Читать книгу Beyond the Outposts - James B. Hendryx - Страница 5

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Camp was made in the sparse spruce growth, and after supper the girl questioned the Indians: “Have any of you ever been up the Coppermine from here?”

Teddy Bye and Bye, by far the most intelligent of the four, constituted himself spokesman. He was an exceptional Indian, in that he was honest. Not a product of the missions, he had lived the forty-odd years of his life on the Mackenzie and its tributaries. And with the exception of a few winters devoted to trapping, had lived in the constant service of the better element of white men. He had been in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company, of the Northern Trading Company, and had worked under “Old Cap Shot” on the river. He had been mail carrier for thousands of miles of wilderness, and a special constable and guide for the Mounted. He had made two trips to the Arctic Coast which had brought him into contact with several villages of Eskimos. He understood English, and French, as well as the Jargon, and a dozen or more Indian dialects. His speech was English, interspersed with an occasional word of French or Jargon.

Of the other Indians, two were hangers-on about the mission, and the other was a riverman who had deserted the brigade.

So, when the girl asked her question it was Teddy Bye and Bye who answered: “Non. Not have go oop de Coppermine. I’m mak’ de trip wan tam’ de way we com’ an’ down de Coppermine to de beeg wataire in de country of Innuit—w’at you call, Eskimo.” At the words, Irma noticed that the other Indians shifted uneasily, and cast sidewise glances. Evidently they had no desire to come in contact with the Eskimos, whom many of the Mackenzie River tribes hold in fear, despite the intermittent trade that exists between Eskimos and Indians to the north-east of Great Bear Lake. She hastened to put them at ease:

“We’re not going into the Eskimo country. We turn south, here—up the Coppermine, through many lakes, across a portage, and on to a great river that flows to the eastward.” The words produced no apparent effect on the three Indians, who continued apparently ill at ease.

Suddenly all faces were turned toward the river. Irma heard a soft, scraping sound and looked up to see an umiak beaching beside the canoes. Two men stepped out onto the gravel, a white man, and another, evidently an Eskimo. This latter wore sealskin boots and clothing of caribou skin. He was bare headed and his black hair, cropped closely in front, hung straight about his neck and ears.

The white man advanced, the other following, and the girl noted with a smile that the three Indians huddled closer about the fire. She scrutinized the man who advanced to within two paces and halted abruptly with an exclamation of surprise:

“Well, I’ll be—! Well, if it ain’t a woman! Say, you’re quite a ways from home ain’t you?”

“Yes, quite,” answered the girl, curtly. She did not like this man. There was something repulsive about him, although, if questioned at the moment, she would have been at a loss to tell what that “something” was. Certainly nothing distinctive or outstanding that would argue for either good or evil. He was of medium height and build. An untidy thatch of faded, straw-coloured hair protruded from beneath the edges of a faded plush cap whose dilapidated visor hung limply against his forehead. Rather shifty eyes of pale, watery blue looked out from above an unkempt, tow-coloured beard, whose scraggly thinness disclosed a pair of thick, loose hanging lips.

The man either did not notice, or chose to ignore the curtness of her reply. He squatted upon his heels and blinked his shifty eyes: “First woman I ever seen in these parts,” he ventured, “except they was squaws or Husky klooches, an’ they don’t count. ’Couse ’taint none of my business, but if it hain’t no secret, I might ask where yer headin’ fer?”

“It is no secret,” answered the girl, “I am going up the Coppermine.”

“Up it!” the man exclaimed. “Down it, you mean, don’t you—to the coast?”

“No, if I had meant down I would have said down. I happen to be going up the river, away from the coast.”

“Well, you’ve picked out a hell of a place to go to. An’ you ain’t got there yet, neither. You’ll find out it’s tracklinin’ most of the ways an’ some long portages around rapids, to boot. What’s the idee of goin’ up the Coppermine? They ain’t nothin’ up there when you git there—nothin’ but muskeg an’ black flies, an’ ’skeeters, an’ gravel, an’ rocks, an’ scrub timber.”

“You have been up there?” asked the girl, quickly. “Recently? Within a year?”

“Well, I didn’t find out what was up there out of no book. Yes, be’n there—guess I’m about the only white man that has.”

“Non,” interrupted Teddy Bye and Bye, “Gus Janier she be’n oop Coppermine, Yellowknife, Fish Reevaire—all over.”

“Gus Janier!” the shifty eyes glittered angrily, “what in hell do you know about Gus Janier?”

“Gus Janier ma frien’,” replied the Indian, with dignity.

“You got a hell of a friend!” exploded the other. “The dam’ dirty hooch pedler!”

“Gus Janier, she ain’ sell no hooch.”

“How does he make his livin’, then? Tell me that? They hain’t no one ever seen him do a tap of work. Rammin’ around the country with that big dog, an’ a couple of guns, an’ a fish pole. Less’n he makes it squealin’ a lot of lies to the Mounted about folks that’s try in’ to make an honest livin’!” The man paused as if expecting a reply, but Teddy Bye and Bye merely shrugged, and stared silently into the fire, and he shifted his glance to the girl: “I s’pose he’s a friend of yourn, too—Gus Janier?”

Irma Boyne flushed angrily at the sneering tones: “Who are you to be questioning me about my friends? As a matter of fact I have never laid eyes on the man, though I have heard him mentioned many times since coming into the North.”

“Ain’t heard much good of him, I guess—less’n you got it from the Mounted—an’ there’s some of them he ain’t got fooled. He ain’t got no one fooled that’s got brains to think with. Guns like he packs, an’ good canoes, an’ ca’tridges costs money. Where does he git it?”

“I presume that is his business,” answered the girl.

“Yes, an’ it’s other folk’s business, too. Wait till Constable Crowley gits somethin’ on him—he’ll show him!” The man suddenly dropped the belligerent tone, “But they hain’t no use wastin’ time talkin’ about him. You was askin’ me had I be’n up the Coppermine, an’ I says ‘yes.’ What about it?”

“And, to the eastward? Have you been in the country east of the Coppermine?”

“Clean to the Bay—that’s me.” The shifty eyes had lost their angry glitter, the voice took on a boastful note. “Only white man that lives in the country reg’lar—except Gus Janier, an’ he’s always on the move. Proves what I say—he don’t dast to stay long in a place. If he’s all right, what’s he always on the go fer?”

“We will leave Janier out of the discussion, please. Your private quarrels are nothing to me. You say you’re the only white man in the whole territory between the Coppermine and Hudson Bay?”

“I said I’m the only one that lives here reg’lar. There’s the Mounted, they come an’ go. An’ the trader at Fullerton, but they change every little while—too lonesome up there fer a man to stick long. An’ fer the last couple of years there’s them fellers up on the coast—Canadian Ar’tic Expedition. I guided some of ’em east as fer as Bathurst inlet. That’s me—wherever they’s an’ honest dollar to be picked up, guidin’, er tradin’, that’s where you’ll find Amos Nixon. That’s about all the white men, except Joe Bernard. He trades up an’ down the coast—an’ mebbe another white man or two scattered around here an’ there.”

The last words caught the girl’s attention. Her father might be included in “the other white man or two.” As Nixon talked, her aversion and disgust for him increased. However, here was a man who professed to know the country through which she intended to travel—might even know her father, or at least give some clue to his whereabouts. “These other white men—where are they?” she asked, “you said there was another white man or two.”

“They might be, an’ they mightn’t,” the man answered evasively. “I didn’t say they was, I said mebbe they was.”

Abruptly, she flashed a direct question: “Where’s John Boyne?” She thought the man started slightly. The shifty eyes swiftly met her own scrutinizing gaze, dropped to the fire, and roved over the faces of the Indians.

“Boyne,” he muttered. “Mr. Boyne. Seems like I hear’n that name som’ers, too. He ain’t one of them Ar’ticers is he? They’s quite a few of ’em, an’ I never did git ’em all stright.”

“No, he’s a prospector. An oldish man, sixty-two, to be exact. Although he looks much younger. He came into this country about a year and a half ago by way of Baker Lake.”

“Baker Lake—Boyne,” repeated the man, “seems like I did hear that name over around the Bay. Mebbe he’s gone outside.”

“No,” answered the girl, “he hasn’t gone outside. He’s prospecting for gold somewhere between here and the Bay.”

“What you huntin’ him fer?”

“He’s my father, and I thought maybe he’d be needing—some help.”

The pale eyes seemed to flicker as the man glanced up, quickly: “Oh, so you’re his gal, eh? An’ figgerin’ on gittin’ in to where he’s at from this side.” A short laugh, followed the words.

“So you know him? Know, even where he is?”

The man shook his head: “Don’t know nothin’ about him, an’ nothin’ about wher’ he’s at. What I mean is, it’s a long ways from here to Baker Lake, an’ if you don’t know the country, you’ll never find it. Its lucky you run on to me. These here Siwashes don’t know the country. All they’d do is eat grub. I know every foot of it, an’ if yer pa’s anywhere’s between here an’ the Bay, I kin find him. I’m tellin’ you you’re lucky to git me. I’m the best guide they is. If Radford an’ Street had of hired me, like I wanted ’em to, they’d of be’n alive today. Instead of which they hires some Huskies an’ gits murdered. It’ll cost you ten dollars a day, an’ my grub, but you’re rich, an’ besides you’ll be savin’ money in the end.”

The girl hesitated, apparently counting the cost. To engage this man for a guide was unthinkable. Nevertheless, despite his denial he had betrayed knowledge of her father, even to the fact that he was “rich.” If possible, she would try to worm more information out of him before sending him about his business. “How long would it take to find him?” she asked.

“Well, ’course, that’s accordin’ to wher’ he’s at. Mebbe we might run onto him in a month—mebbe two months. Tell you what, you pay me twenty days’ wages down, an’ the rest when we find him.”

Irma Boyne laughed: “You don’t really think I’m fool enough to carry money with me in large sums, do you?”

The man looked disappointed. “If you ain’t got no money how’d you figger to keep in grub, an’ pay them Siwashes off?”

“Orders on the Hudson’s Bay Company,” she smiled, “and beside that I have letters to the Mounted, and to the Canadian Arctic Expedition which will take care of the questions of supplies.”

Nixon scowled his disappointment: “If that’s the case, I s’pose I’ve got to take a Comp’ny order, too.” He rose abruptly to his feet. “First thing is to git red of them Siwashes. Here you!” he growled, pointing at Teddy Bye and Bye, “figger up how much you an’ them others has got comin’, an’ then you turn around an’ head back where you come from!”

“Just a minute,” interrupted the girl coldly, “what do you mean by trying to discharge my Indians?”

“We don’t need ’em no more. They’ll only be the two of us, an’ one canoe. We’ll cache the other one an’ what grub we can’t handle. This Husky boy of mine—he’s fired, too.”

The girl felt her anger rising: “What becomes of the Eskimo is no concern of mine, but these Indians are my concern. What possible right have you to try to discharge them?”

“You hired me to guide you to where yer pa is, an’ if I’m goin’ to guide, I’m goin’ to run the outfit.”

A laugh greeted the man’s words. “Really, Mr. er—Nixon, if it were not all so perfectly absurd, I should be very angry. As it is it’s merely amusing. I certainly have not hired you for a guide, despite your evident anxiety to force your services upon me. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t have you for a guide upon any terms whatever. I wouldn’t trust you out of my sight. You’ve been trying to lie to me for the last half-hour, but you haven’t succeeded. You not only know my father, but you know where he is at this minute, and you’re trying to make some easy money by guiding me to him. But your little scheme for extortion won’t work. I have my maps, and I have my Indians, and I’ll find him without any help from you.”

For a moment the same angry gleam flickered in the man’s eyes that had appeared at the mention of the name of Gus Janier. Then the glance shifted, and when he spoke his voice held a note of injured innocence. “It was fer yer own good, mom, I offered fer to go. I don’t want to make no trip into that God-fersaken country—not me. But if you don’t want to hire me, that’s yer own business. Just like it was Radford an’ Street’s business when they wouldn’t hire me.” The shifty glance was upon the faces of the three Indians who, during the whole course of the conversation, had sat huddled beyond the fire, now and then casting fearful glances toward the Eskimo who had seated himself behind Nixon.

Teddy Bye and Bye sat apart, listening, but making no comment. The man continued: “But they hadn’t got fer till the Huskies murdered ’em—yes, mom, speared ’em in the back when they wasn’t lookin’, that’s what they done. They’re all right if you know ’em—Huskies is. But if you don’t know ’em, they’re mean. Look at them two priests they murdered right down here to Bloddy Falls—shot ’em in the back, an’ et one’s liver, to boot. That’s the way they do. They’s a lot of Huskies fishin’ in the country between here an’ the Heywood Range. You an’ the Siwashes’ll prob’ly git murdered ’fore you git half ways, an’ then you’ll wisht you’d of hired me.”

The girl laughed aloud. Inadvertently, the man had dropped a piece of information that she was not slow to grasp. He had mentioned the Heywood Range, the ridge of high hills that reach eastward from Lac du Sauvage to Back’s Fish River. It was somewhere in these hills that she had expected to find her father, and now the expectation amounted almost to a certainty. “No,” she answered, “I won’t wish I had hired you. I had much rather take my chances with the Eskimoes.” The girl glanced at her wrist watch. “Nearly ten o’clock,” she exclaimed. “I haven’t quite got accustomed to this perpetual daylight, yet. But I’m tired, and we have some hard work ahead of us. So if you will kindly take yourself off, we will get some sleep.”

The man moved surlily toward the umiak, pausing at a distance of a dozen yards for a parting shot: “I know wher’ yer pa is, all right—but you won’t never find him!”

Her answer was a mocking laugh. And that night as she lay between her blankets in the little tent, she smiled complacently. Her troubles were about over. Of course there remained many days of hard work in the ascent of the Coppermine, and the traverse of the numerous lakes of its upper reaches. But the river would lead her straight to the Heywood Mountains and there she would find her father. She had the necessary supplies for the journey, and plenty of help to move these supplies. On the whole the undertaking was wonderfully simple—too simple to be particularly interesting. The men who write of the North are prone to overrate its hardships. The smile broadened at thought of her father’s surprise at seeing her walk into his camp, and she closed her eyes and slept.

Irma Boyne had yet to learn the North. She was even now committing the gravest error that it is within the providence of the traveller beyond the outposts to commit. She was overestimating her own strength and ability, and underestimating the vicissitudes of the lean, lone land. And woefully had she underestimated the cunning of Amos Nixon, whose apparently inadvertent mention of the Heywood Range had been a master stroke.