When I returned to Betty my self-control had been regained. Whatever the significance of the rifle’s disappearance might be Betty must have shelter for the night, and the cave was the only place available for that purpose. We carried the canoe thither and I lighted my piece of candle and stepped down.
The cave really was a wedge-shaped opening in the side of the hill, its mouth probably twenty feet across, and about the same in depth. Betty cried out as the candle-light revealed the place.
“Why it’s almost jolly! It’s a perfect place to play Injun.”
We slid the canoe down and placed it as near the back of the cave as it would go.
“That,” said I, “is going to be your bed,” and clambering out I began to gather armfuls of fragrant small branches and brush.
The canoe was soon half filled, and, spreading the blanket over the boughs, I said—
“Whenever you are ready to retire, there is your chamber.”
“How jolly!” she cried.
Then she stopped. A new expression, which I misread, came into her eyes.
“I have my lodgings up the hill a ways,” I said hurriedly. “I’ll bid you good night.”
“Mr. Pitt!” she said, and for the first time her under lip trembled suspiciously.
“It’s a considerable distance away,” I assured her. “I’ll be quite out of sight. Really, you needn’t——”
Her lip ceased trembling. A tiny twinkle came into her eyes, a trace of a smile showed in the corners of her mouth.
“Good gracious!” she cried. “I believe that you—you think I’m worrying—about being alone with you!”
I looked at her stupidly.
“Well, weren’t you?”
Her smile vanished.
“Oh, what a perfectly selfish pig you must think me, Mr. Pitt!”
“Good heavens, no! Anything but that. But—but we’re alone—no chaperon—wasn’t that the natural thing to think?”
“The conventional thing, you mean! And—and we’re playing Injun together!”
“But—but you looked!” I stammered protestingly. “What were you thinking about?”
And she replied—
“I was wishing we had two canoes.”
Presently she said—
“How are you going to sleep, Mr. Pitt?”
“On a bed of boughs.”
“Where?”
“Oh, there’s plenty of room all around.”
“And no shelter? Suppose it rains? Why do you wish to leave this cave?”
“My dear Miss Baldwin!” I protested.
“Shocked?” she said mournfully. “I can’t help it. It seems so ridiculous to think of such things out here. We—we’re Injuns. See, there’s a nice corner right near the opening, yet with a roof over it. We can fill that with boughs. I—I’d get frightened, really, if you left me here all alone.”
“Putting it that way, of course—”
“That’s right. Now I’m going to help make your bed.”
Fifteen minutes later, perhaps, I lay down upon a pile of branches near the mouth of the cavern and blew out the candle.
“Good night,” came Betty’s voice from the canoe.
“Good night.”
Silence reigned. We were tired; soon we grew drowsy. Just before she fell asleep Betty murmured—
“Mr. Pitt!”
“Yes.”
“I still insist ’tisn’t fair—we haven’t got—two canoes.”
XXX
The cave became still. Snuggled down in her bed in the canoe Betty had fallen asleep as readily as if in her bed in the owner’s suite aboard the Wanderer. Sleep pressed on my eyelids, too; my body, tired from the unwonted exertions of the day, demanded insistently the boon of recreating slumber.
I fought off my drowsiness, however, and lay curled up on my bed of boughs, facing the cave’s mouth, and tried to think. Yet though I realized that I was awake it all seemed like a dream, such a dream as youth dreams when the call of Romance and Adventure still is real.
I was Gardner Pitt, writing man; my accustomed environment, the carefully barbered, denaturalized life of my set in New York. No, that must be a mistake. That New York existence seemed too far away to be a part of my present life. That was the dream; this the reality. I was Gardner Pitt, but I was not a writer; I was simply a hundred and sixty pounds of man, and I was sleeping on a pile of brush at the mouth of a cavern, in which slept a woman guarded by my presence. And it all seemed so natural, so vital and true a field for a man’s activities, that for the time nothing else had significance. True, this was not my woman that I was guarding, but another’s. But no thought of this entered my mind at the time. I did not think at all beyond the problem of escaping from Brack.
I placed my pistol in my right hand, determined to lie awake through the night.
I must have fallen asleep immediately after this, because when I was awakened by the rays of the morning sun slanting into the cave, the pistol lay with my relaxed hand upon it. I started up with a sensation of guilt.
With my pistol in my hand I peered out of the cave, more than half expecting to find Brack calmly awaiting me with his tantalizing smile in its place. But no human presence disturbed the primitive peace of that hillside that morning. A covey of feeding grouse lifted their heads and looked at me without fear. Birds were singing, the sun was bright and warm, and down on the blue water of the bay a pair of tiny ducks played.
I turned to look at Betty and was greeted by the sight of a very tousled, half-awake little head, peering over the side of the canoe.
“‘Mornin’,” murmured the little head sleepily.
“‘Mornin’,” I replied.
“Oo-oo-ah!” The little head yawned tremendously. “Wha’ time is ’t?”
It was 7:02 by my watch as I consulted it.
“Oo-o-wah!” Little head looked at me appealingly. “Do we got to get up so early when we play Injun?”
“Only the hunting Injun’s got to get up so early. Other Injuns sleep as long as they please.”
“Hunting? What for?”
“Oh, for a nice, big white yacht, for one thing. I’ll be gone only a short while. In the meantime you sleep.”
“O-um-mum,” murmured the little head and sank comfortably out of sight in the canoe.
Parting the brush that hid the cave, I stepped out and went down the hillside a short distance. Looking back I was pleased to find that the cave was so well hidden that unless one knew its location it might be passed close by without its existence being suspected. Save for the possibility that man who had taken the rifle was one of Brack’s gang the cave offered a fairly safe hiding place.
My first move was to assure myself that the yacht was not anchored near by. I went cautiously up the bay for half a mile, scrutinizing each inlet in vain for a sight of the Wanderer’s white sides. I then swung up into the hills, marching a circle around the cave, impelled by the instinctive desire to ascertain the possible presence of any enemy.
At a distance of a city block from the cave I found a tiny spring sending its rivulet down the hillside to the bay, and as I lay down to drink I saw huddled beneath a tiny fir a flock of grouse watching me from a distance of ten or twelve feet.
Instinct promptly whispered: “Food” and I recalled the scant supply I had taken from the cabin, and reached for my pistol. The pistol, however, would roar like a cannon in that morning stillness and my supply of ammunition was limited to the ten cartridges in the magazine.
Lying motionless I looked around until my eyes fell upon a club. It was out of reach, but the foolish birds, confident that they were hidden, sat still while I secured the club and hurled it with all my might into their midst. I leaped forward instantly, and in the roar and flurry of the covey’s rising pounced upon two fluttering birds which my club had stunned.
Betty was up and wide awake when I returned to the cave. She had made her hair into one thick braid which hung down her back, and her face was rosy from sound sleep. She shuddered first at the sight of the birds.
“Oh, the poor, pretty things!” she murmured, stroking their feathers. “I wish you hadn’t hurt them.”
“I didn’t hurt them,” I replied. “They never knew what struck them. I didn’t like to do it, but we must find our own food, or surrender to Brack.”
She looked at the birds wistfully and said nothing as I led her to the spring. I left her splashing the ice-cold water upon her face and proceeded to dress the birds. When I returned to the cave she was waiting with her sleeves rolled up and a set look in her eyes.
“I can cook them,” she said firmly. “That’s my share of the game. You cut them in two and put a stick through the pieces and hold them before a hot fire that doesn’t smoke.”
“Any fire that we have must not smoke,” I said. “The smoke would show above the trees and be seen.”
“Then we must have perfectly dry wood,” she said quickly. “A small fire and dry; that doesn’t smoke.”
We set about gathering the wood together. Between two stones at the cave’s opening we built our fire, watching it jealously, to see that only the minimum of smoke arose from it in the clear air. Betty put her conscience to rest as she regarded the dressed grouse, composed mainly of succulent breast.
“They must be intended for food,” she said, “or they wouldn’t be made as they are.”
I agreed with her emphatically, and with a skewered half bird in each hand we sat down before the fire and proceeded with our cookery.
Freshly killed spruce grouse, roasted before an uncertain fire, and without salt, do not make ideal breakfast food, a fact which we discovered soon after the birds were done.
“I believe,” said Betty, when she had nibbled at half a bird, “I have had enough.”
“I have other viands in my pocket.”
“To be saved for future reference,” she laughed.
“We’ll wrap the rest of this wild poultry up in nice clean leaves and save it for another meal.”
“We will. It will be tasty when cold.”
At the spring where we went to wash down the meal with drafts of water, Betty’s eyes began to twinkle and the corners of her lips twitched suspiciously.
“Well, we’ve perfectly beautiful drinking water, at least,” she said, and smothered her laughter behind both hands.
“Now then,” she said briskly, when we were back in the cave, “are we going to occupy this apartment for some time, or do we continue our travels of last night?”
I told her that it seemed best for us to stay in hiding.
“All right. Then let’s try to brighten the place up a little. We don’t have to sit here and look at these black stone walls just because we’re playing Injun. Come and help me; I love to select furnishings for a room.”
From the hillside near the cave we gathered more branches and brush. Pine, spruce, birch and willow, budding into the full growth of Summer, came by the armfuls into the cavern.
“You never would have thought that this place needed decorating, would you?” said Betty, as she set to work. “Certainly not. This rough roof offers a shelter; these harsh walls hide us from our enemies. So you, being a mere man, think it’s all right. Ha! I’d hate to be a mere man.”
She was flying about the cave, fastening branches in the clefts of the rock, stepping back to view the results, altering her arrangements, apparently so lost in her work as to have forgotten our true situation.
“Now hand me that birch branch—the white contrasts beautifully with the green pine; now another piece of pine, now some more birch. There. That’s what you call repetition of color, isn’t it? You don’t know? Gracious. How can men be so ignorant of the really important things of life!”
On the rock forming the roof of the cave we found a patch of moss, velvet soft to the touch, and a gentle brown and gold in color. With a stick I loosened great pieces from the rock and bore it carefully within where Betty directed the carpeting of the cave. When a large piece reached its destination intact Betty beamed; when the moss broke between my outstretched hands she pouted.
“I think so long as Nature goes to the trouble of creating a carpet for us it might as well do a good job and make it strong enough to stand transportation.”
But when the cave was carpeted with its soft, yielding cushion of moss she clapped her hands in delight.
“Look at it!” she cried, embracing the cave with a gesture. “Why, it’s cozy; people could almost live here.”
Our coming and going had trodden down much of the brush which had so thoroughly hidden the cave, and with some of the branches left over from Betty’s decorations I proceeded to weave a screen over the opening. When I had completed it I crawled out and inspected my work from a distance. The cave now was hidden more thoroughly than ever. Brack must look long and carefully to find us.
When I slipped back into our shelter I surprised Betty sitting on the canoe with her head bowed upon her hands in an attitude of dejection. She looked up, smiling bravely, but her cheerfulness was only surface-deep.
I looked away without a word, as did she, but in that moment we had confessed to one another that our display of high spirits had merely been acting, each wishing to help bolster up the courage of the other. We sat so for some time. Betty finally broke the silence.
“Well,” she said quietly, “there’s no use pretending any more, is there?”
As I had no reply she continued—
“We might as well admit out loud that neither of us feels—well, exactly jolly about it.”
“That’s true,” I replied inanely.
We were silent again.
“What—what are we going to do about it, Mr. Pitt?”
“There is nothing much to do; we are safe for the time being. So long as we keep out of Brack’s sight we are safe. For the present we could do just that—and hope.”
Betty heard me without a word. Once more she bowed her face upon her hands, and her girlish shoulders trembled. I was at her side in an instant.
“Don’t, Betty, please don’t!” I pleaded. “You mustn’t give way. It’s rough, and it’s hard, specially hard for a girl like you, but don’t give way for—for my sake. It’s been your fine courage and cheerfulness that’s kept me from showing that I’m really a coward. Yes, it is; you’ve kept me from being a coward. Don’t—please don’t be afraid. We’ll get out of this all right somehow, sure.”
She looked at me, her eyes moist, but with her old thoughtful look in them.
“Do you really believe we will, in your heart, Mr. Pitt?”
“Most emphatically I do.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you only hope——?”
“No; I believe.”
“Oh!” she cried suddenly. “I hope—I pray—that you’re right; because it’s all my fault, all my fault, and I’d never forgive myself if I’d brought harm to you—or George.”
Once more the sound of George’s name on her tongue shocked me. Could she never get the man out of her head?
I picked aimlessly at a birch bough over my head, and each little budding leaf that I plucked away seemed like the tiny dreams which unconsciously had been in my mind all morning, and which now were driven away. The dreams that come to a man willy-nilly, without reason, without basis of hope. It probably was the stress of yesterday, the natural romance of a cave in the wilderness that were responsible. Well, I had that, anyhow; hours with Betty, in the sunlit, primitive woods. The memory of that would remain. Why, I was rich, richer than I had ever been in my life.
“Will you allow me to say something serious, Betty?”
Her look was startled, apprehensive, but her eyes gave consent.
“These hours have been the biggest of my life.”
I stopped. Betty was looking at the ground. And suddenly all the winds of the world seemed to be drawing me toward her, urging me to throw myself beside her, and a stream of words was upon my tongue.
I reached up, plucked a twig of pine from its cleft, and when I had stripped its needles one by one my self-control had returned.
“So you see I’m a winner,” I laughed. “You mustn’t worry one little worry about me. Whatever happens I’m ahead of the game.”
It was a long time before she spoke, and then she did so without looking up.
“Is—that—true?”
“Can’t you see it is?”
She nodded without looking to see.
“And—is that—all?”
“Isn’t that plenty? The biggest hours of my life—to have and remember?”
She poked her white toe into the moss, but still her eyes were on the ground.
“I feel awf’ly guilty,” she said faintly. “It’s all my fault. The whole thing is my fault. Poor George! If it hadn’t been for me he never would have met Brack, and then all this would not have happened.”
“George probably is all right by this time. He is under Dr. Olson’s care, and the doctor is one of us.”
“I’ve made him suffer terribly, haven’t I?”
“No. If he hadn’t—” I checked myself. “You haven’t made him suffer. And he’ll be a wiser man when you see him again, and you’ll both forget and be happy together.”
Betty lifted her eyes and studied me closely. Her expression was puzzling; she seemed incredulous. A quizzical smile touched her lips; she suppressed it and looked away.
“And George,” she said, as if her thoughts had wandered away from him, “I must make up for it all to him—if I can.”
“If you can! Of course you can. You will!”
Again she lifted her head and looked me squarely in the eyes. And this time when she looked away I knew that I was a fool, though I did not know just why.
XXXI
It was now near ten o’clock and we soon would know whether our hiding-place was a safe one. I knew that it was safer than would have been a flight through the woods, where Brack and his men might be prowling, yet I was so apprehensive that the sight of Brack’s big head thrust through the brush, his old sneering smile on his lips, would not have surprised me in the least. But no one came.
The forenoon passed without sight or sound of human being. At noon we were more hungry than we had been at breakfast. The spruce grouse had improved remarkably in flavor. In fact we agreed as we devoured what remained of them that seldom had we tasted better food.
“And nourishing; I’m sure they’re very nourishing,” said Betty. “They improve on acquaintance, as one’s appetite grows less finicky.”
My hopes began to rise as the hours passed with no sign of the appearance of Brack or any of his men. Apparently it was no man of the captain’s who had found the cave and removed the rifle. Then he had no way of knowing where we were hidden; we were safe at least for the present. When I explained this to Betty she said quietly—
“I’ve felt safe all the time, Mr. Pitt.”
“And quite right, too,” I replied. “The situation hasn’t been what any one but a pessimist would call dangerous.”
“Mr. Pitt!”
“What?”
She looked at me gravely for several seconds.
“I’m not a child, Mr. Pitt; it isn’t necessary to lie to me.”
“What! Lie to you?”
“Please. I understand how you feel about it. I’m a weak, carefully reared and sheltered girl who must be treated as a child, sheltered from everything unpleasant, and lied to about—about the fact that she is in danger, because she has happened to attract a brute; and that your life is in danger because you’re hiding her.”
“But, really——”
“Well, you needn’t keep up the pretense, Mr. Pitt. I’ve known all the time. I’ve known better than you have; the woman can know better, you know, even if she is a girl. I’ve known ever since Captain Brack came toward me last night up there in the cabin. His eyes were like—like he’d dropped a curtain and let me see a lot of uncaged wild beasts baring their teeth to me. I knew then—more than you could; and I know that he won’t give up—ever.”
“As I recall it,” I said when I could speak with a calmness equal to her own, “you laughed at him at just the moment that you saw all this?”
“Of course. We couldn’t let him see we were scared, could we?”
“And in the canoe, you sang——”
“That was partly for George’s sake. And then I did feel safe; and have felt so ever since.”
“And all your high spirits—playing Injun—fixing up the cave, and so on, have all been acting?”
“No. Certainly not. I tell you I do feel safe.”
“Why?”
Again she smiled inscrutably.
“You wouldn’t believe me now if I told you. Some day maybe you will. Then I’ll tell you—if you ask. But you must not ask now.”
For the present I, too, felt safe. But only for the present. Brack would not give up. That implacable will would have its way and the hunt for us probably was on at that moment. Brack, realizing our helplessness in the wilderness, would know that our field of flight would be restricted to the vicinity of the fiord, and with his men would search the hills relentlessly. I blessed the fate that had sent my feet stumbling into our well-hidden cavern.
As I weighed the chances of our discovery—which chance consisted practically of some literally blundering into the cave—I considered our plight in a more favorable aspect. The doctor would deliver my message to Pierce, and Freddy would pass on to the others the secret of our place of concealment. Dr. Olson, Freddy, Wilson and George, by this time probably knew where we were.
There was a world of consolation in this thought. They would communicate with us; Freddy would see to that. Yes, we would hear from our friends before much longer.
But as the hours passed with no sign of such good fortune I began to doubt. What were our friends doing? What were they thinking of? Didn’t they realize that every minute which we passed in this uncertainty was a minute of torture?
Betty’s patience seemed to grow as mine diminished. She had begun to weave a mat out of the branches which we had carried in, and apparently she was more interested in this than in what our friends were doing. The mat was finished as darkness began to creep up the hillside, and Betty spread thereupon the food I had snatched from the cabin table. There was a piece of sausage, three slices of bread, and a can of sardines.
“Perhaps,” I suggested, “we had better save some for the morrow.”
“I refuse to save,” she retorted, chin in air. “Poor we may be, sir; but never shall it be said that we stinted ourselves in the matter of rich and nourishing sustenance. Pray, sir, draw up before it gets too dark to distinguish the varied viands.”
“This is prodigal conduct,” I protested, as she divided the food equally and passed my share to me. “What of tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow you will get more birds, and if you do not, you will get something else. And if you don’t get that—Sir! I refuse to worry about anything so sordid as food. Now if it were a matter pertaining to higher things—Oh! Aren’t these sardines delicious!”
And when the scanty meal was finished she leaned back with a mock air of repletion and said—
“Now, let come what may; I have dined.”
“Do you feel so brave?” I asked.
“Yes sir. As brave as beseems one who has dined sumptuously.”
“Joking aside, do you feel brave enough to spend an hour or two in this dark cave—alone?”
“Is it necessary?” she asked after making sure that I was not joking. “What are you going to do?”
“We must try to learn what’s been going on today. As soon as it is thoroughly dark I propose to sneak back to the cabins. If I have good luck I may be able to get a word with Dr. Olson, or George. Then we’ll know if it’s necessary or advisable for us to remain hidden underground.”
“I’m sure it is,” she said swiftly and with conviction.
“Why are you sure?”
“I don’t know; I feel it.”
“It may be well enough,” said I, “but I don’t feel it’s right of us to lie here without making a move. If our friends can’t help us we ought to know, so we may plan to help ourselves.”
“If you have decided upon it, I suppose you will go.”
“Not unless you give your consent.”
“My consent?”
“Yes. You don’t think I’d go away and leave you here alone in the cave if you tell me you’d be afraid?”
“I shall be afraid,” she said soberly. I looked at her a little disappointed. “I shall be afraid every minute until your return that something may happen to you. And then,” she added lightly, “who would get birds for my breakfast in the morning? Of course you have my consent to go. I’ll lie here in my canoe and try to think noble thoughts. But do be careful.”
I waited until nine before leaving the cave. It was then pitch-dark in the woods. I had, however, laid out my course in my mind’s eye, and set out for the crest of the ridge without hesitation.
My progress at first was nothing to be proud of. I stumbled and fell over unseen rocks and logs, walked smack into sturdy trees, and was tangled in the brush constantly. At the top of the ridge the woods and brush grew thinner. It was practically bare ground here and I traveled the crest swiftly until the odorous dampness of the night air warned me that I was approaching the lake, and I paused sharply.
I was now, I judged, near the spot where I had descended from the ridge to warn Slade and Harris. If I was right, I would soon be able to see the lights from the cabins in the clearing below; and so fearful was I of Brack’s devilish shrewdness that I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled noiselessly forward to peer over the ridge.
Apparently my caution was unnecessary. So far as I could see there were no lights in the cabins. In fact, there might have been no cabins there, so absolutely was everything below me sunk in the black night.
Minute after minute passed with my eyes straining in vain for a glimpse of light and my ears listening vainly for some sound of human nearness, but the darkness was no less complete than the silence. Perhaps I had gone wrong. Perhaps that open space below, from whence rose dampness and odor, was not the lake at all, but the bay. More careful appraisal of my surroundings, however, convinced me that my course had been true. That was the lake down there; the cabins were on the farther side; and it being on toward ten o’clock, the candles were out and the doctor, George, and the others, were asleep.
This was the reasoning with which I relieved myself, as I let myself down the ridge toward the clearing. My caution, however, had not deserted me, and my progress was as noiseless as could be.
It was fully half an hour after leaving the top of the ridge before I lay in the brush behind the clearing. The cabin in which Betty and I had left George was before me and probably fifty yards away, but no sound or light hinted that it was inhabited.
The cold shiver which always came to me when I was afraid once more ran up my spine as I contemplated the open space between myself and the cabin. I wished greatly to retreat, so I promptly drove myself forward, pistol in hand, literally dragging myself up to the rear of the squat cabin whose very darkness and silence seemed eloquent with sinister possibilities.
Beneath the open window through which Betty and I had fled I lay with my head against the logs, listening for the sounds of breathing within. No such sound came. No sound of any kind came.
I lifted my head until an ear was over the sill of the window. It was so still that a man’s breathing, or the ticking of a watch, could not have escaped my strained hearing. I thrust my head inside the room. Now by its complete silence I knew that the room was empty, and I drew myself up slowly and clambered in.
After a while I struck a match. The room was bare. The bunks, blankets, chairs, dishes, the table, the stove, all had been removed. The floor and walls were bare.
I went to the other cabin, where the wounded men had lain. Then I sat down on the nearest threshold, weak and numbed. The cabins were empty. Brack had removed our friends beyond our ken. We were deserted. But more sinister than that; the cabins had been stripped of their last morsel of food, of everything that might have been of assistance to us in maintaining existence in the wilderness.
XXXII
I sat there in the cabin doorway for a long time, the props upon which I had builded hope and confidence suddenly knocked away. George was gone; Dr. Olson was gone. And there was no trace of them left behind, no trace of where they had gone, or why, or how. They had disappeared from our ken. We were out of touch with them. And upon them had been built our hopes.
Far off on some hilltop a wolf barked suddenly. I pictured Brack with his sneering eyes laughing at me. It was all his work, of course. If it had not been—if the abandonment of the cabins had been accidental—Dr. Olson, knowing that I would return there sometime, would have managed to leave a note or sign to tell the why and where of the going.
But the captain, also knowing that we would come back to the cabins, had taken proper precautions. There was no note, no sign. There was no hope, no chance to escape him. That was the lesson he had prepared for us with these empty cabins.
The wolf barked again, and I thought of Betty alone in the cave and sprang up. And there was something selfish in the speed with which I traveled back over the ridge, for the nearness of her was a stay to my waning confidence and courage.
Nearing the cave I moved more cautiously, not wishing to blunder through the mask of brush we had made to hide the opening. Fumbling in the darkness I found the overhanging rock, and then the opening which I had left as a door in the brush. I paused a moment before crawling inside, and as I did so Betty’s voice came faintly from the canoe:
“Is that you, Gardy? And are you all right?”
“I am,” I replied, as I entered. “And you?”
“Fine and dandy. But—oh, you were away an awful long time.”
“Yes. It was farther than I thought.”
“And did you see George? And what did you find out?”
“A lot of things,” I mumbled with assumed sleepiness. “Everything’s all right. No need to worry. But I’m so tired, so sleepy I can’t talk now. Forgive me, but I’ll have to wait until morning before telling about it.”
“You poor boy!” I heard her sit up.
“Oh, I’m all right,” I protested as I lay down on my nest of boughs. I was sitting up an instant later. “Here; what’s this? You’ve put the blanket on my bed.”
“Only half of it. I ripped it in two while you were gone. It wasn’t fair——”
“You’re going to take it back.”
“No, sir. I’m as warm as a cat back here. I’ll never forgive you if you make me take it back after my feeling so noble for giving it to you. So there.”
“Now really——”
“No, sir! You lie right down and cover yourself up and get the sleep you need so much. You wouldn’t deprive me of feeling like a heroine, would you? Of course not. Good night.”
“Good night.”
She chuckled softly as she lay down.
“I called you ‘Gardy,’ Mr. Pitt; did you notice that? Shocking, isn’t it? After a few days’ acquaintance. I wonder—I wonder if cave-people ever had more than one name.”
And after awhile her soft, steady breathing as she slept made me glad I had withheld the bad news for the morrow.
I awoke the next morning at the first gray light of dawn and slipped out while Betty still slept. I was now as eager to find some sign of human nearness as the morning before I had been eager to assure myself of the isolation of our hiding-place. A sight of the yacht, of any one, of Brack even, would have been a relief from the growing sensation that we had been left completely alone.
I went down to the bay and followed its indentations for more than a mile, making no effort at concealment, in another fruitless search for the yacht. I went over the ridge to the cabins and stood in the clearing before them and shouted recklessly. And when the hills had mockingly echoed back my futile shouts, I knew the calmness of resignation to the worst. We were alone, and we must exist, and escape, if escape we could, solely by our own efforts.
I gathered a pocketful of stones and half a dozen clubs and went back to our spring to hunt for grouse. My good fortune of the day before was not to be repeated. Birds in plenty there were. They flushed from beneath my feet, flew past my head, and sat in rows on branches and looked down upon me. I found, however, that it is one thing to hurl a club into a covey huddled under a bush, and quite another to knock a bird out of a tree, and in desperation I finally used the pistol to bring down the single bird which I thought was to comprise our breakfast that morning.
In the primitive morning stillness the noise of the shot was like a crack of lightning, splitting the silence and echoing through the hills. But by this time I was convinced that we were alone there in Kalmut Valley, and that no one was near enough to hear the report.
As I reentered the cave Betty sprang up, asking:
“Well? Who and what did you see at the cabins last night?”
While I sought for a way to break the news without any unnecessary alarm to her she continued:
“It’s bad news, of course. I felt that last night. You’d never have been selfish enough to go to sleep without telling me if the news had been good. What is it, Mr. Pitt?”
“I am sorry to say that I didn’t see any one at the cabins,” I replied. “There was no one there. There was nothing there. The cabins were stripped bare. Everything in them was gone—food, everything.”
“Then thank goodness for the bird,” she said quietly. “Where do you think George and everybody, and everything has gone?”
“Oh, Brack’s taken them and all the stuff away some place. But where I can’t imagine. I really don’t believe the yacht’s in the fiord at all, so it doesn’t seem they could be on board. Brack may have headquarters somewhere on shore.”
“But what could be his object in taking everything away from the cabins?”
“To leave us without food or anything to help us.”
“Hm,” said Betty, her chin in her hands. “I was thinking of something else.”
“What?”
“Brack knew you’d go back and have a look at the cabins. He thinks we’re in the open wilderness without a shelter over our heads. Well, when you find that the cabins have been stripped, deserted, apparently abandoned for good, wouldn’t it be natural for us to rush to them for shelter?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, couldn’t he be watching, and when we were in—” her hand pounced onto a sprig of birch and crushed it—“just like that?”
“A trap!” I cried. “I never thought of that. Of course. And with no food, even if we were safe at first, we’d have to give in in the end.”
“Which we’ll never, never do, of course,” she said firmly. She looked around at the fir and birch boughs hung in the cave. “I don’t think I care to move just at the present. While this apartment is not as roomy or light as it might be, I am quite fascinated with its interior decorations, as well as its safety. No; Mr. Brack must find other tenants for his cabins. I think we shall remain right here.”
I laughed in sheer relief at the serio-comic air with which she said this.
“Betty,” I said, “aren’t you even a little bit afraid?”
“Oh, yes, Gardy,” she said, instantly serious. “Aren’t you? I’m lots afraid. But we mustn’t let that bother us, must we?”
“Emphatically, no! We mustn’t let anything bother us. You mustn’t let anything worry you. We’ll get along, somehow; I don’t know how, but I know we will——”
“Of course we will!”
“And when it comes to Captain Brack——”
“Are we downhearted?” demanded Betty, and together we answered: “No!”
It was immediately after this that we once more saw the captain. I was preparing to go out and clean the bird, and as I parted the branches a boat from the yacht, rowed by four men, with Brack at the rudder, came rushing down the fiord and steered for the beach directly below where we were hidden.
Betty saw me start and sprang to my side. Neither of us said a word while we watched the boat come to land. As the men sprang out and hurried into the brush we drew back to the rear of the cave, sat down on the canoe, and looked at each other.
“It’s my fault,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have fired that shot. They heard it. Don’t give up, though. They haven’t found us yet.”
“I wonder if they are coming here?” she whispered back.
I went back to the opening and peered cautiously through the branches. The men, even Captain Brack, were crouched down in the shelter of a huge boulder, and Brack was giving them directions.
Immediately they scattered, and began to work up the hill. They did not come directly toward the cave but went slightly to the north, in the direction where I had fired my pistol.
The caution with which they moved puzzled me. They crouched and ran from tree to tree, keeping in cover as much as possible, peering around carefully, their rifles always ready. Brack brought up the rear. The other men appeared almost frightened and it seemed that only his presence drove them forward.
“They’re searching the hill, but they’re not coming in this direction,” I whispered as I drew back to Betty. “Apparently they don’t know the exact location of this cave.”
“Do you think they will find it?”
“How can I tell? It’s wonderfully hidden.”
“If they do find it, what will you do?”
I did not reply. I did not know what I would do. But one thing I did know: Brack would not lead us away as his prisoners.
“Gardy,” she whispered, “if they are going to find us tell me, because there’s something I’ve got to tell you if—if—anything happens.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” I whispered assuringly. “Be easy on that. Nothing will happen to you.”
“Even if they do find us?”
“Even if they do find us. Hush now. We’d better not even whisper.”
We sat waiting in silence, our eyes upon the brush-mask across the cavern’s mouth. We were cornered. There was nothing to do but sit and wait for what fate might allot us. Each second I expected to see a face peering through the brush, and to hear the shout that would announce our discovery. But the seconds, infinitely long and throbbing, passed and became minutes, and still we had no sign of Brack and his men.
It was at least half an hour after the men had started up the hill that a spruce grouse, flushed from the ground, flashed across the opening, so close that its wings touched the brush. By the rising flight of the bird I knew that it had been flushed but a few yards away, and, I judged, by some one who was coming toward the cave. They would be here soon now.
XXXIII
“Lie down in the canoe,” I whispered to Betty. “They must have missed us; I’m going to take a little look.”
When she had obeyed, and could not see what I did, I slipped the safety catch off my pistol and crept forward to the mouth of the cave.
I was right; some one was walking near the cave. After a few seconds I could make out the heavy footsteps of two men. They were walking carelessly, brush crackling beneath their feet, and they were coming down-hill. Suddenly from some distance off came the sound of a sharp whistle twice repeated. The footsteps stopped.
“There,” said a voice. “Wha’d’ I tell you? The cap’s given up, too, and it’s a case of get back to the boat for us.”
“I tell you,” responded a second voice, “I don’t believe it was the guys we’re after at all. They’re old-timers and wise guys. It don’t seem nach’rel they’d go shooting this close to the water, where they knew we’d be sure to hear it. That was a revolver, too.”
“Who the —— else would it be, then?” demanded the first man. “There ain’t nobody else to do any revolver shooting round here, is they? Sure it was the guys we’re after. Nobody else. They’re hard up fer grub, and had to shoot something wherever they could get it—nobody else ’round here.”
“There’s that —— Pitt, an’ the skirt the cap’s gone crazy about, ain’t there? They’re loose somewhere in the valley, too, ain’t they?”
“Sure. They got no revolver, though. He ain’t a shootin’ man, either. Naw; it was those miner guys who fired that shot, all right; an’ they’re old-timers an’ beat it like —— right away an’ kept traveling, so we didn’t find them or their trail. They might be layin’ round here some place at that.”
“Well, come on. Let’s get down.”
Their footsteps sounded again on the ground. I placed my eyes to an interstice in the brush and peered out. Perhaps fifty feet north of the cave two of Brack’s men were slouching down-hill toward the boat, their rifles hanging carelessly over their shoulders like men who are returning from an unsuccessful hunt.
Farther down the hill and a good distance to the north were two other men, and as I watched Brack broke out of the brush along the bay and ran swiftly down the beach to where his boat lay tied. Here he dropped promptly out of sight behind the boulder where he and his men had sought shelter when they landed, and there, safely hidden, he awaited the return of his men.
His tactics puzzled me at first. Why did he run so swiftly across the open space of the beach? Why hide himself behind the boulder? It was not like Brack to run or hide. Then, considering the speech I had just heard, I understood. It was Slade and Harris that Brack and his men had come hunting, summoned by my pistol-shot, and the captain, knowing their deadly skill with the rifle, was not wishful to expose himself any more than was necessary.
“Betty,” I said swiftly, as the men came out upon the beach and tumbled into the boat, “they’re going away. It wasn’t us they were after. They’ve no idea we’re here. They’re rowing away now, and I’m going to try and see if I can’t follow them and find where they’re staying.”
They were shoving the boat out now, and as soon as they had turned its bow toward the head of the fiord, I leaped from the cave and ran as swiftly as I could northward, keeping out of sight of the water. When I knew that I was well ahead of the boat I curved toward the fiord, and the moment the water came in view I lay flat down in the brush and waited. If the boat did not appear I would at least know that Brack’s rendezvous was somewhere between the cave and the point where I was lying.
I had but a minute or two to wait, however, when the boat came rushing along and continued farther north. Once more I waited until it was out of sight, then again curving my path out of sight of the water, I once more ran desperately to get in the lead.
My rush this time led me to where I found further progress barred by the river at the head of the fiord. At the junction of the two waters I hid myself and waited. When the boat came in view I drew back, for I was perilously near the river and I judged that having come this far Brack was bound up the river toward the cabins. I was mistaken. The boat turned eastward, before reaching the river-mouth. It went straight toward an opening on the other side of the fiord which I had not previously noticed. This opening was to some degree hidden by an out-jutting bluff. Without slacking speed the boat swung around the bluff and disappeared into a part of the fiord whose existence I had not suspected.
Then I stood up and cursed aloud. And at that a voice cried out from a clump of willows near by:
“Oh ——! Is that really you, Brains? Oh, ——! Mebbe I ain’t glad to see you!”
Pierce’s expression as he came stumbling out of the willows was a study. The last two days had wrinkled and drawn his honest face into a mask of despair, and now, suddenly convulsed with relief and joy, his eyes honestly shed tears while his lips grinned happily.
“Put ’er there, Brains! Mitt me, mitt me!” he stammered, grasping my hand. “Gee! I didn’t know you with all that fuzz on your face. Well, you’re all right, and—and there ain’t anything happened to Her, has they?”
“No, Freddy,” I managed to say at last. “Miss Baldwin is all right. She’s back in the cave that I told you about.”
“Wow!” He fairly wilted with relief. “Say, if anything had happened to her I’d hike straight back to the yacht and blow a hole through Brack’s head the second I saw him.”
“The yacht?” I cried. “Do you mean to say the yacht is near at hand?”
“Right up at the end of the bay there,” was his casual reply. “Riordan ran ’er up right after you’d left that afternoon with the boss. Say, how long ago is that, Brains?”
“Two days ago, isn’t it?”
“Yah! You ain’t sure yourself, are you? It’s been long for you, too, eh? Seems about a month to me. An’ you been living in the cave! Say! Look at this.” He patted the sweater which he was wearing and which was swollen far out in front.
“Grub,” he said. “Come on; let’s beat it before anybody comes nosing around.”
“Pierce!” I said, “do you mean to say that you’ve got food—real, civilized food there?”
“Sure. I was on my way to the cave to feed you. Wait a second while I get my rifle.”
He dove back into the willows and reappeared bearing the rifle which I had taken from Barry.
“Come on. Lead the way. Tell you all about it later. Got to beat it now. I put a bump on Garvin’s bean to get away and they may be after me any minute. Go ahead, fast’s you can; I’ll keep up.”