"Not for that!" she cried, with eyes full of anger and pain. "You
asked me to be friends with you. All right. Nothing else!"
"Friends shake hands, don't they?" muttered Jack sulkily. "One would
think I had the leprosy!"
"You know what I mean," said Mary more quietly.
Jack scowled at the fire. "I don't see how a man and a woman--if
they're young--like you and I, can be just friends."
"They can," said Mary eagerly. "I'll show you."
Jack looked at her, eager, wistful, self-forgetful as she was, and a
great irresponsible longing surged up in him. Passion darkened his
eyes; his breast began to heave. "I couldn't," he said hoarsely, "not
with you, Mary!"
She avoided him warily. "Then I must go back," she said sadly.
Jack forgot that he had intended to send her. "No! Not now," he said
sharply.
She looked at him with the extraordinary look she had for him, proud,
pitying, and relentless all at once. "Listen," she commanded quietly.
"Somebody has got to speak plainly. I will do it. I like you very
much"--her voice faltered here--"I--I wish to be friends with you--very
much. But if you are so weak and dishonourable as to make love to me
when you are bound to another woman, I shall despise you, and I shall
have to go!"
Jack recoiled as if she had struck him, and sat staring at her, while
the two hideous words burned their way into his soul. In all his life
he had never been hurt like this. She had dealt a blow at the twin
gods of his idolatry: Strength and Honour. It is true he did not
distinguish very clearly between physical strength and moral.
Strength, none the less, was the word that made his breast lift up, and
Honour, scarcely less. Honour to Jack meant telling the truth.
The worst of the hurt was that he knew she was right. It was very true
that some one had to speak plainly. This was the disconcerting thought
he had been thrusting out of sight so determinedly. Now that it had
been put into harsh speech it could never be ignored again.
Mary was busying herself with shaking hands among the supper things.
Obviously she could scarcely see what she was doing. Davy came back
with his poles.
"Go, go help him," she murmured tremulously.
Jack obeyed.
They ate as dawn began to break over the prairie, supper or breakfast,
whichever it was. Davy's light-hearted chatter kept the situation from
becoming acute again. There was no further suggestion of their going
back. Afterward they turned in for a few hours to let the horses rest
out.
Jack took refuge from the mosquitoes in Davy's tent. He could not
talk, and he turned his back on the boy, but Davy, creeping close,
wound an arm over Jack's shoulder, and, like an affectionate spaniel,
thrust his head in Jack's neck.
"Say, I'm glad I'm here," he murmured sleepily. "Everything's all
right again. I'd rather be with you than anybody, Jack. Say, I'm glad
I'm a friend of yours. You and I and Mary, we'll make a great team,
eh? What a good time we'll have!"
He fell asleep. Meanwhile Jack lay staring through the mosquito
netting at the prairie grass in the ghostly light, and the low-hung,
paling stars, thinking of how a woman had been obliged to remind him of
Strength and Honour.
Admitting the justice of it, he took his punishment like a man. It was
a much-chastened Jack that issued from the tent into the early
sunshine. And although he did not know it, he was tenfold more in love
with the hand that had chastised him. His glance sought hers humbly
enough now. And Mary? There was none of the disdain he feared; on the
contrary, her telltale eyes were lifted to his, imploring and contrite
for the hurt she had dealt him.
They looked at each other, and the skies cleared. Nothing was said;
nothing needed to be said. It was enough for Jack that Mary did not
despise him, and it was enough for Mary that he did not hate her. They
were together, and the sun was shining on a sea of green grass. Their
spirits soared. Troubles and heartaches vanished like steam in the
sunshine. Breakfast became a feast of laughter, and Davy was
enraptured.
"Blest if I can understand you two," the boy said with an unconscious
imitation of his hero's casual manner that made Mary laugh again. "One
minute you're as dumb as owls in the daytime, and the next you're
laughing like a pair of loons at nothing at all."
They justified it by laughing afresh. "Oh, the loon's a much-abused
bird, Mr. Davy," sang Jack. "He's not nearly as loony as his name. I
think I'll adopt a loon for my crest."
"What's a crest?" Davy wanted to know.
"Oh, it's what you have on your note-paper," Jack said vaguely. "And
they carve it on rings for you to seal your letters with."
Davy looked blank.
"It's a gentleman's private sign," said Mary. "His totem."
"Sure," said Jack with a surprised look. "How clever you are!"
Mary blushed to the eyes.
They packed and rode on, a cheerful trio on the trail. Jack to all
appearances was his old, off-hand self, but he had stored away his
lesson, and he never looked, or seemed never to look, at Mary. From
her glance at him when she was unobserved one would have said she was
sorry he obeyed her so well.
Mary and Davy rode with the unconscious ease of those who are born to
the saddle. Mary, who had never seen a riding-habit, had contrived a
divided skirt for herself, as she contrived everything for herself,
cunningly. With it she wore a blue flannel shirt out of the store,
that she had likewise adapted to her own figure. She had a man's felt
hat, but, except when it rained, it was hanging by its thong from her
saddle-horn. Her plentiful dark hair was braided and bound close round
her head. Tied to her saddle she carried a light rifle, which upon
occasion she used as handily as Jack himself.
Thus she was totally without feminine aids and artifices. With that
firm, straight young figure, that well-set head and those eyes, she was
finer without. For all he was making believe not to look at her, she
stirred Jack's deepest enthusiasm, like the sight of distant hills at
evening, or a lake embowered in greenery, or anything wholly beautiful
and unspoiled from the hand of Nature.
The slender Davy showed none of his sister's trimness. Davy was a
little nondescript. He possessed "Sunday clothes," but he detested
them, and was only truly happy in his ragged trousers, his buttonless
shirt, and his blackened apologies for moccasins. Davy was apparently
insensible to cold, and it was all one to him whether he was wet or dry.
At ten o'clock they rode past the little boarded-up store at Fort
Geikie. Two hours later they reined in at the edge of the bench on the
other side of the portage. This was the spot where they had parted so
unhappily. No one referred to that now. Casting his eyes over the
valley, Jack pointed to a number of dark objects in the river meadows
to the west.
"The horses," said Davy.
One of the little objects reared, and moved forward in a way that was
familiar to them.
"And hobbled again," said Jack with a laugh.
"Of course as soon as you went away they would drive them back," said
Mary. "They wouldn't want to be found with company horses in their
camp."
Riding down the hill they made their noon spell on the site of Camp
Trangmar. Jack opened the cache for an additional supply of grub, and
what else he needed: his cherished leather chaps, his canvas lean-to,
and mosquito bar.
"You won't need that," Davy said. "Sleep with me."
"For Garrod," said Jack. "We can't let the mosquitoes eat the poor
devil."
Davy caught sight of the banjo inside. "Bring that," he begged.
Jack shook his head. "No time for tingle-pingling on this trip," he
said, unconsciously using the trader's word.
Davy begged hard. "I'll look after it myself," he said.
Jack hesitated. His fingers itched for the strings. "Do you think we
had better take it?" he asked Mary.
Mary was only human. "Why not?" she said.
One could not always be dwelling on one's troubles. The banjo was
brought out, and while Mary, with veiled eyes, busied herself mixing
bannock, and Davy listened with his delighted mouth open, Jack filled
his chest and gave them "Pretty Polly Oliver."
"That's great!" said Davy with a sigh of pleasure.
Mary said nothing.
"Do you like it?" Jack asked, very off-hand.
"Very pretty," she said.
"Would you dress up as a drummer-boy and follow your lover to the wars,
like Polly did?" Jack asked.
"No," she said promptly.
"Why not?" he demanded, taken aback.
"She was a poor thing," said Mary scornfully. "She couldn't live
single, she said. When she did get to the wars she was only in the
way, and put him to the trouble of rescuing her; but it makes a pretty
song of course."
"You're not very romantic," grumbled Jack.
Mary smiled to herself, and attended to the bannock. After a long
time, when Jack had forgotten all about Polly, she said: "I think
romances are for people who don't feel very much themselves."
After lunch, leaving Mary and Davy to finish packing, Jack circled wide
over the river-meadows to round up the horses, and reconnoitre
generally. Mary and Davy were to follow him. He found that two of the
horses were still missing; the others were in good condition. Riding
on up the trail, he dismounted at a little stream to read what was to
be seen in the tracks. He saw that the horses had been driven back two
days before, and that none of them was hobbled when they crossed the
stream.
At this moment all Jack's senses were suddenly roused to the _qui vive_
by the sound of the hoof-beats of two horses approaching along the
trail from up the valley. Here was a new factor entering the
situation. Quickly mounting, he held his horse quiet under the bushes
beside the trail. The newcomers trotted around a bend; all the horses
whinnied, and Jack found himself face to face with Jean Paul Ascota.