weight against Dunvegan's line, but a deep-throated Cree voice held them on the verge of their madness.
"Stop!" called the vibrant voice of Running Wolf, "or I blast you with the evil spirit."
As one man the crowd turned and looked at the speaker. ”

“ The Brondel men roared in anger. As one man they sprang forward with the single purpose of rending Edwin Glyndon. But Dunvegan was quicker than they. White to his lips, he had leaped at the former clerk. His first savage impulse was to strike, to maim, to kill! One blow with all his mighty strength and Glyndon would never have spoken again.
Spoken! That was it. The quick realization pierced his brain even in the moment of obsessing anger. Glyndon was a prisoner. He must be produced before Malcolm Macleod. Macleod had questions to ask of him. Dead men could not answer questions. ”

“ Ferguson sneered.
"Perhaps," chuckled the chief trader. "Most Nor'westers have. But I wouldn't advise you to resist my men unless you want to get roughly handled."
"I've heard of you," the other repeated tauntingly; "heard of you as one of the Company's bravest. Is this how you show your courage? You have one, two, three—nine, without counting the dwarf. And you spring upon a solitary man. Dunvegan, you're a cursed coward!" ”

“ They thrilled at the sight of the brawn going forth to build Kamattawa to shut out the Nor'westers from the Valley. These looked able to do it; brown-armed white men; swarthy post Indians; the hardy mètis; the dashing voyageurs. The watchers' pulses leaped with admiration for the indefatigable leader who had travelled thus at the head of countless brigades on some stern mission for the Company. For him they raised a stormy cry of appreciation which was heartily echoed back by the men of the fleet.
But Dunvegan heeded not the uproarious approbation. ”

“ When the chief trader attempted to question him by way of discovering his exact meaning, the Ojibway maintained a stubborn silence which he broke only with a suggestion about the night camp.
"Turn to the ridge of balsam, Strong Father," he advised. "We shall find it good to rest there."
Dunvegan accepted his trusted runner's hint. He knew that the Indian eye read wilderness signs which no white man living could ever interpret. He understood that the Indian brain gleaned an intelligence from inanimate things which the greatest mind of civilization could never comprehend. ”

“ The winged terrors of the air followed them, preying as opportunity afforded. Survival was ordained for only the strong, the fierce-fanged, the predatory. Indented in the white surface of the forest aisles were ptarmigans' tracks and over these the long, shallow furrows left by swooping owls' wings.
A homely spot of life and warmth amid this vast desolation was the post of Brondel. All the Nor'west prisoners except Gaspard Follet, Glyndon, and Desirée had been transferred in care of a strong guard to Oxford House where they were confined under very strict surveillance in the blockhouse. ”

“ The scene in the huge interior of the trading room struck him with disgust as well as surprise. Around the long, rough table over a score of men and halfbreed women lay in drunken stupor. A liquor barrel crowned the board. At the table's end one man's debauched face lay on the breast of his halfbreed Bacchante of the revel. Bruce recognized the features of Glyndon, enpurpled and drink-puffed. The rest of the revelers had fallen into every imaginable attitude expressive of uncontrolled muscle and befuddled mind.
The stench of spirits was overpowering. Dunvegan drew Desirée back. ”

“ Meanwhile the Nor'wester was crossing the portage with a speed and ease which showed that he was not overburdened by traveling gear. The lines of the canoe on his head bespoke a fast, light craft. His dunnage was scant.
Ascending from the shore level to the hog-back of rock which ran along parallel with Little Hayes Rapid till it dipped down to clear water at the other end, the Nor'wester glimpsed beneath the broad band of the tump-line on his forehead the three strangers lolling beside their fire. Immediately he dropped his load, paused, and glared uncertainly. ”

“ Thus across the chain of lakes and rivers three men went against La Roche.
Paddling Indian fashion with both elbows held rigid and shoulders thrusting strongly forward at the end of each stroke, the travelers threaded for miles the island channels of the Blazing Pine. Basil Dreaulond had the bow, Dunvegan the stern. Father Brochet sat amidships. They took advantage of the current and made rapid progress, their blades churning the water in long half-circular swirls. Skilled canoeists they accepted the aid of every shore-eddy, every rushing chute, every navigable cascade. ”

“ The kindly priest laid a hand on Dunvegan's arm, feeling the chief trader's muscles tighten under his inward emotions.
"Son," Brochet observed, "these are strenuous hours with the agents of two great companies striving for the overlordship. But in the midst of all the conflicts, the defeats, the triumphs, who is the real victor?"
"The Hudson's Bay Company," declared Dunvegan loyally.
The priest laughed. "Not the material conqueror," he explained. "I mean what sort of spirit holds the real supremacy?"
"The man with the heaviest hand," was the chief trader's practical answer. ”

“ Devil that he was, Black Ferguson began to test her nerve, prancing on the rounds upward, ever upward, showing his waist, his hips, knees, even ankles, while Father Brochet trembled for the sake of the girl. He expected every instant to hear the thunderous reverberation that would carry destruction and death. Once the Nor'west leader rose on the last rung till his boot-tops levelled the floor, balanced thus, grinning to see how little he had to spare.
The priest noted Desirée's hand whitening on the pistol butt, noted the weapon's muzzle thrusting deeper into the powder. ”

“ Every soul of Oxford House sprang forth at his cry. In a heterogeneous crowd the people spread to the landing at the lake-shore. White traders, fair-skinned women, full-blooded Indians, halfbreeds, squaws, papooses, huskies, [1] all mingled in polyglot confusion. Curs barked; children squealed; native tongues chattered in many languages. Eager expectancy, intense interest, was the sensation of each human being or animal that waited on the beach. Their wild hearts, keyed to a love of the vast places, to a worship of all the attributes of wilderness life, could never welcome a brigade unmoved. ”