"What sort of men were they?" he asked the halfbreed courier.

"W'ite mans, ver' strong," replied the shrewd breed. "Look lak dey come from ovaire de Beeg Wenipak."

And Dunvegan knew that Granger and Garfield, the hardy deputies, also awaited the success of Malcolm Macleod. Like shadows since the first had they moved across the northern reaches from obscurity to certainty, from vagueness to tangibility, omens of a coming law in the wilderness!

Also like a shadow Desiree Lazard flitted free before the chief trader in Fort Brondel. Bitter through her utter disillusionment, swept by a fire as compelling as that against which Bruce Dunvegan battled, she cared not how high ran the tide of feeling. With a woman's instinctive pride in her powers she smiled on the re-awakening of the old love, thrilled to its magnifying intensity, responded with a half guilty ecstacy to its fierce, measureless strength.

Listening in the fort, Desiree would hear Bruce's rifle talking as he hunted through the lonely woods. It spoke to her of misery, pain, and yearning. Secretly she rejoiced. Then at night her eyes shone across to him through the birch logs' glow. Her hair gleamed like the candlelight.

Her lips allured through the half-dusk surrounding the crooning fireplace.

Maskwa, the wise old Ojibway, watching them thus evening after evening as the long winter months slipped away, nodded darkly.

"Nenaubosho is working in them," he observed to himself. "Soft Eyes will lose his wife unless Stern Father comes to move us."

But Fort Dumarge, feeling the pinch of hunger, still held firm against Malcolm Macleod.

As ever the evenings came round. Desiree's spell grew stronger. The att.i.tude of the two began to be marked by all in the fort as the curb loosened imperceptibly, but surely. Out of hearing in the blockhouse or the trading room, the Hudson's Bay men commented on their leader's strange--to them--fight against his own inclination. A hard-bitten crowd, each followed impulse in the main. The only restriction they acknowledged was the Company's discipline. They were north of fifty-three, and they scorned the fine points of ecclesiastics. Two ruling powers they knew: red blood and a strong arm.

Because Bruce Dunvegan held the upper hand and wanted Desiree Lazard as he wanted nothing else on earth, they marveled that he did not get rid of the prisoner and marry her. Behind the screen of hundreds of miles of forest they had seen the thing done many times before, and no one in the outside world was the wiser.

"He goin' crazy eef somet'ing don' be happen," whispered Baptiste Verenne, one night when the winter had nearly run its course.

"'Tis always a woman as raises the divil," announced Terence Burke. "Oi was engaged wanst meself, an' Rosie O'Shea niver gave me a minnit's peace till the day she bruk it."

"Hold on there," Connear cried. "You mean _you_ never gave _her_ a minute's peace. 'Twould be South Sea h.e.l.l to live with you, Terence--even for a man!"

"Ye ear-ringed cannibal," returned Terence belligerently. "Divil a woman _would_ live wid ye, fer she'd be turned to rock salt by yer briny tongue."

Connear stuck out the offending member beneath his pipe stem.

"No woman will ever have the chance to do it," he declared. "I've been in a few ports in my time. I've had my lesson."

"Now you spik," smiled Baptiste. "You be t'ink of dat tale you told 'bout dat native girl w'en your boat she be stop at--w'at you call?--dose Solomon Isle!"

"Yes," the ex-sailor replied. "Made love to me in the second watch and stabbed me in the back with one hand to leave the way clear for her tribe to murder the crew and loot the vessel."

"Oi didn't hear that, Peter," Burke prompted. "Go on wid it."

"Nothing to go on with," snapped Connear. "She pinked me too high up.

Knife-point struck the shoulder blade, and my pistol went off before she could give the signal yell."

"An' then?" Terence was interested.

"Nothin', I said. The crew rolled out. The night was so warm that they didn't care to sleep any more. Oh, yes, and there was a village funeral in the mornin'!"

"Whose?"

"The girl's, you blockhead. Died of fever--a night attack!"

"Howly Banshees!" stammered Burke.

Baptiste Verenne crossed himself.

"So," nodded Maskwa, unmoved. "Soft Eyes might die of fever, or cold, or the Red Death!"

South winds full of strange magic ate away the snows. Blinking evilly, the muskegs laughed in little gurglings and sucking sounds. The forest pools brimmed with black water. Fresh, blue reservoirs the big lakes shimmered, while rivers swirled in brown, sinuous torrents.

Spring! The mallards shot overhead like emerald bullets.

Spring! The geese ran a compa.s.s line across the world.

Spring! The blood of every Northerner, man or woman, rioted madly, leaping untamable as the Blazing Pine River roaring past Fort Brondel.

Through some swift necromancy the frozen wilderness turned to an arboreal paradise. Bird songs fell sweet on ears tuned to brawling blizzards. Music of rapid and waterfall seemed heavenly after the eternal hissing of the wind-freighted drifts. Hotly shone the sun, pouring vitality into the earth. Responsive the bloom came, wonderful, profligate, luxurious.

Gay as any of the mating birds Baptiste Verenne sang about the Post. And when even the veins of squaw and husky thrilled with excess of vigor, the tremendous swelling and merging of the pa.s.sion that absorbed Desiree and Dunvegan could be vaguely gauged. As surely as the glowing warmth of spring was increasing to febrile summer heat, the man was being drawn to the woman. The distance between them gradually lessened. Dumarge had not fallen.

Then from the South in the dusk of an evening came the canoe express bearing the York Factory Packet in charge of Basil Dreaulond. Since Brondel now belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, that place had been added to the posts of call.

Baptiste Verenne sighted Basil and his bronzed paddlers far up the Blazing Pine before ever they reached the landing. Instantly Fort Brondel was in an uproar, but in accordance with the rule in troublesome times no one pa.s.sed beyond the stockade to greet arrivals. The dangers of surprise was not courted.

Yet Baptiste had not been mistaken. Dreaulond and his men hailed the post cheerily.

"_Hola!_" was the cry. "_Voyez le pacquet de la Compagnie._"

"_Oui, mes camarades_," shouted Verenne as sentinel from the high stockades. "_Entrez! Entrez vite!_"

Joyfully Brondel received them. "_Lettres par le Grand Pays_," shrieked the volatile French-Canadians.

Bruce Dunvegan met Dreaulond in the store where he had his office as factor of the fort.

"What news?" he questioned, gripping Basil's brown palm.

"Dumarge she be taken," replied the smiling courier.

"When?" Pain not joy filled Dunvegan to his bewilderment. He began to think that he did not really understand himself or his feelings.

"'Fore I leave," Dreaulond responded. "De Factor send de word in de _pacquet_."

A startled, feminine cry echoed behind the men. Bruce swung on his heel.

Her eyes brooding with half-formed fear, Desiree Lazard was regarding them.

The chief trader motioned her out. She did not obey.

"He has won? The Factor has won at last?" Her manner was that of a person who faces a calamity long-feared, hard-hated.

Dully Bruce nodded.

"The papers!" she exclaimed. "Open them! See when the force moves."