BELA'S ANSWER
From time to time Bela glanced narrowly at Sam through her lashes. He
presented a terrific problem to one of her inexperience. She found
this friendly interchange delightful, but was it all?
She had no feeling of being a woman to him. She began to feel a great
dissatisfaction. An imperious instinct urged her to sting him out of
his comfortable disregard of her sex. Her opportunity came when Sam
said:
"You have never told me what it was you wanted to talk to me about."
"All those men want marry me," she said off-hand.
It was instantly effective. Sam sat up abruptly and stared at her in
astonishment. Was she, after all, the evil woman he had first thought?
Had he been deceitfully lulled into security? She repeated her
statement. His face hardened.
"So I gathered," he replied sarcastically.
Bela was secretly pleased by the effect. "What you think 'bout it?"
she asked.
"I don't think anything about it," he answered with an angry flash.
"I not know what to tell them," said Bela. It had a faint theatrical
ring, which might have suggested to a discriminating ear that she was
not being altogether candid.
Sam obstinately closed his mouth.
"Which you lak best?" she asked presently, "the big one, the black
one, the red one, yo'ng one?"
A great discomposure seized upon Sam. Anger pounded at his temples,
and insane words pressed to his tongue. He put on the clamps. "What I
think is neither here nor there," he said stiffly. "It's up to you to
make your own choice. Why drag me into it?"
"You say you want be friend," explained Bela. "So I think you help
me."
"Nobody can help you in a matter of this kind," said Sam. "Lord, you
talk like a wooden man!" Something whispered to him while he said it.
"Why?" she asked with one of her sidelong looks.
Again his eyes flashed on her in angry pain. God! Was the woman trying
to madden him?
"A girl must make her own choice," his tongue said primly.
"But you could tell me about them, which is the best man. How do I
know?"
This on the face of it seemed like a reasonable request, but his
breast still passionately rebelled.
"Well, I won't!" he snapped. "If that's all you want to talk about I'd
better go."
"Is Big Jack a good man?" she persisted.
Sam got up.
"No, don't go!" she cried quickly. "I'll be good. I don't know why you
always mad at me."
Neither did Sam himself know. He looked at her dumbly with eyes full
of pain and confusion. He sat down again.
For a while she made light conversation about muskrats and beavers,
but when she thought he was safely settled down, womanlike, she was
obliged to return to the forbidden subject.
There was a pain in her breast as well as his. What was the matter
with him that he treated her so despite-fully? How else could she find
out what was in his heart but by making him lose his temper?
"Maybe I tak' Big Jack," she remarked casually.
"All right," returned Sam bitterly.
"He's the richest."
"A regular woman's reason," said Sam. "I wish you joy."
Would nothing move him? Bela felt as if she were beating with her
hands on a rock. "What do you care?" she asked insolently. Both voices
rang with bitterness now.
"I don't care."
She sneered.
"What you get mad for?"
Sam's endurance gave way. He sprang up.
"It's rotten!" he cried. "The whole business! That's what makes me
mad! Have you no shame, setting a whole camp of men against each other
like that? And coolly talking over which one you'll take! I tell you
it'll likely end in murder. Maybe you'd like that. Give you quite a
send-off, eh? Well, you can't drag me into it. I like a different kind
of woman."
Bela was no tame spirit. Anger answered anger. She faced him pale and
blazing-eyed.
"No woman want you, anyhow!" she cried. "You cook! You only half a
man! You too scared to fight for a woman! You only talk! Go away from
me! I tak' a _man_ for my 'osban'!"
Sam, beside himself with rage, stepped forward and raised his clenched
fist over her head. Bela laughed in his face. Suddenly he seemed to
see himself from the outside, and was filled with blank horror.
Turning, he snatched up his coat and shirt, and crashed blindly away
through the willows.
"Go and do your cookin'!" Bela cried after him.
Bela's cache was on the opposite side of the creek from the men's
cabin. The only place where Sam could cross without getting another
wetting was by the stepping-stones near the lake. He headed for the
pines where the going was better and encircled the edge of the meadow.
A great turmoil was going on within him. He was aghast at the gust of
passion that had drowned all his senses for a moment. He had not known
he contained such possibilities. To come so near to striking a woman!
Horrible!
Naturally, he did not fail to blame her. A devil--to provoke men to
such a pitch of madness! Well, he was done with her. Anyhow, he had
seen her now in her true colours. She was no good! There could be no
further argument about that. If he ever had anything to do with her
let him be called a soft-headed fool!
Forcing his way blindly through the underbrush, stumbling over roots,
and plunging into holes, he completed his detour around the meadow. As
he came out beside the ford he heard his name called urgently.
"Sam! Sam!"
Notwithstanding his anger, and in the very act of the brave vows he
was taking, the voice found his heart like a bullet. He stopped dead
with hanging arms and looked strickenly in the direction whence it
came.
Presently the dugout came flying around a bend in the creek above. She
landed at the head of the little rapids, and ran toward him. He waited
with sombre eyes.
She stopped at three paces distance, afraid to come closer. The
savage had disappeared. Her face was all softened with emotion.
"Sam, I sorry I call names," she said very low. "That was my madness
speaking out of my mouth. I not think those things in my heart. Please
forget it."
His eyes bored her through and through.
"Another trick to get you going?" the voice inside him asked.
"Don' look at me lak that," she faltered.
"How do I know what to believe?" Sam said harshly. "You say so many
things."
"I jus' foolin' 'bout those ot'er men," she said. "I not marry one of
them. I sooner jump in the lak'."
A secret spring of gladness spurted up in Sam's breast. "Do you mean
that?" he demanded.
"I mean it," she replied.
He gazed at her, strongly desiring to believe, but suspicious still.
His slower nature could not credit such a rapid change of front.
"Don' look at me lak that," she said again. "W'at you want me do?"
"Go away," he said.
She looked at him, startled.
"If you're in earnest about not wanting to make trouble," he said
harshly, "you've got to go without seeing any of them again."
Her eyes were full of trouble. "You tell me go away?" she whispered.
Sam winced. "I haven't got anything to do with it," he said. "It's up
to you."
He was more than ever inexplicable to her.
"What you goin' do?" she asked.
"I?" he replied, nettled. "I'm going up to the head of the lake with
the bunch, of course."
There was a painful silence, while Bela sought vainly in her mind for
the explanation of his strange attitude. An instinct told her he loved
her, but she could not make him say it.
"You think I bad girl, Sam," she murmured.
"How do I know what you are?" he asked harshly. "Here's your chance to
prove to me that you're on the square."
"I got go 'way to mak' you think I all right?"
"Yes," he answered eagerly.
"You fonny man, I think," she murmured sadly.
"Can't you see it?" he cried.
"No," she said. "But I goin' do what you tell me. I go to-night."
"Ah, that's right!" he said with a curious look of gratitude in his
pain-haunted eyes.
Bela waited for him to say more--but waited in vain. For herself she
would quickly have told him she loved him, had not her tongue been
tied by Musq'oosis's positive instructions. And so the unhappy silence
continued between them.
"Maybe somebody come this way," said Bela at last. "Mak' trouble. Come
up by my boat."
Sam shook his head. "I've got to go back to camp now."
"You not see me again. You got not'ing say to me?" asked Bela
despairingly. Her hand sought his.
Sam's instincts sprang up in alarm. "What could I say?" he cried.
"What good would it do? Good-bye!" Snatching his hand out of hers, he
retreated over the stones, refusing to look back.
* * * * *
When Sam entered the shack Joe faced him, scowling. "Where you been?"
he demanded.
Sam, in no humour to be meek, made the time-honoured rejoinder.
"I'll soon make it my business," retorted Joe. "With that, see?"
showing a clenched fist. "Have you been with Bela?"
Sam, because of the threat, disdained to lie. "Yes," he said coolly.
Joe whirled about to the others. "Didn't I tell you?" he cried
excitedly. "I heard her calling him. There's underhand work here. He's
hid the guns on us."
"Do you know where she's hid?" demanded Big Jack.
Sam did not feel any necessity of returning a truthful answer to this.
"No," he said. "She came on me when I was visiting my muskrat traps."
"You're lying!" cried Joe. "I'll smash you, anyhow, on the chance of
it."
Big Jack stepped between them.
"I'm running this show," he said grimly. To Sam he said: "I strike no
man without warning. I warn you now. This is a man's affair. We won't
stand no interference from cooks. You keep out. If you don't, God help
you, that's all!"
"And if he leaves you," added Joe, "I'll croak you myself with as
little thought as I'd pinch a flea!"
"Get the supper," said Jack.
Sam clenched his teeth, and did not speak again.
* * * * *
In the middle of the night Sam awoke in the shack with a weight on his
breast, and, sitting up in his blankets, looked about him. The dying
embers of the fire cast a faint light on the figures of his three
companions lying on the floor beside him. Husky still had the sole use
of the bed.
The cabin roof rang with a grotesque chorus of snores. Sam's gorge
rose. The air was tainted. He looked at the recumbent figures with a
curling lip. Was it hate that had awakened him? He had put up in
silence with so much at their hands!
An oblique ray of moonlight struck through the window over his head,
luring him like a song. He softly got up, and, gathering up his bed,
went outside.
The pines were like a regiment of gigantic soldiers standing at ease
under the sky and whispering together while they awaited the word of
command. Their fragrance was like a benediction on the air. The moon,
low down in the south-east, peeped between the trunks.
At the mouth of the creek where the little rapids poured into a quiet
pool there was a bank of sand. This was the general washing-place of
the camp.
Sam, thinking of the sand as a promising bed, made his way in that
direction by the path they had worn. As he passed around the house a
shadow moved from behind a great pine and followed him, flitting
noiselessly from tree to tree.
Sam sat down in the sand, nursing his knees. The mouth of the creek
was the only spot along shore as yet wholly free of ice. He looked out
over the lake through the opening. Under the light of the low moon the
water was the colour of freshly cast iron.
Somewhere out upon it Bela was paddling, he thought, if she had not
already reached home. His breast relaxed its guard against her a
little. He believed she was a pretty fine sort, after all. Had he done
the right thing to send her away? She was beautiful enough to make a
man's arm ache for her now she had gone.
But on the whole he was glad she was gone. He did not realize it, but
his hour had not quite struck. It was a wholesome instinct that made
him fight against the overmastering emotions that attacked his heart.
He told himself he couldn't afford to look in that direction. He had
work to do first. He had to get a toehold in this land. Some day
maybe----
Drowsiness overcame him again. With a sigh he stretched out on the
sand and rolled himself in his blankets. His breathing became deep and
slow. By and by the coquettish moon peeped between the tree-trunks
across the creek and touched his face and his fair hair with a silvery
wand. Whereupon it was no longer a mere man; it was young Hermes
sleeping beside the water. The shadow stole from among the trees above
the sand-bank and crept down to his side. It knelt there with clasped
hands. It showed a white face in the moonlight, on which glistened two
diamonds.
By and by it rose with energetic action, and still moving noiselessly
as a ghost, turned toward the lake, and clambering around the barrier
of ice, dropped to the edge of the water on the other side.
Here a dugout was drawn up on the stones, well hidden from the view of
any one on shore. She got in and, paddling around the ice, entered the
mouth of the creek. Grounding her craft with infinite care on the
sand, she groped for a moment in her baggage, then arose and stepped
ashore, carrying several long, thin strips of moose-hide.