The Snowshoe Trail Part 16

"I'm glad to hear it." Bill glanced at his watch. "It's late, but by mus.h.i.+ng fast we can make it in by dark. I told Virginia that I'd likely need an extra day at least--she'll think I've worked fast. She'd know it--if she had seen how you looked an hour ago. I was counting on finding you somewhere along the Yuga."

"We moved up--a few weeks ago."

"There's one other thing, before we start. I want you to tell these understrappers of yours to take that squaw and clear out of Clearwater.

Tell 'em to take her back where she belongs--to Buckshot Dan. He'll take her in, all right. I've been working in Miss Tremont's interests until now--now I'm working in my own. This happens to be my trapping country. If I come back in a few weeks and find them still here there's apt to be some considerable shedding of a bad mixture of bad blood. In other words--skin out while you yet can."

The half-breeds, understanding perfectly, looked to Harold for confirmation. The latter had already learned several lessons of importance this day, and he didn't really care to learn any more. His answer was swift.

"Go, as he says," Harold directed.

Their dark faces grew sullen. The idea was evidently not to their favor. Then one asked a question in the Indian vernacular.

Bill was alert at once. Here was a situation that he couldn't handle.

Harold glanced once at his face, saw by his expression that he was baffled, and answered in the same language. From the tone of his voice Bill would have said that he uttered a promise.

Once more the Indian questioned, and Harold hesitated an instant, as if seeking an answer. It seemed to the other white man that his eye fell to the rifle that Bill carried. Then he spoke again, gesturing. The gesture that he made was four fingers, as if in an instinctive motion, held before the Indian's eyes. Then he announced that he was ready to go.

The afternoon was almost done when they started out. The distant trees were already dim; phantoms were gathered in the s.p.a.ces between the trunks. The two mushed swiftly through the snow.

Bill had enough memory of that glance to his rifle to prefer to walk behind, keeping a close eye on Harold. Yet he could see no reason on earth why the man should make any attempt upon his life. The trip was to Harold's own advantage.

He had plenty of time to think in the long walk to his cabin. Only the snowy forest lay about him: the only sound was the crunch of their shoes in the snow, and there was nothing to distract him. Now that it was evident that Harold had no designs upon his life, he walked with bowed head, a dark l.u.s.ter in his eyes.

He had fulfilled his contract and found the missing man. Even now he was showing him the way to Virginia. He wondered if he had been a fool to have sacrificed his own happiness for an unworthy rival. The world grew dreary and dark about him.

He had tried to hide his own tragedy by a mask of brusqueness, even a grim humor when he had given his orders to Harold. But he hadn't deceived himself. His heart had been leading within him. Now he even felt the beginnings of bitterness, but he crushed them down with all the power of his will. He mustn't let himself grow bitter, at least,--black and hating and jealous. Rather he must follow his star, believe yet in its beauty and its fidelity, and never look at it through gla.s.ses darkly. He must take what fate had given him and be content,--a few wonderful weeks that could never come again. He had had his fling of happiness; the day was at an end.

It was true. As if by a grim symbolism, darkness fell over Clearwater.

The form in front of him grew dim, ghostly, yet well he knew its reality. The distant trunks blurred, faded, and were obliterated; the trees, swept and hidden by the snow, were like silent ghosts that faded; the whole vista was like a scene in a strange and tragic dream.

The silence seemed to press him down like a malignant weight. The mysterious and eerie sorrow of the northern night went home to him as never before.

He knew all too well the outcome of this day's work. There would be a few little moments of grat.i.tude from Virginia; perhaps in the joy of the reunion she would even forget to give him this. He would try to smile at her, to wish her happiness; he would fight to make his voice sound like his own. She would take Harold to her heart the same as ever. He had not the least hope of any other consummation. Now that Harold was shaved and clean he was a handsome youth, and all the full sweep of her old love would go to him in an instant. In fact, her love had already gone to him--across thousands of miles of weary wasteland--and through that love she had come clear up to these terrible wilds to find him.

His speech, his bearing seemed already changed. He was remembering that he was a gentleman, one of Virginia's own kind. He already looked the part. Perhaps he was already on the way toward true regeneration.

It was better that he should be, for Virginia's happiness. Her happiness--this had been the motive and the theme of Bill's work clear through: it was his one consolation now. In a few days the snow crust would be firm enough to trust, and hand in hand they would go down toward Bradleyburg. He would see the joy in their faces, the old l.u.s.ter of which he himself had dreamed in Virginia's eyes. But it would not flow out to him. The holy miracle would not raise him from the dead. He would serve her to the last, and when at length they saw the roofs and tottering chimneys of Bradleyburg she would go out of his work and out of his life, never to return. In their native city Harold Lounsbury would take his old place. He's have his uncle's fortune to aid him in is struggle for success. The test of existence was not so hard down there; he might be wholly able to hold Virginia's respect and love, and make her happy. Such was Bill's last prayer.

They were nearing the cabin now. They saw the candlelight, like a pale ghost, in the window. Virginia was still up, reading, perhaps, before the fire. She didn't guess what happiness Bill was bringing her across the snow.

Bill could fancy her, bright eyes intent, face a little thoughtful, perhaps, but tender as the eyes of angels. He could see her hair burnished in the candlelight, the soft, gracious beauty of her face.

Her lips, too,--he couldn't forget those lips of hers. A shudder of cold pa.s.sed over his frame.

He strode forward and put his hand on Harold's arm. "Wait," he commanded. "There's one thing more."

Harold paused, and the darkness was not so dense but that this face was vaguely revealed, sullen and questioning.

"There's one thing more," Bill repeated again. "I've brought you here.

I've given you your chance--for redemption. G.o.d knows if I had my choice I'd have killed you first. She's not going to know about the squaw, unless you tell her. These matters are all for you to decide, I won't interfere."

He paused, and Harold waited. And his eager ears caught the faint throb of feeling in the low, almost muttered notes.

"But don't forget I'm there," he went on. "I work for her--until she goes out of my charge and I'm her guide, her protector, the guardian of her happiness. That's all I care about--her happiness. I don't know whether or not I did wrong to bring a squaw man to her--but if you're man enough to hold her love and make her happy, it doesn't matter. But I give--one warning."

His voice changed. It took on a quality of infinite and immutable prophecy In the darkness and the silence, the voice might have come from some higher realm, speaking the irrevocable will of the forest G.o.ds.

"She'll be more or less in your power at times, up here. I won't be with you every minute. But if you take one jot of advantage of that fact--either in word or deed--I'll break you and smash you and kill you in my hands!"

He waited an instant for the words to go home. Harold s.h.i.+vered as if with cold. And because in his mind already lay the vision of their meeting, he uttered one more sentence of instructions. He was a strong man, this son of the forest--and no man dared deny the trait--but he could not steel himself to see that first kiss. The sight of the girl, fluttering and enraptured in Harold's arms, the soft loveliness of her lips on his, was more than he could bear.

"Go on in," he said. "She's waiting for you."

And she was. She had waited six years, dreaming all the while of his return. Harold went in, and left his savior to the doubtful mercy of the winter forest, the darkness that had crept into his heart, and the hush that might have been the utter silence of death itself had it not been for the image of a faint, enraptured cry, the utterance of dreams come true, within the cabin door.

XVI

When Virginia heard the tramp of feet on her threshold she didn't dream but that Bill had returned a day earlier than he had planned. Her heart gave a queer little flutter of relief. The cabin had been lonely to-night, the silence had oppressed her; most of all she had dreaded the long night without the comforting rea.s.surance of his presence. She wouldn't have admitted, even to herself, that her comfort was so dependent upon this man. And she sprang up, joyously as a bird springing from a bough, to welcome him.

The next instant she stopped, appalled. The door did not open, the steps did not cross her threshold. Instead, knuckles rapped feebly on the door.

Even in a city, it is a rather discomforting experience for a girl, alone in a home at night, to answer a tap on the door. Here in this awful silence and solitude she was simply and wholly terrified. She hadn't dreamed that there was a stranger within many miles of the cabin.

For an instant she didn't know what to do. The knock sounded again.

But Virginia had acquired a certain measure of self-discipline in these weary weeks, and her mind at once flashed to her pistol. Fortunately she had not taken it from her belt, and she had full confidence in her ability to shoot it quickly and well. Besides, she remembered that her door was securely bolted.

"Who's there?" she asked. "Is it you, Bill?"

"It's not Bill," the answer came. "But he's here."

The first thought that came to her was that Bill had been injured, hurt in some adventure in the snow, and men had brought him back to the cabin. Something that was like a sickness surged through her frame.

But an instant more she knew that, had he been injured, there would have been no wayfarers to find him and bring him in. There was only one remaining possibility: that this man was one whom Bill had gone out to find and who had returned with him.

The thought was so startling, so fraught with tremendous possibilities that for a moment she seemed to lose all power of speech or action.

"Who is it?" she asked again, steadily as she could.

And the answer came strange and stirring through the heavy door. "It's I--Harold Lounsbury. Bill told me to come."

Virginia was oppressed and baffled as if in a mysterious dream. For the moment she stood still, trying to quiet her leaping heart and her fluttering nerves. Yet she knew she had to make answer. She knew that she must find out whether this voice spoke true--whether or not it was her lost lover, returned to her at last.

Yet there could be no mistake. The voice was the same that she remembered of old. It was as if it had spoken out of the dead years.

Her hands clasped at her breast, then she walked to the threshold and opened the door.

Harold Lounsbury stepped through, blinking in the candlelight.

Instinctively the girl flung back, giving him full right of way and staring as if he were a ghost. He turned to her, half apologetic.

"Bill told me to come," he said.