PURSUIT
Stonor sat down on a grub-box, and, gripping his bursting head between
his hands, tried to think. His throbbing blood urged him to gallop
instantly in pursuit. They could not have more than two hours' start of
him, and Miles Aroon was better than anything they had in the way of
horse-flesh, fresh into the bargain. But a deeper instinct was telling
him that a little slow thought in the beginning brings quicker results
at the end.
Even with only two hours' start they might make the village before he
overtook them, and Imbrie might get away on the lake. A stern chase with
all the hazards of travel in the wilderness might continue for days;
Stonor was running short of grub; he must provide for their coming back;
above all it was necessary that he get word out of what had happened;
Clare's safety must not depend alone on the one mortal life he had to
give her. Hard as it was to bring himself to it, he determined to get in
touch with Tole before starting after Imbrie and the Kakisas.
To that end he mounted one of his poorer horses and galloped headlong
back through the bush. After ten miles or so, in a little open meadow he
came upon the handsome breed boy riding along without a care in the
world, hand on hip and "Stetson" cocked askew, singing lustily of
_Gentille Alouette_. Never in his life had Stonor been so glad to see
anybody. His set, white face worked painfully; for a moment he could
not speak, but only grip the boy's shoulder. Tole was scared half out of
his wits to see his revered idol so much affected.
All the way along Stonor had been thinking what he would do. It would
not be sufficient to send a message by Tole; he must write to John
Gaviller and to Lambert at the Crossing; one letter would do for both;
the phrases were all ready to his pencil. Briefly explaining the
situation to Tole, he sat down to his note-book. Two pages held it all;
Stonor would have been surprised had he been told that it was a model of
conciseness.
"JOHN GAVILLER and Sergeant LAMBERT, R.N.W.M.P.
"While returning with my prisoner Ernest Imbrie, suspected of
murder, at a point on the Horse Track six miles from Swan
River, a band of Indians from Swan Lake drove off my horses,
and while I was away looking for them, rescued my prisoner, and
also carried off the two women in my party. Am returning to
Swan Lake now with four horses. Suppose that Imbrie reaching
there will take to the lake and the upper Swan, as that
provides his only means of getting out of the country this way.
Suggest that Mr. Gaviller get this through to Lambert
regardless of expense. Suggest that Lambert as soon as he gets
it might ride overland from the Crossing to the nearest point
on the Swan. If he takes one of his folding boats, and takes a
man to ride the horses back, he could come down the Swan. I
will be coming up, and we ought to pinch Imbrie between the two
of us. The situation is a serious one, as Imbrie has the whole
tribe of Kakisas under his thumb. He will stop at nothing now;
may be insane. The position of the women is a frightful one.
"MARTIN STONOR."
Stonor took Tole's pack-horse with its load of grub, and the breed tied
his bed and rations for three days behind his saddle. Stonor gripped his
hand.
"So long, kid! Ride like hell. It's the most you can do for me."
* * * * *
Eight hours later, Stonor, haggard with anxiety and fatigue, and driving
his spent horses before him, rode among the tepees of the village beside
Swan Lake. That single day had aged him ten years. His second coming was
received with a significant lack of surprise. The Indians were
ostentatiously engaged at their customary occupations: mending boats and
other gear, cleaning guns, etc. Stonor doubted if such a picture of
universal industry had ever been offered there. Dismounting, he called
peremptorily for Myengeen.
The head man came to him with a certain air of boldness, that slowly
withered, however, under the fire that leaped up in the white man's
weary blue eyes. Under his savage inscrutability the signs of fidgets
became perceptible. Perhaps he had not expected the trooper to brave him
single-handed, but had hoped for more time to obliterate tracks, and let
matters quiet down. Many a dark breast within hearing quailed at the
sound of the policeman's ringing voice, though his words were not
understood. The one determined man struck more terror than a troop.
"Myengeen, you and your people have defied the law! Swift and terrible
punishment awaits you. Don't think you can escape it. You have carried
off a white woman. Such a thing was never known. If a single hair of her
head is harmed, God help you! Where is she?"
Myengeen's reply was a pantomime of general denial.
Stonor marched him back of the tepees where the Kakisas' horses were
feeding on the flat. He silently pointed to their hanging heads and
sweaty flanks. Many of the beasts were still too weary to feed: one or
two were lying down done for. Stonor pointed out certain peculiarities
in their feet, and indicated that he had been following those tracks.
This mute testimony impressed Myengeen more than words; his eyes bolted;
he took refuge in making believe not to understand.
Stonor's inability to command them in their own tongue made him feel
maddeningly impotent.
"Where is the woman who speaks English?" he cried, pointing to his own
tongue.
Myengeen merely shrugged.
Stonor then ordered all the people into their tepees, and such is the
power of a single resolute voice that they meekly obeyed. Proceeding
from tepee to tepee he called out likely-looking individuals to be
questioned out of sight of the others. For a long time it was without
result; men and women alike, having taken their cue from Myengeen,
feigned not to understand. Such children as he tried to question were
scared almost into insensibility. Stonor began to feel as if he were
butting his head against a stone wall.
At last from a maiden he received a hint that was sufficient. She was a
comely girl with a limpid brown eye. Either she had a soul above the
Kakisas or else the bright-haired trooper touched her fancy. At any
rate, when he looked in the tepee, where she sat demurely beyond her
male relatives, she gave him a shy glance that did not lack humanity.
Calling her outside, he put the invariable question to her, accompanied
with appropriate signs: where was the white woman?
She merely glanced towards the mouth of the creek where the canoes lay,
then looked up the lake. It was sufficient. Stonor gave her a grateful
glance and let her go. He never knew her name. That the Kakisas might
not suspect her of having betrayed them, he continued his questioning
for awhile. Last of all he re-interrogated Myengeen. He did not care if
suspicion fell on him.
Stonor coolly picked out the best-looking canoe in the creek, and loaded
aboard what he required of his outfit. Myengeen and his men sullenly
looked on. The trooper, seeing that a fair breeze was blowing up the
lake, cut two poplar poles, and with a blanket quickly rigged mast and
sail. When he was ready to start he delivered the rest of his outfit to
Myengeen, and left his horses in his care.
"This is government property," he said sternly. "If anything is lost
full payment will be collected."
He sailed down the creek followed by the wondering exclamations of the
Kakisas. Sailing was an unknown art to them, and in their amazement at
the sight, like the children they were, they completely forgot the
grimness of the situation. Stonor thought: "How can you make such a
scatter-brained lot realize what they're doing!"
Stonor had supposed that Imbrie would take to the lake. On arriving at
the brow of the last ridge his first thought had been to search its
expanse, but he had seen nothing. Since then various indications
suggested that they had between four and five hours' start of him. He
had been delayed on the trail by his pack-horses. The speed he was
making under sail was not much better than he could have paddled, but it
enabled him to take things easy for a while.
Swan Lake is about thirty miles long. Fully ten miles of it was visible
from the start. It is shaped roughly like three uneven links of a chain,
and in width it varies from half a mile to perhaps five miles. It seems
vaster than it is on account of its low shores which stretch back, flat
and reedy, for miles. Here dwelt the great flocks of wild geese or
"wavies" that gave both lake and river their names.
As he got out into the lake the wind gradually strengthened behind him,
and his canoe was blown hither and yon like an inflated skin on the
water. She had no keel, she took no grip of the water, and much of the
goodly aid of the wind was vainly measured against the strength of
Stonor's arms as he laboured to keep her before it. When he did get the
wind full in his top-heavy sail it blew him almost bodily under. Stonor
welcomed the struggle. He was now making much better time than he could
have hoped for by his paddle. He grimly carried on.
In order to accommodate the two women and their necessary outfit, Stonor
supposed that Imbrie must have taken one of the dug-outs. He did not
believe that any of the Kakisas had accompanied the fugitive. The
prospect of a long journey would appal them. And Stonor was pretty sure
that Mary was not over-working herself at the paddle, so that it was not
too much to hope that he was catching up on them at this rate. Thinking
of their outfit, Stonor wondered how Imbrie would feed Clare; the
ordinary fare of the Kakisas would be a cruel hardship on her. Such are
the things one worries about in the face of much more dreadful dangers.
It had been nearly six o'clock before Stonor left Myengeen's village,
and the sun went down while he was still far from the head of the lake.
He surveyed the flat shores somewhat anxiously. Nowhere, as far as he
could see, was there any promising landing-place. In the end he decided
to sail on through the night. As darkness gathered he took his bearings
from the stars. With the going-down of the sun the wind moderated, but
it still held fair and strong enough to give him good steerage-way.
After an hour or two the shores began to close around him. He could not
find the outlet of the river in the dark, so he drove into the reeds,
and, taking down his sail, supped on cold bread and lake-water and lay
down in his canoe.
In the morning he found the river without difficulty. It was a sluggish
stream here, winding interminably between low cut banks, edged with
dangling grass-roots on the one side and mud-flats on the other. From
the canoe he could see nothing above the banks. Landing to take a
survey, Stonor beheld a vast treeless bottom, covered with rank grass,
and stretching to low piny ridges several miles back on either hand. No
tell-tale thread of smoke on the still air betrayed the camp of the man
he was seeking.
He resumed his way. Of his whole journey this part was the most
difficult trial to his patience. There was just current enough to mock
at his efforts with the paddle. He seemed scarcely to crawl. It was
maddening after his brisk progress up the lake. Moreover, each bend was
so much like the last that he had no sense of getting on, and the
invariable banks hemmed in his sight. He felt like a man condemned to a
treadmill.
He had been about two hours on the river when he saw a little object
floating towards him on the current that instantly caught his eye
because it had the look of something fashioned. He paddled to it with a
beating heart. It proved to be a tiny raft contrived out of several
lengths of stout stick, tied together with strips of rag. On the little
platform, out of reach of the water, was tied with another strip a roll
of the white outer bark of the birch. Stonor untied it and spread it out
on his knee with a trembling hand. It was a letter printed in crooked
characters with a point charred in the fire.
[Illustration:
WE WELL. HIM NOT HURT CLARE ENY. HIM SCAR OF CRAZEE CLARE SLEEP
BY ME. HIM GOIN CROST /\/\/\/\/\
FROM MARY]
A warm stream forced its way into the trooper's frozen breast, and the
terrible strained look in his eyes relaxed. For a moment he covered his
eyes with his arm, though there was none to see. His most dreadful and
unacknowledged fear was for the moment relieved. Gratitude filled him.
"Good old Mary!" he thought. "She went to all that trouble just on the
chance of easing my mind. By God! if we come through this all right I'll
do something for her!"
"Him scar of crazee," puzzled him for a while, until it occurred to him
that Mary wished to convey that Imbrie let Clare alone because he
believed that her loss of memory was akin to insanity. This was where
the red strain in him told. All Indians have a superstitious awe of the
insane. The sign at the end of the letter was for mountains, of course.
The word, no doubt, was beyond Mary's spelling. What care and
circumspection must have gone to the writing and the launching of the
note! It must all have been done while Imbrie slept.
Stonor applied himself to his paddle again with a better heart. After
two hours more he came to their camping-place of the night before. It
was a spot designed by Nature for a camp, with a little beach of clean
sand below, and a grove of willow and birch above. Stonor landed to see
what tell-tale signs they had left behind them.
He saw that they were in a dug-out: it had left its furrow in the sand
where it was pulled up. He saw the print of Clare's little common-sense
boot in the sand, and the sight almost unmanned him; Mary's track was
there too, that he knew well, and Imbrie's; and to his astonishment
there was a fourth track unknown to him. It was that of a small man or a
large woman. Could Imbrie have persuaded one of the Kakisas to accompany
him? This was all he saw. He judged from the signs that they had about
five hours' start of him.
From this point the character of the country began to change. The
river-banks became higher and wooded; there were outcroppings of rock
and small rapids. Stonor saw from the tracks alongshore that where the
current was swift they had towed the dug-out up-stream, but he had to
stick to his paddle. Though he put forth his best efforts all day he
scarcely gained on them, for darkness came upon him soon after he had
passed the place where they spelled in mid-afternoon.
On the next day in mid-morning he was brought to stand by a fork in the
river. There was nothing to tell him which branch to choose, for the
current was easy here and the trackers had re-embarked. Both branches
were of about equal size: one came from the south-east, one from due
east; either might reach to the mountains if it was long enough. Stonor
had pondered on the map of that country, but on it the Swan River was
only indicated as yet by a dotted line. All that was known of the stream
by report was that it rose in the Rocky Mountains somewhere to the north
of Fort Cheever, and, flowing in a north-westerly direction, roughly
parallel with the Spirit, finally emptied into Great Buffalo Lake.
Stonor remembered no forks on the map.
He was about to choose at random, when he was struck by a difference in
the colour of the water of the two branches. The right-hand fork was a
clear brown, the other greenish with a milky tinge. Now brown water, as
everybody knows, comes from swamps or muskegs, while green water is the
product of melting snow and ice. Stonor took the left-hand branch.
Shortly afterwards he was rewarded by a sight of the spot where they had
made their first spell of the day. Landing, he found the ashes of their
fire still warm; they could not have been gone more than an hour. This
was an unexpected gain; some accident of travel must have delayed them.
Embarking, he bent to his paddle with a renewed hope. Surely by going
without a meal himself he ought to come on them before they finished
their second spell.
But the river was only half of its former volume now, and the rapids
were more brawling, and more tedious to ascend. However, he consoled
himself with the thought that if they held him back they would delay the
dug-out no less. The river was very lovely on these upper reaches; in
his anxiety to get on he scarcely marked that at the moment, but
afterwards he remembered its park-like shores, its forget-me-nots and
raspberry-blossoms, and the dappled sunlight falling through the
aspen-foliage. It was no different from the rivers of his boyhood in a
sheltered land, with swimming-holes at the foot of the little rapids:
only the fenced fields and the quiet cattle were lacking above the
banks, and church-spires in the distant vistas.
Within an hour Stonor himself became the victim of one of the ordinary
hazards of river-travel. In a rapid one of his paddles broke in half;
the current carried him broadside on a rock, and a great piece of bark
was torn from the side of his frail craft. Landing, he surveyed the
damage, grinding his teeth with angry disappointment. It meant the loss
of all he had so hardly gained on the dug-out.
To find a suitable piece of bark, and spruce-gum to cement it with,
required a considerable search in the bush. It then had to be sewed on
with needle and thread, the edges gummed, and the gum given time to dry
partly, in the heat of the fire. The afternoon was well advanced before
he got afloat again, and darkness compelled him to camp in the spot
where they had made their second, that is to say, the mid-afternoon,
spell.
The next two days, his third and fourth in the river, were without
especial incident. The river maintained its sylvan character, though the
bordering hills or bench were gradually growing higher and bolder.
Stonor, by putting every ounce that was in him into his paddle, slowly
gained again on the dug-out. He knew now that Imbrie, irrespective of
Mary, had a second paddle to help him. It gave the dug-out an advantage,
especially in swift water, that more than neutralized its extra weight.
By evening of the fourth day all signs indicated that he was drawing
close to his quarry again. He kept on until forced to stop by complete
darkness. On this night the sky was heavily overcast, and it was as dark
as a winter's night. He camped where he happened to be; it was a poor
spot, no more than a stony slope among willows. He had done all his
necessary cooking during the day, so there was no need to wait for his
supper.
The mosquitoes were troublesome, and he put up his tent, hastily
slinging it between two trees, and weighing down the sides and the back
with a few stones. To his tent he afterwards ascribed the preservation
of his life. It was the simplest form of tent, known as a "lean-to," or,
as one might say, merely half a tent sliced along the ridge-pole, with a
roof sloping to the ground at the back, and the entire front open to the
fire except for a mosquito-bar.
His bed was hard, but he was too weary to care. He lay down in his
blanket, but not to achieve forgetfulness immediately; strong
discipline was still required to calm his hot impatience. How could he
sleep, not knowing perhaps but that one more mile might bring him to his
goal? Indeed, Imbrie's camp might be around the next bend. But he could
not risk his frail canoe in the shallow river after dark.
Stonor was on the borderland of sleep when he was suddenly roused to
complete wakefulness by a little sound from behind his tent. A woodsman
soon learns to know all the normal sounds of night, and this was
something different, an infinitely stealthy sound, as of a body dragging
itself an inch at a time, with long waits between. It seemed to be
slowly making its way around his tent towards the open front.
Now Stonor knew that there was no animal in his country that stalks
human prey, and he instantly thought of his two-legged enemy. Quick and
noiselessly as a cat he slipped out of his blankets, and rolling his
dunnage-bag in his place drew the blanket over it. In the faint light
reflected from the embers outside it might be supposed that he still lay
there. He then cautiously moved the stones aside, and slipped out under
the wall of his tent on the side opposite to that whence the creeping
sounds now came.
On hands and knees he crawled softly around the back of his tent,
determined to stalk the stalker. He felt each inch of the way in
advance, to make sure there was nothing that would break or turn under
his weight. He could hear no sounds from the other side now. Rounding
the back of his tent, at the corner he lay flat and stuck his head
around. At first he could see nothing. The tall trees on the further
shore cut off all but the faintest gleam of light from the river. A
little forward and to the left of his tent there was a thick clump of
willow, making a black shadow at its foot that might have concealed
anything. Stonor watched, breathing with open mouth to avoid betraying
himself. Little by little he made out a shadowy form at the foot of the
willows, a shape merely a degree blacker than its background. He could
be sure of nothing.
Then his heart seemed to miss a beat, for against the wan surface of the
river he saw an arm raised and a gun point--presumably at the dummy he
had left under the tent. Oddly enough his shock of horror was not
primarily that one should seek to kill him, Stonor; he was first of all
appalled at the outrage offered to the coat he wore.
The gun spoke and flame leaped from the barrel. Stonor, gathering
himself up, sprang forward on the assassin. At the first touch he
recognized with a great shock of surprise that it was a woman he had to
deal with. Her shoulders were round and soft under his hands; the grunt
she uttered as he bore her back was feminine. He wrenched the gun from
her hands and cast it to one side.
When she caught her breath she fought like a mad cat, with every lithe
muscle of her body and with teeth and claws too. She was strong; strong
and quick as a steel spring. More than once she escaped him. Once she
got half-way up the bank; but here he bore her down on her face and
locked her arms behind her in a grip she was powerless to break.
Jerking her to her feet--one is not too gentle even with a woman who has
just tried to murder one--he forced her before him back to his tent.
Here, holding her with one arm while she swayed and wrenched in her
efforts to free herself, he contrived to draw his knife, and to cut off
one of the stay-ropes of his tent. With this he bound her wrists
together behind her back, and passed the end round a stout trunk of
willow. The instant he stood back she flung herself forward on the rope,
but the jerk on her arms must have nearly dislocated them. It brought a
shriek of pain from her. She came to a standstill, sobbing for breath.
Stonor collected dead twigs, and blew on the embers. In a minute or two
he had a bright blaze, and turned, full of curiosity to see what he had
got. He saw a breed woman of forty years or more, still, for a wonder,
uncommonly handsome and well-formed. The pure hatred that distorted her
features could not conceal her good looks. She had the fine straight
features of her white forebears, and her dusky cheeks flamed with
colour. She bore herself with a proud, savage grace.
More than the woman herself, her attire excited Stonor's wonder. It was
a white woman's get-up. Her dress, though of plain black cotton, was cut
with a certain regard to the prevailing style. She wore corsets--strange
phenomenon! Stonor had already discovered it before he got a look at
her. Her hair had been done on top of her head in a white woman's
fashion, though it was pretty well down now. Strangest of all, she wore
gold jewellery; rings on her fingers and drops in her ears; a showy gold
locket hanging from a chain around her neck. On the whole a surprising
apparition to find on the banks of the unexplored river.
Stonor, studying her, reflected that this was no doubt the woman he had
seen with Imbrie at Carcajou Point two months before. The Indians had
referred to her derisively as his "old woman." But it was strange he had
heard nothing of her from the Kakisas. She must have been concealed in
the very tepee from which Imbrie had issued on the occasion of Stonor's
first visit to the village at Swan Lake. The Indians down the river had
never mentioned her. He was sure she could not have lived with Imbrie
down there. Where, then, had he picked her up? Where had she been while
Imbrie was down there? How had she got into the country anyway? The more
he thought of it the more puzzling it was. Certainly she had come from
far; Stonor was well assured he would have heard of so striking a
personage as this anywhere within his own bailiwick.
Another thought suddenly occurred to him. This of course would be the
woman who had tried to decoy him out of his camp with her cries for help
in English. At least she explained that bit of the all-enveloping
mystery.
"Well, here's a pretty how-de-do!" said Stonor with grim humour. "Who
are you?"
She merely favoured him with a glance of inexpressible scorn.
"I know you talk English," he said, "good English too. So there's no use
trying to bluff me that you don't understand. What is your name, to
begin with?"
Still no answer but the curling lip.
"What's the idea of shooting at a policeman? Is it worth hanging for?"
She gave no sign.
He saw that it only gratified her to balk his curiosity, so he turned
away with a shrug. "If you won't talk, that's your affair."
He had thrown only light stuff on the fire, and he let it burn itself
out, having no mind to make of himself a shining mark for a bullet from
another quarter. He lit his pipe and sat debating what to do--or rather
struggling with his desire to set off instantly in search of Imbrie's
camp. Knowing it must be near, it was hard to be still. Yet better sense
told him he would be at a fatal disadvantage in the dark, particularly
as Imbrie must now be on the alert. There was no help for it. He must
wait for daylight.
He knew that above all he required sleep to fit him for his work next
day, and he determined to impose sleep on himself if will-power could do
it. As he rose to return to his tent a sullen voice from the direction
of the willow-bushes spoke up in English as good as his own:
"The mosquitoes are biting me."
"Ha!" said Stonor, with a grim laugh. "You've found your tongue, eh?
Mosquitoes! That's not a patch on what you intended for me, my girl! But
if you want to be friends, all right. First give an account of
yourself."
She relapsed into silence.
"I say, tell me who you are and where you came from."
She said, with exactly the manner of a wilful child: "You can't make me
talk."
"Oh, all right! But I can let the mosquitoes bite you."
Nevertheless he untied her from the willows and let her crawl under his
mosquito-bar. Here he tied ankles as well as wrists, beyond any
possibility of escape. It was not pure philanthropy on his part, for he
reflected that when she failed to return, Imbrie might come in search of
her, and take a shot inside his tent just on a chance. For himself he
took his blanket under the darkest shadow of the willows and covered
himself entirely with it excepting a hole to breathe through.
He did succeed in sleeping, and when he awoke the sky was clear and the
stars paling. Before crawling out of his hiding-place he took a careful
survey from between the branches. Nothing stirred outside. Under his
tent his prisoner was sleeping as calmly as a child. Apparently a
frustrated murder more or less was nothing to disturb her peace of mind.
Stonor thought grimly--for perhaps the hundredth time in dealing with
the red race: "What a rum lot they are!" He ate some bread that he had
left, and began to pack up.
The woman awoke as he took down the tent over her head, and watched his
preparations in a sullen silence.
"Haven't you got a tongue this morning?" asked Stonor.
She merely glowered at him.
However, by and by, when she saw everything being packed in the canoe,
she suddenly found her tongue. "Aren't you going to feed me?" she
demanded.
"No time now," he answered teasingly.
Her face turned dark with rage. "You hangman!" she muttered savagely.
"You've got a hangman's face all right! Anybody would know what you are
without your livery!"
Stonor laughed. "Dear! Dear! We are in a pleasant humour this morning!
You believe in the golden rule, don't you?--for others!"
When he was ready to start he regarded her grimly. He saw no recourse
but to take her with him, thus quadrupling his difficulties. He did
consider leaving her behind on the chance of returning later, but he
could not tell what hazards the day might have for him. He might be
prevented from returning, and murderess though she were, she was human,
and he could not bring himself to leave her helpless in the bush. She
stolidly watched the struggle going on in him.
He gave in to his humanitarian instincts with a sigh. As a final
precaution he gagged her securely with a handkerchief. He wished to take
no chances of her raising an alarm as they approached Imbrie's camp. He
then picked her up and laid her in the canoe. She rolled the light craft
from side to side.
"If you overturn us you'll drown like a stone," said Stonor, grinning.
"That would help solve my difficulties."
After that she lay still, her eyes blazing.
Stonor proceeded. This part of the river was narrow and fairly deep,
and the current ran steadily and slow. Through breaks in the ranks of
the trees he caught sight from time to time of the bench on either hand,
which now rose in high bold hills. From this he guessed that he had got
back to the true prairie country again. As is always the case in that
country, the slope to the north of the river was grassy, while the
southerly slope was heavily wooded to the top.
He peered around each bend with a fast-beating heart, but Imbrie's camp
proved to be not so near as he had expected. He put a mile behind him,
and another mile, and there was still no sign of it. Evidently the woman
had not made her way through the bush, as he had supposed, but had been
dropped off to wait for him. After giving him his quietus she had no
doubt intended to take his canoe and join her party. Well, it was
another lovely morning, and Stonor was thankful her plan had miscarried.
The river took a twist to the southward. The sun rose and shot his beams
horizontally through the tree-trunks, lighting up the underbrush with a
strange golden splendour. It was lovely and slightly unreal, like
stage-lighting. The surface of the river itself seemed to be dusted with
light. Far overhead against the blue, so tender and so far away at this
latitude, eagles circled and joyously screamed, each one as if he had an
intermittent alarm in his throat.
In the bow the woman lay glaring at him venomously. Stonor could not
help but think: "What a gorgeous old world to be fouled with murder and
hatred!"
At last, as he crept around an overhanging clump of willows, he saw what
he was in search of, and his heart gave a great leap. Arresting his
paddle, he clung to the branches and peered through, debating what to
do. They were still far off and he had not been perceived. With
straining eyes he watched the three tiny figures that meant so much to
him. Unfortunately there was no chance of taking Imbrie by surprise, for
he had had the wit to choose a camping-place that commanded a view
down-stream for half a mile. Stonor considered landing, and attempting
to take them from the rear, but even as he looked he saw Imbrie loading
the dug-out. They would be gone long before he could make his way round
through the bush. There was nothing to do but make a dash for it.
They saw him as soon as he rounded the bend. There was a strange
dramatic quality in the little beings running this way and that on the
beach. Stonor, straining every nerve to reach them, was nevertheless
obliged to be the witness of a drama in which he was powerless to
intervene. He saw Imbrie throw what remained of his baggage into the
dug-out. He saw the two petticoated figures start running up the beach
towards him, Stonor. Imbrie started after them. The larger of the two
figures dropped back and grappled with the man, evidently to give the
other a chance to escape. But Imbrie succeeded in flinging her off, and,
after a short chase, seized the other woman. Stonor could make out the
little green Norfolk suit now.
Mary snatched up a billet of wood, and as the man came staggering back
with his burden, she attacked him. He backed towards the dug-out,
holding Clare's body in front of him as a shield. But under Mary's
attacks he was finally compelled to drop Clare. She must have fainted,
for she lay without moving. Imbrie closed with Mary, and there was a
brief violent struggle. He succeeded in flinging her off again. He
reached the dug-out. Mary attacked him again. Snatching up his gun, he
fired at her point-blank. She crumpled up on the stones.
Imbrie picked up Clare and flung her in the dug-out. He pushed off. All
this had been enacted in not much more time than it takes to read of
it. Stonor was now within a furlong, but still helpless, for he dared
not fire at Imbrie for fear of hitting Clare. The dug-out escaped out of
sight round a bend.