by Holman Day
CHAPTER XXIII
IN THE MATTER OF JOHN BARRETT'S DAUGHTER
"Warmth and comfort? Ay, all these Under the arch of the great spruce trees; But our cup o' content holds naught but foam!-- No woman's hand to make a home."
Wade did not wake when the cook's wailing hoot called the camp in themorning. It was black darkness still. He slept through all the clatterof tin dishes, the jangle of bind-chains as the sleds started, the yowlof runners on the dry snow, and the creaking of departing footsteps. Thesun quivered in his eyes when he rolled in the bunk at touch of oldChristopher's hand on his shoulder.
"Oh, but you needed it all, my boy!" protested the woodsman, checkingthe young man's peevish regrets that he had slept so long. "Come tobreakfast."
Barnum Withee had eaten with his men, but he was waiting in solitarystate in the cook camp, smoking his pipe, and moodily rapping the hornhandle of a case-knife on the table.
"Law says," he remarked to his guests, continuing aloud his meditations,"that employer shall send out remains of them that die in camp. But Iain't employer in this case, and I'm short of hosses, anyway, and thetote team only came in yesterday, and ain't due to go out again for aweek."
"It makes a lot of trouble, old critters dyin' that ain't got friends,"observed Christopher, spooning out beans.
"You may mean that sarcastic, but it's the truth just the same,"retorted Withee. "He ain't northin' to me. What I was thinkin' of, ifyou were bound out--"
"Ain't goin' that way," said the woodsman, giving Wade a significantglance.
"Well, from what things you let drop last night," grumbled the operator,"I figured that you were more or less interested in old Lane, andperhaps were lookin' him up for somethin', and if so you ought to bewillin' to help get him out and buried in a cemetery. He ain't a friendof mine and never was, and it ain't square to have the whole thingdumped onto me."
Wade, his heart made tender by his own grief, gazed towards the lonesomeisolation of the lean-to with moistening eyes. Alone, living; alone,dead! But Christopher put into cold phrase the burning fact they had toface.
"We've got business of our own for to-day, Barnum, and mighty importantbusiness, too."
And pulling their caps about their ears, and tugging their moose-sled,they set away, up the tote road to the north, leaving Barnum Withee notwholly easy in his mind regarding their motives.
It was from the snow-swirl on Dickery Pond that "Ladder" Lane hademerged, even then death-struck. It was straight to Dickery thatChristopher led the way, and two hours' steady trudging brought themthere.
"So it was from off there he came," muttered the woodsman, blinking intothe glare of the snow crystals on its broad surface. "But where, inGod's name, he came from it ain't in me to say!"
It was one of those still winter days when even the wind seems to bebound by the hard frost. The sliding snow-shoes shrieked as shrilly withthe sun high as they had in the early morning. There was no hint ofmelting.
"There are five old operations around this pond, and a set of emptycamps on each one," said Straight. "I've been to each one of them intimes past, and I know where the main roads come out to the landings.But it's slow business, takin' 'em one after the other. Perhaps we oughtto go back and beat the truth of this thing into Barnum Withee's thickhead, and start the hue and cry--but--but--I'd hoped to do it somebetter way."
"Straight," panted the young man, "it's getting to be perfectlydamnable, this suspense! Let's do something, if it's only to run up themiddle of that pond and shout!"
"Well," snorted the old guide, irrelevantly, "I've been lookin' forold Red Fins to come along for two days now, and I ain't disappointed.If there's trouble anywhere in this section, old Eli has got a smellerthat leads him to it." Wade whirled from his despairing survey of thepond and saw Prophet Eli. He was coming down the tote road on his"ding-swingle," urging on his little white stallion with loose, clappingreins. Huge mittens of vivid red encased his hands, and his conical,knitted cap was red, and was pulled down over his ears like acandle-snuffer.
Wade felt a queer little thrill of superstition as he looked at him, andthen sneered at himself as one who was allowing good wit to be infectedby the idle follies of the woods. And yet there was something eerie inthe way this bizarre old wanderer turned up now, as he had appearedtwice before at times that meant so much, at moments so crucial, inWade's woods life.
Prophet Eli swung up to them, halted, and peered at them curiously outof his little eyes.
"Green, blue, and yellow," he blurted, patting his much-variegated wooljacket. "And red! Red mittens good for the arterial blood. Why don't youwear them?"
"Say, look here, prophet--" began Christopher, blandly respectful.
"Green is nature's color. Calms the nerves. Blue, electricity for thesystem--got a stripe of it all up and down my backbone. Good for you.Ought to wear it. Yellow, kidneys and cathartic. You'd rather be sick,eh? Be sick. Clek-clek!" He clucked his tongue and clapped his reins.But Christopher grabbed at the stallion's headstall and checked him.
"I believe the idea is all c'rect, prophet, and I'll use it, and I'lltry to make it right with you. But just now I'm wantin' a littleinformation, and I'll make it right with you for that, too. You'resky-hootin' round these woods all the time. Now, where's Lane beenmakin' his headquarters?--you ought to know!"
"What do you want him for? State-prison or insane asylum?" snapped theprophet.
"I don't want him," said the woodsman, solemnly. "He's spoken for, Eli.He's down there, dead, in Barn Withee's camps."
The little gray eyes blinked quickly. What that emotion was, one couldnot guess. For the voice of the prophet did not waver in its briskstaccato. "Dead, eh? Hate-bug crawled into him and did it. I told him tostay in the woods and the hate-bugs couldn't get him. Told him twentyyears ago. But he wasn't careful. Let the hate-bug get him at last.Dead, eh? I'll go and get him."
"Get him?" echoed Christopher.
"Promised to bury him," explained the prophet, promptly. "Wanted to beburied off alone, just as he lived. Rocks for a pillow. Expects to resteasy. I helped him dig his grave and lay out the rocks a long time ago.And I'll tell no one the place--no, sir."
"Well, that lets Withee out of trouble and expense," said the woodsman,"and you'll get a good reception down that way. Now, prophet, where's hebeen hiding? You know, probably. It's important, I tell you." The oldman had struck his stallion, and the animal was trying to get away. ButChristopher held on grimly.
"You call yourself a good woodsman?" squealed the indignant Eli.
"I reckon I'll average well."
"If any one wants anything of 'Ladder' Lane now," cried the prophet, "itmust be for something that he's left behind him! Left behind him!" herepeated. He stood up on the "ding-swingle," and ran his keen gaze aboutthe ridges that circled the lake.
"Was it something that could build a fire?" he demanded, sharply.Christopher, in no mood for confidences, stared at the peppery old man."You call yourself a good woodsman, and don't know what it means to seethat!" He pointed his whip at a thin trail of white smoke that mounted,as tenuous almost as a thread, above the distant shore of Dickery Pond."No lumbermen operating there for three years, and you see that, and arelookin' for something, and don't go and find out! And you call yourselfa woodsman!" Without further word or look he lashed the stallion; theanimal broke away with a squeal, and Prophet Eli's "ding-swingle"disappeared down the tote road in a swirl of snow.
"No, I ain't a woodsman!" snorted Christopher. He started away acrossthe pond at a pace that left Wade breath only for effort and not forquestions. "I ain't a woodsman. Standin' here and not seein' that smoke!Not seein' it, and guessin' what it must mean! I ain't a woodsman!" Overand over he muttered his bitter complaints at himself in disjointedsentences. "I'm gettin' old. I must be blind. A lunatic can tell me mybusiness." His anger rowelled him on, and when he reached the oppositeshore of the lake he was obliged to wait for the younger man to comefloundering and panting up to him.
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"I don't feel just like talkin' now, Mr. Wade," he said, gruffly. "Idon't feel as though I knew enough to talk to any one over ten yearsold." He strode on, tugging the sled.
An abandoned main logging-road, well grown to leafless moose-wood andwitch-hobble, led them up from the lake. Christopher did not have tosearch the skies for the smoke. His first sight of it had betrayed thecamp's location. He knew the roads that led to it. And in the end theycame upon it, though it seemed to Wade that the road had set itself totwist eternally through copses and up and down the hemlock benches.
The camps were cheerless, the doors of main camp, cook camp, and hovelwere open, and the snow had drifted in. But from the battered funnel ofthe office camp came that trail of smoke, reaching straight up. Crowdingclose to the funnel for warmth, and nestled in the space that the heathad made in the snow, crouched a creature that Wade recognized as"Ladder" Lane's tame bobcat. This, then, was "Ladder" Lane's retreat.Inside there--the young man's knees trembled, and there was a grippingat his throat, dry and aching from his frantic pursuit of his grimguide.
"Mr. Wade," said Christopher, halting, "I reckon she's there, and thatshe's all right. I'll let you go ahead. She knows you. I don't need toadvise you to go careful."
And Wade went, tottering across the unmarked expanse of snow, the purecarpet nature had laid between him and the altar of his love--an altarwithin log walls, an altar whose fires were tended by--He pushed openthe door! Foolish Abe was kneeling by the hearth of the rusty Franklinstove. And even as he had been toiling on Enchanted, so here he waswhittling, whittling unceasingly, piling the heaps of shavings upon thefire--unconscious signaller of the hiding-place of Elva Barrett.
For a moment Wade stood holding by the sides of the door, staring intothe gloom of the camp, for his eyes were as yet blinded by the glare ofout-doors.
And then he saw her. Her white face was peering out of the dimness of abunk. Plainly she had withdrawn herself there like some coweringcreature, awaiting a fate she could not understand or anticipate. Onecould see that those eyes, wide-set and full of horror, had beenstrained on that uncouth, hairy creature at the hearth during long anddreadful suspense.
Through all that desperate search, in hunger, weariness, and despair, hehad forgotten John Barrett, contemptuous millionaire; he remembered thatJohn Barrett's daughter Elva had confessed once that she returned hislove, and he had thought that when they met again, this time outside thetrammels of town and in the saner atmosphere of the big woods, she mightunderstand him better--understand him well enough to know that JohnBarrett lied when he made honest love contemptible by his sneers about"fortune-seekers." They were all very chaotic, his thoughts, to be sure,but he had believed that the ground on which they would meet would bethat common level of honest, human hearts, where they could stand, eyeto eye, hands clasping hands, and love frankly answering love.
But love that casts all to the winds, love that forgets tact, prudence,delicacy, love without premeditation or after-thought, is not the lovethat is ingrained in New England character. She gazed at him at first,not comprehending--her fears still blinding her--and he paused to murmurwords of pity and reassurance.
And then Yankee prudence, given its opportunity to whisper, told himthat to act the precipitate lover now would be to take advantage of herweakness, her helplessness, her gratitude. If he took this first chanceto woo her, demanding, as it were, that she disobey her father'scommands, and putting a price on the service that he was rendering her,might her good sense not suggest that, after all, he was a sneak ratherthan a man?
They call the New England character of the old bed-rock sort hard andselfish. It is rather acute sensitiveness, timorous even to concealment.
And in the end Dwight Wade, faltering banal words of pity for herplight, went to her outwardly calm. And she, her soul still too full ofthe horror of her experience to let her heart speak what it felt, tookhis hands and came out upon the rough floor.
The shaggy giant squatting by the hearth bent meek and humid eyes on theyoung man. "Me do it--me do it as you told!" he protested. He patted hishand on the shavings. He was referring to the task to which Wade had sethim on Enchanted. To the girl it sounded like the confession of anunderstanding between this unspeakable creature and her rescuer. Wade,eager only to soothe, protested guilelessly, when she shrank back, thatthe man was not the ogre he seemed, but a harmless, simple fellow whomhe had been sheltering and feeding at his own camp. And then, by the wayshe stared at him, he realized the chance for a horrible suspicion.
"I don't understand," she moaned. "It's like a dreadful dream. There wasan old man who sat here and muttered and raved about my father! Andthis--this"--she faltered, shrinking farther from Abe--"who brought mehere in his arms! And you say he came from your camp! Oh, thesewoods--these terrible woods! Take me away from them! I am afraid!"
She dropped the shrouding blanket from her shoulders, and he saw her nowin the garb of the waif of the Skeets. And under his scrutiny he sawcolor in her cheeks for the first time, replacing the pallor ofdistress.
"I had thought there was excuse for this folly--reason for it. I thoughtit was my duty to--" She faltered, then set her teeth upon her lowerlip, and turned away from him. "Oh, take me away from these woods!Something--I do not know--something has bewitched me--made me forgetmyself--sent me on a fool's errand! The woods--I'm afraid of them, Mr.Wade!"
It came to him with a pang that the woods were not offering to his lovethe common ground of sincerity that he had dreamed of. Elva Barrett,ashamed of her weakness, would not remember generously an attempt totake advantage of her distress when every bulwark of reserve lay inruins about her, and he felt afraid of his burning desire to take her inhis arms and comfort her. Thus self-convinced, he failed to realise thatthe girl with her bitter words was merely striving, blindly andinnocently, to be convinced--and convinced from his own mouth--that shehad been wise in her folly, devoted in her mission, and honest in thelove that had found such heroic expression in her adventuring.
She looked at him, and saw in his face only the struggle of doubt andhopelessness and fear, and misinterpreted. "You know what the woods havedone to make shame and wretchedness, Mr. Wade!" she cried, a flash ofher old spirit coming into her eyes. "Men who have been honest with theworld outside and honest with themselves have forgotten all honestybehind the screen of these savage woods."
Her cheeks were burning now. She drew the blanket over herself, huggingits edges close in front, covering the attire she wore as though it werenakedness. And in that bitter moment it was nakedness--for the garb shehad borrowed from Kate Arden symbolized for her and for him a father'sguilty secret laid bare.
"Take me away from the woods!" she gasped.
The look that passed between them was speech unutterable. He had nowords for her then. In silence he made the long sledge ready for her.Christopher helped him, silent with the reticence of the woodsman. If hehad even glanced at Elva Barrett no bystander could have detected thatglance. There were thick camp spreads on the sled. Christopher'sthoughtfulness had provided them, and when they had been wrapped abouther the two men set away, each with hand on the sled-rope.
"We'll go the short way back to Enchanted," said the old guide,answering Wade's glance. "Back across Dickery, up the tote road, andfollow the Cameron and Telos roads. It will dodge all camps, and keep usaway from foolish questions. I've got enough in my pack from Withee'scamp for us to eat."
Abe floundered behind, keeping them in sight with the pertinacity of adog, and he ate the bread that Straight threw to him with a dog's mutegratitude.
Only the desperation of men utterly resolved could have accomplished thejourney they set before them. The girl rode, a silent, shrouded figure;the men strode ahead, silent; Abe struggled on behind, ploughing thesnow with dragging feet. When the night fell they went on by thelantern's light.
It was long after midnight when they came at last to the Enchantedcamps, walking like automatons and almost senseless with fatigue. Wadelifted the gi
rl from the sled when they halted in front of the wangan.Her stiffened and cramped limbs would not move of themselves. And whenshe was on her feet, and staggered, he kept his arm about her, gentlyand unobtrusively.
"This is the best home I have to offer you," he said. "Nina Ide is herewaiting. We will wake her, and she will do for you what should be done.Oh, that sounds cold and formal, I know--but the poor girl waiting inthere will put into words all the joy I feel but can't speak. My head ispretty light, and my heels heavy, and I don't seem to be thinking veryclearly, Miss Barrett," he murmured, his voice weak with patheticweariness.
She was struggling with sobs, striving to speak; but he hastened on, asthough at last his full heart found words.
"This is--this--I hardly know how to say this. But I understand why youcame." He felt her tremble. "But, my God, Elva, I don't dare to believethat you thought so ill of me that you were coming to plead with me foryour father's sake." It was not resentment, it was passionate grief thatburst from him, and she put her hands about his arm.
"I told you it was folly that sent me," she sobbed. "But he had beenunjust to you, Dwight. Oh, it was folly that sent me, but I wanted toknow if you--if you--" She was silent and trembled, and when she did notspeak he clasped her close, trembling as pitifully as she.
"Oh, if you only dared say that you wanted to know whether I still lovedyou!" he breathed, in a broken whisper. "And I would say--"
It seemed that his heart came into his throat, for her fingers pressedmore closely upon his arm. In that instant he could not speak. Hepretended to look for Christopher, but that wise woodsman's tact did notfail. He saw Christopher disappearing into the gloom of the dingle, andheard the careful lisp of the wooden latch in its socket and thecautious creak of the closing door. There was only the hush of the stillnight about him, and when he turned again the starlight was shining onElva Barrett's upraised face. And her dark eyes were imperiouslydemanding that he finish his sentence--so imperiously that his tongueburst all the shackles of his sensitive prudence.
"And I would say that my love is so far above the mean things of theworld that they can't make it waver, and it is so unselfish that I canlove you the more be-because you love your father and obey him. And allI ask is that you don't misunderstand me." There was deep meaning in histones.
"Oh Dwight, my boy," she moaned, "it's an awful thing for a daughter todisobey her father. But it's more awful when she finds that he--" But heput his fingers tenderly on her lips, and when she kissed them, tearscoursing on her cheeks, he gathered her close, and his lips did theservice that his fingers retired from in tremulous haste.
"My little girl," he said, softly, "keep that story off your lips. It istoo hard, too bitter. I may have said cruel things to your father. Hemay tell you they were cruel. But remember that she had your eyes andyour face--that poor girl I found in the woods. And before God, if notbefore men, she is your sister. And so I gave of my heart and mystrength to help her. And I know your heart so well, Elva, that I leaveit all to you. It's better to be ashamed than to be unjust."
"She _is_ my sister," she answered, simply, but with earnestness therewas no mistaking. "And you may leave it all in my hands."
Then fearfully, anxiously, grief and shame at shattered faith in afather showing in the face she lifted to him, she asked:
"It was he, was it not--the old man that took me away and sat before meand cursed me? He was her--her husband?"
His look replied to her. Then he said, soothingly: "It was not in ourhands, dear. But that which is in our hands let us do as best we can,and so"--he kissed her, this time not as the lover, but as the faithful,earnest, consoling friend--"and so--to sleep! The morning's almost here,and it will bring a brighter day."
She drew his head down and pressed her lips to his forehead.
"True knighthood has come again," she murmured. "And my knight has takenme from the enchanted forest, and has shown me his heart--and the lastwas best."
Still clasping her, he shook the door and called to the girl within; andwhen she came, crying eager questions, he put Elva Barrett into her armsand left them together.
As he walked away from the shadow of the camp into the shimmer of thestarlight he felt the wine of love coursing his veins. His musclesached, weariness clogged his heels, but his eyes were wide-propped andhis ears hummed as with a sound of distant music. His thoughts seemedtoo sacred to be taken just then into the company of other men. Hedreaded to go inside out of the radiance of the night. He turned fromthe door of the main camp when his hand was fumbling for the latch,pulled his cap over his ears, and began a slow patrol on the glisteningstretch of road before the wangan. The crisp snow sang like fairy bellsunder his feet. Orion dipped to the west, and the morning stars paledslowly as the flush crept up from the east. And still he walked anddreamed and gazed over the sombre obstacles near at hand in his lifeinto the radiance of promise, even as he looked over the black sprucesinto the faint roses of the dawn.
Tommy Eye, teamster, stumbling towards the hovel for the earlyfoddering, came upon him, and stopped and stared in utter amazement. Hecame close to make sure that the eerie light of the morning was notplaying him false. Wade's cheerful greeting seemed to perplex him.
"It isn't a ha'nt, Tommy," said the young man, smiling on him.
"I have said all along as how it had got you," declared Tommy, withingenuous disappointment, looking Wade up and down for marks ofconflict. "But it may be that the ha'nts want only woods folk and areafraid of book-learnin'! So you're back, and the girl ain't, norChristopher, nor--"
"We're all back," explained Wade, calculating on Tommy's news-mongeringability to relieve him of the need of circulating information. "We foundthe--the one that was lost. That was all! She was lost, and we foundher, and we even found Foolish Abe, and he came back with us last night.There was no mystery, Tommy. They were simply lost, and we found them.They're asleep."
Tommy fingered the wrinkled skin of his neck and stared dubiously atWade.
"You'll see Abe whittling shavings just the same as usual this morning,"added the young man. "By-the-way, you and he may be interested to knowthat Lane, the old fire warden, died at Withee's camp the other day."For reasons of his own Wade did not care to make either the news of therescue or its place too definite.
"Then," declared Tommy, hanging grimly to the last prop left in histheory, "that accounts for it. 'Ladder' Lane is dead, and has turnedinto a ha'nt. It was him that called out the fool. And he'll be makingmore trouble yet. You'd better send for Prophet Eli, Mr. Wade, becausethe prophet is a charmer-man and can take care of old Lane."
"He has taken care of him already," said the young man. "We saw ProphetEli, and he started right away to attend to the case." And Tommy's facedisplayed such eminent satisfaction that Wade had not the heart todestroy the man's belief that his book-learned boss had adopted a partof the woods creed of the supernatural. It was a day on which he feltvery gentle towards the dreams of other persons, for his own beautifuldream shed its radiance on all men and all of life.
That she was there, safe, brought by amazing circumstances into thedepths of the woods, and under his protection, seemed like a vision ofthe night as he walked back and forth and watched the morning grow.
When the sun was high and the men had been gone for hours, he put hisdream to the test. He rapped gently on the wangan door, and her voice, avery real and loving voice, answered. With his own hands he brought foodfor the two girls and spread a cedar-splint table, and served them asthey ate, and ministered in little ways, through the hours of the day,and watched Elva's pallor and weariness give way before tenderness andlove. With the poor shifts of a lumber-camp he, not intending it, taughther heart the lesson that love is independent of its housing.
He rode with them on the tote team to the northern jaws of Pogey Notchthe next day, and sent them on, nestled in a bower of blankets. Therehad been no further word between them of the great thing that had comeinto their lives. They tacitly and joyously accepted it all, and lef
tthe solution of its problem to saner and happier days. But the face thatshe turned back to him as she rode away under the frowning rocks was aglowing promise of all he asked of life. And as he plodded back up thetrail he went to his toil with tingling muscles and a triumphant soul.