Holding her paddle, she turned to watch them. The sounds of their curses came down the wind. They were directed against Sam, not Bela.

Sam smiled bitterly. "I catch it both ways," he muttered.

"You want them catch you?" asked Bela, with an odd look.

Sam scowled at her helplessly.

She rested on her paddle, looking up and down the shore and out on the lake, manifestly debating with herself what to do. To Sam their situation seemed hopeless. Finally Bela took up the paddle with an air of resolution.

"Well, what the devil are you goin' to do?" demanded Sam.

"We go to the island," she answered coolly.

An island! Sam's heart sank. He saw his escape indefinitely postponed. To be kept prisoner on an island by a girl! Intolerably humiliating prospect! How would he ever be able to hold up his head among men afterward?

"What the devil are you up to, anyhow?" he broke out angrily again. "Do you think this will do you any good? What do you expect to gain by it?"

"What you want me do?" asked Bela sullenly, without looking at him.

"Land, and tell them the truth about what happened!"

"They too mad," said Bela. "Shoot you before they listen. Not believe, anyway."

Sam could not deny the reasonableness of this.

"Oh, damn!" he cried impotently. "You've got me into a nice mess! Are you crazy, or just bad? Is it your whole idea to make trouble between men? I've heard of women like that. One would think you wanted —— Say! I'll be likely to thank you for this, won't I? The sight of you is hateful to me!"

Bela made her face like a wall, and looked steadily over his head at her course. There is no satisfaction in flinging words against a wall. Sam's angry voice dwindled to a mutter, then fell silent.

The island lay about a mile offshore. In a chaos of lowering grey sky and torn white water, it seemed to hang like a serene and lovely little world of itself.

The distant shores of the lake were spectral in the whirl of the elements, and the island was the one fixed spot. It was as brilliant as an emerald in a setting of lead. A beach of yellow sand encircled it, with a border of willows, and taller trees sticking up in the middle.

Borne on the shoulders of the great wind, they reached it in a few minutes. Bela paddled under the lee side and landed in quiet water. Sam rose on his chilled and stiffened limbs, and stepping ashore, stood off, scowling at her blackly.

There he was! He knew he couldn't escape alone in that cranky craft; certainly not while the wind blew. Nor could he hope to swim a mile through icy water. He wondered bitterly if ever a man before him had been placed in such a galling position.

Ignoring his black looks, Bela hastened to collect dry sticks.

"I mak' fire and dry everything," she said.

Sam cursed her and strode off around the beach.

"Tak' dry matches if you want fire," Bela called after him.

He would not give any sign that he heard.

He sat down on the other side of the island, as far away as he could get from her. Here he was full in the path of the driving, unwearied wind, which further irritated his exacerbated nerves.

He swore at Bela; he swore at the cold, at the wind, at the matches which went out one after another. He felt that all things animate and inanimate were leagued against him.

Finally, in the lee of some willows, he did get a fire going, and crouched in the smoke, choking and sneezing, as angry and unhappy a specimen of young manhood as might have been found in the world that morning.

Finally he began to dry out, and a measure of warmth returned to his limbs. He got his pipe going, and felt a little less like a nihilist.

Suddenly a new, ugly thought made him spring up. Suppose she took advantage of his absence to steal away and leave him marooned on the island? Anything might be expected of such a woman. He hastened back around the beach.

She had not gone. From a distance he saw her busy by a great fire, with the blankets, and all the goods hanging around to dry.

He squatted behind a clump of willows where he could watch her, himself unseen. Her attitude suggested that she was cooking something, and at the sight hunger struck through him like a knife. Not for worlds would he have asked her for anything to eat.

By and by she arose with the frying-pan in her hand, and looked up and down the beach.

"Oh, Sam!" she called. "Come and eat!"

He laid low, sneering miserably; bent on cutting off his nose to spite his face. He wondered if there were any berries on the island. No, it was too early in the season for berries. Edible roots, maybe. But he wouldn't have known an edible root from any other kind.

After calling awhile, Bela sat down in the sand and proceeded to satisfy her own appetite. Fresh pangs attacked Sam.

"Selfish creature!" he muttered. "That woman is bad through and through!"

She arose and, filling another plate, started toward him, carrying it. Her eyes were following his tracks in the sand. Sam instinctively sprang up and took to his heels.

His cheeks burned at the realization that she would presently discover that he had been sitting there watching her. He had not thought of the tell-tale sand. Wherever he might seek to hide, it would betray him.

He made a complete circuit of the little island, Bela presumably following him. The circumference of the beach was about half a mile. He ran as hard as he could, and presently discovered her ahead of him. He had almost overtaken her.

Thereafter he followed more slowly, keeping her in sight from the cover of the bushes. The secret consciousness that he was acting like a wilful child did not make him any happier.

When he came around to Bela's fire again, seeing the dugout drawn up on the sand, his heart leaped at the chance of escape. If he could push off in it without capsizing, surely, even with his lack of skill, he could drive before the wind. Or even if he could keep it floating under the lee of the island, he could dictate terms.

He waited, hidden, until she passed out of sight ahead, then ran to it. But even as he put his hands on the bow, she reappeared, running back. He fled in the other direction.

The chase went on reversed. He no longer heard her coming behind him. Now he could not tell whether she were in front or behind. He passed the dugout and the camp fire again. No sign of her there. Rounding the point beyond, he came to the place where he had made his own fire.

Trying to keep eyes in every side of his head at once, he walked around a bush and almost collided with her. There she stood with dimpled face, like a child, behind the door.

She burst out laughing. Sam turned beet colour and, scowling like a pirate, tried to carry it off with dignity.

"Don't be mad at me," she begged, struggling with her laughter. "You so fonny, run away. Here's your breakfast. It's cold now. You can bring it to the fire."

There was bread and smoked fish on the plate she was offering. Sam, though his stomach cried out, turned his back on her.

"You got eat," said Bela. "Tak' it."

"Not from you," he returned bitterly.

There was a silence. He could not see how she took it. Presently he heard her put the plate down on the sand and walk off. Her steps died away around the point.

Sam eyed the food ravenously and began to argue with himself. In the end, of course, he ate it, but it went down hard.

* * * * *

The day wore on. It continued to blow great guns. Sam wandered up and down his side of the island, meditating fine but impractical schemes of escape and revenge.

He might get away on a raft, he thought, if the wind changed and blew in a direction favourable to carry him ashore. The trouble was the nights were so short. He might build his raft one night, and escape on it the next. How to keep her from finding it in the meantime offered a problem.

He began to look about in the interior of the island for suitable pieces of dry timber. He could use a blanket for a sail, he thought. This reminded him that his blankets were at least his own, and he determined to go and get them.

Rounding the point, he saw her sitting in the sand, making something with her hands. Though she must have heard him coming, she did not look up until he addressed her. Sam, in his desire to assert his manhood, swaggered a bit as he came up.

She raised a face as bland as a baby's. Sam was disconcerted. Desiring to pick a quarrel, he roughly demanded his blankets. Bela nodded toward where they hung and went on with her work. She was making a trolling spoon.

So much for their second encounter. Sam retired from it, feeling that he had come off no better than from the first.

Later, back on his own side, bored and irritated beyond endurance, he rolled up in his blankets and sought sleep as an escape from his own company.

He slept and dreamed. The roaring of the wind and the beating of the waves wove themselves into his fancies. He dreamed he was engulfed in a murky tempest, He was tossing wildly in a shell of a boat, without oars or sail. Sometimes green and smiling fields appeared close at hand, only to be swallowed up in the murk again.

The noise was deafening. When he endeavoured to shout for aid, his tongue was clamped to his jaw. Behind him was a terror worse than the storm, and he dared not look around. It seemed to him that he struggled for an infinity of time, a hopeless, heart-breaking struggle against increasing odds.

Suddenly the sun broke through, cheering his heart. It was a sun that came down close to him, warming him through and through. It was not a sun. It was a face—a woman's face. At first it was a face he did not know, but beautiful. Then it was Bela's face, and he was glad.

Closer and closer to his own face it drew, and he did not draw away. Finally she touched his lips with hers, and a wonderful sweetness pervaded his whole frame. He awoke.

For a moment he lay blinking, still wrapped in the dream. At any rate, the storm was real. The bushes still thrashed, and the waves beat. Before him stretched the same wide waste of grey water slashed with white.

The sight of the water brought full recollection back. He had been looking at it all day, and he hated it. It was the water that made his prison. He sat up swearing at his dream. It was a fine thing a man should have no better control over his emotions while he slept.

Beside him on the sand lay another tin plate, with bread and fish. Fresh fish this time, half a pink salmon trout lately pulled from the water. Touching the plate he found it warm. Was it possible——

Looking in the sand beside where he had lain he saw the rounded depressions made by two knees, on the other side of him was a hand-print. Sam scowled and violently scrubbed his lips with the back of his hand. Even so, he would not admit to himself that the hateful thing had happened.

Nevertheless he ate the fish.

"I've got to keep my strength up if I'm going to help myself," he excused it.

The sun was hidden, but he knew by that instinct which serves us when we give up mechanical contrivances, that it was no more than noon. Half of this hideous day remained to be got over.

He sat dwelling on his grievances until the top of his head seemed about to fly off. Then he set to work to search for and collect dry logs and stow them under the willows, and in so doing managed to tire himself out.

* * * * *

It was dusk, which is to say nearly ten o'clock, when he awoke from another nap. A silence, astonishing after the day-long uproar, greeted his ears. The wind had gone down with the sun, and the world was enfolded in a delicious peace.

The lake was like a polished floor. Above the tree-tops behind him the sky was still bright, while over across the water sat Night in robes, awaiting her cue. On the island there was not a cheep nor a flutter to break the spell.

Sam wondered idly what had aroused him. He saw with a frown that there was food beside him as before. But it had been there some time. It was cold, and sand had drifted into the plate.

At last he heard the sound which had awakened him. It was a strain of music which came stealing as gently on the air as the first breath of dawn. Sam's breast was like wax to music.

Without thinking what he was doing, he kicked himself free of the blankets, and arose to go closer. It was like a lovely incantation, drawing him irrespective of his will.

He did not instantly recognize the source of the music. It might have been the song of a twilight bird, a thrush, a mocking-bird. He forgot for the moment that there are no song-birds so far north.

Presently he knew it for the voice of a woman singing softly, and a good way off—Bela! Still he did not stop.

"I guess I can listen to her sing without giving anything away," he told himself. But his breast was dangerously seduced by the sweetness of the sound.

As he drew closer the detached notes associated themselves into a regular air. It had nothing in common with the rude, strident chants of the Indians that he had heard on the rivers. It was both familiar and elusive. It was like an air he knew, but with a wild, irregular quality different from our airs. It was mournful, sweet, and artless, and it made the heart swell in his breast.

As he progressed around the beach he saw her fire. It was dark enough now for the blaze to shine. Drawing still closer he saw her beside it, and frowned, remembering his injuries—but the song drew him still.

He began to listen for the words. Suddenly he recognized it—one of the loveliest of old English songs. Evidently it had been transmitted from ear to ear until it had acquired the character of a new race of singers.

He progressed from bush to bush. He wasn't going to have anything to do with her, he would have said, but she could sing. He came to a final stop only a few yards away, and watched her through the leaves with burning eyes. She was in her favourite attitude, sitting on her heels, her strong young back curving in to her swaying waist.

Her hair, all unbound, fell around her in shifting masses like smoke. While she sang she combed it with long strokes, holding her head now on this side, now on that, and ever revealing a lovelier pose of her round arms. The half light lent her an unearthly beauty.

The sight was no less affecting than the sound. A great pain filled Sam's breast, and the old inward struggle dragged him back and forth. She was at once so desirable and so hateful in his eyes. It was the cry of bewildered youth: "What right has anything so bad to be beautiful!"

No doubt of her badness occurred to him. Had she not ruined his chances in that country? The old antagonism was there, the readiness to believe ill of the other sex that is born of mutual fear. She had become the immemorial siren in Sam's eyes, and he was fighting to save his soul. But she was beautiful enough to make a man wish to be damned.

She came to the end of her song, and presently started another, a more rollicking air, but still charged with wistfulness. Who had taught her those hushed, thrilling tones? Sam recognized this air, too, and thought of the mother who had sung it to him years ago.

It was "Twickenham Ferry." Why that of all songs? he wondered rebelliously. It was not fair that she should be armed thus to seek out the weakest joints in his armour.

The desire to stop the song with his own mouth became more than he could bear. The struggle was almost over when she paused and bent her head to listen, and looked up and down the beach.

It broke the spell.

"She's just trying to bring you to her!" Sam told himself, aghast. "That's why her hair is down and all. And you're falling for it, you fool!"

He turned and fled back around the beach.

Whether or not she heard him run away, the song presently ceased, and troubled him no more that night. He returned to his blankets, but not to sleep again.

He built a fire and lay beside it smoking. He drove away the recollection of the disturbing loveliness he had seen by counting over his injuries at her hands, nourishing them and magnifying them in his mind until they filled it to the exclusion of everything else.

It became as dark as it would get. Midnight at that season is no more than an intensified twilight. By and by the moon arose far across the water, looking like an old-fashioned gas-globe, and set sail on her brief voyage low down in the sky from south-east to south-west.

Sam received the friend of lovers with a scowl. He had omitted her from his calculations. "The nights are short enough without that!" he thought.

Thinking of escape, a new idea caused him to sit up suddenly.

"Why bother with a raft?" he thought. "She's got to sleep sometime. If I could sneak around the beach and push the dugout in! No matter how quick she woke once I was afloat. Oh! it would do my heart good to float just out of her reach and tell her a few things. On a night like this I could paddle anywhere. She's got some food and a blanket. Serve her right, anyhow. I could send some one back after her."

To think of it was to desire to put it into instant action. The moon, however, forbade. Sam cursed her again, and sat down to wait with what patience he could muster until it should slowly sink out of sight.

When the bright scimitar edge sunk behind Nine-Mile Point he arose with a beating heart. Making his blankets into a bundle, he took his way once more around the strip of beach, his moccasined feet falling noiselessly on the sand.

It was about two o'clock, and the afterglow had moved around to the north-east. In an hour it would be light again. The island objects loomed twice their size in this dusk of dusk. Sam kept close under the willows to avoid making a silhouette against the sky. As he drew close to Bela's camp he saw that her fire was out, from which he argued that she had been asleep for some time.

Coming nearer still, he made out the form of the dugout against the pale sand. Bela had drawn it up higher, and had turned it over. Still hugging the willows, he paused, looking for her resting-place. He could not see her. He supposed she had made her bed under the willows behind her fire. He dared not approach to make sure. Likely she was a light sleeper.

Following man's first instinct, he bent double, and crept across the open sand to the dugout. It lay on its side, the bottom turned toward him.

His heart was beating like a steam hammer. If with one quick movement he could turn it over and rush it into the water, let her wake as quick as she chose. If she attempted to stop him she must take the consequences. When a man's liberty was at stake he could not be too nice with the sex. He took a long breath and turned the canoe over.

Bela was lying beneath it.

"Sam!" she said softly.

The keyed-up Sam grunted at the suddenness of the shock and ran back for ten paces, gasping. Then he got command of himself, and came back ashamed and raging.

Bela stood up. "What you want?" she asked mildly.

"I want to get away from here!" cried Sam, "and, by George, I'm going to! If you try to stop me your petticoats won't protect you. Get back!"

Rather to his surprise she fell back without a word. He glanced at her uncertainly. Putting his hands on the canoe he started to shove it toward the water.

"How you goin' mak' it go?" asked Bela softly.

Sam came to a stop, swearing savagely. In his excitement he had neglected to think of paddles. They were not lying anywhere about.

"Where are the paddles?" he demanded.

"I hide 'em," she answered coolly.

"Where are they?" he cried.

She was silent.

"Tell me where they are or take the consequences!" he cried, approaching her threateningly.

"I not tell you if you kill me," she replied, standing fast.

This was an out and out challenge to him to strike her. When it came to the point he could not do it, of course. He turned away, wild with impotent rage. Must she always get the best of him? If there had only been a man of her people there that he could take it out on! He broke into passionate denunciations of her. It was a weird enough scene, there on the shore in the dim dusk.

"What are you keeping me here for, anyway?" was the burden of his cry. "What do you expect to gain by it?"

"You safe here," Bela muttered. "If we go to the shore those men kill you, I think."

This did not help soothe him.

"I'll take my chance of that!" he cried. "I know how to deal with men. I don't need a woman to look after me! Do you think you're going to keep me here all summer?"

"No," she returned. "The bishop and the police comin' pretty soon. Then you safe."

"It's all your fault anyhow!" cried Sam. "Why couldn't you let me alone in the first place? What's your game anyhow?"

Bela was silent.

"Give me a plain answer!" he cried. "What was your idea in carrying me off?" He blushed as he said it. "O Lord!" he added helplessly.

"I hear those men talk," Bela said sullenly. "Say they goin' kill you in the morning. I think if I tell you, you jus' laugh. So I tak' you away quiet."

It had not the ring of truth. "Rot!" exclaimed Sam. "Why should they want to kill me?"

Having no answer ready, she remained silent.

"You're lying now!" cried Sam. "The truth is, you were sore because I wasn't after you like the rest. I know women!"

Bela made an angry movement.

"What's the matter wit' you?" she said defiantly. "You t'ink you so big and clever! W'at you know about me? If you stop cursing me all the tam maybe you see w'at I am! If you act good to me I good to you!"

"Do you expect me to take off my hat and thank you for the privilege of being tied up and carried off?" demanded Sam.

She hung her head. "I sorry for that," she muttered sullenly.

"Huh! Sorry won't mend anything," said Sam.

"I want be friends," she murmured.

"If you're honest you'll get the paddles and put me ashore."

She shook her head. "Not let you go till you friends wit' me."

Sam laughed harshly. "That's good! You'll wait a long time. Hope you've got grub enough. Friendship! Rubbish! You let me go and we'll talk."

She stood in sullen silence. Sam abruptly picked up his blankets and turned to go.

At his move a different sound escaped her. Her hands went to her breast. "Sam—please——"

He paused. "What do you want?"

"Sam—I say I sorry. I say I a fool."

He stood in uncomfortable silence.

"I say I fool," she repeated. "That not easy to say."

Still he had no answer.

"Why you so hard to me?" she demanded rebelliously. "Can't you see in my heart? There is nothing but good in there for you. I want you be good to me. I want you come wit' me so bad. So I act foolish."

Her simplicity surprised and suddenly softened him. Alone with her, and in the all-concealing dusk, his queasy pride was not obliged to take up arms. In return he was as simple and direct as she.

"Oh! I'm sorry, too," he said in an uncertain voice—and regretfully. "If you're like that—if you're on the square. Something might have come of it. But you've spoiled it. You've put me on my guard against you for ever. A man has his pride. A man has to choose. He can't submit to a woman. You wouldn't want a tame man. I'm sorry!"

They stood looking at each other with an odd wistfulness.

"Go back to your own fire," Bela said in a muffled voice.



CHAPTER XII

THE NEXT DAY

Sam was awakened by the rising sun. He arose sore in spirit and unrefreshed. It promised to be a brilliant day, with a gentle breeze from the west. Such a wind would blow him to the foot of the lake, the nearest shore, and, observing it, he immediately started to drag the logs he had collected down to the water's edge, careless now if Bela discovered what he was about. Let her try to stop him if she dared!

Building a raft promised to be no easy task. He was without hammer and nails, and he had not been long enough in the country to learn how it might be done without. His only tool was a pocket knife.

After several fruitless experiments, he hit upon the scheme of lashing the logs together with withes of willow. It promised to be an all-day job, and a clumsy one at the best. Still, if the wind held fair and light, it might serve. Raising a mast presented another problem. He deferred consideration of that until he got the raft built.

After a while Bela appeared around the shore, bringing his breakfast. Sam essayed taking a leaf out of her book by making believe to be oblivious of her. She put the plate down and watched him for a while. Sam, under her gaze, became horribly conscious of the crudeness of his handiwork, but he worked ahead, whistling.

Finally she said scornfully: "You can't get to shore on that."

No answer from Sam.

"When you sit down, her bend in the middle. Water come over you. Raft got be hard lak a floor."

Another silence.

"W'en wind blow she all bus' up."

No answer being forthcoming, Bela shrugged and sat down in the sand as if she meant to spend the morning there. She gazed across the lake. Sam scowled and fidgeted. Something told him that when it came to holding one's tongue, Bela could beat him hollow. He worked doggedly on, careful never to look in her direction.

After a while the astonishing girl rose and said calmly: "I tak you to shore in my canoe now."

Sam dropped his willow strips and stared. "Eh?"

"I say I ready tak you to shore now," she repeated.

"What does this mean?" Sam demanded.

She shrugged slightly. "Ask no question. Come, if you want."

"To what shore?" he demanded suspiciously.

"Anywhere. Better go to little river, I guess. Wind blow us there to-day. Maybe blow hard after."

"What are you up to now?" he muttered.

She had already turned up the beach. "I go get ready," she said over her shoulder. "Better come quick."

She disappeared around the shore, leaving him much perturbed in mind. In a minute or two he stole after to see if she were indeed getting ready. It was true. Watching from behind the willows, he saw her tie a poplar pole in the bow of the dugout and stay it with a rope.

Upon this rude mast she bound a yard, from which hung one of her blankets with a rope tied to each of the lower corners. Afterward she stowed her baggage in the boat. She worked with a determined swiftness that suggested some particular urgency.

Finally she started back along the beach, whereupon Sam turned and, hastening ahead of her, resumed operations on the raft as if he had never dropped them.

"Now I guess you know why we goin' to the shore," she stated abruptly.

"I'm hanged if I do!" returned Sam.

"You got strong eyes and not see not'ing?" she asked scornfully. "Look!"

Following the direction of her pointing finger across the lake, he made out a black spot on the water, between them and the head of the river.

"Those men comin' here," she said. "I am think before maybe come to-day. Yesterday I guess they ride down the river and get Johnny Gagnon's boat."

When she pointed it out, the object was clear enough. The rise and fall of oars was suggested. Sam watched it doubtfully. He was ready to welcome relief in any form from his hateful situation, but was this relief?

"How do you expect to sail to the river when they're coming from there?" he asked.

"I wait till come close," she replied eagerly. "Then go round ot'er side of island. They never catch me wit' my sail. Johnny Gagnon's boat got no sail."

Her eagerness made him suspicious. What had she up her sleeve now? he wondered. While he could scarcely regard Jack, Shand, and Joe in the light of deliverers, his galled pride forbade him to put himself in her hands again. He suddenly made up his mind.

"Go ahead!" he said harshly. "Go anywhere you like! I stay here!"

Bela changed colour, and a real fear showed in her eyes. She moved toward him involuntarily.

"They kill you if they find you here," she said.

"Not if they don't find you here, too."

"They kill you!" she insisted. "Two days they are after us. All tam talk together what they goin' do when they catch us, and get more mad. If they find me gone away, they get more mad again. W'en they catch you, they got kill you for 'cause they say so many times. You are on this little island. Nobody know. Nobody see. They are safe to kill you. You don' go wit' me, you never leave here."

Sam, knowing the men, could not but be shaken by her words. He paled a little, but, having announced his decision to her, pride would not allow him to take it back.

"Go on," he said. "I stay."

The old walled look came back over Bela's face. She sat down in the sand, clasping her knees.

"I not go wit'out you," she announced.

Sam affected to shrug.

"Just as you like. You won't help my chances any by staying here."

"They kill you, anyhow," she said in a level voice. "After they kill you they get me. They not kill me."

Sam started and looked at her aghast. A surprising pain stabbed him. He remembered the looks of the men upon Bela's first appearance in the cabin. Now, after two days' pursuit they would scarcely be more humane than then. The thought of that beautiful creature being delivered over to them was more than he could bear.

"Bela—for God's sake—don't be a fool!" he faltered.

A subtle smile appeared on her lips. She was silent.

His pride made another effort. "Ah, you're only bluffing!" he said harshly. "You can't get me going that way."

She looked at him with a strange, fiery intensity. "I not bluffin'," she replied quietly. "I do w'at I say. If I want say I put my hand in the fire, I hold it there till it burn off. You know that."

In his heart he did know it, however he might rage at being forced to do what she wanted him to do.

"I don't care!" he cried. "You can't lead me by the nose! I'm my own master. I didn't get you into this. You'll have to take your chance as I take mine."

Bela said nothing.

Out of sheer bravado Sam set to work again to bind his logs together. His hand shook. There was little likelihood now that he would need a raft.

The approaching boat had already covered half the distance to the island. They could now make out three figures in it, one steering, each of the other two wielding an oar. The lake was glorious in the strong sunshine. All the little ripples to the east were tipped with gold.

Five minutes passed, while obstinacy contended silently with obstinacy. Bela sat looking at nothing with all the stoicism of her red ancestors; Sam maintained his futile pretence of business. Occasionally he glanced at her full of uncertainty and unwilling admiration. Bela never looked at him.

At the end of that time the boat was less than a quarter of a mile offshore. They saw the steersman point, and the two oarsmen stop and look over their shoulders. Evidently they had discovered the two figures on the beach, and wondered at their supineness. They came on with increased energy.

Bela held the best cards. Sam finally threw down his work with an oath.

"I can't stand it!" he cried shakily. "I don't care about myself, but I can't see a woman sacrificed—even if it's your own mulishness! I don't care about you, either—but you're a woman. You needn't think you're getting the best of me. I'll hate you for this—but I can't stand it!"

Bela sprang up swiftly and resolutely.

"Come!" she exclaimed. "I don' care what mak' you come, if you come!"

She pointed to the longest way round the shore. "This way," she directed. "I want them follow this way so I sail back ot'er side."

As they ran around the beach, a faint shout reached them from the water. As soon as they had passed out of sight of the boat, Bela pulled Sam into the bushes, and they worked back under cover to a point whence they could watch their pursuers in comparative safety.

"Maybe they goin' land this side," she suggested. "If they land, run lak hell and jomp in my boat."

Sam never thought of smiling.

Five minutes of breathless suspense succeeded. Suppose the men landed and, dividing, went both ways around the beach, what would they do? However, it appeared that they intended to row around the island and, as they thought, cut off Bela's escape by water. But the watchers could not be sure of this until the boat was almost upon them. Finally Bela looked at Sam, and they dashed together for the dugout.

All was ready for the start, the boat pointing, bow first, into the lake. In the excitement of the last few minutes they had forgotten Sam's blankets. It was too late to think of them now.

Sam got in first and, obeying Bela's instructions, braced his feet against the bottom of the mast. She pushed off and paddled like a wild woman until she could weather the island under her square sail. They succeeded in making the point before the rowboat appeared from around the other side of the island. Finally the white blanket, with its wide black bars, caught the wind, and Bela ceased paddling.

To Sam it seemed as if they stopped moving upon the stilling of that vigorous arm. He looked anxiously over his shoulder. She was watching their progress through the water with an experienced eye.

"Never catch us if the wind hold," she said calmly. "Johnny Gagnon's boat ver' heavy boat."

They had a start of upward of a quarter of a mile when their perplexed pursuers, having almost completed a circuit of the island, finally caught sight of them sailing blithely down the lake. A great roar of anger came down the wind to them.

"Let them curse," said Bela. "Cursin' won't catch us. Already they rowin' half an hour. Get tire' soon."

"They've got a spare man to change to," Sam reminded her. He was now as keen to give them the slip as Bela. The mainland ahead promised freedom; not only freedom from his late masters, but freedom from her, too.

Looking over their shoulders, they saw the steersman change to one of the oars. Thereafter the rowboat came on with renewed speed, but the dugout seemed to draw steadily ahead.

Sam's heart rose. Bela, however, searching the wide sky and the water for weather signs, began to look anxious.

"What is it?" asked Sam.

"Wind goin' down," she replied grimly.

Sure enough, presently the heavy sail began to sag, and they could feel the dugout lose way under them. They groaned involuntarily. At the same moment their pursuers perceived the slackening of the wind and shouted in a different key.

The wind freshened again, and once more died away. Now the dugout forged ahead; now the rowboat began to overhaul them. It was nip and tuck down the lake between sail and oars.

The shore they were making for began to loom nearer, but the puffs of wind were coming at longer and longer intervals, and finally they ran into a glassy calm, though they could see slants of wind all about them, a situation to drive pursued sailors frantic.

Bela paddled manfully, but her single blade was no match for two long oars. The sail was a handicap now. Bela had staked everything on it, and they could not take it down without capsizing the dugout. The oarsmen came rapidly, with derisive shouts in anticipation of a speedy triumph.

"You've got your gun," muttered Sam. "You're a better shot than any of them. Use it while you have the advantage."

She shook her head. "No shoot. Too moch trouble mak' already."

"Plug their boat, then," said Sam.

She still refused. "They die in cold water if boat sink."

"We might as well jump overboard, then," he said bitterly.

"Look!" she cried suddenly. "Wind comin', too!"

Behind the rowboat a dark-blue streak was creeping over the surface of the lake.

"Ah, wind, come quick! Come quick!" Bela murmured involuntarily. "A candle for the altar! My rabbit-skin robe to Pere Lacombe!"

At the same time she did not cease paddling.

The rowers saw the breeze coming, too, and, bending their backs, sent the water flying from their oars. They managed to keep ahead of it. Both boats were now within a furlong of the river-head. The race seemed over. The rowboat drew even with the dugout, and they looked into their pursuers' faces, red with exertion and distorted in cruel triumph.

The steersman was Joe. "Don't stop," he yelled to the heaving oarsmen, "or she'll give us the slip yet! Get ahead and cut her off! You damned dish-washer, we've got you now!" he added for Sam's benefit.

With a sharp crack, Big Jack's oar broke off short. He capsized backward into Shand, knocking him off his seat as well. At the same instant the whispering breeze came up and the blanket bellied out.

Shand and Jack were for the moment inextricably entangled in the bottom of the boat. Emotional Joe cursed and stamped and tore at his hair like a lunatic. Loud laughter broke from Sam and Bela as they sailed away.

Joe beside himself, snatched up his gun and opened fire. A bullet went through the blanket. Bela and Sam instinctively ducked. Perhaps they prayed; more likely they did not realize their danger until it was over. Other shots followed, but Joe was shooting wild. He could not aim directly at Sam, because Bela was between. He emptied his magazine without doing any damage.

In the reaction that followed Bela and Sam laughed. In that moment they were one.

"Feels funny to have a fellow slinging lead at you, eh?" said Sam.

"Musq'oosis say after a man hear bullet whistle he is grown," answered Bela.

A few minutes later the river received them. There was a straight reach of a third of a mile, followed by innumerable, bewildering corkscrew bends all the way to the head of the rapids, thirty miles or more. Out in the lake behind them their pursuers were struggling forward, sculling with the remaining oar.

Bela watched anxiously to see what they would do when they got in the river. If they knew enough to go ashore and take to the land trail, it was possible that even on foot they might cut her off at a point below where the trail touched the river.

Apparently, however, they meant to follow by water. At the last sight she had of them before rounding the first bend they were still sculling.

The river pursued its incredibly circuitous course between cut banks fringed with willows. All the country above, invisible to them in the dugout, was a vast meadow. A steady, smooth current carried them on.

On the outside of each bend the bank was steep to the point of overhanging; on the inside there was invariably a mud flat made gay with water flowers. So crooked was the river that Jack-Knife Mountain, the only object they could see above the willows, was now on their right hand, now on their left.

On the turns they sometimes got a current of wind in their faces and came to a dead stop. Now that they no longer required it, the wind was momentarily strengthening.

"Wouldn't it be better to take the sail down?" Sam suggested.

"Can't tak' it down wi'out land on shore," Bela answered sullenly.

Sam comprehending what was the matter, chuckled inwardly. On the next bend, seeing her struggles with the baffling air-currents, he asked teasingly:

"Well, why don't you go ashore and take it down?"

"If I land, you promise not run away?" she said.

Sam laughed from a light heart. "Not on your life!" he said. "I'm my own master now."

Bela had no more to say.

"Where are you bound for?" Sam presently asked.

"Down river," she answered.

"I'll have to be leaving you," said Sam mockingly. "I'm going the other way. To the head of the lake."

"If you go back they catch you."

"I'll lie low till they're thrown off the scent. I'll walk around the north shore."

"If you stay with me little while, pretty soon we meet police comin' up," she suggested. "Then they can't touch you."

"Much obliged," replied Sam. "I've no fancy to be jumped on at night again and tied up like a roasting fowl."

"I promise I not do that again," said Bela.

"Sure!" retorted Sam. "No doubt you've got plenty other tricks just as good."

"If you look at me you see I speak truth," she murmured. "I your friend, Sam."

The threatened break in her voice brought all his old disquiet surging up again. As he put it, he suspected her of "trying to put one over on him again." "I don't want to look at you!" he returned with a harsh laugh.

An adverse puff of wind blew them into an overhanging willow-bush, which became entangled with the sail and the stay-rope. Sam saw his chance. Seizing the branches, he pulled himself to his feet and managed to swing ashore at the cost only of wet ankles.

A sharp cry was wrung from Bela. "Sam, don't go!"

Gaining a sure footing on the bank, he faced her, laughing. "Well, how about it now?"

There was nothing inscrutable about her face then. It worked with emotion like any woman's.

"Don't go by yourself!" she pleaded. "You not know this country. You got not'ing. No grub! No gun! No blanket!"

"I can walk it in two days or three," he said. "I'll build a fire to sleep by. You can give me a little grub if you want. I'll trade my pocket-knife for it. It's all I've got. You got me into this, anyhow."

"No sell grub," she answered sullenly. "Give all you want if you come with me."

"Very well, keep it then," he snapped, turning away.

Her face broke up again. "No, no! I not mad at you!" she cried hurriedly. "I give you food. But wait; we got talk." She drove the canoe on a mud-bank beyond the willows and scrambled out.

Sam, scowling and hardening at her approach, was careful to keep his distance. He suspected her of a design to detain him by force.

"There's been too much talk," he growled. "You'd better hustle on down. They'll be here soon."

"Sam, don' go!" she begged. "W'at you do at head of lake? Not get no job but cook. Stay wit' me. We got boat and gun and blankets. We need no more. I show you all w'at to do. I show you fishin' and huntin'. When winter come I show you how to trap good fur. You will be rich with me. I not bot'er you no more. I do everything you want."

In her distress Sam's angry eyes chose to see only chagrin at the prospect of his escaping her. At the same time her beseeching face filled him with a wild commotion that he would not recognize. His only recourse lay in instant flight.

"Cut it out! What good does it do?" he cried harshly. "I tell you I'm going to the head of the lake."

"All right, I tak' you there," she said eagerly. "More quick as you can walk, too. Half a mile down the river there is a little backwater to hide. We let those men go by and then come back. I do w'at you want, Sam."

"Will you give me a little grub, or won't you?" he insisted. "I'd rather starve than go with you!"

She burst into tears. "All right, I give you food," she said. She turned back to the dugout, and, throwing back the cover of the grub-box, put what bread and smoked fish she had left into a cotton bag.

Sam awaited her, raging with that intolerable bitterness that a tender and obstinate man feels at the sight of a woman's tears.

She offered him the little package of food, and a blanket as well. "Tak' my ot'er blanket," she said humbly. "I can get more."

He impatiently shook his head, refusing to meet the lovely, imploring eyes. "Here," he said, offering the pocket-knife. "For the food."

With a fresh burst of weeping she knocked it out of his hand, and covered her face with her arm. Sam strode away, blinded and deafened by the confusion of his feelings. His face was as stubborn as stone.



CHAPTER XIII

ON THE RIVER

When Sam had passed out of sight around the willows, Bela, still shaken by sobs, went down on her hands and knees to search for the penknife she had spurned. Finding it, she kissed it and thrust it inside her dress.

Going to the dugout, she stretched out in it, and gave herself up to grief. Not for very long, however. Gradually the sobs stilled, and finally she sat up with the look of one who has something to do. For a long time thereafter she sat, chin in hand, thinking hard with tight lips and inward-looking eyes.

Sounds from around the bend above aroused her. She heard the working of an oar in its socket and the cautious voices of men. An alert look came into her face.

She glanced over the gunwale at her face in the water and disarranged her hair a little. Flinging herself down, she commenced to weep again, but with an altered note; this was self-conscious grief addressed to the ears of others.

The three men, finding her thus, gaped in boundless astonishment. It was anything but what they expected to find. They peered into the bushes for a sign of Sam.

"What the devil is the matter?" demanded Big Jack.

"Where is Sam?" cried Joe.

Bela answered both questions at once. "He leave me," she sobbed with heart-breaking effect.

"Left you?" they echoed stupidly.

"Gone away," wailed Bela. "Say he done with me for good!"

Black Shand and Jack were genuinely discomposed at the sight of her tears. Joe with more hardihood laughed.

"Serve you well right!" said he.

Big Jack had the oar. He drove the boat on the bank alongside the dugout, and they climbed out. Jack and Shand went up the bank.

"He can't have got far," said the former.

A wide sea of grass was revealed to them, stretching to pine ridges on the horizon. In all the expanse there was no sign of any figure, but the dense willows marking the tortuous course of the river provided plenty of cover both up and down stream.

"Which way did he go?" Jack called down.

"I don't know," said Bela. "Down river, I think."

Below, Joe, full of bitter jealousy, was still upbraiding Bela. Jack returned, scowling.

"Cut it out!" he said peremptorily. "I will get to the bottom of this." To Bela he said harshly: "What do you expect us to do for you, girl? You promised us a fair answer yesterday morning, and in the night you skipped with the cook."

Bela raised an innocent-seeming face.

"What you mean, skip?" she asked.

"Lit out, eloped, ran away," said Jack grimly.

"I never did!" she cried indignantly. "He carry me off."

They stared at her open-mouthed again.

"What I want wit' a cook?" she went on quickly. "I want marry a man wit' something. He is a bad man. He tak' me away. Now he say he done wit' me!" Tears threatened again.

They were only half convinced.

"How did it happen?" Jack demanded.

"In the afternoon he find my cache where I stay by the little creek," she said. "Talk to me lak a friend. I think all right. But in the night he come back when I sleepin' and tie my hands and my feet and my mouth, and throw me in my boat and tak' away! I hate him!"

"Then it was you we heard cry out?" exclaimed Joe.

"Sure!" she assented readily. "The handkerchief come loose. But soon he stop me."

"He did it just to spite us!" cried Joe furiously. "He didn't want her himself! I always said he had too proud a stomach for a cook. Worked against us at night like a rat! I warned you often enough!"

"Hold on!" said Big Jack, scowling. "There's more to this." He turned to Bela accusingly. "You were paddling the dugout when you came to the river yesterday. I saw you plain."

"Soon as the wind begin to blow he cut me loose," she said. "He can't mak' the boat go. He tak' my gun and point to me and mak' me paddle."

"The damned blackguard!" muttered Shand.

Jack was still unconvinced. "But to-day," he said, "when my oar busted you laughed. I was lookin' at you."

Bela hung her head. "He tak' me away," she murmured. "I t'ink he marry me then. I good girl. I think got marry him."

This convinced them all. They burst out in angry exclamations. It was not, however, for what they thought Bela had suffered. Each man was thinking of the wrong Sam had done him. Toward Bela their attitude had subtly changed. She was now a damaged article, though still desirable. Their awe of her was gone.

"I'll grind my heel in his face for this," snarled Joe. "I'll kill him slow!"

"Come on!" cried Shand. "We're losing time. He can't have got far."

Bela scrambled out of the dugout. "I tak' you where he is," she said eagerly. "I can track him in the grass. I can't catch him myself. But you got give him to me for punish."

"We'll attend to that for you, my girl," said Jack grimly.

"No blood!" she cried. "If he is kill for cause of me I get a bad name around. A girl can't have no bad name."

They laughed with light scorn. "You're done for already," Joe said.

"Nobody knows him," said Jack. "He'll never be missed. We'll take good care he ain't found, neither."

"The police will know," insisted Bela. "They can smell blood. Bam-by maybe you mad at each ot'er. One will tell."

This was a shrewd shot. The three scowled at each other furtively. There was no confidence between them.

"Well—what do you want to do?" asked Jack uneasily.

"I give him to the police," stated Bela eagerly. "They comin' up the river now. Come every year this tam. Then all will be known. It is not my fault he tak' me away. I good girl."

"Maybe she wants to get him to marry her," suggested Joe.



"No marry!" cried Bela with a fine assumption of anger. "He throw me down! Speak bad to me! I hate him! I want punish!"

"Sounds fishy somehow," muttered Jack, hesitating.

"You come wit' me," she said, shrugging. "See all I do."

"Maybe the idea is to get us away from the boat so he can sneak back and swipe it," suggested Joe.

"You foolish!" said Bela, with a glance of scorn. "You can walk to Johnny Gagnon's and get your horses. Let one man stay here to watch the boats."

"Come on!" cried Shand from the top of the bank. "Catch him first and decide what we'll do to him after."

"Go on," said Bela sullenly. "I not track him wit'out you give him me for punish."

"You swear you'll hand him over to the police," demanded Jack sternly.

"I swear it!" she replied instantly, looking him in the eye and holding up her hand.

"All right. Come on. I'm satisfied," assented Jack.

"Wait!" she said. "You promise to me you not hurt him. Give me your hand."

She forced all three to shake hands on it, Joe submitting with an ill grace.

"Now come on," said Shand impatiently.

"Leave your guns," commanded Bela. "Maybe he run. You get mad and shoot. I want no blood."

Jack scowled at her with reawakened suspicions. "I keep my gun by me," he growled.

"He got no gun," sneered Bela scornfully. "You 'fraid catch him wit' hands?"

"You said he had your gun," said Big Jack.

"He give it back," said Bela. "He is bad man; but no steal. My big gun, my little gun—see?" She exhibited them.

Jack knew that Sam owned no gun; still he was suspicious. "If you had your gun why didn't you plug him when he left you?" he demanded.

Bela paused for an instant. This was a poser, because in her heart she knew, supposing her story to be true, that she would have shot Sam. She had to think quickly. "I not want no blood," she murmured. "I 'fraid Pere Lacombe."

It was well done. Big Jack nodded. "You leave your guns, too," he stipulated.

"Sure!" she said, willingly putting them in the dugout. "Leave one man to watch the boats and the guns. Two men and a woman enough to catch a cook, I guess."

They laughed.

Bela was playing for high stakes, and her faculties were sharpened to a sword-edge. Every look suggested the wronged woman thirsting for justice. She ostentatiously searched in her baggage, and drawing out a piece of moose-hide, cut it into thongs for bonds. Cleverer men than Big Jack and his pals might have been taken in.

"Boys, she's right!" cried Jack. "We don't want no blood on our hands to start off with, if we can see him punished proper. Shand, you stay here. Lead off, girl!"

Shand shrugged with a sour look, and came down the bank. It was always tacitly understood between him and Jack that young Joe was not to be trusted alone, so he submitted.

The other three started. Bela, making believe to be baffled for a moment, finally led the way up-stream. She went first at the rolling gait the Indians affect. The men were hard put to it to keep up with her over the uneven ground, for the grassy plain, which looked like a billiard-table, was full of bumps.

She kept her eyes on the ground. It was a simple matter for her to follow Sam's tracks in the grass, but the men, though they could see the faint depressions when she pointed them out, could never have found them unaided.

The tracks led them parallel to the general direction of the river, cutting across from point to point of the willows on the outside of each bend. On the horizon ahead was the pine-clad ridge that bounded the lower end of the lake. Jack-Knife Mountain rose over it. The sea of grass was dazzling in the sunlight.

Half an hour's swift walking gave them no glimpse ahead of their quarry.

"Waste too much time talking," said Bela.

"Well, you did the most of it," retorted Joe.

It was evident from the direction of the tracks that Sam was taking care to keep under cover of each point of the willows until he gained the next one. Each point afforded his pursuers a new survey ahead. Not until they had walked another half-hour at that gruelling pace were they in time to see a black spot just about to disappear ahead.

"Down!" cried Bela, and they dropped full length in the grass until it had gone.

Bela, springing up, led the way at a run across the intervening grass. She had to hold herself back for the men. Joe was too heavy to be a runner, and Jack was beginning to feel the handicap of his years.

Nearing the willows, she held up her hand for caution. They ran lightly in the grass. Neither man could see or hear anything; nevertheless Bela indicated by signs that the one they sought was just around the bushes. At the last moment she held back and let them go first.

Sam, having decided that the danger of immediate pursuit was over, was sitting on the ground eating his lunch when, without warning, Jack and Joe fell on him, bowling him over on his back. He struggled desperately, but was helpless under their combined weight. Joe, with a snarl, lifted his clenched hand over Sam's face. Big Jack held it.

"Not while he's down," he muttered.

Bela, following close, drew Sam's hands together and bound his wrists with her strips of hide.

Sam, seeing her, cried out: "You've sold me out again! I might have known it!"

Bela, fearing his words might start Jack thinking things over, cried out hysterically: "I got you now! You think you run away, eh? You done wit' me! You laugh w'en I cry. I fix you for that! I put you where you can't hurt no more girls!"

To Jack and Joe it seemed natural under the circumstances. Sam glared at her in angry amazement, and opened his mouth to reply. But thinking better of it, he set his jaw and kept quiet.

He submitted to superior force, and they immediately started back on the long walk to the boats. There was little said en route. Only Joe, unable to contain his rancour, occasionally burst out in brutal reviling. Sam smiled at him. More than once Big Jack was called on to restrain Joe's fist.

"A bargain is a bargain," he reminded him.

Bela, bringing up the rear, glared at the back of Joe's head with pure savage hatred. When any of them chanced to look at her, her face was wholly stolid.

Black Shand's face lightened as they brought Sam over the bank.

"So it was on the level," he remarked.

It was now some time past noon, and the word was given to eat before embarking. Sam, with his bound hands in his lap, sat on a great sod which had fallen from the bank above, and watched the others curiously and warily.

He had cooled down. So many things had happened to him during the past two days that his capacity for anger and astonishment was pretty well used up. He now felt more like a spectator than the leading man in the drama.

Finally, Bela, with a highly indifferent air, came to him with a plate of food which she put on his knees. Evidently he was expected to feed himself as best he could with his hands tied. Bela, avoiding his eyes, whispered swiftly:

"I your friend, Sam. Jus' foolin' them. Wait and see."

Sam laughed scornfully. The other men looked over, and Bela had to go back.

Sam had no compunction against eating their food. Scorning them all, he fully intended to get the better of them yet. Meanwhile he was wondering what had taken place between them. He could not interpret the relations between Bela and the three men. They were apparently neither friendly nor inimical.

Afterward a discussion arose as to their disposition between the two boats. The rowboat was not big enough to carry them all.

"Lay him in the dugout," Bela said indifferently. "I paddle him."

"No you don't," said Joe quickly. "He goes with the men."

"All right," said Bela, shrugging. "You come wit' me."

This arrangement pleased Joe very well, and by it Bela succeeded in parting him from Sam.

The two boats proceeded together down the smoothly flowing, willow-bordered stream. Shand and Jack took turns at sculling the larger craft, and Bela loafed on her paddle that they might keep up with her.

The view was as confined and unvarying as the banks of a canal, except that canals commonly are straight, while this watercourse twisted like Archimedes's screw. The only breaks in the endless panorama of cut-banks, mud-flats, willows, and grass were the occasional little inlets, gay with aquatic flowers.

Bela was most at home kneeling in the stern of her dugout. Joe, sitting opposite, watched her graceful action with a kindling eye.

"Drop behind a bit," he whispered. "I want to talk to you. Are you listening?"

She seemed not to have heard. Nevertheless the other boat drew away a little.

"Look here," Joe began with what he intended to be an ingratiating air, "this is a bad business for you. I'm not saying I blame you. Just the same your price has gone down, see? Do you get me?"

Bela lowered her eyes and watched the little whirl-pools in the train of her paddle. "I un'erstan'," she murmured.

"After an affair like this men look on a girl as fair game. I ain't saying it's right, but it's so. You want to look out for those other fellows now."

"I look out," said Bela.

"Come with me and I'll keep you from them," Joe went on, trying to speak carelessly; meanwhile his eyes were burning. "Of course, you can't expect me to marry you now, but I'll keep you in better style than you've ever known. There's nothing mean about me."

Bela raised her eyes and dropped them quickly. There was a spark in their depths that would have warned a man less vain than Joe. She said nothing.

"Well, is it a go?" he breathlessly demanded.

"I don't know," said Bela slowly. Her voice gave nothing away. "I got get married if I can."

"Who would marry you now?" cried Joe.

"I don't know. Somebody, I guess. Pretty near every man I see want marry me."

Joe sneered. "Not now! Not when this gets about."

"Maybe the big man want marry me," she suggested. "Or the black one."

Joe laughed scornfully. At the same time a horrible anxiety attacked him. Those two were old; they couldn't afford to be so particular as he. One of them might——

"Any'ow I not go wit' you now," said Bela. "Plenty time."

"You'd better look out for yourself," Joe burst out, "or you'll get in worse than you are already. You'll be sorry then."

"All right," she returned calmly.

Joe sat fuming. Anger and balked desire made his comely, brutal face look absurd and piteous. It was like a wilful child denied the moon. Joe could never resist his emotions. Whether or not Bela had guessed it, it was bound to come.

"Oh, hell!" he cried. "Look here, if Jack or Shand offer to marry you, I'll match them, see? Is that a go? You'd sooner have me, wouldn't you? I'm young."

Bela neither smiled nor frowned. "I think about it," she said.

"No you don't!" he cried. "You've got to promise now or I'll withdraw it!"

"I tell you somesing," said Bela, concealing the wicked sparkle in her eye. "I not want the big man. Not want the black man either. I tell you, if I marry any of the three, I tak' you."

Conceited Joe swallowed it whole. "I'm satisfied," he cried. "By George, I'd like to bind it with a kiss!"

"Look out, you turn us over," said Bela coolly. "The water moch cold."

Joe was quite carried away. "You beauty!" he cried. "Your skin is like cream. Your hair is like black velvet. You sit there as proud as a leading lady. I can't wait for you!"

"I ain't promise not'ing yet," said Bela warningly.

* * * * *

Johnny Gagnon's place was at the strategic point on Musquasepi where the forest ended and the meadows began. In the winter-time the freighters left the ice here, and headed straight across the bottom lands for the lake.

Gagnon kept a stopping-house for the freighters. It was the last house on the route to the head of the lake seventy-five miles away, excepting the shack at Nine-Mile Point, which had never been occupied until Big Jack and his party camped there.

Besides being a strategic point, it was one of those natural sites for a homestead that men pick out when there is a whole land to choose from. The bank rolled up gradually from the water's edge, and Gagnon's whole establishment was revealed from the river—dwelling, bunk-house, stable—all built of logs and crouching low on the ground as if for warmth.

The buildings had been there so long they had become a part of the landscape. The log walls were weathered to a silvery grey, and the vigorously sprouting sod roofs repeated the note of the surrounding grass.

On this particular afternoon there was something afoot at Johnny Gagnon's. The different members of the large family were running about like ants in a disturbed hill. A cloud of dust was issuing from the house door, propelled by a resolute broom.

Innumerable pails of water were being carried up from the river, and windows and children washed impartially. One of the big boys was burning rubbish; another was making a landing-stage of logs on the muddy shore.

In any other place such a spasm of house-cleaning need excite no remark, but among the happy-go-lucky natives of the north it is portentous. Clearly a festival was imminent.

Such was the sight that met the eyes of those in the rowboat and the dugout as they came around the bend above. Johnny Gagnon himself came running down to meet them. He was a little man, purely Indian in feature and colouring, but betraying a vivacity which suggested the French ancestor who had provided him with a surname.

The surname lasts longer than most white characteristics. It is a prized possession up north. If a man has a surname he votes.

Johnny was a vivacious Indian. Such anomalies are not uncommon on the border of the wilderness. His sloe-black eyes were prone to snap and twinkle, and his lips to part over dazzling teeth.

His hands helped out his tongue in the immemorial Latin style. Though he was the father of four strapping sons and several marriageable girls, not to speak of the smaller fry, time had left surprisingly few marks on him.

Johnny held up his hands at the sight of Sam, bound. He was delighted to have this additional excitement added to his brimming store.

"Wa! a prisoner!" he cried. "Good! we will have a trial. You must tell me all. You come back just right. Big tam! Big tam! Never was so much fun in my house before!"

"What's up?" asked Jack.

"Big crowd comin' to-morrow!" replied the excited Johnny Gagnon. "Trackin' up rapids to-day. Send a fellow up ahead ask my wife bake plenty bread."

"Who all is it?"

Johnny counted them off on his fingers: "Bishop Lajeunesse and two priests. Every year come to marry and baptize. That's three. Four, Indian agent. Him come pay Indians gov'ment money by the treaty. Got big bag money. Five, gov'ment doctor. He look at him for sick. It is in the treaty. Six, seven, Sergeant Coulson and 'not'er policeman. They go round wit' agent and ask all if any man do wrong to him. That is seven white men comin'! But wait! But wait! There is something else beside!"

"What?" asked Jack.

"A white woman!" announced Johnny triumphantly.

Bela frowned and stole a side glance at Sam. The men having lately come from the land of white women were not especially impressed.

"Only one white woman here before," Johnny went on. "Her comp'ny trader's wife. This her sister. Call Mees Mackall. Her old, but got no 'osban' at all. That is fonny thing I t'ink. Boys say all tam talk, laugh, nod head. Call her chicadee-woman."

Bela looked relieved at this description.

Sam, hearing of the expected company, smiled. Surely, with the law and the church at hand, an honest man had nothing to fear. He glanced at Bela a little triumphantly, but she made her face inscrutable to him.

Somewhat to his surprise he perceived that Jack and the other men were also pleased at the news. There was something here he did not understand.



CHAPTER XIV

AT JOHNNY GAGNON'S

Sam, tied hand and foot, was confined in the bunk-house at Gagnon's. All the heavy hours of his imprisonment were charged up against Bela, and by morning the score was a heavy one.

Big Jack, or one of the other men, was always in the room or at the door, and Bela had no opportunity to approach the prisoner.

Bela slept in the main house with the Gagnon girls. Before the general turning in that night Big Jack and Black Shand each contrived to separate her from the others long enough to make a proposal similar to Joe's. In each case Bela returned the same answer.

Next morning they were all early astir. The Gagnon boys put on clean blue-gingham shirts and red woollen sashes, and the girls tied their sable locks with orange and cerise ribbons. The cheeks of both boys and girls bore a high polish.

Squaw Gagnon tacked up lace window curtains for a final touch and brought out a square of carpet for the bishop to rest his reverend feet upon. To this household it was the greatest day in the year, and the sun was shining like the shiniest-cheeked Gagnon of them all. The younger children kept careful watch on Sam. He was an attraction fortuitously added to the big show.

Johnny Gagnon himself was the most excited of the family.

"You come jus' right!" he was continually exclaiming to Jack. "They stop all day now. Have trial in my house. Maybe stay to-night, too. I wish we had a fiddle. We could dance. But we can slap and sing any'ow."

The girls giggled delightedly at this suggestion.

Each one of the white men thought: "Dance at my wedding, maybe!" and glanced covertly at Bela. Bela looked out of the window.

"What! dance with the bishop here?" said Jack, affecting to be scandalized.

"Sure!" cried Johnny. "Bishop Lajeunesse no long-chin religieux. Bishop say let yo'ng folks have a good time. Laugh and mak' fun wherever he go. He is a man!"

Early as they were they no sooner finished breakfast than they heard a shrill hail from down river. Every soul about the place excepting Sam dropped what he was about and scampered down to the water's edge.

Presently around the bend below appeared the tracking crew, slipping in the ooze, scrambling over fallen trunks, plunging through willows. Behind them trailed the long, thin line that must be kept taut, whatever the obstruction. Finally the York boat poked its nose lazily into view like a gigantic duck.

The other four of the crew stood upon the cargo with long poles to fend her off the shore, and the steersman was mounted on a little platform astern wielding an immense sweep. In the waist stood the passengers. As the celebrities were recognized a shout went up from the shore.

There was the bishop with red buttons, and the ordinary priests with black. There were the police in their gay, scarlet tunics; the Indian agent with his bag of money, and the doctor with his bag of tools. Finally there was the blue hat with ostrich feathers that was already famous in the country.

Before the summer was out, news of that hat travelled all the way to the Arctic Ocean. Any one of these passengers would have made a gala day for Johnny Gagnon's family. To have them all at once was almost more than they could take in.

The tracking crew was on the opposite bank. Coiling up their line and jumping aboard, all hands poled her across. The bishop, gathering his cassock around his waist, was the first to leap ashore.

He was a little man, radiating goodness and fun. He had round, ruddy cheeks, looking as if the half of an apple had been glued to each side of his face, and a spreading, crinkly brown beard.

"Bienvenue! Bienvenue!" Cried Johnny Gagnon with sweeping obeisances.

"Well, Johnny, have you got a new one for me?" asked his lordship with a twinkle.

The river bank became a scene of delightful confusion; black cassocks, red tunics, orange ribbons, and blue ostrich feathers all mingled. The two slender boy priests showed strange hirsute adornments. One had a face like a round white doily with brown fringe; the other was spotted with hair like new grass.

The agent and the doctor were ordinary looking men. They did not add to the picturesqueness of the scene, but each carried a bag which was charged with romance for the natives.

The two policemen were almost as young as the boy-priests, but bigger and redder and clean-shaven. Here the eyes of the Gagnon girls lingered longest.

The greatest sensation, naturally, was created by the blue hat. It was the last to come ashore. It lingered on the gunwale with an appealing turn manwards until a red arm was offered on one side, a black arm on the other, whereupon it hopped ashore with a coy wag to the right and to the left. It was not hard to see why the boatmen had christened her the "chicadee-woman."

Young Joe, catching a glimpse of the face beneath, muttered "School-marm!" impolitely.

The natives, however, made no such distinctions. To them she was just a white woman, only the second they had ever seen. They had no means of knowing whether they came more beautiful than this.

Miss Mackall, booted, hatted, and corseted in town, was the headliner of the show.

The experience to one all her life lost in a crowd of women was novel and a little intoxicating. The blue hat waggled and cocked alarmingly. The wearer, exulting in the consciousness that everybody was looking at her, saw nothing of this strange land she was in.

As soon as the general hand-shaking was over, Big Jack addressed himself to Sergeant Coulson. "I've got a prisoner for you, sergeant."

Coulson instantly stiffened into an arm of the law. "What charge?" he asked.

"I don't know exactly the legal name of it. He carried off a girl against her will. This girl!"—pointing to Bela. "Regularly tied her up and carried her off in a canoe, and kept her prisoner on an island in the lake."

The policeman was startled under his military air. "Is this true?" he asked Bela.

Bela, without saying anything, allowed him to suppose that it was.

"We'll have a hearing at once," said Coulson. "Gagnon, can we use your shack?"

Could he use it!

"Aristide! Michel! Maria!" shrieked Johnny. "Run, you turtles! Carry ever't'ing outside. Tak' down the stove!"

Bishop Lajeunesse went to Bela with kind eyes.

"My poor girl!" he said in her own tongue. "Have you had a bad time?"

"Wait," murmured Bela deprecatingly. "I tell everything in there."

"Mercy! Abducted!" cried Miss Mackall with an inquisitive stare. "She's bold enough about it. Not a trace of shame!"

"I'm afraid this will hardly be suitable for you to hear," murmured the doctor, who had constituted himself one of Miss Mackall's gallants. "Will you wait in the boat?"

"A trial! I wouldn't miss it for worlds," she retorted. "Which is the criminal? One of her own sort, I suppose. Fancy! carrying her off!"

Within a few minutes the Gagnon household effects were heaped out of doors, and the stage set for the "trial." It was strange how the squatty little shack with its crooked windows and doors instantly took on the look of a court.

All the seats were ranged across one end between the two doors for the policemen and the guests of honour.

Both doors were left open to give light to the proceedings, and a great bar of sunlight fell athwart the dusty floor.

Coulson sat in the middle with a table before him, and the other policeman at his left with note-book and pencil to take down the evidence. Both youngsters as the representatives of authority wore an air of gravity beyond their years.

Miss Mackall sat at the other side of Coulson, ever making play with the ostrich feathers. The doctor and the Indian agent were next her.

At the other end of the line sat Bishop Lajeunesse. He had sent the boy-priests back to the boat to repack the baggage. Whatever their feelings, they had obeyed with a cheerful air.

Of all those present only the bishop showed any compassion. Bela stood near him, and he occasionally leaned forward and patted her arm. She received it with an odd look, at once grateful and apprehensive.

The body of the room was filled with the natives, including the Gagnon family, the boatmen, and the servants, all squatting on the floor facing the table of justice. While they waited for the appearance of the prisoner they occupied themselves with Miss Mackall's gloves and parasol, and the artificial bouquet at her girdle. No such articles as these had ever been seen before on Musquasepi.

Sam was led in with his hands tied before him. He held his head high. Jack left him standing in front of the table, and Jack, Shand, and Joe took up positions by the door across the room from Bela.

Feeling their importance in the scene, all looked a little self-righteous. Occasionally they relieved their feelings by spitting outside the door. Sam did not look greatly concerned; his conscience was clear. True, he felt the degradation of the bound wrists, but must he not presently be triumphantly vindicated? He had been waiting for this moment all night.

"Mercy! Not at all what I expected!" whispered Miss Mackall to the doctor. "The handsome wretch! Fancy! Carrying her off like what do you call him. Much too good for her. It's her they should punish!"

The proceedings were opened by a formal questioning.

"Name?"

"Samuel Gladding."

"Age?"

"Twenty-four."

"Nativity?"

"American. Born in Orange, New Jersey."

"Citizen of Canada?"

"No."

"First came to Canada?"

"February 18 last."

"Arrived at Caribou Lake?"

"May 3. Travelling with Messrs. Skinner, Marr, Hagland, and Fraser in the capacity of cook."

During the course of the questioning the prisoner gradually apprehended that the sentiment of the room was against him. The suspicion crept into his mind that it might not be so easy as he had thought to clear himself.

"You are charged with having abducted this girl Bela," Coulson went on, "and keeping her a prisoner on Eagle Island. It is your right to waive examination, in which case I shall send you out to Miwasa Landing for trial. Do you wish to proceed?"

"Yes," said Sam.

Young Coulson's legal formula failed him here. "Well, what have you got to say for yourself?" he asked quite humanly.

As Sam was about to defend himself it suddenly rushed over him what a comic figure he would make, accusing a girl of abducting him. He closed his mouth and blushed crimson. Big Jack and his pals smiled at each other meaningly.

"Well?" demanded Coulson.

"It's not true," mumbled Sam.

"Didn't you go with her?"

"Yes—but——"

"But what?"

"I had to."

"What do you mean?"

There was no help for it.

"It was she carried me off!" Sam burst out.

There was an instant's silence in the room. The white men stared at the unexpected answer. The red people hardly understood it.

"What do you mean?" demanded Coulson, scowling.

"Just what I said!" cried Sam recklessly. "Jumped on me when I was asleep; tied me hand and foot, and bundled me in her canoe."

There was a great burst of derisive laughter. The decorum of the court was entirely destroyed. Never had such an original defence been heard. Coulson and his clerk laughed with the rest. Even the bishop had to laugh, albeit indignantly. Jack, Shand, and Joe fairly doubled up by the door. Sam stood through it, blushing and glaring around at his tormentors.

"I believe him!" cried Miss Mackall; but nobody heard her.

When order was restored, Coulson said with a shake in his throat: "You hardly expect us to believe that, do you?"

"I don't care whether you believe it or not!" returned Sam hotly. "Let me question her, and I'll show you. I guess that's my right, isn't it?"

"Certainly," said Coulson stiffly. "Stand aside for a while, and let her tell her story without interruption. You can question her when she is through."

All the white people except the white woman looked at the girl with sympathetic eyes. Bela's face was pale, and one hand was pressed to her breast to control the agitated tenant there.

To be obliged to speak out before so many white people was a terrible ordeal for the girl of the lake. She suspected, too, that there would be some difficult questions to answer—and there was no Musq'oosis to advise her. Alas, if she had taken his advice she would not have been here at all!

"Go ahead," said Coulson sympathetically.

Bela drew a steadying breath and raised her head. Pointing at Sam with unconscious dramatic effect, she said clearly: "He speak true. I carry him off."

Again there was a silence in the court, while the spectators gaped in pure astonishment. The three men by the door scowled in an ugly fashion. Sam himself was surprised by her candour. He looked at her suspiciously, wondering what she was preparing for him.

Coulson regretted his sympathy. "What do you mean?" he demanded sharply. "Is this a joke?"

Bela shook her head. "I tie him up and tak' him away lak he say."

"Then what is all this about? What did you do it for?" asked the policeman.

This was the question Bela dreaded. A stubborn look came over her face. "He is my friend," she said. "I hear those ot'er men say they hate him. Say they goin' kill him and nobody know. I t'ink if I tell Sam that, he jus' laugh. So I got tak' him away myself to save him."

The white spectators leaned forward, mystified and breathlessly attentive. Here was a brand-new story which did not fit any of the time-honoured court-room situations. The bishop looked sad. He suspected from her face that she was lying. Jack, Shand, and Joe could not contain their angry exclamations.

"It's a lie!" cried Jack. "The cook was nothing to us, neither one way or the other. Of course, after we thought he carried her off, we were sore, naturally."

"She's just trying to shield him now!" cried Joe furiously.

"Well, I can't hold him if she doesn't want him held," said Coulson.

"She told me yesterday she wanted him punished," insisted Jack.

"One moment," said Coulson. "I'll get to the bottom of this." He returned to Bela with a severe air. "Is that true?"

"Yes; I tell him that," admitted Bela.

"What did you do that for?"

"He"—pointing to Sam—"run away from me." Here the spectators smiled. "I not strong enough to catch him. So I mak' them catch him. I mak' them bring him to the police so all is known. They cannot hurt him if all is known."

The bishop, watching Bela, was sadly puzzled. Poor Bela herself, if he had known, was confused between the truths and the untruths.

"Why should they want to hurt him?" demanded Coulson.

"I don' know." Here she was evasive again.

"What were you doing in their camp in the first place?" he asked.

"I jus' travellin'," said Bela.

"But you stayed there long enough to make friends. How long were you there?"

"Three—four days."

"What did you stay for?"

"Not'ing," said Bela sullenly.

"That's no answer. You must have known the risks a girl ran in a camp of men."

"I tak' care of myself all right."

"Answer my question," he insisted. "What did you stay there for?"

"I not stay in their house," she parried.

"Never mind that. What did you stay around there for?"

Bela was cornered. True to her wild nature, her eyes turned desirously toward the open door. The bishop laid a hand on her arm.

"Tell the truth, my daughter," he said gently. "No one shall harm you."

Bela turned to him. "I am 'mos' white," she explained, as if he were the only reasonable person present. "I lak be wit' white people."

Here a titter passed over the native audience at what they considered her presumption. Bela's eyes flashed scorn on them. She forgot her terrors.

"I am not one of these!" she cried. "I am white! I want marry a white man!"

An odd start of surprised laughter escaped the white spectators. They glanced at each other to make sure they had heard aright.

"Oh!" cried Coulson. "Now we're getting down to it. The prisoner here was the one you picked out?"

"Yes!" answered Bela defiantly. "He is the best man."

"Well——" exclaimed Coulson.

Suddenly the richness of the situation broke on the spectators, and a gale of laughter swept through the room.

The bishop laughed, too, though he patted Bela's arm encouragingly. At least, she was telling the truth now. It was too extraordinary to be otherwise.

Only the three men by the door did not laugh. With eyes full of hate, they glared at the girl and at the prisoner.

Big Jack, the most astute of the three, was the first to recover himself. It occurred to him that unless the rest of the story were prevented from coming out, their humiliation would be complete and abject.

With a glance of warning at his companions, he threw back his head and laughed louder than any. Shand and Joe, comprehending, followed suit. Their laughter had a bitter ring, but in a gale of laughter the difference passed unnoticed.

The prisoner turned white to his lips. He preserved an unnatural calmness. Only his wild, pained eyes betrayed the blinding, maddening rage that was consuming him.

Bela, whose eyes were only for him, turned pale to match. "Sam," she whispered imploringly.

"Cut me loose," he said thickly.

She looked about her. One passed her a knife, with which she cut his bonds, all the time searching his face with her terrified eyes, seeking to discover what he meant to do.

"I suppose I am free to go," he said stiffly to Coulson.

"Sure!" answered the policeman. He was kindly now—grateful, indeed, for the magnificent joke which had been provided.

"Sam! Sam!" Bela murmured piteously.

The spectators eagerly watched for the final scene of the humorous and original drama. Bela, unconscious of everybody but one man, made a lovely, appealing figure.

"Sam," she whispered, "now you know I your friend. Don' go! Wait little while. Sam—here is the bishop. Marry me, and let them laugh!"

Sam flung off the timid arm. "Marry you!" he cried with a quiet bitterness that burned like lye. "I'd sooner jump into the river!"

Empty-handed and hatless, he strode out of the shack.

"Sam, wait!" she cried, despairingly flying after.



CHAPTER XV

THE NORTH SHORE

Into the bay that occupies the north-easterly corner of Caribou Lake empties a creek too small to have a name. To the left of its mouth, as one faces the lake, ends the long, pine-clad dune that stretches along the bottom of the lake from the intake of Musquasepi.

To the right as the shore turns westward the land rises a little and the forest begins. Back of the beach the little creek is masked by thickly springing willows.

An hour after the sun had passed the meridian the branches of the willows were softly parted, and Bela's pale face looked through, her eyes tense with anxiety. She searched the lake shore right and left. The wide expanse of sunny water and the bordering shore were empty.

Reassured, she came from behind the bushes, walking in the creek, and splashed down to the beach, still keeping wary eyes about her. She carried her gun in one hand, and over the other shoulder the carcass of a wild goose hung limply.

Standing in the creek, she anxiously searched the sand of the beach for tracks. Finding none, a breath of relief escaped her. She flung the dead goose in the sand. From this position she could see down the beach as far as the intake of the little river, two miles or more away.

Careless of the icy water flowing over her feet, she stood for a while straining her keen, anxious eyes in this direction. Finally she made out a tiny dark spot moving toward her on the sand.

She retreated up the creek and crouched behind the willows in the pose of lifeless stillness she had inherited from the red side of the house. The red people in the first place learned it from the wild creatures. She watched through the leaves.

A coyote trotting with his airy gait came along the top of the dune, looking for ill-considered trifles. He squatted on his haunches a couple of hundred yards away, and his tongue hung out.

He saw the dead goose below, a rich prize; but he also saw Bela, whom no human eyes could have discovered. He hoped she might go away. He was prepared to wait until dark if necessary. However, the approach of another two-legged figure along the beach behind him presently compelled him to retreat down the other side of the dune.

Sam appeared trudging through the sand, bare-headed, coatless, tight-lipped. His eyes likewise were fastened eagerly on the dead goose. Reaching it, he stirred it with his foot. Dropping to his knees, he smelled of it. So far so good. Presently he discovered the cause of its death, a wing shattered by a bullet.

Seeing no tracks anywhere near, he concluded that it had fallen wounded from the sky. As such it was treasure trove. He set to work to gather bits of driftwood, and started a fire. His bright eyes and the celerity of his movements testified to his hunger.

From her hiding-place Bela watched him with avid eyes. No mask on her face now. The eyes brooded over him, over the fair hair, the bare throat, the pale, hard young face, that showed the lassitude following on violent anger.

Her whole spirit visibly yearned toward him—but she was learning self-control in a hard school. When he began to pluck the goose she set her teeth hard and stole silently away up-stream.

* * * * *

In the Indian village beside Hah-wah-sepi, little, crooked Musq'oosis was squatting at the door of his teepee, making a fish net. This was work his nimble fingers could still perform better than any in the tribe. Meanwhile, he smoked and dwelt on the serene reminiscences of a well-spent life.

While he worked and meditated nothing in the surrounding scene escaped the glances of his keen, old eyes. For some time he had been aware of a woman's figure hiding behind the willows across the stream, and he knew it must be Bela, for there was no canoe on that side, but he would not give her any sign.

In Musq'oosis, as in all his race, there was a coy streak. Let the other person make the first move was his guiding maxim.

Finally the mournful, idiotic cry of a loon was raised across the stream. This was a signal they had used before. Musq'oosis started with well-simulated surprise, in case she should be watching him, and, rising, waddled soberly to his dugout. Nobody in the village above paid any particular attention to him. He crossed the stream.

Bela stepped into the bow of his boat. No greeting was exchanged. Each had the air of having parted but a few minutes before. Bela had learned Musq'oosis's own manner from him. If he wouldn't ask questions, neither would she volunteer information. Thus the two friends played the little comedy out.

Sitting at the door of his teepee, Bela said: "Let me eat. I have nothing since I get up to-day."

He put bread and smoked moose meat before her, and went on knotting his cords with an unconcerned air.

By and by Bela began to tell her story with the sullen, self-conscious air of a child expecting a scolding. But as she went on she was carried away by it, and her voice became warm and broken with emotion. Musq'oosis, working away, gave no sign, but the still turn of his head persuaded her he was not missing anything.

When she came to tell how she had fallen upon Sam while he slept the old man was betrayed into a sharp movement.

"What for you do that?" he demanded.

Bela came to a pause and hung her head. Tears dropped on her hands. "I don' know," she murmured. "He look so pretty sleepin' on the sand—so pretty! Moon shine in his face. I am pain in my heart. Don' know w'at to do, want him so bad. I t'ink I die if I got go 'way wit'out him. I t'ink—I don' know w'at I t'ink. Want him, that's all!"