Varied were the sounds that reached my ears when I woke in the green
coulee, to find my limbs limp and my head dizzy. I heard, above the
hissing of the canyon, the stroke of a pick, the scrape of a spade,
the blow of axe and hammer, and the snarl of a saw. I was lying upon a
blanket, with Akshelah kneeling on the moss beside me, fanning away the
insects. She smiled delightedly when I looked round, and commanded me
not to move.
The two troopers were cutting and shaping logs of spruce. MacCaskill
was digging foundations. On the other side, the idle Leblanc and the
incorrigible Morrison were playing poker.
“Three queens is good, Jimmy,” I heard the former saying. “That’s
fourteen dollars you’ve lifted, durn ye! Ye can have it, soon as I wash
out me first pay-dirt.”
“Gimme a voucher,” demanded Jim Morrison.
Then Inspector Hanafin came down from the rocks, carrying a great load
of white grass for thatching, his fur-lined cloak, his gaudy coat and
sword put aside, the rings stripped from his fingers, his sleeves
rolled up, his handsome face marked with dirt.
“Good man!” he exclaimed, when he saw me lift myself, and down he set
his bundle. “Over-strain, but nothing damaged,” he said cheerily.
“You’ll be all right to-morrow.”
MacCaskill heard his voice, and came tramping across.
“You’re the stuff, Rupe!” he called, in splendid spirits. “I’m makin’
our shanty. See?”
“Did I open the hole?” I asked eagerly, and both the men laughed.
“You and that rock come down together,” said MacCaskill.
“You pulled yourself round just in time, and I was able to catch you
as you fell,” went on Hanafin. “The hole’s open; but we didn’t venture
inside, because the place was solid with mosquitos, and the tunnel was
as black as tar. We started a smudge with dry grass and damp moss on
the inside, and the pass may be fairly clear by morning. Ever seen a
mining town start?”
Before I could reply, he saw the two sailors, and his anger came out.
“You idle hounds!” he exclaimed, and going up, deliberately kicked each
man. “Put up those cards, and set down to work, or I’ll pass you out of
this camp before morning.”
The worthless creatures cringed, and swore, and rose reluctantly.
“Norman!” called the inspector, “give these men some work, and if they
don’t stay with it report ’em, and I’ll prescribe something for their
health. We’re not going to have a bad crowd here our first week,” he
added threateningly, and then turned back to me to add: “A mining town
begins, continues, and ends in gambling.”
MacCaskill was chuckling as he made mighty strokes with his spade.
“Say, Rupe, you and me’ll be Bonanza kings in a year, maybe,” he said.
“We’ll be havin’ our pictures stuck inter papers.”
He burst into laughter.
“You old fool,” said Hanafin; but the infection reached him. “My
ambition is to get married, and there’s little chance of that on my
pay.”
He passed on at once, with his load of dry grass, as though ashamed
of the confession, and I understood what it was that inspired the
Englishman. Somebody with bright eyes was waiting for him at home!
The chance of his life had come, and he was not the one to miss it. I
wondered if she would care for him as Akshelah liked to care for me.
Working hours were long, because there was no darkness to trouble
us, and the soldiers made great progress with their building, while
Akshelah did the cooking, and the two sailors the growling. The latter
had come in with the idea of picking up gold, not of working for other
people; but as they had no supplies, they had to make their choice
between working or starving.
Our camp fire burnt redly in the defile during the time of the shadow,
which began half an hour after midnight and lasted until sunrise, two
hours later. When we had done eating, the troopers sang us songs of the
plains and told us yarns of the prairie; and later on, Hanafin spoke
to me of great London, and listened sympathetically to my story, and
the tragedy connected with my father. By that time MacCaskill, Norman,
and the two sailors were asleep; but Akshelah sat opposite, her fine
eyes glowing in the firelight. Outside the light of the fire, Carey,
the tall trooper, did patrol duty. My heart went out to Hanafin, as he
talked to me as an equal, and treated me as such. Hanafin and Redpath
were the two English gentlemen of my acquaintance, and my father was
the only other I had known.
“I have an idea that I can name the man who killed the discoverer of
this place,” said the inspector musingly, but he would say no more.
“What do I think of Redpath? An old and slimy villain, who has reached
bed-rock, and who will now stick at nothing, because he has no lower to
fall. Don’t pity him, my boy. His smooth tongue and his oily manner are
his two strongest weapons. I suppose he is sitting up in his cave now,
rehearsing the details of some new plot with that infernal Icelander.”
He paused, then added: “My duty is divided. I ought to arrest Redpath,
and deliver him at Regina, and I must administer the law here, if our
discovery is what we believe it to be.”
A figure loomed large into the firelight, and Carey saluted.
“A stranger coming up, sir. Maybe a native. Made no reply to my
challenge.”
“Go out and bring him in.”
The disciplined trooper wheeled round and was gone.
Presently he accompanied a very old man, bent and wrapped in an aged
blanket, presenting a weird sight in the glow of the fire. His face
was like a piece of cracked leather, but his teeth, when he grinned in
greeting, were white and sound.
“Ho!” he exclaimed, “white great boy!”
“Ho!” replied Hanafin. “You speak English, do you?”
It was difficult to extract any meaning out of the jargon of mangled
words and distorted sentences which the ancient proceeded to deliver.
He sought to tell us the history of himself, and of his fathers, of
their long struggles with the extinct Iroquois; but when Hanafin
questioned him concerning the adjacent country, the old man became
mysterious. He knew nothing of the land of Bonanza, nor had he ever
heard of Mosquito Pass. His innocence was wonderful; his lying
palpable! He demanded “tobak” as a solace for his old age; and when
this was given him he became bold, a wild longing crossed his aged
face, and he prayed for “the water that burns a man inside.”
“Carey!” exclaimed Hanafin, fingering the fur on his cloak, “you are
sure this is unexplored territory?”
“Yes, sir. It is so marked on all our maps.”
The inspector coughed.
“That civilising agent whisky has evidently preceded us.”
“He may have been inside, sir,” suggested the trooper.
Hanafin put the question in many different ways and dialects; but from
the answers given, he was satisfied that the old native had never been
inside--that is, to civilisation.
“I could almost swear that he came out of the canyon, sir,” said Carey.