In the solitude of her bleak chamber, Nell hastened to take from her
mouth the cylinder of paper that Jack had given her. Moist as it was,
when unrolled it lay flat, and the writing on the inner side was
decipherable without difficulty.
The note lacked address or signature, since neither was needed. But the
curt words filled Nell with rapture:
Have found way to escape. Go to Maxwell, ask him for help. Have
him somewhere near the village on his side by eleven o'clock
to-night.
With the reading, Nell took new heart of hope. She could not guess the
means that her husband had devised for his escape from the jail, but the
confident tone in which he had written to her gave promise of success.
Her own part in the plan was simple enough. It only required that she
act promptly in its execution. It occurred to her that Mr. Maxwell might
be absent from the cabin, following the line of his traps. The thought
of possible delay in the performance of her mission struck a chill to
the eager wife's heart. At once, then, she was in a fever of impatience
to be off and away.
Nell made her preparations swiftly. At her order, the dogs were
harnessed to the sled, and were ready at the door of the hotel, as she
issued forth. The news that the murderer's bride was about to start out,
spread through the village like wild-fire. The sheriff himself appeared
on the scene, as Nell was at the point of departure. He shook his head
dolefully; but, to the girl's immense relief, he did not offer to detain
her.
[Illustration: THE DOGS WERE READY--AT THE DOOR OF THE HOTEL--AS SHE
ISSUED FORTH.]
"I dunno," he remarked doubtfully, "what you git by goin', an' I dunno
neither what you'd git by stayin', fer the matter o' that.
"Anyhow, a wife can't testify agin her husband, so I hain't got any
call to hang on to ye."
That was his valedictory.
Nell wasted neither words nor smiles on the assembly. She had no kindly
feeling toward these men, who had dared accuse her husband of crime. Her
sole response to the sheriff's statement was a crack of the whip and a
lively cry to the dogs, which leaped forward with a speed and surety of
movement in the splendidly muscled bodies that made the watchers exclaim
admiringly.
There was now no leisurely progress, such as had been that with which
she and her husband had traversed the miles together, before death
brought tragedy to their bridal-journey. Nell, in two years of her
living in the North, had learned the management of these animals, on
which transportation over the snowy expanses of the Arctic so depends.
She knew well how to get from her team every ounce of speed, and she did
not spare them in the least. The crust still held, so that the going was
of the best. Mechanically, with the instinct that develops quickly in
those who live among the wilds, Nell had noted each salient detail of
the route followed by her and Jack. So, now, she was sure of her course,
and drove the dogs at full speed on and on, following the levels of
interwoven valleys with never a hint of hesitation.
It was late afternoon when, at last, Nell found herself passing along
the valley where they had lingered behind the line of the stampede. Hope
mounted higher here; for only a few miles still separated her from the
man whose aid she sought.
In turn, despair smote her at thought of the possibility that this Mr.
Maxwell might be absent--might even not return that night. She had a
dreadful vision of Jack, escaped from his prison, yet helpless, without
dogs or supplies, doomed to perish in the cold. She resolved that,
should other help be wanting, she herself would return alone to meet
him. She took a little encouragement from this determination, until it
occurred to her that there were limits to the endurance of the dogs.
Then, again, desolation fell on her. But, at least, they would be
together!... Thus, her thoughts rioted in the stress of anxiety.
Anxiety became an anguished suspense, when, finally, she saw the tiny
bulk of the cabin, showing darkly against the white of the valley-slope.
As the dogs raced nearer, she stared with fierce eagerness to catch some
sign of life. She was in terror when she made sure that no smoke issued
from the chimney. One does not sit at home fireless in the Far North. A
great fear was on her as she halted the dogs before the cabin-door, and
none came forth to greet her.
Nell's misery, like that of most persons in this world of mistaken
ideas, was of her own making. Hardly had she clambered down stiffly from
the sled, when the cabin-door swung open, and Jim Maxwell stepped out.
At sight of his visitor, whom he recognized in the first glance, he
uttered an ejaculation of astonishment, and advanced toward her quickly.
His thought on seeing her alone thus before his cabin was that some
serious accident must have befallen her husband. He was deeply concerned
over the girl's plight, and sympathy showed in his face with a sincerity
of feeling that touched the girl deeply--so deeply, indeed, that for a
few seconds after he was come to her, she could only stand wordless,
with her hands in his firm clasp, her eyes glowing with the gratitude
and the relief with which his presence inspired her.
Jim Maxwell's voice was softer than it had been in more than a decade of
years.
"Why, child, what's the matter?" he asked soothingly. "Whatever it is,
we'll make it come out all right. Tell me about it."
Nell choked down her emotion, and presently regained a fair degree of
self-control.
"Oh, I'm so glad--so glad you're here, Mr. Maxwell!" Her voice throbbed
with feeling. It stirred to a new life a joy long dead in the man's
bosom--joy in the realization that some one wanted him. It had been
twelve years since any one had wanted him.
"Tell me," he repeated. His tone was even gentler than before. The
warmth of it cheered the girl like a draft of rich wine.
Nell fumbled at her bosom for a moment, and drew forth the note that
Jack had written. She held it out, and Jim Maxwell took it from her, and
read it through with growing astonishment.
[Illustration: JIM MAXWELL TOOK THE NOTE FROM HER AND READ IT THROUGH
WITH GROWING ASTONISHMENT.]
After he had scanned it for a second time, he looked up at the expectant
girl, with a puzzled, though no less kindly, glance.
"But what does it all mean?" he asked. "I suppose the note is from your
husband?"
"Yes," assented Nell hurriedly. "He's going to escape."
Jim patted the girl's hand reassuringly.
"Now, just take it easy," he counseled. "You must remember that I don't
know a thing about it. So, you're going to tell me everything that's
happened, and what your husband is going to escape from."
The calmness of the speaker's voice quieted Nell's excitement, and she
proceeded to relate without confusion an outline of what had occurred.
"Poor little girl!" her listener said tenderly, when the narrative was
concluded. "Well, he did right to send word to me. I owe you two more
than I can pay. And don't you worry, my dear. This cloud will pass
quickly. The sunshine will be all the brighter after the shadow." His
manner changed, and he spoke briskly. "Now, you get into the cabin. I'd
only just got back from my line and kindled the fire when you came. The
stove, I guess, is about white-hot by now. I'll attend to the dogs."
Nell went obediently, full of happy reliance on the strength of this
man, who was at once so courteous and so kind. She smiled over her
distress of a few minutes before. Now, a thick column of smoke rose into
the still air from the cabin-chimney.
Inside the tiny room, Nell glanced about her with a curious sense of
contentment. There was something homelike in the aspect of the place,
despite its bareness. It was plainly, even roughly, furnished with a few
tables and chairs besides the stove and bunk. The only decorations were
the skins that hung on the log-walls. An oil-lamp was on a small table
in a corner. On the large table in the opposite corner were some tins of
meat, a saucepan, a few pieces of heavy crockery, and the like. Nell
could not interpret the strange effect wrought upon her by these
surroundings. She had felt it, in some measure, on the occasion of her
first visit to the cabin. Now, however, its force seemed vastly
stronger. She puzzled over it in vain. She tried to think it was the
sense of relief that so affected her. But she knew that this was not the
explanation. She had that inexplicable feeling of being at home. There
was no visible cause. Whatever the reason, it lay beneath the surface of
things. It was something in the atmosphere, some psychic quality.
It seemed to Nell that the impression made upon her by this room in the
cabin was intensified by the entrance of the dweller there, who greeted
her with his friendly, gentle smile. Indeed, the kindliness of that
smile and the look in the grave eyes touched the girl anew to
thankfulness that this man would devote himself to her service in the
time of need. She thought to herself that Mr. Maxwell must always have
been a very kindly man to all, because he smiled so easily,
notwithstanding the sadness of his face in repose. She could not know
that, through two-thirds of the years measuring her span of life, Jim
Maxwell had not smiled at all.
"First," Jim commanded, "throw off the outside things, and make yourself
at home. You're going to stay awhile."
Nell would have protested. But the man raised a monitory hand.
"It's no use your arguing about it," he said; and Nell recognized the
masterful note in his voice, though he spoke as gently as before. She
was rebellious, but she listened patiently while he went on to explain.
"You see, my dear, this is men's work. There might be a hitch somewhere.
There might even be a bit of a mix-up. You'd only be in the way then,
young lady. We may have our hands full, without you on them. Probably
everything will be all right. Anyhow, we'll do our best, and to do it we
mustn't be hampered by the presence of a non-combatant. We'll come
straight here as fast as my dogs can bring us. That will give you a
chance to rest up. You'll just have to wait here till we come. I don't
say that that isn't the hardest part of the whole job. But that's
woman's work--waiting."
Jim had spoken thus frankly and at length, in the hope of avoiding
useless discussion of a matter concerning which discussion could avail
nothing, and he succeeded; for Nell yielded at once, very meekly.
"You're right, of course," she said, unhappily. "And you're right, too,
about my having the hardest part in just sitting here with my hands
folded, while I don't know what is happening to Jack."
"Better unfold them," Jim suggested with a chuckle, "and rustle yourself
some grub." He waved his hand toward the larger table. "The larder is
quite at your service. As for me, I'll get ready and start at once.
That'll get me to the edge of Kalmak soon after dark, so that I'll be
all ready and waiting--just like you!--for whatever's to happen."
"Yes," Nell said, and again there was the emphasis of anxiety in her
voice, "you must start at once. You must be there, ready for Jack when
he comes."
Yet, in spite of this decision on the part of both that the man should
start immediately, it was ordained by the Fates that there should be
some delay; for this was an hour fraught with momentous things for the
two thus cast together in the solitary cabin on the mountainside.
It was as Jim Maxwell began his preparations for the journey that he
chanced--or that he was guided--to stand close to the girl, facing her.
His eyes were caught by a golden gleam, which seemed pulsing, as it
moved in the rhythm of her breathing. His gaze rested there idly at
first. And then, a moment later, his attention was drawn to a more
careful scrutiny--just why, he did not know. Perhaps, as some maintain,
a secret, tenuous vibration emanated from the metal, and moved to
response a sleeping memory of old associations in the man's soul.
Whatever the cause, Jim Maxwell's eyes were seized and held fast by the
locket lying on Nell's breast.
Of a sudden, he started violently. He thrust his head forward, with a
movement so abrupt, almost threatening in its seeming, that the girl, in
her turn, was startled, and withdrew a step, half-fearful.
"I want to see that locket you are wearing." Jim Maxwell spoke in a tone
that Nell had not heard before. It rang with a note of command not to be
denied. She gazed affrighted at the change in his face. The kindliness
was fled from it. It was imperious, ruthless, with a trace of underlying
savagery. The young wife was dazed by the metamorphosis in the man on
whom depended now her husband's rescue. And she was afraid, as well--no
longer with a doubtful fear, but with a real terror before the
expression in that heavily lined face, out of which the eyes stared at
her with a cruel insistence.
"I want to see that locket you are wearing," he repeated harshly, and
held out his right hand with the palm upward to receive it.
Without a word, Nell took off the chain from her neck, and dropped it
with the locket into the waiting palm. Then, she moved a little aside,
shrinking from the new being with whom she found herself. But, after a
few seconds, she forgot her own emotion, her alarm, her anxiety in
behalf of her husband. For she was looking on the soul of a man, bared
in agony. So great and so terrible was that revelation that, very
quickly, she turned her gaze aside that she might not see.
Jim Maxwell remained with his eyes fixed on the little locket, which
bore for an ornament an initial _N_ traced in tiny pearls. He could not
doubt. It was the locket that he had caused to be made for his daughter,
for Nell--his little girl! Presently, he would open it, to see if the
pictures of Lou and of himself were still within. But, in this first
burst of emotion, he could only stand moveless there, racked by all the
torments of memory. It was the tearing open of wounds, which, though
they had never healed, had ceased to bleed. Now, they bled afresh, and
it seemed to him that his soul was drowning in the blood.
The fierceness of his first emotion passed. Suddenly, it was as if a
cloud lifted from his brain, and he became aware of himself standing
there in the cabin. A moment before--or was it ages?--he had been in
heaven--and in hell. Now, he was back in the cabin in the wilderness.
And he was glad to be there, for it was home....
Again, his attention was caught by the gleam of the gold within his
hands. He recognized the locket. But, at last, he was able to accept its
presence with some degree of calm.
Jim Maxwell turned to the girl, and addressed her gently enough, but
still with that dominant tone which would brook no denial.
"Where did you get this locket?"
"I have had it always," she answered. None could doubt her truth as she
spoke, with the clear eyes meeting her questioner's stern gaze
squarely.
The severity of the man's expression yielded a little.
"Who gave it to you?"
"I do not know."
Jim frowned at this check.
"But you must know," he insisted.
Nell shook her head resolutely.
"I do not remember who gave it to me," she repeated. "But I don't
remember anything about myself when I was a very little girl. I've had
the locket always, just as far back as I can remember."
"How far back can you remember?" It was a perfunctory question.
"Papa and Mamma Ross, who saved me from the river, guessed that I was
five or six years old. They decided on calling it six."
"And you had the locket then?"
Nell nodded assent again.
"And how old are you now?"
"I'm just eighteen."
As his brain took in the figures, and made a mechanical calculation, Jim
Maxwell's form, which had relaxed a little, grew tense again. His eyes
searched the girl's face with a strange hunger in the intensity of the
gaze. Twelve years! Twelve years ago, this girl here before him, who
knew nothing as to her life prior to that time, had been saved from a
river. And she had worn the locket that he had caused to be fashioned
for his daughter, Nell. And twelve years ago his wife and his daughter,
Nell, had vanished. The incredible crowded in his thoughts. Could mother
and child, by an evil stroke of fate, have been caught somewhere in
treacherous waters? Could one have perished, and the other have escaped?
Could this girl, who stood there wondering at him--could she be that
child, his little Nell, grown to this splendid womanhood? The thoughts
electrified him. Was it possible that there was still left for him in
life this supreme consolation--a creature whom he might love with all
his heart, who would love him in return?
But Jim Maxwell dared not believe. He was afraid of hope, lest it become
despair to destroy him. Yet, the chief influences that wrought upon him
were his own desire that this miracle might be truth, and the new and
singular yearning of his heart toward Nell.
Presently, Jim Maxwell approached the girl where she was standing a
little aloof. He reached out and put his hand on her arm. The girl
started at his touch, but, for some reason she could not understand, she
did not shrink from him now. He spoke very softly; and in his voice
there was a music that penetrated to the girl's soul.
[Illustration: THE GIRL STARTED AT HIS TOUCH BUT SHE DID NOT SHRINK FROM
HIM NOW.]
"You are my daughter--my little Nell!... God has given you back to me."
The girl did not doubt. As with the man, her own yearning bore witness.
She offered no resistance, but yielded with a reverent joy to the
caress, as her father turned her about until she faced him, then stooped
and kissed her on the forehead.