XXXIV
When the dawn came full and bright over Clearwater, Bill and his party were ready to start. When Harold had been thoroughly cowed and his full instructions were given him, the thongs had been put about his ankles and removed from his wrists, and he was permitted to do the packing. That procedure was exceedingly simple; all available blankets were piled on the sled and made into a bed for Virginia, and the ax, candles, and such cooking utensils as were needed were packed in front. And then they had a short but decisive interview with Harold.
"I won't go—I'll die first," he cried to Virginia. "Besides, you don't dare to use force on me; you don't know the way and Bill can't see. You know if you kill me you'll die yourself."
"Fair enough," Virginia replied sweetly. "But take this little word of advice. Bill and I were all reconciled to dying when we thought of you—and we don't mind it now if we're sure you are going along. Don't get any false ideas about that point, Harold. We're not going to spare you on any chance of saving ourselves. We are going to give you a little more foot room, and fix up your hands a little, and then you are going to pull the sled. When we camp at night you're going to cut the wood. Don't think for a minute I'm going to be afraid to shoot if you disobey one order—if you take one step against us. You are at our mercy; we are not at yours. And Bill will tell you I can shoot straight. Perhaps you learned that fact last night."
Yes, Harold had learned. He had learned it very well.
"If I think you're trying to cheat us—to lead us out of the way toward your breed friends—you're going to have a chance to learn it better," she went on, never a quaver in her voice. "I won't wait to make sure—I'll shoot you through the neck as easy and as quick as I'd shoot a grouse. I haven't forgotten what you did last night; I'm just eager for a chance to pay you for it." Her voice grew more sober. "This is a warning—the only one and the last one that you will get. I'm going to watch you every minute and tie you up at night. And the fact that we can't go on without you won't have a jot of influence if you take a step against us. We may die ourselves, but you know that you'll also die."
This was not the sheltered, incapable girl of society that addressed him now. These words were those of the woodswoman; the eyes that gazed into his were unwavering and hard. He knew that she was speaking true. The courage for retaliation oozed out of him as mud oozes into a river.
They lengthened the thong that tied his ankles together, giving him room for a full walking step but not enough to leap or run. They put on his hands a pair of awkward mittens that had been stiffened by mud and water, and lashed them to his wrists. Then they slipped the thong of the sled across his shoulders and under his arms like loops of a kyack. They were ready to go.
The forest was laden with the early-morning silence; the trees stood draped in snow. It was cold, too,—the frost gathered quickly on the mufflers that they wore about their lips. All too well they knew what lay before them. Without food to keep their bodies nourished and warm, they could scarcely hope to make the town; their one chance was that somewhere on the trail they would encounter game. How long a chance it was, this late in winter, they knew all too surely. But for all this knowledge Bill and Virginia were cheerful.
"I haven't much hope," Bill told her when she was tucked into the bed on the sled. "But it's the only chance we have."
She smiled at him. "At least, Bill, we'll have done everything we could. Good-by, little cabin—where I found happiness. Sometime perhaps we'll come back to you!"
The man bent and kissed her, and she gave the word for Harold to start.
Slowly they headed toward the river. The crust was perfect; Harold could hardly feel the weight of the sled. Bill mushed behind, guided by the gee-pole. The white-draped trees they had known so well spoke no word of farewell.
Could they win through? Were they to know the hardship of the journey, starvation and bitter cold, only to find death in some still, enchanted glen of the forest that stretched in front? Was fate still jesting with them, whispering hope only to shatter them with defeat? Were they to know hunger and exhaustion, pain and travail, until finally their bodies dropped down and yielded to the cold? They could not keep up long without the inner fuel of food.
Their chance of finding game seemed hopelessly small, even at first. Before they reached the frozen river it seemed beyond the possibilities of miracle. Even the tracks of the little people—such ferocious hunters as marten and ermine—were gone from the snow. There were no tracks of caribou or moose; the grouse had seemingly buried in the drifts. The only creatures that had not hidden away from the winter cold were the wolves and the coyotes, furtive people that could not be coaxed into the range of Virginia's pistol. For all her outward optimism her heart grew heavy with despair.
They crossed the river, coming out where the old moose trail had gone down the ford. Here they had seen the last of Kenly Lounsbury and Vosper, almost forgotten now. Virginia told Harold to stop an instant as she recalled those vents of months before.
"So much has happened since then," she said, "If only they had left——"
Her words died away in the middle of the sentence, and for a moment she sat gazing with wide and startled eyes. For all that sight was just beginning to return to him, Bill was strangely and unexplainably startled, too, probably sensing the suspense indicated in the girl's tones. Harold turned, staring.
He could not see what Virginia saw, at first. She pointed, unable to speak. In a little thicket of young spruce there was a curiously shaped heap of snow, capped by a done of snow that extended under the sheltering branches of a young tree. Instantly Harold understood. Some long bundle had been left there before the snow came; when it had been thrown down its end had caught in the branches of a young tree where only a small amount of snow could reach it. "See what it is," Virginia ordered.
The man drew the sled nearer and with desperate energy began to knock away the snow. His first discovery was a linen tent,—one that would have been familiar indeed to Bill. But digging further he found a heavy bundle, tied with a rope and rattling curiously in his arms.
At Virginia's directions he laid it in the snow and pulled the sled up where she could open it. Bill stood beside her, not daring to guess the truth.
"Oh, my darling!" she cried at last, drawing his head down to hers. She couldn't say more. She could only laugh and sob, alternately, as might one whose dearest prayers had been granted.
The bundle was full of food,—dried meat and canned goods and a small sack of flour. They were some of the supplies that to save himself the work of caring for, the faithless Vosper had discarded when, with Kenly, he had turned back from the river.
At the end of three bitter days, Bill Bronson stood once more on the hill that looked down upon the old mining camp. The twilight was growing in the glen beneath; already it had cast shadows in Virginia's eyes. She sat beside him on the sled.
It had been cruel hardship, the three days' journey, but they had made it without mishap. At night they had built great fires at the mouth of their tent, but they had not escaped the curse of the cold. The days had been arduous and long. But they had conquered; even now they were emerging from the dark fringe of the spruce.
Virginia was on the rapid road toward recovery from her wound. It had not been severe; while she was lying still on the sled it had had every chance to heal. A few stitches by the doctor in Bradleyburg, a thorough cleansing and bandaging, and a few more days in bed would avert all serious consequences. Bill's sight had grown steadily better as the days had passed; already the Spirits of Mercy had permitted him, at close range, to behold Virginia's face.
A half-mile back, just before they approached the first fringe of the spruce forest, they had met a trapper just starting out on his line; and he had gladly consented to take Harold the rest of the way into town. It is one of the duties of citizenship in the North, where the population is so scant and the officers so few, to take an active part in law enforcement,—and this trapper was glad of the opportunity to assist them in the care of the prisoner. He was to be lodged in prison at the little mining camp to face a charge of attempted murder,—a crime that in the northwest provinces is never regarded lightly.
"And you weren't drowned!" the trapper marveled, when he had got his breath. "We've been mournin' you for dead—for months."
"Drowned—not a bit of it," Virginia answered gayly. "And don't mourn any more."
The trapper said he wouldn't and hastened off with his prisoner, delighted indeed to be the first to pass the good word of their deliverance through Bradleyburg. Bill was well known and liked through all that portion of the North, and his supposed death had been a real blow to the townspeople.
Bill felt wholly able to follow the broad snowshoe track the half-mile farther into town. The footsteps of the men had grown faint and died away,—and Virginia and he were left together on the hill.
They had nothing to say at first. They simply watched the slow encroachment of the twilight. Lights sprang up one and one over the town. Bill bent, and the girl raised her lips to his.
"We might as well go on," he said. "You're cold—and tired."
"Yes. I can't believe—I'm saying good-by to the spruce."
"And you're not, Virginia!" The man's voice was vibrant and joyful. "We'll have to come back often, to oversee the running of the mine—half of every year at least—and we can stay at the old cabin just the same. The woods are beautiful in summer."
"They're beautiful now."
And they were. She told the truth. For all their savagery, their fearful strength, their beauty could not be denied.
They saw the church spire, tall and ghostly in the twilight, and Bill's strong arms pressed the girl close. She understood and smiled happily. "Of course, Bill," she told him. "There is no need to wait. In a few days I'll be strong enough to stand beside you—at the altar."
So it was decided. They would be married in the quaint, old town of Bradleyburg, in the shadow of the spruce.
They would return, these two. The North had claimed them—but had not mastered them—and they would come back to see again the caribou feeding in the forest, the whirling snows, and the spruce trees lifting their tall heads to the winter stars. They would know the old exultation, the joy of conflict; but no blustering storm or wilderness voice could appall them now. In the security and harbor of their love, no wind was keen enough to chill them, no darkness appall their spirits.
The Northern Lights were beginning their mysterious display in the twilight sky. Far away a coyote howled disconsolately,—a cry that was the voice of the North itself. And the two kissed once more and pushed on down to Bradleyburg.