The Huntress Part 50

"I won't be murdered in cold blood! I won't! I won't!"

"Shut up!" said Bela. "I not goin' kill you jus' yet. Not if you do what I want."

Miss Mackall stopped weeping. "What do you want?" she asked eagerly.

"You got go 'way from here," said Bela coolly.

"What do you mean?"

"Bishop Lajeunesse goin' back down lake day after to-morrow. If you here after he gone I kill you."

A little a.s.surance began to return to Miss Mackall. After all, it was not a supernatural, but a very human enemy with whom she had to deal.

"Are you crazy?" she demanded with quavering dignity.

"Yes," replied Bela calmly. "So they say."

"Oh!" sneered Miss Mackall. "Do you think I shall pay any attention to your threats? I have only to speak a word to my brother-in-law and you will be arrested."

"They got catch me first," said Bela. "No white man can follow me in the bush. I go where I want. Always I will follow you--wit' my gun."

The white woman's voice broke again. "If anything happened to me, you'd be tried and hung for murder!"

"What do a crazy woman care for that?" asked Bela.

Miss Mackall commenced to weep again.

Bela suddenly stepped aside. "Run home!" she said contemptuously.

"Better pack your trunk."

Miss Mackall's legs suddenly recovered their function, and she sped up the trail like a released arrow. Never in her life had she run so fast. She fell into her room panting and trembling, and offered up a little prayer of thankfulness for the security of four walls and a locked door.

Next morning she was unable to get up in time to see Sam pa.s.s. She appeared at the dinner table pale and shaky, and pleaded a headache in explanation. During the meal she led the conversation by a round-about course to the subject of Indians.

"Do they ever go crazy?" she asked Gilbert Beattie, with an off-hand air.

"Yes, indeed," he answered. "It's one of the commonest troubles we have to deal with. They're fanatics by nature, anyway, and it doesn't take much to turn the scale. _Weh-ti-go_ is their word for insanity.

Among the people around the lake there is an extraordinary superst.i.tion, which the priests have not been able to eradicate in two hundred years. The Indians say of an insane man that his brain is frozen. And they believe in their hearts that the only way to melt it is by drinking human blood--a woman's or a child's by preference. That is the real explanation of many an obscure tragedy up here."

Miss Mackall shuddered and ate no more.

Late that afternoon she managed to drag herself down to the road. She waited for Sam at the entrance to a patch of woods a little way toward the French outfit.

"What's the matter?" he exclaimed at the sight of her.

"Ah, don't look at me!" she said unhappily. "I've had an awful night.

Sick headache. I just wanted to tell you not to come to-night."

"All right," said Sam. "To-morrow night?"

She shook her head. "I--I don't think I'll come any more. I don't think it's right."

"Just as you say," said Sam. "If you feel all right to-morrow afternoon, you might get a horse and ride around the bay."

"I--I'm afraid to ride alone," she faltered.

"Well," said Sam, ever quick to take offence, "if you don't want to see me again, of course----"

"I do! I do!" she cried. "I've got to have a talk with you. I don't know what to do!"

"Very well," he said stoutly. "I'll come up to the house to-morrow night. I guess there's no reason why I shouldn't."

"Yes, that is best," she agreed. "Drive on now."

Sam clucked to his team, and they started briskly down the trail.

"Lord, she looks about seventy!" he was thinking. Miss Mackall stood watching until they rounded the first bend. When she turned around, there stood Bela beside a big tree, a few feet to the side of the road. Evidently she had been hidden in the underbrush behind. Miss Mackall gasped in piteous terror and stood rooted to the spot.

Bela's face was as relentless as a high priestess's. "I listen if you goin' tell him 'bout me," she said. "If you tell him, I ready to shoot."

The other woman was speechless.

"You not goin' be here to-morrow night," Bela went on quietly. "Bishop Lajeunesse leave to-morrow morning."

Miss Mackall turned and flew up the trail.

The trader's house was built bungalow style, all the rooms on a floor.

Miss Mackall's room was at the back of the house, her window facing the end of the back trail, where it issued from the woods. The nights were now mild and fragrant, and doors and windows stood wide. Locks are never used north of the landing. Or if they are, the key hangs hospitably within reach.

Miss Mackall, however, insisted on locking the doors and securing her window. There were no blinds, and she hung a petticoat inside the gla.s.s. Laughing at her old-maidish precautions, they let her have her way. As a further safeguard against nervousness during the night, she had one of her nieces to bed with her.

There was no sleep for her. In every little stir and breath she heard the footfall of her enemy. She was tormented by the suspicion that there was something lurking outside her window. She regretted leaving the petticoat up, for it prevented her seeing outside. She brooded on it until she felt as if she would go out of her mind, if she were not rea.s.sured.

Finally she mustered up sufficient courage to get out of bed and creep to the window. Holding her breath, she gathered the petticoat in her hand and smartly jerked it down. She found herself looking into the face of the native girl, who was peering through the gla.s.s. There was a little light in the sky behind her.

Bela sprang back, and Miss Mackall saw the gun-barrel. She uttered a piercing scream and fell fainting to the floor. The whole family rushed to her door. Hysterics succeeded. They could make nothing of her wild cries. When she recovered she was mum.

In the morning Gilbert Beattie and his wife discussed it soberly.

"Nerves," said the man. "We'd best let her go out with the bishop, as she wants. This is no country for her. We might not get another chance this year to send her out with a proper escort."

"It's too bad!" sighed his wife. "I thought she would make such a good wife for one of the new men that are coming in now. They need wives so badly!"

"H-m!" said Gilbert.