Part 11

“He said, ‘I expect we’ll have company here tonight, doctor.’ Said you and Chanler had come and taken Miss Baldwin back to the yacht. ‘But I’ve a feeling they’ll come back here,’ he says. ‘She can’t resist me. Yes,’ he said, ‘they’ll be back, and this time they’ll stay.’ Then he took out a big knife and cut himself in the hand. ‘The blood of kings, doctor,’ he said. ‘I’m king of Kalmut Valley, and I’ll make cripples of Pitt and Chanler, and have them for my jesters, and—’ Well, he was drunk, you know.”

“Say it,” I commanded. “What else did he say?”

“‘And I’ll tie ’em up,’ he said, ‘and let ’em watch me make Miss Baldwin my queen.’ I told him he’d better let me tie up his hand, and he hit me across the face with it and went off into the hills. That’s all.”

“No,” I said, “there’s more to this.”

I told him why Brack was after Slade and Harris. He was skeptical at first; men didn’t dare do such things nowadays; Brack’s wild talk had been only the raving of too much whisky. In the end, however, he was convinced.

“Then this scientific expedition was only the captain’s way of getting an outfit for robbery on a big, piratical scale! By George! The man’s big, isn’t he? A regular pirate’s raid in this year of our Lord! And yet it’s all simple and easy up here when you think of it, isn’t it?”

“Devilishly so. But it became more serious than mere robbery when Miss Baldwin came on board. Now, are you going to help us, doctor, or——”

“Of course. I’m civilized, I hope. But what can we do, Pitt? The captain’s got the men, and he’s too strong——”

“Dinner, gentlemen!” came Betty’s fresh young voice. “Honesty impels me to warn you, Mr. Pitt, that I’m a horrible example as a cook, but such as ’tis, ’tis ready.”

I was in no frame of mind to be a judge of Betty’s cooking. I ate ravenously, because I was hungry, but my thoughts were not upon the food. Dr. Olson’s picture of Brack in his cups was of a piece with the impression I had gathered of him early that morning. He had thrown off the mask and his true nature, raw, rank, savagery, was in full sway.

“When do you expect the captain back, doctor?” I asked casually.

“I don’t know. He probably will be back tonight, though. He warned me not to drink up all the whisky as he’d want some when he got back.”

I turned to Betty.

“Captain Brack is intoxicated, Miss Baldwin,” I said. “The doctor and I do not think it would be pleasant for you to be here when he returns.”

“No,” said the doctor, “you mustn’t be here then, Miss Baldwin.”

Betty’s wide-open eyes grew wider, but there was no alarm in the quiet gray depths of them.

“I understand,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. “I will do whatever you suggest, Mr. Pitt.”

There lay the trouble. I had nothing to suggest, nor had the doctor. Flight suggested itself first of all, but in that wilderness, with only a light Peterboro canoe and a rough sea as means of escape, the success of such a move seemed improbable. To bring our fate to a crisis by remaining there openly, defying Brack and appealing to the men for help, would have been suicidal. Had we been on the yacht strengthened by Pierce and Wilson, such action might have had a basis of reason.

Really thoughts of Pierce and Wilson kept me from losing hope at that moment. Though by now I had more confidence in myself than I had thought possible, I did not feel that I was capable of finding a solution to the problem confronting us. But there were Pierce, the shrewd, and Wilson, the brave, still to reckon with. What were they thinking at that moment of our failure to return to the yacht? What would Pierce’s sharp mind be doing but seeking a way to assist us, or, at least Miss Baldwin, to safety?

And then I looked at Betty, quietly serious, but not alarmed, and my spirits rose at the sight of her. It was no strength of mine that raised my courage then; it was the strength I drew from the courage of Betty. Once more, as in the canoe, I felt a desire to cry out:

“Bravo, Betty! Bravo, brave girl! We’ll beat him yet.”

It was well that I did not cry out. For in that instant, from out on the back trail, came a maddened bellow, scarcely human in tone, yet recognizable as coming from no one else than Captain Brack.

XXIX

I glanced instinctively toward the back of the cabin, at the large, sack-covered window cut in the logs.

“Out that way, Betty!” I whispered, tearing down the sacking.

It was the first time I had called her by that name. She obeyed promptly.

“George?” she whispered, as she stood ready to climb through the window.

“No,” said Dr. Olson. “He’s helpless—I’ll stay here. Hurry!”

I was stuffing my pockets with food, with a snuffed candle, scarcely conscious of what I was doing. Also, in the same instinctive manner, without any conscious thought, yet somehow realizing that it was a vital action, I snatched a blanket from Chanler’s bunk and threw it over my shoulder.

“We’re going to the cave where I hid the rifle. Tell that to Pierce, doctor; he’ll understand.”

“Yes. Hurry, for God’s sake!” he whispered. “Good luck.”

Betty went through the window with a lithe vault and a noiseless drop outside. I followed, dropped beside her, and, catching her hand, led as silently as possible away from the cabin until I felt sure we were out of hearing. Then we swung carefully back through the brush to the river trail at a point well below the mine clearing.

“Now for the canoe!” I whispered. “Come on!”

I ran as I had not run since a boy, and as I glanced back over my shoulder I saw Betty following closely.

We found the canoe where we had left it. Betty was in the bow before I had it untied. I pushed off, and, regardless of the rocks, we paddled furiously down-stream for the open water of the bay.

Not until we had entered the fiord and put an out-jutting cliff between ourselves and the river-mouth did we relax. Then Betty laid her paddle across the bows, bowed her head, and a tremor shook her slim body.

“Don’t—don’t, Miss Baldwin!” I pleaded. “On my word and honor I feel absolutely confident that we are safe now.”

To my surprise she replied—

“I feel safe, too.”

“You’re tired, then, and cold. Put the blanket about you, and rest. I’ll paddle the rest of the way.”

She shook her head, and resumed her paddling.

“It wasn’t that. It wasn’t that, please. I’ve camped out often. But George—poor George!”

Her words came as a shock to me. So George still occupied first place in her mind. I had been right: she had seen George as he had been when first she had learned to care for him; and she had realized that she still cared. Her first thought in the moment of our hurried flight from the cabin had been of him. Even though she had seen him go to pieces piteously she still cared. She thought of him before all others. Well, that was as it should be, as I had hoped it would be when I brought George up to the cabin, sane and sober, and in his right mind. It was right.

But Fate persisted with its tantalizing pranks, for here was I, an outsider, still necessary in the task of bringing George and Betty to the haven of safety and happiness. The doctor would look after George; I felt sure that Chanler’s condition would keep him free from any cruelty by Brack. I would do my best to look after Betty.

She would be very happy, too. She had the faculty of happiness. That faculty was saving her from the torture of fear now; it would be a guarantee of future happiness for her and George. Verily, when a man forecasts a woman’s ways he is as a child!

My reason for going to the cavern on the hillside was twofold. The place offered a fair shelter for Betty where she could lie hidden safely. I also wished to recover the rifle which I had taken from Barry.

I was certain that sooner or later Pierce would make an attempt to join us if it was possible, and with the rifle and my pistol we would at least be two armed men. If Pierce came, even though Brack was in possession of the yacht, we could strike out through the wilderness, keeping near the coast, in hope of finding a settlement.

In spite of the darkness we easily found the inlet where Barry’s negligent watching had given me an opportunity to escape. At first I thoughtlessly steered the canoe straight at the sandy beach, but an instant before our bow would have run up on the sands the same instinct which had prompted me to snatch food and blanket from the cabin, warned me to back water. Brack would have his men out by daylight searching the bay for signs of our whereabouts. If we landed on the soft sand of the beach the canoe and our tracks—especially the rubber heels of Betty’s outing shoes—would easily be seen.

On one side of the inlet a ledge of rock jutted into the water and toward this I now turned the canoe, explaining to Betty the reason for so doing.

“How did you ever think of that?” she exclaimed. “You haven’t done these things before, have you?”

“Not since I was a boy,” I replied.

“Did you play Injun then?”

“Of course. All boys do.”

“I’m glad.”

“So am I; it’s helpful just now.”

“Yes; but I didn’t mean that.”

“What then?”

“Because if you played Injun you must have been a regular boy, and regular boys have such a lot of jolly fun, Mr. Pitt?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t you ever feel like playing Injun now? No? Too old and dignified? Never play Injun any more?”

I laughed negatively as I swung the bow toward the rock.

“Shucks! It’s too bad,” she said. “You play it so well it’s a shame you don’t like to do it.”

We ran alongside the ledge and found that its flat top was just out of reach above our heads. A canoe offers no safe foundation to leap from and for the moment I was nonplused.

Betty, her hand resting on the flat surface of the rocks, found a crevice. On closer examination it proved to be only a slight crack, not large enough to provide a foothold, but Betty was thrusting at the opening with the blade of her paddle.

“Ah! There we are!” she chuckled, as the thin paddle entered the crack. “There’s a step for us.”

“How did you ever think of that?” I exclaimed.

“I used to play Injun, too,” she replied.

With the paddle as a step I was able to reach the top of the ledge and draw myself up. Betty then passed me the paddles and the painter of the canoe. Lying flat down on the ledge I stretched my arms downward until our hands met. Her strong warm fingers gripped my wrists and I promptly imitated her grasp.

“Now!” I said, and as she leaped I pulled upward with all my might.

Her hair brushed my eyes as she came up over the edge, and when our fingers released each other’s wrists, I was vaguely conscious that something strange had happened, though I did not know what. We drew the canoe up together. It had been my intention merely to hide it in the brush out of sight of the bay, but now another idea presented itself.

I gave Betty the paddles and with the canoe on my back started up the hill for my cave.

“No, sir,” objected Betty. “That isn’t fair. If we’re going to play Injun I want my share of the game.”

I protested; the distance was short, the weight slight; but in the end the march was resumed with each of us sharing equally the weight of the canoe.

A seventy-pound canoe is no burden for two people in the open. But our way lay in the darkness up a rocky ridge, through brush and timber, and we tripped and fell, ran into trees, got caught in the brush, and suffered other minor mishaps until I stopped and insisted that Betty allow me to carry the canoe alone.

“No, sir,” she repeated firmly. “I’m not stumbling any more than you are. Be fair and let me play, too.”

We compromised by putting down the canoe, and, leaving Betty to wait beside it, I went on to locate my cave. I found it, as I had that morning, by stumbling into it.

I struck a match and glanced at the spot where I had hid the rifle. Then I stood staring dumbly until the match burned down to my fingers. For the second time that night I experienced the same shock; the rifle was gone; someone had been in the cave.

* * * * *

When I returned to Betty my self-control had been regained. Whatever the significance of the rifle’s disappearance might be Betty must have shelter for the night, and the cave was the only place available for that purpose. We carried the canoe thither and I lighted my piece of candle and stepped down.

The cave really was a wedge-shaped opening in the side of the hill, its mouth probably twenty feet across, and about the same in depth. Betty cried out as the candle-light revealed the place.

“Why it’s almost jolly! It’s a perfect place to play Injun.”

We slid the canoe down and placed it as near the back of the cave as it would go.

“That,” said I, “is going to be your bed,” and clambering out I began to gather armfuls of fragrant small branches and brush.

The canoe was soon half filled, and, spreading the blanket over the boughs, I said—

“Whenever you are ready to retire, there is your chamber.”

“How jolly!” she cried.

Then she stopped. A new expression, which I misread, came into her eyes.

“I have my lodgings up the hill a ways,” I said hurriedly. “I’ll bid you good night.”

“Mr. Pitt!” she said, and for the first time her under lip trembled suspiciously.

“It’s a considerable distance away,” I assured her. “I’ll be quite out of sight. Really, you needn’t——”

Her lip ceased trembling. A tiny twinkle came into her eyes, a trace of a smile showed in the corners of her mouth.

“Good gracious!” she cried. “I believe that you—you think I’m worrying—about being alone with you!”

I looked at her stupidly.

“Well, weren’t you?”

Her smile vanished.

“Oh, what a perfectly selfish pig you must think me, Mr. Pitt!”

“Good heavens, no! Anything but that. But—but we’re alone—no chaperon—wasn’t that the natural thing to think?”

“The conventional thing, you mean! And—and we’re playing Injun together!”

“But—but you looked!” I stammered protestingly. “What were you thinking about?”

And she replied—

“I was wishing we had two canoes.”

Presently she said—

“How are you going to sleep, Mr. Pitt?”

“On a bed of boughs.”

“Where?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of room all around.”

“And no shelter? Suppose it rains? Why do you wish to leave this cave?”

“My dear Miss Baldwin!” I protested.

“Shocked?” she said mournfully. “I can’t help it. It seems so ridiculous to think of such things out here. We—we’re Injuns. See, there’s a nice corner right near the opening, yet with a roof over it. We can fill that with boughs. I—I’d get frightened, really, if you left me here all alone.”

“Putting it that way, of course—”

“That’s right. Now I’m going to help make your bed.”

Fifteen minutes later, perhaps, I lay down upon a pile of branches near the mouth of the cavern and blew out the candle.

“Good night,” came Betty’s voice from the canoe.

“Good night.”

Silence reigned. We were tired; soon we grew drowsy. Just before she fell asleep Betty murmured—

“Mr. Pitt!”

“Yes.”

“I still insist ’tisn’t fair—we haven’t got—two canoes.”

XXX

The cave became still. Snuggled down in her bed in the canoe Betty had fallen asleep as readily as if in her bed in the owner’s suite aboard the _Wanderer_. Sleep pressed on my eyelids, too; my body, tired from the unwonted exertions of the day, demanded insistently the boon of recreating slumber.

I fought off my drowsiness, however, and lay curled up on my bed of boughs, facing the cave’s mouth, and tried to think. Yet though I realized that I was awake it all seemed like a dream, such a dream as youth dreams when the call of Romance and Adventure still is real.

I was Gardner Pitt, writing man; my accustomed environment, the carefully barbered, denaturalized life of my set in New York. No, that must be a mistake. That New York existence seemed too far away to be a part of my present life. That was the dream; this the reality. I was Gardner Pitt, but I was not a writer; I was simply a hundred and sixty pounds of man, and I was sleeping on a pile of brush at the mouth of a cavern, in which slept a woman guarded by my presence. And it all seemed so natural, so vital and true a field for a man’s activities, that for the time nothing else had significance. True, this was not my woman that I was guarding, but another’s. But no thought of this entered my mind at the time. I did not think at all beyond the problem of escaping from Brack.

I placed my pistol in my right hand, determined to lie awake through the night.

I must have fallen asleep immediately after this, because when I was awakened by the rays of the morning sun slanting into the cave, the pistol lay with my relaxed hand upon it. I started up with a sensation of guilt.

With my pistol in my hand I peered out of the cave, more than half expecting to find Brack calmly awaiting me with his tantalizing smile in its place. But no human presence disturbed the primitive peace of that hillside that morning. A covey of feeding grouse lifted their heads and looked at me without fear. Birds were singing, the sun was bright and warm, and down on the blue water of the bay a pair of tiny ducks played.

I turned to look at Betty and was greeted by the sight of a very tousled, half-awake little head, peering over the side of the canoe.

“‘Mornin’,” murmured the little head sleepily.

“‘Mornin’,” I replied.

“Oo-oo-ah!” The little head yawned tremendously. “Wha’ time is ’t?”

It was 7:02 by my watch as I consulted it.

“Oo-o-wah!” Little head looked at me appealingly. “Do we got to get up so early when we play Injun?”

“Only the hunting Injun’s got to get up so early. Other Injuns sleep as long as they please.”

“Hunting? What for?”

“Oh, for a nice, big white yacht, for one thing. I’ll be gone only a short while. In the meantime you sleep.”

“O-um-mum,” murmured the little head and sank comfortably out of sight in the canoe.

Parting the brush that hid the cave, I stepped out and went down the hillside a short distance. Looking back I was pleased to find that the cave was so well hidden that unless one knew its location it might be passed close by without its existence being suspected. Save for the possibility that man who had taken the rifle was one of Brack’s gang the cave offered a fairly safe hiding place.

My first move was to assure myself that the yacht was not anchored near by. I went cautiously up the bay for half a mile, scrutinizing each inlet in vain for a sight of the _Wanderer’s_ white sides. I then swung up into the hills, marching a circle around the cave, impelled by the instinctive desire to ascertain the possible presence of any enemy.

At a distance of a city block from the cave I found a tiny spring sending its rivulet down the hillside to the bay, and as I lay down to drink I saw huddled beneath a tiny fir a flock of grouse watching me from a distance of ten or twelve feet.

Instinct promptly whispered: “Food” and I recalled the scant supply I had taken from the cabin, and reached for my pistol. The pistol, however, would roar like a cannon in that morning stillness and my supply of ammunition was limited to the ten cartridges in the magazine.

Lying motionless I looked around until my eyes fell upon a club. It was out of reach, but the foolish birds, confident that they were hidden, sat still while I secured the club and hurled it with all my might into their midst. I leaped forward instantly, and in the roar and flurry of the covey’s rising pounced upon two fluttering birds which my club had stunned.

Betty was up and wide awake when I returned to the cave. She had made her hair into one thick braid which hung down her back, and her face was rosy from sound sleep. She shuddered first at the sight of the birds.

“Oh, the poor, pretty things!” she murmured, stroking their feathers. “I wish you hadn’t hurt them.”

“I didn’t hurt them,” I replied. “They never knew what struck them. I didn’t like to do it, but we must find our own food, or surrender to Brack.”

She looked at the birds wistfully and said nothing as I led her to the spring. I left her splashing the ice-cold water upon her face and proceeded to dress the birds. When I returned to the cave she was waiting with her sleeves rolled up and a set look in her eyes.

“I can cook them,” she said firmly. “That’s my share of the game. You cut them in two and put a stick through the pieces and hold them before a hot fire that doesn’t smoke.”

“Any fire that we have must not smoke,” I said. “The smoke would show above the trees and be seen.”

“Then we must have perfectly dry wood,” she said quickly. “A small fire and dry; that doesn’t smoke.”

We set about gathering the wood together. Between two stones at the cave’s opening we built our fire, watching it jealously, to see that only the minimum of smoke arose from it in the clear air. Betty put her conscience to rest as she regarded the dressed grouse, composed mainly of succulent breast.

“They must be intended for food,” she said, “or they wouldn’t be made as they are.”

I agreed with her emphatically, and with a skewered half bird in each hand we sat down before the fire and proceeded with our cookery.

Freshly killed spruce grouse, roasted before an uncertain fire, and without salt, do not make ideal breakfast food, a fact which we discovered soon after the birds were done.

“I believe,” said Betty, when she had nibbled at half a bird, “I have had enough.”

“I have other viands in my pocket.”

“To be saved for future reference,” she laughed.

“We’ll wrap the rest of this wild poultry up in nice clean leaves and save it for another meal.”

“We will. It will be tasty when cold.”

At the spring where we went to wash down the meal with drafts of water, Betty’s eyes began to twinkle and the corners of her lips twitched suspiciously.

“Well, we’ve perfectly beautiful drinking water, at least,” she said, and smothered her laughter behind both hands.

“Now then,” she said briskly, when we were back in the cave, “are we going to occupy this apartment for some time, or do we continue our travels of last night?”

I told her that it seemed best for us to stay in hiding.

“All right. Then let’s try to brighten the place up a little. We don’t have to sit here and look at these black stone walls just because we’re playing Injun. Come and help me; I love to select furnishings for a room.”

* * * * *

From the hillside near the cave we gathered more branches and brush. Pine, spruce, birch and willow, budding into the full growth of Summer, came by the armfuls into the cavern.

“You never would have thought that this place needed decorating, would you?” said Betty, as she set to work. “Certainly not. This rough roof offers a shelter; these harsh walls hide us from our enemies. So you, being a mere man, think it’s all right. Ha! I’d hate to be a mere man.”

She was flying about the cave, fastening branches in the clefts of the rock, stepping back to view the results, altering her arrangements, apparently so lost in her work as to have forgotten our true situation.

“Now hand me that birch branch—the white contrasts beautifully with the green pine; now another piece of pine, now some more birch. There. That’s what you call repetition of color, isn’t it? You don’t know? Gracious. How can men be so ignorant of the really important things of life!”

On the rock forming the roof of the cave we found a patch of moss, velvet soft to the touch, and a gentle brown and gold in color. With a stick I loosened great pieces from the rock and bore it carefully within where Betty directed the carpeting of the cave. When a large piece reached its destination intact Betty beamed; when the moss broke between my outstretched hands she pouted.

“I think so long as Nature goes to the trouble of creating a carpet for us it might as well do a good job and make it strong enough to stand transportation.”

But when the cave was carpeted with its soft, yielding cushion of moss she clapped her hands in delight.

“Look at it!” she cried, embracing the cave with a gesture. “Why, it’s cozy; people could almost live here.”