He strode back to his waiting party, and swung himself into the saddle. The Crees cried to the pack-horses, and all set off briskly out of the inclosure, disappearing behind the store. Presently they were to be seen on the trail above, trotting up the incline; smart, well-found, arrogant, modeled upon the style of the old Company. Loseis breathed more freely. To be sure, they were not gone yet, for Gault had said they would camp for the night on the edge of the prairie. She was not in the least deceived by his politeness. There would be another night of anxiety to face, but not so keen as the previous night; for the violence of his rage must have abated somewhat. Loseis realized that she had not so much to fear from violence now, as from the man’s cold craft.
She went into her house. The supper was waiting. The thoughtless red girls, thinking only that Gault was gone, were all smiles. Loseis had Mary-Lou to sit down with her at table, in the effort to keep at bay that ghastly feeling of solitude that crept over her like the coming of night. Alone! Alone! Alone! And so long before she could hope for succor! She gave the girls a highly comic account of Gault’s proposal the night before, laughing loudly herself. Anything to keep the bogies at bay!
It was about an hour afterwards when they first began to realize that something was amiss in the Slavi village. There was an ungodly sound of singing going on. The Slavis frequently made the twilight hours hideous with their wordless chanting. Loseis was accustomed to it. To-night it was different; it had an insane ring; they were burlesquing their own performance, and screaming with laughter. It was significant too, that the voices of the women were not to be heard. Loseis scarcely knew what drunkenness meant, or she would have understood sooner.
She went to the little window at the end of the room which overlooked the river flat. Though it was eight o’clock the sun had not yet dropped out of sight. All the Slavi men were gathered in a rough circle around a fire on the creek bank. There was no order in the company; some lay about; some danced with extravagant gestures. The ordinary dance of the Slavis was a decorous shuffle. The women were nowhere to be seen. Every moment the scene became more confused, and the yelling louder.
Leaving the window, Loseis said: “I am going down to see what is the matter.”
Mary-Lou flung herself upon her mistress: “No! No! No!” she cried in despair.
Loseis was very pale. She firmly detached the clinging hands. “There is nothing else to be done,” she said simply. “If I do not notice this, my influence over them is gone!”
Loseis went sedately down the grassy rise, neither hurrying, nor hanging back. Her back was straight; her face composed. Her look of proud scorn lent a strange poignancy to her childishness. Her heart might have been fluttering like a frightened child’s, but nobody could have guessed it. Mary-Lou, seeing her face, wept aloud, without knowing what it was that had moved her so.
As Loseis came near, the Slavis around the fire fell quiet and still. Only one of them jumped up, and ran away, carrying something. Loseis recognized the figure of Mahtsonza. He ran across the stepping-stones of the creek, and climbed up the further bank. The rest of them were orderly enough now: but their drunken, swimming eyes and hanging mouths told a tale.
Loseis stepped into the middle of the circle. “What means this howling that beats against my ears?” she demanded. “Are your brains full of ice? (The Slavi phrase for insanity.) Is this a pack of coyotes or men?”