“I wish you would stay behind, Denzil,” Flora said wistfully.
“But I alone know the exact spot where the deer drink,” I answered. “Have no fear; I will return safely.”
“At least let me sit up until you come,” she pleaded.
“I am afraid I must say no,” I replied. “You need sleep and rest too badly. And here, between these walls, you will be as safe as if you were in Fort Charter.”
Flora yielded without further words, but there was an appealing, anxious look in her eyes that I remembered afterward. Twilight had turned to darkness, and no time was lost in preparing for the start. I chose to accompany me Carteret and Captain Rudstone; and I fancied the latter was ill pleased at his selection though he spoke otherwise. We donned coats and caps, strapped our snowshoes on our feet, and looked to the loading and priming of our muskets.
As a matter of precaution, I decided to set a watch outside the fort while we were gone—and indeed through the night—and Malcolm Cameron volunteered for the service. On pretense of showing Flora something I found an opportunity to snatch a kiss from her lips and to whisper a few foolish words into her ear. A little room to one side had been reserved for her, and a comfortable bed made of blankets. The rest were to sleep around the fireplace.
The moon was shining from a starry sky and the air was still and cold when the three of us started away. We waved our hands to Cameron, who was at the stockade gates, and plunged eastward into the forest. I led off, and Captain Rudstone and Carteret followed in single file.
At the first I was troubled by a vague premonition of coming disaster, which, in default of sound reason, I set down to Flora’s ill-concealed solicitude for my safety. But when we had gone a mile or so this feeling wore off, and I enjoyed the exhilaration of striding on snowshoes over the frozen crust, through the silent solitudes of the wilderness, by rock and hill and moonlit glade. Never had the spell of the Great Lone Land thrilled me more deeply. Watchful and alert, we glided on from tree to tree, our shadows trailing behind us, and the evergreen recesses of the wood stretching on all sides like black pits. Birds and beasts were still; the only sound was the light crunch of our feet, the crackle now and then of a fallen twig.
Not a word was spoken until we came to a gap between two mighty hills, a short distance beyond which, on the verge of a flat of marshland, lay the spot we sought. Then I briefly explained to my companions what we must do.
We made a detour in a semicircle, working our way around to the right side of the wind, and so approached the spring. The cover of bushes and trees ended fifty yards short of it, and with the utmost caution we progressed that far. Crouching on the hard crust, scarcely daring to breathe, we peeped out.