before the late sunset. Prime was all in, down, and out, but he would
not admit it until after the supper had been eaten and the shelter-tent
set up over its bed of spruce-tips. Then he let go with both hands.
"I'm dog-tired, and I am not ashamed to admit it," he confessed. "But
you--you look as fresh as a daisy. What are you made of--spring steel?"
"Not by any manner of means; but I wasn't going to be the first to say
anything. I feel as if I were slowly ossifying. I wouldn't walk another
mile to-night for a fortune."
Prime stretched himself lazily before the fire with his hands under his
head. "Luckily, you don't have to. You had better turn in and get all
the sleep that is coming to you. I'm going to hit the blankets after I
smoke another pinch of this horrible tobacco."
As he sat up to roll the pinch a rising wind began to swish through the
tree-tops. A little later there was a fitful play of lightning followed
by a muttering of distant thunder.
"That means rain, and you are going to get wet," said the young woman,
as she was preparing to creep under her canvas. An instant later a gusty
blast came down the river, threatening to scatter the fire. Prime sprang
up at once and began to take the necessary precautions against a
conflagration. In the midst of the haste-making he heard his companion
say: "We might drag the canoe up here and turn it over so that you could
have it for a shelter."
With the fire safely banked they went together to the river's edge to
carry out her suggestion. By this time the precursor blast of the shower
was lashing the little river into foam, and the spray from the rapid
just above them wet their faces. One glance, lightning assisted, at the
little beach where they had drawn up the canoe was enough. The
birch-bark was gone.
The young woman was the first to find speech. At another lightning-flash
she cried out quickly:
"There it is! Don't you see it?--going down the river! The wind is
blowing it away!"
Immediately they dashed off in pursuit, stumbling through the forest in
darkness, which, between the lightning-flashes, was like a blanketing of
invisibility. The race was a short one. One flash showed them the canoe
dancing down the raceway of a lower rapid, and at the next it had
disappeared.
VII
_ROULANT MA BOULE_
AT the disappearance of the canoe Prime called the halt which the black
darkness was insisting upon, and they made their way back in the teeth
of the storm to the camp-fire. In a few minutes the summer squall had
blown itself out, with scarcely enough rain to make a drip from the
trees. Weary as he was, Prime took the axe, searched until he found a
pine stump, and from it hewed the material for a couple of torches. With
these for light they set out doggedly down-stream in search of their
lost hope.
Happily, since they were both fagged enough to drop in their tracks, the
birch-bark was discovered stranded on their side of the river a hundred
yards below the lower rapid. This time they ran no risks, and, though it
cost them a half-hour of stumbling toil, they did not rest until they
had carried the canoe around the rapid to place it high and dry in the
little glade where they had made their camp.
The next morning found them plentifully stiff and sore from their
strenuous exertions of the day before, but there was good cheer in the
thought that thus far they had triumphed stoutly over difficulty and
disaster.
"I feel as if I couldn't put one foot before the other, and I am sure
you must be in the same condition," Prime groaned, over the second
helping of fried potatoes and bacon, served in Domestic Science's best
style. "Just the same, I mean to take a dose of the hair of the dog that
bit me and go up after the remainder of our loot. While I am doing it
you must stay here and watch the canoe, to see that it doesn't run away
again. I wouldn't trust it a single minute, even on dry land."
"No," was the firm rejoinder. "You must get the sex idea out of your
head once for all, Donald. It will be time enough for you to make it
easy for me when I need it worse than I do now."
"Yesterday I said you were a wonder, Lucetta; to-day I rise to remark
that you are two wonders, and mighty plucky ones at that."
"And to-morrow I shall be three wonders, and the next day four, and so
on to infinity, I suppose," she said, laughing. "By the way, speaking of
days, what day is this?"
Prime drew a notched twig from his pocket.
"Don't ever say after this that I am not the original Robinson Crusoe,"
he grinned. "I cut this twig the second day, just before we began the
hike for the river." Then he counted up: "According to my almanac, this
ought to be Monday--wash-day."
"Then yesterday was Sunday, which is why we had all our bad luck. We
ought to have gone to church. Is it possible that we were both in Quebec
no longer ago than last Tuesday night? It seems as if months had elapsed
since then--months, I said, but I ought to have said ages."
"Are things changing for you so radically, then?" he asked.
"They are, indeed. And for you?"
"Yes; I guess so. For one thing, I have discovered the habitat of about
a million muscles that I didn't know I had; and for another----"
"Well?" she challenged, "why don't you say it?"
"I will say it. For another, I have discovered the most remarkable woman
that ever lived."
She laughed joyously. "See what a few days of unavoidable propinquity
will do! But you are mistaken--I'm not especially remarkable. You are
only doing what Mr. Grider said you ought to do--studying the female of
the species at short range."
"Grider was an ass!" was the impatient rejoinder. "If I had him here I'd
duck him in the river in spite of his fifty pounds excess. But this
isn't getting the remainder of the dunnage. Are you quite sure you want
to go along?"
"Quite sure," she returned, and once more they took the riverside trail
to the stream-head.
The third carry was lighter than the others had been, and the six-mile
tramp was the best possible antidote for stiffened joints and lamed
muscles. By the time they had reassembled themselves and their
belongings in the little glade between the rapids they were both in fine
fettle, and ready to begin the real journey.
The loading of the canoe was a new thing, but in this they gave common
sense a free rein. The camp stuff and provisions were made into packages
with the blankets and the tent canvas for wrappings; and each package
was securely lashed beneath the brace-bars of the birch-bark, so that in
case of a capsize there would still be some chance for salvage. Prime's
final precaution was worthy of a real woodsman. Drying the empty
whiskey-bottle carefully with a wisp of grass, he filled it with
matches, corked it tightly, and skewered it in an inside pocket of his
coat.
"You are learning," Lucetta observed; and then: "Did you get that out of
a story?"
"No, indeed; I dug it up whole out of my literary imagination. If I
should tumble overboard you want to be sure to save the pieces, if you
ever hope to see a fire again. Are we all ready?"
Five minutes later they had taken their lives in their hands and were
shooting the rapids. With the laden canoe the paddling was an entirely
different proposition. Mile after mile the quick water held, with only
the shortest of reaches between Scylla and Charybdis for the
breath-catching. At first the keen strain of it keyed nerve and muscle
to the snapping-point; but after a time the fine wine of peril had its
due and exhilarating effect, and they shouted and laughed, calling to
each other above the turmoil of the waters, gasping joyously when the
spray from the white-fanged boulders slapped them in the face, and
having the luck of the innocent or the drunken, since disaster held
aloof and they escaped with nothing more serious than the spray
wettings.
Though light-heartedness thus sat in the saddle--or knelt on the
paddling-mat--prudence was not wholly banished. At noon, when they
pulled out at the foot of a quiet reach to make a pot of tea, they found
that they were at the head of a rapid too swift and tortuous to offer
anything but certain catastrophe. While the tea water was heating Prime
went ahead to reconnoitre.
"Too many chances," he reported on his return. "And, besides, the carry
is only a few hundred yards. It means more hard work, but we can't
afford to run the risk."
"Oh, dear me!" sighed the young woman in mock despair; "have we got to
unload that canoe piece by piece, and then carry and load it all over
again?"
"We shall doubtless have to do it so many times that we shall count that
day lost when we are denied the opportunity," Prime laughed. "But,
Heaven helping us, we shall make no more three-mile portages, as we did
yesterday."
The task did not seem quite so formidable after they had broken their
fast. Moreover, in the repeated packings and unpackings, they were
gaining facility. With the dunnage transported they were ready to attack
the birch-bark, and Lucetta had an inspiration.
"Haven't I seen a picture somewhere of the old _voyageurs_ carrying
their canoes on their heads?" she asked.
"Why, of course!" said Prime. "Why didn't we think of that last night? I
believe I could carry it that way alone. Now, then, over she goes and
up she goes; you set the pace, and for pity's sake don't stumble."
Nobody stumbled, and in due time the canoe was launched below the
rapids, was reloaded, and the paddling was resumed. This day, which
ended in a snug camp at the foot of a stretch of slow water which had
kept them paddling all the afternoon, was a fair sample of their days
through the remainder of the week. Night after night, after they had
been shooting rapids, or making long carries, or paddling steadily
through stretches where the current did not go fast enough for them,
Prime found Lucetta's prophecy as to his growth coming true. Day by day
he was finding himself anew, advancing by leaps and bounds, as it
seemed, into a stronger and fresher and simpler manhood.
And as for the young woman--there were times when the realization that
in a few hours of a single mysterious night she had passed from the
world of the commonplace into a world hitherto unpictured even in her
wildest imaginings, was graspable, but these moments were rare.
Adaptable, even under the fetterings of the conventions, Lucetta
Millington was finding herself fairly gifted now that the fetterings
were removed. From childhood she had longed for an opportunity to
explore the undiscovered regions of her own individuality, and now the
opportunity had come. It pleased her prodigiously to find that Prime
seemed not to be even remotely touched by their unchaperoned condition.
From the first he had been merely the loyal comrade, and she tried
consistently to meet him always upon his own ground--tried and
succeeded.
On the Saturday night they found themselves at the head of a long
portage, still in the heart of the wilderness, and having yet to see the
first sign of any human predecessor along the pathway traced through the
great forest by their little river.
"I can't understand it," Prime said that night over the camp-fire. "We
have covered a good many miles since last Monday, and still we don't
seem to be getting anywhere. Another thing I don't fancy is the way the
river has changed its course. Have you noticed that for the last three
days it has been flowing mainly northward?"
The young woman became interested at once. "I hadn't noticed it," she
admitted, and then: "Why don't you like it?"
"Because it seems a bit ominous. It may mean that we were carted clear
over to the northern side of the big watershed, though that doesn't seem
possible. If we were, we are going painstakingly away from civilization
instead of toward it. That would account at once for the fact that we
haven't come across any timber-cuttings. The northern rivers all flow
into Hudson Bay."
Lucetta's gaze became abstracted. "Besides that, we are still groping in
the blind alleys of the mysteries," she put in. "Have you given up the
Mr. Grider idea?"
"I can't give it up wholly and save my sanity," Prime averred. "Think a
minute; if we throw that away, what have we to fall back upon? Nothing,
absolutely nothing! Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the sane mind.
Don't mistake me; I haven't the slightest idea that Grider let us in for
any such experience as this, meaning to. But he took a chance, as every
practical joker does, and the result in our case has spelled disaster.
I am only hoping that it has spelled disaster for him, too, confound
him!"
She smiled sweetly.
"Are you calling it disaster now? Only yesterday you said you were
enjoying it. Have you changed your mind?"
"I have, and I haven't. From a purely selfish point of view, I'm having
the finest kind of a vacation, and enjoying every blessed minute of it.
More than that, the raggeder I grow the better I feel. It's perfectly
barbarous, I know; but it is the truth. My compunctions are all
vicarious. I shouldn't have had half so much fun if I had gone motoring
through New England."
The young woman smiled again. "You needn't waste any of the vicarious
compunctions on me. Honestly, Donald, I--I'm having the time of my life.
It is the call of the wild, I suppose. I shall go back home, if I ever
reach home, a perfect savage, no doubt, but the life of the humdrum will
never be able to lay hold of me again, in the sense that it will possess
me, as it used to."
Prime's grin was an expression of the purely primitive.
"It is a reversion to type," he asserted, getting up to arrange
Lucetta's sleeping-tent. "It makes one wonder if all humanity isn't
built that way; if it wouldn't go back at a gallop if it were given half
a chance."
"I don't call it going back," was the quiet reply. "I feel as if I had
merely dropped a large number of utterly useless hamperings. Life has
never seemed so free and completely desirable before, and yet, when we
have been running some of the most terrifying rapids, I have felt that I
could give it up without a murmur if I shouldn't prove big enough to
keep it in spite of the hazards. At such times I have felt that I could
go out with only one big regret--the thought that I wasn't going to live
long enough to find out _why_ I had to be drowned in the heart of a
Canadian forest."
VIII
CRACKING VENEERS
AT the foot of the long portage which had closed the week for them the
two voyagers found the course of their river changing again to the
southeastward, and were encouraged accordingly. In addition to the
changing course the stream was taking on greater volume, and, while the
rapids were not so numerous, they were more dangerous, or at least they
looked so.
By this time they were acquiring considerable skill with the paddles,
together with a fine, woodcrafty indifference to the hardships. In the
quick water they were never dry, and they came presently to disregard
the wettings, or rather to take them as a part of the day's work. As the
comradeship ripened, their attitude toward each other grew more and more
intolerant of the civilized reservations.
Over the night fires their talk dug deeply into the abstractions, losing
artificiality in just proportion to the cracking and peeling of the
veneers.
"I am beginning to feel as though I had never touched the real realities
before," was the way Prime expressed it at the close of a day in which
they had run a fresh gamut of all the perils. "Life, the life that the
vast majority of people thrive upon, will always seem ridiculously
trivial and commonplace to me after this. I never understood before that
civilization is chiefly an overlaying of extraneous things, and that,
given a chance, it would disintegrate and fall away from us even as our
civilized clothes are doing right now."
The young woman looked up with a quaint little grimace. She was trying
to patch the frayed hem of her skirt, sewing with a thread drawn from
one of the blankets and a clumsy needle Prime had fashioned for her out
of a fish-bone.
"Please don't mention clothes," she begged. "If we had more of the
deerskin I'd become a squaw at once. The fringes wouldn't look so bad if
they were done in leather."
"Mere accessories," Prime declared, meaning the clothes. "Civilization
prescribes them, their cut, fashion, and material. The buckskin Indians
have the best of us in this, as in many other things."
"The realities?" she queried.
"The simplicities," he qualified. "Life as we have lived it, and as we
shall probably live it again if we ever get out of this, is much too
complex. We are learning how few the real necessities are, and it is
good for the soul. I wouldn't take a fortune for what I've been learning
in these weeks, Lucetta."
"I have been learning, too," she admitted.
"Other things besides the use of a paddle and a camp-fire?"
"Many other things. I have forgotten the world I knew best, and it is
going to require a tremendous effort to remember it again when the need
arises."
"I shall never get back to where I was before," Prime asserted with
cheerful dogmatism. Then, in a fresh burst of confidence: "Lucetta, I'm
coming to suspect that I have always been the merest surface-skimmer. I
thought I knew life a little, and was even brash enough to attempt to
write about it. I thought I could visualize humanity and its
possibilities, but what I saw was only the outer skin--of people and of
things. But my greatest impertinence has been in my handling of women."
"Injustice?" she inquired.
"Not intentional; just crass ignorance. I know now that I was merely
imitative, choosing for models the character-drawings of men who knew
even less about women than I did. Vapid sentimentality was about as far
as I could get. It revolts me to think of it now."
Her laugh was as unrestrained as that of a child. "You amuse me, Donald.
Most women are hopelessly sentimental. Don't you know that?"
"You are not," he retorted soberly.
"How do you know?"
"Heavens and earth! if I haven't had an opportunity to find out----"
"You haven't," she returned quietly; "not the least little morsel of an
opportunity. A few days ago we were thrown together--a man and a woman
who were total strangers, to live or die as the chance might fall. I
defy any one to be sentimental in such circumstances. Sentiment thrives
only in the artificialities; they are the very breath of its life. If
men and women could know each other as they really are, there would be
fewer marriages, by far."
"And the few would be far happier," Prime put in.
"Do you think so? I doubt it very much."
"Why?"
"Because, in the most admirable marriage there must be some preservation
of the reticences. It is possible for people to know each other too
well."
"I don't think so, if the qualities are of the kind that will stand the
test."
"Who has such qualities?" she asked quickly.
"You have, for one. I didn't believe there was a human woman on earth
who could go through what you have and still keep sweet. Setting aside
the hardships, I fancy most other women would have gone stark, staring
mad puzzling over the mystery."
"Ah, yes; the mystery. Shall we ever be able to explain it?"
"Not if we decide to throw Grider overboard, I'm afraid."
"Doesn't the Mr. Grider solution seem less and less possible to you as
time goes on?" she asked. "It does to me. The motive--a mere practical
joke--isn't strong enough. Whoever abducted us was trying for something
larger than a laugh at our expense."
"You'd think so, wouldn't you? Big risks were incurred, and the expense
must have been considerable, too. Still, as I have said before, if we
leave Grider out of it we abandon the one only remotely tenable
explanation. I grant you that the joke motive is weak, but aside from
that there is no motive at all. Nobody in this world could have any
possible object in getting rid of me, and I am sure that the assumption
applies with equal force to you. You see where it leaves us."
"I know," was the ready rejoinder. "If the mystery had stopped with our
discovery of the aeroplane-tracks, it would have been different. But it
didn't stop there. It continued with our finding of the ownerless canoe
stocked for a long journey. Was the canoe left for us to find?"
Prime knew his companion well enough by this time to be willing to trust
her with the grewsome truth.
"I don't know what connection the canoe may have had with our
kidnapping, if any, but I am going to tell you something that I didn't
care to tell you until we were far enough away from the scene of it. We
reasoned that there were two owners for the canoe, arguing from the two
rifles and the two hunting-knives. Do you know why they didn't turn up
while we were waiting for them?"
"No."
"It was because they couldn't. They were dead."
"You knew it at the time?" she asked.
"Yes. I found them. It was in a little glade just below our camp at the
river-head. They had fought a duel with knives. It was horrible, and I
thought it best not to tell you--it seemed only the decent thing not to
tell you."
"When did you find them?"
"It was when I went over to the river on the excuse of trying to get
some berries while you were cooking supper. I had seen the canoe when I
went after the can of water. Instead of looking for berries I began to
hunt around for the owners, thinking that probably they were camped
somewhere near by. I didn't find any traces of a camp; but in the glade
there were the ashes of five fires arranged in the shape of a Greek
cross: one fire in the middle and one at the end of each arm. This
mystified me still more, but it was then growing so dark that it was no
use to look farther. Just as I was leaving the glade I stumbled over the
two men, locked in each other's arms; they had evidently been dead for
some hours, or maybe days."
"How perfectly frightful!" she exclaimed. "I don't wonder that you
looked ill when you came back."
"It nearly knocked me out," Prime confessed. "But I realized at once
that it wasn't necessary to multiply the shock by two. After you were
asleep that night I went over and buried the two men--weighted them
with stones and sunk them in the river, since I didn't have anything to
dig with. Afterward, while I was searching for the other knife, I found
a little buckskin bag filled with English sovereigns, lying, as I
supposed, where one of them had dropped it. It seemed to indicate the
motive for the desperate fight."
"But it adds just that much more to the mystery," was the young woman's
comment. "Were they white men?"
"Half-breeds or Indians, I couldn't tell which."
"Somebody hired them to do something with us?" she suggested
tentatively.
"That is only a guess. I have made it half a dozen times only to have it
pushed aside by the incredibilities. If we are to connect these two men
with our kidnapping, it presupposes an arrangement made far in advance.
That in itself is incredible."
"What do you make of the five fires?"
"I could make nothing of them unless they were intended for signal-fires
of some kind; but even in that case the arrangement in the form of a
cross wouldn't mean anything."
The young woman had finished her mending and was putting the fish-bone
needle carefully away against a time of future need.
"The arrangement might mean something if one were looking down upon it
from above," she put in quietly.
Prime got up to kick the burned log-ends into the heart of the fire.
"If I didn't have such a well-trained imagination, I might have thought
of that," he said, with a short laugh. "It was a signal, and it was
lighted for the benefit of our aeroplane. How much farther does that get
us?"
The young woman was letting down the flaps of her sleeping-tent, and her
answer was entirely irrelevant.
"I am glad the protective instinct was sufficiently alive to keep you
from telling me at the time," she said, with a little shudder which she
did not try to conceal. "You may not believe it, Donald Prime, but I
still have a few of the civilized weaknesses. Good night; and don't sit
up too long with that horrid tobacco."
IX
SHIPWRECK