The Wilderness Trail

The captive had reasons for not desiring this visit, outside of the possible impropriety. The summer before, during his happy weeks in Jean's company, circumstances often shaped themselves so that there were three persons on their little canoe trips and picnics – and the third was Miss Fitzpatrick. Her ingenuity in these matters had been positively remarkable. And the entire post had grinned up its sleeve, knowing old Fitzpatrick's declaration that Jean should not marry until Laura had been taken off his hands.

For the first time in her life, Laura had evinced an interest in the genus man. Consequently, Donald now awaited her arrival with some trepidation.

About eleven o'clock she came, unaccompanied except by the old Indian who looked after McTavish's wants. She was small and spare, and wore glasses that enlarged her mild blue eyes. She had overcome nature's delinquency in the matter of luxurious hair by the application of a “transformation,” done into numerous elastic curls. Because of the difficulty of communication with the outside world, this was now several shades lighter than her own, a fact which gave her great pain, but was really quite unavoidable.

Leaving the door open, she sat down in the one chair, while Donald leaned on his elbow in the deep window embrasure.

“Oh,” she gasped breathlessly, “I suppose you think I'm awful, don't you, Captain?”

Her curls bobbed, and a faint color showed in her cheeks.

“Quite the contrary, Miss Fitzpatrick,” he replied, gravely. “I feel that only the highest motives of – well – er – pity, have actuated you to look in upon a man forced to take a month's rest. It was really kind of you, but have you – er – that is, thought of yourself, and what people might say when it becomes known?”

“Oh, dear,” she sighed, “of course that will have to be faced, won't it? But I guess I'm old enough to be past scandal. Really, you have no idea how old I'm getting to be, Captain McTavish.”

“A woman is only as old as her impulses, Miss Fitzpatrick,” replied the captain, gallantly. “And your impulse this morning could hardly place you above – let's see – twenty at the outside.”

The maiden lady appeared uncertain as to the possible compliment in this statement, but at last decided to accept it.

“You're the same old flatterer, Captain, the very same,” she gurgled.

Presently, the conversation dragged.

“Do you know why I came to see you today?” asked Miss Fitzpatrick, and, at Donald's negation, continued: “I thought you must be lonesome out here, particularly with everyone gone on the expedition, and – and – I came to tell you that I think your imprisonment is the most unjust thing I ever heard of.”

“Do you, really?” cried the young man, eagerly.

“I certainly do, and I spoke to father about it, severely. For a time, I thought I was going to get you off, but something seemed to occur to him, and he got angry, and said not to mention the subject again. But I thought I would tell you just what I think of it.”

“I can't thank you enough,” said Donald, approaching her impulsively, for the little woman's efforts in his behalf really touched him. “I didn't know I had a friend in the world until this minute, and I tell you I'm grateful – more so than you have any idea. You were more than good, and I sha'n't forget it.”

At his approach, Miss Fitzpatrick had pushed her chair back nervously several inches, and, now, Donald turned away to hide the smile that would struggle to his face, despite his efforts at suppression. To bridge the situation, he pulled his pipe from his pocket, and began to examine it intently.

“And that isn't all,” continued Miss Fitzpatrick, nerving herself for speech so that her curls quivered violently. “I want you to know that I will do anything in my power to make your confinement here easier, and will always have your interest at heart wherever you are… There!

“You are a dear little woman, and I'm overwhelmed with your kindness,” said Donald, in the deep, rich voice he unconsciously used when moved. And, at that, the scarlet tide of joy that had been hovering uncertainly in Miss Fitzpatrick mounted with a rush and suffused her pale little face.

“Now,” she went on briskly, to cover her confusion, “there are a lot of newspapers at the house that of course you haven't read. I'll send them over, with a book or two Mrs. Ponshette, at York, sent down for Christmas. You really must do something to pass the time.”

Once more, Donald thanked her, when suddenly, without the slightest intention, his pipe slipped from his fingers, and fell to the floor. With an exclamation of annoyance, he picked it up, to find that the amber stem had broken off close to the brier, rendering it almost useless. Now he must have the other pipe, despite what Peter Rainy had hinted, and who could get it but Laura Fitzpatrick?

Showing her the broken pieces in his hand, he exclaimed that life would be unbearable without tobacco, and asked her to send his reserve pipe over from the rack in the hall. This she promised to do, and a little later rose to take her leave.

“You're not a good host, Captain McTavish,” she said, at the doorway.

“Why?” he questioned.

“You haven't asked me to call again.”

“Forgive me!” cried the confused man. “Please, come as often as you wish. I have enjoyed the visit immensely.”

“So have I,” she returned, with a coy, sidelong look from her mild blue eyes, and then, at last, she shut the door behind her.

Donald was really grateful for the call, as it had taken his mind from the brooding that had occupied it so continuously, and, for hours afterward, he smiled almost unconsciously at the quaint transparency, but utter good-heartedness, of the woman's character.

Early in the afternoon, the promised package of papers and the pipe arrived. The prisoner, who, like all northern woodsmen, found a pipe his boon companion, filled the bowl with tobacco, and tried to light it.

Somehow, the brier would not draw, and McTavish impatiently unscrewed the stem from the bowl to investigate. In the small cavity thus exposed, he saw an obstruction which, when dug out with a pin, proved to be a sheet of thin paper, very carefully rolled.

Straightening it out, Donald saw pencil-marks in strange triangles. There were V's and U's placed in any of four positions, and queer symbols that resembled the “pot-hooks” of shorthand more than anything else.

For a moment, he stared perplexed, and then memory returned to him. This was, indeed, a message from Peter Rainy, and written In the only language the old Indian could use – the Cree symbols into which the Bible had been translated by the zealous missionary, James Evans, back in the fifties. On long winter nights at Fort Dickey, Peter Rainy had taught his superior to read and write in this obsolete fashion.

Now, Donald bent to the work. The first words came hard, but, before he had finished the paper, he was reading easily. And this, freely translated, is what he saw:

I will be a mile in the woods, along the old beaver trail, from the fifth night after Miss Jean's departure until the tenth. If you do not come by then I will go back to Fort Dickey and return for you when your month is up. There is work for you to do. I have a clew as to Miss Jean, but you must act at once if you expect to save her. I have sawed the bars of your window almost through at the bottom. When in the woods call me with the cry of an owl.

PETER.

And, having read, Donald McTavish mechanically lighted his pipe, and began to smoke furiously.

CHAPTER X

THE ESCAPE

It was the old battle between love and duty. The pile of covered newspapers lay unheeded beside the young man's chair. He pictured Jean Fitzpatrick in every conceivable peril of the winter on those desolate barrens – as the prisoner of Indians, of trappers, as the prey of wild beasts, as the prey of men. He writhed at his impotence, and cursed the day that had seen his rescue on Death Trail. Better a skeleton without flesh, he thought, than a living being whose every thought tortured him to desperation.

And, yet, there was something in the idea of escape that seemed shameful to him. If he had done wrong, he must take his medicine; if he had failed, he must atone for the failure according to the decrees of his superior. That was the discipline in him responding to the discipline of Fitzpatrick. It was the iron McTavish to the fore rather than the passionate flesh-and-blood McTavish.

A grim smile lighted his features for a moment, as he thought of Laura, the factor's daughter, innocently placing in his hands the means of setting at naught her father's commands. Her naive zeal for his welfare might react to her own loss.

The thing that at last decided Donald was the abiding sense of injustice that had all along burned in him against this humiliating confinement. Had he been actually unfaithful to duty, he would have put the thought of escape away harshly. As it was, the inherent fear of that great, inevitable Juggernaut, the Company, stirred in him. But he crushed it down resolutely. This was an affair of persons, not of companies… He would go!

To-night was the fifth after Jean's departure. There was much to be done before he could be ready. Then, too, something might have happened to Peter to prevent his reaching the rendezvous on time. Donald decided that he would go the next night.

The manner Peter Rainy had indicated was the only feasible one for escape. The room in which the captive was confined was one of some twenty-odd built along the strong wall that surrounded the post. Across the narrow corridor that connected the row of rooms on the inside, the heavy masonry of the wall jutted out roughly. At the end of the corridor, a stout door was locked and bolted at night, so that during the dark hours the window was the only means of egress.

Next morning, after breakfast, Donald called the old Indian servant to him.

“Michael,” he said, “this Is just the time for me to do some work on my outfit. My fur suit is badly in need of repair, and one of my showshoes needs restringing near the curl. I want to be all ship-shape when my time is up. Will you bring them to me?”

The Indian's instant acquiescence gave the young man a pang. Such was his reputation for honor among these men that his jailer had often declared he could leave the doors unlocked and still have a prisoner in the morning. Now, Donald was about to blast this old man's faith. He shrugged his shoulders helplessly, however, and thought no more on the subject. Once his decision had been made, he would hold fast by it to the end.

McTavish had spoken truly. His hunting suit of white caribou was badly frayed and worn after his blind wanderings in the forest, and not only did one snowshoe need restringing, but both were loose from his frequent awkward falls. Even old Michael, whose eyes were weak, could see these things.

With atibisc– fine, tough sinews of the caribou – Donald strung the defective toe, and then made a not very successful shift at tightening the center webbing of askimoneiab, or heavy, membranous moose filling. The mending of his clothes was a comparatively simple matter by means of needle and thread.

All day he worked at this, so planning that evening should find the task uncompleted, as an excuse for Michael to leave the equipment over night.

As fortune would have it, snow began to fall shortly before sundown, and McTavish was robbed of the stars for guidance once he should be free. But the heavy, swirling curtain of flakes made his work inside the fort much easier. At dinner-time, the wind had risen, and the storm outside was of such fury that only the hardiest Indian or trapper would have ventured out in it. This gave the captive some concern, but he realized that he must either go now, or else lose his opportunity.

As was his custom, Michael sat up smoking with a few cronies in a near-by room until about ten o'clock. Then, he let his friends out of the corridor, and securely fastened the door behind them with lock and bolt. After that, he looked into McTavish's room, to find the Scotchman almost ready for bed. With his customary respectful good-night, he shut and locked the door, and shuffled on to his own quarters.

Immediately, now, Donald dressed himself quickly, and then put out the lamp, which had made a square glow on the snow outside. Presently, the light in Michael's room, also, went out. McTavish, crossing the floor noiselessly in his moccasins, sat down in his chair, and smoked his new pipe, for the better part of an hour. By that time, a gentle buzzing, varied with wheezes and whines, attested that Michael was asleep.

Forthwith, Donald stepped cautiously to the window. He was fully acquainted with its peculiarities; he had studied them all day. It was one of those squares of wood and glass set into a frame without any means of opening either by lifting or swinging. To escape, he would have to push the window bodily from its frame.

But then what? The bars were outside, and not two inches away.

Following a plan already matured, he took a block of wood from the box beside the little, pot-bellied iron stove. This he wrapped in a blanket, and used as a battering ram, at first gently, but, presently, with more force, since the noise of the storm without almost negatived any other sound. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Each corner of the window, in turn, moved an eighth of an inch from its long resting-place, with many groans and snappings of wood and ice. But, resolutely, he kept to the work, stopping every now and then to listen and make sure that Michael was still breathing heavily.

At last, the window was at the edge of its deep casement, and Donald now devoted his entire attention to the lower corners. Tapping them gently, he got them gradually to swing off the frame, and the blast came rushing in. The window now appeared as though swung from hinges at the top. McTavish pushed it until it came to rest against the iron bars outside. There was an inch and a half of space beneath the outswung frame.

Then, the prisoner changed his tools. Going to the stove, he returned with the poker, and the end of this he set firmly against the last bar to the right. A quick, mighty effort, and the sawed iron snapped noiselessly, and bent outward and upward. One after another, he gave the remaining four the same treatment. Eventually, they all stood out six inches from their almost imperceptible stumps.

Now, to get rid of the window. Donald resorted once again to his muffled block of wood, and tapped at the top until the frame dropped silently off into the snow. To bend the bars back so as to allow his exit was now an easy matter, and soon accomplished. With his snowshoes in his hands, he wriggled head first through the square opening, and landed easily on the heaped snow.

With nimble fingers, the snowshoes were quickly strapped on, when an idea occurred to him. He groped on the ground until he found the window.

This he lifted up and inserted in the frame, driving it home with a few sharp blows. Then, he bent the iron bars back down until each fitted nicely over its stump. Whimsically, he imagined old Michael's amazement and superstitious fear when he should find the animal gone, but the trap itself still unsprung.

But what was that? Where did that light come from? McTavish was just bending the last bar into place when he saw the glow on the snow about him, and looked up in terror. There, in the room, with lamp held high and terror on his face, stood the old Indian, gazing on the undisturbed bed. Even as Donald looked, Michael, the instinct of the hunter still strong in him, leaped toward the window, the only possible means of escape.

With a curse the fugitive shrank back, then sprang into the storm as fast as he could struggle against it. But so strong was the wind that he could scarcely move, and all the while he could feel the Indian's eyes striving to pierce through the snow curtain to him.

And then, five minutes later, came the sound of a bell being violently tolled, and he knew that Michael had given the alarm.

That night of terrible storm the few men still left in the fort dreamed of battle and murder and Indian attacks, as they had been in the old days; fires were heaped high, and frightened children were quieted. What then was the chill that gripped them by the heart when above the howling of the blast the old warning tocsin broke out! Hands clutched at guns and clothing, and the women and children ran to the windows, sick for fear lest the fort be afire.

But there was no glow brightening and growing lurid through the snow curtain. Commanding their dependents to light lamps and dress, the men made all speed to the vestibule of the old soldiers' quarters, where McTavish had been confined, on top of which the bell whirled over and over, its unaccustomed voice thin and shrill with cold. It was twenty years since that bell had sounded a general alarm, and the men, wild with anxiety, rushed in upon Michael.

Meanwhile, McTavish was experiencing a fearful trial. During the day, his plans of campaign had been worked out thoroughly and had appeared simple. But, now, confused, battered, whirled ruthlessly about, a plaything in the mighty wind, he was scarcely able to tell his right from his left, and, had it not been for Michael's zeal in giving the alarm, this story might have ended here.

With the sound of the bell to give him direction, McTavish bore off to the left. There, the snow had been drifted high against the wall. More than that, the path that ran along the latter had contributed materially to the height of the bank, and McTavish counted on this means of scaling the fifteen-foot obstruction… Would he ever find the place?

At last, he felt the ascent under his feet, and struggled up. With a thankfulness that he had never before experienced, he found but three feet of wall confronting him at the top, and swung his feet over quickly. What fortune awaited him on the long drop to earth, he did not know. He remembered the spot in summer as a grassy mound, with a few small rocks showing here and there. With fatalistic indifference, he pushed himself off, and, after a breathless second, struck the hard snow crust, and went through it with a crash, snowshoes and all, sinking to his ankles. It took but a moment to extricate himself, and he now turned his back to the wind, which was theoretically from the north – “theoretically,” because in a genuine blizzard the wind has been known to blow upon the bewildered traveler from four directions inside a minute. Everywhere one turns, he is met by a breath-taking blast.

The old Beaver Trail started south of the fort, alongside the little hillock where Jean had been tobogganing the day of her disappearance, and thence ran for miles, crossing the little streams and ponds where the beaver villages had been built. Because most of the beaver colonies had been broken up along this route, the trail had been superseded by another, called the New Trail; hence this was an unfrequented, almost untraveled, path that Peter Rainy had named.

Donald McTavish knew every shrub, tree, and stone within a mile of Fort Severn in any direction, after the summer spent there, and to-night he relied upon his recognition of inanimate objects to lead him aright. A ghostly spruce with a wedge-shaped bite out of its stiff foliage told him he was a hundred feet to the right; a flat-topped rock, suddenly stumbled upon, convinced him that for five minutes he had been walking back toward the fort.

The alarm-bell had ceased ringing now, and he could hear nothing but the shriek of the wind, the hollow roaring of it in the woods, and the hiss and whish of driving snow. The folds of his capote protected him partially from the stinging particles, and his gauntleted hands shielded his eyes somewhat.

Not another man in Fort Severn could have found the old Beaver Trail that night, and many a time during the hour Donald blessed the memory of Jean Fitzpatrick and their many excursions in the vicinity of the post. By devious zigzags and retracings, he suddenly found himself face to face with a ten-foot stump that Indians had long ago carved into a sort of totem, which had been left standing as a curiosity. There, the trail began, and he was able to make faster time, although all evidence of a footway were, of course, obliterated. As he went deeper into the forest, the wind became steadier and less changeable in direction, and the snow lost the worst of its sting.

Still guided by old, friendly landmarks, Donald drew near the rendezvous. He knew the place well. It was slightly off the trail, behind a bowlder. At last he reached it and peered around. There, sleeping in a huddle, his feet to a camp-fire, the sleigh snow-banked as a wind break, and the dogs curled in a black-and-white, steaming bundle, Peter Rainy lay unconcernedly.

With a cry of joy, Donald awakened his faithful servant, and, in the comparative shelter of the rock, told his story briefly.

“Quick, kick the dogs up!” he cried. “We must push on at once. I am followed.”

CHAPTER XI

A HOT SCENT

Without a word, Rainy made preparations for moving. A lesser woodsman or lazier servant would have demurred, for, while the blizzard lasted, there was scarcely a chance in a million that any searcher from the fort would find their hiding-place. Even now, the newcomer's tracks were already wiped clean from the white page of the snow.

But, when the storm cleared away, as it might do with great suddenness, they would be in great peril of observation, for, until they should reach the denser forest to the south, there would be many open spots to be crossed – open spots well within the range of a field-glass at the fort.

While Peter hitched up the growling dogs, Donald made the pack, and fastened it on the sledge. But, before they were ready to scatter the fire and plunge into the maelstrom of the storm, the Scotchman pulled the other's sleeve.

“What was that clew you had in regard to Jean Fitzpatrick?” he shouted above the wind.

“Friends told me, very quiet, that old Maria, who was at the fort the day before we arrived, and who tried to see the factor, had kidnaped her. But for what reason I have no idea. Maybe she's angry because old Fitzpatrick wouldn't see her, but the man who told me hinted at other things.”

“Was he an Indian?”

“Yes; it was Tee-ka-mee.”

“How did he know?”

“Butts tell him, he said. He and Butts good friends, because of working in the house together.”

“Why didn't they say as much when the search was being made? Then, they could have run this Indian hag to earth.”

“Like most English servants, that Butts was afraid to speak out, and Tee-ka-mee says the idea never occurred to him until too late.”

“Do you think it is good talk, and that the old woman did the trick?

“I think it is the most likely explanation. At least, it is something to work on.”

Shortly afterward, they drove the dogs from the shelter of the rock into the teeth of the storm. Then, turning, they fled south before the gale with what certitude they might. They had nothing to guide them, neither stars nor brilliant aurora, and they struggled along the heavy trail only by their memories of it, and the exercise of every particle of woodcraft they both possessed.

The trail was cruelly heavy with the snow, and the dogs floundered shoulder-deep at times, even when the two men had gone on before to break the way. Traveling would be hard until a warm west wind melted the surface, and gave a crust chance to form over-night. Frequently, they rested in the lee of a bold rock, and continued their talk. They left no back trail, for hardly could they lift a foot ere the hollow it had formed had been filled with snow. On one of these occasions McTavish asked: “Who is this Maria?”

Peter Rainy did not seem to hear, and bent down to examine the dog-harness. Donald repeated the question, and was surprised to have his companion change the subject without answering. There was something peculiar about this, and a third time he put the query, uttering it now in a tone of authority. “Captain,” said the Indian, “I would rather not tell you. It would only make you unhappy.”

“I'll be much more unhappy if I know there is a mystery, without knowing what it is. Tell me, Peter. We must go on in a minute.”

“Maria is the mother of Charley Seguis.”

“Well,” Donald exclaimed impatiently, as the other paused, “what's so terrible about that?