CHANCE HEARD IN THE NIGHT
Before sunrise the five beings whose lives were so intimately
intertwined and yet who were held by constraint one from the other,
took up the trail. There was but one way to go and this fact alone
held them together; they must keep close to the lake shore for upon the
right the mountains swept upward in a series of cliffs and into a
frowning barrier. Marshall Sothern and Ernestine, walking together in
the rear, spoke little as the day wore on. Max, Drennen and Kootanie
George, ahead, spoke not at all. In silence, never the elbow of one
touching the coat of another, the three men felt and manifested the
jealous rivalry which all day fought to place each one ahead of the
others. George, fleeced as Drennen had been and at a time when the
Canadian's soul had listened avidly to the voice of his wrath,
embittered as Drennen was by the act of a woman, was scarcely less
eager to be first than Drennen himself. And Max, reading the signs,
grew watchful as his own eagerness mounted.
Before night they found the trail which Drennen knew that, soon or
late, he would come upon. Here, perhaps a week ago, certainly not more
than ten days ago, two or three men and one woman had passed. They had
had with them two or three pack animals and the trail, coming in
abruptly from a cañon at the westward, was plain.
At nightfall they were at the foot of the sixth of the nine lakes, the
broad trail running on straight along its marge. The fathomless,
bluish water, looking in the dusk a mere rudely circular mirror which
was in truth a liquid cone whose tip was hidden deep in the bowels of
earth, lay in still serenity before them. On all sides the cliffs,
sheer falls half a thousand, sometimes quite a thousand feet high,
seemed actually to stoop their august, beetling brows forward that they
might frown down upon their own unbroken reflections. There would be a
pass through the mountains at the northern end of the lake, a deeply
cleft gorge, maybe, but from here, with the first dimness of the new
night upon everything, there seemed no way through.
Each man, the silent meal done, threw his bed where he saw fit, apart
from the others. Sothern, having aided Ernestine, telling her good
night and receiving a wan smile of gratitude, went back to the fire
where Max was brooding. The lieutenant looked up, glad of the
companionship. The two men from silence grew to talk in low voices.
Max had something he wanted to say and the opportunity for saying it
seemed to have come. He looked about him, saw Drennen's form and
George's through the trees, saw where Ernestine was stamping out the
glowing embers of her fire, and began to speak. Something else he saw
and forgot, its being of no importance to his brain. It was merely the
pipe which Drennen had laid upon a stone near the camp fire and had
left there when he had gone away.
But Drennen, being in no mood for sleep, missed his pipe. Coming back
toward the fire a little later it happened that he approached behind
the two men's backs and in the thick shadows. It happened, too, that
they were very deep in their own thoughts and conversation and that
they did not hear him until he had caught a part of their talk. After
that Drennen, grown as still as the rocks about him, listened and made
no sound. He had caught the words from Max:
". . . a man named Drennen; an embezzler. Not a common name, is it?
I've a notion that this David Drennen is the son of that John Harper
Drennen."
Drennen, listening, got nothing from this, but stood still, frowning
and wondering. His eyes, upon Max's face outlined by the fire, took no
note of Sothern's.
"We've got the report," went on Max thoughtfully, "that the other
Drennen, John Harper Drennen, is somewhere in this country. Lord," and
he laughed softly, "it would be some white feather in my cap if I could
bring the old fox in, wouldn't it, Mr. Sothern? He's given the police
the slip for a dozen years."
Now, Drennen, with a quick start of full understanding, looked
anxiously at the old man. Sothern's face stood in clear relief against
the fire. There came no change into it; he looked gravely at Max, drew
a moment contemplatively at his pipe, and then in a voice grave and
steady answered:
"John Harper Drennen. . . . I remember the name. The papers were full
of it. But wasn't he reported to have died a long time ago?"
"A dodge as old as the hills," grunted Max. "And God knows it works
often enough, at that. No, he isn't dead and he is somewhere in this
corner of the Dominion. By Heaven!" his young voice rising with the
ambition in it, "if it's in my run of luck to bring him in I'll go up
for promotion in two days! And I'm going to get him!"
Sothern's smile, a little tense, seemed only the smile of age upon the
vaunting ambition of youth.
"I am not the man to doubt your ability to do pretty nearly anything
you set your mind and hand to, Max," he said after a little. And then,
"Isn't it a little strange that after all these years interest in John
Harper Drennen should awake?"
"Not so strange," replied Max. "The odd thing, perhaps, is that David
Drennen, the son, and the sort of man he seems to be, should have paid
off his father's obligation of forty thousand dollars just as soon as
he sold the Golden Girl to you people."
Sothern, offering no remark, looked merely casually interested. Max
went on.
"That's the first thing which began to stimulate dormant interest," he
said. "Queer, isn't it, that the most honest and unselfish and
altogether praiseworthy thing he has ever been known to do should
succeed chiefly in drawing attention to his father, so long thought
dead? We've had our eyes on him for pretty close to a year now. I'm
up a tree to know whether he knows his father is living, even."
"That's not all of the evidence you've got that John Harper Drennen is
alive, is it?" Sothern's voice asked quietly.
"Lord, no. That's not evidence at all. In fact, there isn't any
evidence; there's just a tip. There came a letter to the Chief in
Montreal. I got a copy of it. It said merely: 'John Harper Drennen,
wanted for embezzlement in New York, is in hiding in the North Woods
country. He is the father of David Drennen of MacLeod's Settlement.
Watch young Drennen and you'll find the thief.'"
When Max paused, leaning toward the fire for a burning splinter of wood
for his pipe, Sothern passed his hand swiftly across his eyes. As Max
straightened up the old man said:
"The letter might have said more. It doesn't give you a great deal to
work upon."
Max laughed.
"But it does. The letter wasn't signed, even, and was typewritten, so
you'd say it wasn't worth reading twice. And yet I know right now who
wrote it."
"Yes?"
"Yes." There was triumph unhidden in Max's voice, in his eyes turned
full upon Sothern's. "For I've been after that man for more than
seventeen months, the man who has cause to hate John Harper Drennen
like poison, the man who'd like to entangle both the father and son in
the mesh of the law. It's the man I'm going to get at the end of this
trail, a man calling himself Sefton. And when I get him he's going to
talk, he's going to identify John Harper Drennen, and I'm going to put
the two of them where they'll see the sun through the bars for more
years than is pleasant to look upon!"
Again there was silence and the calm smoking of pipes.
"Why do you tell me this, Max?" asked Sothern after a little.
Suddenly Max's hand shot out, resting upon Sothern's shoulder. Drennen
started, his hands shutting tight, as he waited breathlessly for the
words: "John Harper Drennen, you are my prisoner!" He fancied that he
saw Sothern's body shaken with a little tremor. The words which he
heard at last in Max's quiet voice were these:
"I tell you, Mr. Sothern, because I come pretty near the telling of
everything to you. Because for six years you have been more a father
to me than my own father ever was. Because everything that I am I owe
to you. You set my feet in the right path, and now that I am
succeeding, for by God, success is coming to me, I want you to know it!
I have never talked to you of the things which I have felt most. . . ."
For a moment he broke off; Drennen fancied his eyes glistened and that
he had choked on the simple words. "You know what I mean . . . you
don't think I'm a sentimental fool, do you?"
Sothern, his face white but his expression showing nothing, his voice
grave and calm, dropped his own hand gently upon the lieutenant's
shoulder.
"Max, my boy," he said simply, "I know you'll succeed. I've always
known that. But, old fellow, I think you've got the hardest work of
your life ahead of you. No, I don't think you are a sentimental fool.
We are just in the forests together, and the solitude and the starlight
up yonder and the bigness of the open night are working their wills
upon us. Just remember one thing, Max," and his voice grew a shade
sterner, "when the hard time comes don't let your heart-strings get
mixed up with your sworn duty. If you did I'd be ashamed of you, not
proud, my boy."
Drennen slipped away through the dark. He came to his bed under the
trees and went on, walking swiftly. For the first time in many long
months a new emotion was upon him, riding him hard. He forgot Ygerne
for the moment; forgot his own wrong and his own vengeance. He looked
at the stars and they seemed far away and dim; the shadows about him
were like blackness intensified into tangible things.
When at last he came back to his bed the fires were out; all the others
had gone to their rest. He fancied, however, that none of them slept.
He pictured each one, his own father, Kootanie George, Ernestine,
Lieutenant Max, lying wide awake, staring up into the stars, each one
busy with his own destiny. What pitiful pictures are projected into
the calm of the star-set skies from the wretched turmoil of fevered
brains!
"I must come to Sefton first!"
It was Drennen's last thought that night. His first thought in the dim
dawn was:
"I must come to Sefton first!"