"That was very queer!" she said quickly.
"What was very queer?" asked Ainley.
"That girl's action. Did you see how she looked at you? She was going to speak to you and changed her mind."
Ainley laughed a trifle uneasily. "Possibly she blames me for the disappearance of her lover!"
"But why should she do that? She can hardly know of your previous acquaintance with him."
"You forget-she saw him speak to me yesterday!"
"Ah yes," was the girl's reply. "I had forgotten that." The notes of a bugle, clear and silvery in the still air, floated across the meadow at that moment, and Gerald Ainley laughed.
"The breakfast bell! We must hurry, Miss Yardely. It will scarcely do to keep your uncle waiting."
They turned and hurried back to the Post, nothing more being said in reference to Miskodeed and Hubert Stane. And an hour later, in the bustle of the departure, the whole matter was brushed aside by Helen Yardely, though now and again through the day, it recurred to her mind as a rather unpleasant episode; and she found herself wondering how so fine a man as Stane could stoop to the folly of which many men in the North were guilty.
At the end of that day her uncle ordered the camp to be pitched on a little meadow backed by a sombre forest of spruce. And after the evening meal, in company with Gerald Ainley, she walked towards the timber where an owl was hooting dismally. The air was perfectly still, the sky above crystal clear, and the Northern horizon filled with a golden glow. As they reached the shadow of the spruce, and seated themselves on a fallen trunk, a fox barked somewhere in the recess of the wood, and from afar came the long-drawn melancholy howl of a wolf. Helen Yardely looked down the long reach of the river and her eyes fixed themselves on a tall bluff crowned with spruce, distant perhaps a mile and a half away.
"I like the Wild," she said suddenly, breaking the silence that had been between them.
"It is all right," laughed Ainley, "when you can journey through it comfortably as we are doing."
"It must have its attractions even when comfort is not possible," said the girl musingly, "for the men who live here live as nature meant man to live."
"On straight moose-meat-sometimes," laughed Ainley. "With bacon and beans and flour brought in from the outside for luxuries."
"I was not thinking of the food," answered the girl quickly. "I was thinking of the toil, the hardship-the Homeric labours of those who face the hazards of the North."
"Yes," agreed the man, "the labours are certainly Homeric, and there are men who like the life well enough, who have made fortunes here and have gone back to their kind in Montreal, New York, London, only to find that civilization has lost its attraction for them."
"I can understand that," was the quick reply. "There is something in the silence and wildness of vast spaces which gets into the blood. Only yesterday I was thinking how small and tame the lawns at home would look after this." She swept a hand in a half-circle, and then gave a little laugh. "I believe I could enjoy living up here."
Ainley laughed with her. "A year of this," he said, lightly, "and you would begin to hunger for parties and theatres and dances and books-and you would look to the Southland as to Eden."
"Do you really think so?" she asked seriously.
"I am sure of it," he answered with conviction.
"But I am not so sure," she answered slowly. "Deep down there must be something aboriginal in me, for I find myself thrilling to all sorts of wild things. Last night I was talking with Mrs. Rodwell. Her husband used to be the trader up at Kootlach, and she was telling me of a white man who lived up there as a chief. He was a man of education, a graduate of Oxford and he preferred that life to the life of civilization. It seems he died, and was buried as a chief, wrapped in furs, a hunting spear by his side, all the tribe chanting a wild funeral chant! Do you know, as she described it, the dark woods, the barbaric burying, the wild chant, I was able to vision it all-and my sympathies were with the man, who, in spite of Oxford, had chosen to live his own life in his own way."
Ainley laughed. "You see it in the glamour of romance," he said. "The reality I imagine was pretty beastly."
"Well!" replied the girl quickly. "What would life be without romance?"
"A dull thing," answered Ainley, promptly, with a sudden flash of the eyes. "I am with you there, Miss Yardely, but romance does not lie in mere barbarism, for most men it is incarnated in a woman."
"Possibly! I suppose the mating instinct is the one elemental thing left in the modern world."
"It is the one dominant thing," answered Ainley, with such emphasis of conviction that the girl looked at him in quick surprise.
"Why, Mr. Ainley, one would think that you-that you--" she hesitated, stumbled in her speech, and did not finish the sentence. Her companion had risen suddenly to his feet. The monocle had fallen from its place, and he was looking down at her with eyes that had a strange glitter.
"Yes," he cried, answering her unfinished utterance. "Yes! I do know. That is what you would say, is it not? I have known since the day Sir James sent me to the station at Ottawa to meet you. The knowledge was born in me as I saw you stepping from the car. The one woman-my heart whispered it in that moment, and has shouted it ever since. Helen, I did not mean to speak yet, but-well, you see how it is with me! Tell me it is not altogether hopeless! You know what my position is; you know that in two years--"
Helen Yardely rose swiftly to her feet. Her beautiful face had paled a little. She stopped the flood of words with her lifted hand.
"Please, Mr. Ainley! There is no need to enter on such details."
"Then--"
"You have taken me by surprise," said the girl slowly. "I had no idea that you-that you-I have never thought of it."
"But you can think now, Helen," he said urgently. "I mean every word that I have said. I love you. You must see that-now. Let us join our lives together, and together find the romance for which you crave."
The blood was back in the girl's cheeks now, running in rosy tides, and there was a light in her grey eyes that made Ainley's pulse leap with hope, since he mistook it for something else. His passion was real enough, as the girl felt, and she was simple and elemental enough to be thrilled by it; but she was sufficiently wise not to mistake the response in herself for the greater thing. The grey eyes looked steadily into his for a moment, then a thoughtful look crept into them, and Ainley knew that for the moment he had lost.
"No," she said slowly, "no, I am not sure that would be wise. I do not feel as I ought to feel in taking such a decision as that. And besides--"
"Yes?" he said, urgently, as she paused. "Yes?"
"Well," she flushed a little, and her tongue stumbled among the words, "you are not quite the man-that I-that I have thought of-for-for--." She broke off again, laughed a little at herself and then blurted confusedly: "You see all my life, from being a very little girl, I have worshipped heroes."
"And I am not a hero," said Ainley with a harsh laugh. "No! I am just the ordinary man doing the ordinary things, and my one claim to notice is that I love you! But suppose the occasion came? Suppose I--." He broke off and stood looking at her for a moment. Then he asked, "Would that make no difference?"
"It might," replied the girl, the shrinking from the infliction of too severe a blow.
"Then I live for that occasion!" cried Ainley. "And who knows? In this wild land it may come any hour!"
As a matter of fact the occasion offered itself six days later-a Sunday, when Sir James Yardely had insisted on a day's rest. The various members of the party were employing their leisure according to their inclinations, and Ainley had gone after birds for the pot, whilst Helen Yardely, taking a small canoe, had paddled down stream to explore a creek where, according to one of the Indians, a colony of beavers had established itself.
When Ainley returned with a couple of brace of wood partridges it was to find that the girl was still absent from the camp. The day wore on towards evening and still the girl
had not returned, and her uncle became anxious, as did others of the party.
"Some one had better go to look for her, Ainley," said Sir James. "I gather that a mile or two down the river the current quickens, and that there are a number of islands where an inexpert canoeist may come to grief. I should never forgive myself if anything has happened to my niece."
"I will go myself, Sir James, and I will not return without her."
"Oh, I don't suppose anything very serious has happened," replied Sir James, with an uneasy laugh, "but it is just as well to take precautions."
"Yes, Sir James! I will go at once and take one of the Indians with me-one who knows the river. And it may be as well to send upstream also, as Miss Yardely may have changed her mind and taken that direction."
"Possibly so!" answered Sir James, turning away to give the necessary orders.
Gerald Ainley called one of the Indians to him, and ordered him to put three days' supply of food into the canoe, blankets and a small folding tent, and was just preparing to depart when Sir James drew near, and stared with evident surprise at the load in the canoe.
"Why, Gerald," he said, "you seem to have made preparations for a long search."
"That is only wise, Sir James. This river runs for sixty miles before it falls into the main river, and sixty miles will take a good deal of searching. If the search is a short one, and the food not needed, the burden of it will matter little; on the other hand--"
"In God's name go, boy-and bring Helen back!"
"I will do my best, Sir James."
The canoe pushed off, leaping forward under the combined propulsion of the paddles and the current, and sweeping round a tall bluff was soon out of sight of the camp.
The Indian in the bow of the canoe, after a little time, set the course slantingly across the current, making for the other side, and Ainley asked a sharp question. The Indian replied over his shoulder.
"The white Klootchman go to see the beaver! Beaver there!"
He jerked his head towards a creek now opening out on the further shore, and a look of impatience came on Ainley's face. He said nothing however, though to any one observing him closely it must have been abundantly clear that he had no expectation of finding the missing girl at the place which the Indian indicated. As a matter of fact they did not. Turning into the creek they presently caught sounds that were new to Ainley, and he asked a question.
"It is the beavers. They smite the water with their tails!"
Two minutes later they came in sight of the dam and in the same moment the Indian turned the canoe towards a soft bar of sand. A few seconds later, having landed, he pointed to the sand. A canoe had been beached there, and plain as the footprints which startled Crusoe, were the marks of moccasined feet going from and returning to the sand bar.
"White Klootchman been here!" said the Indian. "She go away. No good going to the beaver."
He turned to the canoe again, and Gerald Ainley turned with him, without a word in reply. There was no sign of disappointment on his face, nor when they struck the main current again did he even glance at the shore on either side. But seven miles further down, when the current visibly quickened, and a series of small spruce-clad islands began to come in view, standing out of the water for all the world like ships in battle line, a look of interest came on his face, and he began to look alertly in front of him and from side to side, all his demeanour betraying expectation.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, as Hubert Stane returned along the river bank, he saw the girl emerge from the tent, and begin to arrange her own sodden attire where the heat of the fire would dry it. The girl completed her task just as he arrived at the camp, and stood upright, the rich blood running in her face. Then a flash of laughter came in her grey eyes.
"Well?" she asked, challenging his gaze.
"You make a very proper man," he answered, laughing.
"And I am as hungry as two!" she retorted. "I have eaten nothing for many hours. I wonder if--"
"What a fool I am," he broke in brusquely. "I never thought of that. I will do what I can at once."
Without further delay he began to prepare a meal, heating an already roasted partridge on a spit, and making coffee, which, with biscuit he set before her.
"It is not exactly a Savoy supper, but--"
"It will be better," she broke in gaily, "for I was never so hungry in my life."
"Then eat! There are one or two little things I want to attend to, if you will excuse me."
"Certainly," she replied laughingly. "It will be less embarrassing if there is no witness of my gluttony."
Stane once more left the camp, taking with him a hatchet, and presently returned dragging with him branches of young spruce with which he formed a bed a little way from the tent, and within the radius of the heat from the fire. On this he threw a blanket, and his preparation for the night completed, turned to the girl once more.
"I never enjoyed a meal so much in my life," she declared, as she lifted the tin plate from her lap. "And this coffee is delicious. Won't you have some, Mr. Stane?"
"Thank you, Miss a-Miss--"
"Yardely is my name," she said quickly, "Helen Yardely." He took the coffee as she handed it to him in an enamelled mug, then he said: "How did you come to be adrift, Miss Yardely?"
As he asked the question a thoughtful look came on the girl's beautiful face.
"I was making a little trip by myself," she said slowly, "to see a beaver dam in a creek a little below our encampment, and some one shot at me!"
"Shot at you!" Stane stared at her in amazement as he gave the exclamation.
"Yes, twice! The second shot broke my paddle, and as I had no spare one, and as I cannot swim, I could do nothing but drift with the current."
"But who can have done such a thing?" cried the young man.
"I have not the slightest idea, unless it was some wandering Indian, but I am quite sure it was not an accident. I saw the first shot strike the water close to the canoe. It came from some woods on the left bank, and I cried out to warn the shooter whom I could not see. It was about four minutes after when the second shot was fired, and the bullet hit the shaft of the paddle, so that it broke on my next stroke, and I was left at the mercy of the river."
"And no more shots were fired?"
"None!"
Stane sat there with a very thoughtful look upon his face; and after a moment Miss Yardely spoke again.
"What do you think, Mr. Stane?"
He shook his head. "I do not know what to think, Miss Yardely," he said slowly, "but it looks as if the thing had been done deliberately."
"You mean that some one tried to kill me?"
"No, not that," was the reply. "You would offer too fair a mark for any one accustomed to handling a rifle to miss. I mean that there was a deliberate attempt to set you adrift in the canoe. The first shot, you say, struck the water near you, the second smashed your paddle, and after that there was no more firing. Why? The only answer is that the shooter had accomplished his object."
"It certainly has that appearance," answered the girl. "But why should any one do a thing like that?"
"That is quite beyond me. It was so brutal a thing to do!"
"Some roaming Indian possibly," suggested Miss Yardely thoughtfully.
"But as you asked just now, why? Indians are not so rich in cartridges that they can afford to waste them on a mere whim."
"No, perhaps not," said the girl. "But I can think of no one else." She was silent for a moment, then she added, "Whoever did the vile thing frightened me badly. It is not nice to sit helpless in a canoe drifting out into such a wilderness as this." She waved her hand round the landscape as she spoke, and gave a little shudder. "You see I never knew what was coming next. I passed some islands and hoped that I might strike one of them, but the current swept me clear, and for hours I sat staring, watching the banks go by, and wondering how long it would be before I was missed; and then, I suppose I must have fallen asleep, be
cause I remember nothing more until just before I was thrown into the water."
"It was a very fortunate thing you struck those rocks," said Stane meditatively.
"Fortunate, Mr. Stane? Why?"
"Because in all probability I should not have seen you if you had not; and a few miles below here, there are some bad rapids, and below them the river makes a leap downwards of nearly a hundred feet."
"A fall?" cried the girl, her face blanching a little, as she flashed a glance downstream. "Oh, that would have been terrible! It was fortunate that you were here."
"Very," he agreed earnestly, "and I am beginning to think that it was providential; though all day I have been cursing my luck that I should have been in this neighbourhood at all. I have no business here."
"Then why--" she began, and stopped as if a little afraid that her question was too frankly curious.
It was so that Stane understood the interrupted utterance. He laughed a little, and then answered:
"You need not mind asking, Miss Yardely; because the truth is that my presence in this neighbourhood is due to a mystery that is almost as insoluble as the one that brought you drifting downstream. On the night after you arrived at Fort Malsun, I was waiting at my tent door for-er-a man whom I expected a visit from, when I was knocked on the head by an Indian, and when I came to, I found I was a prisoner, under sentence of deportation. We travelled some days, rather a roundabout journey, as I have since guessed, and one morning I awoke to find my captors had disappeared, leaving me with my canoe and stores and arms absolutely untouched."
"That was a strange adventure, Mr. Stane."
"So I think," answered Stane with conviction.
"What do you think was the reason for your deportation?"
A Mating In The Wilds Page 2