CHAPTER VIII.

_DELGEZIE’S DESPAIR._

Roy Thursby laid down the last of his correspondence with mixed feelings of pleasure and strange forebodings. The delight he was feeling, since learning that Lena McLeod was to accompany her father on his trip of inspection, was tempered in a large measure by the words contained in the letter announcing young College’s fatal encounter with the Indian—“For in my opinion it is murder for a man to take another man’s life no matter what the circumstances that seem to extenuate it.” This was a strange decree from one so young, and the words rang in Roy’s brain, try how he might to forget them. Yet why they should so disturb and influence him he could not for the life of him imagine.

Mechanically he caught up a newspaper and ran his eye over its pages till dinner was pronounced ready.

During the meal Broom’s manner appeared sullen and taciturn, and after a few minutes of desultory talk Roy lapsed into silence. But when they rose from the table the trader appeared to suddenly guess the cause of the other’s moodiness, for after gaily exhorting Hopkins to come forward, he brought forth the “comfort,” and at this Broom’s face immediately cleared, while Hopkins entered the room blithely and took the stiff dram offered him.

The arrival of the “packet” was now celebrated by Broom with more fervor, and entirely unsolicited he refilled his glass and drank success to “George Hopkins.”

Roy noted the circumstance with displeasure, but suppressed his inclination to draw Broom’s attention to it, and drank the toast with as much grace as he could assume. Then, unceremoniously, he whipped the bottle off the table.

No whit abashed, the loquacious Broom told a number of pithy stories, which he related in his inimitable manner. These and other merry quips kept Hopkins in a constant fit of laughter, in which Roy, despite his annoyance, was at length forced to join.

Suddenly a gust of wind struck the house, shaking it to its foundations. The trader and the dog-driver glanced simultaneously at the window, then at each other with an accompanying nod, as if to say that their prognostications of a blow were proving correct.

At once Roy thought of Kasba, for he had been told that she had gone for meat. Had she returned? Had anyone seen her pass the house? Where was her father, Delgezie?

Receiving no answer to his questions from Broom or Hopkins, neither of whom knew the whereabouts of the girl or her father, Roy called in Sahanderry and again put the questions. The Indian entered with a face that clearly betrayed the anxiety he was feeling, but he could give no satisfactory information. He was almost certain Kasba had not returned, but as it was possible that she might have passed while they were at dinner he was unable to speak positively. He then spoke of his own doubts and fears regarding the girl’s safety.

But the trader checked these voluble premonitions by commanding Sahanderry to go to Delgezie’s hut and find out the truth of the matter, while he struggled into his “hairy coat.”

Without waiting for further directions the Indian rushed from the room. Fears for Kasba’s safety animated his movements. But he was stopped short in his impetuous haste before he had crossed the kitchen, the door being suddenly thrown open by Delgezie himself, who hastily entered, pulling the door to after him.

Delgezie’s entrance was the signal for the greatly perturbed Sahanderry to begin a string of confusing questions interlarded with much advice and dire prophecies of evil, but Roy came to the rescue of the distracted old man by peremptorily ordering the young Indian to hold his tongue, and then by a few direct questions the trader elicited the fact that the girl and boy left the Fort at seven o’clock that morning and had not yet returned.

“Seven o’clock! They had left at seven o’clock! Then they should have been back long ago! It is now two! What can have happened to them?” The trader spoke sharply and with evident anxiety.

In a bewildered fashion the old Indian stood gazing at the speaker, leaning a little forward as if to better read the expression on Roy’s face. He had the most implicit faith in the trader’s superior judgment, and with the simplicity of a child waited to be told what he was to do. His features worked in a nervous, agitated manner and a pipe that he had been unconsciously holding fell from his hand to the floor. Suddenly he seemed to be aware of Roy’s perturbed manner, and made for the door, but at once Roy called after him, demanding what he was about to do.

But the old man made no answer. He was fumbling at the door, which he presently opened and went hastily out.

Those left in the room looked askance at one another.

“Follow him, Sahanderry,” cried Roy; “bring him back; he cannot go like that. Be quick, man.”

Sahanderry hastened to the door, but a sharp cry without caused him to pause with his hand on the latch. The cry was followed by the howling of dogs; a peculiar long-drawn howl which the listener instantly recognized as proceeding from dogs that had become entangled or whose progress was in some measure impeded. The trio in the inner room again looked at one another, but this time it was with a smile of relief.

“That’s them,” asserted Sahanderry from the kitchen, “the dogs have found their way home and the sled has got stuck against something.” With this information he hurried outside.

But when he opened the door and stepped out, Sahanderry could see nothing; everything was obscured by the drifting snow. The wind rushed round the buildings from all points at once and seemed to gather additional impetus at every corner. The Indian paused, half blinded by the cutting wind and nipped by the intense cold. But the dogs, as if to baffle discovery and thereby prolong his apprehensions, became suddenly quiet. Taking a step forward he called to them in a loud voice. Just then a bulky object loomed suddenly out of the gloom and he came in violent contact with something which, although sufficiently substantial to cause him a shock and nearly send him off his feet, was at the same time curiously soft. Sahanderry recoiled from it with a thrill of apprehension and the thing, whatever it was, instantly passed into the house.

The dazed and vastly astonished Indian remained for a moment staring after the object. Then an idea of what it was struck him and he swiftly followed it. When he entered the house he found Roy Thursby bending over something which lay stretched upon a table, over which a blanket had been thrown. Delgezie was standing apart, nervous yet confident in his master’s power to restore animation to the apparently lifeless body he had just given into his charge.

After bending over the object for a moment longer, Roy looked up with a slight exclamation and a quick glance at Delgezie.

The old man’s quiet demeanor led Roy to suppose that he was laboring under the delusion that the body was that of Kasba. The mistake was very possible, for the object was enveloped in a “hairy coat,” and was covered with snow when Delgezie discovered it. He had evidently caught it from the sled without closely inspecting it and rushed into the house with the senseless David in the belief that it was Kasba he was carrying. Roy was debating how best to acquaint Delgezie with the error when the matter was taken entirely out of his hands by Sahanderry, who had drawn nigh and was now hurling a volley of questions at the unconscious boy.

Delgezie started as if electrified when the import of Sahanderry’s importunate questions dawned upon him. He glanced suspiciously around as if to perceive whether by any possibility the body could have been changed, then rushed to the table, where he gazed long and searchingly at David, whose existence he had evidently forgotten in his great despair for Kasba. Then wildly he turned, and, holding up his hands, cried in accents of direst agony: “She is my all, O God! Take not the tender branch and leave the old trunk standing!” Then, dropping his hands, he added as if to himself, “But I will find her or never return alive!”

Uttering these words, he was again about to rush from the room when Roy caught his arm and so prevented him. With the fury of a wild animal the old man turned on his captor; then, perceiving whom he was struggling with, he instantly desisted. The trader, however, held him for a moment longer in order to allow time for his habit of discipline to assert itself, then commanded him, with a harshness he was far from feeling, to seat himself and so remain until he was told to move. The poor old man seated himself mechanically with bowed head and dazed, resigned manner pitiful to witness. The sight of the Indian’s profound despair went to the heart of the trader, who had a singular affection for the aged; but the moment was too pregnant of danger both to the boy on the table and the girl out in the drifting snow to allow him to engage in sentiment.

Meanwhile Broom with commendable dexterity had removed all of David’s clothing.

“Snow! Bring snow!” he cried.

Sahanderry and the little dog-driver, who had been present during these proceedings, quickly fetched the required snow.

The unfortunate boy’s hands and face were literally frozen. His eyes were closed, and his lips pressed tightly together.

Broom and Hopkins now gave the boy a vigorous rubbing with snow to restore the circulation, which had been arrested by the intense cold. This was no soft, agreeable massage, but a lustily performed rubbing that almost took the skin off.

After a time these exhausting efforts had the desired effect. David sighed and opened his eyes.

Whereupon the garrulous Sahanderry again bombarded him with questions, but a peremptory: “Be quiet and fetch me some hot water,” from the trader, sent him post-haste to the kitchen.

Hastily diluting some brandy, Roy, after a little difficulty, got it down the boy’s throat and almost immediately he seemed much revived. The light expression returned to his eyes, and he tried to articulate, and the trader began to hope that he might have an explanation before he left on his search for the missing girl; and while the boy had been undergoing his severe course of friction Roy had been by no means idle, as two neatly rolled bundles enveloped in blankets testified. He had tied up what necessaries he judged likely to prove useful to the distressed Kasba, making them into two bundles, each ready to sling across a man’s shoulder. He intended to carry one himself and give the other to Delgezie to carry; thereby guarding against any possibility of either of them coming upon the girl without the recuperating necessaries; for in their hazardous hunt for the missing girl the two men might become separated. Then, bending over the prostrate boy, Roy earnestly adjured him to tell where he had last seen Kasba.

David’s attempts to articulate were pitiful to behold; the name of the girl he loved as a sister stimulated him to heroic efforts to speak, but he could only moan in reply, while large tears ran down his burning cheeks.

Roy soon perceived that he would be unable to get an explanation from the boy in the usual way, and resolved to acquire the desired information by the intricate means of signs.

Again he bent over David and this time he spoke in Chipewyan.

“Now, David,” he said, speaking slowly, “I see that you are unable to talk, but you can hear me speak and by doing what I desire, you will make yourself understood just as well. If you wish to answer ‘yes’ close both your eyes, if ‘no’ keep them open. You understand me, don’t you?”

The boy’s bright eyes shut instantly.

“That’s right!” said Roy. “Now, was Kasba walking ‘before’ the dogs when you last saw her?” Those bright eyes shut again.

“Good! You were coming to the Fort and were somewhere near the ‘little hill’?”

The boy’s eyes closed quickly.

“You were on this side of the ‘hill’?”

David stared at him.

“You were on the other side?”

David shut his eyes in the affirmative.

For a moment Roy hesitated, then, as if deciding he could not get any further information, he turned to go. But as he did so he saw such a look of profound despair pass over David’s face that he turned to him again. The mute appeal in the boy’s eyes gripped at his heart.

“You want me to search in some particular place for Kasba?” he said.

The eyes shut instantly.

“At the ‘saw pit’?” David stared at him.

“Sandy Ridge?” There was no response.

Roy mentioned all the likely localities by name, but those haunting eyes only watched him feverishly.

Tenderly he patted the boy’s head. “You have done your best, David,” Roy said, “but it is impossible for me to understand where you mean and I must go and look for the girl without further delay.” With this he turned away. But David, after lying perfectly still as if to collect all his failing energies for one mighty effort, partly raised himself and called out something in a hoarse shriek, but with such vehemence as to cause the first part to be quite unintelligible.

The sound of David’s voice brought Roy round on his heel with a swing. His quick ear had caught the word “gully.” The boy was lying on the table breathing fast and hard, his keen black eyes watching the trader with an eagerness that told that he was anxiously waiting to be further questioned.

“Gully! gully!” said Roy to himself; “What does he mean?” Then, in a flash it came to him. About a mile from the “little hill” was a gully, Peter’s gully.

Again he essayed an explanation from David.

There was now a glad, happy look on the boy’s face as if by some means he had discovered that Roy was in possession of the name he had tried so very hard to utter. Probably Roy’s look of relief, or, what is more likely, the movement of his lips, as he repeated the words to himself, had given the boy his cue.

The question was scarcely put before it was answered by those black eyes, which closed several times in as many flashes. Then, as if the excited boy’s unnaturally pent-up feelings had suddenly broken bonds he gave a horrible, ghastly laugh that sent an unpleasant thrill through all within hearing.

Delgezie, who had remained perfectly impassive while Roy was interrogating David, jumped excitedly to his feet at the sound of this unnatural laughter.

“What’s that?” he demanded, gazing around him in a scared, bewildered fashion.

Roy touched the old man’s arm softly. “Come, Delgezie,” he said, cheerfully. “We will now go and find Kasba; David thinks she might be sheltering in Peter’s Gully. I think we can find that even in this drift, eh, old man?”

The old Chipewyan started suddenly at hearing his daughter’s name. He gazed at Roy for a moment in doubt, then, perceiving a smile on his face, he smiled pathetically in return.

“I think so,” he replied, and at once started for the door.

“Wait! Catch hold of this,” cried Roy, pitching one of the bundles to him, then slipping the other over his own shoulder. “We must go equipped or we may as well stay at home.”

The distracted father was now all impatience to be off. But Roy paused to give Broom a few instructions for the proper disposal of David. Then, carrying a small compass in his hand, he walked outside, closely followed by the old Indian.

Closing the door, Roy paused to take his bearings by the compass, then started after Delgezie, who was already some yards in front. He did not seek to overtake the old man, but followed close behind, keeping him in sight except, occasionally, when a snow-cloud enveloped him for a few moments. The force of the wind was terrific. It swept over the plain howling like a pack of wolves, and drove the men before it at a great pace.

After scudding along at this unusual speed for some time the air became literally filled with snow-flakes and the darkness thickened. It was with utmost difficulty that Roy was able to consult the compass. But feeling assured that he was going in the right direction he allowed the wind to blow him forward.

Suddenly the darkness lifted and Roy gazed about him in search of Delgezie, but nowhere could he be seen. A ridge of rocks loomed out of the gloom and caused Roy to consult the compass anew. “You’re a bit of a liar, my friend,” he murmured, slipping the offending instrument into his mitten in token of his disgust, for he knew by the character of the rocks that he had come directly south and not south-west as he had intended—the compass had proved incorrect, as compasses frequently do in the Far North.

“Well,” thought Roy, “I may as well have a look now that I am here,” and with this determination he steered his way to a small ravine which he knew ran through the rocks before him.

And there he lustily shouted the girl’s name, but there was no response, and after a time he turned and left the ravine in an attempt to reach Peter’s Gully, his original destination. However, he had not walked far into the open before he stumbled and fell, and picking himself up he found that he had tripped over a pair of snowshoes. These he eagerly scrutinized. From their size he perceived that they belonged to Kasba, and with a terrific yell that fairly outrivalled the howling of the wind he recommenced his search for their owner.

After searching for some time, Roy discovered an object huddled in a hollow of the rocks and sprang forward with a low cry of eagerness, but in his impetuosity he tripped and fell heavily. The noise and ejaculation occasioned by the fall apparently awoke the object into life. For a little cloud of snow arose as a covering was suddenly thrown back and the girl’s face appeared. Roy struggled to his feet with a laugh, but it was with a sobered air that he approached Kasba.

“Are you all right, Kasba?” he inquired, anxiously peering down at her.

The girl nodded; she was too cold to articulate, and unable to rise from the same cause.

Perceiving this, Roy caught her up in his arms to transport her to another part of the ravine where, as he knew, there was plenty of dry wood for a fire.

Thus Kasba was brought into the closest possible contact with the man she loved, and, despite her resolution to think of him no more, she nestled in Roy’s strong embrace with a little sigh of complete contentment; she felt that the severe hardships she had undergone in the blizzard were proving blessings in disguise now that they had given her these moments of rapturous happiness. Her little brown hand stole to his shoulder caressingly and she pressed closer to him.

He could feel the beautiful form of the young girl pressing against his breast. She was such a child, and was so little and dainty, that the temptation to respond to her caress was not to be withstood, and lowering his head a little he kissed her on the full lips.

The instant he did it he felt a pang of conscience for his act. It seemed like a sacrilege after just receiving letters from Lena.

But he had done it more thoughtlessly than otherwise, besides he was overjoyed at finding the girl safe and well. She had had a miraculous escape. Still, he realized he had done wrong.

Kasba sighed rapturously. He could feel her heart throbbing, and for a moment she clung to him passionately.

At this display of passion, he more than ever doubted the wisdom of his act. He had not intended playing the lover to this half-savage child. He felt he had played the villain. He knew she had more than ordinary intelligence and that if he went on in that way he would break her heart.

He disengaged himself kindly and stood her upon her feet, but she still clung to his arm, hugging it to her bosom. Her face was flushed and joyous: he had kissed her, and all eternity could not take from her the memory of that moment.

As for Roy, in my opinion, he was certainly skating over very thin ice.