The Heart of Thunder Mountain Part 10

She stood up, and looked around her. Through the screen of willows and cottonwoods on each sloping bank she saw the meadows lying green and silent in the sun. There was no sound except the prattle of the Bright.w.a.ter and the murmur of the breeze in the foliage. She a.s.sured herself that she was quite alone.

Next she folded and pinned up her skirt so that it hung just to her knees, and after a final glance in all directions, stepped cautiously out to the edge of the driftwood, knelt down on the fallen trunk, and began to creep warily out toward the embedded hook. The log was round, and none too large; her knees, protected only by thin stockings, were bruised by the rough and partly-loosened bark; and she scarcely dared to breathe lest she should lose her balance, and tumble into the yawning pool. Once she incautiously looked down, and saw her image waving dizzily on the slow-moving surface of the water.

"Oh!" she gasped, as she drew back her gaze, and dug her nails into the log.

But for all her fears, and because of them, it was tremendously exciting, and she became deeply absorbed in her task. Now clinging close to the log in sudden panic, now laughing tremulously at her trepidation, she forgot everything except her goal, and the inches by which she was approaching it. She had arrived within two feet of the hook, and was just about to reach a trembling hand to detach it, when she received a shock that was near to ending her expedition in an ignominious splash.

"Wait!" called out a voice, somewhere behind her. "I'll help you!"

The fright first nearly caused her to lose her grip on the log, and then left her cold and shivering. After that a wave of heat swept over her, and the blood tingled in her flushed and perspiring face.

Who was it? Philip Haig, by all the ill luck in the world? Who else could have had the effrontery? She dared not turn to look, both in fear of falling, and in shame at being caught in that absurd predicament. What a sight! she thought. Her skirt was above her knees, and one stocking, caught by a projection of bark, had slipped down to her ankle. And that was not all!... With a desperate effort, she lifted one hand from its hold on the log, and tried to adjust her skirt; but the movement only unbalanced her. With a shriek she flattened herself, and lay there panting and miserable.

"Wait!" the voice cried, more sharply than before. "No move--for minute!"

She was arrested by the words. "No move for minute!" It was not the voice of Philip Haig, but in that a.s.surance there was only a doubtful consolation. If not Haig--who? There was something oddly foreign in that heavy, harsh, and yet not displeasing voice. A new fear presently mingled with the others. It was a wild country after all; and she had taken no note of the distance she had come, and little of her surroundings. But she could only obey, and wait.

There came the sound of quick splashing in the water, and a few seconds later a man's head and shoulders appeared in the stream at her side. At sight of the strange, dark countenance suddenly upturned to her, within a foot of her own, she almost fainted. It was a face she had never seen before, solemn, stolid, with a copper-colored skin, high cheek bones, and deep-set, black eyes in which there was no more expression than there was on the thin, straight lips. She closed her eyes.

But that was only for an instant, since nothing terrible was happening. When she dared to look again the man was quietly releasing the offending fly. He tossed it back in the direction of the bank, then stood for a moment regarding her, still without the trace of an expression on his dark face.

"Don't be 'fraid!" he said. "Hold still!"

She obeyed him, though his next move was one to have brought a scream to her lips if she had not become incapable of utterance. Standing in the water, which came almost up to his armpits, he had kept his arms high above the surface of the pool. Now he stretched them out toward her, clasped both her ankles with one huge hand, slipped the other under her waist, and with what seemed incredible strength and a.s.surance, lifted her off the log. Then, without so much as wetting the edge of her skirt, he bore her to the bank, and seated her gently on the heap of driftwood from which she had ventured so bravely only a little while before.

Should she weep, or laugh, or rage at him? Through eyes half-blinded by tears, she searched his face; but he met her troubled and fiery gaze with the most perfect calm. Then, after a moment, he deliberately turned, and stood facing squarely away from her,--an act of stoicism that at once removed her fears and completed her discomfiture. She took the hint implied in his movement, and bent down, blushing furiously, to pull up the fallen stocking, and let down her skirt.

When she sat erect again the man had not changed his position; and she seized the opportunity to study him. His figure, though she had just had proof of his strength, was lean almost to thinness, very straight, and borne, she fancied, with a certain dignity and even majesty in its erectness. The straight, black hair under the sombrero was touched with gray. He was not young, past middle age perhaps; but she could hazard no nearer guess at his age. No matter! Looking at him thus, she began to feel her resentment falling away, as if every shaft from her angry eyes had broken harmlessly on that serene and unoffending back.

Even her embarra.s.sment began to seem inexcusable. The man had carried her ash.o.r.e in much the manner he would have used if she had been a sack of oats to be saved from wetting.

"You are very strong!" Marion said at last.

He turned slowly toward her. His face was grave and expressionless, but by no means dull; and his eyes were very black and bright.

"You--are--all--right--now?" he asked, ignoring her praise.

There was a curious slowness and lack of emphasis in his speech, with a pause after each word, that gave a singular impressiveness to all he said.

"But why did you do it?" she demanded.

"'Fraid you fall," was his simple answer.

"But I don't mind getting wet."

"Easy drown in little water," he said laconically.

She laughed at the idea of her drowning in a pool like that--she who had battled triumphantly with the breakers at Atlantic City, Newport, and Bar Harbor.

"But I can swim!" she a.s.sured him.

"I not know that," he replied, unmoved.

True. And she must have appeared to be greatly in need of a.s.sistance.

"Anyhow, I thank you!" she said sincerely. "But who am I thanking, please?"

"Pete."

"Pete! Pete who?"

"Only Pete."

"But have you no other name?"

"Yes. Indian name."

And he rolled out a string of guttural syllables that sounded like names of places in the Maine woods.

Indian name! Marion started; and in a flash she knew. Haig's man Friday! Here was luck indeed.

"You are Mr. Haig's--" She hesitated.

"Friend," he said, completing her sentence.

Marion was again embarra.s.sed. She did not know what to say next, fearing to say the wrong thing, and so to throw away a golden opportunity. In her search for the right lead, her eyes lighted on a fishing basket that lay on the ground not far from her own.

"Oh!" she cried. "But it's strange I didn't hear or see you!"

"Indian not make noise."

"I should say not!" she retorted, laughing.

"Trout very smart," he added quietly.

"I've caught fourteen," she volunteered eagerly. "And you?"

For answer he fetched his creel, and opened it.

"Oh!" she cried, in envy and admiration, seeing that the creel was almost full, and that not a fish in sight was as small as her largest prize.

"I give you some," he said, glancing at her own basket.

"No! No!" she protested quickly. "I have plenty."

She showed him her catch, which was by no means insignificant.

Nevertheless Pete took three of his largest trout, and transferred them to her basket, ignoring her protests.

"But they are for--him, aren't they?" she asked.