Dorothy's Travels Part 22

He was rather impressed by the fact that she could read what was written--he could not. He was also angered further by that unwise remark about not trusting him. He stared at her, she stared back. Good! It was a battle of wills, then!

He seemed to waver, smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. All roads lead to one's goal, if one knows them. He was an Indian. He could not be lost in any forest, he who was wise in woodcraft and could tell all directions by signs this "foreigner" could not know. He snapped his fingers, airily, p.r.i.c.ked Bess forward again and into a trackless wilderness.

For a moment Molly hesitated. Should she go back and give up this chase?

Turning around she gazed about her and could not tell which way she had come.

"Why! I couldn't go back, even if I tried. I don't see any track and--I must follow him. I can hear him on ahead, by the breaking branches--Forward, Queenie, quick, quick!"

But Queenie wasn't pleased to "forward." She shrank from the rude pressure of the undergrowth against her delicate shanks and, for an instant, set her forefeet stubbornly among the ferns and brambles. But Molly was now past tenderness with any mount which would not do her will and Queenie was forced into the path she hated to tread. Already the brief delay had cost her the sound of the gray mare's progress. There was neither breaking twig nor footfall to tell her whither that tormenting Anton had vanished. There was only the bruised herbage to show which way he had ridden and she must follow; and for a long time she kept her eyes on that faint lead and steadily pursued it.

Then she came to a partly open glade and there she lost the trail entirely. Across this glade Anton had certainly pa.s.sed but in which direction she couldn't even guess. She reined Queenie to a stand and called:

"Anton! Anton! ANTON!!" and after another interval, again: "ANTON!"

There was an agony of fear in that last cry. Had Anton heard it, even his mischievous heart would have been touched and he would have ridden back to rea.s.sure her. But he did not hear her. He had now struck out from that narrow clearing into a road he knew well, by the blazed trees and the wheel-marks the camp-teamster had left upon it. The undergrowth had sprung up again, almost as completely as before it had been first disturbed, and even had Molly found that trail she would not have known enough to trace it.

But he was now on his own right road. She was where--she pleased. He had not asked her to come, he had tried to make her go back. He had not wanted her at all, but she had taunted him, distrusted him, and yet he knew that this once he was proving trustworthy. He felt that little packet safe in his blouse and patted the cloth above it commendingly.

"Good boy, Anton. If 'tis worth payment, this payment the so rich Judge will give. That girl rides well. Let her take care of herself. Go, Bess!"

He fished a little, fired a shot or two at some flying bird, then remembered that a shot might be heard and those from the camp come to inquire why it had been fired. Save themselves there were supposed to be no other sportsmen for miles around, and they would surely come, if from no other motive than curiosity.

It was supper-time when he came into camp and upon a picture that warmed his heart and banished from it, for a time, that rather uncomfortable sensation which had lately affected him. He had grown fanciful and thought a night-bird's call was the cry of somebody lost in the woods.

He was glad to see that cheerful fire, to smell the savory food cooking above it, to observe all the rude comforts with which modern sportsmen surround themselves. Those boys--Why, they had positively grown fat! And how they were laughing and fooling with one another! unrebuked by the older campers, who sat about on logs or stools, and smoked or talked or sang as the spirit moved them.

The Judge's keen eyes were the first to see the nose of the gray mare appearing through the thicket and he sprang to his feet with a little exclamation of alarm:

"Why, Anton, lad! What brings you here? Nothing had happened, I hope!

Eh, what? A packet for me? All right. Thank you. You're just in time to join us. We've had fine sport to-day and will have a grand meal in consequence. How's everybody? How's my little Molly?"

Anton's answer was an indirect one.

"You'll tell 'em I brought it safe, no?"

"Why, surely. Did anybody doubt you would? And if it's good news, a good fee for fetching it. If bad--fee according!"

He drew a little apart, opened the parcel and read the letters. Then he took a pad from his tent and wrote a brief reply; after which he retied the bundle and gave it back to Anton, saying:

"Deliver this to Mrs. Hungerford as safely as you have to me and I dare say she'll give you another like this!"

He held out a shining silver dollar but somehow, although the lad did take it, it seemed to lie very heavy within that inner pocket where he dropped it.

Supper over, all grouped about the fire and beset the Indian guide for a fresh batch of ghost stories, his specialty in literature or tradition; and though Judge Breckenridge asked his messenger if it were not time that he started back--for Aunt Lu had written urging him to keep the boy no longer than was absolutely necessary--Anton still lingered. Hitherto he had known no fear of any forest. He inherited his love for it and his knowledge. He had even loved best to prowl in its depths during the moonlit or starlit hours, and riding hither had antic.i.p.ated a leisurely return. So long as he was back at the farm by morning he saw no reason to hurry himself before.

Then he found himself listening to Monty's question:

"You say, Guide, that these very woods, right around us, are 'haunted?'"

"Sure. Hark!"

There was a strange unearthly cry from somewhere in the distance and the man continued:

"Some call that a screech-owl! But I know it's the cry of a girl who was lost in this forest. Why, Anton, boy, what's happened you?"

Anton had suddenly swayed in his seat and his face under its copper skin had turned ghastly pale.

CHAPTER XIV

HOW MOLLY CAME TO CAMP

"Yes, she was the daughter of one of the French squatters on that very lake we've fished this day. Susette they called her, and she was days in the woods. Out of this _Laque de la Mort_, they drew her body; but still, on dark nights, her spirit wanders as it wandered then, before she sought or found rest in the pool. 'Tis easy, sure. Take one of you men, even, and set you away from all the guide-marks we've made, you could not find your way save by some inherited instinct. We Indians, descendants of the forest men, get that instinct with our birth; even we who have lived among the white men all our days. That Anton yonder, though he has been housed under a roof ever since he was born, I warrant me he could be set in some unknown wilderness but would find a way out.

Is it not so, Anton?" asked the half-breed story-teller, shading his eyes from the firelight to look at the boy.

An instant later he had risen and bent above Anton, who now cowered in his corner his head bent upon his knees and his whole att.i.tude one of keen distress.

"Lad, what's amiss with you?"

Anton tossed off the kindly hand just laid upon his shoulder and raised a face that had grown haggard, with wild terrified eyes staring into the questioner's face.

"'Tis a lie, no? There is no girl wanders the forest nights! You are fool, Merimee, with your words!"

"That's as a man judges. Ghost tales were asked and told, and one is true. I know it. But fear not, lad. No spirit will molest to his harm one who rides through the wood aright, in the fear of G.o.d and with honesty in his heart. As for the ghost of poor Susette, hapless maid!

Would not one with a spark of manhood in him seek to help her if he could? But alas! When one is dead, even living men with hearts of courage can avail nought. But, up. You've rested and supped. 'Tis time you were a-saddle and riding home to your duty. Up and away. Though the wood looks dark from here, 'tis because of our fire so bright. The stars are out and once away from this the road will seem light enough. As light as many another when you're played truant to your master to wander in it. Up, and away!"

This Merimee, guide, was mostly a man of few words. Yet when, as now, his toil for the day was over and the campers gathered for an evening chat it flattered his vanity to be asked for the legends and traditions of the countryside. His tongue had been loosened and he used it thus liberally for the benefit of Anton, the mischievous, who "shamed his duty" as old Merimee always honored it. As he finished speaking he walked to the tree where the gray mare was fastened, slipped on its saddle, tightened its girth, and called:

"Ready, Anton!"

And, as if in echo, again floated through the air overhead a night-bird's mournful cry and Anton shrieked, then sprang to his feet shivering with terror.

The men stared at him, astonished, and Monty ran to him, shook him, and demanded:

"Don't you know better than that? Scare a fellow's wits out of his head?

That's nothing but the same old bird that's kept me awake--"

Melvin shouted in laughter, and the others echoed him.

"Kept you awake! Well, I'd like to know when? You that always go to sleep over your supper--if you're allowed!"

Monty laughed, also, and the mirth around him seemed to restore Anton's composure in a measure. But happening to glance toward Judge Breckenridge he saw that gentleman looking at him keenly and his guilty conscience awoke. In fact, the Judge was merely interested in watching the changes which fear wrought upon Anton's healthy face and was growing impatient to have the lad start home. He knew how eagerly his sister would wait to read the letters he was returning her and to comply with his own brief instructions concerning them. He was a man who wished always to do at once anything he had to do; and nothing annoyed him more than others' shilly-shallying. To his amazement, Anton begged him:

"Don't! Don't, sir, look at me like that! I didn't go for to do it!

She--she done it herself!"