they had gone a groan of anguish broke from his lips. For he knew that
little Isobel was going from him forever. He would see her again--
from the edge of the forest; but he would never hold her in his arms,
nor feel again her tender arms about his neck or the soft smother of
her hair against his face. Long before the dread menace of the plague
was lifted from the cabin and from himself he would be gone. For that
was what Isobel, the mother, had demanded, and he would keep his
promise to her. She would never know what happened in these days of
her delirium. She would not have to face him afterward. He knew
already how he would go. When help came he would slip away quietly
some night, and the big wilderness would swallow him up. His plans
seemed to come without thought on his own part. He would go to Fort
Churchill and testify against Bucky Smith. And then he would quit the
Service. His term of enlistment expired in a month, and he would not
re-enlist. "It was the Law that killed him-- and you are the Law. It
kills-- kills-- kills-- and it never gives back when it makes a
mistake." Under the dark sky those words seemed never to end in his
ears, and each moment they added to his hatred of the thing of which
he had been a part for years. He seemed to hear Isobel's accusing
voice in the low soughing of the night wind in the spruce tops; and in
the stillness of the world that hung heavy and close about him the
words chased each other through his brain until they seemed to leave
behind them a path of fire.
"It kills-- kills-- kills-- and it never gives back when it makes a
mistake."
His lips were set tensely as he faced the cabin. He remembered now
more than one instance where the Law had killed and had never given
back. That was a part of the game of man-hunting. But he had never
thought of it in Isobel's way until she had painted for him in those
few half-mad, accusing words a picture of himself. The fact that he
had fought for Scottie Deane and had given him his freedom did not
exonerate himself in his own eyes now. It was because of himself and
Pelliter chiefly that Deane and Isobel had been forced to seek refuge
among the Eskimos. From Fullerton they had watched and hunted for him
as they would have hunted for an animal. He saw himself as Isobel must
see him now-- the murderer of her husband. He was glad, as he returned
to the cabin, that he had happened to come in the second or third day
of her fever. He dreaded her sanity now more than her delirium,
He lighted a tin lamp in the cabin and listened for a moment at the
inner door. Isobel was quiet. For the first time he made a more
careful note of the cabin. Couchée and his wife had left plenty of
food. He had noticed a frozen haunch of venison hanging outside the
cabin, and he went out and chopped off several pieces of the meat. He
did not feel hungry enough to prepare food for himself, but put the
meat in a pot and placed it on the stove, that he might have broth for
Isobel.
He began to find signs of her presence in the room as he moved about.
Hanging on a wooden peg in the log wall he saw a scarf which he knew
belonged to her. Under the scarf there was a pair of her shoes, and
then he noticed that the crude cabin table was covered with a litter
of stuff which he had not observed before. There were needles and
thread, some cloth, a pair of gloves, and a red bow of ribbon which
Isobel had worn at her throat. What held his eyes were two bundles of
old letters tied with blue ribbon, and a third pile, undone and
scattered. In the light of the lamp he saw that all of the writing on
the envelopes was in the same hand. The top envelope on the first pile
was addressed to "Mrs. Isobel Deane, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan"; the
first envelope of the other bundle to "Miss Isobel Rowland, Montreal,
Canada." Billy's heart choked him as he gathered the loose letters in
his hands and placed them, with the others, on a little shelf above
the table. He knew that they were letters from Deane, and that in her
fever and loneliness Isobel had been reading them when he brought to
her news of her husband's death.
He was about to remove the other articles from the table where a
folded newspaper clipping was uncovered by the removal of the cloth.
It was a half page from a Montreal daily, and out of it there looked
straight up at him the face of Isobel Deane. It was a younger, more
girlish-looking face, but to him it was not half so beautiful as the
face of the Isobel who had come to him from out of the Barren. His
fingers trembled and his breath came more quickly as he held the paper
in the light and read the few lines under the picture:
ISOBEL ROWLAND, ONE OF THE LAST OF MONTREAL'S DAUGHTERS OF THE
NORTH, WHO HAS SACRIFICED A FORTUNE FOR LOVE OF A YOUNG ENGINEER
In spite of the feeling of shame that crept over him at thus allowing
himself to be drawn into a past sacred to Isobel and the man who had
died, Billy's eyes sought the date-line. The paper was eight years
old. And then he read what followed. In those few minutes, as the
cold, black type revealed to him the story of Isobel and Deane, he
forgot that he was in the cabin, and that he could almost hear the
breathing of the woman whose sweet romance had ended now in tragedy.
He was with Deane that day, years ago, when he had first looked into
Isobel's eyes in the little old cemetery of nameless and savage dead
at Ste. Anne de Beaupré; he heard the tolling of the ancient bell in
the church that had stood on the hillside for more than two hundred
and fifty years; and he could hear Deane's voice as he told Isobel the
story of that bell and how, in the days of old, it had often called
the settlers in to fight against the Indians. And then, as he read on,
he could feel the sudden thrill in Deane's blood when Isobel had told
him who she was, and that Pierre Radisson, one of the great lords of
the north, had been her great-grandfather; that he had brought
offerings to the little old church, and that he had fought there and
died close by, and that his body was somewhere among the nameless and
unmarked dead. It was a beautiful story, and MacVeigh saw more of it
between the lines than could ever have been printed. Once he had gone
to Ste. Anne de Beaupré to see the pilgrims and the miracles there,
and there flashed before him the sunlit slope overlooking the broad
St. Lawrence, where Isobel and Deane had afterward met, and where she
had told him how large a part the little old cracked bell, the ancient
church, and the plot of nameless dead had played in her life ever
since she could remember. His blood grew hot as he read of what
followed the beginning of love at the pilgrims' shrine. Isobel had no
father or mother, the paper said. Her uncle and guardian was an iron
master of the old blood-- the blood that had been a part of the
wilderness and the great company since the day the first "gentlemen
adventurers" came over with Prince Rupert. He lived alone with Isobel
in a big white house on the top of a hill, shut in by stone walls and
iron pickets, and looked out upon the world with the cold hauteur of a
feudal lord. He was young David Deane's enemy from the moment he first
heard about him, largely because he was nothing more than a struggling
mining engineer, but chiefly because he was an American and had come
from across the border. The stone walls and iron pickets were made a
barrier to him. The heavy gates never opened for him. Then had come
the break. Isobel, loyal in her love, had gone to Deane. The story
ended there.
For a few moments Billy stood with the paper in his hand, the type a
blur before his eyes. He could almost see Isobel's old home in
Montreal. It was on the steep, shaded road leading up to Mount Royal,
where he had once watched a string of horses "tacking" with their
two-wheeled carts of coal in their arduous journey to Sir George
Allen's basement at the end of it. He remembered how that street had
held a curious sort of fascination for him, with its massive stone
walls, its old French homes, and that old atmosphere still clinging to
it of the Montreal of a hundred years ago. Twelve years before he had
gone there first and carved his name on the wooden stairway leading to
the top of the mountain. Isobel had been there then. Perhaps it was
she he had heard singing behind one of the walls.
He put the paper with the letters, making a note of the uncle's name.
If anything happened it would be his duty to send word to him--
perhaps. And then, deliberately, he tore into little pieces the slip
of paper on which he had written the name. Geoffrey Renaud had cast
off his niece. And if she died why should he-- Billy MacVeigh-- tell
him anything about little Isobel? Since Isobel's terrible castigation
of himself and the Law duty had begun to hold a diferent meaning for
him.
Several times during the next hour Billy listened at the door. Then he
made some tea and toast and took the broth from the stove. He went
into the room, leaving these on the hearth of the stove so that they
would not grow cold. He heard Isobel move, and as he went to her side
she gave a little breathless cry.
"David-- David-- is it you?" she moaned. "Oh, David, I'm so glad you
have come!"
Billy stood over her. In the darkness his face was ashen gray, for
like a flash of fire in the lightless room the truth rushed upon him.
Shock and fever had done their work. And in her delirium Isobel
believed that he was Deane, her husband. In the gloom he saw that she
was reaching up her arms to him.
"David!" she whispered; and in her voice there were a love and
gladness that thrilled and terrified him to the quick of his soul.
XVIII
THE FULFILMENT OF A PROMISE
In the space of silence that followed Isobel's whispered words there
came to Billy a realization of the crisis which he faced. The thought
of surrendering himself to his first impulse, and of taking Deane's
place in these hours of Isobel's fever, filled him instantly with a
revulsion that sent him back a step from the bed, his hands clenched
until his nails hurt his calloused palms.
"No, no, I am not David," he began, but the words died in his throat.
To tell her that, to make her know the truth-- that her husband was
dead-- might kill her now. Hope, belief that he was alive and with
her, would help to make her live. So quickly that he could not have
spoken his thoughts in words these things flashed upon him. If Deane
were alive and at her side his presence would save her. And if she
believed that he was Deane he would save her. In the end she would
never know. He remembered how Pelliter had forgotten things that had
happened in his delirium. To Isobel, when she awakened into sanity, it
would only seem like a dream at most. A few words from him then would
convince her of that. If necessary, he would tell her that she had
talked much about David in her fever and had imagined him with her.
She would have no suspicion that he had played that part.
Isobel had waited a moment, but now she whispered again, as if a
little frightened at his silence.
"David-- David--"
He stepped back quickly to the bed and his hands met those reaching up
to him. They were hot and dry, and Isobel's fingers tightened about
his own almost fiercely, and drew his hands down on her breast. She
gave a sigh, as though she would rest easier now that his hands were
touching her.
"I have been making some broth for you," he said, scarcely daring to
speak. "Will you take some of it, Isobel? You must-- and sleep."
He felt the pressure of Isobel's hands, and she spoke to him so calmly
that for a breath he thought that she must surely be herself again.
"I don't like the dark, David," she said. "I can't see you. And I want
to do up my hair. Will you bring in a light?"
"Not until you are better," he whispered. "A light will hurt your
eyes. I will stay with you-- near you--"
She raised a hand in the darkness, and it stroked his face. In that
touch were all the love and gentleness that had lived for the man who
was dead, and the caress thrilled Billy until it seemed as though what
was in his heart must burst forth in a sobbing breath. Suddenly her
hand left his face, and he heard her moving restlessly.
"My hair-- David--"
He put out a hand, and it fell in the soft smother of her hair. It was
tangled about her face and neck, and he lifted her gently while he
drew out the thick masses of it. He did not dare to speak while he
smoothed out the rich tresses and pleated them into a braid. Isobel
sighed restfully when he had done.
"I am going to get the broth now," he said then.
He went into the outer room where the lamp was lighted. Not until he
took up the cup of broth did he notice how his hand trembled. A bit of
the broth spilled on the floor, and he dropped a piece of the toast.
He, too, was passing through the crucible with Isobel Deane.
He went back and lifted her so that her head rested against his
shoulder and the warmth of her hair lay against his cheek and neck.
Obediently she ate the half-dozen bits of toast he moistened in the
broth, and then drank a few sips of the liquid. She would have rested
there after that, with her face turned against his, and Billy knew
that she would have slept. But he lowered her gently to the pillow.
"You must go to sleep now," he urged, softly. "Good night--"
"David!"
"Yes--"
"You-- you-- haven't-- kissed-- me--"
There was a childish plaint in her voice, and with a sob in his own
breath he bent over her. For an instant her arms clung about his neck.
He felt the sweet, thrilling touch of her warm lips, and then he drew
himself back; and, with her "Good night, David" following him to the
door, he went into the outer room, and with a strange, broken cry
flung himself on the cot in which Couchée had slept.
It was an hour before he raised his face from the blankets. Yet he had
not slept. In that hour, and in the half-hour that had preceded it in
Isobel's room, there had come lines into his face which made him look
older. Once Isobel had kissed him, and he had treasured that kiss as
the sweetest thing that had come to him in all his life. And to-night
she had given him more than that, for there had been love, and not
gratitude alone, in the warmth of her lips, in the caress of her hands
and arms, and in the pressure of her feverish face against his own.
But they brought him none of the pleasure of that which she had given
to him on the Barren. Grief-stricken, he rose and faced the door. In
spite of the fact that he knew there was no alternative for him, he
regarded himself as worse than a thief. He was taking an advantage of
her which filled him with a repugnance for himself, and he prayed for
the hour when sanity would return to her, though it brought back the
heartbreak and despair that were now lost in the oblivion of her
fever. Always in the northland there is somewhere the dread trail of
le mort rouge, the "red death," and he was well acquainted with the
course it would have to run. He believed that the fever had stricken
Isobel the third or fourth day before, and there would follow three or
four days more in which she would not be herself. Then would come the
reaction. She would awaken to the truth then that her husband was
dead, and that he had been with her alone all that time.
He listened for a moment at the door. Isobel was resting quietly, and
he went out of the cabin without making a sound. The night had grown
blacker and gloomier. There was not a rift in the sullen darkness of
the sky over him. A wind had risen from out of the north and east,
just enough of a wind to set the tree-tops moaning and fill the
closed-in world about him with uneasy sound. He walked toward the tent
where little Isobel had been, and there was something in the air that
choked him. He wished that he had not sent all of the dogs with
McTabb. A terrible loneliness oppressed him. It was like a clammy hand
smothering his heart in its grip, and it made him sick. He turned and
looked at the light in the cabin. Isobel was there, and he had thought
that where she was he could never be lonely. But he knew now that
there lay between them a gulf which an eternity could not bridge.
He shuddered, for with the night wind it seemed to him that there came
again the presence of Scottie Deane. He gripped his hands and stared
out into a pit of blackness. It was as if he had heard the Wild
Horsemen passing that way, panting and galloping through the spruce
tops on their mission of gathering the souls of the dead. Deane was
with him, as his spirit had been with him on that night he had
returned to Pelliter after putting the cross over Scottie's grave. And
in a moment or two the feeling of that presence seemed to lift the
smothering weight from his heart. He knew that Deane could understand,
and the presence comforted him. He went to the tent and looked in,
though there was nothing to see. And then he turned back to the cabin.
Thought of the grave with its sapling cross brought home to him his
duty to the woman. From the rubber pouch he brought forth his pad of
paper and a pencil.
For more than an hour after that he worked. steadily in the dull glow
of the lamp. He knew that Isobel would return to Deane. It might be
soon-- or a long time from now. But she would go. And step by step he
mapped out for her the trail that led to the little cabin on the edge
of the Barren. And after that he wrote in his big, rough hand what was
overflowing from his heart.
"May God take care of you always. I would give my life to give you
back his. I won't let his grave be lost. I will go back some day and
plant blue flowers over it. I guess you will never know what I would
do to give him back to you and make you happy."
He knew that he had not promised what he would fail to do. He would
return to the lonely grave on the edge of the Barren. There was
something that called him to it now, something that he could not
understand, and which came of his own desolation. He folded the pages
of paper, wrapped them in a clean sheet, and wrote Isobel Deans's name
on the outside. Then he placed the packet with the letters on the
shelf over the table. He knew that she would find it with them.
What happened during the terrible week that followed that night no one
but MacVeigh would ever know. To him they were seven days of a fight
whose memory would remain with him until the end of time. Sleepless
nights and almost sleepless days. A bitter struggle, almost without
rest, with the horrible specter that ever hovered within the inner
room. A struggle that drew his cheeks in and put deep lines in his
face; a struggle during which Isobel's voice spoke tenderly and
pleadingly with him in one hour and bitterly in the next. He felt the
caress of her hands. More than once she drew him down to the soft
thrill of her feverish lips. And then, in more terrible moments, she
accused him of hunting to death the man who lay back under the sapling
cross. The three days of torment lengthened into four, and the four
into seven, To the bottom of his soul he suffered, for he understood
what it all meant for him. On the third and the fifth and the seventh
days he went over to McTabb's cabin, and Rookie came out and talked
with him at a distance through a birchbark megaphone. On the seventh
day there was still no news of Indian Joe and his mother. And on this
day Billy played his last part as Deane. He went into her room at noon
with broth and toast and a dish of water, and after she had eaten a
little he lifted her and made a prop of blankets at her back so that
he could brush out and braid her beautiful hair. It was light in the
room in spite of the curtain which he kept closely drawn. Outside the
sun was shining brightly, and the pale luster of it came through the
curtain and lit up the rich tresses he was brushing. When he was done
he lowered her gently to her pillow. She was looking at him strangely.
And then, with a shock that seemed to turn him cold to the depths of
his soul, he saw what was in her eyes. Sanity and reason. He saw
swiftly gathering in them the old terror, the old grief-- recognition
of his true self! He waited to hear no word, but turned as he had done
a hundred times before and left the room.
In the outer room he stood for a few silent minutes, gathering
strength for the ordeal that was near. The end was at hand-- for him.
He choked back his weakness, and after a time returned to the inner
door. But now he did not go in as he had entered before. He knocked.
It was the first time. And Isobel's voice bade him enter.
His heart was filled with a sudden throbbing pain when he saw that she
had turned so that she lay with her face turned away from him. He bent
over her and said, softly:
"You are better. The danger is past."
"I am better and-- and-- it is over?" he heard her whisper.
"Yes."
"The-- the baby?"
"Is well-- yes."
There was a moment's silence. The room seemed to tremble with it. Then
she said, faintly:
"You have been alone?"
"Yes-- alone-- for seven days."
She turned her eyes upon him fully. He could see the glow of them in
the faint light. It seemed to him that she was reading him to the
depths of his soul, and that in this moment she knew! She knew that he
had taken the part of David, and suddenly she turned her face away
from him again with a strange, choking sob. He could feel her
trembling. She seemed, struggling for breath and strength, and he
heard again the words "You-- you-- you--"
"Yes, yes-- I know-- I understand," he said, and his heart choked him.
"You must be quiet-- now. I promised you that if you got well I would
go. And-- I will. No one will ever know. I will go."
"And you will never come to me again?" Her voice was terribly quiet
and cold.
"Never," he said. "I swear that."
She had drawn away from him now until he could see nothing of her but
the shimmer of her thick braid where it lay in a ray of light. But he
could hear her sobbing breath. She scarcely knew when he left the
room, he went so quietly. He closed her door after him, and this time
he latched it. The outer door was open, and suddenly he heard that for
which he had been waiting and listening-- the short, sharp yelping of
dogs, and a human voice.
In three leaps he was out in the open. Halfway across the narrow
clearing Indian Joe had halted with his team. One glance at the sledge
showed Billy that Joe's mother had not failed him. A thin, weazened
little old woman scrambled from a pile of bearskins as he ran toward
them. She had sunken eyes that watched his approach with a ratlike
glitter, and her naked hands were so emaciated that they looked like
claws; but in spite of her unprepossessing appearance Billy almost
hugged her in his delight at their coming. Maballa was her name,
Rookie had told him, and she understood and could talk English better
than her son. Billy told her of the condition in the cabin, and when
he had finished she took a small pack from the sledge, cackled a few
words to Indian Joe, and followed him without a moment's hesitation.
That she had no fear of the plague added to Billy's feeling of relief.
As soon as she had taken off her hood and heavy blanket she went
fearlessly into the inner room, and a moment later Billy heard her
talking to Isobel.
It took him but a few moments to gather up the few things he possessed
and put them in his pack. Then he went out and took down his tent.
Indian Joe had already gone, and he followed in his trail. An hour
later McTabb appeared at the door of his cabin, summoned by Billy's
shout. He circled about and came up with the wind, until he stood
within fifty paces of MacVeigh. Billy told him what he was going to
do. He was going to Churchill, and would leave Isobel and the baby in
his care. From Fort Churchill he would send back an escort to take the
woman and little Isobel down to civilization. He wanted fresh
clothes-- anything he could wear. Those he had on he would be
compelled to burn. He suggested that he could get into one of Indian
Joe's outfits, if he had any spare garments, and McTabb went back to
the cabin, returning a few minutes later with an armful of clothes.
"Here's everything you'll need, except an undershirt an' drawers,"
said McTabb, placing them in a pile on the snow. "I'll wait a little
while you're changing. Better burn those quick. The wind might change,
and I don't want to be caught in a whiff of it."
He moved to a safe distance while Billy secured the clothes and went
into the timber. From a birch tree he pulled off a pile of bark, and
as he stripped he put his old clothes on it. McTabb could hear the
crackling and snapping of the fire when Billy reappeared arrayed in
Indian Joe's "second best"-- buckskin trousers, a worn and tattered
fur coat, a fisher-skin cap, and moccasins a size too small for him.
For fifteen minutes the two men talked, McTabb still drawing the
dead-line at fifty paces. Then he went back and brought up Billy's
dogs and sledge.
"I'd like to shake hands with you, Billy," he apologized, "but I guess
it's best not to. I don't suppose-- we'd dare-- bring out the kid?"
"No," said Billy. "Good-by, Mac. I'll see you-- sometime-- later. Just
go back-- an' bring her to the door, will you? I don't want her to
know I'm here, an' I'll take a look at her from the bush. She wouldn't
understand, you know, if she knew I was here an' wouldn't come up an'
see her."