God's Country - And the Woman - James Oliver Curwood (best classic romance novels .txt) 📗

wonderful stories I have to tell about them you will love them. They will not harm you. They will harm nothing that I have touched. I have taught them that. I am going to unleash them now. Metoosin is coming along the trail with their frozen fish."
Before she had moved, Philip went straight up to the yellow creature that she had told him was a quarter wolf.
"Hero," he spoke softly. "Hero--"
He held out his hands. The giant husky's eyes burned a deeper glow; for an instant his upper lip drew back, baring his stiletto-like fangs, and the hair along his neck and back stood up like a brush. Then, inch by inch, his muzzle drew nearer to Philip's steady hands, and a low whine rose in his throat. His crest drooped, his ears shot forward a little, and Philip's hand rested on the wolfish head.
"That is proof," he laughed, turning to Josephine. "If he had snapped off my hand I would say that you were wrong."
She passed quickly from one dog to another now, with Philip close at her side, and from the collar of each dog she snapped the chain. After she had freed a dozen, Philip began to help her. A few of the huskies snarled at him. Others accepted him already as a part of her. Yet in their eyes he saw the smouldering menace, the fire that wanted only a word from her to turn them into a horde of tearing demons.
At first he was startled by Josephine's confidence in them. Then he was only amazed. She was not only unafraid herself; she was unafraid for him. She knew that they would not touch him. When they were all free the pack gathered in close about them, and then Josephine came and stood at Philip's side, and put her hands to his shoulders. Thus she stood for a few moments, half facing the dogs, calling their names again; and they crowded up still closer about them, until Philip fancied he could feel their warm breath.
"They have all seen me with you now," she cried after that. "They have seen me touch you. Not one of them will snap at you after this."
The dogs swept on ahead of them in a great wave as they left the spruce shelter. Out in the clear light Philip drew a deep breath. He had never seen anything like this pack. They crowded shoulder to shoulder, body to body, in the open trail. Most of them were the tawny dun and gray and yellow of the wolf. There were a few blacks, and a few pure whites, but none that wore the mongrel spots of the soft-footed and softer-throated dogs from the south.
He shivered as he measured the pent-up power, the destructive possibilities of the whining, snapping, living sea of sinew and fang ahead of them. And they were Josephine's! They were her slaves! What need had she of his protection? What account would be the insignificant automatic at his side in the face of this wild horde that awaited only a word from her? What could there be in these forests that she feared, with them at her command? Ten men with rifles could not have stood in the face of their first mad rush--and yet she had told him that everything depended upon his protection. He had thought that meant physical protection. But it could not be. He spoke his thoughts aloud, pointing to the dogs:
"What danger can there be in this world that you need fear--with them?" he asked. "I don't understand. I can't guess."
She knew what he meant. The hand on his arm pressed a little closer to him.
"Please don't try to understand," she answered in a low voice. "They would fight for me. I have seen them tear a wolf-pack into shreds. And I have called them back from the throat of a wind-run deer, so that not a hair of her was harmed. But, Philip, I guess that sometimes mistakes were made in the creation of things. They have a brain. But it isn't REASON!"
"You mean--" he cried.
"That you, a man, unarmed, alone, are still their master," she interrupted him. "In the face of reason they are powerless. See, there comes Metoosin with the frozen fish! What if he were a stranger and the fish were poisoned?"
"I understand," he replied. "But others drive them besides you?"
"Only those very near to the family. Twenty of them are used in the traces. The others are my companions--my bodyguard, I call them."
Metoosin approached them now, weighted down under a heavy load in a gunny-sack, and Philip believed that he recognized in the silent Indian the man whom he had first seen at the door of Adare House with a rifle in his hands. At a few commands from Josephine the dogs gathered about them, and Metoosin opened the bag.
"I want you to throw them the fish, Philip," said Josephine. "Their brains comprehend the hand that feeds them. It is a sort of pledge of friendship between you and them."
With Metoosin she drew a dozen steps back, and Philip found that he had become the centre of interest for the pack. One by one he pulled out the fish. Snapping jaws met the frozen feast in midair. There was no fighting--no vengeful jealousy of fang. Once when a gray and yellow husky snapped at a fish already in the jaws of another, Josephine reprimanded him sharply, and at the sound of his name he slunk back. One by one Philip threw out the fish until they were all gone. Then he stood and looked down upon the flat-bellied pack, listening to the crunching of bones and frozen flesh, and Josephine came and stood beside him again.
Suddenly he felt her start. He looked up, and saw that her face was turned down the trail. He had caught the quick change in her eyes, the swift tenseness that flashed for an instant in her mouth. The vivid colour in her face had paled. She looked again as he had seen her for that short space at the door in Miriam's room. He followed the direction of her eyes.
A hundred yards away two figures were advancing toward them. One was her father, the master of Adare. And on his arm was Miriam his wife.


CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The strange effect upon Josephine of the unexpected appearance of Adare and his wife passed as quickly as it had come. When Philip looked at her again she was waving a hand and smiling. Adare's voice came booming up the trail. He saw Miriam laughing. Yet in spite of himself--even as he returned Adare's greeting--he could not keep himself from looking at the two women with curious emotions.
"This is rank mutiny!" cried Adare, as they came up. "I told them they must sleep until noon. I have already punished Miriam. And you, Mignonne? Does Philip let you off too easily?"
Adare's wife had given Philip her hand. A few hours' rest had brightened her eyes and brought colour into her face. She looked still younger, still more beautiful. And Adare was riotous with joy because of it.
"Look at your mother, Josephine," he commanded in a hoarse whisper, meant for all to hear. "I said the forests would do more than a thousand doctors in Montreal!"
"You do look splendid, Mikawe," said Josephine, slipping an arm about her mother's waist.
Adare had turned into a sudden volley of greetings to the feasting dogs, and for another moment Philip's eyes were on mother and daughter. Josephine was the taller of the two by half a head. She was more like her father. He noted that the colour had not returned fully into her cheeks, while the flush in Miriam's face had deepened. There was something forced in Josephine's laugh, a note that was unreal and make-believe, as she turned to Philip.
"Isn't my mother wonderful, Philip? I call her Mikawe because that means a little more than Mother in Cree--something that is almost undying and spirit-like. You will never grow old, my little mother!"
"Ponce de Leon made a great mistake when he didn't search in these forests for his fountain of eternal youth," said Adare, laying a hand on Philip's shoulder. "Would you guess that it was twenty-two years ago a month from to-day that she came to be mistress of Adare House? And you, Ma Cheri," added Adare tenderly, taking his wife by the hand, "Do you remember that it was over this same trail that we took our first walk--from home? We went to the Chasm."
"Yes, I remember."
"And here--where we stand--the wood violets were so thick they left perfume on our boots."
"And you made me a wreath of them--with the red bakneesh," said Miriam softly.
"And braided it in your hair."
"Yes."
She was breathing a little more quickly. For a moment it seemed as if these two had forgotten Philip and Josephine. Their eyes had turned to each other.
"Twenty-two years ago--A MONTH FROM TO-DAY!" repeated Josephine.
It seemed as if she had spoken the words that Philip might catch their hidden meaning.
Adare straightened with a sudden idea:
"On that day we shall have a great anniversary feast," he declared. "We will ask every soul--red and white--for a hundred miles about, with the exception of the rogues over at Thoreau's Place! What do you say, Philip?"
"Splendid!" cried Philip, catching triumphantly at this straw in the face of Josephine's plans for him. He looked straight into her eyes as he spoke. "A month from to-day these forests shall ring with our joy. And there will be a reason for it--MORE THAN ONE!"
She could not misunderstand that! And Philip's heart beat joyously as Josephine turned quickly to her mother, the colour flooding to the tips of her ears.
The dogs had eaten their fish and were crowding about them. For the first time Adare seemed to notice Metoosin, who had stood motionless twenty paces behind them.
"Where is Jean?" he asked.
Josephine shook her head.
"I haven't seen him since last night."
"I had almost forgotten what I believe he intended me to tell you," said Philip. "He has gone somewhere in the forest. He may be away all day."
Philip saw the anxious look that crept into Josephine's eyes. She looked at him closely, questioningly, yet he guessed that beyond what he had said she wanted him to remain silent. A little later, when Adare and his wife were walking ahead of them, she asked:
"Where is Jean? What did he tell you last night?"
Philip remembered Jean's warning.
"I cannot tell you," he replied evasively. "Perhaps he has gone out to reconnoitre for--game."
"You are true," she breathed softly. "I guess I understand. Jean doesn't want me to know. But after I went to bed I lay awake a long time and thought of you--out in the night with that gun in your hand. I can't believe that you were there simply because of a noise, as you said. A man like you doesn't hunt for a noise with a pistol, Philip. What is the matter with your arm?"
The directness of her question startled him.
"Why do you ask that?" he managed to stammer.
"You have flinched twice when I touched it--this arm."
"A trifle," he assured her. "It should have healed by this time."
She smiled straight up into his eyes.
"You are too true to tell me fairy stories in a way that I must believe them, Philip. Day before yesterday your sleeves were up when you were paddling, and there was nothing wrong with this arm--this forearm--then. But I'm not going to question you. You don't want me to know." In the same breath she recalled his attention to her father and mother. "I told you they were lovers.