Ben was fully aware, as he pushed the canoe from landing, that the
success of his scheme was not yet guaranteed. Long ago, in the hard
school of the woods, he had found out life; and one of the things he had
learned was that nothing on earth is infallible and no man's plans are
sure. There are always coincidents of which the scheming brain has not
conceived: the sudden interjection of unexpected circumstances. The
unforeseen appearance of Beatrice's father on the landing had been a
case in point.
Most of all he had been afraid that Beatrice herself would leap from the
canoe and attempt to swim to safety. He had learned in his past
conversations with her that she had at least an elementary knowledge of
swimming. Had she not confessed at the same time fear of the water, his
plan could have never been adopted. The northern girls have few
opportunities to obtain real proficiency in swimming. Their rivers are
icy cold, their villages do not afford heated natatoriums. Yet he
realized that he must quiet her suspicions as long as possible.
"I've got the landing picked out," he told her as they started off.
"I've been all over the river this morning. It is quite a way
down--around the bend--but it's perfectly safe. So don't be afraid."
"I'm not afraid--with you. And how fast you paddle!"
It was true: in all her days by rivers she had never seen such perfect
control of a canoe. He paddled as if without effort, but the streaming
shore line showed that the boat moved at an astonishing rate. He was a
master canoeist, and whatever fears she might have had vanished at once.
She talked gayly to him, scarcely aware that they were heading across
and down the stream.
When her father had appeared on the bank, calling, she had not been in
the least alarmed. Ben's gay shouts kept her from understanding exactly
what he was saying. And when the old man had drawn his pistol and fired,
and the bullet had splashed in the water some twenty yards toward shore,
her mind had refused to accept the evidence of her senses.
The second shot followed the first, and the third the second, resulting
in, for her part, only the impotence of bewilderment. Her first thought
was that her father's fierce temper, long known to her, had engulfed him
in murderous rage. Trusting Ben wholly, the real truth did not occur to
her.
She screamed shrilly at the fourth shot; and Ben looked up to find her
pale as the foam from his flashing paddle. "Turn around and go back,"
she cried to Ben. "He'll kill you if you don't! Oh, please--turn
around--"
"And get in range of him so he _can_ kill me?" Ben replied savagely.
"Can't you see he's shooting at me?"
"Then throw up your hands--it's all some dreadful mistake. Can't you
hear me--turn and go back."
The fifth and sixth shots were fired by now; and Neilson had gone to his
cabin for his rifle. Ben smiled grimly into her white face.
"We'd better keep on going to our landing place," he advised. "There's
no place to land above it--I went all over the shore this morning. That
will give him time to cool down. I only want to get around this curve
before he comes with his rifle."
She stared at him aghast, too confused and terrified to make rational
answer. He was pale, too; but she had a swift feeling that the cold,
rugged face was in some way exultant, too. The first chill of fear of
him brushed her like a cold wind.
But they were around the bend by now, and Ben's breath caught as if in a
triumphant gasp. Already all opportunity for the girl to swim to shore
was irremediably past. While he could still control the canoe with
comparative ease, the river was a swift-moving sheet of water that would
carry any one but the strongest swimmer remorselessly into the rapids
below. Ben smiled, like a man who has come into a great happiness, and
rested on his paddle.
"Push into shore," the girl urged. "The home shore--if you can. Then
I'll go and find him and try to quiet him. He'll kill you if you don't."
A short pause followed the girl's words. The man smiled coldly into her
eyes.
"He'll kill me, will he?" he repeated.
The response to the simple question was simply unmitigated terror, swift
and deadly, surging through the girl's frame. It caught and twisted her
throat muscles like a cruel hand; and her childish eyes widened and
darkened under his contemptuous gaze.
"What do you mean?" she asked breathlessly. "What--are you going to do?"
"He won't kill me," Ben went on. "I may kill him--and I will if I
can--but he won't kill me. See--we're going faster all the time."
It was true. Strokes of the paddle were no longer necessary to propel
the craft at the breakneck pace. It sped like an arrow--straight toward
the perilous cataracts below.
The girl watched him with transcending horror, and slowly the truth went
home. The supplies in the boat, her father's desperate attempt to rescue
her, even at the risk of her own life and the cost of Ben's, this white,
exultant face before her, more terrible than that of the wolf between,
the cold reptile eyes so full of some unhallowed emotion,--at last she
saw their meaning and relation. Was it _death_--was _that_ what this mad
man in the stern had for her? She remembered what she had told him the
day before, her description of the cataracts that lay below. She
struggled to shake off the trance that her terror had cast about her.
"Turn into the shore," she told him, half-whispering. There was no
pleading in her tone: the hard eyes before her told her only too plainly
how futile her pleas would be. "You still have time to steer into shore.
I'll jump overboard if you don't."
He shook his head. "Don't jump overboard, Beatrice," he answered, some
of the harshness gone from his tones. "It isn't my purpose to kill
you--and to jump over into this stream only means to die--'for any one
except the most powerful swimmer. You'd be carried down in an instant."
The girl knew he spoke the truth. Only death dwelt in those cold and
rushing waters. "What do you mean to do?" she asked.
Her tone was more quiet now, and he waited an instant before he
answered. The canoe glided faster--ever faster down the stream. Somewhat
afraid, but still trusting in the imperial mind of his master, the wolf
raised his head to watch the racing shore line.
"It's just a little debt I owe your father--and his gang," Ben
explained. "I'll tell you some time, in the days to come. It was a debt
of blood--"
The girl's dark eyes charged with red fire. "And you, a coward, take
your payment on a woman. Turn the canoe into the bank."
"The payment won't be taken from you," he explained soberly. "You'll be
safe enough--even the fate that Neilson fears for you won't happen. I
hate him too much to take _that_ payment from you. I'd die before I'd
touch the flesh of his flesh to mine! Do you understand that?"
His fury had blazed up, for the instant, and she saw the deadly zeal of
a fanatic in his gray eyes. A hatred beyond all naming, a bitterness and
a rage such as she had never dreamed could blast a human heart was
written in his brown, rugged face. Her woman's intuition gave her added
vision, and she glimpsed something of the fire that smoldered and seared
behind his eyes. They were of one blood, this man in the stern and the
wolf on the duffle.
"Then why--"
"You're safe with me--the daughter of Jeff Neilson can't ever be
anything but safe with me--as far as the thing you fear is concerned.
Don't be afraid for that. I'm simply paying an honest debt, and you're
the unfortunate agent. Don't you know the things he's fearing now are
more torment to him than anything I could do to his flesh? If we should
be killed in these rapids that are coming, it will be fair enough too;
he'll know what it is to lose the dearest thing on earth he has. For you
and me it will only be a minute that won't greatly matter. For him it
will be weeks--months! But that's only a part of it. I hope to bring you
through. The main thing is--that sooner or later they'll come for
you--into a country where I'll have every advantage. Where there won't
be any escape or chance for them. Where I can watch the trails, and
shatter them--every one--as slow or as fast as I like. Where they'll
have to hunt for me, week on week and month on month, their fears eating
into them. That's my game, Beatrice. There will be discomfort for
you--and some danger--but I'll make it as light as I can. And in another
moment--"
"You've still got time to turn back," the girl answered him, seemingly
without feeling. "Glide into shore, and we'll try to catch an
overhanging limb. It's my last warning."
It was true that a few seconds remained in which they might, with heroic
effort, save themselves. But these were passing: already they could see
the gleaming whitecaps of the cataract below.
The roar of the wild waters was in their ears. Ahead they could see
great rocks, emerging like fangs above the water, sharp-edged and wet
with spray. The boat was shuddering; the water seemed to covet them, and
a great force, like the hand of a river god, reached at them from
beneath as if to crush them in a merciless grasp. A hundred yards
farther the smooth, swift water fell into a seething, roaring
cataract--such a manifestation of the mighty powers of nature as checks
the breath and awes the heart--a death stream in which seemingly the
canoe would be shattered to pieces in an instant.
Ben shook his head. The girl's white hand flashed to her side, then rose
sure and steady, holding her pistol. "Turn quick, or I'll fire," she
said.
He felt that, if such action were in her power, she told the truth. No
mercy dwelt in her clear gaze. His eye fell to the box of cartridges,
now fallen safely among the duffle. Presently he smiled into her eyes.
"Your gun is empty, Beatrice," he told her quietly. He heard her sob,
and he smiled a little, reassuringly. "Never mind--and pray for a good
voyage," he advised. "We're going through."