ON THE RIVER
That Blood River Jack's fear for the safety of Jeanne was well founded
was borne home to Bill Carmody in the story the girl poured into his
ears as they pushed on in the direction of Moncrossen's camp.
The night was jet black, and Bill marveled at the endurance of the girl
and the unfailing sagacity with which she led the way.
The honeycombed river ice sagged toward the middle of the stream, and
the water from the melting snow followed this depression, leaving the
higher edges comparatively dry and free from snow.
The drizzling rain continued as the two stumbled forward, slipping and
splashing through deep pools of icy water. Each moment they were in
danger of plunging through some hole in the rotting ice; but the girl
pushed unhesitatingly onward, and the man followed.
Between them and the camp of Moncrossen lay upward of a hundred miles
of precarious river trail, and with no crust on the water-soaked snow
of the forest they could not take advantage of the short cuts which
would have stricken many miles from their journey.
It was broad daylight when Bill called a halt, and after many
unsuccessful attempts succeeded in kindling a sickly blaze in the
shelter of a clay-streaked cut-bank.
He unslung the pack which he had taken from the shoulders of the girl,
and removed some bacon and sodden bannock. As they toasted the bacon
and dried the bannock at the smoky fire the girl hardly removed her
gaze from the face of the big, silent man who, during the whole long
night, had scarcely spoken a word.
Her eyes flashed as they traveled over the mighty breadth of him and
noted the great muscular arms, the tight-clamped jaw, and the steely
glint of the narrowed gray eyes.
Her face glowed with the pride of his strength as she recalled the
parting scene in the bunk-house when he had hurled the heavy bench,
crashing through the door, and defied the men of the logs.
He had done this thing for _her_, she reflected--for her, and that he
might keep his promise to old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta. She wondered at his
silence. Why did he not speak? And why did he sit gazing with
tight-pressed lips into the flaring, spitting little fire?
Her breath came faster, and she laid a timid hand upon the man's arm.
"The woman?" she asked abruptly. "Who is this woman with the hair of
gold and the eyes of the summer sky?" The slender fingers gripped his
arm convulsively. "She is the woman of the picture!" she cried, and her
eyes sought his.
Bill Carmody nodded slowly and continued to stare into the fire.
"She is my--my wife," he groaned.
"Your--_wife_!"
The girl repeated the words dully, as if seeking to grasp their import.
Her fingers relaxed, her eyes closed, and she lay heavily back upon the
blanket. A long time she remained thus while Bill stared stolidly into
the fire.
At length he aroused himself and glanced toward Jeanne, who lay at his
side, breathing the long, regular breaths of the deep sleep of utter
weariness; and he noted the deep lines of the beautiful face and the
hollow circles beneath the closed eyes that told of the terrible
trail-strain.
"Sixty straight hours of _that_!" he exclaimed as his glance traveled
over the precarious river trail. Curbing his patience, he waited an
hour and then gently awoke the sleeping girl.
"Jeanne," he said as she gazed at him in bewilderment, "you need sleep.
I will go alone to the camp of Moncrossen." At the words she sprang to
her feet.
"No! No!" she cried; "I have slept. I am not tired. Come--to-day, and
to-night--and in the morning we come to the camp."
"We must go then," said Bill, and added more to himself than to Jeanne:
"I wonder if he would _dare_?"
"He would dare _anything_--that is not good!" the girl answered
quickly. "He has the bad heart. But Wa-ha-ta-na-ta will not starve
quickly. She is old and tough, and can go for many days without food;
as in the time of the famine when she refused to eat that we, her
children, might live.
"Even in times of plenty she eats but little, for she lives in the long
ago with Lacombie--in the days of her youth and--and happiness. For she
loved Lacombie, and--Lacombie--loved--her."
The girl's voice broke throatily, and she turned abruptly toward the
river.
The fine, drizzling rain, which had fallen steadily all through the
night, changed to a steady downpour that chilled them to the bone.
The stream of shallow water that flowed over the surface of the ice
swelled to a torrent, forcing them again and again to abandon the river
and slosh knee-deep through the saturated snow of the forest.
Broken ice cakes began to drift past--thick, black cakes which scraped
and ground together as they swung heavily in the current.
"The ice is going out!" cried the girl in dismay. "We can no longer
keep to the river!"
Bill's teeth clenched. "The breakup!" he groaned. "Moncrossen will go
out on the flood, and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta----"
He redoubled his efforts, fairly dragging the girl through the deep
slush. The rain was carrying off the snow with a rush. The gullies and
ravines were running bankful, and time and again the two were forced to
plunge shoulder-deep into the icy waters.
At noon they halted, and in the dripping shelter of a dense thicket
wolfed down a quantity of sodden bannock and raw bacon. The river rose
hourly, and the crash and grind of the moving ice thundered
continuously upon their ears.
Progress was slow and grueling. By the middle of the afternoon they had
covered about forty miles. The water from the rising river began to set
back into the ravines, forcing them to make long detours before daring
to chance a ford.
Darkness came as an added hardship, and as they toiled doggedly around
an abrupt bend they saw on a tiny plateau, high above the dark waters
of the river, a faint flicker of light.
The girl paused and regarded it curiously; then, hurrying to the point,
she peered up and down the river, striving for landmarks in the
gathering gloom.
"Vic Chenault's cabin!" she cried. "I missed it coming up. I knew it
was somewhere up the river. He is a friend of Jacques, and his father
was the good friend of Lacombie."
Drenched and weary, the two pushed toward the light, crossing
swift-rushing gullies whose icy waters threatened each moment to sweep
them from their feet.
Slipping and stumbling through the muck and slush, crashing through
dripping underbrush, they stood at length before the door of the
low-roofed log cabin.
Their knock was answered by a tousled-headed man who stood, lamp in
hand, and blinked owlishly at them from the shelter of the doorway.
"You are Vic Chenault?" asked the girl, and, without waiting for his
grunted assent, continued: "I am Jeanne Lacombie, and this is M's'u'
Bill, The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die."
At the mention of the names the door swung wide and the man smiled a
welcome. They entered amid a rabble of sled-dogs and puppies, which
rolled about the floor in a seemingly inextricable tangle, with
numerous dusky youngsters of various ages and conditions of nudity.
Chenault's Indian wife sat upon the edge of the bunk, a blackened
cob-pipe between her teeth, industriously beading a moccasin; and
seemed in no wise disturbed by the arrival of visitors, nor by the
babel of hubbub that arose from the floor, where dogs and babies howled
their protest against the cold draft from the open door and the pools
of ice-cold water that drained from the clothing of the strangers.
Chenault pronounced a few guttural syllables, and the stolid squaw
reached behind her and, removing a single garment of flaming red calico
from a nail, extended it toward Jeanne.
The girl accepted it with thanks, and her eyes roved about the cabin,
which, being a one-roomed affair, offered scant privacy. The woman
caught the corner of a blanket upon a projecting nail and another
corner upon a similar nail in the upright of the bunk, and motioned the
girl behind the screen with a short wave of her pipe.
The man offered Bill a pair of faded blue overalls and a much-bepatched
shirt of blue flannel, and when Jeanne emerged, clad in the best dress
of her hostess, Bill took his turn in the dressing-room.
"Can't be too pedicular in a pinch," he grinned as he wriggled
dubiously into the dry garments, and in a few minutes he was seated
beside the girl upon a rough bench drawn close to the fire.
Chenault, being a half-breed, was more inclined toward garrulity than
his Indian spouse.
"How you come?" he asked with evident interest. Jeanne answered him,
speaking rapidly, and at the end of a half-hour the man was in full
possession of the details of their plight. He slowly shook his head.
"Moncrossen camp ver' far--feefty--seexty mile," he said. "You no
mak'."
Bill looked up suddenly. "Have you a canoe?" he inquired.
The other looked at him in surprise. "Canoe, she no good!" he grunted.
"Too mooch ice. Bre'k all to hell in one minute!"
With an exclamation he leaped to his feet. "By gar! De flat boat!" he
cried triumphantly.
"She is all build for tak' de fur. De riv', she run ver' swift. In de
morning you go--in de evening you come on de camp!"
"I will pay you well for the boat," said Bill eagerly. "I have no money
here. Give me a pencil; I will write an order on Monsieur Appleton, the
man who owns the woods."
At the words the half-breed shrugged.
"You no got for mak' write," he said. "You tell Wa-ha-ta-na-ta you
come--by gar! You come! You tell me you pay--you pay. You no got for
mak' write."
Bill smiled.
"That is all right, providing I get through. What if the boat gets
tipped over or smashed in the ice?"
Chenault shrugged again. "You De-Man-Who-Cannot-Die," he said. "You got
de good heart. In de woods all peoples know. You no mak' write. I got
no penzil."