CHAPTER 22
A moment later the factor from Lac Bain stood at the edge of the chasm.His voice had called out in a hoarse bellow--a wild cry of disbeliefand horror that had formed the Willow's name as she disappeared. Helooked down, clutching his huge red hands and staring in ghastlysuspense at the boiling water and black rocks far below. There wasnothing there now--no sign of her, no last flash of her pale face andstreaming hair in the white foam. And she had done THAT--to saveherself from him!
The soul of the man-beast turned sick within him, so sick that hestaggered back, his vision blinded and his legs tottering under him. Hehad killed Pierrot, and it had been a triumph. All his life he hadplayed the part of the brute with a stoicism and cruelty that had knownno shock--nothing like this that overwhelmed him now, numbing him tothe marrow of his bones until he stood like one paralyzed. He did notsee Baree. He did not hear the dog's whining cries at the edge of thechasm. For a few moments the world turned black for him. And then,dragging himself out of his stupor, he ran frantically along the edgeof the gorge, looking down wherever his eyes could see the water,striving for a glimpse of her. At last it grew too deep. There was nohope. She was gone--and she had faced that to escape him!
He mumbled that fact over and over again, stupidly, thickly, as thoughhis brain could grasp nothing beyond it. She was dead. And Pierrot wasdead. And he, in a few minutes, had accomplished it all.
He turned back toward the cabin--not by the trail over which he hadpursued Nepeese, but straight through the thick bush. Great flakes ofsnow had begun to fall. He looked at the sky, where banks of darkclouds were rolling up from the south and east. The sun disappeared.Soon there would be a storm--a heavy snowstorm. The big flakes fallingon his naked hands and face set his mind to work. It was lucky for him,this storm. It would cover everything--the fresh trails, even the gravehe would dig for Pierrot.
It does not take such a man as the factor long to recover from a moralconcussion. By the time he came in sight of the cabin his mind wasagain at work on physical things--on the necessities of the situation.The appalling thing, after all, was not that both Pierrot and Nepeesewere dead, but that his dream was shattered. It was not that Nepeesewas dead, but that he had lost her. This was his vital disappointment.The other thing--his crime--it was easy to destroy all traces of that.
It was not sentiment that made him dig Pierrot's grave close to theprincess mother's under the tall spruce. It was not sentiment that madehim dig the grave at all, but caution. He buried Pierrot decently. Thenhe poured Pierrot's stock of kerosene where it would be most effectiveand touched a match to it. He stood in the edge of the forest until thecabin was a mass of flames. The snow was falling thickly. The freshlymade grave was a white mound, and the trails were filling up with newsnow. For the physical things he had done there was no fear in BushMcTaggart's heart as he turned back toward Lac Bain. No one would everlook into the grave of Pierrot Du Quesne. And there was no one tobetray him if such a miracle happened. But of one thing his black soulwould never be able to free itself. Always he would see the pale,triumphant face of the Willow as she stood facing him in that moment ofher glory when, even as she was choosing death rather than him, he hadcried to himself: "Ah! Is she not wonderful!"
As Bush McTaggart had forgotten Baree, so Baree had forgotten thefactor from Lac Bain. When McTaggart had run along the edge of thechasm, Baree had squatted himself in the trodden plot of snow whereNepeese had last stood, his body stiffened and his forefeet braced ashe looked down. He had seen her take the leap. Many times that summerhe had followed her in her daring dives into the deep, quiet water ofthe pool. But this was a tremendous distance. She had never dived intoa place like that before. He could see the black shapes of the rocks,appearing and disappearing in the whirling foam like the heads ofmonsters at play. The roar of the water filled him with dread. His eyescaught the swift rush of crumbled ice between the rock walls. And shehad gone down there!
He had a great desire to follow her, to jump in, as he had alwaysjumped in after her in previous times. She was surely down there, eventhough he could not see her. Probably she was playing among the rocksand hiding herself in the white froth and wondering why he didn't come.But he hesitated--hesitated with his head and neck over the abyss, andhis forefeet giving way a little in the snow. With an effort he draggedhimself back and whined. He caught the fresh scent of McTaggart'smoccasins in the snow, and the whine changed slowly into a long snarl.He looked over again. Still he could not see her. He barked--the short,sharp signal with which he always called her. There was no answer.Again and again he barked, and always there was nothing but the roar ofthe water that came back to him. Then for a few moments he stood back,silent and listening, his body shivering with the strange dread thatwas possessing him.
The snow was falling now, and McTaggart had returned to the cabin.After a little Baree followed in the trail he had made along the edgeof the chasm, and wherever McTaggart had stopped to peer over, Bareepaused also. For a space his hatred of the man was lost in his desireto join the Willow, and he continued along the gorge until, a quarterof a mile beyond where the factor had last looked into it, he came tothe narrow trail down which he and Nepeese had many time adventured inquest of rock violets. The twisting path that led down the face of thecliff was filled with snow now, but Baree made his way through it untilat last he stood at the edge of the unfrozen torrent. Nepeese was nothere. He whined, and barked again, but this time there was in hissignal to her an uneasy repression, a whimpering note which told thathe did not expect a reply. For five minutes after that he sat on hishaunches in the snow, stolid as a rock. What it was that came down outof the dark mystery and tumult of the chasm to him, what spiritwhispers of nature that told him the truth, it is beyond the power ofreason to explain. But he listened, and he looked; and his musclestwitched as the truth grew in him. And at last he raised his headslowly until his black muzzle pointed to the white storm in the sky,and out of his throat there went forth the quavering, long-drawn howlof the husky who mourns outside the tepee of a master who is newly dead.
On the trail, heading for Lac Bain, Bush McTaggart heard that cry andshivered.
It was the smell of smoke, thickening in the air until it stung hisnostrils, that drew Baree at last away from the chasm and back to thecabin. There was not much left when he came to the clearing. Where thecabin had been was a red-hot, smoldering mass. For a long time he satwatching it, still waiting and still listening. He no longer felt theeffect of the bullet that had stunned him, but his senses wereundergoing another change now, as strange and unreal as their struggleagainst that darkness of near death in the cabin. In a space that hadnot covered more than an hour the world had twisted itself grotesquelyfor Baree. That long ago the Willow was sitting before her littlemirror in the cabin, talking to him and laughing in her happiness,while he lay in vast contentment on the floor. And now there was nocabin, no Nepeese, no Pierrot. Quietly he struggled to comprehend. Itwas some time before he moved from under the thick balsams, for alreadya deep and growing suspicion began to guide his movements. He did notgo nearer to the smoldering mass of the cabin, but slinking low, madehis way about the circle of the clearing to the dog corral. This tookhim under the tall spruce. For a full minute he paused here, sniffingat the freshly made mound under its white mantle of snow. When he wenton, he slunk still lower, and his ears were flat against his head.
The dog corral was open and empty. McTaggart had seen to that. AgainBaree squatted back on his haunches and sent forth the death howl. Thistime it was for Pierrot. In it there was a different note from that ofthe howl he had sent forth from the chasm: it was positive, certain. Inthe chasm his cry had been tempered with doubt--a questioning hope,something that was so almost human that McTaggart had shivered on thetrail. But Baree knew what lay in that freshly dug snow-covered grave.A scant three feet of earth could not hide its secret from him. Therewas death--definite and unequivocal. But for Nepeese he was stillhoping and seeking.
Until noon he did not
go far from the site of the cabin, but only oncedid he actually approach and sniff about the black pile of steamingtimbers. Again and again he circled the edge of the clearing, keepingjust within the bush and timber, sniffing the air and listening. Twicehe went hack to the chasm. Late in the afternoon there came to him asudden impulse that carried him swiftly through the forest. He did notrun openly now. Caution, suspicion, and fear had roused in him afreshthe instincts of the wolf. With his ears flattened against the side ofhis head, his tail drooping until the tip of it dragged the snow andhis back sagging in the curious, evasive gait of the wolf, he scarcelymade himself distinguishable from the shadows of the spruce and balsams.
There was no faltering in the trail Baree made; it was straight as arope might have been drawn through the forest, and it brought him,early in the dusk, to the open spot where Nepeese had fled with himthat day she had pushed McTaggart over the edge of the precipice intothe pool. In the place of the balsam shelter of that day there was nowa watertight birchbark tepee which Pierrot had helped the Willow tomake during the summer. Baree went straight to it and thrust in hishead with a low and expectant whine.
There was no answer. It was dark and cold in the tepee. He could makeout indistinctly the two blankets that were always in it, the row ofbig tin boxes in which Nepeese kept their stores, and the stove whichPierrot had improvised out of scraps of iron and heavy tin. But Nepeesewas not there. And there was no sign of her outside. The snow wasunbroken except by his own trail. It was dark when he returned to theburned cabin. All that night he hung about the deserted dog corral, andall through the night the snow fell steadily, so that by dawn he sankinto it to his shoulders when he moved out into the clearing.
But with day the sky had cleared. The sun came up, and the world wasalmost too dazzling for the eyes. It warmed Baree's blood with new hopeand expectation. His brain struggled even more eagerly than yesterdayto comprehend. Surely the Willow would be returning soon! He would hearher voice. She would appear suddenly out of the forest. He wouldreceive some signal from her. One of these things, or all of them, musthappen. He stopped sharply in his tracks at every sound, and sniffedthe air from every point of the wind. He was traveling ceaselessly. Hisbody made deep trails in the snow around and over the huge white moundwhere the cabin had stood. His tracks led from the corral to the tallspruce, and they were as numerous as the footprints of a wolf pack forhalf a mile up and down the chasm.
On the afternoon of this day the second strong impulse came to him. Itwas not reason, and neither was it instinct alone. It was the strugglehalfway between, the brute mind righting at its best with the mysteryof an intangible thing--something that could not be seen by the eye orheard by the ear. Nepeese was not in the cabin, because there was nocabin. She was not at the tepee. He could find no trace of her in thechasm. She was not with Pierrot under the big spruce.
Therefore, unreasoning but sure, he began to follow the old trap lineinto the north and west.