XXIX
I glanced instinctively toward the back of the cabin, at the large, sack-covered window cut in the logs.
“Out that way, Betty!” I whispered, tearing down the sacking.
It was the first time I had called her by that name. She obeyed promptly.
“George?” she whispered, as she stood ready to climb through the window.
“No,” said Dr. Olson. “He’s helpless—I’ll stay here. Hurry!”
I was stuffing my pockets with food, with a snuffed candle, scarcely conscious of what I was doing. Also, in the same instinctive manner, without any conscious thought, yet somehow realizing that it was a vital action, I snatched a blanket from Chanler’s bunk and threw it over my shoulder.
“We’re going to the cave where I hid the rifle. Tell that to Pierce, doctor; he’ll understand.”
“Yes. Hurry, for God’s sake!” he whispered. “Good luck.”
Betty went through the window with a lithe vault and a noiseless drop outside. I followed, dropped beside her, and, catching her hand, led as silently as possible away from the cabin until I felt sure we were out of hearing. Then we swung carefully back through the brush to the river trail at a point well below the mine clearing.
“Now for the canoe!” I whispered. “Come on!”
I ran as I had not run since a boy, and as I glanced back over my shoulder I saw Betty following closely.
We found the canoe where we had left it. Betty was in the bow before I had it untied. I pushed off, and, regardless of the rocks, we paddled furiously down-stream for the open water of the bay.
Not until we had entered the fiord and put an out-jutting cliff between ourselves and the river-mouth did we relax. Then Betty laid her paddle across the bows, bowed her head, and a tremor shook her slim body.
“Don’t—don’t, Miss Baldwin!” I pleaded. “On my word and honor I feel absolutely confident that we are safe now.”
To my surprise she replied—
“I feel safe, too.”
“You’re tired, then, and cold. Put the blanket about you, and rest. I’ll paddle the rest of the way.”
She shook her head, and resumed her paddling.
“It wasn’t that. It wasn’t that, please. I’ve camped out often. But George—poor George!”
Her words came as a shock to me. So George still occupied first place in her mind. I had been right: she had seen George as he had been when first she had learned to care for him; and she had realized that she still cared. Her first thought in the moment of our hurried flight from the cabin had been of him. Even though she had seen him go to pieces piteously she still cared. She thought of him before all others. Well, that was as it should be, as I had hoped it would be when I brought George up to the cabin, sane and sober, and in his right mind. It was right.
But Fate persisted with its tantalizing pranks, for here was I, an outsider, still necessary in the task of bringing George and Betty to the haven of safety and happiness. The doctor would look after George; I felt sure that Chanler’s condition would keep him free from any cruelty by Brack. I would do my best to look after Betty.
She would be very happy, too. She had the faculty of happiness. That faculty was saving her from the torture of fear now; it would be a guarantee of future happiness for her and George. Verily, when a man forecasts a woman’s ways he is as a child!
My reason for going to the cavern on the hillside was twofold. The place offered a fair shelter for Betty where she could lie hidden safely. I also wished to recover the rifle which I had taken from Barry.
I was certain that sooner or later Pierce would make an attempt to join us if it was possible, and with the rifle and my pistol we would at least be two armed men. If Pierce came, even though Brack was in possession of the yacht, we could strike out through the wilderness, keeping near the coast, in hope of finding a settlement.
In spite of the darkness we easily found the inlet where Barry’s negligent watching had given me an opportunity to escape. At first I thoughtlessly steered the canoe straight at the sandy beach, but an instant before our bow would have run up on the sands the same instinct which had prompted me to snatch food and blanket from the cabin, warned me to back water. Brack would have his men out by daylight searching the bay for signs of our whereabouts. If we landed on the soft sand of the beach the canoe and our tracks—especially the rubber heels of Betty’s outing shoes—would easily be seen.
On one side of the inlet a ledge of rock jutted into the water and toward this I now turned the canoe, explaining to Betty the reason for so doing.
“How did you ever think of that?” she exclaimed. “You haven’t done these things before, have you?”
“Not since I was a boy,” I replied.
“Did you play Injun then?”
“Of course. All boys do.”
“I’m glad.”
“So am I; it’s helpful just now.”
“Yes; but I didn’t mean that.”
“What then?”
“Because if you played Injun you must have been a regular boy, and regular boys have such a lot of jolly fun, Mr. Pitt?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you ever feel like playing Injun now? No? Too old and dignified? Never play Injun any more?”
I laughed negatively as I swung the bow toward the rock.
“Shucks! It’s too bad,” she said. “You play it so well it’s a shame you don’t like to do it.”
We ran alongside the ledge and found that its flat top was just out of reach above our heads. A canoe offers no safe foundation to leap from and for the moment I was nonplused.
Betty, her hand resting on the flat surface of the rocks, found a crevice. On closer examination it proved to be only a slight crack, not large enough to provide a foothold, but Betty was thrusting at the opening with the blade of her paddle.
“Ah! There we are!” she chuckled, as the thin paddle entered the crack. “There’s a step for us.”
“How did you ever think of that?” I exclaimed.
“I used to play Injun, too,” she replied.
With the paddle as a step I was able to reach the top of the ledge and draw myself up. Betty then passed me the paddles and the painter of the canoe. Lying flat down on the ledge I stretched my arms downward until our hands met. Her strong warm fingers gripped my wrists and I promptly imitated her grasp.
“Now!” I said, and as she leaped I pulled upward with all my might.
Her hair brushed my eyes as she came up over the edge, and when our fingers released each other’s wrists, I was vaguely conscious that something strange had happened, though I did not know what. We drew the canoe up together. It had been my intention merely to hide it in the brush out of sight of the bay, but now another idea presented itself.
I gave Betty the paddles and with the canoe on my back started up the hill for my cave.
“No, sir,” objected Betty. “That isn’t fair. If we’re going to play Injun I want my share of the game.”
I protested; the distance was short, the weight slight; but in the end the march was resumed with each of us sharing equally the weight of the canoe.
A seventy-pound canoe is no burden for two people in the open. But our way lay in the darkness up a rocky ridge, through brush and timber, and we tripped and fell, ran into trees, got caught in the brush, and suffered other minor mishaps until I stopped and insisted that Betty allow me to carry the canoe alone.
“No, sir,” she repeated firmly. “I’m not stumbling any more than you are. Be fair and let me play, too.”
We compromised by putting down the canoe, and, leaving Betty to wait beside it, I went on to locate my cave. I found it, as I had that morning, by stumbling into it.
I struck a match and glanced at the spot where I had hid the rifle. Then I stood staring dumbly until the match burned down to my fingers. For the second time that night I experienced the same shock; the rifle was gone; someone had been in the cave.
When I returned to Betty my self-control had been regained. Whatever the significance of the rifle’s disappearance might be Betty must have shelter for the night, and the cave was the only place available for that purpose. We carried the canoe thither and I lighted my piece of candle and stepped down.
The cave really was a wedge-shaped opening in the side of the hill, its mouth probably twenty feet across, and about the same in depth. Betty cried out as the candle-light revealed the place.
“Why it’s almost jolly! It’s a perfect place to play Injun.”
We slid the canoe down and placed it as near the back of the cave as it would go.
“That,” said I, “is going to be your bed,” and clambering out I began to gather armfuls of fragrant small branches and brush.
The canoe was soon half filled, and, spreading the blanket over the boughs, I said—
“Whenever you are ready to retire, there is your chamber.”
“How jolly!” she cried.
Then she stopped. A new expression, which I misread, came into her eyes.
“I have my lodgings up the hill a ways,” I said hurriedly. “I’ll bid you good night.”
“Mr. Pitt!” she said, and for the first time her under lip trembled suspiciously.
“It’s a considerable distance away,” I assured her. “I’ll be quite out of sight. Really, you needn’t——”
Her lip ceased trembling. A tiny twinkle came into her eyes, a trace of a smile showed in the corners of her mouth.
“Good gracious!” she cried. “I believe that you—you think I’m worrying—about being alone with you!”
I looked at her stupidly.
“Well, weren’t you?”
Her smile vanished.
“Oh, what a perfectly selfish pig you must think me, Mr. Pitt!”
“Good heavens, no! Anything but that. But—but we’re alone—no chaperon—wasn’t that the natural thing to think?”
“The conventional thing, you mean! And—and we’re playing Injun together!”
“But—but you looked!” I stammered protestingly. “What were you thinking about?”
And she replied—
“I was wishing we had two canoes.”
Presently she said—
“How are you going to sleep, Mr. Pitt?”
“On a bed of boughs.”
“Where?”
“Oh, there’s plenty of room all around.”
“And no shelter? Suppose it rains? Why do you wish to leave this cave?”
“My dear Miss Baldwin!” I protested.
“Shocked?” she said mournfully. “I can’t help it. It seems so ridiculous to think of such things out here. We—we’re Injuns. See, there’s a nice corner right near the opening, yet with a roof over it. We can fill that with boughs. I—I’d get frightened, really, if you left me here all alone.”
“Putting it that way, of course—”
“That’s right. Now I’m going to help make your bed.”
Fifteen minutes later, perhaps, I lay down upon a pile of branches near the mouth of the cavern and blew out the candle.
“Good night,” came Betty’s voice from the canoe.
“Good night.”
Silence reigned. We were tired; soon we grew drowsy. Just before she fell asleep Betty murmured—
“Mr. Pitt!”
“Yes.”
“I still insist ’tisn’t fair—we haven’t got—two canoes.”