Beatrice's dreams were troubled after Ben's departure into the forest.
She tossed and murmured, secretly aware that all was not well with her.
Yet in the moments that she half-wakened she ascribed the vague warning
to nervousness only, falling immediately to sleep again. Wakefulness
came vividly to her only with the beginnings of twilight.
She opened her eyes; the cavern was deep with shadow. She lay resting a
short time, adjusting her eyes to the soft light. In an instant all the
dramatic events of the day were recalled to her: the tin cup that had
held the poison still lay against the wall, and the liquor still stained
the sandy floor, or was it only a patch of deeper shadow?
She wondered why Ben did not come into the cave. Was he embittered
against her, after all; had he spoken as he did just from kindness, to
save her remorse? She listened for the familiar sounds of his fuel
cutting, or his other work about the camp. Wherever he was, he made no
sound at all.
She sat up then, staring out through the cavern maw. For an instant she
experienced a deep sense of bewilderment at the pressing gloom, so
mysterious and unbroken over the face of the land. But soon she
understood what was missing. The fire was out.
The fact went home to her with an inexplicable shock. She had become so
accustomed to seeing the bright, cheerful blaze at the cavern mouth that
its absence was like a little tragedy in itself. Always it had been the
last vista of her closing eyes as she dropped off to sleep--the soft,
warm glow of the coals--and the sight always comforted her. She could
scarcely remember the morning that it wasn't crackling cheerily when she
wakened. Ben had always been so considerate of her in this
regard--removing the chill of the cave with its radiating heat to make
it comfortable for her to dress. Not even coals were left now--only
ashes, gray as death.
She got up, then walked to the cavern maw. For a moment she stood
peering into the gloom, one hand resting against the portals of stone.
The twilight was already deep. It was the supper hour and past; dark
night was almost at hand. There could be no further doubt of Ben's
absence. He was not at the little creek getting water, nor did she hear
the ring of his axe in the forest. She wondered if he had gone out on
one of his scouting expeditions and had not yet returned. Of course this
was the true explanation; she had no real cause to worry.
Likely enough he had little desire to return to the cavern now. She
could picture him following at his tireless pace one of the winding
woods trails, lost in contemplation, his vivid eyes clouded with
thought.
She looked up for the sight of the familiar stars that might guide him
home. They were all hidden to-night. Not a gleam of light softened the
stark gloom of the spruce. As she watched the first drops of rain fell
softly on the grass.
The drops came in ever-increasing frequency, cold as ice on her hand.
She heard them rustling in the spruce boughs; and far in the forest she
discerned the first whine of the wakening wind. The sound of the rain
was no longer soft. It swelled and grew, and all at once the wind caught
it and swept it into her face. And now the whole forest moaned and
soughed under the sweep of the wind.
There is no sound quite like the beat of a hard rain on dense forest. It
has no startling discords, but rather a regular cadence as if the wood
gods were playing melodies in the minor on giant instruments,--melodies
remembered from the first, unhappy days of the earth and on instruments
such as men have never seen. But this was never a melody to fill the
heart with joy. It touches deep chords of sorrow in the most secret
realms of the spirit. The rain song grew and fell as the gusts of the
wind swept it, and the rock walls of the cliff swam in clouds of spray.
The storm could not help but bring Ben to camp, she thought. At least
she did not fear that he would lose his way: he knew every trail and
ridge for miles around the cave. Even such pressing, baleful darkness as
this could not bewilder him. She went back to her cot to wait his
coming.
The minutes seemed interminable. Time had never moved so slowly before.
She tried to lie still, to relax; then to direct her thought in other
channels; but all of these meandering streams flowed back into the main
current which was Ben. Yet it was folly to worry about him; any moment
she would hear his step at the edge of the forest. But the night was so
dark, and the storm so wild. A half-hour dragged its interminable length
away.
Her uneasiness was swiftly developing into panic. Just to-day she was
willing to risk his life for her freedom: it was certainly folly now to
goad herself to despair by dwelling on his mysterious absence. It might
speed the passing minutes if she got up and found some work to do about
the cave; but she simply had no heart for it. Once she sat up, only to
lie down again.
The moments dragged by. Surely he would have had time to reach camp by
now. The storm neither increased nor decreased; only played its mournful
melodies in the forest. The song of the rain was despairing,--low
mournful notes rising to a sharp crescendo as the fiercer gusts swept it
into the tree tops. The limbs murmured unhappily as they smote together;
and a tall tree, swaying in the wind, creaked with a maddening
regularity. She was never so lonely before, so darkly miserable.
"I want him to come," her voice suddenly spoke aloud. It rang strangely
in the gloomy cave. "I want him to come back to me."
She felt no impulse for the words. They seemed to speak themselves.
Presently she sat erect, her heart leaping with inexpressible relief, at
the sound of a heavy tread at the edge of the glade.
The steps came nearer, and then paused. She sprang to her feet and went
to the mouth of the cave. A silence that lived between the beating rain
and the complaining wind settled down about her. Her eyes could not
pierce the darkness.
"Is that you, Ben?" she called.
She strained into the silence for his reply. The cold drops splashed
into her face.
"Ben?" she called again. "Is that you?"
Then something leaped with an explosive sound, and running feet splashed
in the wet grass in flight. The little spruce trees at the edge of the
glade whipped and rustled as a heavy body crashed through. The steps had
been only those of some forest beast--a caribou, perhaps, or a
moose--come to mock her despair.
She remembered that Ben had been wishing for just such a visitation
these past few days; of course in the daylight hours when he could see
to shoot. Their meat supply was almost gone.
She did not go to her cot again. She stood peering into the gloom. All
further effort to repel her fears came to nothing. The storm was already
of two hours' duration, and Ben would have certainly returned to the
cave unless disaster had befallen him. Was he lost somewhere in the
intertwining trails, seeking shelter in a heavy thicket until the dawn
should show him his way? There were so many pitfalls for the
unsuspecting in these trackless wilds.
Yet she could be of no aid to him. The dark woods stretched
interminably; she would not even know which way to start. It would just
mean to be lost herself, should she attempt to seek him. The trails that
wound through the glades and over the ridges had no end.
"Ben!" she called again. Then with increasing volume. "Ben!"
But no echo returned. The darkness swallowed the sound at once.
The night was chill: she longed for the comfort of the fire. The actual
labor of building it might take her mind from her fears for a while at
least; and its warm glow might dispel the growing cold of fear and
loneliness in her breast. Besides, it might be a beacon light for Ben.
She turned at once to the pile of kindling Ben had prepared.
But before she could build a really satisfactory fire, one that would
endure the rain, she must cut fuel from some of the logs Ben had hewn
down and dragged to the cave. She lighted a short piece of pitchy wood,
intending to locate the heavy camp axe. Then, putting on her heavy
coat--the same garment of lustrous fur which Ben had sent her back for
the day of her abduction--she ventured into the storm.
The rain splashed in vain at her torch. The pitch burned with a fierce
flame. But her eyes sought in vain for the axe.
This was a strange thing: Ben always left it leaning against one of the
chunks of spruce. Presently she halted, startled, gazing into the black
depths of the forest.
Ben had taken it; he had plainly gone forth after fuel. Trees stood all
about the little glade: he couldn't have gone far. The inference was
obvious: whatever disaster had befallen him must have occurred within a
few hundred yards of the cave.
Holding her torch high she went to the edge of the glade and again
called into the gloom. There was no repression in her voice now. She
called as loudly as she could. She started to push on into the fringe of
timber.
But at once she paused, holding hard on her self-control. It was folly
to make a blind search. To penetrate the dark mystery of the forest with
only this little light--already flickering out--would probably result in
becoming lost herself. Such a course would not help Ben's cause.
Evidently he was lying within a few hundred feet of her,
unconscious--perhaps dead--or he would have replied to her call.
Dead! The thought sped an icy current throughout the hydraulic system of
her veins.
She was a mountain girl, and she made no further false motions. She
turned at once to the cave, and piling up her kindling, built a fire
just at the mouth of the cave. It was protected here in some degree from
the rain, and the wind was right to carry the smoke away. This fire
would serve to keep her direction and lead her back to the cavern.
Once more she ventured into the storm, and gathering all the cut fuel
she could find, piled it on her fire. The two spruce chunks that Ben had
cut for their fireside seats were placed as back logs. Then she hunted
for pine knots taken from the scrub pines that grew in scattering clumps
among the spruce, and which were laden with pitch.
One of these knots she put in the iron pan they used for frying, then
lighted it. Then she pushed into the timber.
Holding her light high she began to encircle the glade clear to the
barrier of the cliffs. To the eyes of the wild creatures this might have
been a never-to-be-forgotten picture: the slight form of the girl, her
face blanched and her eyes wide and dark in the flaring light, her
grotesque torch and its weird shadows, and then rain sweeping down
between. She reached the cliff, then started back, making a wider
circle.
Adding fresh fuel to the torch, she peered into every covert and
examined with minute care any human-shaped shadow in that eerie world of
shadows; but the long half-circle brought her back to the cliff wall
without results. She was already wet to the skin, and her pine knots
were nearly spent. Ever the load of dread was heavier at her heart. In
the hour or more she had searched--she had no way of estimating
time--she had already gone farther than Ben usually went for his fuel.
As yet no tears came; only the raindrops lay on her face and curled her
dark hair in ringlets. But she must not give up yet. It was hard to hold
her shoulders straight; but she must make the long circle once more.
With courage and strength such as she had not dreamed she possessed,
she launched forward again. But fatigue was breaking her now. The tree
roots tripped her faltering feet, the branches clutched at her as she
passed. It was hard to tell what territory she had searched, or how far
she had gone. But when she was halfway around, she suddenly halted,
motionless as an image, at the edge of the stream.
The flickering light revealed a tree, freshly cut, its, naked stump
gleaming and its tall form lying prone. Yet beneath it the shadows were
of strange, unearthly shape, and something showed stark white through
the green foliage. Great branches stretched over it, like bars over a
prison window.
Just one curious deep sob wracked her whole body. The life-heat, the
mystery that is being, seemed to steal away from her. Her strength
wilted; and for an instant she could only stand and gaze with fixed,
unbelieving eyes. But almost at once the unquenchable fires of her
spirit blazed up anew. She saw her task, and with a faith and
steadfastness conformable more to the sun and the earth than to human
frailty, her muscles made instant and incredible response.
Instantly she was beside the form of her comrade and enemy, struggling
with the cruel limbs that pinned him to the earth.