They set off together across the fields. Stafford was burdened with a
tremendous sack, which he did not know how to carry properly. Jacqueline
could have given him good advice, for she had had five years’ experience
of girls’ camps; but she tactfully refrained.
Whenever they came to an unusually rough bit of the trail, Stafford took
her arm, to render her assistance, which she did not in the least
require; but she accepted it with polite gratitude. There was absolutely
nothing of the pal in Stafford. He would only have thought the less of
her for knowing how to carry heavy sacks, and for being able to look out
for herself.
A canoe was waiting for them at the head of a lake. As a matter of
course Jacqueline took up the second paddle, but Stafford earnestly
entreated her to put it down. He paddled in a very amateurish fashion,
and she could have done much better; but she held her tongue, and
listened to Stafford while he reassured her about Barty.
Barty’s foot had not been badly injured in the first place, and it was
now almost healed.
“He’s walking about,” said Stafford. “He could just as well have come
to-day, but I thought I’d like to try it alone.”
The shores of the lake, where trees and bushes grew, were densely black,
but in the center of the lake there was a dim reflection of the
moonlight, though the moon itself was not yet visible. It was very
still. The woods were all alive with bird, beast, and insect, and the
water beneath the canoe was teeming with life, but no sound reached
their human ears but the dip of the paddle. Stafford’s voice broke the
stillness.
“There used to be Indians here,” he said.
A singularly inept remark for a man of his intelligence, yet in
Jacqueline’s mind it conjured up the most vivid images. She turned her
eyes toward the dark woods.
The naked, copper-colored figures which had passed by there, silent as
the beasts themselves, the other canoes which had sped through these
waters; and after them their enemy, the paleface--an enemy inferior in
strength and endurance, ignorant of the forest ways, utterly alien here,
and yet, because of the invincible spirit in him, always conquering.
Indian and pioneer, warriors, hunters, killers--and behind them the
faithful, patient shadow of the burden bearer, the woman. Squaw woman
and white woman, carrying babies in their arms or on their backs, their
own God-given burdens; and always with other burdens, too--the homely
implements of daily life laid upon the shoulders of women, so that the
hands of the men might be free for their weapons.
It had to be so. Only by the strong arm of her man could the woman and
her child live; but all that was over and done with. Where civilization
was established, woman was the friend and equal of man.
Jacqueline moved a little, uneasy and resentful at the thoughts that
came to her. Those half legendary loves that were the glory of the
civilized world, those names which had, after hundreds of years, still
the power to stir the heart--_Romeo_ and _Juliet_, Hero and Leander,
_Paul_ and _Virginia_--magic names of imperishable glamour and beauty!
All good pals, weren’t they? All the women for whom men had ventured
sublime and terrible things, the women who had inspired the heroic
undertakings of history and romance, the women for whom men had gladly
died--all good pals, weren’t they?
A pal? The nearest approach to a pal was the Indian squaw. She had
shared her man’s life, she had been his indispensable helper, and the
humble, unconsidered bearer of his burdens. The whole idea was a turning
back, a renunciation of something lofty and beautiful for something
commonplace and inferior. Barty had wanted to be a lover, and she made
him a comrade. He had asked for bread, and she had given him a stone. He
had longed for the high romance and glory of life, and she had said they
couldn’t afford it. She had tried to keep his money in his pockets for
him. She had kept his spirit pinned to the earth.