Afterward an ancient box wagon came rattling up, drawn by two champing cayuses, guided by Pake, the "wise guy" of the bush. The duffle was thrown in; Pake and one of his brethren coolly preëmpted the box, allowing Garth and Natalie to dispose themselves as they chose among the freight; and they set off at a smart pace across the gloriously sunny meadow.
It was rough enough in all conscience; and in spite of every effort to brace themselves in the body of the wagon, they were shaken about like corn in a hopper. But in the bush it was worse; there, though their pace necessarily slackened, what with the holes, roots, stumps and fallen trunks, they had seldom more than two wheels on the ground; and more than once all that stood between them and a total capsize was Pake's dexterous wrist. There were deep gullies, down which they precipitated themselves, almost turning the wagon over on the horses' backs at the bottom; and the climbs up the other side were heart-breaking. Pake was often obliged to descend and chop; and on the whole progress was so slow, Garth decided they might venture to insure their necks by walking.
So he and Natalie strode on ahead, pausing here and there to pick the delicious acrid mooseberries, and discussing their problems. Their talk was chiefly of Nick Grylls. Natalie finally confessed what had happened at the Landing.
"You should have told me immediately," Garth said with a frown.
Natalie looked "poor," as she called it. "I was afraid you'd send me home," she said. "Now you can't," she added provokingly.
Garth in turn told her what he had learned the night before.
"Look here," said Natalie frankly; "what is the use of our hiding these things from each other? Let us promise to tell everything that happens after this. You wanted me to take you for granted as if I were a man. You treat me like a man and I will."
Garth smiled; and promised to try—just as she had done on a similar occasion.
"I wish I had some men's clothes," said Natalie stoutly; frowning as girls always do, when they see themselves in that character. And in the very act of wishing it, she forgot; and drove home her femininity. Tipping a palmful of mooseberries into her mouth, "Wouldn't I look nice!" she said with a sidewise sparkle.
Garth, swallowing a sigh, smiled, and allowed that she would.
They speculated on what Mary Co-que-wasa's errand might be; neither of them was experienced in villainy. There, in the matter-of-fact daylight, and, as Natalie said, on Sunday, August the fifth now, it was impossible for the thought of one silent old woman to cause them much uneasiness; besides, they presently expected to join forces with the Bishop's ample party. Nothing nearly so simple and devilish as the actual truth occurred to them; and it was brought home with the force of a blow, when they reached the Warehouse.
About eleven, a final descent brought them to the shore of a demure little river flowing softly between high banks—Musquasepi, that they were to know so well. Off to the left it merged into the muddier waters of the "big" river. On the further shore stood the Warehouse they had heard of so often.
"Oh!" said Natalie. "Only another little log shack! Why I imagined a—a——"
"Five-story stone front?" suggested Garth.
"Well, I don't know," she said, "but not that!"
On the hither side was a solitary cabin; and in the doorway stood a breed, outwardly of a different pattern from any they had seen—but after all not so different. He was clad in decent Sunday blacks minus the coat; and wore heavy-rimmed spectacles which he took off when he really wished to see. On the table within was ostentatiously spread an open Bible—the sharp-eyed Natalie took note that it was upside down. This young man had a heavy expression of conscious responsibility, before which the insouciant Pake visibly quailed. Pake indicated to Garth that Ancose Mackey stood before him.
"Where is the Bishop?" Garth demanded impatiently.
Ancose blandly ignored the question for the present. "How-do-you-do, sir," he said, like a mechanical doll, at the same time politely extending his hand.
Garth, shaking it hastily, repeated his question—but the young man was not to be hurried over any of his self-pleasing formalities.
"How-do-you-do, sir," he repeated to Natalie in precisely the same tone, gravely shaking hands with her.
Then they must needs come in and sit down, while their host made a remark on the weather, and informed them, with an air, that he was a very good reader. He wrapped his Bible in an end of comforter, and pulling a doll's trunk from under the bed, put it away. Natalie had a glimpse of the contents of the trunk; she said afterward, it was like the inside of his head; beside the Bible, there were sundry pieces of dried moose meat, a gaudy silk handkerchief, tobacco and a brass watch-chain of the size of a small cable. He took out the latter and put it on.
Finally he appeared to hear Garth's question. "Bishop gone up little river. Four days," he said.
"Some one was to meet me here," said Garth confidently.
An expression of genuine concern appeared under Ancose Mackey's solemn mugging. "You Garth Pevensey?" he asked.
Garth nodded.
Ancose's English was not equal to the situation. He turned quickly to Pake, squatting in the doorway, and exploded in Cree. Pake answered in kind. It takes a roundabout course to say anything of an abstract nature in Cree. Finally Garth heard the ominous name of Mary Co-que-wasa enter into their discourse.
"What is it?" he demanded impatiently.
Ancose turned a long face to him. "Bad medicine here," he said. "Bishop send ol' Pierre Toma down from head of rapids with him team to get you," he went on, struggling manfully with his English. "Ol' Pierre stay to me three days of waiting. Las' night come boy up big river in canoe. Boy say to ol' Pierre, Cap'n Jack stuck at Caliper Island. Boy say, Cap'n Jack want tell to Bishop, Garth Pevensey no can come. Garth Pevensey him gone back outside."
Garth and Natalie looked at each other in dismay.
"Mary Co-que-wasa do this," added Ancose. "Him no speak never true."
"Of course!" said Natalie. "She knew they wouldn't believe her, so she sent the boy up, while she waited below."
"Where's the boy?" Garth demanded.
Ancose shrugged. "Gone down," he said. "No can catch now."
"When did Pierre Toma go back?"
"Early," said Ancose. "Five hours. Him horses fresh."
"Maybe we can catch them yet!" cried Garth. "How much to the head of the rapids, Pake?"
Pake had ample English to make a good bargain. However, it was finally struck; and cutting Ancose Mackey's elaborate adieus very short, they took to the road again.
They had twenty-five miles to cover. This part of the trail is considerably used in freighting goods around the rapids, and in the North it is considered a good road, though the travellers' bones bore testimony to the contrary for several succeeding days. Pake, with the prospect of a substantial bonus before him, did not spare his horses; but the grass-fed beasts had already lost their enthusiasm for the journey, and they made but indifferent progress. They were presently compelled to stop a good hour and a half to let them rest and feed.
Garth, though he strove to hide it, was now very anxious. They had laid in only two weeks' provisions at the Landing; the trails seemed to be narrowing both before and behind; and the North closing in. Moreover, he suspected Nick Grylls was not the man to stoop to mere mischief-making; and he wondered apprehensively what next move he contemplated. Looking at his charming Natalie, he could conceive of a man stooping to any villainy to possess her. However, he strove to keep her spirits up—and his own—with the oft-expressed belief that the Bishop would not leave Pierre Toma's until the next morning.
Six o'clock had passed before they turned into the rough little clearing on the river bank. The horses were done up. They had passed no other sign of habitation the whole way.
A bent old man with a snowy thatch came hobbling out of the cabin.
His look of surprise, and the quietness of the place, answered Garth's question before he put it.
"Where is the Bishop?"
The old man spread out his hands. "Gone. Four hours," he said.
VIII
ON THE LITTLE RIVER
The next day found Garth and Natalie afloat on Musquasepi, headed alone into the North. To be exact, only Natalie was afloat; she sat in the stern of a tiny boat, keeping her off shore with a paddle devised from the cover of a grub-box. Their outfit was piled amidships. Garth harnessed to the end of a towing-line, plodded through the mud and over the stones of the bank; climbing over fallen trees, and wading bodily into the river, when necessary to drag his tow around a reef.
Indecision had attacked Garth the night before—his responsibility was so great! But Natalie had said, pressing the soft curve out of her lips:
"Any means to get ahead! If we have to crawl on hands and knees!"
"Any safe means," Garth amended.
"Nick Grylls without doubt is counting on our being held up or driven back," she said. "I have an idea he is not far behind us."
It was Garth's own idea.
"We must do whatever will best ensure your safety," Garth said doggedly.
That bright red spot had appeared in either of Natalie's cheeks. "Bother my safety!" she cried. "You will not allow me a shred of pluck! My honour is engaged on this journey, just the same as if I were a man! I said I'd do it; and I will! And if I hear another word about my comfort or my safety, upon my word, I'll go on alone!"
Garth had smiled at the threat, and given in; because on the whole it seemed safer to press ahead, than to attempt to return. Secretly, he was delighted with the spirit she showed.
They had bought the boat from Pierre Toma, a breed of the more self-respecting elder generation, in whose aged eyes still twinkled the spirit of the voyageurs. Pake's magnanimous offer of the wagon and team at only twice their real value was declined; inasmuch as the trail was impassible for wagons beyond Toma's place, and ceased altogether at Caribou Lake. They counted on the boat to carry them as far as the lake; there, Pierre Toma had assured them, they might very likely overtake the Bishop, if he were delayed by contrary winds, or christenings. In any case Wall-eye Macgregor, said Pierre, had a strong boat at the lake that could take them the eighty miles across. According to the haphazard measurements of the breeds, Caribou Lake was twenty-five miles from Pierre Toma's.
Their own boat was but crazily hung together. Natalie had christened it the Flat-iron from its shape. It was of extremely simple construction—two planks laid V-shape, with a shorter plank to close the end, and boards nailed on for a bottom. Pierre Toma had said with pride, there was no other boat in the country like it; and after using it a day they were prepared to agree. It was designed to be propelled with a pole; and they had started in that manner; but the Flat-iron showed a perverse disposition to travel in any direction save the desired one; and her favourite manœuvre under the impetus of the pole was to swing on her centre without moving ahead at all. So Garth, after some study, had constructed the tracking apparatus.
It was a simple, park-like, little river with brown, foam-flecked water flowing moderately through a country of small timber; and occasionally there were natural meadows starred with flowers, where children in their white dresses should have been picnicking, so intimate and peaceful it seemed. None the less, it was the strange and lonely North into which they were thrust, on their own unaided resources—like the babes in the woods, Natalie said. They were abruptly cast back on the great and simple verities of existence, where a man, be his wits never so sharp, must be strong, to survive. Natalie looked at Garth's broad back, as he slowly put the miles behind him one after another; and considering the impatient vigour, with which he attacked the multitude of obstacles strewn along the river, thanked God for sending such a one to her aid.
The wonder of the unknown was in them both; and their breasts throbbed a little, as they looked to see what each bend in the stream would have to show. Only once in the course of the afternoon was there any reminder of human life; a breed boy suddenly appeared on the bank, only to duck behind a bush like a little animal, at the startling sight of white strangers on the river. Tempted forth at last, in response to Garth's question, he said they were twenty-five miles from the lake. Garth, who had been doing his best for seven hours to reduce that distance, felt distinctly aggrieved.
Natalie insisted on camping early; for it had been a gruelling afternoon on Garth. They chose a little promontory running into the water; and once he had started a fire, and put up her tent, she made him lie at length in the grass, where he stretched his limbs in delicious weariness, and watched her settling the camp for the night and cooking the supper. She was proud in the acquisition of a new accomplishment, that of baking bannock before a fire in the open, learned that morning from Mrs. Toma. The sight of her, bustling and cheerful, working for him, had a strange and painful pleasure for him. They two, alone together in the wilderness, cut off from all their kind!—the thought squeezed his heartstrings; she was so much his own there—and so little!
With the sinking of the sun, the awful stillness came stealing to envelope them; and with insistent fingers seemed to press upon the very drums of their ears. The little river flowed as stilly and darkly as the water of Lethe at their feet; and the gaunt pines over the way stood transfixed like souls that had drunk of it. Under the spell of the silence they instinctively lowered their voices; and they broke sticks for the fire with reluctance; so painful was the crash and reverberation up and down. But there is always one sound that accompanies this stillness; hardly breaks it, so smoothly it comes stealing on the suspended evening air—the quavering howl of the coyote. They heard it throb miles off; and it was answered from immeasurable distances side to side. Little by little, attracted by the smell of cooking food, the animals drew closer, and at last stationed themselves in a kind of wide-drawn circle about their camp on both sides of the river, wailing back and forth like souls inconceivably tormented. Natalie shuddered.
"They are cowardly beasts," Garth said reassuringly. "They won't come any closer."
They spoke but little to each other. Night, solitude and that spirit of woe abroad, filled them with a mighty longing for each other's arms. At last she crept away to her tent.
As the darkness deepened; and the clear-eyed Northern constellations looked out, one by one, there were other sounds; a peevish growling and whining at the top of the bank above them; a frantic scurry when Garth heaved a stone. The better to ensure Natalie's peace of mind, he weighted the tent all around with rocks; and heaped wood on the fire.
Natalie stuck her head out of her cosy refuge. "I can't bear to have you sleeping unprotected outside," she said anxiously.
Garth's heart paused breathlessly at the thought of the alternative. He sprang up and thrust the thought aside. "Nonsense! I'll be all right!" he cried. "To please you I'll keep the fire going all night."
Later, he rolled himself in his blankets across the door of her tent, as before; and lay there smoking, gazing at the fire, picturing Natalie asleep within; and assuaging his hungry heart as best he might with the sound of her child-like breathing.
The day broke gloriously; and shortly after sunrise they were on their way again, under a sky as tenderly blue as palest turquoise, over which were flung bright, silken, cloudy scarves. As they ascended, the character of the river changed; the trees disappeared, giving place to wide, flat meadows of blue grass as high as a man's waist; the current slackened, and its course became more circuitous. Along the shores, steep cut-banks alternated with muddy shoals; and a new set of problems faced Garth.
These chiefly took the form of stout willow bushes overhanging the cut-banks—diabolically malicious, sentient beings, they became to Garth. He tried crawling underneath with his tow-line, whereupon the earth gave way, precipitating him in water up to his middle; he tried crashing bodily through, and the line would invariably knot itself around the most inaccessible twig. The Flat-iron, too, seemed to rejoice in his discomfiture; and at every interruption of her progress took the occasion, in spite of Natalie's paddle, to turn about and stick her nose stupidly into the mud of the bank. Every bush in turn offered a different and more complicated obstacle than the last; in three hours they made perhaps twice three hundred yards. Natalie, alarmed by the spectacle of Garth's set lips, and the swollen veins of his temples, besought him for goodness' sake to swear and not mind her.
He finally decided to change his mode of going; and contriving a second little paddle, he embarked with Natalie. They progressed but slowly against the current; for the short paddles had about the same effectiveness as two of those little instruments for making butter pats, which they strongly resembled. Garth figured they would be making a mile an hour—but this way was easier on his temper.
To-day, the little river, placidly flowing between its grassy banks, had an oddly pastoral look. With the familiar shapes of the overhanging willows, and the brilliant marsh marigolds on the shallows, all drenched in the opulent sunshine, they found themselves looking for cows on the bank; and it seemed incredible that no church spire rose above any of the distant clumps of trees. They could not rid themselves of the feeling that this was no more than a day's picnic, with a house awaiting them just ahead, and company and good cheer. But instead of that, silently rounding a bend, they were unexpectedly introduced to the true genius of the country. In the mud of one of the flats at the edge of the water, sat a large brown bear on his haunches, soberly licking his paws. He was no more than twenty feet from them—a room's length. At Natalie's slight gasp of astonishment, he turned his head; and stared at them agape, with hanging paws, like a great baby. He looked so homely and comical Natalie burst out laughing. At the sound, Bruin promptly fell to all fours; and with a great "woof!" of astonishment and indignation, bundled over the bank out of sight.
To-day, the delicate, heady air of the Northern summer inspired their veins like wine. As Olympians, they lunched on the greensward carpeting the bank of a little inlet; while their shallop floated among tiny white lilies at their feet. All afternoon their spirits soared into the realms of incoherent enthusiasm; they filled the air with their full-throated laughter and foolish, glancing speech. Garth's old friends would have been astonished then to see how he could "let himself go"; but no one in the world ever really saw that besides Natalie.
They loved; their happy eyes confessed it freely, though their tongues were tied. Nothing needed to be explained, for they were perfectly attuned to each other; and everything was clear in an exchange of eyes. The tough old world, with all its tiresome, grimy businesses was thrust out of sight and out of mind, and they seemed to tread a brand-new sphere, created as they would have it, empty of all save their two selfish selves. On such a day, in such surroundings, crosses, hindrances, dangers, what were they? Life was a great joke: Nick Grylls and his minions were blithely whistled down the wind. Ascending between the flowery banks of the little river, their river, nothing mattered so they were not parted. In the more or less tarnished circlet of life it was their perfect golden day; and whenever afterward either remembered it, it was as if a delicate fragrance arose in his soul. All day they saw no sign of human habitation.
As long as the sun shone they maintained their light-hearted gaiety, neither remembering nor desiring anything more——
"I say, Nat!" it would be, "toss me over the hatchet like a good chap. Hey, there! not at my head!"
"What's for supper, Nat? I'm hungry as an ogre!"
"Bacon aux tomates à la Bland and bannock Musquasepi avec ashes!"
"Bully! If you taste it so much there won't be any left to go on the table!"
"Where's the bag of hard-tack, Garth?"
"Grub-box number two; port side by the rail."
"Idiot! You put them on the bottom of the box! The water's leaked through, and they're all mush underneath!"
"What's the diff? Stick the soft ones in the lobscouse!"
But after supper, when the sun had gone down, and the great stillness crept over them again, Natalie's arms dropped at her sides, Garth's pipe went out, and an unaccountable sadness fell on both. Then, their sporadic attempts to keep up the old, friendly rattle rang so false that both fell silent. Their camp of itself had a gloomy aspect. It was pitched in an elbow of the river, where a section of the cut-bank had sunk down, making a little terrace of grass a few feet above the water. Above, there had been a small grove of trees, through which a fire had some time swept, leaving only a few slender, charred trunks pointing askew against the slow, dusky crimson of the west. On the nearest and tallest of these wrecked monuments, immediately above their camp, as on a slender pedestal, sat a great owl, the only visible living thing in all the wide expanse, besides themselves. As long as there was light enough to see him, he crouched there, motionless.
Natalie sat huddled on a box, with Garth's coat thrown about her shoulders. Her chin was in her palm, and her lashes veiled rebellious, miserable eyes. There are moments when the most ærial spirits sink to earth; and just now Natalie could make no pretense at a flight. It was clear he loved her, as she loved him; what then were a few words five years old, to keep them apart? She tried honestly to arm her breast by thinking of the laws that separated them; but the insidious part of it was, they were worldly laws; and here the world was thrust out of sight. Why did he not take her in his arms, and let her heavy head fall on his shoulder? her heart reiterated; and that was the only voice she could hear then. Yet if Garth had betrayed any weakness on his part, Natalie would have been on the qui vive to repel him. The forces of her soul were thrown in a sad confusion; while her woman's instinct raged against him, that he could resist her, she loved him tenfold more for that very resistance.
And Garth—seeing her sitting there so small under his coat, and all relaxed and appealing, her mouth like an unhappy child's, and her eyes big with unshed tears—his arms ached to enfold her; his brain reeled with the intensity of his desire to take her as she trembled to be taken. But her helplessness, which tortured him, nerved him to endure the torture. In the turmoil of his blood he could not think coherently; but he could repeat to himself, dully, over and over: "I must take care of her! I must take care of her!" He busied himself with small unnecessary tasks; splicing the tracking line, chopping tent-pegs, cleaning the frying pan with sand.
Natalie disappeared within her tent—and cried herself to sleep. Garth, lying outside the door, though she attempted to smother the sound in her pillow, heard; and it was like little knives hacking in his breast. Sleep for him was out of the question; he was denied the relief of tears. He rose, when Natalie's quiet breathing told him she was asleep at last, and undressing, waded into the river, and swam back and forth until the cold water chilled him through. Brisk, silent exercise restored his circulation, and a pipe and communion with the stars quieted his nerves. In the end he toppled over all standing, and slept on the grass until daylight.
Natalie reappeared with the sun, brave and rosy again, and with little sign of the night's tumult, save in an added sense of gratitude toward Garth, which appeared in the pleasure she took in doing little things for him. His grayish pallor, and kind, tired eyes rebuked her sorely for having cast the whole burden on him. She vowed to herself it should not occur again.
To-day the character of the river changed little; only that the bends multiplied and sharpened; and where they were horseshoe curves yesterday, to-day they were hair-pin curves. Sometimes, just over the bank, they would catch sight again of a particularly marked tree they had passed a whole laborious hour before. Endless and futile were the calculations they made as to how far they had gone, and had yet to go.
They cut across from point to point, keeping under the bank out of the strength of the current as far as possible, and rounding the inside of each bend. In this manner they were ascending close under a willow bush, when suddenly and silently a huge, brown wing, like the wing of Sinbad's auk, sailed athwart the sky. They caught their breaths in astonishment. A great gray galley swept around the bend, no more than two oars' length from them. With her swarthy crew standing about the deck, their brows bound with bright silk handkerchiefs, and at the tiller, a great, bearded figure, she was the very picture of a pirate craft. It would be impossible to state which crew was the more surprised at the unexpected encounter; the seeming pirates likewise stared open-mouthed at the Flat-iron. Just as the galley was disappearing, Garth collected presence of mind sufficient to hail, and inquire the distance to the lake.
The answer came back: "Twenty-five miles!"
They began to think there was witchcraft in it.
The wind had changed; and puffy, white clouds came rolling up from the west, passing beneath the serene and silky streamers of the upper air. Gradually the invaders thickened and spread over the field; their underbodies took on a grayish tint; and the blue openings narrowed. Finally a sharp shower descended; and the voyageurs sought shelter under a bush, where they hung, watching the millions of drops plopping roundly into the surface of the river; each drop with its attendant sprite leaping at its approach. One shower followed another, with intervals of hot and sticky sunshine between. It was more uncomfortable under the steamy, dripping bushes than in the thick of it; and they finally decided to paddle ahead, let it rain as it would. Luncheon, consisting of soaked bannock and cold cocoa, was a sorry affair.
Garth was glum. He had long apprehended that bad weather would treble their difficulties. "How can I keep her warm and dry throughout the night?" was his ever-present thought. Natalie, on the other hand, was as happy as a lark; and she made a very attractive picture in the rain. Her dress had altered little by little during the last few days; and now comprised a blue sweater, short skirt and moccasins. The hat with the green wings was safely wrapped in the duffle-bag; and hitherto she had gone bareheaded on the river. When it began to rain she pulled a man's cap close over her head to keep her hair dry. As she industriously plied her paddle in the bow, ever and anon turning a rosy, streaming face to him, with a joke on her lips, in her rough get-up poor Garth thought her lovelier than ever. He was continually having to call himself down, as he would have said, for presuming to think he had measured the extent of her charm.
"Isn't it bully, Garth!" once she cried. "Ever since I was a baby I have longed to be allowed to play in the rain for just once, and get as wet as I possibly could—just to see how it felt! And now I shall! Isn't it funny just to sit and let it come down, without running anywhere? Women are babies, anyway. I mean never to put up an umbrella again as long as I live. The rain feels good in my face!"
Nevertheless, Garth, occupied as he was with the problems of how to find a dry place to put up the tent, and how to build a fire in a downpour, was anxious. Little by little the showers merged into each other; and before the end of the afternoon, it had settled down to rain steadily all night.
He learned in the end never to trust the distances given in an unmeasured land. Rounding one of the endless bends toward five o'clock, they became aware of a new, indefinable, fresher smell on the air; and they increased their pace with an eager sense of a discovery awaiting them in the next vista. The next point proved to be the last; looking around it, the wind buffeted their faces fresh and cool; the river stretched away for half a mile, straight as a canal and there, away beyond, leapt the waves of Caribou Lake on the bar.
Natalie cheered. "Hooray for the crew of the Flat-iron!" she cried. "We've actually done it!" She reached back. "Shake, partner!"
Near the head of the river, in the wild waste of sand on the lake shore, squatted a weather-beaten little log cabin, almost eave-deep behind the dunes. Smoke arose from the chimney.
"Good!" cried Garth in high satisfaction. "You can dry your clothes here, anyway."
A glance up and down the shore of the river revealed no trace of the canoes or the outfit of the expedition they were in pursuit of.
"We've missed him again," said Garth grimly.
They landed, dripping and stiff; and plodded through the sand to the tiny door. The outlook was desolate in the extreme; there was no sign of life anywhere, save only the wisp of smoke from the chimney. At their left hand, the lake spread bleakly to the horizon, torn and white under the west wind, and with great billows tumbling on the beach.
"The Flat-iron could never negotiate that," remarked Garth.
He knocked on the little door.
"Come in!" rang instantly from within.
They looked at each other in astonishment.
"An English voice!" she whispered.
"A white man! Thank God!" said he.
IX
THE HEART OF A BOY
It was a youth who presently faced them on the threshold of the hut; an apple-cheeked boy of seventeen, who bared two rows of shining white teeth; and whose blue eyes, at the sight of them, sparkled with the purest enthusiasm of welcome.
"Come right in, and dry out!" he cried. "I certainly am glad to see you!" The haunting reed of boyhood still vibrated faintly in the manlier notes of his voice.
Here was a greeting from a stranger to warm the hearts of the wet and weary wayfarers! It presented the North in a new aspect. Natalie in especial, beamed on their young host; he was wholly a boy after her own heart.
Looking at Natalie more particularly, the boy blushed and faltered a little. "It isn't much of a place to receive a lady in," he said apologetically. "I haven't been on my own long enough to get anything much together."
It was a characteristically boyish abode. The furniture was limited to the cook-stove in the centre of the room; and a home-made table and a bench. His bed was spread on straw in one corner; and another corner was given up to the heterogeneous assortment of his belongings and his grub. Apparently the cabin had long served as a casual storehouse to the boatmen of the river; for pieces of mouldy sails were hung over the rafters; oars and a mast crossed from beam to beam; and in a third corner were a pile of chain and an anchor, slowly mouldering into rust. In wet weather, the present tenant evidently did his chopping within doors, the floor was littered with chips and broken wood. As they came in, a yellow and white kitten, retreating to the darkest corner of the cabin, elevated his back and growled threateningly.
"That's my partner, Musq'oosis," explained the boy. "He'll make friends directly. He plays with me by the hour; you'd laugh yourself sick to see the comical way he carries on. He's great company when you're batching alone!"
Natalie liked this boy more and more.
"Say, I'm having no end of company these days," he went on, with his happy-go-lucky air. "The Bishop's outfit was here all day yesterday; they went up on the last of the east wind, this morning. The old woman—that's what we call Mrs. Bishop, you know; no disrespect—she baked me a batch of her bread before she went. Real outside bread with a crackly crust to it! Oh my! Oh my!—with brown sugar! Say, we'll have a loaf of it for supper!"
Natalie in the meantime sat on the bench; and taking off her moccasins, put her feet on the oven sill to dry. Garth sat on a box; and their host squatted on the floor between.
"By the way," said this youth; "I'm Charley Landrum."
Garth introduced himself and Natalie.
"Hope you'll stay a couple of days," said Charley anxiously—"or longer. There's great duck-shooting on the sloughs; and we might get a goose or a wavy around the lake shore. It would be a pleasant change of meat for the lady."
Charley addressed all his remarks to Garth, without ever once looking at Natalie; it was clear, nevertheless, that he was acutely conscious of her presence; for he blushed whenever she spoke; and his eyes were continually drawn to her, though he dared not raise them quite to her face. To Garth and Natalie the nicest thing about this boy was the way he took her presence for granted. Of all the males they had met in the North, he alone had not gaped at her in vulgar wonder; and to his honest heart there was nothing out-of-the-way in the fact that she was Miss Bland, and Garth Mr. Pevensey.
"We're obliged to get on as soon as we can," said Garth. "We've been chasing the Bishop all the way from the Landing."
"How did you come up the little river?" asked Charley.
"I bought a boat from Pierre Toma."
"I know her," he said with a chuckle; "cranky as a bath-tub! You couldn't go up the lake in her!"
"Not while it blows like this," said Garth.
"Then I hope it hits it up for a week!" said Charley, apparently addressing the hem of Natalie's skirt.
"I was told one Wall-eye Macgregor had a strong boat," Garth said.
"Nothing doing!" returned the boy. "He's got it up at the head of the lake."
"Then I must try to strengthen the bath-tub and coast around the shore," said Garth.
"I'll help you!" said Charley. "We'll pitch in first thing to-morrow."
"How long have you been in the country, Mr. Landrum?" asked Natalie softly.
The boy blushed for pure pleasure; and his voice deepened as he replied: "Two years next March, Miss. I came in over the ice with a freighter. I ran away from school. What was the use?—I got a head like a hickory nut; and I couldn't keep out of trouble. They gave me a bad name; and everything that happened was put on me. So I cleared out and came North."
Gradually the whole naïve, boyish tale came out.
"I had a lot of fool ideas about the country then; but they were soon knocked out of me. All the kids that run away soon come sneaking home and have to eat their brags; and I wasn't going to do that. So I stuck it out. At first I admit I pretty near caved in with homesickness; but I'm hardened now. The first year I worked for a trader up at Ostachegan creek; and this spring I bought this cabin on credit. Frank Shefford up at Nine-Mile-Point is going to lend me his team and mower when his hay is put up; and I'll put up hay myself."
The boy's eyes glowed, as he announced his brave plans for the future.
"Next winter I'm going to keep a stopping-house for freighters. I've got a good location here, and stable room already for eight teams. I'll build to it later. There's money in that; and it's a pleasant life for a man—plenty of company. And when I get a little money ahead, I'll trade; there's good chances for a free trader that knows the ropes; and in a few years I'll branch out and have a whole string of trading posts, like Nick Grylls. There's a smart one! They say he could sell out for a hundred thousand any day!"
Garth was reminded of his own hopeful, spouting youth.
"I hope you won't be like Nick Grylls," said Natalie gently.
"Don't you like him?" asked Charley in concern. "I always thought he was a pretty smart one. No!" he added suddenly. "I don't like him either. He's coarse!"
Supper was an affair of joint contributions; Garth's jam for Charley's bread. In the meantime Charley had surreptitiously swept up the chips; and had then slipped away to the river bank, for a wash and a tidy-up. He reappeared with his hair well "slicked," his tip-tilted nose as pink as his shiny cheeks, and a smile that extended to the furthest confines of his face. But he was distressed that he had no white collar to honour the board; and his gratitude was silent and boundless, when Garth produced one for him from his duffle-bag.
It was a jovial meal that followed; the spirit of youth presided; and wisdom and grave speech were thrust under the table. Charley recovered of his bashfulness so far that he could occasionally nerve himself to look at Natalie. For all the boy's giddy jollity, his blue eyes had a kind of stricken look when they rested on her face. But his appetite did not suffer appreciably; and it did Garth's and Natalie's hearts good to see the bread and jam disappear between Charley's business-like jaws. Jam, they agreed, had surely never before been so successful in tickling the human palate. "Just do without it for a couple of years and see for yourself," Charley rejoined.
Afterward the cabin was further swept and garnished for Natalie's use; and a heap of fragrant hay brought from the stable on which to spread her blankets. The house was to be yielded up to her for the night. Garth and Charley shared the little tent outside. Garth, with his simplicity, and his air of quiet understanding, was above all one to win a boy's confidence; and by bedtime they were as friendly as brothers—or perhaps more like a very young father and his oldest son.
When they rolled up side by side in their blankets Charley seemed to put off several years. He hunched closer to his bedfellow; and pressed his shoulder warmly against Garth's.
"Are you sleepy?" he asked diffidently.
Garth's heart warmed to the act and the speech. "Why, no!" he said. "Believe I'll have another smoke before dropping off. Fire away, old boy!"
"Say, it's simply great to have somebody young to talk to," said poor Charley. "Somebody that understands; and that you can let yourself go with, and say whatever comes into your head to. Say, I never had such a good time in all my life as to-night. All the fellows up here—they're a good sort all right—but they're a rough, cursing lot. And of course, a fellow has to curse too; and talk big just to keep his end up—chuck a bluff, you know, or they'll think you're a molly. And I just love to laugh, and act foolish; and I always have to hold myself in. Sometimes I near bust!"
"I get like that myself," said Garth encouragingly.
There was something else on Charley's mind; but for a long time his tongue sheered off at every approach to it. Finally, rolling over, he hid a hot cheek on Garth's shoulder; and it came out with a rush.
"Say! I think she's the prettiest girl I ever laid eyes on!"
Garth's arm tightened about the boy's shoulders "She's the first white girl I've seen in nearly two years," he floundered on; "and girls meant nothing to me then. But I know darned well she's no ordinary white girl. Isn't it wonderful, the different ways she looks; and all that her voice seems to mean besides the words she says; and the way she walks and sits down; and the way she lifts her arm? Isn't it a pretty arm? And the finest thing about her is, she deals plain with you like a fellow; no silly fuss and make-believe, and hanging-back about her!"
If Garth liked the boy before, he was prepared to love him for this.
"Did you mark how she called me Mr. Landrum?" continued Charley eagerly. "She just did that to please me, I know. Didn't it sound funny? My chest expanded two inches, I swear it did! Wasn't she kind to me? She had no call to be so kind to me. It just makes me want to do something terrific! Oh, if I could only do something for her!—wouldn't I just be glad of the chance!"
He was silent for a while, tossing uneasily in his blanket. "Say, there's something I want to tell you," he blurted out at last. "I'm certainly good and ashamed of myself! There's a girl down the shore, her name is Julia; she's not a bad-looker for a breed. She came around my cabin sometimes. I was kind of lonesome, you see; and she was young, like me—"
Garth let him see that he understood—and he did understand, both the pitiful little tale, and the boy's reason for wishing to tell him.
"And to think of her asleep in there now!" he continued remorsefully. "It makes me sick and disgusted with myself. I'd give anything if it hadn't happened! You bet I'll have no truck with them in future!"
"Every man makes mistakes, old boy," said Garth.
Charley, his mind relieved by confession, in the midst of further rhapsodies, suddenly fell asleep.
In the morning he awoke all of a piece, as boys do, and rolling over, said instantly:
"Natalie is sure the prettiest name there is!"
Later in the day in the middle of their somewhat hopeless deliberations upon the repairing of the half-submerged Flat-iron—her flimsily hung planks had been started even by her gentle journey on the river—there was a hail from down-stream. Looking, they saw four swart figures bending one after another in a tracking-harness, crawling around the edge of the cut-bank below. Presently a sharp prow nosed around the bend; and a long, low, double-ended galley swung into view, floating lazily on the current like a gigantic duck.
"A York boat!" cried Charley in surprise. "Didn't know any was due! Here's your chance to cross the lake!"
"Hm!" said Garth doubtfully. "We'll find out, first, what news she brings from below."
At the sight of the open water ahead, the breeds redoubled their shouting, and hit up their pace. It was interesting to see how, once having got her under way, they could allow nothing to stop them; but needs must crash through obstructions regardless; slipping scrambling, literally clawing their way along. Whenever the rope caught, it was the part of the fourth man to slip out of his collar, and disengage it, without stopping the others. It was racking work on the frame of a man; but the feather-headed breeds ceaselessly chattered and shouted, like boys out of school; roaring with laughter when any one of the four came down. In the stern stood the helmsman, pulling her head around, with a mighty sweep, extending astern; and the other four of the crew, resting from their spell of tracking, fended her off the bank with poles. The York boat, pointed bow and stern, low amidships, and undecked, reminded Garth of the pictures he had seen of ancient Norse galleys.
Arriving opposite the cabin, they all leaped aboard; and poling across, landed in front of where Garth and Charley stood. Natalie, not caring to run the gauntlet of another battery of stupid stares, had retired to the cabin. On the prow of the boat, which had a dingy, weather-beaten look, very different from the smart green and white craft of the "Company," was crookedly painted the name Loseis. Making her fast, the breeds, with furtive stares at Garth, threw themselves on the ground like tired dogs. It was not long, however, before a "stick-kettle," the invariable tom-tom, was produced, the ear-splitting chant raised, and a game of met-o-wan, a sort of Cree equivalent for Billy-Billy-who's-got-the-button, started on the shore.
The steersman, pausing only to put on a gold-embroidered waistcoat, approached Garth with a disposition to be friendly—too friendly by half, Garth thought. He was an undersized man of not more than thirty, but already somewhat withered; a specimen of the unwholesome, weedy breed of the settlements.
"Well, Charley," he said affably.
They shook hands with the touch of impressiveness that always marks this ceremony in the North; and then Hooliam, with a shifty glance, extended his hand to Garth. At the same time he said something in Cree.
"He says: 'You want to go up the lake,'" translated Charley.
"How does he know that?" asked Garth quickly.
Hooliam answered in Cree without waiting for Charley to translate. Evidently, like most of the breeds, he understood more English than he cared to confess.
"He says that Pierre Toma told him," said Charley.
"Ask him how it is he comes up with such a small load," suggested Garth.
Charley repeated the question in Cree. Hooliam's answer was prompt and glib. "He says that the water was too low to bring a full load," translated Charley.
"Ask him when he means to go on," said Garth.
Hooliam gave a glance at the still tossing lake. "As soon as the wind dies or changes. This wind would blow him right back on the shore," such the gist of his answer by way of Charley.
"Tell him to let me know before he starts; and I'll tell him if we wish to go along," said Garth coolly.
"I want to have a talk with you," he added in a lower tone for Charley's benefit.
They sat down apart on the sand.
"What do you think of this outfit, Charley?" asked Garth.
The boy was surprised at the question. "Well," he said, "it does look a bit queer, their coming all this way with half a load. But you never can tell about these crazy niggers; they may have dumped out half their stuff on the bank somewhere, and left it to rot. A French range for the inspector has been lying on the point across the river for two months."
"Who is this Hooliam?" Garth asked.
"He boats back and forth pretty regular. He's a footless kind of breed—but straight, as far as I know. What do you care?" the boy asked curiously. "If he takes you on board, he's got to put you across."
Garth looked at Charley estimatingly. But there could be no doubt of the boy's straight-eyed, whole-souled devotion to Natalie; and he quickly made up his mind. He told him briefly what had occurred on the way in.
Charley whistled in astonishment. "So that's the kind Nick Grylls is!" he exclaimed. "He sure must have gone clean daft!"
"This Hooliam," Garth continued, "is too anxious, judging by others of his kind, to get us on board. I suspect Nick Grylls has a share in this outfit. On the other hand we have less than a week's grub left. What have you got, Charley?"
"Nothing but sow-bosom and beans," said the boy disconsolately; "and damn little of that! It isn't good enough for her!"
"Any chance of another boat?" asked Garth.
Charley shook his head. "No Company boat due for three weeks," he said.
Garth set his jaw. "Then there's no help for it," he said firmly. "We'll have to go with Hooliam. I'll make him take our little boat along, so we won't be entirely at his mercy; and I'll watch him close."
Charley leaned toward Garth. The boy unconsciously clenched his hands; and in the intensity of his eagerness, his eyes actually filled. "I say, Garth, take me along with you," he pleaded.
Garth, looking at him gratefully, thought none but a boy could be so generous. "But I can't take you away from your own work," he objected.
Charley brushed it impatiently out of sight. "What does that matter!" he exclaimed. "It can wait." He redoubled his pleadings. "This was what I wanted so badly, Garth! To be a little use to her! I could help—you think I'm just a crazy kid, and maybe I am, but I could think like a man, and plan like a man for her! You and I could stand watch and watch. Say, after what you've told me, I'd go near out of my head to see you two sail away, and me left behind, not knowing what was happening!"
Garth was more moved than he cared to show. "You're true blue, Charley," he said in a low tone. "You come along!"
X
ON CARIBOU LAKE
From sundown until daybreak, the ki-yi-ing and the beating of the stick-kettle on the shore desecrated the stillness of the night with scarcely any intermission. Shortly after daybreak, the wind having gone down, Hooliam sent word to Garth that he would like to start.
They were ready in a few minutes. At the sight of Charley's bundle with the others, Hooliam scowled and muttered in Cree.
"Says he can't take me," said Charley.
Garth flushed angrily. "This was all it needed," he burst out. "What reason does he give?"
"No reason," said Charley coolly. "Just talks foolish."
Hooliam added something with a great show of plausibility.
"Says he hasn't got room," said Charley with a laugh.
"Rubbish!" said Garth. "You tell him he takes the three of us or none! Give it to him strong!"
Upon receipt of this ultimatum, Hooliam, shrugging, turned away; and the three of them boarded the Loseis.
Running out two pairs of clumsy sweeps, which were no more than good-sized trees a little flattened at one end, they laboriously pulled out of the river. Before them the lake stretched to the horizon as smooth and colourless as a lightly frosted pane. Loons, herons and a little kind of gull; ducks in pairs and squadrons; flocks of brown geese and shining white swans, wheeled, sailed and swam about them in countless numbers.
When they had rowed upward of a mile into the lake a mighty discussion suddenly arose amongst the crew. The oarsmen ceased their labours to take part in it. Eight wetted brown forefingers were held aloft.
"They're scrapping about whether there is any wind," Charley explained.
To a white man's senses there was no sign of wind; nevertheless the oars were run in, the cargo shifted, and the heavy mast, with infinite labour, stepped amidships and guyed. Hooliam looked on indifferently from the stern, idly swinging his great sweep back and forth. Finally a dirty square sail was raised. It declined to belly or flap in the slightest degree; but the breeds, satisfied with what they had done, lay around the boat, preparing to enjoy themselves in luxurious ease. They amused themselves by tempting the water-fowl close with imitations of their cries; and popping at them ineffectively with their twenty-two "trade-guns."
Garth stood it as long as he could.
"Look here!" he said at length to Charley. "Ask him how long this is going to last."
Charley translated. Hooliam looked sagely astern, spat, and answered in Cree.
"He says there'll be a breeze by and by," said Charley.
The scarcely veiled insolence of this reply caused Garth inwardly to fume. However, reflecting that, after all, Hooliam ought to know more about navigation than he, he possessed his soul in patience for another half-hour. There was still no sign of wind; and it was growing very hot in the sun. Garth, setting his jaw, drew out his watch.
"Tell him I'll give him just fifteen minutes longer," he said quietly. "If we're not under way by that time, there's going to be trouble."
Hooliam received the message with apparent indifference. Garth held his watch in his hand. Three minutes before the expiration of the time, he had Charley convey a final warning to the breed. Hooliam suddenly became voluble and expostulatory.
"He says the boys won't work when there's a breeze coming up," said Charley.
"You tell him, then, that I will take command of this boat, and run her myself," said Garth.
At the last moment the orders were hastily given. The mast was reluctantly taken down, and hung over the side; the cargo was shifted back, and the sweeps run out. The breeds rowed half-heartedly, with furtive scowls for the moon-i-yas who made them work.
After a couple of hours during which they covered a scant three miles, a breeze did spring up from astern; whereupon the whole business of raising the mast was gone through with again. Little by little it freshened, and the Loseis began to forge ahead, making a pleasant little murmur under her forefoot. The hearts of the three passengers rose in unison.
But they had not sailed two miles more, when the exasperated Garth discovered that Hooliam was slyly edging his craft inside a point of the shore. At first the breed unblushingly denied any intention of stopping; but when it became apparent that he could not round the point without hauling down the sail, he coolly admitted that he was going to land.
"What for?" Garth demanded.
"They're going ashore to spell—to cook and eat," Charley explained. "Hooliam says there is no other place to land in fifteen miles."
Garth was obliged to be content.
With the characteristic prodigality of the breeds, an enormous fire was built on the shore, over which their tea was furiously boiled in an iron pail, and their dried moose meat stewed a little less tough than moccasins. At a little distance the three passengers made their own preparations for lunch.
Natalie, serenely trusting in Garth, put aside all anxiety about the outcome of their journey; and was frankly interested and amused.
"Mercy!" she exclaimed. "They'll all die of tannic poisoning! And look what they eat! The bacon is as green as arsenic!"
She proved to be using her eyes and ears to good advantage on the way.
"The tall boy," she said, "the one that looks like an actor; he's the humourist of the party. He keeps them in fits of laughter by giving moon-i-yas imitations. He mimics us to our very faces. Their idea of us is too funny! The good-looking little one is his inseparable friend; they hold hands when they're not working. The one with the whitey-blue eyes is called by a very blasphemous name. I watched him turning over the pages of some stove catalogues that dropped out of a crate, with such a serious air. And they were all exactly alike, but he didn't know it, because he held some of them upside down! What do you suppose he made of a picture of a self-feeder standing on its head?"
To Garth it seemed as if they took an interminable time to prepare and eat their simple meal; and afterward there could no longer be any doubt, from the way they loafed about, that they were soldiering, as a result of Hooliam's low-voiced encouragement. They grinned with childish impudence at the scowling moon-i-yas. At last Hooliam produced a pack of cards and a game of "jack-pot" was started on the shore. This constituted frank defiance; and Garth took instant action.
"Put up those cards!" he commanded.
The boys laughed and looked at Hooliam.
"Get on board the boat," Garth ordered, through Charley.
Hooliam's eyes bolted; but he made no move. With the sheer perversity of a child or a savage, he insisted there was no wind, even while the ripples were washing the stones at his feet.
Garth, thoroughly exasperated, picked up his rifle. His eyes glinted dangerously. "There's something behind this nonsense!" he cried. "And I'm going to stop it! You let him understand that if he opposes me any further I have eleven cartridges in the magazine of this rifle, and I would think as little of bringing him down as that wavy up there!"
A wild swan, most difficult of marks, was sailing high overhead. Garth, as he spoke, took aim and fired; and the great bird dropped like a plummet in the shallow water off shore.
Loud exclamations of admiration broke from the boys. Three of them dashed enthusiastically into the water to contend for the honour of bringing back the prize. Garth builded better than he knew. The boys while scarcely understanding the threat, were instantly impressed with the successful shot; and with it Garth established himself once and for all in their eyes. They instinctively began to carry the things on board as he had ordered; and in the end the scowling Hooliam was obliged to follow them on board, or be left behind.
As they were getting under way again, Garth observed Hooliam busy with the sail. When it was hoisted, it appeared he had taken a reef in it.
"Shake it out!" Garth commanded.
Hooliam shrugged and protested.
"He says the mast is not strong," Charley translated. "This heavy wind will carry it away," he says.
"Just now he said there was no wind," Garth said. "Let her go; and if anything breaks we'll mend it."
Hooliam in a long harangue, demanded to know through Charley, if Garth would pay for the damage.
For answer Garth merely picked up his rifle; and the reef was let out in a hurry.
In all this there was something more than mere savage perversity; Hooliam, it was clear, had an urgent private reason for wishing to delay the journey. He had not sufficient command of his features to hide his chagrin at the failure of his several attempts. He sulked all afternoon. Garth sat with his weapon across his knees; and his steady gaze never wandered far from the steersman. Willy-nilly, Hooliam was compelled to hold the Loseis to her course; and by four o'clock, the wind holding light and steady, they had covered about thirty miles of their journey.
About this time the mast of another boat was discovered sticking above the bank of a creek on shore. The usual excited discussion arose—this time as to the identity of the craft. Finally the Loseis's prow was turned toward the shore. Garth demanded an explanation. Hooliam, more obsequious now, said that it was Phillippe's boat on the way out; and he had messages to deliver him from their common employers at the Landing. Garth suspected another excuse; but he was very reluctant to interfere with the real business of the North; and since it was almost time to spell for another meal, he decided to make no objections.
With true half-breed impetuosity they chose the worst place in miles on which to beach the Loseis. Her forefoot was run on a bar fully two hundred yards off shore; and communications were carried on by means of laborious wading, waist-deep, to and fro. The moment she touched, the entire crew and the skipper, dropping everything, dashed pell mell for the beach and across the intervening sand to the camp of the other boatmen on the shore of the creek. The passengers ferried themselves ashore in the Flat-iron, which had been stowed, much against Hooliam's will, on board the Loseis.
After supper, as time passed and there was no sign of the returning crew, Garth sent Charley after Hooliam with a peremptory message. Hooliam returned, cap in hand, his whole attitude changed. He expressed a willingness to start immediately; but deprecatingly pointed out that a storm threatened; and apologized for the unseaworthy condition of the Loseis. This time he had reason on his side; for angry clouds were heaped about the setting sun; and the orb itself was peering luridly between parted curtains of crimson rain. Garth, still suspecting him, was yet taken at a disadvantage. He thought of Natalie on board the shelterless Loseis in a rainstorm; and finally announced his wish to remain where they were for the night. Hooliam smirked demurely, in ill-concealed satisfaction.
All returned to the Loseis for what was needed during the night. The preparations to secure the York boat against the threatening storm were highly characteristic of her hit-or-miss crew. A stake was driven in the sand of the lake bottom, at either side the stern, and the rudder-post lashed between. This flimsy apparatus was designed to keep the boat from being driven broadside on the bar. The practical Garth frowned impatiently at its utter insufficiency; but the breeds could scarcely contain their impatience to resume their gambling with the other crew; and presently they dashed off, leaving the Loseis to her fate.
Garth pitched his camp under the shelter of a line of willows, marking the edge of higher ground along the wide waste of sand. The two crews with their ceaseless tom-tom on the shore of the creek, were upward of half a mile away. Natalie was made comfortable in her tent; and Garth and Charley, collecting a pile of firewood, covered it with a tarpaulin, against the coming rain. Charley, who had slept during the afternoon, was to watch until two o'clock; and Garth, covering himself with a piece of sail-cloth, lay down at the door of the tent.
It seemed to him he had no more than fallen asleep, when Charley shook his shoulder to awaken him.
"It's one o'clock," the boy said. "I think something has happened in the camp over there. They quieted down; but now they have started up again, and have built up their fire. Looks to me as if somebody had arrived. Thought I'd better wake you, while I sneaked over and took a look."
Charley was gone more than an hour. Returning, as soon as he had entered the circle of the firelight, Garth saw by his face that something important was in the wind.
"I was right," the boy said. "Nick Grylls has come. He arrived in a canoe with a breed; and sent him back. Nick and Hooliam went outside the camp, and talked by themselves. I listened from behind a willow bush. Nick Grylls knows a lot more Cree than I do, and I couldn't understand everything; but I got the gist of it. Nick was giving Hooliam hell all around—first for making him paddle all night—it seems Hooliam ought to have waited for him at that point where we spelled this morning—and then for bringing me. That was the sorest touch; for Nick knows I understand Cree. He said it upset all his plans."
"It was a mighty good thing for Natalie and me, that we had you to-day!" Garth put in.
The boy blushed with pleasure.
"Go on," Garth said.
"Grylls was pretty mum about these plans of his," Charley continued. "I guess he only lets Hooliam know part. I caught just a word or two. One thing was clear; you are his mark. I made out there was to have been a row at the point, and you were to have been put out of business, so you couldn't keep on with this journey. Then Nick was to happen along as if by accident; you were to be sent to the half-breeds at Swan river to be taken care of, and Nick was going to do the friendly act, and help Natalie on her way. I bet she never would have got there! In some way Nick has learned all about Natalie; for he seems to know where she's going; and what for. Anyway, you put his scheme to the bad by winning over the boys; and he is hot.
"He acted queer, too," Charley went on. "The first thing he asked was, if Natalie was well; and his voice sounded crying-like. Say, he's changed altogether from the hearty old sport, that used to travel through the country like a lord, handing out cigars. He's losing flesh. I think he's a bit touched."
When the boy finished, Garth took a turn, breathing deeply; and finally returning to the fire, sought that trusty counsellor, his pipe. "I'm glad he's turned up," he said coolly. "This is more like fighting in the open. And thanks to you, I'm well warned."
He smoked a while in silence. "I suspect I'll have my work cut out for me to-morrow," he resumed reflectively. Presently he gripped Charley's shoulder, and searched the boy's face. "I'll be damn thankful to have you along, old fellow," he said. "But I don't think I have any right to let you in for this. This man is very powerful in the country; and he can spoil all your chances. You had better go back with Phillippe. Neither Natalie nor I would ever blame you."
The boy turned away his head. "I—I can't talk about it," he faltered. "If you go on that way you'll have me crying like a girl! You could talk all night, and it wouldn't do any good! What do you think I am? I'm not going to miss the fun!"
Garth laughed. "Turn in," he said briefly. "You'll need all the sleep you can get."