A Daughter of the Forest by Evelyn Raymond (best classic novels txt) 📖

nobody else shall desecrate it as we have done.”

“You mustn’t touch it! It’s nobody’s—only a warning.”

“A warning, surely; that we must take great care lest a like fate come on us; but somebody lies under that mound and I pity him. Most probable that he lost his life in that very whirlpool which wrecked us. Twice I’ve been upset and lost all my belongings, but escaped safe. I hope I’ll not run the same chance again. Come. Lie down again, and go to sleep.”

“Couldn’t sleep; to try in such a haunted place would be to be ‘spelled’——”

“Pierre Ricord! For a fellow that’s so smart at some things you are the biggest dunce I know, in others. Haven’t we slept like lords ever since we struck this camp? I’m going to make my bed up again and turn in. I advise you to do the same.”

Adrian tossed the branches aside, then rearranged them, lapping the soft ends over the hard ones in an orderly row which would have pleased a housewife. Thus freshened his odorous mattress was as good as new, and stretching himself upon it he went to sleep immediately.

Pierre fully intended to keep awake; but fatigue and loneliness prevailed, and five minutes later he had crept close to Adrian’s side.

The sunshine on his face, and the sound of a knife cutting wood awoke him; and there was Adrian whittling away at a broad slab of cedar, smiling and jeering, and in the best of spirits, despite his rather solemn occupation.

“For a fellow who wouldn’t sleep, you’ve done pretty well. See. I’ve caught a fish and set it cooking. I’ve picked a pile of berries, and have nearly finished this headstone. Added another accomplishment to my many—monument maker. But I’m wrong to laugh over that, though the poor unknown to whom it belongs would be grateful to me, I’ve no doubt. Lend a hand, will you?”

But nothing would induce Pierre to engage in any such business. Nor would he touch his breakfast while Adrian’s knife was busy. He sat apart, looking anywhere rather than toward his mate, and talking over his shoulder to him in a strangely subdued voice.

“Adrian!”

“Well?”

“Most done?”

“Nearly.”

“What you going to put on it?”

“I’ve been wondering. Think this: ‘To the Memory of My Unknown Brother.’”

“Wh-a-a-t!”

Adrian repeated the inscription.

“He was no kin to you.”

“We are all kin. It’s all one world, God’s world. All the people and all these forests, and the creatures in them—I tell you I’ve never heard a sermon that touched me as the sight of this grave in the wilderness has touched me. I mean to be a better, kinder man, because of it. Margot was right, none of us has a right to his own self. She told me often that I should go home to my own folks and make everything right with them; then, if I could, come back and live in the woods, somewhere. ‘If I felt I must.’ But I don’t feel that way now. I want to get back and go to work. I want to live so that when I die—like that poor chap, yonder,—somebody will have been the better for my life. Pshaw! Why do I talk to you like this? Anyway, I’ll set this slab in place, and then——”

Pierre rose and still without looking Adrian’s way, pushed the new canoe into the water. He had carefully pitched it, on the day before, with a mixture of the old pork grease and gum from the trees, so that there need be no delay at starting.

Adrian finished his work, lettered the slab with a coal from the fire, and re-watered the wild flowers he had already planted.

“Aren’t you going to eat breakfast first?”

“Not in a graveyard,” answered Pierre, with a solemnity that checked Adrian’s desire to smile.

A last reverent attention, a final clearing of all rubbish from the spot, and he, too, stepped into the canoe and picked up his paddle. They had passed the rapids and reached a smooth stretch of the river, where they had camped, and now pulled steadily and easily away, once more upon their journey south. But not till they had put a considerable distance between themselves and that woodland grave, would Pierre consent to stop and eat the food that Adrian had prepared. Even then, he restricted the amount to be consumed, remarking with doleful conviction:

“We’re going to be starved before we reach Donovan’s. The ‘food stick’ burnt off and dropped into the fire, last night.”

Adrian remembered that his mate had spoken of it at the time, when by some carelessness, they had not secured the crotched sapling on which they hung their birch kettle.

“Oh! you simple thing. Why will you go through life tormenting yourself with such nonsense? Come. Eat your breakfast. We’re going straight to Donovan’s as fast as we can. I’ve done with the woods for a time. So should you be done. You’re needed at the island. Not because of any dreams but because the more I recall of Mr. Dutton’s appearance the surer I am that he is a sick man. You’ll go back, won’t you?”

“Yes. I’m going back. Not because you ask me, though.”

“I don’t care why—only go.”

“I’m not going into the show business.”

Adrian smiled. “Of course you’re not. You’ll never have money enough. It would cost lots.”

“’Tisn’t that. ’Twas the dream. That was sent me. All them animals in black paint, and the blue herons without any heads, and—— My mother came for me, last night.”

“I heartily wish you could go to her this minute! She’s superstitious enough, in all conscience, yet she has the happy faculty of keeping her lugubrious son in subjection.”

Whenever Pierre became particularly depressing the other would rattle off as many of the longest words as occurred to him. They had the effect of diverting his comrade’s thoughts.

Then they pulled on again, nor did anything disastrous happen to further hinder their progress. The food did not give out, for they lived mostly upon berries, having neither time nor desire to stop and cook their remnant of beans. When they were especially tired Pierre lighted a fire and made a bucket of hemlock tea, but Adrian found cold water preferable to this decoction; and, in fact, they were much nearer Donovan’s, that first settlement in the wilderness, than even Pierre had suspected.

Their last portage was made—an easy one, there being nothing but themselves and the canoe to carry—and they came to a big dead water where they had looked to find another running stream; but had no sooner sighted it than their ears were greeted by the laughter of loons, which threw up their legs and dived beneath the surface in that absurd manner which Adrian always found amusing.

“Bad luck, again!” cried Pierre, instantly, “never hear a loon but——”

“But you see a house! Look, look! Donovan’s, or somebody’s, no matter whose! A house, a house!”

There, indeed, it lay; a goodly farmstead, with its substantial cabins, its outbuildings, its groups of cattle on the cleared land, and—yes, yes, its moving human beings, and what seemed oddest still, its teams of horses.

Even Pierre was silent, and tears sprang to the eyes of both lads as they gazed. Until that moment neither had fully realized how lonely and desolate had been their situation.

“Now for it! It’s a biggish lake and we’re pretty tired! But that means rest, plenty to eat, people—everything.”

Their rudely built canoe was almost useless when they beached it at last on Donovan’s wharf, and their own strength was spent. But it was a hospitable household to which they had come, and one quite used to welcoming wanderers from the forest. They were fed and clothed and bedded, without question, but, when a long sleep had set them both right, tongues wagged and plans were settled with amazing promptness.

For there were other guests at the farm; a party of prospectors, going north into the woods to locate timber for the next season’s cutting. These would be glad of Pierre’s company and help, and would pay him “the going wages.” But they would not return by the route he had come, though by leaving theirs at a point well north, he could easily make his way back to the island.

“So you shot the poor moose for nothing. You cannot even have his horns!” said Adrian reproachfully. “Well, as soon as I can vote, I mean to use all my influence to stop this murder in the forest.”

The strangers smiled and shrugged their shoulders. “We’re after game ourselves, as well as timber, but legislation is already in progress to stop the indiscriminate slaughter of the fast disappearing moose and caribou. Five hundred dollars is the fine to be imposed for any infringement of the law, once passed.”

Pierre’s jaw dropped. He was so impressed by the long words and the mention of that, to him, enormous sum, that he was rendered speechless for a longer time than Adrian ever remembered. But, if he said nothing, he reflected sadly upon the magnificent antlers he should see no more.

Adrian’s affairs were also, speedily and satisfactorily arranged. Farmer Donovan would willingly take him to the nearest stage route; thence to a railway would be easy journeying; and by steam he could travel swiftly, indeed, to that distant home which he now so longed to see.

The parting of the lads was brief, but not without emotion. Two people cannot go through their experiences and dangers, to remain indifferent to each other. In both their hearts was now the kindliest feeling and the sincere hope that they should meet again. Pierre departed first and looked back many times at the tall, graceful figure of his comrade; then the trees intervened and the forest had again swallowed him into its familiar depths.

Then Adrian, also, stepped upon the waiting buck-board and was driven over the rough road in the opposite direction.

Three days later, with nothing in his pocket but his treasured knife, a roll of birch-bark, and the ten-dollar piece which, through all his adventures, he had worn pinned to his inner clothing, “a make-piece offering” to his mother he reached the brown stone steps to his father’s city mansion.

There, for the first time, he hesitated. All the bitterness with which he had descended those steps, banished in disgrace, was keenly remembered.

“Can I, shall I, dare I go up and ring that bell?”

A vision floated before him. Margot’s earnest face and tear-dimmed eyes. Her lips speaking:

“If I had father or mother anywhere—nothing should ever make me leave them. I would bear everything—but I would be true to them.”

An instant later a peal rang through that silent house, such as it had not echoed in many a day. What would be the answer to it?

CHAPTER XVII IN THE HOUR OF DARKNESS

“No sign yet?”

“No sign.” Margot’s tone was almost hopeless. Day after day, many times each day, she had climbed the pine-tree flagstaff and peered into the distance. Not once had anything been visible, save that wide stretch of forest and the shining lake.

“Suppose you cross again, to old Joe’s. He might be back by this time. I’ll fix you a bite of dinner, and you better. Maybe——”

The girl shook her head and clasped her arms about old Angelique’s neck. Then the long repressed grief burst forth in dry sobs that shook them both, and pierced the housekeeper’s faithful heart with a pain beyond endurance.

“Pst! Pouf! Hush, sweetheart, hush! ’Tis nought. A few days more and the master will be well. A few days more and Pierre will come—— Ah! but I had my hands about his ears this minute! That would teach him, yes, to turn his back