Sunrise was crystal clear, with frosty crispness, for April in the
northern latitudes flirts long with Winter on his way to everlasting
snows. Lida saw the sun come quivering over the big trees and sat by her
window, continuing the doleful ponderings which had made the night black
and dismal. There was no cheer for her in the morning radiance; as she
faced what was ahead of her, new fear grew in her; faith in herself was
waning after the defection of Latisan's men. Would Echford Flagg's own
crew stand by a stricken master or hearken to the appeal of Flagg's kin?
The rivermen guests had departed; there were no bateaus on the shore;
faint smoke came wreathing from the black embers of the feast fire.
Early as it was, there was the stir of life in the other rooms of the
cottage, and she ventured forth timidly into the presence of the
governor's family. The little mirror in her room had revealed to her the
pallor of her face and the mournful anxiety in her eyes.
There was no talk at breakfast; the family copied the manner of the
governor, who had greeted Lida with a single word, gestured her to her
chair, and now ate in silence. All his festal trappings had been laid
aside; he was a grave, wrinkled man in the ordinary attire of a
woodsman. In her new humility Lida wondered how she would summon
courage to ask for canoemen to take her north. The impulse to keep on
toward the drive was no longer so keen and courageous and absorbing, she
realized. She had dreamed vividly when she stood in the presence of
Echford Flagg; but she had begun to face practicality, and the
difficulties frightened her.
Before the breakfast was finished, Father Leroque came in; he had lodged
in the quarters provided for his visits, a small room in the vestry.
The sisters who taught the boys and girls of the community had brought
his food. But he sat at the elbow of the governor's wife and drank the
coffee that she poured for him. He was cheery, vivacious, and he smiled
consolingly on Lida, who was not able to return his morning optimism.
His arrival broke the fetters of silence, and even Susep Nicola joined
in the chatter which the priest kept stirring.
Lida kept her gaze on the floor and saw the broad shaft of sunlight
shift slowly and relentlessly, marking the passage of precious time.
"I must go," she said, suddenly, looking into the countenance of Nicola.
"Yes."
"I'm afraid I ought to have been on my way before."
"It's for you to say when you go; you are welcome here," he returned. "I
have waited for you to say." It was according to his code of
hospitality--the guest must indicate desire. He rose. His wife brought
to Lida the jacket and the cap. But the chief picked up the Flagg cant
dog and carried it when he led the way to the door.
Father Leroque seemed to understand what was in Lida's mind just then.
"You are worried about how you are to travel, is it not so? You do not
need to ask, mam'selle!" He bowed her to the door.
In front of the sachem's house hung a broad disk of tanned moosehide in
a frame. Nicola pounded on the makeshift gong with a mallet. Men
assembled quickly in front of him, coming as if they had expected the
summons.
"You know. I have told you," said the chief. He stroked his hand over
the totem mark on the cant dog handle. "You know how our brother has
been the good friend of the Tarratines on this river."
One step in advance of the others of the throng stood Felix Lapierre,
the bridegroom.
"How many?" asked the chief.
"Twenty," said Felix. "And all very much happy to do the good service."
The priest smiled into the amazed eyes of the girl. "For your
conveyance? Ah no, mam'selle. For your good help on the drive. They are
rivermen--the best. Felix Lapierre leads them and you shall see for
yourself what a king of the white water he is. He will be your
right-hand man on the drive. It is all very fine, eh, mam'selle?"
She was staring from face to face, overwhelmed. She could not reply.
"We talk it over--him and me--last night," said Nicola, indicating the
priest by a respectful bow. "It's for my brother, and the blood of my
brother." He bowed to her.
"And all so very happy," repeated Felix. His black eyes sparkled and he
flung up his hands in the gay spirit of emprise. "You must not care
because some have run away. They would not be good in a crew if they
feel that way now. We feel good. We shall work for you; we are your
men."
The big matter, this astounding making good of her forces, this rallying
of volunteers in such chivalrous and unquestioning fashion--she found
herself unable to handle the situation in her thoughts or treat it with
spoken words just then. But the other--the human thing----
"It's--it's the honeymoon," she stammered. "It will be taking you away
from your wife."
"She's my girl," put in Nicola. "She tells him to go."
Father Leroque perceived Lida's distressful inability to pull herself
together at that moment, and he employed his ready tact, giving her time
for thought. "It's quite a natural thing, this taking away of the new
bridegroom for the service of the Flaggs," he declared with a chuckle.
"There's even a song--I think it was written by Poet O'Gorman. Do you
know it, Felix? I can see by your grin that you do. Very well. Let's
have it. As I remember it, it states the case according to the Flagg
methods."
Lapierre pulled off his cap; his eyes were alight with merriment; he
sang gayly:
The night that I was married--the night that I was wed--
Up there came old Echford Flagg and rapped on my bed head.
Said he, "Arise, young married man, and come along with me,
Where the waters of the Noda they do roar along so free."
"You see!" suggested the priest, archly, smiling, palms spread. "When
Flagg calls, the honeymoon must wait. It promises good adventure, and
Felix would be sorry if he were not in it."
Cap in hand, Lapierre swept his arm in a broad gesture of respectful
devotion. It was a touch of gallantry which raised the affair above the
prosaic details of mere business and which made the relations closer
than those of employer and employed.
In Lida gratitude was succeeding amazement, and the glow of that
gratitude was warming her courage into life again. When she had stepped
from Nicola's door a few moments before she felt bitterly alone and
helpless and she had no eye for the glory of the day. Suddenly the
sunshine seemed transcendently cheery. All the aspects of the case were
changed. Now she could go on to the drive as one of the Flaggs should
go--with loyal men at her back to replace those who had deserted. She
could hearten a broken crew with men, not merely with a strange girl's
plaintive story and appeal.
"We're ready, mam'selle," said Felix.
The women of the community were gathered in front of the sachem's house.
Lapierre went smiling to his bride and put his arm about her; but when
he started to draw her toward Lida the latter anticipated the coming by
running to meet them. She took the little bride in her arms.
The priest, Felix, and the governor swapped looks and nods which
indorsed an understanding that was wordless between the young women.
When Lida turned from the governor's daughter she saw the governor
himself coming toward her. He held out the cant dog; it lay across his
palms and he tendered it respectfully.
She winked the mist of tears from her eyes and struggled with a
hysterical desire to babble many words.
"Hush!" warned the priest. "We all know!"
There, in a golden silence, she realized how cheap and base was the
clinking metal of speech that had been the currency of herself and
others in the crowded town.
The river, slowed by the deadwater, was mute, though its foam streaks
showed where it had crashed through the gorges above. A few chickadees
chirruped bravely. There were no other sounds while the girl took the
Flagg scepter in her own hands.
She walked with Felix to the shore, where the flotilla of canoes lay
upturned at the pull-out place. Again the Oronos were assigned to her,
and she was comforted much because they no longer seemed like strangers.
"Au revoir!" called Father Leroque when the canoes were afloat on the
brown flood. "I'm making haste to the Tomah, mam'selle, to keep my
promise!"
He had already accomplished so much for her! In her new thanksgiving
spirit she was finding it easy to believe that he could bring about what
her self-acknowledged love for Latisan so earnestly desired.
In single file, holding close to the shore, the canoes went toward the
north. There was no talk between those who paddled; against the brown
shore the canoes were merely moving smudges.
Rufus Craig, coming down the middle of the deadwater in one of the
great bateaus of the Comas company, paid no attention to the smudges.
The bateau rode high and rapidly on the flood that moved down the
channel. Craig was writing in his notebook and four oarsmen were obeying
his command to dip deep and pull strong.
Craig had met Ben Kyle by appointment at the foot of the Oxbow portage
and he had found Kyle to be particularly malevolent and entirely
willing--and Kyle had gone north to the Flagg drive in the pay of the
Three C's.
It had been a profitable interview, as Director Craig viewed it.
Now he was chasing along the trail of rumor to Adonia; the rumor was
encouraging. If Latisan really had been pried out of the section, Craig
saw an opportunity to run back to New York to make a private settlement
with Mern and enjoy a little relaxation before the pressing matters of
the drive in full swing claimed all his attention. Right then, according
to all appearances, the Comas business up-country was doing very well in
the hands of the understrapper bosses. Therefore, Director Craig smiled
over the pages of his notebook.
The brown smudges in single file went on and on. Noon at the foot of the
portage at Oxbow! Lida sniffed the wood smoke of the cook fire and ate
her lunch and drank her tea.
Up the narrow trail of the gorge she followed at the rear of her men;
the canoes, upturned on their shoulders, glistened in the sparkling
sunshine. She was bringing real aid in a time of stress, as one of the
Flaggs should! More and more that consciousness heartened her.
Quiet water at the put-in, then rapids where the canoes were poled, the
irons clinking on the rocks over which the turbid waters rolled; more
calm stretches where haste was made.
A night in the open at a camping site where a couch of boughs was piled
for her under a deftly contrived shelter of braided branches of
hemlocks.
And on in the first flush of the morning toward the drive.