The Heart of Unaga Part 48

But Nicol was unable to restrain his impatience. He turned to Little One Man.

"Haul 'em ash.o.r.e an' open 'em out. We need to see the quality."

Little One Man looked at Keeko.

The girl nodded at once. Nicol saw the look and understood, and, for a moment, his eyes flashed with that ungovernable temper which was part of him. But the danger pa.s.sed as swiftly as it came. Little One Man had flung the bundle ash.o.r.e as Keeko stepped from the boat, and, in another moment, Nicol's sheath knife was ripping the thongs of rawhide which held it.

Keeko stood looking on watching the man's hands as he ran his fingers through the silken ma.s.s. He caressed the steely blue fur with the appreciation of a real pelt hunter, and presently stood up with a look in his eyes such as Keeko had never before beheld.

"How many?" he demanded.

"Sixty."

Nicol blew a faint whistle of astonished delight.

"You said a thousand dollars," he exclaimed. "Lorson Harris'll need to pay more than sixteen dollars for those pelts. We'll need twenty. Say, gal, you've done well. You surely have."

Keeko desired none of his praise. One thought only was in her mind. Up to that moment she had been playing the game she knew to be necessary.

Now she reckoned she could safely abandon tactics in favour of her own desire.

"How's--mother?" she demanded.

Nicol stood up. His movement was a little precipitate. Nevertheless a moment pa.s.sed before he withdrew his gaze from the treasure he coveted.

When he finally did so it was not to look in the girl's direction. He was gazing out at the forest backing the fort.

Keeko became impatient. She was alarmed, too.

"How is she?" she cried urgently.

Nicol shook his head. He turned to the waiting Indians.

"We'll have them up at the store, and fix 'em ready for transport," he ordered. Then he sought to take the girl's arm while his hard eyes a.s.sumed a regret that utterly ill-suited them. "Come along up to the fort while I tell you."

But Keeko avoided him. Panic had seized her.

"No," she cried, in a tone she rarely permitted herself. "Tell me here--right now. Is--is she dead?"

She would take no denial. There was something in her clear, fearless eyes finely compelling. The man nodded.

"Dead?"

The girl spoke in a low, heart-broken whisper. She had forgotten the man. Dead! Her mother was dead. That poor suffering creature who had clung so long to life in her frantic desire to safeguard her child.

Dead! And she would never know the success of the plans she had laboured so ardently to work out.

Stunning as was the blow Keeko promptly reacted.

"When did she die?" she demanded, in a tone that no longer needed disguise.

"I'd say a month after you quit."

"And where--where's she buried?"

The man nodded in the direction of the woods at the back of the fort.

"Back there," he said. Then his manner became urgent. "Say, once we saw the end was coming ther' wasn't a thing left undone to make her easy.

Lu-cana'll tell you that. We sat with her the whole time, and did all we knew. And we buried her deep down wher' the wolves couldn't reach her, and I set up a cross I fixed myself, and cut her name deep on it so it'll take years to lose."

Keeko recognized a sort of defence in the man's words and in his manner.

It seemed to be his paramount purpose. She saw in him not a sign of real sorrow, real regret. Contempt and bitterness rose and robbed her of all discretion.

"When you saw the end coming!" she replied scornfully.

But Nicol ignored the tone.

"Yes," he said deliberately. "She didn't go short of a thing we could do--Lu-cana and me. We did our best-I don't guess you could have done a thing more. Will you come along up, an'--I'll show you."

"No!"

The reply was fierce. Keeko was at the extremity of restraint. She could no longer endure the man's presence. She could no longer listen to him.

"There's the pelts," she cried, pointing. "See to them. That's your work." Then she looked him squarely in the eyes. "The other is for me--alone."

Nicol submitted. He had no alternative. And Keeko hurried away up to the fort.

There was unutterable grief in Keeko's att.i.tude. At her feet lay the low, long mound which marked her mother's grave. Beyond, at the head of it, was a rough wooden cross, hewn from stout logs of spruce. And deeply cut on the cross-bar was her mother's name prefixed by words of endearment. Just behind the girl stood the heavily blanketed figure of Lu-cana, whose eyes were shadowed by a grief which her lips lacked the power to express.

All about them reigned the living silence of the forest with its threat of hidden dangers. It was a silence where the breaking of a twig, the rustle of the soft, rotting vegetation, inches deep upon the ground, might indicate the prowling approach of famished wolf or scavenging coyote, the stealing of wildcat or even of the deadly puma.

The minutes pa.s.sed as the two women stood voicelessly at the grave side.

That which was pa.s.sing in their minds was their own. Both, in their different fashions, had loved the woman laid so deep in the ground at their feet. And both knew, and perfectly understood, the life she had endured at the hands of the man who had set up the monument to her memory.

After a long time Keeko stirred. She drew a deep breath. It was the sign of pa.s.sing from thought to activity. She turned to the woman behind her.

"How did she die, Lu-cana?" she asked, in a low voice.

Lu-cana drew near. She spoke in a tone as if in fear of being overheard. And as she spoke she looked this way and that.

"She weep--weep all time when you go," she said brokenly. "She big with much fear. Oh, yes. She scare all to death. So. Days come--she live. She not eat. Oh, no. Days come many. An' all time she weep inside. She not speak. No. Her eye--it all time look around. Oh, much fear. Then one day she not wake. She die all up."

"And he?"

"Oh, him come all time. Him sit and mak' talk to her. I not know. Only him talk. Him go--she weep. Him go--she watch all scare. So it come she die all up."

Keeko pointed at the cross at the head of the grave.

"He set that up? Yes?"