It was a week after the sequestration of the claim, and Ingleby leaned
against a cedar with the firelight on his face, which was unusually
resolute, and a bundle of clothing and blankets at his feet. Hetty sat
on one of the hearth-logs in the shadow watching him quietly, and Leger
stood in the doorway of the shanty with something very like anger in his
eyes. He had for the last ten minutes enlarged upon every reason he
could think of why Ingleby should remain with them, and the latter was
still apparently as firmly decided as ever on going away.
"There's not a grain of sense in your point of view," said Leger. "It's
sentiment run to seed, and sentiment of the most maudlin kind, at that.
Of course, I know all this is useless--nothing would move you--but it's
some small relief to let you know what I think of you. I suppose you
will admit that what you're going to do isn't quite in keeping with the
theories you once professed to believe in."
Hetty, who had a spice of temper, laughed. "Walter never believed in
them--he only thought he did. He's like the rest of you. You keep your
ideas to talk about and worry people with."
Ingleby made a little deprecatory gesture. "I've no doubt I deserve it,
Hetty, but you ought to see that I can't stay here. I should, in fact,
have gone away before, but I felt almost sure we would find the gold
sooner or later."
"Who is responsible for throwing the claim away?" broke in Leger.
"Both of us, I fancy. Anyway, that's not quite the question."
Leger made a last effort. "Now," he said, "you know very well that your
chance of finding gold on the new claim is good, and we can very easily
afford to grub-stake you until you strike it. In this country it's quite
a common arrangement. Apart from that--since you seem to be so
abnormally sensitive--there's enough for you and me to do chopping wood
for the oven in the evenings to square the account altogether. I have,
of course, pointed that out already; but if you will make an effort, I
think you will remember that there was a time when you insisted on
lending me what was, in the circumstances, a considerable sum of money."
"I can remember most clearly that only the fear of seeing you arrested
for manslaughter induced a certain young lady to agree to it."
Hetty looked up sharply. "I'm not going to answer that--I'm too vexed,"
she said. "It isn't the least use trying to persuade him, Tom."
"No," said Leger, with a little gesture of resignation, "I'm afraid it
isn't. You are going to work for Tomlinson, Walter?"
"Yes," said Ingleby. "That is, now and then--a day or two to keep me
going while I find out what is in the claim. He wants more water, and is
putting up a flume. I had a five-dollar bill from him yesterday."
He stopped a moment, and the firelight showed there was a trace of
deeper colour than usual in his face as he held out a little strip of
paper to Hetty.
"Will you put that to my credit, and let me have two loaves now?" he
said.
Leger said something viciously that was not very distinct, while Hetty
sat still a moment glancing at the paper without touching it, and then
gravely held out her hand.
"You will get them in the store," she said.
Ingleby disappeared into the shadows, and the two who were left said
nothing whatever, but Hetty moved a trifle so that Leger could not see
her face. Then Ingleby came back with the bread, and quietly slung his
traps about him before he held out his hand.
"I don't want to go, Hetty, but it can't be helped," he said. "Of
course, I'll come back often in the evenings."
Hetty did not move out of the shadow, and though Ingleby did not seem to
notice it there was a curious hardness in her voice.
"Well," she said quietly, "I suppose you know best."
Ingleby turned away, and shook himself in a fashion that suggested
relief as he swung down the trail. He had left a good deal behind him,
and it was a hard thing he had done, much harder, in fact, than he had
ever anticipated; but he could not live on the bounty of a girl. For all
that, he shrank from the loneliness of the life before him, and his
fancy would dwell upon the evenings he had spent with Hetty and Leger
beside the crackling fire. Hetty was by no means clever--at least, in
some respects; but he did not expect her to be so, and where she was
there was also cheerfulness and tranquillity. Now the bush in front of
him seemed very black and lonely.
He had scarcely disappeared when Hetty, rising slowly, crumpled a strip
of paper in her hand and flung it into the fire. As it happened, it fell
upon the side of one of the logs a little distance from the hottest
blaze, and Leger made a little instinctive movement, and then sat still
again.
"I suppose you realize what that is?" he said.
"Yes," said Hetty, whose face showed flushed in the flickering light,
"it is a five-dollar bill."
Leger looked at her sharply, and then laughed. "Well," he said, "I
suppose you can afford it--and, after all, I'm not sure it isn't the
best thing you could do with it."
Hetty said nothing but went into the shanty, and it was next morning
before Leger, who looked very thoughtful as he sat beside the fire, saw
any more of her. He had already realized that the possession of a pretty
sister is a responsibility.
For a week or two afterwards Ingleby alternately assisted Tomlinson in
the building of a flume and worked on his claim, but it was, perhaps,
fortunate that he had now shaken off the fierce impatience which had
driven him to overtax his strength when hope was strong in him. Indeed,
of late a curious lassitude had crept upon him, though he still toiled
on; and it was only the fact that provisions were a consideration which
induced him to accompany Sewell and Tomlinson on an expedition to look
for a black-tail deer.
Tomlinson brought a tent with him, and Ingleby and Sewell were sitting
outside it one evening when Trooper Probyn and the corporal came up
leading a laden horse. Horses were very little use for riding in that
country, but there were trails they could with some difficulty be led
along, and the few strips of natural prairie afforded them a precarious
sustenance. There was also no other means of transport except the
miner's back. The corporal bade Probyn pull the beast up beside the tent
and loosed the pack-lariat.
"You can get up when we've hove the traps off, and see if the Indian's
there," he said. "If he is, bring him along. I guess we'll make nothing
by pushing on to-night."
Trooper Probyn, swinging himself into the saddle, scrambled up the
hillside, which was comparatively clear of undergrowth just there, while
the corporal sat down beside the fire.
"We've had supper. You don't mind our camping here?" he asked.
Sewell, who lay, pipe in hand, upon a bundle of withered fern, raised
his head.
"There's room in the tent. It's a fair-sized one," he said. "You're
going on into the ranges?"
The corporal looked at him meditatively. "Right through to the
Westerhouse Gully, if we can get there. It appears a blame rough
country; but Captain Esmond has a notion that a trail could be made this
way, and from Westerhouse one could make the Yukon. It's part of his
business to see what can be done to open up communication."
Sewell turned and glanced towards the snow which stretched in a great
white rampart across the valley. Beneath it a tremendous wall of rock
dropped to the pines below, which crawled round the crests and up the
gullies of a desolation of jumbled crags. Dark forest streaked by filmy
mist filled the devious hollows at their feet.
"You are right about the country. I should imagine it to be a
particularly rough one," he said.
"Well," said the corporal, "it seems quite certain the Indians used to
go through after the deer and salmon; and it's believed that one or two
white men have made Westerhouse that way, too."
He stopped a moment, and glanced at Sewell. "You were away somewhere
quite a while, weren't you?"
Sewell laughed, and Ingleby, who watched them both, wondered whether the
corporal knew that he was one of the few white men who had traversed the
defiles of the divide.
"I was," he said. "Still, you see, it really isn't any other person's
business where I go to."
The corporal nodded with dry good-humour. "I guess it wasn't
Westerhouse, anyway," he said. "I'm not sure we'll get there, though an
Indian came along to the outpost who figured he could take us."
Ingleby glanced at Sewell with a little smile. The corporal's belief in
the capabilities of the police was admirable, and more or less
warranted, for the wardens of the Northwest are hard-riding men; but he
was, after all, from the prairie, and horses are very little used in the
Green River country. Ingleby, however, fancied he was not quite certain
that communication had not been already effected with the Westerhouse
Gully. Sewell, who apparently understood Ingleby's glance, said nothing.
"There are only two of you here?" asked the corporal.
"No," said Ingleby. "Tomlinson is with us. He went out this afternoon to
look for a deer, and should be back any minute now."
The corporal looked thoughtful. "I'm not quite sure we'd have camped
here if I'd known that," he said. "Still, if you can keep your man in
hand, I guess I can answer for the trooper."
Ingleby fancied they could promise this, and for a while nothing more
was said. Darkness crept up the valley, though there was still a saffron
light on the towering snow, and the peaks that lay in shadow cut with a
cold, blue whiteness against a wondrous green transparency. Then the dew
began to settle, calling up the drowsy odours of the pines, and an
impressive stillness pervaded the mountain solitude. It grew colder
rapidly, and Ingleby, who rose and flung fresh branches on the fire,
stood looking towards the west, a spare black figure, with outline
clean-cut as a cameo against the flickering light, when the sharp
ringing of a rifle came suddenly down the valley. It rang from rock to
rock, as the hillsides flung it back, and died away among the dimness of
the pines.
"Tomlinson!" said Sewell. "I fancy he has got that deer. There's
scarcely wood enough to keep the fire in until morning, Walter. If you
don't want to light another for breakfast, hadn't you better cut some
more?"
Ingleby, who took up an axe, moved back into the bush, and the silence
was broken by a rhythmic thudding that vibrated among the shadowy
trunks, which was unfortunate, because it tended to confuse the
corporal's hearing. He was an opinionated man, and a good deal depended
upon his being able to correctly locate a sound just then. He would,
however, probably have done so, had his attention not been fixed upon
the tobacco he was shredding. A minute or two had passed when the crash
of a rifle came down the valley again, and he laughed.
"I guess your man didn't get that deer right off," he said.
Sewell smiled, and waited until Ingleby came back with an armful of
wood.
"Our friend suggests that Tomlinson has been throwing cartridges away,"
he said.
"Well," said Ingleby, "it's a thing he very seldom does, and I feel
almost sure the last shot came from a different direction, and was
farther off. Probably Trooper Probyn fired at something in the bush."
It was an unfortunate suggestion, for the corporal, who had spent a good
many years on the lonely levels of the prairie, was, with some reason,
proud of his fine sense of hearing, and it by no means pleased him that
a young man new to the wilderness should presume to throw the least
doubt upon his ability to locate a rifle shot. This naturally confirmed
him in his belief in the correctness of his opinion.
"It was Tomlinson who fired twice," he said. "I guess Probyn knows
better than to blaze away Government ammunition without permission."
Ingleby said nothing. The point was, or so it appeared to him, of no
importance; and the three, drawing in closer to the fire, sat smoking in
silence while the pale stars came out above the pines. At last there was
a tramp of feet, and Tomlinson strode out of the shadows carrying a deer
with its forelegs drawn over his shoulders. He threw it down, and stood
flushed and gasping, with the firelight on his face. Ingleby fancied he
did not see the corporal, who could, however, see him.
"I suppose you didn't meet Trooper Probyn?" asked Sewell.
Tomlinson started a little, and there was for a moment a curious look in
his face, which did not escape the corporal's attention.
"No," he said shortly. "I don't know that I want to. What is he doing
here?"
"He went out to meet an Indian who's to show us a trail across the
divide," said the corporal. "Rode out 'most an hour ago. He'd keep the
range side."
"Then, as I came down the south fork of the creek, I wouldn't have met
him, anyway," said Tomlinson promptly. He stood still a moment, and then
turned to Ingleby. "Hang that deer up, Walter. I'll have supper, if it's
ready."
Sewell set food and a can of green tea before him, and he ate in silence
until Ingleby glanced at him.
"Did you get that deer a little while ago?" he said.
"No. It was two hours since, anyway."
"Still, we heard you shooting."
Tomlinson, who was an excellent shot, and somewhat proud of the fact,
laughed in a slightly embarrassed fashion.
"Well," he said, "I guess you may have done so, but I didn't get the
deer. It was in the fern, and the light was going. I just got the one
shot, and it was too dark to follow up the trail."
"One shot?" said Ingleby, with a little smile. "The corporal heard two,
both close together, and there certainly was another."
"Then it was another man who fired it," said Tomlinson shortly. "I guess
I don't often waste cartridges."
The corporal, who was usually a trifle persistent, took up Tomlinson's
rifle and pushed back the slide of the magazine.
"A forty-four Marlin! It was full when you went out?" he said.
"Yes, sir. Two cartridges gone. You'll find one bullet in yonder deer."
The corporal, for no particular reason, jerked a cartridge into the
chamber, and then snapped it out. "You use nicked bullets?"
Tomlinson did not, as everybody noticed, appear exactly pleased. In
fact, it was not difficult to fancy that he was a trifle embarrassed. It
is a little easier to bring down a deer with a bullet that will split up
into a torn strip of metal when it meets a bone than with one that has a
solid nose and makes a clean, punctured wound.
"Well," he said, "I don't know any reason why I shouldn't, and now and
then I get the hack-saw and cut one or two across. When I go shooting
it's a deer I want."
Nothing more was said on that point, though Ingleby fancied that the
corporal was a little incredulous still. He rose, and looked up the
trail as though listening.
"I can't quite figure what is keeping Probyn," he said. "The Indian was
to meet him at sundown, where the North Creek fork twists round the
rocks, and he should have been back by now."
They sat silent a minute or two, but no sound came out of the silence of
the pines. There was not even the murmur of water. The wilderness was
very still.