“Oh, yes, there ought, my boy. I didn't say she never had a place in my life.”
Donald looked at his father with something of the elder man's piercing gaze, and understood.
“Then, there were—”
“Relations. Exactly! But no children. After three years, we agreed to separate, and she went back to her people, well provided for, for the rest of her life. She was considered to have done very well. Therefore, having Seguis forced upon me is no light matter.”
“I hate to say it, father,” Donald said, “but if you look at him carefully, you will see unmistakable signs that spell 'McTavish' as plainly as though it were printed. You know, our family has very distinctive gray eyes and curly hair, with a lick of white on the crown. He has them both. But, tell me, what led you into any such relation? If you had warned me when I was old enough, I would have been prepared for it.”
“My boy, I had none of the advantages that you have had all your life. I was born at a little post so far north that it has been abandoned now by the Company. Your grandfather was in charge there, and, when I was old enough, I went out with him, and learned to hunt. Then, later, when I was a man, I was put in charge of another little post on the Whale River, one of those spots where a solitary white man lives for all the winter months alone, only visited occasionally by a passing Indian in need of supplies. Oh, if I had only realized then what I know now, that one's mistakes and wrong-doings bear their fruit in time! Well, at the fort, when the brigade went up in the spring, I saw an Indian girl, descendant of a chief. You will understand me when I say that I turned away from the advances she made. Our family isn't that kind—I would marry no Indian. My mother was white, all our McTavish women are white. I would have nothing to do with her. But then, that lonely winter post! You've never known it, Donald, that awful solitariness! The first winter I had a couple of papers a year old, and, when the brigade went up to the fort, I could almost repeat them verbatim. That's how lonely it was!
“When I thought about that, perhaps I pushed matters a little myself. The girl's parents were dead, and she was knocked around considerably by an old hag who hadn't the heart either to let her starve or to treat her kindly. Well, we fixed it up. I left the fort when the time came, and she followed a week later—and that winter I wasn't alone. It was so for three winters. Then, she began to get shrewish and lose her looks, so I gave her money enough to make her independent (my father had left me something), and we separated with mutual satisfaction... That's the story, Donald.”
“It's a hard story, father,” said the young man, soberly. “There isn't much kindness in it; it's pure selfishness. Understand, I'm not preaching against the immorality of the thing; people up here are frankly either one or the other, and it's nobody's business much, except the missionary's. But, in the light of what has happened this winter, we would all be happier if you hadn't done it.”
“I know it, my boy, I know it.” The hardness of the commissioner's voice broke. “And, so far as I can see, we aren't out of the trouble yet. This man, Seguis, and old Maria may force us to the wall yet. I wonder if I could bribe them off?” He looked pleadingly at his son.
“I don't think so. The old woman is so ambitious for Seguis that she won't take anything but the whole cake, and, besides, why expose yourself to a system of everlasting blackmail, with the chance of their getting angry some time and squealing anyhow? We've got to force them to the wall some other way. When are you going to have a council, and settle this thing?”