Into the Primitive Part 4

"How about yourself, Mr. Blake?" inquired the girl. "Do you not find the sun fearfully hot?"

"Sure; but I wet my head in the sea, and here's another souse."

As he rose with dripping head from beside the pool, he slung the coryphene on his back, and started off without further words.

CHAPTER IV

A JOURNEY IN DESOLATION

Morning was well advanced, and the sun beat down upon the three with almost overpowering fierceness. The heat would have rendered their thirst unendurable had not Blake hacked off for them bit after bit of the moist coryphene flesh.

In a temperate climate, ten miles over firm ground is a pleasant walk for one accustomed to the exercise. Quite a different matter is ten miles across mud-flats, covered with a tangle of reeds and rushes, and frequently dipping into salt marsh and ooze. Before they had gone a mile Miss Leslie would have lost her slippers had it not been for Blake's forethought in tying them so securely. Within a little more than three miles the girl's strength began to fail.

"Oh, Blake," called Winthrope, for the American was some yards in the lead, "pull up a bit on that knoll. We'll have to rest a while, I fancy. Miss Leslie is about pegged."

"What's that?" demanded Blake. "We're not half-way yet!"

Winthrope did not reply. It was all he could do to drag the girl up on the hummock. She sank, half-fainting, upon the dry reeds, and he sat down beside her to protect her with the shade. Blake stared at the miles of swampy flats which yet lay between them and the out-jutting headland of gray rock. The base of the cliff was screened by a belt of trees; but the nearest clump of green did not look more than a mile nearer than the headland.

"h.e.l.l!" muttered Blake, despondently. "Not even a short four miles.

Mush and sa.s.siety girls!"

Though he spoke to himself, the others heard him. Miss Leslie flushed, and would have risen had not Winthrope put his hand on her arm.

"Could you not go on, and bring back a flask of water for Miss Leslie?"

he asked. "By that time she will be rested."

"No; I don't fetch back any flasks of water. She's going when I go, or you can come on to suit yourselves."

"Mr. Blake, you--you won't go, and leave me here! If you have a sister--if your mother--"

"She died of drink, and both my sisters did worse."

"My G.o.d, man! do you mean to say you'll abandon a helpless young girl?"

"Not a bit more helpless than were my sisters when you rich folks'

guardians of law and order jugged me for the winter, 'cause I didn't have a job, and turned both girls into the street--onto the street, if you know what that means--one only sixteen and the other seventeen. Talk about helpless young girls-- d.a.m.nation!"

Miss Leslie cringed back as though she had been struck. Blake, however, seemed to have vented his anger in the curse, for when he again spoke, there was nothing more than impatience in his tone. "Come on, now; get aboard. Winthrope couldn't lug you a half-mile, and long's it's the only way, don't be all day about it. Here, Winthrope, look to the fish."

"But, my dear fellow, I don't quite take your idea, nor does Miss Leslie, I fancy," ventured Winthrope.

"Well, we've got to get to water, or die; and as the lady can't walk, she's going on my back. It's a case of have-to."

"No! I am not--I am not! I'd sooner die!"

"I'm afraid you'll find that easy enough, later on, Miss Jenny. Stand by, Winthrope, to help her up. Do you hear? Take the knife and fish, and lend a hand."

There was a note in Blake's voice that neither Winthrope nor Miss Leslie dared disregard. Though scarlet with mortification, she permitted herself to be taken pick-a-back upon Blake's broad shoulders, and meekly obeyed his command to clasp her hands about his throat. Yet even at that moment, such are the inconsistencies of human nature, she could not but admire the ease with which he rose under her weight.

Now that he no longer had the slow pace of the girl to consider, he advanced at his natural gait, the quick, tireless stride of an American railroad-surveyor. His feet, trained to swamp travel in Louisiana and Panama, seemed to find the firmest ground as by instinct, and whether on the half-dried mud of the hummocks or in the ankle-deep water of the bogs, they felt their way without slip or stumble.

Winthrope, though burdened only with the half-eaten coryphene, toiled along behind, greatly troubled by the mud and the tangled reeds, and now and then flung down by some unlucky misstep. His modish suit, already much damaged by the salt water, was soon smeared afresh with a coating of greenish slime. His one consolation was that Blake, after jeering at his first tumble, paid no more attention to him. On the other hand, he was cut by the seeming indifference of Miss Leslie. Intent on his own misery, he failed to consider that the girl might be suffering far greater discomfort and humiliation.

More than three miles had been covered before Blake stopped on a hummock.

Releasing Miss Leslie, he stretched out on the dry crest of the knoll, and called for a slice of the fish. At his urging, the others took a few mouthfuls, although their throats were now so parched that even the moist flesh afforded scant relief. Fortunately for them all, Blake had been thoroughly trained to endure thirst. He rested less than ten minutes; then, taking Miss Leslie up again like a rag doll, he swung away at a good pace.

The trees were less than half a mile distant when he halted for the second time. He would have gone to them without a pause though his muscles were quivering with exhaustion, had not Miss Leslie chanced to look around and discover that Winthrope was no longer following them.

For the last mile he had been lagging farther and farther behind, and now he had suddenly disappeared. At the girl's dismayed exclamation, Blake released his hold, and she found herself standing in a foot or more of mud and water. The sweat was streaming down Blake's face. As he turned around, he wiped it off with his shirtsleeves.

"Do you--can it be, Mr. Blake, that he has had a sunstroke?" asked Miss Leslie.

"Sunstroke? No; he's just laid down, that's all. I thought he had more sand--confound him!"

"But the sun is so dreadfully hot, and I have his shade."

"And he's been tumbling into every other pool. No; it's not the sun.

I've half a mind to let him lie--the paper-legged swell! It would no more than square our aboard-ship accounts."

"Surely, you would not do that, Mr. Blake! It may be that he has hurt himself in falling."

"In this mud?--bah! But I guess I'm in for the pack-mule stunt all around. Now, now; don't yowl, Miss Jenny. I'm going. But you can't expect me to love the sn.o.b."

As he splashed away on the return trail, Miss Leslie dabbed at her eyes to check the starting tears.

"Oh, dear--Oh, dear!" she moaned; "what have I done, to be so treated?

Such a brute, Oh, dear!--and I am so thirsty!"

In her despair she would have sunk down where she stood had not the sliminess of the water repelled her. She gazed longingly at the trees, in the fore of which stood a grove of stately palms. The half-mile seemed an insuperable distance, but the ride on Blake's back had rested her, and thirst goaded her forward.

Stumbling and slipping, she waded on across the inundated ground, and came out upon a half-baked mud-flat, where the walking was much easier.

But the sun was now almost directly overhead, and between her thirst and the heat, she soon found herself faltering. She tottered on a few steps farther, and then stopped, utterly spent As she sank upon the dried rushes, she glanced around, and was vaguely conscious of a strange, double-headed figure following her path across the marsh. All about her became black.

The next she knew, Blake was splashing her head and face with brackish water out of the whiskey flask. She raised her hand to shield her face, and sat up, sick and dizzy.

"That's it!" said Blake. He spoke in a kindly tone, though his voice was harsh and broken with thirst. "You're all right now. Pull yourself together, and we'll get to the trees in a jiffy."

"Mr. Winthrope--?"

"I'm here, Miss Genevieve. It was only a wrenched ankle. If I had a stick, Blake, I fancy I could make a go of it over this drier ground."

"And lay yourself up for a month. Come, Miss Jenny, brace up for another try. It's only a quarter-mile, and I've got to pack him."

The girl was gasping with thirst; yet she made an effort, and a.s.sisted by Blake managed to gain her feet. She was still dizzy; but as Blake swung Winthrope upon his back, he told her to take hold of his arm.

Winthrope held the shade over her head. Thus a.s.sisted, and sheltered from the direct beat of the sun-rays, she tottered along beside Blake, half unconscious.