THE FOOT
Stonor, returning to the shack, was hailed with joy as one who might
have come back from Hades unscathed. He told Clare just what he had
found.
"What do you think?" she asked anxiously.
"Isn't it clear? He saw us coming and took to the tree. There were so
many tracks around the base of the tree that I was put off. He must have
been hidden there all the time we were looking for him and shouting. As
soon as it got dark he tried to make his get-away, but his calculations
were somewhat upset by his falling. Even after we had taken warning, he
had to risk getting into his store-room, because all his food was there.
No doubt he thought we would all be in the other room, and he could
sneak in and take what he could carry. When he was scared off by Mary's
scream he started his journey without it, that's all."
"But why _should_ he run from us--from me?"
Stonor shrugged helplessly.
She produced the little red book again. "Read something here," she said,
turning the pages.
Under her directing finger, while she looked aside, he read: "The
hardest thing I have to contend against is my hunger for her. Discipline
is of little avail against that. I spend whole days wrestling with
myself, trying to get the better of it, and think I have conquered, only
to be awakened at night by wanting her worse than ever."
"Does that sound as if he wished to escape me?" she murmured.
In her distress of mind it did not occur to her, of course, that this
was rather a cruel situation for Stonor. He did not answer for a moment;
then said in a low tone: "I am afraid his mind is unhinged. You
suggested it."
"I know," she said quickly. "But I have been thinking it over. It can't
be. Listen to this." She hastily turned the pages of the little book.
"What day is this?"
"The third of July."
"This was written June 30th, only four days ago. It is the last entry in
the book. Listen!" She read, while the tears started to her eyes:
"I must try to get in some good books on natural history. If I could
make better friends with the little wild things around me I need never
be lonely. There is a young rabbit who seems disposed to hit it off with
me. I toss him a bit of biscuit after breakfast every morning. He comes
and waits for it now. He eats it daintily in my sight; then, with a
flirt of his absurd tail for 'thank you,' scampers down to the river to
wash it down."
"Those are not the thoughts of a man out of his mind."
"No," he admitted, "but everything you have read shows him to be of a
sensitive, high-strung nature. On such a man the sudden shock of our
coming----"
"Oh, then I have waited too long!" she cried despairingly. "And now I
can never repay!"
"Not necessarily," said Stonor with a dogged patience. "Such cases are
common in the North. But I never knew one to be incurable."
She took this in, and it comforted her partly; but her thoughts were
still busy with matters remote from Stonor. After a while she asked
abruptly: "What do you think we ought to do?"
"Start up the river at once," he said. "We'll hear news of him on the
way. We'll overtake him in the end."
She stared at him with troubled eyes, pondering this suggestion. At last
she slowly shook her head. "I don't think we ought to go," she murmured.
"What!" he cried, astonished. "You wish to stay here--after last night!
Why?"
"I don't know," she said helplessly.
"But if the man is really not right, he needs looking after. We ought to
hurry after him."
"It seems so," she said, still with the air of those who speak what is
strange to themselves; "but I have an intuition, a premonition--I don't
know what to call it! Something tells me that we do not yet know the
truth."
Stonor turned away helplessly. He could not argue against a woman's
reason like this.
"Ah, don't be impatient with me," she said appealingly. "Just wait
to-day. If nothing happens during the day to throw any light on what
puzzles us, I will make no more objections. I'll be willing to start
this afternoon, and camp up the river."
"It will give him twelve hours' start of us."
Her surprising answer was: "I don't think he's gone."
* * * * *
Stonor made his way over the old portage trail. He wished to have a look
at the Great Falls before returning up-river. Clare, waiting for what
she could not have told, had chosen to remain at the shack, and Mary
Moosa was not afraid to stay with her by daylight. Like Stonor, Mary
believed that the man had undoubtedly left the neighbourhood, and that
no further danger was to be apprehended from that quarter.
Stonor went along abstractedly, climbing over the obstructions or
cutting a way through, almost oblivious to his surroundings. His heart
was jealous and sore. His instinct told him that the man who had
prowled around the shack the night before was an evil-doer; yet Clare
persisted in exalting him to the skies. In his present temper it seemed
to Stonor as if Clare purposely made his task as hard as possible for
him. In fact, the trooper had a grievance against the whole world.
Suddenly he realized that his brain was simply chasing itself in
circles. Stopping short, he shook himself much like a dog on issuing
from the water. His will was to shake off the horrors of the past night
and his dread of the future. Better sense told him that only weakness
lay in dwelling on these things. Let things fall as they would, he would
meet them like a man, he hoped, and no more could be asked of him. In
the meantime he would not worry himself into a stew. He went on with a
lighter breast.
From the cutting in the trail Stonor saw that someone had travelled that
way a while before, probably during the previous season, for the cuts on
green wood were half-healed. It was clear, from the amount of cutting he
had been obliged to do, that this traveller was the first that way in
many years. Stonor further saw from the style of his axe-work that he
was a white man; a white man chops a sapling with one stroke clean
through: a red man makes two chops, half-way through on each side. This
was pretty conclusive evidence that Imbrie had first come from
down-river.
This trail had not been used since, and Stonor, remembering the
suggestion in Imbrie's diary that he frequently visited the falls,
supposed that he had some other way of reaching there. He determined to
see if it was practicable to make his way along the beach on the way
back.
The trail did not take him directly to the falls, but in a certain place
he saw signs of an old side-path striking off towards the river, and,
following this, he was brought out on a plateau of rock immediately
above the spot where the river stepped off into space. Here he stood for
a moment to prepare himself for the sight before looking over. His eye
was caught by some ends of string fluttering from the branches of a bush
beside him. He was at a loss to account for their presence until he
remembered Etzooah and his humble offerings to the Old Man. Here Etzooah
had tied his tobacco-bags.
Approaching the brink, the river smoothed itself a little as if
gathering its forces for the leap, and over the edge itself it slipped
smoothly. It was true to a certain extent that the cataract muffled its
own voice, but the earth trembled. The gorge below offered a superb
prospect. After the invariable flatness and tameness of the shores
above, the sudden cleft in the world impressed the beholder stunningly.
Then Stonor went to the extreme edge and looked over. A deep, dull roar
smote upon his ears; he was bewildered and satisfied. Knowing the Indian
propensity to exaggerate, he had half expected to find merely a cascade
wilder than anything above; or perhaps a wide straggling series of
falls. It was neither. The entire river gathered itself up, and plunged
sheer into deep water below. The river narrowed down at the brink, and
the volume of water was stupendous. The drop was over one hundred feet.
The water was of the colour of strong tea, and as it fell it drew over
its brown sheen a lovely, creamy fleece of foam. Tight little curls of
spray puffed out of the falling water like jets of smoke, and, spreading
and descending, merged into the white cloud that rolled about the foot
of the falls. This cloud itself billowed up in successive undulations
like full draperies, only to spread out and vanish in the sunshine.
Stonor had the solemn feeling that comes to the man who knows himself to
be among the first of his race to gaze on a great natural wonder. He
and Imbrie alone had seen this sight. What of the riddle of Imbrie?
Doctor, magician, skulker in the night, madman perhaps--and Clare's
husband! Must he be haunted by him all his life? But the noble spectacle
before Stonor's eyes calmed his nerves. All will be clear in the end, he
told himself. And nothing could destroy his thought of Clare.
* * * * *
He would liked to have remained for hours, but everything drew him back
to the shack. He started back along the beach. On the whole it was
easier going than by the encumbered trail. There were no obstacles
except the low precipice that has been mentioned, and that proved to be
no great matter to climb around. Meanwhile every foot of the rapid
offered a fascinating study to the river-man. This rapid seemed to go
against all the customary rules for rapids. Nowhere in all its torn
expanse could Stonor pick a channel; the rocks stuck up everywhere. He
noticed that one could have returned in a canoe in safety from the very
brink of the falls by means of the back-waters that crept up the shore.
His attention was caught by a log-jam out in the rapid. He had scarcely
noticed it the day before while searching for tracks. Two great rocks,
that stuck out of the water close together where the current ran
swiftest, had at some time caught an immense fallen tree squarely on
their shoulders, and the pressure of the current held it there. Another
tree had caught on the obstruction, and another, and now the fantastic
pile reared itself high out of the water.
At the moment Stonor had no weightier matter on his mind than to puzzle
how this had come about. Suddenly his blood ran cold to perceive what
looked like a human foot sticking out of the water at the bottom of the
pile. He violently rubbed his eyes, thinking that they deceived him.
But there was no mistake. It _was_ a foot, clad in a moccasin of the
ordinary style of the country. While Stonor looked it was agitated back
and forth as in a final struggle. With a sickened breast, he
instinctively looked around for some means of rescue. But he immediately
realized that the owner of the foot was long past aid. The movement was
due simply to the action of the current.
His brain whirled dizzily. A foot? Whose foot? Imbrie's? There was no
other man anywhere near. But Imbrie knew the place so well he could not
have been carried down, unless he had chosen to end his life that way.
And his anxiety to obtain food the night before did not suggest that he
had any intention of putting himself out of the way. Perhaps it was an
Indian drowned up-river and carried down. But they would surely have
heard of the accident on the way. More likely Imbrie. If his brain was
unhinged, who could say what wild impulse might seize him? Was this the
reason for Clare's premonition? If it was Imbrie, how could he tell her?
Stonor forced down the mounting horror that constricted his throat, and
soberly bethought himself of what he must do. Useless to speculate on
whose the body might be; he had to find out. He examined the place up
and down with fresh care. The log-jam was about half-a-mile above the
falls, and a slightly lesser distance below Imbrie's shack. It was
nearer his side of the river than the other; say, fifty yards of torn
white water lay between the drift-pile and the beach. To wade or swim
out was out of the question. On the other hand, the strongest flow of
water, the channel such as it was, set directly for the obstruction, and
it might be possible to drop down on it from above--if one provided some
means for getting back again. Stonor marked the position of every rock,
every reef above, and little by little made his plan.
He returned to the shack. In her present state of nerves he dared not
tell Clare of what he had found. In any case he might be mistaken in his
supposition as to the identity of the body. In that case she need never
be told. He was careful to present himself with a smooth face.
"Any news?" cried Clare eagerly. "You've been gone so long!"
He shook his head. "Anything here?"
"Nothing. I am ready to go now as soon as we have eaten."
Stonor, faced with the necessity of suddenly discovering some reason for
delaying their start, stroked his chin. "Have you slept?" he asked.
"How could I sleep?"
"I don't think you ought to start until you've had some sleep."
"I can sleep later."
"I need sleep too. And Mary."
"Of course! How selfish of me! We can start towards evening, then."
While Clare was setting the biscuits to the fire in the shack, and
Stonor was chopping wood outside, Mary came out for an armful of wood.
The opportunity of speaking to her privately was too good to be missed.
"Mary," said Stonor. "There's a dead body caught in the rapids below
here."
"Wah!" she cried, letting the wood fall. "You teenk it is _him_?"
"I don't know. I suppose so. I've got to find out."
"Find out? In the rapids? How you goin' find out? You get carry over the
falls!"
"Not so loud! I've got it all doped out. I'm taking no unnecessary
chances. But I'll need you to help me."
"I not help you," said Mary rebelliously. "I not help you drown
yourself--for a dead man. He's dead anyhow. If you go over the falls
what we do? What we do?"
"Easy! I told you I had a good plan. Wait and see what it is. Get her to
sleep this afternoon, and we'll try to pull it off before she wakes. Now
run on in, or she'll wonder what we're talking about. Don't show
anything in your face."
Mary's prime accomplishment lay in hiding her feelings. She picked up
her wood, and went stolidly into the shack.
Stonor, searching among Imbrie's things, was much reassured to find a
tracking-line. This, added to his own line, would give him six hundred
feet of rope, which he judged ample for his purpose. He spliced the two
while the meal was preparing.
"What's that for?" Clare asked.
"To help us up-stream."
As soon as he had eaten he went back to the beach. His movements here
were invisible to those in the shack. He carried the remaining
bark-canoe on his back down the beach to a point about a hundred and
fifty yards above the log-jam. This was to be his point of departure. He
took a fresh survey of the rapids, and went over and over in his mind
the course he meant to take.
After cutting off several short lengths that he required for various
purposes, Stonor fastened the end of the line to a tree on the edge of
the bank; the other end he made fast to the stern of the canoe--not to
the point of the stern, but to the stern-thwart where it joined the
gunwale. This was designed to hold the canoe at an angle against the
current that would keep her out in the stream. The slack of the line was
coiled neatly on the beach.
With one of the short lengths Stonor then made an offset from this line
near where it was fastened to the thwart, and passed it around his own
body under the arms. Thus, if the canoe smashed on the rocks or
swamped, by cutting the line at the thwart the strain would be
transferred to Stonor's body, and the canoe could be left to its fate.
Another short length with a loop at the end was made fast at the other
end of the thwart. This was for the purpose of making fast to the
log-jam while Stonor worked to free the body. A third piece of line he
carried around his neck. This was to secure the body.
During the course of these preparations Mary joined him. She reported
that Clare was fast asleep. Stonor made a little prayer that she might
not awaken till this business was over.
He explained to Mary what he was about, and showed her her part. She
listened sullenly, but, seeing that his mind was made up, shrugged at
the uselessness of opposing his will. Mary was to pay out the rope
according to certain instructions, and afterwards to haul him in.
Finally, after reassuring himself of the security of all his knots, he
divested himself of hat, tunic, and boots and stepped into the canoe. He
shook hands with Mary, took his knife between his teeth, and pushed off.
He made as much as he could out of the back-water alongshore, and then,
heading diagonally up-stream, shot out into the turmoil, paddling like a
man possessed in order to make sure of getting far enough out before the
current swept him abreast of his destination. Mary, according to
instructions, paid out the rope freely. Before starting he had marked
every rock in his course, and he avoided them now by instinct. His
thinking had been done beforehand. He worked like a machine.
He saw that he was going to make it, with something to spare. When he
had the log-jam safely under his quarter, he stopped paddling, and,
bringing the canoe around, drifted down on it. There was plenty of
water out here. He held up a hand to Mary, and according to
pre-arrangement she gradually took up the strain on the line. The canoe
slowed up, and the current began to race past.
So far so good. The line held the canoe slightly broached to the
current, thus the pressure of the current itself kept him from edging
ashore. The log-pile loomed up squarely ahead of him. Mary let him down
on it hand over hand. He manoeuvred himself abreast an immense log
pointing up and down river, alongside of which the current slipped
silkily. Casting his loop over the stump of a branch, he was held fast
and the strain was taken off Mary's arms.
The moccasined foot protruded from the water at the bow of his canoe. He
soon saw the impossibility of attempting to work from the frail canoe,
so he untied the rope which bound him to it, and pulled himself out on
the logs. The rope from the shore was still around his body in case of a
slip. He was taking no unnecessary chances.
The body was caught in some way under the same great log that his canoe
was fastened to. The current tore at the projecting foot with a snarl.
The foot oscillated continually under the pull, and sometimes
disappeared altogether, only to spring back into sight with a ghastly
life-like motion. Stonor cautiously straddled the log, and groped
beneath it. His principal anxiety was that log and all might come away
from the jam and be carried down, but there was little danger that his
insignificant weight would disturb so great a bulk.
The body was caught in the fork of a branch underneath. He succeeded in
freeing the other foot. He guessed that a smart pull up-stream would
liberate the whole, but in that case the current would almost surely
snatch it from his grasp. He saw that it would be an impossible task
from his insecure perch to drag the body out on the log, and in turn
load it into the fragile canoe. His only chance lay in towing it ashore.
So, with the piece of line he had brought for the purpose, he lashed the
feet together, and made the other end fast to the bow-thwart of the
canoe. Then he got in and adjusted his stern-line as before--it became
the bow-line for the return journey. In case it should become necessary
to cut adrift from the canoe, he took the precaution of passing a line
direct from his body to that which he meant to tow. When all was ready
he signalled to Mary to haul in.
Now began the most difficult half of his journey. On the strength of
Mary's arms depended the freeing of the body. It came away slowly.
Stonor had an instant's glimpse of the ghastly tow bobbing astern,
before settling down to the business in hand. For awhile all went well,
though the added pull of the submerged body put a terrific strain on
Mary. Fortunately she was as strong as a man. Stonor aided her all he
could with his paddle, but that was little. He was kept busy fending his
egg-shell craft off the rocks. He had instructed Mary, as the slack
accumulated, to walk gradually up the beach. This was to avoid the
danger of the canoe's broaching too far to the current. But Mary could
not do it under the increased load. The best she could manage was to
brace her body against the stones, and pull in hand over hand.
As the line shortened Stonor saw that he was going to have trouble.
Instead of working in-shore, the canoe was edging further into the
stream, and ever presenting a more dangerous angle to the tearing
current. Mary had pulled in about a third of the line, when suddenly the
canoe, getting the current under her dead rise, darted out into
mid-stream like a fish at the end of a line, and hung there canting
dangerously. The current snarled along the gunwale like an animal
preparing to crush its prey.
The strain on Mary was frightful. She was extended at full length with
her legs braced against an outcrop of rock. Stonor could see her
agonized expression. He shouted to her to slack off the line, but of
course the roar of the water drowned his puny voice. In dumb-play he
tried desperately to show her what to do, but Mary was possessed of but
one idea, to hang on until her arms were pulled out.
The canoe tipped inch by inch, and the boiling water crept up its
freeboard. Finally it swept in, and Stonor saw that all was over with
the canoe. With a single stroke of his knife he severed the rope at the
thwart behind him; with another stroke the rope in front. When the tug
came on his body he was jerked clean out of the canoe. It passed out of
his reckoning. By the drag behind him, he knew he still had the dead
body safe.
He instinctively struck out, but the tearing water, mocking his feeble
efforts, buffeted him this way and that as with the swing of giant arms.
Sometimes he was spun helplessly on the end of his line like a
trolling-spoon. He was flung sideways around a boulder and pressed there
by the hands of the current until it seemed the breath was slowly
leaving his body. Dazed, blinded, gasping, he somehow managed to
struggle over it, and was cast further in-shore. The tendency of the
current was to sweep him in now. If he could only keep alive! The stones
were thicker in-shore. He was beaten first on one side, then the other.
All his conscious efforts were reduced to protecting his head from the
rocks with his arms.
The water may have been but a foot or two deep, but of course he could
gain no footing. He still dragged his leaden burden. All the breath was
knocked out of him under the continual blows, but he was conscious of no
pain. The last few moments were a blank. He found himself in the
back-water, and expended his last ounce of strength in crawling out on
hands and knees on the beach. He cast himself flat, sobbing for breath.
Mary came running to his aid. He was able to nod to her reassuringly,
and in the ecstasy of her relief, she sat down suddenly, and wept like a
white woman. Stonor gathered himself together and sat up groaning. The
onset of pain was well-nigh unendurable. He felt literally as if his
flesh all over had been pounded to a jelly. But all his limbs,
fortunately, responded to their functions.
"Lie still," Mary begged of him.
He shook his head. "I must keep moving, or I'll become as helpless as a
log."
The nameless thing was floating in the back-water. Together they dragged
it out on the stones. It was Stonor's first sight of that which had cost
him such pains to secure. He nerved himself to bear it. Mary was no fine
lady, but she turned her head away. The man's face was totally
unrecognizable by reason of the battering it had received on the rocks;
his clothes were partly in ribbons; there was a gaping wound in the
breast.
For the rest, as far as Stonor could judge, it was the body of a young
man, and a comely one. His skin was dark like that of an Italian, or a
white man with a quarter or eighth strain of Indian blood in his veins.
Stonor was astonished by this fact; nothing that he had heard had
suggested that Imbrie was not as white as himself. This put a new look
on affairs. For an instant Stonor doubted. But the man's hand was
well-formed and well-kept; and in what remained of his clothes one could
still see the good materials and the neatness. In fact, it could be none
other than Imbrie.
He was roused from his contemplation of the gruesome object by a sharp
exclamation from Mary. Looking up, he saw Clare a quarter of a mile
away, hastening to them along the beach. His heart sank.
"Go to her," he said quickly. "Keep her from coming here."
Mary hastened away. Stonor followed more slowly, disguising his soreness
as best he could. For him it was cruel going over the stones--yet all
the way he was oddly conscious of the beauty of the wild cascade,
sweeping down between its green shores.
As he had feared, Clare refused to be halted by Mary. Thrusting the
Indian woman aside, she came on to Stonor.
"What's the matter?" she cried stormily. "Why did you both leave me? Why
does she try to stop me?--Why! you're all wet! Where's your tunic, your
boots? You're in pain!"
"Come to the house," he said. "I'll tell you."
She would not be put off. "What has happened? I insist on knowing now!
What is there down there I mustn't see?"
"Be guided by me," he pleaded. "Come away, and I'll tell you
everything."
"I _will_ see!" she cried. "Do you wish to put me out of my mind with
suspense?"
He saw that it was perhaps kinder not to oppose her. "I have found a
body in the river," he said. "Do not look at it. Let me tell you."
She broke away from him. "I must know the worst," she muttered.
He let her go. She ran on down the beach, and he hobbled after. She
stopped beside the body, and looked down with wide, wild eyes. One
dreadful low cry escaped her.
"Ernest!"
She collapsed. Stonor caught her sagging body. Her head fell limply back
over his arm.