XIII

THE RETREAT

Two days passed at Camp Trangmar. There was little outward evidence of the several storms that agitated the breasts of the company. The men left Jack severely alone, and Jack for his own part took care to keep out of Linda's way. He made it his business to watch Garrod, visiting him night and day in Jean Paul's tent, careless of the owner. There was no change in Garrod's condition. Jean Paul sheered off at Jack's approach like the wary animal he was. Meanwhile Sir Bryson, Baldwin Ferrie, and the Indians were busy staking out additional claims along Tetrahedron creek.

On the third morning the camp was plunged into a fresh agitation. Jack and Humpy Jull were breakfasting by the cook-fire, Jack looking like a sulky young Olympian in the morning sunlight, and Humpy naïvely trying to cheer him up.

"Gosh!" he said. "If I had your looks and figger I wouldn't care about nothin'."

Jack, who disdained the false modesty that disclaims such tributes with a simper, merely held out his plate for porridge.

Suddenly Vassall came quickly across the grass. His face was pale and streaked from the effects of nervous emotion.

"Sir Bryson wants you," he said to Jack.

Jack continued to eat leisurely. "What about?" he asked, coolly. "I've no mind to stand up and be abused again."

"Garrod is gone," said Vassall.

Jack's indifference vanished like sleight of hand. He sprang up. "Gone!" he echoed.

He headed straight for the big tent, Vassall following, and Humpy Jull looking after them both with round eyes.

The inside of the big tent presented evidences of confusion. Breakfast was spread on the two little tables pushed together, and Linda, Mrs. Worsley, and Baldwin Ferrie were seated, playing with their food. Sir Bryson's chair was pushed back, and his napkin lay on the grass. The little man was agitatedly walking up and down. Jean Paul stood by with a deferential air.

This time Linda gave no sign at Jack's entrance except for an access of self-consciousness.

"What do you know about this?" Sir Bryson immediately demanded.

"I know nothing," Jack said. "I have come to find out."

"Garrod has escaped," said Sir Bryson.

"Why not?" said Jack bitterly. "He ought to have been secured."

Jean Paul spoke up. "I get no order to tie him," he said smoothly. "He all time ver' quiet. I mak' him sleep inside me, and I tie a buckskin lace from him to me. If he move a little I wake. This morning when I wake, the lace cut and him gone."

"Did you let him keep a knife, too?" asked Jack, sneering.

Jean Paul looked confused. "He got no knife w'en I look on him," he said.

"It sounds fishy," said Jack scornfully.

"Do you mean to imply——" began Sir Bryson.

"Jean Paul sleeps like a cat," Jack went on. "If so much as a stick turns in the fire he wakes and looks to see. Follow it out for yourselves. He can't keep the man hypnotized forever. And once Garrod comes to his senses, the truth comes out!"

"These are empty accusations," puffed Sir Bryson. "The poor fellow has wandered away in his distraction."

"Or been carried," Jack amended.

"By whom?" said Sir Bryson. "We're all here."

"There are Sapi Indians a few miles west," said Jack. "Jean Paul is a power in the tribe."

"Excuse me, your excellency," purred Jean Paul, "if I do this, I not stay be'ind myself me, to get your punishment."

"Make you mind easy, Jean Paul," said Sir Bryson graciously. "This fellow attempts to twist everything that happens, to his own advantage. I commend your ingenuity, young sir," he added sarcastically.

"We're wasting time!" cried Jack with an impatient gesture. "He's got to be found! Whatever you choose to think of me, you can safely leave that in my hands. It means more to me than to any one else. It means everything to me to find him."

"Jean Paul says the horses have strayed——" Sir Bryson began.

"The horses, too?" cried Jack. The half-breed's eyes quailed under the fiery question that Jack's eyes bent on him. Without another word Jack turned and ran out of the tent.

In half an hour he was back—with a grim face. The occupants of the big tent were much as he had left them, but Jack sensed from the increased agitation of their faces, and from Jean Paul's sleekness, that the half-breed had not failed to improve the interval.

"It's true," said Jack shortly. "They've been driven off."

It had a terrifying sound to them. They looked at him with wide eyes.

"I found their tracks on the Fort Erskine trail," Jack went on. "They were travelling at a dead run. The tracks were six hours old."

Sir Bryson stopped his pacing. "Driven off?" he said agitatedly. "Are you sure? Couldn't they have run off by themselves?"

"They could," said Jack, "but they didn't. Five of the horses were hobbled when we turned them out. The hobbles had been removed."

"Well, well," stammered Sir Bryson, "what are we to do?"

"Let me take ten days' grub from the store," said Jack. "I'll undertake to bring Garrod back, and at least some of the horses."

"You'd follow on foot?" Linda burst out.

Jack answered to Sir Bryson. "They can't travel fast with their families and baggage."

It was not Jack's safety that Sir Bryson was concerned about. "But—but, leave us here without horses?" he faltered.

Jack smiled a little. "What good am I to you? I'm under arrest. Jean Paul has your ear. Why won't he do?"

Sir Bryson gave no sign of hearing this. "We must return," he said nervously. "We can't stay here—without horses."

Jack's heart sank. "What have the horses got to do with it?" he asked. "You're safe here. You've grub enough for months."

Sir Bryson looked at the half-breed. "Jean Paul says perhaps it is the Indians," he said. "He thinks they may have driven off the horses as a preliminary to attacking us."

"I not say that, me," put in Jean Paul quickly. "I jus' say best to be ready."

"So that's his game," cried Jack scornfully. "He's fooling you! It's an old redskin trick to drive off the horses to prevent pursuit. But as to standing up to white men—well, I'm willing to go and take my man and my horses away from the whole village of them."

Sir Bryson violently shook his head. Jack saw that the fate of Garrod had little weight with him. "We are quite defenceless!" he cried. "And with the women to look after! It is my duty to start back!"

Jack's lip curled.

Sir Bryson's voice scaled up shrilly. "How will we ever get back?" he cried.

"That's easy," said Jack. "Twelve miles walk over the portage to Fort Geikie, then by raft down the river. We'll make it in two days."

"Can we start this morning?"

Jack flushed. "No!" he cried. "Abandon our outfit! That would be disgraceful. It would be the joke of the country. I won't be a party to it! We'll cache the stuff to-day, and you can start to-morrow."

"Very well," said Sir Bryson nervously. "In the meantime we must keep a sharp lookout!"

Before Jack left him he made another appeal to be allowed to go after Garrod. He might as well have saved his breath. Sir Bryson and those with him, except perhaps Mrs. Worsley, were in the grip of panic. It was futile to try to reassure those whose notions of Indians had been gathered from the Wild West fiction of a preceding generation.

Jack came out of the tent sore all the way through. Taking them down to the Fort would cost him five precious days. True, he could get horses there, and perhaps assistance if he needed it, but the waste of five days was maddening.

Jack thought for a moment of defying Sir Bryson, and going anyway. But he put it from him. Any white man who abandoned a party that he had bound himself to guide, no matter what the circumstances might be, would be disgraced forever in the North. It is a situation which simply does not admit of argument. This sense of guide-responsibility is strong among white men, because the natives are without it. They are prone to shuffle off disagreeable burdens on the slightest provocation.

Jack set to work with a sullen will. He took out his soreness in hard work and in making the Indian lads work. Hard and long-continued exertion was a disagreeable novelty to them; before many hours had passed they were sullen too.

An axe party was immediately dispatched into the bush, and by noon enough stout poplar logs were cut and trimmed and drawn into camp to make a small shack. By supper-time the walls were raised, and the roof of poles laid and covered with thick sods. The remaining hours of daylight were occupied in storing everything they possessed inside. It was ten o'clock before they knocked off work. Meanwhile Sir Bryson, to Jack's scornful amusement, had insisted on posting Vassall and Ferrie as outposts against a surprise.

Next morning the governor was plunged into a fresh panic by the loss of the four Indian lads. No one saw them go. They melted out of camp, one by one, and were seen no more. Jack was not greatly surprised; he had seen premonitory symptoms the day before. It was additional evidence to him that the other Indians were still in the neighbourhood, and he was more than ever chagrined to be obliged to retreat without even an attempt to recover Garrod.

Jack kept out of Sir Bryson's way. In spite of themselves, however, the white men leaned on Jack more and more. Their imaginary redskin peril strengthened the race feeling, and Jack's energy and resourcefulness were indispensable to them. They came to him sheepishly for aid, but they came.

"What do you make of this desertion?" Vassall asked anxiously.

"Nothing serious," said Jack. "I don't think Jean Paul has a hand in it, because it's his game to get us out as quickly as he can. They probably vamoosed of their own accord. When we lost the horses, they saw the end of their good times. They've been fed too high. It makes 'em beany, like horses."

"But what'll we do without them?" Vassall asked.

Jack guessed that the question came from Sir Bryson.

"Tell the old gentleman to keep his shirt on," he said. "They're no great loss. It means that we'll all have to carry a little more across the portage, that's all."

After breakfast the tents were taken down and stored with the last of the camp impedimenta in the cache. When everything had been put inside, the door was fastened with a hasp and staple removed from one of the boxes, and Jack pocketed the key. The loads were then apportioned and packed, a long job when six of the eight were totally inexperienced. Sir Bryson was still looking over his shoulder apprehensively. At eleven o'clock they finally set out.

It was a quaintly assorted little procession that wound in single file along the firmly beaten brown trail through the willow scrub and among the white-stemmed poplars. There was a lieutenant-governor carrying a pack, and striving ineffectually to maintain his dignity under it; and there was his daughter likewise with a blanket strapped on her shoulders, and an olive-wood jewel-case in her hand, with a gold clasp. Jack smiled a little grimly at the idea of a jewel-case being toted through the bush.

Everybody carried a pack conformable to his strength. Since the two women and Sir Bryson could take so little, the others were fairly well laden. Jean Paul at the head, and Jack bringing up the rear, toted the lion's share. Besides blankets, the outfit consisted of food sufficient for five days, cooking and eating utensils, guns, ammunition, and axes. Jack had a coil of light rope to aid in building his raft.

Jack put Vassall next behind Jean Paul, with a word in his ear to watch the half-breed. Jack felt, somehow, that no serious harm was likely to befall Garrod so long as he had Jean Paul safely under his eye. After Vassall the others strung along the trail, with Humpy Jull, the oddest figure of all, marching in front of Jack, looking like an animated tinware shop with his pots and pans hanging all over him.

They started in good enough spirits, for the sun was shining, and the packs felt of no weight at all. But on the little hills their legs inexplicably caved in; their breath failed them, and the burdens suddenly increased enormously in weight. It was a long time since hard labour had caused Sir Bryson to perspire, and the novel sensation afforded him both discomfort and indignation. Two miles an hour was the best they could do, counting in frequent pauses for rest. The twelve miles stretched out into an all-day affair.

Once, toward the end of the afternoon, they came to the bank of a small stream, and throwing off their burdens, cast themselves down in the grass beside it, all alike and equal in their weariness. Sir Bryson was no longer a knight and a governor, but only the smallest man of the party, rather pathetic in his fatigue. They were too tired to talk; only Jack moved about restlessly. The slowness of the pace had tired him more than the seventy-five pounds he carried.

As Jack passed near Kate and Linda the latter said petulantly: "I'm tired, Jack. I want to talk to you."

Jack's heart sank, but nothing of it showed in his face. The little thing's look of appeal always reproached him. To a man of his type there is something shameful and wrong in not being able to give a woman more than she looks for. "Lord! it's not her fault," he would tell himself; and "As long as I'm going through with it, I must make a good job of it!" So he plumped down beside her.

"Go as far as you like," he said with a kind of hang-dog facetiousness. "Everybody can see, and Mrs. Worsley is standing guard."

"But I'm tired," she repeated. "I want to put my head on your shoulder." She looked at the spot she had chosen.

Jack became restive. "Easy there," he said uncomfortably. "You're forgetting the compact!"

Linda's eyes slowly filled with tears. "Hang the compact," she said. "I'm tired."

"I'll carry your blanket the rest of the way," Jack said gruffly.

"I won't let you," she said. "You've got a perfectly enormous load already."

"Pshaw! that featherweight won't make any difference," he said, and tied it to his pack.

"My feet hurt me," wailed Linda.

Jack frowned at the elegant little affairs Linda called her "sensible" shoes. "No wonder," he said. "Trying to hit the trail on stilts. Put out your foot."

His axe lay near. Firmly grasping her ankle, with a single stroke he guillotined the greater part of the elevating heel. Linda and Kate both screamed a little at the suddenness of the action, and Linda looked down horrified, as if she expected to see the blood gush forth. Jack laughed, and performed a like operation on the other foot. For the next hundred yards she swore she could not walk at all, but the benefit of the amputation gradually became apparent.

Never was such a long twelve miles. Finally, when most of them had given up hope of ever making an end to this journey, they debouched on the grassy esplanade surrounding the shacks of Fort Geikie. Humpy Jull set about getting dinner, while Jack and Jean Paul cut poplar saplings and constructed a leafy shelter for Linda and Kate. The business of camp had to be carried on; no one seeing these people travelling, and eating together, and sleeping around the same fire, could have guessed how their hearts were divided.

They were ready for sleep immediately after eating. Linda and Kate disappeared, and the men rolled up in their blankets, Sir Bryson grumbling. He felt that another little shelter should have been made for him. He found it very trying to be obliged to snore in public among his servants.

Sir Bryson insisted that a watch be maintained throughout the night, and Jack, who would have laughed at any other time, fell in with the idea, because he had a notion that Jean Paul might try to slip away. Jack arranged therefore that the half-breed keep the first watch, and, at no little pain and difficulty, he remained awake himself to watch Jean Paul. At eleven Jean Paul wakened Humpy Jull; at one, Vassall took Humpy's place.

Jack had left instructions that he was to be roused at three. It was already broad day at this hour. Upon Vassall's touch he staggered to his feet under the burden of sleep and walked blindly up and down until he had shaken it off. He went to the edge of the bank to take a prospect, Vassall at his elbow. A better understanding was coming about between these two. Vassall made no pretence that he had forgiven Jack for burglarizing Linda's affections, as he thought, but granting that, he, Vassall, was doing all he could do to bear his share of their common burden.

A lovely panorama of river, islands, and hills lay before them in the cool, pure, morning light.

"I'm going to cross to the island," Jack said, pointing. "In the drift-pile on the bar there, there's dry wood enough for a dozen rafts."

"How will you get over there?" asked Vassall.

"Swim," said Jack.

"I'll go along, too."

Jack stared at the slender, pale young city man. "You!" he said with a not very flattering intonation.

"Hang it, I'm not going to let you do everything," Vassall said, frowning. "I can swim. It's one of the few things I can do that is useful up here."

"It's not so much of a swim," said Jack. "The current carries us. I'll tow the axe on a stick or two. But the water's like ice."

"I can stand if it you can," Vassall said doggedly.

Jack looked at him with a gleam of approval. "Come on and feed then," he said off-hand.

They wakened Baldwin Ferrie to stand the last watch, and sat down to the cold victuals Humpy had left for them. In front of them the other men still slept, an odd sight, the three of them rolled up like corpses in a row in the morning light: lieutenant-governor, half-breed, and cook, as much alike as three trussed chickens.

While Jack ate, he issued his instructions to Ferrie: "Wake Humpy at five, and tell him to get a move on with breakfast. As soon as Vassall and I knock the raft together, we'll cross back to this side, but the current will carry us down about a third of a mile. When the rest of you have finished eating, pack up and come down to the shore. You'll have to walk along the stones to the first big point on this side. Bald Point, they call it, because of the trees being burned off. Lose no time, because we must be started by eight, if we mean to make Fort Cheever by dark."

Jack and Vassall, clad only in shirt, trousers, and moccasins, scrambled down the steep bank to the water's edge. Vassall looked at the swirling green flood with a shiver.

"Tie your moccasins around your neck," Jack said. "Leave your other things on. They'll soon dry as we work around. Head straight out into midstream, and you'll find the current will ground you on the point of the bar below."

The water gripped them with icy fingers that squeezed all the breath out of their lungs. Vassall set his teeth hard, and struck out after Jack. They were both livid and numb when they finally landed, and Jack forced Vassall to run up and down the bar with him, until the blood began to stir in their veins again. Then they attacked the tangled pile of drift logs.

Eight bleached trunks as heavy as they could pry loose and roll down to the water's edge provided the displacement of the raft. Jack chopped them to an equal length, and laced them together with his rope. On these they laid several cross-pieces, and on the cross-pieces, in turn, a floor of light poles, the whole stoutly lashed together. The outfit was completed by two roughly hewn sweeps and a pair of clumsy trestles in which to swing them. They were greatly handicapped by the lack of an auger and of hammer and nails, and the result of their labour was more able than shipshape. Four strenuous hours went to the making of it.

"She'll hold," said Jack at last, "if we don't hit anything."

They pushed off, and each wielding a sweep, pulled her back toward the shore they had started from. They both watched her narrowly, not a little proud of their handiwork. At least she floated high and dry, and answered, though sluggishly, to the sweeps. Their common feeling made Jack and Vassall quite friendly for the moment.

The little group was already waiting for them on the stones, with the slender baggage. Apprehension is quicker than the physical senses. Before he could see what was the matter, Jack sensed that something had happened, and a sharp anxiety attacked him. As he and Vassall drew near the shore he scanned the waiting group closely; he counted them, and then it became clear! There were only five waiting instead of six!

"Where's Jean Paul?" he cried out.

The people on the shore looked at each other uncomfortably. There was no answer until the raft grounded on the stones. Then Sir Bryson drew himself up and puffed out his cheeks.

"He asked my permission to remain to search for poor Garrod," he said in his most hoity-toity manner. "And I thought best to accede to his request."

Jack's jaw dropped. For an instant he could not believe his ears. Then he slowly turned white and hard. So this was what he got for spending his strength in their service! This was what he had to deal with: folly and self-sufficiency that passed belief! He was angrier than he had ever been in his life before. He was much too angry to speak. He stepped ashore, and walked away from them, struggling with himself.

Sir Bryson strutted and puffed and blew for the benefit of all observers. His secret dismay was none the less apparent. None looked at him. They were gazing fearfully at Jack's ominous back.

He came back with a set, white face. "Sir Bryson," he said in a voice vibrating with quiet, harsh scorn, "I say nothing about myself. Apart from that I've shown you clearly, and these people are witnesses to it, that this half-breed means Garrod no good. So be it. If he does for him now, it will be on your head."

In spite of his bluster, Sir Bryson began to look like a frightened small boy.

Linda was weeping with anger and fright. "I told him," she said, "but he wouldn't listen to me."

Kate, fearful of another outburst, laid a restraining hand on her.

"Here's your raft," Jack went on harshly. "All you have to do is to sit on it and keep it in the middle of the river and you'll be at Fort Cheever before dark. After letting the breed go, the least you can do is to let me stay and watch him."

They all cried out against this, even Kate and Vassall, whom Jack thought he could count on a little. They all spoke at once in confused tones of remonstrance and alarm. "What would we do without you? We don't know the river. We can't handle a raft," and so on.

Above all the others Sir Bryson's voice was heard trembling with alarm and anger: "Would you desert us here?"

The word brought the blood surging back into Jack's face. "Desert nothing," he said. "I asked your permission. I do not desert. Get aboard everybody, and hand on the bundles!"

They scrambled at his tone, a good deal like sheep. Jack launched the raft with a great heave of his back, running out into the water, thigh deep. Clambering on board, he picked up a sweep, and brought her around in the current. Sir Bryson and the others stole disconcerted sides glances at his hard and bitter face. There is something very intimidating in the spectacle of a righteous anger pent in a strong breast. The spectator is inclined to duck his head, and wonder where the bolt will fall.

XIV

BEAR'S FLESH AND BERRIES

Jack propelled the raft into the middle of the current, and, taking the sweep aboard, sat down on the end of it with his back to the others, and nursed his anger. They sat or lay on the poles in various uneasy positions. Sir Bryson, who, until the the day before, had probably not been obliged to sit in man's originally intended sitting position for upward of thirty years, felt the indignity keenly.

Every one's nerves were more or less stretched out of tune. Linda, watching Jack's uncompromising back with apprehensive eyes, was exasperated past bearing by her father's fretful complaints.

"What do you want?" she burst out. "A padded chair? Don't be ridiculous, father!"

Sir Bryson swelled and snorted. "That is no way to speak to your father, Belinda. Because you see me robbed of my outward and visible dignity is no reason for your forgetting the respect you owe me. I am surprised at you."

Linda's muttered reply was forcible and inelegant. None of the others paid any attention. Sir Bryson, feeling perhaps that a magisterial air accorded ill with his tousled hair and his cross-legged position, made a bid for sympathy instead.

"My feet are going to sleep," he said plaintively.

Jack, overhearing, was reminded again of the resemblance between father and daughter. "You don't have to sit still," he said, speaking over his shoulder. "You can move about as long as you don't all get on the same side at the same time."

Sir Bryson, who would not have been robbed of his grievance for any consideration, continued to sit and suffer dramatically.

Vassall's head was heavy. Stretching himself out, and watching Linda wistfully, he finally fell asleep. Humpy Jull, up at the bow—if a raft may be said to have a bow—constructed a fishing line out of a bent pin and a moccasin lace, and baiting it with a morsel of bacon, fished for hours with the trusting confidence of a child. Discouraged at last, he fell asleep beside Vassall.

Thus the morning passed. Left to its own devices, the raft swung around and back in the eddying current, and a superb panorama was ceaselessly and slowly unrolled for any who cared to see. The river moved down through its vast trough in the prairie, and an ever-changing vista of high hills, or seeming hills, hemmed them in. On the southerly side the hills were timbered for the most part. On the northerly side, where the sun beat all day, the steep slopes were bare, and the rich grass made vivid velvety effects darkened in the hollows and touched with gold on the knolls. The whole made a green symphony, comprising every note in the scale of green from the sombre spruce boughs up through the milky emerald of the river water to the high verdancy of the sunny grass and the delicate poplar foliage.

Of them all only Kate Worsley watched it as if the sight was enough to repay one for the discomfort of sitting on poles. Her quiet eyes were lifted to the hills with the look of one storing away something to remember.

Now and then a momentary excitement was created by the sight of a bear grubbing about the roots of the poplar saplings, homely, comical beasts with their clumsy ways and their expression of pretended cuteness. Something still wild in the breasts of domesticated creatures like ourselves never fails to answer to the sight of a real wild thing at home in his own place. Since they had no time to go ashore in case of a hit, no shots were fired.

Once in the middle of the day they landed long enough for Jack to build a hearth of flat stones on Humpy's end of the raft, and cover it with clay. Then, gathering a little store of wood, they pushed off again, and Humpy built his fire, and boiled his kettle while they floated down.

After lunch Jack's anger was no longer sufficient to keep his neck stiff. He had been up since three that morning, and in spite of himself he began to nod. Vassall volunteered to keep watch while he slept.

"There's nothing to do as long as she keeps the middle of the stream," Jack said. "If she drifts to one side or the other wake me."

He stretched himself out, and in spite of the cobbly nature of his bed, immediately fell asleep. Linda watched him with the tears threatening to spring. He had not spoken to her since they started, and indeed had scarcely seemed to be aware of her. She glanced at the others with rebellious brows. If it were not for them, she thought, the tawny head might be pillowed in her lap.

Another hour dragged out its slow length. Kate Worsley out of pity for Sir Bryson's increasing peevishness proposed a game of bridge. It was hailed with alacrity. A sweater was spread for a cloth; Sir Bryson, Kate, Baldwin Ferrie, and Vassall squatted around it, and the cards were dealt.

"Fancy!" exclaimed Vassall, looking around. "Rather different from a game in the library at Government House, eh?"

"And different looking players," suggested Kate with a smile.

"I feel it very keenly, Mrs. Worsley," said Sir Bryson tearfully. "I have always attached great importance to the little details of one's personal appearance. Perhaps it is a weakness. But that is the way I am."

"We're all in the same boat—I mean raft," said Mrs. Worsley cheerfully. "Look at me!"

"I will make it no trumps," said Baldwin Ferrie.

Linda, seeing the others fully occupied, moved nearer to Jack, and lay down where, making believe to be asleep herself, she could watch his face, calm and glowing in sleep, the lashes lying on his cheeks, the thin nostrils, the firm, red line of his lips. If he had only slept with his mouth open, or had snored, it might have broken the spell that held her, and a deal of trouble been saved. Unfortunately he slept beautifully; and if that was not enough, once he smiled vaguely like a sleeping baby, and changed his position a little with a sigh of content. The sight of her strong man in his helplessness affected the girl powerfully; when he moved, her heart set up a great beating, and the alarmed blood tingled to her finger-tips.

During this time but an indifferent watch was kept. Humpy Jull had fallen asleep again. There seemed little need to watch on such a voyage. True, they had passed little reefs and stretches of broken water where the swift current met obstructions inshore, but there had been no disturbance that extended out into midstream. The raft was carried down squarely in the middle of the channel.

Once when it came to Vassall's turn to be dummy, he stood up to stretch his legs and look about him. A short distance ahead he saw that the invariably earthy slope of the hills was broken by an outcropping of rock on either side. The band of rock evidently crossed the river, for in the middle a ragged islet of rock stuck its head out of the water.

Vassall debated on which side of the rock they ought to pass with the raft. To a riverman the "middle of the stream" means the main sweep of the current of course. Vassall was not a riverman and he did not observe that the greater body of water made off to the left and around that side of the island. The channel on the right-hand side stretched straight ahead of them, wide and apparently smooth, and to Vassall this looked like the "middle of the stream." If he had left the raft alone the current of its own accord would have carried it around to the left, but he ran out a sweep and pulled her to the other side. He saw no occasion for waking Jack.

A new hand was dealt and he returned to the game. It was a critical hand, and the attention of all four of the players was closely fixed on the cards until the last trick was taken. Not until then did they become aware of the grumble of broken water ahead. They had heard the sound before on the reefs they had passed. Vassall, looking up, saw only a kind of smudge like a thumb-mark drawn across the smooth face of the river ahead. The next time he looked he saw darkish spots here and there between the island and the shore.

The noise became louder. Finally he got up, and in the act of rising the ominous white leaped into his view. It was a reef extending all the way across. The dark spots were rocks covered by an inch or two of water.

For an instant Vassall looked at it stupidly. The others were arranging their cards in ignorance of any danger. Before Vassall could wake Jack, the hoarse roar of the reef reached the subconsciousness of the sleeping man, and he sprang up, all standing. A glance told him everything.

"What are we doing on this side?" he cried.

He ran out one sweep, and motioned Vassall to the other. They pulled with a will. The others watched, not fully understanding the nature of the danger yet, but alarmed by Jack's grimness. He was heading the raft for the main channel. They had not reached the island yet, but Jack soon saw that at the rate they were being carried down he could not make the other side, nor could he land his clumsy craft on the shore above the reef.

"Save your strength," he said to Vassall. "We'll have to chance it. Everybody sit still and hold on."

A breathless few minutes succeeded. Jack steered for the widest space he could see between the rocks. Those who were sitting down still could not see much of what was ahead, but the roar of the water was now sufficiently terrifying. Moving of a piece with the current as they were, it seemed as if they were not moving, but that the broken rocks were striding to meet them, not very fast, but inexorably. It was hard to sit and wait.

Then as they came close they saw how the water slipped silkily over the reef with the dark shadows showing like teeth beneath, and boiled up below. The women cried out sharply, and the men turned pale. It suddenly became evident how fast the heavy raft was moving.

"Throw yourselves flat and hang on!" Jack shouted.

They obeyed. There was a dreadful moment of waiting, while the roar of the water filled their ears. Then she struck. One side of the raft slid up on a submerged shelf, the floor tilted at a steep angle, and the current surged over the lower side, sweeping everything movable off. Jack stood up to his knees in the torrent, pushing desperately at the heavy sweep. He budged her inch by inch.

"Lie still!" he shouted. "For your lives! We'll make it yet!"

But panic seized upon his passengers. Somebody scrambled for the high side of the raft, and the rest followed. The strain was too great for the lashings. A rope parted somewhere, and the floor instantly heaved up beneath them. There was a brief, wild confusion of thrashing, tangled logs and feeble human bodies. Then the whole thing, logs, bodies, baggage, and playing cards was swept over into the deep, rough water below.

When Jack came to the surface he had a confused impression of bobbing heads and logs on every side. He seized the nearest log, and unstrapping the cartridge belt and the gun that were drowning him, buckled it on. Meanwhile, he was looking for the long hair of the women. He reached one of them in six strokes. A pair of clutching arms reached for him, but he dived, and seizing her by the collar, towed her to the nearest log. It was Linda.

Leaving her supported, he trod water looking for Kate. He saw more streaming hair not far away, and reached the spot as she rose again. There was sterner stuff here; her face was white and wild, but her arms were under control. She put her hands on Jack's shoulders as he commanded, and he brought her likewise to a log. A little brown box came bobbing by, Linda's jewel-case. Kate coolly put out her hand and secured it.

All this had taken but a minute. Jack looked about him. Everything was being carried down of a piece with the current, and they were all close together. It seemed to Jack as if the whole face of the river was littered with playing cards. He had a particular impression of the deuce of clubs. Vassall was helping Baldwin Ferrie to a log, and Humpy Jull had secured the log that bore Jack's cartridge belt. Only Sir Bryson was missing. Farther out Jack saw a feeble commotion, and no log near.

"See to the women!" he called to Vassall. "There's a backwater inshore. Humpy, save that belt as you value your life!"

The struggling figure sank before he reached it. Jack swam about the spot. It rose again, but out of his reach. He dived for it. They came together, and a pair of frantic arms closed about Jack's neck. They sank together, Jack struggling vainly. They rose, Jack got a breath, and broke the hold. The struggling ceased.

Swinging the inert figure over his back, Jack struck out for the shore. It was a desperately hard pull. They had been carried too far to obtain any advantage from the backwater. The logs he passed were of no aid to him, because the current tended to carry them into midstream. For a long time the shore seemed only to recede as he struggled toward it. More than once fear touched him and he was on the point of going down. He rested, breathing deep, and set to it again. Finally he ceased to think or to feel, but he continued to struggle automatically, and he still clung to his burden.

It was with a kind of surprise that he finally felt the stones under his feet. He staggered ashore, and putting down the limp figure he carried, flung himself on the shore utterly exhausted. How long he lay there he hardly knew. As soon as a little strength began to stir in him, with the man-of-the-wilds instinct he set to work collecting sticks to make a fire.

He had been carried nearly a mile below the reef. By and by, far up the shore he saw some wavering, uncertain little figures. He was able to count five of them, so he knew all were safe. He hailed them shrilly after the way of the country. After his little fire sprang up, he could see that they were coming toward him slowly, the men helping the women.

They came, a distressed little company, drenching wet, silent and dazed. They moved like automatons, as if their limbs were independent of them, and they looked at each other dully, as if not with full recognition. Reaching Jack, they stood around in an uncertain way; none of them spoke. It was as if they had lost the faculty of speech also. Linda was roused by the sight of her father; with a cry, she cast herself on his body.

"He's not drowned," Jack said quickly. "Only stunned a little."

The helplessness of the others had the effect of rousing Jack to an ardour of activity that transformed him. His gnawing anger was forgotten; his black looks were flown. Their situation was well-nigh desperate, but here the opposing forces were purely physical, such as he thoroughly understood, and loved to attack. His exhaustion passed, and his eyes became bright.

"Has anybody dry matches?" he sang out.

The dazed ones looked a little amazed at his spirits. It appeared that no one's match-safe was waterproof but Jack's own.

"Spread 'em out to dry on a rock," he said. "They may work. I have seventeen good ones. That's enough at a pinch. Everybody scatter for dry wood. Keep on the move, and get your circulation going. Humpy, you build another fire behind the willows for the ladies. Light it from this one. We can have all the fire we want, anyway. Vassall, help me here with Sir Bryson. We must take his wet things off." He glanced up at the sun. "Rest for an hour," he said; "then on the march! Red Willow Creek to-night; Fort Cheever to-morrow afternoon!"

"But how are we going to support life on the way?" stammered Baldwin Ferrie.

Jack pointed to the belt Humpy Jull had brought along. His gun and his hunting-knife hung from it. This, with Linda's jewel-case, was the sum total of what they had saved from the wreck.

"We have the cannon," Jack said with a laugh. "About forty cartridges, and the seventeen matches. We'll make out."

An hour later they started to climb the steep, high hill to the prairie. They took it very slowly on account of Sir Bryson, who was still white and shaky. But he complained no more. Jack's example had had its effect on all, and a more cheerful feeling pervaded the party. They were at least dry and warm again. The men still regarded Jack's high spirits a little askance. It did not fit their settled convictions about him; they resented it slightly while forced to admire.

"Where are we heading for?" Vassall asked.

"There's a trail down this side of the river as well as on the other," Jack said. "I've never been over it, but if we strike straight back we must hit it."

"How will we get back across the river?"

"Nothing easier," said Jack. "When we arrive opposite the fort, if it's daylight, we'll wave a shirt; if it's night, we'll build a fire, and they'll send a canoe over for us."

Once having accomplished the difficult hill it was easy enough going over the prairie. Taking his bearings from the sun, Jack led them in a line at right angles back from the river. Linda walked beside him. Vassall and Ferrie helped support Sir Bryson. Half an hour's walking brought them to a trail, as Jack had promised, and their hearts rose. It was a less well-beaten track than the main route on the north side of the river, but easy enough to follow.

Jack called a halt. "Here we are," he said. "The first good water that I know of is Red Willow Creek. I've camped on the river at the mouth of it. It will be about seven miles. Are you good for it?"

They said they were. No one dreamed of opposing Jack now. They hung on him like defenceless merchant-men on their man-o'-war convoy.

"Vassall, you lead the way from here," Jack went on. "You'll find the creek in a big coulee. We'll camp for the night in the bottom of it. If by any chance you should lose the trail before you get there, just climb to the highest place you see, and sit down and wait till I come along."

"But where are you going?" they demanded.

"To hunt for our supper," said Jack.

He issued two of the precious matches to Humpy to make a fire on arrival. "There ought to be berries in the coulee," he said. "Collect all you can."

Linda clung to him. "Can't I go with you?" she begged.

He shook his head. "The hunter must hunt alone."

"Don't be long. Be very careful. If we lost you we'd simply lie down and die."

"Easy!" he said uncomfortably.

Linda glanced at the others. "Why should I hide it now?" she said. "I'm proud of you. They know now why I chose a man like you, a real man."

Jack had the feeling that additional turns of rope were being taken around his body. He blushed and scowled together. "Linda! for heaven's sake!" he burst out. Under his breath, "Wait until I pull you out of this before you begin to talk." He turned and fled.

A word of sympathy may be dropped here for Vassall and Ferrie. It is hard to have to stand by while your rival has the opportunity to save the lives of all and sundry, including your own, just because he is in his own element and you are out of yours. And then to be publicly scorned by the girl in the case—for that is what Linda's speech amounted to. Linda had no mercy for men; that is why, if you look into it far enough, she was bound to suffer on her own account. It was much to their credit that the two men took it generously.

It was four hours before they saw Jack again. They had reached the rendezvous some time before, and Humpy had built a fire on the shore of the creek, around which they sat in silence, trying not to look as hungry as they felt, and trying to conceal the common anxiety that gnawed at each breast: "What will we do if he doesn't come!"

But at last his hail came over the hill, and Jack himself came running and sliding down the grassy slope, covered with feathers it appeared. They sprang up with glad cries. Never did man receive a more heartfelt welcome. They were like his hungry children waiting to be fed and cheered. It is sweet to be so necessary to one's fellow-beings, but indeed it was a startling transformation. At one bound Jack had risen in their estimation from a disgraced felon to the saviour and preserver of them all. Jack felt this, and it was his revenge.

He kissed Linda—he had to—and flung his burdens down. "Prairie chicken," he said. "Sorry to keep you waiting so long, but I hated to come in until I had got one all round, and I couldn't take any chances. They're too expensive, anyway; a shell apiece and two misses. To-morrow I'll try to bring in something more substantial."

Thus they dined off roasted prairie chicken and saskatoon berries, strictly after Nature's first intention without artificial aids. And when one wanted a drink he had to scoop it out of the creek in his hand. It was remarkable how easy all this came to them, even to a lieutenant-governor when he was hungry and thirsty.

The night was harder. Jack built a sort of lean-to, or wind-break, of poplar, with a long fire close across in front. The heat was partly reflected down by the sloping roof, and in this pleasant oven they lay in a row on heaped spruce boughs. The men arranged to take turns in keeping up the fire throughout the night. But the ground was cold, and there was not much sleep to be had. Jack sat up and told cheerful yarns of worse nights that he had managed to live through.

At sun-up he was away again. An hour's patient waiting at the edge of a berry thicket two miles up the coulee brought him what he sought, a young black bear. He brought the hams into camp. The women looked askance at his prizes, and elected to breakfast off berries alone. But baked in its hide in a pit with hot stones the meat was not to be despised, and after a few miles on the trail they were all glad to share it.

All that day Jack convoyed his little company slowly, with many a rest beside the trail. They had about twenty miles to cover. Alone, Jack would have made it in five hours, but he saw that it would be a great feat for some of the others if they got through at all that day. In spite of what he could do, in the middle of the afternoon Linda gave out, and Sir Bryson was on his last legs. The indefatigable Jack then contrived a litter out of two poplar poles thrust through three buttoned coats, and Linda and her father took turns in riding the rest of the way.

Jack was considerably embarrassed by Sir Bryson's attitude toward him during this day. The little gentleman, as has been said, was much chastened. He was quiet; he issued no orders, nor uttered complaints, and was unaffectedly grateful for whatever was done for him. Here was a change indeed! Whenever Jack approached him his confusion became visible and acute. At the same time he often sought Jack out, and began conversations which petered out to nothing. Manifestly he had something on his mind that his tongue balked at uttering.

It came out at last. During one of the rests they were all sitting in the grass, Jack among the others, busily intent upon cleaning the precious "cannon" with a sleeve of his shirt that he had sacrificed to the purpose. Sir Bryson suddenly moved closer to him.

"Young man," he began, and his lofty tone could not hide the genuine feeling, "they tell me you saved my life yesterday. I don't remember much about it myself."

Jack looked up, alarmed and frowning. "That's all right," he said hurriedly. "Everybody did what he could."

"And Linda and Mrs. Worsley too," Sir Bryson went on. "It was very gallantly done."

"Vassall would have done it, only I was nearer," Jack said gruffly. "Please don't say anything more. It makes me feel like a fool!"

"It must be spoken of," Sir Bryson persisted. "But it's difficult—I hardly know——"

Jack did not perceive the exact nature of the old gentleman's difficulty. He got up. "It was all in the day's work," he said awkwardly. "You don't need to feel that it changes the situation at all."

Sir Bryson rose too. All tousled, creased and bedraggled as he was, the little governor was never more truly dignified. "You do not understand me," he said. "I—I am very grateful. Moreover, I am sorry for things I said. I desire to acknowledge it here before our friends who were present when I said them."

Jack looked away in acute embarrassment. "Very handsomely said, Sir Bryson," he muttered.

This ended the incident for the present. The air was much cleared by it. However, it gave rise to something it was necessary for Jack to unburden himself of. He waited until he could get Sir Bryson away from the others.

"Sir Bryson," he said doggedly. "I wanted to tell you that I understand my being useful to you doesn't clear my name, doesn't make me any more a desirable suitor for your daughter."

Sir Bryson made a deprecating gesture.

"Under the circumstances," Jack continued, "I don't want her any more than you want me. It is agreed between Miss Linda and I that we are to have nothing to do with each other until I succeed in clearing myself."

They shook hands on it. Later Vassall and Baldwin Ferrie took opportunity to follow in the lead of their master and ask to shake Jack's hand. For the rest of the day Jack moved in an atmosphere warm with their gratitude and admiration. It was not unpleasant in itself of course, but somehow he felt as if everything that happened tended to tighten little by little the coils in which he found himself. Mile by mile as they neared the end of the journey, and the obstacles retreated, his spirits went down. He was elevated into Sir Bryson's good graces, but not into his own. This was his ingenious difficulty: that the girl he didn't want was attached as a rider to the good name he had to have.

At the day's close he led his bedraggled and dead weary little company stumbling down the hill to the river bank opposite Fort Cheever. There, a fire built on the shore, with its mounting pillar of smoke, soon brought over Davy in a dugout to investigate. Great was the boy's astonishment at the sight of them.

Jack burned with a question that he desired to ask him, but he could not bring his tongue to form Mary's name. His heart began to beat fast as they approached the other shore. He wondered if he would see her. He hoped not, he told himself, and all the while desiring it as a desert traveller longs for water.

XV

AN EXPEDITION OF THREE

Mary was not in evidence around the fort. Jack spent half the night talking things over with David Cranston in the store. In the sturdy Scotch trader he found a friend according to his need. He experienced an abounding relief in unburdening himself to a man who merely smoked and nodded understandingly, without making any fuss.

"You don't have to explain to me that you're no thief," Cranston said coolly.

That was all to be said on the subject. As to the feminine element in his difficulties, Jack was necessarily silent.

"If my sons were a year or two older," Cranston said strongly. "As it is I am tied here hand and foot!"

Jack swore at him gratefully. "This is my fight," he said. "I couldn't let you give up your time to it."

"I suppose you'll take some of the men out of Sir Bryson's party back with you," said Cranston.

Jack shook his head. "Humpy Jull's all right, but he can't ride, and I have to ride like sin. Vassall's a square head too, in his way, but either one of them would only weaken me. They don't know the people. They couldn't face them down. They couldn't walk into their tepees and tell the beggars to go to hell."

Cranston smiled grimly. "Is that what you calculate to do?"

"You know what I mean. It's a way of putting it."

Cranston considered a moment. "Take Davy," he said. "The boy has pluck. He would be wild to go."

Jack was more moved than he cared to show. "Damn decent of you, Cranston," he growled. "I won't do it," he added aloud. "It's too much of a responsibility. Jean Paul is clever enough to see that he could always get at me through the boy."

"What's the alternative then?" asked Cranston.

"I'm going it alone," said Jack doggedly.

Cranston struck the counter with his fist. "No, by Gad!" he cried. "I'm the boss around here. You know as well as I that it's foolhardy for a man to ride alone at any time—the police don't do it—let alone into a village of redskins in an ugly mood. That's tempting them to murder you. And if they did, how could we convict them?"

Jack's face hardened. "They wouldn't murder me," he said, "because I'm not afraid of them."

"That's all right. It's too big a chance."

"You'd think nothing of taking it yourself."

"Never you mind that. I'm the boss here, and I forbid it!"

"You're not my boss," muttered Jack.

"Just the same, I can prevent you, my lad," said Cranston grimly. "You'll get no outfit from me for such a purpose."

Jack shrugged, and appeared to let the matter go. Cranston might have taken warning from his tight lips, but the trader thought, as he said, that he commanded the situation.

"We'll talk to Sir Bryson in the morning," Cranston went on.

"Pshaw! Sir Bryson!" muttered Jack.

"I'll get him to send Vassall down to the Crossing in a canoe with a letter to the police. I'll send my boy Angus and an Indian along. The steamboat will be up in a few days, and they can bring back the police on her. If she leaves the Crossing before they get there, the captain will turn back for the policemen. With luck they'll all be back in a week."

"A week!" thought Jack. "What would I be doing all that time? Biting my thumbs?"

By morning Jack had made his plan. He was only prevented from putting it into instant execution by his great desire to see Mary, though he would not acknowledge to himself that that was the reason he hung about the fort all morning. He waited until after the middle of the day, thinking that Cranston would surely ask him home to dinner, but the invitation was not forthcoming. Jack did not know it, but the trader for many years past had been obliged to give up dispensing hospitality at his own board. Mrs. Cranston seized on such occasions to assert her most savage and perverse self.

Meanwhile Jack showed himself assiduously in front of the trader's windows. The ladies of Sir Bryson's party did not appear all morning out of the warehouse where they were quartered, so Jack was at least spared Linda's surveillance. His pertinacity was in vain; Mary never once showed herself. By afternoon he had worked himself up to a towering, aggrieved anger. "She might at least have a word of welcome for a white man," he thought bitterly, choosing to forget her side of the case, that she had made plain to him. At last he gave up in a passion, and strode away from the fort.

Taking care that he was not observed by Cranston, Jack headed for the Indian village, which lay on the river-flat, a half mile west of the fort. Reaching it, he sought out the head man, and by degrees brought the talk around to the subject of horses. Presently a deal was in progress, and in an hour Jack found himself the owner of two fairish ponies, with a saddle for one and a pack-saddle for the other. Some of the Indians had been trading with Cranston, and by going from tepee to tepee and offering a premium on the company's prices, Jack was able to collect the grub he required, together with blankets and a Winchester and ammunition. He paid for all this with an order on Cranston, and with the order he sent back a note:

DEAR CRANSTON: I hope you won't lay this up against me. I feel as if you are the only friend I have, and I don't want to make you sore, but I've got to go. If I had to hang around the fort doing nothing for a week I'd go clean off my nut. You needn't bother your head about me. I know exactly what I'm going to do, and I'm not going to get murdered either. I'll bring you back your horses in a few days, also Garrod and Jean Paul, unless I have to bury them.

Tell Sir Bryson and his people.

Remember me to Mary.

JACK.

By nine o'clock he had ridden fifty miles, and he camped then only because his grass-fed beasts could go no farther. He turned them out, and ate, and crawled between his blankets by the fire; but not, in spite of his weariness, to sleep. He found that he had not succeeded in galloping away from the ache in his breast: "Mary! Mary! Mary!" it throbbed with every beat.

Wakefulness was a novel sensation to Jack. Cursing at himself, he resolutely closed his eyes and counted sheep, but in vain. He got up and replenished his fire. He lit his pipe, and, walking up and down in the grass of the prairie, gazed up at the quiet stars for peace. If he could have inspired his horses with some of his own restlessness he would have ridden on, but the poor beasts were standing close by with hanging heads, too weary to eat.

He did fall asleep at last, of course, only to be immediately wakened, it seemed to him, by a distant thudding of hoofs on the earth. It is a significant sound in a solitude, and, sitting up, he listened sharply. By the movement of the stars he saw that several hours had passed since he fell asleep. It could not be his own horses, because they were hobbled. In any case there were more than two approaching. They were coming from the direction of the fort. Jack, frowning, wondered if Cranston would go so far as to attempt to prevent him from carrying out his purpose. With instinctive caution he drew back from his fire and crouched in the shadow of a clump of willows.

Four horses came loping up. Jack's two came hobbling toward them out of the darkness, whinnying a welcome. The fire blazed between Jack and the new-comers, and he could not see them very well. He sensed that there were two riders, and as they slipped out of the saddles it appeared that one of them was skirted. For a moment they stood outlined against the dim light of the eastern sky, and Jack's heart began to thump against his ribs. Surely there could be but one such graceful head poised on such beautiful shoulders, but he couldn't believe it. Then they approached his fire, and he saw for sure: it was Mary and Davy.

She saw his tumbled blanket by the fire, and looked across toward where he crouched, with the firelight throwing up odd, strong shadows on her wistful face. "Jack!" she called softly. The voice knocked on his naked heart.

His hardihood failed him then. He came slowly toward them, trembling all over, ashamed of his trembling, and horribly self-conscious. "What are you doing here?" he asked in a shaky voice.

"We are going with you," murmured Mary. Her voice, too, was suffocated as if her heart was filling her throat.

There was a little pause. Jack looked at her like an unworthy sinner, who nevertheless sees Heaven opening before him.

"Aren't you glad to see us?" demanded Davy, coming up.

Glad! Jack was quite unable to speak. Suddenly flinging an arm around the boy's shoulders he squeezed him until Davy cried out. It was meant for Mary. She saw. Dropping to the ground, she made a great business of building up the fire.

They fell to babbling foolishly without any one's caring how foolishly; they laughed for no reason, and asked the same questions over again without heeding the answers. Jack sprang to unpack and unsaddle their horses. When they were finally hobbled and turned out, he came back to Mary. She was setting out the grub-box and making tea. Davy went away to cut poles for their two little tents.

"You do wish to be friends?" Jack said pleadingly; "after what you said!"

Mary had recovered her self-possession. "I couldn't let you go alone," she parried. "That is such a foolish thing to do. I couldn't have slept or sat still for thinking of it. Other things are not changed at all."

"But you came!" murmured Jack a little triumphantly, and moving closer to her.

She drew away. "You shouldn't say that," she murmured stiffly. "It wasn't easy for me to come. And it may cost me dear."

Jack wondered like a man why she was offended. "I know," he said, "and I'm not going to let you come. But I'm glad you wanted to."

This made matters worse. "I didn't want to," she threw back at him sharply. "I came because I was the only one who could help you. I know the Indians; they like me; they're a little afraid of me. And you can't make us go back. We have our own outfit. If you won't let us ride with you, we'll follow after!"

Jack stared, perplexed and wondering at her hurt tones. Certainly girls were beyond his comprehension. Though so different in other respects, it seemed they were alike in this: their perfect inconsistency. He tried another tack.

"Did your father let you come?"

"No," she said unwillingly. "He was very angry with you."

"He offered to let Davy come," Jack said idly.

"That's different," she said, wondering at men's stupidity.

Jack's brain moved only about a third as fast as hers. He frowned at the fire. "If you lit out without telling him," he began, "he'll think that I—what will he think of me! After I promised."

It was Mary's turn to be surprised. "Promised what?"

Jack turned stubborn. "I can't tell you," he said.

"But something that concerns me," said Mary. "I think I have a right to know it."

Jack merely pulled in his upper lip. "You do lots of things without explaining them to me. I have the same right."

Mary dropped the inquiry. "You needn't be anxious about what father is thinking," she said coldly. "I left a letter for him, telling where we were going, and I told him you didn't know we were coming."

They were silent. Jack stared at the fire, wondering unhappily what was the matter. After they had come, and he had been so glad to see them, to be near a quarrel already! To heal this inexplicable breach he put out his hand, and took Mary's.

She snatched it away with astonishing suddenness. "Don't you dare to touch me!" she muttered, low and quivering.

He was blankly surprised. "Why, Mary! What did you come for then?"

"Not for that!" she cried, with eyes full of anger and pain. "You asked me to be friends with you. All right. Nothing else!"

"Friends shake hands, don't they?" muttered Jack sulkily. "One would think I had the leprosy!"

"You know what I mean," said Mary more quietly.

Jack scowled at the fire. "I don't see how a man and a woman—if they're young—like you and I, can be just friends."

"They can," said Mary eagerly. "I'll show you."

Jack looked at her, eager, wistful, self-forgetful as she was, and a great irresponsible longing surged up in him. Passion darkened his eyes; his breast began to heave. "I couldn't," he said hoarsely, "not with you, Mary!"

She avoided him warily. "Then I must go back," she said sadly.

Jack forgot that he had intended to send her. "No! Not now," he said sharply.

She looked at him with the extraordinary look she had for him, proud, pitying, and relentless all at once. "Listen," she commanded quietly. "Somebody has got to speak plainly. I will do it. I like you very much"—her voice faltered here—"I—I wish to be friends with you—very much. But if you are so weak and dishonourable as to make love to me when you are bound to another woman, I shall despise you, and I shall have to go!"