XXV
Bess had made good time along her line that day She had not forgotten that this was the day of her rendezvous with Ned, and by walking swiftly, eschewing even short rests, carrying her larger trophies into the cabin to skin rather than halting and thawing them out over a fire, she arrived at the Forks hut at midafternoon. She began at once to make preparations for Ned's coming.
She built a roaring fire in the little, rusted stove, knowing well the blessing it would be to the tired trapper, coming in with his load of furs. She started supper so that the hot meal would be ready upon his arrival. Then she began to watch the hillside for his coming.
It always gave her a pleasant glow to see the little, moving spot of black at the edge of the timber. Because of a vague depression that she had been unable all day to shake off, she anticipated it especially now. They always had such cheery times together, perched on opposite sides of the little stove. To Bess they redeemed the whole, weary week of toil. It was true that their relations were of companionship only; but this was clear enough. If, long ago, her dreams had gone out to him with deeper meaning, surely she had conquered them by now,—never to set her heart leaping at a friendly word, never to carry her, at the edge of slumber, into a warm, beloved realm of exquisite fancy. Bess had undergone training too. These days in the snow had strengthened her and steeled her to face the truth; and even, in a measure, to reconcile herself to the truth. She had tried to make her heart content with what she had, and surely she was beginning to succeed.
Ned was a little past his usual time to-night. Her depression deepened, and she couldn't fight it off. This North was so remorseless and so cruel, laying so many pitfalls for the unsuspecting. It was strange what blind terror swept through her at just the thought of disaster befalling Ned. It made her doubt herself, her own mastery of her heart. She never considered the dangers that lay in her own path, only those in his. At the end of a miserable hour she straightened, scarcely able to believe her eyes.
On the glare ice of the glacier, a mile straight up the ridge from the cabin, she saw the figure of a man. Far as it was, one glance told her it was not merely a creature of the wild, a bear disturbed in his winter sleep or a caribou standing facing her. It was Ned, of course, taking the perilous path over the ice, instead of keeping to the blazed trail of his trap line. On the slight downward slope toward her, clearly outlined against the white ice, she could see every step he took.
He was walking boldly over the glassy surface. Didn't he know its terrors, the danger of slipping on the icy shelves and falling to his death, the deep crevices shunned by the wild creatures? She watched every step with anxious gaze. When he was almost to safety she saw him stop, draw back a few paces, and then come forward at a leaping pace.
What happened thereafter came too fast for her eyes to follow. One instant she saw his form distinctly as he ran. The next, and the ice lay white and bare in the wan light, and Ned had disappeared as if by a magician's magic.
For one moment she gazed in growing horror. There was no ice promontory behind which he was hidden, nor did he reappear again. And peering closely, she made out a faint, dark line, like a pencil mark on the ice, just where Ned had disappeared.
The truth went home in a flash. The dark line indicated a crevice, to the bottom of which no living thing may fall and live. Yet to such little wild creatures, red-eyed ermine and his fellows that might have been watching her from the snow in front, Bess gave no outward sign that she had seen or that she understood.
She stood almost motionless at first. Her eyes were toneless, lightless holes in her white face; the face itself seemed utterly blank. She seemed to be drawing within herself, into an eerie dream world of her own, as if seeking shelter from some dire, unthinkable thing that lay without. She was hardly conscious, as far as the usual outward consciousness is concerned; unaware of herself, unaware of the snow fields about her and the deepening cold; unaware of the onward march of time. She seemed like a child, hovering between life and death in the scourge of some dread, childhood malady.
Slowly her lips drew in a smile; a smile ineffably sweet, tender as the watch of angels. It was as if the dying child had smiled to reassure its sobbing mother, to tell her that all was well, that she must dry her tears. “It isn't true,” she whispered, there in the stillness. “It couldn't be true—not to Ned. There is some way out—some mistake.”
She turned into the cabin, bent, and added fresh fuel to the stove. Its heat scorched her face, and she put up her hand to shield it. The cabin should be warm, when she brought Ned home. She mustn't let the cold creep in. She must not forget the cold, always watching for every little opening. Perhaps he would want food too: she glanced into the iron pot on the stove. Then, acting more by instinct than by conscious thought, she began to look about for such tools as she would need in the work to follow.
There was a piece of rope, used once on a hand sled, hanging on the wall; but it was only about eight feet in length. Surely it was not long enough to aid her, yet it was all she had. Next, she removed a blanket from her cot and threw it over her shoulder. There might be need of this too,—further protection against the cold.
Heretofore she had moved slowly, hardly aware of her own acts; but now she was beginning to master herself again. She mustn't linger here. She must make her spirit waken to life, her muscles spring to action. Carrying her rope and her blanket, she went out the door, closed it behind her, and started up toward the glacier.
Only one thing was real in that long mile; and all things else were vague and shadowy as faces in a remembered dream. The one reality was the dark line, ever broader and more distinct, that lay across the ice where Ned had disappeared. The hope she had clung to all the way, that it was merely a shallow hollow in the ice and not one of the dread crevices that seem to go to the bowels of the earth, was evidently without the foundation of fact.
Weary lifetimes passed away before ever she reached the first, steep cliff of the glacier. She had to follow along its base, on to the high ground to ward which Ned had been heading, finally crossing back to the smooth table of the glacier itself. There was no chance for a mistake now. The gash in the ice was all too plain.
At last she stood at the very edge of the yawning seam, staring down into the unutterable blackness below. Not even light could exist in the murky depths of the crevice, much less fragile human life. The day was not yet dead, twilight was still gray about her; but the crevice itself seemed full of ink clear to its mouth. And Ned's axe, lying just at the edge of the chasm, showed where he had fallen.
There was no use of seeking farther; of calling into the lightless depths. The story was all too plain. Very quietly, she lay down on the ice, trying to peer into the blackness below; but it was with no hope of bringing the fallen back to her again. Ned was lost to her, as a falling star is lost to the star clusters in the sky.
It never occurred to her that she would ever get upon her feet again. The game had been played and lost. There was no need of braving the snow again, of fighting her way down the trap line in the bitter dawns. The star she had followed had fallen; the flame of her altar had burned out.
She knew now why she had ever fought the fight at all. It was not through any love of life, or any hope of deliverance in the end. It had all been for Ned. She had denied it before, but the truth was plain enough now. It was her love for Ned that had kept her shoulders straight under the killing labor, had sheltered her spirit from the curse of cold and storm, that had borne her aloft out of the power of this savage land to harm. She knew now why she had not given up long since.
Was that the way of woman's heart, to sustain her through a thousand unutterable miseries only that she might be crushed in the end? Was life no more than this? She had been content to live on, to endure all, just to be near him and watch over him to the end; but there was no need of lingering now. The fire in the cabin could burn down, and the fire of her spirit could flicker out in the ever-deepening cold.
She had tried to blind herself to the truth, yet always, in the secret places of her soul, she had known. It was not that she ever had hope of Ned's love. Lenore would get that: Ned's devotion to her had never faltered yet. But it was enough just to be near, to work beside him, to care for him to the full limit of her mortal power. She knew now that all the tears she had shed had been for him: not for the lash of cold on her own body, but on his; not for her own miseries, but those that had so often brought Ned clear into the shadow of death. And now the final blow had fallen. She could lie still on the ice and let the wind cry by in triumph above her.
She had loved every little moment with him, on the nights of their rendezvous. She had loved him even at first, before ever his manhood came upon him, but her love had been an infinite, an ineffable thing in these last few weeks of his greatness. She had watched his slow growth; every one of his victories had been a victory to her; and she had loved every fresh manifestation of his new strength. But oh, she had loved his boyishness too. His queer, crooked smile, his brown hair curling over his brow, his laugh and his eyes,—all had moved her and glorified her beyond any power of hers to tell.
She called his name into the chasm depths, and some measure of self-control returned to her when she heard the weird, rolling echo. Perhaps she shouldn't give up yet. It wouldn't be Ned's way to yield to despair until the last, faint flame of hope had burned out. Perhaps the crevice was not of such vast depth as she had been taught to believe. Perhaps even now the man she loved was lying, shattered but not dead, only a few feet below her in the darkness. She had come swiftly; perhaps the deadly cold had not yet had time to claim him. She called again, loudly as she could.
And that cry did not go unheard. Ned had given up but a few moments before Bess had come, and her full voice carried clearly into the strange, misty realm of semi-consciousness into which he had drifted. And this manhood that had lately grown upon him would not let him shut his ears to this sobbing appeal. His own voice, sounding weird and hollow as the voice of the dead in that immeasurable abyss, came back in answer.
“Here I am, Bess,” he said. “You'll have to work quick.”