THE SILENT BATTLE
[Illustration: “The table rang from end to end with joke and laughter.”]
THE
SILENT BATTLE
BY
GEORGE GIBBS
AUTHOR OF
THE BOLTED DOOR,
THE FORBIDDEN WAY, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1913, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1912, 1913, by the Pictorial Review Company
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. LOST 1
II. BABES IN THE WOODS 11
III. VOICES 22
IV. EDEN 33
V. WOMAN AND MAN 46
VI. THE SHADOW 60
VII. ALLEGRO 73
VIII. CHICOT, THE JESTER 84
IX. THE LORINGS 95
X. MR. VAN DUYN RIDES FORTH 109
XI. THE CEDARCROFT SET 122
XII. NELLIE PENNINGTON CUTS IN 136
XIII. MRS. PENNINGTON’S BROUGHAM 151
XIV. THE JUNIOR MEMBER 166
XV. DISCOVERED 177
XVI. BEHIND THE ENEMY’S BACK 190
XVII. “THE POT AND KETTLE” 200
XVIII. THE ENEMY AND A FRIEND 212
XIX. LOVE ON CRUTCHES 225
XX. THE INTRUDER 236
XXI. TEMPTATION 247
XXII. SMOKE AND FIRE 261
XXIII. THE MOUSE AND THE LION 273
XXIV. DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND 285
XXV. DEEP WATER 297
XXVI. BIG BUSINESS 310
XXVII. MR. LORING REFLECTS 323
XXVIII. THE LODESTAR 338
XXIX. ARCADIA AGAIN 350
THE SILENT BATTLE
I
LOST
Gallatin wearily lowered the creel from his shoulders and dropped it by
his rod at the foot of a tree. He knew that he was lost--had known it,
in fact, for an hour or more, but with the certainty that there was no
way out until morning, perhaps not even then, came a feeling of relief,
and with the creel, he dropped the mental burden which for the last
hour had been plaguing him, first with fear and then more recently with
a kind of ironical amusement.
What did it matter, after all? He realized that for twenty-eight years
he had made a mess of most of the things he had attempted, and that
if he ever got back to civilization, he would probably go diligently
on in the way he had begun. There was time enough to think about that
to-morrow. At present he was so tired that all he wanted was a place to
throw his weary limbs. He had penetrated miles into the wilderness, he
knew, but in what direction the nearest settlement lay he hadn’t the
vaguest notion--to the southward probably, since his guide had borne
him steadily northward for more than two weeks.
That blessed guide! With the omniscience of the inexperienced, Gallatin
had left Joe Keegón alone at camp after breakfast, with a general and
hazy notion of whipping unfished trout pools. He had disregarded his
mentor’s warning to keep his eye on the sun and bear to his left hand,
and in the joy of the game, had lost all sense of time and direction.
He realized now from his aching legs that he had walked many miles
farther than he had wanted to walk, and that, at the last, the fish in
his creel had grown perceptibly heavier. The six weeks at Mulready’s
had hardened him for the work, but never, even at White Meadows, had
his muscles ached as they did now. He was hungry, too, ravenously
hungry, and a breeze which roamed beneath the pines advised him that it
was time to make a fire.
It was a wonderful hunger that he had, a healthful, beastlike
hunger--not the gnawing fever, for that seemed to have left him, but a
craving for Joe’s biscuits and bacon (at which he had at first turned
up his pampered aristocratic nose), which now almost amounted to an
obsession. Good old Joe! Gallatin remembered how, during the first week
of their pilgrimage, he had lain like the sluggard that he was, against
the bole of a tree, weary of the ache within and rebellious against
the conditions which had sent him forth, cursing in his heart at the
old Indian for his taciturnity, while he watched the skillful brown
fingers moving unceasingly at the evening task. Later he had begun to
learn with delight of his own growing capabilities, and as the habit of
analysis fell upon him, to understand the dignity of the vast silences
of which the man was a part.
Not that Gallatin himself was undignified in the worldly way, for he
had lived as his father and his father’s fathers before him had lived,
deeply imbued with the traditions of his class, which meant large
virtues, civic pride, high business integrity, social punctilio, and
the only gentlemanly vice the Gallatin blood had ever been heir to.
But a new idea of nobility had come to him in the woods, a new idea of
life itself, which his conquest of his own energy had made possible.
The deep aisles of the woods had spoken the message, the spell of the
silent places, the mystery of the eternal which hung on every lichened
rock, which sang in every wind that swayed the boughs above.
Heigho! This was no time for moralizing. There was a fire to light,
a shelter of some sort to build and a bed to make. Gallatin got up
wearily, stretching his tired muscles and cast about in search of a
spot for his camp. He found two young trees on a high piece of ground
within a stone’s throw of the stream, which would serve as supports
for a roof of boughs, and was in the act of gathering the wood for
his fire, when he caught the crackling of a dry twig in the bushes
at some distance away. Three weeks ago, perhaps, he would not have
heard or noticed, but his ear, now trained to the accustomed sounds,
gave warning that a living thing, a deer or a black bear, perhaps,
was moving in the undergrowth. He put his armful of wood down and hid
himself behind a tree, drawing meanwhile an automatic, the only weapon
he possessed, from his hip pocket. He had enough of woodcraft to know
that no beast of the woods, unless in full flight, would come down
against the wind toward a human being, making such a racket as this.
The crackling grew louder and the rapid swish of feet in the dry leaves
was plainly audible. His eye now caught the movement of branches and in
a moment he made out the dim bulk of a figure moving directly toward
him. He had even raised the hand which held his Colt and was in the act
of aiming it when from the shelter of the moose-wood there emerged--a
girl.
She wore a blue flannel blouse, a short skirt and long leather gaiters
and over one hip hung a creel like his own. Her dress was smart and
sportsmanlike, but her hat was gone; her hair had burst its confines
and hung in a pitiful confusion about her shoulders. She suggested to
him the thought of Syrinx pursued by the satyrs; for her cheeks were
flushed with the speed of her flight and her eyes were wide with fear.
Comely and frightened Dryads who order their clothes from Fifth Avenue,
are not found every day in the heart of the Canadian wilderness;
and Gallatin half expected that if he stepped forward like Pan to
test her tangibility, she would vanish into empty air. Indeed such a
metamorphosis was about to take place; for as he emerged from behind
his tree, the girl turned one terrified look in his direction and
disappeared in the bushes.
For a brief moment Gallatin paused. He had had visions before, and the
thought came into his mind that this was one like the others, born of
his overtaxed strength and the rigors of the day. But as he gazed at
the spot where the Dryad had stood, branches of young trees swayed,
showing the direction in which she was passing and the sounds in the
crackling underbrush, ever diminishing, assured him that the sudden
apparition was no vision at all, but very delectable flesh and blood,
fleeing from him in terror. He remembered, then, a tale that Joe Keegón
had told him of a tenderfoot, who when lost in the woods was stricken
suddenly mad with fear and, ended like a frightened animal running
away from the guides that had been sent for him. Fear had not come to
Gallatin yet. He had acknowledged bewilderment and a vague sense of the
monstrous vastness of the thing he had chosen for his summer plaything.
He had been surprised when the streams began running up hill instead
of down, and when the sun appeared suddenly in a new quarter of the
heavens, but he had not been frightened. He was too indifferent for
that. But he knew from the one brief look he had had of the eyes of the
girl, that the forest had mastered her, and that, like the fellow in
Joe’s tale, she had stampeded in fright.
Hurriedly locking his Colt, Gallatin plunged headlong into the bushes
where the girl had disappeared. For a moment he thought he had lost
her, for the tangle of underbrush was thick and the going rough, but
in a rift in the bushes he saw the dark blouse again and went forward
eagerly. He lost it, found it again and then suddenly saw it no more.
He stopped and leaned against a tree listening. There were no sounds
but the murmur of the rising wind and the note of a bird. He climbed
over a fallen log and went on toward the slope where he had last seen
her, stopping, listening, his eyes peering from one side to the other.
He knew that she could not be far away, for ahead of him the brush was
thinner, and the young trees offered little cover. A tiny gorge, rock
strewn, but half filled with leaves, lay before him, and it was not
until he had stumbled halfway across it that he saw her, lying face
downward, her head in her hands, trembling and dumb with fear.
From the position in which she lay he saw that she had caught her foot
in a hidden root and, in her mad haste to escape she knew not what, had
fallen headlong. She did not move as he approached; but as he bent over
her about to speak, she shuddered and bent her head more deeply in her
arms, as though in expectation of a blow.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said softly.
At the sound of his voice she trembled again, but he leaned over and
touched her on the shoulder.
“I’m very sorry I frightened you,” he said again. And then after a
moment, “Have you lost your way?”
She painfully freed one arm, and looked up; then quickly buried her
head again in her hands, her shoulders heaving convulsively, her
slender body racked by childish sobs.
Gallatin straightened in some confusion. He had never, to his knowledge,
been considered a bugaboo among the women of his acquaintance. But, as
he rubbed his chin pensively, he remembered that it was a week or more
since he had had a shave, and that a stiff dark stubble discolored his
chin. His brown slouch hat was broken and dirty, his blue flannel shirt
from contact with the briers was tattered and worn, and he realized
that he was hardly an object to inspire confidence in the heart of a
frightened girl. So, with a discretion which did credit to his knowledge
of her sex, he sat down on a near-by rock and waited for the storm to
pass.
His patience was rewarded, for in a little while her sobs were spent,
and she raised her head and glanced at him. This time his appearance
reassured her, for Gallatin had taken off his hat, and his eyes, no
longer darkly mysterious in shadow, were looking at her very kindly.
“I want to try and help you, if I can,” he was saying gently. “I’m
about to make a camp over here, and if you’ll join me----”
Something in the tones of his voice and in his manner of expressing
himself, caused her to sit suddenly up and examine him more minutely.
When she had done so, her hands made two graceful gestures--one toward
her disarranged hair and the other toward her disarranged skirt.
Gallatin would have laughed at this instinctive manifestation of the
eternal feminine, which even in direst woe could not altogether be
forgotten, but instead he only smiled, for after all she looked so
childishly forlorn and unhappy.
“I’m not really going to eat you, you know,” he said again, smiling.
“I--I’m glad,” she stammered with a queer little smile. “I didn’t know
_what_ you were. I’m afraid I--I’ve been very much frightened.”
“You were lost, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” She struggled to her knees and then sank back again.
“Well, there’s really nothing to be frightened about. It’s almost too
late to try to find your friends to-night, but if you’ll come with me
I’ll do my best to make you comfortable.”
He had risen and offered her his hand, but when she tried to rise she
winced with pain.
“I--I’m afraid I can’t,” she said. “I think I--I’ve twisted my ankle.”
“Oh, that’s awkward,” in concern. “Does it hurt you very much?”
“I--I think it does. I can’t seem to use it at all.” She moved her foot
and her face grew white with the pain of it.
Gallatin looked around him vaguely, as though in expectation that Joe
Keegón or somebody else might miraculously appear to help him, and then
for the first time since he had seen her, was alive again to the rigors
of his own predicament.
“I’m awfully sorry,” he stammered helplessly. “Don’t you think you can
stand on it?”
He offered her his hand and shoulder and she bravely tried to rise, but
the effort cost her pain and with a little cry she sank back in the
leaves, her face buried in her arms. She seemed so small, so helpless
that his heart was filled with a very genuine pity. She was not crying
now, but the hand which held her moist handkerchief was so tightly
clenched that her knuckles were outlined in white against the tan. He
watched her a moment in silence, his mind working rapidly.
“Come,” he said at last in quick cheerful notes of decision. “This
won’t do at all. We’ve got to get out of here. You must take that shoe
off. Then we’ll get you over yonder and you can bathe it in the stream.
Try and get your gaiter off, too, won’t you?”
His peremptory accents startled her a little, but she sat up obediently
while he supported her shoulders, and wincing again as she moved, at
last undid her legging. Gallatin then drew his hasp-knife and carefully
slit the laces of her shoe from top to bottom, succeeding in getting it
safely off.
“Your ankle is swelling,” he said. “You must bathe it at once.”
She looked around helplessly.
“Where?”
“At the stream. I’m going to carry you there.”
“You couldn’t. Is it far?”
“No. Only a hundred yards or so. Come along.”
He bent over to silence her protests and lifted her by the armpits.
Then while she supported herself for a moment upright, lifted her in
his arms and made his way up the slope.
Marvelous is the recuperative power of the muscular system! Ten minutes
ago Gallatin had been, to all intents and purposes of practical
utility, at the point of exhaustion. Now, without heart-breaking
effort, he found it possible to carry a burden of one hundred and
thirty pounds a considerable distance through rough timber without
mishap! His muscles ached no more than they had done before, and the
only thing he could think of just then was that she was absurdly
slender to weigh so much. One of her arms encircled his shoulders and
the fingers of one small brown hand clutched tightly at the collar of
his shirt. Her eyes peered before her into the brush, and her face was
almost hidden by the tangled mass of her hair. But into the pale cheek
which was just visible, a gentle color was rising which matched the
rosy glow that was spreading over the heavens.
“I’m afraid I--I’m awfully heavy,” she said, as he made his way around
the fallen giant over which a short while ago they had both clambered.
“Don’t you think I had better get down for a moment?”
“Oh, no,” he panted. “Not at all. It--it isn’t far now. I’m afraid
you’d hurt your foot. Does it--does it pain you so much now?”
“N-o, I think not,” she murmured bravely. “But I’m afraid you’re
dreadfully tired.”
“N-not at all,” he stammered. “We’ll be there soon now.”
When he came to the spot he had marked for his camp, he bore to
the right and in a moment they had reached the stream which gushed
musically among the boulders, half hidden in the underbrush. It was
not until he had carefully chosen a place for her that he consented to
put her on the ground. Then with a knee on the bank and a foot in the
stream, he lowered her gently to a mossy bank within reach of the water.
“You’re very kind,” she whispered, her cheeks flaming as she looked up
at him. “I’m awfully sorry.”
“Nothing of the sort,” he laughed. “I’d have let you carry _me_--if you
could.” And then, with the hurried air of a man who has much to do:
“You take off your stocking and dangle your foot in the water. Wiggle
your toes if you can and then try to rub the blood into your ankle. I’m
going to build a fire and cook some fish. Are you hungry?”
“I don’t know. I--I think I am.”
“Good!” he said smiling pleasantly. “We’ll have supper in a minute.”
He was turning to go, when she questioned: “You spoke of a camp. Is--is
it near here?”
“N-o. It isn’t,” he hesitated, “but it soon will be.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
He laughed. “Well, you see, the fact of the matter is, _I’m_ lost,
_too_. I don’t think it’s anything to be very much frightened about,
though. I left my guide early this morning at the fork of two streams
a pretty long distance from here. I’ve been walking hard all day. I
fished up one of the streams for half of the day and then cut across
through the forest where I thought I would find it again. I found a
stream but it seems it wasn’t the same one, for after I had gone down
it for an hour or so I didn’t seem to get anywhere. Then I plunged
around hunting and at last had to give it up.”
“Don’t you think you could find it again?”
“Oh, I think so,” confidently. “But not to-night. I’m afraid you’ll
have to put up with what I can offer you.”
“Of course--and I’m very grateful--but I’m sorry to be such a burden to
you.”
“Oh, that’s nonsense.” He turned away abruptly and made his way up the
bank. “I’m right here in the trees and I can hear you. So if I can help
you I want you to call.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly, “I will.”
II
BABES IN THE WOODS
Gallatin’s responsibilities to his Creator had been multiplied by two.
Less than an hour ago he had dropped his rod and creel more than half
convinced that it didn’t matter to him or to anybody else whether
he got back to Joe Keegón or not. Now, he suddenly found himself
hustling busily in the underbrush, newly alive to the exigencies
of the occasion, surprised even at the fact that he could take so
extraordinary an interest in the mere building of a fire. Back and
forth from the glade to the deep woods he hurried, bringing dry
leaves, twigs, and timber. These he piled against a fallen tree in
the lee of the spot he had chosen for his shelter and in a moment a
fire was going. Many things bothered him. He had no axe and the blade
of his hasp-knife was hardly suited to the task he found before him.
If his hands were not so tender as they had been a month ago, and if
into his faculties a glimmering of woodcraft had found its way, the
fact remained that this blade, his Colt, fishing-rod and his wits
(such as they were), were all that he possessed in the uneven match
against the forces of Nature. Something of the calm ruthlessness of
the mighty wilderness came to him at this moment. The immutable trees
rose before him as symbols of a merciless creed which all the forces
around him uttered with the terrible eloquence of silence. He was an
intruder from an alien land, of no importance in the changeless scheme
of things--less important than the squirrel which peeped at him slyly
from the branch above his head or the chickadee which piped flutelike
in the thicket. The playfellow of his strange summer had become his
enemy, only jocular and ironical as yet, but still an enemy, with which
he must do battle with what weapons he could find.
It was the first time in his life that he had been placed in a position
of complete dependence upon his own efforts--the first time another had
been dependent on him. He and Joe had traveled light; for this, he had
learned, was the way to play the game fairly. Nevertheless, he had a
guilty feeling that until the present moment he had modified his city
methods only so far as was necessary to suit the conditions the man of
the wilderness had imposed upon him and that Joe, after all, had done
the work. He realized now that he was fronting primeval forces with a
naked soul--as naked and almost as helpless as on the day when he had
been born. It seemed that the capital of his manhood was now for the
first time to be drawn upon in a hazardous venture, the outcome of
which was to depend upon his own ingenuity and resourcefulness alone.
And yet the fire was sparkling merrily.
He eyed the blade in his hand as he finished making two roof supports
and sighed for Joe Keegón’s little axe. His hands were red and
blistered already and the lean-to only begun. There were still the
boughs and birch-bark for a roof and the cedar twigs for a bed to be
cut. He worked steadily, but it was an hour before he found time to go
down to the stream to see how his fugitive fared. She was still sitting
as he had left her, on the bank of the stream, gazing into the depths
of the pool.
“How are you getting on?” he asked.
“I--I’m all right,” she murmured.
“Is the ankle any better? I think I’d better be getting you up to the
fire now. Perhaps, you’d be willing to cook the fish while I hustle for
twigs.”
“Of--of course.”
He noticed the catch in her voice, and when he came near her discovered
that she was trembling from head to foot.
“Are you suffering still?” he questioned anxiously.
“N-no, not so much. But I--I’m very cold.”
“That’s too bad. We’ll have you all right in a minute. Put your arms
around my neck. So.” And bending over, with care for her injured foot,
he lifted her again in his arms and carried her up the hill. This time
she yielded without a word, nor did she speak until he had put her down
on his coat before the fire.
“I don’t know how--to thank you--” she began.
“Then don’t. Put your foot out toward the blaze and rub it again.
You’re not so cold now, are you?”
“No--no. I think it’s just n-nervousness that makes me shiver,” she
sighed softly. “I never knew what a fire meant before. It’s awfully
good--the w-warmth of it.”
He watched her curiously. The fire was bringing a warm tint to
her cheeks and scarlet was making more decisive the lines of her
well-modeled lips. It did not take Gallatin long to decide that it was
very agreeable to look at her. As he paused, she glanced up at him and
caught the end of his gaze, which was more intense in its directness
than he had meant it to be, and bent her head quickly toward the fire,
her lips drawn more firmly together--a second acknowledgment of her
sense of the situation, a manifestation of her convincing femininity
which confirmed a previous impression.
There was quick refuge in the practical.
“I’m going to clean the fish,” he said carelessly, and turned away.
“I’d like to help, if I could,” she murmured.
“You’d better nurse your ankle for a while,” he said.
“It’s much better now,” she put in. “I can move it without much pain.”
She thrust her stockinged foot farther toward the blaze and worked the
toes slowly up and down, but as she did so she flinched again. “I’m not
of much use, am I?” she asked ruefully. “But while you’re doing other
things, I might prepare the fish.”
“Oh, no. I’ll do that. Let’s see. We need some sticks to spit them on.”
“Let me make them;” she put her hand into the pocket of her dress and
drew forth a knife. “You see I _can_ help.”
“Great!” he cried delightedly. “You haven’t got a teapot, a frying-pan,
some cups and forks and spoons hidden anywhere have you?”
She looked up at him and laughed for the first time, a fine generous
laugh which established at once a new relationship between them.
“No--I haven’t--but I’ve a saucepan.”
“Where?” in amazement.
“Tied to my creel--over there,” and she pointed, “and a small package
of tea and some biscuits. I take my own lunch when I fish. I didn’t eat
any to-day.”
“Wonderful! A saucepan! I was wondering how--tied to your creel, you
say?” and he started off rapidly in the direction of the spot where he
had found her.
“And please b-bring my rod--and--and my _shoe_,” she cried.
He nodded and was off through the brush, finding the place without
difficulty. It was a very tiny saucepan, which would hold at the most
two cupfuls of liquid, but it would serve. He hurried back eagerly,
anxious to complete his arrangements for the meal, and found her
propped up against the back log, his creel beside her, industriously
preparing the fish.
“How did you get over there?” he asked.
“Crawled. I couldn’t abide just sitting. I feel a lot better already.”
“That was very imprudent,” he said quickly. “We’ll never get out of
here until you can use that foot.”
“Oh! I hadn’t thought of that,” demurely. “I’ll try to be careful. Did
you bring my shoe--and legging?”
He held them out for her inspection.
“You’d better not try to put them on--not to-night, anyway. To-morrow,
perhaps----”
“To-morrow!” She looked up at him, and then at the frames of the
lean-to, as though the thought that she must spend the night in the
woods had for the first time occurred to her. A deep purple shadow was
crawling slowly up from the eastward and only the very tops of the
tallest trees above them were catching the warm light of the declining
sun. The woods were dimmer now and distant trees which a moment ago
had been visible were merged in shadow. Some of the birds, too, were
beginning to trill their even-song.
“Yes,” he went on, “you see it’s getting late. There’s hardly a chance
of any one finding us to-night. But we’re going to make out nicely. If
you really insist on cleaning those fish----”
“I do--and on making some tea----”
“Then I must get the stuff for your bed before it’s too dark to see.”
He filled the saucepan with water at the stream, then turned back into
the woods for the cedar twigs.
“The bed comes first,” he muttered to himself. “That’s what Joe would
say. There’s caribou moss up on the slope and the balsam is handy.
It isn’t going to rain to-night, but I’ll try to build a shelter
anyway--boughs now--and canoe birches to-morrow, if I can find any. But
I’ve got to hustle.”
Six pilgrimages he made into the woods, bringing back each time
armloads of boughs and twigs. He was conscious presently of a delicious
odor of cooking food; and long before he had brought in his last
armful, she pleaded with him to come and eat. But he only shook his
head and plunged again into the bushes. It was almost dark when he
finished and threw the last load on the pile he had made. When he
approached he found her sitting motionless, watching him, both creels
beside her, her hand holding up to the fire a stick which stuck through
the fish she had cooked. The saucepan was simmering in the ashes.
“How do they taste?” he asked cheerfully.
“I haven’t eaten any.”
“Why not?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Oh, you mustn’t do that,” sharply. “I didn’t want you to wait.”
“You know,” she interrupted, “I’m your guest.”
“I didn’t know it,” he laughed. “I thought I was yours. It’s _your_
saucepan----”
“But _your_ fish--” she added, and then indicating a little
mischievously, “except that biggest one--which was mine. But I’m afraid
they’ll be cold--I’ve waited so long. You must eat at once, you’re
awfully tired.”
“Oh, no, I’ve still got a lot to do. I’ll just take a bite and----”
“_Please_ sit down--you _must_, really.”
Her fingers touched the sleeve of his shirt and he yielded, sinking
beside her with an unconscious sigh of relaxation which was more like
a groan. He was dead-tired--how tired he had not known until he had
yielded. She saw the haggard look in his eyes and the lines which the
firelight was drawing around his cheek-bones, and at the corners of his
mouth; and it came to her suddenly that he might not be so strong as
she had thought him. If he was an invalid from the South, the burden of
carrying her through the woods might easily have taxed his strength.
She examined his face critically for a moment, and then fumbling
quickly in the pocket of her dress drew forth a small, new-looking
flask, which gleamed brightly in the firelight.
“Here,” she said kindly, “take some of this, it will do you good.”
Gallatin followed her motion wearily. Her hand had even reached the cap
of the bottle and had given it a preparatory twist before he understood
what it all meant. Then he started suddenly upright and put his fingers
over hers.
“No!” he muttered huskily. “Not that--I--I don’t--I won’t have
anything--thank you.”
And as she watched his lowering brows and tightly drawn lips--puzzled
and not a little curious, he stumbled to his feet and hurriedly
replaced a log which had fallen from the fire. But when a moment later
he returned to his place, his features bore no signs of discomposure.
“I think I’m only hungry,” he mumbled.
She unhooked the largest fish from the stick and handed it to him
daintily.
“There, that’s yours. I’ve been saving it for you--just to convince you
that I’m the better fisherman.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said soberly. “I’m a good deal of a duffer at
this game.”
“But then,” she put in generously, “you caught _more_ than I did, and
that evens matters.”
They had begun eating now, and in a moment it seemed that food was the
only thing they had lacked. As became two healthy young animals, they
ate ravenously of the biscuits she had carried and all of the fish
she had prepared, and then Gallatin cooked more. The girl removed the
metal cup from the bottom of her flask and taking turn and turn about
with the tiny vessel they drank the steaming tea. In this familiar
act they seemed to have reached at once a definite and satisfactory
understanding. Gallatin was thankful for that, and he was careful
to put her still further at her ease by a somewhat obtrusive air of
indifference. She repaid him for this consideration by the frankness of
her smile. He examined her furtively when he could and was conscious
that when his face was turned in profile, she, too, was studying him
anxiously, as only a woman in such a situation might. Whatever it was
that she learned was not unpleasing to her, for, as he raised his hand
to carry the tea to his lips, her voice was raised in a different tone.
“Your hands!” she said. “They’re all cut and bleeding.”
He glanced at his broken knuckles impersonally.
“Are they? I hadn’t noticed before. You see, I hadn’t any hatchet.”
“Won’t you let me--hadn’t you better bathe them in the water?”
“A bath wouldn’t hurt them, would it?”
“I didn’t mean that. Don’t they hurt?”
“No, not at all. But I wish I had Joe’s axe.”
“Who’s Joe?”
“My guide.”
“Oh.”
She questioned no further; for here, she realized instinctively, were
the ends of the essential, the beginnings of the personal. And so
the conversation quickly turned to practical considerations. Of one
thing she was now assured--her companion was a gentleman. What kind
of a gentleman she had not guessed, for there were many kinds, she
had discovered; but there was nothing unduly alarming in his manner
or appearance and she concluded for the present to accept him, with
reservations, upon his face value.
His body fed, Gallatin felt singularly comfortable. The problems that
had hung so thickly around his head a while ago, were going up with the
smoke of the fire. Here were meat, drink and society. Were not these,
after all, the end and aim of human existence? Had the hoary earth
with all its vast treasures ever been able to produce more? He took
his pouch from his pocket, and asking if he might smoke, lit his pipe
with a coal from the fire (for matches were precious) and sank back at
the girl’s feet. The time for confidences, were there to be any, had
arrived. She felt it in the sudden stoppage of the desultory flow of
comment and in the polite, if appraising steadiness of his gaze.
“I suppose you have a right to know what I’m doing here,” she said
flushing a little, “but there isn’t anything to tell. I left our
camp--as you did, to fish. I’ve done it before, often. Sometimes
alone--sometimes with a party. I--I wasn’t alone this morning and
I--I--” she hesitated, frowning. “It doesn’t matter in the least
about that, of course,” she went on quickly. “I--I got separated from
my--my companion and went farther into the brush than I had intended
to do. When I found that I had lost my way, I called again and again.
Nobody answered. Then something happened to me, I don’t know what. I
think it must have been the sound of the echoes of my own voice that
frightened me, for suddenly I seemed to go mad with terror. After that
I don’t remember anything, except that I felt I must reach the end
of the woods, so that I could see beyond the barrier of trees which
seemed to be closing in about me like living things. It was frightful.
I only knew that I went on and on--until I saw you. And after that--”
her words were slower, her voice dropped a note and then stopped
altogether--“and that is all,” she finished.
“It’s enough, God knows,” he said, sitting upright. “You must have
suffered.”
“I did--I wonder what got into me. I’ve never been frightened in the
woods before.” She turned her head over her shoulder and peered into
the shadows. “I don’t seem to be frightened now.”
“I’m glad. I’m going to try to make you forget that. You’re in no
danger here. To-morrow I’ll try to find my back trail--or Joe Keegón
may follow mine. In the meanwhile”--and he started to his feet, “I’ve
got a lot to do. Just sit quietly there and nurse your ankle while I
make your bed. And if I don’t make it properly, the way you’re used to
having it, just tell me. Won’t you?”
“Hair, please, with linen sheets, and a down pillow,” she enjoined.
“I’ll try,” he said with a laugh, for he knew now that the tone she
used was only a cloak to hide the shrinking of her spirit. She sat as
he had commanded, leaning as comfortably as she could against the tree
trunk, watching his dim figure as it moved back and forth among the
shadows. First he trod upon and scraped the ground, picking up small
stones and twigs and throwing them into the darkness until he had
cleared a level spot. Then piece by piece he laid the caribou moss as
evenly as he could. He had seen Joe do this some days ago when they
had made their three-day camp. The cedar came next; and, beginning at
the foot and laying the twig ends upward, he advanced to the head, a
layer at a time, thus successively covering the stub ends and making a
soft and level couch. When it was finished, he lay on it, and made some
slight adjustments.
“I’m sorry it’s not a pneumatic--and about the blankets--but I’m afraid
it will have to do.”
“It looks beautiful,” she assented, “and I hate pneumatics. I’ll be
quite warm enough, I’m sure.”
To make the matter of warmth more certain, he pitched two of the
biggest logs on the flames, and then made a rough thatch of the larger
boughs over the supports that he had set in position. When he had
finished, he stood before her smiling.
“There’s nothing left, I think--but to get to bed. I’m going off for
enough firewood to last us until morning. Shall I carry you over now
or----”
“Oh, I think I can manage,” she said, her lips dropping demurely. “I
did before--while you were away, you know.” She straightened and her
brows drew together. “What I’m puzzled about now is about _you_. Where
are _you_ going to sleep?”
“Me? That’s easy. Out here by the fire.”
“Oh!” she said thoughtfully.
III
VOICES
Dragging his lagging feet, Gallatin struggled on until his task was
finished. He took the saucepan and cup to the stream, washed them
carefully, and filled them with water. Then he untied the handkerchief
from around his neck and washed that, too. When he got back to the
fire, he found the girl lying on the couch, her head pillowed on her
arm, her eyes gazing into the fire.
“I’ve brought some water. I thought you might like to wash your face,”
he said.
“Thanks,” gratefully. “You’re very thoughtful.”
He mended the fire for the night, and waiting until she had finished
her impromptu toilet, took the saucepan to the stream and rinsed it
again. Then he cleared the remains of the fish away, hung the creels
together on the limb of a tree and, without looking toward the shelter,
threw himself down beside the fire, utterly exhausted.
“Good night,” she said. He turned his head toward her. The firelight
was dancing in her eyes, which were as wide open as his own.
“Good night,” he said pleasantly, “and pleasant dreams.”
“I don’t seem to be a bit sleepy--are you?”
“No, not yet. Aren’t you comfortable?”
“Oh, yes. It isn’t that. I think I’m too tired to sleep.”
He changed his position a little to ease his joints.
“I believe I am, too,” he smiled. “You’d better try though. You’ve had
a bad day.”
“I will. Good night.”
“Good night.”
But try as he might, he could not sleep. Each particular muscle was
clamoring in indignant protest at its unaccustomed usage. The ground,
too, he was forced to admit was not as soft as it might have been, and
he was sure from the way his hip bone ached, that it was on the point
of coming through his flesh. He raised his body and removed a small
flat stone which had been the cause of the discomfort. As he did so he
heard her voice again.
“You’re dreadfully unhappy. I don’t see why----”
“Oh, no, I’m not. This is fine. Please go to sleep.”
“I can’t. Why didn’t you make another bed for yourself?”
“I didn’t think about it,” he said, wondering now why the thought had
never occurred to him. “You see,” he lied cautiously, “I’m used to this
sort of thing. I sleep this way very often. I like it.”
“Oh!”
What an expressive interjection it was as she used it. It ran a soft
arpeggio up the scale of her voice and down again, in curiosity rather
than surprise, in protest rather than acquiescence. This time it was
mildly skeptical.
“It’s true--really. I like it here. Now I _insist_ that you go to
sleep.”
“If you use that tone, I suppose I must.” She closed her eyes, settled
one soft cheek against the palm of her hand.
“Good night,” she said again.
“Good night,” he repeated.
Gallatin turned away from her so that she might not see his face and
lay again at full length with his head pillowed on his arms, looking
into the fire. His mental faculties were keenly alive, more perhaps by
reason of the silence and physical inaction than they had been at any
time during the day. Never in his life before, it seemed, had he been
so broadly awake. His mind flitted with meddlesome agility from one
thought to another; and so before he had lain long, he was aware that
he was entirely at the mercy of his imagination.
One by one the pictures emerged--the girl’s flight, the wild disorder
of her appearance, her slender figure lying helpless in the leaves, the
pathos of her streaming eyes, and the diminutive proportions of her
slender foot. It was curious, too, how completely his own difficulties
and discomforts had been forgotten in the mitigation of hers. Their
situation he was forced to admit was not as satisfactory as his
confident words of assurance had promised.
He had not forgotten that most of his back-trail had been laid in
water, and it was not to be expected that Joe Keegón could perform
the impossible. Their getting out by the way he had come must largely
depend upon his own efforts in finding the spot up-stream where he had
come through. The help that could be expected from her own people was
also problematical. She had come a long distance. That was apparent
from the condition of her gaiters. For all Gallatin knew, her camp
might be ten, or even fifteen miles away. Something more than a mild
curiosity possessed him as to this camp and the people who were
using it; for there was a mystery in her sudden separation from the
“companion” to whom she had so haltingly and vaguely alluded.
It was none of his business, of course, who this girl was or where
she came from; he was aware, at this moment of vagrant visions, of
an unequivocal and not unpleasant interest in this hapless waif whom
fortune, with more humor than discretion, had so unceremoniously thrust
upon his mercies. She was very good to look at. He had decided that
back in the gorge where she had first raised her elfin head from the
leaves. And yet, now as he lay there in the dark, he could not for the
life of him guess even at the color of her eyes or hair. Her hair at
first had seemed quite dark until a shaft of the declining light in the
west had caught it, when he had decided that it was golden. Her eyes
had been too light to be brown and yet--yes, they had been quite too
dark to be blue. The past perfect tense seemed to be the only one which
suited her, for in spite of the evidences of her tangibility close
at hand, he still associated her with the wild things of the forest,
the timid things one often heard at night but seldom glimpsed by day.
Cautiously he turned his head and looked into the shelter. She lay as
he had seen her last, her eyes closed, her breath scarcely stirring her
slender body. Her knees were huddled under her skirt and she looked
no larger than a child. He remembered that when she had stood upright
she had been almost as tall as he, and this metamorphosis only added
another to the number of his illusions.
With an effort, at last, he lowered his head and closed his eyes,
in angry determination. What the devil had the troubles of this
unfortunate female to do with him? What difference did it make to him
if her hair and eyes changed color or that she could become grown up or
childish at will? Wasn’t one fool who lost himself in the woods enough
in all conscience! Besides _he_ had a right to get himself lost if he
wanted to. He was his own master and it didn’t matter to any one but
himself what became of him. Why couldn’t the little idiot have stayed
where she belonged? A woman had no business in the woods, anyway.
With his eyes closed it was easy to shut out sight, but the voices
of the night persisted. An owl called, and far off in the distance a
solitary mournful loon took up the plaint. There were sounds close
at hand, too, stealthy footfalls of minute paws, sniffs from the
impertinent noses of smaller animals; the downward fluttering of leaves
and twigs all magnified a thousandfold, pricked upon the velvety
background of the vast silence. He tried to relax his muscles and
tipped his head back upon the ground. As he did so his lids flew up
like those of a doll laid upon its back. The moon was climbing now, so
close to the tree tops that the leaves and branches looked like painted
scrolls upon its surface. In the thicket shapes were moving. They were
only the tossing shadows from his fire, he knew, but they interested
him and he watched them for a long time. It pleased him to think of
them as the shadows of lost travelers. He could hear them whispering
softly, too, in the intervals between the other sounds, and in the
distance, farther even than the call of the whippoorwill, he could hear
them singing:
À la claire fontaine
M’en allant promener
J’ai trouvé l’eau si belle
Que je m’y suis baigné
Il y a longtemps que le t’aime
Jamais je ne t’oublierai.
The sound of the rapids, too, or was it only the tinkle of the stream?
He raised his head and peered around him to right and left. As he did
so a voice joined the lesser voices, its suddenness breaking the
stillness like the impact of a blow.
“Aren’t you asleep?” She lay as he had seen her before, with her cheek
pillowed upon her hand, but the firelight danced in her wide-open eyes.
“No,” he said, straightening slowly. “I don’t seem to be sleepy.”
“Neither am I. Did you hear them--the voices?”
“Yes,” in surprise. “Did you? You’re not frightened at all, are you?”
“Not at the voices. Other things seem to bother me much more. The
little sounds close at hand, I can understand, too. There was a
four-legged thing out there where you threw the fish offal a while ago.
But you didn’t see him----”
“I heard him--but he won’t bother us.”
“No. I’m not frightened--not at that.”
“At what, then?”
“I don’t--I don’t think I really know.”
“There’s nothing to be frightened at.”
“It--it’s just _that_ I’m frightened at--nothing--nothing at all.”
A pause.
“I wish you’d go to sleep.”
“I suppose I shall after a while.”
“How is your foot?”
“Oh, better. I’m not conscious of it at all. It isn’t my foot that
keeps me awake. It’s the hush of the stillnesses between the other
sounds,” she whispered, as though the silence might hear her. “You
never get those distinctions sleeping in a tent. I don’t think I’ve
ever really known the woods before--or the meaning of silence. The
world is poised in space holding its breath on the brink of some awful
abyss. So I can’t help holding mine, too.”
She sat upright and faced him.
“You don’t mind if I talk, do you? I suppose you’ll think I’m very
cowardly and foolish, but I want to hear a human voice. It makes things
real somehow----”
“Of course,” he laughed. He took out his watch and held it toward the
fire with a practical air. “Besides it’s only ten o’clock.”
“Oh,” she sighed, “I thought it was almost morning.”
He silently rose and kicked the fire into a blaze.
“It’s too bad you’re so nervous.”
“That’s it. I’m glad you called it by a name. I’m glad you looked at
your watch and that you kicked the fire. I had almost forgotten that
there were such things as watches. I seem to have been poised in space,
too, waiting and listening for something--I don’t know what--as though
I had asked a great question which must in some way be answered.”
Gallatin glanced at her silently, then slowly took out his pipe and
tobacco.
“Let’s talk,” he said quietly.
But instead of taking his old place beside the fire, he sank at
the foot of one of the young beech trees that formed a part of the
structure of her shelter near the head of her balsam bed.
“I know what you mean,” he said soothingly. “I felt it, too. The
trouble is--there’s never any answer. They’d like to tell us many
things--those people out there,” and he waved his hand. “They’d like
to, but they can’t. It’s a pity, isn’t it? The sounds are cheerful,
though. They say they’re the voyagers singing as they shoot the rapids.”
She watched his face narrowly, not doubtfully as she had done earlier,
but eagerly, as though seeking the other half of a thought which
conformed to her own.
“I’m glad you heard,” she said quickly. “I thought I must have
dreamed--which would have been strange, since I haven’t been asleep. It
gives me a greater faith in myself. I haven’t been really frightened, I
hope. Only filled with wonder that such things could be.”
“They can’t really, you know,” he drawled. “Some people never hear the
voices.”
“I never did before.”
“The woods people hear them often. It means,” he said with a smile,
“that you and I are initiated into the Immortal Fellowship.”
“Oh!” in a whisper, almost of awe.
“Yes,” he reassured her gaily, “you belong to the Clan of _Mak-wa_, the
Bear, and _Kee-way-din_, the North-Wind. The trees are keeping watch.
Nothing can harm you now.”
Her eyes lifted to his, and a hesitating smile suddenly wreathed her
lips.
“You’re very comforting,” she said, in a doubtful tone which showed her
far from comforted. “I really would try to believe you,” with a glance
over her shoulder, “if it wasn’t for the menace of the silence when the
voices stop.”
“The menace----”
“Yes. I can’t explain. It’s like a sudden hush of terror--as though
the pulse of Nature had stopped beating--was waiting on some immortal
decision.”
“Yes,” he assented quietly, his gaze on the fire. “I know. I felt that,
too.”
“Did you? I’m glad. It makes me more satisfied.”
She was sitting up on her bed of twigs now, leaning toward him, her
eyes alight with a strange excitement, her body leaning toward his
own, as she listened. The firelight danced upon her hair and lit
her face with a weird, wild beauty. She was very near him at that
moment--spiritually--physically. In a gush of pity he put his hand over
hers and held it tightly in his own, his voice reassuring her gently.
“No harm can come to you here, child. Don’t you understand? There
are no voices--but yours and mine. See! The woods are filled with
moonlight. It is as bright as day.”
She had put one arm before her eyes as though by physical effort to
obliterate the fancies that possessed her. Her hand was ice-cold and
her fingers unconsciously groped in his, seeking strength in his warm
clasp. With an effort she raised her head and looked more calmly into
the shadows.
“No, there are no voices now,” she repeated. “I am--foolish.” And then
aware of his fingers still holding hers, she withdrew her hand abruptly
and straightened her slender figure. “I--I’m all right, I think.”
He straightened slowly, and his matter of fact tone reassured her.
“I didn’t know you were really frightened or I shouldn’t have spoken
so. I’m sorry.”
“But you _heard_,” she persisted.
Gallatin took up his pipe and put it in his mouth before he replied.
“The wilderness is no place for nerves--or imaginations. It seems that
you have the one and I the other. There were no sounds.”
“What did I hear then?”
“The stream and the leaves overhead. I’d rather prove it to you by
daylight.”
“Will the day never come?”
“Oh, yes. I suppose so. It usually does.”