it was high noon when hubert stane directed the nose of the canoe towards a landing-place in the lee of a sand-bar, on the upperside of which was a pile of dry driftwood suitable for firing.
"we will take an hour's rest, miss yardely; and possibly whilst we are waiting your friends may show up."
he lit a fire, prepared a wilderness meal of bacon and beans (the latter already half-cooked) and biscuit and coffee, and as they consumed it, he watched the river, a long stretch of which was visible.
"i thought we should have encountered your friends before now, miss yardely," he remarked thoughtfully.
the girl smiled. "are you anxious to get rid of me?" she asked. "believe me, i am enjoying myself amazingly, and if it were not for the anxiety my uncle and the others will be feeling, i should not trouble at all. this——" she waved a hand towards the canoe and the river—"is so different from my uncle's specially conducted tour."
"oh, i am not at all anxious to be rid of you," laughed stane, "but i cannot help wondering whether we have not taken the wrong turn. you see, if we have, every yard takes us further from your uncle's camp."
"but this is the way to fort winagog?" asked the girl.
"it is the only way i know."
"then we must be going right, for i distinctly heard my uncle say we were within a day's journey of the place."
"the thing that worries me is that we have met no one looking for you."
"no doubt they will thoroughly search the neighbourhood of the camp and the beaver-dam before going further afield. also, you must remember that it might be dinner-time last night before i was missed."
"yes," he agreed, "that is very likely. on which bank of the river was the camp?"
"this bank—the left coming down."
"then we will hug the shore this afternoon, and no doubt we shall find it before supper-time."
but in that anticipation he was mistaken. the long day drew to its close and the camp they sought had not appeared; nor had any search-party materialized. as they pitched camp for the night, the doubt which all day had been in stane's mind became a certainty.
"i am afraid we have made a mistake, miss yardely. you must have come down the other river. it is impossible that we can have missed the camp; and we must have seen any boat coming down this empty water."
"but we are going towards fort winagog?"
"yes. on the other hand you must remember that a paddle-driven canoe travels much faster than a merely drifting one; and that we ourselves, assuming that we are on the right way, all day have been shortening the distance that a search-party would have to travel. we ought to have met some time ago. i think we shall have to turn back in the morning."
"must we?" asked the girl. "can't we go on to fort winagog? i can wait there till my uncle appears, and i shall not be taking you further out of your way. i am afraid i am putting you to a good deal of trouble, and wasting your time."
"time is not of much account to me," laughed stane shortly. "and what you suggest is impossible."
"why?" demanded helen.
"because old fort winagog is a fort no longer. it is a mere ruin like old fort selkirk. there may be an indian or two in the neighbourhood. there is certainly no one else."
"then we shall have to go back?" said the girl.
"it seems to be the only way," was the reply. "if we are wrong, as i am convinced we are, every yard we go takes us further from your people."
"i am sorry to give you all this trouble," said the girl contritely.
"please—please!" he answered in quick protest. "believe me it is a pleasure to serve you, and with me a few days do not matter. i shall have enough of my own company before long."
"you live alone?" asked helen.
"i have an old indian for companion."
"and what do you do, if you will permit me to be so curious?"
"oh," he laughed. "i hunt, i pursue the elusive nugget, and i experiment with vegetables. and this winter i am going to start a trapping line."
"but you are rich!" she cried. "you have no need to live in exile."
"yes," he answered with sudden bitterness. "i am rich. i suppose ainley told you that. but exile is the only thing for me. you see a sojourn in dartmoor spoils one for county society."
"oh," she cried protestingly, "i cannot believe that you—that you——"
"thank you," he said as the girl broke off in confusion. "i cannot believe it myself. but twelve good men and true believed it; an expert in handwriting was most convincing, and if you had heard the judge——"
"but you did not do it, mr. stane, i am sure of that."
"no," he answered, "i did not do the thing for which i suffered. but to prove my innocence is another matter."
"you have not given up the endeavour, i hope."
"no! i have a man at work in england, and i myself make small endeavours. only the other day i thought that i——" apparently he remembered something, for he broke off sharply. "but why discuss the affair? it is only one of the world's small injustices which shows that the law, usually right, may go wrong occasionally."
but helen yardely was not so easily to be turned aside. whilst he had been speaking a thought had occurred to her, and now took the form of a question.
"i suppose that the other night when you were waiting for mr. ainley, it was on this particular matter that you wished to see him?"
"what makes you think that?" stane asked quickly.
helen yardely smiled. "it is not difficult to guess. you told me last night that you wished to question him on a matter that was important to you. and this matter—well! it needs no argument."
"it might be something else, miss yardely," was the evasive reply.
"yes, it might be," answered the girl, "but i do not think it is."
stane made no reply, but sat looking in the fire, and the girl watching him, drew her own conclusion from his silence, a conclusion that was far from favourable to gerald ainley. she wondered what were the questions stane had wished to ask her uncle's secretary; and which, as she was convinced, he had been at such pains to avoid. was it possible that her rescuer believed that his one-time friend had it in his power to prove his innocence of the crime for which he had suffered? all the indications seemed to point that way; and as she looked at the grave, thoughtful face, and the greying hair of the man who had saved her from death, she resolved that on the morrow, when she reached her uncle's camp, she would herself question gerald ainley upon the matter.
but, as events befell, the opportunity that the morrow was to bring was not given. for that night, whilst she slept in the little tent, and stane, wrapped in a blanket, slumbered on a bed of spruce-boughs, perhaps half-a-dozen yards away, a man crept cautiously between the trees in the rear of the encampment, and stood looking at it with covetous eyes. he was a half-breed of evil countenance, and he carried an old trade gun, which he held ready for action whilst he surveyed the silent camp. his dark eyes fell on stane sleeping in the open, and then looked towards the tent with a question in them. evidently he was wondering how many travellers there were; and found the thought a deterrent one; for though once he lifted his gun and pointed it to the sleeping man, he lowered it again, his eyes turning to the tent anew.
after a period of indecision, the intruder left the shadow of the trees, and crept quietly down to the camp, his gun still at the ready, and with his eyes fixed on the unconscious stane. moving very cautiously he reached the place where the canoe was beached, and looked down into it. a gleam of satisfaction came into his dark eyes as he saw a small sack of beans reposing in the stern, then again a covetous look came into them as their gaze shifted to the stores about the camp. but these were very near the sleeping man, and as the latter stirred in his sleep, the half-breed relinquished any thought of acquiring them. stealthily he conveyed the canoe down to the water's edge, launched it, and then with a grin on his evil face as he gave a last look at the man in the blanket, he paddled away.
a full three-quarters of an hour later stane awoke, and kicking aside the blankets, replenished the fire, and then went a little way upstream to bathe. at the end of half an hour he returned. his first glance was towards the tent, the fly of which was still closed, then he looked round the camp and a puzzled look came on his face. there was something a little unfamiliar, something not present which——
"great scott! the canoe!"
as the words shot from him he hurried forward. quite distinctly he remembered carrying it up the bank the night before, and now——. inside half a minute he found himself looking at the place where it had lain. the impression of it was quite clear on the dewy grass, and there were other impressions also—impressions of moccasined-feet going down to the edge of the water. for a moment he stared unbelievingly; then as a thought occurred to him he glanced at the tent again. had the girl in his absence taken the canoe and——
the thought died as soon as it was born, and he began to follow the tracks on the damp grass, backward. they skirted the camp in a small semi-circle, and led to the forest behind, where on the dry pine needles they were not quite so easy to follow. but follow them he did, and in a couple of minutes reached a place where it was evident some one had stood for a considerable time. this spot was in the shadow of a great spruce, and standing behind the trunk he looked towards the camp. the fire and the white tent were plain to be seen. then he understood what had happened. some one had seen the encampment and had waited in the place where he now stood, probably to reconnoitre, and then had made off with the canoe. a thought leaped into his mind at that moment, and brought with it a surge of fear.
"the stores. if——"
at a run he covered the space between him and the camp, and as he looked round and saw that most of the stores reposed where he had placed them the previous night, relief surged in his heart.
"thank heaven!"
"mr. stane, what is the matter? you look as if something had startled you."
he swung round instantly. helen yardely was standing at the tent door with a smile on her face.
"the matter is serious enough," he explained quickly. "some one has stolen the canoe in the night."
"stolen the canoe!" echoed the girl.
"yes! you can see his tracks in the grass, going up to the place where he stood and watched us. he must have come down whilst we slept."
"but who can have done such a thing?"
stane shook his head. "i cannot think. a wandering indian most likely.... hard put to it, i expect. he has taken a sack of beans with him."
"then we are stranded?" asked the girl quickly.
"in a way—yes," he agreed. "but we are not in a desperate case. we have food, i have my rifle, and it will be possible to make a raft and float down the river until we meet your uncle's people."
the girl looked at the river doubtfully. "what sort of control shall we have over a raft?"
"well," he said, "i should make a steering oar."
"and if the current took control, mr. stane? please believe me when i say i am not afraid—but i cannot help thinking of those falls you mentioned."
stane looked thoughtful. for the moment he had forgotten the falls, and as he remembered the quickening of the current at the meeting of the rivers he recognized there was reason in the girl's question.
"there are risks, of course," he said. "the alternative to the river is to tramp through the wood."
"then i vote for the alternative," replied helen with a little laugh. "i've had my full of drifting like a fly caught in an eddy."
stane looked down the river and from the river to the woods which lined its banks.
"it will be difficult," he said. "this is virgin forest."
"pooh," retorted the girl lightly. "you can't make me afraid, mr. stane. ever since i left edmonton with my uncle's party i've wanted to rough it—to know what the wilderness really is. now's my chance—if you don't deprive me of it."
in spite of the seriousness of the situation, stane laughed.
"oh, i won't deprive you of it, miss yardely. we'll start after breakfast; but i warn you, you don't know what you are in for."
"job's comforter!" she mocked him laughingly. "i'm going to fill the kettle. a cup of tea will cheer you up and make you take a rosier view of things."
she said no more, but taking the kettle, walked down to the river, humming to herself a gay little chanson.
"qui va là! there's someone in the orchard,
there's a robber in the apple-trees,
qui va là! he is creeping through the doorway.
ah, allez-vous-en! va-t'-en!"
he watched her go, with a soft light gleaming in his hard blue eyes, then he turned and began to busy himself with preparations for breakfast. when the meal was finished, he went through the stores and his personal possessions.
"we can't take them all," he explained. "i know my limit, and sixty pounds is as much as i can carry along if i am to travel steadily, without too many rests. we shall have to cache a goodish bit."
"you are forgetting me, aren't you?" asked the girl, quietly. "i'm fairly strong, you know."
"but——"
"i think i must insist," she interrupted with a smile. "you are doing all this for me; and quite apart from that, i shall be glad to know what the trail is like under real conditions."
stane argued further, but in vain, and in the end the girl had her way, and took the trail with a pack of perhaps five and twenty pounds, partly made up of the clothes she had changed into after her rescue. stane knew the woods; he guessed what havoc the trail would make of skirts and for that reason he included the clothing in her pack, foreseeing that there would be further need of them.
as they started the girl began to hum:
"some talk of alexander
and some of hercules."
stane laughed over his shoulder.
"i'm afraid a quick step will be out of keeping soon, miss yardely."
"why?" she asked interrupting her song.
"well—packing on trail is necessarily a slow business; and there's rough country between these two rivers."
"you are trying to scare me because i'm a tenderfoot," she retorted with a laugh that was like music in stane's ears; "but i won't be scared."
she resumed her song with a gay air of bravado; passing from one chanty to another in a voice fluty as a blackbird. stane smiled to himself. he liked her spirit, and he knew that that would carry her through the difficulties that lay before them, even when the flesh was inclined to failure. but presently the springs of song dried up, and when the silence had lasted a little time he looked round. the girl's face was flushed, and the sweat was dropping in her eyes.
"nothing the matter, i hope, miss yardely?"
"no, thank you," she answered with a little attempt to laugh; "but one can't sing, you know, with mosquitoes and other winged beasts popping into one's mouth."
"they are rather a nuisance," he agreed and plodded on.
packing one's worldly possessions through the pathless wilderness is a slow, grinding misery. the lightest pack soon becomes a burden. at the beginning of a march it may seem a mere nothing, in an hour it is an oppression; in three a millstone is a feather compared with it; and before night the inexperienced packer feels that, like atlas, he bears the world upon his shoulders. it was therefore little wonder that helen yardely ceased to sing after they had marched but a very little way; and indeed the trail, apart from the apparently growing weight of the pack, was not favourable to song. there was no sort of path whatever after they had left the river bank; nothing but the primeval forest, with an undergrowth that was so dense that the branches of one bush were often interwoven with its neighbours. through this they had to force their way, head down, hands and clothes suffering badly in the process. then would come a patch of jack-pine, where trees seven to ten feet high grew in such profusion that it was well-nigh impossible to find a passage between them; and on the heels of this would follow a stretch of muskeg, quaking underfoot, and full of boggy traps for the unwary. in the larger timber also, the deadfalls presented an immense difficulty. trees, with their span of life exhausted, year after year, had dropped where they stood, and dragging others down in their fall, cumbered the ground in all directions, sometimes presenting tangled barriers which it was necessary to climb over, a method not unaccompanied by danger, since in the criss-cross of the branches and trunks a fall would almost inevitably have meant a broken limb.
the ground they travelled over was uneven, intersected here and there by gullies, which were only to be skirted by great expense of time and energy, and the crossing of which was sometimes dangerous, but had perforce to be accomplished, and by noon, when they reached the bank of a small stream, the girl was exhausted and her face wore a strained look. stane saw it, and halting, took off his pack.
"time for grub," he said.
then unstrapping his pack he stretched a blanket on the sloping ground. the girl watched him with interest.
"why——" she began, only to be promptly interrupted.
"for you," he explained briefly. "lie down and relax your limbs. pull this other blanket over you, then you won't chill."
"but i want to help," she protested. "i don't like to feel that you are working and i——"
"you will help best by obeying orders," he said smilingly. "we shall have to push on after an hour, and if you don't rest you will be too done up to keep the trail till evening."
"then i must obey," she said.
he turned to look for wood with which to make a fire, and when he returned she was lying on the blanket with another drawn over her, and her eyes smiled at him as he appeared. the next minute they were closed, and two minutes later she was fast asleep. stane, as he realized the fact, smiled a little to himself.
"of spirit compact," he murmured to himself, and went forward with preparations for a meal.
it was two hours later when the girl awoke, and the meal was ready—a quite substantial one.
"have i slept long?" inquired helen, moving towards the fire.
"two hours. but don't worry about that. we have lost no time really, for i have done a little exploring. there's a stretch of high ground in front of us, a kind of height of land between the river we have left and the one we are making for. once we are well across that we shall find the going easier. we'll tackle it this afternoon. i've found something, like a path, an old trapping-line i should think by the way the trees have been blazed."
when the meal was finished they put out the fire and started anew, and, by evening, had passed the crest of the high land between the rivers, and were moving down the wooded slopes on the further side looking for a camping place. the timber thickened, and they suddenly encountered a tremendous barrier of deadfall ten or eleven feet high, with the fallen trunks criss-crossing in all directions. from the further side of it came the ripple of running water proclaiming a stream and the water they were seeking.
"it is exasperating," said stane, with a little laugh. "but we must climb the beastly thing. if we try to go round it, we shall probably only encounter others. i'll go first and have a look at the other side."
he began to climb the obstruction and when he reached the top looked down at the tangle of trunks below.
"it's pretty bad," he shouted to the watching girl. "you had better wait until i find a way down."
he began to crawl gingerly along the monarch tree at the crown of the pile. its branches were twisted in all directions and dangerous snags were frequent. suddenly his foot slipped. he made a wild attempt to regain his balance but the heavy pack prevented him, and a second later with a shout he plunged into the tangled pile below, vanishing from the girl's sight on the further side. with a swift cry of alarm, helen, who had been seated on a fallen trunk, leaped to her feet. she called out to him, her voice shaking with fear:
"mr. stane! mr. stane!"
there came no answering hail from the other side of the deadfall, and with dismay manifesting itself in her beautiful face, the girl faced the barrier and began to climb with reckless, desperate haste.
