The Indians dropped prone to slake their thirst; the riflemen squatted and used their cups of bark or leather, pouring the sweet, icy water over their cropped heads and wrists.
"Off packs!" said Boyd quietly, and drew a bit of bread and meat from his beaded wallet. And so the Mohican and I left them all eating by the stream, and crossed to the western bank. Here the Sagamore pointed to the opposite slope; I gave a low whistle, and Boyd looked across the water at me.
Then I drew my hatchet and notched a tree so that he saw what I did; he nodded comprehension; we went on, notching trees at intervals, and so ascended the slope ahead until we arrived at the top.
Here the forest lay flat beyond, and the Great Warrior trail ran through it—a narrow path fifteen inches wide, perhaps, and worn nearly a foot deep, and patted as hard as rock by the light feet of generations—men and wild beasts—which had traversed it for centuries.
North and south the deeply graven war trail ran straight through the wilderness. The Mohican bent low above it, scrutinizing it in the subdued light, then stepped lightly into it, and I behind him.
For a little way we followed it, seeing other and narrower trails branching from it right and left, running I knew not whither—the narrow, delicate lanes made by game—deer and bear, fox and hare—all spreading out into the dusk of the unknown forest.
Presently we came to a trail which seemed wet, as though swampy land were not far away; and into this the Mohican turned, slashing a great scar on the nearest tree as he entered it.
There was a mossy stream ahead, and the banks of it were dark and soft. Here we rested high and dry on the huge roots of an oak, and ate our midday meal.
In a little while the remainder of our party came gliding through the trees, Boyd ahead.
"Is this the Catharines-town trail?" he asked. "By God, they'll never get their artillery through here. Mark it, all the same," he added indifferently, and seated himself beside me, dropping his rifle across his knees with a gesture of weariness.
"Are you tired?" I asked.
He looked up at me with a wan smile.
"Weary of myself, Loskiel, and of a life lived too lightly and now nigh ended."
"Nigh ended!" I repeated.
"I go not back again," he said, sombrely.
I glanced sharply at him, where he sat brooding over his rifle; and there was in his face an expression such as I had never before seen there—something unnatural that altered him altogether, as death alters the features, leaving them strangely unfamiliar. And even as I looked, the expression passed. He lifted his eyes to mine, and even smiled.
"There is," he said, "a viewless farm which companions even the swiftest on the last long trail, a phantom-pilot which leads only toward that Shadowed Valley of endless rest. In my ears all day—close, close to my ear, I have heard the whisper of this unseen ghost—everywhere I have heard it, amid the din of the artillery, on windy hill-tops, in the long silence of the forest, through the noise of torrents in lost ravines, by flowing rivers sparkling in the sun—everywhere my pilot whispers to me. I can not escape, Loskiel; whatever trail I take, that is the trail; whichever way I turn, that is the way. And ever my phantom pilots me—forward or back, aside or around—it is all one to him and to me, for at the end of every trail I take, nearer and nearer draw I to mine end."
I had heard of premonitions before a battle; had known officers and soldiers to utter them—brave men, too, yet obsessed by the conviction of their approaching death. Sometimes they die; sometimes escape, and the premonition ends forever. But until the moment of peril is passed, or they fall as they had foretold, no argument will move them, no assurance cheer them. But our corps had been in many battles during the last three years, and I had never before seen Boyd this way.
He said, brooding on his rifle:
"The one true passion of my life has been Lana Helmer. It began ignobly; it continues through all this pain and bewilderment, a pure, clean current, running to the deep, still sea of dreams.... There it is lost; I follow it no further.... And were I here today as upright and as stainless as are you, Loskiel, still I could follow it no further than that sea of dreams. Nor would my viewless pilot lead me elsewhere than to the destiny of silence that awaits me; and none the less would I hear his whisper in my ears.... My race is run."
I said: "Is it vain to appeal to your reason when your heart is heavy?"
"Had I another chance," he said, "I would lighten the load of sin I bear—the heavy load I bear with me into the unknown."
"God gives us all our chance."
"He gave me my last chance at Tioga Fort. And I cursed it in my heart and put it aside."
"One day you will return,"
"Never again, Loskiel.... I am no coward. I dare face the wrath to come. It is not that; but—I am sorry I did not spare when I might have been more generous.... The little thing was ignorant.... Doves mate like that.... And somewhere—somehow—I shall be required to answer for it all—shall be condemned to make amends.... I wonder how the dead make their amends?… For me to burn in hell avails her nothing.... If she thought it she would weep uncomforted.... No; there is a justice. But how it operates I shall never understand until it summons me to hear my sentence."
"You will return and do what a contrite heart bids you to do," I said.
"If that might be," he said gently, "that would I do—for the child's sake and for hers."
"Good God!" I said under my breath.
"Did you not surmise it?"
"No."
"Well, then, now you know how deeply I am damned.... God gave me a last chance. There was a chaplain at the fort."
"Kirkland."
"Yes, Gann went forward.... But—God's grace was not within me.... And to see her angered me—that and the blinding hurt I had when Lana left—heart-broken, wretched, still loving me, but consigning me to my duty.... So I denied her at the bridge.... And from that moment has my unseen pilot walked beside me, and I know he leads me swiftly to my end."
I raised my troubled eyes and glanced toward my Indians. They had stripped great squares of bark from half a dozen trees, and were busily painting upon them, in red and blue, insulting signs and symbols—a dead tree-cat, scalped, and full of arrows; a snake severed into sections; a Seneca tied to a post and a broken wampum belt at his feet. And on every tree they had also painted the symbol of their own clans and nation—pointed stones and the stars of the Pleiades; a witch-wolf and an enchanted bear; a yellow moth alighted on a white cross; a night-hawk, perfectly recognizable, soaring high above a sun, setting, bisecting the line of the horizon.
Every scalp taken was duly enumerated and painted there, together with every captured weapon. Such a gallery of art in the wilderness I had never before beheld.
Boyd's riflemen sat around, cross-legged on the moss, watching the Indians at their labour—all except Murphy and Elerson, who, true to their habits, had each selected a tree to decorate, and were hard at work with their hunting knives on the bark.
On Murphy's tree I read: "To hell with Walter Butler."
Elerson, who no doubt had scraped the outlines of this legend with his knife-point before Murphy carved it, had produced another message on his own tree, not a whit more complimentary: "Dam Butler, Brant, Hiakotoo, and McDonald for bloody rogues and murtherin' rascals all!"
They were ever like this, these two great overgrown boys, already celebrated so terribly in song and legend. And the rank and file of Morgan's resembled them—brave to a fault, innately lawless, of scant education save what the forest had taught them, headstrong, quick to anger, quick to forgive, violent in every emotion through the entire gamut from love to hatred.
Boyd rose, glanced quietly at me, then made his signal. And in a few moments the riflemen were on the trail again, spotting it wherever a new path led away, trotting steadily forward in single file, my Indians ranging wide on either flank.
Late in the afternoon we came to the height of land, where the little water-courses all ran north; and here we halted, dropped packs, and the men sat down while the Sagamore and I once more went forward to the headwaters of a stream, beside which the narrow and swampy trail ran due north. And here the nature of the country changed entirely, for beyond it was all one vast swamp, as still and dark as death.
A little way along this blackish stream Mayaro halted, and for a while stood motionless, his powerful arms folded, gazing straight in front of him with the half-closed eyes of a dreaming wolf.
Never had I looked upon so sinister a country or a swamp so vast and desolate. It seemed more black than dusky, and the gloom lay not in the obscure light of thick-set spruce, pine, and hemlock, but in the shaggy, monstrous, and forbidding growth which appeared to be soiled with some common dye, water, earth, tree-trunks, foliage—all wore the same inky livery, and seemed wrought of rusty iron, so still the huge trees stood, with every melancholy branch a-droop.
Sign of life there was none; the current of the narrow stream ran like smooth oil; nor was its motion visible where it wound between soft, black banks of depthless swamp through immemorial shadows.
The Mohican's voice came to me, low in the silence, sounding dull and remote; nor did his dreaming eyes move in their vague intensity.
"This is the land of Amochol," he said. "Here, through these viewless shades, his sway begins, as this stream begins, whose source is darkness and whose current moves slowly like thick blood. Here is the haunt of witch and sorcerer—of the hag Catrine, of the Wyoming Fiend, of Amochol—of Amochol! Here run the Andastes, hunting through the dusk like wolves and foxes—running, smelling, listening, ever hunting. Here slink the Cat-People under a moon which is hidden forever by this matted forest roof. This is the Dark Empire, O Loskiel! Behold!"
A slight shudder chilled me, but I said calmly enough:
"Where lies Catharines-town, O Sagamore?"
"This thick, dark stream runs through it."
"Through Catharines-town?"
"Aye."
"And then?"
"Along the vast chain of inland seas—first into the Lake of the Senecas, then to that of the Cayugas, fed by Owasco, by Onondaga, by Oneida, until it is called Oswego, and flows north by the great fort into the sea Ontario."
"And where lies Catharines-town?"
"Nine miles beyond us, northward."
"And the trail?"
"None, Loskiel, save for the maze of game trails where long leaps are made from tussock to swale, from root to rotting log across black pools of mud, and quivering quicksands whose depths are white as snow under the skin of mud, set with tarnished rainbow bubbles."
"But—those who come after us, Mayaro! The army—the wagons, horses, artillery, cattle—nay, the men themselves! How are they to pass?"
He pointed east, then west: "For six miles, flanking this swamp, run ridges of high hills northward. By these must the army march to Catharines-town, the pioneers opening a road for the artillery. This you shall make plain to Boyd presently, for he must march that way, marking plain the trail north on the eastern ridge of hills, then west. Thus shall Boyd move to cut off Amochol from the lake, while you and I and the Oneidas and the Yellow Moth must thread this swamp and comb it clean to head him from the rivers south of us."
"Is there a path along the ridge?"
"No path, Loskiel. So Boyd shall march by compass, slowly, seeking over the level way, and open woods, with the artillery and wagons ever in his thoughts. Six miles due north shall he march; then, where the hills end a swamp begins—thick, miry, set with maple, brier, and tamarack. But through this he must blaze his trail, and the pioneers who are to follow shall lay their wagon-path across felled trees, northward still, across the forests that border the flats of Catharines-town; and then, still northward for a mile; and so swing west, severing the lake trail. Thus we shall trap Amochol between us."
Slowly we walked back together to the height of land, where our little party lay looking down at the dark country below. I sat down beside Boyd, cleared from the soil the leaves for a little space, drew my knife, and with its point traced out the map.
He listened in silence, while I went over all that the Sagamore had taught me; and around us squatted our Indians, motionless, fiercely intent upon my every word and gesture.
"Today is Sunday," I said. "By this hour, Butler's people should be in headlong flight. Our army will not follow them at once, because it will take all day tomorrow for our men to destroy the corn along the Chemung. But on Tuesday our army will surely march, laying waste the Indian towns and fields. Therefore, giving them ample time for this, they should arrive at this spot on Wednesday."
"I have so calculated," said Boyd, listlessly.
"But Wednesday is the first day of September; and if we are to strike Amochol at all it must be done during the Onon-hou-aroria. And that ends on Tuesday. Therefore, must you move within the hour. And by tomorrow evening you shall have blazed your hill-trail and shall be lying with your men beside the stream and across the lake trail, north of Catharines-town."
He nodded.
"Tonight," said I, "I and my Indians lie here on this height of land, watching the swamp below, that nothing creep out of it. On Monday morning, we move through it, straight northward, following the stream, and by Monday night we scout to Catharines-town."
"That is clear," he said, lifting his handsome head from his hands. "And the signal should come from me. Listen, Loskiel; you shall expect that signal between midnight of Monday and dawn."
He rose, and I stood up; and for a moment we looked each other steadily in the eye. Then he smiled faintly, shaking his head:
"Not this time, Loskiel," he said in a low voice. "My spectral pilot gives no sign. Death lies beyond the fires of Catharines-town. I know, Loskiel—I know."
"I also," said I in a low voice, taking his outstretched hand, "for you shall live to make material amends as you have made them spiritually. Only the act of deep contrition lies between you and God's swift pardon. It were a sin to doubt it."
But he slowly shook his head, the faint smile lingering still. Then his grip closed suddenly on my hand, released it, and he swung on his heel.
"Attention!" he said crisply. "Sling packs! Fall in! Tr-r-rail arms! March!"
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RITE OF THE HIDDEN CHILDREN
My Indians and I stood watching our riflemen as they swung to the east and trotted out of sight among the trees. Then, at a curt nod from me, the Indians lengthened their line, extending it westward along the height of land, and so spreading out that they entirely commanded the only outlet to the swamp below, by encircling both the trail and the headwaters of the evil-looking little stream.
Through the unbroken thatch of matted foliage overhead no faintest ray of sunlight filtered—not even where the stream coiled its slimy way among the tamaracks and spruces. But south of us, along the ascending trail by which we had come, the westering sun glowed red across a ledge of rock, from which the hill fell sheer away, plunging into profound green depths, where unseen waters flowed southward to the Susquehanna.
Around the massive elbow of this ledge, our back-trail, ascending into view, curved under shouldering boulders. Blueberry scrub, already turning gold and crimson, grew sparsely on the crag—cover enough for any watcher of the trail. And thither I crept and stretched me out flat in the bushes, where I could see the trail we had lately traversed, and look along it far to our rear as clearly as one sees through a dim and pillared corridor.
West of me, a purplish ridge ran north, the sun shining low through a pine-clad notch. Southwest of me, little blue peaks pricked the primrose sky; south-east lay endless forests, their green already veiled in an ashy blue bloom. Far down, under me, wound the narrow back-trail through the gulf below.
Presently, beside me came creeping the lithe Mohican, and lay down prone, smooth and golden, and shining like a sleek panther in the sun.
"Is all well guarded, brother?" I whispered.
"Not even a wood-mouse could creep from the swamp unless our warriors see it."
"And when dark comes?"
"Our ears must be our eyes, Loskiel.... But neither the Cat-People nor the Andastes will venture out of that morass, save only by the trail. And we shall have two watchers on it through the night."
"There is no other outlet?"
"None, except by the ridge Boyd travels. He blocks that pass with his twenty men."
"Then we should have their egress blocked, except only in the north?"
"Yes—unless they learn of this by magic," muttered the Mohican.
It was utterly useless for me to decry or ridicule his superstitions; and there was but one way to combat them.
"If witchcraft there truly be in Catharines-town," said I, "it is bad magic, and therefore weak; and can avail nothing against true priesthood. What could the degraded acolytes of this Red Priest do against a consecrated Sagamore of the Lenape—against an ensign of the Enchanted Clan? Else why do you wear your crest—or the great Ghost Bear there rearing upon your breast?"
"It is true," he murmured uneasily. "What spell can Amochol lay upon us? What magic can he make to escape us? For the trail from Catharines-town is stopped by a Siwanois Sagamore and a Mohican warrior! It is closed by an Oneida Sachem who stand watching. When the Ghost Bear and the Were-Wolf watch, then the whole forest watches with them—Loup, Blue Wolf, and Bear. Where, then, can the Forest Cats slink out? Where can the filthy Carcajou escape?"
"Mayaro has spoken. It is a holy barrier that locks and bolts this door of secret evils. Under Tharon shall this trap remain inviolate till the last sorcerer be taken in it, the last demon be dead!"
9"Yo-ya-ne-re!" he said, deliberately employing the Canienga expression with a fierce scorn that, for a moment, made his noble features terrible. Then he spat as though to wash from his mouth the taste of the hated language that had soiled it, even when used in contempt and derision; and he said in the suave tongue of his own people: "Pray to your white God, Holder of Heaven, Master of Life and Death, that into our hands be delivered these scoffers who mock at Him and at Tharon—these Cat-murderers of little children, these pollutors of the Three Fires. And in the morning I shall arise and look into the rising sun, and ask the same of the far god who made of me a Mohican, a Siwanois, and a Sagamore. Let these things be done, brother, ere our hatchets redden in the flames of Catharines-town. For," he added, naively, "it is well that God should know what we are about, lest He misunderstand our purpose."
I assented gravely.
The sun hung level, now, sending its blinding light straight into our eyes; and for precaution's sake we edged away under the blue shadows of the shrubbery, in case some far prowler note the light spots where our faces showed against the wall of green behind us.
"How far from Catharines-town," I asked, "lies the Vale Yndaia, of which our little Lois has spoken?"
"It is the next valley to the westward. A pass runs through and a little brook. Pleasant it is, Loskiel, with grassy glades and half a hundred little springs which we call 'Eyes of the Inland Seas.'"
"You know," I said, "that in this valley all the hopes of Lois de Contrecoeur are centred."
"I know, Loskiel," he answered gravely.
"Do you believe her mother lives there still?"
"How shall I know, brother? If it were with these depraved and perverted Senecas as it is with other nations, the mother of a Hidden Child had lived there unmolested. Her lodge would have remained her sanctuary; her person had been respected; her Hidden One undisturbed down to this very hour. But see how the accursed Senecas have dealt with her, so that to save her child from Amochol she sent it far beyond the borders of the Long House itself! What shame upon the Iroquois that the Senecas have defiled their purest law! May Leshi seize them all! So how, then, shall I know whether this white captive mother lives in the Vale Yndaia still—or if she lives at all? Or if they have not made of her a priestess—a sorceress—perhaps The Dreaming Prophetess of the Onon-hou-aroria!—by reason of her throat being white!"
"What!" I exclaimed, startled.
"Did not the Erie boast a Prophetess to confound us all?"
"I did not comprehend."
"Did he not squat, squalling at us from his cave, deriding every secret plan we entertained, and boasting that the Senecas had now a prophetess who could reveal to them everything their white enemies were plotting—because her own throat was white?"
I looked at him in silent horror.
"Hai-ee!" he said grimly. "If she still lives at all it is because she dreams for Amochol. And this, Loskiel, has long remained my opinion. Else they had slain her on their altars long ago—strangled her as soon as ever she sent her child beyond their reach. For what she did broke sanctuary. According to the code of the Long House, the child belonged to the nation in which the mother was a captive. And by the mother's act this child was dedicated to a stainless marriage with some other child who also had been hidden. But the Red Sorcerer has perverted this ancient law; and when he would have taken the child to sacrifice it, then did the mother break the law of sanctuary and send her child away, knowing, perhaps, that the punishment for this is death.
"So you ask me whether or not she still lives. And I say to you that I do not know; only I judge by the boasting of that vile Erie Cat that she has bought her life of them by dreaming for their Red Priest. And if she has done this thing, and has deceived them until this day, then it is very plain to me that they believe her to be a witch. For it is true, Loskiel, that those who dream wield heavy influences among all Indians—and among the Iroquois in particular. Yet, with all this, I doubt not that, if she truly be alive, her life hangs by a single thread, ever menaced by the bloody knife of Amochol."
"I can not understand," said I, "why she sent out no appeal during her long captivity. Before this war broke, had her messengers to Lois gone to Sir William Johnson, or to Guy Johnson, with word that the Senecas held in their country a white woman captive, she had been released within a fortnight, I warrant you!"
"Loskiel, had that appeal gone out, and a belt been sent to Catharines-town from Johnstown or Guy Park, the Senecas would have killed her instantly and endured the consequences—even though Amherst himself was thundering on their Western Gate."
"Are you sure, Mayaro?"
"Certain, Loskiel. She could not have lived a single moment after the Senecas learned that she had sent out word of her captivity. That is their law, which even Amochol could not break."
"It was a mercy that our little Lois appealed not to His Excellency, so that the word ran through Canada by flag to Haldimand."
"She might have done this," said the Sagamore quietly. "She asked me at Poundridge how this might be accomplished. But when I made it clear to her that it meant her mother's death, she said no more about it."
"But pushed on blindly by herself," I exclaimed, "braving the sombre Northland forests with her little ragged feet—half naked, hungry, friendless, and alone, facing each terror calmly, possessed only of her single purpose! O Sagamore of a warrior clan that makes a history of brave deeds done, can you read in the records of your most ancient wampum a braver history than this?"
He said: "Let what this maid has done be written in the archives of the white men, where are gathered the records of brave but unwise deeds. So shall those who come after you know how to praise and where to pity our little rosy pigeon of the forest. No rash young warrior of my own people, bound to the stake itself can boast of greater bravery than this. And you, blood-brother to a Siwanois, shall witness what I say."
After a silence I said: "They must have passed Wyoming already. At this hour our little Lois may be secure under the guns of Easton. Do you not think so, Mayaro?"
As he made no answer, I glanced around at him and found him staring fixedly at the trail below us.
"What do you see on our back-trail?" I whispered.
"A man, Loskiel—if it be not a deer."
A moment and I also saw something moving far below us among the trees. As yet it was only a mere spot in the dim light of the trail, slowly ascending the height of land. Nearer, nearer it came, until at length we could see that it was a man. But no rifle slanted across his shoulder.
"He must be one of our own people," I said, puzzled. "Somebody sends us a messenger. Is he white or Indian?"
"White," said the Sagamore briefly, his eyes still riveted on the approaching figure, which now I could see was clothed in deerskin shirt and leggins.
"He carries neither pack nor rifle; only a knife and pouch. He is a wood-running fool!" I said, disgusted. "Why do they send us such a forest-running battman, when they have Oneidas at headquarters, and Coureurs-de-Bois to spare who understand their business?"
"I make nothing of him," murmured the Mohican, his eyes fairly glittering with excitement and perplexity.
"Is he, perhaps, some fugitive from Butler's rangers?" I whispered, utterly at a loss to account for such a silly spectacle. "The pitiful idiot! Did you ever gaze upon the like, Mayaro—unless he be some French mission priest. Otherwise, yonder walks the greatest of God's fools!"
"Then he is easily taken," muttered Mayaro. "Fix thy flint, Loskiel, and prime. Here is a business I do not understand."
Once the man halted and looked up at our ledge of rock, where the last sun rays still lingered, then lightly continued the ascent. And I, turning to the Mohican for some possible explanation of this amazing sight, ere we crept out to closer ambush, found Mayaro staring through the trees with a glassy and singular expression which changed swiftly to astonishment, and then to utter blankness.
"Etho!" he exclaimed, bluntly, springing to his feet behind the nearer trees, regardless whether or not the stranger saw him. "Go forward now, Loskiel. This is a fool's business—and badly begun. Now, let a white man's wisdom finish it."
I, too, had risen in surprise, stepping backward also, in order that the trees might screen me. And at the same moment the stranger rounded the jutting shoulder of our crag, and came suddenly face to face with me in midtrail.
"Euan!"
So astounded was I that my rifle fell clattering from my nerveless hand as she sprang forward and caught my shoulders with both her hands. And I saw her grey eyes filling and her lips quivering with words she could not utter.
"Lois!" I repeated, as though stupefied. "Lois!"
"Oh, Euan! Euan! I thought I would never, never come up with you!" she whimpered. "I left the batteau where it touched at Towanda Creek, and hid in the woods and dressed me in the Oneida dress you gave me. Then, by the first batt-man who passed, I sent a message to Lana saying that I was going back to—to join you. Are you displeased?"
Her trembling hands clasped my shoulders tighter, and her face drew closer, so that her sweet, excited breath fell on my cheek.
"Listen!" she stammered. "I desire to tell you everything! I will tell you all, Euan! I ran back along the trail, meeting the boat-guard, batt-men, and the sick horses all along the way to Tioga, where they took me over on a raft of logs.... I paid them three hard shillings. Then Colonel Shreve heard of what I had been about, and sent a soldier after me, but I avoided the fort, Euan, and went boldly up through the deserted camps until I came to where the army had crossed. Some teamsters mending transport wagons gave me bread and meat enough to fill my pouch; and one of them, a kindly giant, took me over the Chemung dry shod, I clinging to his broad back like a very cat—and all o' them a-laughing fit to burst!… Are you displeased, dear lad?… Then, just at night, I came up with the rear-guard, where they were searching for strayed cattle; and I stowed myself away in a broken-down wagon, full of powder—quietly, like a mouse, no one dreaming that I was not the slender youth I looked. So none molested me where I lay amid the powder casks and sacking."
She smiled wistfully, and stood caressing my arms with her eager little hands, as though to calm the wrath to come.
"I heard your regiment's pretty conch-horn in the morning," she said, "and slipped out of my wagon and edged forward amid all that swearing, sweating confusion, noticed not at all by anybody, save when a red-head Jersey sergeant bawled at me to man a rope and haul at the mired cannon with the others. But I was deaf just then, Euan, and got free o' them with nothing worse than a sound cursing from the sergeant; and away across the creek I legged it, where I hid in the bush until the firing began and the horrid shouting on the ridge. Then it was that, badly scared, I crept through the Indian grass like a hunted hare, and saw Lieutenant Boyd there, and his men, halted across the trail. And very soon our cannon began, and then it was that I saw you and your Indians filing out to the right. So I followed you. Oh, Euan, are you very angry? Because, dear lad, I have had so lonely a trail, what with keeping clear of your party so that you might not catch me and send me back, and what with losing you after you had left the main, trodden trail! Save for the marks you left on trees, I had been utterly lost—and must have perished, no doubt–" She looked at me with melting eyes.
"Think on that, Euan, ere you grow too angry and are cruel with me."
"Cruel? Lois, you have been more heartless than I ever–"
"There! I knew it! Your anger is about to burst its dreadful bounds–"
"Child! What is there to say or do now? What is there left for me, save to offer you what scant protection I may—good God!—and take you forward with us in the morning? This is a cruel, unmerited perplexity you have caused me, Lois. What unkind inspiration prompted you to do this rash, mad, foolish thing! How could you so conduct? What can you hope to accomplish in all this wicked and bloody business that now confronts us? How can I do my duty—how perform it to the letter—with you beside me—with my very heart chilling to water at thought of your peril–"