THE LONG ARM OF THE COMPANY

The fourth day out, at a noon camp by a spring that still defied the frost, Barreau straightened up suddenly from his stooping over the frying-pan.

“Listen,” he said.

His ears were but little keener than mine, for even as he spoke I caught a sound that was becoming familiar from daily hearing: the soft pluff, pluff of snowshoes. In the thick woods, where no sweeping winds could swirl it here and there and pile it in hard smooth banks, the snow was spread evenly, a loose, three-foot layer, as yet uncrusted. Upon this the foot of man gave but little sound, even where there was a semblance of trail. So that almost in the instant that we heard and turned our heads we could see those who came toward us. Three men and two women facing back upon the trail we followed.

The men I recognized at once. One was Cullen, the bookkeeping automaton; the other two were half-breed packers. They halted at sight of us, and from their actions I believe they would have turned tail if Barreau had not called to them. Then they came up to the fire.

“Where now?” Barreau demanded.

“We go back on ze pos’, M’sieu,” one of the breeds declared.

“What of the others?” Barreau asked sharply. “And why do you turn back?”

“Because Ah’m not weesh for follow ze fat trader an’ die een som’ snowbank, me,” the breed retorted sullenly. “M’sieu Barreau knows zat ze Companie has taken ze pos’, eh?”

“I do,” Barreau answered. “Go on.”

“Ze Black Factor hees say to heem, ‘w’y not you stay teel ze spreeng,’ but M’sieu Montell hees not stay, an’ hees mak talk for us to com’ wees heem on ze sout’ trail. Eet don’ mak no diff’rence to me, jus’ so Ah’m geet pay, so Ah’m tak ze ol’ woman an’ com’ long. Montell hees heet ’er up lak hell. Ever’ seeng she’s all right. Zen las’ night som’body hees mak sneak on ze camp an’ poison ze dog ever’ las’ one an’ hees steal som’ of ze grub, too. Zées morneeng w’en Jacques Larue an’ me am start out for foller dees feller’s track, hees lay for us an’ tak shot at us. Firs’ pop hees heet Larue keel heem dead, jus’ lak snap ze feenger. Ah’m not go on after zat. MacLeod she’s too dam’ far for mak ze treep wit’ no dog for pull ze outfeet. Not me. Ah’m gon’ back on ze pos’. Ze Companie hees geev me chance for mak leeveeng. For why som’body hees poison ze dog an’ bushwhack us Ah don’ can say; but Ah know for sure Montell hees dam’ crazee for try to go on.”

“You, too, eh, Cullen?” Barreau observed. “Oh, you are certainly brave men.”

“He was a fool to start,” Cullen bristled; the first time I had ever seen a flash of spirit from the man of figures, “and I am not fool enough to follow him when it is plain that he is deliberately matching himself against something bigger than he is. There was no reason for starting on such a hard trip. The Hudson’s Bay men did us no harm. The factor did advise him to stay there till spring opened I heard him, myself. But he was bound to be gone. Whoever is dogging him means business, and I have no wish to die in a snowbank as Jean puts it.”

“How was the taking of the post managed?” Barreau asked him next.

Cullen shook his head. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “It was just at daylight of the morning you left for Three Wolves camp. Somebody yelled, and I ran out of the cookhouse where I sat eating breakfast. The yard was full of Company men. And when I got to the store why there was Montell making terms with the Company chief; a tall, black-mustached man. We started within an hour of that. Montell seemed in great haste. He is determined to go on. I felt sorry for Miss Montell. I tried to show him the madness of attempting to walk several hundred miles with only what supplies we could carry on our shoulders. He wouldn’t turn back, though.”

“For a very good reason,” Barreau commented. “Which a man who knew as much of our affairs as you did, Cullen, should have guessed. Well, be on your way. Doubtless the Black Factor will welcome your coming.”

The three men had laid down the shoulder-packs with which they were burdened. They re-slung them, and passed on with furtive sidelong glances; the women followed, dragging a lightly loaded toboggan.

“Rats will quit a doomed ship,” Barreau remarked. Then he resumed his turning of the meat that sizzled in the pan.

“We will soon come up with them,” he said, when we had eaten and were putting the dogs to the toboggan again. “They cannot make time from their morning camp.”

The beaten track was an advantage. Now, since the returning party had added a final touch to it, we laid aside our snowshoes and followed in the wake of the dogs, half the time at a jogging trot. In little more than an hour of this we came to the place where Montell had lost his dogs and his followers. The huskies lay about the trodden campground, stiff in the snow. Scattered around the cleared circles where the tents had stood overnight were dishes, articles of food, bedding. Montell had discarded all but absolute essentials. A toboggan and its useless dog-harness stood upended, against a tree.

“So much for loss of motive power,” Barreau said grimly. “It is a pity to leave all this, but we are loaded to the limit now. If we should lose our dogs” he left the sentence unfinished.

And so we passed by the abandoned goods and followed on the trail that led beyond. There is a marked difference between the path beaten through snow by seven persons with three full dog-teams, and that made by one man and a slight girl, dragging a toboggan by hand. Barreau took to his snowshoes again, and strode ahead. I kept the dogs crowding close on his heels. It was the time of year when, in that latitude, the hours of daylight numbered less than five. Thus it was but a brief span from noon to night. And nearing the gray hour of twilight he checked the straining huskies and myself with a gesture. Out of the woods ahead uprose the faint squeal of a toboggan-bottom sliding over the frosty snow. Barreau’s eyebrows drew together under his hood.

“It’s a hundred to one that there will be fireworks the moment I’m recognized,” he muttered finally. “But I can see no other way. Come on.”

A hundred yards farther I caught my first glimpse of the two figures, Montell’s huge body bent forward as he tugged at his load. Barreau increased his speed. We were up with them in a half minute more. Montell whirled with a growl half alarm, half defiance. He threw up the rifle in his hands. But Barreau was too quick for him, and the weapon was wrenched out of his grasp before he could use it. With an inarticulate bellow Montell shook himself free of the shoulder-rope by which he drew the toboggan and threw himself bodily upon Barreau, striking, pawing, blaspheming terribly. Strangely enough Jessie made no move, nor even cried out at the sight. She stood like one fascinated by that brute spectacle. It did not endure for long. The great bulk of Montell bore Barreau backward, but only for a moment. He ducked a wild swing that had power enough behind it to have broken his neck, came up under Montell’s clutching arms and struck him once under the chin a lifting blow, with all the force of his muscular body centered therein. It staggered the big man. And as I stepped forward, meditating interference, Barreau jammed him backward over our loaded toboggan, and held him there helpless.

He pinned him thus for a second; then suddenly released him. Montell stood up, a thin stream of blood trickling from one nostril. He glowered sullenly, but the ferocious gleam of passion had died out of his eyes.

“Get a fire built,” Barreau ordered, “and a tent pitched. We shall camp here to-night. Make no more wild breaks like that, unless you want to be overtaken with sudden death. When we are warm I have something to say to you.”

Twilight merged into gray night, and the red blaze of the fire we built glowed on the surrounding trees and the canvas of the tent. A pot of melted snow bubbled and shed steam. Close by it a piece of moose-flesh thawed in the heat. Jessie, still mute, sat on a piece of canvas I spread for her, and held her hands to the flame.

“Now,” Barreau challenged Montell, “is a good time for explanations. Only facts, no matter how they gall you, will serve. Speak up. First begin at the beginning, and tell the truth to her.” He motioned to Jessie. She started slightly. A half dozen times I had noticed her looking first at myself and then at Barreau, and there was wonder and something else in her heavy-lashed eyes. Now she flashed a glance of inquiry at her father. For a moment I thought she was about to speak.

I cannot say what there was in Barreau’s tone that stirred Montell to the depths. It may have been that finding himself checkmated, dominated by a man he hated so sincerely, another fierce spasm of rage welled up within and ruptured some tautened blood-vessel. It may have been some weakness of the heart, common to fleshy men. I cannot diagnose, at best I can but feebly describe.

Montell’s jaw thrust forward. He blinked at Barreau, at his daughter, at me, and then back to Barreau. A flush swept up into his puffy cheeks, surged to his temples, a flush that darkened to purple. His very face seemed to swell, to bulge with the rising blood. His little, swinish eyes dilated. His mouth opened. He gasped. And all at once, with a hoarse rattling in his throat, he swayed and fell forward on his face.

We picked him up, Barreau and I, and felt of his heart. It fluttered. We loosened his clothing, and laved his wrists and temples with the snow water. The body lay flaccid; the jaw sagged. When I laid my ear to his breast again the fluttering had ceased. Barreau listened; felt with his hand; shook his head.

“No use,” he muttered.

Jessie was standing over us when we gave over.

“He’s dead,” Barreau looked up at her and murmured. “He’s dead.” He rose to his feet and stared down at the great hulk of unsentient flesh that had vibrated with life and passion ten minutes before. “After all his plotting and planning to die like that.”

The girl stood looking from one to the other, from the dead man in the firelight to me, and to Barreau. Of a sudden Barreau held out his hands to her. But she turned away with a sob, and it was to me she turned, and it was upon my shoulder that she cried, “Oh, Bobby, Bobby!” as if her heart would break.

And at that Barreau dropped to his haunches beside the fire. There, when the storm of her grief was hushed, he still sat, his chin resting on his palms, his dark face somber as the North itself.