Acting on this information I set out post-haste that very morning for the old Mission. The stage had passed an hour before, Buttons had fallen lame, but I was in a desperate mood and would brook no delay. The current was with me, and I slid down the river seven miles and made a portage to Blue Lake before noon. A creek flows into Blue Lake, and I followed the creek to its head. It was well past the noon hour by then, and I secreted my craft in a tangle of birches and struck across country on foot. I had a map in my pocket and a compass, and I went forward hopefully.
The old Mission stands on an elevation overlooking a pastoral valley. Gray and solitary it looms, a gilded cross shining on its blue dome. But the way to it, unless one follows the main traveled road, I found to be as hard as the narrow path that leads to righteousness. Ever and anon I glimpsed the gilded cross between the pine tops, but I floundered on through thickets, waded streams, and beat about in bosky jungles, without striking the road I sought.
Toward evening when I lifted my eyes, the shining cross had eluded me. It had comforted me to have it set like a sign against the sky. But I kept on doggedly. The thoughts that went with me were long, hard thoughts. It seemed to me that through all my unfortunate life I had been faring on to meet this final javelin of fate—to have the woman I adored held in the leash of the law—to realize my helplessness—to suffer a thousand deaths a day in my impotency—this was the denouement prepared for me—awaiting me—when, as a lad of twenty-four, I had accepted the stigma of a crime of which I was not guilty and hidden away as a guilty man may hide! The only green oasis in the arid waste of my life had been Joey, and suddenly my heart cried out for the lad who had been my solace and delight. I dropped down on a log, and lay supine through long moments. I thought of Wanza and hoped and prayed I might find her. Haidee’s face came before me with its look of pure white courage. I opened the book of my life still wider and turned to earlier pages. I grew bitter and morose. But, gradually, as I lay there, the searing hurts and perplexities and injustices sank back into the hush of my soul’s twilight, and I tore out the blurred pages and treasured only the white ones on which the names of Joey and Wanza and Haidee were written. Hope stirred in my heart.
It was sunset when I roused at last, crawled to a nearby stream that came slipping along with endless song, and drank thirstily, and laved my face. As I knelt, I saw what seemed to be a deserted cabin, half hidden among scrub pines in the draw below me. I hailed it, stumbled down the overgrown trail, and approached it.
The door was closed, the solitary window boarded over. I tried the door, found it fast, and rattled it tentatively. A voice cried: “Who is there?”
My heart gave a violent leap.
I pressed against the door, and swallowed hard before I could control my tones.
“It is a—a man who is in need of food and shelter,” I answered.
“It is Mr. David! Mr. David!” the voice shrieked. And such a lusty shout arose that the rafters of the old shack fairly trembled.
As for me I leaned in dazed suspense against the door, impatiently waiting for my lad to open to me.