The Heart of Thunder Mountain Part 44

"What's in the larder?"

She smiled at his tone, in spite of her own seriousness.

"Bacon--perhaps enough for three days, with the bread, if we don't eat much; and chocolate for four or five breakfasts. That's all."

"And then?"

"Are there deer in those forests, do you think?"

"Very likely. This is an un-hunted country, I imagine."

"Great!" she cried.

"What do you propose to do? Whistle for them?"

She could afford to smile at that.

"Didn't you see my rifle?"

"Just now--yes. What's it for?"

"You'll see."

"Diana of Thunder Mountain, eh? Well, I'm ready to admit you're some huntress. But deer! That's another thing."

The color flooded her cheeks.

"Cousin Seth taught me to shoot," she answered, turning her face away.

"I killed a deer on Mount Avalanche."

"But where did Cousin Seth learn to shoot? The last time he--"

"Please, Philip!"

"Well, when you've brought down your deer, what will you do with it?"

The color deserted her face at that.

"I watched him do it," she said, shuddering at the recollection.

"But you can't do that alone."

"I've got to," she replied simply. And then, on a sudden thought: "There should be grouse too, shouldn't there?"

"Perhaps."

"I learned to kill grouse with my rifle."

He looked at her with a wicked grin. This time he had her!

"How many cartridges have you?" he asked.

She ran for her belt, and counted the cartridges.

"Twenty-seven."

"So. If you never miss, you'll get twenty-seven grouse. That would mean twenty-seven, meals. One meal a day, twenty-seven days. I'd still be on my back, our ammunition would be gone, and--"

"Don't!" she cried, in tears. "I wasn't thinking."

"Never mind!" he replied, almost gently. "But we'll deny ourselves the grouse."

"Yes, it's got to be the deer. I'll begin now."

"No, there's something else that must be done first."

"What is it?"

"We've got to move."

"For shelter, you mean?"

"Partly. But look there!"

He pointed to the dead body of Trixy.

"It will be easier--and perhaps even nicer--to move me than poor Trixy. See that big pine yonder--the one that stands out from the forest? Well, you and Tuesday must drag me there."

"But how?"

He explained his plan to her, and she set herself at once to executing it. And her spirits rose again; for she thought he had abandoned his desperate resolution. So, indeed, he had--for the moment. But he had deliberately beguiled her; their situation he knew to be quite unchanged in its inevitable termination, since a food supply would save them from starvation only to deliver them to the snow; and he must disarm her of suspicion in order to find a way to send her back on the trail. For he had reflected on the implication of tragic finality in the speech that had surprised and disturbed him; and he did not doubt that when the time should come, and she should find herself alone, her high resolve would prove to have been mere emotional exaggeration.

Mounted on Tuesday, Marion attacked the boughs of a small pine with the hatchet until she had severed three large branches, to which she tied Haig's rope, and hauled them back to the camp. Of these branches Haig contrived a crude drag, on which he crawled, and lay flat; the free end of the rope was. .h.i.tched to the horn of Tuesday's saddle; and the journey was begun. Twice the saddle slipped, and progress was interrupted while Marion tightened the cinches. Once the drag itself came to pieces, and Haig was left sprawling on the ground. But eventually, with no more serious injury to Haig than a bruised elbow, not counting his torn clothing, they reached the goal.

There Marion made a wide bed against the exposed top roots of the tree, filling the s.p.a.ces among the pine boughs with moss, and placing the two saddles at the head for pillows. Night had come before she had completed this labor, and gathered another supply of dead limbs and rotted logs, and cooked their meager supper. Then she wrapped Haig in his blankets, and rolled herself in her own, and lay down at his side.

What with watching and replenishing the fire, and listening to night-cries heard or imagined, and waking from restless slumber chilled to the bone, she slept as little as on the preceding night, and was glad of the dawn, which came peacefully enough on the heels of a storm that raged on Thunder Mountain and sent a cold and beating rain upon the valley.

This day brought its own bitter disappointment. After her bath in the clear pool among the willows, and their mere taste of bacon and bread in the name of breakfast, and a promise exacted from Haig, as a condition of her leaving him, that he would do nothing of which she would disapprove, she set out to get her deer. Rifle on shoulder, and eyes alert, she skirted the edge of the wood along the base of the cliff, through tall gra.s.ses of a golden green, among yellowing aspen groves, and under a fair blue sky. But presently she plunged into the thick of the forest, of which the trees towered to a height exceeding that of any she had ever seen before. In their tops the breeze was singing sonorously, but among their ma.s.sive boles the silence was so tense that twigs cracking under her feet sounded like gun-shots echoing through the dim aisles.

For some hours she wandered fruitlessly in that dark labyrinth, not only mindful of Philip's warning that she must not penetrate too deep into its depth, but fearful on her own account of an encounter with some such wild beast as that whose cry had terrified her. In time the hollow indifference of the woods began to weigh upon her spirits, which had been high and hopeful on her setting out. Worn out at last, she was just on the point of turning back toward the camp, defeated, when she came upon an open s.p.a.ce, a lovely little glade, in which the gra.s.s grew rank and green, unripened by the sun. She started to cross it, but stopped suddenly, staring straight ahead. In the very middle of the lush and silent glade, a young doe rose swiftly to its feet, and looked at her. Marion stood and looked at the doe. Then there was a streak of pale yellow across the gra.s.s, the forest closed around it, and the doe was gone. Thereupon, Marion remembered her rifle, and saw with something like surprise, to begin with, that it was pointed foolishly toward the ground. She gazed at it a moment, then sat plump down on the mossy earth, and cried.

"Oh, what a fool!" she groaned. "What a poor, silly little fool! I ought to starve, starve, starve!"

And on the words the hunger that she had bravely kept back rose and punished her. To be hungry in a world of plenty, where she had only to reach out and help herself! To think of Philip, hungry too, and depending on her, on her boasted prowess! Humiliation scorched her like a flame. And this was Marion g.a.y.l.o.r.d!

When she had recovered a little, she made directly for the open strip, having no more heart for her task, and nerving herself to confess the truth to Philip. Coming out upon the knoll through thick underbrush, she was startled by the leap of a rabbit from under her very feet; and before she was aware of what she was doing, she had thrown up her rifle, and fired. There was really no aim; the action was a gesture merely; and if she had tried to hit the rabbit she would have undoubtedly missed it clean. But the unlucky little beast, happening in the path of Marion's angry disgust, turned a somersault in the air, and fell dead.

"Of course!" cried Marion. "Of course I can kill rabbits." Then mercilessly: "A rabbit a day for twenty-seven days--" And rage choked her.