Scorn and amusement struggled in Garth's face. His nostrils thinned; he
suddenly threw up his head and grimly laughed.
"Well, this beats the Dutch!" he said feelingly.
Natalie, reading the cunningly plausible sentences over his shoulder,
was inclined to be anxious. "Surely he has no legal right over me," she
said.
"Not a shadow!" Garth said.
"Grylls may have believed this story Mabyn told him," she said.
"Not a bit of it!" Garth said quickly. "Grylls is not so simple." He
stuck the letter sharply with his forefinger. "I'm a newspaper
reporter," he went on dryly, "you can believe me, this is a perfect, a
beautiful, a monumental bluff! I'm almost inclined to take off my hat to
him! But the length of it gives them away, rather; they must have spent
all day yesterday cooking this up."
"What will you do?" Natalie asked.
A wicked gleam appeared in Garth's eyes. "Oh, wouldn't I love to answer
it in kind!" he said longingly.
"An innocent, simple little billet-doux that would make them squirm.
Why, that's my business!"
"Better not," said Natalie anxiously.
"You're right," he said with a sigh. "It's the first thing you learn:
never to write when you feel that way. But it's mighty hard to resist
it!"
Rina understood little of all this. "You send answer back?" she asked.
"No. Tell him there's no answer," said Garth. "Tell him we nearly died
laughing," he added.
* * * * *
That night Garth determined not to leave the cabin until shortly before
dawn. He had seen Xavier leave the other camp before dark; and he
guessed the breed youth had been told off to watch them. From what he
had observed of the incontinuity of the breed mind in any given
direction, he strongly suspected if they kept still throughout the first
part of the night Xavier would fall asleep before morning. He had a
little plan in his mind, which he did not confide to Natalie. About
three o'clock, therefore, he called Natalie to bar the door after him;
and he sallied forth, concealing from her that he carried a coil of
light rope.
He was gone more than an hour, of which every minute was an age to poor
Natalie crouching over the fire and straining her ears. She had
successively pictured every possible accident that might have befallen
him, before her heart leaped at the sound of his signal at the door.
Garth was for sending her back to bed forthwith, but Natalie apprehended
he had not been gone so long for nothing; and presently she heard him
stand two guns in the corner.
"What have you got?" she asked eagerly.
"Oh, I just made a trade." Garth airily returned. "Thirty feet of
clothesline for a Winchester and a bag of cartridges. I threw in a
handkerchief to boot. Pretty good, eh?"
Natalie pulled him in by the fire, and made him light his pipe and tell
her what had happened.
"Well, I had a hunch Xavier was watching us to-night," he began. "I bore
a grudge against Xavier's pretty face, and I thought I'd have a little
fun with him, you see."
Natalie glanced up in alarm.
"A fellow would go mad, if he couldn't do _anything_," Garth apologized.
"I'll be good now for a week."
"Xavier?" said Natalie inquiringly.
"I wouldn't have minded a little bit, giving the brute his quietus,"
Garth said coolly. "He killed my horse. But he had no chance to put up a
fight; and I couldn't murder him; so at this present moment he's
unhurt--except his feelings. But Grylls will half kill him in the
morning!"
"What did you do to him?" she demanded.
"I was pretty sure he would be watching the path we have made to the
trail," Garth went on. "I figured he would be on my left hand--his
right; it's the position a man instinctively takes. You can't shoot so
well over your right. So I crawled along the path, inch by inch on my
stomach----"
"Garth!" she cried in horror. "If I had known!"
"Exactly!" he said. "So I didn't tell you. But there was no danger,
really. It was too dark for him to shoot me--pitchy dark there, under
the trees. I couldn't see an inch before my nose; and as I went I felt
with my hand out in front of me, both sides the path. Thistledown was
nothing to the lightness of my touch.
"Sure enough, no more than thirty yards behind the house here, I touched
his moccasin--you couldn't mistake the feel of a moccasin. And, just as
I expected, he was sitting on my left. That was a pretty good guess
if----"
"Oh! Go on! Go on!" she begged.
"He had his back against a tree. I listened for his breathing. They
breathe very light--tubercular, probably. Finally, I decided he was
asleep.
"Well, I mosied around behind him; and then I grabbed him. He let out
just one little squawk; and then he shut his mouth. He struggled;
slippery as an oiled cat, but not very strong. Finally I got him gagged
with my handkerchief. Then I tied him up with my rope; round and round;
just like the stories we read when we were kids. I expect I pinched him
some; that was for poor old Cy.
"Afterward I sat down opposite him; and lit my pipe; and thought over
what I'd do with him, now I had him. We certainly weren't going to feed
his ugly phiz; and he was no use as a hostage, for Grylls wouldn't give
a hang what became of him. Meanwhile I was relieving my mind, by telling
him a few plain truths about making war on dumb beasts. Hope he
understood!"
Natalie concealed a smile. "What did you say?" she asked.
"Never mind," said Garth. "It was more forcible than polite. It's been
sizzling inside me for two days. Finally I decided to return him to his
own camp."
"Their camp!" exclaimed the startled Natalie.
"Not all the way," he said; "but just where they'd see him in the
morning. Horrible example, and all that, you know. So I hoisted him on
my back, and carried him around to the brook. I propped him against a
tree there, with his face turned home." Garth chuckled. "To finish the
thing up brown, I suppose I ought to have pinned a placard on his
breast: Notice! This is the fate that awaits all who--_et cetera_. But I
didn't think to take any writing materials along with me!"
"Oh, Garth!" said Natalie reproachfully, as he finished.
He turned a face of whimsical penitence. "Honest, I won't do it again!"
he said. "But I was under two hundred pounds pressure. It was a case of
blow off or bust!"
* * * * *
They could joke for each other's benefit; but privately neither
attempted to disguise from himself what a desperate pass they had
reached. When they parted for the night, Natalie would lie staring
wide-eyed at the fire, and ceaselessly reproaching herself for having
drawn Garth into the sad tangle of her life; while he, tossing on his
blankets on the other side of the partition, blamed himself no less
bitterly for having allowed her to run into danger; and wrung his
exhausted brain for an expedient to save her.
A little beleaguered garrison watching its small store lessen day by
day, and counting the crumbs--this is the situation of all to try the
soul. But a garrison is always buoyed up by the hope of succour; and
Garth and Natalie could expect none. On the other hand there was no
possibility of treachery within this garrison; no need to measure out
the rations, or to guard the store; for each was jealous of the other's
having _less_; and each sought to give away his share.
There was no variety in those days. They waited in vain for an
attack--even longed for it; for behind their walls, the odds would be
more nearly equal. But the other party knew this too; and preferred to
starve them out. Garth's snares yielded nothing in four days; the only
flesh they ate during that time was a fish he caught with a line set at
night in the lake. Their stores were reduced to a few handfuls of flour
and a little tea. Meanwhile their enemies feasted insolently all day
about their fire; this siege was child's play for them; they were so
perfectly sure of their prey in the end.
There came a night at last when Garth and Natalie no longer cared to
keep up the show of joking; they liked to be quiet instead; and they
instinctively drew close together. They sat in the inner room; her head
dropped frankly on his shoulder; and her hand lay in his. It made his
heart ache to see how thin it was. But her spirit was still strong.
"Garth!" she said suddenly. "Let's make a break for it! Anything would
be better than this!"
He shook his head. "No go, dearest," he said. "I've been over that, over
and over it, every night for a week!"
"Couldn't we start down the lake in the canoe?" she said. "And make our
way from some point below? We could cover our tracks that way, and gain
much time. You have a rough map and a compass."
"They would discover in the morning that the canoe was gone," he said.
"They might not miss it for a day or two."
"They have the smoke of our fire to go by, too."
"They're careless. We might get a good start."
"Dearest, even if we had many days' start, they know we must make for
the Settlement. How easy it would be to head us off!"
"But it _might_ succeed," was all she could say.
"It's seventy-five miles," he said sadly. "You're not strong yet. How
could you walk it, without food to support you on the way?"
"You have your gun," she said faintly.
"There's no hunting on the open prairie for a man on foot!"
Natalie dropped her head back on his shoulder; and said no more.
Garth's face grew grimmer and grimmer in the firelight. "Do not lose
heart, dear," he said at last, in a gentle voice that was strangely at
variance with his eyes. "Matters will take a turn to-morrow; I promise
you that."
"What are you going to do?" she asked anxiously.
"I'm thinking it out," he said, evasively. "I'll tell you when it's
pieced together."
She was too weary to question him further.
In the darkness of his own room, he faced the thing. There was to be no
sleep for him this night. The alternative had been there from the first;
but hitherto he had averted his eyes from it, hoping against hope. Now
it could be put off no longer. It was Natalie's life against theirs; and
throughout the hours of the night, he steeled his heart to launch five
souls to eternity--two of them the souls of women. Rina he knew would be
transformed into a tigress by the death of Mabyn; so even Rina, whom
Natalie loved, must go too. He found himself dwelling with horror on the
harmony of her beauty, the deep fire of her eyes, the soft play of
colour in her cheeks--which he was to mar!
Supposing he succeeded, the dreadful consequences were painfully clear
to him; the hideous noise it would make in the world when they got out;
the ugly look it would have, with no one to bear out his story but
Natalie, and her lawful husband among the dead! Grylls's lying letter
had shown him how easy it would be to paint that side of the story in
the colours of justice. For himself, Garth cared nothing; but the
thought of Natalie, the sport of a world of malicious tongues, maddened
him. But there was no help for it; it had to be done.
His plan was simple in the extreme. He intended to cross the lake in the
canoe; land well beyond Mabyn's camp; and fire the grass to the windward
of the shack. No rain had fallen in weeks; the grass was as dry as
tinder; and the old bleached shack itself almost as inflammable as
gunpowder. He had, moreover, a small quantity of oil among the things
seized from Mabyn. The night itself seemed to speak for the deed; it was
as dark as Erebus; and there was a blustering, raw wind from the north,
presaging snow.
After starting the fire, he meant to climb the rising ground behind; and
when they ran to beat out the flames, he would pick them off one by one.
His gun would shoot as fast as he could think; he might get all five
then. And if any regained the hut, they would soon be driven out again.
Whichever way they ran, Garth could run as fast on the higher ground;
and none of them was such a shot as he. Grylls first; then Mabyn; then
the breeds. He meant to wait until dawn, so that if any escaped the
radius of the fire, he could get them by daylight.
But no executioner may have imagination; in the darkness of his room the
attitudes of the slain were pictured to Garth as clearly as if they
already lay before him: Grylls's gross body huddled in the grass; Mabyn
hideous in death; and Rina cold and still in her wistful beauty. Cries
of terror and agony rang in his ears; and he saw himself afterward
burying the bodies--partly eaten by the flames. Small icy drops broke
out on his forehead. Though he was doing it for her, when it was done,
Natalie could not but shrink from such a bloody wretch. It would part
them forever. But it must be done!
When his watch showed half-past four--the dawn was later now--he arose
to start. He called Natalie to bar the door after him. He told her he
was going merely to look about and that she must not worry if he was not
back until daylight. Natalie was scarcely awake. He yearned mightily to
take her soft, sleepy form in his arms for once before they were
imbrued; but he dared not, knowing she would instantly interpret the act
as a possible farewell.
When she closed the door behind him, he felt as one lost to hope.
As he grasped the canoe, preparatory to pushing it off, he suddenly
became aware through his sharpened senses--he could not have said
how--that some one was very near him. He noiselessly dropped to one
knee; and unslinging his gun, waited. The wind was making confusing
noises and he could not be sure. The suspense became too great to be
borne in silence.
"Who's there?" he said sharply.
There came a strange, new, and yet familiar voice out of the darkness:
"Garth, is that you?"
His heart began to beat wildly. "Who are you?" he whispered.
"Charley!" returned the voice with the boyish break in it.
They sprang to their feet simultaneously, not ten paces apart in the
grass.
"I've brought you grub!" sang the boy. "How's Natalie?"
In an instant they were in each other's arms. A swift reaction passed
over Garth; his knees weakened under him; he clung to the boy's
shoulders; and lowered his head.
"Oh, thank God! thank God!" he murmured.