"Tomlinson!" he gasped and then appeared to shake his astonishment from him. "Stop right where you are!"
Tomlinson said nothing but, springing forward, hurled himself into the undergrowth, which opened with a crash and then closed behind him, while the trooper, who glanced over his shoulder as if to see where the corporal was, wasted another moment. Then he, too, sped across the little gap in the forest, floundering through loose snow; and fell into a barberry bush, which held him fast. So far, fortune had favoured Tomlinson; but as he flitted through the bush looking for a little bye-trail which he knew was near, the corporal appeared suddenly from behind a tree and threw his carbine up.
"Hold on!" he said. "I've something to say to you."
A stray gleam of moonlight that shone down just there flung a patch of brightness athwart the snow, and Tomlinson could see the white face pressed down upon the carbine-stock, but he did not pull up. Instead, he leapt into the shadow, and in another second there was a pale flash, and a sharp detonation rang among the trunks. Then hewhipped behind a tree, and, seeing two men close behind him now, flung up his rifle. In his country a man who is shot at usually considers himself warranted in retaliating, and Tomlinson was accustomed to the rifle. In fact, he handled it much as an English sportsman does a gun, by the balance of it, and with an instinctive sense of direction which did not necessitate the aligning of the sights. The result of this was that as the butt came home to his shoulder the trooper dropped his carbine with a cry, and Tomlinson sprang away once more through the smoke. He might have got away altogether, but the corporal could shoot as well as he could, and a few seconds later the fugitive felt a stinging pain in one shoulder.
He staggered but recovered himself again, and running a few yards farther dropped into a thicket, and wriggled under it on his hands and knees. Then, while an unpleasant faintness crept over him, he felt for the long knife which the prospector uses for cutting up an occasional deer. It did not appear advisable to snap another cartridge into the rifle-breech just then, and the knife would prove equally serviceable if his pursuers crawled into the thicket after him. Prospector Tomlinson was, like most of the men who sojourn in that wilderness, a little primitive in his notions, and the troopers had fired on him.
One of them made a good deal of noise floundering through a belt of undergrowth just then, and only stopped when the corporal called to him.
"Where's that blame branch-trail?" he asked.
"It's right here," said the trooper. "I guess our man's lit out along it."
Time was of some consequence, and the corporal did not deem it advisable to stop and consider. A man floundering through the undergrowth would, he reasoned, be heard a long way off, while a bushman could proceed with very little noise along a beaten track. Thus, as he could hear nothing, it appeared very probable that Tomlinson hadtaken the latter. He and the trooper pushed on along it for awhile, but there was no sign of the prospector, and they came back moodily to where they had last seen him, and proceeded to search every thicket in the vicinity. They spent at least an hour over it, but there was still no appearance of Tomlinson, and at last the corporal sat down disgustedly upon the fallen fir.
"I feel 'most certain I plugged him once," he said. "What d'you let go your carbine for?"
The trooper held the weapon up in the moonlight and glanced at the grey smear down the barrel. Then he held up his left hand, which was stained with red.
"I'm not quite sure if the top of one of my fingers is on or not," he said. "Anyway, my mitten's full of blood."
The corporal nodded curtly. "I guess it will grow again," he said. "Well, it seems to me nobody could do anything more to-night. We'll pick his trail up soon as it's daylight." Then they shook the powdery snow from them and plodded on towards the outpost.
The stars were paling overhead, and the snow that cut against the sky was growing white again; but it was very cold among the pines where Leger was busy about the crackling fire. A column of smoke rose slowly straight up into the nipping air, and the blaze flickered redly upon the clustering trunks, while the sound of an unfrozen rapid broke faintly through the snapping of the fire. Leger, who felt his fingers stiffening, took up his axe, and the rhythmic thudding rang sharply in the stillness of the woods when Hetty appeared in the door of the shanty, shadowy and shapeless in the coarse blanket she had thrown about her shoulders. She shivered a little as she looked around her.
"It has been a bitter night—the cold woke me when the fire got low," she said. "Tomlinson must have felt it horribly. I wonder where he's getting his breakfast? You shouldn't have let him go."
Leger laughed and leaned upon his axe. "I couldn't have stopped him, and I don't think you need worry. The cold is scarcely likely to hurt him—he's used to it. He is probably three or four leagues away down the trail by now."
"That isn't very far."
"It's tolerably good travelling in this country. Besides, nobody except Sewell and Ingleby has the faintest notion that he was here."
Hetty appeared reflective. "I wasn't quite sure aboutthe corporal that night. He's too quiet and has eyes all over him. Still, I suppose Tomlinson has got away—of course, he must have done so. His running away would look very bad if they did get hold of him. Isn't that kettle boiling, Tom?"
Leger stooped above the fire, and then, straightening himself, suddenly stood still listening. He could hear the sound of the rapid, and nothing else for a moment or two, until a crackle of undergrowth came out of the gloom below. Then there was a tramp of footsteps coming up the trail, and Hetty turned to him sharply.
"Tom," she said, with a little gasp, "who can it be?"
Leger laid down the kettle he held in his hand. "The troopers, I'm afraid," he said.
The light was growing clearer, and they could see each other's faces. Hetty's was flushed and apprehensive, Leger's portentously quiet.
"They've come for Tomlinson," she said. "Tom, do you know why he threw Probyn in the creek?"
"I fancy I could guess. Tomlinson, however, never mentioned it."
"He wouldn't," and Hetty gasped again. "Tom, I'll never forgive you if you let the troopers know anything about him."
"I really don't think that was necessary," said Leger, with a faint, dry smile.
Hetty clenched one hand tight. "Oh," she said, "can't we run away?"
Leger turned and pointed to a shadowy figure that materialized out of the gloom among the trees below. There were others behind it, and the two stood still watching them as they came quickly up the trail. Then they stopped at a sharp word, and a man in a big fur-coat stepped forward. Hetty had no difficulty in recognizing him as Esmond.
"Are you willing to tell me where Prospector Tomlinson is? It would be the wisest thing," he said.
"I don't think that is quite the point," answered Leger quietly. "You see, I don't know."
"Then I'll ask you where he went when he left here last night?"
"You fancy he was here?"
Esmond made a little sign of impatience. "I should like to warn you that a good deal depends upon the way you answer me. You probably know that the person who hides a murderer or connives at his escape is liable to be tried as an accessory."
Leger stood silent a moment or two. It seemed rather more than probable that Esmond had only supposed it likely that Tomlinson had visited the bakery; but that did not greatly matter after all. His course was clear, and that was to allow the officer to believe as long as possible that Tomlinson was in the vicinity. Every minute gained would be worth a good deal to the fugitive.
"I scarcely think I need worry myself about that," he said. "You see, before you could charge me as an accessory you would have to prove that Tomlinson really killed Probyn. It's tolerably clear that you can't have a trial without a prisoner, and I don't mind admitting that Tomlinson isn't here."
Esmond smiled unpleasantly, and signed to one of the troopers, who went into the shanty. "He certainly isn't very far away. I have no doubt you could tell me where he would make for; but you do not seem to know that he was shot, and, we have reason to believe, badly wounded within a league of your house last night."
It was growing light now, and he saw the sudden horror in Hetty's eyes.
"If you have any control over your brother, Miss Leger, I think it would be wise for you to use it," he said. "You would not like him to get himself into trouble?"
Hetty straightened herself a little. "If he knew where Tomlinson was and told you, I'd be ashamed of him forever—but he doesn't," she said.
Esmond glanced at her sharply. She stood very straight, regarding him with a set, white face, and it was evident that she was resolute. Then he turned to Leger.
"Are you willing to expose your sister to a very serious charge?" he asked.
Again Leger stood silent, but when he glanced at her a little flash showed in Hetty's eyes.
"You daren't disgrace us both. Remember, it was all my fault," she said.
Then Leger turned to the officer. "I do not know where Tomlinson is. That is all I have to tell you."
Esmond raised his hand. "Then I arrest you both for concealing Prospector Tomlinson and contriving his escape. You will hand them over to Robertson at the outpost, Trooper Grieve, and then come on after us as fast as you can. I don't wish to submit either of you to any indignity, Leger, unless you are likely to make it necessary."
Leger's face turned crimson, but he made a little sign of comprehension. "We will make no attempt to get away."
Esmond signed to the trooper, who pointed somewhat shamefacedly to the shadowy path among the pines as he swung his carbine to the trail. Then Hetty and Leger moved on in front of him, while Esmond and the others vanished into the bush. It was almost daylight now, and the troopers spent some time tracing Tomlinson's footsteps between the trunks. They also found the thicket where he had flung himself down, but that, after all, told them very little, and both the bye-trail and the larger one were tramped too hard for his worn-out boots to leave any recognizable impression.
It was, however, evident that Tomlinson could have adopted only one of two courses. If he had escaped uninjured he would certainly head for the settlements along the beaten trail, down which a trooper had been sent already; but no wounded man could face that arduous journey, and assuming that the corporal's shot had taken effect, he would, as a matter of course, be lurking somewhere in the valley. In that case the trailing of him could only be a question of a day or two, for even if he could face the bitter frost in the open he must have food, and there would be no difficulty in tracing the footsteps of any one who brought it to him. The one question was whether Tomlinson was badly hurt, and as the corporal, who fancied so, could not be quite sure, Esmond pushed on southwards along the trail. If Tomlinson had not headed in that direction he was in the valley, and, if so, he certainly could not get away.
As a matter of fact, he was just then lying weak from loss of blood in a little, decrepit shanty on an abandoned claim. He had contrived to reach one of the miners' dwellings late the previous night, though he was never quite sure how he accomplished it, and fell in across the threshold when its astonished owner opened the door. The man, however, kept his head, and within an hour Tomlinson was carried to the claim in one of the more distant gorges, where it appeared a little less likely that Esmond would lay hands on him. Now he was huddled half-sensible, in his blanket upon a pile of cedar twigs, with Ingleby and a young American, who had just dug out a carbine-bullet which had badly smashed his shoulder-blade, sitting by his side. Ingleby did not know whether his companion was a qualified surgeon; but he had, at least, contrived to cut out the bullet and stanch the wound. He appeared a trifle anxious about his patient.
"The shock would have dropped a man raised in the cities right off, but I think we'll pull him round," he said. "Still, it's not going to be done in a day or two."
The fact was very evident, and Ingleby nodded. "Howlong do you think it will be before he can walk again?" he said.
"A month, anyway, and quite likely six weeks; that is, before you could let him start out on the trail. I don't quite know what we're going to do with him in the meanwhile."
Tomlinson, who appeared to understand him, looked up with his face awry.
"You're not going to do anything," he said half-coherently. "I'll give myself up. I can't stay here and make trouble for the boys."
"You go to sleep!" said the other man severely, and made a little sign to Ingleby, who sat silent for a minute or two after Tomlinson sank back again on the twigs.
"That's just the point," he said. "The boys don't mean to let the police have him?"
"No," and Ingleby's manner suggested that the subject was not worth discussion. "They wouldn't think of it for a minute. I'd have nothing more to do with them if they did."
The American nodded. "Well," he said, "I can pull the man round, but I'm not going to answer for what will happen if the troopers get hold of him. He's tough, but he wants looking after, and there's no one at the outpost knows more than enough to pull a stone out of a cayuse's hoof."
"You can take out a bullet, anyway," said Ingleby suggestively.
"Oh yes. I'd have had quite a nice practice by this time if it had been convenient for me to stay in Connecticut. As it happened, it wasn't."
Ingleby looked at him steadily. "Tomlinson," he said, "is a friend of mine, and that, of course, implies an obligation. You, so far as I know, have had very little to do with him, and it seems only reasonable to warn you thatyou may get yourself into serious trouble by looking after him. The law is generally carried out in our country."
The American laughed. "I can take my chances. I'm not going back on a sick man, anyway."
They said nothing more for awhile until a man who had apparently been running came in.
"Where's Sewell?" he gasped.
"I don't know," said Ingleby. "He wasn't at home this morning. Most likely he's looking for a deer."
"Then I guess you'll have to do. Esmond has trailed Tomlinson to the bakery. He has got Hetty and Tom Leger at the outpost now."
Ingleby rose suddenly to his feet. "You're quite sure?"
"Well," said the other, "I guess I ought to be. I met them. Trooper Grieve didn't stop their talking, and they told me. Esmond tried to bluff where Tomlinson was out of them, and they're to stand in with him as accessories."
It was evident to Ingleby that since Sewell was away a heavy responsibility devolved upon him as a friend of Tomlinson and Leger. He was expected to do something, and, as usual, he did the obvious thing without counting what it would cost him.
"Where is Esmond?" he asked.
"Hitting the trail to the settlements all he's worth," said the other man.
"Then go round and let the boys know what you have told me. They can meet outside Ransome's shanty. The dinner-hour will do. I'll be there to meet them."
The man went out, and at the time appointed Ingleby stood outside a little hut of bark and logs with a crowd of bronze-faced men about him. They were somewhat silent, but their manner was quietly resolute. It suggested that their minds were made up and that they were only waiting for a leader in whom they had confidence. Ingleby had gained their liking, but he was young, and they were not quite sure whether he would be the man or whetherthey must choose another. In the meanwhile they were willing to give him a hearing. It was evident that he was equal to the occasion when he stepped forward and looked at them with steady eyes.
"Boys," he said, "do any of you believe Tomlinson killed Trooper Probyn?"
There was a general murmur of dissent, and Ingleby made a little sign of concurrence. "Are you willing to let the troopers have him? You must remember that the thing looks bad against him, and he will not be tried by you."
The murmurs were articulate now, and it was very clear that not a man there had the least intention of giving up Tomlinson.
"Then it should be quite plain that you will have to keep the troopers from him. It is only a question of a day or two at the longest before they trail him. They may do it to-night. Esmond will very soon find out that he isn't pushing on in front of him for the settlements."
A big man stood forward, and glanced at the rest. "There's not a trooper in this valley going to lay hands on Tomlinson."
Again the murmurs rose portentously, and Ingleby smiled.
"Well," he said, "since the trouble can't be shuffled off, we may as well face it now. We have got to make a stand and maintain it until Esmond finds he has to humour us. He has Leger and his sister in the outpost. Do you know any reason why we shouldn't take them out?"
"I guess not," said the man who had spoken already. "Still, if there's any shooting, two or three of us are going to smell trouble as well as Tomlinson."
"There will not be any," said Ingleby. "Esmond has only two men at the outpost. Nobody wants to hurt them. The thing can be done without it. In fact, that's essential. I want three or four determined men."
They were forthcoming, but one of the rest asked a question.
"Have you figured what's going to happen when Esmond comes back?" he said.
"I have," said Ingleby. "He will have a handful of tolerably active men under his orders then, but only a handful, after all. Now, the outpost's outside the cañon, and there's a spot where a log barricade would effectively block the trail. The troopers will have to be kept outside it until we can arrive at a compromise. Esmond will probably make it. It would be two months, anyway, before he could get more troopers in, and if there's another heavy snowfall it mightn't be done till spring."
None of those who listened could find fault with the scheme. It was evidently workable, and they had already decided that Tomlinson was not to be given up at any cost. That, as Ingleby had pointed out, would necessarily involve them in difficulties with the police. There was thus very little further discussion, and the men went back, a trifle thoughtfully, to their work until the evening.
It seemed to most of them a long while coming, and to none of them slower than it did to Hetty Leger, who sat with her brother in a very little, log-walled room at the outpost as dusk was closing down. Tom Leger, glancing at her as she sat huddled in a chair by the window, fancied that she was crying.
"Why did we come here, Tom?" she said. "Everything has gone wrong since we left Vancouver."
"The outlook certainly isn't very cheerful just now," said Leger, with a rueful smile. "Still, after all, you made a good many dollars at the bakery, and my claim is doing well. Ingleby will see that while I'm kept here the work is carried on. One can put up with a good deal of inconvenience when he's washing out gold-dust."
"Dollars!" said Hetty. "And gold-dust! Is there nothing else worth having?"
"Well," said Leger drily, "when you have no prospect of getting it, it's as well to content oneself with dollars. If I remember rightly you used to think a good deal of a shilling in England."
Hetty glanced at him sharply with hazy eyes. "What do you mean by—no prospect of getting it?"
"I don't quite know. You suggested the notion. Anyway, I scarcely think Esmond can make out very much of a case against us. He doesn't really know that Tomlinson was at the bakery."
"It isn't that that's worrying me. It's—everything," said Hetty.
"I don't think you need cry over Tomlinson. The boys will take care of him."
"I wasn't crying about Tomlinson. In fact, I'm not sure I was crying at all. Still, you see, it was all my fault."
Leger smiled whimsically. "Well," he said, "I scarcely think that should afford you any great satisfaction, though it almost seems to do so. No doubt it's part of a girl's nature to make trouble of the kind."
Hetty closed one hand. "I'm going to be angry in a minute. That's not the way to talk to any one who's feeling—what I am just now."
Leger rose and patted her shoulder. "I'd sooner see you raging than looking as you do. Shake the mood off, Hetty. It isn't in the least like you."
Hetty said nothing but turned from him and looked out of the little window. A young trooper was leaning over the rude balustrade of the veranda, and beyond him the sombre pines rolled down the darkening valley. Night had not quite fallen yet, though a half-moon that showed red and frosty was growing brighter above the white shoulder of a hill. Another trooper was apparently busy in the adjoining room, for they could hear his footsteps as he moved, but that was the only sound. Then a face rose suddenly into sight above the floor of the veranda wherethe trooper could not see it. It was a horrible, grey face, and Hetty shrank back, while her chair grated harshly on the floor. In another moment Tom Leger's hand closed tightly on her arm.
"Keep still!" he said. "It's a masked man. I fancy the boys have come for us."
Hetty looked again, and saw that a strip of deer-hide with holes cut in it was tied across the face. Then she became sensible that there was something suggestively familiar in the attitude of the man who, moving noiselessly, raised himself erect and stood watching the trooper, whose back was towards him.
"Oh," she gasped, "it's Walter!"
"Be quiet!" said Leger, and the grasp upon her arm grew tighter.
Another face appeared between the rails, but the first man had already swung one leg over them, and in another moment he sprang forward along the veranda. The trooper heard him and swung round, but even as he did so the newcomer flung his arms about him and they reeled together down the little stairway. Then the second trooper flung open the door, but as he ran out of it two or three men who had apparently crept into the veranda grappled with him, and Hetty could hear them tumbling up and down the adjoining room. Then there was a brief silence until somebody burst open the door of the room in which she was shut. A masked man who strode in grasped her shoulder, and she struggled vainly as he drew her towards the door.
"I won't go. It will only get you into worse trouble," she said.
The man laughed. "If I had to face it all my life, do you think I would leave you here?"
Hetty recognized the tension in his voice, and something that seemed to answer it thrilled in her; but she still protested, and the man, who flung an arm about her waist,swung her off her feet. He did not let her go until he set her down, flushed and gasping, among the pines outside.
Then she laughed. "I'm not sure you could have done that in England, Walter."
"No," said Ingleby. "Anyway, you wouldn't have let me, but we can't stop to talk now. Esmond may come back at any time, and there is a good deal to do." He turned from her suddenly. "You have got those fellows' carbines?"
"Oh yes," said another man. "We'd better bring along their cartridges and heave them in the river too. We haven't hurt either of them much, considering."
Ingleby signed to the rest, though he still held Hetty's arm. "Now," he said, "the sooner we light out of this the better it will be for everybody."
The moon was high above the white peaks, and a stinging frost was in the air, when Ingleby and Leger sat a little apart from a snapping fire behind a great redwood trunk that had been felled across the trail in the constricted entrance to the cañon. It was wide of girth, and lay supported on the stumps of several splintered branches breast-high above the soil, with the rest of its spreading limbs piled about it in tremendous ruin. On the side where the fire was some of them had been hewn away, and a handful of men lounged smoking in the hollow between them and the trunk. Another man stood upon the tree, apparently looking down the valley, with his figure cutting blackly against the blueness of the night.
Sewell leaned against a shattered branch a few feet away from Ingleby, gazing about him reflectively. He noticed that the great butt of the fir was jammed against the slope of rock that ran up overhead, too steep almost for the snow to rest upon it, and that the top of the tree was in the river some twenty yards away. The stream frothed and roared about it in a wild white rapid, though long spears of crackling ice stretched out behind the boulders, and there was a tremendous wall of rock on the farther side. It was absolutely unscalable, and from the crest of it ranks of clinging pines rolled backwards up a slope that was almost as steep.
It was evident that nobody coming from the police outpost or the commissioner's dwelling could approach the fallen tree except by the trail in front, and on that side the branches formed an entanglement an agile man would have some difficulty in scrambling through, even if nobody desired to prevent him, while two or three of the men beside the fire had rifles with them. The rest had axes. Sewell, who noticed all this, glanced towards them thoughtfully. He could not see their faces, but their silence had its significance, and there was a vague suggestion of resolution in their attitudes. Most of them were men of singularly unyielding temperament, who had grappled with hard rock and primeval forest from their youth up.
"It is a tolerably strong position, and it's the strength of it that particularly pleases me," he said. "If there were any prospect of his getting in Esmond would no doubt try it. As it is, he will probably find it advisable to stop outside and compromise."
"I'm glad you're satisfied," said Leger. "Still, it's a little unfortunate you were not here this morning. In that case we might have found some other means of getting over the difficulty, though I'm not sure that there was any."
Ingleby glanced sharply at Leger. His face was clear in the moonlight, and it was expressionless, but his tone had been suggestively dry, and for just a moment an unpleasant fancy flashed upon Ingleby. It was certainly unfortunate that Sewell, whom everybody looked to for guidance, had been away that day, and the fact might have had significance for any one who doubted him. Ingleby, however, had unshaken confidence in the man and thrust the thought from him. Sewell smiled as he turned to Leger.
"I was looking for a deer," he said. "Anyway, you had Ingleby."
"Ingleby," said Leger, "is usually where he's wanted. Some men have that habit. It's a useful one, though I'mafraid I haven't acquired it. In fact, I fancy I'm rather like Trooper Probyn. He was addicted to turning up just when it would have been better for everybody if he had stayed away."
He turned from them somewhat abruptly and strolled towards the men about the fire, while Sewell looked thoughtful as he filled his pipe.
"Leger doesn't appear to be in a particularly pleasant mood, but he's right in one respect," he said. "It would have been a good deal better if he and Hetty had been anywhere else when Esmond turned up at the bakery. Of course, they couldn't help it, but the result of it is going to be serious. It is not exactly convenient that the thing should have happened now."
Ingleby made a gesture of comprehension as he glanced towards the men about the fire. Their big axes gleamed suggestively, and the rifle of the man upon the tree twinkled coldly where the moonlight rested on the line of barrel.
"It's all of it unfortunate," he said deprecatingly. "I suppose I'm responsible—but I don't quite see what else anybody could have expected me to do. I couldn't leave Hetty in Esmond's hands. It was out of the question. The police wouldn't have much difficulty in making her out an accessory."
Sewell smiled. "That was all that occurred to you?"
"Yes," said Ingleby. "I think so. I don't seem to remember anything else. Anyway, it was sufficient."
He made a little forceful gesture which suggested even more plainly than what he said that the thought of leaving Hetty exposed to any peril was intolerable.
"And you inconsequently decided to put up a bluff of this kind on the British nation because Esmond might involve in difficulties a girl with whom you are not in love. I'm presuming you are not in love with her?"
Ingleby seemed a trifle disconcerted. "No," he said sharply. "Of course I'm not. What made you suggest it?"
Sewell laughed. "Well," he said, "for one thing, if you had been in love with her, you could scarcely have done anything that would have made the fact clearer."
There was silence for a minute or two, and Ingleby leaned upon the tree with his thoughts in confusion. He was not in love with Hetty Leger, but it was certainly a fact that her arrest had filled him with an almost unaccountable consternation. He also remembered the curious little laugh with which she had clung to him, and that it had stirred him as no trifling favour Grace Coulthurst had ever shown him had done. The commissioner's daughter had, however, certainly never leaned upon his shoulder with her arms about him, though he had on one occasion, when she was half-frozen, practically carried her into her father's dwelling. The thought of it was, in a curious fashion, almost distasteful, as well as preposterous. His regard for her was largely that of a devotee, an æsthetic respect which would have made any display of purely human proclivities on the part of the goddess a trifle disconcerting.
There are men like Ingleby whose life is, partly from inclination and partly from force of circumstances, in some respects one of puritanical simplicity, especially in the back blocks of England's colonies; and, startled by Sewell's suggestion, he tried to reason with himself as he leaned against the tree. He remembered now how he had thrilled to the girl's touch as, half-crying and half-laughing, she had rested in his arms a few hours ago, and he could not admit the almost unpleasant explanation that this was because they were man and woman. Still, he had felt her heart beating upon his breast, and something in his nature had, it seemed to him, awakened and throbbed in response to it. It was, he felt, not sensual passion; it was not love, since it was Grace Coulthurst he loved; and his confusion grew more confounded as he vainly strove to classify it. Ingleby, as one who did the obvious thing, and was usually doing something unless he was asleep, had seldom beenled into any attempt to unravel the complexities of human thought and emotion. Men of his temperament are as a rule too busy for anything of the kind. It is material facts that interest them, and their achievements are usually apparent and substantial, written in that country on hard rock and forest or on the orchards and wheatfields that smile where the wilderness has been.
"Well?" said Sewell at length.
Ingleby made a little gesture. "The thing is done. Why I did it doesn't, after all, greatly matter. We have the results of it to face just now."
"Precisely! That's why I'm pleased you chose a very convenient spot to chop the tree in. There's one of them becoming apparent already."
He pointed across the fallen log, and the man who stood upon it made a little sign. The tree was in the shadow, but beyond it lay a narrow strip of moonlit snow, upon which the dusky pines closed in again. A man moved out into the strip, walking cautiously, and carrying a carbine. He stopped abruptly, dropping the butt of it with a little thud, and, turning his head, he apparently glanced at somebody behind him.
"They've chopped a big tree right across the trail," he said.
His voice rang clearly through the nipping air, and Ingleby almost envied him as he stood unconcernedly still, a dusky, motionless object, with a blacker shadow projected in front of him on the gleaming snow. He, at least, had no responsibility, and was there to do what he was bidden, while the law would hold him guiltless. The brief and decisive attempt on the outpost had scarcely given Ingleby cause for thought, but it was different now. There was nothing exhilarating in standing still and wondering what course the police would take, while other men have felt misgivings when brought face to face with constituted authority with arms in its hand.
Sewell in the meanwhile moved quietly towards the fire.
"You will leave this thing to me, boys," he said. "Above all, keep your hands off those rifles. It's a bluff we're putting up."
By this time several other men had moved out upon the strip of snow, and one who came up from behind walked past them and stopped not far from the tree. Ingleby could see his face in the moonlight, and recognized him as Esmond. He looked up at the man who, though he had handed his rifle to a comrade, still stood upon the log regarding him quietly.
"Well," he said, "what are you doing there?"
"Seeing that nobody gets over," was the uncompromising answer.
Esmond laughed, as though he had partly expected this. "There are no doubt more of you behind there. If you have one, I would prefer to talk to your recognized leader."
Sewell sprang up upon the tree. "I think I can venture to claim my comrades' confidence," he said. "In any case, I am quite willing to accept the responsibility for anything that has been done."
"You may be asked to remember that," said Esmond drily. "Do you mind explaining why you felled this tree?"
"I think the man who answered you already made that clear. To prevent anybody's getting over. Once you recognize that it would be difficult to do it without our permission, we'll go a little further."
"Then you are deliberately placing obstacles in the way of the police carrying out their duty? I warn you that it may turn out a serious matter."
Sewell laughed. "I'm not sure the question is a very happy one. It is rather too suggestive of Monday morning in England. Still, I suppose what we mean to do amounts to that, although we will have pleasure in permitting you to enter the valley when you wish, on one or two perfectly reasonable conditions."
"It remains to be seen whether you can keep us out." Esmond raised his voice a trifle. "Climb up on that log, Trooper Grieve, and let me know who Prospector Sewell has with him," he said. "You have authority to fire on anybody who tries to prevent you."
It seemed to Ingleby that Esmond had displayed a good deal of tact. He was aware that in an affair of the kind the right start counts for a good deal, and that if the miners permitted the trooper to survey their position it might lead to an unwished-for change in their attitude. If they did not, it would make them the aggressors, and there was the further difficulty that they would probably shrink from offering violence to a single man.
"The trooper must not be hurt, boys, but he must not get up on the log," he said, and turned to Sewell with a little gesture of deprecation.
Sewell nodded. "You're right—if we can manage it," he said.
In the meanwhile the young trooper was walking towards the barrier. Ingleby surmised that he had no great liking for his task, but beyond the fact that he was holding himself unusually straight, and looking steadfastly in front of him, he showed no sign of it. The moonlight was on his face, and it was almost expressionless.
"Stop right where you are," said one of the miners sharply. "I guess you'd better!"
The trooper did not stop, nor did he answer. If he had his misgivings as a human being, he was also a part of the great system by which his nation's work is done and its prestige maintained; and he went on with stiff, measured strides which suggested the movements of an automaton. A handful of men behind the log, and another handful standing in the moonlight on the gleaming snow, stood silently watching him, and most of them felt an almost unpleasant sense of tension.
Then he came to the branches, and stopped a moment,as though uncertain what to do. His carbine presented the difficulty, since to scramble over that tangle of branches and twigs both hands would be necessary. Then he slung it behind him, and every one could hear the sharp snap of the clip-hook through the bitter air. After that there was a crash as he plunged into a maze of dusky needles, and he was gasping when he emerged again. He was, however, still coming on, crawling over branches, swinging himself under some of them, while two miners waited for him, intent and strung up, behind the log. When he reached it the top of the bark was almost level with his head, and, throwing an arm upon it, he essayed to draw himself up. At the same moment two pairs of sinewy hands seized his shoulders, and lifted him from his feet. Then there was a shout and a swing, and he was hurled backwards like a stone. He broke through the shadowy needles amidst a crash of snapped-off twigs, and there was a confused floundering in the darkness below. Then a head rose out of it, and the trooper stood straight in the moonlight upon the fork of a great limb, looking back towards his officer now.
"Am I to try again, sir?" he asked.
There was a burst of approving laughter from the miners, and the trooper sprang down from the branch and moved towards his comrades when Esmond made a sign, while a man who had been speaking apart with the latter suddenly stepped forward.
"It's the major," said one of the miners. "Give him a show. Come right along, sir. Nobody going to hurt you!"
Coulthurst made a little gesture with a lifted hand, and his remarks were brief.
"You'll gain nothing by making fools of yourselves, my men," he said. "The law is a good deal too strong for you. Now, try to tell me sensibly what is worrying you, and if it comes within my business I'll see what I can do."
Sewell stood up upon the log, and took off his big,shapeless hat. There was silence for a moment while the major looked at him.
"Mr. Sewell," he said gravely, "I'm sorry to see you here."
"I'm a little sorry myself, sir," said Sewell. "Still, that's not quite the point, and if you will listen for a minute or two I will try to make our views clear. They are really not unreasonable. In the first place we want Tomlinson tried here by his peers, which, although a little unusual, could, I think, be done. If Captain Esmond can prove him guilty, we will give him up, and he can get a regular court to confirm the verdict. Then we ask immunity for the men who held up the outpost, and one or two trifling modifications of the mining regulations which are probably within the discretion afforded you by your commission."
"It seems to me," said Coulthurst drily, "that you are asking a good deal. More, in fact, than you are likely to get. You insist on all that?"
"We feel compelled to do so, sir."
Coulthurst made a little sign and moved back to where Esmond stood. They conferred together, and the major spoke again.
"Captain Esmond is willing to promise that if you go home straightway no proceedings will be taken against any man for his share in this night's work. He will promise you nothing further, and I may say that in this I quite concur with him. I must warn you that what you are doing is a very serious thing."
"Then," said Sewell quietly, "there is nothing more to be said. We have strength enough effectively to prevent Captain Esmond from going any further up the valley. It would be better for everybody if he did not compel us to make use of it."
Esmond, who had been unusually patient hitherto, apparently lost his self-command.
"We will endeavour to whip the insolence out of you,"he said. "By the time the thing is settled your leaders will be exceptionally sorry for themselves."
He drew back a little with the major, and they appeared to be talking earnestly for a space. It seemed to Ingleby that Esmond wished to chance an attack; but perhaps the troopers were worn-out, or the major recognized the strength of the miners' position, for at last he made a little sign, and the men moved back silently into the shadow of the pines. Then the tension slackened, and Ingleby shivered a little as he strode towards the fire.
"It's horribly cold, though I never felt it until a minute or two ago," he said. "Well, I suppose we are in for it now!"
Sewell laughed in a curious fashion. "I almost think so. Captain Esmond is not a very imposing personage in himself, but he stands for a good deal, you see. Still, it's tolerably evident that he will not trouble us any more to-night."
A few minutes later another miner climbed up on the log, and the rest lay down, rolled in their blankets, about the crackling fire.
Two months passed almost uneventfully after the felling of the tree, for Esmond found no means of forcing the entrance to the valley. The cañon furnished the only road to it, and he found a band of determined men ready to dispute his passage each time he appeared before the tree. A company of sappers could scarcely have raised them a more efficient defense than the one they had made at the cost of an hour's labour with the axe, and Esmond reluctantly recognized that it was practically unassailable by the trifling force at his command. An attempt to carry it by assault could only result in his handful of men being swept away, and strategy proved as useless, for when the troopers floundered upstream at night through the crackling ice-cake in the slacker flow of the rapid they came to a furious rush of water, and with difficulty gained the bank again. An attempt to crawl up to the barrier in the darkness resulted as unsuccessfully, for a man leapt up upon the log with a blazing brand almost as they left the shelter of the pines.
The getting in was also only half the difficulty, for even if he passed the barrier the miners could muster a score of men for every one he had. It was thus apparently useless to provoke actual hostilities. The cards were evidently in Sewell's hand, and it was clear that he recognized this and had his men in perfect command. Not a shot had been fired—indeed, no miner had actually been seen with arifle—and the only act of overt violence was the hurling of Trooper Grieve from the log. In the meanwhile Esmond had written to the Provincial authorities in Victoria, but two different troopers who set out with his letters came back again. The snowfall had been abnormal, and, though they were hard men, they admitted that to force a way through the passes was beyond their ability. As one result of this, Grace Coulthurst had abandoned all idea of going to Vancouver.
In the meanwhile work was being carried on slowly and painfully in the valley, where the men thawed the soil with great fires on the shallow claims and postponed the washing until the ice should melt again. Between whiles they mounted guard behind the log, and slept when they could. They were as far from submission as ever, but the tension had slackened long ago, and there was nothing but the breastwork to show that imperial authority was being quietly set at nought in the Green River valley. It was merely a question whose provisions would hold out longest now; but the question was a vitally important one and one night three or four of the leaders sat discussing it in Sewell's shanty.
"So far, everything has gone very much as one could expect," he said. "The trouble will naturally come in the spring when Esmond can bring more troopers in. That is, of course, unless we can make terms before then, which is, I fancy, quite probable."
"And if we can't?" asked the American who had attended to Tomlinson. "That police captain shows very little sign of backing down."
"Then we'll have to bring over the men from Westerhouse," said Ingleby. "I think they'll come, and, because it will not be difficult to block out Slavin, who is in command of the police there, if he comes along after them, the position will be much the same as before."
He looked at Sewell, who, however, did not appear to have heard him.
"What's going to stop the other people from sending a whole regiment along?" asked the American.
"The British official character," said Sewell drily. "It wouldn't look well, you see, and it would hurt somebody's dignity to admit that it was necessary,—that is, of course, so long as we play our cards cleverly. This trouble would be regarded from the official point of view as merely a little temporary friction which could be got over if handled tactfully. Indeed, I shouldn't wonder if Esmond is quietly reprimanded for causing it; but one has to remember that if you persist in making our rulers see what they don't wish to, they're apt to display an activity that's likely to prove as unpleasant to men in our position as it is unusual. They don't want to move if they can help it, but somebody has to smart for it if they're forced to."
"That's quite right," said another man. "I remember Riel, and they'd have let him down again if he'd known enough not to aggravate them by killing that man at Fort Garry. Well, I guess we've no use for that while Esmond keeps his head, and the one question is what we're going to eat. It's quite certain I can't live on cedar bark. We want grub, and we've got to get it. There are men right here who could break a trail to anywhere."
"If we try the usual one we'll only clear it for Esmond to bring troopers in," said Ingleby.
That was evident to everybody, and there was silence until Sewell spoke again.
"I've been well up the south fork of the river looking for deer," he said. "The valley's level, and I didn't strike a rapid, while with the snow on the river one could keep clear of the timber. The slight thaw we had should make a good crust for travelling, and it wouldn't be much trouble to make a few jumper-sleds for the provisions. The difficulty is that whoever went would have to cross the dividefrom headwater and pick up the usual trail on the other side."
"Nobody has ever been over," said another man. "I've no use for crawling up precipices with a big flour-bag on my back."
"That might be because nobody has ever tried," said Sewell. "One advantage in going that way is that Esmond wouldn't know you had either gone out or come back again. We don't want to make a road for him." Then he turned to the American. "How's Tomlinson to-night?"
"Going very slow. The frost's against him. Wound won't heal, and half-rotten pork and bread isn't quite the thing to feed a sick man. He should have been on his feet quite a while ago."
There was a brief discussion, and as the result of it twenty men, of whom Ingleby was one, were fixed upon to make the attempt. They were all of them willing, and started two days later before the stars had paled, while every man in the valley, except those on guard behind the log, assembled to see them go, though Ingleby did not know that Hetty Leger stood a little apart from them watching the shadowy figures melt into the gloom beneath the pines. It was, everybody knew, by no means certain that all of them would come back again.
They made their way up-river, dragging a few rude sledges with them, and they crossed the big divide in the face of one of the blinding snowstorms that rage on the higher ranges most of the winter. That cost them a week of tremendous labour; and then they floundered through tangled muskegs, where the stunted pines that grew in summer out of quaggy mire had been reaped and laid in rows by the Arctic winds. Their branches were strewn about them, and the men smashed a way through the horrible maze, making, with infinite pains, scarcely a league a day. Still, the muskegs were left behind, and the ground was clearer in a bigbrûléewhere fire had licked up undergrowth and branches and the great trunks rose gauntly, charred and tottering columns. There they made as much as four leagues in a day through ashes and dusty snow, and at last came out on the trail to the settlement, dragging with them one man whose feet were frost-bitten. Nobody had crossed the divide before; but that was probably because nobody had hitherto been driven by necessity into trying, and now, as usually happens in that country, the thing attempted had been done.
The settlement was not an especially cheerful spot, consisting as it did of three or four log-houses roofed with cedar shingles which their owners had split, a store, and a frame hotel covered in with galvanized iron, though slabs of bark had been largely used as well. They, however, rested there several days, and they needed it, while the hearts of most of them sank a trifle at the contemplation of the journey home. They had set out light, but the store was crammed with provisions, which the freighter, who had somehow brought them there, had abandoned all hope of taking farther. It was evident they must each go back with a load which a man unaccustomed to the packing necessary in that country could scarcely carry a mile, and the hardiest prospector among them shrank from crossing the divide with such a burden. The thing, however, had to be done, and on the night before their departure they were arranging their packs in the store when the man who kept it pointed to a pile of bags and cases in a corner.
"That's the police lot, and I guess they'll want the grub," he said. "I can't quite figure why none of them have come in for it, but you could strike them for transport on anything you took along."
The reason Esmond had not sent down to inquire about his stores was, of course, quite plain to the miners; but nobody in that settlement knew which way they had reached it or what had happened in the Green River valley, and Sewell laughed.
"I am not," he said, "a freight-ox or a dromedary, and the rest of us have already got a good deal more than any one could reasonably expect them to carry."
The storekeeper glanced at a stout deal box. "Well," he said, "I guess there's not much more than twelve pounds in there, and it's for the major—tea and coffee and some special fixings from Vancouver. If he don't get it, he and Miss Coulthurst will come right down to drinking water. The freighter couldn't take more than a half-case of whisky in for him last time, and I guess that's not going to last the Gold Commissioner long."
Ingleby, who was acquainted with the major's habits, surmised that this was very probable, but it appeared of much less consequence than the fact that Grace might also have to do without even the few small comforts it had hitherto been possible to bring into the Green River country. He no longer remembered the galling of the pack-straps or the tremendous struggle over the big divide, but laid his hand upon the box.
"We'll manage this one, anyway," he said. "I'll take it along with me."
Then, turning at the sound of a step, he saw that Sewell, who had followed apparently with the same purpose, was looking at him.
"Well," he said, "what do you want?"
"You can't take that case," said Sewell. "My pack's lighter."
Ingleby was a trifle astonished. "I was first," he said. "Is there any special reason why you should have it instead of me?"
Sewell laughed, though his tone was not quite his usual one.
"No," he said. "If one must be candid, I scarcely think there is."
It had never occurred to Ingleby that his comrade might have set himself to gain Miss Coulthurst's favour and in ameasure succeeded. He would have thought the notion preposterous in view of Sewell's opinions, and he smiled good-humouredly.
"It really doesn't matter. I wouldn't have let you have it, anyway," he said, and drew the storekeeper aside.
They started at daybreak next morning, and before they had gone a league Ingleby found that the extra twelve pounds made his burden almost insupportable. Still, he set his lips and bore it, taking a grim pleasure in the nip of the straps that galled his shoulders as he remembered for whom he was carrying the box. They were raw, and he was worn-out when the men made camp beneath a towering fir as the coppery sun went down, but it was very much worse on the morrow when he rose with aching limbs from the frozen soil to start again. Somehow he kept his place with the others throughout that weary day and the ones that dragged by after it, though when he remembered them afterwards the blurred pictures his fancy called up were like an evil dream of fatigue and pain.
They sank ankle-deep in ashes in thebrûlée, rent their limbs and garments smashing through the muskeg, melted the snow with their camp-fires by lakes and streams whose shores even the wandering prospector's foot had scarcely trodden, and slept, or lay awake shivering, with boots in the embers and half-frozen bodies radiating like spokes from the hub of crackling fire, while the smoke, which was sharp with the sting of the resin, curled about them. Ingleby's shoulders bled daily and troubled him seriously in the frost at night, a seam of his boot had fretted a raw place across his foot, and in the bitter mornings the cold struck deep and keen. Twelve pounds more count for a good deal when the burden is already all that its bearer is fit to carry, and the effort drained the store of heat in his worn-out body and left nothing for the up-keep of its vitality. That heat is the source of energy everybody knows, but only those who have taxed every muscle in the cold of the Northwestrealize the fact's full significance. The man who has tried his strength too hard in the Arctic frost may char his boots in the camp-fire, but he cannot get warm. To add to his troubles, Ingleby had no proper mittens, and when the one extemporized from a strip of flour-bag burst, the hand with which he clutched the pack-straps split at every finger joint and at that temperature a sore will rarely heal.
The others were not in much better condition, though day by day the line of weary men stumbled on in a silence that seemed the grimmer for the burst of anathemas from the one or two of them who had to be dragged up from the fire and brutally shaken into wakefulness when the hour to resume the journey came. Then they came to the tremendous barrier of the divide, a rampart of ice and snow which even in summer no man new to that country would attempt to climb.
It cost them a day to make the first thousand feet or so, and then they lost count of the rest, during which they dragged themselves upward from dwarf pine to pine or crawled along scarped slopes with the peaks still above them. They were waist-deep in snow when they crossed the ridge through the gap of a ravine down which all the winds of heaven apparently rioted, but they fought their way foot by foot, and were floundering down the farther side when Ingleby, who was staggering, grey in face, behind the rearmost of them, lost his footing and rolled down a declivity. He brought up with a crash in a juniper, and rising, half-dazed, recovered his legitimate burden and dragged himself on again. He could scarcely see the others, for his head was throbbing intolerably and his sight was dim, but it seemed to him that he was travelling a little more easily than he had done. It was, however, not until they lay beside a snapping fire that night with their packs piled behind them as a barrier to the bitter wind, that the reason for this became apparent.
"Where's that case of yours?" asked one of the men.
Ingleby glanced behind him, and then laid down the blackened can of tea he held and rose unsteadily.
"You haven't got it," he asked hoarsely, "none of you?"
There was a little sardonic laughter, and one of the others said, "I guess we've got 'most enough without humping another case along for anybody."
"Then I must have left it where I fell into that juniper this afternoon."
He shook his galled shoulders, which were bleeding through the shirt that was glued to them, and he winced as the movement tore it from the wound. Then he turned slowly away from the fire.
"Hold on. Where are you going?" said one of the men.
"Back for the case. If I'm fortunate, I may make camp before you start to-morrow."
He stopped for just a moment, and looked back at the fire with a fierce physical longing in his eyes, for all that was animal in him craved for food and the rest of repletion. Sewell, he saw, was lying half-asleep, with a partly consumed flapjack fallen from his hand.
"Now, see here," said somebody, "we can't wait for you. Unless we get down out of the frost into thick timber by to-morrow night, it's quite likely one or two of us will stay up here altogether. You've got a straight warning. Let the blame thing go."
Ingleby said nothing. He knew that if he dallied his flesh would master him, and he limped out of the firelight with a groan. The red flicker faded suddenly, and he was alone on a great sloping waste where a few dwarf firs and junipers were scattered, black as ink on a ground of blinking white, under the big coppery moon. There was a pain in every joint, the rag wound about one hand was stiff, and he dare not move his shoulders now, while at every step the torturing boot ate into his flesh. That was all he remembered, for he could never recall afterwards much of what he felt and did that night.
He was not back at the camp next morning, and when his comrades had waited an hour or two they moved on slowly without him. One can live in the open under a greater cold than they were called upon to face, that is, if one is provided with costly furs and sleeping bags to suit it; but there are reasons why the prospector usually has neither, and there was no more endurance left in the men. Ingleby, however, would, at least, have no difficulty in picking up their trail, and unless they made shelter that night it seemed very probable that some of them would freeze. They found it at the foot of the mountain wall in a thick belt of young firs where the jumper-sledges and two or three axes had been left, and that night they lay in comfort about the fire with a kettle of strong green tea in their midst, and the springy cedar and spruce twigs piled high about them. Two of them, however, were not there, for Sewell had gone back in search of Ingleby.
It was snowing a little, and there was no moon visible, while, though the rest of the journey down the valley would, by comparison, be easy, now they had the sledges, the men were curiously silent as they lay about the fire. Nobody seemed disposed to sleep, and the kettle had been emptied when one of them glanced round at the rest.
"If he doesn't come in by to-morrow I'm going back," he said.
"I guess it mightn't be much use to-morrow," said a comrade. "If I could get a move on me I'd go to-night, but I'm not sure I can. What d'you say 'he' for, anyway? There's two of them."
The men were dead-weary, too dazed with fatigue almost to think. Nor was there one of them anxious to make the effort, which if successful might drag him from his rest. Thus they were willing to be led away from the point at issue, which was what might have happened to Ingleby.
"Well," said the first speaker, "Sewell's a smart man, and he means well, but I hadn't quite remembered him.When I was broke, and hadn't a dollar's worth of dust to get the truck I had to have from the freighter, Ingleby went bond for me. He don't know a good deal more than he has any use for, like the other man, but he's there when he's wanted. That's the kind he is. I'll give him another half-hour. Then I'm going back for him."
There was a drowsy murmur of concurrence. Sewell was liked in the Green River valley, and no man doubted his sincerity; but that was, after all, not quite enough, for it is, though somewhat difficult of comprehension, a fact that the dwellers in the wilderness, who see fewer of their fellowmen, have usually a clearer insight into the primitive essentials of human character than the men of the cities. They do not ask too much of it, but on certain points their demand is inexorable, and it is very seldom that a simply meretricious quality goes far with them. Ingleby was not a genius, he blundered in details, and he had few graces; but they believed in him.
The half-hour had almost passed when one of them sharply raised his head, and, though few other men would probably have heard anything, the rest shook themselves to attention. High up on the range above them there was a soft pattering in the snow, which grew louder, until they could hear two men stumbling down the steep hillside. After that there was a snapping of twigs among the firs, and Sewell strode into the red light with his hand on Ingleby's shoulder. The latter's face was grey, and he staggered until somebody seized him and dragged him down beside the fire. Then he blinked at them out of half-closed eyes.
"I got the case," he said.
"That's all right," said a man soothingly as he loosed the straps about his shoulders and lifted the case aside, but Ingleby turned upon him savagely.
"Put it there, —— you! I want to see it. It's hers," he said.
His voice was strained and broken, and Sewell did not hear all he said.
"Get him some tea and flapjacks. I think he's a little off his head," he said.