It may have been five minutes that David held the Girl in his arms,
staring down into the sunlit valley into which the last two of Hauck's
men had fled, and during that time he did not speak, and he heard only
her steady sobbing. He drew into his lungs deep breaths of the
invigorating air, and he felt himself growing stronger as the Girl's
body became heavier in his embrace, and her arms relaxed and slipped
down from his shoulders. He raised her face. There were no tears in her
eyes, but she was still moaning a little, and her lips were quivering
like a crying child's. He bent his head and kissed them, and she caught
her breath pantingly as she looked at him with eyes which were limpid
pools of blue out of which her terror was slowly dying away. She
whispered his name. In her look and in that whisper there was
unutterable adoration. It was for _him_ she had been afraid. She was
looking at him now as one saved to her from the dead, and for a moment
he strained her still closer, and as he crushed his face to hers he felt
the warm, sweet caress of her lips, and the thrilling pressure of her
hands, at his blood-stained cheeks. A sound from behind made him turn
his head, and fifty feet away he saw the big grizzly ambling cumbrously
from the cabin. They could hear him growling as he stood in the
sunshine, his head swinging slowly from side to side like a huge
pendulum--in his throat the last echoing of that ferocious rage and
hate that had destroyed their enemies. And in the same moment Baree
stood in the doorway, his lips drawn back and his fangs gleaming, as if
he expected other enemies to face him.
Quickly David led Marge beyond the boulder from behind which he had
opened the fight, and drew her down with him into a soft carpet of
grass, thick with the blue of wild violets, with the big rock shutting
out the cabin from their vision.
"Rest here, little comrade," he said, his voice low and trembling with
his worship of her, his hands stroking back her wonderful hair. "I must
return to the cabin. Then--we will go."
"Go!"
She repeated the word in the strangest, softest whisper he had ever
heard, as if in it all at once she saw the sun and stars, the day and
night, of her whole life. She looked from his face down into the valley,
and into his face again.
"We--will go," she repeated, as he rose to his feet.
She shivered when he left her, shuddered with a terrible little cry
which she tried to choke back even as she visioned the first glow of
that wonderful new life that was dawning for her. David knew why. He
left her without looking down into her eyes again, anxious to have these
last terrible minutes over. At the open door of the cabin he hesitated,
a little sick at what he knew he would see. And yet, after all, it was
no worse than it should be; it was justice. He told himself this as he
stepped inside.
He tried not to look too closely, but the sight, after a moment,
fascinated him. If it had not been for the difference in their size he
could not have told which was Hauck and which was Brokaw, for even on
Hauck, Tara had vented his rage after Baree had killed him. Neither bore
very much the semblance of a man just now--it seemed incredible that
claw and fang could have worked such destruction, and he went suddenly
back to the door to see that the Girl was not following him. Then he
looked again. Henry lay at his feet across the fallen saplings of the
battered door, his head twisted completely under him--or gone. It was
Henry's rifle he picked up. He searched for cartridges then. It was a
sickening task. He found nearly fifty of them on the three, and went out
with the pack and the rifle. He put the pack over his shoulders before
he returned to the rock, and paused only for a moment, when he rejoined
the Girl. With her hand in his he struck down into the valley.
"A great justice has overtaken them," he said, and that was all he told
her about the cabin, and she asked him no questions.
At the edge of the green meadows they stopped where a trickle of water
from the mountain tops had formed a deep pool. David followed this
trickle a little up the _coulée_ it had worn in the course of ages,
found a sheltered spot, and stripped himself. To the waist he was
covered with the stain and grime of battle. In the open pool Marge
bathed her face and arms, and then sat down to finish her toilet with
David's comb and brush. When he returned to her she was a radiant glory,
hidden to her waist in the gold and brown fires of her disentangled
hair. It was wonderful. He stood a step off and looked at her, his heart
filled with a wonderful joy, his lips silent. The thought surged upon
him now in an overmastering moment of exultation that she belonged to
him, not for to-day, or to-morrow, but for all time; that the mountains
had given her to him; that among the flowers and the wild things that
"great, good God," of whom Father Roland had spoken so often, had
created her for him; and that she had been waiting for him here, pure as
the wild violets under his feet. She did not see him for a space, and he
watched her as she ran out her glowing tresses under the strokes of his
brush.
And once--ages ago it seemed to him now--he had thought that another
woman was beautiful, and that another woman's glory was her hair! He
felt his heart singing. She had not been like this. No. Worlds separated
those two--that woman and this God-crowned little mountain flower who
had come into his heart like the breath of a new life, opening for him
new visions that reached even beyond the blue skies. And he wondered
that she should love him. She looked up suddenly and saw him standing
there. Love? Had he in all his life dreamed of the look that was in her
face now? It made his heart choke him. He held open his arms, silently,
as she rose to her feet, and she came to him in all that burnished glory
of her unbound hair; and he held her close in his arms, kissing her soft
lips, her flushed cheeks, her blue eyes, the warm sweetness of her hair.
And her lips kissed him. He looked out over the valley. His eyes were
open to its beauty, but he did not see; a vision was rising before him,
and his soul was breathing a prayer of gratitude to the Missioner's God,
to the God of the totem-worshippers over the ranges, to the God of all
things. It may be that the Girl sensed his voiceless exaltation, for up
through the soft billows of her hair that lay crumpled on his breast
she whispered:
"You love me a great deal, my _Sakewawin_?"
"More than life," he replied.
Her voice roused him. For a few moments he had forgotten the cabin, had
forgotten that Brokaw and Hauck had existed, and that they were now
dead. He held her back from him, looking into her face out of which all
fear and horror had gone in its great happiness; a face filled with the
joyous colour sent surging there by the wild beating of her heart, eyes
confessing their adoration without shame, without concealment, without a
droop of the long lashes behind which they might have hidden. It was
wonderful, that love shining straight out of their blue, marvellous
depths!
"We must go now," he said, forcing himself to break the spell. "Two have
escaped, Marge. It is possible, if there are others at the Nest...."
His words brought her back to the thing they had passed through. She
glanced in a startled way over the valley, then shook her head.
"There are two others," she said. "But they will not follow us,
_Sakewawin_. If they should, we shall be over the mountain."
She braided her hair as he adjusted his pack. His heart was like a
boy's. He laughed at her in joyous disapproval.
"I like to see it--unbound," he said. "It is beautiful. Glorious."
It seemed to him that all the blood in her body leaped into her face at
his words.
"Then--I will leave it that way," she cried softly, her words trembling
with happiness and her fingers working swiftly in the silken plaits of
her braid. Unconfined, her hair shimmered about her again. And then, as
they were about to set off, she ran up to him with a little cry, and
without touching him with her hands raised her face to his.
"Kiss me," she said. "Kiss me, my _Sakewawin_!"
* * * * *
It was noon when they stood under the topmost crags of the southward
range, and under them they saw once more the green valley, with its
silvery stream, in which they had met that first day beside the great
rock. It seemed to them both a long time ago, and the valley was like a
friend smiling up at them its welcome and its gladness that they had at
last returned. Its drone of running waters, the whispering music of the
air, and the piping cries of the marmots sunning themselves far below,
came up to them faintly as they rested, and as the Girl sat in the
circle of David's arm, with her head against his breast, she pointed off
through the blue haze miles to the eastward.
"Are we going that way?" she asked.
He had been thinking as they had climbed up the mountain. Off there,
where she was pointing, were his friends, and hers; between them and
that wandering tribe of the totem people on the Kwadocha there were no
human beings. Nothing but the unbroken peace of the mountains, in which
they were safe. He had ceased to fear their immensity--was no longer
disturbed by the thought that in their vast and trackless solitude he
might lose himself forever. After what had passed, their gleaming peaks
were beckoning to him, and he was confident that he could find his way
back to the Finley and down to Hudson's Hope. What a surprise it would
be to Father Roland when they dropped in on him some day, he and Marge!
His heart beat excitedly as he told her about it, described the great
distance they must travel, and what a wonderful journey it would be,
with that glorious country at the end of it.... "We'll find your mother,
then," he whispered. They talked a great deal about her mother and
Father Roland as they made their way down into the valley, and whenever
they stopped to rest she had new questions to ask, and each time there
was that trembling doubt in her voice. "I wonder whether it's _true_."
And each time he assured her that it was.
"I have been thinking that it was Nisikoos who sent to her that picture
you wanted to destroy," he said once. "Nisikoos must have known."
"Then why didn't she tell me?" she flashed.
"Because, it may be that she didn't want to lose you--and that she
didn't send the picture until she knew that she was not going to live
very long."
The girl's eyes darkened, and then--slowly--there came back the softer
glow into them.
"I loved--Nisikoos," she said.
It was sunset when they began making their first camp in a cedar
thicket, where David shot a porcupine for Tara and Baree. After their
supper they sat for a while in the glow of the stars, and after that
Marge snuggled down in her cedar bed and went to sleep. But before she
closed her eyes she put her arms about his neck and kissed him
good-night. For a long time after that he sat awake, thinking of the
wonderful dream he had dreamed all his life, and which at last had come
true.
* * * * *
Day after day they travelled steadily into the east and south. The
mountains swallowed them, and their feet trod the grass of many strange
valleys. Strange--and yet now and then David saw something he had seen
once before, and he knew that he had not lost the trail. They travelled
slowly, for there was no longer need of haste; and in that land of
plenty there was more of pleasure than inconvenience in their foraging
for what they ate. In her haste in making up the contents of the pack
Marge had seized what first came to her hands in the way of provisions,
and fortunately the main part of their stock was a 20-pound sack of
oatmeal. Of this they made bannock and cakes. The country was full of
game. In the valleys the black currants and wild raspberries were
ripening lusciously, and now and then in the pools of the lower valleys
David would shoot fish. Both Tara and Baree began to grow fat, and with
quiet joy David noticed that each day added to the wonderful beauty and
happiness in the Girl's face, and it seemed to him that her love was
enveloping him more and more, and there never was a moment now that he
could not see the glow of it in her eyes. It thrilled him that she did
not want him out of her presence for more than a few minutes at a time.
He loved to fondle her hair, and she had a sweet habit of running her
fingers through his own, and telling him each time how she loved it
because it was a little gray; and she had a still sweeter way of
holding one of his hands in hers when she was sitting beside him, and
pressing it now and then to her soft lips.
They had been ten days in the mountains when, one evening, sitting
beside him in this way, she said, with that adorable and almost childish
ingenuousness which he loved in her:
"It will be nice to have Father Roland marry us, _Sakewawin_!" And
before he could answer, she added: "I will keep house for you two at the
Château."
He had been thinking a great deal about it.
"But if your mother should live down there--among the cities?" he asked.
She shivered a little, and nestled to him.
"I wouldn't like it, _Sakewawin_--not for long. I love _this_--the
forest, the mountains, the skies." And then, suddenly she caught
herself, and added quickly: "But anywhere--_anywhere_--if you are there,
_Sakewawin_!"
"I too, love the forests, the mountains, and the skies," he whispered.
"We will have them with us always, little comrade."
It was the fourteenth day when they descended the eastern slopes of the
Divide, and he knew that they were not far from the Kwadocha and the
Finley. Their fifteenth night they camped where he and the Butterfly's
lover had built a noonday fire; and this night, though it was warm and
glorious with a full moon, the Girl was possessed of a desire to have a
fire of their own, and she helped to add fuel to it until the flames
leaped high up into the shadows of the spruce, and drove them far back
with its heat. David was content to sit and smoke his pipe while he
watched her flit here and there after still more fuel, now a shadow in
the darkness, and then again in the full fireglow. After a time she grew
tired and nestled down beside him, spreading her hair over his breast
and about his face in the way she knew he loved, and for an hour after
that they talked in whispering voices that trembled with their
happiness. When at last she went to bed, and fell asleep, he walked a
little way out into the clear moonlight and sat down to smoke and listen
to the murmur of the valley, his heart too full for sleep. Suddenly he
was startled by a voice.
"David!"
He sprang up. From the shadow of a dwarf spruce half a dozen paces from
him had stepped the figure of a man. He stood with bared head, the light
of the moon streaming down upon him, and out of David's breast rose a
strange cry, as if it were a spirit he saw, and not a man.
"David!"
"My God--Father Roland!"
They sprang across the little space between them, and their hands
clasped. David could not speak. Before he found his voice, the Missioner
was saying:
"I saw the fire, David, and I stole up quietly to see who it was. We are
camped down there not more than a quarter of a mile. Come! I want you to
see...."
He stopped. He was excited. And to David his face seemed many years
younger there in the moonlight, and he walked with the spring of youth
as he caught his arm and started down the valley. A strange force held
David silent, an indefinable feeling that something tremendous and
unexpected was impending. He heard the other's quick breath, caught the
glow in his eyes, and his heart was thrilled. They walked so swiftly
that it seemed to him only a few moments when they came to a little
clump of low trees, and into these Father Roland led David by the hand,
treading lightly now.
In another moment they stood beside someone who was sleeping. Father
Roland pointed down, and spoke no word.
It was a woman. The moonlight fell upon her, and shimmered in the thick
masses of dark hair that streamed about her, concealing her face. David
choked. It was his heart in his throat. He bent down. Gently he lifted
the heavy tresses, and stared into the sleeping face that was under
them--the face of the woman he had met that night on the
Transcontinental!
Over him he heard a gentle whisper.
"My wife, David!"
He staggered back, and clutched Father Roland by the shoulders, and his
voice was almost sobbing in its excitement as he cried, whisperingly:
"Then you--you are Michael O'Doone--the father of Marge--and
Tavish--Tavish...."
His voice broke. The Missioner's face had gone white. They went back
into the moonlight again, so that they should not awaken the woman.
* * * * *
Out there, so close that they seemed to be in each other's arms, the
stories were told, David's first--briefly, swiftly; and when Michael
O'Doone learned that his daughter was in David's camp, he bowed his face
in his hands and David heard him giving thanks to his God. And then he,
also, told what had happened--briefly, too, for the minutes of this
night were too precious to lose. In his madness Tavish had believed that
his punishment was near--believed that the chance which had taken him so
near to the home of the man whose life he had destroyed was his last
great warning, and before killing himself he had written out fully his
confession for Michael O'Doone, and had sworn to the innocence of the
woman whom he had stolen away.
"And even as he was destroying himself, God's hand was guiding my
Margaret to me," explained the Missioner. "All those years she had been
seeking for me, and at last she learned at Nelson House about Father
Roland, whose real name no man knew. And at almost that same time, at Le
Pas, there came to her the photograph you found on the train, with a
letter saying our little girl was alive at this place you call the Nest.
Hauck's wife sent the letter and picture to the Royal Northwest Mounted
Police, and it was sent from inspector to inspector, until it found her
at Le Pas. She came to the Château. We were gone--with you. She
followed, and we met as Metoosin and I were returning. We did not go
back to the Château. We turned about and followed your trail, to seek
our daughter. And now...."
Out of the shadow of the trees there broke upon them suddenly the
anxious voice of the woman.
"Napao! where are you?"
"Dear God, it is the old, sweet name she called me so many years ago,"
whispered Michael O'Doone. "She is awake. Come!"
David held him back a moment.
"I will go to Marge," he said quickly. "I will wake her. And you--bring
her mother. Understand, dear Father? Bring her up there, where Marge is
sleeping...."
The voice came again:
"_Napao--Napao!_"
"I am coming; I am coming!" cried the Missioner.
He turned to David.
"Yes--I will bring her--up there--to your camp."
And as David hurried away, he heard the sweet voice saying:
"You must not leave me alone, _Napao_--never, never, never, so long as
we live...."
* * * * *
On his knees, beside the Girl, David waited many minutes while he gained
his breath. With his two hands he crumpled her hair; and then, after a
little, he kissed her mouth, and then her eyes; and she moved, and he
caught the sleepy whisper of his name.
"Wake," he cried softly. "Wake, little comrade!"
Her arms rose up out of her dream of him and encircled his neck.
"_Sakewawin_," she murmured. "Is it morning?"
He gathered her in his arms.
"Yes, a glorious day, little comrade. Wake!"
THE END
* * * * *
BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE COURAGE OF CAPTAIN PLUM
THE HONOR OF THE BIG SNOWS
THE GOLD HUNTERS
THE WOLF HUNTERS
THE DANGER TRAIL
PHILIP STEELE
THE GREAT LAKES
FLOWER OF THE NORTH
ISOBEL
KAZAN
GOD'S COUNTRY--AND THE WOMAN
THE HUNTED WOMAN
THE GRIZZLY KING
BAREE, SON OF KAZAN
* * * * *
Transcriber's note: Punctuation normalized.
Page 254, "spood" changed to "stood" (he stood without moving).
Page 287, "thus" changed to "this" (bullets this early in the game).
Page 294, "inpression" changed to "impression" (lightning impression).