Carter, as usual, had made his bed in deep shadow, and there after
a time he slept. The moon rose, but still the shadow enveloped him,
while Peter lay in a glow of light when the man-hunter roused himself.
He looked at his watch and found the hour a little after midnight. A
second time he slept, and a second time he awakened, and thick darkness
had come in place of the moonglow. This he knew to be the dark prelude
to dawn, and he rose out of his blanket and crept cautiously away from
the camp, moving a foot at a time and making no sound. In a quarter of
an hour darkness and distance had swallowed him. He waited then. Dawn
broke first over the tree-tops and filtered down softly and swiftly
into the lower depths of the forest until Carter could see to travel.
He lighted a last match to look at his watch and compass and struck due
south.
He traveled fast, free of pack and gun. Dawn grew into the grayer
softness of day. Peter would be awakening now, he thought, or very
soon. In an hour, or two at the most, he would know he had been
tricked. Even with his advantage Carter sensed the thrill of an
impending race and the tragedy of it, if he should lose. Peter was
swift and sure in the woods and it was a long way to Five Fingers.
High up in the sky a fleet of white clouds took on a crimson flush. The
sun rose, and it found Carter's face settling into the hard and grim
lines of the hunter whose game had so frequently been the lives of men.
In a small leather pouch he had stored some food, and a part of this he
ate as he traveled. He lost no time in seeking log and driftwood dams
to pave his way over streams but plunged waist-deep into water that
was still cold with the chill of snow and ice. It was noon before he
stopped to rest and eat what was left of the food in the leather pouch.
A second time a miracle of change swept over him, and in his face, his
eyes and the lithe swiftness with which he moved he was the ferret
again, hot on the trail of game. Late in the afternoon he felt the cool
breath of Lake Superior in his face. The sun sank lower. Dusk came. In
the beginning of that dusk he emerged from the last rim of the forest
and stood with the water of the big inland sea moaning under the dark
cliffs at his feet.
A sense of exultation and of triumph swept over him. It was something
to have mastered the wilderness in this way and to have come out within
half a dozen miles of Five Fingers. Peter could not beat that, even in
this country which was his own.
Thickening darkness made these last miles more difficult and for two
hours Carter progressed slowly. The sky was beautifully clear, but
rocks and slides and ragged cracks and pits at the cliff edge made his
feet wary, and countless stars only served to deepen their shadows.
When the moon came up he had reached the huge cliff whose sheer walls
rose two hundred feet above the sea, less than half a mile from Five
Fingers.
A last time he sat down, and with a strange smile on his thin lips
watched the full moon as it rose swiftly over the forests, as if
eager to reach its higher and more permanent place in the arch of the
heavens. He was tired and wet and his clothes were torn. Until now,
when the settlement was only a step ahead, he had not realized how
exhausted he was or what a fight he had gone through. Surely he had
beaten Peter by many miles and could afford to rest for a little while
before finishing his task!
His eyes closed in restful stillness. In half a dozen minutes he could
have slept, but each time that his body wavered on the rock where he
sat he forced himself into rigid wakefulness. The temptation persisted,
and at last he gave himself five minutes and slept thirty.
The rattle of a stone roused him, and he gathered himself up, blinking
at the moon. Then he heard iron nails scraping on rock. Instantly he
was wide awake. Someone was advancing along the face of the cliff from
the direction of Five Fingers. He could see first the shadow of that
person, growing in the illusive light mist of moon and stars. It was
big and grotesque and the tread of its substance was slow and heavy.
He heard a cough which was as unpleasantly heavy as the tread, and
a few steps more brought the advancing figure to the little plateau
of rock where he sat. Not until then did he rise. The other stopped.
The moon laughed down into their faces. The stars seemed to send upon
them a more brilliant light. A dozen paces separated them. Then,
uncertainly, they shortened it to half the distance. Carter's heart
gave a great throb. He would not have to go down to Five Fingers now,
_for this was his man_!
"Curry!" he greeted.
The other stared, half disbelieving. "Is that you--Carter?" he gasped.
He advanced again, peering into the other's face. "By Heaven, _it is_!"
Carter was very white and thin and strange-looking in the moonlight,
and Aleck Curry was heavy and huge, even to his neck and face. He
thrust out a hand, but Carter did not touch it.
"Yes, it's me," he said, in a voice cold as ice. "Queer why you should
be coming this way, Curry. I was going down there to find you."
Aleck's eyes pierced the blanket of moonlight behind him. "What luck?"
he asked. His voice thrilled with nervous eagerness. He bent his big
shoulders toward Carter, looking into his face, his thick lips parted
and his narrow eyes gleaming anxiously as he tried to read an answer
before words came. "Any?"
Carter's slowness was an insult, and with that insult his eyes and lips
were smiling.
"Yes, I've had luck," he said, when the tenseness of the other's
silence seemed about to break. "Donald McRae is dead, and Peter is back
there--my prisoner!"
* * * * *
Half an hour later, down in Five Fingers, the bell over the little log
church rang out sweetly and softly the good news that Father Albanel
had come in from his monthly trip into the farther wilderness, and that
services would be held tomorrow, which was Sunday. In the stillness
of the night the music of the bell carried far through the forests,
creeping in and out and high above the hidden places, bearing with it
the peace and gentleness of benediction and prayer to all things.
Peter heard it, far back in the hollows between the ridges, and he
paused to offer his gratitude to God for this voice that was welcoming
him home.
And at the edge of the cliff where the moonlight and the starlight made
a vivid arena of the table of rock its message seemed to beat with the
clearness of a silvery drum. Then it stopped. Its echoes melted away,
and the two men who had heard it there remained unchanged.
Carter seemed straighter and harder, his face more like carven stone.
But he was ready. And Aleck Curry was like a huge gorilla gathering
himself for a leap.
"Carter--if you mean that--I'll kill you!" he said in a voice that was
thick with passion.
"I mean it," replied Carter, biting his words short. "I've taken the
trouble to tell you the whole story. But you can't understand and
you never will. You're a snake. You're a traitor to both justice and
the law. You think your power over Peter will give you vengeance and
something from Mona. But it won't. And I warn you again that if you
try to use your knowledge, if you offer Peter as a price to Mona, if
you give him up to the law when she strikes you in the face--as she
will!--then I shall go to the highest authorities and strip you to the
skin. The truth will blast you. I will tell how you offered me bribes,
and then threatened; I will tell of your affair in the home of Jacques
Gautier and expose the horrible trail you have left wherever your slimy
soul has gone. I shall investigate the death of the young Indian girl
on the Arrowhead. I----"
He did not finish. Curry, the man who had waited, the fiend who had
kept the fires of hatred and passion burning until they were madness,
saw more than the threatened ruin for himself. Reputation, family,
his place in the service meant nothing to him. What he saw now in the
white and almost deathlike face and gleaming eyes of the Ferret was the
end of the dream he had built up--the end not only of his power over
Peter but of his last chance to possess Mona. If Carter carried out
his threat, if he told the story of Gautier's wife and laid naked the
truth of the Indian girl's death on the Arrowhead--then all that he
might say against Peter would be discounted in the eyes of the law, and
punishment would fall upon himself.
But he was not thinking of this punishment. At times the evil mind
in his heavy head worked with amazing swiftness--and in this last
moment of Carter's threat and defiance he saw the yawning abyss of the
cliff behind the Ferret, and its overwhelming temptation. With Carter
down there, dead, and Peter walking straight into the trap at Five
Fingers, his own power and triumph would be more complete than he had
ever dreamed it could be--_for he would make Peter also the Ferret's
murderer_!
The moon revealed the monstrous thought that leaped like flame into his
face, and it was then Carter cut his words short to meet the avalanche
of flesh and fury that descended upon him.
Swift as a flash he sensed Curry's intention of throwing him over the
cliff, and twined his arms about his enemy's neck as they crashed upon
the rock. For a moment after that a great shadow of fear darkened the
Ferret's soul. A hundred times in their associations on the trail he
had witnessed the tests and measured the possibilities of Aleck's huge
body and herculean strength. And now he was at death grips with it.
That day he had seen a wood-mouse in the fangs of a weasel, and he was
the wood-mouse now. And then he thought of Peter--of Peter and Mona and
the battle at the pool two years ago when they had beaten this great
hulk of a man. Fear went out of him. His biggest thrill in life was in
the main chance against death. And this was the biggest of all!
A queer thought shot into his head, a surging back of his old pride. He
was not the wood-mouse, nor was he the weasel. He was the _ferret_, and
Aleck Curry was an unknown beast, ponderous and mighty, but with that
vulnerable spot which the ferret always found in its prey. And this
time Carter knew he was fighting for more than himself. He was fighting
for a man who was dead, and whose spirit was there on the rock watching
them. He was fighting for Peter. And he was fighting for a woman.
His thin arms and legs fastened themselves about Aleck like things made
of wire steel instead of flesh and bone. Over and over they rolled,
twisting, bending, breaking, heads and faces gouging on the rocks, and
always Carter's quickness made up for the other's weight and strength.
Their breath came in panting gasps as the nails in their boots struck
fire from the rock. A moan of anguish came from Curry when Carter got
the terrible thumb gouge in his eye, and a gasp of agony from the
Ferret when Aleck bent his head back until his neck nearly broke. There
was something merciless and horrible in the struggle.
A little cloud ran under the face of the moon. It was followed by
a larger and darker one, as if spirit hands were drawing a curtain
between it and the tragedy on the rock. The light of the stars seemed
to grow dimmer, as if they, too, shrank from this thing that was
happening between the sea and the sky. And over the edge of the cliff
came a wailing sob of wind that was already beginning to croon its
death song for the victim. Minutes were hours. Gasps, chokings, blows
and the panting of breaths were the ticking of the seconds. Moments of
stillness, when the two lay crumpled and twisted as if they had died
together, were like eternities. And foot by foot they had rolled until
they were close to the edge of the cliff.
Then it was that a shudder of deeper horror seemed to creep through the
night. A black cloud swept under the moon, hiding entirely what was
happening at the cliff's edge, and this cloud moved away with appalling
slowness. When the moon looked out again one object remained where
there had been two. For a long time it lay crumpled there, sobbing for
breath. Then it crawled away slowly, dragging itself painfully over the
rock, and disappeared at last into the thick growth of the burned-over
lands which reached far to the north.
* * * * *
Under that same moon, hours later, Peter came to the edge of Five
Fingers. Out of the sky all sign of cloud was gone and the stars glowed
in radiant constellations. Peter knew that it was midnight, and as he
looked down from the crest of the slope, where he had first walked hand
in hand with Mona when he was a boy, a strange and gentle silence rose
up from the bottom-lands to greet him. Five Fingers was asleep. He
could see no light and at first he heard no sound. Then came to him
the old familiar tinkle of silver bells on distant cattle, and the soft
murmur of the sea that was never quite still where it ran in and out
among the rocks of the Pit at the end of Middle Finger Inlet.
For a space he stood looking down where the dark shadows of the cabins
lay in a great pool of mellow light that was like a gossamer mist of
silver and gold. His heart beat fast, so fast that he clutched a hand
at his breast and swallowed hard to get his breath. Down there, within
sound of his voice, was Mona--and all at once his manhood seemed to
leave him and he wanted to shout wildly through his hands like a boy,
calling her name, rousing her from sleep, shrieking at the top of his
voice that he had come back. A sort of thrilling madness possessed him,
but of all his desire only a choking sob rose in his throat.
He walked down the slope and he saw Pierre Gourdon's home among the
scattered cabins. It was there he would find Mona, if----
His heart skipped a beat. If anything had happened,
_anything_--sickness--accident--if she had gone away! Two years was a
long time. Two years might have brought--a change.
His feet seemed to stumble, and then suddenly he stopped, and a cry
came to his lips. For he had come to the smooth little patch of green
meadow where Mona had made the men of Five Fingers bury the scores
of marauding porcupines they killed each year, and he saw here and
there freshly made little mounds of soil. Near one of these, which
was scarcely dried by a day's sun, was a spade. Eagerly he seized
it in his hands. It was _their_ spade, with its broken edge and the
iron rod handle which Simon had put on it to replace the wooden one
which porcupines had eaten away. Mona was in Five Fingers! She was
alive--well--sleeping in her little room where he had visioned her at
prayer every night of his life!
He took off his pack and dropped it near the freshly made mound. Then
he went on, and stopped under Mona's window.
It was partly open. He could hear the soft flutter of a curtain in the
breath of wind that came up from the shore. Almost afraid to break the
stillness he called her name in a low voice.
"_Mona!_"
The curtain fluttered back at him. It seemed to be laughing at him,
seemed to be signaling to him like a hand from the window.
Then he saw on their nails against the log wall the long bamboo poles
which Pierre Gourdon used in his fishing. A hundred times when he had
come in from the woods late at night he had tapped at Mona's window
with one of these poles, and she had thrust out her head to blow him
down a kiss and say good night. And now, with two hearts seeming to
beat in his breast in place of one, he seized one of the poles and
gently tapped the old signal on the window-pane. And all at once
the curtain ceased its fluttering and he could hear the two hearts
pounding mightily against his ribs.
He tapped again--_tap-tap-tappety-tap!_ and stepped back into the deep
shadow that hung around the edge of the Gourdon cabin in a heavy fringe.
Someone came to the window. He knew it--yet he could not see straight
up above his head. He held himself back, waiting for some response to
his signal. In a moment he would step out in the moonlight, and then----
He heard the curtain fluttering again. Sound came from her room. It
continued for a few moments, and ceased with the quiet opening of
a door. Then he heard footsteps, quick, light, almost frightened
footsteps, and a slim figure came around the end of Pierre Gourdon's
cabin and stood white-faced and trembling in the moonlight.
It was Mona--Mona as he had left her an hour ago--yesterday--two
years ago--unchanged--except that she seemed taller to him, more
beautiful. She had thrown a long cloak about her and he could see her
hand clutching it at the throat as her wide eyes strained to solve the
mystery which the misty chaos of the moonlight was hiding from her.
For a space he seemed powerless to move. Then he tried to speak as he
revealed himself, ragged and torn and bronzed to Indian darkness by his
long fight through the wilderness, but it was only an incoherent cry
that stumbled on his lips. Mona saw him. For an instant she swayed
like a tall flower, with the whiteness of lily petals in her face as
he went to her. And then she gave a cry that even Pierre Gourdon might
have heard if he had not slept so deeply--and Peter's arms closed about
her.
A minute later she held back his face with her two hands. Her eyes were
filled with the glory of the stars and her lips were red with the wild,
sweet passion of their kisses. Slowly a shadow came, and with it an
unutterable tenderness in the words which she whispered to him:
"Peter, _I knew_. Carter sent me word--about your father--and _you_----"
She drew his head down until she was holding it against her breast. Her
heart beat against his cheek. Her lips kissed his hair.
"Only you--you and God--know how sorry I am," she whispered.
And Peter felt once more like the small boy in the edge of the forest
years ago, when Mona had come to him in the dusk of evening to mend
his broken heart. For in these first moments of his homecoming it
was Mona--again--who thought first of his grief, and not of her own
happiness; and holding his head close, pressing his rough cheek in the
palm of her soft hand, she told him how Carter had sent word to her
all the way down through the wilderness, and how she had kept Carter's
message to herself--as he had asked her to do--and had waited night and
day for his coming with prayers of gratitude in her heart, and sorrow
for him.
"And Carter promised to bring you to me," she whispered, "because he
said that in the end he had learned to love your father--and you."