He thought of her words a long time after she had fallen asleep. Even in
that last moment of her consciousness he had found her voice filled with
a strange faith and a wonderful assurance as it had drifted away in a
whisper. He would not want the picture any more--because he had _her_!
That was what she had said, and he knew it was her soul that had spoken
to him as she had hovered that instant between consciousness and
slumber. He looked at her, sleeping under his eyes, and he felt upon him
for the first time the weight of a sudden trouble, a gloomy
foreboding--and yet, under it all, like a fire banked beneath dead ash,
was the warm thrill of his possession. He had spread his blanket over
her, and now he leaned over and drew back her thick curls. They were
warm and soft in his fingers, strangely sweet to touch, and for a moment
or two he fondled them while he gazed steadily into the childish
loveliness of her face, dimpled still by that shadow of a smile with
which she had fallen asleep. He was beginning to feel that he had
accepted for himself a tremendous task, and that she, not much more than
a child, had of course scarcely foreseen its possibilities. Her faith in
him was a pleasurable thing. It was absolute. He realized it more as the
hours dragged on and he sat alone by the fire. So great was it that she
was going back fearlessly to those whom she hated and feared. She was
returning not only fearlessly but with a certain defiant satisfaction.
He could fancy her saying to Hauck, and the Red Brute: "I've come back.
Now touch me if you dare!" What would he have to do to live up to that
surety of her confidence in him? A great deal, undoubtedly. And if he
won for her, as she fully expected him to win, what would he do with
her? Take her to the coast--put her into a school somewhere down south?
That was his first notion. For to him she looked more than ever like a
child as she lay asleep on her bed of balsams.
He tried to picture Brokaw. He tried to see Hauck in his mental vision,
and he thought over again all that the girl had told him about herself
and these men. As he looked at her now--a little, softly breathing thing
under his gray blanket--it was hard for him to believe anything so
horrible as she had suggested. Perhaps her fears had been grossly
exaggerated. The exchange of gold between Hauck and the Red Brute had
probably been for something else. Even men engulfed in the brutality of
the trade they were in would not think of such an appalling crime. And
then--with a fierceness that made his blood boil--came the thought of
that time when Brokaw had caught her in his arms, and had held her head
back until it _hurt_--and had kissed her! Baree had crept between his
knees, and David's fingers closed so tightly in the loose skin of his
neck that the dog whined. He rose to his feet and stood gazing down at
the girl. He stood there for a long time without moving or making a
sound.
"A little woman," he whispered to himself at last. "Not a child."
From that moment his blood was hot with a desire to reach the Nest. He
had never thought seriously of physical struggle with men except in the
way of sport. His disposition had always been to regard such a thing as
barbarous, and he had never taken advantage of his skill with the gloves
as the average man might very probably have done. To fight was to lower
one's self-respect enormously, he thought. It was not a matter of
timidity, but of very strong conviction--an entrenchment that had saved
him from wreaking vengeance--in the hour when another man would have
killed. But there, in that room in his home, he had stood face to face
with a black, revolting sin. There had been nothing left to shield,
nothing to protect. Here it was different. A soul had given itself into
his protection, a soul as pure as the stars shining over the mountain
tops, and its little keeper lay there under his eyes sleeping in the
sweet faith that it was safe with him. A little later his fingers
tingled with an odd thrill as he took his automatic out of his pack,
loaded it carefully, and placed it in his pocket where it could be
easily reached. The act was a declaration of something ultimately
definite. He stretched himself out near the fire and went to sleep with
the force of this declaration brewing strangely within him.
He was awake with the summer dawn and the sun was beginning to tint up
the big red mountain when they began the descent into the valley. Before
they started he loaned the girl his comb and single military brush, and
for fifteen minutes sat watching her while she brushed the tangles out
of her hair until it fell about her in a thick, waving splendour. At the
nape of her neck she tied it with a bit of string which he found for
her, and after that, as they travelled downward, he observed how the
rebellious tresses, shimmering and dancing about her, persisted in
forming themselves into curls again. In an hour they reached the valley,
and for a few moments they sat down to rest, while Tara foraged among
the rocks for marmots. It was a wonderful valley into which they had
come. From where they sat, it was like an immense park. Green slopes
reached almost to the summits of the mountains, and to a point half way
up these slopes--the last timber line--clumps of spruce and balsam trees
were scattered over the green as if set there by hands of men. Some of
these timber patches were no larger than the decorative clumps in a city
park, and others covered acres and tens of acres; and at the foot of the
slopes on either side, like decorative fringes, were thin and unbroken
lines of forest. Between these two lines of forest lay the open valley
of soft and undulating meadow, dotted with its purplish bosks of
buffalo-, willow-, and mountain-sage, its green coppices of wild rose
and thorn, and its clumps of trees. In the hollow of the valley ran a
stream.
And this was her home! She was telling him about it as they sat there,
and he listened to her, and watched her bird-like movements, without
breaking in to ask questions which the night had shaped in his mind. She
pointed out gray summits on which she had stood. Off there, just visible
in the gray mist of early sunshine, was the mountain where she had found
Tara five years ago--a tiny cub who must have lost his mother. Perhaps
the Indians had killed her. And that long, rock-strewn slide, so steep
in places that he shuddered when he thought of what she had done, was
where she and Tara had climbed over the range in their flight. She
chose the rocks so that Tara would leave no trail. He regarded that
slide as conclusive evidence of the very definite resolution that must
have inspired her. A fit of girlish temper would not have taken her up
that rock slide, and in the night. He thought it time to speak of what
was weighing upon his mind.
"Listen to me, Marge," he said, pointing toward the red mountain ahead
of them. "Off there, you say, is the Nest. What are we going to do when
we arrive there?"
The little lines gathered between her eyes again as she looked at him.
"Why--tell them," she said.
"Tell them what?"
"That you've come for me, and that we're going away, _Sakewawin_."
"And if they object? If Brokaw and Hauck say you cannot go?"
"We'll go anyway, _Sakewawin_."
"That's a pretty name you've given me," he mused, thinking of something
else. "I like it."
For the first time she blushed--blushed until her face was like one of
the wild roses in those prickly copses of the valley.
And then he added:
"You must not tell them too much--at first, Marge. Remember that you
were lost, and I found you. You must give me time to get acquainted with
Hauck and Brokaw."
She nodded, but there was a moment's anxiety in her eyes, and he saw for
an instant the slightest quiver in her throat.
"You won't--let them--keep me? No matter what they say--you won't let
them keep me?"
He jumped up with a laugh and tilted her chin so that he looted straight
into her eyes; and her faith filled them again in a flood.
"No--you're going with me," he promised. "Come. I'm quite anxious to
meet Hauck and the Red Brute!"
It seemed singular to David that they met no one in the valley that day,
and the girl's explanation that practically all travel came from the
north and west, and stopped at the Nest, did not fully satisfy him. He
still wondered why they did not encounter one of the searching parties
that must have been sent out for her--until she told him that, since
Nisikoos died, she and Tara had gone quite frequently into the mountains
and remained all night, so that perhaps no search had been made for her
after all. Hauck had not seemed to care. More frequently than otherwise
he had not missed her. Twice she had been away for two nights and two
days. It was only because Brokaw had given that gold to Hauck that she
had feared pursuit. If Hauck had bought her....
She spoke of that possible sale as if she might have been the merest
sort of chattel. And then she startled him by saying:
"I have known of those white men from the north buying Indian girls. I
have seen them sold for whisky. _Ugh!_" She shuddered. "Nisikoos and I
overheard them one night. Hauck was selling a girl for a little sack of
gold--like _that_. Nisikoos held me more tightly than ever, that night.
I don't know why. She was terribly afraid of that man--Hauck. Why did
she live with him if she was afraid of him? Do you know? _I_ wouldn't.
I'd run away."
He shook his head.
"I'm afraid I can't tell you, my child."
Her eyes turned on him suddenly.
"Why do you call me that--a child?"
"Because you're not a woman; because you're so very, very young, and I'm
so very old," he laughed.
For a long time after that she was silent as they travelled steadily
toward the red mountain.
They ate their dinner in the sombre shadow of it. Most of the afternoon
Marge rode her bear. It was sundown when they stopped for their last
meal. The Nest was still three miles farther on, and the stars were
shining brilliantly before they came to the little, wooded plain in the
edge of which Hauck had hidden away his place of trade. When they were
some hundred yards away they came over a knoll and David saw the glow of
fires. The girl stopped suddenly and her hand caught his arm. He counted
four of those fires in the open. A fifth glowed faintly, as if back in
timber. Sounds came to them--the slow, hollow booming of a tom-tom, and
voices. They could see shadows moving. The girl's fingers were pinching
David's arm.
"The Indians have come in," she whispered.
There was a thrill of uneasiness in her words. It was not fear. He could
see that she was puzzled, and that she had not expected to find fires or
those moving shadows. Her eyes were steady and shining as she looked at
him. It seemed to him that she had grown taller, and more like a woman,
as they stood there. Something in her face made him ask:
"Why have they come?"
"I don't know," she said.
She started down the knoll straight for the fires. Tara and Baree filed
behind them. Beyond the glow of the camp a dark bulk took shape against
the blackness of the forest. David guessed that it was the Nest. He made
out a deep, low building, unlighted so far as he could see. Then they
entered into the fireglow. Their appearance produced a strange and
instant quiet. The beating of the tom-tom ceased. Voices died. Dark
faces stared--and that was all. There were about fifty of them about the
fires, David figured. And not a white man's face among them. They were
all Indians. A lean, night-eyed, sinister-looking lot. He was conscious
that they were scrutinizing him more than they were the girl. He could
almost feel the prick of their eyes. With her head up, his companion
walked between the fires and beyond them, looking neither to one side
nor the other. They turned the end of the huge log building and on this
side it was glowing dimly with light, and David faintly heard voices.
The girl passed swiftly into a hollow of gloom, calling softly to Tara.
The bear followed her, a grotesque, slowly moving hulk, and David
waited. He heard the clink of a chain. A moment later she returned to
him.
"There is a light in Hauck's room," she said. "His council room, he
calls it--where he makes bargains. I hope they are both there,
_Sakewawin_--both Hauck and Brokaw." She seized his hand, and held it
tightly as she led him deeper into darkness. "I wonder why so many of
the Indians are in? I did not know they were coming. It is the wrong
time of year for--a crowd like that!"
He felt the quiver in her voice. She was quite excited, he knew. And yet
not about the Indians, nor the strangeness of their presence. It was her
_triumph_ that made her tremble in the darkness, a wonderful
anticipation of the greatest event that had ever happened in her life.
She hoped that Hauck and Brokaw were in that room! She would confront
them there, with _him_. That was it. She felt her bondage--her
prisonment--in this savage place was ended; and she was eager to find
them, and let them know that she was no longer afraid, or alone--no
longer need obey or fear them. He felt the thrill of it in the hot,
fierce little clasp of her hand. He saw it glowing in her eyes when they
passed through the light of a window. Then they turned again, at the
back of the building. They paused at a door. Not a ray of light broke
the gloom here. The stars seemed to make the blackness deeper. Her
fingers tightened.
"You must be careful," he said. "And--remember."
"I will," she whispered.
It was his last warning. The door opened slowly, with a creaking sound,
and they entered into a long, gloomy hall, illumined by a single oil
lamp that sputtered and smoked in its bracket on one of the walls. The
hall gave him an idea of the immensity of the building. From the far end
of it, through a partly open door, came a reek of tobacco smoke, and
loud voices--a burst of coarse laughter, a sudden volley of curses that
died away in a still louder roar of merriment. Some one closed the door
from within. The girl was staring toward the end of the hall, and
shuddering.
"That is the way it has been--growing worse and worse since Nisikoos
died," she said. "In there the white men who come down from the north,
drink, and gamble, and quarrel. They are always quarrelling. This room
is ours--Nisikoos' and mine." She touched with her hand a door near
which they were standing. Then she pointed to another. There were half a
dozen doors up and down the hall. "And that is Hauck's."
He threw off his pack, placed it on the floor, with his rifle across it.
When he straightened, the girl was listening at the door of Hauck's
room. Beckoning to him she knocked on it lightly, and then opened it.
David entered close behind her. It was a rather large room--his one
impression as he crossed the threshold. In the centre of it was a table,
and over the table hung an oil lamp with a tin reflector. In the light
of this lamp sat two men. In his first glance he made up his mind which
was Hauck and which was Brokaw. It was Brokaw, he thought, who was
facing them as they entered--a man he could hate even if he had never
heard of him before. Big. Loose-shouldered. A carnivorous-looking giant
with a mottled, reddish face and bleary eyes that had an amazed and
watery stare in them. Apparently the girl's knock had not been heard,
for it was a moment before the other man swung slowly about in his chair
so that he could see them. That was Hauck. David knew it. He was almost
a half smaller than the other, with round, bullish shoulders, a thick
neck, and eyes wherein might lurk an incredible cruelty. He popped half
out of his seat when he saw the girl, and a stranger. His jaws seemed to
tighten with a snap. A snap that could almost be heard. But it was
Brokaw's face that held David's eyes. He was two thirds drunk. There
was no doubt about it, if he was any sort of judge of that kind of
imbecility. One of his thick, huge hands was gripping a bottle. Hauck
had evidently been reading him something out of a ledger, a Post ledger,
which he held now in one hand. David was surprised at the quiet and
unemotional way in which the girl began speaking. She said that she had
wandered over into the other valley and was lost when this stranger
found her. He had been good to her, and was on his way to the settlement
on the coast. His name was....
She got no further than that. Brokaw had taken his devouring gaze from
her and was staring at David. He lurched suddenly to his feet and leaned
over the table, a new sort of surprise in his heavy countenance. He
stretched out a hand. His voice was a bellow.
"McKenna!"
He was speaking directly at David--calling him by name. There was as
little doubt of that as of his drunkenness. There was also an
unmistakable note of fellowship in his voice. McKenna! David opened his
mouth to correct him when a second thought occurred to him in a mildly
inspirational way. Why not McKenna? The girl was looking at him, a bit
surprised, questioning him in the directness of her gaze. He nodded, and
smiled at Brokaw. The giant came around the table, still holding out his
big, red hand.
"Mac! God! You don't mean to say you've forgotten...."
David took the hand.
"Brokaw!" he chanced.
The other's hand was as cold as a piece of beef. But it possessed a
crushing strength. Hauck was staring from one to the other, and suddenly
Brokaw turned to him, still pumping David's hand.
"McKenna--that young devil of Kicking Horse, Hauck! You've heard me
speak of him. McKenna...."
The girl had backed to the door. She was pale. Her eyes were shining,
and she was looking straight at David when Brokaw released his hand.
"Good-night, _Sakewawin_!" she said.
It was very distinct, that word--_Sakewawin_! David had never heard it
come quite so clearly from her lips. There was something of defiance and
pride in her utterance of it--and intentional and decisive emphasis to
it. She smiled at him as she went through the door, and in that same
breath Hauck had followed her. They disappeared. When David turned he
found Brokaw backed against the table, his hands gripping the edge of
it, his face distorted by passion. It was a terrible face to look
into--to stand before, alone in that room--a face filled with menace and
murder. So sudden had been the change in it that David was stunned for a
moment. In that space of perhaps a quarter of a minute neither uttered a
sound. Then Brokaw leaned slowly forward, his great hands clenched, and
demanded in a hissing voice:
"What did she mean when she called you that--_Sakewawin_? What did she
mean?"
It was not now the voice of a drunken man, but the voice of a man ready
to kill.