imperilling his own immortal soul, and, especially, feeling an
ominous attraction himself for Lit-lit, he was sombrely content to
clinch his own soul’s safety by seeing her married to the Factor.
Nor is it to be wondered that McLean’s austere Scotch soul stood in
danger of being thawed in the sunshine of Lit-lit’s eyes. She was
pretty, and slender, and willowy; without the massive face and
temperamental stolidity of the average squaw. “Lit-lit,” so called
from her fashion, even as a child, of being fluttery, of darting
about from place to place like a butterfly, of being inconsequent
and merry, and of laughing as lightly as she darted and danced
about.
Lit-lit was the daughter of Snettishane, a prominent chief in the
tribe, by a half-breed mother, and to him the Factor fared casually
one summer day to open negotiations of marriage. He sat with the
chief in the smoke of a mosquito smudge before his lodge, and
together they talked about everything under the sun, or, at least,
everything that in the Northland is under the sun, with the sole
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exception of marriage. John Fox had come particularly to talk of
marriage; Snettishane knew it, and John Fox knew he knew it,
wherefore the subject was religiously avoided. This is alleged to
be Indian subtlety. In reality it is transparent simplicity.
The hours slipped by, and Fox and Snettishane smoked interminable
pipes, looking each other in the eyes with a guilelessness superbly
histrionic. In the mid-afternoon McLean and his brother clerk,
McTavish, strolled past, innocently uninterested, on their way to
the river. When they strolled back again an hour later, Fox and
Snettishane had attained to a ceremonious discussion of the
condition and quality of the gunpowder and bacon which the Company
was offering in trade. Meanwhile Lit-lit, divining the Factor’s
errand, had crept in under the rear wall of the lodge, and through
the front flap was peeping out at the two logomachists by the
mosquito smudge. She was flushed and happy-eyed, proud that no
less a man than the Factor (who stood next to God in the Northland
hierarchy) had singled her out, femininely curious to see at close
range what manner of man he was. Sunglare on the ice, camp smoke,
and weather beat had burned his face to a copper-brown, so that her
father was as fair as he, while she was fairer. She was remotely
glad of this, and more immediately glad that he was large and
strong, though his great black beard half frightened her, it was so
strange.
Being very young, she was unversed in the ways of men. Seventeen
times she had seen the sun travel south and lose itself beyond the
sky-line, and seventeen times she had seen it travel back again and
ride the sky day and night till there was no night at all. And
through these years she had been cherished jealously by
Snettishane, who stood between her and all suitors, listening
disdainfully to the young hunters as they bid for her hand, and
turning them away as though she were beyond price. Snettishane was
mercenary. Lit-lit was to him an investment. She represented so
much capital, from which he expected to receive, not a certain
definite interest, but an incalculable interest.
And having thus been reared in a manner as near to that of the
nunnery as tribal conditions would permit, it was with a great and
maidenly anxiety that she peeped out at the man who had surely come
for her, at the husband who was to teach her all that was yet
unlearned of life, at the masterful being whose word was to be her
law, and who was to mete and bound her actions and comportment for
the rest of her days.
But, peeping through the front flap of the lodge, flushed and
thrilling at the strange destiny reaching out for her, she grew
disappointed as the day wore along, and the Factor and her father
still talked pompously of matters concerning other things and not
pertaining to marriage things at all. As the sun sank lower and
lower toward the north and midnight approached, the Factor began
making unmistakable preparations for departure. As he turned to
stride away Lit-lit’s heart sank; but it rose again as he halted,
half turning on one heel.
“Oh, by the way, Snettishane,” he said, “I want a squaw to wash for
me and mend my clothes.”
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Snettishane grunted and suggested Wanidani, who was an old woman
and toothless.
“No, no,” interposed the Factor. “What I want is a wife. I’ve
been kind of thinking about it, and the thought just struck me that
you might know of some one that would suit.”
Snettishane looked interested, whereupon the Factor retraced his
steps, casually and carelessly to linger and discuss this new and
incidental topic.
“Kattou?” suggested Snettishane.
“She has but one eye,” objected the Factor.
“Laska?”
“Her knees be wide apart when she stands upright. Kips, your
biggest dog, can leap between her knees when she stands upright.”
“Senatee?” went on the imperturbable Snettishane.
But John Fox feigned anger, crying: “What foolishness is this? Am
I old, that thou shouldst mate me with old women? Am I toothless?
lame of leg? blind of eye? Or am I poor that no bright-eyed maiden
may look with favour upon me? Behold! I am the Factor, both rich
and great, a power in the land, whose speech makes men tremble and
is obeyed!”
Snettishane was inwardly pleased, though his sphinx-like visage
never relaxed. He was drawing the Factor, and making him break
ground. Being a creature so elemental as to have room for but one
idea at a time, Snettishane could pursue that one idea a greater
distance than could John Fox. For John Fox, elemental as he was,
was still complex enough to entertain several glimmering ideas at a
time, which debarred him from pursuing the one as single-heartedly
or as far as did the chief.
Snettishane calmly continued calling the roster of eligible
maidens, which, name by name, as fast as uttered, were stamped
ineligible by John Fox, with specified objections appended. Again
he gave it up and started to return to the Fort. Snettishane
watched him go, making no effort to stop him, but seeing him, in
the end, stop himself.
“Come to think of it,” the Factor remarked, “we both of us forgot
Lit-lit. Now I wonder if she’ll suit me?”
Snettishane met the suggestion with a mirthless face, behind the
mask of which his soul grinned wide. It was a distinct victory.
Had the Factor gone but one step farther, perforce Snettishane
would himself have mentioned the name of Lit-lit, but–the Factor
had not gone that one step farther.
The chief was non-committal concerning Lit-lit’s suitability, till
he drove the white man into taking the next step in order of
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procedure.
“Well,” the Factor meditated aloud, “the only way to find out is to
make a try of it.” He raised his voice. “So I will give for Lit-
lit ten blankets and three pounds of tobacco which is good
tobacco.”
Snettishane replied with a gesture which seemed to say that all the
blankets and tobacco in all the world could not compensate him for
the loss of Lit-lit and her manifold virtues. When pressed by the
Factor to set a price, he coolly placed it at five hundred
blankets, ten guns, fifty pounds of tobacco, twenty scarlet cloths,
ten bottles of rum, a music-box, and lastly the good-will and best
offices of the Factor, with a place by his fire.
The Factor apparently suffered a stroke of apoplexy, which stroke
was successful in reducing the blankets to two hundred and in
cutting out the place by the fire–an unheard-of condition in the
marriages of white men with the daughters of the soil. In the end,
after three hours more of chaffering, they came to an agreement.
For Lit-lit Snettishane was to receive one hundred blankets, five
pounds of tobacco, three guns, and a bottle of rum, goodwill and
best offices included, which according to John Fox, was ten
blankets and a gun more than she was worth. And as he went home
through the wee sma’ hours, the three-o’clock sun blazing in the
due north-east, he was unpleasantly aware that Snettishane had
bested him over the bargain.
Snettishane, tired and victorious, sought his bed, and discovered
Lit-lit before she could escape from the lodge.
He grunted knowingly: “Thou hast seen. Thou has heard. Wherefore
it be plain to thee thy father’s very great wisdom and
understanding. I have made for thee a great match. Heed my words
and walk in the way of my words, go when I say go, come when I bid
thee come, and we shall grow fat with the wealth of this big white
man who is a fool according to his bigness.”
The next day no trading was done at the store. The Factor opened