CHAPTER XVI.

COLINA COMMANDS.

On August 25, well within his schedule, Ambrose arrived at Spirit River Crossing with ten loaded wagons.

For six long days they had been floundering through the bottomless mudholes of the portage trail and men and horses were alike played out; but the rest of the way to come was easy, and Ambrose paid off his drivers with a light heart.

The york boat and crew he had engaged at the crossing were non-existent, and no explanation forthcoming. He had met with similar small reverses all along the line. This one was not important; it meant three days delay to build a raft.

There was a current of nearly four miles an hour to carry him to his destination, and no rapids in the three hundred miles to endanger his cargo.

Tole Grampierre and his brother Germain were waiting for Ambrose. With two such aides he could afford to smile at the mysterious scarcity of labor which developed on his arrival.

Tole's budget of news from down the river contained nothing startling.

John Gaviller had been very sick all summer with pneumonia as a result of his wound. He was getting better: "pale and skinny as an old rabbit in the snow," in Tole's words.

Gaviller had sent up the launch to get what grain had been grown at the crossing; but it was not enough to fill his contracts for flour up north. He had been obliged to pay two dollars a bushel for it.

Ambrose smiled at this piece of information.

Ambrose waited eagerly for some word of her who was seldom out of his thoughts, but to Tole the matter was not of such great importance.

Ambrose could not bring himself to name her name. Not until Tole had covered everything else did he say casually:

"Colina Gaviller rides all around on her yellow horse. She is proud now. Never speaks to the people."

That was all. Ambrose's heart stirred with compa.s.sion for the one, who by her loyalty was forced to embrace the wrong cause.

Another time Tole remarked: "Gordon Strange run the store all summer."

"So!" said Ambrose. "What do the people say about him? What does your father say?"

Tole shrugged. "He say not'ing," he said cautiously. He could not be induced to commit himself further in this direction.

They built their raft, and loading up, started without untoward incident. Traveling day and night, allowing for stoppages and delays, they expected to be nearly five days on the way.

On the third day, Ambrose chafing at their slow progress, put the dugout overboard, and set off ahead to warn the settlement of their coming. He had no hesitation leaving the raft with the Grampierre boys; they could handle it better than himself.

He paddled all day, and at night cut down a tree so that it would fall in the water, and tied his canoe to it, that he might not be blown ash.o.r.e while he slept.

For hours he lay waiting for sleep, watching the stars circle round his head as his canoe was swung in the eddies, and considering his situation.

He could not rest for his eagerness to be at the end of his journey, though he had no hope of what awaited there--that is to say not much hope; there is always a perhaps.

But how could Colina relent when she beheld him arriving laden with ammunition to make war upon her? Ambrose wondered sadly if any lover before him ever found himself in such a plight.

By ten o'clock next morning he was within a mile or two of Grampierre's place. The river was dazzling in the morning sunlight, the air like wine.

The poplar trees had put on their gorgeous autumn dress of saffron and scarlet, which showed like names against the chocolate colored hills.

Suddenly in a gra.s.sy ravine on his right, Ambrose saw the "yellow"

horse feeding.

His heart set up a furious beating. No power on earth could have prevented him from landing, though common sense told him clearly no good could come of it. That "perhaps" drew him ash.o.r.e, that hope against hope.

After a short search he found her sleeping under a poplar-tree in a hollow of the bank that was hidden from the river.

She wore her khaki riding-habit, as usual; her head was couched in the crook of her arm, and in the other hand she held her Stetson hat by its strap. Ambrose brooded over her wistfully.

Her face was paler and thinner; evidently she herself had not been having too easy a time these two months past.

These blemishes on her beauty made her seem infinitely more beautiful and dearer to him. And all relaxed and disarmed in sleep as she was, it seemed so easy a thing to gather her up in his arms and make her forget what divided them.

Ambrose's dim thought was: "If somehow I could only send her real self a message while her head-strong, unreasonable self is asleep, maybe she'd confess the truth when she woke."

While he was hungrily gazing at her her eyelids fluttered. He moved back to a more respectful distance. She awoke without alarm. For an instant she lay looking at him as calmly as a babe in its crib.

Then in a flash recollection returned, and she sprang to a sitting position, both hands, womanlike, flying to her hair. She eyed him with a certain discomposure. It was as if she felt that she ought to be furiously angry, and was somewhat dismayed because it did not come.

"What do you want?" she asked coldly.

In her cold eye Ambrose was conscious of a wall between them more impenetrable than granite. His heart gave up hope. "Nothing," he said sullenly.

"It's not exactly agreeable," she said, frowning, "to find oneself spied upon."

Ambrose started and frowned. This construction of his act had not occurred to him. "I saw Ginger from the river," he said indignantly.

"I landed to find you."

"What did you want?" she asked coolly.

"I don't know," said Ambrose.

There was a silence between them. Her cold look told him to go. Pride and common sense both urged him to obey--but he could not. He was like a bit of iron filing in the presence of a magnet.

"I--I suppose I wanted to find out how you were," he said at last.

"Was that so extraordinary?"

She ignored the question. "I am well," she said.

"How is your father?" he asked.

She looked at him levelly and did not answer.

A slow red crept up from Ambrose's neck. "I asked you a civil question," he muttered.

"If you want a truthful answer," said Colina clearly, "I think you have a cheek to ask."

"I didn't shoot him!" Ambrose burst out.