The Sealed Valley. Footner Hulbert
"I'll come and take a look at your mother," Ralph said. In his manner there was still something of a doctor's condescension to an humble patient. "Where do you live?"
She paused before replying, and looked at him with a certain apprehensiveness. "North," she said slowly. "Seven days' journey from Gisborne portage."
He was effectually startled out of his superior attitude. "Seven days!" he cried. "How on earth do you expect me to do that!"
"I take you in my canoe," she said. "You back here three weeks or one month."
When he recovered from his first surprise the comic aspect of it struck him: to travel a month to see one sick Indian! "Well, I'm——" he began, but the look in her eyes arrested the participle. "A month!" he cried.
She was sensitive to ridicule; a proud, sullen look came over her face. "I pay you," she said quickly. "I pay what you want."
Ralph laughed indulgently. "I'm afraid you don't realize what it's worth," he said. "A month of a doctor's time! It would be cheap at three hundred dollars."
"I don't want you cheap," she said, with the air of a princess. "I pay more."
Ralph looked at the absurd hat she wore, and struggled with his laughter. She was beautiful, she was amazing, but she was comic. "What am I up against?" he thought. Aloud, he said in a friendly way: "It's a lot of money. Tell me something about yourself and your people. What is your name? Where will you get so much money?"
But his laughter had angered her; her face expressed only a sullen blank. She did not answer.
"What is your name?" Ralph repeated. "You must answer my questions, you know."
"I tell you what I like," she said scornfully.
Ralph was irritated. "Do you expect me to start on a wild-goose chase into the wilderness without knowing what I'm letting myself in for?" he said sharply.
"I pay you before you go," she said, with her princess air.
It did not help to soothe him. "Hang the pay!" he cried. "I'm not for sale. I don't go in for a thing unless I'm satisfied it's straight!"
She was not in the least intimidated by his raised voice. "You only got to do doctor's work," she said coldly.
Ralph stared at her, confused and nonplussed by the variety of emotions she excited in him. Her beauty aroused him, her indifference piqued him, and her inscrutability provoked his curiosity to the highest degree. Obstinacy in another always had the effect of awakening the same quality in Ralph. He said coldly: "It sounds queer to me. I'm not interested."
Clearly she still clung to the idea that it was a question of payment with him. His glances of scornful amusement at her clothes had not escaped her woman's perceptions. "You think I poor," she said. "You think I got nothing. I got plenty."
"I don't care what you've got," said Ralph. "Deal with me openly, and I'll meet you halfway."
Her hand went to the bosom of her dress and closed around something that was hidden there. "If I show you something, you promise not to tell?" she said, with sudden earnestness. "You shake hands and promise not to tell?"
More mystery! Curiosity waxed great in Ralph's breast and struggled with his irritation. "Hang these people!" he thought. "You never can tell what they're up to!" To her he said unwillingly: "If it's straight I promise not to tell."
"It is straight," she said proudly.
They shook hands on it. She drew a little bag of moosehide from her dress, and untied the thong that bound its mouth. Attentively watching Ralph's face to observe the effect on him, she suddenly turned the bag upside down over his desk, and a little flood of coarse yellow sand poured out upon it with a soft swish. There could be no mistaking the cleanness and the shine of it.
Ralph sprang up. "Gold!" he cried, amazed.
"It is yours," she said, with a little smile. "I give you more if you make my mot'er's arm straight."
"Where did you get it?" Ralph asked sharply.
"I dig it myself," she said. "Do you think I steal it?"
Ralph continued to stare at the yellow stuff as if it had hypnotized him.
"Better put it away," suggested the girl. "Somebody come, maybe. To see gold make white men crazy."
He swept it up handful by handful, and poured it back into the little bag. There was a magic in the feel of the bright, sharp grains and in the extraordinary weight of it that caused a red flag to be run up in his cheeks, and his eyes to shine. He judged from the weight of the little bag that he had in his hand already double the fee he had asked.
By and by she said: "You come now?"
Ralph frowned. "What do you want to make such a mystery of the trip for?"
"I could lie to you if I want," she said, "and you not know."
Ralph's eyes were compelled to acknowledge the truth of this.
She paused with a little frown as if she had matter to convey that was difficult to put into speech. "I not tell you all my things," she went on slowly, "because I not know you ver' moch. By and by I tell you what I can."
He looked at her in silent astonishment. What extraordinary delicacy to find in a common Indian girl! As he gazed at her he abandoned that conception of her for good and all. Whatever she might be it was not common. The sullenness evoked by his laughter had passed, and her eyes now met his squarely. Pride and wistfulness contended in their dark depths. Whatever the colour of her skin they were the eyes of a woman with a soul. What he read in them caused his heart to quicken its beats. He made note of other beauties in passing: the lovely tempting curve of her cheek, and how the colour came and went in it; her lips fresh and crimson as rose-leaves.
"You have white blood," he said suddenly.
She shrugged.
"At least you can tell me your name," he said.
"Annie Crossfox," she said unhesitatingly. "White people say Annie; my people, Nahnya."
A slight constraint fell upon them. They were silent. Ralph's attitude toward the proposed journey was rapidly changing. To give him credit, it was her eyes more than the gold that worked the change. How could he have failed to be instantly struck by her beauty, he thought.
"You will come?" she murmured at length.
"When do you want to start?" he said.
"The steamboat go up to Gisborne after dinner to-morrow," she said. "We walk across Gisborne portage six miles to Hat Lake. There my boat is cached."
"What can I tell these people here?" said Ralph. "I can't just disappear."
"Tell them you take the chance of the boat going up, to see a little of the country. Everybody do that sometimes."
To "see the country" beyond was Ralph's dearest desire; to float down its rivers, to climb its mountains, to camp under its stars. And to travel seven days in a canoe with her! The Spirit of Youth rose in its might and dealt old Prudence a finishing blow.
"All right!" cried Ralph. "I'll come!"
"Thank you," she said quietly.
Somewhat to his disappointment she showed no elation; indeed, no sooner had she won him to go than she looked at him with a new question in her eyes, with a painful and hesitating air.
"What's the matter?" said Ralph.
"You promise me you never tell where you been?" she said deprecatingly. "You promise me when you come back you never tell anybody what you see at my place?"
All Ralph's doubts came thronging back. "No!" he said frowning. "I can't do that! I've got to be free to use my own judgment!"
There was a pause while their individualities contended in silence.