The Barrier Part 42

Poleon felt the girl's hand upon his arm, and heard her crying in a hard, sharp voice:

"He needs killing! Put him away!"

He stared down at his gentle Necia, and saw the loathing in her face and the look of strange ferocity as she met his eyes boldly.

"You don't know what he--what he did," she said, through her shut teeth. "He--" But the man waited to hear no more.

Runnion saw him coming, and scrambled frantically to all-fours, then got on his feet and staggered down the bar. As Poleon overtook him, he cried out piteously, a shrill scream of terror, and, falling to his knees, grovelled and debased himself like a foul cripple at fear of the lash. His agony dispelled the savage taint of Alluna's aboriginal training in Necia, and the pure white blood of her ancestors cried out:

"Poleon, Poleon! Not that!" She hurried after him to where he paused above the wretch waiting for her. "You mustn't!" she said. "That would be murder, and--and--it's all over now."

The Frenchman looked at her wonderingly, not comprehending this sudden leniency.

"Let him alone; you've nearly killed him; that's enough." Whereat Runnion, broken in body and spirit, began to beg for his life.

"Wat's dat you say jus' now?" Doret asked the girl. "Was dat de truth for sure w'at you speak?"

"Yes, but you've done your work. Don't touch him again."

He hesitated, and Runnion, quick to observe it, added his entreaty to hers.

"I'm beaten, Doret. You broke me to pieces. I need help--I--I'm hurt."

"W'at you 'spec' I do wit' 'im?" the Canadian asked, and she answered:

"I suppose we'll have to take him where he can get a.s.sistance."

"Dat skiff ain' carry all free of us."

"I'll stay here," groaned the frightened man. "I'll wait for a steamer to pick me up, but for G.o.d's sake don't touch me again!"

Poleon looked him over carefully, and made up his mind that the man was more injured in spirit than in body, for, outside of his battered muscles, he showed no fatal symptoms. Although the voyageur was slower to anger than a child, a grudge never died in him, and his simple, self-taught creed knew no forgiveness for such men as Runnion, cherished no mercy for preying men or beasts. He glanced towards the wooded sh.o.r.es a stone's-throw above, then back at the coward he had beaten and whose life was forfeit under the code. There was a queer light in his eyes.

"Leave him here, Poleon. We'll go away, you and I, in the canoe, and the first boat will pick him up. Come." Necia tugged at his wrist for fear she might not prevail; but he was bent on brushing away a handful of hungry mosquitoes which, warmed by the growing day, had ventured out on the river. His face became wrinkled and set.

"Bien!" he grunted. "We lef 'im here, biccause dere ain't 'nough room in de batteau, eh? All right! Dat's good t'ing; but he's seeck man, so mebbe I feex it him nice place for stop till dem boats come."

"Yes, yes! Leave me here. I'll make it through all right," begged Runnion.

"Better you camp yonder on de point, w'ere you can see dose steamboat w'en she comes 'roun' de ben'. Dis is bad place." He indicated the thicket, a quarter of a mile above which ran out almost to the cut bank. "Come! I help you get feex."

Runnion shrank from his proffered a.s.sistance half fearfully, but, rea.s.sured, allowed the Frenchman to help him towards the sh.o.r.e.

"We tell it de first boat 'bout you, an' dey pick you up. You wait here, Necia."

The girl watched her rescuer guide Runnion up to the level of the woods, then disappear with him in the firs, and was relieved to see the two emerge upon the river-bank again farther on, for she had feared for an instant that Poleon might forget. There seemed to be no danger, however, for he was crashing through the brush in advance of the other, who followed laboriously. Once Runnion gained the high point, he would be able to command a view of both reaches of the river, and could make signals to attract the first steamboat that chanced to come along.

Without doubt a craft of some sort would pa.s.s from one direction or the other by to-morrow at latest, or, if not, she and Poleon could send back succor to him from the first habitation they encountered. The two men disappeared again, and her fears had begun to prey on her a second time when she beheld the big Canadian returning. He was hurrying a bit, apparently to be rid of the mosquitoes that swarmed about him; and she marked that, in addition to whipping himself with a handful of blueberry bushes, he wore Runnion's coat to protect his shoulders.

"Woof! Dose skeeter bug is hongry," he cried. "Let's we pa.s.s on de river queeck."

"You didn't touch him again?"

"No, no. I'm t'rough wit' 'im."

She was only too eager to be away from the spot, and an instant later they were afloat in the Peterborough.

"Dis nice batteau," Poleon remarked, critically. "I mak' it go fas',"

and began to row swiftly, seeking the breeze of the open river in which to shake off the horde of stinging pests that had risen with the sun.

"I come 'way queeck wit'out t'inkin' 'bout gun or skeeter net or not'in'. Runnion she's len' me dis coat, so mebbe I don' look so worse lak' I do jus' now, eh?"

"How did you leave him? Is he badly injured?"

"No, I bus' it up on de face an' de rib, but she's feelin' good now.

Yes. I'm leave 'im nice place for stop an' wait on de steamboat--plaintee spruce bough for set on."

She began to shudder again, and, sensitive to her every motion, he asked, solicitously, if she were sick, but she shook her head.

"I--I--was thinking what--supposing you hadn't come? Oh, Poleon! you don't know what you saved me from." She leaned forward and laid a tiny, grateful hand on the huge brown paw that rested on his oar. "I wonder if I can ever forget?"

She noted that they were running with the current, and inquired:

"Where are we going?"

"Wal, I can't pull dis boat 'gainst dat current, so I guess we pa.s.s on till I fin' my shirt, den bimebye we pick it up some steamboat an' go home."

Five miles below his quick eye detected his half-submerged "bark"

lodged beneath some overhanging firs which, from the water's action, had fallen forward into the stream, and by rare good-fortune it was still upright, although awash. He towed it to the next sand-bar, where he wrung out and donned his shirt, then tipped the water from the smaller craft, and, making it fast astern of the Peterborough, set out again. Towards noon they came in sight of a little stern-wheeled craft that puffed and pattered manfully against the sweeping current, hiding behind the points and bars and following the slackest water.

"It's the Mission, boat!" cried Necia. "It's the Mission boat! Father Barnum will be aboard."

She waved her arms madly and mingled her voice with Poleon's until a black-robed figure appeared beside the pilot-house.

"Father Barnum!" she screamed, and, recognizing her, he signalled back.

Soon they were alongside, and a pair of Siwash deckhands lifted Necia aboard, Doret following after, the painter of the Peterborough in his teeth. He dragged both canoes out of the boiling tide, and laid them bottom up on the forward deck, then climbed the narrow little stairs to find Necia in the arms of a benignant, white-haired priest, the best-beloved man on the Yukon, who broke away from the girl to greet the Frenchman, his kind face alight with astonishment.

"What is all this I hear? Slowly, Doret, slowly! My little girl is talking too furiously for these poor old wits to follow. I can't understand; I am amazed. What is this tale?"

Together they told him, while his blue eyes now opened wide with wonder, now grew soft with pity, then blazed with indignation. When they had finished he laid his hand upon Doret's shoulder.

"My son, I thank G.o.d for your good body and your clean heart. You saved our Necia, and you will be rewarded. As to this--this--man Runnion, we must find him, and he must be sent out of the country; this new, clean land of ours is no place for such as he. You will be our pilot, Poleon, and guide us to the spot."

It required some pressure to persuade the Frenchman, but at last he consented; and as the afternoon drew to a close the little steamboat came squattering and wheezing up to the bar where Runnion had built his fire that morning, and a long, shrill blast summoned him from the point above. When he did not appear the priest took Poleon and his round-faced, silent crew of two and went up the bank, but they found no sign of the crippled man, only a few rags, a trampled patch of brush at the forest's edge, and--that was all. The springy moss showed no trail; the thicket gave no answer to their cries, although they spent an hour in a scattered search and sounded the steamboat's whistle again and again.

"He's try for walk it back to camp," said Doret. "Mebbe he ain' hurt so much, after all."

"You must be right," said Father Barnum. "We will keep the steamer close to this sh.o.r.e, so that he can hail us when we overtake him."

And so they resumed their toilsome trip; but mile after mile fell behind them, and still no voice came from the woods, no figure hailed them. Doret, inscrutable and silent, lounged against the pilot-house smoking innumerable cigarettes, which he rolled from squares of newspaper, his keen eyes apparently scanning every foot of their slow way; but when night fell, at last, and the bank faded from sight, he tossed the last b.u.t.t overboard, smiled grimly into the darkness, and went below.