IV
“The three of them there, an’ the woman,” said Gatineau, as they pushed out their boat again. “Three to face.”
“We’ll see,” said Clement. “When we get there—well, we’ll see.”
Gatineau, as the least known of the two, stood up, plying his rod; Clement hunched over the rowing. They drifted round the headland. They moved slowly along the lake. Gatineau pretended to be dissatisfied with his sport. He pointed with a long arm, indicating more likely spots for a bite. Clement rowed languidly—there was a great deal of power in his rowing and it took the boat nearer and nearer the shack. Gatineau held up his hand, made a graceful cast, then he said, “Holy Mike!—vanished.” He did not refer to the fish. He said it softly, not because the fish might hear, but because in these silent places sounds carry amazingly.
“You mean Neuburg and Siwash have vanished?” said Clement in the same quiet tone.
“The earth might have swallowed them up. Not a sign of them.”
“And the woman—and Gunning?”
“Not a sign of them. Gone from the porch.”
“They’ve seen us. They’re taking all precautions.”
Clement glanced back to the headland. It shut them off from the entire world. They could see no sign of humanity, not even of the three men in the canoe who were following them so cautiously. Gatineau fished sedately, partly to throw dust in the eyes of the people in or near the shack, partly to give the men in the canoe time to make the headland. Always they drifted nearer and nearer the shack.
Presently—it was part of their plan—Gatineau placed his rod in the boat and sat down. He sat down facing Clement, facing in the direction of the shack.
“Might as well eat,” he said in a loudish, clear voice. Clement said nothing. It did not matter so much that Gatineau’s voice would carry across the water to the shack, but his own voice was known.
Gatineau began munching and surveying the lake. Suddenly he cried, “Say,” and his arm went out, indicating the shack. Clement, his hat well down over his eyes, his chin crouched in his shoulder, looked towards the shack. He said something. Gatineau answered clearly. “No, it ain’t deserted. Why, there’s smoke coming out of the stack. We sure can get some coffee there, or some hot water for our’n.”
He said this loudly, giving warning. If Neuburg and Siwash were in the shack, they had time to get out of it, to run to the bush and hide. Undoubtedly they would not want to be seen.
As they came close in under the shack, the woman appeared on the porch. She was a tall, wiry woman, as lithe-strung as a cat. She had the fierce, sharp, haggard air of a woman who had been wrenched from the more hectic pleasures of cities to stagnate in the wilds. She stood in the break of the door looking down on them, her eyes bright, her face pale, her hand gripping the doorjamb violently to help her master her emotions. Gatineau called, “Hello, mother; who’d a thought of seeing a white woman here?”
“Hello,” she said in a dry voice. “Fishin’? Had luck?” Her tone repelled advances.
“Poor,” said Gatineau. “Say—we was thinkin’—I mean seein’ you had a fire, we thought as you’d allow us to boil a drop o’ water fer cawfee.”
The woman’s tongue went over her dry lips. “Better not come here,” she said in a gasp. “There’s a sick man in this shack.”
“Say—out here—pore feller.”
“Infectious,” cried the woman, catching too much kindliness in Gatineau’s tone. “Turrible infectious.”
“Still a drop of hot water fer cawfee,” said Gatineau. “We don’t want to butt in on your trouble, mother. But we’d be mortal obliged if you could give us a drop of hot water fer our cawfee.”
“But—but it’s turrible infectious,” said the woman, at a loss.
“Oh, but I don’t think a drop of hot water fer our cawfee’d matter much.”
The woman made a decision. “Here, throw up yer can with the cawfee in it, I’ll give you that water.” She caught the can deftly. “But you stay there. Don’t you take no risk. I has to notify any risk of infec’ion.” She turned and went swiftly into the shack.
Clement and Gatineau were out of the skiff and up the bank in a flash.