ralph wished to leave the valley by himself. after what had happened, to be with nahnya night and day without ever meeting her eyes, or exchanging a word beyond what the business of camp made necessary, seemed like the very refinement of torture. but there was no help for it. it was too hard to go back upstream, nahnya said; they must go out a different way, and she must show him.
she took charley, which made it easier. they set off next morning. in his instinct to conceal pain, ralph was as much an indian as any of them. no one could have guessed from his composed face what had happened. such natures consume themselves inwardly. he was scarcely conscious of what was taking place outside him.
charley was nothing loath at the prospect of another journey. little by little the indian boy had come to be at his ease with ralph. his stolidity, it appeared, was largely an affectation for the purpose of impressing white strangers. he now talked freely to ralph in a queer jargon of english and cree of what interested him, hunting and animals and making trips. st. jean bateese, too, who accompanied them to the mouth of the cave, stuck close to ralph's side, and betrayed an unaffected regret at his going away.
"i can win them all but her," thought ralph bitterly.
before the cave swallowed him, ralph looked for the last time at the lake with its sheen like a peacock's breast; at the kingly mountains drenched with sunshine, and at the mad, green meadows with their white-stemmed birches. "i leave myself here," he thought. he grimly clenched the stem of his pipe between his teeth.
during the long traverse under the mountain, ralph spoke but once. passing the scarecrow, he asked why it had been set up there. charley explained that it was to keep the animals out. the man-smell which clung to his clothes was sufficient.
on the site of their last camp in the great forest they spelled for a meal. afterward nahnya brought the handkerchief to ralph with a deprecating air.
"that's ridiculous now," cried ralph, turning red. "i won't be carried down like a cripple!"
nahnya, not looking at him, asked quietly: "you promise never to come this way again?"
"no!" said ralph instantly. he could not have told why the word sprang from his lips. perhaps it was that hope cannot be killed dead in a lover's heart while it beats.
the bandage was put on. upon ralph's promise not to disturb it, they refrained from binding his arms. and so after all he was carried down, chafing all the way. an instinct of caution kept him from telling them he knew he could find his way back anyway if he chose.
carrying him downhill was comparatively easy. when they halted at last and the bandage was removed, ralph found they were still immured in the forest, but from a murmur of the rapids that reached his ears, he knew they had come almost to the river.
"we will travel all night," nahnya said, "so you not have your eyes blinded. better sleep now."
he did sleep. he had had none the night before.
they awoke him to eat. once more the bandage was put on, and he was carried, but only for a little way. they came out beside the river, and he was laid on the flat rock. he heard them launch the boat, and stow their baggage. then he was laid on the blankets and they pushed off.
ralph had supposed they would go back at least part of the way they had come. his surprise was therefore great when he heard the roar of the rapids growing closer, and realized they were going on down. his hand instinctively shot to the bandage over his eyes. remembering in time that he had given his word, he clenched it instead, and ground his teeth.
nahnya, understanding something of what was passing through his mind, said: "this is an easy rapid. i know all the rocks in it."
there was the same breathless pause while the whole firmament was filled with the roaring of the waters; the startling plunge and mad leaping below; the same sudden subsidence into an unnatural calm. it was like dreaming of falling over a precipice. from the quickness with which the roar dulled to a murmur behind them ralph realized they were carried down at an astonishing speed. he wondered grimly if ever before a blind man had been taken down great rapids in a crazy dugout.
some time later nahnya leaned over and took the bandage from around his head. it was dark, or nearly so. at first he saw only towering mountain masses on either hand, and overhead the stars beginning to come out. sitting up, he was amazed at the metamorphosis of the river. it was the ragged, violent rice river when he had seen it last. here was a volume and majesty that stream had never suggested. in mere size it was trebled, and its banks were flung up to the stars. the overwhelming shadow mountains seemed to be drawing back courteously to allow the mighty stream to pass. to see such a place for the first at night, added to its majesty. ralph was dimly conscious that he was beholding one of the great sights of earth.
his subconscious mind never ceased to register every detail by the way that might help him to learn where he was, and to find his way back if need be. looking over his shoulder he could see a faint glow in the sky up-river. so it was true, as he had supposed, they were travelling east. what river this was, or what mountains, he did not know; though he guessed that in north america there was but one such mountain chain. he tried to calculate the speed at which they were travelling by current and paddle. the river made no sound except here and there where it snarled over an obstruction alongshore, but he knew from the way the points on shore marched past that their speed was considerable. finally passing close beside an exposed bar he had something to measure by, and he was astonished. ten miles an hour he would have said, did it not seem incredible.
by and by charley with a word to nahnya put his paddle aboard, and stretched himself in the bottom of the dugout. soon his deepened breathing gave notice that he slept. nahnya, too, took in her paddle, and sat still, letting the current carry them. the eddies waltzed them slowly around and back, and the stars circled over their heads.
this was the hardest part of ralph's ordeal. to be alone with her under the stars, and not to be able to touch her, nor to speak of what was cracking his heart, seemed more than a man ought to be called upon to bear. his streak of stubborn manliness would not allow him to reopen the discussion of the night before. "i have my answer," he said to himself. "it is enough! i will not whine!"
and so he sat in silence thinking his painful thoughts, and she in silence thinking hers—but whether they were painful he could not guess. the question tormented him, and finally sprang from his lips:
"what are you thinking of, nahnya?"
"nothing," she said quickly, with a suggestion of sullenness in her voice.
it hurt him shrewdly. "can't we be friends?" he burst out. "can't i speak to you?"
she made no answer, and he sat fuming and nourishing his grievance. after a long time, when he had given up hope of hearing her speak, she said softly:
"i sorry, ralph. you take me by surprise. i not know what to say. i want to be friends. i cannot tell my thoughts."
at the unexpected touch of gentleness, remorse and renewed tenderness melted him like wax. "oh, nahnya," he said brokenly, "i'm sorry! why can't you tell me?"
"i not know how to give them words," she said simply. "maybe they are not thoughts, but feelings."
"what are the feelings?" he asked.
"please!" she said imploringly. "i cannot talk. i have say everything before."
"there's something i want to tell you," ralph said haltingly, grateful for the darkness that covered him. "words don't come any too easy to me, either. i want you to know that i'm not sore like a spoiled child that can't have what he wants. i don't seem to matter to myself as much as i did. it goes deeper. i want to tell you i'll never change, nahnya, not in fifty years, if i live so long. no matter what may happen in between, if i could ever help you—— oh! i talk like a fool! but i've got to say it! if i could ever help you, i'd come from across the world. expecting nothing, you know, but just to help you! oh, damn! if i could feel that you would let me help you it—it wouldn't hurt so much!"
"i would let you help me if you could," she murmured.
"your hand on that!" he said.
she gave him her hand over his shoulder. gripping it, he pressed it hard to his cheek, and a single cry was wrung from him:
"oh, nahnya, my dear love!"
gritting his teeth, he forced the rest back. "i will not whine!" he muttered to himself.
nahnya sat behind him like a ghost woman, giving no sign.
dawn broke over the river ahead of them, and the sun rose and shone straight through the noble pass. charley awoke, and the three of them took paddles. they left the principal mountain chain behind them, and thereafter the river pursued a circuitous course through wide flats and around the bases of lesser heights. they breakfasted on an exposed stony bar, obtaining fuel from a fantastic jam of drift-logs left at high water.
as the sun approached the meridian, nahnya produced the bandage again. her face expressed the old, wistful, inscrutable blank. never was there such a woman for ignoring all that had passed.
"we going to land soon," she said. "i take it off then."
ralph submitted.
they landed within sound of another rapid, a hollow, throaty roar. after a wait to unload the canoe and pack their slender baggage on their backs, ralph was led up the bank, and as his moccasined feet told him, put upon a well-beaten trail.
"put your hand on charley's shoulder and follow," nahnya said. "it is a good trail. you will not fall."
after a few minutes nahnya took off the bandage, and ralph found that they were swallowed in the bush once more. but this was only a forest of thickly springing aspen saplings, with straight white stems, and twinkling, trembling bright leaves. the trail wound ahead of them and behind like an endless brown ribbon. centuries of moccasined travel, not to speak of the hoofs and paws that used it surreptitiously, had packed the earth too hard for anything to grow.
always looking out for any evidences of his whereabouts, ralph thought: "this must be a main route of travel."
once climbing a hill, he had a glimpse of the river behind them. thence uphill and down the trail led them over a rough and characterless country. the aspen trees were springing from the ashes of the original forest. there were raw open spaces filled with the charred remains of the monarchs, mantled with the purple-red bloom of the fire-weed. through the openings ralph saw lesser mountain heights, green to the summit. he called it an unbeautiful land. as far as he could judge the general trend of the trail was northeastward, but the trail twisted continually, and he often lost the sun.
they had covered, he guessed, between twelve and fifteen miles, when nahnya called a halt. they were in a little stretch of grass fringing a still streamlet.
"we stop here till midnight," she said. "all will sleep."
ralph awoke about sunset to find that he and charley were alone in camp. his heart winced, remembering the other times she had stolen away from camp and he had followed her. this time he did not go. soon he saw her coming back in the trail with an axe upon her shoulder. he thought that her footsteps dragged, and that her face betrayed an unutterable, sad weariness. rising quickly, he found he was mistaken. it was the old, walled face that she showed him.
"we start in five hours," she said quietly. "sleep some more." she lay down at a little distance.
it was very dark when they arose and made up their packs. continuing on the trail they were obliged to keep close together. presently they commenced to zigzag down a long hill where the trail was much broken and washed by rain. ralph, putting his feet into holes, and catching his toes on exposed roots, made but rough going of it. they reached the bottom at last, and the trail became good again, but nahnya, who was leading, presently struck off from it, and they crossed a wide meadow, their moccasins swishing through the grass.
the sky was heavily overclouded. ralph could barely make out nahnya close ahead; everything else was swallowed up in the thick darkness. nevertheless nahnya seemed to know exactly where they were. at a certain point in the grass, without any distinguishing features that ralph could see, she stopped, saying:
"we wait here till it is light. you can sleep if you want."
dawn brought another dramatic surprise: they were resting almost at the edge of a steep declivity of earth, and two hundred feet below moved another great, smooth, swift stream, its eddying surface gleaming in the gathering light like creased satin, or as if the water were flowing shallowly over a mirror. it stretched away far to the left, confined deep between its dim, bare heights, like a luminous ribbon. downstream were several fairy-like islands half-revealed through the mist with their unreal foliage.
it was a kind of gigantic trough that confined the river. from the edge of the bank the land stretched back in gentle undulations. behind them and off to the left as far as they could see rolled an unbroken sea of grass showing a strange, dark green in the half-light. to the right about half a mile away the wooded hills began, rising tier behind tier. the river first appeared foaming from behind a spur of these hills. behind him in the grass ralph was astonished to discover two ancient log shacks with boarded windows and padlocked doors. they reminded him with a faint shock of the existence of fellow white men.
nahnya was busy wrapping a pack within blankets. after cording the bundle and tying it, she gave it to charley, and with a laconic command, led the way down the precipitous slope. they scrambled and slid down to the water's edge, accompanied by miniature avalanches of gravel. at the bottom, drawn up on the stones, there was a little raft made of four lengths of dead timber lashed together with a strong light cord. a little paddle was stuck between the logs. the cord was the same that had been used to bind him; a length of it was now around the pack that charley carried. ralph recognized nahnya's handiwork. this was what she had been doing with the axe during the previous afternoon while he and charley slept.
nahnya and charley pushed the raft into the water until only its forefoot remained resting on the stones. charley held it from floating away while nahnya, kneeling on the logs, tied the pack firmly to a cross-piece. having done this she came ashore, and an awkward silence descended on the trio. ralph waited apathetically for her next order, but none was issued. the resourceful nahnya for once was at a loss. her back was turned to ralph; charley continued to kneel, holding the raft.
ralph's mind, dulled with pain and from insufficient sleep, did not grasp the significance of these preparations. from the first he had been used to leaving all details of the journey to nahnya, and he took little notice of what they carried. it was he who broke the silence.
"this little thing is never big enough to carry the three of us," he said listlessly.
"sure!" said charley with a grin.
nahnya said nothing. she kept her head averted from ralph. she twisted her hands until the knuckles were white. ralph remembered this later.
he stepped on board the raft to test its buoyancy. as he did so, charley with a heave of his back launched it out on the current. then ralph understood. he spun around, a dreadful pain transfixing his breast.
"nahnya!" he cried, in a voice wild with reproach.
her back was stubbornly turned to him, her head sunk between her shoulders, her hands pressed over her ears. charley still knelt on the stones, his dark face working oddly.
"good-bye, hooralph!" he cried.
in the confusion of surprise, dismay, anger, and pain that, shattered him, ralph's eyes conveyed only one idea to his brain—nahnya's hands pressed to her ears. his essential stubbornness responded. "she'll hear no more cries!" he cried to himself, clenching his teeth.
to shut out the agonizing sight of her receding on the shore, he flung himself down full length to bury his head in his arms. he took no thought of the instability of his craft. rolling off the centre, the logs sank under him, tipping him into the icy water.
quickly as it happened, he heard nahnya's cry before he went under. it was no ordinary sound of terror, but a cry of agony exactly attuned to the pain in his own breast. even as the water closed over his head he heard and understood, and everything was changed.
he immediately rose to the surface again. the raft, relieved of its burden, had righted, and still floated beside him. man and raft were being carried down together in the current. grasping the logs, he turned his head. an unforgettable picture was etched on his brain; nahnya, waist-deep in the water, straining toward him, and charley desperately dragging her back. there could be no mistaking that act, nor the cry preceding it. everything was changed.
life blossomed again. he did not feel the paralyzing chill of the water. pain winged out of his breast, giving place to a joy so keen it was still like pain. but he could gladly have died of this pain. he knew for sure that she loved him.
