CHAPTER XVI
DIVERGING ROADS
"Get up, Pierre. You should be ashamed of yourself!"
It needed a strong and firm grasp to force the terrified lad to hisfeet and even when he, at last, stood up he shivered like an aspen.
"A grave!"
"Certainly. A grave. But neither yours nor mine. Only that of somepoor fellow who has died in the wilderness. I'm sorry I piled thebrush upon it, yet glad we discovered it in the end."
"Gla-a-ad!" gasped the other.
"Yes. Of course. I mean to cover it with fresh sods and plant some ofthose purple orchids at its head. I'll cut a cedar headstone, too, andmark it so that nobody else shall desecrate it as we have done."
"You mustn't touch it! It's nobody's--only a warning."
"A warning, surely; that we must take great care lest a like fate comeon us; but somebody lies under that mound and I pity him. Mostprobable that he lost his life in that very whirlpool which wreckedus. Twice I've been upset and lost all my belongings, but escapedsafe. I hope I'll not run the same chance again. Come. Lie down again,and go to sleep."
"Couldn't sleep; to try in such a haunted place would be to be'spelled'----"
"Pierre Ricord! For a fellow that's so smart at some things you arethe biggest dunce I know, in others. Haven't we slept like lords eversince we struck this camp? I'm going to make my bed up again and turnin. I advise you to do the same."
Adrian tossed the branches aside, then rearranged them, lapping thesoft ends over the hard ones in an orderly row which would havepleased a housewife. Thus freshened his odorous mattress was as goodas new, and stretching himself upon it he went to sleep immediately.
Pierre fully intended to keep awake; but fatigue and lonelinessprevailed, and five minutes later he had crept close to Adrian's side.
The sunshine on his face, and the sound of a knife cutting wood awokehim; and there was Adrian whittling away at a broad slab of cedar,smiling and jeering, and in the best of spirits, despite his rathersolemn occupation.
"For a fellow who wouldn't sleep, you've done pretty well. See. I'vecaught a fish and set it cooking. I've picked a pile of berries, andhave nearly finished this headstone. Added another accomplishment tomy many--monument maker. But I'm wrong to laugh over that, though thepoor unknown to whom it belongs would be grateful to me, I've nodoubt. Lend a hand, will you?"
But nothing would induce Pierre to engage in any such business. Norwould he touch his breakfast while Adrian's knife was busy. He satapart, looking anywhere rather than toward his mate, and talking overhis shoulder to him in a strangely subdued voice.
"Adrian!"
"Well?"
"Most done?"
"Nearly."
"What you going to put on it?"
"I've been wondering. Think this: 'To the Memory of My UnknownBrother.'"
"Wh-a-a-t!"
Adrian repeated the inscription.
"He was no kin to you."
"We are all kin. It's all one world, God's world. All the people andall these forests, and the creatures in them--I tell you I've neverheard a sermon that touched me as the sight of this grave in thewilderness has touched me. I mean to be a better, kinder man, becauseof it. Margot was right, none of us has a right to his own self.She told me often that I should go home to my own folks and makeeverything right with them; then, if I could, come back and live inthe woods, somewhere. 'If I felt I must.' But I don't feel that waynow. I want to get back and go to work. I want to live so that when Idie--like that poor chap, yonder,--somebody will have been the betterfor my life. Pshaw! Why do I talk to you like this? Anyway, I'll setthis slab in place, and then----"
Pierre rose and still without looking Adrian's way, pushed the newcanoe into the water. He had carefully pitched it, on the day before,with a mixture of the old pork grease and gum from the trees, so thatthere need be no delay at starting.
Adrian finished his work, lettered the slab with a coal from thefire, and re-watered the wild flowers he had already planted.
"Aren't you going to eat breakfast first?"
"Not in a graveyard," answered Pierre, with a solemnity that checkedAdrian's desire to smile.
A last reverent attention, a final clearing of all rubbish from thespot, and he, too, stepped into the canoe and picked up his paddle.They had passed the rapids and reached a smooth stretch of the river,where they had camped, and now pulled steadily and easily away,once more upon their journey south. But not till they had put aconsiderable distance between themselves and that woodland grave,would Pierre consent to stop and eat the food that Adrian hadprepared. Even then, he restricted the amount to be consumed,remarking with doleful conviction:
"We're going to be starved before we reach Donovan's. The 'food stick'burnt off and dropped into the fire, last night."
Adrian remembered that his mate had spoken of it at the time, when bysome carelessness, they had not secured the crotched sapling on whichthey hung their birch kettle.
"Oh! you simple thing. Why will you go through life tormentingyourself with such nonsense? Come. Eat your breakfast. We're goingstraight to Donovan's as fast as we can. I've done with the woodsfor a time. So should you be done. You're needed at the island. Notbecause of any dreams but because the more I recall of Mr. Dutton'sappearance the surer I am that he is a sick man. You'll go back,won't you?"
"Yes. I'm going back. Not because you ask me, though."
"I don't care why--only go."
"I'm not going into the show business."
Adrian smiled. "Of course you're not. You'll never have money enough.It would cost lots."
"'Tisn't that. 'Twas the dream. That was sent me. All them animals inblack paint, and the blue herons without any heads, and---- My mothercame for me, last night."
"I heartily wish you could go to her this minute! She's superstitiousenough, in all conscience, yet she has the happy faculty of keepingher lugubrious son in subjection."
Whenever Pierre became particularly depressing the other would rattleoff as many of the longest words as occurred to him. They had theeffect of diverting his comrade's thoughts.
Then they pulled on again, nor did anything disastrous happen tofurther hinder their progress. The food did not give out, for theylived mostly upon berries, having neither time nor desire to stop andcook their remnant of beans. When they were especially tired Pierrelighted a fire and made a bucket of hemlock tea, but Adrian found coldwater preferable to this decoction; and, in fact, they were muchnearer Donovan's, that first settlement in the wilderness, than evenPierre had suspected.
Their last portage was made--an easy one, there being nothing butthemselves and the canoe to carry--and they came to a big dead waterwhere they had looked to find another running stream; but had nosooner sighted it than their ears were greeted by the laughter ofloons, which threw up their legs and dived beneath the surface in thatabsurd manner which Adrian always found amusing.
"Bad luck, again!" cried Pierre, instantly, "never hear a loonbut----"
"But you see a house! Look, look! Donovan's, or somebody's, no matterwhose! A house, a house!"
There, indeed, it lay; a goodly farmstead, with its substantialcabins, its outbuildings, its groups of cattle on the cleared land,and--yes, yes, its moving human beings, and what seemed oddest still,its teams of horses.
Even Pierre was silent, and tears sprang to the eyes of both lads asthey gazed. Until that moment neither had fully realized how lonelyand desolate had been their situation.
"Now for it! It's a biggish lake and we're pretty tired! But thatmeans rest, plenty to eat, people--everything."
Their rudely built canoe was almost useless when they beached it atlast on Donovan's wharf, and their own strength was spent. But it wasa hospitable household to which they had come, and one quite used towelcoming wanderers from the forest. They were fed and clothed andbedded, without question, but, when a long sleep had set them bothright, tongues wagged and plans were settled with amazing promptness.
For there wer
e other guests at the farm; a party of prospectors, goingnorth into the woods to locate timber for the next season's cutting.These would be glad of Pierre's company and help, and would pay him"the going wages." But they would not return by the route he had come,though by leaving theirs at a point well north, he could easily makehis way back to the island.
"So you shot the poor moose for nothing. You cannot even have hishorns!" said Adrian reproachfully. "Well, as soon as I can vote, Imean to use all my influence to stop this murder in the forest."
The strangers smiled and shrugged their shoulders. "We're after gameourselves, as well as timber, but legislation is already in progressto stop the indiscriminate slaughter of the fast disappearing mooseand caribou. Five hundred dollars is the fine to be imposed for anyinfringement of the law, once passed."
Pierre's jaw dropped. He was so impressed by the long words and themention of that, to him, enormous sum, that he was rendered speechlessfor a longer time than Adrian ever remembered. But, if he saidnothing, he reflected sadly upon the magnificent antlers he should seeno more.
Adrian's affairs were also, speedily and satisfactorily arranged.Farmer Donovan would willingly take him to the nearest stage route;thence to a railway would be easy journeying; and by steam he couldtravel swiftly, indeed, to that distant home which he now so longed tosee.
The parting of the lads was brief, but not without emotion. Two peoplecannot go through their experiences and dangers, to remain indifferentto each other. In both their hearts was now the kindliest feeling andthe sincere hope that they should meet again. Pierre departed firstand looked back many times at the tall, graceful figure of hiscomrade; then the trees intervened and the forest had again swallowedhim into its familiar depths.
Then Adrian, also, stepped upon the waiting buck-board and was drivenover the rough road in the opposite direction.
Three days later, with nothing in his pocket but his treasured knife,a roll of birch-bark, and the ten-dollar piece which, through all hisadventures, he had worn pinned to his inner clothing, "a make-pieceoffering" to his mother he reached the brown stone steps to hisfather's city mansion.
There, for the first time, he hesitated. All the bitterness with whichhe had descended those steps, banished in disgrace, was keenlyremembered.
"Can I, shall I, dare I go up and ring that bell?"
A vision floated before him. Margot's earnest face and tear-dimmedeyes. Her lips speaking:
"If I had father or mother anywhere--nothing should ever make me leavethem. I would bear everything--but I would be true to them."
An instant later a peal rang through that silent house, such as it hadnot echoed in many a day. What would be the answer to it?
A Daughter of the Forest Page 16