"It was a mighty good thing for Natalie and me, that we had you to-day!" Garth put in.

The boy blushed with pleasure.

"Go on," Garth said.

"Grylls was pretty mum about these plans of his," Charley continued. "I guess he only lets Hooliam know part. I caught just a word or two. One thing was clear; you are his mark. I made out there was to have been a row at the point, and you were to have been put out of business, so you couldn't keep on with this journey. Then Nick was to happen along as if by accident; you were to be sent to the half-breeds at Swan river to be taken care of, and Nick was going to do the friendly act, and help Natalie on her way. I bet she never would have got there! In some way Nick has learned all about Natalie; for he seems to know where she's going; and what for. Anyway, you put his scheme to the bad by winning over the boys; and he is hot.

"He acted queer, too," Charley went on. "The first thing he asked was, if Natalie was well; and his voice sounded crying-like. Say, he's changed altogether from the hearty old sport, that used to travel through the country like a lord, handing out cigars. He's losing flesh. I think he's a bit touched."

When the boy finished, Garth took a turn, breathing deeply; and finally returning to the fire, sought that trusty counsellor, his pipe. "I'm glad he's turned up," he said coolly. "This is more like fighting in the open. And thanks to you, I'm well warned."

He smoked a while in silence. "I suspect I'll have my work cut out for me to-morrow," he resumed reflectively. Presently he gripped Charley's shoulder, and searched the boy's face. "I'll be damn thankful to have you along, old fellow," he said. "But I don't think I have any right to let you in for this. This man is very powerful in the country; and he can spoil all your chances. You had better go back with Phillippe. Neither Natalie nor I would ever blame you."

The boy turned away his head. "I—I can't talk about it," he faltered. "If you go on that way you'll have me crying like a girl! You could talk all night, and it wouldn't do any good! What do you think I am? I'm not going to miss the fun!"

Garth laughed. "Turn in," he said briefly. "You'll need all the sleep you can get."



XI

THE FIGHT IN THE STORM

Garth and Natalie were wondering next morning with what kind of a face Nick Grylls would greet them. He was the last to come off to the boat. Hooliam took possession of the punt as a matter of course, to bring him aboard; but Garth, determined not to allow the slightest act of insolence to pass unchallenged to-day, curtly ordered it back; and the fat trader was obliged to wade out like the breeds, and scramble over the side of the Loseis—a very undignified reentrance upon the scene.

His demeanour was remarkable. All the way out from the shore he had probably been shaping the character in which he meant to make his bow. He threw a leg over the side of the boat, affecting all his old, blustering heartiness; but the first sight of Natalie and Garth awaiting him, wholly self-possessed and unconcerned—they had determined in advance not to stoop to the pretense of any surprise at seeing him—pricked him like a blown bladder. His eyes bolted; he nodded at them askance; and he mumbled the words he had been intending to shout. Catching sight of Charley directly, he attempted to carry off his discomfiture by assuming an added boisterousness.

"Hello, Charley!" he cried. "What's the good word, boy?"

"Hello, Mr. Grylls," returned Charley with a demure grin, that was highly creditable to his powers of dissimulation. "Where did you drop from?"

Grylls guffawed with an overdone assumption of a man at his ease. "Oh, I got a sudden call up to the Settlement," he said, in a tone meant to reach Garth's ears. "Got a big deal on to sell out my posts on the Spirit. I overtook you folks last night; and sent my canoe back. Thought I might as well save money. Have a cigar?"

"Thanks," said Charley. The boy lighted it elaborately, and commended the quality with the air of a connoisseur.

"You're all right, kid!" cried Nick, clapping him on the back. "I tell you I'm blame glad to have a white man to talk to on the way up"—this with a side glance at Garth. "What are you doing away from home at this season?"

"Grub running low," said Charley readily. "Had to go to the Settlement for a fresh supply."

"Well you go to Jonesy of the French outfit," bellowed Nick; "and tell him to give you my prices!"

Nick kept the boy at his side all day, flattering and cajoling him with an immense patronage, that, coming from the great man of the country, was meant to turn the head of this, the youngest of its settlers. In this Nick had a double purpose: he wished, of course, to secure the boy's interest to himself; but he also wished Garth and Natalie to see what a fine, generous fellow he could be when he got half a chance. There was a great deal of the child in the self-indulgent trader; and he had not lived among the breeds for twenty-five years without imbibing many of their characteristics. As to the boy, Garth and Natalie felt not a moment's uneasiness; Charley met Nick's advances with a kind of imitative bluster, that was a source of great secret delight to Natalie.

The day's journey was uneventful. Grylls kept himself forward of the mast, and made no attempt to address either Garth or Natalie. Indeed, he appeared to ignore their presence on the boat altogether; which, considering the shortness of the distance separating them, was not without its ridiculous side. Garth, refusing to be deceived by this apparent indifference, kept himself quietly on the alert. The breeze continued favourable but very light; and the day waxed hotter and hotter. By nightfall they had covered perhaps another thirty miles of the way. There had been one "spell" on shore, during which Garth and Natalie elected to remain on board, satisfied with a cold lunch. No further offers were made by Hooliam to delay the journey; indeed, such was now their apparent anxiety to complete it, it was announced late in the afternoon that they would sail all night. They did not even wait for their supper on shore, but brought it off from the fire in a wading procession of frying pans, and steaming pails.

A lovely night succeeded. The velvety floor of heaven was strewn lavishly with bright stars; and later, the moon, just past the full, rose out of the lake astern and hung, a lovely pale globe, in the eastern sky. The breeds fell asleep one by one; and for the first, the jabbering, the ki-yi-ing and the maddening stick-kettle were all stilled. The Loseis hovered over the lake with her gigantic wing spread, like some great bird of the night. The only evidences that she moved at all were the flecks of foam that drifted slowly astern under the counter.

Charley had constructed a little niche for Natalie among the freight astern—a bale of blankets serving for a seat, with a tall box inclined behind it for a back to lean against. She had insisted that Charley share it with her, and the boy had sat beside her too blissful to speak. In the end they both fell asleep, and Natalie's head dropped on his shoulder. In his dreams the boy smiled seraphically.

Garth watched them kindly and very enviously; and for the moment wished that he, too, were a boy, whom she need not take seriously. There was no sleep for him. He sat on the narrow seat encircling the stern, with his back against the gunwale, where, on the one hand he could watch the steersman elevated on his little platform, while on the other side he was prepared for any demonstration from the bow. The steersman was Natalie's humorous breed; his name was Aleck. Nick Grylls and Hooliam were together somewhere forward of the mast; in the darkness Garth could not place them.

Garth's rifle lay across his knees—he would have given it, with much to boot, for the quicker and handier revolver. He was painfully aware that nothing would suit Nick Grylls's purpose so well as to knock him swiftly on the head, and heave his body overboard. He shrewdly suspected that some such intention was the reason for this night sail. It is easy to seek danger, to ride at it with a shout, the pulses leaping—but to wait for it, to wait motionless in the still dark for an attack that may be delivered one knows not when nor from whence—that is the great ordeal. Garth clenched the stem of his pipe hard between his teeth; and with a resolute effort of his will, put down the hysteria that will at such a time constrict the stoutest throat.

The first interruption of the awful stillness came, not from man, but from the elements. All around the western horizon clouds mounted so swiftly and imperceptibly that neither Garth nor the helmsman was aware of what was preparing, until they had reached the zenith. Caribou Lake is known for its swift and terrible summer storms. A sharp crack of thunder was their first warning. Aleck shouted; and dark forms arose here and there from their resting places. Garth swallowed a sob of relief for the diversion. The storm might be playing right into Nick Grylls's hand; but one could face the bustle and uproar with renewed courage.

The sail was brought clattering to the deck; a couple of sweeps were hastily run out; and the Loseis was pulled for the nearest point of the shore. With true breed seamanship she was beached on a steep and stony incline on the lee side of a point. Garth tried his best to make their folly clear to them; but none of the crew, and least of all Hooliam, retained presence of mind to comprehend. With united strength the breeds dragged her up as far as they could, which was but little, and went through the same business of driving stakes into the bottom of the lake, and lashing the sternpost between. Garth threw up his hands in helpless exasperation. Tarpaulins and sails were spread over the cargo and lashed down. Charley made Natalie snug with a tarpaulin roof over her seat. Garth commanded him, no matter what might happen, not to leave her side.

The storm came roaring down the lake like a vast animate being; and there, in their exposed position, smote them hip and thigh. Each crash of thunder fell forth right upon the echo of the last; and the lightning played like wicked laughter on the face of the destroying heavens. Then came the rain, with pitiless, whistling whips that lashed the water, and bit cruelly into exposed flesh. Every man on board, save one, instantly dived under the sail-cloths; and Hooliam was the first to seek shelter.

Only Garth dared not relax his watch in the open. He maintained his place with his back against the stern, a piece of tarpaulin across his knees to keep his gun dry, and his eyes bent forward in the boat whence any move must be made on him. So sure was he that Grylls would attack him, he was scarcely conscious of the tumult that roared about his ears. The wind tore his hat off; and the cold rain drenched him to the skin.

Before him, the lightning luridly showed up the trees on the shore, writhing horridly; and the wet mast and the guy ropes were often wreathed in faint, bluish flames. The Loseis forward, with her irregularly piled cargo, and the crouching forms under the sail-cloths, presented a thousand shifting, fantastic shapes in the playing flashes; and Garth had a score of false alarms. In the end, his enemy crept almost upon him undiscovered.

By the light of a great blaze, which held all the earth and the heavens suspended in flames for a moment, Garth suddenly saw revealed a crouching figure, and a hideous, distorted face no more than six feet from his own. In the blinding glare it was outlined with a horrid clearness; in its grossness and bestial hatred, less human than demoniacal.

Garth, snatching up his rifle, sprang to his feet, but before he could point it, Grylls had flung himself upon him, and his mighty arms were squeezing Garth's ribs into his lungs. The useless weapon dropped to the deck. Grylls, trusting to his enormous strength, was unarmed; he wished to crush his adversary without leaving obvious traces of violence. No word was spoken by either.

They swayed on the narrow seat encircling the stern; and all sound of the little human struggle was swallowed up in the dreadful uproar of the elements. Natalie and Charley, but three yards away, heard nothing. Grylls was the stronger; Garth contented himself with a dogged resistance, trusting to his better wind to serve him in the end. Meanwhile the Loseis was continually heaved under their feet, and dropped heavily on the stones by the mounting breakers; and they maintained a footing with difficulty. Nick ceaselessly strained to force Garth to his knees. Failing, he lifted him clear of the deck. At the same instant the boat lurched drunkenly; and they pitched overboard together.

Somehow, they gained their feet, and stood, still locked together, while the tumbling waves boiled around their waists, and sucked at their knees. But Garth had struck his head on the gunwale in falling; his senses were slipping away, and nausea overcame him. He tried to cry out; but the feeble sound was lost at his lips. Nick forced him slowly down until the water broke over his head. Garth was dimly conscious of hearing him laugh—no one knew; and the explanation next day would be so simple! But the wholesome chill of the water rolling over his head revived the swooning Garth. He collected his forces for a last effort; and, suddenly wrenching his shoulders from under the hands that pressed them down, he gained his feet, and his hands seized upon Grylls's throat.

It was the big man's vulnerable point; and a subtle sweetness flooded Garth's breast as he felt him begin to fail. Foul living was telling in the end. Grylls struggled for his breath in loud, strangling sobs; and Garth could hear his bursting heart knock at his ribs. The smith's arms of him little by little softened of their steely strength; he strove in vain now to lift Garth off his feet. Garth, cool and strong again, and always waiting, let him tire himself. He disdained to call for help now; he even relaxed his grip on the thick throat a little. It was not necessary to strangle the man; for he had done for himself.

Meanwhile the waves broke with ever-increasing violence on the frail bulwark the two bodies offered to their impetuous course, and it was only a question of moments when they would both be beaten down. Grylls's knees weakening under him first, down they went, Garth uppermost; and, the water seizing them, still gripped together, they were rolled over and over, and finally flung up on the stones.

Stunned, bruised and breathless as he was, Garth was still able to free himself from the automatic grip of the other man's arms; but Grylls lay motionless.

Briefly satisfying himself that the man still lived, Garth dragged him out of reach of the waves, and letting him lie in the driving rain, turned his attention to the boat.

The Loseis was in a bad way. The waves under her stern had lifted the driven stakes as easily as pins are drawn from a cushion. She had immediately swung broadside on the beach; and the waves, crashing under her counter, were driving over her in clouds of spray while her bottom heaved, and gave, and pounded sickeningly on the stones. No one on board required to be told that a very little of this would separate every plank of her from her aged ribs. The breed boys appeared one by one from under the coverings; and standing about, dazed and careless of the downpour, waited to be told what to do. There was no sign of Hooliam.

Garth climbed painfully on board. Searching for the degenerate captain, he stepped on something soft, and a hollow groan issued from beneath the sail-cloth. He threw it back, and dislodged the palpitating Hooliam with a vigorous foot. The breed struggled to his knees, supporting himself by a guy rope. Just then there was a blinding flash, and the mast and the wet ropes were wreathed again for an instant in bluish flame. Partly shocked, but more from abject fear, Hooliam collapsed with a brutish moan.

"Throw this carrion ashore!" Garth commanded with strong disgust.

The breeds, understanding his gestures, instinctively obeyed; and Hooliam was dragged over the side, and dropped on the beach, not very far from the body of his unconscious employer.

"We'll have to save her ourselves!" shouted Garth to Charley. "Translate my orders!"

The storm had a revolving tendency; and the wind had now hauled to the south, whence it came shrieking across the lake with unabated fury. A little way ahead, around the shallow crescent of the exposed bay in which they lay, they could see by the light of the frequent flashes a point on which the waves were beating wildly; and beyond there was a promise of smooth water and safety. It was only a little way, scarcely an eighth of a mile; but the way was beset with heart-breaking difficulties.

"All hands ashore to push her off!" cried Garth.

The breed boys, welcoming a voice of authority in that bewildering chaos, sprang to do his bidding. Garth and Charley set the example, and the ten backs were braced under the lee gunwale of the Loseis, measuring their sinews against the crashing blows of the waves on the other side. They budged her inch by inch, often thrown back again; but at last she floated, and there they managed to hold her for a moment, rising and falling. Only one who has measured the strength of the surf against the smallest craft, may comprehend the magnitude of their labour.

"Aleck's crew ahead with the tracking-line," shouted Garth.

The line is always kept coiled and ready, hanging on the bow. Aleck seized it, and followed by three others, ran ahead along the beach, paying it out. The four of them slipped into the harness; and digging their moccasined toes into the beach, painfully straightened their legs under the pull. When the Loseis, answering, began to move inch by inch along the shore, Garth put the remaining men on board one at a time, where, armed with their poles, and braced almost horizontally, they held her off the stones.

Natalie had long since deserted her sheltered nook, and, heedless of the drenching downpour, watched them with eager eyes. Garth, his bruises forgotten, seemed everywhere at once; he had even time to shout a word of encouragement to her, and she longed mightily to do something to help. Looking around, she saw her chance. The steersman's long sweep lay along the deck; running it aft through its ring in the sternpost, and pushing with all her strength against the stones astern, she added her mite to keep the boat headed off. Garth observing, shouted his approval; and Natalie's heart waxed big in her breast.

Inch by inch, then foot by foot, they won their painful way along the lee shore. Over and over in spite of the six poles, she was thrown back on the stones, whereupon they all leaped overboard and put their backs under her lee. There was once when, Garth's pole snapping short, he pitched headlong overboard. He climbed back with blood colouring the rain in his face, and found another pole. Again, approaching the point, the four men on the end of the tracking-line crawling slowly around the edge of a steepish bank, were by a sudden heave of the Loseis all four jerked into the water. Instantly picking themselves up, they scrambled ahead with their line through the breakers. Garth's heart warmed over the half-fed, half-clad boys. Not one of the eight faltered for an instant, and in the midst of their superhuman labours they could still be shouting at each other.

A reef ran out beyond the point; and how they ever got over this, or how long it took, none could have told. By that time they were merely insensate machines striving automatically against a mighty inhuman adversary. The Loseis's ribs yielded and trembled under the renewed blows on the stones. Dizzy and blind with fatigue they struggled ahead; but they would never have made it, had not the wind hauled still further around. Finally a wave greater than any preceding lifted them clear of the stones, and dropped them in smooth water inside. For a while, unable to realize they had rounded the point, they continued to struggle; then the Loseis gently beached herself. The tracking crew scrambled aboard, and all hands dropped where they stood for a breathing spell.

Soon after the storm showed signs of abating. In the end it ceased almost as abruptly as it had begun; and the moon looked wanly forth, as if ashamed for the recent disturbances aloft. Garth, thinking of Grylls and Hooliam lying on the beach around the point, consulted with Charley what had better be done. It took them about three seconds to arrive at a decision.

"It is between eight and ten miles to the head of the lake," Charley said.

"Let them walk it then," said Garth coolly.

Presently the same breeze resumed its gentle course up the lake as if there had been no such thing as a storm. Tired as they were, it was too good to lose; and with hoisted sail, the Loseis forged through the rapidly subsiding waters, with Charley at the helm. The breed boys asked no questions. Having raised the sail, they promptly fell asleep. Hooliam they had little regard for anyway; and Grylls they may have supposed was still somewhere under the sail-cloths. In three hours they had reached Grier's point, the navigable head of the lake; and all hands slept until long after sunrise.

Garth and Natalie, meeting in the daylight, exclaimed each at the appearance of the other; Natalie, with remorseful sympathy, that she had not sooner learnt the extent of Garth's bruises; and Garth with delighted wonder at the freshness of her. Natalie was like the lake in the early sunshine; neither showed the slightest trace of a storm overnight.

While they were at their breakfast on the shore, a deplorable figure, ashen-cheeked and shamed, came shuffling out of the bush. The eight breeds, as one, instantly set up a merciless, derisive jeering. It was Hooliam. He bore in his hands a little bottle and a bank-bill. Wretched as he was, his eyes glinted with satisfaction at the sight of the boat safe and sound on the shore. He went to Garth.

"Nick Grylls in the bush," he said, dully pointing back. "Him sick bad. Maybe him die. Him give five dollar for drink of whiskey."

Garth filled the bottle from his flask. "Put up your money," he said curtly.



XII

THE NINETY-MILE PORTAGE

The Settlement is upward of three miles from Grier's point. Avoiding the houses for the present, Garth pitched his camp outside, well off the trail. The first thing they learned was that the Bishop had gone on. This time they were not surprised; there seemed to be a fatality in it. The old problem confronted Garth anew.

"I think you should wait here," he suggested to Natalie; "and let me ride on for you."

Natalie, as she always did when this question was brought up, merely looked obstinate.

"It is likely we will miss him again at the Crossing," Garth went on; "and I have learned there are only one or two cabins there, and no white woman. It would be difficult for you."

Natalie's silence gave him no encouragement.

"But here," he urged, "you could stay with the wife of the inspector of the mounted police; while I go on and bring Mabyn back to you. I do not think you should put yourself in his hands."

"He would not come with you," she said evasively.

"I promise to bring him," said Garth determinedly; "if he is alive."

"No!" she said with manifest agitation. "That is another reason!"

"What is?" he asked mystified.

"I—I could not have any trouble between you," she said in a low tone.

"But I promise to bring him safely," he said doggedly.

She still shook her head.

"I will go to the wife of the inspector," said Garth—"a woman in such a position is sure to be the right sort—and I will explain our position frankly. She will be glad to take you in!"

Natalie shot an odd glance at him. "I will not let you," she said quickly.

"But why?"

"The risk of the humiliation of a refusal is too great," she said. "I do not doubt she is a good woman; I'm sure she rises splendidly to all the demands of her position up here. But she has a position to maintain, you see; no doubt she is bringing up girls. And me!"—Natalie turned away her head—"consider how extraordinary the story sounds! Only one woman in a thousand would believe."

Garth turned a distressed face to her. "I have not taken care of you properly," he cried remorsefully.

Natalie veiled her eyes; and her hand stole to her breast. "Let us not talk about that!" she murmured unevenly.

Garth was perplexed and silent.

Natalie recovered herself presently; and looked at him with a misty shine in her eyes. "Why do you worry?" she asked. "We're a thousand times better off than we were yesterday; for you have laid our enemy by the heels! Why mayn't I go on with you just the same as before? I cannot trust any one but you!"

How was Garth to resist such an appeal? Besides, there was nothing else to do.

Garth might have lodged a complaint against Nick Grylls at the barracks; but any investigation would have seriously delayed their journey; and a greater reason against it was his care for Natalie's good name. It was intolerable to him that the dear circumstances of their journey together should be made the subject of the common gossip of the North. It was better to let those who saw Natalie on the trail speculate as they chose, rather than give them an opportunity to put their own coarse construction upon the truth. He was well assured Nick Grylls would say nothing.

For the same reason, he decided to avoid the Settlement altogether. The two of them remained close in camp; and Charley was dispatched to purchase ponies and saddles, and what was needful to replenish their stores. He returned with all they required; and during the afternoon instructed Garth how to pack the ponies and "throw" the immovable diamond hitch. Natalie in the meantime, constructed a divided skirt for herself, since side-saddles are unknown in the North.

Their route now lay over the ninety-mile portage to Spirit River Crossing. The road, Garth learned, was straight, and, for the North, well-travelled. There were no forks or cross-trails, hence no possibility of their missing the way. They set off before daybreak next morning. The parting with Charley was a wrench all around: but Garth was firm in insisting that the boy must go back, and put up his hay. In the easy-going North it is only too easy to drop one's tools and start off on a jaunt. Charley bade them an abrupt good-bye; and bustled away to hide his tears.

In the mystical gloom which, in northern latitudes, precedes the summer dawn, Garth and Natalie, each leading a pack pony, rode through the Settlement, which straggled for several miles around the shore of Moose Bay, a wide, shallow arm of the lake, once navigable, but now given over to the wild-fowl. The shacks were infinitely various; for in a land where every man builds for himself, a house quaintly expresses the character of its owner. But one thing was common to all; no one wastes any ornament on his dwelling; and in the luxuriant greenness of the northern summer, the grim, solid little houses were a reminder of the coming cold.

Later in the day they passed the long, gradual climb over the height of land separating the great watersheds of the Miwasa and the Spirit. On the other side they came to a flat country and of the same general character all the way. It was a shining day; and, being young, they forgot their cares and rode gaily. For the most part the trail lay in a straight and lofty nave of aspen trees, rearing their slender, snowy pillars sixty, eighty—even a hundred feet aloft; and mingling their clusters of nimble, chattering leaves high overhead in the sun. There was nothing gloomy about this cathedral; the sun found a thousand apertures through which to launch his rays against the white pillars; while the green and mutable roof was bathed in almost intolerable radiance—it was a temple in green and white, Flora's colours.

Occasionally there were cloistered openings; sunny little meadows inclining to a spring, where the wild pea-vine, plant beloved of horses, and infallible sign of a rich soil, grew knee-deep. Such an opening they learned, however small, was quaintly dignified by the natives with the name of prairie.

Their ponies, each exhibiting a distinct individuality, afforded the excuse for their amusement on the way. Garth's mount, that a previous owner had christened "Cyclops," and who was tall enough and bony enough to be called a horse, was, like themselves, a stranger in the bush, and his face offered a comical study in anxiety, willingness and stupidity, under these new conditions. Natalie rode a young sorrel rejoicing in the name of Caspar. He had a dull eye, a long, sheeplike nose and a wagging under lip; and Natalie vowed he was half-witted. He would not ride abreast; but insisted on following; and he screamed with terror, if for an instant he lost sight of the other horses.

But it was the two pack horses that offered the most diverting study of character. When they left the Settlement behind, Garth cast off their leaders. In Emmy, a rotund little mare, they had secured a treasure. Emmy had an indifferent air toward them, worthy of a breed; but unlike a breed, she was thoroughly business-like. Where the great mudholes of unknown depth blocked the trail, and they must strike into the bush, she required no guidance. They laughed and admired, to see her stop, looking this way and that, and deliberately pick her way through, always with due regard to the height and breadth of the pack on her back. Emmy declined to be hurried; she had an air that said as plainly as words, if they didn't like her pace, they could leave her behind, and be hanged to them!

The remaining animal was Emmy's son, a half-broken colt, whose only virtue was that he would not stray very far from his mother. Mistatimoosis was his mouthful of a name. He forgot his pack sometimes, and striking it full tilt against a tree, would be knocked endwise in the trail, blinking and dismayed, as who should say, "Who hit me?" The thing that caused them the heartiest laughter was to see Mistatimoosis's endless attempts to steal the leadership of the caravan from his mother. It was the only thing that could tempt Emmy out of her sedate pace. On a fair piece of road the two of them would race at top speed for half a mile; and the colt was continually making sly detours into the bush to get around his mother. But she kept him in his place behind.

The riders finding they could safely leave the packhorses to follow, had ridden ahead to spy out grass and water for the noon spell. They were walking their horses over the turf bordering the trail, when suddenly from among the trees came with startling distinctness the sound of a voice. They reined up, astonished. It was the gentle, ambling voice of a loquacious old man; and his conversation there in the wilderness was as quiet and intimate as chimney-corner talk.

"I should say half-past eleven," they heard. "When Mr. Sun sits down on yonder spruce tree we'll make a break. So work your jaws good, Mother, old girl; and you Buck, my dear, stop looking around like a fool and get busy! Meanwhile, we'll pack up the grub-box."

Garth and Natalie smiled at each other. There was nothing very alarming about this.

"Will you have a pipe of baccy now, Tom Lillywhite?" the same voice resumed. "Thanks, old man, don't mind if I do! Is there any cut? No? Well shave it close."

There was a pause here, while the speaker presumably filled his pipe. Then some one drew an audible sigh of content; and a kind of dialogue took place—though there was but the one voice full of quaint lifts and falls. Garth and Natalie, smiling broadly, listened without shame.

"Ah! a fine day, a bellyful of bacon, and a pipeful of tobacco!—would you change with a moneyed man, Tom Lillywhite?"

"Well I don't know, sir! Mebbe he don't enjoy his grub as much as us, havin' gen'ally the dyspepsy; but how about the winter, old sport, when we don't fetch up no stoppin'-house; and has to make a bed in the snow, hey? It's then a flannel bed-gown looks good to old bones; let alone woolly slippers and a feather bed! Seems I wouldn't kick agin the job of takin' care o' money in the winter time!"

"Ah! g'long with you, Tom Lillywhite! You'd a been dead long ago if you had money! Swole up and bust with good eatin', y'old epicoor! You'd be havin' a pig killed fresh every week if you had money!"

"Say, b'lieve I would cut some dash if I had money! I'd build me a house of lumber clear through, and I'd paint it all over, paint it blue! And I'd have sawdust on the settin'-room floor and a brass spittoon in every corner! 'Have a chair,' I'd say to stoppers, not lettin' on I was puffed up at all. 'Have a ten-cent seegar. Don't mention it! Don't mention it! I get a case full in every Fall!'"

Here there was a jolly chuckle.

Their packhorses joining them noisily, the dialogue was cut short.

"Some one comin'," said the voice.

Rounding the clump of bushes, Garth and Natalie found themselves in a grassy opening in the bush. An untraced wagon stood in the centre; and two horses browsed. Immediately under the bushes, an old man sat on the ground. They instinctively looked around for the other persons brought into his conversation; but, save for the horses, he was alone.

At the sight of them his face lighted up with the pleased naivete of a child. "How do! How do!" he said immediately, without getting up or raising his voice at all. "My horses are quiet. They won't tech yours. The spring is down there at the foot of the spruce. Just blow up my fire a little and it will do for you." He seemed to take them entirely for granted; and he spoke as if resuming a dropped conversation.

There was something very troll-like in the old figure, squatting on the ground; in his bright, glancing eyes, in his incessant, matter-of-fact loquacity, and the slight, peculiar gesticulation, with which he illustrated his talk. He was all of a colour; high moccasins, breeches, shirt and cap were weathered to the same grayish-brown shade—and that much the colour of his skin. Against a background of withered grass, only his white hair would have been visible. He was like some good-tempered, little familiar of the forest.

He stared hard at Natalie in his bright-eyed, impersonal way; and as soon as Garth, having made his horses comfortable, came to build up the fire, he started in with his questions.

"Where you going?"

"Spirit River Crossing," said Garth.

"Thinking of settling?"

Garth shook his head.

"No, you don't look like settlers. Company business, maybe?"

"No," said Garth.

"Police? Gov'ment survey?"

"Private business," said Garth—his usual answer to the question direct.

Baffled inquisitiveness, vice of the kindest natures, made the old man's face ugly; and for a moment he looked like a wicked troll. For a little while he preserved an offended silence; but then, probably recollecting that he would hear the whole story at the Settlement, or simply because he could not keep still any longer, his face cleared, and he resumed his engaging, inconsequential babble.

"See that horse over there, the buckskin? Best horse I ever had! True buckskin! Mark the zebra stripes round his legs, Miss; and the black stripe on his backbone. You can't kill a buck; he's got more lives than a cat. I call the old one Mother; she's good-natured, she is!"

"You're a freighter, I see," remarked Garth as a leader.

"Sure thing, stranger! Tom Lillywhite and his team is known to every settler in the country! Been here thirty-five year; and always on the move! Never sleep in the same place two nights going! That wagon there, and the grub-box is my home. It's a variegated life!"

Garth bethought himself the old man would likely prove a valuable source of information. "You must know everybody in the country!" he said, feeling his way.

"None better!" said Tom Lillywhite, bridling with pride.

"Are there many white men at the Crossing?" asked Garth.

"Quite a crowd," said the old man; "eight or nine at the least. There's the two traders, and Mert Haywood the farmer, and old Turner the J. P., and the priest, and the English missionary, and the school-master; that's seven. Then there's old man Mackensie but you wouldn't hardly call him a white man—smoked too deep, and squaw-ridden."

"Is that all?" said Garth, disappointed of his quest.

"Well, there's a sort of another. He doesn't regularly belong to the Crossing but he comes into the store for his goods once or twict a year. I forgot him—most everybody's forgot him now. It's Bert Mabyn."

Garth and Natalie pricked up their ears; and their hearts began to beat.

"I got good cause to know Bert Mabyn, too," continued old Tom innocently; while the other two listened still as mice, and apprehensive of disclosures to be made. "But that's all past. I don't bear him no ill-will now. He's a cur'us chap, a little teched I guess; but as pleasant a spoken and amoosin' a feller as another feller could want to have with him on the road! Want to hear about him?"

Garth looked at Natalie dubiously.

"Yes," she said boldly.

"Well, it was three years ago," began Tom Lillywhite, with the zest of the true story-teller. "The Gov'ment sent four surveyin' parties in; and I had more'n I could do freightin' from the Settlement to the different camps. It was rough haulin', you understand, over the lines they cut through the bush, straight as a string over muskeg and coulee. You couldn't load over twenty hundredweight, and sometimes you had to dump half of that, and go back for it. But right good pay, Gov'ment pay is.

"I needed another team bad, and I see a good chance to get one on credit from Dick Staley, with the wagon and all; but I couldn't get no white men to drive it for me. A breed, you understand, soon kills your horses on you!

"Well, it might be I was settin' outside the French outfit, talkin' it over," he went on tranquilly, little suspecting with what meaning his story was charged for the two strangers; "when along comes a feller and asts for me. Say, he was a sight! He was wearin' black clothes, though it were a workin'-day; and all muddied and tore, showin' the skin under; and his coat was pinned acrost the neck, with a safety-pin 'cause he hadn't no shirt. He had a Sunday hat on too—all busted. At the best he weren't no beauty; his teeth was out."

Natalie shuddered.

Garth, suffering for her, could not bear to meet her eyes. "Perhaps you'd rather hear another story," he suggested.

She braced herself. "No! Go on!" she said.

"Soon as I see him, I knew who he was," continued old Tom; "for I hear the fellers talk about a white man that took passage up from the Landing on Phillippe's boat. He let them pull him all the way; and when they got to Grier's point, he hadn't no money. They took it out of his skin; and say, when a white man is beat by a breed it's good-day to him up here! In a hundred years he couldn't live it down.

"'Do you want to hire a man?' says he mumbling-like; he was too far down to meet your eye.

"'Hum!' says I thoughtful, 'I want a man,' I says.

"You should have heard the fellers laugh at that! They still talk about it! 'Tom Lillywhite, he wants a man', they say. It's quite a word in the country. 'Tom Lillywhite wants a man!'"

The old freighter went off into an interminable chuckling over the antique jest.

It was inexpressibly painful to Natalie to have Garth there, a witness to her humiliation; but she would not stop the story-teller, nor let Garth stop him.

"However, thinks I, you can sometimes make a man out of unpromisin' mater'al," he resumed. "And in the end I took him for his grub. That was Bert Mabyn. For three months I didn't regret it; he was used to horses, and was first-rate company on the trail. I didn't give him no money—said he didn't want none—but I fed him up good, and he soon got fat and sassy. I give him other things too. I couldn't stand for the poor wretch a shiverin' by my fire in his buttoned-up coat, so I give him blankets; and afterward an outfit of clothes.

"What do you think was the first thing he ever ast me for?—a razor and a glass! And every day after that he used to shave hisself—every day mind you, if we was in the thickest part of the bush! And forever trimmin' of his nails, and polishin' 'em to make 'em shine! Wasn't that remarkable?

"He was a great talker. Nights around the fire he used to tell me all about himself. Seems he comes of real high-toned folks outside; but went to the bad young. Said he come West three years before that again, full of good resolutions, which lasted just so long as his money. Since then he'd been a grub-rider 'round the ranches, and dish-washer in hotels, and, 'scusin' your presence, Miss, worse than that—but he hadn't no shame about it!

"I liked the feller. He wasn't no good, but he had that persuasive way with him! And he knew so much more than me! You'd think a man 'ud feel shame to tell such stories on himself; but no! he'd make out as you ought to like him for bein' such a good-for-nothing waster; and by Gum! in the end you did! Never see such a feller!

"Well, all summer we travelled, me and him; him always behind me on the trail; and I hadn't any fault to find. But come September I had a rush lot up to Whitefish Lake; and at the same time there was some stuff wanted in a hurry in Pentland's camp over on the Great Smoky. So for the first time we divided. I sent him to Pentland's over this very trail!

"I got back long before he did. After a while word come from Pentland, where in thunder were the goods? It was after the first snow before Mabyn come back. He was a wreck and the horses were just alive, and no more. He told a story how his wagon capsized in the river, and he lost everything; but the whiskey gave the lie to that. By and by we found he'd buried a keg of it, outside the Settlement. In the Spring when it was too late to do anything, it all come out through a breed. Seems away up by Fort St. Pierre, he met one of them crooked traders, that sometimes sneaks acrost the mountains; and he sold him the stuff for a keg of rot-gut. When I hear that I was thankful he brought back the horses at all. The business near busted me; for I had to make good three hundred worth of groceries to Pentland; and sacrificed the second team, 'count of the shape they were in. That was what Bert Mabyn cost me!"

"Didn't you have him arrested?" asked Garth indignantly.

Tom shrugged. "What were the use of that? The inspector was after me to prosecute; but it was too late to get my money back, and put flesh on the horses—besides, I was too busy. Of course, it weren't just the same as robbin' me in cold blood," he added in the tone of one who must be fair; "for it were the whiskey, you see."

Natalie kept her face averted from the old man. "And what has become of this man since?" she asked, steadily controlling her voice.

"Oh, he hung around the Settlement, sponging on one and another till he were kicked out; then he come down to the breeds. It was a great honour for them to have a white man of any kind runnin' after them, you see, so they put up with him. Then he drifted West, up Ostachegan way; and lately, I understand, he's taken up a deserted shack he found on Clearwater Lake, away up on the bench there, northwest of the Spirit. There they tell me he lives all alone; but no one's seen him in a dog's age."

* * * * *

Garth and Natalie avoided everything beyond the merest commonplaces to each other until they were alone; and even after Tom Lillywhite, bidding them farewell, had driven off, chirping to his horses, it was a long time before either had the courage to make a move toward overcoming the ghastly constraint his story had caused between them.

"Haven't we heard enough?" said Garth quietly at last. "Need you go any further?"

Natalie in the interim had had time to pass her emotional crisis. She was very pale, and her eyes were big; but she was now calmer than he. "I have heard enough, surely," she said; "but after coming all this way it would seem cowardly, wouldn't it, to be satisfied with hearsay evidence?—and there is still my promise to his mother."

Her tone impressed Garth with the utter hopelessness of trying to dissuade her. "But how can I let you expose yourself to—to what we may find!" he groaned.

"I am not a child," said Natalie quietly. "And I shall not quail at the mere sight of ugliness." She turned away from him. "Besides," she added in a lower tone, "you know the worst now; and that was the hardest thing to bear—your hearing it I mean. No," she went on, facing him again, wistfully and valorously; "it promises to be very ugly, but then I undertook it, you see. I am going on."

They could not bear to meet each other's eyes; and miserably turning their backs, affected to busy themselves with small tasks. Natalie, quivering with the shame of the lash all unwittingly applied by old Tom, longed with an inexpressible longing to have Garth with a hint or a look assure her that he loved her, and so, thrusting the wretch Mabyn out of their charmed circle, reinstate her in her self-respect. But poor Garth in his clumsy, masculine delicacy thought that to obtrude himself at such a moment would only hurt her more. He kept silent, and he averted his eyes, and Natalie, misunderstanding, tasted the very dregs of shame.



XIII

THE NEWLY-MARRIED PAIR

Out on the bosom of that infinite prairie, which rolls its unmeasured miles north and west of the Spirit River, a last place of mystery and dreams, still unharnessed by the geographers, and reluctantly written down "unexplored" on their maps, two human figures were riding slowly, with their horses' heads turned away from the last habitations of men. The prairie undulated about them like a sea congealed in motion—but seemingly vaster than the sea; for at sea the horizon is ever near at hand; while here the very unevenness of the ground marked, and fixed, and opened up the awful distances. The grass was short, rich and browned by the summer sun; and it mantled the distant rounds and hollows with the changing lights of beaver fur. The only breaks in its expanse were here and there, springing in the sheltered hollows, coppices or bluffs of slender poplar saplings, with crowding stems, as close and even as hair. The leaves were yellowed by the first frosts.

The man rode ahead, slouching on the back of his wretched cayuse, with eyes blank alike of inward thought or outward observation. He was not yet forty years old, but bore the cast of premature decay, more aged than age. What showed of his hair beneath his hat was sparse and faded; and of his visible teeth he had no more than a perishing stump or two left in his jaws. His discontented, satiated, exhausted mien, had a strange look there in the fresh and potent wilderness.

The girl who followed with a travoise dragging at her pony's heels, was, on the other hand, in harmony with the land. Of the extremes to which the breeds run in looks, she was of the rare beauties of that strange race. Her features were moulded in a delicate, definite harmony that would have marked her out in any assemblage of beauty; and the spirit of beauty was there too. There were actually pride and dignity under the arched brows—so capricious is Nature in shaping her wilder daughters—and in the deep soft eyes brooded, even when she was happiest, a heart-disquieting quality of wistfulness. She was happy now; and ever and anon she raised her eyes to the slouching back of the man riding ahead with a look of passionate abandon in which there was nothing civilized at all. She was slenderer than the run of brown maidens, and her clumsy print dress could not hide the girlish, perfect contour of her shoulders. In her dusky cheeks there glowed a tinge of deep rose; testimony to the lingering influence of the white blood in her veins.

Topping a rise, the man paused for her to overtake him.

"Here we are, Rina," he said indifferently. His voice was oddly cracked. His manner toward her expressed a good-humoured tolerance. His eyes approved her casually; inner tenderness there was none.

The girl apparently was sensible of no lack—but the breeds do not bring up their daughters to expect tenderness. Her eyes sparkled. "How pretty it is, 'Erbe't!" she breathed. "Ver' moch good land!" She spoke the pretty, clipped English of the convent school.

At their feet lay a shallow valley, hidden close until the very moment of stumbling upon it. In it was a sparkling slough but large enough to be dignified with the name of lake. It was something the shape of a gourd, with a long end that curved out of sight below, a very girdle of blue velvet binding the waists of the brown hills. At their left the shores of the wider part of the lake, the bulb of the gourd, were, in unexpected contrast to the bareness of the uplands, heavily wooded with great cottonwood trees and spruce. A grassy islet ringed with willows seemed to be moored here like the barge of some woodland princess. Away beyond, elevated on a grassy terrace at the head of the lake, and overlooking its whole expanse, stood a tiny weather-beaten shack, startlingly conspicuous in that great expanse of untouched nature. Sheltered by the hills from the howling blasts of the prairie above; and with wood, water and unlimited game at its door, it was a wholly desirable situation for a Northern dwelling—but it was seventy-five miles off the trail.

The girl brought her pony alongside Mabyn's; and slipped her hand into his. "It is jus' right!" she whispered. "We will be ver' happy, 'Erbe't!"

He let her hand fall carelessly. "It's damn lonesome!" he grumbled.

All the shy boldness of an enamoured girl peeped out of Rina's eyes, as she whispered: "I'm glad it's lonesome! I don' want nobody to come—but you!"

Mabyn was unimpressed. He struck the ribs of his tired pony with his heels. "Come on," he said; and led the way down the incline.

Later, reaching the shack, on the threshold Rina spread out her arms with an unconscious gesture. "This is my home!" she cried. "I will jus' love it!"

Mabyn looking around at the gaping walls, the empty panes and the foul litter, laughed jeeringly at her simplicity.

The girl was too happy to feel the sting. "I will fix it!" she said stoutly. "I will mak' it like an outside house. It will be as nice than the priest's parlour in the Settlement!" She clasped her hands against her breast in the intensity of her eagerness. "Jus' you wait, 'Erbe't! Some day I will have white curtains in the window! and a piece of carpet on the floor! and a holy picture on the wall! Oh! I will work so hard!"

"Get about the supper, Rina," said Mabyn shortly.

She prepared the meal at the rough mud fireplace built across the corner of the shack, for they had no stove; and they ate squatting on the floor in the breed fashion, for neither was there a table. Afterward Mabyn dragged the bench—a relic of the former tenant, and sole article of furniture they possessed—outside the door; and sat upon it, smoking, yawning, looking across the lake with lack-lustre eyes.

Rina having redd up the shack, came to the doorway, where she stood looking at him wistfully. Finally she hovered toward him and retreated; and her hands stole to her breast. She was longing mightily to sit beside him; but she did not dare. In a breed's wife it would have been highly presumptuous, and would very likely have been rewarded with a blow; but Rina had a dim notion that a white man's wife had the right to sit beside him—still she was afraid. In the end her desire overcame her fears; drifting hither and thither toward the bench like a frond of thistledown, she finally alighted on the edge, and her cheek dropped on his shoulder. The act must have been subtly suggested by the tincture of white blood in her veins, for it is not a redskin attitude. The man neither repulsed nor welcomed her.

"'Erbe't," she whispered, "my head is so full of things I am near crazy wit' thoughts! And my tongue is in a snare; I cannot speak at all!"

Mabyn's only comment was a sort of grunt, which meant anything—or nothing.

Rina was encouraged to creep a little closer. "Oh, 'Erbe't, I love you!" she whispered. "I am loving you every minute! I so glad you marry me, 'Erbe't!"

The man took his pipe out of his mouth, and uttered his brief, jeering cackle of laughter. "That wasn't altogether a matter of choice, my girl," he said. "It was a little preliminary insisted on by your father and mother."

Rina hardly took the sense of this. "But you do love me, 'Erbe't? jus' a little?" she pleaded.

"You're all right, Rina," he said patronizingly. "I never was one to make much of a fuss about a woman."

Little by little gathering courage, she began to pour out her soul for the man she loved. "I never love any man but you, 'Erbe't," so ran the naive confession; "the breed boys, they always come aroun' and show off. I not lak them. They foolish and dirty; they eat same lak cocouche; and they know not'ing; but they think themself so fine. They mak' me sick! My mot'er say to me; 'You eighteen year old, Rina; w'en you go to marry?' I say to my mot'er, 'I never marry a pig-man; I want to stay to you.'"

Her voice changed, borrowing the soft, passionate music of the nightingale she had never heard. "Then bam-bye w'en the spring come, an' we pitch by Ostachegan creek, an' the crocus flowers are coming up on Sah-ko-da-tah prairie so many as stars in the sky—then you come by our camp, 'Erbe't; and you so poor an' sick I feel ver' bad for you! An' you talk so pretty, and know so much, my heart him fly straight out of my breast like a bird, 'Erbe't; an' perch on your shoulder; an' him go everywhere you go; an' I got no heart any more. I empty lak a nest in the snow-time!

"So you stay to us," she went on, "and I mad to see all the men mock at you, an' treat you bad, an' mak' you eat after all have finished, and mak' you lie outside the fire. They t'ink themself better than a white man, hey! All the time you ask me to come away from the camp with you; an' you t'ink I don' want to come, but you don' know. Many, many nights I not sleep, 'Erbe't. I want so bad to come to the ot'er side of the tepee where you are, but I hold to my mot'er's blanket!"

The man looked up. "Hm! You did, eh?" he exclaimed. "If I had known!"

"But I t'ink I mos' not let you see I love you. So I mak' show I don' care at all. An' it hurt me ver' moch in my empty breast, 'Erbe't. But why I do it?—I want you so to marry me! an' bam-bye you marry me; an' I so scare and happy lak I was lose my head! Four days I married now! You not mad at me, 'Erbe't, 'cause I mak' you marry me?"

He shrugged. "What's the diff?" he said carelessly.

Rina dared to let her arm creep around his shoulders. "But bam-bye you ver' glad you marry me," she whispered. "For I mak' me ver' nice! I white woman now. I go no more to the breeds. I spik only Engliss now; we will sit in chairs and eat pretty with knives and forks; and always say good morning and good night, lak white people. 'Erbe't, you will teach me all the ways of white people, lak they do outside? I want so bad to be ver' nice, jus' lak white woman!"

"Sure!" said Mabyn vaguely.

Rina was silent for a while. "'Erbe't," she said at last, "you never tell me about your folks; about your house where you live outside. Please tell me."

He muttered, and writhed uncomfortably on the bench. "What's the use of bringing that up?" he said at last. "You wouldn't understand if I tried to tell you."

"Loving makes me onderstan' moch," she softly pleaded.

He was silent.

"Have you any sisters outside, 'Erbe't?" she gently persisted.

"No," he said.

"Your mot'er, she is not dead?"

"No."

"She mos' be ver' nice, I think."

"She's a lady!" he blurted out.

Rina nodded wisely. "I know what that is," she said. "A lady is a ver' nice woman." Her voice dropped very low. "'Erbe't," she whispered, with infinite, passionate desire in her voice—stroking his cheek, "will you teach me to be a lady?"

He laughed. "You 'tend to your work about the place," he said, "and don't bother your head over that."

Tears slowly welled up in Rina's eyes, and stole one after another down her cheeks. "I do so ver' moch want to be a lady," she whispered, more to herself than to him. He did not know she wept, she was so still.

By and by she raised her head, and shook the tears away. "To-morrow, I will begin to fix things nice for you, 'Erbe't," she said with renewed, soft tenderness.

He vented his hopeless, jeering chuckle. "Nice!" he echoed. "My God, Rina! What are you going to begin on?"

"I show you!" she said eagerly. "I have a whole tanned buckskin my father give to me when I go 'way; and my mot'er, she give silk, all colours. I make seven, eight, maybe ten pairs of glove, with cuffs; and work them with silk flowers! No woman can work so good with silk than me! I work all the time there is light; and when all are done I get forty dollar in trade at the store! And I buy cartridges and traps and grub, and another skin to work. Not any more will you be poor, 'Erbe't!"

"Lord! How will we ever drag out the winter in this God-forsaken spot!" he grumbled—unconsciously shifting the initiative to her shoulders.

Her arm tightened about him. "We will do fine!" she said eagerly. "We will mak' moch money. There is no plentier place for fur; and we will have it all! Me, I can set traps and snares as good as Michel Whitebear. Maybe I will get a silver fox, or a black one. I know the fox! In the spring we will have plenty good credit at the store. We can travel to the Settlement then, and you will not be lonesome. There are many white men. We could stay in the Settlement all summer; and I would cook meals for the freighters and the travellers and mak' more money. I am a good worker, 'Erbe't. Everybody say so!"

Mabyn partly roused himself. "That's not a bad idea," he said. "Under cover of the restaurant, it would be dead easy to run in a little whiskey over the Berry Mountain trail, and make a pot of money. Fifty cents a drink, by Gad!"

Rina drew away from him. "I will not help you do that, 'Erbe't," she said quietly.

"You'll do what I tell you to do," he said coolly.

Rina remained silent. Her breast heaved and trembled with terror at her own temerity in defying her husband—but there were both firmness and reproach in her attitude. It was more than the weak Mabyn could bear for long in silence.

"Good God!" he burst out. "Have I married a breed to tell me what I ought to do, and ought not to do? Better learn once for all, my girl, that I'm the head of this outfit, and I mean to do whatever I damned please!"

Rina sat gripping her hands together in her lap to control their trembling. Her head was bowed. "I am only a breed girl," she said. "You are my 'osban', and you can beat me, and you can kill me, but I would not cry out, or think bad of you. But you cannot mak' me help you to mak' a pig of you again. I will mak' you to have good credit, an' to be a rich and strong man, an' you can go back and spit on the poor breeds that mock you before. I will not help you trade in whiskey; whiskey mak' you poor, an' sick, an' crazy!"

Mabyn got up. "God! Women are all alike, white or brown!" he muttered indifferently. "Come on in."

But he had yielded the point. The regeneration of Herbert Mabyn had been undertaken.



XIV

THE LAST STAGE

The hours of the afternoon that followed their encounter with Tom Lillywhite were long and heavy ones for Natalie and Garth. A haggard misunderstanding rode between them on the trail. Denied the all-explaining, all-healing touch of hands—or lips, the unreasonable despair of lovers seized on each; and the sunny way was plunged in murk. They rode, and camped, and ate their supper in silence; and in silence they turned in for the night. But there was little sleep for either; they lay apart, each nursing a burden of unhappiness; unable to say now what it was all about, only dreadfully conscious that they were divided.

As soon as it was light enough to see, a pale and heavy-lidded Natalie crept noiselessly out of her tent. In front of the door she saw Garth on his knees preparing to build a fire; but the hand that held the hatchet-helve had dropped nervelessly to the ground; and his eyes, fixed and staring in the torpor of miserableness, had forgotten what he had set out to do. At the sight, a rapturous peace came back to Natalie's harried soul; for, she thought, if he were so unhappy as that, he must love her in spite of all. And Garth, looking up, saw the tenderness break in her weary face, and he understood it all too. The forest sprang into leaf again for them; and presently the sun came gaily up. They became as wildly and unreasonably happy as they had just been miserable; and not a word was exchanged either way. It was not necessary. That they did not fling themselves into each other's arms at that moment, must surely be written down to their credit somewhere.

They made but a leisurely progress this day and the next. The labour of the journey was greater than at any time hitherto, for in addition to the ordinary routine of making and breaking camp twice a day, Garth had now the four horses to look after. Catching them was a task of uncertain duration, even though they were turned out hobbled; in particular, the exasperating Timoosis developed the proficiency of a very circus horse, in walking on his hind legs. And once caught, there was all the business of saddling, packing and drawing the hitch.

Besides, there was that in both their hearts which delayed them even more. No ardently desired goal awaited them at the end of this journey; on the contrary they dreaded what they were to find. The last few miles of the way together, before the inevitable came between them, was therefore very dear; and it became ever easier to say "Let's camp!" and harder to say "Let's move!"

Their boisterous jollity on the trail gave place to much quiet happiness; and there was ceaseless friendly contention, where Garth's every thought was for Natalie; and hers for him. Each was on his mettle to be worthy of the other's best. Above all they avoided the insidious danger of contact; but inevitably sometimes in the business of the camp, their hands did meet—and each to himself stored up and told over the events like secret treasures. In every labour Natalie insisted on taking her share like a man; and Garth never ceasing to upbraid her, yet loved her for it prodigiously.

Day by day, now, the leaves of the more exposed trees were yellowing; and on the second night of their journey across the portage, the first heavy frost of the season descended. Garth, under his sail-cloth at the door of the tent, awoke covered with rime.

Toward the end of the third day they had their never-to-be-forgotten first glimpse of the mighty Spirit, the dream river of the North, whose name evokes the thought of a garden in a bleak land. The unvarying flatness of the portage with its standing pools, and the interminable lofty wood that had hemmed them in for three days, had given them the sense of travelling on the bottom of the world, and that somewhere ahead must be a hill to climb. What then was their astonishment this afternoon, when, without warning they emerged from among the trees on an abrupt grassy terrace, and beheld the great river lying nearly a thousand feet below.

It was a view inimitably gorgeous and sublime. Coming so suddenly upon it they caught their breaths and gazed in silence; for there was nothing fitting to say. The high point on which they stood overlooked a deep and narrow gorge at their left, through which a little river fell to the great stream; and across this they could look up the vast trough for miles. In the distance the river seemed to rise, until one would say it issued molten from the low-hung sun itself.

It had an individual and peculiar look, like no watercourse they had seen. Its course drew a sharp line between the wooded country and the prairie. Like a figure dressed in motley, the steep southern bank was everywhere dark and wooded, while the other side, sweeping up in countless fantastic knolls and terraces, was bare, except for the brown grass, and patches of scrub-like hair in the hollows. Far back from the opposite rim of the vast trough swept the unmeasured prairie, as flat, in the whole prospect, as the country they had lately traversed.

It was the wealth of colour that most of all bewitched their eyes. The river itself was of an odd, insistent green—emerald tinged with milk; the islands on its bosom hung out the rich bottle-green of spruce; the grass on the north bank was beaver-brown; the wild-rose scrub glowed blood-crimson in the hollows; and the aspen bluffs, touched with frost, were as yellow as saffron. The wild and beautiful panorama was made complete in their eyes by a great golden eagle perched on the brink of the immediate foreground and, like themselves, gazing over. Though but a hundred yards or so distant, he contemptuously disregarded their arrival. When Garth, full of curiosity, came closer, he spread his vast wings and drifted indifferently out into space.

For a long time they gazed at the scene without speaking. It was Natalie who finally expressed their common thought.

"Wouldn't it be sweet," she said wistfully, "if our journey had no other object but to see this! With what satisfied hearts we could now turn back!"

Skirting the edge of the steep, presently the Settlement came into view far below, a hut or two along the river, hugging the base of the cliffs. The trail zigzagged gradually down, frequently doubling on itself; and whereas the eagle might have descended in a minute, it promised to be more like half an hour for them.

Garth, following his previous policy, did not intend to expose Natalie to the stares of the Settlement, until he had at least reconnoitred. Before coming on the houses, therefore, he led his little caravan off through the bush to the left; and descended to the shore of the smaller stream they had seen from above. Here, in a private glade beside the noisy brown water, they pitched their camp; and Garth, leaving Natalie armed against all eventualities, proceeded into the Settlement.

His inevitable first question at the store elicited the information that the Bishop had gone up the river to Binchinnin, Ostachegan Creek and Fort St. Pierre. Next, the name of Herbert Mabyn called forth contemptuous shrugs. None of the men could give certain information of his whereabouts, though Clearwater Lake was mentioned again. He had not been in to the post for four months; and there was a handful of letters waiting for him. Garth was referred to the breeds across the river for better news. It was clearly intimated that all self-respecting white men had cast Mabyn off.

Inquiring the means of crossing the river, the ferry was pointed out to Garth, a barge propelled with sweeps. It must be tracked up-stream for a quarter of a mile before starting across, to allow for the current, he was told. The trader offered to help him when he was ready. Garth thanking him, privately resolved to cross before the Settlement was astir next morning. He saw that his own reticence in answering questions inspired the three simultaneously with the idea that he was a detective from outside, in pursuit of Herbert Mabyn for some early sin; and he let it go at that.

* * * * *

Garth roused Natalie long before dawn; and they crossed the river by the first greenish light of the East. Garth handled one sweep, Natalie the other; and their labour was great. The incorrigible Timoosis, who never neglected an opportunity to make trouble, balked furiously at the ferry; and, finally driven on board and tied, managed to work the other horses up to a high state of excitement during the passage.

Finally, when they had almost made the other shore, he succeeded in breaking his halter; and, leaping over the stern, perversely struck out for the shore they had left. Cy and Caspar, horses of no character, blindly leaped after him. For a moment a dire disaster threatened; for Timoosis, borne down by the weight of his pack, could scarcely keep his head above water; and they thought they had lost both their horse and their camp equipment. But the self-contained Emmy, who had not budged during all the excitement, merely turned her head, and sent an imperious whinny in the direction of her offspring; whereupon Timoosis, with true coltish inconsistency, turned about, and came meekly swimming after the barge, followed by the other two. Since the shore was not above twenty-five yards off he managed to win it pack and all, and staggered up on the beach, chilled, exhausted, and much chastened in mind. Warned by previous experiences, they never trusted him with anything perishable, so the damage to his pack was slight.

After an hour's travelling, they halted by the trail at sunrise to eat, and to dry out what had been wet. This part of the trail traversed the heavily wooded bottom-lands, before starting to climb the grassy steeps of the further bank. As they sat on a log discussing their bread and cocoa, a rollicking song came, as a sound comes fluctuating through the woods, now from this side, now from that, and curiously deadened. It finally resolved itself into the air of Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay with words in Cree. While it still seemed some distance away, suddenly the singer rode upon them; and reining up his horse, called the song into his surprised throat.

He was the handsomest native they had met, a young fellow of twenty-odd, lean and broad-shouldered, with flashing black eyes and high-bridged nose. His stiff-brimmed "Stetson" was tilted at a dashing angle; he had a scarlet silk handkerchief about his throat; and he sat his horse like a young prince of the woods. Whether pure redskin or breed it was impossible for them to tell; certainly there was no visible evidence of a white admixture; but in spite of his strange and savage air, there was something instantly likeable about the young man—according to Natalie he was the first native they had met who seemed human. He rode a fine black horse as bravely accoutred as would become the captain of a round-up.

He seemed disposed to be friendly; and Garth invited him to share their meal. As politeness demanded, he broke a small piece of bread, and drank some cocoa, which was plainly not at all to his taste. When he sat down he had the grace to take off his hat, something else they had not seen before in a native.

His name, he volunteered, was Gene Lafabe. Since his English was about on a par with Garth's Cree, communication was difficult. In his simplicity, the young man was continually forgetting they could not understand his language; and when Garth shook his head, only shouted the louder.

"You know Herbert Mabyn?" Garth asked.

Gene vigorously nodded his head, adding a stream of information, which, had they only understood, would have materially altered their subsequent line of action.

Garth shook his head hopelessly. "Where is he?" he asked.

Gene pointed north. "Clearwater Lake," he said; and in the twinkling of an eye, counted seventy-five with his ten fingers.

"Where is the trail?" Garth asked.

Gene shrugged. "Nomoya!" he said. "No trail!"

Garth had an inspiration. "Can you take us there?" he asked.

Considerable patience and good-humour were called for from both sides, in the arduous course of arriving at an understanding; but finally a bargain was struck. Gene, in addition to the credentials of his person, bore a highly satisfactory letter of recommendation from the company trader at the Crossing. Whatever his errand in the first place may have been, he never gave it another thought; and in half an hour blithely turned his horse's head, and took the lead on the trail.

Gene looked at every considerable tree, every little gulley, and every rise in the ground with the eye of an old friend. In a mile or so, at a place marked in no way that Garth could see, he abruptly turned out of the trail; and led them with an air of certainty through the apparently trackless woods. The trees ended at the steep rise that marked the bottom of the northern bank; and thereafter they climbed the grass.

By a devious route known to himself Gene led them through many little grassy ravines, and over ridges, gradually upward. There was no sense or order in the arrangement of the knolls and terraces and spurs of turf—the ground seemed to be pushed up anyhow, like bubbles on the surface of yeasty dough. For a while they would be swallowed in a cup-like hollow; then, surmounting a ridge, they would have a brief glimpse of the distant river behind. It was only when they reached the top that, looking back over the turbulent rounded masses of earth, they were able to comprehend the great height to which they had climbed.

Reaching level ground, Gene with a shout set off at a lope in a bee line across the prairie; and Garth bringing up the packhorses in the rear, caused the sedate Emmy to put her best foot foremost. Meanwhile, with pocket-compass and memorandum book, he made notes of the route they took; and when opportunity offered tied a strip of white cotton to a bush. It was his intention to dismiss Gene before coming to Mabyn's hut; and he wished to be sure of the way back. The guide, comprehending what he was doing, gave him to understand that Emmy could bring them back over their own tracks—unless snow should fall. But Garth was neglecting no precautions.

Garth and Natalie deplored to each other the inadequacy of their means of communication with their guide. The bright-eyed Gene had a hundred things to point out to them on the prairie, most of which they could only guess at. For one thing, he made them understand he was following in the tracks of two cayuses that had gone that way three days before. One was lame, he said, and the other dragged a travoise. All this he learned from certain marks in the grass, which the other two could not see at all. In all ways Gene proved himself a very pearl among guides. Garth, merely from watching him, learned as much trail-craft these two days as he had picked up during the weeks preceding; and Natalie confessed that his cooking put her utterly to shame.

Such was the energy of their pace that they reached the last waterhole before coming to Clearwater Lake early next afternoon. Here Garth decided to camp; for he had determined with Natalie to time their arrival at Mabyn's hut for the morning; so that after the briefest stay, they could immediately start back. Clearwater Lake was only three miles distant; and Gene was able to point out a poplar bluff marking the rise behind which it lay.

Neither Garth nor Natalie obtained much sleep that night; only Gene, wrapped in his rabbit-skin robe beyond the fire, slept the sleep of the savage or the child. They were all astir at dawn; and after eating, they parted; Gene careering south without a care on his mind; while Garth and Natalie turned their apprehensive faces toward the lake. What they were to find there they did not know; but intuition warned them it would be sufficiently painful.

When they reached the brow of the last hill, and the lake stretched vividly below them, they had no eyes for the loveliness of the prospect. The little hut at the head of the water far to the left was the first thing they saw; and it was charged with a significance that obliterated everything else. Facing the early sunlight it stood revealed with startling distinctness; and even at the distance had a ghastly look; gray, artificial and decayed in the midst of the mellow autumn loveliness.

"I will picket the packhorses down at the edge of the water," Garth said; "and we'll ride on without them. It will provide us with an obvious excuse to return immediately."

Natalie scarcely heard. Her eyes were fixed on the distant shack. "What do you suppose it hides from us?" she whispered. "Death, misery, or disgrace?"

Garth could scarcely forbear groaning in the pain of his solicitude for her. "Oh, Natalie!" he said hoarsely, "I haven't done right to expose you to this!"

"I made you!" she said quickly. "Besides, it's not a question of right or wrong. As you said we would, we have only done the best we could, under the circumstances that arose."

"At least let me ride on ahead a little," he begged. "You stay with the outfit. I will hurry back."

She shook her head. "I couldn't stand the suspense," she said simply. "Do not be afraid on my account," she added; "merely looking with my outward eyes at something that always faces me within won't hurt me. Come on!"

But presently she reined up her pony again, and turning a pair of brimming eyes on him, extended her hand. "Garth!" she murmured, "I—I would like to thank you—but I can't!"

"Oh, don't!" he begged.

"Whatever we find down there," she said wistfully, "it can't make any difference, can it? We will still be the same partners of the trail?"

Garth went pale to his lips—but he contrived to smile at her. He took her hand and looked at her full. "Until death," he said quietly.

She drew her hand away, with a deep breath. "Come on," she said. "We've got to face it!"



XV

THE MEETING

The spot of the lake shore where Garth picketed the two horses was something under two miles from Mabyn's hut. The way led among the trees which filled this part of the valley of the lake; and underfoot they could distinguish traces of an old trail. The growth ended abruptly at the edge of a small, dry watercourse, which came down to the lake; and issuing into the open here, the riders beheld the dreaded goal of their long journey immediately before them.

As they crossed the stones, they were ready to fancy they could hear, each the beating of the other's heart; and the scene before them was bitten into their brains, to endure hideously vivid and minute while life endured. The shack presented a three-quarter view, front and side. It topped a gentle, uneven acclivity of grass, rising from the watercourse at its side; while in front, the ground extended level a hundred feet to the edge of a cut-bank. This bank rose out of the lake sheer and loamy, to the height of a cottage roof; and over the edge hung a tangled fringe of grass-roots.

Desolation was the cry of it all; winters upon winters had bleached the logs of the shack silvery like old hair; the chimney had fallen; and all four quarters of glass in the single window were out. At one time the slope between the hut and the bed of the stream had evidently been a theatre of industry; for the ground was pitted and hummocked and rutted; but long ago the grass had indifferently muffled it over, like graves in an old cemetery. In the centre of this waste stood, the picture of dejection, an Indian-bred cayuse, miserable burlesque of the equine species, no bigger than a donkey, and incredibly hairy and misshapen. His back was galled; and one leg, which he painfully favoured, puffed to treble its size at the hock. Even the great cottonwood trees springing beyond the hut, with their shattered branches, and blotched and greenish trunks, breathed decay. An ancient dugout, lying at the mouth of the watercourse, was, like everything else, rotting and seamed.

And on the bench at the door of the hut sat the evil genius of the scene; a man with his legs sprawling in front of him, and his head fallen over and back against the wall. He made no move at their approach; and when they came close, they saw that he slept. Pitilessly revealed in the strong sunlight, he made a spectacle at which the most indifferent stranger would have shuddered and sickened—and it was reserved for the woman who had exalted him in her maiden's heart, to see him then. His mouth hung open; he breathed stertorously; and the flies, buzzing in and out of the open door beside him, crawled at will over his ashen face. That his chin was freshly shaven, and his hair brushed, added to the ghastliness. The whole picture was horribly vivid; the littlest details of it struck on the retinas of the two observers like blows—the oblong patch of sunlight cleaving the gloom of the shack inside the door; six muskrat pelts above the man's head, tacked to the logs to dry; an old foul pipe with a silver mounting, half fallen from his relaxed fingers and spilling ashes on the bench; his old-fashioned rifle leaning against the door-frame. Garth could have furnished the size, the style and the make of that gun.

Natalie turned a stony face to Garth. "It is he," she whispered.

Garth thought of an old photograph she had shown him of a dark-haired youth sitting on a horse, with a charming, imperious grace of body and feature, in which there was something godlike and unanswerable; and looking at this wreck of a man, toothless, bald and livid, he was struck with awe.

"You have seen," he whispered to Natalie. "Let us ride back."

She shook her head. "I must say what I came for," she said.

"Will you dismount?" he asked.

Natalie shuddered. "Never, here!" she whispered.

In a moment she had commanded herself again. "Please speak to him," she said.

"Mabyn!" called Garth peremptorily.

The man's lids parted. Natalie was directly in front of him. As his sleep-stupefied eyes slowly took her in, he raised himself to an upright position, and struck his eyeballs sharply with his knuckles.

Garth instinctively drew away a little.

"A white woman!" muttered the man, lost in amazement.

Natalie, her head slightly averted, sat her horse like a carven woman.

Fear grew apace with wonder in Mabyn's eyes; his breath quickened; he ceaselessly passed his hand in front of his face. "Natalie!" he muttered, still in the toneless voice of one who sleeps. "Oh, my God! It's Natalie!"

Grasping the edge of the bench, he pulled himself to his feet; and took a few uncertain steps toward her. He put out his hand fearfully.

Natalie sharply reined back her horse. "Don't touch me!" she said.

It broke the spell that held him—but not wholly. His hands dropped to his sides; a saner light appeared in his eyes; and he looked all around, as if to convince himself of the realness of his surroundings. On Garth his eyes lingered stupidly for a moment; then impatiently returned to Natalie.

"If it's you, how did you get here?" he asked quietly enough—still bemused.

"I came over the prairie, as every one comes," she said sharply.

Mabyn frowned. "I'm wide awake," he said irritably. "I know where I am. I fell asleep on the bench half an hour ago—but," his voice deepened and swelled on the note of awe, "you, Natalie! You or your wraith! I—I can't take it in!" The faded eyes bolted, and swept wearily and unseeingly over the lake.

Natalie winced every time he spoke her name. "Try to collect yourself," she said coldly. "There is no doubt of its being I."

"The voice too!" he muttered, struck with the new thought. His eyes returned to her. "Natalie—and not changed at all!" he murmured dreamily. "But more beautiful!"

"If you please!" said Natalie haughtily.

He still stood looking at her with something the air of a bewildered child, but more of the aged lunatic. "The first time I saw her, she was on a horse," he said in his dull voice. "But she was better dressed. Where did you get those clothes?" he asked suddenly.

Natalie shot an appealing glance at Garth.

He, in his over-mastering disgust of the man, could not put away the thought that there was something feigned in this excessive bewilderment. "Come to yourself, Mabyn!" he said sharply. "We can't stop here!"

Mabyn darted a startled, spiteful glance at the new speaker, and without another word, turned and went back to the bench, where he sat, burying his face in his hands. Natalie and Garth looked at each other, scarcely knowing how to act. But presently Mabyn lifted his head again; and, spying his pipe where it had fallen, picked it up, and attentively knocked out what remained of the ashes in the bowl.

Natalie thought she might venture to address him again. "I have something important to tell you," she began.

Mabyn darted a queer, furtive look at her; shame, suspicion, obsequiousness and a sudden, reborn passion all had a part in it. "Won't you shake hands with me?" he asked suddenly.

Natalie drew the long breath that invokes Patience and looked elsewhere.

"You've changed toward me," the man whined.

Indignation suddenly reddened her cheeks, and she levelled her blue eyes upon him in a glance that should have struck to his soul.

But it failed to penetrate very far. "I know I've treated you badly," he went on. "I was coming out in the spring, though; just as soon as I got things straight. I've worked like a son-of-a-gun too, but luck has always been against me." His voice gathered assurance from his own excuses.

"Never mind that now," said Natalie. "Please listen to what I have to say."

But the man, shrinking from matter hateful to his ears, strove to divert her. He struck his forehead with his knuckles, and jumped up. "By Gad! What's the matter with me!" he cried. "I never asked you in! It's a wretched hole, but such as it is——" He had turned to the door. Sudden recollection chopped off the speech midway; and he turned a furtive, frightened face over his shoulder to Natalie.

"N-never mind," he gabbled hurriedly. "Don't come in! It's not fit to receive you! It's better out here!" Little beads of sweat were springing out on his forehead.

His whole bearing had been so wild and stupefied since his waking, that they attached small importance to this display of terror. Natalie patiently essayed to speak again; but again he interrupted.

His face cleared. "You've left your outfit somewhere back on the trail," he said eagerly. "I'll go back with you; and we can talk things over quietly there!" He actually started toward the watercourse, walking with jerky, uneven steps.

Natalie made no move to follow. "I will say what I have to say here," she spoke after him.

Mabyn was voluble, scarcely coherent in his incontinent desire to take her away from the hut. Natalie waited, letting him talk himself out. Finally compelled to give in, he returned with strange, apprehensive glances around the hut, and over the summits of the hills behind. Garth thought his brain was beginning to be affected by a solitary life.

However, he now listened patiently enough.

"You have not written to your mother or to me in many months," began Natalie coldly; "and your letters for three years past have given us no information. Your mother's whole thought is of you; and through her anxiety and suspense she is worn to a shadow of what she was; the doctors tell her she has a mortal disease that must soon prevail."

In spite of herself Natalie's voice softened as she delivered her pitiful plea; but it was not from any kindness for him. "She has been very kind to me all these years," she went on, "and I, to ease her what I could of the torment of her mind during her last days, volunteered to go with her to find you. Her age and her infirmities prevented her from coming any farther than Prince George. I have been fortunate in finding friends who have assisted me the rest of the way. I have come to beg you, on behalf of your mother, to let her see you before she dies. She is waiting in Prince George. She bade me tell you that neither poverty, misfortune nor disgrace could abate any of her love for you; that she would die happy if she might once more press your hand against her cheek."