Stranded in Arcady

by Francis Lynde

  XVIII

  HEIGHTS AND DEPTHS

  If she had not known it before, Lucetta was to learn now that sicknessof any sort is but a poor preparation for a battle of anxiety andendurance. On the one other occasion when she had been thrown upon herown resources Prime had been at least visibly present, and hishelplessness had given her strength to fight off the terrors. But nowshe was alone and the terrors pressed thickly.

  What if something had happened to the rabbit-hunter? She knew his utterlack of gun dexterity, and her terrified imagination conjured upharrowing pictures of the missing one lying wounded and helpless in somedistant forest solitude, a victim of his unselfish effort to provide notfor his own needs but for hers. The thought was a keen torture, but shecould not banish it, and as the hours lengthened it threatened to driveher mad. There was nothing she could do save to keep the fire burningbrightly, and this she did, breaking the monotony of the unnervingsuspense from time to time by collecting dry wood to heap upon theblaze.

  It was nearly midnight before the agony came to a sudden end. She waslying on the blanket pallet, with her face hidden in the crook of anelbow when she looked up and saw Prime standing beside her. It was notin human nature to undergo the revulsion from the depths of despaircalmly.

  "Donald!" she shrieked faintly, and forgetting her weakness, she sprangup and flung herself into his arms, sobbing in an ecstasy of relief.

  He took it in good brotherly fashion, and if the fraternal attitude wasnot strictly sincere, it was made to appear so.

  "There, there, little woman," he comforted, "you mustn't turn loose thatway--you'll make yourself sick again. It's all over now, and I got yourrabbit. See, here it is"--drawing it from his pocket and dangling itbefore her as if it were a new toy and she a child to be hastilydiverted.

  The diversion was not needed; she was freeing herself from the clasp ofthe remaining reassuring arm, and her cheeks were aflame.

  "I didn't know I could be so silly! Please don't hold it against me,Donald," she begged. "If you only knew what I have been through since itgrew dark! You'll forgive me and--and not remember it after we--afterwe----"

  His weariness fell from him like a castoff garment. "Not if you don'twant me to, Lucetta. But it was rather--er--pleasant, you know--to findthat some one really cared enough about what had become of me to--tosort of forget herself for a moment."

  The firelight was strong, and if he saw the adoring look that flashedinto the gray eyes he was magnanimous enough, or modest enough, to passit over to the sudden transition from despair to relief.

  "It must have been something fierce for you," he went on; "but I did thebest I could after I had been idiotic enough to get lost. Of course,since I had the gun with me, it was hours before I got sight of arabbit; and even then I had to shoot at half a dozen of them before Icould manage to hit one. By that time it was getting on toward sunset,and I had lost the brook which I had taken for a guide."

  "I knew you would," she broke in. "But that wasn't the worst of it. Ikept imagining that you had shot yourself accidentally, and every time Iclosed my eyes I could see you lying wounded and helpless!"

  "You poor little worrier!" he pitied; "I knew you would be scared stiffif I didn't get back by dark, and in my hurry I bore too far to theleft; a great deal too far, as it turned out, for when I reached theriver I recognized the place. It was just this side of the grove wherewe were camping when the canoe was stolen."

  "Horrors!" she gasped faintly. "And you have walked all that distance?"

  "No," he grinned; "I ran a good part of it. When I came in a few minutesago I was dead from the waist down; but I am all right now. You sit downand drink broth while I skin this rabbit. It's a juicy one--as fat asbutter."

  Fifteen minutes later the rabbit was stewing in the larger skillet, andPrime found time to ask Lucetta how she was feeling.

  "Just plain hungry," she returned. "The fever hasn't come back any more,and if I ever have a medicine-chest of my own there will be boneset init; great, big, smelly packages of it. Aren't you going to let me make abit of bread to eat with that delicious gravy broth?"

  "If it won't tire you too much," he consented, and at that he sat backand watched her while she mixed the bread, a housewifely little figurekneeling before the fire and patting the dough into a cake with handsthat not all the rough work of the adventure weeks had made misshapen.

  Somewhat beyond this they made their post-midnight meal, and were oncemore light-hearted and care-free. In the aftermath of it, when Prime hadlighted his homemade pipe, they were even buoyant enough to plan for thefuture.

  "We'll go on again to-morrow, shan't we?" the young woman assumed. "Wecan't be so very far from the towns now, with the river grown solarge."

  "I fancy we are nearer than we thought we were," Prime replied. "Over tothe west, where I went this afternoon, there is another and still largerriver. On its banks the timber has all been cut off and there is nothingbut second and third growth. It is a safe bet that the two rivers cometogether a little below here, and if we are not stopped by our inabilityto cross the bigger river----"

  "We are not going to be stopped," she prophesied hopefully. "I have afeeling that our troubles, or the worst of them, are all over."

  Prime smiled. "The joyous reaction is still with you, but that is allright and just as it should be. We'll keep on going until we come to atown or a railroad, and then----"

  She was sufficiently light-hearted to laugh with him when he glanceddown at his torn and travel-worn clothes.

  "And then we shall be arrested for tramps," she finished for him. "Thereis one consolation--neither of us will look any worse than the other."

  "When we find a town we shall find clothes," he asserted. "Luckily wehave English money to buy with."

  "Would you--would you spend that money?" she asked, half fearfully.

  "Why not? I'd hock the dead men themselves if we had them and therewasn't any other way to raise the wind. But I have some good,old-fashioned American money, too."

  "I shall have to borrow of you when we get to where we can buy things,"she said, with a sudden access of shyness that was new to him. "I had apurse with a little money in it that night at Quebec, but itdisappeared."

  "What is mine is yours, Lucetta; surely you don't have to be told that,at this stage of the game."

  "Thank you," she said softly. "That goes with everything else you havedone for me." Then, after a pause: "Will you tell the other girl aboutthis--about this adventure of ours, Donald?"

  "Don't you think I ought to tell her? Isn't it her right to know?"

  She took time to consider.

  "I'm not sure; women are singular about some things; they don't alwaysunderstand. Perhaps they don't care to understand--too much. Then thereis always the difficulty of explaining things just as they were. I couldtell better if I knew the girl. Is she young?"

  "Why, y-yes--some years younger than I am. But she is all kinds ofsensible."

  "Is she in New York?"

  "No," he answered soberly. "She is not in New York."

  She took it as a hint that she was not to ask any more questions aboutthe girl and changed the subject abruptly.

  "Shall you go and look for Mr. Grider after we find a railroad?"

  "Not immediately. I shall first see you safe at home in yourgirls'-school town in Ohio," he assured her firmly.

  "Oh, that won't be necessary," she protested. "I have travelled alonemany times. And I have my return ticket; or I shall have it when I getback to Quebec."

  "Nevertheless, I am going home with you," Prime insisted stubbornly."It is up to me to see you out of this, and I shall make a job of itwhile I am about it. When it is done I shall come back to Canada to findout who shanghaied us and what for. And when I find the people who didit they are going to pay for it."

  "Even if they include Mr. Grider?"

  "Yes, by Jove! Even if the man higher up happens to be Watson Grider. Idon't min
d the kidnapping so much for myself, but the man doesn't live,Lucetta, who can make you go through what you have gone through in thepast month and get away with it."

  "I don't ask you to fight for me, Donald," she interposed. "And,besides, it hasn't been all bad--or has it?"

  "We have agreed every little while, between jolts, that it hasn't. I'llgo further now, and say that it is the finest, truest, happiest thingthat has ever happened to me--hardships and all."

  "You mean because it has given you new working material?"

  "No; I wasn't thinking so much of that, though the new material, andmore especially the new angle, are worth something, of course. But thereare bigger consequences than these--for me--Lucetta." Then he broke offand plunged headlong into something else. "How much of an income shoulda man have before he can ask a girl to marry him? Does the DomesticScience course include any such practical data as that?"

  "Is that all you are waiting for?" she inquired, ignoring his question."Have you asked the girl?"

  "No; I haven't asked her yet. And the money is the main thing that Ishall be waiting for from this time on."

  "I should say it would depend entirely upon the girl--upon what she hadbeen used to."

  "I think--she hasn't--been used to having things made so very soft forher," he answered rather uncertainly. "But she has at least one ambitionthat is going to ask for a good chunk of money at first, untilshe--until she gets ready to--to settle down."

  "And that is----?"

  The suggestive query was never answered.

  "None o' that, now! Ye'll be puttin' yer hands up oweryer heids--the baith o' ye--or it'll be the waur f'r ye!"]

  As Prime laid his pipe aside and was about to speak, the darkbackgrounding of shadows beyond the circle of firelight filled suddenlywith a rush of men. Prime saw the glint of the firelight upon a pair ofbrown gun-barrels, and when he mechanically reached for his own weapon aharsh voice with a broad Scottish burr in it broke raggedly into thestillness.

  "None o' that, now! Ye'll be puttin' yer hands up ower yer heids--thebaith o' ye--or it'll be the waur f'r ye! I'd have ye know I'm anunder-sheriff o' this deestrict, and ye'll be reseestin' the officers o'the law at yer eril!"