Garth had an inspiration. "Can you take us there?" he asked.
Considerable patience and good-humour were called for from both sides,
in the arduous course of arriving at an understanding; but finally a
bargain was struck. Gene, in addition to the credentials of his person,
bore a highly satisfactory letter of recommendation from the company
trader at the Crossing. Whatever his errand in the first place may have
been, he never gave it another thought; and in half an hour blithely
turned his horse's head, and took the lead on the trail.
Gene looked at every considerable tree, every little gulley, and every
rise in the ground with the eye of an old friend. In a mile or so, at a
place marked in no way that Garth could see, he abruptly turned out of
the trail; and led them with an air of certainty through the apparently
trackless woods. The trees ended at the steep rise that marked the
bottom of the northern bank; and thereafter they climbed the grass.
By a devious route known to himself Gene led them through many little
grassy ravines, and over ridges, gradually upward. There was no sense or
order in the arrangement of the knolls and terraces and spurs of
turf--the ground seemed to be pushed up anyhow, like bubbles on the
surface of yeasty dough. For a while they would be swallowed in a
cup-like hollow; then, surmounting a ridge, they would have a brief
glimpse of the distant river behind. It was only when they reached the
top that, looking back over the turbulent rounded masses of earth, they
were able to comprehend the great height to which they had climbed.
Reaching level ground, Gene with a shout set off at a lope in a bee line
across the prairie; and Garth bringing up the packhorses in the rear,
caused the sedate Emmy to put her best foot foremost. Meanwhile, with
pocket-compass and memorandum book, he made notes of the route they
took; and when opportunity offered tied a strip of white cotton to a
bush. It was his intention to dismiss Gene before coming to Mabyn's hut;
and he wished to be sure of the way back. The guide, comprehending what
he was doing, gave him to understand that Emmy could bring them back
over their own tracks--unless snow should fall. But Garth was neglecting
no precautions.
Garth and Natalie deplored to each other the inadequacy of their means
of communication with their guide. The bright-eyed Gene had a hundred
things to point out to them on the prairie, most of which they could
only guess at. For one thing, he made them understand he was following
in the tracks of two cayuses that had gone that way three days before.
One was lame, he said, and the other dragged a travoise. All this he
learned from certain marks in the grass, which the other two could not
see at all. In all ways Gene proved himself a very pearl among guides.
Garth, merely from watching him, learned as much trail-craft these two
days as he had picked up during the weeks preceding; and Natalie
confessed that his cooking put her utterly to shame.
Such was the energy of their pace that they reached the last waterhole
before coming to Clearwater Lake early next afternoon. Here Garth
decided to camp; for he had determined with Natalie to time their
arrival at Mabyn's hut for the morning; so that after the briefest stay,
they could immediately start back. Clearwater Lake was only three miles
distant; and Gene was able to point out a poplar bluff marking the rise
behind which it lay.
Neither Garth nor Natalie obtained much sleep that night; only Gene,
wrapped in his rabbit-skin robe beyond the fire, slept the sleep of the
savage or the child. They were all astir at dawn; and after eating, they
parted; Gene careering south without a care on his mind; while Garth and
Natalie turned their apprehensive faces toward the lake. What they were
to find there they did not know; but intuition warned them it would be
sufficiently painful.
When they reached the brow of the last hill, and the lake stretched
vividly below them, they had no eyes for the loveliness of the prospect.
The little hut at the head of the water far to the left was the first
thing they saw; and it was charged with a significance that obliterated
everything else. Facing the early sunlight it stood revealed with
startling distinctness; and even at the distance had a ghastly look;
gray, artificial and decayed in the midst of the mellow autumn
loveliness.
"I will picket the packhorses down at the edge of the water," Garth
said; "and we'll ride on without them. It will provide us with an
obvious excuse to return immediately."
Natalie scarcely heard. Her eyes were fixed on the distant shack. "What
do you suppose it hides from us?" she whispered. "Death, misery, or
disgrace?"
Garth could scarcely forbear groaning in the pain of his solicitude for
her. "Oh, Natalie!" he said hoarsely, "I haven't done right to expose
you to this!"
"I made you!" she said quickly. "Besides, it's not a question of right
or wrong. As you said we would, we have only done the best we could,
under the circumstances that arose."
"At least let me ride on ahead a little," he begged. "You stay with the
outfit. I will hurry back."
She shook her head. "I couldn't stand the suspense," she said simply.
"Do not be afraid on my account," she added; "merely looking with my
outward eyes at something that always faces me within won't hurt me.
Come on!"
But presently she reined up her pony again, and turning a pair of
brimming eyes on him, extended her hand. "Garth!" she murmured, "I--I
would like to thank you--but I can't!"
"Oh, don't!" he begged.
"Whatever we find down there," she said wistfully, "it can't make any
difference, can it? We will still be the same partners of the trail?"
Garth went pale to his lips--but he contrived to smile at her. He took
her hand and looked at her full. "Until death," he said quietly.
She drew her hand away, with a deep breath. "Come on," she said. "We've
got to face it!"