But I stared at him. "Why blush about it, Starling?" I shrugged. I felt some disdain of his sensitiveness. "I did not mean to twit you.
I understand that you have worn the squaw"s dress to help us. But I think that the necessity for disguise is past. I see the skirts embarra.s.s you."
He turned to look at me fairly. "I am not blushing, monsieur," he explained, with a great air of candor. "It is the heat of the afternoon;" but even as he spoke the red flowed from chin to forehead, and when I looked at him with another laugh, his eyes fell before mine.
I rose on my elbow. "Starling! Starling!" I cried. He made no sound.
His head drooped, and I saw him clench his hand. I stared. He threw his head back, but when he tried to meet my look he failed. Yet I looked again. "My G.o.d!" I heard my voice say, and my teeth bit into my lip. I could smell the flowers in my hand, but they seemed a long distance away. "My G.o.d!" I cried again, and I rose and felt my way into the woods with the step of a blind man.
CHAPTER XI
MARY STARLING
I do not know how long I walked, nor where, but the sun dropped some s.p.a.ce. When I returned to the camp, I found the men before me. They had returned early, empty-handed, and were in an ill humor because the Englishman was away, and there was nothing done. I commanded Pierre to build a larger fire than usual, and keep it piled high till I returned.
Then I began a search for footprints.
They were easily found. The young gra.s.s crushed at a touch, and it was child"s work to pick out the moccasin track across the meadow. When the steps reached the beach they were harder to follow. I lost them for a while, though there were scattered pebbles that would have led me straight as a homing pigeon, had I been cool enough in mind to have my eyes and wits as sharp as usual. As it was, I doubled, and squandered time, until the sun began to loom red near the horizon. And all the time I was saying to myself, "It is not true. It is not true."
The windings of the track puzzled me. It would go straight into the forest for a s.p.a.ce, then double sharply, and come back to the beach.
It came to me at last that the wish to hide pulled the steps into the timber, and that the fear and solitude of the great woods speedily drove them out again. Then I determined to pay no attention to these detours, but push along the beach. And doing this, I speedily came upon the red blanket flung down in the shelter of a rock, and its owner resting upon it.
When I saw that all was well, I became suddenly exhausted, and went forward slowly. I reached the red blanket, and looked down. Yes, all was well. A hunting knife lay in an open bundle. I stooped and seized it, and hurled it far into the water, and then I asked, rather huskily, a question that had not been in my mind at all:--
"What is your name?"
"Mary Starling." The woman had risen, and stood with her hands pressed tight against her throat; the look she gave me was the saddest I had ever seen. "Monsieur, you wrong me. The knife that you threw away was for my protection,--for my food."
I stood over her. "You swear this?" I said, breathing hard.
She held her head high. "Monsieur, I am a coward in many ways, but not in this. Life is bitter, but I will live it as long as the Powers please. I will take what comes. Even among the Indians I was not tempted to--to that."
"You would have died. Starved here in the wilderness, if I had not found you."
"Perhaps, monsieur. Yet I gave myself what chance I could. I took some food, a fishing line, and that knife."
"Why did you leave me?"
"Monsieur!"
"I say, why did you leave me?"
"Monsieur, what else could I do? I would have discredited you. Those were your words. "A woman would discredit our canoes.""
"Yet you were--you were a woman all the time."
"Not in your eyes, monsieur."
I gripped her hand. "Did the Indians suspect?"
"Never for a moment."
"Yet when they captured you"--
"I was in man"s dress. I--I was trying to defend the blockhouse. The men had--had--had"--
I seized her in my arm, and made her drink from my brandy flask. In a moment the color came back to her lips, and she drew away.
"I have never done this before," she explained unsteadily. "Never since my capture. I suppose it is because--because you know. And so I cannot play the man. Monsieur, believe me. I would never have come with you, never, if I had not felt sure of myself. Sure that I could play my part, and that you would not know. I--I--tried, a little, to make you understand there at the commandant"s, and when I saw that you were really blind I thought that I was safe. Believe me, monsieur."
I handed her my flask. "Drink more," I commanded. I took the blanket and wrapped it around her though the air was still warm. "You must not let yourself have chills in this fashion if you would save your strength. Madame, I believe nothing about you that is not brave and admirable. Are you Madame Starling, and is Benjamin your husband that you took his name to shield you, and even repeated the name in your dreams?"
She looked at me, and I felt rebuked for something that had been in my tone. "I am unmarried," she said steadily. "Benjamin Starling is a cousin. Monsieur, there is nothing left either of us but to let me go.
Oh, if I could live this day over and be more careful! How was it, how was it that I let you know?"
I walked away. A frightened mink ran across my feet, and I cursed at it. Then I walked back.
"You did not let me know," I said, and I stooped to pick up her bundle.
"I know nothing. I was always the blindest of men. Come, Monsieur Starling, let us go back to camp."
Again she put her hands to her throat. "You mean that?"
I took the bundle in my arm. "It is the only way. Come, monsieur."
"I cannot."
"I think that you must."
"And can we go on as before?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "We can try. Come, Monsieur Starling, the men are growling, for you should have made the fire. Remember, you strayed into the woods and lost your way. Come, come, you must do your part."
She looked at me, and a sudden dry sob shook her. "Forgive me, monsieur!" she cried. "Yes, I will come." She tried to square her shoulders. "I must get my spirit back before I can meet the men in camp. Why am I such a coward!"
I dropped the bundle that I might take both her hands. "Mademoiselle,"
I said, "look at me. We are puppets in this matter. You have been thrown into my hands against my will and your own, and I swear to you that I will deal with you as fairly as I have strength. But you must play your part. So long as I treat you as a woman you will be a coward. Therefore I must be harsh with you. You have great will and can endure loneliness of soul. I must thrust you back upon yourself.
There must be no woman in the camp. Come, monsieur, let us not talk of this longer. Are you ready?" And not waiting for a.s.sent, I led the way back to camp without word or look; I even kept myself from putting out a helping hand when I heard the steps behind me falter and almost fall.
As we came to the fire and met the men, I found myself fingering my sword. But it was a useless motion. The oafs saw nothing amiss, though to me the very air was shouting the secret. We had a fat larder, broiled whitefish and bear-steak from the kill of the day before, and the men were thinking much of their stomachs and not at all of the Englishman, save when they turned their backs upon him to show that he was out of favor. So we sat down to meat. We sat a long time, while the twilight faded and the stars p.r.i.c.ked out clear, and there was little talk between us. I was sitting at meat with a woman, a woman of my own cla.s.s, and I dared not offer her even the courtesy that one may show a serving maid. Well, I would take what each day might bring and not look ahead. I would think nothing about this person, as man or woman, but would fill my thought with the purpose that had brought me to the beaver lands. I told the men to be early astir that we might make a longer day of travel on the morrow.
The morrow was gray. The wind was in the east, and the sunrise watery and streaked with slate-colored bands. The water was clammy and opaque, repellent to touch and sight. The way looked dreary, and the woman carried her head high, as if in challenge to her courage. She had risen early, and had gone through her trifling share in the preparations, and though she had avoided me, I could see that she was ready to play her part.
We paddled on our knees that morning, for the waves were choppy. By ten o"clock the bands of cloud had merged into a dun canopy, and by noon a slow, cold rain was drizzling. I dreaded a halt, but the necessity pressed. I selected a small cove, well tree-grown, and we turned our canoes inland.
Fortunately the rain, though persistent, had been gentle, and had not penetrated far under the heavy foliaged pines. We selected a clump of large trees, chopped the lower branches, and sc.r.a.ping away the surface layer of moss and needles found dry ground. Here we piled the cargo in two mounds, which we hooded with tarpaulins and with our overturned canoes. Our provisions were snug enough; it was ourselves who were in dreary estate.
It rained all the afternoon, stopped for a half hour at sunset, when the sky, for a few moments, showed streaks of red, then closed in for a night"s drizzle. I had built what shelter I could for the woman out of boughs covered with sheets of paper birch and elm. I had made a similar shelter for myself that I might not seem to discriminate too much in favor of the Englishman, and had told the men to do the same.
But they were indolent, and stopped at chopping a few hemlock boughs, which they laid across crotched aspens. In truth, our shelters accomplished little against the cold and wet. Do what we could, we had great discomfort, and morning found the rain still dripping and the sky still unbroken gray.