But now the real hour of crisis was at hand,--not from his illness, but from the depletion of their food supplies. Beatrice had spent a hard afternoon in the forest in search of roots and berries, and as she crept homeward, exhausted and almost empty-handed, the full, tragic truth was suddenly laid bare. Her own strength had waned. Without the miracle of a fresh food supply she could hardly keep on her feet another day. Plainly and simply, the wolf was at the door. His cruel fangs menaced not only her, but this stalwart man for whose life she had fought so hard.

The fear of the obliterating darkness known to all the woods people pressed close upon her and appalled her. She loved life simply and primitively; and it was an unspeakable thing to lose at the end of such a battle. Out so far, surrounded by such endless, desolate wastes of gloomy forest, the Shadow was cold, inhospitable; and she was afraid to face it alone. If Ben would only waken and sustain her drooping spirit with his own! She was lonely and afraid, in the shadow of the inert spruce, under the gray sky.

She could hardly summon strength for the evening's work of cutting fuel.

The blade would not drive with its old force into the wood. The blaze itself burned dully; and she could not make it leap and crackle with its old cheer. And further misfortune was in store for her when she crept into the cave to prepare Ben's supper.

A pack rat--one of those detested rodents known so well to all northern peoples--had carried off in her absence two of the three remaining sticks of jerked caribou. For a moment she gazed in unbelieving and speechless horror, then made a frenzied search in the darkened corners of the cabin.

This was no little tragedy: the two sticks of condensed and concentrated protein might have kept Ben alive for a few days more. It was disaster, merciless and sweeping. And the brave heart of the girl seemed to break under the blow.

The hot, bitter tears leaped forth; but she suppressed the bitter, hopeless sobs that clutched at her throat. She must not let Ben know of this catastrophe. Likely in his stupor he would not understand; yet she must not take the chance. She must nourish the spark of hope in his breast to the last hour. She walked to the mouth of the cave; and Famine itself stood close, waiting in the shadows. She gazed out into the gathering gloom.

The tears blinded her eyes at first. Slowly the dark profile of the spruce against the gray sky penetrated to her consciousness: the somber beauty of the wilderness sky line that haunts the woodsman's dreams.

With it came full realization of the might and the malevolency of these shadowed wilds she had battled so long. They had got her down at last; they had crushed her and beaten her, and had held up to scorn her sacrifice and her mortal strength. She knew the wild wood now: its savage power, its remorselessness, and yet, woods girl that she was, she could not forget its dark and moving beauty.

The forest was silent to-night. Not a twig cracked or a branch rustled.

It was hushed, breathless, darkly sinister. All at once her eyes peered and strained into the dusk.

Far across the valley, beyond the beaver marsh and on the farther sh.o.r.e of the lake she saw a little glimmer of light through the rift in the trees. She dared not believe in its reality at first. Perhaps it was a trick of her imagination only, a hallucination born of her starvation, child of her heartfelt prayer. She looked away, then peered again. But, yes--a tiny gleam of yellow light twinkled through the gloom! It was real, _it was true_! A gleam of hope in the darkness of despair.

Her rescuers had come. There could be no other explanation. She hastened into the cave, drew the blankets higher about Ben's shoulders, then crept out into the dusk. Half running, she hastened toward their distant camp fire.

x.x.xVIII

Beatrice's first impulse was to run at a breakneck pace down the ridge and about the lake into her father's camp, beseeching instant aid to the starving man in the cave. She wished that she had a firearm with which to signal to them and bring them at once to the cavern. And it was not until she had descended the ridge and stood at the edge of the beaver meadow that her delirious joy began to give way to serious, thought.

She was brought to a halt first by the sight of the horses that had wandered about the long loop of the lake and were feeding in the rich gra.s.s of the meadow. The full moon rising in the east had cast a nebulous glow over the whole countryside by now; and she could make a hasty estimation of their numbers. It was evident at once that her father had not made the expedition alone. The large outfit implied a party of at least three,--indicating that Ray Brent and Chan Heminway had accompanied him.

She had only fear and disdain for these two younger men; but surely they would not refuse aid to Ben. Yet perhaps it was best to proceed with some caution. These were her lover's enemies; if for no other reason than their rage at her own abduction they might be difficult to control.

Her father, in all probability, would willingly show mercy to the helpless man in the cavern--particularly after she told him of Ben's consideration and kindness--but she put no faith in Ray and Chan. She knew them of old. Besides, she remembered there was a further consideration,--that of a gold claim.

Could Ben have told her the truth when he had maintained that they would kill him on sight if he did not destroy them first? Was it true that he had waged the war in defense of his own rights? Weeks and months had pa.s.sed since she had seen her father's face: perhaps her old control of him could no longer be relied upon. If indeed their ownership of a rich claim depended upon Ben's death, Ray and Chan could not be trusted at all.

She resolved to proceed with the utmost caution. Abruptly she turned out of the beaver marsh, where the moonlight might reveal her, and followed close to the edge of the timber, a course that could not be visible from beyond the lake. She approached the lake at its far neck, then followed back along the margin clear to the edge of the woods in which the fire was built.

In her years in the woods Beatrice had learned to stalk, and the knowledge was of value to her now. With never a misstep she took down a little game trail toward the camp fire. She was within fifty yards of it now--she could make out three dark figures seated in the circle of firelight. Walking softly but upright she pushed within ninety feet of the fire.

Then she waited, in doubt as to her course. She was still too far distant to hear more than the murmur of their voices. If she could just get near enough to catch their words she could probably glean some idea of their att.i.tude toward Ben. She pushed on nearer, through the dew-wet brush.

Impelled by the excitement under which she advanced, her old agility of motion had for the moment returned to her; and she crept softly as a fawn between the young trees. One misstep, one rustling branch or crackling twig might give her away; but she took each step with consummate care, gently thrusting the tree branches from her path.

Once a rodent stirred beneath her feet, and she froze--like a hunting wolf--in her tracks. One of the three men looked up, and she saw his face plainly through the low spruce boughs. And for a moment she thought that this was a stranger. It was with a distinct foreboding of disaster that she saw, on second glance, that the man was Ray Brent.

She had never seen such change in human countenance in the s.p.a.ce of a few months. She did not pause to a.n.a.lyze it. She only knew that his eyes were glittering and fixed; and that she herself was deeply, unexplainably appalled. The man cursed once, blasphemously, his face dusky and evil in the eerie firelight, but immediately turned back to his talk. Beatrice crept closer.

Now she was near enough to catch an occasional word, but not discern their thoughts. It was evident, however, that their conversation was of Ben and herself,--the same topic they had discussed nights without end.

She caught her own name; once Chan used an obscene epithet as he spoke of their enemy.

Her instincts were true and infallible to-night; and she was ever more convinced of their deadly intentions toward Ben. It was not wise to announce herself yet. Perhaps she would have to rely upon a course other than a direct appeal for aid. Now her keen eyes could see the whole camp: the three seated figures of the men, their rifles leaning near them, their supplies spread out about the fire.

At one side, quite to the edge of the firelight, she saw a kyack--one of those square boxes that are hung on a pack saddle--which seemed to be heaped with jerked caribou or moose flesh. For the time of a breath she could not take her eyes from it. It was food--food in plenty to sustain Ben through his illness and the remaining weeks of their exile--and her eyes moistened and her hands trembled at the sight. She had been taught the meaning of famine, these last, bitter days. In reality she was now in the first stage of starvation, experiencing the first, vague hallucinations, the sense of incorporeality, the ever-declining strength, the constant yearning that is nothing but the vitals'

submerged demand for food. The contents of the kyack meant _life_ to herself and to Ben,--deliverance and safety when all seemed lost.

A daughter of the cities far to the south--even a child of poverty--rarely could have understood the unutterable craving that overswept her at the sight of this simple food. It was unadorned, unaccompanied by the delicacies that most human beings have come to look upon as essentials and to expect with every meal: it was only animal flesh dried in the smoke and the sun. It not only attracted her physically; but in that moment it possessed real objective beauty for her; as it would have possessed for the most cultivated esthete that might be standing in her place. This girl was down to the most stern realities, and life and death hung in the balance.

She went on her hands and knees, creeping nearer. Still she did not make the slightest false motion, creeping with an uncanny silence in the under shrubbery. And now the words came plain.

"But we must be near," Chan was saying. "They can't be more than a mile or so from here. We'll find 'em in the morning--"

"If he doesn't find us first and shoot up our camp," Ray replied. "I wish we'd built our fire further into the woods. Here we've looked all day without even finding a track except those tracks in the mud."

"They might be beyond the marsh," Neilson suggested.

"But Chan went over that way and didn't find a trace," Ray objected.

"But just the same--we'll make a real search to-morrow. I believe we'll find the devil. And then--we can leave this h.e.l.lish country and go back in peace--if we don't want to wait for the flood."

Beatrice's eyes were on his face, wondering what growth of wickedness, what degeneracy had so filled his cruel eyes with light and stamped his face with evil. This was the man to whom she must look for mercy. Ben's life, if she led the three men to the cave, would be in his hands. She sensed from his authoritative tone that her father's control over him was largely broken. She hovered, terrified and motionless, in her covert.

Ray reached for his rifle, glancing at the sights and drawing the lever back far enough to see the bra.s.s of its sh.e.l.ls. Chan's lean face was drawn with a cruel glee.

"You can't keep your hands off that gun, Ray," he said. "You sure are gettin' anxious."

"I won't use it on him," Ray replied, slowly and carefully. "It's too good for him--except maybe the stock. He didn't lead me clear out here just to see him puff out and blow up in a minute with a rifle ball through his head. Just the same I want the gun near me, all the time."

The two men looked at him, sardonic-eyed; and both of them seemed to understand fully what he meant. They seemed to catch more from the slow tones, so full of l.u.s.t and frenzy that they seemed to drop from his lips in an ugly monotone, than they did from the words themselves. They took a certain grim amus.e.m.e.nt in these quirks of abnormal depravity that had begun to manifest themselves in Ray. The man's fingers were wide spread as he spoke, and his lip twitched twice, sharply, when he had finished.

The words came clear and distinct to the listening girl. She tried to take them literally--that Ray would not shoot Ben! _"It's too good for him--except maybe the stock!"_ Did he mean _that_ too! Was there any possible meaning in the world other than that he was planning some unearthly, more terrible fate for the man she loved! She would not yet yield to the dreadful truth, yet even now terror was clutching at her throat, strangling her; and the cold drops were beading her brow. Still the dark drama of the fireside continued before her eyes.

Chan suddenly turned to Neilson, evidently imbued with Ray's fervor.

"What do you think of that, old man?" he asked menacingly. Thus Chan, too, had escaped from Neilson's dominance: plainly Ray was his idol now.

It was also plain that he recognized attributes of mercy and decency in his grizzled leader that might interfere with his own and his companion's plans. "What's worrying me--whether you're goin' to join in on the sport when we catch the weasel!"

Sport! The word was more terrible to Beatrice than the vilest oath he had used to emphasize it. She crouched, shivering. Watching intently, she saw Ray look up, too, waiting for the reply; and her father, sensing his lost dominance, bowed his head.

"You could hardly expect me to let him off easy--seeing what he did to my daughter--"

"What he done to your daughter ain't all--I don't care if he treated her like a queen of the realm all the time," Ray interrupted harshly. "That makes no difference to neither me nor Chan. The main thing is--he brought us out here, away from the claim--and gave us months of the worst h.e.l.l I ever hope to spend. I guess you ain't forgotten what Chan found out in Snowy Gulch--that the claim's recorded--in old Hiram's name. This Darby's got a letter in his pocket from Hiram's brother that would stand in any court. We've got to get that first. If Darby was an angel I'd mash him under my heel just the same; we've gone too far to start crawfishing. Just let me see him tied up in front of me--"

Beatrice did not linger to hear more. She had her answer: only in Ben's continued concealment lay the least hope of his salvation. These wolves about the fire meant what they said. But already her plans were shaping; and now she saw the light.

In the kyack of venison lay her own and her lover's safety: it contained enough nutritious food to sustain them until the fall rains could swell the Yuga and enable them to escape down to the Indian encampment. Her mind was swift and keen as never before: swiftly she perfected the last detail of her plan. The canoe, due to Ben's foresight, was securely hidden in a maze of tall reeds on the lake sh.o.r.e: they were certain to overlook it. The cavern, however, was almost certain to be discovered in the next day's search. They must make their escape to-night.

Ben, though terribly weakened, would be able to walk a short distance with her help. They could slip into the deepest forest, concealing themselves in the coverts until the three men had given up the search and gone away. She would take their robes and blankets to keep them warm; a camp fire would of course reveal their hiding place. The work could easily be accomplished in the midnight shadows: deliverance, salvation, life itself depended on the tide of fate in the next few hours.

She intended to steal the kyack of dried meat without which Ben and herself could not live. She crept back farther into the underbrush; then waited, scarcely breathing, while the fire died down. Already the three men were preparing to go to their bunks. Chan had already lain down; her father was removing his coat and boots. Ray, however, still sat in the firelight.