PAGE 6
A Lodge In The Wilderness
by
Lablache shook back his long hair, and rolled about in his pride. “I give him cash for his share to-night–some one is behin’ me, sacre, yes! It is worth so much, I pay and step in–I take the place over. I take half the business here, and I work with Dingan’s partner. I take your horses, Dingan, I take your lodge, I take all in your lodge–everyt’ing.”
His eyes glistened, and a red spot came to each cheek as he leaned forward. At his last word Dingan, who had been standing abstractedly listening as it were, swung round on him with a muttered oath, and the skin of his face appeared to tighten. Watching through the crack of the door, Mitiahwe saw the look she knew well, though it had never been turned on her, and her heart beat faster. It was a look that came into Dingan’s face whenever Breaking Rock crossed his path, or when one or two other names were mentioned in his presence, for they were names of men who had spoken of Mitiahwe lightly, and had attempted to be jocular about her.
As Mitiahwe looked at him, now unknown to himself, she was conscious of what that last word of Lablache’s meant. Everyt’ing meant herself. Lablache–who had neither the good qualities of the white man nor the Indian, but who had the brains of the one and the subtlety of the other, and whose only virtue was that he was a successful trader, though he looked like a mere woodsman, with rings in his ears, gayly decorated buckskin coat and moccasins, and a furtive smile always on his lips! Everyt’ing! Her blood ran cold at the thought of dropping the lodge-curtain upon this man and herself alone. For no other man than Dingan had her blood run faster, and he had made her life blossom. She had seen in many a half-breed’s and in many an Indian’s face the look which was now in that of Lablache, and her fingers gripped softly the thing in her belt that had flashed out on Breaking Rock such a short while ago. As she looked, it seemed for a moment as though Dingan would open the door and throw Lablache out, for in quick reflection his eyes ran from the man to the wooden bar across the door.
“You’ll talk of the shop, and the shop only, Lablache,” he said, grimly. “I’m not huckstering my home, and I’d choose the buyer if I was selling. My lodge ain’t to be bought, nor anything in it–not even the broom to keep it clean of any half-breeds that’d enter it without leave.”
There was malice in the words, but there was greater malice in the tone, and Lablache, who was bent on getting the business, swallowed his ugly wrath, and determined that, if he got the business, he would get the lodge also in due time; for Dingan, if he went, would not take the lodge–or the woman–with him; and Dingan was not fool enough to stay when he could go to Groise to a sure fortune.
The captain of the Ste. Anne again spoke. “There’s another thing the Company said, Dingan. You needn’t go to Groise, not at once. You can take a month and visit your folks down East, and lay in a stock of home-feelings before you settle down at Groise for good. They was fair when I put it to them that you’d mebbe want to do that. ‘You tell Dingan,’ they said, ‘that he can have the month glad and grateful, and a free ticket on the railway back and forth. He can have it at once,’ they said.”
Watching, Mitiahwe could see her man’s face brighten, and take on a look of longing at this suggestion; and it seemed to her that the bird she heard in the night was calling in his ears now. Her eyes went blind for a moment.