The Sky Line of Spruce Part 19

The man was amazed. Evidently the stress and excitement of the morning had brought out the fanciful and poetic side of the girl's nature.

"We don't look for good luck," she told him. "We don't expect to live forever. We know what death is, and that it is sure to come, and that misfortune comes always--in the snow and the cold and the falling tree--and when we have good luck we're glad--we don't take it for granted. Living up here, where life is real, we've learned that we have to make the best of things in order to be happy at all."

"And you mean--you're going to try to make the best of _this_?" His voice throbbed ever so slightly, because he could not hold it even.

"There's nothing else I can do," she replied. "You've taken me here and as yet I don't see how I can get away. This doesn't mean I've gone over to your side."

He nodded. He understood _that_ very well.

"I'm just admitting that at present I'm in your hands--helpless--and many long weeks in before us," she went on. "I'm on my father's side, last and always, and I'll strike back at you if the chance comes. Expect no mercy from me, in case I ever see my way to strike."

The man's eyes suddenly gleamed. "Don't you know--that you'd have a better chance of fighting me--if you didn't put me on guard?"

"I don't think so. I don't believe you'd be fooled that easy.

Besides--I can't pretend to be a friend--when I'm really an enemy."

For one significant instant the man looked down. This was what he had done--pretended friendship when he was a foe. But his was a high cause!

"I'm warning you that I'm against you to the last--and will beat you if I see my way," the girl went on. "But at the same time I'm going to make the best of a bad situation, and try to get all the comfort I can. I'm in your hands at present, and we're foes, but just the same we can talk, and try to make each other comfortable so that we can be comfortable ourselves, and try not to be any more miserable than we can help. I'm not going to cry any more."

As she talked she was slowly unwrapping the little parcel she had brought. Presently she held it out to him.

It was just a box of homemade candy--fudge made with sugar and canned milk--that she had brought for their day's picnic. But it was a peace offering not to be despised. A heavy load lifted from Ben's heart.

He waited his chance, guiding the boat with care, and then reached a brown hand. He crushed a piece of the soft, delicious confection between his lips. "Thanks, Beatrice," he said. "I'll remember all you've told me."

XXIII

It is a peculiar fact that no one is more deeply moved by the great works and phenomena of nature than those who live among them. It is the visitor from distant cities, or the callow youth with tawdry clothes and tawdry thoughts who disturbs the great silences and austerity of majestic scenes with half-felt effusive words or cheap impertinences.

Oddly enough, the awe that the wilderness dweller knows at the sight of some great, mysterious canyon or towering peak seems to increase, rather than decrease, with familiarity. His native scenes never grow old to him. Their beauty and majesty is eternal.

Perhaps the reason lies in the fact that the native woodsman knows nature as she really is: living ever close to her he knows her power over his life. Perhaps there is a religious side to the matter, too. In the solitudes the religious instincts receive an impulse that is impossible to those who know only the works of man. The religion that this gives is true and deep, and the eye instinctively lifts in reverence to the manifestations of divine might.

When the swirling waters carried the canoe down into the gorge of the Yuga both Ben and Beatrice were instinctively awed and stilled. Ever the walls of the gorge grew more steep, until the sunlight was cut off and they rode as if in twilight. The stone of the precipices presented a marvellous array of color; and the spruce, almost black in the subdued light, stood in startling contrast. Ben saw at once that even were they able to land they could not--until they had emerged from the gorge--climb to the highlands. A mountain goat, most hardy of all mountaineers, could scarcely scale the abrupt wall.

During this time of half-light they saw none of the larger forest creatures that at first had gazed at them with such wonder from the banks. The reason was simply that they could not descend and ascend the steep walls.

Mostly Ben had time only for an occasional glimpse at the colossus above him. His work was to guide the craft between the perilous boulders.

Occasionally the river slackened its wild pace, and at such times he stretched his arms and rested his straining eyes.

Both had largely forgotten the danger of the ride. Because she was trying bravely to make the best of a tragic situation Beatrice had resolved to keep danger from her thoughts. Ben had known from the first that danger was an inevitable element in his venture, and he accepted it just as he had considered it,--with entire coldness. Yet both of them knew, in their secret thoughts, that the balance of life and death was so fine that the least minor incident might cast them into darkness. It would not have to be a great disaster, a wide departure from the commonplace. They were traveling at a terrific rate of speed, and a sharp rock too close to the surface would rip the bottom from their craft. Any instant might bring the shock and shudder of the end.

There would scarcely be time to be afraid. Both would be hurled into the stream; and the wild waters, pounding against the rocks, would close the matter swiftly. It awed them and humbled them to realize with what dispatch and ease this wilderness power could snuff out their mortal lives. There would be no chance to fight back, no element of uncertainty in the outcome. Here was a destiny against which the strength of man was as thistledown in the wind! The thought was good spiritual medicine for Ben, just as it would have been for most other men, and his egoism died a swift and natural death.

One crash, one shock, and then the darkness and silence of the end! The river would rage on, unsatiated by their few pounds of flesh, storming by in n.o.ble fury; but no man would know whither they had gone and how they had died. The walls of the gorge would not tremble one whit, or notice; and the spruce against the sky would not bow their heads to show that they had seen.

But the canyon broke at last, and the craft emerged into the sunlight.

It was good to see the easy slope of the hills again, the spruce forests, and the forms of the wild creatures on the river bank, startled by their pa.s.sing. Noon came and pa.s.sed, and for lunch they ate the last of the fudge. And now a significant change was manifest in both of them.

Psychologists are ever astounded at the ability of mortals, men and animals, to become adjusted to any set of circ.u.mstances. The wax of habit sets almost in a day. The truth was, that in a certain measure with very definite and restricted limits, both Ben and Beatrice were becoming adjusted even to this amazing situation in which they found themselves. This did not mean that Beatrice was in the least degree reconciled to it. She had simply accepted it with the intention of making the best of it. She had been abducted by an enemy of her father and was being carried down an unknown and dangerous river; but the element of surprise, the life of which is never but a moment, was already pa.s.sing away. Sometimes she caught herself with a distinct start, remembering everything with a rage and a bitter load on her heart; but the mood would pa.s.s quickly.

It is impossible, through any ordinary change of fortune, for a normal person to lose his sense of self-ident.i.ty. As long as that remains exterior conditions can make no vital change, or make him feel greatly different than he felt before. The change from a peasant to a millionaire brings only a moment's surprise, and then readjustment.

Beatrice was still herself; the man in the stern remained Ben Darby and no one else. Very naturally she began to talk to him, and he to answer her.

The fact that they were bitter foes, one the victim of the other, did not decree they could not have friendly conversation, isolated as they were. From time to time Ben pointed out objects of interest on the sh.o.r.e; and she found herself remarking, in a casual voice, about them.

And before the afternoon he had made her laugh, in spite of herself,--a gay sound in which fear and distress had little echo.

"We're bound to see a great deal of each other in the next few weeks,"

he had said; and this fact could not be denied. The sooner both became adjusted to it the better. Actual fear of him she had none; she remembered only too well the steel in his eyes and the white flame on his cheeks as he had a.s.sured her of her safety.

In mid-afternoon Ben began to think of making his night's camp. From time to time the bank became an upright precipice where not even a tree could find foothold; and it had occurred to him, with sudden vividness, that he did not wish the darkness to overtake him in such a place. The river rocks would make short work of him, in that case. It was better to pick out a camp site in plenty of time lest they could not find one at the day's end.

In one of the more quiet stretches of water he saw the place--a small cove and a green, tree-clad bank, with the gorge rising behind. Handling his canoe with greatest care he slanted toward it. A moment later he had caught the brush at the water's edge, stepped off into shallow water, and was drawing the canoe up onto the bank.

"We're through for the day," he said happily, as he helped Beatrice out of the boat. "I'll confess I'm ready to rest."

Beatrice made no answer because her eyes were busy. Coolly and quietly she took stock of the situation, trying to get an idea of the geographical features of the camp site. She saw in a glance, however, that there was no path to freedom up the gorge behind her. The rocks were precipitate: besides, she remembered that over a hundred miles of impa.s.sable wilderness lay between her and her father's cabin. Without food and supplies she could not hope to make the journey.

The racing river, however, wakened a curious, inviting train of thought.

The torrent continued largely unabated for at least one hundred miles more, she knew, and the hours that it would be pa.s.sable in a canoe were numbered. The river had fallen steadily all day; driftwood was left on the sh.o.r.e; rocks dried swiftly in the sun, cropping out like fangs above the foam of the stream. Was there still time to drift on down the Yuga a hundred or more miles to the distant Indian encampment? She shut the thought from her mind, at present, and turned her attention to the work of making camp.

With entire good humor she began to gather such pieces of dead wood as she could find for their fire.

"Your prisoner might as well make herself useful," she said.

Ben's face lighted as she had not seen it since their outward journey from Snowy Gulch. "Thank G.o.d you're taking it that way, Beatrice," he told her fervently. "It was a proposition I couldn't help--"

But the girl's eyes flashed, and her lips set in a hard line. "I'm doing it to make my own time go faster," she told him softly, rather slowly.

"I want you to remember that."

But instantly both forgot their words to listen to a familiar clucking sound from a near-by shrub. Peering closely they made out the plump, genial form of Franklin's grouse,--a bird known far and wide in the north for her ample breast and her tender flesh.

"Good Lord, there's supper!" Ben whispered. "Beatrice, get your pistol--"

Her eyes smiled as she looked him in the face. "You remember--my pistol isn't loaded!"

"Excuse me. I forgot. Give it to me."

She handed him the little gun, and he slipped in the sh.e.l.ls he had taken from it. Then--for the simple and sensible reason that he didn't want to take any chance on the loss of their dinner--he stole within twenty feet of the bird. Very carefully he drew down on the plump neck.

"Dinner all safe," he remarked rather gayly, as the grouse came tumbling through the branches.

XXIV