IV
IN THE NIGHT
PRIME made his way to the camp-fire at the lake edge, a prey to manydisturbing emotions. Having lived a life practically void of adventure,the sudden collision with bloody tragedy shocked him prodigiously. Outof the welter of emotions he dug a single fixed and unalterabledecision. Come what might, his companion must be kept from all knowledgeof the duel and its ghastly outcome.
"Dear me! You look as if you had seen a ghost," was the way the battleof concealment was opened when he came within the circle of firelight."Did you find any berries?"
Prime shook his head. "No, it was too dark," he said; "and, anyway, I'mnot sure there were any."
"Never mind," was the cheerful rejoinder. "We have enough without them,and, really, I am beginning to get the knack of the pan-bread. If youdon't say it is better this evening--" She broke off suddenly. He hadsat down by the fire and was nursing his knees to keep them fromknocking together. "Why, what _is_ the matter with you? You are as paleas a sheet."
"I--I stumbled over something and fell down," he explained hesitantly."It wasn't much of a fall, but it seemed to shake me up a good bit. I'llbe all right in a minute or two."
"You are simply tired to death," she put in sympathetically. "The longtramp this afternoon was too much for you."
Prime resented the sympathy. He was not willing to admit that he couldnot endure as much as she could--as much as any mere woman could.
"I'm not especially tired," he denied; and to prove it he began to eatas if he were hungry, and to talk, and to make his companion talk, ofthings as far as possible removed from the sombre heart of a Canadianforest.
Immediately after supper he began to build another sleeping-shelter,though the young woman insisted that it was ridiculous for him to feelthat he was obliged to do this at every fresh stopping-place. None theless, he persevered, partly because the work relieved him of thenecessity of trying to keep up appearances. Fortunately, Miss Millingtonconfessed herself weary enough to go to bed early, and after she lefthim Prime sat before the fire, smoking the dust out of his tobacco-pouchand formulating his plan for the keeping of the horrid secret.
The plan was simple enough, asking only for time and a sufficientquantity--and quality--of nerve. When he could be sure that hiscamp-mate was safely asleep he would go back to the glade and dispose ofthe two dead men in some way so that she would never know of theirexistence alive or dead.
The waiting proved to be a terrific strain; the more so since theconditions were strictly compelling. The chance to secure the ownerlessand well-stocked canoe was by no means to be lost, but Prime sawdifficulties ahead. His companion would wish to know a lot of thingsthat she must not be told, and he was well assured that she would haveto be convinced of their right to take the canoe before she wouldconsent to be an accomplice in the taking. This meant delay, which inits turn rigidly imposed the complete effacement of all traces of thetragedy. He was waiting to begin the effacement.
By the time his tobacco was gone he was quivering with a nervousimpatience to be up and at it and have it over with. After the cracklingfire died down the forest silence was unbroken. The young woman wasasleep; he could hear her regular breathing. But the time was not yetripe. The moon had risen, but it was not yet high enough to pour itsrays into the tree-sheltered glade, and without its light to aid him thehorrible thing he had to do would be still more horrible.
It was nearly midnight when he got up from his place beside thewhitening embers of the camp-fire and pulled himself together for thegrewsome task. Half-way to the glade a fit of trembling seized him andhe had to sit down until it passed. It was immensely humiliating, and helamented the carefully civilized pre-existence which had left him sohelplessly unable to cope with the primitive and the unusual.
When he reached the glade and the big spruce the moon was shining fullupon the two dead men. One of them had a crooking arm locked around theneck of the other. Prime's gorge rose when he found that he had tostrain and tug to break the arm-grip, and he had a creeping shock ofhorror when he discovered that the gripped throat had a gaping woundthrough which the man's life had fled. In the body of the other man hefound a retaliatory knife, buried to the haft, and it took all hisstrength to withdraw it.
With these unnerving preliminaries fairly over, he went on doggedly,dragging the bodies one at a time to the river-brink. Selecting thequietest of the eddies, and making sure of its sufficient depth bysounding with a broken tree limb, he began a search forweighting-stones. There were none on the river-bank, and he had to goback to the lake shore for them, carrying them an armful at a time.
The weighting process kept even pace with the other ghastly details.The men both wore the belted coats of the northern guides, and he firsttried filling the pockets with stones. When this seemed entirelyinadequate he trudged back to the abandoned canoe and secured a pair ofblankets from its lading. Of these he made a winding-sheet for each ofthe dead men, wrapping the stones in with the bodies, and making allfast as well as he could with strings fashioned from strips of theblanketing.
All this took time, and before it was finished, with the two stiffenedbodies settling to the bottom of the deep pool, Prime was sick andshaken. What remained to be done was less distressing. Going back to theglade he searched until he found the other hunting-knife. Also, ingroping under the murder tree he found a small buckskin sack filled withcoins. A lighted match showed him the contents--a handful of brightEnglish sovereigns. The inference was plain; the two men had fought forthe possession of the gold, and both had lost.
Prime went back to the river and, kneeling at the water's edge, scouredthe two knives with sand to remove the blood-stains. That done, and theknives well hidden in the bow of the canoe, he made another journey tothe glade and carefully scattered the ashes of the five fires.
Owing to the civilized pre-existence, he was fagged and weary to thepoint of collapse when he finally returned to the campfire on the lakebeach and flung himself down beside it to sleep. But for long hourssleep would not come, and when it did come it was little better than asuccession of hideous nightmares in which two dark-faced men werereproachfully throttling him and dragging him down into the bottomlessdepths of the outlet river.
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