The Promise Part 55

CHAPTER XLIX

ON THE RIVER

That Blood River Jack's fear for the safety of Jeanne was well founded was borne home to Bill Carmody in the story the girl poured into his ears as they pushed on in the direction of Moncrossen's camp.

The night was jet black, and Bill marveled at the endurance of the girl and the unfailing sagacity with which she led the way.

The honeycombed river ice sagged toward the middle of the stream, and the water from the melting snow followed this depression, leaving the higher edges comparatively dry and free from snow.

The drizzling rain continued as the two stumbled forward, slipping and splas.h.i.+ng through deep pools of icy water. Each moment they were in danger of plunging through some hole in the rotting ice; but the girl pushed unhesitatingly onward, and the man followed.

Between them and the camp of Moncrossen lay upward of a hundred miles of precarious river trail, and with no crust on the water-soaked snow of the forest they could not take advantage of the short cuts which would have stricken many miles from their journey.

It was broad daylight when Bill called a halt, and after many unsuccessful attempts succeeded in kindling a sickly blaze in the shelter of a clay-streaked cut-bank.

He unslung the pack which he had taken from the shoulders of the girl, and removed some bacon and sodden bannock. As they toasted the bacon and dried the bannock at the smoky fire the girl hardly removed her gaze from the face of the big, silent man who, during the whole long night, had scarcely spoken a word.

Her eyes flashed as they traveled over the mighty breadth of him and noted the great muscular arms, the tight-clamped jaw, and the steely glint of the narrowed gray eyes.

Her face glowed with the pride of his strength as she recalled the parting scene in the bunk-house when he had hurled the heavy bench, cras.h.i.+ng through the door, and defied the men of the logs.

He had done this thing for _her_, she reflected--for her, and that he might keep his promise to old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta. She wondered at his silence. Why did he not speak? And why did he sit gazing with tight-pressed lips into the flaring, spitting little fire?

Her breath came faster, and she laid a timid hand upon the man's arm.

"The woman?" she asked abruptly. "Who is this woman with the hair of gold and the eyes of the summer sky?" The slender fingers gripped his arm convulsively. "She is the woman of the picture!" she cried, and her eyes sought his.

Bill Carmody nodded slowly and continued to stare into the fire.

"She is my--my wife," he groaned.

"Your--_wife_!"

The girl repeated the words dully, as if seeking to grasp their import.

Her fingers relaxed, her eyes closed, and she lay heavily back upon the blanket. A long time she remained thus while Bill stared stolidly into the fire.

At length he aroused himself and glanced toward Jeanne, who lay at his side, breathing the long, regular breaths of the deep sleep of utter weariness; and he noted the deep lines of the beautiful face and the hollow circles beneath the closed eyes that told of the terrible trail-strain.

"Sixty straight hours of _that_!" he exclaimed as his glance traveled over the precarious river trail. Curbing his patience, he waited an hour and then gently awoke the sleeping girl.

"Jeanne," he said as she gazed at him in bewilderment, "you need sleep.

I will go alone to the camp of Moncrossen." At the words she sprang to her feet.

"No! No!" she cried; "I have slept. I am not tired. Come--to-day, and to-night--and in the morning we come to the camp."

"We must go then," said Bill, and added more to himself than to Jeanne: "I wonder if he would _dare_?"

"He would dare _anything_--that is not good!" the girl answered quickly. "He has the bad heart. But Wa-ha-ta-na-ta will not starve quickly. She is old and tough, and can go for many days without food; as in the time of the famine when she refused to eat that we, her children, might live.

"Even in times of plenty she eats but little, for she lives in the long ago with Lacombie--in the days of her youth and--and happiness. For she loved Lacombie, and--Lacombie--loved--her."

The girl's voice broke throatily, and she turned abruptly toward the river.

The fine, drizzling rain, which had fallen steadily all through the night, changed to a steady downpour that chilled them to the bone.

The stream of shallow water that flowed over the surface of the ice swelled to a torrent, forcing them again and again to abandon the river and slosh knee-deep through the saturated snow of the forest.

Broken ice cakes began to drift past--thick, black cakes which sc.r.a.ped and ground together as they swung heavily in the current.

"The ice is going out!" cried the girl in dismay. "We can no longer keep to the river!"

Bill's teeth clenched. "The breakup!" he groaned. "Moncrossen will go out on the flood, and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta----"

He redoubled his efforts, fairly dragging the girl through the deep slush. The rain was carrying off the snow with a rush. The gullies and ravines were running bankful, and time and again the two were forced to plunge shoulder-deep into the icy waters.

At noon they halted, and in the dripping shelter of a dense thicket wolfed down a quant.i.ty of sodden bannock and raw bacon. The river rose hourly, and the crash and grind of the moving ice thundered continuously upon their ears.

Progress was slow and grueling. By the middle of the afternoon they had covered about forty miles. The water from the rising river began to set back into the ravines, forcing them to make long detours before daring to chance a ford.

Darkness came as an added hards.h.i.+p, and as they toiled doggedly around an abrupt bend they saw on a tiny plateau, high above the dark waters of the river, a faint flicker of light.

The girl paused and regarded it curiously; then, hurrying to the point, she peered up and down the river, striving for landmarks in the gathering gloom.

"Vic Chenault's cabin!" she cried. "I missed it coming up. I knew it was somewhere up the river. He is a friend of Jacques, and his father was the good friend of Lacombie."

Drenched and weary, the two pushed toward the light, crossing swift-rus.h.i.+ng gullies whose icy waters threatened each moment to sweep them from their feet.

Slipping and stumbling through the muck and slush, cras.h.i.+ng through dripping underbrush, they stood at length before the door of the low-roofed log cabin.

Their knock was answered by a tousled-headed man who stood, lamp in hand, and blinked owlishly at them from the shelter of the doorway.

"You are Vic Chenault?" asked the girl, and, without waiting for his grunted a.s.sent, continued: "I am Jeanne Lacombie, and this is M's'u'

Bill, The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die."

At the mention of the names the door swung wide and the man smiled a welcome. They entered amid a rabble of sled-dogs and puppies, which rolled about the floor in a seemingly inextricable tangle, with numerous dusky youngsters of various ages and conditions of nudity.

Chenault's Indian wife sat upon the edge of the bunk, a blackened cob-pipe between her teeth, industriously beading a moccasin; and seemed in no wise disturbed by the arrival of visitors, nor by the babel of hubbub that arose from the floor, where dogs and babies howled their protest against the cold draft from the open door and the pools of ice-cold water that drained from the clothing of the strangers.

Chenault p.r.o.nounced a few guttural syllables, and the stolid squaw reached behind her and, removing a single garment of flaming red calico from a nail, extended it toward Jeanne.

The girl accepted it with thanks, and her eyes roved about the cabin, which, being a one-roomed affair, offered scant privacy. The woman caught the corner of a blanket upon a projecting nail and another corner upon a similar nail in the upright of the bunk, and motioned the girl behind the screen with a short wave of her pipe.

The man offered Bill a pair of faded blue overalls and a much-bepatched s.h.i.+rt of blue flannel, and when Jeanne emerged, clad in the best dress of her hostess, Bill took his turn in the dressing-room.

"Can't be too pedicular in a pinch," he grinned as he wriggled dubiously into the dry garments, and in a few minutes he was seated beside the girl upon a rough bench drawn close to the fire.