CHAPTER VIII
White Water
IN BROAD daylight Alan Law opened bewildered eyes to realize the substance of a dream come true. He lay upon a couch of balsam, in a corner of somebody's camp—a log structure, rudely furnished. His clothing lay upon a chair at his side.
He arose and dressed, exulting in his sense of renewed well-being, a prey to hints of an extraordinary appetite. There were evidences of a woman's recent presence: blankets neatly folded upon a second bed of aromatic balsam in the corner, a pair of dainty buckskin gauntlets depending from a nail in the wall, and, in an old preserve jar on the table, a single rose, warm and red, dew upon its petals!
There was fire in the cook-stove and things to cook, but despite his hunger Alan didn't stop for that. He rushed to the door, threw it open, and looked out. There was no living thing in sight.
The place was a table of level land some few acres in area, bounded on one hand, beneath the cliff from which he had dropped, by a river fat with recent rains; on the other by a second cliff of equal height. Near the camp, upon a strip of shelving beach, two canoes were drawn up. Dense thickets of pines, oaks, and balsam hedged in the clearing.
He was, it seemed, to be left to himself that day; when he had cooked and made way with an enormous breakfast, Alan found nothing better to do than to explore this pocket domain. He never wandered far from camp. He was indisposed to run any risk of not being at home to welcome the woman who had nursed him and then vanished, leaving him for souvenir only that rose (culled from a bush that some whim of chance had planted near the cabin door) and the memory of her lips. …
He feasted famously again at noon; whiled away several hours by fishing with rod and tackle found in the camp, and toward three o'clock lounged back to his aromatic couch for a nap.
The westering sun had thrown a shadow across the cove when he was awakened. Rose Trine was kneeling beside him, clutching his shoulders, calling him by name. He wasted no time discriminating between dream and reality, but gathered both into his arms. And for a moment she rested there unresisting, if sobbing quietly.
"What is it, dearest?" he questioned, kissing her tears away.
"To find you all right. … I was so afraid!"
"Of what? Wasn't I all right when you left me here this morning?"
She looked strangely at him.
"I did not leave you here this morning, Alan. I wasn't here"
"You were not" he stammered. "Then who?"
"Judith," she stated with conviction.
"Impossible! You don't understand."
The girl shook her head. "Yet I know Judith was here until this morning. I tell you I know! She passed us in a canoe a few hours ago while we watched in hiding. And one of her guides told mine she was here with you. She had sent him to South Portage for quinine. He stopped there to get drunk, and that's how my guide managed to worm the information from him."
"I don't understand." Alan passed a hand across his eyes.
The report of a rifle interrupted him. At this, clutching frantically at his arm, the girl drew him away toward the river.
"Oh, come!" she cried wildly. "There's no time!"
"But why? What was that?"
"Judith is returning. We must escape the only way—by the river."
"The current is too strong."
"But downstream—the current with us"
"How about those rapids?"
"We must shoot them!"
"Can it be done?"
"It must be!"
He offered no further objection, but turned at once and launched one of the canoes. Rose took her place in the bow, paddle in hand; and Alan was about to step in astern when a shot sounded and a bullet kicked up turf within a dozen feet. A glance discovered two figures debouching into the clearing. He dropped into place and, planting paddle in shallows, sent the canoe well out with a vigorous thrust. Two strokes took it to the middle of the pool, where the current caught the little craft and sped it through more narrow and higher banks. A moment more, and the mouth of the gorge was yawning for them.
Alan rose carefully to his feet for a reconnaissance. He looked back first, and saw the prow of the second canoe glide out from the banks. He looked ahead. The rapids were a wilderness of shouting waters, white and green. But there was no escaping that ordeal. The canoe was already spinning between walls where the water ran deep and fast. The-man settled down to work with grim determination, pitting courage and strength and experience against the ravening, bellowing waters that tore at the canoe on every hand.
He fought like one possessed. There was never an instant's grace between judgment and execution; and both must be instantaneous, or else—destruction. Again and again the canoe plunged wildly toward the instant annihilation which was avoided only by the timely plunge of a paddle, guided by luck or instinct or both. The one ray of hope in Alan's mind sprang from the fact that, however rough, the rapids were short. Now, when he had been in their grasp a minute, he seemed to have been there hours.
His labourings were tremendous, unbelievable, inspired. The goal of safety was within sight when Alan's paddle broke, and the canoe swung broadside to a boulder, turned turtle, and precipitated both headlong into that savage welter.
As the next few moments passed he was fighting. like a mad thing against overwhelming odds. Then,of a sudden, he found himself swimming mechanically in the smooth water of a wide pool beyond the lowermost eddy, the canoe floating bottom up nearby, and Rose supporting herself with one hand on it.
Her eye met his, clear with adorable courage. He floundered to her side, panted instructions to transfer her hand to his shoulder, and struck out for the nearer shore. Both found footing at the same time and waded out exhausted.
Then Alan remembered the pursuit. He looked up the rapids in time to view the last swift quarter of the canoe's descent, Judith in the bow, motionless, a rifle across her knees, in the stern an Indian guide kneeling and fighting the waters with scarcely perceptible effort in contrast with Alan's supreme struggles. Like a living thing the canoe seemed to gather itself together, it hurtled the eddy in a bound, took the still water with a mighty splash, and shot downstream at diminished speed.
Judith lifted her rifle and brought it to bear— upon her sister. With a cry of horror, Alan flung himself before Rose. For a breathless instant the woman in the canoe stared along the sights, then lowered her weapon and spoke to the guide, who instantly began to ply a brisk paddle. The canoe sped on and vanished round the bend.
"Why, in the name of heaven, why?" asked Alan, amazed.
The girl said dully: "Don't you know?" And when he shook his head. "Her guide told mine you had saved her life on the dam at Spirit Lake. Now do you see?"
His countenance was blank: "Gratitude?"
"Not gratitude alone, but something more terrible. … Not that I can blame her. … But come, if we strike through here we shall, I think, pick up a trail that will bring us to Black Beaver settlement by dark."