host already made an opening in their ranks and that the bear even nosed
the earth in front, as though to show the way that was easiest for him
to follow. Then, suddenly, a lynx leaped past him into the low branches
of a hemlock, and he lifted his head to admire its perfect poise. He saw
in the same instant the arrival of the birds, the army of the eagles,
hawks and buzzards, birds of prey--the awakening flight that just
precedes the dawn. He saw the flocks and streaming lines, hiding the
whitening stars a moment as they passed with a prodigious whirr of
wings. There came the hooting of an owl from the tree immediately
overhead where the lynx now crouched, but not maliciously, along its
branch.
He started. He half rose to an upright position. He knew not why he did
so, knew not exactly why he started. But in the attempt to find his new,
and, as it now seemed, his unaccustomed balance, one hand fell against
his side and came in contact with a hard straight thing that projected
awkwardly from his clothing. He pulled it out, feeling it all over with
his fingers. It was a little stick. He raised it nearer to his eyes,
examined it in the light of dawn now growing swiftly, remembered, or
half remembered what it was--and stood stock still.
"The totem stick," he mumbled to himself, yet audibly, finding his
speech, and finding another thing--a glint of peering memory--for the
first time since entering the valley.
A shock like fire ran through his body; he straightened himself, aware
that a moment before he had been crawling upon his hands and knees; it
seemed that something broke in his brain, lifting a veil, flinging a
shutter free. And Memory peered dreadfully through the widening gap.
"I'm--I'm Grimwood," his voice uttered, though below his breath.
"Tooshalli's left me. I'm alone...!"
He was aware of a sudden change in the animals surrounding him. A big,
grey wolf sat three feet away, glaring into his face; at its side an
enormous grizzly swayed itself from one foot to the other; behind it, as
if looking over its shoulder, loomed a gigantic wapiti, its horns merged
in the shadows of the drooping cedar boughs. But the northern dawn was
nearer, the sun already close to the horizon. He saw details with sharp
distinctness now. The great bear rose, balancing a moment on its massive
hind-quarters, then took a step towards him, its front paws spread like
arms. Its wicked head lolled horribly, as a huge bull-moose, lowering
its horns as if about to charge, came up with a couple of long strides
and joined it. A sudden excitement ran quivering over the entire host;
the distant ranks moved in a new, unpleasant way; a thousand heads were
lifted, ears were pricked, a forest of ugly muzzles pointed up to the
wind.
And the Englishman, beside himself suddenly with a sense of ultimate
terror that saw no possible escape, stiffened and stood rigid. The
horror of his position petrified him. Motionless and silent he faced
the awful army of his enemies, while the white light of breaking day
added fresh ghastliness to the scene which was the setting for his cruel
death in the Valley of the Beasts.
Above him crouched the hideous lynx, ready to spring the instant he
sought safety in the tree; above it again, he was aware of a thousand
talons of steel, fierce hooked beaks of iron, and the angry beating of
prodigious wings.
He reeled, for the grizzly touched his body with its outstretched paw;
the wolf crouched just before its deadly spring; in another second
he would have been torn to pieces, crushed, devoured, when terror,
operating naturally as ever, released the muscles of his throat and
tongue. He shouted with what he believed was his last breath on earth.
He called aloud in his frenzy. It was a prayer to whatever gods there
be, it was an anguished cry for help to heaven.
"Ishtot! Great Ishtot, help me!" his voice rang out, while his hand
still clutched the forgotten totem stick.
And the Red Heaven heard him.
Grimwood that same instant was aware of a presence that, but for
his terror of the beasts, must have frightened him into sheer
unconsciousness. A gigantic Red Indian stood before him. Yet, while the
figure rose close in front of him, causing the birds to settle and the
wild animals to crouch quietly where they stood, it rose also from
a great distance, for it seemed to fill the entire valley with its
influence, its power, its amazing majesty. In some way, moreover, that
he could not understand, its vast appearance included the actual valley
itself with all its trees, its running streams, its open spaces and its
rocky bluffs. These marked its outline, as it were, the outline of a
superhuman shape. There was a mighty bow, there was a quiver of enormous
arrows, there was this Redskin figure to whom they belonged.
Yet the appearance, the outline, the face and figure too--these _were_
the valley; and when the voice became audible, it was the valley itself
that uttered the appalling words. It was the voice of trees and wind,
and of running, falling water that woke the echoes in the Valley of the
Beasts, as, in that same moment, the sun topped the ridge and filled the
scene, the outline of the majestic figure too, with a flood of dazzling
light:
"You have shed blood in this my valley.... _I will not save_...!"
The figure melted away into the sunlit forest, merging with the new-born
day. But Grimwood saw close against his face the shining teeth, hot
fetid breath passed over his cheeks, a power enveloped his whole body as
though a mountain crushed him. He closed his eyes. He fell. A sharp,
crackling sound passed through his brain, but already unconscious, he
did not hear it.
* * * * *
His eyes opened again, and the first thing they took in was--fire. He
shrank back instinctively.
"It's all right, old man. We'll bring you round. Nothing to be
frightened about." He saw the face of Iredale looking down into his own.
Behind Iredale stood Tooshalli. His face was swollen. Grimwood
remembered the blow. The big man began to cry.
"Painful still, is it?" Iredale said sympathetically. "Here, swallow a
little more of this. It'll set you right in no time."
Grimwood gulped down the spirit. He made a violent effort to control
himself, but was unable to keep the tears back. He felt no pain. It was
his heart that ached, though why or wherefore, he had no idea.
"I'm all to pieces," he mumbled, ashamed yet somehow not ashamed. "My
nerves are rotten. What's happened?" There was as yet no memory in him.
"You've been hugged by a bear, old man. But no bones broken. Tooshalli
saved you. He fired in the nick of time--a brave shot, for he might
easily have hit you instead of the brute."
"The other brute," whispered Grimwood, as the whisky worked in him and
memory came slowly back.
"Where are we?" he asked presently, looking about him.
He saw a lake, canoes drawn up on the shore, two tents, and figures
moving. Iredale explained matters briefly, then left him to sleep a bit.
Tooshalli, it appeared, travelling without rest, had reached Iredale's
camping ground twenty-four hours after leaving his employer. He found it
deserted, Iredale and his Indian being on the hunt. When they returned
at nightfall, he had explained his presence in his brief native fashion:
"He struck me and I quit. He hunt now alone in Ishtot's Valley of the
Beasts. He is dead, I think. I come to tell you."
Iredale and his guide, with Tooshalli as leader, started off then and
there, but Grimwood had covered a considerable distance, though leaving
an easy track to follow. It was the moose tracks and the blood that
chiefly guided them. They came up with him suddenly enough--in the grip
of an enormous bear.
It was Tooshalli that fired.
* * * * *
The Indian lives now in easy circumstances, all his needs cared for,
while Grimwood, his benefactor but no longer his employer, has given up
hunting. He is a quiet, easy-tempered, almost gentle sort of fellow,
and people wonder rather why he hasn't married. "Just the fellow to
make a good father," is what they say; "so kind, good-natured and
affectionate." Among his pipes, in a glass case over the mantlepiece,
hangs a totem stick. He declares it saved his soul, but what he means by
the expression he has never quite explained.
VII
THE CALL
The incident--story it never was, perhaps--began tamely, almost meanly;
it ended upon a note of strange, unearthly wonder that has haunted him
ever since. In Headley's memory, at any rate, it stands out as the
loveliest, the most amazing thing he ever witnessed. Other emotions,
too, contributed to the vividness of the picture. That he had felt
jealousy towards his old pal, Arthur Deane, shocked him in the first
place; it seemed impossible until it actually happened. But that the
jealousy was proved afterwards to have been without a cause shocked him
still more. He felt ashamed and miserable.
For him, the actual incident began when he received a note from Mrs.
Blondin asking him to the Priory for a week-end, or for longer, if he
could manage it.
Captain Arthur Deane, she mentioned, was staying with her at the moment,
and a warm welcome awaited him. Iris she did not mention--Iris Manning,
the interesting and beautiful girl for whom it was well known he had a
considerable weakness. He found a good-sized house party; there was
fishing in the little Sussex river, tennis, golf not far away, while two
motor cars brought the remoter country across the downs into easy reach.
Also there was a bit of duck shooting for those who cared to wake at
3 a. m. and paddle up-stream to the marshes where the birds were feeding.
"Have you brought your gun?" was the first thing Arthur said to him when
he arrived. "Like a fool, I left mine in town."
"I hope you haven't," put in Miss Manning; "because if you have I must
get up one fine morning at three o'clock." She laughed merrily, and
there was an undernote of excitement in the laugh.
Captain Headley showed his surprise. "That you were a Diana had escaped
my notice, I'm ashamed to say," he replied lightly. "Yet I've known you
some years, haven't I?" He looked straight at her, and the soft yet
searching eye, turning from his friend, met his own securely. She was
appraising him, for the hundreth time, and he, for the hundreth time,
was thinking how pretty she was, and wondering how long the prettiness
would last after marriage.
"I'm not," he heard her answer. "That's just it. But I've promised."
"Rather!" said Arthur gallantly. "And I shall hold you to it," he added
still more gallantly--too gallantly, Headley thought. "I couldn't
possibly get up at cockcrow without a very special inducement, could I,
now? You know me, Dick!"
"Well, anyhow, I've brought my gun," Headley replied evasively, "so
you've no excuse, either of you. You'll have to go." And while they were
laughing and chattering about it, Mrs. Blondin clinched the matter for
them. Provisions were hard to come by; the larder really needed a brace
or two of birds; it was the least they could do in return for what she
called amusingly her "Armistice hospitality."
"So I expect you to get up at three," she chaffed them, "and return with
your Victory birds."
It was from this preliminary skirmish over the tea-table on the law five
minutes after his arrival that Dick Headley realized easily enough the
little game in progress. As a man of experience, just on the wrong side
of forty, it was not difficult to see the cards each held. He sighed.
Had he guessed an intrigue was on foot he would not have come, yet he
might have known that wherever his hostess was, there were the vultures
gathered together. Matchmaker by choice and instinct, Mrs. Blondin
could not help herself. True to her name, she was always balancing on
matrimonial tightropes--for others.
_Her_ cards, at any rate, were obvious enough; she had laid them on the
table for him. He easily read her hand. The next twenty-four hours
confirmed this reading. Having made up her mind that Iris and Arthur
were destined for each other, she had grown impatient; they had been ten
days together, yet Iris was still free. They were good friends only.
With calculation, she, therefore, took a step that must bring things
further. She invited Dick Headley, whose weakness for the girl was
common knowledge. The card was indicated; she played it. Arthur must
come to the point or see another man carry her off. This, at least, she
planned, little dreaming that the dark King of Spades would interfere.
Miss Manning's hand also was fairly obvious, for both men were extremely
eligible _partis_. She was getting on; one or other was to become her
husband before the party broke up. This, in crude language, was
certainly in her cards, though, being a nice and charming girl, she
might camouflage it cleverly to herself and others. Her eyes, on each
man in turn when the shooting expedition was being discussed, revealed
her part in the little intrigue clearly enough. It was all, thus far, as
commonplace as could be.
But there were two more hands Headley had to read--his own and his
friend's; and these, he admitted honestly, were not so easy. To take his
own first. It was true he was fond of the girl and had often tried to
make up his mind to ask her. Without being conceited, he had good reason
to believe his affection was returned and that she would accept him.
There was no ecstatic love on either side, for he was no longer a boy of
twenty, nor was she unscathed by tempestuous love affairs that had
scorched the first bloom from her face and heart. But they understood
one another; they were an honest couple; she was tired of flirting;
both wanted to marry and settle down. Unless a better man turned up she
probably would say "Yes" without humbug or delay. It was this last
reflection that brought him to the final hand he had to read.
Here he was puzzled. Arthur Deane's role in the teacup strategy, for the
first time since they had known one another, seemed strange, uncertain.
Why? Because, though paying no attention to the girl openly, he met her
clandestinely, unknown to the rest of the house-party, and above all
without telling his intimate pal--at three o'clock in the morning.
The house-party was in full swing, with a touch of that wild, reckless
gaiety which followed the end of the war: "Let us be happy before a
worse thing comes upon us," was in many hearts. After a crowded day they
danced till early in the morning, while doubtful weather prevented the
early shooting expedition after duck. The third night Headley contrived
to disappear early to bed. He lay there thinking. He was puzzled over
his friend's role, over the clandestine meeting in particular. It was
the morning before, waking very early, he had been drawn to the window
by an unusual sound--the cry of a bird. Was it a bird? In all his
experience he had never heard such a curious, half-singing call before.
He listened a moment, thinking it must have been a dream, yet with the
odd cry still ringing in his ears. It was repeated close beneath his
open window, a long, low-pitched cry with three distinct following notes
in it.
He sat up in bed and listened hard. No bird that he knew could make such
sounds. But it was not repeated a third time, and out of sheer curiosity
he went to the window and looked out. Dawn was creeping over the distant
downs; he saw their outline in the grey pearly light; he saw the lawn
below, stretching down to the little river at the bottom, where a
curtain of faint mist hung in the air. And on this lawn he also saw
Arthur Deane--with Iris Manning.
Of course, he reflected, they were going after the duck. He turned to
look at his watch; it was three o'clock. The same glance, however,
showed him his gun standing in the corner. So they were going without a
gun. A sharp pang of unexpected jealousy shot through him. He was just
going to shout out something or other, wishing them good luck, or asking
if they had found another gun, perhaps, when a cold touch crept down his
spine. The same instant his heart contracted. Deane had followed the
girl into the summer-house, which stood on the right. It was _not_ the
shooting expedition at all. Arthur was meeting her for another purpose.
The blood flowed back, filling his head. He felt an eavesdropper, a
sneak, a detective; but, for all that, he felt also jealous. And his
jealousy seemed chiefly because Arthur had not told him.
Of this, then, he lay thinking in bed on the third night. The following
day he had said nothing, but had crossed the corridor and put the gun in
his friend's room. Arthur, for his part, had said nothing either. For
the first time in their long, long friendship, there lay a secret
between them. To Headley the unexpected revelation came with pain.
For something like a quarter of a century these two had been bosom
friends; they had camped together, been in the army together, taken
their pleasure together, each the full confidant of the other in all the
things that go to make up men's lives. Above all, Headley had been the
one and only recipient of Arthur's unhappy love story. He knew the girl,
knew his friend's deep passion, and also knew his terrible pain when she
was lost at sea. Arthur was burnt out, finished, out of the running, so
far as marriage was concerned. He was not a man to love a second time.
It was a great and poignant tragedy. Headley, as confidant, knew all.
But more than that--Arthur, on his side, knew his friend's weakness for
Iris Manning, knew that a marriage was still possible and likely between
them. They were true as steel to one another, and each man, oddly
enough, had once saved the other's life, thus adding to the strength of
a great natural tie.
Yet now one of them, feigning innocence by day, even indifference,
secretly met his friend's girl by night, and kept the matter to himself.
It seemed incredible. With his own eyes Headley had seen him on the
lawn, passing in the faint grey light through the mist into the
summer-house, where the girl had just preceded him. He had not seen her
face, but he had seen the skirt sweep round the corner of the wooden
pillar. He had not waited to see them come out again.
So he now lay wondering what role his old friend was playing in this
little intrigue that their hostess, Mrs. Blondin, helped to stage. And,
oddly enough, one minor detail stayed in his mind with a curious
vividness. As naturalist, hunter, nature-lover, the cry of that strange
bird, with its three mournful notes, perplexed him exceedingly.
A knock came at his door, and the door pushed open before he had time to
answer. Deane himself came in.
"Wise man," he exclaimed in an easy tone, "got off to bed. Iris was
asking where you were." He sat down on the edge of the mattress, where
Headley was lying with a cigarette and an open book he had not read. The
old sense of intimacy and comradeship rose in the latter's heart. Doubt
and suspicion faded. He prized his great friendship. He met the familiar
eyes. "Impossible," he said to himself, "absolutely impossible! He's not
playing a game; he's not a rotter!" He pushed over his cigarette case,
and Arthur lighted one.
"Done in," he remarked shortly, with the first puff. "Can't stand it any
more. I'm off to town to-morrow."
Headley stared in amazement. "Fed up already?" he asked. "Why, I rather
like it. It's quite amusing. What's wrong, old man?"
"This match-making," said Deane bluntly. "Always throwing that girl at
my head. If it's not the duck-shooting stunt at 3 a. m., it's something
else. She doesn't care for me and I don't care for her. Besides----"
He stopped, and the expression of his face changed suddenly. A sad,
quiet look of tender yearning came into his clear brown eyes.
"_You_ know, Dick," he went on in a low, half-reverent tone. "I don't
want to marry. I never can."
Dick's heart stirred within him. "Mary," he said, understandingly.
The other nodded, as though the memories were still too much for him.
"I'm still miserably lonely for her," he said. "Can't help it simply.
I feel utterly lost without her. Her memory to me is everything." He
looked deep into his pal's eyes. "I'm married to that," he added very
firmly.
They pulled their cigarettes a moment in silence. They belonged to the
male type that conceals emotion behind schoolboy language.
"It's hard luck," said Headley gently, "rotten luck, old man, I
understand." Arthur's head nodded several times in succession as he
smoked. He made no remark for some minutes. Then presently he said, as
though it had no particular importance--for thus old friends show
frankness to each other--"Besides, anyhow, it's you the girl's dying
for, not me. She's blind as a bat, old Blondin. Even when I'm with
her--thrust with her by that old matchmaker for my sins--it's you she
talks about. All the talk leads up to you and yours. She's devilish fond
of you." He paused a moment and looked searchingly into his friend's
face. "I say, old man--are you--I mean, do you mean business there?
Because--excuse me interfering--but you'd better be careful. She's a
good sort, you know, after all."
"Yes, Arthur, I do like her a bit," Dick told him frankly. "But I can't
make up my mind quite. You see, it's like this----"
And they talked the matter over as old friends will, until finally
Arthur chucked his cigarette into the grate and got up to go. "Dead to
the world," he said, with a yawn. "I'm off to bed. Give you a chance,
too," he added with a laugh. It was after midnight.
The other turned, as though something had suddenly occurred to him.
"By the bye, Arthur," he said abruptly, "what bird makes this sound? I
heard it the other morning. Most extraordinary cry. You know everything
that flies. What is it?" And, to the best of his ability, he imitated
the strange three-note cry he had heard in the dawn two mornings before.
To his amazement and keen distress, his friend, with a sound like a
stifled groan, sat down upon the bed without a word. He seemed startled.
His face was white. He stared. He passed a hand, as in pain, across his
forehead.
"Do it again," he whispered, in a hushed, nervous voice. "Once
again--for me."
And Headley, looking at him, repeated the queer notes, a sudden
revulsion of feeling rising through him. "He's fooling me after all,"
ran in his heart, "my old, old pal----"
There was silence for a full minute. Then Arthur, stammering a bit, said
lamely, a certain hush in his voice still: "Where in the world did you
hear that--and _when_?"
Dick Headley sat up in bed. He was not going to lose this friendship,
which, to him, was more than the love of woman. He must help. His pal
was in distress and difficulty. There were circumstances, he realized,
that might be too strong for the best man in the world--sometimes. No,
by God, he would play the game and help him out!
"Arthur, old chap," he said affectionately, almost tenderly. "I heard it
two mornings ago--on the lawn below my window here. It woke me up. I--I
went to look. Three in the morning, about."
Arthur amazed him then. He first took another cigarette and lit it
steadily. He looked round the room vaguely, avoiding, it seemed, the
other's eyes. Then he turned, pain in his face, and gazed straight at
him.
"You saw--nothing?" he asked in a louder voice, but a voice that had
something very real and true in it. It reminded Headley of the voice he
heard when he was fainting from exhaustion, and Arthur had said, "Take
it, I tell you. I'm all right," and had passed over the flask, though
his own throat and sight and heart were black with thirst. It was a
voice that had command in it, a voice that did not lie because it could
not--yet did lie and could lie--when occasion warranted.
Headley knew a second's awful struggle.
"Nothing," he answered quietly, after his little pause. "Why?"
For perhaps two minutes his friend hid his face. Then he looked up.
"Only," he whispered, "because that was our secret lover's cry. It
seems so strange you heard it and not I. I've felt her so close of
late--Mary!"
The white face held very steady, the firm lips did not tremble, but it
was evident that the heart knew anguish that was deep and poignant. "We
used it to call each other--in the old days. It was our private call. No
one else in the world knew it but Mary and myself."
Dick Headley was flabbergasted. He had no time to think, however.