ON THE LAKE
The three men sleeping on the floor of the shack suddenly started up
in their blankets.
"What was that?" they asked each other.
"A shout for help," said Jack.
Joe sprang up and opened the door. Some confused sounds from the
direction of the creek reached his ears, but he had not enough
woodcraft to distinguish them from the legitimate sounds of the night.
The fire was black now. Big Jack struck a match.
"Sam's gone!" he cried suddenly.
Shand felt around the floor with his hands. "His blankets, too!" he
added.
"Treachery!" cried Joe with an oath. "You wouldn't believe me before.
That's why he hid the guns. Come on, I heard something from the
creek."
They pulled on their moccasins and, snatching coats, ran out. Husky
remained on the bed, cursing. At the creek-mouth the sand-bank was
empty. The last pallid rays of the moon revealed nothing.
They were accustomed to come there many times a day to wash or to draw
water, and the welter of foot-prints in the sand gave no clue. Finally
Joe, with a cry, pounced on a dark object at the water's edge and held
it up. It was Sam's neck handkerchief.
"Here's the mark of a boat, too, in the sand," he cried. "I knew it!
Gone together in her boat!"
"It was a man's voice I heard," objected Jack. "What for would he want
to cry out?"
"Wanted to give us the laugh when he saw his get-a-way clear," said
Joe bitterly. "Oh, damn him!"
"As soon as it's light----" muttered Shand, grinding his teeth.
"What'll you do then?" demanded Joe.
"I'll get him!" said the quiet man.
"We have no boat."
"Boat or no boat."
"Oh, you're going to do great things. He belongs to me."
Shand sneered. "Take it out on him with your tongue."
Joe replied with a torrent of abuse.
Big Jack laughed a harsh note.
"You fools!" he said. "Both of you. What do you think you're going to
do so big? She's given us an answer sooner than we expected, that's
all. If she prefers a cook to a man, that's her affair. All we got to
do is shut up. I'm going back to the shack."
They would not confess the reasonableness of Jack's words. "Go where
you like," muttered Shand. "I'll stick by myself."
Jack strode back along the path. Joe followed him, merely because he
was one of those natures who will choose an enemy's company sooner
than face the prospect of being left with his own.
They left Shand to his own devices. Husky greeted them with eager
questions. Joe cursed him, and Jack clenched his teeth upon the stem
of his pipe in grim silence.
They revived the fire and sat in front of it. Each man was jealous of
his own rage and pain and refused to share it. Joe and Husky bickered
in a futile way. Big Jack, in spite of his philosophic protestations,
kept the tail of an eye on the whitening window-pane. In the end he
rose abruptly. Joe followed suit as a matter of course.
Jack turned on him, snarling. "Have I got to be followed by you like a
dog everywhere I go?"
"What's the matter with you?" retorted Joe. "Do you own the whole out
of doors?"
Jack halted outside the door. "You take one way; I'll go the other,"
he said grimly.
Jack returned to the creek, and crossing on the stepping-stones walked
out on the point beyond and sat down on a boulder. From here he could
see a long way down the lake shore.
At this season in the latitude of Caribou night is brief. The sun
sinks but a little way below the horizon, and a faint glow hovers over
his head all night, travelling around the northern horizon to the
east, where it heralds his reappearance.
It was light in the east now and the lake was stepping into view. Big
Jack searched its misty expanse with his keen little eyes.
By and by as the light strengthened, looking down-shore he saw a tiny,
dark object steal beyond the next point and become silhouetted against
the grey. There could be no doubt of what it was. The lust of pursuit
flamed up in the man's heart. He forgot his prudent advice to his
mates.
"Making for the foot of the lake," he thought. "And the wind's against
them. It's rising. I could easy ride around the shore and cut them
off."
He got up and made his way with energetic action back to the stable.
He had no sooner picked up a saddle than Joe came in. They looked each
other over without speaking. Joe made for another saddle.
"You're free to go where you want," said Jack grimly. "I've only got
to say I choose to ride alone."
"I don't care how you ride," retorted Joe. "Keep out of my business,
that's all."
They saddled their horses in silence.
Joe said at last with a sneer: "Thought you told us to sit down and
shut up."
Jack's face flamed suddenly.
"I promised him a beating if he interfered and, by God, I mean to give
it to him before her eyes. That's what she's got to take if she picks
a cook!"
He fixed Joe with blazing eyes. "And if any man comes between me and
my promise, I'll take him first! As for the girl, she can go her way.
I wouldn't take her for a gift!"
Joe laughed unpleasantly.
As Jack started to lead his horse out of the stable, he saw what he
had not before noticed--several guns leaning in a corner of the
stable. His eyes lighted up.
"Where did they come from?" he demanded, choosing his own.
"Shand found them under the sods of the stable roof," said Joe.
"Where is Shand?"
"He has already taken a horse and gone."
* * * * *
Sam was awakened by being violently rolled over on the sand. He felt
human hands upon him, but he could not see his enemy. He struggled
with a will, but his limbs were confined by the blanket. A heavy body
knelt upon his back, and fetters were pulled around him, binding his
arms and his legs inside the blanket.
It was then that he shouted lustily. It was cut short by a cotton gag
in his mouth. He was ignominiously rolled down the sand to the water's
edge. What with the darkness and the confusion of his faculties still,
he could not see who had attacked him.
Inert as a log, he was lifted up, dragged away, and finally dropped in
a boat. His captor stood away from him, panting. Sam rolled over on
his back and saw--Bela.
For a moment he was paralyzed by astonishment--a woman to dare so!
Without looking at him she quickly took her place in the stern and
pushed off. Suffocating rage quickly succeeded his first blankness.
Unable to move or to utter a sound, his heart nearly broke with it.
The black traitress! After all her professions of friendliness! After
making her eyes so soft and her voice so sweet! She was worse than his
ugliest suspicions had painted! He did not stop to guess why he had
been attacked. She was his enemy. That was enough.
Sounds reached them from the direction of the shack, and Bela,
lowering her head, paddled swiftly and silently for the point. Her
face showed only a dim oval in the failing light. But there was grim
resolution in its lines.
Only once did she open her lips. Sam was frantically twisting in his
bonds, though owing to his position on the keel of the dugout he did
not much threaten her stability.
Bela whispered: "If you turn us over you drown quick."
Angry as he was, the suggestion of being plunged into the lake bound
hand and foot reached him with no little force. Thereafter he lay
still, glaring at her.
They had no more than rounded the point when they heard the men come
running down to the creek. Bela continued to hug the shore. They were
soon swallowed in the murk. The moon went down.
By and by the first rays of light began to spread up the sky from the
eastern horizon, and the earth seemed to wake very softly and look in
that direction.
With the light came a breath from the east, cool as a hand on the brow
of fever. Twittering of sleepy chickadees were heard among the pines,
and out in the lake a loon laughed.
Day came with a swoop up the lake. The zephyr became a breeze, the
breeze half a gale. The leaden sheet of water was torn into white
tatters, and the waves began to crash on the ice-rimmed shore, sending
sheets of spray into the trees, and making it impossible for Bela to
land had she wished to.
This was a hard stroke of luck against her. She would have been out of
sight of the point by the time it was fully light, had it not been for
the head wind.
The dugout leaped and rolled like an insane thing. Having a
well-turned hull, she kept on top, and only spray came over the bow.
To Sam, who could see only the sky, the mad motion was inexplicable.
His anger gave place to an honest terror. If anything happened, what
chance did he stand? Bela's set, sullen face told him nothing. Her
eyes were undeviatingly fixed on a point a few feet ahead and to the
right of the bow. Twisting her paddle this way and that, she snaked
the dugout over the crests.
Though she seemed to pay no attention to him, she must have guessed
what was passing in Sam's mind. Without taking her eyes from that
point ahead where the waves came from, she felt in a bundle before her
and drew out a knife. Watching her chance, she swiftly leaned forward
and cut the bonds around his legs. When another lull came she cut his
arms free.
"Move careful," she said, without looking at him.
Sam did not need the warning. The icy quality of the spray in his face
filled him with a wholesome respect for the lake. He cautiously worked
his arms free of the blanket, and, raising himself on his elbows,
looked over the gunwale. He saw the waves come tumbling clumsily
toward them and gasped.
It seemed like a miracle the little craft had survived so long. One
glance at the shore showed him why they could not land. He fell back,
and his hands flew to the knot behind his head. He tore off the gag
and threw it overboard. Bela looked at him for the fraction of a
second.
"Well, what's your game?" he bitterly demanded. "It's pretty near
ended for both of us. I hope you're satisfied. You savage!"
Bela's eyes did not swerve again from that point ahead. In one respect
she was a savage; that was the extraordinary stolidity she could
assume. For all the attention she gave him he might have been the wind
whistling.
At first it fanned his anger outrageously. He searched his mind for
cruel taunts to move her. It was all wasted. She paddled ahead like a
piece of the boat itself, now pausing a second, now driving hard, as
those fixed, wary eyes telegraphed automatically to her arms.
One cannot continue to rail at a wooden woman. Her impassivity finally
wore him out. He fell silent, and covered his face with an arm that he
might not have to look at her. Besides, he felt seasick.
East of Nine-Mile Point the lake shore makes in sharply, forming the
wide, deep bay which stretches all the way to the foot of the lake
where Musquasepi, the little river, takes its rise. The stony,
ice-clad shores, backed by pines, continued for a mile or so, then
gave place to wide, bare mud-flats reaching far inland.
On the flats the ice did not pile up, but lay in great cakes where the
receding waters stranded it. This ice was practically all melted now,
and the view across the flats was unimpeded. It was nine miles from
the point to the intake of the river by water and fifteen miles by
land. The trail skirted inside the flats.
Bela kept to the shore until the increasing light made further
concealment useless. She then headed boldly across for the river. It
was at this time that the wind began to blow its hardest.
She could not tell, of course, if she had yet been discovered from the
point. Not knowing the ways of white men, she could not guess if they
were likely to pursue.
Under ordinary circumstances with a little start, she could easily
have beaten a horse to the river, but the head wind reversed the
chances. She might have landed on the flats, but there was not a
particle of cover there, and they would have offered a fair mark to
any one following by the trail. Moreover, Sam would have run away.
It was too rough for her to hope to escape across the lake in the
trough of the sea. So there was nothing for her but to continue to
struggle toward the river. A bank of heavy clouds was rising in the
east. It was to be a grey day.
After a while Sam looked over the edge again. The dugout seemed
scarcely to have moved. They were still but half-way across the wide
bay. On the lake side they were passing a wooded island out in the
middle. The wind was still increasing. It came roaring up the lake in
successive gusts. It was like a giant playing with them in cruel glee
before administering the _coup de grace_. Bela could no longer keep
the crests of the waves out. Sam was drenched and chilled.
He stole another look in her face. The imminence of the danger
threatening both forced his anger into the background for the moment.
She never changed her attitude except occasionally to swing the paddle
to the other side of the boat.
At the impact of each gust she lowered her head a little and set her
teeth. Her face had become a little haggard and grey under the long
continued strain. Sam chafed under his enforced inaction.
"You have another paddle," he said. "Let me help."
"Lie down," she muttered without looking at him. "You don' know how.
You turn us over."
He lay in water impotently grinding his teeth. He could not but admire
her indomitable courage, and he hated her for being forced to admire
her. To be obliged to lie still and let a woman command was a bitter
draft to his pride.
A wave leaped over the bow, falling in the dugout like a barrowful of
stones. Sam sprang to a sitting position. He thought the end had come.
The dugout staggered drunkenly under the additional load. But Bela's
face was still unmoved.
"Lean over," she commanded, nodding toward the little pile of baggage
between them. "Under the blankets, in the top of the grub-box, my
tea-pail."
He found it, and set to work with a will to bail. As fast as he
emptied the water, more came in over the bow. The foot of the lake and
safety seemed to recede before them. Surely it was not possible a
woman could hold out long enough to reach it, he thought, glancing at
her.
"Why don't you turn about and run before the wind?" he asked.
"Can't turn now," she muttered. "Wave hit her side, turn over quick."
Sam looked ashore again. For upwards of a furlong off the edge of the
flats the breakers were ruling their parallel lines of white. Above
all the other noises of the storm the continuous roaring of these
waters reached their ears.
"You could land there," he suggested. "What if we did get turned out?
It's shallow."
She was not going to tell him the real reason she could not land. "I
lose my boat," she muttered.
"Better lose the boat than lose yourself," he muttered sullenly.
Bela did not answer this. She paddled doggedly, and Sam bailed. He saw
her glance from time to time toward a certain point inland. Seeing her
face change, he followed the direction of her eyes, and presently
distinguished, far across the flats, three tiny horses with riders
appearing from among the trees.
They were proceeding in single file around the bay. Even at the
distance one could guess they were galloping. So that was why she
would not land!
Sam did not need to be told who the three riders were. His sensations
on perceiving them were mixed. It was not difficult for him to figure
what had happened when his absence had been discovered, and he was not
at all sure that he wished to escape from his mysterious captor only
to fall into those hands.
This line of thought suddenly suggested a possible reason why he had
been carried off--but it was too humiliating to credit. He looked at
her with a kind of shamed horror. Her face gave nothing away.
By and by Sam realized with a blessed lightening of the heart that the
storm had reached its maximum. The gusts were no longer increasing in
strength; less water was coming over the bow. Not until he felt the
relief was he aware of how frightened he had been.
Bela's face lightened, too. Progress under the cruel handicap was
still painfully slow. The wind was like a hand thrusting them back;
but every gain brought them a little more under the lee of the land.
If Bela's arms held out! He looked at her wonderingly. There was no
sign of any slackening yet.
"We not sink now," she said coolly.
"Good!" cried Sam.
In their mutual relief they could almost be friendly.
Bela was heading for the intake of the river. Along the tortuous
course of that stream she knew a hundred hiding-places. The land trail
followed the general direction of the river, but touched it only at
one or two places.
The question was, could she reach the river before the horsemen? Sam
watched them, trying to gauge their rate of progress. The horses had
at least four miles to cover, while the dugout was now within a
mile--but the horses were running.
Sam knew that the trail crossed the river by a ford near the intake
from the lake, because he had come that way. If the horsemen cut off
Bela at the ford what would she do? he wondered. The outlook was bad
for him in either event. He must escape from both parties.
The horsemen passing around the bay became mere specks in the
distance. Reaching the foot of the lake they had to cover a straight
stretch of a mile and a half to the river. The trail lay behind
willows here, and they disappeared from view. It was anybody's race.
Bela, the extraordinary girl, still had a reserve of strength to draw
on. As they gradually came under the influence of the windward shore
the water calmed down and the dugout leaped ahead.
Sam watched her with a cold admiration, speculating endlessly on what
might be going on behind her mask-like face. With all her pluck, what
could she hope to gain? Obviously it would be easier to escape from
her than from three men, and he began to hope she would win.
They caught no further glimpses of the horsemen, and as they drew
closer and closer to the river the tension became acute. Suppose they
arrived simultaneously, thought Sam, would the men shoot?
Not Big Jack nor Shand, perhaps, but Joe was not to be trusted. But
surely they would see he was a prisoner. Something of the kind must
have been passing through Bela's mind. Putting down her paddle for a
moment, she threw back the blankets and drew out her gun. It had been
carefully protected from the water. She laid it on top convenient to
her hand and resumed.
"She's a good plucky one," thought Sam grimly. "As for me, I play a
pretty poor part in this affair, whichever way you look at it. A kind
of dummy figure, it seems."
So low were its shores that the intake of the river was hidden from
them until they were almost in it. Finally it opened up before them,
with its wide reaches of sand stretching away on either hand, willows
backing the sand, and a pine ridge rising behind the willows.
Here the wind whistled harmlessly over their heads, and the surface of
the water was quiet except for the catspaws darting hither and
thither. Before entering the river, Bela paused again, and bent her
head to listen.
"Too late!" she said. "We can't pass!"
At the same moment the horses burst from behind the willows a quarter
of a mile across the sand. They had the ford!
"We can't pass," Bela repeated, and then with a gasp, in which was
more of anger than fear, she added: "An' they got guns, too!"