XXXII
I sat there in the cabin doorway for a long time, the props upon which I had builded hope and confidence suddenly knocked away. George was gone; Dr. Olson was gone. And there was no trace of them left behind, no trace of where they had gone, or why, or how. They had disappeared from our ken. We were out of touch with them. And upon them had been built our hopes.
Far off on some hilltop a wolf barked suddenly. I pictured Brack with his sneering eyes laughing at me. It was all his work, of course. If it had not been—if the abandonment of the cabins had been accidental—Dr. Olson, knowing that I would return there sometime, would have managed to leave a note or sign to tell the why and where of the going.
But the captain, also knowing that we would come back to the cabins, had taken proper precautions. There was no note, no sign. There was no hope, no chance to escape him. That was the lesson he had prepared for us with these empty cabins.
The wolf barked again, and I thought of Betty alone in the cave and sprang up. And there was something selfish in the speed with which I traveled back over the ridge, for the nearness of her was a stay to my waning confidence and courage.
Nearing the cave I moved more cautiously, not wishing to blunder through the mask of brush we had made to hide the opening. Fumbling in the darkness I found the overhanging rock, and then the opening which I had left as a door in the brush. I paused a moment before crawling inside, and as I did so Betty’s voice came faintly from the canoe:
“Is that you, Gardy? And are you all right?”
“I am,” I replied, as I entered. “And you?”
“Fine and dandy. But—oh, you were away an awful long time.”
“Yes. It was farther than I thought.”
“And did you see George? And what did you find out?”
“A lot of things,” I mumbled with assumed sleepiness. “Everything’s all right. No need to worry. But I’m so tired, so sleepy I can’t talk now. Forgive me, but I’ll have to wait until morning before telling about it.”
“You poor boy!” I heard her sit up.
“Oh, I’m all right,” I protested as I lay down on my nest of boughs. I was sitting up an instant later. “Here; what’s this? You’ve put the blanket on my bed.”
“Only half of it. I ripped it in two while you were gone. It wasn’t fair——”
“You’re going to take it back.”
“No, sir. I’m as warm as a cat back here. I’ll never forgive you if you make me take it back after my feeling so noble for giving it to you. So there.”
“Now really——”
“No, sir! You lie right down and cover yourself up and get the sleep you need so much. You wouldn’t deprive me of feeling like a heroine, would you? Of course not. Good night.”
“Good night.”
She chuckled softly as she lay down.
“I called you ‘Gardy,’ Mr. Pitt; did you notice that? Shocking, isn’t it? After a few days’ acquaintance. I wonder—I wonder if cave-people ever had more than one name.”
And after awhile her soft, steady breathing as she slept made me glad I had withheld the bad news for the morrow.
I awoke the next morning at the first gray light of dawn and slipped out while Betty still slept. I was now as eager to find some sign of human nearness as the morning before I had been eager to assure myself of the isolation of our hiding-place. A sight of the yacht, of any one, of Brack even, would have been a relief from the growing sensation that we had been left completely alone.
I went down to the bay and followed its indentations for more than a mile, making no effort at concealment, in another fruitless search for the yacht. I went over the ridge to the cabins and stood in the clearing before them and shouted recklessly. And when the hills had mockingly echoed back my futile shouts, I knew the calmness of resignation to the worst. We were alone, and we must exist, and escape, if escape we could, solely by our own efforts.
I gathered a pocketful of stones and half a dozen clubs and went back to our spring to hunt for grouse. My good fortune of the day before was not to be repeated. Birds in plenty there were. They flushed from beneath my feet, flew past my head, and sat in rows on branches and looked down upon me. I found, however, that it is one thing to hurl a club into a covey huddled under a bush, and quite another to knock a bird out of a tree, and in desperation I finally used the pistol to bring down the single bird which I thought was to comprise our breakfast that morning.
In the primitive morning stillness the noise of the shot was like a crack of lightning, splitting the silence and echoing through the hills. But by this time I was convinced that we were alone there in Kalmut Valley, and that no one was near enough to hear the report.
As I reentered the cave Betty sprang up, asking:
“Well? Who and what did you see at the cabins last night?”
While I sought for a way to break the news without any unnecessary alarm to her she continued:
“It’s bad news, of course. I felt that last night. You’d never have been selfish enough to go to sleep without telling me if the news had been good. What is it, Mr. Pitt?”
“I am sorry to say that I didn’t see any one at the cabins,” I replied. “There was no one there. There was nothing there. The cabins were stripped bare. Everything in them was gone—food, everything.”
“Then thank goodness for the bird,” she said quietly. “Where do you think George and everybody, and everything has gone?”
“Oh, Brack’s taken them and all the stuff away some place. But where I can’t imagine. I really don’t believe the yacht’s in the fiord at all, so it doesn’t seem they could be on board. Brack may have headquarters somewhere on shore.”
“But what could be his object in taking everything away from the cabins?”
“To leave us without food or anything to help us.”
“Hm,” said Betty, her chin in her hands. “I was thinking of something else.”
“What?”
“Brack knew you’d go back and have a look at the cabins. He thinks we’re in the open wilderness without a shelter over our heads. Well, when you find that the cabins have been stripped, deserted, apparently abandoned for good, wouldn’t it be natural for us to rush to them for shelter?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, couldn’t he be watching, and when we were in—” her hand pounced onto a sprig of birch and crushed it—“just like that?”
“A trap!” I cried. “I never thought of that. Of course. And with no food, even if we were safe at first, we’d have to give in in the end.”
“Which we’ll never, never do, of course,” she said firmly. She looked around at the fir and birch boughs hung in the cave. “I don’t think I care to move just at the present. While this apartment is not as roomy or light as it might be, I am quite fascinated with its interior decorations, as well as its safety. No; Mr. Brack must find other tenants for his cabins. I think we shall remain right here.”
I laughed in sheer relief at the serio-comic air with which she said this.
“Betty,” I said, “aren’t you even a little bit afraid?”
“Oh, yes, Gardy,” she said, instantly serious. “Aren’t you? I’m lots afraid. But we mustn’t let that bother us, must we?”
“Emphatically, no! We mustn’t let anything bother us. You mustn’t let anything worry you. We’ll get along, somehow; I don’t know how, but I know we will——”
“Of course we will!”
“And when it comes to Captain Brack——”
“Are we downhearted?” demanded Betty, and together we answered: “No!”
It was immediately after this that we once more saw the captain. I was preparing to go out and clean the bird, and as I parted the branches a boat from the yacht, rowed by four men, with Brack at the rudder, came rushing down the fiord and steered for the beach directly below where we were hidden.
Betty saw me start and sprang to my side. Neither of us said a word while we watched the boat come to land. As the men sprang out and hurried into the brush we drew back to the rear of the cave, sat down on the canoe, and looked at each other.
“It’s my fault,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have fired that shot. They heard it. Don’t give up, though. They haven’t found us yet.”
“I wonder if they are coming here?” she whispered back.
I went back to the opening and peered cautiously through the branches. The men, even Captain Brack, were crouched down in the shelter of a huge boulder, and Brack was giving them directions.
Immediately they scattered, and began to work up the hill. They did not come directly toward the cave but went slightly to the north, in the direction where I had fired my pistol.
The caution with which they moved puzzled me. They crouched and ran from tree to tree, keeping in cover as much as possible, peering around carefully, their rifles always ready. Brack brought up the rear. The other men appeared almost frightened and it seemed that only his presence drove them forward.
“They’re searching the hill, but they’re not coming in this direction,” I whispered as I drew back to Betty. “Apparently they don’t know the exact location of this cave.”
“Do you think they will find it?”
“How can I tell? It’s wonderfully hidden.”
“If they do find it, what will you do?”
I did not reply. I did not know what I would do. But one thing I did know: Brack would not lead us away as his prisoners.
“Gardy,” she whispered, “if they are going to find us tell me, because there’s something I’ve got to tell you if—if—anything happens.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” I whispered assuringly. “Be easy on that. Nothing will happen to you.”
“Even if they do find us?”
“Even if they do find us. Hush now. We’d better not even whisper.”
We sat waiting in silence, our eyes upon the brush-mask across the cavern’s mouth. We were cornered. There was nothing to do but sit and wait for what fate might allot us. Each second I expected to see a face peering through the brush, and to hear the shout that would announce our discovery. But the seconds, infinitely long and throbbing, passed and became minutes, and still we had no sign of Brack and his men.
It was at least half an hour after the men had started up the hill that a spruce grouse, flushed from the ground, flashed across the opening, so close that its wings touched the brush. By the rising flight of the bird I knew that it had been flushed but a few yards away, and, I judged, by some one who was coming toward the cave. They would be here soon now.