For a long time they stood in the shadow of the cabin, and the sleepy
stillness of the night with its soft chirping of crickets and gentle
murmuring of the lake surf brought a soothing peace to Mona. With
Peter's arms about her she was no longer afraid. He told her what had
happened since she left his father. Twice Donald McRae had awakened
from his sleep of exhaustion and had asked for her. A thrill of
pleasure was in Peter's voice as he told her this; it made him happy
to know that his father loved her, and that he even whispered her name
in his feverish slumber. Some day the whole of their prayer would be
answered; things would turn out right; and they would all be happy.
Not until he had gone, and she was alone in her room, did Mona note how
swiftly the time had passed. The hour hand of the little clock was at
three. She did not undress, but sat down at her window, with her face
turned toward the coming of the dawn. And now that Peter's love and
the unbreakable strength of his optimism were no longer at her side,
her thoughts began pressing upon her again, dispelling the comfort he
had given her and weakening once more her faith and hope in what the
day would bring. She was glad she confided in Simon, for he was the
rock to which she clung in these hours of her own helplessness. And
yet--what could Simon do? Wherein was he less helpless than herself--or
Peter? She shivered as she recalled the grim and terrible look that
had last rested in his face. And that same look had been in Peter's--a
flash which he had tried to hide from her! Her heart jumped and for an
instant her fingers clutched at the sill of her window. Would one of
them--Simon or Peter--_kill Aleck Curry_?
It seemed to her that a terrible truth rushed upon her all at once and
caught like a living thing at her throat until it was difficult for
her to breathe. There was no hope for Peter as long as Aleck lived!
The words almost came from her lips. Unless Peter ran away, wandering
and hiding like his father, no power could keep him from going to
prison. But if Aleck should never leave the little island--if he died
there--and no one knew of the fight at the pool----
She bowed her face in her arms. It would be so easy of
accomplishment--so terribly and frighteningly easy! Peter might do it!
And Simon--the look in his face--his eyes--what he said----
"No, no, no," she whispered to herself. "Anything--anything but that!"
She raised her head to meet the first rose-flush of the dawn. But this
morning there was no responsive thrill in Mona's breast. A question
was repeating itself in her brain. Would she be able to go through
the day without giving herself away? Could she meet Pierre and Josette
Gourdon, and Marie Antoinette, and Father Albanel, and Adette and Jame
Clamart--and not let them see her torture? Would it show in her face
when she met Carter, of the Provincial Police?
Until the first white spirals of smoke began rising from the cabin
chimneys she sat at her window. Then she rose, and her beautiful face
was almost stern in its resolution. She let the sunlight stream into
her room, and in its radiance she unbraided her hair and brushed it
until it lay about her in the rippling glory that made Peter the
happiest and proudest of all men. She dressed it carefully, and
tried to sing as she made herself ready to help Josette with the
breakfast--for she always sang in this first hour of the day. But the
notes seemed to stifle her this morning.
It was then, looking out from her window, that she saw a grayish haze
rising between her and the face of the sun, and the smell of it came to
her faintly. It was smoke.
When she went below it was Pierre she met first. He kissed her. But
anxiety was in his face.
"It is happening again this year," he said. "The forests to the north
and west are afire. It will not come near Five Fingers, but it makes my
heart ache to know that a world is being turned dead and black because
of someone's carelessness!"
So it was the fire which gave Mona an excuse for what was lacking in
her eyes when she went to help Josette with the breakfast. And it was
this same fire, with its thickening gloom of smoke, which helped her
through the day. For to Mona a living tree had life and soul, and to
see trees destroyed in countless thousands was a tragedy in her life
only a little less terrible than the plague of smallpox which had once
cast its shadow upon Five Fingers.
She went to Simon's cabin as soon after breakfast as she could make
an excuse, and there she met Carter. Her first glimpse of him filled
her with uneasiness and dislike. He was a hawk-nosed, shifty-eyed man
in whom nature seemed to have sacrificed every softening quality to
an uncompromising sense of duty, and his eyes rested upon her face so
intently as Simon introduced them that she felt her heart tremble. But
if he knew of her previous visit to Simon's cabin, or of her meeting
with Peter, he gave no evidence of it, and after a casual remark or two
about the fire he left her alone with the Scotchman.
A worried look was in McQuarrie's eyes.
"I've found out more about Carter," he said. "He is the best man in
this division and is never sent out on minor affairs. Leaving us so
quickly right now shows how clever he is. He doesn't want to create
suspicion. He dropped in to ask me the best trail northwest, and says
he is going to leave in half an hour to make a report on the fire.
That's another lie. In the woods he is like a cat, and he won't go
half a mile from the settlement. He is wondering where Peter is, and if
he once gets on his trail----" Suddenly he drew his hands together, and
a grim smile gathered about his mouth. "If Carter goes to that fire,
I'm going with him!" he exclaimed. "Five Fingers is interested, and he
cannot very well turn me down."
In a few words Mona told of Peter's visit; and then, standing so near
that he could not avoid the directness of her eyes, she gave low voice
to her suspicion that either he or Peter was planning to kill Aleck
Curry.
The effect of her words on Simon startled her. He stood dumb, staring
at her. Then one of his bony hands reached out and rested on her
shoulder. Its fingers hurt her. "Don't even whisper that anywhere--but
here," he said. "You understand? _Don't!_ Peter won't kill him. And I'm
not worrying about Aleck Curry now. It's Carter."
He left her without another word, and went out to overtake Carter.
There was something so grim and foreboding in his movement that it
chilled her, and as she dropped a few steps behind him she noticed his
boots. At midnight she had seen them in his cabin, clean and freshly
oiled. Now they were frosted with half-dried mud to their tops. His
sourness, the harshness of his fingers on her shoulder, his silence
now and the aggressive hunch of his shoulders, together with the mud
on his boots, tightened her breath. Had Simon already accomplished the
thing she feared? Was that why he was so anxious to follow Carter, go
with him--get him away from Five Fingers? She ran up to him, meaning to
demand the truth.
He anticipated her intention and spoke almost roughly. "Don't ask
questions, Mona. Carter has stopped, and is looking. Go home--and stay
in if you can't keep control of yourself."
The rest of the morning Mona waited anxiously for Peter. At noon, when
they were at dinner, Pierre Gourdon talked of little but the fire. It
had surely crossed the line of rail thirty miles north, he said, and
was traveling steadily eastward. If the wind should quicken and swing
into the south there would be danger to the forests about Five Fingers.
But the settlement itself was safe, protected as it was by fire-lines
and cultivated fields on three sides, and Lake Superior on the other.
He wondered where Simon McQuarrie was, and asked Mona if she had seen
Peter. He surmised they had gone back to the crests of the high ridges
to make a closer observation of the fire. He had already sent out Jame
Clamart and Poleon Dufresne to guard the northern ridges, and if the
fire threatened to break coastward, all the men in Five Fingers would
go out to fight it. He had made preparations. But he didn't like the
way Peter and Simon were missing, without leaving any word behind them.
Carter was gone, too.
Afternoon saw smoke settling like a thin fog about the clearing. The
sun was entirely hidden. Animals and fowls came up to the buildings,
and men and women gave up their work to discuss with one another the
possibilities of the next few hours. A dozen times Mona repressed the
desire to steal away and go to the little cabin where Donald McRae was
hidden. She knew Peter was there, and now that the smoke was thickening
she believed he would soon leave for the settlement.
She noticed how hot and sultry it had grown in the last hour. Scarcely
a breath of air was stirring, and in the middle of the afternoon Adette
Clamart insisted that she go with her for a swim down in the inlet.
While they were in the water Peter came up from the lake in a boat.
His sail was down and he was rowing. Adette Clamart covered her pretty
eyes with her two hands while he bent over to kiss Mona, and in that
moment he whispered, "I want to see you in the cabin." He was acting
strangely, Mona thought.
A few minutes later she joined him in the cabin.
"Dad is better," Peter said. "But tonight I'm going to get him
away--somewhere. I'm afraid of the fire. With a bad wind it would be on
us in an hour or two. Right now I want to take some supplies over to
Aleck Curry. Then I'll come back and see you before I return to dad.
There's a little breeze on the lake, and I can make the island in an
hour. Have you seen Carter?"
"This morning. He hasn't been here since then."
"And Simon?"
"He is gone, too."
She got a bundle she had prepared and said good-by to Peter but not
until he had promised to return directly from the island by way of the
inlet. She watched him until he disappeared in the gray haze that hung
over the water, and then looked at the clock to mark the time he would
be returning. Scarcely had she done this when a figure stalked past one
of the windows. Instantly she recognized it as Simon McQuarrie. He went
straight to his cabin, entered it and closed the door. _And Carter was
not with him!_
Her heart throbbed as she went outside, determined to follow him. But
something held her back. Then she forced herself to follow her first
impulse, and a moment later was knocking at Simon's door. There was no
answer. She persisted, knocking loudly and calling his name, and still
there was no response. Then she tried the door and found it locked.
Where there had been fear in her breast there was now conviction. The
tiger in the old Scotchman had been at work, and in his own way--_and
the only way_--he had solved the great problem of her life and Peter's,
and had made the world free again for his old friend Donald McRae. He
had rid the island of Aleck Curry, and had done away with Carter. And
now he wanted to be alone--alone in his cabin!
Not for a moment did she question the reasonableness of her
conviction. It seized upon her like a many-tentacled thing, choking
back her doubt and overwhelming her with its certainty. It made her
steal pantingly to the edge of the forest, and then to the beginning
of the long finger of spruce and cedar that reached away out to the
entrance of Middle Finger Inlet. Half an hour later she was on the sand
and gravel beach under the big cliff, waiting for Peter's return. And
now she noticed a change in the wind. Loose tresses of her hair blew
seaward. That meant the fire would come over the ridges!
In another quarter of an hour she could scarcely see the farther side
of Middle Finger Inlet. A black pall of smoke was creeping closer in
the north and west. Then, very faintly, she saw something creeping
up like a ghost out of the smoke gloom of the sea. She knew it was
Peter. He was coming with nerve-racking slowness, it seemed to her. Yet
she did not want to cry out to him until he was nearer. He was using
his oars, and at times there was a half-minute interval between his
strokes. Why was he so slow? Was it because of what he had found on the
island? Surely Simon would have left no telltale signs. So far as Peter
was concerned Aleck Curry could only be _missing_--nothing more!
A shudder ran through her. Then she cried Peter's name. Her voice
carried strangely clear. There was silence in the boat. The oars were
resting without a sound.
"Peter," she cried again. "Peter! I am here--on the point!"
He must have heard her, and it was unusual that he did not answer.
But the oars rattled again, and she could see the shape of the boat
turning slowly, and then growing larger as it came toward her. It was
odd, too, that Peter did not come directly to the point, but grounded
his boat among the big rocks fifty yards below her--a place where he
knew it was difficult for her to go. So she stood on the white sand,
waiting for him. She could hear his boots on the rocks; then she saw
him approaching through a dusk of early twilight thickened by the smoke
of the fire.
"Here I am, Peter," she called softly.
It did not seem like Peter, for the figure was grotesquely large, and
slower of movement. She held out her arms, and her eyes were glowing.
It was the smoke and the dusk that made Peter look like that! And then
her heart stopped beating. The figure was within ten feet of her. It
was not Peter. _It was Aleck Curry!_