XXVI
“Hang him! What does he mean?” broke out Chanler querulously, as soon as we were out of hearing. “What does he mean, Gardy? What’s he got up his sleeve? He means something. Probably got some of the crew waiting to waylay us, steal our canoe, or something like that. Hang it!”
“I don’t think so, George,” said Betty. “There haven’t been any of the men about since we got here. They went straight on into the woods, and Dr. Olson and the captain went with them. The captain came back alone, something over an hour ago. He said the rest were hunting gold up in the hills and wouldn’t be back for some time.”
“Well, hang it! He’s got something,” began George again, but I managed to catch him by the arm and draw him back out of Betty’s hearing.
“Forget yourself for the present,” I whispered. “Think of Miss Baldwin a little.”
“I think he’s bluffing,” I said aloud. “As Miss Baldwin says, there can’t be any of the men around here. He was talking to frighten us. We’ll go straight down to the canoe.”
“Surely, surely!” said George, with an assumed laugh. “I see now he was bluffing. It’s all right, Betty. Jolly, little evening party, I call it.”
I dropped behind, letting them go on ahead, and I heard the rumble of George’s voice without hearing what he was saying. But from its tone I knew what it was: he was apologizing, explaining, promising.
“I’m sorry I said what I did when I first saw you, George,” Betty was saying as we neared the place where our canoe was tied.
“What was that? ’Bout my being sober? Ha! I deserved that, Betty; don’t let that trouble you. It’s all over now. Every thing’s turning out fine now, and—there’s our canoe. Nothing to that bluff of cappy’s, Gardy,” he called back to me.
“Of course not,” I said. “Now we’ll just paddle home and——”
“And live happy ever afterward,” he laughed.
Betty seated herself in the middle of the little craft without a word, and we remained silent while we shot down the river, into the bay, and turned our bow toward the yacht.
“Tell us all about it, Betty,” said George, at last. “By Jove! You made cappy look foolish.”
Betty waited several minutes before replying:
“Well, when Captain Brack came back the first time, in the morning, he said that you, Mr. Pitt, had decided to go with them when they left the yacht at daylight, and that you had remained up at the mine with the men. Then he went away again and returned about noon. He said that you were still up there, and that you’d suggested it would be a pleasant thing for me to come up when they returned. I don’t suppose I should have gone, really, but there wasn’t anything about that to keep me from going, was there?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “On the contrary it was quite natural that you should go.”
“I know it. But at the same time I had a feeling—a tiny, tiny feeling—that everything wasn’t quite right. There wasn’t any reason why I should, unless possibly it was the way he looked at me. I can’t explain what it was, but I had that feeling. I wanted to ask somebody, but—but——”
“Rub it into me, Betty,” laughed George. “I deserve it: I wasn’t fit to be asked anything.”
“I didn’t know then, George,” she said gently. “You’ll forgive me?”
“All my fault; make it up, though,” he said. “Go on.”
“Then I saw Dr. Olson getting into the boat, but still I didn’t feel quite right about going. Then the captain—” she hesitated a moment—“Captain Brack said: ‘Get in; you know you are coming with us. Don’t delay.’ And before I knew it I was in the boat and we were rowing away.
“There was a man waiting for us when we got up at the mine—that big, rough man.”
“Garvin.”
“And he spoke something to Captain Brack, and the captain and the doctor and the man hurried away into the hills on the other side of the lake. The captain said that you were out there with the men, Mr. Pitt, and that he’d tell you that I was there and you’d be back soon. Well, that’s about all. I had a lovely time roaming around that lake by myself for hours. And every minute I was getting more and more convinced that the captain had lied. When he came back alone I knew that he had.”
“Because he was alone?”
“No-o-o! Not only that. It was the way he looked at me. On the yacht I’d often wondered if he really was nice, or if he was just pretending. Now he’d quit pretending, and he—he wasn’t nice at all. You can’t guess what he did?”
I held my breath; I felt sure that George did likewise.
“He—he made me—cook that—dinner! He did. He said that he wanted to see me in the rôle of a real woman. I thought I’d better do it, to keep the peace. He sat and watched me and talked. He said that that was as things should be; said I’d be a real woman in time. I wasn’t frightened, but it was—oh, thrilling, you know. Funny, too. I laughed a little at myself, because I’d always fancied I’d like to live the adventurous life, and here I had, and it wasn’t nice at all.”
“How come you weren’t frightened?” interrupted George.
“I don’t know; I wasn’t, though. Well, maybe I was once, when I asked him when we were going back to the yacht and he said for me to put the yacht out of my thoughts. Then I had a wild idea of making a sprint for the boat and getting away, but I remembered they’d pulled it up in the brush. Then I thought of running down the bay and swimming out to the yacht, but I knew I couldn’t outrun him and outswim him. It was dark then, too, and I knew some of you would soon be up looking for me.”
“You knew? How? You didn’t know that Gardy,” began George, but I cut him short.
“Of course,” I said. “It was certain that somebody would be up soon after dark since you didn’t return. Then what?”
“Then we sat down to eat. With tears and woe in my tones I must admit it, I wouldn’t like to subsist on my own cooking. But Captain Brack has a better appetite. He fairly reveled in the fruits of my labors. Then he become personal, and then—then you came in and everything was lovely.”
We paddled in silence for awhile.
“And so you were rather disappointed in cappy, Betty?” said George slowly.
“Yes. He wasn’t nice at all, he was common, when he stopped acting.”
“Wonderful chap, though,” mused George. “Must say I enjoyed his company. Couldn’t put up with him any more, however. Well, we won’t have to. We’ll leave him here—we’ll sail tonight. Wilson can be captain. We’ll have to go some place and get a new crew, I suppose. Then we’ll go on to Petroff Sound. I—I’m really much better, Betty,” he added softly.
“Of course you are, George. You don’t know how glad I am to see you yourself again.”
“Really, Betty?”
“Of course.”
“It’s going to be all right now, Betty. I’ll make it all up to you.”
“Of course you will, George,” she said, and I splashed my paddle in the water so I might not hear.
I was an outsider, an incident. My mission had been to help straighten out a tangle for which George’s condition had been responsible. I had succeeded. Good and well. Now Betty would have George’s attention. She would see him as she had seen him when first she had learned to care for him; she would care for him again. She would forget Brack. She would forget this adventure. In her proper sphere back home it would become an incident; it would be something to laugh over—with George.
So I reasoned as we paddled down Kalmut Fiord, our eyes confidently searching the darkness ahead for the first flash of the Wanderer’s welcoming lights. So little did I know about women, and especially about Miss Beatrice Baldwin.
Presently George stopped paddling.
“Gardy,” he said in a strange tone.
“Yes?”
“Doesn’t it seem to you we’re pretty near there?”
I looked around. So absorbed had I been in my thoughts that I had not paid any attention to the distance we had traveled. Now I saw by the hills about us that we were nearing the foot of the bay.
“It’s funny we don’t see any lights,” said George. “Let’s sprint a little, Gardy.”
We paddled at top speed for several minutes, but we fell back to our former stroke. No lights were in sight.
A sinister silence fell upon us. Our paddles rose and fell methodically, but in spite of the exercise I felt cold and faint.
“Here we are,” said George anxiously. “Here’s the point just above where the yacht’s anchored. Soon’s we get around this point we’ll see her lights, sure.”
Our strokes increased in speed and power. Once around the promontory which loomed ahead in the darkness and the lights of the Wanderer would gleam out to us a hearty welcome.
“Got to get there soon; got to!” muttered George. “I’m all in. Need some of the dope the doctor left for me. Need it badly.”
We rounded the promontory. The mouth of the bay, down to the island which shut it in from the sea, was before us. And it was all dark, as dark as the bay behind us, with not a pin-prick of light disturbing the primitive night.
George stopped paddling.
“What—what?” he gasped. “Oh, oh, my God!”
I did not speak. I continued to paddle like an automaton. In five minutes we were floating over the spot where the Wanderer had lain. The yacht was gone.