Chapter 5

THE FIRST STAGE

For two days Stonor went about his preparations with an air of dogged determination. It seemed to him that all the light had gone out of his life, and hope was dead. He told himself that the proposed trip could not be otherwise than the stiffest kind of an ordeal to a man in his position, an ordeal calling for well-nigh superhuman self-control. How gladly would he have given it up, had he not given his word.

And then on the third day his spirits unaccountably began to rise. As a matter of fact youthful spirits must seek their natural level no less surely than water, but Stonor was angry with himself, accusing himself of lightheadedness, inconstancy and what not. His spirits continued to rise just the same. There was a delight in providing everything possible for her comfort. The mere thought of going away with her, under any circumstances whatsoever, made his heart sing.

John Gaviller was astonished by the size and variety of his requisition for supplies. Besides the customary rations Stonor included all the luxuries the store afforded: viz., tinned fish, vegetables and fruit; condensed milk, marmalade and cocoa. And in quantities double what he would ordinarily have taken.

"Getting luxurious in your old age, aren't you?" said the trader.

"Oh, I'm tired of an unrelieved diet of bannock and beans," said Stonor, with a carelessness so apparent, they ought to have been warned; but of course they never dreamed of anything so preposterous as the truth.

Stonor had two horses of his own. He engaged three more from Simon Grampierre, horses that he knew, and from Tole Grampierre purchased a fine rabbit-skin robe for Clare's bed on the trail. Tole, who had secretly hoped to be taken on this expedition, was much disappointed when no invitation was forthcoming. Stonor arranged with Tole to ride to meet him with additional supplies on the date when he might expect to be returning. Tole was to leave Enterprise on July 12th.

From Father Goussard Stonor borrowed a mosquito tent on the plea that his own was torn. He smuggled a folding camp-cot into his outfit. Clare fortunately had brought suitable clothes for the most part. How well Stonor was to know that little suit cut like a boy's with Norfolk jacket and divided skirt! What additional articles she needed Miss Pringle bought at the store for a mythical destitute Indian boy. They had soon found it necessary to take Miss Pringle into their confidence. She went about charged with the secret like a soda-water-bottle with the cork wired down.

Beside Gordon Strange, the only person around the post who could speak the Kakisa tongue was a woman, Mary Moosa, herself a Kakisa who had married a Cree. Her husband was a deck-hand on the steamboat. Stonor had already engaged Mary Moosa to take this trip with him as interpreter, and Mary, who had her own notions of propriety, had stipulated that her oldest boy be taken along. Mary herself promised to be a godsend on the trip; for she was just the comfortable dependable soul to look after Clare, but the boy now became a problem, for the dug-out that Stonor designed to use on the Swan River would only carry three persons comfortably, with the necessary outfit. Yet Stonor could not speak to Mary in advance about leaving the boy at home.

Such was Stonor's assiduity that everything was ready for the start two days ahead of time--an unheard-of thing up North. Everybody at the post gave up a morning to seeing the steamboat off. She carried with her a report from Stonor to his inspector, telling of the proposed trip. Clare was among those who waved to her from the shore. No surprise had been occasioned by the announcement of her decision to remain over a trip. Gaviller was already planning further entertainments. She had by this time moved down to the Mission with the Pringles.

On the afternoon of that day Stonor transported his goods and swam his horses across the river, to be ready for the start from the other side. Mary Moosa and her son met him there, and camped beside the outfit for the night. Stonor returned to Enterprise House for dinner. He had tried to get out of it, knowing that the fact of this dinner would rankle in the trader's breast afterwards, but Gaviller had insisted on giving him a send-off. It was not a happy affair, for three of the guests were wretchedly nervous. They could not help but see in their mind's eye Gaviller's expression of indignant astonishment when the news should be brought him next day.

Gaviller further insisted on taking everybody down to the shore to see Stonor off, thus obliging the trooper to make an extra trip across the river and back in order to maintain the fiction. Stonor slept in his own camp for an hour, and then rowed down-stream and across, to land in front of the Mission.

It is never perfectly dark at this season, and already day was beginning to break. Stonor climbed the bank, and showed himself at the top, knowing that they would be on the watch from within. The little grey log mission-house crouched in its neglected garden behind a fence of broken palings. But a touch of regeneration was already visible in Miss Pringle's geranium slips in the windows, and her bits of white curtain.

The door was silently opened, and the two women kissed in the entry. Stonor was never to forget that picture in the still grey light. Clare, clad in the little Norfolk suit and the boy's stout boots and hat, crossed the yard with the little mincing steps so characteristic of her, and therefore so charming to the man who waited. Her face was pale, her eyes bright. Miss Pringle stood in the doorway, massive and tearful, a hand pressed to her mouth.

Stonor's breast received a surprising wrench. "It's like an elopement!" he thought. "Ah, if she _were_ coming to me!"

She smiled at him without speaking, and handed over her bag. Stonor closed the gate softly, and they made their way down the bank, and got in the boat.

It was a good, stiff pull back against the current. They spoke little. Clare studied his grim face with some concern.

"Regrets?" she asked.

He rested on his oars for a moment and his face softened. He smiled at her frankly--and ruefully. "No regrets," he said, "but a certain amount of anxiety."

His glance conveyed a good deal more than that--in spite of him. "I love you with all my heart. Of course I clearly understand that you have nothing for me. I am prepared to see this thing through, no matter what the end means to me.--But be merciful!" All this was in his look. Whether she got it or not, no man could have told. She looked away and dabbled her hand in the water.

Mary Moosa was a self-respecting squaw who lived in a house with tables and chairs and went to church and washed her children with soap. In her plain black cotton dress, the skirt cut very full to allow her to ride astride, her new moccasins and her black straw hat she made a figure of matronly tidiness if not of beauty. She was cooking when they arrived. Her inward astonishment, at beholding Stonor returning with the white girl who had created such a sensation at the post, can be guessed; but, true to her traditions, she betrayed nothing of it to the whites. After a single glance in their direction her gaze returned to the frying-pan.

It was Stonor who was put out of countenance, "Miss Starling is going with us," he said, with a heavy scowl.

Mary made no comment on the situation, but continued gravely frying the flap-jacks to a delicate golden shade. Her son, aged about fourteen, who had less command over his countenance, stood in the background staring, with open eyes and mouth. It was a trying moment for Stonor and Clare. They discussed the prospects of a good day for the journey in rather strained voices.

However, it proved that Mary's silence had neither an unfriendly nor a censorious intention. She merely required time to get her breath, so to speak. She transferred the flap-jacks from the pan to a plate, and, putting them in the ashes to keep hot, arose and came to Clare with extended hand.

"How," she said, as she had been taught was manners to all.

Clare took her hand with a right good will.

It suddenly occurred to Mary that there was now no occasion for the boy to accompany them. Mary was a woman of few words. "You go home," she said calmly.

The boy broke into a howl of grief, proving that the delights of the road are much the same to boys, red or white.

"Poor little fellow!" said Clare.

"Too young for travel," said Mary, impassively. "More trouble than help."

Clare wished to intercede for him with Stonor, but the trooper shook his head.

"No room in the dug-out," he said.

Toma Moosa departed along the shore with his arm over his eyes.

Mary was as good as a man on a trip. While Stonor and Clare ate she packed the horses, and Stonor had only to throw the hitch and draw it taut. Clare watched this operation with interest.

"They swell up just like babies when you're putting their bands on," she remarked.

They were on the move shortly after sunrise, that is to say half-past three. As they rode away over the flat, each took a last look at the buildings of the post across the river, gilded by the horizontal rays, each wondering privately what fortune had in store for them before they should see the spot again.

They passed the last little shack and the last patch of grain before anybody was astir. When they rode out into the open country everybody's spirits rose. There is nothing like taking the trail to lift up the heart--and on a June morning in the north! Troubles, heart-aches and anxieties were left behind with the houses. Even Mary Moosa beamed in her inscrutable way.

Stonor experienced a fresh access of confidence, and proceeded to deceive himself all over again. "I'm cured!" he thought. "There's nothing to mope about. She's my friend. Anything else is out of the question, and I will not think of it again. We'll just be good pals like two fellows. You can be a pal with the right kind of girl, and she is that.--But better than any fellow, she's so damn good to look at!"

It was a lovely park-like country with graceful, white-stemmed poplars standing about on the sward, and dark spruces in the hollows. The grass was starred with flowers. When Nature sets out to make a park her style has a charming abandon that no landscape-gardener can ever hope to capture. After they mounted the low bench the country rolled shallowly, flat in the prospect, with a single, long, low eminence, blue athwart the horizon ahead.

"That's the divide between the Spirit and the Swan," said Stonor. "We'll cross it to-morrow. From here it looks like quite a mountain, but the ascent is so gradual we won't know we're over it until we see the water flowing the other way."

Clare rode Miles Aroon, Stonor's sorrel gelding, and Stonor rode the other police horse, a fine dark bay. These two animals fretted a good deal at the necessity of accommodating their pace to the humble pack animals. These latter had a stolid inscrutable look like their native masters. One in particular looked so respectable and matter-of-fact that Clare promptly christened her Lizzie.

Lizzie proved to be a horse of a strong, bourgeois character. If her pack was not adjusted exactly to her liking, she calmly sat on her haunches in the trail until it was fixed. Furthermore, she insisted on bringing up the rear of the cavalcade. If she was put in the middle, she simply fell out until the others had passed. In her chosen place she proceeded to fall asleep, with her head hanging ever lower and feet dragging, while the others went on. Stonor, who knew the horse, let her have her way. There was no danger of losing her. When she awoke and found herself alone, she would come tearing down the trail, screaming for her beloved companions.

Stonor rode at the head of his little company with a leg athwart his saddle, so he could hold converse with Clare behind.

Pointing to the trail stretching ahead of them like an endless brown ribbon over prairie and through bush, he said: "I suppose trails are the oldest things in America. Once thoroughly made they can never be effaced--except by the plough. You see, they never can run quite straight, though the country may be as flat as your hand, but the width never varies; three and a half hands."

Travelling with horses is not all picnicking. Three times a day they have to be unpacked and turned out to _graze_, and three times _caught_ and _packed again_; this in addition to the regular camp routine of pitching tents, rustling wood, cooking, etc. Clare announced her intention of taking over the cooking, but she found that baking biscuits over an open fire in a drizzle of rain, offered a new set of problems to the civilized cook, and Mary had to come to her rescue.

During this, their first spell by the trail, Stonor was highly amused to watch Clare's way with Mary. She simply ignored Mary's discouraging red-skin stolidity, and assumed that they were sisters under their skins. She pretended that it was necessary for them to take sides against Stonor in order to keep the man in his place. It was not long before Mary was grinning broadly. Finally at some low-voiced sally of Clare's she laughed outright. Stonor had never heard her laugh before. Thereafter she was Clare's. Realizing that the wonderful white girl really wished to make friends, Mary offered her a doglike devotion that never faltered throughout the difficult days that followed.

They slept throughout the middle part of the day, and later, the sky clearing, they rode until near sun-down in order to make a good water-hole that Mary knew of. When they had supped and made all snug for the night, Stonor let fall the piece of information that Mary was well known as a teller of tales at the Post. Clare gave her no peace then till she consented to tell a story. They sat in a row behind Stonor's little mosquito-bar, for the insects were abroad, with the fire burning before them, and Mary began.

"I tell you now how the people got the first medicine-pipe. This story is about Thunder. Thunder is everywhere. He roar in the mountains, he shout far out on the prairie. He strike the high rocks and they fall. He hit a tree and split it like with a big axe. He strike people and they die. He is bad. He like to strike down the tall things that stand. He is ver' powerful. He is the most strong one. Sometimes he steals women.

"Long tam ago, almost in the beginning, a man and his wife sit in their lodge when Thunder come and strike them. The man was not killed. At first he is lak dead, but bam-bye he rise up again and look around him. His wife not there. He say: 'Oh well, she gone to get wood or water,' and he sit awhile. But when the sun had gone under, he go out and ask the people where she go. Nobody see her. He look all over camp, but not find her. Then he know Thunder steal her, and he go out alone on the hills and mak' sorrow.

"When morning come he get up and go far away, and he ask all the animals he meet where Thunder live. They laugh and not tell him. Wolf say: 'W'at you think! We want go look for the one we fear? He is our danger. From others we can run away. From him there is no running. He strike and there we lie! Turn back! Go home! Do not look for the place of the feared one.'

"But the man travel on. Travel very far. Now he come to a lodge, a funny lodge, all made of stone. Here live the raven chief. The man go in.

"Raven chief say: 'Welcome, friend. Sit down. Sit down.' And food was put before him.

"When he finish eating, Raven say: 'Why you come here?'

"Man say: 'Thunder steal my wife away. I want find his place so I get her back.'

"Raven say: 'I think you be too scare to go in the lodge of that feared one. It is close by here. His lodge is made of stone like this, and hanging up inside are eyes--all the eyes of those he kill or steal away. He take out their eyes and hang them in his lodge. Now, will you enter?'

"Man say: 'No. I am afraid. What man could look on such things of fear and live?'

"Raven say: 'No common man can. There is only one old Thunder fears. There is only one he cannot kill. It is I, the Raven. Now I will give you medicine and he can't harm you. You go enter there, and look among those eyes for your wife's eyes, and if you find them, tell that Thunder why you come, and make him give them to you. Here now is a raven's wing. You point it to him, and he jomp back quick. But if that is not strong enough, take this. It is an arrow, and the stick is made of elk-horn. Take it, I say, and shoot it through his lodge.'

"Man say: 'Why make a fool of me? My heart is sad. I am crying.' And he cover up his head with his blanket and cry.

"Raven say: 'Wah! You do not believe me! Come out, come out, and I make you believe!' When they stand outside Raven ask: 'Is the home of your people far?'

"Man say: 'Very far!'

"'How many days' journey?'

"Man say: 'My heart is sad. I not count the days. The berries grow and get ripe since I leave my lodge.'

"Raven say: 'Can you see your camp from here?'

"Man think that is foolish question and say nothing.

"Then the Raven rub some medicine on his eyes and say: 'Look!' The man look and see his own camp. It was close. He see the people. He see the smoke rising from the lodges. And at that wonderful thing the man believe in the Raven's medicine.

"Then Raven say: 'Now take the wing and the arrow and go get your wife.'

"So the man take those things and go to Thunder's lodge. He go in and sit down by the door. Thunder sit inside and look at him with eyes of lightning. But the man look up and see those many pairs of eyes hanging up. And the eyes of his wife look at him, and he know them among all those others.

"Thunder ask in a voice that shake the ground: 'Why you come here?'

"Man say: 'I looking for my wife that you steal from me. There hang her eyes!'

"Thunder say: 'No man can enter my lodge and live!' He get up to strike him. But the man point the raven's wing at him, and Thunder fall back on his bed and shiver. But soon he is better, and get up again. Then the man put the elk-horn arrow to his bow, and shoot it through the lodge of rock. Right through that lodge of rock it make a crooked hole and let the sunlight in.

"Thunder cry out: 'Stop! You are stronger! You have the great medicine. You can have your wife. Take down her eyes.' So the man cut the string that held them, and right away his wife stand beside him.

"Thunder say: 'Now you know me. I have great power. I live here in summer, but when winter come I go far south where there is no winter. Here is my pipe. It is medicine. Take it and keep it. When I come in spring you fill and light this pipe, and you pray to me, you and all the people. Because I bring the rain which make the berries big and ripe. I bring the rain which make all things grow. So you must pray to me, you and all the people.'

"That is how the people got the first medicine-pipe. It was long ago."

* * * * *

Mary went to her own little tent, and presently they heard her peaceful snoring. The sound had the effect of giving body to the immensity of stillness that surrounded them and held them. Sitting beside Clare, looking out at the fire through the netting, Stonor felt his safeguards slipping fast. There they were, the two of them, to all intents alone in the world! How natural for them to draw close, and, while her head dropped on his shoulder, for his arm to slip around her slender form and hold her tight! He trembled a little, and his mouth went dry. If he had been visiting her he could have got out, but he couldn't put her out. There was nothing to do but sit tight and fight the thing. Moistening his lips, he said:

"It's been a good day on the whole."

"Ah, splendid!" she said. "If one could only hit the trail for ever without being obliged to arrive at a destination, and take up the burdens of a stationary life!"

Stonor pondered on this answer. It sounded almost as if she dreaded coming to the end of her journey.

Out of the breathless dusk came a long-drawn and inexpressibly mournful ululation. Clare involuntarily drew a little closer to Stonor. Ah, but it was hard to keep from seizing her then!

"Wolves?" she asked in an awe-struck tone.

He shook his head. "Only the wolf's little mongrel brother, coyote," he said.

"All my travelling has been done in the mountains," she explained. She shivered delicately. "The first night out is always a little terrible, isn't it?"

"You're not afraid?" he asked anxiously.

"Not exactly afraid. Just a little quivery."

She got up, and he held up the mosquito-netting for her to pass. Outside they instinctively lifted up their faces to the pale stars.

"It's safer and cleaner than a city," said Stonor simply.

"I know." She still lingered for a moment. "What's your name?" she asked abruptly.

"Martin."

"Good-night, Martin."

"Good-night!"

Later, rolling on his hard bed, he thought: "She might have given me her hand when she said it.--No, you fool! She did right not to! You've got to get a grip on yourself. This is only the first day! If you begin like this----!"