Far off in the wilderness where the cedars meditated beside a deserted
cabin, a faint rumbling murmur set up again. Of course it might have
been the wind in the trees, or a minor landslide in the hills not many
miles away, or even a giant spruce tree crashing thunderously to the
earth. But it lasted just a bit too long for such a simple
explanation. To a fanciful hearer, it might have sounded as if the
mill of the forest god were grinding its grist again.
And just as such an idea would demand, many unrelated things began to
happen which bore obscurely upon the murder of a man now buried deeply
beneath a deeply-carved wooden cross.
Holliday, for instance, received two letters. One was from the girl
who loved him. One was from the dead man, stained and draggled with
long journeying and much forwarding and months on its travels. The
letter from the girl told him pitifully that she loved him and wanted
to be near him, and offered to come and share any trial or hardship
rather than endure the numbing pain of separation. Holliday, of
course, knew better than to take her at her word.
The other letter was very short:
Dear Bob:
I’m sending this down by a Chillicoot buck what stopped to
ask for some matches. The claim is proving up kind of a
bonanza because I already took out near twenty thousand
in dust which makes a damn big poke for you with what you
got me to keep for you. You better look out or I’ll steal
it. Ha, ha.
I got me a new dog that I call Cheechako. He’s a pretty good
dog an’ I got a feller to help me out until you come back an’
he’s taut the pup to drink molasses out of a bottle. You out
to see it.
Well, no more until next time. Yrs,
Sam.
And the man who had come down the river trail and left Cheechako
chained to starve these many long moons past; he found himself growing
short of cash and lacking an easier way to recoup his fortunes,
decided to do some placer work himself. When he worked with Sam Carson
he had marked down a likely spot, but did not trouble to work it
because he could attain to wealth so much more simply. Just a bullet
that he need not even fire himself. He took canoe and went paddling up
the river, having a winter’s supplies bundled up in the bow.
Then the mill stopped again, and again for lack of grist to grind.
Doubtless the forest god to whom it belonged went on about his other
affairs.
V
Cheechako slept within the cabin that winter, stretched out before the
fire and soaking the heat into his body with the luxurious enjoyment
that only a dog can compass. There was no need for the discipline that
before had made his chaining necessary. Holliday’s training had had
better results than Carson’s. Cheechako was a well-mannered dog, now,
who listened soberly when Holliday talked to him.
And Holliday talked often. Loneliness in the wilds is quite different
from loneliness anywhere else. With the snow piled in monster drifts
about the cabin, so that there was an actual tunnel a good part of the
way from the door to the wood-pile, he was utterly isolated from the
world. He had to talk. He told Cheechako confidentially just what the
girl Outside meant to him. He would not have said it to any living
man, but the dog listened soberly. Sometimes Holliday grew morose.
Sometimes he called himself a fool for not bringing her with him—and
then gave thanks that he did not. And he had moments of passionate
jealousy and doubt, wondering if she were waiting for him and
believing in him through all the months when no word from either could
reach the other.
He read her last letter into tiny fragments, long after he could
recite it word for word. He read strange meanings into it, as that she
began to feel her loyalty wavering and in honesty wished to place it
beyond recall. And then he read them out again and was bitterly
ashamed that such things had entered his mind at all. All this was
during the days of storm when he could not even build monster fires
and thaw out gravel to be shifted where the first waters of spring
would wash out its infinitesimal proportion of gold for him.
But Dugan appeared at the cabin in December.
He came on snowshoes and had conquered his first surprise before he
shouted outside the cabin door. Dugan had come over in hopes of
finding some stray reading-matter, anything to break the monotony of
his own cabin some four miles or more away. The smoke warned him that
someone was within and no more than a flicker of his eyelids expressed
surprise that Holliday was the occupant.
Holliday greeted him with a feverish cordiality, pressed tobacco upon
him, bade him remain and eat, presented Cheechako and they talked
interminably. Dugan was jollity itself. He was soon assured that
Holliday had no suspicion of him. He had left no clue after the murder
and Cheechako—who might have gamboled about him—had been trained by
Holliday into the perfection of canine manners. Cheechako remembered,
yes, but he did not associate Dugan with the death of his former
master. And in any event he was a dog, and there was but one master in
the world for him. Injuries done to a past owner would not arouse
Cheechako now, though he would fight to the last drop of his blood for
Holliday. Dugan had every reason in the world to feel secure.
He was secure. In his gratitude for having someone to talk to,
Holliday would have welcomed the devil himself. When Dugan finally
left for his own cabin, Holliday was more nearly normal than for
months.
And it may be that Dugan’s presence kept Holliday sane that winter. He
was surely used to loneliness, but no such loneliness as possessed him
now. No man is lonely who can keep his brain busy with the things of
the moment and the place he is in, but Holliday could not do that. A
picture of the girl who waited for him was always at hand. His
presence and his desperate work was due to her. He could not help
thinking and dreaming of her, and that thinking and dreaming made the
solitude into a corroding horror.
Dugan changed all that. He was someone to talk to. Holliday even told
him about the girl. He talked for hours about her, while Cheechako lay
at one side of the cabin floor and watched gravely, his ears alert and
his eyes somber. Often he watched Dugan, and vague memories crept
disturbingly about his mind. Here, in this same cabin——
Dugan knew about the murder, too, how Holliday had come joyously to
the cabin—and found his best friend murdered and his happiness
destroyed in the one instant. Sam Carson had been the keeper of most
of Holliday’s possessions, and they had been stolen by the murderer.
It was probably his own feigned sympathy and secret sardonic amusement
that suggested a duplication of his former feat to Dugan. Dugan’s own
claim was rich—how rich he could not tell until spring. But Holliday’s
claim was little worse. Carson had skimmed the cream, but the rest was
worth taking, if it could be done without risk.
And Dugan, who had not nerve enough to shoot a man in cold blood, and
was too cowardly to pick a fight, grinned obscurely to himself. He
fingered his own pokes, which would be bulging when spring came. He
thought of Holliday’s. And then he began to whittle out a little
contrivance of wood and leathern thongs, which looked very much like a
trap, but was much more deadly. It was a clever little idea of his
own. Perfectly safe, and absolutely no risk. Suddenly, he stooped and
listened. It seemed as if some noise to which his ears were
unconsciously attuned had suddenly ceased.
Maybe the mill had stopped again.