Chapter 16

I flatter myself I am not without weight and standing in this community; and I hereby warn you that in the absence of the regular police, I mean to see this wrong righted. If Mrs. Mabyn is immediately returned to her husband, you will be allowed to go unmolested. If you still detain her, we will seize her by force, as we have every right, moral and legal, to do. We know you have only food enough for a few days, so in any case the end cannot remain long in doubt.

NICHOLAS GRYLLS.

Scorn and amusement struggled in Garth's face. His nostrils thinned; he suddenly threw up his head and grimly laughed.

"Well, this beats the Dutch!" he said feelingly.

Natalie, reading the cunningly plausible sentences over his shoulder, was inclined to be anxious. "Surely he has no legal right over me," she said.

"Not a shadow!" Garth said.

"Grylls may have believed this story Mabyn told him," she said.

"Not a bit of it!" Garth said quickly. "Grylls is not so simple." He stuck the letter sharply with his forefinger. "I'm a newspaper reporter," he went on dryly, "you can believe me, this is a perfect, a beautiful, a monumental bluff! I'm almost inclined to take off my hat to him! But the length of it gives them away, rather; they must have spent all day yesterday cooking this up."

"What will you do?" Natalie asked.

A wicked gleam appeared in Garth's eyes. "Oh, wouldn't I love to answer it in kind!" he said longingly.

"An innocent, simple little billet-doux that would make them squirm. Why, that's my business!"

"Better not," said Natalie anxiously.

"You're right," he said with a sigh. "It's the first thing you learn: never to write when you feel that way. But it's mighty hard to resist it!"

Rina understood little of all this. "You send answer back?" she asked.

"No. Tell him there's no answer," said Garth. "Tell him we nearly died laughing," he added.

* * * * *

That night Garth determined not to leave the cabin until shortly before dawn. He had seen Xavier leave the other camp before dark; and he guessed the breed youth had been told off to watch them. From what he had observed of the incontinuity of the breed mind in any given direction, he strongly suspected if they kept still throughout the first part of the night Xavier would fall asleep before morning. He had a little plan in his mind, which he did not confide to Natalie. About three o'clock, therefore, he called Natalie to bar the door after him; and he sallied forth, concealing from her that he carried a coil of light rope.

He was gone more than an hour, of which every minute was an age to poor Natalie crouching over the fire and straining her ears. She had successively pictured every possible accident that might have befallen him, before her heart leaped at the sound of his signal at the door.

Garth was for sending her back to bed forthwith, but Natalie apprehended he had not been gone so long for nothing; and presently she heard him stand two guns in the corner.

"What have you got?" she asked eagerly.

"Oh, I just made a trade." Garth airily returned. "Thirty feet of clothesline for a Winchester and a bag of cartridges. I threw in a handkerchief to boot. Pretty good, eh?"

Natalie pulled him in by the fire, and made him light his pipe and tell her what had happened.

"Well, I had a hunch Xavier was watching us to-night," he began. "I bore a grudge against Xavier's pretty face, and I thought I'd have a little fun with him, you see."

Natalie glanced up in alarm.

"A fellow would go mad, if he couldn't do _anything_," Garth apologized. "I'll be good now for a week."

"Xavier?" said Natalie inquiringly.

"I wouldn't have minded a little bit, giving the brute his quietus," Garth said coolly. "He killed my horse. But he had no chance to put up a fight; and I couldn't murder him; so at this present moment he's unhurt--except his feelings. But Grylls will half kill him in the morning!"

"What did you do to him?" she demanded.

"I was pretty sure he would be watching the path we have made to the trail," Garth went on. "I figured he would be on my left hand--his right; it's the position a man instinctively takes. You can't shoot so well over your right. So I crawled along the path, inch by inch on my stomach----"

"Garth!" she cried in horror. "If I had known!"

"Exactly!" he said. "So I didn't tell you. But there was no danger, really. It was too dark for him to shoot me--pitchy dark there, under the trees. I couldn't see an inch before my nose; and as I went I felt with my hand out in front of me, both sides the path. Thistledown was nothing to the lightness of my touch.

"Sure enough, no more than thirty yards behind the house here, I touched his moccasin--you couldn't mistake the feel of a moccasin. And, just as I expected, he was sitting on my left. That was a pretty good guess if----"

"Oh! Go on! Go on!" she begged.

"He had his back against a tree. I listened for his breathing. They breathe very light--tubercular, probably. Finally, I decided he was asleep.

"Well, I mosied around behind him; and then I grabbed him. He let out just one little squawk; and then he shut his mouth. He struggled; slippery as an oiled cat, but not very strong. Finally I got him gagged with my handkerchief. Then I tied him up with my rope; round and round; just like the stories we read when we were kids. I expect I pinched him some; that was for poor old Cy.

"Afterward I sat down opposite him; and lit my pipe; and thought over what I'd do with him, now I had him. We certainly weren't going to feed his ugly phiz; and he was no use as a hostage, for Grylls wouldn't give a hang what became of him. Meanwhile I was relieving my mind, by telling him a few plain truths about making war on dumb beasts. Hope he understood!"

Natalie concealed a smile. "What did you say?" she asked.

"Never mind," said Garth. "It was more forcible than polite. It's been sizzling inside me for two days. Finally I decided to return him to his own camp."

"Their camp!" exclaimed the startled Natalie.

"Not all the way," he said; "but just where they'd see him in the morning. Horrible example, and all that, you know. So I hoisted him on my back, and carried him around to the brook. I propped him against a tree there, with his face turned home." Garth chuckled. "To finish the thing up brown, I suppose I ought to have pinned a placard on his breast: Notice! This is the fate that awaits all who--_et cetera_. But I didn't think to take any writing materials along with me!"

"Oh, Garth!" said Natalie reproachfully, as he finished.

He turned a face of whimsical penitence. "Honest, I won't do it again!" he said. "But I was under two hundred pounds pressure. It was a case of blow off or bust!"

* * * * *

They could joke for each other's benefit; but privately neither attempted to disguise from himself what a desperate pass they had reached. When they parted for the night, Natalie would lie staring wide-eyed at the fire, and ceaselessly reproaching herself for having drawn Garth into the sad tangle of her life; while he, tossing on his blankets on the other side of the partition, blamed himself no less bitterly for having allowed her to run into danger; and wrung his exhausted brain for an expedient to save her.

A little beleaguered garrison watching its small store lessen day by day, and counting the crumbs--this is the situation of all to try the soul. But a garrison is always buoyed up by the hope of succour; and Garth and Natalie could expect none. On the other hand there was no possibility of treachery within this garrison; no need to measure out the rations, or to guard the store; for each was jealous of the other's having _less_; and each sought to give away his share.

There was no variety in those days. They waited in vain for an attack--even longed for it; for behind their walls, the odds would be more nearly equal. But the other party knew this too; and preferred to starve them out. Garth's snares yielded nothing in four days; the only flesh they ate during that time was a fish he caught with a line set at night in the lake. Their stores were reduced to a few handfuls of flour and a little tea. Meanwhile their enemies feasted insolently all day about their fire; this siege was child's play for them; they were so perfectly sure of their prey in the end.

There came a night at last when Garth and Natalie no longer cared to keep up the show of joking; they liked to be quiet instead; and they instinctively drew close together. They sat in the inner room; her head dropped frankly on his shoulder; and her hand lay in his. It made his heart ache to see how thin it was. But her spirit was still strong.

"Garth!" she said suddenly. "Let's make a break for it! Anything would be better than this!"

He shook his head. "No go, dearest," he said. "I've been over that, over and over it, every night for a week!"

"Couldn't we start down the lake in the canoe?" she said. "And make our way from some point below? We could cover our tracks that way, and gain much time. You have a rough map and a compass."

"They would discover in the morning that the canoe was gone," he said.

"They might not miss it for a day or two."

"They have the smoke of our fire to go by, too."

"They're careless. We might get a good start."

"Dearest, even if we had many days' start, they know we must make for the Settlement. How easy it would be to head us off!"

"But it _might_ succeed," was all she could say.

"It's seventy-five miles," he said sadly. "You're not strong yet. How could you walk it, without food to support you on the way?"

"You have your gun," she said faintly.

"There's no hunting on the open prairie for a man on foot!"

Natalie dropped her head back on his shoulder; and said no more.

Garth's face grew grimmer and grimmer in the firelight. "Do not lose heart, dear," he said at last, in a gentle voice that was strangely at variance with his eyes. "Matters will take a turn to-morrow; I promise you that."

"What are you going to do?" she asked anxiously.

"I'm thinking it out," he said, evasively. "I'll tell you when it's pieced together."

She was too weary to question him further.

In the darkness of his own room, he faced the thing. There was to be no sleep for him this night. The alternative had been there from the first; but hitherto he had averted his eyes from it, hoping against hope. Now it could be put off no longer. It was Natalie's life against theirs; and throughout the hours of the night, he steeled his heart to launch five souls to eternity--two of them the souls of women. Rina he knew would be transformed into a tigress by the death of Mabyn; so even Rina, whom Natalie loved, must go too. He found himself dwelling with horror on the harmony of her beauty, the deep fire of her eyes, the soft play of colour in her cheeks--which he was to mar!

Supposing he succeeded, the dreadful consequences were painfully clear to him; the hideous noise it would make in the world when they got out; the ugly look it would have, with no one to bear out his story but Natalie, and her lawful husband among the dead! Grylls's lying letter had shown him how easy it would be to paint that side of the story in the colours of justice. For himself, Garth cared nothing; but the thought of Natalie, the sport of a world of malicious tongues, maddened him. But there was no help for it; it had to be done.

His plan was simple in the extreme. He intended to cross the lake in the canoe; land well beyond Mabyn's camp; and fire the grass to the windward of the shack. No rain had fallen in weeks; the grass was as dry as tinder; and the old bleached shack itself almost as inflammable as gunpowder. He had, moreover, a small quantity of oil among the things seized from Mabyn. The night itself seemed to speak for the deed; it was as dark as Erebus; and there was a blustering, raw wind from the north, presaging snow.

After starting the fire, he meant to climb the rising ground behind; and when they ran to beat out the flames, he would pick them off one by one. His gun would shoot as fast as he could think; he might get all five then. And if any regained the hut, they would soon be driven out again. Whichever way they ran, Garth could run as fast on the higher ground; and none of them was such a shot as he. Grylls first; then Mabyn; then the breeds. He meant to wait until dawn, so that if any escaped the radius of the fire, he could get them by daylight.

But no executioner may have imagination; in the darkness of his room the attitudes of the slain were pictured to Garth as clearly as if they already lay before him: Grylls's gross body huddled in the grass; Mabyn hideous in death; and Rina cold and still in her wistful beauty. Cries of terror and agony rang in his ears; and he saw himself afterward burying the bodies--partly eaten by the flames. Small icy drops broke out on his forehead. Though he was doing it for her, when it was done, Natalie could not but shrink from such a bloody wretch. It would part them forever. But it must be done!

When his watch showed half-past four--the dawn was later now--he arose to start. He called Natalie to bar the door after him. He told her he was going merely to look about and that she must not worry if he was not back until daylight. Natalie was scarcely awake. He yearned mightily to take her soft, sleepy form in his arms for once before they were imbrued; but he dared not, knowing she would instantly interpret the act as a possible farewell.

When she closed the door behind him, he felt as one lost to hope.

As he grasped the canoe, preparatory to pushing it off, he suddenly became aware through his sharpened senses--he could not have said how--that some one was very near him. He noiselessly dropped to one knee; and unslinging his gun, waited. The wind was making confusing noises and he could not be sure. The suspense became too great to be borne in silence.

"Who's there?" he said sharply.

There came a strange, new, and yet familiar voice out of the darkness: "Garth, is that you?"

His heart began to beat wildly. "Who are you?" he whispered.

"Charley!" returned the voice with the boyish break in it.

They sprang to their feet simultaneously, not ten paces apart in the grass.

"I've brought you grub!" sang the boy. "How's Natalie?"

In an instant they were in each other's arms. A swift reaction passed over Garth; his knees weakened under him; he clung to the boy's shoulders; and lowered his head.

"Oh, thank God! thank God!" he murmured.

XXI

THE BROKEN DOOR

Garth beat recklessly on the cabin door crying:

"Natalie! Natalie! Good news!"

She was not long in opening.

"See what I've brought you back!" he shouted.

They slammed the door shut; and together pulled Charley in by the light of the fire.

"Charley! _Charley!_" cried Natalie, quite beside herself with delight; and flinging her free arm around his neck, she pressed her lips full on his.

The honest full-moon face of the boy turned as red as a peony; but his arms closed around her too, with a right good will; and it was Natalie in the end, who was obliged gently to disengage herself.

They all talked at once; they laughed and wept in concert. As soon as they finished shaking hands all around, they began again. Whenever Garth was at a loss to express his feelings, he whacked Charley between the shoulders, until the boy coughed. In the end, speech failing them completely, they whooped and capered about the shack like wild things.

"I say!" said Garth suddenly. "We're giving ourselves away nicely! The news has reached Mabyn and Grylls by this time."

They quieted down.

"Tell us your adventures, Charley dear," said Natalie.

"I'd better bring my stuff in first," said he.

"Where is it?"

The boy unslung a bundle from his back. "Thought you might be hungry, so I brought enough for a couple of squares," he said; "sugar, and tea, and bacon, and flour. And say, I thought something fancy would go down good; so there's a tin of sardines and a box of biscuits."

"Oh! you darling!" said Natalie.

Charley was much embarrassed. "The rest of the stuff's cached two miles down the shore," he went on hastily. "I'll trot along and bring it in."

"Take the canoe," said Garth; "and they can't hold you up."

"What will I do with the horses?" asked Charley.

This was a problem. "How many?" Garth asked.

"Three."

"How will we keep them out of Grylls's hands?"

"Why wait at all?" asked Natalie. "Let us all get in the canoe, and start for home. It will take me just five minutes to get ready!"

But Garth shook his head. "You can't ride above a walk yet," he said. "It would mean a running fight all the way. The odds are still too great against us in the open!"

"The fellows from the Settlement promised to come look for us in a week if we weren't home," said Charley.

"Good!" said Garth. "Then we'll wait for them!"

"And the horses?" said the boy anxiously. "They're not much to brag about; but I'm in debt a hundred bones for them."

Garth clapped him on the back again. "Don't you worry about that, old boy!" he cried. "The debt is mine! Tell you what we'll do!" he added, "We'll bring them up here, and swim them off to the island. There's forage enough over there for a day or two, and they will be right under our eyes!"

They set off immediately in the canoe; and it was all accomplished as planned. Charley brought the precious grub back by water, out of Grylls's possible reach; while Garth drove the horses in over the trail at a smart pace. Nothing happened en route; it was probably all done before their adversaries had time to plan an attack. They swam the horses to the island, and were both back in the shack, before it was light enough to aim a gun.

Breakfast followed; and such a breakfast! They both helped the one-armed cook. There was bannock light and snowy; bacon fried crisp--"breakfast" bacon, very different in the North from plain "bacon"; and fried sardines--delectable morsels! and coffee, and jam. All the delicious things Garth and Natalie had dreamed of paled beside this homely reality. Each of the three was delighted, moreover, to see the others eat; Charley in especial, at the sight of the good he had brought, could scarcely stop grinning to chew. Afterward he had to be told all that had happened; and he in return related his adventures.

"Tell you what! I was sore when Garth sent me back!" Charley began. "'What's the use!' I thought. 'I can't do any work, not knowing what's come of them.' In the end I just didn't go back. I had all kinds of crazy ideas about following you along the trail; but at last I thought maybe I could be some real use by hanging round the Settlement, and keeping an eye on Nick Grylls. And I did.

"Say, he really was knocked out all right, all right. They carried him in from the lake; and the sisters nursed him in the Convent. Construction of the brain he had, or something like that. Seems he got up when he first come to on the shore, walked ten miles, and then collapsed right near Grier's Point. But they kept that low. Hooliam gave out a great story, how a big storm came up on the lake, and how Nick fell overboard, _et cetera, et cetera_; Garth wasn't mentioned in it at all!

"Long before Nick was able to be around, he sent down for Mary Co-que-wasa and Xavier; and then I knew there was more mischief brewing. Say, those two are the toughest of the whole tough bunch. They say Xavier is Mary's son. All this time I was getting mighty worried myself, why you didn't come back, and I was going to look for you anyway. However, as soon as he was up, Grylls got a big outfit together, and started over the portage with the two breeds. He gave out that he was going up to Ostachegan Creek--but I knew! I got a couple of cayuses on credit, and a little grub; and followed him inside three hours.

"He beat me by a day to the Crossing, and went right through. Over there I heard about you from the fellows; and say, I was scared for fair, when I counted up the grub I knew you had, and then thought how long you'd been away! I hustled and got another horse and all the grub they would trust me for. I tried my darnedest to get some of the fellows to come with me. They laughed at me! They said I'd been reading too many dime novels--I never read any! You see, every one knows Nick Grylls so well, and nothing like this ever happened before. Jim Plaskett, the policeman, would have believed me; but he was away. I left a letter for him. I lost a couple of good days at the Crossing over this. The most the fellows would say was, if I didn't bring you back in a week, the bunch would ride up here.

"I was so excited with it all, I lost myself like a bloody fool for two days on the prairie; and I just ran on the lake, by accident, yesterday afternoon. Say, I almost gave the whole snap away, for I came over the hill right above Mabyn's shack. Maybe I didn't duck in a hurry! There was the whole bunch below me! Across the corner of the lake, I could see this house too. I know it must be yours because it was just built; and it had a sort of tenderfoot look to it. Say! I wasn't glad to see smoke coming out of the chimney! Oh, no!

"Well, that's about all. I took a long sweep around the prairie, and came down at the place where we got the horses. I thought they would have you watched, so I figured I'd better wait for night, before trying to open up communications. When she got good and dark, I crawled around the shore of the lake. But when I got here, I didn't know how in thunder to let you know it was me, without bringing down the bunch on us. So I decided to lay low till morning, and show myself to you, the first chance I got. Then Garth came out and it was all right!"

"Just in the nick of time!" said Garth grimly.

"What were you going to do?" asked Natalie quickly.

But he never told her.

* * * * *

They settled down with what patience they could muster, to wait for their relief. Two days passed without any hostile demonstration from the camp on the hill; but that their enemies kept themselves well informed, they had the best reason to know; for it snowed on the second day, and on the following morning there were moccasin tracks around the house, and the rounded marks of two knees under the loophole in Natalie's room. Garth had taken the precaution to hang a piece of canvas over the hole; nevertheless, the discovery made them decidedly uncomfortable. Garth nailed a board over the hole; and they searched the walls anew for any tell-tale crack that might betray them.

It grew warm again; and the snow melted off the ground. Frequent observations of the other camp taught them nothing. This apparent inactivity puzzled Garth, since the others must know that the game of starving them out was blocked with the arrival of Charley. They waited in momentary expectation of attack, or a proposal; but none came.

Garth's only serious anxiety now was for the three horses. They must by this time have cropped the limited herbage of the island; and in another day, when they began to suffer with hunger, they would undoubtedly swim off; and all his trouble to save them would be lost. He was greatly tempted by the recollection of a wide, low meadow on the edge of the lake below, where the blue-joint grass grew as high as a man's thigh, curing naturally in the sun. With an hour's labour, he reflected, he could cut enough to last them for a day.

There was a risk, of course, in depriving the cabin of its principal defender for even so long; but he would not be at any time more than half an hour's journey from them; and Charley ought surely to be able to hold the fort for that time. In case of an attack it might even be an advantage for him, Garth, to be on the outside of the cabin, where he could flank the attackers with his gun.