Joe Mixer's little eyes glittered strangely; he was touched with a kind of awe. More than once he repeated "Bowl of the Mountains!" under his breath, as if he could not fully grasp the idea. Stack's ferret-like glance darted from the face of one man to another, trying to read the secret they shared; he was tortured by his exclusion. A strange sound of laughter broke from Ralph's lips, and all the men looked at him. At the call of his desperate need, he had partly overcome his weakness. He was playing his last card.
"You're easily taken in," he said scornfully. "It's likely I'd tell her!"
Kitty timidly raised her eyes to Ralph's. The scorn that blazed on her shrivelled up her very soul. She wondered how she could go on living after it.
"How do I know you ain't lying?" Joe asked her. "How did he come to tell you about the other woman?"
"I'll say no more," murmured Kitty.
Joe made a move toward Ralph's arm, and she sprang to her knees with a cry. "I'll tell you! It is true! I swear it! He was out of his head when he came—for two days. He told me in his fever. Over and over, he told me. I wrote it down. I thought it was just fancies until Annie came to-day, and then I knew it was true. Now let him go!"
Hope died within Ralph's breast. His head fell forward. "Nahnya foresaw this," he thought. "She is always right. I have ruined everything. What is there left for me?"
Joe looked at Stack. It was clear that he had come to lean on the little man's evil perspicacity.
"It's true all right," said Stack. "He'd have kept his mouth shut if it was a lie."
"Now let him go," said Kitty again.
"Hold your horses," said Joe; "I didn't say——"
"You promised!" cried Kitty wildly.
"I'll keep to my promise," said Joe—"in my own time. I'd be a fool to let him loose now to make trouble for us. We're going to push off at dawn. I'll leave him tied to the tree, and as soon as we're gone you can come and cut him loose!"
"He'll pot us from the shore!" Stack piped up excitedly.
"He'll not raise a gun with that arm inside a month," said Joe, grinning. "Run back to your bed," he said to Kitty.
"I'll wait here until you go," she said.
"No, you don't!" said Joe. "And have your father down on us like a mad moose directly! You run along, or I'll go up to the shack myself, and fetch him back to bring you."
The threat was effective. Kitty turned abruptly, and ran back over the trail.
She ran until she was sure her footfalls had passed out of earshot. Then she stopped, and listened to make sure she was not followed. Satisfied of this, she crept into the underbrush, and began to make her way back, feeling her way with infinite patience over treacherous twigs and dry leaves, doubling and circling to find a way through the thickly springing stems, drawing her skirts close around her, and insinuating her body softly through the clustering leaves. Kitty had never hunted nor practised woodcraft; it was pure instinct that enabled her to make her way through the undergrowth as noiselessly as a lynx. These soft natures have a boldness of their own. She proceeded until through the interstices of the leaves, she could watch every move of the four men around their fire, and watch Ralph that they did him no further injury.
The half-breed had already laid himself down to sleep again. After the manner of his race, he held himself aloof, affecting a stolid unconcern with white men's matters. The three white men talked together low-voiced. It was as if the very magnitude of their good fortune had sobered them. Joe Mixer clapped his thigh and cried softly:
"Bowl of the Mountains! We're made for life! Millionaires, big-bugs, second to none! This means living like a lord, the real thing; steam yachts, private cars, horses, automobiles, jewelled women! And eating and drinking of the best as much as a man can hold—if it's handled right!" He licked his lips greedily, and shot a contemptuous and furtive glance at his two companions, the one weak-minded, the other a physical weakling. The look boded them no good.
Even in the prospect of such riches men must sleep, and one by one they wrapped themselves in their blankets, and lay down. In time they lay all four in a row, feet to the fire, looking in their wrappings like four corpses ready for burial in the sea.
Kitty drew even closer, the better to see how it was with Ralph. He hung for support on the ropes that bound him, his head fallen forward on his breast. A fresh terror attacked her at the sight of his limpness; she crept toward him until she could see his eyes wink in the firelight, and knew that he was at least conscious. Her heart was wrung by the sight. In reality Ralph had passed the extremity of pain, both physical and mental, and was sunk in a kind of lethargy. The effect of what had happened was to fill him with the same hopeless fatalism that Nahnya had. What would happen was bound to happen. The powers were against them and it was useless to struggle.
The brook made no noise where it emptied into the river; its distant brawling was reduced to a murmur here. In the stillness of the forest the breathing of the four sleepers became audible to Kitty. It gave her an idea that caused her heart to set up a beating like a frightened bird's. She listened and found she could distinguish the sounds made by all four, the stertorous snoring of the full-blooded butcher, the quick, gasping breaths of the ferret-man, the wooden snores of the witling, even the deep, slow breathing of the half-breed youth, who did not snore. It was unquestionable that they were all sleeping deeply. Kitty's tongue clave to her palate, and she nearly died with fright at what she was about to do, but she never hesitated. With infinite caution she made her way around through the bush to Ralph's tree, approaching it from behind. The beating of her heart was the most sound she made, and she could not control that.
Arrived at the tree at last, she crouched behind it, not daring to speak to him. Rising to her feet at last, she softly touched his elbow. Ralph started violently, but betrayed no sound. Kitty attacked the knots with shaking fingers. Ordinarily she could never have loosened them, but there was no question of failing now; it had to be done. In the end it was done. Ralph steadied himself against the tree, while she lowered the loosened coil to his feet.
Ralph sank to his knees. Instantly, aided by one hand, he started to drag himself toward the edge of the bank. The other hand trailed helplessly. Kitty tried to steer him in the other direction, but he shouldered her aside. She was obliged to follow him. Once Joe Mixer's snore broke off short; he muttered in his sleep and changed position. Kitty's heart turned over in her breast. Somehow they got down the bank to the sand below. Ralph made straight for his raft, which lay as he had left it, the paddle sticking between the logs.
Kitty put her lips to his ear. "What are you going to do?" she whispered, apprehending the worst.
"Warn Nahnya," he returned. "In two hours it will be light."
"You can't!" she began, with rising excitement. "You're not fit to——"
Ralph clapped his good hand over her mouth.
"How he hates me!" thought Kitty. Realizing the hopelessness of trying to dissuade him, she helped push the raft off the sand. Ralph climbed on board, and Kitty followed.
"Go back!" he whispered sharply.
For answer she took the paddle out of his hand and shoved the raft into deeper water. "You can't travel alone," she whispered. "You can't use the paddle. You'd only be carried down the rapids."
He made no further objection. Kitty propelled the raft into the main current, and laid the paddle down.
Thereafter they travelled without speaking. The raft was ceaselessly and slowly swung around and back in the eddies. The shadowy mountain masses crouched and looked dumbly up at the stars like gross, earthy creatures under the spell of fairy wands. There was no air stirring, and the river was like oil stirred with a spoon. Occasionally the eddies burst beside them with a soft gush, immediately to reform again.
Though there was but an arm's length between them, the two on the raft were separated by a wall more impenetrable than stones and mortar. On one side of it sat the youth with his hooded despair; on the other side the girl nursed her unrequited love, and her torturing jealousy. Her quick mind ran ahead to picture the meeting with the other woman that she must witness. She knew that Nahnya loved Ralph, however she might repulse him. It was she, Kitty, who was the scorned outsider. Yet of the two the youth was the worse off, for under cover of the darkness she might weep and ease her heart.
XXI
THE RETURN TO THE VALLEY
The Indians of the valley were engaged at their morning tasks in front of the tepees, the women making and mending clothes, and St. Jean Bateese showing the boys how to wind the grip of a bow, when without warning the haggard white man and white woman rose over the edge of the green slope. The Indians dropped their work, and broke into loud exclamations, which brought Nahnya quickly out of one of the tepees. She silenced them peremptorily. Nahnya herself betrayed nothing. She approached Ralph and Kitty with a hard and accusing face, and waited for their explanation.
Despair made Ralph as callous-seeming and as laconic as Nahnya herself. "The white men know about this place," he said abruptly. "Joe Mixer and his party. They are on their way here. I came to warn you."
Nahnya's mask was unbroken. "How many?" she asked.
"Three white men and a native."
"Who told them?" she asked accusingly.
Ralph looked away.
"It was I told them," cried Kitty quickly and tremulously. She felt as if she were being ground to pieces between this stony pair. "They tortured him to get it out of him! Look at him! He can scarcely stand. You would have told them yourself."
"He tell you?" asked Nahnya remorselessly.
Kitty's voice began to escape from her control. "He was out of his head!" she said. "It was when he first came. I told you that. He told me in his fever. He didn't know what he was saying!"
Ralph turned on Kitty. "I didn't bring you here to defend me!" he said harshly.
This was the last straw. Kitty turned from them and wept bitterly. Neither Nahnya nor Ralph regarded her.
Nahnya said dully: "What matter who tell? It come anyway. Always I know that."
There was a silence broken only by Kitty, struggling to master her sobs. Nahnya studied the ground with a line between her brows, and Ralph looked at Nahnya.
"What are you going to do?" he asked finally.
Nahnya flung up her head. "Fight!" she said.
Ralph's dull eyes brightened. "We pulled the bridge over to this side of the hole after we crossed it," he said eagerly.
She nodded brief approval. "It take them time to bring logs to make another. I will think all to do. You take some rest."
Nahnya issued her orders, and Ahahweh took Kitty in charge. St. Jean Bateese led Ralph to his tepee, and Marya came and dressed his shoulder, and made a sling for his arm. They left him to sleep, but Ralph lay watching through the tepee opening, and when he saw Nahnya start off in the direction of the cave with a rifle under her arm, he followed.
Nahnya ordered him to return. "They not come long time yet, maybe not till to-morrow. Anyway, you can't fire a gun. Get your sleep!"
"There's no use talking about it," Ralph said stubbornly.
Nahnya shrugged and went on. Kitty was likewise on the watch. She followed a little way after Ralph. Nahnya frowned, but said nothing.
Nahnya took up her post on the rocks above the entrance to the cave. She told Ralph coldly that she had decided to make her stand here. He approved it; her enemies must issue one by one into the daylight below. She had armed St. Jean Bateese and Charley with rifles, she said, and the two boys had their bows and arrows. They were all coming directly with blankets, food, and ammunition sufficient for a siege if required.
"She had raised and pointed the gun, but held her fire"
They prepared for a long wait. Ralph sat down in the grass a little removed from Nahnya, and bowed his head on his knees. By and by he fell over like an inanimate object and slept as he lay. Farther away sat Kitty, like an humble dependent. She nursed her knees and stared over the valley with tear-stained, lack-lustre eyes.
Ralph was awakened by a sharp exclamation from Nahnya. She had raised and pointed the gun, but held her fire. Kitty knelt in the grass with her hands pressed over her ears, terrified in prospect by the expected shot. Ralph ran to the edge of the rocks and looked over. Philippe Boisvert had just issued out of the cave. He held his empty hands over his head, and came climbing up the rocks in that attitude.
Arrived within a dozen yards, the half-breed began to speak eagerly in Cree. His eyes burned on Nahnya strangely. At the sound of his voice surprise broke through the mask of her face.
"Philippe!" she murmured.
A flame of jealousy made Ralph's cold breast alive again. He had thought he was past all feeling. "What is he saying?" he demanded to know.
Nahnya's eyes were troubled. "I know him," she murmured. "From a long time ago. He is the boy I talk with at the Mission school."
The half-breed continued his impassioned plea, and Nahnya was clearly not unmoved by it. Philippe was a handsome young creature and the fire of his feelings was seemingly an honest fire. Ralph ground his teeth. Kitty, creeping closer, and searching Ralph's face, betrayed a reflection of his jealousy in her own.
Nahnya soon recovered from her surprise. "Speak English," she commanded Philippe coldly.
Ralph's heart was lightened. The half-breed bent an offensive scowl on him, and his lips curved into a sneer. Ralph's returning look was identical. Philippe told his tale with a swagger.
"Joe Mixer hire me at the portage to mak' a trip. I don' know what for. I don' care. I go for fun, 'cause he got plenty w'iskey. Bam-by he say he after Nahnya Crossfox. I lak' to kill him then, but I say not'ing for 'cause I want to know where Nahnya Crossfox is. Seven year I look for her. She is promise to me!"
"Promised!" cried Ralph, turning to Nahnya with stormy brows.
"It was a child's promise," she said coolly. "He soon forget it, and I soon forget it."
Philippe launched into Cree again, protesting energetically. Nahnya interrupted him in the same language. Her eyes flashed; under the lash of her tongue the young man quailed.
"Now speak English," she said imperiously.
"I help Joe to chase the Doctor," Philippe went on sulkily, "because the Doctor know where Nahnya is. Las' night I find out where she is and I am through with Joe, but I bring him down the river with me to sell him good. I hate all white men. When we come to the other side the mountain, I say to Joe, you wait here, and I go spy out the way. I come back soon. Joe say all right. He think I am his friend. He is a fat fool. He want to kill us all to get the gold himself. He think I not see it in his eye. He is a fool!"
"You say you fool him," said Nahnya. "Maybe you fool me, too!"
Philippe protested passionately in his native tongue. More than once Ralph heard the word moon-i-yas, which he knew was Cree for white man.
"How did you get across the hole?" asked Nahnya.
"I leaped it," said Philippe with a swagger.
"Are the others behind you?"
"Could the fat man leap it?" said Philippe, "or the little scared one? or crazy Crusoe?"
"No, but maybe you put the bridge back for them," said Nahnya.
"Tie my hands!" cried Philippe passionately, "and if they come, kill me!"
"Come here," said Nahnya coolly. "Hold up your hands."
The half-breed obeyed, his eyes fixed ardently on Nahnya.
"See if he have a gun," Nahnya said to Ralph.
Philippe scowled furiously at the indignity, but kept his hands up. Ralph quickly satisfied himself that the other was unarmed.
"Good!" said Nahnya, with an inscrutable face. She offered Philippe her hand. "We will be friends. Let us sit down and talk what to do."
"Nahnya!" cried Ralph jealously.
She bent the same towering look on him that had crushed the half-breed. "Must I ask you when I make a friend?" she said.
Ralph, forced to remember that he had brought all this trouble upon her, hung his head. They sat down to their council of war. There could be no question of who was the leader. The dark girl had the bearing of a queen who had risen above her human griefs and passions.
"Where are they waiting?" she asked.
"They camp at the edge of the big woods beside the gulch," said Philippe. "Jim Sholto is with them."
"So!" said Nahnya.
Kitty, hearing her father's name, came closer.
"Jim is crazy when he find his daughter go," Philippe continued. "He come after us in the dugout, and catch the raft. Jim say to me for say to him," pointing at Ralph, "if he bring Jim's daughter back safe before to-night, Jim not touch him. Jim let him go in his boat if he want. Joe Mixer say them two can go all right. He don' care."
Ralph expressed no great concern at this offer. "We can send her out to her father," he said. Nahnya said nothing.
"Jim send a letter," continued Philippe. He produced a twisted bit of cotton on which some words were scrawled, and handed it to Kitty. Reading it, she burst into tears again.
"Let them two go," said Philippe, scowling at Ralph. "I take them back."
"Suppose I let them go," said Nahnya inscrutably. "What we do after?"
Philippe's eyes flashed, and his white teeth were bared. He hissed a single sentence in Cree.
"You say you kill Joe Mixer and his men?" said Nahnya coolly.
Philippe, with a startled side-look at Ralph, remonstrated with her anxiously.
"I tell you speak English," said Nahnya calmly. "He is my friend as much as you."
Ralph's sore and humbled heart took what comfort it might from this.
"Well, it's easy," said Philippe, with a shrug of bravado. "One is fat, and one is scare', and one is crazy. There was no man in our boat but me!"
"Suppose you kill them," said Nahnya, "what we do after?"
He answered in Cree.
"You will stay here with me after?" she repeated.
Ralph's face flushed. "Nahnya——" he began hotly.
She ignored him. "There is no place here for you," she said to Philippe, cold and accusatory as a high priestess. "You are half white; you are bad like a white man and a red man together! I hear them talk of you around the country. You make yourself crazy with whiskey, and fight for nothing at all. Because you are strong you do what you like! You make trouble always where you go! You say you hate white men, but you can't stay away from them, because they have whiskey! You are not white, you are not red, you are nothing! There is no place for you here!"
All this was balm to Ralph's jealousy. He looked on the ground to keep from showing any triumph over the discomfited young bravo.
After debating with herself, Nahnya said to Philippe, pointing down the slope: "You go down there." To Ralph: "You wait here. I go by myself, and think what to do."
While Ralph and the half-breed glowered at each other from twenty paces distance, and the heavy-eyed dispirited Kitty crouched at Ralph's elbow disregarded by all, Nahnya went away and sat on the edge of the rocks, doubling her back, and digging her knuckles into her cheeks, while she struggled with her problem.
St. Jean Bateese, Charley Crossfox, Ahmek, and Myengeen approached over the meadow laden with the weapons, food, and blankets that Nahnya had ordered them to bring. Arriving at the foot of the slope, where the stream entered its rocky gulch, they cast down their packs, and with a glance at the sun, instinctively set about building a fire and preparing a meal. They looked with curious side-glances at the new stranger who had found his way into their domain.
After a long time Nahnya arose. Ralph read in her face that her mind was made up. He hastened to meet her, and Philippe likewise came bounding up the slope. However, Nahnya was not yet ready to divulge her plans. All she said was:
"Let us eat."
Her look was unfathomable. They were obliged to contain their impatience as best they could.
All sat in the grass at the foot of the hill. It was a strangely assorted company: Kitty, Ralph, Nahnya, and Philippe sat on one side of the fire, with the four Indians facing them from the other. Nahnya's face was smooth and composed, Philippe looked sullen, Ralph reckless and despairing, while Kitty's lips trembled, and her eyes continually filled. The Indian lads stared at the strangers with beady black eyes expressing a mixture of animal curiosity and human unconcern. No one of the company had any disposition to talk except St. Jean Bateese, who, with his native politeness, felt that it was incumbent upon him to tide the meal over pleasantly.
He meandered on in his soft and deprecating voice, illustrating his simple remarks with quaint gesticulation. It disturbed him not at all when no one listened. "There is a yellow ring around the sun to-day. To-morrow will be much rain at night. It is good. The berries will ripen good. This is a year of plenty for the people. When come the leaves fall the bear-folk will be fat and tender of the berries, with much thick, warm coats, I think. The bear he is lak a man, him lak to mak' fun when him feel good. One tam I see a bear play beside a stream. He is alone. He think nobody see him. He feel ver' good. He run and dance and fall down, and laugh, and turn over his head because he feel so good. I laugh me, till my ribs are sore!"
When Nahnya arose from the grass they all followed suit. Without any preamble she said quietly: "Now I will tell you what I have thought."
All hung on her words except the two younger boys, who knew no English.
She darted an inexplicable look on Ralph, and said, with odd abruptness: "Ralph and Kitty will go out to Jim Sholto."
Ralph flushed painfully. "I will not go!" he cried. "Send her! I know I've no right to dictate to you; I brought all this on you! But that gives me a right to stay here and help you out of it as much as I can! Afterward I'll not trouble you. You needn't fear that. I'll go!"
Nahnya lowered her head. "I sorry," she murmured. "You mus' go!"
Ralph argued desperately against his own convictions. He had had such proof of Nahnya's foresightedness that he could not but believe she was right now as she had been before. "I know I can't hold a gun," he cried, "but I can advise you! There are other things. If there is any risk to be taken it is my right! My life is worth nothing to me!"
Nahnya turned from him sharply. She issued a quick order in Cree, and Ralph was seized by the three Indian youths and Philippe. He was helpless in their hands. At the sight of his pain-distorted face Kitty screamed. Nahnya spoke peremptorily, and thereafter they handled him more gently. Nahnya herself kept her back turned to him. They wound a rope loosely about Ralph's body, pinning both his arms. Ralph drained the dregs of his bitter cup. He did not speak again.
"You take them out to Jim Sholto," Nahnya said in English to Philippe. "You tell Jim Sholto not to let him loose till he tak' him away from here, so he not make trouble."
After a pause she went on. "After, you go to Joe Mixer. You tell him it is too late to come in to-night. Tell him come to-morrow. Tell him Annie Crossfox will not fight."
Philippe started to protest.
"It is my plan," said Nahnya coolly. "I tell you all when it is time. You mus' stay in Joe Mixer's camp to-night. Soon as light comes you mus' get up. You mus' leave their camp without wake them up. You mus' go up the gulch past the hole in the rock and around the bend. I wait for you there.
"Start now!" she went on. "Take a blanket and plenty ammunition and dry moose meat. Cache it by the hole in the rock when you go out. Bring it in the morning. You are going on a long trip."
Philippe muttered sullenly in Cree.
"I tell you in the morning," said Nahnya coolly. "You don' have to go unless you want."
Philippe shrugged. He turned to make ready. "I have a blanket at Joe Mixer's camp," he said.
"Take mine," said Nahnya. "Leave your blanket lie there when you get up, so they not know right away that you gone away."
The preparations were quickly made. Nahnya sent one of the boys back to the stream for a handful of gold dust, that Philippe might have something to show for his journey. All this while Ralph stood still and silent, looking straight before him. There was something proud in his abasement. His face was composed except for the eyes which glowed with a kind of exaltation of pain. He was thinking with a sombre satisfaction of the bottomless black hole that sucked in the stream entire. "A step off the bridge ends it!" he said to himself, and was impatient to get there.
As they turned to start down beside the stream, Nahnya, alarmed by Ralph's silence, stole a look into his face. To her foreseeing eyes his intention was written there as clearly as if he had proclaimed it. She became deathly pale.
"Wait!" she said faintly. "I—I will go with you through the cave. Wait for me inside." To Ralph, she said, without looking at him: "I want speak with you."
A spasm of reawakened hope, doubt, pain convulsed his face. It was the pain that a man peacefully dead of asphyxiation feels when the reviving oxygen is forced into his lungs, dragging him back over the border. Nevertheless, Nahnya saw that he had given up his grim intention.
Philippe, Ralph, and Kitty disappeared inside the cave. Nahnya drew St. Jean Bateese a little way up the slope apart from the boys, and made him sit beside her at the edge of the rocks. "St. Jean," she said quietly, "I go away now. I not come back."
The old man turned horrified eyes on her. He began to protest breathlessly. As he looked in her quiet, resolute face the uselessness of it was borne on him, and his quavering voice died away.
"It is the best to do," Nahnya went on. "I think it all out. I am half white. I not belong here. In this place we want begin a new red race, strong and free. I am half white. Look what trouble and danger I bring on you. I will go away. All shall go on as we plan."
"The white men will break in to-morrow!" wailed St. Jean.
"The white men will never come in—this way," said Nahnya from between firm lips. "I will fix that."
The tears coursed down St. Jean's withered cheeks; he stroked Nahnya's hand imploringly. "I am old!" he whimpered.
"You are wise!" said Nahnya. "Add your wisdom to Charley's strength, and make him a man. He will be the head man when you are gone. Make him know all the tales of our people, and all that they knew how to do, so nothing is forgotten. Nobody mus' know but you that I not come back. Let them look for me while the summer passes. By and by you can say you have a feeling I am dead. The young ones will forget!"
The old man moaned, and letting his head fall on his breast, wound his gnarled fingers in his sparse locks.
"The boys will see you," Nahnya said sharply. "It is from you they learn how to bear pain!"
After a brief struggle with himself he lifted his head. The tears had ceased to flow, and the seamed face was composed into the ancient stoic mask of the race; the old hands still trembled piteously, and groped for Nahnya's hand.
"So much we talk together," she went on, "you know all that is in my mind. When the spring come again, and the sap run in the trees, it is time for the children to marry. You shall marry them with a cross. My mot'er mus' teach Ahahweh all there is to do when the time come for the girls to bear children.
"No man will ever come in or go out this way," Nahnya continued. "If ever there is a famine, or you have great need to go out, there is another way. Go across the divide into the valley to the north, and at the top of that valley is a little stream going out between the mountains. After many days' hard travel it will bring you to the Stanley River. You mus' not tell Charley of this way until he is wise, or until you feel yourself about to die. The knowledge of this way mus' be kept. Many years from now more wives will be needed for the young men. The children of brothers and sisters must not marry. Their children will not be strong."
"All shall be done as you say," murmured St. Jean Bateese.
Nahnya dropped her hand over his. Giving it a quick pressure, she sprang up, and climbed the hill until she was high enough to overlook the trees. Here she turned. There was no mask on her face now. Her eyes brooded with an infinite wistful yearning over the lovely panorama—the lake shimmering like a peacock's breast; the verdant, white-stemmed shores; the kingly mountains basking smokily under the westering sun. To the left were the tiny tepees with their delicate smoke spirals, and a suggestion of women's figures moving in front. Nahnya turned with agitated hands, and, scrambling down over the rocks, disappeared within the cave.
The old man sat where she had left him, staring on the ground, a trembling hand outspread on either knee.
Nahnya saw the yellow eye of Philippe's torch gleaming far within the cavern, and she did not pause to light one for herself. She came upon the three waiting beside the hole that swallowed the stream. Philippe sat on a jutting rock, smoking quietly; Kitty was huddled on the sandy floor, and Ralph was moving restlessly up and down.
Hearing her coming, he sprang toward her, bound as he was, softly crying her name with a passionate relief and gladness in his voice. This was what Kitty had to listen to. Even in the uncertain light of the torch Nahnya saw the yearning and the pain in his eyes. Kitty had to see it, too. Nahnya could not support the look.
"Let us get on!" she said quickly.
Philippe had already replaced the frail bridge over the hole. He crossed first, followed by Kitty; then Ralph, with Nahnya watching him close. At the other side Nahnya, stooping, affected to busy herself with the lacing of her moccasin. Philippe and Kitty passed ahead a little; Ralph stuck close to Nahnya. As the light went on he could not see what she was doing, but he heard the scrape of the logs as she pulled the little bridge toward her, and heard the structure knock against the rocky walls as it went down.
"Nahnya!" he cried, amazed. "Aren't you going back?"
"No," she murmured.
Kitty's voice came back sharp and peremptory: "Ralph!"
"I tell you soon," Nahnya said swiftly. She hastened to catch up with the others.
Arriving at length at the cleft whence a little gray daylight filtered into the cave, Philippe quenched the torch in the loose sand of the floor. They started through the narrow place in the same order—Philippe, then Kitty. As Ralph was about to follow Nahnya laid a hand on his arm.
"I stay here," she murmured.
He flung about. "Nahnya! Is this—the end?" he faltered.
"Listen!" she whispered swiftly. "When Jim Sholto get his daughter back, he not want stay in Joe Mixer's camp no more. He make a new camp, I think. Maybe he go down by the river. But it is too late to start on the river to-night. He mus' camp. When they are asleep, you lie down a little way from them. Lie in the trail where I can find you easy——"
"Nahnya!"
"I will come, to-night," she whispered. "Now, go; go quickly!"
XXII
RENUNCIATION
Ralph followed Philippe and Kitty through the narrow cleft in the rock, and the three of them stood huddled together at the bottom of the hole. The opening was like an eye looking down on them. Philippe sent Kitty aloft by means of the pine trunk. Looking at Ralph, he scratched his head in perplexity. How to get him out with his arms bound was the question.
"Untie me," said Ralph mildly. "I'll let you tie me again."
This sudden tractibility aroused Philippe's suspicions. He debated the matter scowlingly. However, Ralph, deprived of the use of his right arm, was not a formidable antagonist, and the half-breed decided to chance it. As Ralph climbed, he followed close at his heels, and quickly secured him again at the top.
They made their way down the bed of the ravine. No more than Philippe could Kitty understand the new light in Ralph's eyes. She glanced at him covertly, wondering with a fresh pang of jealousy what had taken place behind her back. Ralph was walking on air. He had suffered so much that he snatched at the prospect of happiness, however fleeting. Both the immediate danger and the hopeless future were put out of his mind; it was enough for him that Nahnya had promised to come to him; she was one to keep her word!
Jim Sholto saw them coming, and ran down the bank to embrace his daughter. Kitty's answering welcome was not overwarm; she was too bitterly concerned with another matter. Jim, hurt by her coldness and ascribing it to its cause, turned angrily on Ralph.
"You young blackguard!" he cried. "You'll stoop to use a helpless girl to further your evil ends, will you?"
Poor Kitty, all day the helpless plaything of circumstances, asserted herself at last. She forced herself between the two men. "If you abuse him any more I shall hate you!" she cried to her father, with an outbreak of passion that surprised herself. "It was not his fault at all! I set him loose of my own free will, out of common humanity, which you lacked! He sent me back, but I would not let him go alone in such a state! I keep telling you it's Annie Crossfox he's in love with. He has made no pretences to me!"
"Where's your pride, lass?" cried Jim.
"It's you who won't let me have any pride!" she flashed back at him. "Never speak of this again!"
He took her arm. "Come away!" he said grimly.
At the top of the bank they met Joe Mixer. "You've got him!" he cried gleefully to Philippe. To Ralph: "You ——! How do you feel about it now?"
Kitty, apprehending blows to follow, wrenched her arm out of her father's grasp, and turned on Joe. The flames still burned high in her cheeks. "Let him alone!" she cried. "He's not your prisoner!" To her father she said passionately: "He was sent out in your care! If you don't take him and keep him from this cowardly bully, you won't take me!"
All men dread a roused woman. "Softly with your epithets, girl!" said Jim scowling. To Philippe he said sullenly: "Give him over to me."
Philippe yielded his prisoner, nothing loath. Joe Mixer, keen to learn what the half-breed had discovered, did not care what became of Ralph. Stack and Crusoe had joined the group, and the three of them volleyed questions at Philippe. Jim Sholto lingered to listen; he was a gold-hunter, too. Ralph, forgotten for the moment by all the men, sat down beside the trail and hugged his dream, deaf and blind to what was going on around him. Kitty watched him sorely.
"It was just like she told," Philippe said; "a long walk through the cave, and a pretty valley on the other side. There is no other way to get in. It is Bowl of the Mountains, all right."
"Did you see any gold?" demanded Joe.
"Plenty," said Philippe. "The bottom of all the little streams are yellow with it. I pick up a little. See!"
Digging his hand into his pocket, he brought it forth full of yellow grains, which he emptied carelessly into Joe's twitching palm. The heads of the four white men came together, and the four pairs of eyes showed the same insane glitter.
"This is the stuff!" cried Joe, pouring the grains with a voluptuous pleasure from palm to palm. "Sweeter than booze! sweeter than women! It'll buy you plenty of both! Gad! I'll keep a great chest of it always by me, and come dig in it every day for the pleasure of the feel and the heft of it!"
"Can we get it out through the cave?" asked Jim.
"Sure!" said Philippe. "It's easy going."
"How about the girl?" demanded Joe.
"She is there with her family."
"How many?"
"An old man, a young man, two boys, and four women."
"H'm! They could make it awkward for us," said Joe frowning.
"They not care for gold," said Philippe, with an innocent, stolid air. "Wash a little, and let it lie. When I tell Nahnya you all here, him feel bad. Him say no use. Him say not fight you."
"Come on, then!" cried Joe excitedly. "Let's lose no time!"
"Come on!" echoed Stack and Crusoe Campbell. The desire was no less strong in Jim Sholto's face. He looked at Kitty uneasily.
Philippe hung back. "I paddle half the night!" he said, with an admirable assumption of the disgruntled servant. "I walk all day. Am I a steam-engine? I got eat and sleep now."
"Sleep?" cried Joe. "Man, there's a fortune waiting for every one of us in there!"
"I got sleep, me," Philippe repeated stubbornly. "The gold is there to-morrow just the same, I guess."
"Damn these redskins!" cried Joe. "They're all alike!"
"Go yourself," said Philippe. "The way is free. Don' blame me if you fall in the hole, or get lost."
A heated argument resulted. Philippe was inexorable. He knew well enough that the white men would not venture into the bowels of the earth without him. Philippe finally picked up his blanket, and carrying it apart lay down and affected to go to sleep. The others were obliged to resign themselves to wait.
Meanwhile Jim Sholto was in a quandary. He could not bear to have Kitty camping with that rough crew, and he was jealous of leaving her a moment alone with Ralph, yet he could not tear himself away from the vicinity with such riches waiting to be gathered. He could not but compare the ease of washing gold in a stream with the strenuous labour of smelting ore in little home-made furnaces.
He compromised with himself by establishing his camp a few hundred yards away from Joe's. It was the spot where the operation had been performed on old Marya's arm. Ralph was secretly gladdened by the choice of the spot. It was not far for Nahnya to come. During the rest of the afternoon Ralph and Kitty slept. Jim occupied himself in building a shelter of branches to house Kitty throughout the night.
There was not much conversation around this campfire. It irked Ralph to be obliged to accept Jim's grim hospitality, but there was no help for it. Immediately after supper Kitty disappeared within her shelter, and Jim soon lay down in his blanket athwart the entrance. He made no objection to Ralph's dragging his bed to a little distance. If Ralph had escaped altogether, Jim would have been only too well pleased.
When Jim's snores began to displace the heavy stillness of the forest, Ralph rose and dragged his blankets still farther away. Jim had tied him in such a manner that his left arm was free from the elbow. He arranged his bed after a fashion directly in the trail, and lay down to wait. It was about nine o'clock. It would not be dark until after ten. He knew that Nahnya could not venture out of the cave until then, and that he must give her time to make a detour of the other camp.
He lay in a kind of fever watching for evidences of darkness with avid eyes. One cannot measure the subtle stages of the passing of day any better than its coming. It goes and it comes and all is said. Thus to Ralph counting the crawling minutes it seemed as if the bright sky clung obstinately to its brightness, and as if the dim spacious aisles of the forest refused to grow dimmer. Losing patience at last, he closed his eyes and tossed restlessly. When he opened them again, behold! it was nearly dark.
His heart began to beat, and his mouth went dry. In every whisper of the leaves he thought he heard the brush of her skirt. The tiny, furry footfalls that began to stir among the pine needles suggested her creeping moccasins, now on this side, now on that. A dozen times he started to a sitting position, sure he heard her, only to fall back disappointed. The thought that something might finally prevent her from coming turned him sick with apprehension.
She came as softly as a breath through the forest, and dropped on her knees beside him, without his having heard her coming. His eyes were well-used to the darkness, and he could make her out faintly; her graceful head outlined against a patch of sky overhead; her two hands pressed hard to her breast in a way that he knew. He heard, or fancied he heard, her heart's quick beating. A great peace succeeded the torture of suspense.
"You've come!" he breathed.
"I am mad! I am foolish!" she faltered.
He apprehended that the slightest thing would send her flying back again. By turning a little he managed to reach her hand and to pull it down to his lips. Her fingers crept eagerly inside his, as she had never allowed them to do before. She had confessed nothing with her voice yet, but her whole being breathed a passionate warmth over him that made him dizzy with happiness.
"Nahnya, darling, untie my hands," he whispered.
"No!" she said tremulously.
He pleaded with her urgently.
Her trembling hand stroked his cheek with a touch like flower petals. "Ah, do not make me fight you now," she begged. "I so tire of fighting you, Ralph. You know if I let you free, you not let me go back. I must go back! Do not make me sorry I come!"
"This is harder to bear than Joe Mixer's tortures!" he bitterly complained.
She tried to disengage the hand he clung to. "If you say that, I must go now," she whispered sadly.
It terrified him. "No! No! Anything you want!" he said swiftly.
"Let me stay quiet by you a little," she whispered. "Let me love you quiet a little."
"Tell me you love me, and I'm satisfied," he said.
She sank down beside him and kissed him softly on the lips. "I love you! I love you! I love you!" she murmured, with such passion as he had never dreamed of hearing on the lips of a woman. "I love you the first time I see you! Always it near kill me to make out I do not love you! I love you till I die!"
They were silent for a space, clinging to each other, cheek to cheek in the darkness, their breasts tossing on stormy sighs.
He said brokenly at last: "Nahnya, this is the strongest thing in the world. Nothing else matters. You must not leave me!"
She partly raised herself, and put a gentle hand over his mouth. "In your heart you know I mus' go," she whispered. "In your heart you know ver' well there mus' not be anything between you and me! Do not spoil our little time together by speaking of it!"
His head rolled impatiently on the ground. "I cannot live without you," he muttered. "I will not live without you!"
She kissed him. "Yes, you will," she said softly. "You will promise me now to live the best life you can. Because I am going to live, and always I want think of you living brave and happy and curing the sick!"
"Happy!" he said bitterly.
"It will come," she said, with quiet certainty.
"Put your hand in my pocket," he said. "There is something there for you."
She found the necklace and kissed it. "I will always wear it," she said.
She lay down beside him again, on the edge of his blanket, but not touching him, except that she caught his free hand and pressed it hard to her cheek. "Often I am think the same," she whispered. "I think what is the use of living a life like mine! But always something stop me from ending it. Something make me to go on living, sad as life is. Death is for those who are shamed, I think. I am not shamed. You are not shamed."
"You're braver than I," he murmured.
"You're plenty brave," she whispered, kissing his hand. "To-day I see you think you are shamed because you think you bring trouble on me. You think you will jus' step off the little bridge——"
"How did you know that?" he cried, astonished.
"I see it in your eyes," she said simply. "I love you. Often I know what you are thinking. That is why I say I come to-night. I want tell you I love you! I want tell you I think you are strong and brave. I glad you love me! I glad you love me hard enough to come back when I tell you no. I not sorry for anything. It is not your fault that the other men come after you, or that you told the secret when you were sick. That was going to happen. Such things are not understood by us. You mus' not be shamed. I not have you shamed, because you are my brave, good man!"
"You're an angel of comfort," he murmured. "I was ashamed!"
"Promise me now that you will make the best life you can," she whispered.
"I promise," he said.
Her quiet voice broke. "Oh, my darling love!" she cried. "Always, always I will be thinking of you! Wherever you are my spirit will go to you to love you and make you happy. You are my husband and my baby, too! Oh! I cannot speak more! How can I let you go! How can I let you go!"
She clung to him, her warm tears running down his face. He could not speak. He soothed her silently. She fought down the sobs. By and by she said quaintly:
"That is over."
When she got her breath back she partly raised herself, and said: "Another promise, Ralph."
"What?"
"Kitty."
He moved restlessly.
"Be good to her," she pleaded. "She is jus' sweet!"
"Impossible!" he said. "She's too much mixed up in this. I never want to see her again!"
"By and by maybe you change," said Nahnya softly. "If it was not for me you would marry Kitty. She is the one for you."
"Never!" cried Ralph.
The soft hand was clapped over his mouth again. "Do not swear it!" she said. "Who can tell how you feel by and by? Take what comes. You will like her, I think. Not like this——" Her voice shook again. "I not want it just like this. But it will be good. And if you feel kind to her you will remember that I wished it, and it will not be false to me. Promise me, if you feel good and kind to Kitty you will marry her!"
"It will never be!" he cried.
"Then what harm to promise me?" she said quickly. "It make me a little happy."
"Very well, if I change I will marry her," he said sullenly. "But I will never change!"
"Kitty will be good to you," murmured Nahnya, "and watch you, and take care of you almost as good as me. Kitty—will have babies! I think of that—it is a pain and a gladness, too!"
"Nahnya," he said, "you hurt me!"
She clung to him again. "No!" she breathed in a voice as tender and thrilling as starlight; "my love will not hurt you; it will make you strong! It will be a more wonderful love because we cannot be together. It will be more real than what you see! It will shelter you like a house over your head, and comfort you like a fire in winter! Whenever you close your eyes I will be there, waiting for you! Good-bye, my brave man, my darling love!"
She was gone before he realized she was going.
XXIII
THE LAST SCENE
Joe Mixer and his men sat up late counting the golden harvest they expected to reap; consequently next morning the sun was high in the sky before the fat man woke. The instant consciousness returned to him the thought of "Gold!" sprang up in his mind as if written in letters of the metal. He sat up knuckling the sleep from his eyes. Instead of the breakfast that usually awaited him, he saw Crusoe and Stack still slumbering beside him. He awakened them with no gentle urgency.
"What's the matter with you!" he bawled with his own picturesque expletives. "It's past six o'clock, and we were going to start at five!"
Crusoe, the cook, looked around him in a dazed way. "The breed said he'd wake me," he said; "I left it to him."
They saw Philippe's tumbled blanket on the ground beyond Stack. "He's gone off, damn him!" cried Joe. "Hunting a puny rabbit most like! They're all alike! Look sharp with the breakfast!"
While Crusoe cooked, Joe and Stack collected and packed the camp impedimenta. In his eagerness to get away, the fat man was as active as a stripling. When breakfast was ready, and the half-breed had not yet returned, his anger was boundless. The camp atmosphere was lurid. As yet he did not suspect any treachery, for as a result of his experience with the race he had withheld Philippe's pay, and even a breed does not run off with money owing him. Besides, he had left his good blanket behind him.
After breakfast they scattered to look for him, awaking the forest with their hails. Crusoe found tracks made that morning in the ravine. Joe and Stack joined him, and they followed the tracks toward the mouth of the cave.
"Maybe he got up early to get in ahead of us," said Stack, paling at his own suggestion.
"By Gad! if he has——" cried Joe.
But the tracks led them beyond the drift-pile.
"It's game he's after," said Joe, reassured.
Crusoe, who was a pace in advance, had stopped, and was examining the creek bed attentively. "There's another track here," he said suddenly; "a small foot—a woman's foot! That's his game!"
The three men looked at each other with growing suspicions. "Get along after them!" cried Joe harshly.
But none of them moved. They had become aware simultaneously of a curious rumbling sound high above them. It approached with terrific swiftness, ending with a mighty crash above, that caused each man instinctively to make himself small, and guard his head with his arms. A great boulder leaped across the ravine, high over their heads, and smashed into the forest on the other side.
Of one accord the three turned and fled down the ravine, little Stack in advance, leaping from stone to stone like an antelope. A shower of pebbles peppered their heads and shoulders harmlessly. Outside the danger zone they halted.
"By Gad! that was a close shave!" said Joe, wiping his face. "They say those stones just naturally work themselves loose on the mountain, and no man can tell when they'll fall!"
"Maybe somebody started it," suggested Stack. His teeth were chattering.
Panic seized them again. They did not stop running until they had climbed the bank of the ravine, and stood in their own camp. From this point nearly the whole of the mountain side was visible. They searched it excitedly.
"It's true!" cried Stack at last. "I see him! I see two of them up there!"
"My binoculars!" shouted Joe.
His hands shook, and it took him a long time to focus the glasses. Stack stood at his elbow instructing him shrilly where to look. Crusoe stood with hanging jaw, looking up like a clown.
Immediately above the entrance to the cave there was a precipitous cliff some seventy-five or a hundred feet high. On top of that was a flat ledge or terrace reaching back. The floor of this terrace was hidden from them, but behind it rose a long, steep bare slide of rubble fully two thousand feet in the air, ending in a ridge or hog-back of broken rock-masses, which extended up at right angles to the base of the final peak of naked rock, the thumb. It was upon the ridge, working among the rock-masses with pine poles for levers, that Stack's sharp eyes had spotted the two tiny figures.
Joe finally got them within the field of his glasses. A frightful rage took possession of him. His face turned purple. He frothed at the mouth and stamped on the ground like a madman. Stack slyly took the binoculars out of his hand or he would have dashed them to the ground. From his broken exclamations and curses the others gathered that he had recognized Philippe and Nahnya. Stack satisfied himself as to the identity of the figures.
Another great stone started to roll down the gigantic slide. They saw it coming before they heard the noise of its passage. They gazed fascinated. As it gathered its terrific way it started to leap higher and higher in the air like a mad elf. It struck the rock ledge with a deafening crash, and like its predecessor bounded high over the ravine and shattered the trees on the other side. The force suggested by the soaring of these tons of matter lightly through the air struck awe into the souls of the beholders. The silence following the final crash of the projectile was broken by a long, dull rumble of the smaller stones displaced in its course. A long cloud of yellow dust arose behind it.
Other rocks, small and large, followed. Stack, through the binoculars, watched the two on the height working desperately with their levers. Joe Mixer had exhausted himself in his transports. He now looked up dumb and suffering with rage, his thick lips snarling and his nails pressed into his palms. Suddenly a light broke on his face, and he cried out:
"There's no danger! The cliff makes a screen. Look, how all the rocks jump clear of the gulch. Come on back!"
Stack had seen this before, but had kept it to himself. Both Stack and Crusoe turned white with terror at the thought of venturing up the ravine beneath that bombardment.
"You white-livered cowards!" cried Joe; "you skulkers! you shivering curs! I'll go alone! And I'll keep what I find!"
No one denied Joe Mixer brute courage. Paying no more attention to the descent of the rocks, he methodically separated a portion of their food for himself, and rolling it within his blanket, strapped the pack on his back. Fastening a belt of ammunition around his waist, he picked up his rifle, and went doggedly down the bank and up the bed of the ravine. All the gold in the world would not have tempted the others to follow.
While he was in the ravine the two on the mountain succeeded in wresting loose a bigger mass of rock than any before. It came down with a frightful impetus. The noise of its coming leaped out of nothingness and stunned the ears. When it struck the ledge of rock they felt the shock below. Joe crouched under a boulder. The mass made a gaping wound in the forest where it earthed itself.
The succeeding rumble from above did not subside, but slowly deepened and increased in volume. Stack, looking up, saw an incredible, an insupportable sight, as in some hideous nightmare. The whole face of the mountain was in motion. He screamed, and cast himself on his face, covering his head with his thin arms. Crusoe followed his example. Joe, hearing the ominous sounds above his head, wavered. The shrill sound of terror decided him. He started to run back down the ravine, but too late. A cataract of broken rocks came pouring over the lip of the cliff.
When Jim Sholto found Ralph that morning he saw at a glance that he had a desperately sick man to deal with. The exertion and the terrible excitement following too soon upon his fever had brought about a relapse. Jim carried him into camp, and Kitty did what little she could for his comfort. Humanity forbade Jim's leaving her alone with the patient, though he chafed to be away with the other men after the gold. To this he owed his life.
They were attending to Ralph when they heard the fall of the first stone. It was a sound they were not unfamiliar with in their own camp, and caused them no perturbation. When several others followed in close succession, Jim looked up.
"That's funny!" he said. "I never knew so many to fall together."
A minute later they heard Stack's scream. Jim jumped up.
"Somebody's caught!" he said grimly.
"Don't go!" cried Kitty sharply.
She had no need to speak. Jim was rooted to the spot. "A whole landslide!" he murmured.
During the next few seconds chaos succeeded. There was a rushing sound as of millions of great wings beating the air, and a shock under which the earth rocked nauseatingly. The uproar was such that human ear could not encompass it. It was like mountainous seas breaking over their heads. Kitty and her father clutched the earth. It shook under their bodies like a jelly. Ralph knew nothing of what was happening. A tremendous silence succeeded, broken only by the detached tapping of falling rocks here and there. Then a brief, terrible wind swept screaming through the forest and was gone. A strange, thick, yellow fog stole among the tree trunks; it left an acrid taste in the nostrils.
As soon as the uproar subsided Jim was for going to see what had happened. Kitty clung to him hysterically. Not until half an hour had passed would she let him leave her, and then only upon his repeated assurances that no further disturbance was likely to occur for the present. Anything that had not been shaken loose by that terrible shock would stick, he said. Kitty herself refused to leave Ralph.
Jim had not gone two hundred yards before he began to meet with evidences of the cataclysm in the scattered rocks and broken trees. A little farther on he came to the edge of the flood of rocks that had poured down from the mountain, obliterating the forest up to this point. He circled the base of the gigantic heap until he came to a point where he could overlook the entire height. This was on the edge of the ravine behind Joe Mixer's camp.
Jim stood, struck to the soul with amazement. The genii had waved their wands and the face of the earth was changed. There was no stream below him; above where he stood there was no longer any gulch or any cliff rising above it. The mountain had stepped forward and stamped them out. A great new spur of raw rubble reeking with yellow dust now reached across in front of him, blotting out the forest like grass as far as he could see on that side. The entrance to the Bowl of the Mountains was somewhere under the middle of the mountain; no man could tell now where it had been, so complete was the change. Joe Mixer's camp had not been in the direct line of the slide, but tons and tons of rock had overflowed at the sides like a liquid, and the place where the fire had been was drowned fathoms deep.
Jim remembered the scream they had heard. "Nothing to do here!" he thought grimly. He returned to Kitty.
Nahnya and Philippe reached a little plateau of rock after a long climb, and sat down to breathe themselves. Their faces were calm. For the moment they were concerned only with their journey. On every side great snowy peaks looked down on them over each other's shoulders. The white fields dipped almost to the level where they sat. Behind them, and far below, the forest ended in the throat of a valley; before them lay a shallower valley of a bleak aspect. It supported only a little scrub and a variegated carpet of moss, and the gorges on either hand were choked with ice.
"This is a divide," Nahnya said. She spoke in Cree. "St. Jean Bateese tell me this trail. The water out of that valley go to the Burning River, he say. It is five days' journey from here."
"I have heard of that river," said Philippe. "It goes to the place of the rising sun, and joins with the Great River of the Ice."
The sun had disappeared some time since behind the peaks on their left hand. Philippe cast a look at the threatening sky. "It will rain to-night," he said. "Let us go down. There is nothing here to make a shelter. There is no wood for a fire."
"Wait a little," Nahnya said. "We must talk—what we do after."
Her simple-sounding words had an electric effect. Both faces changed subtly; hers became wary; his sullen. They avoided each other's eyes.
"We will do what comes," said Philippe, feigning unconcern. "We will walk to the Burning River, and make a raft and float to the Great River of the Ice. Then we can go where we want."
"You know what I mean," said Nahnya quietly. "Why waste talk?"
Philippe's eyes suddenly blazed up. "You are mine now!" he said.
"Not yet," said Nahnya coolly. "I say you can come with me if you want. I make no promise."
"You are mine!" repeated Philippe louder. "There is nothing to say!"
"There is much to say!" said Nahnya, with a direct look. "If you lay hands on me without I give you leave, I will kill you!"
There was a short, fierce struggle between the two pairs of eyes. The man's eyes gave way.
"I not want quarrel with you," said Nahnya presently, in a softened voice. "You helped me very much. I have a kindness for you."
His eyes stole back to her face furtively and humbly.
"I will marry you if you want," Nahnya went on. "Because I have learned a girl cannot be alone. And I have no people now. I will make you a good wife if you want me. I will always work hard. I will try to make you a rich, big man. But first the truth must be told."
"What truth?" muttered Philippe.
"I do not love you," she said.
"This is white people's talk," said Philippe. "What is love? You marry me. You keep my lodge."
"I love the white man," Nahnya said firmly.
He sprang up with a threatening gesture. In his simplicity he thought she was baiting him. His face was dark with wounded self-love.
Nahnya's eyes held his unflinchingly. "If you strike me I not stop loving him," she said.
The youth was no match for her. His eyes could not support the strong light behind hers. He turned away muttering.
"Do you want to marry me?" Nahnya asked after a while.
He turned on her with the violent upbraiding of a man's jealousy, which is much the same, Cree or English. Nahnya saw that he had misunderstood what she meant by "love." Interrupting him, she made the point clear.
"No man has had me!" she proudly concluded.
He scowled, regarding her doubtfully. The boastful male in him was loath to confess it, but he was like wax in her hands.
"Red and white cannot mate together," Nahnya said, with her strange, fatalistic calmness. "He is gone away. I will never see him again."
"Swear it!" demanded Philippe.
She raised her hand. "I swear it!" she said, without a tremor.
He was much comforted. He scowled still, not knowing what to say.
"Do you want to marry me?" she asked again.
It was a kind of stricken look that he turned on her. "I want to marry you," he murmured.
"There is my hand," said Nahnya. "Deal straight with me, and I will do all that I say."
He fondled her hand clumsily.
Nahnya's eyes became kindly. "You were a good boy at the school," she said. "It was good talk that we talked together. Why do you want to be called a bad man now, and not work, and drink, and make trouble everywhere?"
"I will tell you why I change," said Philippe boastfully. "I go among the white men, thinking to find my brothers. My father was a white man, and married to my mother in church. But they think little of me because my skin is dark. They treat me like a slave, and give me hard work and little pay like a slave. So I hate them. I am bad! I make all the trouble I can!"
"White men only laugh at a bad man," said Nahnya, "and put him in jail. You are going to make yourself a wise, big man now."
Philippe's self-love made its last stand. "I am a man," he said scowling. "It is not for a woman to tell me what to do."
Nahnya made no answer. She was playing with some bits of broken stone.
"I will be the master in my own lodge!" Philippe said louder. "You will work and keep quiet!"
"If you want me to live with you, you must live straight," said Nahnya, with an ominous softness. "You think it is fun to be a bad man. It is not fun to be a bad man's wife!"
"I will do what I want!" said Philippe boastfully.
"Look!" said Nahnya, pointing to the stones she had been arranging. "Here I have made the sign of the cross. Kneel, and put your right hand on it, and swear to live straight!"
Philippe laughed. Nahnya rose to her feet with the same dangerously quiet air. She did not look at him. Anxiety began to undermine his scornful smile.
"What are you going to do?" he asked sullenly.
"Swear!" she said. "Or I will jump off this rock into the valley!"
He sprang up. She was quicker than he. He saw her headed straight and determined for the edge. He stopped dead.
"Nahnya!" he cried hoarsely.
She stopped on the very edge, looking down into the gulf with a kind of wistful desirousness. One would almost have said that she was sorry he had cried out.
"I will swear it!" he cried quickly. He dropped to his knees beside the cross of stones.
She came back from the edge with a sigh. "I will do all that I said," she murmured, as if to herself.
The way down into the shallow valley on the other side was easy. As they proceeded Nahnya laid out their plans for the future with a kind of ecstasy in her sad eyes.
"All day I am thinking what we will do. We will gather those like ourselves who are not red and not white, and make a new people of them. First we will go to Caribou Lake and talk with the people. They have steamboats now on Caribou Lake and the little river and the big river; the York boats are rotting on the beach and the half-breeds have no work to do. They are poor and sick and full of hate for the white men. I know a fine country where the Tamarack River rises in the hills. There are no white men near, and the Kakisa Indians who hunted there are all dead or gone away with other tribes. It is the best fur country there is left. We will tell the people about this country, and make a village there. There is good hunting for all. The company will make a post there, and you shall be the trader!"