Part 24 (1/2)

Sam, in no humour to be meek, made the time-honoured rejoinder.

”I'll soon make it my business,” retorted Joe. ”With that, see?”

showing a clenched fist. ”Have you been with Bela?”

Sam, because of the threat, disdained to lie. ”Yes,” he said coolly.

Joe whirled about to the others. ”Didn't I tell you?” he cried excitedly. ”I heard her calling him. There's underhand work here. He's hid the guns on us.”

”Do you know where she's hid?” demanded Big Jack.

Sam did not feel any necessity of returning a truthful answer to this.

”No,” he said. ”She came on me when I was visiting my muskrat traps.”

”You're lying!” cried Joe. ”I'll smash you, anyhow, on the chance of it.”

Big Jack stepped between them.

”I'm running this show,” he said grimly. To Sam he said: ”I strike no man without warning. I warn you now. This is a man's affair. We won't stand no interference from cooks. You keep out. If you don't, G.o.d help you, that's all!”

”And if he leaves you,” added Joe, ”I'll croak you myself with as little thought as I'd pinch a flea!”

”Get the supper,” said Jack.

Sam clenched his teeth, and did not speak again.

In the middle of the night Sam awoke in the shack with a weight on his breast, and, sitting up in his blankets, looked about him. The dying embers of the fire cast a faint light on the figures of his three companions lying on the floor beside him. Husky still had the sole use of the bed.

The cabin roof rang with a grotesque chorus of snores. Sam's gorge rose. The air was tainted. He looked at the rec.u.mbent figures with a curling lip. Was it hate that had awakened him? He had put up in silence with so much at their hands!

An oblique ray of moonlight struck through the window over his head, luring him like a song. He softly got up, and, gathering up his bed, went outside.

The pines were like a regiment of gigantic soldiers standing at ease under the sky and whispering together while they awaited the word of command. Their fragrance was like a benediction on the air. The moon, low down in the south-east, peeped between the trunks.

At the mouth of the creek where the little rapids poured into a quiet pool there was a bank of sand. This was the general was.h.i.+ng-place of the camp.

Sam, thinking of the sand as a promising bed, made his way in that direction by the path they had worn. As he pa.s.sed around the house a shadow moved from behind a great pine and followed him, flitting noiselessly from tree to tree.

Sam sat down in the sand, nursing his knees. The mouth of the creek was the only spot along sh.o.r.e as yet wholly free of ice. He looked out over the lake through the opening. Under the light of the low moon the water was the colour of freshly cast iron.

Somewhere out upon it Bela was paddling, he thought, if she had not already reached home. His breast relaxed its guard against her a little. He believed she was a pretty fine sort, after all. Had he done the right thing to send her away? She was beautiful enough to make a man's arm ache for her now she had gone.

But on the whole he was glad she was gone. He did not realize it, but his hour had not quite struck. It was a wholesome instinct that made him fight against the overmastering emotions that attacked his heart.

He told himself he couldn't afford to look in that direction. He had work to do first. He had to get a toehold in this land. Some day maybe----

Drowsiness overcame him again. With a sigh he stretched out on the sand and rolled himself in his blankets. His breathing became deep and slow. By and by the coquettish moon peeped between the tree-trunks across the creek and touched his face and his fair hair with a silvery wand. Whereupon it was no longer a mere man; it was young Hermes sleeping beside the water. The shadow stole from among the trees above the sand-bank and crept down to his side. It knelt there with clasped hands. It showed a white face in the moonlight, on which glistened two diamonds.