by Zane Grey
In the rubber sack was the last of his tobacco. He was fumbling for it when his heart gave a great jump. A voice had spoken softly behind him:
“Philip.”
Slowly, unbelieving, he turned. It was Josephine. For the first time she had called him by his name. And yet the speaking of it seemed to put a distance between them, for her voice was calm and without emotion, as she might have spoken to Jean.
“I lay awake nearly all of the night, thinking,” she said. “It was a terrible thing that we did, and I am sorry—sorry—”
In the quickening of her breath he saw how heroically she was fighting to speak steadily to him.
“You can’t understand,” she resumed, facing him with the steadiness of despair. “You cannot understand—until you reach Adare House. And that is what I dread, the hour when you will know what I am, and how terrible it was for me to do what I did last night. If you were like most other men, I wouldn’t care so much. But you have been different.”
He replied in words which he would not dare to have uttered a few hours before.
“And yet, back there when you first asked me to go with you as your husband, you knew what I would find at Adare House?” he asked, his voice low and tense. “You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Then what has produced the change that makes you fear to have me go on? Is it because”—he leaned toward her, and his face was bloodless—“Is it because you care a little for me?”
“Because I respect you, yes,” she said in a voice that disappointed him. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to go back into the world thinking of me as you will. You have been honest with me. I do not blame you for what happened last night. The fault was mine. And I have come to you now, so that you will understand that, no matter how I may appear and act, I have faith and trust in you. I would give anything that last night might be wiped out of our memories. That is impossible, but you must not think of it and you must not talk to me any more as you have, until we reach Adare House. And then—”
Her white face was pathetic as she turned away from him.
“You will not want to,” she finished. “After that you will fight for me simply because you are a knight among men, and because you have promised. There will not even be the promise to bind you, for I release you from that.”
Philip stood silent as she left him. He knew that to follow her and to force further conversation upon her after what she had said would be little less than brutal. She had given him to understand that from now on he was to hold himself toward her with greater restraint, and the blood flushed hot and uncomfortable into his face as he realized for the first time how he had overstepped the bounds.
All his life womanhood had been the most beautiful thing in the world to him. And now there was forced upon him the dread conviction that he had insulted it. He did not stop to argue that the overwhelming completeness of his love had excused him. What he thought of now was that he had found Josephine alone, had declared that love for her before he knew her name, and had followed it up by act and word which he now felt to be dishonourable. And yet, after all, would he have recalled what had happened if he could? He asked himself that question as he returned to help Jean. And he found no answer to it until they were in their canoes again and headed up the lake, Josephine sitting with her back to him, her thick silken braid falling in a sinuous and sunlit rope of red gold over her shoulders. Then he knew that he would not.
Jean gave little rest that day, and by noon they had covered twenty miles of the lake-way. An hour for dinner, and they went on. At times Josephine used her paddle, and not once during the day did she sit with her face to Philip. Late in the afternoon they camped on a portage fifty miles from Adare House.
There were no stars or moon in the sky this night. The wind had changed, and came from the north. In it was the biting chill of the Arctic, and overhead was a gray-dun mass of racing cloud. A dozen times Jean turned his face anxiously from the fire into the north, and held wet fingers high over his head to see if in the air was that peculiar sting by which the forest man forecasts the approach of snow.
At last he said to Philip: “The wind will grow, M’sieur,” and picked up his axe.
Philip followed with his own, and they piled about Josephine’s tent a thick protection of spruce and cedar boughs. Then together they brought three or four big logs to the fire. After that Philip went into their own tent, stripped off his outer garments, and buried himself in his sleeping bag. For a long time he lay awake and listened to the increasing wail of the wind in the tall spruce tops. It was not new to him. For months he had fallen asleep with the thunderous crash of ice and the screaming fury of storm in his ears. But to-night there was something in the sound which sunk him still deeper into the gloom which he had found it impossible to throw off. At last he fell asleep.
When he awoke he struck a match and looked at his watch. It was four o’clock, and he dressed and went outside. The wind had died down. Jean was already busy over the cook-fire, and in Josephine’s tent he saw the light of a candle. She appeared a little later, wrapped close in a thick red Hudson’s Bay coat, and with a marten-skin cap on her head. Something in her first appearance, the picturesqueness of her dress, the jauntiness of the little cap, and the first flush of the fire in her face filled him with the hope that sleep had given her better spirit. A closer glance dashed this hope. Without questioning her he knew that she had spent another night of mental torture. And Jean’s face looked thinner, and the hollows under his eyes were deeper.
All that day the sky hung heavy and dark with cloud, and the water was rough. Early in the afternoon the wind rose again, and Croisset ran alongside them to suggest that they go ashore. He spoke to Philip, but Josephine interrupted quickly:
“We must go on, Jean,” she demanded. “If it is not impossible we must reach Adare House to-night.”
“It will be late—midnight,” replied Jean. “And if it grows rougher—”
A dash of spray swept over the bow into the girl’s face.
“I don’t care for that,” she cried. “Wet and cold won’t hurt us.” She turned to Philip, as if needing his argument against Jean’s. “Is it not possible to get me home to-night?” she asked.
“It is two o’clock,” said Philip. “How far have we to go, Jean?”
“It is not the distance, M’sieur—it is that,” replied Jean, as a wave sent another dash of water over Josephine. “We are twenty miles from Adare House.”
Philip looked at Josephine.
“It is best for you to go ashore and wait until to-morrow, Josephine. Look at that stretch of water ahead—a mass of whitecaps.”
“Please, please take me home,” she pleaded, and now she spoke to Philip alone. “I’m not afraid. And I cannot live through another night like last night. Why, if anything should happen to us”—she flung back her head and smiled bravely at him through the mist of her wet hair and the drenching spray—“if anything should happen I know you’d meet it gloriously. So I’m not afraid. And I want to go home.”
Philip turned to the half-breed, who had drifted a canoe length away.
“We’ll go on, Jean,” he called. “We can make it by keeping close inshore. Can you swim?”
“Oui, M’sieur; but Josephine—”
“I can swim with her,” replied Philip, and Josephine saw the old life and strength in his face again as she turned to the white-capped seas ahead of them.
Hour after hour they fought their way on after that, the wind rising stronger in their faces, the seas burying them deeper; and each time that Josephine looked back she marvelled at the man behind her, bare-headed, his hair drenched, his arms naked to the elbows, and his clear gray eyes always smiling confidence at her through the gloom of mist. Not until darkness was falling about them did Jean drop near enough to speak again. Then he shout
ed:
“Another hour and we reach Snowbird River, M’sieur. That is four miles from Adare House. But ahead of us the wind rushes across a wide sweep of the lake. Shall we hazard it?”
“Yes, yes,” cried the girl, answering for Philip. “We must go on!”
Without another word Croisset led the way. The wind grew stronger with each minute’s progress. Shouting for Jean to hold his canoe for a space, Philip steadied his own canoe while he spoke to the girl.
“Come back to me as quietly as you can, Josephine,” he said. “Pass the dunnage ahead of you to take the place of your weight. If anything happens, I want you near me.”
Cautiously Josephine did as he bade her, and as she added slowly to the ballast in the bow she drew little by little nearer to Philip, Her hand touched an object in the bottom of the canoe as she came close to him. It was one of his moccasins. She saw now his naked throat and chest. He had stripped off his heavy woollen shirt as well as his footwear. He reached out, and his hand touched her lightly as she huddled down in front of him.
“Splendid!” he laughed. “You’re a little brick, Josephine, and the best comrade in a canoe that I ever saw. Now if we go over all I’ve got to do is to swim ashore with you. Is it good walking to Adare House?”
He did not hear her reply; but a fresh burst of the wind sent a loose strand of her hair back into his face, and he was happy. Happy in spite of a peril which neither he nor Jean would have thought of facing alone. In the darkness he could no longer see Croisset or his canoe. But Jean’s shout came back to him every minute on the wind, and over Josephine’s head he answered. He was glad that it was so dark the girl could not see what was ahead of them now. Once or twice his own breath stopped short, when it seemed that the canoe had taken the fatal plunge which he was dreading. Every minute he figured the distance from the shore, and his chances of swimming it if they were overturned. And then, after a long time, there came a sudden lull in the wind, and the seas grew less rough. Jean’s voice came from near them, filled with a thrill of relief.
“We are behind the point,” he shouted. “Another mile and we will enter the Snowbird, M’sieur!”
Philip leaned forward in the gloom. Josephine’s cap had fallen off, and for a moment his hand rested on her wet and wind-blown hair.
“Did you hear that?” he cried. “We’re almost home.”
“Yes,” she shivered. “And I’m glad—glad—”
Was it an illusion of his own, or did she seem to shiver and draw away from him at the touch of his hand? Even in the blackness he could feel that she was huddled forward, her face in her hands. She did not speak to him again. When they entered the smooth water of the Snowbird, Jean’s canoe drew close in beside them, but not a word fell from Croisset. Like shadows they moved up the stream between two black walls of forest. A steadily increasing excitement, a feeling that he was upon the eve of strange events, grew stronger in Philip. His arms and back ached, his legs were cramped, the last of his splendid strength had been called upon in the fight with wind and seas, but he forgot this exhaustion in anticipation of the hour that was drawing near. He knew that Adare House would reveal to him things which Josephine had not told him. She had said that it would, and that he would hate her then. That they were burying themselves deeper into the forest he guessed by the lessening of the wind.
Half an hour passed, and in that time his companion did not move or speak. He heard faintly a distant wailing cry. He recognized the sound. It was not a wolf-cry, but the howl of a husky. He fancied then that the girl moved, that she was gripping the sides of the canoe with her hands. For fifteen minutes more there was not a sound but the dip of the paddles and the monotone of the wind sweeping through the forest tops. Then the dog howled again, much nearer; and this time he was joined by a second, a third, and a fourth, until the night was filled with a din that made Philip stare wonderingly off into the blackness. There were fifty dogs if there was one in that yelping, howling horde, he told himself, and they were coming with the swiftness of the wind in their direction.
From his canoe Croisset broke the silence.
“The wind has given the pack our scent, ma Josephine, and they are coming to meet you,” he said.
The girl made no reply, but Philip could see now that she was sitting tense and erect. As suddenly as it had begun the cry of the pack ceased. The dogs had reached the water, and were waiting. Not until Jean swung his canoe toward shore and the bow of it scraped on a gravelly bar did they give voice again, and then so close and fiercely that involuntarily Philip held his canoe back. In another moment Josephine had stepped lightly over the side in a foot of water. He could not see what happened then, except that the bar was filled with a shadowy horde of leaping, crowding, yelping beasts, and that Josephine was the centre of them. He heard her voice clear and commanding, crying out their names—Tyr, Captain, Bruno, Thor, Wamba—until their number seemed without end; he heard the metallic snap of fangs, quick, panting breaths, the shuffling of padded feet; and then the girl’s voice grew more clear, and the sounds less, until he heard nothing but the bated breath of the pack and a low, smothered whine.
In that moment the wind-blown clouds above them broke in a narrow rift across the skies, and for an instant the moon shone through. What he saw then drew Philip’s breath from him in a wondering gasp.
On the white bar stood Josephine. The wind on the lake had torn the strands of her long braid loose and her hair swept in a damp and clinging mass to her hips. She was looking toward him, as if about to speak. But it was the pack that made him stare. A sea of great shaggy heads and crouching bodies surrounded her, a fierce yellow and green-eyed horde flattened like a single beast upon their bellies their heads turned toward her, their throats swelling and their eyes gleaming in the joyous excitement of her return. An instant of that strange and thrilling picture, and the night was black again. The girl’s voice spoke softly. Bodies shuffled out of her path. And then she said, quite near to him;
“Are you coming, Philip?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Not without a slight twinge of trepidation did Philip step from his canoe to her. He had not heard Croisset go ashore, and for a moment he felt as if he were deliberately placing himself at the mercy of a wolf-pack. Josephine may have guessed the effect of the savage spectacle he had beheld from the canoe, for she was close to the water’s edge to meet him. She spoke, and in the pitch darkness he reached out. Her hand was groping for him, and her fingers closed firmly about his own.
“They are my bodyguard, and I have trained them all from puppies,” she explained. “They don’t like strangers, but will fight for anything that I touch. So I will lead you.” She turned with him toward the pack, and cried in her clear, commanding voice: “Marche, boys!—Tyr, Captain, Thor, Marche! Hoosh, hoosh, Marche!”
It seemed as if a hundred eyes gleamed out of the blackness; then there was a movement, a whining, snarling, snapping movement, and as they walked up the bar and into a narrow trail Philip could hear the pack falling out to the side and behind them. Also he knew that Jean was ahead of them now. He did not speak, nor did Josephine offer to break the silence again. Still letting her hand rest in his she followed close behind the half-breed. Her hand was so cold that Philip involuntarily held it tighter in his own, as if to give it warmth. He could feel her shivering, and yet something told him that what he sensed in the darkness was not caused by chill alone. Several times her fingers closed shudderingly about his.
They had not walked more than a couple of hundred yards when a turn brought them out of the forest trail, and the blackness ahead was broken by a solitary light, a dimly lighted window in a pit of gloom.
“Marja is not expecting us to-night,” apologized the girl nervously. “That is Adare House.”
The loneliness of the spot, its apparent emptiness of life, the silence save for the snuffling and whining of the u
nseen beasts about them, stirred Philip with a curious sensation of awe. He had at least expected light and life at Adare House. Here were only the mystery of darkness and a deathlike quiet. Even the one light seemed turned low. As they advanced toward it a great shadow grew out of the gloom; and then, all at once, it seemed as if a curtain of the forest had been drawn aside, and away beyond the looming shadow Philip saw the glow of a camp-fire. From that distant fire there came the challenging howl of a dog, and instantly it was taken up by a score of fierce tongues about them. As Josephine’s voice rose to quell the disturbance the light in the window grew suddenly brighter, and then a door opened and in it stood the figures of a man and woman. The man was standing behind the woman, looking over her shoulder, and for one moment Philip caught the flash of the lamp-glow on the barrel of a rifle.
Josephine paused.
“You will forgive me if I ask you to let me go on alone, and you follow with Jean?” she whispered. “I will try and see you again to-night, when I have dressed myself, and I am in better condition to show you hospitality.”
Jean was so close that he overheard her. “We will follow,” he said softly. “Go ahead, ma cheri.”
His voice was filled with an infinite gentleness, almost of pity; and as Josephine drew her hand from Philip’s and went on ahead of them he dropped back close to the other’s side.
“Something will happen soon which may turn your heart to stone and ice, M’sieur,” he said, and his voice was scarce above a whisper. “I wanted her to tell you back there, two days ago, but she shrank from the ordeal then. It is coming to-night. And, however it may effect you, M’sieur, I ask you not to show the horror of it, but to have pity. You have perhaps known many women, but you have never known one like our Josephine. In her soul is the purity of the blue skies, the sweetness of the wild flowers, the goodness of our Blessed Lady, the Mother of Christ. You may disbelieve, and what is to come may eat at the core of your heart as it has devoured life and happiness from mine. But you will love L’Ange—our Josephine—just the same.”
