The Snowshoe Trail

  XVI

  When Virginia heard the tramp of feet on her threshold she didn't dreambut that Bill had returned a day earlier than he had planned. Her heartgave a queer little flutter of relief. The cabin had been lonelyto-night, the silence had oppressed her; most of all she had dreaded thelong night without the comforting reassurance of his presence. Shewouldn't have admitted, even to herself, that her comfort was sodependent upon this man. And she sprang up, joyously as a birdspringing from a bough, to welcome him.

  The next instant she stopped, appalled. The door did not open, thesteps did not cross her threshold. Instead, knuckles rapped feebly onthe door.

  Even in a city, it is a rather discomforting experience for a girl,alone in a home at night, to answer a tap on the door. Here in thisawful silence and solitude she was simply and wholly terrified. Shehadn't dreamed that there was a stranger within many miles of the cabin.For an instant she didn't know what to do. The knock sounded again.

  But Virginia had acquired a certain measure of self-discipline in theseweary weeks, and her mind at once flashed to her pistol. Fortunatelyshe had not taken it from her belt, and she had full confidence in herability to shoot it quickly and well. Besides, she remembered that herdoor was securely bolted.

  "Who's there?" she asked. "Is it you, Bill?"

  "It's not Bill," the answer came. "But he's here."

  The first thought that came to her was that Bill had been injured, hurtin some adventure in the snow, and men had brought him back to thecabin. Something that was like a sickness surged through her frame.But an instant more she knew that, had he been injured, there would havebeen no wayfarers to find him and bring him in. There was only oneremaining possibility: that this man was one whom Bill had gone out tofind and who had returned with him.

  The thought was so startling, so fraught with tremendous possibilitiesthat for a moment she seemed to lose all power of speech or action.

  "Who is it?" she asked again, steadily as she could.

  And the answer came strange and stirring through the heavy door. "It'sI--Harold Lounsbury. Bill told me to come."

  Virginia was oppressed and baffled as if in a mysterious dream. For themoment she stood still, trying to quiet her leaping heart and herfluttering nerves. Yet she knew she had to make answer. She knew thatshe must find out whether this voice spoke true--whether or not it washer lost lover, returned to her at last.

  Yet there could be no mistake. The voice was the same that sheremembered of old. It was as if it had spoken out of the dead years.Her hands clasped at her breast, then she walked to the threshold andopened the door.

  Harold Lounsbury stepped through, blinking in the candlelight.Instinctively the girl flung back, giving him full right of way andstaring as if he were a ghost. He turned to her, half apologetic."Bill told me to come," he said.

  The man stood with arms limp at his side, and a great surge of mingledemotions swept the girl as in a flood. She was pale as a ghost, and herhands trembled when she stretched them out. "Harold," she murmuredunsteadily. She tried to smile. "Is it really you, Harold?"

  "It's I," he answered. "We've come together--at last."

  The words seemed to rally her scattered faculties. The dreamlikequality of the scene at once dissolved. Utter and bewildering surpriseis never an emotion that can long endure; its very quality makes forbrevity. Already some leveling, cool sense within her had begun toaccept the fact of his presence.

  Instinctively her eyes swept his face and form. All doubt was past:this man was unquestionably Harold. Yet she was secretly and vaguelyshocked. Her first impression was one of change: that the years hadsome way altered him,--other than the natural changes that no livingcreature may escape.

  In reality his face had aged but little. He had worn just such amustache when he went away. Perhaps his eyes were changed: for themoment she thought that they were, and the change repelled her andestranged her. His mouth was not quite right, either; his form, thoughpowerful, had lost some of its youthful trimness.

  It seemed to her, for one fleeting instant, that there was a brutalityin his expression that she had never seen before. But at once thereaction came. Of course these northern forests had changed him. Hehad fought with the cold and the snow, with all the primeval forces ofnature: he had simply hardened and matured. It was true that the calmstrength of Bill's face was not to be seen in his. Nevertheless he wasclean, stalwart, and his embarrassment was a credit to him rather than adiscredit.

  This thought was the beginning of the reaction that in a moment graspedher and held her. The truth suddenly flamed clear and bright: thatHarold Lounsbury had returned to her arms. Her search was over. Shehad won. He stood before her, alive and well. He had come back to her.Her effort had been crowned with success.

  He was her old lover, in the flesh. Of course she would experience someshock on first meeting him, see some changes; but they were nothing thatshould keep her from him. He seized her hands in both of his."Virginia," he cried. "My God, I can't believe it's you!"

  She remained singularly cool in the ardor of this cry. "Why didn't youwrite?" she asked. "Why didn't you come home?"

  The questions, instead of embarrassing him further, put Harold at hisease. He was on safe grounds now. He had prepared for just thesequeries, on the long walk to the cabin.

  "I did write," he cried. "Why didn't you answer?"

  The words came glib to his lips. She stared at him in amazement. "Youdid--you say you wrote to me?" she asked him, deeply moved.

  "Wrote? I wrote a dozen times. And I never received a word--exceptfrom Jules Nathan."

  "But Jules Nathan--Jules Nathan is dead!"

  "He is?" But Harold's surprise was feigned. This was one piece of newsthat had trickled through the wastes to him,--of the death of JulesNathan, a man known to them both. It was safe to have heard fromhim. The contents of the letter could never be verified. "He toldme--after I'd written many times, and never got an answer--that youwere engaged to be married--to a Chicago man. I thought you'd forgottenme. I thought you'd been untrue."

  Virginia held hard on her faculties and balanced his words. She hadknown Chicago men during the six years that she had moved in the mostexalted social circles of her own city. The story held water, even ifshe had been inclined to doubt it. She knew it was always easy for anengagement rumor to start and be carried far, when a prominent girl wasinvolved. "I didn't get your letters," she told him. "Are you sure youaddressed them right----"

  "I thought so----"

  "And you didn't get mine----"

  "No--not after the first few days. I changed my address--but I toldyou of the change in a letter. I never heard from you after that."

  "Then it's all been a misunderstanding--a cruel mistake. And youthought I had forgotten----"

  "I thought you'd married some one else. I couldn't believe it when Billcame to my cabin to-day and told me you were here--I've been trappingover toward the Yuga. And now--we're together at last."

  But curiously these last words cost her her self-possession. Instantlyshe was ill at ease. The reestablishment of their old relation couldonly come gradually: although she had not anticipated it, the six yearsof separation had wrought their changes. She felt that she needed timeto become adjusted to him--just as a man who has been blind needs timeto become adjusted to his vision. And at once their proximity, in thislonely cabin, was oddly embarrassing.

  "Where's Bill?" she asked. She turned to the door and called. "Bill,where are you?"

  His voice seemed quite his own when he answered from the stillness ofthe night. "I'll be in in a moment--I was just getting a load ofwood."

  It wasn't true. He had been standing dumb and inert in the darkness,his thoughts wandering afar. But he began hastily to fill his arms withfuel. Virginia turned back to her new-found lover.

  She was a little frightened by the expression on his face. His eyeswere glowing, the color had risen in his cheeks, he
was curiously eagerand breathless. "Before he comes," he urged. "We've been apart solong----"

  His hands reached out and seized hers. He drew her toward him. Shedidn't resist: she felt a deep self-annoyance that she didn't crave hiskiss. She fought away her unwonted fear; perhaps when his lips met herseverything would be the same again, and her long-awaited happiness wouldbe complete. He crushed her to him, and his kiss was greedy.

  Yet it was cold upon her lips. She struggled from his arms, and helooked at her in startled amazement. In fact, she was amazed atherself. When she had time to think it over, alone in her bed at night,she decided that her desperate struggle had been merely an attempt tofree herself from his arms before Bill came in and saw them. She onlyknew that she didn't want this comrade of hers, this stalwart forester,to see her in Harold's embrace. But in the second of the act she hadknown a blind fear, almost a repulsion, and an overwhelming desire toescape.

  She turned with a radiant smile to welcome the tall form that strode in,looking neither to the right nor left, arms heaped with wood. Shefound, much to her surprise, that she felt more at ease after Bill camein. She asked him how he had happened to get trace of the missing man;he answered in an even, almost expressionless tone that someway puzzledher. Then she launched desperately into that old life-saver in momentsof embarrassment,--a discussion of the fates and fortunes of mutualacquaintances.

  "But I'm tired, Harold," she told him in an hour. "The surprise ofseeing you has been--well, too much for me. I believe I'll go to myroom. It's behind that curtain."

  Harold rose eagerly as if something was due him in the moment ofparting; Bill got up in respect to her. But her glance was impartial.A moment later she was gone.

  The first night Bill and Harold made bunks on the floor of the cabin,but health and propriety decreed that such an arrangement could only betemporary. They could not put their trust in an immediate deliverance.They might be imprisoned for weeks to come. And Bill solved the problemwith a single suggestion.

  They would build a small cabin for the two men to sleep in. Many timeshe had erected such a structure by his own efforts; the two of themcould push it up in a few hours' work.

  Harold had no fondness for toil of this kind, but he couldn't see how hecould well avoid it. His indifference to his own fate was quite past bynow. The single moment before Bill had entered the cabin door hadthoroughly wakened his keenest interests and desires; already, hethought, he had entirely re-established his relations with Virginia. Hewas as anxious to make good now as she was to have him. Already hethought himself once more a man and a gentleman of the great outsideworld. His vanity was heightened; the girl's beauty had increased, ifanything, since his departure; and he was more than ready to go throughthe adventure to its end. And he didn't dare run the risk ofdispleasing Virginia so soon after their meeting.

  He knew how she stood on the matter. He had ventured to make oneprotest,--and one had been quite enough. "I'm really not much good atcabin building," he had said. "But I don't see why Bill shouldn't gowork at it. I suppose you hired him for all camp work."

  For an instant Virginia had stared at him in utter wonder, and then aswift look of grave displeasure had come into her face. "You forget,Harold, that it was Bill that brought you back. The thirty days he washired for were gone long ago." But she had softened at once. "It'syour duty to help him, and I'll help him too, if I can."

  They had cut short logs, cleaned away the snow, and with the strength oftheir shoulders lifted the logs one upon another. With his ax Billcunningly cut the saddles, carving them down so that the rainfall woulddrain down the corners rather than lie in the cavities and thus rot thetimbers. Planks were cut for the roof, and tree boughs laid down forthe floor.

  The floor space was only seven feet long by eight wide--just enoughfor two bunks--and the walls were about as high as a sleeping-carberth. The work was done at the day's end.

  In the next few days Bill mostly left the two together, trying to findhis consolation in the wild life of the forest world outside the cabin.Harold had taken advantage of his absence and had made good progress:Virginia's period of readjustment was almost complete. She was preparedto make the joys of the future atone for the sorrows of the past.

  Harold was still good-looking, she thought; his speech, though breakingcareless at times, was attractive and charming; and most of all hislove-making was more arduous than ever. In the city life that theyplanned he would fit in well; his uncle would help him to get on hisfeet. Fortunately for their peace of mind, they did not know the realtruth,--that Kenly Lounsbury himself was at that moment strugglingwith financial problems that were about to overwhelm him. She toldherself, again and again, that her life would be all that she haddreamed, that her fondest hopes had come true. A few weeks more of thesnow and the waste places,--and then they could start life anew.

  Yet there was something vaguely sinister, something amiss in the factthat she found herself repeating the thought so many times. It wasalmost as if she were trying to reassure herself, to drown out somewhispering inner voice of doubt and fear. She couldn't get away from ahaunting feeling that, in an indescribable way, her relations withHarold had changed.

  His ardent speeches didn't seem to waken sufficient response in her ownbreast. She lacked the ecstasy, the wonder that she had known when, asa girl, she had first become engaged to Harold. They embarrassed herrather than thrilled her; they didn't seem quite real. Perhaps she hadsimply grown older. That was it: some of her girlish romance had died anatural death. She would give his man her love, would take his inreturn, and they would have the usual, normal happiness of marriage.All would come out well, once they got away from the silence and thesnows.

  Perhaps his large and extravagant speeches were merely out of place inthe stark reality of the wilderness; they could thrill her as ever whenshe returned to her native city. Likely he could dance, after a littlepractice, as well as ever; fill his niche in society and give her allthe happiness that woman has a right to expect upon this imperfectearth. There was certainly nothing to be distressed over now. They hadbeen brought together as if by a miracle; any haunting doubt and fear,too subtle and intangible to put into words or even concrete thought,would quickly pass away.

  She did not, however, go frequently into his arms. Someway, anembarrassment, a sense of inappropriateness and unrest always assailedher when he tried to claim the caresses that he felt were his due. Andat first she could not find a plausible explanation for her reserve.Perhaps these tendernesses were also out of place in the grim reality ofthe North; more likely, she decided, it was a subtle sense, the guardianangel of her own integrity, warning her that too intimate relations withthat man must be avoided, isolated and exiled as they were. "Not now,Harold," she would tell him. "Not until we're established again--athome."

  Finally his habits and his actions did not quite meet with her approval.The first of these was only a little thing,--a failure to keep shaved.Shaving in these surroundings, without a mirror, with a battered oldrazor that had lain long in the cabin and had to be sharpened on awhetstone, where every drop of hot water used had to be laboriouslyheated on the stove, was an annoying chore at best: besides, there wasno one to see him except Virginia and the guide. The stubble matted andgrew on his lips and jowls. Bill, in contrast, shaved with greatestcare every evening. A more important point was that his avoidance ofhis proper share of Bill's daily toil. He neither hewed wood nor drewwater, nor made any apologies for the omission. Rather he gave the ideathat Bill's services were due him by rights.

  There was a little explosion, one afternoon, when he ventured to adviseher in regard to her relations with Bill. The forester himself wascutting wood outside the cabin: they heard the mighty ring of his axagainst the tough spruce. Virginia was at work preparing their simpleevening meal; Harold was stretched on her own cot, the curtain drawnback, his arms under his head, his unshaven face curiously dark andunprepossessing.

  "You must be
gin to keep on your own ground--with Bill, Virginia," hebegan in the silence.

  Virginia turned to him, a wave of hot resentment flowing clear to herfinger tips. If he had seen her flushed, intent face he would havebacked ground quickly. Unfortunately he was gazing quietly out thewindow.

  "What do you mean?" she asked.

  Wholly aware of her own displeasure, wondering at it and anxious to hideit, she was able to control her voice. Its tone gave no key to herthoughts. Harold answered her, still unwarned:

  "I mean--keep him at his distance. He's a different sort from you andI. I don't mean he isn't all right, as far as his kind goes--but hehasn't had the advantages." Harold spoke tolerantly, patronizingly."Those fellows are apt to take advantage of any familiarity. They'reall right if you keep 'em in their place--but they're mighty likely tobreak lose from it any minute. I'm sorry you ever let him call youVirginia."

  Virginia's eyes blazed. If it is one of the precepts of good breedingever to let anger control the spirit, Virginia had made a breach indeed.Her little hands clenched, and she had a fierce and insane desire tobeat those babbling lips with her fists. Then she struggled to regainher composure.

  "Listen, Harold," she began at last coldly. "I don't care to hear anymore such talk as that."

  The man looked up then. He saw the righteous indignation in her face.He felt the rising tide of his own anger. "I'm only trying to warnyou----" he began weakly.

  "And I don't need or want any such warnings. I don't care what youthink of Bill--for that matter, you can be sure that Bill doesn't careat all either--but I'll ask you to keep your thoughts to yourself.Oh, if you only knew--how good, how strong, how true he has been--howtender he has been to me----"

  Harold was torn with jealous rage, and in his fury and malice he madethe worst mistake of all. "I hope he hasn't been _too_ tender----" hesuggested viciously.

  But at once he was on his feet, begging her pardon. He knew that he hadmade a dangerous and regrettable mistake. She forgave him--forgivenesswas as much a part of her as her graciousness or her loyalty--but shedidn't immediately forget. And Harold sat long hours with smolderingeyes and clenched hands, a climbing fire and fury in his brain, whilethe malice and resentment and jealousy that he held toward Bill grew tohatred, bitter and black.