TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
Thompson drove his canoe around a jutting point and came upon a white
cruiser swinging at anchor in an eddy. Her lines were familiar though he
had not seen her in two years. In any case the name _Alert_ in gold leaf
on her bows would have enlightened him. He was not particularly
surprised to find Tommy's motor boat there. He had half-expected to find
Tommy Ashe hereabouts.
A man's head rose above the after companion-hatch as the canoe glided
abreast.
"Is Mr. Ashe aboard?" Thompson asked.
The man shook his head.
"Went up to Carr's camp a while ago."
"When did you get in?" Thompson inquired further.
"Last night. Lost a day laying up at Blind Bay for a southeaster. Gee,
she did blow."
Thompson smiled and passed on. Blind Bay was only two miles from Cape
Coburn. Just a narrow neck of land had separated them that blustery
night. It was almost like a race. Tommy would not be pleased to see him
treading so close on his heels. Thompson felt that intuitively. All was
fair in love and war. Still, even in aërial warfare, ruthless and
desperate as it was, there were certain courtesies, a certain element
of punctilio. Thompson had an intuition that Ashe would not subscribe to
even that simple code. In fact he began to have a premonition of
impending conflict as he thrust stoutly on his paddle blade. Tommy had
changed. He was no longer the simple, straightforward soul with whom
Thompson had fought man-fashion on the bank of Lone Moose, and with whom
he had afterward achieved friendship on a long and bitter trail.
Three hundred yards past the _Alert_ he came to a landing stage which
fitted the description given by the skipper of the _Squalla_. Thompson
hauled his canoe out on the float, gained the shore, and found a path
bordering the bank. He followed this. Not greatly distant he could hear
the blows of chopping, the shrill blasts of a donkey-engine whistle and
the whirr of the engine itself as it shuddered and strained on its
anchored skids, reeling up half a mile, more or less, of inch and a
quarter steel cable, snaking a forty-foot log out of the woods as a
child would haul a toothpick on the end of a string.
Before long the brush-floored forest opened on a small area of parked
wood. In this pleasant place stood a square block of a house. From a
tall staff fluttered the Union Jack. As Thompson came near this the door
opened and a group of youngsters tumbled out pell-mell and began to
frolic. Thompson looked at his watch. He had stumbled on a school in the
hour of morning recess.
"Where does Mr. Carr live?" he asked one of these urchins when he got
near enough to have speech with him.
The youngster pointed upstream.
"First house you come to," he said. "White house with shingles painted
green. Say, mister, have you just come from the war? My dad was over
there. Do you know my dad, mister?"
The boy stood gazing at him, apparently hopeful of paternal
acquaintance, until he discovered that Thompson did not know his "dad."
Then he darted back to join his fellows at their game.
Thompson walked on. The white house with green shingles loomed up near
at hand, with a clump of flaming maples beside it. Past that stood other
houses in an orderly row facing the river, and back of them were sheds
and barns, and beyond the group of buildings spread a wide area of
cleared land with charred stumps still dotting many an acre.
He had to enter the place he took to be Sam Carr's by the back yard, so
to speak. That is, he came up from the rear, passed alongside the
house--and halted abruptly, with his foot on the first of three steps
rising to a roomy verandah.
He had not meant to eavesdrop, to listen to words not meant for his
hearing. But he had worn the common footgear of yachtsmen, a pair of
rubber-soled canvas shoes, and so had come to the verandah end unseen
and noiselessly. He was arrested there by the sight of two people and
the mention of his own name by one of them.
Sophie was sitting on the rail, looking soberly down on the glacial
gray of Toba River. There was a queer expression on her face, a mixture
of protest and resignation. Tommy Ashe stood beside her. He had
imprisoned one of her hands between his own and he was speaking rapidly,
eagerly, passionately.
Thompson had heard without meaning to hear. And what he heard, just a
detached sentence or two, shot him through with a sudden blaze of anger.
He stepped up on the floor, took quickly the three strides that
separated him from Tommy.
"You are nothing but a common liar," he challenged bluntly. "You know
you are, when you speak of me as being dead. Is that why you scuttled
out of Vancouver and hurried on here, as soon as you saw me back?"
Ashe shrank back a step. His naturally florid face grew purple. Thompson
matched him glance for glance, wondering as the moments ticked off why
Tommy glared and did not strike.
"Your heart has grown as flabby as your principles," he said at last
contemptuously.
For the instant, in anger at a lie, in that fighting mood which puts
other considerations into abeyance when it grips a man, Thompson gave no
heed to Sophie--until he felt her hand on his arm and looked down into
her upturned face, white and troubled, into gray eyes that glowed with
some peculiar fire.
"It is really, truly you?" she said in a choked voice.
"Of course," he answered--and he could not help a little fling. "You see
I am no longer a rabbit. I don't like your friend here. He has tried to
sneak a march on me, and I suspect it is not the first. I feel like
hurting him."
She paid not the least heed to that.
"You were officially reported dead," she went on. "Reported shot down
behind the German lines a year ago."
"I know I was reported dead, and so have many other men who still live,"
he said gently. "I was shot down, but I escaped and flew again, and was
shot down a second time and still am here not so much the worse."
Sophie slipped her hand into his and turned on Tommy Ashe.
"And you knew this?" she said slowly. "Yet you came here to me this
morning--and--and--"
She stopped with a break in her voice.
"I didn't believe you were capable of a thing like that, Tommy," she
continued sadly. "I'm ashamed of you. You'd better go away at once."
Ashe looked at her and then at Thompson, and his face fell. Thompson,
watching him as a man watches his antagonist, saw Tommy's lips tremble,
a suspicious blur creep into his eyes. Even in his anger he felt sorry
for Tommy.
The next instant the two of them stood alone, Sophie's hand caught fast
in his. She tried to withdraw it. The red leaped into her cheeks. But
there was still that queer glow in her eyes.
Thompson looked down at the imprisoned hand.
"You'll never get that away from me again," he said whimsically. "You
see, I am not a rabbit, but a man, no matter what you thought once. And
when a man really wants a thing, he takes it if he can. And I want
you--so--you see?"
For answer Sophie hid her hot face against his breast.
"Ah, I'm ashamed of myself too," he heard a muffled whisper. "I sent you
away into that hell over there with a sneer instead of a blessing. And I
was too ashamed, and a little afraid, to write and tell you what a fool
I was, that I'd made a mistake and was sorry. I couldn't do anything
only wait, and hope you'd come back. Didn't you hate me for my miserable
holier-than-thou preachment that day, Wes?"
"Why, no," he said honestly. "It hurt like the devil, of course. You see
it was partly true. I _was_ going along, making money, playing my own
little hand for all it was worth. I couldn't rush off to the front just
to demonstrate to all and sundry--even to you--that I was a brave man
and a patriot. You understand, don't you? It took me quite a while to
feel, to really and truly feel, that I _ought_ to go--which I suppose
you felt right at the beginning. When I did see it that way--well, I
didn't advertise. I just got ready and went. If you had not been out of
sorts that day, I might have gone away with a kiss instead of your
contempt. But I didn't blame you. Besides, that's neither here nor
there, now. You're a prisoner. You can only be paroled on condition."
Sophie smiled up at him, and was kissed for her pains.
"Name the condition."
"That you love me. I've waited a long time for it."
"I've always loved you," she said gravely. "Sometimes more, sometimes
less. I haven't always believed we could be happy together. Sometimes I
have been positive we couldn't. But I've always measured other men by
you, and none of them quite measured up. That was why it stung me so to
see you so indifferent about the war. Probably if you had talked about
it to me, if I had known you were thinking of going, I should have been
afraid you would go, I should have been afraid for you. But you seemed
always so unconcerned. It maddened me to think I cared so much for a man
who cared nothing about wrongs and injustices, who could sit contentedly
at home while other men sacrificed themselves. My dear, I'm afraid I'm
an erratic person, a woman whose heart and head are nearly always at
odds."
Thompson laughed, looking down at her with an air of pride.
"That is to say you would always rather be sure than sorry," he
remarked. "Well, you can be sure of one thing, Sophie. You can't admit
that you really do care for me and then run away, as you did at Lone
Moose. I have managed to stand on my own feet at last, and your penalty
for liking me and managing to conceal the fact these many moons is that
you must stand with me."
She drew his face down to her and kissed it. Thompson held her fast.
"I can stand a lot of that," he said happily.
"You may have to," she murmured. "I am a woman, not a bisque doll. And
I've waited a long time for the right man."