At the very headquarters of Poor Man's Creek, where the stream had
dwindled to a silver thread between mossy banks, Beatrice and Ben made
their noon camp. They were full in the heart of the wild, by now, and
had mounted to those high levels and park lands beloved by the caribou.
They built a small fire beside the stream and drew water from the deep,
clear pools that lay between cascade and cascade.
Ben Darby slowly became aware that this was one of the happiest hours
of his life. He watched, with absorbed delight, the deft, sure motions
of the girl as she fried the grouse and sliced bread, while Ben
himself tended to the coffee. Already the two were on the friendliest
terms, and since they were to be somewhere in the same region, the
future offered the most pleasing vistas to both of them. When the
horses were rested and Ben's pipe was out, they ventured on. Following
a caribou trail, they ascended a majestic range of mountains--a trail
too steep to ride and which the pack horses accomplished only with
great difficulty--emerging onto a high plateau of open parks and small
clumps of the darkest spruce. It was, of course, the most scenic part
of the journey; and the inclination to talk died speedily from the
lips.
They rode in silence, watching. Both of them were sure that words, no
matter how beautiful and eloquent, could be only a sacrilege. The very
tone of the high ranges is that of silence vast and eternal beyond scope
of thought, and the only sounds that can fittingly shatter that mighty
breathlessness are the great, calamitous phenomena of nature,--the
thunder crashing in the sky and the avalanche on the slope. The forests
they had just left were deeply silent, but the far hush had been
alleviated by the soft noises of wild creatures stirring about their
occupations; perhaps also by the feeling that the thickets were full of
sound pitched just too high or just too low for human ears to hear; but
even this relief was absent here. The high peaks stretched before them,
one after another, until they faded into the horizon,--majestic, aloof,
utterly and grandly silent.
The snow still lay deep over the plateau, packed to the consistency of
ice, and the marmots had not yet emerged to welcome the spring with
their shrill, joyous whistling. From their high place they could see the
hills spread out below them,--fold after fold as of a great cloak,
deeply green, seemingly infinite in expanse, broken only by the blue
glint of the Agnes lakes, like two great twin sapphires hidden in the
forest. But they couldn't make out a single roof top of Snowy Gulch. The
forest had already claimed it utterly.
This was the caribou range; wherever they looked they saw the tracks of
the noble animals in the snow. Later they caught a glimpse of the
creatures themselves, a small herd of perhaps half a dozen swinging
along the snow in their indescribable pacing gait. They were in fitting
surroundings, their color inexpressibly vivid against the snow, and
Ben's heart warmed and thumped in his breast at the sight.
But the trail descended at last into the great valley of the Yuga. Mile
after mile, it seemed to them, they went down, leaving the snow, leaving
the open glades, into the dark, still glens of spruce. At last they
paused on the river bank.
Ben was somewhat amazed at the size of the stream when it emerged below
the rapids. It was, at its present high stage, fully one hundred and
fifty yards across, such a stream as would bear the traffic of commerce
in any inhabited region. They turned down the moose trail that followed
its bank.
But it was not to be that this journey should hold only delight for Ben.
A half-mile down the river he suddenly made a most momentous and
disturbing discovery.
He had stopped his horse to reread the copy of Hiram Melville's letter,
intending to verify his course. In the shadow of the tall, dark
spruce--darkening ever as the light grew less--his eye sped swiftly over
it. His gaze came to rest upon a familiar name.
"Look out for Jeff Neilson and his gang," the letter read. "They seen
some of my dust."
Neilson--no wonder Ben had been perplexed when Beatrice had first spoken
her name. No wonder it had sounded familiar. And the hot beads moistened
his brow when he conceived of all the dreadful possibilities of that
coincidence of names.
Yet because he was a woodsman of nature and instinct, blood and birth,
he retained the most rigid self-control. He made no perceptible start.
At first he did not glance at Beatrice. Slowly he folded the letter and
put it back into his pocket.
"I'm going all right," he announced. He urged his horse forward. His
perfect self-discipline had included his voice: it was deep, but wholly
casual and unshaken. "And how about you, Miss Neilson?"
He pronounced her name distinctly, giving her every chance to correct
him in case he had misunderstood her. But there was no hope here. "I'm
going all right, I know."
"It seems to me we must be heading into about the same country," Ben
went on. "You see, Miss Neilson, I'm going to make my first permanent
camp somewhere along this still stretch; I've had inside dope that
there's big gold possibilities around here."
"It has never been a gold country except for pockets, some of them
remarkably rich," she told him doubtfully, evidently trying not to
discourage him. "But my father has come to the conclusion that it's
really worth prospecting. He's in this same country now."
"I suppose I'll meet him--I'll likely meet him to-night when I take you
to the cabin on the river. You said his name was--"
"Jeffery Neilson."
For all that he was prepared for it, the name was a straight-out body
blow to Ben. He had still dared to hope that this girl was of no blood
kin of the claim-jumper, Jeffery Neilson. The truth was now only too
plain. By the girl's own word he was operating in Hiram Melville's
district and unquestionably had already jumped the claim. His daughter
was joining him now, probably to keep house for him; and for all that
Ben knew, already possessing guilty knowledge of her father's crime.
It was hard to hold the head erect, after that. Already he had builded
much on his friendship with this girl, only to find that she was allied
with the enemy camp. He saw in a flash how unlikely it would be that
Ezram and himself could drive the usurpers out: the claim-jumper is a
difficult problem, even when the original discoverer is living and in
possession, much more so when he is silent in his grave.
Ben had known the breed since boyhood, and he hated them as he hated
coyotes and pack-rats. They lacked the manhood to brave the unknown in
pursuit of the golden fleece; they waited until after years of grinding
labor the strike was made and then pounced down upon the claim like
vultures on the dead. Ben was glad he had not obeyed his impulse to tell
the girl of his true reason for coming to the Yuga. He knew now, with
many foes against him, he could best operate in the dark.
His thought flashed to Ezram. The recovery of the mine had been the old
man's fondest dream, the last hope of his declining years, and this
setback would go hard with him. The blow was ever so much more cruel on
Ezram's account than his own. Ben could picture his downcast face,
trying yet to smile; his sobered eyes that he would try to keep bright.
But there would be certain planning, when they met again over their camp
fire. And there were three of them allied now. Fenris the wolf had come
into his service.
He glanced back at the gray-black creature that followed at the heels of
his horse; and now, at twilight's graying, he saw that a significant and
startling change had come over him. He no longer trotted easily behind
them. He came stalking, almost as if in the hunt, his ears pointing, his
neck hairs bristling, and there were the beginnings of curious, lurid
lightnings in his eyes. There could be but one answer. He had been swept
away in the current of madness that sweeps the forest at the fall of
darkness: the age-old intoxication of the wilderness night. The hunting
hours were at hand. The creatures of claw and fang were coming into
their own. Fenris was shivering all over with those dark wood's passions
that not even the wisest naturalist can fully understand.
The air was tingling and electric, just as Ben recalled it a thousand
nights. Everywhere the hunters were leaving their lairs and starting
forth; grasses moved and brush-clumps rustled; blood was hot and savage
eyes were shot with fire. The mink, with unspeakable savagery, took the
trail of a snow-shoe rabbit beside the river-bed; a lynx with pale,
green, luminous eyes began his stalk of a tree squirrel, and various of
Fenris' fellows--pack brothers except for his own relations with
men--sang a song that was old when the mountains were new as they raced,
black in silhouette against the paling sky, along a snowy ridge.
Ben felt a quickening of his own senses, not knowing why. _His_ blood,
too, spurted inordinately fast through his veins, and his flesh seemed
to creep and tingle. There could be no surer proof of his legitimacy as
a son of the wilderness. The passions that maddened the first men, near
to the beasts they hunted in their ancient forests, returned in all
their fullness. The dusk deepened. The trail dimmed so that the eye had
to strain to follow it.
Complex and weird were the passions invoked to-night, but not even to
the gray wolf that is, beyond all other creatures, the embodiment of the
wilderness spirit, did there come such a madness, such a dark and
terrible lust, as that which cursed a certain wayfarer beyond the next
bend in the river. This was not one of the forest people, neither the
lynx, nor the hunting otter, nor even the venerable grizzly with whom no
one contests the trail. It was a human being,--a man of youthful body
and strong, deeply lined, yet savage face.
A close observer would have noticed the faintest tremor and shiver
throughout his body. His eyes were very bright, vivid even in the dying
day. He was deeply lost in his own mood, seemingly oblivious to the
whole world about him. He carried a rifle in his hands.
He was on his way to report to his chief; and just what would be
forthcoming he did not know. But if too much objection were raised and
affairs got to a crucial stage, he had nothing to fear. He had learned a
certain lesson--an avenue to triumph. It was strange that he had never
hit upon it before.
His blood was scalding hot, and he was swept by exultation. Not for an
instant had he hesitated, nor Would he ever hesitate again. There was no
one in the North of greater might than he! No one could bend his will
from now on. He had found the road to triumph.
Ray Brent had discovered a new power within himself. Perhaps even his
chief, Jeffery Neilson, must yield before his new-found strength.