*CHAPTER XXXI*
*THE HUT IN THE CLEARING*
Five days later saw the wayfarers some thirty leagues to the eastward ofthe hollow in the hills. They had traveled swiftly, sleeping but a fewhours of each night and in the daytime pausing for rest only whenLandless, quietly watchful, saw the weariness growing in the eyes of thewoman beside him, or noted her lagging footsteps. They had left thehigher mountains behind them, but still moved through what seemed anuninhabited territory. No Indian village crowned the hills above thestreams; they encountered no roving bauds; no solitary hunter met them;nowhere was there sign of human life. If their enemies were upon theirtrack, they knew it not--perfect peace, perfect solitude seemed toencompass them. Still the Indian was vigilant; covering their trailwith unimaginable ingenuity, taking advantage of every running stream,every stony hillside, building a fire only in some hidden hollow or foldof the hills, using his bow and arrow to bring down the deer or wildfowl which furnished them food--he stalked behind them, or sat boltupright against the tree or rock beneath which they had made theirresting place, tireless, watchful, the breathing image of caution. Ifhe slept, it was a sleep from which the sound of a falling acorn, thesleepy stir of a partridge in the fern was sufficient to awaken him.Sometimes they rested by fires, for they heard the wolves through thedarkness; upon the nights when this was necessary the Susquehannock satwith his gun across his knees, piercing the darkness in every directionwith keen and restless eyes. Nothing worse than the wolves--cowardly asyet, for though drawing swiftly nearer, winter and famine were stilldistant--threatened them; no sound other than the forest soundsdisturbed them; through the scant undergrowth or over the moss andpartridge berry brushed nothing more appalling than bear or badger. Butthe Indian watched on.
Day after day Landless and Patricia walked side by side through thereddening forest. His hands steadied her over crags or down ravines, orbroke a way for her through vast beds of sassafras or mile-long tanglesof wild grape, and when their way lay along the bed of streams hecarried her. She had no need to complain of fatigue, for he saw whenshe was weary, and called a halt. At their rustic meals he waited uponher with grave courtesy, and when they halted for the night he made hercouch of fallen leaves and wove for it a screen of branches. They spokebut little and only of the needs of the hour. She bore herself towardshim kindly and gently, thanking him with voice and smile for all that hedid for her, and there was no mistrust in her eyes; but he saw, orfancied he saw, a shadow in their depths, and thinking, "She does notforget, and neither must I," he set a watch upon himself, and bounds,across which he was not to step.
Upon the afternoon of the sixth day they were passing through a deep andnarrow ravine--a mere crack between two precipitous, heavily woodedmountains--when the Indian stopped short in his tracks and uttered awarning "Ugh!" then bent forward in a listening attitude.
"What is it?" asked Landless in a low voice. "I hear nothing."
"It is a sound," said the other in the same tone. "I do not know whatyet, for it is far off. But it is in front of us."
"Shall we go on?" demanded Landless, and the Indian nodded.
It was late afternoon, and the hills which closed in behind them as thegorge writhed to left and right hid the sun. Great trees, too, pine andchestnut, walnut and oak, leaned towards each other from the opposingbanks, and together with the overhanging rocks, mantled with fern, madea twilight of the pass beneath. Here and there the silver stem of abirch stood up tall and straight, and looked a ghostly sentinel. "Doyou hear it still?" demanded Landless when they had gone some distancein dead silence.
"Yes."
"And still in front of us?"
"Yes."
"Ah, what can it be?" cried Patricia, turning her white face uponLandless.
A cold wind, blowing from open spaces beyond, rushed up the ravine. "Ihear a very faint sound," said Landless, "like the tapping of awoodpecker in the heart of the forest."
"It is the sound of the axe of the white man," said the Indian. "Someone is cutting down a tree."
"There can be no ranger or pioneer within many leagues of us!" exclaimedLandless. "No white man hath ever come so far. It must be an Indian!"
The Susquehannock shook his head. "Why should an Indian cut down atree? We kill them and let them stand until they are bare and whitelike the bones of a man when the wolves have finished with him, and theyfall of themselves."
"If my father still searches for me," said Patricia in a low voice, "mayit not be his party that we hear? There may be a stream there. They maymake canoes."
"With all my heart I pray that it be so, madam," said Landless. "But wewill soon know. See, Monakatocka has gone on ahead."
She did not answer, and they walked on through the gloom of the defile.Presently their path became rough and broken, blocked with large stonesand heavily shadowed by cedars projecting from the rocks above anddraped with vines. He held out his hands and she took them, and hehelped her across the rough places. He felt her hands tremble in his,and he thought it was with the ecstasy of the hope which inspired her.
"If it is indeed so," she said once in a voice so low that he had tobend to catch the words, "if it is indeed my father, then this is thelast time you will help me thus."
"Yes," he answered steadily. "The last time."
They passed the rocks and came to where the ravine widened. The soundthat had perplexed them was now plainly audible; there was no mistakingthe quick, ringing strokes of the axe. They rounded a jutting cliff andabruptly emerged from the chill darkness of the gorge upon a noblelandscape of hill and valley, autumn woods and flowing water, all bathedin the golden light of the sinking sun and inestimably bright andprecious of aspect after the gloom through which they had beentraveling. But it was not the beauty of the scene which drew anexclamation from them both. At a little distance rose a knoll, coveredwith short grass and fading golden-rod, and with its base laved by acrystal stream of some width, and upon the knoll, shaded by a couple ofmagnificent maples, and covered with the pale and feathery bloom of thewild clematis, stood a small, rude hut. Smoke rose from its crazychimney, and upon the strip of greensward before the door rolled alittle, half-naked child--a white child. As the travelers stared inamazement, a woman's voice rang out, freshly and sweetly, in an Englishballad. The trees had been cleared away from around the knoll, and intheir place rose the yellowing stalks of Indian corn. The little mound,feathered with the gold of the golden-rod and girt with the gold of themaize, rose like a fairy isle from the limitless sea of forest, and theapparition of a troop of veritable elves would have astonished thewanderers less than did the tiny cabin, the romping child, and the clearsong of the woman.
The Indian glided to their side from behind the trunk of an oak. "Ugh,"he said with emphasis. "He is mad and so he has his scalp still." As hespoke he pointed to where, at a little distance, a man, with his backturned to the forest, was busily felling a tree.
"He dares much," said Landless. "We did not think to see the face of awhite man--pioneer, ranger, trapper or trader--for many a league yet.He has built his house in the jaws of the wolf."
Patricia gazed at the hut with wistful eyes. "There is a woman there,"she said, and Landless heard her voice tremble for the first time intheir long, toilsome and painful journey. "There is no need to passthem by, is there? It looks very fair and peaceful. May we not resthere for this one night?"
"Yes," said Landless gently, reading, as he read all her fancies anddesires, her longing for the companionship of a woman, though for soshort a time. The Indian, too, nodded assent. "Good! but Monakatockawill watch to-night."
They moved through the checkered light and shade towards the man whoworked at the foot of the knoll. They were quite near him when thewoman, whose voice they had heard, came to the door of the cabin, shadedher eyes with her hand, looked towards the ravine, and saw the threefigures emerging from it. With a loud cry she snatched up the ch
ild ather feet and rushed down the knoll towards the man, who at the sound ofher voice dropped his axe, caught up a musket which leaned against astump beside him, and wheeling, presented the gun at the newcomers.
"Give me your kerchief, madam," said Landless, and advanced with thewhite lawn in his hand.
"Halt!" cried the man with the gun.
"We are friends," called Landless. "This lady and I are from theSettlements. This Indian is not Algonquin, but Iroquois--aSusquehannock, as you may tell by his size. You need have no fear. Weare quite alone."
The man slowly lowered his gun. "What, in the name of all the fiends,do you here?" he said, wiping away with the back of his hand the coldsweat that had sprung to his forehead. He was a tall man with a sinewyframe and a dare-devil face, tanned to well-nigh the hue of the Indian.
"I might ask the same question of you," said Landless, coming up to himwith a smile. "This lady was captured and carried off by a band ofroving Ricahecrians who bore her into the Blue Mountains. We ask yourhospitality for to-night. The lady is very weary, and she has not seenthe face of a woman for many weeks. Your good wife will entreat herkindly, I know."
The woman, who now stood beside the man, smiled, but doubtfully; theman's face too was clouded, and there was an uneasy light in his eyes.Landless, looking steadily at him, saw upon his forehead a mark whichserved to explain his evident perturbation.
"You need not fear me," he said quietly. "'T is none of our businesshow you come to be here in this wilderness, so far from what has beencounted the furthest outpost."
The man, feeling his gaze upon him, raised his hand with an involuntarymotion to his forehead, then dropped it, awkwardly enough.
"I see," said Landless. "I understand. I have been--I am--a servant.A runaway, too, if you like. I have been in trouble. I would not betrayyou if I could: that I cannot, goes without saying. Now, will youshelter us for this night?"
"Yes," said the man, his face clearing. "As you say, you could n't dous harm if you would, seeing that masters, and d--d overseers, andbloodhounds are at the world's end for us. We are beyond their reach.Bring up the lady. Joan, here, will see to her."
An hour later the woman and Patricia sat side by side upon the doorstepin the long mountain twilight. At their feet the little child crowed andclapped its hands, and plucked at the golden-rod growing about the door.Below them, beside the placid stream, the owner of the hut and GodfreyLandless paced slowly up and down, now disappearing into the shadow ofthe trees, now dimly seen in the open spaces, while the Indian lay atfull length beneath the maples, with his eye upon the blackness of theravine down which they had come.
"It is fair to look upon, and peaceful," Patricia said dreamily, "butDanger lives in these dreadful mountains. Why did you come here?"
"We came because we loved," the woman said simply.
"But why into the very land of the savages, so far from safety, so farfrom the Settlements?"
The woman turned her eyes upon the beautiful face beside her and studiedit in silence.
"I will tell you," she said at last, "for I believe you are as good asyou are beautiful, and you are as beautiful as an angel. And, though Ican see that you are a lady, yet you are woman too, as I am, and youhave suffered much, as I have, and have loved too, I think, as I haveloved."
"I have never loved," said Patricia.
The woman smiled, and shook her head. "There is a look in the eyes thatonly comes with that. I know it." She gathered the child to her, andbeating its little hand against her bosom, began her story:--
"It is four years since I signed to come to the Plantations, to becomethe servant of an up-river planter--and to better myself. It was a hardlife, my lady, a hard life--you cannot guess how hard.... One day aneighboring planter sent a message to my master, and I (for I served inthe house) took it from the messenger. The messenger was one that I hadknown in the village at home, in England. He had left home to make hisfortune, and I had not heard of him for a long time. They used to callme his sweetheart. When I saw him I cried out, and he caught my handsin his.... After that we met whenever we could, on Sundays, onInstruction days, whenever chance offered. He had tried to run awaytwice before we met, but he never tried afterwards. His master was ahard man--mine was worse ... After a while we began to meet insecret--at night ... You are a lady--that is different--you cannotunderstand; but I loved him, loved him as well as any lady in the landcould love; better, maybe ... There came a night when I was followed,and taken, and he with me." She broke off to smell at the scentlessspear of golden-rod which the child held up, and to say, "Yes, mydarling, pretty, pretty, pretty," then went on with her eyes followingthe figures walking up and down beside the stream. "The next nightfound us in the sheriff's hands, in the gaol at the courthouse. Oh thatblank, dreadful, heavy night! I felt the lash already--I did not mindthat--but I saw the platform and the post, and the gaping crowd beneath.I thought of him, and my heart was sick; I thought of my mother, and mytears fell like rain.... There was a noise at the window, and I stoodupon my stool to see what it was. It was he! He had a knife and heworked and wrenched at the bars until he had wrenched them away, thendragged me through the window and we stood together beneath thestars--free! Another moment and we were down at the water side and intoa boat which was fastened there. We loosed it and rowed with all ourspeed up the river. He had killed the gaoler and gotten away, bringingwith him a musket and an axe. All that night we rowed, and when morningbroke we were well-nigh past the settlements, for we had been far upriver to begin with. That day we hid in the reeds, but when night camewe sped up the stream. We came to the falls of the far west and leftour boat there. For many days we walked through the woods, hurrying on,day after day, for when we lay down at night, I saw in my dreams theflash of the torches and heard the baying of the hounds. After a longwhile we came to an Indian village not many leagues from here, and therewe found the mercies of the savage kinder than the mercies of the whiteman. They may have thought us mad--I do not know--but they did not harmus. There we dwelt for a time, in the stranger's wigwam, and there thechild was born." She pressed the little hand which she held, and whichshe had never ceased to beat against her bosom, to her lips. "He wouldhave stayed in the village, but in sleep I still heard the bloodhounds,and we left the friendly Indians and pressed on. We came upon thisknoll on just such an evening as this--the light in the west, and thestream very still, with a large white star shining down upon it. We laydown beside it, and that night I slept without a dream.... We have beenhere ever since, and here we shall stay until we die."
"It is fair now," said Patricia, "but in a little while it will bewinter and very cold."
"Bitterly cold," said the woman. "The snow lies long in these hills,and the wind howls down the ravine."
"And the wolves are bold in winter."
"Very bold. This scar upon my arm is from the teeth of one which Ifought here, on the very threshold."
"The Indians threaten always, summer or winter."
"Ay, sooner or later they will come against us. We shall die that way atlast. But what does it matter--so that we die together?"
The lady of the manor turned her pure, pale face upon the other withwonder, and yet with comprehension, written upon it.
"You are happy!" she said, almost in a whisper.
"Yes, I am happy," the woman answered, a light that was not from thefaintly crimson west upon her face.