Chapter XIV: Bear's Flesh and Berries

Jack propelled the raft into the middle of the current, and, taking the sweep aboard, sat down on the end of it with his back to the others, and nursed his anger. They sat or lay on the poles in various uneasy positions. Sir Bryson, who, until the the day before, had probably not been obliged to sit in man's originally intended sitting position for upward of thirty years, felt the indignity keenly.

Every one's nerves were more or less stretched out of tune. Linda, watching Jack's uncompromising back with apprehensive eyes, was exasperated past bearing by her father's fretful complaints.

"What do you want?" she burst out. "A padded chair? Don't be ridiculous, father!"

Sir Bryson swelled and snorted. "That is no way to speak to your father, Belinda. Because you see me robbed of my outward and visible dignity is no reason for your forgetting the respect you owe me. I am surprised at you."

Linda's muttered reply was forcible and inelegant. None of the others paid any attention. Sir Bryson, feeling perhaps that a magisterial air accorded ill with his tousled hair and his cross-legged position, made a bid for sympathy instead.

"My feet are going to sleep," he said plaintively.

Jack, overhearing, was reminded again of the resemblance between father and daughter. "You don't have to sit still," he said, speaking over his shoulder. "You can move about as long as you don't all get on the same side at the same time."

Sir Bryson, who would not have been robbed of his grievance for any consideration, continued to sit and suffer dramatically.

Vassall's head was heavy. Stretching himself out, and watching Linda wistfully, he finally fell asleep. Humpy Jull, up at the bow--if a raft may be said to have a bow--constructed a fishing line out of a bent pin and a moccasin lace, and baiting it with a morsel of bacon, fished for hours with the trusting confidence of a child. Discouraged at last, he fell asleep beside Vassall.

Thus the morning passed. Left to its own devices, the raft swung around and back in the eddying current, and a superb panorama was ceaselessly and slowly unrolled for any who cared to see. The river moved down through its vast trough in the prairie, and an ever-changing vista of high hills, or seeming hills, hemmed them in. On the southerly side the hills were timbered for the most part. On the northerly side, where the sun beat all day, the steep slopes were bare, and the rich grass made vivid velvety effects darkened in the hollows and touched with gold on the knolls. The whole made a green symphony, comprising every note in the scale of green from the sombre spruce boughs up through the milky emerald of the river water to the high verdancy of the sunny grass and the delicate poplar foliage.

Of them all only Kate Worsley watched it as if the sight was enough to repay one for the discomfort of sitting on poles. Her quiet eyes were lifted to the hills with the look of one storing away something to remember.

Now and then a momentary excitement was created by the sight of a bear grubbing about the roots of the poplar saplings, homely, comical beasts with their clumsy ways and their expression of pretended cuteness. Something still wild in the breasts of domesticated creatures like ourselves never fails to answer to the sight of a real wild thing at home in his own place. Since they had no time to go ashore in case of a hit, no shots were fired.

Once in the middle of the day they landed long enough for Jack to build a hearth of flat stones on Humpy's end of the raft, and cover it with clay. Then, gathering a little store of wood, they pushed off again, and Humpy built his fire, and boiled his kettle while they floated down.

After lunch Jack's anger was no longer sufficient to keep his neck stiff. He had been up since three that morning, and in spite of himself he began to nod. Vassall volunteered to keep watch while he slept.

"There's nothing to do as long as she keeps the middle of the stream," Jack said. "If she drifts to one side or the other wake me."

He stretched himself out, and in spite of the cobbly nature of his bed, immediately fell asleep. Linda watched him with the tears threatening to spring. He had not spoken to her since they started, and indeed had scarcely seemed to be aware of her. She glanced at the others with rebellious brows. If it were not for them, she thought, the tawny head might be pillowed in her lap.

Another hour dragged out its slow length. Kate Worsley out of pity for Sir Bryson's increasing peevishness proposed a game of bridge. It was hailed with alacrity. A sweater was spread for a cloth; Sir Bryson, Kate, Baldwin Ferrie, and Vassall squatted around it, and the cards were dealt.

"Fancy!" exclaimed Vassall, looking around. "Rather different from a game in the library at Government House, eh?"

"And different looking players," suggested Kate with a smile.

"I feel it very keenly, Mrs. Worsley," said Sir Bryson tearfully. "I have always attached great importance to the little details of one's personal appearance. Perhaps it is a weakness. But that is the way I am."

"We're all in the same boat--I mean raft," said Mrs. Worsley cheerfully. "Look at me!"

"I will make it no trumps," said Baldwin Ferrie.

Linda, seeing the others fully occupied, moved nearer to Jack, and lay down where, making believe to be asleep herself, she could watch his face, calm and glowing in sleep, the lashes lying on his cheeks, the thin nostrils, the firm, red line of his lips. If he had only slept with his mouth open, or had snored, it might have broken the spell that held her, and a deal of trouble been saved. Unfortunately he slept beautifully; and if that was not enough, once he smiled vaguely like a sleeping baby, and changed his position a little with a sigh of content. The sight of her strong man in his helplessness affected the girl powerfully; when he moved, her heart set up a great beating, and the alarmed blood tingled to her finger-tips.

During this time but an indifferent watch was kept. Humpy Jull had fallen asleep again. There seemed little need to watch on such a voyage. True, they had passed little reefs and stretches of broken water where the swift current met obstructions inshore, but there had been no disturbance that extended out into midstream. The raft was carried down squarely in the middle of the channel.

Once when it came to Vassall's turn to be dummy, he stood up to stretch his legs and look about him. A short distance ahead he saw that the invariably earthy slope of the hills was broken by an outcropping of rock on either side. The band of rock evidently crossed the river, for in the middle a ragged islet of rock stuck its head out of the water.

Vassall debated on which side of the rock they ought to pass with the raft. To a riverman the "middle of the stream" means the main sweep of the current of course. Vassall was not a riverman and he did not observe that the greater body of water made off to the left and around that side of the island. The channel on the right-hand side stretched straight ahead of them, wide and apparently smooth, and to Vassall this looked like the "middle of the stream." If he had left the raft alone the current of its own accord would have carried it around to the left, but he ran out a sweep and pulled her to the other side. He saw no occasion for waking Jack.

A new hand was dealt and he returned to the game. It was a critical hand, and the attention of all four of the players was closely fixed on the cards until the last trick was taken. Not until then did they become aware of the grumble of broken water ahead. They had heard the sound before on the reefs they had passed. Vassall, looking up, saw only a kind of smudge like a thumb-mark drawn across the smooth face of the river ahead. The next time he looked he saw darkish spots here and there between the island and the shore.

The noise became louder. Finally he got up, and in the act of rising the ominous white leaped into his view. It was a reef extending all the way across. The dark spots were rocks covered by an inch or two of water.

For an instant Vassall looked at it stupidly. The others were arranging their cards in ignorance of any danger. Before Vassall could wake Jack, the hoarse roar of the reef reached the subconsciousness of the sleeping man, and he sprang up, all standing. A glance told him everything.

"What are we doing on this side?" he cried.

He ran out one sweep, and motioned Vassall to the other. They pulled with a will. The others watched, not fully understanding the nature of the danger yet, but alarmed by Jack's grimness. He was heading the raft for the main channel. They had not reached the island yet, but Jack soon saw that at the rate they were being carried down he could not make the other side, nor could he land his clumsy craft on the shore above the reef.

"Save your strength," he said to Vassall. "We'll have to chance it. Everybody sit still and hold on."

A breathless few minutes succeeded. Jack steered for the widest space he could see between the rocks. Those who were sitting down still could not see much of what was ahead, but the roar of the water was now sufficiently terrifying. Moving of a piece with the current as they were, it seemed as if they were not moving, but that the broken rocks were striding to meet them, not very fast, but inexorably. It was hard to sit and wait.

Then as they came close they saw how the water slipped silkily over the reef with the dark shadows showing like teeth beneath, and boiled up below. The women cried out sharply, and the men turned pale. It suddenly became evident how fast the heavy raft was moving.

"Throw yourselves flat and hang on!" Jack shouted.

They obeyed. There was a dreadful moment of waiting, while the roar of the water filled their ears. Then she struck. One side of the raft slid up on a submerged shelf, the floor tilted at a steep angle, and the current surged over the lower side, sweeping everything movable off. Jack stood up to his knees in the torrent, pushing desperately at the heavy sweep. He budged her inch by inch.

"Lie still!" he shouted. "For your lives! We'll make it yet!"

But panic seized upon his passengers. Somebody scrambled for the high side of the raft, and the rest followed. The strain was too great for the lashings. A rope parted somewhere, and the floor instantly heaved up beneath them. There was a brief, wild confusion of thrashing, tangled logs and feeble human bodies. Then the whole thing, logs, bodies, baggage, and playing cards was swept over into the deep, rough water below.

When Jack came to the surface he had a confused impression of bobbing heads and logs on every side. He seized the nearest log, and unstrapping the cartridge belt and the gun that were drowning him, buckled it on. Meanwhile, he was looking for the long hair of the women. He reached one of them in six strokes. A pair of clutching arms reached for him, but he dived, and seizing her by the collar, towed her to the nearest log. It was Linda.

Leaving her supported, he trod water looking for Kate. He saw more streaming hair not far away, and reached the spot as she rose again. There was sterner stuff here; her face was white and wild, but her arms were under control. She put her hands on Jack's shoulders as he commanded, and he brought her likewise to a log. A little brown box came bobbing by, Linda's jewel-case. Kate coolly put out her hand and secured it.

All this had taken but a minute. Jack looked about him. Everything was being carried down of a piece with the current, and they were all close together. It seemed to Jack as if the whole face of the river was littered with playing cards. He had a particular impression of the deuce of clubs. Vassall was helping Baldwin Ferrie to a log, and Humpy Jull had secured the log that bore Jack's cartridge belt. Only Sir Bryson was missing. Farther out Jack saw a feeble commotion, and no log near.

"See to the women!" he called to Vassall. "There's a backwater inshore. Humpy, save that belt as you value your life!"

The struggling figure sank before he reached it. Jack swam about the spot. It rose again, but out of his reach. He dived for it. They came together, and a pair of frantic arms closed about Jack's neck. They sank together, Jack struggling vainly. They rose, Jack got a breath, and broke the hold. The struggling ceased.

Swinging the inert figure over his back, Jack struck out for the shore. It was a desperately hard pull. They had been carried too far to obtain any advantage from the backwater. The logs he passed were of no aid to him, because the current tended to carry them into midstream. For a long time the shore seemed only to recede as he struggled toward it. More than once fear touched him and he was on the point of going down. He rested, breathing deep, and set to it again. Finally he ceased to think or to feel, but he continued to struggle automatically, and he still clung to his burden.

It was with a kind of surprise that he finally felt the stones under his feet. He staggered ashore, and putting down the limp figure he carried, flung himself on the shore utterly exhausted. How long he lay there he hardly knew. As soon as a little strength began to stir in him, with the man-of-the-wilds instinct he set to work collecting sticks to make a fire.

He had been carried nearly a mile below the reef. By and by, far up the shore he saw some wavering, uncertain little figures. He was able to count five of them, so he knew all were safe. He hailed them shrilly after the way of the country. After his little fire sprang up, he could see that they were coming toward him slowly, the men helping the women.

They came, a distressed little company, drenching wet, silent and dazed. They moved like automatons, as if their limbs were independent of them, and they looked at each other dully, as if not with full recognition. Reaching Jack, they stood around in an uncertain way; none of them spoke. It was as if they had lost the faculty of speech also. Linda was roused by the sight of her father; with a cry, she cast herself on his body.

"He's not drowned," Jack said quickly. "Only stunned a little."

The helplessness of the others had the effect of rousing Jack to an ardour of activity that transformed him. His gnawing anger was forgotten; his black looks were flown. Their situation was well-nigh desperate, but here the opposing forces were purely physical, such as he thoroughly understood, and loved to attack. His exhaustion passed, and his eyes became bright.

"Has anybody dry matches?" he sang out.

The dazed ones looked a little amazed at his spirits. It appeared that no one's match-safe was waterproof but Jack's own.

"Spread 'em out to dry on a rock," he said. "They may work. I have seventeen good ones. That's enough at a pinch. Everybody scatter for dry wood. Keep on the move, and get your circulation going. Humpy, you build another fire behind the willows for the ladies. Light it from this one. We can have all the fire we want, anyway. Vassall, help me here with Sir Bryson. We must take his wet things off." He glanced up at the sun. "Rest for an hour," he said; "then on the march! Red Willow Creek to-night; Fort Cheever to-morrow afternoon!"

"But how are we going to support life on the way?" stammered Baldwin Ferrie.

Jack pointed to the belt Humpy Jull had brought along. His gun and his hunting-knife hung from it. This, with Linda's jewel-case, was the sum total of what they had saved from the wreck.

"We have the cannon," Jack said with a laugh. "About forty cartridges, and the seventeen matches. We'll make out."

An hour later they started to climb the steep, high hill to the prairie. They took it very slowly on account of Sir Bryson, who was still white and shaky. But he complained no more. Jack's example had had its effect on all, and a more cheerful feeling pervaded the party. They were at least dry and warm again. The men still regarded Jack's high spirits a little askance. It did not fit their settled convictions about him; they resented it slightly while forced to admire.

"Where are we heading for?" Vassall asked.

"There's a trail down this side of the river as well as on the other," Jack said. "I've never been over it, but if we strike straight back we must hit it."

"How will we get back across the river?"

"Nothing easier," said Jack. "When we arrive opposite the fort, if it's daylight, we'll wave a shirt; if it's night, we'll build a fire, and they'll send a canoe over for us."

Once having accomplished the difficult hill it was easy enough going over the prairie. Taking his bearings from the sun, Jack led them in a line at right angles back from the river. Linda walked beside him. Vassall and Ferrie helped support Sir Bryson. Half an hour's walking brought them to a trail, as Jack had promised, and their hearts rose. It was a less well-beaten track than the main route on the north side of the river, but easy enough to follow.

Jack called a halt. "Here we are," he said. "The first good water that I know of is Red Willow Creek. I've camped on the river at the mouth of it. It will be about seven miles. Are you good for it?"

They said they were. No one dreamed of opposing Jack now. They hung on him like defenceless merchant-men on their man-o'-war convoy.

"Vassall, you lead the way from here," Jack went on. "You'll find the creek in a big coulee. We'll camp for the night in the bottom of it. If by any chance you should lose the trail before you get there, just climb to the highest place you see, and sit down and wait till I come along."

"But where are you going?" they demanded.

"To hunt for our supper," said Jack.

He issued two of the precious matches to Humpy to make a fire on arrival. "There ought to be berries in the coulee," he said. "Collect all you can."

Linda clung to him. "Can't I go with you?" she begged.

He shook his head. "The hunter must hunt alone."

"Don't be long. Be very careful. If we lost you we'd simply lie down and die."

"Easy!" he said uncomfortably.

Linda glanced at the others. "Why should I hide it now?" she said. "I'm proud of you. They know now why I chose a man like you, a real man."

Jack had the feeling that additional turns of rope were being taken around his body. He blushed and scowled together. "Linda! for heaven's sake!" he burst out. Under his breath, "Wait until I pull you out of this before you begin to talk." He turned and fled.

A word of sympathy may be dropped here for Vassall and Ferrie. It is hard to have to stand by while your rival has the opportunity to save the lives of all and sundry, including your own, just because he is in his own element and you are out of yours. And then to be publicly scorned by the girl in the case--for that is what Linda's speech amounted to. Linda had no mercy for men; that is why, if you look into it far enough, she was bound to suffer on her own account. It was much to their credit that the two men took it generously.

It was four hours before they saw Jack again. They had reached the rendezvous some time before, and Humpy had built a fire on the shore of the creek, around which they sat in silence, trying not to look as hungry as they felt, and trying to conceal the common anxiety that gnawed at each breast: "What will we do if he doesn't come!"

But at last his hail came over the hill, and Jack himself came running and sliding down the grassy slope, covered with feathers it appeared. They sprang up with glad cries. Never did man receive a more heartfelt welcome. They were like his hungry children waiting to be fed and cheered. It is sweet to be so necessary to one's fellow-beings, but indeed it was a startling transformation. At one bound Jack had risen in their estimation from a disgraced felon to the saviour and preserver of them all. Jack felt this, and it was his revenge.

He kissed Linda--he had to--and flung his burdens down. "Prairie chicken," he said. "Sorry to keep you waiting so long, but I hated to come in until I had got one all round, and I couldn't take any chances. They're too expensive, anyway; a shell apiece and two misses. To-morrow I'll try to bring in something more substantial."

Thus they dined off roasted prairie chicken and saskatoon berries, strictly after Nature's first intention without artificial aids. And when one wanted a drink he had to scoop it out of the creek in his hand. It was remarkable how easy all this came to them, even to a lieutenant-governor when he was hungry and thirsty.

The night was harder. Jack built a sort of lean-to, or wind-break, of poplar, with a long fire close across in front. The heat was partly reflected down by the sloping roof, and in this pleasant oven they lay in a row on heaped spruce boughs. The men arranged to take turns in keeping up the fire throughout the night. But the ground was cold, and there was not much sleep to be had. Jack sat up and told cheerful yarns of worse nights that he had managed to live through.

At sun-up he was away again. An hour's patient waiting at the edge of a berry thicket two miles up the coulee brought him what he sought, a young black bear. He brought the hams into camp. The women looked askance at his prizes, and elected to breakfast off berries alone. But baked in its hide in a pit with hot stones the meat was not to be despised, and after a few miles on the trail they were all glad to share it.

All that day Jack convoyed his little company slowly, with many a rest beside the trail. They had about twenty miles to cover. Alone, Jack would have made it in five hours, but he saw that it would be a great feat for some of the others if they got through at all that day. In spite of what he could do, in the middle of the afternoon Linda gave out, and Sir Bryson was on his last legs. The indefatigable Jack then contrived a litter out of two poplar poles thrust through three buttoned coats, and Linda and her father took turns in riding the rest of the way.

Jack was considerably embarrassed by Sir Bryson's attitude toward him during this day. The little gentleman, as has been said, was much chastened. He was quiet; he issued no orders, nor uttered complaints, and was unaffectedly grateful for whatever was done for him. Here was a change indeed! Whenever Jack approached him his confusion became visible and acute. At the same time he often sought Jack out, and began conversations which petered out to nothing. Manifestly he had something on his mind that his tongue balked at uttering.

It came out at last. During one of the rests they were all sitting in the grass, Jack among the others, busily intent upon cleaning the precious "cannon" with a sleeve of his shirt that he had sacrificed to the purpose. Sir Bryson suddenly moved closer to him.

"Young man," he began, and his lofty tone could not hide the genuine feeling, "they tell me you saved my life yesterday. I don't remember much about it myself."

Jack looked up, alarmed and frowning. "That's all right," he said hurriedly. "Everybody did what he could."

"And Linda and Mrs. Worsley too," Sir Bryson went on. "It was very gallantly done."

"Vassall would have done it, only I was nearer," Jack said gruffly. "Please don't say anything more. It makes me feel like a fool!"

"It must be spoken of," Sir Bryson persisted. "But it's difficult--I hardly know----"

Jack did not perceive the exact nature of the old gentleman's difficulty. He got up. "It was all in the day's work," he said awkwardly. "You don't need to feel that it changes the situation at all."

Sir Bryson rose too. All tousled, creased and bedraggled as he was, the little governor was never more truly dignified. "You do not understand me," he said. "I--I am very grateful. Moreover, I am sorry for things I said. I desire to acknowledge it here before our friends who were present when I said them."

Jack looked away in acute embarrassment. "Very handsomely said, Sir Bryson," he muttered.

This ended the incident for the present. The air was much cleared by it. However, it gave rise to something it was necessary for Jack to unburden himself of. He waited until he could get Sir Bryson away from the others.

"Sir Bryson," he said doggedly. "I wanted to tell you that I understand my being useful to you doesn't clear my name, doesn't make me any more a desirable suitor for your daughter."

Sir Bryson made a deprecating gesture.

"Under the circumstances," Jack continued, "I don't want her any more than you want me. It is agreed between Miss Linda and I that we are to have nothing to do with each other until I succeed in clearing myself."

They shook hands on it. Later Vassall and Baldwin Ferrie took opportunity to follow in the lead of their master and ask to shake Jack's hand. For the rest of the day Jack moved in an atmosphere warm with their gratitude and admiration. It was not unpleasant in itself of course, but somehow he felt as if everything that happened tended to tighten little by little the coils in which he found himself. Mile by mile as they neared the end of the journey, and the obstacles retreated, his spirits went down. He was elevated into Sir Bryson's good graces, but not into his own. This was his ingenious difficulty: that the girl he didn't want was attached as a rider to the good name he had to have.

At the day's close he led his bedraggled and dead weary little company stumbling down the hill to the river bank opposite Fort Cheever. There, a fire built on the shore, with its mounting pillar of smoke, soon brought over Davy in a dugout to investigate. Great was the boy's astonishment at the sight of them.

Jack burned with a question that he desired to ask him, but he could not bring his tongue to form Mary's name. His heart began to beat fast as they approached the other shore. He wondered if he would see her. He hoped not, he told himself, and all the while desiring it as a desert traveller longs for water.