VI
In the two days that followed, the pack train crossed the divide into Clearwater. From now on the little rivers, gathering headway as they coursed down into the ravines, flowed into the Grizzly and from thence into the great Yuga, far below. The party had crossed ridge on ridge, hill on hill that were a bewilderment to Virginia; they had gained the high places where the marmots whistled shrill and clear at the mouth of their rocky burrows and the caribou paced, white manes gleaming, in the snow; they had seen a grizzly on the far-away slide rock; they had lost their way and found it again; walked abrupt hillsides where the horses could scarcely carry their packs, descended into mysterious, still gullies, forded creeks and picked their way through treacherous marshes; and made their noon camp on the very summit of a high ridge. The snow was deeper here—nearly eighteen inches—but the gray clouds were breaking apart in the sky. Apparently the storm was over, for the time being at least.
They had trouble with slipping packs on the steep pitches of the morning's march and made slow progress. Bill glanced at his watch with displeasure. He rushed through the noon meal and cut their usual rest short by a full half-hour.
"We're behind schedule," he explained, "and we've got a bad half-day before us. I was counting on making Gray Lake cabin to-night, and we've got to hurry to do it."
"That is beyond Grizzly River," Lounsbury remarked.
Bill turned in some wonder. He hadn't know that Lounsbury was so well acquainted with the topography of the region. Stranger still, the man started at his glance, flushing nervously. "I heard some one say that Gray Lake was beyond Grizzly River," he explained lamely. "By all means make it if we can."
There was no possible deduction to make from the incident, so Bill turned his thought to other matters. "It's almost necessary—that we make it," he said. "There's no horse feed nor decent camp site between here and there. Besides, I don't like to put Miss Tremont up in a tent to-night. The best cabin in my whole string is at Gray Lake—a really snug little place, with a floor and a stove. Keep most of my trapping supplies there. If we can make the ford by dark, we'll run in there easy, it's only a mile or so over a well-run moose trail."
"And you think we're entirely safe in going on?" the girl asked.
"As far as I can see. I'm a little bit worried about Grizzly River—I'm afraid it's up pretty high—but I'll try it first and see if it's safe to ford. The snow-storm has quit—I think we'll have nice weather in a few days. If it should begin again we could turn back and make it through before the drifts got too deep to cross—that is, if we didn't delay. And besides, when we get across Grizzly River we're in favorable country for your search. We can put up at the cabin a few days and make a thorough hunt for any sign of the missing man. If the weather will permit—and I believe it will—we can follow down the river to the Yuga and make inquiries of the Indians."
His words heartened the party. Even Lounsbury had begun to show some eagerness; Vosper, flinching before the hard work of the trail, was jubilant at the thought of a few days' rest. They pushed on into the snow-swept waste.
The clouds knit again overhead, but as yet the air was clear of snow. The temperature, however, seemed steadily falling. The breath of the horses was a steam cloud; the potholes in the marsh were gray and lifeless with ice. And it seemed to Virginia that the wild things that they passed were curiously restless and uneasy; the jays flew from tree to tree with raucous cries, the waterfowl circled endlessly over the gray lakes.
This impression grew more vivid as the hours passed; and there was an elusive but sinister significance about it that engrossed her, but which she couldn't name or understand. She didn't mention the matter to Bill. She couldn't have told why, for the plain reason that in her simplicity she was not aware of her own virtues. A sportswoman to the last hair, she simply did not wish to depress him with her fears. There was a suspense, a strange hush and breathlessness in the air that depressed her.
The same restlessness that she observed in the wild creatures began to be noticeable in the horses. Time after time they bolted from the trail, and the efforts of all the party were needed to round them up again. Their morale—a high degree of which is as essential in a pack train as in an army—was breaking before her eyes. They seemed to have no spirit to leap the logs and battle the quagmire. They would try to encircle the hills rather than attempt to climb them.
She wondered if the animals had a sixth sense. She was a wide-awake, observing girl, and throughout the trip she had noticed instances of a forewarning instinct that she herself did not possess. On each occasion where the horses were more or less unmanageable she found, on progressing farther, some dangerous obstacle to their progress,—a steep hill or a treacherous marsh. Could it be that they were forewarned now?
Fatigue came quickly this afternoon, and by four o'clock she was longing for food and rest. She was cold, the snow had wet the sleeves and throat of her undergarments, the control of her horse had cost her much nervous strength. The next hour dragged interminably.
But they were descending now, a steep grade to the river. Twilight, like some gray-draped ghost of a shepherdess whom Apollo had wronged and who still shadowed his steps, gathered swiftly about them.
Bill urged his horse to a faster walk; tired as the animal was he responded nobly. Because Virginia's horse was likewise courageous he kept pace, and the distance widened between the two of them and the remainder of the pack train. Lounsbury's shrill complaints and Vosper's shouts could not urge their tired mounts to a faster gait. The shadows deepened in the tree aisles; the trail dimmed; the tree trunks faded in the growing gloom.
"We won't be able to see our way at all in five minutes more," Virginia told herself.
Yet five minutes passed, and then, and still the twilight lingered. The simple explanation was that her eyes gradually adjusted themselves to the soft light. And all at once the thickets divided and revealed the river.
She didn't know why her breath suddenly caught in awe. Some way the scene before her eyes scarcely seemed real. The thickets hid the stream to the right and left, and all she could see was the stretch of gray water immediately in front. It was wide and fretful, and in the half-light someway vague and ominous. It had reached up about the trunks of some of the young spruces on the river bank, and the little trees trembled and bent, stirred by the waters; and they seemed like drowning things dumbly signaling for help. Because the farther bank was almost lost in the dusk the breadth of the stream appeared interminable. In reality it was a full ninety yards at the shallower head of the rapids where the moose trail led down to the water.
The roar of the river had come so gradually to her ear that now she was hardly aware of it; indeed the wilderness seemed weighted with silence. But it was true that she heard a terrifying roar farther down the stream. Yet just beyond, perhaps a mile from the opposite bank, lay camp and rest,—a comfortable cabin, warmth and food. She hoped they would hurry and make the crossing.
But Bill halted at the water's edge, and she rode up beside him. He seemed to be studying the currents. The pack train caught up, and Lounsbury's horse nudged at the flank of her own animal. "Well?" Lounsbury questioned. "What's the delay? We're in a hurry to get to camp."
"It's pretty high," Bill replied softly. "I've never tried to cross when it was so high as this." It was true. The rains and the snow had made the stream a torrent.
"But, man, we can't camp here. No horse feed—no cabin. We've got to go on."
"Wait just a minute. Time is precious, but we've got to think this thing out. We can put up a tent here, and cold as it is, make through the night someway. I'm not so sure that we hadn't ought to do it. The river looks high, and it may be higher than it looks—it's hard to tell in the twilight. Ordinarily I cross at the head of the rapids—water less than three feet deep. But it isn't the depth that counts—it's the swiftness. If the river is much over three feet, a horse simply can't keep his feet—and Death Canyon is just below. To be carried down into that torrent below means to die—two or three parties, trying to ship furs down to the Yuga, have already lost their lives in that very place. The shallows jump right off into ten feet of water. It'll be tough to sleep out in this snow, but it's safer. But if you say the word we'll make the try. At least I can ride in and see how it goes—whether it's safe for you to come."
Lounsbury didn't halt to ask him by what justice he should take this risk—why he should put his own life up as a pawn for their comfort and safety. Nor did Bill ask himself. Such a thought did not even come to him. He was their guide, they were in his charge, and he followed his own law.
"Try it, anyway," Lounsbury urged.
Bill spoke to his horse. The animal still stood with lowered head. For one of the few times in his life Bill had to speak twice,—not sharply, if anything more quietly than at first. The the brave Mulvaney headed into the stream.
As Bill rode into those gray and terrible waters, Virginia's first instinct was to call him back. The word was in her throat, her lips parted, but for a single second she hesitated. It was part of the creed and teachings of the circle in which she moved to put small trust in instinct. By a false doctrine she had been taught that the deepest impulses of her heart and soul were to be set aside before the mandates of convention and society; that she must act a part rather than be herself. She remembered just in time that this man was not only an employee, a lowly guide to whom she must not plead in personal appeal. She had been taught to stifle her natural impulses, and she watched in silence the water rise about the horse's knees.
But only for a second the silence endured. The the reaction swept her in a great flood. The generous, kindly warmth of her heart surged through her in one pulse of the blood; and all those frozen enemies of her being—caste and pride of place and indifference—were scattered in an instant. "Oh, come back!" she cried. "Bronson—Bill—come back. Oh, why did I ever let you go!"
For Bill did not look around. Already the sound of the waters had obscured the voices on the shore. Again she called, unheard. Then she lashed her horse with the bridle rein.
The animal strode down into the water. Vosper, his craven soul whimpering within him, had fallen to the last place in the line, but Lounsbury tried to seize her saddle as she pushed forward.
"Where are you going, you little fool?" he cried. "Come back."
The girl turned her head. Her face was white. "You told him to go in," she replied. "Now—it's the sporting thing—to follow him."
The water splashed about her horse's knees. Lounsbury called again, commandingly, but she didn't seem to hear. She lifted her feet from the stirrups as Bill had done before her, and the angry waters surged higher.
Already she knew the strength of the river. She felt its sweeping force against the animal's frame: the brave Buster struggling hard to keep his feet. Ahead of her, a dim ghost in the half-light, Bill still rode on toward the opposite shore. And now—full halfway across—he was in the full force of the current.
It was all too plain that his horse was battling for its life. The stream had risen higher than Bill had dreamed, and the waters beat halfway at the animal's side. He knew what fate awaited him if he should lose his foothold. Snorting, he threw all of his magnificent strength against the current.
It was such a test as the animal had never been obliged to endure before. He gave all that he had of might and courage. He crept forward inch by inch, feeling his way, bracing against the current, nose close to the water. In animals, just the same as in men, there are those that flinch and those that stand straight, the courageous and the cowardly, the steadfast and the false,—and Mulvaney was of the true breed. Besides, perhaps some of his rider's strength went into his thews and sustained him. Slowly the water dropped lower. He was almost to safety.
At that instant Bill glanced around, intending to warn his party not to attempt the crossing. He saw the dim shape of Virginia close behind him, riding into the full strength of the current.
All color swept in an instant from his face, leaving it gray and ashen as the twilight itself. Icy horror, groping and ghastly, flooded his veins as he saw that he was powerless to aid her. Yet his mind worked clear and sure, fast as lightning itself. Even yet it was safer for her to turn back than attempt to make the crossing. He knew that Buster's strength was not that of Mulvaney, and he couldn't live in the deepest, swiftest part of the river that lay before her.
"Turn back," he said. "Turn your horse, Virginia—easy as you can."
At the same instant he turned his own horse back into the full fury of the torrent. It had been his plan to camp alone on the other side of the river, returning to the party in the better light of the morning; but there was not an instant's hesitation in turning to battle it again. His brave horse, obedient yet to his will, ventured once more into that torrent of peril. Virginia, cool and alert, pressed the bridle rein against her horse's neck to turn him.
On the bank Lounsbury and Vosper gazed in fascinated terror. Buster wheeled, struggling to keep his feet. Mulvaney pushed on, clear to the deepest, wildest portion of the stream. And then Virginia's horse pitched forward into the wild waters.
Perhaps the animal had simply made a misstep, possibly an irregularity in the river bottom had upset his balance. The waters seemed to pounce with merciless fury, and struck with all their power.
In the half-light it was impossible even for Bill to follow the lightning events of the next second. He saw the horse struggle, flounder, then roll on his back from the force of the current. It swept him down as the wind sweeps a straw. And he saw Virginia shake loose from the saddle.
He had but an instant's glimpse of a white face in the gray water, of hair that streamed; an instant's realization of a faint cry that the waters obscured. And then he sprang to her aid.
He could do nothing else. When the soul of the man was made it was given a certain strength, and certain basic laws were laid down by which his life was to be governed. That strength sustained him now, those laws held him in bondage. He could be false to neither.
He knew the terror of that gray whirlpool below. He had every reason to believe that by no possible effort of his could he save the girl; he would only throw away his own life too. The waters were icy cold: swiftly would they draw the life-giving heat from their bodies. Soaked through, the cold of the night and the forest would be swift to claim them if by any miracle they were able to struggle out of the river. Yet there was not an instant's delay. The full sweep of his thoughts was like a flash of lightning in the sky; he was out of the saddle almost the instant that the waters engulfed her. He sprang with his full strength into the stream.
On the bank the two men saw it as in a dream: the horse's fall, the upheaval of the water as the animal struggled, a flash of the girl's face, and then Bill's leap. They called out in their impotence, and they gazed with horror-widened eyes. But almost at once the drama was hidden from them. The twilight dropped its gray curtains between; besides, the waters had swept their struggling figures down the stream and out of their sight.
Already the river looked just the same. Mulvaney, riderless, was battling toward them through the torrent, but the stress and struggle of the second before had been instantly cut short. There was no spreading ripples, no break in the gray surface of the stream to show where the two had fallen. The stream swept on, infinite, passionless for all its tumult, unconquerable,—like the River of Death that takes within its depths the souls of men, never to yield them, never to show whence they have gone.
The storm recommenced, the wind wailed in the spruce tops, and the snow sifted down into the gray waters.