"Sir Bryson," he said doggedly. "I wanted to tell you that I understand my being useful to you doesn't clear my name, doesn't make me any more a desirable suitor for your daughter."
Sir Bryson made a deprecating gesture.
"Under the circumstances," Jack continued, "I don't want her any more than you want me. It is agreed between Miss Linda and I that we are to have nothing to do with each other until I succeed in clearing myself."
They shook hands on it. Later Vassall and Baldwin Ferrie took opportunity to follow in the lead of their master and ask to shake Jack's hand. For the rest of the day Jack moved in an atmosphere warm with their gratitude and admiration. It was not unpleasant in itself of course, but somehow he felt as if everything that happened tended to tighten little by little the coils in which he found himself. Mile by mile as they neared the end of the journey, and the obstacles retreated, his spirits went down. He was elevated into Sir Bryson's good graces, but not into his own. This was his ingenious difficulty: that the girl he didn't want was attached as a rider to the good name he had to have.
At the day's close he led his bedraggled and dead weary little company stumbling down the hill to the river bank opposite Fort Cheever. There, a fire built on the shore, with its mounting pillar of smoke, soon brought over Davy in a dugout to investigate. Great was the boy's astonishment at the sight of them.
Jack burned with a question that he desired to ask him, but he could not bring his tongue to form Mary's name. His heart began to beat fast as they approached the other shore. He wondered if he would see her. He hoped not, he told himself, and all the while desiring it as a desert traveller longs for water.
XV
AN EXPEDITION OF THREE
Mary was not in evidence around the fort. Jack spent half the night talking things over with David Cranston in the store. In the sturdy Scotch trader he found a friend according to his need. He experienced an abounding relief in unburdening himself to a man who merely smoked and nodded understandingly, without making any fuss.
"You don't have to explain to me that you're no thief," Cranston said coolly.