The canoe in which Pete had set out in his great adventure was both
heavy and cranky, and no one but a Siwash of the river or the Lakes
would have paddled it a mile without disaster. But he had been bred
in the sturgeon-haunted water of Pitt River, and knew the ways of his
craft and could use the single-bladed paddle with the same skill that
he showed with the maul and wedges on a great sawlog. Now as he left
the light of the fired Mill behind him he knew (or feared) that he
had not left his enemies behind him as well. The whole of the Mill
would be his enemies. That he was sure of: he remembered poor old
Skookum Charlie. He understood the minds of those he had endangered
as well as the heart of such a man as Quin. And if Quin himself had
escaped from the fire of the house he would be on the river! That
Pete was sure of in his heart. And his heart failed him even as he
swept outward on the first of the ebb, which ran fast, being now
reinforced by the waters of the big river fed by the melting snows of
a thousand miles of snow-clad hills.
This was, indeed, the nature of the man, as Long Mac knew it. He was
capable of fierce resentment, capable of secret though unsubtle
revenge, but he was not capable of standing up like a man at the
stake of necessity; not his the blood of those nobler Indians of the
Plains who could endure all things at the last. His blood was partly
water, of a truth, and now it melted within him.
"They catch me fo' su'e," said Pete. His muscles weakened, his very
soul was feeble. What a fool, a thrice-sodden fool, he had been to
cut the hose in the Mill. But for that they might not have known he
had fired it. But Long Mac knew, and perhaps Long Mac himself, who
had nerves and muscles of steel, was out after him in the night. Oh,
rather even Quin than that man, whom Quin himself treated with a
courtesy he denied to all the others who worked for him.
But now the light of the Mill faded. On both sides of the river were
heavy shadows: the great moving flood was but a mirror of darkness
and a few stars that flicked silver into the lip and lap of the
moving waters. Pete knew the ebb and current ran fastest in the
middle of the stream, and yet to be out in the middle meant that he
would be seen easier, if indeed he was pursued. He could not make up
his mind whether to chance this or not. He sheered from the centre
to the banks and back again. And every now and again it seemed to
him that it would be wisest to run ashore, turn his dugout loose and
take to the brush. And yet he did not do it. He was weak, now that
fear was in him, and the alcohol died out of him, and he felt renewed
pangs of hunger. To wander in the thick brush would be fatal. They
would renew their search on the morrow: every avenue of escape would
be guarded. And hunger would so tame the little spirit he had within
him that he would give himself up.
"They hang me, they hang me," he said piteously, even as Ned Quin had
said it. But there was none to help him. The very men who had been
his brothers, his tilikums, would give him up now.
He cursed himself and Jenny and Quin and the memory of Skookum
Charlie. He took the centre of the river at last and paddled hard.
It was his only chance. If he could but get out to sea and then run
ashore somewhere in the Territory, among some of the Washington
Indians who knew nothing of him, he would be hard to find. The very
thought of this helped him. He might escape after all.
And then his ears told he was not to escape so easily. He heard the
sound of oars in the rowlocks of a boat. Or was it only the beating
of his own heart? He could not locate the sound. At one moment it
seemed to him that after all it was but someone further down the
river and then it seemed behind him. If it were down stream it might
be only some stray salmon boat doing its poor best in a bad year.
Even they would say they had met him. He ceased to row and sheered
across towards the darkest shadow of the bank.
And, as he sheered inwards, from behind the last bend of that very
bank there shot a boat which was inshore of him. For Quin knew the
river below the City as Pete did not, and he had kept in the
strongest of the stream, which sometimes cut its deepest channel
close to the shore. He was but a hundred yards from Pete when the
Sitcum Siwash saw him and knew it was Quin.
Here the great river below the Island, where North and South Arms
were one, was at its widest. And by the way his enemy came Pete knew
that his hour had arrived. Though he paddled for awhile in sheer
desperation he knew that his wretched heavy dug-out had no chance
against a light boat, driven by the strongest arms in the City,
perhaps the strongest in the whole country. And Quin was an oarsman
and had loved the water always. The wretched fugitive changed his
tune even as he strove in vain.
"He fix me, oh, he fix me----!"
Hot as he was with paddling, the cold sweat now ran down his brow and
cheeks. He felt his heart fail within him: he felt his muscles fail.
Yet still he strove and kept a distance between himself and Quin that
only slowly lessened. For now Quin himself slackened his pace. He
was sure he had the man, and yet it needed coolness to secure him.
To Quin, Pete had become the very incarnation of the devil, and he
was wholly unconscious now that he had ever wronged him. The fact
that he had stolen Jenny from him was but an old story. And Pete had
brought it upon himself. No one but Quin in the whole world could
have known (as Quin did know) that any kindness, any decency of
conduct, in Pete would have secured Jenny to him against the world
itself. She was pure faithfulness and pure affection, and malleable
as wax in any warmth of heart. But Pete had been even as his
fellows. He should have wedded some creature of the dust like
Annawillee, to whom brutality was but her native mud. And Jenny was
a strange blossom such as rarely grows in any tribe or race of men.
It was not of Jenny that Quin thought. He forgot her very danger
that night and forgot his own. He even forgot his child. He
remembered nothing but the burnt Mill, nothing but the spiked logs.
Oh, but he "had it in" for Pete!
"He's burnt my Mill," said Quin. In spite of any help the loss would
be heavy, but it was not the loss that Quin thought of: it was of the
Mill itself. So fine a creature it was, so live, so quick, so
wonderful. Rebuilt it might be, but it would no longer be the Mill
that he had made: that he had picked up a mere foundling, as a
derelict of the river, and turned to something so like a living thing
that he came to love it. Now it was hot ashes, burning embers: the
wind played with it. It was dead!
There was no sign of red fire behind them now, but the fire burnt
within Quin. The fire was out in Pete. He wished he had never seen
Jenny, never seen the Mill, never played the fire. He went blind as
he paddled, ever and ever more feebly. If Quin had called to him
then the Siwash would have given in: he would have said----
"All right, Mista Quin, I'm done!"
That was his nature: the nature of the Coast Indians, as Long Mac
knew it. There wasn't in him or his tilikums, pure-blooded or
"breeds," the stuff to stand up against the bitter, hardy White, who
had taken their country and their women, and had made a new world
where they speared salmon, or each other. He knew he had no chance.
But Quin never spoke, even when he was within twenty yards of his
prey.
The terror of the white man got hold of Pete, and the terror of his
silence maddened him anew. There was not so much as a grunt out of
his pursuer. Pete saw a machine coming after him. It was not a man,
it was a thing that ran Indians down and drowned them. So might a
steamer, a dread "piah-ship," run down the dug-out of some poor wild
Siwash in some unexplored creek. Quin was not a man, or a white man,
he was the White Men: the very race. There had always been a touch
of the wild race in Pete: an underlying hint of the wrath of those
who go under. He had avenged himself, but it was still in vain. The
last word was, it seemed, with the deadly thing behind him.
Of a sudden Pete howled. It was a horrid cry: like the cry of a
solitary coyoté on a bluff in moonlight on a prairie of the South.
The very forests echoed with it, as they had echoed in dim ages past
with the war-whoops of other Indians. It made Quin turn his head as
he rowed. It was just in time, for with one sweep of his paddle Pete
had turned his canoe. The next instant it ran alongside the boat,
and Pete with one desperate leap came on board with his bare knife in
his hand. He fell upon his knees and scrambled to his feet as Quin,
loosing his oars, got to his. The capsized dug-out floated side by
side with the boat.
"I fix you," said Pete. Even in the darkness Quin could see the
white of his eye, the uplifted hand, the knife. The boat swayed,
nearly went over, Pete struck and missed, staggered, threw out his
left arm and Quin caught it. The next moment they were both in the
river, fighting desperately.
"I fix you," said Pete. They both mouthed water and Quin got his
right wrist at last. But not before a blow of Pete's had sliced his
ribs and cut a gash that stung like fire.
Both of the men could swim, but swimming was in vain. Both were
strong, and now Pete's strength was as the strength of a madman who
chooses death in a very passion for the end of all things. He seemed
as if made of fine steel, of whip-cord, of something resilient,
tense. There was in him that elasticity which enables the great
quinnat to overcome the awful stream of the Fraser in its narrow
Cañon. It was with difficulty, with deadly difficulty, that Quin
held the wrist that controlled the knife. He knew that he must do
that even if he drowned. It was his last thought, his last conscious
thought, just as Pete's last thought was to free himself and find
Quin's heart.
They sank, as they struggled, far below the surface of the flood.
Quin held his breath till it seemed that he would burst. His lungs
were bursting with blood: his brain fainted for it. He struggled to
preserve his power of choice, for it appeared better to be stabbed if
even so he could breathe. But even as he fought he was aware in some
cool and dreadfully far-off cell of his brain that though he let go
he would not yet rise. It was a question of who could last longest.
As he was drowning he remembered (and recalled how he had heard the
saying) that the other man was probably as bad. He even grinned
horribly as he thought this. Then he saw Jenny and the child. The
vision passed and he saw the burning Mill. He heard Mac speak, heard
the roar of the flames, and the murmur of the crowd. Then he came to
the surface and knew where he was, knew that he was alive but at
handgrips with Death himself. He sucked in air, filled his lungs and
rolled over, and went under once again.
When consciousness is past there is a long space of organized, of
purposed, instinctive struggle for life left in a man. So it was
with Quin. He knew not that he slipped both hands to Pete's right
wrist: he was unaware that when they once more rose Pete howled as
his wrist snapped. Even Pete did not know it: he knew that he was a
fluid part of nature, suffering agony and yet finding sleep in agony,
sleep so exquisite that it was a recompense at last for all the woes
of the world. And he was all the world himself, one with the river,
one with the night and the great darkness which comes in the end to
all. Pete sighed deliciously and sank, and rose and sank again, into
the arms of one who was perhaps his mother, perhaps his dear Jenny
whom he now loved so tenderly.
And a blind creature, still unconscious, unknowing, hung on to Pete's
wrist. That was what Quin thought. But what he hung to was the
boat, capsized but still floating, which had gone down stream with
them. He was in a cramp of agony: if he could have let go he would
have done so, but something not himself, as it seemed, made him hold
on. He still fought with the dead man who rolled below him at the
bottom of the river.
Then he came back to the knowledge that he was at least alive. Yet
at first he was not even sure of that. He was only sure that he
suffered, without knowing what it was that suffered. It seemed
monstrous that he should be in such agony, in all his limbs and body
and brain. But he could not distinguish between them for a long time
after he was able to discern, with such curious eyes as an infant may
possess, the fact that there were lights in the dim sky. That was
the first thing he named.
"Stars!" he said doubtfully.
And then he knew that there was such a creature as a man! He gasped
and drew in air again and with it life and more far-off knowledge.
He remembered the Mill which was burnt in some ancient day, and
Jenny, long since dust, of course. And then the past times marched
up to him: he knew they were the present, and that he had lost Pitt
River Pete in the river, and that he hung feebly to a capsized boat.
The rest of his knowledge of himself was like an awful flood: it was
overwhelming: it weakened him and made him cry. Tears ran down his
face as he lifted his chin above the water.
And still he floated seaward.
A huge and totally insoluble problem oppressed him. He was aware now
that water was not his element. This dawned on him gradually. At
first all his remembered feelings were connected with water. He had,
it seemed, been born in it. It was very natural to be floating in
it. There was at least nothing to contradict its being natural. But
now he felt for something with his feet, for he was conscious of
them. What he wanted was land. Men walked on land. Houses, yes,
houses and Mills were built on land.
That was land over there! It was a million miles off. How did one
get so far? To be sure, one swam! He shook his head feebly. One
couldn't swim, one would have to let go the boat! He forgot all
about the land far a very long time. When he remembered it again
with a start it was much nearer, very much nearer. He saw individual
trees, knew they were trees. Branches held out their arms to him.
Though swimming, was impossible it was no longer wholly ridiculous.
He remembered doing it himself. He even remembered learning
swimming. He had won a race as a boy in Vermont.
"To be sure," said Quin. The current swept him closer in shore.
Something touched his feet. He drew them up sharply and shuddered.
Pete was down there somewhere. Oh, yes, but he was dead! Dead men
were disagreeable, especially when they had been drowned and not
recovered for days in hot weather. He touched bottom again. It was
very muddy. It was easy to get stuck in mud. One could drown in it.
"Why, I may be drowned yet," said Quin. It was very surprising to
think of!
"No, I won't be drowned," said Quin. "I'll hang on to this boat.
Why not?"
Nevertheless the water was cold. It came down from the mountains,
from much further off than Caribou and from the Eagle Range. There
was snow there.
"I am cold," said Quin. "I ought to get ashore."
The boat itself touched a mud-bank. Quin felt bottom again and just
as he was deciding to let go the boat swung off. Quin cried and was
very angry.
"I'll do it next time," said Quin. But he didn't. He was afraid to
let go. And yet the shore was very close. Once more the boat
touched and his feet were quite firm in the mud. But there was a
bottom six inches down. He thought he prayed to something, to God
perhaps, and then he saw the boat swing away from him. He was quite
alone and very solitary. To lose the boat was like losing one's
home. He staggered and fell flailing and found bottom with his
hands. He hung to the very earth, but was dizzy. He waited quite a
while to be sure of himself and then scrambled with infinite and most
appalling labour to the shore. His limbs were as heavy as death, as
lead. He dragged them after him. He ached.
But at last he came out on the land.
It was earth: he had got there. Was there ever in all human
experience such a pleasant spot to lie down on, to sleep in? He just
knew there wasn't. He forgot he was wet, that he was cold, that Pete
was dead, that he was alive, and he went on his knees and scrabbled
like a tired beast at the ground. And then he went to sleep, holding
himself with his arms and making strange comfortable little noises.
Sleep rolled over him like a river. Artillery would not have
awakened him, nor thunder, nor the curious hands of friends or the
hostile claws of creatures of prey.
And within a few minutes of his going to sleep other boats came down
the river and passed him.
They picked up the capsized boat.
"Quin's dead then," they told each other.
It was quite possible Quin's body believed that, too. But his warm
mind knew better, of course. He had got earth under him, and he
warmed it.