Part 36 (1/2)

”We'll have to go in,” I whispered. ”Are you game?”

I felt the pressure of her free hand upon my arm.

”Anywhere--with you.”

So we stepped quietly but boldly into the water. It came to the ankles, the calves, the knees. Then we were through the reeds and the lake lay before us, dim and misty, like a sheet of frosted gla.s.s.

”We'll wait here. If we're lucky they'll come our way.”

Out of the air came a rus.h.i.+ng. Great wings beat almost upon our heads.

But they came and were gone before we knew it.

”Just a couple of strays beating around the lake,” I explained. ”We'll wait for the waders.”

Presently, and without notice save the soft splas.h.i.+ng of water, they came wading down the shallows close to where we stood, their great bodies dim and dark against the frosted gla.s.s; their long necks stretched high, or grubbing in the reeds beside them.

One--two--three--four--five--six; on they came.

”Take the first two; I'll take the next.”

Our guns came to our shoulders in the darkness; we looked, rather than sighted, at the great birds scarce a rod away; then--right barrel!--left barrel!--we woke the echoes of the lake and filled the air with tempestuous noises. From every side came the splash of water and the rush of wings. The stillness, the gentleness of the night in a moment became the wildest babel of confusion.

But we had no thought for that. Splas.h.i.+ng right before us were great forms; flapping, struggling, eddying about. I would have held Jean back but she rushed ahead of me into the melee. She had one by the neck; the l.u.s.t of killing was upon her; it was a fight to a finish. . . .

Afterwards we dragged them out--three of them. Jean declared there had been another, but he managed to hide himself in the rushes.

Then we built a fire beside the willow and warmed ourselves.

Before the water was warm enough for bathing I sent to Regina for a bathing suit. ”The gaudiest thing you have,” I said, and they took me at my word. It was a great day when I made my appearance in it. In the evenings, after a day of dust in the fields, we revelled in the cool waters of our pond. Jean would race me from end to end, but she was much too good a swimmer for me.

Then came one of those rare summer nights--rare on the prairies--when the air does not cool off with the approach of evening, and all the heat of day seems hemmed in by black clouds crowding overhead. I had gone to bed, but not to sleep. The far away flas.h.i.+ng of heat lightning continuously lit my room with a vague twilight; my blankets had become unbearable, and I threw them off. The silence was intense; the very night seemed to brood over me; the perspiration stood out upon me. It took me back to the hot nights of the East, so little known with us, and from that starting point my mind went wandering down through old ways, down to the dam and the mill-wheel and the little boy and girl who were the starting point of all my recollections. Jean it had been then; Jean it was, with whom all my thoughts were linked; Jean was still the innermost hope of my heart. I had waited, patiently as I could, and the spring and summer months had seen arise between us an affection deeper, vaster, wider than anything I had known in those days when we had talked of love together. Our world had grown and we had grown with it. Ours was continually the spirit of the new adventure; continually a faring forth into the unknown.

But I had not talked of love. It had been my conception of artistry to speak no more of love, daring all my hope on the prospect that the fires which I guessed had been rekindled in Jean's heart would in time burst all her womanly restraint. Then she would come to me. Jean was big enough for that.

I had tried to follow her in spirit through the torment of those days after Spoof's revelation. I had guessed how hard it had been for her, and I kept silence. I conceived that that was artistry.

But there must be an end sometime--sometime soon. I was not all artist, like Jean. Artistry was my means to an end. There must be an end. . . .

Which would be the beginning. . . .

Came a tapping on my window. I sat up quickly.

”Frank?”

”Yes?”

”Asleep?”