Munsey's Magazine/Volume 79/Issue 1/Wild Bird

by Hulbert Footner

Wild Bird

A STORY OF THE WILD NEW LANDS OF THE CANADIAN NORTHWEST

By Hulbert Footner
Author of “The Man Hunt,” “Country Love,” “Thieves' Wit,” etc.

 

XXV

THEY did not go ashore again. The hours passed. Finally the sun went down, but Chako still paddled doggedly on.

From feeling too much Ann ceased to feel anything. She was solely concerned now with saving herself. Her brain was busy.

“What shall I do when we go ashore?” she thought. “I've got to have sleep. I might steal away from Chako's camp and hide, and get some sleep; but then he would know I suspected him. Anyhow, how could I sleep with the chance of his coming on me at any moment? No, he's got to sleep, too. The safest thing would be to lie down just as usual, where I can watch him. I won't sleep until he sleeps, and I'll trust my instinct to wake me when he wakes. I might have a chance to throw his gun in the water while he sleeps; but he could kill me just as well with his hands.”

Darkness was gathering when the shores of the little river suddenly fell back, and they found themselves out on a dusky blue sheet of water, reflecting the dying light of the sky. Ann recognized with a little thrill that they had come to the lake at the head of the cañon. There was no other such place. Indeed, she could presently hear the roaring of the waters in the gorge below, though at first only as a murmur.

All the southerly side of the lake was bounded by low cliffs, pale in the dying light. On the other side the trees came down to the water's edge. The landing place was down at the end of this tree-lined shore, where broken rocks ran out in a point. Around that point was the awful chute down which the waters poured into the gorge.

Chako let the canoe ground lightly on the shingle, and laid down his paddle. Ann had to get out first. In doing so she had to turn around and present her back to Chako. She did not hesitate. Whatever comes must come, she told herself.

Nevertheless it was with a sort of surprise that she found herself alive and on firm ground once more. She turned and lifted the canoe a little higher, according to their custom.

Chako climbed out over the baggage. He left his gun behind him. Seeing this, Ann's knees began to shake under her. She could stand the strain, but to have it suddenly relieved unnerved her. She crept away a pace or two, and dropped on the ground, fighting to avert a collapse.

“After paddling all day,” she thought, “while I sat idle, he will have a right to demand that I should get the supper.”

She desperately put her limp limbs in motion again. Blindly seeking from tree to tree, she gathered a thick handful of the little dry spines, as he had once showed her. By the time he had carried the bedding and the food ashore, she had a fire started.

Chako carried his gun ashore, and rested it against a tree, near where he had thrown his bed roll. Ann was always electrically conscious of the position of that gun. He left the bag of gold where it was in the canoe. He was too weary to shoulder it. He opened his bedding, and flung himself down upon it. The gun was within reach of his hand.

Chako had paddled about sixteen hours this day, and upon insufficient food. Fatigue was a grand corrective of the unholy passions that filled him, and his look at Ann was almost indifferent. Glancing at him while she washed the rice and sliced the bacon, Ann reflected:

“He'll have to sleep to-night. I'll get some rest.”

To the next day she gave no thought. All her energies were concentrated on living from moment to moment.

He came to the fire when she called him. He sat on his side, she on hers. They passed things back and forth with an appearance of amity, though few words were spoken. It seemed as if Chako would never have done eating.

“It will renew his strength and his rage,” Ann thought bitterly.

“Cook some more,” he said harshly. “There's plenty cached at the other side of the cañon.”

Ann wondered if he meant that there would be only one to eat it.

When he had finished, Ann set about washing the plates and the frying pan. Since he had left his gun over by the tree, she felt in no immediate danger. Heavy with food, Chako reclined on the same spot, supporting himself on his elbow, and glancing at Ann from time to time from under lowered lids.

What was he thinking of? She gave it up with a shrug. Only one thing was clear—he had not relented toward her. At the moment he was sluggish from eating, but his purpose had not changed.

After all was in order, he still made no move to seek his blankets. So as not to give any appearance of avoiding him, Ann returned to her former place by the fire. About half a dozen feet separated them. Chako sat up, refilled his pipe, lighted it, and drew on it with evident satisfaction. Ann glanced at him from time to time with a sad wonder. How he could enjoy his food and his tobacco?

For a while they sat in silence. The fire died down. The, air trembled under the hoarse rumble of the torrent below, muffled by the intervening walls of rock. From where they sat under the pines, the lake was like a corselet of blued steel, reflecting the clear night sky. Over the cliffs on the other side the sky was brightening.

As they sat in silence, Ann's exquisitely sharpened intuition became aware of something that was drawing her and Chako together—something madly sweet, which did not lessen her danger, however, but increased it.

Chako suddenly took his pipe out of his mouth, and, pointing with the stem across the lake, said:

“Moon's coming up.”

It did not surprise Ann that his deep voice had resumed its purring note, like a lion's. She expected it. Her heart galloped off.

“Up north the moon's a crazy wench,” Chako went on. “You'll see to-night—she'll just circle over the cliffs a little way, and go down almost in the place where she came up.”

He spoke in a savage, amorous purr like a lion's. There was no change in him, no softening toward Ann.

“How white your arm is in the shadow!” murmured Chako.

Ann nervously rolled down her sleeve and buttoned it. A chuckle sounded in his throat.

“Mustn't I ever remember you're a woman?”

“Did you forget it?” Ann whispered.

The implication was lost on him.

“And a beauty,” he added. “Your throat is like snow!”

Something in his insolent love-making made Ann's very blood abject, and caused her to dissolve in weakness. If he touched her, how could she resist him? But what a shameful surrender that would be. She would deserve no better fate than to be killed wantonly.

“Look at me!” murmured Chako.

She did the only thing she could think of—arose and coolly moved the embers of the fire apart with the toe of her boot.

“It was agreed that that sort of talk was to be cut out,” she said. “I'm going to turn in.”

Turning her back to him, she proceeded to spread out her bed, trembling in every nerve, listening in sick suspense to hear what he would do.

He made no move at all, and she was obliged to look at him. It was too dark for her to read his expression. He finally got up, grunting with stiffness. He seemed to hesitate a moment, then turned to his own bed.

“He did not want me very much!” Ann thought bitterly.

Chako prepared his bed with a certain ostentatious air that was not lost on Ann. If he desired to suggest to her how keen he was for his bed, it must mean that he had no intention of sleeping if he could avoid it.

Having gone to the lake to wash and drink, he lay down with his back to her. Ann was in a fever of anxiety because she could not see what had become of the gun. Apparently he had slipped it under the edge of his bed.

They lay in their blankets, feet to the lake, with a distance of about twenty feet separating them. The moon came up over the cliffs and flooded their little camping place with her level rays. Ann could see better now. Sleep was far from her eyes. By and by Chako rolled over, and his face became visible to her as a pale, oval patch. His eyes were but two pools of shadow in it, and she could not tell if they were open or shut. Presumably, however, they were open, and were straining to discover if her eyes were open.

Should she let him know that she was awake? Not unless he made some further move.

She watched him, and with a dull pain tried to figure out in her mind what it was that made men so passionately bent on destruction. She could understand how anybody, man or woman, could get started wrong; but what was it in human nature that forced a man, once started wrong, so blindly and insanely to hold to his course? Why was it, when he was wrong, that honesty and love maddened him, instead of curing him? It was too difficult. She had to give it up.

After a long while—she could not have told how long—she saw Chako, with infinite caution, raise himself on his elbow. Her heart rose in her throat.

“What's the matter?” she asked quietly.

He caught his breath sharply, and dropped back.

“Thought I heard something moving about,” he muttered.

Nothing more was said. Ann feared that Chako must know now that she was aware of his murderous intentions. Henceforth it must be a duel between them to see who could stay awake the longer. To-night the advantage was with Ann, because Chako was dog-weary.

The minutes dragged by leadenly. Ann was conscious of a weak fatigue that threatened tears. She had no desire for sleep. Her eyes were propped open; but she knew she must sleep. She concentrated all her faculties upon listening for Chako's breathing. The night was still enough, except for the rumble of the torrent. She imagined at last that she heard Chako's breathing settle deep and slow. Even so, he might be feigning.

Ann in her turn arose in her bed, but in a different manner from Chako. She sat bolt upright.

There was no answering move, no sound, from Chako. Still, he might be leading her on. She threw the blankets off her, and stood up. Still no move from him! With a thickly beating heart she took a few steps toward him. Her feet were bare.

He was certainly asleep. She could see his face pretty clearly in the moonlight. Not only were his eyes closed, but the lines of his face were softened; he could hardly feign that.

There is not much difference in men asleep—or dead. Ann saw only the weary youth, and nothing of the hellish spirit that animated him waking. An intolerable longing made her breast tight. If she could but have him so!

She turned back to her own bed, prepared to sleep now; but she was arrested by the picture framed in the opening of the trees. With the moon in her eyes, the lake no longer appeared steely and glimmering, but had become gray and vague. There were shadowy lines across it, which denoted the gradually quickening current. One could hear the water sucking around the stones alongshore, as it was drawn off toward the inferno around the point.

Below Ann, in the immediate foreground, lay the canoe, full of moonlight, and presenting all its shadows toward her. In the middle of it rose the pursy bag of gold, tied tightly about its middle, with the top half flopping over.

That was the focus of the whole scene. That was what arrested Ann's eyes, and drove the thought of sleep out of her head. The source of all her agony—there squatted the insensate thing! There was something unspeakably loathsome in its aspect, the lank end lolling over against the fat stomach.

The sight of it suddenly enraged and sickened Ann. A flame was lighted in her vitals that maddened her with pain. She ceased to be a reasonable creature. The beastly thing! Her fingers curved like claws with the desire to rend it.

There it lay for the moment unprotected. What a chance! If only Chako did not waken!

A vivid picture of the storm of waters around the point sprang before Ann's eyes. She had only to launch the canoe for it to be lost beyond power of recovery. True, the boat was their means of salvation, too; and Chako would certainly kill her if she lost him his gold. What matter? How gladly she could die if she first destroyed that!

She glanced fearfully over her shoulder. Chako slept like a dead man. She stepped down softly in her bare feet. The canoe was drawn up on the shingle for half its length. She pitted her strength against its weight. Under ordinary circumstances she could never have stirred it, but nerved with a passion as she was, she succeeded in moving it an inch.

She could not push it over the shingle, for fear of waking Chako. She had to lift the end an inch at a time; but with every inch she moved it, a little more of the weight was taken up by the water under the stern. It was a slow job. Her back cracked under the strain. If only Chako did not wake!

Midway in her labors she happened to notice the two paddles lying in the bottom. Obeying a subconscious prompting, she reached in for them, and laid them down on the shore.

Finally the canoe floated. Ann thrilled with a terrible satisfaction; but it was not yet out of Chako's reach. She crept slowly into the icy water, pushing it, careful to make no splash. The pebbly bottom dropped away quite steeply—ankle-deep, knee-deep, thigh-deep, waist-deep, Finally, gathering up all her strength, she shoved the light craft out into the swift current, and a wild, triumphant cry broke from her lips.

Chako awoke with a jump, and instantly came leaping down with a roar of rage. He plunged into the lake. Ann fled aside from him. He disregarded her. He forged through the impeding water with arms outstretched. Flinging himself in bodily, he swam. In a score of powerful strokes he reached the canoe, caught hold of the gunwale, and, with the trick of a practiced canoeist, swung himself aboard.

He searched frantically in the bottom for a paddle. Seeing that there was none, another dreadful cry of rage escaped him. Half beside himself, he squatted in the bottom of the canoe and paddled with his hands. The canoe answered sluggishly to the impulse, but the current had her now. She was carried down, slowly at first, gaining a little speed with every yard.

Ann's heart failed her. She caught up one of the paddles on the shore, and flung it toward him with all her might. It whirled around, and flapped in the water far short of him. It was useless to him.

The canoe was fairly in the grip of the current now, moving relentlessly toward the hoarse bellow of the inferno around the corner. Ann kept pace with it, scrambling over the rocks along the shore, tearing at her hair, and screaming witlessly:

“Come back! Come back! Come back!”

Chako soon saw that his efforts were useless. He stood up in the canoe in an attitude of tragic despair, an arm over his head. Then he dived in.

It appeared as if he had waited too long. Canoe and man were now entering into the funnel which gathered all the water of the lake to a point, preparatory to discharging it down that fearful chute. Chako could not possibly win back to the shore he had left. His only hope lay in a rocky promontory lower down, whose base was washed by the deep current; but the surface of the rock was as smooth as if it had been sculptured.

Ann saw the rocky promontory. With a superhuman effort she reached it in time, and, flinging herself down upon it, dug in her toes, and reached down. She caught Chako's arms as his finger nails scratched the smooth surface. Chako wound his arms about her arms, and pulled himself out of the water. At the moment Ann was no more to him than something to pull himself out by.

The instant he gained a foothold he dropped her, and set off, crouching, running, scrambling up over the broken rocks to the top of the cañon wall. Ann followed, breathless.

Below them the canoe was fairly launched on that strange, smooth slide of water. It glided down in the moonlight with elegant grace, its fat little passenger squatting amidships like a baby—holding on tightly, one would swear. Where the water boiled up at the foot of the slide, the canoe appeared to leap bodily into the air, its dark shape silhouetted against the white foam. Then, apparently, it was overwhelmed; but it immediately appeared below, still dancing madly and lightly amid the flung-up waters. It passed out of sight around the bend in the walls.

Chako, Ann trailing after, gained the top of the low cliff, where the way was comparatively smooth and clear. The two of them ran across the rock floor, cutting off the first bend, and came to the lip of the cañon farther along.

The waters were in full turmoil here, and the roar of it rose up with stunning force. The moon did not shine into this hole, but Ann dimly apprehended the gigantic billows, undulating in a strange, savage regularity, ripped and laced with white. Again, for an instant, she saw the dark, slender shape of the canoe leaping over the billows, like a horse over successive barriers. It seemed to stand fairly on end, half its length out of water; then it passed out of sight around the next bend.

Chako had run on, and she started to follow; but her unnatural strength failed her at last. She fell headlong and lay still, unable to get up.

By and by she heard Chako coming slowly back. She instinctively scrambled to her feet, unmindful of the pains that racked her body. She saw him approaching in the moonlight, his arms hanging, his head sunk and thrust forward. All little feelings passed away from her. She thought that her hour had come, and braced herself to meet it.

She was squarely in his path. She looked at him, spread her arms wide, and said:

“Now kill me!”

Like lightning, Chako's clenched hands went over his head. He showed his gritting teeth, and she could hear the suck of his breath between them. She kept her eyes fixed on his.

The blow never descended. His arms dropped again, and with a groan he started running away from her—running back toward their camp.

Ann remained standing in the same spot, all wrought up and exalted. She supposed he had gone to get his gun. It was only two hundred yards or so back to their camp; but the moments passed, and she did not hear him coming back. The exaltation of her spirit slowly failed her, and her broken body reasserted its claim. She sank down on the rocky floor again, trembling, her breast bursting with pent-up sobs.

Once the first sob escaped her, every vestige of self-control failed her. She lay shaken and praying that Chako might come quickly and end it.

Gradually the conviction was forced on her that he was not coming back. She was too much exhausted now to care whether he did or not. She was incapable of going to look for him. She lay inert where she was.

The passage of the hours signified nothing to her. Her teeth chattered, but what was cold? If she had any conscious impulse, it was to drag herself to the lip of the cañon, and drop over; but she lacked the energy of mind to carry it into effect.

XXVI

It was a cloudy dawn. In the first half hour of day, when the world is like a gray ghost of itself, Ann dragged herself to her feet, and started stumbling back toward the camp. Body and soul, she felt completely numb—a woman as good as dead, reluctantly forced on by a pair of alien legs.

From the cañon rose the crashing of the waters undiminished. In fair weather and foul, until the earth itself perished, that futile uproar was bound to go on. There seemed to be a mirthful undercurrent in its bellowing that caused Ann to shudder.

She picked her way down over the broken rocks. Her bare feet were bruised and cut, but that was the least of her troubles. As she approached the trees, she saw that Chako was not there. His bed and his gun were gone.

Instantly she was attacked by a wild terror that showed she was not dead yet. There were still new torments to be undergone. To be abandoned there in the empty land! Her heart stood still at the terrible prospect.

She ran wildly this way and that among the trees, crying for him, well knowing how useless it was. He had gone and taken his things—his bed, his gun, his ax. Only her bed and her boots were lying there, and some utensils by the fire.

In her panic she overlooked what must otherwise instantly have caught her attention—a scrap of rag pinned with a knife to the tree above her bed. Before she saw this, she had experienced a whole lifetime of agony in a few moments.

She flew to it. On it was scribbled a message of three words:

Cross the portage.

Ann quieted down. Evidently he was waiting for her on the other side. She immediately set about preparing to follow.

There was bread left from the night before. She forced herself to eat some of it, though it choked her. With pain and difficulty she succeeded in pulling on her boots. She rolled her bed into as compact a bundle as possible, and slung it across her back. Frying pan and cooking pot she carried in her hand.

She set forth. She would scarcely have been able to follow that dim trail unaided, but as soon as she started she discovered that Chako, preceding her, had blazed a tree with his ax every ten feet or so. She was enormously comforted by this. He was certainly waiting for her, she thought, and for a mile or so she scarcely felt the pain in her feet.

The portage was five miles long and very rough. To the broken Ann each mile seemed twice as long as the mile before it. The remembered landmarks appeared more and more slowly. She had no food except a little more of the stale bread, which slie could not force down without water, and she had forgotten to bring water.

The last mile of all was simply interminable. It seemed to Ann that she must have used the whole day in her passage; yet when she got to the cliff that marked the other side, the sun was still low in the sky. She had not been more than two hours on the way.

She went down through that curious fissure in the rock with a cold hand on her breast, thinking of the bears that frequented the place. From the foot of the cliff it was only fifty yards or so to the embarking place on the river. She covered it with her heart in her mouth. She was not at all sure, now, that she would find Chako waiting.

She burst through the last trees with eyes straining. A glance showed her that he was not there—that there was nothing of his there. She sank down, covering her head with her arms to shut out the sight of that emptiness that must be faced alone.

Chako was gone, but there were fresh evidences of his handiwork here. Floating in the backwater, fastened by a, line to a tree, was a little raft made of four logs lashed to two crosspieces, with a floor of poles on top. On it was placed the grub box that they had cached in this place, and alongside the grub box lay a paddle. Searching among these things, Ann found another scrap of rag under the paddle, with a similar laconic message scribbled on it:

Float down to Hairy Tom's camp.

Ann could not weep. The source of her tears was dried up. She sat down on the shore with a stony air. How characteristic of Chako was that brief, cruel message! So he had abandoned her! True, he had taken what measures he could to insure her safety, but he had abandoned her.

She tried to be fair. What else could she expect of him, having destroyed what was dearest to him in the world? In his own eyes he had every excuse for abandoning her.

In her lowest depths, however, Ann never regretted what she had done to the gold. A certain feeling of righteousness upheld her. Ah, but the grinding ache in her breast!

It occurred to her that Chako could not long have finished making that raft. Having prepared everything for her departure, it was possible that he might be keeping himself out of sight somewhere near. She threw back her head and called:

“Chako! Chako! Chako!”

Her voice was mockingly tossed back to her from the yellow cliffs.

Perhaps, if she waited there all day, he would come back; but it did not seem likely. If she waited, and he did not come, she would be forced to spend the night completely cut off from her kind. At that thought the nameless terror gripped Ann's breast. She had her own courage, but it was not that sort of courage. At the mere thought of the creeping silence of twilight she began to shake.

She knew she was something less than fifty miles above the Grand Forks, where Hairy Tom, the queer solitary, had pitched his tent. There was a swift current the whole way. It was scarcely more than eight o'clock now, and if she started at once she was bound to arrive before dark.

There were rapids in the Stanley River, but deep rapids. So long as she kept in the center of the stream, no harm could come to her, beyond a wetting. The logs of her little raft were cunningly and stoutly lashed with a thin, strong tracking line.

If she wished to arrive before dark, she must start at once. It was agonizing to have to leave that spot, believing Chako to be near, yet her fears drove her—her fears, and perhaps her common sense. She could not help her blind, instinctive yearning for Chako, but common sense told her that she must tear him out of her breast, and the sooner the better for her peace of mind.

She put a foot on the raft, and drew it back again. She walked up and down the shore, on the rack of indecision. Common sense told her that the wild Chako, having taken to flight, would never allow himself to be caught. There were a hundred good reasons why she should go; but it was none the less hard.

Her attention was caught by a little green object lazily circling in an eddy of the backwater. With amazement she recognized it as a splintered fragment of the gunwale of Chako's canoe. The ends of the wood were ground into fibers. It was significant of what had happened in the cañon. By what irony of fate had it been cast up almost at her feet? Chako had probably seen it. How it would enrage him!

Finally, with a groan, Ann untied the rope, threw her bed on the raft, and stepped after it. Refusing to think any longer, she caught up the paddle and desperately drove her unwieldy craft out into the swift current.

Once the current gripped it, the die was cast. On a raft one could not go back upstream.

 

The sun was low when she came in sight of the wide expanse of sand that marked the meeting of the rivers. Hairy Tom's brown tent was pitched in the middle of it, and the old man himself was visible, a tiny black figure, in front of the tent. He must have seen Ann as soon as she saw him, for he stood there motionless while she was drawing near, his face turned toward her.

The Rice River had now fallen, while the Stanley almost filled its banks. Consequently the Stanley held possession of the channel, and Ann, borne on its triumphant flood, was in danger of being carried right by the sand bank where she wished to land.

Hairy Tom ran to the water's edge and shouted instructions, which she could not hear. He started to launch his canoe, in order to come to her assistance, but Ann finally succeeded in driving her stubborn craft from the flowing water into the standing water, almost rolling under in the impact. A few minutes later she grounded on the sand.

The old man was unchanged, with his neatly combed locks hanging to his shoulders, and his rusty cutaway coat pinned across at the neck. He was evidently delighted to see her, but his eyes were big with astonishment.

“Where's Chako?” he demanded.

“Back there,” said Ann.

Ann had foreseen questions, of course. What had happened she regarded as nobody's business but hers and Chako's. Still, she knew something must be told, to forestall the marvelous and lying stories that would otherwise be set in circulation. She had resolved to tell as little as possible.

“Do you mean he's dead?” asked Hairy Tom solicitously.

“No,” said Ann. “We had a bad time. We lost our canoe in the cañon.”

“But why did he let you come down alone?”

“It was my own wish,” said Ann evasively. “No doubt he will follow before very long.”

“You quarreled?” said Hairy Tom.

Ann was silent. Useless to deny that!

The old man looked upon her silence as a sufficient answer.

“Sho!” he said regretfully. “Chako is a skittish colt, but I didn't think he'd quarrel with you. Has he got grub?”

“He cannot have much,” said Ann.

“But he has his gun, his ax, his bed?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then he'll be all right,” said Hairy Tom confidently. “You couldn't down Chako in this country. He's as clever as a fox.”

How this comforted Ann! She hid her face from the old man, lest he should see too much.

“Where did you leave him?” asked Hairy Tom.

“At the mouth of the Ouananeca cañon,” replied Ann.

“Well, if he don't come down within a day or two, I'll paddle up and have a look,” said Hairy Tom. “He'd have a time to quarrel with me!” he added, with a chuckle. “I'm the amiablest man north of fifty-three.”

Ann's heart was very soft and warm toward the old man.

“But here we stand talking,” cried Hairy Tom, “and I'll bet you're clean tuckered out! You look it. Sit ye down! Sit ye down! I'll have some grub directly. I was just about to get my supper when I see you come floatin' down river like a little water spider.”

Ann sat down at the door of the tent, while the old man busied himself making a fire.

“You come just right,” he said. “I have a nice fish that I took on a night line this morning. All day I kep' it fresh in the cold water.”

During the preparation of the meal, and while they ate, Tom maintained the flow of his friendly chatter. It was exactly what the numbed Ann needed—human speech, friendly, thoughtless small talk. She had forgotten how sweet it was to the ear. Chako had had so little to say, and what he said was so charged with significance for her; but with the old, man she could relax.

While he talked, the tears rolled down Ann's cheeks. He pretended not to notice them.

“I tell you it give me a turn when I see you comin' down the river all alone! First off I couldn't see the raft at all, but just little you, sitting on the water, like. Such a little thing all alone on the river! A woman, too! In all my years up north I never seen the like.”

He wanted to know all about his friend Joe Grouser, and Ann told him, suppressing, however, all mention of the gold.

“So Joe's gone!” he said. “Well, well! It was a good end, now. It makes an old man thoughtful. I was a lot older than Joe, and my end will not be long put off.”

By and by Ann asked him anxiously how she could get on from there.

“Oh, there's always some way,” said Hairy Tom cheerfully. “If need be, I could paddle you down to the Rocky Mountain portage, put you across, and build you a raft on the other side. Then you could float down to one of the posts in Athabasca; but I reckon you'd rather go out to Fort Edward, where you started from.”

Ann nodded.

“Well, as it happens, Frank Bower will be coming up from the portage any day now. Bower is the feller that come down the Rice River just a day or so ahead of you. He had a scow load of supplies for the surveying party in the cañon down there. Soon as he delivered it, he was going back light in a canoe. I looked for him before this, but of course, his season's work being done, he's nachelly takin' things easy.”

“Do you think he'll have room for me?” asked Ann.

“Sure! He's got a twenty-foot dugout, and only a breed boy to help him paddle. A good tripper. Bower is, too—one of the best. You'll be safe with him. A good-hearted man, too—not like Chako.”

In spite of herself, Ann could not let this pass. “Chako's all right,” she said. “It was my fault that we quarreled.”

He looked at her queerly.

“Chako quarrels with everybody,” he said.

“I don't care!” said Ann. “I have no complaint against him.”

The old man looked away, and hummed a few bars between his teeth. He did not mean to be rude. It was merely that he required a moment or two to adjust himself to this situation.

He was soon launched in his stride again. It appeared that this Bower was quite a hero of his. He had tales of Bower's prowess in the big rapids of the Spirit, and in the deep snows.

“He's a humorous feller, too,” Hairy Tom went on. “Me and him has always got to have our joke. When he come up this time, he said he was goin' to kidnap me and carry me outside and get my hair cut!”

To the simple old man this was the richest joke in the world. He laughed until the tears stood in his eyes.

Like all men who live much alone, Hairy Tom was a philosopher in his innocent style.

“I ain't been out in twenty-five years,” he said. “They tell me there's great changes, what with the automobiles, the flying machines, and all. They say you can shoot messages through the air, now, without any wires. I like to hear the fellows talk, but I don't believe the half of it. I ain't curious to see these new things. No, I'm too old for changes. What I like about this country is, it never changes. This is my life. I always used to plan to go out at last when I got ready to die, but law, I guess dyin's much the same one place as another. Seems like it wouldn't be stickin' by the land if I carried my old bones outside; so I'll die on the ground I've slep' on nigh fifty years.”

Hairy Tom insisted on Ann's taking his tent, while he slept under his canoe. She lay comforted by the sense of his nearness. The queer old fellow was both kindred and kind. She breathed a little prayer of thankfulness for such a friend.

All the tears Ann had not been able to shed before, flowed now. Her heart was desolated; but the hard, desperate numbness was gone. Her heart might be broken, but it was a human heartbreak. At least she felt herself human again, and in a world of her own kind.

XXVII

On the second morning following, Ann was baking bread in front of the tent when she was thrilled by an excited cry from Hairy Tom, who had gone down the shore to visit his night lines. Her eyes flew up the Stanley River, where her heart was, but there was nothing to be seen there. Coming up the Spirit River, however, was a little object creeping alongshore, which presently resolved itself into a dugout, with two men paddling it. A long-legged dog accompanied them, walking gravely along the shore.

“Frank Bower!” cried Hairy Tom.

Their progress was very slow against the current, and Ann had plenty of time to size up the outfit. She could see little of the man in the stern, however, because he was masked by the bow paddler, obviously a breed.

They paused opposite, to allow the dog to jump aboard, then came paddling over to the sand bank. In no little trepidation Ann awaited the stepping ashore of the man upon whom her present fate so largely depended.

He proved to be a stalwart, upstanding Irishman, about forty years old, with red hair curling close to his head, and eyes as blue as the June sky. The first glance of those Irish eyes inspired Ann with confidence. She was in luck again!

A few words sufficed to explain her plight to Bower. His eyes warmed with compassion. He instantly adopted a solicitous and protective attitude, which under other circumstances Ann might have resented; but in her present forlorn state it comforted her.

Bower did not have to be asked to take her to Fort Edward. He took it for granted that she was to go with him. He even proposed to drown the unfortunate, harmless mongrel, that she might not be discommoded by the dog's presence in the dugout; but Ann quickly vetoed that. When she tried to suggest paying him for the trip, the man was deeply hurt and angry, and she had much ado to smooth him down.

Ann had not been long enough in the north to become accustomed to the effect that the sight of her wrought in the breast of a lonely man. Hairy Tom, primming up his lips, and making queer old-man faces, saw what was going to happen.

They ate a meal on the shore. Bower strongly commended Ann's baking, which, to tell the truth, was not up to her standard. His eyes brooded on her continually. Pain is apt to make one selfish; and Ann, having made up her mind that she could trust Bower, gave little thought to him. Hairy Tom was frankly impatient with her, or with Bower, or with both of them. At any rate, he was not getting the pleasure out of Bower's visit that he had looked forward to.

Immediately after they had finished. Bower said he must push on in order to make a certain camping spot that night. Old Tom was as disappointed as a child. He considered this a mere excuse of Bower's to get Ann to himself. He pished and pshawed and shrugged, as much as to say that he washed his hands of them both.

Bower would not hear of Ann's wielding a paddle. He constructed a nest of blankets for her amidships, facing him. He handed her in like a princess. How different from her other traveling companion! Ann thought of this, but her heart did not soften toward Bower as much as it might have done.

With repeated farewells and many last messages, they pushed off. Hairy Tom accompanied them, walking along the edge of the sand, until he was stopped by a little tributary which came in on that side. They left him standing there, rather a piteous figure, with his gray hair blowing in the wind and a slightly resentful expression on his face, like a child who has been left out of it.

“Are you quite comfortable?” asked Bower anxiously.

“Oh, yes,” said Ann. “I'm not accustomed to this. I feel that I ought to be doing my part.”

“With two men aboard to paddle for you?” said Bower, a little shocked.

“I'm afraid you have old-fashioned ideas about women,” observed Ann, smiling.

“Well, I think you're an old-fashioned sort of girl,” said Bower acutely.

Ann shrugged.

“I can't abide new women or new ideas about women,” declared Bower. “The old ideas of working for them and fighting for them are good enough for me!”

Ann ought to have thanked God for sending such a man in her extremity, but instead she found herself resenting every stroke of the paddles that drove her a little farther from the place where she had left her heart.

 

That slab-sided little steamboat, the Tewkesbury L. Swett, with heir crooked smokestack and her wheezing engine, was being borne down on the current of the Campbell River at what seemed a surprising speed for a craft of her crazy build; but it was the river that was doing the work. As Captain Wes Trickett was fond of saying, she had to hump herself to keep ahead of it.

Out on the deck, forward of the shed, Frank Bower and Ann, the only two passengers, were sitting on camp stools. Ann had the capstan at her back.

Twelve days of tripping together had considerably relaxed their attitude toward each other. There was now a comfortable suggestion of custom and confidence in it. They were able to be silent together without constraint. Bower had lost a good deal of his old-fashioned gallantry, but had gained something truer and deeper. The soul of the man looked out of his eyes when they rested on Ann. Ann's face was pale and downcast.

Bower broke a long silence to say:

“We'll be at Fort Edward in about an hour. I suppose you won't be sorry to get there!”

“Nor glad, either,” said Ann.

“The steamboat will lie there overnight,” Bower went on. “To-morrow she goes down to Ching's Landing, to connect with the stage.” He hesitated with a painful air, and finally blurted out: “Will you be going down on her?”

“I don't know,” said Ann in a tormented voice. “I suppose I ought.”

He looked at her solicitously, but was unable to find the right words to speak. There was a long silence. At length he said in a low, moved voice:

“This has been a wonderful trip to me, this last twelve days. I can scarcely believe that such luck fell to me—to be able to look at you all day long, and talk to you. You cannot know what it means to a man who never before had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with a lady.”

“I am not a lady,” said Ann, with a wry smile.

“You are what I call a lady,” he said gravely. “Paddling upstream has never seemed such light work before, nor the little lakes so pretty. You pointed out new beauties to me that I had never seen, often as I have gone that way. The only thing that troubled my happiness was that you were not at ease in your mind. I wish I could have changed that!”

Another silence.

“It has changed everything in my life,” Bower went on. “I see the meaning of things I used to mock at.”

“Oh, don't!” murmured Ann.

“Let me talk,” he said with a grin. “All my life I've been bottled up, sort of. It 'll do me good. Oh, I haven't any false hopes!”

She made no further effort to restrain him.

“I suppose this is what they call love,” he said with a confused air. “I never expected to speak that word. I never expected it to come to me—and so I made out to mock at it. That was one of the things I've always mocked at; so I can't speak the language properly now. But it's true—I love you!”

“Oh!” murmured Ann. “I have suffered too much myself to wish to make others suffer unnecessarily. If only this had not happened!”

“Bless your heart!” he said with his grin. “It isn't going to do me any harm! It 'll make a man of me, if anything will.” His courage failed him in the act of vaunting it. His head went down. After a while he said, timidly and longingly: “Of course you couldn't marry a man like me—”

“No,” Ann replied gently.

He took her up quickly.

“Of course not. It's not to be expected; but you see I had to ask you before you went away. I was so scared to ask you that if I hadn't done it, it would have made me out a coward to myself.”

“If I only could!” said Ann.

“That's all right! That's all right!” he told her, much flustered. “I understood all along I wasn't good enough.”

“Far too good,” said Ann. “When I think of your kindness and gentleness to me, day after day, it is almost more than I can bear to have to hurt you now!”

“But you mustn't think of it that way. You must think of the benefit you conferred on me.” While his tongue spoke what he considered the proper thing, his confused and longing eyes pleaded in a language of their own. Finally he said, in honest tones of pain: “You say you can't marry me. Well, will you tell me why you can't?”

“I do not love you.”

“I know; but even so—” He struggled with what he thought ought not to be spoken, but it would have way. “Oh, I know I ought not to ask you, but I can't help myself. It means such a hell of a lot to me!”

“You can ask me anything you want,” said Ann simply.

Bower looked straight ahead of him with a red and tormented face. His tongue stumbled on.

“Well, the most natural explanation of what happened up there is—is that Chako took advantage of you—that he mistreated you. My God, that wouldn't be your fault! Is that why you think you can't marry me?”

“No,” said Ann. “There is no truth in that.”

Bower let his head fall.

“Oh!” he said, in a flat tone. “I didn't want to insult you.”

“I am not insulted,” replied Ann quickly.

“I almost wish it was true!” he went on. “Don't misunderstand me. You see, that would be something that I could make up to you, rude as I am. I wanted you to know that it wouldn't make any difference in my feelings for you if it was true—though I'd kill him for it!”

“It is not true,” said Ann. “Look at me. You must believe that.”

He refused to look at her.

“Oh, I believe you,” he muttered with hanging head. “Then I guess the reason you won't marry me must be because you have a fancy for—for—well, for somebody else.”

“Yes,” said Ann.

“I'll say no more,” said Bower. “You know you can always count on me.”

XXVIII

The arrival of the steamboat from up the river was not a matter of great moment in the settlement, and only half a dozen or so of the inveterate loafers were attracted to the bank to see her make fast. These few received a shock when they saw Ann step ashore under conduct of Frank Bower. Their faces confessed it. Nobody needed to be told that there was a story behind this. It promised a sensation greater that any that had transpired at Fort Edward that season.

As soon as Ann and Bower set off along the road, the onlookers scattered to spread the news. The school-teacher was back, not with Chako Lyllac, but with Frank Bower!

The settlement was unchanged. Two or three more of the appallingly ugly yellow pine shacks had been run up, that was all. The mud, the stumps, the old log buildings, and the new ones of sawn lumber, were just the same.

The place sickened Ann a little with the painful old feelings it stirred up. Out of that shack Chako had run with blazing, laughing eyes in pursuit of the little squeaking man in the store suit. In this store, while Chako bought groceries at one counter, she bought clothes at another, thrilling with a marvelous secret. Years seemed to have passed over her head since she had left Fort Edward. Then she had been a green girl; now she was a woman with life behind her.

On the platform in front of Maroney's the usual little crowd was loitering. One and all, they turned and stared at Ann as at a phenomenon from the skies.

“The damned rubbernecks!” muttered Bower.

Cal Nimmo was not among them. Inside the hotel the newcomers ran into Noll Voss. His jaw dropped. He stared at Ann with a sickly hatred, and sidled out of the door.

Maroney, with his upstanding pompadour and his greasy smile, appeared from somewhere. Stepping behind the rough desk, he shoved the dog's-eared register toward the two newcomers.

“One room or two?” he asked slyly.

Bower's face turned crimson.

“Two rooms, damn you!” he replied. “And if I hear another word of that sort—”

“Well, no offense,” said Maroney impudently, feeling safe in his own house.

Ann was not at all sensitive to these evidences of her changed status in the settlement. What did it matter?

Maroney showed her upstairs to the room she had had before. She greatly desired to know if Nellie Nairns was still in the house, but did not like to ask him, for fear of provoking an insolent answer.

After he had put her in her room, he presently returned, and shoved her old suit case inside the door. Ann opened it with a queer sort of sensation, that she would find her old self inside; but it was only the husk of her old self, the woman's dress. What was the use of changing her outer garments? She would not get that old self back again.

She sat down by the window, where she had looked out so often, and listened. At present all her faculties were turned inward. Some time before morning she had to come to a decision. Within her, common sense was vocal.

“You must go to-morrow,” it told her. “The incident is closed. Why prolong the agony? The only thing for you to do is to go to work and forget. You staked everything on Chako. Well, you lost! Face it! Don't be a bad loser. To hang around where you're not wanted would only open the way for unbearable humiliations.”

So much for common sense. On the other hand, her instincts were not articulate, but they exerted a terrible pull. All the good reasons in the world made no difference. Feeling that pull, Ann cried in pain:

“I can't leave here! I can't! I can't!”

By and by Maroney banged rudely on her door, and called out that Cal Nimmo wanted to see her downstairs.

“Even if I should stay, I can't stay in this house,” Ann thought. “This man is bent on making it impossible for me.”

She went downstairs with mixed feelings. She liked Cal Nimmo, his tough-mindedness, his candor. She desired him for a friend; but she had defied him in going north, and now she expected to have to face his anger.

He was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. To her relief, he was not angry, but greeted her with just the old, hard, skeptical, kindly grin.

“Howdy? Howdy?” he cried, offering her an enormous paw.

Ann understood, with gratitude, that by this public recognition Cal Nimmo was definitely putting his personal influence at her service.

When he got a good look at Ann, his face changed a little. He pulled his nose and scowled. One would almost have said that compassion appeared in that grim and battered physiognomy.

“Where can we go for a bit of a talk?” he grumbled. “I swear you've got them all jumping with excitement like beans in the pot!”

“Let's go into the dance hall and sit at a table by ourselves,” suggested Ann.

“All right!” said Cal, with a broader grin. “Can't hurt you now that you've lost your reputation!”

Ann laughed. There was something so sane about Cal. He had a way of making things seem not so desperate.

The dance hall was fairly well filled, but the atmosphere was stodgy. The men and the girls sat around in listless attitudes. All the zip seemed to have departed from the place.

“Nellie Nairns has gone,” remarked Ann.

Cal nodded.

“Yes, Nell cut about all the hay there was in Fort Edward, and went in search of fresh pastures.”

They sat at a table a little apart from other people, and looked at each other afresh.

“I'm glad you're willing to be friends,” said Ann, with a wry smile. “I hardly expected it.”

Cal wagged his raised hand, as much as to say:

“No use bringing up the past!”

A silence fell between them.

“Well, why don't you question me?” Ann asked at last.

“I've already learned from Bower what you told him,” said Cal coolly. “I don't reckon you'd tell me any more.”

Ann let it go at that. Another silence ensued. Then Cal asked, with his admirable directness:

“Why don't you marry some other man—naming no names?”

Ann had the comfortable feeling that she could be absolutely honest in dealing with this man, even though he might be opposed to her.

“That's one way out,” she replied, as coolly as himself; “but I think I'd rather teach school.”

“No doubt you're right,” said Cal. “I only mentioned it because it's what most women would do under the circumstances.”

He added significantly: “The steamboat goes down the river to-morrow—”

Ann interrupted him.

“Oh, don't let's get started on that again!” she said. “I know all you can say. I know 1 ought to go. The question is, can I bring myself to it?”

“Well,” said Cal dryly, “if I think you ought to go, and you think you ought to go, it might be the part of true friendship to make you go.”

Ann shook her head impatiently.

“What would prevent me from coming right back on the boat! No, if any good is to come of it, I must persuade myself to go.”

“That's pretty fine-drawn for me,” said Cal scornfully. “Look here! Let me give you a few plain-spoken reasons. Nellie Nairns is gone, and the fellows here are bored. When a gang of men gets in that condition, anything devilish can happen. As long as they believed you were a respectable woman, you were pretty safe from them; but they're only ordinary men. They have their own explanation as to why you went north with Chako Lyllac and came back with Frank Bower, and there's no budging them from it. According to their notions, you're fair game now. I put it blunt. The only way you could keep the gang off would be by accepting one of them as a protector.”

Ann shuddered.

“If only I knew that Chako was safe!” she murmured.

“Fudge!” said Cal, with brutal friendliness. “That's only an excuse. If you knew he was safe, you'd be more unwilling than ever to go.”

Ann hung her head.

“I assure you Chako's perfectly safe,” said Cal calmly. “If I didn't think so, I wouldn't be sitting quietly in camp. Nothing could kill Chako short of an avalanche; and he isn't in the mountains.”

Ann's eyes shone on Cal. It made him uneasy. He raised his voice a little.

“Let me put it to you even more plain. You might think, from the way Maroney received you, that I had given him a tip not to take you in, as I once threatened to do. That is not so. I never spoke to him about you. It is something quite different that is biting Maroney. Why does he act as if his house was too good for you, you may ask, and him keeping these girls here, who are certainly not lilies? Do you know why?”

Ann shook her head.

“Well, I'll tell you. Maroney collects a percentage of these girls' earnings. He is naturally sore about you. I see I don't have to go on.”

Ann's head was low.

“Oh, I must go!” she groaned. “Don't say any more to me now. Let me fight it out!”

The hard-headed old mayor of Fort Edward was guilty of a shameful softness.

“Sure, sure!” he murmured, and touched Ann's hand. Then he looked around in alarm, to see if anybody had noticed it. He raised his voice. “Lord, this joint is like a Quaker meeting. Let's get out!”

They left.

XXIX

In the morning Ann resumed her woman's dress and packed her suit case. She breakfasted in the hotel without speaking to anybody, and paid her bill to the sneering Maroney. The steamboat was announced to leave “some time or other in the forenoon,” and she made up her mind she might as well wait on board as anywhere else. She could screen herself from observation within the deck house. She set out.

Cal Nimmo was out on the platform. He came toward her with hand outstretched for the suit case. Ann drew it back.

“Please do not come with me,” she murmured. “I know you are my friend. I shall not forget you; but—but I would rather be alone.”

“That's all right,” said Cal quickly. He was not grinning. He lowered his voice. “I wish you luck, my girl,” he said deeply. “If it's any consolation to you, I think you are a corker. Chako Lyllac is a darned fool!”

They shook hands, and Ann hurried on alone.

She presently perceived that she was overtaking a group of men bound in the same direction, and moderated her pace. A second glance showed her that Frank Bower was among them, and her heart sank. Frank had bought a new store suit, which clung queerly to the bulges of his stalwart frame, and he was carrying a new suit case of imitation leather. The spirit was steadfast, but the flesh was weak, and he simply could not resist the opportunity of being with Ann day by day during the long river journey.

Ann stopped and stared sightlessly in a store window. The crafty, instinctive part of us is always on the watch to take an unfair advantage. The instinctive part of Ann used poor Bower's going as an excuse to start a new fight, dead beat as she was from fighting all night.

Because she didn't want to go, the fact that Bower was going rendered the trip well-nigh insupportable to her. How could she endure it, she asked herself, when Bower was so gentle, so chivalrous, glowing with such a deep and repressed passion— in a word, all that she longed for in another man? She told herself that she could not bear to hurt him day by day, but it was perhaps nearer the truth that she herself could not bear the implied contrast between Bower and Chako.

Cal Nimmo's suggestion recurred to her, too. Suppose that in a moment of weakness she took what she could get. Would she not regret it all the rest of her life?

As Ann stood there in inner confusion, her attention was caught by a woman who entered the store—a buxom, pleasant-faced young woman whom Ann had not seen before. “Young wife” was written large upon her. Ann recollected that a little way up the Campbell River there was a settlement of married people, which she had never visited. The woman's look of happiness and serenity made her a, little sick with envy.

Without thinking what she was doing, Ann followed the woman into the store. Ann bought some handkerchiefs she did not want, while she watched the other covertly. The young wife was well acquainted with everybody in the store. She looked so jolly and kind!

When she went out, Ann hurried after her, wholly in the grip of her instincts now. She overtook the woman.

“Excuse me,” she stammered. “I—I suppose you live here.”

“Why, yes—up the river a little piece,” said the woman, smiling. “Who are you?” Her face suddenly changed. “Why, you must be—”

“Ann Maury,” whispered Ann.

A curious mixture of feelings was to be seen in the woman's face—a strong curiosity, a formal disapproval, and a very informal sympathy. It was this last sparkle in her eyes that gave Ann courage to go on.

“I'm afraid you've been hearing stories about me,” she faltered.

The woman laughed in an embarrassed way.

“Well, they have been talking,” she said; “but I don't believe all I hear.”

“Do I look like a bad one to you?” asked Ann.

“No,” said the other promptly. “That's what I can't understand. What did you speak to me for?”

“I don't dare tell you now,” replied Ann in a low voice.

“Oh, go on!” said the woman. “There's nothing stand-offish about me.”

“Well, I was on my way to take the steamboat,” said Ann, “because I can't stay at the hotel. The men there—”

“I get you,” said the woman dryly.

“I don't want to go out on this trip,” Ann went on; “because—because”—she snatched at the first lie that presented itself—“because I'm expecting an important letter in the next mail. Then I saw you, and you looked so nice that I couldn't help speaking to you. I thought perhaps you would take me in for two weeks. Of course, I would pay you the same that I paid at Maroney's.”

The woman looked Ann up and down, and bit her lip reflectively.

“I don't know,” she said. “We live pretty rough up here.”

“Ah, what is that?” said Ann. “I've been sleeping on the ground for the last six weeks.”

“Yes, I know,” said the woman dryly, “We have a spare loft in our shack, but you'd have to go up and down on a ladder.”

“I wouldn't mind that,” declared Ann eagerly.

“I wouldn't mind having you,” said the woman. “You don't look as if you'd bite me, and it would be company; but I'm thinking my husband would cut up rough. He's a moral man,” she added with an engaging grin.

“Perhaps if he could see me—” ventured Ann.

“He has seen you.”

“Couldn't we go talk to him?”

“That wouldn't do any good. He'd feel obliged to take a moral stand if you put it to him.” The woman considered a while. “Come on!” she said at last. “I'll take a chance. He won't be home till night, and the boat will be gone then. I can talk him around.”

Ann's strained, white face softened and beamed. All her unregenerate instincts rejoiced because, after all, she had won out against common sense.

They proceeded to get acquainted as they walked on. It appeared that the name of Ann's new friend was Mrs. Cranmer. Her husband was Ed Cranmer, one of the proprietors of the store they had just left. She had a baby. Mrs. Cranmer insisted on carrying Ann's suit case part way, and Ann took her bundles.

Their path led them within a hundred feet of the spot where the steamboat was tied to the bank. Only her pilot house and her crooked stack showed above. She was getting up steam, and light wood smoke was floating from the stack.

The usual little crowd of men was standing about and sitting on the lumber. When Frank Bower saw Ann passing by, the other woman carrying her suit case, his honest face took on a comical expression of surprise and chagrin. Ann saw at once that he would never leave that day.

The Cranmer dwelling faced the river. It was of somewhat greater pretensions than its neighbors, having a porch in front and a dormer window in the roof. The Cranmers called it a bungalow. Like all the other shacks, it was built of rough-dressed pine, guiltless of paint.

Inside, partitions of the same rough boards divided the rooms. The furniture was of the scantiest description. Nevertheless, it was a woman's house, and Ann was sensible of a new atmosphere as soon as she entered the door.

The rosy eight-months-old baby blinded Ann to everything else. At the sight of him bouncing and crowing in the breed girl's arms, imperatively holding out his little arms for a white woman to take him, Ann melted like wax before the fire.

“Oh, let me hold him!” she cried.

She took the soft, wriggling little body in her arms, and walked up and down with the tears falling fast. The baby knew he had found a friend, and clung to her with a will. That the women might not see her tears, Ann went out on the porch, where she sat rocking and crooning and weeping, easing her hungry heart.

From that moment Mrs. Cranmer was Ann's friend and ally. They spent a comfortable day together. Ann told her new friend a little more than she had told Bower, but not much more. Mrs. Cranmer guessed more than Ann told her, and Ann did not mind having her know.

Just before midday they heard the piping whistle that announced the departure of the steamboat.

“Well, that's settled!” said Mrs. Cranmer, with a laugh.

Ed Cranmer came home to his supper with a sour face. He was a typical grocer's clerk, who only looked himself behind an apron. He already knew of Ann's meeting with his wife. Ann took herself out of the way while husband and wife had it out together. When she returned, Ed's manner toward her was still grudging, but it seemed to be taken for granted that Ann was to stay.

During the meal Ed retailed the day's gossip for his wife's benefit. The only item that interested Ann was that Frank Bower, after carrying his grip down to the steamboat, had carried it back to Maroney's again.

On the following afternoon the two women were seated in rocking-chairs on the little porch. Mrs. Cranmer was sewing, while Ann held the blessed baby. That baby was Ann's consolation and joy. The little form seemed to armor her breast against pain. When she held it, she knew peace again.

The Cranmer bungalow was built about a hundred feet back from the edge of the bank. A swath had been cut through the trees in front, and through this opening they looked out across the murky green flood, but could not see up or down the river.

There came a moment when conversation failed the two women. Ann was rocking slowly, thinking about nothing in particular, quietly recuperating her depleted forces. Suddenly, close to the shore, a light bark canoe shot into view, with Chako Lyllac paddling it.

Ann's heart stood still. Her peace and her new-found strength were shattered, and the old pain came winging back. She had forgotten it for the time being, and it dismayed her. It snatched her breath and sapped her courage. It seemed as if it must be more than her tired heart could endure.

This was what she had been secretly waiting for, but she felt only terror. How could she go through it all again? What would she not have given at that moment to be safely bound out on the stage?

Chako's head was up, his smooth cheeks glowing, his whole figure instinct with wellbeing. Unaware of being observed, he showed them in the first moment the quick, open look of a natural creature, missing nothing and giving nothing away. Then he turned his head and saw Ann. Instantly he drew the hard mask over his face, and looked away with the defiant, hangdog air she knew so well. He was carried out of their sight.

Mrs. Cranmer, without saying anything, glanced slyly and compassionately at Ann. Ann got up, and, handing the baby to his mother, passed into the house and climbed the ladder to her loft.

XXX

When Ann heard Ed Cranmer come home to his supper, she was forced to go downstairs again. She dreaded having to face his sharp, mean glance, but she had to know what was going on in the settlement. And then, after all, Ed would not tell the day's news before her, though he was clearly bursting with it. The meal was a torture to Ann.

Afterward the three of them sat out on the porch, in a constrained silence. Ann knew very well that Ed wanted to talk to his wife, but she would not leave them. To be sure, she could get it all out of Mrs. Cranmer the next day, but she did not see how she could get through the night without knowing. Yet her tongue seemed to be frozen in her throat. She could not ask a question.

While Ann sat there so composedly, she was inwardly torn by devils.

What would Chako do? Fly away back again, most likely, now that he knew she was still there. What could she do? Sit still until she learned that he had gone? Just sit still and do nothing? She would go mad!

But what could she do? It would be suicidal to go to the settlement after him. At the first suggestion of pursuit he would surely fly, if he had not already flown. Yet she knew that he would never come to her of his own will.

While Ann was being harried by such thoughts, the form of Chako rose over the edge of the bank in front of her. For one dreadful moment she thought she had gone mad in truth. Like lightning, she glanced at her two companions; but they saw him too.

She searched his face with her very soul. His daytime freshness was somewhat rubbed. He had probably been drinking in the settlement—that was to be expected. He wore the same defiant, hangdog look; but it told Ann nothing, for she knew he used that look to cover all sorts of feelings.

He touched his hat brim.

“Evening, Ed. Evening, Mrs. Cranmer. Want to speak to Miss Maury a minute—matter of business.”

Hearing those resonant tones, a little gruff with self-consciousness, Ann well-nigh swooned with delight. She accompanied Chako back to the edge of the bank, walking like a woman in a dream.

They stood there for a moment in silence. Chako, at a loss for words, scowled like a pirate.

“Well, haven't you something to say to me?” he mumbled at last.

She looked at him blankly.

“What should I say?” she whispered.

“Well, you owe me some money, don't you?” he suggested with a hardy air.

“Oh!” said Ann, with a feeble laugh. “Of course! I quite forgot. I'm so sorry!”

Her tongue gabbled, while her senses were reeling. So it was the money he had come for! Of course!

“It's in the house,” she stammered. “If—if you'll wait just a moment, I'll get it for you.”

She ran to the house. A strange need of haste drove her. Ed and his wife stared at her. Ann scrambled up the ladder, got the money, and came flying down again and out to Chako.

She thrust the roll of bills into his hands.

“Here!” she said. Inwardly she added: “Go! Go! I can't bear any more!”

Chako had to count the roll. Ann waited with averted head, holding herself tight.

“There's too much money here,” he said sullenly.

“Three hundred was the amount agreed on,” murmured Ann.

Her lips were stiff with repugnance at being forced to speak about money.

“But I didn't bring you all the way out.”

“There is the canoe—”

“Ah, you can't pay for that!” he said harshly. “That's not the point. You've got to have money enough to get home on. What you paid Bower to bring you out has got to be taken out of this. How much did you pay Bower?”

“Nothing,” said Ann.

“What?” cried Chako.

“He wouldn't take anything.”

Chako's face turned black.

“Oh, he wouldn't, wouldn't he? He was a nice, kind fellow, eh? Different from me, I suppose! He'd do everything you wanted him to! He'd let you walk all over him!”

“Oh, go!” murmured Ann, sick at heart. “You've got what you came for.”

“Not till I get to the bottom of this!” Chako said, low and furiously. “Maybe you paid him some other way!”

Ann started back toward the house.

“By God, I'll pay him, then!” Chako shouted after her, and leaped down the bank to his canoe.

Ann went back with a dazed air, passed the staring Cranmers without speaking, and climbed to her little loft again. She stood under the peak of the low roof, staring blindly. At first she was simply dazed and sickened by his brutality. Then the feeling stirred within her that after all there was something worse than a man's brutality—that was his disregard. A crazy little thought of joy lifted up its head. Chako jealous!

She seized it and strangled it—strangled it and stamped on the corpse. He was only drunk, and ready to quarrel with anybody about nothing. There was not a spark of feeling for her in his breast. To allow herself to suppose that there was, was simply to prepare for another shock such as she had had that night; and another would certainly finish her.

 

As Ann and the Cranmers were sitting down to breakfast next morning, the open doorway of the bungalow was darkened by the tall figure of Cal Nimmo. Ann's heart leaped into her throat. She instantly understood that this visit had a portent for her.

“Morning, folks,” said Cal affably. “Got grub enough for another?”

Cal was decidedly a person to be propitiated in Fort Edward, and Ed Cranmer and his wife jumped up, with smiles, to draw up a chair and to set a place at the table. Mrs. Cranmer helped him largely. Cal disposed of his viands handily, declined a second helping, sat back, and filled his pipe. Meanwhile Ann played with her untouched breakfast in a state of suspended animation.

Cal got his pipe going well.

“I really came to see Miss Maury,” he said; “but I want you folks to hear what I've got to say. There's been so much damned nonsense passed around, it's time a little truth was put in circulation.”

Ann's heart beat intolerably. She pushed her plate away.

“Now don't get excited, sister,” said Cal. “There's no call for it. Let me tell my story, and you'll see.”

“Go on!” said Ed impatiently.

Cal's eyes twinkled derisively upon him.

“Oh, it don't invalidate your overdue accounts, Ed. Last night Chako Lyllac was seen to set off up the river in his canoe. As he was back in half an hour or so, it was supposed that he had been here.”

“He was here,” said Ed.

“Ah! Well, he'd been drinking some before he came, and he drank some more when he came back. He went from bar to bar with that long-legged stride of his, like a lone moose, speaking to nobody. He came into Bagger's place. I was there, and a lot of other fellows were buttressing the drink counter. Frank Bower was there.”

Ann half rose from her chair and dropped back again.

“Easy, my girl!” said Cal. “There was no murder done. You all know what a peaceable fellow Big Frank is. Why, I can scarcely ever recollect when he got into a fight. He'll do anything to avoid a fight, and he's respected, just the same, because all men know his pluck and endurance on the trail. Well, Chako marches up to him and says:

“'I been lookin' for you.'

“'Well,' says Frank, 'I ain't been keepin' out of your way.'

“Chako ups and throws a little wad of bills in Frank's face.

“'There's your pay!' he shouts. Nobody knew what he was referrin' to. Nobody knows yet. 'And now you're paid I'm goin' to smash your face open!' Chako says.

“Some of us grabbed hold of Chako at that. When Chako gets drunk and raging, he's like a mad buffalo. Nothing can withstand him; and we thought Frank Bower was too good a man to make meat for Chako. He's near twenty years older than Chako, anyhow; but Frank, he says, cool as you please:

“'Take your hands off me, men. This cub needs a lickin', and he's goin' to get it at last!'”

A groan was forced from Ann.

“Well, didn't he need a lickin'?” Cal flashed on her.

Ann hung her head.

“Go on! Go on!” Ed Cranmer said, beside himself.

“That's what you miss, stayin' home nights, Ed,” drawled Cal.

However, Ann's imploring eyes, caused him to bestir himself with his tale.

“None of us thought Frank Bower had a show,” the mayor continued. “We'd never seen Chako licked in a stand-up fight, and few of us had ever so much as seen Frank Bower put up his fists; but while Chako was still givin' him the rough edge of his tongue, Frank stepped up and stopped his mouth with a punch that astonished the young feller. Then, they went to it. That scrap will be talked about in Fort Edward for years to come.”

“How did it end?” murmured Ann, clasping her hands.

But Cal refused to be cheated out of his whole tale.

“Chako was at a disadvantage,” he went on. “He was too mad. Always, before this, he went into a scrap with a don't give-a-damn look that had his man half licked before they begun. This time he was mad—so mad he couldn't see good. Bower was mad too, but it was a different kind of mad; and I tell you we men got the surprise of our lives when we saw Chako measuring his long length on the floor!”

“Was that the end?” cried Ann.

“No, the beginning,” said Car dryly. “Chako was game, of course—game to the marrow. A man shows his true mettle in a losing fight, and I was proud of the boy. Chako came back again and again. When he could no longer see to place his own blows, he still stood up without flinching, and took Bower's.”

“I can't stand any more!” cried Ann. “How did it end?”

“It ended when I ended it,” said Cal simply. “Chako would never have cried quits while there was still a beat in his heart. He was so far gone, though, that he was mighty glad when I stopped it. He was licked, all right. Another fellow and me took him home to my place, and there he is still.”

Ann involuntarily rose from her chair.

“Where you goin'?” drawled Cal.

“I must—I must—” she stammered.

“I wouldn't,” interrupted Cal. “Chako's beauty isn't permanently spoiled, but this morning he's not pretty to look at.”

“What do I care for that?” cried Ann.

Cal dropped the facetious air.

“Sit down, my girl,” he said firmly.

Ann obeyed.

“Do you want to spoil his cure?” Cal went on. “I feel toward Chako as I would toward my own son, if I had one; and I tell you this is all for the good of his soul. Leave him to his meditations for a while. Sympathy! My God, it would be all to do over again! I tell you the lad is lucky, being in the wrong, to get so thoroughly licked. It will give him a properer notion of life. No man is a complete man until he has been well licked at least once.”

Ann said no more.

“You don't ask me anything about Bower?” said Cal slyly.

Ann looked her question.

“After I put Chako to bed, I come back to Bagger's,” said Cal. “Me and Bower went away by ourselves and had a talk. There's a man!”

“What did he tell you?” asked Ed Cranmer eagerly.

“Well, you see, Ed, it was to me he told it,” drawled Cal. “In confidence like. I may say this, though—Bower knew exactly what he was doing.”

“How do you mean?”

“He set out to knock the devil out of Chako, knowing that Chako's gain would be his loss.”

“I don't understand you.”

“There's one as understands,” said Cal. “That's all Bower cared about.”

“Where's Bower now?”

“I lent him a dugout that was left with me by a fellow that went out for the summer. Bower's gone back up river in her. Must have passed here about midnight.”

Cal got up to go. Ann understood from his glance that he had a word for her in private, and she went with him out on the porch. Cal took her hand.

“Listen, sister,” he said. “You ought to know by this time that I'm your friend. Before this you've always done the exact opposite of what I told you. Well, I'll say nothing about that now; but listen to me. If you don't stick close to this shack for the next couple of days, I swear I'll wash my hands of you for good!”

“I promise,” murmured Ann.

XXXI

When Ed had gone to the store, Mrs. Cranmer suggested that she and Ann should go to the settlement together to buy supplies. There seemed to be no harm in this; nevertheless, Ann determined to hold to the letter of her promise, and she declined.

Probably Mrs. Cranmer was not displeased. The good woman was clearly burning with curiosity to learn the inwardness of the affair, which Cal had so tantalizingly suppressed. She set off alone.

She returned in an hour or so with an appeased air. She looked at her guest with a new eye—a romantic eye. To her Ann had become the heroine of a thrilling drama. She let it appear that she was quite willing to tell all she had heard, but Ann would not question her, and Mrs. Cranmer was chary about volunteering information.

To Ann it did not seem worth while to question her, because she was very sure that Mrs. Cranmer had not learned the one thing that concerned her. All that Ann cared to know was the true state of Chako's mind that day.

All day the girl was pursued by the devils of restlessness. She could neither sit still nor put her hand to any work. In and out of the house she went, to and from the edge of the bank, up and down the trail. It was only the baby that kept her from flying off the handle altogether. To hold the baby in her arms gave her strength and sanity.

When night came, and they all went to bed, it was worse. Ann, in her loft, felt as if the low roof was suffocating her. For hours she tossed on her cot, while sleep retreated farther and farther from her eyes.

Finally she rose, and, kneeling at the window, rested her arms on the sill. The sky was crowded with stars; the river was a gray blur, subtle with motion. The night soothed her; she was no longer afraid of it; it began to tempt her curiously. After a while she dressed, and, letting herself softly down the ladder, went outside.

The ugly scars of the clearing did not show under the stars. The fragrance of the pines was a balm to the spirit.

With her face up to the stars, Ann went slowly out to the edge of the bank. When she stopped there, and looked down, she was amazed to see a canoe drawn up on the mud below—a light, flat bark canoe. Her heart set up a crazy beating. Around Fort Edward she had seen but one canoe of that sort—Chako's.

Turning, she sought for him wildly and silently in the little clearing. She dared not speak his name, for fear of those in the house.

She came upon him lying face downward, his head wrapped in his arms. She fluttered down beside him like a bird.

“Chako!” she whispered.

“Go away!” he murmured harshly.

She sat beside him with her hands in her lap, praying for guidance.

“Chako, look at me,” she whispered at length.

“I daren't,” he groaned. “I'm ashamed!”

Ann's breast was softly irradiated with joy. Her instinct bade her to be silent.

“Go away!” Chako said again. “I don't want you to pity me.”

“I don't pity you,” she said simply.

“Why didn't you go with Bower?” he said harshly.

“I never thought of such a thing.”

“Do you know what happened last night?”

“Yes.”

“Don't you despise me for it?”

“No.”

There was a silence. Chako did not turn or raise his head, but Ann presently became aware that his hand was dumbly seeking hers. He found it, and caught it up against his cheek. The simple, contrite act wiped out all Ann's pain, all her resentment. Nothing needed to be said. Her breast hovered over him like a mother bird.

“I've been crazy all day, thinking you'd gone with Bower,” he murmured. “They told me he'd gone, and I made sure you were with him. I was afraid to ask. When night came, I couldn't stand it any longer. I paddled up here. You hadn't gone to bed; so I knew you hadn't gone. Then I couldn't go back again. I wanted you so! I wanted you so! And I knew it was too late!”

“It's not too late,” whispered Ann.

“I couldn't face you in the daylight,” he faltered. “You don't know me. You don't know what passed through my mind up there.”

“Yes, I know that, too.”

“I was crazy. I don't know what got into me. The worse I acted, the finer you showed up, and that made me savage and devilish. And all the time I wanted you so! I wanted to be decent. Well, I see the truth now clear enough. You are the only one that could save me from the devil that's in me. You saved me once when you sent the gold into the cañon, and robbed yourself doing It. I know now how I need you, but I've lost my chance. Without you I'm a goner!”

Ann slipped down beside him, flung an arm over his shoulders, and rubbed her cheek in his hair.

“You mustn't do that!” Chako said sharply. “It drives me crazy! I don't deserve it!”

“What's deserving got to do with it?” whispered Ann. “I love you—I love the bad in you and the good!”

He sprang up.

“Oh, Ann! Oh, Ann!” he murmured brokenly. “I—I—no, I can't say it, but I'll show you! By God, if I live, I'll show you!”

Ann's head went home at last.

THE END