Kitabı oku: «The Huntress», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XII
THE NEXT DAY

Sam was awakened by the rising sun. He arose sore in spirit and unrefreshed. It promised to be a brilliant day, with a gentle breeze from the west. Such a wind would blow him to the foot of the lake, the nearest shore, and, observing it, he immediately started to drag the logs he had collected down to the water's edge, careless now if Bela discovered what he was about. Let her try to stop him if she dared!

Building a raft promised to be no easy task. He was without hammer and nails, and he had not been long enough in the country to learn how it might be done without. His only tool was a pocket knife.

After several fruitless experiments, he hit upon the scheme of lashing the logs together with withes of willow. It promised to be an all-day job, and a clumsy one at the best. Still, if the wind held fair and light, it might serve. Raising a mast presented another problem. He deferred consideration of that until he got the raft built.

After a while Bela appeared around the shore, bringing his breakfast. Sam essayed taking a leaf out of her book by making believe to be oblivious of her. She put the plate down and watched him for a while. Sam, under her gaze, became horribly conscious of the crudeness of his handiwork, but he worked ahead, whistling.

Finally she said scornfully: "You can't get to shore on that."

No answer from Sam.

"When you sit down, her bend in the middle. Water come over you. Raft got be hard lak a floor."

Another silence.

"W'en wind blow she all bus' up."

No answer being forthcoming, Bela shrugged and sat down in the sand as if she meant to spend the morning there. She gazed across the lake. Sam scowled and fidgeted. Something told him that when it came to holding one's tongue, Bela could beat him hollow. He worked doggedly on, careful never to look in her direction.

After a while the astonishing girl rose and said calmly: "I tak you to shore in my canoe now."

Sam dropped his willow strips and stared. "Eh?"

"I say I ready tak you to shore now," she repeated.

"What does this mean?" Sam demanded.

She shrugged slightly. "Ask no question. Come, if you want."

"To what shore?" he demanded suspiciously.

"Anywhere. Better go to little river, I guess. Wind blow us there to-day. Maybe blow hard after."

"What are you up to now?" he muttered.

She had already turned up the beach. "I go get ready," she said over her shoulder. "Better come quick."

She disappeared around the shore, leaving him much perturbed in mind. In a minute or two he stole after to see if she were indeed getting ready. It was true. Watching from behind the willows, he saw her tie a poplar pole in the bow of the dugout and stay it with a rope.

Upon this rude mast she bound a yard, from which hung one of her blankets with a rope tied to each of the lower corners. Afterward she stowed her baggage in the boat. She worked with a determined swiftness that suggested some particular urgency.

Finally she started back along the beach, whereupon Sam turned and, hastening ahead of her, resumed operations on the raft as if he had never dropped them.

"Now I guess you know why we goin' to the shore," she stated abruptly.

"I'm hanged if I do!" returned Sam.

"You got strong eyes and not see not'ing?" she asked scornfully. "Look!"

Following the direction of her pointing finger across the lake, he made out a black spot on the water, between them and the head of the river.

"Those men comin' here," she said. "I am think before maybe come to-day. Yesterday I guess they ride down the river and get Johnny Gagnon's boat."

When she pointed it out, the object was clear enough. The rise and fall of oars was suggested. Sam watched it doubtfully. He was ready to welcome relief in any form from his hateful situation, but was this relief?

"How do you expect to sail to the river when they're coming from there?" he asked.

"I wait till come close," she replied eagerly. "Then go round ot'er side of island. They never catch me wit' my sail. Johnny Gagnon's boat got no sail."

Her eagerness made him suspicious. What had she up her sleeve now? he wondered. While he could scarcely regard Jack, Shand, and Joe in the light of deliverers, his galled pride forbade him to put himself in her hands again. He suddenly made up his mind.

"Go ahead!" he said harshly. "Go anywhere you like! I stay here!"

Bela changed colour, and a real fear showed in her eyes. She moved toward him involuntarily.

"They kill you if they find you here," she said.

"Not if they don't find you here, too."

"They kill you!" she insisted. "Two days they are after us. All tam talk together what they goin' do when they catch us, and get more mad. If they find me gone away, they get more mad again. W'en they catch you, they got kill you for 'cause they say so many times. You are on this little island. Nobody know. Nobody see. They are safe to kill you. You don' go wit' me, you never leave here."

Sam, knowing the men, could not but be shaken by her words. He paled a little, but, having announced his decision to her, pride would not allow him to take it back.

"Go on," he said. "I stay."

The old walled look came back over Bela's face. She sat down in the sand, clasping her knees.

"I not go wit'out you," she announced.

Sam affected to shrug.

"Just as you like. You won't help my chances any by staying here."

"They kill you, anyhow," she said in a level voice. "After they kill you they get me. They not kill me."

Sam started and looked at her aghast. A surprising pain stabbed him. He remembered the looks of the men upon Bela's first appearance in the cabin. Now, after two days' pursuit they would scarcely be more humane than then. The thought of that beautiful creature being delivered over to them was more than he could bear.

"Bela – for God's sake – don't be a fool!" he faltered.

A subtle smile appeared on her lips. She was silent.

His pride made another effort. "Ah, you're only bluffing!" he said harshly. "You can't get me going that way."

She looked at him with a strange, fiery intensity. "I not bluffin'," she replied quietly. "I do w'at I say. If I want say I put my hand in the fire, I hold it there till it burn off. You know that."

In his heart he did know it, however he might rage at being forced to do what she wanted him to do.

"I don't care!" he cried. "You can't lead me by the nose! I'm my own master. I didn't get you into this. You'll have to take your chance as I take mine."

Bela said nothing.

Out of sheer bravado Sam set to work again to bind his logs together. His hand shook. There was little likelihood now that he would need a raft.

The approaching boat had already covered half the distance to the island. They could now make out three figures in it, one steering, each of the other two wielding an oar. The lake was glorious in the strong sunshine. All the little ripples to the east were tipped with gold.

Five minutes passed, while obstinacy contended silently with obstinacy. Bela sat looking at nothing with all the stoicism of her red ancestors; Sam maintained his futile pretence of business. Occasionally he glanced at her full of uncertainty and unwilling admiration. Bela never looked at him.

At the end of that time the boat was less than a quarter of a mile offshore. They saw the steersman point, and the two oarsmen stop and look over their shoulders. Evidently they had discovered the two figures on the beach, and wondered at their supineness. They came on with increased energy.

Bela held the best cards. Sam finally threw down his work with an oath.

"I can't stand it!" he cried shakily. "I don't care about myself, but I can't see a woman sacrificed – even if it's your own mulishness! I don't care about you, either – but you're a woman. You needn't think you're getting the best of me. I'll hate you for this – but I can't stand it!"

Bela sprang up swiftly and resolutely.

"Come!" she exclaimed. "I don' care what mak' you come, if you come!"

She pointed to the longest way round the shore. "This way," she directed. "I want them follow this way so I sail back ot'er side."

As they ran around the beach, a faint shout reached them from the water. As soon as they had passed out of sight of the boat, Bela pulled Sam into the bushes, and they worked back under cover to a point whence they could watch their pursuers in comparative safety.

"Maybe they goin' land this side," she suggested. "If they land, run lak hell and jomp in my boat."

Sam never thought of smiling.

Five minutes of breathless suspense succeeded. Suppose the men landed and, dividing, went both ways around the beach, what would they do? However, it appeared that they intended to row around the island and, as they thought, cut off Bela's escape by water. But the watchers could not be sure of this until the boat was almost upon them. Finally Bela looked at Sam, and they dashed together for the dugout.

All was ready for the start, the boat pointing, bow first, into the lake. In the excitement of the last few minutes they had forgotten Sam's blankets. It was too late to think of them now.

Sam got in first and, obeying Bela's instructions, braced his feet against the bottom of the mast. She pushed off and paddled like a wild woman until she could weather the island under her square sail. They succeeded in making the point before the rowboat appeared from around the other side of the island. Finally the white blanket, with its wide black bars, caught the wind, and Bela ceased paddling.

To Sam it seemed as if they stopped moving upon the stilling of that vigorous arm. He looked anxiously over his shoulder. She was watching their progress through the water with an experienced eye.

"Never catch us if the wind hold," she said calmly. "Johnny Gagnon's boat ver' heavy boat."

They had a start of upward of a quarter of a mile when their perplexed pursuers, having almost completed a circuit of the island, finally caught sight of them sailing blithely down the lake. A great roar of anger came down the wind to them.

"Let them curse," said Bela. "Cursin' won't catch us. Already they rowin' half an hour. Get tire' soon."

"They've got a spare man to change to," Sam reminded her. He was now as keen to give them the slip as Bela. The mainland ahead promised freedom; not only freedom from his late masters, but freedom from her, too.

Looking over their shoulders, they saw the steersman change to one of the oars. Thereafter the rowboat came on with renewed speed, but the dugout seemed to draw steadily ahead.

Sam's heart rose. Bela, however, searching the wide sky and the water for weather signs, began to look anxious.

"What is it?" asked Sam.

"Wind goin' down," she replied grimly.

Sure enough, presently the heavy sail began to sag, and they could feel the dugout lose way under them. They groaned involuntarily. At the same moment their pursuers perceived the slackening of the wind and shouted in a different key.

The wind freshened again, and once more died away. Now the dugout forged ahead; now the rowboat began to overhaul them. It was nip and tuck down the lake between sail and oars.

The shore they were making for began to loom nearer, but the puffs of wind were coming at longer and longer intervals, and finally they ran into a glassy calm, though they could see slants of wind all about them, a situation to drive pursued sailors frantic.

Bela paddled manfully, but her single blade was no match for two long oars. The sail was a handicap now. Bela had staked everything on it, and they could not take it down without capsizing the dugout. The oarsmen came rapidly, with derisive shouts in anticipation of a speedy triumph.

"You've got your gun," muttered Sam. "You're a better shot than any of them. Use it while you have the advantage."

She shook her head. "No shoot. Too moch trouble mak' already."

"Plug their boat, then," said Sam.

She still refused. "They die in cold water if boat sink."

"We might as well jump overboard, then," he said bitterly.

"Look!" she cried suddenly. "Wind comin', too!"

Behind the rowboat a dark-blue streak was creeping over the surface of the lake.

"Ah, wind, come quick! Come quick!" Bela murmured involuntarily. "A candle for the altar! My rabbit-skin robe to Père Lacombe!"

At the same time she did not cease paddling.

The rowers saw the breeze coming, too, and, bending their backs, sent the water flying from their oars. They managed to keep ahead of it. Both boats were now within a furlong of the river-head. The race seemed over. The rowboat drew even with the dugout, and they looked into their pursuers' faces, red with exertion and distorted in cruel triumph.

The steersman was Joe. "Don't stop," he yelled to the heaving oarsmen, "or she'll give us the slip yet! Get ahead and cut her off! You damned dish-washer, we've got you now!" he added for Sam's benefit.

With a sharp crack, Big Jack's oar broke off short. He capsized backward into Shand, knocking him off his seat as well. At the same instant the whispering breeze came up and the blanket bellied out.

Shand and Jack were for the moment inextricably entangled in the bottom of the boat. Emotional Joe cursed and stamped and tore at his hair like a lunatic. Loud laughter broke from Sam and Bela as they sailed away.

Joe beside himself, snatched up his gun and opened fire. A bullet went through the blanket. Bela and Sam instinctively ducked. Perhaps they prayed; more likely they did not realize their danger until it was over. Other shots followed, but Joe was shooting wild. He could not aim directly at Sam, because Bela was between. He emptied his magazine without doing any damage.

In the reaction that followed Bela and Sam laughed. In that moment they were one.

"Feels funny to have a fellow slinging lead at you, eh?" said Sam.

"Musq'oosis say after a man hear bullet whistle he is grown," answered Bela.

A few minutes later the river received them. There was a straight reach of a third of a mile, followed by innumerable, bewildering corkscrew bends all the way to the head of the rapids, thirty miles or more. Out in the lake behind them their pursuers were struggling forward, sculling with the remaining oar.

Bela watched anxiously to see what they would do when they got in the river. If they knew enough to go ashore and take to the land trail, it was possible that even on foot they might cut her off at a point below where the trail touched the river.

Apparently, however, they meant to follow by water. At the last sight she had of them before rounding the first bend they were still sculling.

The river pursued its incredibly circuitous course between cut banks fringed with willows. All the country above, invisible to them in the dugout, was a vast meadow. A steady, smooth current carried them on.

On the outside of each bend the bank was steep to the point of overhanging; on the inside there was invariably a mud flat made gay with water flowers. So crooked was the river that Jack-Knife Mountain, the only object they could see above the willows, was now on their right hand, now on their left.

On the turns they sometimes got a current of wind in their faces and came to a dead stop. Now that they no longer required it, the wind was momentarily strengthening.

"Wouldn't it be better to take the sail down?" Sam suggested.

"Can't tak' it down wi'out land on shore," Bela answered sullenly.

Sam comprehending what was the matter, chuckled inwardly. On the next bend, seeing her struggles with the baffling air-currents, he asked teasingly:

"Well, why don't you go ashore and take it down?"

"If I land, you promise not run away?" she said.

Sam laughed from a light heart. "Not on your life!" he said. "I'm my own master now."

Bela had no more to say.

"Where are you bound for?" Sam presently asked.

"Down river," she answered.

"I'll have to be leaving you," said Sam mockingly. "I'm going the other way. To the head of the lake."

"If you go back they catch you."

"I'll lie low till they're thrown off the scent. I'll walk around the north shore."

"If you stay with me little while, pretty soon we meet police comin' up," she suggested. "Then they can't touch you."

"Much obliged," replied Sam. "I've no fancy to be jumped on at night again and tied up like a roasting fowl."

"I promise I not do that again," said Bela.

"Sure!" retorted Sam. "No doubt you've got plenty other tricks just as good."

"If you look at me you see I speak truth," she murmured. "I your friend, Sam."

The threatened break in her voice brought all his old disquiet surging up again. As he put it, he suspected her of "trying to put one over on him again." "I don't want to look at you!" he returned with a harsh laugh.

An adverse puff of wind blew them into an overhanging willow-bush, which became entangled with the sail and the stay-rope. Sam saw his chance. Seizing the branches, he pulled himself to his feet and managed to swing ashore at the cost only of wet ankles.

A sharp cry was wrung from Bela. "Sam, don't go!"

Gaining a sure footing on the bank, he faced her, laughing. "Well, how about it now?"

There was nothing inscrutable about her face then. It worked with emotion like any woman's.

"Don't go by yourself!" she pleaded. "You not know this country. You got not'ing. No grub! No gun! No blanket!"

"I can walk it in two days or three," he said. "I'll build a fire to sleep by. You can give me a little grub if you want. I'll trade my pocket-knife for it. It's all I've got. You got me into this, anyhow."

"No sell grub," she answered sullenly. "Give all you want if you come with me."

"Very well, keep it then," he snapped, turning away.

Her face broke up again. "No, no! I not mad at you!" she cried hurriedly. "I give you food. But wait; we got talk." She drove the canoe on a mud-bank beyond the willows and scrambled out.

Sam, scowling and hardening at her approach, was careful to keep his distance. He suspected her of a design to detain him by force.

"There's been too much talk," he growled. "You'd better hustle on down. They'll be here soon."

"Sam, don' go!" she begged. "W'at you do at head of lake? Not get no job but cook. Stay wit' me. We got boat and gun and blankets. We need no more. I show you all w'at to do. I show you fishin' and huntin'. When winter come I show you how to trap good fur. You will be rich with me. I not bot'er you no more. I do everything you want."

In her distress Sam's angry eyes chose to see only chagrin at the prospect of his escaping her. At the same time her beseeching face filled him with a wild commotion that he would not recognize. His only recourse lay in instant flight.

"Cut it out! What good does it do?" he cried harshly. "I tell you I'm going to the head of the lake."

"All right, I tak' you there," she said eagerly. "More quick as you can walk, too. Half a mile down the river there is a little backwater to hide. We let those men go by and then come back. I do w'at you want, Sam."

"Will you give me a little grub, or won't you?" he insisted. "I'd rather starve than go with you!"

She burst into tears. "All right, I give you food," she said. She turned back to the dugout, and, throwing back the cover of the grub-box, put what bread and smoked fish she had left into a cotton bag.

Sam awaited her, raging with that intolerable bitterness that a tender and obstinate man feels at the sight of a woman's tears.

She offered him the little package of food, and a blanket as well. "Tak' my ot'er blanket," she said humbly. "I can get more."

He impatiently shook his head, refusing to meet the lovely, imploring eyes. "Here," he said, offering the pocket-knife. "For the food."

With a fresh burst of weeping she knocked it out of his hand, and covered her face with her arm. Sam strode away, blinded and deafened by the confusion of his feelings. His face was as stubborn as stone.

CHAPTER XIII
ON THE RIVER

When Sam had passed out of sight around the willows, Bela, still shaken by sobs, went down on her hands and knees to search for the penknife she had spurned. Finding it, she kissed it and thrust it inside her dress.

Going to the dugout, she stretched out in it, and gave herself up to grief. Not for very long, however. Gradually the sobs stilled, and finally she sat up with the look of one who has something to do. For a long time thereafter she sat, chin in hand, thinking hard with tight lips and inward-looking eyes.

Sounds from around the bend above aroused her. She heard the working of an oar in its socket and the cautious voices of men. An alert look came into her face.

She glanced over the gunwale at her face in the water and disarranged her hair a little. Flinging herself down, she commenced to weep again, but with an altered note; this was self-conscious grief addressed to the ears of others.

The three men, finding her thus, gaped in boundless astonishment. It was anything but what they expected to find. They peered into the bushes for a sign of Sam.

"What the devil is the matter?" demanded Big Jack.

"Where is Sam?" cried Joe.

Bela answered both questions at once. "He leave me," she sobbed with heart-breaking effect.

"Left you?" they echoed stupidly.

"Gone away," wailed Bela. "Say he done with me for good!"

Black Shand and Jack were genuinely discomposed at the sight of her tears. Joe with more hardihood laughed.

"Serve you well right!" said he.

Big Jack had the oar. He drove the boat on the bank alongside the dugout, and they climbed out. Jack and Shand went up the bank.

"He can't have got far," said the former.

A wide sea of grass was revealed to them, stretching to pine ridges on the horizon. In all the expanse there was no sign of any figure, but the dense willows marking the tortuous course of the river provided plenty of cover both up and down stream.

"Which way did he go?" Jack called down.

"I don't know," said Bela. "Down river, I think."

Below, Joe, full of bitter jealousy, was still upbraiding Bela. Jack returned, scowling.

"Cut it out!" he said peremptorily. "I will get to the bottom of this." To Bela he said harshly: "What do you expect us to do for you, girl? You promised us a fair answer yesterday morning, and in the night you skipped with the cook."

Bela raised an innocent-seeming face.

"What you mean, skip?" she asked.

"Lit out, eloped, ran away," said Jack grimly.

"I never did!" she cried indignantly. "He carry me off."

They stared at her open-mouthed again.

"What I want wit' a cook?" she went on quickly. "I want marry a man wit' something. He is a bad man. He tak' me away. Now he say he done wit' me!" Tears threatened again.

They were only half convinced.

"How did it happen?" Jack demanded.

"In the afternoon he find my cache where I stay by the little creek," she said. "Talk to me lak a friend. I think all right. But in the night he come back when I sleepin' and tie my hands and my feet and my mouth, and throw me in my boat and tak' away! I hate him!"

"Then it was you we heard cry out?" exclaimed Joe.

"Sure!" she assented readily. "The handkerchief come loose. But soon he stop me."

"He did it just to spite us!" cried Joe furiously. "He didn't want her himself! I always said he had too proud a stomach for a cook. Worked against us at night like a rat! I warned you often enough!"

"Hold on!" said Big Jack, scowling. "There's more to this." He turned to Bela accusingly. "You were paddling the dugout when you came to the river yesterday. I saw you plain."

"Soon as the wind begin to blow he cut me loose," she said. "He can't mak' the boat go. He tak' my gun and point to me and mak' me paddle."

"The damned blackguard!" muttered Shand.

Jack was still unconvinced. "But to-day," he said, "when my oar busted you laughed. I was lookin' at you."

Bela hung her head. "He tak' me away," she murmured. "I t'ink he marry me then. I good girl. I think got marry him."

This convinced them all. They burst out in angry exclamations. It was not, however, for what they thought Bela had suffered. Each man was thinking of the wrong Sam had done him. Toward Bela their attitude had subtly changed. She was now a damaged article, though still desirable. Their awe of her was gone.

"I'll grind my heel in his face for this," snarled Joe. "I'll kill him slow!"

"Come on!" cried Shand. "We're losing time. He can't have got far."

Bela scrambled out of the dugout. "I tak' you where he is," she said eagerly. "I can track him in the grass. I can't catch him myself. But you got give him to me for punish."

"We'll attend to that for you, my girl," said Jack grimly.

"No blood!" she cried. "If he is kill for cause of me I get a bad name around. A girl can't have no bad name."

They laughed with light scorn. "You're done for already," Joe said.

"Nobody knows him," said Jack. "He'll never be missed. We'll take good care he ain't found, neither."

"The police will know," insisted Bela. "They can smell blood. Bam-by maybe you mad at each ot'er. One will tell."

This was a shrewd shot. The three scowled at each other furtively. There was no confidence between them.

"Well – what do you want to do?" asked Jack uneasily.

"I give him to the police," stated Bela eagerly. "They comin' up the river now. Come every year this tam. Then all will be known. It is not my fault he tak' me away. I good girl."

"Maybe she wants to get him to marry her," suggested Joe.

"No marry!" cried Bela with a fine assumption of anger. "He throw me down! Speak bad to me! I hate him! I want punish!"

"Sounds fishy somehow," muttered Jack, hesitating.

"You come wit' me," she said, shrugging. "See all I do."

"Maybe the idea is to get us away from the boat so he can sneak back and swipe it," suggested Joe.

"You foolish!" said Bela, with a glance of scorn. "You can walk to Johnny Gagnon's and get your horses. Let one man stay here to watch the boats."

"Come on!" cried Shand from the top of the bank. "Catch him first and decide what we'll do to him after."

"Go on," said Bela sullenly. "I not track him wit'out you give him me for punish."

"You swear you'll hand him over to the police," demanded Jack sternly.

"I swear it!" she replied instantly, looking him in the eye and holding up her hand.

"All right. Come on. I'm satisfied," assented Jack.

"Wait!" she said. "You promise to me you not hurt him. Give me your hand."

She forced all three to shake hands on it, Joe submitting with an ill grace.

"Now come on," said Shand impatiently.

"Leave your guns," commanded Bela. "Maybe he run. You get mad and shoot. I want no blood."

Jack scowled at her with reawakened suspicions. "I keep my gun by me," he growled.

"He got no gun," sneered Bela scornfully. "You 'fraid catch him wit' hands?"

"You said he had your gun," said Big Jack.

"He give it back," said Bela. "He is bad man; but no steal. My big gun, my little gun – see?" She exhibited them.

Jack knew that Sam owned no gun; still he was suspicious. "If you had your gun why didn't you plug him when he left you?" he demanded.

Bela paused for an instant. This was a poser, because in her heart she knew, supposing her story to be true, that she would have shot Sam. She had to think quickly. "I not want no blood," she murmured. "I 'fraid Père Lacombe."

It was well done. Big Jack nodded. "You leave your guns, too," he stipulated.

"Sure!" she said, willingly putting them in the dugout. "Leave one man to watch the boats and the guns. Two men and a woman enough to catch a cook, I guess."

They laughed.

Bela was playing for high stakes, and her faculties were sharpened to a sword-edge. Every look suggested the wronged woman thirsting for justice. She ostentatiously searched in her baggage, and drawing out a piece of moose-hide, cut it into thongs for bonds. Cleverer men than Big Jack and his pals might have been taken in.

"Boys, she's right!" cried Jack. "We don't want no blood on our hands to start off with, if we can see him punished proper. Shand, you stay here. Lead off, girl!"

Shand shrugged with a sour look, and came down the bank. It was always tacitly understood between him and Jack that young Joe was not to be trusted alone, so he submitted.

The other three started. Bela, making believe to be baffled for a moment, finally led the way up-stream. She went first at the rolling gait the Indians affect. The men were hard put to it to keep up with her over the uneven ground, for the grassy plain, which looked like a billiard-table, was full of bumps.

She kept her eyes on the ground. It was a simple matter for her to follow Sam's tracks in the grass, but the men, though they could see the faint depressions when she pointed them out, could never have found them unaided.

The tracks led them parallel to the general direction of the river, cutting across from point to point of the willows on the outside of each bend. On the horizon ahead was the pine-clad ridge that bounded the lower end of the lake. Jack-Knife Mountain rose over it. The sea of grass was dazzling in the sunlight.

Half an hour's swift walking gave them no glimpse ahead of their quarry.

"Waste too much time talking," said Bela.

"Well, you did the most of it," retorted Joe.

It was evident from the direction of the tracks that Sam was taking care to keep under cover of each point of the willows until he gained the next one. Each point afforded his pursuers a new survey ahead. Not until they had walked another half-hour at that gruelling pace were they in time to see a black spot just about to disappear ahead.

"Down!" cried Bela, and they dropped full length in the grass until it had gone.

Bela, springing up, led the way at a run across the intervening grass. She had to hold herself back for the men. Joe was too heavy to be a runner, and Jack was beginning to feel the handicap of his years.

Nearing the willows, she held up her hand for caution. They ran lightly in the grass. Neither man could see or hear anything; nevertheless Bela indicated by signs that the one they sought was just around the bushes. At the last moment she held back and let them go first.

Sam, having decided that the danger of immediate pursuit was over, was sitting on the ground eating his lunch when, without warning, Jack and Joe fell on him, bowling him over on his back. He struggled desperately, but was helpless under their combined weight. Joe, with a snarl, lifted his clenched hand over Sam's face. Big Jack held it.