Munsey's Magazine/Volume 78/Issue 4/Wild Bird
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.
XX
ANN sat where she was, bruised and apathetic. She felt that she had lost all hope of controlling Chako Lyllac, now that he was hot on the trail of her father's gold.
Hearing him come running out of the shack, she sharply turned her head. He had come for wood. He gathered up a store he had laid ready beside the fire, and ran into the shack again.
Ann could not bring herself to approach the place. She watched. Presently, by the light that sprang up inside, she knew he had built a fire to give light for his search for the gold.
By and by he came out. Ann saw at a glance that he had found nothing. He had himself better in hand, but his voice was still strained with excitement.
“Of course the old fox wouldn't leave it around in plain view,” he said. “I'll find it to-morrow!”
Having put off his satisfaction until the morning, Chako set about spreading his blankets. Ann knew that he would be asleep almost as soon as he lay down. She crept away under her tent.
She lay there, too crushed to feel any active pain; but such was the weight on her breast that it was hard to breathe. She was no longer tormented by maddening thoughts. She lay quiet enough.
“All that gold!” she said to herself. “It is mine, and he will never forgive me for it. He is lost, and so am I!”
Sleep was out of the question for her. She rolled up one of the sides of her little tent, and tied it. Sitting up, she saw Chako a little way off, rolled up in his blanket, a formless bundle by the fire, with one shoulder sticking up.
His pose suggested an utter callousness. She turned away her head. This was not Chako, she thought—not the man she loved, but a wicked changeling.
She looked out over the lake. It was a moonlight night, but the moon was not high enough to look down into that deep bowl. The sky was a sea of gray light, out of which a few stars, like pin points, glimmered wanly. The moon was somewhere behind the great mountain up whose flanks they had climbed the day before. The vast, blunt summit was outlined against the pale sky, black as the shadow of doom. The peak at the other end of the lake—the gold peak—was bathed in a heavenly, tender radiance.
It was all too grand, too tremendous. What business had puny humans amid such surroundings? Down in the bottom of the bowl the lake slept in a black and awful stillness, through which the sound of falling water came like the rolling of a drum. When Ann came out of her tent in the morning, Chako was already at work. He had unceremoniously pitched all Joe Maury's poor belongings outside the shack, and was grubbing about within.
She set about making a fire as well as she could. Chako had never allowed her to do this before. After several attempts, she got it started, and prepared the breakfast. When it was ready, she called Chako, but he paid no attention, and she sat down to eat alone.
Suddenly he came running out of the shack with his eyes blazing. There was a visible change for the worse in his face. His expression had become brutalized.
“Two hundred pounds of gold!” he cried.
To Ann it was like the cry of a madman.
“Have you found it?” she asked with sinking heart.
“No,” he said, “but that's the amount of it! Joe Grouser kept a tally on the back of the door. He shaved the poles down to give himself a clean place to write on. So many ounces a day—sometimes four, sometimes six, sometimes ten. It totals more than two hundred pounds. Now I know it's here!”
Ann's breast experienced a sort of jaded thrill. Two hundred pounds of gold was a fortune. She had a momentary glimpse of what it would buy; but she could not get excited over it. She looked at Chako's changed face, and hated the gold.
“You take it pretty cool,” Chako said, with a hard glance of suspicion. “Maybe you knew it was here.”
Ann shrugged.
“Did you know it was here?” he demanded, with an evil look.
“That's a foolish question!” Ann cried, exasperated. “How could I expect to get it out of here without letting you know about it? Could I hide two hundred pounds in my clothes?”
Chako, however, was deaf to reason. He continued to glance at her darkly.
Having bolted some food, he jumped up and recommenced his search. Having exhausted the possibilities of the shack, he searched outside it, striding back and forth across the little clearing and under the trees, searching every inch of the ground for some evidences of its surface having been disturbed.
He gave particular attention to the roots of every stump, loosening the earth around them with his hunting knife, and scooping it out with his hands. To Ann, whose imagination had been so struck in the first place by his wild pride of bearing, it was inexpressibly painful to see him squatting there, clawing at the earth, so eager in his sordid quest.
He was too excited, too impatient. There was no method in his search, for he went here and there at random, covering the same ground over and over.
Later it seemed to occur to him that he would never succeed in this way. He went off to the diggings, and presently returned with a shovel. With this he started to dig up the floor of the shack, throwing the earth outside with powerful strokes. The earth was packed very hard, and presently, in his reckless impatience, he broke the handle of his precious implement off short. He flung it from him with bitter curses.
Thereafter he had only his knife to loosen the earth with. He kept at work the greater part of the day, carefully carrying the earth outside on a square of canvas. In the afternoon he went off to search the two paths—one climbing the broken rocks to the cliffs, the other running down the shore to the diggings.
Next morning Chako climbed to the top of the shack, and commenced jabbing his knife into the sods, going over it foot by foot. The consciousness of the futility of his occupation did not tend to make his temper better. From time to time he cast furious glances at Ann, as if daring her to ridicule him.
Later he pushed all the sods off the roof, and flung down the poles. Finally he began to throw down the walls, tapping each log from end to end with the butt of his knife, to make sure it was not hollow. He pushed over the chimney. By midday there was nothing left but a heap of ruins. Then, suddenly fearful that he had covered up the desired spot, he carried off all the débris to one side, and dug again.
The relentless passage of time drove him well-nigh frantic, and by evening he was almost tearful in his balked rage. His language did not spare Ann's ears. Ann did not mind that. She did not mind anything in him that was rude and strong. It was cupidity and meanness that sickened her heart.
“The devil is in it!” cried Chako. “If Joe Grouser visited his cache every night to put away the day's takings, either it must have been inside his shack, or he must have made a path to it. That stands to reason; but I've leveled his shack to the ground and dug all around it, and I've searched every foot of the way alongside the only two paths there are!”
Ann said nothing. A hope was beginning to stir in her breast that he would not be able to find the gold. This was the end of the third day. In two days more they must start back or run serious risk of going hungry.
She could not visualize the future at all. She had only a dim feeling that if she could get Chako away from that evil spot, she might get him back again.
He seemed to read her thoughts. He cast a baleful look on her.
“What have you got to say about it?” he snarled.
“I have nothing to say,” replied Ann.
“No, but you can look a whole lot. You've got a damned disagreeable look, if you ask me!”
What could Ann do but press her lips together, though she knew it was her silences that most exasperated him?
“You're hoping I'll have to leave here without it!” Chako shouted accusingly.
The goaded Ann suddenly raised her eyes to his.
“Yes, I am,” she said.
“I knew it! I knew you were against me! Sitting so quiet, and always working against me in your mind!”
“And if you want to know why,” cried Ann, raising her voice in turn, “it's because it makes a beast of you—worse than whisky!”
“Yah, you talk like a namby-pamby Sunday school teacher!” he snarled. “You're not human. You make me sick with your superiority!”
He walked away.
Not human! The phrase hurt Ann worse than the commonest and most abusive epithet he could have flung at her. He hated her because she could not descend to his present level.
She resolved never to let herself speak out again. It was too horrible to wrangle with him. When she did so, she lost what influence she still had with him. He was a little afraid of her when she was silent. That was why he was always trying to provoke a quarrel. Hereafter, whatever happened, whatever Chako might say to her, she would hold her tongue!
In the morning Chako was mum and black-browed. He wouldn't come to eat until Ann had finished. He spoke but once, and that threateningly.
“Don't you waste anything. We'll need it all.”
Afterward he went off up the trail over the rocks.
When Ann had finished cleaning up, she sat down on the shelving ledge of rock at the edge of the water. She knew how bad idleness was for one in her situation, but she had exhausted all the possible small tasks around camp. She had nothing to busy her but her black thoughts. Not a ray of light ahead!
She sprang up at last. She could not stand it. Anything, anything, to escape such thoughts! She must find something to do. Suppose she started looking for the gold, too? Where would one start looking for it?
If she had been her father, where would she have hidden it? Instantly the reply came—in a place so simple that nobody would ever think of looking there. But that was all very well. The knotty question remained—how could he have visited his hiding place every day without leaving a path to it?
She looked around her. The only visible path led from the spot where his door had been down to the edge of the flat rock where she had been sitting, then off to the left, on its way to the diggings. The first few yards of it were more clearly marked than the rest. No doubt that was because he went down to get water off the edge of the rock. That was the natural place for drawing water—the place where Ann herself got it. The rock overhung the lake a little, and you could dip in easily.
At this point in her reasoning Ann's heart began to beat. The rock overhung a little! She went quickly down to the edge and looked over. The water was about two feet deep, as clear as greenish glass, and with a shelving, pebbly bottom. It came up to within an inch or two of the surface of the ledge, and ran back underneath. There was a space under there that she could not see into.
She looked guiltily around her. Chako was not in sight. She nervously rolled up her sleeve, and, stretching herself out on the rock, thrust her arm into the icy water and reached back.
Her hand met something smooth and hard—a surface of canvas. She felt about it. It revealed itself to the touch as a thick, squat bag, resting firmly on the bottom of the lake. The top was not closed, but rolled back all around. She could put her hand inside. She could feel the hard, smooth grains; a curious waxy feel they had.
Ann rose up, squeezed the water off her arm, thoughtfully rolled down her sleeve, and buttoned the cuff. Her secret filled her with terror. What was she to do with it? She would have given anything now not to have known. The discovery forced upon her the agonizing necessity of deciding what was best to do.
Should she tell Chako, and let matters take their course? Ah, how tempting that was—to let things take their course—to drift! She was tired of struggling. She played with the temptation for a while, but, in spite of her, the firmer strain in her nature gradually crystallized.
Chako would only fling it away. She pictured all the terrible, laborious years during which the gold had been stored up pinch by pinch, and it seemed wicked that it should be wasted without anybody being the better. Being the better! On the contrary, there was gold enough in that bag to feed the evil in Chako till it consumed him body and soul.
Suppose she gave it to him freely, and he lowered his pride sufficiently to accept it. It would kill his pride—that wild pride which was his strength; and how he would hate her afterward for having destroyed him!
On the other hand, suppose she told him, and kept the gold for herself. In his present temper he was perfectly capable of killing her for it. Whichever way you looked at it, it was ruinous. Let it lie! Let it lie!
XXI
When Chako came back to the camp fire late that afternoon, even with his abounding health he showed traces of the flame that was ravaging him. His eyes were hollowed, and there were hard creases about his mouth. Without a look or a word in Ann's direction, he flung himself down on his back, and threw an arm over his face.
Hard and savage though suffering made him appear, it was real suffering. His nostrils were pinched with pain. Ann's heart melted at the sight. He looked such a boy!
Should she not tell him, after all, that the gold was within ten paces of him? How sweet it would be to see joy break in his haggard face! Surely joy would humanize him!
If he had looked at her at that moment, it must all have come tumbling out; but he kept his eyes covered, and Ann's sterner self had time to rally.
“This is merely weakness,” it said to her. “You thought this all out when you were cool. You must stick to it, and not think any more. If you begin to wabble, everything will be lost.”
She looked at Chako no more, and kept on with her work. He was discouraged, but not softened at all. Presently he raised himself up, to inquire harshly:
“Haven't you got anything for me to eat? You've had nothing else to do.”
Ann's pride reared up, but she curbed it. Better to yield in little things, for the sake of standing firm in the big one.
“I'm getting it ready,” she said quietly.
“You've cooked too much,” he complained, when he came to eat.
“The usual amount,” Ann told him.
“We can't afford that now. Put part of it aside for the morning. You shouldn't need much, doing nothing all day!”
Ann looked at him—and held her tongue. After all, this was merely childish. She helped him to his customary portion of rice and bacon, and took about half her share.
“Doing the saintly act now, eh?” Chako sneered.
Ann was not yet subdued by pain. Her eyes flashed at him. By way of answer, she took the rest of her portion from frying pan and cooking pot, and coolly ate it before him.
Chako said nothing at the moment, though his face was black with rage. When he rose, he observed:
“If you gorge yourself now, you'll only have to go hungry later. I'm not going to leave here until I find what I'm looking for.”
“You're mad!” said Ann.
“Sure,” he said. “It's great to be crazy!”
“What good will it do you if you haven't strength enough to carry it out?”
“Oh, finding it will give me plenty of strength,” said Chako, with the smile of one possessed. “I'm going to take to-morrow off to hunt. There are ptarmigan on the mountain, and I might get a shot at a goat.”
Ann's heart went down sickeningly. All her hopes were set on the next morning but one. If their departure were delayed, where would she find the strength to go on with?
Chako went back up the rocks.
Having washed the dishes and put all in order, Ann sat down to her customary vigil on the flat rock. Though the sun had sunk behind the mountain, it would not be dark for two hours yet; but already the deathly twilight stillness was settling on the lake. It was always still down in the bottom of that deep bowl, but the goodly sun had the effect of creating a pleasant bustle; and when he withdrew, like a beloved friend departing all too soon, that evil, freezing stillness immediately began to reach out its feelers.
To Ann, sitting there with her breast made tender by pain, it seemed as if the very trees turned into stone. In all created things the stubborn will to live seemed to faint. It was difficult to breathe such an air.
By and by Ann was greatly startled to hear a sound in the stillness—that is, a sound other than the drumming of the falls, which was always there, like an accompaniment to the stillness. It was the sound of dropping stones, and Chako must be making it. After a moment she succeeded in placing it. It came from the cliffs above the falls.
As she listened, Ann's very soul seemed to congeal with horror. The cairn they had raised together! Chako was throwing it down, stone by stone. His purpose was only too clear. In the clothes of the dreadful ruined thing that lay beneath, he hoped to find a clew to the whereabouts of the gold.
Ann flung herself down on the rock, wreathing her arms about her head in an effort to shut out the sounds. She still heard them in her brain. It was too much to be borne. Jumping up, she paced the shore, still with her arms about her head; but whether she lay or whether she walked, she could not escape the horror.
How could he? How could he? How could she bear to see his hands again? Would he have the humanity to cover it up, or must she walk by that spot and see it? What good to turn her head away, if she knew it was there? Ah, how different from the Chako who had shielded her from the sight of the horror when they came!
At this thought something broke inside her, and she wept. She crawled into her tent.
In the morning she was outwardly composed, but it was the last effort of self-control. Even Chako was made uneasy by her white and stony aspect; but he said nothing.
Ann finally said, in a hurried, breathless voice, as if the words were the last she expected to get out:
“There is something I must ask you. I cannot bear not knowing.”
“What's that?” asked Chako, with an insolent stare.
Ann caught her breath. She pressed her hand against her lower lip to control its trembling.
“Did you—did you cover the body up again?” she whispered.
Chako was not so completely invulnerable as he appeared. He started back as if she had struck him, and his tanned face turned yellowish.
“Why—why, what the hell do you—” he began.
“Oh, there's no magic in it,” Ann said hurriedly. “I could hear quite plainly what you were doing.”
Chako looked away.
“Yes, I covered him up,” he muttered.
Ann turned her back on him. She knew he had not done so. However, as soon as he had eaten, he went off up the rocks with a nonchalant air that was plainly an assumption, and presently Ann could hear him piling back the stones. The tension in her breast was somewhat relieved. After all, there was a spark of humanity in him, or he would not spend the moments that were so precious to him in this tribute to the dead.
He went hunting. In the afternoon he returned to camp, empty-handed, discouraged, and savage as a starving dog. Ann, watching him warily, handed him his food in silence. There was one question, though, that she had to ask.
“There is only one day's rations left. Are we going to start back to-morrow?”
Chako was silent for a moment. His face was convulsed.
“Yes,” he muttered at last.
Ann was squatting on her heels across the fire from him, watching her last baking. She began to tremble all over. Clenching her hands and her teeth, she fought it desperately, kneeling there in silence. For some seconds the result hung in the balance. Her throat was quivering hysterically, but she still fought. She would have won, too, had not Chako looked over at her sneeringly.
“What the hell's the matter with you now?” he said. “You've got your way, haven't you?”
That finished her. She flung herself down, trying to stifle the wild sobs that tore her.
“Oh, God!” said Chako. “Always bawling!”
He savagely gulped his food. Ann crept away to the water's edge. After all, it was from relief that she had broken down, and it was not long before she succeeded in controlling herself. She went back to the fire, shamed, softened, tremulous, her breast all warm. In such a mood she felt an imperative need of making friends with her companion.
“I'm sorry I was so silly,” she murmured. “I've been under a strain. I've taken a horror of this place. I felt that another day of it would drive me mad.”
“Pretty happy about going, aren't you?” sneered Chako.
“Ah, yes!” murmured Ann, with a lifting breast.
It enraged him. He violently struck his fist on the ground.
“Well, I'm not!” he cried. “It drives me simply wild to have to go back without the stuff!”
He flung down his empty plate, and walked away; but before Ann's bread had finished baking, back he came. There was something brewing in his skull. He looked at her evilly. He sat down, the better to see into her face.
“Don't you think that gold is hidden somewhere about here?” he demanded.
Ann steeled herself for the ordeal that she saw impending.
“Why, I suppose so, since you found the tally,” she said.
“Then how is it you're so content to leave without it?”
“I told you the place has got on my nerves.”
“That don't seem like much of an answer,” said Chako, boring her cruelly with his hard glance; “not from a woman who says she's only got six hundred dollars a year to live on.”
“Well, that's the truth.”
Chako grunted. He was silent for a moment, studying her.
“What's your notion of the kind of hiding place he'd hit on?” he asked cunningly.
“I have no idea,” said Ann.
“Haven't you been looking, too, while I was away?”
“No—I left it to you.”
Chako sneered.
“You must have thought about it.”
“Yes, I thought about it.”
“Well, what did you think?”
“I thought of many things,” said Ann. “Perhaps he had a hiding place among the trees, and made a point of approaching it by a different route each time, so as not to leave a path. Perhaps he let the stuff accumulate for a week or a month before stowing it away. He may have died the day after making his last visit.”
“Not good enough!” muttered Chako. “I have looked under every tree,”
“Perhaps he had several hiding places,” said Ann.
“Then he'd have to have a diagram, wouldn't he? Or he'd forget where they were himself.”
There was another silence. These silences, while he stared at her, were more demoralizing to Ann than his questions.
“Are you coming back for it?” he asked suddenly.
This question threw Ann into confusion. Either answer was charged with danger. She needed time to think. She hesitated fatally.
“No!” she said at last.
“Ha!” cried Chako. “Why, that's not human!”
“Well, you've accused me often enough of not being human,” retorted Ann.
“Don't bandy words with me!” he cried roughly. “Nobody, man nor woman, would willingly turn their backs on all that gold. You're lying!”
Ann sat still as a stone. He leaned forward on hands and knees, sticking his face toward her across the fire.
“Do you know where the gold is?” he asked her.
“No,” said Ann, steadily meeting his crazed eyes.
“You lie!”
Ann held fast.
“You lie!” he repeated, beating the ground, working himself up. “I see it all now. You knew from the first that it was up here, and where it was. You wouldn't tell me before we started, because you thought I'd strike too hard a bargain. You thought, as time passed, you could work me the way you wanted. I know women! And when you found out I wasn't the kind of man a woman could work, you changed your mind. Now you want to get out as quick as possible, so you can find an easier man to your purpose!”
“This is nonsense!” protested Ann.
He was deaf and frenzied.
“Well, your tricks and your lies won't do you any good!” he shouted. “We don't leave this place till I get the gold!”
“Then we shall starve.”
“No, we won't starve, either, because you're going to tell me now!”
Ann sat silently calling on all her strength to meet the test.
“Yes, and you needn't think you can sit there so quiet, and pit your will against mine!” cried Chako. “What do I care about your will power? What good is will power to you, when I could break your back across my knee like a dry twig?”
“That wouldn't do you any good,” said Ann.
“Then you do know! You do know!” he cried. “I'll find a way to make you tell me! I won't break your back, but I'll twist your arm between my two hands until it breaks—first one arm and then the other!”
Ann looked him in the eyes and held out her arm. The act took him aback for a moment. His eyes bolted; but in the moment of her ascendancy Ann saw that she had lost. Though his eyes could not meet hers, his teeth were grinding with a fresh access of rage. Womanlike, she suddenly surrendered in order to save Chako from himself.
“The gold is in the lake, under the edge of the rock yonder,” she said.
Her voice was proudly indifferent. The die was cast. What mattered anything now?
“Ha, ha! I thought that would fetch you!” cried Chako, with a roar of hateful laughter.
Ann bent a strange look on him. He would never understand!
“I didn't find it until yesterday,” she said.
He paid no attention. He was already at the edge of the rock. Flinging himself down, he reached under it. His head was turned sidewise, and on his face was an intense, withdrawn look, as if all the forces of his being were held in suspense.
When his hand met the bag underneath, all the tense lines broke up into a look of pure, devilish joy. Ann sat where he had left her, watching him. All booted as he was, he forthwith leaped into the water, and, reaching under the rock with both hands, dragged the bag out.
While it was under water it was not hard to move, but it required all the strength of his back and arms to lift it clear. He got a knee under it, and hoisted it. As it thudded down on the rock, the old canvas split asunder, and a gorgeous yellow flood poured out on the rock.
With an inhuman cry, Chako sprang out of the water and knelt beside the gold. His eyes were daft with joy. He dug his fingers into the yellow heap and let the grains slide through. He poured them from hand to hand. He pounced on a lump here and there, only to drop it, as a bigger lump caught his eye.
Ann looked away, sickened by the sight. What hope now, she thought?
“Ah, pretty, pretty!” Chako was muttering, quite beside himself. “Like a woman's hair, like sunshine, like old wine! The brightest stuff in all the world! And plenty of it! Plenty of it! By God, when I change this I'll make myself felt! Not Fort Edward, the lousy little settlement, but Vancouver for me—Winnipeg—New York! I'll show those damned Easterners how a man spends his money! I'll buy their tinhorn cities! God, what a drunk I'll go on!”
This was more than Ann could bear. Though her life depended on keeping silent, she had to speak.
“It happens to be mine,” she said.
Chako cast a poisonous look on her, and fell suddenly silent.
XXII
The hostile travelers could not escape each other. They had to go on together in their bitter hostility, sharing their packs, dividing the work of each camping place, eating together, and sleeping within sight of each other. They exchanged no speech of any sort, except what could not be avoided. They did not quarrel any more; their hostility was too deep.
Twice during the first night Ann, in her bed off to one side, awoke to see Chako sitting up by the fire with his eyes fixed on her somberly—not as a man looks at a woman, but as he looks at his enemy.
“He hates me so much it wakes him out of his sleep!” Ann thought.
Such looks did not grieve her any more. She had got beyond that, too. In every nerve she was braced to fight the danger that threatened her.
Now that Chako had the gold in his possession, his frenzy had subsided. To one of his simple nature possession was the main thing. He never let it out of his sight; he slept with an arm thrown over it. His violence gave place to a hard, secret watchfulness. During every waking moment Ann was conscious of being watched.
The unnatural situation was cruelly hard on one of her quick nature. Though she knew herself to be in the right, hour by hour she could feel her strength and courage abrading by contact with Chako's flinty surface.
That same night they made all their preparations to start back. They had nothing out of which to make bags for the gold, except Ann's little tent. Seeing Chako's covetous eyes upon it, she made haste to offer it to him before he could take it by force. After all, the mosquitoes were over for the season, and the tent afforded her no other protection. Ann had come down to basic things. She really preferred to sleep in the open, where she could better see what Chako was about.
Chako cut squares out of the light, strong material, in which he tied up portions of the gold, and made two larger bags to contain the smaller ones.
By daybreak they were on the trail. Having eaten all their food, they had little to carry out of the valley, save their blankets and the gold; but that was load enough. Two laborious trips were required in order to get it all up to the top of the ridge.
From that point Chako insisted on pushing on with their entire load at once. The gold was roughly divided into four parts, of which Ann took one and Chako the other three. It was a crushing weight, even for one of his physique; nevertheless he shouldered it doggedly.
Ann's burden was almost as heavy for her, but she started down the other side of the mountain with a thankful heart. Whatever might be before her could not be worse than what she had suffered in that hole in the earth; and now they were headed for a peopled and friendly land.
Chako, bowed under that killing weight, went sidewise down the steep track, balancing himself with one hand against the stones behind him. The expression of his face was agonized, and every few steps he was compelled to rest; but he never staggered or fell.
Down through the forest of little sticks they went, and into the big timber, where Chako led the way, steady-footed, across the great fallen logs and around the treacherous holes. There was something magnificent in his determination. The distance was perhaps eight miles in a straight line, and they were eighteen hours on the way.
When they arrived at the hut by the river, Chako was completely done. He could only lie inert on the floor. He refused food. Even so, his thought was all of the gold. He got what Ann had carried, and, putting it with his, kept the whole treasure beside him.
The next day Chako was unable to travel. After all, his feat of endurance had gained them nothing in time.
He sat on the river bank in the sun, recuperating his strength. He had now put all the packages of gold into the stout canvas bag in which he had formerly kept his spare clothes. He had this beside him, and he amused himself by taking out the small bags, counting them, weighing them in his hand, opening one at a time, spreading out the contents on the ground, and lovingly ruffling the grains with his palm. Then he would tie up the square of silk with the greatest care, put it away, and take out another.
To Ann, watching him from a little distance with dark eyes, it was a dreadful sight. To see him there, in his splendid youth and strength, so utterly besotted! It was old men who Went crazy about gold. He was so infatuated that he was beyond shame; he didn't care that she was watching him.
Seeing him fondle the gold, Ann conceived a breathless hatred of the stuff. It was that which had taken him from her, which had destroyed his manhood.
Yet she could not drag her eyes away. Even now she was unable to despise him. He was still beautiful in her sight, and unspeakably dear to her heart. To-day he had knocked off work. Relaxed and softened by fatigue, he looked boyish again. He was smiling, but all his smiles and soft looks were directed toward the gold—those soft looks which had been hers for a few moments. He was smiling at the gold as if he shared a secret with it.
Ann could not bear it. It was foul and unnatural that gold should so bewitch a young man. She abruptly got up, and walked away along the river bank.
Walking up and down out of his sight, she tormented herself. How insane it was to be jealous of a thing! She must get the better of it. Ah, but how unspeakably humiliating it was to be cast aside for a bag of earthy stuff!
She, Ann, was the fit mate for Chako; her heart told her so. She could have helped him find himself. She knew she was not the sort of woman that got her hooks into a man, to use Chako's own phrase. She could have loved him, and exacted no price. She would have had him love her freely or not at all. Now the gold had him fast—held him by his basest feelings.
Chako called her, and she went drearily back.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing, only I was lonesome,” he said with a grin.
Here was a change of mood! Ann glanced at him, astonished, and sat down without a word.
Chako talked carelessly about this and that. He put away the little bags of gold, and, twisting a line about the neck of the big bag, fastened it elaborately. Then he fell silent. Pulling out his pipe, he filled it reflectively.
Chako did not often condescend to think, and when he did the process was visible. Ann wondered apprehensively what was coming. The slightest alteration in his temper concerned her so vitally! She caught him glancing at her with a wary, speculative eye.
She went and got some mending, to help keep her in countenance. Time passed. It was a peaceful scene, but Ann's breast was filled with a great disquiet. Finally mealtime approached, and she started clumsily to make a fire. Chako immediately hobbled over to her.
“That's my job,” he said.
Ann looked at him, startled. Days had passed since he had last shown any disposition to lighten her tasks. He was grinning at her now in a friendly fashion, but his eyes did not share in it; they were still sizing her up coolly. Ann was not reassured. She drew back, and let him make the fire.
“This poplar's no good to start a fire with,” he said, tossing it away. “You want dry pine. In this kind of country there's always plenty of tinder handy. See those little spines that, stick out of the pine trunks?”
As he spoke, he gathered a handful of the twigs. Ann watched him, a little alarmed. It was very uncharacteristic of Chako to make talk in this pleasant manner. After the last few days, it was astounding. Ann could not imagine what was brewing. A nature so wild and unreasoning as Chako's gave you no line to go on.
“Different kinds of wood are like different natures of men,” he went on, kneeling to his task. “Poplar burns slow and sulky, with a spicy smell and plenty of smoke. Not much good, except to keep off mosquitoes. Pine burns quick and hot; burns down to a fine ash. Hard wood—only there isn't any in this country—hard wood catches slow, and burns steady and clear. A hardwood log will burn up by itself, while pine needs two or three sticks for company.”
When the fire was well started, Ann came forward to prepare the meal.
“Go away and sit down,” said Chako. “I bet you're just as tired as me. I'll be cook to-day.”
There was a silky tone in his voice that Ann had never heard before. Whatever his faults, Chako had always been open. He was not open now. His eyes were veiled and watchful. A sort of despair filled Ann.
“What does he want of me?” she thought.
Chako had suddenly discovered a great store of conversation.
“I see you've got beans in soak. We'll let 'em cook all afternoon, and to-night they'll be prime. Nothing like beans to stick to the ribs; but traveling like us, you don't have time to cook them right. Once when I was on the Spirit River, below the cañon, I met an old sourdough floating downstream on a little raft—a wee raft, made of four dead logs lashed together, and him sitting in the middle of it on his bag of flour, looking at the scenery while the eddies waltzed him slowly around. Well, at his feet on the raft he'd made a little platform of flat stones, with a thick layer of dried mud on top, and on the mud he'd made a little fire. There he had his pot with the beans dancing in it. That's the only case of a man cooking beans while he traveled that I ever heard of.”
When the invariable bacon and rice was ready, Chako filled Ann's plate hospitably, and throughout the meal he attended to her wants. How happy it would have made her, could she have been deceived! But his method was too crude. It insulted her intelligence.
When they had finished eating, Chako sent her away from the fire. She resumed her mending of her old silk skirt, which had suffered on the strenuous trip over the mountains.
When Chako had cleaned up after a man's fashion, he came and flung himself down beside her, supporting his head on one hand, and smiling up at her. It was the old smile of charming mockery, but with a difference. It had an ulterior purpose now. His cold eyes betrayed it.
Nevertheless, Ann trembled with happiness at his mere nearness. His careless attitudes were so full of grace; his smile, though it might be false, was irresistible!
“What difference does it make what he is, good or bad?” Ann's tempter whispered. “He is your fate!”
“'Member the last time I stretched out beside you?” Chako said lazily. “You were sewing then, too. You stuck me with your needle when I got fresh.”
Ann could not call up a smile at the recollection.
Chako raised himself higher. The arm that supported him was warm against Ann's back. He rubbed his cheek against her shoulder. Ann, dizzy from her racing blood, thought with a sort of despair:
“He knows by instinct that he can do what he likes with me! What's the use of fighting him?”
She sewed on with nervous quickness.
“How fast your fingers fly!” Chako softly drawled. “Looks so comical to see my little man sewing for dear life! I won't know you when you put on skirts again. I'll be sorry—you're such a cocky little chap in your breeches and boots!”
Ann gave no sign. He was piqued by his failure to draw her.
“Haven't you got a word to throw me?” he grumbled.
“What is there to say?” murmured Ann, very low.
“Just like a woman!” he replied sorely. “Bound to hold things against a man until kingdom come. Got to store up every little thing until it spoils! Can't you let what's past be past? Can't we make a fresh start?”
“We could, if you were sorry for what is past,” suggested Ann.
“Ah! I suppose you want me to crawl and eat dirt!”
“I don't care whether you tell me you're sorry or not. I just want you to be sorry.”
“I am sorry,” said Chako readily.
Ann smiled bitterly to herself. When Chako was really sorry, how differently from this he acted! His hangdog look confessed it, but the rack wouldn't drag any admission from him.
“You'll see whether I'm sorry or not,” he went on. “I wouldn't be talking to you this way if I wasn't sorry, would I? I want to get things settled up.”
Ann looked at him sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we got to think about the future, haven't we? We got to talk things over.”
“I couldn't talk about it,” Ann said swiftly. “You can have whatever you want.”
He scowled.
“Ah! I wasn't talking about the stuff.”
“What else did you mean, then?” she demanded.
Chako darted a hard look at her. His deep voice purred.
“Well, when you and I get out to Fort Edward, we're going to get spliced, aren't we—married?”
Ann stared at him in horror. So that was it!
Under that wide-eyed stare, Chako's bold glance trailed off across the river. There was a hardy swagger in his manner. His arm crept around Ann. That was what he trusted to!
Ann shook it off with a violent shudder. She scrambled to her feet, and, turning, stared at him, still unable to speak.
“It's all right, isn't it?” said Chako, scowling.
“No! No! No!” she whispered brokenly. “You don't want me!”
She ran away along the river bank. Chako made no attempt to follow.
Well out of sight of their camp, she dropped down on the edge of the bank, and, letting her feet hang over, stared and stared at the flowing brown water without seeing it. The old mad whirligig seized her in its grip. She was flung back and forth like the water of the Ouananeca River between the cañon walls.
“I am a fool! A woman as far gone as I am can't make conditions. I should take him and be thankful!”
“He wants the gold, not you.”
“I'll take him anyhow. I'll make him want me afterward.”
“He wants the gold.”
“I don't care! I'll marry him and make a stand against his evil nature. I'll save him from himself.”
“Folly! Folly! To accept so contemptuous an offer would destroy your pride. He would despise you for marrying him, and rightly so. You could do nothing with him. It would mean a lifelong wretchedness.”
“What of it? It's my fate. Useless to struggle against it! I can't change him. He's too strong for me. If I lose him, what sort of a life would I have? The worst he could do to me wouldn't be so bad as that!”
“No! No! A lifetime of wretchedness. And your pride would be gone. You wouldn't even have pride to help you endure it.”
So it went. There is no end to such a discussion.
When Ann returned to their camp, Chako lay sleeping in the exact spot where she had left him. This was another knife thrust in her breast. It was so little to him that her heart was breaking! He was so sure of getting what he wanted that he could sleep while he waited for it!
Ann felt that she had come to the end of her string. For the moment there was no more fight in her. She, too, lay down on the pine needles, a dozen feet or so from Chako, and gave herself up to the pleasure of looking at him. At least, while he was asleep, she didn't have to fight him, she told herself.
His hat had rolled off, and his bright hair was as tousled as a schoolboy's. There was no evil in his sleeping face. It was as calm as a boy's, with the corners of the lips a little turned up, ready to smile; but his bare, tanned throat was not like a boy's. It had a man's strength and beauty in the turn of it, which bewitched the gazer.
Ann gazed without thinking how the sight undermined all her forces. She gave herself up to delicious, weakening make-believe. Suppose he were as good as he seemed at this moment! Suppose he loved her truly! Suppose their hearts were open to each other!
If so, she could wake him now with a kiss. They could be everything to each other—angels and devils too, for that matter. What a golden journey would then lie before them!
While she lay dreaming, Chako opened his eyes. He smiled at her.
“Hello, kid!” he murmured.
Ann smiled back—how could she help it? Her whole heart went with her smile.
In a flash Chako had rolled over, and was scrambling toward her on hands and knees. As Ann rose, he flung an arm around her. The watchful light was still in his eyes, but now there was a film over Ann's sight that prevented her from seeing it so clearly.
“It's all right, kid, isn't it?” he asked softly. “Say you will!”
Ann's arms stole around his neck.
“I love you so! I love you so!” she murmured. “Ah, be good to me, for I cannot help myself—I love you so!”
XXIII
As long as they stayed in Joe Maury's winter camp, Ann occupied the shack at night, and Chako slept outside. There was nothing in the way of a bed or a hammock for her, but the earth floor was no harder than the earth outside, on which she had slept for many a night now, and it was a comfort to sleep within walls, rude as they were. They shut out the presence of the vast stillness.
She awakened with a painful foreboding in her breast. Her love was not destined to be a happy one. Half the night she had by turn been railing at her own weakness in giving in to Chako, and trying to find justification for it.
She told herself that he must be good at heart, for she had seen it once, and that it was only his stubbornness that forced him to appear worse than he was; but she did not really believe this. Her better sense told her that the most one could say for Chako was that the evil and the good were about equal in his nature, and that one had as good a chance as the other of prevailing in the end.
This being so, had she not, when she consented to marry him, given the evil side of him an ascendancy which the good would never be able to recover? For it was certainly the worst in Chako which had asked her to marry him. It was cupidity and cunning and hypocrisy. That was the side with which she had thrown in her lot!
Such were the dreadful thoughts that lay with Ann on her hard bed; but, being human and young, she could not altogether give up hope. Surely things could not be as bad as all that! It was hope which enabled her to sleep at last.
Now, in the morning, it seemed to her as if everything depended on the way in which he first looked at her. His first glance must be unconscious. In it he was bound to reveal the true state of his feelings; in it she would read her fate.
She dwelt on this thought for so long that when she was finally ready to go out, she could not bring her trembling hand to open the door. Suppose he looked at her with dislike or contempt! She paced the little shack, all but wringing her hands; but a door must be opened sooner or later. Finally, with her heart in her mouth, she stepped out.
Chako was kneeling beside the fire, with his back to her. He did not look around, though he must have heard the door open. Ann was obliged to speak.
“Good morning!”
Chako flung a careless glance over his shoulder.
“Morning!”
This hurt, but it was not conclusive, for it was Chako's ordinary manner. She wanted to find out for sure. She went up to him slowly, dreadfully conscious that there was something cringing in her manner, and dropped to her knees beside him. He was placing sticks on the fire with the intense concentration he devoted to every task, however small.
“Chako!” she whispered.
“I've got a good fire for you,” he said, without turning his head. “You get breakfast while I roll up the beds and pack everything.”
“Chako!” she whispered. “Have you forgotten last night?”
He looked at her in simple surprise.
“Why, no,” he said. “We're engaged, aren't we? Everything's all right. You don't want to back out, do you?”
“No,” she murmured.
Taking her answer for granted, he was already on his feet, starting toward the canoe. Ann lowered her head to hide the hot tears that dropped on the ground—tears of bitterest mortification.
“You let yourself in for this!” she told herself.
The worst of it was that Chako was in an entirely good humor. Surliness would have been easier for her to forgive. His head was full of nothing in the world but the details of their forthcoming trip.
“What bothers me,” he said, surveying their baggage, “is that we've got just a little too much for two trips around the cañon, and not enough for three.”
“You are a fool!” Ann said to herself, and tried to meet him on his own matter-of-fact level. “You must not overexert yourself again,” she told him.
“Oh, the portage around the cañon's on an easy grade,” said Chako confidently. “Besides, it's not so far.”
After a hasty breakfast he loaded the canoe. The bag of gold was his main concern, of course. As the landing in front of their camp was shelving, he was obliged to wade into the water in order to place the heavy weight in the center of the canoe. It was no child's play to shoulder it, and to lower it into the frail craft without dropping it through the bottom. A great sigh of relief escaped Chako when he accomplished it.
“Thank God, I won't have to move him again till we unload at the cañon,” he said. He settled the bag into place with affectionate hands. “Fat little beggar!” he said. “Do you know, sometimes I can't believe he's real! I wake up in the morning and think it's all a dream, until I see it there beside me, and get my hands on it!” He stroked the canvas sides. “I believe a man could tell what was inside this just by the feel!” he said dreamily. “There's magic in it!”
Hot little flames sprang in Ann's breast, and crept up till they scorched her throat and the base of her tongue. She turned away, sick with hatred of the evil thing that stole Chako's kind looks and caresses from her.
They pushed off, Ann with a long look at the little shack where she had been happy for three nights, and wretched for two. They left it as they had found it, with the bar in place. With its window, its door, and its chimney, it looked out on the river as with a grotesque, lopsided face, with one ear pricked. They passed around a bend, and left it forever in its strange isolation.
They went along with the current at a good rate, but Chako's impatience would not be satisfied. As in most streams of this sort, each rapid in its path formed a sort of dam, backing up the water behind it. Consequently their swift, brief descents alternated with long reaches of sluggish water, at which Chako continually grumbled. He busied himself with calculations of the distance they had to cover.
“I want to get to the cañon to-morrow night,” he said, “so we can sleep on this side, and give a whole day to carrying our stuff across. Otherwise we'd have to sleep on one side while the gold was on the other.”
“What harm could come to it?” asked Ann, between stiff and bitter lips.
Chako could not see her face.
“Why, none, I suppose,” he said with a deprecating laugh; “but I couldn't sleep easy unless I had it beside me!”
The river never changed in character. It flowed smoothly between its low banks, which were covered with monotonous millions of pine trees. Indeed, the pines covered the whole valley as thick as hair. No part of this valley had ever been burned over; before themselves, so far as was known, there had been only one creature there who used fire.
The water was falling, and the strip of mud left bare under the banks was mantling itself with tender green grass. Chako measured their progress by their camping places on the way up.
They went ashore for their first spell at one of these former camping places. When they landed, Ann's eyes were free again to fly to Chako's face. She struggled in vain against the attraction. Hour by hour she had been aware of a progressive weakening in herself, but she could not help it. Her will was like water. She was conscious only of a great ache.
When they had finished eating, and sat awhile to rest, as was customary, she could stand it no longer. Were they not engaged to be married, as Chako said? Had she not some rights?
She frankly moved close to Chako's side. He was smoking. Slipping her hand under his arm, she dropped her cheek on his shoulder.
Chako wriggled impatiently.
“Aw, don't!” he muttered.
Ann quickly dropped his arm.
“Why?” she asked in a scarcely audible voice.
“I don't feel like it.”
“Yesterday—”
“That was different. Yesterday I was laying off and resting—didn't have anything else on my mind. To-day we're traveling.”
Ann's pride suddenly failed her altogether. Clinging to Chako, she lifted her face to him, exposing all her misery.
“Chako! Chako!” she stammered. “You must not treat me so! You must not shut yourself away from me, or it will kill me!”
Chako's face turned black.
“I won't be made to do a thing if I don't feel like it!” he said. “It only makes me stubborn. Cut it out!”
He shook her off, got up, and walked away. Ann lay on the ground with her face covered, wondering why she did not die.
Presently she heard him coming back. She sprang up, mad with eagerness. Her pride was in ruins. His face was an extraordinary study; exasperation, stubbornness, and cunning struggled there.
“Ah!” he muttered, as if he hated himself for saying it. “I shouldn't have spoken to you the way I did. I'm sorry, kid.”
He dropped beside her. Ann silently flung her arms around him, and hid her face in his breast. Chako said no more, but held her, and clumsily patted her shoulder. She dared not look up. She knew what was in his face. She clung to him, because she could not help herself, but she knew she had not won anything. However, she had a few moments of exhausted peace.
“Come on—let's go now,” Chako said.
As soon as they were afloat, Ann's torments recommenced.
“He didn't want to come back to me,” she thought. “He forced himself to, because he was afraid of driving me too far, and that would interfere with his plans.”
Hour after hour, as they paddled, she was forced to dwell with such thoughts; but in the very depths of her humiliation she found a slender foothold for her pride. Whatever might be in store for her, that particular kind of scene should not be repeated. She had learned a lesson. She knew for a certainty that she would die before ever she asked Chako for kindness.
In mid afternoon they spelled again. Chako regarded Ann uneasily. She kept her eyes to herself, and set about the cooking. As they had cut short their usual rest after the last spell, they were both tired, and after eating they prepared to make up the lost rest before going on the water again.
Ann threw herself down on the opposite side of the fire from Chako, and managed for the most part not to look at him. She could not help seeing, however, that he was in an unusually thoughtful frame of mind. It was evident, too, that she was the subject of his thoughts, for he kept glancing at her covertly. Chako was but a clumsy plotter, and these glances filled Ann with disquiet. What was he up to now? The mere fact that he did not go to sleep was significant.
After a while he got into the canoe, and began rummaging through their slender belongings.
“What are you looking for?” Ann ventured to ask.
“Nothing,” he said evasively.
He untied the bag of gold, and took out several of the smaller bags. Ann could not bear to see him at this game again. She got up and went away out of sight.
When she returned, Chako had put away the gold and tied up the bag. He was stretched out on the ground, on his stomach, with a little square of the pale green silk spread out on a paddle blade before him, and he was writing on it with the stub of a pencil.
Ann was astonished. Writing! What reason could he have for writing? To whom but herself could he be writing? Why should he write to her? Ann's sore and jealous heart burned up with curiosity, but she would not ask.
Chako, seeing her eyes upon him, folded up the piece of silk and slipped it into his shirt pocket with a highly self-conscious air.
After their last meal of the day, at sundown, there was always a period of relaxation by the fire. It is the best hour of the twenty-four, when there is amity in camp. On this night Chako sat with his back against a tree, smoking, while Ann, across the fire, nursed her knees and kept her head down, silent and still. She had weakened again. Slow drops of pain were being forced from her heart.
Surely now, with their day's work behind them, in the still and lonely evening under the red sky, he must soften a little toward her, he must speak! She clutched the rags of her pride desperately around her. She would not speak; but what if he presently got up with an indifferent yawn, and turned away to his blankets? How could she bear it?
But he did speak.
“Come over here, kid,” he said in a rough, cajoling tone.
She got up and went slowly, intolerably shamed, her head hanging. He did not want her, and she knew it. He was just cajoling her. His look was not open. He patted the ground beside him, and she dropped down. He flung an arm around her.
“That's better, isn't it?” he said. “That's comfy!”
Ann could scarcely draw breath, such was the pain she felt. She put her hand up, and clung like a drowning woman to the hand that came around her shoulder. Surely he must feel, through the nerves of her hand, what she suffered!
Apparently he did feel it, for he uneasily pulled his hand from under hers. He pretended that this was to give him freedom to pat Ann's shoulder. How she hated that patting—a hypocritical gesture!
Chako said, with a consciously reasonable air, not unmixed with jocosity:
“We got to take some thought about our future, kid. This getting married is no joke. I've seen marriages—Lord, the two of them pulling in different directions, like half broke dogs in sledge harness! We don't want to be like that, do we?”
“No,” whispered Ann.
“I reckon there's got to be a head to every house,” he went on. “I aim to be the head of my house. I couldn't stand for anything else. Are you willing?”
“Yes.”
“That's fine! Now this business of the—you know, the stuff we got”—Chako was as shy as a lover of naming his treasure—“that's bound to make trouble between us unless we settle it beforehand. Isn't that right?”
“I suppose so.”
“So I made out a little paper fixing it all up between us. At least it isn't a paper, for there wasn't any in the outfit, but it's the same thing.”
This was the writing!
Taking his arm from around her, Chako produced the piece of silk from his pocket, and, spreading it open, held it up for Ann to read.
“This is for you to sign,” he said.
Ann read:
- I hereby give to my husband, George E. Lyllac, all the gold we found on the property of my father, Joseph Maury.
Within her Ann heard wild, cruel laughter and a deriding voice.
“Of course! Of course!” the voice said. “Just what was to be expected! You fool, not to have guessed it!”
Chako sprang up, leaving Ann sitting a little crumpled. Full of confidence, he got a paddle from the canoe, laid it across her knees, and carefully smoothed the piece of silk upon it.
“Sign there,” he said, pointing.
Ann took the stubby pencil he offered her, and put her hand to the place. Chako's sparkling eyes were fixed on her hand; but it did not write. It rested motionless for so long that he looked sharply in her face, which showed the stress of internal conflict.
“What's the matter?” demanded Chako.
Ann dropped the pencil.
“I cannot!” she whispered. “Not that!”
Chako was instantly enraged.
“Why not?”
“It's a sordid bargain.”
“Sure it's a bargain!” he cried. “I put in the word 'husband' to bind myself. If I don't marry you, it doesn't hold.”
“Oh, I understand that!”
“Then sign!” he said, offering the pencil again.
With a nervous gesture, Ann pushed the paddle away. Chako retrieved the fluttering piece of silk. Ann got to her feet, and essayed to walk away with firmness, but her legs gave way under her, and down she went without a sound.
She lay still, with her head between her arms. She had not fainted. No such mercy was vouchsafed her. She was fully conscious of her pain. No cries, no tears, came to ease her breast.
Chako, a little alarmed by her stillness, cried harshly:
“What's the matter with you? This is only play acting! Can't you act like a reasonable woman?”
She did not answer him, and he bent down to turn her over.
“Don't touch me!” Ann whispered sharply. “I'll be all right in a moment.”
“What do you think I am?” Chako cried in his rage. “Do you think I'm going to tie myself up to a woman who holds the purse, and makes me jump through hoops to get a dollar? Not on your life! I'm not getting married for nothing! Marriage is a sacrifice, to a man like me. If I've got to shut myself up in a house, I'm going to be the boss of that house. No woman is going to tell me how much I can spend for my own good!”
“Oh, don't!” murmured Ann. “I know all this.”
“Then sign!” he shouted.
“I'd sooner die!”
Chako abandoned himself to rage.
“Oh, I know the kind of woman you are!” he shouted. “I've seen it from the first! It's rule or ruin with you! You want a man well broke, don't you? You want to keep your hands on your money, and your foot on my neck! Well, not for me! Not for me! No, thanks!”
There was much more of this.
Under the storm of Chako's rage, Ann came out of her daze. She finally sat up, oddly composed. She had recovered her human dignity. The storm continued to beat about her ears, but it seemed remote. She knew so well the sort of thing Chako would say that she didn't have to listen. Besides, it didn't matter.
“It's all over,” she thought. “You've been through hell, and somehow climbed out on the other side. Nothing can touch you now!”
She got up and went for her blanket roll. She walked steadily.
Her self-possession infuriated Chako. He planted himself in her path.
“Do you think I'll marry you now?” he shouted.
“No,” said Ann.
She walked around him and laid her blankets down a little way off. Chako stared after her, speechless with rage.
Ann, lying wrapped in her blankets, gazing up at the stars, felt a sort of weary peace after her stormy days. She had lost him for good now—she had no illusions about that; but the thing was decided. No more reason to torment herself!
She stared wide-eyed and unafraid down the gray and ashy vista of the future. All right—she still had her little spring of comfort. In the final trial she had somehow found the strength to stand fast. She had been true to herself. Thus she had escaped the very worst thing in life.
She slept.
XXIV
In the morning it was clear that Chako had not slept much. He had had rage for his bedfellow, and she had left the marks of her claws. Ann saw his face as it would appear when time had permanently smudged its youthful brilliancy—the eyes a little sunken, and ugly lines between nose and mouth. His eyes had the same look of balked fury that they had shown while he was engaged on his fruitless hunt for the gold—with this difference, that now he had an object to vent his fury on, and that was Ann.
Ann had expected nothing else. In order to keep the peace as far as possible, she remained away from the fire until he had cooked and eaten his breakfast. Then she ate what was left. She did not require much.
They did not speak. Another man would have taken pains to veil the baleful fires in his eyes; but not so Chako. His rage and hatred blazed out nakedly. His eyes followed Ann wherever she moved, as if they would destroy her with their glances.
It was difficult for her to maintain her self-possession under such espionage. In spite of herself, the poison of his glance infected her. She was dismayed by the mere existence of such virulence.
In making their preparations for departure, they moved in circles, in order to give each other a wide berth. Once they were afloat, Ann breathed more freely, though she was conscious of that glance still fixed on her back.
That was a strange, silent journey down the river. In the rapids Ann was obliged to watch close and strive her hardest, for Chako would not now tell her what to do. More than once they were in difficulties in the rapids, through lack of efficient team work.
Chako remained mum throughout. His rage was too deep to find any vent in abuse. In the sluggish reaches they drove their paddles hard into the sullenly resisting water. Both were possessed by a fever to get on.
Upon this morning the beauty of the changing river vistas, the beaming sky, the noble trees, had no message for Ann. She felt numb inside—neither glad nor sorry, neither interested nor bored—not exactly dead, nor altogether alive. The way did not seem long. One reach after another, it was all the same. She realized, with a little feeling of dread, that some time soon she would have to take up the painful business of feeling again.
When they landed for their first spell, the situation was unchanged.
“I'll cook,” said Ann.
Chako shrugged.
“Cook enough to last the rest of the day,” he said harshly. “I don't mean to spell again until we get to the cañon.”
During the tedious business of baking the biscuit, he took himself off out of sight.
When they had eaten, Chako remained sitting glumly. He had no appetite for his pipe to-day. Ann cleaned up without any help from him.
Glancing at him covertly, the realization suddenly came to her that a man might make himself hard and brutal, yet suffer the torments of the damned, too—that, in fact, such men were the damned. Behind Chako's cruel, savage mask she perceived an unspeakable wretchedness, and her heart melted. She began to feel again, but the warm tide had a healing effect.
She loved him! It was useless to deny it to herself. She must love him till she died. Whether he were bad or good had nothing to do with it. It was himself she loved, not his qualities. If he had resolved to be evil and wicked, he needed love so much the more.
She could never expect anything from him. No matter—she must love him just the same. How she could love him if he would only let her! But it must be upon the terms of self-respect. There could be no weakening there.
Chako's eyes were bloodshot, his lips compressed into a harsh and bitter mold of pain. Because she loved him, Ann was endowed with a certain second sight where he was concerned. She saw that he was writhing in a perfect hell of rage. That it was a hell of his own creation made it none the less painful.
What a lot of pain for a smallish bag of gold! Surely, if he possessed it, he would realize how little it was worth. It was visibly destroying him to be deprived of it, so it could do him no worse harm to let him have it.
“Chako,” she said quietly.
His eyes bolted. He snarled at her.
“Have you got that thing you wanted me to sign?”
“No. What of it?” he muttered, sharply arrested.
“Well, you can make out another, I suppose,” said Ann. “If you'll change it a little, I'll sign it.”
Chako bent an extraordinary look of incredulity and suspicion on her.
“I don't know that I want you to sign it now,” he muttered.
“Change it a little,” said Ann. “Leave out the words 'her husband.'”
“What are you getting at now?” he demanded.
“I'm willing you should have the gold,” said Ann; “but I don't want to marry you.”
Chako sprang up. His face was convulsed, his voice breaking with rage.
“What do you think I am?” he cried. “Do you think I'd take it from you? Do you think I'd take it from you as a gift, when it's mine by right? You think you're putting it all over me, don't you? Makes you feel fine, doesn't it, to give it away so grandly? You're always trying to make out that I'm a sort of low hound, a poor worm that it's scarcely worth your while to step on. Well, I'm sick of it! You know damned well you're safe in offering it to me! You make me mad! Don't speak to me any more!”
He plunged blindly away among the trees. Ann was left sitting there, aghast and white-faced, stunned by his unexpected outburst of indignation. Who could have foreseen this?
But she reflected, and dimly she began to understand. A strange joy stirred in her—in her, who had put joy aside forever. Her intuition told her that it was something noble in Chako that found her offer so intolerable. A mean nature would have snatched at it. It was his better self, aware of having treated her badly, that was driven mad by her generosity.
The voice of intuition whispered to her that a hatred so violent and unprovoked was akin to love. Perhaps, after all, he loved her in his own fashion.
She did not deceive herself. She saw clearly that the stubborn Chako would bring down ruin on both their heads sooner than confess himself to her; but she thought, with a grave smile, that she could go to destruction with him willingly enough if she knew he loved her.
Chako was a long while gone. When he came back, Ann saw that he had recovered a sort of composure. His face was no less hard and cruel, but his eyes were quiet, almost sleepy-looking. They shot out glances at her sidewise. It was a new look—a wicked look. His lips, so tightly compressed before, were now full and red, and slightly parted in a sensual smile.
“He has made up his mind to kill me,” Ann thought.
A great thrill shook her—not a thrill of fear. She was not afraid. She exulted in it.
“It is not so hard to die,” she thought. “I shall not shame myself in dying.”
She looked around at the river, trees, and sky, with a sharp pang for the beauty of the world; but it was not fear.
“Shall we go?” suggested Chako. “We've got a long way to paddle.”
The purring note had returned to his deep voice. A sinister humor seemed to play about his lips.
At this camping place the low bank was cut away sharply, and the canoe floated in sufficient water alongside, tied to a tree. In such a place they could embark without pushing off. Chako got in first.
“Hop in,” he said, holding the canoe to the bank.
He was still smiling, but his sleepy eyes were deadly. Ann's heart beat madly. Chako's look at her was much the same as if he had been looking forward to embracing her—a rapt look. That was what set her heart off; but yet it was just a little different, too.
Ann saw his rifle lying on the baggage immediately in front of him, and hesitated. She could die, but she desired to face her death. If he was going to shoot her, she must be looking at him. That would be her all-sufficient revenge—that last look.
“I'm not going to paddle,” she said, with a firmness that surprised herself. “I will sit in the bottom.”
Chako's devilish assurance was upset. He scowled.
“We've only done one trick.”
“I don't care,” said Ann. “I'm tired. It's downstream work.”
She got in, facing him.
“Well, turn around the other way,” he snarled.
“I prefer to sit this way,” said Ann, proudly meeting his glance.
Chako's eyes trailed away across the river. With a vicious shove against the bank, he started the canoe moving. In his rage, Chako no longer reminded Ann of the lover, and a healthy instinct of self-preservation asserted itself in her. His cruel lust to kill her had precious little to do with love; it was a mere sickness of the fancy to regard it so. There was that obese little bag of gold squatting in the canoe between them. That was what he meant to kill her for.
Things had better be faced. He wouldn't let her give him the gold, but he could kill her to get possession of it. Such were men!
Her swift thoughts raced, and doubled back, and started off again. She would have little enough time for thinking!
It was not so simple as all that. One must try to be fair, even to one's murderer. He loved her with the better part of him, and the gold with the baser part. The pull of the gold was stronger; he had given himself to the gold. Therefore the mere existence of Ann had become a reproach to him. He was going to kill her, not because the gold was hers, but because he could not give himself wholly to it while Ann lived.
Her rival, thought Ann, with the hint of a twisted smile in the direction of the thick bag squatting there, toadlike and obscene, half covered with their spare clothes. Ann might break her heart to win him. The gold did nothing—it just existed; yet it had taken him from her. Its earthy glitter was more potent than her eyes—the windows of the soul, they called them.
What a mockery! How loathsome that a bag of yellow sand should be endowed with such a power! The sight of it suddenly afflicted her with a nausea. She looked •wildly up at the sky, the trees. Strange how, at such a moment, each separate tree out of all those thousands impressed its beauty on her! The little, light, shining clouds in the zenith seemed different from any clouds she had ever seen in her life before, and touchingly beautiful.
She glanced at Chako again. He was looking over her head at his course downstream. A slight change of expression when Ann looked at. him showed that he was aware of her glance, but his gaze never deviated. His eyes were narrowed, and hard as a wolf's. In his hate and hardness, he was still splendid to look at; yet beauty was truth, and truth beauty!
How strange that a man should be so bent on killing that which loved him best! Some other poet had remarked on that. Would she ever open another book of poetry? Ah, how careless of beauty she had been! If she could only seize it all in one moment before she died!
But such thoughts were slightly morbid. Better for her to be thinking how she could save herself. Surely there must be a right thing for her to say—a thing that would turn Chako from his purpose! If she could but find it! Surely, if she showed him how well she understood him and sympathized with him, even in his murderous promptings, he could not kill her!
But at that thought she smiled in self-scorn. When a man did not understand himself, how could she begin to explain that she understood him? In his eyes it would be an added offense. At the first word he would snatch up the gun in a fury and blow the top of her head off, grateful for the excuse to do so.
Any word she uttered would be likely to anger him. If she could avoid angering him, he would hardly shoot her while they sat there face to face. In that case she was safe until nightfall—unless he changed his mind and went ashore again.
At nightfall—then would come her difficult time! And even supposing she succeeded in staying awake this night, there would be to-morrow night, and every night until they got out to an inhabited land.
At the thought of the friendly land, of home and smiling neighbors and children, a breathless pain stabbed Ann's breast. A horrible, insidious weakness pulled her down. She ground her teeth, and hard sobs caught her by the throat. She sat there desperately struggling with herself, well aware that the first sob, the first tear, would mean her instant death.
When she finally got the better of it, a long sigh escaped her. She slipped down, a little faint with weariness.
Ann had her blanket roll behind her back. She slipped down a little farther, and, resting her head against it, flung an arm over her eyes. From under her arm she watched Chako. He only looked at her once, his eyes darting little snakes' tongues of hatred. As if he suspected that she might be watching him, he quickly shifted his glance, and it did not return.
Useless to look at him! There was no chance of his relenting. His implacable face bruised her. She covered her eyes in earnest, and her thoughts flew on.
A long time passed.
Suddenly Ann realized that Chako had stopped paddling. She sat bolt upright, and her body went cold. He was in the act of picking up his gun. His face was white, his forehead was furrowed with intensity, his eyes were fixed on her. As soon as she moved, his glance flew away, but she had seen it.
He threw the rifle to his shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot crashed among the trees.
“A moose,” he said. “I missed him.”
But there was no sound of any animal pounding away.
“Fresh meat would be welcome,” said Ann, turning to peer among the trees in the direction in which he had aimed.
She dared not look at Chako.
“If he suspects that I have guessed his intention, it is all up with me!” she thought.
A dreadful silence fell between them. Ann, with held breath, listened for the click of the reloading. She dared not turn back at once. To have looked at him would have revealed her fatal knowledge. She had to say something that would give him no clew.
“How long is it going to take us to get out?” she murmured carelessly.
Chako did not answer immediately, and this gave Ann time to look at him in a natural way. He was talking up the paddle again. The blood had rushed to his pale face, giving it a swollen look. His eyes were terrible with rage and pain and frustration. Aware of Ann's eyes on him, he muttered in a thick, slurred voice:
“Oh, twelve or fourteen days.”
The danger was past for the moment. Ann relaxed, and began to shake. She clenched her teeth, and concealed her hands under her. She smiled a little. She repeated rimes of her childhood over and over to herself, in a desperate effort to control that treacherous weakness of the flesh. Gradually the shaking passed.
So time went on. Ann could not be sure that she had persuaded Chako of her ignorance, but she felt that a single additional word would bring down the catastrophe. She sat there, quietly facing the frenzied man with the loaded express rifle at his knee. It was not so difficult to nerve one's self up to face a brief, dreadful moment, but this nerve-wracking tension had to go on for hour after hour.
What gave her strength was the certain knowledge that if she weakened by ever so little, if she wept or pleaded, it would drive the man completely beside himself. It would supply just the fillip he needed to enable him to snatch up the gun and fire at her point-blank. The only moments she could relax were when they went down a rapid. Then Chako's attention was fully occupied.
(To be continued in the June number of Munsey's Magazine)