Munsey's Magazine/Volume 78/Issue 2/Wild Bird

by Hulbert Footner

Wild Bird

A STORY OF THE WILD NEW LANDS OF THE CANADIAN NORTHWEST

By Hulbert Footner
Author of “The Man Hunt,” “Country Love,” “Thieves' Wit,” etc.

 

ANN MAURY has come into the wilds of North Cariboo in search of her father, a solitary trapper and prospector, from whom she has not heard for two years. At the frontier settlement of Fort Edward, where his last letter was mailed, she enlists the aid of Cal Nimmo, the unofficial “mayor” of the little town, who undertakes to make inquiries.

Ann is staying at Maroney's place, which bears the high-sounding name of the Fort Edward Hotel, but which chiefly consists of a rough dance hall. The principal attraction of this establishment is a pretty girl named Nellie Nairns, and there are many fights among rival pretenders to her favor. Ann witnesses one of these battles, between a local bully known as Red Chivers and a young fellow called Chako Lyllac. Anne is greatly impressed by the handsome Chako, and she watches the combat with intense interest, having gone into the dance hall with a man named Noll Voss as her escort. Next morning she hears that Chako, after defeating Chivers, got drunk and made such a disturbance that Cal Nimmo had him locked up.

 

VII

AT dinner time Ann gathered from the conversation at the hotel table that the steamboat was going up the river that afternoon. A fresh anxiety attacked her. Would they put Chako aboard an send him away?

Afterward, observing the men strolling down to the landing place to see the boat off, she casually followed after, a white-faced little figure with her head gallantly held. She did not think about what she was doing. She had as yet no coherent thoughts about Chako—what he was, or what he was to her. It didn't seem to make any difference. She simply felt, and had to yield to her feelings.

The landing place was at the other end of the street, on the Campbell River side of the settlement. Noll Voss tagged along with Ann. The “workingman” did not seem to have much to do to-day, except to bother her. He was burning with curiosity to learn what had taken place between her and Cal Nimmo, but Ann ignored his hints. He vented his spleen in abuse of Cal.

“A bad actor! At his age, too! He's back of all the trouble here. Calls himself mayor of the place! They only made him mayor because he can drink the most of any man here without showing it. Mayor! He had ought to be called the town barrel!”

Ann paid no attention.

The ramshackle little steamboat went off up the river, furiously kicking up the water behind. Having satisfied herself that Chako was not aboard, Ann returned to the hotel with a lighter heart. All the men were drifting back toward Maroney's, and Cal Nimmo fell in beside her. There was an offhand friendliness in his manner that warmed the lonely girl's breast.

“This is a man,” she thought, comparing him with the peevish moralist on the other side of her.

Cal, taking it for granted that Noll Voss was not in her confidence, made no reference to their talk of the morning. He pointed out the sights of Fort Edward as they walked along. The Japanese Short Order Restaurant—smart fellows, those Japs! Sent out five hundred a month in post office orders, and nobody had a word to say against them. Siwash Jimmy's—that was the joint where the Swedes got cut up, that made so much trouble—the worst den in camp; but there's always got to be one such place, like a cesspool, to collect the drainage.

Ann saw her opportunity.

“I heard there was a fight there last night,” she said carelessly.

“Nothing out of the common,” Cal said, and immediately called her attention to the fine corner that was reserved for a church.

There was considerable talk, he said, as to what kind of a church they'd have. As for himself, he didn't care, so long as they got a real man for a parson.

Ann could now ask quite naturally:

“Which is your house, Mr. Nimmo?”

He pointed between two of the buildings on the north side of the street, to a comfortable-looking log shack that stood a little way back among the scattered, leaning pines.

“That 'll be across the track when the railway comes through,” he said with a grin. “It ll be the swell residential section, I reckon.”

Ann's avid eyes devoured it; but no long lad lounged at the door, no yellow head showed at the window.

All the rest of the way Ann was beating her wits for some innocent-sounding way to bring in Chako's name. Her breast was crying for some word of him; but she dared not risk it. Cal was too keen.

When they got to the hotel, Cal said, with a look at Noll Voss:

“Shall we go inside?”

Noll was obliged to remain out on the platform, biting his fingers. Cal and Ann sat down by the back window again.

“What did you find out?” asked Ann.

“Your father did not go down the Spirit River last year,” said Cal. “I knew it before, but anyhow I asked those fellows.”

“Then you think—” said Ann.

Cal did not answer her directly.

“You're a sensible girl,” he said in a gentler voice, “and a plucky one, or you wouldn't be here at all. It isn't as if he'd been a regular father to you—”

Ann interrupted him quietly.

“Then you think he's dead?”

“I'm sure of it,” said Cal.

“How can you be sure?”

“Well, I'm like a man who's had but one book to read all his life long. I know this country chapter and verse. What is hardest for newcomers to understand is that nothing can be hid up here. That's because a man must keep in touch with his grub, see? There are only two ways to get out of the Stanley River country, and I can tell you positively your father never came out after he went in there two years ago.”

“But he may still be there.”

Cal shook his head.

“Not without grub. It's possible he might have saved over enough, year to year, to see him through one season without coming out; but not two. Grub won't keep that long. And it's too late for him to come now. The Rice River is in full flood.”

“Haven't I heard of men living off the country?” said Ann.

“For a short while, yes,” said Cal; “but it seems as if a man must have flour and sugar to keep healthy. It's so with even the Indians nowadays.”

“How dreadful to die alone!” murmured Ann.

“Sure, sure!” said Cal. “But remember, it's all over long ago.”

“What ought I to do?” asked Ann.

“Go back to your folks,” he said promptly.

“I haven't any folks.”

“To your home, where you are known.”

She slowly shook her head.

“I couldn't do that.”

“What else can you do?” said Cal.

“I must go and see,” murmured Ann.

“What possible chance—” began Cal, exasperated,

Ann stopped him with a gesture.

“I can't argue with you,” she said. “You know too much for me. Very likely you're right; but I must know. I have been preparing for this trip for a whole year. I could not turn back halfway without finding out.”

“I take you for a girl of sense,” said Cal. “This is just a fancy, like women have.”

“I can't help being a woman,” Ann argued.

“You don't want to help it,” returned Cal grimly.

“All right—I don't want to help it,” agreed Ann.

He was silent for a moment, scowling, and thoughtfully tweaking his nose.

“How much money have you got?” he asked bluntly.

“Six hundred dollars,” Ann told him. “I suppose I must save out a hundred and fifty to get back home on.”

“Four hundred and fifty!” said Cal. “You couldn't hire but one man with that, and buy the necessary grub and so on.”

“Isn't one man enough?” asked Ann.

Cal looked at her with a grim smile.

“Would you be willing?”

“Why shouldn't I be?” asked Ann, a little defiantly.

“Well, you're a pretty girl,” said Cal. “Take away Nellie Nairns's fine dresses and her paint box, and she couldn't hold a candle to you.”

Ann moved her shoulders impatiently.

“To me that seems like an old-fashioned notion—that a pretty girl is in danger every time she's left alone with a man. If I let him see from the first that I was simply on business, I'd be safe enough, I think.”

Cal looked at her with a sardonic and admiring twinkle.

“I wish I could take you myself,” he said; “but I got a wife down in Kimowin, and I never could square her.”

“Am I not right?” insisted Ann.

“Yes, I believe you are,” he said frankly. “There's plenty of men who ain't savages. Kind of hard on the man, though! However, that's not the difficulty. The difficulty would be to find a man with nerve enough to see you through and back.”

Ann knew a man, but she dared not name him.

“Isn't it their life?” she asked.

Cal shook his head.

“Traveling with an inexperienced woman would be the same as traveling alone,” he said. “It would be a damned sight harder, because he'd have all the responsibility of you, see? No, men generally show up better when they travel in parties, and divide the responsibility—or at least in couples, to bolster each other up. Most men begin to wabble when they're thrown on their own. There's mighty few that travel alone up here. It's a certain type. Your dad was one; young Chako Lyllac's another.”

Ann's heart rose slowly into her throat—up, up, until she was almost suffocating; but she glanced out of the window, murmuring with an offhand air:

“Somebody told me Chako Lyllac was a good river man.”

Cal laughed shortly.

“One of the best,” he said.

“Well, then?” suggested Ann faintly.

“You were in the hall last night,” said Cal. “I saw you. Think you'd be safe with Chako?”

“Why not?” said Ann.

“It's lucky you have me to advise you, said Cal dryly. “I've knowed Chako Lyllac since he first come up here, eight years ago—1903 it was, I mind. Ever seen a Great Dane pup? That was Chako. He has growed some. I got a soft spot for the kid. They don't turn out many like that nowadays; but he's a savage—as wild as a lynx or an eagle. Knows no law but his own instincts. A woman might as well commit suicide as trust herself to him. He has no feelings.”

In the face of this there was nothing for Ann to do but drop the subject—for the present. That it had been introduced at all was no small gain. Her secret resolve was unshaken. She told herself that she knew better than Cal Nimmo. Chako had feelings, however deep he might hide them from men.

“I'll think it over,” Cal said. “Give me a couple of days. Better keep the matter quiet,” he added. “I haven't said anything about the nature of your business. If it got about, you'd have plenty of volunteers—and without pay, at that; but not the right kind. This fellow Noll Voss, he'd go, though he don't know a river from a hole in the ground.”

“I wouldn't make such a mistake as that,” declared Ann.

“Good girl!” said Cal.

VIII

The next morning, when Ann came down to breakfast, Noll Voss greeted her with a smile of triumphant malice. Ann's heart began to beat. She perceived that she was about to learn something painful. She had no more than seated herself when he said:

“Your friend Chako Lyllac broke loose again last night.”

Ann steadied herself.

“He is not a friend of mine,” she said calmly.

“This was at a new place that's lately opened—Bagger's Hole they call it,” Noll went on, with gusto. “It's popular, because the Bagger brothers brought in an outfit of real outside liquor, up the Oneen River and across Sineca Pass, and didn't pay no excise. There was a crowd there. Chako Lyllac was drunk already when he come in. He had a couple of shots by himself, like he always does, and then he got the notion that the company wasn't choice enough for him; so he ran all the customers out of the place, and stood there by himself, like a lord, drinking his whisky over the bar. The Baggers didn't fancy having their business interfered with; and while one brother kep' him busy in talk over the bar, the other snuck up behind Chako and cracked him on the nut with a baseball bat.”

“The coward!” cried Ann involuntarily.

An ugly, pained sneer twisted Noll Voss's lips.

“I thought you'd say that,” he remarked.

“Was he badly hurt?” demanded Ann.

“Nah! His skull's too thick. He got his pretty yellow hair bloodied up, that's all. They sent for Cal, and Cal took him home.”

Ann saw that there was more coming.

“Well?” she said.

She felt like a drug addict. This was her poison, but she had to have it.

“Among the crowd at Bagger's was Bud Carrick,” Noll went on. “He runs the Independent Cash Store. Bud went home and told his wife what had happened.”

“His wife?” said Ann, surprised. “Are there wives here?”

“Sure—most of the traders is married. The married people live a quarter of a mile up on the Campbell River side, to keep the women out of town. Well, Bud Carrick told his wife. She didn't say nothin', but as soon as Bud went to bed she sneaked out and ran all the way to town. She busted into Cal Nimmo's shack without so much as knockin', plumped herself down beside Chako Lyllac's bed, and hugged him and cried, and carried on that he was her lover and her darlin', and so on; and her a woman thirty-five year old!”

The food on Ann's plate suddenly sickened her.

“How do such stories get about?” she asked.

“I suppose Cal Nimmo told it,” said Noll. “He was right there.”

“And what did Chako do?” asked Ann.

“Chako hugged her back again, and called her all pet names.”

This was obviously a fiction. Ann smiled scornfully at the thought of the young eagle condescending to call a woman pet names. She breathed more freely.

“Seems it's been going on for weeks past,” said Noll unctuously. “Bud Carrick's a drinking man. They say Chako hung about his house every night, and went in as soon as Bud started for town.”

“But I thought Chako got drunk every night himself!” said Ann.

Noll shrugged.

“I'm only telling you what they say.”

“Who says so?” demanded Ann. “Cal Nimmo?”

“Everybody,” said Noll evasively.

“I don't believe a word of it!” said Ann.

“You wouldn't,” said Noll, with his painful, twisted sneer.

“What do they say happened after that?” demanded Ann.

“Cal Nimmo took the woman home. They met her husband coming out to look for her. Cal was all for telling some story to smooth things over; but she was so crazy she right out with it that she was in love with Chako Lyllac, and she didn't care who knew it. She called her husband every name she could lay her tongue to. He was wild—got his gun, and was for going right back to put a bullet through Chako; but Cal argued with him. Cal told him he couldn't shoot a man who was flat on his back. Cal promised him satisfaction as soon as Chako was able to get up. Bud said he wouldn't fight him with fists, 'cause Chako was twice as big as him; so Cal said they could settle it with pistols as soon as Chako was up.”

Pistols! All the blood seemed to leave Ann's heart; but she would not betray herself to the watchful, sneering man beside her. She glanced out of the window with a calm air. The sky looked blackish to her. Hateful, murderous place! Why had she ever come there?

She carefully cut her food into small pieces, and ate them one by one. She swallowed her coffee. Then, having saved her face, she rose, and, nodding coolly to Noll Voss in her usual manner, she went slowly into the front room and up the stairs.

But she could not stay in her room—not a minute! The ceiling suffocated her. She pinned on her old sailor hat with trembling fingers, and went out again. There was a back stairs that she had used before when she wished to evade Noll Voss. She gained the river bank by way of the back door of the hotel.

She sauntered up and down the main street, looking in at the store windows, outwardly quiet and self-possessed, while inwardly great waves of emotion were sweeping through her, threatening to drown her senses. She was telling herself that this could not go on, this could not go on—but where was she to find any escape?

Between the houses on the north side of the street her sick eyes caught glimpses of Cal Nimmo's cabin, off among the pines. It tormented her unspeakably. She dared not go any closer.

At length she saw Cal coming across the waste of stumps between his house and the street. She timed her steps so that they appeared to meet by accident.

“Good morning, Mr. Nimmo,” she said, smiling as women can even when they are distracted.

“Good morning! Good morning!” he replied, walking along with her.

He did not seem to have anything on his mind. They were walking away from the hotel.

“What is this I hear about the excitement at your house last night?” Ann asked, laughing.

He fell in with her apparent mood.

“Life is just one damned thing after another,” he said jocosely. “At least, Chako's life is. He got laid out in one of the saloons last night. Some dame up the river heard about it, and came running to our shack like a crazy woman.”

“Then it's true!” thought Ann, with a bitter heart.

“That's nothing unusual,” Cal went on. “Seems as if all women, white and red, were bound to make fools of themselves over Chako. There's something about the lad—I don't know what, not being a woman myself. They fling themselves at his head without shame—scores of 'em! It's no wonder he gets restive.”

Ann suspected that the hard, keen, kindly man was exaggerating the case in order to cure her, or perhaps to forestall the disease.

“They say that he and her husband are going to fight it out with pistols,” she said, smiling still.

“Nothing to it,” said Cal. “That's just a bit of embroidery. Of course, the man was wild; but I reasoned with him. Chako told me he had never had anything to do with the woman.”

“And you believed him?” asked Ann, with tight nostrils.

“Oh, I know when he's lying,” said Cal coolly. “I told her husband that. I told him his wife was just temporarily out of her mind, and ought to be treated like any other sick woman.”

“An attractive woman?” asked Ann, indifferently but breathlessly.

“So-so; but as nice a woman as you'd care to meet. Just dazzled by his yellow hair, poor soul!”

“Poor soul!” echoed Ann's heart.

“What's to become of her?” she asked.

“Her husband borrowed a skiff to carry her down to Ching's Landing. I'm on my way to see them off. They'll wait at the stopping house until the stage goes, and then he'll take her out to her folks. By the time he gets back, Chako will be off on the wing.”

One terror in Ann's breast was laid, only to give place to a new terror.

“When does he go?” she asked.

Though she betrayed herself, she could not help asking. Cal shrugged.

“When he will,” the mayor said.

They came within sight of the landing place. A small group was standing there.

“There they are,” said Cal.

Ann stopped short. She could not face the woman who had pursued Chako Lyllac. She could see her a couple of hundred yards away—just a broadish figure clad in a white shirt waist, a black skirt, and a dejected-looking hat.

“I'll go back to the hotel,” she said hurriedly.

“So long!” said Cal genially.

 

All day Ann's fever grew worse. She could not face her thoughts. She suffered cruelly, without knowing why she suffered. It was as if a new Ann had suddenly arisen within her—an unrecognizable creature, who was mercilessly slashing at the orderly growth of years. Inside her, Ann felt as ravaged and raw as the town site of Fort Edward.

By this time she had made up her mind that Chako did not intend to return to Maroney's, after the scene with Nellie Nairns. Nevertheless, she was continually watching for him. After dinner—sitting in the office, where, without appearing to be actually on the watch, she could observe all who arrived on the platform outside—she saw Cal Nimmo enter the dance hall. The new creature within her immediately whispered:

“He'll be in there for a couple of hours. You can't be supposed to know he's there. You could go to his cabin, as if to talk over your matters with him.”

Instantly her feet carried her out of the door and off the platform.

Halfway across the waste between the street and the cabin among the pines, her old self made a stand. She stopped short in the path, staring fixedly at the splintered comb of wood where a tree had broken off, as if in that she hoped to find the answer to the riddle of existence. Inside her, she was being knocked back and forth like a shuttlecock.

“Running to him just like the women you despise!”

“I'm not going to make a fool of myself. I just want to see him.”

“You are making a fool of yourself. Cal has seen it already. Chako will see it instantly. There have been so many before you!”

“Well, if he's beastly, it will cure me.”

“It will not cure you. It's the look of him that has bewitched you. You don't care what he is.”

“I've got to see him! This struggle is wearing me out!”

“Seeing him will only make it worse. You've got to get the better of this thing.”

“Just to see him will ease me. Then I'll start fighting it.”

“You're making a fool of yourself—a fool of yourself!”

But her feet were already carrying her onward.

She came to the door of the cabin, shaking like aspen leaves. The door stood open. Inside, she saw a cot against the wall, the bedclothes all tumbled. She knocked with her trembling hand. There was no answer.

Like a woman blind and senseless, moved by something outside of herself, she stepped across the sill. There was but the one room, and she could see it all. There was another tumbled cot at the other side. There was no one in the cabin.

Ann stepped outside again, and looked guiltily around, to see if she had been observed. Her breast quieted down. She was filled with shame and relief. She had a sense of having been saved in spite of herself. Something deep and quiet within her looked on in amazement at her senseless emotional gyrations. She was being whirled in strange eddies; but for the moment she was quiet.

She retraced her steps to the street. As far as she could tell, no one was watching her. Her intention was to go back to the hotel, but the old painful struggle recommenced, and the result was that she turned in the other direction.

Since Chako was not at home, he must be in one of the drinking places. Perhaps he would come out, and she would get a glimpse of him. That would be no harm, for he would not notice her, and in the street she would not have to speak to him.

Walking up and down in the clear evening light, she gradually made out that all the revelry of the moment was concentrated in one of the newer places—a clapboarded store with a false front and a little porch. Through the open door she glimpsed a crowd of men lined up in front of a bar, and the rumble of many voices came out. It was too dim inside for her to distinguish individuals, but there was little doubt that Chako was among them, for none of the other places seemed to be doing anything.

Ann shortened her promenade in order to pass the place more frequently, slackening her pace as she approached it. Once, as she passed, that quiet self within her seemed to whisper:

“Hanging around outside a drinking place to look at a man!”

She tasted the very dregs of shame, but could not drag herself away. She fancied she could distinguish Chako's voice among the others.

Later, as she was coming toward the place, the noise within suddenly swelled louder, and she quickened her steps. There was a sound of running feet, and in front of her a little man darted out of the door, squeaking with terror like a guinea pig. From his neat store suit, white collar, and natty straw hat, he was a city man.

Chako Lyllac followed at the little man's heels, his brows terrible in rage; but it was a mock rage, and his blue eyes were snapping with mirth.

The little man took off across the road, veering like a wild thing. He tripped over a root and went down in a mudhole with arms outspread. Chako, who had stopped on the edge of the porch, threw back his head and sent up a roar of deep-toned laughter to the sky. He planted his hands on his hips, and laughed until it hurt him. He groaned with laughter.

The other men poured out of the place alongside him. When the little man picked himself out of the mud and hobbled away, holding his dripping hands away from his body, the straw hat in one of them, the laughter on the porch was like a storm in the hills.

Ann was half hidden behind the end post of the porch. No one noticed her, and she could look her fill. She looked with all her sight, intensely, as if in that one look she would draw the very essence of Chako into her consciousness, there to keep it forever.

She was reassured by what she saw. Chako was drunk, but his soul had not abdicated. There was no sag in him. Drink only made him more scornful and reckless. He was as dandified as usual, with his broad-brimmed hat jauntily askew. A painful weight seemed to lift from Ann's breast.

“Maybe he is a savage,” she thought, “but he's a glorious savage! What is life for but to spend? He makes all other men look like domestic fowls. I don't have to be ashamed of him!”

The men pushed back into the barroom, thirsty from laughing. Ann returned to the

Her fever was allayed—or was it? At any rate, she was filled with exaltation. She could think again. She lay on her bed for hours, thinking—or indulging her sensations. The painful struggle inside her was over. One of the two warring voices had prevailed.

“It's all right,” she told herself. “I've got my grip now. I'd be safe in going away with him. My eyes are wide open. I know exactly what he is. I realize there can never be anything between us. I realize that it would be suicidal to give in to him the least bit, and I shall not do so. Anyhow, he would never be attracted to me that way. If he should be, it wouldn't make any difference. Perhaps I could help him. He must have a soul, or he could not have that glorious look; but it's had no chance in these rough and brutal surroundings. Perhaps I could help him find his soul. Oh, what a joy to be with him, to be able to look at him, to listen to his voice! That would be an experience worth living for—or dying for, either. But he will never guess what I feel. I will build up a wall of friendliness between us.”

IX

Life went on as usual at Maroney's. Outside, on the platform, the men lounged in the sun all day, sitting on the benches with their legs out, or leaning a negligent shoulder against the wall; smoking, chewing, whittling sticks, telling the interminable stories of the north. Every day was the same; every day was like Sunday.

In the beginning Ann wondered about these men, who seemed to have nothing to do; but gradually she learned that the crowd was always slowly changing; that the apparently aimless men were mostly adventurers out of the wilderness, who came into the frontier settlement half mad for companionship.

Inside the hall, by day or night indifferently, the banjos thrummed, bottles and glasses thumped on the tables, the girls lifted their raucous voices in songs. Maroney's was the “toniest” joint in town, and, except for the occasional fights that enlivened the proceedings, the crowd always comported itself with the decorum due to a high-toned joint. Ann always knew when Nellie came out to sing by the changed character of the applause.

Ann was no longer tempted by the dance hall, for she knew that Chako would not come back there. She would have liked to talk to Nellie, though. Her heart, big and soft with feeling, craved to love somebody. At intervals she saw Nellie flitting through the hotel, remote and inaccessible in her make-up.

During the next day or two it was gradually borne in on Ann that Cal Nimmo was purposely keeping out of her way. Passing along the road on Sunday morning, she saw him slip into one of the stores. Then she was sure of it.

She lay in wait for him on the platform that afternoon. He was for passing her with a salute, but she called him to her side.

“What's the matter?” she demanded.

He affected an innocent air.

“Why do you avoid me?” she insisted.

Cal scratched his head.

“Well, I reckon you and me's got to have a fuss,” he said with mock seriousness; “and I was just putting it off as long as possible, being but a weak creature.”

Notwithstanding his facetious manner, Cal's grimness was evident, and a chill struck through Ann. Cal was rather a terrifying antagonist. She stiffened the back of her neck.

“It takes two to make a fuss,” she said, “and I've no intention of fussing with you.”

“Well, now, that eases my mind,” he told her, grinning; “for I allowed the fussing would come mostly from your side.”

“What's it going to be about?” asked Ann.

“Come on, let's take a little walk,” said Cal. “You can see those guys yonder, just stretching their lugs to hear.”

Stepping off the platform, they turned to the left—that is to say, away from town. Maroney's was almost the last building on that side.

“Did you know you was gettin' to be a fair-sized mystery around these parts?” Cal said. “Coming up on the same boat with Nellie Nairns the way you did, you passed unnoticed at first, but now the fellows are talking. They ain't got so much to talk about, you know, and you can't exactly blame them for talkin', We never had an unexplained woman here before. There's some wild notions about you. Some have noticed the way you walk up and down the avenue, observing the speak-easies and the blind pigs—which are neither easy-spoken nor blind up here, God knows. They've spread a report that you're an agent for the excise department.”

“How ridiculous!” said Ann, blushing.

“Sure,” agreed Cal, with his grin; “but I tell you, you have even compromised me. I am the only one you go with, see?”

“There's Noll Voss,” said Ann.

“Oh, hell! Anybody could see you've got Noll Voss thrown and hog-tied. A poor fish! He never had no luck with the women.”

They passed the last house. In this direction the horse trail followed the bank of the Boardman River, which was for the moment a peaceful brown stream with sylvan islands—picnic islands. On their right the pine forest rose dark and cool and clean; there was no reminder of the scars of the settlement.

“Well, what are we going to fuss about?” asked Ann.

“Here's where it begins!” said Cal. “Let's sit down to it.”

They found a place where the river bank had partly fallen, making a natural seat with a foot rest. Here they sat in pleasant grass. The brown stream, flecked with foam from the rapids above, moved serenely past them.

“You're a fine girl,” said Cal; “and you're a new kind of girl to me. You don't lay back on your sex, like they mostly do. You talk open to a man.”

“Well?” asked Ann, waiting for the inevitable qualification.

“I just want you to know I'm your friend,” said Cal simply.

“I do know it,” Ann told him.

“Now this trip you propose to take,” he went on. “It's plumb impossible! The more I think about it, the more impossible it is!”

“I can't see it,” said Ann.

“Of course you can't see it. You don't know nothing about it. You don't know what it is to sleep on the ground in all weathers; to live day after day on sow belly and pakwishegan. Pakwishegan is biscuit baked before an open fire, and it lies on your stomach like a stone. You don't know nothing about the labor of tracking a boat up the rapids; capsizing in icy water; all the accidents of travel. Why, suppose you got sick?”

“I never get sick,” said Ann.

“Well, suppose your guide got sick, then, or broke a leg?”

“He might break a leg if he stayed home.”

“Sure he might; but we got a doctor here to set it.”

“Other women have made such journeys,” insisted Ann.

“Occasionally,” admitted Cal. “Wives of traders or missionaries, maybe, who had to do it.”

“Well, I have to do it, too.”

“You haven't,” he contradicted. “That's just the difference. It's only a notion you've got. Your father is dead, just as—as if you saw him lying at your feet.”

“Then I've got to bury him,” said Ann.

Cal flung up his hands in mock exasperation at her obstinacy.

“You haven't found me a man, then?” said Ann.

“There's no such a man,” said Cal. “Leastwise there's one—Frank Bower by name; but he started down for the Grand Forks just a couple of days before you got here.”

“You haven't tried to find a man!” she said accusingly.

“No,” he admitted coolly. “There's no man here that I'd trust to take you.”

There was a silence. Ann looked over the smoothly flowing river with knitted brows. Cal glanced at her sidewise, to see how she was taking it.

She spoke, at last, in the carefully reasonable voice that one adopts toward a wrong-headed friend.

“I appreciate your interest in me; but a friend can take too much on himself. You are not responsible for me.”

“The hell I ain't!” said Cal, without violence. “Suppose you go into the north, and don't come out again in a reasonable time, who's got to go look for you? Me! Responsibility! You people who live in civilized countries don't know what it is! Every year you come up here and dump ourselves on us—not women, of course, ut men. Is it any wonder it makes the men of the north sore to have their country advertised outside? Every year the tenderfeet come straggling in with their crazy notions and their useless outfits, or with none; and the men of the country have to drop their own work and go in search of them, and bring them in, and carry them through the winter, when there's little enough grub for themselves. What outsiders never learn is that you can't take a chance with the north. The conditions of life up here are mighty hard, and won't give an inch.”

“But what's that got to do with me?” asked Ann. “I can pay my way.”

“We were talking about my responsibility,” said Cal grimly. “As soon as you tell me your story, I become responsible for you, because I know what you're up against, and you don't.”

There was a silence, longer than before. Ann's face was pale. It did not betray her thoughts. She finally laughed, not quite naturally.

“Oh, well, this is a lovely afternoon,” she said; “and this is the prettiest spot I've seen up here. I said I wasn't going to quarrel with you, and I'm not.”

Cal glanced at her shrewdly.

“Now you're making up your mind you'll go ahead in spite of me,” he drawled.

Ann flashed an angry, startled look at him.

“I expected it,” Cal went on calmly. “You're a girl of spirit; but I want to tell you, in all kindness, that there's nothing doing. I'm the boss of this shebang, and what I say goes!”

“You said it was a free country!” cried Ann.

“Free for them that can take care of themselves,” said Cal, undisturbed. “The others must be taken care of.”

“I won't be taken care of!”

“Excuse me, but I don't see how you can help yourself,” said Cal.

Ann stared at him, speechless with anger.

“Day after to-morrow—that's Tuesday,” he went on, “the steamboat goes down to Ching's Landing to connect with the stage.”

“I'm not going on her!” cried Ann.

Cal spread out his hands expressively. Ann scrambled to her feet.

“I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!” she cried furiously. “And don't you think it! This is the most high-handed thing I ever heard of! I'm not a wrongdoer, to be ordered out of town! I'm my own mistress! I'll regulate my own life!”

Cal got up slowly.

“You've got to go, you know,” he said with a regretful air.

“Why? Why? Why?” demanded Ann. “Am I not good enough for Fort Edward?”

“Too good,” said Cal. “It's no place for a young lady. It's only by a sort of miracle you've escaped trouble so far. It will break any day. You haven't any notion of the excitement a mysterious woman can work up in a crowd of idle and womanless men. God knows what direction it will take. They might run you out of town themselves.”

“Then tell them who I am, and what I came for.”

“Not I!” said Cal grimly. “The situation would get right out of hand then. You'd have plenty of volunteers to take you north. Oh, a hell of a big expedition would be got up, with every man in it at the head of it; and you wouldn't get five miles up the river before they'd be at each other's throats. Nice position for you, eh?”

“I don't care,” said Ann. “I won't be sent away as if I had done wrong. I have a right to stay at the hotel as long as I can pay my bills.”

“I am the boss of this camp,” said Cal dryly. “I have only to say a word to Maroney. I hope you won't make me bring him into it, for he's an ornery cuss.”

Ann stared at him, aghast.

“You—you tyrant!” she gasped. “I know your kind. You've got a little power up here, and it's gone to your head. All you care about is making people feel your power. You ought to have lived in slave-holding days. Oh, I'm sorry I ever spoke to you!”

Cal received this tirade with a sheepish grin and detached, admiring glances at Ann's flushed face. No weakening of his purpose showed, however. Tears finally choked off Ann's utterance. She turned, and fled back over the wagon track.

She could not run the whole way back to the settlement. When she dropped into a walk, there was Cal stepping quietly along at her side.

“I know you can't abide the sight of me,” he said with his grin, maddening now to Ann; “but you'd better let me walk back with you. It 'll make less talk.”

Ann was obliged to put up with his company. She managed to put on a pretty good face for their arrival at the hotel. She parted with Cal at the door in seeming amity, and, flying upstairs, locked herself in her room.

There, during the following hours, her feelings beat vainly against the hard fact of Cal Nimmo's power, like the sea against rocky cliffs. By supper time she had achieved a certain measure of composure. She had made her resolve:

“There is one man in this place who is not afraid of Cal Nimmo. To-morrow I'll ask him to help me, if I have to search for him in every drinking place in town!”

X

Until late that night Ann sat in her dark room, with her arms spread on the sill of the open window and her head on her arms—thinking, she would have said, but it would have been more accurate to say that she was giving her sensations free rein.

Sunday was the biggest night of the week in Fort Edward, if any night could be the biggest where all seven were big. It was cold for the season, and unearthly still. The surrounding stillness seemed to wrap the sounds of the town in a strange medium, through which they issued a little changed, made more delicate. They were mostly drunken sounds that swelled suddenly and died away, as doors banged open and shut; succeeded by moments of ominous silence, as if some awful creature had stretched forth a hand.

Ann's room vibrated with the sound of the distant banjos. When the dance hall door was opened, the whining, staccato music came around the corner of the house. A small drove of horses suddenly stampeded through the settlement, pounding and splashing. Men ran out and shouted curses after them. Their hoof beats died away, but could be heard, minutes after, incredibly far off.

Then again the strumming of the banjos came around the house, and was suddenly shut off by the closing door. The horses turned and came back, making the heart beat with the furious pound of their hoofs drawing near. Pounding hoofs, no doubt, meant much to our forbears. The horses passed, and Ann heard another snatch of banjo music.

Sometimes, amid the ruck of sounds up and down the street, she could distinguish the quality of some one male voice; but never Chako's voice. Her breast was tormented because she could not know which roof covered him, or what he was doing. She was pretty sure he was not in Maroney's dance hall below; but there were girls in some of the other places, too. Ah, those girls! She could not bear the thought of them!

At this point she jumped up and paced her room, pressing her hands to her breast. It required all her strength of will to keep from running out to find him. Over and over she told herself that this was but one night among hundreds of others in his life. What happened to-night could make no difference. The truth must be faced.

She went sadly back to her window, to stare at the roofs, one of which covered him. Ah, if she could only be with him, she thought, she would not care what he did! Merely by being with him, she could somehow keep the hands of her spirit on his spirit.

Ann was awake early—that is to say, early for Fort Edward after a big night. She dressed and went out. The sun was high, the sky delicately glorious. Under such a sky the sordid street looked more than ever deplorable.

A great hush brooded over the place. There are no singing birds so far north. One or two mongrel dogs passed silently in and out between the houses on their rounds. They cringed past Ann.

She peeped at Cal's shack between the houses as she passed along. Door and window were tightly closed—shutting out the pure morning air, Ann thought.

In her heart she did Cal unwilling justice. She could not deny his qualities. She speculated on the curious relationship that must exist between him and Chako. Cal must love the youth in his own fashion, though he would deride that word. And Chako? Was he capable of loving any human creature? Probably not. So early in the morning, Ann's eyes were wide open.

As she approached the landing place on the Campbell River side, she was surprised to see a man sitting on a low pile of boards, with his back toward her. Her heart began to beat. Every man in Fort Edward who could afford it wore a Stetson hat, but this one was cocked at a certain angle; and in connection with that breadth of shoulder—

It was Chako Lyllac. He did not turn around.

Ann stopped dead. Her heart stampeded like those horses in the night. It beat faster and faster, until it seemed as if it must collapse. She could scarcely stand upright; she could not get her breath. How could she muster the strength to go up and speak to him, if at fifty paces distance she was already fainting with terror?

She wanted to retreat. How quickly her sinking legs would have found the strength to carry her to her room! But if she yielded to her timidity she knew that she would regret it all her life. Step by step she went forward.

She made a little detour, so as not to come on him from behind, but from one side. He was facing the river. His long legs were stretched out, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his chin on his breast. The wild bird had come to earth.

In the end, to make him look up, Ann was obliged to speak. Her emotion, and the iron repression she had put upon herself, made her oddly simple.

“Good morning.”

He looked around quickly, scowled upon perceiving a woman, and grudgingly touched the brim of his hat, in the manner of the country. He looked out across the river—comely, walled up, forbidding.

Nevertheless Ann sat down on another pile of boards half a dozen feet away. Having taken the initial plunge, she had herself better in hand. Her single glance into his face had startled her. It was pale and a little ill-looking. It was as scornful as ever, but there was a secret wretchedness there.

A great gush of tenderness filled Ann's breast, healing her own pain. He needed comfort; she thought about herself no more. She did not consider what to say. It came out involuntarily.

“What's the matter?”

It was not the wisest thing to say. Chako looked at her with quick resentment—with derision, too. Only her utter simplicity kept back the ribald retort that sprang to his lips. Somehow he could not be rude to her; but the scowl with which he looked across the river again was significant enough. He wished she would go away.

“Well, you seemed down on your luck,” said Ann.

He looked at her again, surprised at her persistency. Still he did not speak. There was a changed quality in his scowl. In spite of himself, her friendliness reached him. Ann was encouraged to go on.

“I think I can guess how you feel,” she murmured.

“What do you know about me?” he demanded harshly.

“Well, I've seen you from time to time during the past few days,” said Ann. “I couldn't help it.”

“Always drunk, eh?” he said, with defiantly curling lip.

“Yes,” replied Ann.

“Well, what have you got to say about that?”

“Oh, nothing!” said Ann. “I'm not a moral reformer.”

He stared at her incredulously. Clearly this was quite a new specimen to him.

Ann was capable of being strangely honest with this man.

“I thought it must be fine to be a little drunk, if you could only stay that way,” she went on, with a half smile. “You'd get all there was out of life; but the sobering up part must be horrible.”

He stared. These were his own feelings, but he was incapable of putting them into words. It made him deeply suspicious to hear them on the lips of another.

“And your money would always give out,” said Ann.

A note of jeering laughter escaped him.

“I suppose you're broke now,” ventured Ann.

“Stony!”

“And feel rotten?”

“Putrid!”

“Oh, well, that will pass. You're so healthy!”

In spite of him, she had got under his guard.

“It would pass if I could get away from this damned hole!” he burst out. “God, how I hate it, with its bars stinking of rotgut whisky and its women stinking of musk! I hate a stink! I hate the whole race of booze sellers and storekeepers and city men with their hands in your pocket! They ought to be wiped out! I hate all towns and settlements! It's rotten the way people herd together in towns. I ran away from it when I was fifteen years old. I hate people! I am best off in the hills, alone. There I feel clean. You've got to come in sometimes, to sell your fur and buy grub, and they sink their hooks into you. Oh, yes, they're waiting for you! They drain you dry. God, I'd like to burn this place off the map!”

Ann, listening to this, his creed, realized how boyish it was, and loved him for it. There was a joy in her breast almost too great to be borne. She had made Chako open his heart to her; he couldn't quite close it up again.

“Well, why don't you go?” she said softly.

“I told you I was broke,” he said sullenly. “You can't move around in this country without money. I'm in debt at the stores. Of course, I could borrow. Cal Nimmo is just waiting for me to humble myself to ask him for a loan; but it near drives me mad to have to go, cap in hand, and ask a man for money. I could kill him just the same whether he gives it to me or doesn't give it!”

Ann hovered around the matter that filled her heart, not yet daring to open it. He was such a skittish colt!

“No doubt you can get a good job,” she suggested.

“There's nothing doing right now,” he said gloomily. “I missed several chances while I was drunk, damn it!”

“Where would you go if you had your choice?” asked Ann.

His eye brightened.

“Down to the Rice River,” he said promptly, “and back up the Rice to the foothills. That big triangle of country between the headwaters of the Rice and the north fork of the Campbell is my range. No other white man has been in there. Too damned hard to get in. It's a hell of a fine country! Never been burned over. Moose alongside the streams; caribou in the hill valleys; goats and sheep on the mountains. Wherever you climb a little, off to the east there are the peaks of the Rockies to fill your eyes. God, I wish I was there this minute!”

“All alone?” said Ann.

“Oh, in the summer there is always a party of the Beavers pitching about somewhere. When I want company, I look them up. I like the Indians. We get along fine. They are friendly, and they ask nothing of you. They leave you free.”

Ann, desiring to keep him at this pitch of enthusiasm, said craftily:

“I'm always hearing talk of the Rice River and the Stanley and so on, but I have no map. Won't you explain to me how they lie?”

“I'll show you,” he said.

This, clearly, was a task after his own heart. He broke a sliver off one of the planks, and, dropping to his knees, used it as a stylus. The earth in front of where they sat was beaten smooth and flat.

“Here's Fort Edward, with the Campbell River coming down from the southeast, and swinging around in front of the settlement on its way south. You go forty miles up the Campbell to the portage, and six miles across the height of land to Hat Lake, as they call it. My canoe is cached there.”

Ann knelt beside him on the earth. So close to him as that, she became aware of a strange current emanating from his body that made her a little dizzy. She moved away. She could scarcely attend to his explanation of the map, so fascinated was she by his big, shapely, brown hands, which moved so decisively.

“From Hat Lake you go down through a whole chain of lakes connected by a little river. The last lake is drained by the Pony River, which empties into the Rice here. I come back up the Rice, about six days' journey, and my country lies in here.”

“Where's the Stanley River?” asked Ann, a little breathlessly.

“You go on down the Rice, see? It flows a little west of north. The Stanley River comes down from the north in the same valley, and they collide here. That's called the Grand Forks of the Spirit. The combined river—that's the Spirit River—swings away to the east through a gap in the mountains. It flows right through the Rocky Mountains and away northeast across the plains; and falls into the Arctic Ocean at last. Oh, a hell of a big river, the Spirit!”

“Could a woman make a long river trip like that?” Ann asked, with her heart in her mouth.

The question caused him to close up abruptly. He rose, and rubbed out the map with his foot. The look he bent on Ann said clearly:

“Not with me!”

When he spoke, however, it was in a tone of indifference.

“Why not,” he said, “if she had some man to take her?”

Ann's heart sank, but having opened the subject she was bound to see it through.

“My name is Ann Maury,” she said.

“I know,” replied Chako.

His air of indifference was hard to bear.

“I came north to try to find my father, Joseph Maury—Joe Grouser, they called him,” she added, blushing.

Chako took the name as a matter of course.

“I knew him,” he said.

“Cal Nimmo thinks he's dead,” Ann went on.

“Very likely Cal is right,” said Chako unconcernedly.

“Just the same, I must make sure.”

Chako made no comment.

“Cal Nimmo refuses to help me,” said Ann. “He says it's no trip for a woman. What's more, he says—he says I've got to leave this place to-morrow.”

Chako chuckled.

“That's like him,” he said. “Always bossing somebody!”

“Do you think I ought to submit?” asked Ann.

“What else can you do?” returned Chako brutally.

“Would you submit?”

“Cal Nimmo knows better than to try bossing me!”

He was so cool, so scornful, that it was desperately hard for her to go on. She gathered up all her courage.

“You say you want a job. Will you accept a job from me? Will you take me up the Stanley River?”

Chako's face never changed a muscle.

“How much money have you got?” he inquired.

Ann told him.

“Four hundred and fifty, eh? What do you offer me?”

“Whatever there is left above expenses.”

He figured coolly:

“A five or six weeks' trip, in and out—might run to two months. Grub for two, ammunition, mosquito tent for you, blankets for you—the outfit would cost about a hundred and fifty.”

Ann waited, quiet as a wild thing, holding her breath.

“All right! I'll do it,” said Chako.

Ann's pent-up breath slowly escaped.

He was holding out his right hand, as one who offers to bind himself. Ann, not able to meet his glance, put her hand within his firm, impersonal grasp.

Ann felt queer and shaky, but was aware of no great emotion. Had she used up all her emotion beforehand? Only somewhere deep, deep within her a trickling stream of the sweetest gladness began to run. She tried to dam it up. She guessed that at the least display of emotion Chako would shy. He had a perfectly businesslike air; she must match it.

But that trickle of joy spread through her being like quicksilver. She breathed lightly from a quivering breast. She kept her eyes down to hide the shine that must be in them. Ah, to have him all to herself for six weeks! To be able to feast her eyes from morning till night!

XI

Ann came to herself, to realize that Chako had asked her twice when she wanted to start.

“The steamboat leaves to-morrow,” she said. “Could we get away before she goes?”

“Sure!” said Chako. “The sooner the better for me. It won't take but a day to get our outfit together.”

“Our outfit!” thought Ann. “Let us keep it quiet,” she suggested. “Let us not meet again until we start.”

“I'm not afraid of Cal,” said Chako, with a grin.

“I know,” said Ann; “but I am. I don't want any trouble.”

“Just as you say,” he said, shrugging. “How about the money? Have you got it on you?”

Ann nodded, and drew a roll of bills from inside her waist. She was for handing it forthwith, but Chako drew back his hand.

“Only the hundred and fifty,” he said. “The rest when I earn it.”

Ann counted out the right sum.

“You must buy your own clothes,” he said. “You couldn't track upstream in that rig. Get knickerbockers, high moccasins, and a man's hat. Get a canvas duffle bag for what extra clothes you want to bring; but keep your outfit down. Every pound counts on a portage.”

“When will we start?” asked Ann, as in a dream.

“Sun rises about three. Say two thirty to-morrow morning. I'll borrow a dugout to carry us up to the portage. Wes Trickett can bring it back. I'll paddle around to the Boardman River side, back of the hotel. Can you get out by the kitchen door?”

Ann nodded.

“All right! I'll be there at two thirty,” Chako told her.

He touched the brim of his hat and walked away along the river bank. Ann looked at his swinging back with incredulity in her eyes, doubting his existence, doubting her own. Then, giving herself a little shake, she turned in the other direction, toward the hotel.

All day she dwelt in a state of unreality, ecstatic unreality, as if she had eaten of some delectable drug. When she got to her room, the first thing she did was to look in the mirror to see what she looked like. She saw a pale and inscrutable face without a dimple, without a sparkle to betray her; yet her breast was like an Æolian harp singing wild music at the touch of every little wind of feeling.

“What a strange thing to happen to me!” she thought.

Meanwhile her body went through its customary motions soberly. She breakfasted; she went out to buy what she needed in the stores. In one of them she saw the nonchalant Chako Lyllac purchasing groceries at another counter.

“He's getting them for me—for us!” she thought dizzyingly.

So happily was she disposed toward all the world that she could even give a smile to the gloomy Noll Voss when he attached himself to her after dinner. The result was that Noll formally offered himself to her as a husband. Ann cast a strange look of pity on him, and very firmly refused him. Noll was not much put about by it, because he had expected nothing better.

Later, on the platform, Ann came face to face with Cal Nimmo. Cal cocked an eye, and asked, with his relentless and friendly grin:

“Well, sister, how about it?”

Ann did her best to look discouraged. She shrugged.

“I give up! You can do what you like with me.”

“Well, that's fine! That's fine!” he said. “It takes a heap of moral courage to give in. Will you have supper with me here as a sort of farewell?”

Ann knew that he would never forgive her that supper. Moreover, she dreaded having to sit through a meal under his keen eye. She shook her head.

“I may like to thank you for it, as you said,” she told Cal; “but I can't thank you yet.”

“Well, I'm sorry,” returned Cal; “but that's all right! That's all right! See you in the morning.”

“Not if I know it!” thought Ann.

In her room, after supper, she completed her simple preparations. She locked her “outside” clothes in her suit case, and tied a label to it, reading:

Property of Miss Ann Maury—to be called for in August.

Finally she dressed herself in her new clothes, and glanced fearfully in the mirror. The effect was not so bad, she thought. With her own needle she had contrived a fairly good fit for the breeches. She had refused the high moccasins, because they were clumsy, and had bought, instead, a pair of Strathcona boots like Chako's. The smallest pair in stock was too big for her feet, but the laced tops set off her trim legs. She wore a pongee shirt and a brown windsor tie: she had a bulky brown coat sweater for warmth. On her head she wore a Stetson hat, not so broad-brimmed as Chako's, tipped at the same angle. Not bad at all!

“Chako Lyllac's little brother!” she thought, dimpling and blushing to her own reflection.

She flung herself on the bed all dressed, prepared to dream away the hours wakefully; but she promptly fell asleep. No danger of oversleeping, though—not with that on her mind.

She awoke with the exquisite thrill that is only to be had on the morn of one's greatest adventure. This was the day! She sprang off the bed. It was two o'clock—twilight out of doors.

She decided to go down at once. At the back door of the hotel she would be safely hidden. It would be fine to see him come paddling through the dusk. She took her canvas bag under her arm, and stepped softly out of the room.

As she was about to round the corner of the hall, she heard some one coming up the front stairs, and stepped back out of sight. The steps turned to Nellie Nairns's door. It was Nellie coming to bed after her night's work.

Yielding to a sudden impulse, Ann glided along the hall, and tapped on Nellie's door.

“Who is it?” Nellie%S quiet, wary voice asked.

“Ann.”

The door Was quickly unlocked and opened. Nellie surveyed Ann's costume and the canvas duffel bag in astonishment. She pulled the visitor into the room, and closed the door.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“North,” said Ann, with a smile that entreated the other woman's understanding and sympathy.

“With whom?”

“Chako Lyllac,” murmured Ann, flushing deeply.

Nellie drew her breath sharply. Her face was like a mask. Suddenly turning her back on Ann, she went to her bureau. She half turned, and looked obliquely at Ann—a strange look. She was jaded under her rouge. There were lines about her soft and pretty mouth.

“Chako asked me to go with him first,” she said.

“I know,” said Ann; “and you wouldn't.”

“And you?”

“I wanted to,” breathed Ann,

“Why did you come to tell me?” demanded Nellie.

“I wanted you to wish me luck.”

“Me?”

“Yes—you more than anybody.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought you'd understand.”

“Ah, no, no!” said Nellie. “It never happened to me—and it's too late now! I'm spoiled for it!” She laughed with peculiar bitterness. “Oh, well, I'm not going to bawl over it. I've got twenty thousand dollars in the bank—I'll keep my mind on that!” She suddenly came back to Ann. “You don't want to hear my complaints, anyhow. This is your night!” She took Ann's hands in hers and squeezed them. “I'm older than you,” she went on. “By rights I ought to take you in my arms and smooth your hair back, like they do in a play, and give you good advice that would save you from a fate worse than death, eh? But no noble sentiments from me, kid! I'm shy of them. Ah, I envy you, kid, and that's the truth of it!” She broke off, to ask quite simply and anxiously: “Do you know what he is, really?”

Ann nodded.

“A savage, a wild man!”

“I know,” said Ann, smiling. “It doesn't make any difference. He doesn't know what I feel. He wouldn't care if he did know.”

She briefly explained the circumstances of their trip.

“Well, if your eyes are opened, there's nothing more to be said,” said Nellie. “It may be your finish.”

Ann shrugged slightly.

“You think it's worth it!” whispered Nellie. “Ah, if I could have felt that way just once! Wait a minute!”

She ran to her bureau, and from one of the drawers she took a little automatic pistol of blued steel, and a box of shells. These she pressed upon Ann.

“For the gamest kid I ever met!” she whispered.

“I knew you'd understand,” whispered Ann. “Kiss me good-by.”

Nell began to tremble in her arms.

“You really wish it?” she faltered.

“With all my heart!”

Their lips met. Ann snatched up her bag, and fled softly down the back stairs.

XII

The sun was well up in the sky, and they had put Fort Edward some miles behind them. The river was high. Out in the middle the current ran in smooth undulations, miniature billows that never broke. Like all glacier-fed streams, the water tended to a grayish green; but it had come far from its source, and had received many different waters en route. The banks were almost full, which raised the heads of the paddlers well above the flat floor of the forest on either hand, and gave the tall trees the curious effect of being afloat on a raft.

They made fair progress by nosing along close to the shore on one side or the other, taking advantage of every backwater. Whenever there was a bend, they kept on the inside of it, crossing over when the river swung back; but for the greater part of the way one long, straight reach succeeded another—beautiful, disappearing avenues of water dazzling in the sunshine, walled by the dark pines—beautiful, but tedious to ascend, for the end of the avenue never seemed to draw closer. When they finally turned a corner, it was only to open up another avenue stretching endlessly into the sunny distance.

There was an unaccustomed, an impatient, and already a weary traveler in the bow of the dugout. During all these hours Ann had had her back turned to Chako, and she felt cheated. It was demoralizing to the nerves to be so electrically conscious of his nearness, yet never to be able to see him; to be under his eyes, too, without knowing what sort of glances he bent on her. Her back became wretchedly self-conscious.

She could not turn around and look at him. Such an action would be too marked. If he had talked, it would have given her some line on his thoughts, but he rarely spoke.

Ann wondered ceaselessly what made him silent. Was it his natural habit, or had something displeased him? Ah, what peace was there for one who was so utterly at the mercy of another's humor? She thought of the days and weeks ahead with a sinking heart.

Whenever she could, without appearing to force talk, she attempted to start a conversation. Chako would answer her curtly, and let it drop as quickly as possible. His own conversation was restricted to the work in hand.

“You keep pushing her head around,” he would say irritably. “You're not rowing! Put your paddle in close to the side, one hand above the other.”

“But I have to lean out so far to do that,” faltered Ann. “I'm afraid of capsizing her.”

“It's my job to balance her,” he said shortly.

Ann did her best to learn. She went stiff with the strain of trying to lean out sufficiently, yet keep her balance. A pain like a hot wire began to search under her shoulder blades; but Chako never seemed to be satisfied.

“If you'd turn your paddle at the end of the stroke, the way I tell you, she'd come out clean, and you wouldn't hold back.”

Then silence for another half hour. Ann finally fell into an apathetic state.

“Time to spell,” Chako said at last. “There's a shelving place under that point ahead. We'll go ashore there.”

Ann came to life again. She would see him!

The unpainted dugout was silvery with age, somewhat warped in the sides, and rotten in the bottom. Care was required in handling her. Chako let her ground softly on a spot where the bank had sunk a little, and the grass was in the water.

“Watch yourself getting out!” he said sharply.

At that, of course, Ann's nerves immediately began to shake. She stood up gingerly. The boat rocked, and she teetered wildly.

“Get out, can't you?” Chako shouted startlingly. “Or sit down!”

Ann sprang out into the shallow water as if she had been shot, and stepped ashore. She turned around, and stared at Chako in pale amazement.

Her astonished look shamed him. He dropped his angry eyes; but he never was one to confess himself in the wrong. Indeed, the fact that she put him in the wrong made him angrier than ever. He cast a glance of pure hatred on her as he clambered out.

Ann went off a few paces and sat down, trying to adjust herself to the situation. It was futile to be angry with him. In a contest of angry wills, where would she come off? Neither must she allow herself to cringe to him. There lay the real danger; for deep within her she felt the dark temptation to prostrate herself—to give up to him. That was what she had to fight every minute.

The sight of her sitting there, white-faced, silent, busy with her own thoughts, put Chako in an absurd, schoolboy rage. He banged the grub box on the shore, and threw things around.

“Well, have I got to do everything?” he snarled.

The thought came to Ann that after so many days of drunkenness his nerves must be in a shocking state. She got up promptly.

“I'll gladly help,” she said; “but you must tell me what to do.”

This did not mollify Chako.

“Get the grub out, and the things, while I make the fire,” he said roughly. “Fetch some water.”

So close to the settlement, having bread on hand and canned stuff, getting a meal was no great matter. When they had eaten, Chako seemed to be in a better humor. He flung himself out in the grass with the air of being willing to forgive Ann, as if it was she who had lost her temper.

Ann looked down at him with a glint of humor. Strange creatures, men; but oh, how strong and shapely he was, spread out in the grass! She sighed, dimly foreseeing what an uphill fight against her own heart she had before her.

But he was in a good humor. She made haste to improve the occasion.

“What do you think Cal Nimmo said when he found me gone?” she asked.

“Nothing, I guess,” said Chako idly. “He'd done his duty by you. The rest was to you.”

“Do you think he'll come after us?” she asked, with a glance down river.

“Why should he?”

“I don't know. Everybody up here is so strange to me that I can't foresee what they'll do.”

“Ah, you think too much about people, and what they're like and all,” said Chako.

Ann glanced at him with quick, delighted eyes. She had got something out of him at last! He had thought about her. He was aware of her existence.

“Is it possible for people to think too much?” she asked.

“Sure!” said Chako coolly. “It spoils your aim. Watch a man who thinks about taking aim. He misses every time; but up with your gun without thinking—pow, and you have your buck! Thinking is mostly lies, anyway. Once you start thinking, you can persuade yourself of anything you like. I never think!”

Ann was sitting a little above his head, where he could not see her without making an effort. Her softened face brooded over him. She was utterly charmed by his bold, savage avowal.

“If he will only talk to me sometimes,” she thought, “I can stand everything.

“I get your point,” she said demurely; “but don't people who never think sometimes make mistakes, too?”

“Sure!” replied Chako. “What of it? I never think. I just keep going on.”

“But where to? How can you keep from thinking where you are bound for?”

“Oh, to the bowwows, I suppose,” said Chako, with a flippant laugh.

Ann felt pretty flat. She tried to pick up the theme again.

“Funny, our talking this way,” she said, “because men are supposed to be the thinkers, and women to act on impulse.”

“There you go again, worrying about the difference between men and women! What's the use?”

“Well, it's a fascinating subject, isn't it?” said Ann.

“Not to me. I don't understand women. No man could unless he was womanish. I just take 'em as I find 'em.”

“And that's pretty bad, eh?” suggested Ann, smiling.

“Oh, women may be all right to women,” said Chako; “but they're devils to men. I don't blame 'em. Men and women are natural enemies. Soon as a woman comes around, I put up my guard. At that, they've often got the best of me,” he added with unexpected honesty.

Ann felt a smile striking through and through her—a warming smile.

“You see you do think about things, though perhaps you don't do it consciously,” she told him.

“Oh, that's too fine-drawn for me,” he said with a great yawn, and proceeded to go to sleep before her eyes.

Ann yielded herself completely to the pleasure of watching him, knowing very well how destructive it was to her power of resistance.

It was a charming spot, that strip of clean grass between the pine needles and the water, shielded by the pines from the growing warmth of the sun. The water, slipping by just a few inches below them, seemed companionable. There was a vista of a mile or more downstream.

“There might be nobody in the world but the two of us,” Ann thought.

With his scornful blue eyes closed and his sun-bleached lashes sweeping his cheeks, Chako's face took on a certain softness. There was wistfulness and passion in his thin cheeks and his beautifully modeled, fresh lips. In Chako asleep, Ann fancied that she perceived the man he was intended to be.

“If I could only awaken him!” she thought. “But he's such a determined savage!”

He slept on. By and by Ann, too, pillowed her head on her arm, and slept in the grass beside him.

They awakened simultaneously. Chako prepared forthwith to embark. He did not appear to be much refreshed by his sleep. There was a cloud on his blond brow, and Ann trod warily.

When everything was repacked in the dugout, he climbed over the load and took his place in the stern.

“Push her off until her bow just touches,” he said. “Then climb in. You'd better rest until the next spell. I don't want to kill you the first day. Sit down on the bottom.”

Ann climbed in and sat down, facing him.

“Why don't you turn around?” he inquired, staring.

“If you don't mind, I'd rather sit this way,” said Ann humbly. “We seem to go so slowly when you're looking ahead all the time.”

Chako shrugged.

“Just as you like,” he said, making it clear that he didn't like it. “You get a secondhand view of everything that way.”

They proceeded, creeping along close to the bank. Ann was careful never to look directly at Chako, for she felt that it would annoy him. Nevertheless, her roving glances, which brushed over him like thistledown, missed no detail. She saw how he looked down his nose when he was annoyed and self-conscious; how he shielded his eyes from the glare with his thick, fine lashes; how his pouncing glance first traveled ahead to keep his course straight, then turned ashore to search between the tree trunks. It never rested on her.

She knew he hated to be questioned, and yet questions occasionally popped out.

“Why do you keep looking ashore?” was one of them.

Again that cold stare, as much as to say:

“What an idiotic question!”

“For game,” he told her. “Rabbit, fool hens, muskrat.”

Presently he pointed silently into the woods with his paddle. Ann could see nothing.

“Where? Where?” she whispered.

He shrugged disgustedly.

“Gone now. A mink in his summer coat.”

What a fine pose is that of the paddler, Ann thought—so erect and so supple! The play of Chako's muscles was fascinatingly suggested. Apparently almost all the muscles of his body shared in the act of paddling—thighs, abdomen, thorax, biceps, and triceps. She was especially charmed by the way the soft hollow just inside his shoulder throbbed out under his shirt with every thrust of the paddle. What grace in the act of swinging his paddle around his head, to put it into the water on the other side!

After their next spell ashore Ann resumed the paddle again, and they worked until near sundown. They went ashore for the last time at one of the ancient camping places on the Campbell. These sites were chosen for their strategic value, and this one commanded a view of the river for a mile in either direction.

The place had the effect of a house made ready to receive them. There was a little clearing, with a fringe of trees along the edge of the bank. There was a shallow pit for the fire, with a bar across it, supported on forked sticks. Bail hooks hung from the bar, and there were tent pegs and dry wood for the fire.

Ann was so weary that she could scarcely lift an arm, but nothing would have induced her to speak of it. She suspected that even the hardy Chako was tired to-night. Certainly he was out of sorts, and supper was eaten in a depressing silence.

Chako put up the tents. For Ann he had bought a tiny affair of pale green balloon silk. It was suspended from a rope, which might be run between two trees or held up on forked sticks. In fair weather the sides would roll up. Mosquito netting hung within the silk. The whole thing was smaller than a Pullman berth.

For himself Chako had an old brown lean-to, open to the fire. A mosquito bar hung down in front of it.

With the twilight, the awful stillness of the north drew on. Even in the riotous settlement Ann had been aware of that presence; here it was all-prevailing. Her heart seemed to grow smaller and smaller in her breast, until it was like a bird's heart, struggling to maintain life in a too rarified atmosphere. She slowly went cold with an inexplicable terror. She told herself that it was all foolishness, merely a sort of hysteria; but reasoning about it did her no good. It was a nameless panic of the blood, which slowly crept up from her extremities as she sat there.

The sun had gone down while they ate, and now the sky across the river was like an amber sea, in which the evening star sailed like a fairy boat, too bright for mortal eyes, or like a glorious yellow jewel held up in the dark, carved cup of the pines. Ann could not bear to look at it; its beauty was part of the stillness and the terror. Scarcely able to move, she crept into her tent, and gave herself up to her panic, inert and despairing.

She thought of her own land with a pain that was almost too sharp to be borne—the unpainted schoolhouse at the turn of the red gravel highway; the friendly farmhouse with the striped roof, across the way; the men plowing in the fields; the good-humored negroes shambling along the road—ah, a friendly land!

Through her tent, through the blankets that she pulled over her head, the silence still laid a hand on her like death—the silence and the solitude, for they were one. The thought of Chako lying near only caused her a fresh shiver of terror and revulsion; for he was a very symbol of this land—savage, hard, and inexplicable. What had she to do with him? The spell he had laid on her was nothing—a mere trick of her imagination, a noonday madness. Night was more real, and in the night she shivered at him.

How could she have been so mad as to have ventured on this trip into a savage land under conduct of a savage? And this was only one step into the wilderness. How could she persevere for day after day, until the days mounted into weeks, always putting a greater distance between her and everything she held dear; always putting herself more and more into the power of the stony-hearted man upon whom she was dependent?

Ann simply could not face the thought of the coming days and nights. She could not go on with it, that was certain. Perhaps she was a coward, but it couldn't be helped. There was a limit to one's powers. In the morning she would ask him to take her back to Fort Edward. She would pay him liberally for his trouble, and then she would go home!

 

Ann was awakened by a hail from Chako outside. She answered it.

“If we make an early start,” he said, “we can get a good sleep in the middle of the day. We'll need it. Got to track up the rapids to-day—six miles.”

Ann's first sensation was that of joy, upon recognizing that the voice was not ill-tempered; her second, surprise at finding herself quite cheerful. She peeped out. The sun was high, the river sparkled like diamonds. The morning breeze was making a pleasant murmur in the pine tops. How unspoiled the earth was!

“Ready in a jiffy!” she called out.

She took her little dressing case and went along the bank out of sight, where she bathed and dressed and brushed her hair. How delicious the cold water was! It made a new woman of her.

When she got back, Chako had the coffee boiling. It could hardly be said that he radiated good cheer, but at least he restrained his scorn. He was no longer a bear with a sore head, but just an ordinary bear. And how handsome he was in the morning light!

Ann smiled and blushed at the night's fears, and, thankful that nobody knew about her weakness, fell to upon breakfast.

At noon next day Joe Mixer carried them across the portage. The old dugout was left on the shore below Joe's store. Hearing talk of the “height of land,” Ann had visualized a mountain chain to cross on this portage, but the “height” was practically imperceptible. Except for a hill to climb at the beginning, it was flat all the way over.

Joe's vehicle was a rough, springless wagon. A kitchen chair had been placed for Ann in the body, while Chako and Joe rode on the box, as befitted the lords of creation. A breed boy sat on the tail of the wagon, with his legs dangling.

This Joe Mixer was a well known character in the country, but not a beloved one. Ann was divided between disgust at his grossness and a sort of pity that was stirred by his look of injured, groping stupidity.

All the way over, when the horses did not require his attention, he sat sidewise, gazing at Ann, unabashed. Never had Ann been so frankly stared at. From her Strathcona boots to her Stetson hat the little eyes gobbled her up, inch by inch. Ann did not mind particularly. She knew that they would see the last of Mixer in six miles.

In the midst of all the flatness they suddenly came out on a charming lake.

“Here we are!” said Chako.

“That water goes to the Arctic Ocean,” said Joe to Ann, with an ingratiating air. “Only sometimes, in a wet season, she spills over on this side, too.”

“Why Hat Lake?” asked Ann.

“Along of them islands out there. Somebody calc'lated they looked like spring millinery.”

They turned smartly in the grass at the lake's edge, and everybody jumped out. Chako and the breed boy lifted out the bags and bundles, while Joe Mixer stood by, chewing a grass stalk and goggling at Ann. Some sort of plot was visibly stirring in his muddy wits.

When the wagon was unloaded, Chako said:

“My canoe is cached down the shore a piece. I'll go bring it up.”

As soon as Chako passed out of sight among the willows, Joe Mixer, with mysterious nods and winks, beckoned Ann out of hearing of the breed boy.

“Say, what you want to tie yourself up to Chako Lyllac for?” he said hoarsely. “He ain't got nothing. Never will have nothing. Look at me! I got somepin, I have. I got twenty like him in debt to me on my books this minute!”

Ann looked at him as at the queerest specimen she had ever beheld in all her life. A dimple showed in either cheek. It was impossible to take alarm; he was too fatuous.

Her half smile drove him wild.

“Gee, if you ain't the slickest little feller I ever see!” he cried. “In them pants and all, and the Stetson over your eye! Just suits you! I'll let you wear 'em always. Turn around! Turn around and let me see!”

As Ann declined, he walked all around her himself, commenting upon her with the greatest frankness. Deep inside her Ann laughed. What an experience for a respectable school-teacher!

Joe Mixer dug in his pocket, and, bringing out his hand, opened it, revealing half a dozen gold pieces, which he weighed and jingled on his palm.

“Look at them beauties!” he said. “For you, and more, too—and anything you want out of the store!”

“I saw a lady in your store this morning,” remarked Ann demurely.

“Oh, that breed wench! I'll put her to the door. She won't bother you, honey. Say, will you come?”

“What about Chako?” said Ann.

“You just tell him you've changed your mind, see? He couldn't carry you off by force, could he? If he gets ugly, me and the breed yonder will fix him. I'll keep him in talk, and the breed will steal up and pin his arms. Then I'll crack him over the head.”

“Is there no law up here? Couldn't you be arrested for that?” asked Ann, startled.

“Hell! They couldn't do nothin' to me if I was pertecting you, could they?” said Joe.

A little laugh escaped Ann. Joe was charmed.

“You'll come with me, eh? You'll come?” he stuttered. “Gee, honey, we'll live high over at my place! There's plenty doing over there, I can tell you, with the rafts coming down the river, and the steamboat once a fortnight.”

A couple of hundred yards along the shore, Chako was seen to push out in a canoe, and turn toward them.

“Here's Chako,” said Ann.

“I'll give the breed a tip right now,” said Joe Mixer.

“No, don't,” Ann told him. “Sorry, but I can't accept your offer.”

“Aw!” said Joe, with his jaw hanging down.

“What's more,” Ann went on, “I believe I'll tell Chako what you said.”

Joe's cheeks paled, leaving purple patches that looked as if pasted on. A frantic look came into his little eyes.

“You—you wouldn't do such a thing as that!” he stammered.

“Yes, I'm going to tell Chako,” said Ann. “I think you need a lesson.”

Joe stared at her in stupid terror. Suddenly he turned and scuttled for his wagon. Hoisting himself over the tail on his big stomach, he snatched up reins and whip and started belaboring his surprised horses. The outfit completed the turn on two wheels, and went banging over the trail at a gallop. The breed boy, running like a sandpiper, caught hold and swung himself aboard

Chako, landing from his canoe, asked in astonishment:

“What the hell bit Joe Mixer? I haven't paid him yet.”

“Then we're in the money,” said Ann demurely. “He suddenly recollected a pressing engagement at home.”

“What was he saying to you?” Chako demanded suspiciously.

“He offered to buy me with six pieces of gold,” said Ann.

Chako had no humor. He gave a sort of grunt, and turned back to his canoe.

This was too much for Ann's pride. She flashed an angry look after him.

“Even if he doesn't care,” she thought, “he might show a little manly indignation!”

“Doesn't leak a drop,” remarked Chako, rolling the canoe from side to side.

“Unfeeling brute!” said Ann's angry eyes.

Chako carefully stowed all their baggage aboard. Ann stood apart in haughty silence. She felt a little ridiculous, too, because he was not paying the slightest attention to her haughtiness.

“All ready!” he called.

Ann marched to the bank. Chako's eyes were all for the canoe.

“Isn't she a little beauty?” he said, stroking her satiny side. “Came all the way from Peterboro, in Ontario. There's not many like her in this country. I'd sell my shirt sooner than part with her. Only weighs sixty pounds. I can portage her anywhere.”

“That's what possesses his heart!” thought Ann bitterly. “Oh, well!

“Very pretty!” she said aloud.

Her anger was suddenly gone. She laughed a little shakily.

“What are you laughing at?” said Chako.

“Nothing.”

It was at herself that she laughed. What a fool she was!

The bank made a natural wharf. Ann seated herself in the bow, while Chako held the gunwale. The canoe was both steadier and more comfortable than the dugout. Ann was gradually getting the hang of the paddle.

Chako got in, and pushed away from the bank.

“Now we're really off,” he said. “To hell with civilization!”

They headed obliquely across the lake. Ann could see no opening anywhere. Even as they approached the other shore, she could not see where they were going, but Chako drove straight into the reeds, as if he knew. The water was shallow, the bottom muddy; the reeds rattled together like little skeletons.

Finally the banks began to draw together, and the water to stir sluggishly. It was impossible to tell just at what point the lake became a river, but finally they found themselves in a veritable streamlet, such as waters many a meadow at home. It was not more than six feet wide, and the willows brushed their faces as they turned the bends.

Farther along the banks became stony, and they floated over great round stones. The water was a clear brown. The bed of the stream was literally alive with fish.

“Frank Bower was the last man to go down ahead of us,” remarked Chako.

“How can you tell?” asked Ann.

“I see his tracks in the water.”

Ann, aware that she was being drawn, studied the matter. Finally she perceived red smudges on some of the largest stones they floated over.

“His boat was painted red, wasn't it?” she said.

“Getting pretty smart, aren't you?” said Chako, with a chuckle.

Clearly his spirits were rising.

The little stream received several tributaries, which doubled and quadrupled its volume. The current ran now fast, now slow, carrying them bobbing down little rapids, where the sunshine glittered intolerably on the broken water, and dropping them in still, black pools hemmed in by tall jack pines, gloomy as cypresses. There were broad meadows of lush blue grass, without any cattle to feed upon it. There was a hill which seemed to accompany them the whole way—an odd-shaped hill, blue and yellow in the sunny air; now on the right hand and now on the left, now before and now behind, as the incredibly crooked stream wound its way.

Chako broke into song:

“There was a youth, and a well belovèd youth,
And he was a squire's son;
He loved the bailiff's daughter fair,
That lived in Islington.”

He sang as humans were intended to sing—straight from the diaphragm, with wide open mouth. Ann was startled. The old song had a grace one did not expect in the rude Chako. She could not see him, but she knew he was as unconscious of it as a bird. His deep voice had a tender quality that shook her breast. She resented it, too.

“It's not fair!” she thought. “It arouses feelings in others of which he is absolutely incapable.”

They went ashore for the afternoon spell on a bank under birch trees and poplars. This part of the little river was all blithe and bowery, with no pines. There was a fringe of the graceful, irregular trees along each bank, their branches meeting overhead. A special arbor seemed to have been put up for the river to flow through, and the brown water was checkered with sunlight and shadow.

On going ashore, Ann saw Chako for the first time since embarking at the lake. He was in great spirits now. There was an outrageous effrontery in his spirits. He was a little drunk again—on ozone, this time. Such was his pride of being that it rendered him well-nigh intolerable to his fellow beings, so obviously did he scorn them. Ann hated him helplessly, while he dazzled her. It seemed to her that he went out of his way to wound her.

“Hey, Maury!” He had taken to calling her by her last name. “Scout around and get me some dry twigs to bring up this fire! Where's the water? Don't you know your job yet? Fetch me my knife from the bottom of the canoe. Look sharp!”

At first Ann took this sort of thing in good part; but it kept getting worse. She saw finally that it was not altogether intended in fun, though he grinned when he ordered her about. It was intended to humble her. Well, she did not intend to be humbled. One had to make a stand somewhere. At his last command she sat down and looked at the view.

“I asked you to fetch me my knife!” cried Chako, angry at once.

“Fetch it yourself,” said Ann coolly.

Chako stared at her, with his broad, dark eyebrows running up. The quality of astonishment in his anger was rather comical.

“Do him good!” thought Ann.

He arose like young Jove in his wrath, stalked to the canoe, got his knife, and carried it back with him. Ann quailed inwardly under his aspect, but sat tight and did not speak. Chako moved around the fire wrapped in thunderclouds. How like a savage, these violent and unreasonable changes of mood!

When the food was ready, Ann helped herself in silence, and carried her portion back to her former place. Chako ate with his back turned to her. How foolish it was for two people in their situation to quarrel! But what could she do? He would misunderstand any overtures she might make. In silence the grub box was repacked, and in silence they embarked again.

Ann was resolved to stand firm, but Chako could keep up this sort of thing better than she could. The beauty of that ineffable afternoon softened her, made her long to open her breast wide and share it. The silent figure behind put her in a strait-jacket, as it were. She could not see him, but she could feel him—hard, closed, and angry.

There were many wild duck on the river. The mother ducks had their lately hatched broods out. Their suffering when the canoe surprised them was pitiful—these wildest of creatures, and unable to fly! If there was any cover, the little brown mother gathered her brood around her, and, sitting still with an agonized, shoe-button eye, hoped to escape observation. If they were caught all exposed, there was nothing for her to do but to flee squawking across the surface of the water, trailing an alleged broken wing, to distract attention from her young. These little brown puffballs had but one trick to play. They dived gamely, again and again, until they came up staggering and exhausted.

These and other pretty wonders Ann had to watch in silence. There was a black cloud behind her, and the air was charged with thunder. Insensibility in another caused Ann's quick nature to lash itself. She suffered.

All the while she knew she had only to turn around and humble herself a little, in order to make all right again. She was sorely tempted, but she did not turn. She told herself that she was in the right. If she gave in now, she would have it to do all over again.

The stream slowed up and deepened. The trees retreated from the bank. For hours they wound interminably between green meadows elevated above their heads, and they could see nothing of the world. It was unspeakably tedious, for there was nothing to distinguish one bend in the river from a hundred others. On the outside of each bend there was a cut bank some eight feet high, with deep water below. On the inside, the water shallowed out on a muddy beach with four-petaled yellow lilies growing in the mud.

A place where the cut bank had partly fallen finally provided them with a landing place. A grounded tree furnished plenty of fuel. They went ashore, and carried their things up to the top of the bank, to camp for the night.

After they had eaten another silent meal, Chako went back to the bush, to cut poles for the tents. The trees were about a furlong off, across the deep grass.

Ann sat miserably in the grass, nursing her knees, and staring before her. The beauty of the evening only sharpened her pain. From the top of the bank one could see the blue hills which bordered the flat valley miles back. A short distance beyond where they had stopped, the river emptied into a blue lake, which stretched to the north as far as Ann could see.

“I cannot stand this!” she thought wretchedly. “He knows it, too. He knows he has only to wait, and I'll give in. I have no chance against him, because his heart is hard and mine is soft!”

Presently she heard Chako come back and throw down the poles.

The stream flowed before her, deep and slow. A murky thought invaded Ann's clear mind:

“If I fell in, he'd have to come to my rescue, and I'd find out if he's really as hard as a stone, or only pretending, like me. It would make things all right again without my having to humble myself. He can't be quite inhuman!”

She stood up. She took a step nearer to the edge of the bank. She affected to be looking at the view. It was a horrid drop, and she knew the water was icy. She shivered. She had no other outer clothes. It would ruin her watch. What childish folly, anyhow! How could she hope to arouse a man's better nature by such a trick?

But how would Chako act? Surely, in a moment of stress, the real man would come out. That was what she wanted to know. That was what she had to find out somehow!

She took a step nearer. The brown water swirled a little below her. It looked very deep. Oh, but it was too foolish! Too like the ordinary senseless woman! She must be straight and aboveboard, whatever Chako was; and yet—and yet, if she could only make him show his heart, wouldn't it be worth it?

The agonizing necessity of making a decision was taken from her. Her footing was suddenly snatched from under her, and down she went, with a shriek that was drowned in a mighty splash.

When her head emerged from the water, she shrieked again. She lashed out wildly with arms and legs. She went under again. The current was carrying her down.

Suddenly, in the midst of her struggle, she saw Chako standing on the low part of the bank, where the canoe was drawn up.

“Help! Help!” she cried in genuine panic.

Above all the noise she was making herself, she heard his hard, ringing voice:

“Put your feet down! Stand up!”

In her astonishment, Ann obeyed, and found firm ground under her feet. Her shoulders rose out of the water.

“Now walk out,” said Chako.

Ann obeyed, streaming. She could see just as clearly as if she were outside her body what a ridiculous sight she presented. The consciousness of it made her hold herself very stiffly, and that, in turn, only made her the more ridiculous.

She plowed through the water. Chako's face was working. Suddenly he broke into a roar of laughter that made the evening ring.

That was the last straw. The tears sprang to Ann's eyes. When she got to the bank, Chako offered her a hand, but she angrily knocked it away. That made him roar afresh. Ann climbed out unaided, and walked stiffly up to the top of the bank, Chako following, weak with laughter.

When he could speak, he said:

“Take off everything, and throw it outside your tent. I'll dry it by the fire. Any fool ought to know better than to stand on the edge of a cut bank!”

Renewed laughter.

Ann, wrapped in a blanket inside her little tent, flung an arm over her eyes and thought in bitterness of spirit:

“Serve me right! Serve me right! I put myself right in his hands! How could I have been such a fool?”

(To be continued in the April number of Munsey's Magazine)