Part 49

Rina, bethinking herself at last that her Cree was wasted on him, went back to English. "You wait!" she cried threateningly. "Bam-bye, her bone, him grow together, and she all the time cry of pain! Then you want me bad, and I not come! She will have fever and die!" She passionately threw down the leaves she had brought and ground them under her heel.

"Mabyn is unhurt!" Garth repeated patiently more than once. "I put him on the island."

At last it seemed to reach her. "What for you do that?" she demanded.

"He is always trying to kill me," he said. "I have only put him where he can do no harm!"

"I tak' him off!" she cried defiantly. "I mak' a raft! You can't stop me!"

"I have seized all the food," said Garth quietly. "You will get none for him unless he stays where he is."

Rina's anger stilled and concentrated. "You devil!" she hissed.

Garth turned away. "When you are yourself," he said coolly, "I will talk to you plainly and honestly about us all."

"I not talk with you!" she stormed. "You tell lies to me! I not come again--till some time you sleep--then I come and kill you!"

He faced her with a sudden imperiousness she could not ignore. "Then the way is made open for Mabyn to come to her!" he cried. "Where will you be then?--thrown on the ground, as you were yesterday!"

The shot told. Her arms dropped, she visibly paled. The white man's blood in Rina's cheeks betrayed her at the moments when most she desired to secrete her heart. She lowered her head to hide her stricken eyes from him. Suddenly she turned and fled through the trees.

Garth was beginning to believe that Rina after all was not so different from her white sisters; if so, he thought she would come back. Natalie, who had overheard all that passed, said so too. Garth wished to carry Natalie out of the tent, that she might help him work with the girl; but Natalie, with better wisdom, said no, that Rina would be more tractable if she were out of sight.

Meanwhile he set to work with an air of unconcern he was far from feeling--there were a hundred ways this plan of his might miscarry, and only one way it could succeed! He tied old Cy to his stake again; and carefully gathered up what remained of the herbs Rina had cast on the ground. He unloaded the seized supplies and made a temporary cache under a piece of sail-cloth.

By and by, while he was so engaged, he became aware that Rina was hovering about among the trees. He went on with his task, carefully avoiding any notice of her. She approached by devious stages, like a child drawn against its will. When it became impossible longer to conceal herself, she came into the open with her old, wistful, sullen, inscrutable face. Garth went about his work, displaying no anxiety to treat. He made her speak first.

"What you want say to me?" she asked at last, feigning supreme indifference.

"Sit down," he said.

She dropped obediently on the grass; and averted her head. She did not squat like the other red people; but reclined, supporting herself on one hand, much as Natalie might have done.

Garth lit his pipe, considering what simple, figurative form of words would best appeal to her understanding.

"I do not wish Mabyn harm," he began mildly. "He is nothing to me. My heart knows only one wish--to make her well, and to take her back safely to her friends outside. To accomplish that, I will let nothing stop me!"

He paused to let it sink in. Rina gave no sign of having even heard.

"That is your wish, too," he continued. "You want her away from here. She and I are nothing to you. You were happy before we came!"

She darted a startled look at the man who could so well read her feelings.

"Mabyn is mad because she will not have him!" Garth went on. "He is always crazy for what he cannot have."

She turned her head again with the look that said so plainly, "How did you know that?"

"When we get her away, he will soon forget. All will be as it was before!"

She maintained her obstinate silence.

"Do I not speak true words?" Garth challenged.

She evaded the question. "If you go out, you send the police after him," she muttered.