STRANDED IN ARCADY
I
THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
AT the half-conscious moment of awakening Prime had a confusedimpression that he must have gone to bed leaving the electric lightsturned on full-blast. Succeeding impressions were even moredisconcerting. It seemed that he had also gone to bed with his clotheson; that the bed was unaccountably hard; that the pillow had borrowedthe characteristics of a pillory.
Sitting up to give these chaotic conclusions a chance to clarifythemselves, he was still more bewildered. That which had figured as theblaze of the neglected electrics resolved itself into the morning sunreflecting dazzlement from the dimpled surface of a woodland lake. Thehard bed proved to be a sandy beach; the pillory pillow a gnarled andtwisted tree root which had given him a crick in his neck.
When he put his hand to the cramped neck muscle and moved to escape thebedazzling sun reflection, the changed point of view gave him a shock.Sitting with her back to a tree at a little distance was a strange youngwoman--strange in the sense that he was sure he had never seen herbefore. Like himself, she had evidently just awakened, and she wasstaring at him out of wide-open, slate-gray eyes. In the eyes he saw avast bewilderment comparable to his own, something of alarm, and a traceof subconscious embarrassment as she put her hands to her hair, whichwas sadly tumbled.
Prime scrambled to his feet and said, "Good morning"--merely because theconventions, in whatever surroundings, die hard. At this the young womangot up, too, patting and pinning the rebellious hair into subjection.
"Good morning," she returned, quite calmly; and then: "If you--if youlive here, perhaps you will be good enough to tell me where I am."
Prime checked a smile. "You beat me to it," he countered affably. "I wasabout to ask you if you could tell me where _I_ am."
"Don't you know where you are?" she demanded.
"Only relatively; this charming sylvan environment is doubtlesssomewhere in America, but, as to the precise spot, I assure you I haveno more idea than the man in the moon."
"It's a dream--it must be!" the young woman protested gropingly. "Lastnight I was in a city--in Quebec."
"So was I," was the prompt rejoinder. Then he felt for his watch,saying: "Wait a moment, let's see if it really was last night."
She waited; and then--"Was it?" she inquired eagerly.
"Yes, it must have been; my watch is still running."
She put her hand to her head. "I can't seem to think very clearly. If wewere in Quebec last night, we can't be so very far from Quebec thismorning. Can't you--don't you recognize this place at all?"
Prime took his first comprehensive survey of the surroundings. So far ascould be seen there was nothing but the lake, with its farther shoredimly visible, and the primeval forest of pine, spruce, fir, and ghostlybirch--a forest all-enveloping, shadowy, and rather forbidding, evenwith the summer morning sunlight playing upon it.
"It looks as if we might be a long way from Quebec," he ventured. "I amnot very familiar with the Provinces, but these woods----"
She interrupted him anxiously. "A long way? How could it be--in a singlenight?" Then: "You are giving me to understand that you are not--thatyou don't know how we come to be here?"
"You must believe that, if you can't believe anything else," he hastenedto say. "I don't know where we are, or how we got here, or why we shouldbe here. In other words, I am not the kidnapper; I'm the kidnapped--orat least half of them."
"It seems as if it _must_ be a bad dream," she returned, with the frownof perplexity growing between the pretty eyes. "Things like this don'treally happen, you know."
"I know they don't, as a rule. I've tried to make them happen, now andthen, on paper, but they always seem to lack a good bit in the way ofverisimilitude."
The young woman turned away to walk down to the lake edge, where sheknelt and washed her face and hands, drying them afterward on herhandkerchief.
"Well," she asked, coming back to him, "have you thought of anythingyet?"
He shook his head. "Honestly, I haven't anything left to think with.That part of my mind has basely escaped. But I have found something,"and he pointed to a little heap of provisions and utensils piled at theupper edge of the sand belt: a flitch of bacon, sewn in canvas, a tinysack of flour, a few cans of tinned things, matches, a camper'sfrying-pan, and a small coffee-pot. "Whoever brought us here didn't meanthat we should starve for a day or two, at least. Shall we breakfastfirst and investigate afterward?"
"'We?'" she said. "Can you cook?"
"Not so that any one would notice it," he laughed. "Can you?"
She matched the laugh, and it relieved him mightily. It was herundoubted right as a woman to cry out, or faint, or be foolishlyhysterical if she chose; the circumstances certainly warrantedanything. But she was apparently waiving her privilege.
"Yes, I ought to be able to cook. When I am at home I teach domesticscience in a girls' school. Will you make a fire?"
Prime bestirred himself like a seasoned camper--which was as far aspossible from being the fact. There was plenty of dry wood at hand, anda bit of stripped birch bark answered for kindling. The young womanremoved her coat and pulled up her sleeves. Prime cut the bacon with hispocket-knife, and, much to the detriment of the same implement, opened acan of peaches. For the bread, Domestic Science wrestled heroically witha lack of appliances; the batter had to be stirred in the tiny skilletwith water taken from the lake.
The cooking was also difficult. Being strictly city-bred, neither ofthem knew enough to let the fire burn down to coals, and they tried tobake the pan-bread over the flames. The result was rather smoky andsaddening, and the young woman felt called upon to apologize. But thepeaches, fished out of the tin with a sharpened birch twig for a fork,were good, and so was the bacon; and for sauce there was a fair degreeof outdoor hunger. Over the breakfast they plunged once more into themystery.
"Let us try it by the process of elimination," Prime suggested. "First,let me see if I can cancel myself. When I am at home in New York my nameis Donald Prime, and I am a perfectly harmless writer of stories. Theeditors are the only people who really hate me, and you could hardlycharge this"--with an arm-wave to include the surroundingwilderness--"to the vindictiveness of an editor, could you?"
He wished to make her laugh again, and he succeeded--in spite of the sadpan-bread.
"Perhaps you have been muck-raking somebody in your stories," sheremarked. "But that wouldn't include me. I am even more harmless thanyou are. My worst enemies are frivolous girls from well-to-do familieswho think it beneath them to learn to cook scientifically."
"It's a joke," Prime offered soberly; "it can't be anything else." Then:"If we only knew what is expected of us, so that we could play up toour part. What is the last thing you remember--in Quebec?"
"The most commonplace thing in the world. I am, or I was, a member of avacation excursion party of school-teachers. Last evening at the hotelsomebody proposed that we go to the Heights of Abraham and see the oldbattle-field by moonlight."
"And you did it?"
"Yes. After we had tramped all over the place, one of the young womenasked me if I wouldn't like to go with her to the head of the cove whereGeneral Wolfe and his men climbed up from the river. We went together,and while we were there the young woman stumbled and fell and turned herankle--or at least she said she did. I took her arm to help her back tothe others, and in a little while I began to feel so tired and sleepythat I simply couldn't drag myself another step. That is the last that Iremember."
"I can't tell quite such a straight story," said Prime, taking his turn,"but at any rate I shan't begin by telling you a lie. I'm afraid Iwas--er--drunk, you know."
"Tell me," she commanded, as one who would know the worst.
"I, too, was on my vacation," he went on. "I was to meet a friend ofmine in Boston, and we were to motor together through New England. Atthe last moment I had a telegram fro
m this friend changing the plan andasking me to meet him in Quebec. I arrived a day or so ahead of him, Isuppose; at least, he wasn't at the hotel where he said he'd be."
"Go on," she encouraged.
"I had been there a day and a night, waiting, and, since I didn't knowany one in Quebec, it was becoming rather tiresome. Last evening atdinner I happened to sit in with a big, two-fisted young fellow whoconfessed that he was in the same boat--waiting for somebody to turn up.After dinner we went out together and made a round of the movies, withthree or four cafes sandwiched in between. I drank a little, just to befriendly with the chap, and the next thing I knew I was trying to go tosleep over one of the cafe tables. I seem to remember that my chanceacquaintance got me up and headed me for the hotel; but after that it'sall a blank."
"Didn't you know any better than to drink with a total stranger?" theyoung woman asked crisply.
"Apparently I didn't. But the three or four thimblefuls of cheap wineoughtn't to have knocked me out. It was awful stuff; worse than the _vinordinaire_ they feed you in the Paris wine-shops."
"It seems rather suspicious, doesn't it?" she mused; "your suddensleepiness? Are you--are you used to drinking?"
"Tea," he laughed; "I'm a perfect inebriate with a teapot."
"There must be an explanation of some sort," she insisted. Then: "Canyou climb a tree?"
He got up and dusted the sand from his clothes.
"I haven't done it since I used to pick apples in my grandfather'sorchard at Batavia, but I'll try," and he left her to go in search of atree tall enough to serve for an outlook.
The young woman had the two kitchen utensils washed and sand-scoured bythe time he came back.
"Well?" she inquired.
"A wild and woolly wilderness," he reported; "just a trifle more of itthan you can see from here. The lake is five or six miles wide andperhaps twice as long. There are low hills to the north and woodseverywhere."
"And no houses or anything?"
"Nothing; for all I could see, we might be the only two human beings onthe face of the earth."
"You seem to be quite cheerful about it," she retorted.
He grinned good-naturedly. "That is a matter of temperament. I'd begrouchy enough if it would do any good. I shall lose my motor tripthrough New England."
"Think--think hard!" the young woman pleaded. "Since there is no sign ofa road, we must have come in a boat; in that case we can't be very farfrom Quebec. Surely there must be some one living on the shore of a lakeas big as this. We must walk until we find a house."
"We'll do anything you say," Prime agreed; and they set out together,following the lake shore to the left, chiefly because the beachbroadened in that direction and so afforded easy walking.
A tramp of a mile northward scarcely served to change the point of view.There was no break in the encircling forest, and at the end of the milethey came to a deeply indented bay, where the continuing shore was inplain view for a doubling of another mile. The search for inhabitantsseeming to promise nothing in this direction, they turned and retracedtheir steps to the breakfast camp, still puzzling over the tangle ofmysteries.
"Can't you think of _any_ way of accounting for it?" the young womanurged for the twentieth time in the puzzlings.
"I can think of a million ways--all of them blankly impossible," saidPrime. "It's simply a chaotic joke!"
The young woman shook her head. "I have lost my sense of humor," sheconfessed, adding: "I shall go stark, staring mad if we can't find outsomething!"
More to keep things from going from bad to worse than for any otherreason, Prime suggested a walk in the opposite direction--southward fromthe breakfast camp. While they were still within sight of the ashes ofthe breakfast fire they made a discovery. The loose beach sand wastracked back and forth, and in one place there were scorings as if someheavy body had been dragged. Just beyond the footprints there were wheeltracks, beginning abruptly and ending in the same manner a hundred yardsfarther along. The wheel tracks were parallel but widely separated,ill-defined in the loose sand but easily traceable.
"A wagon?" questioned the young woman.
"No," said Prime soberly; "it was--er--it looks as if it might have beenan aeroplane."
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