Chapter 5

The _Aurora Borealis_, after the loss of three precious days, during which Captain Jack endlessly backed and filled, and the water in the river steadily fell, had finally cast off that afternoon; and after ascending twenty miles or so, tied up to the bank to await the dawn. It was now about ten; overcast above; velvety dark below; and still as death. For the first time Garth and Natalie missed, with a catch in the breath, the faint, domestic murmur that rises on the quietest night from an inhabited land. It was so still they could occasionally hear the stealthy fall of tiny, furry feet among the leaves on shore. The trees kept watch on the bank like a regiment of shades at attention. The moment provided Natalie's opportunity to fulfil her promise.

"I will try to be very frank," she began by saying, "I am so anxious you should not misunderstand. You have been so good to me!"

"Please don't," said Garth uncomfortably. "Take me for granted as a man would. I shall never be at ease with you, if you're going to be thanking me at every opportunity!"

"I'll try not to," she said meekly. The darkness swallowed the smile and the shine her eyes bent on him.

If Garth expected a sad beginning he was immediately undeceived. Natalie's invincible spirits launched her gaily on her tale.

"I've lived all my days in a Canadian city back East," she began; "too big a place to be simple; and too small to be finished. I never appreciated the funny side of it until I travelled. You have no idea of the complacency of such a place, the beautiful self-sufficiency of the people; you should hear what a patronizing tone they take toward the outside world! But they have their good points; they're kind and friendly with each other; and not nearly so snobbish as the people of little places are generally pictured. Everybody that is anybody knows all the other somebodies so well, it's like one great family. My people have lived there for ages; and so everybody knows me; and half of them are my cousins.

"We've always been as poor as church mice," she continued in a tone of cheerful frankness. "We live in a huge house that is gradually coming down about our ears; the drawing-room carpet is full of holes; the old silver is shockingly dented and the Royal Worcester all chipped. There are other household secrets I need not go into. People are kind enough to make believe not to notice--even when they get a chunk of plaster on the head.

"Everybody says it's my father's fault; they say he's a ne'er-do-weel; and even unkinder things. But he's such a dear boy"--Natalie's voice softened--"as young, oh! years younger than you! And everything invariably goes wrong with his affairs," she continued briskly; "but he is always good-tempered, and never neglects to be polite to the ladies. My mother has been an invalid for ten years. We do all we can for her; but, poor dear! she isn't much interested in us! Can you blame her? And I have half a dozen dear, bad little brothers and sisters. We're all exactly alike; we fight all the time and love one another to distraction.

"You see it's not a picture of a well-ordered household I'm drawing you. Indeed it's a mystery how we ever get along at all; but we do, somehow; and no one the worse. Fortunately there seems to be something about us that people like. They just wag their heads and laugh and exclaim, 'Oh, the Blands!' and don't expect anything better of us. Conversations are started when some one comes in saying: 'Have you heard the latest about the Blands?' I'm sure they would be disappointed if we ever reformed. People have always been so kind to me"--Natalie's voice deepened again--"Ah! so _very_ kind, it makes my heart swell and my eyelids prickle when I think of it. I've been carried everywhere in luxury like an heiress," she briskened, "and there is no doubt I have been thoroughly spoiled."

Natalie paused awhile here; and Garth apprehended that, the prologue finished, the story was about to commence.

"A man, the first, fell in love with me when I was eighteen--six years ago," she presently resumed. "Of course I do not count all the dear, foolish boys before that--they say in Millerton that the boys attach themselves to me to finish their education--but that's all foolishness. I'm so very fond of boys! I could laugh and hug them all! They're so--so theatrical! But the man was different; he was fifteen years older than I; and alas! another ne'er-do-weel! He had been a football and a cricketing hero; he was very good-looking in a worn-out, dissipated kind of a way. He had gone to the bad in all the usual ways I believe--even dishonesty; though I didn't learn that until long afterward." The fun had died out of Natalie's voice now. "It's a miserable, ordinary kind of a story, isn't it?" she said deprecatingly. "Most girls go through with it safely; but I--well I was the simple sprat that was caught!

"He was returning to Millerton after a long absence," she went on; "his people were well known there. He appeared to be perfectly mad about me; and my poor little head was quite turned. His wickedness was vague and romantic; for no one ever explained anything to me of course; and the idea of leading him back into the paths of righteousness was quite distractingly attractive. I had no one to put me right, you see--but perhaps I wouldn't have listened if I had had.

"I won't weary you with all the silly details of the affair. My cheeks are burning now at the thought of my colossal folly. He won his mother over to his side. He was an only child; and she would have chopped off her hand to serve him. She joined her persuasions to his. He swore if I married him he would go out West, turn over that everlasting new leaf, and make his fortune. He wanted me to marry him before he went, so that he could feel sure of me. I did balk at that; I thought my word ought to be sufficient; but he and his mother pleaded and pleaded with me. Together, they were too much for me; and so, at last, I gave in. I thought I would be saving him; I thought I loved him--it is so easy for children to fool themselves! I married him."

Natalie paused; and with the ceasing of her voice, the great silence of the North woods seemed to leap between them, thrusting them asunder. Garth's heart for the journey was gone. He was thankful for the merciful darkness that hid his face.

Presently she resumed in the toneless voice of one who tells what cannot be mended: "We were married in Toronto. His mother and the clergyman were the only witnesses. The instant the words were spoken, the whole extent of the hideous mistake I had made was revealed to me--why is it we see so clearly _then_? We went direct from the ceremony to the station, where he boarded his train for the West. I have not laid eyes on him since. His name is Herbert Mabyn--and that, of course, is my legal name, which I have never used. It was his mother you met in Prince George."

Garth drew a deep breath; and carefully schooled his voice. "Is he alive?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "My journey is to find him."

"Was it necessary for _you_ to come?" he asked.

"There was no one else," she said. "No one but Mrs. Mabyn and he and I know of the marriage. There were many reasons--and complicated ones. I do wish to be frank with you; but I scarcely know how to explain. Only one thing is clear to me; I _had_ to come; or never know peace again.

"I have a conscience," she went on presently; "a queer, twisted thing; and with every man that became fond of me, thinking I was free, it hurt me more--though perhaps it did _them_ no real harm. And then there was Mrs. Mabyn--how can I explain to you about her?"

"I think I understand," Garth put in.

"She has been very kind to me all these years; but it was a kind of tyrannical kindness, too--it was as if she was tying me to her with one chain of kindness after another. And I wished to live my own life! And it seemed to me that the only way in which I could discharge my obligations to her, and win my freedom, was by doing this thing, which she so ardently desires. She believes, you see, that I am the only one who can save him."

Garth muttered something which sounded uncomplimentary to Mrs. Mabyn.

"But I am really fond of her," Natalie said quickly. "She has a mortal disease," she added; "one must make allowances for that."

"Where is _he_?" Garth asked.

"His last letter, eight months ago, was post-marked Spirit River Crossing," she said. "We gathered from it that he had a place somewhere near there. We know very little. At first he wrote often and cheerfully; he seemed to be getting on: but later, he moved about a great deal; his letters came at longer intervals; and the tone of them changed. His mother thinks his health has broken down. I am to find out; and to save him, if I can."

There was a long silence here. Garth could not speak for the fear of betraying an indignation which could only have hurt her; and Natalie was busy with her own painful thoughts.

"There is something else," she resumed at last in a very low tone. "I have not yet been quite frank with you--and I do so wish to be! You must not think I am undertaking this purely on his mother's account; for there is a selfish reason too. In the bottom of my heart there is a hope--perhaps it is a wicked hope--but if you knew how this collar has galled me!" She stopped; and then quickly resumed. "I married this man with my eyes open; and I will do my part by him--but if--" her voice fell again--"if it has not helped him; if in spite of my honest efforts to save him, and all the letters I wrote, if he has fallen lower than ever, and has ceased to struggle--then I will consider my part done!"

There seemed to be no more to say. Garth's heart was beating fast; and he was longing to tell her that he understood, and that he loved and admired her for what she had told him, but he could not tell her coldly, and he would not tell her warmly. As for Natalie, she waited breathlessly for his first word; mightily desiring his approval, but too proud to ask it. Finally she could stand the suspense no longer and pride succumbed. It took her a long time to get the question out.

"Are you--are you sorry you volunteered to take me?" she faltered.

"No!" cried Garth in a great voice.

She found his hand in the darkness; and gave it a swift, grateful squeeze. "Good night!" she whispered; and ran to her stateroom.

Garth, with his pipe and the mighty stillness to bear him company, remained on deck until dawn. In the spirit of the North he discovered something akin to his own soul; the solitude and the stillness braced him to deny himself manfully what was not manfully his to have. In the act of relinquishing Natalie, he felt, what he would not have supposed possible, a great, added tenderness for her. Before he went in, his sober cheerfulness had returned; but in the morning he was somehow more mature.

VII

MARY CO-QUE-WASA'S ERRAND

At noon next day the little _Aurora Borealis_ was reclining drunkenly on a shoal in the river at the foot of Caliper island, sixty miles above the Landing, and fifteen below the Warehouse. This had been the place of Captain Jack's gloomy forebodings all the way up. The river spread wide, shallow and swift on either side the island, and neither one channel nor the other would permit their ascent. The _Aurora_ was having a little breathing space on the shoal, while Captain Jack and St. Paul, the big half-breed pilot, debated below on what to do.

The three passengers looked on from the upper deck. Natalie and Garth tacitly ignored any change in their relation to-day; and no reference was made to Natalie's story. They seemed, if anything, more friendly with each other; nevertheless Constraint, like a spectre standing between them, intercepted all their communications.

The third passenger was a half-breed woman nearing middle age, clad in a decent black print dress, and a black straw hat, under the brim of which depended a circlet of attenuated, grizzled curls. Her face, like that of all the natives in the presence of whites, expressed a blank, in her case a mysterious blank. She was silent and ubiquitous; whichever way they looked, there she was. Captain Jack had mentioned to Garth that her name was Mary Co-que-wasa. The off-hand shrug that accompanied the information, between men, was significant. Garth resented it; and his sympathies were enlisted. He had made several efforts to talk to the woman, only to be received with a stupid shake of the head. He thought she could not speak English. Natalie, more keenly intuitive, took an active dislike to her. "I'm sure she listens to us," she had said.

Meanwhile, preparations were undertaken to hoist the _Aurora Borealis_ by main strength up the rapids. The "skiff," as they whimsically termed the steamboat's great, clumsy tender--its official name of "_sturgeon-head_" was more descriptive--was brought alongside; and a half-mile of hawser, more or less, patiently coiled in the bottom. The end of this rope was made fast on board the steamer, and the skiff, pushing off, was poled and tracked up the rapids with heart-breaking labour, paying out the hawser over her stern as she went. The other end of the rope was made fast to a great tree on the shore above, and, the skiff returning, the inboard end was turned about the capstan. Steam was then turned on, and with a great to-do of puffing and clanking, the _Aurora_ started to haul herself up hand over hand, as one might say.

Alas! she had no sooner raised her head than the hawser parted in the middle with a report like a small cannon, and she settled dejectedly back on the shoal.

Captain Jack refreshed himself with a pull at the Spring Tonic bottle; and started all over. A newer piece of hawser was produced, and the skiff despatched once more on its laborious errand. The loose end was finally picked up and knotted, and the capstan started again. But no better success followed, as soon as the full strain came upon it, the rope burst asunder in a new place. After this they went around the other side of the island and tried there. Each attempt consumed an hour or more, but time is nothing in the North.

At five o'clock, after the failure of the fourth attempt, Captain Jack threw up his hands, and turned the _Aurora's_ nose down-stream. The little boat, which had sulked and hung back in the rapids all day, picked up her heels, and hustled down with the current, like a wilful child that obtains its own way at last.

Garth, in dismay, hastened to Captain Jack.

"Where are we going?" he demanded.

Captain Jack cocked an eye, and said with his air of gloomy fatalism: "The Landing's the only place for me."

Garth became hot under the collar, as he always did in dealing with the pessimistic skipper. "But we're only fifteen miles from the Warehouse!" he cried.

"Might as well be fifteen hundred," said Captain Jack, "for all I can get you there."

"Is there no house anywhere near?"

The skipper looked at him with gloomy scorn. "Say, do you think you're in a rural neighbourhood?" he inquired.

"I asked you a question," Garth repeated. "Is there any one living near here?"

Captain Jack shrugged. "Sometimes there's breeds at Bear Portage below," he said. "But not in the summer."

"Is there no road?"

"Not what _you'd_ call a road. How would you carry your outfit?"

This was a poser, Garth could not deny. "Where are the breeds in the summer?" he demanded.

Captain Jack flung up his hands. "God knows!" he said. "Pitching somewheres about between the East and the West!"

Garth set his jaw. "Well, there's some way of reaching the Warehouse," he said, "and I'm going to find it. You stop at Bear Portage, as you call it, and I'll see what I can do."

"Sure!" said Captain Jack hopelessly. "As long as you like--But you'll never make it!" he added with an atrabilious eye. "Never in God's world! You better take my advice and get out of the country while you can!"

Garth turned on his heel, and Captain Jack revisited his stateroom for consolation. Here, two shelves at the foot of his berth contained his pharmaceutical stock in ancient, torn and fly-specked wrappers. He bought every new variety of remedy he heard of with the ardour of a collector. One of his most serious occupations was to lie in bed in the morning, making up his mind what to begin the day on. Endless and ingenious were the combinations he made.

They tied up at Bear Portage and had supper. Afterward, three breed boys with their scent for happenings in the bush, as unerring and mysterious as the buzzard's scent for carrion, turned up from nowhere, and at the same time a fourth came nosing under the bank in a crazy dugout filled with grass. So soft was the arrival of the last that Garth was not aware of it, until he happened to catch sight of Mary Co-que-wasa deep in a whispered consultation with the paddler. Finding Garth's eyes upon her, Mary, with a hasty word to the boy, embarked, and the canoe's nose was turned up-stream. As a possible means of transport later, Garth called after the boy; but he only paddled the faster. The incident caused Garth a vague uneasiness.

In the other three he found a means, such as it was, of extricating them from their dilemma. He learned through St. Paul, who interpreted, that there was a camp of Indians engaged in cutting wild hay, seven miles off, and that a wagon and team could be got there next morning, to carry them and their goods to the Warehouse. At the mention of seven miles, Garth looked dubiously at Natalie, but she stoutly averred her ability to do it twice if necessary, and since nothing better offered, Garth hired the boys to show the way and carry the baggage.

The _Aurora Borealis_ presently backed off, and blithely kicking up the water astern, disappeared down the river. Her going out severed their last bond with the world of civilization and henceforth they must fend for themselves in the wilderness. Natalie looked around at the grim, empty woods, and at the strange, alien boys who were to conduct them; and instinctively put out her hand to Garth.

The eldest and smartest of the breeds was a beady-eyed youth answering to the name of Pake. When the _Aurora_ passed out of sight his demeanour changed. It was not that he became openly insolent, but what was harder for Garth to deal with, he was blandly and blankly indifferent to the whites. Garth inwardly fumed, and there was a heavy weight of anxiety, too, for Natalie. Pake constructed packing harness out of rope, and divided all their goods into five lots, of which four were of about equal weight, and the fifth lighter. This one Garth supposed was for Natalie, though he thought it too heavy, but to his astonishment he learned Pake intended the light pack for himself, and one of the others for Natalie. Upon Garth's vigorous objections, Pake coolly added the greater part of Natalie's load to Garth's.

Hampered as he was by his augmented pack, Garth still managed to carry his rifle across his arm. And yet St. Paul, who interpreted for him, had assured him these were good boys and would treat him well. St. Paul was right, when Garth had been in the country longer he learned this was simply the breed way. Only superior, or at least equal, numbers will impress them, and then they are obsequious enough in good sooth.

Whatever Natalie thought of their situation, she put on a bold air. As they started Indian file, under the great trees in the gathering dusk, the three swarthy youths in advance bowed under their packs: "Look!" she cried. "Isn't it like the frontispiece to a book of adventure!"

The breeds inherit from the red side of the house a shuffling half-trot, produced with steady shoulders and rolling hips, that is a good deal faster than it looks. Natalie with her tiny bundle had much ado to keep up, and Garth under his, plodded doggedly behind, with breaking neck and shoulders. The breeds, careless of their fate, never once looked behind. Garth had to keep them in sight, or instantly lose the faint trail in the darkness.

After several miles of this, without warning, the breeds simultaneously cast their packs on the ground, and took a rest. Every move these strange creatures made was unexpected. Garth laboriously ridding himself of his burden, proceeded to read them a severe lecture on the necessity of accommodating their pace to the lady's for the rest of the way. It was received with stolid, uncomprehending stares.

Among themselves they gossiped freely enough, and from the frequent recurrence of the word _moon-i-yas_, Garth knew that he and Natalie were the subject of it all. The discomforting thought did not fail to suggest itself that they might be hatching a plot in the very presence of their intended victims. Their outfit, Garth reflected, must seem a very fortune to the ragged breeds. He watched them closely.

Presently they set off again as fast as ever, whereupon Garth did as he should have done at first, lost his temper, and swore at them roundly. Pake looked around with a gleam of awakened intelligence, and slackened his pace. After a brief consultation, Pake and another set off in advance with their share of the goods, leaving the third boy to guide the feebler steps of the two _moon-i-yas_. Garth wondered if they would ever see Pake and the boxes again.

It was a long seven miles; and absolute darkness clothed the lofty aisles of the pine trees long before they finished passing through; and beyond there were interminable, misty meadows of wild grass to be crossed. Garth could no longer distinguish any sign of a trail; but the breed bent steadily ahead. Once or twice an owl whirred suddenly low over their heads; and somewhere far off a loon guffawed insanely. In the end their guide, to cheer his own soul, lifted up his voice in the strident, unearthly chant of the Crees; and it only needed this to add the last touch of unreality to their eerie journey. They began to feel like spirits after death, hurried in the darkness they knew not whither.

At last a bright light flared suddenly across the hay marsh; and from their guide's joyful exclamation, they gathered that it marked the end of their journey. Fire was something human and known; and amazingly cheering. They covered the last lap at a brisk pace.

Five tepees, faintly phosphorescent with interior fires, stood in a line where the pine trees bounded the hay marsh. Garth's mind was relieved to find Pake waiting with the balance of the outfit intact. The fire they had seen was from an armful of brush lighted for a beacon to guide them. The people were all within. The three breed boys dived into the principal tepee without ceremony, leaving Garth and Natalie standing rather foolishly outside. They were evidently expected to follow; for presently a head was stuck inquiringly outside; and what they took for an invitation to enter was delivered in Cree.

"Let us go in," whispered Natalie. "I'm crazy to see what it's like!"

Without more ado, she lifted the flap which covered the entrance, and crawled, blinking, into the light, Garth close at her heels.

A fire was built on the ground in the centre of the tepee; and the smoke, filling the apex, finally found itself out at the top. Around the fire was grouped a motley, gipsy crew of all ages; the elders in the place of honour above the fire; the children by the door. The firelight threw their copper-coloured faces into strong relief; each wore an expression of stolid expectation. Stolidity is the pet affectation of the breed; at heart he is as garrulous as an ape. Like mongrels generally, their manners were bad; a grunt served for welcome, and places were coolly pointed out where they should sit.