The Huntress Part 26

To Sam, who could see only the sky, the mad motion was inexplicable.

His anger gave place to an honest terror. If anything happened, what chance did he stand? Bela's set, sullen face told him nothing. Her eyes were undeviatingly fixed on a point a few feet ahead and to the right of the bow. Twisting her paddle this way and that, she snaked the dugout over the crests.

Though she seemed to pay no attention to him, she must have guessed what was pa.s.sing in Sam's mind. Without taking her eyes from that point ahead where the waves came from, she felt in a bundle before her and drew out a knife. Watching her chance, she swiftly leaned forward and cut the bonds around his legs. When another lull came she cut his arms free.

"Move careful," she said, without looking at him.

Sam did not need the warning. The icy quality of the spray in his face filled him with a wholesome respect for the lake. He cautiously worked his arms free of the blanket, and, raising himself on his elbows, looked over the gunwale. He saw the waves come tumbling clumsily toward them and gasped.

It seemed like a miracle the little craft had survived so long. One glance at the sh.o.r.e showed him why they could not land. He fell back, and his hands flew to the knot behind his head. He tore off the gag and threw it overboard. Bela looked at him for the fraction of a second.

"Well, what's your game?" he bitterly demanded. "It's pretty near ended for both of us. I hope you're satisfied. You savage!"

Bela's eyes did not swerve again from that point ahead. In one respect she was a savage; that was the extraordinary stolidity she could a.s.sume. For all the attention she gave him he might have been the wind whistling.

At first it fanned his anger outrageously. He searched his mind for cruel taunts to move her. It was all wasted. She paddled ahead like a piece of the boat itself, now pausing a second, now driving hard, as those fixed, wary eyes telegraphed automatically to her arms.

One cannot continue to rail at a wooden woman. Her impa.s.sivity finally wore him out. He fell silent, and covered his face with an arm that he might not have to look at her. Besides, he felt seasick.

East of Nine-Mile Point the lake sh.o.r.e makes in sharply, forming the wide, deep bay which stretches all the way to the foot of the lake where Musquasepi, the little river, takes its rise. The stony, ice-clad sh.o.r.es, backed by pines, continued for a mile or so, then gave place to wide, bare mud-flats reaching far inland.

On the flats the ice did not pile up, but lay in great cakes where the receding waters stranded it. This ice was practically all melted now, and the view across the flats was unimpeded. It was nine miles from the point to the intake of the river by water and fifteen miles by land. The trail skirted inside the flats.

Bela kept to the sh.o.r.e until the increasing light made further concealment useless. She then headed boldly across for the river. It was at this time that the wind began to blow its hardest.

She could not tell, of course, if she had yet been discovered from the point. Not knowing the ways of white men, she could not guess if they were likely to pursue.

Under ordinary circ.u.mstances with a little start, she could easily have beaten a horse to the river, but the head wind reversed the chances. She might have landed on the flats, but there was not a particle of cover there, and they would have offered a fair mark to any one following by the trail. Moreover, Sam would have run away.

It was too rough for her to hope to escape across the lake in the trough of the sea. So there was nothing for her but to continue to struggle toward the river. A bank of heavy clouds was rising in the east. It was to be a grey day.

After a while Sam looked over the edge again. The dugout seemed scarcely to have moved. They were still but half-way across the wide bay. On the lake side they were pa.s.sing a wooded island out in the middle. The wind was still increasing. It came roaring up the lake in successive gusts. It was like a giant playing with them in cruel glee before administering the _coup de grace_. Bela could no longer keep the crests of the waves out. Sam was drenched and chilled.

He stole another look in her face. The imminence of the danger threatening both forced his anger into the background for the moment.

She never changed her att.i.tude except occasionally to swing the paddle to the other side of the boat.

At the impact of each gust she lowered her head a little and set her teeth. Her face had become a little haggard and grey under the long continued strain. Sam chafed under his enforced inaction.

"You have another paddle," he said. "Let me help."

"Lie down," she muttered without looking at him. "You don' know how.

You turn us over."

He lay in water impotently grinding his teeth. He could not but admire her indomitable courage, and he hated her for being forced to admire her. To be obliged to lie still and let a woman command was a bitter draft to his pride.

A wave leaped over the bow, falling in the dugout like a barrowful of stones. Sam sprang to a sitting position. He thought the end had come.

The dugout staggered drunkenly under the additional load. But Bela's face was still unmoved.

"Lean over," she commanded, nodding toward the little pile of baggage between them. "Under the blankets, in the top of the grub-box, my tea-pail."

He found it, and set to work with a will to bail. As fast as he emptied the water, more came in over the bow. The foot of the lake and safety seemed to recede before them. Surely it was not possible a woman could hold out long enough to reach it, he thought, glancing at her.

"Why don't you turn about and run before the wind?" he asked.

"Can't turn now," she muttered. "Wave hit her side, turn over quick."

Sam looked ash.o.r.e again. For upwards of a furlong off the edge of the flats the breakers were ruling their parallel lines of white. Above all the other noises of the storm the continuous roaring of these waters reached their ears.

"You could land there," he suggested. "What if we did get turned out?

It's shallow."

She was not going to tell him the real reason she could not land. "I lose my boat," she muttered.

"Better lose the boat than lose yourself," he muttered sullenly.

Bela did not answer this. She paddled doggedly, and Sam bailed. He saw her glance from time to time toward a certain point inland. Seeing her face change, he followed the direction of her eyes, and presently distinguished, far across the flats, three tiny horses with riders appearing from among the trees.

They were proceeding in single file around the bay. Even at the distance one could guess they were galloping. So that was why she would not land!

Sam did not need to be told who the three riders were. His sensations on perceiving them were mixed. It was not difficult for him to figure what had happened when his absence had been discovered, and he was not at all sure that he wished to escape from his mysterious captor only to fall into those hands.

This line of thought suddenly suggested a possible reason why he had been carried off--but it was too humiliating to credit. He looked at her with a kind of shamed horror. Her face gave nothing away.

By and by Sam realized with a blessed lightening of the heart that the storm had reached its maximum. The gusts were no longer increasing in strength; less water was coming over the bow. Not until he felt the relief was he aware of how frightened he had been.

Bela's face lightened, too. Progress under the cruel handicap was still painfully slow. The wind was like a hand thrusting them back; but every gain brought them a little more under the lee of the land.

If Bela's arms held out! He looked at her wonderingly. There was no sign of any slackening yet.

"We not sink now," she said coolly.

"Good!" cried Sam.

In their mutual relief they could almost be friendly.

Bela was heading for the intake of the river. Along the tortuous course of that stream she knew a hundred hiding-places. The land trail followed the general direction of the river, but touched it only at one or two places.

The question was, could she reach the river before the hors.e.m.e.n? Sam watched them, trying to gauge their rate of progress. The horses had at least four miles to cover, while the dugout was now within a mile--but the horses were running.

Sam knew that the trail crossed the river by a ford near the intake from the lake, because he had come that way. If the hors.e.m.e.n cut off Bela at the ford what would she do? he wondered. The outlook was bad for him in either event. He must escape from both parties.

The hors.e.m.e.n pa.s.sing around the bay became mere specks in the distance. Reaching the foot of the lake they had to cover a straight stretch of a mile and a half to the river. The trail lay behind willows here, and they disappeared from view. It was anybody's race.

Bela, the extraordinary girl, still had a reserve of strength to draw on. As they gradually came under the influence of the windward sh.o.r.e the water calmed down and the dugout leaped ahead.

Sam watched her with a cold admiration, speculating endlessly on what might be going on behind her mask-like face. With all her pluck, what could she hope to gain? Obviously it would be easier to escape from her than from three men, and he began to hope she would win.

They caught no further glimpses of the hors.e.m.e.n, and as they drew closer and closer to the river the tension became acute. Suppose they arrived simultaneously, thought Sam, would the men shoot?

Not Big Jack nor Shand, perhaps, but Joe was not to be trusted. But surely they would see he was a prisoner. Something of the kind must have been pa.s.sing through Bela's mind. Putting down her paddle for a moment, she threw back the blankets and drew out her gun. It had been carefully protected from the water. She laid it on top convenient to her hand and resumed.