Chapter XII: Unforgivable

By the note of the dogs' outcry, Flora knew that they had found a friend; and who could it be but Jim Todhunter? She continued to push and scramble forward. She kept a sharp and hopeful lookout ahead for the gleam of a fire, but in vain. At last she came to within a dozen yards of the dogs, who were still uttering occasional yaps and whines. But there was no fire. There was nothing but darkness.

"Is anyone there?" she asked.

"I'm here," replied a faint voice.

"Is it you, Jim?"

"Yes. Why have you run away, Flora? Wasn't one enough?"

"Where is your fire? What are you doing?"

"My fire seems to have gone out. I'm not doing anything."

"But--what is the matter with you?"

"Nothing much. Cut my leg--like a fool."

The girl dropped pack and gun and rustled dry wood for the second time within the hour. She worked in silence, fumbling in the dark; and Jim, too, was silent. The dogs whined anxiously. She found a white birch, from which she tore strips of bark, and she hacked away dozens of the dead lower branches of big spruces and firs. Soon strong flames were leaping, and by their light she saw Jim lying, rolled in blankets, on the snow. Only his head was uncovered. His eyes were wide open, regarding her fixedly.

"Didn't it work? Are they after you?" he asked.

For answer, she freed her feet from the snowshoes and knelt beside him.

"You are badly hurt!" she cried fearfully. "Let me see it! You have lost a lot of blood! How did you do it? Where is it?"

"My left leg," he answered. "Did it with the ax, like an idiot. Had fool's luck enough to miss the bone, by the feel of it. Doesn't hurt much, but bled a good deal. But what brought you along, Flora? Didn't our little game work? Or did you suddenly remember that you didn't thank me before I left?"

She did not answer his questions or meet his glance, but piled more fuel on the fire and set to unrolling the blankets gently and swiftly from about his legs. The heavy stockings on his left leg were wet and sticky with blood. Her exploring fingers were stained with it.

"You didn't tie it up!" she exclaimed.

"I tried to," he replied. "Tried to cut a strip of blanket for a bandage. Went groggy all of a sudden. Keeled over; just had time and sense enough to roll up snug in my blankets, so's not to get frost in the wound. Next thing I knew, the dogs were licking my face. Must have been unconscious for hours."

She produced bandages as if by magic, but with the help of a sharp knife. She cut away patches of the blood-soaked stockings and bound the deep wound. While she worked, he continued to repeat the question, but for all he learned she might as well have been deaf and dumb. Having completed the bandaging and covered the leg again, she gathered tips of cedar and fir and made a mattress and rolled him gently onto it. Then she melted snow in a smoky kettle, boiled the water, made tea, and fried bacon. She toasted bread and buttered it hot, sat down close beside him and poured tea into the only available mug. He put out a hand suddenly and gripped her nearest wrist with fingers like iron.

"Do you hear me?" he cried. "I have asked you a dozen times! Why have you come after me?"

"To find you," she answered faintly, with averted face.

"But what's the idea? What use my running away from the police if you run too?"

"Jim, do you really think I shot Amos Hammond?"

"You told me that you shot him!"

"Yes, I told you so--but I didn't!"

"What _are_ you driving at? If you didn't shoot him, then why did you ask me to run away like a coward? What good did it do you--my making a coward and a fool of myself--if you were innocent?"

"Can't you see?"

"No, I can't."

"I--I thought you had done it. What else could I think? And I wanted you to get away."

"But after I told you I didn't do it? It was not until then that you said you shot him!"

"I am ashamed of myself--miserably ashamed!"

"So it was just a silly trick, Flora? Nothing but an idiotic joke, to see what I would do for you."

"But it wasn't--a joke--or a trick," she sobbed. "I--I didn't believe you. I wanted you--to escape--but I wanted you to--trust me. And I thought you--would confess to me--if I said I did it."

"And when I didn't? You thought I was lying to you? You still thought so?"

"I am bitterly ashamed!"

"You believed me to be a fool, a liar, and a coward! You believed that I shot an unarmed man from cover and intended to bluff the sheriff, but that I was willing to run, eager to run, as soon as you said you were guilty. You believed that I was willing to pretend that you had shot him! Good Lord! It's too deep for me! Nice opinion you had of me! And still have, I suppose."

"I was crazy with anxiety--for you. I didn't think! I didn't reason! And when old Mrs. Wilson said that she had shot Hammond I--I hated myself! I despised myself--and I still do!"

"Mrs. Wilson? The queer old dame I gave cartridges to. I might have thought of that! So the police are still after me, I suppose?"

"No. She told the sheriff that she did it, and it is all right."

He drank tea, but refused to eat. Then he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. Flora gathered a supply of wood for the night, made herself a bed of boughs and took to her blankets with a heavy heart. She had wronged Jim past forgiveness, so it seemed. She had judged him as she might have judged other young men of her acquaintance--Homer Steeves and Melchior Hammond, for instance, and all through her mad anxiety for his safety. Now, remembering everything she had seen and heard of him, she realized how foolish and unjust she had been even in her first mad mistake of believing that he had fired upon an unarmed man.