The Lady of Big Shanty Part 27

Thayor caught his butler's eye and motioned him to a seat beside him.

"You are as hungry as the rest of us," he said with an effort; "there's no need of formality here, Blakeman." He glanced with a peculiar, weary smile from one to another of the little group squatting around the improvised meal, and his voice faltered.

"Big Shanty is gone," he resumed; "but I thank G.o.d it was no worse.

Whatever is in store for us we must share. What that will be n.o.body can tell, but it's going to be a hard experience and we must meet it.

It would be sheer folly to attempt to get clear of all this by way of Morrison's; that road is completely cut off--am I right, Holt?"--and he turned to the trapper.

The old man, who had eaten sparingly and in silence, raised his head.

"Yes, ye'r right, Mr. Thayor, but it won't do for us to stay whar we be no longer 'n we're obleeged to, that's sartain. Them h.e.l.l-hounds ain't done yit. Yer life ain't safe," he added slowly.

Alice Thayor gave a little gasp, riveting her frightened gaze on the speaker. Margaret turned and looked at her mother with trembling lips; then she patted Alice's hand affectionately. Annette began to cry.

"It's hard to tell ye the truth, friend," continued the old man, "but I might as well tell ye _now_. There ain't nothin' left for us to do but to git out o' this h.e.l.l-hole as quick as G.o.d'll let us. We got plenty of things in our favour----No, sir, it ain't as bad as it might be with them woods full of smoke. Thar's a railroad over thar"--he continued, nodding to the wilderness beyond them. "I cal'late we could make the railroad in, say, four days. Let's see--Bear Pond--as fur as the leetle Still water; then over them Green Mount'ins and through Alder Swamp."

"And it's clear goin', Hite," interposed the Clown, "as fur as Buck Pond. I was in thar once with the survey." Holcomb did not speak; it was a country which he had never entered.

"I had a trappin' shanty at Buck Pond once," continued Holt, "most thirty years ago. I knowed that country in them days as well as I know my hat and I presume likely it ain't changed. A day from Buck Pond, steady travellin', ought, in my idee, to git us out to the cars. I'll do my best to git ye thar."

Thus it was hurriedly decided that the trapper should lead the way.

Holcomb suggested that he and the trapper should return to the burned camp in the hope, if possible, of finding something left which might be of use on the journey. They were sadly in need of an axe; the dull hatchet they had found in the cook's shanty they knew would prove next to useless. So Holcomb and Holt set off at once for the scene of the disaster while the rest got together into more practical carrying shape all that they possessed, ready for a start immediately on their return.

Soon Holcomb and the trapper were trudging about in the stifling heat of the ruins; they had drenched themselves to the waist in the brook and were thus enabled to make a hurried search within the fire zone.

The first ruins they came upon were the stables--not a horse had escaped.

Although they found it impossible to approach the still blazing ruins of the main camp, they discovered among the smouldering, charred timbers of Holcomb's cabin the blade of a double-bitted axe, its helve burned off. A few rods further on, in the blinding smoke, they found a keg of nails. The only things the flames had left around them were of iron. An iron reservoir lay on its side where it had fallen; twisted girders loomed above the cauldron of desultory flame, marking the rectangle of the main camp. They shovelled the hot nails and the blades of the two axes into a blackened tin bucket and started back to the brook.

The trapper led. He had gone about a dozen rods farther on when he halted abruptly, peering under the palm of his hand at a smouldering log ahead of him.

"G.o.d Almighty!" he cried, staring back at Holcomb, as he pointed to the smoking log.

Holcomb, with stinging eyes, saw a claw of a hand thrust above the log. The bones of the wrist were visible; the rest resembled a misfit glove, the fingers hanging in shreds. The hand connected with the body of a man lying close against the opposite side of the log. The legs from the knees down were gone; the remainder of the man was a ma.s.s of burned flesh and rags. Near the stump of the right arm lay a charred kerosene can.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Under the trapper's guidance the party left the burned camp behind them. They pushed on in silence, following mechanically the tall, lank figure of the old man ahead of their single file. He led them up timbered ridges and along their spines; he swerved down into swampy hollows choked with wind-slash, around which they were obliged to make tedious detours. The fine drizzle had turned into a steady soft rain that pattered on the broad moose-hopple leaves. Often they plunged into swamp mud nearly to their knees. The fallen logs over which they climbed were as slippery as wet gla.s.s--the branch spikes on these logs as dangerous under slipping feet as upturned pitchforks. The men were top-heavy under their packs; the women uncomplaining and soaked to their skins. The moist air was still impregnated with the scent of smoke--a sinister odour which kept in their minds the events of the morning.

During such a forced march in the wilderness conversation is difficult; one is content with one's own thoughts. Under the mental and physical strain they were enduring their bodies moved automatically. During this unconscious process of locomotion one can dream over one's thoughts and still go on. Legs and arms move themselves; sore muscles become reconciled to their burden--they become numb; the mind is thus left alone in peace.

Alice Thayor's thought was occupied with the incidents leading to her last evening with Sperry. Every feature stood out in bold relief. Even the tones of the doctor's voice rang clear. As these thoughts crowded in, one after another, her brain reeled, her eyes became dim. Missing her footing she sank back in the mud, steadied herself against a tree, brushing the damp hair out of her eyes and staggered on, her gaze fixed upon the swaying pack ahead of her fastened to the Clown's shoulders.

The old dog now fell out of file; she felt his steaming muzzle b.u.mp under the palm of her hand. Since they started from their refuge across Big Shanty Brook the old dog had gone thus from one to the other. Twice she had patted him; she wanted him near her now in her weariness, but he left her the next moment to join Margaret. Her husband trudged on under his heavy pack in front of the Clown; he spoke encouragingly to those in front and behind him--and to her.

Once in a while, when they came to a halt in a difficult place, he supported her with his arm and a cheery word. She would have marvelled at his grit had she not overheard his talk to Dollard. Now and then she could see Margaret, her ankles incased in rough woollen socks showing above the tops of the Clown's brogans. Margaret followed Holcomb when it was possible, and the two often walked abreast talking low and earnestly. Twice Alice was about to call her maid. The fatigue was telling terribly on this woman accustomed to luxury. Then she remembered her husband's words: "Whatever is in store for us we must share in common." Farther on Blakeman noticed his mistress turn her white face over her shoulder and look at him appealingly. He came toward her lurching under his load.

"What is it, madam?" he asked.

"Oh, Blakeman, I'm so tired! Stand here with me a minute--and you--do the straps cut your shoulders?"

A curious expression--one of intense surprise, followed instantly by one of tenderness and pity--crossed his countenance. Never before, in all their intercourse, had she spoken to him one word of kindness--one personal to himself.

"No, madam," he answered quietly, "I'm all right, thank you."

When he overtook Holcomb later on he related the incident, at which Holcomb's eyes filled. "It is the Margaret in her," Billy had said to himself. Perhaps, after all, he had misjudged her. The butler said nothing of what he had seen and heard behind the pantry door. She had confirmed his diagnosis made to Holcomb that day in the woods--"She's a fool but I don't think she's crooked." Better let well enough alone.

Night began to settle. The monotonous forest of trees became indistinct; for half an hour the rain fell in sheets--ghostly white in the dusk. It became difficult now to evade the roots and holes. It grew colder, yet there was no breeze. Still the gaunt figure of the trapper ahead of them led on without pity. They followed him blindly--now stumbling in the shadows--some of these proved to be mud--others water--still others the soaked underbrush. Whatever they stumbled into now the sensation was the same.

"Sam!" called Alice feebly.

"Yes, dear," came his voice ahead. He fell out of line and waited for her, bent and dripping under his pack. She looked at him, her mouth trembling and he patted her cheek with a numb hand. "A little more--only a little more courage, dear," he said kindly; "Holt tells me we are near Bear Pond. You have been so plucky."

"And so have you--Sam," she faltered. He smiled wearily, turned away from her and regained his place in the line.

The rain ceased--the trees grew shorter; hemlock and spruce resolved themselves into a stunted horizon of tamarack; then came a glimmering light through an open s.p.a.ce and a sheet of water, glistening like steel, appeared ahead of them and they emerged suddenly upon a hard, smooth point of sand.

"Bear Pond!" the trapper announced cheerily as he halted. "Here we be, by whimey! I was afeared some of ye'd give out, but I da.s.sent stop a minute. You folks'll begin to feel better soon's we git a fire started."

Already Holcomb's and the Clown's axes were being swung with a will.

They soon emerged from the forest dragging out on the smooth sand spit, where the line of tamaracks ended, enough dry timber for a fire which the trapper soon roused into a welcome blaze. He used but one match--often he travelled a week on seven. When they were wet he rubbed them in his hair.

Again the sharp whack of the axes cut out a ridgepole and two forked supports. Before it grew dark they had a snug lean-to built and covered with boughs at the edge of the tamaracks--out of the wind.

Here, after a warm meal, they pa.s.sed the first night of their flight.

The women shared one side of the lean-to, grateful for the dry blankets; the men, tired from their heavy loads, crept in noiselessly in their sock feet beside them and were soon asleep. The old dog waited patiently until they were settled, then entered and lay down in the only s.p.a.ce left. Back of them, far away over the horizon of the wilderness, the sky was pink.

Alice Thayor slept soundly until midnight, then she lay awake until the first glimmer of dawn. She half rose upon her elbow and looked calmly at the face of her husband asleep next to her. It seemed strange to her to be sleeping next to him. His face was drawn and haggard; he breathed heavily. Margaret was curled next to her on the other side, the curve of her lovely mouth showing above the coa.r.s.e edge of the horse blanket.

Then an irresistible desire came over her to get away--away from this misery--out of these rough clothes--away from these men. The fire in front of her blazed up, illumining the thatched roof of the lean-to.

She looked at her hands--they were dirty, the nails black from scrambling over logs. At that moment she would eagerly have exchanged her jewels for a boudoir and a bath. Her jewels--they were gone in the fire. Gone, too, before it began were a packet of letters and a tell-tale photograph! This fact was the only one in her desolation that comforted her.

Then came moments when her surroundings became exasperating; what fresh misery would she be forced to endure--days worse, perhaps, than the one she had just pa.s.sed through might follow. If she could only fly! But where? Out in that wilderness? She had sense enough left to know that had she stolen out beyond sight of the lean-to she would have been hopelessly lost. She did not know, however, all that it meant; the terror that would await her--the suffering, stumbling blindly in a circle--hungry, yet afraid to eat had she had food--thirsty, yet not daring to stop even at a clear spring. Her body beaten and bruised--her mind weak from fear--half naked--her hair dishevelled, her scalp bleeding; reeling toward any quarter which seemed like the way out. All this, had she but known it, had happened to the three men sleeping in the lean-to: the trapper, when he was eighteen, found barely breathing after twelve days of torture, the dog chain which he had wrapped round his waist after starting a deer, having deflected the needle of his compa.s.s; Holcomb, picking his way out along the sh.o.r.es of a chain of lakes, with no matches and but a handful of cartridges; and the Clown, blind drunk on Jamaica ginger and peppermint essence, in a country whose unfamiliarity nearly caused his death. A man without his stomach and physique would have died; by some miracle he lived to reach Morrison's unaided--he wanted a drink.

And yet there was not a portion of this wilderness that could lose these three men now, past masters as they were in the art of wood-craft. Yes--it was just as well that The Lady of Big Shanty knew none of these things. Miserable as she was, here, she was protected.

Her hand went out unconsciously and rested for a moment on her husband. Again she fell asleep--a troubled sleep--in which she dreamed she confronted a face with sinister eyes and hot cheeks from which she fled in terror. When she awoke she looked out into a blanket of mist.

In the breaking dawn the surface of Bear Pond lay like a mirror. The others were still asleep. The fire in front of the lean-to was a bed of white ashes. A kingfisher screamed past, following the limpid turquoise edge of the sh.o.r.e. Beyond the mist rose a great mountain, the filmy, ragged edges of the fog blanket sweeping in curling rifts beneath a precipice of black sides.

The sun presently turned the mist into rose vapour; the mirror became a greenish black, shining like polished metal. She looked out upon this scene with a sense of restful fascination. It was the first sunrise of its kind this woman--to whom morning meant the perfunctory drawing of her bedroom curtains--had seen for years. It was as if she had been transported to a new world, shutting out the other world she had known so well--the world in which she had fluttered so successfully, spending lavishly the money of the man who at that moment lay next to her, worn out by calamity and fatigue. He had been patient through years of her unreasonable extravagance--through her selfish domination--through her tyranny. He was patient now.

Alice Thayor thought of these things as she gazed out upon the strange, silent pond. It was the first time in her later life she had taken time to think. Mental anguish has its sudden changes. When we have suffered enough we seek the pleasant; to suffer requires effort.

When at last we shirk the work of being unhappy we forget our sorrow.

Alice, little by little, was forgetting hers--even in the midst of these trying circ.u.mstances.

Soon she noticed that Margaret's blanket had slipped from her shoulders. She leaned forward and drew it tenderly back to its place; then she bent over and kissed the cheek of the sleeping girl.

The grip of the primaeval had laid hold of her heart!

When she again gazed across the thin rose vapour, disappearing rapidly under the first rays of the sun, hot, scalding tears were streaming down her face.