The Heart of Unaga Part 6

Steve was clad for the summer trail, and his leather chapps creaked, and his spurs clanked as he pa.s.sed round to the tying post at which his horse was tethered. Force of habit made him test the cinchas of his saddle before mounting.

He spoke over his shoulder to the man who had risen to his feet at his coming.

"Guess you got everything right, Corporal?" he said.

"Everything, sir."

"Good. My diary's right up to date," Steve went on. "Things are quiet just now. They'll get busy later."

He swung into the saddle and held out a hand.

"So long," he said, as the Corporal promptly gripped it.

"So long, sir. And--good luck."

"Thanks."

The horse moved away and Steve pa.s.sed round to Nita. He drew rein opposite the door but did not dismount.

"Let's--get another peck at her, Nita," he said, and it almost seemed as if the words were jerked from under the restraint he was putting on himself.

The girl had no words with which to answer him. Her eyes were wide and dry. But from her pallor it was obvious deep emotion was stirring. She came to his side, and held the baby up to him, a movement that had something of the tragic in it.

The father swept his hat from his head and bent down in the saddle, and gazed yearningly into the sleeping child's cherubic face. Then he reached lower and kissed the pretty forehead tenderly.

"She'll be getting big when I see her again," he said, in a voice that was not quite steady.

Then a pa.s.sionate light flooded his eyes as he looked into the face of his girl wife.

"For G.o.d's sake care for her, Nita," he cried. "She's ours--and she's all we've got. Here, kiss me, dear. I can't stop another moment, or--or I'll make a fool of myself."

The girl turned her face up and the man's pa.s.sionate kisses were given across the small atom which was the pledge of their early love. Then Steve straightened up in the saddle and replaced his hat. A moment later he had vanished within the woods through which he must pa.s.s on his way to Ian Ross and his wife, to whom he desired to convey his final word of thanks.

Nita stood silent, dry-eyed gazing after him. He was gone, and she knew she would not see him again for two years.

The woodland shadows were lengthening. The delicate green of the trees had lost something of its brightness. Already the distance was taking on that softened hue which denotes the dying efforts of daylight.

Nita was pa.s.sing rapidly over the footpath which would take her to her new home. She was alone with her child in her arms, and carrying a small bundle. Her violet eyes were widely serious, the pallor of her pretty cheeks was unchanged. But whatever the emotions that inspired these things she lacked all those outward signs of feeling which few women, under similar circ.u.mstances, could have resisted. There were no tears.

Yet her brows were puckered threateningly. She was absorbed, deeply absorbed, but it was hardly with the absorption of blind grief.

She paused abruptly. The startled look in her eyes displayed real apprehension. The sound of someone or something moving in the low-growing scrub beside her had stirred her to a physical fear of woodland solitudes she had never been able to conquer.

She stood glancing in apprehension this way and that. She was utterly powerless. Flight never entered her head. Panic completely prevailed.

A moment later a man thrust his way into the clearing of the path.

"Hervey!"

His name broke from Nita in a world of relief. Then reaction set in.

"You--you scared me to death. Why didn't you speak, or--or something?"

Hervey Garstaing stood smilingly before her. His dark eyes hungrily devouring her flushed face and half-angry eyes.

"You wouldn't have me hollering your dandy name, with him only just clear of Ross's house? I'm not chasing trouble."

"Has Steve only just gone?"

"Sure. I waited for that before I came along."

The man moistened his lips. It was a curiously unpleasant operation.

Then he came a step nearer.

"Well, Nita," he said, with a world of meaning in eyes and tone. "We're rid of him for two years--anyway."

The girl started. The flush in her cheeks deepened, and the angry light again leapt into her eyes.

"What d'you mean?" she cried.

The man laughed.

"Mean? Do you need to ask? Ain't you glad?"

"Glad? I--" Suddenly pallor had replaced the flush in the girl's cheeks, and a curious light shone in eyes which a moment before had been alight with swift resentment. "--I--don't know."

The man nodded confidently, and drew still closer.

"That's all right," he said. "I do."

CHAPTER IV

UNAGA

It was the last of the night watch. The depths of the primeval forest were alive with sound, those sounds which are calculated to set the human pulse athrob. Steve Allenwood crouched over the fire. He was still, silent, and he squatted with his hands locked about his knees.

The fitful firelight only served to emphasize the intensity of surrounding darkness. It yielded little more than a point of attraction for the prowling, unseen creatures haunting the wild. The snow outside was falling silently, heavily, for it was late in the year, and October was near its close! Here there was shelter under the wide canopy which the centuries had grown.

As yet the falling temperature was still above zero. Later it would be different. The cap on the man's head was pressed low over his ears, and his summer buckskin shirt had been replaced by the furs which would stand between him and the fierce breath of winter during the long months to come. His eyes were wide. Every sense was alert. For all he was gazing into the fire, he was listening, always listening to those sounds which he dared not ignore for one single moment.

The sounds were many. And each had a meaning which he read with a sureness that was almost instinctive. The deep unease of the myriads of bare tree-trunks about him, supporting their snow-laden canopy, told him of the burden which the pitiless northern heavens were thrusting upon them. It also told him of the strength of the breeze which was driving the banking snow outside. The not infrequent booming crash of a falling tree spoke of a burden already too great to bear. So with the splitting of an age-rotted limb torn from the parent trunk.

Of deeper significance, and more deadly, is the sound which never dies out completely. It is a sound as of falling leaves, pattering softly upon the underlay of rotting cones and dead pine needles. Its insistence is peculiar. There are moments when it is distant. And moments, again, when it is near, desperately near.