A STRANGE WARNING.
I had been up late the night before, going over some tedious accounts with the clerks, and it was by no means an early hour when I opened my eyes and tumbled out of bed. It was a clear morning, but bitterly cold. I hurriedly drew on my thick clothing, and was about to leave the room, when I caught sight of an object sticking under the bottom crevice of the door which opened on the fort yard.
I picked it up, and looked at it with interest and curiosity, not unmixed with a vague alarm. What I held in my hand was a flat strip of birch bark about six inches square, containing some rudely-painted scrawls, which I at first took to be hieroglyphics, but which quickly resolved themselves into the uncouth figures of two men. The one was clearly a white man, wearing on his head what was evidently intended to represent the odd-shaped cap of the Northwest Company. The other was an Indian in leggings, blanket and feathers.
Here was a puzzle, indeed, and I could make nothing out of it. I was satisfied, however, that it was meant to warn me—to indicate some danger that threatened myself or the fort.
“It is a mysterious affair altogether,” I reflected. “I can’t fathom it. Gray Moose may be the sender, but how did he get the bark under my door? Ah, perhaps he conveyed it by some of the Indians who came to trade; they must have been admitted to the inclosure an hour ago.”
But this explanation was not plausible enough. After some further thought, I concluded that the warning came from some of the Indian employees within the fort, who had learned from their own people of some threatening danger, and had chosen this means of communicating it. Then, looking more closely at the bark, I discovered in the background a few rude lines that had escaped my notice before. They were unmistakably intended for the barred window of the trading room, and of a sudden the solution to the problem flashed upon me.
“I was right in the first place,” I muttered. “This is the handiwork of Gray Moose, after all. And now, to make sure, I’ll set about it quietly, and won’t say anything to the factor until my suspicions are confirmed.”
I hastened from my quarters, forgetting that I had not yet breakfasted. I was so intent on my task that I did not even glance toward the upper windows of the factor’s house, where I usually caught a glimpse of Flora’s pretty face at this hour. The birch bark I had tucked out of sight in my pocket.
The gates of the stockade were wide open, and within the inclosure a number of Indians—a dozen or more—were standing in groups around sledges packed with furs waiting their turn to be served. They had left their muskets outside, as was the rule when they came to trade. I glanced keenly at them from a distance, and passed on to the trading house, entering by the private door in the rear.
Here, looking from the storeroom into the common room beyond, the scene was a noisy and brilliant one. Half a score of gayly-attired savages were talking in guttural tones, gesticulating, and pointing, demanding this and that.
Griffith Hawke greeted me with a nod. He and two assistants were busily engaged at the barred window of the partition, receiving and counting bales of skins, passing out little wooden castors, and taking them in again in exchange for powder and shot, tobacco and beads, and various other commodities.
For a few moments I watched the scene sharply, though with an assumed air of indifference. I was satisfied that no Sioux were present. They were all wood Indians—as distinguished from the fiercer tribe of the plains—but they were in stronger numbers than was customary at this time of the year.
What I was seeking I did not find here. I scanned each face in turn, but all present in the outer room were unmistakably redskins.
“You are doing a lively business this morning,” I remarked to the factor.
“Yes; I am having quite a run,” he replied. “I can’t exactly account for it.” In a lower tone he added: “Every man of them is purchasing powder and shot, Denzil.”
This seemed a partial confirmation of my suspicions.
“It’s queer, to say the least,” I answered. “I wouldn’t sell them much. Tell them you’re running short.”
“They won’t believe that,” said Griffith Hawke.
“Stay and lend me a hand, Denzil, if you’ve nothing else to do.”
“I’ll come back in a moment,” I replied. “I’ve got a little matter to attend to. I may want you to help me. If I shout for you, close the grating and run out.”
Griffith Hawke’s eyes dilated, and in a tone of astonishment he demanded to know what I meant. But I did not wait to answer him. I slipped unheeding out of the trading house, turned the corner and almost ran into a big savage who was coming from the rear of the inclosure—a place in which he had no business to be.
He was apparently an Assiniboin brave, decked out in cariboo robe and blanket, fringed leggings, and beaded moccasins. But his cheek bones were not prominent enough for an Indian, and when he saw me a ruddy color flashed through the sickly copper of his skin and a menacing look shone in his eyes.
And I, at the first glimpse, knew that the fellow was no more of a redskin than myself. I had rightly interpreted the bit of birch bark, which meant that a white man—a spy of the Northwest Company—would be found within the fort disguised as an Indian. I was convinced that the object of my search stood before me, and I even had a lurking suspicion that the rogue was none other than Cuthbert. Mackenzie, though he was too cleverly disguised for me to feel certain of that fact.
All this passed through my mind in much less time than it takes to tell. I was on the alert, and let slip no sign that might betray my quest. And no sooner had our eyes met than the Indian’s agitation vanished, and he looked at me with a proud and stolid expression.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded roughly. “This is not the way to the trading house. You have no business in this part of the fort.”
The brave’s only reply was a guttural “Ugh!” Folding his blanket closer about him, he began to stride off. This did not suit my purpose.
“Stop!” I cried. “I want to know what you were doing here.”
“Indian mean no harm,” he replied. “Heap nice fort—white man build many houses.”
The moment he spoke the last ray of doubt fled from my mind, for to my trained ear the fellow’s voice and accent were but feeble imitations of what they ought to be, and I fancied I could detect a little trick of mannerism I had observed in Cuthbert Mackenzie. It was time for me to show the iron hand, and I did not hesitate a second.
“You may be telling the truth,” I said, “but you must give an account of yourself to the factor. Don’t make any disturbance. Come along with me quietly or—” I finished the sentence by displaying a pistol which I had dexterously slipped from my belt.
I had expected some resistance, and was prepared for it. The Indian’s eyes gleamed with anger, and from under his blanket he whipped out a knife. As quickly struck the weapon from his hand and grappled with him. He gave a shrill cry, and I followed it with a loud shout for help.
What happened next, though it proved to my discomfiture, was as neat and swift a thing as I have ever seen done. From the front of the trading house, and from the inside of the building the Indians came dashing in a body. They made no use of any weapons, but by sheer muscular force they wrested my captive from me and beat me cruelly on the head.
The thing was over before a man could come to my assistance, though plenty were within sight and hearing. Rising dizzily to my feet—I had been knocked down and trampled upon—I saw the daring band of savages swarming toward the open gates, taking with them the disguised spy, their sledges of furs, and the powder and shot they had just purchased.
“Help—help!” I shouted, running in pursuit. “Stop them! Don’t let them get away!” With shrill cries, the redskins pushed on, and the single sentry at the gates deserted his post and fled. I heard an outcry behind me, and turning I saw that the factor and half a dozen others had come up. Griffith Hawke was the only armed man among them.
“What is the trouble?” he demanded.
“A spy!” I shouted incoherently. “A Northwest man in the fort, disguised as an Indian! I am certain it was Mackenzie! They tore him from me—don’t let them get him away!”
“Stop, you rascals!” the factor yelled loudly. “We must have that man!”
No attention was paid to the command, and lifting his musket, he pointed it at the squirming mass of savages in the gateway. There was a sudden flash, a stunning report, and one of the rearmost Indians dropped.
“My God! what have I done?” cried Griffith Hawke, his face turning pale. “It was an accident—my finger slipped. Don’t fire, men!”
The dead or wounded Indian had already been picked up by his comrades, and only a crimson stain was left on the snow to mark where he had fallen. The next instant the whole band were outside the stockade yelling like fiends, and with a crash some of our men flung the big gates to and barred them. A couple ran to the loopholes and peered out.
“The varmints are in retreat,” cried one—“making for the woods on the north.”
“And it’s a dead body they’re carrying with them, sure enough,” shouted the other.
By this time the fort was in a tumult, and a crowd surrounded the factor and myself, clamoring to know the cause of the disturbance. So soon as Griffith Hawke could quiet them a little, I told all that I knew, and produced the strip of birch bark. It was passed about from hand to hand.
“You read the message right—I know something of Indian character writing,” said the factor. “Doubtless Gray Moose sent it. A Northwest Company’s man in the fort as a spy! It is a thousand pities he got away! But are you certain, Denzil, that he was a white man?”
“I am sure of it,” I replied, “and the fact that the Indians rescued him so promptly—”
“Yes; that proves the existence of some sort of a conspiracy,” the factor interrupted. “But do you know that the spy was Cuthbert Mackenzie?”
“I could not swear to it,” I admitted, “but I am pretty well satisfied in my own mind.”
Some of the men were for sallying out to pursue and capture the Indians, but Griffith Hawke prudently refused to permit this.
“Let well enough alone,” he said. “A large force of savages may be lurking in the forest, and there will be trouble soon enough as it is. I regret the unfortunate accident by which I shot one of the Indians, for it will inflame them all the more against us. It is certain, I fear, that they have been won over by the Northwest people, and that they meditated an early attack on the fort. Thank God, that we got wind of it in time! Come what may, we can hold out against attack and siege! And at the earliest opportunity we must send word to the south and to Fort York.”
There were sober faces and anxious hearts behind the stockade that day, for there could be no longer any doubt that the long-threatened storm—the struggle for supremacy between the rival fur companies—was about to break. Nay, for aught any of us knew, open strife might already be waging in the south, or up on the shores of Hudson Bay; a lonely and isolated post was ours on the Churchill River.
We held a consultation, and decided to omit no precautionary measures. Our store of weapons was overhauled, the howitzers were loaded, the gates and the stockade were strengthened, and men were posted on watch.
The day wore on quietly, and no sign of Indians was reported. I saw nothing of Flora, but I thought of her constantly, and feared she must be in much distress of mind. I confess, to my shame, that it caused me some elation to reflect that the marriage was now likely to be indefinitely postponed, but there I erred, as I was soon to learn.
At about four o’clock of the afternoon, when darkness was coming on, I was smoking a pipe in the men’s quarters. Hearing shouts and a sudden commotion, I ran out in haste, thinking the Indians were approaching; but to my surprise, the sentries were unbarring the gates, and no sooner had they opened them than in came a couple of voyageurs, followed by two teams of dogs and a pair of sledges. The two occupants of the latter, in spite of the muffling of furs, I recognized at once. The one was my old Quebec acquaintance, Mr. Christopher Burley, the London law clerk; the other, to my ill-concealed dismay, was an elderly priest whom I had often seen at Fort York.