The Huntress Part 28

She arose and, filling another plate, started toward him, carrying it.

Her eyes were following his tracks in the sand. Sam instinctively sprang up and took to his heels.

His cheeks burned at the realization that she would presently discover that he had been sitting there watching her. He had not thought of the tell-tale sand. Wherever he might seek to hide, it would betray him.

He made a complete circuit of the little island, Bela presumably following him. The circ.u.mference of the beach was about half a mile.

He ran as hard as he could, and presently discovered her ahead of him. He had almost overtaken her.

Thereafter he followed more slowly, keeping her in sight from the cover of the bushes. The secret consciousness that he was acting like a wilful child did not make him any happier.

When he came around to Bela's fire again, seeing the dugout drawn up on the sand, his heart leaped at the chance of escape. If he could push off in it without capsizing, surely, even with his lack of skill, he could drive before the wind. Or even if he could keep it floating under the lee of the island, he could dictate terms.

He waited, hidden, until she pa.s.sed out of sight ahead, then ran to it. But even as he put his hands on the bow, she reappeared, running back. He fled in the other direction.

The chase went on reversed. He no longer heard her coming behind him.

Now he could not tell whether she were in front or behind. He pa.s.sed the dugout and the camp fire again. No sign of her there. Rounding the point beyond, he came to the place where he had made his own fire.

Trying to keep eyes in every side of his head at once, he walked around a bush and almost collided with her. There she stood with dimpled face, like a child, behind the door.

She burst out laughing. Sam turned beet colour and, scowling like a pirate, tried to carry it off with dignity.

"Don't be mad at me," she begged, struggling with her laughter. "You so fonny, run away. Here's your breakfast. It's cold now. You can bring it to the fire."

There was bread and smoked fish on the plate she was offering. Sam, though his stomach cried out, turned his back on her.

"You got eat," said Bela. "Tak' it."

"Not from you," he returned bitterly.

There was a silence. He could not see how she took it. Presently he heard her put the plate down on the sand and walk off. Her steps died away around the point.

Sam eyed the food ravenously and began to argue with himself. In the end, of course, he ate it, but it went down hard.

The day wore on. It continued to blow great guns. Sam wandered up and down his side of the island, meditating fine but impractical schemes of escape and revenge.

He might get away on a raft, he thought, if the wind changed and blew in a direction favourable to carry him ash.o.r.e. The trouble was the nights were so short. He might build his raft one night, and escape on it the next. How to keep her from finding it in the meantime offered a problem.

He began to look about in the interior of the island for suitable pieces of dry timber. He could use a blanket for a sail, he thought.

This reminded him that his blankets were at least his own, and he determined to go and get them.

Rounding the point, he saw her sitting in the sand, making something with her hands. Though she must have heard him coming, she did not look up until he addressed her. Sam, in his desire to a.s.sert his manhood, swaggered a bit as he came up.

She raised a face as bland as a baby's. Sam was disconcerted. Desiring to pick a quarrel, he roughly demanded his blankets. Bela nodded toward where they hung and went on with her work. She was making a trolling spoon.

So much for their second encounter. Sam retired from it, feeling that he had come off no better than from the first.

Later, back on his own side, bored and irritated beyond endurance, he rolled up in his blankets and sought sleep as an escape from his own company.

He slept and dreamed. The roaring of the wind and the beating of the waves wove themselves into his fancies. He dreamed he was engulfed in a murky tempest, He was tossing wildly in a sh.e.l.l of a boat, without oars or sail. Sometimes green and smiling fields appeared close at hand, only to be swallowed up in the murk again.

The noise was deafening. When he endeavoured to shout for aid, his tongue was clamped to his jaw. Behind him was a terror worse than the storm, and he dared not look around. It seemed to him that he struggled for an infinity of time, a hopeless, heart-breaking struggle against increasing odds.

Suddenly the sun broke through, cheering his heart. It was a sun that came down close to him, warming him through and through. It was not a sun. It was a face--a woman's face. At first it was a face he did not know, but beautiful. Then it was Bela's face, and he was glad.

Closer and closer to his own face it drew, and he did not draw away.

Finally she touched his lips with hers, and a wonderful sweetness pervaded his whole frame. He awoke.

For a moment he lay blinking, still wrapped in the dream. At any rate, the storm was real. The bushes still thrashed, and the waves beat.

Before him stretched the same wide waste of grey water slashed with white.

The sight of the water brought full recollection back. He had been looking at it all day, and he hated it. It was the water that made his prison. He sat up swearing at his dream. It was a fine thing a man should have no better control over his emotions while he slept.

Beside him on the sand lay another tin plate, with bread and fish.

Fresh fish this time, half a pink salmon trout lately pulled from the water. Touching the plate he found it warm. Was it possible----

Looking in the sand beside where he had lain he saw the rounded depressions made by two knees, on the other side of him was a hand-print. Sam scowled and violently scrubbed his lips with the back of his hand. Even so, he would not admit to himself that the hateful thing had happened.

Nevertheless he ate the fish.

"I've got to keep my strength up if I'm going to help myself," he excused it.

The sun was hidden, but he knew by that instinct which serves us when we give up mechanical contrivances, that it was no more than noon.

Half of this hideous day remained to be got over.

He sat dwelling on his grievances until the top of his head seemed about to fly off. Then he set to work to search for and collect dry logs and stow them under the willows, and in so doing managed to tire himself out.

It was dusk, which is to say nearly ten o'clock, when he awoke from another nap. A silence, astonis.h.i.+ng after the day-long uproar, greeted his ears. The wind had gone down with the sun, and the world was enfolded in a delicious peace.

The lake was like a polished floor. Above the tree-tops behind him the sky was still bright, while over across the water sat Night in robes, awaiting her cue. On the island there was not a cheep nor a flutter to break the spell.

Sam wondered idly what had aroused him. He saw with a frown that there was food beside him as before. But it had been there some time. It was cold, and sand had drifted into the plate.

At last he heard the sound which had awakened him. It was a strain of music which came stealing as gently on the air as the first breath of dawn. Sam's breast was like wax to music.

Without thinking what he was doing, he kicked himself free of the blankets, and arose to go closer. It was like a lovely incantation, drawing him irrespective of his will.

He did not instantly recognize the source of the music. It might have been the song of a twilight bird, a thrush, a mocking-bird. He forgot for the moment that there are no song-birds so far north.

Presently he knew it for the voice of a woman singing softly, and a good way off--Bela! Still he did not stop.

"I guess I can listen to her sing without giving anything away," he told himself. But his breast was dangerously seduced by the sweetness of the sound.

As he drew closer the detached notes a.s.sociated themselves into a regular air. It had nothing in common with the rude, strident chants of the Indians that he had heard on the rivers. It was both familiar and elusive. It was like an air he knew, but with a wild, irregular quality different from our airs. It was mournful, sweet, and artless, and it made the heart swell in his breast.

As he progressed around the beach he saw her fire. It was dark enough now for the blaze to s.h.i.+ne. Drawing still closer he saw her beside it, and frowned, remembering his injuries--but the song drew him still.