HARDING GROWS SUSPICIOUS
Benson gave Blake no further trouble, and when they rode up to the
camp, apparently on good terms with one another, Harding made no
reference to what had occurred. He greeted them pleasantly and soon
afterwards they sat down to a meal he had been cooking. When they had
finished and lighted their pipes Benson said, "A remark was made the
other night which struck me as quite warranted. It was pointed out
that I had contributed nothing to the cost of this trip."
"It was very uncivil of Harding to mention it," Blake answered with a
grin. "Still, you see, circumstances rather forced him."
"They did. You might have put it more harshly with truth. But I want
to suggest that you let me take a share in your venture."
"Sorry," said Harding, "I can't agree to that."
Benson sat smoking in silence for the next minute or two. Then he
said, "I think I understand and can't blame you. You haven't much
cause for trusting me."
"I didn't mean----" Harding began, but Benson stopped him.
"I know. It's my weakness you're afraid of. However, you must let me
pay my share of the provisions and any transport we may be able to get.
That's all I insist on now; if you feel more confidence in me later, I
may reopen the other question." He paused and added: "You are two very
good fellows. I think I can promise not to play the fool again."
"Perhaps we'd better talk about something else," Blake suggested.
They broke camp early next morning, and Benson struggled manfully with
his craving during the next week or two which they spent in pushing
farther into the forest. It was a desolate waste of small, stunted
trees, many of which were dead and stripped of half their branches,
while wide belts had been scarred by fire. Harding found the unvarying
sombre green of the needles strangely monotonous, but the ground was
comparatively clear, and the party made progress until at length, when
the country grew more broken, they fell in with three returning
prospectors.
"If you'll trade your horses, we might make a deal," said one when they
camped together. "You can't take them much farther--the country's too
rough--and we could sell out to one of the farmers near the
settlements."
Blake was glad to come to terms, and afterwards another of the men
said, "We've been out two months on a general prospecting trip. It's
the toughest country to get through I ever struck."
His worn and ragged appearance bore this out, and Harding asked: "Are
there minerals up yonder? We're not in that line; it's a forest
product we're looking for."
"We found indications of gold, copper, and one or two other metals,
besides petroleum, but didn't see anything that looked worth taking up.
Considering the cost of transport, you want to strike it pretty rich
before what you find will pay as a business proposition."
"So I should imagine. Petroleum's a cheap product to handle when
you're a long way from a market, isn't it?"
"Give us plenty of it and we'll make a market. It's an idea of mine
that there's no part of this country that hasn't something worth
working in it if you can get cheap fuel. Where the land's too poor for
farming you often find minerals, and ore that won't pay for transport
can be reduced on the spot, so long as you have natural resources that
can be turned into power. With an oil well in good flow we'd soon
start some profitable industry and put up a city that would bring a
railroad in. Show our business men a good opening and you'll get the
dollars, while there are folks across the frontier who have a mighty
keen scent for oil."
"Have you done much prospecting?" Harding asked.
The other smiled. "Whenever I can get dollars enough for an outfit I
go off on the trail. There's a fascination in the thing that gets hold
of you--you can't tell what you may strike and the prizes are big.
However, I allow that after seven or eight years of it I'm poorer than
when I started at the game."
Blake made a sign of comprehension. He knew the sanguine nature of the
Westerner and his belief in the richness of his country, and he had
felt the call of the wilderness. There was, in truth, a fascination in
the silent waste that drew the adventurous into its rugged fastnesses,
and that a number of them did not come back seldom deterred the others.
"We want to get as far north as the timber limit, if we can," he said.
"I understand there are no Hudson's Bay factories near our line, but we
were told we might find some Stony Indians."
"There's one bunch of them," the prospector replied. "They ramble
about after fish and furs, but they've a kind of base-camp where a few
generally stop. They're a mean crowd and often short of food, but if
they've been lucky you might get supplies. Now and then they put up a
lot of dried fish and kill some caribou."
He told Blake roughly where the Indian encampment lay, and after
talking for a while they went to sleep. Next morning the prospectors,
who took the horses, started for the south, while Blake's party pushed
on north with loads that severely tried their strength. After a few
days' laborious march they reached a stream and found a few Indians who
were willing to take them some distance down it. It was a relief to
get rid of the heavy packs and rest while the canoe glided smoothly
through the straggling forest, and the labour of hauling her across the
numerous portages was light compared with the toil of the march.
Blake, however, had misgivings; they were making swift progress
northwards, but it would be different when they came back. Rivers and
lakes would be frozen then, which might make travelling easier, if they
could pick up the hand sledges they had cached, but there was a limit
to the provisions they could transport, and unless fresh supplies could
be obtained they would have a long distance to traverse on scanty
rations in the rigours of the Arctic winter.
After a day or two the Indians, who were going no farther, landed them
and they entered a belt of very broken country across which they must
push to reach a larger stream. The ground was rocky, pierced by
ravines, and covered with clumps of small trees. There were stony
tracts they painfully picked their way across, steep ridges to be
clambered over, and belts of quaggy muskeg they must skirt, and the
day's march grew rapidly shorter. Benson, however, gave them no
trouble; the man was getting hard and was generally cheerful, while
when he had an occasional fit of moroseness as he fought with the
longing that tormented him they left him alone. Still at times they
were daunted by the rugged sternness of the region they were steadily
pushing through, and the thought of the long return journey troubled
them.
One night when it was raining they sat beside their fire in a desolate
gorge. A cold wind swept between the thin spruce trunks that loomed
vaguely out of the surrounding gloom as the red glare leaped up, and
wisps of acrid smoke drifted about the camp. There was a lake up the
hollow, and now and then the wild and mournful cry of a loon rang out.
The men were tired and somewhat dejected as they sat about the blaze
with their damp blankets round them, but by and by Blake, who had been
feeling drowsy, looked up.
"What was that?" he asked.
The others could hear nothing but the sound of running water and the
wail of the wind. Since leaving the Indians they had seen no sign of
life and believed they were crossing uninhabited wilds. Blake could
not tell what had suddenly roused his attention, but in former days he
had developed his perceptive faculties by close night watching on the
Indian frontier, where any relaxing of his vigilance might have cost
his life. Something, he thought, was moving in the bush and he felt
uneasy. Then he rose as a stick cracked, and Harding called out as a
shadowy figure appeared on the edge of the light. Blake laughed, but
his uneasiness did not desert him when he recognized Clarke. The
fellow was not to be trusted and had come upon them in a startling
manner. Moving coolly forward, he sat down by the fire.
"I suppose you were surprised to see me," he remarked.
"That's so," Harding answered and added nothing further, while Benson,
whose face wore a curious strained expression, did not speak.
"Well," said Clarke, who filled his pipe, "I daresay I made a rather
dramatic entrance, falling upon you, so to speak, out of the dark."
"I've a suspicion that you enjoy that kind of thing," Harding rejoined.
"You're a man with the dramatic feeling; guess you find it useful now
and then."
Clarke's eyes twinkled, but it was not with wholesome humour. They
were keen, but he looked old and forbidding as he sat with the smoke
blowing about him and the ruddy firelight on his face.
"There's some truth in your remark and I take it as a compliment, but
my arrival's easily explained. I saw your fire in the distance and
curiosity brought me along."
"What are you doing up here?"
"Going on a visit to my friends the Stonies. Though it's a long way, I
look them up now and then."
"From what I've heard of them they don't seem a very attractive lot,"
Blake interposed. "But we haven't offered you any supper. Benson, you
might put on the frying-pan."
"No thanks," said Clarke. "I'm camped with two half-breeds a little
way back. The Stonies, as you remark, are not a polished set, but
we're on pretty good terms and it's their primitiveness that makes them
interesting. You can learn things civilized folk don't know much about
from these people."
"In my opinion it's knowledge that's not worth much to a white man,"
Harding remarked contemptuously. "Guess you mean the secrets of their
medicine-men? What isn't gross superstition is trickery."
"There you are wrong. They have some tricks, rather clever ones,
though that's not unusual with the professors of a more advanced
occultism; but living, as they do, in direct contact with Nature in her
most savage mood, they have found clues to things that we regard as
mysteries. Anyhow, they have discovered a few effective remedies that
aren't generally known yet to medical science."
He spoke with some warmth and had the look of a genuine enthusiast, but
Harding laughed.
"Medical science hasn't much to say in favour of hoodoo practices, so
far as I know. But I understand you are a doctor."
"I was pretty well known in London."
"Then," said Harding bluntly, "what brought you to Sweetwater?"
"If you haven't heard, I may as well tell you, because the thing isn't
a secret at the settlement." Clarke turned and his eyes rested on
Blake. "I'm by no means the only man who has come to Canada under a
cloud. There was a famous police-court affair I figured in, and though
nothing was proved against me my practice afterwards fell to bits. As
a matter of fact, I was absolutely innocent of the offence I was
charged with. I had acted without much caution out of pity and laid
myself open to an attack that was meant to cover the escape of the real
criminal."
Blake, who thought he spoke the truth, felt some sympathy, but Clarke
went on: "In a few weeks I was without patients or friends; driven out
from the profession I loved and in which I was beginning to make my
mark. It was a blow I never altogether recovered from, and the
generous impulse which got me into trouble was the last I yielded to."
His face changed, growing hard and malevolent, and Blake now felt
strangely repelled. It looked as if the man had been soured by his
misfortunes and turned into an outlaw who found a vindictive pleasure
in making such reprisals as he found possible upon society at large.
This conclusion was borne out by what Blake had learned at the
settlement.
Nobody made any comment, and there was silence for a few minutes while
the smoke whirled about the group and the drips from the dark boughs
above fell upon the brands. Then Clarke asked Benson a question or two
and afterwards talked casually with the others until he rose to go.
"I shall start at daybreak and your way lies to the east of mine," he
said. "You'll find travelling easier when the snow comes; I wish you
good luck."
Though the loneliness of the wilds had now and then weighed upon them,
they felt relieved when he left, and soon afterwards Benson went to
sleep, but Blake and Harding continued talking for a time.
"That's a man I have no use for," the American remarked. "I suppose it
struck you that he made no attempt to get your friend back?"
"I noticed it. He may have thought it wouldn't succeed and didn't wish
to show his hand. Benson already looks a different man; I saw the
fellow studying him."
"He could have drawn him away by the sight of a whisky flask or a hint
of a jag in camp. My opinion is that he didn't want him."
"That's curious," said Blake. "He seems to have stuck to Benson pretty
closely, no doubt with the object of fleecing him, and you think he's
not altogether ruined yet."
"If what he told me is correct, there are still some pickings left on
him."
"I don't suppose the explanation is that Clarke has some conscience and
feels he has robbed him enough."
Harding laughed. "He has as much pity as a hungry wolf; in fact, to my
mind, he's the more dangerous brute, because I've a feeling that he
delights in doing harm. There's something cruel about the man; getting
fired out of his profession must have warped his nature. Then there
was another point that struck me; why's he going so far to stay with
those Indians?"
"It's puzzling," Blake said thoughtfully. "He hinted that he was
interested in their superstitions, and I think there was some truth in
it. Meddling with these things seems to have a fascination for
neurotic people, and as the fellow's a sensualist he may find some form
of indulgence that wouldn't be tolerated near the settlements. All
this, however, doesn't quite seem to account for the thing."
"I've another idea," said Harding. "Clarke's known as a crank and
takes advantage of it to cover his doings. At first, I thought of the
whisky trade, but taking up prohibited liquor would hardly be worth his
while, though I daresay he has some with him to be used for gaining his
Indian friends' good will. He's on the trail of something and it's
probably minerals. What the prospector told us suggested it to me."
"You may be right. Anyway, it doesn't seem to concern us."
"Well," said Harding gravely, "I'm troubled about his leaving Benson
alone, when one could have understood his trying to take him away. The
fellow had some good reason--I wish I knew."
He rose to throw more wood upon the fire and they changed the subject.