Wilder searched the ghastly features. A surge of anger leapt, and his cheeks flushed till his broad brow was suffused to the edge of his thick fur cap.
“It don’t matter a thing to me what you know, or what you don’t know,” he said sharply. “Usak’s on the river, making right here with his gun. Ther’s a getaway there at the landing till the daylight goes. You can take it or not. It’s right up to you. It’s there because murder’s going to happen around, and it’s my notion to prevent it. You’re blind, and your woman helpless. It don’t seem to me you matter a hoot in hell. But I’m glad to help a woman—any woman. You’ll think it over. An’ don’t forget there isn’t more than two hours before the daylight goes. That’s all I’ve to say.”
He turned and passed out the way he had come, and as he went he avoided the dark stains on the floor, those stains so grimly significant, which even he could not bring himself to pass over.
Half an hour before the last of the daylight a canoe crept down to the landing.
Wilder was ready to cast off. He had spent the interim in preparing room in his vessel for the added burden of his passengers. He knew they would come.
There had been no doubt in his mind whatsoever. And curiously enough, he was the more sure since the man was blind. In his philosophy the more surely the man was afflicted the more surely he would cling to life, and dread the final slaughtering of his body by an unseen enemy. Then in addition there was the urgent appealing of the little woman, who was surely something more than a ministering angel to this helpless demon.
Oh, yes, he had known they would come, but he had not suspected the manner of their coming. They came in their own canoe, the blind man paddling in the bow, and the woman, infinite in her despairing devotion, serving her man to the last at the steering paddle.
It was a display of devotion that thrilled the whiteman for all the worthlessness of the object of it. And he accepted the position readily. It might add to his care, but it would lessen his labours. Their escape from the avenging Usak was all he desired. But he was by no means blinded to the reason that they came in their own boat. It was the man’s distrust. He had no desire to yield himself a possible prisoner in the whiteman’s craft.
Wilder nodded approval as they drew alongside, and he realised the considerable outfit, including food, that had been provided.