He stripped off his packs and returned for Marette. She had come to the edge of the scow and called to him softly as she heard him splashing through the water. Her arms were reaching toward him, to meet him in the darkness. He carried her through the shallow sea about his feet and laughed as he put her down on the edge of the platform at the door. It was a low, joyous laugh. The yellow light of the candle sputtered in their wet faces. Only dimly could he see her, but her eyes were shining.
"Your nest, little Gray Goose," he cried gently.
Her hand reached up and touched his face. "You have been good to me, Jeems," she said, a little tremble in her voice. "You may—kiss me."
Out in the beat of the rain Kent's heart choked him with song. His soul swelled with the desire to shout forth a paean of joy and triumph at the world he was leaving this night for all time. With the warm thrill of Marette's lips he had become the superman, and as he leaped ashore in the darkness and cut the tie-rope with a single slash of his knife, he wanted to give voice to the thing that was in him as the rivermen had chanted in the glory of their freedom the day the big brigade started north. And he DID sing, under his laughing, sobbing breath. With a giant's strength he sent the scow out into the bayou, and then back and forth he swung the long one-man sweep, twisting the craft riverward with the force of two pairs of arms instead of one. Behind the closed door of the tiny cabin was all that the world now held worth fighting for. By turning his head he could see the faint illumination of the candle at the window. The light—the cabin—Marette!
He laughed inanely, foolishly, like a boy. He began to hear a dull, droning murmur, a sound that with each stroke of the sweep grew into a more distinct, cataract-like roar. It was the river. Swollen by flood, it was a terrifying sound. But Kent did not dread it. It was his river; it was his friend. It was the pulse and throb of life to him now. The growing tumult of it was not menace, but the joyous thunder of many voices calling to him, rejoicing at his coming. It grew in his ears. Over his head the black sky opened again, and a deluge of rain fell straight down. But above the sound of it the rush of the river drew nearer, and still nearer. He felt the first eddying swirl of it against the scow head, and powerful hands seemed to reach in out of the darkness. He knew that the nose of the current had caught him and was carrying him out on the breast of the stream. He shipped the sweep and straightened himself, facing the utter chaos of blackness ahead. He felt under him the slow and mighty pulse of the great flood as it swept toward the Slave, the Mackenzie, and the Arctic. And he cried out at last in the downpour of storm, a cry of joy, of exultation, of hope that reached beyond the laws of men—and then he turned toward the little cabin, where through the thickness of sodden night the tiny window was glowing yellow with candle-light.
CHAPTER XIX
To the cabin Kent groped his way, and knocked, and it was Marette who opened the door for him and stepped back for him to enter. Like a great wet dog he came in, doubling until his hands almost touched the floor. He sensed the incongruity of it, the misplacement of his overgrown body in this playhouse thing, and he grinned through the trickles of wet that ran down his face, and tried to see. Marette had taken off her turban and rain-coat, and she, too, stooped low in the four-feet space of the cabin—but not so ridiculously low as Kent. He dropped on his knees again. And then he saw that in the tiny stove a fire was burning. The crackle of it rose above the beat of the rain on the roof, and the air was already mellowing with the warmth of it. He looked at Marette. Her wet hair was still clinging to her face, her feet and arms and part of her body were wet; but her eyes were shining, and she was smiling at him. She seemed to him, in this moment, like a child that was glad it had found refuge. He had thought that the terror of the night would show in her face, but it was gone. She was not thinking of the thunder and the lightning, the black trail, or of Kedsty lying dead in his bungalow. She was thinking of him.
He laughed outright. It was a joyous, thrilling thing, this black night with the storm over their heads and the roll of the great river under them—they two—alone—in this cockleshell cabin that was not high enough to stand in and scarcely big enough in any direction to turn round in. The snug cheer of it, the warmth of the fire beginning to reach their chilled bodies, and the inspiring crackle of the birch in the little stove filled Kent, for a space, with other thoughts than those of the world they were leaving. And Marette, whose eyes and lips were smiling at him softly in the candle-glow, seemed also to have forgotten. It was the little window that brought them back to the tragedy of their flight. Kent visioned it as it must look from the shore—a telltale blotch of light traveling through the darkness. There were occasional cabins for several miles below the Landing, and eyes turned riverward in the storm might see it. He made his way to the window and fastened his slicker over it.
"We're off, Gray Goose," he said then, rubbing his hands. "Would it seem more homelike if I smoked?"