Chapter 29

A BUCKSKIN HUNTING-SHIRT

The days of his convalescence in the camp of the Lacombies were days fraught with mingled emotions in the heart of Bill Carmody.

Old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta treated him with cold deference, anticipating his needs with a sagacity that was almost uncanny. She appeared hardly to be aware of his presence, yet many times the man felt, without seeing, the deep, burning gaze of the undimmed, black eyes.

Jacques, whom he had known in the logging-camp as Blood River Jack, treated him with open friendliness, and as he became able to move about the camp, taught him much of the lore of the forest, of the building of nets and traps, the smoke-tanning of buckskin, and the taking and drying of salmon.

During the long evenings the two sat close to the smudge of the camp-fire and talked of many things, while the women listened.

But of the three it was the girl who most interested him. She was his almost constant companion, silent and subtle at times, and with the inborn subtlety of women she defied his most skilful attempts to share her thoughts.

At other times her naïve frankness and innocent brutality of expression surprised and amused him. Baffling, revealing--she remained at all times an enigma.

By the middle of June Bill was able to make short excursions to the river with the aid of the crutches which Blood River Jack crudely fashioned from young saplings.

With his increased freedom of movement his restlessness increased. Somewhere along the river, he knew, the bird's-eye logs were banked, awaiting the arrival of Moncrossen and Stromberg to raft them to the railway, and he surmised that their coming would not be long delayed.

Over and over in his mind he turned schemes for outwitting the boss. The strength was rapidly returning to his injured leg and he discarded one crutch, using the other only to help him over the rough places.

He was in no condition to undertake a journey to the railway, and in spite of Blood River Jack's expressed hatred of Moncrossen and friendship for himself, he hesitated about taking the half-breed into his confidence.

At length he could stand the suspense no longer. Each day's delay lessened his chance of success. He decided to act--to lay the matter before Blood River Jack and ask his coöperation, and if he refused, to play the game alone.

He came to this decision one afternoon while seated upon a great log overlooking the rushing rapid. Beside him sat Jeanne, apparently deeply engrossed in the embroidering of a buckskin hunting-shirt.

After a long silence Bill knocked the dead ashes from his pipe, and his jaw squared as he looked out over the foaming white-water. He turned toward the girl and encountered the intense gaze of her dark eyes.

The neglected needlework lay across her knees, the small hands were folded, and the shining needle glinted in the sun where it had been deftly caught into the yellow buckskin at the turning of an unfinished scroll.

"The logs which you seek," she said quietly, "are piled upon the bank of the river, half a mile below the rapids." The man regarded her with a startled glance.

"What do you know about these logs--and of what I was thinking?"

She answered him with a curious, baffling smile, and, ignoring his question, continued:

"You need help. I am but a girl and know naught of logs nor why these logs did not go down the river with the others. But in your face as you pondered from day to day I have read it. Is it not that you would prevent Moncrossen from taking these logs? But you know not how to do it, for the logs must go down the river and Moncrossen must come up the river?"

"You are a wonder!" he exclaimed in admiration. "That's exactly what's been bothering me." She blushed furiously under his gaze and, with lowering eyes, continued:

"I do not know how it can be managed, but Jacques will know. You may trust Jacques as you trust me. For we are your friends, and his hatred of Moncrossen is a real hatred."

She raised her eyes to his.

"Do you know why Jacques hates Moncrossen, and why Wa-ha-ta-na-ta hates all white men?" she asked. Bill shook his head and listened as the girl, with blazing eyes, told him of the death of Pierre, and then, of the horror of that night on Broken Knee.

At her words Bill Carmody's face darkened, and his great fists clenched until the nails bit deep into his palms. The steel-gray eyes narrowed to slits and, as the girl finished, he arose and gently lifted one of the little hands between his own.

"I, too, could kill Moncrossen for _that_," he said, and the tone of his voice was low, and soft, with a tense, even softness that sounded in the ears of the girl more terrible than a thousand loud hurled threats.

She looked up quickly into the face of the glinting eyes, her tiny hand trembled in his, and a sudden flush deepened the warm color of her neck.

"For me?" she faltered. "_Me?_" And, with a half-smothered, frightened gasp, tore her hand free and fled swiftly into the forest.

Bill stared a long time at the place where she disappeared, and, smiling, stooped and picked up her needlework where it had fallen at his feet.

He examined it idly for a moment and then more closely as a puzzled look crept into his eyes. The garment he held in his hand was never designed for a covering for the girl's own lithe body, nor was it small enough even for Jacques.

"She's worked on it every day for a month," he murmured, as he glanced from the intricate embroidered design to his own shirt of ragged flannel, and again he smiled--bitterly.

"She's a queer kid," he said softly, as he recovered his crutch; "and a mighty good kid, too."