Where the shadow of Pierre Gourdon's cabin fell deepest a man had
dragged himself and lay like a dark and lifeless blot. Since Peter had
tapped at the window this man had scarcely moved, except to breathe and
change his position a little as he watched the lovers out in the light
of the moon and stars. They were very near to him, so near he might
have touched them with a pole less than the length of that which Peter
had used. And he heard the girl speak of Carter, and of what Carter had
done.
It was then he drew himself slowly away, moving with the stealth and
caution of one to whom freedom from discovery meant a great deal. Not
until the cabin was fully between him and those he had spied upon did
he rise to his feet. This movement was slow and brought a gasp of
pain from him. He did not stand straight. His shoulders were bent. He
was hatless and ragged and his arms and breast were half stripped of
clothing. In his hand he carried a heavy stick, and with this stick he
helped himself to walk as he struck out in the moonlight.
He tried to hurry, but at best his progress was not fast, and to make
up for lack of speed he kept the cabin between him and the two from
whom he was running away. In the shadow of a second cabin he stopped
to rest, breathing deeply, as if what he had accomplished had cost him
great effort. One at a time he passed the dwellings in the settlement
and made his way across the green open to the little log church. Here
he rested for a longer period, and in these moments he noted with
satisfaction that trees threw a deep and continuous shadow between him
and the edge of the forest.
The door of Father Albanel's church was never locked and after a little
he opened it and entered. But he bolted it carefully behind him. Then
he groped his way through the moonlit seats and opened a window. After
that he found the rope which rang the bell.
Never in its history had Five Fingers roused itself to the ringing of
the bell as it was rung tonight. It was not the Sabbath message. It was
not Father Albanel's sweet, slow tolling of peace on earth and good
will toward men, nor was it the sad and slumberous requiem for the
dead. It was, instead, a wild exultation, an almost savage triumph, a
pealing alarm that called upon every soul in the settlement to rise up
in instant wakefulness. It filled the forest until its notes beat one
upon another and the hills and ridges caught them up and flung them
back as they had never done before. Men rose out of their sleep and
stumbled for matches; a light appeared here, another there, and still
the bell continued to ring until not a cabin in Five Fingers remained
in darkness.
Not until then did the man who had rung the bell drop from the window
of the little church and steal through the shadows of the trees into
the forest. There he did not pause but went on with the slowness of
either age or exhaustion until he was swallowed in the deeper secrecy
of the woods.
Pierre Gourdon came first out into the night, bareheaded and in his
shirt-sleeves, and in front of his cabin he found Mona ahead of him
with her long hair streaming down her back and a strange man's arms
tightly about her. Almost fiercely he tore them apart--and then he saw
it was Peter.
Jame Clamart came running up a moment later, and it was Jame who first
sent the news abroad in a shout which, next to the mad ringing of the
bell, was the wildest thing ever heard in Five Fingers between the hour
of midnight and one o'clock in the morning.
"Peter McRae has come back!" he yelled. "Peter
McRae--_has_--_come_--_back_!"
Swifter almost than men could travel word passed that this was the
reason for the ringing of the bell--Peter McRae had come home after two
years, and Father Albanel, or some other, had wakened them from their
sleep to welcome him.
Pierre's women were first to take Peter away from Mona--Josette,
coming first, and then Marie Antoinette. And after them came Adette
Clamart. When she saw Peter she gave a little screech and threw her
arms around his neck, kissing him before her husband and all, and then
she fell upon Mona and cried hard in her gladness. The little group
grew larger; voices, glad laughter, tremulous excitement filled the
air, but suddenly a hush fell as a tall and gaunt-faced figure stalked
up through the silvery haze of the night and old Simon McQuarrie
shouldered his way among them.
He said nothing when he came face to face with Peter, but for a moment
held him off at arm's length, his stern face working in a strange sort
of way, and then, as Mona crept to his side, he clasped them both in
his arms and stood for a few moments with his head bowed close down to
theirs.
And then a whisper of gladness ran among the women, for Father Albanel
stood beside Mona and Peter and the little gray missioner's face was
streaming with tears of happiness as he, too, put his arms gently about
them.
"It was Father Albanel who rang the bell," the women whispered softly
among themselves.
And to this day the people of Five Fingers believe that he did.
But on this night, Father Albanel was neither crooked nor bent, nor did
he walk with the aid of a stick.
* * * * *
To Peter it was like a dream, a glorious dream of friendship and of a
love that lifted his soul above all thought of fear and tragedy, and
not until he was alone with Simon in the cabin which had been his home
for so many years before he went away with his father did he think of
Aleck Curry or of the payment he had promised himself to be ready to
make to the law. But the thing which happiness had held back came out
now.
The old Scotchman heard Peter's story from the night of the flight
almost two years ago, when the forests were burning in the great fire
about Five Fingers. And then Peter learned, in turn, that Aleck Curry
had built himself a shack in the edge of the timber and was quite
frequently at Five Fingers, usually remaining for a week or two at a
time. He was there now. That very evening Simon had met him face to
face in company with one of the half-dozen government surveyors who for
a year or more had been working up and down the shore. He was surprised
that the ringing of the bell and the excitement had not brought Curry
upon the scene. Probably he was with the surveyors at their camp.
Tomorrow he would show up.
"And you haven't any idea what became of Carter?" Simon asked.
Peter shook his head. "He simply disappeared. I cannot guess why. Maybe
he, too, will show up tomorrow."
"Peter, who rang the bell?"
Peter flushed under his darkened skin. "I think Father Albanel saw Mona
and me in the moonlight. He always loved to wander about late at night,
when the moon was bright."
Simon's gaunt face broke into a strange smile.
"It wasn't Father Albanel who rang the bell," he said.
"No?" Peter looked at him sharply. "Then it was you, Simon! You saw us?"
"No. I was asleep--sound asleep. But I know who rang the bell. It was
Carter!"
A little thrill leaped through Peter. "It is impossible. Carter would
not have run away from me for _that_. Besides----"
He did not finish, for Simon had risen and was looking out through the
window in a way that puzzled him.
"I'm going down to the church," he said. "And I'm going the back way,
along the edge of the woods, so that no one will see me. Want to go?"
They stole forth through the moonlight into the shadows of the forest.
When they came to the church Simon tried the door.
"Locked!" he said. "That is unusual!"
A few seconds later they stood at the open window. Through this they
climbed and one after another the Scotchman lighted a dozen matches
until they knew that no one could have remained hidden inside. Simon
then closed the window and led the way out through the door, leaving it
unlocked.
"Careless of him," he grunted. "We'll leave the place just as he found
it. Fewer questions will be asked."
He did not speak again until they were once more in their own cabin.
Peter, feeling the completeness of his exhaustion now, was about
to ascend the ladder to his own bed when Simon rested a hand on his
shoulder.
"Boy," he whispered, "whatever happens after this, forget that Carter
came down from the north with you and that he ran away from you back
there on the trail. Understand, laddie? _Forget it!_ Lie about it if
you have to. For I believe it was Carter who rang that bell tonight,
and if he did, and it should so turn out that something has happened
to Aleck Curry--why--you see--it might be a suspicious circumstance,
pointing to a thing which you and I, with God's blessing on us, will
always know could never be true!"
Even these words, making significantly clear the suspicion which was
in Simon's mind, could not keep Peter from thinking of Mona, and of
Mona alone, when he went to bed. But he awoke with the first crowing
of Simon McQuarrie's roosters, three hours later. He was going to take
breakfast with Mona, he told Simon, and as he was an appalling mess he
needed a lot of time to prepare for it. For two hours he scrubbed and
shaved and shampooed and manicured himself, and then dressed in the
best outfit he had left behind him two years ago.
It was only a quarter of six when he finished, but an hour before,
he had seen a light in Mona's room and now smoke was rising from the
chimney over Josette Gourdon's kitchen.
He went out the back way, as he and Simon had gone a few hours earlier,
and was sure he had succeeded in coming up behind Pierre's cabin
without giving any evidence of himself. But Mona's eyes were bright and
her cheeks were flushed as he stood very still for a few moments in the
doorway, though her back was toward him, and she seemed to be absorbed
in a number of purposeless little details at the kitchen table. Peter
made no sound, unless the pounding of his heart could be called that.
There was a change after all--a change which the silvery radiance of
the moon had veiled from him last night. Mona _was_ taller, and--even
as he was looking at her now, without clearly seeing her face--she
was so much lovelier than when he had left Five Fingers that he was a
little frightened. Carter was right. It had taken those two years to
make her even more beautiful than Marie Antoinette. And he continued to
stand where he was, thinking himself undiscovered, worshiping her in
silence from the heels of her little feet to the top of her lustrous
head as if a word or a movement from him would destroy the transcendent
reality of it all.
Mona's cheeks grew pinker and her eyes brighter.
Then she turned upon him so suddenly and with such an unexpected
knowledge of his presence filling her eyes with laughter and joy that
in one swift moment Peter had her in his arms, and kissed her so wildly
on eyes and lips and hair that she was compelled to hide her face
against his breast to get breath.
"You are--breaking me," she protested. "You have grown so strong,
Peter. And you are tumbling my hair down that I put up with so much
care, because this is Sunday!"
She leaned back and shook her head so that the loosened coils of her
hair flooded down about her shoulders in a radiant protest to her words.
"The two happiest days of my life have been Sundays," he said, holding
her more gently.
"This is one, Peter?"
"Yes."
"And the other?" she asked, as if she had forgotten it entirely.
"Was that first day you took me to church, when I thought you were a
little white angel, and sang with you, and dared to take a tress of
your hair in my fingers when I thought you didn't know it."
"And since that day I've loved you, Peter. Yes, I loved you in that
very hour when you bit Aleck Curry's ear!"
He filled his hands with the loosened masses of her hair, crushing the
soft coils between his fingers.
"_Kiss me._"
"Sh-h!" She put a finger to his lips. "It is Aunt Josette! I hear her
coming! I must run up the back way and fix my hair!"
"It is unthoughtful of Aunt Josette----"
"But she is coming!"
"_Kiss me!_"
She pressed her warm lips to his, and he let her go. Scarcely had she
escaped when Josette's light footsteps sounded in the dining-room, and
a moment later she appeared in the kitchen. Peter was stirring pancake
batter.
"Mona gave me this job," he tried to explain. "She'll be back in a
minute."
Josette smiled at him sweetly, and then quite innocently picked up
several hairpins from the floor. "How careless of me to lose these!"
she exclaimed, but there was a roguish light in her dark eyes which did
not quite escape Peter as she tucked the pins in her own thick tresses.
To Peter it was as if he had gone away yesterday, and returned today.
Pierre came in yawning, and found him helping with the breakfast. When
Mona reappeared her hair was in a long braid. Never had he seen such
lovely, velvety softness in her eyes or such sweet color in her face.
Josette, with a sly signal to Pierre, maneuvered them to the open door.
"When we are ready for you children we'll call you," she said.
They walked toward the forest. And there, in the edge of the beautiful
green meadow which had always been hallowed as their playground, he saw
for the first time a new cabin nearly finished. Mona was looking at
him. She saw the surprise and then the cloud that gathered in his face.
She took his hand, and her fingers clung to his.
"You don't like it?" she asked.
"It is a nice cabin, but----"
He did not know how to finish. She looked down, very demurely, so that
he could not see her eyes for the long lashes that hid them.
"It is my cabin."
"_Yours!_"
"Yes, mine. Maybe I shouldn't tell you the secret, Peter, but I'm going
to be married."
It seemed impossible that a human heart could rise up and choke one as
quickly as Peter's did.
Mona was still looking at the ground.
"You see, Carter told me in his letter to confide in Simon. And when
Simon knew you were coming, and would of course have to marry me very
soon, we planned this cabin together and Simon is going to give it to
me as a wedding present. Then I'm going to let you live in it. Don't
you think I'm nice?"
Peter stopped. Mona looked up, frightened.
"Don't, Peter--don't!" she entreated. "Aunt Josette is looking, and
Uncle Pierre will see you, and all the rest of Five Fingers----"
But all the rest of the world could not have stopped Peter. He crumpled
her in his arms.
* * * * *
That day was one in which Peter could not bring himself to reveal to
Mona the uncertainty which had been a part of his homecoming. Her
happiness completely possessed him, and as hour after hour passed he
found himself further than at the beginning from carrying out his
resolution to tell her the price which he fully expected the law would
ask of him. That he could expect no mercy from Aleck Curry, he assured
himself through Simon. But he did not see Aleck, nor did he mention him
to Mona. She sensed no danger. No one in Five Fingers could guess at
the menace which hung over him, for he believed that even Simon did not
know of that first morning of his father's flight when he had committed
the fatal sin of firing upon the law. From the fact that Aleck had kept
this crime a secret he realized the nearness and deadliness of the trap
which would soon spring upon him.
But Aleck did not appear. It was not until after morning service in
the little church that Mona mentioned him quite casually. He was
bigger and coarser and more detestable than ever, she told Peter. He
had tried to pay some attention to her, and she knew that he and Simon
had frequently had words. It was through his uncle, she said, that he
had been given this lazy assignment, covering the country between the
railroad settlements and Five Fingers.
In the afternoon Peter met Simon alone.
The lines in the old Scotchman's face seemed to have grown deeper since
morning. They were like little creases cut in stone.
"I have been over to the surveyors' camp," he said. "Curry hasn't been
there since yesterday morning. And he didn't sleep in his bed last
night."
"He has gone to the settlements," suggested Peter.
"His pack and traveling dunnage are in his shack," answered Simon. "He
hasn't gone to the settlements." Simon did not once let his eyes meet
Peter's squarely. He spoke even carelessly as he looked away. "You
haven't forgotten what I told you about Carter?"
"No."
"That is well. I wouldn't be surprised if something happened to Curry
last night. I saw him dead drunk at dusk--starting out alone along the
cliff to the west. I told him to come back, and he cursed me."
Simon McQuarrie could not hide a lie. And Peter knew he was lying.
A little later Simon struck off into the woods to the east and did
not return until after dark. At bedtime Peter asked if he had found
anything of interest.
"Only a hungry man. I happened to have a lunch in my pocket. The poor
devil was so weak he was hobbling along with a stick."
"Who was he?"
"I didn't ask his name." Simon turned his back to Peter as he prepared
for bed. "Queer I didn't ask his name--but I didn't."
On the third day after this night Five Fingers received a stupendous
shock. Simon McQuarrie and Father Albanel, in seeking lost net buoys
under the Big Cliff, had found the body of a dead man. It was Aleck
Curry. He was terribly broken and almost unrecognizable by the pounding
of his body in the surf that washed in and out among the rocks. The
story of his end was quite clear. He had evidently stumbled over
the edge of the cliff while drunk, inasmuch as Simon had seen him
staggering in its direction on the night he had disappeared.
"We'll take him to the nearest railroad settlement and let his friends
have him," Simon said to the men of Five Fingers.
But to Father Albanel he added, in a voice which others did not hear,
"It would be unpleasant, _mon père_, to have him always in our own
little cemetery where only those we love are at rest."
And so, on that same day, all that was left of Aleck Curry was borne
northward through the hills and ridges to his people.
Three weeks later Mona and Peter were married. Five Fingers will never
forget that day. It was in the full glory of June, and the robins and
thrushes were singing outside the little church. In spite of Peter's
protest Mona teased him by insisting that she would not tell him where
she wanted to spend her honeymoon until the little missioner had said
the last words, and they were man and wife. And then, putting her soft
mouth to Peter's ear, she whispered, "I want to stay in the new cabin
which Simon is giving us."
So there, from the beginning, they found their new happiness, and
Pierre Gourdon and Josette would walk in the twilights of summer
evenings, lovers still, and never grow tired of painting for each other
the beautiful and unforgetable pictures of many years ago when they
had come through the pathless wilderness to make this paradise in which
God, in His great goodness, had made the last of their dreams come true.
* * * * *
It was on an afternoon in August that Adette Clamart came to Mona's
home with her cousin, Adele, who had come from the French country of
Quebec to live with her, and announced that a stranger had arrived in
Five Fingers and was talking with Simon in his cabin.
"Adele met him on the settlement trail," she said. "He carried a basket
of flowers for her, and was so very nice that she has fallen in love
with him. Haven't you, Adele?"
"He was very stiff and frightened every time I looked at him," replied
Adele, "and I felt sorry for him. But he was nice--yes. And he had--how
do I say it, Adette?--such a strange, stern face, with sadness in
it--and----"
"Ugh!" shuddered Adette. "He was dangerously hungry, Adele. I know
because Jame gets that way."
"Whoever he is--_he is coming_!" said Mona, looking through the open
door.
And so he was, with the old Scotchman on one side of him and Peter on
the other, as if they were pulling him along against his will. And as
they came nearer Mona's heart gave a sudden flutter, and then a great
jump, for this stranger who had carried Adele's flowers was Carter the
man-hunter.
She ran out to meet him, and though she said only a few trembling words
of welcome a light which Carter saw in her eyes made him draw in a
quick breath of gratitude and joy.
"The new superintendent of the mill," announced Simon a little
pompously, when Adette and Adele had joined them. "I'm getting lazy and
he is taking my place. Quite a surprise! But we've been planning it a
long time, haven't we, Carter?" And Simon laughed mysteriously.
Then came a sudden interruption. The bell over the little church began
to ring as it had rung on a certain midnight weeks ago. And this time
it was surely Father Albanel who was tugging at the rope. In his face
was a flush of benevolent joy, and the louder the bell rang the rosier
his cheeks grew, and there alone in the church he laughed like a boy.
Nudging Carter, whose face had grown strangely fixed and staring, Simon
McQuarrie chuckled softly at his shoulder: "Someone rang the bell like
that on the night Peter came home. And _now_, Carter, it is ringing our
welcome to _you_!"
Observing Mona a few moments later, Adette wondered what had happened
to make her eyelashes wet with tears.
Peter understood, and his hand found Mona's and held it tenderly. With
an inspiration born of words which Carter had once said to him about
a girl waiting at the end of the trail, he found the opportunity to
whisper, "Ask Carter to have supper with us, and also _Adele_."
This Mona did in her own sweet fashion, making sure of Carter first,
and after his acceptance calling upon Adele to lend herself to his
entertainment in a way which gave her no possible excuse for a refusal,
had such a thought come into her mind. Simon looked shrewdly at Mona
and Adette. Then he turned toward the green ridges to the north over
which billowy white clouds were rising.
"It's going to rain," he said. "I smell it in the air. It will come
tonight."
"The crops need it," said Peter.
"And most of all--the flowers," added Adele, looking at Carter.
"Yes, the flowers--and the woods," he nodded. "It is very dry in the
timber for this season of the year."
Mona and Peter turned toward their cabin, and Mona's eyes shot a sly
signal to Adette. Jame's wife took firm hold of Simon's arm. "If you
know what is good for you--come with me!" she whispered, with her back
turned to Adele and Carter.
For a moment Carter stood helplessly. Then he moved to Adele's side and
they followed Mona and Peter.
"You like flowers, Miss Adele?"
"I love them, Mr. Carter!"
As they passed through the door Mona squeezed her husband's hand.
"It was a wonderful thought, Peter. Do you think you can kiss me very
quickly before they come in?"
"I am sure that I can," replied Peter--and kissed her.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's
original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Gentleman of Courage, by James Oliver Curwood