The Slayer Of souls Part 42

Splendid spruce, pine, oak, maple, and hemlock fringed the swampy, uneven trail which was no more than a wide, rough vista cut through the forest.

And, as the trooper had said, a little more than a mile farther the trail became a tangle of bushes and swale; the car slowed down and stopped; and a man rose from where he was seated on a mossy log and came forward, his rifle balanced across the hollow of his left arm.

The man was Alek Selden.

It was long after dark and they were still travelling through pathless woods by the aid of their electric torches.

There was little underbrush; the forest of spruce and hemlock was first growth.

Cleves s.h.i.+ned the trees but could discover no blazing, no trodden path.

In explanation, Selden said briefly that he had hunted the territory for years.

"But I don't begin to know it," he added. "There are vast and ugly regions of bog and swale where a sea of alders stretches to the horizon.

There are desolate wastes of cat-briers and witch-hopple under leprous tangles of grey birches, where stealthy little brooks darkle deep under matted debris. Only wild things can travel such country.

"Then there are strange, slow-flowing creeks in the perpetual shadows of tamarack woods, where many a man has gone in never to come out."

"Why?" asked Tressa.

"Under the tender carpet of green cresses are s.h.i.+ning black bogs set with tussock; and under the bog stretches quicksand,--and death."

"Do you know these places?" asked Cleves.

"No."

Cleves stepped forward to Tressa's side.

"Keep flas.h.i.+ng the ground," he said harshly. "I don't want you to step into some h.e.l.l-hole. I'm sorry I brought you, anyway."

"But I had to come," she said in a low voice.

Like the two men, she wore a grey flannel s.h.i.+rt, knickers, and spiral puttees.

They, however, carried rifles as well as packs; and the girl's pack was lighter.

They had halted by a swift, icy rivulet to eat, without building a fire.

After that they crossed the Ireland Vlaie and the main creek, where remains of a shanty stood on the bluff above the right bank--the last sign of man.

Beyond lay the uncharted land, skimped and s.h.i.+rked entirely in certain regions by map-makers;--an unknown wilderness on the edges of which Selden had often camped when deer shooting.

It was along this edge he was leading them, now, to a lean-to which he had erected, and from which he had travelled in to Glenwild to use the superintendent's telephone to New York.

There seemed to be no animal life stirring in this forest; their torches illuminated no fiery orbs of dazed wild things surprised at gaze in the wilderness; no leaping furry form crossed their flashlights' fan-shaped radiance.

There were no nocturnal birds to be seen or heard, either: no bittern squawked from hidden sloughs; no herons howled; not an owl-note, not a whispering cry of a whippoorwill, not the sudden uncanny twitter of those little birds that become abruptly vocal after dark, interrupted the dense stillness of the forest.

And it was not until his electric torch glimmered repeatedly upon reaches of dusk-hidden bog that Cleves understood how Selden took his bearings--for the night was thick and there were no stars.

"Yes," said Selden tersely, "I'm trying to skirt the bog until I s.h.i.+ne a peeled stick."

An hour later the peeled alder-stem glittered in the beam of the torches. In ten minutes something white caught the electric rays.

It was Selden's spare unders.h.i.+rt drying on a bush behind the lean-to.

"Can we have a fire?" asked Cleves, relieving his wife of her pack and striding into the open-faced camp.

"Yes, I'll fix it," replied Selden. "Are you all right, Mrs. Cleves?"

Tressa said: "Delightfully tired, thank you." And smiled faintly at her husband as he let go his own pack, knelt, and spread a blanket for his wife.

He remained there, kneeling, as she seated herself.

"Are you quite fit?" he asked bluntly. Yet, through his brusqueness her ear caught a vague undertone of something else--anxiety perhaps--perhaps tenderness. And her heart stirred deliciously in her breast.

He inflated a pillow for her; the firelight glimmered, brightened, spread glowing across her feet. She lay back with a slight sigh, relaxed.

Then, suddenly, the thrill of her husband's touch flooded her face with colour; but she lay motionless, one arm flung across her eyes, while he unrolled her puttees and unlaced her muddy shoes.

A heavenly warmth from the fire dried her stockinged feet. Later, on the edge of sleep, she opened her eyes and found herself propped upright on her husband's shoulder.

Drowsily, obediently she swallowed spoonfuls of the hot broth which he administered.

"Are you really quite comfortable, dear?" he whispered.

"Wonderfully.... And so very happy.... Thank you--dear."

She lay back, suffering him to bathe her face and hands with warm water.

When the fire was only a heap of dying coals, she turned over on her right side and extended her hand a little way into the darkness.

Searching, half asleep, she touched her husband, and her hand relaxed in his nervous clasp. And she fell into the most perfect sleep which she had known in years.

She dreamed that somebody whispered to her, "Darling, darling, wake up.

It is morning, beloved."

Suddenly she opened her eyes; and saw her husband set a tray, freshly plaited out of Indian willow, beside her blanket.

"Here's your breakfast, pretty lady," he said, smilingly. "And over there is an exceedingly frigid pool of water. You're to have the camp to yourself for the next hour or two."

"You dear fellow," she murmured, still confused by sleep, and reached out to touch his hand. He caught hers and kissed it, back and palm, and got up hastily as though scared.

"Selden and I will stand sentry," he muttered. "There is no hurry, you know."