Slim and straight as a young boy in her grey shirt and breeches, Eve
continued on lightly through the woods, her rifle over her shoulder, her
eyes of gentian-blue always alert.
The morning turned warm; she pulled off her soft felt hat, shook out her
clipped curls, stripped open the shirt at her snowy throat where sweat
glimmered like melted frost.
The forest was lovely in the morning sunlight--lovely and still--save
for the blue-jays--for the summer birds had gone and only birds
destined to a long Northern winter remained.
Now and then, ahead of her, she saw a ruffed grouse wandering in the
trail. These, and a single tiny grey bird with a dreary note
interminably repeated, were the only living things she saw except here
and there a summer-battered butterfly of the Vanessa tribe flitting in
some stray sunbeam.
The haunting odour of late autumn was in the air--delicately acrid--the
scent of frost-killed brake and ripening wild grasses, of brilliant dead
leaves and black forest loam pungent with mast from beech and oak.
Eve's tread was light on the moist trail; her quick eyes missed
nothing--not the dainty imprint of deer, fresh made, nor the sprawling
insignia of rambling raccoons--nor the big barred owl huddled on a pine
limb overhead, nor, where the swift gravelly reaches of the brook caught
sunlight, did she miss the swirl and furrowing and milling of painted
trout on the spawning beds.
Once she took cover, hearing something stirring; but it was only a
yearling buck that came out of the witch-hazel to stare, stamp, then
wheel and trot away, displaying the danger signal.
In her cartridge-pouch she carried the flat, sealed packet which Clinch
had trusted to her. The sack swayed gently as she strode on, slapping
her left hip at every step; and always her subconscious mind remained on
guard and aware of it; and now and then she dropped her hand to feel of
the pouch and strap.
The character of the forest was now changing as she advanced. The first
tamaracks appeared, slim, silvery trunks, crowned with the gold of
autumn foliage, outer sentinels of that vast maze of swamp and stream
called Owl Marsh, the stronghold and refuge of forest wild
things--sometimes the sanctuary of hunted men.
From Star Peak's left flank an icy stream clatters down to the level
floor of the woods, here; and it was here that Eve had meant to quench
her thirst with a mouthful of sweet water.
But as she approached the tiny ford, warily, she saw a saddled horse
tied to a sapling and a man seated on a mossy log.
The trappings of horse, the grey-green uniform of the man, left no room
for speculation; a trooper of the State Constabulary was seated there.
His cap was off; his head rested on his palm. Elbow on knee, he sat
there gazing at the water--watching the slim fish, perhaps, darting up
stream toward their bridal-beds hidden far away at the headwaters.
A detour was imperative. The girl, from the shelter of a pine, looked
out cautiously at the trooper. The sudden sight of him had merely
checked her; now the recognition of his uniform startled her heart out
of its tranquil rhythm and set the blood burning in her cheeks.
There was a memory of such a man seared into the girl's very soul;--a
man whose head and shoulders resembled this man's,--who had the same
bright hair, the same slim and powerful body,--and who moved, too, as
this young man moved.
The trooper stirred, lifted his head to relight his pipe.
The girl knew him. Her heart stood still; then heart and blood ran riot
and she felt her knees tremble,--felt weak as she rested against the
pine's huge trunk and covered her face with unsteady fingers.
Until the moment, Eve had never dreamed what the memory of this man
really meant to her,--never dreamed that she had capacity for emotion so
utterly overwhelming.
Even now confusion, shame, fear were paramount. All she wanted was to
get away,--get away and still her heart's wild beating,--control the
strange tremor that possessed her, recover mind and sense and breath.
She drew her hand from her eyes and looked upon the man she had
attempted to kill,--upon the young man who had wrestled her off her feet
and handcuffed her,--and who had bathed her bleeding mouth with
sphagnum,--and who had kissed her hands----
She was trembling so that she became frightened. The racket of the brook
in his ears safeguarded her in a measure. She bent over nearly double,
her rifle at a trail, and cautiously began the detour.
* * * * *
When at length the wide circle through the woods had been safely
accomplished and Eve was moving out through the thickening ranks of
tamarack, her heart, which seemed to suffocate her, quieted; and she
leaned against a shoulder of rock, strangely tired.
After a while she drew from her pocket _his_ handkerchief, and looked at
it. The square of cambric bore his initials, J. S. Blood from her lip
remained on it. She had not washed out the spots.
She put it to her lips again, mechanically. A faint odour of tobacco
still clung to it.
By every law of loyalty, pride, self-respect, she should have held this
man her enemy. Instead, she held his handkerchief against her
lips,--crushed it there suddenly, closing her eyes while the colour
surged and surged through her skin from throat to hair.
Then, wearily, she lifted her head and looked out into the grey and
empty vista of her life, where the dreary years seemed to stretch like
milestones away, away into an endless waste.
She put the handkerchief into her pocket, shouldered her rifle, moved on
without looking about her,--a mistake which only the emotion of the
moment could account for in a girl so habituated to caution,--for she
had gone only a few rods before a man's strident voice halted her:
"_Halte la! Crosse en air!_"
"Drop that rifle!" came another voice from behind her. "You're covered!
Throw your gun on the ground!"
She stood as though paralysed. To the right and left she heard people
trampling through the thicket toward her.
"Down with that gun, damn you!" repeated the voice, breathless from
running. All around her men came floundering and crashing toward her
through the undergrowth. She could see some of them.
As she stooped to place her rifle on the dead leaves, she drew the flat
packet from her cartridge sack at the same time and slid it deftly under
a rotting log. Then, calm but very pale, she stood upright to face
events.
The first man wore a red and yellow bandanna handkerchief over the lower
half of his face, pulled tightly across a bony nose. He held a long
pistol nearly parallel to his own body; and when he came up to where she
was standing he poked the muzzle into her stomach.
She did not flinch; he said nothing; she looked intently into the two
ratty eyes fastened on her over the edge of his bandanna.
Five other men were surrounding her, but they all wore white masks of
vizard shape, revealing chin and mouth.
They were different otherwise, also, wearing various sorts and patterns
of sport clothes, brand new, and giving them an odd, foreign appearance.
What troubled her most was the silence they maintained. The man wearing
the bandanna was the only one who seemed at all a familiar
figure,--merely, perhaps, because he was American in build, clothing,
and movement.
He took her by the shoulder, turned her around and gave her a shove
forward. She staggered a step or two; he gave her another shove and she
comprehended that she was to keep on going.
Presently she found herself in a steep, wet deer-trail rising upward
through a gully. She knew that runway. It led up Star Peak.
Behind her as she climbed she heard the slopping, panting tread of men;
her wind was better than theirs; she climbed lithely upward, setting a
pace which finally resulted in a violent jerk backward,--a savage,
wordless admonition to go more slowly.
As she climbed she wondered whether she should have fired an alarm shot
on the chance of the State Trooper, Stormont, hearing it.
But she had thought only of the packet at the moment of surprise. And
now she wondered whether, when freed, she could ever again find that
rotting log.
Up, up, always up along the wet gully, deep with silt and
frost-splintered rock, she toiled, the heavy gasping of men behind her.
Twice she was jerked to a halt while her escort rested.
Once, without turning, she said unsteadily: "Who are you? What have I
done to you?"
There was no reply.
"What are you going to do to me----" she began again, and was shaken by
the shoulder until silent.
At last the vast arch of the eastern sky sprang out ahead, where stunted
spruces stood out against the sunshine and the intense heat of midday
fell upon a bare table-land of rock and moss and fern.
As she came out upon the level, the man behind her took both her arms
and pulled them back and somebody bandaged her eyes. Then a hand closed
on her left arm and, so guided, she stumbled and crept forward across
the rocks for a few moments until her guide halted her and forced her
into a sitting position on a smooth, flat boulder.
She heard the crunching of heavy feet all around her, whispering made
hoarse by breath exhausted, movement across rock and scrub, retreating
steps.
For an interminable time she sat there alone in the hot sun, drenched to
the skin in sweat, listening, thinking, striving to find a reason for
this lawless outrage.
After a long while she heard somebody coming across the rocks, stiffened
as she listened with some vague presentiment of evil.
Somebody had halted beside her. After a pause she was aware of nimble
fingers busy with the bandage over her eyes.
At first, when freed, the light blinded her. By degrees she was able to
distinguish the rocky crest of Star Peak, with the tops of tall trees
appearing level with the rocks from depths below.
Then she turned, slowly, and looked at the man who had seated himself
beside her.
He wore a white mask over a delicate, smoothly shaven face.
His soft hat and sporting clothes were dark grey, evidently new. And she
noticed his hands--long, elegantly made, smooth, restless, playing with
a pencil and some sheets of paper on his knees.
As she met his brilliant eyes behind the mask, his delicate, thin lips
grew tense in what seemed to be a smile--or a soundless sort of laugh.
"Veree happee," he said, "to make the acquaintance. Pardon my
unceremony, miss, but onlee necissitee compels. Are you, perhaps, a
little rested?"
"Yes."
"Ah! Then, if you permit, we proceed with affairs of moment. You will be
sufficiently kind to write down what I say. Yes?"
He placed paper and pencil in Eve's hand. Without demurring or
hesitation she made ready to write, her mind groping wildly for the
reason of it all.
"Write," he said, with his silent laugh which was more like the
soundless snarl of a lynx unafraid:
"To Mike Clinch, my fathaire, from his child, Eve.... I am hostage,
held by Jose Quintana. Pay what you owe him and I go free.
"For each day delay he sends to you one finger which will be severed
from my right hand----"
Eve's slender fingers trembled; she looked up at the masked man, stared
steadily into his brilliant eyes.
"Proceed miss, if you are so amiable," he said softly.
She wrote on: "--One finger for every day's delay. The whole hand at the
week's end. The other hand then, finger by finger. Then, alas! the right
foot----"
Eve trembled.
"Proceed," he said softly.
She wrote: "If you agree you shall pay what you owe to Jose Quintana in
this manner: you shall place a stick at the edge of the Star Pond where
the Star rivulet flows out. Upon this stick you shall tie a white rag.
At the foot of the stick you shall lay the parcel which contains your
indebt to Jose Quintana.
"Failing this, by to-night _one finger_ at sunset."
The man paused: Eve waited, dumb under the surging confusion in her
brain. A sort of incredulous horror benumbed her, through which she
still heard and perceived.
"Be kind enough to sign it with your name," said the man pleasantly.
Eve signed.
Then the masked man took the letter, got up, removed his hat.
"I am Quintana," he said. "I keep my word. A thousand thanks and
apologies, miss. I trust that your detention may be brief and not too
disagreeable. I place at your feet my humble respects."
He bowed, put on his hat, and walked quickly away. And she saw him
descend the rocks to the eastward, where the peak slopes.
When Quintana had disappeared behind the summit scrub and rocks, Eve
slowly stood up and looked about her at the rocky pulpit so familiar.
There was only one way out. Quintana had gone that way. His men no doubt
guarded it. Otherwise, sheer precipices confronted her.
She walked to the western edge where a sheet of slippery reindeer moss
clothed the rock. Below the mountain fell away to the valley where she
had been made prisoner.
She looked out over the vast panorama of wilderness and mountain, range
on range stretching blue to the horizon. She looked down into the depths
of the valley where deep under the flaming foliage of October,
somewhere, a State Trooper was sitting, cheek on hand, beside a
waterfall--or, perhaps, riding slowly through a forest which she might
never gaze upon again.
There was a noise on the rocks behind her. A masked man came out of the
spruce scrub, laid a blanket on the rocks, placed a loaf of bread, some
cheese, and a tin pail full of water upon it, motioned her, and went
away through the dwarf spruces.
Eve walked slowly to the blanket. She drank out of the tin pail. Then
she set aside the food, lay down, and buried her quivering face in her
arms.
* * * * *
The sun was half way between zenith and horizon when she heard somebody
coming, and rose to a sitting posture. Her visitor was Quintana.
He came up to her quite close, stood with glittering eyes intent upon
her.
After a moment he handed her a letter.
She could scarcely unfold it, she trembled so:
"Girlie, for God's sake give that packet to Quintana and come on home.
I'm near crazy with it all. What the hell's anything worth beside you
girlie. I don't give a damn for nothing only you, so come on quick.
Dad."
* * * * *
After a little while she lifted her eyes to Quintana.
"So," he said quietly, "you are the little she-fox that has learned
tricks already."
"What do you mean?"
"Where is that packet?"
"I haven't it."
"Where is it?"
She shook her head slightly.
"You had a packet," he insisted fiercely. "Look here! Regard!" and he
spread out a penciled sheet in Clinch's hand:
"Jose Quintana:
"You win. She's got that stuff with her. Take your damn junk and
let my girl go.
"MIKE CLINCH."
"Well," said Quintana, a thin, strident edge to his tone.
"My father is mistaken. I haven't any packet."
The man's visage behind his mask flushed darkly. Without warning or
ceremony he caught Eve by the throat and tore open her shirt. Then,
hissing and cursing and panting with his own violence, he searched her
brutally and without mercy--flung her down and tore off her spiral
puttees and even her shoes and stockings, now apparently beside himself
with fury, puffing, gasping, always with a fierce, nasal sort of whining
undertone like an animal worrying its kill.
"Cowardly beast!" she panted, fighting him with all her
strength--"filthy, cowardly beast!----" striking at him, wrenching his
grasp away, snatching at the disordered clothing half stripped from her.
His hunting knife fell clattering and she fought to get it, but he
struck her with his open hand, knocking her down at his feet, and stood
glaring at her with every tooth bared.
"So," he cried, "I give you ten minutes, make up your mind, tell me what
you do with that packet."
He wiped the blood from his face where she had struck him.
"You don't know Jose Quintana. No! You shall make his acquaintance.
Yes!"
Eve got up on naked feet, quivering from head to foot, striving to
button the grey shirt at her throat.
"Where?" he demanded, beside himself.
Her mute lips only tightened.
"Ver' well, by God!" he cried. "I go make me some fire. You like it, eh?
We shall put one toe in the fire until it burn off. Yes? Eh? How you
like it? Eh?"
The girl's trembling hands continued busy with her clothing.
"So!" he said, hoarsely, "you remain dumb! Well, then, in ten minutes
you shall talk!"
He walked toward her, pushed her savagely aside, and strode on into the
spruce thicket.
The instant he disappeared Eve caught up the knife he had dropped, knelt
down on the blanket and fell to cutting it into strips.
The hunting knife was like a razor; the feverish business was
accomplished in a few moments, the pieces knotted, the cord strained in
a desperate test over her knee.
And now she ran to the precipice where, ten feet below, the top of a
great pine protruded from the gulf.
On the edge of the abyss was a spruce root. It looked dead, wedged deep
between two rocks; but with all her strength she could not pull it out.
Sobbing, breathless, she tied her blanket rope to this, threw the other
end over the cliff's edge, and, not giving herself time to think, lay
flat, grasped the knotted line, swung off.
Knot by knot she went down. Half-way her naked feet brushed the needles.
She looked over her shoulder, behind and down. Then, teeth clenched, she
lowered herself steadily as she had learned to do in the school
gymnasium, down, down, until her legs came astride of a pine limb.
It bent, swayed, gave with her, letting her sag to a larger limb below.
This she clasped, letting go her rope.
Already, from the mountain's rocky crest above, she heard excited cries.
Once, on her breakneck descent, she looked up through the foliage of the
pine; and she saw, far up against the sky, a white-masked face looking
over the edge of the precipice.
But if it were Quintana or another of his people she could not tell.
And, again looking down, she began again the terrible descent.
* * * * *
An hour later, Trooper Stormont of the State Constabulary, sat his horse
in amazement to see a ragged, breathless, boyish figure speeding toward
him among the tamaracks, her naked feet splashing through pool and mire
and sphagnum.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed as she flung herself against his stirrup,
sobbing, hysterical, and clinging to his knee.
"Take me back," she stammered, "--take me back to daddy! I can't--go
on--another step----"
He leaned down, swung her up to his saddle in front, holding her cradled
in his arms.
"Lie still," he said coolly; "you're all right now."
For another second he sat looking down at her, at the dishevelled hair,
the gasping mouth,--at the rags clothing her, and at the flat packet
clasped convulsively to her breast.
Then he spoke in a low voice to his horse, guiding left with one knee.