He broke into a cheerful whistle. The dogs were whining and snapping like joyous puppies as Mukoki unfastened them. The Cree himself was voluble in a chuckling and meaningless way. There was a great contentment in the air, an indefinable inspiration that seemed to lift the gloom. David could not understand it, though in an elusive sort of way he felt it. He did not understand until Father Roland said, across the sledge, which he had begun to unpack:
"Seems good to be on the trail again, David."
That was it--the trail! This was the end of a day"s achievement. He looked at the cabin, dark and unlighted in the open, with its big white cap of snow. It looked friendly for all its darkness. He was filled with the desire to become a partner in the activities of Mukoki and the Missioner. He wanted to help, not because he placed any value on his a.s.sistance, but simply because his blood and his brain were imposing new desires upon him. He kicked off his snow shoes, and went with Mukoki to the door of the cabin, which was fastened with a wooden bolt. When they entered he could make out things indistinctly--a stove at first, a stool, a box, a small table, and a bunk against the wall. Mukoki was rattling the lids of the stove when Father Roland entered with his arms filled. He dropped his load on the floor, and David went back to the sledge with him. By the time they had brought its burden into the cabin a fire was roaring in the stove, and Mukoki had hung a lighted lantern over the table. Then Father Roland seized an axe, tested its keen edge with his thumb, and said to David: "Let"s go cut our beds before it"s too dark." Cut their beds! But the Missioner"s broad back was disappearing through the door in a very purposeful way, and David caught up a second axe and followed. Young balsams twice as tall as a man were growing about the cabin, and from these Father Roland began stripping the branches. They carried armfuls into the cabin until the one bunk was heaped high, and meanwhile Mukoki had half a dozen pots and kettles and pans on the glowing top of the sheet-iron stove, and thick caribou steaks were sizzling in a homelike and comforting way. A little later David ate as though he had gone hungry all day. Ordinarily he wanted his meat well done; to-night he devoured an inch-and-a quarter sirloin steak that floated in its own gravy, and was red to the heart of it. When they had finished they lighted their pipes and went out to feed the dogs a frozen fish apiece.
An immense satisfaction possessed David. It was like something soft and purring inside of him. He made no effort to explain things. He was accepting facts, and changes. He felt bigger to-night, as though his lungs were stretching themselves, and his chest expanding. His fears were gone. He no longer saw anything to dread in the white wilderness.
He was eager to go on, eager to reach Tavish"s. Ever since Father Roland had spoken of Tavish that desire had been growing within him. Tavish had not only come from the Stikine River; he had lived on Firepan Creek. It was incredible that he should not know of the Girl: who she was; just where she lived; why she was there. White people were few in that far country. Tavish would surely know of her. He had made up his mind that he would show Tavish the picture, keeping to himself the manner in which he had come into possession of it. The daughter of a friend, he would tell them--both Father Roland and Tavish. Or of an acquaintance. That, at least, was half truth.
A dozen things Father Roland spoke about that night before he alluded to Tavish. David waited. He did not want to appear too deeply interested.
He desired to have the thing work itself out in a fortuitous sort of way, governed, as he was, by a strong feeling that he could not explain his position, or his strange and growing interest in the Girl, if the Missioner should by any chance discover the part he had played in the haunting though incidental encounter with the woman on the train.
"Fear--a great fear--his life is haunted by it," said Father Roland, when at last he began talking about Tavish. He was seated on a pile of balsams, his legs stretched out flat on the floor, his back to the wall, and he smoked thoughtfully as he looked at David. "A coward? I don"t know. I have seen him jump at the snap of a twig. I have seen him tremble at nothing at all. I have seen him shrink at darkness, and then, again, he came through a terrible darkness to reach my cabin that night.
Mad? Perhaps. It is hard to believe he is a coward. Would a coward live alone, as he does? That seems impossible, too. And yet he is afraid.
That fear is always close at his heels, especially at night. It follows him like a hungry dog. There are times when I would swear it is not fear of a living thing. That is what makes it--disturbing. It is weird--distressing. It makes one shiver."
The Missioner was silent for some moments, as if lost in a reverie. Then he said, reflectively:
"I have seen strange things. I have had many penitents. My ears have heard much that you would not believe. It has all come in my long day"s work in the wilderness. But never, never have I seen a fight like this that is being made by Tavish--a fight against that mysterious fear, of which he will not speak. I would give a year of my life--yes, even more--to help him. There is something about him that is lovable, that makes you want to cling to him, be near him. But he will have none of that. He wants to be alone with his fear. Is it not strange? I have pieced little things together, and that night--when terror drove him to my cabin--he betrayed himself, and I learned one thing. He is afraid of a _woman_!"
"A woman!" gasped David.
"Yes, a woman--a woman who lives--or lived--up in the Stikine River country you mentioned to-day."
David"s heart stirred strangely.
"The Stikine River, or--or--Firepan Creek?" he asked.
It seemed a long time to him before Father Roland answered. He was thinking deeply, with his eyes half closed, as though striving to recall things that he had forgotten.
"Yes--it was on the Firepan. I am sure of it," he said slowly. "He was sick--small-pox, as I told you--and it was on the Firepan. I remember that. And whoever the woman was, she was there. A woman! And he--afraid!
Afraid, even _now_, with her a thousand miles away, if she lives. Can you account for it? I would give a great deal to know. But he will say nothing. And--it is not my business to intrude. Yet I have guessed. I have my own conviction. It is terrible."
He spoke in a low voice, looking straight at David.
"And that conviction, Father?" David barely whispered.
"Tavish is afraid of some one who is _dead_."
"Dead!"
"Yes, a woman--or a girl--who is dead; dead in the flesh, but living in the spirit to haunt him. It is that. I know it. And he will not bare his soul to me."
"A girl ... who is dead ... on Firepan Creek. Her spirit...."
A cold, invisible hand was clutching at David"s throat. Shadows hid his face, or Father Roland would have seen. His voice was strained. He forced it between his lips.
"Yes, her spirit," came the Missioner"s answer, and David heard the sc.r.a.pe of his knife as he cleaned out the bowl of his pipe. "It haunts Tavish. It is with him always. _And he is afraid of it!_"
David rose slowly to his feet and went toward the door, slipping on his coat and cap. "I"m going to whistle for Baree," he said, and went out.
The white world was brilliant under the glow of a full moon and a billion stars. It was the most wonderful night he had ever seen, and yet for a few moments he was as oblivious of its amazing beauty, its almost startling vividness, as though he had pa.s.sed out into darkness.
"A girl ... Firepan ... dead ... haunting Tavish...."
He did not hear the whining of the dogs. He was again piecing together in his mind that picture--the barefooted girl standing on the rock, disturbed, startled, terrified, poised as if about to fly from a great danger. What had happened after the taking of that picture? Was it Tavish who had taken it? Was it Tavish who had surprised her there? Was it Tavish--Tavish--Tavish....?
His mind could not go on. He steadied himself, one hand clutching at the breast of his coat, where the picture lay.
The cabin door opened behind him. The Missioner came out. He coughed, and looked up at the sky.
"A splendid night, David," he said softly. "A splendid night!"
He spoke in a strange, quiet voice that made David turn. The Little Missioner was facing the moon. He was gazing off into that wonder-world of forests and snow and stars and moonlight in a fixed and steady gaze, and it seemed to David that he aged, and shrank into smaller form, and that his shoulders drooped as if under a weight. And all at once David saw in his face what he had seen before when in the coach--a forgetfulness of all things but one, the lifting of a strange curtain, the baring of a soul; and for a few moments Father Roland stood with his face turned to the light of the skies, as if preoccupied by an all-pervading and hopeless grief.
CHAPTER X
It was Baree who disturbed the silent tableau in the moonlight. David was staring at the Missioner, held by the look of anguish that had settled so quickly and so strangely in his face, as if this bright night with its moon and stars had recalled to him a great sorrow, when they heard again the wolf-dog"s howl out in the forest. It was quite near.
David, with his eyes still on the other, saw Father Roland start, as if for an instant he had forgotten where he was. The Missioner looked his way, and straightened his shoulders slowly, with a smile on his lips that was strained and wan as the smile of one worn out by an arduous toil.
"A splendid night," he repeated, and he raised a naked hand to his head, as if slowly brushing away something from before his eyes. "It was a night like this--this--fifteen years ago...."
He stopped. In the moonlight he brought himself together with a jerk. He came and laid a hand on David"s shoulder.
"That was Baree," he said. "The dog has followed us."
"He is not very far in the forest," answered David.
"No. He smells us. He is waiting out there for you."
There was a moment"s silence between them as they listened.
"I will take him a fish," said David, then. "I am sure he will come to me."
Mukoki had hoisted the gunny sack full of fish well up against the roof of the cabin to keep it from chance marauders of the night, and Father Roland stood by while David lowered it and made a choice for Baree"s supper. Then he reentered the cabin.
It was not Baree who drew David slowly into the forest. He wanted to be alone, away from Father Roland and the quiet, insistent scrutiny of the Cree. He wanted to think, ask himself questions, find answers for them if he could. His mind was just beginning to rouse itself to the significance of the events of the past day and night, and he was like one bewildered by a great mystery, and startled by visions of a possible tragedy. Fate had played with him strangely. It had linked him with happenings that were inexplicable and unusual, and he believed that they were not without their meaning for him. More or less of a fatalist, he was inspired by the sudden and disturbing thought that they had happened by inevitable necessity.
Vividly he saw again the dark, haunting eyes of the woman in the coach, and heard again the few low, tense words with which she had revealed to him her quest of a man--a man by the name of Michael O"Doone. In her presence he had felt the nearness of tragedy. It had stirred him deeply, almost as deeply as the picture she had left in her seat--the picture hidden now against his breast--like a thing which must not be betrayed, and which a strange and compelling instinct had made him a.s.sociate in such a startling way with Tavish. He could not get Tavish out of his mind; Tavish, the haunted man; Tavish the man who had fled from the Firepan Creek country at just about the time the girl in the picture had stood on the rock beside the pool; Tavish, terror-driven by a spirit of the dead! He did not attempt to reason the matter, or bare the folly of his alarm. He did not ask himself about the improbability of it all, but accepted without equivocation that strong impression as it had come to him--the conviction that the girl on the rock and the woman in the coach were in some way identified with the flight of Tavish, the man he had never seen, from that far valley in the northwest mountains.
The questions he asked himself now were not to establish in his own mind either the truth or the absurdity of this conviction. He was determining with himself whether or not to confide in Father Roland. It was more than delicacy that made him hesitate; it was almost a personal shame.
For a long time he had kept within his breast the secret of his own tragedy and dishonour. That it was _his_ dishonour, almost as much as the woman"s, had been his own conviction; and how, at last, he had come to reveal that corroding sickness in his soul to a man who was almost a stranger was more than he could understand. But he had done just that.
Father Roland had seen him stripped down to the naked truth in an hour of great need, and he had put out a hand in time to save him. He no longer doubted this last immeasurable fact. Twenty times since then, coldly and critically, he had thought of the woman who had been his wife, and slowly and terribly the enormity of her crime had swept further and further away from him the anguish of her loss. He was like a man risen from a sick bed, breathing freely again, tasting once more the flavour of the air that filled his lungs. All this he owed to Father Roland, and because of this--and his confession of only two nights ago--he felt a burning humiliation at the thought of telling the Missioner that another face had come to fill his thoughts, and stir his anxieties. And what less could he tell, if he confided in him at all?
He had gone a hundred yards or more into the forest, and in a little open s.p.a.ce, lighted up like a tiny amphitheatre in the glow of the moon, he stopped. Suddenly there came to him, thrilling in its promise, a key to the situation. He would wait until they reached Tavish"s. And then, in the presence of the Missioner, he would suddenly show Tavish the picture. His heart throbbed uneasily as he antic.i.p.ated the possible tragedy--the sudden betrayal--of that moment, for Father Roland had said, like one who had glimpsed beyond the ken of human eyes, that Tavish was haunted by a vision of the dead. The dead! Could it be that she, the girl in the picture....? He shook himself, set his lips tight to get the thought away from him. And the woman--the woman in the coach, the woman who had left in her seat this picture that was growing in his heart like a living thing--who was she? Was her quest one of vengeance--of retribution? Was Tavish the man she was seeking? Up in that mountain valley--where the girl had stood on that rock--had his name been Michael O"Doone?