They spent the greater part of a week on the portage, crossing here and there a little lake; and then came out one evening on a river that flowed, green and tranquil, beneath a ridge of hills. Here they camped; and on rising with a shiver in the raw and nipping dawn the next morning, Nasmyth found Lisle busy at the fire. Jake was cutting wood some distance off, for the thud of his ax rang sharply through the stillness.
“I was awake—thinking—a good deal last night; in fact, I’ve been restless ever since we struck the Gladwynes’ trail,” Nasmyth began. “Now, I understand that an uninterrupted journey of about sixteen days would take us well on our way toward civilization. You say you apprehend no difficulty after that?”
“No.” Lisle waited, watching his companion in an intent fashion.
Nasmyth hesitated.
“Then, considering everything, mightn’t it be better to waste no time, and push straight on?”
“And leave the work that brought me here—I believe that brought us both here—undone?”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t express myself very fortunately. What I feel is this—Gladwyne’s story is a tragic one, but it’s twelve months old. In a way, it’s forgotten; the wounds it made have healed.”
“Is such a man as the one you have described forgotten in a year?” Lisle asked with a hardening expression.
Nasmyth, being a man of simple and, for the most part, wholesome ideas, was in a quandary. His feelings were generous, but he shrank from putting them into words. Moreover he was just and was not wholly convinced that the course he wished to recommend was right.
“Well,” he contended, “there are faithful hearts that never quite forget—with them the scar remains; but it’s fortunate that the first keen pain does not last. Is it decent—I almost think that’s the right word—to reopen the wound?”
He paused and spread out one hand as if in expostulation.
“Your late comrade has gone beyond your help; you told me he had left no relatives; and you have only yourself to consider. Can you do any good by bringing this sorrowful tale of disaster up again?”
“Are you pleading for your English friends, anxious to save them pain at my expense? Can’t you understand my longing to clear my dead partner’s name?”
A trace of color crept into Nasmyth’s face.
“I suppose I deserve that, though it wasn’t quite the only thing I meant. I’ve an idea that you are somehow going to lay up trouble for yourself by persevering in this search.”
“I don’t want to be offensive; but can’t you see that by urging me to let the thing drop you are casting grave doubts upon the honor of a man of your own caste and kind, one with whom you are closely acquainted? Are you afraid to investigate, to look for proofs of Clarence Gladwyne’s story?”
Nasmyth looked him steadily in the eyes.
“For the sake of one or two others, I think I am. Your belief in the guide, Vernon, has had its effect on me.”
“Then,” said Lisle, “I have no fear of putting my belief to the test; I came up here for that purpose, and I mean to call upon you as my witness. As you said of George Gladwyne, the man I owe so much to never did a shabby thing. That he should have deserted a starving comrade is clean impossible!”
“I suppose there’s no help for it,” responded Nasmyth, with a gesture of acquiescence. “We have said enough. Since you insist, I’ll stand by my promise.”
The thudding of the ax ceased, and they heard Jake returning with the wood. Lisle set out the simple breakfast, and when they had eaten they launched the canoe and floated swiftly down the smooth green river all that day. They had accomplished the worst half of the journey; henceforward their way lay down-stream, and with moderate good fortune they need have no apprehension about safely reaching the settlements, but they were both silent and ill at ease. Lisle was consumed with fierce impatience; and Nasmyth shrank from what might shortly be revealed to him. Scarcely a word was spoken when they lay in camp that night.
The next day they came to the head of a long and furiously-running rapid. Rocks encumbered its channel; the stream boiled fiercely over sunken ledges, dropping several feet here and there in angry falls; and in one place, where the banks narrowed in, a white stretch of foaming waves ran straight down the middle. Here they unloaded and spent the day laboriously relaying their stores and camp-gear over the boulders and ragged ledges between a wall of rock and the water. It was a remarkably difficult traverse. In places they had to hoist the leader up to some slippery shelf he could not reach unassisted and to which he dragged his companions up in turn; in others deep pools barred their way, and in skirting them they were forced to cling to any indifferent handhold on the rock’s fissured side. As they toiled on, badly hampered by their loads, the same thought was in the minds of two of the men—a wonder as to how Gladwyne’s exhausted party had crossed that portage, unless the water had been lower. It was not difficult to understand how the famishing leader had fallen and lamed himself.
When at last, toward the end of the afternoon, the stores had been deposited on the banks of the pool below, Lisle sat down and filled his pipe.
“It would take us most of two days to portage the canoe, and we might damage her badly in doing so,” he said. “The head of the rapid’s impossible, but with luck we might run her down the rest in about ten minutes. The thing seems worth trying, though I wouldn’t have risked it with the stores on board.”
“Suppose you swamped or upset her?” Nasmyth suggested.
“It’s less likely, since she’d go light, with only two of us paddling.”
Nasmyth considered. The sight of the rapid was not encouraging, but he shrank from the intense effort that would be needed to transport the craft by the way they had come. Eventually it was decided to leave Jake below, ready to swim out with the tracking-line and seize the canoe if any mishap befell, and Lisle and Nasmyth went back to the head of the rapid. They dragged the canoe round the worst rush with infinite difficulty; and then Nasmyth set his lips and braced himself for the mad descent when his companion thrust her off.
A few strokes of the paddle drove them out into the stream, and then their task consisted in holding her straight and swinging her clear of the rocks that showed up through the leaping foam, which was difficult enough. Seen from the water, the prospect was almost appalling, though it was blurred and momentarily changing. Nasmyth’s eyes could hardly grasp salient details—he had only a confused impression of flying spray, rushing green water that piled itself here and there in frothy ridges, flitting rocks, and trees that came furiously speeding up toward him. He had an idea that Lisle once or twice shouted sharp instructions and that he clumsily obeyed, but he could not have told exactly what he did. He only knew that now and then he paddled desperately, but more often he knelt still, gazing fascinated at the mad turmoil in front of him.
At last there was an urgent cry from Lisle and he backed his paddle. The canoe swerved, a foaming wave broke into her, and in another moment Nasmyth was in the water. He was dragged down by the swirling stream, and when he rose he dimly saw the canoe a few yards in front of him. He failed to reach her—she was traveling faster than he was—and, though he could swim well, he grew horribly afraid. It struck him that there was a strong probability of his being driven against a boulder with force enough to break his bones or of being drawn down and battered against the stony bottom. Still, he struck out for a line of leaping froth between him and the bank and was nearing it when Lisle grasped his shoulder and thrust him straight down-stream. Scarcely able to see amid the turmoil, confused and bewildered, he nevertheless realized that it was not desirable to attempt a landing where he had intended. Yielding to the guiding impulse, he floundered down-stream, until Lisle again seized him and drove him shoreward, and a few moments later he stood up, breathless, in a few feet of slacker water. He waded to the bank, and then turned to Lisle, who was close behind.
“Thanks,” he gasped. “I owe you something for that.”
“Pshaw!” disclaimed the other. “I only pulled you back. You’d have got badly hammered if you’d tried to cross that ledge. I’d noticed the inshore swirl close below it when we were packing along the bank, and remembered that we could land in it.”
“But you had hold of the canoe. I saw you close beside her.”
“I only wanted her to take me past the ledge,” Lisle explained. “I’d no notion of going right through with her. Now we’ll make for camp.”
On arriving there as darkness closed down, they found that Jake had recovered the craft. The paddles had gone, but he could make another pair in an hour or two. They had a few dry things to put on, and as they lay beside the fire after supper they were sensible that the slight constraint both had felt for the last two days had vanished. Neither would have alluded to the feeling which had replaced it, nor, indeed, could have clearly expressed his thoughts, but mutual liking, respect and confidence had suddenly changed to something stronger. During the few minutes they spent in the water a bond, indefinite, indescribable, but not to be broken, had been forged between the two.
The next morning it was clear and cold, and they made good progress until they landed late in the afternoon. Then, after scrambling some distance over loose gravel, Lisle and Nasmyth stopped beside a slight hollow in a wall of rock. A few large stones had been rudely placed on one another to form a shelter; there were still some small spruce branches, which had evidently been used for a roof, scattered about; and the remains of a torn and moldering blanket lay near by. In another place was a holed frying-pan and a battered kettle.
Nasmyth gravely took off his shapeless hat, and stood glancing about him with a fixed expression.
“This,” he said quietly, “is where my friend died—as you have heard, they afterward took his body out. There are few men who could compare with that one; I can’t forget him.”
There was nothing to be done, and little that could be said; and they turned away from the scene of the tragedy, where a man, who to the last had thought first of his companions, had met his lonely end. Launching the canoe, they sped on down-river, making a few easier portages, and four days later they landed on the bank of a turbulent reach shut in by steep, stony slopes. There was a little brushwood here and there, but not a tree of any kind.
“It was on this beach that Gladwyne made one cache,” said Lisle. “If there had been a cypress or a cedar near, he’d have blazed a mark on it. As it is, we’d better look for a heap of stones.”
They searched for some time without finding anything, for straight beach and straight river presented no prominent feature which any one making a cache would fix upon as guide. Lisle directed Nasmyth’s attention to this.
“There was deep snow when Vernon came down the gorge, on this side,” he pointed out. “It doesn’t follow that he was with the others when they buried the stores—he might have been carrying up a load—and it’s possible they couldn’t give him a very exact description. If I’m right in this, he’d have a long stretch of beach to search, and a man’s senses aren’t as keen as usual when he’s badly played out.”
Nasmyth made no comment, but his expression suggested that he would not be disappointed if they failed to strike the cache. Shortly afterward, however, Jake called out, and on joining him they saw a cross scratched on a slab of slightly projecting rock. Even with that to guide them, it was some time before they came upon a few stones roughly piled together and almost hidden in a bank of shingle.
“First of all, I want you to notice that this gravel has slipped down from the bluff after the cache was made,” Lisle said to Nasmyth. “With snow on the ground and the slab yonder covered, it would be almost impossible to locate it.” He turned to Jake. “How long would you say it was since the rain or frost brought that small stuff down?”
Jake glanced at the young brushwood growing higher up the slope. It was shorter than that surrounding it, and evidently covered the spot which the mass of débris had laid bare in its descent.
“Part of one summer and all the next,” he answered decidedly.
“Tell us how you figured it out.”
Jake climbed the bank and returned with two or three young branches which he handed to Lisle.
“The thing’s plain enough to you.” He turned toward Nasmyth. “No growth except in the summer—they’d had a few warm months to start them, but they don’t fork until the second year. See these shoots?”
“As winter was beginning when the Gladwyne party came down, that small landslide must have taken place some time before then,” declared Lisle.
They set to work and carefully moved aside the stones. First they uncovered three cans of preserved meat, and then a small flour bag which had rotted and now disclosed a hard and moldy mass inside. There was also another bag which had evidently contained sugar; and a few other things. All examined them in silence, and then sat down grave in face.
“It’s unfortunate that nobody could positively state whether this cache has been opened or not since it was made, but there are a few points to guide us,” said Lisle. “Do you know what kind of food civilized men who’ve been compelled to work to exhaustion on insufficient rations, helped out by a little fish or game, generally long for most?”
“No,” answered Nasmyth, with a feeble attempt at levity. “I’ve now and then remembered with regret the kind of dinner I used to get in England.”
“You have scarcely felt the pinch,” Lisle informed him. “The two things are farinaceous stuff and sugar. No doubt, it will occur to you that Vernon might have taken a can or two of meat; but that’s not likely.”
“If you’re right about the longing for flour and sweet-stuff, it’s a strong point,” Nasmyth declared. “Where did you learn the fact?”
Lisle looked at Jake, and the packer smiled in a significant manner.
“He’s right,” he vouched. “We know.”
“Then,” continued Lisle, indicating the sugar bag, which had been wrapped in a waterproof sheet, “can you imagine a starving man, in desperate haste, making up this package as it was when we found it?”
“No,” admitted Nasmyth; “it’s most improbable.”
Somewhat to his astonishment, the usually taciturn Jake broke in.
“You’re wasting time! Vernon never struck this cache—he told the folks at the post so. Worked with him once trail-cutting—what that man said goes!”
“You never told me you knew Vernon!” exclaimed Lisle.
“Quite likely,” Jake drawled. “It didn’t seem any use till now.”
For the first time since they landed, Nasmyth laughed—he felt that something was needed to relieve the tension.
“If people never talked unless they had something useful to say, there would be a marvelous change,” he declared.
Lisle disregarded this, but he was a little less grave when he resumed:
“There’s another point to bear in mind. Two of Gladwyne’s party left him; and of those two which would be the more likely to succumb to extreme exertion, exposure, and insufficient food?”
“Against the answer you expect, there’s the fact that Vernon made the longer journey,” Nasmyth objected.
“It doesn’t count for much. Was Clarence Gladwyne accustomed to roughing it and going without his dinner? Would you expect him to survive where you would perish, even if you had a little more to bear?”
“No,” confessed Nasmyth; “he’s rather a self-indulgent person.”
“Then, for example, could you march through a rough, snow-covered country on as little food as I could?”
“No, again,” answered Nasmyth. “You would probably hold out two or three days longer than I could.”
“Vernon was a stronger and tougher man than I am,” Lisle went on. “Now, without finding definite proof, which I hardly expected, there is, I think, strong presumptive evidence that Vernon’s story is correct.”
“Yes,” agreed Nasmyth, and added gravely: “Will you ever find the proof?”
“I think there’s a way—it may be difficult; but I’m going right through with this.”
“What’s your next move?”
“I’ve willingly laid my partner’s story open to the only tests we can impose. Now I’m going to do the same with Clarence Gladwyne’s.”
Nothing more was said, and turning away from the cache, they went back to the canoe.
Two days passed uneventfully, though Nasmyth was conscious of a growing uneasiness during them; and then one evening they landed to search another beach. They had less difficulty here, for small cedars and birches crept down to the waterside and Jake found an ax-blaze on one. After that, it was easy to locate the cache, and there were signs that it had been either very roughly made, or afterward opened and reclosed in careless haste. Lisle had no hesitation in deciding upon the latter, and Jake was emphatic in his brief assurance on the point.
On removing the covering stones, they found very little beneath them, but every object was taken out and Lisle, measuring quantities and guessing weights, carefully enumerated each in his notebook. Neither he nor Nasmyth said anything of import then; both felt that the subject was too grave to be lightly discussed; and walking back silently along the shingle, they pitched the tent and prepared supper. After the meal, Jake, prompted by an innate tact, sauntered away down the beach, and the other two, lounging beside the fire, took out their pipes. A full moon hung above the lonely gorge, which was filled with the roar of the river, and the shadows of the cedars lay black upon the stones.
Some minutes passed before a word was spoken; and then Nasmyth looked up.
“Well?” he said briefly.
Lisle moved a little, so that he could see his companion’s face.
“In the first place,” he explained, “Clarence Gladwyne came down this bank. One could locate the cache by the blazed tree, even with snow upon the ground—and it has been opened. Apart from the signs of this, no party of three men would have thought it worth while to make a cache of the few things we found.”
“Mightn’t it have been opened by some Indian?”
“It’s most unlikely, because he would have cleaned it out. A white prospector would certainly have taken the tobacco.”
Nasmyth knit his brows. He was deeply troubled, because there were respects in which the matter would hardly bear discussion, though he recognized that it must now be thrashed out.
“Well,” he admitted reluctantly, “what we have discovered has its significance; but it isn’t conclusive.”
His companion took out from a pocket the palm and wrist portion of a fur glove. It was badly rotted, and the rest had either fallen away or been gnawed by some animal, but a button with a stamp on it remained.
“Jake found that and gave it to me,” he said. “There’s enough left to show that it had finger-stalls, and there are none on the mittens we use in cold weather. The thing’s English, and with a little rubbing I expect you’ll find the maker’s name on that button. When the party went up it was warm weather, but we know there was sharp frost when Gladwyne came back. A buttoned glove doesn’t drop off one’s hand, and even if it had done so Gladwyne would have noticed and picked it up. It seems to me he took it off to open one of the provision bags and couldn’t find it afterward because he’d trodden it into the snow.”
Nasmyth could doubt no longer, and his face grew red.
“The hound!” he broke out. “He had a hand frost-bitten—one finger is different from the others yet.”
Lisle said nothing; he could understand and sympathize with what was going on in his companion’s mind and the latter was filled with bitterness and humiliation. A man of his own kind and station in life, one with whom he fished and shot, had broken faith with his starving comrade and with incredible cowardice had left him to perish. Even this was not the worst; though Nasmyth had always taken the personal courage of his friends for granted. He was not a clever man and he had his faults, but he shaped his life in accordance with a few simple but inflexible rules. It was difficult for him to understand how one could yield to a fit of craven fear; but there was a fact which made Gladwyne’s transgression still blacker.
“This thing hits hard,” he said at length. “The man should have gone back, if he had known it meant certain death.”
Lisle filled his pipe and smoked in silence for several minutes during which the eery cry of a loon rang about the camp. It roused Nasmyth to an outbreak of anger.
“I hate that unearthly noise!” he exclaimed vehemently. “The thing seems to be gloating; it’s indecent! When I think of that call it will bring back the long portage and this ghostly river! I wish I’d never made the journey, or that I could blot the whole thing out!”
“It can’t be done,” Lisle replied. “It’s too late. You have learned the truth of what has been done here—but the results will work themselves out. Neither you nor I can stop them; they have to be faced.”
“The pity of it is that the innocent must suffer; they’ve borne enough already.”
“There’s a point I don’t quite understand,” declared Lisle. “Whatever the Hudson Bay agent thought, he’d have kept it to himself if he’d been allowed—I’ve met him. It was Gladwyne who laid the whole blame on Vernon; he forced the agent to bear him out. Why should he have taken so much trouble? His own tale would have cleared him.”
Nasmyth looked irresolute; and then he answered reluctantly:
“There’s a fact I haven’t told you yet—Clarence came into the family property on George’s death; a fine old place, a fairly large estate. The sister doesn’t count, though she got her brother’s personal property—the land goes down in the male line.”
Lisle dropped his pipe.
“Now I understand! Gladwyne profits, my dead partner bore the shame. But do you believe the man meant to let his cousin die?”
“No,” Nasmyth answered sharply, “that’s unthinkable! But I blame him almost as much as if he had done so. Besides his duty to George, he had a duty to himself and to the family—the honorable men and women who had kept the name clean before him. Knowing he would inherit on George’s death, there was only one way open—he should have gone back, at any cost. Instead, to clear himself of the faintest trace of ugly suspicion, he lays the blame upon an innocent man.”
Lisle did not reply to this. He felt that had the grim choice been imposed upon his companion, the man would have taken the course he had indicated.
“You said that George Gladwyne was a naturalist,” he remarked. “Was he a methodical man?”
“Eminently so,” replied Nasmyth, wondering where the question led. He had already been astonished at Lisle’s close reasoning and the correctness of his deductions.
“Then he would have made notes on his journey and no doubt have kept some kind of diary. Did the rescue party recover it?”
“They did. It was given to George’s sister.”
“Damaged by snow or water, badly tattered?”
“It was,” assented Nasmyth. “I’ve had the book in my hands. I suppose it’s natural that you should guess its condition, but I don’t see what it points to.”
Lisle smiled grimly.
“One wouldn’t be astonished to find some leaves missing from a tattered book.”
“You’re right again.” Nasmyth started. “Several had gone.”
“I think I can tell which part of the journey they related to. A methodical man would make a note of the stores cached, and the lists would be conclusive evidence if anybody afterward opened the caches and enumerated their contents, as we have done. If everything put into the one on the bank Vernon followed remained there, it would prove that he couldn’t have found it. On the other hand, if the one on Gladwyne’s side of the river—”
“Of course!” Nasmyth broke in. “You needn’t labor the point; it’s plain enough.” He stopped for a few moments before he went on again. “I’m convinced; but without that list of Gladwyne’s you still haven’t proof enough to place your account of the affair beyond dispute. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to England—it’s my father’s country, and I meant to visit it some day. Whether I shall find out anything more there or not I don’t know.”
“Then you must stay with me. That’s a point I insist upon. But I must make my situation clear—though I’ve been drawn into this matter against my will, you have my promise, and if ever the time for action comes, I’ll stand by you. But I’ll take no part in trapping Clarence Gladwyne into any admission, nor will I countenance any charge against him unless some chance supplies you with indisputable evidence.”
“Thanks,” said Lisle; “I’m agreeable. You stand neutral until I call on you.”
“There are two more questions, and then we’ll let the subject drop. Why didn’t you make this search earlier? Why didn’t Gladwyne rearrange the caches afterward? He went back, you know.”
“They’re easily answered. It was some time before I heard of Vernon’s death and met the Hudson Bay man in Victoria—I’d been away in the North. Gladwyne had the rescue party with him when he went back; he couldn’t replace the provisions in the cache on this side without their knowing it, and I don’t suppose he could have crossed the river to the other cache. Now we’ll talk of something else.”
They started again the next morning, and instead of leaving the river for the Hudson Bay post, which stood farther back into the wilderness, they held on down-stream, though they afterward regretted this when their provisions once more grew scanty. There was now sharp frost at nights; fangs of ice stretched out behind the boulders and crackling sheets of it gathered in the slacker eddies along the bank. What mattered more was that the portages were frequent, and carrying the canoe over rock coated with frozen spray became dangerous as well as difficult, and Nasmyth working on short rations began to feel the strain. It was only since he had entered that inhospitable region that he had ever been compelled to go without his dinner; and now breakfast and supper were sternly curtailed. When they were stopped for two days by a blinding snowstorm he grew anxious, and his uneasiness had increased when some time afterward they made their evening meal of a single flapjack each. He could readily have eaten a dozen of the thin, flat cakes. The duck they had shot every now and then since crossing the divide had gone; they had not seen a trout since the cold set in; and there did not appear to be any salmon in the river.
After breakfast the next morning, Lisle concluded that it would be wise to risk a day looking for a deer, so he invited Nasmyth to take his rifle and the two set out. It cost them some trouble to climb the low bluff above the river through a horrible tangle of fallen trunks. The trees were getting larger and the branches of those the wind had brought down lay spread about them or were resting on the standing growth in networks which Nasmyth would have thought it impossible to traverse had he been alone. Lisle scrambled through, however, and he had no choice except to follow. Where the timber was thinner, the slope was covered with sharp-edged stones which further damaged his already dilapidated boots; and when at last they came out upon a comparatively bare, rocky tableland, a bitter wind met them in the teeth. It drove a little fine snow before it, but Lisle plodded steadily on, explaining that any deer which might be in the neighborhood would have gone down into the sheltered valleys. He had no doubt they would find one of the valleys, for they were generally numerous.
It was an hour before they reached one, and Nasmyth was conscious of an unpleasant pain in his side and a headache which he supposed resulted from want of food. For all that, he scrambled after his companion down an almost impossible descent, where trees of increasing size grew up among outcropping rock and banks of stones. When he reached the bottom he found himself in a deep rift filled with densely-matted underbrush, through which a swift stream flowed. Its banks promised a slightly easier road, though now and then they had to wade through the water, which was icy cold. Noon came and they had seen no sign of life, except two or three willow-grouse which they failed to dislodge from cover; but Lisle held on, his course running roughly in a line with the river.
It was toward three o’clock, and a little snow was sifting down between the somber branches overhead, when Lisle, stopping, raised a warning hand and pointed to an opening in the trees. The light was dim among the rows of trunks, and for a few seconds Nasmyth gazed down the long colonnade, seeing nothing. Then Lisle pointed again, impatiently, and he made out something between a gray trunk and a thicket. Sportsman as he was, he had not the bush-man’s eye, and he would never have supposed that formless object to be a deer. It moved, however; a prong of horn appeared; and waiting for nothing further he pitched up his rifle.
It was a long shot, standing; he guessed the range in a deceptive light; but he found himself strangely steady as he squeezed the trigger. He was desperately hungry and weak from want of food; the deer must not escape. Yet he was in no rash haste; for two or three seconds the tiny foresight trembled slightly upon the mark, while the pressure on the trigger increased. Then there was a flash; he heard no report but the smoke blew into his eyes. Almost simultaneously, a train of red sparks leaped out from somewhere close at his side and there was a sharp snapping in the bush ahead.
“You got your shot in!” cried Lisle. “I think I missed him on the jump. Come on; we must pick up the trail!”
It was easy to find; the deer had been too badly hit to bound across each obstacle as cleanly as usual, and broken twigs and scattering withered leaves showed which way it had gone. Besides, there were red splashes here and there. It was, however, a difficult matter to follow the trail. Fallen trees and dense thickets barred the way, and they had to cross the creek every now and then. Nasmyth rapidly got breathless and before long he was badly distressed, but he held on behind his companion. Once or twice he was held fast for a moment or two, and breaking free, found he had badly ripped his garments on the ragged branches. Still, it was unthinkable that they should let the deer escape.
As he struggled forward, he remembered that the days were rapidly shortening, and he shrank from the prospect of retracing his way to camp in the dark. It occurred to him that it was a compliment and a mark of very fine courtesy that Lisle had left the first shot to him. In return for this, he must endeavor to be present to assist when he was wanted.
The deer was still invisible, but it was not very far ahead, for at times the snapping of a stick or a rustle of disturbed underbrush came sharply out of the woods. The light was getting dimmer and the snow was falling more thickly.
At last the hunted creature left the valley and after a desperate scramble the men reached the summit of the ridge above. Here the tableland between them and the river was covered with straggling bush, and though the undergrowth was thin they could see nothing but the long rows of shadowy trunks. Lisle, however, picked up the trail, and they followed it as rapidly as possible until, when Nasmyth was lagging some distance behind, there was a shout in front of him and his companion’s rifle flashed. Making a last effort, he broke into a run and presently came to the brink of a steep descent covered with thick brush and scattered trees, with a wide reach of palely gleaming water at the foot of it. It was the kind of place one would have preferred to climb down cautiously, but there was a sharp snapping and crackling below and Nasmyth knew that a hard-pressed deer will frequently take to the water. If it crossed the river, it would escape; and that could not be contemplated.
Holding his rifle up, he plunged madly down the descent, smashing through matted bushes, stumbling over slippery stones. Once or twice he collided with a slender tree and struck his leg against some ridge of rock; but he held on, gasping, and the water rapidly grew nearer. He had almost reached it when a dim shape broke out from a thicket at the bottom of the slope. There were still some cartridges in his rifle cylinder, but he was slipping and sliding down an almost precipitous declivity at such a rate that it was impossible to stop and shoot. Indeed, in another moment he fell violently into a brake and had some difficulty in smashing through it, but when he struggled free he saw shingle and boulders in front of him and Lisle bounding across them a few yards behind the deer. He reached the stones, wondering why Lisle did not fire; and then he saw man and deer plunge into the water together.
A few seconds later he was waist-deep in the swift icy current, savagely endeavoring to drag the animal toward the bank, while Lisle stood near him, breathing hard, with a red hunting-knife in his hand.
“Steady!” gasped Lisle. “You can’t do it that way! Help me throw the beast on his side. Now heave!”
They got the deer out, and Nasmyth sat down limply. All the power seemed to have gone out of him; he did not want to move, though he was filled with exultation, for they now had food. It was a minute or two before he noticed that Lisle had left him; and then he saw him coming back with his rifle.
“I dropped the thing,” Lisle explained. “Couldn’t snap a fresh shell in; guess I bent the slide. I took the knife to finish it.”
“In another moment or two you’d have been too late.”
Lisle laughed.
“I don’t know. It wouldn’t have been decided until we’d reached the other side.”
“You would have swum across?” Nasmyth asked in astonishment.
“Sure,” said Lisle simply. “Anyway, I’d have tried.”
Nasmyth glanced at the river. It was broad, icy cold, and running fast, and he could hardly imagine a worn-out and half-fed man safely swimming it. Lisle, however, called upon him to assist in an unpleasant operation which, when Nasmyth had killed a deer at home, had been judiciously left to the keepers or gillies. After that, he was directed to light a fire on a neighboring point, from which it could be seen some way up the river, and by and by Jake arrived in the canoe. Then they made camp, and after a feast on flesh so tough that only hungry men could have eaten more than a few morsels of it they went to sleep.
In a few more days they left the river, abandoning the canoe and tent and a portion of their gear. Ascending to higher levels, they crossed a rugged waste, which, fortunately for them, was thinly timbered; but there was keen frost, and snow in places, and Nasmyth suffered a good deal during this portion of the journey. At last, however, they descended to a sheltered valley in which the firs grew tall, and Jake agreed with Lisle that it would form the best road to the settlements.
Nasmyth was longing for civilization when he lay awake late one night, wrapped in a single blanket, beside the sinking fire. Dark columnar trunks rose about him, touched with the uncertain red radiance now and then cast upon them when little puffs of bitter wind stirred the blaze, and he could see the filmy wreaths of smoke eddy among the branches. He was cold and overtired; the day’s march had been a long one; his shoulders ached cruelly after carrying a heavy load, and every joint was sore. Besides, his bed was unpleasantly hard, and he envied his companions, who had long ago sunk into heavy slumber. For the last hour he had been thinking over the discoveries he had made on the journey, which he devoutly wished he had never undertaken; the thought of them had troubled him on other bitter nights. Lisle was not the man to let the matter drop; he was much more likely to follow it up with dogged persistence to the end; and Nasmyth, who was to some extent pledged to assist him, saw trouble ahead.
In spite of this, he was beginning to get drowsy when a faint and yet strangely melodious chiming broke through the whispering of the firs. It seemed to come from above him, falling through the air, and he roused himself to listen, wondering if he were quite awake. The musical clash he had first heard had ceased, but for a while he thought he could distinguish the tolling of a single bell; then in varying notes the peal broke out again.
There was something ethereal in the clear tones. The last time he had heard anything like them he was sitting one Sunday morning on a shady lawn while the call of the bells came softly up to him across the English woods. He glanced at his comrades, but they showed no sign of hearing, and raising himself on one elbow he lay and listened, until the music, growing fainter and fainter, died away. Then, puzzled and half convinced that his imagination had played him some fantastic trick, he went to sleep.
He mentioned the occurrence diffidently at breakfast the next morning, expecting incredulous laughter; but Lisle, without making a comment, glanced at Jake questioningly.
“No,” responded Jake. “Nothing to bring them up so far.”
“You couldn’t have been mistaken?” Lisle asked Nasmyth.
“I thought I must be; but the more I listened, the clearer it got.”
“Go and see,” Lisle said, addressing Jake, and when they had finished breakfast the packer strode away.
“We’ll wait a bit,” advised Lisle. “I’m a little worried about provisions again. It’s still a long march to the nearest wagon trail.”
Nasmyth failed to understand how the delay would improve their position, but believing that his companion was somewhat dubious about his tale he restrained his curiosity. In half an hour Jake came back and nodded to Lisle.
“Quite a bunch of them,” he reported. “I struck the fellow’s trail.”
“What was it I heard?” Nasmyth asked.
“Cow-bells,” Lisle explained, laughing. “In this country, they generally put them on any cattle that run loose in the timber. Some adventurous rancher has located up here, though I hadn’t expected to find one so far north. Anyway, it’s a relief; he’ll no doubt be able to let us have something to eat.”
They reached the man’s log house an hour later, and spent the day with him, enjoying a much needed rest. The next morning he supplied them with provisions and told them how to find a trail down to a wagon road; and, setting out, they safely reached a settlement in regular communication with the cities.
It was the settlement Lisle had expected to come to, and he found a bundle of correspondence awaiting him there. Before he opened it, however, he and Nasmyth supplied themselves with such clothing as they could obtain at the local store, and then demanded a bath at the little wooden hotel. They had some trouble in obtaining it, but Nasmyth was firm, and eventually he sat down to supper, clad in a blue shirt with scarlet trimmings, extremely tight-fitting clothes and daintily-pointed shoes.
“I think I’d have done better if I’d stuck to my rags, or else bought a pair of what that fellow called river-Jacks’ boots,” he commented ruefully.
Lisle was similarly attired, but he was too busy with his meal to sympathize with him, and some time after it was over Nasmyth, strolling into the private room which they had obtained as a signal concession, found him writing at a littered table. Sitting down, he watched him for a while with some slight wonder. For a number of weeks, he had seen his companion handling heavy loads, cooking, and hauling canoes round rapids with the skill of a professional packer. It was hard to disassociate him from the ranges and the bush; but now, with the pile of letters before him, he had suddenly become a business man. Nasmyth saw him answer a couple in a swift, decided manner which showed that he was at home in his present occupation. It was one of the quick character-changes which, while common in the West, are apt to bewilder the more stereotyped Englishman.
“Are you coming to England with me?” Nasmyth asked at length.
“No; I’m sorry I can’t,” answered Lisle, pausing, pen in hand. “This Gladwyne matter will probably take time and I have none to spare now. There have been some unexpected developments in my affairs. I don’t know when I can get away.”
Nasmyth was conscious of some relief. His companion would have to defer the prosecution of plans that threatened to cause trouble in England, which was something to be thankful for, though he had a strong sympathy for the man.
“Has it ever struck you that you might have less difficulty if you could be content with proving half of what you claim?” he asked. “It’s the more important part—I mean that your late comrade failed to find the cache.”
“Half a truth is not much use—Gladwyne realized that. To declare you haven’t done the wrong is a good deal less effective than pointing to the guilty man.”
“I suppose that’s correct,” Nasmyth agreed. “But, after all, unless you can get hold of a list of the provisions cached—and it has most likely been destroyed—there’s only one way of substantiating your views.”
“Exactly. Gladwyne’s confession will place the matter beyond all doubt.”
“Do you think you will ever get it?”
Lisle’s expression hardened.
“Well,” he said, “I’m going to try.”
Nasmyth abandoned all attempt to daunt or dissuade him.
“Anyway,” he resumed, “when you come over you must stay with me. I’m sorry we’ll have to part company to-morrow. I start east by the first train.”
He strolled out into the moonlight and the keen frosty air. The little wooden town was soon left behind, and sauntering down the rough wagon road beneath towering firs, he saw the great hill summits glitter white against the sky. It was a wonderful country; the grandest he had ever traversed; but it demanded a good deal from the man who ventured into its wilds, and he was not sorry that he was turning his back on it.
Then, as he thought of the land he was bound for and recalled the tragic story of Gladwyne’s journey, he once more grew troubled. He realized the immutable sequence of cause and effect—each action had its result which must be faced however much one repented and regretted it. The deed, once done, could not be altered and, what was worse, its consequences reached out to others. Then he wondered whether Clarence had ever repented, and admitted, with a recurrence of his indignation against the man, that it was far from probable. Clarence was one who took life lightly, and although his means had been small until he came into his cousin’s possessions, he had somehow succeeded in getting what is often considered the best out of it. Self-denial in any shape was unknown to him.
The next morning Nasmyth took the train for Montreal, and about a fortnight later alighted at a little station in the north of England as the early dusk was closing in. It was a quiet evening and the soft moistness of his native air struck him as something pleasantly familiar after the keener, drier atmosphere of the Dominion. He was glad to be back again, but when he looked around, the trap waiting in the wet road outside the railings was not his own. Neither did it belong to Clarence, whom he had partly expected; but on the whole Nasmyth was glad of that. He had not looked forward to the first meeting with Clarence with any pleasure.
In another moment, a girl came along the platform through the groups of local passengers, who respectfully made way for her. She was tall, and her long outer garment failed to conceal her grace of movement and fine poise, though in the fading light her face was almost invisible beneath a large hat. The sight of her sent a thrill of satisfaction through the man; it was seldom that Millicent Gladwyne’s appearance was unwelcome to her friends. She approached him with outstretched hand.
“I drove over for you. Clarence couldn’t come; he was suddenly called up to town,” she began. “It would have been rather lonely for you to spend the first evening by yourself at the Lodge. You will come to us?”
“Thoughtful as ever,” smiled Nasmyth, with a little bow which was respectful as well as friendly. “I needn’t ask how you are; the way you walked along the platform was a testimony to our Border air.”
She laughed, softly and musically.
“It is more needful to inquire how you have stood your adventures?”
“I believe I’m thinner; but that isn’t astonishing, everything considered. I suppose Clarence is getting on pretty satisfactorily?”
“Clarence? Oh, yes!” There was a hint of uncertainty in her voice which Nasmyth noticed. “He has been in town a good deal of late. But come along; the horse—he’s a new one—is rather restive. They’ll send on your things.”
“The remnant of my outfit’s contained in one small bag,” laughed Nasmyth; “the rest’s scattered about the hillsides of British Columbia. I was a picturesque scarecrow when I reached the settlements.”
They moved away along the platform, and on reaching the trap he got up beside her and handed her the reins.
“I want to look about, if you don’t mind,” he explained.
“I really think the prospect’s worth it,” she replied. “Besides, Riever’s fresh and needs humoring.”
She shook the whip, and as they clattered away down the steep, twisting road, Nasmyth glanced with satisfaction to left and right. He had seen wilder and grander lands, but none of them appealed to him like this high, English waste. On one hand dim black hills rose out of fleecy mist; on the other a leafless birch wood, close by, stood out in curiously fragile and delicate tracery against a paling saffron glow, though overhead the sky was barred with motionless gray cloud. A sharp smell of peat-smoke followed them as they clattered past a low white cottage with a yellow glow in one window; and then the earthy scent of rotting leaves replaced it as they plunged into the gloom of an oak wood beneath the birches. A stream splashing down a hollow made faint music in the midst of it. When they had emerged from the shadow and climbed a steep rise, wide moors stretched away in front, rising and falling in long undulations, streaked with belts of mist. The crying of restless plovers came out of the gathering dimness.
“All this is remarkably nice; though I don’t think I should have appreciated it quite so much if I’d been alone,” Nasmyth said at length.
Millicent laughed lightly. She had known him since her childhood and was quite aware that he had not intended to pay her a labored compliment; they were too good friends for that. Once, indeed, he had desired a closer bond, but he had quietly acquiesced when with gentle firmness she had made it clear that she was not for him. Submission had not been easy, but he had long admitted her right to more than he could offer. In this, however, he was to some extent mistaken, because the gifts he could bring—a staunch honesty, faithfulness, and a genial nature—are not to be despised.
“Well,” she replied, “I love these moors and dales, as of course you know, and I’ve become more of a stay-at-home than ever during the past year.” There was a slight regretfulness in her voice which had its meaning for him. “I’m never satisfied with the drawings,” she went on, “though I’ve made so many of them.”
Nasmyth made a sign of comprehension. She had undertaken to finish and illustrate her brother’s roughed-out work, a book on the fauna of the Border, and she had brought to it a fine artistic skill and patience, as well as a love of the wild creatures of the waste. It was, perhaps, a curious occupation for a young woman, but she had devoted herself to it with characteristic thoroughness.
“He wanted it to be as complete and accurate as possible,” she added simply.
Her companion felt compassionate. In some respects, it was almost a pity that Millicent could not forget.
“You got my letter—the one in which I said I meant to pick up and follow out his trail?” he asked.
“Yes. I knew it would be difficult. Indeed, I was anxious about you; the wilderness has claimed so much from me. But did you—”
“I succeeded,” Nasmyth answered quietly.
The nod she gave him was expressive. It meant that she had expected him to succeed; he was a man who did what he said.
“I think George should never have made that journey,” she resumed. “Fond of the open as he was, he hadn’t the physical stamina. He never spared himself; he was apt to overestimate his powers.”
It was spoken with a grave regretfulness that troubled Nasmyth and yet stirred him to strong appreciation of her character. With all her love for her brother, she could face the truth.
“I’ve learned that he bore everything with the fortitude one would expect from him—doing his share always with the rest,” Nasmyth said. “We got through a little earlier, and had better weather; but I saw enough to convince me that the difficulties George had to contend with would have killed any ordinary man.”
“They did not kill Clarence.”
Nasmyth once more burned with anger against the transgressor.
“No,” he replied in a strained tone; “Clarence escaped.”
She flashed a sharp glance at him, and he felt glad that it was too dark for her to see his face.
“You must tell me the whole story to-night,” she requested.
Her companion made no answer. With the reserve that must be maintained on several points, the story would be difficult to relate; and it could not fail to be painful to her. The horror she would feel if she ever learned that her brother might have been saved had his cousin shown more resolution was a thing he dare not contemplate, and he wondered if the shock the knowledge must bring could be spared her. This depended upon Lisle, whom he had promised to assist. Nasmyth could foresee nothing but trouble, and he was silent for a while as they drove on across the lonely moor.