The Promise
Page 33
CHAPTER XXXII
THE ONE GOOD WHITE MAN
The following morning Bill parted from his friends. As he was about tostep into the canoe Jeanne appeared at the water's edge bearing themackinaw which he had worn when they drew him from the river.
Without meeting his glance she extended it toward him, speaking in alow, tense voice.
"In the lining I have sewed them--the papers that fell dripping fromyour pocket--and the picture. Many times I have looked upon the face ofthis woman, who has caused you pain. And I have hated! Oh, how I havehated! So that I could have torn her in pieces.
"And many times I would have burned them, that you might forget. But,instead, I sewed them from sight in the lining of the coat--and here isthe coat."
Bill tossed the mackinaw into the bottom of the canoe.
"Thank you, Jeanne," he said. "And until we meet again, good-by!"
With a push of the paddle he shot the light canoe far out into thecurrent of the stream.
Bill paddled leisurely, camping early and sitting late over hiscamp-fire smoking many pipefuls of tobacco. And, as he smoked, histhoughts drifted over the events of the past year, and the people whocomprised his little world.
Appleton, who had offered him the chance to make good; whole-heartedFallon; devoted old Daddy Dunnigan; Stromberg, in whom was much toadmire; Creed, the craven tool of Moncrossen; the boss himself,crooked, brutal, vicious; Blood River Jack, his friend; Wa-ha-ta-na-ta,the sinister old squaw, who believed all white men to be bad; andJeanne, the beautiful, half-wild girl, within whose breast a great soulfluttered against the restraint of her environment.
To this girl he owed his life, and he had repaid the debt by tramplingroughshod upon her heart. Bitterly he reproached himself for not seeinghow things were going. For not until the day she told him in theclearing had he guessed that she loved him.
And yet now as he looked backward he could remember a hundred littlethings that ought to have warned him--a word here, a look, a touch ofthe hand--little things, insignificant in themselves, but in the lightof his present understanding, looming large as the danger signals of awell-ordered block system--signals he had blindly disregarded, to thewrecking of a heart. Well, he would make all amends in his power; wouldlook after her as best he could, and in time she would forget.
"They _all_ forget," he muttered aloud with a short, bitter laugh, asthe memory of certain staring head-lines flashed through his brain. "Iwish to God I could forget--_her!_"
But the old wound would not heal, and far into the night he sat staringinto the fire.
"It's a man's game," he murmured as he spread his blankets, "and I willwin out; but why?"
Beyond the fire came the sound of a snapping twig. The man started,staring into the gloom, when suddenly into the soft light of the dyingembers stepped Jeanne Lacombie. He stared at her speechless.
There, in the uncertain glow, she stood, a Diana of flesh and blood,whose open hunting-shirt fell away from her rounded throat in soft,fringed folds. Her short skirt of heavy drilling came only to herknees; she wore no stockings, and her tiny feet were incased in heavilybeaded moccasins.
And so she stood there in the midnight, smiling down upon the man whogazed speechless from his blanket upon the opposite side of the dyingfire; and then she spoke:
"I have come," she said simply.
"Jeanne!" cried the man, "why have you done this thing?"
"I love you, and I will go with you."
"But, girl, don't you realize what it means? This is the third nightsince I left the camp of Jacques----" The girl interrupted him with alaugh:
"And I, too, have been gone three nights; have struck straight throughthe forest, and because the river makes a great bend of many miles Icame to this place before you, and have waited for you here a night anda day.
"And now I'm hungry. I will eat first, and then we will sleep, andto-morrow we will start together for the land of the white men."
The man's mind worked rapidly as he watched in silence while the girlremoved some bacon and bannock from his pack-sack and set thecoffee-pot upon the coals. When she had finished her meal he spoke,slowly but firmly.
"Jeanne, you have waited here a night and a day; you are rested, youhave eaten. I will now make up the pack, and we will take the trail."
"To-night?"
"Yes, to-night--now. The back trail for the lodge of Jacques." The girlregarded him in amazement, and then smiled sadly, as a mother smiles onan erring child.
"We cannot return," she said, speaking softly. "Wa-ha-ta-na-ta wouldkill me. She thinks we came away together. Wa-ha-ta-na-ta was married;we are not married; we cannot go back." The man rolled the blankets andbuckled the straps of his pack-sack. He was about to swing it to hisshoulders when the girl grasped his arm.
"I love you," she repeated, "and I will go with you."
"But, Jeanne," the man cried, "this cannot be. I cannot marry you. Inmy life I have loved but one woman----"
"And she is the wife of another!" cried the girl.
Bill winced as from a blow, and she continued, speaking rapidly:
"I do not ask that you marry me--not even that you love me. It isenough that I am at your side. You will treat me kindly, for you aregood. Marriage is nothing--empty words--if the heart loves; nothingelse matters, and some day you will love me."
The man slowly shook his head:
"No, Jeanne, it is impossible. Come, we will return to the lodge ofJacques. I myself will tell Wa-ha-ta-na-ta that no harm has befallenyou, and----"
"Do you think she will believe _you_? Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, who hates allwhite men and, next to Moncrossen, you most of all, for she has seenthat I love you. We have been gone three nights. She will not believeyou. If you will not take me I will go alone to the land of the whitemen; I have no place else to go."
The man's jaw squared, his eyes narrowed, and the low, level tones ofhis voice cut upon the silence in words of cold authority:
"We are going back to-night. Wa-ha-ta-na-ta will believe me. She isvery old and very wise; and she will know that I speak the truth."
The words ceased abruptly, and the two drew closer together, their eyesfixed upon the blanketed form which, silent as a shadow, glided fromthe bushes and stood motionless before them.
Within an arm's reach, in the dull, red glow, the somber figure stoodcontemplating the pair through beady, black eyes, that glowed ominouslyin the half-light.
Slowly, deliberately, a clawlike hand was withdrawn from a fold of theblanket, and the feeble rays of the fire glinted weakly upon the cold,gray steel of a polished blade.