When Wentworth left the trading room he went straight to his cabin, and
disregarding his open trunk, he lifted a pack-sack from the floor and
swung it to his shoulders. It was the pack he had deposited there
scarcely an hour before when he had trailed in from the mill site, and
he knew that it contained three or four days' supply of rations.
On the Shamattawa he had heard from a truck driver that an old man and
a girl had started for Gods Lake post, and he instantly recognized
McNabb and Jean from the man's description. Thereupon he made up a
pack and headed for the post for the sole purpose of baiting the two,
and of flaunting his prowess as a financier in their faces.
An angry flush flooded his face as he realized how completely the
tables had turned. Then the flush gave place to a crafty smile, as he
remembered the bills in his pocket. "McNabb's money, or Orcutt's," he
muttered under his breath, "it's all the same to me. Three hundred and
fifty thousand is more money than I ever expected to handle. And now
for the get-away."
Closing the door behind him he struck across the clearing toward the
northeast. At the end of the bush he paused. "Hell!" he growled. "I
can't hit for the railway. Cameron said he had wired Orcutt at the
bank, and I might meet him coming in." For some time he stood
irresolute. "There's a way out straight south," he speculated, "about
three hundred miles, and a good share of it water trail. I'll be all
right if I can pick up a canoe, and I can get grub of the Indians."
Skirting the clearing, he entered the bush and came out on the shore of
the lake at some distance below the landing, where several canoes had
been beached for the night. Stooping, he righted one, and as he
straightened up he found himself face to face with Corporal Downey of
the Mounted. For a moment the two stood regarding each other in
silence, while through Wentworth's brain flashed a mighty fear. Had
McNabb changed his mind and sent Downey to arrest him for the theft of
the coat? He thought of Orcutt's big bills in his pocket, and his
blood seemed to turn to water within him. Then suddenly he remembered
that for the present, at least, he held those bills under color of
authority. In the deep twilight that is the summer midnight of the
North he searched the officer's face. Damn the man! Why didn't he say
something? Why did he always force another to open a conversation?
Wentworth cleared his throat.
"Hello, _Corporal_," he said sourly. "Aren't you out pretty late?"
"Not any later than you are, _Captain_. An' I'm headed in. Put over
any more big deals lately?"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, I run onto Cameron about a week back. He was huntin' you or
Orcutt. He told me how you beat old John McNabb out of his
pulp-wood--almost. You ought to be ashamed--a couple of up-to-date
financiers like you two, pickin' on an' old man that's just dodderin'
around in his second childhood."
Wentworth flushed hot at the grin that accompanied the words.
"To hell with McNabb--and you, too!" he cried angrily, and carrying the
canoe into the water, he placed his pack in it. When he returned for a
paddle, Downey was gone, and stepping into the canoe, he pushed it out
into the lake. "Of course, he'd have to show up, damn him!" he
muttered as he propelled the light craft southward with swift strokes
of the paddle. "And now if Orcutt should show up within the next day
or two, Downey will know just where to follow, and even with a two
days' start, I doubt if I could keep ahead of him. They say he's a
devil on the trail. But I'll fool him. I'll leave the canoe at the
end of the lake, and instead of striking on down the river I'll hit out
overland. Once I get to the railway, they can all go to hell!"
The mistake Wentworth made on the trail when he first came into the
North was not so much the insisting upon bringing in his trunk, nor his
refusal to carry a pack; it was in striking Alex Thumb with the
dog-whip when he refused to pull the outfit in the face of a blizzard.
Thumb's reputation as a "bad Injun" was well founded. The son of a
hot-tempered French trader and a Cree mother, his early life had been a
succession of merciless beatings. At the age of fourteen he killed his
father with a blow from an ice chisel, and thereafter served ten years
of an indeterminate sentence, during the course of which the unmerciful
beatings were administered for each infraction of reformatory rules,
until in his heart was born a sullen hatred of all white men and an
abysmal hatred of the lash. When Wentworth struck, his doom was
sealed, but as Murchison said, Alex Thumb was canny. He had no mind to
serve another term in prison.
All through the spring and summer he trailed the engineer, waiting with
the patience that is the heritage of the wilderness dweller for the
time and the place to strike and avoid suspicion. And as time drew on
the half-breed's hatred against all white men seemed to concentrate
into a mighty rage against this one white man. There had been times
when he could have killed him from afar. More than once on the trail
Wentworth unconsciously stood with the sights of Alex Thumb's rifle
trained upon his head, or his heart. But such was his hatred that
Thumb always stayed the finger that crooked upon the trigger--and bided
his time.
Thus it was that half an hour after Wentworth pushed out into the lake
another canoe shot out from the shore and fell in behind, its lone
occupant, paddling noiselessly, easily kept just within sight of the
fleeing man. When daylight broadened Wentworth landed upon a sandy
point and ate breakfast. Upon another point, a mile to the rear, Alex
Thumb lay on his belly and chewed jerked meat as his smouldering black
eyes regarded gloatingly the man in the distance.
Gods Lake is nearly fifty miles in its north and south reach, and all
day Wentworth paddled southward, holding well to the western shore.
At noon he rested for an hour and ate luncheon, his eyes now and then
scanning the back reach of the lake. But he saw nothing, and from an
aspen thicket scarce half a mile away Alex Thumb watched in silence.
As the afternoon wore to a closer the half-breed drew nearer. The
shadows of the bordering balsams were long on the water when Wentworth
first caught sight of the pursuing canoe. His first thought was that
Orcutt had arrived at the post and that Downey had taken the trail. He
ceased paddling for a moment and his light canoe swung into the trough
of the waves and rocked crankily.
The other canoe was only a half mile behind, and Wentworth saw with
relief that its occupant was not Downey. Some Indian fishing, he
thought, and resumed his paddling. The south shore was only an hour
away now, and tired as he was, he redoubled his efforts.
Farther on he looked back again. The canoe still followed. Surely no
Indian would set his nets so far from his camp. Yet the man was an
Indian. He had drawn closer and Wentworth could distinguish the short,
jabbing strokes of the paddle.
Another quarter of an hour and Wentworth looked again--and as he
looked, the blood seemed to freeze in his veins. The pursuing canoe
was close now, and he was staring straight into the eyes of Alex Thumb.
The half-breed was smiling--a curious, twisted smile that was the very
embodiment of savage hate. Wentworth's muscles felt weak, and it was
with difficulty that he drove them to the task of forcing the canoe out
of the trough of the waves. Mechanically he paddled with his eyes
fixed on the ever nearing south shore. He was very tired. He would
soon make land now. But when he did make land--what then? He cursed
himself for going unarmed. He could hear the slop of the waves on
Thumb's canoe. He turned his head and saw that the man was only two
lengths behind him. What would he do? With the mechanical swing of
his arms the words of Murchison and Downey repeated themselves in his
brain. "Serving with the devils in hell; serving with the devils in
hell," with a certain monotonous rhythm the words kept repeating
themselves through his brain. Why had he ever come North? Why hadn't
he told McNabb that he would have nothing to do with his pulp-wood?
The half-breed's canoe was alongside, but its occupant did not speak.
He merely jabbed at the waves with his paddle and looked with that
devilish twisted smile.
Wentworth hardly knew when his canoe grated upon the gravel. Stiffly
he half walked, half crawled to the bow and lifted out his pack. Alex
Thumb stood upon the gravel and smiled.
"What do you want?" faltered Wentworth, his voice breaking nervously.
The half-breed shrugged. "You no lak no pardner on de trail?" he asked.
"Where are you going?"
Thumb pointed vaguely toward the south. "Me--I'm lak de pardner on de
trail."
"Look here," cried Wentworth suddenly. "Do you want money? More money
than you ever saw before?"