Doomsdorf had seemingly achieved his purpose, and his prisoners lay
crushed in his hands. A fear infinitely worse than that of toil or
hardship had evidently killed the fighting spirit in Bess; Lenore had
been broken by Doomsdorf’s first words. And now all the structure of
Ned’s life had seemingly toppled about him.
The lesson that Doomsdorf taught had gone deep, not to be forgotten in
any happier moment that life might have in store for him. There was no
blowing into flame the ashes of his old philosophy. It was dead and cold
in his breast; no matter what turn fate should take, his old conceit and
self-sufficiency could never come again. He was down to earth at last.
The game had been too big for him. The old Ned Cornet was dead, and only
a broken, impotent, hopeless thing was left to dwell in his battered
body.
He had found the training camp, but it was more bitter than ever his
father had hinted that it could be. Indeed Godfrey Cornet, in those
brooding prophecies at which his son had laughed, had been all too
hopeful regarding it. He had said there was a way through and on, always
there was a way through and on; but here the only out-trail was one of
infinite shadow to an unknown destination. Death—_that_ was the way
out. _That_ was the only way.
It was curious how easy it was to think of death. Formerly the word had
invoked a sense of something infinitely distant, nothing that could
seemingly touch him closely, a thought that never came clearly into
focus in his brain. All at once it had showed itself as the most real of
all realities. It might be his before another night, before the end of
the present hour. It had come quick enough to Knutsen. The least
resistance to Doomsdorf’s will would bring it on himself. Many things
were lies, and the false was hard to tell from the true, but in this
regard there was no chance for question. Doomsdorf would strike the life
from him in an instant at the first hint of revolt.
It was wholly conceivable that such a thing could occur. Ned could
endure grinding toil till he died; even such personal abuse as he had
received an hour or so before might find him crushed and unresisting,
but yet there remained certain offenses that could not be endured. Ned
could not forget that both Lenore and Bess were wholly in Doomsdorf’s
power. A brutal, savage man, it was all too easy to believe that the
time would come soon when he would forget the half-promise he had given
them. The smoky gaze that he had bent toward Bess meant, perhaps, that
he was already forgetting it. In that case would there be anything for
him but to fight and die? No matter how great a weakling he had been,
the last mandate of his honor demanded that. And a bitterness ineffable
descended upon him when he realized that even such bravery could not in
the least help the two girls,—that his death would be as unavailing and
impotent as his life.
How false he had been to himself and his birthright! He had been living
in a fool’s paradise, and he had fallen from it into hell! Esau sold his
birthright for a mess of pottage: for less return Ned had sold himself
into slavery. He had been a member of a dominant race, the son of a
mighty breed that wrested the soil from the wilderness and built strong
cities on the desolate plains; but he had wasted his patrimony of
strength and manhood. A parlor knight, he had leaned upon his father’s
sword rather than learning to wield his own; and he had fallen
vanquished the instant that he had left its flashing ring of steel.
For in this moment of unspeakable remorse, he found he could blame no
one but himself for the disaster. Every year men traversed these
desolate waters to buy furs from the Indians; he had been in a staunch
boat, and with a little care, a little foresight, the journey could have
been made in perfect safety. It was a man’s venture, surely; but he
could have carried through if he had met it like a man instead of a
weakling. He knew perfectly that it was his own recklessness and folly
that set the cups of burning liquor before Captain Knutsen as he stood
at his wheel. It was his own unpardonable conceit, his own
self-sufficiency that made him start out to meet the North half
prepared, daring to disturb its ancient silences with the sound of his
wild revelry; and to live, in its grim desolation, the same trivial life
he lived at home. He hadn’t even brought a pistol. Sensing his weakness
and his unpreparedness, Doomsdorf hadn’t even done him the honor of
searching him for one.
Knutsen’s death was on his own head: the life of utter wretchedness and
hopelessness and insult that lay before Lenore and Bess was his own
doing, too. It wouldn’t compensate to die in their defense, merely
leaving them continued helpless prey to Doomsdorf. He saw now, with this
new vision that had come to him, that his only possible course was to
live and do what he could in atonement. He mustn’t think of himself any
more. All his life he had thought of nothing but himself; self-love had
been his curse to the end of the chapter,—and now he could not make
himself believe but that it had been some way intertwined in his love
for Lenore. He would have liked to give himself credit for that, at
least—unselfish devotion, these past years, to Lenore—but even this
stuck in his throat. But his love for her would be unbiased by self-love
now. He would give all of himself now—holding nothing back.
In spite of his own despair, his own bitter hopelessness, he must do
what he could to keep hope alive in Lenore and Bess. It was the only
chance he had to pay, even in the most pitiful, slight degree for what
he had done to them. He must always try to make their lot easier, doing
their work when he could, maintaining an attitude of cheer, living the
lie of hope when hope seemed dead in his breast.
Ned Cornet was awake at last. He knew himself, his generation, the full
enormity of his own folly, the unredeemed falsehood of his old
philosophy. Better still, he knew what lay before him, not only the
remorselessness of his punishment but also his atonement: doing
willingly and cheerfully the little he could to lighten the burdens of
his innocent victims. He could have _that_ to live for, at least, doing
the feeble little that he could. And that is why, when Doomsdorf looked
at him again, he found him in some way straightened, his eyes more
steadfast, his lips in a firmer, stronger line.
“Glad to see you’re bucking up,” he commented lightly.
Ned turned soberly. “I _am_ bucking up,” he answered. “I see now that
you’ve gone into something you can’t get away with. Miss Gilbert was
right; in the end you’ll find yourself laid out by the heels.”
It can be said for Ned, for the reality of his resolve, that his words
seemed to ring with conviction, giving no sign of the utter despair that
was in his heart. Of course he was speaking them for the ears of Lenore
and Bess, in order to encourage them.
“You think so, eh?” Doomsdorf yawned and stretched his arms. “Just try
something—that’s all. And since you’re feeling so good, I don’t see why
you shouldn’t get to work. You can still put in a fairly good morning.
And you”—he turned, with the catlike swiftness that marked so many of
his movements, toward Bess—“what’s your name?”
“You just heard him say. Miss Gilbert——”
“You can forget you are a ‘Miss.’ You’re a squaw out here—and can do
squaw’s work. What’s your first name?”
Bess, in her misery, looked at him with dread. “Bess Gilbert,” she
answered quietly.
“Bess it will be. Lenore, I think you call the other—and Ned. Good
thing to know first names, since we’ve got an uncertain number of years
before us. Well, I suggest that all three of you go out and see what you
can do about wood. You’ll have to cut some and split it. I’ve been lazy
about laying in a winter store.”
Much to his amazement, Ned stood erect, pulled down his cap over his
brown curls, and buttoned his coat. “I’ll see what we can do,” he
answered straightforwardly. “I have, though, one thing to ask.”
“What is it——”
“That you let the two girls take it easy to-day—and get warmed through.
If you sent them out now, weakened as they are, it might very easily
mean pneumonia and death. It’s to your interest to keep them alive.”
“It’s to my interest, surely—but don’t rely on that to the extent of
showing too much independence. The human body can stand a lot before it
gives up the ghost. The human voice can do a lot of screaming. I know,
because I’ve seen. I don’t mind running a little risk with human life to
get my way, and I know several things, short of actual killing, that go
toward enforcing obedience and quelling mutiny.”
Lenore, staring wildly at him, caught her breath in a sob. “You don’t
mean——”
Doomsdorf did not look at her. He still smiled down at Ned. “You’ve
never felt a knout, have you, on the naked back?” he asked sweetly. “I
found out what they were like in Siberia, and with the hope of showing
some one else, I took one out—in my boot. It’s half-killed many a
man—but I only know one man that it’s completely killed. He was a
guard—and I found out just how many blows it takes. You can stop a
hundred—fifty—perhaps only ten before that number, and life still
lingers.” The man yawned again. “But your request is granted—so far as
Lenore is concerned. You can leave her here for me to entertain. Bess
has spirit enough to talk—she has undoubtedly spirit enough to work.”
Ned, deeply appalled and unspeakably revolted, looked to Lenore for
directions. Her glorious head was on her arms, and she shook it in utter
misery. “I can’t go out there now,” she said. “I’ll just die if I
do—I’m so cold still, so weakened. I wish I had died out there in the
storm.”
Ned turned once more to Doomsdorf. “She’s telling the truth—I think she
simply can’t stand to go,” he urged gravely. “But though she’s
absolutely in your power, there are some things even a beast can’t do.
You just the same as gave me your word——”
“There are things a beast can’t do, but I’m not a beast. There’s nothing
I can’t do that I want to do. I make no promises—just the same, for
this time, I don’t think you need be afraid. I don’t take everything
that comes along in the way of a woman. I want a woman of thews!”
Bess dared not look at him, but she felt the insult of his searching
gaze. She buttoned her coat tight, then stood waiting. An instant later
Doomsdorf was holding the door open for her as she went to her toil.