Part 12

Our coming and going had trodden down much of the brush which had so thoroughly hidden the cave, and with some of the branches left over from Betty’s decorations I proceeded to weave a screen over the opening. When I had completed it I crawled out and inspected my work from a distance. The cave now was hidden more thoroughly than ever. Brack must look long and carefully to find us.

When I slipped back into our shelter I surprised Betty sitting on the canoe with her head bowed upon her hands in an attitude of dejection. She looked up, smiling bravely, but her cheerfulness was only surface-deep.

I looked away without a word, as did she, but in that moment we had confessed to one another that our display of high spirits had merely been acting, each wishing to help bolster up the courage of the other. We sat so for some time. Betty finally broke the silence.

“Well,” she said quietly, “there’s no use pretending any more, is there?”

As I had no reply she continued—

“We might as well admit out loud that neither of us feels—well, exactly jolly about it.”

“That’s true,” I replied inanely.

We were silent again.

“What—what are we going to do about it, Mr. Pitt?”

“There is nothing much to do; we are safe for the time being. So long as we keep out of Brack’s sight we are safe. For the present we could do just that—and hope.”

Betty heard me without a word. Once more she bowed her face upon her hands, and her girlish shoulders trembled. I was at her side in an instant.

“Don’t, Betty, please don’t!” I pleaded. “You mustn’t give way. It’s rough, and it’s hard, specially hard for a girl like you, but don’t give way for—for my sake. It’s been your fine courage and cheerfulness that’s kept me from showing that I’m really a coward. Yes, it is; you’ve kept me from being a coward. Don’t—please don’t be afraid. We’ll get out of this all right somehow, sure.”

She looked at me, her eyes moist, but with her old thoughtful look in them.

“Do you really believe we will, in your heart, Mr. Pitt?”

“Most emphatically I do.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then you only hope——?”

“No; I believe.”

“Oh!” she cried suddenly. “I hope—I pray—that you’re right; because it’s all my fault, all my fault, and I’d never forgive myself if I’d brought harm to you—or George.”

Once more the sound of George’s name on her tongue shocked me. Could she never get the man out of her head?

I picked aimlessly at a birch bough over my head, and each little budding leaf that I plucked away seemed like the tiny dreams which unconsciously had been in my mind all morning, and which now were driven away. The dreams that come to a man willy-nilly, without reason, without basis of hope. It probably was the stress of yesterday, the natural romance of a cave in the wilderness that were responsible. Well, I had that, anyhow; hours with Betty, in the sunlit, primitive woods. The memory of that would remain. Why, I was rich, richer than I had ever been in my life.

“Will you allow me to say something serious, Betty?”

Her look was startled, apprehensive, but her eyes gave consent.

“These hours have been the biggest of my life.”

I stopped. Betty was looking at the ground. And suddenly all the winds of the world seemed to be drawing me toward her, urging me to throw myself beside her, and a stream of words was upon my tongue.

I reached up, plucked a twig of pine from its cleft, and when I had stripped its needles one by one my self-control had returned.

“So you see I’m a winner,” I laughed. “You mustn’t worry one little worry about me. Whatever happens I’m ahead of the game.”

It was a long time before she spoke, and then she did so without looking up.

“Is—that—true?”

“Can’t you see it is?”

She nodded without looking to see.

“And—is that—all?”

“Isn’t that plenty? The biggest hours of my life—to have and remember?”

She poked her white toe into the moss, but still her eyes were on the ground.

“I feel awf’ly guilty,” she said faintly. “It’s all my fault. The whole thing is my fault. Poor George! If it hadn’t been for me he never would have met Brack, and then all this would not have happened.”

“George probably is all right by this time. He is under Dr. Olson’s care, and the doctor is one of us.”

“I’ve made him suffer terribly, haven’t I?”

“No. If he hadn’t—” I checked myself. “You haven’t made him suffer. And he’ll be a wiser man when you see him again, and you’ll both forget and be happy together.”

Betty lifted her eyes and studied me closely. Her expression was puzzling; she seemed incredulous. A quizzical smile touched her lips; she suppressed it and looked away.

“And George,” she said, as if her thoughts had wandered away from him, “I must make up for it all to him—if I can.”

“If you can! Of course you can. You will!”

Again she lifted her head and looked me squarely in the eyes. And this time when she looked away I knew that I was a fool, though I did not know just why.

XXXI

It was now near ten o’clock and we soon would know whether our hiding-place was a safe one. I knew that it was safer than would have been a flight through the woods, where Brack and his men might be prowling, yet I was so apprehensive that the sight of Brack’s big head thrust through the brush, his old sneering smile on his lips, would not have surprised me in the least. But no one came.

The forenoon passed without sight or sound of human being. At noon we were more hungry than we had been at breakfast. The spruce grouse had improved remarkably in flavor. In fact we agreed as we devoured what remained of them that seldom had we tasted better food.

“And nourishing; I’m sure they’re very nourishing,” said Betty. “They improve on acquaintance, as one’s appetite grows less finicky.”

My hopes began to rise as the hours passed with no sign of the appearance of Brack or any of his men. Apparently it was no man of the captain’s who had found the cave and removed the rifle. Then he had no way of knowing where we were hidden; we were safe at least for the present. When I explained this to Betty she said quietly—

“I’ve felt safe all the time, Mr. Pitt.”

“And quite right, too,” I replied. “The situation hasn’t been what any one but a pessimist would call dangerous.”

“Mr. Pitt!”

“What?”

She looked at me gravely for several seconds.

“I’m not a child, Mr. Pitt; it isn’t necessary to lie to me.”

“What! Lie to you?”

“Please. I understand how you feel about it. I’m a weak, carefully reared and sheltered girl who must be treated as a child, sheltered from everything unpleasant, and lied to about—about the fact that she is in danger, because she has happened to attract a brute; and that your life is in danger because you’re hiding her.”

“But, really——”

“Well, you needn’t keep up the pretense, Mr. Pitt. I’ve known all the time. I’ve known better than you have; the woman can know better, you know, even if she is a girl. I’ve known ever since Captain Brack came toward me last night up there in the cabin. His eyes were like—like he’d dropped a curtain and let me see a lot of uncaged wild beasts baring their teeth to me. I knew then—more than you could; and I know that he won’t give up—ever.”

“As I recall it,” I said when I could speak with a calmness equal to her own, “you laughed at him at just the moment that you saw all this?”

“Of course. We couldn’t let him see we were scared, could we?”

“And in the canoe, you sang——”

“That was partly for George’s sake. And then I did feel safe; and have felt so ever since.”

“And all your high spirits—playing Injun—fixing up the cave, and so on, have all been acting?”

“No. Certainly not. I tell you I do feel safe.”

“Why?”

Again she smiled inscrutably.

“You wouldn’t believe me now if I told you. Some day maybe you will. Then I’ll tell you—if you ask. But you must not ask now.”

For the present I, too, felt safe. But only for the present. Brack would not give up. That implacable will would have its way and the hunt for us probably was on at that moment. Brack, realizing our helplessness in the wilderness, would know that our field of flight would be restricted to the vicinity of the fiord, and with his men would search the hills relentlessly. I blessed the fate that had sent my feet stumbling into our well-hidden cavern.

As I weighed the chances of our discovery—which chance consisted practically of some literally blundering into the cave—I considered our plight in a more favorable aspect. The doctor would deliver my message to Pierce, and Freddy would pass on to the others the secret of our place of concealment. Dr. Olson, Freddy, Wilson and George, by this time probably knew where we were.

There was a world of consolation in this thought. They would communicate with us; Freddy would see to that. Yes, we would hear from our friends before much longer.

But as the hours passed with no sign of such good fortune I began to doubt. What were our friends doing? What were they thinking of? Didn’t they realize that every minute which we passed in this uncertainty was a minute of torture?

Betty’s patience seemed to grow as mine diminished. She had begun to weave a mat out of the branches which we had carried in, and apparently she was more interested in this than in what our friends were doing. The mat was finished as darkness began to creep up the hillside, and Betty spread thereupon the food I had snatched from the cabin table. There was a piece of sausage, three slices of bread, and a can of sardines.

“Perhaps,” I suggested, “we had better save some for the morrow.”

“I refuse to save,” she retorted, chin in air. “Poor we may be, sir; but never shall it be said that we stinted ourselves in the matter of rich and nourishing sustenance. Pray, sir, draw up before it gets too dark to distinguish the varied viands.”

“This is prodigal conduct,” I protested, as she divided the food equally and passed my share to me. “What of tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow you will get more birds, and if you do not, you will get something else. And if you don’t get that—Sir! I refuse to worry about anything so sordid as food. Now if it were a matter pertaining to higher things—Oh! Aren’t these sardines delicious!”

And when the scanty meal was finished she leaned back with a mock air of repletion and said—

“Now, let come what may; I have dined.”

“Do you feel so brave?” I asked.

“Yes sir. As brave as beseems one who has dined sumptuously.”

“Joking aside, do you feel brave enough to spend an hour or two in this dark cave—alone?”

“Is it necessary?” she asked after making sure that I was not joking. “What are you going to do?”

“We must try to learn what’s been going on today. As soon as it is thoroughly dark I propose to sneak back to the cabins. If I have good luck I may be able to get a word with Dr. Olson, or George. Then we’ll know if it’s necessary or advisable for us to remain hidden underground.”

“I’m sure it is,” she said swiftly and with conviction.

“Why are you sure?”

“I don’t know; I feel it.”

“It may be well enough,” said I, “but I don’t feel it’s right of us to lie here without making a move. If our friends can’t help us we ought to know, so we may plan to help ourselves.”

“If you have decided upon it, I suppose you will go.”

“Not unless you give your consent.”

“My consent?”

“Yes. You don’t think I’d go away and leave you here alone in the cave if you tell me you’d be afraid?”

“I shall be afraid,” she said soberly. I looked at her a little disappointed. “I shall be afraid every minute until your return that something may happen to you. And then,” she added lightly, “who would get birds for my breakfast in the morning? Of course you have my consent to go. I’ll lie here in my canoe and try to think noble thoughts. But do be careful.”

I waited until nine before leaving the cave. It was then pitch-dark in the woods. I had, however, laid out my course in my mind’s eye, and set out for the crest of the ridge without hesitation.

My progress at first was nothing to be proud of. I stumbled and fell over unseen rocks and logs, walked smack into sturdy trees, and was tangled in the brush constantly. At the top of the ridge the woods and brush grew thinner. It was practically bare ground here and I traveled the crest swiftly until the odorous dampness of the night air warned me that I was approaching the lake, and I paused sharply.

I was now, I judged, near the spot where I had descended from the ridge to warn Slade and Harris. If I was right, I would soon be able to see the lights from the cabins in the clearing below; and so fearful was I of Brack’s devilish shrewdness that I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled noiselessly forward to peer over the ridge.

Apparently my caution was unnecessary. So far as I could see there were no lights in the cabins. In fact, there might have been no cabins there, so absolutely was everything below me sunk in the black night.

Minute after minute passed with my eyes straining in vain for a glimpse of light and my ears listening vainly for some sound of human nearness, but the darkness was no less complete than the silence. Perhaps I had gone wrong. Perhaps that open space below, from whence rose dampness and odor, was not the lake at all, but the bay. More careful appraisal of my surroundings, however, convinced me that my course had been true. That was the lake down there; the cabins were on the farther side; and it being on toward ten o’clock, the candles were out and the doctor, George, and the others, were asleep.

This was the reasoning with which I relieved myself, as I let myself down the ridge toward the clearing. My caution, however, had not deserted me, and my progress was as noiseless as could be.

It was fully half an hour after leaving the top of the ridge before I lay in the brush behind the clearing. The cabin in which Betty and I had left George was before me and probably fifty yards away, but no sound or light hinted that it was inhabited.

The cold shiver which always came to me when I was afraid once more ran up my spine as I contemplated the open space between myself and the cabin. I wished greatly to retreat, so I promptly drove myself forward, pistol in hand, literally dragging myself up to the rear of the squat cabin whose very darkness and silence seemed eloquent with sinister possibilities.

Beneath the open window through which Betty and I had fled I lay with my head against the logs, listening for the sounds of breathing within. No such sound came. No sound of any kind came.

I lifted my head until an ear was over the sill of the window. It was so still that a man’s breathing, or the ticking of a watch, could not have escaped my strained hearing. I thrust my head inside the room. Now by its complete silence I knew that the room was empty, and I drew myself up slowly and clambered in.

After a while I struck a match. The room was bare. The bunks, blankets, chairs, dishes, the table, the stove, all had been removed. The floor and walls were bare.

I went to the other cabin, where the wounded men had lain. Then I sat down on the nearest threshold, weak and numbed. The cabins were empty. Brack had removed our friends beyond our ken. We were deserted. But more sinister than that; the cabins had been stripped of their last morsel of food, of everything that might have been of assistance to us in maintaining existence in the wilderness.

XXXII

I sat there in the cabin doorway for a long time, the props upon which I had builded hope and confidence suddenly knocked away. George was gone; Dr. Olson was gone. And there was no trace of them left behind, no trace of where they had gone, or why, or how. They had disappeared from our ken. We were out of touch with them. And upon them had been built our hopes.

Far off on some hilltop a wolf barked suddenly. I pictured Brack with his sneering eyes laughing at me. It was all his work, of course. If it had not been—if the abandonment of the cabins had been accidental—Dr. Olson, knowing that I would return there sometime, would have managed to leave a note or sign to tell the why and where of the going.

But the captain, also knowing that we would come back to the cabins, had taken proper precautions. There was no note, no sign. There was no hope, no chance to escape him. That was the lesson he had prepared for us with these empty cabins.

The wolf barked again, and I thought of Betty alone in the cave and sprang up. And there was something selfish in the speed with which I traveled back over the ridge, for the nearness of her was a stay to my waning confidence and courage.

Nearing the cave I moved more cautiously, not wishing to blunder through the mask of brush we had made to hide the opening. Fumbling in the darkness I found the overhanging rock, and then the opening which I had left as a door in the brush. I paused a moment before crawling inside, and as I did so Betty’s voice came faintly from the canoe:

“Is that you, Gardy? And are you all right?”

“I am,” I replied, as I entered. “And you?”

“Fine and dandy. But—oh, you were away an awful long time.”

“Yes. It was farther than I thought.”

“And did you see George? And what did you find out?”

“A lot of things,” I mumbled with assumed sleepiness. “Everything’s all right. No need to worry. But I’m so tired, so sleepy I can’t talk now. Forgive me, but I’ll have to wait until morning before telling about it.”

“You poor boy!” I heard her sit up.

“Oh, I’m all right,” I protested as I lay down on my nest of boughs. I was sitting up an instant later. “Here; what’s this? You’ve put the blanket on my bed.”

“Only half of it. I ripped it in two while you were gone. It wasn’t fair——”

“You’re going to take it back.”

“No, sir. I’m as warm as a cat back here. I’ll never forgive you if you make me take it back after my feeling so noble for giving it to you. So there.”

“Now really——”

“No, sir! You lie right down and cover yourself up and get the sleep you need so much. You wouldn’t deprive me of feeling like a heroine, would you? Of course not. Good night.”

“Good night.”

She chuckled softly as she lay down.

“I called you ‘Gardy,’ Mr. Pitt; did you notice that? Shocking, isn’t it? After a few days’ acquaintance. I wonder—I wonder if cave-people ever had more than one name.”

And after awhile her soft, steady breathing as she slept made me glad I had withheld the bad news for the morrow.

* * * * *

I awoke the next morning at the first gray light of dawn and slipped out while Betty still slept. I was now as eager to find some sign of human nearness as the morning before I had been eager to assure myself of the isolation of our hiding-place. A sight of the yacht, of any one, of Brack even, would have been a relief from the growing sensation that we had been left completely alone.

I went down to the bay and followed its indentations for more than a mile, making no effort at concealment, in another fruitless search for the yacht. I went over the ridge to the cabins and stood in the clearing before them and shouted recklessly. And when the hills had mockingly echoed back my futile shouts, I knew the calmness of resignation to the worst. We were alone, and we must exist, and escape, if escape we could, solely by our own efforts.

I gathered a pocketful of stones and half a dozen clubs and went back to our spring to hunt for grouse. My good fortune of the day before was not to be repeated. Birds in plenty there were. They flushed from beneath my feet, flew past my head, and sat in rows on branches and looked down upon me. I found, however, that it is one thing to hurl a club into a covey huddled under a bush, and quite another to knock a bird out of a tree, and in desperation I finally used the pistol to bring down the single bird which I thought was to comprise our breakfast that morning.

In the primitive morning stillness the noise of the shot was like a crack of lightning, splitting the silence and echoing through the hills. But by this time I was convinced that we were alone there in Kalmut Valley, and that no one was near enough to hear the report.

As I reentered the cave Betty sprang up, asking:

“Well? Who and what did you see at the cabins last night?”

While I sought for a way to break the news without any unnecessary alarm to her she continued:

“It’s bad news, of course. I felt that last night. You’d never have been selfish enough to go to sleep without telling me if the news had been good. What is it, Mr. Pitt?”

“I am sorry to say that I didn’t see any one at the cabins,” I replied. “There was no one there. There was nothing there. The cabins were stripped bare. Everything in them was gone—food, everything.”

“Then thank goodness for the bird,” she said quietly. “Where do you think George and everybody, and everything has gone?”

“Oh, Brack’s taken them and all the stuff away some place. But where I can’t imagine. I really don’t believe the yacht’s in the fiord at all, so it doesn’t seem they could be on board. Brack may have headquarters somewhere on shore.”

“But what could be his object in taking everything away from the cabins?”

“To leave us without food or anything to help us.”

“Hm,” said Betty, her chin in her hands. “I was thinking of something else.”

“What?”

“Brack knew you’d go back and have a look at the cabins. He thinks we’re in the open wilderness without a shelter over our heads. Well, when you find that the cabins have been stripped, deserted, apparently abandoned for good, wouldn’t it be natural for us to rush to them for shelter?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, couldn’t he be watching, and when we were in—” her hand pounced onto a sprig of birch and crushed it—“just like that?”

“A trap!” I cried. “I never thought of that. Of course. And with no food, even if we were safe at first, we’d have to give in in the end.”

“Which we’ll never, never do, of course,” she said firmly. She looked around at the fir and birch boughs hung in the cave. “I don’t think I care to move just at the present. While this apartment is not as roomy or light as it might be, I am quite fascinated with its interior decorations, as well as its safety. No; Mr. Brack must find other tenants for his cabins. I think we shall remain right here.”

I laughed in sheer relief at the serio-comic air with which she said this.

“Betty,” I said, “aren’t you even a little bit afraid?”

“Oh, yes, Gardy,” she said, instantly serious. “Aren’t you? I’m lots afraid. But we mustn’t let that bother us, must we?”

“Emphatically, no! We mustn’t let anything bother us. You mustn’t let anything worry you. We’ll get along, somehow; I don’t know how, but I know we will——”

“Of course we will!”

“And when it comes to Captain Brack——”

“Are we downhearted?” demanded Betty, and together we answered: “No!”

It was immediately after this that we once more saw the captain. I was preparing to go out and clean the bird, and as I parted the branches a boat from the yacht, rowed by four men, with Brack at the rudder, came rushing down the fiord and steered for the beach directly below where we were hidden.

Betty saw me start and sprang to my side. Neither of us said a word while we watched the boat come to land. As the men sprang out and hurried into the brush we drew back to the rear of the cave, sat down on the canoe, and looked at each other.

“It’s my fault,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have fired that shot. They heard it. Don’t give up, though. They haven’t found us yet.”

“I wonder if they are coming here?” she whispered back.

I went back to the opening and peered cautiously through the branches. The men, even Captain Brack, were crouched down in the shelter of a huge boulder, and Brack was giving them directions.

Immediately they scattered, and began to work up the hill. They did not come directly toward the cave but went slightly to the north, in the direction where I had fired my pistol.