Joan of Arc of the North Woods Part 30

Brophy watched her out of sight.

"If it ain't one thing it's another with these table girls," was his sour comment. "I don't know what I'm liable to draw next; the Queen of Sheby, maybe!"

When a hill shut off the view from Adonia the bays swung into a side lane which connected with the tote road leading north along the Noda waters.

A girl who wore for her armor Latisan's jacket and his cap, and carried as credentials the woods baton of the last of the independent timber barons of the Noda, was hastening on her mission with the same sort of fervent zeal that made Joan of Arc a conqueror.

Family fealty, the eager desire to right in some measure the wrong done by her father, anxious determination to repair her own fault--all these were animating impulses in this Joan of the Northland. But now especially was she aware that she was seeking by service to absolve herself in the estimation of a poor chap whose love for her had made him forget his duty.

There was no talk between the girl and her charioteer. She had plenty of thought to occupy her, and he drove on with his gaze straight between the ears of the nigh horse.

The road was crooked; when she glanced behind, the woods seemed to be shutting doors on her, closing out the world with which she had been familiar; and ahead, as the road turned, she was looking into vistas which led to the unknown--to a duty of tremendous import--to a task which seemed too great for a girl to accomplish. One knowledge comforted her--it was a knowledge which came from her childhood memories--she could trust those rough men of the woods to treat a girl with respect if she deserved it; but would she be able to convince them that the girl who wrought such mischief to Ward Latisan deserved respect? They might, as her grandfather said, ridicule a man who had been fooled by a girl, if that man appeared to them and tried to make good his authority; but there would be no laugh in the north country behind Latisan's back, now that he had fled desperately from the wreck of his prospects.

She perceived only silent rebuke, even resentment, in d.i.c.k's countenance when she stole glances at the hard profile above the old man's knitted scarf. It was plain that he did not relish his job. She wondered whether he believed that her errand was useless. When, after a time, she tried to draw some opinion out of him he gave her no replies that aided her.

She felt acutely that she needed sympathy--something for her encouragement. The old man's taciturnity hinted that he could be trusted with a secret so far as outsiders were concerned; as to Flagg, she was not sure of d.i.c.k's reliability in keeping anything away from a master to whom he was devoted. But if the old man were kept away from Adonia----

"Do I understand that you're to stay north until I'm ready to go back?"

"I've got to. It's orders."

She was choking with the desire to tell him who she was. The lie which she had told him in the tavern was a rankling memory--he had been such a pitiful figure that day.

Again she looked behind. There were many miles between her and Adonia, and the doors of the woods kept closing.

"I need all your help in this thing. I must have a faithful friend. It is the one great effort of my life. You can understand so well! I--I _am_ Lida Kennard!"

Rickety d.i.c.k threw up his arms. The reins fell from his hands. "Praise the Lord!" he yelled. The discarded reins slapped the big bays, the shout in that silence caused them to leap wildly. The tote road was rough and rocky and the equipage was light. Almost instantly the horses tore the tongue from the jumper, which was trigged by a bowlder. The animals crashed around in a circle through the underbrush, leaped into the tote road, and went galloping back toward Adonia, seeking their stalls and safety.

d.i.c.k rose from where he had fallen and rushed to the girl, who was clinging to the seat of the jumper. He took her in his arms, comforting her as he would have soothed a child. He wept frankly and babbled incoherently. A part of his emotion was concern for her, but more especially was it joy because she had discovered herself to him.

"It was in me--the hope that it was you. But I buried it; I buried it,"

he sobbed.

For some moments he was too much absorbed to note the plight in which they had been left. Then his laments were so violent that the girl was obliged to soothe him in her turn.

"But when those horses rush into the yard! Think of it! He'll cal'late we're killed. Him penned there in his chair with worry tearing at him! I must get the word to him." In his frantic care for the master's peace of mind he ran away down the road, forgetting that he was abandoning the girl.

But in a few moments he came running back to her. "That's the way it always is with me! Him first! But after this it's you--and I was leaving you here in the lurch. But I don't know what to do!" He looked at her, then at the broken jumper; he gazed to the north and he stared to the south; in that emergency, his emotions stressed by what she had told him, he was as helpless as a child.

Her own concern just then was for her grandfather as well as for herself. Those runaway horses appearing in the yard would rouse his bitter fear; they would also start a hue and cry which would follow her into the north country.

"You must go back, at once!" she urged d.i.c.k. "Follow as fast as you can.

The horses will quiet down; they'll walk. You may overtake them. You must try."

"But you!" he mourned.

She lifted the cant dog from the floor of the jumper. "I shall keep on toward the drive--somehow--some way. This will protect me; I'm sure of it."

He puckered his face and shook his head and expressed his fears and his doubts.

"Then I'm showing more faith than you in what this stands for," she said, rebukingly. "I believe in it. I trust to it. Haven't you the same kind of loyalty where my grandfather is concerned--after all your years with him?"

She had appealed to zealous, unquestioning devotion, and it replied to her. "I reckon you're right. It wouldn't be showing proper respect if I didn't meet you halfway in the thing." He reached out his hand and patted the staff. "I'm only a poor old bent stick beside that one. I even let the horses run away. Yes, they have run away--and now it's all the long miles to the drive! How'll ye ever get there, Miss Lida?"

"By starting!" she returned, crisply, with something of Flagg's manner.

"There are tote teams going north. Anybody'll be glad to give you a lift. There are bateaus above here, ferrying supplies up the broad water, and you may see a canoeman----" He was wistfully grabbing at hopes.

"I'm not afraid," she a.s.sured him bravely.

He helped her with advice while he busied himself by hooking the handle of her bag over the staff; she carried it across her shoulder and had something cheerful to say about poverty making light luggage.

In that fas.h.i.+on she fared toward the north, after she had forced a pledge from the old man that he would keep her secret until her work was done; she was guilelessly unaware that Flagg's perspicacity had penetrated her secret.

d.i.c.k plodded toward the south.

There, in the midst of the forest, dwarfed by the big trees, they seemed to be weak reeds for the support of the Flagg fortunes.

Before a bend of the road shut them from sight of each other they turned and waved a farewell which renewed the pledge.

CHAPTER TWENTY

For a time Lida felt unutterably and miserably lonely and helpless. She had stepped out of everything that was familiar in the way of human contact and environment; she was facing the new, the untried, something that was not a woman's job, as her grandfather had declared.

But it was a job for that one of the Flaggs who still had the grit and the strength to perform it!

With that thought came her reaction. She began to realize that as long as d.i.c.k had been her companion, her guardian, she had not been conscious of the real exaltation of determination which now glowed in her. She felt courage born of sacred zeal. She was alone, but no longer did that thought trouble her. Because she was alone it was up to her! She walked on with a steadier stride. If she appeared at the drive under the convoy of old d.i.c.k she was only a girl sent to whine a confession of fault and to wheedle men to help her repair it. Would it not be well to take those men fully into her confidence? She was resolved to tell them that she loved Ward Latisan; she was admitting this truth to herself and she was in a mood to tell all the truth to honest men who would be able to understand. She was going north to inspire faith and courage and loyalty. Would not the known granddaughter of Echford Flagg be able to exert that compelling moral influence over the crew? Those men were primitive enough to understand the urge of honest love of woman for a man; and there was the spirit of chivalrous romance in the north country. She knew it.

Her heart was bolder as she walked on, but her feet ached and the rough road wearied her. She met no human being; she sat for a time on a wayside bowlder, hoping that some straggling tote team would come up from the south and overtake her.

The road snaked along in the Noda Valley, and from time to time she was close to the turbid flood which swept down ice cakes and flotsam. From her bowlder she could see a broad and calm stretch--a deadwater of which she did not know the name.

Then, close to the sh.o.r.e where she waited, came a canoe headed upriver.

Two men were in it, paddling st.u.r.dily, taking advantage of eddies and backwash. Fresh from the city as she was, she felt a thrill of sudden terror; the men were Indians and wore the full regalia of tribal dress.

As a child she had seen and remembered well the Tarratines of the region; they had been dressed like other woodsmen. These Indians with feathers and beads put a strange fear into her in that solitude. She slid from the rock and crouched behind it. She grasped the staff of the cant dog more firmly; it was her only weapon of defense. But when her fingers felt the depressions of the totem mark she turned from terror to hope. Latisan, at their first meeting, had referred to the status of Echford Flagg among the Tarratines. Courage was back in her again, along with her new hope. She leaped to her feet and called to the Indians and flourished a salute. They hesitated a moment, then drove their craft to the sh.o.r.e a pebble toss away from her.

She did not speak to them--she held the staff so that the emblem was shown to them. They disembarked, approached slowly, peered at the totem, and saluted with upraised palms.

"I have the right to carry it," she told them. "It is Echford Flagg's.

He gave it into my hands. He said it is known along the river and will help me. I want to go north to his drive. He has sent me. It is on his business!"

She received no immediate encouragement from their manner; they looked at each other and turned their gaze again to her.