The Fur Bringers Part 65

Colina pulled up. "Cora," she said, "it's not true that I am going to get help from the police. I mean to go myself to the other Indian village to get the girl I want. You don't have to come. You can ride after Germain, and tell him I decided I didn't need you."

"I go wit' you," Cora said stolidly.

Colina beamed on her handmaiden, and offered her her hand. She was willing to face the thing alone, but it was a comfort to have the stolid dependable Cora at her side. Moreover, Cora was an admirable cook and packer. Colina was not enamored of the drudgery of camp.

Marya led the way slowly through the trackless bush in the general direction of the afternoon sun, or southwest. Colina guessed that they were making a wide detour around the Indian village.

The going was not too difficult, for it was only second growth timber, poplar and birch, with spruce in the hollows. The original monarchs had been consumed by fire many years before.

They had covered, Colina guessed, about five miles when the sky showed ahead through the tree trunks, and Marya signed that they were to dismount and tie the horses. Leading them to the edge of the trees, she made them lie down.

They found themselves overlooking a gra.s.sy bottom similar to that upon which the Kakisa village stood. The outer edge of the meadow was skirted by the brown flood of the river, and trees hemmed it in on either side. A score of Indian ponies were feeding in the gra.s.s.

Marya made Colina understand that the trail to Kakisa Lake traversed the little plain below alongside the river. She signified that some men were expected from the upper village that day, and that Colina must wait where she was until she saw them pa.s.s below. Finally Marya pointed avidly to the opal ring.

Colina handed it over. The Indian girl slipped it on her own finger, gazing at the effect with a kind of incredulous delight. The stolid Cora looked on disapprovingly.

Suddenly Marya, without so much as a look at her companions, scrambled to her feet, and hastened silently away through the trees. She was clutching the ring finger with the other hand as if she feared to lose it, finger and all. That was the last of Marya.

Sure enough before the sun went down, they saw a party of four Indians issue out on the little plain from the direction of up river. Crossing the gra.s.s and dismounting, they turned their horses out and cached their saddles under the willows.

Then they proceeded afoot. Colina waited until she was sure there were no more to follow; then mounting, she and Cora rode down to the trail.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

THE FINDING OF NESIS.

The afternoon was waning, and Colina, knowing she must have covered nearly sixty miles, began to keep a sharp lookout ahead. They had had no adventures by the way, except that of sleeping under the stars without male protectors near, in itself an adventure to Colina. Colina took it like everything else, as a matter of course.

Cora had been raised on the trail. In her impatience to arrive Colina had somewhat scamped her horses' rest, and the gra.s.s-fed beasts were tired.

Issuing from among the trees upon one of the now familiar gra.s.sy bottoms that bordered the river, they saw grazing horses and knew they were hard upon their destination.

A spur of the hills cut off the view up river. Rounding it, the teepees spread before them. They were contained in a semicircular hollow of the hills like an amphitheater, with the river running close beside.

Colina had decided that in boldness lay her best chance of success.

Clapping heels to her horse's ribs, therefore, she rode smartly into the square, appearing in the very midst of the Indians before they were warned. This village differed in no important respect from the others.

Some of the teepees were made of tanned hides in the old way. The people were of the same stock, but even less sophisticated. Few of these had even been to Fort Enterprise to trade.

The sudden appearance of Colina's white face affected them something in the way of a miracle.

Every man dropped what he was about and stared with hanging jaw.

Others came running out of the teepees and stopped dead at the door.

For a moment or two there was no movement whatever in the square.

But they knew Gaviller's daughter by repute, of course, and the word was pa.s.sed around that it was she. The tension relaxed. They slowly gathered around, looking at her with no friendly eye.

Colina searched rapidly among them for one that might answer to the description of Nesis. There was no girl that by any stretch of the imagination could have been called beautiful. Not wishing to give them time to spirit her away, Colina suddenly raised her voice and cried: "Nesis!"

There was no answer, but several heads in the crowd turned involuntarily toward a certain teepee. Colina, perceiving the movement, wheeled her horse and loped across the square in that direction.

Cora followed, leading the pack-horse. The Indians sidled after.

Approaching the teepee she had marked, Colina heard sounds of a m.u.f.fled struggle inside. Flinging herself off her horse and throwing up the flap, she saw a figure on the ground, held down by several old crones.

"Hands off!" cried Colina in a voice so sudden and peremptory that the old women, though the words meant nothing to them, obeyed.

Nesis, lithe and swift as a lynx, wriggled out of their grasp, sprang to her feet, and darted outside, all in a single movement, it seemed.

The two girls faced each other, Nesis panting and trembling. The same look of bitter curiosity was in each pair of eyes. Each acknowledged the other's beauty with a jealous twinge. But in the red girl's sad eyes there was no hope of rivalry. She soon cast down her lids.

Colina thought her eyes the saddest she had ever seen in a human face.

She saw that there was little resemblance between her and her Kakisa sisters.

Nesis was as slender as a young aspen and her cheeks showed a clear olive pallor. Her lips were like the petals of a Jacqueminot rose.

Colina, remembering that Ambrose had kissed them, turned a little hard.

"You are Nesis?" she asked, though she knew it well.

The girl nodded without looking up.

"You know Ambrose Doane?"

Again the mute nod.

"Will you come with me to testify for him?"

Nesis looked up blankly.

"I mean," explained Colina, "will you come and tell his judges that he did not lead the Kakisas into trouble?"

Nesis, by vivid signs, informed Colina that Ambrose had been a prisoner among the Indians.

It occurred to Colina as strange, since she could understand English, that she should use signs. "I know he was a prisoner," she said.

"Will you come with me and tell the police that?"

Nesis turned and with a despairing gesture called Colina's attention to the gathering Indians who would prevent her. Not a sound issued from her lips.

"Never mind them," said Colina scornfully. "Are you willing to come?"

Nesis lifted her eyes to Colina's--eyes luminous with eagerness and emotion--and quickly nodded again.

"Why doesn't she speak!" thought Colina. Aloud she said: "All right.

Tell them I am going to take you. Tell them anybody that interferes does so at his peril." She pointed to her rifle.

To Colina's astonishment, the girl lowered her head and flung an arm up over her face.