Gaining a sure footing on the bank, he faced her, laughing. "Well, how about it now?"
There was nothing inscrutable about her face then. It worked with emotion like any woman's.
"Don't go by yourself!" she pleaded. "You not know this country. You got not'ing. No grub! No gun! No blanket!"
"I can walk it in two days or three," he said. "I'll build a fire to sleep by. You can give me a little grub if you want. I'll trade my pocket-knife for it. It's all I've got. You got me into this, anyhow."
"No sell grub," she answered sullenly. "Give all you want if you come with me."
"Very well, keep it then," he snapped, turning away.
Her face broke up again. "No, no! I not mad at you!" she cried hurriedly. "I give you food. But wait; we got talk." She drove the canoe on a mud-bank beyond the willows and scrambled out.
Sam, scowling and hardening at her approach, was careful to keep his distance. He suspected her of a design to detain him by force.
"There's been too much talk," he growled. "You'd better hustle on down. They'll be here soon."
"Sam, don' go!" she begged. "W'at you do at head of lake? Not get no job but cook. Stay wit' me. We got boat and gun and blankets. We need no more. I show you all w'at to do. I show you fishin' and huntin'. When winter come I show you how to trap good fur. You will be rich with me. I not bot'er you no more. I do everything you want."
In her distress Sam's angry eyes chose to see onlychagrin at the prospect of his escaping her. At the same time her beseeching face filled him with a wild commotion that he would not recognize. His only recourse lay in instant flight.
"Cut it out! What good does it do?" he cried harshly. "I tell you I'm going to the head of the lake."
"All right, I tak' you there," she said eagerly. "More quick as you can walk, too. Half a mile down the river there is a little backwater to hide. We let those men go by and then come back. I do w'at you want, Sam."
"Will you give me a little grub, or won't you?" he insisted. "I'd rather starve than go with you!"
She burst into tears. "All right, I give you food," she said. She turned back to the dugout, and, throwing back the cover of the grub-box, put what bread and smoked fish she had left into a cotton bag.
Sam awaited her, raging with that intolerable bitterness that a tender and obstinate man feels at the sight of a woman's tears.
She offered him the little package of food, and a blanket as well. "Tak' my ot'er blanket," she said humbly. "I can get more."
He impatiently shook his head, refusing to meet the lovely, imploring eyes. "Here," he said, offering the pocket-knife. "For the food."
With a fresh burst of weeping she knocked it out of his hand, and covered her face with her arm. Sam strode away, blinded and deafened by the confusion of his feelings. His face was as stubborn as stone.
When Sam had passed out of sight around the willows, Bela, still shaken by sobs, went down on her hands and knees to search for the penknife she had spurned. Finding it, she kissed it and thrust it inside her dress.
Going to the dugout, she stretched out in it, and gave herself up to grief. Not for very long, however. Gradually the sobs stilled, and finally she sat up with the look of one who has something to do. For a long time thereafter she sat, chin in hand, thinking hard with tight lips and inward-looking eyes.
Sounds from around the bend above aroused her. She heard the working of an oar in its socket and the cautious voices of men. An alert look came into her face.
She glanced over the gunwale at her face in the water and disarranged her hair a little. Flinging herself down, she commenced to weep again, but with an altered note; this was self-conscious grief addressed to the ears of others.
The three men, finding her thus, gaped in boundless astonishment. It was anything but what they expected to find. They peered into the bushes for a sign of Sam.
"What the devil is the matter?" demanded Big Jack.
"Where is Sam?" cried Joe.
Bela answered both questions at once. "He leave me," she sobbed with heart-breaking effect.
"Left you?" they echoed stupidly.
"Gone away," wailed Bela. "Say he done with me for good!"
Black Shand and Jack were genuinely discomposed at the sight of her tears. Joe with more hardihood laughed.
"Serve you well right!" said he.
Big Jack had the oar. He drove the boat on the bank alongside the dugout, and they climbed out. Jack and Shand went up the bank.
"He can't have got far," said the former.
A wide sea of grass was revealed to them, stretching to pine ridges on the horizon. In all the expanse there was no sign of any figure, but the dense willows marking the tortuous course of the river provided plenty of cover both up and down stream.
"Which way did he go?" Jack called down.
"I don't know," said Bela. "Down river, I think."
Below, Joe, full of bitter jealousy, was still upbraiding Bela. Jack returned, scowling.
"Cut it out!" he said peremptorily. "I will get to the bottom of this." To Bela he said harshly: "What do you expect us to do for you, girl? You promised us a fair answer yesterday morning, and in the night you skipped with the cook."
Bela raised an innocent-seeming face.
"What you mean, skip?" she asked.
"Lit out, eloped, ran away," said Jack grimly.
"I never did!" she cried indignantly. "He carry me off."
They stared at her open-mouthed again.
"What I want wit' a cook?" she went on quickly."I want marry a man wit' something. He is a bad man. He tak' me away. Now he say he done wit' me!" Tears threatened again.
They were only half convinced.
"How did it happen?" Jack demanded.
"In the afternoon he find my cache where I stay by the little creek," she said. "Talk to me lak a friend. I think all right. But in the night he come back when I sleepin' and tie my hands and my feet and my mouth, and throw me in my boat and tak' away! I hate him!"
"Then it was you we heard cry out?" exclaimed Joe.
"Sure!" she assented readily. "The handkerchief come loose. But soon he stop me."
"He did it just to spite us!" cried Joe furiously. "He didn't want her himself! I always said he had too proud a stomach for a cook. Worked against us at night like a rat! I warned you often enough!"
"Hold on!" said Big Jack, scowling. "There's more to this." He turned to Bela accusingly. "You were paddling the dugout when you came to the river yesterday. I saw you plain."
"Soon as the wind begin to blow he cut me loose," she said. "He can't mak' the boat go. He tak' my gun and point to me and mak' me paddle."
"The damned blackguard!" muttered Shand.
Jack was still unconvinced. "But to-day," he said, "when my oar busted you laughed. I was lookin' at you."
Bela hung her head. "He tak' me away," she murmured. "I t'ink he marry me then. I good girl. I think got marry him."
This convinced them all. They burst out in angry exclamations. It was not, however, for what they thought Bela had suffered. Each man was thinkingof the wrong Sam had done him. Toward Bela their attitude had subtly changed. She was now a damaged article, though still desirable. Their awe of her was gone.
"I'll grind my heel in his face for this," snarled Joe. "I'll kill him slow!"
"Come on!" cried Shand. "We're losing time. He can't have got far."
Bela scrambled out of the dugout. "I tak' you where he is," she said eagerly. "I can track him in the grass. I can't catch him myself. But you got give him to me for punish."
"We'll attend to that for you, my girl," said Jack grimly.
"No blood!" she cried. "If he is kill for cause of me I get a bad name around. A girl can't have no bad name."
They laughed with light scorn. "You're done for already," Joe said.
"Nobody knows him," said Jack. "He'll never be missed. We'll take good care he ain't found, neither."
"The police will know," insisted Bela. "They can smell blood. Bam-by maybe you mad at each ot'er. One will tell."
This was a shrewd shot. The three scowled at each other furtively. There was no confidence between them.
"Well—what do you want to do?" asked Jack uneasily.
"I give him to the police," stated Bela eagerly. "They comin' up the river now. Come every year this tam. Then all will be known. It is not my fault he tak' me away. I good girl."
"Maybe she wants to get him to marry her," suggested Joe.
Bela (Colleen Moore) overhears the brave bargaining for her.
"No marry!" cried Bela with a fine assumption ofanger. "He throw me down! Speak bad to me! I hate him! I want punish!"
"Sounds fishy somehow," muttered Jack, hesitating.
"You come wit' me," she said, shrugging. "See all I do."
"Maybe the idea is to get us away from the boat so he can sneak back and swipe it," suggested Joe.
"You foolish!" said Bela, with a glance of scorn. "You can walk to Johnny Gagnon's and get your horses. Let one man stay here to watch the boats."
"Come on!" cried Shand from the top of the bank. "Catch him first and decide what we'll do to him after."
"Go on," said Bela sullenly. "I not track him wit'out you give him me for punish."
"You swear you'll hand him over to the police," demanded Jack sternly.
"I swear it!" she replied instantly, looking him in the eye and holding up her hand.
"All right. Come on. I'm satisfied," assented Jack.
"Wait!" she said. "You promise to me you not hurt him. Give me your hand."
She forced all three to shake hands on it, Joe submitting with an ill grace.
"Now come on," said Shand impatiently.
"Leave your guns," commanded Bela. "Maybe he run. You get mad and shoot. I want no blood."
Jack scowled at her with reawakened suspicions. "I keep my gun by me," he growled.
"He got no gun," sneered Bela scornfully. "You 'fraid catch him wit' hands?"
"You said he had your gun," said Big Jack.
"He give it back," said Bela. "He is bad man; but no steal. My big gun, my little gun—see?" She exhibited them.
Jack knew that Sam owned no gun; still he was suspicious. "If you had your gun why didn't you plug him when he left you?" he demanded.
Bela paused for an instant. This was a poser, because in her heart she knew, supposing her story to be true, that she would have shot Sam. She had to think quickly. "I not want no blood," she murmured. "I 'fraid Père Lacombe."
It was well done. Big Jack nodded. "You leave your guns, too," he stipulated.
"Sure!" she said, willingly putting them in the dugout. "Leave one man to watch the boats and the guns. Two men and a woman enough to catch a cook, I guess."
They laughed.
Bela was playing for high stakes, and her faculties were sharpened to a sword-edge. Every look suggested the wronged woman thirsting for justice. She ostentatiously searched in her baggage, and drawing out a piece of moose-hide, cut it into thongs for bonds. Cleverer men than Big Jack and his pals might have been taken in.
"Boys, she's right!" cried Jack. "We don't want no blood on our hands to start off with, if we can see him punished proper. Shand, you stay here. Lead off, girl!"
Shand shrugged with a sour look, and came down the bank. It was always tacitly understood between him and Jack that young Joe was not to be trusted alone, so he submitted.
The other three started. Bela, making believe to be baffled for a moment, finally led the way up-stream. She went first at the rolling gait the Indians affect. The men were hard put to it to keep up with her overthe uneven ground, for the grassy plain, which looked like a billiard-table, was full of bumps.
She kept her eyes on the ground. It was a simple matter for her to follow Sam's tracks in the grass, but the men, though they could see the faint depressions when she pointed them out, could never have found them unaided.
The tracks led them parallel to the general direction of the river, cutting across from point to point of the willows on the outside of each bend. On the horizon ahead was the pine-clad ridge that bounded the lower end of the lake. Jack-Knife Mountain rose over it. The sea of grass was dazzling in the sunlight.
Half an hour's swift walking gave them no glimpse ahead of their quarry.
"Waste too much time talking," said Bela.
"Well, you did the most of it," retorted Joe.
It was evident from the direction of the tracks that Sam was taking care to keep under cover of each point of the willows until he gained the next one. Each point afforded his pursuers a new survey ahead. Not until they had walked another half-hour at that gruelling pace were they in time to see a black spot just about to disappear ahead.
"Down!" cried Bela, and they dropped full length in the grass until it had gone.
Bela, springing up, led the way at a run across the intervening grass. She had to hold herself back for the men. Joe was too heavy to be a runner, and Jack was beginning to feel the handicap of his years.
Nearing the willows, she held up her hand for caution. They ran lightly in the grass. Neither man could see or hear anything; nevertheless Bela indicated by signs that the one they sought was justaround the bushes. At the last moment she held back and let them go first.
Sam, having decided that the danger of immediate pursuit was over, was sitting on the ground eating his lunch when, without warning, Jack and Joe fell on him, bowling him over on his back. He struggled desperately, but was helpless under their combined weight. Joe, with a snarl, lifted his clenched hand over Sam's face. Big Jack held it.
"Not while he's down," he muttered.
Bela, following close, drew Sam's hands together and bound his wrists with her strips of hide.
Sam, seeing her, cried out: "You've sold me out again! I might have known it!"
Bela, fearing his words might start Jack thinking things over, cried out hysterically: "I got you now! You think you run away, eh? You done wit' me! You laugh w'en I cry. I fix you for that! I put you where you can't hurt no more girls!"
To Jack and Joe it seemed natural under the circumstances. Sam glared at her in angry amazement, and opened his mouth to reply. But thinking better of it, he set his jaw and kept quiet.
He submitted to superior force, and they immediately started back on the long walk to the boats. There was little saiden route. Only Joe, unable to contain his rancour, occasionally burst out in brutal reviling. Sam smiled at him. More than once Big Jack was called on to restrain Joe's fist.
"A bargain is a bargain," he reminded him.
Bela, bringing up the rear, glared at the back of Joe's head with pure savage hatred. When any of them chanced to look at her, her face was wholly stolid.
Black Shand's face lightened as they brought Sam over the bank.
"So it was on the level," he remarked.
It was now some time past noon, and the word was given to eat before embarking. Sam, with his bound hands in his lap, sat on a great sod which had fallen from the bank above, and watched the others curiously and warily.
He had cooled down. So many things had happened to him during the past two days that his capacity for anger and astonishment was pretty well used up. He now felt more like a spectator than the leading man in the drama.
Finally, Bela, with a highly indifferent air, came to him with a plate of food which she put on his knees. Evidently he was expected to feed himself as best he could with his hands tied. Bela, avoiding his eyes, whispered swiftly:
"I your friend, Sam. Jus' foolin' them. Wait and see."
Sam laughed scornfully. The other men looked over, and Bela had to go back.
Sam had no compunction against eating their food. Scorning them all, he fully intended to get the better of them yet. Meanwhile he was wondering what had taken place between them. He could not interpret the relations between Bela and the three men. They were apparently neither friendly nor inimical.
Afterward a discussion arose as to their disposition between the two boats. The rowboat was not big enough to carry them all.
"Lay him in the dugout," Bela said indifferently. "I paddle him."
"No you don't," said Joe quickly. "He goes with the men."
"All right," said Bela, shrugging. "You come wit' me."
This arrangement pleased Joe very well, and by it Bela succeeded in parting him from Sam.
The two boats proceeded together down the smoothly flowing, willow-bordered stream. Shand and Jack took turns at sculling the larger craft, and Bela loafed on her paddle that they might keep up with her.
The view was as confined and unvarying as the banks of a canal, except that canals commonly are straight, while this watercourse twisted like Archimedes's screw. The only breaks in the endless panorama of cut-banks, mud-flats, willows, and grass were the occasional little inlets, gay with aquatic flowers.
Bela was most at home kneeling in the stern of her dugout. Joe, sitting opposite, watched her graceful action with a kindling eye.
"Drop behind a bit," he whispered. "I want to talk to you. Are you listening?"
She seemed not to have heard. Nevertheless the other boat drew away a little.
"Look here," Joe began with what he intended to be an ingratiating air, "this is a bad business for you. I'm not saying I blame you. Just the same your price has gone down, see? Do you get me?"
Bela lowered her eyes and watched the little whirl-pools in the train of her paddle. "I un'erstan'," she murmured.
"After an affair like this men look on a girl as fair game. I ain't saying it's right, but it's so. You want to look out for those other fellows now."
"I look out," said Bela.
"Come with me and I'll keep you from them," Joe went on, trying to speak carelessly; meanwhile his eyes were burning. "Of course, you can't expect me to marry you now, but I'll keep you in better style than you've ever known. There's nothing mean about me."
Bela raised her eyes and dropped them quickly. There was a spark in their depths that would have warned a man less vain than Joe. She said nothing.
"Well, is it a go?" he breathlessly demanded.
"I don't know," said Bela slowly. Her voice gave nothing away. "I got get married if I can."
"Who would marry you now?" cried Joe.
"I don't know. Somebody, I guess. Pretty near every man I see want marry me."
Joe sneered. "Not now! Not when this gets about."
"Maybe the big man want marry me," she suggested. "Or the black one."
Joe laughed scornfully. At the same time a horrible anxiety attacked him. Those two were old; they couldn't afford to be so particular as he. One of them might——
"Any'ow I not go wit' you now," said Bela. "Plenty time."
"You'd better look out for yourself," Joe burst out, "or you'll get in worse than you are already. You'll be sorry then."
"All right," she returned calmly.
Joe sat fuming. Anger and balked desire made his comely, brutal face look absurd and piteous. It was like a wilful child denied the moon. Joe could never resist his emotions. Whether or not Bela had guessed it, it was bound to come.
"Oh, hell!" he cried. "Look here, if Jack or Shand offer to marry you, I'll match them, see? Is that a go? You'd sooner have me, wouldn't you? I'm young."
Bela neither smiled nor frowned. "I think about it," she said.
"No you don't!" he cried. "You've got to promise now or I'll withdraw it!"
"I tell you somesing," said Bela, concealing the wicked sparkle in her eye. "I not want the big man. Not want the black man either. I tell you, if I marry any of the three, I tak' you."
Conceited Joe swallowed it whole. "I'm satisfied," he cried. "By George, I'd like to bind it with a kiss!"
"Look out, you turn us over," said Bela coolly. "The water moch cold."
Joe was quite carried away. "You beauty!" he cried. "Your skin is like cream. Your hair is like black velvet. You sit there as proud as a leading lady. I can't wait for you!"
"I ain't promise not'ing yet," said Bela warningly.
Johnny Gagnon's place was at the strategic point on Musquasepi where the forest ended and the meadows began. In the winter-time the freighters left the ice here, and headed straight across the bottom lands for the lake.
Gagnon kept a stopping-house for the freighters. It was the last house on the route to the head of the lake seventy-five miles away, excepting the shack at Nine-Mile Point, which had never been occupied until Big Jack and his party camped there.
Besides being a strategic point, it was one of those natural sites for a homestead that men pick out when there is a whole land to choose from. The bank rolled up gradually from the water's edge, and Gagnon's whole establishment was revealed from the river—dwelling, bunk-house, stable—all built of logs and crouching low on the ground as if for warmth.
The buildings had been there so long they had become a part of the landscape. The log walls were weathered to a silvery grey, and the vigorously sproutingsod roofs repeated the note of the surrounding grass.
On this particular afternoon there was something afoot at Johnny Gagnon's. The different members of the large family were running about like ants in a disturbed hill. A cloud of dust was issuing from the house door, propelled by a resolute broom.
Innumerable pails of water were being carried up from the river, and windows and children washed impartially. One of the big boys was burning rubbish; another was making a landing-stage of logs on the muddy shore.
In any other place such a spasm of house-cleaning need excite no remark, but among the happy-go-lucky natives of the north it is portentous. Clearly a festival was imminent.
Such was the sight that met the eyes of those in the rowboat and the dugout as they came around the bend above. Johnny Gagnon himself came running down to meet them. He was a little man, purely Indian in feature and colouring, but betraying a vivacity which suggested the French ancestor who had provided him with a surname.
The surname lasts longer than most white characteristics. It is a prized possession up north. If a man has a surname he votes.
Johnny was a vivacious Indian. Such anomalies are not uncommon on the border of the wilderness. His sloe-black eyes were prone to snap and twinkle, and his lips to part over dazzling teeth.
His hands helped out his tongue in the immemorial Latin style. Though he was the father of four strapping sons and several marriageable girls, not to speak of the smaller fry, time had left surprisingly few marks on him.
Johnny held up his hands at the sight of Sam, bound. He was delighted to have this additional excitement added to his brimming store.
"Wa! a prisoner!" he cried. "Good! we will have a trial. You must tell me all. You come back just right. Big tam! Big tam! Never was so much fun in my house before!"
"What's up?" asked Jack.
"Big crowd comin' to-morrow!" replied the excited Johnny Gagnon. "Trackin' up rapids to-day. Send a fellow up ahead ask my wife bake plenty bread."
"Who all is it?"
Johnny counted them off on his fingers: "Bishop Lajeunesse and two priests. Every year come to marry and baptize. That's three. Four, Indian agent. Him come pay Indians gov'ment money by the treaty. Got big bag money. Five, gov'ment doctor. He look at him for sick. It is in the treaty. Six, seven, Sergeant Coulson and 'not'er policeman. They go round wit' agent and ask all if any man do wrong to him. That is seven white men comin'! But wait! But wait! There is something else beside!"
"What?" asked Jack.
"A white woman!" announced Johnny triumphantly.
Bela frowned and stole a side glance at Sam. The men having lately come from the land of white women were not especially impressed.
"Only one white woman here before," Johnny went on. "Her comp'ny trader's wife. This her sister. Call Mees Mackall. Her old, but got no 'osban' at all. That is fonny thing I t'ink. Boys say all tam talk, laugh, nod head. Call her chicadee-woman."
Bela looked relieved at this description.
Sam, hearing of the expected company, smiled. Surely, with the law and the church at hand, an honestman had nothing to fear. He glanced at Bela a little triumphantly, but she made her face inscrutable to him.
Somewhat to his surprise he perceived that Jack and the other men were also pleased at the news. There was something here he did not understand.
Sam, tied hand and foot, was confined in the bunk-house at Gagnon's. All the heavy hours of his imprisonment were charged up against Bela, and by morning the score was a heavy one.
Big Jack, or one of the other men, was always in the room or at the door, and Bela had no opportunity to approach the prisoner.
Bela slept in the main house with the Gagnon girls. Before the general turning in that night Big Jack and Black Shand each contrived to separate her from the others long enough to make a proposal similar to Joe's. In each case Bela returned the same answer.
Next morning they were all early astir. The Gagnon boys put on clean blue-gingham shirts and red woollen sashes, and the girls tied their sable locks with orange and cerise ribbons. The cheeks of both boys and girls bore a high polish.
Squaw Gagnon tacked up lace window curtains for a final touch and brought out a square of carpet for the bishop to rest his reverend feet upon. To this household it was the greatest day in the year, and the sun was shining like the shiniest-cheeked Gagnon of them all. The younger children kept careful watch on Sam. He was an attraction fortuitously added to the big show.
Johnny Gagnon himself was the most excited of the family.
"You come jus' right!" he was continually exclaiming to Jack. "They stop all day now. Have trial in my house. Maybe stay to-night, too. I wish we had a fiddle. We could dance. But we can slap and sing any'ow."
The girls giggled delightedly at this suggestion.
Each one of the white men thought: "Dance at my wedding, maybe!" and glanced covertly at Bela. Bela looked out of the window.
"What! dance with the bishop here?" said Jack, affecting to be scandalized.
"Sure!" cried Johnny. "Bishop Lajeunesse no long-chinreligieux. Bishop say let yo'ng folks have a good time. Laugh and mak' fun wherever he go. He is a man!"
Early as they were they no sooner finished breakfast than they heard a shrill hail from down river. Every soul about the place excepting Sam dropped what he was about and scampered down to the water's edge.
Presently around the bend below appeared the tracking crew, slipping in the ooze, scrambling over fallen trunks, plunging through willows. Behind them trailed the long, thin line that must be kept taut, whatever the obstruction. Finally the York boat poked its nose lazily into view like a gigantic duck.
The other four of the crew stood upon the cargo with long poles to fend her off the shore, and the steersman was mounted on a little platform astern wielding an immense sweep. In the waist stood the passengers. As the celebrities were recognized a shout went up from the shore.
There was the bishop with red buttons, and the ordinary priests with black. There were the police in their gay, scarlet tunics; the Indian agent with hisbag of money, and the doctor with his bag of tools. Finally there was the blue hat with ostrich feathers that was already famous in the country.
Before the summer was out, news of that hat travelled all the way to the Arctic Ocean. Any one of these passengers would have made a gala day for Johnny Gagnon's family. To have them all at once was almost more than they could take in.
The tracking crew was on the opposite bank. Coiling up their line and jumping aboard, all hands poled her across. The bishop, gathering his cassock around his waist, was the first to leap ashore.
He was a little man, radiating goodness and fun. He had round, ruddy cheeks, looking as if the half of an apple had been glued to each side of his face, and a spreading, crinkly brown beard.
"Bienvenue! Bienvenue!" Cried Johnny Gagnon with sweeping obeisances.
"Well, Johnny, have you got a new one for me?" asked his lordship with a twinkle.
The river bank became a scene of delightful confusion; black cassocks, red tunics, orange ribbons, and blue ostrich feathers all mingled. The two slender boy priests showed strange hirsute adornments. One had a face like a round white doily with brown fringe; the other was spotted with hair like new grass.
The agent and the doctor were ordinary looking men. They did not add to the picturesqueness of the scene, but each carried a bag which was charged with romance for the natives.
The two policemen were almost as young as the boy-priests, but bigger and redder and clean-shaven. Here the eyes of the Gagnon girls lingered longest.
The greatest sensation, naturally, was created bythe blue hat. It was the last to come ashore. It lingered on the gunwale with an appealing turn manwards until a red arm was offered on one side, a black arm on the other, whereupon it hopped ashore with a coy wag to the right and to the left. It was not hard to see why the boatmen had christened her the "chicadee-woman."
Young Joe, catching a glimpse of the face beneath, muttered "School-marm!" impolitely.
The natives, however, made no such distinctions. To them she was just a white woman, only the second they had ever seen. They had no means of knowing whether they came more beautiful than this.
Miss Mackall, booted, hatted, and corseted in town, was the headliner of the show.
The experience to one all her life lost in a crowd of women was novel and a little intoxicating. The blue hat waggled and cocked alarmingly. The wearer, exulting in the consciousness that everybody was looking at her, saw nothing of this strange land she was in.
As soon as the general hand-shaking was over, Big Jack addressed himself to Sergeant Coulson. "I've got a prisoner for you, sergeant."
Coulson instantly stiffened into an arm of the law. "What charge?" he asked.
"I don't know exactly the legal name of it. He carried off a girl against her will. This girl!"—pointing to Bela. "Regularly tied her up and carried her off in a canoe, and kept her prisoner on an island in the lake."
The policeman was startled under his military air. "Is this true?" he asked Bela.
Bela, without saying anything, allowed him to suppose that it was.
"We'll have a hearing at once," said Coulson. "Gagnon, can we use your shack?"
Could he use it!
"Aristide! Michel! Maria!" shrieked Johnny. "Run, you turtles! Carry ever't'ing outside. Tak' down the stove!"
Bishop Lajeunesse went to Bela with kind eyes.
"My poor girl!" he said in her own tongue. "Have you had a bad time?"
"Wait," murmured Bela deprecatingly. "I tell everything in there."
"Mercy! Abducted!" cried Miss Mackall with an inquisitive stare. "She's bold enough about it. Not a trace of shame!"
"I'm afraid this will hardly be suitable for you to hear," murmured the doctor, who had constituted himself one of Miss Mackall's gallants. "Will you wait in the boat?"
"A trial! I wouldn't miss it for worlds," she retorted. "Which is the criminal? One of her own sort, I suppose. Fancy! carrying her off!"
Within a few minutes the Gagnon household effects were heaped out of doors, and the stage set for the "trial." It was strange how the squatty little shack with its crooked windows and doors instantly took on the look of a court.
All the seats were ranged across one end between the two doors for the policemen and the guests of honour.
Both doors were left open to give light to the proceedings, and a great bar of sunlight fell athwart the dusty floor.
Coulson sat in the middle with a table before him, and the other policeman at his left with note-book and pencil to take down the evidence. Both youngsters asthe representatives of authority wore an air of gravity beyond their years.
Miss Mackall sat at the other side of Coulson, ever making play with the ostrich feathers. The doctor and the Indian agent were next her.
At the other end of the line sat Bishop Lajeunesse. He had sent the boy-priests back to the boat to repack the baggage. Whatever their feelings, they had obeyed with a cheerful air.
Of all those present only the bishop showed any compassion. Bela stood near him, and he occasionally leaned forward and patted her arm. She received it with an odd look, at once grateful and apprehensive.
The body of the room was filled with the natives, including the Gagnon family, the boatmen, and the servants, all squatting on the floor facing the table of justice. While they waited for the appearance of the prisoner they occupied themselves with Miss Mackall's gloves and parasol, and the artificial bouquet at her girdle. No such articles as these had ever been seen before on Musquasepi.
Sam was led in with his hands tied before him. He held his head high. Jack left him standing in front of the table, and Jack, Shand, and Joe took up positions by the door across the room from Bela.
Feeling their importance in the scene, all looked a little self-righteous. Occasionally they relieved their feelings by spitting outside the door. Sam did not look greatly concerned; his conscience was clear. True, he felt the degradation of the bound wrists, but must he not presently be triumphantly vindicated? He had been waiting for this moment all night.
"Mercy! Not at all what I expected!" whispered Miss Mackall to the doctor. "The handsome wretch! Fancy! Carrying her off like what do you call him.Much too good for her. It's her they should punish!"
The proceedings were opened by a formal questioning.
"Name?"
"Samuel Gladding."
"Age?"
"Twenty-four."
"Nativity?"
"American. Born in Orange, New Jersey."
"Citizen of Canada?"
"No."
"First came to Canada?"
"February 18 last."
"Arrived at Caribou Lake?"
"May 3. Travelling with Messrs. Skinner, Marr, Hagland, and Fraser in the capacity of cook."
During the course of the questioning the prisoner gradually apprehended that the sentiment of the room was against him. The suspicion crept into his mind that it might not be so easy as he had thought to clear himself.
"You are charged with having abducted this girl Bela," Coulson went on, "and keeping her a prisoner on Eagle Island. It is your right to waive examination, in which case I shall send you out to Miwasa Landing for trial. Do you wish to proceed?"
"Yes," said Sam.
Young Coulson's legal formula failed him here. "Well, what have you got to say for yourself?" he asked quite humanly.
As Sam was about to defend himself it suddenly rushed over him what a comic figure he would make, accusing a girl of abducting him. He closed his mouth and blushed crimson. Big Jack and his pals smiled at each other meaningly.
"Well?" demanded Coulson.
"It's not true," mumbled Sam.
"Didn't you go with her?"
"Yes—but——"
"But what?"
"I had to."
"What do you mean?"
There was no help for it.
"It was she carried me off!" Sam burst out.
There was an instant's silence in the room. The white men stared at the unexpected answer. The red people hardly understood it.
"What do you mean?" demanded Coulson, scowling.
"Just what I said!" cried Sam recklessly. "Jumped on me when I was asleep; tied me hand and foot, and bundled me in her canoe."
There was a great burst of derisive laughter. The decorum of the court was entirely destroyed. Never had such an original defence been heard. Coulson and his clerk laughed with the rest. Even the bishop had to laugh, albeit indignantly. Jack, Shand, and Joe fairly doubled up by the door. Sam stood through it, blushing and glaring around at his tormentors.
"I believe him!" cried Miss Mackall; but nobody heard her.
When order was restored, Coulson said with a shake in his throat: "You hardly expect us to believe that, do you?"
"I don't care whether you believe it or not!" returned Sam hotly. "Let me question her, and I'll show you. I guess that's my right, isn't it?"
"Certainly," said Coulson stiffly. "Stand aside for a while, and let her tell her story without interruption. You can question her when she is through."
All the white people except the white woman lookedat the girl with sympathetic eyes. Bela's face was pale, and one hand was pressed to her breast to control the agitated tenant there.
To be obliged to speak out before so many white people was a terrible ordeal for the girl of the lake. She suspected, too, that there would be some difficult questions to answer—and there was no Musq'oosis to advise her. Alas, if she had taken his advice she would not have been here at all!
"Go ahead," said Coulson sympathetically.
Bela drew a steadying breath and raised her head. Pointing at Sam with unconscious dramatic effect, she said clearly: "He speak true. I carry him off."
Again there was a silence in the court, while the spectators gaped in pure astonishment. The three men by the door scowled in an ugly fashion. Sam himself was surprised by her candour. He looked at her suspiciously, wondering what she was preparing for him.
Coulson regretted his sympathy. "What do you mean?" he demanded sharply. "Is this a joke?"
Bela shook her head. "I tie him up and tak' him away lak he say."
"Then what is all this about? What did you do it for?" asked the policeman.
This was the question Bela dreaded. A stubborn look came over her face. "He is my friend," she said. "I hear those ot'er men say they hate him. Say they goin' kill him and nobody know. I t'ink if I tell Sam that, he jus' laugh. So I got tak' him away myself to save him."
The white spectators leaned forward, mystified and breathlessly attentive. Here was a brand-new story which did not fit any of the time-honoured court-room situations. The bishop looked sad. He suspected fromher face that she was lying. Jack, Shand, and Joe could not contain their angry exclamations.
"It's a lie!" cried Jack. "The cook was nothing to us, neither one way or the other. Of course, after we thought he carried her off, we were sore, naturally."
"She's just trying to shield him now!" cried Joe furiously.
"Well, I can't hold him if she doesn't want him held," said Coulson.
"She told me yesterday she wanted him punished," insisted Jack.
"One moment," said Coulson. "I'll get to the bottom of this." He returned to Bela with a severe air. "Is that true?"
"Yes; I tell him that," admitted Bela.
"What did you do that for?"
"He"—pointing to Sam—"run away from me." Here the spectators smiled. "I not strong enough to catch him. So I mak' them catch him. I mak' them bring him to the police so all is known. They cannot hurt him if all is known."
The bishop, watching Bela, was sadly puzzled. Poor Bela herself, if he had known, was confused between the truths and the untruths.
"Why should they want to hurt him?" demanded Coulson.
"I don' know." Here she was evasive again.
"What were you doing in their camp in the first place?" he asked.
"I jus' travellin'," said Bela.
"But you stayed there long enough to make friends. How long were you there?"
"Three—four days."
"What did you stay for?"
"Not'ing," said Bela sullenly.
"That's no answer. You must have known the risks a girl ran in a camp of men."
"I tak' care of myself all right."
"Answer my question," he insisted. "What did you stay there for?"
"I not stay in their house," she parried.
"Never mind that. What did you stay around there for?"
Bela was cornered. True to her wild nature, her eyes turned desirously toward the open door. The bishop laid a hand on her arm.
"Tell the truth, my daughter," he said gently. "No one shall harm you."
Bela turned to him. "I am 'mos' white," she explained, as if he were the only reasonable person present. "I lak be wit' white people."
Here a titter passed over the native audience at what they considered her presumption. Bela's eyes flashed scorn on them. She forgot her terrors.
"I am not one of these!" she cried. "I am white! I want marry a white man!"
An odd start of surprised laughter escaped the white spectators. They glanced at each other to make sure they had heard aright.
"Oh!" cried Coulson. "Now we're getting down to it. The prisoner here was the one you picked out?"
"Yes!" answered Bela defiantly. "He is the best man."
"Well——" exclaimed Coulson.
Suddenly the richness of the situation broke on the spectators, and a gale of laughter swept through the room.
The bishop laughed, too, though he patted Bela's arm encouragingly. At least, she was telling the truth now. It was too extraordinary to be otherwise.
Only the three men by the door did not laugh. With eyes full of hate, they glared at the girl and at the prisoner.
Big Jack, the most astute of the three, was the first to recover himself. It occurred to him that unless the rest of the story were prevented from coming out, their humiliation would be complete and abject.
With a glance of warning at his companions, he threw back his head and laughed louder than any. Shand and Joe, comprehending, followed suit. Their laughter had a bitter ring, but in a gale of laughter the difference passed unnoticed.
The prisoner turned white to his lips. He preserved an unnatural calmness. Only his wild, pained eyes betrayed the blinding, maddening rage that was consuming him.
Bela, whose eyes were only for him, turned pale to match. "Sam," she whispered imploringly.
"Cut me loose," he said thickly.
She looked about her. One passed her a knife, with which she cut his bonds, all the time searching his face with her terrified eyes, seeking to discover what he meant to do.
"I suppose I am free to go," he said stiffly to Coulson.
"Sure!" answered the policeman. He was kindly now—grateful, indeed, for the magnificent joke which had been provided.
"Sam! Sam!" Bela murmured piteously.
The spectators eagerly watched for the final scene of the humorous and original drama. Bela, unconscious of everybody but one man, made a lovely, appealing figure.
"Sam," she whispered, "now you know I your friend.Don' go! Wait little while. Sam—here is the bishop. Marry me, and let them laugh!"
Sam flung off the timid arm. "Marry you!" he cried with a quiet bitterness that burned like lye. "I'd sooner jump into the river!"
Empty-handed and hatless, he strode out of the shack.
"Sam, wait!" she cried, despairingly flying after.
Into the bay that occupies the north-easterly corner of Caribou Lake empties a creek too small to have a name. To the left of its mouth, as one faces the lake, ends the long, pine-clad dune that stretches along the bottom of the lake from the intake of Musquasepi.
To the right as the shore turns westward the land rises a little and the forest begins. Back of the beach the little creek is masked by thickly springing willows.
An hour after the sun had passed the meridian the branches of the willows were softly parted, and Bela's pale face looked through, her eyes tense with anxiety. She searched the lake shore right and left. The wide expanse of sunny water and the bordering shore were empty.
Reassured, she came from behind the bushes, walking in the creek, and splashed down to the beach, still keeping wary eyes about her. She carried her gun in one hand, and over the other shoulder the carcass of a wild goose hung limply.
Standing in the creek, she anxiously searched the sand of the beach for tracks. Finding none, a breath of relief escaped her. She flung the dead goose in the sand. From this position she could see down the beach as far as the intake of the little river, two miles or more away.
Careless of the icy water flowing over her feet, shestood for a while straining her keen, anxious eyes in this direction. Finally she made out a tiny dark spot moving toward her on the sand.
She retreated up the creek and crouched behind the willows in the pose of lifeless stillness she had inherited from the red side of the house. The red people in the first place learned it from the wild creatures. She watched through the leaves.
A coyote trotting with his airy gait came along the top of the dune, looking for ill-considered trifles. He squatted on his haunches a couple of hundred yards away, and his tongue hung out.
He saw the dead goose below, a rich prize; but he also saw Bela, whom no human eyes could have discovered. He hoped she might go away. He was prepared to wait until dark if necessary. However, the approach of another two-legged figure along the beach behind him presently compelled him to retreat down the other side of the dune.
Sam appeared trudging through the sand, bare-headed, coatless, tight-lipped. His eyes likewise were fastened eagerly on the dead goose. Reaching it, he stirred it with his foot. Dropping to his knees, he smelled of it. So far so good. Presently he discovered the cause of its death, a wing shattered by a bullet.
Seeing no tracks anywhere near, he concluded that it had fallen wounded from the sky. As such it was treasure trove. He set to work to gather bits of driftwood, and started a fire. His bright eyes and the celerity of his movements testified to his hunger.
From her hiding-place Bela watched him with avid eyes. No mask on her face now. The eyes brooded over him, over the fair hair, the bare throat, the pale, hard young face, that showed the lassitude following on violent anger.
Her whole spirit visibly yearned toward him—but she was learning self-control in a hard school. When he began to pluck the goose she set her teeth hard and stole silently away up-stream.
In the Indian village beside Hah-wah-sepi, little, crooked Musq'oosis was squatting at the door of his teepee, making a fish net. This was work his nimble fingers could still perform better than any in the tribe. Meanwhile, he smoked and dwelt on the serene reminiscences of a well-spent life.
While he worked and meditated nothing in the surrounding scene escaped the glances of his keen, old eyes. For some time he had been aware of a woman's figure hiding behind the willows across the stream, and he knew it must be Bela, for there was no canoe on that side, but he would not give her any sign.
In Musq'oosis, as in all his race, there was a coy streak. Let the other person make the first move was his guiding maxim.
Finally the mournful, idiotic cry of a loon was raised across the stream. This was a signal they had used before. Musq'oosis started with well-simulated surprise, in case she should be watching him, and, rising, waddled soberly to his dugout. Nobody in the village above paid any particular attention to him. He crossed the stream.
Bela stepped into the bow of his boat. No greeting was exchanged. Each had the air of having parted but a few minutes before. Bela had learned Musq'oosis's own manner from him. If he wouldn't ask questions, neither would she volunteer information. Thus the two friends played the little comedy out.
Sitting at the door of his teepee, Bela said: "Let me eat. I have nothing since I get up to-day."
He put bread and smoked moose meat before her, and went on knotting his cords with an unconcerned air.
By and by Bela began to tell her story with the sullen, self-conscious air of a child expecting a scolding. But as she went on she was carried away by it, and her voice became warm and broken with emotion. Musq'oosis, working away, gave no sign, but the still turn of his head persuaded her he was not missing anything.
When she came to tell how she had fallen upon Sam while he slept the old man was betrayed into a sharp movement.
"What for you do that?" he demanded.
Bela came to a pause and hung her head. Tears dropped on her hands. "I don' know," she murmured. "He look so pretty sleepin' on the sand—so pretty! Moon shine in his face. I am pain in my heart. Don' know w'at to do, want him so bad. I t'ink I die if I got go 'way wit'out him. I t'ink—I don' know w'at I t'ink. Want him, that's all!"
"Tcha! White woman!" said Musq'oosis disgustedly.
During the rest of the tale he muttered and frowned and wagged his head impatiently. When she came to the scene of the hearing in Gagnon's shack he could no longer contain himself.
"Fool!" he cried. "I tell you all w'at to do. Many times I tell you not let a man see you want him. But you go ask him marry you before all the people! What you come to me for now?"
Bela hung her head in silence.
"You got white woman's sickness!" cried the old man with quaint scorn. "Tcha!Love!"
"Well, I am 'mos' white," muttered Bela sullenly."Why you not tell me 'bout this sickness? Then I look out."
"There is no cure for a fool," growled Musq'oosis.
Bela finally raised her head.
"I am cure of my sickness now," she said, scowling. "I hate him!"
"Hate!" said the old man scornfully. "Your face is wet."
She dashed the tears from her cheeks. "When he ran out of Johnny Gagnon's," she went on, "I run after. I hold on him. He curse me. He throw me down. Since then I hate him. I lak make him hurt lak me. I want see him hurt bad!"
The old man looked incredulous. Questioning her sharply, he drew out the incident of the dead goose. He laughed scornfully.
"You hate him, but you got put food in his trail."
Bela hung her head. "I hate him!" she repeated doggedly.
Musq'oosis filled his pipe, and puffed at it meditatively for a while.
"You could get him," he said at last.
Bela looked at him with a new hope.
"But you got do w'at I tell you. Crying' won't get him. A man hates a cryin' woman. Mak' a dry face and let on you don' care 'bout him at all. All tam laugh at him. You can't do that, I guess. Too moch fool!"
Bela frowned resentfully. "I can do it," she declared.
"All right," said Musq'oosis, "Let him go now. Keep away from him a while. Let him forget his mad."
"All right," agreed Bela.
"Now go see your mot'er," commanded Musq'oosis. "She sicken for you. She is white, too."
Bela, however, made no move to go. She was painstakingly plucking blades of grass.
"Well, wa't you waitin' for?" demanded Musq'oosis.
"Sam walkin' this way," she said with an inscrutable face. "Got no blanket. Be cold to-night, I think."
"Wa! More foolishness!" he cried. "Let him shake a little. Cure his hot mad maybe."
"White man get sick with cold," persisted Bela. "Not lak us. What good my waitin', if he get sick?"
Musq'oosis held up both his hands. "There is not'ing lak a woman!" he cried. "Go to your mot'er. I will paddle by the lake and give him a rabbit robe."
Bela's eyes flashed a warm look on him. She got up without speaking, and hastened away.
About half-past nine, while it was still light, Sam found himself walked out. He built a fire on the pine needles above the stony beach and sat down with his back against a tree. The goose provided him with another meal. He was two hours' journey beyond the mouth of Hah-wah-sepi.
Wading across the bar of that stream, he had guessed his proximity to the Indian village as described by Bela, but his pride would not allow him to apply there for shelter.
He had no reason to suppose that Bela had already got home, but he feared she might arrive before he could get away. Anyhow, he had plenty to eat, he told himself; it would be strange if he couldn't last a night or two without a covering.
He lay down by his fire, but, tired as he was, he could get no rest. Whichever way he lay, a cold chill from the earth struck to his marrow. He fell into awretched, half-waking condition, tormented by images he could not control.
When he edged close enough to the fire to feel its warmth it was only to be brought leaping to his feet by sparks burning through his clothes. He finally gave it up and sat against the tree, hardening himself like an Indian to wait for dawn. His fagged nerves cried for tobacco. He had lost his pipe with his coat.
The lake stretched before him still and steely in the twilight. To-night the sun had withdrawn himself modestly and expeditiously, and the clear, cold face of the sky had an ominous look. The world was terribly empty. Sam received a new conception of solitude, and a heavy hand of discouragement was laid on his heart.
Suddenly he perceived that he was not alone. Close under the pine-walled shore a dugout was swimming toward him with infinite grace and smoothness. At the first sight his breast contracted, for it seemed to have sprung out of nothingness—then his heart joyfully leaped up. At such a moment anything human was welcome. A squat little figure was huddled amidships, swinging a paddle from side to side with long, stringy arms.
Sam perceived that the paddler was the aged hunchback who had once visited the camp at Nine-Mile Point across the lake. "Old Man of the Lake" they had called him. They had not learned his name.
A certain air of mystery enveloped him. When he stepped out on the stones with his long hair, his bent back, and his dingy blanket capote he looked like a mediæval grotesque—yet he had a dignity of his own, too.
"How?" he said, extending his hand.
Sam, dreading the inevitable questions, received him a little nervously.
"Glad to see you. Sit down by the fire. You travel late."
"I old," observed Musq'oosis calmly. "I go when men sleep."
He made himself comfortable by the fire. To Sam's thankfulness he did not appear to notice the white man's impoverished condition. He had excellent manners.
"Are you going far?" asked Sam.
The old man shrugged. "Jus' up and down," he replied. "I lak look about."
He drew out his pipe. To save himself Sam could not help glancing enviously toward it.
"You got no pipe?" asked the Indian.
"Lost it," admitted Sam ruefully.
"I got 'not'er pipe," said Musq'oosis. From the "fire-bag" hanging from his waist he produced a red-clay bowl such as the natives use, and a bundle of new reed stems. He fitted a reed to the bowl, and passed it to Sam. A bag of tobacco followed.
"A gift," he stated courteously.
"I say," objected Sam, blushing, "I haven't anything to give in return."
The old man waved his hand. "Plaintee tam mak' Musq'oosis a gift some day," he said.
Sam looked up at the name. "So you're Musq'oosis?" he asked, hardening a little.
"W'at you know about me?" queried the other mildly.
"Oh, nothing!" returned Sam. "Somebody told me about you."
"I guess it was Bela," said Musq'oosis. With kindly guile he added: "Where is she?"
"You can search me!" muttered Sam.
The tobacco was unexpectedly fragrant. "Ah, good!" exclaimed Sam with a glance of surprise.
"'Imperial Mixture,'" said Musq'oosis complacently. "I old. Not want moch. So I buy the best tobacco."
They settled down for a good talk by the fire. Musq'oosis continued to surprise Sam. On his visit to Nine-Mile Point the old man had been received with good-natured banter, which he returned in kind. Alone with Sam, he came out in quite a different character.
Sam made the discovery that a man may have dark skin yet be a philosopher and a gentleman. Musq'oosis talked of all things from tobacco to the differences in men.
"White man lak beaver. All tam work don' give a damn!" he observed. "Red man lak bear. Him lazy. Fat in summer, starve in winter. Got no sense at all."
Sam laughed. "You've got sense," he said.
Musq'oosis shrugged philosophically. "I not the same lak ot'er men. I got crooked back, weak legs. I got work sittin' down. So my head is busy."
He smoked with a reminiscent look.
"When I yo'ng I feel moch bad for cause I got crooked back. But when I old I think there is good in it. A strong man is lak a moose. Wa! So big and swift and 'an'some. All tam so busy, got no tam t'ink wit' his head inside. So w'en he get old his son put him down. He is poor then. But a weak man he got notin' to do but look lak eagle at ev'ryt'ing and remember what he see. So w'en he is old he rich inside. W'en a man get old bad turn to good. Me, w'en I was yo'ng I sore for cause no woman want me. Now I glad I got no old wife beat a drum wit' her tongue in my teepee."
"Women! You're right there!" cried Sam explosively. "They're no good. They're savages! Women confuse and weaken a man; spoil him for a man's work. I'm done with them!"
A slow smile lighted Musq'oosis ugly old face. "W'en a man talk lak that," he remarked, "I t'ink pretty soon some woman goin' get him sure."
"Never!" cried Sam. "Not me!"
"I t'ink so," persisted Musq'oosis. "Man say woman bad, all bad. Come a woman smile so sweet, he surprise; he say this one different from the ot'ers."
"Oh, I know how it is with most fellows!" admitted Sam. "Not with me. I've had my lesson."
"Maybe," agreed Musq'oosis, politely allowing the matter to drop.
By and by the old man yawned. "I t'ink I sleep little while," he said. "Can I sleep by your fire?"
"Sure!" returned Sam. "Make yourself at home."
Musq'oosis brought his blanket from the dugout. "You goin' sleep, too?" he asked.
"In a bit," replied Sam uneasily.
"Where your blanket?"
"Oh, I lost that, too," confessed Sam, blushing.
"I got a rabbit-skin robe," said Musq'oosis.
Returning to his boat, he brought Sam one of the soft, light coverings peculiar to the country. The foundation was a wide-meshed net of cord, to which had been tied hundreds of the fragile, downy pelts. Sam could stick his finger anywhere through the interstices, yet it was warmer than a blanket, double its weight.
"But this is valuable," protested Sam. "I can't take it."
"You goin' to the head of the lake," said Musq'oosis. "I want trade it at French outfit store. Tak' it toMahwoolee, the trader. Say to him Musq'oosis send it for trade."
"Aren't you afraid I might steal it?" asked Sam curiously.
"Steal?" said the old man, surprised. "Nobody steal here. What's the use? Everything is known. If a man steal everybody know it. Where he goin' to go then?"
Sam continued to protest against using the robe, but Musq'oosis, waving his objections aside, calmly lay down in his blanket and closed his eyes. Sam presently followed suit. The rabbit-skin robe acted like a charm. A delicious warmth crept into his weary bones, and sleep overmastered his senses like a delicious perfume.