After that quietly spoken fact that her mother was dead, David waited
for Marge O'Doone to make some further explanation. He had so firmly
convinced himself that the picture he had carried was the key to all
that he wanted to know--first from Tavish, if he had lived, and now from
the girl--that it took him a moment or two to understand what he saw in
his companion's face. He realized then that his possession of the
picture and the manner in which it had come into his keeping were
matters of great perplexity to her, and that the woman whom he had met
in the Transcontinental held no significance for her at all, although he
had told her with rather marked emphasis that this woman--whom he had
thought was her mother--had been searching for a man who bore her own
name, O'Doone. The girl was plainly expecting him to say something, and
he reiterated this fact--that the woman in the coach was very anxious to
find a man whose name was O'Doone, and that it was quite reasonable to
suppose that _her_ name was O'Doone, especially as she had with her this
picture of a girl bearing that name. It seemed to him a powerful and
utterly convincing argument. It was a combination of facts difficult to
get away from without certain conclusions, but this girl who was so near
to him that he could almost feel her breath did not appear fully to
comprehend their significance. She was looking at him with wide-open,
wondering eyes, and when he had finished she said again:
"My mother is dead. And my father is dead, too. And my aunt is dead--up
at the Nest. There isn't any one left but my uncle Hauck, and he is a
brute. And Brokaw. He is a bigger brute. It was he who made me let him
take this picture--two years ago. I have been training Tara to kill--to
kill any one that touches me, when I scream."
It was wonderful to watch her eyes darken, to see her pupils grow big
and luminous. She did not look at the picture clutched in her hands, but
straight at him.
"He caught me there, near the creek. He _frightened_ me. He _made_ me
let him take it. He wanted me to take off my...."
A flood of wild blood rushed into her face. In her heart was a fury.
"I wouldn't be afraid now--not of him alone," she cried. "I would
scream--and fight, and Tara would tear him into pieces. Oh, Tara knows
how to do it--_now_! I have trained him."
"He compelled you to let him take the picture," urged David gently. "And
then...."
"I saw one of the pictures afterward. My aunt had it. I wanted to
destroy it, because I hated it, and I hated him. But she said it was
necessary for her to keep it. She was sick then. I loved her. She would
put her arms around me every day. She used to kiss me, nights, when I
went to bed. But we were afraid of Hauck--I don't call him 'uncle.'
_She_ was afraid of him. Once I jumped at him and scratched his face
when he swore at her, and he pulled my hair. _Ugh_, I can feel it now!
After that she used to cry, and she always put her arms around me
closer than ever. She died that way, holding my head down to her, and
trying to say something. But I couldn't understand. I was crying. That
was six months ago. Since then I've been training Tara--to kill."
"And why have you trained Tara, little girl?"
David took her hand. It lay warm and unresisting in his, a firm, very
little hand. He could feel a slight shudder pass through her.
"I heard--something," she said. "The Nest is a terrible place. Hauck is
terrible. Brokaw is terrible. And Hauck sent away somewhere up
there"--she pointed northward--"for Brokaw. He said--I belonged to
Brokaw. What did he mean?"
She turned so that she could look straight into David's eyes. She was
hard to answer. If she had been a woman....
She saw the slow, gathering tenseness in David's face as he looked for a
moment away from her bewildering eyes--the hardening muscles of his
jaws; and her own hand tightened as it lay in his.
"What did Hauck mean?" she persisted. "Why do I belong to Brokaw--that
great, red brute?"
The hand he had been holding he took between both his palms in a gentle,
comforting way. His voice was gentle, too, but the hard lines did not
leave his face.
"How old are you, Marge?" he asked.
"Seventeen," she said.
"And I am--thirty-eight." He turned to smile at her. "See...." He raised
a hand and took off his hat. "My hair is getting gray!"
She looked up swiftly, and then, so suddenly that it took his breath
away, her fingers were running back through his thick blond hair.
"A little," she said. "But you are not old."
She dropped her hand. Her whole movement had been innocent as a child's.
"And yet I am _quite_ old," he assured her. "Is this man Brokaw at the
Nest, Marge?"
She nodded.
"He has been there a month. He came after Hauck sent for him, and went
away again. Then he came back."
"And you are now running away from him?"
"From all of them," she said. "If it were just Brokaw I wouldn't be
afraid. I would let him catch me, and scream. Tara would kill him for
me. But it's Hauck, too. And the others. They are worse since Nisikoos
died. That is what I called her--Nisikoos--my aunt. They are all
terrible, and they all frighten me, especially since they began to build
a great cage for Tara. Why should they build a cage for Tara, out of
small trees? Why do they want to shut him up? None of them will tell me.
Hauck says it is for another bear that Brokaw is bringing down from the
Yukon. But I know they are lying. It is for Tara." Suddenly her fingers
clutched tightly at his hand, and for the first time he saw under her
long, shimmering lashes the darkening fire of a real terror. "Why do I
belong to Brokaw?" she asked again, a little tremble in her voice. "Why
did Hauck say that? Can--can a man--buy a girl?"
The nails of her slender fingers were pricking his flesh. David did not
feel their hurt.
"What do you mean?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. "Did that
man--Hauck--sell you?"
He looked away from her as he asked the question. He was afraid, just
then, that something was in his face which he did not want her to see.
He began to understand; at least he was beginning to picture a very
horrible possibility.
"I--don't--know," he heard her say, close to his shoulder. "It was night
before last I heard them quarrelling, and I crept close to a door that
was a little open, and looked in. Brokaw had given my uncle a bag of
gold, a little sack, like the miners use, and I heard him swear at my
uncle, and say: 'That's more than she is worth but I'll give in. _Now_
she's mine!' I don't know why it frightened me so. It wasn't Brokaw. I
guess it was the terrible look in that man's face--my uncle's. Tara and
I ran away that night. Why do you suppose they want to put Tara in a
cage? Do you think Brokaw was buying _Tara_ to put into that cage? He
said 'she,' not 'he'."
He looked at her again. Her eyes were not so fearless now.
"Was he buying Tara, or me?" she insisted.
"Why do you have that thought--that he was buying _you_?" David asked.
"Has anything--happened?"
A second time a fury of blood leapt into her face and her lashes
shadowed a pair of blazing stars.
"He--that red brute--caught me in the dark two weeks ago, and held me
there--and kissed me!" She fairly panted at him, springing to her feet
and standing before him. "I would have screamed, but it was in the
house, and Tara couldn't have come to me. I scratched him, and fought,
but he bent my head back until it hurt. He tried it again the day he
gave my uncle the gold, but I struck him with a stick, and got away. Oh,
I _hate_ him! And he knows it. And my uncle cursed me for striking him!
And that's why ... I'm running away."
"I understand," said David, rising and smiling at her confidently, while
in his veins his blood was running like little streams of fire. "Don't
you believe, now, all that I've told you about the picture? How it tried
so hard to talk to me, and tell me to hurry? It got me here just about
in time, didn't it? It'll be a great joke on Brokaw, little girl. And
your uncle Hauck. A great joke, eh?" He laughed. He felt like laughing,
even as his blood pounded through him at fever heat. "You're a little
brick, Marge--you and your bear!"
It was the first time he had thought of the bear since Marge had
detached herself from the big beast to come to him, and as he looked in
its direction he gave a startled exclamation.
Baree and the grizzly had been measuring each other for some time. To
Baree this was the most amazing experience in all his life, and
flattened out between the two rocks he was at a loss to comprehend why
his master did not either run or shoot. He wanted to jump out, if his
master showed fight, and leap straight at that ugly monster, or he
wanted to run away as fast as his legs would carry him. He was shivering
in indecision, waiting a signal from David to do either one or the
other. And Tara was now moving slowly toward the dog! His huge head was
hung low, swinging slightly from side to side in a most terrifying way;
his great jaws were agape, and the nearer he came to Baree the smaller
the dog seemed to grow between the rocks. At David's sudden cry the girl
had turned, and he was amazed to hear her laughter, clear and sweet as a
bell. It was funny, that picture of the dog and the bear, if one was in
the mood to see the humour of it!
"Tara won't hurt him," she hurried to say, seeing David's uneasiness.
"He loves dogs. He wants to play with ... what is his name?"
"Baree. And mine is David."
"Baree--David. See!"
Like a bird she had left his side and in an instant, it seemed, was
astride the big grizzly, digging her fingers into Tara's thick
coat--smiling back at him, her radiant hair about her like a cloud,
filled with marvellous red-and-gold fires in the sun.
"Come," she said, holding out a hand to David. "I want Tara to know you
are our friend. Because"--the darkness came into her eyes again--"I have
been _training him_, and I want him to know he must not hurt _you_."
David went to them, little fancying the acquaintance he was about to
make, until Marge slipped off her bear and put her two arms
unhesitatingly about his shoulders, and drew him down with her close in
front of Tara's big head and round, emotionless eyes. For a thrilling
moment or two she pressed her face close to his, looking all the time
straight at Tara, and talking to him steadily. David did not sense what
she was saying, except that in a general way she was telling Tara that
he must never hurt this man, no matter what happened. He felt the warm
crush of her hair on his neck and face. It billowed on his breast for a
moment. The girl's hand touched his cheek, warm and caressing. He made
no movement of his own, except to rise rigidly when she unclasped her
arms from about his shoulders.
"There; he won't hurt you now!" she exclaimed in triumph.
Her cheeks were flaming, but not with embarrassment. Her eyes were as
clear as the violets he had crushed under his feet in the mountain
valleys. He looked at her as she stood before him, so much like a child,
and yet enough of a woman to make his own cheeks burn. And then he saw a
sudden changing expression come into her face. There was something
pathetic about it, something that made him see again what he had
forgotten--her exhaustion, the evidences of her struggle. She was
looking at his pack.
"We haven't had anything to eat since we ran away," she said simply.
"I'm hungry."
He had heard children say "I'm hungry" in that same voice, with the same
hopeful and entreating insistence in it; he had spoken those words
himself a thousand times, to his mother, in just that same way, it
seemed to him; and as she stood there, looking at his pack, he was
filled with a very strong desire to crumple her close in his arms--not
as a woman, but as a child. And this desire held him so still for a
moment that she thought he was waiting for her to explain.
"I fastened our bundle on Tara's back and we lost it in the night coming
up over the mountain," she said. "It was so steep that in places I had
to catch hold of Tara and let him drag me up."
In another moment he was at his pack, opening it, and tossing things to
right and left on the white sand, and the girl watched him, her eyes
very bright with anticipation.
"Coffee, bacon, bannock, and potatoes," he said, making a quick
inventory of his small stock of provisions.
"Potatoes!" cried the girl.
"Yes--dehydrated. See? It looks like rice. One pound of this equals
fourteen pounds of potatoes. And you can't tell the difference when it's
cooked right. Now for a fire!"
She was darting this way and that, collecting small dry sticks in the
sand before he was on his feet. He could not resist standing for a
moment and watching her. Her movements, even in her quick and eager
quest of fuel, were the most graceful he had ever seen in a human being.
And yet she was tired! She was hungry! And he believed that her feet,
concealed in those rock-torn moccasins, were bruised and sore. He went
down to the stream for water, and in the few moments that he was gone
his mind worked swiftly. He believed that he understood, perhaps even
more than the girl herself. There was something about her that was so
sweetly childish--in spite of her age and her height and her amazing
prettiness that was not all a child's prettiness--that he could not feel
that she had realized fully the peril from which she was fleeing when he
found her. He had guessed that her dread was only partly for herself and
that the other part was for Tara, her bear. She had asked him in a sort
of plaintive anxiety and with rather more of wonderment and perplexity
in her eyes than fear, whether she belonged to Brokaw, and what it all
meant, and whether a man could buy a girl. It was not a mystery to him
that the "red brute" she had told him about should want her. His
puzzlement was that such a thing could happen, if he had guessed right,
among men. Buy her? Of course down there in the big cities such a thing
had happened hundreds and thousands of times--were happening every
day--but he could not easily picture it happening up here, where men
lived because of their strength. There must surely be other men at the
Nest than the two hated and feared by the girl--Hauck, her uncle, and
Brokaw, the "red brute."
She had built a little pile of sticks and dry moss ready for the touch
of a match when he returned. Tara had stretched himself out lazily in
the sun and Baree was still between the two rocks, eyeing him
watchfully. Before David lighted the fire he spread his one blanket out
on the sand and made the Girl sit down. She was close to him, and her
eyes did not leave his face for an instant. Whenever he looked up she
was gazing straight at him, and when he went down to the creek for
another pail of water he felt that her eyes were still on him. When he
turned to come back, with fifty paces between them, she smiled at him
and he waved his hand at her. He asked her a great many questions while
he prepared their dinner. The Nest, he learned, was a free-trading
place, and Hauck was its proprietor. He was surprised when he learned
that he was not on Firepan Creek after all. The Firepan was over the
range, and there were a good many Indians to the north and west of it.
Miners came down frequently from the Taku River country and the edge of
the Yukon, she said. At least she thought they were miners, for that is
what Hauck used to tell Nisikoos, her aunt. They came after whisky.
Always whisky. And the Indians came for liquor, too. It was the chief
article that Hauck, her uncle, traded in. He brought it from the coast,
in the winter time--many sledge loads of it; and some of those "miners"
who came down from the north carried away much of it. If it was summer
they would take it away on pack horses. What would they do with so much
liquor, she wondered? A little of it made such a beast of Hauck, and a
beast of Brokaw, and it drove the Indians wild. Hauck would no longer
allow the Indians to drink it at the Nest. They had to take it away with
them--into the mountains. Just now there was quite a number of the
"miners" down from the north, ten or twelve of them. She had not been
afraid when Nisikoos, her aunt, was alive. But now there was no other
woman at the Nest, except an old Indian woman who did Hauck's cooking.
Hauck wanted no one there. And she was afraid of those men. They all
feared Hauck, and she knew that Hauck was afraid of Brokaw. She didn't
know why, but he was. And she was afraid of them all, and hated them
all. She had been quite happy when Nisikoos was alive. Nisikoos had
taught her to read out of books, had taught her things ever since she
could remember. She could write almost as well as Nisikoos. She said
this a bit proudly. But since her aunt had gone, things were terribly
changed. Especially the men. They had made her more afraid, every day.
"None of them is like you," she said with startling frankness, her eyes
shining at him. "I would love to be with you!"
He turned, then, to look at Tara dozing in the sun.