The Long Portage. Harold Bindloss
one would have preferred to climb down cautiously, but there was a sharp snapping and crackling below and Nasmyth knew that a hard-pressed deer will frequently take to the water. If it crossed the river, it would escape; and that could not be contemplated.
Holding his rifle up, he plunged madly down the descent, smashing through matted bushes, stumbling over slippery stones. Once or twice he collided with a slender tree and struck his leg against some ridge of rock; but he held on, gasping, and the water rapidly grew nearer. He had almost reached it when a dim shape broke out from a thicket at the bottom of the slope. There were still some cartridges in his rifle cylinder, but he was slipping and sliding down an almost precipitous declivity at such a rate that it was impossible to stop and shoot. Indeed, in another moment he fell violently into a brake and had some difficulty in smashing through it, but when he struggled free he saw shingle and boulders in front of him and Lisle bounding across them a few yards behind the deer. He reached the stones, wondering why Lisle did not fire; and then he saw man and deer plunge into the water together.
A few seconds later he was waist-deep in the swift icy current, savagely endeavoring to drag the animal toward the bank, while Lisle stood near him, breathing hard, with a red hunting-knife in his hand.
“Steady!” gasped Lisle. “You can’t do it that way! Help me throw the beast on his side. Now heave!”
They got the deer out, and Nasmyth sat down limply. All the power seemed to have gone out of him; he did not want to move, though he was filled with exultation, for they now had food. It was a minute or two before he noticed that Lisle had left him; and then he saw him coming back with his rifle.
“I dropped the thing,” Lisle explained. “Couldn’t snap a fresh shell in; guess I bent the slide. I took the knife to finish it.”
“In another moment or two you’d have been too late.”
Lisle laughed.
“I don’t know. It wouldn’t have been decided until we’d reached the other side.”
“You would have swum across?” Nasmyth asked in astonishment.
“Sure,” said Lisle simply. “Anyway, I’d have tried.”
Nasmyth glanced at the river. It was broad, icy cold, and running fast, and he could hardly imagine a worn-out and half-fed man safely swimming it. Lisle, however, called upon him to assist in an unpleasant operation which, when Nasmyth had killed a deer at home, had been judiciously left to the keepers or gillies. After that, he was directed to light a fire on a neighboring point, from which it could be seen some way up the river, and by and by Jake arrived in the canoe. Then they made camp, and after a feast on flesh so tough that only hungry men could have eaten more than a few morsels of it they went to sleep.
CHAPTER V
MILLICENT GLADWYNE
In a few more days they left the river, abandoning the canoe and tent and a portion of their gear. Ascending to higher levels, they crossed a rugged waste, which, fortunately for them, was thinly timbered; but there was keen frost, and snow in places, and Nasmyth suffered a good deal during this portion of the journey. At last, however, they descended to a sheltered valley in which the firs grew tall, and Jake agreed with Lisle that it would form the best road to the settlements.
Nasmyth was longing for civilization when he lay awake late one night, wrapped in a single blanket, beside the sinking fire. Dark columnar trunks rose about him, touched with the uncertain red radiance now and then cast upon them when little puffs of bitter wind stirred the blaze, and he could see the filmy wreaths of smoke eddy among the branches. He was cold and overtired; the day’s march had been a long one; his shoulders ached cruelly after carrying a heavy load, and every joint was sore. Besides, his bed was unpleasantly hard, and he envied his companions, who had long ago sunk into heavy slumber. For the last hour he had been thinking over the discoveries he had made on the journey, which he devoutly wished he had never undertaken; the thought of them had troubled him on other bitter nights. Lisle was not the man to let the matter drop; he was much more likely to follow it up with dogged persistence to the end; and Nasmyth, who was to some extent pledged to assist him, saw trouble ahead.
In spite of this, he was beginning to get drowsy when a faint and yet strangely melodious chiming broke through the whispering of the firs. It seemed to come from above him, falling through the air, and he roused himself to listen, wondering if he were quite awake. The musical clash he had first heard had ceased, but for a while he thought he could distinguish the tolling of a single bell; then in varying notes the peal broke out again.
There was something ethereal in the clear tones. The last time he had heard anything like them he was sitting one Sunday morning on a shady lawn while the call of the bells came softly up to him across the English woods. He glanced at his comrades, but they showed no sign of hearing, and raising himself on one elbow he lay and listened, until the music, growing fainter and fainter, died away. Then, puzzled and half convinced that his imagination had played him some fantastic trick, he went to sleep.
He mentioned the occurrence diffidently at breakfast the next morning, expecting incredulous laughter; but Lisle, without making a comment, glanced at Jake questioningly.
“No,” responded Jake. “Nothing to bring them up so far.”
“You couldn’t have been mistaken?” Lisle asked Nasmyth.
“I thought I must be; but the more I listened, the clearer it got.”
“Go and see,” Lisle said, addressing Jake, and when they had finished breakfast the packer strode away.
“We’ll wait a bit,” advised Lisle. “I’m a little worried about provisions again. It’s still a long march to the nearest wagon trail.”
Nasmyth failed to understand how the delay would improve their position, but believing that his companion was somewhat dubious about his tale he restrained his curiosity. In half an hour Jake came back and nodded to Lisle.
“Quite a bunch of them,” he reported. “I struck the fellow’s trail.”
“What was it I heard?” Nasmyth asked.
“Cow-bells,” Lisle explained, laughing. “In this country, they generally put them on any cattle that run loose in the timber. Some adventurous rancher has located up here, though I hadn’t expected to find one so far north. Anyway, it’s a relief; he’ll no doubt be able to let us have something to eat.”
They reached the man’s log house an hour later, and spent the day with him, enjoying a much needed rest. The next morning he supplied them with provisions and told them how to find a trail down to a wagon road; and, setting out, they safely reached a settlement in regular communication with the cities.
It was the settlement Lisle had expected to come to, and he found a bundle of correspondence awaiting him there. Before he opened it, however, he and Nasmyth supplied themselves with such clothing as they could obtain at the local store, and then demanded a bath at the little wooden hotel. They had some trouble in obtaining it, but Nasmyth was firm, and eventually he sat down to supper, clad in a blue shirt with scarlet trimmings, extremely tight-fitting clothes and daintily-pointed shoes.
“I think I’d have done better if I’d stuck to my rags, or else bought a pair of what that fellow called river-Jacks’ boots,” he commented ruefully.
Lisle was similarly attired, but he was too busy with his meal to sympathize with him, and some time after it was over Nasmyth, strolling into the private room which they had obtained as a signal concession, found him writing at a littered table. Sitting down, he watched him for a while with some slight wonder. For