Lords of the North

by Agnes C. Laut

"You should have knocked that blasted quarantine's head off," ejaculated Mr. Jack MacKenzie, with ferocious emphasis. I had been relating my experience with the campers; and was recounting how the man put his head out of the tent and warned me of smallpox. But my uncle was a gentleman of the old school and had a fine contempt for quarantine.

"Knocked his head off, knocked his head off, Sir," he continued, explosively. "Make it a point to knock the head off anything that stands in your way, Sir——"

"But you don't suppose," I expostulated, about to voice my own suspicions.

"Suppose!" he roared out. "I make it a point never to suppose anything. I act on facts, Sir! You wanted to go into that wigwam; didn't you? Well then, why the deuce didn't you go, and knock the head off anything that opposed you?"

Being highly successful in all his own dealings, Mr. Jack MacKenzie could not tolerate failure in other people. A month of vigilant searching had yielded not the slightest inkling of Miriam and the child; and this fact ignited all the gunpowder of my uncle's fiery temperament. We had felt so sure Le Grand Diable's band of vagabonds would hang about till the brigades of the North-West Company's tripmen set out for the north, all our efforts were spent in a vain search for some trace of the rascals in the vicinity of Quebec. His gypsy nondescripts would hardly dare to keep the things taken from Miriam and the child. These would be traded to other tribes; so day and night, Mr. MacKenzie, Eric and I, with hired spies, dogged the footsteps of trappers, who were awaiting the breaking up of the ice; shadowed voyageurs, who passed idle days in the dram-shops of Lower Town, and scrutinized every native who crossed our path, ever on the alert for a glimpse of Diable, or his associates. Diligently we tracked all Indian trails through Charlesbourg forest and examined every wigwam within a week's march of the city. Le Grand Diable was not likely to be among his ancestral enemies at Lorette, but his half-breed followers might have traded with the Hurons; and the lodges at Lorette were also searched. Watches were set along the St. Lawrence, so no one could approach an opening before the ice broke up, or launch a canoe after the water had cleared, without our knowledge. But Le Grand Diable and his band had vanished as mysteriously as Miriam. It was as impossible to learn where the Iroquois had gone as to follow the wind. His disappearance was altogether as unaccountable as the lost woman's, and this, of itself, confirmed our suspicions. Had he sold, or slain his captives, he would not have remained in hiding; and the very fruitlessness of the search redoubled our zeal.

The conviction that Louis Laplante had, somehow or other, played me false, stuck in my mind like the depression of a bad dream. Again and again, I related the circumstances to my uncle; but he "pished," and "tushed," and "pooh-poohed," the very idea of any kidnappers remaining so near the city and giving me free run of their wigwams. My reasonless persistence was beginning to irritate him. Indeed, on one occasion, he informed me that I had as many vagaries in my head as a "bed-ridden hag," and with great fervor he "wished to the Lord there was a law in this land for the ham-stringing of such fool idiots, as that habitant Mute, who led me such a wild-goose chase."

In spite of this and many other jeremiades, I once more donned snow-shoes and with Paul for guide paid a second visit to the campers of the gorge. And a second time, I was welcomed by Louis and taken through the wigwams. The smallpox tent was no longer on the crest of the hill; and when I asked after the patient, Louis without a word pointed solemnly to a snow-mound, where the man lay buried. But I did not see the big squaw, nor the face that had emerged from the tent flaps to wave me off; and when I also inquired after these, Louis' face darkened. He told me bluntly I was asking too many questions and began to swear in a mongrel jargon of French and English that my conduct was an insult he would take from no man. But Louis was ever short of temper. I remembered that of old. Presently his little flare-up died down, and he told me that the woman and her husband had gone north through the woods to join some crews on the Upper Ottawa. From the talk of the others, I gathered that, having disposed of their hunt to the commissariat department at the Citadel, they intended to follow the same trail within a few days. I tried without questioning to learn what crews they were to join; but whether with purpose, or by chance, the conversation drifted from my lead and I had to return to the city without satisfaction on that point.

Meanwhile, Hamilton rested neither night nor day. In the morning with a few hurried words he would outline the plan for the day. At night he rode back to the Chateau with such eager questioning in his eyes when they met mine, I knew he had nothing better to report to me, than I to him. After a silent meal, he would ride through the dark forest on a fresh mount. How and where he passed those sleepless nights, I do not know. Thus had a month slipped away; and we had done everything and accomplished nothing. Baffled, I had gone to confer with Mr. Jack MacKenzie and had, as usual, exasperated him with the reiterated conviction that Adderly and the Citadel writing paper and Louis Laplante had some connection with the malign influence that was balking our efforts.

"Fudge!" exclaims my uncle, stamping about his study and puffing with indignation. "You should have knocked that blasted quarantine's head off!"

"You've said that several times already, Mr. MacKenzie," I put in, having a touch of his own peppery temper from my mother's side. "What about Adderly's rage?"