The entire forest world was hushed and breathless, as if startled by this intrusion. Neither of the two travelers felt inclined to speak. And the silence was finally broken by the splashing feet of a moose, running through a little arm of the marsh that the forest hid from view.
"Is this our permanent camp?" the girl asked at last.
"Surely not," was the reply. "It"s too near the river for one thing--too easily found. It"s too low, too--there"ll be mosquitoes in plenty in that marsh two months from now. The first thing is--to look around and find a better site."
"You want me to come?"
"I"d rather, if you don"t mind."
She understood perfectly. He did not intend to give her complete freedom until the river fell so low that the rapids farther down would be wholly impa.s.sable.
"I"ll come." Beatrice smiled grimly. "We can have that picnic we planned, after all."
They found a moose trail leading into the forest, and leaving the wolf on guard over the supplies, they filed swiftly along it in that peculiar, shuffling, mile-speeding gait that all foresters learn. At once both were aware of a subdued excitement. In the first place, this was unknown country and they experienced the incomparable thrill of exploration. Besides they were seeking a permanent camp where their fortunes would be cast, the drama of their lives be enacted, for weeks to come.
Almost at once they began to catch glimpses of wild life,--a squirrel romping on a limb; or a long line of grouse, like children in school, perched on a fallen log. The trapper had not yet laid his lines in this land, and the tracks of the little fur-bearers weaved a marvelous and intricate pattern on the moose trail. Once a marten with orange throat peered at them from a covert, and once a caribou raced away, too fast for a shot.
Mostly the wild things showed little fear or understanding of the two humans. The grouse relied on their protective coloration, just as when menaced by the beasts of prey. An otter, rarely indeed seen in daylight, hovered a moment beside a little stream to consider them; and a coyote, greatest of all cowards, lingered in their trail until they were within fifty feet of his grey form, then trotted shyly away.
"We won"t starve for meat, that"s certain," Ben informed her. His voice was subdued; he had fallen naturally into the mood of quietness that dwells ever in the primeval forest.
Because the trail seemed to be leading them too far from the waterways, they took a side trail circling about a wooded hill. Ever Ben studied the landmarks, looked carefully down the draws and tried to learn as much as possible of the geography of the country; and Beatrice understood his purpose with entire clearness. He wished to locate his camp so that it would have every natural advantage and insurance against surprise attack. He desired that every advantage of warfare be in his favor when finally he came to grips with Neilson and his men.
They crossed a low ridge, following down another of the thousand creeks that water the northern lands. In a moment it led them to a long, narrow lake, blue as a sapphire in its frame of dusky spruce.
For a moment both of them halted on its bank, held by its virgin beauty.
Lost in the solitudes as it was, perhaps never before gazed upon by the eyes of men, still it gave no impression of bleakness and stagnation.
Rather it was a scene of scintillating life, vivid past all expression.
Far out of range on the opposite sh.o.r.e a huge bull moose stood like a statue in black marble, gazing out over the shimmering expanse. Trout leaped, flashing silver, anywhere they might look; and a flock of loon shrieked demented cries from its center. The burnished wings of a flock of mallard flashed in the air, startled by some creeping hunter.
Slowly, delighted in spite of themselves by the lovely spot, they followed along its sh.o.r.e. They climbed the bank; and now Ben began to examine his surroundings with great care.
He had suddenly realized that he was in a region wonderfully fitted for his permanent camp. The low ridge between the lake and the creek gave a clear view of a large part of the surrounding country, affording him every chance of seeing his enemies before they saw him. If they came along the river--the course they would naturally follow--they would be obliged to cross the beaver marsh--a half-mile of open gra.s.sland with no protecting coverts. Beatrice saw, dismayed, that his gray eyes were kindling with unholy fire under his heavy, dark brows.
What if he should see them, deep in the wet gra.s.s, filing across the open marsh! How many shots would be needed to bring his war to a triumphant end? There were no thickets in which they might find shelter: hidden himself, they could not return his fire. Before they could break and run to cover he could destroy them all!
Should they cross the narrow neck of the marsh, higher up, he would have every chance to see them on the lake sh.o.r.e. The site was good from the point of health and comfort--high enough to escape the worst of the insect pests, close to fresh water, plenty of fuel, and within a few hundred yards of a lake that simply swarmed with fish and waterfowl.
Still following a narrow, racing trout stream that flowed into the lake they advanced a short distance farther, clear to the base of a rock wall. And all at once Beatrice, walking in front, drew up with a gasp.
She stood at the edge of a little glade, perhaps thirty yards across, laying at the base of the cliff. The creek flowed through it, the gra.s.s was green and rich, beloved by the antlered herds that came to graze, the tall spruce shaded it on three sides. But it was not these things that caught the girl"s eye. Just at the edge of a glade a dark hole yawned in the face of the cliff.
In an instant more they were beside it, gazing into its depths. It was a natural cavern with rock walls and a clean floor of sand--a roomy place, and yet a perfect stronghold against either mortal enemies or the powers of wind and rain.
"It"s home," the man said simply.
XXVI
Ben and Beatrice went together back to the canoe, and in two trips they carried the supplies to the cave. By instinct a housekeeper, Beatrice showed him where to stow the various supplies, what part of the cave was to be used for provisions, where their cots would be laid, and where to erect the cooking rack. Shadows had fallen over the land before they finished the work.
Tired from the hard tramp, yet sustained by a vague excitement neither of them could name or trace, they began to prepare for the night. Ben cut boughs as before, placing Beatrice"s bed within the portals of the cave and his own on the gra.s.s outside. He cut fuel and made his fire: Beatrice prepared the evening meal.
The flesh of the cub-bear they had procured that morning would have to serve them to-night; but more delicious meat could be procured to-morrow. Ben knew that the white-maned caribou fed in the high park lands. Beatrice made biscuits and brewed tea; and they ate the simple food in the firelight. Already the darkness was pressing close upon them, tremulous, vaguely sinister, inscrutably mysterious.
They had talked gayly at first; but they grew silent as the fire burned down to coals. A great preoccupation seemed to hold them both. When one spoke the other started, and word did not immediately come in answer.
Beatrice"s despair was not nearly so dominating to-night; and Ben harbored a secret excitement that was almost happiness.
Its source and origin Ben could not trace. Perhaps it was just relief that the perilous journey was over. The strain of his hours at the paddle had been severe; but now they were safe upon the sustaining earth. Yet this fact alone could hardly have given him such a sense of security,--an inner comfort new to his adventurous life.
The forest was oppressive to-night, tremulous with the pa.s.sions of the Young World; yet he did not respond to it as before. The excitement that sparkled in the red wine of his veins was not of the chase and death, and he had difficulty in linking it up with the thoughts of his forthcoming vengeance. Rather it was a mood that sprang from their surroundings here, their shelter at the mouth of the cave. He felt deeply at peace.
The fire blazed warmly at the cavern maw; the wolf stood tense and still, by means of the secret wireless of the wild fully aware of the tragic drama, the curtain of which was the dark just fallen; yet Ben"s wild, bitter thoughts of the preceding night did not come readily back to him. There was a quality here--in the firelight and the haven of the cave--that soothed him and comforted him. The powers of the wild were helpless against him now. The wind might hurl down the dead trees, but the rock of the cavern Wall would stand against them. Even the dreaded avalanche could roar and thunder on the steep above in vain.
There was no peril in the hushed, breathless forest for him to-night.
This was his stronghold, and none could a.s.sail it. And it was a significant fact that his sense of intimate relationship with the wolf, Fenris, Was someway lessened. Fenris was a creature of the open forest, sleeping where he chose on the trail; but his master had found a cavern home. There was a strange and bridgeless chasm between such breeds as roamed abroad and those that slept, night after night, in the shelter of the same walls.
He watched the girl"s face, ruddy in the firelight, and it was increasingly hard to remember that she was of the enemy camp,--the daughter of his arch foe. To-night she was just a comrade, a habitat of his own cave.
For the first time since he had found Ezram"s body--so huddled and impotent in the dead leaves--he remembered the solace of tobacco. He hunted through his pockets, found his pipe and a single tin of the weed, and began to inhale the fragrant, peace-giving smoke. When he raised his eyes again he found the girl studying him with intent gaze.
She looked away, embarra.s.sed, and he spoke to put her at ease. "You are perfectly comfortable, Beatrice?" he asked gently.
"As good as I could expect--considering everything. I"m awfully relieved that we"re off the water."
"Of course." He paused, looking away into the tremulous shadows. "Is that all? Don"t you feel something else, too--a kind of satisfaction?"
The coals threw their lurid glow on her lovely, deeply tanned face.
"It"s for you to feel satisfaction, not me. You couldn"t expect me to feel very satisfied--taken from my home--as a hostage--in a feud with my father. But I think I know what you mean. You mean--the comfort of the fire, and a place to stay."
"That"s it. Of course."
"I feel it--but every human being does who has a fire when this big, northern night comes down and takes charge of things. It"s just an instinct, I suppose, a comfort and a feeling of safety--and likely only the wild beasts are exempt from it." Her voice changed and softened, as her girlish fancy reached ever farther. "I suppose the first men that you were telling me about on the way out, the hairy men of long ago, felt the same way when the cold drove them to their caves for the first time. A great comfort in the protecting walls and the fire."
"It"s an interesting thought--that perhaps the love of home sprang from that hour."
"Quite possibly. Perhaps it came only when they had to fight for their homes--against beasts, and such other hairy men as tried to take their homes away from them. Perhaps, after all, that"s one of the great differences between men and beasts. Men have a place to live in and a place to fight for--and the fire is the symbol of it all. And the beasts run in the forest and make a new lair every day."
Thoughts of the stone age were wholly fitting in this stone-age forest, and Ben"s fancy caught on fire quickly. "And perhaps, when the hairy men came to the caves to live, they forgot their wild pa.s.sions they knew on the open trails--their blood-l.u.s.t and their wars among themselves--and began to be men instead of beasts." Ben"s voice had dropped to an even, low murmur. "Perhaps they got gentle, and the Brute died in their bodies."
"Yes. Perhaps then they began to be tamed."
The silence dropped about them, settling slowly; and all except the largest heap of red coals burned down to gray ashes. The darkness pressed ever nearer. The girl stretched her slender, brown arms.
"I"m sleepy," she said. "I"m going in."