Stranded in Arcady
Page 11
IX
SHIPWRECK
THOUGH the castaways had not especially intended to observe the day ofrest, they did so, the Sunday dawning wet and stormy, with loweringclouds and foggy intervals between the showers to make navigationextrahazardous. When the rain settled into a steady downpour they pulledthe canoe out of water, turning it bottom-side up to serve as a roof toshelter them. In the afternoon Prime took one of the guns and wentafield, in the hope of finding fresh meat of some sort, though it wasout of season and he was more than dubious as to his skill as either ahunter or a marksman. But the smoked meats were becoming terriblymonotonous, and they had not yet had the courage to try the pemmican.Quite naturally, nothing came of the hunting expedition save a thoroughand prolonged soaking of the hunter.
"The wild things have more sense than I have," he announced on hisreturn. "They know enough to stay in out of the rain. Can you stand thecold-storage stuff a little while longer?"
Lucetta said she could, and specialized the Sunday-evening meal byconcocting an appetizing pan-stew of smoked venison and potatoes to varythe deadly monotonies.
The Monday morning brought a return of the fine weather. The storm hadblown itself out during the night and the skies were clearing. The dayof rain had swollen the river quite perceptibly, and a short distancebelow their Sunday camp its volume was further augmented by the inflowof another river from the east, which fairly doubled its size.
On this day there were fewer water hazards, and the current of theenlarged river was so swift that they had little to do save to keepsteerageway on the birch-bark. Nevertheless, it was not all plainsailing. By the middle of the forenoon the course of the stream hadchanged again to the northward, swinging around through a widehalf-circle to the west, and this course, with its Hudson Baythreatenings, was maintained throughout the remainder of the day.
Their night camp was made at the head of a series of rapids, the firstof which, from the increased volume of the water, looked more perilousthan any they had yet attempted. It was late when they made camp and,the darkness coming on quickly, they were prevented from reconnoitring.But they had the thunder of the flood for music at their evening meal,and it was ominous.
"I am afraid that noise is telling us that we are to have nothoroughfare to-morrow," was the young woman's comment upon the thundermusic. "Let us hope it will be a short carry this time."
Prime laughed. "Isn't there a passage somewhere in the Bible about theback being fitted to its burden?" he asked. Then he went on for herencouragement: "It's all in the day's work, Lucetta-woman, and it isdoing you no end of good. The next time you are able to look into amirror you won't know yourself."
Though she had thought that she was by this time far beyond it, theyoung woman blushed a little under the rich outdoor brown.
"Then I'm not growing haggard and old?" she inquired.
"Indeed, you are not!" he asserted loyally. "I'm the beauty of thetwo"--passing a hand over the three weeks' growth of stubble beard onhis face. "You are putting on weight every day. In another week yourface will be as round as a full moon. It may not sound like it, but thatwas meant for a compliment."
"Was I too thin?" she wanted to know.
"Er--not precisely thin, perhaps; but a little strenuous. You gave methe idea at first that Domestic Science, with gymnasium teaching on theside, had been a trifle too much for you. Had they?"
"No; I was perfectly fit. But one acquires the habit of living tenselyin that other world that we have lost and can't find again. It is humanto wish to make money, and then a little more money."
"What special use have you for a little more money?" Prime askedcuriously.
"Travel," she said succinctly. "I should like to see the world; all ofit."
"That wouldn't take so very much money. Goodness knows, the pen isn'tmuch of a mining-pick, but with it I have contrived to dig out a year inEurope."
"You couldn't have done it teaching the daughters of retired farmers howto cook rationally," she averred. "Besides, my earning year is only ninemonths long."
"Then you really do want money?"
"Yes; not much money, but just enough. That is, if there is any suchhalf-way stopping-point for the avaricious."
"There is," he asserted. "I have found it for myself. I should like tohave money enough to enable me to write a book in the way a book oughtto be written--in perfect leisure and without a single distractingthought of the royalty check. No man can do his best with one eye fixedfirmly upon the treasurer's office."
"I had never thought of that," she mused. "I always supposed a writerworked under inspiration."
"So he does, the inspiration of the butcher and the baker and theanxious landlord. I can earn a living; I have done it for a number ofyears; but it is only a living for one, and there isn't anything to putaside against the writing of the leisurely book--or other things."
"Oh! then you have other ambitions, too."
"The one ambition that every normal-minded man ought to have: I want awife and babies and a home."
"Then you certainly need money," she laughed.
"Sure I do; but not too much--always remember that--not too much."
"What would you call 'too much'?"
"Enough to spoil the children and to make it unnecessary for me ever towrite another line."
This time her laugh was mocking. "Just now you said you wanted enough sothat you could write without thinking of money," she reminded him.
"Oh, there is a golden mean; it doesn't have to be all honey or allvinegar. A nice tidy little income that would provide at a pinch forthe butcher and the baker and the other people. You know what I mean."
"Yes, I think I do; and my ambition is hardly more soaring than yours.As you remarked, it doesn't cost so frightfully much to travel and liveabroad."
He looked at her dubiously. "You don't mean that you'd wish to travelall the time, do you?"
"Why not?"
"Why--er--I don't know precisely. But you'd want to settle down and havea home some time, wouldn't you?"
"And cook for a man?" she put in. "Perhaps I haven't found the man."
Prime's laugh was boyishly blatant.
"I notice you are cooking pretty assiduously for a man these days. Butperhaps that is only in self-defense. If the man cooked for you youwouldn't live very long."
"I am merely doing my bit, as the English say," was the cool retort. "Ihaven't said that I like to do it."
"But you do like to do it," he insisted. "If you didn't, you couldn'thit it off so cheerfully. I know a thing or two, and what I don't knowI am learning. You are a perfectly normal woman, Lucetta, and normalitydoesn't mean continuous travel."
"You have changed your mind again. Last week you were calling meabnormal, and saying that you had never met a woman like me before."
"I hadn't; but that was my misfortune. I hope there are a good many likeyou; I've got to hope it for the sake of humanity and the good of therace. But this talk isn't getting us anywhere. We had better turn in;there is a hard day ahead of us tomorrow."
In the morning the prophecy seemed destined to fulfil itself in heapingmeasure. While Lucetta was getting breakfast Prime took to the woods andmade a careful survey of some portion of the hazards ahead. He was gonefor the better part of an hour, and when he came back his report was notencouraging.
"Worse and more of it," was the way he described the difficulties. "Itis just one rapid after another, as far as I went; and that must havebeen a mile and a half or more. Coming back, I kept to the river bank,and tried to imagine us picking the way between the rocks in thechannel. I believe we can do it if you have the nerve to try."
"If _I_ have the nerve?" she flung back. "Is that a revival of the sexidea?"
"I beg your pardon," he hastened to say. "It was simply a manner ofspeaking. Your nerve is like the rest of you--superb. We'll shoot therapids if it takes a leg. It would ask for more than a leg to make thecarry."
It was well that they took the time while they had it. After thebirch-bark had been headed into the first of the rapids there was notime for anything but the strenuous fight for life. Faster and stillfaster the frail craft leaped on its way, down one rapid and intoanother before they could congratulate themselves upon the latesthairbreadth dodging of the thickly strewn boulders.
From time to time in the brief respites Prime shouted encouragement tohis canoe-mate. "Keep it up--it can't last forever! We're doing nobly.Look out for this big beggar just ahead!"
So it went on, from bad to worse and then to bad again, but never with achance for a landing or a moment's rest from the engrossing vigilance.Prime gasped and was thankful that there were days of sharpmuscle-hardening behind them to fit them for this crowning test. He wassure he could measure Lucetta's fortitude by his own. So long as hecould endure the strain he knew he could count upon hearing the steadydip of her paddle keeping time with his own.
But the worst of the worst was yet to come. At the foot of a series ofrapids which were like a steeply descending stair, they found themselvesin a sluiceway where the enlarged river ran like a torrent in flood. Onthe still air of the summer day a hoarse clamor was rising to warn themthat there was a cataract ahead. Prime's cry of alarm was not needed.With the first backing dip of the paddle he felt the braking impulse atthe stern striking in with his own.
"Hold her!" he shouted. "We've got to make the shore, if it smashes us!"But the puny strength of the two pairs of arms was as nothing whenpitted against the onsweep of the mighty flood. For a brief instant thedownward rush of the canoe was checked; then it was caught in a whirlingeddy and spun end for end as if upon a pivot. When it straightened upfor the leap over the shallow fall it was headed the wrong way, and amoment later the crash came.
The young woman was the only one of the two who knew definitely whatfollowed. In the tipping glide over the brink they were both thrown outof the canoe and spilled into the whirlpool at the foot of the cataract.Lucetta kept her head sufficiently to remember that Prime could notswim, and when she came up from the plunge she saw him, and saw that hewas not struggling.
"Hold her!" he shouted. "We've got to make the shore, ifit smashes us!"]
Two quick strokes enabled her to get her fingers in his hair, and thenbegan a battle in which the strength of the single free arm had to matchitself against the swirling current of the whirlpool. Twice, and yetonce again, the young woman and her helpless burden were swept aroundthe circle, each time drawing a little nearer to the recurving eddyunder the fall. Lucetta knew well enough that a second ingulfing underthe cataract meant death for both, and at the beginning of the fourthcircling she made the supreme effort, winning the desperate battle andstruggling out upon the low shingly bank of the pool, to fall exhaustedwhen she had dragged her unconscious canoe-mate out of the water.
After a dazed minute or two she was able to sit up and realize theextent of the disaster. The canoe had disappeared after its leap intothe pool, and she did not know what had become of it. And Prime waslying just as the dragging rescue had left him, with his arms flungwide. His eyes were closed, and his face, under the three weeks' growthof stubble beard, was haggard and drawn. In the dive over the fall hehad struck his head, and the blood was oozing slowly from a great bruiseon his forehead.