CHAPTER IVMORE ABOUT CLARE

Determined to make the most of their rare feminine visitation at Fort Enterprise, on the following day the fellows got up a chicken hunt on the river bottom east of the post, to be followed by anal frescosupper at which broiled chicken was to be thepièce de resistance. The ladies didn’t shoot any prairie chicken, but they stimulated the hunters with their presence, and afterwards condescended to partake of the delicate flesh.

Stonor, though he was largely instrumental in getting the thing up, and though he worked like a Trojan to make the affair go, still kept himself personally in the background. He consorted with Captain Stinson and Mathews, middle-aged individuals who were considered out of the running. It was not so much shyness now, as an instinct of self-preservation. “She’ll be gone in a week,” he told himself. “You mustn’t let this thing get too strong a hold on you, or life here after she has gone will be hellish. You’ve got to put her out of your mind, my son—or just keep her as a lovely dream not to be taken in earnest. Hardly likely, after seeing the world, that she’d look twice at a sergeant of police!”

In his innocence Stonor adopted the best possible way of attracting her attention to himself. More than once, when he was not looking, her eyes sought him out curiously. In answer to her questions of the other men it appeared that it was Stonor who had sent the natives out in advance to drive the game past them: it was Stonor who surprised them with a cloth already spreadunder a poplar tree: it was Stonor who cooked the birds so deliciously. She was neither vain nor silly, but at the same time in a company where every man lay down at her feet, so to speak, and begged her to tread on him, it could not but seem peculiar to her that the best-looking man of them all should so studiously avoid her.

Next day they all crossed the river and rode up to Simon Grampierre’s place, where the half-breeds repeated the Victoria Day games for the amusement of the visitors. (These days are still talked of at Fort Enterprise.) Stonor was finally induced to give an exhibition of high-school riding as taught to the police recruits, and thereby threw all the other events in the shade. But their plaudits overwhelmed him. He disappeared and was seen no more that day.

Sunday followed. Mr. Pringle and his sister had got the little church in order, and services were held there for the first time in many months. The mission was half a mile east of the Company buildings, and after church they walked home beside the fields of sprouting grain, in a comfortable Sabbath peace that was much the same at Enterprise as elsewhere in the world.

The procession travelled in the following order: First, four surveyors marching with their heads over their shoulders, at imminent risk of an undignified stumble in the trail; next, Clare Starling, flanked on one side by Gaviller, on the other by Doc Giddings, with two more surveyors on the outlying wings, peering forward to get a glimpse of her; then Captain Stinson, Mathews, and Sergeant Stonor in a line, talking about the state of the crops, and making believe to pay no attention to what was going on ahead; lastly, Mr. Pringle and his sister hurrying to catch up.

Half-way home Miss Starling,à proposof nothing, suddenly stopped and turned her head. “Sergeant Stonor,” she said. He stepped to her side. Since she clearly showed in her manner that she intended holdingconverse with the policeman, there was nothing for Gavilleret al.to do but proceed, which they did with none too good a grace. This left Stonor and the girl walking together in the middle of the procession. Stinson and Mathews, who were supposed to be out of it anyway, winked at each other portentously.

“I wanted to ask you about that horse you rode yesterday, a beautiful animal. What do you call him?”

“Miles Aroon,” said Stonor, like a wooden man. He dreaded that she meant to go on and enlarge on his riding tricks. In his modesty he now regarded that he had made an awful ass of himself the day before. But she stuck to horse-flesh.

“He’s a beauty! Would he let me ride him?”

“Oh, yes! He has no bad tricks. I broke him myself. But of course he knows nothing of side-saddles.”

“I ride astride.”

“I believe we’re all going for a twilight ride to-night. I’ll bring him for you.”

As a result of this Stonor’s praiseworthy resolutions to keep out of harm’s way were much weakened. Indeed, late that night in his little room in quarters he gave himself up to the most outrageous dreams of a possible future happiness. Stonor was quite unversed in the ways of modern ladies; all his information on the subject had been gleaned from romances, which, as everybody knows, are always behind the times in such matters, and it is possible that he banked too much on the simple fact of her singling him out on the walk home.

There was a great obstacle in his way; the force sets its face against matrimony during the term of service. Stonor in his single-mindedness never thought that there were other careers. “I shall have to get a commission,” he thought. “An inspectorship is little enough to offer her. But what an ornament she’d be to a post! And she’d love the life; she loves horses. ButLord! it’s difficult nowadays, with nothing going on. If an Indian war would only break out!”—He was quite ready to sacrifice the unfortunate red race.

On Monday night he was again bidden to dine at Enterprise House. As Gaviller since the day before had been no more than decently polite, Stonor ventured to hope that the invitation might have been instigated by her. At any rate he was placed by her side this time, where he sat a little dizzy with happiness, and totally oblivious to food. At the same time it should be understood that the young lady had no veiled glances or hidden meanings for him alone; she treated him, as she did all the others, to perfect candour.

After dinner they had music in the drawing-room. The piano was grotesquely out of tune, but what cared they for that? She touched it and their souls were drawn out of their bodies. Probably the performer suffered, but she played on with a smile. They listened entranced until darkness fell, and when it is dark at Enterprise in June it is high time to go to bed.

They all accompanied Stonor to the door. The long-drawn summer dusk of the North is an ever fresh wonder to newcomers. At sight of the exquisite half-light and the stars an exclamation of pleasure broke from Clare.

“Much too fine a night to go to bed!” she cried. “Sergeant Stonor, take me out to the bench beside the flagstaff for a few minutes.”

As they sat down she said: “Don’t you want to smoke?”

“Don’t feel the need of it,” he said. His voice was husky with feeling. Would a man want to smoke in Paradise?

By glancing down and sideways he could take her in as far up as her neck without appearing to stare rudely. She was sitting with her feet crossed and her hands in her lap like a well-bred little girl. When he dared glance at her eyes he saw that there was no consciousness ofhim there. They were regarding something very far away. In the dusk the wistfulness which hid behind a smile in daylight looked forth fully and broodingly.

Yet when she spoke the matter was ordinary enough. “All the men here tell me about the mysterious stranger who lives on the Swan River. They can’t keep away from the subject. And the funny part of it is, they all seem to be angry at him. Yet they know nothing of him. Why is that?”

“It means nothing,” said Stonor, smiling. “You see, all the men pride themselves on knowing every little thing that happens in the country. It’s all they have to talk about. In a way the whole country is like a village. Well, it’s only because this man has succeeded in defying their curiosity that they’re sore. It’s a joke!”

“They tell me that you stand up for him,” she said, with a peculiar warmth in her voice.

“Oh, just to make the argument interesting,” said Stonor lightly.

“Is that all?” she said, chilled.

“No, to tell the truth, I was attracted to the man from the first,” he said more honestly. “By what the Indians said about his healing the sick and so on. And they said he was young. I have no friend of my own age up here—I mean no real friend. So I thought—well, I would like to know him.”

“I like that,” she said simply.

There was a silence.

“Why don’t you—sometime—go to him?” she said, with what seemed almost like a breathless air.

“I am going,” said Stonor simply. “I received permission in the last mail. The government wants me to look over the Kakisa Indians to see if they are ready for a treaty. The policy is to leave the Indians alone as long as they are able to maintain themselves under natural conditions. But as soon as they need help thegovernment takes charge; limits them to a reservation; pays an annuity, furnishes medical attention, and so on. This is called taking treaty. The Kakisas are one of the last wild tribes left.”

She seemed scarcely to hear him. “When are you going?” she asked with the same air of breathlessness.

“As soon as the steamboat goes back.”

“How far is it to Swan River?”

“Something under a hundred and fifty miles. Three days’ hard riding or four days’ easy.”

“And how far down to the great falls?”

“Accounts differ. From the known features of the map I should say about two hundred miles. They say the river’s as crooked as a ram’s horn.”

There was another silence. She was busy with her own thoughts, and Stonor was content not to talk if he might look at her.

With her next speech she seemed to strike off at a tangent. She spoke with a lightness that appeared to conceal a hint of pain. “They say the mounted police are the guides, philosophers and friends of the people up North. They say you have to do everything, from feeding babies to reading the burial service.”

“I’m afraid there’s a good bit of romancing about the police,” said Stonor modestly.

“But they do make good friends, don’t they?” she insisted.

“I hope so.”

She gave him the full of her deep, starry eyes. It was not an intoxicating glance, but one that moved him to the depths. “Will you be my friend?” she asked simply.

Poor Stonor! With too great a need for speech, speech itself was foundered. No words ever coined seemed strong enough to carry the weight of his desire to assure her. He could only look at her, imploring her to believe in him. In the end only two little words came;to him wretchedly inadequate; but it is doubtful if they could have been bettered.

“Try me!”

His look satisfied her. She lowered her eyes. The height of emotion was too great to be maintained. She cast round in her mind for something to let them down. “How far to the north the sunset glow is now.”

Stonor understood. He answered in the same tone: “At this season it doesn’t fade out all night. The sun is such a little way below the rim there, that the light just travels around the northern horizon, and becomes the dawn in a little while.”

For a while they talked of indifferent matters.

By and by she said casually: “When you go out to Swan River, take me with you.”

He thought she was joking. “I say, that would be a lark!”

She laughed a little nervously.

He tried to keep it up, though his heart set up a furious beating at the bare idea of such a trip. “Can you bake bannock?”

“I can make good biscuits.”

“What would we do for a chaperon?”

“Nobody has chaperons nowadays.”

“You don’t know what a moral community this is!”

“I meant it,” she said suddenly, in a tone there was no mistaking.

All his jokes deserted him, and left him trembling a little. Indeed he was scandalized, too, being less advanced, probably, in his ideas than she. “It’s—it’s impossible!” he stammered at last.

“Why?” she asked calmly.

He could not give the real reason, of course. “To take the trail, you! To ride all day and sleep on the hard ground! And the river trip, an unknown river with Heaven knows what rapids and other difficulties! A fragile little thing like you!”

Opposition stimulated her. “What you call my fragility is more apparent than real,” she said with spirit. “As a matter of fact I have more endurance than most big women. I have less to carry. I am accustomed to living and travelling in the open. I can ride all day—or walk if need be.”

“It’s impossible!” he repeated. It was the policeman who spoke. The man’s blood was leaping, and his imagination painting the most alluring pictures. How often on his lonely journeys had he not dreamed of the wild delights of such companionship!

“What is your real reason?” she asked.

“Well, how could you go—with me, you know?” he said, blushing into the dusk.

“I’m not afraid,” she answered instantly. “Anyway, that’s my look-out, isn’t it?”

“No,” he said, “I have to think of it. The responsibility would be mine.” Here the man broke through—“Oh, I talk like a prig!” he cried. “But don’t you see, I’m not up here on my own. I can’t do what I would like. A policeman has got to be proper, hasn’t he?”

She smiled at hisnaïveté. “But if I have business out there?”

This sounded heartless to Stonor. It was the first and last time that he ventured to criticize her. “Oh,” he objected, “I don’t know what reasons the poor fellow has for burying himself—they must be good reasons, for it’s no joke to live alone! It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it, to dig him out and write him up in the papers?”

“Oh, what must you think of me!” she murmured in a quick, hurt tone.

He saw that he had made a mistake. “I—I beg your pardon,” he stammered contritely. “I thought that was what you meant by business.”

“I’m not a reporter,” she said.

“But they told me——”

“Yes, I know, I lied. I’m not apologizing for that. It was necessary to lie to protect myself from vulgar curiosity.”

He looked his question.

She was not quite ready to answer it yet. “Suppose I had the best of reasons for going,” she said, hurriedly, “a reason that Mrs. Grundy would approve of; it would be your duty as a policeman, wouldn’t it, to help me?”

“Yes—but——?”

She turned imploring eyes on him, and unconsciously clasped her hands. “I’m sure you’re generous and steadfast,” she said quickly. “I can trust you, can’t I, not to give me away? The gossip, the curious stares—it would be more than I could bear! Promise me, whatever you may think of it all, to respect my secret.”

“I promise,” he said a little stiffly. It hurt him that he was required to protest his good faith. “The first thing we learn in the force is to keep our mouths shut.”

“Ah, now you’re offended with me because I made you promise!”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s over now. What is your reason for wanting to go out to Swan River?”

She answered low: “I am Ernest Imbrie’s wife.”

“Oh!” said Stonor in a flat tone. A sick disappointment filled him—yet in the back of his mind he had expected something of the kind. An inner voice whispered to him: “Not for you! It was too much to hope for!”

Presently she went on: “I injured him cruelly. That’s why he buried himself so far away.”

Stonor turned horror-stricken eyes on her.

“Oh, not that,” she said proudly and indifferently. “The injury I did him was to his spirit; that is worse.” Stonor turned hot for his momentary suspicion.

“I can repair it by going to him,” she went on. “Imustgo to him. I can never know peace until I havetried to make up to him a little of what I have made him suffer.”

She paused to give Stonor a chance to speak—but he was dumb.

Naturally she misunderstood. “Isn’t that enough?” she cried painfully. “I have told you the essential truth. Must I go into particulars? I can’t bear to speak of these things!”

“No! No!” he said, horrified. “It’s not that. I don’t want to hear any more.”

“Then you’ll help me?”

“I will take you to him.”

She began to cry in a pitiful shaken way.

“Ah, don’t!” murmured Stonor. “I can’t stand seeing you.”

“It’s—just from relief,” she whispered.… “I’ve been under astrain.…I think I should have gone out of my mind—if I had been prevented from expiating the wrong I did.… I wish I could tell you—he’s the bravest man in the world, I think—and the most unhappy!… And I heaped unhappiness on his head!”

This was hard for Stonor to listen to, but it was so obviously a relief to her to speak, that he made no attempt to stop her.

She soon quieted down. “I shan’t try to thank you,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

Stonor foresaw that the proposed journey would be attended with difficulties.

“Would it be possible,” she asked meekly, “for you to plan to leave a day in advance of the steamboat, and say nothing about taking me?”

“You mean for us to leave the post secretly?” he said, a little aghast.

“When the truth came out it would be all right,” she urged. “And it would save me from becoming the object of general talk and commiseration here. Why,if Mr. Gaviller knew in advance, he’d probably insist on sending a regular expedition.”

“Perhaps he would.”

“And they’d all try to dissuade me. I’d have to talk them over one by one—I haven’t the strength of mind left for that. They’d say I ought to wait here and send for him——”

“Well, wouldn’t that be better?”

“No! No! Not the same thing at all. I doubt if he’d come. And what would I be doing here—waiting—without news. I couldn’t endure it. I must go to him.”

Stonor thought hard. Youth was pulling him one way, and his sense of responsibility the other. Moreover, this kind of case was not provided for in regulations. Finally he said:

“Couldn’t you announce your intention of remaining over for one trip of the steamboat? Miss Pringle would be glad to have you, I’m sure.”

“I could do that. But you’re not going to delay the start?”

“We can leave the day after the boat goes, as planned. But if we were missed before the boat left she’d carry out some great scandalous tale that we might never be able to correct. For if scandal gets a big enough start you can never overtake it.”

“You are right, of course. I never thought of that.”

“Then I see no objection to leaving the post secretly, provided you are willing to tell one reliable person in advance—say Pringle or his sister, of our intention. You see we must leave someone behind us to still the storm of gossip that will be let loose.”

“You think of everything!”

For two days Stonor went about his preparations with an air of dogged determination. It seemed to him that all the light had gone out of his life, and hope was dead. He told himself that the proposed trip could not be otherwise than the stiffest kind of an ordeal to a man in his position, an ordeal calling for well-nigh superhuman self-control. How gladly would he have given it up, had he not given his word.

And then on the third day his spirits unaccountably began to rise. As a matter of fact youthful spirits must seek their natural level no less surely than water, but Stonor was angry with himself, accusing himself of lightheadedness, inconstancy and what not. His spirits continued to rise just the same. There was a delight in providing everything possible for her comfort. The mere thought of going away with her, under any circumstances whatsoever, made his heart sing.

John Gaviller was astonished by the size and variety of his requisition for supplies. Besides the customary rations Stonor included all the luxuries the store afforded: viz., tinned fish, vegetables and fruit; condensed milk, marmalade and cocoa. And in quantities double what he would ordinarily have taken.

“Getting luxurious in your old age, aren’t you?” said the trader.

“Oh, I’m tired of an unrelieved diet of bannock and beans,” said Stonor, with a carelessness so apparent,they ought to have been warned; but of course they never dreamed of anything so preposterous as the truth.

Stonor had two horses of his own. He engaged three more from Simon Grampierre, horses that he knew, and from Tole Grampierre purchased a fine rabbit-skin robe for Clare’s bed on the trail. Tole, who had secretly hoped to be taken on this expedition, was much disappointed when no invitation was forthcoming. Stonor arranged with Tole to ride to meet him with additional supplies on the date when he might expect to be returning. Tole was to leave Enterprise on July 12th.

From Father Goussard Stonor borrowed a mosquito tent on the plea that his own was torn. He smuggled a folding camp-cot into his outfit. Clare fortunately had brought suitable clothes for the most part. How well Stonor was to know that little suit cut like a boy’s with Norfolk jacket and divided skirt! What additional articles she needed Miss Pringle bought at the store for a mythical destitute Indian boy. They had soon found it necessary to take Miss Pringle into their confidence. She went about charged with the secret like a soda-water-bottle with the cork wired down.

Beside Gordon Strange, the only person around the post who could speak the Kakisa tongue was a woman, Mary Moosa, herself a Kakisa who had married a Cree. Her husband was a deck-hand on the steamboat. Stonor had already engaged Mary Moosa to take this trip with him as interpreter, and Mary, who had her own notions of propriety, had stipulated that her oldest boy be taken along. Mary herself promised to be a godsend on the trip; for she was just the comfortable dependable soul to look after Clare, but the boy now became a problem, for the dug-out that Stonor designed to use on the Swan River would only carry three persons comfortably, with the necessary outfit. Yet Stonor could not speak to Mary in advance about leaving the boy at home.

Such was Stonor’s assiduity that everything was ready for the start two days ahead of time—an unheard-of thing up North. Everybody at the post gave up a morning to seeing the steamboat off. She carried with her a report from Stonor to his inspector, telling of the proposed trip. Clare was among those who waved to her from the shore. No surprise had been occasioned by the announcement of her decision to remain over a trip. Gaviller was already planning further entertainments. She had by this time moved down to the Mission with the Pringles.

On the afternoon of that day Stonor transported his goods and swam his horses across the river, to be ready for the start from the other side. Mary Moosa and her son met him there, and camped beside the outfit for the night. Stonor returned to Enterprise House for dinner. He had tried to get out of it, knowing that the fact of this dinner would rankle in the trader’s breast afterwards, but Gaviller had insisted on giving him a send-off. It was not a happy affair, for three of the guests were wretchedly nervous. They could not help but see in their mind’s eye Gaviller’s expression of indignant astonishment when the news should be brought him next day.

Gaviller further insisted on taking everybody down to the shore to see Stonor off, thus obliging the trooper to make an extra trip across the river and back in order to maintain the fiction. Stonor slept in his own camp for an hour, and then rowed down-stream and across, to land in front of the Mission.

It is never perfectly dark at this season, and already day was beginning to break. Stonor climbed the bank, and showed himself at the top, knowing that they would be on the watch from within. The little grey log mission-house crouched in its neglected garden behind a fence of broken palings. But a touch of regenerationwas already visible in Miss Pringle’s geranium slips in the windows, and her bits of white curtain.

The door was silently opened, and the two women kissed in the entry. Stonor was never to forget that picture in the still grey light. Clare, clad in the little Norfolk suit and the boy’s stout boots and hat, crossed the yard with the little mincing steps so characteristic of her, and therefore so charming to the man who waited. Her face was pale, her eyes bright. Miss Pringle stood in the doorway, massive and tearful, a hand pressed to her mouth.

Stonor’s breast received a surprising wrench. “It’s like an elopement!” he thought. “Ah, if shewerecoming to me!”

She smiled at him without speaking, and handed over her bag. Stonor closed the gate softly, and they made their way down the bank, and got in the boat.

It was a good, stiff pull back against the current. They spoke little. Clare studied his grim face with some concern.

“Regrets?” she asked.

He rested on his oars for a moment and his face softened. He smiled at her frankly—and ruefully. “No regrets,” he said, “but a certain amount of anxiety.”

His glance conveyed a good deal more than that—in spite of him. “I love you with all my heart. Of course I clearly understand that you have nothing for me. I am prepared to see this thing through, no matter what the end means to me.—But be merciful!” All this was in his look. Whether she got it or not, no man could have told. She looked away and dabbled her hand in the water.

Mary Moosa was a self-respecting squaw who lived in a house with tables and chairs and went to church and washed her children with soap. In her plain blackcotton dress, the skirt cut very full to allow her to ride astride, her new moccasins and her black straw hat she made a figure of matronly tidiness if not of beauty. She was cooking when they arrived. Her inward astonishment, at beholding Stonor returning with the white girl who had created such a sensation at the post, can be guessed; but, true to her traditions, she betrayed nothing of it to the whites. After a single glance in their direction her gaze returned to the frying-pan.

It was Stonor who was put out of countenance, “Miss Starling is going with us,” he said, with a heavy scowl.

Mary made no comment on the situation, but continued gravely frying the flap-jacks to a delicate golden shade. Her son, aged about fourteen, who had less command over his countenance, stood in the background staring, with open eyes and mouth. It was a trying moment for Stonor and Clare. They discussed the prospects of a good day for the journey in rather strained voices.

However, it proved that Mary’s silence had neither an unfriendly nor a censorious intention. She merely required time to get her breath, so to speak. She transferred the flap-jacks from the pan to a plate, and, putting them in the ashes to keep hot, arose and came to Clare with extended hand.

“How,” she said, as she had been taught was manners to all.

Clare took her hand with a right good will.

It suddenly occurred to Mary that there was now no occasion for the boy to accompany them. Mary was a woman of few words. “You go home,” she said calmly.

The boy broke into a howl of grief, proving that the delights of the road are much the same to boys, red or white.

“Poor little fellow!” said Clare.

“Too young for travel,” said Mary, impassively. “More trouble than help.”

Clare wished to intercede for him with Stonor, but the trooper shook his head.

“No room in the dug-out,” he said.

Toma Moosa departed along the shore with his arm over his eyes.

Mary was as good as a man on a trip. While Stonor and Clare ate she packed the horses, and Stonor had only to throw the hitch and draw it taut. Clare watched this operation with interest.

“They swell up just like babies when you’re putting their bands on,” she remarked.

They were on the move shortly after sunrise, that is to say half-past three. As they rode away over the flat, each took a last look at the buildings of the post across the river, gilded by the horizontal rays, each wondering privately what fortune had in store for them before they should see the spot again.

They passed the last little shack and the last patch of grain before anybody was astir. When they rode out into the open country everybody’s spirits rose. There is nothing like taking the trail to lift up the heart—and on a June morning in the north! Troubles, heart-aches and anxieties were left behind with the houses. Even Mary Moosa beamed in her inscrutable way.

Stonor experienced a fresh access of confidence, and proceeded to deceive himself all over again. “I’m cured!” he thought. “There’s nothing to mope about. She’s my friend. Anything else is out of the question, and I will not think of it again. We’ll just be good pals like two fellows. You can be a pal with the right kind of girl, and she is that.—But better than any fellow, she’s so damn good to look at!”

It was a lovely park-like country with graceful, white-stemmed poplars standing about on the sward, and dark spruces in the hollows. The grass was starred withflowers. When Nature sets out to make a park her style has a charming abandon that no landscape-gardener can ever hope to capture. After they mounted the low bench the country rolled shallowly, flat in the prospect, with a single, long, low eminence, blue athwart the horizon ahead.

“That’s the divide between the Spirit and the Swan,” said Stonor. “We’ll cross it to-morrow. From here it looks like quite a mountain, but the ascent is so gradual we won’t know we’re over it until we see the water flowing the other way.”

Clare rode Miles Aroon, Stonor’s sorrel gelding, and Stonor rode the other police horse, a fine dark bay. These two animals fretted a good deal at the necessity of accommodating their pace to the humble pack animals. These latter had a stolid inscrutable look like their native masters. One in particular looked so respectable and matter-of-fact that Clare promptly christened her Lizzie.

Lizzie proved to be a horse of a strong, bourgeois character. If her pack was not adjusted exactly to her liking, she calmly sat on her haunches in the trail until it was fixed. Furthermore, she insisted on bringing up the rear of the cavalcade. If she was put in the middle, she simply fell out until the others had passed. In her chosen place she proceeded to fall asleep, with her head hanging ever lower and feet dragging, while the others went on. Stonor, who knew the horse, let her have her way. There was no danger of losing her. When she awoke and found herself alone, she would come tearing down the trail, screaming for her beloved companions.

Stonor rode at the head of his little company with a leg athwart his saddle, so he could hold converse with Clare behind.

Pointing to the trail stretching ahead of them like an endless brown ribbon over prairie and through bush, he said: “I suppose trails are the oldest things inAmerica. Once thoroughly made they can never be effaced—except by the plough. You see, they never can run quite straight, though the country may be as flat as your hand, but the width never varies; three and a half hands.”

Travelling with horses is not all picnicking. Three times a day they have to be unpacked and turned out tograze, and three timescaughtandpacked again; this in addition to the regular camp routine of pitching tents, rustling wood, cooking, etc. Clare announced her intention of taking over the cooking, but she found that baking biscuits over an open fire in a drizzle of rain, offered a new set of problems to the civilized cook, and Mary had to come to her rescue.

During this, their first spell by the trail, Stonor was highly amused to watch Clare’s way with Mary. She simply ignored Mary’s discouraging red-skin stolidity, and assumed that they were sisters under their skins. She pretended that it was necessary for them to take sides against Stonor in order to keep the man in his place. It was not long before Mary was grinning broadly. Finally at some low-voiced sally of Clare’s she laughed outright. Stonor had never heard her laugh before. Thereafter she was Clare’s. Realizing that the wonderful white girl really wished to make friends, Mary offered her a doglike devotion that never faltered throughout the difficult days that followed.

They slept throughout the middle part of the day, and later, the sky clearing, they rode until near sun-down in order to make a good water-hole that Mary knew of. When they had supped and made all snug for the night, Stonor let fall the piece of information that Mary was well known as a teller of tales at the Post. Clare gave her no peace then till she consented to tell a story. They sat in a row behind Stonor’s little mosquito-bar, for the insects were abroad, with the fire burning before them, and Mary began.

“I tell you now how the people got the first medicine-pipe. This story is about Thunder. Thunder is everywhere. He roar in the mountains, he shout far out on the prairie. He strike the high rocks and they fall. He hit a tree and split it like with a big axe. He strike people and they die. He is bad. He like to strike down the tall things that stand. He is ver’ powerful. He is the most strong one. Sometimes he steals women.

“Long tam ago, almost in the beginning, a man and his wife sit in their lodge when Thunder come and strike them. The man was not killed. At first he is lak dead, butbam-byehe rise up again and look around him. His wife not there. He say: ‘Oh well, she gone to get wood or water,’ and he sit awhile. But when the sun had gone under, he go out and ask the people where she go. Nobody see her. He look all over camp, but not find her. Then he know Thunder steal her, and he go out alone on the hills and mak’ sorrow.

“When morning come he get up and go far away, and he ask all the animals he meet where Thunder live. They laugh and not tell him. Wolf say: ‘W’at you think! We want go look for the one we fear? He is our danger. From others we can run away. From him there is no running. He strike and there we lie! Turn back! Go home! Do not look for the place of the feared one.’

“But the man travel on. Travel very far. Now he come to a lodge, a funny lodge, all made of stone. Here live the raven chief. The man go in.

“Raven chief say: ‘Welcome, friend. Sit down. Sit down.’ And food was put before him.

“When he finish eating, Raven say: ‘Why you come here?’

“Man say: ‘Thunder steal my wife away. I want find his place so I get her back.’

“Raven say: ‘I think you be too scare to go in the lodge of that feared one. It is close by here. His lodgeis made of stone like this, and hanging up inside are eyes—all the eyes of those he kill or steal away. He take out their eyes and hang them in his lodge. Now, will you enter?’

“Man say: ‘No. I am afraid. What man could look on such things of fear and live?’

“Raven say: ‘No common man can. There is only one old Thunder fears. There is only one he cannot kill. It is I, the Raven. Now I will give you medicine and he can’t harm you. You go enter there, and look among those eyes for your wife’s eyes, and if you find them, tell that Thunder why you come, and make him give them to you. Here now is a raven’s wing. You point it to him, and he jomp back quick. But if that is not strong enough, take this. It is an arrow, and the stick is made of elk-horn. Take it, I say, and shoot it through his lodge.’

“Man say: ‘Why make a fool of me? My heart is sad. I am crying.’ And he cover up his head with his blanket and cry.

“Raven say: ‘Wah! You do not believe me! Come out, come out, and I make you believe!’ When they stand outside Raven ask: ‘Is the home of your people far?’

“Man say: ‘Very far!’

“‘How many days’ journey?’

“Man say: ‘My heart is sad. I not count the days. The berries grow and get ripe since I leave my lodge.’

“Raven say: ‘Can you see your camp from here?’

“Man think that is foolish question and say nothing.

“Then the Raven rub some medicine on his eyes and say: ‘Look!’ The man look and see his own camp. It was close. He see the people. He see the smoke rising from the lodges. And at that wonderful thing the man believe in the Raven’s medicine.

“Then Raven say: ‘Now take the wing and the arrow and go get your wife.’

“So the man take those things and go to Thunder’s lodge. He go in and sit down by the door. Thunder sit inside and look at him with eyes of lightning. But the man look up and see those many pairs of eyes hanging up. And the eyes of his wife look at him, and he know them among all those others.

“Thunder ask in a voice that shake the ground: ‘Why you come here?’

“Man say: ‘I looking for my wife that you steal from me. There hang her eyes!’

“Thunder say: ‘No man can enter my lodge and live!’ He get up to strike him. But the man point the raven’s wing at him, and Thunder fall back on his bed and shiver. But soon he is better, and get up again. Then the man put the elk-horn arrow to his bow, and shoot it through the lodge of rock. Right through that lodge of rock it make a crooked hole and let the sunlight in.

“Thunder cry out: ‘Stop! You are stronger! You have the great medicine. You can have your wife. Take down her eyes.’ So the man cut the string that held them, and right away his wife stand beside him.

“Thunder say: ‘Now you know me. I have great power. I live here in summer, but when winter come I go far south where there is no winter. Here is my pipe. It is medicine. Take it and keep it. When I come in spring you fill and light this pipe, and you pray to me, you and all the people. Because I bring the rain which make the berries big and ripe. I bring the rain which make all things grow. So you must pray to me, you and all the people.’

“That is how the people got the first medicine-pipe. It was long ago.”

Mary went to her own little tent, and presently they heard her peaceful snoring. The sound had the effect of giving body to the immensity of stillness that surrounded them and held them. Sitting beside Clare, looking out at the fire through the netting, Stonor felt his safeguards slipping fast. There they were, the two of them, to all intents alone in the world! How natural for them to draw close, and, while her head dropped on his shoulder, for his arm to slip around her slender form and hold her tight! He trembled a little, and his mouth went dry. If he had been visiting her he could have got out, but he couldn’t put her out. There was nothing to do but sit tight and fight the thing. Moistening his lips, he said:

“It’s been a good day on the whole.”

“Ah, splendid!” she said. “If one could only hit the trail for ever without being obliged to arrive at a destination, and take up the burdens of a stationary life!”

Stonor pondered on this answer. It sounded almost as if she dreaded coming to the end of her journey.

Out of the breathless dusk came a long-drawn and inexpressibly mournful ululation. Clare involuntarily drew a little closer to Stonor. Ah, but it was hard to keep from seizing her then!

“Wolves?” she asked in an awe-struck tone.

He shook his head. “Only the wolf’s little mongrel brother, coyote,” he said.

“All my travelling has been done in the mountains,” she explained. She shivered delicately. “The first night out is always a little terrible, isn’t it?”

“You’re not afraid?” he asked anxiously.

“Not exactly afraid. Just a little quivery.”

She got up, and he held up the mosquito-netting for her to pass. Outside they instinctively lifted up their faces to the pale stars.

“It’s safer and cleaner than a city,” said Stonor simply.

“I know.” She still lingered for a moment. “What’s your name?” she asked abruptly.

“Martin.”

“Good-night, Martin.”

“Good-night!”

Later, rolling on his hard bed, he thought: “She might have given me her hand when she said it.—No, you fool! She did right not to! You’ve got to get a grip on yourself. This is only the first day! If you begin like this——!”

On the afternoon of the fourth day they suddenly issued out of big timber to find themselves at the edge of a plateau overlooking a shallow green valley, bare of trees in this place, and bisected by a smoothly-flowing brown river bordered with willows. The flat contained an Indian village.

“Here we are!” said Stonor, reining up.

“The unexplored river!” cried Clare. “How exciting! But how pretty and peaceful it looks, just like an ordinary river. I suppose it doesn’t realize it’s unexplored.”

On the other side there was a bold point with a picturesque clump of pines shading a number of the odd little gabled structures with which the Indians cover the graves of their dead. On the nearer side from off to left appeared a smaller stream which wound across the meadow and emptied into the Swan. At intervals during the day their trail had bordered this little river, which Clare had christened the Meander.

The tepees of the Indian village were strung along its banks, and the stream itself was filled with canoes. On a grassy mound to the right stood a little log shack which had a curiously impertinent look there in the midst of Nature untouched. On the other hand the tepees sprang from the ground as naturally as trees.

Their coming naturally had the effect of a thunderclap on the village. They had scarcely shown themselves from among the trees when their presence was discovered. A chorus of sharp cries was raised, and there was much aimless running about like ants when the hill is disturbed. The cries did not suggest a welcome, but excitement purely. Men, women, and children gathered in a dense little crowd beside the trail where they must pass. None wished to put themselves forward. Those who lived on the other side of the little stream paddled frantically across to be in time for a close view.

As they approached, absolute silence fell on the Indians, the silence of breathless excitement. The red-coat they had heard of, and in a general way they knew what he signified; but a white woman to them was as fabulous a creature as a mermaid or a hamadryad. Their eyes were saved for Clare. They fixed on her as hard, bright, and unwinking as jet buttons. They conveyed nothing but an animal curiosity. Clare nodded and smiled to them in her own way, but no muscle of any face relaxed.

“Their manners will bear improving,” muttered Stonor.

“Oh, give them a chance,” said Clare. “We’ve dropped on them out of a clear sky.”

Some of the tepees were still made of tanned skins decorated with rude pictures; they saw bows and arrows and bark-canoes, things which have almost passed from America. The dress of the inhabitants was less picturesque; some of the older men still wore their picturesque blanket capotes, but the younger were clad in machine-made shirts and pants from the store, and the women in cotton dresses. They were a pure race, and as such presented for the most part fine, characteristic faces; but in body they were undersized and weedy, showing that their stock was running out.

Stonor led the way across the flat and up a grassy rise to the little shack that has been mentioned. It had been built for the Company clerk who had formerly traded with the Kakisas, and Stonor designed it toaccommodate Clare for the night. They dismounted at the door. The Indians followed them to within a distance of ten paces, where they squatted on their heels or stood still, staring immovably. Stonor resented their curiosity. Good manners are much the same the world over, and a self-respecting people would not have acted so, he told himself. None offered to stir hand or foot to assist them to unpack.

Stonor somewhat haughtily desired the head man to show himself. When one stepped forward, he received him sitting in magisterial state on a box at the door. Personally the most modest of men, he felt for the moment that Authority had to be upheld in him. So the Indian was required to stand.

His name was Ahchoogah (as near as a white man could get it) and he was about forty years old. Though small and slight like all the Kakisas, he had a comely face that somehow suggested race. He was better dressed than the majority, in expensive “moleskin” trousers from the store, a clean blue gingham shirt, a gaudy red sash, and an antique gold-embroidered waistcoat that had originated Heaven knows where. On his feet were fine white moccasins lavishly embroidered in coloured silks.

“How,” he said, the one universal English word. He added a more elaborate greeting in his own tongue.

Mary translated. “Ahchoogah say he glad to see the red-coat, like he glad to see the river run again after the winter. Where the red-coats come there is peace and good feeling among all. No man does bad to another man. Ahchoogah hope the red-coat come often to Swan River.”

Stonor watched the man’s face while he was speaking, and apprehended hostility behind the smooth words. He was at a loss to account for it, for the police are accustomed to being well received. “There’s been some bad influence at work here,” he thought.

He said grimly to Mary: “Tell him that I hear his good words, but I do not see from the faces of his people that we are welcome here.”

This was repeated to Ahchoogah, who turned and objurgated his people with every appearance of anger.

“What’s he saying to them?” Stonor quietly asked Mary.

“Call bad names,” said Mary. “Swear Kakisa swears. Tell them go back to the tepees and not look like they never saw nothing before.”

And sure enough the surrounding circle broke up and slunk away.

Ahchoogah turned a bland face back to the policeman, and through Mary politely enquired what had brought him to Swan River.

“I will tell you,” said Stonor. “I come bearing a message from the mighty White Father across the great water to his Kakisa children. The White Father sends a greeting and desires to know if it is the wish of the Kakisas to take treaty like the Crees, the Beavers, and other peoples to the East. If it is so, I will send word, and my officers and the doctor will come next summer with the papers to be signed.”

Ahchoogah replied in diplomatic language that so far as his particular Kakisas were concerned they thought themselves better off as they were. They had plenty to eat most years, and they didn’t want to give up the right to come and go as they chose. No bad white men coveted their lands as yet, and they needed no protection from them. However, he would send messengers to his brothers up and down the river, and all would be guided by the wishes of the greatest number.

At the beginning of this talk Clare had gone inside to escape the piercing stares. While he talked, Ahchoogah was continually trying to peer around Stonor to get aglimpse of her. When the diplomatic formalities were over, he said (according to Mary):

“I not know you got white wife. Nobody tell me that. She is very pretty.”

“Tell him she is not my wife,” said Stonor, with a portentous scowl to hide his blushes. “Tell him—Oh, the devil! he wouldn’t understand. Tell him her name is Miss Clare Starling.”

“What she come for?” Ahchoogah coolly asked.

“Tell him she travels to please herself,” said Stonor, letting him make what he would of that.

“Ahchoogah say he want shake her by the hand.”

Stonor was in a quandary. The thought of the grimy hand touching Clare’s was detestable yet, if the request had been made in innocence it seemed churlish to object. Clare, who overheard, settled the question for him, by coming out and offering her hand to the Indian with a smile.

To Mary she said: “Tell him to tell the women of his people that the white woman wishes to be their sister.”

Ahchoogah stared at her with a queer mixture of feelings. He was much taken aback by her outspoken, unafraid air. He had expected to despise her, as he had been taught to despise all women, but somehow she struck respect into his soul. He resented it: he had taken pleasure in the prospect of despising something white.

Clare went back into the shack. Ahchoogah, with a shrug, dismissed her from his mind. He spoke again with his courteous air; meanwhile (or at any rate so Stonor thought) his black eyes glittered with hostility.

Mary translated: “Ahchoogah say all very glad you come. He say to-morrow night he going to give big tea-dance. He send for the Swan Lake people to come. A man will ride all night to bring them in time. He say it will be a big time.”

“Say we thank him for the big time just as if we had had it,” said Stonor, not to be outdone in politeness. “But we must go on down the river to-morrow morning.”

When this was translated to Ahchoogah, he lost his self-possession for a moment, and scowled blackly at Stonor. Quickly recovering himself, he began suavely to protest.

“Ahchoogah say the messenger of the Great White Father mustn’t go up and down the river to the Kakisas and ask like a poor man for them to take treaty. Let him stay here, and let the poor Kakisas come to him and make respect.”

“My instructions are to visit the people where they live,” said Stonor curtly. “I shall want the dug-out that the Company man left here last Spring.”

Ahchoogah scowled again. Mary translated: “Ahchoogah say, why you want heavy dug-out when he got plenty nice light bark-canoes.”

“I can’t use bark-canoes in the rapids.”

A startled look shot out of the Indian’s eyes. Mary translated: “What for you want go down rapids? No Kakisas live below the rapids.”

“I’m going to visit the white man at the Great Falls.”

When Ahchoogah got this he bent the look of a pure savage on Stonor, walled and inscrutable. He sullenly muttered something that Mary repeated as: “No can go.”

“Why not?”

“Nobody ever go down there.”

“Well, somebody’s got to be the first to go.”

“Rapids down there no boat can pass.”

“The white man came up to the Indians when they were sick last fall. If he can come up I can go down.”

“He got plenty strong medicine.”

Stonor laughed. “Well, I venture to say that my medicine is as strong as his—in the rapids.”

Ahchoogah raised a whole cloud of objections.“Plenty white-face bear down there. Big as a horse. Kill man while he sleeps. Wolf down there. Run in packs as many as all the Kakisas. Him starving this year.”

“Women’s talk!” said Stonor contemptuously.

“You get carry over those falls. Behind those falls is a great pile of white bones. It is the bones of all the men and beasts that were carried over in the past. Those falls have no voice to warn you above. The water slip over so smooth and soft you not know there is any falls till you go over.”

“Tell Ahchoogah he cannot scare white men with such tales. Tell him to bring me the dug-out to the river-shore below here.”

Ahchoogah muttered sulkily. Mary translated: “Ahchoogah say got no dug-out. Man take it up to Swan Lake.”

“Very well, then; I’ll take two bark-canoes and carry around the rapids.”

He still objected. “If you take our canoes, how we going to hunt and fish for our families?”

“You offered me the canoes!” cried Stonor wrathfully.

“I forget then that every man got only one canoe.”

Stonor stood up in his majesty; Ahchoogah was like a pigmy before him. “Tell him to go!” cried the policeman. “His mouth is full of lies and bad talk. Tell him to have the dug-out or the two canoes here by to-morrow morning or I’ll come and take them!”

The Indian now changed his tone, and endeavoured to soften the policeman’s anger, but Stonor turned on his heel and entered the shack. Ahchoogah went away down-hill with a crestfallen air.

“What do you make of it all?” Clare asked anxiously.

Stonor spoke lightly. “Well, it’s clear they don’t want us to go down the river, but what their reasons are I couldn’t pretend to say. They may have somesort of idea that for us to explode the mystery of the river and the white medicine man whom they regard as their own would be to lower their prestige as a tribe. It’s hard to say. It’s almost impossible to get at their real reasons, and when you do, they generally seem childish to us. I don’t think it’s anything we need bother our heads about.”

“I was watching him,” said Clare. “He didn’t seem to me like a bad man so much as like a child who’s got some wrong idea in his head.”

“That’s my idea too,” said Stonor. “One feels somehow that there’s been a bad influence at work lately. But what influence could reach away out here? It beats me! Their White Medicine Man ought to have done them good.”

“He couldn’t do them otherwise than good—so far as they would listen to him,” she said quickly.

They hastily steered away from this uncomfortable subject.

“Maybe Mary can help us,” said Stonor. “Mary, go among your people and talk to them. Give them good talk. Let them understand that we have no object but to be their friends. If there is a good reason why we shouldn’t go down the river let them speak it plainly. But this talk of danger and magic simply makes white men laugh.”

Mary dutifully took her way down to the tepees. She returned in time to get supper—but threw no further light on the mystery.

“What about it, Mary?” asked Stonor.

“Don’t go down the river,” she said earnestly. “Plenty bad trip, I think. I ’fraid for her. She can’t paddle a canoe in the rapids nor track up-stream. What if we capsize and lose our grub? Don’t go!”

“Didn’t the Kakisas give you any better reasons than that?”

Mary was doggedly silent.

“Ah, have they won you away from us too?”

This touched the red woman. Her face worked painfully. She did her best to explain. “Kakisas my people,” she said. “Maybe you think they foolish people. All right. Maybe they are not a wise and strong people like the old days. But they my people just the same. I can’t tell white men their things.”

“She’s right,” put in Clare quickly. “Don’t ask her any more.”

“Well, what do you think?” he asked. “Do you not wish to go any further?”

“Yes! Yes!” she cried. “I must go on!”

“Very good,” he said grimly. “We’ll start to-morrow.”

“I not go,” said Mary stolidly. “My people mad at me if I go.”

Here was a difficulty! Stonor and Clare looked at each other blankly.

“What the devil——!” began the policeman.

“Hush! leave her to me,” said Clare, urging him out of the shack.

By and by she rejoined him outside. “She’ll come,” she said briefly.

“What magic did you use?”

“No magic. Just woman talk.”

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