"Progress be damned!" said Ralph rudely. "We're progressing in the
wrong direction!"
"I should like to see a bit of the real thing myself," said Stack, "but
I don't suppose an inexperienced man like me could get about. If I
could get a good guide!"
Ralph did not rise to the cast. "Plenty of guides," he said carelessly.
"What is the best way to go beyond Fort Edward?" asked Stack.
"There are three main routes," said Ralph; "up the Boardman to the
Stukely Valley; straight north over the hills to the Campbell Lake
country; or east up the Campbell River."
"What's the lake country like?" asked Stack.
"Only know it by hearsay," said Ralph. "Principally fur."
"One hears in town about the diggings in the Stukely Valley. I suppose
it's pretty well worked out by now."
"I don't know," said Ralph carelessly.
"How does a man get up the Campbell River?" asked Stack.
In spite of himself a thrilled tone crept into Ralph's voice. "There's
a little steamboat runs up to Gisborne portage now and then," he said,
"and beyond that if any one is willing to pay."
Slight as the change was in Ralph's voice, it did not escape Stack's
attentive ear. "Gisborne portage?" he said carelessly. "What is it a
portage to?"
"Over to Hat Lake," said Ralph, with shining eyes.
"Aha!" thought Stack. "I'm getting warm!" He immediately changed the
subject, and avoided it during the rest of the day.
On the next day he led the subject by imperceptible degrees around to
the subject of maps of the country. Ralph, who had procured every map
he could lay his hands on, had plenty to say on this.
"I have a map of North Cariboo that Father Ambrose the missionary
made," said Stack. "Do you know it?"
"I have a copy," Ralph said.
"I was looking at it last night," Stack went on. "I found Gisborne
portage and Hat Lake. That little lake seems to be one of the sources
of the great Spirit River. I wonder if it's possible to follow all
those little lakes and rivers down to the main stream?"
"You'll have to ask somebody more experienced than I," said Ralph.
He was an indifferent dissembler. The note of evasion was not lost on
the little man. He passed to something else.
Later they were talking about rapids. "A fellow in town told me that
the worst rapids in the North were in the Rice River," said Stack. "He
said it was white water all the way from the mouth of the Pony to the
forks of the Spirit."
Ralph was caught off his guard. "A lot he knew about it!" he said.
"It's smooth going all the way."
He had no sooner said it than he regretted the slip. Looking sideways
at the little man he was reassured by the innocence of his expression.
Stack started to talk about other things.
Thus during the four days of the stage trip, and the day and a half on
the steamboat, Stack collected his tiny scraps of information and
stored them away without arousing Ralph's suspicions. Thrown upon each
other as they were during the whole time, Stack managed to create and
to maintain a certain fiction of intimacy between them. But as they
drew close to Fort Edward he was disappointed with the net results. Of
real intimacy there was none.
It was clear to any one who watched him that Ralph had a secret. When
he was off his guard he could not keep his eyes from turning north, nor
keep the shine of his hidden fire from showing in them. Stack
naturally thought it was gold that induced the shine. In his own way
the little man was clever, but hardly clever enough to distinguish
between the dazzle of gold and the dazzle of love in a young man's
eyes. He laid himself out to win Ralph's confidence, seeking to tempt
him with more or less apocryphal confidences of his own. Ralph was
never moved to open his heart in return. A resentful look began to
show in the mouse-coloured eyes, when Ralph's head was turned away.
Ralph was a little surprised to find Fort Edward unchanged. The raw
packing-case still rose from among the little soap-boxes; the mud was
still undried; the stumps undrawn; and the little _Tewksbury_ lay with
her nose tucked in the bank. True, he had been gone only a month, but
such changes had taken place in him that it seemed unreasonable to find
everything going on as before.
The "boys" were all waiting on the bank of course. Ralph a little
dreaded the ordeal that awaited him. It is difficult to guard a secret
in the wide and empty North, where men have little to talk about. When
he was seen from the shore shouts of surprise and welcome were raised.
The mere fact that he was returning from the south when he had gone
north betrayed the length of the journey he had taken. Stack, hearing
the welcome, brightened somewhat. It would not be difficult to learn
something about one who was so well known, he thought.
Ralph was carried off to Maroney's, little Stack clinging to him like a
burr. There, all lined up before the pine shelf, the questions began.
"Well, Doc, give an account of yourself!"
"Gentlemen!" began Ralph with an air of portentous gravity. "An
astonishing adventure happened to me! I woke up in Joe Mixer's shack
that morning with a dark brown taste in my mouth along of Maroney's
whiskey, and I went for a walk up the river to cool my head. As I was
standing there admiring the view, I heard a buzzing like a
sixty-horse-power bumblebee over my head, and I'm damned if one of
those aeroplanes that you've all heard about didn't come down and light
in the grass beside me like a crane. Surprised! You could have laid
me out with a rabbit's foot! The fellow aboard it, he was nervous,
too. Seems he had only a quart of gasoline left, and him far from
home. He asked me where he could get some more. I told him there
wasn't a drop in the country. Maroney buys it all up, said I, to put
in his whiskey."
Ralph paused to let the laughter spend itself. "The fellow was in a
great taking then," he went on. "Didn't know what to do. Suddenly I
remembered about Tar Island up the river. I said: 'There's a place ten
miles from here where they say that petroleum oozes right out on the
ground. Couldn't we gather it up and refine some gasoline?' 'You're
on, fellow,' said he; 'climb aboard!' Say, we made Tar Island in five
minutes, but I was deaf the rest of the day with the wind in my ears.
It was a slow job, you understand, because we hadn't anything but a tin
pail and a whiskey bottle and a strip of birch bark to make a still out
of. We were there three weeks, and then we had him tanked up, and he
flew south and dropped me off at Kimowin. That's all."
This tale, which was in the style of humour most admired at Maroney's,
made a decided hit. Maroney himself conceded that the next round was
on him. In every gathering of men it is tacitly understood that a man
has a right to keep his affairs to himself--provided he can also keep
his temper. When they saw that Ralph did not mean to tell where he had
been they let him alone. Little Stack bit his lip in his
disappointment. Stack had not been in the bar five minutes before the
batteries of wit were turned on him. The wiry tangle of his
mouse-coloured hair procured him the names of "Haystack" and
"Jackstraw."
Later Dan Keach carried Ralph away to his office. This was more
difficult for Ralph, because Dan as his friend had a claim on his
confidence. Ralph had a story ready to tell him, but first he had to
find out how far it would coincide with the Fort gossip. Joe Mixer
knew where he had gone; Joe had probably told the steamboat men, and
they would bring the news back with them. Still, to his surprise and
relief, no one in the bar had offered to chaff him about any half-breed
girl.
"What do they say about me?" he asked Dan.
"Nothing," said Dan. "You simply disappeared from Gisborne portage.
They say Joe Mixer knows where you went, but he won't tell."
Ralph's conscience reproached him for the story he was about to tell,
but there was no help for it. "There's no secret about it," he said
carelessly. "I met some Indians going up the Campbell, and they took
me along with them. I staked out a point on the river, a beautiful
place, and just off the proposed line of the railway. I went on up the
river to Cheval Noir Pass, and out over the new line. While I was
outside I filed my claim, and now I have to go back and clear a part of
the land and build a shack to fulfil the conditions."
"Is that the story you want to have circulated?" Dan asked, with the
suspicion of a whimsical twinkle.
"Just as you like," said Ralph stiffly.
They returned to Maroney's for supper. Entering the dining-room they
saw that there were only two vacant places remaining at the general
table. As Ralph put his hand on his chair to draw it out, the fat back
on his left was turned, and he found himself looking into the leering,
swollen face of Joe Mixer. He waited, stiffening.
Joe sprang up. "Hello, Doc!" he cried jovially. "Welcome home! Just
dropped down on a raft myself. They tell me you been having grand
adventures. Sit down and tell us!"
Ralph was obliged to shake the detestable hand or precipitate a
conflict on the spot.
The meal proceeded without further incident. It was not an observant
crowd, and only one pair of sharp eyes across the table marked Ralph's
stiffness and perceived the painful glitter in Joe's little eyes when
he thought himself unobserved.
Stack patiently bided his time. Later in the evening Ralph and Dan
went away together to Ralph's shack. Stack manoeuvred until he
succeeded in getting Joe a little way from the others.
"I got a bottle of outside whiskey up in my room," Stack whispered.
"Come on up and have a touch."
"Outside whiskey" was worth five dollars a bottle at Fort Edward.
"Sure!" said Joe brightening, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand
in anticipation. "Keep it quiet," he said. "There ain't enough in one
bottle for the crowd."
They sat with the bottle between them. Stack played the role of the
humble seeker after information about the country until he thought Joe
had had enough to render him incautious.
Finally he said carelessly: "Seems to be something more in this trip of
the doctor's than he wants to let on."
It had an electrical effect on Joe. His breath hissed through his
teeth. His face purpled. "You're right, there's something more!" he
cried with an oath. "There's a woman behind it!"
"So!" said Stack, remembering the emerald pendant.
"He took her from me by a low trick," Joe went on. "By playing the
snivelling preacher, blast him! They went away together a month ago.
By gad! I'll pay him out if it takes the rest of my life!"
"He's got a boat in his baggage," said Stack softly. "Maybe he's on
his way back to her now."
"Sure he's going back to her!" said Joe, adding with drunken
mysteriousness: "I'm just waiting for him to start!"
Stack bethought himself how he could learn more. "He makes me sick!"
he said suddenly, genuine hatred making his pale eyes snap. "He thinks
himself such a wonder! Treats me like dirt, he does. I wish I could
bring him down a peg!"
Joe leaned over the table and extended his hand. "Put it there,
pardner," he said thickly. "It does my heart good to hear you say it.
Gad! I hate him till it's like an indigestion in my stomach that won't
give me no rest. To think of a smooth-face kid like him getting the
best of Joe Mixer drives me wild. I won't never rest easy till I do
for him!"
One more drink and they were sworn allies.
"What are you going to do?" asked Stack.
"I got a couple of fellows hanging round my place," said Joe, "fellows
as'll stop at nothing--a white man and a breed. I'm going to take them
and follow him back to the girl. I don't know where he's left her.
Then,"--Joe rubbed his greasy hands together--"the three of us'll
manage to give young medico a shivaree, I guess!"
Stack, pursing up his lips, thought quickly. The situation was
becoming complicated. It was clear Joe knew nothing about any gold.
Perhaps he, Stack, could keep that knowledge to himself, and still play
off Joe against Ralph. The size of Joe's party did not please Stack;
still it offered him the only chance he was likely to get of following
Ralph into the country. That was all important.
"Take me along with you," said Stack breathlessly.
"Eh?" said Joe, partly sobered. He looked the little man up and down
and laughed brutally. "What good would you be?"
"I ain't much on fighting," said Stack, "but I can advise you good. I
got a head on me. I got legal training."
"To hell with legal training!" said Joe. He looked at Stack cunningly.
"You'll have to pay your way," he said. "I don't carry no passengers
gratis."
"How much?" asked Stack anxiously.
Joe fixed him with eyes like pin-heads "Oh, well, make it a round sum
for the trip," he said. "Make it two hundred and fifty."
Stack swallowed hard. "All right," he said.
Joe looked disconcerted. "Maybe it'll be more," he growled.
"A bargain's a bargain!" began Stack excitedly.
"Oh, all right! Done!" said Joe. They shook hands on it.
"Do we have to take so many men?" suggested Stack cautiously.
"We got to have the half-breed to steer," said Joe. "The other
fellow'll cook. I don't travel without my cook!"
"A large party makes so much talk," murmured Stack.
"I want a lot of talk!" said Joe. "Just so's the fellow ain't warned
beforehand. I want there should be talk. I want everybody to know
that no man can put one over on Joe Mixer and get away with it!"