The Sabbath was a day of glory and peace in the Burntwood country. The
sun rose warm and golden, the birds were singing, and never had the air
seemed sweeter to Father John when he came out quietly from the cabin
and breathed it in the early break of dawn. Best of all he loved this
very beginning of day, before darkness was quite gone, when the world
seemed to be awakening mid sleepy whisperings and sounds came clearly
from a long distance.
This morning he heard the barking of a dog, a mile away it must have
been, and Peter, who followed close beside him, pricked up his ears at
the sound of it. Father John had noted Peter's vigilance, the cautious
expectancy with which he was always sniffing the air, and the keen
alertness of his eyes and ears. McKay had explained the reason for it.
And this morning, as they made their way down to the pool at the
creekside, Peter's ceaseless watching for danger held a deeper
significance for Father John. All through the night, in spite of his
faith and his words of consolation, he was thinking of the menace which
was following McKay, and which eventually must catch up with him.
And yet, how short a time was five years! Looking backward, each five
years of his life seemed but a yesterday. It was eight times five years
ago that a sweet-faced girl had first filled his life, as Nada filled
Jolly Roger's now, and through the thirty years since he had lost her
he could still hear her voice as clearly as though he had held her in
his arms only a few hours ago, so swift had been the passing of time.
But looking ahead, and not backward, five years seemed an eternity of
time, and the dread of it was in Father John's heart as he stood at the
side of the pool, with the first pink glow of sunrise coming to him
over the forest-tops.
Five years, and he was an old man now. A long and dreary wait it would
be for him. But for youth, the glorious youth of Roger and Nada, it
would seem very short when in later years they looked back upon it. And
for a time as he contemplated the long span of life that lay behind
him, and the briefness of that which lay ahead, a yearning selfishness
possessed the soul of Father John, an almost savage desire to hold
those five years away from the violation of the law--not alone for
Nada's sake and Roger McKay's--but for his own. In this twilight of a
tragic life a great happiness had come to him in the love of these two,
and thought of its menace, its desecration by a pitiless and mistaken
justice, roused in him something that was more like the soul of a
fighting man than the spirit of a missioner of God.
Vainly he tried to stamp out the evil of this resentment, for evil he
believed it to be. And shame possessed him when he saw the sweet glory
in Nada's face later that morning, and the happiness that was in Roger
McKay's. Yet was that aching place in his heart, and the hidden fear
which he could not vanquish.
And that day, it seemed to him, his lips gave voice to lies. For, being
Sunday, the wilderness folk gathered from miles about, and he preached
to them in the little mission house which they had helped him to build
of logs in the clearing. Partly he spoke in Cree, and partly in
English, and his message was one of hope and inspiration, pointing out
the silver linings that always lay beyond the darkness of clouds. To
McKay, holding Nada's hand in his own as they listened, Father John's
words brought a great and comforting faith. And in Nada's eyes and
voice as she led in Cree the song, “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” he heard
and saw the living fire of that faith, and had Breault come in through
the open doorway then he would have accepted him calmly as the
beginning of that sacrifice which he had made up his mind to make.
In the afternoon, when the wilderness people had gone, Father John
heard again the story of Yellow Bird, for Nada was ever full of
questions about her, and for the first time the Missioner learned of
the inspiration which the Indian woman's sorcery had been to Jolly
Roger.
“It was foolish,” McKay apologized, in spite of the certainty and faith
which he saw shining in Nada's eyes. “But--it helped me.”
“It wasn't foolish,” replied Nada quickly. “Yellow Bird DID come to me.
And--SHE KNEW.”
“No true faith is folly,” said Father John, in his soft, low voice.
“The great fact is that Yellow Bird believed. She was inspired by a
great confidence, and confidence and faith give to the mind a power
which it is utterly incapable of possessing without them. I believe in
the mind, children. I believe that in some day to come it will reach
those heights where it will unlock the mystery of life itself to us. I
have seen many strange things in my forty-odd years in the wilderness,
and not the least of these have been the achievements of the primitive
mind. And it seems to me, Roger, that Yellow Bird told you much that
has come true. And has it occurred to you--”
He stopped, knowing that the cloud of unrest which was almost fear in
his heart was driving him to say these things.
“What, father,” questioned Nada, bending toward him.
“I was about to express a thought which suggests an almost childish
curiosity, and you will laugh at me, my dear. I am wondering if it has
occurred to Roger the mysterious 'Country Beyond' of which Yellow Bird
dreamed might be the great country down there--south--BEYOND THE
BORDER--the United States?”
Something which he could not control seemed to drive the words from his
lips, and in an instant he saw that Nada had seized upon their
significance. Her eyes widened. The blue in them grew darker, and Roger
observed her fingers grip suddenly in the softness of her dress as she
turned from Father John to look at him.
“Or--it might be China, or Africa, or the South Seas,” he tried to
laugh, remembering his old visions. “It might be--anywhere.”
Nada's lips trembled, as if she were about to speak; and then very
quietly she sat, with her hands tightly clasped in her lap, and Father
John knew she was not expressing the thought in her heart when she said,
“Someday I want to tell Yellow Bird how much I love her.”
Now in these hours since he and his master had come to the Burntwood it
seemed to Peter that he had lost something very great, for in his
happiness McKay had taken but scant notice of him, and Nada seemed to
have found a greater joy than that which a long time ago she had found
in his comradeship. So now, as she saw him lying in his loneliness a
short distance away, Nada suddenly ran to him, and together they went
into the thick screen of the balsams, Peter yipping joyously, and Nada
without so much as turning her head in the direction of Roger and
Father John. But even in that bird-like swiftness with which she had
left them, Father John had caught the look in her eyes.
“I have made a mistake,” he confessed humbly. “I have sinned, because
in her I have roused the temptation to urge you to fly away with
her--down there--south. She is a woman, and being a woman she has
infinite faith in Yellow Bird, for Yellow Bird helped to give you to
her. She believes--”
“And I--I--also believe,” said McKay, staring at the green balsams.
“And yet--it is better for you to remain. God means that judgment and
happiness should come in their turn.”
Jolly Roger rose to his feet, facing the south.
“It is a temptation, father. It would be hard to give her up--now. If
Breault would only wait a little while. But if he comes--NOW--”
He walked away slowly, following through the balsams where Nada and
Peter had gone. Father John watched him go, and a trembling smile came
to his lips when he was alone. In his heart he knew he was a coward,
and that these young people had been stronger than he. For in their
happiness and the faith which he had falsely built up in them they had
resigned themselves to the inevitable, while he, in these moments of
cowardice, had shown them the way to temptation. And yet as he stood
there, looking in the direction they had gone, he felt no remorse
because of what he had done, and a weight seemed to have lifted itself
from his shoulders.
For a time the more selfish instincts of the man rose in him, fighting
down the sacrificial humility of the great faith of which he was a
messenger. The new sensation thrilled him, and in its thrill he felt
his heart beating a little faster, and hope rising in him. Five years
were a long time--FOR HIM. That was the thought which kept repeating
itself over and over in his brain, and with it came that other thought,
that self-preservation was the first law of existence, and therefore
could not be a sin. Thus did Father John turn traitor to his spoken
words, though his calm and smiling face gave no betrayal of it when
Nada and Roger returned to the cabin an hour later, their arms filled
with red bakneesh vines and early wildflowers.
Nada's cheeks were as pink as the bakneesh, and her eyes as blue as the
rock-violets she wore on her breast.
And Father John knew that Jolly Roger was no longer oppressed by the
fear of a menace which he was helpless to oppose, for there was
something very confident in the look of his eyes and the manner in
which they rested upon Nada.
Peter alone saw the mysterious thing which happened in the early
evening. He was with Nada in her room. And she was the old Nada again,
hugging his shaggy head in her arms, and whispering to him in the old,
excited way. And strange memory of a bundle came back to Peter, for
very quietly, as if unseen ears might be listening to her, Nada
gathered many things in a pile on the table, and made another bundle.
This bundle she thrust under her bed, just as a long time ago she had
thrust a similar bundle under a banksian clump in the meadowland below
Cragg's Ridge.
Father John went to his bed very early, and he was thinking of Breault.
The Hudson's Bay Company post was only twelve miles away, and Breault
would surely go there before questing from cabin to cabin for his
victim.
So it happened that a little after midnight he rose without making a
sound, and by the light of a candle wrote a note for Nada, saying he
had business at the post that day, and without wakening them had made
an early start. This note Nada read to McKay when they sat at breakfast.
“Quite frequently he has gone like that,” Nada explained. “He loves the
forests at night--in the light of the moon.”
“But last night there was no moon,” said Roger.
“Yes--”
“And when Father John left the cabin the sky was clouded, and it was
very dark.”
“You heard him go?”
“Yes, and saw him. There was a worried look in his face when he wrote
that note in the candle-glow.”
“Roger, what do you mean?”
McKay went behind her chair, and tilted up her face, and kissed her
shining hair and questioning eyes.
“It means, precious little wife, that Father John is hurrying to the
post to get news of Breault if he can. It means that deep in his heart
he wants us to follow Yellow Bird's advice to the end. For he is sure
that he knows what Yellow Bird meant by 'The Country Beyond.' It is the
great big world outside the forests, a world so big that if need be we
can put ourselves ten thousand miles away from the trails of the
mounted police. That is the thought which is urging him to the post to
look for Breault.”
Her arms crept up to his neck, and in a little voice trembling with
eagerness she said,
“Roger, my bundle is ready. I prepared it last night--and it is under
the bed.”
He held her more closely.
“And you are willing to go with me--anywhere?”
“Yes, anywhere.”
“To the end of the earth?”
Her crumpled head nodded against his breast.
“And leave Father John?”
“Yes, for you. But I think--sometime--he will come to us.”
Her fingers touched his cheek.
“And there must be forests, big, beautiful forests, in some other part
of the world, Roger.”
“Or a desert, where they would never think of looking for us,” he
laughed happily.
“I'd love the desert, Roger.”
“Or an uninhabited island?”
Against him her head nodded again.
“I'd love life anywhere--WITH YOU.”
“Then--we'll go,” he said, trying to speak very calmly in spite of the
joy that was consuming him like a fire. And then he went on, steadying
his voice until it was almost cold. “But it means giving up everything
you've dreamed of, Nada--these forests you love, Father John, Yellow
Bird, Sun Cloud--”
“I have only one dream,” she interrupted him softly.
“And five years will pass very quickly,” he continued. “Possibly it
will not be as bad as that, and afterward all this land we love will be
free to us forever. Gladly will I remain and take my punishment if in
the end it will make us happier, Nada.”
“I have only one dream,” she repeated, caressing his cheek with her
hand, “and that is you, Roger. Where-ever you take me I shall be the
happiest woman in the world.”
“WOMAN,” he laughed, scarcely breathing the word aloud.
“Yes, I am a woman--now”
“And yet forever and ever the little girl of Cragg's Ridge,” he cried
with sudden passion, crushing her close to him. “I'd lose my life
sooner than I would lose her, Nada--the little girl with flying hair
and strawberry stain on her nose, and who believed so faithfully in the
Man in the Moon. Always I shall worship her as the little goddess who
came down to me from somewhere in heaven!”
Yet all through that day, as they waited for Father John's return, he
saw more and more of the wonder of woman that had come to crown the
glory of Nada's wifehood, and his heart trembled with joy at the
miracle of it. There was something vastly sweet in the change of her.
She was no longer the utterly dependent little thing, possibly caring
for him because he was big and strong and able to protect her; she was
a woman, and loved him as a woman, and not because of fear or
helplessness. And then came the thrilling mystery of another thing. He
found himself, in turn, beginning to depend upon her, and in their
planning her calm decision and quiet reasoning strengthened him with
new confidence and made his heart sing with gladness. With his eyes on
the smooth and velvety coils of hair which she had twisted woman-like
on her head, he said,
“With your hair like that you are my Margaret of Anjou, and the other
way--with it down you are my little Nada of Cragg's Ridge. And I--I
don't quite understand why God should be so good to me.”
And this day Peter was trying in his dumb way to analyze the change.
The touch of Nada's hand thrilled him, as it did a long time ago, and
still he sensed the difference. Her voice was even softer when she put
her cheek down to his whiskered face and talked to him, but in it he
missed that which he could not quite bring back clearly through the
lapse of time--the childish comradeship of her. Yet he began to worship
her anew, even more fiercely than he had loved the Nada of old. He was
content now to lie with his nose touching her foot or dress; but when
in the sunset of early evening she went into her room, and came out a
little later with her curling hair clouding her shoulders and breast,
and tied with a faded ribbon she had brought from Cragg's Ridge, he
danced about her, yelping joyously, and she accepted the challenge in a
wild race with him to the edge of the clearing.
Panting and flushed she ran back to Jolly Roger, and rested in his arms.
And it was McKay, with his face half hidden in her riotous hair, who
saw a figure come suddenly out of the forest at the far end of the
clearing. It was Father John. He saw him pause for an instant, and then
stagger toward them, swaying as if about to fall.
The sudden stopping of his breath--the tightening of his arms--drew
Nada's shining eyes to his face, and then she, too, saw the little old
Missioner as he swayed and staggered across the clearing. With a cry
she was out of McKay's arms and running toward him.
Father John was leaning heavily upon her when McKay came up. His face
was tense and his breath came in choking gasps. But he tried to smile
as he clutched a hand at his breast.
“I have hurried,” he said, making a great effort to speak calmly, “and
I am--winded--”
He drew in a deep breath, and looked at Jolly Roger.
“Roger--I have hurried to tell you--Breault is coming. He cannot be far
behind me. Possibly half a mile, or a mile--”
In the thickening dusk he took Nada's white face between his hands.
“I find--at last--that I was mistaken, child,” he said, very calmly
now. “I believe it is not God's will that you remain to be taken by
Breault. You must go. There is no time to lose. If Breault does not
stumble off the trail in this gloom he will be here in a few minutes.
Come.”
Not a word did Nada say as they went to the cabin, and McKay saw her
tense face as pale as an ivory cameo in the twilight. But something in
the up-tilt of her chin and the poise of her head assured him she was
prepared, and unafraid.
In the cabin the Leaf Bud met them, and to her Nada spoke quickly.
There was understanding between them, and Oosimisk dragged in a filled
pack from the kitchen while Nada ran into her room and came out with
the bundle.
Suddenly she was standing before McKay and Father John, her breast
throbbing with excitement.
“There is nothing more to make ready,” she said. “Yellow Bird has been
with me all this day, and her spirit told me to prepare. We have
everything we need.”
And then she saw only Father John, and put her arms closely about his
neck, and with wide, tearless eyes looked into his face.
“Father, you will come to us?” she whispered. “You promise that?”
The Missioner's arms closed about her, and he bowed his face against
her lips and cheek.
“I pray God that it may be so,” he said.
Nada's arms tightened convulsively, and in that moment there came a
warning growl from outside the cabin door.
“Peter!” she cried.
In another moment Father John had extinguished the light.
“Go, my children,” he commanded. “You must be quick. Twenty paces below
the pool is a canoe. I had one of my Indians leave it there yesterday,
and it is ready. Roger--Nada--”
He groped out, and the hands of the three met in the darkness.
“God bless you--both! And go south--always south. Now go--go! I think I
hear footsteps--”
He thrust them to the door, Nada with her bundle and Roger with his
pack. Suddenly he felt Peter at his side, and reaching down he fastened
his fingers in the scruff of his neck, and held him back.
“Good-bye,” he whispered huskily. “Good-bye--Nada--Roger--”
A sob came back out of the gloom.
“Good-bye, father.”
And then they listened, Peter and Father John, until the swift
footsteps of the two they loved passed beyond their hearing.
Peter whimpered, and struggled a little, but Father John held him as he
closed the door.
“It's best for you to stay, Peter,” he tried to explain. “It's best for
you to stay--with me. For I think they are going a far distance, and
will come to a land where you would shrivel up and die. Besides, you
could not go in the canoe. So be good, and remain with me, Peter--with
me--”
And the Leaf Bud, standing wide-eyed and motionless, heard a strange
little choking laugh come from Father John as he groped in darkness for
a light.