God's Country—And the Woman — Chapter 6 part 2

"I would not be surprised if you told me you had been in Venice," he replied.

"To-day is your birthday--your twentieth.

Have you lived all those years here?"

He repressed his desire to question her, because he knew that she understood that to be a part of his promise to her.

In what he now asked her he could not believe that he was treading upon prohibited ground, and in the face of their apparent innocence he was dismayed at the effect his words had upon her.

It seemed to him that her eyes flinched when he spoke, as if he had struck at her.

There passed over her face the look which he had come to dread: a swift, tense betrayal of the grief which he knew was eating at her soul, and which she was fighting so courageously to hide from him.

It had come and gone in a flash, but the pain of it was left with him.

She smiled at him a bit tremulously.

"I understand why you ask that," she said, "and it is no more than fair that I should tell you.

Of course you are wondering a great deal about me.

You have just asked yourself how I could ever hear of such a place as Venice away up here among the Indians.

Why, do you know"--she leaned forward, as if to whisper a secret, her blue eyes shilling with a sudden laughter--"I've even read the 'Lives' of Plutarch, and I'm waiting patiently for the English to bang a few of those terrible Lucretia Borgias who call themselves militant suffragettes!"

"I--I--beg your pardon," he stammered helplessly.

She no longer betrayed the hurt of his question, and so sweet was the laughter of her eyes and lips that he laughed back at her, in spite of his embarrassment.

Then, all at once, she became serious.

"I am terribly unfair to you," she apologized gently; and then, looking across the water, she added: "Yes, I've lived almost all of those twenty years up here--among the forests.

They sent me to the Mission school at Fort Churchill, over on Hudson's Bay, for three years; and after that, until I was seventeen, I had a little white-haired English governess at Adare House.

If she had lived-- " Her hands clenched the sides of the canoe, and she looked straight away from Philip.

She seemed to force the words that came from her lips then: "When I was eighteen I went to Montreal--and lived there a year, That is all--that one year--away from--my forests--" He almost failed to hear the last words, and he made no effort to reply.

He kept his canoe nearer to Jean's, so that frequently they were running side by side.

In the quick fall of the early northern night the sun was becoming more and more of a red haze in the sky as it sank farther toward the western forests.

Josephine had changed her position, so that she now sat facing the bow of the canoe.

She leaned a little forward, her elbows resting in her lap, her chin tilted in the cup of her hands, looking steadily ahead, and for a long time no sound but the steady dip, dip, dip of the two paddles broke the stillness of their progress.

Scarcely once did Philip take his eyes from her.

Every turn, every passing of shadow and light, each breath of wind that set stirring the shimmering tresses of her hair, made her more beautiful to him.

From red gold to the rich and lustrous brown of the ripened wintel berries he marked the marvellous changing of her hair with the setting of the sun.

A quick chill was growing in the air now and after a little he crept forward and slipped a light blanket about the slender shoulders.

Even then Josephine did not speak, but looked up at him, and smiled her thanks.

In his eyes, his touch, even his subdued breath, were the whispers of his adoration.

Movement roused Jean from his Indian-like silence.

As Philip moved back, he called: "It is four o'clock, M'sieur.

We will have darkness in an hour.

There is a place to camp and tepee poles ready cut on the point ahead of us."

Fifteen minutes later Philip ran his canoe ashore close to Jean Croisset's on a beach of white sand.

He could not help seeing that, from the moment she had answered his question out on the lake, a change had come over Josephine.

For a short time that afternoon she had risen from out of the thing that oppressed her, and once or twice there had been almost happiness in her smile and laughter.

Now she seemed to have sunk again under its smothering grip.

It was as if the chill and dismal gloom of approaching night had robbed her cheeks of colour, and had given a tired droop to her shoulders as she sat silently, and waited for them to make her tent comfortable.

When it was up, and the blankets spread, she went in and left them alone, and the last glimpse that he had of her face left with Philip a cameo-like impression of hopelessness that made him want to call out her name, yet held him speechless.

He looked closely at Jean as they put up their own tent, and for the first time he saw that the mask had fallen from the half- breed's face, and that it was filled with that same mysterious hopelessness and despair.

Almost roughly he caught him by the shoulder.

"See here, Jean Croisset," he cried impatiently, "you're a man.

What are you afraid of?"

"God," replied Jean so quietly that Philip dropped his hand from his shoulder in astonishment.

"Nothing else in the world am I afraid of, M'sieur!"

"Then why--why in the name of that God do you look like this?"

demanded Philip.

"You saw her go into the tent.

She is disheartened, hopeless because of something that I can't guess at, cold and shivering and white because of a FEAR of something.

She is a woman.

You are a man.

Are YOU afraid?"

"No, not afraid, M'sieur.

It is her grief that hurts me, not fear.

If it would help her I would let you take this knife at my side and cut me into pieces so small that the birds could carry them away.

I know what you mean.

You think I am not a fighter.

Our Lady in Heaven, if fighting could only save her!"

"And it cannot?"

"No, M'sieur.

Nothing can save her.

You can help, but you cannot save her.

I believe that nothing like this terrible thing that has come to her has happened before since the world began.

It is a mistake that it has come once.

The Great God would not let it happen twice."

He spoke calmly.

Philip could find no words with which to reply.

His hand slipped from Jean's arm to his hand, and their fingers gripped.

Thus for a space they stood.

Philip broke the silence.

"I love her, Jean," he spoke softly.

"Every one loves her, M'sieur.

All our forest people call her 'L'Ange.'

" "And still you say there is no hope?"

"None."

"Not even--if we fight--?"

Jean's fingers tightened about his like cords of steel.

"We may kill, M'sieur, but that will not save hearts crushed like --See!

--like I crush these ash berries under my foot!

I tell you again, nothing like this has ever happened before since the world began, and nothing like it will ever happen again!"

Steadily Philip looked into Jean's eyes.

"You have seen something of the world, Jean?"

"A good deal, M'sieur.

For seven years I went to school at Montreal, and prepared myself for the holy calling of Missioner.

That was many years ago.

I am now simply Jean Jacques Croisset, of the forests."

"Then you know--you must know, that where there is life there is hope," argued Philip eagerly, "I have promised not to pry after her secret, to fight for her only as she tells me to fight.

But if I knew, Jean.

If I knew what this trouble is--how and where to fight!

Is this knowledge--impossible?"

"Impossible, M'sieur!"

Slowly Jean withdrew his hand.

"Don't take it that way, man," exclaimed Philip quickly.

"I'm not ferreting for her secret now.

Only I've got to know--is it impossible for her to tell me?"

"As impossible, M'sieur, as it would be for me.

And Our Lady herself could not make me do that if I heard Her voice commanding me out of Heaven.

All that I can do is to wait, and watch, and guard.

And all that you can do, M'sieur, is to play the part she has asked of you.

In doing that, and doing it well, you will keep the last bit of life in her heart from being trampled out.

If you love her"--he picked up a tepee pole before he finished, and then, said--"you will do as you have promised!"

There was a finality in the shrug of Jean's shoulders which Philip did not question.

He picked up an axe, and while Jean arranged the tepee poles began to chop down a dry birch.

As the chips flew his mind flew faster.

In his optimism he had half believed that the cloud of mystery in which Josephine had buried him would, in time, be voluntarily lifted by her.

He had not been able to make himself believe that any situation could exist where hopelessness was as complete as she had described.

Without arguing with himself he had taken it for granted that she had been labouring under a tremendous strain, and that no matter what her trouble was it had come to look immeasurably darker to her than it really was.

But Jean's attitude, his low and unexcited voice, and the almost omniscient decisiveness of his words had convinced him that Josephine had not painted it as blackly as she might.

She, at least, had seemed to see a ray of hope.

Jean saw none, and Philip realized that the half-breed's calm and unheated judgment was more to be reckoned with than hers.

At the same time, he did not feel dismayed.

He was of the sort who have born in them the fighting instinct, And with this instinct, which is two thirds of life's battle won, goes the sort of optimism that has opened up raw worlds to the trails of men.

Without the one the other cannot exist.

As the blows of his axe cut deep into the birch, Philip knew that so long as there is life and freedom and a sun above it is impossible for hope to become a thing of char and ash.

He did not use logic.

He simply LIVED!

He was alive, and he loved Josephine.

The muscles of his arms were like sinews of rawhide.

Every fibre in his body was strung with a splendid strength.

His brain was as clear as the unpolluted air that drifted over the cedar and spruce.

And now to these tremendous forces had come the added strength of the most wonderful thing in the world: love of a woman.

In spite of all that Josephine and Jean had said, in spite of all the odds that might be against him, he was confident of winning whatever fight might be ahead of him.

He not only felt confident, but cheerful.

He did not try to make Jean understand what it meant to be in camp with the company of a woman for the first time in two years.

Long after the tents were up and the birch-fire was crackling cheerfully in the darkness Josephine still remained in her tent.

But the mere fact that she was there lifted Philip's soul to the skies.

And Josephine, with a blanket drawn about her shoulders, lay in the thick gloom of her tent and listened to him.

His far-reaching, exuberant whistling seemed to warm her.

She heard him laughing and talking with Jean, whose voice never came to her; farther back, where he was cutting down another birch, she heard him shout out the words of a song between blows; and once, sotto voce, and close to her tent, she quite distinctly heard him say "Damn!"

She knew that he had stumbled with an armful of wood, and for the first time in that darkness and her misery she smiled.

That one word alone Philip had not intended that she should hear.

But when it was out he picked himself up and laughed.

He did not meddle with Jean's cook-fire, but he built a second fire where the cheer of it would light up Josephine's tent, and piled dry logs on it until the flame of it lighted up the gloom about them for a hundred feet.

And then, with a pan in one hand and a stick in the other, he came close and beat a din that could have been heard a quarter of a mile away.

Josephine came out full in the flood-light of the fire, and he saw that she had been crying.

Even now there was a tremble of her lips as she smiled her gratitude.

He dropped his pan and stick, and went to her.

It seemed as if this last hour in the darkness of camp had brought her nearer to him, and he gently took her hands in his own and held them for a moment close to him.

They were cold and trembling, and one of them that had rested under her cheek was damp with tears.

"You mustn't do this any more," he whispered.

"I'll try not to," she promised.

"Please let me stand a little in the warmth of the fire.

I'm cold."

He led her close to the flaming birch logs and the heat soon brought a warm flush into her cheeks.

Then they went to where Jean had spread out their supper on the ground.

When she had seated herself on the pile of blankets they had arranged for her, Josephine looked across at Philip, squatted Indian-fashion opposite her, and smiled apologetically.

"I'm afraid your opinion of me isn't getting better," she said.

"I'm not much of a--a--sport--to let you men get supper by yourselves, am I?

You see--I'm taking advantage of my birthday."

"Oui, ma belle princesse," laughed Jean softly, a tender look coming into his thin, dark face.

"And do you remember that other birthday, years and years ago, when you took advantage of Jean Croisset while he was sleeping?

Non, you do not remember?"

"Yes, I remember."

"She was six, M'sieur," explained Jean, "and while I slept, dreaming of one gr-r-rand paradise, she cut off my moustaches.

They were splendid, those moustaches, but they would never grow right after that, and so I have gone shaven."

In spite of her efforts to appear cheerful, Philip could see that Josephine was glad when the meal was over, and that she was forcing herself to sip at a second cup of tea on their account.

He accompanied her back to the tent after she had bade Jean good- night, and as they stood for a moment before the open flap there filled the girl's face a look that was partly of self-reproach and partly of wistful entreaty for his understanding and forgiveness.

"You have been good to me," she said.

"No one can ever know how good you have been to me, what it has meant to me, and I thank you."

She bowed her head, and again he restrained the impulse to gather her close up in his arms.

When she looked up he was holding something toward her in the palm of his hand.

It was a little Bible, worn and frayed at the edges, pathetic in its raggedness.

"A long time ago, my mother gave me this Bible," he said.

"She told me that as long as I carried it, and believed in it, no harm could come to me, and I guess she was right.

It was her first Bible, and mine.

It's grown old and ragged with me, and the water and snow have faded it.

I've come to sort of believe that mother is always near this Book.

I'd like you to have it, Josephine.

It's the only thing I've got to offer you on your birthday."

While he was speaking he had taken one of her hands and thrust his precious gift into it.

Slowly Josephine raised the little Bible to her breast.

She did not speak, but for a moment Philip saw in her eyes the look for which he would have sacrificed the world; a look that told him more than all the volumes of the earth could have told of a woman's trust and faith.

He bent his head lower and whispered: "To-night, my Josephine--just this night--may I wish you all the hope and happiness that God and my Mother can bring you, and kiss you--once--" In that moment's silence he heard the throbbing of her heart.

She seemed to have ceased breathing, and then, slowly, looking straight into his eyes, she lifted her lips to him, and as one who meets a soul of a thing too sanctified to touch with hands, he kissed her.

Scarcely had the warm sweetness of her lips thrilled his own than she had turned from him, and was gone.