Two on the Trail

Part 1

TWO ON THE TRAIL

A Story of the Far Northwest

HULBERT FOOTNER

Illustrated by W. Sherman Potts

New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers

All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian

Copyright, 1910, by Outing Publishing Company Copyright, 1911, by Doubleday, Page & Company Published, February, 1911

To H. L. D.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I. IN PAPPS'S RESTAURANT 3 II. THE UNKNOWN LADY 13 III. ON THE TRAIL 29 IV. THE STOPPING-HOUSE YARD 44 V. AT MIWASA LANDING 57 VI. NATALIE TELLS ABOUT HERSELF 72 VII. MARY CO-QUE-WASA'S ERRAND 81 VIII. ON THE LITTLE RIVER 100 IX. THE HEART OF A BOY 116 X. ON CARIBOU LAKE 130 XI. THE FIGHT IN THE STORM 142 XII. THE NINETY-MILE PORTAGE 157 XIII. THE NEWLY-MARRIED PAIR 175 XIV. THE LAST STAGE 186 XV. THE MEETING 199 XVI. NATALIE WOUNDED 214 XVII. THE CLUE TO RINA 228 XVIII. MABYN MAROONED 238 XIX. GRYLLS REDIVIVUS 253 XX. SUCCOUR 266 XXI. THE BROKEN DOOR 284 XXII. THE BLIZZARD 295 XXIII. THE SOLITARY PURSUER 315 XXIV. IN DEATH CANYON 326 XXV. EPILOGUE: SPOKEN BY CHARLEY 342

ILLUSTRATIONS

"Look!" she cried. "Isn't it like the frontispiece to a book ofadventure!" Frontispiece

FACING PAGE At the same instant the boat lurched drunkenly; and they pitched overboard together 150

There, clinging to the corner of the cabin for support, stood the figure of a woman 212

It was a grim figure that the first rays of light revealed sitting on the big rock 336

TWO ON THE TRAIL

IN PAPPS'S RESTAURANT

The interior of Papps's, like most Western restaurants, was divided into a double row of little cabins with a passage between, each cabin having a swing door. Garth Pevensey found the place very full; and he was ushered into a cubby-hole which already contained two diners, a man and a woman nearing the end of their meal. They appeared to be incoming settlers of the better class--a farmer and his wife from across the line. Far from resenting Garth's intrusion, they visibly welcomed it; after all, there was something uncomfortably suggestive of a cell in those narrow cabins to which the light of day never penetrated.

Garth passed behind the farmer's chair, and seated himself next the wall. He had no sooner ordered his luncheon than the door was again opened, and the rotund Mr. Papps, with profuse apologies, introduced a fourth to their table. The vacant place, it appeared, was the very last remaining in his establishment.

The newcomer was a girl; young, slender and decidedly pretty: such was Garth's first impression. She came in without hesitation, and took the place opposite Garth with that serenely oblivious air so characteristic of the highly civilized young lady. Very trimly and quietly dressed, sufficiently well-bred to accept the situation as a matter of course. Thus Garth's further impressions. "What a girl to be meeting up in this corner of the world, and how I should like to know her!" he added in his mind. The maiden's bland aloofness was discouraging to this hope; nevertheless, his heart worked in an extra beat or two, as he considered the added relish his luncheon would have, garnished by occasional glances at such a delightful vis-à-vis. Meanwhile, he was careful to take his cue from her; his face, likewise, expressed a blank.

The farmer and his wife became very uncomfortable. Simple souls, they could not understand how a personable youth and a charming girl should sit opposite each other with such wooden faces. Their feeling was that at quarters so close extra sociability was demanded, and the utter lack of it caused them to move uneasily in their chairs, and gently perspire. They unconsciously hastened to finish, and having at length dutifully polished their plates, arose and left the cabin with audible sighs of relief.

This was a contingency Garth had not foreseen, and his heart jumped. At the same time he felt a little sorry for the girl. He wondered if she would consider it an act of delicacy if he fastened the door open with a chair. On second thoughts, he decided such a move would be open to misconstruction. Had he only known it, she was dying to laugh and, at the slightest twinkle in his eyes, would have gone off into a peal. Only Garth's severe gravity restrained her--and that in turn made her want to laugh harder than ever. But how was Garth to learn all that? Girls, more especially girls like this, were to him insolvable mysteries--like the heavenly constellations. Of course, there are those who pretend to have discovered their orbits, and have written books on the subject; but for him, he preferred simply to wonder and to admire.

Since her arrival the objective point of his desire shifted from his plate some three feet across the table; he now gazed covertly at her with more hunger than he evinced for his food. She had a good deal the aspect of a plucky boy, he thought; a direct, level gaze; a quick, sure turn to her head; and the fresh, bright lips of a boy. But that was no more than a pleasant fancy; in reality she was woman clear through. Eve lurked in the depths of her blue eyes, for all they hung out the colours of simple honesty; and Eve winked at him out of every fold of her rich chestnut hair. She was quick and impulsive in her motions; and although she showed such a blank front to the man opposite, her lips flickered with the desire to smile; and tiny frowns came and went between the twin crescents of her brows.

As for her, she was sizing him up too, though with skilfully veiled glances. She saw a square-shouldered young man, who sat calmly eating his lunch, without betraying too much self-consciousness on the one hand, or any desire to make flirtatious advances on the other. Yet he was not stupid, either; he had eyes that saw what they were turned on, she noted. His admirable, detached attitude piqued her, though she would have been quick to resent any other. She was angry with him for forcing this repression on her; repression was not natural to this young lady. She longed to clear the air with a burst of laughter, but the thought of a quick, cool glance of surprise from the steady eyes opposite effectually checked her. As for his features, they were well enough, she thought. He had a shapely head, broadest over the ears, and thatched with thick, straight hair of the ashy-brown just the other side of blonde. His eyes were of the shade politely called gray, though yellow or green might be said with equal truth, had not those colours unpleasant associations. His nose was longish, and he had a comical trick of seeming to look down it, at which she greatly desired to laugh. His mouth was well cut, and decisively finished at the corners; and he had a chin to match. In spite of her irritation with him, she was reminded of a picture she had seen of Henry Fifth looking out from his helmet on the field of Agincourt.

As the minutes passed, and Garth maintained his calm, she became quite unreasonably wroth. Her own luncheon was now before her. By and by she wanted salt, and the only cellar stood at Garth's elbow. Nothing could have induced her to ask for it; she merely stared fixedly. Garth, presently observing, politely offered the salt-cellar. She waited until he had put it down on the table, and removed his hand from the neighbourhood; then took it.

"Thank you," she murmured indignantly; furious at having to say it.

Garth wondered what he had done to offend her.

At this moment there was an interruption; again the apologetic Mr. Papps with yet another guest. This was a tradesman's comely young wife, with very ruffled plumage, and the distracted air of the unaccustomed traveller. She was carrying in her arms a shiny black valise, three assorted paper-covered bundles with the string coming off, and a hat in a paper bag; and, although it was so warm, she wore her winter's coat, plainly because there was no other way to bring it. Her hair was flying from its moorings; her face flamed; and her hat sat at a disreputably rakish angle. As she piled up her encumbrances on the chair next to the girl, and took off her coat, she bubbled over with indistinguishable, anxious mutterings. At last she sank into the seat by Garth with something between a sigh and a moan.

Part 2

"I've lost my husband," she announced at large.

Her distress was so comical they could not forbear smiling.

Encouraged by this earnest of sympathy, the newcomer plunged into a breathless recital of her mischances.

"Just came in over the A. N. R.," she panted. "By rights we should have arrived last night, but day-before-yesterday's train had the right of way and we was held up down to Battle Run. I tell you, the rails of that line are like the waves of the sea! I was that sea-sick I thought never to eat mortal food again--but it's coming back; my appetite I mean. He was to meet me, but I suppose he got tired after seventeen hours, small blame--and dropped off somewheres. S'pose I'll have to make a round of the hotels till I find him. You don't happen to know him, do you?" she asked Garth. "John Pink, the carpenter?"

Continue reading Two on the Trail free in the Wunder reader →