“Tell what happened to old Fagge the last time you were here,” I said.
This was the first occasion I had actually spoken to the half-breed
since the early morning at Gull, when I had mistaken him for the
Icelander. The wounded man went on writhing, and tried to drag himself
under cover by means of the long tufts of white grass.
“Is it a dyin’ confession, say?” he whined. “The last talk o’ me,
Gedeon Leblanc, what never had no luck?”
“I guess you ain’t long for this world,” said the factor grimly.
“Talk at ’em, pard,” piped Jim Morrison. “Tell ’em what ye know.”
“We know you come here twice with ole man Fagge,” continued MacCaskill,
smoothing the way for him. “We know you’ve been followin’ us. Well, I
guess there’s lots of gold for the crowd, and if you talk straight, and
don’t die quick, we won’t stop ye from stakin’ out your claim, after
we’ve done first choosin’.”
Morrison was staggered by such generosity, which removed the necessity
for much base plotting.
“Pard,” he exclaimed, “didn’t I talk to ye? Mister Petrie an’ Mister
Factor MacCaskill ain’t Redpath, what can’t a-bear to share. Didn’t I
talk to ye? Didn’t I? Gimme some eatin’ tobaccer,” he demanded, turning
to me, considering himself admitted into our society by my partner’s
concession.
Instead of the desired chew, he received a command to “quit his noise.”
Evidently the cowardly half-breed was in great fear of death.
“Mister Petrie,” he gasped, “your father never done it! No, sir. Ole
man Fagge is planted not so far off. He was knifed, mister, an’ I’m
the only man who knows who done it, ’cause I saw wi’ me own eyes. Yer
father was a-standin’ close up when ’twas done, but he never done it.”
“Who killed Joe Fagge?”
The name of Redpath was shivering on my tongue.
“Olaffson,” blurted out the half-breed.
The Icelander again! Always Olaffson! I could have believed that
Redpath had told me the truth, and that Olaffson was the originator of
all the plots I had attributed to him.
By still playing upon the half-breed’s fear of death, we obtained
the whole story. My father, Leblanc, and Fagge had passed into this
defile, and had reached the Canyon of the North Wind, whose existence
was at that time only known to us by the rushing breath below. The old
man prowled about by himself, permitting no one to accompany him, as
he would not give his secret away lightly, and in the course of his
ramblings came across Redpath, whom he hated, and who had incautiously
encamped just outside the canyon. Returning in a rage, the half-mad
miner swore that he would abandon the expedition, and refused to give
the key to the situation, which was the secret of the entrance into
Mosquito Pass, the only way leading out from the canyon to the unknown
land of Bonanza beyond. My father had seen the old man preparing a plan
to aid his already failing memory, and he had acquainted Redpath with
this fact.
One night--it was late in the season, and already some snow had
fallen--Olaffson came up to the camp fire, where Fagge was sitting
alone. My father was spreading his blanket under the shelter of the
rocks; Leblanc, still farther away, was cutting logs for the fire.
The Icelander flung himself suddenly upon the old man, stabbed him
when he resisted; but before he could escape with the secret my father
was upon him, and had knocked him down. Joe Fagge was dead. My father
took the plan, which he kept with him the rest of his life; Olaffson
picked himself up and went to report to Redpath, who came presently,
and accused my father of having murdered the old miner for his own
ends. They came to blows; my father had the best of matters there, and,
after beating his late friend, went away, taking the secret with him,
and Leblanc never saw him again. Redpath was left helpless, and when
he failed to find the pass had to follow my father south. He only just
escaped; had he remained another twenty-four hours, he would certainly
have been frozen in and killed by the arctic winter.
Such was the story Leblanc told us, and when he had done, it must be
owned that I spared a pitying thought for Redpath, who, according
to the statement we had just heard, had cause to believe my father
guilty. But had Olaffson attacked the old miner upon his own
initiative, or had Redpath instructed him to obtain that plan at
whatever cost?
Leblanc quickly reverted to his own condition.
“Be I a-goin’ to die soon, do ye think?” he went on whining. “I feel
ter’ble queer-like.”
“Speakin’ the truth might make ye feel that, I guess,” said the factor,
and with that we left the men, and made our way back to what had been
our camp.
The invisible hand, which had tried to settle Leblanc, had passed there
also, making a thorough sweep of our tools and our packs, even down to
our one little tin mug, which I remembered having thoughtlessly left in
the open.
I had never before seen MacCaskill in a thorough rage. His great body
quivered with passion, and he put out his hammer-like fist, which anger
caused him to move as though it had been a hammer.
“There’s no bit of mercy if we strike him. Golden gates o’ Jerusalem!
If I get him into me hands, I’ll smash him up like a rotten melon.”
Akshelah was not one to waste time in threats; indeed, I have noticed
that women always reserve their energies to meet a crisis. She was
already upon her knees, patting the ground, as though it had been a
rich fabric pleasant to the touch. Presently she stood up, and soon was
walking, picking up a track which to me was invisible.
“You are wrong,” she said, as we followed. “The Iceland-man has a small
foot. This is large.”
She tracked the footprints to the stream. We crossed by means of the
rocks; and when on the opposite side, Akshelah was puzzled.
“I know,” she said presently; “he took off his moccasins. See! Here he
put down the tools, and rested.”
We took her word for this, because not even my trained eyes could
pick out the signs she tried to indicate. She took us along, and soon
a deep, melodious sound came upon our ears, and the lights ahead
shimmered before the shadows stopped them, as the haze shimmers on a
hot day. We were near the mouth of the canyon, and soon we saw the
narrow black entry, the straight cleft where the rocks lifted up to the
clouds, with the torrent of wind booming forth. The air became moist,
colder, and there was the smell of vegetation rotting in water.
Just outside, Akshelah stopped to announce that the tracks of the man
who had robbed us went “up into the wind.”
It was the time of the shadow--the two hours after midnight when the
light is perplexing. The canyon was very dark, because the summits
almost touched far away overhead, horrifying, and very cold. We lost
nerve; we were tired after a long day’s journey; we resolved to defer
our entry into the north wind until the coming of the perfect day.