“They won’t come to-night--sure.”
The girl looked again towards the west, where, here and there, bare
poles, or branches of trees, or slips of underbrush marked a road made
across the plains through the snow. The sun was going down golden red,
folding up the sky a wide soft curtain of pink and mauve and deep purple
merging into the fathomless blue, where already the stars were beginning
to quiver. The house stood on the edge of a little forest, which had
boldly asserted itself in the wide flatness. At this point in the west
the prairie merged into an undulating territory, where hill and wood
rolled away from the banks of the Saskatchewan, making another England
in beauty. The forest was a sort of advance-post of that land of beauty.
Yet there was beauty too on this prairie, though there was nothing to
the east but snow and the forest so far as eye could see. Nobility and
peace and power brooded over the white world.
As the girl looked, it seemed as though the bosom of the land rose and
fell. She had felt this vibrating life beat beneath the frozen surface.
Now, as she gazed, she smiled sadly to herself, with drooping eyelids
looking out from beneath strong brows.
“I know you--I know you,” she said aloud. “You’ve got to take your toll.
And when you’re lying asleep like that, or pretending to, you reach
up-and kill. And yet you can be kind-ah, but you can be kind and
beautiful! But you must have your toll one way or t’other.” She sighed
and paused; then, after a moment, looking along the trail--“I don’t
expect they’ll come to-night, and mebbe not to-morrow, if--if they stay
for THAT.”
Her eyes closed, she shivered a little. Her lips drew tight, and her
face seemed suddenly to get thinner. “But dad wouldn’t--no, he couldn’t,
not considerin’--” Again she shut her eyes in pain.
Her face was now turned from the western road by which she had expected
her travellers, and towards the east, where already the snow was taking
on a faint bluish tint, a reflection of the sky deepening nightwards
in that half-circle of the horizon. Distant and a little bleak and
cheerless the half-circle was looking now.
“No one--not for two weeks,” she said, in comment on the eastern trail,
which was so little frequented in winter, and this year had been less
travelled than ever. “It would be nice to have a neighbour,” she added,
as she faced the west and the sinking sun again. “I get so lonely--just
minutes I get lonely. But it’s them minutes that seem to count more than
all the rest when they come. I expect that’s it--we don’t live in months
and years, but just in minutes. It doesn’t take long for an earthquake
to do its work--it’s seconds then.... P’r’aps dad won’t even come
to-morrow,” she added, as she laid her hand on the latch. “It never
seemed so long before, not even when he’s been away a week.” She laughed
bitterly. “Even bad company’s better than no company at all. Sure. And
Mickey has been here always when dad’s been away past times. Mickey was
a fool, but he was company; and mebbe he’d have been better company if
he’d been more of a scamp and less a fool. I dunno, but I really think
he would. Bad company doesn’t put you off so.”
There was a scratching at the inside of the door. “My, if I didn’t
forget Shako,” she said, “and he dying for a run!”
She opened the door quickly, and out jumped a Russian dog of almost full
breed, with big, soft eyes like those of his mistress, and with the air
of the north in every motion--like his mistress also.
“Come, Shako, a run--a run!”
An instant after she was flying off on a path towards the woods, her
short skirts flying and showing limbs as graceful and shapely as those
of any woman of that world of social grace which she had never seen; for
she was a prairie girl through and through, born on the plains and
fed on its scanty fare--scanty as to variety, at least. Backwards and
forwards they ran, the girl shouting like a child of ten,--she was
twenty-three, her eyes flashing, her fine white teeth showing, her hands
thrown up in sheer excess of animal life, her hair blowing about her
face-brown, strong hair, wavy and plentiful.
Fine creature as she was, her finest features were her eyes and her
hands. The eyes might have been found in the most savage places; the
hands, however, only could have come through breeding. She had got them
honestly; for her mother was descended from an old family of the French
province. That was why she had the name of Loisette--and had a touch of
distinction. It was the strain of the patrician in the full blood of the
peasant; but it gave her something which made her what she was--what she
had been since a child, noticeable and besought, sometimes beloved. It
was too strong a nature to compel love often, but it never failed to
compel admiration. Not greatly a creature of words, she had become moody
of late; and even now, alive with light and feeling and animal life, she
suddenly stopped her romp and run, and called the dog to her.
“Heel, Shako!” she said, and made for the door of the little house,
which looked so snug and home-like. She paused before she came to the
door, to watch the smoke curling up from the chimney straight as a
column, for there was not a breath of air stirring. The sun was almost
gone and the strong bluish light was settling on everything, giving even
the green spruce trees a curious burnished tone.
Swish! Thud! She faced the woods quickly. It was only a sound that she
had heard how many hundreds of times! It was the snow slipping from
some broad branch of the fir trees to the ground. Yet she started
now. Something was on her mind, agitating her senses, affecting her
self-control.
“I’ll be jumping out of my boots when the fire snaps, or the frost
cracks the ice, next,” she said aloud contemptuously. “I dunno what’s
the matter with me. I feel as if someone was hiding somewhere ready to
pop out on me. I haven’t never felt like that before.”
She had formed the habit of talking to herself, for it had seemed at
first, as she was left alone when her father went trapping or upon
journeys for the Government, that by and by she would start at the
sound of her own voice, if she didn’t think aloud. So she was given to
soliloquy, defying the old belief that people who talked to themselves
were going mad. She laughed at that. She said that birds sang to
themselves and didn’t go mad, and crickets chirruped, and frogs croaked,
and owls hooted, and she would talk and not go crazy either. So she
talked to herself and to Shako when she was alone.
How quiet it was inside when her light supper was eaten, bread and beans
and pea-soup--she had got this from her French mother. Now she sat, her
elbows on her knees, her chin on her hands, looking into the fire. Shako
was at her feet upon the great musk-ox rug, which her father had got on
one of his hunting trips in the Athabasca country years ago. It belonged
as she belonged. It breathed of the life of the north-land, for the
timbers of the hut were hewn cedar; the rough chimney, the seats, and
the shelves on which a few books made a fair show beside the bright tins
and the scanty crockery, were of pine; and the horned heads of deer and
wapiti made pegs for coats and caps, and rests for guns and rifles. It
was a place of comfort; it had an air of well-to-do thrift, even as the
girl’s dress, though plain, was made of good sound stuff, grey, with a
touch of dark red to match the auburn of her hair.
A book lay open in her lap, but she had scarcely tried to read it.
She had put it down after a few moments fixed upon it. It had sent her
thoughts off into a world where her life had played a part too big for
books, too deep for the plummet of any save those who had lived through
the storm of life’s trials; and life when it is bitter to the young is
bitter with an agony the old never know. At last she spoke to herself.
“She knows now. Now she knows what it is, how it feels--your heart like
red-hot coals, and something in your head that’s like a turnscrew, and
you want to die and can’t, for you’ve got to live and suffer.”
Again she was quiet, and only the dog’s heavy breathing, the snap of the
fire, or the crack of a timber in the deadly frost broke the silence.
Inside it was warm and bright and home-like; outside it was twenty
degrees below zero, and like some vast tomb where life itself was
congealed, and only the white stars, low, twinkling, and quizzical,
lived-a life of sharp corrosion, not of fire.
Suddenly she raised her head and listened. The dog did the same. None
but those whose lives are lived in lonely places can be so acute, so
sensitive to sound. It was a feeling delicate and intense, the whole
nature getting the vibration. You could have heard nothing had you been
there; none but one who was of the wide spaces could have done so. But
the dog and the woman felt, and both strained towards the window. Again
they heard, and started to their feet. It was far, far away, and still
you could not have heard; but now they heard clearly--a cry in the
night, a cry of pain and despair. The girl ran to the window and pulled
aside the bearskin curtain which had completely shut out the light. Then
she stirred the fire, threw a log upon it, snuffed the candles, hastily
put on her moccasins, fur coat, wool cap, and gloves, and went to the
door quickly, the dog at her heels. Opening it, she stepped out into the
night.
“Qui va la? Who is it? Where?” she called, and strained towards the
west. She thought it might be her father or Mickey the hired man, or
both.
The answer came from the east, out of the homeless, neighbourless, empty
east--a cry, louder now. There were only stars, and the night was dark,
though not deep dark. She sped along the prairie road as fast as she
could, once or twice stopping to call aloud. In answer to her calls the
voice sounded nearer and nearer. Now suddenly she left the trail and
bore away northward. At last the voice was very near. Presently a figure
appeared ahead, staggering towards her.
“Qui va la? Who is it?” she asked.
“Ba’tiste Caron,” was the reply in English, in a faint voice. She was
beside him in an instant.
“What has happened? Why are you off the trail?” she said, and supported
him.
“My Injun stoled my dogs and run off,” he replied. “I run after. Then,
when I am to come to the trail”--he paused to find the English word, and
could not--“encore to this trail I no can. So. Ah, bon Dieu, it has so
awful!” He swayed and would have fallen, but she caught him, bore him
up. She was so strong, and he was as slight as a girl, though tall.
“When was that?” she asked.
“Two nights ago,” he answered, and swayed. “Wait,” she said, and pulled
a flask from her pocket. “Drink this-quick.”
He raised it to his lips, but her hand was still on it, and she only let
him take a little. Then she drew it away, though she had almost to use
force, he was so eager for it. Now she took a biscuit from her pocket.
“Eat; then some more brandy after,” she urged. “Come on; it’s not far.
See, there’s the light,” she added cheerily, raising her head towards
the hut.
“I saw it just when I have fall down--it safe me. I sit down to
die--like that! But it safe me, that light--so. Ah, bon Dieu, it was so
far, and I want eat so!” Already he had swallowed the biscuit.
“When did you eat last?” she asked, as she urged him on.
“Two nights--except for one leetla piece of bread--O--O--I fin’ it in my
pocket. Grace! I have travel so far. Jesu, I think it ees ten thousan’
miles I go. But I mus’ go on, I mus’ go--O--certainement.”
The light came nearer and nearer. His footsteps quickened, though he
staggered now and then, and went like a horse that has run its race, but
is driven upon its course again, going heavily with mouth open and head
thrown forwards and down.
“But I mus’ to get there, an’ you-you will to help me, eh?”
Again he swayed, but her strong arm held him up. As they ran on, in a
kind of dog-trot, her hand firm upon his arm--he seemed not to notice
it--she became conscious, though it was half dark, of what sort of man
she had saved. He was about her own age, perhaps a year or two older,
with little, if any, hair upon his face, save a slight moustache. His
eyes, deep sunken as they were, she made out were black, and the face,
though drawn and famished, had a handsome look. Presently she gave him
another sip of brandy, and he quickened his steps, speaking to himself
the while.
“I haf to do it--if I lif. It is to go, go, go, till I get.”
Now they came to the hut where the firelight flickered on the
window-pane; the door was flung open, and, as he stumbled on the
threshold, she helped him into the warm room. She almost pushed him over
to the fire.
Divested of his outer coat, muffler, cap, and leggings, he sat on a
bench before the fire, his eyes wandering from the girl to the flames,
and his hands clasping and unclasping between his knees. His eyes
dilating with hunger, he watched her preparations for his supper; and
when at last--and she had been but a moment--it was placed before him,
his head swam, and he turned faint with the stress of his longing. He
would have swallowed a basin of pea-soup at a draught, but she stopped
him, holding the basin till she thought he might venture again. Then
came cold beans, and some meat which she toasted at the fire and laid
upon his plate. They had not spoken since first entering the house, when
tears had shone in his eyes, and he had said:
“You have safe--ah, you have safe me, and so I will do it yet by help
bon Dieu--yes.”
The meat was done at last, and he sat with a great dish of tea beside
him, and his pipe alight.
“What time, if please?” he asked. “I t’ink nine hour, but no sure.”
“It is near nine,” she said. She hastily tidied up the table after his
meal, and then came and sat in her chair over against the wall of the
rude fireplace. “Nine--dat is good. The moon rise at ‘leven; den I go. I
go on,” he said, “if you show me de queeck way.”
“You go on--how can you go on?” she asked, almost sharply.
“Will you not to show me?” he asked. “Show you what?” she asked
abruptly.
“The queeck way to Askatoon,” he said, as though surprised that she
should ask. “They say me if I get here you will tell me queeck way to
Askatoon. Time, he go so fas’, an’ I have loose a day an’ a night, an’
I mus’ get Askatoon if I lif--I mus’ get dere in time. It is all safe to
de stroke of de hour, mais, after, it is--bon Dieu--it is hell then. Who
shall forgif me--no!”
“The stroke of the hour--the stroke of the hour!” It beat into her
brain. Were they both thinking of the same thing now?
“You will show me queeck way. I mus’ be Askatoon in two days, or it is
all over,” he almost moaned. “Is no man here--I forget dat name, my head
go round like a wheel; but I know dis place, an’ de good God He help
me fin’ my way to where I call out, bien sur. Dat man’s name I have
forget.”
“My father’s name is John Alroyd,” she answered absently, for there were
hammering at her brain the words, “The stroke of the hour.”
“Ah, now I get--yes. An’ your name, it is Loisette Alroy’--ah, I have it
in my mind now--Loisette. I not forget dat name, I not forget you--no.”
“Why do you want to go the ‘quick’ way to Askatoon?” she asked.
He puffed a moment at his pipe before he answered her. Presently he
said, holding out his pipe, “You not like smoke, mebbe?”
She shook her head in negation, making an impatient gesture.
“I forget ask you,” he said. “Dat journee make me forget. When Injun
Jo, he leave me with the dogs, an’ I wake up all alone, an’ not know my
way--not like Jo, I think I die, it is so bad, so terrible in my head.
Not’ing but snow, not’ing. But dere is de sun; it shine. It say to me,
‘Wake up, Ba’tiste; it will be all right bime-bye.’ But all time I t’ink
I go mad, for I mus’ get Askatoon before--dat.”
She started. Had she not used the same word in thinking of Askatoon.
“That,” she had said.
“Why do you want to go the ‘quick’ way to Askatoon?” she asked again,
her face pale, her foot beating the floor impatiently.
“To save him before dat!” he answered, as though she knew of what he was
speaking and thinking. “What is that?” she asked. She knew now, surely,
but she must ask it nevertheless.
“Dat hanging--of Haman,” he answered. He nodded to himself. Then he took
to gazing into the fire. His lips moved as though talking to himself,
and the hand that held the pipe lay forgotten on his knee. “What have
you to do with Haman?” she asked slowly, her eyes burning.
“I want safe him--I mus’ give him free.” He tapped his breast. “It is
hereto mak’ him free.” He still tapped his breast.
For a moment she stood frozen still, her face thin and drawn and white;
then suddenly the blood rushed back into her face, and a red storm raged
in her eyes.
She thought of the sister, younger than herself, whom Rube Haman had
married and driven to her grave within a year--the sweet Lucy, with
the name of her father’s mother. Lucy had been all English in face and
tongue, a flower of the west, driven to darkness by this horse-dealing
brute, who, before he was arrested and tried for murder, was about to
marry Kate Wimper. Kate Wimper had stolen him from Lucy before Lucy’s
first and only child was born, the child that could not survive the
warm mother-life withdrawn, and so had gone down the valley whither the
broken-hearted mother had fled. It was Kate Wimper, who, before that,
had waylaid the one man for whom she herself had ever cared, and drawn
him from her side by such attractions as she herself would keep for an
honest wife, if such she ever chanced to be. An honest wife she would
have been had Kate Wimper not crossed the straight path of her life. The
man she had loved was gone to his end also, reckless and hopeless, after
he had thrown away his chance of a lifetime with Loisette Alroyd. There
had been left behind this girl, to whom tragedy had come too young,
who drank humiliation with a heart as proud as ever straightly set its
course through crooked ways.
It had hurt her, twisted her nature a little, given a fountain of
bitterness to her soul, which welled up and flooded her life sometimes.
It had given her face no sourness, but it put a shadow into her eyes.
She had been glad when Haman was condemned for murder, for she believed
he had committed it, and ten times hanging could not compensate for that
dear life gone from their sight--Lucy, the pride of her father’s heart.
She was glad when Haman was condemned, because of the woman who had
stolen him from Lucy, because of that other man, her lover, gone out of
her own life. The new hardness in her rejoiced that now the woman,
if she had any heart at all, must have it bowed down by this supreme
humiliation and wrung by the ugly tragedy of the hempen rope.
And now this man before her, this man with a boy’s face, with the dark
luminous eyes, whom she had saved from the frozen plains, he had that in
his breast which would free Haman, so he had said. A fury had its birth
in her at that moment. Something seemed to seize her brain and master
it, something so big that it held all her faculties in perfect control,
and she felt herself in an atmosphere where all life moved round her
mechanically, she herself the only sentient thing, so much greater
than all she saw, or all that she realised by her subconscious self.
Everything in the world seemed small. How calm it was even with the fury
within!
“Tell me,” she said quietly--“tell me how you are able to save Haman?”
“He not kill Wakely. It is my brudder Fadette dat kill and get away.
Haman he is drunk, and everyt’ing seem to say Haman he did it, an’
everyone know Haman is not friend to Wakely. So the juree say he must be
hanging. But my brudder he go to die with hawful bad cold queeck, an’ he
send for the priest an’ for me, an’ tell all. I go to Governor with the
priest, an’ Governor gif me dat writing here.” He tapped his breast,
then took out a wallet and showed the paper to her. “It is life of
dat Haman, voici! And so I safe him for my brudder. Dat was a bad boy,
Fadette. He was bad all time since he was a baby, an’ I t’ink him pretty
lucky to die on his bed, an’ get absolve, and go to purgatore. If he not
have luck like dat he go to hell, an’ stay there.”
He sighed, and put the wallet back in his breast carefully, his eyes
half-shut with weariness, his handsome face drawn and thin, his limbs
lax with fatigue.
“If I get Askatoon before de time for dat, I be happy in my heart, for
dat brudder off mine he get out of purgatore bime-bye, I t’ink.”
His eyes were almost shut, but he drew himself together with a great
effort, and added desperately, “No sleep. If I sleep it is all smash.
Man say me I can get Askatoon by dat time from here, if I go queeck way
across lak’--it is all froze now, dat lak’--an’ down dat Foxtail Hills.
Is it so, ma’m’selle?”
“By the ‘quick’ way if you can make it in time,” she said; “but it is no
way for the stranger to go. There are always bad spots on the ice--it is
not safe. You could not find your way.”
“I mus’ get dere in time,” he said desperately. “You can’t do
it--alone,” she said. “Do you want to risk all and lose?”
He frowned in self-suppression. “Long way, I no can get dere in time?”
he asked.
She thought a moment. “No; it can’t be done by the long way. But there
is another way--a third trail, the trail the Gover’ment men made a year
ago when they came to survey. It is a good trail. It is blazed in the
woods and staked on the plains. You cannot miss. But--but there is so
little time.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “You cannot leave
here much before sunrise, and--”
“I will leef when de moon rise, at eleven,” he interjected.
“You have had no sleep for two nights, and no food. You can’t last it
out,” she said calmly.
The deliberate look on his face deepened to stubbornness.
“It is my vow to my brudder--he is in purgatore. An’ I mus’ do it,” he
rejoined, with an emphasis there was no mistaking. “You can show me dat
way?”
She went to a drawer and took out a piece of paper. Then, with a point
of blackened stick, as he watched her and listened, she swiftly drew his
route for him.
“Yes, I get it in my head,” he said. “I go dat way, but I wish--I wish
it was dat queeck way. I have no fear, not’ing. I go w’en dat moon
rise--I go, bien sur.”
“You must sleep, then, while I get some food for you.” She pointed to a
couch in a corner. “I will wake you when the moon rises.”
For the first time he seemed to realise her, for a moment to leave the
thing which consumed him, and put his mind upon her.
“You not happy--you not like me here?” he asked simply; then added
quickly, “I am not bad man like me brudder--no.”
Her eyes rested on him for a moment as though realising him, while some
thought was working in her mind behind.
“No, you are not a bad man,” she said. “Men and women are equal on the
plains. You have no fear--I have no fear.”
He glanced at the rifles on the walls, then back at her. “My mudder, she
was good woman. I am glad she did not lif to know what Fadette do.” His
eyes drank her in for a minute, then he said: “I go sleep now, t’ank
you--till moontime.”
In a moment his deep breathing filled the room, the only sound save for
the fire within and the frost outside.
Time went on. The night deepened.
.........................
Loisette sat beside the fire, but her body was half-turned from it
towards the man on the sofa. She was not agitated outwardly, but within
there was that fire which burns up life and hope and all the things that
come between us and great issues. It had burned up everything in her
except one thought, one powerful motive. She had been deeply wronged,
and justice had been about to give “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth.” But the man lying there had come to sweep away the scaffolding
of justice--he had come for that.
Perhaps he might arrive at Askatoon before the stroke of the hour, but
still he would be too late, for in her pocket now was the Governor’s
reprieve. The man had slept soundly. His wallet was still in his breast;
but the reprieve was with her.
If he left without discovering his loss, and got well on his way, and
discovered it then, it would be too late. If he returned--she only saw
one step before her, she would wait for that, and deal with it when it
came. She was thinking of Lucy, of her own lover ruined and gone. She
was calm in her madness.
At the first light of the moon she roused him. She had put food into his
fur-coat pocket, and after he had drunk a bowl of hot pea-soup, while
she told him his course again, she opened the door, and he passed out
into the night. He started forward without a word, but came back again
and caught her hand.
“Pardon,” he said; “I go forget everyt’ing except dat. But I t’ink what
you do for me, it is better than all my life. Bien sur, I will come
again, when I get my mind to myself. Ah, but you are beautibul,” he
said, “an’ you not happy. Well, I come again--yes, a Dieu.”
He was gone into the night, with the moon silvering the sky, and the
steely frost eating into the sentient life of this northern world.
Inside the house, with the bearskin blind dropped at the window again,
and the fire blazing high, Loisette sat with the Governor’s reprieve in
her hand. Looking at it, she wondered why it had been given to Ba’tiste
Caron, and not to a police-officer. Ah yes, it was plain--Ba’tiste was
a woodsman and plainsman, and could go far more safely than a constable,
and faster. Ba’tiste had reason for going fast, and he would travel
night and day--he was travelling night and day indeed. And now Ba’tiste
might get there, but the reprieve would not. He would not be able to
stop the hanging of Haman--the hanging of Rube Haman.
A change came over her. Her eyes blazed, her breast heaved now. She had
been so quiet, so cold and still. But life seemed moving in her once
again. The woman, Kate Wimper, who had helped to send two people to
their graves, would now drink the dregs of shame, if she was capable of
shame--would be robbed of her happiness, if so be she loved Rube Haman.
She stood up, as though to put the paper in the fire, but paused
suddenly at one thought--Rube Haman was innocent of murder.
Even so, he was not innocent of Lucy’s misery and death, of the death of
the little one who only opened its eyes to the light for an instant, and
then went into the dark again. But truly she was justified! When Haman
was gone things would go on just the same--and she had been so bitter,
her heart had been pierced as with a knife these past three years. Again
she held out her hand to the fire, but suddenly she gave a little cry
and put her hand to her head. There was Ba’tiste!
What was Ba’tiste to her? Nothing-nothing at all. She had saved his
life--even if she wronged Ba’tiste, her debt would be paid. No, she
would not think of Ba’tiste. Yet she did not put the paper in the fire,
but in the pocket of her dress. Then she went to her room, leaving the
door open. The bed was opposite the fire, and, as she lay there--she did
not take off her clothes, she knew not why-she could see the flames. She
closed her eyes, but could not sleep, and more than once when she opened
them she thought she saw Ba’tiste sitting there as he had sat hours
before. Why did Ba’tiste haunt her so? What was it he had said in his
broken English as he went away?--that he would come back; that she was
“beautibul.”
All at once as she lay still, her head throbbing, her feet and hands icy
cold, she sat up listening. “Ah-again!” she cried. She sprang from her
bed, rushed to the door, and strained her eyes into the silver night.
She called into the icy void, “Qui va la? Who goes?”
She leaned forwards, her hand at her ear, but no sound came in reply.
Once more she called, but nothing answered. The night was all light and
frost and silence.
She had only heard, in her own brain, the iteration of Ba’tiste’s
calling. Would he reach Askatoon in time, she wondered, as she shut the
door? Why had she not gone with him and attempted the shorter way the
quick way, he had called it? All at once the truth came back upon her,
stirring her now. It would do no good for Ba’tiste to arrive in time.
He might plead to them all and tell the truth about the reprieve, but it
would not avail--Rube Haman would hang. That did not matter--even though
he was innocent; but Ba’tiste’s brother would be so long in
purgatory. And even that would not matter; but she would hurt
Ba’tiste--Ba’tiste--Ba’tiste. And Ba’tiste he would know that she--and
he had called her “beautibul,” that she had--
With a cry she suddenly clothed herself for travel. She put some food
and drink in a leather bag and slung them over her shoulder. Then she
dropped on a knee and wrote a note to her father, tears falling from
her eyes. She heaped wood on the fire and moved towards the door. All
at once she turned to the crucifix on the wall which had belonged to her
mother, and, though she had followed her father’s Protestant religion,
she kissed the feet of the sacred figure.
“Oh, Christ, have mercy on me, and bring me safe to my journey’s end-in
time,” she said breathlessly; then she went softly to the door, leaving
the dog behind.
It opened, closed, and the night swallowed her. Like a ghost she sped
the quick way to Askatoon. She was six hours behind Ba’tiste, and, going
hard all the time, it was doubtful if she could get there before the
fatal hour.
On the trail Ba’tiste had taken there were two huts where he could rest,
and he had carried his blanket slung on his shoulder. The way she went
gave no shelter save the trees and caves which had been used to cache
buffalo meat and hides in old days. But beyond this there was danger in
travelling by night, for the springs beneath the ice of the three lakes
she must, cross made it weak and rotten even in the fiercest weather,
and what would no doubt have been death to Ba’tiste would be peril at
least to her. Why had she not gone with him?
“He had in his face what was in Lucy’s,” she said to herself, as she
sped on. “She was fine like him, ready to break her heart for those she
cared for. My, if she had seen him first instead of--”
She stopped short, for the ice gave way to her foot, and she only sprang
back in time to save herself. But she trotted on, mile after mile,
the dog-trot of the Indian, head bent forwards, toeing in, breathing
steadily but sharply.
The morning came, noon, then a fall of snow and a keen wind, and despair
in her heart; but she had passed the danger-spots, and now, if the storm
did not overwhelm her, she might get to Askatoon in time. In the midst
of the storm she came to one of the caves of which she had known. Here
was wood for a fire, and here she ate, and in weariness unspeakable fell
asleep. When she waked it was near sun-down, the storm had ceased, and,
as on the night before, the sky was stained with colour and drowned in
splendour.
“I will do it--I will do it, Ba’tiste!” she called, and laughed aloud
into the sunset. She had battled with herself all the way, and she had
conquered. Right was right, and Rube Haman must not be hung for what he
did not do. Her heart hardened whenever she thought of the woman, but
softened again when she thought of Ba’tiste, who had to suffer for the
deed of a brother in “purgatore.” Once again the night and its silence
and loneliness followed her, the only living thing near the trail till
long after midnight. After that, as she knew, there were houses here and
there where she might have rested, but she pushed on unceasing.
At daybreak she fell in with a settler going to Askatoon with his dogs.
Seeing how exhausted she was, he made her ride a few miles upon his
sledge; then she sped on ahead again till she came to the borders of
Askatoon.
People were already in the streets, and all were tending one way. She
stopped and asked the time. It was within a quarter of an hour of the
time when Haman was to pay another’s penalty. She spurred herself on,
and came to the jail blind with fatigue. As she neared the jail she saw
her father and Mickey. In amazement her father hailed her, but she would
not stop. She was admitted to the prison on explaining that she had a
reprieve. Entering a room filled with excited people, she heard a cry.
It came from Ba’tiste. He had arrived but ten minutes before, and, in
the Sheriff’s presence had discovered his loss. He had appealed in vain.
But now, as he saw the girl, he gave a shout of joy which pierced the
hearts of all.
“Ah, you haf it! Say you haf it, or it is no use--he mus’ hang.
Spik-spik! Ah, my brudder--it is to do him right! Ah, Loisette--bon
Dieu, merci!”
For answer she placed the reprieve in the hands of the Sheriff. Then she
swayed and fell fainting at the feet of Ba’tiste.
She had come at the stroke of the hour.
When she left for her home again the Sheriff kissed her.
And that was not the only time he kissed her. He did it again six months
later, at the beginning of the harvest, when she and Ba’tiste Caron
started off on the long trail of life together. None but Ba’tiste knew
the truth about the loss of the reprieve, and to him she was “beautibul”
just the same, and greatly to be desired.