"A fellow must have something against himself--he certainly must--to
live down here year in and year out and never do a lick of work on a
trail like this, that he's usin' constant. Gettin' off half a dozen
times to lift the front end of your horse around a point, and then the
back end--there's nothin' _to_ it!"
Grumbling to himself and talking whimsically to the three horses
stringing behind him, Dick Kincaid picked his way down the zigzag,
sidling trail which led from the saddleback between two peaks of the
Bitter Root Mountains into the valley which still lay far below him.
"Quit your crowdin', can't you, Baldy!" He laid a restraining hand upon
the white nose of the horse following close at his heels. "Want to jam
me off this ledge and send me rollin' two thousand feet down onto their
roof? Good as I've been to you, too!"
He stopped and peered over the edge of the precipice along which the
faint trail ran.
"Looks like smoke." He nodded in satisfaction. "Yes, _'tis_ smoke. Long
past dinner time, but then these squaws go to cookin' whenever they
happen to think about it. Lord, but I'm hungry! Wish some good-lookin'
squaw would get took with me and follow me off, for I sure hates cookin'
and housework."
Still talking to himself he resumed the descent, slipping and sliding
and digging his heels hard to hold himself back.
"They say she sticks like beeswax, Dubois's squaw, never tries to run
off but stays right to home raisin' up a batch of young 'uns. You take
these Nez Perces and they're good Injuns as Injuns go. Smarter'n most,
fair lookers, and tolerable clean. Will you look at that infernal pack
slippin' again, and right here where there's no chance to fix it!
"Say, but I'd like to get my thumb in the eye of the fellow that made
these pack-saddles. Too narrow by four inches for any horse not just off
grass and rollin' fat. Won't fit any horse that packs in _these_ hills.
Doggone it, his back'll be as raw as a piece of beefsteak and if there's
anything in this world that I hate it's to pack a sore-backed horse.
"You can bet I wouldn't a made this trip for money if I wasn't so plumb
anxious to see how Dubois saves that flour gold. You take one of these
here 'canucks' and he's blamed near as good if not a better placer miner
than a Chink; more ingenious and just as savin'. Say, Baldy, will you
keep off my heels? If I have to tell you again about walkin' up my pant
leg I aim to break your head in. It's bad enough to come down a trail so
steep it wears your back hair off t'hout havin' your clothes tore off
you into the bargain."
And so, entertaining himself with his own conversation and scolding
amiably at his saddle and pack horses, the youthful prospector slid for
another hour down the mountain trail, though, as a rock would fall, the
log house of the French Canadian was not more than a thousand yards
below.
It was the middle of May and the deep snows of winter still lay in the
passes and upon the summit, but in the valley the violets made purple
blotches along the stream now foaming with the force of the water
trickling from the melting drifts above. The thorn bushes were white
with blossoms and the service-berry bushes were like fragrant banks of
snow. Accustomed as he was to the beauty of valleys and the grandeur of
peaks, something in the peaceful scene below him stirred the soul of
young Dick Kincaid, and he stopped to look before he made the last drop
into the valley.
"Ain't that a young paradise?" He breathed deep of the odorous air.
"Ain't it, now?"
The faint blue smoke rising straight among the white blossoms reminded
him again of his hunger, so, wiping the perspiration from his
snow-burned face, he started on again, but when he came to the ditch
which carried water from the stream through a hundred and fifty feet of
sluice-boxes he stopped and examined with eager interest the methods
used for saving fine gold, for, keen as was his hunger, the miner's
instinct within him was keener.
"Will you look at the lumber he's whip-sawed!" Astonishment was in his
voice! "Whip-sawin' lumber is the hardest work a man ever did. I'll bet
the squaw was on the other end of that saw; I never heard of Dubois
hiring help. Uh-huh, he uses the Carriboo riffles. Look at the work he's
been to--punchin' all those holes in that sheet-iron. And here's two
boxes of pole riffles, and a set of Hungarian riffles, not to mention
three distributin' boxes and a table. Say, he isn't takin' any chances
on losin' anything, is he? But it's all right--you gotta be careful with
this light gold and heavy sand. I'm liable to learn something down
here. Lord I'm hungry! Come on, Baldy!"
As he pulled his saddle horse in the direction of the smoke he noticed
that there were no footprints in the trail and a stillness which
impressed him as peculiar pervaded the place. There was something which
he missed--what was it? To be sure--dogs! There were no barking dogs to
greet him. It was curious, he thought, for these isolated families
always had plenty of dogs and no "breed" or "Injun" outfit ever kept
fewer than six. There were no shrill voices of children at play, no
sound of an axe or a saw or a hammer.
"Blamed funny," he muttered, yet he knew where there was smoke there
must be human beings.
He stopped short at some sound and listened attentively. A whimpering
minor wail reached him faintly. It was unlike any sound he ever had
heard, yet he knew it was a woman's voice. There was something in the
cadence which sent a chill over him. He dropped the bridle reins and
walked softly down the trail. Suddenly he halted and his lips parted in
a whispered ejaculation of astonishment and horror. He was young then,
Dick Kincaid, but the sight which met his eyes stayed with him distinct
in every detail, through all his adventurous life.
Two children, boys of eleven and thirteen or thereabouts, were roasting
a ground squirrel in the smouldering embers of what had been a cabin. A
dead baby lay on a ragged soogan near a partially dug grave.
Cross-legged on the ground beside it was a woman wailing unceasingly as
she rocked her gaunt and nearly naked body to and fro. The eagerness of
famished animals gleamed in the boys' eyes as they tore the half-cooked
squirrel in two, yet each offered his share to his mother, who seemed
not to see the proffered food.
"Just a little piece, mother," coaxed the elder, and he extended an
emaciated arm from which hung the rags of a tattered shirt sleeve.
Both children were dressed in the remnants of copper-riveted overalls
and their feet were bound in strips of canvas torn from a "tarp." Their
straight black hair hung over faces sunken and sallow and from the waist
up they were naked.
The boy held the food before her as long as he could endure it, then he
tore it with his teeth in the ferocity of starvation.
"Can you _beat_ it! Can you beat _that_!" The boys did not hear
Kincaid's shocked exclamation.
It was not until he cleared his throat and called in a friendly,
reassuring voice that they learned they were not alone. Then they jumped
in fright and scurried into a near-by thicket like two scared rabbits,
each holding tight his food. But Dick Kincaid's face was one to inspire
confidence, and as he approached they came forth timidly. Their first
fright gave place to delirious joy. The smaller threw his arms about
Kincaid's long legs and hugged them in an ecstasy of delight while the
elder clung to his hand as though afraid he might vanish. The woman
merely glanced at him with vacant eyes and went on wailing.
While he took cold biscuits and bacon from his pack they told him what
had happened--briefly, simply, without the smallest attempt to color the
story for his sympathy.
"We couldn't have held out much longer, m'sieu, we're so weak." The
elder boy was the spokesman.
"And the strawberries and sarvis-berries won't be ripe for a long time
yet. It wasn't so bad till the cabin burned. We could keep warm. But we
went off in the woods to see if we could kill something, and when we
came back the cabin was burned and the baby dead. Mother went crazy more
than a month ago, I guess it was. She wouldn't let us bury the baby till
yesterday, and when we started to dig we found we could only dig a
little at a time. We got tired so quick, and besides, we had to try and
keep a fire, for we have no more matches."
"I could dig longer nor you," chimed in the younger boy boastfully. The
other smiled wanly.
"I know it, Petie, but you had more to eat. You had two trout and a bird
more nor me."
"You have a gun, then? and fish-hooks?"
"Not now. We lost our hooks and shot our shells away long ago. We kill
things with rocks but it takes muscle, m'sieu, to throw hard enough. The
dog was starvin' and we killed and ate him. We couldn't try to get out
because mother wouldn't leave and she'd a been dead before we got back.
We couldn't have wallered through the snow anyhow. We'd never have made
it if we'd gone. There wasn't anything to do but to try and hang on till
spring; then we hoped somebody would come down like you have."
The boy did not cry as he told the story nor did his lip so much as
quiver at the recollection of their sufferings. He made no effort to
describe them, but the hollows in his cheeks and the dreadful thinness
of his arms and little body told it all more eloquently than words.
Kincaid noticed that he had not mentioned his father's name, so he asked
finally:
"Where's Dubois? Where's your father? I came to see him."
The childish face hardened instantly.
"I don't know. He cleaned up the sluice-boxes late last fall after the
first freeze. Mother helped him clean up. He got a lot of gold--the most
yet--and he took it with him and all the horses. He said he was going
out for grub but he never came back. Then the big snows came in the
mountains and we knew he couldn't get in. We ate our bacon up first,
then the flour give out, and the beans. The baby cried all the time
'cause 'twas hungry and Petie and me wore our shoes out huntin' through
the hills. It was awful, m'sieu."
Kincaid swallowed a lump in his throat.
"Do you think he'll come back?" the younger boy asked eagerly.
"He might have stayed outside longer than he intended and found he
couldn't get in for the snow, or he might have tried and froze in the
pass. It's deep there yet," was Kincaid's evasive reply.
"He'll never come back," said the older boy slowly, "and--he wasn't
froze in the pass."
It was still May when Dick Kincaid climbed out of the valley with the
whimpering squaw clinging to the horn of his saddle while the swarthy
little "breeds" trudged manfully in the trail close to his heels. The
violets still made purple blotches along the bank of the noisy stream,
the thorn trees and the service-berry bushes were still like fragrant
banks of snow, the grass in the valley was as green and the picture as
serenely beautiful as when first he had stopped to gaze upon it, but it
no longer looked like paradise to Dick Kincaid.
They stopped to rest and let the horses get their breath when they
reached the edge of the snows, and for a time they stood in silence
looking their last upon the valley below them. The older boy drew his
thin hand from Kincaid's big palm and touched the gun swinging in its
holster on his hip.
"Do they cost much, a gun like this?"
"Not much, boy. Why?"
The younger answered for him, smiling at the shrewdness of his guess.
"I know. He's goin' to hunt for father when he's big."
There was no answering smile upon his brother's face, the gravity of
manhood sat strangely upon it as he answered without boastfulness or
bitterness but rather in the tone of one who speaks of a duty:
"I'm goin' to find him, m'sieu, and when I do I'll get him _sure_!"
Dick Kincaid regarded him for a moment from the shadow of his
wide-brimmed hat.
"If you do, boy, and I find it out, I don't know as I'll give you
away."