The Road to Frontenac Part 6

"Oh," said Danton, "then you really want me to?"

"Certainly. I am too old myself."

Danton rose, and walked a few steps away and back.

"But she will have none of me, Menard. It is, 'No, with thanks,' or, worse, a shake of the head. If I offer to help, if I try to talk, if I--oh, it is always the same. I am tired of it."

Menard smiled in the dark.

"Is that your reply to an order from your superior officer, Danton?"

The boy stood silent for a moment, then he said, "I beg your pardon, Captain." And with a curious effort at stiffness he wandered off among the trees, and was soon out of Menard's sight.

Menard walked slowly down to the fire, opened his pack, and spreading out his blanket, rolled himself in it with his feet close to the red embers. For a long time he lay awake. This episode took him back nearly a decade, to a time when he, like Danton, would have lost his poise at a glance from the nearest pair of eyes. That the maid should so interest him was in itself amusing. Had she been older or younger, had she been any but the timid, honest little woman that she was, he would have left her, without a second thought, in the care of the Commandant at Montreal, to be escorted through the rapids by some later party. But he had fixed his mind on getting her to Frontenac, and the question was settled. His last thought that night was of her quiet laughter and her friendly, hesitating "good-night."

He was awakened in the half light before the sunrise by a step on the twigs. At a little distance through the trees was the maid, walking down toward the water. She slipped easily between the briers, holding her skirt close. From a spring, not a hundred yards up the hillside, a brook came tumbling to the river, picking its way under and over the stones and the fallen trees, and trickling over the bank with a low murmur. The maid stopped by a pool, and kneeling on a flat rock, dipped her hands.

The others were asleep. A rod away lay Danton, a sprawling heap in his blanket. Menard rose, tossed his blanket upon his bundle, and walked slowly down toward the maid.

"Mademoiselle, you rise with the birds."

She looked around, and laughed gently. He saw that she had frankly accepted the first little change in their relations.

"I like to be with the birds, M'sieu."

Menard had no small talk. He was thinking of her evident lack of sleep.

"It is the best hour for the river, Mademoiselle." The colours of the dawn were beginning to creep up beyond the eastern bank, sending a lance of red and gold into a low cloud bank, and a spread of soft crimson close after. "Perhaps you are fond of the fish?"

The maid was kneeling to pick a cl.u.s.ter of yellow flower cups. She looked up and nodded, with a smile.

"We fished at home, M'sieu."

"We will go," said Menard, abruptly. "I will bring down the canoe."

He threw the blankets to one side, and stooping under the long canoe, carried it on his shoulders to the water. A line and hook were in his bundle; the bait was ready at a turn of the gra.s.s and weeds.

"We are two adventurers," he said lightly, as he tossed the line into the canoe, and held out one of the paddles. "You should do your share of the morning's work, Mademoiselle."

She laughed again, and took the paddle. They pushed off; the maid kneeling at the bow, Menard in the stern. He guided the canoe against the current. The water lay flat under the still air, reflecting the gloomy trees on the banks, and the deepening colours of the sky. He fell into a lazy, swinging stroke, watching the maid. Her arms and shoulders moved easily, with the grace of one who had tumbled about a canoe from early childhood.

"Ready, Mademoiselle?" He was heading for a deep pool near a line of rushes. The maid, laying down her paddle, reached back for the line, and put on the bait with her own fingers.

Menard held the canoe steady against the current, which was there but a slow movement, while she lowered the hook over the bow. They sat without a word for some minutes. Once he spoke, in a bantering voice, and she motioned to him to be quiet. Her brows were drawn down close together.

It was but a short time before she felt a jerk at the line. Her arms straightened out, and she pressed her lips tightly together. "Quick!"

she said. "Go ahead!"

"Can you hold it?" he asked, as he dipped his paddle.

She nodded. "I wish the line were longer. It will be hard to give him any room." She wound the cord around her wrist. "Will the line hold, M'sieu?"

"I think so. See if you can pull in."

She leaned back, and pulled steadily, then shook her head. "Not very much. Perhaps, if you can get into the shallow water--"

Menard slowly worked the canoe through an opening in the rushes. There was a thrashing about and plunging not two rods away. Once the fish leaped clear of the water in a curve of clashing silver.

"It's a salmon," he said. "A small one."

The maid held hard, but the colour had gone from her face. The canoe drew nearer to the sh.o.r.e.

"Hold fast," said Menard. He gave a last sweep of the paddle, and crept forward to the bow. Kneeling behind the maid, he reached over her shoulder, and took the line below her hand.

"Careful, M'sieu; it may break."

"We must risk it." He pulled slowly in until the fish was close under the gunwale. "Now can you hold?"

"Yes." She shook a straying lock of hair from her eyes, and took another turn of the cord around her wrist.

"Steady," he said. He drew his knife, leaned over the gunwale, and stabbed at the fighting fish until his blade sank in just below the gills, and he could lift it aboard.

The maid laughed nervously, and rested her hands upon the two gunwales. Her breath was gone, and there was a red mark around her wrist where the cord had been. The canoe had drifted into the rushes, and Menard went back to his paddle, and worked out again into the channel.

"And now, Mademoiselle," he said, "we shall have a breakfast of our own. You need not paddle. I will take her down."

Her breath was coming back. She laughed, and sat comfortably in the bow, facing Menard, and letting her eyes follow the steady swing and catch of his paddle. When they reached the camp, the _voyageurs_ were astir, but Danton and the priest still slept. The first red glare of the sun was levelled at them over the eastern trees.

Menard made a fire under an arch of flat stones, and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g a strip of oak wood with his hatchet, he laid the cleaned fish upon it and kept it on the fire until it was brown and crisp. The maid sat by, her eyes alert and her cheeks flushed.

Danton was awake before the fish was cooked, and he stood about with a pretence of not observing them. The maid was fairly aroused. She drew him into the talk, and laughed and bantered with the two men as prettily as they could have wished from a Quebec belle.

All during the morning Danton was silent. At noon, when the halt was made for the midday lunch, he was still puzzling over the apparent understanding between Mademoiselle and the Captain. Before the journey was taken up, he stood for a moment near Menard, on the river bank.

"Captain," he said, "you asked me last night to--"

"Well?"

"It may be that I have misunderstood you. Of course, if Mademoiselle--if you--" He caught himself.

Menard smiled; then he read the earnestness beneath the boy's confusion, and sobered.

"Mademoiselle and I went fishing, Danton. Result,--Mademoiselle eats her first meal. If you can do as much you shall have my thanks. And now remember that you are a lieutenant in the King's service."

CHAPTER IV.