After the manner of backwoods fathers Jeffery Neilson had offered no
objections to his daughter's all-day excursion with Ben. The ways of the
frontier are informal; and besides, he had every confidence in her
ability to take care of herself. The only unfortunate phase of the
affair concerned Ray. The latter would look with no favor upon the
venture; and in all probability a disagreeable half-hour would ensue
with him if he found it out.
The control of Ray Brent had been an increasingly difficult problem.
Always sullen and envious, once or twice he had not been far from open
rebellion. There is a certain dread malady that comes to men at the
sight of naked gold, and Ray's degenerate type was particularly subject
to it. Every day the mine had shown itself increasingly rich, and Ray's
ambition had given way to greed, and his greed to avarice of the most
dangerous sort. For instance, he had a disquieting way of gathering the
nuggets into his hands, fondling them with an unholy love. Neilson
realized perfectly, now, that the younger man would not be content with
a fourth share or less; and on the other hand he resolutely refused to
yield any of his own, larger share. Sometime the issue would bring them
to grips. Ray's dreadful crime of a few days past had given him an added
insolence and self-assurance that complicated the problem still further.
The leopard that has once tasted human flesh is not to be trusted again.
Finally, there remained this matter of Beatrice.
Neilson's love for his daughter forbade that he should force her to
receive unwelcome attentions. Ray, on the other hand, had always
insisted that his chief allow him a clear field. He would be infuriated
when he heard of the trip she was taking with Ben to-day. Neilson
straightened, resolving to meet the issue with old-time firmness.
When he heard his daughter's voice on the canoe landing, one hundred
yards below, he was inordinately startled. She had not told him that
their picnic would take them on to the water. The reason had been, of
course, that Beatrice knew her father's distrust of the treacherous
stream and either feared his refusal to her plan or wished to save him
worry. Even now they were starting. He could hear the first stroke of
the paddle through the hushed woods.
He turned toward the door, instinctively alarmed; then hesitated. After
all, he could not tell her to come back. Beatrice would be mortified;
and besides, there was nothing definite to fear. The river was almost as
still as a lake for a long stretch immediately in front of the landing;
even a poor canoeist could cross with ease. It was true that rapids,
mile after mile of them past counting, lay just below, but surely the
canoeists would stay at a safe distance above them. And if by any chance
this young prospector had no skill with a canoe, Beatrice herself was an
expert.
Yet what, in reality, did he know of Ben Darby? He had liked the man's
face: whence he came and what was his real business on the Yuga he had
not the least idea. All at once a baffling apprehension crept like a
chill through his frame.
He could not laugh it away. It laid hold of him, refusing to be
dispelled. It was as if an inner voice was warning him, telling him to
rush down to the river bank and check that canoe ride at all costs. It
occurred to him, for the moment, that this might be premonition of a
disastrous accident, yet vaguely he sensed a plot, an obscure design
that filled him with ghastly terror. Once more the man started for the
door.
Unaware of his ground, he did not hurry at first. He hardly knew what to
say, by what excuse he could call Beatrice back to the landing. His
heart was racing incomprehensibly in his breast, and all at once he
started to run.
At the first step he fell sprawling, and stark panic was upon him when
he got to his feet again. And when he reached the landing the canoe was
already near the opposite shore, heading swiftly downstream.
He saw in one glance that the craft was rather heavily laden, Fenris
atop the pile of duffle, and that Ben was paddling with a remarkably
fast, easy stroke. "Come back, Beatrice," he shouted. "You've forgotten
something."
The girl turned, waving, but Ben's voice drowned out hers. "We'll see
you later," he called in a gay voice. "We can't come back now."
"Come back!" Neilson called again. "I order you--"
He stared intently, hoping that the man would turn. Already they were
practically out of hearing; and not even Beatrice was dipping her paddle
in obedience to his command. Looking more closely, he saw that the man
only was paddling.
Then his eye fell to the landing on which he stood, instinctively trying
to locate the second paddle. It lay at his feet. A foolhardy thing to
do, he thought, a broken paddle, out there above the rapids, would mean
death and no other thing. Helpless in the current, the canoe could not
be guided through those fearful gates of peril below. If by a
thousandth chance it escaped the rocks, it would be carried for
unnumbered miles into a land unknown, a territory that could be entered
only by the greatest difficulty--packing day after day over range and
through thicket with a great train of pack horses--and from which the
egress, except by the same perilous water route, would be almost
impossible. But the thought passed as he discerned the white paper that
had been fastened in the paddle blade.
He bent for it with eager hand. He knew instinctively that it contained
an all-important and sinister message for him. His eyes leaped over the
bold writing on the exterior.
"To Ezra Melville's murderers," Ben had written. And with that reading
Jeffery Neilson knew a terror beyond any experienced in the darkest
nightmare of his iniquitous life.
It did not occur to him to bring the note, unopened, to Ray Brent. As
yet he did not fully understand; yet he knew that the issue was one of
seconds. _Seconds_ must decide everything; his whole world hung in the
balance. His hand ripped apart the sealed fold, and he held the sheet
before his eyes.
Possessing only an elementary education Jeffery Neilson was not,
ordinarily, a fast reader. Usually he sounded out his words only with
the greatest difficulty. But to-day, one glance at the page conveyed to
him the truth: from half a dozen words he got a general idea of the
letter's full, dread meaning. Ben had written: