Stewart Edward White

“ Suppose your eyes—like mine—have rested on nothing but a howling wilderness for dear heaven knows how long; you come at last in sight of real houses, real grass, real dooryard gardens just ready to blossom in the spring, real food, real beds, real books, real men with whom to exchange the sensible word, and something more, mademoiselle—a woman such as one dreams of in the long forest nights under the stars. And you know that while others, the lucky ones, may stay to enjoy it all, you, the unfortunate, are [66] condemned to leave it at any moment for la Longue Traverse. ”

“ Galen Albret snarled like a wild beast, throwing aside the girl, as he did the chair in which he had been sitting. Ned Trent caught her, reeling, in his arms.
For, as is often the case with passionate but strong temperaments, though the Factor had attained a certain calm of control, the turmoil of his deeper anger had not been in the least stilled. Over it a crust of determination had formed—the determination to make an end by the directest means in his autocratic power of this galling opposition. ”

“ The girl had known nothing different for many years. Once a [2] summer the sailing ship from England felt its frozen way through the Hudson Straits, down the Hudson Bay, to drop anchor in the mighty River of the Moose. Once a summer a six-fathom canoe manned by a dozen paddles struggled down the waters of the broken Abítibi. Once a year a little band of red-sashed voyageurs forced their exhausted sledge-dogs across the ice from some unseen wilderness trail. ”

“ It is an actual romance, in which the animal characters play their parts as naturally as do the human. The atmosphere of the book is enchanting. The reader feels the undulating, whimpering music of the forest, the power of the shady silences, the dignity of the beasts who live closest to the heart of the wood. ”

“ 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 [236] remained; but now Galen Albret 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. ”

“ Men had cared for his dogs. The girl had brought him hot tea [228] . In the corner of the fire they two 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 inclosure of the Post. An hour later they were away under the aurora for Qu'Apelle. Galen Albret's nostrils expanded as he heard the crack, crack, crack of the remorseless dog-whip whose sting drew him away from the vain pursuit. ”

“ A faint splash could have been a muskrat near at hand or a caribou far away. The paddle rose and dipped with a faint swish, swish, and the steersman's twist of it was taken up by the man's strong wrist so it did not click against the gunwale; the bow of the craft divided the waters with a murmuring so faint as to seem but the echo of a silence. Neither spoke. Virginia watched him, her heart too full for words; [177] watched the full swing of his strong shoulders, the balance of his body at the hips, the poise of his head against the dull sky. In a moment more the parting would have to come. ”

“ Beyond the shore floated the long canoe, with its curving ends and its emblazonment 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 amidships.
When Galen Albret 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 [253] sight of them. He spoke to another; the two informed still others. In an instant the bright colors were dotted with upturned faces. ”

“ The silence deepened with the shadows drawing about the single lamp, while Virginia attempted to maintain a breathing advantage above the flood of strange emotions which the personality of this man had swept down upon her.
"It does not seem—" objected the girl in bewilderment, "I do not know—men are often out in this country for years at a time. Long journeys are not unknown among us. We are used to undertaking them."
"But not la Longue Traverse," insisted the young man, sombrely. ”

“ Galen Albret's revenge had struck home.
Then in after years the Factor had again met with Andrew Levoy. The man staggered into Conjuror'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. Mu-hi-kun 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 fissures opened to the raw. He had gone snow-blind. ”

“ It drains a wild and rugged country whose forests cling to bowlder hills, whose streams issue from deep-riven gorges, where for many years the big gray wolves had gathered in unusual abundance. She knew by heart the winter posts, although she had never seen them. She could imagine the isolation of such a place, and the intense loneliness of the solitary man condemned to live through the dark Northern winters, seeing no one but the rare Indians who might come in to trade with him for their pelts. ”

“ 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? [234]
But then over him swept the same blur of jealousy that had resulted in Graehme Stewart's undoing. This youth wooed his daughter; he had won her affections away. Strangely enough Galen Albret confused the new and the old; again youth cleaved to youth, leaving age apart. Age felt fiercely the desire to maintain its own. The Factor crushed the silver match-box between his great palms and looked up. His daughter lay before him, still, lifeless. ”

“ The rifle brought in by his Indians, to his bewilderment, he recognized not at all. His repeated cross-questionings, when they touched on the question of Ned Trent's companion, got no farther than the Cree wooden stolidity. No, they had seen no one, neither presence, sign, nor trail. But Galen Albret, versed in the psychology of his savage allies, knew they lied. He suspected them of clan loyalty to one of their own number; and yet they had never failed him before. Now, his heavy revolver at his right hand, he interviewed Ned Trent, alone, except for the Indian by the portal. ”

“ Ned Trent laughed outright. "You don't imagine there is any secret about that!" he marvelled. "Why, every child north of the Line knows that. You will send me away without arms, and with but a handful of provisions. If the wilderness and starvation fail, your runners will not. I shall never reach the Temiscamingues alive."
"The same old legend," commented Galen Albret in apparent amusement, "I heard it when I first came to this country. You'll find a dozen such in every Indian camp." ”

“ There is romance of love, mystery, plot, and fighting, and a breathless dash and go about the telling which makes one quite forget about the improbabilities of the story; and it all ends in the old-fashioned healthy American way. ”

“ If he is an ordinary mètis or Canadian, he emerges from the forest starved, frightened, thankful. If his story is likely to be believed in high places, he never emerges at all. The dangers of wilderness travel are many: he succumbs to them. That is the whole story. Nothing definite is known; no instances can be proved; your father denies the legend and calls it a myth. The Company claims to be ignorant of it, perhaps its greater officers really are, but the legend holds so good that the journey has its name—la Longue Traverse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The crew [19] had deserted, but amidships, among the packages of pelts and duffel, sat a stranger. The canoe was that of the post at Kettle Portage.
She saw the stranger to be a young man with a clean-cut face, a trim athletic figure dressed in the complete costume of the voyageurs, and thin brown and muscular hands. When the canoe touched the bank he had taken no part in the scramble to shore, and so had sat forgotten and unnoticed save by the girl, his figure erect with something of the Indian's stoical indifference. ”

“ 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 [125] 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." ”

“ The events succeeding his arrival at Conjuror'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 consequen [226] ce. Although another might have condemned his conduct as unnecessarily harsh, Galen Albret's conscience was satisfied and at rest. ”

“ She turned to look him in the eyes, a vague expression of puzzled fear on her face.
"She has never heard of it," said Ned Trent to himself, and aloud: "Men who undertake it leave comfort behind. They embrace hunger and weariness, cold and disease. At the last they embrace death, and are glad of his coming." ”

“ 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. [139]
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." ”