The Woman from Outside / [On Swan River]

by Hulbert Footner

The mosquitoes were troublesome, and he put up his tent, hastily slinging it between two trees, and weighing down the sides and the back with a few stones. To his tent he afterwards ascribed the preservation of his life. It was the simplest form of tent, known as a “lean-to,” or, as one might say, merely half a tent sliced along the ridge-pole, with a roof sloping to the ground at the back, and the entire front open to the fire except for a mosquito-bar.

His bed was hard, but he was too weary to care. He lay down in his blanket, but not to achieve forgetfulness immediately; strong discipline was still required to calm his hot impatience. How could he sleep, not knowing perhaps but that one more mile might bring him to his goal? Indeed, Imbrie’s camp might be around the next bend. But he could not risk his frail canoe in the shallow river after dark.

Stonor was on the borderland of sleep when he was suddenly roused to complete wakefulness by a little sound from behind his tent. A woodsman soon learns to know all the normal sounds of night, and this was something different, an infinitely stealthy sound, as of a body dragging itself an inch at a time, with long waits between. It seemed to be slowly making its way around his tent towards the open front.

Now Stonor knew that there was no animal in his country that stalks human prey, and he instantly thought of his two-legged enemy. Quick and noiselessly as a cat he slipped out of his blankets, and rolling his dunnage-bag in his place drew the blanket over it. In the faint light reflected from the embers outside it might be supposed that he still lay there. He then cautiously moved the stones aside, and slipped out under the wall of his tent on the side opposite to that whence the creeping sounds now came.

On hands and knees he crawled softly around the back of his tent, determined to stalk the stalker. He felt each inch of the way in advance, to make sure there was nothing that would break or turn under his weight. He could hear no sounds from the other side now. Rounding the back of his tent, at the corner he lay flat and stuck his head around. At first he could see nothing. The tall trees on the further shore cut off all but the faintest gleam of light from the river. A little forward and to the left of his tent there was a thick clump of willow, making a black shadow at its foot that might have concealed anything. Stonor watched, breathing with open mouth to avoid betraying himself. Little by little he made out a shadowy form at the foot of the willows, a shape merely a degree blacker than its background. He could be sure of nothing.

Then his heart seemed to miss a beat, for against the wan surface of the river he saw an arm raised and a gun point—presumably at the dummy he had left under the tent. Oddly enough his shock of horror was not primarily that one should seek to kill him, Stonor; he was first of all appalled at the outrage offered to the coat he wore.

The gun spoke and flame leaped from the barrel. Stonor, gathering himself up, sprang forward on the assassin. At the first touch he recognized with a great shock of surprise that it was a woman he had to deal with. Her shoulders were round and soft under his hands; the grunt she uttered as he bore her back was feminine. He wrenched the gun from her hands and cast it to one side.

When she caught her breath she fought like a mad cat, with every lithe muscle of her body and with teeth and claws too. She was strong; strong and quick as a steel spring. More than once she escaped him. Once she got half-way up the bank; but here he bore her down on her face and locked her arms behind her in a grip she was powerless to break.

Jerking her to her feet—one is not too gentle even with a woman who has just tried to murder one—he forced her before him back to his tent. Here, holding her with one arm while she swayed and wrenched in her efforts to free herself, he contrived to draw his knife, and to cut off one of the stay-ropes of his tent. With this he bound her wrists together behind her back, and passed the end round a stout trunk of willow. The instant he stood back she flung herself forward on the rope, but the jerk on her arms must have nearly dislocated them. It brought a shriek of pain from her. She came to a standstill, sobbing for breath.

Stonor collected dead twigs, and blew on the embers. In a minute or two he had a bright blaze, and turned, full of curiosity to see what he had got. He saw a breed woman of forty years or more, still, for a wonder, uncommonly handsome and well-formed. The pure hatred that distorted her features could not conceal her good looks. She had the fine straight features of her white forebears, and her dusky cheeks flamed with colour. She bore herself with a proud, savage grace.