Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "The next instant his arms were pinionedto his sides."]
The Gun-Brand
By JAMES B. HENDRYX
AUTHOR OF
"The Promise" Etc.
With Frontispiece in Colors
By CLYDE FORSYTHE
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
published by arrangement with G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
COPYRIGHT, 1917
By
JAMES B. HENDRYX
Second Impression
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE CALL OF THE RAW II VERMILION SHOWS HIS HAND III PIERRE LAPIERRE IV CHLOE SECURES AN ALLY V PLANS AND SPECIFICATIONS VI BRUTE MACNAIR VII THE MASTER MIND VIII A SHOT IN THE NIGHT IX ON SNARE LAKE X AN INTERVIEW XI BACK ON THE YELLOW KNIFE XII A FIGHT IN THE NIGHT XIII LAPIERRE RETURNS FROM THE SOUTH XIV THE WHISKEY RUNNERS XV "ARREST THAT MAN!" XVI MACNAIR GOES TO JAIL XVII A FRAME-UP XVIII WHAT HAPPENED AT BROWN'S XIX THE LOUCHOUX GIRL XX ON THE TRAIL OF PIERRE LAPIERRE XXI LAPIERRE PAYS A VISIT XXII CHLOE WRITES A LETTER XXIII THE WOLF-CRY! XXIV THE BATTLE XXV THE GUN-BRAND
THE GUN-BRAND
CHAPTER I
THE CALL OF THE RAW
Seated upon a thick, burlap-covered bale of freight--a "piece," in theparlance of the North--Chloe Elliston idly watched the loading of thescows. The operation was not new to her; a dozen times within themonth since the outfit had swung out from Athabasca Landing she hadwatched from the muddy bank while the half-breeds and Indians unloadedthe big scows, ran them light through whirling rock-ribbed rapids,carried the innumerable pieces of freight upon their shoulders acrossportages made all but impassable by scrub timber, oozy muskeg, and lowsand-mountains, loaded the scows again at the foot of the rapid andsteered them through devious and dangerous miles of swift-movingwhite-water, to the head of the next rapid.
They are patient men--these water freighters of the far North. Formore than two centuries and a quarter they have sweated the wildernessfreight across these same portages. And they are sober men--whencivilization is behind them--far behind.
Close beside Chloe Elliston, upon the same piece, Harriet Penny, ofvague age, and vaguer purpose, also watched the loading of the scows.Harriet Penny was Chloe Elliston's one concession to convention--excessbaggage, beyond the outposts, being a creature of fear. Upon anotherpiece, Big Lena, the gigantic Swedish Amazon who, in the capacity ofgeneral factotum, had accompanied Chloe Elliston over half the world,stared stolidly at the river.
Having arrived at Athabasca Landing four days after the departure ofthe Hudson Bay Company's annual brigade, Chloe had engagedtransportation into the North in the scows of an independent. And,when he heard of this, the old factor at the post shook his headdubiously, but when the girl pressed him for the reason, he shruggedand remained silent. Only when the outfit was loaded did the old manwhisper one sentence:
"Beware o' Pierre Lapierre."
Again Chloe questioned him, and again he remained silent. So, as thedays passed upon the river trail, the name of Pierre Lapierre was allbut forgotten in the menace of rapids and the monotony of portages.And now the last of the great rapids had been run--the rapid of theSlave--and the scows were almost loaded.
Vermilion, the boss scowman, stood upon the running-board of theleading scow and directed the stowing of the freight. He was apicturesque figure--Vermilion. A squat, thick half-breed, with eyesset wide apart beneath a low forehead bound tightly around with ahandkerchief of flaming silk.
A heavy-eyed Indian, moving ponderously up the rough plank with a piecebalanced upon his shoulders, missed his footing and fell with a loudsplash into the water. The Indian scrambled clumsily ashore, and thepiece was rescued, but not before a perfect torrent ofFrench-English-Indian profanity had poured from the lips of theever-versatile Vermilion. Harriet Penny shrank against the youngerwoman and shuddered.
"Oh!" she gasped, "he's swearing!"
"No!" exclaimed Chloe, in feigned surprise. "Why, I believe he is!"
Miss Penny flushed. "But, it is terrible! Just listen!"
"For Heaven's sake, Hat! If you don't like it, why do you listen?"
"But he ought to be stopped. I am sure the poor Indian did not _try_to fall in the river."
Chloe made a gesture of impatience. "Very well, Hat; just look up theordinance against swearing on Slave River, and report him to Ottawa."
"But I'm afraid! He--the Hudson Bay Company's man--told us not tocome."
Chloe straightened up with a jerk. "See here, Hat Penny! Stop yoursnivelling! What do you expect from rivermen? Haven't the sevenhundred miles of water trail taught you _anything_? And, as for beingafraid--I don't care _who_ told us not to come! I'm an Elliston, andI'll go whereever I want to go! This isn't a pleasure trip. I came uphere for a purpose. Do you think I'm going to be scared out by thefirst old man that wags his head and shrugs his shoulders? Or by anyother man! Or by any swearing that I can't understand, or any that Ican, either, for that matter! Come on, they're waiting for this bale."
Chloe Elliston's presence in the far outlands was the culmination of anideal, spurred by dissuasion and antagonism into a determination, anddeveloped by longing into an obsession. Since infancy the girl hadbeen left much to her own devices. Environment, and the prescribedcourse at an expensive school, should have made her pretty much whatother girls are, and an able satellite to her mother, who managed toremain one of the busiest women of the Western metropolis--doingabsolutely nothing--but, doing it with _eclat_.
The girl's father, Blair Elliston, from his desk in a luxurious officesuite, presided over the destiny of the Elliston fleet of yellow-stacktramps that poked their noses into queer ports and put to sea withqueer cargoes--cargoes that smelled sweet and spicy, with the spice ofthe far South Seas. Office sailor though he was, Blair Ellistoncommanded the respect of even the roughest of his polyglot crews--arespect not wholly uncommingled with fear.
For this man was the son of old "Tiger" Elliston, founder of the fleet.The man who, shoulder to shoulder with Brooke, the elder, put the fearof God in the hearts of the pirates, and swept wide trade-lanes amongthe islands of terror-infested Malaysia. And through Chloe Elliston'sveins coursed the blood of her world-roving ancestor. Her mosttreasured possession was a blackened and scarred oil portrait of theold sea-trader and adventurer, which always lay swathed in manywrappings in the bottom of her favourite trunk.
In her heart she loved and admired this grandfather, with a love andadmiration that bordered upon idolatry. She loved the lean, hardfeatures, and the cold, rapier-blade eyes. She loved the name mencalled him; Tiger Elliston, an earned name--that. The name of a manwho, by his might and the strength and mastery of him, had won hisplace in the world of the men who dare.
Since babyhood she had listened with awe to tales of him; and thered-letter days of her childhood's calendar were the days upon whichher father would take her down to the docks, past great windowlesswarehouses of concrete and sheet-iron, where big glossy horses stoodharnessed to high-piled trucks--past great tiers of bales and boxesbetween which trotted hurrying, sweating men--past the clang and clashof iron truck wheels, the rattle of chains, the shriek of pulleys, andthe loud-bawled orders in strange tongues. Until, at last, they wouldcome to the great dingy hulk of the ship and walk up the gangway andonto the deck, where funny yellow and brown men, with their hairbraided into curious pigtails, worked with ropes and tackles and calledto other funny men with bright-coloured ribbons braided into theirbeards.
Almost as she learned to walk she learned to pick out the yellow stacksof "pap
a's boats," learned their names, and the names of theircaptains, the bronzed, bearded men who would take her in their laps,holding her very awkwardly and very, very carefully, as if she weresomething that would break, and tell her stories in deep, rumblyvoices. And nearly always they were stories of the Tiger--"yergran'pap, leetle missey," they would say. And then, by palms, andpearls, and the fires of blazing mountains, they would swear "He wor aman!"
To the helpless horror of her mother, the genuine wonder of her manyfriends, and the ill-veiled amusement and approval of her father, amonth after the doors of her _alma mater_ closed behind her, she tookpassage on the _Cora Blair_, the oldest and most disreputable-lookingyellow stack of them all, and hied her for a year's sojourn among thespicy lotus-ports of the dreamy Southern Ocean--there to hear at firsthand from the men who knew him, further deeds of Tiger Elliston.
To her, on board the battered tramp, came gladly the men of power--themen whose spoken word in their polyglot domains was more feared andheeded than decrees of emperors or edicts of kings. And there, in thetime-blackened cabin that had once been _his_ cabin, these men talkedand the girl listened while her eyes glowed with pride as theyrecounted the exploits of Tiger Elliston. And, as they talked, thehearts of these men warmed, and the years rolled backward, and theyswore weird oaths, and hammered the thick planks of the chart-tablewith bangs of approving fists, and invoked the blessings of strangegods upon the soul of the Tiger--and their curses upon the souls of hisenemies.
Nor were these men slow to return hospitality, and Chloe Elliston wasentertained royally in halls of lavish splendour, and plied with costlygifts and rare. And honoured by the men, and the sons and daughters ofmen who had fought side by side with the Tiger in the days when theyellow sands ran red, and tall masts and white sails rose like cloudsfrom the blue fog of the cannon-crashing powder-smoke.
So, from the lips of governors and potentates, native princes andrajahs, the girl learned of the deeds of her grandsire, and in theireyes she read approval, and respect, and reverence even greater thanher own--for these were the men who knew him. But, not alone from themighty did she learn. For, over rice-cakes and _poi_, in the thatchedhovels of Malays, Kayans, and savage Dyaks, she heard the tale from thelips of the vanquished men--men who still hated, yet always respected,the reddened sword of the Tiger.
The year Chloe Elliston spent among the copra-ports of the South Seaswas the shaping year of her destiny. Never again were the standards ofher compeers to be her standards--never again the measure of the worldof convention to be her measure. For, in her heart the awakened spiritof Tiger Elliston burned and seared like a living flame, calling forother wilds to conquer, other savages to subdue--to crush down, if needbe, that it might build up into the very civilization of which theunconquerable spirit is the forerunner, yet which, in realization,palls and deadens it to extinction.
For social triumphs the girl cared nothing. The heart of her felt theirresistible call of the raw. She returned to the land of her birthand deliberately, determinedly, in the face of opposition, ridicule,advice, and command--as Tiger Elliston, himself, would have done--shecast about until she found the raw, upon the rim of the Arctic. And,with the avowed purpose of carrying education and civilization to theIndians of the far North, turned her back upon the world-fashionable,and without fanfare or trumpetry, headed into the land of primal things.
When the three women had taken their places in the head scow, Vermiliongave the order to shove off, and with the swarthy crew straining at therude sweeps, the heavy scows threaded their way into the North.
Once through the swift water at the tail of Slave Rapids, the fourscows drifted lazily down the river. The scowmen distributedthemselves among the pieces in more or less comfortable attitudes andslept. In the head scow only the boss and the three women remainedawake.
"Who is Pierre Lapierre?" Chloe asked suddenly.
The man darted her a searching glance and shrugged. "Pierre Lapierre,she free-trader," he answered. "Dees scow, she Pierre Lapierre scow."
If Chloe was surprised at this bit of information, she succeededadmirably in disguising her feelings. Not so Harriet Penny, who sankback among the freight pieces to stare fearfully into the face of theyounger woman.
"Then you are Pierre Lapierre's man? You work for him?"
The man nodded. "On de reevaire I'm run de scow--me--Vermilion! I'mtak' de reesk. Lapierre, she tak' de money." The man's eyes glintedwickedly.
"Risk? What risk?" asked the girl.
Again the man eyed her shrewdly and laughed. "Das plent' reesk--on dereevaire. De scow--me'be so, she heet de rock in de rapids--bre'k allto hell--_Voila_!" Somehow the words did not ring true.
"You hate Lapierre!" The words flashed swift, taking the man bysurprise.
"_Non_! _Non_!" he cried, and Chloe noticed that his glance flashedswiftly over the sprawling forms of the five sleeping scowmen.
"And you are afraid of him," the girl added before he could frame areply.
A sudden gleam of anger leaped into the eyes of the half-breed. Heseemed on the point of speaking, but with an unintelligible mutteredimprecation he relapsed into sullen silence. Chloe had purposelybaited the man, hoping in his anger he would blurt out some bit ofinformation concerning the mysterious Pierre Lapierre. Instead, theman crouched silent, scowling, with his gaze fixed upon the forms ofthe scowmen.
Had the girl been more familiar with the French half-breeds of theoutlands she would have been suspicious of the man's sudden taciturnityunder stress of anger--suspicious, also, of the gradual shifting thathad been going on for days among the crews of the scows. A shiftingthat indicated Vermilion was selecting the crew of his own scow with aneye to a purpose--a purpose that had not altogether to do with thescow's safe conduct through white-water. But Chloe had taken no noteof the personnel of the scowmen, nor of the fact that the freight ofthe head scow consisted only of pieces that obviously containedprovisions, together with her own tent and sleeping outfit, and severalburlapped pieces marked with the name "MacNair." Idly she wondered whoMacNair was, but refrained from asking.
The long-gathering twilight deepened as the scows floated northward.Vermilion's face lost its scowl, and he smoked in silence--a sinisterfigure, thought the girl, as he crouched in the bow, his dark featuresset off to advantage by his flaming head-band.
Into the stillness crept a sound--the far-off roar of a rapid. Sullen,and dull, it scarce broke the monotony of the silence--low, yet everincreasing in volume.
"Another portage?" wearily asked the girl.
Vermilion shook his head. "_Non_, eet ees de Chute. Ten miles of dewild, fast wataire, but safe--eef you know de way. Me--Vermilion--I'mtak' de scow t'rough a hondre tam--_bien_!"
"But, you can't make it in the dark!"
Vermilion laughed. "We mak' de camp to-night. To-mor', we run deChute." He reached for the light pole with which he indicated thechannel to the steersman, and beat sharply upon the running-board thatformed the gunwale of the scow. Sleepily the five sprawling formsstirred, and awoke to consciousness. Vermilion spoke a guttural jargonof words and the men fumbled the rude sweeps against the tholes. Theother three scows drifted lazily in the rear and, standing upon therunning-board, Vermilion roared his orders. Figures in the scowsstirred, and sweeps thudded against thole-pins. The roar of the Chutewas loud, now--hoarse, and portentous of evil.
The high banks on either side of the river drew closer together, thespeed of the drifting scows increased, and upon the dark surface of thewater tiny whirlpools appeared. Vermilion raised the pole above hishead and pointed toward a narrow strip of beach that showed dimly atthe foot of the high bank, at a point only a few hundred yards abovethe dark gap where the river plunged between the upstanding rocks ofthe Chute.
Looking backward, Chloe watched the three scows with their swarthycrews straining at the great sweeps. Here was action--life! Primitiveman battling against the unbending forces of an iron wilderness. Thered blood leape
d through the girl's veins as she realized that thislife was to be her life--this wilderness to be her wilderness. Hers tobring under the book, and its primitive children, hers--to govern by arule of thumb!
Suddenly she noticed that the following scows were much nearer shorethan her own, and also, that they were being rapidly out-distanced.She glanced quickly toward shore. The scow was opposite the strip ofbeach toward which the others were slowly but surely drawing. The scowseemed motionless, as upon the surface of a mill-pond, but the beach,and the high bank beyond, raced past to disappear in the deepeninggloom. The figures in the following scows--the scowsthemselves--blurred into the shore-line. The beach was gone. Rocksappeared, jagged, and high--close upon either hand.
In a sudden panic, Chloe glanced wildly toward Vermilion, who crouchedin the bow, pole in hand, and with set face, stared into the gloomahead. Swiftly her glance travelled over the crew--their faces, also,were set, and they stood at the sweeps, motionless, but with their eyesfixed upon the pole of the pilot. Beyond Vermilion, in the forefront,appeared wave after wave of wildly tossing water. For just an instantthe scow hesitated, trembled through its length, and with the leapingwaves battering against its bottom and sides, plunged straight into themaw of the Chute!