CHAPTER XI

The moon did not come up that night. Darkness shut in the earth, and with it came a warm and sullen stillness, broken only by low intonations of distant thunder, advancing over the roofs of the forest. A long time after Simon had gone Peter went to the window and sat staring out into the gloom. The air was drowsily heavy and bore with it the cooling breath of rain. After a little a swift whispering ran through the forest and the first gentle patter of raindrops fell on the cabin roof. The thunder crashed nearer and vivid flashes of lightning cut like flaming knives through the blackness. In a moment, it seemed to Peter, the storm broke in a deluge that set the log walls atremble. It beat straight down, and did not come in at the window. Peter did not stir. As long ago as he could remember his father had taught him to be unafraid of the awesomeness and beauty of thunder and lightning, and many times they had watched a storm together until the boy was thrilled by the significance and the mystery of it.

It was his father he missed tonight, the immeasurable thrill of his voice, his presence and his love. Without reason his eyes strained questingly in those[138] brief moments when the lightning flashes filled the world with a white radiance. In that light he could see the mill, stark and vivid, like a skeleton illumined by fire, the trees, the cabins, the stub in which the flying squirrels lived, and the edge of the forest. He did not miss that half of his vision which he had lost in his fight with Aleck Curry; he had forgotten the fight, and even Mona Guyon. For a time his thoughts were alone with his father, and with his yearning and his loneliness an unreasonable hope filled his soul—the hope that his father would keep his promise and that out in the glare of the lightning he would see him coming from the forest into the clearing. His heart ached for that. He did not know it, but under his breath he was sobbing a little.

It was the truth, forcing itself upon him, the sullen, terrible truth, driving him back from the window and sending him creeping to his blankets, where he lay huddled and still. He had never hated anyone, not even Aleck Curry. But he was beginning to hate somebody—something—now. He hated the men who were after his father, and he was beginning vaguely to hate that controlling force which both his father and Simon McQuarrie had told him was the law. If his father had only taken him! If they were only together now, away out there in the forest, under a log or snuggled in the shelter of an overturned root—anywhere—just so they were together!

Why had his father lied to him, promising him he[139] would come back in a day or two? Why had he sent him on alone to Five Fingers? Peter choked back the sob in his throat. He knew. It was because his father loved him—because he knew that he could never return, and wanted him to have a home with Simon McQuarrie.

Burying his face in his arm, Peter gave up to his grief. It was a silent, choking grief that ate into his heart but brought no cry to his lips.

The thunder and lightning passed and the rain settled into a steady patter on the roof. It was like hundreds of gentle fingers tapping within a few feet of Peter's head. It comforted him in his aloneness and his grief. Mona was listening to that same friendly patter on the cedar shingles. Tomorrow he would see her again, and his heart grew warm. A part of her seemed to come into the darkness of his room, and he could see her eyes shining and feel the touch of her hand—and the kiss. And afterward he fell asleep, stirred by the strange and comforting sensation that Mona was near him.

But in sleep he lost her. He dreamed that he was trying to steal away from Five Fingers to go in search of his father, but again and again Simon McQuarrie caught him and brought him back. At last success came. It was night, and he was crawling out through his window into the moonlight, with a pack on his back. He jumped to the ground and made for the woods. And then a strange thing happened. Where his father[140] had left him he found footprints on the earth. They were very clear, and shining, as if made of bright silver, and they reached a long distance ahead of him through the forest. It puzzled him that his own feet left no trail at all while his father's trail was so clear.

Days and nights seemed to pass as he followed persistently this silvery trail. Then he came to a wonderful forest where the trees were so tall their tops seemed lost against the sky. He walked on flowers. Great masses of purple violets crushed under his feet, roses filled the air with sweetness, wild geraniums nodded and bowed to him, and crimson splashes of fire-flowers carpeted long aisles and broad chambers of this mysterious paradise.

He came at last to a waterfall. It did not roar, like waterfalls he had known, but fell with a rippling song. Near the waterfall was a cabin, and straight to the door of the cabin led the silvery trail! Peter followed it. He opened the door and went in and his father was there. He turned to greet Peter and did not seem surprised. His face was smiling and happy, and tender with the old cheer and the old love.

"I thought you would come soon, Peter," he said. "I've been waiting for you."

It was then Peter awakened. The patter of rain on the roof had ceased. The night had cleared and was filled with stars, and a sweet warmth came in through the open window. His dream had been overwhelmingly[141] real, and it left him with his heart beating strangely. He did not sleep again but lay awake until the stars began to fade in the gray light of dawn. Then he dressed himself, making no sound that might disturb Simon. When he looked down from his window he almost expected to see the marks he had made in his dream-leap. And it could be done—that jump! He crept out backward, lowered himself full length from the windowsill and dropped easily to the rain-softened earth.

He went toward the stream which came down from the timbered hills and ridges. The birds were beginning to sing, the robins first, twittering their sweetest of all songs, with eyes half closed. It grew gently, each soft note increasing in strength until the invisible chorus filled the clearing with its welcome to the day. A thrush joined in. Bright-winged bluebirds flew ahead of him, and sweet-voiced brush sparrows cheeped and fluttered in their coverts, waiting for the sun. Even the water dripping from the trees held in its sound the cadence of whispered song.

And as if this melody held a spell which they were powerless to combat, or which inspired them to silence, the raucous jays were still and aloof, the whisky jacks waited in fluffy brown balls, a cock-of-the-wood clung to the side of a tree, his plumed head and powerful bill making no sound upon the wood, and ahead of Peter a gray owl retreated to a deeper and darker hiding-place.

[142]

The forest was a cathedral, and its symphony seized upon Peter's soul and lifted it on a great wave of anticipation and hope.

His father was listening to the birds, too. He was waiting for the sunrise. And a stirring thought came to Peter. If his father did not return, he would do what he had done in his dream—go in search of him. He was sure he could find him.

He undressed at the edge of a pool in which the water was warm enough for a swim, and came out of it a little later shivering—but still thinking. The early rays of the sun were breaking over the tree-tops when he returned to the clearing. His bad eye was half open and most of the swelling was gone from his lips. Simon was getting breakfast and was surprised that Peter should come through the door instead of down the ladder.

During the next hour his shrewd eyes saw a change in the boy. Peter was restless and asked questions. Where would his father be likely to go? Had he said anything about it in his letter to Simon?

The Scotchman shook his head, guessing a little of what was in Peter's mind. He explained the vastness of the forests. They reached a thousand miles north and twice that far east and west, and one might lose himself in them all his life. Their bigness did not discourage Peter.

"I think I can find my father," he said. "If he doesn't come back I'm going to try."

[143]

The thought gripped him more tenaciously as the early hours of the morning passed. Simon brushed and mended him, and said he should have new clothes as quickly as they could be brought from the settlement on the railroad, and he talked of Aleck's defeat, and of Mona, and of the wonderful beaver colony two miles away, but the new thrill in Peter's blood swept over all other things that might have interested him.

He would not tell Simon, but he was going in search of his father—soon. It might be that night, or the next, if he could get things together for a pack.

The sun was well up when he saw Mona come out of the Gourdon cabin, and he went across the clearing to meet her. He was a little upset, for he would have to apologize for running away from her in such a boorish fashion yesterday. Mona's appearance this morning set his heart aflutter. She seemed almost as old as Adette Clamart, and not at all like the little fighting comrade who had helped him whip Aleck Curry at their first meeting. She was dressed in spotless white, and her long hair rippled and shone in the sun, and her dark eyes were so beautiful that for a moment or two Peter could find nothing to say as she looked at him.

Mona was not entirely unconscious of her disconcerting loveliness, and her eyes shone and the color grew prettier in her cheeks when she saw its effect on Peter.

"This is my Sunday dress," she said, helping him out of his embarrassment. "Do you like it?"

[144]

Peter shifted, and thought quickly. "You look like a snowbird, one of the kind with a black topknot," he complimented her. "What do you think of me?" And he turned so that she could see where Simon had mended his rusty clothes.

The sparkle died out of Mona's eyes, and in the moment when his back was toward her Peter did not see the look of pity and tenderness that took its place, and with it a shadow of something else, as if he had hurt her.

"I put on this dress for you. That's what I think of you, Peter."

"I got better clothes," he explained, "but we came away so fast we didn't have time to bring them."

"I'm glad you didn't. I like you the way you are. Do you like me, Peter—really?"

"A lot."

"How much?"

Peter turned over various terms of measurement in his mind. "Next to my father," he said.

"Then why did you run away from me when I was in the kitchen with Adette Clamart?" she asked.

Peter flushed. "I dunno. Guess I didn't like to be laughed at. And the baby—he didn't know who I was."

The soft notes of a bell tolled over the clearing, and Peter drew himself erect and breathed a little tensely as he listened to it. "I used to hear a church bell like[145] that, a long time ago," he said, softly. "I can just remember it."

She touched his arm as they listened. "I was coming to take you to church. Father Albanel says you promised."

She started down the slope, walking slowly, with Peter at her side. He thought it was interesting how the sound of the bell suddenly opened the doors of Five Fingers.

Pierre Gourdon came out of his cabin with his wife, and Josette was dressed in white, like Mona; and Marie Antoinette, waiting with Joe and their two children to greet them, looked like a slim white angel to Peter. Even Geertruda Poulin, who was almost as wide as she was high, wore a dress as white as the gull's wings down in Middle Finger Inlet.

The children were prim and starched and the men were in clothes which Peter had not seen them wear before, their faces shining with the effect of lather and sharp razors.

And loveliest of all the girls and women, Peter thought, was Mona—lovelier even than Adette Clamart, who came hurrying to them with laughing eyes and red lips and rebellious curls dancing about her pink cheeks to beg Peter's pardon for laughing at him the preceding afternoon.

To Peter's infinite dismay Adette seized his head between her two small hands and kissed him squarely on the eye which had looked so funny to her yesterday.

[146]

"There, I'm sorry, Peter," she said. "But you did look so funny."

She was gone like one of the dainty, golden canaries that nested in the clearing, running to catch up with Jame, her husband, who had Telesphore in his arms.

Fire leaped into Mona's cheeks.

"I won't have Adette Clamart doing that," she protested indignantly. "If your eye needs kissing——"

Peter was wiping it with the back of his hand.

"That's right, wipe it away," she encouraged spitefully. "I hate her!"

Peter said nothing. But he saw Mona's lovely eyes flash in Adette's direction when they were seated on one of the wooden benches in the little church. Adette smiled mischievously and nodded her head, but Mona made no response except to tilt her pretty chin a little higher in the air and look straight ahead of her to the platform where Father Albanel was ready to begin the service.

The little missioner's face was even rosier and jollier than yesterday, it seemed to Peter, and he was smiling and nodding and rubbing his hands as if this particular hour was the happiest of his life.

Peter, looking secretly about him, was impressed by the fact that this was unlike any other Sunday meeting he had ever attended. He missed the serious and almost awesome solemnity of the other similar occasions he could remember. Here everyone was free and easy and refreshingly happy. Even Simon McQuarrie's[147] emotionless face was more gentle, and he smiled when he saw Peter, and a ripple of laughter ran easily through the gathering when young Telesphore crowed delightedly and waved his arms in an embracing greeting to all about him. Then came the tinkle of a bell, and suddenly the room was very quiet.

What happened after that was like a dream to Peter, and it seemed constantly to be awakening something new and happier within him. He had never heard singing like that which filled the little church. Mona's voice was clear and soft as the crested warbler's song which he loved; and when she looked at him and whispered, "Sing, Peter," his courage came to him, and a little at a time he lifted his voice until his boyish tenor rose clearly at her side. When they sat down she was nearer to him, so near that her wonderful white dress crumpled close against him and a tress of her shining hair fell upon his hand.

"I love your singing, Peter," she whispered to him again.

His heart beat fast and his hand twitched nervously under the silken caress of her hair. Until now—this hour when they sat so close together in the church—he had not felt the deeper stir of that emotion which was growing in him. Surreptitiously his fingers closed about the soft tress of hair. Mona did not know it, no one knew it but himself, and he looked straight ahead while his heart beat still faster and the warm thrill of his secret sent the blood into his face.

[148]

Father Albanel was talking. And in a trance Peter listened. What struck him, and what he remembered so clearly afterward, was the way in which the little missioner talked about all living things, as if the flowers and trees had hearts and souls, and God loved the forests and all wild things just as much as He loved people. Peter had heard his father say many of those same things, only in a different way—for Father Albanel's voice was like deep music that reached down into the soul, and there was no whisper or stir among those who listened to him.

He seemed to be looking straight at Peter when he talked about Faith, and what faith meant in the lives of men and women and children; and to make this clear to the children of Five Fingers he told the legend of Nepise, the beautiful Indian maiden, who was known as the Torch-Bearer. It seemed to Peter the missioner was describing Mona, for Nepise was the loveliest girl among all her people, with eyes that were pools of beauty and hair that fell about her like a shining black garment. The story became a tragic and living thing to him; he saw the plague-stricken Indian people, and when Nepise died the effect upon him was like a shock. But she had made her dying people a promise—a wonderful promise!—to come back in spirit, bearing with her the Torch of Life, and with this flaming torch she would go from tepee to tepee and from village to village, and all who had faith in her would see her and to them would come health and happiness. And Nepise[149] kept her promise, and forever after that, and up to this very day, the Indian maiden was known throughout the wilderness as the Torch-Bearer.

When Father Albanel had finished Peter looked at Mona. Her red lips were parted, her eyes were aglow, and in her white throat a little heart seemed beating. And when they stood up again to sing his fingers still held the soft tress of hair, and this time Mona saw it, and smiled at him, and Peter was no longer afraid of his secret.

After Father Albanel's benediction Mona led Peter a little hurriedly from the meeting-house, but without losing her prim dignity so long as she thought Adette Clamart's eyes might be upon her.

"I shan't speak to her all day!" she confided in Peter.

They passed near the tug and saw Aleck Curry fishing from the stern, and Mona told him that neither Aleck nor his father ever came to church. Then they came to a narrow foot trail that was new to Peter and for half an hour walked slowly out on a green-timbered point of land until they reached the big lake. It was the finest view Peter had ever had of Superior. The great sea seemed to engulf the world, and away out there were three white dots which were ships under canvas. It was warm and calm, and he was puzzled by a sullen, booming roar until Mona led the way down a break in the cliff and showed him the Pit, where the surf and undertows boiled and rumbled even in fair weather. And in storm——

[150]

She tried to tell him what it was then, when the great rocks were like so many monsters, grinding things to pieces, and when nothing that lived could exist for more than a minute or two in what Pierre Gourdon called the maelstroms. They found a clean white rock, worn smooth by the water, and sat down, and Peter wondered at the change which came into Mona's face.

"Can you remember your mother, Peter?" she asked softly.

He was silent for a moment, and then said, "I've seen her a good many times when I was asleep."

"Do you still see her?"

"I did two nights ago."

"Is she pretty?"

"Yes."

"So is mine." She folded her hands in her lap and added quietly: "Out there is where my mother and father were drowned. Uncle Pierre tied me to his back and brought me ashore."

Then she told him the story of the wreck of the sailing ship, and how Aunt Josette and Marie Antoinette and Father Albanel and all the people of Five Fingers said it was a miracle that even one should come ashore alive. And she was that one.

"Father Albanel sometimes comes down here with me," she said. "I love him. He always tells me about Nepise. Isn't that a pretty name, Peter? It means Willow Bud. But after she died and her spirit came back with the torch they called her Suskuwao,[151] which means the Torch-Bearer. I love her, too. Do you?"

Peter nodded. "I was thinking of you," he said desperately, trying to get the choking thought out of him. "Father Albanel was looking at you when he told about the Indian girl. That's what you've been to me since I come—a—a sort of torch-bearer, like he said she was. I dunno what I'd have done if it hadn't been for you."

It was out, and for a moment or two the suffocating realization of what he had said made it difficult for him to breathe easily. Mona did not look at him. Her shining eyes were fixed steadily upon the vastness of the lake.

"Was that why you touched my hair, Peter?"

"I guess so."

"You like me—like that?"

He nodded again, finding the moment too tremendous for words. And this time Mona was looking at him. There was an earnestness in her face which made her seem older to Peter. Her eyes were a woman's eyes, calm and steady in their gaze, as they studied him for a moment.

"And I like you, Peter," she said then, "I like you so much—that I never want you to go away from Five Fingers."

"And I never want to go," he said. "Not if my father comes back."

"He will come!"

[152]

Her voice was quick and sure and filled with a vibrant ring that sent a little tremble through him. She was sitting very straight, and a gust of wind stirred her hair so that it rippled and floated about her, and Peter—looking at her with wide eyes and swiftly beating heart—thought of Father Albanel, and of Nepise the Torch-Bearer, and the beautiful faith the little missioner had visioned entered into him and he believed. And the strange and thrilling impulse came to him to put his hand to that soft cloud of Mona's hair and tell her that he believed. But he did not move, nor did he speak. For a space Mona seemed to be far away from him, gazing at something which he could not see out beyond the turmoil of the Pit. Her fingers were interlocked in her lap, and not until the voice of Jame Clamart hallooed down from the top of the cliff was the spell of silence broken.

Mona started but did not look up. She knew Adette was there, smiling down at them and ready to wave her hand. Quite calmly she said to Peter:

"It's that Adette Clamart. Will you promise never to let her kiss you again?"

"Sure—I promise," said Peter.

"As long as you live?"

"As long as I live."

"Cross your heart, Peter!"

Devoutly Peter took the solemn oath.

"I'm glad," said Mona. "I don't like kissing—but if it has to be done I'll do it!" And a fiery little note in[153] her voice was so combatively possessive that Peter suddenly felt himself a helpless but willing slave in chains.

And in the days and weeks that followed his first Sunday in the settlement this bondage was stronger than the hungering loneliness for his father which pulled him at times toward the big forests of the north. Mona's world became his world. He began to fit into its play, its duties, and the family communism of its environment. He went to school. At odd hours he worked about the mill and helped in the spring planting, and later in the tilling of the soil.

In the passing of the summer Mona and Peter spent much of their time together in the cool depths of the forests. On these adventurings they were inseparable, and their favorite haunt, specially on Sunday afternoons, was a beaver colony a mile and a half up the shore of the lake and a little back in the rough ridges and hills. The beaver settlement was Mona's own property, and it was one of the laws of Five Fingers that no one should despoil it with trap or gun. It was five years ago, Mona told Peter, that four old beavers emigrated from some one of the colonies back in the hills and she and Pierre discovered them building a dam at this place. There were now over thirty of them. A long time ago they had ceased to be afraid of her, and some of them were so friendly she could touch them with her hand. But they were alarmed when Peter came with her and for days scarcely a head would show when he was about. Very slowly and with[154] extreme caution they began to accept him as a part of Mona, and the first cool breath of autumn was in the nights before they would openly disclose themselves or play on their slides or proceed with the varied duties of their lives when he was watching the big dark pool in which they had built their homes.