I must have been dreaming, because I awoke with a cry upon my lips, and
I thought I had exclaimed “Father!”
On one side MacCaskill breathed heavily, shifting often, as the ground
chafed his bones through the white moss we had collected to lie upon;
on the other Akshelah slept, her head upon her two hands, a pretty
picture, and yet severe, for she might have been dead, so still was
she, and so pale. Her little face was unhappy, and my heart reproached
me, because I knew that she was enduring hardships for my sake. She
understood more about my own people than I did myself. She thought
that when I had found enough gold I should go away and find my own new
place, perhaps in the world of that visionary London, where I had first
seen the light, and she would see me no more. The unhappiness she would
not betray by day Nature brought and left upon her face in sleep. She
was young womanhood, I young manhood. If there was any gulf between us,
she could not see it. Why should I try to find it?
The voice in which I had called “Father!” was not my own. It was a thin
voice, peevish and frightened. “Take me away,” was my thought, before
I entirely awoke; “I don’t like the wind and the noise.” But I was a
grown man, abnormally strong, capable of protecting others. I could not
understand my dream.
Certainly there was a noise which was not the work of imagination. I
started up, wide awake; a few frogs whistled at the stream below--that
was a natural sound. The wind brought a steady, metallic ring--that was
not natural. It was the quick stroke of a mining tool upon rock. I rose
quietly, and walked to the black mouth of the canyon; but a footstep
followed, a hand touched me, and a voice spoke.
“Ah, you are going away!”
Akshelah had awoke after me, and had followed jealously.
“Don’t you hear that noise?” I whispered.
But the girl had no ears for it. She drew me away.
“See, he is sleeping, and will never know.”
“What do you mean, little squirrel?” I said, in the old foolish manner
I had spoken to her at home, and she responded to my mood.
“I will find the trail across the Bad Lands. I will bring you down to
the green country,” she whispered passionately. “We will go back to the
Yellow Sands before the winds of Tukwaukin come. Your tepee will be
ready. You can be happy there.”
“We will go together soon,” I said, wanting to make her happy, but not
wishing to deceive. “I cannot leave him. It would be cowardly.”
“He does not care for you. It is the yellow dirt out of the ground that
he loves. When he has plenty of that he will forget you, because when
men find the yellow dirt they want no other friend. They do not know
that the Bad Spirit makes the yellow dirt, and then hides it away in
the ground, and watches. You shall hear him laugh at nights when he
sees the men finding it.”
The ringing of metal upon the hard rock went on.
I could not conquer the impulse which bade me enter the dark canyon,
and Akshelah would never let me out of her sight. The struggle against
that wind put confidence into me, and I stepped out beside the cold,
dripping wall, as sure of my way as though I had been walking from
Yellow Sands up to my homestead. The ascent was very gradual.
Presently the loose rocks turned to shingle, hard to walk upon, but any
noise we made in advancing was carried down by the wind.
“Take care!” I cried warningly. “The wall juts out here.”
I could see nothing, and yet I had spoken the truth. At the right
moment I put out my hand and met the wet wall, and we went round, never
making a mistake.
“Presently there will be a break,” I went on. “Right ahead is a bluff
of spruce. It is always dark there, and damp, and full of mosquitos.
Above us we shall find a shelf of rock which is protected from the
wind. Once there was a camp here.”
“Your father has been with you,” said Akshelah fearfully, through the
cold current. “He made signs to you to come. We must not disobey those
who live with the Great Spirit. Your father will be pleased with me for
coming with you.”
“Here!” I exclaimed, bending and feeling, but this time I was wrong;
the clammy, inaccessible wall met my hands. The ringing of the mining
pick had stopped.
We went on a few more paces, through gloom that brushed the face like
cobwebs, and again I felt. I was right.
The straight wall broke, and there was a passage upward over the rocks.
We went up, with the speed and silence of forest-cats, until we came
out of the wind, and a screen of bushes stopped us. No sound came from
the ledge, which I knew went back and into the cliff on the other side
of those bushes.
“There is a way round higher up,” I said, remembering.
But Akshelah caught and held me tightly.
“Do not move,” she whispered. “A man is coming up.”
Directly she had spoken I heard, and knew we could not get away. This
was the man who had been working upon the rocks, and he would be
carrying a pick, with which he could kill either of us at a blow.
My blood rose excitedly, and I determined that I would use Olaffson as
he had wished to use me.
Drawing Akshelah back, I crawled upon a higher rock, while the man
ascended slowly, as though short of breath, until I felt he was just
upon me. Then I leant down, threw my arms out, and sprang forward. I
had him fair; but he was a large man, and his clothes smelt abominably.
His pick rattled upon the rocks as we fell together, crashing among the
bushes.
My captive spoke gaspingly, but not in fear, nor yet in anger; but
rather as a gambler who has played his one high card, and finds it no
good:
“I’m afraid you have me, Hanafin.”
So soon as he had spoken he was a free man again. The voice was the
voice of Redpath.
He picked himself up at once, and struck a match--probably one of ours
he had lately stolen--and the spluttering light fell upon the loose,
sick-looking face and the black, straight rocks behind him, where slime
glistened, and water dropped like spots of tar.
“Ah, it is you, Petrie!” he said, with unmistakable relief. “Come
inside.”
My strength departed from me.
“I thought you were dead,” I said feebly.
“Well, I suppose I ought to be,” said the adventurer, rather wearily.
“I have been through terrestrial purgatories to retain life alight. I
hardly know why. Come in,” he continued quite heartily. “You remembered
the way. I wondered whether you would.”