"You may not have seen the baggage here," continued the captain slyly.

I glanced round me. Upon the floor stood the two suit-cases, which should have been in our rooms in the chateau, and Jacqueline was busily tearing up some filmy material in hers for bandages.

I looked at Dubois in astonishment.

"Ah, _monsieur_, I sent for those," he said, "and paid your bill also.

When I fight Simon Leroux I do not do things by halves. You see, _monsieur_, wise though he is, there are other minds equal to his own, and since he killed my brother, I----"

Here he nearly broke down, and I looked discreetly away.

"One question of curiosity, _monsieur_, if it is permissible," he said a little later. "Why does Leroux wish so much to stop your marriage with _mademoiselle_ that he is ready to stoop to assassination and kidnapping?"

My heart felt very warm toward the good man. I knew how that loose end in the romance that he had built up troubled him. And, though I hardly knew myself, I must give him some satisfactory solution of his problem.

"Because he is himself in love with her," I said.

The captain clenched his fists. "God forbid!" he muttered. "They say his wife died of a broken heart. Ah, _monsieur_, swear to me that this shall never come about, that mademoiselle become his wife. Swear it to me, _mon ami_!"

I swore it, and we shook hands again. I was sorry for my deception then, and afterward I had occasion to remember it.

Five minutes later we had cast off, and the _Sainte-Vierge_ steamed slowly through the drift ice that packed the gulf. There were no lights upon the _Claire_, and I surmised that the conspirators were keeping quietly hidden in expectation of Jacqueline's arrival, though how Dubois had outwitted them I could not at the time surmise.

However, there was little doubt that once the trick was discovered the _Claire_ would follow on our heels.

Standing on deck, I watched the lights of Levis and Quebec draw together as we steamed eastward. I cast a last look at the chateau and the ramparts. I felt it would be many days before I set eyes on them again.

Then I sought my cabin and fell asleep, dreaming of Jacqueline.

CHAPTER VIII

DREAMS OF THE NIGHT

Jacqueline and I were together, the only human beings within a score of miles. We were seated side by side in the sleigh at which the dogs pulled steadily.

We glided with slow, easy monotony along the snow-covered trail, through the sparse forest that fringed the ice-bound waters of the Riviere d'Or. Seen through our tinted snow-glasses, the landscape was a vast field of palest blue, dotted with scattered clusters of spruce and pine trees.

The mystery of Jacqueline's rescue by Captain Dubois had been a simple one. The young man with the mustache was a certain Philippe Lacroix, well known to Dubois, a member of a good family, but of dissolute habits--just such a one as Leroux found it convenient to attach to his political fortunes by timely financial aid.

Having acquired power over him, Leroux was in this way enabled to obtain political influence through his family connections.

There was no doubt that he had been in New York with Leroux, and that they had hatched the plot to kidnap Jacqueline after I had been struck down.

Fortunately for us, Lacroix, ignorant, as was Leroux himself, that the two ships had exchanged roles and duties, took Jacqueline aboard the _Sainte-Vierge_, where Captain Dubois, who was waiting in anticipation of just such a scheme, seized him and marched him at pistol point to the house on Paul Street, in which Lacroix was kept a prisoner by friends of Dubois until the _Sainte-Vierge_ had sailed.

The gulf was fairly free from ice, and our journey to St. Boniface, where we arrived on the fifth morning after our departure from Quebec, had been an uneventful one. We had not seen the smoke of the _Claire_ behind us at any period during the voyage, and Dubois had not spared his coal to show the other vessel his heels.

He left us at St. Boniface with a final caution against Leroux, and proceeded along the shore with his bags of mail; but first he had a satisfactory conversation with M. Danton concerning us.

I had given Dubois to understand that Jacqueline had been ill. I was apprehensive that he might question her and so discover her mental state; but the good man readily understood that an elopement causes much mental anguish in the case of the feminine party--at least this supposition was in line with the romantic requirements of the case, according to all the books that the captain had ever read; and he leaped at the hypothesis.

He not only forbore to question Jacqueline, but he explained the situation to Danton, a friendly but taciturn old man who kept the store and post-office at St. Boniface.

Danton, who of course knew Jacqueline, took the opportunity of assuring me that her father, though a recluse and a misanthrope who had not left his seigniory for forty years, was said to be a man of heart, and would undoubtedly forgive us. He was clearly under the impression that we were married, and, since Dubois had not enlightened him on this point, I did not do so.

In fact, his ignorance again aroused in me elusive hopes--for if a marriage _had_ occurred would he not have known, of it? At any rate, I should know soon; and with this reflection I had to console myself.

Since Jacqueline was supposed to know the route, I could ask no direct questions; but I gathered that the _chateau_ lay about a hundred and twenty miles north-westward. For the first part of the journey we were to travel along the right bank of the Riviere d'Or; at the point where the mountains began there were some trappers' huts, and there doubtless I could gain further information.

M. Danton had his sleigh and eight fine-looking dogs ready for us. I purchased these outright in order to carry no hostages. We took with us several days' supply of food, a little tent, sleeping-bags, and frozen fish for the animals.

I must record that a small wharf was in course of construction, and that the contractor's sign read: "Northern Exploitation Company." M.

Danton informed me that this was a lumber company which had already begun operations, and that the establishment of its camps accounted for the absence of inhabitants.

In fact, our arrival was almost unobserved, and two hours afterward we had set forth upon our journey.

I wondered what Jacqueline remembered. Vague and unquiet thoughts seemed to float up into her mind, and she sat by my side silent and rather sad. I think she was afraid of the knowledge that was to come to her.

God knows I was, and for this reason was resolved to ask no questions unless they should become necessary. Whether or not she even knew the route I had no means of discovering.

The sun shone brightly; the air, intensely cold, chilled our faces, but could not penetrate our furs. Sometimes we rubbed each other's cheeks with snow when they grew threateningly white, laughing to see the blood rush to the under surface of the skin, and jested about our journey to drive away our fears.

And it was wonderful. It was as though we were the first man and woman in the world, wandering in our snow-garden, and still lost in amazement at each other. The prospect of meeting others of our kind began to be a fantastic horror to me.

We were happy with each other. If we could travel forever thus! I watched her beautiful, serene face; the brown hair, brought low over the ears to guard them against the cold; the big grey eyes that were turned upon mine sometimes in puzzled wonder, but very real content.

I held her small gloved hand inside the big sable muff, and we would sit thus for hours in silence while the dogs picked their way along the trail. When I looked back I could see the tiny pad-prints stretching away toward the far horizon, an undeviating black blur upon the whiteness of the snow.

It was a strange situation. It might easily have become an impossible one. But it was a sacred comradeship, refined above the love of friend for friend, or lover for lover, by her faith, her helplessness, and need.

We tried so hard to be merry. When we had fed the dogs at noon and eaten our meal we would strap on the _raquettes_, the snow-shoes with which Danton had furnished us, and travel over the crusted drifts beside the stream. We ran out on the surface of the river and made snowballs, and pelted each other, laughing like school children.

But after the journey had begun once more we would sit quietly beside each other, and for long we would hardly utter a word.

I think that she liked best to sit beside me in the narrow sleigh and lean against my shoulder, her physical weariness the reflection of her spiritual unrest. She did not want to think, and she wanted me to shield her.

But even in this solitude fear drove me on, for I knew that a relentless enemy followed hard after us, camping where we had camped and reading the miles between us by the smouldering ashes of our old fires.

At nightfall I would pitch the tent for Jacqueline and place her sleeping-bag within, and while she slept I would lie by the huge fire near the dogs, and we kept watch over her together.

So passed three days and nights.

The fourth short day drew toward its end a little after four o'clock.

I remember that we camped late, for the sun had already dipped to the level horizon and was casting black, mile-long shadows across the snow.

A whistling wind came up. The dogs had been showing signs of distress that afternoon, pulling us more and more reluctantly, and walking with drooping ears and muzzles depressed.