After supper a high degree of amity prevailed in the shack. Joe and Shand helped with the chair, and then they all planned to make a table next day.

"Shand, lend a hand with this piece while I drive a nail, will you?" requested Jack politely.

"Sure thing! Say this is going to be out o' sight! You certainly have a good knack of making things, Jack."

"Oh, so-so. I ought to have a flat piece to put on the seat."

"I'll go out to the stable and see if I can find a box-cover."

"You stay here. I'll go," said Joe.

Sam, washing the dishes, harkened to this, and smiled a little grimly to himself, wondering how long it would last.

They retired early. The bed was given up to Husky, and the other four rolled up in their blankets across the room like a row of mummies. Calm brooded over the shack throughout the night.

Sam had not had so much time as the others to make himself presentable the night before, so he got up extra early for that purpose. Issuing out of the shack with soap, towel, razor, and glass, the first thing he beheld on rounding the shack was Bela. She was kneeling on a piece of wood to protect her knees from the wet ground, tearing and rolling some pieces of cotton for bandages.

She was dressed differently to-day—all in buckskin.

The newly risen sun was behind her, shooting misty beams across a lake of mother-of-pearl. The artist, latent in every man, arrested Sam, forcing him to wonder and admire.

Bela looked up calmly. "I waitin' till the men get up," she remarked.

"I'll call them," he offered, making a move to turn.

"Let them sleep," commanded Bela. "It is early."

Sam became uncomfortably conscious of his unkempt condition. "You caught me unawares," he said. "I haven't washed up yet."

She glanced at him sidewise. Had he known it, he did not appear altogether at a disadvantage with his fair hair tousled and his shirt open at the throat.

"I don't care," she said, with a child's air of unconcern.

Presently she caught sight of the razor. "You got hair grow on your chin, too? That is fonny thing. Ot'er day I watch the curly-head one scrape his face. He not see me. What for you want scrape your face?"

Sam blushed. "Oh, it looks like a hobo if you don't," he stammered.

She repeated the word with a comical face. "What is hobo?"

"Oh, a tramp, a loafer, a bum."

"I on'erstan'," she said. "We got hoboes, too. My mot'er's 'osban' is a hobo."

She looked at his chin again. "Bishop Lajeunesse not scrape his chin," she stated. "Got long hair, so. He is fine man."

Sam, not knowing exactly what to say, remained silent. He found it difficult to accommodate himself to a conversational Bela. She was much changed in the morning light from the inscrutable figure of the fire-side. Ten times more human and charming, it is true, but on that account the more disconcerting to a young man, without experience of the sex. Moreover, her beauty took his breath away. Bela watched his blushes with interest.

"What mak' your face hot?" she asked. "There is no fire."

He could not but believe she was making fun of him. "Ah! cut it out!" he growled.

"White men fonny," said Bela, rolling her strips of cotton.

"Funny!" repeated Sam. "How about you? Hanged if you're not the strangest thing I ever came across."

Obviously this did not displease her. She merely shrugged.

He forgot some of his self-consciousness in his curiosity. "Where do you come from?" he asked, drawing nearer. "Where do you go to?"—"You wonderful creature!" his eyes added.

"No magic," she said calmly. "I just plain girl."

"Why wouldn't you tell them how you got out night before last?"

"Maybe I want get out again."

"Will you tell me?"

She glanced at him provokingly through her lashes. "Why I tell you? You just go tell your partners."

"They're no partners of mine," said Sam bitterly. "I should think you could see that. I'm just their cook. I work for my grub. They don't let me forget it either."

"Why you come to this country?" asked Bela.

"I want a piece of land the same as they do. But I've got to work to earn an outfit before I can settle."

"When you get your land what you do then?" she asked.

"Build a house, raise crops."

"White man all want land to dig," said Bela wonderingly.

"You've got to have land," explained Sam eagerly. "You've got to have something of your own. Outside, a poor man has no chance nowadays but to slave away his best years working for a rich man."

Bela studied his face, trying to grasp these ideas so new to her.

"How did you get out of the shack?" Sam asked her again.

"I tell you," she said abruptly. "I climb the chimney."

"By George!" he exclaimed admiringly.

"It was easy. But I get all black. I am all day cleaning myself after."

"You're a wonder!" he cried. "Travelling about alone and all. Are all the girls up here like you?"

"No," replied Bela quaintly. "There is nobody lak me. I am Bela."

"Where do you live?"

She looked at him again through her lashes. "Maybe I tell you when I know you better."

"Tell me now," he pleaded.

She shook her head.

Sam frowned. "There's generally no good behind a mystery," he remarked.

"Maybe," said Bela. "But I not goin' tell all I know."

There was something highly exasperating to a young man in her cool, smiling air. He stood looking at her, feeling oddly flat and baffled.

Suddenly she turned her head to listen. "They gettin' up now," she said quickly. "Go and wash."

"Can't I speak to you if I am the cook?" he demanded.

"Go and wash," she repeated. "I don' want no more trouble."

Sam shrugged and walked stiffly away. He had plenty to occupy his mind while he shaved. His sensations were much mixed. In her subtle way the girl allured, mystified, and angered him all at once. Anger had the last word.

He would like to show her if he was the cook that he wasn't to be trifled with. He felt as if the most important thing in life was to solve the mystery that enshrouded her. However, the invigorating touch of cold water brought about a reaction. Violently scrubbing himself with the towel, he came to a sudden stop and addressed himself after this fashion:

"Steady, old man! You're heading in the wrong direction. You've got to get a toehold yourself before you can look at a girl. She's a sight too good-looking. You can't think about it straight. Forget it! Anyhow, a girl like that, she'd naturally pick a man like Big Jack or Shand. No use storing up trouble for yourself. Put it out of mind. Look the other way. Harden yourself."

* * * * *

Young Joe swung his heavy shoulders around the shack. Seeing Bela alone, he could scarcely credit his good fortune. He approached her, grinning and fawning in his extreme desire to please.

"Hello! You're an early bird," he said.

Bela looked at him in her most inscrutable way.

"How!" she said, offering him her hand according to the etiquette of the country.

Joe fondled it clumsily. "Say, the sight of you is good for sore eyes!" he cried, leering into her face. "Hanged if you ain't better looking than the sun-rise!"

Bela determinedly freed her hand. "Foolish talk!" she said loftily. "Wake the ot'er men and let us eat."

"Aw, don't be in such a rush," pleaded Joe. "I want to talk to you. I won't likely get another chance."

"What you want say?" she asked. "More foolishness, I think."

"Aw, give a fellow a chance," begged Joe. "Be decent to me."

"Well, say it," she commanded.

Joe's feeling was genuine enough. The conqueror of the sex found himself at a loss for words.

"The—the sight of you kind of ties a man's tongue," he stammered. "I can't say it right. You're certainly a wonder! I never thought there was anything like you up here. I could stop here all day just taking you in!"

"I couldn't," said Bela coolly. "I too 'ongry. Wake the ot'er men and go wash."

Joe stared at her, scowling, trying to discover if he was being made game of.

"Ah," he growled, "you might give me a chance to make good."

"I will cook breakfast," said Bela. "I bring some nice whitefish."

"To the deuce with breakfast!" cried Joe. "I spoke you fair. You're only trying to put me off!"

"If you don't wake the men," said Bela coolly, "I will."

Her eyes were as clear as the lake waters. Joe's fell before them. He went sullenly back and shouted in the door of the shack.



CHAPTER VII

THE SUITORS

The day started well, with Big Jack, Shand, and Joe all on their good behaviour. But it was too good to last. Watching Bela's graceful movements before the fire, and eating the delicious food she put before them, the same thoughts passed through each man's mind.

What a treasure to enrich the cabin of a lonely pioneer! What would hard work and discouragements matter if a man had that to welcome him home at the end of the day? How could a man endure to live alone, having known such a woman? How could he hope to succeed without her help?

Each seeing the same thoughts revealed in the faces of his companions, realized that two men stood between him and his desire, and the baleful fires of jealousy were lighted again.

Each afraid one of the others might steal a march on him, watched his mates like a detective. The consequence was that hating each other, they nevertheless stuck together like burs.

They followed Bela round in company like dogs contending for scraps, ready upon no occasion at all to bare their teeth and snarl at each other.

Bela, perceiving her power, and being only a human woman, naturally abused it a little. Thus to see white men, whom all her life she had revered, cringing for her favour, went to her head a little.

She made them fetch and carry for her like women, she would have said. Thus the situation was reversed from that of her first appearance in the shack.

"Bring me sewing," she said. "I not lak do not'ing."

A variety of damaged garments was pressed upon her.

"I sew one for each man," she said.

Having made Husky comfortable, she took her work out into the sunshine. Jack, Shand, and Joe lounged in front of her smoking, watching her covertly; each privately making up his mind to secure that charming sewing-machine for his own household, whatever the cost.

"Ain't you got not'ing to do?" asked Bela coolly.

"This is a holiday," replied Jack.

"The stable is dirty," she persisted.

"That's Shand's job," said Joe.

"Well, I ain't goin' to leave you two here," growled Shand. "There's plenty of other work, if it comes to that."

"All go clean the stable," commanded Bela. "I lak a clean stable."

"Now go cut plenty wood, so I can cook good," she ordered when they came back. "I want pine or birch. No poplar."

With Sam the case was a little different. When Bela addressed him it was with perhaps a heightened arrogance, but for the most part he managed to keep out of her way.

Not that he was indifferent; far from it. This new aspect of her exasperated him mightily. "She needs a master," he thought. The idea of taming her was delicious, seductive. "I could do it," he told himself, sneering at the obsequiousness of Big Jack et al.

Meanwhile he attended strictly to his own duties.

Sam, when he chose, had command of a face as wooden as Bela's. More than once Bela, when she was unobserved, flashed a hurt and angry look at his indifferent back in the distance. For several hours during the afternoon Sam disappeared altogether. During his absence the other men had an uneasy time at Bela's hands.

With all her haughty airs she did not relax any of her care of Husky. The others envied him his wound. Hour by hour he was visibly growing better. The fever had left him. He had got over his fear of Bela.

Now, by a twisted course of reasoning, characteristic of him, he adopted a proprietary air toward her. She was his, he seemed to say, because forsooth, he had been shot by her. This, it need not be said, was highly offensive to the other men.

In the middle of the afternoon, Bela desiring a pail of water, Jack and Shand fell into a wrangle over who should get it. The fact that each felt he was making a fool of himself did not lessen the bitterness of the dispute.

Joe attempted to take advantage of it by sneaking out of the door with another pail. He was intercepted, and the argument took on a three-cornered aspect. Another endless, futile jawing-match resulted. Each was restrained from striking a blow by the knowledge that the other two would instantly combine against him.

Bela finally got the water herself, and ordering the three of them outside, bolted the door after them. The last sound they heard was Husky's triumphant laugh from the bed, whereupon they patched up their differences, and joined in cursing him, and expressing the hope he might yet die of his wound.

They were not allowed inside again until Sam returned and the supper was started. Their tempers had not improved any, and the situation grew steadily worse. Throughout the meal a sullen silence prevailed.

Bela maintained the air of a haughty mistress of an unruly school. They all deferred to her uneasily, except Sam, who kept himself strictly to himself. His face was as blank of expression as a wax-work.

As soon as Bela finished eating she rose.

"I go now," she said coolly. "Come back to-morrow."

Three of the faces fell absurdly. Sam did not look up. A tiny flash in Bela's dark eyes showed that she observed the difference. She moved toward the door. Involuntarily Young Joe started to rise.

"Sit down," snarled Jack and Shand simultaneously.

Bela went.

Left to themselves, none of the men were disposed to talk except Husky. Like sick men generally, his fibres were relaxed, and his tongue loosened.

"I feel fine to-night," he announced at large.

"A hell of a lot we care!" muttered Joe.

"It's great to feel your strength coming back," Husky went on, unabashed. "She's a wonderful fine nurse. Takes care of me like a baby. I'd trust myself to her sooner than the highest-priced doctor in the city."

"You sung a different tune yesterday morning," sneered Joe.

"Lord! you're a fool, Husky!" added Shand.

"Ah! you're only jealous!" returned Husky. "You wish you was me, I bet. She's got rare good sense, too. You fellows with your quarrelling and all, you don't know her. This afternoon when she put you out we had a real good talk. You ought to heard the questions she asked. About the city and everything. Like a child, but better sense like. She thinks things out for herself all right. Me and her's gettin' real good friends."

"Ah! shut your silly head!" snarled Joe. "Be thankful you're laid out on your back or you'd get it busted in for less than that. To hear you talk, one would think you had a mortgage on the girl just because she plugged you! You fool! You got no chance at all. You've already got your turn-down good and proper!"

"You're jealous!" retorted Husky. "Wouldn't you give something to know what passed between us when you was locked out? You wait and see."

Husky was in no condition to keep up his end with a well man. His voice trailed off into a whine and ceased.

Sam unconcernedly rolled up and went to sleep. The other three smoked and glowered into the fire. No sleep for them. No telling how near she might be. The heart of each man was outside the shack. Each knew that any attempt to follow it would only result in a fresh wrangle.

Finally Big Jack remarked very casually: "Let's go outside for a bit."

The other two arose with alacrity and they issued out in a body. The sky was still bright. They covertly looked about, hoping to discover a sign of her presence, or some indication of the way she had gone.

Together they loafed down to the creek, and, crossing by the stepping-stones, walked out on the point beyond, whence they could see a long way down the shore. Toward the east the lake was like a sheet of armour-plate. Behind them the sky was paling from amber to clear jade.

Without confessing what was in his mind, each man searched the shore for a tell-tale wisp of smoke. Nothing was to be seen. Each wondered if she were watching him from concealment, laughing in her sleeve.

Returning at last, unsatisfied and irritable, a senseless dispute arose at the door over who should be the last to enter. Shand, suddenly losing his temper, gave Joe a push that sent the youth sprawling inside on his hands and knees. He sprang up livid and insane with rage.

Jack and Shand instinctively drew together. Joe, seeing the odds against him, leaped without a word toward the corner of the shack where the guns were kept. The other two paling, measured the distance back to the door. But Joe was held up in mid career.

"They're gone!" he cried blankly.

Following his eyes, they saw that the corner was empty. Their thoughts took a sharp turn. They glanced at each other suspiciously.

Joe's anger blazed up afresh.

"You did it, you traitor!" he cried, whirling around on Shand.

"You made way with the guns so you could pick us off one by one! You keep quiet, don't you, and work behind our backs! Jack, are you going to stand for it? He'll get you, too!"

Jack moved a little away from Shand, grim and suspicious.

"What grounds have you?" he demanded of Joe.

Joe had no grounds—except his anger. "I see it in his face!" he cried.

"It's a damned lie!" said the dark man thickly. "I play fair."

Joe renewed and enlarged his accusations. Husky, from the bed, merely to be on the stronger side, added his voice. Big Jack's silent anger was more dangerous than either. Once more the little shack was like a cauldron boiling over with the poisonous broth of hate.

Sam sat up in his bed, blinking—and angry, too. He felt he had been wakened once too often by their imbecile quarrelling.

"For Heaven's sake, what's the matter now?" he demanded.

"Shand stole the guns!" cried Joe.

"He didn't," said Sam. "I hid them."

All four turned on him in astonishment. "What did you do that for?" demanded Joe, open-mouthed.

"I hid them to keep you from blowing the tops of each other's heads off before morning," said Sam coolly. "Turn in and forget it."

Joe took a step toward him. "By George, we don't need no cook to tell us what to do!" he cried. "I'll teach you——"

"You fool!" said Sam scornfully. "It's nothing to me if you want to shoot each other. I'll tell you where they are. Only I'll move on by your leave. I don't want to be mixed up in any wholesale murders. The guns are altogether—they're——"

"Stop!" cried Jack in a great voice. "He's right," he said, turning to the others. "Let the guns be till morning. Let every man turn in. Are you with me, Shand?"

"Sure!" he muttered.

"Me, too," added Husky from the bed, somewhat unnecessarily. "I need sleep."

The storm blew over. Joe went to his corner, muttering. Jack and Shand lay down between him and Sam. Sam fell asleep calmly. By and by Husky began to snore. The others lay feigning sleep, each ready to spring up at the slightest move from one of his fellows.

Shortly after dawn they arose simultaneously from their wretched beds with muttered curses. They looked at each other blackly. In the uncompromising light of morning all were alike weary, sore, and dispirited.

"Hell!" muttered Big Jack, the wisest and the most outspoken of the three. "This can't go on. Inside a week we'll all be loony or under the ground!"

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" snarled Joe.

"It's no good our fighting over her," said Big Jack. "She'll take the one she wants, anyway. You never can tell about women. Soon as she comes to-day I'll offer myself to her straight out and stand by her answer."

"Do you think you'll be let do all the talking?" asked Joe. "Eh, Shand?"

"Every man is at liberty to speak for himself," replied Jack. "Every man here is welcome to hear what I say to her."

"Jack is right," growled Shand. "I agree."

"Well, how about the order?" demanded Joe. "Who'll speak first?"

"Last word is supposed to be best," said Jack. "We'll give that to you," he added scornfully. "If she's got the sense I credit her with I'm not afraid of you."

"Fat chance you have! Twice her age!" snarled Joe.

"I take my chance," returned Big Jack calmly. "Already I feel better since I thought of putting it up to her. Whichever man she chooses can draw his share out of the concern, and go on with her. Husky speaks first, me second, Shand third, and Joe last—or we can match for chances."

"I'm satisfied," said Shand with a sidelong look at Jack. It appeared as if these two felt that the other was the only one to be feared.

Joe, suspicious of both, refused to commit himself.

"He's got to be satisfied," declared Big Jack indifferently.

Bela arrived with the sun and peeped in the window. Seeing them up and dressed, she came around to the door. In the meantime Husky had awakened, and Jack had told him what was planned.

It was almost too much for Husky. His objections and entreaties were unnoticed. Fully dressed but somewhat shaky, he was now sitting on the edge of his bed. Sam still slept in the corner.

From the character of the silence that greeted her, Bela instantly apprehended that something was in the wind.

"What for you get up so early?" she demanded.

"Bela, we got something to say to you," Big Jack began portentously.

"More talk?" asked Bela.

"This is serious."

"Well, say it."

"Let's go outside," said Joe nervously. "It's suffocating in here."

Filing out of the shack, they stood against the wall in a row—Big Jack, Black Shand, Husky, and Young Joe. Bela stood off a little way, watching them warily.

It had a good deal the look of a spelling-bee with a teacher who meant to stand no nonsense. But each of the men was taking it very seriously. Each was pale, tight-lipped, and bright-eyed with excitement, excepting poor Husky, whose eyes were harassed, and whose mouth kept opening and shutting.

"'Tain't fair! 'Tain't fair!" he kept muttering. "Look at me, the state I'm in, and all!"

"Well, what you want say?" demanded Bela.

Big Jack stood up straight and brought his heels together. He had been a soldier in his time. He felt that it was a great moment. An honest bluntness gave him dignity.

"I got to open this matter," he said, "before each man speaks for himself." He glanced at his companions. "If any man here thinks he can explain it better, let him speak out."

"Ah, go ahead, and cut it short!" muttered Shand.

"Yesterday," Jack resumed, "it may have seemed as if we acted like a parcel of unlicked schoolboys. I own I am sorry for my part in it. But I don't see how I could have done different. A man can't let another man get ahead of him when there's a woman in the case. It can't go on with the four of us here, and nobody knowing where he stands. So I proposed that we end it this morning by putting it up to you."

The other men were moving impatiently.

"Ah, cut out the preliminaries!" growled Joe.

Jack was direct enough when he got ready to be. "Are you married?" he asked Bela point-blank.

Bela was a stranger to the tremors and blushes imposed upon civilized women at such a crisis. "No," she said with her inscrutable face.

"Do you want to be?"

She shrugged with fine carelessness. "I suppose I got get 'osban' some tam."

"Well, take your pick of the four of us," said Jack. "I ain't sayin' we're prize specimens, mind you. But you'll hardly do better at that up here. Anyhow, look us over."

She proceeded to do so. Under her glance each man bore himself according to his nature. Her eyes showed no change as they moved along the line. None of them could tell what thoughts lay behind that direct, calm glance. Having inspected each one, her eyes returned to Jack as if inviting him to speak further.

"Husky speaks first, according to arrangement," said Jack, waving his hand.

Husky's speech was moist, incoherent, and plaintive.

"They fixed this up when I was asleep," he stuttered. "Sprung it on me unawares. Me just out of a sick-bed, not shaved nor slicked up nor nothin'. 'Tain't fair! I ain't had no chance to think of anything to say. Made me speak first, too. How do I know what they're goin' to say after me? Tain't fair! I'm as good as any man here when I got my strength. Don't you listen to anything they say. Take it from me, I'm your friend. You know me. I'm a loving man. A woman can do anything with me if she handles me right. I won you from them fair, and now they want to go back on it. That shows you what they are. Don't you listen to them. You and me, we had our scrap, and now it's all right, ain't it? Look at what I suffered for you!"

There was a lot more of this. The other men became impatient. Finally Jack stepped forward.

"Time!" he said. "You're beginning all over. It's my turn now."

Husky subsided.

"Now I speak for myself," said Jack. It was the voice of what men call a good sport—cheerful, determined, weary, not unduly confident. "I am the oldest man here, but not an old man yet by a long shot. I am boss of this outfit. I got it up."

Joe angrily interrupted him. "Hold on there! You ain't proved the best man yet."

"Shut your head!" growled Shand. "Your turn is coming."

"Forty per cent of this outfit belongs to me," Jack went on. "That is, I got twice as much property as any man here. I can make a good home for you. A girl has got to think of that. But that ain't all of it, neither. You got to take me with it, ain't yeh? Well, I'm old enough to realize how lucky I'd be if I got you. I'd treat you good. Wherever you come from, you're a wonderful woman. You taught us a lesson. I'm man enough to own it. I say I take off my hat to you. Will you have me?"

Bela's face never changed. She turned to Shand.

"What you got say?" she asked.

Shand's dead white face made a striking contrast with his raven hair. His heavy head was thrust forward, his big hands clenched. He spoke in an oddly, curt, dry voice, which, however did not hide the feeling that made his breast tight.

"I am no talker," he said. "I'm at a disadvantage. But I got to do the best I can. I want you as much as him, though I can't tell you so good. I'm five years younger. That's something. I'm the strongest man here. That's something, too, in a land where you get right down to tacks. But that ain't what I want to say. If you come to me, you'll be the biggest thing in my life. I ain't had much. I'll work for you as long as I draw breath. All that a man can do for a woman I will do for you!"

The three others scowled at Shand, astonished and a little dismayed that the dumb one should prove so eloquent.

Young Joe plunged into the silence. A particular confidence animated him. With his curly hair, his smooth face, and his herculean young body, he had a kind of reason for it.

He showed off his charms before her as naively as a cock-grouse. But somehow the fire of his eyes and voice was a lighter, flashier blaze than that of the men who had last spoken.

"Sure, they'd be lucky to get you!" he said. "Any of them. Jack is twenty years older than you. Shand and Husky fifteen, anyhow. I guess you want a young husband, don't you? How about me? I'm twenty-four. We're young together. They've had their day. Girls have their own way of picking out what they want. Jack says look us over. I stand by that. Look us over good, and say which one you want."

She deliberately did as he bid her. The suspense was unbearable to them.

"You've heard us all now?" said Jack. "What do you say?"

Bela was the picture of indifference.

"There's anot'er man here," she said.

Jack stared. "Another? Who? Oh, the cook! He ain't one of us. He ain't got nothing but the shirt on his back!"

Bela shrugged. "You say you want mak' all fair. Let me hear what he got say."

Here was an unexpected turn to the situation. They glowered at her with increasing suspicion and anger. Was it possible there was a dark horse in the race?

"If you want him, I guess you can say so right out, can't you?" growled Jack.

Bela tossed her head. "I not want him," she said quickly. "I jus' want hear what he got say."

It was difficult for them to think of the despised grub-rider in the light of a rival, so they decided it was just a freak of coquettishness in Bela.

"All right," said Jack. "Anything to oblige." Turning, he opened the door and shouted for Sam.

Sam presently appeared, tousled and flushed with sleep, his blue eyes scornfully resentful.

"What do you want now?" he demanded. "You made me lose sleep last night."

"Well," said Jack, "all that is over. We're askin' Bela here to choose between us and settle the thing for good. We've all said our say, but she allowed she wanted to hear what the cook had to offer before she closed. Speak up."

Sam was efficaciously startled into wakefulness. He became very pale, and fixed Bela with a kind of angry glare. It seemed to him like a horrible burlesque of something sacred. He hated her for allowing it. He did not reflect that she might not have been able to prevent it. She did not look at him.

"Do I understand right?" he said stiffly. "You're all proposing to her in a body?"

"That's right," said Jack. "And out of goodness of heart she gives you a chance, too."

Sam's jaw snapped together, and his mouth became a hard line.

"Much obliged," he said. "I resign my chance. I'm not looking for a wife." He went back into the house.

It was not what the other men expected to hear. Suspecting an insult to the object of their own desires, they turned on him angrily. They would never have allowed him to have her, but neither should he turn her down.

"And a good thing for you, too!" cried Joe.

"By George, I've a good mind to thrash him for that!" muttered Jack.

His attention was attracted in the other direction by a laugh from Bela. It had anything but a merry sound, but their ears were not sharp enough to detect the lack. Bela's nostrils were dilated, and her lip oddly turned back. But she laughed.

"He is fonny cook!" she said. "I got laugh!"

"Oh, never mind him!" said Big Jack. "He doesn't count! What is your answer?"

Bela stopped laughing. "Well, I got think about it," she said. "I tell you to-morrow."



CHAPTER VIII

THE LITTLE MEADOW

The situation at Nine-Mile Point was not improved by the wholesale proposal for Bela's hand. The twenty-four hours she required for her answer promised to be hard to get through.

The interim of waiting for a lady to make up her mind is sufficiently trying on a man's nerves under the most favourable circumstances; but to be obliged to endure the company of all his rivals meanwhile was almost too much.

Breakfast was eaten in a dangerous electrical silence. No man dared to speak of what was in every man's mind, and to make trivial conversation was impossible under that atmospheric pressure.

Afterward, when Bela announced her intention of going away for a while, every man, much as he desired her company, felt relieved, and no word was spoken to stay her departure.

They let her go without so much as looking out to see which way she went. As a matter of fact, nobody was willing to let anybody else look; therefore, he could not look himself.

Thereafter they breathed more freely. At least, they were all in the same boat. They were not under the intolerable strain of watching every look of her eyes and interpreting every word she spoke for a sign.

The worst they had to look forward to was one more day of unutterable boredom. Each man was buoyed up by the hope that it might be the last of such days for him.

Sam went about his work with a wooden face and a sore and angry heart. He was not much of a self-analyst. He called Bela all manner of hard names to himself, without stopping to ask why, if she were such a worthless creature, he should feel so concerned about her.

A woman who took her pleasure in provoking four men to the point of murder was not worth bothering about, he told himself a hundred times; but he continued to be very much bothered.

"I'll never let her get me on her hook!" he cried inwardly—meanwhile the hook was in his gills!

After he had given the men their dinner he, too, went away from camp, bent upon his own devices. No one paid any attention to him.

A couple of hundred yards east of the shack a good-sized creek emptied into the lake. The stones of the shore offered a barrier to its path, over which it tumbled musically. Farther inland it pursued a slower, deeper course.

Ascending its bank, in about a quarter of a mile one found it issuing out of a lovely little meadow, through which it meandered crookedly, its course marked out by willow bushes.

The meadow was Sam's objective. He had often been there before. It was about a quarter of a mile long, and no more than a good stone's throw across from pines to pines. Though the level of the ground was several feet above the creek, the ground, like the creek bottoms generally, was spongy and damp, with dry islands here and there.

The grass was amazingly luxuriant. Drenched in the strong sunlight, and hemmed all around by the secretive pines, the place was the very picture of a cheerful retreat. Silent, strong-winged water-fowl frequented it, and more than once Sam had caught a glimpse of a noble figure of a moose stepping out from among the trees.

Sam, ever anxious to learn the lore of the country, was experimenting in trapping muskrats. Finding a couple of the little beasts snared and drowned at the doors of their own dwellings, he set to work to skin them. His inexperienced fingers made a mess of the job.

He was sitting thus occupied on the edge of a little cut-bank, with his feet hanging over. A clump of willows flanked him on either side. The clear waters of the brook eddied sluggishly a few inches under his feet.

In the middle of his bloody task, something caused him to look over his shoulder, and there, not twenty feet from him, peering through the willows, he saw Bela.

From a variety of causes, he blushed to the roots of his hair. For one thing, he was thinking bitterly of her at that very moment; for another, he saw, or imagined he saw, scorn in her eyes for his clumsy handiwork upon the muskrat.

He hastily tossed the little carcass into the water, and then regretted having done so.

"What are you spying on me for?" he demanded hotly.

The word was strange to Bela, but the tone conveyed its sense. She promptly took fire from his heat.

Showing herself proudly, she said: "I not know spyin'."

"Following me around," said Sam. "Watching what I do without my knowing."

"I follow you for cause I want talk," said Bela indignantly. "I think maybe you got sense. If you not want talk to me, all right; I go away again. You ain't got sense, I think. Get mad for not'ing."

Sam was a little ashamed.

"Well—I'm sorry," he muttered. "What did you want to talk about?"

She did not immediately answer. Coming closer, she dropped to her knees on the little hummock of dry earth.

"I show you how to skin him, if you want," she suggested, pointing to the other muskrat.

Sam swallowed his pride. "All right, go head," he replied.

Cutting off the paws of the little animal and making an incision over his broadest end, she deftly rolled back the skin, and drew it off inside out over his head like a glove.

Then cutting a willow stem beside her, she transformed it with two half cuts into a little spring-frame, over which she drew the late muskrat's over-coat. The whole operation did not consume five minutes.

"Easy enough when you know how," admitted Sam sheepishly.

"Hang it up to dry," she said, handing it over.

They stretched in the grass side by side, and, hanging over the edge, washed their hands in the creek. A silence fell upon them. Each was waiting for the other to speak. Sam was trying to resist a great tenderness that threatened to undermine all his fortifications.

Finally he asked again: "What was it you wanted to talk about?"



Bela was not yet ready to answer. She threw up little cascades of water with her hands. Sam, watching, was suddenly struck by the fact that they were not at all like ordinary hands.

This was the first pair of hands he had ever distinguished in his life. They were most beautiful objects, the backs ivory coloured, the palms and finger-tips a lovely dusky pink. They were useful hands, too—thin, strong, nervous. Watching them play in the water, he forgot the argument going on inside him.

"You not mad wit' me now?" murmured Bela softly.

This reminded him that he had every reason to be angry with her—though he had temporarily forgotten the reasons. He turned his face away, frowning, blushing again, the picture of anger. It was partly directed against himself, that he should have so little self-command.

"No!" he replied stiffly.

"Then why you mak' wrinkles in your face to me?" asked Bela.

"Ah, cut it out!" he said, exasperated. "Never mind my face! What did you want to say?"

"I can't say it when I think you mad," murmured Bela.

"I'm not," said Sam. "I want to be your friend," he added. "You can't always regulate your face."

There was another silence. Bela studied his averted face with a curious wistfulness. He was very difficult to handle.

"You want to see my cache?" she asked abruptly, at last. "Where I stay?"

Sam's heart leaped up. Old Prudence shook his staff in vain. "Yes, if you like," he said breathlessly, scowling harder than ever.

She scrambled to her feet. "Stay here," she said. "I come back soon."

She disappeared around the willows without vouchsafing any further explanation. Sam lay as she left him, scowling at the water, very much confused as to his internal sensations.

As it happened before, no sooner was the intoxication of her presence removed than he began to berate himself for his weakness.

"Weak as water!" he mentally scolded himself. "Just because she's pretty, you forget every blame thing! There's a whole lot of funny business about her that needs explaining. But you swallow it whole. What business have you got fooling with any girl, anyhow? You've got other problems to solve. For God's sake, take a brace!"

As he was communing with himself in this fashion, the graceful prow of a dugout poked itself around a bend of the little grass-fringed canal below. Presently followed, kneeling in the stern, Bela with her quiet face and glowing eyes, wielding a paddle with inimitable grace.

She floated toward him noiselessly, bringing the boat's nose this way and that with deft turns of the wrist. She was as harmonious against the background of brown water and green grass as a wild duck.

It was such an intimate, cosy little stream; the grassy banks seemed to embrace the canoe as they let it pass. So charming was the sight that Sam forgot his prudence and broke into a beaming smile.

She brought her little craft to a stop before him.

"Get in," she said, pointing to the bow. "Tak' care!"

It was Sam's first experience with a native craft. It looked cranky. He let himself carefully over the bank on his stomach. Finding the floor of the dugout with his feet, he gingerly stood up. It staggered alarmingly under him, and he hastily embraced the bank again, unhappily conscious of a lack of dignity.

A great piece of the sod came away in his hands. He lost his balance and was catapulted overboard. He landed in the water in a sitting position, wearing an absurd expression of surprise. Bela, seeing what was coming, saved herself from a like fate by throwing herself forward in the canoe.

Sam's streaming head emerged from the creek with the same look of surprise on his face. The water reached to his waist. Bela looked at him, and went off into a rippling peal of laughter.

Sam blinked and scowled and dashed the water out of his eyes. His face offered a study in varying expressions. At first he tried to laugh with her, but her laughter was intolerable. Suddenly he exploded:

"Ah, cut it out! Sounds like a chicken!"

The angrier he got the harder Bela was obliged to laugh. It had an apologetic ring, but the tears rolled down her cheeks.

Sam began to think she had done it on purpose, and said so.

"No! No!" gasped Bela. She pointed across the creek. "Shallow there. You can step in easy."

Sam, full of dignity, waded out and started home.

Bela was suddenly sobered. "Wait!" she cried. "Ain't you comin' wit' me?"

He affected not to hear her.

"I sorry I laugh," she said, genuinely distressed. "But—but you look so fonny!" The unruly laughter threatened to escape her again. "Please come back, Sam."

"I can't come like this, can I?" he said scornfully.

"Sure!" she said. "I mak' good fire. You soon dry off."

He gradually allowed himself to be persuaded. Finally, with dignity somewhat marred by his bedraggled appearance, he took his place very gingerly in the bow. Bela bit her lips to keep the laughter in.

"I not want to laugh," she said naively. "Somesing inside mak' me. Your face look so fonny when you sit down in the water! Laka bear when him hear a noise—oh!"

Sam glowered in silence.

She exerted herself to charm away the black looks. "See papa mus'rat," she said, pointing. "Sit so stiff under the leaves, think we see not'ing. Sit up wit' hands on his stomach lak little ol' man and look mad. Look lak Musq'oosis."

Meanwhile she was nosing the dugout cleverly around the grassy bends of the tiny stream and under the willows. It was like a toy boat on a fairy river. Sometimes the willows interlaced overhead, making a romantic green tunnel to be explored.

Finally, as they drew near the woods at the head of the meadow, she turned her boat into a narrow backwater starred with little lilies, and drove it forward till it grounded as snugly as a ship in its berth.

Leading the way up the grassy bank, she pushed under the willows and introduced Sam into a veritable Titania's bower, completely encircled by the springing bushes. This was her cache.

Her blankets lay neatly rolled within a tarpaulin. There was her grub-box with stones upon the cover to keep out four-footed prowlers. Her spare moccasins were hanging from the branches to dry.

She made Sam sit down, in a patch of goodly sunshine, and in a jiffy had a crackling fire of dry willow blazing before him. He took off his coat and hung it to dry.

"Tak' off your shirt, too," she said. "Dry quicker."

Sam shook his head, blushing.

"Go on," she said coolly. "I guess you got ot'er shirt on, too."

The blue flannel shirt joined the coat beside the fire.

She handed him a towel to dry his hair with. Afterward she produced a comb.

"I comb your hair nice," she said.

Sam started away in a panic and held out his hand for the comb. Bela let him have it with a regretful look at the thick, bright hair. She started to brew tea.

"Don't be mad wit' me for 'cause I laugh," she said cajolingly. "Some tam, maybe, I fall in water. I let you laugh all you want."

He looked at her startled. He dared not glance forward at any future with her. Nevertheless, in spite of himself, he was relenting. He would have relented quicker had she not continually put him out of conceit with himself by making him blush. Naturally, he blamed her for that.

Meanwhile there was delicious bodily comfort in sitting under shelter of the willows, warmed on the outside by the generous sunshine and the crackling fire, and made all mellow within by hot tea. The corners of his mouth began to turn up.

His curiosity concerning her was still active. Remembering something she had said before, he asked: "Who is Musgooses?"

She smiled at his pronunciation.

"Musq'oosis," she corrected. "That name mean little bear. He is my friend. He friend to my fat'er, too. He is little. Got crooked back. Know everything."

"Where do you live, Bela?" he asked.

"Over the lake by Hah-wah-sepi," she answered readily. On second thought, she corrected the statement. "No; before I am live there. My mot'er live there. Now I live where I am. Got no home. Got no people."

"But if your mother lives there, that's your home, isn't it?" said Sam the respectable.

Bela shrugged. "She got stay wit' her 'osban'," she replied. "He no good. He w'at you call 'obo!"

"What did you leave for?" asked Sam.

She frowned at the difficulty of explaining this in English. "Those people are poor an' foolish, an' dirty people," she said. "They not lak me ver' moch. I not lak them ver' moch. Only my mot'er. But I am live there before for 'cause I not know not'ing. Well, one day I hit my fat'er wit' a stick—no, hit my mot'er's 'osban' wit' a stick. So my mot'er tell me my fat'er a white man. Her fat'er white man, too. So I mos' white. So I go 'way from those people."

"But you've got to have some home—somebody to live with!" said Sam anxiously.

She glanced at him through her lashes. She shrugged. "Musq'oosis tell me what to do," she said simply. "He is my friend."

Sam in his concern for her situation forgot himself.

"I—I'd like to be your friend, too," he stammered.

Bela smiled at him dazzlingly. "I lak hear you say that," she returned simply.

They fell silent, mutually embarrassed, but not unhappy. There was something both delightful and dangerous in their proximity within that secret circle. The eyes of both confessed it.

"Will you eat?" asked Bela, "I have bread and fish."

He shook his head. "I have to go soon," he replied with a glance at the sun.

Her face fell. "I lak feed anybody come to my place," she said wistfully.

"Oh, well, go ahead," assented Sam, smiling.

She hastened to prepare a simple meal. Self-consciousness did not trouble her if she might be busy. Sam loved to follow her graceful movements by the fire. What harm? he asked the watch-dog within. This dog had grown drowsy, anyhow.

Bela's curiosity in turn began to have way.

"Where you live before you come here, Sam?" she asked.

"In a city. New York. It isn't real living."

"I know a city!" she exclaimed. "Musq'oosis tell me. They got houses high as jack-pines. Windows wide as a river. At night a thousand thousand moons hang down to give the people light."

"Right!" said Sam. "What would you say to a sky-scraper I wonder?"

"What is sky-scraper?"

"Like fifty houses piled up one on top of the other, and reaching to the sky."

Bela pouted. "You mak' fun I think because I know not'ing."

"Honest to goodness!" he swore.

"What good to be so high?" she asked. "High roof no good."

"There are different floors inside. Fifty of them."

"How do people get to the top?"

"In an elevator. Kind of box you get into. Whiz, up she goes like that!"

Bela's face showed strong incredulity. She let the subject drop.

"You got fat'er, mot'er out there, Sam?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Both dead."

"You got no people 'tall?" she asked, quick with sympathy.

"Brothers," he said grimly. "Three of them. They don't think much of me."

One question followed another, and the time flew by. They were making famous progress now. They ate. Afterward Sam stretched out in the grass with his hands under his head, and told his story freely.

"Gad, what a relief to talk!" he said. "I haven't really opened up since we left Prince George. Those fellows, they're all right in their way, but pretty coarse. We don't hit it off much. I keep mum to avoid trouble."

"I lak hear you talk," murmured Bela softly.

"My brothers are all a lot older than I," Sam went on. "I was the baby of the family. It's considerable of a handicap to a kid. They baby you along until after you're grown up, then all of a sudden they expect you to stand alone.

"I was always a kind of misfit somehow. I never knew why then. I lack an instinct all other fellows seem to have to hang together and boost each other along. School seemed like such a silly affair to me; I wouldn't learn. In business afterward it was worse.

"My brothers took me up one after another. They're all well-to-do. One is president of an electric-light plant, one is a corporation lawyer, the other runs a big store. Keen on business, all of them. I tried to make good with each one, honest I did. But I sickened in offices. My brain seemed to turn to mush. Impossible for me to get up any interest in business.

"So I got passed along from one to another. Naturally, they thought I was no good. I thought so, too. A dog's life! Their wives, that was worse. All regular rich men's wives, crazy about society and all that, and having things better than the neighbours. Do you understand what I mean?"

"No," Bela confessed. "Some day I will. Don' stop. I lak hear it all."

"Well, me with my untidy clothes, I was a thorn in the side of those ladies. Visibly turned up their noses when I came around. One day after a big row with my eldest brother I just walked off. I've been regularly up against it ever since. Just a year ago. Seems more like ten. I've lived a thousand lives.

"You take a big baby like I was and throw him on the world—well, he won't have to go to hell to find out what it's like! I've learned in one year what most fellows take twenty to soak in. Now I'm beginning to see light, to get solid ground under my feet. Of course, I haven't got anything yet"—Sam smiled here—"but I know what I want."

"What you want?" asked Bela quickly.

"To live a natural life. I've found out that is what I was made for. Anything all laid out and regular like school or business simply floors me. I want a little piece of land of my own, all my own. I'll build my own house on it and raise my own grub. I want to do what I want without anybody else's say-so. That way I feel I can make good. The idea is to build up something that you can see grow."

"All alone?" asked Bela with a casual air.

Sam's heart missed a beat, then overtook it.

"I like to be alone," he said quickly. "That's what I came up here for. I have made up my mind to it. I don't get along well with people."

Bela was silent.



CHAPTER IX

BELA'S ANSWER

From time to time Bela glanced narrowly at Sam through her lashes. He presented a terrific problem to one of her inexperience. She found this friendly interchange delightful, but was it all?

She had no feeling of being a woman to him. She began to feel a great dissatisfaction. An imperious instinct urged her to sting him out of his comfortable disregard of her sex. Her opportunity came when Sam said:

"You have never told me what it was you wanted to talk to me about."

"All those men want marry me," she said off-hand.

It was instantly effective. Sam sat up abruptly and stared at her in astonishment. Was she, after all, the evil woman he had first thought? Had he been deceitfully lulled into security? She repeated her statement. His face hardened.

"So I gathered," he replied sarcastically.

Bela was secretly pleased by the effect. "What you think 'bout it?" she asked.

"I don't think anything about it," he answered with an angry flash.

"I not know what to tell them," said Bela. It had a faint theatrical ring, which might have suggested to a discriminating ear that she was not being altogether candid.

Sam obstinately closed his mouth.

"Which you lak best?" she asked presently, "the big one, the black one, the red one, yo'ng one?"

A great discomposure seized upon Sam. Anger pounded at his temples, and insane words pressed to his tongue. He put on the clamps. "What I think is neither here nor there," he said stiffly. "It's up to you to make your own choice. Why drag me into it?"

"You say you want be friend," explained Bela. "So I think you help me."

"Nobody can help you in a matter of this kind," said Sam. "Lord, you talk like a wooden man!" Something whispered to him while he said it.

"Why?" she asked with one of her sidelong looks.

Again his eyes flashed on her in angry pain. God! Was the woman trying to madden him?

"A girl must make her own choice," his tongue said primly.

"But you could tell me about them, which is the best man. How do I know?"

This on the face of it seemed like a reasonable request, but his breast still passionately rebelled.

"Well, I won't!" he snapped. "If that's all you want to talk about I'd better go."

"Is Big Jack a good man?" she persisted.

Sam got up.

"No, don't go!" she cried quickly. "I'll be good. I don't know why you always mad at me."

Neither did Sam himself know. He looked at her dumbly with eyes full of pain and confusion. He sat down again.

For a while she made light conversation about muskrats and beavers, but when she thought he was safely settled down, womanlike, she was obliged to return to the forbidden subject.

There was a pain in her breast as well as his. What was the matter with him that he treated her so despite-fully? How else could she find out what was in his heart but by making him lose his temper?

"Maybe I tak' Big Jack," she remarked casually.

"All right," returned Sam bitterly.

"He's the richest."

"A regular woman's reason," said Sam. "I wish you joy."

Would nothing move him? Bela felt as if she were beating with her hands on a rock. "What do you care?" she asked insolently. Both voices rang with bitterness now.

"I don't care."

She sneered.

"What you get mad for?"

Sam's endurance gave way. He sprang up.

"It's rotten!" he cried. "The whole business! That's what makes me mad! Have you no shame, setting a whole camp of men against each other like that? And coolly talking over which one you'll take! I tell you it'll likely end in murder. Maybe you'd like that. Give you quite a send-off, eh? Well, you can't drag me into it. I like a different kind of woman."

Bela was no tame spirit. Anger answered anger. She faced him pale and blazing-eyed.

"No woman want you, anyhow!" she cried. "You cook! You only half a man! You too scared to fight for a woman! You only talk! Go away from me! I tak' a man for my 'osban'!"

Sam, beside himself with rage, stepped forward and raised his clenched fist over her head. Bela laughed in his face. Suddenly he seemed to see himself from the outside, and was filled with blank horror.

Turning, he snatched up his coat and shirt, and crashed blindly away through the willows.

"Go and do your cookin'!" Bela cried after him.

Bela's cache was on the opposite side of the creek from the men's cabin. The only place where Sam could cross without getting another wetting was by the stepping-stones near the lake. He headed for the pines where the going was better and encircled the edge of the meadow.

A great turmoil was going on within him. He was aghast at the gust of passion that had drowned all his senses for a moment. He had not known he contained such possibilities. To come so near to striking a woman! Horrible!

Naturally, he did not fail to blame her. A devil—to provoke men to such a pitch of madness! Well, he was done with her. Anyhow, he had seen her now in her true colours. She was no good! There could be no further argument about that. If he ever had anything to do with her let him be called a soft-headed fool!

Forcing his way blindly through the underbrush, stumbling over roots, and plunging into holes, he completed his detour around the meadow. As he came out beside the ford he heard his name called urgently.

"Sam! Sam!"

Notwithstanding his anger, and in the very act of the brave vows he was taking, the voice found his heart like a bullet. He stopped dead with hanging arms and looked strickenly in the direction whence it came.

Presently the dugout came flying around a bend in the creek above. She landed at the head of the little rapids, and ran toward him. He waited with sombre eyes.

She stopped at three paces distance, afraid to come closer. The savage had disappeared. Her face was all softened with emotion.

"Sam, I sorry I call names," she said very low. "That was my madness speaking out of my mouth. I not think those things in my heart. Please forget it."

His eyes bored her through and through.

"Another trick to get you going?" the voice inside him asked.

"Don' look at me lak that," she faltered.

"How do I know what to believe?" Sam said harshly. "You say so many things."

"I jus' foolin' 'bout those ot'er men," she said. "I not marry one of them. I sooner jump in the lak'."

A secret spring of gladness spurted up in Sam's breast. "Do you mean that?" he demanded.

"I mean it," she replied.

He gazed at her, strongly desiring to believe, but suspicious still. His slower nature could not credit such a rapid change of front.

"Don' look at me lak that," she said again. "W'at you want me do?"

"Go away," he said.

She looked at him, startled.

"If you're in earnest about not wanting to make trouble," he said harshly, "you've got to go without seeing any of them again."

Her eyes were full of trouble. "You tell me go away?" she whispered.

Sam winced. "I haven't got anything to do with it," he said. "It's up to you."

He was more than ever inexplicable to her.

"What you goin' do?" she asked.

"I?" he replied, nettled. "I'm going up to the head of the lake with the bunch, of course."

There was a painful silence, while Bela sought vainly in her mind for the explanation of his strange attitude. An instinct told her he loved her, but she could not make him say it.

"You think I bad girl, Sam," she murmured.

"How do I know what you are?" he asked harshly. "Here's your chance to prove to me that you're on the square."

"I got go 'way to mak' you think I all right?"

"Yes," he answered eagerly.

"You fonny man, I think," she murmured sadly.

"Can't you see it?" he cried.

"No," she said. "But I goin' do what you tell me. I go to-night."

"Ah, that's right!" he said with a curious look of gratitude in his pain-haunted eyes.

Bela waited for him to say more—but waited in vain. For herself she would quickly have told him she loved him, had not her tongue been tied by Musq'oosis's positive instructions. And so the unhappy silence continued between them.

"Maybe somebody come this way," said Bela at last. "Mak' trouble. Come up by my boat."

Sam shook his head. "I've got to go back to camp now."

"You not see me again. You got not'ing say to me?" asked Bela despairingly. Her hand sought his.

Sam's instincts sprang up in alarm. "What could I say?" he cried. "What good would it do? Good-bye!" Snatching his hand out of hers, he retreated over the stones, refusing to look back.

* * * * *

When Sam entered the shack Joe faced him, scowling. "Where you been?" he demanded.

Sam, in no humour to be meek, made the time-honoured rejoinder.

"I'll soon make it my business," retorted Joe. "With that, see?" showing a clenched fist. "Have you been with Bela?"

Sam, because of the threat, disdained to lie. "Yes," he said coolly.

Joe whirled about to the others. "Didn't I tell you?" he cried excitedly. "I heard her calling him. There's underhand work here. He's hid the guns on us."

"Do you know where she's hid?" demanded Big Jack.

Sam did not feel any necessity of returning a truthful answer to this. "No," he said. "She came on me when I was visiting my muskrat traps."

"You're lying!" cried Joe. "I'll smash you, anyhow, on the chance of it."

Big Jack stepped between them.

"I'm running this show," he said grimly. To Sam he said: "I strike no man without warning. I warn you now. This is a man's affair. We won't stand no interference from cooks. You keep out. If you don't, God help you, that's all!"

"And if he leaves you," added Joe, "I'll croak you myself with as little thought as I'd pinch a flea!"

"Get the supper," said Jack.

Sam clenched his teeth, and did not speak again.

* * * * *

In the middle of the night Sam awoke in the shack with a weight on his breast, and, sitting up in his blankets, looked about him. The dying embers of the fire cast a faint light on the figures of his three companions lying on the floor beside him. Husky still had the sole use of the bed.

The cabin roof rang with a grotesque chorus of snores. Sam's gorge rose. The air was tainted. He looked at the recumbent figures with a curling lip. Was it hate that had awakened him? He had put up in silence with so much at their hands!

An oblique ray of moonlight struck through the window over his head, luring him like a song. He softly got up, and, gathering up his bed, went outside.

The pines were like a regiment of gigantic soldiers standing at ease under the sky and whispering together while they awaited the word of command. Their fragrance was like a benediction on the air. The moon, low down in the south-east, peeped between the trunks.

At the mouth of the creek where the little rapids poured into a quiet pool there was a bank of sand. This was the general washing-place of the camp.

Sam, thinking of the sand as a promising bed, made his way in that direction by the path they had worn. As he passed around the house a shadow moved from behind a great pine and followed him, flitting noiselessly from tree to tree.

Sam sat down in the sand, nursing his knees. The mouth of the creek was the only spot along shore as yet wholly free of ice. He looked out over the lake through the opening. Under the light of the low moon the water was the colour of freshly cast iron.

Somewhere out upon it Bela was paddling, he thought, if she had not already reached home. His breast relaxed its guard against her a little. He believed she was a pretty fine sort, after all. Had he done the right thing to send her away? She was beautiful enough to make a man's arm ache for her now she had gone.

But on the whole he was glad she was gone. He did not realize it, but his hour had not quite struck. It was a wholesome instinct that made him fight against the overmastering emotions that attacked his heart.

He told himself he couldn't afford to look in that direction. He had work to do first. He had to get a toehold in this land. Some day maybe——

Drowsiness overcame him again. With a sigh he stretched out on the sand and rolled himself in his blankets. His breathing became deep and slow. By and by the coquettish moon peeped between the tree-trunks across the creek and touched his face and his fair hair with a silvery wand. Whereupon it was no longer a mere man; it was young Hermes sleeping beside the water. The shadow stole from among the trees above the sand-bank and crept down to his side. It knelt there with clasped hands. It showed a white face in the moonlight, on which glistened two diamonds.

By and by it rose with energetic action, and still moving noiselessly as a ghost, turned toward the lake, and clambering around the barrier of ice, dropped to the edge of the water on the other side.

Here a dugout was drawn up on the stones, well hidden from the view of any one on shore. She got in and, paddling around the ice, entered the mouth of the creek. Grounding her craft with infinite care on the sand, she groped for a moment in her baggage, then arose and stepped ashore, carrying several long, thin strips of moose-hide.



CHAPTER X

ON THE LAKE

The three men sleeping on the floor of the shack suddenly started up in their blankets.

"What was that?" they asked each other.

"A shout for help," said Jack.

Joe sprang up and opened the door. Some confused sounds from the direction of the creek reached his ears, but he had not enough woodcraft to distinguish them from the legitimate sounds of the night.

The fire was black now. Big Jack struck a match.

"Sam's gone!" he cried suddenly.

Shand felt around the floor with his hands. "His blankets, too!" he added.

"Treachery!" cried Joe with an oath. "You wouldn't believe me before. That's why he hid the guns. Come on, I heard something from the creek."

They pulled on their moccasins and, snatching coats, ran out. Husky remained on the bed, cursing. At the creek-mouth the sand-bank was empty. The last pallid rays of the moon revealed nothing.

They were accustomed to come there many times a day to wash or to draw water, and the welter of foot-prints in the sand gave no clue. Finally Joe, with a cry, pounced on a dark object at the water's edge and held it up. It was Sam's neck handkerchief.

"Here's the mark of a boat, too, in the sand," he cried. "I knew it! Gone together in her boat!"

"It was a man's voice I heard," objected Jack. "What for would he want to cry out?"

"Wanted to give us the laugh when he saw his get-a-way clear," said Joe bitterly. "Oh, damn him!"

"As soon as it's light——" muttered Shand, grinding his teeth.

"What'll you do then?" demanded Joe.

"I'll get him!" said the quiet man.

"We have no boat."

"Boat or no boat."

"Oh, you're going to do great things. He belongs to me."

Shand sneered. "Take it out on him with your tongue."

Joe replied with a torrent of abuse.

Big Jack laughed a harsh note.

"You fools!" he said. "Both of you. What do you think you're going to do so big? She's given us an answer sooner than we expected, that's all. If she prefers a cook to a man, that's her affair. All we got to do is shut up. I'm going back to the shack."

They would not confess the reasonableness of Jack's words. "Go where you like," muttered Shand. "I'll stick by myself."

Jack strode back along the path. Joe followed him, merely because he was one of those natures who will choose an enemy's company sooner than face the prospect of being left with his own.

They left Shand to his own devices. Husky greeted them with eager questions. Joe cursed him, and Jack clenched his teeth upon the stem of his pipe in grim silence.

They revived the fire and sat in front of it. Each man was jealous of his own rage and pain and refused to share it. Joe and Husky bickered in a futile way. Big Jack, in spite of his philosophic protestations, kept the tail of an eye on the whitening window-pane. In the end he rose abruptly. Joe followed suit as a matter of course.

Jack turned on him, snarling. "Have I got to be followed by you like a dog everywhere I go?"

"What's the matter with you?" retorted Joe. "Do you own the whole out of doors?"

Jack halted outside the door. "You take one way; I'll go the other," he said grimly.

Jack returned to the creek, and crossing on the stepping-stones walked out on the point beyond and sat down on a boulder. From here he could see a long way down the lake shore.

At this season in the latitude of Caribou night is brief. The sun sinks but a little way below the horizon, and a faint glow hovers over his head all night, travelling around the northern horizon to the east, where it heralds his reappearance.

It was light in the east now and the lake was stepping into view. Big Jack searched its misty expanse with his keen little eyes.

By and by as the light strengthened, looking down-shore he saw a tiny, dark object steal beyond the next point and become silhouetted against the grey. There could be no doubt of what it was. The lust of pursuit flamed up in the man's heart. He forgot his prudent advice to his mates.

"Making for the foot of the lake," he thought. "And the wind's against them. It's rising. I could easy ride around the shore and cut them off."

He got up and made his way with energetic action back to the stable.

He had no sooner picked up a saddle than Joe came in. They looked each other over without speaking. Joe made for another saddle.

"You're free to go where you want," said Jack grimly. "I've only got to say I choose to ride alone."

"I don't care how you ride," retorted Joe. "Keep out of my business, that's all."

They saddled their horses in silence.

Joe said at last with a sneer: "Thought you told us to sit down and shut up."

Jack's face flamed suddenly.

"I promised him a beating if he interfered and, by God, I mean to give it to him before her eyes. That's what she's got to take if she picks a cook!"

He fixed Joe with blazing eyes. "And if any man comes between me and my promise, I'll take him first! As for the girl, she can go her way. I wouldn't take her for a gift!"

Joe laughed unpleasantly.

As Jack started to lead his horse out of the stable, he saw what he had not before noticed—several guns leaning in a corner of the stable. His eyes lighted up.

"Where did they come from?" he demanded, choosing his own.

"Shand found them under the sods of the stable roof," said Joe.

"Where is Shand?"

"He has already taken a horse and gone."

* * * * *

Sam was awakened by being violently rolled over on the sand. He felt human hands upon him, but he could not see his enemy. He struggled with a will, but his limbs were confined by the blanket. A heavy body knelt upon his back, and fetters were pulled around him, binding his arms and his legs inside the blanket.

It was then that he shouted lustily. It was cut short by a cotton gag in his mouth. He was ignominiously rolled down the sand to the water's edge. What with the darkness and the confusion of his faculties still, he could not see who had attacked him.

Inert as a log, he was lifted up, dragged away, and finally dropped in a boat. His captor stood away from him, panting. Sam rolled over on his back and saw—Bela.

For a moment he was paralyzed by astonishment—a woman to dare so! Without looking at him she quickly took her place in the stern and pushed off. Suffocating rage quickly succeeded his first blankness. Unable to move or to utter a sound, his heart nearly broke with it.

The black traitress! After all her professions of friendliness! After making her eyes so soft and her voice so sweet! She was worse than his ugliest suspicions had painted! He did not stop to guess why he had been attacked. She was his enemy. That was enough.

Sounds reached them from the direction of the shack, and Bela, lowering her head, paddled swiftly and silently for the point. Her face showed only a dim oval in the failing light. But there was grim resolution in its lines.

Only once did she open her lips. Sam was frantically twisting in his bonds, though owing to his position on the keel of the dugout he did not much threaten her stability.

Bela whispered: "If you turn us over you drown quick."

Angry as he was, the suggestion of being plunged into the lake bound hand and foot reached him with no little force. Thereafter he lay still, glaring at her.

They had no more than rounded the point when they heard the men come running down to the creek. Bela continued to hug the shore. They were soon swallowed in the murk. The moon went down.

By and by the first rays of light began to spread up the sky from the eastern horizon, and the earth seemed to wake very softly and look in that direction.

With the light came a breath from the east, cool as a hand on the brow of fever. Twittering of sleepy chickadees were heard among the pines, and out in the lake a loon laughed.

Day came with a swoop up the lake. The zephyr became a breeze, the breeze half a gale. The leaden sheet of water was torn into white tatters, and the waves began to crash on the ice-rimmed shore, sending sheets of spray into the trees, and making it impossible for Bela to land had she wished to.

This was a hard stroke of luck against her. She would have been out of sight of the point by the time it was fully light, had it not been for the head wind.

The dugout leaped and rolled like an insane thing. Having a well-turned hull, she kept on top, and only spray came over the bow. To Sam, who could see only the sky, the mad motion was inexplicable.

His anger gave place to an honest terror. If anything happened, what chance did he stand? Bela's set, sullen face told him nothing. Her eyes were undeviatingly fixed on a point a few feet ahead and to the right of the bow. Twisting her paddle this way and that, she snaked the dugout over the crests.

Though she seemed to pay no attention to him, she must have guessed what was passing in Sam's mind. Without taking her eyes from that point ahead where the waves came from, she felt in a bundle before her and drew out a knife. Watching her chance, she swiftly leaned forward and cut the bonds around his legs. When another lull came she cut his arms free.

"Move careful," she said, without looking at him.

Sam did not need the warning. The icy quality of the spray in his face filled him with a wholesome respect for the lake. He cautiously worked his arms free of the blanket, and, raising himself on his elbows, looked over the gunwale. He saw the waves come tumbling clumsily toward them and gasped.

It seemed like a miracle the little craft had survived so long. One glance at the shore showed him why they could not land. He fell back, and his hands flew to the knot behind his head. He tore off the gag and threw it overboard. Bela looked at him for the fraction of a second.

"Well, what's your game?" he bitterly demanded. "It's pretty near ended for both of us. I hope you're satisfied. You savage!"

Bela's eyes did not swerve again from that point ahead. In one respect she was a savage; that was the extraordinary stolidity she could assume. For all the attention she gave him he might have been the wind whistling.

At first it fanned his anger outrageously. He searched his mind for cruel taunts to move her. It was all wasted. She paddled ahead like a piece of the boat itself, now pausing a second, now driving hard, as those fixed, wary eyes telegraphed automatically to her arms.

One cannot continue to rail at a wooden woman. Her impassivity finally wore him out. He fell silent, and covered his face with an arm that he might not have to look at her. Besides, he felt seasick.

East of Nine-Mile Point the lake shore makes in sharply, forming the wide, deep bay which stretches all the way to the foot of the lake where Musquasepi, the little river, takes its rise. The stony, ice-clad shores, backed by pines, continued for a mile or so, then gave place to wide, bare mud-flats reaching far inland.

On the flats the ice did not pile up, but lay in great cakes where the receding waters stranded it. This ice was practically all melted now, and the view across the flats was unimpeded. It was nine miles from the point to the intake of the river by water and fifteen miles by land. The trail skirted inside the flats.

Bela kept to the shore until the increasing light made further concealment useless. She then headed boldly across for the river. It was at this time that the wind began to blow its hardest.

She could not tell, of course, if she had yet been discovered from the point. Not knowing the ways of white men, she could not guess if they were likely to pursue.

Under ordinary circumstances with a little start, she could easily have beaten a horse to the river, but the head wind reversed the chances. She might have landed on the flats, but there was not a particle of cover there, and they would have offered a fair mark to any one following by the trail. Moreover, Sam would have run away.

It was too rough for her to hope to escape across the lake in the trough of the sea. So there was nothing for her but to continue to struggle toward the river. A bank of heavy clouds was rising in the east. It was to be a grey day.

After a while Sam looked over the edge again. The dugout seemed scarcely to have moved. They were still but half-way across the wide bay. On the lake side they were passing a wooded island out in the middle. The wind was still increasing. It came roaring up the lake in successive gusts. It was like a giant playing with them in cruel glee before administering the coup de grace. Bela could no longer keep the crests of the waves out. Sam was drenched and chilled.

He stole another look in her face. The imminence of the danger threatening both forced his anger into the background for the moment. She never changed her attitude except occasionally to swing the paddle to the other side of the boat.

At the impact of each gust she lowered her head a little and set her teeth. Her face had become a little haggard and grey under the long continued strain. Sam chafed under his enforced inaction.

"You have another paddle," he said. "Let me help."

"Lie down," she muttered without looking at him. "You don' know how. You turn us over."

He lay in water impotently grinding his teeth. He could not but admire her indomitable courage, and he hated her for being forced to admire her. To be obliged to lie still and let a woman command was a bitter draft to his pride.

A wave leaped over the bow, falling in the dugout like a barrowful of stones. Sam sprang to a sitting position. He thought the end had come. The dugout staggered drunkenly under the additional load. But Bela's face was still unmoved.

"Lean over," she commanded, nodding toward the little pile of baggage between them. "Under the blankets, in the top of the grub-box, my tea-pail."

He found it, and set to work with a will to bail. As fast as he emptied the water, more came in over the bow. The foot of the lake and safety seemed to recede before them. Surely it was not possible a woman could hold out long enough to reach it, he thought, glancing at her.

"Why don't you turn about and run before the wind?" he asked.

"Can't turn now," she muttered. "Wave hit her side, turn over quick."

Sam looked ashore again. For upwards of a furlong off the edge of the flats the breakers were ruling their parallel lines of white. Above all the other noises of the storm the continuous roaring of these waters reached their ears.

"You could land there," he suggested. "What if we did get turned out? It's shallow."

She was not going to tell him the real reason she could not land. "I lose my boat," she muttered.

"Better lose the boat than lose yourself," he muttered sullenly.

Bela did not answer this. She paddled doggedly, and Sam bailed. He saw her glance from time to time toward a certain point inland. Seeing her face change, he followed the direction of her eyes, and presently distinguished, far across the flats, three tiny horses with riders appearing from among the trees.

They were proceeding in single file around the bay. Even at the distance one could guess they were galloping. So that was why she would not land!

Sam did not need to be told who the three riders were. His sensations on perceiving them were mixed. It was not difficult for him to figure what had happened when his absence had been discovered, and he was not at all sure that he wished to escape from his mysterious captor only to fall into those hands.

This line of thought suddenly suggested a possible reason why he had been carried off—but it was too humiliating to credit. He looked at her with a kind of shamed horror. Her face gave nothing away.

By and by Sam realized with a blessed lightening of the heart that the storm had reached its maximum. The gusts were no longer increasing in strength; less water was coming over the bow. Not until he felt the relief was he aware of how frightened he had been.

Bela's face lightened, too. Progress under the cruel handicap was still painfully slow. The wind was like a hand thrusting them back; but every gain brought them a little more under the lee of the land. If Bela's arms held out! He looked at her wonderingly. There was no sign of any slackening yet.

"We not sink now," she said coolly.

"Good!" cried Sam.

In their mutual relief they could almost be friendly.

Bela was heading for the intake of the river. Along the tortuous course of that stream she knew a hundred hiding-places. The land trail followed the general direction of the river, but touched it only at one or two places.

The question was, could she reach the river before the horsemen? Sam watched them, trying to gauge their rate of progress. The horses had at least four miles to cover, while the dugout was now within a mile—but the horses were running.

Sam knew that the trail crossed the river by a ford near the intake from the lake, because he had come that way. If the horsemen cut off Bela at the ford what would she do? he wondered. The outlook was bad for him in either event. He must escape from both parties.

The horsemen passing around the bay became mere specks in the distance. Reaching the foot of the lake they had to cover a straight stretch of a mile and a half to the river. The trail lay behind willows here, and they disappeared from view. It was anybody's race.

Bela, the extraordinary girl, still had a reserve of strength to draw on. As they gradually came under the influence of the windward shore the water calmed down and the dugout leaped ahead.

Sam watched her with a cold admiration, speculating endlessly on what might be going on behind her mask-like face. With all her pluck, what could she hope to gain? Obviously it would be easier to escape from her than from three men, and he began to hope she would win.

They caught no further glimpses of the horsemen, and as they drew closer and closer to the river the tension became acute. Suppose they arrived simultaneously, thought Sam, would the men shoot?

Not Big Jack nor Shand, perhaps, but Joe was not to be trusted. But surely they would see he was a prisoner. Something of the kind must have been passing through Bela's mind. Putting down her paddle for a moment, she threw back the blankets and drew out her gun. It had been carefully protected from the water. She laid it on top convenient to her hand and resumed.

"She's a good plucky one," thought Sam grimly. "As for me, I play a pretty poor part in this affair, whichever way you look at it. A kind of dummy figure, it seems."

So low were its shores that the intake of the river was hidden from them until they were almost in it. Finally it opened up before them, with its wide reaches of sand stretching away on either hand, willows backing the sand, and a pine ridge rising behind the willows.

Here the wind whistled harmlessly over their heads, and the surface of the water was quiet except for the catspaws darting hither and thither. Before entering the river, Bela paused again, and bent her head to listen.

"Too late!" she said. "We can't pass!"

At the same moment the horses burst from behind the willows a quarter of a mile across the sand. They had the ford!

"We can't pass," Bela repeated, and then with a gasp, in which was more of anger than fear, she added: "An' they got guns, too!"



CHAPTER XI

THE ISLAND

Seeing the dugout, the men raised a shout and bore down upon them across the sand. Bela was not yet in the river. She swiftly brought the dugout around and paddled down the lake shore across the river from the men.

They, suspecting her of a design to land on this side, pulled up their horses, and returning to the ford, plunged across. Whereupon Bela coolly paddled out into the lake. By this manoeuvre she was enabled to get out of range of their guns before they got to the water's edge.