The Collected Works of James Oliver Curwood (Illustrated Edition). James Oliver Curwood
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will be a queen."
"I knew her mother," replied Neil, as though he had not heard Nathaniel's last words. He looked frankly into the other's face. "I worshipped her!"
"Oh-h-h!"
"From a distance," he hastened. "She was as pure as Winnsome is now. Little Winn looks like her. Some day she will be as beautiful."
"She is beautiful now."
"But she is a mere child. Why, it seems only a year ago that I was toting her about on my shoulders! And—by George, that was a year before her mother died! She is sixteen now."
Nathaniel laughed softly.
"To-morrow she will be making love, Neil, and before you know it she will be married and have a family of her own. I tell you she is a woman—and if you are not a fool you will take her away with Marion."
With a powerful stroke of his paddle Neil brought the canoe in to the shore.
"There!" he whispered. "You have only to cross this point to reach your boat." He stretched out his long arm and in the silence the two shook hands. "If you should happen to think of a way—that we might get Winnsome—" he added, coloring.
The sudden grip of his companion's fingers made him flinch.
"We must!" said Nathaniel.
He climbed ashore and watched Neil until he had disappeared in the wild rice. Then he turned into the woods. He looked at his watch and saw that it was only two o'clock. He was conscious of no fatigue; he was not conscious of hunger. To him the whole world had suddenly opened with glorious promise and in the still depths of the forest he felt like singing out his rejoicing. He had never stopped to ask himself what might be the end of this passion that had overwhelmed him; he lived only in the present, in the knowledge that Marion was not a wife, and that it was he whom fate had chosen for her deliverance. He reasoned nothing beyond the sweet eyes that had called upon him, that had burned their gratitude, their hope and their despair upon his soul; nothing beyond the thought that she would soon be free from the mysterious influence of the Mormon king and that for days and nights after that she would be on the same ship with him. He had emptied the pockets of the coat he had given Neil and now he brought forth the old letter which Obadiah had rescued from the sands. He read it over again as he sat for a few moments in the cool of the forest and there was no trouble in his face now. It was from a girl. He had known that girl, years ago, as Neil knew Winnsome; in years of wandering he had almost forgotten her—until this letter came. It had brought many memories back to him with shocking clearness. The old folk were still in the little home under the hill; they received his letters; they received the money he sent them each month—but they wanted him. The girl wrote with merciless candor. He had been away four years and it was time for him to return. She told him why. She wrote what they, in their loving fear of inflicting pain, would never have dared to say. At the end, in a postscript, she had asked for his congratulations on her approaching marriage.
To Nathaniel this letter had been a torment. He saw the truth as he had never seen it before—that his place was back there in Vermont, with his father and mother; and that there was something unpleasant in thinking of the girl as belonging to another. But now matters had changed. The letter was a hope and inspiration to him and he smoothed it out with tender care. What a refuge that little home among the Vermont hills would make for Marion! He trembled at the thought and his heart sang with the promise of it as he went his way again through the thick growth of the woods.
It was half an hour before he came out upon the beach. Eagerly he scanned the sea. The Typhoon was nowhere in sight and for an instant the gladness that had been in his heart gave place to a chilling fear. But the direction of the wind reassured him. Casey had probably moved beyond the jutting promontory, that swung in the form of a cart wheel from the base of the point, that he might have sea room in case of something worse than a stiff breeze. But where was the small boat? With every step adding to his anxiety Nathaniel hurried along the narrow rim of beach. He went to the very tip of the point which reached out like the white forefinger of, a lady's hand into the sea; he passed the spot where he had lain concealed the preceding day; his breath came faster and faster; he ran, and called softly, and at last halted in the arch of the cart wheel with the fear full-flaming in his breast. Over all those miles of sea there was no sign of the sloop. From end to end of the point there was no boat. What did it mean? Breathlessly he tore his way through the strip of forest on the promontory until all Lake Michigan to the south lay before his eyes. The Typhoon was gone! Was it possible that Casey had abandoned hope of Nathaniel's return and was already lying off St. James with shotted gun? The thought sent a shiver of despair through him. He passed to the opposite side of the point and followed it foot by foot, but there was no sign of life, no distant flash of white that might have been the canvas of the sloop Typhoon.
There was only one thing for him to do—wait. So he went to his hiding-place of the day before and watched the sea with staring eyes. An hour passed and his still aching vision saw no sign of sail; two hours—and the sun was falling in a blinding glare over the Wisconsin wilderness. At last he sprang to his feet with a hopeless cry and stood for a few moments undecided. Should he wait until night with the hope of attracting the attention of Neil and joining him in his canoe or should he hasten in the direction of St. James? In the darkness he might miss Neil, unless he kept up a constant shouting, which would probably bring the Mormons down upon him; if he went to St. James there was a possibility of reaching Casey. He still had faith in Obadiah and he was sure that the old man would help him to reach his ship; he might even assist him in his scheme of getting Marion from the island.
He would go to the councilor's. Having once decided, Nathaniel turned in the direction of the town, avoiding the use of the path which he and Obadiah had taken, but following in the forest near enough to use it as a guide. He was confident that Arbor Croche and his sheriffs were confining their man-hunt to the swamp, but in spite of this belief he exercised extreme caution, stopping to listen now and then, with one hand always near his pistol. A quiet gloom filled the forest and by the tree-tops he marked the going down of the sun. Nathaniel's ears ached with their strain of listening for the rumbling roar that would tell of Casey's attack on St. James.
Suddenly he heard a crackling in the underbrush ahead of him, a sound that came not from the strain of listening for the rumbling roar and in a moment he had dodged into the concealment of the huge roots of an overturned tree, drawn pistol in hand. Whatever object was approaching came slowly, as if hesitating at each step—a cautious, stealthy advance, it struck Nathaniel, and he cocked his weapon. Directly in front of him, half a stone's throw away, was a dense growth of hazel and he could see the tops of the slender bushes swaying. Twice this movement ceased and the second time there came a crashing of brush and a faint cry. For many minutes after that there was absolute silence. Was it the cry of an animal that he had heard—or of a man? In either case the creature who made it had fallen in the thicket and was lying there as still as if dead. For a quarter of an hour Nathaniel waited and listened. He could no longer have seen the movement of bushes in the gathering night-gloom of the forest but his ears were strained to catch the slightest sound from the direction of the mysterious thing that lay within less than a dozen rods of him. Slowly he drew himself out from the shelter of the roots and advanced step by step. Half way to the thicket a stick cracked loudly under his foot and as the sound startled the dead quiet of the forest with pistol-shot clearness there came another cry from the dense hazel, a cry which was neither that of man nor animal but of a woman; and with an answering shout Nathaniel sprang forward to meet there in the edge of the thicket the white face and outstretched arms of Marion. The girl was swaying on her feet. In her face there was a pallor that even in his instant's glance sent a chill of horror through the man and as she staggered toward him, half falling, her lips weakly forming his name Nathaniel leaped to her and caught her close in his arms. In that moment something seemed to burst within him and flood his veins with fire. Closer he held the girl, and heavier he knew that she was becoming in his arms. Her head was upon his breast, his face was crushed in her hair, he felt her throbbing and breathing against him and his lips quivered with the words that were bursting for freedom in his soul. But first there came the girl's own whispered breath—"Neil—where is Neil?"
"He is gone—gone from the island!"