by Zane Grey
He walked ten minutes without noting the direction he was taking when he was brought to a standstill with a sudden shock. Not twenty paces from him he heard voices. He dodged behind a tree, and an instant later two figures hurried past him. A cry rose to his lips, but he choked it back. One of the two was Jean. The other was Josephine!
For a moment he stood staring after them, his hand clutching at the bark of the tree. A feeling that was almost physical pain swept over him as he realized the truth. Josephine had not gone to her room. He understood now. She had purposely evaded him that she might be with Jean alone in the forest. Three days before Philip would not have thought so much of this. Now it hurt. Josephine had given him her love, yet in spite of that she was placing greater confidence in the half-breed than in him. This was what hurt—at first. In the next breath his overwhelming faith in her returned to him. There was some tremendous reason for her being here with Jean. What was it? He stepped out from behind the tree as he stared after them.
His eyes caught the pale glow of something that he had not seen before. It was a campfire, the illumination of it only faintly visible deeper in the forest. Toward this Josephine and Jean were hurrying. A low exclamation of excitement broke from his lips as a still greater understanding dawned upon him. His hand trembled. His breath came quickly. In that camp there waited for Josephine and Croisset those who were playing the other half of the game in which he had been given a blind man’s part! He did not reason or argue with himself. He accepted the fact. And no longer with hesitation his hand fell to his automatic, and he followed swiftly after Josephine and the half-breed.
He began to see what Jean had meant. In the room he had simply prepared Josephine for this visit. It was in the forest—and not in Adare House, that the big test of the night was to come.
It was not curiosity that made him follow them now. More than ever he was determined to keep his faith with Jean and the girl, and he made up his mind to draw only near enough to give his assistance if it should become necessary. Roused by the conviction that Josephine and the half-breed were not making this mysterious tryst without imperilling themselves, he stopped as the campfire burst into full view, and examined his pistol. He saw figures about the fire. There were three, one sitting, and two standing. The fire was not more than a hundred yards ahead of him, and he saw no tent. A moment later Josephine and Jean entered the circle of fireglow, and the sitting man sprang to his feet. As Philip drew nearer he noticed that Jean stood close to his companion, and that the girl’s hand was clutching his arm. He heard no word spoken, and yet he could see by the action of the man who had been sitting that he was giving the others instructions which took them away from the fire, deeper into the gloom of the forest.
Seventy yards from the fire Philip dropped breathlessly behind a cedar log and rested his arm over the top of it. In his hand was his automatic. It covered the spot of gloom into which the two men had disappeared. If anything should happen—he was ready.
In the fire-shadows he could not make out distinctly the features of the third man. He was not dressed like the others. He wore knickerbockers and high laced boots. His face was beardless. Beyond these things he could make out nothing more. The three drew close together, and only now and then did he catch the low murmur of a voice. Not once did he hear Jean. For ten minutes he crouched motionless, his eyes shifting from the strange tableau to the spot of gloom where the others were hidden. Then, suddenly, Josephine sprang back from her companions. Jean went to her side. He could hear her voice now, steady and swift—vibrant with something that thrilled him, though he could not understand a word that she was speaking. She paused, and he could see that she was tense and waiting. The other replied. His words must have been brief, for it seemed he could scarcely have spoken when Josephine turned her back upon him and walked quickly out into the forest. For another moment Jean Croisset stood close to the other. Then he followed.
Not until he knew they were safe did Philip rise from his concealment. He made his way cautiously back to Adare House, and reentered his room through the window. Half an hour later, dressed so that he revealed no evidence of his excursion in the snow, he knocked at Jean’s door. The half-breed opened it. He showed some surprise when he saw his visitor.
“I thought you were in bed, M’sieur,” he exclaimed. “Your room was dark.”
“Sleep?” laughed Philip. “Do you think that I can sleep to-night, Jean?”
“As well as some others, perhaps,” replied Jean, offering him a chair. “Will you smoke, M’sieur?”
Philip lighted a cigar, and pointed to the other’s moccasined feet, wet with melting snow.
“You have been out,” he said. “Why didn’t you invite me to go with you?”
“It was a part of our night’s business to be alone,” responded Jean. “Josephine was with me. She is in her room now with the baby.”
“Does Adare know you have returned?”
“Josephine has told him. He is to believe that I went out to see a trapper over on the Pipestone.”
“It is strange,” mused Philip, speaking half to himself. “A strange reason indeed it must be to make Josephine say these false things.”
“It is like driving sharp claws into her soul,” affirmed Jean.
“I believe that I know something of what happened to-night, Jean. Are we any nearer to the end—to the big fight?”
“It is coming, M’sieur. I am more than ever certain of that. The third night from this will tell us.”
“And on that night—”
Philip waited expectantly.
“We will know,” replied Jean in a voice which convinced him that the half-breed would say no more. Then he added: “It will not be strange if Josephine does not go with you on the sledge-drive to-morrow, M’sieur. It will also be curious if there is not some change in her, for she has been under a great strain. But make as if you did not see it. Pass your time as much as possible with the master of Adare. Let him not guess. And now I am going to ask you to let me go to bed. My head aches. It is from the blow.”
“And there is nothing I can do for you, Jean?’
“Nothing, M’sieur.”
At the door Philip turned.
“I have got a grip on myself now, Jean,” he said. “I won’t fail you. I’ll do as you say. But remember, we are to have the fight at the end!”
In his room he sat up for a time and smoked. Then he went to bed. Half a dozen times during the night he awoke from a restless slumber. Twice he struck a match to look at his watch. It was still dark when he got up and dressed. From five until six he tried to read. He was delighted when Metoosin came to the door and told him that breakfast would be ready in half an hour. This gave him just time to shave.
He expected to eat alone with Adare again this morning, and his heart jumped with both surprise and joy when Josephine came out into the hall to meet him. She was very pale. Her eyes told him that she had passed a sleepless night. But she was smiling bravely, and when she offered him her hand he caught her suddenly in his arms and held her close to his breast while he kissed her lips, and then her shining hair.
“Philip!” she protested. “Philip—”
He laughed softly, and for a moment his face was close against hers.
“My brave little darling! I understand,” he whispered. “I know what a night you’ve had. But there’s nothing to fear. Nothing shall harm you. Nothing shall harm you, nothing, nothing!”
She drew away from him gently, and there was a mist in her eyes. But he had brought a bit of colour into her face. And there was a glow behind the tears. Then, her lip quivering, she caught his arm.
“Philip, the baby is sick—and I am afraid. I haven’t told father. Come!”
He went with her to the room at the end of the hall. The Indian woman was crooning softly over a cradle. She fell silent as Jo
sephine and Philip entered, and they bent over the little flushed face on the pillow. Its breath came tightly, gaspingly, and Josephine clutched Philip’s hand, and her voice broke in a sob.
“Feel, Philip—its little face—the fever—”
“You must call your mother and father,” he said after a moment. “Why haven’t you done this before, Josephine?”
“The fever came on suddenly—within the last half hour,” she whispered tensely. “And I wanted you to tell me what to do, Philip. Shall I call them—now?”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
In an instant she was out of the room. A few moments later she returned, followed by Adare and his wife. Philip was startled by the look that came into Miriam’s face as she fell on her knees beside the cradle. She was ghastly white. Dumbly Adare stood and gazed down on the little human mite he had grown to worship. And then there came through his beard a great broken breath that was half a sob.
Josephine lay her cheek against his arm for a moment, and said:
“You and Philip go to breakfast, Mon Pere. I am going to give the baby some of the medicine the Churchill doctor left with me. I was frightened at first. But I’m not now. Mother and I will have him out of the fever shortly.”
Philip caught her glance, and took Adare by the arm. Alone they went into the breakfast-room. Adare laughed uneasily as he seated himself opposite Philip.
“I don’t like to see the little beggar like that,” he said, taking to shake off his own and Philip’s fears with a smile. “It was Mignonne who scared me—her face. She has nursed so many sick babies that it frightened me to see her so white. I thought he might be—dying.”
“Cutting teeth, mebby,” volunteered Philip.
“Too young,” replied Adare.
“Or a touch of indigestion, That brings fever.”
“Whatever it is, Josephine will soon have him kicking and pulling my thumb again,” said Adare with confidence. “Did she ever tell you about the little Indian baby she found in a tepee?”
“No.”
“It was in the dead of winter. Mignonne was out with her dogs, ten miles to the south. Captain scented the thing—the Indian tepee. It was abandoned—banked high with snow—and over it was the smallpox signal. She was about to go on, but Captain made her go to the flap of the tepee. The beast knew, I guess. And Josephine—my God, I wouldn’t have let her do it for ten years of my life! There had been smallpox in that tent; the smell of it was still warm. Ugh! And she looked in! And she says she heard something that was no louder than the peep of a bird. Into that death-hole she went—and brought out a baby. The parents, starving and half crazed after their sickness, had left it—thinking it was dead.
“Josephine brought it to a cabin close to home, in two weeks she had that kid out rolling in the snow. Then the mother and father heard something of what had happened, and came to us as fast as their legs could bring them. You should have seen that Indian mother’s gratitude! She didn’t think it so terrible to leave the baby unburied. She thought it was dead. Pasoo is the Indian father’s name. Several times a year they come to see Josephine, and Pasoo brings her the choicest furs of his trap-line. And each time he says: ‘Nipa tu mo-wao,’ which means that some day he hopes to be able to kill for her. Nice, isn’t it—to have friends who’ll murder your enemies for you if you just give ’em the word?”
“One never can tell,” began Philip cautiously. “A time might come when she would need friends. If such a day should happen—”
He paused, busying himself with his steak. There was a note of triumph, of exultation, in Adare’s low laugh.
“Have you ever seen a fire run through a pitch-dry forest?” he asked. “That is the way word that Josephine wanted friends would sweep through a thousand square miles of this Northland. And the answer to it would be like the answer of stray wolves to the cry of the hunt-pack!”
All over Philip there surged a warm glow.
“You could not have friends like that down there, in the cities,” he said.
Adare’s face clouded.
“I am not a pessimist,” he answered, after a moment. “It has been one of my few Commandments always to look for the bright spot, if there is one. But, down there, I have seen so many wolves, human wolves. It seems strange to me that so many people should have the same mad desire for the dollar that the wolves of the forest have for warm, red, quivering flesh. I have known a wolf-pack to kill five times what it could eat in a night, and kill again the next night, and still the next—always more than enough. They are like the Dollar Hunters—only beasts. Among such, one cannot have solid friends—not very many who will not sell you for a price. I was afraid to trust Josephine down among them. I am glad that it was you she met, Philip. You were of the North—a foster-child, if not born there.”
That day was one of gloom in Adare House. The baby’s fever grew steadily worse, until in Josephine’s eyes Philip read the terrible fear. He remained mostly with Adare in the big room. The lamps were lighted, and Adare had just risen from his chair, when Miriam came through the door. She was swaying, her hands reaching out gropingly, her face the gray of ash that crumbles from an ember. Adare sprung to meet her, a strange cry on his lips, and Philip was a step behind her. He heard her moaning words, and as he rushed past them into the hall he knew that she had fallen fainting into her husband’s arms.
In the doorway to Josephine’s room he paused. She was there, kneeling beside the little cradle, and her face as she lifted it to him was tearless, but filled with a grief that went to the quick of his soul. He did not need to look into the cradle as she rose unsteadily, clutching a hand at her heart, as if to keep it from breaking. He knew what he would see. And now he went to her and drew her close in his strong arms, whispering the pent-up passion of the things that were in his heart, until at last her arms stole up about his neck, and she sobbed on his breast like a child. How long he held her there, whispering over and over again the words that made her grief his own, he could not have told; but after a time he knew that some one else had entered the room, and he raised his eyes to meet those of John Adare. The face of the great, grizzled giant had aged five years. But his head was erect. He looked at Philip squarely. He put out his two hands, and one rested on Josephine’s head, the other on Philip’s shoulder.
“My children,” he said gently, and in those two words were weighted the strength and consolation of the world.
He pointed to the door, motioning Philip to take Josephine away, and then he went and stood at the crib-side, his great shoulders hunched over, his head bowed down.
Tenderly Philip led Josephine from the room. Adare had taken his wife to her room, and when they entered she was sitting in a chair, staring and speechless. And now Josephine turned to Philip, taking his face between her two hands, and her soul looking at him through a blinding mist of tears.
“My Philip,” she whispered, and drew his face down and kissed him. “Go to him now. We will come—soon.”
He returned to Adare like one in a dream—a dream that was grief and pain, with its one golden thread of joy. Jean was there now, and the Indian woman; and the master of Adare had the still little babe huddled up against his breast. It was some time before they could induce him to give it to Moanne. Then, suddenly, he shook himself like a great bear, and crushed Philip’s shoulders in his hands.
“God knows I’m sorry for you, Boy,” he cried brokenly. “It’s hurt me—terribly. But you—it must be like the cracking of your soul. And Josephine, Mignonne, my little flower! She is with her mother?”
“Yes,” replied Philip. “Come. Let us go. We can do nothing here. And Josephine and her mother will be better alone for a time.”
“I understand,” said Adare almost roughly, in his struggle to steady himself. “You’re thinking of me, Boy. God bless you for that. You go to Josephin
e and Miriam. It is your place. Jean and I will go into the big room.”
Philip left them at Adare’s room and went to his own, leaving the door open that he might hear Josephine if she came out into the hall. He was there to meet her when she appeared a little later. They went to Moanne. And at last all things were done, and the lights were turned low in Adare House. Philip did not take off his clothes that night, nor did Jean and Metoosin. In the early dawn they went out together to the little garden of crosses. Close to the side of Iowaka, Jean pointed out a plot.
“Josephine would say the little one will sleep best there, close to her,” he said. “She will care for it, M’sieur. She will know, and understand, and keep its little soul bright and happy in Heaven.”
And there they digged. No one in Adare House heard the cautious fall of pick and spade.
With morning came a strangely clear sun. Out of the sky had gone the last haze of cloud. Jean crossed himself, and said:
“She knows—and has sent sunshine instead of storm.”
Hours later it was Adare who stood over the little grave, and said words deep and strong, and quivering with emotion, and it was Jean and Metoosin who lowered the tiny casket into the frozen earth. Miriam was not there, but Josephine clung to Philip’s side, and only once did her voice break in the grief she was fighting back. Philip was glad when it was over, and Adare was once more in his big room, and Josephine with her mother. He did not even want Jean’s company. In his room he sat alone until supper time. He went to bed early, and strangely enough slept more soundly than he had been able to sleep for some time.
When he awoke the following morning his first thought was that this was the day of the third night. He had scarcely dressed when Adare’s voice greeted him from outside the door. It was different now—filled with the old cheer and booming hopefulness, and Philip smiled as he thought how this stricken giant of the wilderness was rising out of his own grief to comfort Josephine and him. They were all at breakfast, and Philip was delighted to find Josephine looking much better than he had expected. Miriam had sunk deepest under the strain of the preceding hours. She was still white and wan. Her hands trembled. She spoke little. Tenderly Adare tried to raise her spirits.
