CHAPTER IV
A PIECE OF WRECKAGE
The canoe drew near the first of the islands and the Indian directed it inshore and in a quiet bay as the canoe floated quietly out of the current, they lifted up their voices and shouted again and again. Except for the swirl of the waters everything was perfectly still, and any one on the island must have heard the shouting; but there came no response.
"No good!" said the Indian, and turned the bow of the canoe to the river once more.
Island after island they inspected and hailed; meanwhile keeping a sharp look out on either side of the river, but in vain. They were hoarse with shouting when the last of the islands was reached, and on Ainley's face a look of anxiety manifested itself. Landing at the tail of the island the Indian hunted around until he found a dry branch, and this he threw into the water and stood to watch its course as it went down river. The drift of it seemed to be towards a bar on the eastern bank, and towards that, distant perhaps a couple of miles, the course of their canoe was directed. When they reached it, again the Indian landed, and began to inspect the flotsam on the edge of the bank closely. Ainley watched him with apprehension. Presently the Indian stooped, and after two or three attempts fished something from the water. He looked at it keenly for a moment, then he gave a shout, and began to walk along the bar towards the canoe.
As he came nearer, the white man saw that the object he carried was the spoon end of a paddle. When close at hand the Indian held it out for his inspection.
"Him broke," he said in English. "And the break quite fresh."
There was no question as to that. Notwithstanding that the paddle had been in the water, the clean wood of the fracture showed quite plainly, and whilst Ainley was looking at it the Indian stretched a finger and pointed to a semi-circular groove which ran across the broken end.
"Him shot!" he announced quite calmly.
"Are you sure?" asked Ainley, betraying no particular surprise.
The Indian nodded his head gravely, and fitted his little finger in the groove.
"Bullet-mark!"
Ainley did not dispute the contention, nor apparently was he greatly troubled by the Indian's contention. He looked round a little anxiously.
"But where is the canoe?" he asked. "And Miss Yardely?"
The Indian waved a hand down river. "Canoe miss this bar, and go in the current like hell to the meeting of the waters. Better we keep straight on and watch out."
As they started down river again, Ainley's face took on a settled look of anxiety. It was now close on midnight, but very light, and on either bank everything could be clearly seen. They kept a sharp look out, but found no further trace of the missing canoe, and the early dawn found them in a quickening current, racing for the point where the tributary river joined the main stream.
Presently it came in sight, and between walls of spruce and a foaming crest of water they swept into the broader river, which rolled its turbid way towards its outfall in one of the great Northern lakes. The canoe pranced like a frightened horse at the meeting of the waters, and when they were safely through it, Ainley looked back and questioned his companion.
"Would Miss Yardely's canoe come through that?"
"Like a dry stick," answered the Indian, letting the canoe drift for a moment in order to swing into the main current of the broader stream.
Ainley looked ahead. Downstream the river narrowed and the low broad banks about them gradually rose, until they were like high ramparts on either hand. The Indian pointed towards the tree-crowned cliffs.
"No good there," he said. "We land here, and make grub; walk down and see what water like."
It seemed to Ainley the only sensible thing to do, and he did not demur. Accordingly, the Indian, seeing a favourable beach, turned the canoe inshore, and whilst his companion was preparing breakfast, the white man walked downstream towards the ramparts of rocks through which the river ran. When he reached them he looked down at the water. It ran smooth and glassy and swift, whirling against the rocky sides a good foot higher than between the earthen banks upstream. He followed the gorge, forgetting that he was tired, forgetting the preparing breakfast, a look of extreme anxiety upon his face. Three-quarters of an hour's walking brought him to the end of the gorge, and for a mile or two the country opened out once more, the river running wide between low-lying banks to disappear in the lee of a range of hills above which hung a veil of mist. He stood regarding the scene for a few minutes and then, the anxiety on his face more pronounced than ever, made his way back to the place where the Indian awaited him. The Indian had already eaten, and whilst he himself breakfasted he told him what he had seen. The native listened carefully, and in the end replied in his own language.
"Good! We go through the cliffs, in place of making the portage. It is the swifter way, and if the white Klootchman come this way, she has gone through these gates of the waters. We follow, but not very far, for again we come to the hills, and to a place where the earth is rent, and the waters fall down a wall that is higher than the highest spruce. If the Klootchman's canoe go there—it is the end."
Falls! So that was the meaning of that mist among the hills. There the river plunged into a chasm, and if Helen Yardely's canoe had been swept on in the current it was indeed the end. Ainley's anxiety mounted to positive fear. He pushed from him the fried deer-meat and bacon which the other had prepared for him, and rose suddenly to his feet.
"Let us be going!" he said sharply, and walked restlessly to and fro whilst his companion broke camp. A few minutes later they were afloat again, and after a little time there was no need to paddle. The current caught them and flung them towards the limestone gateway at express speed. In an amazingly short time they had passed through the gorge, and were watching the banks open out on either side of them.
There was no sign of life anywhere, no indication that any one had passed that way since time began. As they sped onward a peculiar throb and rumble began to make itself heard. It increased as they neared the range of hills towards which they were making, and as the banks began to grow rocky, and the water ahead broken by boulders, the Indian looked for a good place to land.
He found it on the lee side of a bluff where an eddy had scooped a little bay in the steep bank, and turning the canoe inside it, they stepped ashore. Making the canoe secure they climbed to the top of the bank and began to push their way down stream. The rapids, as Ainley noted, grew worse. Everywhere the rocks stood up like teeth tearing the water to tatters, and the rumble ahead grew more pronounced. Standing still for a moment, they felt the earth trembling beneath their feet, and the white man's face paled with apprehension. A tangle of spruce hid the view of the river as it skirted a big rock, and as the river evidently made a swerve at this point, they struck a bee-line through the timber. The rumble, of which they had long been conscious, of the suddenest seemed to become a roar, and, as they came to an open place where they could see the water again, they understood the reason.
The river but a few feet below them, bordered by shelving terraces of rock, suddenly disappeared. Rolling glassily for perhaps fifty yards, with scarce a ripple on its surface, the water seemed to gather itself together, and leap into a gorge, the bottom of which was ninety feet below. Ainley stood looking at the long cascade for a full minute, a wild light in his eyes, then he looked long and steadily at the gorge through which the river ran after its great leap. His face was white and grim, and his mouth was quivering painfully.
Then without a word he turned and began to hurry along the line of the gorge. The Indian strode after him.
"Where go to?" he asked.
"The end of the gorge," was the brief reply.
The Indian nodded, and then looked back. "If canoe can go over there it smash to small bits."
"Oh, I know it, don't I?" cried Ainley savagely. "Hold your tongue, can't you?"
An hour's wild walking brought them to the end of the gorge, and looking down the rather steep face of the hill, to the widening river, the white man carefully surveyed the banks. After a time he found what he was looking for—a pile of debris heaped against a bluff, whose hard rock resisted the action of the water. It was about a quarter of a mile away and on the same bank of the river as himself. Still in silence he began to drop down the face of the hill, and sometimes climbing over moss-grown rocks, sometimes wading waist-high in the river itself, he made his way to the heap of debris. It was the drift-pile made by the river, which at this point cast out from its bosom logs and trees and all manner of debris brought over the falls and down the gorge, a great heap piled in inextricable confusion as high as a tall fir tree, and as broad as a church.
Feverishly, Gerald Ainley began to wade round its wide base; and the Indian also joined in the search, poking among the drift-logs and occasionally tumbling one aside. Then the Indian gave a sharp grunt, and out of the pile dragged a piece of wreckage that was obviously part of the side and bow of a canoe. He shouted to Ainley, who hurried scramblingly over a heap of the obstructing logs, and who, after one look at that which the Indian had retrieved, stood there shaking like wind-stricken corn; his face white and ghastly, his eyes full of agony. The Indian put a brown finger on a symbol painted on the bows, with the letters H. B. C. beneath. Both of them recognized the piece of wreckage as belonging to the canoe in which Helen Yardely had left the camp, and the Indian, with a glance at the gorge which had vomited the wreckage, gave emphatic utterance to his belief.
"All gone."
Gerald Ainley made no reply. He had no doubt that what the Indian said was true, and the truth was terrible enough. Turning away he began anew to search the drift-pile, looking now for the body of a dead girl, though with but little hope of finding it. For an hour he searched in vain, then began to scramble down river, searching the bank. A mile below the first drift-pile he came upon a second, caught by a sand-bar, that, thrusting itself out in the water, snared the smaller debris. This also he searched diligently, with no result; and after wandering a little further down the river without finding anything, returned to where the Indian awaited him.
"We will go back," he said, and these were the only words he spoke until they reached their canoe again.
The Indian cooked a meal, of which Ainley partook with but little care for what he was eating, his eyes fixed on the ochre-coloured water as it swept by, his face the index of unfathomable thoughts. After the meal they began to track their canoe upstream, until they reached water where it would be possible to paddle, one of them towing with a line, and the other working hard with the paddle to keep the canoe's nose from the bank. A little way before they reached the limestone ramparts through which they had swept at such speed a few hours before, the Indian, who was at the towline, stopped and indicated that they must make a portage over the gorge, since the configuration of the cliffs made it impossible to tow the canoe through. In this task, a very hard one, necessitating two journeys, one with the canoe and one with the stores, they were occupied the remainder of the day, and when they pitched camp again and had eaten the evening meal, the Indian promptly fell asleep.
But there was no sleep for Gerald Ainley. He sat there staring at the water rushing by, reflecting the crimson flare of the Northern night. And it was not crimson that he saw it, but ochre-coloured as he had seen it earlier in the day, hurrying towards the rapids below, and to that ninety-foot leap into the gorge. And all the time, in vision, he saw a canoe swept on the brown flood, a canoe in which crouched a chestnut-haired girl, her grey eyes wide with fear; her hands helplessly clasped, as she stared ahead, whilst the canoe danced and leaped in the quickening waters hurrying towards the ramparts below, which for aught she knew might well be the gates of death.
Sometimes the vision changed, and he saw the canoe in the rapids below the ramparts, and waited in agony for it to strike one of the ugly teeth of rock. Again and again it seemed that it must, but always the current swept it clear, and it moved on at an increasing pace, swept in that quick mill-race immediately above the falls. On the very edge he saw it pause for a brief fraction of time and then the water flung it and the white-faced girl into the depths beneath, and he saw them falling, falling through the clouds of spray, the girl's dying cry ringing through the thunder of the waters. He cried out in sudden agony.
"My God! No!"
Then at the sound of his own cry, the vision left him for a time, and he saw the river as it was, rosy in the light of the midnight sun. A sound behind him caused him to turn round. The Indian, awakened by his cry of anguish, had sat up and was staring at him in an odd way.
"It is all right, Joe," he said, and with a grunt the Indian lay down to sleep again.
Ainley could not remain where he was to become again the prey of terrible imaginations. Rising to his feet, he stumbled out of the camp, and began to walk restlessly along the bank of the river. He was body-tired, but his mind was active with an activity that was almost feverish. Try as he would he could not shut out the visions which haunted him, and as fast as he dismissed one, a new one was conjured up. Now, as already shown, it was the canoe with the girl dancing to destruction, now that final leap; then again it was that broken piece of flotsam by the drift-pile at the end of the gorge; and later, in some still reach far down the river, a dead girl, white-faced, but peaceful, like drowned Ophelia.
He walked far without knowing it, driven by the secret agonies within, and all the time conscious that he could not escape from them. Then that befell which put a term to these agonizing imaginings. As he walked he came suddenly on the ashes of a camp fire. For a moment he stared at it uncomprehendingly. Then his interest quickened, as the state of the ashes showed some one had camped at this place quite recently. He began to look about him carefully, walking down the shelving bank to the edge of the river. At that point there was a stratum of soft clay, which took and preserved the impression of everything of weight which rested upon it; and instantly he perceived a number of footmarks about a spot where a canoe had been beached twice.
Stooping he examined the footmarks minutely. There was quite a jumble of them, mostly made by a long and broad moccasined foot, which was certainly that of a man; but in the jumble he found the print of smaller feet, which must have been made by a youth or girl. A quick hope kindled in his heart as he began to trace these prints among the others. He had little of the craft of the wilds, but one thing quickly arrested his attention—the smaller footprints all pointed one way and that was down the bank towards the water. Now why should that be? Had the person who had made those footprints not been in the canoe when the owner had landed to pitch camp? And if such were the case, and the maker of them was indeed a woman, what was she doing here, alone in the wilderness?
Had Helen Yardely been saved by some fortunate chance, and wandering along the river bank, stumbled on the camp of some prospector or trapper making his way to the wild North? His mind clutched at this new hope, eagerly. Hurriedly he climbed the sticky bank and began feverishly to search for any sign that could help him. Then suddenly the hope became a certainty, for in the rough grass he saw something gleam, and stooping to recover it, found that it was a small enamelled Swastiki brooch similar to one which he had seen three days before at Miss Yardely's throat.
As he saw this he gave a shout of joy, and a moment later was hurrying back along the bank to his own encampment. As he went, almost at a run, his mind was busy with the discovery he had made. There were other brooches in the world like this, thousands of them no doubt, but there were few if any at all in this wild Northland, and not for a single moment did he question that this was the one that Miss Yardely had worn. And if he were right, then the girl was safe, and no doubt was already on her way back to her uncle's camp in the care of whatever man had found her.
Excitedly he broke on the slumbers of his Indian companion, and after showing him the brooch, bade him accompany him to the place where he had found it, and there pointed to the footmarks on the river bank.
"Can you read the meaning of those signs?"
The Indian studied them as a white man would a cryptogram, and presently he stood up, and spoke with the slow gravity of his race.
"The Klootchman she came from the river. The man he carry her from the water in his arms."
"How do you know that, Joe?"
The Indian pointed to certain footprints which were much more deeply marked than the others.
"The man he carry heavy weight when he make these, and the Klootchman she weigh, how much? One hundred and ten pounds, sure. He not carry that weight back to the canoe, because the Klootchman she walk." He pointed again, this time to the smaller footprints, and to Ainley, reading the signs through the Indian's eyes, the explanation amounted to a demonstration.
"Yes, yes, I understand," he cried, "but in that case where is she?"
The Indian looked up and down the river, then waved a hand upstream. "The man he take her back to camp."
"Then why did we not meet them as we came down?"
A puzzled expression came on the Indian's face. For a moment he stood considering the problem, then he shook his head gravely.
"I not know."
"We must get back to the camp at once, Joe. We must find out if Miss Yardely has returned. We know now that she is alive, and at all costs we must find her. We will start at once for there is no time to lose."
He turned on his heel and led the way back to the canoe, and half an hour later they were paddling upstream towards the junction of the rivers, the Indian grave and imperturbable; Ainley with a puzzled, anxious look upon his handsome face.
CHAPTER V
A BRAVE RESCUE
When Hubert Stane took stock of his position, after his captors had left him, he found himself in a country which was strange to him, and spent the best part of a day in ascertaining his whereabouts. The flow of the wide river where the camp had been pitched told him nothing, and it was only after he had climbed a high hill a mile and a half away from the river that he began to have any indication of his whereabouts. Then with the country lying before him in a bird's-eye view he was able to learn his position. There was more than one river in view, and a chain of small lakes lay between one of them and the river where he had been left by his captors. From the last of those lakes a long portage, such as had been made on the last day but one of the journey, would bring them to a river which a few miles away joined the river on the bank of which he had been left to shift for himself. Studying the disposition of the country carefully, he reached the conclusion that by a roundabout journey he had been brought to the river on the upper reaches of which he had his permanent camp; and as the conviction grew upon him, he made his way back to the canoe, and began to work his way upstream.
As he paddled, the problem of his deportation exercised his mind; and nowhere could he find any explanation of it, unless it had to do with Miskodeed. But that explanation failed as he recalled the words of her father: "It is an order." Who had given the order? He thought in turn of the factor, of Sir James Yardely, of Gerald Ainley. The first two were instantly dismissed, but the thought of Ainley remained fermenting in his mind. It was an odd coincidence that he should have been attacked whilst awaiting Ainley's coming, and in view of his one-time friend's obvious reluctance to an interview and of his own urgent reasons for desiring it; the suspicion that Ainley was the man who had issued the order for his forcible deportation grew until it became almost a conviction.
"I will find out about this—and the other thing," he said aloud. "I can't go back now, but sooner or later my chance will come. The cur!"
That evening he camped at the foot of a fall, which he had heard of, but never before seen, and spent the whole of the next day in portaging his belongings to navigable water, and on the following evening well beyond the rocky ramparts, where the river ran so swiftly, made his camp, happily conscious that now the river presented no barrier for two hundred miles.
As he sat smoking outside his little tent, an absent, thoughtful look upon his face, his eyes fixed dreamily on the river, his mind reverted once more to the problem of recent happenings, and as he considered it, there came to him the picture of Miskodeed as he had seen her running towards him between the willows just before the blow which had knocked him unconscious. She had cried to him to put him on his guard, and the apprehension in her face as he remembered it told him that she knew of the ill that was to befall him. His mind dwelt on her for a moment as he visioned her face with its bronze beauty, her dark, wild eyes flashing with apprehension for him, and as he did so his own eyes softened a little. He recalled the directness of her speech in their first conversation and smiled at the naïveté of her estimate of himself. Then the smile died, leaving the absent, thoughtful look more pronounced, and in the same moment the vision of Miskodeed was obliterated by the vision of Helen Yardely—the woman of his own race, fair and softly-strong, and as different as well as could be from the daughter of the wilds.
Again, as he recalled the steady scrutinizing glance of her grey eyes, he felt the blood rioting in his heart, and for a moment his eyes were alight with dreams. Then he laughed in sudden bitterness.
"What a confounded fool I am!" he said. "A discharged convict——"
The utterance was suddenly checked; and an interested look came on his face. There was something coming down the river. He rose quickly to his feet in order to get a better view of the object which had suddenly floated into his line of vision. It was a canoe. It appeared to be empty, and thinking it was a derelict drifting from some camp up river, he threw himself down again, for even if he salved it, it could be of no possible use to him. Lying there he watched it as it drifted nearer in the current, wondering idly whence it had come. Nearer it came, swung this way and that by various eddies, and drifting towards the further side of the river where about forty yards above his camp a mass of rock broke the smooth surface of the water. He wondered whether the current would swing it clear; and now watched it with interest since he had once heard a river-man declare that anything that surrendered itself completely to a current would clear obstructions. He had not believed the theory at the time, and now before his eyes it was disproved; for the derelict swung straight towards the rocks, then twisted half-way round as it was caught by some swirl, and struck a sharp piece of rock broadside on.
Then happened a totally unexpected thing. As the canoe struck, a girl who had been lying at the bottom, raised herself suddenly, and stared at the water overside, one hand clutching the gunwale. A second later the canoe drifted against another rock and suddenly tilted, throwing the girl into the broken water.
By this time, taken by surprise though he was, Stane was on his feet, and running down the bank. He did not stop to launch his canoe but just as he was flung himself into the water, and started to swim across the river, drifting a little with the current, striving to reach a point where he could intercept the girl as she drifted down. It was no light task he had set himself, for the current was strong, and carried him further than he intended to go, but he was in front of the piece of human flotsam which the river was claiming for its prey, and as it came nearer he stretched a hand and grasped at it. He caught a handful of chestnut hair that floated like long weed in the river's tide, and the next moment turned the girl over on her back. She was unconscious, but as he glimpsed at her face, his heart leaped, for it was the face of that fair English girl of whom but a few minutes before he had been dreaming. For a second he was overcome with amazement, then stark fear leapt in his heart as he looked at the closed eyes and the white, unconscious face.
That fear shook him from his momentary inactivity. He looked for something else to hold by, and finding nothing, twisted the long strand of hair he had gripped into a rope, and held it with his teeth. Then he glanced round. The current had carried him further than he had realized, and now quickened for its rush between the rocky ramparts, so that there was some danger of their being caught and swept through. As he realized that, he began to exert all his strength, striking across the current for the nearest bank, which was the one furthest from his camp.
The struggle was severe, and the girl's body drifting against him impeded his movements terribly. It seemed impossible that he could make the bank, and the ramparts frowned ominously ahead. He was already wondering what the chances were of making the passage through in safety, and was half-inclined to surrender to the current and take the risks ahead, when his eye caught that which spurred him to fresh efforts.
A hundred yards downstream a huge tree, by some collapse of the bank, had been flung from the position where it had grown for perhaps a hundred years, and now lay with its crown and three-quarters of its trunk in the river. Its roots, heavily laden with earth, still clung to the bank and fought with the river for its prey. If he could reach that Stane realized that he might yet avoid the perilous passage between the bastions of rock. He redoubled his efforts against the quickening current, and by supreme exertions pulled himself into a position where the current must carry him and the girl against the tree.
In a moment, as it seemed, they had reached it, and now holding the girl's hair firmly in one hand, with the other he clutched at one of the branches. He caught it, and the next moment was unexpectedly ducked overhead in the icy water. He came up gasping, and then understood. The tree was what in the voyageur's nomenclature is known as a "sweeper." Still held by its roots it bobbed up and down with the current, and the extra strain of his weight and the girl's had sunk it deeper in the water. It still moved up and down, and he had not finished spluttering when a new danger asserted itself. The suck of the current under the tree was tremendous. It seemed to Stane as if a thousand malevolent hands were conspiring to drag him under; and all the time he was afraid lest the unconscious girl should be entangled among the submerged branches.
Lying on his back holding the bough that he had caught, at the same time steadying himself with a foot against another branch, he swiftly considered the situation.
It was impossible that he could pull himself on to the trunk from the upper side. Even had he been unhampered by the unconscious girl that would have been difficult, the suck of the current under the tree being so great. He would have to get to the other side somehow. To do that there were new risks to be taken. He would have to let loose the branch which he held, drift through the other interlacing branches, and get a hold on the further side of the trunk.
It was risky, and beyond was the water swirling for its race between the bastions. But he could do nothing where he was and, setting his teeth, he let go his hold. In a second, as it seemed, the tree leaped like a horse and the water swept him and the girl under the trunk. Scarcely were they under when his free arm shot out and flung itself round a fresh bough which floated level with the water. Immediately the bough bobbed under, but he was prepared for that, and after a brief rest, he set the girl's hair between his teeth once more, and with both hands free began to work from bough to bough. One that he clutched gave an ominous crack. It began to sag in a dangerous way, and at the fork where it joined a larger branch a white slit appeared and began to grow wider. He watched it growing, his eyes quite steady, his mind alert for the emergency that it seemed must arrive, but the branch held for the space of time that he needed it; and it was with heartfelt relief that he grasped a larger bough, and the next moment touched bottom with his feet.
At that he shifted his hold on the girl, towing her by a portion of her dress, and two minutes later, lifted her beyond the water-line on the high shelving bank. Then, as he looked in her white face and marked the ashen lips, a panic of fear fell on him. Dropping to his knees he took her wrist in his hand and felt for her pulse. At first he thought that she was dead, then very faint and slow he caught the beat of it. The next moment he had her in his arms and was scrambling up the bank.
At the top he had the good fortune to stumble on a trail that was evidently used by Indians or other dwellers in the wilderness, probably by men portaging the length of bad water down the river. It was a rough enough path, yet it made his task immeasurably easier. But even with its unexpected aid, the journey was a difficult one, and he staggered with exhaustion when he laid the girl down upon the rough grass at a point not quite opposite his own camp.
Gasping he stood looking at her until he had recovered his breath, the girl unconscious of his gaze; then when he felt equal to the task, he plunged again into the river and swam to his own camp. A few minutes later he returned in his canoe, carrying with him a field water-bottle filled with medical brandy.
The girl lay as he had left her, and his first action was to pour a few drops of brandy between her parted lips, and that done he waited, chafing her hands. A minute later the long-lashed eyelids fluttered and opened, and the grey eyes looked wildly round without seeing him, then closed again and a long sigh came from her as she lapsed into unconsciousness anew. At that he wasted no more time. Lifting her, he carried her down to the canoe, and paddling across the river, bore her up to his own camp, and laid her down where the heat of the fire would reach her, then he administered further brandy and once more waited.
Again the eyelids fluttered and opened, and the girl looked round with wild, uncomprehending gaze, then her eyes grew steady, and a moment later fixed themselves upon Stane. He waited, saw wonder light them, then, in a voice that shook, the girl asked: "How did—I—come here?"
"That you know best yourself," answered the young man, cheerfully. "I fished you out of the river, that is all I know." The girl made as if to reply; but Stane prevented her.
"No, don't try to talk for a little while. Wait! Take a little more of this brandy."
He held it towards her in a tin cup, and with his hand supporting her head, the girl slowly sipped it. By the time she had finished, a little blood was running in her cheeks and her lips were losing their ashen colour. She moved and made as though to sit up.
"Better wait a little longer," he said, quietly.
"No," she said, "I feel better."
She lifted herself into a sitting posture, and he thoughtfully rolled a small sack of beans to support her back, then she looked at him with a quick questioning gaze.
"I have seen you before, have I not? You are the man who was at Fort Malsun, aren't you—the man whom Mr. Ainley used to know?"
"Yes," he answered with sudden bitterness, "I am the man whom Ainley used to know. My name is Hubert Stane, and I am a discharged convict, as I daresay he told you."
The sudden access of colour in Helen Yardely's face, and the look in her eyes, told him that he had guessed correctly, but the girl did not answer the implied question. Instead she looked at the river and shuddered.
"You—fished me out," she said, her eyes on the rocks across the river. "Was it there the canoe overturned?"
"Yes," he answered, "you struck the rocks."
"I must have been dozing," she replied. "I remember waking and seeing water pouring into the canoe, and the next moment I was in the river. You saw me, I suppose?"
Stane nodded. "I was sitting here and saw the canoe coming down the river. I thought it was empty until it struck the rocks and you suddenly sat up."
"And then you came after me?"
"Yes," he answered lightly.
Her grey eyes looked at him carefully, noted his dripping clothes and dank hair, and then with sudden comprehension asked: "How did you get me? Did you do it with your canoe or——"
"The canoe wouldn't have been any use," he interrupted brusquely. "It would have upset if I had tried to get you out of the water into it."
"Then you swam for me?" persisted the girl.
"Had to," he answered carelessly. "Couldn't let you drown before my eyes—even if I am a convict!"
Helen Yardely flushed a little. "I do not think you need mention that again. I am very grateful to a brave man."
"Oh, as to that——" he began; but she interrupted him.
"Tell me where you got me? I remember nothing about it."
He looked down the river.
"As near as I can tell you, it was by that clump of firs there; though I was not able to land for quite a long distance beyond. You were unconscious, and I carried you along the opposite bank, then swam across for my canoe and ferried you over. There you have the whole story." He broke off sharply, then before she could offer comment he spoke again: "I think it would be as well if you could have a change of clothes. It is not cold, but to let those you have dry on you might bring on all sorts of ills. There are some things of mine in the tent. I will put them handy, and you can slip them on whilst I take a stroll. You can then dry your own outfit."
He did not wait for any reply, but walked to the little fly-tent, and three or four minutes later emerged, puffing a pipe. He waved towards the tent, and turning away began to walk rapidly up river. Helen Yardely sat where she was for a moment looking after him. There was a very thoughtful expression on her face.
"The whole story!" she murmured as she rose to her feet. "I wonder? That man may have been a convict; but he is no braggart."
She walked to the tent, and with amused eyes looked at the articles of attire obviously arranged for her inspection. A grey flannel shirt, a leather belt, a pair of Bedford cord breeches, a pair of moccasins, miles too large for her, and a mackinaw jacket a little the worse for wear.
She broke into sudden laughter as she considered them, and after a moment went to the tent-door and shyly looked up the river. The figure of her rescuer was still receding at a rapid rate. She nodded to herself, and then dropping the flap of the tent, faced the problem of the unaccustomed garments.
CHAPTER VI
A MYSTERIOUS SHOT
Twenty minutes later, as Hubert Stane returned along the river bank, he saw the girl emerge from the tent, and begin to arrange her own sodden attire where the heat of the fire would dry it. The girl completed her task just as he arrived at the camp, and stood upright, the rich blood running in her face. Then a flash of laughter came in her grey eyes.
"Well?" she asked, challenging his gaze.
"You make a very proper man," he answered, laughing.
"And I am as hungry as two!" she retorted. "I have eaten nothing for many hours. I wonder if——"
"What a fool I am," he broke in brusquely. "I never thought of that. I will do what I can at once."
Without further delay he began to prepare a meal, heating an already roasted partridge on a spit, and making coffee, which, with biscuit he set before her.
"It is not exactly a Savoy supper, but——"
"It will be better," she broke in gaily, "for I was never so hungry in my life."
"Then eat! There are one or two little things I want to attend to, if you will excuse me."
"Certainly," she replied laughingly. "It will be less embarrassing if there is no witness of my gluttony."
Stane once more left the camp, taking with him a hatchet, and presently returned dragging with him branches of young spruce with which he formed a bed a little way from the tent, and within the radius of the heat from the fire. On this he threw a blanket, and his preparation for the night completed, turned to the girl once more.
"I never enjoyed a meal so much in my life," she declared, as she lifted the tin plate from her lap. "And this coffee is delicious. Won't you have some, Mr. Stane?"
"Thank you, Miss a—Miss——"
"Yardely is my name," she said quickly, "Helen Yardely." He took the coffee as she handed it to him in an enamelled mug, then he said: "How did you come to be adrift, Miss Yardely?"
As he asked the question a thoughtful look came on the girl's beautiful face.
"I was making a little trip by myself," she said slowly, "to see a beaver dam in a creek a little below our encampment, and some one shot at me!"
"Shot at you!" Stane stared at her in amazement as he gave the exclamation.
"Yes, twice! The second shot broke my paddle, and as I had no spare one, and as I cannot swim, I could do nothing but drift with the current."
"But who can have done such a thing?" cried the young man.
"I have not the slightest idea, unless it was some wandering Indian, but I am quite sure it was not an accident. I saw the first shot strike the water close to the canoe. It came from some woods on the left bank, and I cried out to warn the shooter whom I could not see. It was about four minutes after when the second shot was fired, and the bullet hit the shaft of the paddle, so that it broke on my next stroke, and I was left at the mercy of the river."
"And no more shots were fired?"
"None!"
Stane sat there with a very thoughtful look upon his face; and after a moment Miss Yardely spoke again.
"What do you think, Mr. Stane?"
He shook his head. "I do not know what to think, Miss Yardely," he said slowly, "but it looks as if the thing had been done deliberately."
"You mean that some one tried to kill me?"
"No, not that," was the reply. "You would offer too fair a mark for any one accustomed to handling a rifle to miss. I mean that there was a deliberate attempt to set you adrift in the canoe. The first shot, you say, struck the water near you, the second smashed your paddle, and after that there was no more firing. Why? The only answer is that the shooter had accomplished his object."
"It certainly has that appearance," answered the girl. "But why should any one do a thing like that?"
"That is quite beyond me. It was so brutal a thing to do!"
"Some roaming Indian possibly," suggested Miss Yardely thoughtfully.
"But as you asked just now, why? Indians are not so rich in cartridges that they can afford to waste them on a mere whim."
"No, perhaps not," said the girl. "But I can think of no one else." She was silent for a moment, then she added, "Whoever did the vile thing frightened me badly. It is not nice to sit helpless in a canoe drifting out into such a wilderness as this." She waved her hand round the landscape as she spoke, and gave a little shudder. "You see I never knew what was coming next. I passed some islands and hoped that I might strike one of them, but the current swept me clear, and for hours I sat staring, watching the banks go by, and wondering how long it would be before I was missed; and then, I suppose I must have fallen asleep, because I remember nothing more until just before I was thrown into the water."
"It was a very fortunate thing you struck those rocks," said Stane meditatively.
"Fortunate, Mr. Stane? Why?"
"Because in all probability I should not have seen you if you had not; and a few miles below here, there are some bad rapids, and below them the river makes a leap downwards of nearly a hundred feet."
"A fall?" cried the girl, her face blanching a little, as she flashed a glance downstream. "Oh, that would have been terrible! It was fortunate that you were here."
"Very," he agreed earnestly, "and I am beginning to think that it was providential; though all day I have been cursing my luck that I should have been in this neighbourhood at all. I have no business here."
"Then why——" she began, and stopped as if a little afraid that her question was too frankly curious.
It was so that Stane understood the interrupted utterance. He laughed a little, and then answered:
"You need not mind asking, Miss Yardely; because the truth is that my presence in this neighbourhood is due to a mystery that is almost as insoluble as the one that brought you drifting downstream. On the night after you arrived at Fort Malsun, I was waiting at my tent door for—er—a man whom I expected a visit from, when I was knocked on the head by an Indian, and when I came to, I found I was a prisoner, under sentence of deportation. We travelled some days, rather a roundabout journey, as I have since guessed, and one morning I awoke to find my captors had disappeared, leaving me with my canoe and stores and arms absolutely untouched."
"That was a strange adventure, Mr. Stane."
"So I think," answered Stane with conviction.
"What do you think was the reason for your deportation?"
"I do not know," answered Stane thoughtfully. "My chief captor said it was an order, but that may have been a lie; and such wildly possible reasons that I can think of are so inherently improbable that it is difficult to entertain any of them. And yet——"
He broke off, and an absent look came in his eyes. The girl waited, hoping that he would continue, and whilst she did so for one moment visioned Miskodeed in all her wild barbaric beauty and her mind, recalling Ainley's words upon the matter of the girl's relation to the man before her, wondered if there lay the reason. Stane still remained silent, showing no disposition to complete his thought; and it was the girl who broke the silence.
"You say you were waiting for a man when you were seized, Mr. Stane; tell me, was the man Gerald Ainley?"
The young man was a little startled by her question, as his manner showed; but he answered frankly: "Yes! But how did you guess that?"
Helen Yardely smiled. "Oh, that was quite easy. You were the topic of conversation at the dinner-table on the very night that you disappeared; and I gathered that to the factor you were something of a mystery, whilst no one except Mr. Ainley knew anything whatever about you. As you and he were old acquaintances, what more natural than that you should be waiting for him? I suppose he did not come?"
"If he did, I never saw him—and I waited for him two nights!"
"Two!" cried Helen. "Then he could not have wanted to come."
"I rather fancy he did not," replied Stane with a bitter laugh.
"You wished to see him very much?" asked the girl quickly. "It was important that you should?"
"I wished to question him upon a matter that was important to me."
"Ah!" said the girl in a tone that was full of significance. Stane looked at her sharply, and then asked a question:
"What are you thinking, Miss Yardely?"
"Oh, I was just thinking that I had guessed one of your wildly possible reasons, Mr. Stane; and to tell the truth, if Mr. Ainley was really anxious to avoid answering your questions, it does not seem to me so inherently improbable as you appear to think."
"What convinces you of that, Miss Yardely?"
"Well," she replied quickly, "you say the Indian told you that it was an order. I ask myself—whose order? There were very few people at Fort Malsun to give orders. I think of them in turn. The factor? You were a stranger to him! My uncle? He never heard of you except in gossip over the dinner-table the night you were deported. Gerald Ainley? He knew you! He had made appointments with you that he twice failed to keep—which, quite evidently, he had no intention of keeping. He had—may I guess?—some strong reason for avoiding you; and he is a man of some authority in the Company and moving to still greater. He would not know the Indians who actually carried you away; but Factor Rodwell would, and factors are only human, and sooner or later Gerald Ainley will be able to considerably influence Mr. Rodwell's future. Therefore—well, Q.E.D.! Do you not agree with me?"
"I find your argument convincing," answered Stane, grimly. Then he lapsed into thoughtful silence, whilst the girl watched him, wondering what was in his mind. Presently she knew, for most unexpectedly the young man gave vent to a short laugh.
"What a fool the man is!" he declared. "He must know that we shall meet again some time!... But, Miss Yardely, I am keeping you from your rest! We must start betimes in the morning if I am to take you back to your uncle."
"If you take me back——?"
"There is no question of that," he answered promptly. "I could not dream of leaving you here."
"I was about to say you would very likely meet Gerald Ainley. He has joined my uncle's party."
"So much the better," cried Stane. "I shall certainly go."
There was a flash in his blue eyes, a grim look in his face, and instinctively Helen Yardely knew that the matter which lay between this man and Gerald Ainley was something much more serious than forced deportation. What it was she could not guess, and though after she had retired to the tent she lay awake thinking of the matter, when she fell asleep she was as far off as ever from anything that offered a solution of the question which troubled her. And outside, staring into the fire, his strong face the index of dark thoughts, Hubert Stane sat through the short night of the Northland summer, never once feeling the need of sleep, reviewing from a different angle the same question as that which had perplexed the mind of the girl in the tent.
At the first hint of dawn, Stane rose from his seat, gathered up the girl's now dry raiment, and put it in a heap at the tent door, then procuring a canvas bucket of water he set that beside the clothes and busied himself with preparing breakfast. After a little time Helen emerged from the tent. Her eyes were bright, her beautiful face was radiant with health, and it was clear that she was no worse for her experience of the day before.
"Good morning, Mr. Stane," she said in gay salutation, "you are the early bird. I hope you slept well."
"May I reciprocate the hope, Miss Yardely?"
"Never better, thank you. I think hunger and adventure must be healthful. I slept like the Seven Sleepers rolled into one; I feel as fresh as the morning, and as hungry as—well, you will see," she ended with a laugh.
"Then fall to," he said, joining in the laughter. "The sooner the breakfast is over the sooner we shall start."
"I warn you I am in no hurry," she retorted gaily. "I quite like this. It is the real thing; whilst my uncle's camps are just civilization imposing itself on the wilderness."
"But your uncle! You must think of him, Miss Yardely. You have now been away an afternoon and a night. He will be very anxious."
"Yes!" she said, "that's the pity of it. If it were not for that——" She broke off suddenly, gave a little laugh, and for no apparent reason her face flushed rosily. "But you must restore me to the bosom of my family soon!"
"More's the pity!" said Stane to himself under his breath; his heart-beats quickening as he looked at her radiant face and laughing eyes; whilst openly he said: "I will do my best. You will be able to help me to paddle against the current, and no doubt in a little time we shall meet a search-party coming to look for you."
"Then my little jaunt will be over! But you must not surrender me until you have seen my uncle, Mr. Stane."
Stane laughed. "I will hold you against the world until then, Miss Yardely."
"And perhaps you will see Gerald Ainley, as you wish," she said, glancing at him to watch the effect of her words.
The laughter died swiftly from his face, and a stern light came into his eyes. "Yes," he said grimly, "perhaps I shall. Indeed that is my hope."
Helen Yardely did not pursue the matter further. Again she glimpsed depths that she did not understand, and as she ate her breakfast, she glanced from time to time at her companion, wondering what was between him and Ainley, and wondering in vain.
Breakfast finished, they struck camp, launched the canoe and began to paddle upstream. The current was strong, and their progress slow, but after some three hours they arrived at the junction of the two rivers. Then Stane asked a question.
"Which way did you come, Miss Yardely? Down the main stream or the other one?"
The girl looked towards the meeting of the waters doubtfully. "I do not know," she said. "I certainly do not remember coming through that rough water."
"Your uncle's party had of course travelled some way since I left Fort Malsun?"
"Oh yes; we had made long journeys each day and we were well on our way to—wait a moment. I shall remember the name—to—to old Fort Winagog."
"Winagog?" said Stane.
"Yes! That is the name. I remember my uncle mentioning it yesterday."
"Then you came down the main stream for a certainty, for the old fort stands on a lake that finds an outlet into this river, though it is rather a long way from here. We will keep straight on. No doubt we shall strike either your uncle's camp or some search party presently."
As it happened the conclusion he reached was based on a miscalculation. The only waterway to old Fort Winagog that he knew was from the main river and up the stream that formed the outlet for the lake. But there was another that was reached by a short portage through the woods from the subsidiary stream from which he turned aside, a waterway which fed the lake, and which cut off at least a hundred and twenty miles. Knowing nothing of this shorter route he naturally concluded that Helen Yardely's canoe had come down the main stream, and took the wrong course in the perfect assurance that it was the right one.
So hugging the left bank they passed the junction of the rivers, and a little further on crossed to the other side to seek shelter from a rising wind, under the high bank. And less than an hour later the canoe, carrying Gerald Ainley and his Indian, swept out of the tributary stream into the broader current, and they drove downstream, unconscious that every stroke of the paddle was taking them further from the girl whom they sought.