Part 30

Divining their misery, their hunger, and the savage thought that had come to them, Sally had whispered to the factor's wife to bring food, and the woman now came running out with two baskets full, and returned for more. Sally ran forward among the Indians and put the food into their hands. With grunts of satisfaction they seized what she gave, and thrust it into their mouths, squatting on the ground. Arrowhead looked on stern and immobile, but when at last she and the factor's wife sat down before the braves with confidence and an air of friendliness, he sat down also; yet, famished as he was, he would not touch the food. At last Sally, realizing his proud defiance of hunger, offered him a little lump of pemmican and a biscuit, and with a grunt he took it from her hands and ate it. Then, at his command, a fire was lit, the pipe of peace was brought out, and Sally and the factor's wife touched their lips to it, and passed it on.

So was a new treaty of peace and loyalty made with Arrowhead and his tribe by a woman without fear, whose life had seemed not worth a minute's purchase; and, as the sun went down, Arrowhead and his men went forth to make war upon Yellow Hawk beside the Nettigon River. In this wise had her influence spread in the land.

* * * * *

Standing now with the child in his arms and his wife looking at him with a shining moisture of the eyes, Jim laughed outright. There came upon him a sudden sense of power, of aggressive force--the will to do. Sally understood, and came and laughingly grasped his arm.

"Oh, Jim," she said, playfully, "you are getting muscles like steel. You hadn't these when you were colonel of the Kentucky Carbineers!"

"I guess I need them now," he said, smiling, and with the child still in his arms drew her to a window looking northward. As far as the eye could see, nothing but snow, like a blanket spread over the land. Here and there in the wide expanse a tree silhouetted against the sky, a tracery of eccentric beauty, and off in the far distance a solitary horseman riding toward the post--riding hard.

"It was root, hog, or die with me, Sally," he continued, "and I rooted.... I wonder--that fellow on the horse--I have a feeling about him. See, he's been riding hard and long--you can tell by the way the horse drops his legs. He sags a bit himself.... But isn't it beautiful, all that out there--the real quintessence of life."

The air was full of delicate particles of frost on which the sun sparkled, and though there was neither bird nor insect, nor animal, nor stir of leaf, nor swaying branch or waving grass, life palpitated in the air, energy sang its song in the footstep that crunched the frosty ground, that broke the crusted snow; it was in the delicate wind that stirred the flag by the barracks away to the left; hope smiled in the wide prospect over which the thrilling, bracing air trembled. Sally had chosen right.

"You had a big thought when you brought me here, guinea-girl," he added, presently. "We are going to win out here"--he set the child down--"you and I and this lucky sixpence." He took up his short fur coat. "Yes, we'll win, honey." Then, with a brooding look in his face, he added:

"'The end comes as came the beginning, And shadows fail into the past; And the goal, is it not worth the winning, If it brings us but home at the last? While far through the pain of waste places We tread, 'tis a blossoming rod That drives us to grace from disgraces, From the fens to the gardens of God!'"

He paused reflectively. "It's strange that this life up here makes you feel that you must live a bigger life still, that this is only the wide porch to the great labor-house--it makes you want to do things. Well, we've got to win the stake first," he added, with a laugh.

"The stake is a big one, Jim--bigger than you think."

"You and her and me--me that was in the gutter."

"What is the gutter, dadsie?" asked Nancy.

"The gutter--the gutter is where the dish-water goes, midget," he answered, with a dry laugh.

"Oh, I don't think you'd like to be in the gutter," Nancy said, solemnly.

"You have to get used to it first, miss," answered Jim. Suddenly Sally laid both hands on Jim's shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "You must win the stake, Jim. Think--now!"

She laid a hand on the head of the child. He did not know that he was playing for a certain five millions, perhaps fifty millions, of dollars. She had never told him of his father's offer. He was fighting only for salvation, for those he loved, for freedom. As they stood there, the conviction had come upon her that they had come to the last battle-field, that this journey which Jim now must take would decide all, would give them perfect peace or lifelong pain. The shadow of battle was over them, but he had no foreboding, no premonition; he had never been so full of spirits and life.

To her adjuration Jim replied by burying his face in her golden hair, and he whispered: "Say, I've done near four years, my girl. I think I'm all right now--I think. This last six months, it's been easy--pretty fairly easy."

"Four months more, only four months more--God be good to us!" she said, with a little gasp.

If he held out for four months more, the first great stage in their life-journey would be passed, the stake won.

"I saw a woman get an awful fall once," Jim said, suddenly. "Her bones were broken in twelve places, and there wasn't a spot on her body without injury. They set and fixed up every broken bone except one. It was split down. They didn't dare perform the operation; she couldn't stand it. There was a limit to pain, and she had reached the boundary. Two years went by, and she got better every way, but inside her leg those broken pieces of bone were rubbing against each other. She tried to avoid the inevitable operation, but Nature said, 'You must do it, or die in the end.' She yielded. Then came the long preparations for the operation. Her heart shrank, her mind got tortured. She'd suffered too much. She pulled herself together, and said, 'I must conquer this shrinking body of mine by my will. How shall I do it?' Something within her said, 'Think and do for others. Forget yourself.' And so, as they got her ready for her torture, she visited hospitals, agonized cripple as she was, and smiled and talked to the sick and broken, telling them of her own miseries endured and dangers faced, of the boundary of human suffering almost passed; and so she got her courage for her own trial. And she came out all right in the end. Well, that's the way I've felt sometimes. But I'm ready for my operation now whenever it comes, and it's coming, I know. Let it come when it must." He smiled.

There came a knock at the door, and presently Sewell entered. "The Commissioner wishes you to come over, sir," he said.

"I was just coming, Sewell. Is all ready for the start?"

"Everything's ready, sir, but there's to be a change of orders. Something's happened--a bad job up in the Cree country, I think."

A few minutes later Jim was in the Commissioner's office. The murder of a Hudson's Bay Company's man had been committed in the Cree country. The stranger whom Jim and Sally had seen riding across the plains had brought the news for thirty miles, word of the murder having been carried from point to point. The Commissioner was uncertain what to do, as the Crees were restless through want of food and the absence of game, and a force sent to capture Arrowhead, the chief who had committed the murder, might precipitate trouble. Jim solved the problem by offering to go alone and bring the chief into the post. It was two hundred miles to the Cree encampment, and the journey had its double dangers.

Another officer was sent on the expedition for which Jim had been preparing, and he made ready to go upon his lonely duty. His wife did not know till three days after he had gone what the nature of his mission was.

Jim made his journey in good weather with his faithful dogs alone, and came into the camp of the Crees armed with only a revolver. If he had gone with ten men, there would have been an instant mêlée, in which he would have lost his life. This is what the chief had expected, had prepared for; but Jim was more formidable alone, with power far behind him which could come with force and destroy the tribe, if resistance was offered, than with fifty men. His tongue had a gift of terse and picturesque speech, powerful with a people who had the gift of imagination. With five hundred men ready to turn him loose in the plains without dogs or food, he carried himself with a watchful coolness and complacent determination which got home to their minds with great force.