In Virginia's first moment of wakening she could not distinguish
realities from dreams. All the experiences of the night before seemed
for the moment only the adventures of a nightmare. But disillusionment
came quickly. She opened her eyes to view the cabin walls, and the full
dreadfulness of her situation swept her in an instant.
Her tears came first. She couldn't restrain them, and they were simply
the natural expression of her fear and her loneliness and her distress.
For long moments she sobbed bitterly, yet softly as she could. But
Virginia was of good metal, and in the past few days she had acquired a
certain measure of self-discipline. She began to struggle with her
tears. They would waken Bill, she thought--and she had not forgotten
his bravery and his toil of the night before. She conquered them at
last, and, miserable and sick of heart, tried to go back to sleep.
Her muscles pained her, her throat was raw from the water, and when she
tried to make herself comfortable her limbs were stiff and aching. But
she knew she had to look her position in the face. She turned, pains
shooting through her frame, and gazed about her.
The cabin, she could see, was rather larger than any of those in which
they had camped on their journey. It was well-chinked and sturdy, and
even had the luxury of a window. For the moment she didn't see Bill at
all. She wondered if he had gone out. Then, moving nearer to the edge
of her cot, she looked over intending to locate the clothes she had
taken off the night before. Then she saw him, stretched on the floor in
the farthest corner of the room.
He gave the impression of having dropped with exhaustion and fallen to
sleep where he lay. She could see that he still wore the tattered
overcoat he had found hanging on the wall, and the two blankets were
still wrapped about him. He was paying for his magnificent efforts of
the night before. Morning was vivid and full at the window, but he
still lay in heavy slumber.
She resolved not to call him; and in spite of her own misery, her lips
curled in a half-smile. She was vaguely touched; someway the sight of
this strong forester, lying so helpless and exhausted in sleep, went
straight to some buried instinct within her and found a tenderness, a
sweet graciousness that had not in her past life manifested itself too
often.
But the tenderness was supplanted by a wave of icy terror. She was a
woman, and the thought suddenly came to her that she was wholly in this
man's power, naked except for the blankets around her, unarmed and
helpless and lost in the forest depths. What did she know of him? He
had been the soul of respect heretofore, but now--with her uncle on
the other side of the river--; but she checked herself with a revulsion
of feeling. The strength that had saved her life would save him against
himself. They would find a way to get out to-day; and she thought that
this, at least, she need not fear.
He had been busy before he slept. His clothes and hers were hung on
nails back of the little stove to dry. He had cut fresh wood, piling it
behind the stove. She guessed that he had intended to keep the fire
burning the whole night, but sleep had claimed him and disarranged his
plans.
His next thought was of supplies. The simple matter of food and warmth
is the first issue in the wilderness; already she had learned this
lesson. Her eyes glanced about the walls. There were two or three
sacks, perhaps filled with provisions, hanging from the ceiling, safely
out of the reach of the omnivorous pack-rats that often wreak such havoc
in unoccupied cabins. But further than this the place seemed bare of
food.
Blankets were in plenty; there were a few kitchen utensils hanging back
of the stove, and some sort of an ancient rifle lay across a pair of
deer horns. Whether or not there were any cartridges for this latter
article she could not say. Strangest of all, a small and battered
phonograph, evidently packed with difficulty into the hills, and a small
stack of records sat on the crude, wooden table. Evidently a real and
fervent love of music had not been omitted from Bill's make-up.
Then Bill stirred in his sleep. She lay still, watching. She saw his
eyes open. And his first glance was toward her.
He flashed her a smile, and she tried pitifully to answer it. "How are
you?" he asked.
"Awfully lame and sore and tired. Maybe I'll be better soon. And
you----?"
"A little stiff, not much. I'm hard to damage, Miss Tremont. I've seen
too much of hardship. But I've overslept--and there isn't another
second to be lost. I've got to dress and go and locate Vosper and
Lounsbury."
"I suppose you'd better--right away. They'll be terribly
distressed--thinking we're drowned." She turned her back to him,
without nonsense or embarrassment, and he started to dress. She
didn't see the slow smile, half-sardonic, that was on his lips.
"I'm not worrying about their distress," he told her. "I only want to
be sure and catch them before they give us up for lost--and turn back.
I can never forgive myself for failing to waken. It was just that I was
so tired----"
"I won't let you blame yourself for that," the girl replied, slowly but
earnestly. "Besides, Uncle Kenly won't go away for two or three days at
least. He's been my guardian--I'm his ward--and I'm sure he'll make
every effort to learn what happened to us."
"I suppose you're right. You know whether or not you can trust
Lounsbury. I only know--that I can't trust Vosper."
"They'll be waiting for us, don't fear for that," the girl went on. She
tried to put all the assurance she could into her tone. "But how can we
get across?"
"That remains to be seen. If they're there to help, with the horses, we
might find a way." The man finished dressing, then turned to go. "I'm
sorry I can't even take time to light your fire. You must stay in bed,
anyway--all day."
He left hurriedly, and as the door opened the wind blew a handful of
snow in upon her. The snow had deepened during the night, and fall was
heavier than ever. Shivering with cold and aching in every muscle, she
got up and put on her underclothing. It was almost dry already. Then,
wholly miserable and dejected, she lay down again between her blankets,
waiting for Bill's return. And his step was heavy and slow on the
threshold when he came.
She couldn't interpret the expression on his face when she saw him in
the doorway. He was curiously sober and intent, perhaps even a little
pale. "Go to sleep, Miss Tremont," he advised. "I'll make a fire for
breakfast."
He bent to prepare kindling. The girl swallowed painfully, but shaken
with dread shaped her question at last. "What--what did you find
out?"
He looked squarely into her eyes. "Nothing that you'll want to hear,
Miss Tremont," he told her soberly. "I went to the river bank and
looked across. They--they----"
"They are gone?" the girl cried.
"They've pulled freight. I could see the smoke of their fire--it was
just about out. Not a horse in sight, or a man. There's no chance for
a mistake, I'm afraid. I called and called, but no one answered."
The tears rushed to the girl's eyes, but she fought them back. There
was an instant of strained silence. "And what does it mean?"
"I don't know. We'll get out someway----"
"Tell me the truth, Bill," the girl suddenly urged. "I can stand it. I
will stand it--don't be afraid to tell me."
The man looked down at her in infinite compassion. "Poor little girl,"
he said. "What do you want to know?"
She didn't resent the words. She only felt speechlessly grateful and
someway comforted,--as a baby girl might feel in her father's arms.
"Does it mean--that we've lost, after all?"
"Our lives? Not at all." She read in his face that this, at least, was
the truth. "I'll tell you, Miss Tremont, just what I think it means.
If we were on the other side of the river, and we had horses, we could
push through and get out--easy enough. But we haven't got horses--even
Buster is drowned--and it would be a hard fight to carry supplies
and blankets on our backs, for the long hike down into Bradleyburg. It
would likely be too much for you. Besides, the river lays between.
In time we might go down to quieter waters and build a raft--out of
logs--but the snow's coming thicker all the time. Before we could get
it done and get across, we couldn't mush out--for the snows have come
to stay and we haven't got snowshoes. We could rig up some kind of
snowshoes, I suppose, but until the snow packs we couldn't make it into
town. It's too long a way and too cold. In soft snow even a strong man
can only go a little way--you sink a foot and have to lift a load of
snow with every step. Every way we look there's a block. We're like
birds, caught in a cage."
"But won't men--come to look for us?"
"I've been thinking about that. Miss Tremont, they won't come till
spring, and then they'll likely only half look for us. I know this
northern country. Death is too common a thing to cause much stir.
Lounsbury will tell them we are drowned--no one will believe we could
have gotten out of the canyon, dressed like we were and on a night like
last night. If they thought we were alive and suffering, the whole male
population would take a search party and come to our aid. Instead they
know--or rather, they think they know--that we're dead. There won't
be any horses, it will be a fool's errand, and mushing through those
feet of soft snow is a job they won't undertake."
"But the river will freeze soon."
"Yes. Even this cataract freezes, but it likely won't be safe to cross
for some weeks--maybe clear into January or February. That depends on
the weather. You see, Miss Tremont, we don't have the awful low
temperatures early in the winter they get further east and north. We're
on the wet side of the mountains. But we do get the snow, week after
week of it when you simply can't travel, and plenty of thirty and forty,
sometimes more, below zero. But the river will freeze if we give it
time. And the snow will pack and crust late in the winter. And then,
in those clear, cold days, we can make a sled and mush out."
"And it means--we're tied up here for weeks--and maybe months?"
"That's it. Just as sure as if we had iron chains around our ankles."
Then the girl's tears flowed again, unchecked. Bill stood beside her,
his shoulders drooping, but in no situation of his life had he ever felt
more helpless, more incapable of aid. "Don't cry," he pleaded. "Don't
cry, Miss Tremont. I'll take care of you. Don't you know I will?"
Her grief rent him to the depths, but there was nothing he could say or
do. He drew the blankets higher about her.
"Perhaps you can get some more sleep," he urged. "Your body's torn to
pieces, of course."
Fearful and lonely and miserable, the girl cried herself to sleep. Bill
sat beside her a long time, and the snow sifted down in the forest and
the silence lay over the land. He left her at last, and for a while was
busy among the supplies that he found on a shelf behind the stove. And
she wakened to find him bending over her.
His face was anxious and his eyes gentle as a woman's. "Do you think
you can eat?" he asked. "I've warmed up soup--and I've got coffee,
too."
He had put the liquids in cups and had drawn the little table beside her
bed. She shook her head, but she softened at the swift look of
disappointment in his face. "I'll take some coffee," she told him.
He held the cup for her, and she drank a little of the bracing liquid.
Then she pushed the cup away.
He waited beside a moment, curiously anxious. "Give me your hand," he
said.
"Why?"
Cold was her voice, and cold the expression on her face. It seemed to
her that the lines of Bill's face deepened, and his dark eyes grew
stern. But in a moment the expression passed, and she knew she had
wounded him. "Why do you think? I want to test your pulse."
He had seen that she was flushed, and he was in deadly fear that the
plunge into the cold waters had worked an organic injury. He took her
soft, slender wrist in his hand, and she felt the pressure of his little
finger against her pulsing arteries. Then she saw the dark features
light up.
"You haven't any fever," he told her joyfully. "You're just used up
from the experience. And God knows I can't blame you. Go to sleep
again if you like."
She dozed off again, and for a little while he was busy outside the
cabin, cutting fuel for the night's blaze. He stole in once to look at
her and then turned again down the moose trail to the river. He had
been certain before that the others had gone; now he only wanted to make
sure.
The long afternoon was at an end when he returned. He had gazed across
the gray waters and called again and again, but except for the echo of
his shout, the wilderness silence had been inviolate. Virginia was
awake, but still miserable and dejected in her blankets. They talked a
little, softly and quietly, about their chances, but he saw that she was
not yet in a frame of mind to look the situation squarely in the face.
Then he cooked the last meal of the day.
"I don't want anything," she told him, when again he proffered food. "I
only want to die. I wish I had died--in the river last night. Months
and months--in these awful woods and this awful cabin--and nothing
but death in the end."
He did not condemn her for the utterance, even in his thoughts. He was
imaginative enough to understand her despair and sympathize with it. He
remembered the sheltered life she had always lived. Besides, she was
his goddess; he could only humble himself before her.
"But I won't let you die, Miss Tremont. I'll care for you. You won't
even have to lift your hand, if you don't want to. You'll be happier,
though, if you do; it would break some of the monotony. There's a
little old phonograph on the stand, and some old magazines under your
cot. The weeks will pass someway. And I promise this." He paused, and
his face was gray as ashes. "I won't impose--any more of my company
upon you--than you wish."
The response was instantaneous. The girl's heart warmed; then she
flashed him a smile of sympathy and understanding. "Forgive me," she
said. "I'll try to be brave. I'll try to stiffen up. I know you'll do
everything you can to get me out. You're so good to me--so kind. And
now--I only want to go to sleep."
He watched her, standing by her bed. After all, sleep was the best
thing for her--to knit her torn nerves and mend her tired body.
Besides, the wilderness night was falling. He could see it already,
gray against the window pane. The first day of their exile was gone.
"I'll be all right in the morning," she told him sleepily. "And maybe
it's for the best--after all. At least--it gives you a better
chance to find Harold--and bring him back to me."
Bill nodded, but he didn't trust himself to speak.