“It makes little difference what I believe,” he answered patiently. “If it is any comfort to you, I can hardly conceive of you plundering the Moon’s cabin. But voicing our individual beliefs is beside the point. Certain things are laid to us. Certain penalties are sure as the rising and setting of the sun, if either of us is caught and convicted. And”—he pinched his eyebrows together until little creases ran up and down his forehead, but his voice was cold, matter of fact—“if we were clean-handed as a babe unborn, we have forever damned ourselves before Canadian courts, by breaking jail. You see where we are? Forgetting these other things that we may or may not have done, of this one crime we are guilty. We can’t dodge it, if we are taken. It is a felony in itself.”
“If I were a free agent,” he went on, after a momentary pause, “I would have made no attempt to escape; or having escaped, I would quit this damned country by the shortest route. But I can’t. I have got into a game that I must play to a finish. Further, I have given my word to do certain work, and in the doing of it I am bucking elements that I cannot always cope with alone. I need help. I want some one whom I can trust absolutely if he gives his word; a man I can depend upon to stick by me in a pinch. That,” he turned his gaze squarely on me, “is principally why I took long chances to get you out of the guardhouse, last night. It seemed to me I could help myself best by helping you. I will be frank. My motive was not purely altruistic. Men’s motives seldom are.”
“You flatter me,” I commented bitterly. “Considering that I have shown myself more or less weak-kneed every time I’ve got in a tight place, your remark about some one who would stick by you in a pinch savors of irony. I hardly see how you could put absolute faith in me, when I have so little faith in myself. Besides, I do not know what your program calls for. I don’t seem to have the faculty of holding my own in a rough game; nor the right sort of nerve—if I have any. My instinct seems to be to give ground until I’m cornered. I’d rather be at peace with the world. I don’t like war of the personal sort.”
“Nor does any man, any normal man,” he responded soberly. “But there are times, as you have seen, when we cannot escape it. So far as your capacity for holding your own is concerned, let me be judge of that. I know men more or less well—by bitter experience. Under certain conditions I could probably guess what you would do, better than yourself. You may be sure I wouldn’t ask you to accept certain risks and hardships with me if I thought a yellow streak tinged your make-up. So we will not argue along that line.
“What I need your help in is a legitimate enterprise; clean enough of itself—though I have acquired a dirty reputation in the way of it. I’ll give you a few details, and you can judge for yourself. Four years ago chance sent me north to a Hudson’s Bay post on the Saskatchewan. From there I drifted farther—to the Great Slave Lake country, almost. I’ve known more or less of the fur trade all my life. My father was in it. And so I was quick to see how the Hudson’s Bay Company holds the North trade in the hollow of its hand. It was a revelation to me, Bob. Fortunes gravitate to their posts by the simplest process in the world. They barter a worthless muzzle-loading gun and a handful of powder and ball for a hundredfold its worth in pelts. From one year’s end to another, yes, from generation to generation, the tribes have been kept in debt to the Company. They make a scanty living from the Company, and the Company builds colossal fortunes out of them. You and I would call it robbery. To the Company it is merely ‘trade.’
“Ever since the granting of its charter, close on two centuries ago, the Company has lorded it over the North, barring out the free trader, guarding jealously against competition. Only the Northwest Fur Company ever held its own with the Hudson’s Bay, and the two combined when the Northwest established itself. The others, lone traders, partnerships, the Company fought and intimidated till they withdrew. Technically, it is a free country, has been since ’69, but north of the Saskatchewan the Company still holds forth in the ancient manner, making its own law, recognizing no higher authority than itself. It is a big country, the North, and the Canadian government has its hands full in the east and south. A white man takes his own risks north of latitude 54.
“All this I knew very well. But like many another purse-broken man, I wanted a fling at the trade. I saw that a man could get in touch with the tribes, give them fair exchange for their furs—give them treble the Hudson’s Bay rate of barter—and still make a fortune. I needed the fortune, Bob; I am still on the trail of it. But I had too little capital to play a lone hand. So I hied me to St. Louis and broached the scheme to Montell. I have known him all my life. He also is an old hand in the trade. He had the capital I lacked.”
Barreau stopped for a minute, digging at the earth with his heel. The fire had dwindled to a few coals. I could not see his face. But his voice had changed, a note of resentment had crept into it, when he began again.
“Montell jumped at the plan. Later I learned things that led me to believe he was near the end of his rope, financially, at the time. So my scheme was in the nature of a Godsend to him. I had a little money, and every dollar I could raise I put in. It was to be an equal partnership: my knowledge of the country and the conditions to offset his extra capital.
“The first year we made expenses, and a little over. But we were getting known among the Indian hunters, convincing them that we would treat them better than the Hudson’s Bay. Secure in their established grip on the tribes, the Company passed us up. The second year we made money. Then the Company woke up and fought us tooth and nail. Not openly; that is not their way. They fought us, nevertheless. There were reprisals. The brunt of it fell on me. They seemed to guess that with my teeth drawn their fight was won. So they carried the war systematically into the open country. Our jail-breaking last night took its inception in that struggle for and against a monopoly.