CHAPTER XX
A PRISONER
When Hubert Stane left the burning cabin, Helen did not obey his injunctions to the letter. A full minute she was to wait in the shadow of the door before emerging, but she disregarded the command altogether in her anxiety to know what fate was to befall him. She guessed that on his emergence he expected a volley, and had bidden her remain under cover until the danger from it should have passed; and being morally certain that he was going to his death, she had a mad impulse to die with him in what was the supreme hour of her life. As the yell greeted his emergence, she caught the sound of the rifle-shot, and not knowing that it had been fired by Stane himself, in an agony of fear for him, stepped recklessly to the door. She saw him running towards the trees, saw him grappled by the Indian who barred the way, and beheld the second figure rise like a shadow by the side of the struggling men. The raised knife gleamed in the firelight, and with a sharp cry of warning that never reached Stane, she started to run towards him. The next moment something thick and heavy enveloped her head and shoulders, she was tripped up and fell heavily in the snow, and two seconds later was conscious of two pairs of hands binding her with thongs. The covering over her head, a blanket by the feel of it, was bound about her, so that she could see nothing, and whilst she could still hear, the sounds that reached her were muffled. Her feet were tied, and for a brief space of time she was left lying in the snow, wondering in an agonized way, not what was going to happen to herself, but what had already happened to her lover.
Then there came a sound that made her heart leap with hope—a sound that was the unmistakable crack of a rifle. Again the rifle spoke, three times in rapid succession, and from the sounds she conjectured that the fight was not yet over, and felt a surge of gladness in her heart. Then she was lifted from the ground, suddenly hurried forward, and quite roughly dropped on what she guessed was a sledge. Again hands were busy about her, and she knew that she was being lashed to the chariot of the North. There was a clamour of excited voices, again the crack of the rifle, then she felt a quick jerk, and found the sled was in motion.
She had no thought of outside intervention and as the sled went forward at a great pace, notwithstanding her own parlous condition, she rejoiced in spirit. Whither she was being carried, and what the fate reserved for her she had not the slightest notion; but from the rifle-shots, and the manifest haste of her captors, she argued that her lover had escaped, and believing that he would follow, she was in good heart.
That she was in any immediate danger, she did not believe. Her captors, on lashing her to the sledge, had thrown some soft warm covering over her, and that they should show such care to preserve her from the bitter cold, told her, that whatever might ultimately befall, she was in no imminent peril. With her head covered, she was as warm as if she were in a sleeping bag, the sled ran smoothly without a single jar, and the only discomfort that she suffered came from her bound limbs.
Knowing how vain any attempt at struggle would be, she lay quietly; reflecting on all the events of the night. Strong in the faith that Stane had escaped, she rejoiced that these events had forced from his lips the declaration that in the past few weeks she had seen him repress again and again. He could never recall it; and those kisses, taken in the very face of death, those were hers until the end of time. Her heart quickened as she thought of them, and her lips burned. It was, she felt, a great thing to have snatched the deepest gladness of life in such an hour, and to have received an avowal from a man who believed that he was about to die for her. And what a man!
The thought of Miskodeed occurred to her; but now it did not trouble her very greatly. That visit of the Indian girl to the cabin had at first been incomprehensible except on one hateful supposition; but Stane's words had made it clear that the girl had come to warn them, and if there was anything behind that warning, if, as she suspected, the girl loved Stane with a wild, wayward love, that was not the man's fault. She remembered his declaration that he had never seen Miskodeed except on the two occasions at Fort Malsun, and though Ainley's evil suggestions recurred to her mind, she dismissed them instantly. Her lover was her own——
The sledge came to a sudden standstill; and lying there she caught a clamour of excited voices. She listened carefully, but such words as reached her were in a tongue unknown to her. A few minutes passed, something was thrown on the sled, close by her feet, then a whip cracked, a dog yelped, and again the sledge moved forward.