Two men moved about slowly, deliberately. They were examining, with the closest scrutiny, every object that might afford a clue to the devastation about them. A third figure, in the distance, was engaged similarly. He was dressed in the buckskin so dear to the Indian heart. The others were white men.
The scene was complete in horror. It was the incinerated ruins of a recently destroyed Indian encampment, set in the shadow of a belt of pine woods which mounted the abrupt slopes of a great hill. The woods on the hillside were burnt out. Where had stood a dense stretch of primordial woodland, now only the skeleton arms of the pines reached up towards the heavens as though appealing despairingly for the vengeance due to them.
The day was gray. The air was still, so still. It reeked with the taint of burning. It reeked with something else. There were bodies, in varying stages of decomposition, lying about, many of them burned, many of them half eaten by the wild scavengers of the region. All were mutilated in a dreadful manner. And they were mostly the bodies of women and children.
Not a teepee remained standing. The mud walls of one or two huts still stood up. But all of them that were destructible had been devoured by hungry flames.
After half an hour's search the two white men came to the edge of the burnt-out forest. They paused, and John Kars' eyes searched amongst the charred poles. Presently he shrugged his shoulders.
"No use going up this way. We can't learn more than we've read right here. It's the work of the Bell River outfit, sure. That's if the things we've heard are true." He turned to his companion. "Say, Bill, it makes you wonder. What 'bug' is it sets folk yearning to get out and kill, and burn, all the time? Think of it. Just think if you and me started right in to holler, an' shoot, an' burn. What would you say? We're crazy, sure. Yet these folk aren't crazy. They're just the same as they were born, I guess. They weren't born crazy, any more than we were. It gets me beat. Beat to death."
Bill Brudenell was overshadowed in stature by his friend. But his wit was as keen. His mental faculties perhaps more mature. He might not have been able to compete with John Kars in physical effort, but he possessed a ripe philosophy, and a wonderful knowledge of human nature.
"The craziest have motives," he said, with a whimsical smile in his twinkling eyes. "I've often noticed that folk who act queer, and are said to be crazy, and maybe get shut up in the foolish-house, generally have an elegant reason of their own for acting the way they do. Maybe other folks can't get it right. I once had to do with a case in which a feller shot up his mother, and was made out 'bug,' and was put away. It worried me some. Later I found his ma made his life miserable. He lived in terror of her. She'd broken bottles over his head. She'd soused him with boiling water. She'd raised the devil generally, till—well, till he reached the limit. Then I found she acted that way because her dandy boy was sparking around some tow-headed female, and guessed he intended marrying her, and setting her to run the home his mother had always run for him. There's some sort of reason to most crazy acts. Guess we'll need to chase up the Bell River outfit if we're looking for the reason to this craziness."
"Yes."
Bill turned away and picked up a stained and rusted hatchet of obviously Indian make. He examined it closely. John Kars stared about him with brooding eyes.
"What do you think lies back of this?" he inquired presently. His manner was abstracted, and his eyes were watching the movements of the third figure in the distance.
Bill glanced at him out of the corners of his eyes. It was a swift, speculating glance. Then he continued his examination of the hatchet, while he talked.
"Much of what lies back of most desperate acts," he said. "Guess the Bell River folk have got something other folk need, and the other folk know it. I allow the Bell River folk don't figger to hand over to anybody. Maybe it's hunting grounds, maybe it's fishing. Can't say. But you see this crowd are traveling Indians, or were," he added drily. "We're within twenty miles of Bell River. If they were traveling, which the remains of their teepees make them out to have been, then I guess they weren't doing it for health. More than likely it was robbery of some sort. Well, I guess they were up against a proposition, and got it—plenty. It's going to snow. What are you figgering?"
Kars searched the gray skies.
"We'll make Bell River."
"I guessed you would. Maybe some folks would say it's you that's crazy. Ask Peigan."
Bill laughed. His clever face was always at its best when his twinkling eyes, as it were, bubbled over.
The men moved on towards their camp.
The threat of the sky added to the gloomy nature of the crudely rugged country. On every hand the hills rose mightily. Dark woodlands crowded the lower slopes, but the sharply serrated crests, many of them snow-clad, left a merciless impression upon the mind. The solitude of it all, too, was overpowering.
The long summer trail lay behind them, all its chances successfully taken, all its many dangers surmounted. The threat of the sky was real and they had no desire now to fall victims to a careless disregard of ordinary climatic conditions.
Kars' calculation had been carefully made. His plans were laid so that they should reach the upper stream of the Snake River, where his river depot had been established, and his canoes were awaiting them, with at least three weeks to spare before the ice shut down all traffic. The outfit would then have ample time in which to reach the shallows of Peel River, whence the final stage of the journey to Leaping Horse would be made overland on the early winter trail.
Peigan Charley joined them at the camp. The man came up with that curiously silent, almost furtive gait, which no prairie Indian, however civilized, ever quite loses. It comes from long years of moccasin use, and an habitual bent knee walk. Peigan Charley considered himself unusually civilized. But it was for his native abilities that Kars employed him.
His broad, bronze face and dark eyes were quite without expression, for all he had searched closely and probed deeply into the horrors of that desperate camp. Perhaps he had no appreciation of horror. Perhaps he saw nothing outrageous in the dreadful destruction.
He was carrying a broken modern rifle in his hand, and with a word promptly offered it to his chief.
Kars took the weapon. He examined it closely while Bill looked on. Then the white chief's eyes searched the Indian's face.
"Well?" he demanded.
The copper-hued expressionless features of the man underwent a change. They became almost animated. But it was with a look of awe, or even apprehension.
"Him Bell River," he stated bluntly.
"Yes."
John Kars had learned all he wanted from the scout. His own opinion was corroborated. So he handed the useless weapon back and pointed at it.
"Allan Mowbray's outfit," he said. "Bell River neche steal 'em."
The scout nodded.
The smell of cooking pervaded the camp. For some moments no one spoke. Bill was watching his friend, waiting for that decision which he knew had long since been taken. The Indian was silent, as was his habit, and Kars appeared to be considering deeply.
Presently he looked up at the sky.
"That snow will be—rain," he said. "Wind's got south. We'll make Big Butte to-night. Bell River to-morrow. Noon."
Bill was observing the Indian. Peigan Charley's bovine stare changed swiftly as the white chief whom he regarded above all men gave his decision. Its stolidity had given way to incredulity, and Bill found in it a source of amusement.
Suddenly Charley thrust up one hand. The long, tawny fingers were parted, and he counted off each one.
"One, two, tree, four," he enumerated, bending each finger in turn. "Him all big fool pack neche. No good. Plenty 'fraid. Plenty eat. Oh, yes, plenty eat. One, two." Again he told off his fingers. "Good neche. Fight plenty. Oh, yes. Peigan Charley." He held up one finger. "Heap good feller," he commented solemnly. "Big Chief, boss. Big Chief, Bill. Two." Again the inevitable fingers. "Shoot plenty much. No good. Five hundred Bell River devils. Mush gun. Shoot bad. Big Chief boss all kill up. Boss go Bell River. Boss crazy—sure."
Bill was thoroughly enjoying himself. Nor did Kars resent his smiles. He, too, laughed in spite of the Indian's growing concern.
"We make Bell River to-morrow," he said finally. "See the boys get busy with food. We mush in half an hour."
The Indian had made his protest. There was nothing further to add. So he went off and the white man watched him go.
"Guess there'll be something doing around the camp when he gets amongst the boys," Kars observed. Then he added, after a smiling pause, "That feller thinks me crazy. Guess Murray McTavish would think that way, too. Maybe that's how you're thinking. Maybe you're all right, and I'm all wrong. I can't say. And I can't worry it out. Y'see, Bill, my instinct needs to serve me, like your argument serves you. Only you can't argue with instinct. The logic of things don't come handy to me, and Euclid's a sort of fool puzzle anyway to a feller raised chasing gold. There's just about three things worrying the back of my head now. They've been worrying it all summer, worse than the skitters. Maybe Bell River can answer them all. I don't know. Why are these Bell River neches always shooting up their neighbors, and any one else? How comes it Allan Mowbray died worth half a million dollars on a fur trade? What was he doing on Bell River when he got killed?"
It was a wide flat stretch of grass, a miniature table-land, set high up overlooking the broken territory of the Bell River forge. It was bleak. A sharp breeze played across it with a chill bitterness which suggested little enough mercy when winter reigned. It was an outlook upon a world quite new to Bill. To John Kars the scene was by no means familiar.
These men gazed out with a profound interest not untouched by awe. Their eyes sought in every direction, and no detail in the rugged splendor was lost. For long minutes they stood silently reading the pages of the new book opened to them.
It was, in Kars' own words, a "fierce" country. It suggested something like desperation in the Creator of it all. It seemed as though imagination must have deserted Him, and He was left only with the foundations, and the skeleton walls of a vast structure upon His hands.
The horizon was approached by tier on tier of alternating glacier and barren hill. What lay hidden in the hollows could only be conjectured. In every direction, except the southeast, whence they had come, the outlook was the same. Hills, and more hills. Glacial stretch, followed by glacial stretch. Doubtless the hollows contained vast primordial woods, and fiercely flooding mountain streams, scoring their paths through wide stretches of miry tundra, quaking and treacherous.
This was the distance, than which nothing could have been more desolate. But the nearer view was their chief concern.
The gorge yawned almost at their feet. It was tremendous, and its vastness set the mind dizzy. Great circling patches of mist rose up from below and added a sense of infinity to its depths. So wide. So deep. The broad river in its bowels was reduced to something like a trickling streamlet. The woodlands crowding the lower slopes, dim, vague in the distance, became merely a deepening of the shadows below. Forests of primordial immensity were lost in the overwhelming nature of their setting.
The air of sterility, in spite of the woodlands so far down below, in spite of the attenuated grass on which they stood, inspired a profound sense of repugnance. To the mind of Bill Brudenell, at least, it was a land of hopelessness, a land of starvation and despair.
He turned to his companion at last, and his voice rang with deep feeling.
"Fierce? Gee! There's not a word in the whole vocabulary of a white man that gets nearer than ten miles of describing it," he exclaimed. "And the neches, here, figger to scrap to hold it. Well, it certainly needs attractions we can't locate from here."
Kars nodded agreement.
"That's how I've felt all through," he said. "Now? Why, now I'm dead sure. This is where they murdered Jessie's father. Well, even a railroad corporation couldn't advertise it a pleasure resort. We'd best get right on down to the camp. I reckon to locate those attractions before we're through."
Leaving the plateau they passed down the seemingly endless slope. Bill cursed the foothold, and blasphemed generally. Kars remained silent. He was absorbed with the task he had set himself in approaching this murder-haunted gorge.
The return to the camp occupied the best part of an hour, and the latter part of the journey was made through a belt of pine wood, the timber of which left the human figure something so infinitesimal that its passage was incapable of disturbing the abiding silence. The scrunch of the springy carpet of needles and pine cones under heavily shod feet was completely lost. The profoundness of the gloom was tremendous.
The camp suggested secrecy. It lay in the bowels of a hollow. The hollow was crowded with spruce, a low, sparse-growing scrub, and mosquitoes. Its approach was a defile which suggested a rift in the hills at the back. Its exit was of a similar nature, except that it followed the rocky bed of a trickling mountain stream. A mile or so further on this gave on to the more gracious banks of the Bell River to the west of the gorge.
Kars had taken up a position upon some rolled blankets. He was smoking, and meditating over the remains of a small fire. Bill was stretched full-length upon the ground. His philosophic temperament seemed to render him impervious to the attacking hordes of mosquitoes. Beyond the hum of the flying pestilence the place was soundless.
Near by the Indians were slumbering restfully. It is the nature of the laboring Indian to slumber at every opportunity—slumber or eat. Peigan Charley was different from these others of his race. But the scout had long been absent from the camp on work that only the keenest of his kind could accomplish successfully. Indian spying upon Indian is like hunting the black panther. The difficulty is to decide which is the hunter.
Bill was drowsily watching a cloud of mosquitoes set into undue commotion by the smoke from his pipe. But for all that his thoughts were busy.
"Guess Charley isn't likely to take fool chances?" he suggested after a while.
Kars shook his head at the fire. His action possessed all the decision of conviction.
"Charley's slim. He's a razor edge, I guess. He's got us all beaten to death on his own play. He's got these murdering devils beaten before they start." Then he turned, and a smile lit his steady eyes as they encountered the regard of his friend. "It seems queer sending a poor darn Indian to take a big chance while we sit around."
Then he kicked the fire together as he went on.
"But we're taking the real chance, I guess," he said, with a short laugh. "If the Bell River outfit is all we reckon, then it's no sort of gamble we made this camp without them getting wise."
Bill sat up.
"Then we certainly are taking the big chance."
Kars laughed again.
"Sure. And I'll be all broken up if we don't hear from 'em," he said.
He knocked out his pipe and refilled it. Once during the operation he paused and listened.
"Y'see," he went on, after a while, "we're white folks."
"That's how I've always heard. So was—Allan Mowbray."
Kars picked up a hot coal from the fire, rolled it in the palm of his hand, and dropped it on the bowl of his pipe. Once the pipe was lit he shook it off again.
"Allan got around here—many times," he said reflectively. "He wasn't murdered on his first visit—nor his second. Allan's case isn't ours. Not if I figger right."
"How d'you figger?"
"They'll try and hustle us. If I figger right they don't want folk around—any folk. I don't think that's why they murdered Allan. There was more to that. Seems to me we'll get a visit from a bunch of 'em. Maybe they'll get around with some of the rifles they stole from Allan. They'll squat right here on their haunches and tell us the things they fancy, and—— Hello!"
Kars broke off, but made no movement. He did not even turn his head from his contemplative regard of the white ashes of the fire. There was a sound. The sound of some one approaching through the trees. It was the sound of a shod footstep. It was not the tread of moccasins.
Bill eased himself. In doing so his revolver holster was swung round to a handy position. But Kars never stirred a muscle.
A moment later he spoke in a tone keyed a shade lower.
"A feller wearing boots. It's only one—I wonder."
Bill had risen to his feet.
"My nerves aren't as steady as yours. I'm going to look," he announced.
He moved off, and presently his voice came back to the man by the fire.
"Ho, John! A visitor," he cried.
The man at the fire replied cordially.
"Bring him right along. Pleased to see him."
But Kars had not moved from his seat. As he flung his reply back, he glanced swiftly at the place where his own and Bill's rifles stood leaning against the pale green foliage of a bush within reach of his hand. Then, with elaborate nonchalance, he spread his hands out over the smoldering ashes of the fire.
A moment or two later he was gazing up smilingly into the face of a man who was obviously a half-breed.
The man was dressed in a beaded buckskin shirt under a pea-jacket of doubtful age. It was worn and stained, as were the man's moleskin trousers, which were tucked into long knee-boots which had once been black. But the face held the white man's interest. It was of an olive hue, and the eyes which looked out from beneath almost hairless brows were coal black, and fierce, and narrow. A great scar split the skin of his forehead almost completely across it. And beneath the attenuated moustache another scar stretched from the corner of his mouth half-way across his right cheek. Then, too, his Indian-like black hair was unable to conceal the fact that half an ear was missing. Nor did it take Kars a second to realize that the latter mutilation was due to chewing by some adversary in a "rough and tumble" fight.
The man's greeting came in the white man's tongue. Nor was it tinged with the "pigeon" method of the Indian. It smacked of the gold city which knows little enough of refinement amongst even its best classes.
"Say, you boys are takin' all kinds of chances," he said, in a voice that had little pleasantness of intonation. "I had some scare when I see you come over the hills ther'. The darn neches bin out the way you come, burnin', an' massacrin'. How you missed 'em beats me to death. But I guess you did miss 'em?" he added significantly. "And I'm glad."
Kars was only concerned with the information of the Indians' movements.
"They're out?" he said.
"Sure they're out." The man laughed. "They're out most all the time. Gee, it's livin' with a cyclone playin' around you on this God-forgotten river. But, say, you boys need to beat it, an' beat it quick, if you want to git out with your hair on. They're crazy for guns an' things. If they git their noses on your trail they'll git you sure as death."
The warning received less attention than it seemed to demand.
Kars looked the half-breed squarely in the eyes.
"Who are you?" he demanded. Abrupt as was the challenge the tone of it had no roughness.
"Louis Creal."
"Belong here?"
Kars' steady eyes were compelling.
A flush of anger surged in the half-breed's mutilated cheeks. His eyes snapped viciously.
"This ain't a catechism, is it?" he cried hotly. Then in a moment he moderated his tone. "Fellers on the 'inside' don't figger to hand around their pedigrees—usual. Howsum, I allow I come right along to pass you a friendly warning, which kind o' makes it reasonable to tell you the things folk don't usually inquire north of 'sixty.' Yep. I live around this river, an' hand the neches a bum sort o' trade fer their wares. Guess I scratch a livin', if you can call it that way, up here. But it don't figger any. My ma come of this tribe. I guess my paw belonged to yours."
"Where d'you get your goods for trade?"
The sparkle of hasty temper grew again in the black depths of the half-breed's eyes. The man's retort came roughly enough now.
"What in——!" he cried. Then again he checked his fiery impulse. "Say, that ain't no darn bizness of any one but me. Get me? It's a fool question anyway. Ther's a dozen posts I could haul from. My bizness ain't your bizness. I stand pat fer why I traipsed nigh two miles to reach your darn fool camp. I handed you the trouble waitin' around if you ain't wise. I guess you're wise now, an' if you don't act quick it's up to you. If you've the savvee of a buck louse you'll beat it good an' quick. You'll beat it as if the devil was chasin' you plenty."
Then it seemed as if urgency overcame his resentment, for he went on with a sort of desperate eagerness. "Say, I ain't got your names, I don't know a thing. I ain't no interest if you're alive, or hacked to small chunks. But if you got any value fer your lives, if you've got folks to worry fer you, why, git right out o' this just as fast as the devil'll let you. That's all."
"Thanks—we will." Kars had suddenly abandoned all his previous assurance of manner. He seemed to be laboring under the influence of the warning. "Guess we're kind of obliged to you. More than I can say. Maybe you won't take amiss the things I asked. You see, finding a white man in this region seemed sort of queer since they murdered Allan Mowbray. I just had to ask." He turned to Bill, who was watching him curiously. "We'll strike camp right away. Guess we best get out west if the neches are southeast. Seems to me we're in a bad fix anyway." Then he turned again to the half-breed. "Maybe you'll stop around and take food? We'll eat before we strike."
Kars' changed attitude seemed to please the half-breed. But he shook his head with a smile that only rendered his expression the more crafty.
"Nothin' doin' that way," he said decidedly. "Gee, no!" Then he added confidentially: "I come two miles to give you warnin'. That's straight across as the birds fly. I made nearer five gettin' here. Maybe you'll get that when I tell you these devils have eyes everywhere. Since they shot up Allan Mowbray I'm scared. Scared to death. I've taken a big chance coming around. I ain't makin' it bigger stoppin' to feed. An' if you'll take white advice you won't neither. Jest get to it an' set all the darnation territory you ken find between you an' Bell River before to-morrow. I quit. So long. I've handed you warning. It's right up to you."
He turned abruptly away and moved off. To the dullest it was obvious he was anxious to escape further interrogation. And these men were not dull.
Bill followed him a few steps and stood watching his slim, lithe figure vanish amongst the close-growing spruce. Kars, too, watched him go. But he had not stirred out of his seat. They waited until the sound of his footsteps had died out. Then Kars bestirred himself. He passed from the camp to where his Indians were sleeping. When he returned Bill was standing over the fire.
"I've set a boy to trail him to the edge of the woods," he said. Then he returned to his seat.
Bill nodded.
"Well?"
Kars laughed.
"An elegant outfit," he said with appreciation. "I guess he's more scared of us than the Bell River devils. We're not to get the bunch of neches I guessed."
"No. He's a crook and—a bad one. When do we pull out?"
Kars looked up. His eyes were steady and keen. His jaws were set aggressively.
"When I've nosed out the secret of this darned layout."
"But——"
"Say, Bill," Kars' manner became suddenly alive with enthusiasm, "we've chased a thousand miles and more this summer, nosing, and scratching, and worrying to find some of the secrets of this mighty big land. We've sweated and cussed till even the flies and skitters must have been ashamed. I figger we've lit right on top of a big secret here, and—well, I don't fancy being bluffed out of it by any low-down bum of a half-breed. That feller wants to be quit of us. He's bluffing. We've hit the camp with the neches out. Do you get that? If they'd bin around we wouldn't have seen any Louis Creal. We'd have had all the lead poisoning the neches could have handed us. Wait till Charley gets back."
Peigan Charley was squatting on his haunches holding out the palms of his lean hands to the warming blaze of the fire.
Darkness had shut down upon the gloomy world about them. The air was chill. The fire was more than welcome. Kars was sitting adjacent to his faithful servant, and Bill was on the other side of him. The Indian was talking in a low voice, and in a deliberate fashion.
"I mak him," he said, in his quaint, broken way. "Neche all out. Only squaws, an' pappoose by the camp. Old men—yes. Him all by river. Much squaws by river. Charley not come by river. No good. Charley him look by camp. Him see much teepee, much shack. Oh, yes, plenty. One big—plenty big—shack. Squaws mak go by shack. Him store. Charley know. Yes, Breed man run him store. Charley, him see Breed woman, too. All much plenty busy. So. Charley him come. Yes?"
Kars smoked on for some silent moments.
"You didn't risk the river?" he inquired presently. "Just where were they working?"
"No. Charley him all get kill up dead by river. No bush. No nothing." He made a gesture that was unmistakable. Then he went on. "Charley, him go up dis way." He pointed at the hill directly behind him. "Him go up—up. Much walk, oh, yes. Then Charley, him go down. Plenty big piece. Heap down. So. Come by river. Much bush. Charley, him go on. Quiet. Oh, yes. Quiet—much quiet. Then no bush any more. Big rock. High. Much high. Wide. Dis way." He spread his arms out to their full extent, indicating the gorge. "Water so." He narrowed his hands together. "Squaws, him plenty much work by water. So."
Again the men smoked on in silence. Bill made no comment at all. He was looking to Kars. This was entirely Kars' affair.
Presently Kars looked round.
"Charley made good—very good," he said. "Charley good man."
Then he looked across at Bill. He was smiling, and the light of the fire made his smile queerly grim.
"That's all I need, Bill," he said. "The rest I'll do myself. I'm going to quit you for the time. Maybe I won't join you till nearly morning. I can't say. I want you to strike camp right away. Get on the move down to the river bank—above the gorge. Then follow it along for a few miles. Maybe ten. Then wait around, and keep an eye wide. Then send Charley back to wait for me on the river bank—just above the gorge. Get that, Charley?" He turned to the Indian. "I need you to know just where Boss Bill is waiting, so you can guide me."
"Charley git him plenty. Charley him wait."
"Good. You get it, Bill?"
Bill nodded.
"Right. Then I'll be moving."
Peigan Charley's belief in his white boss's lack of sanity was characteristic of Indian regard for the reckless. The reason, the driving power of his chief's character was lost to his primitive mind. The act was all he had power to judge by, and the act of voluntarily visiting the headquarters of the Bell River Indians said he was "crazy."
But Kars was by no means "crazy," nor anything like it. He had a definite purpose to fulfil, and, in consequence, all hazard was ignored. The man's simple hardihood was the whole of him. He had been bred in the rough lap of the four winds at his father's side. He would have smothered under the breath of caution.
He set out from the camp at the moment he had carefully selected. He set out alone, without a thought for the chances of disaster which the night might have for him. His eyes were alight with satisfaction, with anticipation. Invincible determination inspired him as he faced the hill which had served the Indian earlier in the day. He moved off with a swing to his great body which said all that his lips had left unspoken of the confidence which at all times supported him in the battle with elemental forces.
When he left the camp the blackness of the night had given way to the jewel-studded velvet of a clearing sky. The spectre lights of the north were already dancing their sombre measure. There was no moon. These things all possessed their significance for him.
The shadowy night light, however, only served him in the open, in the breaks in the deep woodlands he must thread. For the rest his woodcraft, even his instinct, must serve him. A general line of direction was in his mind. On that alone he must seriously depend. His difficulties were tremendous. They must have been insurmountable for a man of lesser capacity. But the realization of difficulty was a sense he seemed to lack. It was sufficient that a task lay before him for the automatic effort to be forthcoming.
He climbed the hill through endless aisles of straight-limbed timber. His gait was rapid. His deep, regular breathing spoke of an effort which cost him little. His muscles were as hard as the tree-trunks with which he frequently collided. And so he came to the barren crest where the fierce night wind bit deeply into the warm flesh.
He only paused for his bearings. The stars and the dancing lights yielded him the guidance he needed. He read these signs with the ease of an experienced mariner. Then, crushing his soft beaver cap low down over his ears, and buttoning his pea-jacket about his neck, he left the bitter, wind-swept hilltop and plunged down the terrific slope, at the far-off bottom of which lay the river, whose very name had cast a spell of terror over the hearts of the people of the northland.
Again he was swallowed up by the dark bowels of the woods, whose origin went back to the days before man trod the earth. And curiously enough a sensation of committing an intrusion stirred as the silence closed down about him. A dark wall always seemed to confront him, a wall upon which he was being precipitated.
The steep of the decline was at times terrific. There were moments of impact with trees which left him bruised and beaten. There were moments when projecting roots threatened to hurl him headlong to invisible depths. Each buffet, each stumble, however, only hardened his resolve. These things were powerless to deter him.
His descent of the approach to the gorge was a serious test. He felt thankful at least that his plans called for no reascent of the hill later. Twice he was precipitated into the bed of a spring "washout," and, sore and angry, he was forced to a blind scramble from the moist, soft bed.
Once he only escaped with his life by a margin the breadth of a hair. On this occasion he recovered himself with a laugh of something like real amusement. But death had clutched at him with fierce intent. He had plunged headlong over the edge of a chasm, hewn in the hillside by a subsidence of the foundations some hundreds of feet below. Six feet from the brink his great body had been caught in the arms of a bushy tangle, which bent and crushed under his great weight in a perilous, almost hopeless fashion. But he clung to the attenuated branches that supported him and waited desperately for the further plunge below, which the yielding roots seemed to make inevitable.
But the waiting saved him. Had he struggled while the bush labored under the shock, maybe his anticipations would have been fulfilled. As it was the roots definitely held, and, cautiously, he was able to haul himself up against the weed-grown wall of the precipice, and finally obtain a foot and hand hold in its soil. The rest was a matter of effort and nerve, and at last he clambered back to comparative safety.
So the journey went on with varying fortune, his blind groping and stumblings alternating with the starlit patches where the woods broke. But it went on deliberately to the end with an inevitability which revealed the man.
At last he stood in the open with the frowning walls of the great gorge far above him, like a giant mouth agape in a desperate yawn. At his feet lay the river, flowing swiftly on to join the great Mackenzie in its northward rush to swell the field of polar ice.
Here, in the bowels of the great pit, he was no longer blinded by the darkness, for, in the three hours of infinite effort he had expended, the moon had risen, and its radiance shone down the length of the gorge like some dull yellow search-light. The wood-lined walls were lit till their conformation was vaguely discernible. The swift stream reflected the yellow rays on the crests of its surging ripples. Then, far in, beyond the mouth of the canyon, the long low foreshore stood out almost plainly to his searching eyes.
His task was only at its beginning. He waited just sufficiently long to deliberate his next move. Then he set off, heading for the heart of the gorge itself.
It was a scene of deep interest for eyes backed by understanding.
A figure moved slowly about, searching here, probing there. It was a figure suggesting secret investigation without a sign of real secrecy in its movements.
The foreshore of the river was wide, far wider than could have been believed from the heights above. It sloped gradually to the water's edge, and the soil was loose, gravelly, with a consistency that was significant to the trained mind. But its greater interest lay in the signs of intense labor that stood out on every hand. Operations, crudely scientific, had been carried out to an extent that was almost staggering. Here, in the heart of a low class Indian territory was the touch of the white man. It was more than a touch. It was the impress of his whole hand.
The foreshore was honeycombed with shallow pits, shored, and timbered with rough hewn timber. Against the mouth of each pit, and there were dozens of them, a great pile of soil stood up like a giant beehive, Some of these were in the process of formation. Some were completed, and looked to have stood thus for many months. Some were in the process of being demolished, and iron-wheeled trolleys on timbered pathways stood about them, with the tools of the laborers remaining just where they had been flung down when the day's work was finished.
Each pit, each "dump" was narrowly scrutinized by the silent figure as it moved from point to point. Even the examination extended to touch. Again and again the soil was handled in an effort to test its quality.
But the search extended beyond the "dumps" and pits. It revealed a cutting hewn out of the great wall of the gorge. It was hewn at a point well above the highest water level of the spring freshets. And it was approached by a well timbered roadway of split green logs.
The figure moved over to this, and, as it left the beehive "dumps," a second figure replaced it. But whereas the first made no secret of its movements, the second displayed all the furtive movements of the hunter.
The cutting further revealed the guidance of the master mind. It was occupied by a mountainous dump of the accumulated "dirt" from the foreshore. It was built up, up, by a system of log pathways, till a rough estimate suggested the accumulation of thousands upon thousands of tons.
What was the purpose of this storage?
The question was answered by a glance in a fresh direction. Adjoining the cutting stood an iron winch. It was a man-power winch, but it worked an elevated cable trolley communicating with a trestle work fifty yards away.
Moving swiftly on towards the trestle work the man searched its length. He peered up, far up the great hillside in the uncertain moonlight, seeking the limits of its trailing outline in that direction. But its ascent was gradual. It took the hill diagonally, and quickly lost itself round a bend in the narrow roadway which had been hewn out of the primordial forest.
The end of this work in the other direction was far down on the foreshore, stopping short of the water's edge by, perhaps, fifty yards. It terminated at what was obviously a great mound of "tailings."
The man moved down to this spot. As he paused by the mound, and gazed up, the trestle work stood above him more than twice his own height. Furthermore, here the skeleton work gave place to built-out platforms, the purpose of which was obvious. A moment later his powerful hands were gripping the massive stanchions, and he was clambering up to the platforms.
It was a simple enough task for a man of activity, and he swarmed up with the rapidity of some great cat. He stood on the topmost platform, and his gaze ran down the length of the structure.
"A sluice-box and—conduit," he muttered. Then in a tone of deep appreciation: "Gee, and it's fixed—good!"
He bent down over the sluice-box, and groped with his hands over the bottom of it. There was a trickle of water flowing gently in its depths. He searched with his fingers along the riffles. And that which he found there he carefully and laboriously collected, and drew up out of the water. He placed the collected deposit in a colored handkerchief, and again searched the riffles. He repeated the operation again and again. Then, with great care he twisted up the handkerchief and bestowed it in an inner pocket of his pea-jacket.
After that he sat himself upon the edge of the sluice-box for some thoughtful minutes, and his mind traveled back over many scenes and incidents. But it dwelt chiefly upon Jessie Mowbray and her dead father. And it struggled in a great effort to solve the riddle of the man's death.
But, in view of his discoveries, just now it was a riddle that suggested far too many answers. Furthermore, to his mind, none of them quite seemed to fit. There were two facts that stood out plainly in his mind. Here, here was the source of Allan's wealth, and this was the enterprise which in some way had contrived to leave Jessie Mowbray fatherless.
He sighed. A wave of intense pity swept over him. Nor was his pity for the man who had kept his secret so profoundly all these years. It was for the child, and the widow he had left behind. But more than all it was for the child.
It was with something like reluctance that he tore himself away from the magic of the sluice-box. Once on the solid ground, however, he again turned his eyes to gaze up at the structure. Then he laughed. It was an audible expression of the joy of discovery.
"What a 'strike'!" he said aloud.
"An' one you ain't gettin' away with!"
John Kars started. He half turned at the sound of the familiar voice. But his intention remained incompleted. It may have been instinct. It may have been that out of the corner of his eye he saw the white ring of the muzzle of a revolver shining in the moonlight close against his head.
On the instant of the last sound of the man's voice he dropped. He dropped like a stone. His movement came only the barest fraction of a second before the crack of the revolver prefixed the whistle of the bullet which spat itself deeply into the woodwork of the trestle.
Thought and action ran a neck and neck race in Kars at all times. Now it was never better exampled. His arms flung out as he dropped. And, before a second pressure of the trigger could be accomplished, the man behind the gun was caught, and thrown, and sprawled on the ground with his intended victim uppermost.
For Kars it was chiefly a struggle for possession of the gun. On his assailant's part it was for the use of it upon his intended victim.
Kars had felled the man by the weight and suddenness of his attack. He had him by the body, and his own great bulk lay atop of him. But the man's arms were free. There was a moment's desperate pause as they fell, and it was that pause which robbed the gunman of his chance of accomplishing the murder he had designed. Kars knew his man on the instant. The voice was the voice of Louis Creal, the half-breed who had warned him of the danger of Bell River. He could have laughed had not the moment been too desperate.
On the instant of impact with the ground Kars released his hold of the man's body, and with catlike agility hurled himself at the man's throat. With the threat of the revolver over him there remained only one means of defence. He must paralyze all action even if he killed the man under his hands. Physically his assailant was no match for him, but the gun leveled things up.
His great hands closed on the man's throat like a vice. It was a strangle hold that knew no mercy. He reared his body up and his grip tightened. The Breed struggled fiercely. He flung up his gun arm and fired recklessly. The first shot flew high into the air but the scorch of the fire stung the face of the man over him. A second shot came. It cut its way through the thick muscles of Kars' neck. He winced under its hot slither, but his grip only further tightened on the man's throat.
Then came collapse with hideous suddenness. With a choking gurgle the Breed's arms dropped nervelessly to the ground and the revolver fell from his relaxed grip. On the instant the white man released his hold. He caught up the gun and flung it wide.
He had won out. The cost to him did not matter. He stood up and gazed down at the man on the ground. He was still—quite still. Then he searched his own pockets for a handkerchief. The only one he possessed had been set to precious use. He rejected it. So he bent over the prostrate Breed and unfastened the colored handkerchief about his neck. This he proceeded to fasten about the flesh wound in his own neck, for the blood flowing from it was saturating his clothes.
A moment later the half-breed stirred. It was what the white man had awaited. The sight of the movement brought a sigh of relief. He was glad he had not been forced to become the slayer of the man.
Five minutes later the dazed half-breed seemed to awaken to realities. He propped himself on his elbow, and, with his other hand, felt about his throat, whilst his dark, evil face and beady eyes stared malevolently up in the moonlight at the man standing over him.
"Feeling better?" the white, man demanded coldly.
As he received no answer he went on.
"Guess you acted foolish trailing up so close on me. Maybe you were scared you'd miss me in the dark? Anyway, you gave me a chance no real gunman would have given. Guess you weren't more than a rabbit in my hands. Say, can you swim? Ah, don't feel like talking," he added, as the man still kept to his angry silence. "Anyway you'll need to. You've got off mighty light. Maybe a bath won't come amiss."
He bent down and before the Breed was aware of his intention he seized him in his arms and picked him up much as he might have picked up some small child.
Then the struggle began afresh. But it was hopeless from the outset. Louis Creal, unarmed, was powerless in the bear-like embrace of John Kars. Struggling and cursing, the half-breed was borne to the water's edge, held poised for a few seconds, then flung with all the strength of the white man into the rapid waters of the Bell River.
Kars only waited to see him rise to the surface. Then, as the man was carried down on the swift tide, swimming strongly, he turned away with a laugh and hurried from the scene.