Shon was determined not to be angered. The occasion was too big. “Well, Grey Nose lifted the curtain and wint in. In a minute he comes out. ‘You can go in,’ says he. So in I wint, the Injin not comin’, and there in the middle of the tint stood the Tall Master, alone. He had his fiddle to his chin, and the bow hoverin’ above it. He looked at me for a long time along the thing; then, all at once, from one string I heard the child laughin’ that pleasant and distant, though the bow seemed not to be touchin’. Soon it thinned till it was the shadow of a laugh, and I didn’t know whin it stopped, he smilin’ down at the fiddle bewhiles. Then he said without lookin’ at me,—‘It is the spirit of the White Valley and the Hills of the Mighty Men; of which all men shall know, for the North will come to her spring again one day soon, at the remaking of the world. They thought the song would never be found again, but I have given it a home here.’ And he bent and kissed the strings. After, he turned sharply as if he’d been spoken to, and looked at someone beside him; someone that I couldn’t see. A cloud dropped upon his face, he caught the fiddle hungrily to his breast, and came limpin’ over to me—for there was somethin’ wrong with his fut—and lookin’ down his hook-nose at me, says he,—‘I’ve a word for them at Fort Luke, where you’re goin’, and you’d better be gone at once; and I’ll put you on your way. There’s to be a great battle. The White Hands have an ancient feud with the Golden Dogs, and they have come from where the soft Chinook wind ranges the Peace River, to fight until no man of all the Golden Dogs be left, or till they themselves be destroyed. It is the same north and south,’ he wint on; ‘I have seen it all in Italy, in Greece, in—’ but here he stopped and smiled strangely. After a minute he wint on: ‘The White Hands have no quarrel with the Englishmen of the Fort, and I would warn them, for Englishmen were once kind to me—and warn also the Golden Dogs. So come with me at once,’ says he. And I did. And he walked with me till mornin’, carryin’ the fiddle under his arm, but wrapped in a beautiful velvet cloth, havin’ on it grand figures like the arms of a king or queen. And just at the first whisk of sun he turned me into a trail and give me good-bye, sayin’ that maybe he’d follow me soon, and, at any rate, he’d be there at the battle. Well, divils betide me! I got off the track again; and lost a day; but here I am; and there’s me story to take or lave as you will.”
Shon paused and began to fumble with the cards on the table before him, looking the while at the others.
The Chief Factor was the first to speak. “I don’t doubt but he told you true about the White Hands and the Golden Dogs,” he said; “for there’s been war and bad blood between them beyond the memory of man—at least since the time that the Mighty Men lived, from which these date their history. But there’s nothing to be done to-night; for if we tell old Wind Driver, there’ll be no sleeping at the Fort. So we’ll let the thing stand.”
“You believe all this poppy-cock, Chief”? said Lazenby to the Factor, but laughing in Shon’s face the while. The Factor gravely replied: “I knew of the Tall Master years ago on the Far-Off Metal River; and though I never saw him I can believe these things—and more. You do not know this world through and through, Lazenby; you have much to learn.”
Pierre said nothing. He took the cards from Shon and passed them to and fro in his hand. Mechanically he dealt them out, and as mechanically they took them up and in silence began to play.
The next day there was commotion and excitement at Fort Luke. The Golden Dogs were making preparations for the battle. Pow-wow followed pow-wow, and paint and feathers followed all. The H. B. C. people had little to do but look to their guns and house everything within the walls of the Fort.
At night, Shon, Pierre, and Lazenby were seated about the table in the common-room, the cards lying dealt before them, waiting for the Factor to come. Presently the door opened and the Factor entered, followed by another. Shon and Pierre sprang to their feet.
“The Tall Master,” said Shon with a kind of awe; and then stood still.
Their towering visitor slowly unloosed something he carried very carefully and closely beneath his arm, and laid it on the table, dropping his compass-like fingers softly on it. He bowed gravely to each, yet the bow seemed grotesque, his body was so ungainly. With the eyes of all drawn to him absolutely, he spoke in a low sonorous tone: “I have followed the traveller fast”—his hand lifted gently towards Shon—“for there are weighty concerns abroad, and I have things to say and do before I go again to my people—and beyond.... I have hungered for the face of a white man these many years, and his was the first I saw;”—again he tossed a long finger towards the Irishman—“and it brought back many things. I remember... “ He paused, then sat down; and they all did the same. He looked at them one by one with distant kindness. “I remember,” he continued, and his strangely articulated fingers folded about the thing on the table beside him, “when”—here the cards caught his eye. His face underwent a change. An eager fantastic look shot from his eye, “when I gambled this away at Lucca,”—his hand drew the bundle closer to him—“but I won it back again—at a price!” he gloomily added, glancing sideways as to someone at his elbow.
He remained, eyes hanging upon space for a moment, then he recollected himself and continued: “I became wiser; I never risked it again; but I loved the game always. I was a gamester from the start—the artist is always so when he is greatest,—like nature herself. And once, years after, I played with a mother for her child—and mine. And yet once again at Parma with”—here he paused, throwing that sharp sidelong glance—“with the greatest gamester, for the infinite secret of Art: and I won it; but I paid the price!... I should like to play now.”