Book: The Freebooters of the Wilderness

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"You did not anticipate any trouble about the examination?"

"None whatever," answered Wayland. He had described the examination of
the two tunnels and the preparation to go down the shaft when the
Sheriff again whispered to the coroner.

"When MacDonald seemed to change his mind about going down the shaft,
was there anyone visible except the Sheriff?"

"Not that I saw," answered Wayland; and he went on to describe the
cutting of the cable and the climb up the side of the shaft.

Eleanor became suddenly conscious that tense stillness reigned in the
county court room. Some man standing behind the back benches shuffled
his feet and cleared his throat with an offensive "hem." The roomful
of people looked back angrily. The attorney had pencilled a line on a
scrap of paper and shoved it across in front of the coroner. Through
the open windows, Eleanor could see that a great concourse of people
was gathering outside.

"When you found the body, was anyone else present at the top of the
shaft?"

For the fraction of a second, Eleanor wondered if they meant to cast
suspicion on the Ranger.

"Yes," answered Wayland, "the woman, Calamity was lying on the ground
sobbing to break her heart. No one else was visible."

"You say the wound was such that it could not possibly have been
self-inflicted?"

"You determined that for yourselves, when you examined the body,"
answered Wayland.

"Was the woman's position such that she might have shot him?"

"The shot was in the right temple, close; close enough to scorch the
face! You have the record of that! The woman was kneeling on the
ground a little to the left facing him."

"Did she carry a weapon?"

"She did not."

"How do you know she had not one concealed?"

"Because I caught her by the shoulders and lifted her up and shook her
and said, 'Calamity, who did this?'"

"What did she answer?"

The attorney was on his feet with a bang of his fist on the table that
shut off the answer:

"Mr. Coroner, this evidence has proceeded far enough to show that the
death of the deceased gentleman had absolutely no connection whatever
with the official examination of the mines. The dead cannot defend
themselves. Out of respect to the deceased and the member of his
family--"

"That," interrupted Matthews, breaking from his chair, "is the third
time th' insinuation has been thrown out that MacDonald had things in
his life that wud na bear tellin'! A know his life: A know all his
life: ask me!"

But the attorney and the coroner were in an endless wrangle as to law,
that was Hebrew to the listeners, and gave the roomful of spectators
ample time to imbibe the false impression that was meant to be
conveyed, and to pass it to the prurient crowd outside. After a half
hour of reading from authorities to prove that the answer was
inadmissible as evidence, and another half hour rattling off counter
authorities at such a rate the listeners could not possibly judge for
themselves, the coroner reserved decision as to whether that answer
could be admitted as evidence or not, coming as it did from a person
plainly of unsound mind.

"What next happened?"

"I tied a stone to the cut end of the cable and unrolled the rope on
the hoist and gave it a hard enough pitch to send the stone past the
bend in the shaft."

"And when you turned to work the hoist and bring up the others?"

"And when I turned to work the hoist, the Indian woman was nowhere to
be seen. The chances are she knew the guilty parties would try to
throw the blame--"

"Mr. Coroner," shouted the attorney, "there can be no chances recorded
as evidence where the reputation of a gentleman, who cannot defend
himself, is concerned."

"Good God," said the news editor under his breath.

"Humph! A'll put a crimp in that! The Sheriff man is to give evidence
yet! Eleanor, y' better not wait! A'm goin' t' do some plain speakin'
t' y' father's honor, but 'tis not talk for a woman's ears! Y've heard
y'r father defamed."

"Then, I'll wait and hear him cleared," she whispered to Mrs. Williams.
"Will you stay?"


The Sheriff had gone round in front of the table, not too near it for
obvious reasons; for the time of his revenge had come and his rotundity
protruded full blown and swelling. He told how MacDonald had refused
to go down the shaft.

"Do you know any reason for that sudden change of mind?"

"I don't know whether it's the reason or not; but somethin' happened
jes' as he had his leg up to climb in, _might a' made_ him change his
mind! Th' squaw come ridin' all bareheaded, an' mad as a hornet out o'
th' cottonwoods wavin' her hands roarin' crazy! Minit he seen her, he
quit goin' down: said he'd give me a hand at the hoist! I seen what
made him change his mind al' right! She waz ravin' mad, come rampin'
out, then, she seen me, an' kin' o' hiked back ahint the cottonwood;
but I seen her plain! Jes as we commenced unwindin' her--"

"You mean the hoist?"

"Yes, jes' as we began lettin' her down, I sees O'Finnigan come up from
Smelter City trail roarin' drunk, ugly drunk, yellin' 'Hell: he waz
Uncle Sam,' an' all that."

"If y'll not admit the child's story of her father, why d' y' admit
this man's story of him?" demanded Matthews; but the coroner ignored
the interruption and the doughty defender of the law continued.

"I put up with his drunken yellin' till I felt the bucket bump the
first level. Then I sez, 'Now, my gen'leman, hand over that bottle o'
tipperary, an' scat out o' this!' There it is," the Sheriff laid a
black square whiskey bottle on the desk. "He began jawin' an' cuttin'
up gineral. T' make a long story short, I took him by the scruff o'
th' neck and helped him down Smelter City trail an'-an'-an' I jugged
him: that's all; an' there he is yet! When I came back up, this had
happened."

"When you arrested O'Finnigan for drunkenness, where was the woman,
Calamity?"

"Hidin' back among th' cottonwoods! She'd slid off her horse! Jes' as
I turned down the trail, I looked back! She waz comin' peepin' out
from tree t' tree!"

"How was MacDonald standing?"

"He waz standin' with his back t' her, with his hand hangin' kind o'
loose from th' hoist waitin' for 'em t' ring th' bell t' let her down
t' next level!"

There was a long silence. Eleanor had turned very white. The eyes of
the news editor emitted sparks.

"I expected that," commented Wayland.

"Y' d', did y'?" rumbled Matthews. "Then A 'll wager y 'll nut be
expectin' what A 'll spring!"

The room suddenly filled with a rustling and whispering. Men were
demonstrating exactly how it had happened. The handy man's tallow
smile melted on his face; and the tortoise shell eyes looked sidewise
at Wayland. The look wasn't malicious; and it wasn't triumphant. It
was the look of a gambler saying, "Come on my four-flusher, beat that!
Show down!" The rabble outside deployed off the pavement across the
street back a whole block. Eleanor could hear the hum through the open
window.

The attorney was leaning across the table conferring with the coroner.

The coroner rapped the table and cried for "order."

The room suddenly silenced.

"Gentlemen, as this evidence will have to be handed in to the district
attorney for what action he deems best, I wish to ask one more
question. Mr. Sheriff, you know this Valley and the people in it well?"

"I do, known it for twenty years."

"Do you know of any reason why this woman Calamity would have shot or
wished to shoot, her employer, MacDonald?"

The Sheriff changed a quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other.

Eleanor leaned forward looking straight in his eyes. Bat was eyeing
Eleanor quizzically. (Had he constructed the evidence so skilfully
that he had come to believe it himself?) Matthews was almost tearing
the arms out of the chair where he sat.

"Well," said Sheriff Flood clasping his hands in rest across his portly
person. "I guess squaw is same as any other woman in _one_ respect. I
guess she had same reason for shootin' MacDonal' as any other woman in
her place would o' had," and he looked up well pleased with himself at
the roomful. For a moment, there was deadly heavy silence; then the
hum of the crowd on the steps pouring the word out to those in the
street.

"Ye lyin' scut[1]! Ye filthy cess pool o' dirt an' falsehood!"

The old frontiersman had sprung from his place and smashed his chair in
twenty atoms on the table between the sheriff and the coroner.

"Y'll not offend the deceased gentleman's memory? Y'll not offend his
daughter here? An' the dead can't defend themselves? An' y're all s'
verra delicate y're lettin' a stinkin' slanderous unclean unspoken
damnable hell-spawned lie go forth unchallenged t' blacken a dead man's
memory? Oh, A know y'r kind well! A've heard harlots lisp an' whisp'
an' half tell and damn by a lie o' th' eye! Y' are insinuatin' this
woman Calamity shot her master to avenge dishonor in her early life?
'Tis a lie! 'Tis a most damnable black an' filthy lie! She wud a'
died for MacDonald ten thousand times over if she could, because he had
long ago, before ever he came here, avenged _her_ dishonor."

The coroner had sprung back from the table. The mighty man of valor,
who defended law, had precipitately put the space of overturned benches
between himself and the irate old frontiersman. Matthews suddenly
swung to face the spectators.

"Men," he cried, "foul murder has been done; and this slander is t'
fasten guilt on a poor innocent outcast woman, t' send her a scapegoat
int' th' wilderness bearin' th' sins o' those higher up that A do na'
name; of y'r Man Higher Up, who is the curse o' this land! 'Twas in my
boyhood days on Saskatchewan! This woman, that y' have seen wander the
Black Hills sinnin' unashamed, was but a fair slip o' an Indian girl,
then, pure as y'r own girls in school! She married a little Indian
boy, Wandering Spirit o' the Crees at Frog Lake! The Indian Officer at
Frog Lake was a Sioux half-breed--he took her forcibly from Wandering
Spirit t' th' Agency House! 'Twas y'r sheep rancher, MacDonald, who
was fur trader then, went forcibly to th' Agency House, thrashed the
Agent, and brought her back to the Indian, Wandering Spirit! A was
passin' West by dog train to the Mountains when A stopped at the Agency
House! MacDonald had gone North. Little Wandering Spirit comes and
asks me t' interpret something he has to say t' th' Master--meanin'
that danged unclean Sioux beast. Says I, 'Wandering Spirit has
something not pleasant t' say t' you: Y' better get another
interpreter.' The officer says, 'Spit it out! Y' can't phase me.'
Boys, A spit it out. A gave it to him plain! The boy Indian stood in
the door o' th' Agency House holdin' a loaded dog-train whip hidden
behind his back. He was na' but half as big as the brute behind the
Government desk! He says, 'Tell the Master he must leave my wife
alone! If ever he comes near m' tepee again, A do to him like that,'
rolling a dead leaf t' powder 'tween his hands. The officer lets out a
roar o' filthy oaths! I hear the little Indian give a scream like a
hurt wild cat. 'He calls me a dog--a son of a dog,' he screams; an'
boys, with one leap he was over that counter with his dog whip; an'
what A did t' y'r Sheriff last week in the Pass is nothing to what that
bit of an Indian boy did t' yon bullying Agent! He thrashed him, an'
he thrashed him, an' he chased him bellowin' round the Agency House
till the blackguard's pants were ribbons an' the blood stripes reached
down an' soaked his socks. Boys, A went on to th' Mountains! When A
came back next year an' when MacDonald came back from MacKenzie River,
we found that Agent had had Little Wandering Spirit arrested by the
Mounted Police for assault an' battery, an' sentenced to a year in th'
penitentiary! 'Twas too late to undo the wrong! Th' girl, th' woman
y' know as Calamity, had gone insane from abuse! A helped to pry her
dead child from her arms! A helped the priest t' bury it in the snow!
Next year, was the Rebellion! Y'r sheepman an' his wife, Miss Eleanor
here was na' born then, had come down from the North. The Indians
loved him. They'd never touch _him_; but when the Rebellion broke out,
'twas Wandering Spirit went dancing mad for revenge from one end o' the
Reserve t' th' other! When the massacre came, the officer had tripped
the little Indian fellow to his face an' was pointin' the old muzzle
loader at the back o' his head to blow out his brains, when along comes
the MacDonald man an' kicks the gun from the bully's hand! Little
Wandering Spirit up an' he pours that muzzle loader into the officer's
face; an' he borrows another gun an' empties that in his face; and he
snatches a knife; an' what he left o' that brute y' could bury in a
coffin th' length o' y'r hand! 'Twas th' Indian's way o' vengeance;
but blame fell on MacDonald; an' when Wandering Spirit was hanged for
the murder, MacDonald fled from Canada; for his sympathies were with
the Indians, as every right feelin' man's were;[2] for back a
generation, there was Indian blood on the mother's side; but the Act o'
Amnesty has been passed this many a year; an' A'd come to take him back
to a fortune waitin' him in Scotland, to an inheritance when this
happened.

"Y' know how he found her again, eatin' garbage in the Black Hills
where the miners had cast her off; how he gave her an asylum an' a
home; an' this is the man y'r fulthy sheriff poltroon coward says she'd
shoot! Men, men o' th' Nation, murder has been done here: coward
assassin murder on an innocent man! The notes on the mine have been
robbed from his pocket. Who planned this murder? Who shot MacDonald
by mistake? Who planned th' Rim Rocks outrage? Is it to this y' have
let y'r Democracy come? Is this y'r self government workin' worse
outrage than the despotism o' Russia? We'd have hanged our kings in
Scotland for less sin! France would a' tanned her rulers' hide into
moccasins for less! What are y' goin' to do about it." His shout rang
and rang through the court. "Will ye make of self-government a farce,
a screamin' shame, a shriekin' laughter in th' ears o' th' world?"

There were cries of "Sit down! Sit down! Shut up! Go on! Who is the
old tow-head?" Then some one cried out "Moyese." Half the spectators
cheered. Half hissed. Then a voice yelled "Wayland! Wayland!" and
Eleanor felt the leap to her blood; for the crowd outside took up the
cry "Wayland, Wayland? What's the matter with Wayland?"

The Sheriff and Coroner were on the table shouting for "order--order"
when some wag heaved under and upset table, sheriff, coroner and all.

The last Eleanor saw before the news editor and Wayland pushed Mrs.
Williams and herself through a door behind the coroner's seat to a
taxicab that whirled them off to the hotel, was a wild sprawling of the
Sheriff coming down in mid-air. Bat Brydges and the downy-lipped
youth, chalky white as a dead birch tree, were letting themselves
hastily out through a back window. Matthews was being carried down the
aisle on the shoulders of a howling rabble of men and boys. His head
was bare; his coat was almost torn from his shoulders. His face was
passionate with jubilant laughter. "Yell, boys! Yell for Wayland," he
was urging. Could Eleanor have known what happened at the door, her
heart would have beat still faster. The old frontiersman brought her
word two hours later when he joined them at the hotel.

"They hauled me out to th' steps o' th' court house," he said, "an' A
says 'Yell boys! Yell, Yell like Hell for Wayland!' An' they set me
down on th' steps an' began yellin' 'Speech! Speech!' A held up m'
two hands like this. 'Men,' says I, 'y' ask for a word! Well, A'll
give it t' you. A'll give it t' y' from the door o' y'r own sacred
court o' justice, which y' have seen profaned this day by injustice,
an' a lie, an' a bribe into th' bedlam o' a mob! Y' ask for a word. A
will give it y', _Men o' the United States o' the World_; Men o'
Liberty; Men o' Strength; the world has its eye on ye! What will y'
do? M' word is this t' all time: M' word is th' simple word o' the old
prophets that ye conned by heart at y'r mother's knee: Y' ha' seen the
author o' crime an' outrage an' murder tryin' to wrest the judgment, t'
pervert the court, to slander the dead, t' send into th' wilderness a
poor innocent scapegoat o' sin, to defile the vera presence o' death.
An' ye ha' seen a young man single-handed fightin' for right, to save
y'r land from the looters, an' y'r forests from the timber thieves, an'
y'r mines from the coal pirates! Y' ha' seen evil an' good an' the
fruits o' them! _Choose ye this day which ye will serve_!' Man alive,
Wayland, ye should a' heard them! They yelled like Hell for y'! They
yelled till they split the welkin! They yelled, Wayland, till A
couldna' keep th' tears from m' eyes; an' then, man alive, they yelled
more than ever! Whiles we were yellin' and riproarin' outside, y'r
brave Sheriff man, he gets the door shut an' locked, an' the windows
down, an' the shades all drawn; an' they brings in a verdict o' 'come
to his death by the hands o' parties unknown.' Oh, A'll warrant 'twill
be 'by the hands o' parties unknown.' They'll never more try t' fasten
that crime on poor old Calamity; tho' she's no so old when y' come t'
think o' it, except in her bein' sore sinned against."

"I wonder if they'll try to come down on you for the disorder," asked
Wayland.

The old frontiersman chuckled. "A wish t' God they would," he said.
"What A'm wonderin' is what y' fat Bat fellow's doin'?"

"Oh, I can tell you that," answered the news editor. "Bat is singing
small! I'll bet you a five there won't be a line nor the fraction of a
line of all this in the local papers; nor as much as a blank space
about it in any other paper. My God, if I could only lay my hand on a
moneyed man who would back a paper thro' a fight like this and tell the
counting rooms to go to the Devil! I know a score of editors would
jump for the job and work their heads off! You needn't think we are
specially keen for eating dog on this kind of a job! 'Tisn't the men
inside the office bedevil us: 'tis y'r outside interest--"

Eleanor gave him a quick queer look. She was learning to think fast
and decide quickly. But the news editor was quite right. Not a word
of the disgraceful attempt to pervert justice appeared in either the
local or any other paper. MacDonald's death was briefly recorded as
accidental and the coroner's verdict given in a four line paragraph.
Do not ask me the _why_ of this, dear reader; or I shall ask you the
why of a hundred other equally mysterious silences. Don't forget, as
Wayland has already informed you, there are other countries besides
Russia where everything is not given out to the press. And do not
curse the press! It is not the fault of the press in Russia. Is it
here?


[1] I can find no authority for the old frontiersman's use of the word
but in a certain Elizabethan dramatist; and as he uses the word "scut"
for the bobtail of a fleeing rabbit or sheep, perhaps the meanings of
the word as used are identical.--_Author_.

[2] It need scarcely be explained these are the old frontiersman's
sentiments, not the writer's; but on investigation I found his
statement of facts as to what transformed little Wandering Spirit into
a blood-thirsty monster was absolutely true. This, of course, did not
justify the Rebellion, but helps to explain it, to explain why a
worthless scamp like Riel could rouse the peaceful natives to blood
thirst and rapine.--_Author_.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE AWAKENING CONTINUED

It was all over, the inquest, the coroner's finding, the reading of the
will, the revelation of the real errand on which the old frontiersman
had come from Saskatchewan. The parting of the ways had come to her,
as it comes to us all. The death of her father had shut the door on
opportunity in the Valley; and the little old lady, waiting for
Matthews up in Prince Albert, Canada, to take her back to the
inheritance of her father's family in Scotland, opened elsewhere
another door of opportunity. As one door had swung shut, another had
swung open. Were we creatures of circumstances, as the fatalists
declared; or could we master and bend circumstances to human will? Was
her feeling of rebellion but the kicking of ructious heels against the
closed door of fate? Would time teach the futility of barking one's
shins in such fashion? Eleanor sat in the parlor of the suite of rooms
reserved by the Williams and herself. The Williams and Matthews had
gone out for the evening to some women's club meeting on missions.
Eleanor's nerves were too tension-strung for people to-night. They had
read her father's will that afternoon. The quiet man doing the duty
next and making no professions had left her secure against want; and
after the lawyer who read the will had gone, the Williams went out, and
Matthews had drawn his chair near to hers and told her the same story
of her father's people that he had told Wayland in the Desert.

"They were a' dark fearsome men," he had said, telling her of the first
Fraser-MacDonald who fought with Wolfe at Quebec, and the Man of the
Iron Hand. "They were a' dark fearsome men; but of stainless honor,
child! Not a man of them left a bar sinister on th' scutcheon! Even
the man who married th' squaw, had a priest tie th' knot so that
children would come stainless t' life; but they were dark fearsome men,
undyin' in their hates an' unhappy in their loves. Y'r own mother's
people turned against y'r father for th' part he took in th' Rebellion."

"Don't you think," asked Eleanor, "it's time one of the race broke the
spell of unhappy love?"

"Aye, child! 'Tis why A'd take y' back t' th' little old lady waitin'
in Prince Albert, an' put y' in y'r own place in th' halls o' Scotland?
D' y' know there's been none o' y'r race direct t' occupy th' manor
since th' first Frazer fled from th' Jacobite Rebellion to French
Canada? 'Twas part o' his stubborn spirit that he fought for the
Nation that had cast him out."

"Oh, I'm not interested in the Jacobites and Wolfe and things of the
past," interrupted Eleanor. "I want to live my life full in the
present."

"Aye; an' 'tis because y're a Fraser-MacDonald of the Lovatt clan that
ye want t' live a full present! If you were an upstart new-rich, my
dear, y'd be sellin' y'r soul t' th' Devil an' y'r body t' some leprous
kite with ulcerous weddin' kisses for the privilege o' claimin' this
inheritance that's yours! There's a male decendant o' some collateral
line on th' place adjoinin' yours. Man alive, he's had th' pick o'
every pork packer's an' brewer's daughter; but he's waitin' th' little
lady who's his aunt t' come back from Prince Albert--"

He knew the minute he had spoken that he had struck a false note.
Eleanor jumped from her chair.

"Oh, bother the little lady at Prince Albert. Leave me, please! I
want to think--"

He withdrew as far as the door. "Would y' like me to see y'r lawyer
man 'bout puttin' th' ranch lands o' th' Upper Pass on th' market, an'
settlin' up th' estate?"

"No," answered Eleanor. "I'm not going to sell any of my father's
estate."

And when Matthews withdrew to join the Williams at the missionary
meeting, she burst into tears.

She went across to the window wondering about Wayland. She had not
seen him since early morning, before breakfast, when he called at the
sitting room door to arrange their return up the Valley next day. The
Williams and Matthews would go up in the buckboard. Would she ride
back up the hog's back trail with him? He would hire horses and riding
togs now if she would say? Yes, he knew it would be steep up grade;
but then, they could go it slow; he laughed as he said that. You see
the hog's back trail was fifteen miles shorter than the Valley road and
they could afford to go it slow; in fact, _very slow_.

"Come on in," urged Eleanor, throwing open the parlor door. "The
Williams are not up, yet!"

"That's why I came! No, I'll not come in: not much! I'm keeping
resolutions!"

She had not understood the wistfulness beneath his forced gayety until
Matthews told her all that afternoon.

"It will be our last ride: you'll come, won't you?" asked Wayland.

She had promised. Then, she had spent a most miserable morning. Why
was it to be the _last_ ride? She had not cared to go out. Though the
papers had suppressed all details of the cowardly assassination, the
glare of publicity had been focussed too keenly on her for comfort by
that explosion of the old frontiersman in the court room. She had
remained in all morning watching the motley crowds of a frontier town
surge past the hotel windows down the dusty hot main street, with its
medley of fine brick blocks, and poor shacks, and saloons, and false
fronts--little unpainted restaurants and cigar stands and gambling
places of one-story, with a false timber wall running up a couple of
stories.

"United States of the World," the old frontiersman had called this
country. Surely that was the true name of the wonderful new country
that had defied all traditions and mingled in her making the races from
every corner of the world! An immigrant train had come in. Eleanor
lifted the parlor window, and looked, and listened. Jap and Chinese
and Hindoo--strikingly tall fellows with turbaned head gear; negro and
West Indians and Malay; German and Russian and Poles and Assyrians. In
half an hour, she did not hear one word of pure English, or what could
be called American. Oh, it was good to be alive in this wonderful new
world under these wonderful new conditions working out the age-old
problem of right and wrong that had defied solution since time began!
She did not mind the crudity. And if I am to be frank, she did not
mind the rudity. It was not a boiled shirt-front, kid-glove world. In
fact, at that moment she saw her hero stage driver shooting out tobacco
squids at the innocent granolithic, which showed no target because so
many other contributors had preceded the stage driver. In fact, it was
not a world for a lady with a train, though Eleanor saw some trollopy
immigrant "ladies" emerging from a big tent on a back lot decked with
tawdry lace and sporting trains in inverse proportions to the
sufficiency of their "h's." Nor was it a perfumed world. She could
smell the reek of the whiskey saloons all down the street--eleven of
them, there were in a succession of twelve buildings; and the twelfth
building, if Eleanor had known it, was a gambling joint of the Chinese
variety that had iron shutters and iron doors and signs up for
"Gentlemen Only." Let us hope, dear reader, that "gentlemen only"
entered behind the dark of those iron doors! She could not help
wondering had the old day passed forever in the West. Was a new day
not dawning? What was to become of all these incoming people? Could
the cattle barons and the sheep kings and the land rings fence them off
the vast, broad, idle acres forever?

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