He did so, and felt his fingers brushed as with rose-petals.

"Goo'-by!" she breathed.

"Nesis," he asked, "do you know why Watusk is keeping me locked up here?

What does he think he's going to do with me?"

"Sure I know," she said. "Ev'rybody know. If the police catch him he say he not mak' all this trouble. He say you mak' him do it all. Gordon Strange tell him say that."

A great light broke on Ambrose. "Of course!" he said.

"Goo'-by, Angleysman!" breathed Nesis. "I come to-morrow night."

CHAPTER XXIX.

NESIS.

After this, Ambrose's dreary imprisonment took on a new color. True, the hours next day threatened to drag more slowly than ever, but with the hope that it might be the last day he could bear it philosophically.

Hour after hour he paced his floor on springs. "Tomorrow the free sky over my head!" he told himself. "I'll be doing something again!"

He watched the teepees with an added interest, wondering if any of the women's figures he saw might be hers. The most he could distinguish at the distance was the difference between fat and slender.

In the middle of the morning he saw Watusk ride forth, accompanied by four men that he guessed were the councilors. Watusk now had a military aspect.

On his head he wore a pith helmet, and across the frock coat a broad red sash like a field marshal's. He and his henchmen climbed the trail leading back to Enterprise.

Later, Ambrose saw a party of women leave camp, carrying birch-bark receptacles that looked like school-book satchels. They commenced to pick berries on the hillside. Ambrose wondered if his little friend were among them.

They gradually circled the hill and approached his shack. As they drew near he finally recognized Nesis in one who occasionally straightened her back and glanced toward his window. She was slenderer than the others.

The shack stood on a little terrace of clean gra.s.s. Above it and below stretched the rough hillside, covered with scrubby bushes and weeds.

It was in this rough ground that the women were gathering wild cranberries.

Coming to the edge of the gra.s.s, they paused with full satchels, talking idly, nibbling the fruit and casting inquisitive glances toward Ambrose's prison.

There were eight of them, and Nesis stood out from the lot like a star.

The four men playing poker in the gra.s.s at one side paid no attention to them.

Nesis with a sly smile whispered in her neighbor's ear. The other girl grinned and nodded, the word was pa.s.sed around, and they all came forward a little way in the gra.s.s with a timid air.

Their inquisitive eyes sought to pierce the obscurity of the shack.

Ambrose, not yet knowing what was expected of him, kept in the background.

The fat girl, prompted and nudged by Nesis, suddenly squalled something in Kakisa, which convulsed them all. Ambrose had no difficulty in recognizing it as a derisive, flirtatious challenge.

Not to be outdone, he came to the window and answered in kind. They could not contain their laughter at the sound of the comical English syllables.

Badinage flew fast after that. Ambrose observed that Nesis herself never addressed him, but circulated slyly from one to another, making a cup of her hand at each ear.

Becoming emboldened, they gradually drew closer to the window. They made outrageous faces. Still the poker-players affected not to be aware of them. As men and hunters they disdained to notice such foolishness.

Suddenly Nesis, as if to prove her superior boldness, darted forward to the very window. Ambrose, startled by the unexpected move, fell back a step. Nesis put her hands on the sill and shrieked an unintelligible jibe into the room.

The other girls hugged themselves with horrified delight. This was too much for the jailers. They sprang up and with threatening voice and gestures drove the girls away. They scampered down-hill, shrieking with affected terror.

When Nesis placed her hands on the sill a thin package slipped out of her sleeve and thudded upon the floor. Ambrose's heart jumped.

As the girls ran away, under cover of leaning out and calling after them, he pushed her gift under the table with his foot. One of the jailers, coming to the window and glancing about the room, found him unconcernedly lighting his pipe.

When the poker game was resumed Ambrose retired with his prize to the farthest corner of the shack. It proved to be the knife he had asked for, a keen, strong blade.

She had wrapped it in a piece of moose hide to keep it from clattering on the floor. Ambrose's heart warmed toward her anew. "She's as plucky and clever as she is friendly," he thought. He stuffed the knife in his bed and resigned himself as best he could to wait for darkness.

Fortunately for his store of patience, the days were rapidly growing shorter. His supper was brought him at six, and when he had finished eating it was dark enough to begin work.

Outside the moon's first quarter was filling the bowl of the hills with a delicate radiance, but moonlight outside only made the interior of the shack darker to one looking in.

Ambrose squatted in the corner at the foot of his bed, and set to work as quietly as a mouse in the pantry.

He had finished his hole in the flooring and was commencing to dig in the earth, when a soft scratching on the wall gave notice of Nesis's presence outside.

"Angleysman, you there?" she whispered through the c.h.i.n.k.

"Here!" said Ambrose.

"The boat is ready," she said. "I got grub and blanket and gun."

"Ah, fine!" whispered Ambrose.

"You almost out?" she asked.

He explained his situation.

"I dig this side, too," she said. "We dig together. Mak' no noise!"

Since the shack was innocent of foundation it was no great matter to dig under the wall. With knife and hands Ambrose worked on his side until he had got deep enough to dig under.

Occasional little sounds a.s.sured him that Nesis was not idle. Suddenly the thin barrier of earth between them caved in, and they clasped hands in the hole.

Five minutes more of scooping out and the way was clear. Ambrose extended his long body on the floor and wriggled himself slowly under the log.

Outside an urgent hand on his shoulder restrained him. Throwing herself on the ground, she put her lips to his ear. "Go back!" she whispered. "The moon is moch bright. You must wait little while."

Ambrose, mad to taste the free air of heaven, resisted a little sullenly.