The Huntress Part 27

"She's a good plucky one," thought Sam grimly. "As for me, I play a pretty poor part in this affair, whichever way you look at it. A kind of dummy figure, it seems."

So low were its sh.o.r.es that the intake of the river was hidden from them until they were almost in it. Finally it opened up before them, with its wide reaches of sand stretching away on either hand, willows backing the sand, and a pine ridge rising behind the willows.

Here the wind whistled harmlessly over their heads, and the surface of the water was quiet except for the catspaws darting hither and thither. Before entering the river, Bela paused again, and bent her head to listen.

"Too late!" she said. "We can't pa.s.s!"

At the same moment the horses burst from behind the willows a quarter of a mile across the sand. They had the ford!

"We can't pa.s.s," Bela repeated, and then with a gasp, in which was more of anger than fear, she added: "An' they got guns, too!"

CHAPTER XI

THE ISLAND

Seeing the dugout, the men raised a shout and bore down upon them across the sand. Bela was not yet in the river. She swiftly brought the dugout around and paddled down the lake sh.o.r.e across the river from the men.

They, suspecting her of a design to land on this side, pulled up their horses, and returning to the ford, plunged across. Whereupon Bela coolly paddled out into the lake. By this manoeuvre she was enabled to get out of range of their guns before they got to the water's edge.

Holding her paddle, she turned to watch them. The sounds of their curses came down the wind. They were directed against Sam, not Bela.

Sam smiled bitterly. "I catch it both ways," he muttered.

"You want them catch you?" asked Bela, with an odd look.

Sam scowled at her helplessly.

She rested on her paddle, looking up and down the sh.o.r.e and out on the lake, manifestly debating with herself what to do. To Sam their situation seemed hopeless. Finally Bela took up the paddle with an air of resolution.

"Well, what the devil are you goin' to do?" demanded Sam.

"We go to the island," she answered coolly.

An island! Sam's heart sank. He saw his escape indefinitely postponed.

To be kept prisoner on an island by a girl! Intolerably humiliating prospect! How would he ever be able to hold up his head among men afterward?

"What the devil are you up to, anyhow?" he broke out angrily again.

"Do you think this will do you any good? What do you expect to gain by it?"

"What you want me do?" asked Bela sullenly, without looking at him.

"Land, and tell them the truth about what happened!"

"They too mad," said Bela. "Shoot you before they listen. Not believe, anyway."

Sam could not deny the reasonableness of this.

"Oh, d.a.m.n!" he cried impotently. "You've got me into a nice mess! Are you crazy, or just bad? Is it your whole idea to make trouble between men? I've heard of women like that. One would think you wanted ---- Say! I'll be likely to thank you for this, won't I? The sight of you is hateful to me!"

Bela made her face like a wall, and looked steadily over his head at her course. There is no satisfaction in flinging words against a wall.

Sam's angry voice dwindled to a mutter, then fell silent.

The island lay about a mile offsh.o.r.e. In a chaos of lowering grey sky and torn white water, it seemed to hang like a serene and lovely little world of itself.

The distant sh.o.r.es of the lake were spectral in the whirl of the elements, and the island was the one fixed spot. It was as brilliant as an emerald in a setting of lead. A beach of yellow sand encircled it, with a border of willows, and taller trees sticking up in the middle.

Borne on the shoulders of the great wind, they reached it in a few minutes. Bela paddled under the lee side and landed in quiet water.

Sam rose on his chilled and stiffened limbs, and stepping ash.o.r.e, stood off, scowling at her blackly.

There he was! He knew he couldn't escape alone in that cranky craft; certainly not while the wind blew. Nor could he hope to swim a mile through icy water. He wondered bitterly if ever a man before him had been placed in such a galling position.

Ignoring his black looks, Bela hastened to collect dry sticks.

"I mak' fire and dry everything," she said.

Sam cursed her and strode off around the beach.

"Tak' dry matches if you want fire," Bela called after him.

He would not give any sign that he heard.

He sat down on the other side of the island, as far away as he could get from her. Here he was full in the path of the driving, unwearied wind, which further irritated his exacerbated nerves.

He swore at Bela; he swore at the cold, at the wind, at the matches which went out one after another. He felt that all things animate and inanimate were leagued against him.

Finally, in the lee of some willows, he did get a fire going, and crouched in the smoke, choking and sneezing, as angry and unhappy a specimen of young manhood as might have been found in the world that morning.

Finally he began to dry out, and a measure of warmth returned to his limbs. He got his pipe going, and felt a little less like a nihilist.

Suddenly a new, ugly thought made him spring up. Suppose she took advantage of his absence to steal away and leave him marooned on the island? Anything might be expected of such a woman. He hastened back around the beach.

She had not gone. From a distance he saw her busy by a great fire, with the blankets, and all the goods hanging around to dry.

He squatted behind a clump of willows where he could watch her, himself unseen. Her att.i.tude suggested that she was cooking something, and at the sight hunger struck through him like a knife. Not for worlds would he have asked her for anything to eat.

By and by she arose with the frying-pan in her hand, and looked up and down the beach.

"Oh, Sam!" she called. "Come and eat!"

He laid low, sneering miserably; bent on cutting off his nose to spite his face. He wondered if there were any berries on the island. No, it was too early in the season for berries. Edible roots, maybe. But he wouldn't have known an edible root from any other kind.

After calling awhile, Bela sat down in the sand and proceeded to satisfy her own appet.i.te. Fresh pangs attacked Sam.

"Selfish creature!" he muttered. "That woman is bad through and through!"