The Star Woman/Book 2

 

CHAPTER I

EVEN IN A WILDERNESS, ONE CANNOT ESCAPE THE DEVIL

"IF your Star Woman lies this way, cap'n," said Frontin, "devil take me if I want to find her! This ice—ah! A shot in this wilderness? Was that a gunshot or an ice-creak?"

Crawford seized his arm, stood listening. "A shot, true enough! Dead ahead of us. Bear to the left, I'll bear to the right. Watch yourself!"

The two men separated.

Although it was August and the wide expanse of Hudson Bay was now open water, all the winter's freeze was thrust here at the straits for exit, and not a ship had entered. No ship could fight this frozen sea until the jam burst. August, indeed? Here at the straits the very word was intolerable mockery.

Here nothing was in sight but ice and fog. The heavens above, the earth beneath, the waters under the earth, were all congealed into dead greyness; there was not even the blue shimmer of sun-struck bergs. Everything was unreal. The ear was assailed by a low, unceasing groan, which now rose into a crescendo of unearthly crashes and shrieks and again rolled in dim reverberant thunders, felt rather than heard; this came from the ice floes and small bergs and crushed mountains hanging at crazy angles, all hurled into one inchoate mass by the tremendous urge of the bay waters trying to crowd through the narrow straits to the sea.

In the air was that bitter and penetrating chill which comes of melting floes—a chill mocking at furs, thrusting into the very heart and entrails of the two men who appeared and vanished again, crawling across that drear expanse. To the northwest, hidden among the white masses, the position of the bark Northstar was marked by a thread of smoke two miles away; even this smoke looked cold and shivery as it wound shuddering into the sky and fog. To east and south rose the steep and awful cliffs of Cape Digge and the strait; they ran, ice-dripping, into heaven and melted in the horizon fog, cold barriers set two thousand feet in air to keep the inland sea cloaked in thin mist and bitter chill. Digge's Island was a dim blur; to west and south were grinding, crushing bergs and floes. Overhead was dun sunlight drowned in high fog—a ghastly and unearthly fog which threatened to close down again in an hour or two and add its clammy fingers to the merciless grip of the ice.

"The shot came from about here," called Crawford, giving a hallo to which none answered. He paused on a rounded hummock to sweep the surrounding surface with his gaze. From his left, where Frontin was toiling among upflung masses of rough ice, broke a sudden sharp cry.

"Here we are, cap'n! Name of the saints—come and look!"

Turning, Crawford hastened to join his lieutenant, scrambling over pinnacles and avoiding pools of melted water. Frontin, poised on a ridge of broken masses, uttered a curt comment.

"No hurry. He's dead, or I'm a liar!"

Cursing the bitter chill, Crawford climbed up beside this tall and saturnine comrade and friend, this Frontin of the cynical air and the warm heart. Reaching the ridge, he found himself looking down at a hollow, an icepan closed in all around by crushed pinnacles, like an open glade in a forest. Below the two men, at the near side of this hollow, lay the outstretched shape of a huge white bear, the top of its head blown away—and beside this, the motionless figure of a man, apparently an Eskimo, lying across a gun.

"These Eskimos have no fusils and don't use powder," said Crawford, for despite his astonishment, his brain was quickly at work. "Yet—where could he have come from? Certainly no ship has come ahead of us—the Eskimos told us that much. One might have followed us into the straits——"

Frontin waved his hand at the ice around.

"One or a dozen. We ha' been carried in the ice for weeks, up one channel and down another—ah! I see that heaven has declared me a liar." He moved suddenly, "The man's not dead after all."

The two clambered down, leaping and sliding into the hollow where the ice was pooled with blood. Frontin turned the man over, lifted head to lap, tenderly soothed the poor hurt and disemboweled thing that had been human before the claws of the bear ripped so deep and far. The man's eyelids fluttered open, and his vacant gaze fell upon Crawford. He spoke feebly in English.

"The smoke—the smoke! It is a sure sign; I tell you, haste and slay them—no parley, no hesitation! No quarter to man or woman. English or French, slay them or they will kill us all. That smoke means a ship. I—I—ah! You—you are not Moses Deakin! Who are you?"

Intelligence leaped into those eyes, a last flicker of fast-dying fires.

"Where are you from?" demanded Crawford imperatively. "Your ship? Where is she?"

"Blast you to hell and sink you lower!" was the response. "Ho, Moses—Moses Deakin! No quarter to them—no quarter——"

That was all. The hurt thing was at peace.

Now silence fell upon the two men—silence of wondering and slow comprehension. Frontin rose, turned his dark and glittering gaze upon the empty white desert surrounding them; his saturnine, hawk-nosed visage was wrinkled in perplexity. Crawford began to stuff tobacco into his pipe and stared down at the dead man, his wide and heavy-lidded eyes veiled thoughtfully. Frost and bleak winds had darkened the thin lines of nose and cheek and chin since he had left Newfoundland behind him, only to intensify their hard and aggressive determination.

Whence had this man come? No other ships had come through the roaring turmoil of the straits, according to the Eskimos. For weeks the Northstar had been carried back and forth and roundabout in the grip of ice and fog and currents, now out almost to open water, now back in the straits with the drift. Yet the presence of this man showed that some other ship was at hand, and any other ship spelled peril of the utmost to Hal Crawford.

Here in the bitter north, as on the golden main to the south, powder was the only lawgiver. During a generation and more, English, French and Bostonnais had disputed for possession of Hudson's great bay and its beaver trade. A year previously, the English Company of Adventurers had swept the French from the bay posts; what would happen this year or the next, no man could predict. The Iroquois war whoop had resounded from the dark pines these ten years, meeting at the apex of a great overland triangle the scalp-yell of the Sioux. The heroic Danish colony had perished in mad horror years ago. Freebooters and fur pirates slipped in through the straits and out again before the ice formed. Here only the fittest could survive; the conquered met with no quarter, whether from man or from nature.

"Queer words, cap'n," said Frontin reflectively. "He was repeating something that he had previously said. He must have seen our smoke. H'm! Then he would not have shot the bear unless forced to it. He was scouting us, eh? The bear attacked him, they killed each other——"

"Ay," said Crawford, opening his firebag.

"No quarter, quoth he," resumed Frontin. "Death of my life! There is nothing in sight, though his ship may be hidden like ours. That name of Moses Deakin—a singular name! Have ye ever heard it before?"

"Ay," said Crawford again.

Frontin turned and gazed curiously at him, while he fumbled with flint and steel. Presently he had the tinder aglow—and abruptly he pinched it out. A sudden blaze swept into his steel-blue eyes. He hastily thrust away pipe and firebag.

"I have it—quick, now!" he exclaimed sharply. "Two men were out together, even as we are. Moses Deakin left this man, started back to their ship. He'll have heard the gunshot and will return to see what it means. Back, out of sight! It's our chance to catch him—and if we catch Moses Deakin we have the best prize on the bay. Back, back! Prime the guns and wait!"

Frontin paused not to reason why, but slid away and vanished among the hummocks above. Crawford stooped over the dead man and explored beneath the torn, frozen-red garments. His hand came away with a crinkle of paper, and he gave the document one sharp look that widened his eyes. Then he hastily turned the body face down as it had first lain, and followed his lieutenant into hiding. No footsteps had left any trace on the ice. Here was death and nothing else.

Crouched beside Frontin among the hummocks, Crawford briefly told what he knew of this Moses Deakin.

"A Boston fur-pirate; I heard queer tales of him both in New York and Boston. They say he's a great, hard, cold devil who sees visions, has dealings with the foul fiend and is cruel as any Mohawk. It is supposed that he has a secret post somewhere on the bay and agents among the Indians; he sneaks in and gets his furs when the straits open, and goes again swiftly. This is rumour, but he's reality. Either the French or the English would blow him out of the water if they could catch him at work—he's done them both a deal of harm."

"We don't care for furs," said Frontin. "Then why is he of value to us?"

"Because they say he knows the bay as no other man does—every river and shallow of it. That's how he eludes capture. You comprehend? If we catch him, we find the northwest passage and the south sea beyond."

"But," said Frontin thoughtfully, "I thought you had been tempted by the Star Woman, of whom Iberville told you!"

"An Indian legend, a wild dream!" Crawford's tone was impatient. "If nothing better offered, I'd chance it—but not if we can catch Moses Deakin and find the northwest passage!"

Frontin shrugged. The two men now waited silent, motionless; from their position no moving object could be seen, but this meant little. Except from some high elevation, a man or a dozen men could not be sighted among these heaped-up masses of ice. Then, suddenly, Frontin touched Crawford's elbow. Among the opposite crags of ice, across the hollow, appeared a moving shape which came abruptly into full view and paused to look down upon the scene of death. A great and grim man was this, whose entire bearing conveyed a singular impression of iron resolution and dominance.

A fur cap covered his head. Merging with the shaggy fur, an immense beard of grizzled black swept across his lower face and hung in two bushy prongs over his barrel of a chest. Between cap and beard were visible a massive, wide-nostriled nose and two most remarkable eyes. They were deeply set and far apart, beneath shaggy grizzled brows; they were extremely large, insolent, commanding, of a light and steely gray which contrasted strongly with the mass of jet hair. Across his shoulders lay a fusil, which he now suddenly lifted and fired in air.

"A signal!" breathed Frontin. "Now is our time——"

"No—no!" denied Crawford, his low word desperately urgent. "Look! We are lost——"

The gunshot had been answered by a burst of calls and shouts, so unexpected and so close that both watchers started. At once other men came into view, half a dozen of them, along the opposite ridge of ice. In a flash Crawford perceived his frightful error of calculation. The dead man had been companioned, not by Deakin alone, but by all these others!

Crawford met the crisis after his usual fashion. Setting his mouth to Frontin's ear, ignoring the group who were swiftly descending the opposite slope toward the bodies of man and bear, he spoke rapidly.

"Keep my gun, stay hidden; be ready for anything. If I go with them, watch and get a bearing on where their ship lies. Keep the smoke-flare going from the bark. You comprehend? They know all about us, we know nothing about them. Here—take care of this paper."

Into Frontin's hand he thrust the paper taken from the dead man; then he rose and strode forward. He was apparently unarmed, knife and tomahawk being hidden.

As Crawford thus swung into their sight, descending from the icy ridge to the hollow, the group of men stared at him for half a moment in gaping amazement. Then their guns swung up, but he spoke out with a cool assurance that gave them pause.

"Careful, Cap'n Deakin, careful! You're outnumbered and have stumbled into a very neat ambuscade. Ho, Frontin! Bid one of the men to fire in the air, that our good Moses may realize his position."

"Ay, cap'n," responded Frontin's voice, followed by the roar of a fusil in air.

Astounded by the appearance of Crawford, finding themselves apparently surrounded by hidden foes as they huddled there in the ice-hollow, the half-dozen Boston men dared not move. They crowded around Moses Deakin, who was measuring Crawford with his bold, hard gaze. Startled though he was, the fur-pirate was unafraid.

"Well?" he demanded truculently. "Who the devil may you be, that you know my name?"

Crawford, suiting action to utterance, surveyed him with a slight and whimsical smile.

"My dear Deakin," he responded calmly, "we ought to know you, since we've had men posted around your ship since last night! If we bore you any ill will, we might have taken that craft of yours a dozen times over. But to what end? As the redskins say, I'm bringing you a belt of white wampum and a calumet. Agree to a truce, and I'll go over to your ship with you and have a friendly talk."

"Your name?" growled Deakin, obviously taken all aback.

"Crawford."

"Blood and wounds! Not Hal Crawford, the pirate?" cried Deakin, while his men gaped and stared at hearing the name.

"So called. Come—is it peace or war? Give your word; I'll accept it."

Deakin was not the sort to hesitate when trapped. He put out his hand and advanced, giving Crawford a mighty grip. He made answer with apparent heartiness, yet with a ruthless treachery thinly veiled in those domineering eyes of his.

"Ay! Come aboard with us; peace it is, cap'n. To the ship, lads, and out o' this! The flood tide be lifting this accursed ice. Leave the corpse where it is."

Crawford turned and lifted his voice. "Frontin! Take the men back to the ship and signal in all the crew. If I do not return in three hours, come over the ice and hang Moses Deakin."

"Ay, cap'n," the unseen Frontin made reply.

Deakin showed huge yellow teeth through his beard at this threat, then rumbled out a laugh and turned. He set off for the southeast with Crawford beside him, while the men draggled after them and cast frightened glances at the desolate expanse of ice, now cracking and groaning and heaving from the rise of water below. No word was spoken. Since the hour lay close upon noon, Crawford guessed that the Bostonnais and his men were hungry.

So far, so good, he reflected. Whether he could carry through the bluff was of no great consequence; he scarcely even thought of the issue. Since he dared not betray his real ignorance by asking any questions, he accompanied Deakin in silence until he made out a tracery of spars lying ahead. Presently he discovered that the fur-pirate lay barely three miles away from the Northstar, in under the frowning cliffs of the mainland and close to the great cape itself.

Closer approach showed the Boston ship to be a large square-rigged corvette carrying three heavy guns to a side; by name, the Albemarle. When he found that Deakin had nearly thirty men aboard his rover, Crawford grimaced at thought of his little bark with her crew of fourteen. Presently they were up the side of the ice-gripped corvette, and Crawford followed his host aft to the main cabin. A wild, shaggy crew of men they were who stared at him, and scurvy had brushed some of them with its hideous hand.

Once down below, Crawford seated himself alone with Deakin, and a lanky boy fetched them pannikins of food and mugs of grog. A boatswain entered and asked for orders; Deakin gave them curtly, crisply, and dipped fingers in pannikin again. Crawford perceived that while this man was uncouth as any bear, he yet possessed strange depths of bravery, treachery, perhaps madness.

"And now to talk!" Deakin swigged his rum, accepted the tobacco Crawford offered, and made a light. "What force have ye? Half down with scurvy, I'll warrant."

"Force enough, and not a touch of scurvy so far."

"That's a lie," was the blunt response. Crawford's blue eyes narrowed.

"Softly, Master Deakin! Once for that word is enough. Any more of it and I'll put steel into you! Guard your tongue better. Who was that man mangled by the bear?"

"My lieutenant." Deakin gazed unwinkingly at his visitor. In his bold stare lay a more deadly menace than that which Crawford had just put into voice. "Had been three year with me. What sort o' ship have ye got?"

"A bark." Crawford put the light to his pipe and puffed. "I'm no pirate, as ye miscall me. I've no interest in furs or gain. I'm looking for the place that's over the horizon, and count on getting help from you."

The shaggy brows drew down. "What place is it, then?"

"Whatever may be there." Crawford coolly put his hand inside his shirt, and drew out the Star of Dreams that hung on its thong. At sight of it, Deakin's eyes opened wide. "The star, Cap'n Deakin—my star of dreams! I follow the sign. Call it a madman's fancy, if ye like; I seek only freedom, clear action, a chance to be myself. I'm sick of the struggle for pelf and place and power—I want a fresher world. I have goods and provisions and gold aboard the bark, and need to rob naught from other men. If others—mark it well!—think to rob me, I have teeth and can use 'em."

"Others have teeth, for that matter," said Moses Deakin, and those big eyes of his narrowed slightly as Crawford thrust away the star. "Blood and wounds! How d'ye expect me to believe such a tale? Who comes into these seas, but for furs?"

"I do, for one," was the cool response. "You have reason—use it! If I wanted loot, what easier than to take your ship? Then to seek that hidden trading post of yours and loot it. But that's nonsense—we have no quarrel. Here's what I want of you: Is it true, as pilots say, that from the northwest of this bay a passage leads to the south seas?"

Deakin frowned upon his questioner. His eyes glimmered in a way that Crawford misliked; they glinted with suspicion, with crafty search, with a slow and heavy pondering.

"Not to my knowledge," he made answer at length, "and I should know if any man does. Last year the French ships drove me far up to the nor'west, where I talked with Injuns. This folly of a south sea passage means naught."

So positive was Deakin's tone, so filled with assured conviction were his words, that Crawford could not but feel in this moment that he had been following a false trail. Deakin should know—that was true. If Deakin said no passage existed, then it might well be accepted as a fact.

While Crawford puffed in frowning silence, however, Deakin now continued with an abrupt change of topic and manner.

"What's to hinder me keeping you here while my men go take your ship? There's two hundred pound for you in Boston, dead or alive. You ha' gold aboard, and supplies that are worth more than gold in these parts. What's to hinder, eh?"

Crawford's thin lips emitted a thin cloud of smoke.

"Try it and see. What's two hundred pound and the loot of a bark, as against a winter's stock o' furs? A poor gamble, Cap'n Deakin. My men would give you as good as they got."

Deakin's teeth shone through his beard, and his eyes smouldered darkly. "I'll swallow no such tale of a south sea passage. H'm! You've not been i' the bay before, neither; but what about Frontin, your lieutenant—eh? Ay, I've heard of that French pirate! And sink me, but that explains it well enough, that does!"

"Explains what?" asked Crawford, somewhat astonished by these heavy ruminations.

"Your being here. No doubt Frontin caught some thread o' the tale; likely, the French Company's men heard it from the redskins. And you're just fool enough to go look into it. Fool! H'm! You and your star—honest enough in that folly, too! Ye did wrong to show me that star, for I have a nose to scent with. Warlock, that's what ye are, and I can see it all now. You have heard the tale, but so have I."

"Eh?" Crawford was suddenly alert, as the dog who scents unseen game. "What tale?"

"The Star Woman, o' course!"

With an air of irritated finality, as though he had found the answer to a troublous problem, Deakin lifted his mug and drained it. He banged down the pewter, licked his hairy lips, grunted savagely. Then he continued, his gaze fastened on Crawford.

"Ay, the Star Woman! Makes ye jump, eh? I've guessed it, sure enough. Little you know of her, though; while I've seen her—if not in the flesh, then otherwise. No white man has seen her in the flesh, and few enough o? the red devils; oh, ye cunning liar! It's not nor'west that you're seeking, but west and south. Well, whilst French and English are there, neither you nor I will do much looking in that direction. Dost know there's a host of ships behind us in the straits, icebound?"

"Ships?" repeated Crawford, catching swiftly at the more essential news despite his amazed wonder at the man's talk of the Star Woman. "How d'ye know?"

"Why, I saw them, as I saw the Star Woman. French ships o' the line, English frigates—bah! Come up on deck and talk in the open air. Plague upon this stuffy cabin!"

Moses Deakin shoved back his chair and rose. Crawford accompanied him to the ladder, still lost in marvel at what he had heard. At the ladder, Deakin motioned him to mount.

Then, as Crawford's back was turned, Moses Deakin threw up his arm and struck. The blow, sharp and light but deadly as an arrow, drove home to the base of the brain. Crawford fell against the ladder, then rolled down, paralyzed.

So there, it seemed, the Star of Dreams had led but to an ill fortune.

While these things chanced aboard the Albemarle, and the day dragged on, Frontin was heavily making his way back to his own ship. He did not regain the Northstar until afternoon; and if there was dismay in his own heart, he brought stark consternation to those aboard her.

It was a strangely diverse company that grouped around him to hear the tale he spat out between bites of food. The six Englishmen were hardy rascals who cared only that they should never see an English gaol again, following Crawford with blind infatuation. The eight Irishmen followed Crawford largely because Sir Phelim Burke did so, since they loved Phelim beyond measure. Only one of them could speak or write English.

"I sighted her ship and got bearings on her," concluded Frontin. "Can lead ye there in the dark, for she's fast in shore ice; but what use? I saw that big bear of a man come up from below alone, roar at his men, and shake his fist toward us. The cap'n is trapped and gone."

Sir Phelim Burke uttered a low groan of despair, and turned to stare helplessly at the fog which clamped them in. They stood on the maindeck—there was no frost in the air, only the chill of melting ice. The Norths tar, rigged in the fashion which another twenty years was to know as "schooner." lay grappled to a small berg. She was a new ship of oak, and the ice-battering had not so much as started a butt in her. Yet Frontin, as he drearily climbed aboard, had noted something which started his brain to frantic work.

Within the past half-hour fog had come down—heavy, cloaking mist that lay about them like an evil thing. Through it penetrated the groaning of the floes; even the berg beside them was filled with long heavings and shudderings and queer noises. The ice was all in movement, as it moved each day at high tide, now back and now forth, in a slow and regular motion with the varying trend of shore-currents and ice-drift. Blocked by the huge jam across the mouth of the straits, these outer masses were gradually disintegrating.

"Say the word, Master Frontin," spoke up one of the Englishmen, "and we be off with ye. We'll not let the cap'n bide on yon ship without a fight."

Frontin gave him a bleak look. "Go aloft, Dickon, and keep sharp watch. The fog has come down low, and up above it thins quickly. Watch sharp for the direction of the drift."

Dickon departed, and Frontin sent the other men to sleep and rest. Sir Phelim dully repeated the order to his Irish, and presently Frontin and Burke remained alone.

"What hope?" said Burke, despair in his branded, weary countenance. "Even is Hal not dead, how can we help? I understand your meaning, Frontin. The ice is moving us, and the fog has settled down. We cannot find that accursed ship now."

"I can find her in hell, when the time comes," said Frontin. He drained a mug of wine, wiped his lips, and settled back against the rail. When he had a tinder-match alight, he set it to his pipe and puffed comfortably.

"The cap'n is not dead, Sir Phelim, depend upon it! I think that he gave this Deakin too large a tale—frightened him. So Deakin caught him off guard and clamped him in irons. Why? No doubt to serve as hostage. That order to me, bidding me come over and hang Deakin unless the cap'n returned, frightened the man, set him thinking. This Deakin is no fool. He guessed that we could not come over and hang him, or take his ship either."

"Then what do you propose?"

"To do it, since he thinks we cannot," said Frontin coolly.

Burke regarded him steadily. "How can you find that ship again?"

Frontin smiled his thin, sardonic smile. "We've calculated the drift each day. The Bostonnais is inside the drift by the shore ice, and will not move until the outer ice has broken up or gone. There is no hurry. Perhaps this Deakin will set out to scout our ship and discover her position and strength. Sir Phelim, do you believe in omens?"

Burke now regarded him with some uneasiness. There was about this Frenchman, whose affection for Crawford was beyond words, something deep and terrible; his manner held a gloomy exultation. Burke, being in despondent mood, was ready to see misfortune in this or anything else.

"Omens? Well—at times. But you spoke of Deakin coming to scout our ship?"

"Yes. He will do it. He can find her."

"But he will discover our weakness!"

Frontin snapped his fingers. "Let him. Now, return to our omens! For example, that star which the cap'n wears. You believe in that Star of Dreams?"

Burke smiled a sad and twisted smile.

"I believe in his belief, my dear Frontin. He and you and I—we follow that star out of the world, over the horizon; it is a symbol of the happiness that we have never found, and will never find alive. It has led us here to this desolate spot. Is that an omen? Then all this damned and icebound northland is an omen, for we Irish believe that hell is a place of snow and ice. Has this fog a father? Out of whose womb came this ice, and who has gendered the hoary frost of heaven?"

"We can dispense with poetry, which has a suspiciously Biblical sound," said Frontin drily. "Thank heaven I am no Irishman, to make misfortunes into poetry! Instead, I make them into a ladder."

Sir Phelim laughed. "Poet yourself, dark man! Well, why all this talk of omens and the star that we follow?"

"Because I propose to follow it now."

For an instant Burke did not get the full import of these words, until something in the tone, in the glinting dark eyes, of Frontin gave him enlightenment. Then he started.

"Impossible! That were rank madness——"

Frontin lifted his hand, made an imperturbable gesture. "Listen! Listen!"

The trembling grind of the crushing floes and bergs had never ceased. As he listened, however, Sir Phelim gradually detected a new and different sound—a strange sound that blanched his weathered cheeks and widened his eyes in horrified comprehension. This sound was a slow and relentless groan which emanated from the very heart of the bark herself. By some convergent pressure, her timbers were being squeezed and ground between floes and berg. A fraction of an inch at a time, she was being crushed.

"We have a choice," said Frontin coolly, when he saw that the other understood. "We may stay here and fight, blast holes in the ice, open a channel—and abandon the cap'n. We cannot rescue both him and the ship. Time presses, and we lack men."

"But you would leave her, and all she contains?"

"Follow the star!" Frontin uttered a short, hard laugh. "Follow the star, take that other ship——"

"Man, are you mad?" broke out Sir Phelim. "You yourself have gold aboard here, and we cannot carry it over the ice!"

"The devil gave the gold, let him take it again," and Frontin waved his pipe carelessly. "Do you love gold? Neither do I. The Star of Dreams has gone aboard another ship, and we follow. That is all. Her crew outnumbers us, true, but they have no star."

Burke frowned thoughtfully. "Yet the ice is moving. There will be open channels to cross."

"We shall take the small boat to cross them, then. Listen! The movement has increased; all the ice outside here is moving now. Perhaps we have reached the end of this abominable delay! To-night we may either be free of the ice, or again inclosed. However, I can find that corvette."

They were silent. That horrible squeezing groan of wrenched oak was no longer to be heard. Perhaps the pressure on the bark was relieved, perhaps the sound was drowned in the increasing tumult from the fog-wrapped ice all around. The tumult had become a cacaphony of hideous noise. Out there in the fog the ice was heaving up in great masses and falling again, bursting into fragments, sliding and rending and crashing.

A hasty call from the man aloft brought Frontin to his feet. He darted into the cabin for a spyglass, then mounted the rigging. Sir Phelim Burke remained where he was, lost in surmise. He knew that Frontin had brought a mass of gold aboard the bark—was the Frenchman ready to abandon this gold utterly? That bespoke a greater love for Crawford than Burke had visioned in the man, who was outwardly so bitter and cynical.

"Damn the ice! The plan is madness, madness manifold!" Sir Phelim threw out his hands and gripped the rail in despair, as he stared at the fog. "Heart of the world gone wrong, and broken men adrift who pin faith to a star and drive across the horizon, blindly! Well, I think that this is not the first time men have trailed a star—but they were wise men. We are fools, Hal Crawford, and we love you—and are fools."

Up above, Frontin was standing beside the pointing Dickon, incredulity in his face as he hurriedly focused his glass. The sullen grinding and crashing of the ice had come to a sudden pause, and the drift had ceased. That drift had been to the northward. The fog, here little more than ice-steam, did not lift but clung close down; up above, however, there was a faint stir of wind which helped to dissipate the upper layers of mist, stirring it all into yeasty heavings.

From the masthead, Frontin could make out the line of coast, or rather the cape, and calculated that the bark had drifted two or three miles farther back toward the straits. There in the north the fog was thicker and heavier, a massive bank of greyness, now swirling away, now parting for a moment, now abruptly closing again. Frontin waited for another such shifting, his glass fastened toward the end of the cape. The grey wall parted abruptly—parted to disclose a tiny, fluttering bit of colour set in its midst. Nothing else was to be seen save this scrap of colour: the flag of England, set apparently in the sky and fog. Then a sudden shrill cry burst from the man Dickon.

"Rot me—off to larboard, master! Look quick!"

Frontin swung around, and a low word broke from his lips. A great eddy of the moving fogbank had blown an open lane—a perfect channel through the mist, walled on either hand. Looking down this lane, as though the scene had been there set for his sight by some whimsy of the invisible fingers which manipulated ice and fog and sea, Frontin had one swift glimpse of a towering frigate, all sail set, not three miles distant—and from her poop drooped the white flag of France! Even as he looked, the fog closed down again and she was gone like a dream-vision. The English flag, over by the cape, had also vanished. Frontin closed his glass and descended to the deck, a touch of colour in his cheeks, his dark eyes aglow. He came to Sir Phelim and clapped the latter on the shoulder.

"Eh?" cried the startled Irishman. "What's happened? Ye look strange——"

"It's what is about to happen!" and Frontin laughed joyously. "Death of my life—who, think you, is out there in the fog?"

"Crawford?"

"No—Iberville! His fleet must have followed us through the straits. I saw the Profound lying out yonder not a league distant; I ought to know the old brute of a ship, since I once——" Here Frontin checked himself and bit his lip, then continued more carefully. "She has been under Iberville's orders for two years, therefore the rest of his fleet must be in the straits. And off the cape is an English ship. Come! While the lions fight, the jackals may seize the bone. To work! If we were sure of heaven, we might tamely accept fate; but being minded to stay out of hell as long as possible, we'll fight. All hands on deck! Sir Phelim, you and your Irishmen get up food, rum or wine, and arms. Dickon, down from aloft!"

Now Frontin, knowing that the ice movement had halted with the tide, did a singular and characteristic thing. In the galley was still smouldering a fire, whence the smoke-signal had been drifting aloft all day. He ran to it, seized the ends of brands and whipped them into the embers, raked all the fire into a pot, crammed in some rotten canvas used for tinder, and with the flaming pot aswing in his hand darted down the deck aft—and chucked the whole thing into the stern cabins. Then he whirled upon the shouting, startled men who thought him gone mad, and his voice drove at them.

"Quick! Ships are close to us, all around us—an English fleet! The bark's being crushed i' the ice; our only hope is to get away and take the corvette that holds Cap'n Crawford—swift, before the flames reach the powder!"

Cursing and shouting mad oaths, furious terror and alarm plucking at them, the men scrambled to obey. Sir Phelim whipped his Irish with crackling Gaelic words, while Frontin got the other men at work swinging out the tiny skiff from the stern, with the smoke rolling up from below and the thought of powder-kegs to drive them with the spur of necessity.

Now, as though to increase their mad frenzy of haste, came out of the whole ship a frightful scream of twisted oak. She began to move upward, slowly, as the ice nipped and lifted her, started its work of rending through her hull. Into the skiff went fusils and pistols and blades, food and drink; one by one the men dropped to the ice, seized ropes and made fast to the skiff, or lifted at her bodily, each man cursing his neighbour to make more haste. Then they drew away from the heaving, groaning mass of timber, stumbling and slipping over the ice, following the tall figure of Frontin and the shorter, limping Phelim Burke.

So the fog closed around them.

After a little a ruddy brightness shone through the obscurity in their rear, as the red flames leaped higher. After this had died and vanished behind the heavy curtain of fog, came a sullen, booming detonation that shook the great floes, flung the men all asprawl on the ice, and left a frightful desolation in their hearts.

"Forward!" shouted Frontin, and they struggled up.

CHAPTER II

WHEN FOG LIFTS, THE ROAD CLEARS

ALTHOUGH dazed and momentarily paralyzed by the blow which felled him, Crawford did not quite lose consciousness. He dimly realized that he was being dragged back into the cabin by the Bostonnais; then felt himself lifted and placed in a chair and firmly lashed to it. Deakin rumbled with laughter.

"A good blow, one worth learning! You're not hurt—come around after a bit——"

Deakin stamped out and ascended to the deck above.

Sagging down in the chair with closed eyes, Crawford relaxed utterly and rested while he might, wasting no thought on his own carelessness; he had been caught, and must face the future instead of the past. After a time his senses cleared again and the agonized ache slowly passed from his head and neck and nerve-centers, until presently he dropped into a light doze. From this he was wakened by a heavy trampling on deck, and heard the stentorian tones of Deakin bellowed forth through a speaking trumpet. Deakin had a voice like brass.

"Come back, come back!" roared the words, and again: "Come back!"

So the Bostonnais was calling in his men. After a little Crawford jerked up his head and came wide awake as Deakin returned into the cabin.

"Ha! The ice be on the move again, and if those fools o' mine be not spry, they'll get caught. Well, well—let's have your 'bacca."

Stooping over his prisoner, Deakin swiftly searched him, throwing weapons, pipe and tobacco pouch to the table, and finally drawing forth the Star of Dreams on its thong. During a long moment he hesitated over the emerald jewel, greed fighting in his large eyes against a stronger fear; then he reluctantly shoved it back beneath Crawford's shirt.

"Not that, not that!" he rumbled heavily. "There's wizardry in it, and I'll ha' no warlock after me o' nights. 'Twas the star that brought ye here, yourself said it; and Moses Deakin knows when to let things bide. Nay, I'll not touch the thing."

With this astonishing speech the fur-pirate lowered himself into his own chair, facing Crawford, stuffed his pipe with the Virginia tobacco, and made a light. Crawford held himself in check, realizing in a flash the singular streak of superstition in his captor and resolving to see whither it tended. Nor did Deakin long delay in setting forth the matter, displaying a great confidence in himself, an assurance in his own deductions and suppositions.

"Fog's down again and the outer ice splitting up. If the wind hauls around into the east'ard, we'll be free soon enough now. Blood and wounds! A month we've been fighting this cursed ice. Now, Crawford, what's to do with ye? If the ice stops movin' to-night, I'll have that bark of yours. Come over and hang Moses Deakin, eh? Let 'em try it! If they come, you're here for hostage; if they come not, then ye lied to me and have a weak crew."

Shrewd reasoning enough, and Crawford was keenly alarmed by it. Deakin leaned forward, clawed his great beard, grinned, and shot forth a direct question.

"So ye thought to sneak into the bay and steal the Star Woman from me, eh?"

"No."

"That's a lie. Ha! Put steel into me, will ye? I say again, that's a lie! South sea passage, eh? Ye knew well enough there was none. 'Twas the Star Woman ye wanted. I know when a man tells the truth, Crawford. It was a lie ye spoke about the south sea passage, and the truth about the green star. So ye were on your way to her, eh? There's wizardry in that, or ye'd never ha' found me on the ice. Aye, wizardry! And as ye said, the star brought ye here. It's a warlock ye are, no doubt about it."

Crawford was somewhat bewildered by all this, but the gaze of his captor settled and sobered him. Deakin sucked at his pipe, while his abnormally large eyes fastened upon his prisoner in a gaze that was oddly unwinking. Indeed, from time to time the lids, instead of drooping, lifted slightly and widened.

Once before had Crawford seen just such a stare as this, but then in the eyes of a woman. That was years ago in Ireland. He remembered the cold and rainy night, with Phelim Burke sitting across the campfire, and the old hag wandering in through the lines; the Wicklow Witch, they called her. He remembered how she had squatted by the fire, staring from him to Phelim Burke with that queer, momentary distending of her eyes; and she had talked of Granuaile and Red Hugh and Brian O'Rourke and others of the mighty dead, as though she knew them well. With an effort, Crawford forced himself back to the present situation. He spoke quietly.

"Is this honest treatment of a guest, Moses Deakin? I came freely with you——"

"Sink you and your fine words!" The Bostonnais breathed deeply, his wide nostrils flaring, and removed the pipe to scratch at his two-pronged tangle of grizzled beard. He reverted at once to his own chosen subject.

"That French buccaneer, Frontin, gave ye news of her, and the star brought ye here. Ay, that'll be the way of it. I'll do ye no harm, Crawford, nor the star neither, for I'll need to walk carefully with warlocks, and can take no chances. A Cree wizard told me two year ago that no weapon or hand o' man could kill me, and that I'd come to my end only by the gift of a woman. So I ha' naught to do with women, unless it be the Star Woman. She always smiles at me, so I know she be right friendly and well-disposed."

He paused, puffing his pipe into a last flicker of life. Crawford gathered that in Deakin's thought he was something of a wizard, and was being treated to confidences. This thought drew the ghost of a smile to his lips. He racked his brains for some means of turning the fact to his advantage, but found none. Deakin was obviously wrapped up in his own fancies, which were sincere enough, and now went on with his rambling talk.

"So last year I sent messages to the Star Woman by the Injuns, bidding her come and meet me at my post this summer. Far away she is, somewhere to the south and west, but all the tribes know her name and fear it. Shall we have a look at her, Crawford? Ay, say ye so. I'll have a smile from her sweet lips and tell ye what she's about this minute. Most like she's over on the other shore o' the bay now, waiting for me. She'll have had my message, sent from tribe to tribe until it reached her."

The giant laid aside his pipe. He shoved the heavy table so that it came under the arms of Crawford's chair and under Crawford's eye. Then, rising, he went to a locker and produced a shallow pewter dish. He set this on the table and reached down a flask, pouring into the dish a dankly glittering fluid which might have been black quicksilver, had there been such a thing. With the dish between himself and Crawford, Deakin now tugged his chair forward and reseated himself.

"First I'll have a look at what's in the straits," he said. "Put your eyes on the witch ink, Crawford, and tell me what ye see."

The Bostonnais stared down at the dark fluid, intent and absorbed, his huge frame bent over, his pronged beard sweeping the table, his immense hands outstretched and motionless. The monstrous incongruity of such a man engaged in so childish a task smote Crawford with a mad impulse to burst out laughing; but he checked it sternly enough. Whatever the man's delusion might be, it held a deadly sincerity. Also, Crawford had heard in Boston that this Moses Deakin was famed for seeing visions, and now he perceived the explanation of the rumours.

Crawford, being without any credulity and putting no faith in witchcraft or second sight, waited for what might come. It occurred to him that Deakin, if possessed of any desire to apply his magic, might well summon up a vision of the Northstar at the moment, and save his scouts the work. Those who work wizardry, however, apparently eschew its more practical benefits.

"Look!" Deakin suddenly started, and his big hands gripped. "Blood and wounds—a fifty-gun ship!"

Crawford gazed down at the dark fluid and saw in it only the mirrored reflection of Deakin's hairy visage. The other man, however, spoke with growing excitement.

"White flag at her poop—a Frenchman! A ship o' the line, a royal ship! There's men aboard her; ay, the faces begin to come out now. What the Canadians doing aboard she? And a red Injun, and fine officers in gold lace. I'll warrant the rogues are cold enough! And yonder's her cap'n; a fine handsome man he is, and a boy alongside him, likely his brother——"

Crawford sent an astonished glance to the fluid, but saw nothing. Could Deakin really be finding visions there? That man and boy—they must be Iberville and Bienville! He remembered now that Iberville had been awaiting ships from France——

"It's Iberville!" he exclaimed. "Iberville and his fleet!"

That name, so dreaded on the bay, smote the Bostonnais. Lifting his head, Deakin showed in wild and hairy countenance a sudden amazed awe. He thought Crawford, too, had seen the vision.

"Warlock, wi' the star at your breast—I knew it well enough!" he breathed hoarsely. "Iberville, is it? Then Moses Deakin goes not near the south o' the bay this voyage. Perdition take him and his Frenchmen! He be no man, but devil incarnate. Nay, I'll look no more at him, but shall call up the Star Woman. Set a name to her likewise, if ye can; sink me, Crawford, if ye have not more power than I at my own game. Warlock, indeed!"

He lowered his face again and stared anew at the fluid.

Crawford, realizing now how the man was ridden by superstition, tried vainly to discover some trick in the matter, for he refused to believe that Deakin saw real images. Perhaps the man knew that a French squadron was heading north. Perhaps the whole thing was a lie and a delusion, either deliberate trickery or self-deception on Deakin's part. Perhaps there were no ships in the straits at all! That, indeed, was more likely than not.

"Now I see her!" cried out Deakin. "Look! She's standin' at the door of a bark lodge—blood and wounds, what a woman she is, too! White woman, too—gold hair streaming all over her, with a star o' blue stones on her breast——"

Deakin was concentrated, tense, quivering with inward excitation, completely gripped by his own fantasy. Crawford could not but feel the infection. He peered down, staring at the dish, yet seeing in it only the reflection of those distended grey eyes. Through his brain raced the words that Iberville had said to him, that evening above Bay de Verde. A Spanish woman——

"Ay, she's smiling at me! Put a name to her, ye warlock, if ye can!"

"Her name's Mariana," said Crawford.

Deakin caught his breath gustily, lifted wild eyes at Crawford, his wide nostrils flaring with each breath, his beard twitching; to doubt the terrible earnestness of the man was impossible.

Then came abrupt wakening, sudden and swift return to sanity. From the deck overhead sounded a medley of shouts and trampling feet, the rise of excited voices. Steps thumped on the ladder, and into the cabin came the boatswain. Deakin looked at him with a growled oath.

"The men are back, master," said the man eagerly. "There's open water a half-mile outside of us—a wide channel. The ice ha' stopped moving outside and be jammed once more to the north'ard. Fog down like always, but the upper wind's hauling around. Looks like she'll be in east'ard before a great while, master."

Deakin stared at him a moment, then crashed out rapid orders.

"That means the ice be goin' fast. Get out the skids and chock the pinnace into 'em for haulin' across the ice. Lay food and powder in her, and muskets. Lay the little skiff overside likewise—we'll carry her across to open water."

"Be goin' to leave the ship?" came the astonished query.

"Ay, bose. We be going to take Crawford's ship—gold aboard her! We'll work up to her i' the pinnace, take her, and be back afore morning. Leave the three men worst down wi' scurvy to hold the Albemarle and signal us. Ice won't go out afore turn o' the tide come morning. Sharp, now, sharp does it! We ha' no time to dilly away. Chuck me down a coil o' light line as ye go."

Bose disappeared. Moses Deakin returned the dark fluid to its flask, placed it with the dish in the locker, then turned and stared at Crawford.

"Two hundred pound for ye in Boston town!" His barrel of a chest heaved in a deep breath of resignation. "No, I'll take no chances. Two hundred pound is much gold, but a warlock is not to be tampered with. I'll do ye no hurt, nor the star neither. None the less, I'll not leave ye free to shout."

A coil of line rattled down the ladder. Deakin picked it up, tore a piece of canvas from a dirty tarpaulin in one corner, and came to Crawford. The latter was firmly and efficiently gagged before he realized what was happening.

Deakin had thoroughly convinced himself that Crawford was something in the nature of a wizard, and that the emerald jewel was a thing of magic power. Only this obsession explained his reluctant decision to let the jewel go, not to mention the very valuable head of its bearer. That he should thus pass up two hundred pounds was an eloquent testimony to his sincerity. Crawford stirred uneasily in his bonds, wondering what was now about to take place.

"Our friend may have man's reason in the carcase of an animal," he reflected, "but so much the worse for him. If he had the brain of an animal, he'd be better off. If he doesn't mean to hurt me, what the devil does he mean? And why this gag?"

As though in response to this silent query, Deakin called down two of his men. They freed Crawford from the chair, then lashed his wrists together in front of him, and to the lashing attached a length of line. His feet were left free.

"All ready above?" inquired the Bostonnais.

"Ay, master."

"Then come ye with me, Crawford." Deakin took the length of line and went to the ladder, the captive perforce following him.

So they came out on deck, and Crawford was helped to climb over the side to the ice. There the crew were grouped about the longboat or pinnace, which was choked upon runners with ropes attached for pulling, and a tiny skiff which six of them picked up bodily. Three scurvy-staggering rascals bawled thin farewells from the rail above.

"Compass in pinnace, bose?" asked Deakin. "Then come along to open water."

He marched in the lead, a huge, ungainly figure, with Crawford on the line behind him. The men followed, carrying the skiff and dragging the pinnace on its sled. Thick fog was settled down about the Albemarle, and in ten paces she was lost to sight behind them. Under that fog, all was dark; the slanting sunlight of the arctic summer's night was lost for a little while, ice and melted pools held obscure terror instead of fiery rainbow-hued splendour. Moses Deakin lifted his head, sniffed with his wide nostrils, and like an animal led straight for the open water which he could smell.

In this fashion half a mile was covered, the last of it being very precarious, since the floes were split into great cakes, while sharp cracks and reports told how further splitting was in progress. Then, abruptly, Deakin halted at the very edge of open water, swirling dark and ice-dotted as far as eye could pierce.

"Wind on the shift and ice be goin' out to-morrow," he announced, though Crawford could detect no faintest breath of breeze. "Launch the craft, now. Current settin' out—good! Into the skiff, Crawford."

Still far from realizing what was intended, Crawford climbed into the skiff while the men held it to the verge of the floe. Deakin leaned over the little craft, which was empty of oars or anything else, and lashed the captive's lead-line about a thwart. Then he unsheathed his knife and tossed it into the bottom of the skiff, took the craft by her stern, and with one mighty heave sent her swirling out into the foggy water.

"By the time ye get yourself free, ye'll be safe enough!" came his roaring bellow. "And you're warlock enough to reach the shore. Fare ye well, Crawford! Now, lads, get matches lighted and into the pinnace with ye all! We're off for Crawford's bark——"

The fog closed in. Its chill was no worse than the chill in Crawford's heart as the swift currents bore his little skiff out into the bay.

Swept away into darkness almost immediately, he devoted all his energies to getting rid of the lashing about his arms. First he had to reach the knife, which was no simple task in itself; then, doubling over, gripping it between his feet, he must hack and saw at the line which bound him. The motion of the boat added to the difficulty, since the skiff was rocking against cakes of ice or rolling in sudden surges sent out from the welter of smashing floes and pans. The vast field of ice was now breaking up for good. The whole night was filled with a mighty diapason of the roaring masses, pierced by shriller notes, of splitting floes and the occasional booming of an overturned berg.

During all this straining time, Crawford's mind did not dwell particularly upon his own fate, which seemed inevitable enough. By the gradual appearance of freer water around, he knew that the currents were rapidly bearing him offshore, out into the vast inland sea, helpless to steer his craft or to hinder his destiny. Yet in this while, his thoughts reverted to two things—first to the Star Woman, second to that blood-stained paper which he had pressed into Frontin's hand on parting with his lieutenant.

He felt all amazed by Deakin's words regarding the Star Woman. The man had been indubitably sincere in believing that such a person existed; as he had said, Deakin must have heard of her through the Bay Indians. Iberville had heard of her, also. The very name, taken in conjunction with the emblem which lay on Crawford's breast, would have been impressive to a superstitious man; Crawford, however, was not superstitious. He was not impressed in the least by Deakin's ravings, but he was tremendously perplexed by this new recurrence of the Star Woman in his own destiny.

"Why not find her, then—why not?" he muttered. "Still, I have more pressing affairs in hand at the present moment, if I am to find anything except a watery grave. Will Frontin understand that paper, I wonder?"

The paper in question had been taken from the body of Moses Deakin's lieutenant. Crawford, in his hasty glance, had caught only the first line of writing, yet it now came back into his mind with redoubled emphasis. The words were simple: "Acct. of Goods to Bee broke out for ye trade att ye Daniche River." Wherever this Danish river might lie—the name was totally unknown to Crawford—there also must be Deakin's secret trading rendezvous with the redskins. What a chance!

"Ah, free!" he exclaimed, when at last his arms were at liberty and he could chafe his numbed and swollen hands into life. "Now, if I had but a sail and a chart of this bay, I'd still best that hairy devil. Warlock, am I? Ha—a breeze! To work, warlock!"

A faint breath of wind fanned his cheek. There was no lift to the fog, which rolled down more thick and dark than ever, nor was the little breeze likely to rift it. Crawford, facing the situation, found himself in total ignorance of direction. If the breeze came from the east, as Deakin had said, he would be carried off the land. He had no food or water, no blankets or sail; he had only the clothes on his back, the naked knife, and the light line which had captived him.

With these things, he went to work.

Despite the bitter chill of the fog, he was forced to dispense with his outer fur-lined coat. Then he smashed the 'midships thwart of the boat and split the long plank lengthwise until he had sticks to serve his purpose. These he fitted and spliced together with unravelled hemp, until he had a stout six-foot mast. Another stick in the arms of the coat made a very fair dipping-lug rig. To get this rig installed was another matter. Eventually, however, he had the mast stayed in place, got up his makeshift sail, made fast the lines, and chuckled softly as he felt the faint breeze take hold. He lay across the thwarts and heard the water go rippling more swiftly past the counter.

"Warlock indeed!" he commented, with a laugh. "The Star of Dreams is still guiding, and whither the star goes, I follow. It may well be that there is some truth behind all this rank superstition—singular, how Deakin spoke of the Star Woman! Coincidence in the names, of course—yet I wonder!"

He laughed again at the fancy, but quickly sobered. Crawford himself was tempted to be a trifle superstitious about that emerald star. First he had taken it as a symbol of his own flight from the world, of his quest after a freedom that did not exist. From talking of it with Frontin or Sir Phelim Burke, a reaction had inevitably taken effect upon his own mind. He fought against this and scorned it, yet none the less it lingered. Consequently, Deakin's belief in a connection between star and Star Woman made an appeal to him—until he forced himself to dismiss the whole thing as the wanderings of an unsound brain, the superstitious fancy of a bestial man.

"The Danish river!" he reflected, coming back again to his immediate problems. "If I knew where that place lay, and had food, I believe I'd try for it——"

He was now out of the ice and distinctly warmer, the breeze was freshening slightly, the fog was somewhat less dense. So, careless whither he was carried, he found the boat's bottom to be sound and dry, and promptly curled up for a much-needed sleep.

Morning came and he slept on, while the long wraiths of grey fog fled across the waters and thinned into shadows, and the wind came ever fresher and steadier out of the southeast to scatter the dissipating mist and blow the skiff out to north and west. Behind her the morning broadened, and overhead the fog gave place to blue sky, although the sun itself remained dun and dim behind the heavy wrack of grey obscurity that still overhung the straits and the Labrador coast. Ahead in the west, however, the fog went whirling away and was gone, until presently the sunlight struck all the wide expanse of sea into glittering radiance, with the enormous granite cliffs of Mansfield island forming a long blur against the western horizon. Off to the east and north the ice blink made shimmering response to the sunlight, and from the straits came the thunderous rumble and grind of ice-masses fighting for freedom beneath the fog-blanket.

Crawford wakened. He sat up, blinking at the sunlight, then stared at the running white crests all around, and laughed in sudden joyous remembrance.

"Ill whip you yet, Moses Deakin!" he cried out exultantly. "No food, no rudder, no sail, no compass—yet I'll whip you, sink me if I don't! Ay, warlock or not, I may give you a fight—for the—Star——"

The words died on his lips as he swung about and swept his eager gaze along the horizon. For there, not a mile to the northeast and standing squarely for him out of the cloud-bank that still hovered low above the straits, was a fifty-gun ship—white canvas towering up into the sky as she leaned over and headed for him across the wind! Crawford stared at her all agape, incredulous, then leaped to his feet with a blaze of excitement in his blue eyes. The French ship! Iberville! As he stood, thus, leaning to the thrust of the boat and staring, the emerald jewel came out from beneath his shirt; he replaced it with fumbling fingers, and a laugh broke on his lips.

"The Star of Dreams, eh? There lies the ship Deakin saw in his vision, and it seems that I'm destined to meet Iberville again. Did Deakin see the Star Woman also?"

He had no answer to this query, but meet Iberville he did, half an hour later, when he clambered up the side of the Pelican frigate and struck hands with the eldest of the famous Le Moyne brethren. Young Bienville, boy in years yet wearing man's uniform, stood beside Iberville, and greeted Crawford with a cry and a hearty embrace.

"I knew it was you! Pierre scoffed at me, but I knew it!"

Crawford laughed into the ardent eyes of the handsome youngster, then turned to the strong and masterful brother, who welcomed him with equal warmth.

"My faith, it's incredible!" said Iberville. "Why are you here alone in an open boat, M. Crawford? Where's that bark you had from me?"

"Lay the tale on the shoulders of food, drink and tobacco, and it'll go better," replied Crawford. Instantly Iberville took his arm and led him aft, with hasty apologies, while the ship's yards were squared and she fell off on her course. Crawford's gaze took in the staring Rochefort marines, the clustered seamen, the groups of Canadians; then he was being introduced to the officers—Grandville of the marines, and La Salle, the wild bush-loper Martigny, who had raided Acadia and Newfoundland with Iberville, the royal commissioner La Potherie, and others.

Now, knowing his man, Iberville led Crawford down to the cabin and shut out all save Bienville. Then, with food and wine before him, Crawford began to relate what had happened since his meeting and parting with the Le Moynes in Newfoundland. In the midst, there came a wild hammering at the door. In burst a red-haired, cassocked figure who greeted Crawford with a huge yell of joy and gripped his shoulders affectionately.

"Hal Crawford—by the piper! I was below with a poor dyin' devil and——"

"Fitzmaurice of Kerry!" exclaimed Crawford. "Why, this is a dream——"

"Lad, lad, it's like old times to see ye!" burst out Fitzmaurice, chaplain of the fleet. "Dost remember Limerick town, and the hammerer in the breach, and Phelim Burke na Murtha, and how Dutch William's men poured in on us——"

"Phelim's here on the bay!" cried Crawford. Then Iberville laughed, slammed the door shut again, and intervened.

"Sit down, Fitzmaurice, or I'll send you back to shrive more scurvy-sick men! Let the man talk. Crawford, give me the news I crave! Have you met English ships in the straits? Have you seen any but this Bostonnais you were mentioning?"

"None," rejoined Crawford. "Where's the rest of your fleet?"

Iberville shrugged. "How do I know? Ahead of us, we believe. We've been fighting the ice for weeks. The last I saw of the others was two days ago. My brother Serigny was far ahead of us in the Palmier. The Profound, under Du Guai, was almost at open water, and the Wasp likewise. We left the Violent at Placentia for repairs. We had news that an English fleet was on the way, but have seen nothing of them."

The excited Irish chaplain settled down, Crawford swallowed his wine and lighted a pipe, and all four men fell into talk. Iberville, avid for news, was confident that his brother Serigny and the other three ships were already steering across the bay for Fort Nelson, at which post he meant to strike the first blow. When he had heard Crawford's tale, he nodded.

"Strange words! Did this Bostonnais really see anything in the dish? My faith, I'd like to know! So you've given up the south sea passage, Crawford? Art going to find the Star Woman?"

Crawford shook his head. "I know not, Iberville—my first hope shall be to find my friends and ship again. Time enough for that."

"Ay, we'll have news of them, never fear!" Iberville rose. "Rest assured, you shall have your ship again and the best charts we can give you. M. l'Abbé, I offered this roving rascal a commission if he would sail with me—and he refused. Yet behold, here he is! Is this the hand of providence or not?"

"I'd call it Hal Crawford's luck!" said Fitzmaurice, with a chuckle. "But where to, Pierre? Sit down, man, and smoke a pipe——"

"I must lay out the course and watch the charts," said Iberville. "These pilots are afraid of the ice and shallows. Have out your talk in peace."

He departed. Bienville, leaning across the table with his eyes ashine, listened eagerly while Crawford and the chaplain conned the days that had elapsed since Limerick and Boynewater. Once Crawford turned to him gaily.

"And suppose we find the English fleet ahead of us, Bienville?"

The boy shrugged. "Ask Pierre! We've put some of our guns and thirty seamen aboard the Profound, and twoscore of our men are down below with scurvy. But we'll not find the enemy ahead of us. Pierre is always the first, never fear!"

So the Pelican drove on to her destiny, while men laughed and made merry aboard her at thought of the green land so near, nor dreamed to what doom they rushed so merrily. And, while she drove on, strange things were taking place behind her at the mouth of the straits, where the curtains of fog still lingered and blew away and returned again.

Strange things, indeed, and stranger sounds echoing back from these ironbound cliffs than any they had yet heard since man came to these seas. For there the flash of cannon split the fog, and the crashing thunder of broadsides boomed back from the headlands. When the thick mist lifted for a space that morning, the Profound was fast nipped in the ice, with three unsuspected English frigates about her stern; whereupon, as the terse chronicler puts it, "Du Guai attacked." Hour after hour he fought the three with his two little stern-guns, hour after hour they poured their shot into him, until the fog closed down again and they deemed him sunk, and the roaring cliffs fell silent.

There, too, before this fight happened, Moses Deakin had fallen upon fate and found it bitter to the taste. Before the dawn came, he sighted the flare of a ship in the ice, and drove his men at her. He thought her Crawford's bark, but she was something else—the Hudson's Bay, crowded with extra seamen and servants of the English company, and in command of her was grim old Nick Smithsend, who hanged fur-pirates and Frenchmen alike. The end of this matter was that Moses Deakin and half his Boston men sat in irons to await hanging at Nelson, and the other half of them lay dead upon the ice.

And there, too, but farther south under the cliffs, Frontin and Sir Phelim Burke and their men fell upon the covette Albemarle in the dawning. None too soon either, for the floes and shore ice were breaking up beneath their feet. Deakin's three scurvy-smitten men fought them and were cut down. One of these, before he died, related the fate that had befallen Crawford. Then fell Frontin to work like a madman, and all of them likewise. Presently the Albemarle was working out through ice-channels, until she gained open water with the early light of day and tacked back and forth through the mist while the guns roared to the northward. No sign of Crawford's little skiff did they find, however.

So they, who no less than Moses Deakin had their destiny to accomplish, tacked down to the southward that day and then back again, seeking vainly. And at set of sun, when the fog lifted for a little space, there suddenly loomed through the greyness a huge shape, and a gun thundered in air above them, and over the puny, frightened corvette frowned the heavy batteries of Serigny in the Palmier. The Frenchmen came aboard and took her. Frontin, cursing bitterly, shook his fist at the fog and blasphemed like the buccaneer he was, as the ship was headed to the west and south. Then came storm that night, and the pilots were ignorant of the bay; and the ships drove blindly before the wind.

Thus did fate, working through the activities of little men, lay out a blood-red net in which to snare heroes. And Iberville, all unwitting, bore up for Fort Nelson.

CHAPTER III

CONFIRMING A BELIEF IN MIRACLES

ON this early night of September there was gaiety aboard the Pelican. She lay anchored ten miles southwest of Fort Nelson, in the open bay. Upon reaching the river the previous day, she found all buoys destroyed and the channel-marks removed, so that Iberville dared not attempt the precarious river entrance, across the wide mud flats, until he had taken soundings. The bay charts and pilots were all with Serigny, as were the supplies and siege guns, and he was bitterly disappointed not to find his other three ships here ahead of him. At least he had beaten the English squadron, however.

So Martigny and a score of Canadians departed in the pinnace to take soundings, scout the fort, and roam the woods in search of friendly Indians, and that evening high celebration was held aboard ship. The guns were shifted, battle lanterns hung about, all hands made merry. There were fiddles, with a flute or two to help, and no lack of good wine all around. French and Canadians sang chansons and Mohawk chants and gay sentimental court ballads, officers and men intermingling in Latin good-fellowship, voyageur and chevalier dancing and drinking together, Iberville joining hands with his powder boys.

Crawford, who took small part in all this gaiety, tired of looking on and presently went up into the bows. He stood there smoking, his eyes watching the play of lights in the northern sky that fought the dim, sunny twilight in the south. There Iberville found him presently, when he strolled up with La Potherie, and clapped him heartily on the shoulder.

"What, dreaming of stars? Come and try our excellent Canary. To-morrow Martigny will return with the pinnace, we'll land guns and men, and crack this nut of Nelson. Ha! Art thinking of the Star Woman, eh?"

"Admitted. The name lingers. Do you know more of her than Perrot told?"

"Nay, Perrot is the only white man who has ever seen her."

Here Bacqueville de la Potherie struck in with avid interest. He was the avowed historian of the expedition, and was eager to learn of all things, while his open curiosity, his frankness and intelligence, endeared him to every one alike.

"Tell me about this Perrot—I have heard of him before this. And the Star Woman——"

Iberville obliged, and concluded with a laugh, "So, you see, our friend Crawford may yet set forth into the wilderness to seek her! Eh, Crawford? Why so gloomy, man?"

"Why so merry?" Crawford smiled. "It may be that I shall seek her. Who knows? I'm not gloomy, but your gay scene is not for me. I'm looking over the horizon."

"You'll die of that looking, one day."

"Ay. And how better?"

Iberville nodded soberly, his spirit perfectly comprehending that of Crawford.

"How better, indeed? There's blood of mine in those dark forests ashore. My brother Chateauguay lies under the pickets of that fort, which I have taken once or twice ere this, and shall take again. Well, I fight for my king while you fight for a dream—and devil shrive me if I'd not like to seek the Star Woman with you! Don't look too long at those lights in the sky—ah, but you should see them in winter, as I have seen them from yonder shores! Some say they foretell storm in summer. The Indians call them the spirits of dancing dead men. Faith, there'll be dead men dancing ashore once I get a mortar to bear on that accursed fort behind its cloak of trees! Come, Bacqueville, leave our man of destiny to dream——"

The other two departed, and Crawford presently went to the cabin which he shared with Fitzmaurice of Kerry. In ten minutes he was sound asleep to the whine of fiddles and the soft throatings of flutes.

It was broad daylight when he wakened to a great tumult of trampling feet on the decks, mingled with roars of joyous shouts and exultant oaths. The chaplain burst in upon him and in furious delight dragged him bodily from his berth.

"Up and on deck, ye sluggard! Here the fleet's in sight—Serigny's come at last, and we're standing out to meet 'em! Up, ye lazy divil!"

Crawford flung on his clothes hastily enough. When he got on deck, he found the Pelican heading out for the open bay, where three distant sail were leaning down the wind. The air had turned bitter cold overnight and storm was brewing in the grey sky, but who cared for that? Serigny was sighted, the long voyage was ended in triumph, a stroke at Nelson would be made ere set of sun! Out stood the ship to welcome her comrades, gay flags decking her spars, and Grandville's gunners unstopping cannon for a salute of welcoming.

Gaining the high poop-deck by the helm, where Iberville stood with his brother, Crawford joined the group of officers there. Signals were run up, and Iberville raised a glass to scrutinize the approaching ships. Then Crawford saw his eyes widen, saw him lower the glass, saw a sudden deadly pallor creeping into his cheeks. For one instant Iberville stood thus as though paralyzed, then turned and quietly touched the arm of La Potherie.

"Bacqueville, order food served out at once—swiftly! Then take charge of the forecastle; I'll send the Canadians to you. Bienville, how many men aboard fit for service?"

a A hundred and twoscore, Pierre," returned the boy carelessly. "Forty sick below, a score gone with Martigny in the pinnace—"

"Go below. Tell Grandville and La Salle to clear the lower deck for action. You'll take the upper tier with De Ligondez. Why the devil didn't Martigny come back last night—we've not men enough to man the guns! Here, sergeant!" A Rochefort marine saluted. "Have handropes stretched along the decks—ice is forming already, I see. Order the magazines opened. St. Martin! Get every Canadian to the forecastle instantly, under La Potherie, with fusils and fresh horns of powder, and serve out bullets. Swiftly, swiftly! Roundshot on deck, there!"

At these rapid and impetuous orders, every eye was fastened on Iberville in stupefied amazement. From the masthead now rang down a sharp cry.

"No signals answered!"

Silence came upon the ship, a dread and terrible silence of horrified incredulity, of dismayed consternation—until a Canadian gave voice to the sharp, yelping war whoop of the Mohawks. Then all beheld tiny flecks of scarlet break out from the three ships bearing down the wind, and the white smoke of a gun jetted from the foremast.

Not Serigny—but the enemy!

"You'll run out to sea?" Crawford turned to Iberville. The latter smiled grimly, his eyes flitting over the ship, not answering for a moment.

Here mad activity was leaping forth—gunners stripping, boys on the run with powder and shot, ports slamming open, ropes being stretched for hand-hold, guns being unstopped. Spray was forming into ice as it fell. Iberville turned and silently swept his arm in three directions. This threefold gesture included the shore to the north, the long stretches of shallows and reefs to west and south—and to the eastward the open sea where the three English ships foamed down the wind.

"Why run, when one must fight?" said Iberville briefly. "Stand by the helm, my friend, for I'll have need of your quick eye and hand there! The Pelican goes forward."

Go forward she did, with the crash of a gun to echo the words.

It meant something that Iberville was a captain in the royal navy, in a day when ensigns commanded brigs, lieutenants sailed frigates, and captains manœuvred fleets. Against him were three ships, each of them alone a fair match for the crippled Pelican, and four veteran commanders of the English company who knew every foot of the uncharted waters.

During three and a half hours Iberville fought them with his seamanship, while his lieutenants fought them with small arms and great, and the guns thundered. The tactics of the English never varied. They had Iberville where they wanted him—far outnumbered, cut off from flight, with treacherous shoals reaching from the land for miles to entrap him. Again and again they tried to force him in upon the shallows; again and again he evaded the trap, tacking back and forth, taking their hurricane of shot as he slipped past, while his own guns roared unceasingly. Ball and grape screamed through his rigging, for their great intent was to dismast and cripple and pound him into submission. As fast as a line was shot away, the seamen were up and repairing it, and ever Iberville kept just out of their reach, kept off the shoals, kept giving back broadside for broadside.

The wind was freshening fast, the cold was growing more intense, threat of snow was in the air. On the forecastle clustered the dark Canadians, half naked and painted to the waist, joining musketry and Mohawk whoop to the din; La Salle and Grandville fought the lower-deck guns, young Bienville the upper tier after Chevalier de Ligondez was struck down. From every hand iron and lead were smashing into the devoted Pelican, until her decks were red with frozen blood as she tacked and wore, and the handlines were crimson-dripping streaks; yet ever she evaded the shoals. Fitzmaurice of Kerry tended a gun or knelt beside a dying man indifferently, and from the tall figure of Iberville shot swift and cool orders to Crawford, who helped swing the great rudder of the doomed ship. Doomed she was, as every man there knew ere the fight was an hour gone, yet in the furious exultancy of battle none cared.

Solid shot and grape and musketry they poured into her, and she gave back shot and grape and ball—but each time a little less swiftly, as her gunners died, and scurvy-smitten scarecrows staggered up from below to drag weakly at the guns. Foot by foot, it seemed, she was driven back, cornered and hemmed in, the three ships bearing around her like wolves around a stag at bay. Noon came and passed, but none thought of food. Crawford, following the anxious looks of Iberville, saw the storm-clouds sweeping blackly down, knew the wind was thickening, swung the helm grimly. Then, suddenly, from Iberville burst one shrill and frightful yell.

"Wear, Crawford, wear—for the love of the saints, wear——"

Crawford flung himself to help the St. Malo man at the helm. There upon them was bearing the Hampshire, driving full down the wind with obvious intent to ram and sink the battered Pelican. A huge ship was the Hampshire, a royal navy ship new and stoutly built, and Fletcher was on her quarterdeck. He had Iberville to reckon with, however, and he failed in his stroke, and Crawford saw him shaking his fist and cursing in furious rage as he lost the weather-gauge and was evaded.

With this, the two ships ran down the wind yard to yard, so close that boarders gathered in readiness, so close that bulwarks almost touched at every sea, so close that English and French answered curse with curse, grenade with grenade—while the great guns thundered in broadsides that left each ship rocking and reeling and staggering down the rolling seas. Fletcher would not be first to draw off, nor would Iberville; so the guns roared, and men died, until a last crashing broadside sent the Pelican up into the wind with half her rigging cut away and more than half the men in her waist mowed down by a storm of grape. In this moment she was theirs for the taking.

But there was none to take her.

Crawford, struck down by a splinter, was dragged to his feet by the shrill, terrible scream of dying men. He looked for the enemy ship, and saw only a welter of shattered masts and rigging; like a sounding whale she had plunged bodily, was gone all in an instant, down until she staggered upon the shallows and lay quiet with only her topmasts above water, and wounded men shrieking as they drowned.

"Hard over!" shouted Iberville, and leaped to the helm. "At them, Bienville—fire!"

Once more the guns crashed out, and now for the last time. As Iberville swooped upon her, the Hudson's Bay reeled up into the wind and lowered flag and foresail. The Dering, not waiting to face the Frenchman alone, shook out her reefed sails and went scudding away through the whistling tempest for Fort Nelson and safety.

Iberville groaned as his gaze swept the red-frozen deck, while his ship bore down upon Nick Smithsend's crippled frigate. Then he was at the helm, once more in action.

"Take fifteen Malouins and board her as we touch, Crawford! Swiftly! I must away to catch the Dering—swiftly, swiftly! Get her into the river if ye can——"

Crawford leaped into the bloody waist, while Iberville's voice sent some St. Malo seamen to join him. The two ships came staggering and reeling together, and grapnels were flung out. Crawford jumped across the shattered rails, the men trailing after. Somehow all scrambled aboard, the irons were flung off, and the shattered Pelican went lurching away in pursuit of Grimmington and the fleeing Dering.

Here on the prize Crawford stood aghast. The ship was torn to ribbons alow and aloft. He found dying men, blood freezing in pools, screams and curses of wounded resounding. Smithsend came up to him, bitterly enough, and started at Crawford's English words.

"Your parole, cap'n? Good. I'm to take you into the river if possible."

"More like into hell," growled Smithsend. "Rudder's gone, we're half full of water, not men enough alive to man a tier of guns——"

As something touched his face, Crawford looked up and saw a drift of white snowflakes breaking down the wind like a silver cloud.

"Run in beside the wreck of your frigate and anchor, and get the pumps to working," he said, and ordered his men to help the English seamen.

Groping her way, the wounded ship slowly reeled in toward the shallows and dropped anchor, still miles off the land. There was no help to be given the crew of the Hampshire; these had vanished under the icy water, to the last man. Crawford met with no opposition as he took over the ship, for the English were dazed, stunned, unable to realize how they had been beaten and broken by a single ship. Gradually they recovered, fell to work wearily enough, taking up the new fight to save their ship and their lives.

While some patched up the gaping holes below and got the ports closed again, others labored getting the pumps into action. Crawford, seeking for wounded, crawled into the forepeak with a man to hold a lantern. And, as the light was held up, he gazed into the snarling features of Moses Deakin. Astounded, he saw that Deakin was not only in irons, but was half buried under the shot-torn bodies of other men in irons, while a horrible sound of groaning came out of the darkness around. Crawford's face showing in the lantern-light, a great cry burst from Deakin.

"Crawford! Blood and wounds—be it you or not?"

Crawford made no response. Leaving his men to care for the wounded, he turned and went back on deck. He sought out Smithsend and discovered to his amazement how Deakin had come to be aboard; for the present, however, he let things bide as they were in the face of more important matters, hoping that the situation would become no worse for all of them.

Vain hope! Hours later, the shot-riven Pelican, having failed to catch the Dering, came tacking back in the driving snowstorm and anchored alongside the prize. Iberville demanded pilotage into the river, but stout Smithsend, who had flung his charts and directions overboard, refused point-blank. Iberville now managed to sling a mortar aboard the prize, with a few marines, bidding Crawford get into the river if he could; for by this time there was no doubt whatever as to the issue. It was sauve qui peut!

The storm had settled into a howling tempest out of the northeast, which precluded any hope of beating off the land, and with night the sea was rising in huge billows sweeping down the full length of the bay. Hawser after hawser parted. In vain Crawford and Smithsend tried to keep the rudderless ship where she was. From the wounded men came low shrieks of utter despair as the frigate went staggering blindly down the wind, ice forming over everything, snow hiding the foamy seas from sight, nothing to be seen in the gloom but the faces of unburied dead men peering horribly through shrouds of ice.

In vain did they try to steer with booms or oars. It was a night of horror, with naught to be done save to work the pumps and hope for the best, as the weight of ice dragged her more heavily down by the nose and she drifted aimlessly and without direction. A little after midnight, Crawford crawled down to where Moses Deakin lay, and after unlocking the man's irons gave him the keys.

"If any of your men be alive, set them loose. I can't leave you here to drown like rats. Come up above, get some food, and lend a hand with the pumps."

Then Crawford was back on deck again, where Smithsend was trying to fashion a jury rudder from the smashed spars aloft.

Toward morning the ship struck heavily, but wrenched free, passed over the shoal, and drove on. With daylight the storm was whirling down worse than ever, huge waves bursting over the whole ship, water gaining on the pumps, every man reeling with weariness and utter exhaustion. During a lull in the tempest, Crawford peered off to starboard and saw a dim shape rolling sternfirst before the wind, and knew that the Pelican was plunging to her doom. The brazen voice of Moses Deakin thundered at his ear.

"She's driving on the middle shoal—she'll strike, and the land six mile away! We're well outside. Pray to your star now, Crawford! We'll go ashore twenty mile farther down the coast."

Both ships were indeed lost, since the shores were miles distant and guarded by long shallows, all the small boats were shot away, and with every moment the weight of new ice was bearing the bows deeper into the water. So they drove on, and any thought of enmity betwixt French and English was forgotten, death being close upon all alike. Fur-pirates and company servants and French marines huddled together or worked at the pumps in dismal despair.

With afternoon came more snow, hiding all the shores ahead. Crawford was at work in the icy bows, trying to chop loose a spare anchor, when suddenly he and his men were sent all asprawl on the ice, grasping at the handlines, hurled headlong. With a hideous lurch and shudder, the doomed ship struck, lifted, and struck again.

Crawford saw the masts topple, heard the crash of splintered wood above the roar of the storm, and then was swept overboard with the tangle of masts and spars and rigging. And this, for the moment, was the end of everything so far as Crawford was concerned. After a little he revived, gasping, and managed to lash himself to the litter of wreckage, but passed again into oblivion.

If Crawford was gone, however, Moses Deakin remained; and if ever a man made use of his head with certain death on all sides, that man was the Bostonnais. He had survived a perilous trade these many years by just such ability. He knew well that no mercy awaited him either from French or English—and Deakin acted accordingly. Receiving no mercy, he was not the man to accord mercy.

The ship was sogged into the shallows with her bows under water, waist and high stern exposed and beginning to break up fast as the thunderous rollers burst above her. All was confusion, flying spray, screams of the wounded as they washed away. On the poop, Smithsend was knocking together a raft to float some of the hurt men ashore. The land was at least three miles distant, but was quite hidden behind snow and obscurity. So far as Deakin was concerned, the land was as perilous as the bay, but he had no choice and so acted swiftly.

His brazen voice gathered three of his surviving men, and with these he made his way to the waist of the ship. There under the flying spray three seamen were at work, desperately trying to loosen the two halves of the broken mainyard, which had smashed through the bulwarks and wedged there. Deakin leaped upon the three and struck them aside, his men knocked them into the surging tide below. Whirling, Deakin spat orders at his own three.

"Go get some food, a fusil, and dry powder—sharp about it! Strip some tarpaulin off the guns below and fetch it. Move fast, blast ye! She's breakin' up."

Breaking up she was. Wounded men were going to leeward, clinging to bits of wreckage, swimming frantically in the icy water, pulling each other down. The Bostonnais hurled himself at the two fragments of the great spar lodged in the bulwarks. His immense strength prised them free, he tore at other flotsam, stood guard over it all until one by one his three men came staggering back to the spot with their burdens. One bore food and a fusil, another had powder and ball and pistols, the third brought tarred canvas.

Deakin sent them after line, and got the powder, weapons and food all firmly lashed inside roll after roll of the tarpaulin. Then the four men flung to work at the spars and wreckage, and in ten minutes accomplished more than the green hands with Smithsend on the poop could effect in an hour's time. They were seasoned men, knowing what fate faced them unless they gripped at the forelock of destiny—therefore they grasped hard and sure, without pity.

They got the little raft into the water, loaded their precious burden aboard, and caught hold of the lines on each side. She floated high. Next moment men were around them, pleading, yelling, fighting for a shred of the visible hope. Moses Deakin, towering above them with a jagged splinter of rail of his hand, struck them down. His voice boomed, and they were off, all four men swimming, drifting inshore with the wind and current.

Still other men came clustering about, dark figures pouring out of the broken wreck as ants pour forth from a burning log. Wounded men, company servants and seamen, one or two Frenchmen; Deakin and his men silently watched them come, then struck out grimly and mercilessly, beat off the hapless refugees, kept their raft ever pushing ahead over the shallows, leaving in their wake a mournful wail of despairing voices that followed them down the wind. The four quickly overtook and passed the first stragglers, resolutely shoved onward, pausing only to smite down one or two who sought the help of their float. Thus they had covered nearly a mile when Deakin uttered a relieved grunt.

"Shoal! Down feet."

They let themselves down, found the water shoulder-high, presently only waist-high. At this level it remained for another two miles, and they dragged the float by the lines. Moses Deakin was in the lead, bent over, straining at the ropes with his immense strength, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the shore. Soon this came into sight ahead, the low ground dark with trees. In twenty minutes the four men were carrying their burdens up from the water, staggering through snow and shore-ice up to the line of trees, where they sank down in absolute exhaustion.

"No time to waste here," panted the Bostonnais, gazing into the storm and wiping the spray from his face, his great beard heaving above his chest. "We're seven or eight leagues east o' Nelson. No use goin' west—such o' them fools as gets ashore will all head that way."

"Then where the devil do we head for—New Severn?" demanded one of the three rogues, ironically.

"Ay, New Severn."

"The English company hath a gallows there, master."

Deakin glared from bloodshot eyes at the objector. Then, realizing the need for patience, he stooped and drew with his finger in the sand a rough right angle, indicating the line of the shore to the west.

"Now look 'ee! We be forty league south o' Danish river. How be we to get there? Not by walking, wi' the woods full o' French and English dogs! Besides, by the shore 'tis more like eighty leagues than forty. Therefore, turn toward Severn. Ye fool, we may not have a mile to go! We'll find redskins anywhere about here, at the first creek we come by, and Injun canoes too. They're all down at the coast for the trade, them that don't live here. Follow the coast east and we'll come on 'em, certain. Then we ha' the tarpaulins for sails to our canoe. Blood and wounds! Get a canoe and head north—what better d'ye want? Canoe can go over the shallows—French ships must go six leagues out to sea to find a draft o' seven fathom! D'ye get it in your thick head?"

"Ay, master——"

"Keep it there, then." Deakin knocked the man sprawling and leaped to his feet. "Shanks' mare and away! The storm be falling by to-night, most like."

The four men rose and went lurching off along the edge of the trees, following the low line of the shore and keeping their eyes open for the first sign of a creek. Half frozen though they were, they dared not linger here to light a fire.

Meanwhile, with the strong set of currents bearing it eastward along the coast, all the tangled top-hamper of the wreck drifted away, and in the midst of it was Crawford. So it happened that the four men, staggering onward by the shore, came upon this tangle of lines and spars, grounded upon a shallow.

Crawford was alive and awake by this time, but there was scarce enough life in his brain to admit any impressions; his body was quite helpless, sodden garments fast frozen to the maintop that held him above water, and waves still breaking over him. None the less, he dimly comprehended that there was clear sunlight overhead, and that the tempest was over. So he was not dead after all! Not dead, yet not far from it; and evidently dreaming, since there dimly pierced to his senses, as though from some great distance, the brazen tones of Moses Deakin.

"What, ye will not? Blood and wounds, but I say ye shall! Into the water, all of ye! In, and haul him ashore. But for him ye'd be frozen stark in irons this minute, ye rogues; and Moses Deakin pays tit for tat. Move sharp, or I'll bash your lousy heads!"

Crawford tried to see who spoke, but his feeble gaze could comprehend only ice and water. The spars and wreckage surged. Then in front of him he beheld a fragment of jagged wood upflung, and it came toppling at him, nor could he move a muscle to avoid it. Down it came, crashed him across the head and forced him under the water, and again his eyes closed and he knew no more.

After this, he had a strange vision. A delicious pain ran through his whole body as warmth crept into it, and soft fingers of women were dressing his hurts, and he was sipping hot broth. He saw around him strange dark faces which he took for Indians. Not the redskins he had known in New York, but flatter-faced people, lacking the pride and fierceness of the Iroquois, sloven with dirt. Then all this drifted away again on the wings of sleep.

With his next awakening, however, Crawford was himself in mind if not in body, and though his head was heavily bandaged, his senses were clear enough. He awoke to warmth, and sunlight flooding above sparkling wave-crests, and the slow rise and fall and surge of a craft under sail. He perceived that he was sitting propped up amidships in a long canoe; behind his shoulders was a pole, to either end of which was lashed a bit of plank. These planks went down into the water on each side of the canoe, acting in place of centreboard. The craft was speeding forward under a good breeze, was heading to the north, and her sail was made from patched tarpaulin. Two men, at first strangers to Crawford, were lying asleep in the bow; but presently he recognized them for two of Moses Deakin's men. From behind him sounded the rumbling tones of Deakin himself, conversing with another.

"Ay, that's the wreck of Iberville's ship down yonder. She's a good two leagues off the land, and the same from the fort. Smoke i' the trees means that some o' them have got safe ashore, plague blister them!"

"We'd ha' better chance for life with them than i' the wilderness," grumbled the unseen man. "What be the use o' making Danish river, Master? Injuns won't be there this time o' year, and we have no ship."

"How know ye that, ye rogue?" snapped Deakin fiercely, then laughed. "No Injuns? Wait and see. If they ha' word for me from the Star Woman, they'll be there waiting. As for the ship, we left three men aboard her. Soon's the ice let her free, they'd bring her across the bay to our old place. We have only to wait. And if they come not, what then? Why, make the best of it! Blood and wounds, can we not winter with the redskins? Or we can come south again after the fighting's done and take a craft from one o' the forts. As for that, the Star Woman herself may well be waiting to meet me, as I bade her! Hark—ay, that devil Iberville is safe ashore! Hear the great gun from the fort, eh? Likely Iberville is hammering at the gate with his naked fists."

The dull note of a distant cannon rolled to them from the distant forested shore.

So it was no dream, and he was alive! Crawford relaxed and closed his eyes again. He could realize that Moses Deakin had saved him, could dimly grasp that it had been done to repay his own act in setting the Bostonnais free. He could even figure out to some extent all that had passed, since Deakin was now heading for the Danish river. But nothing mattered. Weariness returned upon him, and despite the hunger gnawing at his vitals, he fell back into slumber.

Then oaths and wild curses, with a brazen roar of maniacal fury from Moses Deakin, wakened him some time afterwards and brought him wide-eyed. The four men in the canoe were pouring forth a storm of bitter imprecations, which for once were sincerely heartfelt. Crawford, seeing the men in the bow shaking fists to starboard, turned his head.

There, far out beyond the shallows that hedged the whole low coast, he descried the white sails of three tall ships heading to the southward, and a little behind them the brown canvas of a corvette. This, as the raging curses of his companions informed him, was no other than the Albemarle. Presently the distant roll of a cannon reached them, and another.

"Ay, they've seen us, and much good it'll do them. The French ha' got our ship, eh?" Moses Deakin faced the issue squarely. "Never mind that, lads, never mind! On to the Danish, and we'll find the redskins waiting for us. We'll find the Star Woman there too, or a message from her. They'll be sure to wait all summer, until the ice comes again—ha! Art awake, Crawford? Here's food and drink, such as we ha' got left. Don't move too much, for this cursed craft of ours is cranky."

"One o' the French ships ha' sent a pinnace after us!" yelled a man. "See her bit o' sail, master?"

Deakin cursed, then laughed, for it was close to sunset.

"Sink me, let 'em come! No bluff-bowed navy boat can keep up wi' this canoe, and they'll be glad to give over the chase before dark. Here y'are, Crawford——"

Crawford thankfully ate and drank, while the canoe plunged on. The pursuing sail was lost to sight ere twi- light, and when a small river appeared on their left, Deakin held the canoe in for it. He wanted to renew their scanty supply of fresh water and give all hands half an hour ashore, as well as to rearrange their makeshift sail.

Upon landing, one of the men took the fusil and departed after game, presently returning with a rabbit. A fire was set going, and all five gathered about it. Crawford was weak, but long sleep had refreshed him and the weakness would soon pass, while his split scalp was al ready healing beneath soothing Indian unguents. When the five had polished off the last drop of broth and the last scrap of meat from the boiled bones, a remnant of tobacco was shared.

"Now—what!" demanded Crawford, meeting the wide gaze of Moses Deakin. The latter, having learned Crawford's tale by snatches, grimaced in his beard.

"As to you? Well, I said ye were a warlock, and it's proved true. Another eight leagues, and we'll land to cut across Cape Churchill. No use rounding that shore when we can save time and food by legging it. As for you, we're square. I've paid ye tit for tat."

"Granted," said Crawford. "You've not seen my ship or men?"

"Nay. Will ye come with us?"

Crawford smoked out his scanty allotment of tobacco.

"Agreed," he said, wondering whether he would find Frontin at the Danish river. If Frontin had read that scrap of bloodstained paper, had brought the Northstar to the place—then what? If there were no south sea passage, what lay in the future? Was the horizon empty? Crawford put his hand inside his shirt and pulled forth the Star of Dreams, still safe on its thong. The other men blinked at the green jewel in the firelight.

"Agreed," repeated Crawford. "I'm with you, Cap'n Deakin. We'll see what haps at the Danish river."

"Ay," growled Deakin, and rose. "All hands! Let's get off while the wind holds."

CHAPTER IV

PREDICTIONS AND EVENTS ARE SOMETIMES RECONCILED

IN the twilight of another summer's night, with the barely sunken sun again rising, Moses Deakin and Crawford and three men of Boston town, once enemies but now strangely friends and allies against disaster, came upon the river which white men called the Danish, striking it two miles above the magnificent harbour.

The five men, crossing overland from the other side of Cape Churchill, had met not a soul on their trail through the woods, and for this there was good reason. In ancient days the tribes had found a great ship floating here, full of dead white men and wonderful things, and they gathered around by scores to thaw out frozen boxes and barrels; but certain of the kegs held powder. So ship and dead men and redskins went thundering up in ruin, and now the Indians called this the River of Strangers, and shunned the bay in legendary fear and horror.

There in the landlocked harbour under Point Eskimo, stout Jens Munck had watched his Danish colonists die, had gone four days without food, knew himself dying of scurvy, and so sat down to pen the last line in his log-book. And what a trumpet call of the spirit he wrote there! "Herewith, good night to all the world; and my soul to God." Yet he lived, and lived to work one ship back to Norway, two staggering men helping him. The Danish river had known heroes in those days, ay, and was to know heroes often enough in days to come!

So Crawford and the four with him started down the river bank toward the harbour, following the course of the wide stream. As they went, Moses Deakin fired the fusil and pistols again and again in the air, and sent his stentorian voice ringing up among the trees, lifting brazen curses because neither his agent, who was a Creek chief, nor any other redskin appeared. If they had any message from the Star Woman, they would not dare go away until it was delivered; and while they would not camp at the feared bay itself, they would remain near by and keep out scouts to watch for Deakin.

Crawford, who was by this time well again save for his half-healed scalp, said naught of his own hopes but smiled to himself. He was looking forward eagerly to seeing the bark lie anchored in the harbour, and to meeting Frontin. Surely Frontin must hear those shots, and the ringing bellow of Deakin, and the wild yells in which the other men joined! As the five wended downstream, the huge Bostonnais glared at the thick forest which closed in everything, and cursed the Indians who did not appear.

"Why aren't the red devils on hand to meet us?" he roared forth at length, as they came to a bit of more open shore, girded by trees and brush. "They've never failed afore this! They bring down the furs, camp in a village somewhere near at hand, across the bay, and keep scouts posted for first sight o' me. Blood and wounds, where are the red dogs? Ahoy, ye rogues! Wake up!"

From the green trees that closed down like a wall, came a low and mocking burst of laughter. The five men halted and stared about in startled astonishment. Swift upon the heels of that laugh rose a voice in English.

"Thanks for warning us, Moses Deakin! At him, lads——"

The trees vomited powder-smoke, the roar of fusils echoed out, then a riot of figures came bursting forth from ambush. The man in front of Crawford fell, riddled by balls. The huge figure of Deakin swayed and tottered and crashed to earth; the man at Deakin's heels screamed out as a cutlass split his skull. Then Crawford and the other remaining man were down beneath a mass of assailants, and eager hands bound them fast. So swift and deadly was this assault that not a blow was struck in return.

Deakin, unconscious from a bullet that had raked across his brow, was bound and carried off; after him, Crawford and the other man were dragged. Crawford stared at his captors in stupefied bewilderment. Frontin, indeed! These were utter strangers, English by their talk, and in command of them one Captain Moon. The name struck Crawford with enlightenment. Aboard the prize, he had heard Smithsend mention the little brig Perry, under this same Captain Moon—an unit of the company's fleet which had presumably foundered in the straits.

When the party emerged from the trees and came out upon the shores of the landlocked harbour, Crawford stared yet harder. There, inside the north point, lay the broken wreck of a small ship, beyond doubt the Perry; she had split her keel on the outer rocks and had been swept inside, a total loss. Waiting beside the huge piles of salvaged barrels and goods were Indians—lordly Crees and men of the bay-shore tribes, a good fifty of them at least.

These were sitting about in a half-circle facing the shore and the wreck, and it became evident that Moon had interrupted a council to go and lay his ambush. Perhaps the redskins here assembled had been friends to Moses Deakin in other days, but now their prodigality of gewgaws and blankets showed that Moon had spent much of his precious salvage to win them over, and none of them moved from their serried rank to greet the Bostonnais.

Now Moon, after giving his men orders, went with his lieutenant to rejoin the waiting Indians. Deakin was placed against a tree and lashed fast to it, Crawford was dragged to another—and then Deakin's one surviving man broke free and made a dash for safety. He was shot down before he had gone twenty feet, and died there. Crawford offered no resistance, and was glad enough to be mistaken for one of Deakin's crew, lest worse befall him. If he were posted in Boston as a pirate, news of him must have reached London ere this. He stood bound to the tree and surveyed the scene before him, while Moses Deakin hung in his lashings, and the eighteen men who survived the wreck sat to one side talking and smoking, watching their officers parley with the redskins.

Moon, speaking in a mixture of French and English, demanded that the Indians supply him with canoes and guides down the coast, and that they follow him to Nelson with their beaver. There was some hitch about this. Crawford could not uncover it, nor could Moon, until at last a chief arose, threw aside his blanket, and spoke in excellent French.

"We have a message for the Big Bear," and he pointed to the figure of Moses Deakin. "We have traded with the Bostonnais because the Anglais have not come here. Now the Anglais have very strong medicine. They have destroyed the ship of the Big Bear, have killed his men, have captured him. We shall trade with them, and bring the packs of castor from our camp across the bay. But first we must give this message to the Big Bear. This message has been brought to the Crees from far away, by a chieftain of the Sauteurs or Chippewas, who had it from another nation called Nadouisioux. If this message is not delivered to the Big Bear, our father Kitchimanitou who lives in the sun will be displeased and will hide his face from us, because this message comes from his daughter the Star Woman."

At this name, Crawford started. Moon, who did not know what to make of this talk about a message, made a curt response.

"Big Bear is to be hanged."

"That is good," said the Cree chief. "But first let him receive this message, if he will accept it."

Moon had no choice but to obey, and ordered his men to revive the senseless Deakin. Crawford watched in wondering surmise. Beyond a doubt, then, the Star Woman was no Indian myth, but a real person! Deakin's insolent summons had gone to her, passed from tribe to tribe—and here was the answer to be delivered!

Now Moon strode over to the two captives, gave Crawford one curious glance, then turned his attention to Deakin. The latter, under the impact of icy water from the bay, was glaring and blinking around, helpless to move; a furious thing he was, and grim to behold, all his grizzled beard being dribbled and matted with blood from his wounded forehead. Moon stood laughing at him.

"It was kind of ye to give us warning wi' shot and shout!" he exclaimed. "Well, Moses Deakin, shalt have thy head lying in salt when we leave here; the company hath twenty pound on those moustachios. And why? For that broadside ye poured into us last year i' the straits, and killed poor Cap'n Allen—ay, into a royal navy ship too! Dost mind how ye slid out from among the bergs and poured in shot, and went scooning down the wind and away? Ay, and now that work is to cost ye a head."

The Bostonnais spat at his tormentor.

"That for ye, and the pox to boot!" he roared. "Ye'll never have my head! It's no hand of man can bring me to death, but only the gift of a woman——" Deakin swallowed hard, then suddenly recollected everything. "Hark, cap'n! We be from the south, wi' great news. Iberville ha' whipped the company's fleet, and by now is master of Nelson——"

"What else, liar?" exclaimed Moon, laughing.

"Nay, 'tis truth! Ask Crawford, here. And what hope have ye, with your ship gone? There is one man can guide ye out, can bring ye safe south again to Albany or New Severn—and that's Moses Deakin. Come, I'll bargain with ye——"

Captain Moon roared with laughter, whereat Deakin lost temper and caused Moon to roar anew.

"Iberville indeed! There are no French on the bay, ye rascal pirate! If there were, they'd be soon enough swept away——"

This disbelief maddened Deakin, who cursed and raved like a maniac, until presently the officer quieted him with a word.

"These redskins have a message for ye from one called the Star Woman. Do ye want it or not, afore we hang ye?"

Deakin stared, sobered suddenly, swallowed his wrath. "Be that truth?"

"Ay." Moon surveyed him curiously. "Who's this Star Woman?"

"Sink me if I know," growled Deakin, with a sidelong glance at Crawford. Moon shrugged, and ordered his men to loose both prisoners from the trees. This was done. Their arms were tied, and they were led to the circled ranks of red warriors, who met Deakin's glare with impassive countenances. Deakin and Crawford sat down, with Moon standing beside them. Behind clustered the company men, but at a little distance.

"Keep your mouths shut, now," warned Moon. "What's that chief getting his pipe for?"

"To smoke the sun," growled Deakin in reply.

The leading Cree chief produced a much-adorned calumet, and now proceeded to smoke the sun. This had nothing whatever to do with a peace smoke, and was only done on occasions of solemnity. Presenting the calumet thrice to the rising sun, he then held it aloft in both hands and with it followed the course of the sun in the sky, chanting a prayer for happiness and favour; this done, he smoked for a moment, and handed the pipe to another chief, who repeated the ceremony. Half a dozen chiefs in all went through this ritual, then the pipe was laid away. The Cree chief produced a bundle of close-tied pelts, and stood up to address Moses Deakin.

"Last year my brother Big Bear gave us a message to deliver. That message was delivered. Here is the answer to that message. The hands of my brother Big Bear are tied. I give this belt to the hand of my brother the Anglais, that he may bring it to the sight of Big Bear."

Moon stepped forward to take the roll of skins from the chief. At this moment Crawford, who was intent on the ceremony, was startled to catch the low voice of Deakin at his ear.

"Quick! When I grab 'un, kick fusils into water."

It was no time to question whatever desperate plan Deakin had in mind, or to ask how he was to grab any one with his arms bound. Crawford glanced around. He saw that the company men, grouped behind and to one side, had stacked their fusils in two piles at the edge of the water. The guns were but ten feet distant.

Crawford gathered his muscles in readiness to spring, and then waited, tensed.

Captain Moon took the bundle of skins from the chief, half turned, and stood frowning. Then he sat down so that Deakin was on one side of him and the circle of redskins on the other, unsheathed his knife, and cut the thongs that bound the skins.

"Ay," said Deakin, straining forward, his wide nostrils flaring. "Open it!"

The officer did so, to disclose inner wrappings of doeskin, likewise thonged. These gave place to yet a third wrapping—this time of soft, thick grey fur that drew from Moon an exclamation of astonishment. It was a white beaver pelt. The Indians, no less than the whites, were watching with intense interest, and from them came a chorus of grunts at sight of the white beaver. Then, as Moon drew this open, to disclose the heart of the whole business, white men and red stared in silence—the one in puzzled wonder, the other in comprehension.

The message from the Star Woman was a short, heavy arrow with fine thin head of barbed iron. The arrow was painted red. The insolent message of Moses Deakin had been answered, significantly enough, by a war-arrow.

"What's it mean?" demanded Moon, fingering it.

Deakin caught his breath for sheer rage, unable to speak. He knew well enough that all his dreaming had crashed down in this instant, with this response displayed to all eyes; he had hoped for a very different sort of message. Perhaps he had thought that, under its influence, the Indians would rise to his aid. Now, in those bronzed features circled around him, he saw only a stolid hostility. Big Bear had lost his medicine and the Anglais had overcome him; also the Star Woman had doomed him to death. The chiefs would shun this doomed creature, leave him to meet the fate which the dreaded Star Woman had decreed for him. That fate was death.

All this Moses Deakin beheld in the ring of faces, while Moon frowned down at the arrow and the white beaver pelt. Then, suddenly, the bloodshot eyes of Moses Deakin dilated. His face under the matted beard purpled, his brow pulsed with knotted veins, and his shoulders heaved up.

"Ready, Crawford!" burst from him, as the sea-rotted hemp burst away from his mighty arms. "Blood and wounds—got 'un!"

With one hand he seized Moon by the neck, drawing him close, and the other great paw gripped the knife in Moon's hand. Crawford, despite bound arms, shot to his feet.

No one save the watching, impassive Indians realized what was happening. The company men saw only Deakin seizing their skipper, while Crawford leaped up and darted to the piled fusils and began to kick them into the water. Then indeed the men sprang up cursing and shouting—but the brazen voice of Deakin bellowed out and held them motionless.

"One move, ye dogs, and your skipper dies!"

Lieutenant and men huddled there, staring, all adread, and no wonder. There seemed something frightful and unearthly about this shaggy, blood-smeared figure that had suddenly burst his bonds and uprisen like some prehistoric monster, holding or rather hugging, bear-fashion, the frantically writhing Captain Moon—gripping the man's whole throat in one gnarled paw, lifting him from his feet, glaring above him at the staring men. The Indians sat motionless, still tense from the sight of that war-arrow, holding themselves aloof.

"To me, Crawford!" rang out the stentorian voice.

Crawford, his task accomplished, now came back to the side of Deakin, while Moon's men dared not lift a finger lest the knife bite their skipper. To be a company captain meant much; each captain was to his men as a little god, something a trifle more than human, whose slightest word was law ordained. Now, with his knife, Deakin slashed the bonds of Crawford.

"Weapons—then to the trees."

Free, Crawford leaped at the men who gave back before him. From one he caught a hangar, from the gaping lieutenant a gold-decked rapier, perhaps brought out from London as a gift for Governor Bailey at Nelson. Then back to Deakin, now retreating slowly toward the trees, backing around the circle of intent redskins, snarling as he gripped his limp captive.

Then from the lieutenant burst horrified words.

"The cap'n—dead! At 'em—cut 'em off!"

Indeed, what had been Captain Moon was now a poor dead thing, head horribly askew in that fierce grip. Moses Deakin had defeated himself. The men's stupefaction fled. A yell broke from them and they flooded forward. Deakin dropped his victim, seized the hangar from Crawford.

"Too late!" he snarled. "Another minute——"

Too late indeed; a pistol roared, and Deakin staggered as the ball hipped him. Crawford might have run for it, but that was not his way; a laugh broke on his lips and he halted. The Bostonnais, knife and cutlass in hand, stood like a bear at bay. Crawford made one desperate effort to stay the onrush.

"Hold, men! Your fleet's destroyed—Nelson is captured—your only chance is——"

A howl of fury drowned his words and the company men closed in, wielding hangars, knives, clubbed muskets, anything and everything. Deakin's hand moved, and the knife sang through the air; the lieutenant, blade through gullet, pitched down and lay still.

Crawford saw why those fusils had been kicked into the water, for with the firearms the company men would have picked off the two and shot them down. Now, back to back, Deakin and Crawford met the rush with whistling cutlass and delicate rapier; as the maddened crowd closed in blindly, men died by point and edge, for the only cool heads there were the two who faced their doom unafraid. Rapier slithered in and out, hangar crashed and whirled and thudded again, and the laugh of Crawford echoed the roaring bellow of the Bostonnais. The ranks of redskins, leaping up, watched the fight with gleaming eyes and low grunts of astonishment.

The company men soon had enough of this, for three of them were gasping at death and others were reeling away; they fell back, yelling at one another to close in yet none caring to be the first. Deakin bawled a laugh at them, pressing one hand to his thigh, but Crawford, eyeing that ring of fierce faces, smiled thinly.

"Your prophecy was right, Deakin," he panted. "Had it not been for that gift from the Star Woman, we might have——"

Deakin hurled curses at the watching chiefs who refused him aid, broke off short to dodge a hurled axe—and the circle was closing in again. This time more cautiously, clubbed fusils and bits of wreckage battering down while the holders stood beyond reach of hangar and rapier. One man came in too far, and Deakin split his skull—but a gun-butt struck the giant over the head and staggered him. Like wolves they leaped upon him and had him down, and the writhing, heaving mass of men went rolling across the sand.

Crawford, ringed in, stood alone. An oar swept at him. He dodged it, leaped into action, flung himself at the circle about him, rapier licking in and out and sending men to cough their lives out—but a cutlass clashed on the thin blade and slithered it. Then they dragged at him, overwhelmed him; but those men worked their own ill. Crowding too close to get in straight blows, they gave Crawford a chance to work free, and he seized it. Next instant he was on his feet, his fists hammering them back. From the sand he caught up a cutlass, broke through them, found himself clear. Clear, yes—but at the water's edge, with the icy bay behind him and the ring of sullen, fury-filled men closing him in.

They were content to let him rest there a moment, for into the edge of their circle burst the writhing heap of men above Deakin. Twice Deakin hurled them clear, and twice they were in upon him before he could rise. Then, streaming with blood, battered and blind and a fearful thing to see, the giant came to one knee, gripping a screaming man in either hand. Inarticulate bellows foaming from his red-frothed lips, Deakin tore out the throat of the man in his right hand, and yelled madly. The other man, shrieking in awful panic, caught something from the sand in groping fingers and drove it home. Deakin lifted his great red paw and struck the man down, then clutched at his breast. He fell backward, one terrible gasp breaking from his lips. From his breast stood out the red shaft of the Star Woman's gift. There died Moses Deakin of Boston.

From Crawford's throat pealed up the wild yell of the Iroquois, the war whoop of the Mohawk tribe:

"Sassakouay! Sassakouay!"

That yell lifted and swirled among the trees. The dread, well-known sound of it evoked a wild and startled response of whoops from the watching chieftains. At this, the circle of blood-maddened men hung back, thinking that the redskins were about to take them in the rear, but quickly regained confidence. They spat curses, and lifted weapons anew.

Crawford faced them, yet saw them not. He was spent, and knew it well, and queer visions came whirling at him as he reeled, dazed and battered. He saw the face of Iberville greet him with one flashing smile ere it faded; he saw Moses Deakin, wide-nostrilled, glaring upon him as the shade of Aias glared balefully upon the crafty Odysseus; he saw the faces of dead men whom he had known in other days, drawing in upon him, fading, passing away. And as he stood there, leaning dazedly upon the hangar, the Star of Dreams came out from his shirt and swayed. Sight of that green jewel halted the indrawing circle of men, halted them in sheer astonishment, held them staring for an instant. Then Crawford's vision cleared. He saw one wild ruffian heave up a fusil to drive down upon him—and with a laugh he whirled the hangar and sent it hurtling point first into the ruffian's breast.

Then they closed in upon him as he swayed, empty-handed. As they came, it seemed to him that he saw the face of Frontin, and heard the voice of Frontin ringing wildly in his ears. He took it for a welcoming to the other world—the world beyond the horizon—as he went down under the blows.

CHAPTER V

IT IS ONLY BY CROOKED LANES THAT ONE GAINS THE HIGHWAY

ON the shore of that landlocked harbour at the mouth of the Danish river, where after another snow or two was to rise the palisaded front of Fort Churchill, was now being enacted a curious scene before the astonished and startled eyes of the assembled redskins, who had held their places only from a sense of dignity—and because they had no whither to run.

Lying bound at the water's edge were six men—all that remained from the company of the wrecked ship in the shallows. The others lay as they had fallen, from the savage attack of those men who came bursting from the trees—Frontin and Sir Phelim Burke, with those who followed them. Crawford, helped by two of his men, doused the icy water over face and head, cleared his eyes and rose, and gripped the hands of his friends.

"A miracle!" he said, "You say Serigny captured the corvette? What miracle——"

"Devil a bit of it," exclaimed Phelim Burke. "We saw that canoe of yours heading north along the coast—Frontin declared that he recognized you, through the glass. So Serigny gave us a boat and we came after you. Did ye not hear the gun fired?"

"Serigny—gave you a boat?" Crawford stared hard.

"He wanted the corvette, would not give it up," said Frontin, frowning a little. "My faith, he meant to hang the lot of us offhand! But I had a talk with him." For one instant, the cynical visage of the man was clouded by an unwonted embarrassment. "You comprehend, cap'n, in another day and another world, I likewise had another name. Well, to the devil with all explanations! Facts are facts. I talked with Serigny, and though he'd not give up the corvette he gave us a boat, so there we were—and here we are. We landed where you did, followed your trail, and got here in time to put some shot into those rascals."

Crawford nodded. His head was clear enough now, and he perceived that instant action was needed. Ignoring his hurts for the moment, he forced himself to stride across the sand to where the circle of chieftains waited. They stared at him, at the blazing star hanging on his breast; and when he sat down and addressed them in French, they also sat down and listened.

"My brothers have seen that the medicine of Big Bear failed, and that the medicine of the Anglais also failed. Why? Because of my medicine." As Crawford held up the emerald star, grunts broke from the warriors. They could understand this. "I have come to smoke the calumet with my brothers from up-country."

There was a silence. Frontin and Sir Phelim and the other men drew in behind Crawford and waited. Then, because they had no more tobacco, and had not yet obtained any from the salvage, the head Cree chief produced a calumet and stuffed the bowl with fragrant sagacomi from his pouch. When he had lighted it, he handed it to Crawford, who puffed and returned it. So the council was opened and the calumet smoked, and now Crawford, with characteristic readiness, faced an instant decision.

He had already learned from Deakin that if Cree chiefs were here, they would be here only in order to deliver the message from the Star Woman. As a rule they came far from their own country to the bay, in May or June, and only that message would force them to come later or delay them. It was obvious that these chiefs would be now wildly anxious to be gone home. So, when the leading chief had made a short and ceremonial address, he sat down to await his answer. Crawford let him wait, made his decision, then came stiffly to his feet and faced them.

"My brothers, you know what has happened here, but you do not know why I have come here. Look at this." Once more he held up the Star of Dreams. "I have come because the Star Woman sent this to lead me to her. I am going home with you. You will take me up-country with you and then send me on to the Star Woman with guides."

Stifled grunts of awe and amazement sounded. Crawford continued swiftly.

"My brothers, you have brought beaver for Big Bear. It is of no use to me, but I will buy it from you. I will give you all these goods from the wrecked ship, such as I do not need, then you will cache the beaver here and leave it until next year, or until I come again to get it. To-morrow we will arrange these matters, and then we will leave for your own country. Go to your camp, and return here to-morrow. I have spoken."

There was silence, while Crawford's men stared at one another, and the wounded men by the water groaned in their bonds. Then, with silent acceptance of his words, the chiefs broke up the council and departed among the trees. No sooner were they gone, than Crawford swung up and faced his men.

He looked at Frontin and met a dry smile. He looked at Sir Phelim Burke and met a twinkle of the eye. He looked at his men and then laughed suddenly.

"My lads, we have no ship. Our seafaring days are ended, for we have crossed that horizon. Here is a chance that has come to me, to go farther, where no white men have gone, to see new things. I am going into the unknown country with these Indians. I have learned that the Star Woman is no myth, no legend, but actually exists—and I'm going to find her. I don't ask any of you to come with me. There's naught for you at the end of this journey. If ye want to go to Fort Nelson, go freely. In any case, I'll loose these prisoners and let them go. If ye come with me, I'll be glad. Talk it over with your comrades, Dickon. You with your men, Phelim——"

"Divil take the talk!" and Phelim Burke laughed out. "These Burkes will do as I say, Hal Crawford, and ye know my mind already. We're with ye, if it's into hell!"

"Ay, master!" spoke up the man Dickon, whilst his comrades growled approval. "The horizon be as good one place as another—and we be your men!"

Crawford looked at Frontin, his blue eyes all asparkle.

"And you, old buccaneer? Wilt go to Nelson and join Serigny? Or wilt go——"

Frontin shrugged, but his affected cynicism could not hide the quick glow in his dark countenance.

"I? Bah! Don't be a fool. I go to get some soup over the fire, and advise you to do the same——"

A roar of laughter broke the tension.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article  Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.