Part 15

Dr. Olson ordered me back to bed and filled me up with opiates. My affair with Brack had not been good for my wounds, and absolute quiet was necessary to repair the damage which had been done to them. Slade and Harris remained on board, making themselves useful with the skill and adaptability of pioneers. And George, in his right mind, and Betty were together.

My days and nights for a space then were a series of semi-lucid moments alternated with nightmares. In the former I was at times conscious that Betty was sitting at my side. Occasionally I caught her studying me anxiously. When I returned her scrutiny she looked away. Next it would be Slade or Harris who was with me, then George. Always there seemed to be some one.

The nightmares were rather trying. Two things ran through them consistently: the sound of Betty’s voice as she had cried out passionately for Captain Brack, and the spectacle of Brack dragging her to the rail. Then I would wake up raving and presently some one would be holding me down, urging me to be quiet.

On one of these occasions, after midnight, it was George who held me in bed and soothed me.

“It’s all right, Gardy old man; it’s all right, I tell you,” he was saying. “She’s all right; safe and sound asleep in her room.”

“Brack—Brack’s got her!” I moaned.

“No, no, no! Can’t you hear me? She’s all right. Gardy! Old man. You know me, don’t you?”

I returned to sanity. Chanler was grimly trying to smile.

“What have I been saying?” I gasped.

“Oh, nothing.” He tried to pass it off carelessly. “Nothing—nothing at all.”

“Tell me.”

“Oh, just about Brack and Betty; you thought he’d got her.”

He looked away.

“What else?”

“Oh, shut up, Gardy! You were out of your head. D’you s’pose I paid any attention to what you were saying? Now drop that. How are you feeling?”

“Embarrassed,” I replied.

“Don’t!” he protested. “Don’t you do it. It—it wasn’t anything like that. It—it was all right. I knew it anyway.”

“Knew what?”

He looked at me for a long time. Then he appeared to change the subject.

“Everything’s all right, old man. We’ve come to an understanding, Betty and I. It’s all settled as it should be. I’ve had a lot of time for long talks with Betty.” He laughed. “She’s opened her heart to me, at last, and told me everything. We—we’ve been exploring hidden country, Betty and I. Good phrase of Brack’s, that.”

I raised myself and held out my hand.

“Congratulations, George. I knew it would come out all right.”

His brows came down in puzzled, skeptical fashion as he took my hand. There was in his expression a tinge of suspicion, and he smiled as one smiles when humoring a sick man.

“There’s hidden country in you, all right, old boy,” he said. “You ought to play poker.”

More sleep and more nightmares, the latter now complicated by the presence of George. Brack no longer was dragging Betty to the rail; she was standing by George’s side; and Brack and I were playing poker. Then at last came the sane untroubled sleep of normal condition, and I awoke one morning ravenously hungry and glad that the sun was bright outside.

“You can join the convalescent squad now,” said Dr. Olson, and under the awning on the fore-deck I joined Pierce and Simmons, stretched at ease in luxurious deck-chairs.

“Though it isn’t my fault, sir,” protested Simmons, “the master is not doing right by himself in putting me here.”

* * * * *

I sank down into my chair and looked over water and hills with the wondering eyes of a man who has come back to the world after a long absence. And I found it good.

The _Wanderer_ lay in the same spot where Pierce and I had found her on that dark night, Wilson still being too weak to navigate her and there being nobody else capable of the task. The water about us was blue and still, and the birch and pine of the shores were mirrored in it to the smallest shade and detail. Back from the bay rose the age-old hills, step after step of them, growing higher and higher, until they became the great mountain-range which shut the valley in from the rest of the world. And the sun was so bright that I closed my eyes, and the primal peace soaked me to the bone.

Betty came and went, and George; and they made a splendid pair as they rounded the decks on their promenade. They went canoeing together, and Old Slade swore, and we agreed with him, that “there couldn’t be no purtier sight than that on God’s green earth.”

Then George would join us under the awning, and Slade and Harris and he would talk over the development of their property. For George was going in partnership with them. The free pay dirt of their mine was about played out and machinery and labor to tear the hills to pieces were necessary for the further working of the find.

“And what about the bones up at Petroff Sound?” I asked.

“No use—not necessary now,” George replied. “Besides, this is easier, and nearer to Fifth Avenue, and these last days have been so strenuous that I’m about filled up.”

I thought over what he said.

Not necessary to go to Petroff Sound now. No, of course not. Betty had decided that gold-mining was more fun. And why go on to Petroff Sound when they had already come to an understanding.

George did not display quite the elation he should have done under the circumstances, I thought; but he was so blasé that even the winning of Betty wouldn’t keep him animated for long.

Betty finally came and sat with us. She talked to Pierce, to Simmons, and to me; and at me she looked with puzzlement in her quiet gray eyes and bit her under lip and looked away.

“Do you feel so completely a stranger to me?” she whispered, drawing her chair near to mine.

“Like a stranger?” I said. “Why do you ask that?”

“Because you look at me as if—as if we were just speaking acquaintances.”

“I didn’t know,” I apologized. “I’ll do better. You,” I continued, looking at her, “don’t look as happy as I expected you would.”

“One doesn’t,” she whispered, rising to go, “when one’s in a hidden country and nobody will help one out.”

“Help you out?” I whispered, but she was gone.

I wearied my brains in vain puzzling over her meaning; but that evening Dr. Olson whistled and wondered whence had come the new strength which animated my pulse, my eyes, my whole being.

“And that makes two of you,” said he, “because Wilson’s sitting up shaving himself and says he’ll take the yacht out to sea tomorrow.”

XXXIX

And so came the last day in Kalmut Fiord; and I greeted its dawning from the _Wanderer’s_ decks, where I had paced at intervals during the night, and I was not tired. In amazement I watched the sun roll back the fog-banks from the hills, for I was seeing with new eyes, and the sense of a new beginning, of a freshening of life, was upon me.

That same incomprehensible force which was clearing the valley of its nightly cloak of gray was stirring me, troubling me, lifting me. Vaguely—for my thoughts were elsewhere—I sensed the quickening of my being and knew that never had I been so thoroughly alive.

That night had been a period of alternate joy and torture to me. I flung myself on my bed, but the stateroom seemed insufferably small and confining.

I sprang up and went out, pacing the decks. I passed Betty’s state-room and the thrill that leapt within me sent me staggering on, drunken with new feelings. I passed Chanler’s room, and the thrill died and I was bitter. I sought the fore-deck and in my mind reenacted the meeting with Brack. There he had stood, there Betty, here myself. There her shoulder had touched mine and here I had met Brack as he hurled himself upon her. There Brack had kissed her, while I lay on the deck; there near the rail he had held her, and there I had taken her from him and for a brief moment had held her in my arms.

I pictured the night when she had called to him, and the memory of her tone was like a storm, shaking me to my knees. I looked in on Chanler and found him awake and reading. There was in his eyes the strength of a man who has won through a crisis and found peace. And well there might be! I told him that I wished to get back to Seattle, so I might quit him, as soon as possible, and went out before he could reply.

Old Slade, standing the dog-watch, approached me wonderingly and asked if I couldn’t sleep.

“Sleep!” I sneered. “Why should a man want to do anything so simple as sleep when he can walk out here beneath the stars and torture himself with thoughts.”

He stroked his long beard. “Pain cometh to all men——”

“So I’ve heard,” I replied curtly, and walked away.

And so I greeted the dawning of our last day in the Hidden Country unslept; and yet I was as fresh as Wilson when he came hobbling up to judge the weather.

“A beautiful day, Mr. Pitt,” said he, after studying the sky. “The good weather will hold, and short-handed as we are that’s what we must be praying for.”

“We sail today, then?”

“This afternoon, sir.”

“Good!” I said. “It will be a relief to get out of here.”

I breakfasted alone. From the cabin-door I saw Betty Baldwin come from her stateroom, stand blinking in the morning sun and filling her lungs with the tingling air. And she was beautiful to my eyes as she had never been before, and I entered my stateroom and locked the door.

Hours afterward I heard Black Sam dropping the paddles into a canoe alongside; heard him telling Betty that the craft was ready. Presently Chanler knocked on my door.

“Oh, Gardy! Come out here.”

I flung open the door.

“Betty wants to have one last paddle down the bay,” he said casually.

“Well,” I replied, “why doesn’t she go?”

“Can’t go alone comfortably in that long canoe, you know. It won’t handle except with some one in the bow.”

“Are you busy?” I tried to be sarcastic and failed.

“It’s your turn to go,” he said. “She—she said so, old man. Go along, now. Good luck.”

* * * * *

I took my place in the bow without a word, without our eyes meeting. I was in no shape to paddle and sat with the paddle across my knees.

Betty began to paddle. Presently she stopped. We sat silent while the canoe drifted.

“I’d like to see our—to see that cave again, if you don’t mind,” she said timidly. “Do you?”

“Why should I?” I said.

Not a word more did we speak as we went through the gap into the bay proper nor while she paddled down to our landing-place. She steered the canoe past the rock where we had gone ashore to avoid leaving tracks behind us, and landed on the sandy beach. I got out stiffly and sat down upon a boulder.

“We’re not going to play Injun this morning, then?” she said with a wan attempt at gaiety.

“No,” said I. “Why should we? There’s no necessity now.”

“Don’t—don’t you ever play Injun except when it’s necessary?” she said reproachfully.

I did not reply.

“Didn’t you like to play Injun that time?”

“It served its purpose,” I said.

She cast at me a swift and troubled glance, bowed her head, and stepped out. Without looking back she started up the hill, and presently I rose, without any conscious effort on my part, and began to follow.

Once she stopped and looked behind her; I only felt it; I dared not look to see. For the tumult which woke within me at the sight of her as she moved through that primitive scene frightened me. It seemed to lift me above, or cast me below, considerations of right or wrong. My conventional self whispered that I was treading on dangerous ground; that I must not go up the hill. But I went, even as Brack had gone, in answer to Betty’s call, but with my eyes held fearfully on the ground.

“Look!” she cried at the cave’s mouth. “The foliage has grown so in a few days that you scarcely could tell we’d ever had an entrance there.”

I tore the brush aside to make a way for her and stood aside with eyes averted.

“Aren’t you going in—Mr. Pitt?” she asked softly.

“No,” I said. “Why should I?”

She sighed and crumpled up a little and entered the cave alone. For awhile there came no sound from within, but I dared not look to see what she was doing. Then she began to move around.

“Oh, the poor little branches!” She was half-whispering to herself. “All withered up and dead, all gone from their pretty little trees. Poor, poor little leaves. And they looked so bright and hopeful once, and now they’re gray and dead. And the moss is drying. The soft, pretty moss! All turned hard and dry. What a pity! What a little, little pity!”

She was silent for awhile. I peered in and saw her on her knees, her hands tenderly stroking the withered moss with which we had carpeted the cave.

“Good-by, little cave,” she whispered. “By-by.”

She did not come out at once. There was a moment during which I turned my back on the cave, not daring to look in, and the only motion and sound in the world was that of the young Summer breeze stirring through the age-old scene.

“Mr. Pitt—, Gardy.” She was only whispering, yet her voice was strong enough to reach forth and sway me where I stood. I did not reply. The fight was going against me. Flight would have saved me, yet I would not fly. But if I trusted myself to speak, I would be lost.

“Aren’t you going to bid our cave good-by?”

I took a step away. I should have taken many; for I felt then that right and safety prescribed that I step out of the lives of Betty and George, promptly and forever.

And seconds passed, seconds that seemed minutes, and I hoped that she would not speak again.

Presently she was standing behind me. I knew it, though I had not heard or seen her come. Straight ahead I looked, out over the bay, denying the force that urged me to do otherwise.

“Gardy!”

“Don’t!” I moaned. “Go back—get in the canoe; go back to George—alone—quick!”

“Gardy!”

She placed her fingers on my arm. And I turned around and faced her, because I could not do otherwise. Then suddenly all the winds in the world seemed to be pressing upon me, drawing, coaxing, forcing me toward her. One agonized cry my conscience sent up in protest at the wrong I did. Then I swept her to me; I held her against my breast; I kissed her; then tore myself away.

Slowly, painfully I lifted my gaze from the ground to take my punishment from her eyes. And then my heart leaped and stopped within me. For Betty, with her hands clasped rapturously before her, was looking up at me with the soft flame of grateful happiness in her expression.

“Oh, Gardy, Gardy!” She swayed her shoulders a little. “Then you do care for me; you do—you do—don’t you?”

“Betty!”

“Oh, oh!” She teetered up and down on her toes, unable to contain herself. “He cares for her; he isn’t going to leave little Betty all lonesome and unhappy!”

I saw her and heard her in a half-daze.

“Betty!” I cried. “What does this mean?”

“It means that I’m happy—happy! I’m the happiest girl in the world!”

“Happy? Now? Because I kissed you, when you’re engaged to George?”

It was her turn to stare blankly.

“Engaged to George?” she said.

I stammered brokenly a flood of words.

“He said you’d come to an understanding—that everything was all right—and as it should be.”

“That’s true. Oh, that’s very true!”

“That you’d opened your heart to him.”

“I did—I did!”

“And—and I knew by the look in his eyes as well as his saying so that you had come to an understanding.”

“And you knew right, Gardy; perfectly right.”

“Then, what——”

“I did open my heart to him, and I told him everything. And we both knew it was all right—everything all right—and as it should be.”

My voice grew small and faint and all but failed me.

“Then—then what was it you told him, Betty?”

She wrung her hands, and her eyes were filled with tears, but neither the gesture nor the tears were those of distress.

“Oh, Gardy, my boy!” she cried holding out her arms. “Are you going to make me propose to you?”

XL

We stayed there at the cave much longer than we had planned. At times, during the forenoon, conscience smote us.

“Really, they’ll be worrying about us on the yacht,” said I.

“They certainly will,” agreed Betty.

“They’re probably getting ready to sail now.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“We’re short-handed; I ought to be there to help,” I suggested.

“You certainly had.”

“We’d better go.”

“Oh, positively!”

And then we would forget the yacht, the imminence of sailing, everything but ourselves, for a considerable space of time. It was all a little too wonderful for me to grasp intelligently, but Betty accepted it with the woman’s genius for such events.

“I don’t understand?” I repeated over and over. “You had an understanding with George while I was knocked out, and George seemed satisfied?”

“Yes; he was satisfied, dear. He was fine enough and strong enough to be that.”

“And you told him?”

“Gardy, dearest! Are you going to make me say it after all?”

“Positively. You know I’m harsh and stern. You told George——”

She clasped her arms about me, pressing against my breast, surrender and victory in her upturned face.

“I told him that I loved you. I told him that if you didn’t get well—oh, my boy, my boy! I was so frightened over you!”

“And George was satisfied with that?”

“Yes. He had accepted it by that time. He said he knew it from the moment I came on board, and he knew now that it was all right.”

After a long silence I persisted—

“When did you know it, Betty?”

She blushed.

“I don’t want to tell you that.”

I coaxed.

“Well, if you must know, I—I _hoped_ from the first time I saw you.”

“You hoped! Good heavens, dear! Why didn’t you let me know. I—I didn’t think I had a chance.”

She snuggled more closely against me.

“A girl can’t let a man know she loves him until she knows that he loves her, dear. You seemed so far away, and so—so disinterested. I was afraid you would never let me know that—that you loved me.”

“But I thought it was George, Betty. How could I let you know? You see, it’s the first time I’ve done this sort of thing.”

“You dear, blind darling!”

“I know it now. I see. But even now I can’t see why—I can hardly believe——”

“Tut, tut!” She pinched my arm. “Can he believe now? Isn’t it real, to him?”

“I’ve acted like a brute since the night we left the cave, Betty.”

“So you have. Deep, ’bysmal brute.”

“I was angry because you said you wouldn’t have George risking his life for you. I was jealous.”

“Oh, darling! Were you really? I gloat!” She rocked in my arms, then grew suddenly serious. “How could I have him risking his life for me, Gardy, dear? I had nothing to give him. I knew then it was you, you; only you. I had no right to let George make any sacrifice for me. You—you were my man. Do you understand?”

“Yes, dear.”

“And when I called to poor Captain Brack that night, Gardy, I was calling to you with my heart. Oh! I was calling so to you. Do you understand that, too, dear?”

“Yes; yes!”

“And—and you heard, too, didn’t you, Gardy? You heard me, because you wanted to hear it, didn’t you? And when we came here this morning, and you were so far-awayish I was afraid you hadn’t heard at all. Oh, Gardy!” She looked up with eyes wet from happiness too great to be suppressed. “Isn’t life good to us? Isn’t it glorious to be alive!”

“And think of it!” I whispered. “We’re just beginning a new life—just beginning to live.”

“Yes,” she whispered, stroking my hand. “We’ve explored the hidden country.” Then she quoted Brack: “‘There is hidden country in all of us; and until we’ve explored it we don’t know what it is to live.’”

A silence fell upon us as deep, as primitive as the aged rocks about us, and ere we spoke again the _Wanderer’s_ siren had sent its strident notes down the fiord warning us that it was time for luncheon.

“I suppose we must really go now,” sighed Betty as we rose. “Ah, little cave, little cave!” she murmured, holding her arms out to it. “You are a good little cave and you helped make one little girl very, very happy.”

“And one man, too,” said I. “We’ll never forget this cave, dear, even though the time we spent in it was trying enough.”

“No, we’ll never forget it.” Her grave, gray eyes were looking far out over the fiord. “It has become a part of our lives. It has all become a part of our lives—our new lives, Gardy, dear. We’ll not forget any of it. Oh, dearest! Maybe sometime we can come back here, and camp here, and remember all these wonderful days. You’ll never forget them, and what they’ve meant to us, will you, dear?”

“We will neither of us forget as long as we live!”

“Yes. I feel that, too. We’ll look back, and we’ll never forget any of it, not even Captain Brack.”

“Poor Brack!”

She leaned against me, as if seeking shelter from the sad thoughts of the moment.

“Yes, we’ll even remember him with gladness, Gardy. Won’t we?”

“Yes. Of course. For it was Brack who led us into the hidden country.”

“Yes; yes.” She lifted her eyes slowly to mine. “He led us into the hidden country; but, oh, Gardy, my heart! What was it that led us out!”

And I answered with my lips, but not with words.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the December, 1916 issue of Adventure magazine.]