CHAPTER XIV
RIFLE SHOTS!
In spite of insufficient supper, a horrible trial when you are extremelyhungry, it is doubtful if ever two people slept sounder than thesetravellers. The dry bunks and blankets, with the warm fur bags, madebeds for a king. The hot tea and hot heavy bread, made with flour andwater, were warming, and satisfying, too, with the bit of bacon. Theywere too tired to worry about the bear, which came back and prowledround the shack when the warm smell of food came out of the pipe thatserved as a chimney. Bears love bacon, which is why the great trapslaid for them--drop traps--are nearly always baited with lumps of baconor pork.
How soon he went away they did not know, for they were asleep, and theyslept for ten hours almost without moving, and woke up to daylightfiltering in through the parchment pane, and a cold stove.
They got up with reluctance, in spite of hunger. David would havepreferred to stay where he was all day, and argued about it in adisgraceful manner, Nell said. She opened the door and there, close by,was the wide river, the white road leading to safety and civilisation.
Then the sun came up, hot and bright, and the snow sparkled in millionsof dripping jewels.
"Come out and dig for breakfast," said Nell, "or will you do the stovewhile I dig?"
"Look out for the bear," answered David sleepily, "probably he's waitinground the corner."
But he wasn't. All was clear, and presently the two travellers werebusy as bees digging for the cache by Nell's recollection of itsposition. Fortunately the ground was much softer, because of the thawand the sun, while the cache itself was only just below the surface andcovered chiefly by stones and rubbish. This was the usual way. Men didnot have time or inclination to make deep pits, they just concealed thepackage from man and beast till they should come by again and need thegoods.
The parcel was carefully tied up in dressed hide, so that the leatherwas soft. Tea, sugar, baking powder, and flour, beans and bacon. Thelatter was rather rusty, certainly, but what is that when you arehungry! Probably it had been well frozen and was hardly thawed yet.Nell took it all indoors and smoothed the place over. They had beenobliged to dig with the axe. They had nothing else, but it was not goodfor the blade!
Her plan was to eat well and carry on the rest, after putting back thelittle store in the cupboard. They would surely want it for the journeystill ahead. She would divide the weight into two parcels wrapped inthe skin.
Nell's mind was fairly at ease. If she had realised it, the reason ofthat was chiefly the warmth, the long, restful sleep, and the sunshine.Things look so different in different circumstances and nervous dreadoften comes with weariness and cold. She believed the danger was overand the journey on from now would be easy. It was not so very far, shereasoned, and the best of all was that every mile now might bring themto possible habitations, to farms even. They were coming down into thehaunts of men at last. That meant safety.
Of course, all this work--digging up and smoothing down--then the stovelighting and wood collecting, then the comfortable breakfast on a table,with the water boiling hard by on the warm stove, all took time. Time,too, was taken up in dividing the food into proper shares for carryingaway and leaving. It was at this stage that David suddenly made theproposition which undermined the plan for the day already settled.
He was leaning against the doorway, looking out at the sun on the river,playing with Robin, just as though they were at home up in the hills,left so far behind.
"I say, Nell, why do you want to go to-day?"
Nell stopped in her work of putting back the cache in the cupboard.
"But, Da, we ought to!"
"Why _ought_? We are perfectly safe now. It will only make a fewhours' difference."
"We can't be sure of that. How about Stenson? We don't know where heis. He won't give up."
"He will. Sure as fate he'll catch the Redskins and the sled. He'llbelieve he has followed a false trail all through and he'll give up.Now just think, Nell, why on earth should he come on this way. He wasbound to find them, and there you are! Why _should_ he keep on comingthis way with no trail to follow?"
It was true. Quite true and reasonable. It was most unlikely thatStenson should go on searching for a different trail over miles andmiles of country when he had found the end of the trail made--as hethought--by the young Lindsays. Where would he look? It was fair andreasonable to conclude that he would be baffled by the young Indians andgo back to Abbitibbi. The plan propounded and carried out byShines-in-the-Night was a very sound one. She would go her way, acrossto the other river which ran down to the Moose about parallel with thisone, only some fifty miles of woods between the two streams. Stensonmight follow her, to see what she would do, but he had no means ofpicking up the trail of the Lindsays.
All these thoughts, for and against, rose and sank in the girl's mind.There was really no reason why they should not take a very necessaryrest for this one day and start at dawn on the following morning, butinstinctively she felt it was dangerous. David said, "But why? Butwhy, Nell?" twice. She had no very definite reason to answer with.Only a feeling.
Of course she wanted to stop; who would not after such a strain? Theshack was luxury. They really did need the rest, and in a way there wasa good deal to do getting themselves clean, tidy, and ship-shape for thejourney to come.
In the end David won. Nell laughed, gave in, and began to makebaking-powder bread with the new materials, stirring it in the billy-canwith a stick. You can use billy-cans for so many things when you haveto!
"On one condition," she said, "that we go to bed as soon as the sun goesdown and get off really early, about four o'clock, so we can startbefore daybreak."
David promised joyfully. Whatever he felt in the morning would beanother pair of shoes! He went off down to the river and came back tosay the thaw was jolly well getting a move on things! The ice wasshifting up the banks. In some places there was water as well as meltedsnow on its surface.
"Look out for bridge ice, Nell, to-morrow," he said, as he sat down tothe table. "I do believe it's going out in a few days. Rather earlythis year, isn't it?"
Nell said it was warmer down here than up in the hills. There was amuch greater force of water underneath, too, here than up at the sourceof the stream, naturally. And, after all, it was April!
"Once it begins, it always goes so quickly," she said. "If it will lastfor us, just two whole days more--we ought to get somewhere safe, Da, inthat time."
"We shall," said David with conviction, and his sister put away from herthe queer nervous feeling that would not let her mind rest entirely.
A great part of that afternoon they lay still in their bunks, talking atintervals, while Robin dozed by the fire. As it happened, this was avery good thing for all three! The odd jobs were done. All was ready,the wood to fill the stove with in the morning, and the packets.
About sundown they had a meal, and after that the grey dusk began tocreep over everything. Soft, still shadow.
"Now bed," said Nell; "we've got no candles and we must be up aboutfour."
The words were hardly finished when a gun-shot rang out sharp on thesilence.
Nell started as though she had been hit, because her mind was stillstrained.
"It may be anybody," said David. Robin growled. Nell opened the doorand listened.
From the wood at the back a voice said, loud and harsh:
"You would, would you? You'd be ugly, eh?"
It was Stenson's voice, and undoubtedly he had met with the bear!
"Come on, Da. Smart. We must get off. Thank God for the evening, andthank God for the bear!"
Nell laughed suddenly, a low, jerky laugh.
"Who'd have thought it?" said David. That was all. He was feeling theleast bit guilty, because Nell had really wanted to go on. However,there it was--and thank God for the bear!
It took a very few minutes to clear out. The
bundles were done up indouble-quick time, and the rest was ready.
"Now then," said Nell, "and, Da, hold Robin; whatever happens he mustn'tgo."
David, strapping on snowshoes, agreed quickly, then he said:
"It's bad luck his finding the place warm and the stove still alight.It's a complete give-away."
"He won't find anything, unless he blows the door out. I've locked itand I've got the key," answered Nell grimly. "There's another shot!He's still busy. What a mercy it is getting really dark!"
Cautiously keeping the shack between themselves and the wood they speddown to the brink, out through the rotten ice and slush, and away on tothe river. Then off, with all the speed they could muster, away andaway, eastward again down that smooth snow-covered road, and the lastthing they heard was another shot.
"I hope the old bear kills him," said David vindictively.
"Oh, he won't. Stenson's got his gun. But, Da, what a true mercy; ifhe hadn't come by the bear track he'd have actually walked into theshack and caught us going to bed."
"I'd have shot him if he had, as soon as wink," said David; "he wantspeppering."
Nell laughed again. She had thought of that last resort herself!
Next time she spoke she said how splendid the rest had been. This wasbecause she knew David was feeling a little guilty about it. Also itwas very, very true. Both of them moved in quite a new way. The effortof that last day was gone; they were as fresh as when they started, andso was Robin.
Darker it grew and darker, till they went on with no light but the snowand a few stars, not the great shining stars of the farthest north, butstars that helped a little.
Nell was more anxious about the road underfoot than the skies overhead.There was always the danger of a flaw in the ice below, and she knewthere might be holes--places where water had come up over the ice,places where streams from the bank running in made weakness. Nell hadoften heard stories of inexperienced folk going up north too late in theseason, who had died a quick death because "the bottom fell out of thetrail," that was the expression used when the ice road gave way underyou and you went down and under the awful drifting sections of ice. Andyet what were they to do? The river was better going than the roughshores which might be any kind of travelling, up hill, down dale, woods,streams cutting into the big one, every sort of delay and check.
It was best, she decided, to keep on, going fast, as long as they heardno cracking, serious cracking. If that began, they must land and getpast any weak place by the bank.
"After all, we are not very heavy," she said, and comforted herself withthat.
"_He_ is," suggested David. "I wonder what he is doing now! I wonderif he'll break the lock of that shack, or if he'll hit our trail andfollow up directly. Of course, he may have killed the bear. If he hashe might stop to strip the pelt at once and come down to the shackafterwards."
So did David talk cheerfully, because he was refreshed by that goodrest. Nell was glad to hear it. She also was refreshed and unafraid ofthe night, but the long, long road ahead seemed to rise before her eyesas they drove on and on into the darkness.