VI
In the two days that followed, the pack train crossed the divide intoClearwater. From now on the little rivers, gathering headway as theycoursed down into the ravines, flowed into the Grizzly and from thenceinto the great Yuga, far below. The party had crossed ridge on ridge,hill on hill that were a bewilderment to Virginia; they had gained thehigh places where the marmots whistled shrill and clear at the mouth oftheir rocky burrows and the caribou paced, white manes gleaming, in thesnow; they had seen a grizzly on the far-away slide rock; they had losttheir way and found it again; walked abrupt hillsides where the horsescould scarcely carry their packs, descended into mysterious, stillgullies, forded creeks and picked their way through treacherous marshes;and made their noon camp on the very summit of a high ridge. The snowwas deeper here--nearly eighteen inches--but the gray clouds werebreaking apart in the sky. Apparently the storm was over, for the timebeing at least.
They had trouble with slipping packs on the steep pitches of themorning's march and made slow progress. Bill glanced at his watch withdispleasure. He rushed through the noon meal and cut their usual restshort by a full half-hour.
"We're behind schedule," he explained, "and we've got a bad half-daybefore us. I was counting on making Gray Lake cabin to-night, and we'vegot to hurry to do it."
"That is beyond Grizzly River," Lounsbury remarked.
Bill turned in some wonder. He hadn't know that Lounsbury was so wellacquainted with the topography of the region. Stranger still, the manstarted at his glance, flushing nervously. "I heard some one say thatGray Lake was beyond Grizzly River," he explained lamely. "By all meansmake it if we can."
There was no possible deduction to make from the incident, so Billturned his thought to other matters. "It's almost necessary--that wemake it," he said. "There's no horse feed nor decent camp site betweenhere and there. Besides, I don't like to put Miss Tremont up in a tentto-night. The best cabin in my whole string is at Gray Lake--a reallysnug little place, with a floor and a stove. Keep most of my trappingsupplies there. If we can make the ford by dark, we'll run in thereeasy, it's only a mile or so over a well-run moose trail."
"And you think we're entirely safe in going on?" the girl asked.
"As far as I can see. I'm a little bit worried about GrizzlyRiver--I'm afraid it's up pretty high--but I'll try it first and see ifit's safe to ford. The snow-storm has quit--I think we'll have niceweather in a few days. If it should begin again we could turn back andmake it through before the drifts got too deep to cross--that is, ifwe didn't delay. And besides, when we get across Grizzly River we're infavorable country for your search. We can put up at the cabin a fewdays and make a thorough hunt for any sign of the missing man. If theweather will permit--and I believe it will--we can follow down theriver to the Yuga and make inquiries of the Indians."
His words heartened the party. Even Lounsbury had begun to show someeagerness; Vosper, flinching before the hard work of the trail, wasjubilant at the thought of a few days' rest. They pushed on into thesnow-swept waste.
The clouds knit again overhead, but as yet the air was clear of snow.The temperature, however, seemed steadily falling. The breath of thehorses was a steam cloud; the potholes in the marsh were gray andlifeless with ice. And it seemed to Virginia that the wild things thatthey passed were curiously restless and uneasy; the jays flew from treeto tree with raucous cries, the waterfowl circled endlessly over thegray lakes.
This impression grew more vivid as the hours passed; and there was anelusive but sinister significance about it that engrossed her, but whichshe couldn't name or understand. She didn't mention the matter to Bill.She couldn't have told why, for the plain reason that in her simplicityshe was not aware of her own virtues. A sportswoman to the last hair,she simply did not wish to depress him with her fears. There was asuspense, a strange hush and breathlessness in the air that depressedher.
The same restlessness that she observed in the wild creatures began tobe noticeable in the horses. Time after time they bolted from thetrail, and the efforts of all the party were needed to round them upagain. Their morale--a high degree of which is as essential in a packtrain as in an army--was breaking before her eyes. They seemed tohave no spirit to leap the logs and battle the quagmire. They would tryto encircle the hills rather than attempt to climb them.
She wondered if the animals had a sixth sense. She was a wide-awake,observing girl, and throughout the trip she had noticed instances of aforewarning instinct that she herself did not possess. On each occasionwhere the horses were more or less unmanageable she found, onprogressing farther, some dangerous obstacle to their progress,--asteep hill or a treacherous marsh. Could it be that they wereforewarned now?
Fatigue came quickly this afternoon, and by four o'clock she was longingfor food and rest. She was cold, the snow had wet the sleeves andthroat of her undergarments, the control of her horse had cost her muchnervous strength. The next hour dragged interminably.
But they were descending now, a steep grade to the river. Twilight,like some gray-draped ghost of a shepherdess whom Apollo had wronged andwho still shadowed his steps, gathered swiftly about them.
Bill urged his horse to a faster walk; tired as the animal was heresponded nobly. Because Virginia's horse was likewise courageous hekept pace, and the distance widened between the two of them and theremainder of the pack train. Lounsbury's shrill complaints and Vosper'sshouts could not urge their tired mounts to a faster gait. The shadowsdeepened in the tree aisles; the trail dimmed; the tree trunks faded inthe growing gloom.
"We won't be able to see our way at all in five minutes more," Virginiatold herself.
Yet five minutes passed, and then, and still the twilight lingered. Thesimple explanation was that her eyes gradually adjusted themselves tothe soft light. And all at once the thickets divided and revealed theriver.
She didn't know why her breath suddenly caught in awe. Some way thescene before her eyes scarcely seemed real. The thickets hid the streamto the right and left, and all she could see was the stretch of graywater immediately in front. It was wide and fretful, and in thehalf-light someway vague and ominous. It had reached up about thetrunks of some of the young spruces on the river bank, and the littletrees trembled and bent, stirred by the waters; and they seemed likedrowning things dumbly signaling for help. Because the farther bank wasalmost lost in the dusk the breadth of the stream appeared interminable.In reality it was a full ninety yards at the shallower head of therapids where the moose trail led down to the water.
The roar of the river had come so gradually to her ear that now she washardly aware of it; indeed the wilderness seemed weighted with silence.But it was true that she heard a terrifying roar farther down thestream. Yet just beyond, perhaps a mile from the opposite bank, laycamp and rest,--a comfortable cabin, warmth and food. She hoped theywould hurry and make the crossing.
But Bill halted at the water's edge, and she rode up beside him. Heseemed to be studying the currents. The pack train caught up, andLounsbury's horse nudged at the flank of her own animal. "Well?"Lounsbury questioned. "What's the delay? We're in a hurry to get tocamp."
"It's pretty high," Bill replied softly. "I've never tried to crosswhen it was so high as this." It was true. The rains and the snow hadmade the stream a torrent.
"But, man, we can't camp here. No horse feed--no cabin. We've got togo on."
"Wait just a minute. Time is precious, but we've got to think thisthing out. We can put up a tent here, and cold as it is, make throughthe night someway. I'm not so sure that we hadn't ought to do it.The river looks high, and it may be higher than it looks--it's hardto tell in the twilight. Ordinarily I cross at the head of therapids--water less than three feet deep. But it isn't the depth thatcounts--it's the swiftness. If the river is much over three feet, ahorse simply can't keep his feet--and Death Canyon is just below. Tobe carried down into that torrent below means to die--two or threeparties, trying to ship furs down
to the Yuga, have already lost theirlives in that very place. The shallows jump right off into ten feet ofwater. It'll be tough to sleep out in this snow, but it's safer. Butif you say the word we'll make the try. At least I can ride in and seehow it goes--whether it's safe for you to come."
Lounsbury didn't halt to ask him by what justice he should take thisrisk--why he should put his own life up as a pawn for their comfortand safety. Nor did Bill ask himself. Such a thought did not even cometo him. He was their guide, they were in his charge, and he followedhis own law.
"Try it, anyway," Lounsbury urged.
Bill spoke to his horse. The animal still stood with lowered head. Forone of the few times in his life Bill had to speak twice,--notsharply, if anything more quietly than at first. The the brave Mulvaneyheaded into the stream.
As Bill rode into those gray and terrible waters, Virginia's firstinstinct was to call him back. The word was in her throat, her lipsparted, but for a single second she hesitated. It was part of the creedand teachings of the circle in which she moved to put small trust ininstinct. By a false doctrine she had been taught that the deepestimpulses of her heart and soul were to be set aside before the mandatesof convention and society; that she must act a part rather than beherself. She remembered just in time that this man was not only anemployee, a lowly guide to whom she must not plead in personal appeal.She had been taught to stifle her natural impulses, and she watched insilence the water rise about the horse's knees.
But only for a second the silence endured. The the reaction swept herin a great flood. The generous, kindly warmth of her heart surgedthrough her in one pulse of the blood; and all those frozen enemies ofher being--caste and pride of place and indifference--were scatteredin an instant. "Oh, come back!" she cried. "Bronson--Bill--comeback. Oh, why did I ever let you go!"
For Bill did not look around. Already the sound of the waters hadobscured the voices on the shore. Again she called, unheard. Then shelashed her horse with the bridle rein.
The animal strode down into the water. Vosper, his craven soulwhimpering within him, had fallen to the last place in the line, butLounsbury tried to seize her saddle as she pushed forward.
"Where are you going, you little fool?" he cried. "Come back."
The girl turned her head. Her face was white. "You told him to go in,"she replied. "Now--it's the sporting thing--to follow him."
The water splashed about her horse's knees. Lounsbury called again,commandingly, but she didn't seem to hear. She lifted her feet from thestirrups as Bill had done before her, and the angry waters surgedhigher.
Already she knew the strength of the river. She felt its sweeping forceagainst the animal's frame: the brave Buster struggling hard to keep hisfeet. Ahead of her, a dim ghost in the half-light, Bill still rode ontoward the opposite shore. And now--full halfway across--he was inthe full force of the current.
It was all too plain that his horse was battling for its life. Thestream had risen higher than Bill had dreamed, and the waters beathalfway at the animal's side. He knew what fate awaited him if heshould lose his foothold. Snorting, he threw all of his magnificentstrength against the current.
It was such a test as the animal had never been obliged to endurebefore. He gave all that he had of might and courage. He crept forwardinch by inch, feeling his way, bracing against the current, nose closeto the water. In animals, just the same as in men, there are those thatflinch and those that stand straight, the courageous and the cowardly,the steadfast and the false,--and Mulvaney was of the true breed.Besides, perhaps some of his rider's strength went into his thews andsustained him. Slowly the water dropped lower. He was almost tosafety.
At that instant Bill glanced around, intending to warn his party not toattempt the crossing. He saw the dim shape of Virginia close behindhim, riding into the full strength of the current.
All color swept in an instant from his face, leaving it gray and ashenas the twilight itself. Icy horror, groping and ghastly, flooded hisveins as he saw that he was powerless to aid her. Yet his mind workedclear and sure, fast as lightning itself. Even yet it was safer for herto turn back than attempt to make the crossing. He knew that Buster'sstrength was not that of Mulvaney, and he couldn't live in the deepest,swiftest part of the river that lay before her.
"Turn back," he said. "Turn your horse, Virginia--easy as you can."
At the same instant he turned his own horse back into the full fury ofthe torrent. It had been his plan to camp alone on the other side ofthe river, returning to the party in the better light of the morning;but there was not an instant's hesitation in turning to battle it again.His brave horse, obedient yet to his will, ventured once more into thattorrent of peril. Virginia, cool and alert, pressed the bridle reinagainst her horse's neck to turn him.
On the bank Lounsbury and Vosper gazed in fascinated terror. Busterwheeled, struggling to keep his feet. Mulvaney pushed on, clear to thedeepest, wildest portion of the stream. And then Virginia's horsepitched forward into the wild waters.
Perhaps the animal had simply made a misstep, possibly an irregularityin the river bottom had upset his balance. The waters seemed to pouncewith merciless fury, and struck with all their power.
In the half-light it was impossible even for Bill to follow thelightning events of the next second. He saw the horse struggle,flounder, then roll on his back from the force of the current. It swepthim down as the wind sweeps a straw. And he saw Virginia shake loosefrom the saddle.
He had but an instant's glimpse of a white face in the gray water, ofhair that streamed; an instant's realization of a faint cry that thewaters obscured. And then he sprang to her aid.
He could do nothing else. When the soul of the man was made it wasgiven a certain strength, and certain basic laws were laid down by whichhis life was to be governed. That strength sustained him now, thoselaws held him in bondage. He could be false to neither.
He knew the terror of that gray whirlpool below. He had every reason tobelieve that by no possible effort of his could he save the girl; hewould only throw away his own life too. The waters were icy cold:swiftly would they draw the life-giving heat from their bodies. Soakedthrough, the cold of the night and the forest would be swift to claimthem if by any miracle they were able to struggle out of the river. Yetthere was not an instant's delay. The full sweep of his thoughts waslike a flash of lightning in the sky; he was out of the saddle almostthe instant that the waters engulfed her. He sprang with his fullstrength into the stream.
On the bank the two men saw it as in a dream: the horse's fall, theupheaval of the water as the animal struggled, a flash of the girl'sface, and then Bill's leap. They called out in their impotence, andthey gazed with horror-widened eyes. But almost at once the drama washidden from them. The twilight dropped its gray curtains between;besides, the waters had swept their struggling figures down the streamand out of their sight.
Already the river looked just the same. Mulvaney, riderless, wasbattling toward them through the torrent, but the stress and struggle ofthe second before had been instantly cut short. There was no spreadingripples, no break in the gray surface of the stream to show where thetwo had fallen. The stream swept on, infinite, passionless for all itstumult, unconquerable,--like the River of Death that takes within itsdepths the souls of men, never to yield them, never to show whence theyhave gone.
The storm recommenced, the wind wailed in the spruce tops, and the snowsifted down into the gray waters.