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Flower of the North: A Modern Romance

by James Oliver Curwood · English · Gutenberg #4703 · 409,085 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Flower of the North: A Modern Romance

Author: James Oliver Curwood


        
Release date: December 1, 2003 [eBook #4703]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLOWER OF THE NORTH: A MODERN ROMANCE ***




Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.











FLOWER OF THE NORTH

A MODERN ROMANCE


BY

JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD



AUTHOR OF THE DANGER TRAIL, PHILIP STEELS, ETC.





TO MY COMRADES OF THE GREAT NORTHERN WILDERNESS, THOSE FAITHFUL
COMPANIONS WITH WHOM I HAVE SHARED THE JOYS AND HARDSHIPS OF THE "LONG
SILENT TRAIL," AND ESPECIALLY TO THAT "JEANNE D'ARCAMBAL." WHO WILL
FIND IN HERSELF THE HEROINE OF THIS STORY, THE WRITER GRATEFULLY
DEDICATES THIS VOLUME.

DETROIT. MICHIGAN

JANUARY, 1912





FLOWER OF THE NORTH




I


"Such hair! Such eyes! Such color! Laugh if you will, Whittemore, but I
swear that she was the handsomest girl I've ever laid my eyes upon!"

There was an artist's enthusiasm in Gregson's girlishly sensitive face
as he looked across the table at Whittemore and lighted a cigarette.

"She wouldn't so much as give me a look when I stared," he added. "I
couldn't help it. Gad, I'm going to make a full-page 'cover' of her
to-morrow for Burke's. Burke dotes on pretty women for the cover of his
magazine. Why, demmit, man, what the deuce are you laughing at?"

"Not at this particular case, Tom," apologized Whittemore. "But--I'm
wondering--"

His eyes wandered ruminatively about the rough interior of the little
cabin, lighted by a single oil-lamp hanging from a cross-beam in the
ceiling, and he whistled softly.

"I'm wondering," he went on, "if you'll ever strike a place where you
won't see 'one of the most beautiful things on earth.' The last one was
at Rio Piedras, wasn't it, Tom? A Spanish girl, or was she a Creole? I
believe I've got your letter yet, and I'll read it to you to-morrow. I
wasn't surprised. There are pretty women down in Porto Rico. But I
didn't think you'd have the nerve to discover one up here--in the
wilderness."

"She's got them all beat," retorted the artist, flecking the ash from
the tip of his cigarette.

"Even the Valencia girl, eh?"

There was a chuckling note of pleasure in Philip Whittemore's voice as
he leaned half across the table, his handsome face, bronzed by snow and
wind, illumined in the lamp-glow. Gregson, in strong contrast, with his
round, smooth cheeks, slim hands, and build that was almost womanish,
leaned over his side to meet him. For the twentieth time that evening
the two men shook hands.

"Haven't forgotten Valencia, eh?" chuckled the artist, gloatingly.
"Lord, but I'm glad to see you again, Phil. Seems like a century since
we were out raising the Old Ned together, and yet it's less than three
years since we came back from South America. Valencia! Will we ever
forget it? When Burke handed me his first turn-down a month ago and
said, 'Tom, your work begins to show you want a rest,' I thought of
Valencia, and was so confoundedly homesick for those old days when you
and I pretty nearly started a revolution, and came within an ace of
getting our scalps lifted, that I moped for a week. Gad, do I remember
it? You got out by fighting, and I through a pretty girl."

"And your nerve," chuckled Whittemore, crushing the other's hand. "That
was when I made up my mind you were the nerviest man alive, Greggy. Did
you ever learn what became of Donna Isobel?"

"She appeared twice in Burke's, once as the 'Goddess of the Southern
Republics' and again as 'The Girl of Valencia.' She married that
reprobate of a Carabobo planter, and I believe they're happy."

"It seems to me there were others," continued Whittemore, pondering for
a moment in mock seriousness. "There was one at Rio whom you swore
would make your fortune if you could get her to sit for you, and whose
husband was on the point of putting six inches of steel into you for
telling her so, when I explained that you were young and harmless, and
a little out of your head--"

"With your fist," cried Gregson, joyously. "Gad, but that was a mighty
blow! I can see that knife now. I was just beginning my paternoster
when--chug!--and down he went! And he deserved it. I said nothing
wrong. In my very best Spanish I asked her if she would sit for me, and
why the devil did he take that as an insult? And she was beautiful."

"Of course," agreed Whittemore. "If I remember, she was 'the loveliest
creature you had ever seen.' And after that there were others--a score
of them at least, each lovelier than the one before."

"They make up my life," said Gregson, more seriously than he had yet
spoken. "They're the only thing I can draw and do well. I'd think an
editor was mad if he asked me to do something without a pretty woman in
it. God bless 'em, I hope I'll go on seeing them forever. When I can't
see beauty in woman I want to die."

"And you always want to see it in the superlative degree."

"I insist upon it. If she lacks something, as Donna Isobel wanted
color, I imagine that it is there, and she is perfect! But this one
that I saw to-night is perfect! Now what I want to know is this, Who
the deuce is she!"

--"where can she be found, and will she sit for a 'Burke,' two or three
miscellaneous, and a 'study' for the annual sale," struck in
Whittemore. "Is that it?"

"Exactly. You've a natural ability for hitting the nail on the head,
Phil."

"And Burke told you to take a rest."

Gregson offered his cigarettes.

"Yes, Burke is a good-natured, poetic old soul who has a horror of
spiders, snakes, and sky-scrapers. He said to me: 'Greggy, go and seek
nature in some quiet, secluded place, and forget everything for a
fortnight or two except your clothes and half a dozen cases of beer.'
Rest! Nature! Beer! Think of those cheerful suggestions, Phil, while I
was dreaming of Valencia, of Donna Isobels, and places where Nature
cuts up as though she had been taking champagne all her life. Gad, your
letter came just in time!"

"And I told you little enough in that," said Philip, quickly, rising
and pacing uneasily back and forth across the cabin floor. "I gave you
promise of excitement, and urged you to join me if you could. And why?
Because--"

He turned sharply, and faced Gregson across the table.

"I wanted you to come because the thing that happened down in Valencia,
and that other at Rio, isn't a circumstance to the hell that's going to
cut loose pretty soon up here--and I'm in need of help. Understand?
It's not fun--this time. I'm playing a single hand in what looks like a
losing game. If I ever needed a fighter in my life I need one now.
That's why I sent for you."

Gregson shoved back his chair and rose to his feet. He was a head
shorter than his companion, of almost delicate physique. Yet there was
something in the cold gray-blue of his eyes, a peculiar hardness of his
chin, that compelled one to look at him twice and rendered first
judgment unsafe. His slim fingers closed like steel about Philip's.

"Now you're coming down to business, Phil," he exclaimed. "I've been
waiting with the patience of Job--or of little Bobby Tuckett, if you
remember him, who began courting Minnie Sheldon seven years ago--and
married her the day after I got your letter. I was too busy figuring
out what you hadn't written to go to the wedding. I tried to read
between the lines, and fell down completely. I've been thinking all the
way up from Le Pas, and I'm still at sea. You called. I came. What's
up?"

"It's going to sound a little mad--at first, Greggy," chuckled
Whittemore, lighting his pipe. "It's going to give your esthetic tastes
a jar. Look here!"

He seized Gregson by the arm and led him to the door.

The cold northern sky was brilliant with stars. The cabin, its logs
half smothered in dying masses of verdure which had climbed about it
during the summer, was built on the summit of one of the wind-cropped
ridges which are called mountains in the far north. Into that north
swept infinite wilderness, white and gray where the starlit tops of the
spruce rose up at their feet, black in the distance. From somewhere out
of it there came the low, weeping monotone of surf beating on a shore.
Philip, with one hand on Gregson's shoulder, pointed with the other
into the lonely desolation which they were facing.

"There isn't much between us and the Arctic Ocean, Greggy," he said.
"See that light off there, like a great fire that has half a mind to
die out one minute and flares up the next? Doesn't it remind you of the
night we got away from Carabobo, when Donna Isobel pointed out our way
to us, with the moon coming up over the mountains as a guide? That
isn't the moon. It's the aurora borealis. You can hear the wash of the
Bay down there, and if you're keen you can catch the smell of icebergs.
There's Fort Churchill--a rifle-shot beyond the ridge, asleep. There's
nothing but Hudson's Bay Company's posts, Indian camps, and trappers
between here and civilization, which is four hundred miles down there.
Seems like a quiet and peaceful country, doesn't it? There's something
about it that makes you thrill and wonder if this isn't the biggest
part of the universe after all. Listen! Hear the Indian dogs wailing
down at Churchill! That's the primal voice in this world, the voice of
the wild. Even that beating of the surf is filled with the same thing,
for it's rolling up mystery instead of history. It is telling what man
doesn't know, and in a language which he cannot understand. You're a
beauty scientist, Greggy. This must sink deep."

"It does," said Gregson. "What the deuce are you getting at, Phil?"

"I'm arriving gradually and without undue haste to the point, Greggy.
I'm about to tell you why I induced you to join me up here. I hesitate
at the last word. It seems almost brutal, taking into consideration
your philosophy of beauty, to drop from all this--from that blackness
and mystery out there, from Donna Isobels and pretty eyes, down
to--fish."

"Fish!"

"Yes, fish."

Gregson, lighting a fresh cigarette, held the match so that the tiny
flame lighted up his companion's face for a moment.

"Look here," he expostulated, "you haven't got me up here to
go--fishing?"

"Yes--and no," said Philip. "But even if I have--"

He caught Gregson by the arm again, and there was a tightness in the
grip of his fingers which convinced the other that he was speaking
seriously now.

"Do you remember what started the revolution down in Honduras the
second week after we struck Puerto Barrios, Greggy? It was a girl,
wasn't it?"

"Yes, and she wasn't half pretty at that."

"It was less than a girl," went on Philip. "Scene: the palm plaza at
Ceiba. President Belize is drinking wine with his cousin, the fiancee
of General O'Kelly Bonilla, the half Irish, half Latin-American leader
of his forces, and his warmest friend. At a moment when their corner of
the plaza is empty Belize helps himself to a cousinly kiss. O'Kelly,
unperceived, arrives in time to witness the act. From that moment his
friendship for Belize turns to hatred and jealousy. Within three weeks
he has started a revolution, beats the government forces at Ceiba,
chases Belize from the capital, gets Nicaragua mixed up in the trouble,
and draws three French, two German, and two American war-ships to the
scene. Six weeks after the wine-drinking he is President of the
Republic, en facto. And all of this, Greggy, because of a kiss. Now, if
a kiss can start a revolution, unseat a President, send a government to
smash, what must be the possibilities of a fish?"

"I'm getting interested," said Gregson. "If there's a climax, come to
it, Phil. I admit that there must be enormous possibilities in--a fish.
Go on!"




II


For a moment the two men stood in silence, listening to the sullen beat
of surf beyond the black edge of forest. Then Philip led the way back
into the cabin.

Gregson followed. In the light of the big oil-lamp which hung suspended
from the ceiling he noticed something in Whittemore's face he had not
observed before, a tenseness about the muscles of his mouth, a
restlessness in his eyes, rigidity of jaw, an air of suppressed emotion
which puzzled him. He was keenly observant of details, and knew that
these things had been missing a short time before. The pleasure of
their meeting that afternoon, after a separation of nearly two years,
had dispelled for a time the trouble which he now saw revealing itself
in his companion's face and attitude, and the lightness of Whittemore's
manner in beginning his explanation for inducing him to come into the
north had helped to complete the mask. There occurred to him, for an
instant, a picture which he had once drawn of Whittemore as he had
known him in certain stirring times still fresh in the memory of
each--a picture of the old, cool, irresistible Whittemore, smiling in
the face of danger, laughing outright at perplexities, always ready to
fight with a good-natured word on his lips. He had drawn that picture
for Burke's, and had called it "The Fighter." Burke himself had
criticized it because of the smile. But Gregson knew his man. It was
Whittemore.

There was a change now. He had grown older, surprisingly older. There
were deeper lines about his eyes. His face was thinner. He saw, now,
that Philip's lightness had been but a passing flash of his old
buoyancy, that the old life and sparkle had gone from him. Two years,
he judged, had woven things into Philip's life which he could not
understand, and he wondered if this was why in all that time he had
received no word from his old college chum.

They had seated themselves at opposite sides of the table, and from an
inside pocket Philip produced a small bundle of papers. From these he
drew forth a map, which he smoothed out under his hands.

"Yes, there are possibilities--and more, Greggy," he said. "I didn't
ask you up here to help me fight air and moonshine. And I've promised
you a fight. Have you ever seen a rat in a trap with a blood-thirsty
terrier guarding the little door that is about to be opened? Thrilling
sport for the prisoner, isn't it? But when the rat happens to be
human--"

"I thought it was a fish," protested Gregson, mildly. "Pretty soon
you'll be having it a girl in a trap--or at the end of a fish-line--"

"And if I should?" interrupted Philip, looking steadily at him. "What
if I should say there is a girl--a woman--in this trap--not only one,
but a score, a hundred of them? What then, Greggy?"

"I'd say there was going to be a glorious scrap."

"And so there is, the biggest and most unusual scrap of its kind you
ever heard of, Greggy. It's going to be a queer kind of fight--and
queer fighting. And it's possible--very probable--that you and I will
get lost in the shuffle somewhere. We're two, no more. And we're going
up against forces which would make a dozen South American revolutions
look like thirty cents. More than that, it's likely we'll be in the
wrong locality when certain people rise in a wrath which a Helen of
Troy aroused in another people some centuries ago. See here--"

He turned the map to Gregson, pointing with his finger.

"See that red line? That's the new railroad to Hudson's Bay. It is well
above Le Pas now, and its builders plan to complete it by next spring.
It is the most wonderful piece of railroad building on the American
continent, Greggy--wonderful because it has been neglected so long.
Something like a hundred million people have been asleep to its
enormous value, and they're just waking up now. That road, cutting
across four hundred miles of wilderness, is opening up a country half
as big as the United States, in which more mineral wealth will be dug
during the next fifty years than will ever be taken from Yukon or
Alaska. It is shortening the route from Montreal, Duluth, Chicago, and
the Middle West to Liverpool and other European ports by a thousand
miles. It means the making of a navigable sea out of Hudson's Bay,
cities on its shores, and great steel-foundries close to the Arctic
Circle--where there is coal and iron enough to supply the world for
hundreds of years. That's only a small part of what this road means,
Greggy. Two years ago--you remember I asked you to join me in the
adventure--I came up seeking opportunity. I didn't dream then--"

Whittemore paused, and a flash of his old smile passed over his face.

"I didn't dream that fate had decreed me to stir up what I'm going to
tell you about, Greggy. I followed the line of the proposed railroad,
looking for chances. All Canada was asleep, or too much interested in
its west, and gave me no competition. I was alone west of the surveyed
line; east of it steel-corporation men had optioned mountains of iron
and another interest had a grip on coal-fields. Six months I spent
among the Indians, French, and half-breeds. I lived with them, trapped
and hunted with them, and picked up a little Cree and French. The life
suited me. I became a northerner in heart and soul, if not quite yet in
full experience. Clubs and balls and cities grew to be only memories.
You know how I have always hated that hothouse sort of existence, and
you know that same world of clubs and balls and cities has gripped at
my throat, downing me again and again, as though it returned my
sentiment with interest. Up here I learned to hate it more than ever. I
was completely happy. And then--"

He had refolded the map, and drew another from the bundle of papers. It
was drawn in pencil.

"And then, Greggy," he went on, smoothing out this map where the other
had been, "I struck my chance. It fairly clubbed me into recognizing
it. It came in the middle of the night, and I sat up with a camp-fire
laughing at me through the flap in my tent, stunned by the knockout it
had given me. It seemed, at first, as though a gold-mine had walked up
and laid itself down at my feet, and I wondered how there could be so
many silly fools in this world of ours. Take a look at that map,
Greggy. What do you see?"

Gregson had listened like one under a spell. It was one of his careless
boasts that situations could not faze him, that he was immune to
outward betrayals of sensation. This seeming indifference--his
light-toned attitude in the face of most serious affairs would have
made a failure of him in many things. But his tense interest did not
hide itself now. A cigarette remained unlighted between his fingers.
His eyes never took themselves for an instant from his companion's
face. Something that Whittemore had not yet said thrilled him. He
looked at the map.

"There's not much to see," he said, "but lakes and rivers."

"You're right," exclaimed Philip, jumping suddenly from his chair and
beginning to walk back and forth across the cabin. "Lakes and
rivers--hundreds of them--thousands of them! Greggy, there are more
than three thousand lakes between here and civilization and within
forty miles of the new railroad. And nine out of ten of those lakes are
so full of fish that the bears along 'em smell fishy. Whitefish,
Gregson--whitefish and trout. There is a fresh-water area represented
on that map three times as large as the whole of the five Great Lakes,
and yet the Canadians and the government have never wakened up to what
it means. There's a fish supply in this northland large enough to feed
the world, and that little rim of lakes that I've mapped out along the
edge of the coming railroad represents a money value of millions. That
was the idea that came to me in the middle of the night, and then I
thought--if I could get a corner on a few of these lakes, secure
fishing privileges before the road came--"

"You'd be a millionaire," said Gregson.

"Not only that," replied Philip, pausing for a moment in his restless
pacing. "I didn't think of money, at first; at least, it was a
secondary consideration after that night beside the camp-fire. I saw
how this big vacant north could be made to strike a mighty blow at
those interests which make a profession of cornering meatstuffs on the
other side, how it could be made to fight the fight of the people by
sending down an unlimited supply of fish that could be sold at a profit
in New York, Boston, or Chicago for a half of what the trust demands.
My scheme wasn't aroused entirely by philanthropy, mind you. I saw in
it a chance to get back at the very people who brought about my
father's ruin, and who kept pounding him after he was in a corner until
he broke down and died. They killed him. They robbed me a few years
later. They made me hate what I was once, a moving, joyous part
of--life down there. I went from the north, first to Ottawa, then to
Toronto and Winnipeg. After that I went to Brokaw, my father's old
partner, with the scheme. I've told you of Brokaw--one of the deepest,
shrewdest old fighters in the Middle West. It was only a year after my
father's death that he was on his feet again, as strong as ever. Brokaw
drew in two or three others as strong as himself, and we went after the
privileges. It was a fight from the beginning. Hardly were our plans
made public before we were met by powerful opposition. A combination of
Canadian capital quickly organized and petitioned for the same
privileges. Old Brokaw knew what it meant. It was the hand of the
trust--disguised under a veneer of Canadian promoters. They called us
'aliens'--American 'money-grabbers' robbing Canadians of what justly
belonged to them. They aroused two-thirds of the press against us, and
yet--"

The lines in Whittemore's face softened. He chuckled as he pulled out
his pipe and began filling it.

"They had to go some to beat the old man, Greggy. I don't know just how
Brokaw pulled the thing off, but I do know that when we won out three
members of parliament and half a dozen other politicians were honorary
members of our organization, and that it cost Brokaw a hundred thousand
dollars! Our opponents had raised such a howl, calling upon the
patriotism of the country and pointing out that the people of the north
would resent this invasion of foreigners, that we succeeded in getting
only a provisional license, subject to withdrawal by the government at
any time conditions seemed to warrant it. I saw in this no blow to my
scheme, for I was certain that we could carry the thing along on such a
square basis that within a year the whole country would be in sympathy
with us. I expressed my views with enthusiasm at our final meeting,
when the seven of us met to complete our plans. Brokaw and the other
five were to direct matters in the south; I was to have full command of
affairs in the north. A month later I was at work. Over here"--he
leaned over Gregson's shoulder and placed a forefinger on the map--"I
established our headquarters, with MacDougall, a Scotch engineer, to
help me. Within six months we had a hundred and fifty men at Blind
Indian Lake, fifty canoemen bringing in supplies, and another gang
putting in stations over a stretch of more than a hundred miles of lake
country. Everything was working smoothly, better than I had expected.
At Blind Indian Lake we had a shipyard, two warehouses, ice-houses, a
company store, and a population of three hundred, and had nearly
completed a ten-mile roadbed for narrow-gauge steel, which would
connect us with the main line when it came up to us. I was completely
lost in my work. At times I almost forgot Brokaw and the others. I was
particularly careful of the funds sent up to me, and had accomplished
my work at a cost of a little under a hundred thousand. At the end of
the six months, when I was about to make a visit into the south, one of
our warehouses and ten thousand dollars' worth of supplies went up in
smoke. It was our first misfortune, and it was a big one. It was about
the first matter that I brought up after I had shaken hands with
Brokaw."

Philip's face was set and white as he stood in the middle of the room
looking at Gregson.

"And what do you think was his reply, Greggy? He looked at me for a
moment, a peculiar twitching around the corners of his mouth, and then
said, 'Don't allow a trivial matter like that to worry you, Philip.
Why--we've already cleaned up a million on this little fish deal!'"

Gregson sat up with a jerk.

"A million! Great Scott--"

"Yes, a million, Greggy," said Philip, softly, with his old fighting
smile. "There was a hundred thousand dollars to my credit in a First
National Bank. Pleasant surprise, eh?"

Gregson had dropped his cigarette. His slim hands gripped the edges of
the table. He made no reply as he waited for Whittemore to continue.




III


For a full minute Philip paced back and forth without speaking. Then he
stopped, and faced Gregson, who was staring at him.

"A million, Greggy," he repeated, in the same soft voice. "A hundred
thousand dollars to my credit--in a First National Bank! While I was up
here hustling to get affairs on a working basis, eager to show the
government and the people what we could do and would do, triumphing in
our victory over the trust, and figuring each day on my scheme of
making this big, rich north deal a staggering blow to those accursed
combinations down there, they were at work, too. While I was dreaming
and doing these things, Brokaw and the others had formed the Great
Northern Fish and Development Company, had incorporated it under the
laws of New Jersey, and had already sold over a million dollars' worth
of stock! The thing was in full swing when I reached headquarters. I
had authorized Brokaw to act for me, and I found that I was
vice-president of one of the biggest legalized robbery combinations of
recent years. More money had been spent in advertising than in
development work. Hundreds of thousands of copies of my letters from
the north, filled to the brim with the enthusiasm I had felt for my
work and projects, had been sent out broadcast, luring buyers of stock.
In one of these letters I had said that if a half of the lakes I had
mapped out were fished the north could be made to produce a million
tons of fish a year. Two hundred thousand copies of this letter were
sent out, but Brokaw and his associates had omitted the words, 'If a
half of the lakes mapped out were fished.' It would take fifteen
thousand men, a thousand refrigerator cars, and a capital of five
million to bring this about. I was stunned by the enormity of their
fraud, and yet when I threatened to bring the whole thing to smash
Brokaw only laughed and pointed out that not a single caution had been
omitted. In all of the advertising it was frankly stated that our
license was provisional, subject to withdrawal if the company did not
keep within laws. That very frankness was an advertisement. It was
something different. It struck home where it was meant to strike--among
small and unfledged investors. It roped them in by thousands. The
shares were ten dollars each, and non-assessable. Five out of six
orders were from one to five shares; ninety-nine out of every hundred
were not above ten shares. It was damnable. The very people for whom I
wanted the north to fight had been humbugged to the tune of a million
and a quarter dollars. Within a year Brokaw and the others had floated
a scheme which was worse than any trust, for the trusts pay back a part
of their steals in dividends. And _I_ was responsible! Do you realize
that, Greggy? It was I who started the project. It was my reports from
the north which chiefly induced people to buy. And this company--a
company of robbers licensed under the law--I am its founder and its
vice-president!"

Philip dropped back into his chair. The face that he turned to Gregson
was damp with perspiration, though the room was chilly.

"You stayed in," said Gregson.

"I had to. There wasn't a loophole left open to me. There wasn't a
single point at which I could bring attack against Brokaw and the
others. They were six veritable Bismarcks of deviltry and shrewdness.
They hadn't over-stepped the law. They had sold a million and a quarter
of stock on a hundred-thousand-dollar investment, but Brokaw only
laughed when I raged at this. 'Why, Philip,' he said, 'we value our
license alone at over a million!' And there was no law which could
prevent them from placing that value upon it, or more. There was one
thing that I could do--and only one. I could resign, decline to accept
my stock and the hundred thousand, and publicly announce why I had
broken off my connections with the company. I was about to do this when
cooler judgment prevailed. It occurred to me that there would have to
be an accounting. The company might sell a million and a quarter of
stock--but in the end there would have to be an accounting. If I was
out of the game it would be easily made. If I was in--well, do you see,
Greggy? There was still a chance of making the company win out as a
legitimate enterprise, even though it began under the black flag of
piratical finance and fraud. Brokaw and the others were astonished at
the stand I took. It was like throwing a big, ripe plum into the fire
Brokaw was the first to hedge. He came over to my side in a private
interview which we had, and for the first time I convinced him
completely of the tremendous possibilities before us. To my surprise he
began to show actual enthusiasm in my favor. We figured out how the
company, if properly developed, could be made to pay a dividend of
fifty cents a share on the stock issued within two years. This, I
thought, would be at least a partial return of the original steal.
Brokaw worked the thing through in his own way. He was authorized to
vote for one of the directors, who was in Europe, and he won over two
of the others. As a consequence we voted all of the money in the
treasury, nearly six hundred thousand dollars, and the remainder of the
stock that was on the market, for development purposes. Brokaw then
made the proposition that the company buy up any interest that wished
to withdraw. The two M. P.'s and a professional promoter from Toronto
immediately sold out at fifty thousand each. With their original
hundred thousand these three retired with an aggregate steal of nearly
half a million. Pretty good work for yours truly, eh, Greggy! Good
Heaven, think of it! I started out to strike a blow, to launch a
gigantic project for the people, and this was what I had hatched!
Robbery, bribery, fraud--"

He paused, his hands clenched until the blue veins stood out on them
like whipcords.

"And--"

Gregson spoke, uneasily.

"And what?"

Philip's fingers relaxed their grip on the table.

"If that had been all, I wouldn't have called you up here," he
continued. "I've taken a long time in coming down to the real hell of
the affair, because I wanted you to understand the situation from the
beginning. After I left Brokaw I came north again. I possessed all the
funds necessary to make an honest working organization out of the
Northern Fish and Development Company. I hired two hundred additional
men, added twenty new fishing-stations, began a second road-bed to the
main line, and started a huge dam at Blind Indian Lake. We had thirty
horses, driven up through the wilderness from Le Pas, and twenty teams
on the way. There didn't appear to be an important obstacle in the path
of our success, and I had recovered most of my old enthusiasm when
Brokaw sprung a new mine under my feet.

"He had written a long letter almost immediately after I left him,
which had been delayed at several places. In it he told me that he had
discovered a plot to wreck our enterprise, that some powerful force was
about to be pitted against us in the very country we were holding. I
could see that Brokaw was tremendously worked up when he wrote the
letter, and that for once he felt himself outwitted by a rival faction,
and realized to the full a danger which it took me some time to
comprehend. He had discovered absolute evidence, he said, that the
bunch of trust capitalists whom he had beaten were about to attack us
in another way. Their forces were already moving into the north
country. Their object was to stir up the country against us, to bring
about that condition of unrest and antagonism between the people of the
north and ourselves which would compel the government to take away our
license. Remember, this license was only provisional. It was, in fact,
left to the people of the north to decide whether we should remain
among them or not. If they turned against us there would be only one
thing for the government to do.

"At first Brokaw's letter caused me no very great uneasiness. I knew
the people up here. I knew that the Indian, the Breed, the Frenchman,
and the White of this God's country were as invulnerable to bribery as
Brokaw himself is to the pangs of conscience. I loved them. I had faith
in them. I knew them to possess an honor which is not known down there,
where we have a church on every four corners, and where the Word of God
is preached day and night on the open streets. I felt myself warming
with indignation as I replied to Brokaw, resenting his insinuations as
to the crimes which a 'half-savage' people might be induced to commit
for a little whisky and a little money. And then--"

Whittemore wiped his face. The lines settled deeper about his mouth.

"Greggy, a week after I received this letter two warehouses were burned
on the same night at Blind Indian Lake. They were three hundred yards
apart. There is absolutely no doubt that it was incendiarism."

He waited in silence, but Gregson still sat watching him in silence.

"That was the beginning--three months ago. Since then some mysterious
force has been fighting us at every step. A week after the warehouses
burned, a dredge and boat-building yard, which we had constructed at
considerable expense at the mouth of the Gray Beaver, was destroyed by
fire. A little later a 'premature' explosion of dynamite cost us ten
thousand dollars and two weeks' labor of fifty men. I organized a
special guard service, composed of fifty of my best men, but it seemed
to do no good. Since then we have lost three miles of road-bed,
destroyed by a washout. A terrific charge of dynamite had been used to
let down upon us the water of a lake which was situated at the top of a
ridge near our right of way. Whoever our enemies are, they seem to know
our most secret movements, and attack us whenever we leave a vulnerable
point open. The most surprising part of the whole affair is this: in
spite of my own efforts to keep our losses quiet the rumor has spread
for hundreds of miles around us, even reaching Churchill, that the
northerners have declared war against our enterprise and are determined
to drive us out. Two-thirds of my men believe this. MacDougall, my
engineer, believes it. Between my working forces and the Indians,
French, and half-breeds about us there has slowly developed a feeling
of suspicion and resentment. It is growing--every day, every hour. If
it continues it can result in but two things--ruin for ourselves,
triumph for those who are getting at us in this dastardly manner. If
something is not done very soon--within a month--perhaps less--the
country will run with the blood of vengeance from Churchill to the
Barrens. If what I expect to happen does happen there will be no
government road built to the Bay, the new buildings at Churchill will
turn gray with disuse, the treasures of the north will remain
undisturbed, the country itself will slip back a hundred years. The
forest people will be filled with hatred and suspicion so long as the
story of great wrong travels down from father to son. And this wrong,
this crime--"

Philip's face was white, cold, almost passionless in the grim hardness
that had settled in it. He unfolded a long typewritten letter, and
handed it to Gregson.

"That letter is the final word," he explained. "It will tell you what I
have not told you. In some way it was mixed in my mail and I did not
discover the error until I had opened it. It is from the headquarters
of our enemies, addressed to the man who is in charge of their plot up
here."

"He waited, scarce breathing, while Gregson bent over the typewritten
pages. He noted the slow tightening of the other's fingers as he turned
from the first sheet to the second; he watched Gregson's face, the slow
ebbing of color, the gray white that followed it, the stiffening of his
arms and shoulders as he finished. Then Gregson looked up.

"Good God!" he breathed.

For a full half-minute the two men gazed at each other across the
table, without speaking.




IV


Philip broke the silence.

"Now--you understand."

"It is impossible!" gasped Gregson. "I cannot believe this! It--it
might have happened a thousand--two thousand years ago--but not now. My
God, man!" he cried, more excitedly. "You do not mean to tell me that
you believe this will be done?"

"Yes," replied Philip.

"It is impossible!" exclaimed Gregson again, crushing the letter in his
hand. "A man doesn't live--a combination doesn't exist--that would
start such a hell loose as this--in this way!"

Philip smiled grimly.

"The man does live, and the combination does exist," he said, slowly.
"Greggy, I have known of men, and of combinations who have spent
millions, who have sacrificed everything of honor and truth, who have
driven thousands of men, women, and children to starvation--and
worse--to achieve a victory in high finance. I have known of men and
combinations who have broken almost every law of man and God in the
fight for money and power. And so have you! You have associated with
some of these men. You have laughed and talked with them, smoked with
them, and have dined at their tables. You spent a week at Selden's
summer borne, and it was Selden who cornered wheat three years ago and
raised the price of bread two cents a loaf. It was Selden who brought
about the bread riots in New York, Chicago, and a score of other
cities, who swung wide the prison doors for thousands, whose millions
were gained at a cost of misery, crime, and even death. And Selden is
only one out of thousands who live to-day, watching for their
opportunities, giving no heed to those who may fall under the
juggernaut of their capital. This isn't the age of petty
discrimination, Greggy. It's the age of the almighty dollar, and of the
fight for it. And there's no chivalry, no quarter shown in this fight.
Men of Selden's stamp don't stop at women and children. The
scrubwoman's dollar is just as big as yours or mine, and if a scheme
could be promoted whereby every scrubwoman in America could be safely
robbed of a dollar you'd find thousands of men down there in our cities
ready to go into it to-morrow. And to such men as these what is the
sacrifice of a few women up here?"

Gregson dropped the letter, crumpled and twisted, upon the table.

"I wonder--if I understand," he said, looking into Philip's white face.
"There has undoubtedly been previous correspondence, and this letter
contains the final word. It shows that your enemies have already
succeeded in working up the forest people against you, and have filled
them with suspicion. Their last blow is to be--"

He stopped, and Philip nodded at the horrified question in his eyes.

"Greggy, up here there is one law which reigns above all other law.
When I was in Prince Albert a year ago I was sitting on the veranda of
the little old Windsor Hotel. About me were a dozen wild men of the
north, who had come down for a day or two to the edge of civilization.
Most of those men had not been out of the forests for a year. Two of
them were from the Barrens, and this was their first glimpse of
civilized life in five years. As we sat there a woman came up the
street. She turned in at the hotel. About me there was a sudden
lowering of voices, a shuffling of feet. As she passed, every one of
those twelve rose from their seats and stood with bowed heads and their
caps in their hands until she had gone. I was the only one who remained
sitting! That, Greggy, is the one great law of life up here, the
worship of woman because she is woman. A man may steal, he may kill,
but he must not break this law. If he steals or kills, the mounted
police may bring the offender to justice; but if he breaks this other
law there is but one punishment, and that is the punishment of the
people. That is what this letter purposes to do--to break this law in
order that its penalty may fall upon us. And if they succeed, God help
us!"

It was Gregson who jumped to his feet now. He took half a dozen nervous
steps, paused, lighted a cigarette, and looked down into Philip's
upturned face.

"I understand now where the fight is coming in," he said. "If this
thing goes through, these people will rise and wipe you off the map.
They'll lay it to you and your men, of course. And I fancy it won't be
a job half done if they feel about it as I'd feel. But," he demanded,
sharply, "why don't you put the affair into the hands of the proper
authorities--the police or the government? You've got--By George, you
must have the name of the man to whom that letter was addressed!"

Philip handed him a soiled white envelope, of the kind in which
official documents are usually mailed.

"That's the man."

Gregson gave a low whistle.

"Lord--Fitzhugh--Lee!" he read, slowly, as though scarce believing his
eyes. "Great Scott! A British peer!"

The cynical smile on Philip's lips cut his words short.

"Perhaps," he said. "But if there is a British lord up here he isn't
very well known, Greggy. No one knows of him. No one has heard a rumor
of him. That is why we can't go to the police or the government. They'd
give small credence to what we've got to show. This letter wouldn't
count the weight of a feather without further evidence, and a lot of
it. Besides, we haven't time to go to the government. It is too far
away and too slow. And as for the police--I know of three in this
territory, and there are fifteen thousand square miles of mountains and
plains and forest in their 'beat.' It's up to you and me to find this
Lord Fitzhugh. If we can do that we will be in a position to put a
kibosh on this plot in a hurry. If we fail to run him down--"

"What then?"

"We'll have to watch our chances. I've told you all that I know, and
you're on an even working basis with me. At first I thought that I
understood the object of those who are planning to ruin us in this
cowardly manner. But I don't now. If they ruin us they also destroy the
chances of any other company that may be scheming to usurp our place.
For that reason I--"

"There must still be other factors in the game," said Gregson, as
Philip hesitated.

"There are. I want you to work out your own suspicions, Greggy, and
then we'll compare notes. Lord Fitzhugh is the key to the whole
situation. No matter who is at the bottom of this plot, Lord Fitzhugh
is the man at the working end of it. We don't care so much about the
writer of this letter as the one to whom it was written. It is evident
that he had planned to be at Churchill, for the letter is addressed to
him here. But he hasn't shown up. He has never been here, so far as I
can discover."

"I'd give a year's growth for a copy of the BRITISH PEERAGE or a WHO'S
WHO," mused Gregson, flecking the ashes from his cigarette. "Who the
deuce can this Lord Fitzhugh be? What sort of an Englishman would mix
up in a dirty job of this kind? You might imagine him to be one of the
men behind the guns, like Brokaw. But, by George, he's working the
dirty end of it himself, according to that letter!"

"You're beginning to use your head already, Greggy," said Philip, a
little more cheerfully. "I've asked myself that question a hundred
times during the last three days, and I'm more at sea than ever. If it
had been plain Tom Brown or Bill Jones, the name would not have
suggested anything beyond what you have read in the letter. That's the
question: Why should a Lord Fitzhugh Lee be mixed up in this affair?"

The two men looked at each other keenly for a few moments in silence.

"It suggests--" began Gregson.

"What?"

"That there may be a bigger scheme behind this affair than we imagine.
In fact, it suggests to me that the northerners are being stirred up
against you and your men for some other and more powerful reason than
to make you get out of the country and compel the government to
withdraw your license. So help me God, I believe there's more behind
it!"

"So do I," said Philip, quietly.

"Have you any suspicions of what might be the more powerful motive?"

"None. I know that British capital is heavily interested in mineral
lands east of the surveyed line. But there is none at Churchill. All
operations have been carried on from Montreal and Toronto."

"Have you written to Brokaw about this letter?"

"You are the first to whom I have revealed its contents," said Philip.
"I have neglected to tell you that Brokaw is so worked up over the
affair that he is joining me in the north. The Hudson's Bay Company's
ship, which comes over twice a year, touches at Halifax, and if Brokaw
followed out his intentions he took passage there. The ship should be
in within a week or ten days. And, by the way"--Philip stood up and
thrust his hands deep in his pockets as he spoke, half smiling at
Gregson--"it gives me pleasure to hand you a bit of cheerful
information along with that," he added. "Miss Brokaw is coming with
him. She is very beautiful."

Gregson held a lighted match until it burnt his finger-tips.

"The deuce you say! I've heard--"

"Yes, you have heard of her beauty, no doubt. I am not a special
enthusiast in your line, Greggy, but I will confirm your opinion of
Miss Brokaw. You will say that she is the most beautiful girl you have
ever seen, and you will want to make heads of her for BURKE'S. I
suppose you wonder why she is coming up here? So do I."

There was a look of perplexity in Philip's eyes which Gregson might
have noticed if he had not gone to the door to look out into the night.

"What makes the stars so big and bright up in this country, Phil?" he
asked.

"Because of the clearness of the atmosphere through which you are
looking," replied Philip, wondering what was passing through the
other's mind. "This air--compared with ours--is just like a piece of
glass that has been cleaned of a year's accumulation of dirt."

Gregson whistled softly for a few moments. Then he said, without
turning:

"She's got to go some if she beats the girl I saw this evening, Phil."
He turned at Philip's silence, and laughed. "I beg your pardon, old
man, I didn't mean to speak of her as if she were a horse. I mean Miss
Brokaw."

"And I don't particularly like the idea of betting on the merits of a
pretty girl," replied Philip, "but I'll break the rule for once, and
wager you the best hat in New York that she does beat her."

"Done!" said Gregson. "A little gentle excitement of this sort will
relieve the tension of the other thing, Phil. I've heard enough of
business for to-night. I'm going to finish a sketch that I have begun
of her before I forget the fine points. Any objection?"

"None at all," said Philip. "Meanwhile I'll go out to breathe a spell."

He put on his coat and took down his cap from a peg in the wall.
Gregson had seated himself under the lamp and was sharpening a pencil.
As Philip went to go out Gregson drew an envelope from his pocket and
tossed it on the table.

"If you should happen to see any one that looks like--her," he said,
nodding toward the envelope, "kindly put in a word for me, will you? I
did that in a hurry. It's not half flattering."

Philip laughed as he picked up the envelope.

"The most beau--" he began.

He caught himself with a jerk. Gregson, looking up from his
pencil-sharpening, saw the smile leave his lips and a quick flush leap
into his bronzed cheeks. He stared at the face on the envelope for a
half a minute, then gazed speechlessly at Gregson.

It was Gregson who laughed, softly and without suspicion.

"How does your wager look now?" he taunted.

"She--is--beautiful," murmured Philip, dropping the envelope and
turning to the door, "Don't wait for me, Greggy. Go to bed."

He heard Gregson laugh behind him, and he wondered, as he went out,
what Gregson would say if he told him that he had drawn on the back of
the old envelope the beautiful face of Eileen Brokaw!




V


A dozen steps beyond the door Philip paused in the shadow of a dense
spruce, half persuaded to return. From where he stood he could see
Gregson bending over the table, already at work on the picture. He
confessed that the sketch had startled him. He knew that it had sent
the hot blood rushing to his face, and that only through a fortunate
circumstance had Gregson ascribed its effect upon him to something that
was wide of the truth. Miss Brokaw was a thousand or more miles away.
At this moment she was somewhere in the North Atlantic, if their ship
had left Halifax. She had never been in the north. More than that, he
knew that Gregson had never seen Miss Brokaw, and had heard of her only
through himself and the society columns of the newspapers. How could he
explain his possession of the sketch?

He drew a step or two nearer to the open door, and stopped again. If he
returned to question Gregson it would draw him perilously near to
explanations which he did not care to make, to the one secret which he
wished to guard from his friend's knowledge. After all, the picture was
only a resemblance. It could be nothing but a resemblance, even though
it was so striking and unusual that it had thrown him off his guard at
first. When he returned later and looked at it again he would no doubt
be able to see his error.

He walked on through the spruce shadows and up a narrow trail that led
to the bald knob of the ridge, feeling his way with his right hand
before him when the denseness of the forest shut out the light of the
stars and the moon, until at last he stood out strong and clear under
the glow of the skies, with the world sweeping out in black and gray
mystery around him. To the north was the Bay, reaching away like a vast
black plain. Half a mile distant two or three lights were burning over
Fort Churchill, red eyes peering up out of the deep pool of darkness;
to the south and west there swept the gray, starlit distances which lay
between him and civilization.

He leaned against a great rock, resting his elbows in a carpet of moss,
and his eyes turned into the mystery of those distances. The sea of
spruce-tops that rose out of the ragged valley at his feet whispered
softly in the night wind; from out of their depths trembled the low
hoot of an owl; over the vaster desolation beyond hovered a weird and
unbroken silence. More than once the spirit of this world had come to
him in the night and had roused him from his slumber to sit alone out
under the stars, imagining all that it might tell him if he could read
the voice of it in the whispering of the trees, if he could but
understand it as he longed to understand it, and could find in it the
peace which he knew that it all but held for him. The spirit of it had
never been nearer to him than to-night. He felt it close to him, so
near that it seemed like the warm, vibrant touch of a presence at his
side, something which had come to him in a voiceless loneliness as
great as his own, watching and listening with him beside the rock. It
seemed nearer to him since he had seen and talked with Gregson. It was
much nearer to him since a few minutes ago, when he had looked upon
what he had first thought to be the face of Eileen Brokaw.

And this was the world--the spirit--that had changed him. He wondered
if Gregson had seen the change which he tried so hard to conceal. He
wondered if Miss Brokaw would see it when she came, and if her soft,
gray eyes would read to the bottom of him as they had fathomed him once
before upon a time which seemed years and years ago. Thoughts like
these troubled him. Twice that day he had found stealing over him a
feeling that was almost physical pain, and yet he knew that this pain
was but the gnawing of a great loneliness in his heart. In these
moments he had been sorry that he had brought Gregson back into his
life. And with Gregson he was bringing back Eileen Brokaw. He was more
than sorry for that. The thought of it made him grow warm and
uncomfortable, though the night air from off the Bay was filled with
the chill tang of the northern icebergs. Again his thoughts brought him
face to face with the old pictures, the old life. With them came
haunting memories of a Philip Whittemore who had once lived, and who
had died; and with these ghosts of the past there surged upon him the
loneliness which seemed to crush and stifle him. Like one in a dream he
was swept back. Over the black spruce at his feet, far into the gray,
misty distances beyond, over forests and mountains and the vast, grim
silences his vision reached out until he saw life as it had begun for
him, and as he had lived it for a time. It had opened fair. It had
given promise. It had filled him with hope and ambition. And then it
had changed.

Unconsciously he clenched his hands as he thought of what had followed,
of the black days of ruin, of death, of the dissolution of all that he
had hoped and dreamed for. He had fought, because he was born a
fighter. He had risen again and again, only to find misfortune still at
his face. At first he had laughed, and had called it bad luck. But the
bad luck had followed him, dogging him with a persistence which
developed in him a new perspective of things. He dropped away from his
clubs. He began to measure men and women as he had not measured them
before, and there grew in him slowly a revulsion for what those
measurements revealed. The spirit that was growing in him called out
for bigger things, for the wild freedom which he had tasted for a time
with Gregson--for a life which was not warped by the gilded amenities
of the crowded ballroom to-night, by the frenzied dollar-fight
to-morrow. No one could understand that change in him. He could find no
spirit in sympathy with him, no chord in another breast that he could
reach out and touch and thrill with understanding. Once he had
hoped--and tried--

A deep breath, almost a sigh, fell from his lips as he thought of that
last night, at the Brokaw ball. He heard again the laughter and chatter
of men and women, the soft rustle of skirts--and then the break, the
silence, as the low, sweet music of his favorite waltz began, while he
stood screened behind a bank of palms looking down into the clear gray
eyes of Eileen Brokaw. He saw himself as he had stood then, leaning
over her slim white shoulders, intoxicated by her beauty, his face pale
with the fear of what he was about to say; and he saw the girl, with
her beautiful head thrown a little back, so that her golden hair almost
touched his lips, waiting for him to speak. For months he had fought
against the fascination of her beauty. Again and again he had almost
surrendered to it, only to pull himself back in time. He had seen this
girl, as pure-looking as an angel, strike deeply at the hearts of other
men; he had heard her laugh and talk lightly of the wounds she had
made. Behind the eyes which gazed up at him, dear and sweet as pools of
sunlit water, he knew there lay the consuming passion for power, for
admiration, for the froth-like pleasures of the life that was swirling
about them. Sincerity was but their mask. He knew that the beautiful
gray eyes lied to him when he saw in them all that he held glorious in
womanhood.

He laughed softly to himself as the picture grew in his mind, and he
saw Ransom come blundering in through the palms, mopping his red face
and chattering inane things to little Miss Meesen. Ransom was always
blundering. This time his blunder saved Philip. The passionate words
died on his lips; and when Ransom and Miss Meesen turned about in a
giggling flutter, he spoke no words of love, but opened up his heart to
this girl whom he would have loved if she had been like her eyes. It
was his last hope--that she would understand him, see with him the
emptiness of his life, sympathize with him.

And she had laughed at him!

She had risen to her feet; there had come for an instant a flash like
that of fire in her eyes; her voice trembled a little when she spoke.
There was resentment in the poise of her white shoulders as Ransom's
voice came to them in a loud laugh from behind the palms; her red lips
showed disdain and anger. She hated Ransom for breaking in; she
despised Philip for allowing the interruption to tear away her triumph.
Her own betrayal of herself was like tonic to Philip. He laughed
joyously when he was alone out in the cool night air. Ransom never knew
why Philip hunted him out and shook his fat hand so warmly at parting.

Philip again felt himself in the fever of that night as he turned from
the rock and began picking his way down the side of the ridge toward
the Bay. He found himself wondering what had become of good-natured,
dense-headed Ransom, who had all he could do to spend his father's
allowance. From Ransom his thoughts turned to little Harry Dell,
Roscoe, big Dan Philips, and three or four others who had sacrificed
their hearts at Miss Brokaw's feet. He grimaced as he thought of young
Dell, who had worshiped the ground she walked on, and who had gone
straight to the devil when she threw him over. He wondered, too, where
Roscoe was. He knew that Roscoe would have won out if it had not been
for the financial crash which took his brokerage firm off its feet and
left him a pauper. He had heard that Roscoe had gone up into British
Columbia to recuperate his fortune in Douglas fir. As for big Dan--

Philip stumbled over a rock, and rose with a bruised knee. The shock
brought him back to realities, and a few moments later he stood upon
the narrow boulder-strewn beach, rubbing his knee and calling himself a
fool for allowing the old thoughts to stir him up. Out there,
somewhere, Brokaw and his daughter were coming. That Miss Brokaw was
with her father was a circumstance which was of no importance to him.
At least he told himself so, and set his face toward Churchill.

To-night the stars and the moon seemed to be more than usually
brilliant. About him the great masses of rock, the tumbling surf, the
edge of the forest, and the Bay itself were illumined as if by the
light of a softly radiant day. He looked at his watch and found that it
was past midnight. He had been up since dawn, and yet he felt no touch
of fatigue, no need of sleep. He took off his cap and walked bareheaded
in the mellow light, his moccasined feet falling lightly, his eyes
alert to all that this wonderful night world might hold for him. Ahead
of him rose a giant mass of rock, worn smooth and slippery by the water
dashed against it in the crashing storms of countless centuries, and
this he climbed, panting when he reached the top. His eyes turned to
where he saw Fort Churchill sleeping along the edge of the Bay.

In that same spot, a great pool of night-glow between two
forest-crowned ridges, it had lain for hundreds of years. He passed the
ancient landing-place of rocks, built a hundred and fifty years ago for
the first ships that came over the strange sea; he stood upon the
tumbled foundations of the Fort, that was still older, and saw the
starlight glinting on one of the brass cannon that lay where it had
fallen amid the debris, untouched and unmoved since the days,
ages-gone, when it had last thundered its welcome or its defiance
through the solitudes; he walked slowly along the shore where the sea
had lashed wearily for many a year, to reach the wilderness dead, and
where now, triumphant, the frothing surf bared gun-case coffins and
tumbled the bones of men down into its sullen depths. And such men! Men
who had lived and died when the world was unborn in a half of its
knowledge and science, when red blood was the great capital, strong
hearts the winners of life. And there were women, too, women who had
come with these men, and died with them, in the opening-up of a new
world. It was such men as these, and such women as these, that Philip
loved, and he walked with bared head and swiftly beating heart over the
unmarked jungle of the dead.

And then he came to other things, the first low log buildings of
Churchill, to the silence of sleeping life. New buildings loomed
up--working quarters of men who were grubbing for dollars, the new
wharves, the skeletons of elevators, sullen, windowless warehouses, the
office-buildings of men who were already fighting and quarreling and
gripping at one another's throats in the struggle for supremacy, for
the biggest and ripest plums in this new land of opportunity. The
dollar-fight had begun, and the things that already marked its presence
loomed monstrous and grotesque to Philip, as if jeering at the
forgotten efforts of those whom the sea was washing away. And suddenly
it struck Philip that the sea, working ceaselessly, digging away at its
dead, was not the enemy of the nameless creatures in the gun-case
coffins, but that it was a friend, stanch through centuries, rescuing
them now from the desecration that was to come; and for a moment he was
resistless to the spirit that moved him about and made him face that
sea with something that was almost a prayer in his heart.

As he turned he saw that a light had appeared in one of the low log
buildings which contained the two offices of the Keewatin Mines and
Lands Company. The light, and the bulky shadow of old Pearce, which
appeared for a moment on one of the drawn curtains, aroused Philip to
other thoughts. Since his arrival at Churchill he had made the
acquaintance of Pearce, and it struck him now that just such a man as
this might be Lord Fitzhugh Lee. The Keewatin Mines and Lands Company
had no mines and few lands, and yet Pearce had told him that they were
doing a hustling business down south, selling stock on mineral claims
that couldn't be worked for years. After all, was he any better than
Pearce?

The old bitterness rose in him. He was no better than Pearce, no better
than this Lord Fitzhugh himself, and it was fate--fate and people, that
had made him so. He walked swiftly now, following close along the shore
in the hard stretch kept bare by the tides, until he came to the red
coals of half a dozen Indian fires on the edge of the forest beyond the
company's buildings. A dog scented him and howled. He heard a guttural
voice break in a word of command from one of the tepees, and there was
silence again.

He turned to the right, burying himself deeper and deeper into the
great silence of the north, his quick steps keeping pace with the
thoughts that were passing through his brain. Fate, bad luck,
circumstance--they had been against him. He had told himself this a
hundred times, had laughed at them with the confidence of one who knew
that some day he would rise above these things in triumph. And yet what
were these elements of fortune, as he had called them, but people? A
feeling of personal resentment began to oppress him. People had downed
him, and not circumstance and bad luck. Men and women had made a
failure of him, and not fate. For the first time it occurred to him
that the very men and women whom Brokaw and his associates had duped,
whom Pearce was duping, would play the game in the same way if they had
the opportunity. What if he had played on the winning side, if he had
enlisted his fighting energies with men like Brokaw and Pearce, fought
for money and power in place of this other thing, which seemed to count
so little? Other men would have given much to have been in his favor
with Eileen Brokaw. He might have been in the front of this other
fight, the winning fight, the possessor of fortune, a beautiful woman--

He stopped suddenly. It seemed to him that he had heard a voice. He had
climbed from out of the shadow of the forest until he stood now on a
gray cliff of rock that reached out into the Bay, like the point of a
great knife guarding Churchill. A block of sandstone rose in his path,
and he passed quietly around it. In another instant he had flattened
himself against it.

A dozen feet away, full in the moonlight, three figures sat on the edge
of the cliff, as motionless as though hewn out of rock. Instinctively
Philip's hand slipped to his revolver holster, but he drew it back when
he saw that one of the three figures was that of a woman. Beside her
crouched a huge wolf-dog; on the other side of the dog sat a man. The
man was resting in the attitude of an Indian, with his elbows on his
knees, his chin in the palms of his hands, gazing steadily and silently
out over the Bay toward Churchill.

It was his companion that held Philip motionless against the face of
the rock. She, too, was leaning forward, gazing in that same steady,
silent way toward Churchill. She was bareheaded. Her hair fell loose
over her shoulders and streamed down her back until it piled itself
upon the rock, shining dark and lustrous in the light of the moon.
Philip knew that she was not an Indian.

Suddenly the girl sat erect, and then sprang to her feet, partly facing
him, the breeze rippling her hair about her face and shoulders, her
eyes turned to the vast gray depths of the world beyond the forests.
For an instant she turned so that the light of the moon fell full upon
her, and in that moment Philip thought that her eyes had searched him
out in the shadow of the rock and were looking straight into his own.
Never had he seen such a beautiful face among the forest people. He had
dreamed of such faces beside camp-fires, in the deep loneliness of long
nights in the forests, when he had awakened to bring before him visions
of what Eileen Brokaw might have been to him if he had found her one of
these people. He drew himself closer to the rock. The girl turned again
to the edge of the cliff, her slender form silhouetted against the
starlit sky. She leaned over the dog, and he heard her voice, soft and
caressing, but he could not understand her words. The man lifted his
head, and he recognized the swarthy, clear-cut features of a French
half-breed. He moved away as quietly as he had come.

The girl's voice stopped him.

"And that is Churchill, Pierre--the Churchill you have told me of,
where the ships come in?"

"Yes, that is Churchill, Jeanne."

For a moment there was silence. Then, clear and low, with a wild,
sobbing note in her voice that thrilled Philip, the girl cried:

"And I hate it, Pierre. I hate it--hate it--hate it!"

Philip stepped out boldly from the rock.

"And I hate it, too," he said.




VI


Scarce had he spoken when he would have given much to have recalled his
words, wrung from his lips by that sobbing note of loneliness, of
defiance, of half pain in the girl's voice. It was the same note, the
same spirit crying out against his world that he had listened to in the
moaning of the surf as it labored to carry away the dead, and in the
wind that sighed in the spruce-tops below the mountain, only now it was
the spirit speaking through a human voice. Every fiber in his body
vibrated in response to it, and he stood with bared head, filled with a
wild desire to make these people understand, and yet startled at the
effect which his appearance had produced.

The girl faced him, her eyes shining with sudden fear. Quicker than her
own was the movement of the half-breed. In a flash he was upon his
feet, his dark face tense with action, his right hand gripping at
something in his belt as he bent toward the figure in the center of the
rock. His posture was that of an animal ready to spring. Close beside
him gleamed the white fangs of the wolf-dog. The girl leaned over and
twisted her fingers in the tawny hair that bristled on the dog's neck.
Philip heard her speak, but she did not move her eyes from his face. It
was the tableau of a moment, tense, breathless. The only thing that
moved was the shimmer of steel. Philip caught the gleam of it under the
half-breed's hand.

"Don't do that, M'sieur," he said, pointing at the other's belt. "I am
sorry that I disturbed you. Sometimes I come up here--alone--to smoke
my pipe and listen to the sea down there. I heard you say that you hate
Churchill, and I hate it. That is why I spoke."

He turned to the girl.

"I am sorry. I beg your pardon."

He looked at her with new wonderment. She had tossed back her loose
hair, and stood tall and straight in the moonlight, her dark eyes
gazing at him now calmly and without affright. She was dressed in rich
yellow buckskin, as soft as chamois. Her throat was bare. A deep collar
of lace fell over her shoulders. One hand, raised to her breast,
revealed a wide gauntlet cuff of red or purple plush, of a fashion two
centuries old. Her lips were parted, and he saw the faintest gleam of
her white teeth, the quick rising and falling of her bosom. He had
spoken directly to her, yet she gave no sign of having heard him.

"You startled us, that is all, M'sieur," said Pierre, quietly. His
English was excellent, and as he spoke he bowed low to Philip. "It is I
whom you must pardon, M'sieur--for betraying so much caution."

Philip held out his hand.

"My name is Whittemore--Philip Whittemore," he said. "I'm staying at
Churchill until the ship comes in and--and I hope you'll let me sit
here on the rock."

For an instant Pierre's fingers gripped his hand, and he bowed low
again like a courtier. Philip saw that he, too, wore the same big,
old-fashioned cuffs, and that it was not a knife that hung at his belt,
but a short rapier.

"And I am Pierre--Pierre Couchee," he said. "And this--is my
sister--Jeanne. We do not belong to Fort Churchill, but come from Fort
o' God. Good night, M'sieur!"

The girl had taken a step back, and now she swept him a courtesy so low
that her fallen hair streamed over her shoulders. She spoke no word,
but passed quickly with Pierre up the rock, and while Philip stood
stunned and speechless they disappeared swiftly into the white gloom of
the night.

Mutely he gazed after them. For a long time he stood staring beyond the
rocks, marveling at the strangeness of this thing that had happened. An
hour before he had stood with bared head over the ancient dead at
Churchill, and now, on the rock, he had seen the resurrection of what
he had dreamed those dead to be in life. He had never seen people like
Pierre and Jeanne. Their strange dress, the rapier at Pierre's side,
his courtly bow, the low, graceful courtesy that the girl had made him,
all carried him back to the days of the old pictures that hung in the
factor's room at Churchill, when high-blooded gallants came into the
wilderness with their swords at their sides, wearing the favors of
court ladies next their hearts. Pierre, standing there on the rock,
with his hand on his rapier, might have been Grosellier himself, the
prince's favorite, and Jeanne--

Something white on the rock near where the girl had been sitting caught
Philip's eyes. In a moment he held in his fingers a small handkerchief
and a broad ribbon of finely knit lace. In her haste to get away she
had forgotten these things. He was about to run to the crest of the
cliff and call loudly for Pierre Couchee when he held the handkerchief
and the lace close to his face and the delicate perfume of heliotrope
stopped him. There was something familiar about it, something that held
him wondering and mystified, until he knew that he had lost the
opportunity to recall Pierre and his companion. He looked at the
handkerchief more, closely. It was a dainty fabric, so soft that it
gave barely the sensation of touch when he crushed it in the palm of
his hand. For a few moments he was puzzled to account for the filmy
strip of lace. Then the truth came to him. Jeanne had used it to bind
her hair!

He laughed softly, joyously, as he wound the bit of fabric about his
fingers and retraced his steps toward Churchill. Again and again he
pressed the tiny handkerchief to his face, breathing of its sweetness;
and the action suddenly stirred his memory to the solution of its
mystery. It was this same sweetness that had come to him on the night
that he had looked down into the beautiful face of Eileen Brokaw at the
Brokaw ball. He remembered now that Eileen Brokaw loved heliotrope, and
that she always wore a purple heliotrope at her white throat or in the
gold of her hair. For a moment it struck him as singular that so many
things had happened this day to remind him of Brokaw's daughter. The
thought hastened his steps. He was anxious to look at the picture
again, to convince himself that he had been mistaken. Gregson was
asleep when he re-entered the cabin. The light was burning low, and
Philip turned up the wick. On the table was the picture as Gregson had
left it. This time there was no doubt. He had drawn the face of Eileen
Brokaw. In a spirit of jest he had written under it, "The Wife of Lord
Fitzhugh."

In spite of their absurdity the words affected Philip curiously. Was it
possible that Miss Brokaw had reached Fort Churchill in some other way
than by ship? And, if not, was it possible that in this remote corner
of the earth there was another woman who resembled her so closely?
Philip took a step toward Gregson, half determined to awaken him. And
yet, on second thought, he knew that Gregson could not explain. Even if
the artist had learned of his affair with Miss Brokaw and had secured a
picture of her in some way, he would not presume to go this far. He was
convinced that Gregson had drawn the picture of a face that he had seen
that day. Again he read the words at the bottom of the sketch, and once
more he experienced their curious effect upon him--an effect which it
was impossible for him to analyze even in his own mind.

He replaced the picture upon the table and drew the handkerchief and
bit of lace from his pocket. In the light of the lamp he saw that both
were as unusual as had been the picturesque dress of the girl and her
companion. Even to his inexperienced eyes and touch they gave evidence
of a richness that puzzled him, of a fashion that he had never seen.
They were of exquisite workmanship. The lace was of a delicate ivory
color, faintly tinted with yellow. The handkerchief was in the shape of
a heart, and in one corner of it, so finely wrought that he could
barely make out the silken letters, was the word "Camille."

The scent of heliotrope rose more strongly in the closed room, and from
the handkerchief Philip's eyes turned to the face of Eileen Brokaw
looking at him from out of Gregson's sketch. It was a curious
coincidence. He reached over and placed the picture face down. Then he
loaded his pipe, and sat smoking, his vision traveling beyond the
table, beyond the closed door to the lonely black rock where he had
come upon Jeanne and Pierre. Clouds of smoke rose about him, and he
half closed his eyes. He saw the girl again, as she stood there; he saw
the moonlight shining in her hair, the dark, startled beauty of her
eyes as she turned upon him; he heard again the low sobbing note in her
voice as she cried out her hatred against Churchill. He forgot Eileen
Brokaw now, forgot in these moments all that he and Gregson had talked
of that day. His schemes, his fears, his feverish eagerness to begin
the fight against his enemies died away in thoughts of the beautiful
girl who had come into his life this night. It seemed to him now that
he had known her for a long time, that she had been a part of him
always, and that it was her spirit that he had been groping and
searching for, and could never find. For the space of those few moments
on the cliff she had driven out the emptiness and the loneliness from
his heart, and there filled him a wild desire to make her understand,
to talk with her, to stand shoulder to shoulder with Pierre out there
in the night, a comrade.

Suddenly his fingers closed tightly over the handkerchief. He turned
and looked steadily at Gregson. His friend was sleeping, with his face
to the wall.

Would not Pierre return to the rock in search of these articles which
his sister had left behind? The thought set his blood tingling. He
would go back--and wait for Pierre. But if Pierre did not return--until
to-morrow?

He laughed softly to himself as he drew paper toward him and picked up
the pencil which Gregson had used. For many minutes he wrote steadily.
When he had done, he folded what he had written and tied it in the
handkerchief. The strip of lace with which Jeanne had bound her hair he
folded gently and placed in his breast pocket. There was a guilty flush
in his face as he stole silently to the door. What would Gregson say if
he knew that he--Phil Whittemore, the man whom he had once idealized as
"The Fighter," and whom he believed to be proof against all love of
woman--was doing this thing? He opened and closed the door softly.

At least he would send his message to these strange people of the
wilderness. They would know that he was not a part of that Churchill
which they hated, that in his heart he had ceased to be a thing of its
breed. He apologized again for his sudden appearance on the rock, but
the apology was only an excuse for other things which he wrote, in
which for a few brief moments he bared himself to those whom he knew
would understand, and asked that their acquaintance might be continued.
He felt that there was something almost boyish in what he was doing;
and yet, as he hurried over the ridge and down into Churchill again, he
was thrilled as no other adventure had ever thrilled him before. As he
approached the cliff he began to fear that the half-breed would not
return for the things which Jeanne had left, or that he had already
re-visited the rock. The latter thought urged him on until he was half
running. The crest of the cliff was bare when he reached it. He looked
at his watch. He had been gone an hour.

Where the moonlight seemed to fall brightest he dropped the
handkerchief, and then slipped back into the rocky trail that led to
the edge of the Bay. He had scarcely reached the strip of level beach
that lay between him and Churchill when from far behind him there came
the long howl of a dog. It was the wolf-dog. He knew it by the slow,
dismal rising of the cry and the infinite sadness with which it as
slowly died away until lost in the whisperings of the forest and the
gentle wash of the sea. Pierre was returning. He was coming back
through the forest. Perhaps Jeanne would be with him.

For the third time Philip climbed back to the great moonlit rock at the
top of the cliff. Eagerly he faced the north, whence the wailing cry of
the wolf-dog had come. Then he turned to the spot where he had dropped
the handkerchief, and his heart gave a sudden jump.

There was nothing on the rock. The handkerchief was gone!




VII


Philip stood undecided, his ears strained to catch the slightest sound.
Ten minutes had not elapsed since he had dropped the handkerchief.
Pierre could not have gone far among the rocks. It was possible that he
was concealed somewhere near him now. Softly he called his name.

"Pierre--ho, Pierre Couchee!"

There was no answer, and in the next breath he was sorry that he had
called. He went silently down the trail. He had come to the edge of
Churchill when once more he heard the howl of the dog far back in the
forest. He stopped to locate as nearly as he could the point whence the
sound came, for he was certain now that the dog had not returned with
Pierre, but had remained with Jeanne, and was howling from their camp.

Gregson was awake and sitting on the edge of his bunk when Philip
entered the cabin.

"Where the deuce have you been?" he demanded. "I was just trying to
make up my mind to go out and hunt for you. Stolen--lost--or something
like that?"

"I've been thinking," said Philip, truthfully.

"So have I," said Gregson. "Ever since you came back, wrote that
letter, and went out again--"

"You were asleep," corrected Philip. "I looked at you."

"Perhaps I was--when you looked. But I have a hazy recollection of you
sitting there at the table, writing like a fiend. Anyway, I've been
thinking ever since you went out of the door, and--I'd like to read
that Lord Fitzhugh letter again."

Philip handed him the letter. He was quite sure from his friend's
manner of speaking that he had seen nothing of the handkerchief and the
lace.

Gregson seized the paper lazily, yawned, and slipped it under the
blanket which he had doubled up for a pillow.

"Do you mind if I keep it for a few days. Phil?" he asked.

"Not in the least, if you'll tell me why you want it," said Philip.

"I will--when I discover a reason myself," replied his friend, coolly,
stretching himself out again in the bunk. "Remember when I dreamed that
Carabobo planter was sticking a knife into you, Phil?--and the next day
he tried it? Well, I've had a funny dream, I want to sleep on this
letter. I may want to sleep on it for a week. Better turn in if you
expect to get a wink between now and morning."

For half an hour after he had undressed and extinguished the light
Philip lay awake reviewing the incidents of his night's adventure. He
was certain that his letter was in the hands of Pierre and Jeanne, but
he was not so sure that they would respond to it. He half expected that
they would not, and yet he felt a deep sense of satisfaction in what he
had done. If he met them again he would not be quite a stranger. And
that he would meet them he was not only confident, but determined. If
they did not appear in Fort Churchill he would hunt out their camp.

He found himself asking a dozen questions, none of which he could
answer. Who was this girl who had come like a queen from out of the
wilderness, and this man who bore with him the manner of a courtier?
Was it possible, after all, that they were of the forests? And where
was Fort o' God? He had never heard of it before, and as he thought of
Jeanne's strange, rich dress, of the heliotrope-scented handkerchief,
of the old-fashioned rapier at Pierre's side, and of the exquisite
grace with which the girl had left him he wondered if such a place as
this Fort o' God must be could exist in the heart of the desolate
northland. Pierre had said that they had come from Fort o' God. But
were they a part of it?

He fell asleep, the resolution formed in his mind to investigate as
soon as he found the opportunity. There would surely be those at
Churchill who would know these people; if not, they would know of Fort
o' God.

Philip found Gregson awake and dressed when he rolled out of his bunk a
few hours later. Gregson had breakfast ready.

"You're a good one to have company," growled the artist. "When you go
out mooning again please take me along, will you? Chuck your head in
that pail of water and let's eat. I'm starved."

Philip noticed that his companion had tacked the sketch against one of
the logs above the table.

"Pretty good for imagination, Greggy," he said, nodding. "Burke will
jump at that if you do it in colors."

"Burke won't get it," replied Gregson, soberly, seating himself at the
table. "It won't be for sale."

"Why?"

Gregson waited until Philip had seated himself before he answered.

"Look here, old man--get ready to laugh. Split your sides, if you want
to. But it's God's truth that the girl I saw yesterday is the only girl
I've ever seen that I'd be willing to die for!"

"To be sure," agreed Philip. "I understand."

Gregson stared at him in surprise. "Why don't you laugh?" he asked.

"It is not a laughing matter," said Philip. "I say that I understand.
And I do."

Gregson looked from Philip's face to the picture.

"Does it--does it hit you that way, Phil?"

"She is very beautiful."

"She is more than that," declared Gregson, warmly. "If I ever looked
into an angel's face it was yesterday, Phil. For just a moment I met
her eyes--"

"And they were--"

"Wonderful!"

"I mean--the color," said Philip, engaging himself with the food.

"They were blue or gray. It is the first time I ever looked into a
woman's eyes without being sure of the color of them. It was her hair,
Phil--not this tinsel sort of gold that makes you wonder if it's real,
but the kind you dream about. You may think me a loon, but I'm going to
find out who she is and where she is as soon as I have done with this
breakfast."

"And Lord Fitzhugh?"

A shadow passed over Gregson's face. For a few moments he ate in
silence. Then he said:

"That's what kept me awake after you had gone--thinking of Lord
Fitzhugh and this girl. See here, Phil. She isn't one of the kind up
here. There was breeding and blood in every inch of her, and what I am
wondering is if these two could be associated in any way. I don't want
it to be so. But--it's possible. Beautiful young women like her don't
come, traveling up to this knob-end of the earth alone, do they?"

Philip did not pursue the subject. A quarter of an hour later the two
young men left the cabin, crossed the ridge, and walked together down
into Churchill. Gregson went to the Company's store, while Philip
entered the building occupied by Pearce. Pearce was at his desk. He
looked up with tired, puffy eyes, and his fat hands lay limply before
him. Philip knew that he had not been to bed. His oily face strove to
put on an appearance of animation and business as Philip entered.

Philip produced a couple of cigars and took a chair opposite him.

"You look bushed, Pearce," he began. "Business must be rushing. I saw a
light in your window after midnight, and I came within an ace of
calling. Thought you wouldn't like to be interrupted, so I put off my
business until this morning."

"Insomnia," said Pearce, huskily. "I can't sleep. Suppose you saw me at
work through the window?" There was almost an eager haste in his
question.

"Saw nothing but the light," replied Philip, carelessly. "You know this
country pretty well, don't you, Pearce?"

"Been 'squatting' on prospects for eight years, waiting for this damned
railroad," said Pearce, interlacing his thick fingers. "I guess I know
it!"

"Then you can undoubtedly tell me the location of Fort o' God?"

"Fort o' What?"

"Fort o' God."

Pearce looked blank.

"It's a new one on me," he said, finally. "Never heard of it." He rose
from his chair and went over to a big map hanging against the wall.
Studiously he went over it with the point of his stubby forefinger.
"This is the latest from the government," he continued, with his back
to Philip, "but it ain't here. There's a God's Lake down south of
Nelson House, but that's the only thing with a God about it north of
fifty-three."

"It's not so far south as that," said Philip, rising.

Pearce's little eyes were fixed on him shrewdly.

"Never heard of it," he repeated. "What sort of a place is it, a post--"

"I have no idea," replied Philip. "I came for information more out of
curiosity than anything else. Perhaps I misunderstood the name. I'm
much obliged."

He left Pearce in his chair and went directly to the factor's quarters.
Bludsoe, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company in the far north,
could give him no more information than had Pearce. He had never heard
of Fort o' God. He could not remember the name of Couchee. During the
next two hours Philip talked with French, Indian, and half-breed
trappers, and questioned the mail runner, who had come in that morning
from the south. No one could tell him of Fort o' God.

Had Pierre lied to him? His face flushed with anger as this thought
came to him. In the next breath he assured himself that Pierre was not
a man who would lie. He had measured him as a man who would fight, and
not one who would lie. Besides, he had voluntarily given the
information that he and Jeanne were from Fort o' God. There had been no
excuse for falsehood.

He purposely directed his movements so that he would not come into
contact with Gregson, little dreaming that his artist friend was
working under the same formula. He lunched with the factor, and a
little later went boldly back to the cliff where he had met Jeanne and
Pierre the preceding night. Although he had now come to expect no
response to what he had written, he carefully examined the rocks about
him. Then he set out through the forest in the direction from which had
come the howling of the wolf-dog.

He searched until late in the afternoon, but found no signs of a recent
camp. For several miles he followed the main trail that led northward
from Fort Churchill. He crossed three times through the country between
this trail and the edge of the Bay, searching for smoke from the top of
every ridge that he climbed, listening for any sound that might give
him a clue. He visited the shack of an old half-breed deep in the
forest beyond the cliff, but its aged tenant could give him no
information. He had not seen Pierre and Jeanne, nor had he heard the
howling of their dog.

Tired and disappointed, Philip returned to Churchill. He went directly
to his cabin and found Gregson waiting for him. There was a curious
look in the artist's face as he gazed questioningly at his friend. His
immaculate appearance was gone. He looked like one who had passed
through an uncomfortable hour or two. Perspiration had dried in dirty
streaks on his face, and his hands were buried dejectedly in his
trousers pockets. He rose to his feet and stood before his companion.

"Look at me, Phil--take a good long look," he urged.

Philip stared.

"Am I awake?" demanded the artist. "Do I look like a man in his right
senses? Eh, tell me!"

He turned and pointed to the sketch hanging against the wall.

"Did I see that girl, or didn't I?" he went on, not waiting for Philip
to answer. "Did I dream of seeing her? Eh? By thunder, Phil--" He
whirled upon his companion, a glow of excitement taking the place of
the fatigue in his eyes. "I couldn't find her to-day. I've hunted in
every shack and brush heap in and around Churchill. I've hunted until
I'm so tired I can hardly stand up. And the devil of it is, I can find
no one else who got more than a glimpse of her, and then they did not
see her as I did. She had nothing on her head when I saw her, but I
remember now that something like a heavy veil fell about her shoulders,
and that she was lifting it when she passed. Anyway, no one saw her
like--that." He pointed to the sketch. "And she's gone--gone as
completely as though she came in a flying-machine and went away in one.
She's gone--unless--"

"What?"

"Unless she is in concealment right here in Churchill. She's gone--or
hiding."

"You have reason to suspect that she would be hiding," said Philip,
concealing the effect of the other's words upon him.

Gregson was uneasy. He lighted a cigarette, puffed at it once or twice,
and tossed it through the open door. Suddenly he reached in his coat
pocket and pulled out an envelope.

"Deuce take it, if I know whether I have or not!" he cried. "But--look
here, Phil. I saw the mail come in to-day, and I walked up as bold as
you please and asked if there was anything for Lord Fitzhugh. I showed
the other letter, and said I was Fitzhugh's agent. It went. And I
got--this!"

Philip snatched at the letter which Gregson held out to him. His
fingers trembled as he unfolded the single sheet of paper which he drew
forth. Across it was written a single line:

Don't lose an hour. Strike now.

There was nothing more, except a large ink blot under the words. The
envelope was addressed in the same hand as the one he had previously
received. The men stared into each other's face.

"It's singular, that's all," pursued Gregson. "Those words are
important. The writer expects that they will reach Lord Fitzhugh
immediately, and as soon as he gets them you can look for war. Isn't
that their significance? I repeat that it is singular this girl should
come here so mysteriously, and disappear still more so, just at this
psychological moment; and it is still more puzzling when you take into
consideration the fact that two hours before the runner came in from
the south another person inquired for Lord Fitzhugh's mail!"

Philip started.

"And they told you this?"

"Yes. It was a man who asked--a stranger. He gave no name and left no
word. Now, if it should happen to be the man who was with the girl when
I saw her--and we can find him--we've as good as got this Lord
Fitzhugh. If we don't find him--and mighty soon--it's up to us to start
for your camps and put them into fighting shape. See the point?"

"But we've got the letter," said Philip. "Fitzhugh won't receive the
final word, and that will delay whatever plot he has ready to spring."

"My dear Phil," said Gregson, softly. "I always said that you were the
fighter and I the diplomat, yours the brawn and mine the brain. Don't
you see what this means? I'll gamble my right hand that these very
words have been sent to Lord Fitzhugh at two or three different points,
so that they would be sure of reaching him. I'm just as positive that
he has already received a copy of the letter which we have. Mark my
words, it's catch Lord Fitzhugh within the next few days--or fight!"

Philip sat down, breathing heavily.

"I'll send word to MacDougall," he said. "But I--I must wait for the
ship!"

"Why not leave word for Brokaw and join MacDougall?"

"Because when the ship comes in I believe that a large part of this
mystery will be cleared up," replied Philip. "It is necessary that I
remain here. That will give us a few days in which to make a further
search for these people."

Gregson did not urge the point, but replaced the second letter in his
pocket with the first. During the evening he remained at the cabin.
Philip returned to Churchill. For an hour he sat among the ruins of the
old fort, striving to bring some sort of order out of the chaos of
events that had occurred during the past few days. He was almost
convinced that he ought to reveal all that he knew to Gregson, and yet
several reasons kept him from doing so. If Miss Brokaw was on the
London ship when it arrived at Churchill, there would be no necessity
of disclosing that part of his own history which he was keeping secret
within himself. If Eileen was not on the ship her absence would be
sufficient proof to him that she was in or near Churchill, and in this
event he knew that it would be impossible for him to keep from
associating with her movements not only those of Lord Fitzhugh, but
also those of Jeanne and Pierre and of Brokaw himself. He could see but
two things to do at present, wait and watch. If Miss Brokaw was not
with her father, he would take Gregson fully into his confidence.

The next morning he despatched a messenger with a letter for
MacDougall, at Blind Indian Lake, warning him to be on his guard and to
prepare the long line of sub-stations for possible attack. All this day
Gregson remained in the cabin.

"It won't do for me to make myself too evident," he explained. "I've
called for Lord Fitzhugh's mail, and I'd better lie as low as possible
until the corn begins to pop."

Philip again searched the forests to the north and west with the hope
of finding some trace of Pierre and Jeanne. The forest people were
beginning to come into Churchill from all directions to be present at
the big event of the year--the arrival of the London ship--and Philip
made inquiries on every trail. No one had seen those whom he described.
The fourth and fifth days passed without any developments. So far as he
could discover there was no Fort o' God, no Jeanne and Pierre Couchee.
He was completely baffled. The sixth day he spent in the cabin with
Gregson. On the morning of the seventh there came from far out over the
Bay the hollow booming of a cannon.

It was the signal which for two hundred years the ships from over the
sea had given to the people of Churchill.

By the time the two young men had finished their breakfasts and climbed
to the top of the ridge overlooking the Bay, the vessel had dropped
anchor half a mile off shore, where she rode safe from the rocks at low
tide. Along the shore below them, where Churchill lay, the forest
people were gathered in silent, waiting groups. Philip pointed to the
factor's big York boat, already two-thirds of the way to the ship.

"We should have gone with Bludsoe," he said. "Brokaw will think this a
shabby reception on our part, and Miss Brokaw won't be half flattered.
We'll go down and get a good position on the pier."

Fifteen minutes later they were thrusting themselves through the crowd
of men, women, children, and dogs congregated at the foot of the long
stone pier alongside which the ship would lie for two or three hours at
each high tide. Philip stopped among a number of Crees and half-breeds,
and laid a detaining hand upon Gregson's arm.

"This is near enough, if you don't want to make yourself conspicuous,"
he said.

The York boat was returning. Philip pulled a cigar from his pocket and
lighted it. He felt his heart throbbing excitedly as the boat drew
nearer. He looked at Gregson. The artist was taking short, quick puffs
on his cigarette, and Philip wondered at the evident eagerness with
which he was watching the approaching craft.

Until the boat ran close up under the pier its sail hid the occupants.
While the canvas still fluttered in the light wind Bludsoe sprang from
the bow out upon the rocks with a rope. Three or four of his men
followed. With a rattle of blocks and rings the sheet dropped like a
huge white curtain, and Philip took a step forward, scarce restraining
the exclamation that forced itself to his lips at the picture which it
revealed. Standing on the broad rail, her slender form poised for the
quick upward step, one hand extended to Bludsoe, was Eileen Brokaw! In
another instant she was upon the pier, facing the strange people before
her, while her father clambered out of the boat behind. There was a
smile of expectancy on her lips as she scanned the dark, silent faces
of the forest people. Philip knew that she was looking for him. His
pulse quickened. He turned for a moment to see the effect of the girl's
appearance upon Gregson.

The artist's two hands had gripped his arm. They closed now until his
fingers were like cords of steel. His face was white, his lips set into
thin lines. For a breath he stood thus, while Miss Brokaw's scrutiny
traveled nearer to them. Then, suddenly, he released his hold and
darted back among the half-breeds and Indians, his face turning to
Philip's in one quick, warning appeal.

He was not a moment too soon, for scarce had he gone when Miss Brokaw
caught sight of Philip's tall form at the foot of the pier. Philip did
not see the signal which she gave him. He was staring at the line of
faces ahead of him. Two people had worked their way through that line,
and suddenly every muscle in his body became tense with excitement and
joy. They were Pierre and Jeanne!

He caught his breath at what happened then. He saw Jeanne falter for a
moment. He noticed that she was now dressed like the others about her,
and that Pierre, who stood at her shoulder, was no longer the fine
gentleman of the rock. The half-breed bent over her, as if whispering
to her, and then Jeanne ran out from those about her to Eileen, her
beautiful face flushed with joy and welcome as she reached out her arms
to the other woman. Philip saw a sudden startled look leap into Miss
Brokaw's face, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared. She stared at
the forest girl, drew herself haughtily erect, and, with a word which
he could not hear, turned to Bludsoe and her father. For an instant
Jeanne stood as if some one had struck her a blow. Then, slowly, she
turned. The flush was gone from her face. Her beautiful mouth was
quivering, and Philip fancied that he could hear the low sobbing of her
breath. With a cry in which he uttered no name, but which was meant for
her, he sprang forward into the clear space of the pier. She saw him,
and darted back among her people. He would have followed, but Miss
Brokaw was coming to him now, her hand held out to him, and a step
behind were Brokaw and the factor.

"Philip!" she cried.

He spoke no word as he crushed her hand. The hot grip of his fingers,
the deep flush in his face, was interpreted by her as a welcome which
it did not require speech to strengthen. He shook hands with Brokaw,
and as the three followed after the factor his eyes sought vainly for
Pierre and Jeanne.

They were gone, and he felt suddenly a thrill of repugnance at the
gentle pressure of Eileen Brokaw's hand upon his arm.




VIII


Philip did not see the hundred staring eyes that followed in wonderment
the tall, beautiful girl who walked at his side. He knew that Miss
Brokaw was talking and laughing, and that he was nodding his head and
answering her, while his brain raged for an idea that would give him an
excuse for leaving her to follow Jeanne and Pierre. The facts that
Gregson had left him so strangely, that Eileen had come with her
father, and that, instead of clearing up the mystery in which they were
so deeply involved, the arrival of the London ship had even more
hopelessly entangled them, were forgotten for the moment in the desire
to intercept Jeanne and Pierre before they could leave Churchill. Miss
Brokaw herself unconsciously gave him the opportunity for which he was
seeking.

"You don't look very happy, Philip," she exclaimed, in a chiding voice,
meant only for his ears. "I thought--perhaps--my coming would make you
glad."

Philip caught eagerly at the half question in her voice.

"I feared you would notice it," he said, quickly. "I was afraid you
would think me indifferent because I did not go out to meet you in the
boat, and because I stood hidden at the end of the pier when you
landed. But I was looking for a man. I have been hunting for him for a
long time. And I saw his face just as we came through the crowd. That
is why I am--am rattled," he laughed. "Will you excuse me if I go back?
Can you find some excuse for the others? I will return in a few
minutes, and then you will not say that I am unhappy."

Miss Brokaw drew her hand from his arm.

"Surely I will excuse you," she cried. "Hurry, or you may lose him. I
would like to go with you if it is going to be exciting."

Philip turned to Brokaw and the factor, who were close behind them.

"I am compelled to leave you here," he explained. "I have excused
myself to Miss Brokaw, and will rejoin you almost immediately."

He lost no time in hurrying back to the shore of the Bay. As he had
expected, Jeanne and her companion were no longer in sight. There was
only one direction in which they could have disappeared so quickly, and
this was toward the cliff. Once hidden by the fringe of forest, he
hastened his steps until he was almost running. He had reached the base
of the huge mass of rock that rose up from the sea, when down the
narrow trail that led to the cliff there came a figure to meet him. It
was an Indian boy, and he advanced to question him. If Jeanne and
Pierre had passed that way the boy must surely have seen them.

Before he had spoken the lad ran toward him, holding out something in
his hand. The question on Philip's lips changed to an exclamation of
joy when he recognized the handkerchief which he had dropped upon the
rock a few nights before, or one so near like it that he could not have
told them apart. It was tied into a knot, and he felt the crumpling of
paper under the pressure of his fingers. He almost tore the bit of lace
and linen in his eagerness to rescue the paper, which a moment later he
held in his fingers. Three short lines, written in a fine,
old-fashioned hand, were all that it held for him. But they were
sufficient to set his heart, beating wildly.


Will Monsieur come to the top of the rock to-night, some time between
the hours of nine and ten.


There was no signature to the note, but Philip knew that only Jeanne
could have written it, for the letters were almost of microscopic
smallness, as delicate as the bit of lace in which they had been
delivered, and of a quaintness of style which added still more to the
bewildering mystery which already surrounded these people. He read the
lines half a dozen times, and then turned to find that the Indian boy
was slipping sway through the rocks.

"Here--you," he commanded, in English. "Come back!"

The boy's white teeth gleamed in a laugh as he waved his hand and
leaped farther away. From Philip his eyes shifted in a quick, searching
glance to the top of the cliff. In a flash Philip followed its
direction. He understood the meaning of the look. From the cliff Jeanne
and Pierre had seen his approach, and their meeting with the Indian boy
had made it possible for them to intercept him in this manner. They
were probably looking down upon him now, and in the gladness of the
moment Philip laughed up at the bare rocks and waved his cap above his
head as a signal of his acceptance of the strange invitation he had
received.

Vaguely he wondered why they had set the meeting for that night, when
in three or four minutes he could have joined them up there in broad
day. But the central tangle of the mystery that had grown up about him
during the past few days was too perplexing to embroider with such a
minor detail as this, and he turned back toward Churchill with the
feeling that everything was working in his favor. During the next few
hours he would clear up the tangle, and in addition to that he would
meet Jeanne and Pierre. It was the thought of Jeanne, and not of the
surprises which he was about to explain, that stirred his blood as he
hurried back to the Fort.

It was his intention to return to Eileen and her father. But he changed
this. He would first hunt up Gregson and begin his work there. He knew
that the artist would be expecting him, and he went directly to the
cabin, escaping notice by following along the fringe of the forest.

Gregson was pacing back and forth across the cabin floor when Philip
arrived. His steps were quick and excited. His hands were thrust deep
in his trousers pockets. The butts of innumerable half-smoked
cigarettes lay scattered under his feet. He ceased his restless
movement upon his companion's interruption, and for a moment or two
gazed at Philip in blank silence.

"Well," he said, at last, "have you got anything to say?"

"Nothing," said Philip. "It's beyond me, Greggy. For Heaven's sake give
me an explanation!"

There was nothing womanish in the hard lines of Gregson's face now. He
spoke with the suggestion of a sneer.

"You knew--all the time," he said, coldly. "You knew that Miss Brokaw
and the girl whom I drew were one and the same person. What was the
object of your little sensation?"

Philip ignored his question. He stepped quickly up to Gregson and
seized him by the arm.

"It is impossible!" he cried, in a low voice. "They cannot be the same
person. That ship out there has not touched land since she left
Halifax. Until she hove in sight off Churchill she hasn't been within
two hundred miles of a coast this side of Hudson's Strait. Miss Brokaw
is as new to this country as you. It is beyond all reason to suppose
anything else."

"Nevertheless," said Gregson, quietly, "it was Miss Brokaw whom I saw
the other day, and that is Miss Brokaw's picture."

He pointed to the sketch, and freed his arm to light another cigarette.
There was a peculiar tone of finality in his voice which warned Philip
that no amount of logic or arguing on his part would change his
friend's belief. Gregson looked at him over his lighted match.

"It was Miss Brokaw," he said again. "Perhaps it is within reason to
suppose that she came to Churchill in a balloon, dropped into town for
luncheon, and departed in a balloon, descending by some miraculous
chance aboard the ship that was bringing her father. However it may
have happened, she was in Churchill a few days ago. On that hypothesis
I am going to work, and as a consequence I am going to ask you for the
indefinite loan of the Lord Fitzhugh letter. Will you give me your word
to say nothing of that letter--for a few days?"

"It is almost necessary to show it to Brokaw," hesitated Philip.

"Almost--but not quite," Gregson caught him up. "Brokaw knows the
seriousness of the situation without that letter. See here, Phil--you
go out and fight, and let me handle this end of the business. Don't
reveal me to the Brokaws. I don't want to meet--her--yet, though God
knows if it wasn't for my confounded friendship for you I'd go over
there with you this minute. She was even more beautiful than when I saw
her--before."

"Then there is a difference," laughed Philip, meaningly.

"Not a difference, but a little better view," corrected the artist.

"Now, if we could only find the other girl, what a mess you'd be in,
Greggy! By George, but this is beginning to have its humorous as well
as its tragic side. I'd give a thousand dollars to have this other
golden-haired beauty appear upon the scene!"

"I'll give a thousand if you produce her," retorted Gregson.

"Good!" laughed Philip, holding out a hand. "I'll report again this
afternoon or to-night."

Inwardly he felt himself in no humorous mood as he retraced his steps
to Churchill. He had thought to begin his work of clearing up the
puzzling situation with Gregson, and Gregson had failed him completely
by his persistence in the belief that Miss Brokaw was the girl whose
face he had seen more than a week before. Was it possible, after all,
that the ship had touched at some point up the coast? The supposition
was preposterous. Yet before rejoining the Brokaws he sought out the
captain and found that the company's vessel had come directly from
Halifax without a change or stop in her regular course. The word of the
company's captain cleared up his doubts in one direction; it mystified
him more than ever in another. He was convinced that Gregson had not
seen Miss Brokaw until that morning. But who was Eileen's double? Where
was she at this moment? What peculiar combination of circumstance had
drawn them both to Churchill at this particularly significant time? It
was impossible for him not to associate the girl whom Gregson had
encountered, and who so closely resembled Eileen, with Lord Fitzhugh
and the plot against his company. And it struck him with a certain
feeling of dread that, if his suspicions were true, Jeanne and Pierre
must also be mixed up in the affair. For had not Jeanne, in her error,
greeted Eileen as though she were a dear friend?

He went directly to the factor's house, and knocked at the door opening
into the rooms occupied by Brokaw and his daughter. Brokaw admitted
him, and at Philip's searching glance about the room he nodded toward a
closed inner door and said:

"Eileen is resting. It's been a hard trip on her, Phil, and she hasn't
slept for two consecutive nights since we left Halifax."

Philip's keen glance told him that Brokaw himself had not slept much.
The promoter's eyes were heavy, with little puffy bags under them. But
otherwise he betrayed no signs of unrest or lack of rest. He motioned
Philip to a chair close to a huge fireplace in which a pile of birch
was leaping into flame, offered him a cigar, and plunged immediately
into business.

"It's hell, Philip," he said, in a hard, quiet voice, as though he were
restraining an outburst of passion with effort. "In another three
months we'd have been on a working basis, earning dividends. I've even
gone to the point of making contracts that show us five hundred per
cent, profit. And now--this!"

He dashed his half-burned cigar into the fire, and viciously bit the
end from another.

Philip was lighting his own, and there was a moment's silence, broken
sharply by the financier.

"Are your men prepared to fight?"

"If it's necessary," replied Philip. "We can at least depend upon a
part of them, especially the men at Blind Indian Lake. But--this
fighting--Why do you think it will come to that? If there is fighting
we are ruined."

"If the people rise against us in a body--yes, we are ruined. That is
what we must not permit. It is our one chance. I have done everything
in my power to beat this movement against us down south, and have
failed. Our enemies are completely masked. They have won popular
sentiment through the newspapers. Their next move is to strike directly
at us. Whatever is to happen will happen soon. The plan is to attack
us, to destroy our property, and the movement is to be advertised as a
retaliation for heinous outrages perpetrated by our men. It is possible
that the attack will not be by northerners alone, but by men brought in
for the purpose. The result will be the same--if it succeeds. The
attack is planned to be a surprise. Our one chance is to meet it, to
completely frustrate it--to strike an overwhelming blow, and to capture
enough of our assailants to give us the evidence we must have."

Brokaw was excited. He emphasized his words with angry sweeps of his
arms. He clenched his fists, and his face grew red. He was not like the
old, shrewd, indomitable Brokaw, completely master of himself, never
revealing himself beyond the unruffled veil of his self-possession, and
Philip was surprised. He had expected that Brokaw's wily brain would
bring with it half a dozen schemes for the quiet undoing of their
enemies. And now here was Brokaw, the man who always hedged himself in
with legal breast-works--who never revealed himself to the shot of his
enemies--enlisting himself for a fight in the open! Philip had told
Gregson that there would be a fight. He was firmly convinced that there
would be a fight. But he had never believed that Brokaw would come to
join in it. He leaned toward the financier, his face flushed a little
by the warmth of the fire and by the knowledge that Brokaw was
relinquishing the situation entirely into his hands. If it came to
fighting, he would win. He was confident of himself there. But--

"What will be the result if we win?" he asked.

"If we secure those who will give the evidence we need--evidence that
the movement against us is a plot to destroy our company, the
government will stand by us," replied Brokaw. "I have sounded the
situation there. I have filed a formal declaration to the effect that
such a movement is on foot, and have received a promise that the
commissioner of police will investigate the matter. But before that
happens our enemies will strike. There is no time for red tape or
investigations. We must achieve our own salvation. And to achieve that
we must fight."

"And if we lose?"

Brokaw lifted his hands and shoulders with a significant gesture.

"The moral effect will be tremendous," he said. "It will be shown that
the entire north is inimical to our company, and the government will
withdraw our option. We will be ruined. Our stockholders will lose
every cent invested."

In moments of mental energy Philip was restless. He rose from his chair
now and moved softly back and forth across the carpeted floor of the
big room, shrouded in tobacco smoke. Should he break his word to
Gregson and tell Brokaw of Lord Fitzhugh? But, on second thought, what
good would come of it? Brokaw was already aware of the seriousness of
the situation. In some one of his unaccountable ways he had learned
that their enemies were to strike almost immediately, and his own
revelation of the Fitzhugh letters would but strengthen this evidence.
He would keep his faith with Gregson for the promised day or two. For
an hour the two men were alone in the room. At the end of that time
their plans were settled. The next morning Philip would leave for Blind
Indian Lake and prepare for war. Brokaw would follow two or three days
later.

A heavy weight seemed lifted from Philip's shoulders when he left
Brokaw. After months of worry and weeks of physical inaction he saw his
way clear for the first time. And for the first time, too, something
seemed to have come into his life that filled him with a strange
exhilaration, and made him forgetful of the gloom that had settled over
him during these last months. That night he would see Jeanne. His body
thrilled at the thought, until for a time he forgot that he would also
see and talk with Eileen. A few days before he had told Gregson that it
would be suicidal to fight the northerners; now he was eager for
action, eager to begin and end the affair--to win or lose. If he had
stopped to analyze the change in himself he would have found that the
beautiful girl whom he had first seen on the moonlit rock was at the
bottom of it. And yet Jeanne was a northerner, one of those against
whom his actions must be directed. But he had confidence in himself,
confidence in what that night would bring forth. He was like one freed
from a bondage that had oppressed him for a long time, and the fact
that he might be compelled to fight Jeanne's own people did not destroy
his hopefulness, the new joy and excitement that he had found in life.
As he hurried back to his cabin he told himself that both Jeanne and
Pierre had read what he had sent to them in the handkerchief; their
response was a proof that they understood him, and deep down a voice
kept telling him that if it came to fighting they three, Pierre,
Jeanne, and himself, would rise or fall together. A few hours had
transformed him into Gregson's old appreciation of the fighting man.
Long and tedious months of diplomacy, of political intrigue, of bribery
and dishonest financiering, in which he had played but the part of a
helpless machine, were gone. Now he held the whip-hand; Brokaw had
acknowledged his own surrender. He was to fight--a clean, fair fight on
his part, and his blood leaped in every vein like marshaling armies.
That nights on the rock, he would reveal himself frankly to Pierre and
Jeanne. He would tell them of the plot to disrupt the company, and of
the work ahead of him. And after that--

He thrust open the door of his cabin, eager to enlist Gregson in his
enthusiasm. The artist was not in. Philip noticed that the
cartridge-belt and the revolver which usually hung over Gregson's bunk
were gone. He never entered the cabin without looking at the sketch of
Eileen Brokaw. Something about it seemed to fascinate him, to challenge
his presence. Now it was missing from the wall.

He threw off his coat and hat, filled his pipe, and began gathering up
his few possessions, ready for packing. It was noon before he was
through, and Gregson had not returned. He boiled himself some coffee
and sat down to wait. At five o'clock he was to eat supper with the
Brokaws and the factor; Eileen, through her father, had asked him to
join her an hour or two earlier in the big room. He waited until four,
and then left a brief note for Gregson upon the table.

It was growing dusk in the forest. From the top of the ridge Philip
caught the last red glow of the sun, sinking far to the south and west.
A faint radiance of it still swept over his head and mingled with the
thickening gray gloom of the northern sea. Across the dip in the Bay
the huge, white-capped cliff seemed to loom nearer and more gigantic in
the whimsical light. For a few moments a red bar shot across it, and as
the golden fire faded and died away Philip could not but think it was
like a torch beckoning to him. A few hours more, and where that light
had been he would see Jeanne. And now, down there, Eileen was waiting
for him.

His pulse quickened as he passed beyond the ancient fort, over the
burial-place of the dead, and into Churchill. He met no one at the
factor's, and the door leading into Miss Brokaw's room was partly ajar.
A great fire was burning in the fireplace, and he saw Eileen seated in
the rich glow of it, smiling at him as he entered. He closed the door,
and when he turned she had risen and was holding out her hands to him.
She had dressed for him, almost as on that night of the Brokaw ball. In
the flashing play of the fire her exquisite arms and shoulders shone
with dazzling beauty; her eyes laughed at him; her hair rippled in a
golden flood. Faintly there came to him, filling the room slowly,
tingling his nerves, the sweet scent of heliotrope--the perfume that
had filled his nostrils on that other night, a long time ago, the sweet
scent that had come to him in the handkerchief dropped on the rock, the
breath of the bit of lace that had bound Jeanne's hair!

Eileen moved toward him. "Philip," she said, "now are you glad to see
me?"




IX


Her voice broke the spell that had held him for a moment.

"I am glad to see you," he cried, quickly, seizing both her hands.
"Only I haven't quite yet awakened from my dream. It seems too
wonderful, almost unreal. Are you the old Eileen who used to shudder
when I told you of a bit of jungle and wild beasts, and who laughed at
me because I loved to sleep out-of-doors and tramp mountains, instead
of decently behaving myself at home? I demand an explanation. It must
be a wonderful change--"

"There has been a change," she interrupted him. "Sit down,
Philip--there!" She nestled herself on a stool, close to his feet, and
looked up at him, her hands clasped under her chin, radiantly lovely.
"You told me once that girls like me simply fluttered over the top of
life like butterflies; that we couldn't understand life, or live it,
until somewhere--at some time--we came into touch with nature. Do you
remember? I was consumed with rage then--at your frankness, at what I
considered your impertinence. I couldn't get what you said out of my
mind. And I'm trying it."

"And you like it?" He put the question almost eagerly.

"Yes." She was looking at him steadily, her beautiful gray eyes meeting
his own in a silence that stirred him deeply. He had never seen her
more beautiful. Was it the firelight on her face, the crimson leapings
of the flames, that gave her skin a richer hue? Was it the mingling of
fire and shadow that darkened her cheeks? An impulse made him utter the
words which passed through his mind.

"You have already tried it," he said. "I can see the effects of it in
your face. It would take weeks in the forests to do that."

The gray eyes faltered; the flush deepened.

"Yes, I have tried it. I spent a half of the summer at our cottage on
the lake."

"But it is not tan," he persisted, thrilled for a moment by the
discoveries he was making. "It is the wind; it is the open; it is the
smoke of camp-fires; it is the elixir of balsam and cedar and pine.
That is what I see in your face--unless it is the fire."

"It is the fire, partly," she said. "And the rest is the wind and the
open of the seas we have come across, and the sting of icebergs. Ugh:
my face feels like nettles!"

She rubbed her cheeks with her two hands, and then held up one hand to
Philip.

"Look," she said. "It's as rough as sand-paper. Isn't that a change? I
didn't even wear gloves on the ship. I'm an enthusiast. I'm going down
there with you, and I'm going to fight. Now have you got anything to
say against me, Mr. Philip?"

There was a lightness in her words, and yet not in her voice. In her
manner was an uneasiness, mingled with an almost childish eagerness for
him to answer, which Philip could not understand. He fancied that once
or twice he had caught the faintest sign of a break in her voice.

"You really mean to hazard this adventure?" he cried, softly, in his
astonishment. "You, whom wild horses couldn't drag into the wilderness,
as you once told me!"

"Yes," she affirmed, drawing her stool back out of the increasing heat
of the fire. Her face was almost entirely in shadow now, and she did
not look at Philip. "I am beginning to--to love adventure," she went
on, in an even voice. "It was an adventure coming up. And when we
landed down there something curious happened. Did you see a girl who
thought that she knew me--"

She stopped, and a sudden flash of the fire lit up her eyes, fixed on
him intently from between her shielding hands.

"I saw her run out and speak to you," said Philip, his heart beating at
double-quick. He leaned over so that he was looking squarely into Miss
Brokaw's face.

"Did you know her?" she asked.

"I have seen her only twice--once before she spoke to you."

"If I meet her again I shall apologize," said Eileen. "It was her
mistake, and she startled me. When she ran out to me like that, and
held out her hands I--I thought of beggars."

"Beggars!" almost shouted Philip. "A beggar!" He caught himself with a
laugh, and to cover his sudden emotion turned to lay a fresh piece of
birch on the fire. "We don't have beggars up here."

The door opened behind them and Brokaw entered. Philip's face was red
when he greeted him. For half an hour after that he cursed himself for
not being as clever as Gregson. He knew that there was a change in
Eileen Brokaw, a change which nature had not worked alone, as she
wished him to believe. Then, and at supper, he tried to fathom her. At
times he detected the metallic ring of what was unreal and make-believe
in what she said; at other times she seemed stirred by emotions which
added immeasurably to the sweetness and truthfulness of her voice. She
was nervous. He found her eyes frequently seeking her father's face,
and more than once they were filled with a mysterious questioning, as
if within Brokaw's brain there lurked hidden things which were new to
her, and which she was struggling to understand. She no longer held the
old fascination for Philip, and yet he conceded that she was more
beautiful than ever. Until to-night he had never seen the shadow of
sadness in her eyes; he had never seen them darken as they darkened
now, when she listened with almost feverish interest to the words which
passed between himself and Brokaw. He was certain that it was not a
whim that had brought her into the north. It was impossible for him to
believe that he had piqued at her vanity until she had leaped into
action, as she had suggested to him while they were sitting before the
fire. Could it be that she had accompanied her father because
he--Philip Whittemore--was in the north?

The thought drew a slow flush into his face, and his uneasiness
increased when he knew that she was looking at him. He was glad when it
came time for cigars, and Eileen excused herself. He opened the door
for her, and told her that he probably would not see her again until
morning, as he had an important engagement for the evening. She gave
him her hand, and for a moment he felt the clinging of her fingers
about his own.

"Good night," she whispered.

"Good night."

She drew her hand half away, and then, suddenly, raised her eyes
straight to his own. They were calm, quiet, beautiful, and yet there
came a quick little catch in her throat as she leaned so close to him
that she touched his breast, and said:

"It will be best--best for everything--everybody--if you can influence
father to stay at Fort Churchill."

She did not wait for him to reply, but hurried toward her room. For a
moment Philip stared after her in amazement. Then he took a step as if
to follow her, to call her back. The impulse left him as quickly as it
came, and he rejoined Brokaw and the factor.

He looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock. At half-past seven he
shook hands with the two men, lighted a fresh cigar, and passed out
into the night. It was early for his meeting with Pierre and Jeanne,
but he went down to the shore and walked slowly in the direction of the
cliff. He was still an hour early when he arrived at the great rock,
and sat down, with his face turned to the sea.

It was a white, radiant night, such as he had seen in the tropics. Only
here, in the north, his vision reached to greater distances. Churchill
lay lifeless in its pool of light; the ship hung like a black
silhouette in the distance, with a cloud of jet-black smoke rising
straight up from its funnels, and spreading out high up against the
sky, a huge, ebon monster that cast its shadow for half a mile over the
Bay. The shadow held Philip's eyes. Now it was like a gigantic face,
now like a monster beast--now it reached out in the form of a great
threatening hand, as though somewhere in the mystery of the north it
sought a spirit-victim as potent as itself.

Then the spell of it was broken. From the end of the shadow, which
reached almost to the base of the cliff on which Philip sat, there came
a sound. It was a clear, metallic sound that left the vibration of
steel in the air, and Philip leaned over the edge of the rock. Below
him the shadow was broken into a pool of rippling starlight. He heard
the faint dip of paddles, and suddenly a canoe shot from the shadow out
into the clear light of the moon and stars.

It was a large canoe. In it he could make out four figures. Three of
them were paddling; the fourth sat motionless in the bow. They passed
under him swiftly, guiding their canoe so that it was soon hidden in
the shelter of the cliff. By the faint reflections cast by the
disturbed water, Philip saw that the occupants of the canoe had made an
effort to conceal themselves by following the course of the dense
shadow. Only the chance sound had led him to observe them.

Under ordinary circumstances the passing of a strange canoe at night
would have had no significance for him. But at the present time it
troubled him. The manner of its approach through the shadow, the
strange quiet of its occupants, the stealth with which they had shot
the canoe under the cliff, were all unusual. Could the incident have
anything to do with Jeanne and Pierre?

He waited until he heard the tiny bell in his watch tinkle the
half-hour, and then he set out slowly over the moonlit rocks to the
north. Jeanne and Pierre would surely come from that direction. It was
impossible to miss them. He walked without sound in his moccasins,
keeping close to the edge of the cliff so that he could look out over
the Bay. Two or three hundred yards beyond the big rock the sea-wall
swung in sharply, disclosing the open water, like a still, silvery
sheet, for a mile or more. Philip scanned it for the canoe, but as far
as he could see there was not a shadow.

For a quarter of a mile he walked over the rocks, then returned. It was
nine o'clock. The moment had arrived for the appearance of Jeanne and
Pierre. He resumed his patrol of the cliff, and with each moment his
nervousness increased. What if Jeanne failed him? What if she did not
come to the rock? The mere thought made his heart sink with a sudden
painful throb. Until now the fear that Jeanne might disappoint him,
that she might not keep the tryst, had not entered his head. His faith
in this girl, whom he had seen but twice, was supreme.

A second and a third time he patrolled the quarter mile of cliff. Again
his watch tinkled the half-hour, and he knew that the last minutes of
the appointed time had come.

The third and last time he went beyond the quarter-mile limit,
searching in the white distances beyond. A low wind was rising from the
Bay; it rustled in the spruce and balsam tops of the forest that
reached up to the barren whiteness of the rock plateau on which he
stood; under him he heard, growing more and more distinct, the moaning
wash of the swelling tide. A moment of despair possessed him, and he
felt that he had lost.

Suddenly the wind brought to him a different sound--a shout far down
the cliff, a second cry, and then the scream of a woman, deadened by
the wash of the sea and the increasing sweep of the wind among the
trees.

He stood for a moment powerless, listening. The wind lulled, and the
woman's cry now came to him again--a voice that was filled with terror
rising in a wild appeal for help. With an answering shout he ran like a
swift-footed animal along the cliff. It was Jeanne who was calling! Who
else but Jeanne would be out there in the gray night--Jeanne and
Pierre? He listened as he ran, but there came no other sound. At last
he stopped, and drew in a great breath, to send out a shout that would
reach their ears.

Above the fierce beating of his heart, the throbbing intake of his
breath, he heard sounds which were not of the wind or the sea. He ran
on, and suddenly the cliff dropped from under his feet, and he found
himself on the edge of a great rift in the wall of rock, looking across
upon a strange scene. In the brilliant moonlight, with his back against
a rock, stood Pierre, his glistening rapier in his hand, his thin,
lithe body bent for the attack of three men who faced him. It was but a
moment's tableau. The men rushed in. Muffled cries, blows, a single
clash of steel, and Pierre's voice rose above the sound of conflict.
"For the love of God, give me help, M'sieur!" He had seen Philip rush
up to the edge of the break in the cliff, and as he fought he cried out
again.

"Shoot, M'sieur! In a moment it will be too late!"

Philip had drawn his heavy revolver. He watched for an opportunity. The
men were fighting now so that Pierre had been forced between his
assailants and the breach in the wall. There was no chance to fire
without hitting him.

"Run, Pierre!" shouted Philip. "Run--"

He fired once, over the heads of the fighters, and as Pierre suddenly
darted to one side in obedience to his command there came for the first
time a shot from the other side. The bullet whistled close to his ears.
A second shot, and Pierre fell down like one dead among the rocks.
Again Philip fired--a third and a fourth time, and one of the three who
were disappearing in the white gloom stumbled over a rock, and fell as
Pierre had fallen. His companions stopped, picked him up, and staggered
on with him. Philip's last shot missed, and before he could reload they
were lost among the upheaved masses of the cliff.

"Pierre!" he called. "Ho! Pierre Couchee!"

There was no answer from the other side.

He ran along the edge of the break, and in the direction of the forest
he found a place where he could descend. In his haste he fell; his
hands were scratched, blood flowed from a cut in his forehead when he
dragged himself up to the face of the cliff again. He tried to shout
when he saw a figure drag itself up from among the rocks, but his
almost superhuman exertions had left him voiceless. His wind whistled
from between his parted lips when he came to Pierre.

Pierre was supporting himself against a rock. His face was streaming
with blood. In his hand he held what remained of the rapier, which had
broken off close to the hilt. His eyes were blazing like a madman's,
and his face was twisted with an agony that sent a thrill of horror
through Philip.

"My hurt is nothing--nothing-M'sieur!" he gasped, understanding the
look in Philip's face. "It is Jeanne! They have gone--gone with
Jeanne!" The rapier slipped from his hand and he slid weakly down
against the rock. Philip dropped upon his knees, and with his
handkerchief began wiping the blood from the half-breed's face. For a
few moments Pierre's head hung limp against his shoulder.

"What is it, Pierre?" he urged. "Tell me--quick! They have gone with
Jeanne!"

Pierre's body grew rigid. With one great effort he seemed to marshal
all of his strength, and straightened himself.

"Listen, M'sieur," he said, speaking calmly. "They set upon us as we
were going to meet you at the rock. There were four. One of them is
dead--back there. The others--with Jeanne--have gone in the canoe. It
is death--worse than death--for her--"

His body writhed. In a passion he strove to rise to his feet. Then with
a groan he sank back, and for a moment Philip thought he was dying.

"I will go, Pierre," he cried. "I will bring her back. I swear it."

Pierre's hand detained him as he went to rise.

"You swear--"

"Yes."

"At the next break--there is a canoe. They have gone for the
Churchill--"

Pierre's voice was growing weaker. In a spasm of sudden fear at the
dizziness which was turning the night black for him he clutched at
Philip's arm.

"If you save her, M'sieur, do not bring her back," he whispered,
hoarsely. "Take her to Fort o' God. Lose not an hour--not a minute.
Trust no one. Hide yourselves. Fight--kill--but take her to Fort o'
God! You will do this--M'sieur--you promise--"

He fell back limp. Philip lowered him gently, holding his head so that
he could look into the staring eyes that were still open and
understanding.

"I will go, Pierre," he said. "I will take her to Fort o' God. And
you--"

A shadow was creeping over Pierre's eyes. He was still fighting to
understand, fighting to hold for another breath or two the
consciousness that was fast slipping from him.

"Listen," cried Philip, striving to rouse him. "You will not die. The
bullet grazed your head, and the wound has already stopped bleeding.
To-morrow you must go to Churchill and hunt up a man named Gregson--the
man I was with when you and Jeanne came to see the ship. Tell him that
an important thing has happened, and that he must tell the others I
have gone to the camps. He will understand. Tell him--tell him--"

He struggled to find some final word for Gregson. Pierre still looked
at him, his eyes half closed now.

Philip bent close down.

"Tell him," he said, "that I am on the trail of Lord Fitzhugh!"

Scarcely had he uttered the name when Pierre's closing eyes shot open.
A groaning cry burst from his lips, and, as if that name had aroused
the last spark of life and strength within him into action, he wrenched
himself from Philip's arms, striving to speak. A trickle of fresh blood
ran over his face. Incoherent sounds rattled in his throat, and then,
overcome by his effort, he dropped back unconscious. Philip wound his
handkerchief about the wounded man's head and straightened out his
limbs. Then he rose to his feet and reloaded his revolver. His hands
were steady now. His brain was clear; the enervating thrill of
excitement had gone from his body. Only his heart beat like a racing
engine.

He turned and ran in the direction which Pierre's assailants had taken,
his head lowered, his revolver held in front of him, on a level with
his breast. He had not gone a hundred yards when something stopped him.
In his path, with its face turned straight up to the moonlit sky, lay
the body of a man. For an instant Philip bent over it. The broken blade
of Pierre's rapier glistened under the man's throat. One lifeless hand
clutched at it, as though in the last moment of life he had tried to
draw it forth. The face was distorted, the eyes were still open, the
lips parted. Death had come with terrible suddenness.

Philip bent lower, and stared into the face of the dead man. Where had
he seen that face before?

Suddenly he remembered. He drew back, and a cold sweat seemed to break
out all at once over his face and body. This man who lay with the
broken blade of Pierre Couchee's rapier in his breast had come ashore
from the London ship that day in company with Eileen and her father!

For a space he was overwhelmed by the discovery. Everything that had
happened--the scene upon the rock when he first met Jeanne, the arrival
of the ship, the moment's tableau on the pier when Jeanne and Eileen
stood face to face--rushed upon him now as he gazed down into the
staring eyes at his feet. What did it all mean? Why had Lord Fitzhugh's
name been sufficient to drag the half-breed back from the brink of
unconsciousness? What significance was there in this strange
combination of circumstances that persisted in drawing Pierre and
Jeanne into the plot that threatened himself? Had there been truth,
after all, in those last words that he impressed upon the fainting
senses of Pierre Couchee's message to Gregson?

He waited to answer none of the questions that leaped through his
brain. To-morrow some one would find Pierre, or Pierre would crawl down
into Churchill. And then there would be the dead man to account for. He
shuddered as he returned his revolver into his holster and braced his
limbs. It was an unpleasant task, but he knew that it must be done--to
save Pierre. He lifted the body clear of the rocks, and bending under
its weight carried it to the edge of the cliff. Far below sounded the
wash of the sea. He shoved his burden over the edge, and listened.
After a moment there came a dull splash.

Then he hastened on, as Pierre had guided him.




X


Soon Philip slackened his pace, and looked anxiously ahead of him. From
where he stood the cliff sloped down to a white strip of beach that
reached out into the night as far as he could see, hemmed close in by
the black gloom of the forest. Half-way down the slope the moonlight
was cut by a dark streak, and he found this to be the second break. He
had no difficulty in descending. Its sides were smooth, as though worn
by water. At the bottom white, dry sand slipped under his feet. He made
his way between the walls, and darkness shut him in. The trail grew
rougher. Near the shore he stumbled blindly among huge rocks and piles
of crumbling slate, wondering why Jeanne and Pierre had come this way
when they might have taken a smoother road. Close to the stony beach,
where the light was a little better, he made out the canoe which Pierre
had drawn into the shadows.

Not until he had dragged it into the moonlight at the edge of the water
did he see that it was equipped as if for a long journey. Close to the
stern was a bulging pack, with a rifle strapped across it. Two or three
smaller caribou-skin bags lay in the center of the canoe. In the bow
was a thick nest of bearskin, and he knew that this was for Jeanne.

Cautiously Philip launched himself, and with silent sweeps of the
paddle that made scarcely the sound of a ripple in the water set out in
the direction of Churchill. Jeanne's captors had a considerable start
of him, but he felt confident of his ability to overtake them shortly
if Pierre had spoken with truth when he said that they would head for
the Churchill River. He had observed the caution with which Pierre's
assailants had approached the cliff, and he was sure that they would
double that caution in their return, especially as their attack had
been interrupted at the last moment. For this reason he paddled without
great haste, keeping well within the concealment of the precipitous
shore, with his ears and eyes keenly alive to discover a sign of those
who were ahead of him.

Opposite the rock where Pierre and Jeanne were to have met him he
stopped and stood up in the canoe. The wind had dispelled the smoke
shadow. Between him and the distant ship lay an unclouded sea.
Two-thirds of the distance to the vessel he made out the larger canoe,
rising and falling with the smooth undulations of the tide. He sank
upon his knees again and unstrapped Pierre's rifle. There was a
cartridge in the chamber. He made sure that the magazine was loaded,
and resumed his paddling.

His mind worked rapidly. Within half an hour, if he desired, he could
overtake the other canoe. And what then? There were three to one, if it
came to a fight--and how could he rescue Jeanne without a fight? His
blood was pounding eagerly, almost with pleasure at the promise of what
was ahead of him, and he laughed softly to himself as he thought of the
odds.

The ship loomed nearer; the canoe vanished behind it. A brief stop, a
dozen words of explanation, and Philip knew that he could secure
assistance from the vessel. After all, would that not be the wisest
course for him to pursue? For a moment he hesitated, and paddled more
slowly. If others joined with him in the rescue of Jeanne what excuse
could he offer for not bringing her back to Churchill? What would
happen if he returned with her? Why had Pierre roused himself from
something that was almost death to entreat him to take Jeanne to Fort
o' God?

At the thought of Fort o' God a new strength leaped into his arms and
body, urging him on to cope with the situation single-handed. If he
rescued Jeanne alone, and went on with her as he had promised Pierre,
many things that were puzzling him would be explained. It occurred to
him again that Jeanne and Pierre might be the key to the mysterious
plot that promised to crash out the life of the enterprise he had
founded in the north. He found reasons for this belief. Why had Lord
Fitzhugh's name had such a startling effect upon Pierre? Why was one of
his assailants a man fresh from the London ship that had borne Eileen
Brokaw and her father as passengers? He felt that Jeanne could explain
these things, as well as her brother. She could explain the strange
scene on the pier, when for a moment she had stood crushed and startled
before Eileen. She could clear up the mystery of Gregson's sketch, for
if there were two Eileen Brokaws, Jeanne would know. With these
arguments he convinced himself that he should go on alone. Yet, behind
them there was another and more powerful motive. He confessed to
himself that he would willingly accept double the chances against him
to achieve Jeanne's rescue without assistance and to accompany her to
Fort o' God. The thought of their being together, of the girl's
companionship--perhaps for days--thrilled him with exquisite
anticipation. An hour or so ago he had been satisfied in the assurance
that he would see her for a few minutes on the cliff. Since then fate
had played his way. Jeanne was his own, to save, to defend, to carry on
to Fort o' God.

Not for a moment did he hesitate at the danger ahead of him, and yet
his pursuit was filled with caution. Gregson, the diplomat, would have
seen the necessity of halting at the ship for help; Philip was
confident in himself. He knew that he would have at least three against
him, for he was satisfied that the man whom he had wounded on the cliff
was still in fighting trim. There might be others whom he had not taken
into account.

He passed so close under the stern of the ship that his canoe scraped
against her side. For a few minutes the vessel had obstructed his view,
but now he saw again, a quarter of a mile distant, the craft which he
was pursuing. Jeanne's captors were heading straight for the river, and
as the canoe was now partly broadside to him he could easily make out
the figures in her, but not distinctly enough to make sure of their
number. He shoved out boldly into the moonlight, and, instead of
following in his former course, he turned at a sharp angle in the
direction of the shore. If the others saw him, which was probable, they
would think that he was making a landing from the ship. Once he was in
the deep fringe of shadow along the shore he could redouble his
exertions and draw nearer to them without being observed.

No sooner had he readied the sheltering gloom than he bent to his
paddle and the light birch-bark fairly hissed through the water. Not
until he found himself abreast of the pursued did it occur to him that
he could beat them out to the mouth of the Churchill and lie in wait
for them. Every stroke of his paddle widened the distant between him
and the larger canoe. Fifteen minutes later he reached the edge of the
huge delta of wild rice and reeds through which the sluggish volume of
the river emptied into the Bay. The chances were that the approaching
canoe would take the nearest channel into the main stream, and Philip
concealed himself so that it would have to pass within twenty yards of
him.

From his ambuscade he looked out upon the approaching canoe. He was
puzzled by the slowness of its progress. At times it seemed to stand
still, and he could distinguish no movement at all among its occupants.
At first he thought they were undecided as to which course to pursue,
but a few minutes more sufficed to show that this was not the reason
for their desultory advance. The canoe was headed for the first
channel. The solution came when a low but clear whistle signaled over
the water. Almost instantly there came a responsive whistle from up the
channel.

Philip drew a quick breath, and a new sensation brought his teeth
together in sudden perplexity. It looked as though he had a bigger
fight before him than he had anticipated.

At the signal from up-stream he heard the quick dip of paddles, and the
canoe cut swiftly toward him. He drew back the hammer of Pierre's rule,
and cleared a little space through the reeds and grass so that his view
into the channel was unobstructed. Three or four well-directed shots, a
quick dash out into the stream, and he would possess Jeanne. This was
his first thought. It was followed by others, rapid as lightning, that
restrained his eagerness. The night-glow was treacherous to shoot by.
What if he should miss, or hit Jeanne--or in the sudden commotion and
destruction of his shots the canoe should be overturned? A single
error, the slightest mishap to himself, would mean the annihilation of
his hopes. Even if he succeeded in directing his shots with accuracy,
both himself and Jeanne would almost immediately be under fire from
those above.

He dropped back again behind the screen of reeds. The canoe drew
nearer. A moment more and it was almost abreast of him, and his heart
pounded like a swiftly beating hammer when he saw Jeanne in the stern.
She was leaning back as though unconscious. He could see nothing of her
face, but as the canoe passed within ten yards of his hiding-place he
saw the dark glow of her disheveled hair, which fell thickly over the
object against which she was resting. It was but a moment's view, and
they were gone. He had not looked at the three men in the canoe. His
whole being was centered upon Jeanne. He had seen no sign of life--no
movement in her body, not the flutter of a hand, and all his fears
leaped like brands of burning fire into his brain. He thought of the
inhuman plot which Lord Fitzhugh's letter had revealed; in the same
breath Pierre Couchee's words rang in his ears--"It is death--worse
than death--for her--"

Was Jeanne the first victim of that diabolical scheme to awaken the
wrath of the northland? In the madness which possessed him now Philip
shoved out his canoe while there was still danger of discovery.
Fortunately none of the pursued glanced back, and a turn in the channel
soon hid them from view. Philip had recovered his self-possession by
the time he reached the turn. He assured himself that Jeanne was
unharmed as yet, and that when he saw her she had probably fainted from
excitement and terror. Her fate still lay before her, somewhere in the
deep and undisturbed forests up the Churchill. His one hope was to
remain undiscovered and to rescue her at the last moment when she was
taken ashore by her captors.

He followed, close up against the reeds, never trusting himself out of
the shadows. After a little he heard voices, and a second canoe
appeared. There was a short pause, and the two canoes continued side by
side up the channel. A quarter of an hour brought both the pursuers and
the pursued into the main stream, which lay in black gloom between
forest walls that cut out all light but the shimmer of the stars.

No longer could Philip see those ahead of him, but he guided himself by
occasional voices and the dip of paddles. At times, when the stream
narrowed and the forest walls gave him deeper shelter, he drew
perilously near with the hope of overhearing what was said, but he
caught only an occasional word or two. He listened in vain for Jeanne's
voice. Once he heard her name spoken, and it was followed by a low
laugh from some one in the canoe that had waited at the mouth of the
Churchill. A dozen times during the first half-hour after they entered
the main stream Philip heard this same laughing voice.

After a time there fell a silence upon those ahead. No sound rose above
the steady dip of paddles, and the speed of the two canoes increased.
Suddenly, from far up the river, there came a voice, faintly at first,
but growing steadily louder, singing one of the wild half-breed songs
of the forest. The voice broke the silence of those in the canoes. They
ceased paddling, and Philip stopped. He heard low words, and after a
few moments the paddling was resumed, and the canoes turned in toward
the shore. Philip followed their movement, dropping fifty yards farther
down the stream, and thrust big birch-bark alongside a thick balsam
that had fallen into the river.

The singing voice approached rapidly. Five minutes later a long company
canoe floated down out of the gloom. It passed so near that Philip
could see the picturesque figure in the stern paddling and singing. In
the bow kneeled an Indian working in stoic silence. Between them, in
the body of the canoe, sat two men whom he knew at a glance were white
men. The strangers and their craft slipped by with the quickness of a
shadow.

Again Philip heard movements above him, and once more he took up the
pursuit. He wondered why Jeanne had not called for help when the
company canoe passed. If she was not hurt or unconscious, her captors
had been forced to hold a handkerchief or a brutal hand over her mouth,
perhaps at her throat! His blood grew hot with rage at the thought.

For three-quarters of an hour longer the swift paddling up-stream
continued without interruption. Then the river widened into a small
lake, and Philip was compelled to hold back until the two canoes, which
he could see clearly now, had passed over the exposed area.

By the time he dared to follow, Jeanne's captors were a quarter of a
mile ahead of him. He no longer heard their paddles when he entered the
stream at the upper end of the lake, and he bent to his work with
greater energy and less caution. Five minutes--ten minutes passed, and
he saw nothing, heard nothing. His strokes grew more powerful and the
canoe shot through the water with the swift cleavage of a knife. A
perspiration began to gather on his face, and a sudden chilling fear
entered him. Another five minutes and he stopped. The river swept out
ahead of him, broad and clear, for a quarter of a mile. There was no
sign of the canoes!

For a few moments he remained motionless, drifting back with the slow
current of the stream, stunned by the thought that he had allowed
Jeanne's captors to escape him. Had they heard him and dropped in to
shore to let him pass? He swung his canoe about and headed down-stream.
In that case he could not miss them, if he used caution. But if they
had turned into some creek hidden in the gloom--were even now picking
their way through a secret channel that led back from the river--

A groan burst from his lips as he thought of Jeanne. In that half mile
of river he could surely find where the canoes had gone, but it might
be too late. He went down in mid-stream, searching the shadows of both
shores. His heart sank like lead when he came to the lake. There was
but one thing to do now, and he ran his canoe close along the
right-hand shore, looking for an opening. His progress was slow. A
dozen times he entangled himself in masses of reeds and rice, or thrust
himself under over-hanging tree-tops and vines to investigate the
deeper gloom beyond. He had returned two-thirds of the distance to the
straight-water where he had given up the pursuit when the bow of his
canoe ran upon a smooth, sandy bar that shelved out thirty or forty
feet from the shore. Scarcely had he felt the grate of sand when with a
powerful shove he sent his canoe back, and almost in the same instant
Pierre's rifle leveled menacingly shoreward. Drawn up high and dry on
the sand-bar were the two canoes.

For a space Philip expected that his appearance would be the signal for
some movement ashore; but as he drifted slowly away, his rifle still
leveled, he was filled more and more with the belief that he had not
been discovered. He allowed himself to drift until he knew that he was
hidden in the shadows, and then quietly worked himself in to shore.
Making no sound, he pulled himself up the bank and crept among the
trees toward the bar. There was no one guarding the canoes. He heard no
sound of voice, no crackling of brush or movement of reeds. For a full
minute he crouched and listened. Then he crept nearer and found where
both reeds and brush were trampled down into a path that led away from
the river.

His heart gave a bound of joy, and he darted along the path, holding
his rifle ready for instant use. The trail wound through the tall grass
of a dry swamp meadow and, two hundred yards beyond the river, plunged
into a forest. He had barely entered this when he saw the glow of a
fire. It was only a short distance ahead, hidden in a deep hollow that
completely concealed its existence from the keenest eyes that might
pass along the river. Stealing cautiously to the crest of the little
knoll between him and the light, Philip found himself within fifty feet
of a camp.

A big canvas tent was the first thing to come within his vision. The
fire was built against this face of a rock in front of this, and over
the fire hovered a man dragging out beds of coals with a forked stick.
Almost at the same moment a second man appeared from the tent, bearing
two huge skillets in one hand and a big pot in the other. At a glance
Philip knew that they were preparing to cook a meal, and that it was
for many instead of two. Wildly he searched the firelit spaces and the
shadows for a sign of Jeanne. He saw nothing. She was not in the camp.
The five or six men who had fled up the river with her were not there.
His fingers dug deep in the earth under him at the discovery, and once
more appalling fears overwhelmed him. Perhaps she had already met her
fate a little deeper in the forest.

He crept over the edge of the knoll and worked himself down through the
low bush on the opposite side, which would bring him within a dozen
feet of the man over the fire. There he would have them at his mercy,
and at the point of his revolver would compel them to tell him where
Jeanne had been taken. The advantage was all in his favor. It would not
be difficult to make them prisoners and leave them secured while he
followed after their companions.

He was intent only upon his plan, and did not take his eyes from the
men over the fire. He came to the end of the bush, and crouched with
head and shoulders exposed, his revolver in his hand. Suddenly a sound
close to the tent startled him. It was a low cough. The men over the
fire made no movement to look behind them, but Philip turned.

In the shadow of a tree, which had concealed her until now, sat Jeanne.
She was tense and straight. Her white face was turned to him. Her
beautiful eyes glowed like stars. Her lips were parted; he could see
her quick, excited breathing. She saw him! She knew him! He could see
the joy of hope in her face and that she was crushing back an impulse
to cry out to him, even as he was restraining his own mad desire to
shout out his defiance and joy. And there in the firelight, his face
illumined, and oblivious for the moment of the presence of the two men,
Philip straightened himself and held out his arms with a glad smile to
Jeanne.

Hardly had he turned to the men, ready to spring out upon them, when
there came a terrific interruption. There was a sudden crash in the
brush behind him, a menacing snarl, and a huge wolfish brute launched
itself at his throat. The swift instinct of self-preservation turned
the weapon intended for the men over the fire upon this unexpected
assailant. The snarling fangs of the husky were gleaming in his face
and the animal's body was against the muzzle of his revolver when
Philip fired. Though he escaped the fangs, he could not ward off the
impact of the dog's body, and in another moment he was sprawling upon
his back in the light of the camp. Before Philip could recover himself
Jeanne's startled guards were upon him. Flung back, he still possessed
his pistol, and pulled the trigger blindly. The report was muffled and
sickening. At the same moment a heavy blow fell upon his head, and a
furious weight crushed him back to the ground. He dropped his revolver.
His brain reeled; his muscles relaxed. He felt his assailant's fingers
at his throat, and their menace brought back every ounce of fighting
strength in his body. For a moment he lay still, his eyes closed, the
warm blood flowing over his face. He had worked this game once before,
years ago. He even thought of that time now, as he lay upon his back.
It had worked then, and it worked now. The choking fingers at his
throat loosened; the weight lifted itself a little from his chest. The
lone guard thought that he was unconscious, and Jeanne, who had
staggered to her feet, thought that he was dead.

It was her cry, terrible, filled with agony and despair, that urged him
into action an instant too soon. His foe was still partly on his guard,
rising with a caution born of more than one wilderness episode, when
with a quick movement Philip closed with him. Locked in a deadly grip,
they rolled upon the ground; and, with a feeling of despair which had
never entered into his soul before, the terrible truth came to Philip
that the old strength was gone from his arms and that with each added
exertion he was growing weaker. For a moment he saw Jeanne. She stood
almost above them, her hands clutched at her breast. And as he looked,
she suddenly turned and ran to the fire. An instant more and she was
back, a red-hot brand in her hand. Philip saw it flash close to his
eyes, felt the heat of it; and then a scream, animal-like in its
ferocity and pain, burst from the lips of his antagonist. The man
reeled backward, clutching at his thick neck, where Jeanne had thrust
the burning stick. Philip rose to his knees. His fist shot out like
lightning against the other's jaw, and the second guard fell back in a
limp heap.

Even as the blow fell, a loud shout came from close back in the forest,
followed by the crashing of many feet tearing through the underbrush.




XI


Philip and Jeanne stood face to face in the firelight.

"Quick!" he cried. "We must hurry!"

He bent over to pick up his revolver from the ground. His movement was
followed by a low sob of pain. Jeanne was swaying as though about to
faint. She fell in a crumpled heap before he could reach her side.

"You are hurt!" he exclaimed. "Jeanne! Jeanne!"

He was upon his knees beside her, crying out her name, half holding her
in his arms.

"No, no! I am not hurt--much," she replied, trying to recover herself.
"It is my ankle. I sprained it--on the cliff. Now--"

She became heavier against his arm. Her eyes were limpid with pain.

Rising, Philip caught her in his arms. The crashing of brush was within
pistol-shot distance of them, but in that moment he felt no fear. Life
leaped back into his veins. He wanted to shout back his defiance as he
ran with Jeanne along the path to the river. He could feel her pulsing
against him. His lips were in her hair. Her heart was beating wildly
against his own. One of her arms was about his shoulder, her hand
against his neck. Life, love, the joy of possession swept through him
in burning floods, and it seemed in these first moments of his contact
with Jeanne, in the first sound of her voice speaking to him, that the
passionate language of his soul must escape through his lips. For this
moment he had risked his life, had taken a hundred chances; he had
anticipated, and yet he had not dreamed beyond a hundredth part of what
it would mean for him. He looked down into the white face of the girl
as he ran. Her beautiful eyes were open to him. Her lips were parted;
her cheek lay against his breast. He did not realize how close he was
holding her until, at last, he stopped where he had hidden the canoe.
Then he felt her beating and throbbing against him, as he had felt the
quivering life of a frightened bird imprisoned in his hands. She drew a
deep breath when he opened his arms, and lifted her head. Her loose
hair swept over his breast and hands.

He spoke no word as he placed her in the canoe. Not a whisper passed
between them as the canoe sped swiftly from the shore. A hundred yards
down the stream Philip headed straight across the river and plunged
into the shadows along the opposite bank.

Jeanne was close to him. He could hear her breathing. Suddenly he felt
the touch of her hand.

"M'sieur, I must ask--about Pierre!"

There was the thrill of fear in the low words. She leaned back, her
face a pale shadow in the deep gloom; and Philip bent over until he
felt her breath, and the sweetness of her hair filled his nostrils.
Quickly he whispered what had happened. He told her that Pierre was
hurt, but not badly, and that he had promised to take her on to Fort o'
God.

"It is up the Churchill?" he questioned.

"Yes," she whispered.

They heard voices now, and almost opposite them they saw shadowy
figures running out to the canoes upon the sand-bar.

"They will think that we are escaping toward Churchill," said Philip,
gloatingly. "It is the nearest refuge. See--"

One of the canoes was launched, and shot swiftly down the river. A
moment later the second followed. The dip of paddles died away, and
Philip laughed softly and joyously.

"They will hunt for us from now until morning between here and the Bay.
And then they will look for you again in Churchill."

Philip was conscious, almost without seeing, that Jeanne had bowed her
head in her arms and that she was giving way now to the terrific strain
which she had been under. Not until he heard a low sob, which she
strove hard to choke back in her throat, did he dare to lean over again
and touch her. Whatever was throbbing in his heart, he knew that he
must hide it now.

"You read the letter?" he asked, softly.

"Yes, M'sieur."

"Then you know--that you are safe with me!"

There was pride and strength, the ring of triumph in his voice. It was
the voice of a man thrilled by his own strength, by the warmth of a
great love, by the knowledge that he was the protector of a creature
dearer to him than all else on earth. The truth of it set Jeanne
quivering. She reached out until in the darkness her two hands found
one of Philip's, and for a moment she held his paddle motionless in
midair.

"Thank you, M'sieur," she whispered. "I trust you, as I would trust
Pierre."

All the words that women had ever spoken to him were as nothing to
those few that fell softly from Jeanne's lips; in the clinging pressure
of her fingers as she uttered them were the concentrated joys of all
that he had dreamed of in the touch of women. He knelt silent,
motionless, until her hands left his own.

"I am to take you to Fort o' God," he said, fighting to keep the
tremble of joy out of his voice. "And you--you must guide me."

"It is far up the Churchill," she replied, understanding the question
he intended. "It is two hundred miles from the Bay."

He put his strength into his paddle for ten minutes, and then ran the
canoe into shore fully half a mile above the sand-bar. He stepped out
into water up to his knees.

"We must risk a little time here to attend to your injured ankle," he
explained. "Then you can arrange yourself comfortably among these robes
in the bow. Shall I carry you?"

"You can--help," said Jeanne. She gave him her hand and made an effort
to rise. Instantly she sank back with a sob of pain.

It was strange that her pain should fill him with a wonderful joy. He
knew that she was suffering, that she could not walk or stand alone.
And yet, back at the camp, she had risen in her torture and had come to
his rescue. She could not bear her own weight now, but then she had run
to him and had fought for him. The knowledge that she had done this,
and for him, filled him with an exquisite sensation.

"I must carry you," he said, speaking to her with the calm decision
that he might have voiced to a little child. His tone reassured her,
and she made no remonstrance when he lifted her in his arms. For a
brief moment she lay against him again, and when he lowered her upon
the bank his hand accidentally touched the soft warmth of her face.

"My specialty is sprains," he said, speaking a little lightly to raise
her spirits for the instant's ordeal through which she must pass. "I
have doctored half a dozen during the last three months. You must take
off your moccasin and your stocking, and I will make a bandage."

He drew a big handkerchief from his pocket and dipped it in the water.
Then he searched along the shore for a dozen paces, until he found an
Indian willow. With his knife he scraped off a handful of bark, soaked
it in water, crushed it between his hands, and returned to her.
Jeanne's little foot lay naked in the starlight.

"It will hurt just a moment," he said, gently. "But it is the only
cure. To-morrow it will be strong enough for you to stand upon. Can you
bear a little hurt?"

He knelt before her and looked up, scarce daring to touch her foot
before she spoke.

"I may cry," she said.

Her voice fluttered, but it gave him permission. He folded the wet
handkerchief in the form of a bandage, with the willow bark spread over
it. Then, very gently, he seized her foot in one hand and her ankle in
the other.

"It will hurt just a little," he soothed. "Only a moment."

His fingers tightened. He put into them the whole strength of his grip,
pulling downward on the foot and upward on the ankle until, with a low
cry, Jeanne flung her hands over his.

"There, it is done," he laughed, nervously. He wrapped the bandage
around so tightly that Jeanne could not move her foot, and tied it with
strips of cloth. Then he turned to the canoe while she drew on her
stocking and moccasin.

He was trembling. A maddening joy pounded in his brain. Jeanne's voice
came to him sweetly, with a shyness in it that made him feel like a
boy. He was glad that the night concealed his face. He would have given
worlds to have seen Jeanne's.

"I am ready," she said.

He carried her to the bow of the canoe and fixed her among the robes,
arranging a place for her head so that she might sleep if she wished.
For the first time the light was so that he could see her plainly as
she nestled back in the place made for her. Their eyes met for a moment.

"You must sleep," he urged. "I shall paddle all night."

"You are sure that Pierre is not badly hurt?" she asked, tremulously.
"You--you would not--keep the truth from me?"

"He was not more than stunned," assured Philip. "It is impossible that
his wound should prove serious. Only there was no time to lose, and I
came without him. He will follow us soon."

He took his position in the stern, and Jeanne lay back among the
bearskins. For a long time after that Philip paddled in silence. He had
hoped that Jeanne would give him an opportunity to continue their
conversation, in spite of his advice to her to secure what rest she
could. But there came no promise from the bow of the canoe. After half
an hour he guessed that Jeanne had taken him at his word, and was
asleep.

It was disappointing, and yet there came a pleasurable throb with his
disappointment. Jeanne trusted him. She was sleeping under his
protection as sweetly as a child. Fear of her enemies no longer kept
her awake or filled her with terror. This night, under these stars,
with the wilderness all about them, she had given herself into his
keeping. His cheeks burned. He dipped his paddle noiselessly, so that
he might not interrupt her slumber. Each moment added to the fullness
of his joy, and he wished that he might only see her face, hidden in
the darkness of her hair and the bear-robes.

The silence no longer seemed a silence to him. It was filled with the
beating of his heart, the singing of his love, a gentle sigh now and
then that came like a deeper breath between Jeanne's sweet lips. It was
a silence that pulsated with a voiceless and intoxicating life for him,
and he was happy. In these moments, when even their voices were
stilled, Jeanne belonged to him, and to him alone. He could feel the
warmth of her presence. He felt still the thrill of her breast against
his own, the touch of her hair upon his lips, the gentle clinging of
her arms. The spirit of her moved, and sat awake, and talked with him,
just as the old spirit of his dreams had communed with him a thousand
times in his loneliness. Dreams were at an end. Now had come reality.

He looked up into the sky. The moon had dropped below the southwestern
forests, and there were only the stars above him, filling a gray-blue
vault in which there was not even the lingering mist of a cloud. It was
a beautifully clear night, and he wondered how the light fell so that
it did not reveal Jeanne in her nest. The thought that came to him then
set his heart tingling and made his face radiant. Even the stars were
guarding Jeanne, and refused to disclose the mystery of her slumber. He
laughed within himself. His being throbbed, and suddenly a voice seemed
to cry softly, trembling in its joy:

"Jeanne! Jeanne! My beloved Jeanne!"

With horror Philip caught himself too late. He had spoken the words
aloud. For an instant reality had transformed itself into the old
dream, and his dream-spirit had called to its mate for the first time
in words. Appalled at what he had said, Philip bent over and listened.
He heard Jeanne's breathing. It was deeper than before. She was surely
asleep!

He straightened himself and resumed his paddling. He was glad now that
he had spoken. Jeanne seemed nearer to him after those words.

Before this night he never realized how beautiful the wilderness was,
how complete it could be. It had offered him visions of new life, but
these visions had never quite shut out the memories of old pain. He
watched and listened. The water rippled behind his canoe; it trickled
in a soothing cadence after each dip of his paddle; he heard the gentle
murmur of it among the reeds and grasses, and now and then the gurgling
laughter of it, like the faintest tinkling of dainty bells. He had
never understood it before; he had never joined in its happiness. The
night sounds came to him with a different meaning, filled him with
different sensations. As he slipped quietly around a bend in the river
he heard a splashing ahead of him, and knew that a moose was feeding,
belly-deep, in the water. At other times the sound would have set his
fingers itching for a rifle, but now it was a part of the music of the
night. Later he heard the crashing of a heavy body along the shore and
in the distance the lonely howl of a wolf. He listened to the sounds
with a quiet pleasure instead of creeping thrills which they once sent
through him. Every sound spoke of Jeanne--of Jeanne and her world, into
which each stroke of his paddle carried them a little deeper.

And yet the truth could not but come to him that Jeanne was but a
stranger. She was a creature of mystery, as she lay there asleep in the
bow of the canoe; he loved her, and yet he did not know her. He
confessed to himself, as the night lengthened, that he would be glad
when morning came. Jeanne would clear up a half of his perplexities
then, perhaps all of them. He would at least learn more about herself
and the reason for the attack at Fort Churchill.

He paddled for another hour, and then looked at his watch by the light
of a match. It was three o'clock.

Jeanne had not moved, but as the match burned out between his fingers
she startled him by speaking.

"Is it nearly morning, M'sieur?"

"An hour until dawn," said Philip. "You have been sleeping a long
time--" Her name was on his lips, but he found it a little more
difficult to speak now. And yet there was a gentleness in Jeanne's
"M'SIEUR" which encouraged him. "Are you getting hungry?" he asked.

"Pierre and my father always ask me that when THEY are starving,"
replied Jeanne, sitting erect in her nest so that Philip saw her face
and the shimmer of her hair. "There is everything to eat in the pack,
M'sieur Philip, even to a bottle of olives."

"Good!" cried Philip, delighted, "But won't you please cut out that
'm'sieur?' My greatest weakness is a desire to be called by my first
name. Will you?"

"If it pleases you," said Jeanne. "There is everything there to eat,
and I will make you a cup of coffee, M'sieur--"

"What?"

"Philip."

There was a ripple of laughter in the girl's voice. Philip fairly
trembled.

"You were prepared for this journey," he said. "You were going to leave
after you saw me on the rock. I have been wondering why--why you took
enough interest in me--"

He knew that he was blundering, and in the darkness his face turned
red. Jeanne's tact was delightful.

"We were curious about you," she said, with bewitching candor. "Pierre
is the most inquisitive creature in the world, and I wanted to thank
you for returning my handkerchief. I'm sorry you didn't find a bit of
lace which I lost at the same time!"

"I did!" exclaimed Philip.

He bit his tongue, and cursed himself at this fresh break. Jeanne was
silent. After a moment she said:

"Shall I make you some coffee?"

"Will you be able to do it? Your foot--"

"I had forgotten that," she said. "It doesn't hurt any more. But I can
show you how."

Her unaffected ingenuousness, the sweetness of her voice, the
simplicity and ease of her manner delighted Philip, and at the same
time filled him with amazement. He had never met a forest girl like
Jeanne. Her beauty, her queen-like bearing, when she had stood with
Pierre on the rock, had puzzled him and filled him with admiration. But
now her voice, the music of her words, her quickness of perception
added tenfold to those impressions. It might have been Miss Brokaw who
was sitting there in the bow talking to him, only Jeanne's voice was
sweeter than Miss Brokaw's; and even in the lightest of the words she
had spoken there was a tone of sincerity and truth. It flashed upon
Philip that Jeanne might have stepped from a convent school, where
gentle voices had taught her and language was formed in the ripe
fullness of music. In a moment he believed that something like this had
happened.

"We will go ashore," he said, searching for an open space. "This must
be tedious to you, if you are not accustomed to it."

"Accustomed to it, M'sieur--Philip!" exclaimed Jeanne, catching
herself. "I was born here!"

"In the wilderness?"

"At Fort o' God."

"You have not always lived there?"

For a brief space Jeanne was silent.

"Yes, always, M'sieur. I am eighteen years old, and this is the first
time that I have ever seen what you people call civilization. It is my
first visit to Fort Churchill. It is the first time I have ever been
away from Fort o' God."

Jeanne's voice was low and subdued. It rang with truth. In it there was
something that was almost tragedy. For a breath or two Philip's heart
seemed to stop its beating, and he leaned far over, looking straight
and questioningly into the beautiful face that met his own. In that
moment the world had opened and engulfed him in a wonder which at first
his mind could not comprehend.




XII


The canoe ran among the reeds, with its bow to the shore. Philip's
astonishment still held him motionless.

"A little while ago you asked me if I would tell you anything
but--but--the truth," he stammered, trying to find words to express
himself, "and this--"

"Is the truth," interrupted Jeanne, a little coolly. "Why should I tell
you an untruth, M'sieur?"

Philip had asked himself that same question shortly after their first
meeting on the cliff. And now in the girl's question there was sounded
a warning for him to be more discreet.

"I did not mean that," he cried, quickly. "Please forgive me. Only--it
is so wonderful, so almost IMPOSSIBLE to believe. Do you know what I
thought of for three-quarters of the night after I left you and Pierre
on the rock? It was of years--centuries ago. I put you and Pierre back
there. It seemed as though you had come to me from out of another
world, that you had strayed from the chivalry and beauty of some royal
court, that a queen's painter might have known and made a picture of
you, as I saw you there, but that to me you were only the vision of a
dream. And now you say that you have always lived here!"

He saw Jeanne's eyes glowing. She had lifted herself from among the
bearskins and was leaning toward him. Her face was quivering with
emotion; her whole being seemed concentrated on his words.

"M'sieur--Philip--did we seem--like that?" she asked, tremulously.

"Yes, or I would not have written the letter," replied Philip. He
leaned forward over the pack, and his face was close to Jeanne's. "I
had just passed over the place where men and women of a century or two
ago were buried, and when I saw you and Pierre I thought of them; of
Mademoiselle D'Arcon, who left a prince to follow her lover to a grave
back there at Churchill, and I wondered if Grosellier--"

"Grosellier!" cried the girl.

She was breathing quickly, excitedly. Suddenly she drew back with a
little, nervous laugh.

"I am glad you thought of us like THAT," she added. "It was Grosellier,
le grand chevalier, who first lived at Fort o' God!"

Philip could no longer restrain himself. He forgot that the canoe was
lying motionless among the reeds and that they were to go ashore. In a
voice that trembled with his eagerness to be understood, to win her
confidence, he told her fully of what had happened that night on the
cliff. He repeated Pierre's instructions to him, described his terrible
fear for her, and in it all withheld but one thing--the name of Lord
Fitzhugh Lee. Jeanne listened to him without a word. She sat as erect
as one of the slender reeds among which the canoe was hidden. Her dark
eyes never left his face. They seemed to have grown darker when he
finished.

"May the great God reward you for what you have done," she said, in a
low voice, quivering with a suppressed passion. "You are brave, M'sieur
Philip--as brave as I have dreamed of men being."

Philip's heart throbbed with delight, and yet he said quickly:

"It isn't THAT. I have done nothing--nothing more than Pierre would
have done for me. But don't you understand? If there is to be a reward
for the little I have given--I could ask for nothing greater than your
confidence and Pierre's. There are reasons, and perhaps if I told you
those you would understand."

"I do understand, without further explanation," answered Jeanne, in the
same low, strained voice. "You fought for Pierre on the cliff, and you
have saved--me. We owe you everything, even our lives. I understand,
M'sieur Philip," she said, more softly, leaning still nearer to him;
"but I can tell you nothing."

"You prefer to leave that to Pierre," he said a little hurt. "I beg
your pardon."

"No, no! I don't mean that!" she cried, quickly. "You misunderstand me.
I mean that you know as much of this whole affair as I do, that you
know what I know, and perhaps more."

The emotion which she had suppressed burst forth now in a choking sob.
She recovered herself in an instant, her eyes still upon Philip.

"It was only a whim of mine that took us to Churchill," she went on,
before he could find words to say. "It is Pierre's secret why we lived
in our own camp and went down into Churchill but once--when the ship
came in. I do not know the reason for the attack. I can only guess--"

"And your guess--"

Jeanne drew back. For a moment she did not speak. Then she said,
without a note of harshness in her voice, but with the finality of a
queen:

"Father may tell you that when we reach Fort o' God!"

And then she suddenly leaned toward him again and held out both her
hands.

"If you only could know how I thank you!" she exclaimed, impulsively.

For a moment Philip held her hands. He felt them trembling. In Jeanne's
eyes he saw the glisten of tears.

"Circumstances have come about so strangely," he said, his heart
palpitating at the warm pressure of her fingers, "that I half believed
you and Pierre could help me in--in an affair of my own. I would give a
great deal to find a certain person, and after the attack on the cliff,
and what Pierre said, I thought--"

He hesitated, and Jeanne gently drew her hands from him.

"I thought that you might know him," he finished. "His name is Lord
Fitzhugh Lee."

Jeanne gave no sign that she had heard the name before. The question in
her eyes remained unchanged.

"We have never heard of him at Fort o' God," she said.

Philip shoved the canoe more firmly upon the shore and stepped over the
side.

"This Fort o' God must be a wonderful place," he said, as he bent over
to help her. "You have aroused something in me I never thought I
possessed before--a tremendous curiosity."

"It is a wonderful place, M'sieur Philip," replied the girl, holding up
her hands to him. "But why should you guess it?"

"Because of you," laughed Philip. "I am half convinced that you take a
wicked delight in bewildering me."

He found Jeanne a comfortable spot on the bank, brought her one of the
bearskins, and began collecting a pile of dry reeds and wood.

"I am sure of it," he went on. He struck a match, and the reeds flared
into flame, lighting up his face.

Jeanne gave a startled cry.

"You are hurt!" she exclaimed. "Your face is red with blood."

Philip jumped back.

"I had forgotten that. I'll wash my face."

He waded into the edge of the water and began scrubbing himself. When
he returned, Jeanne looked at him closely. The fire illumined her pale
face. She had gathered her beautiful hair in a thick braid, which fell
over her shoulder. She appeared lovelier to him now than when he had
first seen her in the night-glow on the cliff. She was dressed the
same. He observed that the filmy bit of lace about her slender throat
was torn, and that one side of her short buckskin skirt was covered
with half-dried splashes of mud. His blood rose at these signs of the
rough treatment of those who had attacked her. It reached fever-heat
when, coming nearer, he saw a livid bruise on her forehead close up
under her hair.

"They struck you?" he demanded.

He stood with his hands clenched. She smiled up at him.

"It was my fault," she explained. "I'm afraid I gave them a good deal
of trouble on the cliff."

She laughed outright at the fierceness in Philip's face, and so sweet
was the sound of it to him that his hands relaxed and he laughed with
her.

"So help me, you're a brick!" he cried.

"There are pots and kettles and coffee and things to eat in the pack,
M'sieur Philip," reminded Jeanne, softly, as he still remained staring
down upon her.

Philip turned to the canoe, with a laugh that was like a boy's. He
threw the pack at Jeanne's feet and unstrapped it. Together they sorted
out the things they wanted, and Philip cut crotched sticks on which he
suspended two pots of water over the fire. He found himself whistling
as he gathered an armful of wood along the shore. When he came back
Jeanne had opened a bottle of olives and was nibbling at one, while she
held out another to him on the end of a fork.

"I love olives," she said. "Won't you have one?"

He accepted the thing, and ate it joyously, though he hated olives.

"Where did you acquire the taste?" he asked. "I thought it took a
course at college to make one like 'em."

"I've been to college," answered Jeanne, quietly. There was a glow in
her cheeks now, a swift flash of tantalizing fun in her eyes, as she
fished after another olive. "I have been a student--a TENERIS ANNIS,"
she added, and he stood stupefied.

"That's Latin!" he gasped.

"Oui, M'sieur. Wollen Sie noch eine Olive haben?"

Laughter rippled in her throat. She held out another olive to him, her
face aglow. Firelight danced in her hair, flooding its darker shadows
with lights of red and gold.

"I was sure of it," he exclaimed, convinced. "That's post-graduate
Latin and senior German, or I'm as mad as a March hare! Where--where
did you go to school?"

"At Fort o' God. Quick, M'sieur Philip, the water is boiling over!"

Philip sprang to the fire. Jeanne handed him coffee, and set out cold
meat and bread. For the first time that night he pulled out his pipe
and filled it with tobacco.

"You don't mind if I smoke, do you, Miss Jeanne?" he groaned. "Under
some circumstances tobacco is the only thing that will hold me up. Do
you know that you are shaking my confidence in you?"

"I have told you nothing but the truth," retorted Jeanne, innocently.
She was still busying herself over the pack, but Philip caught the
slightest gleam of her laughing teeth.

"You are making fun of me," he remonstrated. "Tell me--where is this
Fort o' God, and what is it?"

"It is far up the Churchill, M'sieur Philip. It is a log chateau, built
hundreds and hundreds of years ago, I guess. My father, Pierre, and I,
with one other, live there alone among the savages. I have never been
so far away from home before."

"I suppose," said Philip, "that the savages up your way converse in
Latin, Greek, and German--"

"Latin, FRENCH, and German," corrected Jeanne. "We haven't added a
Greek course yet."

"I know of a girl," mused Philip, as though speaking to himself, "who
spent five years in a girls' college, and she can talk nothing but
light English. Her name is Eileen Brokaw."

Jeanne looked up, but only to point to the coffee.

"It is done," she advised, "unless you like it bitter."




XIII


Philip knew that Jeanne was watching him as he lifted the coffee from
the fire and placed the pot on the ground to cool. His mind was in a
hopeless tangle--a riot of things he would like to say, throbbing with
a hundred questions he would like to ask, one after another. And yet
Jeanne seemed bewitchingly unconscious of his uneasiness. Not one of
his references to names and events so vital to himself had in any way
produced a change in her. Was she, after all, innocent of all knowledge
in the things he wished to know? Was it possible that she was entirely
ignorant as to the identity of the men who had attacked Pierre and
herself on the cliff? Was it true that she did not know Eileen Brokaw,
that she had never heard of Lord Fitzhugh Lee, and that she had always
lived among the wild people of the north? By what miracle performed
here in the heart of a savage world could this girl talk to him in
German and Latin? Was she making fun of him? He turned to look at her
and found her dark, clear eyes upon him. She smiled at him in a tired
little way, and he saw nothing but sweetness and truth in her face. In
an instant every suspicion was swept away. He felt like a criminal for
having doubted her; and for a moment he was on the point of confessing
to her what had been in his thoughts. He restrained himself, and went
to the river to wash the pot-black from his hands. Jeanne was a mystery
to him, a mystery that delighted him and filled him each moment with a
deeper love. He saw the life and freedom of the forests in her every
movement--in the gesture of her hands, the bird-like poise of her
pretty head, the lithe grace of her slender body. She breathed the
forests. It glowed in her eyes, in the rich red of her lips, and
revealed its beauty and strength in the unconfined wealth of her
gold-brown hair. In a dozen ways he could see her primitiveness, her
kinship to the wilderness. She had told him the truth. Her eyes smiled
truth at him as he came up the bank. No other woman's eyes had ever
looked at him like hers; none had he seen so beautiful. And yet in them
he saw nothing that she would not have expressed in
words--companionship, trust, thankfulness that he was there to care for
her. Such eyes as those belonged only to the wilderness, brimming with
the flawless beauty of an undefiled nature. He had seen them, but not
so beautiful, in Cree women. He thought of Eileen Brokaw's eyes as he
looked at Jeanne's. They were very beautiful, but they were DIFFERENT.
Jeanne's could not lie.

On a white napkin Jeanne had spread out cold meat, bread, pickles, and
cheese, and Philip brought her the coffee. He noticed that she was
resting a little of her weight upon her injured ankle.

"Better?" he asked, indicating the bandaged ankle with a nod of his
head.

"Much," replied Jeanne, as tersely. "I'm going to try standing upon it
in a few minutes. But not now. I'm starved."

She gave him his coffee and began eating with a relish that made him
want to sit back and watch her. Instead, he joined her; and they ate
like two hungry children. It was when she turned him out a second cup
of coffee that Philip noticed her hand tremble a little.

"If Pierre was here we would be quite happy, M'sieur Philip," she said,
uneasily. "I can't understand why he asked you to run away with me to
Fort o' God. If he is not badly hurt, as you have told me, why do we
not hide and wait for him? He would overtake us to-morrow."

"There--there was no time to talk over plans," answered Philip,
inwardly embarrassed for a moment by the unexpectedness of Jeanne's
question. A vision of Pierre, bleeding and unconscious on the cliff,
leaped into his mind, and the thought that he had lied to Jeanne and
must still make her believe what was half false sickened him. There
was, after all, a chance that Pierre would never again come up the
Churchill. "Perhaps Pierre thought we would be hotly pursued," he went
on, seeing no escape from the demand in the girl's eyes. "In that event
it would be best for me to get you to Fort o' God as quickly as
possible. You must remember that Pierre was thinking of you. He can
care for himself. It may take him two or three days to get back the
strength of--of his arm," he finished, blindly.

"He was wounded in the arm?"

"And on the head," said Philip. "It was only a scalp wound,
however--nothing at all, except that it dazed him a little at the time."

Jeanne pointed to the reflection of the fire on the river.

"If we should be pursued?" she suggested.

"There is no danger," assured Philip, though he had left the flap of
his revolver holster unbuttoned. "They will search for us between their
camp and Churchill."

"Citius venit periculum cum contemnitur," remonstrated Jeanne, half
smiling.

She was pale, but Philip saw that she was making a tremendous effort to
appear brave and cheerful.

"Perhaps you are right," laughed Philip, "but I swear that I don't know
what you mean. I suppose you picked that lingo up among the Indians."

He caught the faintest gleam of Jeanne's white teeth again as she bent
her head.

"I have a tutor at home," she explained, softly. "You shall meet him
when we reach Fort o' God. He is the most wonderful man in the world."

Her words sent a strange chill through Philip. They were filled with an
exquisite tenderness, a pride that sent her eyes back to his, glowing.
The questions that he had meant to ask died and faded away. He thought
of her words of a few minutes before, when he had asked about Fort o'
God. She had said, "My father, Pierre, and I, WITH ONE OTHER, live
there alone." The OTHER was the tutor, the man who had come from
civilization to teach this beautiful girl those things which had amazed
him, and this man was THE MOST WONDERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD. He had no
excuse for the feelings which were aroused in him. Only he knew, as he
rose to his feet, that a part of his old burden seemed suddenly to have
returned to his shoulders, and the old loneliness was beating at the
door of his heart. He rearranged the pack in silence, and the strength
and joy of life were gone from his arms when he helped Jeanne back to
her place among the bear-skins. He did not notice that her eyes were
watching him curiously, or that her lips trembled once or twice, as if
about to speak words which never came. Jeanne, as well as he, seemed to
have discovered something which neither dared to reveal in that last
five minutes on the shore.

"There is one thing that I must know," said Philip, when they were
about to start, "and that is where to find Fort o' God? Is it on the
Churchill?"

"It is on the Little Churchill, M'sieur, near Waskiaowaka Lake."

Darkness concealed the effect of her words upon Philip. For a moment he
stared like one struck dumb. He stifled the exclamation that rose to
his lips. He felt himself trembling. He knew that if he spoke his voice
would betray him.

NEAR WASKIAOWAKA LAKE! And Waskiaowaka was within thirty miles of his
own camp on the Blind Indian! If a bomb had burst under his feet he
could not have been more amazed than at this information, given to him
in Jeanne's quiet voice. Fort o' God--within thirty miles of the scene
where very soon he was to fight the great battle of his life! He dug
his paddle into the water and sent the canoe hissing up the river. His
blood pounded like that of a racehorse on the home-stretch. Of all the
things that had happened, of all he had learned, this was the most
significant. Every thought ran like a separate powder-flash to a single
idea, to one great, overpowering question. Were Fort o' God and its
people the key to the plot against himself and his company? Was it the
rendezvous of those who were striving to work his ruin? Doubt,
suspicion, almost belief came to him in those few moments, in spite of
himself.

He looked at Jeanne. The gray dawn was breaking, and now light followed
swiftly and dissolved the last mist. In the chill of early morning,
when with the approach of the sun a cold, uncomfortable sweat rises
heavily from the earth and water, Jeanne had drawn one of the bearskins
closely about her. Her head was bare. Her hair, glistening with damp,
clung in heavy masses about her face. There was a bewitching
childishness about her, a pathetic appeal to him in the forlorn little
picture she made--so helpless, and yet so confident in him. Every
energy in him leaped up in defiance of the revolution which for a few
moments had stirred within him. And Jeanne, as though she had read the
working of his mind, looked straight at him and smiled, with a little
purring note in her throat that took the place of a thousand words. It
was such a smile, and yet not one of love, which puts the strength of
ten men in one man's arms; and Philip laughed back at her, every chord
in his body responding in joyous vibration to the delicate note that
had come with it. No matter what events might find their birth at Fort
o' God, Jeanne was innocent of all knowledge of plot or wrong-doing.
Once for all Philip convinced himself of this.

The thought that came to him, as he looked at Jeanne, found voice
through his lips.

"Do you know," he said, "if I never saw you again I would always have
three pictures of you in my memory. I would never forget how you looked
when I first saw you on the cliff--or as I see you now, wrapped in your
bearskins. Only--I would think of you--as you smiled."

"And the third picture?" questioned Jeanne, little guessing what was in
his mind. "Would that be at the fire, when I burned the bad man's
neck--or--or when--"

She stopped herself, and pouted her mouth in sudden vexation, while a
flush which Philip could easily see rose in her cheeks.

"When I doctored your foot?" he finished, rather unchivalrously,
chuckling in his delight at her pretty discomfiture. "No, that wouldn't
be the third, Miss Jeanne. The other scene which I shall never forget
was that on the stone pier at Churchill, when you met a beautiful girl
who was coming off the ship."

The blood leaped to Jeanne's face. Her soft lips tightened. A sudden
movement, and the bearskin slipped from her shoulders, leaving her
leaning a little forward, her eyes blazing. A dozen words had
transformed her from the child he had fancied her to a woman quivering
with some powerful emotion, her beautiful head proud and erect, her
nostrils dilating with the quickness of her breath.

"That was a mistake," she said. There was no sign of passion in her
voice. It trembled a little, but that was all. "It was a mistake,
M'sieur Philip. I thought that I knew her, and--and I was wrong.
You--you must not remember THAT!"

"I am no better than a wild beast," groaned Philip, hating himself.
"I'm the biggest idiot in the world when it

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