Part 36 (1/2)
The man's mind worked rapidly as he watched in silence while the girl removed some bacon and bannock from his pack-sack and set the coffee-pot upon the coals. When she had finished her meal he spoke, slowly but firmly.
”Jeanne, you have waited here a night and a day; you are rested, you have eaten. I will now make up the pack, and we will take the trail.”
”To-night?”
”Yes, to-night--now. The back trail for the lodge of Jacques.” The girl regarded him in amazement, and then smiled sadly, as a mother smiles on an erring child.
”We cannot return,” she said, speaking softly. ”Wa-ha-ta-na-ta would kill me. She thinks we came away together. Wa-ha-ta-na-ta was married; we are not married; we cannot go back.” The man rolled the blankets and buckled the straps of his pack-sack. He was about to swing it to his shoulders when the girl grasped his arm.
”I love you,” she repeated, ”and I will go with you.”
”But, Jeanne,” the man cried, ”this cannot be. I cannot marry you. In my life I have loved but one woman----”
”And she is the wife of another!” cried the girl.
Bill winced as from a blow, and she continued, speaking rapidly:
”I do not ask that you marry me--not even that you love me. It is enough that I am at your side. You will treat me kindly, for you are good. Marriage is nothing--empty words--if the heart loves; nothing else matters, and some day you will love me.”
The man slowly shook his head:
”No, Jeanne, it is impossible. Come, we will return to the lodge of Jacques. I myself will tell Wa-ha-ta-na-ta that no harm has befallen you, and----”
”Do you think she will believe _you_? Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, who hates all white men and, next to Moncrossen, you most of all, for she has seen that I love you. We have been gone three nights. She will not believe you. If you will not take me I will go alone to the land of the white men; I have no place else to go.”
The man's jaw squared, his eyes narrowed, and the low, level tones of his voice cut upon the silence in words of cold authority:
”We are going back to-night. Wa-ha-ta-na-ta will believe me. She is very old and very wise; and she will know that I speak the truth.”
The words ceased abruptly, and the two drew closer together, their eyes fixed upon the blanketed form which, silent as a shadow, glided from the bushes and stood motionless before them.
Within an arm's reach, in the dull, red glow, the somber figure stood contemplating the pair through beady, black eyes, that glowed ominously in the half-light.
Slowly, deliberately, a clawlike hand was withdrawn from a fold of the blanket, and the feeble rays of the fire glinted weakly upon the cold, gray steel of a polished blade.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII
THE PROMISE
The silent, shadowy figure swayed toward Bill Carmody, who met the stabbing glare of the black eyes with the steady gaze of his gray ones.
For long, tense moments their eyes held, while the girl watched breathlessly.
Raising the blade high above her head, the old squaw brought it cras.h.i.+ng upon a rock at Carmody's feet. There was the sharp ring of tempered steel, and upon the pine-needles lay the broken blade, and beyond the rock the hilt, with a scant inch of blade protruding at the guard.
Stooping, the old woman picked up the two pieces of the broken sheath-knife, and, handing the hilt gravely to the astonished man carefully returned the blade to her blanket. She pointed a long, skinny finger at Bill, and the withered lips moved.
”You are the one good white man,” she said. ”I, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, have spoken. I--who, since the death of Lacombie, have said 'there is no good white man'--was wrong, and the words were a lie in my mouth. In your eyes I have read it. You have the good eye--the eye of Lacombie, who is dead.