could I do? They would have got the girl and spoiled her life, if I had not led them across, and they would have killed me if they could. Only one cried out, and then but once, in a long shriek. But after, all three were quiet as they fought, until they were gone where no man could see, where none cries out so we can hear. The last thing I saw was a hand stretching up out of the sands.”
There was a long pause, painful to bear. The Trader sat with eyes fixed humbly as a dog’s on Pierre. At last Macavoy said: “She kissed ye, Pierre, aw yis, she did that! Jist betune the eyes. Do yees iver see her now, Pierre?”
But Pierre, looking at him, made no answer.
A LOVELY BULLY
He was seven feet and fat. He came to Fort O’Angel at Hudson’s Bay, an immense slip of a lad, very much in the way, fond of horses, a wonderful hand at wrestling, pretending a horrible temper, threatening tragedies for all who differed from him, making the Fort quake with his rich roar, and playing the game of bully with a fine simplicity. In winter he fattened, in summer he sweated, at all times he ate eloquently.
It was a picture to see him with the undercut of a haunch of deer or buffalo, or with a whole prairie-fowl on his plate, his eyes measuring it shrewdly, his coat and waistcoat open, and a clear space about him—for he needed room to stretch his mighty limbs, and his necessity was recognised by all.
Occasionally he pretended to great ferocity, but scowl he ever so much, a laugh kept idling in his irregular bushy beard, which lifted about his face in the wind like a mane, or made a kind of underbrush through which his blunt fingers ran at hide-and-seek.
He was Irish, and his name was Macavoy. In later days, when Fort O’Angel was invaded by settlers, he had his time of greatest importance.
He had been useful to the Chief Trader at the Fort in the early days, and having the run of the Fort and the reach of his knife, was little likely to discontinue his adherence. But he ate and drank with all the dwellers at the Post, and abused all impartially. “Malcolm,” said he to the Trader, “Malcolm, me glutton o’ the H.B.C., that wants the Far North for your footstool—Malcolm, you villain, it’s me grief that I know you, and me thumb to me nose in token.” Wiley and Hatchett, the principal settlers, he abused right and left, and said, “Wasn’t there land in the East and West, that you steal the country God made for honest men—you robbers o’ the wide world! Me tooth on the Book, and I tell you what, it’s only me charity that kapes me from spoilin’ ye. For a wink of me eye, an’ away you’d go, leaving your tails behind you—and pass that shoulder of bear, you pirates, till I come to it sideways, like a hog to war.”
He was even less sympathetic with Bareback the chief and his braves. “Sons o’ Anak y’are; here today and away to-morrow, like the clods of the valley—and that’s your portion, Bareback. It’s the word o’ the Pentytook—in pieces you go, like a potter’s vessel. Don’t shrug your shoulders at me, Bareback, you pig, or you’ll think that Ballzeboob’s loose on the mat. But take a sup o’ this whisky, while you swear wid your hand on your chest, ‘Amin’ to the words o’ Tim Macavoy.”
Beside Macavoy, Pierre, the notorious, was a child in height. Up to the time of the half-breed’s coming the Irishman had been the most outstanding man at Fort O’Angel, and was sure of a good-natured homage, acknowledged by him with a jovial tyranny.
Pierre put a flea in his ear. He was pensively indifferent to him even in his most royal moments. He guessed the way to bring down the gusto and pride of this Goliath, but, for a purpose, he took his own time, nodding indolently to Macavoy when he met him, but avoiding talk with him.
Among the Indian maidens Macavoy was like a king or khan; for they count much on bulk and beauty, and he answered to their standards—especially to Wonta’s. It was a sight to see him of a summer day, sitting in the shade of a pine, his shirt open, showing his firm brawny chest, his arms bare, his face shining with perspiration, his big voice gurgling in his beard, his eyes rolling amiably upon the maidens as they passed or gathered near demurely, while he declaimed of mighty deeds in patois or Chinook to the braves.
Pierre’s humour was of the quietest, most subterranean kind. He knew that Macavoy had not an evil hair in his head; that vanity was his greatest weakness, and that through him there never would have been more half-breed population. There was a tradition that he had a wife somewhere—based upon wild words he had once said when under the influence of bad liquor; but he had roared his accuser the lie when the thing was imputed to him.
At Fort Ste. Anne Pierre had known an old woman, by name of Kitty Whelan, whose character was all tatters. She had told him that many years agone she had had a broth of a lad for a husband; but because of a sharp word or two across the fire, and the toss of a handful of furniture, he had left her, and she had seen no more of him. “Tall, like a chimney he was,” said she, “and a chest like a wall, so broad, and a voice like a huntsman’s horn, though only a b’y, an’ no hair an his face; an’ little I know whether he is dead or alive; but dead belike, for he’s sure to come rap agin’ somethin’ that’d kill him; for he, the darlin’, was that aisy and gentle, he wouldn’t pull his fightin’ iron till he had death in his ribs.”
Pierre had drawn from her that the name of this man whom she had cajoled into a marriage (being herself twenty years older), and driven to deserting her afterwards, was Tim Macavoy. She had married Mr. Whelan on the assumption that Macavoy was dead. But Mr. Whelan had not the nerve to desert her, and so he departed this life, very loudly lamented by Mrs. Whelan, who had changed her name with no right to do so. With his going her mind dwelt greatly upon the virtues of her mighty vanished Tim: and ill would it be for Tim if she found him.
Pierre had travelled to Fort O’Angel almost wholly because he had Tim Macavoy in his mind: in it Mrs. Whelan had only an incidental part; his plans journeyed beyond her and her lost consort. He was determined on an expedition to capture Fort Comfort, which had been abandoned by the great Company, and was now held by a great band of the Shunup Indians.
Pierre had a taste for conquest for its own sake, though he had no personal ambition. The love of adventure was deep in him; he adored sport for its own sake; he had had a long range of experiences—some discreditable—and now he had determined on a new field for his talent.
He would establish a kingdom, and resign it. In that case he must have a man to take his place. He chose Macavoy.
First he must humble the giant to the earth, then make him into a great man again, with a new kind of courage. The undoing of Macavoy seemed a civic virtue. He had a long talk with Wonta, the Indian maiden most admired by Macavoy. Many a time the Irishman had cast an ogling, rolling eye on her, and had talked his loudest within her ear-shot, telling of splendid things he had done: making himself like another Samson as to the destruction of men, and a Hercules as to the slaying of cattle.
Wonta had a sense of humour also, and when Pierre told her what was required of her, she laughed with a quick little gurgle, and showed as handsome a set of teeth as the half-breed’s; which said much for her. She promised to do as he wished. So it chanced when Macavoy was at his favourite seat beneath the pine, talking to a gaping audience, Wonta and a number of Indian girls passed by. Pierre was leaning against a door smoking, not far away. Macavoy’s voice became louder.
“ ‘Stand them up wan by wan,’ says I, ‘and give me a leg loose, and a fist free; and at that—’ ”
“At that there was thunder and fire in the sky, and because the great Macavoy blew his breath over them they withered like the leaves,” cried Wonta, laughing; but her laugh had an edge.
Macavoy stopped short, open-mouthed, breathing hard in his great beard. He was astonished at Wonta’s raillery; the more so when she presently snapped her fingers, and the other maidens, laughing, did the same. Some of the half-breeds snapped their fingers also in sympathy, and shrugged their shoulders.