Joan of Arc of the North Woods Part 49

He followed her meekly when she hurried down from the cliff.

On the path which led back to the Flagg camp a breathless cookee met them. "A team is here from Adonia, miss. It's the big bays--Mr. Flagg's horses."

Instinctively she turned to Ward, making him her prop as she had done previously on that day.

"I've been expecting it," he told her. "It's just what your grandfather would do after he got word that Craig had gone through Adonia with his roughnecks. Mr. Flagg wouldn't leave you here to face what was threatened."

"I didn't tell my grandfather who I was. d.i.c.k promised to keep the secret," she faltered.

"Remember! Words have wings up in this region! I explained to you once, Miss Kennard, and you know what happened when I let loose that flock of them at Adonia--like a fool. I don't dare to think about it!"

He paced away from her; then he returned, calm again. "Mr. Flagg must have heard--he would keep in touch with what has been going on up here--and after he knew, it would be his style to let you go ahead and win out. He would understand what it is you're trying to do. His sending that team, now that he is afraid of danger, proves that he knows."

When she ran on ahead Latisan did not try to keep up with her; he was once again the drive boss of Flagg's crew, a hired man; he had no excuse for meddling in the family affairs of his employers, he reflected, and in his new humility he was avoiding anything which might savor of inquisitive surveillance.

The man who had put the horses to the jumper in Adonia, the man whom she knew as Jeff, was the deputy whom Flagg had sent. He had come in haste--that was plain to her; he was mopping the flanks of the sweating bays.

The deference with which he touched his cap informed her fully as to the amount of knowledge possessed by the Flagg household. He unb.u.t.toned, one after the other, his overcoat, his inner coat, his waistcoat, and from the deepest recess in his garments produced a sealed letter; his precautions in regard to it attested the value he put on a communication from the master to the master's granddaughter.

The envelope was blank.

The men of the shift that had been relieved stood about her in a circle.

The arrival of the bays was an event which matched the other sensational happenings of the crowded day, and she was conscious that, without meaning to be disrespectful, the men were hankering to be taken wholly into her confidence--were expecting that much favor from her.

Granddaughter of Echford Flagg she might be--but more than all she was one of the crew, that season, a companion who had inspired them, toiled with them, and triumphed with them. If any more good news had come they, as friends, were ent.i.tled to know it, their expressions told her. They were distinctly conveying to her their notion that she should stand there and read the letter aloud.

The hand which clutched the missive was trembling, and she was filled with dread in spite of the consoling thought that she had achieved so much. She was afraid to open the letter and she escaped out of the circle of inquiring faces and hid herself in her tent; even the crude flourish of importance displayed by the manner of Jeff in delivering the communication to her had its effect in making her fears more profound.

The whims of old age--Flagg had dwelt on the subject! She remembered that when she was in the big house with Latisan, her grandfather had beat on the page of the Bible and had anathematized the ties of family in his arraignment of faults. He had been kind, after his fashion, when she was incognito, but now that he knew----

She ripped the envelope from the letter and opened the sheet; it was a broad sheet and had been folded many times to make it fit the envelope.

It was more like rude print than handwriting. At first she thought that her grandfather had been able to master a makeshift chirography with his left hand. But boldly at the top of the sheet, as a preface of apology, was this statement: "d.i.c.ktated to d.i.c.k and excuse looks and mesteaks.

Hese a poor tool at writtin."

Crouching on her bed of boughs, the sheet on her knees, her hands clutched into her wind-rumpled hair above her temples, she read the letter which her grandfather had contrived with the help of his drafted amanuensis.

To my Grand-daughter. He have to use short words and few. d.i.c.k is slow and can't spel.

Lida's thoughts were running parallel with her reading, and she remembered that, in those letters of hideous arraignment which she had found in her mother's effects, Echford Flagg's own spelling was fantastically original. But under the layers of ugly malediction she had found pathos: he said that he'd had no schooling of his own, and on that account had been led to turn his business over to the better but dishonest ability of Alfred Kennard.

Reading on, she could picture the scene--the two old men toiling with pathetic earnestness over the task of preparing that letter; here and there, the words only partially deleted by lines run across them, were evidences that in his fl.u.s.tration under the master's vitriolic complaints, old d.i.c.k had confused comment with dictated matter--and had included comment in his unthinking haste to get everything down. Three times a "Dam your pelt" had been written and crossed out.

He tell you I knew you when I gave you my old cant dog.

Lida gasped when she read the blunt declaration. She might have guessed that Echford Flagg would have repulsed a stranger; he had disguised his true sentiments under the excuse of an old man's whim!

I let you go. It was making a squair deal between you and me.

Nicola sent me a man to tell me how you had gorn north with his men and so I took d.i.c.k back after I had fired him.

It was at this point that a particularly prominent "Dam your pelt" was interjected.

The old fool would have blabbed to me what you told him to keep quiet about. He aint fit to be trusted with any secrits. But he was scard to tell me you was Lida. I told him. But the Comas helyun has gorn past here with men and guns. Let him have the logs. I want you, my granddaughter. Come home.

Tears flooded her eyes. "Come home!" Old d.i.c.k had printed those words in bold letters.

This is in haist but he has been 2 hours writtin it and so I send Jeff to bring you. Dont wait. Kepe away from danjur.

Come home.

And old d.i.c.k, the toiling scribe, had smuggled in at the bottom of the sheet a postscript, a vicarious confession which Echford Flagg did not know how to make, "Hese cryin and monein for you. Come home!"

It was as if those two summoning words were spoken in her ear, plaintively and quaveringly.

She ran from the tent, carrying her little bag and the cant dog scepter of the Flaggs.

"Can you start back at once?" she called to Jeff.

"Aye! It's orders."

She saw Latisan at the sh.o.r.e, directing the movements of the men; he was once more the drive master, his cant dog in his hand, terse in his commands, obeyed in his authority.

He pulled off his cap and walked to meet her when she hastened toward him.

"I'm going back to Adonia."

"My guess was right, you see!"

"Are you coming soon to report?--Shall I tell my grandfather----" She halted in her query as if she were regretting the eagerness in her tone.

"I'll leave it to you to tell him all that has happened up here. But you may say to him, if you will, that I'm staying with the drive from now on."

Her charioteer swung the big bays and headed them toward the mouth of the tote road, halting them near her.

Her emotions were struggling from the fetters with which she tried to bind them. Those men standing around! She wished they would go away about their business, but they surveyed her with the satisfied air of persons who felt that they belonged in all matters that were on foot.

Latisan was repressed, grave, keeping his place, as he had a.s.signed a status to himself. She was glad when old Vittum broke upon the silence that had become embarra.s.sing. "It won't be like what it has been, after you're gone, Miss Lida Kennard. But I feel that I'm speaking for the men when I say that you're ent.i.tled to a lay-off, and if you'll be out on the hill where you can wave your hand to us when we ride the leader logs into the hold-boom, we'll all be much obligated to you! I was thinking of calling for three cheers, but I remember how this idea seemed to hit better." He led the procession of men past her; they scrubbed their toil-roughened palms across their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and gave her silent pledges when they grasped her hand. "It's sort of a family party," said Vittum.

There was inspiration for her in that suggestion. This was no time for convention, for placid weighing of this consideration against that, for strait-laced repression. The environment encouraged her. Her exulting joy drove her on.

Once before, forced by the intensity of her need, she had made small account of convenances. But she acknowledged that a half truth had nearly compa.s.sed destruction of her hopes and the ruin of a man; a liar had taken advantage of an equivocal position. But now the whole truth about her was clear. Her ident.i.ty was known--her motives were beyond all question. And there were no vindictive liars among those loyal followers who had come storming down the river for the sake of her cause.

If she did what she had in her mind to do, what was it except the confirmation of a pledge and the carrying out of a promise?

But when she looked appealingly up at Latisan he was steadfastly staring past her. Her impulses were already galloping, but the instant p.r.i.c.k of pique was the final urge which made the impulses fairly run away.

She reached out and took Ward's hand and pressed it between her palms.

"If it's because I'm Lida Kennard instead of the table girl at Brophy's tavern, you're foolish," she whispered, standing on tiptoe. "I gave you my promise. But perhaps you think it isn't binding because there was no seal, such as I put on that lawyer's paper down at the dam.

Well--then--here's the seal."