Garth was anxious on the same score. He fingered the trigger of his gun. "In with you!" he said.
Mabyn jumped to obey.
Garth, sitting in the bow with his weapon in his arms, faced Mabyn; and forced him to wield the paddle. Mabyn, seeing that he did mean to put him on the island, realized there had been no occasion for his brutish terror; but instead of feeling any shame for the self-betrayal, he characteristically added it to his score against Garth. His gray eyes contracted in an agony of impotent hate. At that moment unspeakable atrocities committed on Garth's body would not have satisfied Mabyn's lust to destroy his flesh. Any move on his part would have overturned the crazy dugout, but, shivering at the sight of the water, he was unable to take that way.
Garth, wary of the furtive gleam in the man's eye, sprang to his feet the instant they touched the island, and leaped out, careful never to turn his back. He forced Mabyn to retire a dozen paces, while he took the place he vacated in the stern; and then he ordered him to push off.
At the prospect of being left alone, Mabyn's flesh failed him again. He clung to the bow of the canoe, and gabbled anew for mercy. Garth, wearying of it all, suddenly sent a shot over his head. His weapon, silent and smokeless, had an effect of horrible deadliness. Mabyn, with a moan of fear, pushed the canoe off, and sank back on the grass of the islet.
Exchanging his gun for the paddle, Garth hastened back to the mouth of the creek, pausing only to wave his hat reassuringly at Natalie, whom he could see reclining on her grassy couch. An essential part of his plan was yet to be effected; and he knew not how soon Rina might return. Hastily ransacking the cabin, he gathered together all their meagre rations; flour, sugar, beans, tea and pork; and he likewise commandeered everything that might be turned to use for a weapon; an axe, a chisel, and all knives. Three trips up and down the hill conveyed it to the dugout. Reëmbarking, he had no sooner brought it all to his own camp than Natalie's sharp eyes discovered Rina returning on the distant hill.
Garth carried Natalie into the tent again; and nerved himself to await the inevitable scene. Meanwhile he could see Rina alight at the door, search the cabin hastily, and dart about outside, like a distracted ant returning to find her dwelling rifled. She followed the tracks down to the water's edge, dragging the horse after her. Seeking over the water, she soon discovered the dugout lying at Garth's camp; whereupon she clambered on the horse again. Presently she came crashing through the bush.
This was a vastly different kind of antagonist, that slipped from the horse and faced him with blazing eyes. Rina regarded the weapon in his hands with as little respect as if it had been a pop-gun. But there was nothing baffling about her now, she was just the furious woman common to any shade of skin.
"Where is he?" she cried—and without waiting for any answer, emptied the hissing ewer of her wrath over Garth's head. Her careful English was drowned in a flood of guttural Cree—she fished it up only to curse him.
Garth received the impact in silence, for at first she was in no condition to take in the answers she demanded. He suddenly realized, as a man thinks of an interesting circumstance that does not concern him at all, how beautiful she was; and the thought gave him greater patience.