Lords of the North by Laut Agnes C

Author:Laut, Agnes C [C, Laut, Agnes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2007-01-22T05:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER XV

THE GOOD WHITE FATHER

For a week Hamilton and I had been busy in our respective lodges getting peltries and personal belongings into shape for return to Red River. On Saturday night, at least I counted it Saturday from the notches on my doorpost, though Eric, grown morose and contradictory, maintained that it was Sunday—we sat talking before the fire of my lodge. A dreary raindrip pattered through the leaky roof and the soaked parchment tacked across the window opening flapped monotonously against the pine logs.

Unfastening the moon-shaped medallion, which my uncle had given me, I slowly spelled out the Nor'-Westers' motto—"Fortitude in Distress."

"For-ti-tude in Dis-tress," I repeated idly. "By Jove, Hamilton, we need it, don't we?"

Eric's lips curled in scorn. Without answering, he impatiently kicked a fallen brand back to the live coals. I know old saws are poor comfort to people in distress, being chiefly applicable when they are not needed.

"What in the world can be keeping Father Holland?" I asked, leading off on another tack. "Here we are almost into the summer, and never a sight of him."

"Did you really expect him back alive from the Bloods?" sneered Hamilton. He had unconsciously acquired a habit of expecting the worst.

"Certainly," I returned. "He's been among them before."

"Then all I have to say is, you're a fool!"

Poor Eric! He had informed me I was a fool so often in his ravings I had grown quite used to the insult. He glared savagely at the fire, and if I had not understood this bitterness towards the missionary, the next remark was of a nature to enlighten me.

"I don't see why any man in his senses wants to save the soul of an Indian," he broke out. "Let them go where they belong! Souls! They haven't any souls, or if they have, it's the soul of a fiend——"

"By the bye, Eric," I interrupted, for this petulant ill-humor, that saw naught but evil in everything, was becoming too frequent and always ended in the same way—a night of semi-delirium, "by the bye, did you see those fellows turning up soil for corn with a buffalo shoulder-blade as a hoe?"

"I wish every damn Red a thousand feet under the soil, deeper than that, if the temperature increases."

It was impossible to talk to Hamilton without provoking a quarrel. Leaning back with hands clasped behind my head, I watched through half-closed eyes his sad face darkling under stormy moods.

At last the rain succeeded in soaking through the parchment across the window and the wind drove through a great split in chilling gusts that added to the cabin's discomfort. I got up and jammed an old hat into the hole. At the window I heard the shouting of Indians having a hilarious night among the lodges and was amazed at the sound of discharging firearms above the huzzas, for ammunition was scarce among the Mandanes. The hubbub seemed to be coming towards our hut. I could see nothing through the window slit, and lighting a pine fagot, shot back the latch-bolt and threw open the door.

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