REUNION
Sandy sat with his chin in his hands, his brooding, disconsolate eyes
fixed on the opposite shore of Thunder River.
“They aren’t coming tonight,” he finally exploded. “Not a sign of them.
We’ve been sitting here for hours just wasting our time. I’m beginning
to believe that Henderson lied about that Indian messenger. If Uncle
Walter and the mounted police were really coming, they ought to be here
now.”
“Don’t be so impatient, Sandy,” Dick laughed. “If you keep on worrying
like that, you’ll be a nervous wreck by the time they do get here. Of
course, they’re coming. If not tonight—tomorrow or the next day. I see
no reason to doubt Henderson’s statement.”
“Tomorrow or the next day!” groaned the other. “Mighty cheering, aren’t
you? If I actually thought they wouldn’t arrive before then, I’d cross
the river and go on to meet them.”
“You foolish fellow if you do that,” stated Toma, throwing a handful of
pebbles into the swiftly-flowing stream. “You easy pass by each other by
mistake an’ not know thing about it. Bye-’n’-bye you find you hit trail
for Fort Good Faith an’ factor an’ mounted police same time hit trail
close to mine. How you like that?”
“I wouldn’t like it,” responded Sandy, “and I haven’t the least
intention of pulling a crazy stunt like that. What I would do if I
crossed, would be to search for them along the river. You remember the
trouble we had in finding a place where the current wasn’t too swift for
a raft. It is only natural to suppose that they may be having the same
trouble.”
“True enough,” agreed Dick. “But eventually they’d be forced to come
down here. It’s the only safe crossing.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“Another thing, you can’t cross over without a raft,” Dick went on. “It
would be more difficult to build a raft on this side of the river than
on the other. The trees are all on the other side.”
“There’s plenty of driftwood,” Sandy pointed out.
“I think mebbe it good idea if we do build raft,” Toma suddenly spoke
up. “It save time for mounted police. First thing they have to do when
they come is make ready chop down trees. Mebbe pretty tired an’ no like
do that. Factor MacClaren him be glad when he find raft all ready—only
wait for him to cross.”
“You said a mouthful!” approved Sandy. “We can have one ready in two or
three hours. Then we’ll slip over to the other side and wait until they
come.”
Dick acquiesced willingly, not only because the suggestion seemed a good
one, but also because the work entailed would cause them to forget the
slow, monotonous passing of time. Sandy became cheerful again almost
immediately. He and Toma hurried away to select the logs from the large
piles of driftwood, while Dick sauntered over to the three ponies and
returned a moment later with an axe and a coil of rope.
When twilight descended, their task was nearly completed. Toma and Dick
were tying the last log in place when a fervid, reverberating halloo
sounded across the canyon. Dropping everything, the three boys darted to
their feet.
“Yih! Yip!” screamed Sandy. “Who’s there?”
“Mounted police!” came the answering shout. “Is that you, Sandy?”
Sandy’s hysterical reply took the form of a screech that might have been
heard for miles. Dick’s own contributing whoop was scarcely less
powerful.
“Coming over?” Sandy’s question stirred up another battery of echoes.
“No raft! Everybody safe?”
“Yes, we’re all here. Wait just a few minutes. Own raft almost finished.
Stand by, we’ll soon be there.”
Twenty minutes later they had made the crossing in safety and were
joyfully helped ashore by the three men, Corporal Richardson, Factor
MacClaren and Malemute Slade. Vocal confusion ensued. Everybody talked
at once. With a strangled cry, Sandy threw himself in the outspread arms
of Walter MacClaren. Malemute Slade and Corporal Richardson took turns
in pounding Dick and Toma on the back.
“Thank God, we got here in time,” Corporal Richardson declared
fervently. “We hardly expected to find you alive.”
“Why not?” asked Dick.
“Why not!” Corporal Richardson repeated Dick’s question sharply. “Why
not! Because every member of Henderson’s murderous gang followed you out
here. They’re here—right in this vicinity now. We’ve been right on the
jump ever since we heard the news.”
“What news?”
“Why—the news that they had followed you.”
“If you ain’t seen ’em, you’re liable to before long,” Malemute Slade
hinted darkly. “Did you fellers find the mine?”
“Yes, we found it,” answered Dick.
“Any good?”
“It’s a peach!”
“Funny Henderson didn’t take it away from you.”
“Why, he did,” shouted Sandy. “He took it away from us the very same day
we found it.”
“Well, that sure is tough luck. Never mind,” Malemute Slade patted
Sandy’s arm comfortingly, “mebbe we can get it back fer yuh. Mebbe we——”
“But we’ve already got it back,” Dick interrupted him.
“Got it back? What do yuh mean? See here, young feller—you’re not
spoofin’ me. I think not!”
Bit by bit the story came out. Sandy, Dick and even Toma took turns in
the telling. Eagerly, the three men gathered around them and listened,
often interrupting the narrator to ply him with questions. Often
Corporal Richardson, unable to follow the broken thread of the story’s
sequence, threw up his hands in despair:
“Hold on there, Dick! Not so fast! Wait a moment, Sandy, you forgot to
tell us what happened before that. Toma, why don’t you speak in Cree.
We’ll understand you better. You’re too excited to talk ’em English
tonight.”
It was so late when the tale was concluded, that by common consent the
party decided not to cross the river that night.
“It will be perfectly safe to leave the ponies on the other side,” said
Dick. “There’s plenty of grass where we have them picketed. I don’t
believe anything will come to disturb them.”
“We have our own pack-horses on this side,” laughed Factor MacClaren.
“We left them in charge of three half-breeds up there on the level
ground above the canyon. I thought it would be better not to make the
descent with the horses until we had looked around a bit.”
“Did you have much difficulty in following our trail?” Dick enquired.
“No, not very much. Malemute Slade is a good tracker and we found many
of your campfires. Once we picked up an old pair of moccasins that we
thought had been discarded by Sandy. They were small—about the size he
usually wears.”
The camp was astir early on the following morning. When Dick and Sandy
tumbled out of the blankets they had borrowed from Factor MacClaren, a
pan of bacon sizzled over the fire and the odor of strong black coffee
blended with the smell of spruce and balsam. Malemute Slade and Corporal
Richardson nodded a cheery greeting as the two young adventurers, still
rubbing their eyes, stumbled down to the river for an icy-cold plunge.
Shivering for a moment in anticipation, Dick raised his arms above his
head, darted for a few paces over the smooth white sand and shot
straight out into the gurgling current. Sandy hit the water almost
simultaneously. As the two boys came blowing to the surface, Dick made a
playful swipe at his chum’s head. Instinctively Sandy ducked.
“I’ll race you down to that big rock, you big, overgrown puppy,” he
called out mockingly. “I’m in my natural element now. Try to catch me!”
They plowed through the water. An expert swimmer, Sandy won the race by
a wide margin. He was sitting on the rock, feet dangling above the
surface of the stream, when Dick came puffing up. But instead of the
look of triumph on his face that Dick had expected, Sandy’s countenance
was distorted painfully.
“Why, Sandy—what’s the matter? Did you get cramps?”
The other did not reply. He was staring at Dick now with eyes that were
wide with horror. He slipped from the rock in a sort of panic and struck
out for shore. Hastily, Dick followed him.
Wading out, Dick approached the trembling figure.
“You’re frightened,” he declared. “Or are you sick, Sandy? Was the water
too cold for you?”
“Dick—I saw it! A body floated past! A man!”
“A what——” gasped Dick.
“I was crawling on the rock. I could see it plainly. I tried to call
out.”
Sandy’s voice choked. He reached out and gripped Dick by the arm. His
lips were blue from fright and cold.
“_It was Henderson!_” he whispered.
Perceiving that something was wrong, Malemute Slade and Corporal
Richardson hurried over.
“The boy’s sick!” exclaimed Slade. He turned his head: “MacClaren, fetch
a blanket. Hurry!”
A moment later they were chafing his limbs, and had wrapped him up in
heavy folds of the thick, woollen blanket.
“You boys ought to know better than this,” Corporal Richardson scolded
them. “Thunder River is a glacier-fed stream and its water is like ice.
Don’t go swimming in it again. No wonder Sandy got cramps.”
“He didn’t,” Dick protested. “He’s frightened. He said that he saw the
body of a man floating past. He thinks it was Henderson.”
“Bosh!” declared the policeman, pointing over at the river. “The current
is full of driftwood. A water-logged stump a short distance away might
easily be mistaken for the body of a man. What Sandy thought he saw and
what he actually saw—are two different things. Besides, Sandy is nervous
and unstrung as a result of his experiences over at the mine.”
“I did see it, I tell you!”
“There! There!” soothed Factor MacClaren. “You’ll be all right in a
moment. Please forget about it. We’re having breakfast now, Sandy. Toma
is pouring the coffee this very minute.”
With the possible exception of Dick and Malemute Slade, no one believed
that Sandy had seen anything out of the ordinary, notwithstanding the
young Scotch lad’s angry protestations. In the hurry and bustle of the
morning, the incident was soon forgotten. Sandy himself soon recovered
his usual cheerfulness, assisting Dick and Toma in the work of rafting
the supplies of the police party to the opposite side of the river.
The trek over to the mine commenced early in the afternoon. On this
occasion it was an imposing cavalcade that wound its way up through the
rocks to the wide plain that stretched away to the westward. In advance,
went the three half-breed packers with the ponies; behind them, Corporal
Richardson and Malemute Slade, while Factor MacClaren and the three
boys, chatting animatedly, brought up the rear.
“We feel a lot different than the last time we went over this route to
the plateau,” Dick remarked. “It was raining and we slept part of the
night in that thicket you see just ahead.”
“You must have had a terrible experience,” said the factor. “I doubt
very much whether I could have endured the nervous tension had I been
with you. Looking at it from a selfish viewpoint, I can see now how very
fortunate I was that that pesky inventory prevented me from coming
along. I might not have been as lucky as the three of you were.”
“It wasn’t good luck at all, Uncle Walter,” grinned Sandy.
“Well, what was it?”
“Courage and good management,” declared Sandy, as he winked slyly at
Dick.