The Woman from Outside [On Swan River]. Footner Hulbert

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any rate they had a brand-new subject for conversation at the post.

      About a week later, when Hairy Ben had started back up the river, the routine at the post was broken by the arrival of a small party of Kakisa Indians from the Kakisa or Swan River, a large unexplored stream off to the north-west. The Kakisas, an uncivilized and shy race, rarely appeared at Enterprise, and in order to get their trade Gaviller had formerly sent out a half-breed clerk to the Swan River every winter. But this man had lately died, and now the trade threatened to lapse for the lack of an interpreter. None of the Kakisas could speak English, and there was no company employee who could speak their uncouth tongue except Gordon Strange the bookkeeper, who could not be spared from the post.

      Wherefore Gaviller welcomed these six, in the hope that they might prove to be the vanguard of the main body. They were a wild and ragged lot, under the leadership of a withered elder called Mahtsonza. They were discovered by accident camping under cover of a poplar bluff across the river. No one knew how long they had been there, and Gordon Strange had a time persuading them to come the rest of the way. It was dusk when they entered the store, and Gaviller, by pre-arrangement with Mathews, clapped his hands and the electric lights went on. The effect surpassed his expectations. The Kakisas, with a gasp of terror, fled, and could not be tempted to return until daylight.

      They brought a good little bundle of fur, including two silver fox skins, the finest seen at Enterprise that season. They laid their fur on the counter, and sidled about the store silent and abashed, like children in a strange house. With perfectly wooden faces they took in all the wonders out of the corners of their eyes; the scales, the stove, the pictures on the canned goods, the show-cases of jewellery and candy. Candy they recognized, and, again like children, they discussed the respective merits of the different varieties in their own tongue. Gaviller, warned by his first mistake, affected to take no notice of them.

      The Kakisas had been in the store above an hour when Mahtsonza, without warning, produced a note from the inner folds of his dingy capote, and, handling it gingerly between thumb and forefinger, silently offered it to Gaviller. The trader’s eyes almost started out of his head.

      “A letter!” he cried stupidly. “Where the hell did you get that?—Boys! Look here! A note from Swan River! Who in thunder at Swan River can write a white man’s hand?”

      Stonor, Doc Giddings, Strange, and Mathews, who were in the store, hastened to him.

      “Who’s it addressed to?” asked the policeman.

      “Just to the Company. Whoever wrote it didn’t have the politeness to put my name down.”

      “Maybe he doesn’t know you.”

      “How could that be?” asked Gaviller, with raised eyebrows.

      “Open it! Open it!” said Doc Giddings irritably.

      Gaviller did so, and his face expressed a still greater degree of astonishment. “Ha! Here’s our man!” he cried.

      “Imbrie!” they exclaimed in unison.

      “Listen!” He read from the note.

      “Gentlemen—I am sending you two silver fox skins, for which please give me credit. I enclose an order for supplies, to be sent by bearer. Also be good enough to hand the bearer any mail matter which may be waiting for me.

      “Yours truly,

       “Ernest Imbrie.”

      The silence of stupefaction descended on them. The only gateway to the Swan River lay through Enterprise. How could a man have got there without their knowing it? Stupefaction was succeeded by resentment.

      “Will I be good enough to hand over his mail?” sneered Gaviller. “What kind of elegant language is this from Swan River?”

      “Sounds like a regular Percy,” said Strange, who always echoed his chief.

      “Funny place for a Percy to set up,” said Stonor drily.

      “He orders flour, sugar, beans, rice, coffee, tea, baking-powder, salt, and dried fruit,” said Gaviller, as if that were a fresh cause of offence.

      “He has an appetite, then,” said Stonor, “he’s no ghost.”

      Suddenly they fell upon Mahtsonza with a bombardment of questions, forgetting that the Indian could speak no English. He shrank back affrighted.

      “Wait a minute,” said Strange. “Let me talk to him.”

      He conferred for awhile with Mahtsonza in the strange, clicking tongue of the Kakisas. Gaviller soon became impatient.

      “Tell us as he goes along,” he said. “Never mind waiting for the end of the story.”

      “They can’t tell you anything directly,” said Strange deprecatingly; “there’s nothing to do but let them tell a story in their own way. He’s telling me now that Etzooah, a man with much hair, who hunts down the Swan River near the beginning of the swift water, came up to the village at the end of the horse-track on snowshoes and dragging a little sled. Etzooah had the letter for Gaviller, but he was tired out, so he handed it to Mahtsonza, who had dogs, to bring it the rest of the way, and gave Mahtsonza a mink-skin for his trouble.”

      “Never mind all that,” said Gaviller impatiently. “What about the white man?”

      Strange conferred again with Mahtsonza, while Gaviller bit his nails.

      “Mahtsonza says,” he reported, “that Imbrie is a great White Medicine Man who has done honour to the Kakisa people by coming among them to heal the sick and do good. Mahtsonza says he has not seen Imbrie himself, because when he came among the Indians last fall Mahtsonza was off hunting on the upper Swan, but all the people talk about him and what strong medicine he makes.”

      “Conjure tricks!” muttered Doc Giddings.

      “Where does he live?” demanded Gaviller.

      Strange asked the question and reported the answer. “He has built himself a shack beside the Great Falls of the Swan River. Mahtsonza says that the people know his medicine is strong because he is not afraid to live with the voice of the Great Falls.”

      Stonor asked the next question. “What sort of man is he?”

      Strange, after putting the question, said: “Mahtsonza says he’s very good-looking, or, as he puts it, a pretty man. He says he looks young, but he may be as old as the world, because with such strong medicine he could make himself look like anything he wanted. He says that the White Medicine Man talks much with dried words in covers—I suppose he means books.”

      “Ask him what proof he has given them that his medicine is strong,” suggested Stonor.

      Strange translated Mahtsonza’s answer as follows: “Last year when the bush berries were ripe (that’s August) all the Indians down the river got sick. Water came out of their eyes and nose; their skin got as red as sumach and burned like fire.”

      “Measles,” said Gaviller. “The Beavers had it, too. They take it hard.”

      Strange continued: “Mahtsonza says many of them

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