VIII
In Virginia's first moment of wakening she could not distinguishrealities from dreams. All the experiences of the night before seemedfor the moment only the adventures of a nightmare. But disillusionmentcame quickly. She opened her eyes to view the cabin walls, and the fulldreadfulness of her situation swept her in an instant.
Her tears came first. She couldn't restrain them, and they were simplythe natural expression of her fear and her loneliness and her distress.For long moments she sobbed bitterly, yet softly as she could. ButVirginia was of good metal, and in the past few days she had acquired acertain measure of self-discipline. She began to struggle with hertears. They would waken Bill, she thought--and she had not forgottenhis bravery and his toil of the night before. She conquered them atlast, and, miserable and sick of heart, tried to go back to sleep.
Her muscles pained her, her throat was raw from the water, and when shetried to make herself comfortable her limbs were stiff and aching. Butshe knew she had to look her position in the face. She turned, painsshooting through her frame, and gazed about her.
The cabin, she could see, was rather larger than any of those in whichthey had camped on their journey. It was well-chinked and sturdy, andeven had the luxury of a window. For the moment she didn't see Bill atall. She wondered if he had gone out. Then, moving nearer to the edgeof her cot, she looked over intending to locate the clothes she hadtaken off the night before. Then she saw him, stretched on the floor inthe farthest corner of the room.
He gave the impression of having dropped with exhaustion and fallen tosleep where he lay. She could see that he still wore the tatteredovercoat he had found hanging on the wall, and the two blankets werestill wrapped about him. He was paying for his magnificent efforts ofthe night before. Morning was vivid and full at the window, but hestill lay in heavy slumber.
She resolved not to call him; and in spite of her own misery, her lipscurled in a half-smile. She was vaguely touched; someway the sight ofthis strong forester, lying so helpless and exhausted in sleep, wentstraight to some buried instinct within her and found a tenderness, asweet graciousness that had not in her past life manifested itself toooften.
But the tenderness was supplanted by a wave of icy terror. She was awoman, and the thought suddenly came to her that she was wholly in thisman's power, naked except for the blankets around her, unarmed andhelpless and lost in the forest depths. What did she know of him? Hehad been the soul of respect heretofore, but now--with her uncle onthe other side of the river--; but she checked herself with a revulsionof feeling. The strength that had saved her life would save him againsthimself. They would find a way to get out to-day; and she thought thatthis, at least, she need not fear.
He had been busy before he slept. His clothes and hers were hung onnails back of the little stove to dry. He had cut fresh wood, piling itbehind the stove. She guessed that he had intended to keep the fireburning the whole night, but sleep had claimed him and disarranged hisplans.
His next thought was of supplies. The simple matter of food and warmthis the first issue in the wilderness; already she had learned thislesson. Her eyes glanced about the walls. There were two or threesacks, perhaps filled with provisions, hanging from the ceiling, safelyout of the reach of the omnivorous pack-rats that often wreak such havocin unoccupied cabins. But further than this the place seemed bare offood.
Blankets were in plenty; there were a few kitchen utensils hanging backof the stove, and some sort of an ancient rifle lay across a pair ofdeer horns. Whether or not there were any cartridges for this latterarticle she could not say. Strangest of all, a small and batteredphonograph, evidently packed with difficulty into the hills, and a smallstack of records sat on the crude, wooden table. Evidently a real andfervent love of music had not been omitted from Bill's make-up.
Then Bill stirred in his sleep. She lay still, watching. She saw hiseyes open. And his first glance was toward her.
He flashed her a smile, and she tried pitifully to answer it. "How areyou?" he asked.
"Awfully lame and sore and tired. Maybe I'll be better soon. Andyou----?"
"A little stiff, not much. I'm hard to damage, Miss Tremont. I've seentoo much of hardship. But I've overslept--and there isn't anothersecond to be lost. I've got to dress and go and locate Vosper andLounsbury."
"I suppose you'd better--right away. They'll be terriblydistressed--thinking we're drowned." She turned her back to him,without nonsense or embarrassment, and he started to dress. Shedidn't see the slow smile, half-sardonic, that was on his lips.
"I'm not worrying about their distress," he told her. "I only want tobe sure and catch them before they give us up for lost--and turn back.I can never forgive myself for failing to waken. It was just that I wasso tired----"
"I won't let you blame yourself for that," the girl replied, slowly butearnestly. "Besides, Uncle Kenly won't go away for two or three days atleast. He's been my guardian--I'm his ward--and I'm sure he'll makeevery effort to learn what happened to us."
"I suppose you're right. You know whether or not you can trustLounsbury. I only know--that I can't trust Vosper."
"They'll be waiting for us, don't fear for that," the girl went on. Shetried to put all the assurance she could into her tone. "But how can weget across?"
"That remains to be seen. If they're there to help, with the horses, wemight find a way." The man finished dressing, then turned to go. "I'msorry I can't even take time to light your fire. You must stay in bed,anyway--all day."
He left hurriedly, and as the door opened the wind blew a handful ofsnow in upon her. The snow had deepened during the night, and fall washeavier than ever. Shivering with cold and aching in every muscle, shegot up and put on her underclothing. It was almost dry already. Then,wholly miserable and dejected, she lay down again between her blankets,waiting for Bill's return. And his step was heavy and slow on thethreshold when he came.
She couldn't interpret the expression on his face when she saw him inthe doorway. He was curiously sober and intent, perhaps even a littlepale. "Go to sleep, Miss Tremont," he advised. "I'll make a fire forbreakfast."
He bent to prepare kindling. The girl swallowed painfully, but shakenwith dread shaped her question at last. "What--what did you findout?"
He looked squarely into her eyes. "Nothing that you'll want to hear,Miss Tremont," he told her soberly. "I went to the river bank andlooked across. They--they----"
"They are gone?" the girl cried.
"They've pulled freight. I could see the smoke of their fire--it wasjust about out. Not a horse in sight, or a man. There's no chance fora mistake, I'm afraid. I called and called, but no one answered."
The tears rushed to the girl's eyes, but she fought them back. Therewas an instant of strained silence. "And what does it mean?"
"I don't know. We'll get out someway----"
"Tell me the truth, Bill," the girl suddenly urged. "I can stand it. Iwill stand it--don't be afraid to tell me."
The man looked down at her in infinite compassion. "Poor little girl,"he said. "What do you want to know?"
She didn't resent the words. She only felt speechlessly grateful andsomeway comforted,--as a baby girl might feel in her father's arms.
"Does it mean--that we've lost, after all?"
"Our lives? Not at all." She read in his face that this, at least, wasthe truth. "I'll tell you, Miss Tremont, just what I think it means.If we were on the other side of the river, and we had horses, we couldpush through and get out--easy enough. But we haven't got horses--evenBuster is drowned--and it would be a hard fight to carry suppliesand blankets on our backs, for the long hike down into Bradleyburg. Itwould likely be too much for you. Besides, the river lays between.In time we might go down to quieter waters and build a raft--out oflogs--but the snow's coming thicker all the time. Before we could getit done and get across, we couldn't mush out--for the snows have cometo stay and we haven't got snowsh
oes. We could rig up some kind ofsnowshoes, I suppose, but until the snow packs we couldn't make it intotown. It's too long a way and too cold. In soft snow even a strong mancan only go a little way--you sink a foot and have to lift a load ofsnow with every step. Every way we look there's a block. We're likebirds, caught in a cage."
"But won't men--come to look for us?"
"I've been thinking about that. Miss Tremont, they won't come tillspring, and then they'll likely only half look for us. I know thisnorthern country. Death is too common a thing to cause much stir.Lounsbury will tell them we are drowned--no one will believe we couldhave gotten out of the canyon, dressed like we were and on a night likelast night. If they thought we were alive and suffering, the whole malepopulation would take a search party and come to our aid. Instead theyknow--or rather, they think they know--that we're dead. There won'tbe any horses, it will be a fool's errand, and mushing through thosefeet of soft snow is a job they won't undertake."
"But the river will freeze soon."
"Yes. Even this cataract freezes, but it likely won't be safe to crossfor some weeks--maybe clear into January or February. That depends onthe weather. You see, Miss Tremont, we don't have the awful lowtemperatures early in the winter they get further east and north. We'reon the wet side of the mountains. But we do get the snow, week afterweek of it when you simply can't travel, and plenty of thirty and forty,sometimes more, below zero. But the river will freeze if we give ittime. And the snow will pack and crust late in the winter. And then,in those clear, cold days, we can make a sled and mush out."
"And it means--we're tied up here for weeks--and maybe months?"
"That's it. Just as sure as if we had iron chains around our ankles."
Then the girl's tears flowed again, unchecked. Bill stood beside her,his shoulders drooping, but in no situation of his life had he ever feltmore helpless, more incapable of aid. "Don't cry," he pleaded. "Don'tcry, Miss Tremont. I'll take care of you. Don't you know I will?"
Her grief rent him to the depths, but there was nothing he could say ordo. He drew the blankets higher about her.
"Perhaps you can get some more sleep," he urged. "Your body's torn topieces, of course."
Fearful and lonely and miserable, the girl cried herself to sleep. Billsat beside her a long time, and the snow sifted down in the forest andthe silence lay over the land. He left her at last, and for a while wasbusy among the supplies that he found on a shelf behind the stove. Andshe wakened to find him bending over her.
His face was anxious and his eyes gentle as a woman's. "Do you thinkyou can eat?" he asked. "I've warmed up soup--and I've got coffee,too."
He had put the liquids in cups and had drawn the little table beside herbed. She shook her head, but she softened at the swift look ofdisappointment in his face. "I'll take some coffee," she told him.
He held the cup for her, and she drank a little of the bracing liquid.Then she pushed the cup away.
He waited beside a moment, curiously anxious. "Give me your hand," hesaid.
"Why?"
Cold was her voice, and cold the expression on her face. It seemed toher that the lines of Bill's face deepened, and his dark eyes grewstern. But in a moment the expression passed, and she knew she hadwounded him. "Why do you think? I want to test your pulse."
He had seen that she was flushed, and he was in deadly fear that theplunge into the cold waters had worked an organic injury. He took hersoft, slender wrist in his hand, and she felt the pressure of his littlefinger against her pulsing arteries. Then she saw the dark featureslight up.
"You haven't any fever," he told her joyfully. "You're just used upfrom the experience. And God knows I can't blame you. Go to sleepagain if you like."
She dozed off again, and for a little while he was busy outside thecabin, cutting fuel for the night's blaze. He stole in once to look ather and then turned again down the moose trail to the river. He hadbeen certain before that the others had gone; now he only wanted to makesure.
The long afternoon was at an end when he returned. He had gazed acrossthe gray waters and called again and again, but except for the echo ofhis shout, the wilderness silence had been inviolate. Virginia wasawake, but still miserable and dejected in her blankets. They talked alittle, softly and quietly, about their chances, but he saw that she wasnot yet in a frame of mind to look the situation squarely in the face.Then he cooked the last meal of the day.
"I don't want anything," she told him, when again he proffered food. "Ionly want to die. I wish I had died--in the river last night. Monthsand months--in these awful woods and this awful cabin--and nothingbut death in the end."
He did not condemn her for the utterance, even in his thoughts. He wasimaginative enough to understand her despair and sympathize with it. Heremembered the sheltered life she had always lived. Besides, she washis goddess; he could only humble himself before her.
"But I won't let you die, Miss Tremont. I'll care for you. You won'teven have to lift your hand, if you don't want to. You'll be happier,though, if you do; it would break some of the monotony. There's alittle old phonograph on the stand, and some old magazines under yourcot. The weeks will pass someway. And I promise this." He paused, andhis face was gray as ashes. "I won't impose--any more of my companyupon you--than you wish."
The response was instantaneous. The girl's heart warmed; then sheflashed him a smile of sympathy and understanding. "Forgive me," shesaid. "I'll try to be brave. I'll try to stiffen up. I know you'll doeverything you can to get me out. You're so good to me--so kind. Andnow--I only want to go to sleep."
He watched her, standing by her bed. After all, sleep was the bestthing for her--to knit her torn nerves and mend her tired body.Besides, the wilderness night was falling. He could see it already,gray against the window pane. The first day of their exile was gone.
"I'll be all right in the morning," she told him sleepily. "And maybeit's for the best--after all. At least--it gives you a betterchance to find Harold--and bring him back to me."
Bill nodded, but he didn't trust himself to speak.