The dark fled out of Nahnya's face. She turned a pair of wondrously soft eyes on Kitty. "You are lonely up here!" she said. "I know what lonely is!"
Kitty's eyes grew large and bright with tears. She nodded. "I wanted a friend, too," she said very low. "Some one to talk to like you. The boys are good to me, but they treat me like a baby. I wanted a woman friend. I haven't talked to a woman in a year and a half."
Nahnya sprang to her knees, and unconsciously clasping her hands to her breast, leaned toward Kitty. "I will be your friend—always!" she said with trembling eagerness. "If you want me," she added with wistful humility.
Kitty's answer was to fling her arms around Nahnya's neck.
Nahnya recoiled in a kind of terror. "You—you kissed me!" she faltered. "Me!"
"I'll do it again!" cried Kitty. "And again! And again! I think you are just sweet!"
With an odd little cry the dark girl hid her face on Kitty's shoulder and clung to her, and broke into a silent shaken weeping. Broken whispers of confession reached the white woman's ear.
"I never have a friend.... Always inside of me I am alone.... I think I am marked out to be alone.... My heart hurt me like any woman's heart ... but always I mus' make out I don't care about anything..."
An hour later they heard a hail from far up the river. Kitty leaped up in great excitement. Nahnya answered the hail. She had the riverman's trick of sending the voice to a distance. By and by they came flying around the bend, father and sons paddling like men possessed, and momentarily raising hoarse, anxious cries. Nahnya tore off a branch of leaves, and putting it into Kitty's hands, urged her down to the beach to wave it. At the sight of her safe on dry land, the three men sent up tremendous shouts of joy and relief. Nahnya retired up on the bank.
They landed, and Kitty was instantly locked in her father's arms. Dick collapsed in the boat, while Bill's legs caved under him on the beach. Both boys wept, unashamed.
"We heard the rapids," Bill blubbered. "We thought we were just too late!"
They quickly recovered. Kitty had presently to submit to their bear-hugs, and again to her father's embraces. All four talked at once, and foolishly laughed. Kitty was abashed by their transports. Never had she seen her men so stirred. Afterward questions began to fly.
"How did you drift off without knowing it?"
"Why didn't you scramble ashore and let the boat go?"
"How did you get ashore here without a paddle or anything?"
"Who is with you?"
"Why, she's gone!" cried Bill suddenly.
It was true. They looked around in vain. During the excitement of the men's landing, the dark girl had stolen unobserved to the other dugout. It lay a little downstream, and partly screened by some bushes. Putting off, and keeping close to the shore, she was soon lost to their sight.
Kitty's face fell like a child's. "Without a word of good-bye!" she said.
"She's taken our best boat," said Jim Sholto, frowning.
"She lost her own in the rapids saving me," said Kitty, with quick indignation.
Jim hastened to mollify her. "That's all right," he said. "But to steal away like this!"
"It's just like them," said Dick, "always mysterious."
"You're not very grateful," said Kitty, at the point of tears. "I tell you she saved my life."
"You haven't told us anything yet," said her father. "Who is she?"
"Annie Crossfox."
"I had a look at her," said Bill. "She's mighty good-looking! Don't see why she couldn't wait to receive our thanks."
Kitty, looking at him sharply, saw the untoward, eager light in his dark eyes, and became suddenly thoughtful. A reason for Nahnya's abrupt departure occurred to her.
"She will bring the boat back to our camp," she said quietly. "Just as soon as she can get her own boat. She promised me!"
"But Dick and I will be gone then," grumbled Bill. "If we've got such a good-looking neighbour I want——"
Kitty interrupted him. "She saved my life," she repeated with a direct look. "She is my friend."
"What of it?" said Bill, beginning a great parade of innocence. He caught his little sister's eye and saw something new there—knowledge. He had the grace to drop his own gaze and blush a little. Bill was an honest youth.
Kitty was ironing clothes in the kitchen of the living shack. She and her father had been alone in camp for four days. It had rained in the interim and the greens of Milburn gulch were freshly polished and gilded. Inside the shack the cherry-coloured embers glowed on the grate, and a blue gingham dress was falling into crisp and immaculate folds as it was turned on the ironing board. The door stood open, and a single big fly buzzed in and out over the sill, as if he couldn't make up his mind whether he preferred sunshine or shadow.
While Kitty propelled the iron she thought a girl's thoughts, which alight on a subject as delicately as butterflies, and as lightly sheer away. Since she had beheld the eager light in Bill's eyes at the sight of the dark girl, a fluttering disquiet winged in Kitty's mind. She was thinking of men and women now.
"Annie knows much more"——thus it ran in her head. "I wish she would tell me. I ought to know. But why do I want to know what is ugly? But it's neither ugly nor beautiful; it's mixed. Men are not angels. That's only silly dreaming that leaves you flat. I wouldn't want a man to be too good, really. Just a spice of danger and uncertainty."
Kitty blushed, and looked around her guiltily as if this dreadful thought might have been overheard. She applied herself to her ironing with prim lips.
"I am a fool!" she thought. "Annie is wise. I wish she would come."
Kitty's thoughts were broken in upon by the sound of a footstep outside the shack. Something heavy and unfamiliar in the fall of it caused her to call out sharply: "Is that you, dad?"
There was no answer. She started around the ironing-board to investigate. At the same moment the doorway was darkened by the figure of a stranger, a piteous, ghastly, unkempt travesty of manhood. For a moment he wavered there, then pitched headlong to Kitty's feet. One arm reached toward her as in supplication; the other was grotesquely doubled under him.
Kitty screamed, and stood rooted to the spot. The man lay without moving. He had uttered no sound. Jim Sholto came running from the works with a blanched face. He all but fell over the body, and stood like his daughter, turned into stone with astonishment, His admirable composure quickly asserted itself. He dropped to his knees.
"Help me to turn him over, lass," he said quietly.
The face that was revealed with its sunken, bearded cheeks and painfully drawn lips seemed aged to Kitty. The eyes were closed. Jim lowered his head to listen at the man's breast.
"He lives," he said succinctly. "Dislocated shoulder—starvation. Give me your sharpest knife to cut away this sleeve. Get a pillow for his head. Put water on the stove."
Kitty flew to obey the various orders.
"I'll put his shoulder in before he comes to," Jim went on grimly. "It is more merciful. It's a nasty job—after a week or more untended. Can you stand it?"
Kitty nodded.
"Then hold him as I bid you."
Jim Sholto at fifty was still more powerful than either of his sons. He needed all his strength for the cruel job in hand. The swollen, feverish flesh was dreadful to see. Kitty closed her eyes and gritted her teeth and held on. Deep, soft groans broke from the unconscious man as Jim worked over him. Finally, with a dull click as of colliding billiard balls, it was done. Jim stood up and wiped his face. Now that the most urgent service had been rendered, curiosity began to have way.
"Did you see him come?" he asked.
Kitty shook her head.
"H'm!" said Jim. "With all this vast empty land to choose from, he stumbles on us. Look, his moccasins are worn clean through."
"What happened to him?" said Kitty.
"Who knows?" said Jim. "Maybe just the folly of an ignorant man travelling alone. Maybe there's something on him to give us a clue."
Jim knelt again. His searching fingers came in contact with a little cloth packet sewed to the inside of the man's shirt. Cutting the stitches with the point of his knife, he unwrapped it, and revealed inside a final wrapping of soft cotton, a delicate platinum chain with a great gleaming emerald hanging from it. Father and daughter looked at each other in strong amazement.
"There's some strange tale behind this," said Jim. "Put it in a safe place."
The stranger's eyelids flickered, and a slight sound issued from his lips.
"We must lay him on your bed," said Jim. "This is your job from now. Is there any condensed milk left?"
"I have saved a can," said Kitty.
"Dilute it and warm it, and feed him bread soaked in it when he is able to swallow. Keep hot cloths around his shoulder. Like he will have fever. Give him gelseminum and aconite. You know the doses."
"I know," said Kitty.
A new era began for her from that moment. In the presence of this urgent reality her vague discontents were dissipated like morning mists. Kitty had a passion for mothering, which had never been satisfied, for they all treated her like a child, and none of them had ever been sick. At first the stricken man—that strange visitant from nowhere—was no more than an object for her to wreak her passionate pity upon. Only by degrees did he come to have an individuality for her. It commenced at the moment when she made the surprising discovery that he was young. She learned that from the fresh, vibrant quality of his voice. He was delirious.
All that night, and the next day, and the night that followed he tossed and murmured in his fever. But it could be seen that he was growing better. Kitty was sleepless and happy. At first his speech was formless and incoherent. Later he fixed Kitty with his big bright eyes, and spoke with an unnatural distinctness and appearance of sanity. She listened as one listens to a romance, interested and thrilled, but unsuspicious of any real foundation to the tale. It was too much like a phantasy of the imagination, all his talk of a beautiful valley hidden within the mountains, that you entered through a cave; and of a brave and lovely woman who ruled the place, that he called Nahnya. The name suggested nothing to Kitty.
"He is a poet," she thought with a touch of awe. In her simplicity she wrote it all down during the hours of the night, that she might be able to tell him later.
On the second morning, Kitty dozing on a chair beside the bed was startled into complete wakefulness by hearing him say in a weak, natural voice:
"You are real! I thought I had dreamed you!"
"You're better!" cried Kitty overjoyed.
"Is it still up North?" he said wonderingly. "I never expected to see a white girl!"
"There's none but me," said Kitty.
"How did I come here?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Kitty. "You just tumbled in the door."
He told her of his accident.
"The Stanley rapids!" said Kitty. "That is only ten miles up the river. You must have been many days making it!"
"Walking in circles I suppose," he said. "I started all right, keeping to the shore. But the pain was so bad, I suppose I got lightheaded. I remember stumbling through the woods with all kinds of things going through my head——!"
"You mustn't talk any more," said Kitty commandingly.
"All right," he said smiling. "Don't go away!"
Nourishment and good care worked wonders with the patient. He insisted on getting up next day. Catching sight of his face in a mirror, he cried out in horror, and demanded a razor. Kitty left him alone to make himself presentable, while she helped her father in the works.
Returning at length, she found him sitting in the kitchen metamorphosed. His thick dark hair was brushed and gleaming; he smiled at her with a face as smooth and bland as a boy's. Wonderful are the changes wrought in men's faces by a razor! Kitty, remembering how he had looked when her father turned him over, could scarcely believe her eyes.
There was likewise a changed quality in his smile. Kitty read in it that he found her good to look at. She was much taken aback by the discovery. In a twinkling, it seemed to her, their positions had been reversed. He was no longer her sick child, but a man—a possible master. Her heart began to beat fast. To hide her confusion, she turned and rummaged on the kitchen shelves. Even with her back turned she felt as if his careless, smiling eyes were laying bare her very soul. She could not tell whether it was painful or sweet to have it exposed to him.
Of course she was not as open as she fancied herself to be. Ralph guessed nothing. Presently she turned with a composed face, and without comment brought him the little packet they had discovered on his body.
He saw the emerald lying on her outstretched hand without offering to take it. An expression of pain crossed his face, and he averted his head.
"Please keep it for me," he said. "I don't want to be obliged to think of things yet."
A little jealous stab of the unknown pricked Kitty's breast. She put the bauble away in her room.
Coming back she said, with a brisk attempt to reassert a nurse's authority: "You may go out and sit in the sun for an hour."
It only made him smile now—covering her with confusion again. "Yes, ma'am," he said with mock humility. "If you'll come, too."
"I have my work to do," said Kitty rebukingly.
He was incorrigible. "Please, I can't walk all that way without help," he said plaintively.
She laughed, and helped him outside; lingered beside the bench—and finally sat down on the other end of it. Poor, inexperienced Kitty had no armour for her soft breast. They chattered and laughed, and the hours flew on wings. Ralph told her no more of his story than his name and profession. She, seeing that it distressed him to rake up the past, was happy to avoid it. For the same reason she forbore saying anything as yet about the wonderful story he had told in his delirium. She, likewise in private, made her father agree not to ask their visitor any questions until he was stronger.
Ralph's frame of mind was natural to one recovering from a sudden, serious illness. He instinctively felt the necessity of maintaining a quiet mind while the strength stole deliciously back through his veins. Away back he apprehended a burden waiting to be shouldered when he was strong enough, but at present he would have none of it. He was no more than a bit of reanimated clay gratefully absorbing the sunshine. At no time was vanity a great factor in his make-up, and in his present purgated state it was non-existent. It honestly never occurred to him that their jolly talk and laughter, and the exchange of happy glances might be working irremediable damage in the breast of the dreamy girl beside him.
Ralph, now sufficiently recovered, was banished to the men's bunks, outside, and Kitty repossessed herself of her own room. That night in the secure and comfortable darkness her defences fell away from her. She pressed her lips to the pillow that had supported his dear head throughout his illness, and moistened it with her tears. "Little did I guess when he came tumbling through the doorway," she thought—and left the thought unfinished on a swelling breast. "It is like an answer to a prayer I didn't dare make," she whispered to herself. When doubts and jealousies of the mystery that enshrouded him obtruded on her, she thrust them away. "It must be all right!" she insisted. "His feet were led to our door!"
The next day passed in the same fashion. Ralph insisted on helping Kitty with the housework, much to her amused scorn. Ralph took an inexhaustible delight in her naïve simplicity. She loved to have him chaff her. He seemed to her the cleverest, kindest, most lovable of superior creatures. Further than that the mystery of his manliness thrilled her. In his eyes there lurked a strange, sly promise of rapture. She called it "wickedness" in her innocence and was sweetly troubled. "What shall I do if he tries to kiss me?" she thought in a delicious panic. As the day passed and he made no move to do so a faint chagrin made itself felt, which she refused to recognize.
As if moved by a common impulse they kept their conversational shallop floating in the safe shallows. Reminiscences of childhood afforded them much humorous matter. Ralph did most of the talking.
"Once when I was a kid," he said, "they dug up the street in front of our house for a drain, and ran into an Indian burial ground. My chum and I played ninepins on the sidewalk with the skulls, and the constable arrested us. What a fuss there was!"
"I should say so!" said Kitty, simulating a virtuous indignation. "Little savages!"
"Why?" said Ralph teasingly. "Old bones are all right. Don't you like their nice earthy smell?"
"Horrible!" said Kitty.
"Did you ever see Hamlet?" asked Ralph. He apostrophized, a teacup in his extended hand. "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well, Horatio. He was a fellow of infinite jest!"
Ralph acted out the speech for her with improvisations. Kitty was obliged to sit down suddenly, and to hold her sides. Kitty was one of those shy, admiring, easily shocked, and easily moved-to-laughter girls, that inspire a man to the highest flights of audacious wit.
"Speaking of bones," Ralph went on; "when I was a student at McGill, my room-mate and I saved up enough to buy a whole skeleton all properly articulated. It was a peach! We kept it in the closet hanging from a clothes-hook."
"Mercy!" said Kitty.
"The landlady had a daughter who had a beau, and the two of them used to make us fellows tired with their goings-on. They'd stand for half an hour at the foot of the stairs saying good-night. Yes, it sounded like a cow drawing her foot out of a boggy place!"
"Aren't you awful!" said Kitty, blushing.
"We decided that something must be done," Ralph went on. "I got some phosphorus paint, and we painted the skeleton all over and fastened a long line to the hook in his skull that was used to hang him up by. And that night when the pair of them came out in the hall downstairs, and turned down the light, we crept out on the upper landing, and leaned over the rail, and let Mr. Bones go walking slowly step by step down the stairs. He was a lovely blue colour; every bone stood out!"
"You might have killed them with fright," said Kitty.
"No such luck!" said Ralph. "They didn't hear him coming until he was halfway down. Then I rattled him a little. Jehosaphat! You never heard such a screech in your life! Both of them! They made for the front door, and rattled it like mad, and couldn't get it open! I laughed so hard the string slipped out of my hand. And Mr. Bones went down the rest of the stairs sitting up just like a person—rattle, clatter, smash! Oh, my! Oh, my!"
"I don't think it was funny at all!" said Kitty. But she laughed, and her eyes confessed her admiration of his dreadful boldness.
"Next day we moved," said Ralph.
On the following day, the fifth of Ralph's stay in Milburn gulch, he was strong enough to walk about more freely. Jim Sholto took him up the trail to show him the excavations. Jim was secretly hoping that in Ralph he would find a workman to take the place of one of the absent boys. Being past the period of heart troubles himself, the danger of introducing a strange and not uncomely young man into his family Eden had not suggested itself to him.
While they were away, Kitty worked about the cabin in a spasmodic way widely differing from her usual deft serenity. She would come to a stand staring before her mistily, a little smile wreathing the corners of her lips; rousing herself with a start, she would fly about for a while as if her life depended on getting done, only to fall into another dream. Absently picking things up, she dropped them in fresh places, and presently started hunting for them again. Snatches of impromptu song welled up from her breast, higher and higher, until her voice trembled and broke. She continually ran to the mirror, by turns anxious, critical, scornful, blushing, reassured by what she saw there. Every three minutes she went to the door and looked up the trail to see if he was coming back.
On one of these journeys she heard her name softly called behind her. Whirling about she beheld approaching by the trail from the river a graceful figure clad in buckskin skirt and blue flannel, her beautiful dark face composed and smiling, her black hair braided and wound about her upheld head. In short, it was her friend and preserver, holding out her hands, and smiling at Kitty wistfully and deprecatingly, just as she had seen her last.
Kitty shrieked with pleasure, and flinging her arms about her friend, dragged her into the cabin, and forced her into a chair.
"Annie! Annie! Annie!" she cried, dropping on her knees beside her. "How sweet of you to come! I wanted to see you so badly! You must stay a week!"
Nahnya shook her head, smiling. "I just brought the dugout back," she said in her soft full voice, that made a pleasant harmony with Kitty's excited accents. "And I brought fresh meat, mountain goat."
"Did you get your own boat all right?" Kitty demanded to know.
"It was only a little broke," said Nahnya. "I fix it easy."
"How could you bring two boats up against the current?" asked Kitty.
"I only bring yours," Nahnya answered. "Mine is down the river on this side where I can get it."
"How will you get it?"
"I will walk along the shore," said Nahnya. "It is not hard walking."
"Now I've got you, I'm not going to let you go in a hurry!" cried Kitty, clinging to her.
"But you're all busy here," objected Nahnya. "The men——"
"My brothers have gone outside," said Kitty. "There is only my father and—and a stranger."
"A stranger?" said Nahnya.
Kitty was not going to blurt out her secret. Her friend's mind must be prepared by delicate stages for its reception. "We have a white man stopping with us," she said very off-hand.
Nahnya was not blind to the self-conscious air and the blush. Her arm tightened affectionately about Kitty.
"Why did you run away from us like you did?" asked Kitty hastily, to create a diversion.
Nahnya shrugged. "I was afraid they thank me, and make a fuss," she said uneasily. "I feel like a fool then."
"You silly dear!" cried Kitty embracing her afresh.
There was a new demonstrativeness in Kitty, a breathless ardour that in itself was enough to tell the other woman something had happened since their parting.
"So you have a visitor," she said teasingly. "I think he is young, yes?"
Kitty tucked in an end of Nahnya's braid that was escaping. "Fairly young," she said.
"You are not so much lonely now I think," murmured Nahnya.
Kitty jumped up. "You must be hungry!" she cried. "I'm forgetting my duties!"
"Not an hour ago I ate," said Nahnya. "I am not hungry."
Kitty developed a great flow of small talk, about the weather, about her brothers, about everything except what was in both their minds. Nahnya let her run on. Under her friend's quiet, kind smile Kitty broke down at last, and running to her, dropped beside her again, and hid her hot face on the dark girl's shoulder.
"Oh, Annie!" she breathed on a trembling, rising inflection.
"Tell me," whispered Nahnya.
"Oh, Annie! It's so strange! I can't! I didn't want to tell you anything. I wanted you to see him, and—and to guess! I have lost myself completely! I am turned inside out! It came so suddenly. I never guessed anything like this! Oh, Annie! He's so strong, so kind, so mysterious, so clever, so dangerous! I am terrified of him. I am wretched when he is out of my sight for a minute!"
Nahnya's face became grave. "Has he said anything?" she whispered.
"Not yet."
"Oh, Kitty dear!" murmured Nahnya. "Be careful! Men——!"
"He's true!" said Kitty hotly. "That I can see in his eyes!"
"You know who he is?" asked Nahnya anxiously. "Where he come from? All about him?"
"No," faltered Kitty. "He's honest!" she cried. "My instinct tells me so. He's good to me. He's careful of me. He doesn't make love to me! Oh, Annie," she went on tremulously, "I've been living in a dream the last few days! All the time he teases me, and I love it because I know he is kind! All the time we laugh, and the hours go by like minutes!"
Once the opening was found, Kitty was not to be stopped from pouring out the whole of her simple heart to her friend. Nahnya held her close, and listened, and her dark head drooped.
Kitty, raising her face at last, was arrested by Nahnya's brooding look upon her. Kitty had never seen eyes so kind and so sad. Their look was as deep as the sea.
"Annie," she said sharply, "what's the matter? Aren't you glad?"
Nahnya pressed the girl convulsively. "I am glad," she murmured, bestirring herself. "I love you. I am glad if you are happy!"
"You were not looking glad," said Kitty.
"It is foolishness," said Nahnya. "Only—I think of me. I am young. I want be happy, too!"
"You will be!" cried Kitty.
Nahnya smiled—with those eyes! "It will never, never come to me!" she murmured.
"Why not?" Kitty demanded to know.
Nahnya laughed away the brooding look. "Foolish!" she cried, "I am jus' jealous! Tell me more! How did he come here?"
Kitty, like every lover, was a little selfish in her happiness. She allowed herself to be reassured by Nahnya's laughter. "He was travelling down the river all alone," she went on eagerly; "and he lost his boat and everything he had in the Stanley rapids, and dislocated his shoulder besides. The pain of it drove him out of his wits. For days he wandered in the bush. Providence directed his footsteps to us, dad says. He pitched headfirst through the doorway there, while I was working. Never in my life was I so frightened!"
Nahnya had succeeded in putting her own sadness out of mind. "You have not tell me what he look like," she said, warm with sympathy.
"He'll be here directly," said Kitty, blushing. "You shall see for yourself."
Springing up, Kitty ran to the door to look up the trail. He was not yet in sight. As she turned back into the room, Nahnya asked:
"What is his name?"
"Ralph Cowdray," said Kitty shyly.
There was silence in the cabin. The brook outside seemed suddenly to increase its brawling. Kitty, in her shyness, turned away her head when she spoke the name, therefore she did not see how Nahnya took it. Kitty waited for Nahnya to speak. The silence became like a weight on them both.
"Don't you think it's a pretty name?" murmured Kitty.
There was no answer. Kitty looked at her friend in surprise. Nahnya had not moved. She still sat quiet in the chair, her hands loose in her lap. But her head had fallen forward on her breast. The oblique glimpse that Kitty caught of her cheeks caused her to run to her friend, and fling an arm around her, and force her head up with the other hand, that she might see into her face. Nahnya kept her eyes obstinately veiled, but she could not disguise the shocking grayness that had crept into her curved cheeks.
"Annie! What's the matter!" she cried in distress. "You're sick! Why didn't you tell me? Come lie on my bed! Oh, how selfish I have been!"
Nahnya got up, steadying herself on the back of the chair. Her eyes were blank and piteous. "I am not sick," she said, measuring her words syllable by syllable. "I am all right. I will go now."
"You'll do nothing of the kind!" cried Kitty indignantly. "In such a state! Come, lie down, and let me take care of you!"
Nahnya stolidly resisted Kitty's effort to urge her toward the bedroom. Her measured voice began to shake in spite of her will. "You must let me go," she said.
"What nonsense!" cried Kitty, clinging to her.
Nahnya's voice came sharp and urgent. "You must let me go or it will be bad for all of us!"
Kitty fell back a step. "Bad for all of us!" she echoed in innocent perplexity. "What do you mean?"
Nahnya passed the limit of endurance. Her hands went suddenly to her head. A low, wild cry broke from her. "I am a cursed woman!" she cried. "Always I know it! Where I go I bring sorrow and evil. There is no place for me! There is nothing! All I ask for was a friend."
Kitty thought she was out of her senses. "There, it's all right!" she said, soothing her. "You have me! You will always have me! I'm so glad you came here. I will take care of you, and make you well again!"
Nahnya made believe to submit to her caresses. "I am cold," she murmured, with a sly glance. "Get me a coat, a shawl."
Kitty flew into the bedroom. No sooner had she passed the doorway, than Nahnya softly glided toward the outer door. She was too late. Before she reached it, it was filled with the bulk of a man. She fell back into the darkest corner with a gasp. Kitty returned out of the bedroom.
"Ralph!" cried Kitty gladly.
Ralph coming out of the sunlight did not immediately recognize Nahnya in her corner. He distinguished two figures.
"Hello! Who's here?" he said.
Kitty ran to Nahnya, and wrapped a shawl about her shoulders. "It's Annie Crossfox," she said, full of concern. "She's sick, and I—
"Annie Crossfox!" cried Ralph in a great voice.
He sprang toward her. Kitty fell back in astonishment. Nahnya shrank from him, and covered her face with her hands. Seizing her wrists, he pulled her hands down. She betrayed her white blood in her changing colour. Her face crimsoned—and turned deathly pale. Her hands in Ralph's hands trembled like aspen leaves. There was a silence in the cabin.
Ralph stood devouring her with his eyes. It seemed to him as if that which was walled-up within him had suddenly burst. He was flooded with the sense of the identity he had lost in his illness. It was as if himself came back to him. And all of it was his love for Nahnya. It filled him. It was like something new, and infinitely sweeter and stronger than before.
He murmured her name over and again. "Thank God! I've found you!" he said. "I'll never let you go now!"
Even while he was looking at her, Nahnya contrived to conquer the surprise which had betrayed her weakness. Her face turned hard, and her hands ceased to tremble. Snatching her hands out of his, she darted to the door. Ralph was nearer. He reached it first, closed it, and put his back against it.
"No, you don't!" he cried triumphantly. "You won't escape me again! You love me, and I'll never let you go!"
Nahnya darted an unfathomable look at Kitty. "How dare you?" she said to Ralph in a suffocating voice. "Before her! After what happen between you!"
Ralph recollected Kitty for the first, and looked at her in honest surprise. "Between us?" he said. "There's nothing between us!"
There was another silence. Ralph looked from one to another of the girls in frowning perplexity. At last an explanation occurred to him.
"Are you jealous?" he cried to Nahnya.
She started angrily.
"Kitty took me in," said Ralph eagerly. "She nursed me like an angel. I'll be grateful to her all my life. We're friends. There's nothing else—I swear to you! Oh, this is horrible! Kitty, tell her there was nothing between us!"
"I do not care!" said Nahnya quickly.
"Tell her!" insisted Ralph.
Kitty stood with a stiff back, and head held high. Her soft, pretty face was distorted and ashen with pain, the tender lips everted from her clenched teeth, the green-gray eyes narrowed and glittering. How could she help but feel betrayed on either hand?
She laughed. "So that is your white man?" she said to Nahnya; quite coolly she thought. It had a sharp and hateful ring. "And that is your Nahnya?" she said, turning to Ralph. "I congratulate you both!" Her voice failed her.
To see the gentle Kitty fighting to save her pride was infinitely more piteous than if she had broken down. Nahnya turned away her head; at the sound of Kitty's voice she shuddered. Ralph gazed at Kitty in incredulous amazement. He possessed no key to her behaviour.
Kitty got her breath, and went on to Nahnya clearly: "Of course there was nothing between us! I only did what one would do for anybody."
Once more the silence fell on them. They stood each on his point of the triangle, each struggling with emotions that foundered speech. Once Nahnya looked imploringly at Kitty; out of the wreck she longed to save her friend. Kitty's eyes merely glittered, and Nahnya's face turned into stone. Ralph began to suspect the true state of affairs, and dismay widened his eyes.
It was Kitty who broke the silence. "I have something for you," she said to Nahnya, moving toward her own room.
She was gone but a second. Nahnya and Ralph did not look at each other. Returning, Kitty extended her hand to Nahnya with the necklace lying upon the palm.
"He brought it to you," said Kitty.
She made to drop it into Nahnya's hand, but the dark girl quickly put her hands behind her. The royal bauble dropped to the floor. It glittered there, disregarded by all three.
"Oh, Kitty!" murmured Ralph, confused, remorseful and still amazed; "I never dreamed of this—I never thought——"
"Never thought of what?" asked Kitty quickly.
"That you—that I! You're so good and gentle! Oh, it's horrible!"
A spasm passed over Kitty's face. Everything that was said made matters worse. "You're talking nonsense," she said quickly. "There's nothing the matter with me!"
"What are we to do?" muttered Ralph helplessly.
Nahnya's voice came harsh and hard. "Do you think every woman is in love with you?" she cried. "You are nothing to me! I tell you that before. I tell you that now! Keep away from me! I not want to see you again!"
Ralph's eyes flamed up; he instantly forgot Kitty. "We'll see about that!" he cried. "You're mine! I'll never give you up!"
He moved toward Nahnya. Turning, she darted into Kitty's room, slamming the door behind her. By the time Ralph got it open she was out through the window, carrying the mosquito netting with her. It seemed a miracle that the tiny sash could have passed her body. It was out of the question for Ralph. He dashed back to the front door, and flinging it open, ran around the house to intercept her.
Left alone in the cabin, Kitty walked with a curious quietness to the table under the front window. She dipped a cup into the pail of water that stood there, and conveyed it to her lips, spilling much of the water on the floor and on herself without noticing it. She returned with the air of a sleep-walker, still carrying the cup, and picked up the emerald, and put it away in a corner of the shelves. With the same uncanny self-possession she seated herself in a chair nearby. She sighed, and fell a little forward and sideways against the wall. Her hand fell limply to her side, and the cup slipping from it was broken on the floor. Thus her father found her when he came in.
When Ralph got around the house Nahnya was nowhere to be seen. He was not enough of a woodsman to find her tracks in the dead leaves and the pine needles. The river was her natural means of escape; cutting back to the trail, he ran to the point. There was no sign of her. Drawn up on the beach and tied to a branch he saw the dugout she had brought. There were no tracks in the sand to show she had returned, nor any impression of another boat having been pushed off.
Ralph rushed up and down the shore looking for her, or for her tracks. "She must go by the river," he told himself; "the forest is impenetrable." With every minute his heart sank; he knew he was no match for Nahnya in the wilderness. Making a longer sally downstream, he finally found her tracks where she had leaped over the bank, and had set off down the beach. He followed after with renewed hope. After running a quarter of a mile he suddenly pulled himself up. "I'll never catch her this way," he thought. "She must have a boat down here to cross. She'll only leave me stranded on the shore. She's got to go home. I must follow her there by water."
He made his way back to the point, and thence to the work-shack, where he borrowed an axe and an auger, without meeting any one. Returning to the mouth of the creek he searched until he found a great, dry trunk, that had been thrown high by a freshet. He set to work to chop it into four lengths to make a raft. His right arm was still far from fit to swing an axe, but an indomitable resolution kept him at work. Progress was slow; the minutes escaped him maddeningly. "Never mind," he told himself, "I'll go straight to the Bowl of the Mountains. She does not know that I can find my way there."
By and by Jim Sholto pushed his way through the bushes, and, descending the bank, sat down on a boulder. Ralph, with a glance, went on with his work. Jim made a great business of searching for a suitable twig at his feet. He started to peel it, pursing up his lips in a noiseless whistle. Downright Jim had no talent for dissimulation; perturbation, dismay, and anger were plainly visible, struggling with his elaborate unconcern. He was keeping a tight hold on himself.
"So you're going to leave us?" he said, very off-hand.
"I must," muttered Ralph.
"I should 'a' thought you'd had your lesson against travelling alone. You ain't in no shape to swing an axe or drive a paddle!"
"Can't help it," said Ralph.
"What'll you do for food, gun, blankets, to keep life in you?"
"I suppose you will sell me what I need. I have money."
"Money's of no use to me here," said Jim grimly.
"Then I won't trouble you," said Ralph quickly.
Jim showed a certain compunction. "It ain't a question of money when you're short of necessities yourself," he explained.
"Then the sooner you are quit of me the better," said Ralph.
"You could stay here a while and work out your keep," said Jim craftily.
Ralph merely shook his head. They were silent, Jim meanwhile transparently debating with himself how to open the subject again.
"Look here!" he said testily. "I can't talk to you while you're swinging the axe. Are you in such a rush you can't stop for five minutes?"
Ralph put down his axe with none too good a grace, and sat down on another stone beside the creek's bed. His face showed a sullenness that promised badly for the results of their talk. Ralph had conceived a great liking for the bluff and simple Jim, but the situation was hopeless, and since he could not mend it, he saw nothing but to brazen it out. To protest his regrets he felt would be insincere, if not positively insulting to the Scotchman.
Jim was humbling himself for Kitty's sake. He knew that the situation was too much for him, but he was obliged to try to mend it because there was no one else to help her.
"I took a fancy to you when you come," he said clumsily. "I can't see you go to make a fool of yourself, and keep my mouth shut."
Ralph's nostrils dilated ominously. "I might as well be working," he said shortly. "This does no good."
"Wait!" said Jim, with what was in him rare patience. "You're inexperienced. Any man that knows this country knows the fatal results of any connection between red and white."
Ralph rose abruptly. "That's enough!" he said, tightlipped. "You have no call to interfere in my private affairs!"
Jim suddenly exploded. "No call!" he shouted. "You talk like a fool! You're insane! I have a right to lock you up until you come to your senses."
"Better not try it on," said Ralph.
"Insanity's the kindest name to put to it!" stormed Jim. "There are uglier words!—coming here like you did, and making up to my little daughter, and beguiling her with your city-bred tongue, and then to run off after——"
"It's a lie!" cried Ralph. "I was coming after the other girl when I had my accident. And I never made love to Kitty, neither by word, nor look, nor touch! Ask her!"
"Ah, you'd hide behind her now," sneered Jim. "She has her pride!"
Roused to a blind fury by the unjust taunt, Ralph reached for his axe—but he could not fight Kitty's father. His arms dropped to his sides. "Oh, for God's sake, let me go, and forget me!" he cried brokenly.
"Ye came to her sick and starving!" cried Jim accusingly; "she took ye in and fed ye, and nursed ye back to life again! What does she get for it? I found her—— Oh! it drives me mad to think on! I could kill ye—but that would only break her heart! Ye miserable Jack-a-dandy! What she can see in ye beats me!"
"What can I do?" cried Ralph despairingly. "It's not my fault! Tell me what to do, and I'll do it!"
"Stay here," said Jim. "Give up this insane chase, and make good here."
Ralph shrugged helplessly. "It's impossible," he said sullenly. "I'd be no good to Kitty if my heart was down the river."
"Your heart!" echoed Jim disgustedly. He raised his clenched fists. "Grant me patience!"
He was interrupted by the sound of Kitty's voice calling him. In the hollow where Ralph was building his raft they were invisible both from the trail, and from the camping-place on the point. Jim answered the hail sulkily. Presently Kitty, white-faced and wide-eyed, came pushing through the bushes.
"What are you doing here?" she demanded of her father.
Thus to be addressed by one of his children brought the skies tumbling about the old-fashioned father's head. He gaped at her stupidly. "That's a nice way to speak to me!" he cried, puffing out his cheeks.
It had no effect on her now. The gentle Kitty was transformed. "I believe you were trying to persuade him to stay here!" she cried, with flashing eyes.
"Well—well," stammered Jim, thoroughly confounded. "I was doing it for your sake!"
A little cry of helpless anger escaped her. "How can you shame me so?" she murmured.
"Shame you?" said poor Jim. "If you want a thing you've got to fight for it, ain't you?"
"I don't want him!" she cried. "Let him go! The sooner he goes the better I'll be pleased! Understand, both of you, he is repulsive to me! I never want to see him again as long as I live!"
It was the third time that day that Ralph had been denounced. He was only human. His self-love was wounded. "What's the matter with you all?" he cried. "I'm neither a leper nor a crook! Why should I be blamed for what nobody could help?"
"Come back to the house," said Kitty imperiously to her father.
Jim followed her as if he had been whipped. "God save the wumman!" he muttered. "Blest if I know what she wants!"
Ralph returned to his work with a savage zest, and wholly unmindful of the pain in his shoulder. It was an impossible situation; there was nothing he could do, therefore no use thinking about it. The only thing was to get away as soon as he could. He bored holes in the ends of his four logs, and cutting two cross-pieces bored them and fastened the whole frame together with stout wooden pegs. By the time it was done the afternoon was far advanced. He floated his craft out into the river, and, pulling it up on the sand, took the auger and the axe back to the work-shack.
Jim Sholto, busy with the furnaces, turned a grim, hard face at his entrance.
"Will you sell me food and a gun and a blanket?" asked Ralph stiffly.
"It's waiting for you in the kitchen," was the harsh answer. "No dog shall starve through me."
Ralph swallowed the affront. The two men went to the kitchen. The stuff was lying on the table: gun, ammunition belt, double blanket, and packet of food. Kitty was not visible.
"Pay me what you like," said Jim carelessly.
"It's worth fifty dollars," Ralph said, counting out the money.
"Here's something else that belongs to you," said Jim, holding out the necklace with a sneer.
Ralph pocketed it without comment. Gathering the slender outfit in his arms, he left the shack. There were no good-byes.
Everything was now clear for his departure, and as he set foot on the trail to the river he breathed more freely. He bitterly regretted what had happened, but since he could not mend it there was relief in putting it behind him. Down the river was Nahnya.
Halfway to the camping-place he stopped and stood fast to listen with a horrible sinking of the heart. He thought he heard men's voices ahead of him. He thought he recognized the voices. He heard them again, and could no longer doubt. The worst had happened. He paused, frantically debating what to do. His way was cut off in front; they were already in possession of the raft that had caused him such pains to make. Behind him was the grim and angry father. No help there! While Ralph hung in agonized indecision Joe Mixer hove in sight in the trail ahead, and, seeing him, set up a loud shout.
Ralph cast the blanket and the bag of food from him, and hanging on to the rifle and ammunition, darted into the woods. Joe Mixer, shouting the news over his shoulder, came plunging after him. The other three men caught up Joe's cries, and crashed into the underbrush. The surprised forest rang like the halls of bedlam with shouts and crashes on every hand.
Ralph pressed his elbows against his ribs, and ran, breathing deep for endurance. He headed east into the thickest of the woods, meaning to strike back to the river if he could distance them a little. He judged from the sounds that they had spread out fanwise behind him. None of them caught sight of him again. He ran with despair in his heart, for there was no escape ahead. Suppose he did outdistance them, there was no place to run to, and nothing to do. He could not build another raft with his bare hands.
The sounds behind him finally fell away a little, and Ralph turned sharply to the left. Breaking out of the woods, he scrambled down the bank almost in the same spot where he had found Nahnya's tracks earlier. At the bottom he came face to face with Philippe Boisvert crouching in wait behind a boulder. Ralph almost collided with him. Before he could lift his arms, he was locked in the half-breed's sinewy embrace. He struggled with the strength of despair without being able to break it. Meanwhile Philippe shouted vociferously. Joe Mixer leaped down the bank and fell on Ralph from behind. Crusoe Campbell and Stack appeared, each ready to lend a hand. It was useless for Ralph to struggle further.
"Tie his hands!" shouted Joe.
It was done with the thongs from the half-breed's moccasins. Ralph was half-led, half-dragged along the beach, back to the camping-place. Whenever he stumbled Joe with foul oaths struck him in the face with his fist. Joe was not susceptible to any sentiments of generosity toward a helpless enemy. Crusoe Campbell guffawed, and Stack snickered. Ralph set his teeth, and held his tongue. A cold hate distilled itself drop by drop in his heart.
Jim Sholto attracted by the noise of the chase was at the camping-place when they got there. Seeing Ralph's plight, he grimly smiled. Ralph was stood, back against a tree, and a stout line wound about his body, and knotted behind the trunk.
Meanwhile Joe Mixer blustered up to shake hands with Jim. "You know me," he cried; "Mixer of Gisborne portage. These three gentlemen are friends of mine. From your smile I take it you've had a sample of this young crook's quality."
Jim was not at all charmed by Joe's effusiveness, but he was more enraged against Ralph. "I know nothing to his good," he said grimly.
"Let me tell you what he did to us," said Joe. "Landed below our camp in the night when we was all asleep, and set our boat adrift. We might have starved in the woods for him!"
Ralph disdained to answer this impudent charge.
"Where was this?" asked Jim.
"Thirty mile above the Grand Forks."
"You've been a long time coming down."
"We had a little business up the Stanley," said Joe.
Ralph had at least the satisfaction of learning that he had made them sweat for ten days.
"How did he come here?" asked Joe.
"Sick and starving," said Jim bitterly. "Said he lost his boat in the Stanley rapids."
"If he did, it's God's justice!" said Joe piously.
Ralph smiled peculiarly.
"What funny business has he been up to around your camp?" asked Joe.
"That's my affair," said Jim grimly. "I will deal with him as I see fit."
Joe looked at him with an ugly glitter, and decided to swallow the rebuke. "Sure!" he said easily. "He's got a pardner," he went on, "a good-looking Indian wench who calls herself Annie Crossfox. Has she been around here?"
Ralph roused himself sharply. "Sholto, think how you answer!" he cried. "You and I have our differences, but you're an honest man! You've got nothing to do with this vermin! Look in their faces; it's written plain enough there. They can't look in a man's eyes, the mean and cowardly——"
Joe Mixer turned purple, and springing toward Ralph, struck him violently across the mouth with the back of his hand. "Shut your head!" he cried with an oath.
Ralph wiped the blood from his lips on his shoulder. "Mean and cowardly blackguards without decency or manliness!" he cried defiantly.
Joe made to strike him again, but big Jim held his arm. "The man is bound," he said laconically.
"Then let him keep a clean tongue in his head," muttered Joe, turning away.
"For God's sake, think it over before you join in with them," Ralph begged of Jim.
"I see no reason why I should not answer a civil question," said Jim judicially. Jim thought he was being fair and disinterested, while he was being swayed by his feelings no less than an angry woman. "If the girl is straight she has nothing to fear from anybody. She was here this morning."
"Aha!" cried Joe delightedly.
Ralph groaned. "You'll be sorry for this!" he muttered.
"Where does she hang out?" Joe asked eagerly.
"I don't know," said Jim. "She went down the river."
"We'll get her!" cried Joe.
"What do you want with her?" asked Jim curiously, "and him there?"
Joe looked disconcerted. His thick wits had no answer ready.
Stack spoke up. "Robbery," he said smoothly. "They broke into Mr. Mixer's store. There are no police in the country, so we have to bring them to justice ourselves."
"It's a lie!" cried Ralph scornfully. "That little lick-spittle confessed to me that he had trailed me all the way from the coast, because he thought I'd made a strike here in the country!"
Stack's eyes bolted; his little body writhed, and a curious, painful smile distorted his ashen face.
Jim shrugged and turned away. "It's nothing to me," he said. "Fight it out among yourselves."
As soon as Jim was safely out of hearing, Joe turned to Ralph with an evil smile. "Now I've got you where I want you!" he said triumphantly. He drew a significant line across his throat. "I can string you up to the tree over your head if I want, and go scot free for it! Setting a traveller's boat adrift is worse than murder up here! And I got three witnesses to swear to it. No jury in this country would convict. They'd thank me for strangling a coyote!"
Ralph proudly held his tongue.
His air of unconcern infuriated the ex-butcher. "Damn you! I'll lower your proud stomach!" he cried. "I'll give the night to it! I've been saving up for this! Before morning you'll be crawling and whining for mercy!"
A blow accompanied this. Ralph instinctively jerked away his head, and it fell on his sore shoulder. As a result of his exertions with the axe it was now puffed up, throbbing, and exquisitely painful. When Joe Mixer's fist descended on it, Ralph caught his breath with the pain.
Joe chuckled. "So that's the sore place, eh?"
He struck him again. Ralph took it with set teeth.
"Are you going to tell me where the girl is hidden, and the gold?" asked Joe.
Ralph kept silent.
"Answer me!" shouted Joe.
"That's a fool's question," said Ralph.
Joe dug his knuckles into Ralph's shoulder, and leaning the weight of his body on his arm, kneaded the throbbing place. Ralph had never conceived of pain like this. It turned him sick; cold perspiration sprang out all over him. He felt consciousness beginning to slip. He bit his lip to keep from betraying any sound.
The other men began to remonstrate. "You'll do for him," said Stack, "and we won't learn anything."
Joe left off with a shrug. "I have all night," he said,
They set about getting their supper.
It was only in Ralph's presence that Kitty's pride sufficed to bear her up. When she and Jim returned to the shacks she collapsed again, and Jim had no difficulty in reasserting his parental authority. When the sudden hue and cry was raised after Ralph, Jim ordered her to remain behind locked doors while he went to investigate. She dared not disobey him. She awaited his return in a state bordering on distraction; her quick imagination running ahead to picture horrors overtaking the man she loved. On his coming in she read in his face that the worst had not happened—but less than the worst was bad enough.
Little by little she wormed out of him all that he had learned. Jim affected to make light of the matter, insisting that Ralph was getting no more than his due. Kitty's truer instinct warned her that the young man was in the hands of deadly and unscrupulous enemies, who would stop at nothing, so they thought themselves safe. Supper in the shack was a ghastly pretence for her. Her hands shook so that she could scarcely lift the dishes. Her distracted eyes saw nothing they were turned on, all her faculties being concentrated on listening for sounds from the point. Jim, exasperated beyond bearing by the sight of her distress, lost his temper and stormed at her, with inconsistency worse than that he accused her of.
Fortunately for her it was Jim's habit to turn in almost immediately after eating. Not even the extraordinary sequence of events this day could keep him up an hour longer than his time. He refused to return to the point, from a secret fear perhaps of learning something that would shake the philosophic stand he had taken. He retired to his bunk in the kitchen, and Kitty locked herself in her own room.
Here she was at least free to listen without being sworn at. She flung herself across her bed with her head on the window-sill. The night was absolutely still except for the tireless voice of the brook. Its senseless chatter and brawl drove her wild. She could hear nothing above it. To be obliged to wait and listen, practically a prisoner, with only her imagination free to create the worst—real madness lay that way. If they were going to carry him off bound and helpless, she knew she must follow or die. She rose and listened at the door. Jim was snoring like an exhaust pipe. "He can sleep!" she thought, amazed. Catching up a shawl, she slipped out of the window the way Nahnya had gone.
Her flying moccasined feet fell noiselessly on the earth. She ran around the house, and down the trail toward the river. It was not yet dark. Fearful of being seen, she struck off the trail and ran doubled up under the willow branches like a partridge in cover. Every few seconds she stopped short, holding her breath in the effort to hear. The turmoil of the brook still drowned all other sounds. A suggestion of men's voices and coarse laughter only tantalized her ears. Yesterday if anybody had told Kitty she would be spying on a camp of rough men and listening to their talk she would have covered her head in shame. She never thought of shame now.
She came closer and closer by little runs until no more than twenty yards separated her from their camp. She could see the light of their fire reflected on the high branches overhead. Here she crouched down behind a thick screen of leaves, prepared to spend the night if need be. For a while she could hear nothing. She began to fear that they must have gone after all, taking him. Suddenly a disembodied voice fell upon her ears.
"He's come to," it said. "Try him again."
Kitty's heart stood still at the picture this called up. There was a pause; then another voice said brutally:
"Will you tell?"
She had no clue to the scene of her previous knowledge, but her intuition told her what was taking place. Another pause, and a soft, torn groan reached Kitty's ears. She sprang up, electrified. Gone were all maidenly modesties and shrinkings. Fiery-eyed and self-forgetful as a mother-animal whose young are threatened, she crashed through the branches, and stood among the men, crying:
"Let him alone, you cowards!"
Joe Mixer, Stack, and Crusoe Campbell fell back, dumfoundered. The half-breed, who slept by the fire, woke up, and partly raised himself, blinking at her stupidly. Kitty saw only Ralph. He hung limply on the rope that bound him to the tree. His face was ghastly, his breath came in gasps; and the sweat of pain had left wet channels in front of his ears and down his neck. Kitty flew to him with a moan of commiseration, and fumbled helplessly with the knots of the rope.
The men recovered from their surprise. Knowing that Jim had a daughter, it was not hard for them to explain Kitty's presence. As men must needs do everywhere in the presence of a genuinely angry woman, they looked silly and sheepish.
"Stand away from there, young lady!" growled Joe.
"You unspeakable coward!" cried Kitty, in her hushed and thrilling voice.
Joe flushed darkly. "Go back to your father," he said. "This is no place for you!"
Kitty paid no further attention to him.
"If he finds you here and cuts up rough, mind I warned you," blustered Joe. "These men will bear me out."
Neither the thought of her father's anger, nor anything else, could deter Kitty now. She worked desperately at the knots.
"Go back, Kitty," whispered Ralph between his pale lips. "You can't do any good!"
"Oh, my dear!" murmured Kitty on the passionately solicitous note of a mother to her hurt child.
"Campbell, take her away from there!" ordered Joe.
The long-haired nondescript grinning witlessly pinned Kitty's elbows to her sides from behind, and drew her away from the tree. She was helpless. Her eyes flashed.
"I'm not afraid of you—any of you!" she cried.
"You get this matter wrong, Miss," said Joe, with an offensive servility. "This fellow did us an injury. He is our rightful prisoner. But I don't want to be hard on him. I offered him his release on fair terms. If he don't take 'em, 'tain't my fault, is it?"
"Tell this man to take his hands off me, and I'll speak to you," said Kitty indignantly.
At a nod from Joe, Crusoe released her.
"What terms?" Kitty demanded to know.
"You tell him he's foolish," said Joe fawningly. "Maybe he'll listen to you. You tell him to tell me what I want to know, and I'll trouble him no further."
"What do you want to know?"
"Only where the girl Annie Crossfox lives."
The suddenness and completeness of the surprise almost undid Kitty. She swayed a little as under a physical blow. Her cheeks blanched. "Annie Crossfox?" she murmured.
"I have business with her," Joe went on. "I can find her anyway, but I'm in a hurry. Let him tell me, and I'll set him loose."
Kitty was torn into shreds by her conflicting emotions. It nearly killed her to see Ralph suffering so—and it turned her into ice to think that it was for Nahnya's sake he was bearing it. She was terrified, too, knowing that the secret was in her own keeping. Strange and dreadful consequences must depend upon it for Ralph to be willing to stake his life. Kitty saw plainly enough that they would kill him before he told.
Little Stack was watching Kitty with ferret-like sharpness. Suddenly he cried out: "She knows herself!"
Kitty felt as if a net had suddenly been cast over her head, entangling her inextricably.
Stack sprang up, and looking from Ralph to Kitty with a timorous, malignant smile, whispered in Joe's ear. Joe nodded in high satisfaction.
"So you know where he got his gold, and where the girl is hidden?" said Joe, leering at Kitty.
"No! No!" she protested desperately. "I know nothing!"
Her terror-stricken face betrayed her. Joe merely laughed. "Very good," he said, "you can make him tell us then, or tell us yourself."
Kitty's first impulse was to fly. She saw, however, that they meant to work on her through Ralph, and then nothing could have dragged her from the spot. Ralph's right arm had been freed, and it hung down outside the ropes that bound him. Joe grasped the helpless wrist. Kitty saw a quiver pass through Ralph; saw him try to stiffen his fainting body; saw the muscles stand out on his jaw as he clenched his teeth.
"Don't! Don't!" she cried wildly. "That's his hurt arm!" Crusoe Campbell's great hand pressed her back from rushing to Ralph's aid.
"I just give him a little osteopathy," said Joe grinning.
Kitty had dressed that shoulder every day; a vivid picture of the angry, throbbing flesh was before her. She had hardly dared touch it with her delicate fingers, and now she saw the butcher about to wreak his strength on it. An agonizing pain struck through her own frame. She nearly swooned.
Joe, watching Kitty with a sidelong smile, gave the arm a little twist. Kitty saw Ralph's eyes roll up with the pain. He made no sound.
"For a starter," said Joe. "Better tell before he gets worse!"
He lifted the arm again.
"Stop! Stop!" screamed Kitty. "I'll tell!" She sank to the ground and covered her face.
Ralph, half stupefied with pain and nausea, looked at Kitty with a dull wonder. He did not suspect that she knew the secret.
"Will you promise to let him go if I tell you?" murmured Kitty.
"I promise to let him go if you tell the truth," said Joe.
On the ground, with her hands clenched in her lap and her head bowed, Kitty began her tale breathlessly, as if she dared not pause to think of what she was doing. "About half a mile this side of the Grumbler rapids there is a stream comes in on the north side. You will know it by a large, flat rock beside the river. That is where you land. You will find a trail up the mountain beside the stream. You follow it until you come out of the forest at the foot of a big peak that sticks up like a thumb."
The men hung breathlessly on her words. The painstaking details carried conviction. Little Stack wrote it down in a notebook. With her first words a new horror was born in Ralph's face. He forgot his weakness.
"Near the place where you come out of the forest," Kitty went on, "the trail crosses a ravine. You leave the trail at that place, and follow the bed of the ravine up to the left—just a little way. There is a little bend in the ravine, and a drift-pile at the bend, and above the drift-pile three stunted trees are growing on a little ledge, and some bushes——"
"Kitty! for God's sake!" murmured Ralph.
She would not look at him. She went on faster than before. "Behind the bushes there is a hole in the rock, you let yourself down into the hole, and you come out into a cave. Turn to the left in the cave, and walk a long way—half an hour's walk. You carry a torch to show you the way. You cross the hole where the water goes down. Half a mile farther you come out on the other side of the mountain. It is a beautiful valley. There is no other way to get in. That is the place!"
Kitty came to a stop and looked around her a little wildly. Joe Mixer, Philippe, and Crusoe, were all staring at her as if thunderstruck. From her their eyes turned on each other furtively. The same thought was in the mind of each, and each wondered if the others knew. Joe saw that it could not be kept a secret.
"By Gad! It's Bowl of the Mountains!" he cried. "And it's ours!"
"Maybe she's lying," said Stack.
"Who told you this?" Joe demanded to know.
Kitty nodded toward Ralph. She had not dared to look at him yet. "Now let him go!" she murmured.