Next afternoon the _Tewksbury_ left for Gisborne portage again, with
Ralph, Joe Mixer, and Stack for passengers. Stack had said to Ralph:
"I'll just make the trip up and back on her. It's a chance for a
tenderfoot like me to see the country." This seemed natural enough.
Perfect amity prevailed during the trip. Stack affected a great
admiration for Ralph; Joe Mixer was friendly. Ralph himself held to
the role of reticent good nature that he had assumed. Privately he was
a good deal bothered, in the light of the story he had told at the
Fort, as to how he was going to make a getaway at the portage.
They arrived at the same time as on the previous trip, and Ralph as
before was invited to spend the night in the bunkhouse.
"Thanks," he said easily; "I think I'll put up a tent. I've got the
craze for sleeping out of doors."
"I'll sleep out with you," said Stack.
"The mosquitoes will eat you up," said Ralph coolly. "I've got only a
one man shelter."
He pitched his tent on the edge of the river bank, across a little
muskeg from Mixer and Staley's buildings. He ostentatiously went to
bed at an early hour. As soon as everything was quiet he crept out,
and hoisting the bundle which contained his boat to his back, started
to climb the portage trail.
At two o'clock he returned. Making all the rest of his baggage into a
pack, he got away again before the dawn began to break. At five he was
on the shore of the lake with all his belongings. At six he had his
boat set up and packed, and was setting off. All these movements were
reported to Joe Mixer later.
Ralph, thrusting his paddle into the water which would eventually bear
him back to Nahnya, felt like an exile coming into his own country
again. The world and its business, which obtruded irritatingly on his
dreams, was all behind him, and when he stepped into his boat he left
his matter-of-fact self on the shore. This was Nahnya's land. With
the keenest satisfaction he gazed around him, letting the scene
photograph itself on his brain. Ralph never forgot anything that he
had once looked at squarely. Seeing the quaint islands, he smiled.
"Nature's shop-window," he thought, "setting out her spring line."
Entering the little river the reeds and the lily pads presented
familiar faces, and every bend recalled the previous journey, evoking
the presence of Nahnya so strongly that he had an actual physical
consciousness of her sitting behind him, seeing all that he saw. He
played with the idea, forbearing to turn his head that he might not
dispel the comforting illusion.
He had intended stopping at each place where they had spelled on the
first journey, but this he found was impracticable, no matter how hard
he worked. His tubby craft could never make the headway of the slender
dugout, and his paddle lacked the skill of Nahnya's. In the rapids he
was soon in trouble, but here the elastic sides of his coracle proved
an advantage. She bounced off the rounded boulders without taking any
harm. When she ran high and dry it was no great matter to step out
into the shallow stream and guide her back to the channel.
Though he paddled until near dark he had to go ashore several miles
short of their first camping-place. It was on a grassy point in the
middle of a quiet reach of the river that he chose to spend his first
night alone in the silence. Solitude, Silence, and Darkness, older
than all created things, are terrific to us newest creatures with
nervous systems. Very few of us know them really. In an inhabited
land at any hour of any season there is no such thing as silence.
Ralph sat beside his fire thrilling in the presence of the ancient
sisters. He was weighed down, overwhelmed, intimidated. He felt as if
he and his little fire existed like an island in an infinite void.
All this was changed by the cheery sun. He continued his journey
downstream joyfully. These two days that he spent entirely cut off
from his kind ever afterward lingered in Ralph's mind with a flavour
distinct from all the other days of his life. Away from all the
distracting business of life, nor tugged opposing ways by human
associations, it was as if he had come face to face with his own self
for the first time. It seemed as if the fetters of the flesh were a
little loosened, enabling him to feel more keenly, and to think with a
greater lucidity.
This increased sensibility was for evil as well as good. While the
river seemed even lovelier, if possible, than upon the previous
journey, side by side with the pleasure he had in it, a premonition of
evil entered Ralph's breast. "Something is going to happen," a voice
whispered to him. He sought to laugh it away, but it stuck. He could
not but remember the stories that are told in the North of how men
living alone in the woods become gifted with a prescience of what is to
come.
With a vague feeling that escape from the danger lay ahead, he paddled
until ten o'clock that night. Darkness was then falling, and his weary
arms could scarcely lift the paddle. He camped on the river in the
spot where they had dined on the second day of the other journey. He
fell asleep with the premonition like a cold hand on his breast.
[Illustration: "_An instant later a long dugout swept into view, with
four men in it_"]
In the morning it awakened him all of a piece. He abruptly sat up to
listen. There was no sound. "What is the matter with me?" he thought
wonderingly. "Something is upon you," that still voice seemed to
whisper. He looked to his gun. His heart failed him a little, he was
so terribly alone. Inside him he offered up an unspoken prayer that
whatever was coming might come quickly, before fear of the unknown
should unman him.
Hastily cooking his breakfast, he never ceased to listen; therefore he
was scarcely surprised when he finally heard the most startling sound
in the wilderness--human voices. An instant later a long dugout swept
into view upstream with four men in it. Courage warmed Ralph's breast
again; to be sure it was bad enough, but it was real.
At sight of Ralph the men in the dugout set up a shout. Arriving
abreast of his camp they swung around and beached their craft below.
In the bow was a white man strange to Ralph, Joe Mixer and Stack sat
amidships, while the stern paddle was wielded by a handsome, muscular
young half-breed. They all got out. Ralph awaited them on the top of
the bank. Burly Joe approached with an anticipatory, cynical grin;
little Stack kept partly behind him.
"Hello, pardner!" cried Joe.
Ralph, seeing that he actually expected to keep up the fiction of
friendliness, smiled grimly. "What do you want?" he asked.
Ralph's warning of danger had served him well. Joe, seeing him cool
and prepared, was completely disconcerted. "What do I want?" he
repeated, falling back with a scowl. "That's a hell of a nice
good-morning to hand out to a man!"
"What were you looking for?" asked Ralph, "an address of welcome?"
Joe turned purple, and shook his fist. "I'll show you!" he cried.
Little Stack stepped from behind Joe. Physical terror gave his face a
greenish cast, but his chagrin at seeing his careful plans about to be
destroyed was stronger still. It emboldened him to put himself in
front of Joe. "Wait!" he implored. "You mustn't quarrel! Let me
explain!"
Joe turned aside with a muttered oath.
A fawning note crept into Stack's voice. "We've taken the Doctor by
surprise," he said. "He thinks we're spying on him. You can't hardly
blame him."
"You're a good guesser, Stack," said Ralph grimly.
"It's nothing of the kind!" cried Stack virtuously. "You must remember
I told you long ago I wanted to take a trip through the wilds if I
could get a chance. Mr. Mixer was willing to go, so I engaged him and
these men to guide me."
"Why explain?" said Ralph. "It's nothing to me. The river is free to
all."
"I didn't expect this from you," said Stack, with an aggrieved air. "I
thought we were friends. What have you got against me?"
"Nothing," said Ralph; "but you're in bad company."
Joe could no longer hold himself in. His face was purple. "Who the
hell do you think you are?" he cried thickly. "You stinking dude! You
smooth-face poisoner! You rah-rah college boy. It makes my stomach
turn to hear you lisping! What are you doing in a man's country? Go
home to your pink teas and your toe-dancing!"
Ralph could not help but smile at the style of Joe's invective. The
smile maddened Joe. The foulest dregs of English speech were fished up
to express his feelings. The other white man laughed obsequiously. He
was in Joe's pay. The half-breed pitched pebbles into the stream,
handsome and unconcerned. Ralph took it all steely eyed and smiling
still.
"You stand there like a little Gorramighty!" cried Joe, with a string
of oaths. "What can you do against the four of us? We've got you
where we want you now, and you know it! You'll be singing another tune
before we're done with you!"
"Now you're talking!" cried Ralph, bright-eyed. "The truth is coming
out at last!"
Stack all but wrung his hands at the turn things were taking.
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" he implored.
"Ahh! shut your head," snarled Joe. "You hate him as much as me!"
Stack turned paler still, and darted a furtive look at Ralph, and
cringed and tried to smile indulgently. "Don't listen to him," he said
to Ralph. "You've made him mad. He don't mean what he says. It
wasn't half an hour ago he said to me, 'Won't it be sport to surprise
the Doctor?' There's no need for you to quarrel like this. We don't
want to intrude upon your privacy. Come to our camp to supper
to-night, and talk things over quiet, and shake hands on it."
Ralph preferred Joe's honest obscenity to this. He made no answer.
"Ah! come on!" said Joe. "I'm sick of your palaver!"
He pulled the smaller man back to the dugout. Stack got in, nodding
and smiling over his shoulder in a comic and pitiable attempt to
propitiate the grim Ralph. They pushed off. As the dugout disappeared
around the first bend below, Stack actually had the effrontery to wave
his hand to Ralph.
Ralph sat down to do some hard thinking. His charming dreams were
rudely shattered, and like every man suddenly roused to action, he felt
a little ashamed at having been caught dreaming. He remembered
precautions he might have taken had he been wide awake. When his anger
cooled--in spite of the smile he had been no less angry than Joe
Mixer--he was a little appalled by his situation. Four against one is
heavy odds. If he had had even so much as a dog to keep watch while he
slept! How could he venture to sleep and leave himself open to a night
attack? He resolutely put that unnerving thought out of his head. "I
shall travel exactly as if they had not come!" he decided.
The more he thought, the greater loomed his difficulties. In a manner
of speaking he was trapped in the river just the same as if they had
him on a road between high and unscalable walls. He could not go back
against the current, and he could not leave the river. With his clumsy
boat and one paddle, against their dugout and four, there was not the
slightest possibility of his escaping them downstream. They were free
to follow him at their leisure, and play with him like cat and mouse.
Ralph was amazed, as any open-hearted man might be, at the suddenness
of the discovery that he had active and malignant enemies. Joe Mixer's
hatred he instinctively understood, and returned. Those two had been
formed to hate each other. He likewise understood now that the evil
fire Nahnya had lighted in Joe's breast was no mere ephemeral flame.
It was clear that Joe hoped to reach Nahnya through him. "I'll lead
him a chase," Ralph thought grimly. This brought up the thought that
Joe might be the means of keeping him from returning to Nahnya. Ralph
ground his teeth at that, and understood the desire to murder that is
born in men's breasts.
In Stack Ralph realized he had a more dangerous enemy than Joe. In
vain he threshed his brain to discover a reason for Stack's being in
Joe's galley. He had never laid eyes on the little man until they took
their places in the stage together. It was true he had never thought
much of the little Jackstraw, but there had never been anything but
friendly exchanges between them. There was a mystery here that
tantalized him.
The upshot of his cogitations was, Ralph decided to accept Stack's
invitation to visit their camp that night--not to eat with them,
Ralph's gorge rose at the idea, but to go after supper. "It'll
surprise 'em," he thought grimly. "Nothing like bearding them in their
own den. I'm bound to find out something. One man's strength isn't
enough against four. I've got to use all the wits I have, too. I've
got to meet them on their own ground, lie for lie. Beastly crooks!
I'll go further than lying if necessary to keep them out!"
All day they remained ahead of him in the river, About nine o'clock,
while it was still fully light, he came upon their camp in the
accustomed camping-place where Nahnya had stopped on the second night
of the previous journey; the spot where Nahnya and Ralph had effected
their midnight reconciliation. There was the little grassy shelf in
the bank where she had lain! The coarse voices of the men above
profaned the scene horribly.
Ralph's face as he climbed the bank was serene. His greeting was as
bland and off-hand as a schoolboy's. The four men were sitting on the
ground playing "jackpot." As Ralph had pleasurably anticipated, their
jaws dropped upon his appearance. Only Stack answered his greeting.
Cards in hand, the little man jumped up obsequiously, but Joe Mixer
barked at him, and he sat down abruptly. Joe scowled at his cards like
a hangman. The game proceeded as if Ralph were not there.
Ralph's cheeks began to burn at the implied insult, but he clapped his
anger under hatches. He saw clearly enough that Joe was waiting for
him to make an opening for a quarrel. Drawing closer, he coolly
overlooked the game. They had a folded blanket between them to play
the cards upon. In lieu of chips they used matches. The half-breed
was winning. He was a fine specimen of physical manhood a year or two
younger than Ralph, with a bold, conceited face. He scarcely took
pains to hide his contempt for the three white men of his party, and
Ralph observed that even Joe was inclined to truckle to him like a
bully to one whose strength he has not measured. Stack was obsequious
all around. In the third white man Ralph recognized Crusoe Campbell, a
disreputable character well known up and down the river of that name.
He had the reputation of being not quite right in his head, which he
traded upon to his advantage. His wits were good enough to play a
crafty game of poker.
So much for Ralph's observations. "A rum outfit!" he thought grimly.
When the cards were collected for a fresh deal Ralph asked coolly:
"What are the stakes?"
"Nickel a match," answered Crusoe Campbell.
"Give me the worth of that," he said, throwing a five-dollar bill on
the blanket. "You," he said, indicating the half-breed, "what's your
name?"
"Philippe Boisvert," the breed announced swaggeringly.
Crusoe Campbell and Philippe made room between them and Ralph sat down.
All looked covertly at Joe to see how he would take it. Joe, still
scowling, kept his eyes down and said nothing. The game went on.
Ralph's bluff was as yet uncalled.
Outwardly as cool as the ideal poker-player, Ralph was on the _qui
vive_ for an explosion. Under stress of excitement, his spirits soared
like a bird taking wing. The corners of his lips twitched provokingly,
and the shine of a hidden fire glowed in his dark eyes. He bet
recklessly, winning and losing with equal good humour. His good humour
communicated itself to three of the other players. All men love a good
gambler. The ill-assorted game became almost jolly. Only Joe grew
more and more morose. His face turned an ugly brownish red, and a vein
stood out ominously on his forehead.
When the explosion took place it was not directed at Ralph. Stack,
carried away by the appearance of general good feeling, during a pause
while the cards were being shuffled had the misfortune to say,
addressing Joe and Ralph: "You two ought to shake hands and let bygones
be bygones."
Joe Mixer broke out on him so violently as to be almost comic. "You
sneaking little two-faced informer!" he shouted with a whole string of
oaths. "Keep your lip out of my affairs, will you? I'll learn you to
talk to your betters! You make me sick with your lying palaver! Get
the hell out of this game anyway! You ain't man enough to play poker!"
Stack hastily retreated from the circle. The breed laughed. Crusoe
Campbell quietly confiscated Stack's matches.
"Give me another box of cigarettes out of your bag," the breed said
curtly.
"A half-breed issuing orders to a white man and being obeyed!" thought
Ralph.
"Bring up a pail of water from the river," commanded Crusoe.
The little man had already become the camp drudge, it appeared.
Stack sat down at a little distance from the game with a childish
assumption of injured dignity. During the deals Joe alternately
chaffed and reviled him coarsely. Ralph could not find it in his heart
to feel very sorry for the little man. "He _is_ a sneak," he thought.
He kept his ears open for any word that might throw light on this
obscure and curious situation.
After a while Stack said humbly: "Doctor Cowdray, if you please I'd
like to have a word with you before you go."
"I'm damned if you do!" cried Joe. "You'd like to play him off against
me, wouldn't you; and me against him, and get your private pickings off
the both of us! Me and Cowdray we ain't got no use for each other. We
don't make no pretences. But you! You snide! you want to square
yourself with him, don't you? After telling me you trailed him all the
way from the coast!"
"I have nothing to say to you!" cried Stack, with a display of childish
fury that caused all three of his mates to shout with laughter.
A light broke on Ralph. Trailed all the way from the coast! To learn
this was worth having come for! But why anybody should want to trail
him was more of a mystery than ever. He determined to find out.
Meanwhile the game went on with four players. The fortune of the cards
changed, and Joe Mixer began to win, principally from Ralph. His good
humour was restored. This was as good a way to get square as any. As
Ralph's pile of matches melted away, Joe triumphed insolently. He
doubled and trebled the ante whenever it came to him. Finally he said:
"A dollar to draw and two to play. Does that scare you off, Doc?"
"Not at all," said Ralph coolly. "This is mild beside the play in New
York clubs."
"Well, it ain't hard to win all you've got," snarled Joe.
"Three cards," said Ralph to the dealer. "This is my last hand."
He had been dealt a pair of aces. He drew another ace with a pair of
sixes, and a comfortable little satisfaction warmed his breast. His
face was like the Sphinx's. Joe Mixer drew two cards. Ralph, watching
him narrowly, saw a tiny spark of satisfaction light his eye when he
looked at them, and guessed that he held three and had drawn a pair.
Revenge was as sweet to Ralph as anybody.
Joe bet in a small way, and Ralph raised him modestly. The others had
dropped out. Joe raised again, and Ralph followed suit. Joe, seeing
that he was not to be shaken off, began to plunge. Ralph's matches
were exhausted long ago, and he threw the money on the blanket, raising
Joe a dollar each time. Joe began to breathe hard and his face became
as pale as a butcher's face may, except his ears, which remained a
furious crimson. He raised Ralph five, and finally ten dollars at a
time, hoping to bluff him out. Ralph covered his bets with a smile,
and each time raised him one. A respectable little hill of greenbacks
grew on the blanket. Crusoe and the breed eyed it hungrily. Finally,
when it came to Joe's turn, he stopped. Little beads of perspiration
had sprung out on his forehead.
"What's the matter?" asked Ralph innocently. "Are you scared off?"
"No!" cried Joe with an oath. "Ain't got no more money," he added
sheepishly. "Don't carry it on the trail. Will you take my I.O.U.?"
Ralph shook his head. "A cash game, you said. I'll take back my last
raise and call you instead."
Joe with a great air of bravado laid down three kings and two queens.
Ralph made believe to be dumbfoundered. Joe grinned and reached for
the money with a trembling hand; whereupon Ralph counted out his three
aces and his pair of little ones.
"It's a shame to take all you've got," he said softly.