The Shadow of Victory: A Romance of Fort Dearborn

When they came to the bank of the river, they looked anxiously toward the Fort and the trading station, but saw only Indians. A young warrior met Black Partridge here, and Beatrice was told to dismount. She did so, thinking that in a few minutes more she would be at home again, but when she saw that they were not going up the river she could not keep back a cry of pain.

The chief turned upon her fiercely, and muttered angrily to Robert. "Hush, dear!" he said to Beatrice, but his face was very pale.

They stood there for some time, and at length a large canoe was brought down-stream. "Oh, where are we going!" she moaned.

"I don't know, dearest," answered Robert, in a low tone; "but wherever it is, we're going together." His fingers tightened upon his sword, that still hung at his side.

They got into the canoe, Beatrice at the bow and Robert at the stern. Black Partridge took the paddle, and with swift, sure strokes they shot out into the lake and then turned north. After some time Robert ventured to ask a question, but received no answer except a meaningless grunt.

The last light lay upon the water and touched it to exceeding beauty. The lake seemed like a great turquoise, deepening slowly to sapphire. Sunset colours flamed upon the clouds near the horizon, but their hearts were heavy, and they did not see.

As twilight approached, the canoe moved even more swiftly and Black Partridge never faltered at his task. Robert began to wonder if they were going to Fort Mackinac, and laughed at himself for the thought.

Now and then, after a sudden spurt ahead, the Indian anxiously scanned the shore, as if he were looking for a landmark. At last they turned in. With a grating of the keel the canoe grounded on the beach, and they got out, still wondering, still afraid, and completely at the Indian's mercy.

He signed to them to follow him, and they went up the steep bank as best they could, catching at saplings and undergrowth to keep their footing sure.

Once on the bluff they turned northward again, and Beatrice, utterly weary and hopeless, leaned heavily upon Robert's arm. Some way, the ground was familiar to him, but he could not have told where they were.

It was almost dusk when Black Partridge stopped and waited for them. They followed him down a little incline, which was smooth and well worn. "Why!" said Beatrice, in astonishment.

They were at the door of the little house in the woods that they had discovered so long ago; and over the doorway the silver cross still hung, its gleam hidden in the darkness.

The Indian spoke to Robert, repeating each sentence slowly, until he understood. Then Robert shook hands with him, and the Indian plunged down the bluff, ran along the beach to his canoe, and went south.

With a soft, rhythmic sound the splash of the paddle died into a murmur, then into silence. "What was it?" asked the girl, still afraid.

"We are to stay here to-night and perhaps longer – we are to wait until he comes for us. He says this is Mad Margaret's cabin, and that no one will dare to molest us here. The Great Spirit is already displeased, because by an accident she was killed. It is not good to touch her nor anything that belongs to her."

"Are we safe?" asked Beatrice, in low, moved tones. "Can it be that we are safe at last?"

Robert took her into his arms and kissed her twice. "My sweetheart," he said, "my own brave girl, we are safe at last, and we are together for always. Nothing but death can part us now!"

CHAPTER XXIV

THE REPRIEVE

Beatrice looked around the cabin curiously, though its aspect was very little changed from her memory of it. The rude, narrow bed at the farther end was still covered with the blue-and-white patchwork quilt which Mrs. Mackenzie had so strangely lost. The furniture, as before, consisted of rough chairs and tables made from boxes and barrels by an inexperienced hand. New shelves had been added, and these were filled with provisions in the familiar guise of the trading station.

A bolt of calico, some warm winter clothing, and countless articles of necessity and comfort were all neatly put away. Chandonnais had evidently pilfered from his employer constantly and systematically. Whatever he saw that seemed desirable for his mother's use, he had plainly taken at the first opportunity. Even the children's playthings had been brought there to amuse Mad Margaret.

Beatrice pulled aside a cotton curtain that had been fastened across one corner, and was not a little surprised to find her own pink calico gown, which she had made early in the summer. Robert was as interested as she was, though the light was rapidly failing. He had found a tallow dip and kept it within easy reach, though he had his doubts as to the wisdom of a light.

With an exclamation of astonishment, he stooped and picked up a pair of moccasins – small, dainty, and heavily beaded – the very pair he had lost.

"See, dearest," he said, "these are the moccasins I had for your birthday. I told you they had been stolen, don't you remember?"

The girl turned her sweet face to his. "I'm going to thank you for them now."

"I don't deserve it, sweetheart, and I'll tell you why. I wanted to tell you then, but, someway, I didn't have the courage. I didn't know it was your birthday – I'd had the moccasins a long time, but I didn't want George to get the better of me, and so I let you think I knew."

The mention of Ronald's name brought tears to her eyes. "I have a confession to make," she said. "Come here." She put her arm around his neck and drew his head down, then whispered to him.

"My darling!" he replied, brokenly, "did you think me beast enough to grudge him that? I'm glad you did it and I always will be. Poor lad, he couldn't have you, and you are mine for always."

"I know," she sighed; "but I like to think that I made him happy – that he was happy when he died."

"He loved you, Bee – almost as much as I do."

"He couldn't," she said softly, "for nobody ever loved anybody else as much as you love me"; and he was quite willing to have it so.

Shortly afterward he came to an active realisation of the fact that neither of them had eaten anything since morning. He lighted the tallow dip and searched the cabin until he found a generous supply of the plain fare to which they were accustomed. He wanted to build a fire and make some tea for Beatrice, but she refused, and asked for water instead. He went down the bluff and brought her some, but it was so warm as to be almost insipid.

After they had eaten, the inevitable reaction came to Beatrice. The high nervous tension of the past week suddenly snapped and left her as helpless as a child. "Oh!" she moaned, "the heat is unbearable – why doesn't it get cool!"

She threw herself upon the narrow bed, utterly exhausted. With a clumsy, but gentle touch, he took the pins out of her hair and unfastened her shoes. Beatrice suddenly sat up and threw her shoes into the farthest corner of the cabin. Then a small, soft, indistinct bundle was pushed to the floor.

Robert laughed and brought the moccasins. "Will you let me put them on?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer he slipped them on her bare feet, not at all surprised to find that they fitted perfectly. "The little feet," he said, tenderly; "the bare, soft, dimpled things!"

"The moccasins are softer," she answered, in a matter-of-fact tone, "and I think I'm going to sleep now."

For a long time he sat beside her, holding her hand in his. They talked of the thousand things which had suddenly become important – their first meeting, their individual impressions of it, and of everything that had happened since. With some trepidation he told her that he was mainly responsible for the poem which accompanied the Indian basket.

"It was a very bad poem," she observed.

"Yes," answered Robert, with a new note of happy laughter in his voice; "it was an unspeakable poem."

Then he described the arrangement which he and Ronald had made "to lessen the friction," as he said, and she smiled in the midst of her tears. "Poor lad!" she sighed.

"Poor lad!" he repeated; and then, after a long silence, "true lover and true friend."

The intervals between question and answer lengthened insensibly, and at last Beatrice slept. He stole away from her on tiptoe and went out in front of the cabin, where there was only a narrow ledge upon the bluff. He sat down in the doorway, where he could hear the slightest sound, and deliberately set himself to watch out the night.

He was physically exhausted, but his mind was strangely active. For the first time he was in a position to review the events of his stay at Fort Dearborn, from the night of his arrival, when Mad Margaret had appeared at the trading station, to the present hour, when he sat in her pathetic little cabin, with the girl he loved so near him that he could hear her deep breathing as she slept.

"What has it done for me?" he thought – "what has it brought me?" The answer was "Beatrice," which came with a passionate uplifting of soul. With a certain boyish idea of knight-errantry, he had kept his hands and his heart clean, and, in consequence, love brought to him at last an exquisite fineness of joy. In that hour of close self-communion, his deepest satisfaction was this – that in all the years, in spite of frequent temptation, there was nothing of which he need to be ashamed – nothing to remember with a pang of bitterness, when Beatrice lifted her innocent eyes to his.

"Sir Galahad," some of his friends had called him, jeeringly, and, before, it had never failed to bring the colour to his face; but now the words rang through his consciousness like a trumpet-blast of victory. He was spared that inner knowledge of shame and unworthiness which lies, like bitter lees, in the wine of man's love.

"Beatrice! Beatrice!" Like another of her name she had led him through hell, and he saw now a certain sweet slavery in prospect. Wherever his thoughts might wander, she would always be with him, like the golden thread which runs through a dull tapestry, in and out of the design, sometimes hidden for an instant, but never lost.

Aunt Eleanor and Uncle John – they had been like father and mother to him, and he loved the children as though they were his own. The plaintive lisps of the little girl came back to his memory with remorseful tenderness, and he smiled as he wondered, dreamily, what Beatrice might have been at four or five. Swiftly upon the thought came another, which set the blood to singing in his veins, and which he put from him quickly, as one retreats before something too beautiful and too delicate to touch.

Captain Wells and Doctor Norton – they were dead. And Ronald – a lump came into his throat which he could not keep down, for, of all the men in the world, the blue-eyed soldier was best fitted to be his friend. They supplemented one another perfectly, each having what the other lacked, and enough in common to make firm neutral ground whereupon friendship might safely stand. Of his other friends at the Fort he thought idly, since he had not known them so well, but he was genuinely glad that they had survived the horrors of the day.

As night wore on, the battle assumed indistinct and indefinite phases. Here and there some incident stood out vividly; unrelated and detached. He had spoken truly when he told Beatrice that "a mere handful" had been lost. What, indeed, did such things matter in the face of history?

It was but the price of a new country, which courageous souls had been paying for two centuries and more, and which some must continue to pay until —