Ralph's struggle only exhausted him, and bruised his wrists and ankles.
He gave it up, and lay outwardly quiet, seething with resentment,
within. Deprived of his sight, his hearing became preternaturally
acute, and he had no difficulty in following the various steps of their
preparations for departure. Before the bandage was clapped on his
eyes, he had had a glimpse of daylight. He guessed from the poignant
freshness of the air in his nostrils that the dawn had just broken.
After the tent had been taken down over his head and carried away,
Nahnya and Charley came back to him together. Charley lifted him under
the arms, and Nahnya took his feet. Charley's manner of carrying him
suggested an insulting indifference that caused Ralph to grind his
teeth. They climbed cautiously down the steep bank, finishing with a
sudden slide to the bottom, and almost dropping Ralph between them.
Charley laughed, and Ralph swore savagely.
They laid him in the dugout, and he heard Charley's steps retreating.
Nahnya was arranging the blankets under him.
"Ralph, I sorry," she said in a low voice, sharp with emotion. "I not
know anything else to do."
It did not help matters any. He was too full of resentment to give a
thought to her side of the case. "This is what I get for trying to do
the square thing by you!" he cried. "For holding myself in night and
day to keep from distressing you! You worked on my sympathies. You
made me think you were on the square. You talked about friendship, and
then you attacked me while I was asleep! Oh! I have been nicely taken
in!"
He heard no more from her.
They slid the boat off the stones; Nahnya climbed over Ralph to take
her place in the stern; and they set off in the current. For hours
after that Ralph had nothing to go on but the quiet dip of the paddles,
the answering leap of the boat to the thrust of their strong arms, and
the drip of the water as the blades were withdrawn. Both brother and
sister had a great capacity for silence.
Ralph's frame of mind was anything but an enviable one. It is not
pleasant to a man to be confronted by a mystery in the woman he loves.
As long as they had been in accord it had troubled him very little; he
had looked in her clear eyes, thinking, "whatever may be in store,
she's on the square." But when she turned against him all this was
changed. Every look, word, act that he had not understood at the time
recurred to him charged with a sinister significance. Wounded pride
hatefully suggested to him that she was using his love for her to
further her own ends.
Nevertheless he could not but admit that for such a hardy villainess
some of her acts were strange. He had plenty of time to think things
out. He remembered how she had boxed Charley's ears when the boy had
first suggested tying him up; he remembered how her eyes had filled,
and how sadly she whispered, "I think you going to hate me by and by."
This suggested that she might be the victim of circumstances no less
than himself. "Why can't she trust me a little?" he thought. "She
knows I'd do anything for her!"
Behind all this was the mystery of what lay ahead, hanging like a heavy
black curtain athwart his gaze. When a man has his eyes to see, and
his arms to fight with, a mystery is pleasantly provocative and
stimulating. When he lies blindfolded, bound, and helpless, the
darkest apprehensions seize upon him. Thus the weary round continued
in Ralph's mind.
The long silence was broken by Nahnya. She uttered in Cree what
sounded like a quiet warning. Immediately afterward the dugout lurched
violently as under a side blow, spun around, and went on as smoothly as
before. For a long time Ralph lay vainly threshing his brain for an
explanation of this odd shock.
A new sound slowly stole on his ears, a dull, heavy growl from down the
river. He did not need to be told what this was; rapids--but no such
rapids as they had shot in the Pony River, or hitherto in the Rice.
Those compared with this sound were as the laughter of children to the
voice of a giant. The growl became a roar which grew louder with every
moment. Ralph's heart began to beat painfully. It is probable that it
never occurred to Nahnya, certainly not to Charley, what a refined
species of torture they were inflicting on their prisoner. There is no
terror like terror of the unseen. "If anything happens I'll drown like
a cat in a bag!" thought Ralph. He would not stoop to make any
complaint aloud.
Charley and Nahnya stopped paddling, and talked low-voiced; Nahnya gave
unmistakable orders. The slight, sharp note of excitement in their
voices shook Ralph's breast. From the sounds ahead he pictured a very
cataclysm of the waters awaiting them, wilder indeed than any earthly
rapids. Little beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. Oh!
for his sight! the use of his arms! But he would not ask it. They
started paddling again. The roaring seemed to be on every side of them
now. Ralph clenched his teeth and his hands. "Now we're going to take
the plunge!" he thought. "Now! Now!" And still it held off, until he
could have screamed with the suspense.
And then the dugout seemed to drop from under him, and immediately
afterward precipitated itself with a crash against a wall of water. A
wave leaped aboard, drenching Ralph to the waist. He thought it was
all over, and suddenly ceased to trouble. Charley yelled with pure
excitement; the dugout gave a series of mad leaps and plunges, flinging
Ralph from side to side like a sack of meal, and suddenly they floated
in smooth water again. An uncanny stillness descended on them. A long
breath escaped between Ralph's teeth.
There followed what seemed like the greater part of a day to Ralph,
with scarcely anything to register the passing of the heavy time. It
was perhaps four hours. The sunshine grew warm in his face, and he
smelled the pines on shore. High overhead he heard the eagles
screaming. Charley complained--of hunger, Ralph guessed, and Nahnya
laconically silenced him. At intervals a new sound gave Ralph food for
thought. This was the loud, brawling voice of a stream, now on one
side, now on the other.
"The whole character of the country must have changed," he thought.
"We must be passing between steep hills or mountains for the streams to
come tumbling down like that."
The long wait for something to happen was ended by the voice of another
great rapid ahead. Ralph's heart began to beat. "Must I go through
with that again?" he thought.
But while he was steeling himself for the ordeal, the nose of the
dugout grounded, and Charley, springing out, pulled her up on shore.
Ralph was lifted out and laid on a flat rock. There was a long wait.
A very real hunger began to assail him. One of the brawling streams
came down nearby. From the sounds that reached his ears, Ralph
pictured the dugout being dragged across the rock on rollers, and
hidden under bushes. Evidently their journey by water was at an end.
Nahnya and Charley sat down near him, seemingly to make something.
Finally Ralph was lifted up and laid down again, and then, much to his
surprise, hoisted on a litter and borne away.
A long journey over rough ground followed, and all uphill, Ralph
judged. They never passed out of hearing of the voice of the small
stream. They stopped often to rest. Even so, it was wonderful to
Ralph how easily they went. He was no light-weight. Once or twice
Charley grumbled at taking up the load, and Nahnya angrily silenced
him. There was no faltering in her. In spite of his resentment
against her Ralph felt a kind of compunction at being carried by a
woman. Anyway, his resentment had cooled somewhat; cooled enough to
allow him to glance at the oddity of his situation.
"Lord! here's a queer go!" he thought. "What next?"
He was not under any apprehensions of danger to himself.
They went on for an hour or more, and the question of food became of
more vital moment to Ralph than of what was before him. The air had
the lack of motion and the cool smell of vegetable decay that suggested
a deep forest. Finally he was put down for a longer period, and he
heard the welcome sound of Charley's axe, and shortly afterward the
crackle of the growing fire. In a little while the delicious emanation
from baking bannock reached his nostrils, and at last he heard the
hissing of the bacon in the pan, which signified the completion of the
preparations. A certain anxiety attacked him.
"How the deuce are they going to manage about feeding me?" he thought.
"By Gad! if they think they're going to make me go without my
dinner----!"
However, Charley presently untied his ankles and his wrists. Ralph
tore the bandage from his eyes, stretched himself luxuriously, and
looked about him.
They were in the magnificent gloom of a primeval forest. Gigantic
trunks of fir and spruce rose on every hand with lofty branches that
darkened the heavens. The little patches of sky that showed between
seemed immeasurably far off. The fallen monarchs of ages past lay here
and there in confusion, rotting by infinitesimally slow degrees. The
ground was stony, but stones and fallen trunks alike were largely
covered with moss, incredibly soft and thick and green. The moss
masked treacherous holes, as Ralph discovered when he attempted to move
about. There was no undergrowth except a few spindling berry-bushes,
and a low plant with huge leaves called the "devil's club," both pale
from lack of sunlight.
The forest grew on a steepish slope. Ralph affirmed to himself that
the way home lay straight downhill. He could still hear the voice of
the little stream off to one side. He discovered a faintly marked
trail that climbed straight from below, and continued on uphill. This
explained how Nahnya and Charley had been able to avoid the fallen
trunks and the holes. A trail once made never becomes totally effaced.
The wildest, most deserted forest wilderness shows such forgotten paths.
So far Ralph's deductions carried him. Later he made a fresh
discovery. Facing downhill and looking straight away through the tree
trunks, he distinguished the outline of a noble, snow-capped peak a
mile or two away. From the direction of the shadows upon it he saw
that the sun was slightly to the left of it. As it was now half-past
ten or eleven, that peak must therefore be directly south of where he
stood. Walking up and down, he searched through the trees and gathered
from the suggestions of the outlines of other mountains that the peak
was part of a chain running right and left.
Little by little he pieced it all together in his mind. "We shot a big
rapid, and paddled for three or four hours, or until we came within
hearing of the next big rapid. The big river must flow parallel with
that range yonder--that is to say, east and west. I knew it was
flowing between mountains. We landed on a big flat rock at the mouth
of a stream and struck straight up-hill, which is due north.
Blindfolded or not," he said to himself triumphantly, "I guess I won't
have much trouble finding my way back if I want to."
Nahnya with a sullen, troubled face, watched Ralph making his
observations but offered no comment.
Breakfast or dinner, whichever it was, was eaten in silence. Nahnya
and Ralph each wore a mask, and each avoided the other's eyes. Charley
was solely concerned with his long-delayed food. Ralph, secretly
elated by his own perspicacity, later made no objections to being bound
and blindfolded again. It seemed to him rather a ridiculous
precaution, because if he ever got as far as this, he would naturally
continue by the trail. However, if they wished to give themselves the
trouble of carrying him, so be it.
The journey of the morning was repeated, but for a longer period.
Ralph marvelled at his bearers' endurance. For at least two hours they
toiled with frequent pauses, always uphill. Finally upon laying him
down they left him, and he guessed they had come to the next
halting-place. A long time passed without his hearing them talk, or
hearing any preparations to camp. The possibility of their abandoning
him there in the woods occurred to him, causing a disagreeable
prickling up and down his spine.
At last he heard Charley's footsteps, and the bandage was removed from
his eyes. Still the virgin forest. No sign of Nahnya. More
mystifications!
"Where's Nahnya?" demanded Ralph.
"Him come back _tepiskow_," Charley answered stolidly.
The boy held up a piece of paper with writing upon it for Ralph to
read, but held it upside down. Since it did no good to yell at
Charley, and Ralph's hands were tied, it was a little while before they
came to an understanding. When the paper was finally righted Ralph saw
that it was a letter from Nahnya, and once more he was astonished by
her. It was written in a hand as fine and precise as a nun's. This
strange girl could write as well as steer a canoe!
"To the doctor," it began. (She had made an attempt to spell Ralph,
and had given it up.) "If you promise not to go away from here till I
get back, Charley will untie the ropes and make you free. If you
promise, make a holy cross on this paper for him to see. Annie
Crossfox."
Ralph had not by any means forgiven Nahnya her high-handed proceedings,
but an extraordinary curiosity modified his anger. He was determined
to discover what lay behind all these mysteries. He decided to submit
to the promise, and signed to Charley to put the pencil between his
teeth. Charley holding up the paper, he made the sign as decreed.
Pocketing the paper as a warrant for the proceedings, Charley liberated
him.
Ralph walked to and fro to stretch his legs, and to see what he could
see. Here there was nothing but endless vistas of the forest whichever
way he looked. Because of the higher altitude to which they had
climbed, the trees were not of such a staggering magnitude, and there
was more undergrowth. He saw gigantic raspberry bushes with pale
flowers as big as mallows. The silence was unearthly; not a bird
cheeped, not a leaf fluttered.
Ralph was finally reduced to studying the impassive Charley. There was
not much reward here. Charley sat with his back against a tree,
smoking a pipe, and staring into vacancy. Charley had the faculty of
being able to suspend animation when he chose. Ralph wondered why he
did not fall asleep. By and by it came to him that the Indian boy was
actually uneasy, not the uneasiness of alarm, but of impatience. His
head would turn slightly in a given direction, and a desirous look
appear in his hard, bright eyes. His head was cocked to listen.
"Nahnya has kept him out of something that he is keen for," Ralph
deduced.
Charley prepared a meal, and they ate. Afterward, since there was
nothing better to do, Ralph rolled himself in the blanket he had lain
on, and slept. When he awoke the indefatigible Charley was cooking
another meal. They had eaten it and were smoking; darkness was already
creeping through the forest aisles, though far overhead the sky was
bright, when without warning the Indian boy sprang up with a whoop, and
seizing his hat and gun darted away. Ralph, gazing after him, wondered
if he had gone mad. Presently from the same direction he saw Nahnya
coming through the trees, followed by an old woman in a black cotton
dress. At sight of the girl the recollection of the indignities she
had put upon him flamed up in Ralph's breast, and his eyes hardened.
He forgot about Charley.
Nahnya, after a quick glance in his face, lowered her eyes. "This my
mot'er," she said in a low voice.
The old woman made a bob to the doctor. She was frankly terrified by
the sight of him. She did not in any way suggest the mother of Nahnya,
being without grace. She looked merely the middle-aged mother of many
children. She had jetty hair neatly parted and braided, eyes as
stoical as Charley's, and a skin like wrinkled, waxed brown paper. She
had the strong, patient look of the aging worker. Ralph, looking from
one to the other, could not find the least point of resemblance between
mother and daughter. The fact caused him a certain grim satisfaction.
His professional eye fixed on the old woman's pitiful, crooked arm.
So it was true after all that Nahnya had fetched him to cure her
mother. He felt relieved, but only the more mystified. For why, if
everything was plain and aboveboard, had she taken such desperate
precautions to insure secrecy? Nahnya was no fool. He angrily gave it
up, and turned his back on the old woman, who, as soon as his eye fell
upon it, began to soothe the injured arm with deprecating glances
toward him. Ralph had already observed with a hard smile that they had
brought up his little satchel of instruments and medicaments on the
litter. He had made up his mind that nothing should induce him to open
it.
The two women had brought packs containing everything needful for a
comfortable camp, and they set about making ready for the night.
Nahnya said no more to Ralph, nor did she look at him again, but her
actions were eloquent. Watching her with sidelong glances, a great
uneasiness grew in him. She cut a heap of spruce boughs to make him a
soft bed. She roasted a ptarmigan she had brought with her, and when
it was done, took it to tempt his appetite before he turned in. She
offered it to him silently, with an extraordinary upward look, soft,
penitent, and imploring.
The look raised a storm in Ralph's breast. It confused and touched and
angered him together. His heart leaped to answer it, and his indignant
pride held him back. "Why can't she be open with me?" he thought.
"Does she think she can truss me up like a piece of baggage, and then
bring me to my knees again with a soft look?" He accepted the offering
as his right, without relenting, and Nahnya went sadly back to her own
bed beside her mother.
With a great air of unconcern, Ralph crawled between his blankets and
resolutely closed his eyes. But the struggle within him went blithely
forward. He would, and he would not. She had used him intolerably,
and he hated her. She was sorry, and he loved her. The mystery she
chose to wrap herself in exasperated him; her quiet resistance to his
will maddened the male in him. There were times when he felt as if the
only thing that would give him any peace would be to crush her utterly.
Then he would remember the look in her eyes which promised a secret
heaven for him to whom she chose to open it. Daylight was coming again
before Ralph fell asleep.
When he awoke the struggle was over. Such a struggle in him could have
but one outcome. His pride caved in. After all, he told himself, he
was a doctor, and he could not turn his back on a grievous injury. He
did not mean to forgive Nahnya--at least not in a hurry--but he knew he
could not forgive himself if he went away leaving a doctor's work
undone. Perhaps he was not quite frank with himself in this; perhaps
it was only Pride trying to save something from the ruins; perhaps he
never would have left Nahnya could he have helped it. Every
imaginative heart that loves, loves the sentimental satisfaction of
heaping coals of fire upon the head of the beloved one. She would feel
sorry she had used him so, but he would be relentless. When she had
suffered a great deal--perhaps----
So after breakfast, still scowling like a pirate, he opened his
doctor's kit, and issued gruff orders to Nahnya. The sun came out in
her face; she said not a word, but flew to do his bidding. Admirable
was her capability and her deftness. In no time at all the frightened
old woman was made comfortable on a deep bed of spruce boughs, with
splints, bandages, and hot water waiting.
When it was all over, and the old woman began to come safely out of the
ether, weeping copiously, but vastly relieved in mind, Ralph repacked
his satchel viciously. When his purely professional absorption was no
longer called for, he ran up the flag of resentment again. Nahnya had
said nothing. Once when the danger point was past she had leaned
across the patient and squeezed his hand, but he had quickly pulled it
away. Her eyes followed him expressing a passion of humble gratitude.
It infuriated him; why, he could scarcely have told; perhaps because it
was so clear that it was only gratitude, and not the other kind of
passion that he was hungry to see there. At any rate he could not
support the look. Snapping the valise shut, and tossing it to one
side, he strode away leaving the patient to Nahnya.
"It's done," he thought bitterly. "And she's done with me. A lot she
cares what I'm suffering. She sacrificed me without a qualm to the old
woman. Now she's cured, I can go back, and be hanged to me, I suppose.
Well, I don't mean to be fobbed off so easily. I've done my part, and
I'm a free agent. I won't leave here till I've unwound every thread of
the silly mystery she entangles herself in!"
By and by the old woman fell into a natural sleep, and Ralph was free
to leave her. He lit his pipe, and wandered off up the faintly marked
trail.
In the perpetual twilight of their camp one got the feeling that this
forest rolled on forever, but Ralph had not gone above three hundred
yards before he unexpectedly came to one of its boundaries. To the
left of the trail it ended at the base of a mighty precipice of naked
gray rock. Standing at the edge of the trees and looking right and
left the height of rock extended as far as he could see. Looking up,
it was too beetling for him to see its summit.
Continuing upon the trail a little way farther, he came to the edge of
a gulch, where he could obtain a wider prospect. Looking up now, he
had dizzying, foreshortened glimpses of peaks and domes of rock, with a
distant view over all of the supreme summit, shaped like a gigantic
thumb of rock sticking up out of fields of snow, gilded and dazzling in
the sunshine, and incredibly far-flung. It was a stirring experience
thus to be brought without warning into the immediate presence of such
a God. Ralph gazed, forgetting his private despite against Fortune.
At his feet the gulch came down from the left along the base of the
unscalable heights. A trickle of water ran musically in the bottom of
it, and was borne off to the right to join the larger stream, beside
which they had ascended from the river. The trail crossed the gulch,
and disappeared within the forest on the other side. The forest
skirted the edge of the gulch, and swept on up concealing all on that
side.
Ralph's only view was therefore up the gulch. The floor of it was
heaped with broken masses of rock and fallen trees. As he looked,
thinking of nothing but the wild beauty of the scene, suddenly his jaw
dropped, and he dashed a hand across his eyes to make sure they were
not tricking him. For out of a little tangle of living and dead trees
at the base of the cliff, about a furlong from him, issued the figure
of a man. It was Charley. One would have said that he had issued out
of the cliff itself.