CHAPTER XXI
In the slowly breaking gloom of the cabin, with Marette's arms roundhis neck, her soft lips given him to kiss, Kent for many minutes wasconscious of nothing but the thrill of his one great hope on earth cometrue. What he had prayed for was no longer a prayer, and what he haddreamed of was no longer a dream; yet for a space the reality of itseemed unreal. What he said in those first moments of his exaltation hewould probably never remember.
His own physical existence seemed a thing trivial and almost lost, athing submerged and swallowed up by the warm beat and throb of thatother life, a thousand times more precious than his own, which he heldin his arms. Yet with the mad thrill that possessed him, in the embraceof his arms, there was an infinite tenderness, a gentleness, that drewfrom Marette's lips a low, glad whispering of his name. She drew hishead down and kissed him, and Kent fell upon his knees at her side andcrushed his face close down to her--while outside the patter of rain onthe roof had ceased, and the fog-like darkness was breaking with graydawn.
In that dawn of the new day Kent came at last out of the cabin andlooked upon a splendid world. In his breast was the glory of a thingnew-born, and the world, like himself, was changed. Storm had passed.The gray river lay under his eyes. Shoreward he made out the darkoutlines of the deep spruce and cedar and balsam forests. About himthere was a great stillness, broken only by the murmur of the river andthe ripple of water under the scow. Wind had gone with the blackrainclouds, and Kent, as he looked about him, saw the swift dissolutionof the last shadows of night, and the breaking in the East of a newparadise. In the East, as the minutes passed, there came a soft andluminous gray, and after that, swiftly, with the miracle of farNorthern dawn, a vast, low-burning fire seemed to start far beyond theforests, tinting the sky with a delicate pink that crept higher andhigher as Kent watched it. The river, all at once, came out of its lastdrifting haze of fog and night. The scow was about in the middle of thechannel. Two hundred yards on either side were thick green walls offorest glistening fresh and cool with the wet of storm and breathingforth the perfume which Kent was drawing deep into his lungs.
In the cabin he heard sound. Marette was up, and he was eager to haveher come out and stand with him in this glory of their first day. Hewatched the smoke of the fire he had built, hardwood smoke that driftedup white and clean into the rain-washed air.
The smell of it, like the smell of balsam and cedar, was to Kent thearoma of life. And then he began to clean out what was left of thewater in the bottom of the scow, and as he worked he whistled. Hewanted Marette to hear that whistle. He wanted her to know that day hadbrought with it no doubt for him. A great and glorious world was aboutthem and ahead of them. And they were safe.
As he worked, his mind became more than ever set upon the resolution totake no chances. He paused in his whistling for a moment to laughsoftly and exultantly as he thought of the years of experience whichwere his surest safeguard now. He had become almost uncannily expert inall the finesse and trickery of his craft of hunting human game, and heknew what the man-hunters would do and what they would not do. He hadthem checkmated at the start. And, besides--with Kedsty, O'Connor, andhimself gone--the Landing was short-handed just at present. There wasan enormous satisfaction in that. But even with a score of men behindhim Kent knew that he would beat them. His hazard, if there was perilat all, lay in this first day. Only the Police gasoline launch couldpossibly overtake them. And with the start they had, he was sure theywould pass the Death Chute, conceal the scow, and take to the untrackedforests north and west before the launch could menace them. After thathe would keep always west and north, deeper and deeper into that wildand untraveled country which would be the last place in which the Lawwould seek for them. He straightened himself and looked at the smokeagain, drifting like gray-white lace between him and the blue of thesky, and in that moment the sun capped the tall green tops of thehighest cedars, and day broke gloriously over the earth.
For a quarter of an hour longer Kent mopped at the floor of the scow,and then--with a suddenness that drew him up as if a whip-lash hadsnapped behind him--he caught another aroma in the clean,forest-scented air. It was bacon and coffee! He had believed thatMarette was taking her time in putting on dry footwear and making somesort of morning toilet. Instead of that, she was getting breakfast. Itwas not an extraordinary thing to do. To fry bacon and make coffee wasnot, in any sense, a remarkable achievement. But at the present momentit was the crowning touch to Kent's paradise. She was getting HISbreakfast! And--coffee and bacon--To Kent those two things had alwaysstood for home. They were intimate and companionable. Where there werecoffee and bacon, he had known children who laughed, women who sang,and men with happy, welcoming faces. They were home-builders.
"Whenever you smell coffee and bacon at a cabin," O'Connor had alwayssaid, "they'll ask you in to breakfast if you knock at the door."
But Kent was not recalling his old trail mate's words. In the presentmoment all other thoughts were lost in the discovery that Marette wasgetting breakfast--for him.
He went to the door and listened. Then he opened it and looked in.Marette was on her knees before the open door of the stove, toastingbread on two forks. Her face was flushed pink. She had not taken timeto brush her hair, but had woven it carelessly into a thick braid thatfell down her back. She gave a little exclamation of mockdisappointment when she saw Kent.
"Why didn't you wait?" she remonstrated. "I wanted to surprise you."
"You have," he said. "And I couldn't wait. I had to come in and help."
He was inside the door and on his knees beside her. As he reached forthe two forks, his lips pressed against her hair. The pink deepened inMarette's face, and the soft little note that was like laughter cameinto her throat. Her hand caressed his cheek as she rose to her feet,and Kent laughed back. And after that, as she arranged things on theshelf table, her hand now and then touched his shoulder, or his hair,and two or three times he heard that wonderful little throat-note thatsent through him a wild pulse of happiness. And then, he sitting in thelow chair and she on the stool, they drew close together before theboard that answered as a table, and ate their breakfast. Marette pouredhis coffee and stirred sugar and condensed milk in it, and so happy wasKent that he did not tell her he used neither milk nor sugar in hiscoffee. The morning sun burst through the little window, and throughthe open door Kent pointed to the glory of it on the river and in theshimmering green of the forests slipping away behind. When they hadfinished, Marette went outside with him.
For a space she stood silent and without movement, looking upon themarvelous world that encompassed them. It seemed to Kent that for a fewmoments she did not breathe. With her head thrown back and her whitethroat bare to the soft, balsam-laden air she faced the forests. Hereyes became suddenly filled with the luminous glow of stars. Her facereflected the radiance of the rising sun, and Kent, looking at her,knew that he had never seen her so beautiful as in these wonderfulmoments. He held his own breath, for he also knew that Niska, hisgoddess, was looking upon her own world again after a long time away.
Her world--and his. Different from all the other worlds God had evermade; different, even, from the world only a few miles behind them atthe Landing. For here was no sound or whisper of destroying human life.They were in the embrace of the Great North, and it was drawing themcloser, and with each minute nearer to the mighty, pulsing heart of it.
The forests hung heavy and green and glistening with the wet of storm;out of them came the tremulous breath of life and the glory of living;they hugged the shores like watchful hosts guarding the river fromcivilization--and suddenly the girl held out her arms, and Kent heardthe low, thrilling cry that came to her lips.
She had forgotten him. She had forgotten everything but the river, theforests, and the untrod worlds beyond them, and he was glad. For thisworld that she was welcoming, that her soul was crying out to, was hisworld, for ever and ever. It held his dreams, his hopes, all thedesires that he had in life. And when at last Mare
tte turned toward himslowly, his arms were reaching out to her, and in his face she saw thatsame glory which filled her own.
"I'm glad--glad," she cried softly. "Oh, Jeems--I'm glad!"
She came into his arms without hesitation; her hands stroked his face;and then she stood with her head against his shoulder, looking ahead,breathing deeply now of the sweet, clear air filled with the elixir ofthe hovering forests. She did not speak, or move, and Kent remainedquiet. The scow drifted around a bend. Shoreward a great moose splashedup out of the water, and they could hear him afterward, crashingthrough the forest. Her body tensed, but she did not speak. After alittle he heard her whisper,
"It has been a long time, Jeems. I have been away four years."
"And now we are going home, little Gray Goose. You will not be lonely?"
"No. I was lonely down there. There were so many people, and so manythings, that I was homesick for the woods and mountains. I believe Iwould have died soon. There were only two things I loved, Jeems--"
"What?" he asked.
"Pretty dresses--and shoes."
His arms closed about her a little more tightly. "I--I understand," helaughed softly. "That is why you came, that first time, with prettyhigh-heeled pumps."
He bowed his head, and she turned her face to him. On her upturnedmouth he kissed her.
"More than any other man ever loved a woman I love you, Niska, littlegoddess," he cried.
The minutes and the hours of that day stood out ever afterward inKent's life as unforgettable memories. There were times when theyseemed illusory and unreal, as though he lived and breathed in aninsubstantial world made up of gossamer things which must be the fabricof dream. These were moments when the black shadow of the tragedy fromwhich they were fleeing pressed upon him, when the thought came to himthat they were criminals racing with the law; that they were not onenchanted ground, but in deadly peril; that it was all a fools'paradise from which some terrible shock would shortly awaken him. Butthese periods of apprehension were, in themselves, mere shadows thrownfor a moment upon his happiness. Again and again the subconscious forcewithin him pounded home to his physical brain the great truth, that itwas all extraordinarily real.
It was Marette who made him doubt himself at times. He could not, quiteyet, comprehend the fulness of that love which she had given him. Morethan ever, in the glory of this love that had come to them she was likea child to him. It seemed to him in the first hours of the morning thatshe had forgotten yesterday, and the day before, and ill the daysbefore that. She was going home. She whispered that to him so oftenthat it became a little song in his brain. Yet she told him nothing ofthat home, and he waited, knowing that the fulfilment of her promisewas not far away. And there was no embarrassment in the manner of hersurrender when he held her in his arms, and she held her face up, sothat he could kiss her mouth and look into her glowing, lovely eyes.What he saw was the flush of a great happiness, the almost childishconfession of it along with the woman's joy of possession. And hethought of Kedsty, and of the Law that was rousing itself into lifeback at Athabasca Landing.
And then she ran her fingers through his own and told him to wait, andran into the cabin and came out a moment later with her brush; andafter that she seated herself at the fulcrum of the big sweep and beganto brush out her hair in the sun.
"I'm glad you love it, Jeems," she said.
She unbound the thick braid and let the silken strands of it runcaressingly between her fingers. She smoothed it out, brushed it untilit was more beautiful than he had ever seen it, in that glow of thesun. She held it up so that it rippled out in shimmering cascades abouther--and then, suddenly, Kent saw the short tress from which had beenclipped the rope of hair that he had taken from Kedsty's neck. And ashis lips tightened, crushing fiercely the exclamation of his horror,there came a trembling happiness from Marette's lips, scarcely morethan the whisper of a song, the low, thrilling melody of _Le Chaudiere_.
Her arms reached up, and she drew his head down to her, so that for atime his visions were blinded in that sweet smother of her hair.
The intimacy of that day was in itself like a dream. Hour after hourthey drifted deeper into the great North. The sun shone. Theforest-walled shores of the river grew mightier in their stillness andtheir grandeur, and the vast silence of unpeopled places brooded overthe world. To Kent it was as if they were drifting through Paradise.Occasionally he found it necessary to work the big sweep, for stillwater was gradually giving way to a swifter current.
Beyond that there was no labor for him to perform. It seemed to himthat with each of these wonderful hours danger was being left fartherand still farther behind them. Watching the shores, looking ahead,listening for sound that might come from behind--at times possessed ofthe exquisite thrills of children in their happiness--Kent and Marettefound the gulf of strangeness passing swiftly away from between them.
They did not speak of Kedsty, or the tragedy, or again of the death ofJohn Barkley. But Kent told of his days in the North, of his aloneness,of the wild, weird love in his soul for the deepest wildernesses. Andfrom that he went away back into dim and distant yesterdays, alive withmellowed memories of boyhood days spent on a farm. To all these thingsMarette listened with glowing eyes, with low laughter, or with breaththat rose or fell with his own emotions.
She told of her own days down at school and of their appallingloneliness; of childhood spent in the forests; of the desire to livethere always. But she did not speak intimately of herself or her lifein its more vital aspects; she said nothing of the home in the Valleyof Silent Men, nothing of father or mother, sisters or brothers. Therewas no embarrassment in her omissions. And Kent did not question. Heknew that those were among the things she would tell him when thatpromised hour came, the hour when he would tell her they were safe.
There began to possess him now a growing eagerness for this hour, whenthey should leave the river and take to the forests. He explained toMarette why they could not float on indefinitely. The river was the onegreat artery through which ran the blood of all traffic to the farNorth. It was patrolled. Sooner or later they would be discovered. Inthe forests, with a thousand untrod trails to choose, they would besafe. He had only one reason for keeping to the river until they passedthrough the Death Chute. It would carry them beyond a great swampyregion to the westward through which it would be impossible for them tomake their way at this season of the year. Otherwise he would have goneashore now. He loved the river, had faith in it, but he knew that notuntil the deep forests swallowed them, as a vast ocean swallows a ship,would they be beyond the peril that threatened them from the Landing.
Three or four times between sunrise and noon they saw life ashore andon the stream; once a scow tied to a tree, then an Indian camp, andtwice trappers' shacks built in the edge of little clearings. With thebeginning of afternoon Kent felt growing within him something that wasnot altogether eagerness. It was, at times, a disturbing emotion, aforeshadowing of evil, a warning for him to be on his guard. He usedthe sweep more, to help their progress in the current, and he began tomeasure time and distance with painstaking care. He recognized manylandmarks.
By four o'clock, or five at the latest, they would strike the head ofthe Chute. Ten minutes of its thrilling passage and he would work thescow into the concealment he had in mind ashore, and no longer would hefear the arm of the law that reached out from the Landing. As heplanned, he listened. From noon on he never ceased to listen for thatdistant _putt, putt, putt_, that would give them a mile's warning of theapproach of the patrol launch.
He did not keep his plans to himself. Marette sensed his growinguneasiness, and he made her a partner of his thoughts.
"If we hear the patrol before we reach the Chute, we'll still have timeto run ashore," he assured her. "And they won't catch us. We'll beharder to find than two needles in a haystack. But it's best to beprepared."
So he brought out his pack and Marette's smaller bundle, and laid hisrifle and pistol holster across them.
It
was three o'clock when the character of the river began to change,and Kent smiled happily. They were entering upon swifter waters. Therewere places where the channel narrowed, and they sped through rapids.Only where unbroken straight waters stretched out ahead of them didKent give his arms a rest at the sweep. And through most of thestraight water he added to the speed of the scow. Marette helped him.In him the exquisite thrill of watching her slender, glorious body asit worked with his own never grew old. She laughed at him over the bigoar between them. The wind and sun played riot in her hair. Her partedlips were rose-red, her cheeks flushed, her eyes like sun-warmed rockviolets. More than once, in the thrill of that afternoon flight, as helooked at the marvelous beauty of her, he asked himself if it could beanything but a dream. And more than once he laughed joyously, andpaused in his swinging of the sweep, and proved that it was real andtrue. And Kent thanked God, and worked harder.
Once, a long time ago, Marette told him, she had been through theChute. It had horrified her then. She remembered it as a sort of deathmonster, roaring for its victims. As they drew nearer to it, Kent toldher more about it. Only now and then was a life lost there now, hesaid. At the mouth of the Chute there was a great, knife-like rock,like a dragon's tooth, that cut the Chute into two roaring channels. Ifa scow kept to the left-hand channel it was safe. There would be amighty roaring and thundering as it swept on its passage, but thatroaring of the Chute, he told her, was like the barking of a harmlessdog.
Only when a scow became unmanageable, or hit the Dragon's Tooth, ormade the right-hand channel instead of the left, was there tragedy.There was that delightful little note of laughter in Marette's throatwhen Kent told her that.
"You mean, Jeems, that if one of three possible things doesn't happen,we'll get through safely?"
"None of them is possible--with us," he corrected himself quickly."We've a tight little scow, we're not going to hit the rock, and we'llmake the left-hand channel so smoothly you won't know when it happens."He smiled at her with splendid confidence. "I've been through it ahundred times," he said.
He listened. Then, suddenly, he drew out his watch. It was a quarter offour. Marette's ears caught what he heard. In the air was a low,trembling murmur. It was growing slowly but steadily. He nodded whenshe looked at him, the question in her eyes.
"The rapids at the head of the Chute!" he cried, his voice vibrant withjoy. "We've beat them out. _We're safe_!"
They swung around a bend, and the white spume of the rapids lay half amile ahead of them. The current began to race with them now. Kent puthis whole weight on the sweep to keep the scow in mid-channel.
"We're safe," he repeated. "Do you understand, Marette? _We're safe_!"
He was speaking the words for which she had waited, was telling herthat at last the hour had come when she could keep her promise to him.The words, as he gave them voice, thrilled him. He felt like shoutingthem. And then all at once he saw the change that had come into herface. Her wide, startled eyes were not looking at him, but beyond. Shewas looking back in the direction from which they had come, and even ashe stared her face grew white.
"_Listen_!"
She was tense, rigid. He turned his head. And in that moment it came tohim above the growing murmur of the river--the _putt, putt, putt_ of thePolice patrol boat from Athabasca Landing!
A deep breath came from between his lips. When Marette took her eyesfrom the river and looked at him, his face was like carven rock. He wasstaring dead ahead.
"We can't make the Chute," he said, his voice sounding hard and unrealto her. "If we do, they'll be up with us before we can land at theother end. We must let this current drive us ashore--_now_."
As he made his decision, he put the strength of his body into action.He knew there was not the hundredth part of a second to lose. Theoutreaching suction of the rapids was already gripping the scow, andwith mighty strokes he fought to work the head of his craft toward thewestward shore. With swift understanding Marette saw the pricelessvalue of a few seconds of time. If they were caught in the strongerswirl of the rapids before the shore was reached, they would be forcedto run the Chute, and in that event the launch would be upon thembefore they could make a landing farther on. She sprang to Kent's sideand added her own strength in the working of the sweep. Foot by footand yard by yard the scow made precious westing, and Kent's facelighted up with triumph as he nodded ahead to a timbered point thatthrust itself out like a stubby thumb into the river. Beyond that pointthe rapids were frothing white, and they could see the first blackwalls of rock that marked the beginning of the Chute.
"We'll make it," he smiled confidently. "We'll hit that timbered pointclose inshore. I don't see where the launch can make a landing anywherewithin a mile of the Chute. And once ashore we'll make trail about fivetimes as fast they can follow it." Marette's face was no longer pale,but flushed with excitement. He caught the white gleam of teeth betweenher parted lips. Her eyes shone gloriously, and he laughed.
"You beautiful little fighter," he cried exultantly. "You--you--"
His words were cut short by a snap that was like the report of a pistolclose to his ears. He pitched forward and crashed to the bottom of thescow, Marette's slim body clutched in his arms as he fell. In a flashthey were up, and mutely they stared where the sweep had been. Theblade of it was gone. Kent was conscious of hearing a little cry fromthe girl at his side, and then her fingers were gripping tightly againabout his thumb. No longer possessed of the power of guidance, the scowswung sideways. It swept past the wooded point. The white maelstrom ofthe lower rapids seized upon it. And Kent, looking ahead to the blackmaw of the death-trap that was waiting for them, drew Marette close inhis arms and held her tight.