Chapter X: Part THREE: The Taming (3)

The hope seemed well-founded. It is impossible for even most of the wild creatures--furtive as twilight shadows--to journey through wood spaces without leaving trace of their goings and comings: much less clumsy human beings. Ultimately the searchers would find their tracks in the soft earth, the ashes of a camp fire, or a charred cooking rack.

"And when we get 'em, we can wait and live on meat until the river goes up in fall--then float on down to the Indian villages in their canoe," Chan answered. "It will carry four of us, all right."

Ray, Chan, Neilson and Neilson's daughter--these made four. What remained of Ben when Ray was through could be left, silent upon some hushed hillside, to the mercy of the wild creatures and the elements.

Surely they were in the enemy-country now; and now a fresh fear began to oppress them. They might expect an attack from their implacable foe at any moment. It did not make for ease of mind to know that any brush clump might be their enemy's ambush; that any instant a concealed rifle might speak death to them in the silence. Ben would have every advantage of fortress and ambush. They had not thought greatly of this matter at first; but now the fear increased with the passing days. Even Neilson was not wholly exempt from it. It seemed a hideous, deadly thing, incompatible with life and hope, that they should be plunging deeper, farther into helplessness and peril.

If mental distress and physical discomfort can constitute vengeance Ben was already avenged. Now that they were in the hill-lands, out from the gorge and into a region of yellow beaver meadows lying between gently sloping hills, their apprehension turned to veritable terror. A blind man could see how small was their fighting chance against a hidden foe who had prepared for their coming. The skin twitched and crept when a twig cracked about their camp at night, and a cold like death crept over the frame when the thickets crashed under a leaping moose.

Ray found himself regretting, for the first time, that murderous crime of his of months before. Even riches might not pay for these days of dread and nights of terror: the recovery of the girl from Ben's arms could not begin to recompense. Indeed, the girl's memory was increasingly hard to call up. The mind was kept busy elsewhere.

"We're walking right into a death trap," he told Neilson one morning. "If he is here, what chance have we got; he'd have weeks to explore the country and lay an ambush for us. Besides, I believe he's dead. I don't believe a human being could have got down this far, alive."

Chan too had found himself inclining toward this latter belief; without Ray's energy and ambition he had less to keep him fronted to the chase. Neilson, however, was not yet ready to turn back. He too feared Ben's attack, but already in the twilight of advancing years, he did not regard physical danger in the same light as these two younger men. Besides, he was made of different stuff. The safety of his daughter was the one remaining impulse in his life.

And more and more, in the chill August nights, the talk about the camp fire took this trend: the folly of pushing on. It was better to turn back and wait his chances to strike again, Ray argued, than to walk bald-faced into death. Sometime Ben must return to the claim: a chance might come to lay him low. Besides, ever it seemed more probable that the river had claimed him.

One rainy, disagreeable morning, as they camped beside the river near the mouth of a small creek, affairs reached their crisis. They had caught and saddled the horses; Ray was pulling tight the last hitch. Chan stood beside him, speaking in an undertone. When he had finished Ray cursed explosively in the silence.

Neilson turned. He seemed to sense impending developments. "What now?" he asked.

"I'm not going on, that's what it is," Ray replied. "Neilson, it's two against one--if you want to go on you can--but Ray and I are going back. That devil's dead. Beatrice is, too--sure as hell. If they ain't dead, he'll get us. I was a fool ever to start out. And that's final."

"You're going back, eh--scared out!" Neilson commented coldly.

"I'm going back--and don't say too much about being scared out, either."

"And you too, Chan? You're against me, too?"

Chan cursed. "I'd gone a week ago if it'd been me. We knew the way home, at least."

The old man looked a long time into the river depths. Only too well he realized that their decision was final. But there was no answer, in the swirling depths, to the question that wracked his heart: whether or not in these spruce-clad hills his daughter still lived. It could only murmur and roar, without shaping words that human ears could grasp, never relieving the dreadful uncertainty that would be his life's curse from henceforth. He sighed, and the lines across his brow were dark and deep.

"Then turn the horses around, you cowards," he answered. "I can't go on alone."

For once neither Ray nor Chan had outward resentment for the epithet. Secretly they realized that old Neilson was to the wall at last, and like a grizzly at bay, it was safer not to molest him. Chan went down to the edge of the creek to water his saddle horse.

But presently they heard him curse, in inordinate and startled amazement, as he gazed at some imprint in the mud of the shore. They saw the color sweep from his face. In an instant his two companions were beside him.

Clear and unmistakable in the mud they saw the stale imprint of Ben's canoe as they had landed, and the tracks of both the man and the girl as they had turned into the forest.

XXXVII

The dawn that crept so gray and mysterious over the frosty green of spruce brought no hope to Beatrice, sitting beside the unconscious form of Ben in the cave fronting the glade. Rather it only brought the tragic truth home more clearly. Her love for him had manifested itself too late to give happiness to either of them: even now his life seemed to be stealing from her, into the valley of the shadow.

She had watched beside him the whole night; and now she beheld a sinister change in his condition. He was still unconscious, but he no longer drew his breath at long intervals, softly and quietly. He was breathing in short, troubled gasps, and an ominous red glow was in his cheeks. She touched his brow, only to find it burning with fever.

The fact was not hard to understand. The downpour of cold rain in which he had lain, wounded, for so many hours had drawn the life heat out of him, and some organic malady had combined with his bodily injuries to strike out his life. Her predicament was one of absolute helplessness. She was hundreds of miles--weary weeks of march--from medical attention, and she could neither leave him nor carry him. The wilderness forces, resenting the intrusion into their secret depths, had seemingly taken full vengeance at last. They had seemingly closed all gates to life and safety. They had set the trap with care; and the cruel jaws had sprung.

She sat dry-eyed, incoherent prayers at her trembling lips. Mostly she did not touch the man, only sat at his bedside in the crude chair Ben had fashioned for her while the minutes rolled into hours and the hours sped the night away,--in tireless vigil, watching with lightless eyes. Once she bent and touched her lips to his.

They were not cold now. They were warm with fever. But in the strange twilight-world of unconsciousness he could neither know of nor respond to her kiss. She patted down his covering and sometimes held his hard hands warm between hers, as if she could thus keep death from seizing them and leading him away. But her courage did not break again.

The wan light showed her his drawn face; and just for an instant her arms pressed about it. "I won't give up, Ben," she promised. "I'll keep on fighting--to the last minute. And maybe I can pull you through."

Beatrice meant exactly what she said: to the last minute. That did not mean to the gray hour when, by all dictate of common sense, further fight is useless. She meant that she would battle tirelessly as long as one pale spark glowed in his spirit, as long as his breath could cloud a glass. The best thing for her now, however, was rest. She was exhausted by the strain of the night; and she must save herself for the crisis that was sure to come. Ben was sleeping easily now; the instant when his life hung in the balance still impended.

She built up the fire, put on water to heat, covered the man with added blankets, then lay down on Ben's cot. Soon she drifted into uneasy slumber, waking at intervals to serve her patient.

The hours dragged by, the night sloped down to the forest; and the dawn followed the night. Ben's life still flickered, like a flame in the wind, in the twilight land between life and death.

Yet little could she do for him these first few days, except, in her simple faith, to pray. Never an hour passed but that prayers were at her lips, childlike, direct, entreating prayers from her woman's heart. Of all her offices these were first: she had no doubt but that they counted most. She sat by his bedside, kept him covered with the warmest robes, hewed wood for the fire; but as yet he had never fully emerged from his unconsciousness. Would he slip away in the night without ever wakening?

But in the morning of the fourth day he opened his eyes vividly, muttered, and fell immediately to sleep. He woke again at evening; and his moving lips conveyed a message. In response she brought him steaming grouse broth, administering it a spoonful at a time until he fell to sleep again.

In the days that followed he was conscious to the degree that he could drink broth, yet never recognizing Beatrice nor seeming to know where he was. His fever still lingered, raging; yet in these days she began to notice a slow improvement in his condition. The healing agents of his body were hard at work; and doubt was removed that he had received mortal internal injuries. She had set his broken arm the best she could, holding the bones in place with splints; but in all likelihood it would have to be broken and set again when he reached the settlements. She began to notice the first cessation of his fever; although weeks of sickness yet remained, she believed that the crisis was past. Yet in spite of these hopeful signs, she was face to face with the most tragic situation of all. Their food was almost gone.

It would be long weeks before Ben could hope for sufficient strength to start the journey down to the settlements, even if the way were open. As it was their only chance lay in the fall rains that would flood the Yuga and enable them to journey down to the native villages in their canoe. These rains would not fall till October. For all that she had hoarded their supplies to the last morsel, eating barely enough herself to sustain life in her body, the dread spectre of starvation waited just without the cave. She had realized perfectly that Ben could not hope to throw off the malady without nutritious food and she had not stinted with him; and now, just when she had begun to hope for his recovery, she shook the last precious cup of flour from the sack.

The rice and sugar were gone, long since. The honey she had hoarded to give Ben--knowing its warming, nutritive value--not tasting a drop herself. Of all their stores only a few pieces of jerked caribou remained; she had used the rest to make rich broth for Ben, and there was no way under heaven whereby they might procure more.

The rifle was broken. The last of the pistol shots was fired the day she had prepared the poisoned cup for Ben.

Yet she still waged the fight, struggling with high courage and tireless resolution against the frightful odds that opposed her. Her faith was as of that nameless daughter of the Gileadite; and she could not yield. Not ambition, not hatred--not even such fire of fury as had been wakened in Wolf Darby's heart that first frenzied night on the hillside--could have been the impulse for such fortitude and sacrifice as hers. It was not one of these base passions--known in the full category to her rescuers who were even now bearing down upon her valley--that kept the steel in her thews and the steadfastness in her heart. She loved this man; her love for him was as wholesome and as steadfast as her own self; and the law of that love was to give him all she had.

There were few witnesses to this infinite giving of hers. Ben himself still lingered in a strange stupor, remembering nothing, knowing neither the girl nor himself. Perhaps the wild things saw her desperate efforts to find food in the wilderness,--the long hours of weary searching for a handful of berries that gave such little nourishment to his weakened body, or for a few acorns stored for winter by bird or rodent. Sometimes a great-antlered moose--an easy trophy if the rifle had been unbroken--saw her searching for wocus like a lost thing in the tenacious mud of the marshes; and almost nightly a silent wolf, pausing in his hunting, gazed uneasily through the cavern maw. But mostly her long hours of service in the cave, the chill nights that she sat beside Ben's cot, the dreary mornings when she cooked her own scanty breakfast and took her uneasy rest, the endless labor of fire-mending so that the cave could be kept at an even heat went unobserved by mortal eyes. The healing forces of his body called for warmth and nourishment; but for all the might of her efforts she waged a losing fight.

What little wocus she was able to find she made into bread for Ben; yet it was never enough to satisfy his body's craving. The only meat she had herself was the vapid flesh that had been previously boiled for Ben's broth; and now only a few pieces of the jerked meat remained. She herself tried to live on such plants as the wilderness yielded, and she soon began to notice the tragic loss of her own strength. Her eyes were hollow, preternaturally large; she experienced a strange, floating sensation, as if spirit and flesh were disassociated.

Still Ben lingered in his mysterious stupor, unaware of what went on about him; but his fever was almost gone by now, and the first beginnings of strength returned to his thews. His mind had begun to grope vaguely for the key that would open the doors of his memory and remind him again of some great, half-forgotten task that still confronted him, some duty unperformed. Yet he could not quite seize it. The girl who worked about his cot was without his bourne of knowledge; her voice reached him as if from an infinite distance, and her words penetrated only to the outer edges of his consciousness. It was not strictly, however, a return of his amnesia. It was simply an outgrowth of delirium caused by his sickness and injuries, to be wholly dispelled as soon as he was wholly well.

But now the real hour of crisis was at hand,--not from his illness, but from the depletion of their food supplies. Beatrice had spent a hard afternoon in the forest in search of roots and berries, and as she crept homeward, exhausted and almost empty-handed, the full, tragic truth was suddenly laid bare. Her own strength had waned. Without the miracle of a fresh food supply she could hardly keep on her feet another day. Plainly and simply, the wolf was at the door. His cruel fangs menaced not only her, but this stalwart man for whose life she had fought so hard.

The fear of the obliterating darkness known to all the woods people pressed close upon her and appalled her. She loved life simply and primitively; and it was an unspeakable thing to lose at the end of such a battle. Out so far, surrounded by such endless, desolate wastes of gloomy forest, the Shadow was cold, inhospitable; and she was afraid to face it alone. If Ben would only waken and sustain her drooping spirit with his own! She was lonely and afraid, in the shadow of the inert spruce, under the gray sky.

She could hardly summon strength for the evening's work of cutting fuel. The blade would not drive with its old force into the wood. The blaze itself burned dully; and she could not make it leap and crackle with its old cheer. And further misfortune was in store for her when she crept into the cave to prepare Ben's supper.

A pack rat--one of those detested rodents known so well to all northern peoples--had carried off in her absence two of the three remaining sticks of jerked caribou. For a moment she gazed in unbelieving and speechless horror, then made a frenzied search in the darkened corners of the cabin.

This was no little tragedy: the two sticks of condensed and concentrated protein might have kept Ben alive for a few days more. It was disaster, merciless and sweeping. And the brave heart of the girl seemed to break under the blow.

The hot, bitter tears leaped forth; but she suppressed the bitter, hopeless sobs that clutched at her throat. She must not let Ben know of this catastrophe. Likely in his stupor he would not understand; yet she must not take the chance. She must nourish the spark of hope in his breast to the last hour. She walked to the mouth of the cave; and Famine itself stood close, waiting in the shadows. She gazed out into the gathering gloom.

The tears blinded her eyes at first. Slowly the dark profile of the spruce against the gray sky penetrated to her consciousness: the somber beauty of the wilderness sky line that haunts the woodsman's dreams. With it came full realization of the might and the malevolency of these shadowed wilds she had battled so long. They had got her down at last; they had crushed her and beaten her, and had held up to scorn her sacrifice and her mortal strength. She knew the wild wood now: its savage power, its remorselessness, and yet, woods girl that she was, she could not forget its dark and moving beauty.

The forest was silent to-night. Not a twig cracked or a branch rustled. It was hushed, breathless, darkly sinister. All at once her eyes peered and strained into the dusk.

Far across the valley, beyond the beaver marsh and on the farther shore of the lake she saw a little glimmer of light through the rift in the trees. She dared not believe in its reality at first. Perhaps it was a trick of her imagination only, a hallucination born of her starvation, child of her heartfelt prayer. She looked away, then peered again. But, yes--a tiny gleam of yellow light twinkled through the gloom! It was real, _it was true_! A gleam of hope in the darkness of despair.

Her rescuers had come. There could be no other explanation. She hastened into the cave, drew the blankets higher about Ben's shoulders, then crept out into the dusk. Half running, she hastened toward their distant camp fire.

XXXVIII

Beatrice's first impulse was to run at a breakneck pace down the ridge and about the lake into her father's camp, beseeching instant aid to the starving man in the cave. She wished that she had a firearm with which to signal to them and bring them at once to the cavern. And it was not until she had descended the ridge and stood at the edge of the beaver meadow that her delirious joy began to give way to serious, thought.

She was brought to a halt first by the sight of the horses that had wandered about the long loop of the lake and were feeding in the rich grass of the meadow. The full moon rising in the east had cast a nebulous glow over the whole countryside by now; and she could make a hasty estimation of their numbers. It was evident at once that her father had not made the expedition alone. The large outfit implied a party of at least three,--indicating that Ray Brent and Chan Heminway had accompanied him.

She had only fear and disdain for these two younger men; but surely they would not refuse aid to Ben. Yet perhaps it was best to proceed with some caution. These were her lover's enemies; if for no other reason than their rage at her own abduction they might be difficult to control. Her father, in all probability, would willingly show mercy to the helpless man in the cavern--particularly after she told him of Ben's consideration and kindness--but she put no faith in Ray and Chan. She knew them of old. Besides, she remembered there was a further consideration,--that of a gold claim.

Could Ben have told her the truth when he had maintained that they would kill him on sight if he did not destroy them first? Was it true that he had waged the war in defense of his own rights? Weeks and months had passed since she had seen her father's face: perhaps her old control of him could no longer be relied upon. If indeed their ownership of a rich claim depended upon Ben's death, Ray and Chan could not be trusted at all.

She resolved to proceed with the utmost caution. Abruptly she turned out of the beaver marsh, where the moonlight might reveal her, and followed close to the edge of the timber, a course that could not be visible from beyond the lake. She approached the lake at its far neck, then followed back along the margin clear to the edge of the woods in which the fire was built.

In her years in the woods Beatrice had learned to stalk, and the knowledge was of value to her now. With never a misstep she took down a little game trail toward the camp fire. She was within fifty yards of it now--she could make out three dark figures seated in the circle of firelight. Walking softly but upright she pushed within ninety feet of the fire.

Then she waited, in doubt as to her course. She was still too far distant to hear more than the murmur of their voices. If she could just get near enough to catch their words she could probably glean some idea of their attitude toward Ben. She pushed on nearer, through the dew-wet brush.

Impelled by the excitement under which she advanced, her old agility of motion had for the moment returned to her; and she crept softly as a fawn between the young trees. One misstep, one rustling branch or crackling twig might give her away; but she took each step with consummate care, gently thrusting the tree branches from her path.

Once a rodent stirred beneath her feet, and she froze--like a hunting wolf--in her tracks. One of the three men looked up, and she saw his face plainly through the low spruce boughs. And for a moment she thought that this was a stranger. It was with a distinct foreboding of disaster that she saw, on second glance, that the man was Ray Brent.

She had never seen such change in human countenance in the space of a few months. She did not pause to analyze it. She only knew that his eyes were glittering and fixed; and that she herself was deeply, unexplainably appalled. The man cursed once, blasphemously, his face dusky and evil in the eerie firelight, but immediately turned back to his talk. Beatrice crept closer.

Now she was near enough to catch an occasional word, but not discern their thoughts. It was evident, however, that their conversation was of Ben and herself,--the same topic they had discussed nights without end. She caught her own name; once Chan used an obscene epithet as he spoke of their enemy.

Her instincts were true and infallible to-night; and she was ever more convinced of their deadly intentions toward Ben. It was not wise to announce herself yet. Perhaps she would have to rely upon a course other than a direct appeal for aid. Now her keen eyes could see the whole camp: the three seated figures of the men, their rifles leaning near them, their supplies spread out about the fire.

At one side, quite to the edge of the firelight, she saw a kyack--one of those square boxes that are hung on a pack saddle--which seemed to be heaped with jerked caribou or moose flesh. For the time of a breath she could not take her eyes from it. It was food--food in plenty to sustain Ben through his illness and the remaining weeks of their exile--and her eyes moistened and her hands trembled at the sight. She had been taught the meaning of famine, these last, bitter days. In reality she was now in the first stage of starvation, experiencing the first, vague hallucinations, the sense of incorporeality, the ever-declining strength, the constant yearning that is nothing but the vitals' submerged demand for food. The contents of the kyack meant _life_ to herself and to Ben,--deliverance and safety when all seemed lost.

A daughter of the cities far to the south--even a child of poverty--rarely could have understood the unutterable craving that overswept her at the sight of this simple food. It was unadorned, unaccompanied by the delicacies that most human beings have come to look upon as essentials and to expect with every meal: it was only animal flesh dried in the smoke and the sun. It not only attracted her physically; but in that moment it possessed real objective beauty for her; as it would have possessed for the most cultivated esthete that might be standing in her place. This girl was down to the most stern realities, and life and death hung in the balance.

She went on her hands and knees, creeping nearer. Still she did not make the slightest false motion, creeping with an uncanny silence in the under shrubbery. And now the words came plain.

"But we must be near," Chan was saying. "They can't be more than a mile or so from here. We'll find 'em in the morning--"

"If he doesn't find us first and shoot up our camp," Ray replied. "I wish we'd built our fire further into the woods. Here we've looked all day without even finding a track except those tracks in the mud."

"They might be beyond the marsh," Neilson suggested.

"But Chan went over that way and didn't find a trace," Ray objected. "But just the same--we'll make a real search to-morrow. I believe we'll find the devil. And then--we can leave this hellish country and go back in peace--if we don't want to wait for the flood."

Beatrice's eyes were on his face, wondering what growth of wickedness, what degeneracy had so filled his cruel eyes with light and stamped his face with evil. This was the man to whom she must look for mercy. Ben's life, if she led the three men to the cave, would be in his hands. She sensed from his authoritative tone that her father's control over him was largely broken. She hovered, terrified and motionless, in her covert.

Ray reached for his rifle, glancing at the sights and drawing the lever back far enough to see the brass of its shells. Chan's lean face was drawn with a cruel glee.

"You can't keep your hands off that gun, Ray," he said. "You sure are gettin' anxious."

"I won't use it on him," Ray replied, slowly and carefully. "It's too good for him--except maybe the stock. He didn't lead me clear out here just to see him puff out and blow up in a minute with a rifle ball through his head. Just the same I want the gun near me, all the time."

The two men looked at him, sardonic-eyed; and both of them seemed to understand fully what he meant. They seemed to catch more from the slow tones, so full of lust and frenzy that they seemed to drop from his lips in an ugly monotone, than they did from the words themselves. They took a certain grim amusement in these quirks of abnormal depravity that had begun to manifest themselves in Ray. The man's fingers were wide spread as he spoke, and his lip twitched twice, sharply, when he had finished.

The words came clear and distinct to the listening girl. She tried to take them literally--that Ray would not shoot Ben! _"It's too good for him--except maybe the stock!"_ Did he mean _that_ too! Was there any possible meaning in the world other than that he was planning some unearthly, more terrible fate for the man she loved! She would not yet yield to the dreadful truth, yet even now terror was clutching at her throat, strangling her; and the cold drops were beading her brow. Still the dark drama of the fireside continued before her eyes.

Chan suddenly turned to Neilson, evidently imbued with Ray's fervor. "What do you think of that, old man?" he asked menacingly. Thus Chan, too, had escaped from Neilson's dominance: plainly Ray was his idol now. It was also plain that he recognized attributes of mercy and decency in his grizzled leader that might interfere with his own and his companion's plans. "What's worrying me--whether you're goin' to join in on the sport when we catch the weasel!"

Sport! The word was more terrible to Beatrice than the vilest oath he had used to emphasize it. She crouched, shivering. Watching intently, she saw Ray look up, too, waiting for the reply; and her father, sensing his lost dominance, bowed his head.

"You could hardly expect me to let him off easy--seeing what he did to my daughter--"

"What he done to your daughter ain't all--I don't care if he treated her like a queen of the realm all the time," Ray interrupted harshly. "That makes no difference to neither me nor Chan. The main thing is--he brought us out here, away from the claim--and gave us months of the worst hell I ever hope to spend. I guess you ain't forgotten what Chan found out in Snowy Gulch--that the claim's recorded--in old Hiram's name. This Darby's got a letter in his pocket from Hiram's brother that would stand in any court. We've got to get that first. If Darby was an angel I'd mash him under my heel just the same; we've gone too far to start crawfishing. Just let me see him tied up in front of me--"

Beatrice did not linger to hear more. She had her answer: only in Ben's continued concealment lay the least hope of his salvation. These wolves about the fire meant what they said. But already her plans were shaping; and now she saw the light.

In the kyack of venison lay her own and her lover's safety: it contained enough nutritious food to sustain them until the fall rains could swell the Yuga and enable them to escape down to the Indian encampment. Her mind was swift and keen as never before: swiftly she perfected the last detail of her plan. The canoe, due to Ben's foresight, was securely hidden in a maze of tall reeds on the lake shore: they were certain to overlook it. The cavern, however, was almost certain to be discovered in the next day's search. They must make their escape to-night.

Ben, though terribly weakened, would be able to walk a short distance with her help. They could slip into the deepest forest, concealing themselves in the coverts until the three men had given up the search and gone away. She would take their robes and blankets to keep them warm; a camp fire would of course reveal their hiding place. The work could easily be accomplished in the midnight shadows: deliverance, salvation, life itself depended on the tide of fate in the next few hours.

She intended to steal the kyack of dried meat without which Ben and herself could not live. She crept back farther into the underbrush; then waited, scarcely breathing, while the fire died down. Already the three men were preparing to go to their bunks. Chan had already lain down; her father was removing his coat and boots. Ray, however, still sat in the firelight.

The moments passed. Would he never rise and go? The fire, however, was dying: its circle of ruddy light ever drew inward. The kyack was quite in the shadow now, yet she dared not attempt its theft until the three men were asleep. She waited, thrilling with excitement.

Chan and Neilson were seemingly asleep, and now Ray was knocking the ashes from his pipe. He yawned, stretching wide his arms; then, as if held by some intriguing thought, sat almost motionless, gazing into the graying coals. Presently Beatrice heard him curse, softly, in the shadows.

He got up, and removing his outer coat, rolled in his blankets. The night hours began their mystic march across the face of the wilderness.

Now was the time to act. As far as she could tell, the three men were deeply asleep: at least the likelihood would be as great as at any time later in the night. The fire was a heap of gray ashes except for its red-hot center: the kyack was in gloom. Very softly she crept through the thickets, meanwhile encircling the dying fire, and came up behind it.

Now it was almost in reach: now her hands were at its loops. She started to lift it in her arms.

But disaster still dogged her trail. Ray Brent had been too wary of attack, to-night, to sink easily into deep slumber. He heard the soft movement as Beatrice lifted the heavy canvas bag off the ground; and with a startled oath sprang to his feet.

He leaped like a panther. "Who's there?" he cried.

Sensing immediate discovery the girl placed all her hope in flight. Perhaps yet she could lose her pursuers in the darkness. Still trying to hold the kyack of food that meant life to Ben, she turned and darted into the shadows.

Like a wolf Ray sped after her. The moonlight showed her fleeing figure in the trees, and shouting aloud he sprang through the coverts to intercept her flight. The chase was of short duration thereafter. Emburdened by the heavy box she could not watch her step; and a protruding root caught cruelly at her ankle. She was hurled with stunning force to the ground.

Desperate and intent, but in realization of impending triumph, Ray's strong arms went about her.

XXXIX

For the second time in his life Ray Brent felt the sting of Beatrice's strong hand against his face. In the desperation of fear she had smote him with all her force. His arms withdrew quickly from about her; and her wide, disdainful eyes beheld a sinister change in his expression. The moonlight was in his eyes, silver-white; and they seemed actually to redden with fury, and again she saw that queer, ghastly twitching at the corner of his lips. The girl's defiance was broken with that one blow. She dropped her head, then walked past him into the presence of her father.

Neilson and Chan were on their feet now, and they regarded her in the utter silence of amazement. Breathing fast, Ray came behind her.

"Build up the fire, Chan," he said in a strange, grim voice. "We want to see what we've caught."

Obediently Chan kicked the coals from under the ashes, and began to heap on broken pieces of wood. The sticks smoked, then a little tongue of yellow flame crept about the fuel. But still the emburdened silence continued--the white-faced girl in the ring of silent, watching men.

Slowly the fire's glow crept out to her, revealing--even better than the bright moonlight--her wide, frightened eyes and the dark, speculative faces of the men. Then Ray spoke sharply in his place.

"Well, why don't you question her?" he demanded of Neilson. "I suppose you know what she was doing. She was trying to steal food. It looks to me like she's gone over to the opposite camp."

Her father sighed, a peculiar sound that seemed to come from above the tree tops, as if fast-flying waterfowl were passing overhead. "Is that so, daughter?" he asked simply.

"I was trying to take some of your food--to Ben," Beatrice replied softly. "He's in need of it."

"You see, they're on intimate terms," Ray suggested viciously. "Ben was in need of food--so she came here to steal it."

But Neilson acted as if he had not heard. "Why didn't you speak to us--and tell us you were safe?" he asked. "We've come all the way here to find you."

"Perhaps _you_ did. If you had been here alone, I would have told you. But Ray and Chan came all the way here to find Ben. I heard what they said--back there in the brush. They intend to kill him when they find him. I--I didn't want him killed."

Her father stared at her from under his bushy brows. "After carrying you from your home--taking you into danger and keeping you a prisoner--you still want to protect him?"

The girl nodded. "And I want you to protect him, too," she said. "Against these men." Suddenly she moved forward in earnest appeal. "Oh, Father--I want you to save him. He's never touched me--he's treated me with every respect--done everything he could for me. When he was injured he told me to go back--to take what little food there was, and go back--"

"I can take it, then, that you're out of food?" Ray asked.

"We're starving--and Ben's sick. Father, I make this one appeal--if your love for me isn't all gone, you'll grant it. I love him. You might as well know that now, as later. I want you to save the man your daughter loves."

Chan cursed in the gloom, his lean face darkened; but Neilson made no answer. Ray in his place sharply inhaled; but the sullen glow in his eyes snapped into a flame.

If Beatrice had glanced at Ray, she would have ceased her appeal and trusted everything to the doubtful mercy of flight,--into the gloom of the forest. As it was, she did not fully comprehend the cruel lust, like flame, that sped through his veins. She would have hoped for no mercy if she could have seen the strange, black surge of wrath in his face.

"He has been kind to me--and he was in the right, not in the wrong. I know about the claim-jumping. Father, I want you to stand between him and these men--help him--and give him food. I didn't speak to you because I was afraid for him--afraid you'd kill him or do some other awful thing to him--"

Slowly her father shook his head. "But I can't save him now. He brought this on himself."

"Remember, he was in the right," the girl pleaded brokenly. "You won't--you couldn't be a partner to murder. That's all it would be--murder--brutal, terrible, cold-blooded murder--if you kill him without a fight. It couldn't be in defense of me--I tell you he hasn't injured me--but was always kind to me. It would be just to take that letter away from him--"

"So he has the letter, has he?" Ray interrupted. He smiled grimly, and his tone was again flat and strained. "And he's sick--and starving. It isn't for your father to say, Beatrice, what's to be done with Ben. There's three of us here, and he's just one. Don't go interfering with what doesn't concern you, either--about the claim. You take us where he is, and we'll decide what to do with him."

Her eyes went to his face; and her lips closed tight. Here was one thing, on this mortal earth, that she must not tell. Perhaps, by the mercy of heaven, they would not find the cave, hidden as it was at the edge of the little glade. The forests were boundless; perhaps they would miss the place in their search. She straightened, scarcely perceptibly.

"Yes, tell us where he is," her father urged. "That's the first thing. We'll find him, anyway, in the morning."

The girl shook her head. She knew now that even if they promised mercy she must not reveal Ben's whereabouts. Their rage and cruelty would not be stayed for a spoken promise. The only card she had left, her one last, feeble hope of preserving Ben's life, lay in her continued silence. Ray's foul-nailed, eager hands could claw her lips apart, but he could not make her speak.

"I won't tell you," she answered at last, more clearly than she had spoken since her capture. "You said a few minutes ago I had gone over--to the opposite camp. I am, from now on. He was in the right, and he gave up his fight against you long ago. Now I want to go."

Fearing that Neilson might show mercy, Ray leaped in front of her. "You don't go yet awhile," he told her grimly. "I've got a few minutes' business with you yet. I tell you that we'll find him, if we have to search all year. And he'll have twice the chance of getting out alive if you tell us where he is."

She looked into his face, and she knew what that chance was. Her eyelids dropped halfway, and she shook her head. "I'd die first," she answered.

"It never occurred to you, did it, that there's ways of _making_ people tell things." He suddenly whirled, with drawn lips, to her father. "Neilson, is there any reason for showing any further consideration to this wench of yours? She's betrayed us--gone over to the opposite camp--lived for weeks, willing, with Ben. I for one am never going to see her leave this camp till she tells us where he is. I'm tired of talking and waiting. I'm going to get that paper away from him, and I'm going to smash his heart with my heel. We've almost won out--and I'm going to go the rest of the way."

Neilson straightened, his eyes steely and bright under his grizzled brows. Only too well he knew that this was the test. Affairs were at their crisis at last. But in this final moment his love for his daughter swept back to him in all its unmeasured fullness,--and when all was said and done it was the first, the mightiest impulse in his life. Ben had been kind to her, and she loved him; and all at once he knew that he could not yield him or her to the mercy of this black-hearted man before him.

He had lived an iniquitous life; he was inured to all except the worst forms of wickedness; but for the moment--in love of his daughter--he stood redeemed. He was on the right side at last. His hand drew back, and his face was like iron.

"Shut that foul mouth!" he cautioned, with a curious, deadly evenness of tone. "I haven't surrendered yet to you two wolves. If one of you dares to lay a hand on Beatrice, I'll kill him where he stands."

Even as he spoke his thought went to his rifle, leaning against a dead log ten feet away. This was the moment of test: the jealousy and rivalry and hatred between himself and Ray had reached the crisis. And the spirit of murder, terrible past any demon of the Pit, came stalking from the savage forest into the ruddy firelight.

Ray leered, his muscles bunching. "And I say to you, you're a dirty traitor too," he answered. "She ain't your daughter any more. She's Ben Darby's squaw. She's not fit for a white man to touch any more, for all her lies. You say one word and you'll get it too."

And at that instant the speeding pace of time seemed to halt, showing this accursed scene, so savage and terrible in the eerie light of the camp fire, at the edge of the haunted, breathless darkness, in vivid and ghastly detail. Neilson leaped forward with all his power; and if his blow had gone home, Ray would have been shattered beneath it like a tree in the lightning blast. But Ray's arms were incredibly swift, and his rifle leaped in his hands.

The barrel gleamed. The roar reechoed in the silence. Neilson's head bowed strangely; and for a moment he stood swaying, a ghastly blankness on his face; then pitched forward in the dew-wet grass.

Beatrice's last defense had fallen, seriously wounded; and Ray's arm seized her as, screaming, she tried to flee.

XL

The shot that wounded Jeffery Neilson carried far through the forest aisles, re√ęchoing against the hills, and arresting, for one breathless moment, all the business of the wilderness. The feeding caribou swung his horns and tried to catch the scent; the moose, grubbing for water roots in the lake bottom, lifted his grotesque head and stood like a form in black iron. It came clear as a voice to the cavern where Ben lay.

The man started violently in his cot. His entire nervous system seemed to react. Then there ensued a curious state in which his physical functions seemed to cease,--his heart motionless in his breast, his body tensely rigid, his breath held. There was an infinite straining and travail in his mind.

The truth was that the sound acted much as a powerful stimulant to his retarded nervous forces. It was the one thing his resting nerve-system needed; it was as if chemicals were in suspension in a crucible, and at a slight jar of the glass they made mysterious union and expelled a precipitation. Almost instantly he recognized the sound that had reached him, with a clear and unmistakable recognition such as he had not experienced since the night of the accident, as the report of a rifle. His mind gave a great leap and remembered its familiar world.

A rifle--probably discharged by Beatrice in a hunt after big game. It was true that their meat supply was low; he remembered now. Yet it was curious that she should be hunting after dark. The gloom was deep at the cavern mouth. Besides, he had always kept his rifle from her, fearing that she might turn it against him. He looked about him, trying to locate the source of the flood of light on the cavern floor. It was the moon, and it showed that the girl was gone. He started to sit up.

But his left arm did not react just properly to the command of his brain. It impeded him, and its old strength was impaired. For a moment more he lay quiet, deep in thought. Of course--he had been injured by the falling tree. He remembered clearly, now. And the rifle had been broken.

The only possible explanation for the shot was that a rifle had been fired by some invader in their valley--in all probability Neilson or one of his men. Beatrice's absence would also indicate this fact: perhaps she had already joined her father and was on her way back to Snowy Gulch with him. In that case, why had he himself been spared?

He looked out of the door of the cavern, trying to get some idea of the lateness of the hour. The very quality of the darkness indicated that the night was far advanced. Neilson would not be hunting game at this hour. Was his own war--planned long ago--even now being waged in ways beyond his ken?

His old concern for Beatrice swept through him. With considerable difficulty he got to his feet, then holding on to the wail, guided himself to the shelf where they ordinarily kept their little store of matches. He scratched one of them against the wall.

In the flaring light his eyes made a swift but careful appraisal of his surroundings. The girl's cot had not been slept in; and to his great amazement he saw that their food supplies were spent. Still holding to the wall he walked to the cave mouth.

Instantly his keen eyes saw the far-off gleam of the camp fire on the distant margin of the lake. For all that the hour was late, it burned high and bright. He watched it, vaguely conscious of the insidious advance of a ghastly fear. Beatrice was his ally now--if these weeks had sent home one fact to him it was this--and her absence might easily indicate that she was helpless in the enemy's hands. The thing suggested ugly possibilities. Yet he could not aid her. He could scarcely walk; even the knife that he wore at his belt was missing, probably carried by Beatrice when she gathered roots in the woods.

But presently all questions as to his course were settled for him. His straining ear caught the faintest, almost imperceptible vibration in the air--a soundwave so dim and obscure that it seemed impossible that the human mind could interpret it--but Ben recognized it in a flash. In some great trouble and horror, in the sullen light of that distant camp fire, Beatrice had screamed for aid.

Only by the grace of the Red Gods had he heard the sound at all. Except for the fact that the half-mile intervening was as still as death, and that half the way the sound sped over water, he couldn't have hoped to perceive it. If the wind had blown elsewhere than straight toward him from the enemy camp, or if his marvelous sense of hearing had been less acute, the result would have been the same; and there could have been no answer from this dark man at the cave mouth who stood so tense and still. Finally, by instinct as much as by conscious intelligence, he identified the sound, marked it as a reality rather than a fancy, and read the tragic need behind it. Swiftly he started down the glade toward her.

Yet in a moment he knew that unless he conserved his strength he could not hope to make a fourth of the distance. At the first steps he swayed, half staggering. He had paid the price for his weeks of illness and his injuries. If he had been in a sick room, under a physician's care, he would have believed it impossible to walk unsupported across the room. But need is the mother of strength, and this was the test. Besides, he had had several days of convalescence that had put back into his sinews a measure of his mighty strength. Mostly he progressed by holding on to the trees, pulling himself forward step by step.

Likely he would come too late to change the girl's fate. Yet even now he knew he must not turn back. If the penalty were death, there must be no hesitancy in him; he must not withhold one step.

But it was a losing fight. The hill itself seemed endless; a hundred cruel yards of marsh must be traversed before ever he reached the nearest point by the lake. The enemy camp from where Beatrice had called to him lay on the far side of the lake, a distance of a full mile if he followed around the curving shore. And black and bitter self-hatred swept like fire through him when he realized that he could not possibly keep on his feet for so long a way.

Was this all he had fought for--surging upward through these long, weary weeks out of the shadow of death--only to fall dead on the trail in the moment of Beatrice's need? Instantly he knew that nothing in his life, no other desire or dream, had ever meant as much to him as this: that he might reach her side in time. Even his desire for vengeance, in that twilight madness, like Roland's, that had shaped his destiny, had been wavering and feeble compared to this. And no moment of his existence had ever been so dark, so bereft of the last, dim star of hope that lights men's way in the deep night of despair.

He gave no thought to the fact of his own helplessness against three armed men in case he did succeed in reaching their camp. The point could not possibly be considered. The imperious instincts that forced him on simply could not take it into reckoning. He knew only he must reach her side and put in her service all that he had.