THE PRIMAL LURE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15646, 27 June 1914, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE PRIMAL LURE

A ROMANCE OF FORT LTJ CERNE. BY V. E. ROE, Author of "The Maid of tho Whispering Hills," "Tho Heart of Night Wind." COPYRIGHT. CHAPTER XX.-(Continued.) For some unaccountablo reason, Lois thoughts wont back to the day at the window of the guardhouse and she heard again the voice of Marcel saying with quiet faith: " I need no more, Lois." Something unfamiliar stirred in her breast and she put out a hand and laid it on the covering of the child. Instantly Marcel's covered _ it. A bandage was still about the wrist and at its touch the woman's eyes filled with tears in the darkness.

So do men give- voice to friendship and the love that cannot speak, in the strong touch of hands, in the swelling throat, in the calm presence in the face of danger. This girl had played a strange part in Marcel's life, having decided for hor when death demanded herself or the man she loved, sacrificed her husband and at last saved to her her idol, the child, by the gift of her own warm blood. It was a strange tie between them, one that would hiive been hard of supporting between any other two of womankind.

Now they sat silently together when all their littlo world was shaken at a new and greater danger than had yet threatened, for here might be annihilation for all. •

At last Lois rose.

"Thore is still work," she said, 'for all have forsaken the cabins like the marsh birds that forsake their young at the voice of danger. I go _to tho Le Rocs'. Tessa ails and Palo is not to he spared from the man-work now. I will como again by daybreak." Marcel did riot speak and the girl passed out again into the night. The dark had fallen very heavily. Early in the evening there had been a slim, palo circle of the new moon hanging low above the church in the west. It was gono and there were no candles lighted anywhere in the post save those burning weirdly on the altar in the place of worship. Lois looked that way and a sudden yearning came into her soul. The black iron crucifix lay deep in the baked earth behind the church, clasped in tho frail old hands of her father. She had long been a stranger to the sweet words of religion save as sho offered the service for tho dead, and now a longing for its healing junver, its gentle soothing, took hold upon her heart. She turned her steps toward the holy place. As sho passed up the dust-filled road a figure emerged out of the darkness ahead. That way, too, lay her destination, the cabin of th,< Lo Rocs' No doubt Palo was hurrying down from a snatched visit to his young wife. Lois stopped. " M'sieu Lo Roc," she said, "is anyone with Tessa?"

"Eh?*' came the voice of McCosnel, factor of Fort Lu Cerne, in effect, out of the shadows.

Tho face of tho girl went deadly white. She shut the hands at her sides, lifted her head and walked slowly by. But she turned toward the cabin of Palo Le Roc and did not look again at the faintly gleaming windows of the little church. Between tho church and Palo's cabin thero stood a tiny hut, a lonesome bit of a cabin, detached, unkempt, where Simple John, the idiot, had his pathetic home. Hero there was never the sound of voices nor tho blessing of companionship, for tha pitiable being had no soul on earth except his own.

No light shone from the one window and Lois, turning her head in tho darkness, saw that the door was partly opon. Instinct sent her to peep within.

In the deeper darkness of the interior sho could make out. dimly a huddled heap just beyond the sill. She bent and touched it. It was the unconscious form

of Simple John, whose turn had come. Verily the great sickness was impartial. Sho went insido and, stooping, gathered tho figuro in her amis and lifted it on to tho bed in the corner. She lighted the piece of candle she had learned to carry in her pocket and looked around. There was nothing to do. This poor creature must take his chance with all those better ones stricken since tho doctress' herbs had given out. Lois wet a cloth and laid it on the palo brow, placed a cup of water beside tho bed, and went away.

Fort Lu Corne was very still. The [ girl looked up at the burning stars and again the alien thoughts that had troubled her these many days came thronging back to her brain. Life. What was it? A tanglo of uncertain things in truth, where llio threads of destiny were lost and hidden in tho woof of sad mistakes, where the highest, finest impulses of which a soul might be capable wore wronged and lowered, trampled, trodden under foot—! even called by the lowest of all names, misunderstood and persecuted. Life indeed was not much to lose, life as this girl had known it. To-morrow might see its surrender. The thought had no terror for her. Only the way of it caused a tiny shudder to pass through her. The vague tales of thoso Indians out there came back to her, t-ales of prisoners burned at tho stake, of fiendish atrocitios whose like was not known south of the Red Hills sinco tho other tribes of the wilderness had become, these many years back, friends and allies of the post. Only for Marcel, her more than friend, and tho tiny boy with tho lovely face and long curls, a wave og anguish passed over her. They at least should not fall into savage hands so long as she could handle a merciful rifle. This she vowed to herself as she stepped in at tho door of Palo's cabin.

And here was another of tho tragedies of that life whose eternal questions had begun their march through the mind of this girl of the wilderness, a tragedy so great and pitiful that it dwarfed those others into insignificance.

From out of the dusk of tho room came the low sound of a woman's sobbing, the soothing of some motherly voice, tragic in its calmness, and cutting through them both the tiny wail of a new-bora child.

Lois was not needed here, so she backed cut of the door atrain and walked away into tho night, this time aimlessly, and presently her steps turned unconsciously to\. ard the lonely gravo behind the church". It .vas the first time since she had buried old Jaques. So passed this night in the settlement, hushed, fearful, waiting, with the men working steadily that all might be in readiness for what might come, and the women weeping in terror. The sounds of tho great new camp outside ceased toward morning and sleep gave its blessed peace to those who were calm enough to take it.

Angus McConnel, sitting alone before the pine desk in the big room leaned his head on his hands and spent the dragging hours in thought. What would develop ho did not know. Yet he knew tho Blackfeet and their ways and his stern mouth sot hard at ; memories of certain things. In the Bleaurot cabin pretty Jaq.ua clung to the breast of Pierre Vernaise. begging like a frightened child for safety. Behind the church Lois Le Moyne sat all night by the grave of her father. With first dawn all within the; post was astir.

Outside came the waking sounds of the Indian camp, and when the sun had topped the rise of tho forest in the east the first act of the tragedy took place. There was a great beating on the closed gate and a long polo to which was attached a white rag, climbed up the reach of the palisade to wave in tho morning air.

The Indians demanded speech. McConnel, coming down the road from headquarters, taw it and went quietly to the gate. Around him were gathered all the men of the 1 post. They did not venture to ask what they would d,p. With the quick habit of their.

lives they accepted his authority without question. Once again be was the factor, strong, silent, dominant. Forgotten at that moment were all the wrongs, the misunderstandings, the heart acnes of the East year, forgotten was Sylvester with is brief authority, so recently eliminated from the post's affairs that "he was not yet under ground, forgotten the easy swerving of their own allegiance. They only saw in the hour of their need their factor, once more como into his own, and they flocked to him like sheep to a leader.

It was the factor, once more unbending in his service, who lifted hand to the great bar of the gate.

The morning sun streamed in as ho swung the portal partly open, with a dp of men behind to force it shut at *. moment's notice, and stepped into thg opening

Gathered before the gate was a mignty circle of warriors, painted from head to heel,' adorned with tie habiliments of war, lowerings of features and sullen. In the centre of that circle, stately, magnificent in his giant proportions, spectacular, the rising sun on his towering head-dress of eagle feathers which swept tho ground behind, there stood in his savage majesty the chief of tie Blackfeet, Tilhgamok. He bore no trace of ever having seen McConnel ore and there was no friendliness upon his scowling face-

The factor faced him, stern and quiet as himself, and waited for him to Apeak, since he had demanded tho parley.

Present] - he spoke, his deep gutturals sounding ominous in their in»o..ent consciousness of power.

" For many years tho red man has lived in the forest. As many years an the sun'god has lived in the heavens. To his hand have come the red deer and buffalo, the moose and the elk, the fox and the wolf and tho otter. Of their flesh he has eaten, of their skins he has made his tepees. To his door have- come the song birds that he might listen and bo at peace. All good things have been given him by the Great Spirit because he is the Son of the Forest and the Great Spirit together, and his ways are good. He has lived and died in happiness. Nc» comes into the land of the red man t'.e pale faces from another land. Tao Great Spirit frowns and is angry. Therefore he looks upon his children with displeasure. He is offended. Therefore he sends into their camps tho great sickness which devours them as the wolves tho red deer. ""hey die and the death song is no' hushed from moon to moon. Then speaks the Great Spirit to Mishwa, medicine man, ' The sickness shaH not abate until my children shall offer fit sacrifice, even a sacrifice of the pale-face people•vhose habitation is a sore upon the land.' The children of tho Great Spirit must obey. They havo como." The chief ceased and looked McConnel squarely in the eyes with the old challenge of the red man to the white. Hatred i was in that look and ready menace.

"Tilligamok is a false friend," spoke the factor in the Blackfeet tongue, slowly and distinctly, " he has eaten flesh with his whito brothers, he has sat at their fires. He has come the long trail to have tho peace talk in their tepees. Now he has forgotten and would demand a sacrifice of them.

" The post of Fort La Cerne is strong, there are' many rifles and much powder within its walls, also much provision and water. Tilligaraok would do better to take his braves back to the Red Hills. There is no sacrifice among bis white brothers for him."

With the last word the challenge in the face of the Indian changed to savaga ferocity. He uttered a swift word and in a second there was chaos without tho gate. The circle of warriors broke like a wave and poured forward with one swoop. Eager hands grasped at McConnel, a tomahawk whizzed by his* head, landing some feet up the main way inside tho post, and with one swift leap ho bounded within the palisade, black of brow and swearing, just) in time. Tho wedge behind the gate flung it to and Palo Le Roc shot the great bars into place.

"Now what, m'sieu?" ho said as b.B turned to face the factor.

CHAPTER XXI.

"take that, m'sip:" Pandemonium raged outside. Cries and guttural yells shocked the golden morning. They were indeed fiends and demons that sought t to frighten into compliance without a struggle that little handful of people within the stockade. But they wore of tho conquering race, that handful, and they tvero not to be frightened until the last expedient had been tried and had. failed.

" Man the portholes," said tho factor, the words rapping out with that decision which saw its point at once, went for it, and did mot change, "be ready to fire the first volley in two minutes." Warfare was to begin and ho would start it.

Scattering from tho big gate, all but enough to man its portholes, the trappers fled along the wall to either side, the two ends of the diverging parties meeting behind the church, having dropped two men at every barrel with its load of shells and its crossed rifles.

McConnel stepped on the barrel beside the gate that he might sco and bo seen from every vantage point around the stockade. When all was in readiness, each man watching for the first sign, ho raised his hand.

Out on the clear air rang the first defiant cry of battle, a volley of shots that ringed the post, carrying its arrogant note of invincible strength, saying plainly to that host without that Fort Lu Cerne was not only unscared but belligerent, ready and willing to fight. Cries of rage, and here and there of more than rage, wont up en all sides, and an instant reply pinged like hail against the palisade,

The Blackfeet wero in deadly earnest.

From the portholes it could bo seen that they wero formed for siege. Directly around the post and just within the edgo of the forest, where the great boles of the trees would make oscellent shields*, swarmed the warriors, an innumerable host, painted and hideous. Far back rose the smoke of their campfires, where tho women had withdrawn out of the range of danger and near enough to serve. A quick interchange of volleys followed the first, with no damage done on either side. The stern wall on one side and the protecting forest on tho other made that sort of warfare but a waste of good powder and ball. They were eager and alert, those thin men behind tho portholes, already worn by the long siege of an enemy, filled with tho firo oi battle* glad of a chance to strike back. They knew they were outnumbered twenty to oue. but they had their trust in the eld palisade, and, if that should fail, in the blockhouse itself. They watched, keen-eyed, from the portholes, and every time a painted form darted from one tree to another a rifle cracked with such certainty that more than one warrior leaped into the air with his death cry ringing suddenly abovo the shots. The advantage was all with tho post.

Not a man was visible to the savages, and their bullets imbedded themselves harmlessly in the seasoned logs. It did not take them long to realise this. They ceased presently and there was a lull in tho proceedings.

Not on Indian was in sight. There might have been, for sake of all appearances, no living soul within a handled leagues of Fort Lu Ceme.

Tho forest was as still us a forsaken desert. McConnel knew that Tilligamok had fathered his headmen for the laying of plans.

And this was true, for presently with a chorus of yells a dark wedge came flying out of the trail and a giant log, covered with gleaming copper forms, hurled itself with a boom that resounded throughout the settlement and shook Lie palisade, against the great gate. _ Rules spat from the portholes commanding tha entrance and took their toll from the copper forms, but more, flew from the ahedtpriii" trees and took their places as tho wedge withdrew to como again. It was a gigantic ram and the gate shook boneath its impact, shrieking in bar and brace and bolt, holding its studded breasti bravely before its people, yet crying in. pain. (To be continued dually.)