The Man from the Hills
The labour of it was tremendous. The sturdy ponies were a-lather
with sweat in the pleasant warmth of the summer day. Their burden
ordinarily was sufficiently light. A rattling, aged buckboard
driven by the man they had known for nearly five years. It
contained no outfit, no burden of any sort but the reckless
teamster who had literally made the trail by his own many journeys
between his home and the city of Beacon Glory. But it was the final
stage of the journey. A heart-bursting haul up an incline steeper
than one in four.
At the summit were rest and feed in plenty. Unlike other men in
the region using horse labour, McLagan cared for his ponies better
than he would care for himself. He worked them to the limit if need
be, but his care of them was the same. In his undemonstrative,
unsentimental fashion he loved his shaggy, stocky Alaskan ponies,
and saw to it that they knew it in the fashion they understood.
Already the crowning plateau of his home was in view through the
gaunt arms of the tattered forest trees with which the track was
lined. A hundred yards or so more and the labour of it would be
over, and the ardent creatures would snuff the ocean breeze in
their gushing nostrils. The man’s whip lay gently playing over
the ponies’ backs, urgent for their last ounce of effort. He was
leaning forward on the hard sprung seat as though to spare them
weight. It was an instinctive attitude that was of no real help. It
was the attitude of a man accustomed to the saddle.
McLagan was more urgent for his home just now than usual. He had
gone into Beacon to meet the message he expected from his partners
and employers. But that had been excuse. He had, in reality, made
the journey for Claire Carver and her mother. On their return from
the wreck in the bay they had discovered the girl’s mother in a
state of panic. The automobile had been put completely out of
action by the terrible road over which it had passed. Not a single
one of its tires was standing up. The mother was helpless. The girl
was in little better case. And McLagan did what he could in the way
of repair. But it was quite useless. The outer covers were wrecked,
and incapable of containing the inner tubes.
In the end McLagan was able to impress on them sufficiently the
immediate necessity of himself making a visit to Beacon. He assured
them that he had long since planned it. That his business was
pressing. And the good luck of it was that his buckboard would just
carry the three of them, if they did not mind being somewhat packed
into the seat and badly jolted. They had by no means minded. And
the older woman sighed her relief as they planned to have a man
sent out with new tires to fetch in the derelict automobile.
“You know, Claire, girl,” she had said, in her downright fashion,
which no improvement in her fortunes had been able to modify,
“them automobiles is liable to set folks thinkin’ you’re all sorts
of a dame ridin’ around in ’em. But give me a team of decent
mountain-bred plugs, with a bunch of grain inside ’em. Maybe they
ain’t a blue streak of lightnin’, but they’ll mostly get you there
an’ haul you back, which it’s a God’s truth is a thing you can
only guess about with one of these oil cans. Ivor’s wise. Maybe
his business depends on his bein’ there to do it. So he gambles on
these dandy four-legged creatures.”
And she had affectionately patted and stroked the warm flesh that
was ready to help them in their emergency.
The man had had a better reward than he had looked for. He had
found his reply awaiting him at the mail office. A reply that
he had never hoped to get until the heads of the Mountain Oil
Corporation had held an important meeting. He realised that it must
have been despatched within a day of the receipt of his report. It
was a clear, definite, decided reply such as pleased him mightily.
It was from the chairman of the Board of Directors.
“Complete prospect earliest possible date. Sailing in ten
weeks. Be with you early fall. Make all preparations for big
forward move. Prospect for large territorial concession. Prepare
everything. Big money.”
The very brevity of the message was its greatest joy to McLagan. It
was, he felt, the message of a big man unfettered by any smallness
of consideration. His interpretation of it was no less big. To him
it meant go right ahead, grab all you can, and to hell with the
cost. And the engineer, being the man he was, needed no further
urging. So he had spared his ponies on the home trail less than
usual.
He reached the plateau just as the sunset was at the height of its
glory beyond the bay. The waters were dead flat, a mirror of liquid
fire under the radiant light. Even the ugly, iron-bound coast was
rendered something gracious for once in its ruthless existence.
He had planned as he came along, absorbed in the prospect that
lay ahead of him. The whole thing was quite simple. Everything
must be got ready. He must set out on a big trip round with Peter.
They must make a broad survey. He would set out with Sasa to join
Peter at the camp. He would close up his shanty and quit it for
the summer, or, at least, until the Directors had completed their
inspection. Early fall. They would be with him in early fall to
settle the final details. That was nearly three months from now.
Yes. He could get everything ready for them by that time.
Sasa took the hard-blowing team as it drew up at the log barn, and
McLagan walked round the ponies and helped unhitch them.
“Turn ’em loose, boy,” he said. “Let ’em get a roll, and feed ’em
hay. Don’t water ’em till they cool. Then set ’em in the barn and
push their blankets on. Feed ’em corn in two hours.”
He passed on to the door of his hut. But he paused on the way. As
he stepped out into the open the wreck of the _Limpet_ came into
his view. In a moment he had forgotten everything else as the
memory of his last visit to the derelict came back to him.
Somehow the whole episode had been swept out of his mind by the
text of the message he had received from his own people. It could
not have been otherwise in a man of his temper and purpose. He
was at the threshold of a tremendous achievement which years of
infinite labour had brought to his hand. Peter Loby was the oil
man, the expert creature who dealt in drills, and pipes, and the
immediate localities for his operations. But it was McLagan whose
knowledge and vision searched the territory. It was he who had
first realised the possibilities of that black belt of territory
which he had sent Loby to explore. His whole horizon was bounded by
such prospecting, just as Peter’s was by oil. Yes, the news that
these men of finance were ready to put themselves and their money
behind his work had completely cleared his healthy brain of the
cobwebs which his last visit to the _Limpet_ had woven there.
Now, however, it was different. Just as the other had overwhelmed
every other consideration, the sight of the derelict flung memory
back upon those things which are never failing in their grip on
human imagination.
He stood gazing down at the queer object and every vestige of his
earlier enthusiasm for the work in hand faded out of his unsmiling
eyes. He had forgotten. And now he remembered. And so he stood
there, for all he was ready enough for the cooking food which Sasa
had prepared, and which smelt so appetising on the still air.
The sun sank lower upon the horizon. It dipped into the sea and lit
a broad path across the bosom of the waters. The circling gulls
screamed out their night chorus before perching for their rest.
And all the time, deeper and more surely, the fascination of that
derelict below took hold of him.
At last McLagan stirred. He unfastened the pea-jacket it was his
habit to wear. Then he raised one hand and the palm of it was
passed across his forehead thrusting back his cap in its gesture.
He turned and called over his shoulder.
“Sasa!”
The half-breed came sturdily across to him from behind the hut. And
he stood there beside him following the direction of his gaze till
his own rested upon the remains of the _Limpet_.
“Your canoe. Your kyak. Is she in good shape?”
“Sure. Him all time same. I mak him so.”
“You’ll beat it up the river to-night. Get it?”
The dark-skinned creature looked up into the face of his boss. Then
he turned away, for the white man was still gazing at the wreck
below.
“You’ll beat it up the river and fetch Mr. Loby right down here.
You’ll beat it quick. You’ll tell him to have an outfit ready at
the camp to go into the hills. He’ll know just what I mean. But
he’s to come right--No. I’ll write it. I’ll give you a ‘brief’ to
take to Mr. Loby. It’s nearly low water now. You can ride up on the
tide.”
He turned to pass into the hut. But the half-breed detained him.
“Boss, you think dat ship all time. Yes, I know. I see him in your
eye. Dam’ ship no good. Bad. I go, yes. You not go by dam’ ship
with no man? You not go? No? It bad. So bad.”
The man’s tone was almost beseeching.
“You’re a damned coward, Sasa, as I told you before,” McLagan
laughed as he turned away. “You’re a damned coward about everything
but the big water. You get busy right away. You’ve got to have Mr.
Loby down here early to-morrow. I’ll write that brief for you.”
* * * * *
The Alsek River had none of the greatness or splendour of its
southern neighbour, the Lias. But then it flowed through a far
different territory as it approached its mouth. Its lower reaches
were marsh and tundra-bounded. It was a deep, sluggish channel
occupying the lowest level in the heart of a wide muskeg, some
thirty or forty miles in extent. Higher up, however, amidst the
great hills, where lay the camp of the Mountain Oil Corporation,
it lacked nothing of the scenic beauty of the hundreds of mountain
creeks and rivers which scored the coast territory of the Alaskan
Hills. In spring, under the fierce freshets, it was a roaring,
blustering watercourse without mercy for any obstructions in its
path. In summer it was a shallow, shoaly stream of guile and
treachery.
Cy Liskard regretted the river he had made his own as his light
craft passed out of the hill country and entered upon the flat of
muskeg, which would continue until the barrier hills of the coast
were reached. The Alsek River was not only ugly to him. It was a
good deal more. He knew that the vivid, brilliant green of this
limitless plain was one of Nature’s vilest snares. It was one
vast, treeless swamp, thinly disguised by an alkali crust, and as
bottomless as only a northern muskeg can be. It was without life,
animal or human. Only was it swarming with wildfowl for whom it was
a never-failing refuge from trap and gun.
But he laboured indefatigably. He was running with the stream, his
muscles at ease, but with mind and eye alert and uneasy. He knew
the dangers of this dreary channel. It was deep enough. Oh, yes.
He knew that. At times it was monstrously deep. But its sodden,
reed-grown banks yielded no footing for landing; there were mud
banks dotted throughout its course; and in its open channels masses
of submerged weed flourished abundantly. So his vigilance was
unceasing, and he drove a course whose constant zig-zag suggested
incompetence.
But there was no incompetence in Cy Liskard on the water. He
travelled swiftly and without doubt or hesitation. For he meant to
reach those distant coast hills with the last of the tide, driven
hard by that which lay back of his mind.
His search for his quarry about the oil camp in the hills had been
fruitless. He had prosecuted it with infinite determination. He had
lain cached when he encountered McLagan’s river men. He had well
and truly covered his tracks, when at night he had reconnoitred the
camp itself. Then, when he had ascertained beyond all possibility
of doubt that the man he sought was not at the camp, he had passed
on all undetected, unsuspected. Now he was on the last stages of
his journey to the coast. The coast and that crazy, high-perched
shanty overlooking the bay.
Cy Liskard betrayed no outward sign. He looked to belong to the
long trail of the wilderness whose peace and calm his soulless eyes
expressed so well. His outfit looked to be the outfit of those who
live by trap and gun, and the protruding muzzle of a modern rifle
over the curved bows of his craft increased the illusion. But his
purpose was no less for these things. Perhaps, even, it was the
contrary.
The miles passed rapidly behind him. They drifted away on a winding
course that flashed and gleamed in the brilliant summer daylight.
But for all his speed, the outlook seemed to remain the same, the
distant hills to come no nearer.
But they were approaching very rapidly. And, as the late afternoon
ripened the sparkle of earlier day, at last they rose abruptly
till their height seemed to overwhelm the monotonous level of the
muskeg.
Now the watchful eyes became less watchful. The need was less. The
level, sodden banks had given place to sharp-cut, solid granite,
and the widened stream had slackened and given place to deep,
clear water free of all hidden traps. A sense of ease and safety
permitted the man’s attention to wander to that which lay ahead and
about him.
The river bent sharply away to the right behind the first of the
foothills and doubled its breadth. Farther on was a leftward sweep,
and as he approached it he realised that he no longer had the river
to himself. A canoe--an Eskimo kyak--had swung round the far bend,
on the outer circle of it, and was driving like an arrow against
the sluggish stream.
Just for an instant there was hesitation, and the dip of Cy
Liskard’s paddle was less unruffled. Then, seemingly, the man’s
doubt passed and he kept straight on. He made no attempt to hail
the stranger. He never even permitted his gaze to turn in his
direction. But nothing escaped the search of his pale eyes.
He had recognised the man in the kyak for what he was. He had seen
him before. Something of an Eskimo or Indian. A sturdy, squat
figure, with broad, fleshy shoulders and lank black hair, and eyes
that might have been the folds of a crease in the flesh of his ugly
face had it not been for the deep sockets in which they were set.
Oh, yes. He had seen him before, and he let him pass him without
word or greeting.
* * * * *
The mouth of the Alsek River from the land side was a curious
and interesting effect of erosion. Even granite, that almost
invincible barrier which Nature sets up against the onslaught of
her own fierce elements, had ultimately yielded. The river on the
one side and the storming seas on the other had beaten upon the
granite anvil till the white flag of surrender had been hoisted.
The attacking elements had met through a narrow gap which had
helped to set the scene for the appalling race of tide which
swept in through it. Two gaunt, barren headlands stood sentry on
either side with less than three hundred yards of water dividing
them. Outside these lay the bay with its guarding headlands and a
multitude of rocky warriors still defending. Inside was an expanse
of water that was nearly a mile wide. This was no less rockbound
than the outer bay, but it was completely sheltered so that no view
of the bay beyond could be obtained except that which was visible
through the narrow opening.
It was early morning. The sun had just lifted above the eastern
hills. Nature was astir. The restless sea-fowl were breaking
their fast upon such fare as the waters provided, and sunrise had
brought up with it a freshening breeze. The night tide was rapidly
running out and the race of water was still fierce and strong and
threatening.
Cy Liskard was laboriously clambering along the foreshore of the
inner cove. He was moving up towards the headland guarding the
southern shore of the river mouth. He was searching for the most
promising direction whence he could attack its lofty summit.
Such was the nature of the shore that his movements were largely
hidden. It was the thing he desired most. Now he was passing along
in the shadow of mountainous boulders. Now he was full in the
open, scaling a barrier impossible otherwise to pass. But he was
making progress, rapid progress onwards and upwards. He had swiftly
realised the danger of passing the gateway on the open water. It
would have been to court discovery on the instant, to say nothing
of the chances of disaster from the race of the tide, so his boat
lay cached behind him while he confronted the task of scaling the
headland.
* * * * *
The man was standing on the windswept crest of the southern
guardian of the river. He was sheltering from observation behind a
boulder, and from the whip of the breeze which stung with a wintry
bite. The whole of the great bay lay there below him, calm and
peaceful, and completely inviting. He was gazing down upon it, but
without regard for its austere beauty. For that he had no interest
whatever. The ravishing shimmer of the summer waters, the tattered
magnificence of the element’s aged battle-ground. These things were
matters of complete indifference to him. Even his view of McLagan’s
high-perched home for the moment seemed to make no claim.
His searching gaze was preoccupied with the thing he had never
looked to discover. He was gazing down upon the wreck of the
_Limpet_ lying upon its deathbed of rocks, which the night ebb had
left bare. He was studying it, searching it, shape and rig and
every detail as might some sailorman who still retains all his
interest for a calling he has long since abandoned.
For a long time he stood in the shelter of the boulder, and the
fascination of the wreck held him until its spell was abruptly
broken by a thing of more immediate consequence. Suddenly he became
aware of a small boat making its way from the north shore in the
direction of the wreck. And in a moment he understood. He raised
his eyes to the house on the cliffs. He dropped them again to the
beach below. Then they came again to the moving boat with its
solitary occupant.
* * * * *
Cy Liskard had made the great descent. Now he was standing in
the shadow of the vessel lying upon the rocks, gazing up at the
lettering of her name on her bluff bows. Some distance away behind
him lay an empty dinghy hauled clear of the lapping waters.
The man had approached the vessel in a mood that was sheerly
exulting. Here, undoubtedly, was his goal at last. It was a
different goal from that which he had expected. But that was of
no consequence. He had watched the dinghy behind him approach the
rocks. He had seen the man leap out of it and haul it clear of
the water. Then he had seen him approach the derelict and climb
on board it. There was no mistake. He had recognised that tall,
powerful figure on the instant. It was impossible for him to
mistake it, even though it had been clad differently that night at
the Speedway. He felt that he had his man in a trap, and it was a
trap from which he had no intention of letting him escape.
There was a curious look in his pale eyes as he stared up at
the vessel’s name. For once they had been stirred out of their
customary expressionlessness. There was something almost like a
smile in them. But it was shadowy. It was of the vaguest. And it
only contrived to transform them into something tigerish.
At last he turned away, and as he did so a harsh sound broke
from his lips. It might have been a short, hard laugh, only that
not a muscle of his face had stirred. He moved slowly down the
vessel’s length till he came to the rope ladder amidships. Then he
paused. He thrust one hand into the pocket of his closely-buttoned
pea-jacket and produced a heavy pistol. It was an automatic, and
he examined its loading carefully. Then, with a hunching movement
of his broad shoulders and a quick, frowning upward glance at the
blazing sun, he seized the rope ladder and set foot on its bottom
rung.