Joe ardently desired to continue the poker game on borrowed capital,
but Ralph pointed out that he had announced in advance his intention of
retiring from the game. "I've got to sleep," he said.
"Camp here if you like," growled Joe.
Ralph shook his head. "I'll drop down the river a little piece," he
said. "I want to get an early start."
"You'll have to get up early to keep ahead of us in that contraption,"
said Crusoe with a laugh. "It's no more than a dunnage bag stretched
on a couple of half hoops!"
"You can't go down the Stanley rapids in her," said the breed. "She
all bus' up."
"Don't expect to go down the Stanley rapids," said Ralph with a great
air of carelessness. "I'm going up the Stanley."
He observed that Stack and Joe were listening attentively.
"You can't track her," the breed said scornfully.
"My partner is waiting for me at the Forks," lied Ralph. "He's got a
dugout."
"Where the hell did you pick up a pardner?" Joe burst out, forgetting
himself.
Ralph opened his eyes wide in affected surprise. "Well, say, give me
time," he drawled, "and I'll tell you all my private business!"
The laugh was fairly on Joe. He flung away with a muttered curse.
Ralph, embarking, paddled no farther than around the first bend. Here
he made his camp on the same side of the river as the others. He
thought it likely Stack would try to communicate with him during the
night. Ralph was highly satisfied with the results of the evening's
entertainment. Besides winning about fifty dollars, he had shown them
he was not afraid, and he had put them, he hoped, on a false scent as
to his destination.
He made a little fire, and retired under his shelter, but not to sleep.
He had plenty to occupy his mind. After an hour or so he heard a
rustle in the underbrush, and presently a scared voice whispering:
"Doctor Cowdray! Doctor Cowdray!"
Ralph sprang up.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" cried the voice in terror. "It's only me,
Stack."
Ralph laughed.
The little man drew near, cringing. "Won't you put out the fire?" he
whined. "In case any of them should come."
Ralph scattered the embers.
Stack needed no encouragement to make him speak. It came tumbling out;
truth and lies, complaints and excuses all mixed. "My God! Doctor!
What a terrible position I'm in!" he wailed. "I don't know which way
to turn. I gave Mixer two hundred and fifty dollars to guide me
through the country, and look at the way they treat me! You saw it! I
have to wash the dishes, and wait on the half-breed! Me! with a
college education! I'm in momentary terror of my life. I hired Mixer,
thinking no wrong, and now I find him pursuing some murderous vengeance
against you! If you could hear how he talks about you! Look what a
position that puts me in--travelling with a gang of murderers! What
must you think of me?"
Ralph listened to all this, smoking impassively. "What are you making
this trip for?" he asked.
"Just to see the country," whined Stack. "Didn't I tell you that? I
wish to heaven I was well out of it!"
"That's a lie," said Ralph coolly.
"Oh, Doctor Cowdray, I wouldn't lie to you! I wouldn't do such a
thing!" he protested volubly.
"Did you hire Joe Mixer to bring you after me?" Ralph demanded
imperatively.
"Yes," faltered Stack. "But for a purely legitimate purpose. I swear
it!"
"Have you, as Joe said, been trailing me all the way from the coast?"
"Yes," he confessed. "But meaning no harm at all--purely legitimate,
Doctor, purely legitimate!" His voice trailed away.
"Well I'm damned!" said Ralph. There was a silence while he smoked.
"What was your purpose?" he finally demanded to know.
"It's such an improbable story I didn't dare tell you," said Stack.
"And I haven't any proof of it."
"You tell me and I'll decide as to the proof," said Ralph.
Stack took a breath and began with renewed glibness: "I'm a newspaper
reporter--_Pacific Herald_. The city editor was told you had made a
big new strike up here, and he sent me to follow you in, and get the
first story of it for the _Herald_. I had to do what I was told," he
whined, "or lose my job. You can't blame me----!"
"Who told him about me?" asked Ralph astonished.
"Don't ask me," said Stack. "I've heard they have the assay office
watched. I don't know."
It was obvious to Ralph from the man's silky, fawning voice that he was
lying still. His gorge rose. Evidently the truth had to be terrified
out of such a creature. They were sitting beside the last faint embers
of the fire. Ralph shot out his hand and gripped Stack by the collar.
A faint, gasping cry escaped the little man, and he went limp in
Ralph's grasp.
"I have my revolver in the other hand," Ralph said in a rasping voice.
"The truth now, or I'll crack your skull with it! It was you who
watched the assay office."
"Yes," murmured Stack in accents of honest terror.
"You followed me up here on your own responsibility, hoping to get in
on my strike?"
"Yes."
Ralph dropped him. "Now we know where we stand!" he said.
Stack, like all born liars, had an infinite capacity for swallowing his
lies. Ralph had no sooner dropped him than he unblushingly
appropriated the credit for his confession.
"I had to come and square myself with you," he whined. "I couldn't
rest until I had come and told you the truth!"
"Well, I'm damned!" said Ralph again. "Go on!"
"You're the only friend I've got!"
"Friend!" said Ralph with a snort of scornful amusement. "This is
good! Give it to me straight," he went on curiously. "What did you
come here for to-night?"
Stack's voice rose to a piteous wail. "Any night I may be murdered in
my blankets!"
"Sure," said Ralph coolly. "But what can I do for you?"
"Take me with you in your boat," Stack blurted out.
"Well, upon my word!" cried Ralph.
"Don't refuse! Don't refuse!" said Stack breathlessly. "They wouldn't
dare touch me if I was with you. They're afraid of you. That was
magnificent of you to come to their camp and sit in the game as if
nothing had happened. It had its effect, I can tell you! Oh! take me
with you!" he went on, stuttering in his eagerness. "I can help you
escape from them. Two heads are better than one. I have a good head
for planning when I'm not in mortal fear of my life!"
"Fine!" said Ralph. "And you get right in on my strike!"
"I wouldn't ask much," said Stack. "I'd be content with whatever you
wanted to let me have. Why can't we work together? You need a
representative outside. You've got to file a lot of dummy claims to
cover the whole field. You've got to form a company. I can attend to
all that for you. It's just my line!"
"Thought you said newspaper reporter?" remarked Ralph.
"That was just making out," said Stack hastily. "I know the mining
business from A to Z. I've got legal training. You need me!"
"Thanks," said Ralph coolly. "I prefer to pick my own company."
"If anything happens to me it'll be on your head," whimpered Stack.
"Aren't you going to take me with you?"
"No!" said Ralph in a tone there was no mistaking.
"What shall I do? What shall I do?" moaned Stack. "If you won't let
me travel with you, tell me where you're going, and if I can escape
from them, I'll try to reach you. In common humanity you can't refuse
that!"
Ralph smiled into the darkness. "Is it possible he still thinks I am
fool enough to give away my secret!" he thought. "If he does, all
right!" Aloud, he said carelessly: "I've no objection to telling you
that. But I won't guarantee you a welcome."
"Anyway, you're not a murderer!" whined Stack.
"It's about twenty-five miles up the Stanley River from the Grand
Forks----"
"Then you were telling the truth?" said Stack with naïve surprise.
"Why not?" said Ralph coolly. "I'm not afraid of them." He bethought
himself of adding a few convincing touches to his lie. "You enter a
tributary that comes in on the right-hand side of the Stanley, and
ascend it as far as you can go into the foothills. There you will find
our camp."
"How will I know the mouth of the right tributary?" asked Stack.
"By two pine trees that lean across, one at each side, until their tops
almost meet," said Ralph readily. "My partner and I call it the A
River."
"Take me with you!" Stack began all over again. "You need me!"
"Cut it out!" said Ralph impatiently.
"You ought to take me with you," Stack persisted. An indescribable,
sly, cringing threat crept into his whine. "Now that I know where
you're going, if they torture me I might let it out in spite of myself!"
Disgust overmastered Ralph. He sprang up. "You little cur!" he cried.
"Get out of here before I hurt you!"
Stack waited to hear no more.
During the next three days the two boats seesawed on the lakes and
rivers, Ralph now ahead, and now Joe Mixer's party. Ralph kept much
longer working hours, but the others made it up in speed. Whenever
they passed each other it became the occasion for an exchange of
half-serious abuse, which was only prevented from developing into a
fight by Ralph's unshakable, steely smile. Ralph insisted on making
out that it was all a joke. Joe was itching for a fight, but the smile
cut the ground from under him. Meanwhile Ralph gave as good as he got.
Stack never took part in these contests of wit. He sat in the dugout
haggard and abstracted, gripping the gunwales under his skinny
knuckles. When he thought Ralph's gaze rested on him, he did his best
to look meek and imploring, but succeeded very ill in disguising his
hatred. Joe Mixer carried a deal of liquor in his baggage as evinced
by their frequent thickness of speech.
At the end of the third day they had travelled far down the Rice River.
By paddling until near dark Ralph succeeded in pitching his camp three
miles in advance of the other party. It was his intention to sleep for
four hours only, and then go on. According to his calculations he was
within a few hours' journey of the Grand Forks, and it was essential to
his plan that he get there first. He meant to watch from some place of
concealment on the shore, to make sure that they turned up the Stanley
River instead of continuing downstream. In case they were not deceived
by his false lead, and did not leave the main stream, he had one more
desperate card to play. The moon was now nearly full again, and he
could be sure of a certain light until dawn.
Ralph pitched his little shelter in an opening among the willows that
thickly lined this part of the bank. His boat was drawn high up on the
stones below, and tied to the willow trunks. He ate a hasty supper and
turned in. As he lay waiting for sleep, once again he was warned by a
vague disquiet in his breast of an impending danger. He remembered
this afterward. At the time he was dog-tired, and the still voice was
not insistent enough to cleave the gathering mists of sleep. He soon
became unconscious.
He was awakened immediately, or so it seemed to him, by a sudden
outburst of drunken shouting. At the same moment his shelter collapsed
on top of him. When he succeeded in freeing himself of the entangling
blankets, netting, and canvas, in the dim light he saw four figures
reeling about where his fire had been, kicking his belongings into the
bush, and wreaking what senseless damage they could. A terrible rage
nerved him in every fibre.
"You damned cowards!" he cried.
Hearing his voice, they made for him simultaneously, but Ralph
retreated silently under the willows, and bided his time, peering
through the branches. They searched for him, stumbling over the roots
and shouting inanely.
During the next two or three minutes the scene was as confused and
incredible as a nightmare. Ralph made out a swollen body swaying on
the edge of the bank, outlined against the moonlight. Rushing him, he
hauled off and struck him on the jaw with a savage satisfaction in the
crack of it. He made to follow up the blow, but Joe was not there. He
lay in a heap at the bottom of the bank. Hearing a sound behind him,
in the act of whirling around, a bludgeon aimed at Ralph's head
descended on his shoulder. Seizing him who had wielded it around the
body, Ralph lifted him clear of the ground and flung him after Joe.
This one was Crusoe Campbell. A third figure scuttled down to the
water's edge without waiting to be assisted. Ralph stood in the ashes
of his fire, breathing hard, and glaring around like a lion for another
adversary.
The half-breed stepped from out the shadows of the willows. "Look out,
white man!" he cried boastfully. "I got it in for you! I'll fix you
good!"
"Come on!" cried Ralph gladly. At the same time the curious thought
shot through his brain: what could the half-breed have against him? It
was not Joe Mixer's quarrel; there could be no mistaking the note of
personal enmity.
The moon shone down serenely indifferent. A little prize-ring was
illuminated within the encircling willows. In it the two men advanced
toward each other, fists up. They crashed together. This was an
adversary worthy of Ralph; he fought like a white man, and he fought
fair. Shrewd blows were exchanged on either side. Each quickly
learned to respect the other, and thereafter fought more warily.
Failing to reach Ralph's head, the breed punished him about the body.
Every one of Ralph's blows was aimed in the centre of the pale ellipse
that denoted the other man's face.
Ralph had an advantage in that the breed's head was somewhat fuddled.
His blows began to go wild. Ralph beat him to his knees, and stood
back to let him rise. As they rushed each other again, Ralph's ankles
were grasped from behind, and he was flung violently to the ground,
striking his head.
As from an immense distance he heard the half-breed say: "Dam' little
sneak! Wat for you do that? I want lick 'im myself!"
Then the voices receded. Ralph heard them from the beach; heard a
hoarse guffaw, and afterward the splashing of paddles. He understood
that they had gone.
By this time he had got to his feet. He stood, reeling from the
effects of his fall, and half suffocated with a cold and deadly rage.
He made his way down to the water's edge. His boat was turned upside
down on the stones, and the moonlight revealed several clean slashes in
her canvas bottom.
"Oh! the scum!" muttered Ralph in his rage. "Unnatural beasts without
decency or manliness! Malignant, cowardly, sneaking rats!"
In cutting his boat they had not done as serious damage as they
doubtless aimed to do, for Ralph carried spare pieces of canvas in his
baggage, and a can of waterproof gum against emergencies. He instantly
set about repairing the boat, working away in the partial darkness with
the pertinacity inspired by a cold rage. He had no doubt now of what
he meant to do.
"They'll be sleeping sound after the booze," he thought grimly. "They
think they've fixed me for a while. They won't be looking for a visit
to-night."
When he had his patches affixed, he built a small fire on the stones,
and held the boat over it to dry the gum.
In less than two hours she was fit to float again. He carried his fire
up on the bank then, and making a blaze, hastily collected his
scattered belongings. This refreshed his rage. In his impatience he
flung everything into his boat higgledy-piggledy, and pushed off. He
did not paddle, for fear of being carried past, but allowed the current
to take him, while he searched both shores with straining eyes. No
shadow was allowed to pass unexplained.
He had not gone much above a mile when he saw what he so ardently
desired: their dugout drawn up on the stones. A great satisfaction
diffused itself throughout his breast. Softly paddling ashore, he
beached his own boat alongside, and bent his head to listen. A faint
snoring from the bank overhead reassured him. He smiled scornfully.
In their drunken carelessness they had actually left most of their
baggage in the dugout. Ralph had no desire to starve them to death, or
to deprive them of the means of ultimate escape. With suitable
precautions of silence he unloaded everything on the stones. Then
untying the rope by which the dugout was fastened to a tree, he heaved
her adrift on the current. He didn't care much whether they heard that
or not. But no alarm was raised.
Embarking in his own boat, Ralph towed the larger craft into midstream.
Picturing the scene that awaited their awakening next morning, he
chuckled grimly, and found his breast eased of its weight of rage. He
felt not the slightest regret for what he had done; indeed he was
blaming himself for the foolish compunctions that had prevented him
from doing it earlier. His enemies were in no pressing danger; they
possessed a store of food, also guns and ammunition. They would
eventually build a raft. In the meantime he would get a start that
would put him out of their reach for good. He was free of them. A
great serenity descended on his spirit.
Before he cast off the dugout it occurred to him that it was better
fitted to descend the rapids ahead than his own clumsy coracle. He
debated the matter. An odd quirk of conscience finally prevented him
from making the change. "If I use the thing," he thought, "it's the
same as stealing it." On this fine distinction depended the whole
subsequent course of his story. He cast the dugout adrift. There was
no wind to blow it ashore and it was good for a long journey.
During the rest of the night Ralph paddled and floated with the current
without seeking any further rest. Dawn found him among the islands
that marked the approach of the end of the Rice River. This was where
he had first been blindfolded on the previous journey, and he awaited
the subsequent sights of the river with a stimulated curiosity.
At sun-up, rounding a bend, he beheld the wide expanse of the meeting
of the waters, the Grand Forks of the Spirit River. There could be no
mistaking the place. The two rivers occupied the same valley; one came
down from the north, one from the south; meeting head on they swung
away to the eastward. The green current and the brownish struggled
ceaselessly for possession of the channel. At present the Stanley was
in flood, backing up the waters of the Rice River for several miles.
The division between sweeping brown water and motionless green water
was as sharply defined as between water and land. Poking the nose of
his boat into the current, she swung around and almost rolled awash
under the impact. Ralph instantly remembered the sensation which had
so puzzled him while he lay blindfolded.
Soon after he began to move down on the majestic flood of the augmented
river, the murmur of the great rapids crept on his ears, and his heart
began to beat. This would be the first real test of his paddle. The
murmur increased to a rumble, then to a roar. Finally he could make
out the white-caps leaping below, like the naked arms of a multitude
ceaselessly tossed to the sky in wild excitement. He appreciated the
vast difference between a pretty stream brawling among the stones, and
a mighty watercourse plunging over a barrier of rock.
He landed a little way above the rapids and fortified himself with an
excellent breakfast. Afterward he made his way alongshore to the
beginning of the turmoil to try to spy out the best place to enter it.
A close view of its mightiness made him feel very small. The
immeasurable flood of water swept smoothly over the hidden ledge with
an oily streaked surface, moving faster and faster until it suddenly
boiled up madly at the bottom. From shore to shore, nearly half a
mile, the wild, white welter prevailed. Ralph received a stunning
impression of the tearing, resistless might of the down-rushing water.
Its roar was deafening. At the thought of tempting it with his flimsy
coracle, his heart shrunk away to nothing in his breast. But it had to
be done.
At first as far as he could tell one place was as bad as another to
descend. Gradually he made out that by great good fortune he had
chosen the right side of the river. Toward the other bank the white
surface was everywhere pointed with ugly black rocks. He saw that the
greatest volume of water rushed down close to the shore on which he
stood. If he could keep his boat in the middle of it there was no
danger of rocks. There remained the danger of those strange, great
billows which curled and rolled and roared without ever advancing an
inch in their paths.
He returned to his boat, fighting his terror of the place. Refusing to
think of it, he worked desperately to make all snug. He got in and
clung to a branch that trailed in the water, while the increasing
current sucked at his little craft. He had fallen out of the habit of
articulate prayer; maybe he prayed in his own way. He let go of the
branch, and began to drift toward the place. He moistened his lips,
and drew a long breath, and drove his paddle into the water. No
turning back then.
Then he took the plunge, and was filled with an amazing exhilaration.
The struggle was brief. His boat plunged her nose right under the
first curling white billow and half a ton of water fell aboard. She
staggered drunkenly, and in spite of his desperate paddling swung
broadside in the current. The next billow raked him from stem to
stern, rolled his boat completely under and washed him clear of it.
The opposed currents of the water clutched at him and racked him like
whirling machinery. He came to the surface gasping, only to be flung
violently against a rock, striking on his shoulder. Stunned by the
buffeting and the roar, he was carried on down like a rotten log, now
underneath, now on top, the plaything of every wild eddy.
Struggling instinctively, in the end he found himself somehow in still
water. He crawled out on the beach and lay inert, struggling for
breath and for consciousness. Very slowly the realization of his
plight was forced on him. He felt no great concern. It was like
something that might have happened to somebody else. There lay a poor
devil cast ashore in the wilderness hundreds of miles from any
fellow-creature. Everything he possessed, boat, food, matches, axe,
blankets, gun and ammunition were at the bottom of the river. Out of
the wreck he had saved only Nahnya's necklace, which was sewed to his
shirt, and his pocketbook with money, neither article being of the
slightest service to keep life in his body.
He sat up, roused by an imperious pain. Looking sideways and down at
himself he was mildly impressed by the extraordinary conformation of
his right shoulder--like somebody else's shoulder. It was dislocated.
He could not lift his right arm. It was a mercy, if but a small one,
that his faculties began to work so slowly. His first articulate
thought was:
"Well, thank God! I got a skinful of breakfast before I lost it!"