Beatrice had kept only an approximate track of the days; yet she knew
that an attempt to rescue her must be almost at hand. Even traveling but
half a dozen miles a day, and counting out a reasonable time for
exploration and delays, her father's party must be close upon them. And
the thought of the forthcoming battle between her abductor and her
rescuers filled every waking moment with dread.
She could not escape the thought of it. It lingered, hovering like a
shadow, over all her gayest moments; it haunted her more sober hours,
and it brought evil dreams at night. Her one hope was that her father
had given her up for lost and had not attempted her rescue.
She realized perfectly the perfection of Ben's plans. She knew that he
had provided for every contingency; and besides, he had every natural
advantage in his favor. The end was inevitable: his victory and the
destruction of his foes. There would be little mercy for these three in
the hands of this iron man from the eastern provinces. If they were to
be saved it must be soon, not a week from now, nor when another moon had
waned. If Ben was to be checkmated there were not many hours to waste.
She had had no opportunity to escape, at first. Ben knew that she could
not make her way over the hundreds of miles of howling wilderness
without food supplies, and always the wolf had been on guard. He was
like a were-wolf, a demon, anticipating her every move, knowing her
secret thoughts. But the wolf had gone now to join his fellows. She was
not aware of his almost nightly return. Perhaps the fact of his absence
gave her an opportunity, her one chance to save her father from Ben's
ambush.
Conditions for escape were more favorable than at any time since their
departure from the canoe landing, that late spring day of long ago. The
wolf was gone; Ben's guard of her was ever more lax. The season was
verdant: she could supplement what supplies she took from the cave with
roots and berries, and the warm nights would enable her to carry a
minimum of blankets. She knew that she could never hope to succeed in
the venture except by traveling light and fast. On the other hand she
would need all of Ben's remaining supplies to bring her through: in a
few more days the stores would be so low that she could not attempt the
trip. Human beings cannot survive, in the forests of the north, on roots
and berries alone. Tissue-building flour and sustaining meat are
necessary to climb the ridges and battle the thicket.
How could she obtain these things? For all his seeming carelessness Ben
kept a fairly close watch on her actions, and he would discover her
flight within a few hours. Stronger than she, and knowing every trail
and pass for miles around he could overtake her with ease. He gave her
no opportunity to seize his rifle, load it and turn it against him, thus
making her escape by force.
The fact that she would leave him without food mattered not one way or
another. He would still have his rifle, and his small stock of rifle
cartridges would procure sufficient big game to sustain him for weeks
and months to come. After all, the whole issue depended on the
rifle,--the symbol of force. It would be his instrument of vengeance
when his chance came. If she could only take this weapon from him she
need not fear the coming of her rescuers. In that case Ben would be
helpless against them.
Unfortunately, the gun rarely left his hands. If indeed she should
attempt to seize it he would wrest it away from her before she could
destroy or injure it. But it was a hopeful fact that the rifle was
useless without its shells!
To procure these, however, presented an unsolvable problem. Any way she
turned she found a barrier Ben kept them in his shell belt, and he wore
the belt about his waist, waking or sleeping. Only to procure it, run
like a deer and hurl it into the rapids of the Yuga,--and her problem
would be absolutely solved. Ben would be obliged to leave the cave home
at once and return with her to the Yuga cabins, utilizing the few stores
they had left for the journey--simply because to stay, unarmed, would
mean to die of starvation. Indeed the few remaining supplies would not
more than last them through now, traveling early and late, so if the
venture were to be attempted at all it must be at once. On the other
hand his rifle and shells would enable the two of them to remain in the
cavern indefinitely on a diet of meat alone.
As she worked about the cavern she brooded over the plan; but at first
she could conceive of no possible way to procure the shells. If the
chance came, however, she wanted to be ready. She planned all other
details of the venture; the shortest route to the nearest rapids of the
river where she might dispose of the deadly cylinders of brass. It
became necessary, also, to consider the lesser weapon for the plain
reason that it might defeat her in the moment of her success.
Ben kept the weapon in his cartridge belt, but the extra pistol shells
were among the supplies. They could easily be procured. It would also be
necessary to induce him to fire away the few shells that he carried in
the pistol magazine; but this would likely be easy enough to do. He put
little reliance on the weapon, trusting rather to his rifle both for the
impending war and the procurance of big game; and he would not harbor
the pistol shells as long as he had his rifle.
But the days were passing! Any attempt at deliverance must be made
before the food stores were further depleted. They could not make the
march without food. Days and nights overtook her with her triumph as far
distant as ever. The moment of opportunity she had watched for, in which
she might seize the cartridge belt and destroy it, had never come to
pass. The plans she had made while the night lay soft and mysterious in
the solitudes had all come to nothing. He had never, as she had hoped,
removed his belt and forgotten to replace it, nor had his slumber ever
been so deep that she could steal it from him.
His own triumph surely was almost at hand. Surely his pursuers had
almost overtaken him. The stores had already fallen far below the margin
of safety for the long journey home. The thought was with her, and she
was desperate one long, warm afternoon as she searched for roots and
berries in the forest. Edible plants were ever more hard to find, these
past days; but what there were she gathered almost automatically,
herself lost in a deep preoccupation. And all at once her hand reached
toward a little vine of black berries, each with a green tuft at the
end, not unlike gooseberries in southern gardens.
As if by instinct, hardly aware of the motion, she withdrew her hand.
She knew this vine. She was enough of a forester never to mistake it.
It was the deadly nightshade, and a handful of the berries spelt death.
She started to look elsewhere.
But presently she paused, arrested by an idea so engrossing and yet so
terrible that her heart seemed to pause in her breast. Had any rules
been laid down for her to follow in her war with Ben? Was she to
consider methods at such a time as this? Was she not a woods girl,--a
woman, not a child, trained and tutored in the savage code of the wild
that knows no ethics other than might, whether might of arm or craft, of
brain or fell singleness of purpose? Should she consider ethics now?
Her father's life was in imminent danger. Another day might find him
stretched lifeless before her. Ben had not hesitated to use every weapon
in his power; she should not hesitate now. Ben had made his war; she
would wage it by his own code.
For a moment she stood almost without outward motion, intrigued by the
possibilities of this little handful of berries. She shuddered once,
nervously, but there was no further impulse of remorse. Perhaps she
trembled slightly; and her eyes were simply depthless shadows under her
brows.
They were so little, seemingly so inoffensive: these dark berries in the
shadows of the covert. They were scarcely to be noticed twice. But not
even the savage grizzly was of such might; storms or seas were not so
deadly. There they were, inconspicuous among their sister plants,
waiting for her hand.
It was right that they should be black in color. Their blackness was as
of a black night without a star shining through,--a black cloud with
never a rainbow to promise hope. She could not turn her eyes away! How
black they were among the green leaves--lightless as death itself.
A handful of them meant death: her father had warned her about them long
ago. But half a handful--perhaps a dozen of the sable berries in the
palm of her hand--what did _they_ mean? Just a sickness wherein one
could no longer guard a prisoner. They were a powerful alkaloid, she
knew; and a dozen of them would likely mean hours and hours of deep,
dreamless sleep,--a sleep in which one could take no reckoning of hands
fumbling at a cartridge belt! Half a handful would, in all probability,
fail to strike the life from such a powerful frame as Ben's, but would
certainly act upon him like a powerful opiate and leave him helpless in
her hands.
Eagerly her fingers plucked the black berries.