Next morning they saw the dug-out pulled up on the shore below their camp.
“The difference between a red man and a white man,” said Stonor grimly, “is that a red man doesn’t mind being caught in a lie after the occasion for it has passed, but a white man will spend half the rest of his life trying to justify himself.”
He regarded the craft dubiously. It was an antique affair, grey as an old badger, warped and seamed by the sun and rotten in the bottom. But it had a thin skin of sound wood on the outside, and on the whole it seemed better suited to their purpose than the bark-canoes used by the Kakisas.
As they carried their goods down and made ready to start the Indians gathered around and watched with glum faces. None offered to help. It must have been a trying situation for Mary Moosa. When Stonor was out of hearing they did not spare her. She bore it with her customary stoicism. Ahchoogah, less honest than the rank and file, sought to commend himself to the policeman by a pretence of friendliness. Stonor, beyond telling him that he would hold him responsible for the safety of the horses during his absence, ignored him.
Having stowed their outfit, they gingerly got in. Their boat, though over twenty feet long, was only about fifteen inches beam, and of the log out of which she had been fashioned she still retained the tendencyto roll over. Mary took the bow paddle, and Stonor the stern; Clare sat amidships facing the policeman.
“If we can only keep on top until we get around the first bend we’ll save our dignity, anyhow,” said Stonor.
They pushed off without farewells. When they rounded the first point of willows and passed out of sight of the crowd of lowering, dark faces, they felt relieved. Stonor was able to drop the port of august policeman.
Said he: “I’m going to call this craft the Serpent. She’s got a fair twist on her. Her head is pointed to port and her tail to starboard. It takes a mathematical deduction to figure out which way she’s going.”
Clare was less ready than usual to answer his jokes. She was pale, and there was a hint of strain in her eyes.
“You’re not bothered about Ahchoogah’s imaginary terrors, are you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not that.”
He wondered what it was then, but did not like to ask directly. It suddenly struck him that she had been steadily losing tone since the first day on the trail.
Her next words showed the direction her thoughts were taking. “You said it was two hundred miles down the river. How long do you think it will take us to make it?”
“Three days and a bit, if my guess as to the distance is right. We have the current to help us, and now we don’t have to stop for the horses to graze.”
“They will be hard days to put in,” she said simply.
Stonor pondered for a long time on what she meant by this. Was she so consumed by impatience to arrive that the dragging hours were a torture to her? or was it simply the uncertainty of what awaited her, and a longing to have it over with? That she had been eager for the journey was clear, but it had not seemedlike a joyful eagerness. He was aware that there was something here he did not understand. Women had unfathomable souls anyway.
As far as he was concerned he frankly dreaded the outcome of the journey. How was he to bear himself at the meeting of this divided couple? He could not avoid being a witness of it. He must hand her over with a smile, he supposed, and make a graceful get-away. But suppose he were prevented from leaving immediately. Or suppose, as was quite likely, that they wished to return with him! He ground his teeth at the thought of such an ordeal. Would he be able to carry it off? He must!
“What’s the matter?” Clare asked suddenly. She had been studying his face.
“Why did you ask?”
“You looked as if you had a sudden pain.”
“I had,” he said, with a rueful smile. “My knees. It’s so long since I paddled that they’re not limbered up yet.”
She appeared not altogether satisfied with this explanation.
This part of the river showed a succession of long smooth reaches with low banks of a uniform height bordered with picturesque ragged jack-pines, tall, thin, and sharply pointed. Here and there, where the composition seemed to require it, a perfect island was planted in the brown flood. At the foot of the pines along the edge of each bank grew rows of berry bushes as regularly as if set out by a gardener. Already the water was receding as a result of the summer drouth, but, as fast as it fell, the muddy beach left at the foot of each bank was mantled with the tender green of goose-grass, a diminutive cousin of the tropical bamboo. Mile after mile the character of the stream showed no variance. It was like a noble corridor through the pines.
At intervals during the day they met a few Kakisas, singly or in pairs, in their beautifully-made little birch-bark canoes. These individuals, when they came upon them suddenly, almost capsized in their astonishment at beholding pale-faces on their river. No doubt, in the tepees behind the willows, the coming of the whites had long been foretold as a portent of dreadful things.
They displayed their feelings according to their various natures. The first they met, a solitary youth, was frankly terrified. He hastened ashore, the water fairly cascading from his paddle, and, squatting behind the bushes, peered through at them like an animal. The next pair stood their ground, clinging to an overhanging willow—too startled to escape perhaps—where they stared with goggling eyes, and visibly trembled. It gave Stonor and Clare a queer sense of power thus to have their mere appearance create so great an excitement. Nothing could be got out of these two; they would not even answer questions from Mary in their own tongue.
The fourth Kakisa, however, an incredibly ragged and dirty old man with a dingy cotton fillet around his snaky locks, hailed them with wild shouts of laughter, paddled to meet them, and clung to the dug-out, fondly stroking Stonor’s sleeve. The sight of Clare caused him to go off into fresh shrieks of good-natured merriment. His name, he informed them, was Lookoovar, or so they understood it. He had a stomach-ache, he said, and wished for some of the white man’s wonderful stomach-warming medicine of which he had heard.
“It seems that our principal claim to fame up here is whisky,” said Stonor.
He gave the old man a pill. Lookoovar swallowed it eagerly, but looked disappointed at the absence of immediate results.
All these men were hunting their dinners. Close tothe shore they paddled softly against the current, or drifted silently down, searching the bushes with their keen flat eyes for the least stir. Since everything had to come down to the river sooner or later to drink, they could have had no better point of vantage. Every man had a gun in his canoe, but ammunition is expensive on the Swan River, and for small fry, musk-rat, duck, fool-hen, or rabbit, they still used the prehistoric bow and arrow.
“The Swan River is like the Kakisas’ Main Street,” said Stonor. “All day they mosey up and down looking in the shop-windows for bargains in feathers and furs.”
They camped for the night on a cleared point occupied by the bare poles of several tepees. The Indians left these poles standing at all the best sites along the river, ready to use the next time they should spell that way. They frequently left their caches too, that is to say, spare gear, food and what-not, trustfully hanging from near-by branches in birch-bark containers. The Kakisas even tote water in bark pails.
Next day the character of the river changed. It now eddied around innumerable short bends right and left with an invariable regularity, each bend so like the last they lost all track of the distance they had come. Its course was as regularly crooked as a crimping-iron. On each bend it ate under the bank on the outside, and deposited a bar on the inside. On one side the pines toppled into the water as their footing was undermined, while poplars sprang up on the other side in the newly-made ground.
On the afternoon of this day they suddenly came upon the village of which they had been told. It fronted on a little lagoon behind one of the sand-bars. This was the village where Imbrie was said to have cured the Kakisas of measles. At present most of the inhabitants were pitching off up and down the river, and there wereonly half a dozen covered tepees in sight, but the bare poles of many others showed the normal extent of the village.
The usual furore of excitement was caused by their unheralded appearance around the bend. For a moment the Indians completely lost their heads, and there was a mad scurry for the tepees. Some mothers dragged their screaming offspring into the bush for better shelter. Only one or two of the bravest among the men dared show themselves. But with true savage volatility they recovered from their panic as suddenly as they had been seized. One by one they stole to the edge of the bank, where they stood staring down at the travellers, with their shoe-button eyes empty of all human expression.
Stonor had no intention of landing here. He waited with the nose of the Serpent resting in the mud until the excitement died down. Then, through Mary, he requested speech with the head man.
A bent old man tottered down the bank with the aid of a staff. He wore a dirty blanket capote—and a bicycle cap! He faced them, his head wagging with incipient palsy, and his dim eyes looking out bleared, indifferent, and jaded. Sparse grey hairs decorated his chin. It was a picture of age without reverence.
“How dreadful to grow old in a tepee!” murmured Clare.
The old man was accompanied by a comely youth with bold eyes, his grandson, according to Mary. The elder’s name was Ahcunazie, the boy’s Ahteeah.
Stonor, in the name of the Great White Father, harangued the chief in a style similar to that he had used with Ahchoogah. Ahcunazie appeared dazed and incapable of replying, so Stonor said:
“Talk with your people and find out what all desire. I will return in a week for your answer.”
When this was translated the young man spoke upsharply. Mary said: “Ahteeah say, What for you want go down the river?”
Stonor said: “To see the white man,” and watched close to see how they would take it.
The scene in the other village was almost exactly repeated. Ahteeah brought up all the reasons he could think of that would be likely to dissuade Stonor. Other men, hearing what was going forward, came down to support the boy. Stonor’s boat was rotten, they pointed out, and the waves in the rapids ran as high as a man. With vivid gestures they illustrated what would happen to the dug-out in the rapids. If he escaped the rapids he would surely be carried over the Falls; and if he wasn’t, how did he expect to get back up the rapids? And so on.
Old Ahcunazie stood through it all uncomprehending and indifferent. He was too old even to betray any interest in the phenomenon of the white woman.
One thing new the whites marked: “White Medicine Man don’ like white men. He say if white men come he goin’ away.” This suggested a possible reason for the Indian’s opposition.
Stonor still remaining unmoved, Ahteeah brought out as a clincher: “White Medicine Man not home now.”
Stonor and Clare looked at each other startled. This would be a calamity after having travelled all that way. “Where is he?” Stonor demanded.
The young Indian, delighted at his apparent success, answered glibly: “He say he goin’ down to Great Buffalo Lake this summer.”
An instant’s reflection satisfied Stonor that if this were true it would have been brought out first instead of last. “Oh, well, since we’ve come as far as this we’ll go the rest of the way to make sure,” he said calmly.
Ahteeah looked disappointed. They pushed off. The Indians watched them go in sullen silence.
“Certainly we are not popular in this neighbourhood,” said Stonor lightly. “One can’t get rid of the feeling that their minds have been poisoned against us. Mary, can’t you tell me why they give me such black looks?”
She shook her head. “I think there is something,” she said. “But they not tell me because I with you.”
“Maybe it has something to do with me?” said Clare.
“How could that be? They never heard of you.”
“I think it is Stonor,” said Mary.
Clare was harder to rouse out of herself to-day. Stonor did his best not to show that he perceived anything amiss, and strove to cheer her with chaff and foolishness—likewise to keep his own heart up, but not altogether with success.
On one occasion Clare sought to reassure him by saying,à proposof nothing that had gone before: “The worst of having an imagination is, that when you have anything to go through with, it keeps presenting the most horrible alternatives in advance until you are almost incapable of facing the thing. And after all it is never so bad as your imagination pictures.”
“I understand that,” said Stonor, “though I don’t suppose anybody would accuse me of being imaginative.”
“‘Something to go through with!’” he thought. “‘Horrible alternatives!’ ‘Never so bad as your imagination pictures!’ What strange phrases for a woman to use who is going to rejoin her husband!”
When they embarked after the second spell Clare asked if she might sit facing forward in the dug-out, so she could see better where they were going. But Stonor guessed this was merely an excuse to escape from having his solicitous eyes on her face.
Next morning they overtook the last Kakisa that they were to see on the way down. He was driftingalong close to the shore, and behind him in his canoe sat his little boy as still as a mouse, receiving his education in hunter’s lore. This man was a more intelligent specimen than they had met hitherto. He was a comely little fellow with an extraordinary head of hair cutà laBuster Brown, and his name, he said, was Etzooah. Stonor remembered having heard of him and his hair as far away as Fort Enterprise. His manners were good. While naturally astonished at their appearance, he did not on that account lose his self-possession. They conversed politely while drifting down side by side.
Etzooah, in sharp contrast to all the other Kakisas, appeared to see nothing out of the way in their wish to visit the White Medicine Man, nor did he try to dissuade them.
“How far is it to the Great Falls?” asked Stonor.
“One sleep.”
“Are the rapids too bad for a boat?”
“Rapids bad, but not too bad. I go down in my bark-canoe, I guess you go all right in dug-out. Long tam ago my fat’er tell me all the Kakisa people go to the Big Falls ev’ry year at the time when the berries ripe. By the Big Falls they meet the people from Great Buffalo Lake and make big talk there and make dance to do honour to the Old Man under the falls. And this people trade leather for fur with the people from Great Buffalo Lake. But now this people is scare to go there. But I am not scare. I go there. Three times I go there. Each time I leave a little present of tobacco for the Old Man so he know my heart is good towards him. I guess Old Man like a brave man better than a woman. No harm come to me since I go. My wife, my children got plenty to eat; I catch good fur. Bam-bye I take my boy there too. Some men say I crazy for that, but I say no. It is a fine sight. It make a man’s heart big to see that sight.”
This was a man after Stonor’s own heart. “Tell him those are good words,” he said heartily.
When they asked him about the White Man who lived beside the falls, Etzooah’s eyes sparkled. “He say he my friend, and I proud. Since he say that I think more of myself. I walk straight. I am not afraid. He is good. He make the sick well. He give the people good talk. He tell how to live clean and all, so there is no more sickness. He moch like children. He good to my boy. Give him little face that say ‘Ticky-ticky’ and follow the sun.”
Etzooah issued a command to his small son, and the boy shyly exhibited a large cheap nickel watch.
“No other Kakisa man or boy got that,” said the parent proudly.
“Is it true that this white man hates other white men?” asked Stonor.
Etzooah made an emphatic negative. “He got no hate. He say red man white man all the same man.”
“Then he’ll be glad to see us?”
“I think he glad. Got good heart to all.”
“Is he at home now?”
“He is at home. I see him go down the river three sleeps ago.”
Those in the dug-out exchanged looks of astonishment. “Ask him if he is sure?” said Stonor.
Etzooah persisted in his statement. “I not speak him for cause I hiding in bush watchin’ bear. And he is across the river. But I see good. See white face. I know him because he not paddle like Kakisa one side other side; him paddle all time same side and turn the paddle so to make go straight.”
“Where had he been?”
“Up to Horse Track, I guess.”
Horse Track, of course, was the trail from the river to Fort Enterprise. The village at the end of the trail received the same designation. If the tale of thisvisit was true it might have something to do with the hostility they had met with above.
“But we have just come from the Horse Track,” said Stonor, to feel the man out. “Nobody told us he had been there.”
Etzooah shrugged. “Maybe they scare. Not know what to say to white man.”
But Stonor thought, if anything, they had known too well what to say. “How long had he been up there?” he asked.
“I not know. I not know him gone up river till see him come back.”
“Maybe he only went a little way up.”
Etzooah shook his head vigorously. “His canoe was loaded heavy.”
Etzooah accompanied them to the point where the current began to increase its pace preparatory to the first rapid.
“This the end my hunting-ground,” he said. “Too much work to come back up the rapids.” He saluted them courteously, and caused the little boy to do likewise. His parting remark was: “Tell the White Medicine Man Etzooah never forget he call him friend.”
“Well, we’ve found one gentleman among the Kakisas,” Stonor said to Clare, as they paddled on.
The first rapid was no great affair. There was plenty of water, and they were carried racing smoothly down between low rocky banks. Stonor named the place the Grumbler from the deep throaty sound it gave forth.
In quiet water below they discussed what they had heard.
“It gets thicker and thicker,” said Stonor. “It seems to me that Imbrie’s having been at the Horse Track lately must have had something to do with the chilly reception we received.”
“Why should it?” said Clare. “He has nothing to fear from the coming of anybody.”
“Then why did they say nothing about his visit?”
She shook her head. “You know I cannot fathom these people.”
“Neither can I, for that matter. But it does seem as if he must have told them not to tell anybody they had seen him.”
“It is not like him.”
“Ahteeah said Imbrie hated white men; Etzooah said his heart was kind to all men: which is the truer description?”
“Etzooah’s,” she said instantly. “He has a simple, kind heart. He lives up to the rule ‘Love thy neighbour’ better than any man I ever knew.”
“Well, we’ll know to-morrow,” said Stonor, making haste to drop the disconcerting subject. Privately he asked himself: “Why, if Imbrie is such a good man, does she seem to dread meeting him?” There was no answer forthcoming.
The rapids became progressively wilder and rougher as they went on down, and Stonor was not without anxiety as to the coming back. Sometimes they came on white water unexpectedly around a bend, but the river was not so crooked now, and more often far ahead they saw the white rabbits dancing in the sunshine, causing their breasts to constrict with a foretaste of fear. As the current bore them inexorably closer, and they picked out the rocks and the great white combers awaiting them, there was always a moment when they longed to turn aside from their fate. But once having plunged into the welter, fear vanished, and a great exhilaration took its place. They shouted madly to each other—even stolid Mary, and were sorry when they came to the bottom. Between rapids the smooth stretches seemed insufferably tedious to pass.
Stonor’s endeavour was to steer a middle course between the great billows in the middle of the channel, which he feared might swamp the Serpent or break her in half, and the rocks at each side which would have smashed her to pieces. Luckily he had had a couple of days in which to learn the vagaries of his craft. In descending a swift current one has to bear in mind that any boat begins to answer her helm some yards ahead of the spot where the impulse is applied.
As the day wore on he bethought himself that “one sleep” was an elastic term of distance, and in order to avoid the possibility of being carried over the falls he adopted the rule of landing at the head of each rapid, and walking down the shore to pick his channel, and to make sure that there was smooth water below. They had been told that there was no rapid immediately above the falls, that the water slipped over without giving warning, but Stonor dismissed this into the limbo of red-skin romancing. He did not believe it possible for a river to go over a fall without some preliminary disturbance.
As it happened, dusk descended on them in the middle of a smooth reach, and they made camp for the last time on the descent, pitching the three tents under the pines in the form of a little square open on the river side. Clare was very silent during the meal, and Stonor’s gaiety sounded hollow in his own ears. They turned in immediately after eating.
Stonor awoke in the middle of the night without being able to tell what had awakened him. He had a sense that something was wrong. It was a breathless cool night. Under the pines it was very dark, but outside of their shadow the river gleamed wanly. Such sounds as he heard, the murmur of a far-off rapid, and a whisper in the topmost boughs of the pines, conveyed a suggestion of empty immeasurable distances. The fire had burned down to its last embers.
Suddenly he became aware of what was the matter; Clare was weeping. It was the merest hint of a sound, softer than falling leaves, just a catch of the breath that escaped her now and then. Stonor lay listening with bated breath, as if terrified of losing that which tore his heartstrings to hear. He was afflicted with a ghastly sense of impotence. He had no right to intrude on her grief. Yet how could he lie supine when she was in trouble, and make believe not to hear? He could not lie still. He got up, taking no care to be quiet, and built up the fire. She could not know, of course, that he had heard that broken breath. Perhaps she would speak to him. Or, if she could not speak, perhaps she would take comfort from the mere fact of his waking presence outside.
He heard no further sound from her tent.
After a while, because it was impossible for him not to say it, he softly asked: “Are you asleep?”
There was no answer.
He sat down by the fire listening and brooding—humming a little tune meanwhile to assure her of the blitheness of his spirits.
By and by a small voice issued from under her tent: “Please go back to bed,”—and he knew at once that she saw through his poor shift to deceive her.
“Honest, I don’t feel like sleeping,” he said cheerfully.
“Did I wake you?”
“No,” he lied. “Were you up?”
“You were worrying about me,” she said.
“Nothing to speak of. I thought perhaps the silence and the solitude had got on your nerves a little. It’s that kind of a night.”
“I don’t mind it,” she said; “with you near—and Mary,” she quickly added. “Please go back to bed.”
He crept to her tent. It was purely an involuntary act. He was on his knees, but he did not think of that.“Ah, Clare, if I could only take your trouble from you!” he murmured.
“Hush!” she whispered. “Put me and my troubles out of your head. It is nothing. It is like the rapids; one loses one’s nerve when they loom up ahead. I shall be all right when I am in them.”
“Clare, let me sit here on the ground beside you—not touching you.”
“No—please! Go back to your tent. It will be easier for me.”
In the morning they arose heavily, and set about the business of breakfasting and breaking camp with little speech. Indeed, there was nothing to say. Neither Stonor nor Clare could make believe now to be otherwise than full of dread of what the day had in store. Embarking, Clare took a paddle too, and all three laboured doggedly, careless alike of rough water and smooth.
In the middle of the day they heard, for some minutes before the place itself hove in view, the roar of a rapid greater than any they had passed.
“This will be something!” said Stonor.
But as they swept around the bend above they never saw the rapid, for among the trees on the bank at the beginning of the swift water there stood a little new log shack. That sight struck them like a blow. There was no one visible outside the shack, but the door stood open.
It struck them as odd that no one appeared out of the shack. For a man living beside a river generally has his eye unconsciously on the stream, just as a man who dwells by a lonely road lets few pass by unseen. Stonor sent him a hail, as is the custom of the country—but no surprised glad face showed itself.
“He is away,” said Stonor, merely to break the racking silence between him and Clare.
“Would he leave the door open?” she said.
They landed. On the beach lay two birch-bark canoes, Kakisa-made. One had freshly-cut willow-branches lying in the bottom. Stonor happened to notice that the bow-thwart of this canoe was notched in a peculiar way. He was to remember it later. Ordinarily the Kakisa canoes are as like as peas out of the same pod.
From the beach the shack was invisible by reason of the low bank between. Stonor accompanied Clare half-way up the bank. “Mary and I will wait here,” he said.
She looked at him deeply without speaking. It had the effect of a farewell. Stonor saw that she was breathing fast, and that her lips were continually closing and parting again. Leaving him, she walked slowly and stiffly to the door of the shack. Her little hands were clenched. He waited, suffering torments of anxiety for her.
She knocked on the door-frame, and waited. Shepushed the door further open, and looked in. She went in, and was gone for a few seconds. Reappearing, she shook her head at Stonor. He went up and joined her. Mary, who, in spite of her stolidity, was as inquisitive as the next woman, followed him without being bid.
They all entered the shack. Stonor sniffed.
“What is that smell?” asked Clare. “I noticed it at once.”
“Kinni-kinnick.”
She looked at him enquiringly.
“Native substitute for tobacco. It’s made from the inner bark of the red willow. He must have run out of white man’s tobacco.”
She pointed to a can standing on the table. Stonor, lifting it, found it nearly full.
“Funny he should smoke kinni-kinnick when he has Kemble’s mixture. He must be saving that for a last resort.”
Stonor looked around him with a strong curiosity. The room had a grace that was astonishing to find in that far-removed spot; moreover, everything had been contrived out of the rough materials at hand. Two superb black bear-skins lay on the floor. The bed which stood against the back wall was hidden under a beautiful robe made out of scores of little skins cunningly sewed together, lynx-paws with a border of marten. There were two workmanlike chairs fashioned out of willow; one with a straight back at the desk, the other, comfortable and capacious, before the fire. The principal piece of furniture was a birch desk or table, put together with infinite patience with no other tools but an axe and a knife, and rubbed with oil to a satiny finish. On it stood a pair of carved wooden candlesticks holding candles of bears’ tallow, a wooden inkwell, and a carved frame displaying a little photograph—of Clare!
Seeing it, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m glad I came,” she murmured.
Stonor turned away.
A pen lay on the desk where it had been dropped, and beside it was a red leather note-book or diary, of which Clare possessed herself. More than anything else, what lent the room its air of amenity was a little shelf of books and magazines above the table. There was no glass in the window, of course, but a piece of gauze had been stretched over the opening to keep out the insects at night. For cold weather there was a heavy shutter swung on wooden hinges. The fireplace, built of stones and clay, was in the corner. The arch was cunningly contrived out of thin slabs of stone standing on edge. Stonor immediately noticed that the ashes were still giving out heat.
The room they were in comprised only half the shack. There was a door communicating with the other half. Opening it, they saw that this part evidently served the owner as a work-room andstore-room. Cut wood was neatly piled against one wall.Snowshoes, roughly-fashioned fur garments, steel traps and other winter gear were hanging from pegs. There was a window facing the river, this one uncovered, and under it was a work-bench on which lay the remains of a meal and unwashed dishes—humble testimony to the near presence of another fellow-creature in the wilderness. On the floor at one side was a heap of supplies; that is to say, store-grub; evidently what Imbrie had lately brought down, and had not yet put away. There was a door in the back wall of this room, the side of the shack away from the river.
Stonor, looking around, said: “I suppose he used this as a sort of vestibule in the winter, to keep the wind and the snow out of his living-room.”
“Where can he be?” said Clare nervously.
They both spoke instinctively in subdued tones, like intruders fearful of being overheard.
“He can’t have been gone long. He was smoking here just now. The fireplace is still warm.”
“He can’t have intended to stay long, for he left everything open.”
“Well, he would hardly expect to be disturbed up here.”
“But animals?”
“No wild thing would venture close to the fresh man smell. Still, it’s natural to close up when you go away.”
“What do you think?” she asked tremulously.
The sight of her wide, strained eyes, and the little teeth pressed into her lower lip, were inexpressibly painful to him. Clearly it was too much to ask of the high-strung woman, after she had nerved herself up to the ordeal, to go on waiting indefinitely in suspense.
“There are dozens of natural explanations,” he said quickly. “Very likely he’s just gone into the bush to hunt for his dinner.”
Her hand involuntarily went to her breast. “I feel,” she whispered, “as if there were something dreadfully—dreadfully wrong.”
Stonor went outside and lustily holloaed. He received no answer.
It was impossible for them to sit still while they waited. Having seen everything in the house, they walked about outside. Off to the left Imbrie had painstakingly cleared a little garden. Strange it was to see the familiar potato, onion, turnip and cabbage sprouting in orderly rows beside the unexplored river.
Time passed. From a sense of duty they prepared a meal on the shore, and made a pretence of eating it, each for the other’s benefit. Stonor did his best to keep up Clare’s spirits, while at the same time his own mystification was growing. For in circlingthe shack he could find no fresh track anywhere into the bush. Tracks there were in plenty, where the man had gone for wood, or to hunt perhaps, but all more than twenty-four hours old. To be sure, there was the river, but it was not likely he had still a third canoe: and if he had gone up the river, how could they have missed him? As for going down, no canoe could live in that rapid, Stonor was sure; moreover, he supposed the falls were at the foot of it.
Another thing; both his shot-gun and his rifle were leaning against the fireplace. He might have another gun, but it was not likely. As the hours passed, and the man neither returned nor answered Stonor’s frequent shouts, the policeman began to wonder if an accident could have occurred to him. But he had certainly been alive and well within a half-hour of their arrival, and it seemed too fortuitous a circumstance that anything should have happened just at that juncture. A more probable explanation was that the man had seen them coming, and had reasons of his own for wishing to keep out of the way. After all, Stonor had no precise knowledge of the situation existing between Imbrie and Clare. But if he had hidden himself, where had he hidden himself?
While it was still full day Stonor persuaded Clare and Mary to remain in the shack for a time, while he made a more careful search for Imbrie’s tracks. This time he thoroughly satisfied himself that that day no one had struck into the bush surrounding the shack. He came upon the end of the old carry trail around the falls, and followed it away. But it would have been clear to even a tyro in the bush that no one had used it lately. There remained the beach. It was possible to walk along the stony beach without leaving a visible track. Stonor searched the beach for half a mile in either direction without being able to find a single track in any wet or muddy place, and without discovering anyplace where one had struck up the bank into the bush. On the down-river side he was halted by a low, sheer wall of rock washed by the current. He made sure that no one had tried to climb around this miniature precipice. From this point the rapids still swept on down out of sight.
He returned to the shack completely baffled, and hoping against hope to find Imbrie returned. But Clare still sat huddled in the chair where he had left her, and looked to him eagerly for news. He could only shake his head.
Finally the sun went down.
“If he is not here by dark,” said Clare with a kind of desperate calmness, “we will know something is the matter. His hat, his ammunition-belt, his hunting-knife are all here. He could not have intended to remain away.”
Darkness slowly gathered. Nothing happened. At intervals Stonor shouted—only to be mocked by the silence. Just to be doing something he built a great fire outside the shack. If Imbrie should be on the way back it would at least warn him of the presence of visitors.
Stonor was suddenly struck by the fact that Mary had not expressed herself as to the situation. It was impossible to tell from the smooth copper mask of her face of what she was thinking.
“Mary, what do you make of it?” he asked.
She shrugged, declining to commit herself. “All the people say Eembrie got ver’ strong medicine,” she said. “Say he make himself look like anything he want.”
Stonor and Clare exchanged a rueful smile. “I’m afraid that doesn’t help much,” said the former.
Mosquitoes drove them indoors. Stonor closed the door of the shack, and built up the fire in the fireplace. Stonor no longer expected the man to return,but Clare was still tremulously on thequi vivefor the slightest sound. Mary went off to bed in the store-room. The others remained sitting before the fire in Imbrie’s two chairs. For them sleep was out of the question. Each had privately determined to sit up all night.
For a long time they remained there without speaking.
Stonor had said nothing to Clare about the conclusions he had arrived at concerning Imbrie, but she gathered from his attitude that he was passing judgment against the man they had come in search of, and she said at last:
“Did you notice that little book that I picked up off the desk?”
Stonor nodded.
“It was his diary. Shall I read you from it?”
“If you think it is right.”
“Yes. Just an extract or two. To show you the kind of man he is.”
The book was in the side pocket of her coat. Opening it, and leaning forward to get the light of the fire, she read:
“April 29th: The ice is preparing to go out. Great booming cracks have been issuing from the river all day at intervals. When the jam at the head of the rapids goes it will be a great sight. To-morrow I’ll take a bite to eat with me, and go down to the falls to watch what happens. Thank God for the coming of Spring! I’m pretty nearly at the end of my resources. I’ve read and re-read my few books and papers until I can almost repeat the contents by heart. I’ve finished my desk, and the candlesticks, and the frame for Clare’s picture. But now I’ll be able to make my garden. And I can sod a little lawn in front of the house with buffalo-grass.”
Clare looked at Stonor for an expression of opinion.
The policeman murmured diffidently: “A real good sort.”
“Wait!” she said. “Listen to this. One of the first entries.” She read in a moved voice:
“They say that a man who lives cut off from his kind is bound to degenerate swiftly, but, by God! I won’t have it so in my case. I’ll be on my guard against the first symptoms. I shave every day and will continue to do so. Shaving is a symbol. I will keep my person and my house as trim as if I expected her to visit me hourly. Half of each day I’ll spend in useful manual labour of some kind, and half in reading and contemplation. The power is mine to build or destroy myself with my thoughts. Well, I choose to build!”
Clare looked at Stonor again.
“That is fine!” he said simply.
“So you see—why I had to come,” she murmured.
He did not see why the one followed necessarily on the other, nor did he understand why she felt impelled to explain it just then. But it seemed better to hold his peace. This revealing of Imbrie’s worthy nature greatly perplexed Stonor. It had been so easy to believe that the two must have been parted as a result of something evil in Imbrie. He could not believe that it had been Clare’s fault, however she might accuse herself. He was not yet experienced enough to conceive of a situation where two honest souls might come to a parting of the ways without either being especially to blame.
For another long period they sat in silence. The influence of the night made itself felt even through the log walls of the shack. They were aware of solitude as of a physical presence. The fire had burned down to still embers, and down the chimney floated the inexpressibly mournful breath of the pines. The rapids made a hoarser note beyond. Clare shivered, andleaned closer over the fire. Stonor made a move to put on more wood, but she stopped him.
“Don’t!” she said, with queer inconsistency. “It makes too much noise.”
Suddenly the awful stillness was broken by a heavy thudding sound on the ground outside. A gasping cry was forced from Clare. Stonor sprang up, knocking over his chair, and made for the door. Getting it opened, he ran outside. Off to his right he saw, or thought he saw, a suspicious shadow, and he instantly made for it. Whereupon a sudden crashing into the underbrush persuaded him it was no apparition.
Clare’s voice, sharp with terror, arrested him. “Martin, don’t leave me!”
He went back to her, suddenly realizing that to chase an unknown thing bare-handed through the bush at night was scarcely the part of prudence. He got his gun, and flung himself down across the sill of the open door, looking out. Nothing further was to be seen or heard. Beyond the little clearing the river gleamed in the faint dusk. The canoes on the beach were invisible from the door, being under the bank.
“What do you think it was?” whispered Clare.
“Something fell or jumped out of that big spruce nearest the back of the house.” To himself he added: “A natural place to hide. What a fool I was not to think of that before!”
“But what?” said Clare.
Stonor said grimly: “There are only two tree-climbing animals in this country heavy enough to make the sound we heard—bears and men.”
“A bear?”
“Maybe. But I never heard of a bear climbing a tree beside a house, and at night, too. Don’t know what he went up for.”
“Oh, it couldn’t be——” Clare began. She never finished.
Stonor kept his vigil at the open door. He bade Clare throw ashes on the embers, that no light from behind might show him up. When she had done it she crept across the floor and sat close beside him. Mary, apparently, had not been awakened.
Minutes passed, and they heard no sounds except the rapids and the pines. Clare was perfectly quiet, and Stonor could not tell how she was bearing the strain. He bethought himself that he had perhaps spoken his mind too clearly. To reassure her he said:
“It must have been a bear.”
“You do not think so really,” she said. A despairing little wail escaped her. “I don’t understand! Oh, I don’t understand! Why should he hide from us?”
Stonor could find little of comfort to say. “Morning will make everything clear, I expect. We shall be laughing at our fears then.”
The minutes grew into hours, and they remained in the same positions. Nature is merciful to humans, and little by little the strain was eased. The sharpness of their anxiety was dulled. They were conscious only of a dogged longing for the dawn. At intervals Stonor suggested to Clare that she go lie down on the bed, but when she begged to remain beside him, he had not the heart to insist. In all that time they heard nothing beyond the natural sounds of the night; the stirrings of little furry footfalls among the leaves; the distant bark of a fox.
And then without the slightest warning the night was shattered by a blood-curdling shriek of terror from Mary Moosa in the room adjoining. Stonor’s first thought was for the effect on Clare’s nerves. He jumped up, savagely cursing the Indian woman. He ran to the communicating door. Clare was close at his heels.
Mary was lying on the floor, covering her head withher arms, moaning in an extremity of terror, and gibbering in her own tongue. For a while she could not tell them what was the matter. Stonor thought she was dreaming. Then she began to cry in English: “Door! Door!” and to point to it. Stonor made for the door, but Clare with a cry clung to him, and Mary herself, scrambling on all fours, clutched him around the knees. Stonor felt exquisitely foolish.
“Well, let me secure it,” he said gruffly.
This door was fitted with a bar, which he swung into place. At the window across the room, he swung the shutter in, and fastened that also.
“You see,” he said. “No one can get in here now.”
They took the shaking Mary into the next room. To give them a better sense of security, Stonor tore the cotton out of the window and fastened this shutter also. There was no bar on this door. He preferred to leave it open, and to mount guard in the doorway.
Gradually Mary calmed down sufficiently to tell them what had happened. “Little noise wake me. I not know what it is. I listen. Hear it again. Come from door. I watch. Bam-bye I see the door open so slow, so slow. I so scare can’t cry. My tongue is froze. I see a hand pushin’ the door. I see a head stick in and listen. Then I get my tongue again. I cry out. Door close. I hear somebody runnin’ outside.”
Stonor and Clare looked at each other. “Not much doubt about the kind of animal now,” said the former deprecatingly.
Clare spread out her hands. “He must be mad,” she whispered.
Mary and Clare clung to each other like sisters. Stonor remained at the door watching the clear space between the shack and the river. Nothing stirred there. Stonor heard no more untoward sounds.
Fortunately for the nerves of the women the nights were short. While they watched and prayed for the dawn, and told themselves it would never come, it was suddenly there. It came, and they could not see it come. The light stole between the trees; the leaves dressed themselves with colour. A little breeze came from the river, and seemed to blow the last of the murk away. By half-past three it was full day.
“I must go out and look around,” said Stonor.
Clare implored him not to leave them.
“It is necessary,” he said firmly.
“Your red coat is so conspicuous,” she faltered.
“It is my safeguard,” he said; “that is, against humans. As for animals, I can protect myself.” He showed them his service revolver.
He left them weeping. He went first to the big spruce-tree behind the house. He immediately saw, as he had expected, that a man had leaped out of the lower branches. There were the two deep prints of moccasined feet; two hand-prints also where he had fallen forward. He had no doubt come down faster than he had intended. It was child’s play after that to follow his headlong course through the bush. Soon Stonor saw that he had slackened his pace—no doubt at the moment when Stonor turned back to the shack. Still the track was written clear. It made a wide detour through the bush, and came back to the door of the room where Mary had been sleeping. The man had taken a couple of hours to make perhaps three hundred yards. He had evidently wormed himself along an inch at a time, to avoid giving an alarm.
When Mary cried out he had taken back to the bush on the other side of the shack. Stonor, following the tracks, circled through the bush on this side, and was finally led to the edge of the river-bank. The instant that he pushed through the bushes he saw that one of the bark-canoes was missing. Running to the placewhere they lay, he saw that it was the one with the willow-bushes that was gone. No need to look any further. There was nothing in view for the short distance that he could see up-river.
Stonor, returning to the shack, was hailed with joy as one who might have come back from Hades unscathed. He told Clare just what he had found.
“What do you think?” she asked anxiously.
“Isn’t it clear? He saw us coming and took to the tree. There were so many tracks around the base of the tree that I was put off. He must have been hidden there all the time we were looking for him and shouting. As soon as it got dark he tried to make his get-away, but his calculations were somewhat upset by his falling. Even after we had taken warning, he had to risk getting into his store-room, because all his food was there. No doubt he thought we would all be in the other room, and he could sneak in and take what he could carry. When he was scared off by Mary’s scream he started his journey without it, that’s all.”
“But whyshouldhe run from us—from me?”
Stonor shrugged helplessly.
She produced the little red book again. “Read something here,” she said, turning the pages.
Under her directing finger, while she looked aside, he read: “The hardest thing I have to contend against is my hunger for her. Discipline is of little avail against that. I spend whole days wrestling with myself, trying to get the better of it, and think I have conquered, only to be awakened at night by wanting her worse than ever.”
“Does that sound as if he wished to escape me?” she murmured.
In her distress of mind it did not occur to her, of course, that this was rather a cruel situation for Stonor. He did not answer for a moment; then said in a low tone: “I am afraid his mind is unhinged. You suggested it.”
“I know,” she said quickly. “But I have been thinking it over. It can’t be. Listen to this.” She hastily turned the pages of the little book. “What day is this?”
“The third of July.”
“This was written June 30th, only four days ago. It is the last entry in the book. Listen!” She read, while the tears started to her eyes:
“I must try to get in some good books on natural history. If I could make better friends with the little wild things around me I need never be lonely. There is a young rabbit who seems disposed to hit it off with me. I toss him a bit of biscuit after breakfast every morning. He comes and waits for it now. He eats it daintily in my sight; then, with a flirt of his absurd tail for ‘thank you,’ scampers down to the river to wash it down.”
“Those are not the thoughts of a man out of his mind.”
“No,” he admitted, “but everything you have read shows him to be of a sensitive, high-strung nature. On such a man the sudden shock of our coming——”
“Oh, then I have waited too long!” she cried despairingly. “And now I can never repay!”
“Not necessarily,” said Stonor with a dogged patience. “Such cases are common in the North. But I never knew one to be incurable.”
She took this in, and it comforted her partly; but her thoughts were still busy with matters remote from Stonor. After a while she asked abruptly: “What do you think we ought to do?”
“Start up the river at once,” he said. “We’ll hearnews of him on the way. We’ll overtake him in the end.”
She stared at him with troubled eyes, pondering this suggestion. At last she slowly shook her head. “I don’t think we ought to go,” she murmured.
“What!” he cried, astonished. “You wish to stay here—after last night! Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said helplessly.
“But if the man is really not right, he needs looking after. We ought to hurry after him.”
“It seems so,” she said, still with the air of those who speak what is strange to themselves; “but I have an intuition, a premonition—I don’t know what to call it! Something tells me that we do not yet know the truth.”
Stonor turned away helplessly. He could not argue against a woman’s reason like this.
“Ah, don’t be impatient with me,” she said appealingly. “Just wait to-day. If nothing happens during the day to throw any light on what puzzles us, I will make no more objections. I’ll be willing to start this afternoon, and camp up the river.”
“It will give him twelve hours’ start of us.”
Her surprising answer was: “I don’t think he’s gone.”
Stonor made his way over the old portage trail. He wished to have a look at the Great Falls before returning up-river. Clare, waiting for what she could not have told, had chosen to remain at the shack, and Mary Moosa was not afraid to stay with her by daylight. Like Stonor, Mary believed that the man had undoubtedly left the neighbourhood, and that no further danger was to be apprehended from that quarter.
Stonor went along abstractedly, climbing over the obstructions or cutting a way through, almost oblivious to his surroundings. His heart was jealousand sore. His instinct told him that the man who had prowled around the shack the night before was an evil-doer; yet Clare persisted in exalting him to the skies. In his present temper it seemed to Stonor as if Clare purposely made his task as hard as possible for him. In fact, the trooper had a grievance against the whole world.
Suddenly he realized that his brain was simply chasing itself in circles. Stopping short, he shook himself much like a dog on issuing from the water. His will was to shake off the horrors of the past night and his dread of the future. Better sense told him that only weakness lay in dwelling on these things. Let things fall as they would, he would meet them like a man, he hoped, and no more could be asked of him. In the meantime he would not worry himself into a stew. He went on with a lighter breast.
From the cutting in the trail Stonor saw that someone had travelled that way a while before, probably during the previous season, for the cuts on green wood were half-healed. It was clear, from the amount of cutting he had been obliged to do, that this traveller was the first that way in many years. Stonor further saw from the style of his axe-work that he was a white man; a white man chops a sapling with one stroke clean through: a red man makes two chops, half-way through on each side. This was pretty conclusive evidence that Imbrie had first come from down-river.
This trail had not been used since, and Stonor, remembering the suggestion in Imbrie’s diary that he frequently visited the falls, supposed that he had some other way of reaching there. He determined to see if it was practicable to make his way along the beach on the way back.
The trail did not take him directly to the falls, but in a certain place he saw signs of an old side-path striking off towards the river, and, following this, hewas brought out on a plateau of rock immediately above the spot where the river stepped off into space. Here he stood for a moment to prepare himself for the sight before looking over. His eye was caught by some ends of string fluttering from the branches of a bush beside him. He was at a loss to account for their presence until he remembered Etzooah and his humble offerings to the Old Man. Here Etzooah had tied his tobacco-bags.
Approaching the brink, the river smoothed itself a little as if gathering its forces for the leap, and over the edge itself it slipped smoothly. It was true to a certain extent that the cataract muffled its own voice, but the earth trembled. The gorge below offered a superb prospect. After the invariable flatness and tameness of the shores above, the sudden cleft in the world impressed the beholder stunningly.
Then Stonor went to the extreme edge and looked over. A deep, dull roar smote upon his ears; he was bewildered and satisfied. Knowing the Indian propensity to exaggerate, he had half expected to find merely a cascade wilder than anything above; or perhaps a wide straggling series of falls. It was neither. The entire river gathered itself up, and plunged sheer into deep water below. The river narrowed down at the brink, and the volume of water was stupendous. The drop was over one hundred feet. The water was of the colour of strong tea, and as it fell it drew over its brown sheen a lovely, creamy fleece of foam. Tight little curls of spray puffed out of the falling water like jets of smoke, and, spreading and descending, merged into the white cloud that rolled about the foot of the falls. This cloud itself billowed up in successive undulations like full draperies, only to spread out and vanish in the sunshine.
Stonor had the solemn feeling that comes to the man who knows himself to be among the first of his raceto gaze on a great natural wonder. He and Imbrie alone had seen this sight. What of the riddle of Imbrie? Doctor, magician, skulker in the night, madman perhaps—and Clare’s husband! Must he be haunted by him all his life? But the noble spectacle before Stonor’s eyes calmed his nerves. All will be clear in the end, he told himself. And nothing could destroy his thought of Clare.
He would liked to have remained for hours, but everything drew him back to the shack. He started back along the beach. On the whole it was easier going than by the encumbered trail. There were no obstacles except the low precipice that has been mentioned, and that proved to be no great matter to climb around. Meanwhile every foot of the rapid offered a fascinating study to the river-man. This rapid seemed to go against all the customary rules for rapids. Nowhere in all its torn expanse could Stonor pick a channel; the rocks stuck up everywhere. He noticed that one could have returned in a canoe in safety from the very brink of the falls by means of the back-waters that crept up the shore.
His attention was caught by a log-jam out in the rapid. He had scarcely noticed it the day before while searching for tracks. Two great rocks, that stuck out of the water close together where the current ran swiftest, had at some time caught an immense fallen tree squarely on their shoulders, and the pressure of the current held it there. Another tree had caught on the obstruction, and another, and now the fantastic pile reared itself high out of the water.
At the moment Stonor had no weightier matter on his mind than to puzzle how this had come about. Suddenly his blood ran cold to perceive what looked like a human foot sticking out of the water at the bottom of the pile. He violently rubbed his eyes, thinking that they deceived him. But there was no mistake. Itwasa foot, clad in a moccasin of the ordinary style of the country. While Stonor looked it was agitated back and forth as in a final struggle. With a sickened breast, he instinctively looked around for some means of rescue. But he immediately realized that the owner of the foot was long past aid. The movement was due simply to the action of the current.
His brain whirled dizzily. A foot? Whose foot? Imbrie’s? There was no other man anywhere near. But Imbrie knew the place so well he could not have been carried down, unless he had chosen to end his life that way. And his anxiety to obtain food the night before did not suggest that he had any intention of putting himself out of the way. Perhaps it was an Indian drowned up-river and carried down. But they would surely have heard of the accident on the way. More likely Imbrie. If his brain was unhinged, who could say what wild impulse might seize him? Was this the reason for Clare’s premonition? If it was Imbrie, how could he tell her?
Stonor forced down the mounting horror that constricted his throat, and soberly bethought himself of what he must do. Useless to speculate on whose the body might be; he had to find out. He examined the place up and down with fresh care. The log-jam was about half-a-mile above the falls, and a slightly lesser distance below Imbrie’s shack. It was nearer his side of the river than the other; say, fifty yards of torn white water lay between the drift-pile and the beach. To wade or swim out was out of the question. On the other hand, the strongest flow of water, the channel such as it was, set directly for the obstruction, and it might be possible to drop down on it from above—if one provided some means for getting back again. Stonor marked the position of every rock, every reef above, and little by little made his plan.
He returned to the shack. In her present state of nerves he dared not tell Clare of what he had found. In any case he might be mistaken in his supposition as to the identity of the body. In that case she need never be told. He was careful to present himself with a smooth face.
“Any news?” cried Clare eagerly. “You’ve been gone so long!”
He shook his head. “Anything here?”
“Nothing. I am ready to go now as soon as we have eaten.”
Stonor, faced with the necessity of suddenly discovering some reason for delaying their start, stroked his chin. “Have you slept?” he asked.
“How could I sleep?”
“I don’t think you ought to start until you’ve had some sleep.”
“I can sleep later.”
“I need sleep too. And Mary.”
“Of course! How selfish of me! We can start towards evening, then.”
While Clare was setting the biscuits to the fire in the shack, and Stonor was chopping wood outside, Mary came out for an armful of wood. The opportunity of speaking to her privately was too good to be missed.
“Mary,” said Stonor. “There’s a dead body caught in the rapids below here.”
“Wah!” she cried, letting the wood fall. “You teenk it ishim?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. I’ve got to find out.”
“Find out? In the rapids? How you goin’ find out? You get carry over the falls!”
“Not so loud! I’ve got it all doped out. I’m taking no unnecessary chances. But I’ll need you to help me.”
“I not help you,” said Mary rebelliously. “I nothelp you drown yourself—for a dead man. He’s dead anyhow. If you go over the falls what we do? What we do?”
“Easy! I told you I had a good plan. Wait and see what it is. Get her to sleep this afternoon, and we’ll try to pull it off before she wakes. Now run on in, or she’ll wonder what we’re talking about. Don’t show anything in your face.”
Mary’s prime accomplishment lay in hiding her feelings. She picked up her wood, and went stolidly into the shack.
Stonor, searching among Imbrie’s things, was much reassured to find a tracking-line. This, added to his own line, would give him six hundred feet of rope, which he judged ample for his purpose. He spliced the two while the meal was preparing.
“What’s that for?” Clare asked.
“To help us up-stream.”
As soon as he had eaten he went back to the beach. His movements here were invisible to those in the shack. He carried the remaining bark-canoe on his back down the beach to a point about a hundred and fifty yards above the log-jam. This was to be his point of departure. He took a fresh survey of the rapids, and went over and over in his mind the course he meant to take.
After cutting off several short lengths that he required for various purposes, Stonor fastened the end of the line to a tree on the edge of the bank; the other end he made fast to the stern of the canoe—not to the point of the stern, but to the stern-thwart where it joined the gunwale. This was designed to hold the canoe at an angle against the current that would keep her out in the stream. The slack of the line was coiled neatly on the beach.
With one of the short lengths Stonor then made an offset from this line near where it was fastened to the thwart, and passed it around his own body underthe arms. Thus, if the canoe smashed on the rocks or swamped, by cutting the line at the thwart the strain would be transferred to Stonor’s body, and the canoe could be left to its fate. Another short length with a loop at the end was made fast at the other end of the thwart. This was for the purpose of making fast to the log-jam while Stonor worked to free the body. A third piece of line he carried around his neck. This was to secure the body.
During the course of these preparations Mary joined him. She reported that Clare was fast asleep. Stonor made a little prayer that she might not awaken till this business was over.
He explained to Mary what he was about, and showed her her part. She listened sullenly, but, seeing that his mind was made up, shrugged at the uselessness of opposing his will. Mary was to pay out the rope according to certain instructions, and afterwards to haul him in.
Finally, after reassuring himself of the security of all his knots, he divested himself of hat, tunic, and boots and stepped into the canoe. He shook hands with Mary, took his knife between his teeth, and pushed off. He made as much as he could out of theback-wateralongshore, and then, heading diagonally up-stream, shot out into the turmoil, paddling like a man possessed in order to make sure of getting far enough out before the current swept him abreast of his destination. Mary, according to instructions, paid out the rope freely. Before starting he had marked every rock in his course, and he avoided them now by instinct. His thinking had been done beforehand. He worked like a machine.
He saw that he was going to make it, with something to spare. When he had the log-jam safely under his quarter, he stopped paddling, and, bringing the canoe around, drifted down on it. There was plentyof water out here. He held up a hand to Mary, and according to pre-arrangement she gradually took up the strain on the line. The canoe slowed up, and the current began to race past.
So far so good. The line held the canoe slightly broached to the current, thus the pressure of the current itself kept him from edging ashore. The log-pile loomed up squarely ahead of him. Mary let him down on it hand over hand. He manœuvred himself abreast an immense log pointing up and down river, alongside of which the current slipped silkily. Casting his loop over the stump of a branch, he was held fast and the strain was taken off Mary’s arms.