The Huntress Part 33

up," she suggested. "Then they can't touch you."

"Much obliged," replied Sam. "I've no fancy to be jumped on at night again and tied up like a roasting fowl."

"I promise I not do that again," said Bela.

"Sure!" retorted Sam. "No doubt you've got plenty other tricks just as good."

"If you look at me you see I speak truth," she murmured. "I your friend, Sam."

The threatened break in her voice brought all his old disquiet surging up again. As he put it, he suspected her of "trying to put one over on him again." "I don't want to look at you!" he returned with a harsh laugh.

An adverse puff of wind blew them into an overhanging willow-bush, which became entangled with the sail and the stay-rope. Sam saw his chance. Seizing the branches, he pulled himself to his feet and managed to swing ash.o.r.e at the cost only of wet ankles.

A sharp cry was wrung from Bela. "Sam, don't go!"

Gaining a sure footing on the bank, he faced her, laughing. "Well, how about it now?"

There was nothing inscrutable about her face then. It worked with emotion like any woman's.

"Don't go by yourself!" she pleaded. "You not know this country. You got not'ing. No grub! No gun! No blanket!"

"I can walk it in two days or three," he said. "I'll build a fire to sleep by. You can give me a little grub if you want. I'll trade my pocket-knife for it. It's all I've got. You got me into this, anyhow."

"No sell grub," she answered sullenly. "Give all you want if you come with me."

"Very well, keep it then," he snapped, turning away.

Her face broke up again. "No, no! I not mad at you!" she cried hurriedly. "I give you food. But wait; we got talk." She drove the canoe on a mud-bank beyond the willows and scrambled out.

Sam, scowling and hardening at her approach, was careful to keep his distance. He suspected her of a design to detain him by force.

"There's been too much talk," he growled. "You'd better hustle on down. They'll be here soon."

"Sam, don' go!" she begged. "W'at you do at head of lake? Not get no job but cook. Stay wit' me. We got boat and gun and blankets. We need no more. I show you all w'at to do. I show you fishin' and huntin'.

When winter come I show you how to trap good fur. You will be rich with me. I not bot'er you no more. I do everything you want."

In her distress Sam's angry eyes chose to see only chagrin at the prospect of his escaping her. At the same time her beseeching face filled him with a wild commotion that he would not recognize. His only recourse lay in instant flight.

"Cut it out! What good does it do?" he cried harshly. "I tell you I'm going to the head of the lake."

"All right, I tak' you there," she said eagerly. "More quick as you can walk, too. Half a mile down the river there is a little backwater to hide. We let those men go by and then come back. I do w'at you want, Sam."

"Will you give me a little grub, or won't you?" he insisted. "I'd rather starve than go with you!"

She burst into tears. "All right, I give you food," she said. She turned back to the dugout, and, throwing back the cover of the grub-box, put what bread and smoked fish she had left into a cotton bag.

Sam awaited her, raging with that intolerable bitterness that a tender and obstinate man feels at the sight of a woman's tears.

She offered him the little package of food, and a blanket as well.

"Tak' my ot'er blanket," she said humbly. "I can get more."

He impatiently shook his head, refusing to meet the lovely, imploring eyes. "Here," he said, offering the pocket-knife. "For the food."

With a fresh burst of weeping she knocked it out of his hand, and covered her face with her arm. Sam strode away, blinded and deafened by the confusion of his feelings. His face was as stubborn as stone.

CHAPTER XIII

ON THE RIVER

When Sam had pa.s.sed out of sight around the willows, Bela, still shaken by sobs, went down on her hands and knees to search for the penknife she had spurned. Finding it, she kissed it and thrust it inside her dress.

Going to the dugout, she stretched out in it, and gave herself up to grief. Not for very long, however. Gradually the sobs stilled, and finally she sat up with the look of one who has something to do. For a long time thereafter she sat, chin in hand, thinking hard with tight lips and inward-looking eyes.

Sounds from around the bend above aroused her. She heard the working of an oar in its socket and the cautious voices of men. An alert look came into her face.

She glanced over the gunwale at her face in the water and disarranged her hair a little. Flinging herself down, she commenced to weep again, but with an altered note; this was self-conscious grief addressed to the ears of others.

The three men, finding her thus, gaped in boundless astonishment. It was anything but what they expected to find. They peered into the bushes for a sign of Sam.

"What the devil is the matter?" demanded Big Jack.

"Where is Sam?" cried Joe.

Bela answered both questions at once. "He leave me," she sobbed with heart-breaking effect.

"Left you?" they echoed stupidly.

"Gone away," wailed Bela. "Say he done with me for good!"

Black Shand and Jack were genuinely discomposed at the sight of her tears. Joe with more hardihood laughed.

"Serve you well right!" said he.

Big Jack had the oar. He drove the boat on the bank alongside the dugout, and they climbed out. Jack and Shand went up the bank.

"He can't have got far," said the former.

A wide sea of gra.s.s was revealed to them, stretching to pine ridges on the horizon. In all the expanse there was no sign of any figure, but the dense willows marking the tortuous course of the river provided plenty of cover both up and down stream.

"Which way did he go?" Jack called down.

"I don't know," said Bela. "Down river, I think."

Below, Joe, full of bitter jealousy, was still upbraiding Bela. Jack returned, scowling.