Two on the Trail Part 21

Please tell me."

He muttered, and writhed uncomfortably on the bench. "What's the use of bringing that up?" he said at last. "You wouldn't understand if I tried to tell you."

"Loving makes me onderstan' moch," she softly pleaded.

He was silent.

"Have you any sisters outside, 'Erbe't?" she gently persisted.

"No," he said.

"Your mot'er, she is not dead?"

"No."

"She mos' be ver' nice, I think."

"She's a lady!" he blurted out.

Rina nodded wisely. "I know what that is," she said. "A lady is a ver'

nice woman." Her voice dropped very low. "'Erbe't," she whispered, with infinite, pa.s.sionate desire in her voice--stroking his cheek, "will you teach me to be a lady?"

He laughed. "You 'tend to your work about the place," he said, "and don't bother your head over that."

Tears slowly welled up in Rina's eyes, and stole one after another down her cheeks. "I do so ver' moch want to be a lady," she whispered, more to herself than to him. He did not know she wept, she was so still.

By and by she raised her head, and shook the tears away. "To-morrow, I will begin to fix things nice for you, 'Erbe't," she said with renewed, soft tenderness.

He vented his hopeless, jeering chuckle. "Nice!" he echoed. "My G.o.d, Rina! What are you going to begin on?"

"I show you!" she said eagerly. "I have a whole tanned buckskin my father give to me when I go 'way; and my mot'er, she give silk, all colours. I make seven, eight, maybe ten pairs of glove, with cuffs; and work them with silk flowers! No woman can work so good with silk than me! I work all the time there is light; and when all are done I get forty dollar in trade at the store! And I buy cartridges and traps and grub, and another skin to work. Not any more will you be poor, 'Erbe't!"

"Lord! How will we ever drag out the winter in this G.o.d-forsaken spot!"

he grumbled--unconsciously s.h.i.+fting the initiative to her shoulders.

Her arm tightened about him. "We will do fine!" she said eagerly. "We will mak' moch money. There is no plentier place for fur; and we will have it all! Me, I can set traps and snares as good as Michel Whitebear.

Maybe I will get a silver fox, or a black one. I know the fox! In the spring we will have plenty good credit at the store. We can travel to the Settlement then, and you will not be lonesome. There are many white men. We could stay in the Settlement all summer; and I would cook meals for the freighters and the travellers and mak' more money. I am a good worker, 'Erbe't. Everybody say so!"

Mabyn partly roused himself. "That's not a bad idea," he said. "Under cover of the restaurant, it would be dead easy to run in a little whiskey over the Berry Mountain trail, and make a pot of money. Fifty cents a drink, by Gad!"

Rina drew away from him. "I will not help you do that, 'Erbe't," she said quietly.

"You'll do what I tell you to do," he said coolly.

Rina remained silent. Her breast heaved and trembled with terror at her own temerity in defying her husband--but there were both firmness and reproach in her att.i.tude. It was more than the weak Mabyn could bear for long in silence.

"Good G.o.d!" he burst out. "Have I married a breed to tell me what I ought to do, and ought not to do? Better learn once for all, my girl, that I'm the head of this outfit, and I mean to do whatever I d.a.m.ned please!"

Rina sat gripping her hands together in her lap to control their trembling. Her head was bowed. "I am only a breed girl," she said. "You are my 'osban', and you can beat me, and you can kill me, but I would not cry out, or think bad of you. But you cannot mak' me help you to mak' a pig of you again. I will mak' you to have good credit, an' to be a rich and strong man, an' you can go back and spit on the poor breeds that mock you before. I will not help you trade in whiskey; whiskey mak'

you poor, an' sick, an' crazy!"

Mabyn got up. "G.o.d! Women are all alike, white or brown!" he muttered indifferently. "Come on in."

But he had yielded the point. The regeneration of Herbert Mabyn had been undertaken.

XIV

THE LAST STAGE

The hours of the afternoon that followed their encounter with Tom Lillywhite were long and heavy ones for Natalie and Garth. A haggard misunderstanding rode between them on the trail. Denied the all-explaining, all-healing touch of hands--or lips, the unreasonable despair of lovers seized on each; and the sunny way was plunged in murk.

They rode, and camped, and ate their supper in silence; and in silence they turned in for the night. But there was little sleep for either; they lay apart, each nursing a burden of unhappiness; unable to say now what it was all about, only dreadfully conscious that they were divided.

As soon as it was light enough to see, a pale and heavy-lidded Natalie crept noiselessly out of her tent. In front of the door she saw Garth on his knees preparing to build a fire; but the hand that held the hatchet-helve had dropped nervelessly to the ground; and his eyes, fixed and staring in the torpor of miserableness, had forgotten what he had set out to do. At the sight, a rapturous peace came back to Natalie's harried soul; for, she thought, if he were so unhappy as that, he must love her in spite of all. And Garth, looking up, saw the tenderness break in her weary face, and he understood it all too. The forest sprang into leaf again for them; and presently the sun came gaily up. They became as wildly and unreasonably happy as they had just been miserable; and not a word was exchanged either way. It was not necessary. That they did not fling themselves into each other's arms at that moment, must surely be written down to their credit somewhere.

They made but a leisurely progress this day and the next. The labour of the journey was greater than at any time hitherto, for in addition to the ordinary routine of making and breaking camp twice a day, Garth had now the four horses to look after. Catching them was a task of uncertain duration, even though they were turned out hobbled; in particular, the exasperating Timoosis developed the proficiency of a very circus horse, in walking on his hind legs. And once caught, there was all the business of saddling, packing and drawing the hitch.

Besides, there was that in both their hearts which delayed them even more. No ardently desired goal awaited them at the end of this journey; on the contrary they dreaded what they were to find. The last few miles of the way together, before the inevitable came between them, was therefore very dear; and it became ever easier to say "Let's camp!" and harder to say "Let's move!"

Their boisterous jollity on the trail gave place to much quiet happiness; and there was ceaseless friendly contention, where Garth's every thought was for Natalie; and hers for him. Each was on his mettle to be worthy of the other's best. Above all they avoided the insidious danger of contact; but inevitably sometimes in the business of the camp, their hands did meet--and each to himself stored up and told over the events like secret treasures. In every labour Natalie insisted on taking her share like a man; and Garth never ceasing to upbraid her, yet loved her for it prodigiously.

Day by day, now, the leaves of the more exposed trees were yellowing; and on the second night of their journey across the portage, the first heavy frost of the season descended. Garth, under his sail-cloth at the door of the tent, awoke covered with rime.

Toward the end of the third day they had their never-to-be-forgotten first glimpse of the mighty Spirit, the dream river of the North, whose name evokes the thought of a garden in a bleak land. The unvarying flatness of the portage with its standing pools, and the interminable lofty wood that had hemmed them in for three days, had given them the sense of travelling on the bottom of the world, and that somewhere ahead must be a hill to climb. What then was their astonishment this afternoon, when, without warning they emerged from among the trees on an abrupt gra.s.sy terrace, and beheld the great river lying nearly a thousand feet _below_.

It was a view inimitably gorgeous and sublime. Coming so suddenly upon it they caught their breaths and gazed in silence; for there was nothing fitting to say. The high point on which they stood overlooked a deep and narrow gorge at their left, through which a little river fell to the great stream; and across this they could look up the vast trough for miles. In the distance the river seemed to rise, until one would say it issued molten from the low-hung sun itself.

It had an individual and peculiar look, like no watercourse they had seen. Its course drew a sharp line between the wooded country and the prairie. Like a figure dressed in motley, the steep southern bank was everywhere dark and wooded, while the other side, sweeping up in countless fantastic knolls and terraces, was bare, except for the brown gra.s.s, and patches of scrub-like hair in the hollows. Far back from the opposite rim of the vast trough swept the unmeasured prairie, as flat, in the whole prospect, as the country they had lately traversed.

It was the wealth of colour that most of all bewitched their eyes. The river itself was of an odd, insistent green--emerald tinged with milk; the islands on its bosom hung out the rich bottle-green of spruce; the gra.s.s on the north bank was beaver-brown; the wild-rose scrub glowed blood-crimson in the hollows; and the aspen bluffs, touched with frost, were as yellow as saffron. The wild and beautiful panorama was made complete in their eyes by a great golden eagle perched on the brink of the immediate foreground and, like themselves, gazing over. Though but a hundred yards or so distant, he contemptuously disregarded their arrival. When Garth, full of curiosity, came closer, he spread his vast wings and drifted indifferently out into s.p.a.ce.

For a long time they gazed at the scene without speaking. It was Natalie who finally expressed their common thought.

"Wouldn't it be sweet," she said wistfully, "if our journey had no other object but to see this! With what satisfied hearts we could now turn back!"

Skirting the edge of the steep, presently the Settlement came into view far below, a hut or two along the river, hugging the base of the cliffs.

The trail zigzagged gradually down, frequently doubling on itself; and whereas the eagle might have descended in a minute, it promised to be more like half an hour for them.

Garth, following his previous policy, did not intend to expose Natalie to the stares of the Settlement, until he had at least reconnoitred.

Before coming on the houses, therefore, he led his little caravan off through the bush to the left; and descended to the sh.o.r.e of the smaller stream they had seen from above. Here, in a private glade beside the noisy brown water, they pitched their camp; and Garth, leaving Natalie armed against all eventualities, proceeded into the Settlement.

His inevitable first question at the store elicited the information that the Bishop had gone up the river to Binchinnin, Ostachegan Creek and Fort St. Pierre. Next, the name of Herbert Mabyn called forth contemptuous shrugs. None of the men could give certain information of his whereabouts, though Clearwater Lake was mentioned again. He had not been in to the post for four months; and there was a handful of letters waiting for him.

Garth was referred to the breeds across the river for better news. It was clearly intimated that all self-respecting white men had cast Mabyn off.

Inquiring the means of crossing the river, the ferry was pointed out to Garth, a barge propelled with sweeps. It must be tracked up-stream for a quarter of a mile before starting across, to allow for the current, he was told. The trader offered to help him when he was ready. Garth thanking him, privately resolved to cross before the Settlement was astir next morning. He saw that his own reticence in answering questions inspired the three simultaneously with the idea that he was a detective from outside, in pursuit of Herbert Mabyn for some early sin; and he let it go at that.