They stirred, and softly exclaimed, but one man laughed. His example
was infectious; incredulity showed openly in their faces.
"Big talk!" one said insolently. "Where's the proof?"
Jack quietly untied a little bundle from the back of his saddle, and
unrolling the flour bag in which he had carried his grub, produced a
little book and held it up. It was Jean Paul's Testament, that they
all knew. There was a dark and swollen blotch on the leather cover.
The absolute silence with which it was received was more impressive
than their cries.
Jack handed it to the man who had spoken. It opened in his hands.
There was a crimson stain around the edges of the printed page--wet
crimson. The man who held it started back, and those looking over his
shoulders gasped. The book was passed among trembling hands. Finally
it came back to Jack.
"I will tell you where his body is hidden," said Jack. "A mile beyond
the crossing of the creek out of Mount Darwin there is a big spruce on
the right-hand side of the trail. On it I made a blaze with the sign
of the cross in it. One hundred and ten paces from that tree as you
walk toward the mountain he lies under a pile of stones. There is a
big rock above, with his name and his story cut upon it."
It was very clear that none of them had any desire to seek out the
spot; indeed, from that time the Fort Erskine trail was closed to the
Sapis by reason of Ascota's grave being upon it.
"Who is the head man now?" Jack demanded.
They turned toward Etzeeah's eldest son, a sullen broad-shouldered
brave, the best physical specimen among them.
"Take warning," said Jack clearly, "you and your people! Ascota was a
bad man, a big mouth, a trouble-maker, who tried to stir you to evil,
while he kept himself clear. He dared to speak against the great white
father across the sea. It was the chickadee piping at the eagle. He
is dead. We are all the children of the white father; his children and
his servants. His police are now at the fort. You will do well to
ride in and make your peace, before they come to punish you. That is
all I have to say."
One silently brought him the horse he had left there, and, leading it,
he rode through the quadrangle and away by the trail, without looking
back. There was no demonstration against him now. The awe that Ascota
had inspired in them was transferred to the man who had brought about
his death.
Three hours later, as Jack's horse sidled down the hill into the Spirit
River valley, his rider looked with a beating heart for the four little
tents he had left in the meadow below. They were not there. A great
disappointment filled him, and a sharp anxiety. What he had been
through had made greater inroads on his reserve forces than he knew,
and in Mary's deep eyes his weary spirit was unconsciously seeking
harbourage.
However, as he rode up to the ashes of their fire he saw that he had
not been forgotten. In the forks of two little sticks driven into the
ground was laid a peeled wand roughly shaped like an arrow, and
pointing northeast. On it had been printed with a piece of charcoal:
"7 miles."
Riding in the direction it pointed he found a freshly blazed trail
through the trees. It led him among the poplars along the foot of the
bench to the opening of a coulee, up which it turned. It took him
north through a narrow valley wooded with great spruce trees. Through
openings in the trees on either hand he could see the steep, naked,
uncouth forms of the foothills that hemmed the valley in. A trickle of
water flowed musically in the bottom of it.
It was difficult going for the horses over the fallen and rotting
trunks of the untrodden forest, with its treacherous, moss-hidden
pitfalls. The seven miles seemed to stretch out into thrice that
distance before he came to the end of his journey. He smelled the
smoke of a campfire long before he could see it. Finally the trail
turned at right angles, and started to climb. He issued out of the
trees, and there on a terrace of grass above him he saw the little
tents and the fire; he saw Mary turning toward him with harassed,
expectant face.
A little cry escaped her, and she came flying to meet him. Jack
slipped off his horse. A little way from him she caught herself up,
and her body stiffened. The action brought to Jack's mind all that he
had forgotten, and he turned a dull red. It had been in his heart to
seize her in his arms. A horrible constraint descended on them both.
They did not touch hands; they could not meet each other's eyes; speech
was very difficult and painful.
"You are all right?" she murmured. "Not hurt?"
"Not a scratch."
"And Jean Paul?"
"He is dead."
She started with horror, and in spite of herself glanced at Jack's
hands.
"He killed himself," Jack added quickly.
Her hands betrayed a movement of relief. There was a silence.
"What about you?" mumbled Jack, scowling. "What are you doing up here?
Where is Davy?"
"I have something to show you," she said, with a strange look.
He followed her up the slope. He wondered why there were three tents
pitched. The third was Jean Paul's A-tent. Mary threw back one of the
flaps, and he saw a blanketed form inside.
"The kid!" he murmured, full of anxious concern. But even as he said
it, he saw that it was not Davy. Stooping, and looking farther within,
he saw a gaunt travesty of the face of Frank Garrod. The eyes were
closed.
Something clutched at Jack's heart. He fell back. "Good God!" he
muttered. "You've got him! Is he dead?"