The Promise Part 56

Chenault, being a half-breed, was more inclined toward garrulity than his Indian spouse.

"How you come?" he asked with evident interest. Jeanne answered him, speaking rapidly, and at the end of a half-hour the man was in full possession of the details of their plight. He slowly shook his head.

"Moncrossen camp ver' far--feefty--seexty mile," he said. "You no mak'."

Bill looked up suddenly. "Have you a canoe?" he inquired.

The other looked at him in surprise. "Canoe, she no good!" he grunted.

"Too mooch ice. Bre'k all to h.e.l.l in one minute!"

With an exclamation he leaped to his feet. "By gar! De flat boat!" he cried triumphantly.

"She is all build for tak' de fur. De riv', she run ver' swift. In de morning you go--in de evening you come on de camp!"

"I will pay you well for the boat," said Bill eagerly. "I have no money here. Give me a pencil; I will write an order on Monsieur Appleton, the man who owns the woods."

At the words the half-breed shrugged.

"You no got for mak' write," he said. "You tell Wa-ha-ta-na-ta you come--by gar! You come! You tell me you pay--you pay. You no got for mak' write."

Bill smiled.

"That is all right, providing I get through. What if the boat gets tipped over or smashed in the ice?"

Chenault shrugged again. "You De-Man-Who-Cannot-Die," he said. "You got de good heart. In de woods all peoples know. You no mak' write. I got no penzil."

CHAPTER L

FACE TO FACE

Before daylight next morning the two men dragged the little flat boat to the water's edge. The river had risen to full flood during the night and out of the darkness came the crash and grind of ice, the dull roar and splash of undermined banks, and the purling rumble of swift moving water.

After breakfast Bill and Jeanne, armed with light spruce poles, took their places; Chenault pushed the boat into the current and it shot downstream, whirling in the grip of the flood.

There was no need for oars. Both Bill and the girl had their work cut out warding off from drifting ice cakes and the thrashing branches of uprooted trees.

Time and again they came within a hair's-breadth of destruction. The eddying, seething surface of the swift rushing river seemed to hurl its debris toward their little craft in fiendish malevolence. Ice cakes crashed together on every hand, water-logged tree-b.u.t.ts snagged them bow and stern, and the low-hanging limbs of "sweepers" clawed and tore at them like the teeth of a giant rake as they swept beneath, lying flat upon the bottom of the boat.

Bill grinned at the thought of a canoe. In the suck and swirl of the current the odds were heavily against even the stout flat boat's winning through.

He estimated their speed to be about eight miles an hour and devoted his whole attention to preventing the boat from fouling the drift. They were riding the "run out," and he knew that Moncrossen would wait for the river to become comparatively free of drift before breaking out his rollways.

The rain ceased, but the sky remained heavily overcast and darkness overtook them while yet some distance above the log camp and skirting the opposite sh.o.r.e.

Eager as he was to meet Moncrossen, Bill decided not to risk crossing the river in the fast gathering darkness. Gradually the boat was worked toward sh.o.r.e and poled into the backwater of submerged beaver meadow.

Landing upon a slope a couple of hundred yards back from the river, they tilted the boat on edge, and, inclining it forward, rested it upon the tops of stakes thrust into the ground. The blanket was spread, and with the roaring fire directly in front the uptilted boat made an excellent shelter.

An awkward constraint, broken only by necessary monosyllables, had settled upon the two. On the river each had been too busy with the workin hand to give the other more than a pa.s.sing thought, but now, in the intimacy of the campfire, each felt uneasily self-conscious.

Supper over, Bill lighted his pipe and stared moodily into the flames with set face and brooding eye. From her position at his side Jeanne covertly watched the silent man.

Of what was he thinking? Surely not of the girl--his wife! She winced at the word--but the tense, almost fierce expression of his face, the occasional spasmodic clenching of the great fists, could scarcely accompany a man's thoughts of his wife of an hour.

Of Moncrossen? she wondered. Of the shooting of Jacques? Of the attack upon her? Of Wa-ha-ta-na-ta? But, no--the gray eyes were staring into the fire calmly, and in their depths she could see no gleam of hate nor steely glitter of rage.

What was it he said the day she told him of the affair on Broken Knee?

"I, too, could kill him for that." The girl gave it up, and fell to wondering what the morrow would bring forth.

At daylight, when they poled the boat into the river, Bill gazed in surprise at the surface of the stream. A few belated ice cakes floated lazily in the current, and many uprooted snags reared their scraggly heads as they rolled sluggishly in the water.

But what riveted his attention were the logs. Hundreds and hundreds of smoothly floating logs dotted the river, and as far as the eye could reach more logs were coming.

He leaped to his feet and stood, shading his eyes with his hand. Far up the stream the surface seemed solid with logs, and here and there he could make out moving figures--tiny and frail they looked, like strange, misshapen insects, as they leaped from log to rolling log--the white-water men of the North.

"It's the drive!" he cried excitedly. "_My_ drive! Come, pole for your life--we've got to work her across!"

A mile farther down they swept around a wide bend, and before them loomed the cleared rollways of Moncrossen's camp, and on top of the slope, for all the world like fortifications commanding the river, were pile after pile of pyramided logs.

The little flat boat was rapidly approaching, and men could be seen swarming about the rollways. One man with a shirt of flaming red rushed among them, gesticulating wildly, and faintly to their ears came the raucous bellowing of his voice. At the sight of him Jeanne paled visibly. The man was Moncrossen.

Even as they looked the first rollway tore loose; the logs, rolling and tumbling down the steep slope, leaped into the river with a roar and a splash that sent a fountain of white spray flying skyward. Bill set his pole and fairly hurled the boat into the bank well above the rollways.

"Good G.o.d!" he cried. "Can't he see the drive? They'll jam and my men will be killed!" He leaped ash.o.r.e and crashed through the intervening underbrush in great bounds, closely followed by the light-footed Jeanne.

They gained the top, and while rushing along the rollways could hear Moncrossen roaring his orders--could catch the words that foamed from his lips amid volleys of crashing oaths.

"Cut them toggles! Let 'em go! Let 'em go! d.a.m.n you! Foul that drive!

I'll show 'em if they c'n slip a drive through me!"

And then--face to face between two high-piled pyramids--they met. The words died in a horrible, throaty gurgle; and Moncrossen's face, livid with rage, turned chalky as his eyes roved vacantly from Bill Carmody's face to the face of the girl beyond. His jaw wagged weakly, his flabby lips sagged open, exposing the jagged, brown teeth, and he pa.s.sed his hand uncertainly across his eyes.

"It's the greener," he mumbled thickly. "It's the greener hisself."

Another rollway rumbled into the river, and Bill leaped into the open.

"Stop!" he cried. "It's murder! There are men on that drive!"

The two lumber-jacks who stood almost at his side turned at the sound of his voice. For one moment they stared into his face, and then with a wild yell dropped their peavies and fled toward the bunk-house. Other men looked, and from lip to lip flashed the word, "The greener!" Men stared at him dumbly, or turned and dashed for the clearing in a panic of fear.

"He come up out of the river!" shrilled one as he ran. "I seen him! An'

I seen him go under a year back! He come h.e.l.l a rippin' up through the bushes--an' a she one a follerin'!"

Men crowded about--the bolder spirits, the matter of fact, and the unsuperst.i.tious among the crew--and Bill turned again to Moncrossen, who stood rooted in his tracks.

"Where is she?" he asked in a low voice that cut distinctly upon the silence. "The mother of this girl?" Moncrossen started. With a visible effort he strove for control of himself.