Fort Mowbray was enveloped in a black cloud of tragedy. Its simple life flickered on. But it seemed to have been robbed of all its past reality, all its quiet strength, all that made it worth while.
Nor was the change confined to the white people. Even the Indians, those stoic creatures born to the worst buffets life knows how to inflict, whose whole object at the Mission was white man's bounty, to be paid for by the worship of the white man's God, yielded to the atmosphere of hopelessness prevailing. Alec had been the young white chief after the great hunter who had paid his debt at the hands of the Bell River terror. He, too, was gone, and they felt that they were in the hands of the "smiling one" for whom their regard was chiefly inspired by fear. The little white Father was their remaining hope, and he was very, very old.
So they set up their lamentations, surrounding them with all the rites of their race. The old women crooned their mystic tuneless dirges. The younger "charmed" the evil spirits haunting their path. The men sat in long and profound council which was beset with doubt of the future.
Ailsa Mowbray and Jessie fought out their own battle, as once before they had had to fight, and herein their native fortitude strove on their behalf. For days they saw no one but the little priest who remained ever at their call. The primitive in their lives demanded for them that none should witness their hurt. They asked neither sympathy nor pity, wherein shone forth the mother's wondrous courage which had supported her through every trial.
The days passed without the departure of Kars and Bill. The excuse was the state of the river, by which they were to make the headwaters. The ice was still flowing northward, but in ever lessening bulk, and the time was filled in with repairs to the canoes which had suffered during the long portage of the trail.
This was the excuse, but it was only excuse. Both men knew it, and neither admitted it verbally. The condition of the river would not have delayed John Kars in the ordinary way. There was always the portage.
The truth lay in the passionate yearning of the heart of a man who had remained so long beyond the influence of a woman upon his life. He had set his task firmly before him, but its fulfilment now must wait till he had made sure for himself of those things which had suddenly become the whole aim and desire of his future. He could not leave the Fort for the adventure of Bell River till he had put beyond all doubt the hopes he had built on the love that had become the whole meaning of earthly happiness to him. Bill understood this. So he refrained from urging, and checked the impatient grumbling of Peigan Charley without much regard for the scout's feelings.
Murray McTavish continued at his post, undemonstrative, without a sign. The stream of spring traffic, which consisted chiefly of outfitting on credit the less provident trappers and pelt-hunters for their summer campaign, went on without interruption. His projected journey had been definitely abandoned. But for all his outward manner he was less at his ease than would have seemed. His eyes were upon Kars at all times. His delayed departure irritated him. Perhaps he, too, like Bill Brudenell, understood something of its meaning.
Although his outward seeming had undergone no change, there was a subtle difference in Murray. His trade methods had hardened. The trappers who appealed to him in their need left him with a knowledge that their efforts must be increased if they were to pay off their credits, and keep up their profits for the next winter's supplies. Then, too, he avoided Kars, who was sharing the Padre's hospitality, and even abandoned his nightly visits to the priest, which had been his habit of years. It was as rarely as possible that he came down to the Mission, and the clearing only saw him when the demand of nature made his food imperative.
It was one day, just after his midday dinner, that Murray encountered Father José. He was leaving Ailsa Mowbray's house, and the old priest protested at his desertion. The trader's answer was ready on the moment.
"I hate it, Padre," he said, with unnecessary force. "But I can't act diff'rent. I got to get around for food or starve. This place wouldn't see me in months else. You see, I had too much to do with that boy going down to Leaping Horse. And it's broke me up so bad I can't face it yet—even to myself. Guess Mrs. Mowbray understands that, too. Say, she's a pretty great woman. If she weren't I'd be scared for our proposition here. She must get time. They both must, and the less they see of me, why, it's all to the good. Time'll do most things for women—for us all, I guess. Then, maybe things'll settle down—later."
And the priest's reply was characteristic. It was the reply of a man who has endured life in the land north of "sixty" for the sheer love of the dark souls it is his desire to help.
"Yes," he said, with a sigh. "Time can heal almost anything. But it can't hide the scars. That's the work that falls to the grave."
Murray remained silent while the priest helped himself to snuff. The little man's eyes became tenderly reflective as he went on.
"Sixty years I've been looking around at things. And my conceit made me hope to read something of the meaning that lies behind the things Providence hands out." He shook his white head. "It's just conceit. I'm not beyond the title page. Maybe the text inside isn't meant for me. For any of us. It just bewilders. These folk. I've known them right through from the start. I can see Allan now fixing that old Fort into order, that old Fort with all its old-time wickedness behind it. I've watched him, and his wife, and his kiddies, as only a lonely man in this country can study the folk about him. Wholesome, clean, God-fearing. That was Allan and his folk in my notion. They fought their battle with clean hands, and—merciful. It mostly seemed to me God, was in their hearts all the time. They endured and fought, and it wasn't always easy. Now?" His eyes were gazing thoughtfully at the home which had witnessed so much happiness and so much sorrow. "Why, now God's hand has fallen heavy—heavy. It seems Providence means to drive them from the Garden. The flaming sword is before their eyes. It has fallen on them, and they must go. The reason?"
Again came that meditative head-shake. "It's God's will. So be it."
Murray drew a deep breath. He was less impressed by the priestly view than with the implication.
"Driving them out?" he questioned, his curious eyes searching the wise old face.
"It seems that way. Mrs. Mowbray won't pass another winter here. It's not good to pitch camp on the grave of your happiness."
"No."
Murray stood looking after the little man, whom nothing stayed in his mission of mercy. He watched him vanish within the woods, in the direction of the Indian encampment.
So two weeks, two long weeks passed, and each day bore its own signs of the last efforts of winter in its reluctant retreat. And spring, in its turn, was invincible, and it marched on steadily, breathing its fresh, invigorating warmth upon an earth it was seeking to make fruitful.
The cloud of disaster slowly began to lift. Nothing stands still. Nothing can stand still. The power of life moves on inexorably. It brings with it its disasters and its joys, but they are all passing emotions, and are of so small account in the tremendous scheme being slowly worked out by an Infinite Power.
The blow which had fallen on Jessie Mowbray had robbed her for the moment of all joy in the coming of John Kars. But her love was deep and real, and, for all her sorrow, she had neither power nor desire to deny it. In her darkest moments there was a measure of comfort in it. It was something on which she could lean for support. Even in her greatest depths of suffering it buoyed her, all unknown, perhaps, but nevertheless.
So, as the days passed, and the booming of the glacier thundered under the warming spring sunlight, she yearned more and more for the gentle sympathy which she knew he would readily yield. Thus it came that Kars one day beheld her on the landing, gazing at the work which was going on under his watchful eye.
It was the revelation he had awaited. That night he conferred with Bill, with the resulting decision of a start to be made within two days.
The wonder of it. God's world. A world of life and hope. The winter of Nature's despair driven forth beyond the borders to the outland drear of eternal northern ice. The blue of a radiant sky, flecked with a fleece, white as driven snow, frothing waves tossed on the bosom of a crisp spring breeze. The sun playing a delicious hide-and-seek, at moments flashing its brilliant eye, and setting the channels of life pulsating with hope, and again lost behind its screen of alabaster, that only succeeded in adding to its promise.
As yet the skeleton arms of the winter woods remained unclad. But wild duck and geese were on the wing, sweeping up from the south in search of the melting sloughs and flooded hollows, pastures laid open to them by the rapid thaw. The birth of the new season was accomplished, and the labor of mother earth was a memory.
They were at the bank of the river again. They were in the heart of the willow glade, still shorn of its summer beauty. The man was standing, large, dominating before her, but obsessed by every unmanly fear. The girl was sitting on a fallen tree-trunk, whose screen of tilted roots set up a barrier which shut her from the view of the frowning glances of the aged Fort above them, and whose winter-starved branches formed a breakwater in the ice cold flood of the stream.
Jessie's pretty eyes were gazing up into the man's face. A quick look of alarm had replaced, for the moment, the shadow of grief which had so recently settled in them. Her plain cloth skirt had only utility to recommend it. Her shirt-waist was serviceable in seasons as uncertain as the present. The loose buckskin coat, which reached to her knees, and had been fashioned and beaded by the Mission squaws, had picturesqueness. But she gained nothing from these things as a setting for her beauty.
But for Kars, at least, her beauty was undeniable. Her soft crown of chestnut hair, hatless, at the mercy of the mood of the breeze, to him seemed like a ruddy halo crowning a face of a childlike purity. Her gentle gray eyes were to him unfathomable wells of innocence, while her lips had all the ripeness of a delicious womanhood.
"You were scared that day we pulled into the Fort," he had said, in his abrupt way.
He had been talking of his going on the morrow. And the change of subject had come something startlingly to the girl.
"Yes," she admitted, almost before she was aware of it.
"That's how I guessed," he said. "I reached the office on the dead jump—after I saw. Why? Murray had you scared. How?"
There was no escape from the man's searching gaze. Jessie felt he was probing irresistibly secrets she vainly sought to keep hidden. Subterfuge was useless under that regard.
"Murray asked me to marry him. He—asked me just then. I—wish he hadn't."
"Why?" The inexorable pressure was maintained.
Jessie tried to avoid his eyes. She sought the aid of the bubbling waters, racing and churning amongst the branches of the fallen tree. She would have resented such catechism even in her mother. But she was powerless to deny this man.
"Why?" she echoed at last. Suddenly she raised her eyes to his again. They were frankly yielding. "Guess I'd rather have Murray guiding a commercial proposition than hand me out the schedule of life."
"You don't like him, and you're scared of him. I wonder why."
The girl sat up. She flung back her head, and her outspread hands supported her, resting on the tree-trunk on either side of her.
"Say, why do you talk that way?" she protested. "Is it always your way to drive folks? I thought that was just Murray's way. Not yours. But you're right, anyway. I'm scared of Murray when he talks love. I'm scared, and don't believe. I'd as lief have his hate as his love. And—and I haven't a thing against him."
There was a sort of desperation in the girl's whole manner of telling of her fears. It hurt the man as he listened. But his pressure was not idle. He was seeking corroboration of those doubts which haunted him. Doubts which had only assailed him for the first time when he learned of the nature of Murray's freight with John Dunne, and which had received further support in his realization of the man's lies on the subject of Alec.
"I've got to talk that way," he said. "I'm not yearning to drive you any. Say, Jessie, if there's a person in this world I'd hate to drive it's you. If there's a thing I could do to fix things easy for you, why, a cyclone couldn't stop me fixing them that way. But I saw the scare in your eyes through the window of that feller's office, and I just had to know about it. I can't hand you the things tumbling around in the back of my head. I don't know them all myself, but there's things, and they're things I can't get quit of. Maybe some time they'll straighten out, and when they do I'll be able to show them to you. Meanwhile, we'll leave 'em where they are, and simply figger I'm thinking harder than I ever thought in my life, and those thoughts are around you, and for you, all the time."
The simplicity of his words and manner robbed the girl of all confusion. A great delight surged through her heart. This great figure, this strong man, with his steady eyes and masterful methods was setting himself her champion before the world. The lonely spirit of the wilderness was deeply in her heart, and the sense of protection became something too rapturous for words.
Her frank eyes thanked him though her lips remained dumb.
"I'm quitting to-morrow," he went on. "But I couldn't go till I'd made a big talk with you. Bill's been on the grouch days. And Charley? Why, Charley's come nigh raising a riot. But I had to wait—for you."
He paused. Nor from his manner could any one have detected the depths of emotion stirred in him. A great fear possessed him, and his heart was burdened with the crushing weight of it. For the first time in his life his whole future seemed to have passed into other hands. And those hands were the brown sunburnt hands, so small, so desirable, of this girl whose knowledge and outlook were bounded by the great wilderness they had loved, and so often vilified together. To him it seemed strange, yet so natural. To him it seemed that for the first time he was learning something of the real meaning of life. Never had he desired a thing which was beyond his power to possess. Doubt had never been his. Now he knew that doubt was a hideous reality, and the will of this girl could rob him beyond all hope of all that made his life worth while.
He drew a deep breath. It was the summoning of the last ounce of purpose and courage in him. He flung all caution aside, he paused not for a single word. He became the veriest suppliant at the shrine where woman reigns supreme.
"Y'see, Jessie, I want to tell you things. I want to tell you I love you so that nothing else counts. I want to tell you I've been traipsing up and down this long trail hunting around all the while for something, and I guessed that something was—gold. So it was. I know that now. But it wasn't the gold we men-folk start out to buy our pleasures with. It was the sort of gold that don't lie around in 'placers.' It don't lie anywhere around in the earth. It's on top. It walks around, and it's in a good woman's heart. Well, say," he went on, moving towards the tree-trunk, and sitting down at the girl's side, "I found it. Oh, yes, I found it."
His voice had lowered to an appealing note which stirred the girl to the depths of her soul. She sat leaning forward. Her elbows were resting on her knees, and her hands were clasped. Her soft gray eyes were gazing far out down the naked avenue ahead without seeing. Her whole soul was concentrated on the radiant vision of the paradise his words opened up before her.
"I found it," he went on. "But it's not mine—yet. Not by a sight. Pick an' shovel won't hand it me. The muscles that have served me so well in the past can't help me now. I'm up against it. I guess I'm well-nigh beat. I can't get that gold till it's handed me. And the only hands can pass it my way are—yours."
He reached out, and one hand gently closed over the small brown ones clasped so tightly together.
"Just these little hands," he continued, while the girl unresistingly yielded to his pressure. "Say, they're not big to hold so much of the gold I'm needing. Look at 'em," he added, gently parting them, and turning one soft palm upwards. "But it's all there. Sure, sure. I don't need a thing they can't hand me. Not a thing." He closed his own hand over the upturned palm. "If I got all this little hand could pass me there isn't a thing I couldn't do. Say, little Jessie, there's a sort of heaven on this earth for us men-folk. It's a heaven none of us deserve. And it lies in the soul of one woman. If she guesses to open the gate, why, we can walk right in. It she don't choose that way, then I guess there's only perdition waiting around to take us in. Well, I got to those gates right now." One arm unobtrusively circled the girl's waist, and slowly its pressure drew her towards him. "And I'm waiting. It's all up to you. I'm just standing around. Maybe—maybe you'll—open those gates?"
The girl's head gently inclined towards him. In a moment her lips were clinging to his. Those ripe, soft, warm lips had answered him.
Later—much later, when the warming sun had absorbed the fleecy screen which had served its earlier pastime, and the spring breeze had hastily sought new fields upon which to devote its melting efforts, Jessie found courage to urge the single regret these moments had left her.
"And you still need to quit—to-morrow?" she asked shyly.
"More surely than ever."
"Why?"
A smile lit the man's eyes. She was using his own pressure against himself.
He suddenly sprang from his seat. The girl, too, rose and stood confronting him with questioning eyes. She was tall. For all his great size he was powerless to rob her of one inch of the gracious form which her mother had bestowed upon her. He held out his hands so that they rested on her shoulders. He gazed down into her face with eyes filled with a joy and triumph unspeakable. And he spoke out of the buoyant strength of his heart, which was full to overflowing.
"Because, more than ever I need to go—now. Say, my dear, there's folks who've hurt you in this world. They've hurt you sore. I'm going to locate 'em up here, and down at Leaping Horse. And when I've located them they're going to pay. Do you get what that means? No. You can't. Your gentle heart can't get it all, when men set out to make folk who've hurt women-folk bad pay for their doings. And I'm glad. I know. And, by God, the folk who've hurt you are going to pay good. They're going to pay—me."
Awe was the dominating emotion. Wonder looked out of eyes that have long become accustomed to the crude marvels of nature to be found in the northland. The men of Kars' expedition were gazing down upon the savage splendor of the Promised Land.
But the milk and honey were lacking. The dream of peace, of delight was not in these men. Their Promised Land must hold something more substantial than the mere comforts of the body. That substance they knew lay there, there ahead of them, but only to be won by supreme effort against contending forces, human and natural.
They had halted at the highest point of a great saddle lying between two snow-crowned hills. Peaks towered mightily above the woodlands clothing their wide slopes, and shining with alabaster splendor in the sunlight.
It was the first glimpse of the torn land of the ominous Bell River gorge.
The sight of the gorge made them dizzy. The width, the depth, left an impression of infinite immensity upon the mind, an overwhelming hopelessness. Men used to mountain vastness all the days of their lives were left speechless for moments, while their searching eyes sought to measure the limits of this long hidden land.
The mountains beyond, about them. The broken, tumbled earth, yawning and gaping in every direction. The forests of primordial origin. The snows which never yield their grip upon their sterile bed. And then the depths. Those infinite depths, which the human mind can never regard unmoved.
The long, toilsome journey lay behind them. The goal lay awaiting the final desperate assault, with all its traps and hidden dangers. What a goal to have sought. It was like the dragon-guarded storehouse of the crudest folk-lore.
The white men stood apart from their Indian supporters. Kars knew the scene. He was observing the faces of the men who were gazing upon the gorge for the first time. They were full of interest. But it was left to Bill to interpret the general feeling in concrete form.
"They're reckoning up the chances they've taken 'blind,'" he said.
Kars laughed.
"Sure." Then he added: "And none of them are 'squealers.' Chances 'blind,' or any others, need to be taken, or it's a long time living. It's the thing the northland rubs into the bones."
"Folks are certainly liable to pass it quicker that way."
Bill's shrewd eyes twinkled as he read the reckless spirit stirring behind the lighting eyes of his friend.
Kars laughed again. It was the buoyant laugh of a man full of the great spirit of adventure, and whose lust is unshadowed by a single care.
"Chances are Life, Bill. All of it. The other? Why, the other's just making a darn fool of old Prov. And I guess old Prov hates being made a darn fool of."
But for all Kars' reckless spirit he possessed the wide sagacity and vigorous responsibility of a born leader. It was this which inspired the men he gathered about him. It was this which claimed their loyalty. It was partly this which made Bill Brudenell willingly abandon his profitable labors in a rich city for the hardship of a life at his friend's side. Perhaps the other part was that somewhere under Bill's hardly acquired philosophy there lurked a spirit in perfect sympathy with that which actuated the younger man. There was not a day passed but he deplored to himself the stupendous waste of energy and time involved. But he equally reveled in outraging his better sense, and defying the claims of his life in Leaping Horse.
No less than Kars he reveled in the sight of the battle-field which lay before them.
Abe Dodds and Saunders gazed upon it, too. It was their first sight of it, and their view-points found prompt expression, each in his own way.
"Say, this place kind o' makes you feel old Dante was a libelous guy who'd oughter be sent to penitentiary," Abe remarked pensively. "Guess we'll likely find old whiskers waiting around with his boat when we get on down to the river. Still, it's consoling to figger up the cost o' coaling hell north of 'sixty.'"
An unsmiling nod of agreement came from his companion.
"Makes me feel I bin soused weeks," he said earnestly. He pointed down at the forbidding walls enclosing the river. "That's jest mist around ther', ain't it? It ain't—smoke nor nothin'. An' them hills an' things. They are hills? They ain't the rim of a darn fool pit that ain't got bottom to it? An' them folks—movin' around down there. They are folks? They ain't—things?"
Both men laughed. But their amusement was wide-eyed and wondering.
Kars' half military caravan labored its way forward. It made its own path through virgin woodland breaks, which had known little else than wild or Indian life since the world began. There were muskegs to avoid. Broken stretches of tundra, trackless, treacherous. Cruel traps which only patience, labor, skill and great courage could avoid. Apart from all chances of hostile welcome the Bell River approaches claimed all the mental and physical sweat of man.
The movements of the outfit if slow were sure, and seemingly inevitable. The days of labor were followed by nights of watchful anxiety and council. Nature's batteries were against them. But the lurking human danger was even more serious in the minds of these men. Nature they knew. They had learned her arts of war, and their counters were studied, and the outcome of fierce experience. But the other was new, or, at least, sufficiently new to require the straining of every nerve to meet it successfully, should it come. They were under no delusions on the subject. Come it would. How? Where? But more than all—when?
For all their skill, for all their well-thought organization, these men could not hope to escape scathless against the forces of nature opposed to them. They lost horses in the miry hollows. The surgical skill of Dr. Bill was frequently needed for the drivers and packmen. There was a toll of material, too.
The land seemed scored with narrow chasms, the cause of which was beyond all imagination. There were cul-de-sacs which possessed no seeming rhyme or reason. Time and again the advancing scout party, seeking the better road, found itself trapped in valleys of muskeg with no other outlet than the way by which it had entered. Wherever the eye searched, rugged rock facets, with ragged patches of vegetation growing in the crevices confronted them. It was a maze of desolation, and magnificent hills and forests of primordial growth. It was as crude and half complete in the days when the waters first receded.
But the lure of the precious metal was in every heart. Even Kars lay under its fascination once more, now that the strenuous goal lay within sight. He knew it was there, and in great quantities. And, for all the saner purposes he had in his mind, its influence made itself deeply felt.
The gold seeker, be he master or wage earner, is beyond redemption. Murray McTavish had said that all men north of "sixty" were wage slaves. He might have included all the world. But the truth of his assertion was beyond all question. Not a man in the outfit Kars had organized but was a wage slave, down to the least civilized Indian who labored under a pack.
Bodily ease counted for nothing. These men were inured to all hardship. They were men who had committed themselves to a war against the elements, a war against all that opposed them in their hunger for the wage they were determined to tear from the frigid bosom of an earth which they regarded as the vulture regards carrion.
The days of labor were long and many. Hardship piled up on hardship, as it ever does in the spring of the northland. There was no ease for leader or man. Only labor, unceasing, terrific.
Kars moved aside from the Bell River Indian encampment. He passed to the west of it, beyond all sight of the workings he had explored on the memorable night of his discovery. And he took the gorge from the north, seeking its heart for his camp, on the wide foreshore beyond the dumps of pay dirt which had first yielded him their secret.
It was a movement which precluded all possibility of legitimate protest. And since this territory was all unscheduled in the government of the Yukon, it was his for just as long as he could hold it. The whole situation was treated as though no other white influence were at work. It was treated as a peaceful invasion of Indian territory, and, as is usual in such circumstances, the Indian was ignored. It was an illustration of white domination. In Bill Brudenell's words "they were throwing a big bluff."
But for all their ignoring of the Indians, the outfit was under the closest observation. There was not a moment, not a foot of its way, that was not watched over by eyes that saw, and for the most part remained unseen. But this invisibility was not always the rule. Indians in twos and threes were frequently encountered. They were the undersized northern Indian of low type, who had none of the splendid manhood of the tribes further south. But each man was armed with a more or less modern rifle, and garments of crudely manufactured furs replaced the romantic buckskin of their southern brethren.
These men came round the camps at night. They foregathered silently, and watched, with patient interest, the work going on. They offered no friendship or welcome. They made no attempt to fraternize in any way. Their unintelligent faces were a complete blank, in so far as they displayed any understanding of what they beheld.
The men of the outfit were in nowise deceived. They knew the purpose of these visits. These creatures were there to learn all that could serve the purposes of their leaders. They were testing the strength of these invaders. And they were permitted to prosecute their investigations without hindrance. It was part of the policy Kars had decided upon. The "bluff," as Bill had characterized it, was to be carried through till the enemy "called."
Two weeks from the day when the gorge had been sighted, the permanent camp was completely established. Furthermore, the work of the gold "prospect" had been begun under the fierce energy of Abe Dodds, and the thirst-haunted Saunders. Theirs it was to explore and test the great foreshore, and to set up the crude machinery.
The first day's report was characteristic of the mining engineer. He returned to his chief, who was organizing the camp with a view to eventualities. There was a keen glitter in his hollow eyes as he made his statement. There was a nervous restraint in his whole manner. He chewed unmercifully as he made his unconventional statement.
"The whole darn place is full of 'color,'" he said. "Ther' ain't any sort o' choice anywhere, 'less you set up machinery fer the sake o' the scenery."
"Then we'll set up the sluices where we can best protect them," was Kars' prompt order.
So the work proceeded with orderly haste.
Further up the stream the Indians swarmed about their "placers." Their washings went on uninterruptedly. They, too, were playing a hand, with doubtless a keen head controlling it. The invasion seemed to trouble them not one whit. But this steady industry, and aloofness, was ample warning for the newcomers. It was far more deeply significant than any prompt display of hostility.
Kars spared neither himself nor his men. Every soul of his outfit knew they were passing through the moments immediately preceding the battle which must be fought out. Each laborious day was succeeded by a night which concealed possible terrors. Each golden sunrise might yield to the blood-red sunset of merciless war. And the odds were wide against them, and could only be bridged by determination and skilful leadership. Great, however, as the odds were, these men were before all things gold seekers, all of them, white and colored, and they were ready to face them, they were ready to face anything in the world for the golden wage they demanded.
It was nearing the end of the first week. The mining operations were in full swing under the guidance of Abe Dodds and Saunders. Kars and Bill were left free to regard only the safety of the enterprise, and to complete the preparations for defence. To this end they were out on an expedition of investigation.
Their investigations had taken them across the river directly opposite the camp. The precipitous walls of the gorge at this point were clad in dark woods which rose almost from the water's edge. But these woods were not the only thing which demanded attention. There was a water inlet to the river hidden amongst their dark aisles. Furthermore, high up, overlooking the river, a wide ledge stood out from the wall, and that which had been discovered upon it was not without suspicion in their minds.
For some moments after landing Kars stood looking back across the river. His searching gaze was taking in every detail of the defences he had set up across the water. When he finally turned it was to observe the watercourse cascading down a great rift in the walls of the gorge.
"Guess this is the weak link, Bill," he said. "It's a way down to the water's edge. The only way down in a stretch of two miles on this side. And it's plumb in front of us."
Bill nodded agreement.
"Sure. And that queer old shack half-way up. We best make that right away."
The canoe was hauled clear of the racing stream, and left secure. Then they moved up the rocky foreshore where the inlet had cut its way through the heart of the woods.
It was a curious, almost cavernous opening. Nor was there a detail of it that was not water-worn as far up the confining walls of drab rock as the eyes could see.
Once within the entrance, however, the scene was completely changed, and robbed of the general sternness which prevailed outside. It was not without some charm.
The split was far greater than had seemed from the distance. It was a tumbled mass of tremendous boulders, amidst which the forest of primordial pines found root room where none seemed possible, and craned their ragged heads towards the light so far above them. And, in the midst of this confusion, the mountain stream poured down from heights above, droning out its ceaseless song of movement in a cadence that seemed wholly out of place amidst such surroundings.
The whole place was burdened under a semi-twilight, induced by the crowning foliage so frantically jealous of its rights. Of undergrowth there was no vestige. Only the deep carpet of cones and pine needles, which clogged the crevices, and frequently concealed pitfalls for the steps of those sufficiently unwary. This, and a general saturation from the spray of the falling waters, left the upward climb something more than arduous.
It was nearly an hour later when the two men stood on the narrow plateau cut in the side of the gorge, and overlooking the great river. It yielded a perfect view of the vastness of the amazing reach.
Below them, out of the solid walls, wherever root-hold offered, the lean pines thrust their crests to a level with them. Above, where the slope of the gorge fell back at an easier angle, black forests covered the whole face for hundreds of feet towards the cloud-flecked skies.
These men, however, were all unconcerned with the depths or the heights, for all their dizzy splendor. A habitation stood before them sheltered by a burnt and tumbled stockade. And to practical imagination it held a significance which might have deep enough meaning.
They stood contemplating the litter for some moments. And in those moments it told them a story of attack and defence, and finally of defeat. The disaster to the defenders was clearly told, and the question in both their minds was the identity of those defeated.
John Kars approached the charred pile where it formed the least obstruction, and his eyes searched the staunch but dilapidated shack, with its flat roof. Battered, it still stood intact, hard set against the slope of the hill. Its green log walls were barkless. They were weather-worn to a degree that suggested many, many years and cruel seasons. But its habitable qualities were clearly apparent.
Bill Brudenell was searching in closer detail. It was the difference between the two men. It was the essential difference in their qualities of mind. He was the first to break the silence between them.
"Get a look," he said abruptly. "There! There! And there! All over the darn old face of it. Bullet holes. Hundreds of them. And seemingly from every direction. Say, it must have been a beautiful scrap."
"And the defenders got licked—poor devils."
Kars was pointing down at the strewn bones lying amongst the fallen logs. Beyond them, inside the boundary of the stockade lay a skull, a human skull, as clean and whitened as though centuries had passed since it lost contact with the frame which had supported it.
Bill moved to it. His examination was close and professional.
"Indian," he said at last, and laid it back on the ground with almost reverent care.
He turned his eyes upon the shanty once more. Two other piles of human bones, picked as clean as carrion birds could leave them, passed under his scrutiny, but he was no longer concerned with them. The hut absorbed his whole interest now, and he moved towards its open doorway with Kars at his heels. They passed within.
As their eyes grew accustomed to the indifferent light, more of the story of the place was set out for their reading. There were some ammunition boxes. There were odds and ends of camp truck. But nothing of any value remained, and the fact suggested, in combination with the other signs, the looting of a victorious foe.
Kars was the first to offer comment.
"Do you guess it's possible——?"
"Allan held this shack?" Bill nodded. "These are all white men signs. Those ammunition boxes. They're the same as we've loaded up at the Fort many times. Sure. Allan held this shack, but he didn't die here. Murray found what was left of him down below, way down the river. Maybe he held this till his stores got low. Then he made a dash for it, and—found it. It makes me sick thinking. Let's get out."
He turned away to the door and Kars followed him.
Kars had nothing to add. The picture of that hopeless fight left him without desire to investigate further. It was almost the last fight of the man who had made the happiness he now contemplated possible. His heart bled for the girl who he knew had well-nigh worshiped her "daddy."
But Bill did not pass the doorway. At that moment the sharp crack of a rifle split the air, and set the echoes of the gorge screaming. A second later there was the vicious "spat" of a bullet on the sorely tried logs of the shack. He stepped back under cover. But not before a second shot rang out, and another bullet struck, and ricochetted, hurtling through the air to lose itself in the pine woods above him.
"The play's started," was his undisturbed comment.
Kars nodded and his eyes lit. The emotions of the moment before had fallen from him.
"Good!" he exclaimed. "Now for Mister Louis Creal."
Bill turned, and his twinkling eyes were thoughtful as they regarded his friend.
"Ye-es."
But Kars was paying small attention. His eyes were shining with a light such as is only seen in those who contemplate the things their heart is set upon. In his mind there was no doubt, only conviction.
"We're not fighting those poor, darn-fool neches who fired those shots," he cried in a sudden break from his usual reticence. "Maybe they're the force but they aren't the brain. The brain behind this play is Mister Louis Creal. Say, this thing's bigger than we guessed. This Louis Creal runs these workings. Guess he's been running them since the beginning. He's been running them in some sort of partnership with the men at the Fort. He was Allan's partner, if I'm wise to anything. He was Allan's partner and Murray's. And Allan was murdered right here. He was murdered by these poor darn neches. And the brain behind them was Louis Creal's. Do you get it now? Oh, it's easy. That half-breed's turned, as they always turn when it suits them. He's turned on his partners. And Murray knows it. That's why Murray's got in his arms. It's clear as daylight. There's a three-cornered scrap coming. Murray's going to clean out this outfit, or lose his grip on the gold lying on this river for the picking up. And Murray don't figger to lose a thing without a mighty big kick—and not gold anyway. This feller, Creal, located us, and figgers to wipe us off his slate. See? Say, Bill, I guessed long ago Bell River was going to hand us some secrets. I guessed it would tell us how Allan Mowbray died. Well, Louis Creal's going to pay. He's going to pay good. Murray's wise. Gee, I can't but admire. Another feller would have shouted. Another feller would have told the womenfolk all he discovered when he found Allan Mowbray murdered. Can't you get his play? He was Allan's friend. He kind of hoped to marry Jessie—some day. He worked the whole thing out. He guessed he'd scare Mrs. Mowbray and Jessie to death if he told them all that had happened. He didn't want them scared, or they might quit the place. So he just blamed the neches, and let if go at that. He handled the proposition himself. There was Alec. He didn't guess it would be good Alec butting in. Alec, for all he's Jessie's brother, wasn't bright. He might get killed even. He'd be in the way—anyway. So he got him clear of the Fort. Then he got a free hand. He shipped in an arsenal of weapons, and he's going to outfit a big force. He's coming along up here later, and it'll be him and Creal to the death. And it's odds on Murray. Then the folk at the Fort can help themselves all they need, and the world won't be any the wiser. It's a great play. But Alec's death has queered it some. Do you get it—all? It's clear—clear as daylight."
"Ye-es." Again came that hesitating affirmative. But then Bill was older, and perhaps less impressionable.
Again Kars missed the hesitation.
"Good," he said. "Now we'll get busy. Maybe we'll save Murray a deal of trouble. He'd got me worried. I was half guessing——" He broke off and sighed as though in relief. "But I've got it clear enough now. And Louis Creal'll have to reckon with me first. We'll make back to camp."
Bill offered no comment. He watched the great figure of his companion move towards the door. Nor was the nerve of the man without deep effect upon him. Kars passed out on to the open plateau and instantly a rain of bullets spat their vicious purpose all about him. Even as Bill stepped out after him his feelings were absorbed in his admiration of the other.
The shots continued. They all came from the same direction, from the woods across the river, somewhere just above their camp. It was Indian firing. Its character was unmistakable. It was erratic, and many of the shots failed hopelessly to reach the plateau at all.
The movements of the two men were rapid without haste, and, as they left the plateau, the firing ceased.
An hour later they were walking up the foreshore to their camp, and the canoe was hauled up out of the water. The sluices were in full work under the watchful eye of Abe Dodds. The thirsty Saunders was driving his gang at the placers, from which was being drawn a stream of pay dirt that never ceased from daylight to dark. They had heard the firing, as had the whole camp, and they had wondered. But for the present their responsibility remained with their labors. The safe return of Kars and his companion nevertheless afforded keen satisfaction.
Bill smiled as they moved up towards their quarters. Curiously enough the recent events seemed to have lightened his mood. Perhaps it was the passing of a period of doubt. Perhaps the reconstruction of Murray's doings, which Kars had set out so clearly, had had its effect. It was impossible to say, for his shrewd eyes rarely told more than he intended them to.
"Makes you feel good when the other feller starts right in to play his 'hand,'" he said.
Kars looked into the smiling face. He recognized in this man, whose profession should have robbed him of all the elemental attributes, and whose years should have suggested a desire for the ease of a successful life, a real fighter of the long trail, and his heart warmed.
"Makes you feel better when you know none of your 'suits' are weak," he replied.