LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Give me the stripes. Take the mackinaw an’ overalls. Maybe we can both make it. I’m with you, anyhow, to the finish. If we don’t get through, no matter. If we do, maybe if I’m in them stripes I can fool ’em for a while—help throw ’em off the track, so you can get clean away. If they shoot me, all right. Take my duds, anyhow take ’em, quick!”

      Stupefied, with still uncomprehending eyes, he stared. With ratlike suspicion he snarled at her, his teeth bare.

      “Huh! You tryin’ for play some trick on me now, sacré tonnerre?”

      “’Polyte! Me—play a trick on you?”

      “If I t’ink you try, I choke you wit’ dese two hands an’ t’row you in de rivière myself!”

      Her arms went round his neck, and in a sudden abandon she kissed the pale, unshaven lips.

      “Trust me, ’Polyte! Take my clothes—give me yourn! There may be some show yet, even now!”

      He thrust her away, and for a moment stood considering, while the boat, with ever-accelerating speed, swung down the last long reach of the smooth and crawling swirl where the waters paused a moment, hesitant, before the last mad plunge.

      Gnawing his nails, his face a terrible gray, eyes bestial, shoulders heavy and hulking, he stood there silent.

      “I cal’late we won’t get through, ’Polyte,” said the girl calmly, as though she had been at home and had spoken of the weather. A serene joy vibrated in her deepening voice. “It don’t matter either way. We’ll be together, whether we do or don’t. Both of us together, ’Polyte—together at last an’ always!”

      He did not even reply. Clutched on the rail of the lurching scow, he stared at the shore, gaging his chances.

      As the boat was driving now he knew it promised to slide over to the northern side of the long reach that ended at Crag Point. If so, it might go down the Canadian rapids, where some few craft had been known to live. It might conceivably reach Kamouraska Whirlpool, where it would be either grounded or swung close to shore. There might still be hope—perhaps—who could say?

      Savagely he whirled on the girl, and ripped his stripes, away with eager haste.

      “Quick, damn you!” he shouted. “Your clo’es ! Vite! Vite!”

      CHAPTER IV

      As the scow slued into the oily pause above the rapids, into the black and bubbling smoothness, overhung by drifting vapors, through which the soul-shaking reverberation bellowed, ’Polyte clad now in overalls and mackinaw—cursed the big boat with exceeding bitterness.

      “If I had a canoe, me—if I had a lumber-jack’s bateau—I make it, sure! But wit dis—”

      The girl, in convict garb, broke his thought.

      “Remember, I’m goin’ with you to the end! To the very end, no matter what happens!”

      He deigned no answer save a growl, and turned from her to stare at the sickening downward slide of foam ahead, dim in the murk. Came a moment’s silence while the scow, drifting, turning, neared the slant where the dark waters, seeming to stretch out as though elastic, ran forward to the final plunge.

      “One kiss, ’Polyte, an’ then—”

      “Va chez l’ diab’! We’re goin’ now!”

      Despite his rage, he could not shake her loose. She clung to him—not at all in fear, but in a kind of wondrous exaltation. Her breast was warm against him. Her white face burned with inward fire; and, though she made no sound, her lips were moving as the flat boat plunged.

      And now he fought her off; he beat her down, away from him.

      “Eh, quoi? You want to drown me?” he spat at her. “Va! Drown, you, if you lak’! I—I goin’ for live, me!”

      A moment the outlaw thought perhaps the clumsy scow might breast the fury of the rapids and sluice down to safety in the whirlpool below. A moment, though it slung, reeling, over the steps and ledges of the roaring steep, it lived. Across it cold and creaming purges of water burst.

      It staggered, half capsized, righted again as it leaped swiftly down.

      Through the gloom shrilled the convict’s snarling cry:

      “Drown, you, if you want! I goin’ for live!”

      “’Polyte! For God’s sake, look—”

      Transfixed on a fang of granite, the old hulk burst to fragments. Over it a sudden wall of water stormed—loud, icy, black. Only a second the shattered planks still swayed upon that rocky tooth. Then, all dissolving in a mad, wild flux, they slued away and vanished in the inky cataract.

      Tumbled, tossed, battered, now submerged and strangling, now flung up to air again, now battling with foam that mocked him, with splintered planks that whirled, eluding him; now once more plunged among chill, swift deeps, ’Polyte lashed out against the flood.

      Down, down he weltered—deaf, dumb, furious.

      “I live! I live!” he realized; and that alone. “I live!”

      A sudden spew of waters flung him round, behind a cragged spur of rock. And all at once, as he lurched onto the stone that tore his palms, up from the tumbling foam a white hand rose beside him—rose and clutched him—clutched and held.

      “Her? Again?” he panted. “Bon Dieu! I cannot get away?”

      Savagely he struck. But the hand-grip would not break.

      “Let go! You drown me!” he howled, while over him a chilling tumble of wild waters broke to spray.

      He struck again—struck a white, dumb face that for an instant yearned beside him. By the last gleam of light that wanly pierced a cloud-rift at the sky-line he saw the eyelids flutter.

      One second the girl’s eyes looked at him. Then the bruised lips moved faintly, as though they would have smiled. The eyes closed. Back fell the head. The hand released its hold.

      And the great rapids, clamoring with delight, swept the rock bare; while over it the chill, exultant torrent burst in thunderous jubilation.

      CHAPTER V

      At flaming break of day—day that blazed red across the mottled evergreen, the October chrome and crimson of the great North Woods—a man, naked and bruised, yet whole, sat on a gray, moss-bearded boulder in a sheltered cove by Kamouraska Whirlpool.

      To right of him, a fern-spattered cliff. To left, a point densely shagged with spruce and tamarack. Gazing about him, the man smiled.

      “Safe, moé!” he muttered. “Dey ain’t nevair find me here. I rest up one day. Hedgehog I catch easy, an’ eat. To-night, away for Saddleback! One day, two day t’rough Temiscouata woods—den let dem look! I laugh, me! I give dem all ha! ha!”

      Beside him on the rock, where the first rays of the rising sun struck them, lay sodden clothes—faded blue overalls and a rough mackinaw.

      “Dey dry soon,” said the man. “Now I swim. It will mak’ me strong again. If I only had tabac, one good smoke should fix me. But I have none. Bah! What matter? I live, I live!

      “I said she was no good to me no more; but I was mistake, moé. Zut! Never can tell. She was some use, after all, hein? Her overall an’ mackinaw will help. Best of all, she is gone. Ah! It is all right. Bon Dieu, w’at fortune!”

      He spoke in a bastard mixture of bad English and worse French, murmuring to himself as he sat there naked in the comforting sunshine on the big rock by the backwater of the mighty whirlpool that circled endlessly beyond the point.

      “Some cut, some bruise; it is not’ing,” said he, feeling of his body, looking himself over for damage. “My heel cut, my shoulder black an’ blue; one finger broke, I guess maybe. Eh, not’ing?

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