Si-wash was a great scout; he was also an Indian of independence and decision, both qualities very necessary in the snow-bound country such as he lived in. But Si-wash understood men very well; particularly the curiously assorted samples of whitemen who sought the remoteness of the Yukon in those early days when the news of its wealth was only just beginning to percolate through to civilized countries. It was for this reason he was as putty in the hands of the man Leo.
When consulted Si-wash protested against Leo's contemplated journey over the winter trail to the coast, especially with the added burden of a white woman. He drew a picture of every difficulty and danger his fertile brain could imagine, and laid it before the cold eyes of the big man. Encouraged by the silence with which his stories were received he finally threw an added decision in his definite refusal to hire his dogs, and conduct the party over the perilous road.
Then Leo rose from his seat on the floor of Si-wash's hut, and invited him to visit his workings on the creek bank. Si-wash went, glad that he had been able to dissuade this man who possessed such cold eyes, and so unsmiling a face.
At the creek Leo spoke quite seriously.
"Si-wash," he said, as they stood beside the frozen, snow-laden stream, "I am disappointed in you. I have brought you here to show you your grave. There it is—under the ice. If you don't hire yourself and dogs to me, if you don't accompany us to the coast, I'll drown you in the water under that ice, where it's so cold that all the fires of hell, where your spirit will surely go, will never be able to thaw you out, though you remain there forever, as you undoubtedly will."
Si-wash both liked and feared Leo. But he hated cold water, in fact water of any sort, and feared talk of hell still more; so there was no further discussion. Si-wash accepted his money in advance; and, nearly a month later, the travelers were scaling the perilous heights of the watershed which is really the roof of the northern world.
Once foot is set on the long winter trail, all rest of mind and body is left behind. Days and nights, alike, become one long nightmare of unease. Every hour of the day carries its threat of danger. Every foot of the way is beset by shoals for the feet of the unwary. And the night—the long northern night—is a painful dream crowded with exaggerated pictures of dangers so narrowly escaped during waking, and vivid suggestions of added terrors which the morning light may reveal.
It is called the Shawnee Trail; vain enough appellation. There is no trail; there never has been a trail; nor will there ever be a trail, so long as the northern winter holds its fierce sway in due season. It is just a trackless wilderness, claiming thoroughfare by reason of the impassability of the rest of the country in that region.
There is no room for life in such a world, for there is no rest or relief. Existence is an endless struggle against the overwhelming odds of an outlaw nature. The great white land is broken and torn. It rises and falls, or plunges precipitately in the manner of a storm-swept ocean; but ever the journeyer is borne upward, ever upward, to the barren crests of the watershed which dominate the melancholy spectacle of Nature's wasted endeavor.
For the most it is a silent land; nor is there movement to break the awesome stillness, unless it be the frequent presence of storm. Otherwise the calm is like the silence of the grave, without a whisper to waken the echoes of the riven, age-worn crags, or a movement to stir the hidden valleys into a seeming of life. It is the stillness of outer darkness, lit only by a wintry sheen, like the death-cold stare of wide, unseeing eyes.
Such thoughts and feelings stirred the woman traipsing easily over the smoothly pressed snow-track left by the laden sled. She moved with the curious swing of the snowshoer, leisurely, comfortably. The gee-pole in her hand was an unnecessary equipment, for her path was fully tested by those who understood far better than she the dangers of the road before them.
Audie's eyes were looking out ahead at the men and the dogs. She knew she had no other responsibility than to keep pace. For the rest she knew that the burden of their journey rested on shoulders more capable of bearing it. So her mind was given up to thoughts which could never enter the men's heads. And those thoughts were full of the unutterable desolation of this untamed world.
Si-wash headed the dogs. A great incline of smooth, soft snow mounted up to the crotch of a great hill, where twin peaks rose sharply, towering above, and a wide pathway was left between them. It was a beacon of the trail, marking one of the roughest stretches yet to be traveled. Beyond this, five miles further on, the scout had marked a camping ground.
Just now he was a little anxious in his silent Indian way, and the sign of it was in his furtive watchfulness, as he peered from the road to the burnished light of the desponding sun.
Leo, swinging along beside the sled, was quite unaware of his guide's unease. The monotony of progress left him free to think whithersoever his active brain listed. For the time it led him on, on into dreams of the future, a future than which he could imagine no other. His fortune, or that which stood for the foundations of it, lay strapped at the tail of the sled, and the knowledge of its presence, the sight of its canvas wrapping stirred him to a gladness which no monotony of the long trail could diminish. For him this was the moment of passing, when the foundations had been carefully laid and the first scaffold pole was about to be set in place round the structure of fortune he intended to build.
The harsh voice of Si-wash struck unpleasantly on his ears.
"Look!" he cried, pointing at the drooping sun with a mitted hand. "It the be-damn sun-dogs. Him look, an' look lak hell. Him much be-damn sun-dogs."
The man's irritability seemed quite uncalled for. The sun was shining over the still world with its usual coppery splendor; a gleaming ball of ruddy fire centering a wide halo of brilliant light, which, in its turn, was studded with four magnificent jewels of light—the fiercely burning sun-dogs which Si-wash so bitterly cursed. But Leo understood the full significance of what he beheld. He, too, felt inclined to curse those ominous wardens of the ineffective northern sun.
"Storm," he said, as he came up beside the Indian.
"We camp. Five miles," said Si-wash presently. "Five mile, long piece. Yes. Storm, him come quick."
The men moved on in silence, side by side. Audie had heard their talk. She, too, had looked across at the stormy sun, but she had no comment to add.
They were nearing the summit of the hill. The laboring dogs moved with heads low, and lean quarters tucked well beneath them. Their pace was the same as ever, only their effort was greater. With each moment the gap came down towards them, and, at last, they trod the shoulder under foot. Then Si-wash's sharp command rang out, and the five great burden bearers of the north dropped in their traces, and sought their well-earned rest on the feathery softness of untrodden snow.
The men surveyed the view from the great height at which they stood.
For long moments no word was spoken. Then the Indian held up a warning hand.
"See, hark!"
A curious sigh, almost as if the great hill were shivering under the biting cold of the atmosphere, seemed to drift out upon the sparkling air. It died away, somewhere in the distance behind them.
Then Si-wash spoke again.
"We camp quick." He pointed away out at the far side of the valley confronting them. "We mak dat valley. See dat hill? We come so. We mak round it. It bad. So. Long, deep fall. Dogs haul 'em long side hill. Very bad. So we mak 'em before storm. Good. After hill mush wood. Tall, big. It is we camp."
Without waiting for reply he turned to the dogs.
"Ho, you damn huskies. Mush!"
In a moment the dogs leaped at their traces, and the journey went on.
The end of the passage came quickly; and, as it did so, and the scout took the first step of the descent, another sigh, longer drawn out this time, sharper, a sigh that spoke of restless discontent, shuddered down the mountain side and passed on ahead of them. A moment later a tiny eddy of snow was caught up in its path and vanished amidst the sparkling air particles glistening in the sun.
Again the Indian's voice broke the silence. But this time it was to urge the dogs faster. He had said it was five miles to where they could camp in safety; and five miles, with a storm coming on, was, as he said, a "long piece."
But since the second breath had swept down the hillside a change seemed to have come over the aspect of the day. It was subtle. It was almost indescribable. Yet it was evident. It may have been that the air had warmed by a few degrees; it may have been that the sun's labored light had diminished. Certainly there was an added grayness settling upon the icy world. Yes. Something had certainly changed in the outlook, and it was a change which threatened, and told of the dread storm to come.
The dogs raced down the long hillside under the urgent commands of the Indian. A mile, one out of five to be accomplished, was devoured by scurrying feet. Then came the first real challenge of the storm. It was a swift, fierce blast which swept after them, as though enraged at the attempt to escape. In wanton riot it sent a dense flurry of snow like a fog whistling about them, and, for the moment, blotted out all view of the goal Si-wash had set for himself.
The men had no words, but their thoughts were sufficiently in common. The swift-rising storm had banished every other consideration from their minds. Audie closed up on the sled, and her action spoke for itself.
Another blast rushed at the speeding travelers. It came across them. For a moment it seemed to pause in its rush as though it had reached the object of its attack. It swung round in a fierce whirl, round and round in growing fierceness, picking up the snow and bearing it aloft in a gray fog, like fine white sand. It dashed it in the faces of the men, it beat fiercely upon the thick coats of the racing dogs, it swept it under the fur hood of the woman, and painfully whipped the soft flesh of her cheeks.
The hiss of its voice was not allowed to die out. Reinforcements rushed to its aid. They came with a long-drawn moaning howl sweeping down from the distant hill, now grown vague and shadowy behind them, and added to the rapidly growing fog.
Harshly above the howl of the storm Si-wash's voice shouted into Leo's ear.
"The gar-damn blizzard. It hell!"
But Leo made no response. He had no answer for anybody. All his mind was centered upon the goal he longed for. Just now the woodland bluff, Si-wash had spoken of, seemed the most desirable thing in the world. He was not thinking of life or death. They were considerations that never troubled him. He was thinking of what the wrecking of their transport might mean to him.
Si-wash, being only a half-civilized savage, was thinking of those things which did not trouble his white companion; and, being simply human, he thought of the woman, the burden of whose presence he had deplored.
He turned and shouted at her to come up abreast of them, fearing a stumble might mean death to her in the storm; and in the same breath, the same tone, he hurled a string of blasphemous commands at his dogs.
Almost blinded by the whipping snow, Audie staggered to the side of the Indian. So cruel was the buffeting of the storm she would have fallen, but for the timely succor of the man's outstretched hands. Already the downward rush was left behind, and the level of the valley was under their feet. Ahead of them, lost in the gray of the storm lay the incline which was to lead them to the treacherous shoulder of the hill they had yet to pass. Neither dogs nor men could see it, and their only guidance was the wonderful instinct of the savage brain of the Indian.
With unerring judgment he led the way, faltering not even for a second in his decisions; and soon, far sooner than seemed possible, the tautened traces, and crouching gait of the dogs, told that his judgment had not erred. The ascent had begun.
The steady pull went on for an hour; a grinding, weary labor in which every inch of the way was only accomplished under the cruel lashing of a merciless wind, and with eyes more than half blinded by the powdered snow. The wind seemed to attack them from every side; now from ahead; now from behind. Now it whistled down the hillside on their right; now it came up with a vicious scream from the depths of the canyon which dropped away beside them on the left of the harsh, hummocky path. The heavy wrappings of furs about their mouths were a mass of ice from the frozen moisture of their hard breathing, while the dense hoar-frost on their lashes had to be wiped away lest their lids froze together as their watering eyes blinked under the force of the wind. It was such a journey as matched the sterile land through which they were passing; such a journey as only the hardened folk of the northern world could dare to face.
At last the ascent was accomplished, and with the relaxing of effort came the first warning of the dangers with which they were surrounded.
It was the horror-stricken cry of the woman. In the blinding snow she had approached the edge of the path too nearly. Her feet shot from under her, and, for a moment, absolute destruction threatened. Again came the prompt succor of the Indian. Again he clutched her, and held her. Then he gathered his strength for an effort, and the next moment she was sprawling in safety at the feet of her lover.
"Ho, you damn-fool woman!" Si-wash cried, in a manner that merely expressed his own fears, and had no insult in it.
Leo helped Audie to her feet. A moment later his deep voice shouted above the howling of the wind.
"If she can fall, what about the sled?"
The Indian's reply was full of the philosophy of his race.
"Sure," he cried. "It easy."
The whiteman's next act spoke far more than any words could tell. He dropped back to the tail of the sled to guard his precious possessions. His first, his only consideration amidst the perils of that road was his gold. The woman bearing the burden of her devotion to him, must fight for herself.
Each passing moment brought added perils. The path up here was shorn of its loose covering of snow, swept away to the depths below by the all-mastering gale. The surface left was little better than a sheet of glare ice, hummocky and studded with roughnesses caused by broken ice frozen upon its surface. The snowshoes of the travelers left them fairly secure from slipping, but the wretched dogs had no such help. They fought for foothold till their weary feet were left torn and bleeding.
But the hill was passed and the track was no longer an ascent, and at this altitude the snow fog had lightened to gray mist which left the Indian less troubled. His silent blasphemy against the powers that ruled the storm ebbed gently. Its flood had passed. That was his way. The wall on his right was a sure guide, and at the end of it lay the haven where he hoped to eat and sleep. So long as he could see he had no fear whatsoever of the country to which he was born.
But with all this confidence the dangers were no less. The track sloped perilously towards the edge of the precipice on the left. It narrowed, too, so that there was no room for more than two people abreast. Leo understood these things, as only a man can whose mind is beset with dread for the safety of his possessions. Therefore there was something fierce and threatening in his sudden shout at the man who was leading the dogs. There was something else in it, too. There was a terrible fear, which sounded strangely in a man of his strength of purpose.
"Stop! Curse you, stop the dogs!" he cried wildly.
The shout brought the dogs to a stand, and the Indian dropped back.
"What is?" he demanded. But he needed no answer.
The tail of the sled was at the very brink of the precipice, supported only by the thrust of Leo's gee-pole, to which he clung with all the strength of his great body.
The Indian and the woman flung themselves to the rescue, and, in a few moments, the sled was resting safely at the inner side of the path. Then the Indian, as though imparting pleasant intelligence, assured his comrade.
"It more skid, bimeby," he observed confidently. "It worse—bimeby," he added, turning again to the dogs. "Mush on, you devils!" he cried. "Maybe we freeze."
There was no longer any ease of mind for the whiteman. Time and again the sled skidded, and each time he saved it from destruction only by inches. That stretch of level became a nightmare to him, and only the passionate endeavor of his labor made his nervous tension bearable. His pole was at work every foot of the way, guiding, staying, holding that incessant skid.
So they struggled on, floundering their way yard by yard, the dumb burden bearers fighting for a foothold at every step. It almost seemed as if they, too, understood their own danger from the skid, and were driven by their apprehension to unaccustomed efforts. They tore at the unyielding surface of ice with claws broken and bleeding, and, by sheer tenacity, ground out a purchase.
The drop to the woodland valley below was nearing. Si-wash called a warning to the man behind.
"We near come by end," he shouted. "Then him go down lak hell."
With this brief information the whiteman had to be content, for Si-wash promptly returned to his dogs, and finally took his place at the head of the sled. Presently the sled jolted. It tilted forward as the leading dogs of the team vanished down the slope. Then, in a moment, the run began.
The change came all too suddenly. The sled gained a furious impetus. Leo dashed forward to thrust a brake at its head. Si-wash was already there with his pole thrust deep in the snow. The two men joined forces, and, for a moment, the pace was steadied.
Then something happened. It was disaster; the worst disaster that could have befallen at such a moment. Leo's pole, strained possibly by the work it had already done, bent. It cracked; and broke off short. In a moment he was left behind sprawling in the snow. Before Si-wash could readjust his pole to the center of the nose of the sled the vehicle swung out stern first. It swept on at a great speed, and the dogs raced to keep out of its way. In another moment its impetus carried it to the brink of the precipice. It swept on, half poised in mid-air. Then, with a clatter and scrunch, it fell over the side, almost sweeping the heavy dogs from their feet.
It was a desperate situation. The straining dogs held for the moment by reason of their great weight, and in that moment the Indian and the woman were able to reach them and throw their own weight into the balance. Even then it was a desperate uncertainty. Could they hold it? Could they recover the fallen vehicle carrying such an enormous weight? But the problem solved itself in its own way. Just as the great figure of Leo loomed up on the scene of the disaster, the strain on the traces slackened, and the dogs were left standing still. There was no longer need to struggle.
Si-wash rose from the ground and released his hold.
"Wot is't?" he asked, in a stupid way.
Leo was leaning over the edge of the precipice, gazing down with eyes that strained to behold the safety of that which he most prized in all the world. He made no answer.
Si-wash came to his side. He dropped upon his stomach and peered down at the gray depths beneath. For a long while he was silent. Then, at last, as his companion stirred, he spoke in the curiously indifferent manner of his kind.
"The pack. Him haf gone. Him drop long way."
Leo was on his feet before he had finished speaking. He turned away and looked out into the gray fog. Presently he glanced down at the man beside him. Then his eyes rested on the dogs. Audie, watching him, saw a strained, dreadful expression growing in his eyes. There was a subtle fire lighting them; a fire she dreaded to look upon.
Then he began to speak. And as he spoke a wild, untamed, impotent fury swept through his head, sweeping away all thought, all reason. Words, foul, blasphemous, raving, leaped to his tongue and found expression. He cursed the Indian; he cursed the woman, the dogs, the sled. He cursed the storm and the country. He cursed furiously, impotently every form of life that came within the range of his distorted vision. He cursed his God.
Through the tattered pinewood branches the northern sun's cold rays sought to light the gloomy aisles below. It was like the furtive peeping of curious eyes into mysteries forbidden. On the ragged outskirts its staring light had power; but within the dim recesses it was swallowed up, devoured by the impenetrable gloom of ages, where the woodland depths refused to yield their secrets.
Yet these woods were the haven of many a weary traveler. Since ever the foot of man had trod the watershed, none had failed to seek shelter amid these stately shadows; and at all times they lent a sure retreat before winter's storms to the lesser animal life. No storm could search the deepening valleys; no blizzard could more than stir the mighty canopy; no roar of wind could break the grave-like silence, just as no sunlight had ever yet solved the riddle of its impenetrable heart.
Two men and a woman sat huddled over a crackling fire, at a spot where dozens of fires had burned before. It was cold, bitterly cold, even here where the fierce winds had scarcely power to stir the air. But, even so, the cold could not add one iota to the icy misery of, at least, two of those who watched the miserable effort of the fire to achieve where ages of sunlight had failed.
Beyond the rays of the firelight the meager paraphernalia of a camp loomed up in the twilight. A low tent of rough-tanned hides had been carefully pitched. It was a stout enough shelter of crude Indian workmanship, and it doubtless served its purpose well in a land of storm such as these northern heights of the world. Near by was an up-turned sled in the course of repair, and again the stout crudeness of workmanship bespoke the Indian hand. The long, rawhide traces were strung out upon the bed of pine-cones and needles which covered the ground, just where the harness had been flung from the shoulders of the weary dogs, who squatted about between their human masters, staring and blinking at the pleasant warmth of the fire with luxurious confidence.
The men were silent, and the woman watched one of them with anxious, troubled eyes. She was longing to speak, to say something that might salve the wounded heart of her lover. But there was nothing, nothing, she knew, that would ease his pain, and restore to his burning, despairing eyes their wonted look of masterful confidence. She knew that, for the time, at least, hope had been hurled from its high pedestal in his heart, and it was beyond her puny woman's strength to restore it to its setting. She yearned to comfort as only a loving woman can, but she was far too well versed in the curiosities of Leo's dominant, almost violent nature, not to realize the futility of such an effort.
So she watched him with hopeless gaze. She saw the fixed stare of his bloodshot eyes boring unseeingly into the pitiful embers of fire. She saw the thick veins standing out upon his temples, and understood the passionate regret and resentment driving him; and as she watched these things, estimating them in her own timid way, she wondered and marveled at the power of gold upon the human heart, and at the terrible effect its loss could have on a strong man's mind.
While she watched the brooding figure her mind went back to the moment of disaster when the sled had fallen. For just as long as she lived those moments would remain vividly in her memory. When Leo had discovered that half the load had torn itself from its fastenings, and had been swallowed up by yawning depths below he went suddenly demented. She knew it. Never in her life had she witnessed so dreadful a change in anybody. Even now the impotent, almost idiotic ravings and cursings of the man rang in her ears. It was terrible. She shuddered at the recollection. Then what followed was no less horrible to one who had always known her lover for a sober-minded, purposeful man. In the midst of the storm, with the wind raging about them, and the gray fog blinding their eyes, he had stood by threatening her, and refusing to raise a hand in the task of saving the wreck with its remaining half of the cargo.
The toil of those hours. The weary hopeless toil. And it had been accomplished by the Indian and herself under the shadow of this man's insane threats against them both. Once during their struggle, just when the sled was almost within reach of safety she had been driven in self-defence, and in defence of the faithful Si-wash, to hold the maniac at bay under cover of a revolver, whilst the task was completed.
Her life had been strangely checkered, she had passed through many adventures that rarely befall a woman belonging to the life of civilized communities, but the worst moments she had ever known were incomparable with that struggle on the brink of, for all she knew, an unfathomable chasm.
The shadow of that struggle was still upon her. She could not shake it off. She was dreading every passing moment, longing to hear the calm tones of her lover she was used to, but fearing lest the insanity inspired by the loss of his gold had not yet passed.
So she waited, watching, watching for the sign that was to tell her of the easing of the straining brain, watching the dreadful stare of his eyes, as they gazed upon nothing of what they beheld, with a brain lost in a terrible contemplation of the hideous thoughts passing behind them.
Si-wash was silent, too. But that was his way, the way of his race. His impassive face yielded no indication of what was passing behind it. If he feared his companion's mood he gave no sign. Possibly he did not. Possibly he realized that here, here on the wild, chaotic trail he was master; certainly that his chances were equal with the other.
The fire burned low. Si-wash kicked the embers together with his moccasined foot. Then he rose and shuffled to the wood pile and replenished it. For a moment he watched the flicker of the flames as they licked round the dead, inflammable bark, and in desperation Audie broke the awful silence.
"When'll the sled be ready for the road again?" she demanded, without serious interest.
Si-wash's eyes drifted to the cumbersome vehicle.
"I finish him two days," he said, holding up two fingers to impress his assurance upon her.
"Most of the food was saved," Audie went on. "It was the other things that were lost."
The Indian nodded.
"Sure. We freeze but for fire. Him cook-pots go. Only one him saved. Blanket him go. So him go the——"
"Go and get wood, you red son-of-a-moose," cried Leo with sudden vehemence. "Don't stand there yapping like a yellow cur."
The man's bloodshot eyes blazed up furiously into the Indian's face. For a moment Audie feared another outbreak such as she had witnessed before. She even feared for Si-wash's wretched life. But the Indian understood his companion's mood and moved silently off to obey. He admitted to himself that the man was mad; and he had a curious dread of people who were possessed of such a devil.
Leo watched him disappear in the gloom of the woods. Then he turned back impatiently to the fire. He hunched himself up, resting his chin upon his hands, and his elbows on his knees. The mention of their losses had again driven him hard, but, curiously enough, now the eyes of the watching woman saw that his mood had changed for the better. His were less straining, and the veins of his temples no longer stood out like twisted cords. She began to hope. She felt, dangerous as it might seem, that it would be far better that he should talk, whatever pain such talk might cost her. Far better than that he should sit silently nursing his despair.
The idea became fixed in her mind, and she cast about for an opening. Her instinct belonged to her sex; she knew, none better, the burden of dreary thoughts hugged to a silent bosom. It was difficult. Leo was at all times aloof. His armor of reserve left her still a stranger to his inmost feelings and thoughts, so that she scarcely knew how to approach the task she contemplated.
She was spared her trouble, however. It was Leo who at last broke the silence and made possible that very purpose the contemplation of which filled her with so much doubt. He stirred, and swiftly aimed a vicious kick at a log protruding from the embers of the fire. The response was a shower of sparks flying upward. Then he turned to her and began talking rapidly.
"I—I sometimes feel as if I could blame you for all—this," he began, in a low, harsh tone. "But I don't. I've still got sense enough for that. And it's lucky—lucky for you."
The woman's face paled under the beaver cap pressed low down upon her head. The threat was the more terrible for the simplicity of the manner in which he uttered it.
"How could I be responsible?" she asked, while her heart chilled within her.
"How?" Leo laughed without mirth. "I tell you I don't blame you—and yet I might. I did not intend to make this journey in winter."
Audie understood. She knew he was making this journey for her sake. Therefore she remained silent. How could she deny the blame, which, she knew in her heart, he set at her door?
"Say, I wonder if you know what this means to us—to me," he went on, in a tone of suppressed passion. "No, you don't—you can't. Guess it's not likely. You just remember we've still enough food for the journey which is to bring us where your child can be born in—in decency. You know we have no money. But that don't mean a thing to you, because you guess there's a man's hand ready to get busy in your service. You've no thought for anything else, because—because I guess you're a woman."
He caught his breath sharply as though laboring under a stab of intense bodily pain.
Then he laughed a short harsh laugh.
"If you could only look into my brain—my heart—my feelings, maybe you'd realize something of the destruction that's been done there by the loss of my gold. Oh, I'm no miser, greedily hungering after the precious stuff. It's not that." He paused and looked steadily at her. "I s'pose you can't realize what it means to have the concentrated hopes of years suddenly dashed to a thousand atoms. No, course you can't. You can't see, you can't feel these things, because you have never got up against those hills of success, which confront every man of purpose who's determined to cut himself a path which is to lead him right up to the—top of things. I've got busy that way, and the walls have fallen in and well nigh broke me up. That's what's happened. But I'm not down and out—yet. Not quite. No. I want to get right up and hurt some one in return. I want to hit out and—hurt. I want to do things by way of—retaliation. Guess there's nothing to—to retaliate on but those very walls that have so nearly crushed me.
"That's the way I'm feeling now. But I don't guess it's all. Not by a sight. Guess I've been well nigh mad. Maybe I was mad. I don't know. I don't care. Anyway I am mad no longer. How long my sanity will last I can't say. All I know is I daren't look back. If I did—well, I wouldn't gamble a heap on the result. No, I got to look forward. Maybe that'll save me."
Audie nodded. The fear of him was dying out of her.
"I think I understand—all," she said, in a low voice. "Yes, look ahead, it will be best for you. Don't let thought of our—our boy concern you now; forget everything—but that goal you spoke of."
Just for a moment the man's eyes softened. He was not insensible to the utter self-effacement in the woman's desire to help and comfort. But they hardened again almost at once.
"I'm not going to let—anything—interfere," he said almost brutally. "My plans are fixed. Now listen. To-morrow I get right back to Sixty-mile Creek. Anyway I start out for it. I'll have to go on foot. Maybe I shan't ever reach it. Anyway that don't matter. If I do I'll remain there until I have washed up as much gold as I have lost. It may take a year—two—three. It don't matter how long."
"But——" Audie broke in with wide, horrified eyes.
Leo stopped her with a swift gesture.
"It's no use shouting," he said harshly. "I tell you my mind's made up. You'll go on down to the coast with Si-wash. You'll be able to get the help you need there."
"Yes, yes, I can manage. I can get to my sister in San Sabatano."
"Good. You'll go on then. I can trust Si-wash. He's been paid. You'll have food enough, and you'll travel light. If he fails you, and I survive, if I hunt the world over I'll kill him."
Audie's eyes lit. It was the one expression of feeling Leo had displayed which she could take to herself.
"Then afterwards—God knows when—I'll come and marry you. It's the best we can do. It's all I can promise. We're plumb up against it. Whatever happens, I'm going to marry you. That goes."
Audie breathed a deep sigh of heartfelt gratitude. The ice had been broken. She knew that Leo's mental balance was restored. It mattered nothing to her at that moment that she had to face the world alone with her burden of motherhood. It mattered nothing that the shame she had so dreaded was still to be hers. The future had no longer any terrors for her. How should it? The man she had always known had once more resumed sway in the mind so recently distracted to the verge of madness. Her lover was once more the ruthless, powerful creature she had followed into the wilderness, was ready to follow into the wilderness again if he would only permit her.
"Must I—must I go on to the coast? Is there need?" she said, in a low, pleading voice, after a moment's silence. "If you are going back, cannot I go back, too? There's the sled. Why go on foot? Let me return with you, Leo."
The man shook his head, and his negative was as irrevocable as any spoken words. If he understood the devotion prompting her he gave no sign.
"Your life shan't be risked that way," he said. "The child must be born where you can get help. That's—our duty. It's my duty that you reach the coast in safety as far as the matter is humanly possible. Si-wash'll have to fix that. After that I'm helpless—I haven't a cent in the world or I would give it you. You'll have to go on to the coast, and I—I return alone."
Audie bowed her head submissively. She knew he was right under the existing circumstances. Anyway, right or wrong, she was ready to submit to his will. More than that she was glad to do so. Her big eyes stared thoughtfully into the blaze of the fire. There was no more to be said. She was content to sit there in silence, dreaming her dreams; those dreams which the silent northern world so mysteriously fosters, to cover up its own nakedness and make life possible upon its sterile bosom.
Later on the shuffling of Si-wash's moccasins scrunching upon the pine-cones made itself heard. He came with a great load of firewood upon his broad back. Leo watched him deposit it and replenish the fire. Then Audie set about preparing a meal, and the dogs were fed from the store of frozen fish, which, by a trick of Fate, had been saved in preference to their precious store of gold. After that, as the twilit woods were swallowed up in the darkness of night, Audie vanished into the tent, and was seen no more.
The solitude of the tent was preferable to the silence round the fire. She had permitted her lover to dispose of her life as he chose, but she passionately longed to return with him to the north, whatever the dangers to herself and her unborn child. All she cared for was this hard, unyielding man. So long as she had him she could think of and consider those other things which now seemed so small in her life. Without him they were utterly swallowed up by the desolation of all her thoughts and feelings. She wanted him. She wanted this love of hers. Nothing else in the wide world really mattered. He was going out of her life. She knew it. She knew more. He was going out of her life for ever. It was a haunted, despairing woman that sought the warm furs which the man had given up to her use. And the eyes that finally closed in slumber were stained with tears wrung from the very depths of her warm, foolish heart.
For long hours after the woman's eyes had closed in troubled sleep the two men hugged the warmth of the fire. They had neither blanket nor bed. All that had been saved had been given to the woman. The fire stood between them and the bitter cold of the northern night, and beside it was their couch of rotting pine-cones. But they were hardened to the deadly winter, and, so long as they could keep the frost out of their flesh, nothing much mattered.
They smoked in silence, each man busy with his own thoughts; and it was nearly midnight when Si-wash gave his friend the benefit of his profound cogitations.
He had just replenished the fire, and finally drawn up the broken sled as an added protection against the bitter breath of the night breezes. Then he returned to his place and squatted upon his haunches, hugging his knees with his clasped hands, while he puffed at the reeking black clay pipe which, in the manner of his race, protruded from the center of his mouth.
"I mak 'em long piece way. No plenty wood. I mak 'em mile—two mile." Si-wash held up two fingers.
Leo looked up quickly at this breaking of the silence.
"Sure," he said. "Wood scarce."
Si-wash nodded.
"Plenty scarce." Then after a long pause: "Other man find him. Burn 'em all up."
Leo eyed his companion. Then he grinned unpleasantly.
"Guess there's only one damn-fool outfit on this trail—hereabouts——"
The Indian went on smoking, and nearly a minute passed before he shot a quick, sidelong glance at his white friend.
"No. Two," he said; and the inevitable two fingers were thrust up again before Leo's eyes.
It was the white man's turn to pause before replying now.
"Two?" he said, half incredulously.
The Indian nodded, and again held up two fingers.
"How d'you know?" Leo's question came sharply.
"Smoke," returned the Indian; and his one hand described a series of circles upwards.
"You mean—a camp fire? Where?"
Leo was more than interested.
"So. Back there. Big piece. One—two—three mile." Si-wash held up three fingers in deliberate succession.
Leo's interest seemed to suddenly die out. He had no further questions to ask; and, a moment later, he leaned forward and knocked the ashes from his pipe. Then he rose and moved over to the sled. Here he sat down and supported his back against an iron strut, and stretched his legs out beside the fire. In a few moments he was asleep.
Si-wash remained where he was. He made no preparations for sleep; but he slept, every now and then waking up to replenish the fire. And so the long hours crept on toward the gray dawn.
Daylight had come. Leo yawned and stretched his cramped limbs. Si-wash was still beside the fire. He had melted a pot of snow, the only pot that had been saved from wreck on the hillside. He was making tea, boiling it, as is the fashion of all Indians. The smell of it pervaded the camp and reminded Leo that he was hungry.
In half an hour breakfast was over, and Si-wash proceeded with his work on the sled. Audie waited for the commands of her lover. But none were forthcoming. For a long time Leo sat lost in thought, watching the skillful fingers of the Indian at his work, while the fierce sled dogs fought and played around in their untamed, savage way.
The man's expression was quite inscrutable. He was thinking neither of the Indian nor his work. His mind was on other matters, matters which set him puzzling and speculating.
At last he rose and picked up the rawhide rope, which was lying beside the diminished wood pile. He stood for a moment contemplating it. Then he absently stretched it out on his powerful hands, and finally coiled it up.
"Guess I'll climb around and gather wood. So long, Audie," he said briefly.
The next moment the girl's longing eyes were watching his retreating figure as the gray distance swallowed it up.
For a long time she stood thus. Then she started and looked around. It was the Indian's voice that had startled her.
"Him heap good feller. Him no come back bimeby."
The girl's eyes widened with sudden fear.
"What do you mean?" she demanded, with a clutching at her heart.
The Indian's features relaxed into something approaching a smile.
"Him crazy, sure!"
Leo gazed about him as he left the woodland shadows behind. All sign of the recent blizzard had passed. The world was white, cold, and bathed in the gleaming sunlight of the northern winter. The air was warmer than it had been for days, an unusual phenomenon after such a storm.
For a moment his unexpressive eyes lifted to the shining sky. There was nothing to suggest anything in the nature of one of those rapid changes of weather so much a feature of winter in this region, and the prospect seemed to satisfy him. From the sky his glance drifted to the jagged horizon, and here it searched closely in every direction. For a long time he stood studying every rise and depression in the glacial ocean of hills and valleys; then, slowly, his interest began to wane.
Now a definite disappointment became apparent in the frown that depressed his strong brows. He moved out from the edge of the woods and skirted them until a fresh vista of bald, snow-clad hills presented themselves to his searching eyes. For a time his scrutiny lacked something of its original interest. Then, quite suddenly, it became fixed on one spot, a deep depression, shadowed, and definitely marked, an almost black patch in the white setting of the surrounding world.
In a moment all his interest had revived, and he concentrated all his efforts to read the meaning of that which he beheld.
"He wasn't lying, after all," he muttered at last. And his words gave a key to his recent moments of waning interest.
He knew that the black patch he was looking at was a bluff of woods lying in the narrow valley between two high hills, a bluff of woods such as those which lay behind him. Whether they were larger, or just a small, isolated cluster of trees did not concern him. He was watching a spiral of thin smoke, a faint shadow against the dark backing, as it floated upwards and drifted away, quite invisible after it broke the sky line. He knew that this was the smoke Si-wash had told him of. He knew, as Si-wash had known, that it was the smoke of a camp fire. He wondered whose, and, wondering, he moved out without any hesitation in its direction, determined to ascertain whose hand had lit the fire; a matter which had seemed all unnecessary to the Indian's mind.
Just for a moment he glanced again at the sun, and took his bearings. Si-wash had said three miles at most. Three miles; it was little enough to concern himself about. He knew that unless he encountered unlooked-for difficulties he would be able to cover the distance, and make the return journey in less than four hours.
So he set off, adopting a course much as the crow might fly. That was his way in all things. He rarely sought to spare himself by seeking the easier route in anything. His goal always assumed a definite point straight ahead of him, so why make the journey longer for the sake of a little ease? Time enough for such deviations when stress of circumstances demanded.
His way took him down a long, easy slope, where, at moments, banks of snow mounted up to many feet in height, and at others the earth lay bare, swept clear by the force of the recent storm. Then it was possible for him to travel swiftly, nor was he put to inconvenience from the fact that he was without his snowshoes.
The depression was quickly passed and terminated in the abrupt rise of a low bald hill whose base was surrounded by a low, shabby scrub. At first glance the hill had a curious resemblance to a monk's shaven crown, but a closer inspection revealed that here was one of those broken hills suggesting the ruin of a one-time magnificent mountain, which must have succumbed under the fierce blastings of one of Nature's passionate moments. The bald crown was a broken sea of torn and riven rocks, which might well have been the result of gigantic operations with dynamite.
The obstruction gave him no pause. Again deviation never entered his head. With infinite purpose he attacked the ascent which amounted to a laborious and even perilous struggle. There was no faltering, and soon he was so far involved that any thought of yielding to the difficulties he encountered became quite out of the question. To return would have been far more difficult than to continue the advance.
The ascent occupied an hour of great physical effort, but at last he stood at the summit breathing hard from his exertions. Here he paused and surveyed the distance. Again was it characteristic of him that he had no longer interest in his immediate surroundings, or the difficulties he had already surmounted. His whole thought was for that which lay ahead, for those difficulties which still remained to be overcome.
The descent of the hill, though it appeared to be no mean accomplishment, was far shorter, and far less abrupt than the upward climb had been. Nor was he sorry for the respite, while still there was no shrinking in him from whatever hazard Nature might have chosen to offer. He had calculated that such was the case, for the whole trend of the land was upward, bearing on up to the crystal peak between which the crowding woodland ahead lay pinched. His eyes wandered on with his thoughts which carried him out in the direction of the tiny ribbon of smoke, still gently rising from the heart of the woods to vanish in the sparkling air above.
He remained for one brief moment while he made a rough estimate of the distance he had yet to go; then, without wasting a precious moment, he dropped upon the first rugged step of the descent. The work was harder than might have been expected, far harder. And the rope he had brought with him frequently stood him in good stead while making those big drops, which, from the distance, seemed so insignificant and easy. But it was never his way to consider difficulties seriously until he found himself in their midst. At all times the needs of the moment were sufficient, and he was firm in the belief that there was no difficulty in human life where an advantageous way out did not lay waiting for the seeker. His mood was the dogged persistence which urges a man on without consideration or thought for anything else in the world but his own all-mastering purpose.
It was this mood which had first driven him to the northern wilderness, where he hoped to acquire the necessary foundations for his fortune in the least possible time. It was this intensity of purpose which had blinded him to the possibilities of burdening himself with the care of a woman. It was this crude driving force which, in face of stupendous difficulties, not to say impossibilities, had decided him to return on foot to Sixty-mile Creek. These things were part of the man. He could not help them.
So it was in the case of his search for this mysterious camp. He was urged to make it, irresistibly urged, and he could have given no definite reasons for his actions.
Slowly there came a change in the man's whole attitude. It was a subtle change, and one wholly unrealized by himself. As he gained way over the broken path before him a strange eagerness became apparent in all his movements, in his expression, in the quick, searching glance of his eyes. The deliberate manner in which he had made the ascent now gave way to an impatient eagerness which frequently placed him at considerable risk, and even peril. Often, where the slower process of the rope's assistance would have been safest, he trusted to hands and feet, and even to a jump, with a considerable uncertainty as to where he was going to land. But he took the risks, urged on by this strange, unacknowledged desire to reach his destination quickly.
The broken hill was left behind him after less than an hour's hard struggle; and when, at last, he stood upon the comparatively smooth upland, with the distant fringe of woodlands high up above him, he realized that his estimate, as had been Si-wash's, of the distance, was considerably at fault. He had still full three miles to go amidst the hills and valleys made by snow banks swept up by the storm, before the mystery of that thread of smoke could be fully solved.
But the way was easy, and he hurried on. The brief day was passing rapidly. Strangely enough all thought of time had passed from him. It no longer occurred to him that he had to return to his own camp to make his preparations for his contemplated journey back to the creek. He had become solely absorbed with the quest in hand. That, and that alone, seemed to matter.
Half an hour's tramping brought him within full and intimate view of the edge of the woods; and, as he drew near, a further change crept into his manner. Once he paused, more than half hidden by a snow bank, and gazed up at the towering crests of the aged pines. He was impressed. These woods were of far greater extent than those which had served him as a shelter from the storm. They towered dizzily, and spread out an immense distance along the sides of the two mountains, between which they had seemed so pinched; and somehow their immensity depressed him with a feeling of the smallness of human life.
It was from this moment that the fresh change in him took place. He left the shelter of the snow bank with a curious crouching gait, and eyes furtively watchful. The reason of the change was quite unapparent, even to himself. He knew that he was searching for a sight of fellow-creatures; but what he did not know was that it was inspired by an active instinct to avoid contact.
He crept on from the shelter of one snow bank to the shelter of another. He moved along over the shallows of snow so that his moccasined feet gave out no sound. And his whole progress bespoke an almost frantic desire that his approach should not be witnessed from the woods.
Nearer and nearer he drew, and, as the shadows came down toward him, his pace increased almost to a run. Finally the last sheltering snow bank was left behind and a low broken scrub replaced it. He breathed a deep sigh; the sigh of a man who is relieved beyond words. The gray, familiar gloom of the forest overshadowed him, and he was content. Just for a few moments he paused for breath. Then his restless spirit urged him on, and, plunging forward, the solemn twilight of the forest swallowed him up.
For quite a while he hurried on like a flitting shadow in the midst of a world of shadows. Then, finally, he paused listening. The grave-like silence was quite unbroken by any sign of life. Nothing came to him stirring the echoes of that ages-old world. He strained hard for some familiar sound that might guide him to the spot where the mysterious camp lay. But no such sound was forthcoming.