The Huntress Part 23

"It's rotten!" he cried. "The whole business! That's what makes me mad! Have you no shame, setting a whole camp of men against each other like that? And coolly talking over which one you'll take! I tell you it'll likely end in murder. Maybe you'd like that. Give you quite a send-off, eh? Well, you can't drag me into it. I like a different kind of woman."

Bela was no tame spirit. Anger answered anger. She faced him pale and blazing-eyed.

"No woman want you, anyhow!" she cried. "You cook! You only half a man! You too scared to fight for a woman! You only talk! Go away from me! I tak' a _man_ for my 'osban'!"

Sam, beside himself with rage, stepped forward and raised his clenched fist over her head. Bela laughed in his face. Suddenly he seemed to see himself from the outside, and was filled with blank horror.

Turning, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his coat and s.h.i.+rt, and crashed blindly away through the willows.

"Go and do your cookin'!" Bela cried after him.

Bela's cache was on the opposite side of the creek from the men's cabin. The only place where Sam could cross without getting another wetting was by the stepping-stones near the lake. He headed for the pines where the going was better and encircled the edge of the meadow.

A great turmoil was going on within him. He was aghast at the gust of pa.s.sion that had drowned all his senses for a moment. He had not known he contained such possibilities. To come so near to striking a woman!

Horrible!

Naturally, he did not fail to blame her. A devil--to provoke men to such a pitch of madness! Well, he was done with her. Anyhow, he had seen her now in her true colours. She was no good! There could be no further argument about that. If he ever had anything to do with her let him be called a soft-headed fool!

Forcing his way blindly through the underbrush, stumbling over roots, and plunging into holes, he completed his detour around the meadow. As he came out beside the ford he heard his name called urgently.

"Sam! Sam!"

Notwithstanding his anger, and in the very act of the brave vows he was taking, the voice found his heart like a bullet. He stopped dead with hanging arms and looked strickenly in the direction whence it came.

Presently the dugout came flying around a bend in the creek above. She landed at the head of the little rapids, and ran toward him. He waited with sombre eyes.

She stopped at three paces distance, afraid to come closer. The savage had disappeared. Her face was all softened with emotion.

"Sam, I sorry I call names," she said very low. "That was my madness speaking out of my mouth. I not think those things in my heart. Please forget it."

His eyes bored her through and through.

"Another trick to get you going?" the voice inside him asked.

"Don' look at me lak that," she faltered.

"How do I know what to believe?" Sam said harshly. "You say so many things."

"I jus' foolin' 'bout those ot'er men," she said. "I not marry one of them. I sooner jump in the lak'."

A secret spring of gladness spurted up in Sam's breast. "Do you mean that?" he demanded.

"I mean it," she replied.

He gazed at her, strongly desiring to believe, but suspicious still.

His slower nature could not credit such a rapid change of front.

"Don' look at me lak that," she said again. "W'at you want me do?"

"Go away," he said.

She looked at him, startled.

"If you're in earnest about not wanting to make trouble," he said harshly, "you've got to go without seeing any of them again."

Her eyes were full of trouble. "You tell me go away?" she whispered.

Sam winced. "I haven't got anything to do with it," he said. "It's up to you."

He was more than ever inexplicable to her.

"What you goin' do?" she asked.

"I?" he replied, nettled. "I'm going up to the head of the lake with the bunch, of course."

There was a painful silence, while Bela sought vainly in her mind for the explanation of his strange att.i.tude. An instinct told her he loved her, but she could not make him say it.

"You think I bad girl, Sam," she murmured.

"How do I know what you are?" he asked harshly. "Here's your chance to prove to me that you're on the square."

"I got go 'way to mak' you think I all right?"

"Yes," he answered eagerly.

"You fonny man, I think," she murmured sadly.

"Can't you see it?" he cried.

"No," she said. "But I goin' do what you tell me. I go to-night."

"Ah, that's right!" he said with a curious look of grat.i.tude in his pain-haunted eyes.

Bela waited for him to say more--but waited in vain. For herself she would quickly have told him she loved him, had not her tongue been tied by Musq'oosis's positive instructions. And so the unhappy silence continued between them.

"Maybe somebody come this way," said Bela at last. "Mak' trouble. Come up by my boat."

Sam shook his head. "I've got to go back to camp now."

"You not see me again. You got not'ing say to me?" asked Bela despairingly. Her hand sought his.

Sam's instincts sprang up in alarm. "What could I say?" he cried.

"What good would it do? Good-bye!" s.n.a.t.c.hing his hand out of hers, he retreated over the stones, refusing to look back.

When Sam entered the shack Joe faced him, scowling. "Where you been?"

he demanded.