Part 8 (1/2)
”I got no husban',” she replied, somewhat defiantly.
”Then--” he began, but his voice faltered.
She came and stood between him and the couch.
Something of the look of a she-panther came into her face, her figure, her att.i.tude. Her eyes lost their mournfulness and blazed a black-red at him. Her whole body seemed ready to spring.
”You not touch the girl child!” she half snarled. ”I not let you touch her; she _mine_, though I have no husban'!”
”I don't want to touch her, Catharine,” he said gently, trying to pacify her. ”Believe me, I don't want to touch her.”
The woman's whole being changed. A thousand mother-lights gleamed from her eyes, a thousand measures of mother-love stormed at her heart. She stepped close, very close to him and laid her small brown hand on his, then drawing him nearer to her said: ”Yes you _do_ want to touch her; you not speak truth when you say 'no.' You _do_ want to touch her!” With a rapid movement she flung back the blankets, then slipping her bare arm about him she bent his form until he was looking straight into the child's face--a face the living miniature of his own! His eyes, his hair, his small kindly mouth, his fair, perfect skin. He staggered erect.
”Catharine! what does it mean? What does it mean?” he cried hoa.r.s.ely.
”_Your child_--” she half questioned, half affirmed.
”Mine? Mine?” he called, without human understanding in his voice.
”Oh, Catharine! Where did you get her?”
”The sh.o.r.es of Kootenay Lake,” she answered.
”Was--was--she _alone_?” he cried.
The woman looked away, slowly shaking her head, and her voice was very gentle as she replied: ”No, she alive a little, but _the other_, whose arms 'round her, she not alive; my people, the Kootenay Indians, and I--we--we bury that other.”
For a moment there was a speaking silence, the young Wingate, with the blessed realization that half his world had been saved for him, flung himself on his knees, and, with his arms locked about the little girl, was calling:
”Margie! Margie! Papa's little Margie girl! Do you remember papa?
Oh, Margie! Do you? Do you?”
Something dawned in the child's eyes--something akin to a far-off memory. For a moment she looked wonderingly at him, then put her hand up to his forehead and gently pulled a lock of his fair hair that always curled there--an old trick of hers. Then she looked down at his vest pocket, slowly pulled out his watch and held it to her ear. The next minute her arms slipped round his neck.
”Papa,” she said, ”papa been away from Margie a long time.”
Young Wingate was sobbing. He had not noticed that the big, rough foreman had gone out of the shack with tear-dimmed eyes, and had quietly closed the door behind him.
It was evening before Wingate got all the story from Catharine, for she was slow of speech, and found it hard to explain her feelings.
But Brown, who had returned alone to the camp in the morning, now came back, packing an immense bundle of all the tinned delicacies he could find, which, truth to tell, were few. He knew some words in Kootenay, and led Catharine on to reveal the strange history that sounded like some tale from fairyland. It appeared that the reason Catharine did not attempt to go to the camp that morning was that Margie was not well, so she would not leave her, but in her heart of hearts she knew young Wingate would come searching to her lodge. She loved the child as only an Indian woman can love an adopted child. She longed for him to come when she found Margie was ill, yet dreaded that coming from the depths of her soul. She dreaded the hour he would see the child and take it away. For the moment she looked upon his face, the night he rode over to engage her to cook, months ago, she had known he was Margie's father. The little thing was the perfect mirror of him, and Catharine's strange wild heart rejoiced to find him, yet hid the child from him for very fear of losing it out of her own life.
After finding it almost dead in its dead mother's arms on the sh.o.r.e, the Indians had given it to Catharine for the reason that she could speak some English. They were only a pa.s.sing band of Kootenays, and as they journeyed on and on, week in and week out, they finally came to Crow's Nest Mountain. Here the child fell ill, so they built Catharine a log shack, and left her with plenty of food, sufficient to last until the railway gang had worked that far up the Pa.s.s, when more food would be available. When she had finished the strange history, Wingate looked at her long and lovingly.
”Catharine,” he said, ”you were almost going to fight me once to-day. You stood between the couch and me like a panther. What changed you so that you led me to my baby girl yourself?”
”I make one last fight to keep her,” she said, haltingly. ”She mine so long, I want her; I want her till I die. Then I think many times I see your face at camp. It look like sky when sun does not s.h.i.+ne--all cloud, no smile, no laugh. I know you think of your baby then. Then I watch you many times. Then after while my heart is sick for you, like you are my own boy, like I am your own mother. I hate see no sun in your face. I think I not good mother to you; if I was good mother I would give you your child; make the sun come in your face. To-day I make last fight to keep the child. She's mine so long, I want her till I die. Then somet'ing in my heart say, 'He's like son to you, as if he your own boy; make him glad--happy. Oh, ver' glad! Be like his own mother. Find him his baby.'”