THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN MARTEN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVII, Issue 12838, 10 June 1902, Page 7

THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN MARTEN.

(By ARTHUR J. STRINGER.)

Bateese Snow Cloud was a bad man. What waa more, he stood six feet two in tig moccasins, and carried a knife, liko a Mexican. if you called him a'half-breed he would iwear at you in three different tongues,, find at the end tell you in excellent English that ihe had a mind- to wring your Ho plumed himself on being “Canayen,” or Frenrir-Canadian, and claimed to have come from the mooselauds of the Abitibi. 1 , But somewhere iu his make-up tan a muddy' taint of Chippewa blood. It cropped Out, in the snaky straightness of his black hair.’ It showed in the way he could smell Out (Water and game with the nose. It also crept out in the heady ~ Indian brightness of his eye, which saw things the dull organ of the white man cannot hope to see. If the bull moose was stronger of ' Jimb> the lynx ■ was hot one half so sly as Big Bateese. So, on the whole,, ho had grown into a bit of a braggart, and swag-f-ered about the Territories the acknowedged king of those free traders whose ten commandments was to get skins and hate the Great Company. ' In the old days, indeed, the Great Company had set a price on the head of Bateese. But no man had dared. And now , that the Great Company had lost its grip and that vast land of Mystery and Night, the fax North-west, lay as open to the free trader as to the Chief Factor of the HudBon’s Bay Company himself, Bateese had fallen on halcyon days, and season by seaion skimmed with kingly and imperious IlaUd the cream off a few hundred thousand miles 6f peltry-yielding territory. , In a six by twelve wooden box in the little wooden town of Edmonton, on the Saskatchewan, Bateese had a partner. This Was hampering at times, but necessary, US Bateese was a child as to the ways of 'buying arid selling in the great cities, where dollars take the place of blankets, and pounds and shillings pass in lieu of tobacco and gunpowder. Bateese’s partner was .k: little Russian Jew named WiUinsky, who' year by year migrated mysteriously between Edmonton and Europe, and could tell a Cross-breed''"from a silver fox with his eyes shut.. He had a face like a rat and daws like a hen-hawk’s, but it wais whispered that he knew the secret of making Russian sable out of muskrat, which taay explain just why he kept an office in St Petersburg and one in Paris, to say nothing of a place in Green Street, New York, where prolonged and animated powwows were held in four languages over illimefling and insignificant little bundles of black fur streaked with silver, and much gold and crisp paper was counted out in files from time to time. But about all this Bateese neither knew nor ,cared, so long as he was /free to come and go as ho liked, to drink his spirits 80 per cent elebiol, and to continue imperiously defrauding the untutored trapper as he had done long before the whistle of the fire home had ever echoed down the coulees of Northern Alberta. Bateese Snow Cloud’s way of doing busi- . Hess was both odd and interesting. Every Winter he went scurrying up under the Very shadow of the Circle itself, with his dogs and his sleds, regularly and mysteriously heading-off and holding-up each trapper and hunter before that pelt-burdened . gentleman could get down to either Las JA; Biche or Athabasca Landing. If there >ras a musk-ox head of exceptional size and beauty, Bateese was sUre to get it. If there was a silver fox that looked particularly pleasing to the eye, Bateese had it. If there chanced to be a wolverine or otter Which he in anyway affected, you may be quit* sure it never got past him. Nor Was he ever known to hold bade for a handful of powder or a blanket or two. If his red-skinned friend still hesitated, he generously gave him of his beautiful iPxench brandy, gave him of it until there : Were soft voices to be heard in the wind ‘ and sweet music in the trees, and the hills . danced together. If he still held out Bateese counted over half a dozen of bis little Dream Pills —which came from the Oriental Coolies of the Coast Range—and brought pleep and soft visions after the first sickness had worn away. So, few indeed were the pelts that got down to the Landing without first passing through the critical fingers of Bateese." His bales were never large, but he knew what he wanted, and got it. From the steel trail of the' fire horse right up to the wide anowfields of the Arctic Lights, Bateese Snow Cloud was known and watched for, patiently and . meekly, by many braves in many scattered tribes. But with all his passion for baiter arid trade, mind you, Bateese did not altogether ‘ neglect the softer side of life. He always had a handful of beads or a bit of bright ribbon for the women of a decently behaved tribe, which, ,of course, meant a tribe willing to sell its furs on a basis of 1 per cent of their market value. It was folklore at the Landing that Bateese brought a new, wife down with bun every spring. What became of hen he didn’t much care, and usually didn’t know. There were many tepees in the north, and if his heart changed with 'the wind, what/of it? The women soon forgot; and the children—didn’t the white agent send -them all down to the school, where they were taught to read from books, as WiUinsky himself could do? And Wilhusky was h very smart maul ■BUt a little cloud came into the life ol l>ig Bateese. Under the shadow of that cloud he fretted for two seasons.', It grew, indeed, out of, a mere tale that had crept from post to post, and had finally drifted doWn to the Landing itself. It told of a golden marten —of a little -furred creature of puregold—that had been seen time and again up in the Lake Wapisen district. Half-breed and Indian even fell into the habit of speaking of it as they would of - Windigoes. It was a thing to be talked ox in undertones, for from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail it was said to be of yellow gold, like a Klondyke nugget. When it slipped across a bit of open country it looked for all the world like ajpatch . of sunlight on four legs. Yet it was so shy no trap had ever snared it. And though it had been seen many times, no buck had ever found the heart to pub a bullet through its hide. It was talked over in the fur-lofts of Edmonton; it Was asked about in the store-houses ol Montreal; it wais marvelled at in smokeetained tepees on the Saskatchewan, and Jn'cities many thousands of miles away a price had already, been put on it, a price of rubles and francs and pounds sterling, even while it still went free, l as the •wind and frisked like a patch of Sunlight across the snows of the Great Muskeg Country.

Willinsky said nothing, but waited. Ha tad great faith in Bateese. Bateese also said nothing, and 1 also waited. They understood each other. Then news came down that the wonderful golden marten had at last been caught. Rabbit Ear, a young buck of the Yellow Knives, had come upon it feeding under an open waterfall. He had nut a bullet through its leg, and then followed it for a week over the snow. When It came into his hands he had been seven days without food. He irreverently skinned the little animal on the spot, and devoured the carcase, accordingly, without salt or fire, for his lost few miles had been covered on his.hands and knees, and it was fcot a time to he over-nioe. When the news of that capture crept down to Edmonton Bateese smote the table with his huge fist, and over the last of his bottle of French brandy swore before his heterogeneous gods that this skin of golden marten, should be hia. And little Wil linsky rubbed his hands together gloatingly, and said of course it would. He had great faith in Bateese. But there was one difficulty. Long before even Bateese had sat himself down In the lodges of the Yellow Knives, young

Rabbit Ear had 1 been offered no less than ten blankets and a gun for his precious goldei* £elb. >At all Ahese he-had stolidly

shaken his head.- Then the blankets had been doubled, and three pounds of powder put beside the gun. But still Rabbit Ear had shaken his head. The reason for it all was the fact that young Rabbit Ear’s heart was in the keeping of a lady named Sweet Grass, the daughter of Cat, the Medicine Man. With that pile of blankets still before him, ho had solemnly carried hip pelt and placed it at the feet, of Cat’s daughter, that she might wear it, and her children, and.her children’s children, so that for all time it should remain with the tribe of the Yellow Knives. Bateese laughed softly to himself when he heard the story of this from old Father Paradis, the Jesuit, just down from Fort Consolation. x I t’iuk I bring beem back with me, dal skin!” ho said, through bis blue pipe smoke. And six weeks later Bateese was swinging up through the snows of the Great Lone Land with his dogs and his sleds, brooding over that golden marten, saying to himself beside his little camp-fires that it would make a fine piece for the topping, off of his bale. And never did fire-water flow so genet ously among the Yellow Knives, and never had Cat, the Medicine Man, found himself possessed of so much tobacco, and never before had Sweet Grass seen a brighter red blanket than that flung at her .little moccasined feet by the huge and gallant Bateese. The tall trader from the land of the fire-horse smoked many pipes in Cat’s lodge. But from Cat he could learn nothing of the golden marten. It was from one of the old squaws, to whom he gave many Dream Pills, for the toothache, that he got the information he required. All that had been said of the golden marten was true. No such fur had ever been seen in the North. It was like sunlight on yellow maple leaves, brighter than the scalp her own father had taken from the head of the young Englishwoman, many, many years ago, in the buffalo days. “Where is this skin?” Bateese asked, carelessly, of the old squaw. He had heard these tales of snow-white wapiti and golden-horned moose and mountainous-like buffalo, but he would believe none of them till he saw with his own eyes. “ Hush, Bateese !” cried the old woman j “ for it is the pride of our people! Sweet Grass wears it wound about her breast for safe-keeping, bound there with threads of buckskin., And Cat has put a curse on ■ the man' who shall take it from 1 her 1”

“ Good,” said Bateese, 'knocking out his pipe. “’Tis not for these outlandish freak things that the white man wastes good blankets.” The next day he went from lodge to lodge, asking for silver fox and otter.

It was not until he found 1 (Sweet Gross alone, cutting meat from a hear carcase, that he exercised his long-practised arts of gallantry on that som&rhat overawed girl. He swore she had the grace of the dove. Ho discovered that (her eyes were like ripe blackberries. He maintained that , she walked with the tread of a youngcaribou, and that her voice was sweeten than maplesap ; and many other such things, for, even under the shadowL of the Circle, Bateese knew a woman was still a woman. Then he found a handful or two of coloured beiads for her and a yard of crimson ribbon and a gold-plated ring or two. But for dl this, at the first mention of the golden marten she scurried away 'from him, like a fri hfened rabbit, and hid in one of the lodges. He made other attempts, it is true, but each time she eluded him. And the once all-conquering Bateese began, to see that the golden m'arteu was not for his bale that season. He did not jjive up ; but he wondered grimly just how Wili in sky would take it. When he made _bis way back to the Landing empty-handed) he had, perhaps, lost a little, of his. old-time swagger. In Edmonton’ he talked less over his brandy. Willinsky, as he expected, was there awaiting him. And as he also expected, Willinsky danced with rage when he knew the truth. He cursed Bateese with- strange Russian curses, and from ‘Edmonton that day the telegraph ticked the news that the ■ golden marten had not been found,' and from New York it was flashed on to London, and from London still on to Paris Bateese, over his second bottle of French brandy, wagged his head; sullenly. • He said it was. best to wait. But Willinsky saw eight thousand francs slipping out of his fingers, and again he cursed Bateese to his face, in Russian, as a pig-headed halfbreed and a follower of, women. To this Bateese merely shook his head drunkenly, and said “ Wait 1” It was in the sub-Arctic twilight of midwinter that the huge tracking shoes of Bateese -Snow Cloud once more broke their lonely trail up through the sub-Arctic wilderness. But when Bateese again swung his lead-weighted dog-whip among_ the moose-hide lodges of the Yellow Knives tribe, ho was a changed man. His jaw set tighter, and the Indian headiness of his eye was 'brighter. He had, however, a great deal of tobacco for Oat, the old Medicine Man.- He also had a chain of silver and a four-point blanket and six ounces of beads for Sweet Grass, to say nothing of a pair of plated earrings—costing Willinsky three dollars a gross in New York—and a string of brass sleigh-bells, which the girl hung proudly about her still slim enough waist.. Bateese seemed surprised there were only women and children and old men in the lodges, and even more surprised that Rabbit Ear and the other yonng bucks should be already scattered many weeks to the North for their season's peltries. But with Sweet Grass he was lowly of speech and sad. ' Her beauty had sent an arrow into his aching heart. She was not made for the carrying of firewood! and the scraping of hides. He hinted how women lived beyond the Athabasca, where there were no snowshoes to be strung, where there was no smoke in the tepees z and no snows in the doorway. Her voice had followed him for a year. It.all ended as he meant it to end. Her poor little pagan head was turned, and one night 'she crept to him while her people slept, and whispered that she would follow him to the end of the world. Bateese laughed where he lay, and decided to waste no time. In the depth of that blue midwinter night, while the Lights were flaming and wavering on -the dark horizon beyond the Circle, the two of them stole away. Alone they went, pushing feverishly down through the snows to the country where Sweet Grass believed' there was no smoke in the lodges. Once well clear of her people Bateese turned to her and lightly asked if she still wore the golden, marten. She laughed softly, and put her hand to where it lay warm on her breast. He demanded a sight Of ; it. Sweet Grass looked at him frightened, and drew away. He followed her, and, caught her playfully in his arms. He was’ breathing heavily, and his jaw was set wickedly. With his band he tried to tear it from her bosom, where it was laced tightly with cords of buckskin. Then for the first time she understood what he meant, or -half understood. She fought against him like a cat, and struggled till she broke away from him. He let her go, and showed her how merrily he could laugh. He had been taught to wait. • “ Listen while I speak, Snow Cloud,” she said to him that night over their fire. “ I have loved you, and the sound of your voice has been sweet in my ear. But my father, Cat, has already told how the child of woman who takes this skin shall come upon evil days!” “And what of that?” laughed Bateese. “I have loved you, Snow Cloud, and I would save you from this evil, even though I tear this skin from my breast and throw it into the fire!” ; Bateese stood discreetly between her and the flame, but said nothing. He was willing to wait his time. “ Bah ! ’Tis nothing to me, little Snow Bird!” ho cried gaily, “For it is a faith of our people,” she went cn, “that the North is stem and just, and to him who does evil he brings evil in return. Again Bateese laughed, but in that laugh was something -which troubled Sweet Grass. Over their fire she thought it out, and while he slept that night she stole away from him, and turned back to her own people. With no woman.-to feed his fire-Bateese

woke early, chilled with the cold. . When he saw that Sweet Grass had fled from him he beat his hands together and swore with rage, and started after her 1! on foot, without sleigh or dog It was a race, he knew, that he dare not lose. The first day passed and he caught no sight of her. The second day came, and still he had not come up with her. Yet still he raced on, a savage hunter, pressing ever closer and closer on her trail. Ho was ready to fall with exhaustion at times, but he knew there must be no giving up. At last, in a stretch of rolling country, he caught sight of her from the crest of on ice hummock. And still he raced on, slinking from 'hill to hill. When he came nearer he crouched low in his tracks and sought the shadow of every brush-clump. In that way he stalked her, as a wild animal might. Foot after foot he crept upon her, while she still staggered forward, now weak and reeling with hunger. He was upon her, almost before she knew it. At the first sight of his figure beside her in the snow she took him for a timber wolf, and screamed with terror. Then he sprang at her and seized her, while she feu weakly into his arms with a little sobbing cry. Ho held her there fiercely, and she leaned on him, panting and promising to go back with him, and trying to tell him that it was all for his own- good, that the evil charm of her father, Cat, might not come upon hiin. He held her close while she spoke, his bear-like arm crushing her weak body. With his free hand ho slipped out his hunting knife. Without word or sign he slashed it savagely across her throat, and she fell at his feet in the snow, with her startled eyes still on his face. Ho turned her over on her side, so that, the blood might not stain the pelt in heis. bosom. “ Listen, Snow Cloud,” she gasped, with the last strength of her -body. “I have loved you well. But Cat, my father, has said it. And it will come true. The evil you have done—will be done unto you. It is the faith of the North. Before it is too late, go —” The words died on her lips, and her head fell' back in the drift. Bateese laughed uneasily, and once more turned the body over where it lay still warm. Then with his knife he cub the cords of buckskin, and with shaking fingers drew the pelt of golden marten from her bosom and laid it out before his eyes on the white drift. He . looked down at it many minutes and laughed over it like a child. For it shone and gleamed on the whiteness like a fleck of sunlight. It was brighter than the gold coins WiUinsky flung out for his sweettasting fire-water far off in Edmonton. It was Worth two years of waiting. Bateese himself, looking down at it, wished he was in Edmonton. He had seen too much of the white man’s world not to have most of his Indian superstition knock, ed out of him. But as ho carefuUy tied up the skin the last words of the girl ran disagreeably through his head. The more he brooded over tnem the more uneasy he became, till he shook the silly fear irom him only with an effort. It simply meant that ho would have to be carexul. He would be a brother -to the coyote, until out , ox her country at least. With this m mind he slunk away from any suspicion of an open trail. At the sight of a chance Indian he circled into the brushwood for miles. If a settlement lay in his path, he crept round it. by night, like a hunted animal. Through the open snows he broke his own trau, but with but one thought in his head. The thought was to press on, on, till the Lights, and the silence and the aching wastes oi whiteness were left behind. It was on the third day that the snow blindness came over him. Even as it came he knew what it meant. He was a. strong man, but he wept like a woman, and beat nimselx with childish fury. Then a sort of madness came after it, and he raced and floundered insanely onward, only to stumble and fall again and again. He groped madly irom hill to hill, circling helplessly about in his own footsteps, crawling impoxently from hummock to hummock, with but one fever in his blood, and that was a passion to press on and on till the sound of the Cree voices came to his ear, or the smell of Cree lodge smoke to his nostrils. As fle stumbled and groped drunkenly past little dusters of moose-hide lodges, lingering his blind way along the coulee bottoms, strange silent figures wrapped in blankets came and stood on the hilltops, and watched. Women and children and old men. They crept out of the smokestained tepees and stood motionless, watching. The toothless father of Rabbit Ear came among them, and seeing the man in the valley below, crept silently back to his lodge. With a palsied hand he trained his rifle on the heart of the blind man, but Cat, the Medicine Man, waved the thing away. “The North is stern and just, my people. And unto himi who does evil shall evil in turn be done! This is the faith pf the North. So let us wait, my people!”' And they waited. And still the man staggered blindly on through the snows. They followed him. as he went, moving silently from hilltop to hilltop, still waiting, wrapped in their blankets. But to the blind man all that world was a world ol silence and desolation and snow. In a rage he ground his great jaws and fought on, while the things in blankets still watched from the hilltops. Suddenly down the blue line of the further hills they saw a shadow slink after the man. They said nothing, but as it drew closer they saw clearly what it was. To the blind man' the world was still a world of desolation and emptiness. The people watching in their blankets knew that moving shadow was • the grey_ timber wolf, driven down from the mountains with hunger. Step by step it stalked the blind man, creeping closer and closer, till a touch of blood not of white men told him of that Something creeping and slinking upon him. He.knew that he was followed, was being stalked. Round and round in a mad; circle he rushed and staggered and floundered, while the silent things wrapped in blankets still watched. The 'snarling, restless shad opcrept still closer to the helpless man. The smell of the brute even came to his nostrils, it slunk so close in his steps, and he raised up his hands and screamed again and again with terror, like a woman. “It is good!” said Cat, the Medicine Man, watching on the hilltop. The crouching shadow then seemed of a sudden to float up through the air, and as it went, with one clean sweep of its fangs it tore open the throat of the blind man from shoulder-blade to chin. Almost as clean as the sweep of a knife-blade it tore the'flesh, just as Snow Cloud himself had torn thq copper neck of Sweet Grass, the daughter of Cat, the Medicine Man. One' by one the women and children and old- men who watched from the hilltops went back to their lodges in silence. They know it was even as Cat had said, that the North had been stern and just since the Lights first flamed: over the Circle.