CHAPTER VI

Beyond the thicket of young jack pines Peter did not hurry. His feet dragged, and he listened, hoping he would hear his father's voice calling him back. In half an hour he did not travel far beyond the evergreens. Then he knew his father was gone. He continued in the direction of Five Fingers, recalling his promises. Tonight or tomorrow his father would return. He hoped it would be tonight, for there was a lump in his throat which he could not get rid of, and something in his heart which frightened him with suspicions and fears which he was too young to analyze. But he knew his father would not lie. He would come back. He wondered what was written on the paper he was taking to Simon McQuarrie. Probably it told about the wickedness of the police, and Simon would help in some way. Other questions came into his mind now that he was alone. Why hadn't his father gone on to Five Fingers with him?

The chopping of the axes had ceased, but he knew he was heading in the right direction. He came into openings filled with the stumps of trees that had been cut down, and these clearings were carpeted with white and pink spring flowers and masses of violets. He had[69] never seen such beautiful violets, or so many birds at this season of the year. There were robins and thrushes and dozens of little warblers and brush sparrows, and the cutting down of trees seemed to have brought all the sapsuckers and woodpeckers and gaudily colored blue jays in the woods. The sun was delightfully warm, too, though in another hour it would be settling behind the tree tops. In this glory of peace and quiet he proceeded quietly and cautiously, for his father had taught him always to do that in the forest. So he came without sound of footfall or crackling brush to the edge of a little opening beyond a thicket of poplars and birch, and here he stopped suddenly and his heart jumped up into his mouth.

Standing in a warm pool of sunlight not twenty feet away from his concealment was a young girl. She was almost as tall as Peter and so lovely to look upon that he stared at her in amazement and admiration. He thought she had seen him, and his first vision was of her face and a pair of beautiful dark eyes, laughing up at a red squirrel, chattering in a tree top a few paces away. Then she sat down, gathering her flowers about her, and eyes and face were lost to him in a mass of shining, black hair that fell quickly about her, almost touching the ground she was seated upon.

At first he was astonished. Then timidity and fear crept upon him and he wanted to steal away as quietly as he had come. He drew back a step and was preparing[70] for the next when an unexpected interruption rooted him to the spot. The wild and agonized yelping of a dog came from the thick brush beyond the girl. Instantly she was on her feet, her slim body quivering with the tension in which she waited. And then she called, "Buddy—Buddy—come here!"

With a series of pain-filled yelps the creature called Buddy responded. He darted out of the brush and came like a streak across the open. It seemed to Peter the half-grown pup was all legs and head and tail, and that from the sounds he made he must be mortally hurt. Whimpering and crying, he cringed at the girl's feet and kissed the hand she reached down to him. But she did not look at him. She had dropped her flowers and her attitude was fierce and expectant as she waited.

Peter could see the bushes moving across the open and in a moment a boy burst through them. He was half again as big as Peter, and he had a stick in his hand. He followed the dog, half running, and Peter began to hate him as he came. "Any person who will strike a dog should never have been born," his father had taught him from the beginning; and this boy with his thick red face and hulking body had been beating the pup. He was panting triumph when he came up, and the pup slunk closer between the feet of his mistress. The pursuer was at least two years older than Peter. He had thick hands and little eyes and a bullet head, and his eyes were glowing with wickedness.

[71]

For an instant Peter saw the girl's eyes. They were dark pools of flaming fire. Then like a little tigress she was at the other. Her hands struck at his face and for a moment the bully was caught at a disadvantage. He dropped his stick and caught her in his arms. His hands buried themselves in her hair, and Peter saw her blows becoming more and more futile. The pup snarled and darted in at the boy's feet. A kick sent him back howling.

Horror and rage possessed Peter when he saw the girl's head thrust backward, and without a sound he ran out of his cover and caught her assailant by the throat. Then, when the girl was freed, he struck. That was another thing his father had taught him, to fight when it was necessary to fight—and always for a woman. His fists struck hard and furiously, and he heard a bellow of alarm and pain from the bully.

The older boy stumbled and fell, and Peter was on him like a cat. He realized this was no time to "play the game fair." They rolled and twisted on the ground, and blood streamed from the bully's nose and mouth. Once Peter saw the girl. She was standing very near, her lips parted, her wonderful eyes shining at him. That glimpse of her was a mighty encouragement. He fought harder, driving his fists home, and kicking. Then they were on their feet again.

It was the bully who renewed the battle. Mauled and bleeding, he had recovered from the surprise attack[72] and his greater bulk and weight began to tell. Exhausted by two days and nights of hunger and flight, Peter felt his strength going. He went down, and the bully flung himself upon him. It was then Peter caught a second glimpse of the girl. She had caught up the stick and was standing over them. He could hear the stick as it struck blow after blow, and his enemy rolled over, half stunned. They were both at the bully then, Peter with his fists and the girl with her stick, and the older boy took to his heels in a wild flight for the safety of the thicket out of which he had come a few minutes before.

Peter wiped his nose and mouth with his sleeve and gasped hard to get his breath. The girl was breathing hard, too, and she was looking at him with such wonder and gladness in her eyes that he wished he was back in the timber again. Then she came to him and began nursing his face with a soft handkerchief, and said things which he could not remember afterward, and Buddy the pup jumped up against him, wagging his knotty tail and licking his hand.

Peter drew back and tried to grin. For a moment he had felt enormously uncomfortable in the presence of this lovely little goddess of the woods, with her soft handkerchief dabbing at his face. Now his old cheer returned. He was glad the fight was over and was strongly conscious that the girl had played no small part in the final victory.

[73]

So he said apologetically, "He'd got me if you hadn't come in with the stick."

She stood back and looked at him. She was younger than he, probably not more than thirteen, but to Peter she appeared to be infinitely older in these first minutes of their acquaintance. It bothered him to meet her eyes squarely, they were so big and dark and filled with soft fire, like the velvety, jet-black hair that streamed in dishevelment about her.

"He is twice as big as you," she retorted. "I hate him. He belongs with the tug from Fort William, and every time he comes we have a fight."

"He's a—a woman-hitter," said Peter.

She accepted his compliment with a dignified nod of her head. Then she stamped her foot and shook her stick in the direction the bully had gone. "If he ever tries to do again what he tried today—I'll—I'll——"

"He won't while I'm around," helped out Peter, swelling with a bit of pugnacious pride. "I wasn't in good shape, and I've been traveling pretty hard, and we didn't have a lot to eat. I can lick him when I'm fed up and rested."

The girl was almost womanly in her swift intuition. Her eyes glowed softly at Peter.

"Who are you?" she asked gently. "I am Mona Guyon, and I live with Josette and Pierre Gourdon at Five Fingers."

"I'm Peter," said the boy. "Peter McRae."

[74]

"Where you from?" was her next query.

Peter took time to swallow. His father had not told him how to answer questions. Then he pointed.

"From away off there, miles and miles. My father brought me until we could hear the axes, and then I came on alone. He's coming tonight or tomorrow."

"Is your mother with him?"

"She's dead."

He was not looking at her when she came to him and took his hand, and in all his life he had never felt such a warm, soft little hand clinging to his own as Mona Guyon's.

"My mother is dead, too, Peter," she said. "And so is my father. They were drowned—out there six years ago. It was Pierre Gourdon who brought me in from the rock."

It was an uncomfortable moment, and yet something of joy passed into Peter. His fingers, smoke-stained and soiled, tightened about Mona's hand as they both looked off over the cuttings to the wall of the vast forest that shut out Lake Superior from their view. They could plainly hear the distant murmuring of the surf.

"I'm glad you've come," she said. "I hope you're going to live here. Are you?"

"Maybe," said Peter.

"You're brave, and I like you. If you were that hateful Aleck Curry, who looks like a toad——"

"I wouldn't be him," interrupted Peter.

[75]

"No, but if you were, and you tried to do what he did, I wouldn't hit you with a stick."

Peter's mind floundered in a futile effort to understand.

"I can lick him tomorrow," he ventured.

With a little laugh she pulled him to the scattered flowers. He helped her pick them up and put them into one big bouquet. Her soft hair touched his hands and he found it easier to look into her eyes. His heart beat fast and he was strangely happy. He forgot his swelling eye and a stiffening lip, but he did think of his father. He would surely beg his father to live at Five Fingers. It would be wonderful there, with someone like Mona to know and fight for.

Then he thought of his message.

"I've got something for Simon McQuarrie," he said. "Dad told me to hurry with it."

"And you're hungry."

She took his hand again, in a possessive and matter-of-fact way. There was something maternal about it, something so sweetly glad and friendly that a great wave of comradeship swept through Peter. He was no longer nervous or afraid. Tonight or tomorrow his father would come, and they would all be happy.

Through a glory of warm sunset they crossed the cut-over opens and came soon to the crest of the green slope that looked down on a little paradise hidden away in the heart of a great wilderness, a paradise of green meadows, of water shimmering like silver in the sun,[76] and of the few log homes wherein lived the people whose paths Pierre Gourdon had blazed through the forests many years before.

"That is Five Fingers," said Mona.

And down the slope she led the way with Peter, still holding him by the hand.

He was speechless as they went. Everywhere he looked the earth was gloriously green, and in this green were the scattered cabins, with little spirals of smoke rising from their chimneys. He could smell this smoke, faintly sweet with the perfume of jack pine pitch and cedar. He saw the big, yellow dunes of sawdust about the mill, and in the mill itself, which had only a roof and no sides, the huge steel saw that was silent for the day blazed like a mirror in the sun. The lowing of cattle came up from the green meadows, and he saw horses grazing, and then his heart gave another jump, for between them and the little plain where the settlement lay were a doe and fawn. His fingers tightened suddenly about Mona's hand, and he stopped, an excited wonder escaping in a cry from his lips. The girl laughed softly and freed her hand for a moment to braid back her lustrous hair.

"That is Minna," she said. "We named her after Geertruda Poulin's last baby. Pierre Gourdon allows no killing for miles and miles around here, and the deer feed out of our hands and eat our hay with the cattle in winter. Only——" Her lovely face clouded, and Peter saw a glow of distress in her eyes. "The men kill[77] porcupines because they eat our chairs and doors and windows. But they bury them for me, over there in my porcupine cemetery, and I plant flowers all around them. I love porcupines."

"So do I," said Peter.

She took his hand again, and they continued down the slope. "Uncle Pierre lets me have three of them for pets," she said. "I have a great many pets, hundreds of them. All the birds and deer and bears and wild things for as far as you can see belong to me, and none of them are afraid of me. Uncle Pierre gave them to me, and no one harms them. No one except Aleck Curry," she added with a quick note of fierceness rising in her voice. "He would kill them all if he dared. I hate him!"

"I'll lick him if he doesn't leave them alone," offered Peter. "I can do it when I'm fed up."

She squeezed his hand.

"That's their boat—down there—with the big scow. It comes from Fort William four or five times each spring and summer to take the lumber away. Aleck's father owns it, and I hate him, too. He laughs at Uncle Pierre and wants to bring hunters up."

Peter was silent. A miracle was unfolding itself in his soul and under his eyes. As they came near to the first of the cabins he thought again of his father and his message.

"Where does Simon McQuarrie live?" he asked.

The girl pointed to a little cabin near the mill.[78] "Over there. And that's where I live—in the first of those two big cabins with the rows of white stones around them. Uncle Pierre and Aunt Josette live there, and Marie Antoinette and Joe in the other. Joe is Uncle Pierre's boy, and Marie Antoinette is his wife. You'll love them. Everybody does—except Aleck Curry."

"I smell bacon," suggested Peter.

The girl sniffed.

"It—it's from Simon McQuarrie's cabin," she announced, a little disappointed. "Won't you come down to our place? Please!"

"I've got to see Simon," persisted Peter. "My father told me to see him first."

Simon saw them coming. His hard Scotch face softened as he saw Mona, and he scarcely noticed Peter until they were at his open door. Then Mona said, releasing her proprietary hold on the boy's hand: "This is Peter McRae. His father is out in the woods, and he's coming tonight or tomorrow. Peter wants to see you about something and he's hungry. He just whipped Aleck Curry, and that's why his eye is black and his lip swollen. Good-by, Peter!"

There was something wholly and beautifully satisfying about Mona, and Peter felt himself strangely alone when she left him and he found himself in the cabin with Simon. And then a thing happened which would have amazed all the people in Five Fingers could they have seen it, for Simon McQuarrie, with his honest[79] heart and hard face, had never revealed himself a man of emotion. Yet scarcely had Mona gone when he drew Peter into his arms, and his thin gray face shone with a strange light as he looked over the boy's head into the sunset that flooded the open door.

"Peter—Peter McRae," he said as if speaking to himself. "Helen's boy—and Donald's. It's been a long time since I've seen you, Peter, a long time. And——"

He held him off and looked at him in a way that puzzled Peter. "You look like your mother, boy, when she was a little girl. I knew her then."

Peter was fishing in his pocket.

"My father sent this to you," he said, giving Simon the bottle.

The Scotchman opened it, and Peter watched his face as he read what was on the paper. He saw the lines about Simon's mouth harden and little wrinkles gather about his eyes. Then he turned, crushing the paper tightly in one hand, and added half a dozen slices of bacon to those already in the pan on the stove. After that he read the paper very deliberately a second time, and burned it. He cut more bread, brought out a pie, and while he added finishing touches to a feast that made Peter's eyes shine, he talked—but not about the paper in the bottle. When supper was ready he ate little himself, but watched the boy. Peter was starved. When he was done Simon rose to his feet and passed a big, lean hand over the boy's fair hair. His heart[80] ached. Yet a duty had been imposed upon him, and he did not draw away from it. Words which Donald McRae had heavily underscored in the message he had sent kept repeating themselves in his mind, like a voice which he could not put off or deny.

"Tell him now, tonight, as soon as he comes to you," Donald had written. "Before the stars are over me again I want to feel that he knows the truth, and understands, and has forgiven me. It may be I am a coward because I do not tell him myself. But I cannot. I am afraid. I want to think of him always as he has been. I cannot leave him with a heart breaking or his faith dying. God will bless you, Simon. It is for Peter's sake—and Helen's—even more than mine."

They sat down on a bench, facing the last of the sunset, and Simon put his arm about the boy's shoulders. He tried to begin, and something rose in his throat and choked him so he could not speak. He tried again, and said:

"So Mona found you, and you fought Aleck Curry and whipped him?"

"She helped me," confessed Peter. "But I was empty. I can lick him now, when I'm fed up."

Simon's arm tightened. His long fingers touched the boy's cheek gently. "You like Mona?"

"Yes, sir."

Simon waited. Then he said:

"Do you want me to tell you a story, Peter—a story[81] about another girl like Mona, who lived a long, long time ago?"

Peter nodded, wondering whether Simon would then tell him something about the letter that was in the bottle.

The story was short, for Simon McQuarrie was a cold and—most people thought—an emotionless man. But his heart was beating painfully as he began his tale.

"A long time ago there was another girl just like Mona, and just as lovely and sweet, Peter, and there were three boys who grew up near her. But one of these boys was almost a man, much older than the other two, so that when the girl came to young womanhood he was really almost old enough to be her father. And these three all loved her, every one of them, but one of the three was very much like this Aleck Curry you fought and had a heart in him that didn't know what clean love was. Well, of course, she loved just one of them, Peter, and he was the best and noblest of the three. Her name was Helen."

"My mother's name," said Peter quickly.

"Yes, and the odd thing about it is the name of the man she married was Donald, just like your father's. That's why I'm telling you the story, Peter. It—it's queer."

Peter was silent.

"The man who was almost old enough to be her[82] father was glad in a way," went on Simon. "No one ever knew just how badly it broke him up, but their happiness in time made him happy, and he was the best friend they ever had. At least, I think he was. But the black-hearted one of the three was different, and one day when Donald and the older man were away he came to her cabin and insulted her, even though she had a little baby in her arms. And just then the other two came back. What would you have done, Peter?"

Peter's body had stiffened.

"If he was like Aleck Curry—I'd—I'd have killed him," he said.

Simon drew in a deep, slow breath.

"And that is just what happened, Peter. Donald killed him. He didn't mean to do it. It was an accident. But it happened. And the other man deserved it. He was better dead than alive. But it made a murderer of Donald, and they hang murderers. So the older man cared for the woman and the baby for three years, while Donald hid himself in the forests. Then—Helen died. And Donald came back and took the boy, and for years after that the law didn't know where he was, and they were happy together, and would always have been happy if the law hadn't found him again, and——"

Simon's voice choked. His arm hugged Peter until it hurt. And then he finished, almost whispering the last words, "Peter, I know it's all true, because the[83] older man's name was Simon McQuarrie—and I'm Simon McQuarrie—and—the boy's name—was Peter."

It was out. He bowed his grizzled cheek to the boy's face and fought hard to choke back the thickening in his throat. It seemed a long time to him that Peter did not move or speak. But he could feel the tremble of the boy's body, and he knew that Peter understood.

"So he won't come back," he said, trying to bring a note of comfort into his strained voice. "At least not for a long time, Peter. And he wants you to live with me. That's what he wrote on the paper you brought in the bottle."

Still Peter did not speak. He was staring through the door, and it was hard for Simon to find more words.

"We'll take good care of you here, Peter."

Then Peter spoke.

"Dad won't come back tonight or tomorrow?"

"No."

"Nor ever?"

"Maybe he'll come, but it will be a long time."

"And they're after him, like they were back there in the woods. They want to—hang him?"

"They won't catch him, Peter. That is why he left you here. He can travel faster without you and is safe right now. But we must tell no one else about him. We must keep it all between ourselves—a secret."

Peter slipped out quietly from under Simon's arm.[84] He had no more questions to ask, and Simon made no effort to follow him as he went out into the last glow of the day. Slowly Peter walked past the mill and the yellow sawdust piles toward the timber which axes had not touched at the edge of the clearing. But he no longer took notice of the sunset glow or the twitter of birds or wondered at the molten gleam of the Middle Finger. He entered into the shadowing twilight of the forest and for the first time a sob broke from his dry lips. Then he called his father's name aloud, and the silence that followed emptied his heart of its last hope. He sank down in a huddled heap beside a tree, and his grief found vent in a low sobbing that broke strangely and terribly in the gloomy stillness of the trees. It was in this hour that Peter needed the comfort of a woman's arms. His world was gone. Without his father he wanted to die.

The darkness crept closer about him. And then a little hand, timid, soft, touched his cheek.

"Peter!"

It was Mona. Her beautiful eyes were glowing softly at him in the dusk as he raised his head to look at her through his tears. She knelt down beside him, and he choked back his sobs, struggling to hide his grief and his tears from her. And then Buddy the pup snuggled under his arm and kissed his cheek with his cool tongue. Mona was dabbing at his eyes again with her little handkerchief, and her voice was soft and sweet in its mothering gentleness.

[85]

It was then Peter forgot Simon's warning, and there in the deepening gloom of the forest, with Mona close beside him, he told what it was in his heart to tell—all about the police, and the fight and the running away, and now the losing of his father.

"There isn't anyone else but my dad," he half sobbed at the end. "I even lost my dog. I haven't got anything now—an' I wish I was dead!"

"You don't," she reproved, her two hands holding one of his own tightly, "and you have got someone. You've got me. I'll take care of you. I will, Peter. I promise. And you can have Buddy, and all my pets—everything I've got. And—he will come back. Your father, I mean. All we got to do is wait." Her eyes were glowing at him in the dusk. "Why, your father is alive and he can come back," she said straight from the heart. "Mine can't. He is dead. And so is my mother."

An emotion new and strange swept over Peter—a flash of dawning manhood stirred to mysterious life by that note of something which had come from Mona's lips, a woman of the future whispering to him, chivalry calling, a boy's soul and a girl's rising for a moment above their years to point out the way to a new tomorrow.

Peter's heart grew warm again. He rose to his feet, and Mona stood beside him. In the darkness they were very close.

"I guess you're right," he said. "Dad won't stay[86] away very long. And I—I'm sorry about your father and mother, Mona. And if Aleck Curry bothers you again, or kicks the dog——"

And so they went back through the dusk to Five Fingers, and this time it was Peter who held firmly to Mona's hand.