TWO MEN AND A WOMAN
Thompson drove his canoe around a jutting point and came upon a white cruiser swinging at anchor in an eddy. Her lines were familiar though he had not seen her in two years. In any case the name Alert in gold leaf on her bows would have enlightened him. He was not particularly surprised to find Tommy's motor boat there. He had half-expected to find Tommy Ashe hereabouts.
A man's head rose above the after companion-hatch as the canoe glided abreast.
"Is Mr. Ashe aboard?" Thompson asked.
The man shook his head.
"Went up to Carr's camp a while ago."
"When did you get in?" Thompson inquired further.
"Last night. Lost a day laying up at Blind Bay for a southeaster. Gee, she did blow."
Thompson smiled and passed on. Blind Bay was only two miles from Cape Coburn. Just a narrow neck of land had separated them that blustery night. It was almost like a race. Tommy would not be pleased to see him treading so close on his heels. Thompson felt that intuitively. All was fair in love and war. Still, even in aërial warfare, ruthless and desperate as it was, there were certain courtesies, a certain element of punctilio. Thompson had an intuition that Ashe would not subscribe to even that simple code. In fact he began to have a premonition of impending conflict as he thrust stoutly on his paddle blade. Tommy had changed. He was no longer the simple, straightforward soul with whom Thompson had fought man-fashion on the bank of Lone Moose, and with whom he had afterward achieved friendship on a long and bitter trail.
Three hundred yards past the Alert he came to a landing stage which fitted the description given by the skipper of the Squalla. Thompson hauled his canoe out on the float, gained the shore, and found a path bordering the bank. He followed this. Not greatly distant he could hear the blows of chopping, the shrill blasts of a donkey-engine whistle and the whirr of the engine itself as it shuddered and strained on its anchored skids, reeling up half a mile, more or less, of inch and a quarter steel cable, snaking a forty-foot log out of the woods as a child would haul a toothpick on the end of a string.
Before long the brush-floored forest opened on a small area of parked wood. In this pleasant place stood a square block of a house. From a tall staff fluttered the Union Jack. As Thompson came near this the door opened and a group of youngsters tumbled out pell-mell and began to frolic. Thompson looked at his watch. He had stumbled on a school in the hour of morning recess.
"Where does Mr. Carr live?" he asked one of these urchins when he got near enough to have speech with him.
The youngster pointed upstream.
"First house you come to," he said. "White house with shingles painted green. Say, mister, have you just come from the war? My dad was over there. Do you know my dad, mister?"
The boy stood gazing at him, apparently hopeful of paternal acquaintance, until he discovered that Thompson did not know his "dad." Then he darted back to join his fellows at their game.
Thompson walked on. The white house with green shingles loomed up near at hand, with a clump of flaming maples beside it. Past that stood other houses in an orderly row facing the river, and back of them were sheds and barns, and beyond the group of buildings spread a wide area of cleared land with charred stumps still dotting many an acre.
He had to enter the place he took to be Sam Carr's by the back yard, so to speak. That is, he came up from the rear, passed alongside the house—and halted abruptly, with his foot on the first of three steps rising to a roomy verandah.
He had not meant to eavesdrop, to listen to words not meant for his hearing. But he had worn the common footgear of yachtsmen, a pair of rubber-soled canvas shoes, and so had come to the verandah end unseen and noiselessly. He was arrested there by the sight of two people and the mention of his own name by one of them.
Sophie was sitting on the rail, looking soberly down on the glacial gray of Toba River. There was a queer expression on her face, a mixture of protest and resignation. Tommy Ashe stood beside her. He had imprisoned one of her hands between his own and he was speaking rapidly, eagerly, passionately.
Thompson had heard without meaning to hear. And what he heard, just a detached sentence or two, shot him through with a sudden blaze of anger. He stepped up on the floor, took quickly the three strides that separated him from Tommy.
"You are nothing but a common liar," he challenged bluntly. "You know you are, when you speak of me as being dead. Is that why you scuttled out of Vancouver and hurried on here, as soon as you saw me back?"
Ashe shrank back a step. His naturally florid face grew purple. Thompson matched him glance for glance, wondering as the moments ticked off why Tommy glared and did not strike.
"Your heart has grown as flabby as your principles," he said at last contemptuously.
For the instant, in anger at a lie, in that fighting mood which puts other considerations into abeyance when it grips a man, Thompson gave no heed to Sophie—until he felt her hand on his arm and looked down into her upturned face, white and troubled, into gray eyes that glowed with some peculiar fire.
"It is really, truly you?" she said in a choked voice.
"Of course," he answered—and he could not help a little fling. "You see I am no longer a rabbit. I don't like your friend here. He has tried to sneak a march on me, and I suspect it is not the first. I feel like hurting him."
She paid not the least heed to that.
"You were officially reported dead," she went on. "Reported shot down behind the German lines a year ago."
"I know I was reported dead, and so have many other men who still live," he said gently. "I was shot down, but I escaped and flew again, and was shot down a second time and still am here not so much the worse."
Sophie slipped her hand into his and turned on Tommy Ashe.
"And you knew this?" she said slowly. "Yet you came here to me this morning—and—and—"
She stopped with a break in her voice.
"I didn't believe you were capable of a thing like that, Tommy," she continued sadly. "I'm ashamed of you. You'd better go away at once."
Ashe looked at her and then at Thompson, and his face fell. Thompson, watching him as a man watches his antagonist, saw Tommy's lips tremble, a suspicious blur creep into his eyes. Even in his anger he felt sorry for Tommy.
The next instant the two of them stood alone, Sophie's hand caught fast in his. She tried to withdraw it. The red leaped into her cheeks. But there was still that queer glow in her eyes.
Thompson looked down at the imprisoned hand.
"You'll never get that away from me again," he said whimsically. "You see, I am not a rabbit, but a man, no matter what you thought once. And when a man really wants a thing, he takes it if he can. And I want you—so—you see?"
For answer Sophie hid her hot face against his breast.
"Ah, I'm ashamed of myself too," he heard a muffled whisper. "I sent you away into that hell over there with a sneer instead of a blessing. And I was too ashamed, and a little afraid, to write and tell you what a fool I was, that I'd made a mistake and was sorry. I couldn't do anything only wait, and hope you'd come back. Didn't you hate me for my miserable holier-than-thou preachment that day, Wes?"
"Why, no," he said honestly. "It hurt like the devil, of course. You see it was partly true. I was going along, making money, playing my own little hand for all it was worth. I couldn't rush off to the front just to demonstrate to all and sundry—even to you—that I was a brave man and a patriot. You understand, don't you? It took me quite a while to feel, to really and truly feel, that I ought to go—which I suppose you felt right at the beginning. When I did see it that way—well, I didn't advertise. I just got ready and went. If you had not been out of sorts that day, I might have gone away with a kiss instead of your contempt. But I didn't blame you. Besides, that's neither here nor there, now. You're a prisoner. You can only be paroled on condition."
Sophie smiled up at him, and was kissed for her pains.
"Name the condition."
"That you love me. I've waited a long time for it."
"I've always loved you," she said gravely. "Sometimes more, sometimes less. I haven't always believed we could be happy together. Sometimes I have been positive we couldn't. But I've always measured other men by you, and none of them quite measured up. That was why it stung me so to see you so indifferent about the war. Probably if you had talked about it to me, if I had known you were thinking of going, I should have been afraid you would go, I should have been afraid for you. But you seemed always so unconcerned. It maddened me to think I cared so much for a man who cared nothing about wrongs and injustices, who could sit contentedly at home while other men sacrificed themselves. My dear, I'm afraid I'm an erratic person, a woman whose heart and head are nearly always at odds."
Thompson laughed, looking down at her with an air of pride.
"That is to say you would always rather be sure than sorry," he remarked. "Well, you can be sure of one thing, Sophie. You can't admit that you really do care for me and then run away, as you did at Lone Moose. I have managed to stand on my own feet at last, and your penalty for liking me and managing to conceal the fact these many moons is that you must stand with me."
She drew his face down to her and kissed it. Thompson held her fast.
"I can stand a lot of that," he said happily.
"You may have to," she murmured. "I am a woman, not a bisque doll. And I've waited a long time for the right man."