The Heart of Unaga Part 41

It was his new inspiration that lent wings to the feet of Marcel when he hastened to collect his personal outfit. It was under the same inspiration that he flung himself into the task of preparing for the fulfilment of his pledge. And from the moment he joined the girl's outfit on the banks of the river that came up out of the south he became the acknowledged leader, whose will was absolute.

And Keeko's spirit was swift to respond. She displayed a readiness that must have astonished the Indians who were accustomed to implicit acknowledgment of her rule. Or, perhaps, in their savage hearts, they understood something of the change that had been wrought. Here was a great white man, a man whose power and abilities they were quick to recognize and appreciate, whose body was great, and whose eye was clear and commanding. Here was a white girl, fairer than any they had ever known, and whose spirit had served them in a hundred ways. Well? What then? They were all men of maturing years--these Indians. They had had many squaws of their own. Perhaps? Who could tell? It seemed natural that Keeko should choose her man from those of her own colour. And if this man were to be the chosen one they were ready to yield him the same fidelity they would yield to her.

So the night before the morning of departure came round. In three days Marcel had completed every preparation, and all was in readiness for the earliest possible start.

By the time supper was finished the summer daylight showed no sign of giving way to the two-hour night. Marcel had that in his mind which he was determined to do before their well-earned rest beside the camp-fire was taken. And he pointed at the iron-bound cliff which frowned down upon the waters of the river.

"Say, Keeko, I've a notion to set it up before we quit," he said, with a laugh. "Do you feel like pa.s.sing me a hand?"

Keeko turned from the sluggish waters, black with the reflection of the barren walls of the gorge.

"What are you going to set up?" she questioned like one dragged back from the contemplation of happy dreams.

"Oh, it's just a notion," Marcel laughed, in a boyish, half shamefaced fas.h.i.+on as he lit his pipe with a firebrand. "Will you--come along?"

Keeko was on her feet in a moment. For all the days of labour there was no weariness in her body. Besides----

"Guess you're handing me a mystery," she cried happily. "Seeing I'm a woman I can't just miss it."

So they pa.s.sed up the rugged foresh.o.r.e to the foot of the path that cut a perilous ascent to the fringe of the primordial forest above. It was the man who led, and Keeko had no desire that it should be otherwise.

In a few minutes they were standing beside the fallen tree-trunk where Marcel had first gazed down upon the scant encampment over which his sovereignty was now absolute. He drew a deep breath as he gazed again upon that first scene of the new life that had come to him.

"Gee!" he said, "I'm kind of glad."

"Glad?"

Keeko was regarding him amusedly. In those first three days of their life together, in her woman's way, she had been studying him. And that which she had learned filled her with a tender, almost motherly amus.e.m.e.nt. He was transparent in his simplicity. His singleness of purpose was almost amazing. But under it all she had become aware of a strength and latent force that could only be guessed at. Their talks had been less intimate during the time of their preparations, and she understood that it was the result of the purpose that preoccupied him.

Now she speculated as to that which was in his mind. What was the boyish whim that had brought them to the place he had selected as their tryst?

What was it that had made him express such gladness?

"I was thinking of that darn old moose," Marcel explained with eyes alight and whimsical.

The girl waited and he went on.

"Say, I guess life's a pretty queer thing," he observed profoundly.

"It's a mighty small piece between content and discontent, isn't it?

It's so small you'd think anyone of sense could fix it so we couldn't be discontented--ever. Yet we either can't or won't fix it. One leads to good and the other leads to bad--and only time can say how bad. I was getting mighty near discontent. Why? Because I'd got most everything I wanted except the things--I wanted." He laughed. "I was crazy for something, and I didn't quite know what. There was something in me crying out, hollering help, and I couldn't hand that help. Well, I guess there isn't a sound like that going on in me now. I'm just crazy with content."

"Why?"

The girl's question was instant, but, in a moment, she regretted it.

The man's eyes regarded her steadily for a moment, and Keeko hastily turned away. Promptly the echoes of the canyon were awakened by the youth's laughter.

"I couldn't just tell you--easy," he cried. "But I'm about as content as a basking seal. That's all. It's easier telling you how I feel glad thinking of that old moose. Oh, yes, that's easy. I owe him a debt I can't repay easy, seeing he's dead. Still, I feel like doing the best I know to make him feel good about things."

Marcel's mood infected the girl.

"You're--you're not reckoning to start in and--bury him?" she cried.

Marcel shook his head.

"There's only his bones left. The rest of him is chasing around in the bellies of a pack of timber wolves. No. It's his head and his antlers.

The wolves have cleaned his head sheer to the bone, as I reckoned they would, and I've toted their leavings right here, and I guess we're going to set it up a monument. Say, Keeko," he went on, with real seriousness, "I couldn't quit this camp here without setting up a monument. Do you know why?"

Keeko sat herself on the old tree-trunk. She made no reply. She simply waited for whatever he had to say.

"It's to commemorate something," he went on quickly, gazing out over the canyon. "I've found something I've been looking for--years. And I just didn't know I was looking for it. Well, that old moose found it for me.

So I'm going to set his skull up, with his proud antlers a-top of it, in the best and highest place I can set it, so his old dead eye sockets can just look out over the territory he reigned over till Fate reckoned it was time to set a human queen reigning in his stead. I don't guess he'll worry about things. He'll just feel proud that it wasn't a feller of his own s.e.x ever beat him, and, if I know a thing, he'll feel sort of content and pleased watching over things for us."

The whim of the man, intended to be so light, was full of real feeling.

Keeko was torn between tears and laughter. In the end she trusted herself only to a simple question.

"Where are you going to fix him up?" she demanded.

The spell was broken. Marcel promptly became the man of action. He pointed at the gnarled and broken head of a stunted tree growing at the very edge of the canyon, with its battered crest reaching out at a perilous angle over the abyss.

"At the head of that," he said, "so he can watch for your coming up out of the south, and--tell me about it."

"But----!"

A sickening apprehension had seized upon Keeko as she contemplated the overhang of the tree. It was almost at right angles to the face of the cliff. It projected out nearly thirty feet, and below--Her woman's heart could not repress a shudder at the thought of the three hundred feet drop to the rocky shoals in the waters below.

"You don't mean that?" she demanded a little desperately.

Marcel nodded.

"It's plumb easy."

There was no showiness, no bravado. Marcel had no thought to dazzle the girl. His purpose was a simple, boyish act.

He moved off into the forest while Keeko looked after him. From her heart she could have begged him to abandon, or modify his plan. But she refrained, and, somehow, sick at the thought of his purpose, she still realized a thrill at the object of it all. She looked at the roots of the overhanging tree and shuddered. They were partly torn out of the ground.

Marcel returned with his trophy. It was a burden of no mean weight. And Keeko's recognition of the fact only added to her fears.

"How--?" she began. But her question remained unasked.

"It's a cinch," Marcel cried. "Don't worry a thing. See those?" He pointed at two thongs of plaited rawhide, each secured to one of the horns. "Guess I'll tie them into a sling about the old trunk, and move the poor feller's head up as I get out, leaving it hanging below. Then, when I get to the end, I'll just haul it up, and fix it in its place.

I've got it all figured."

Keeko nodded.

"I can help you fix the slings," she said eagerly.

"Sure."

The approval had its effect. Keeko set her teeth, and beat down her panic.