"This is all on my ranch," said Isabel; "so there is no danger of being peppered. The rest of the marsh is owned by clubs, and as there was no shooting here last year the ducks should be thicker than anywhere else. We should get our fifty apiece in no time."
They were entering a narrow slough, hardly wider than the boat. It cut its zigzag way through the marsh for many miles, and they could follow its course with the eye but a few feet at a time. Gwynne shipped the oars and began to scull, his gun across his knee. Isabel, in front and with her back to him, sat with her own gun ready for a shot. On one side of them was a large piece of marsh-land, on the left, smaller patches, and little islands caught in the long grasping fingers of the tide. Gwynne had attired himself with an ill grace in a pair of his cousin Hiram's rubber boots that completely covered his body below the waist, and an old shooting-coat with capacious pockets. Isabel wore a similar costume, and but for her hair might have been mistaken for a lad. She possessed no interest for Gwynne whatever at the moment. Nor did anything else but the prospect of a new and exciting sport. The October evening was mellow and full of color, the entire reach of the marsh steeped in a golden haze shed from the glory in the west. Even the forests and the lower ridges rising to Tamalpais had something aqueous in their vague outlines, swayed gently in the golden tide. Only the tide lands were green; the very water was yellow. Here and there, but far away, a mast or sail rose above the level surface of the marsh. From the distance came the sound of constant shooting.
Gwynne sculled silently, but with some impatience. They had left the open creek far behind and had not seen a duck. Suddenly Isabel's gun leaped to her shoulder. They rounded a sharp point and the whole surface of the narrow slough between them and the next bend was black with sleeping ducks. Gwynne's knee moved automatically to the seat in front of him, and as the startled birds rose he and Isabel fired to right and left. The scattering shot played havoc, and the second charge brought down at least half as many on the higher wing. Isabel reloaded the guns while Gwynne went for the ducks that had fallen on the land. He fell into several holes himself, and returned covered with mud, but waving his birds in triumph; and once more they stole softly along their winding way. The shot had roused neighboring flocks; several dark clouds had risen simultaneously, but in a few moments they settled again.
"You had better use both guns," whispered Isabel, "and I will do the reloading. We can't do much with these old-fashioned things at best."
Gwynne accepted this act of sacrifice with a matter-of-fact nod, and it was but a moment later that they came upon another flock. He fired with an accuracy of aim that won him an admiring mutter, although to miss would have been almost as noteworthy. But after repeating this experience several times, he shrugged his shoulders and announced himself blas?
"I'd like something a little more difficult," he said. "Ten minutes of this and we can glut the market."
"All men are children," said Isabel, indulgently. "Tie up the boat and we'll go after widgeon."
They landed and stole softly over the larger reach of marsh-land, Isabel in the lead as she knew every hole. It was ten minutes before she raised her hand and pointed to a wilted but still effective screen. Under cover of this they crawled towards a large pond on which ducks were resting but by no means asleep. Before the guns were shouldered they had taken flight; so few were brought down on the wing that Gwynne's interest revived, and he followed Isabel eagerly towards another pond with a better blind. Here they were more wary and more fortunate, and Isabel took a curious pleasure in watching the manifest bliss of her companion. She had never seen him look really happy before. Upon his return to Capheaton from his triumphant battle on the hustings he had been as impassive as his traditions demanded. On the morning of his engagement he had looked rather silly to her detached eye; and immediately after, tragedy and trouble and infinite vexation had claimed him. But this evening, with his cap pushed back, his nostrils distended, his eyes sparkling, he looked like any other young fellow to whom the present was all. Isabel reflected somewhat cynically that it was the opportunity to kill something that had effected this momentary reconciliation with life. But she was too good a sportswoman not to understand his mood, and when he had waded into the lake and returned flushed and triumphant with his bag, she complimented him so warmly that he laughed aloud in sheer delight.
"We have enough for once," she began, but he would not hear of returning to the boat even for the refreshment of tea, and they went on and on until their feet were as weary as their shoulders under the burden that was Isabel's part to string while her partner enjoyed himself.
"But we must really go," she announced, finally. "We have a long stretch out in the open creek after we leave the slough, and it is not so easy to keep the channel after dark. I have lost track of things and don't remember what time the moon rises. You can come every day if you like; and four in the morning is the best time if you are energetic enough—"
"I would get up at midnight—stay up all night. But I am quite willing to return now—and not for tea. I should like several of these ducks for supper, if your Jap is less haughty than mine."
Their way lay through the middle of the marsh-land. It was not until they reached the slough that she uttered a loud sharp cry. The boat was at least three feet below them and there was nothing at either end but mud.
Isabel stamped both feet in succession and flung her burden to the ground. "Why, why did I take Mac's word?" she exclaimed, furiously. "He always makes mistakes about the tide—he hasn't an inch of memory left. Why didn't I look at the calendar? Or think? This comes of going off for three weeks instead of staying at home and attending to business. I had a confused idea that this was the 'good week.' Great heavens!"
Gwynne had watched her with considerable interest and curiosity. But he answered, soothingly: "Well, what of it? The tide turns, doesn't it." It happened that he had had no experience of marsh-lands.
"Yes—in six hours."
"Six hours! Well, what of it? It is all in the day's work. Look at it as a jolly adventure." It was his first opportunity to console and he hastened to take advantage of it. "We have tea and sandwiches, warm enough clothing, and the weather is perfection. If we get stiff and chilly we can walk—"
"Walk? In these rubber boots? I am nearly dead already." She had a wild impulse to drop her head on his shoulder and weep; but her pride flew to the front and she shrugged her shoulders and remarked, airily: "I don't really mind anything much except being an idiot. However, I'll make it up to you. I can cook ducks better than Chuma. You make the tea."
Gwynne made a fire out of decayed tule weed and driftwood, then climbed down into the boat and brought up the provisions and utensils intended for an earlier interlude. The tea warmed and stimulated both, and they knelt by the fire and toasted the ducks at the end of the boat-hook, scowling with a preternatural earnestness both were too hungry to observe. Then they fell to, and it is doubtful if either had ever eaten with a keener relish. They were obliged to use their fingers, and, as they had no salt, to shred the ham and wrap it about the morsels of duck, but to such minor matters they gave not a thought, and consumed four teals and every scrap they had brought from home, as well as another pot of tea. Isabel, recalling the injured air of her father, uncle, and brother-in-law when their comfort was rudely disturbed, warmed to Gwynne, who was good-humored and amused. Even the reflection that he had roughed it in far worse straits than this, or that had he the legal right to grumble he might possibly use it, did not alter the pleasant impression he made as he tramped out the fire, washed his hands in the marsh grass, and then stretched himself full length with his pipe. She lit a cigarette, but had not smoked half its length when she sprang to her feet.
"Look!" she said. "We must get into the boat. It is getting damper every moment, and the fog will make us feel as if we were in our graves if we don't sit on something dry."
She had pointed northward, and Gwynne saw a phantom mountain moving along the level surface of the marsh with the quiet plodding motion of a ship under full sail in a light breeze. The curious combination of images fascinated him, and he watched the stealthy silent progress of this night visitor from the tule lands of the north, that looked as if it might have obliterated the world. As he jumped down into the boat he saw before him, on three sides of him, the sparkling night. Then as Isabel laid her hands on his shoulders and he lifted her down, the fog swept over them, and there was nothing to do but sit and watch the glow of pipe and cigarette; even their own outlines were barely visible.
"I fancy it will go home when the moon rises," said Isabel, with a little shiver. "Are you cold?" she asked, solicitously.
"No," replied a tart voice. "Why didn't you let me ask that? You are not my mother. We can make tea at intervals. How long do you suppose the tide has been out?"
"About two hours."
"I am quite comfortable and have never resented any adventure. And this is the appropriate time and place for a certain story. As I remarked before I shall not know you until I have heard it. Pasts are dead walls."
"It is not necessary that you should know me."
"I think otherwise. You are my one friend among eighty millions of aliens, or ought to be. I shall continue to feel a superior sort of acquaintance until you have taken me into your confidence."
There was a movement of the fog that he inferred was a shrug. "Very well," she replied, without a break in her cool even voice. "I suppose I shall enjoy talking about myself. It is not often I have had the opportunity to indulge in a monologue in my family, and you certainly are at my mercy. If you attempt to flee you will be mired like the boat, and I could not pull you out."
He had never felt the least curiosity about the past history or the inner life of a mortal before, and in normal circumstances Isabel's would not have appealed to him. But her instrumentality in changing the whole current of his life had alarmed his masculinity into a resolve to demonstrate his superiority if it came to a contest of wills; given birth to a subtle assumption of proprietorship, indifferent in material things, but pressing towards the guarded chambers of the spirit. Isabel, vaguely uneasy earlier in the day, began to appreciate the advance of an outer and powerful force upon her precious freedom, and resented it. And while she made up her mind that if it came to a silent contest of wills, hers at least should not be conquered, she reflected that the deeper intimacy, certain to ensue if she gave him her confidence, would insure her a firmer and subtler hold upon his destinies.