"You are innocent," he cried, "and those men will be here to-morrow or the next day."

"And to-morrow, or the next day I shall be at Fort Dumarge!"

"But they can follow."

"Let them! Or let them await me here! What good will it do? They came in on a long trail, but by Heaven they may go out on a longer one."

Dunvegan stared at the dark, glowering visage and shivered involuntarily.

"What one?" he asked under his breath, although he knew.

"_La longue traverse_," the Factor decreed.

CHAPTER XIV

THE IRON TRAIL

Pluff! Pluff! The crunching of Maskwa's snowshoes sounded back through the bitter starlight of the dawn. Taking advantage with his skilful heel-spring of the resilience of the taut shoe webbing and the elasticity of the curved frames, Maskwa ran easily in a long, lurching stride. The shifting of his whole weight from one foot to the other sank his raquettes in the snow with uniform pressure. The ankle's side-swing came with unfailing precision. The Ojibway traveled like a machine, perfectly poised and full of potential strength. Thus he could run if need be from sun to sun.

Behind him in the broken trail galloped the first of the six dog teams that carried the outfits. Five halfbreed track beaters packed the snow in front of the other sledges. Six Indians drove. At intervals the positions were shifted, each team taking its turn at the lead where lay the heaviest toil.

"Mush! Mush!" cried the Indian dog drivers. Crack! Crack! snapped the whips in weird staccato. These sounds with the noises of travel were the only ones to echo through the white stillness. For the rest the Hudson's Bay men went in silence because the cold was that awful cold that strangles the northern world before sunrise. Its frigid hands seemed to catch their chests and clamp their lungs tight. A gauntlet removed to allow the fastening of a moccasin lace, the adjustment of the parka hood, or the clearing of iced eyelashes left the bare fingers numbed by the cruel frost which bit through the flesh and lacerated the tense nerves beneath. Through many a dawn-hour had these northmen fought this freezing horror. On countless trails had they come face to face with this death masked ice spirit. Well they knew their capabilities.

Closely they guarded their energies. With all his relentless power and subtlety the frost fiend might not take them unawares!

Steadily moved the long line of men across the wind-packed surface of Oxford Lake, their bodies leaning forward at identical angles, their limbs swinging with machine-like regularity. Shoulders heaving at their collars, the dog teams ran in their own peculiar fashion, heads down, tongues lolling between steaming jaws. So exactly alike the outfits seemed that the hindmost ones might have been the oft-repeated shadow of the foremost brushing back across the snows, indistinct, vague beneath the waning starlight.

Quitting Oxford Lake at Kowasin Inlet, the trains ascended Kabeke Ridge that they might make the descent on the other side to the smooth ice of Blazing Pine River which would afford them easy progress for many miles.

Among the trees of the crest the cavalcade lost definition. The men were merely shadows on the snow, flicking ghost-like between the silhouetted tree trunks. The dogs were wolfish things sneaking low to the ground.

The utter silence of the morning was ethereal in its intangibility.

Sharp detonations of frost-split trees brought contrasts that ripped the screen of silence with weird, unearthly noises. A phosph.o.r.escent glimmer smeared the crust. Little shadowy shapes began to dance before the men's snow-stung eyes. A suggestion of mirages drifted here and there, mocking, oppressive, supernatural, phantasmagoric.

Where the course of march led from the elevated ridge to the low river surface the incline fell so sharply that extreme care was necessary to make the descent in safety. The Indian dog drivers whipped up their teams to force them in a direct line, while some clung to the sledges that they might not break away wildly and over-run the rushing _giddes_.

The plunge beat up a cloud of foaming snow particles. Sled after sled shot down. The men half coasted, half ran with amazing speed on the feathery slope. An immense groove in the white covering of the mountain side showed after them. They turned down Blazing Pine, on the banks of which was the Indian encampment that Father Brochet had gone to visit in his mission of administering to the sick.

Maskwa, the tireless, still broke the trail. Dunvegan sent forward Black Fox, a sinewy Salteaux Indian, to relieve him for a s.p.a.ce, but the Ojibway smiled a little and refused.

"Strong Father," protested Black Fox, dropping back, "this Maskwa the swift one will not listen. Nor will he give me the task. His legs are of iron, and his lungs are spirit's lungs--they breathe forever! Strong Father, there is none like him from Wenipak to the Big Waters."

"That's true, Black Fox," commented the leader of the expedition, "but he should take some rest."

Dunvegan sped forward till he was running side by side with the Ojibway.

"Maskwa, my brother," he urged, "take the easy place for an hour. It is not well to punish yourself!"

The fort runner smiled again. He had ideal features for an Indian, and the stamp of n.o.ble lineage was set upon the bold curve of brow, nose, and chin.

"Strong Father," he replied, "it is not hard for me. I will keep on, for I would have my own eyes search the trail ahead. There are spies about.

Let Strong Father mark how the fur trains were sought out and set upon!

Mark how the French Hearts took council to surprise Oxford House! We have need to keep the clear eye. We must go swiftly but craftily.

Therefore, Strong Father, let Maskwa have the lead. His sight will not fail you."

The Ojibway's dark face glowed earnestly in the golden haze of light which heralded the near appearance of the sun. He was running as easily and breathing as quietly as he had done in the first mile they traversed.

"As you will," conceded Dunvegan. "You have my trust!"

The chief trader dropped back in turn with the main body. Maskwa spurted far ahead, performing the duty of scout as well as that of track beater. Before the Nor'westers could compa.s.s another surprise they would have to reckon with the cunning Ojibway.

Steadily on went the file of dog trains. The men were feeling the cold less. By this time extreme exertion had infused a warm glow in each man's frame. Every part of the human anatomy responded to the strong blood coursing in the veins. An excess of virile strength permeated the muscles. An effervescence of buoyancy toned up the nerves.

Eyes gleaming brighter for the fringe of filmed ice above, lips blowing cloud-breaths, clothes frost rimmed from over-activity, these Hudson's Bay giants held on their way. Soon they came to the branching of the Blazing Pine River and continued down the tributary which curved by the Indian village lying three hours' journey below the junction point.

At last the belated sun rose over the spruce trees, glaring with a sort of amazed, fiery wrath upon these travelers who had taken advantage of his slumber to win so many miles of their hard march. But the wrath subsided, lost in the rosy day dreams that wrapped earth and sky in a brilliant winter mist. Radiating beams created the impression of cheerful heat. The whole range of imaginable colors, multiplied by tinting and blending, wove and shifted in a vast web of living fire across the opal clouds. A stupendous panorama lay the wilderness world, exhaling color, displaying jewels, wrapping itself in beauteous necromancy!

In the late forenoon Maskwa sighted the Indian village in the middle distance. Dunvegan decided to make mid-day camp there. He gave the order to his men, an order that was received with great alacrity.

"_Chac! Chac! Chac!_" yelled the drivers to the _giddes_, enforcing the order with splitting reports from the long lashes of their dog whips.

Gleefully and dutifully the sledge animals turned toward the Cree tepees pitched permanently in the warm shelter of a pine forest to the left of the river. At the thought of rest, a good meal, and a smoke the Hudson's Bay men dashed forward jauntily, eager to make the bivouac. But an Indian, running out of the winter wigwams, stopped Maskwa from entering the village by a peculiar motion of his crossed hands. The others saw the fort runner halt in his tracks and draw away, while a momentary conference in the native dialect took place.

The Ojibway beckoned to Dunvegan who ran up hastily.

"Strong Father," spoke Maskwa quickly, "an Indian has come to this village and he has fever. We cannot enter. Else will the fever spirit destroy our own men."

"Where's Father Brochet?" Bruce demanded, speaking in Cree. "Where's the priest--the praying man. Bid him come forth!"

On the summons Father Brochet appeared. His greetings were none the less cheerful for the distance that intervened between the friends.

"It wouldn't be wise to come in," the priest called, "and risk exposure to infection. This case isn't so bad, but you know the dangers. The Indian came from the tribe on Loon Lake, and some of his fellows up there are sick with the same thing. When I get him in shape so that the Indian women can bring him through, I am going up to see after the others."

"Loon Lake!" exclaimed Dunvegan. "That's up beyond Fort Brondel. You'd better be careful when you are in the Nor'west haunts."

"The Nor'westers don't trouble the men of G.o.d," returned Brochet simply.

"I have no fear of them! We are indispensable to both Hudson's Bay servants and Nor'westers!" He smiled grimly at the significance of his plain words.

"But lately men on our side have died unshriven," the chief trader observed bitterly. "There is a chance that the same may happen to the enemy."

"You are heading for Brondel?"

"With all haste! The sack of the Wokattiwagan train will be speedily and thoroughly avenged."

"And the Factor has set out to raze Dumarge as he planned?"

"Yes. We both have hoped to surprise the Nor'west forts for, failing that, we must sit down to a long siege."