"The Ophir on the Comstock Was rich as bread and honey; The Gould and Curry, farther south, Was raking out the money; The Savage and the others Had machinery all complete, When in came the Groshes And nipped all our feet."

When he had completed the verse, he had slowly gazed round and caught the look of amaze which had dawned in the countenances of his drunken associates. He had come to himself and grown sober. Suddenly an expression of intense fear and hatred had shot into his eyes; without saying another word, he had turned his back on the company and gone out into the early morning, floated his canoe, and fled as one who was pursued for his life. That verse had explained many of Beorn's eccentricities to one of those who had heard it, and he had told the rest. Its singing had meant that, sometime in the early sixties, Beorn had taken part in the gold-rush to the Comstock, and had worked and prospected in the Nevada mines.

This was his solitary glaring indiscretion in all the course of his forty years spent in Keewatin. Though he had had many opportunities since then to repeat the event when under the influence of liquor, he had allowed nothing more of any importance to escape his lips. He had never spent much time at God's Voice, only turning up at the end of his hunt to dispose of his catch of furs, after which he would vanish into the wilderness again. He avoided on every occasion and was restless in the company of men. Very rarely was he encountered on his hunting-trips by any of the Indians or trappers. When once he had set out, he was not seen again until he returned of his own choice. The few times that he had been met, he was far to the northward, about the point where the Last Chance and Forbidden Rivers join, whence they flow on together till they tumble their crowded waters into the freedom of the Hudson Bay. Because it was always in this locality that he had been met, a rumour got abroad that, when his body was not dwelling among living men, it journeyed up the Forbidden River, to reunite with his exiled soul in the habitations of the dead.

Granger had listened to all these reports from time to time, but he had paid small heed to them; he was certain in his own mind that, should he live solitarily in Keewatin for forty years, as Beorn had done, a similar web of legend would be woven about himself. The man's conduct was to him self-explanatory; in his early manhood he had committed some passionate wrong, and had fled into the wilderness to escape the penalty, only to find that the executioner was there before him—the Silence, and that the enduring of loneliness was a more cruel punishment than any that an earthly judge could have measured out. The boat was one and the same which carried Beorn, Spurling, and himself. He promised himself that, by and by, as in the case of Peggy, he would break through Beorn's silence, get to know the man, plunge deep down till he held his heart in his hand.

So he sat outside his store in the June sunlight, oblivious of himself and the passage of Time, lifted high above the strife, and impartially, like an ancient deity, reviewed the lives of men.

On the boarded floor of the shack he could hear the moccasined feet of Peggy moving busily to and fro, as she prepared the meal. They had netted some white-fish over night, so their larder was freshly supplied. On the edge of the pier, which ran out from the Point, Beorn sat, mending one of his traps. Along the top of the roof perched a row of whisky-jacks, most impertinent of birds, who, when a man has carried his food almost to his mouth, will flash down, light on his hand, and, before he knows that they have arrived, filch away the morsel. Somewhere across the river a whippoorwill kept on uttering its plaintive cry, as it were Beorn's lost soul come back, pleading insistently for permission to take up its residence in his body once again. And over against the farther bank a brood of yellow ducklings swam in and out among the rushes, hidden behind which their mother watched and waited. The noon came on apace, the shadows shortened, and everything grew silent; over forest and river a restful stillness settled down. If the Last Chance would always look like that it would be almost habitable. Had it been placed in any country where there were men, it would be considered beautiful just now. Ah, well, after he had been married a few years, he would have his children running hither and thither, laughing and chattering, about the Point; then it would be in his own choice to make of his environment what he liked. Gazing whimsically forward to such a time he could conceive that, were he given the opportunity to return to civilisation, by some curious turn of the wheel of fortune, he might prefer to stay; that such an opportunity might be possible, it would first be necessary that he should have been acquitted from all suspicion concerning the death of Strangeways.

It was easy to be optimistic on such a day; there was a cleanness of youth about the appearance of this newly awakened world which reacted on the watcher's mind.

Peggy had come out from the shack and was seated on the threshold; even she was conscious of a certain elation, for she was humming to herself one of those endless, tuneless, barbaric Indian airs which only take on the pretence of music when they are assisted by the stamping of many feet, and the clapping of many hands. When Granger turned his head in her direction, she lowered her eyes, and her singing ceased. He had not meant that she should do that; he was merely wondering whether she was really a pretty girl and whether, if he were to take her back with him to England, she would be seen as beautiful by London eyes. London eyes! What had they ever seen that was essentially beautiful and free? They could judge of the latest fashion in hats, and of the proper size of the laced-in waist; but what had they ever seen of the naked, sinuous grace of the human body as God made it and had meant that it should be seen? Of nakedness and simplicity, and all things genuine, the civilised man had been taught to be ashamed. No, no, to-day, in the sunshine, he felt sure that he would not return to the insincerity, artificiality, and the blinkered-eyes of the town, were he given his choice. He wanted to breathe cleanness, and to see God's hand at work, and to be a man; in London, or any other city, individuality and all these things would be denied. He could be very happy now, he believed; now that he was not lonely any longer, because he had a wife. He wished that he could find a language in which to tell her these things. But he feared to speak; he knew that as yet, just returned from the winter-trail, she would not understand.

While he had been thinking, she had slowly raised her eyes; she was not looking at him, but northeast, down-river, toward the bend. Turning suddenly, he caught the direction of her gaze. Glancing down to the pier, he discovered that Beorn's eyes were also turned that way. What were they waiting for? What were they anticipating? Was it the return of Eyelids that made them so expectant? During the past fourteen days he had often caught them thus waiting and gazing, as though stoically prepared for news of whatever kind. He suspected that they had some secret which they were not willing to share with him—this would account to an extent for Peggy's reticence. But what secrets of importance could they have, dwelling as they did on the Last Chance? Probably Eyelids' delay was only a matter of traps and furs which had been cached. Then, as he watched Peggy, he saw a look partly of fear, partly of bewilderment, spread over her face. She glanced down to her father; he was still gazing in the same direction, towards the bend, and she, seeing him rise to his feet and wave his hand, following his example, also rose up and waved. Granger was on his feet immediately, that so he might see more clearly; turning his eyes down-river, he watched steadfastly in the direction in which the father and daughter gazed. He saw nothing that was not customary; it seemed to him that he must have looked too late.

"What is it, Peggy?" he broke out.

She swung round slowly, giving herself time to make her face expressionless; it was evident that she had forgotten his presence in her excitement.

"Nothing," she said, and turning about, passed into the darkness of the house.

Granger did not like it. When there are only three of you, one of whom is your wife, to whom you have been married only a fortnight, it is not pleasant to be the one left out. He had thought at first that they might be on the lookout for York boats, which might soon be expected to pass by on their way from the House of the Crooked Creek to God's Voice. But one does not wave his hand to a York boat which is not yet in sight. It seemed certain to him now that Eyelids was in the vicinity, signalling to them secret information, which they were eager to keep from himself. Had they stumbled across the grave of Strangeways, and wondered what it meant? A grave more or less in Keewatin does not usually trouble a living man; nevertheless, he ought to have told them about it and have explained about Spurling. He would tell them his secret presently, and get them to tell him theirs in exchange. In the meanwhile, he would watch the bend.

There was no sound of footsteps in the shack. Turning his head very slowly, so that it could hardly be seen to turn, he could perceive the shadow of Peggy out of the tail of his eye from where he sat; she was standing behind the window, a little way back from the panes so that he might not discover her, and she was also watching. If this system of spying were to go on for long, there would soon be an end to his dreams of freedom and marital peace at Murder Point. Already he was inclined to revise his opinion as to what he would do, were he given the opportunity for escape to a becitied and more populous land. The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that he would choose to escape. A half-breed girl who was almost pure Indian in her manners—and Peggy seemed that to him now—could never be a fitting companion for an educated white man. He'd been something more than a fool to marry her. The entire business was a farce, from start to finish; and then he remembered that nearly every farce ends in someone's tragedy.

He was interrupted in his bitterness by a shout from up-river. While they had been all engaged in watching the northeast, a swift canoe, carrying two men, had stolen in from the west. It was approaching the pier; before he had time to get down, its occupants had landed and were shaking hands with Beorn effusively, emitting low, hoarse cries of "Watchee. Watchee."

As he descended the mound, he scanned their travelling outfit, that he might guess their errand. They carried no cargo, nor was their canoe the broad-built, slate-coloured conveyance of the Hudson Bay Company; it was birch-bark, constructed for speed, and carried in the bow a miniature sail. They must be the bearers of a letter, or of important verbal tidings.

He shook hands with them in silence, nor did he ask them at once to deliver to him their message, well knowing from unhappy experience that to attempt to hurry an Indian is to cause him to delay. Instead, he set about doing them favours, that so they might be the more willing to oblige him. He led the way up to his store and, displaying to them his wares, told them to choose themselves each a present. There were gaudy shawls, beflowered muslin dress-lengths, rifles, watches, clocks, suits of clothing and city head-gear, probably misfits or the refuse of a bankrupt's stock which Wrath had bought cheap, all of them long since out of date; there were even battered dolls and children's toys lying about mixed up with canned goods and groceries—a miscellaneous array. Arranged along one wall were all the implements of the trapper's trade and the articles of common use, such as kettles, pans, enamel cups and plates, coils of rope, etc. With the inborn thriftlessness of the Indian, at the articles of essential worth they only glanced, after which they turned aside from them. Not until an hour had passed did one of the men make up his mind to take a top-hat for his present, broad-brimmed and dusty, from off which most of the silk was worn—a relic, perhaps, of the outside respectability with which one of the Winnipeg partners had been wont to clothe himself years since, when he went to church and still had hopes that one day he might live to see himself an honest man. But the second visitor could find nothing that met with his approval; now that his companion was owner of the top-hat, he felt that of all things, sacks of flour, rifles, sails, knives, that was the one and only present which he would have chosen. Granger was losing patience, though he did not dare to show it. There were so many tidings which that letter, if letter it was, might contain—news concerning Spurling, Strangeways, his mother, Mordaunt. To cut his suspense short by a few minutes he was willing to pay almost any price. Still the Indian procrastinated and seemed to be more and more inclined to become obstinate and offended. Transgressing the usual rule of a trading-store, he had seated himself on a pile of nets and was striking a match to light his pipe.

Granger gazed round his stock in desperation, endeavouring to discover something, whatever its value, which would be acceptable.

A sudden inspiration came to him. Reaching up to a shelf, he took down an oblong box, about nine inches in length, adjusted several parts of it on the inside, wound it up with a key which was in the back, and set it on the counter. A whirring, coughing noise was heard, as though a creature hidden inside was clearing its throat to prevent itself from choking; after a few seconds of this, a voice, so thin and whispering that it seemed impossible that it should ever have come from a person who owned a chest, commenced to sing with an atrocious perversion of the vowels,

"Sife in the h'arms of Jesus, Sife on 'is gentle breast, There by 'is love o'ershadowed Sweetly my soul shall rest."

He cut it short at the end of one verse, for he could endure no more of that—the tears were in his eyes. Ugly as the dialect was in itself and often as it had revolted him in former days, there was something hauntingly pathetic about it when combined with religion, and sung in Keewatin by that weakling voice; the London voice, shut up in the mildewed box, was an exile like himself. When he was a child, he had heard his mother sing those words, and that was at a time when he believed in the faith which they expressed. For him there was now no overshadowing God—only a careless, and perhaps unconscious, tyrant.

But he had accomplished his purpose, for the Indian was won over and beaming with pleasure. Gramo-phones had not been long introduced into the district as articles of trade; as yet only the chiefs and most successful trappers could purchase them. To own one was equivalent to keeping a butler in civilisation. Seeing the greed in the man's eyes, he told him that he could have it so soon as he had declared his business and delivered his message.

This promise caused the oracle to work. Diving his hand beneath his shirt, the Indian drew forth a pouch which was slung about his neck, and, opening it, produced from it a letter. Then snatching up his play-thing, he and his companion, proud in his top-hat, went outside to build their fire, and to make their camp, leaving the trader to himself.

Granger rose up and made fast the door behind them, so that he might be undisturbed. Now that he held within his hand the solution to the problem of their visit, he was willing to postpone the fuller knowledge lest it should make him sad. Sitting himself down on the edge of the counter he drew forth his pipe and filled it slowly; and when that was done, still more slowly commenced searching for a match, found it at last and kindled the tobacco. He looked at the address; it was in Wrath's handwriting, but the envelope bore no stamp—it had evidently been sent up by him in haste over the entire six hundred and eighty miles by private carrier. That meant that the news was important, for such means of transit were expensive. Breaking the seal, he found a letter enclosed, which had been addressed to him in care of Wrath; it also was unstamped, but it bore in the left-hand corner the name of his mother's firm of London solicitors. About it was folded a note from Wrath himself, which read:

DEAR GRANGER,

The enclosed letter arrived here by yesterday's mail. It was accompanied by a letter to myself from some London lawyers, urging me to deliver it into your hands in the quickest possible time, regardless of expense. Carrying out my instructions, I am sending it up to you by private messengers; heaven knows how long it would take to get to you, were I to send it any other way. Of course I shall dock the cost of its transit from your salary, which means that if you don't have a good year's trade, I sha'n't have much to pay you.

Yours, CHARLES E. WRATH.

His mother's lawyers! That meant that his mother had relented, and was anxious to have him home again. His heart leapt at the thought—and then he remembered that there were Peggy and the death of Strangeways as obstacles to his return.

He undid the wrapping of the lawyer's letter and, as he read, the blood went from his face. It was to tell him, in formal language, that his mother was dead, and that, if he would fulfil certain conditions, he was to become heir to the property which she had left. The estate was valued at fifteen thousand pounds. The conditions were, that he was to return to England within four months from the writing of this letter, and take up his permanent residence there. If for any reason he should be unwilling or unable to agree to these terms, the money was to be divided among certain charities which his mother had named in her will. That was all. So the chance for which he had waited had come at last, and he was unable to take it—and his mother was dead!

He sat very still and motionless. The flies drummed against the panes—they also were captives. Outside, across the river, the whippoorwill continued to cry, demanding entrance into Beorn's body because it was his soul. Peggy came to the door, tried to open it, rattled the latch and announced that the meal was ready: he took no notice of her, and presently she went away. For hours he sat like a man of stone, making no pretence at thinking; of one fact only was he aware, that with both hands, for the want of a little patience, he had thrown away all his chances of return. He was lost—lost—lost.

As the hours dragged by the flies grew tired of trying to escape, and the whippoorwill of calling; the whole world fell silent. He wished that the darkness might come, so that he might hide himself; but in June time, on the Last Chance River, it is never utterly night. When the sun has sunk from the sky the sunset lingers, gradually working round toward the dawn; through the summer months, as if to make amends for the long dark winter days, it always leaves a little torch of promise burning somewhere along the horizon. The perpetual brightness of the world outside seemed to jeer him; it was as careless in its way as the winter had been of the solitariness of his soul.

But at last the shadows lengthened in the store, and through the dusty, cobwebbed window he could see that the sky had grown indigo and grey. So his mother was dead, and he would never look on her again. They had not understood one another, and now, with whatever longing he might desire it, he could never explain. He had abandoned her for the sake of his father's quest, that he might seek out El Dorado—and this was the wage of his sacrifice, thirty, perhaps forty long years of life at Murder Point, shared in the company of a squaw, a hurried burial one day, and an unnoticed grave.

He could not accept the conditions set forth in the lawyer's letter and return to London in the two months which remained—there were the Mounted Police to prevent him, and there was Peggy. He had chosen his own path in life, and he must follow it without complaint to the bitter end. He tried to think himself back into the opinion of the morning, when he had fancied that he preferred the Last Chance River to any other place. He could not think that now; he knew that it was no more than a consoling lie. Then he ceased to think and grew drowsy.

He was aroused by the faint and far-away sound of singing. The dusk had gathered and it must be nearing midnight. He was stiff from sitting so long in a cramped position; he rose to his feet and rubbed his eyes. The window was ruddy with the shifting light of the Indians' camp-fire; occasionally, when the flame shot up, its brightness stole across the ceiling and illumined the walls of the store. He listened; the tune that was sung seemed to him familiar and puzzled him, for he was not fully awake. Drifting through the stillness of the northern twilight, at an hour when even the beasts of the forests held their breath because of God's nearness and His solemnity, there reached his ears the vulgar strutting tones of a music-hall singer's voice:

"As I walked through Leicester Square With my most magnificent air, You should hear the girls declare 'Why, he's a millionaire;' And they turn around and sigh, And they wink the other eye, 'He's the man that broke the bank at Monte Carlo.'"

The coarse suggestiveness of the words, the cheap passions which they implied, the leer and pomposity with which they had been uttered by the comedian, the unhealthy, narrow-chested, pavement-bred audience by which the effort had been greeted with applause, the total uncleanness and unnaturalness of city-life, came vividly home to him.

He did not stop to reason, or to trace his repugnance to its source—to his native hostility to the impurity and strengthlessness of multitudes of creatures who arrogantly boast that they are civilised—he was too angry for that. He was only conscious that a vain and impertinent echo of the town had, by his instrumentality, found its way into and vilified the secret refuge of God's austerity. Tearing back the bolts from the storehouse door and lifting the latch, he rushed out into the cool half-light.

Half-way between himself and the pier he saw the Indians' camp-fire, with four figures squatting round, two of which were Peggy's and Beorn's. Running down the descent, he burst into their midst, seized the offending gramophone and crushed it down with his heel into the flames. His foot was scorched, but he did not care for that. When his work was accomplished, turning savagely upon his spectators he said, "I'll teach you to offend God's silence," and strode away, leaving them staring after him through the shadows, terrified and amazed. Suddenly he returned; there was a gentler look upon his face. Going up to where Peggy sat, he took her by the hand, and, without a word, led her out of the circle of firelight towards the shack.



CHAPTER XIII

THE DEAD SOUL SPEAKS OUT

The Man with the Dead Soul was drunk, heartily and shamelessly drunk; Granger, the contriver of his condition, sat facing him, impatiently waiting to see whether that was true which the Indians said, that, when drink had subdued his body, his soul returned for a little space.

The nominal occasion of the carousal was the home-coming of Eyelids and, as Granger had subtly put it, "the celebration of his own entrance into the family of Ericsen." However, in a country from which there is no means of escape, save through the magic doors of imagination, and where men get so bored with themselves, and their environment, and one another, that they are willing to seek a temporary release by drinking such noxious drugs as pain-killer, essence of ginger, of peppermint, etc., for the sake of the alcohol which they contain, the only excuse necessary for intoxication is opportunity. Spirits of any kind are strictly forbidden in Keewatin, that the Indians may be protected from intemperance; nevertheless, despite all precautions of the Mounted Police, a certain quantity finds its way up in disguised forms, or smuggled in sacks of flour and bales of traders' merchandise.

Granger, being well aware that the fool says with his lips what the wise man knows in his heart, had determined that both the menfolk of his adopted house should play the fool that night. Whatever Beorn and Eyelids might do or say, and however intoxicated they might become, he had planned for himself that he would keep quite sober, with his wits about him, that he might recall next day what they had done and said when thus taken off their guard. There were two problems which he was anxious to solve; the first, the reason for his brother-in-law's long delay; the second, what it was that they watched for with such eagerness, and waved to at the bend.

The latter problem had become still more perplexing since Eyelids' return that morning, for in the afternoon, when they were sitting together outside the shack, he also had seen something down-river, and, following his father's and sister's example, had risen to his feet, commenced to wave, and, when it had disappeared, had inquired, "Who was that fellow?" Straightway Beorn had scowled him into silence, and Peggy, leaning over, had whispered some words in a Cree-dialect, which Granger did not understand; whereupon an expression of fear and wonder had come into Eyelids' face. When Granger, having taken him apart, had asked him for an explanation, he had only shaken his head stupidly, saying that he must have been mistaken, and that there was nothing there. This was manifestly false, for during all the remaining portion of the daylight his eyes had kept continually furtively returning down-river towards the bend.

The fact that he also had seen something, did away with Granger's supposition that it was to her brother, lurking in the vicinity, that Peggy had signalled with her hand—and made him the more curious to know the real cause. Could it be Spurling, he wondered, who had made a compact with them and lay in hiding there? If that was so, then what had been the reason of Eyelids' delay,—for he had not stayed to collect any caches of furs, but had come back empty-handed, walking by the river-bank. He had watched to see whether anyone had put out from the store to leave provisions at the bend; but no one had been there, unless at a time when he slept. His passion to share the secret had become all-consuming, as curiosity must when it works in the mind of a lonely man. To this end he had shadowed Eyelids all that day, giving him no opportunity for private talk with his family, and, finally, had prepared this trap of a drinking-bout, hoping that someone might commit himself. As yet he had this to his advantage, that the half-breed, though he had witnessed the signals, was almost as ignorant as himself as to their real purport, and was therefore, probably, just as curious.

They were sitting in a room, empty and comfortless, which was built on to the end of the oblong which comprised the store. Its walls were damp, and the news-papers, with which they had been covered, sagged down from the boards like monstrous goitres. It had one window, which looked riverwards, across whose panes, dust and cobweb smirched, a muslin curtain had been hung by a previous agent, who was reputed to have drunk himself to death. This was its only attempt at decoration, save for a faded photo of a girl attired in early Victorian dress, across the right-hand corner of which was scrawled, "Yours, with love, from Gertrude." She looked a good girl, and Granger felt sorry for her because, by the ordinary laws of nature, she had probably been dead for many years; and he also felt sorry for her because he was certain that the man who had placed her picture there had gone away and disappointed her in her love.

Perhaps he had been the agent who, sitting there night after night, gazing upon her portrait, torturing himself with memories of the happiness which he had lost, had drunk himself to death. If that was so, she had had her revenge. Going closer, he saw that the photographer's name was recorded there, "Joseph Dean, New Bedford, Mass." So she had been a New Englander, and her lover, whoever he was, had probably started life as a sailor in the whaling fleet which at that time set out annually from New Bedford for the North. In Keewatin the memories of men for their neighbours, especially if they happen to be private traders, are very short.

The room contained little furniture. There was a wooden shelf, knocked together out of packing-cases, which ran along one side of the wall and had probably done service as a bed. There was an upturned box, on which a man might seat himself; and a low three-legged stool which would serve as a table—that was all. In imitation of the no more lavish accommodation set apart for single men at the Hudson Bay Company's forts, the room was commonly known as Bachelors' Hall. The door was fast-shut; the curtain was half-drawn before the window, shutting out the long-tarrying June twilight; the three men had been there together for four hours, and as yet nothing of importance had transpired, and no word had been spoken.

Eyelids, with his lashless lids (hence his sobriquet) half-closed, squatted on the floor, Indian fashion, directing his pipe to his mouth with uncertain hand. The other hand fumbled continually in his breast, as if he kept something hidden there. Granger wondered what it was.

Beorn sprawled his great length of legs along the shelf, his back and head resting against the wall. His eyes were very bright, and a long and ugly scar, which extended from the right of his forehead to his lower jaw, and which Granger did not remember to have noticed before, showed swollen and red through the tangled mass of his grey beard. His pipe also was in his mouth, but his hand was still steady. Under the influence of drink a new intentness had come into his face, all his features seemed to be more keen and pointed. Every now and again he would remove his pipe, as if he were about to break into speech; then, either through laziness or from the tyranny of his habitual caution, he would replace it and, as it seemed to Granger, relapse into memories. He watched him closely, and he thought he saw the elation of old successes, and emotions of forgotten defeats, flit across his countenance. Granger himself was quite sober, having only pretended to drink; if he sat a trifle huddled on his box and lurched unsteadily, it was only that he might keep his companions unsuspicious.

On the crazy little stool between them stood a candle from which the wax occasionally dripped, so that for a moment the flame would die down, causing the shadows to shorten. A jam-jar did service as a tumbler; there was one between the three of them, which meant that they had to drink quickly in order not to keep the next man waiting. Granger served out the whisky, and he served it neat—when men are intent on getting drunk they do not procrastinate by adding water.

Eyelids was getting more and more peaceful and foolish, smiling first to himself and then slily to Granger, as though he had some very happy knowledge which he was burning to communicate. At last he pulled out his hand from his shirt, and there was something in it. Beorn, raised three feet from the floor on his shelf, could not see what his son was doing, nor did he care; he was reliving the past, when there was no Eyelids.

But Granger watched; the fingers opened a trifle and revealed the shining of something yellow. Quick as thought, before the fingers could close over it again, he pretended to lose his balance, and, shooting out his foot as if to save himself, sent the yellow lump flying from the half-breed's palm. It shot into the air, fell with a thud, and rolled scintillating into the darkness across the boarded floor. Before he could be detained, Granger had sprung after it and held it in his hand. He faced round, ready to defend himself; but there was no necessity. Eyelids, having attempted to rise and having found that his legs would not carry him, had sunk back to his squatting position on the floor, where he was smiling foolishly and nodding his head as much as to say, "I've been telling you all evening, but you would not believe me; now I have proved my word!"

Beorn was sitting upright on his shelf, looking at him keenly. As Granger approached, he held out his hand; Granger placed the yellow lump in it.

"Gold," he cried, and his eyes flashed; "a river nugget!" Then weighing it carefully, "Three ounces," he said; "it's worth about forty dollars."

"How do you know that?" asked Granger. "Was it river gold that you found on the Comstock? I thought that it was quartz."

"It was quartz afterwards, but nuggets and dust first." Then, remembering himself, he asked suspiciously, "But what d'you know about it?"

"I ought to know something," Granger replied, speaking thickly and shamming intoxication; "I ought to know something; I was one of the first men in on the Klondike gold-rush."

"Damn it! So you were one of the Klondike men? Tell me about it."

Granger had intended to spin him a yarn about great bonanzas in Yukon, which he had discovered. It was to have been a hard-luck tale of claims which had been stolen, and claims which had been jumped, and claims which had been given away for a few pounds of flour or slices of bacon in crises of starvation; but in the presence of the old man's eagerness, and with the shining nugget of temptation between them, he drifted unconsciously into straight talk and told him his own true story.

At first, while he was feeling his way, he gave the history of Bobbie Henderson, and Siwash George, and Skookum Jim, the real discoverers of the Klondike; and of how Bobbie Henderson was done out of his share, so that he still remained a poor man and prospector when others, who had come into the Yukon years later, had worked their claims, grown wealthy, and departed. Then he recited the Iliad of the stampede from Forty-Mile, when the rumour had spread abroad that Siwash George had found two-dollars-fifty to the pan at the creek which he had named "Bonanza"; how drunken men were thrown into open boats, and men who refused to credit the report were bound hand and foot with ropes by their friends and compelled to go along, lest they should lose the chance of a lifetime; and how, where to-day Forty-Mile had been a noisy town, to-morrow it was silent and deserted, with none left save a few old men and sickly women to tell the story.

To all of this Beorn listened with small attention, for he kept muttering to himself, "But how did he know that there was gold there? How did he discover it?" Granger wondered to whom he was referring—to his own son, to Siwash George, or to someone else; but he dared not ask him a leading question lest his suspicion should be aroused. He went on with his narration feverishly, forgetting in his excitement his resolution to keep sober, emptying the tumbler of whisky recklessly, turn and turn about with his companion, waiting and watching to see whether, in the Indian phrase, the dead soul would return. When he commenced to speak of himself, of his passage from Skaguay to Dawson, of the wealth which he found and lost at Drunkman's Shallows, and of his flight, Beorn became interested; his eyes blazed and every few seconds he would give him encouragement, ejaculating hoarsely, "Go on. Go on."

So he carried his history to an end with a rush, for now he knew that the dead soul had come back. He finished with the sentence, "And then I went to Wrath, for I was nearly starving. 'For God's sake, man, give me some employment,' I said. 'I can't steal; they'd put me in gaol for that, and so I should disgrace my mother. And I can't cut throats for bread, for then I should get hanged. But, if I have to endure this agony much longer, I shall do both.' And his reply was to send me up here, to this ice-cold hell of snow and silence, to mind his store and watch the Last Chance River flowing on and on, until the day of my death. God curse the reptile and his charity."

The Man with the Dead Soul turned his head aside and there was silence for a moment. Then, bending down and having assured himself that Eyelids was asleep. "I've known all that," he said; "but, unlike you, I did more 'an intend—I killed my man. I guess you an' I are o' one family now, so there's no harm in tellin'. I don't just remember who you are, nor how we happen to be here this night; but you placed that gold in my hand, so I reckon you're all right. You ain't a Mormon, are you?" he asked abruptly.

Granger, taken aback by the question, smiled slowly and shook his head.

"Well, then, I'd have you to know," Beorn continued, "that I was brought up in the Mormon faith. One o' the earliest memories I have is o' the massacre o' the Latter-Day Saints at Gallatin, when Governor Boggs issued his order that we should be exterminated an' driven out. I can still see the soldiery ridin' up an' down, pillagin' our city, insultin' our womenfolk, an' cuttin' down our men. I can just remember the misery o' the winter through which we fled, an' the tightness o' my mother's arms about me as we crossed the Mississippi, goin' into Illinois for safety. From my earliest childhood my mind has bin made accustomed to travellin's, an' privations, an' deeds o' blood. That's the sort o' man I am.

"It was six years after the Gallatin affair, when our city o' Nauvoo had been founded, that the mob once more rose agin us an' murdered our prophets, an' placed our lives in danger. Again we fled, crossin' the Mississippi on the ice, till we gained a breathin' space at Council Bluffs. A year after that, under Brigham Young, we passed through the Rockies to the Great Salt Lake an' came to rest. All this persecootion caused our people to become a hard an' bitter race; but I'd have been true to 'em if it hadn't bin for my mother, an' the manner o' her death. How did she die? Don't ask me, for I can't tell you. She was a Swede, a kind o' white slave, who was kept with several other women by my father. She went out one day, an' never came back. I believe she'd got heartsick, an' was plannin' t' escape with a feller o' her own nationality, a newcomer. Anyhow, when I asked my father about her, he threatened me into silence. He was a priest o' the order o' Melchizedek, a powerful man among the prophets. From that hour I hated Mormonism, an' determined t' escape whenever my chance occurred. It came sooner 'an I expected.

"The Californian gold-rush had robbed the Saints o' the seaboard to which they was hopin' to lay claim. They began to get nervous lest the southern territories, from Salt Lake to the Mexican frontier, might also be lost to 'em if they didn't do something so they organised the State of Deseret, an' sent out expeditions to take it up before it could fall into the Gentiles' hands. My father, I believe, had grown 'fraid o' me, lest I should take his life; so he had me included in the first expedition, which consisted o' eighty men, an' was sent to garrison a Mormon station in Carson Valley, Nevada.

"I've allaws had a nose for gold, an' we hadn't bin there a month before I'd discovered an' washed out a little dust from a neighbourin' gulch. I kept my secret to myself, an' when I'd gathered enough, bought provisions, stole a horse, an' ran away, escapin' over the Sierras into California, where I hoped that the Mormons, an' especially my father, would lose all trace o' me an' give me up for dead. For eight years I drifted along the coast from camp to camp, but didn't have much luck. I even went so far south as Mexico, where I laboured in the silver mines an' learned the Mexican method o' crushin' quartz with arrastras.

"All this time I was haunted by the memory o' the gold which I'd washed out in Carson Valley; the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that untold riches lay buried there. However, I was fearful to return, lest I should fall into the clutches o' the priesthood o' Melchizedek or o' the spies o' Brigham Young. I was an apostate, an' my father was my enemy; I knew that, should I once be recovered by the Mormons, no mercy would be shown me. At last the news came that the struggle o' the Saints for possession o' Nevada had been given up, an' that messengers had bin sent out from Salt Lake biddin' all emigrants return. For eight years I'd bin unmolested; I thought that I'd bin forgotten, an' that it was safe to turn my steps eastward.

"I travelled day an' night to get back to my first discovery; I was tortured wi' the thought that before I got there someone might have rediscovered it, an' have staked it out. I'd crossed the Sierras, an' was within a two-days' journey o' my destination, when I came to a lonely valley as the sun was settin', an' there I camped. The place looked God-forsaken; there was nothin' in sight but rocks, an' sand, an' sage-brush. I lit my fire, an' tethered my horse, an', being dog-tired, was soon asleep. Suddenly I woke up, an' was conscious o' footsteps goin' stealthily, away from me into the darkness. I jumped to my feet an' seized my gun; but my eyes were dazed with sleep an' firelight so that I could see nothin'. I ran out into the shadows, followin' the footsteps, but, before I could come up with 'em, their sound had changed to that o' a horse, gallopin' northward, growin' fainter and fainter.

"I returned to my camp an' examined my baggage; nothin' was missin', not even the gold which I'd carried—all seemed safe. I sat up an' watched till daybreak, an', havin' snatched a hasty breakfast, commenced t' pack my animal. Then it was that I discovered, slipped beneath a strap o' my saddle, a sheet o' paper. Unfoldin' it, I saw that it was scrawled over in a rude an' almost unreadable hand. This was what it said, 'This demand of ours shall remain uncancelled, an' shall be to you as was the Ark o' God among the Philistines. Unless you return to your father's house an' to the people o' your father's faith, you shall be visited by the Lord o' Hosts wi' thunder an' wi' earthquakes, wi' floods, wi' pestilence, wi' famine, an' wi' bloodshed, until the day of your death, when your name shall not be known among men.'

"I was seized with panic, for then I knew that the spies o' Mormon had traced me. But I wouldn't turn back, for I knew that the treasure for which I had waited, as Jacob waited for Rachel, lay straight ahead. So I rode forward, tremblin' as I went, carryin' my gun in my hand. At the end o' the second day I came t' Johntown, an' found that many things had changed since I had left. There were a dozen shanties in the town; these were occupied wi' gamblers, storekeepers, an' liquor-sellers, includin' two white women an' Sarah Winnemucca, the Piute princess. But the placer-miners had been at work, an' the gulches were dotted with the tents an' dugouts o' men who had discovered my secret for themselves. Thomas Paige Comstock was in the gang, the man who gave his name to the first great strike. They called 'im Old Pancake, 'cause he was too busy searchin' for gold to bake bread. Even at that time, as wi' spoon in hand he stirred the pancake batter, he kept his eyes on the crest o' some distant peak, an' was lost in dreams o' avarice.

"I hadn't bin there long before I took up wi' a feller named Peter O'Riley, an' we became pards. We determined to try our luck in the Walker River Mountains, where some new placers had bin started; but we hadn't got the money, so we agreed t' work a claim in Six-Mile Canon till we'd taken out enough dust t' pay for an outfit. We dug a trench straight up the hillside, by Old Man Caldwell's Spring, through blue clay an' a yellowish kind o' gravel. But the spring wasted down the slope, so we stopped work on the trench an' commenced to sink a pit to collect the water an' make a reservoir. We hadn't sunk more 'an four feet when we struck a darker an' heavier soil, which sparkled as we shovelled it above ground. We washed out a panful, an' found that the bottom was fairly covered in gold. This was the top o' the famous Ophir, had we only known it. We jumped to our feet an' shouted, for it was the richest placer that had as yet bin found. We gave up our notion o' the Walker River, an' I began to laugh int' myself at the Mormon threat, that I should suffer from all the plagues o' Egypt, an' die an unknown man. We were rich—rich—rich.

"Just as we were finishin' our day's work, Old Pancake rides up. He'd bin lookin' for a mustang that he'd lost, an' came gallopin' over the ridge, with his long legs brushin' the sage tops. We tried to hide our discovery, but his eyes were too sharp for that. He saw the gold from our last clean-up glistenin' in the bottom o' the pan, as the sunset lit on it. 'You've struck it, boys,' he cried.

"Jumpin' from his horse, he went down into the pit t' examine for hisself. He stayed down there some time; when he come up his face was grave. He'd done a lot of thinkin' in a very short while. He sat down on the hillside, an' was silent for so long that we began to suspect there was somethin' up.

"At last he said, 'Now, see here, boys, this spring was old man Caldwell's. I an' Manny Penrod bought his claim last winter, an' we sold a tenth to Old Virginia th' other day. If you two fellers'll let Manny an' myself in on equal shares, it's all right; if not, it's all wrong.'

"We were a bit afraid o' Old Pancake; he'd bin longer in the district 'an we had. We didn't think to doubt his word, though, as we afterwards discovered, every word that he spoke was false. Anyhow, after a lot 'o argiment, we agreed to let him an' Manny Penrod in on the terms which he'd suggested. That was the beginnin' o' the Johntown gold-rush, an' I, for the second time, was one o' the discoverers. At first we named the place Pleasant Hill Camp, an' I can tell you it was mighty pleasant to be takin' out a thousand dollars a day per man. But later, when a city commenced t' spring up, it was necessary t' find some other name. We quarrelled a good deal about what we'd call it; but one night, when Old Virginia was goin' home with the boys drunk, carryin' a bottle o' whisky in 'is hand, he stumbled as he reached his cabin, an' the bottle fell an' was broke. Risin' to his knees, with the neck o' the bottle held fast in 'is hand, he coughed out, 'I baptise this ground Virginia town.' An' so Virginia town, which was afterwards changed t' city, the handful o' shanties was named.

"For all that my prospects were lookin' so rosy, I was really havin' bad luck. Day after day, I was throwin' away wagon-loads o' 'blue stuff,' as all th' other miners were doin', an' as those who had gone before us had done—we damned it, an' didn't know its value. A month after I'd sold out, a feller had some o' it assayed, an' it was found to be worth nearly seven thousand dollars in gold an' silver per ton.

"I guess that curse o' the Mormons was more powerful 'an it seemed at first sight—it's followed me through life an' ruined all the men with whom I've come in touch. Old Virginia was thrown from his horse, an' killed while drunk. O'Riley sold out his share for forty thousand dollars, the bulk o' which he spent in wildcat speculations, so that, what wi' disappointment an' loss, he finished out his days in a madhouse. Penrod sold for eight thousand, an' soon spent everything he had. Old Pancake sold for eleven thousand, an' lost every dollar. Then, gettin' sick o' seein' other fellers grow rich out o' what had bin his, he wandered off prospecting an' blew out his brains wi' his own gun in the mountains o' Montana. A chap named Hansard, one o' our first millionaires, died a pauper an' was buried at the public expense. As for myself, you can see what I've become—the Man wi' the Dead Soul."

He paused, and looked round at Granger. "The Man wi' the Dead Soul," he repeated, "that's what I am. When I die, my name will not be known among men."

"I don't suppose there's any of us'll be remembered long," said Granger. "There's a man out there on the bend; I was at Oxford with him. He was one of the finest oars that England ever had. The papers were full of him once. A sporting edition never came out but . . ."

He was interrupted. "Pass the whisky," Beorn said; "if we're goin' to be forgot, it don't much matter what we do or have done; an' we may as well forget."

He swallowed the spirit greedily at one quick gulp. "Where'd I got to? Oh, yes, I'd sold out my claim for money down, an' made a fool o' myself. You see I thought that my find was a gash-vein an' would soon peter out, an' that I was doin' somethin' mighty clever to sell at all. Instead o' which, I'd only skimmed the surface an' hadn't gone deep enough. The men who bought from us sank down till they came to the main lode, an' then there was the discovery o' what that 'blue stuff,' which we'd bin throwin' away, was really worth; from them two causes came the Washoe gold-rush. You never saw anythin' like that, not even in the Klondike. It was maddenin' for me to stand by an' watch these men, who'd come from a thousand miles east an' west, just t' handle the pickin's o' the wealth which I had once possessed an' hadn't had the sense to know about. They lived in tents, an' huts, an' holes in the hillsides, an' paid seventy-five cents for a pound o' flour, in the hopes that, when the summer 'ad come, they might get a chance to prospect.

"Before winter 'ad gone, they was leadin' strings o' mules across the mountains, on blankets spread above the snow, that they might get provisions in an' prevent us from starvin'. An' I, the feller as they'd come to rob, had to sit still an' watch it all.

"Before the roads were fit for travel, all the world was journeyin' towards us. There were Irishmen, pushin' wheelbarrows; an' Mexicans with burros; an' German miners, an' French, an' English, an' Swedes, ploddin' through the mud across the Sierras with their tools upon their backs; there were organ-grinders an' Jew pedlars, an' women dressed as men, all comin' to Virginia City to claim the gold which I 'ad lost. I sat every day idly watchin' their approach, an' I hated them. I'd begun to believe in the Mormon's curse, an' to let things slide. There didn't seem to be much sense in stakin' out a new claim—if I made another fortune, I felt certain that I'd surely lose it all.

"Along wi' the adventurers an' prospectors came desperadoes, who intended to make their fortune at the gun's point, by shootin' straight! There was the Tombstone Terror, an' the Bad Man from Bodie, an' Sam Brown, the greatest bully o' them all. One night a half-witted feller asked him how many men he'd chopped. 'Ninety-nine,' says Sam, 'an' you're the hundredth.' He seizes him by the neck an' rips him to pieces wi' his bowie-knife. Then he lay down an' went to sleep on the billiard table, while the father gathered up what remained o' his son from the floor.

"An' there was El Dorado Johnny, who, whenever he was goin' to shoot a man, bought a new suit o' clothes an' had a shave, an' got his hair cut an' his boots polished so that, in case there was any mistake, he might make a handsome corpse. These were some o' the men that I lived among, an', like God, I said nothin' to any of 'em, but watched an' was interested in 'em all.

"I suppose I enjoyed myself, for I couldn't help laughin' quietly at their expense. 'What went ye out for to seek?' I would ask as, sittin' by the outskirts o' the town, I saw this army o' men an' women struggle in from the mountain trail. An' then I'd answer myself, 'We have come that we may dig out gold, that others may take it from us. We have come to exchange our health an' hope for disease an' disappointment. We have come to gain all the world, which we shall not gain—an' to lose our own souls.'

"I tell you, it's mighty strange to think o' where all the gold, which those brave chaps o' the Old Virginia days dug out, has gone. Some o' it's been made into a necklace t' hang about a lady's throat; and some o' it's gone to Rome t' gild a cross; and some o' it's been made into a weddin' ring that a young girl might get married. I don't suppose the folk in the old lands ever think of how far the gold which they wear has travelled, nor how many have died in its gettin'. Some, which 'as bin made into a watch and goes to the city every day, may have come from King Solomon's mines in ships o' Tarshish; an' the king may have worn it hisself in his temple, or have given it away to the dark-skinned girl that he wrote that song about.

"When I thought o' these things in Old Virginia, it made me sort o' happy, so that I didn't mind what the Mormons 'ad said. Time seemed so endless, an' life so short, that I didn't seem called on to worry myself—only t' watch. If I found a new claim which panned out rich, I didn't work it myself; for I knew that, though I seemed lucky, I should end unlucky. An' I didn't tell anyone else about it; an' if they found it out for theirselves, I was angry. I'd found the Ophir, an' hadn't made anythin' out o' it—that was a big enough present for one man to make to his world.

"So I just looked on, an' saw the fools rushin' in who expected to pile up fortunes. And I saw the camels comin' in an' out, carryin' salt to Virginia from the desert. They'd bin brought from Asia, an' I could see that they felt as I felt, an' despised the greed an' hurry o' what was goin' on. Later some of 'em got so disgusted that they escaped from their drivers—at that time they was bein' used in Arizona t' carry ore. I've often smiled when I've fancied the terror o' some lone prospector, should one o' them long-legged brutes poke up his nose above a ridge where gold had just been found, and sniff scornfully down on the feller. Some o' them camels may be still livin' an' doin' it at this very minute."

Beorn opened his jaws wide and laughed. Granger had never heard him laugh before, and the sound was not pleasant. There was nothing of mirth about the man or in anything that he said—there was only disappointment and scorn. His bitterness became horrible when he pretended to be merry. "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision." It was like the thunderous scoffing of the Lord God of the Hebrews.

The candle had gone out, and the eerie light of the northland dawn, drifting into the room through the little space of window that was uncovered, made him and his companion look old and comfortless. But he was anxious to hear the last of the story before the soul departed, so he said, "And how was it that you left the Comstock Mines and came into Keewatin?"

"I told you that I'd done what you intended, that I killed a man. I did more 'an that, I killed many. You see, at that time there was no proper minin' law in America; so when men got t'quarrellin', they soon took t' fightin'. So long as the Comstock was only placer-minin', we knew what we were about, an' there was no trespassin', but when we took t' tunnelling', it wasn't long before we was borin' under one another's ledges. The Comstock veins, startin' near the surface, dipped toward the west, an' therefore the first great conflict came with the nearest line o' claims t' the westward. The ledges here were very rich an' almost perpendicular, an' so the slopin' shafts o' the Ophir, Mexican, etc., soon ran int' the vertical shafts on the 'middle lead.'

"The earliest case t' be tried, which I remember, was that o' the Ophir against McCall. The court met in a stable, an' each side come armed. One witness was shot at several times as he was ridin' homeward, down a ravine at nightfall. Party spirit ran too high, an' the danger o' bringin' in a unanimous verdict was too great for any jury t' risk their lives by comin' to an agreement. There was no justice; so there was nothin' left but to fight it out, the same as when nations go to war. An' what were they goin' to fight about? A metal which was only val'able because o' its rarity—which had no value in itself, an' couldn't help men t' godliness; one which you couldn't make an engine out o', nor a plough, nor even a sword, because it was too soft. But in order to possess it, they was goin' to take each other's lives. I, an' every other man in that town, had thrown away or were throwin' away our souls for a thing which was truly worthless.

"One night as I slept, I heard a voice callin' to me an' sayin', 'I will make a man more precious than gold; even a man than the golden wedge o' Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, an' the earth shall remove out o' her place, in th' wrath o' the Lord o' Hosts, an' in the day o' his fierce anger.' I heard that voice callin' to me not once, but several times; an' when I woke up, an' walked through the town, an' saw the men o' the Ophir preparin' to shoot down the men o' the McCall, I could still hear the voice repeating, 'Even a man than the golden wedge o' Ophir.'

"I went back to my shanty, an' found my Bible, an' read it many days, never stirrin' out. I remember there was one passage that seemed to accuse myself, an' to explain my own failure—'If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, "Thou art my confidence"; if I rejoiced because my wealth was great, an' because mine hand had gotten much; if I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walkin' in brightness, an' my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge, for I should have denied the God that is above.'

"I'd done all that. When I'd looked at the sun, I'd seen gold; when I'd looked at the moon, I'd thought of silver; an' when I'd found both the silver an' the gold in the Ophir, by Old Man Caldwell's Spring, my mouth had kissed my own hand—an' not God's. An' what I'd done, every one else was doin' in Virginia City; an' the Lord o' Hosts was angry, an' that was why men were killin' one another. So, when I'd sat still an' figured it all out, I said, 'God spoke to me because I'm the one man on the Comstock who, when he's found gold, tries to bury it; an' He spoke to me because He wants me to join with Him, an' help Him to shake the heavens.' So out I walked, day after day, an' watched things growin' from bad to worse; an' when I'd seen all I wanted, I come home an' read my Bible—I knew that when God had need o' me He would send His messenger.

"One night a miner come to my cabin, an' he said, 'Are you ready to fight for the Fair-Haired Annie?'

"'I'm ready,' I said, 'but what's it all about?'

"'From a drift, a hundred feet down,' said he, 'that we're workin' on at present, we can hear the picks o' the Bloody Thunder drawin' nearer an' nearer; they'll break through to-morrer into one o' our ledges.'

"'What then?' I asked.

"'We're goin' to have a band o' men waitin' for 'em in the dark on our side o' the ledge, an' everyone o' those men is goin' to be armed. The moment that the picks o' the Bloody Thunder drive through an' the wall goes down, the men o' the Fair-Haired Annie are goin' to fire.'

"'All right,' I said. 'I'm wi' you. I'll be there.'

"So next day I, an' twenty other men, were lowered down the shaft; an' before we saw daylight again, the Fair-Haired Annie an' the Bloody Thunder had gone to war. That was the first o' the underground fights which took place on the Comstock. I picked my men, and paid 'em ten dollars a day, an' called my gang 'The Avengers o' the Lord.' No one 'cept myself knew what that meant, but they learnt t' fear us, for we fought to the death. Often when I was waitin' in the dark, listenin' to the sound o' the rival miners comin' nearer, I would repeat to myself the words, 'I will make a man more precious 'an gold; even a man than the golden wedge o' Ophir.' An' when a poor chap lay dyin', I would say to him those words."

"So you were sorry for the men you killed?"

"Oh, I was sorry, though that did small good to 'em. When the Lord's bent on destroyin', He don't take much account o' persons. When the first born o' Egypt were slain, He killed the evil wi' the good—served 'em all alike. But it's heart-breakin' work to be made an avenger o' the Lord."

"But I don't understand. What was there to avenge?"

"What was there to avenge? Why, the sinfulness o' those men, who was diggin' out the power an' temptation to sin from the place where God had hidden it. He meant that it should stay there forever; but now it'll be handed down from generation to generation, as is King Solomon's gold, temptin' our sons' sons to lose their souls as ours were lost."

"And when all the fighting was done, did the soldiers get after you?" asked Granger. But Beorn's eyes were closing, and the soul was departing as day returned. Already the sun was leaping above the horizon, and the sigh of the waking forest was heard. Granger seized him by the arm and shook him—he had learnt only the least part of that which he desired to know. "Was it for that crime that you fled, till you came at last to Keewatin for safety?" he shouted. "Quick, Beorn, tell me. Why did you go to the Forbidden River?"

The eyes did not open; but, as if the soul were answering him with a last warning as it passed out of the door of the body, the lips stirred, "Ay, man, it's terrible—the things men give for gold."

The face had become so ashy pale that Granger bent above it, painfully listening for the intake of the breath, to assure himself that Beorn was not dead. His clamour had aroused Eyelids; looking down towards him, he saw that his eyes were wide and motionless, gazing towards the window with an expression of drunken terror.

"What's the matter?" he asked sharply.

The half-breed did not reply, but crouched and pointed with his hand.

Granger, turning his head and following the direction indicated, looked towards the triangle of uncovered window-pane, and there saw the face of a man, gazing hungrily in upon him—yet, not upon him, but upon the nugget which lay sparkling by Beorn's side upon the shelf. It was a face that seemed dimly familiar, but thinner and more haggard. At first it seemed to be his own face—the face of that self from which he had fled. Then he recognized, and knew that Spurling had returned.



CHAPTER XIV

SPURLING MAKES A REQUEST

There had been a time when Granger had desired to kill Spurling, and, though latterly he had not consciously wished that he were dead, yet he resented his reappearance; his presence broke in as a storm-influence on the stoical quiet which he had attained. This man stood for so many things which had been sinful and passionate in the past—things which it had cost him so much even to attempt to forget; things which he had promised himself that he would forget for Peggy's sake. And now, because he had chosen to return, it seemed necessary that he should call to mind the entire tragedy by asking the question, "When you shot that woman in the Klondike, did you know that she was not a man? And was she clothed in a woman's dress?"

Even though he kept silence, any hour Spurling himself might reopen the subject by inquiring after Strangeways, as to whether he had pursued farther, as to how he had fared, as to where he was at present. Granger was by no means certain that he did not already know that the corporal was dead. He shrank from the discomfort of playing the accuser again; he shrank still more from making the ugly confession that he himself was likely to be suspected of having committed a kindred crime,—a confession which would tend to degrade him to the level of this man whom he affected to despise. So, from day to day, he postponed his questions and, in the meanwhile, watched Spurling narrowly.

His conduct had been very curious since that morning of his arrival, when he had announced himself by playing the spy, through the window of Bachelors' Hall, on the inhabitants of the Point. How long he had been there, and how much he had heard of what the Man with the Dead Soul had had to say, kneeling outside in the semi-darkness with his ear pressed against the pane, Granger had no means of discovering. But from the first it was clear to him that Spurling and Eyelids were possessed of a common knowledge, which made them enemies. Perhaps they had met before near the Forbidden River, and this had been the cause of Eyelids' delay.

Under ordinary circumstances, the mystery would soon have been swept aside by the putting of a single interrogation; but men on the Last Chance River get out of the habit of asking leading questions; in their parsimony over words, they prefer to watch and to wait the reading of the minds of their fellows, and the secreting of their own motives, is almost their only pastime. So Granger watched and waited.

In Spurling, so soon as he had been fed and cared for, he was quick to discover a change. He had become manlier and braver—more like his old self. He carried himself with a kind of timid pride, as though he knew himself to be of a greater value than he was likely to be reckoned at by others; almost as though he were confident that he was possessed of a claim to merit which, once stated, could not fail to be recognised. At the same time, there was a distressful hesitancy in his manner, not unnatural under the circumstances, of a man not sure of his acceptability. He seemed forever on the point of declaring himself, and forever thinking better of his decision—postponing his declaration to a later time. His bearing was an irritating combination of false humility and suppressed self-assertion.

Beorn, when he had recovered from his debauch, was as silent, absorbed, and uncompanionable as ever. He appeared to have retained no memory of what he had said, and to be quite unconscious of Spurling's arrival—he had become again in all things the Man with the Dead Soul.

But with Peggy and Eyelids it was different. Half-breeds as they were, and, by reason of their Indian blood, instinctive disguisers of emotion, their aversion for Spurling was plain. Sometimes, when his back was turned and they thought that they were unobserved, they would glance swiftly up at one another, and an expression would come into their eyes, a small pin-point of angry fire, which betokened danger for the man they hated. Very strangely to Granger, since Spurling's arrival, they had manifested a great fondness for being in his own company; one or other of them was never far from his side. Though he turned upon them angrily, telling them that he wished to be by himself, they continually disobeyed and, next minute, like faithful dogs, with apologetic faces, were to be found watching near by. What was the motive of their conduct? Did they think that he was in danger, and required protecting?

But there was a graver happening which he had noticed. With Spurling's return, he had thought that now certainly he had solved the mystery of the signalling to the bend. On the first day, however, he had found himself mistaken. Sitting in the doorway of his store, he had watched the undesired one go down to the pier, push off in a canoe, and paddle down-river for a bathe. Quarter of a mile from the bend, he had seen him back-water, rise to his knees, gaze straight ahead in a startled manner, and then, turning quickly about, come racing back like one pursued for his life. Looking round, he had seen that Peggy and Eyelids were also witnessing these tactics, with expressions which betrayed their consternation. As he watched, they had raised their hands and waved. When Spurling had landed, he had been waiting for him at the pier-head. "What was it that you saw over there?" he asked sternly.

Spurling, being panic-stricken, had at first found difficulty in recovering his voice. Then, "Where? What do you mean?" he had panted.

Granger, in silence, had pointed northeasterly towards the bend.

With a nervous laugh, though his face was bloodless, Spurling had replied, "Nothing. I saw nothing. I just thought that it looked a bit lonesome, . . . so I turned back."

Gazing at him attentively, and seeing how he trembled, Granger knew that he had not answered truly. With a shrug of his shoulders, twisting round on his heel, he had said sneeringly, "On the Last Chance River we don't run away from loneliness as though the hangman were behind us. If we did, we should be running all the time."

He had not stayed to see the effect of his words, but long afterwards, when he looked down to the water's edge, Spurling was still sitting there, with his head between his hands and his body shaking.

Early one evening, some days later, he came to him and said, "Mr. Granger," and it sounded oddly from those lips—in the old days, even in the beginning of their acquaintance, they had never mistered one another, "Mr. Granger, is there anywhere we can go to be quiet? I have something very private which I want to say."

"O yes, there's the whole of Keewatin."

"But isn't there some place where we shan't be overheard?"

"We can paddle down to the bend. There's only one man who can hear us there—and he's in his grave."

"Not there. Not there," Spurling had cried, trembling with fear and excitement.

"Well, then, if you're so particular, you can speak with me here."

Spurling looked round to where, at a short distance, Eyelids was diligently idling above a broken net. "Somewhere where we can't be overheard," he reiterated. At that moment Eyelids turned his head.

This continual spying on all that he did, the reason for which he could not comprehend, was getting on Granger's nerves; he felt that it would be a relief to be alone, even though it meant being alone with the man whom he had most cause to hate. However, somehow he pitied him just now; perhaps because of the manner of his address, which had brought into sharp contrast their present relations with those of other days.

"There's the island up-river to the westward, where I keep my dogs in summer-time; if that will suit your purpose."

Spurling showed his pleasure at the suggestion, and, hurrying his steps, led the way down to the river-bank. Getting into a canoe, they set out towards the west. They had not gone half a mile before they caught the sound of paddle-strokes behind them. Turning about, they saw that Eyelids was following. He attempted to loiter, and threw in a line as if his only intention were to fish. Granger flushed with anger. Without a word, he commenced to paddle back till they drew nearly level with the intruder, who pretended to be so engaged in his pastime as not to notice their approach. Then he cried in a voice that was choking with rage, "Get back to the Point, you half-breed spy. If you dare to follow me again, I'll turn you out to-morrow, and you can take your trade elsewhere." Nor would he proceed farther on his journey till he had watched his brother-in-law get safe to land; then, with a twist of the paddle, he brought his own craft round, and continued towards the sunset. Two miles up-river, in the middle-stream, stood a rocky island; as yet it was only a dull grey speck in a pathway of red.

They pushed on in silence up the straight, dark grove of mysterious forest. Water-birds were calling in the rushes; at one point, as they passed, a great bull caribou lifted up his head from drinking, and regarded them with a look of curiosity, totally void of fear; a heron drifted slowly over the tree-tops, and disappeared. To Granger, with even this short distance placed between himself and his customary associates, there came a sense of release, and with it an instinct for kindness. As they neared the shore of the island, the huskies commenced to howl; soon they could see them bunched together on the shore awaiting their arrival. A dog in the north, even though he has been imported, is never heard to bark. To hear them at first, a stranger might suppose that a woman was wearily weeping herself to death in the forest, because of a grief which was inconsolable. The wail of the huskies, reaching him at intervals across the expanse of water, seemed the voice of his own desolation, coming out to meet him.

The whole world was empty, and he began to feel the need of friendship. He let his eyes linger on the head and shoulders of the man in front of him, and remembered with what eagerness long ago, when awaiting his arrival at some appointed rendezvous, he had striven to catch sight of him approaching, towering above the littler people of the London crowd. And now, instead of brief and chance-snatched moments, they were allowed to pass whole days together; yet, because of what had happened, they could find no pleasure in one another. Pleasure! The only sensation which he derived from Spurling's company was one of intense annoyance. And there had been a time when, if anyone had dared to tell him that that could ever happen, he would have denied it with an oath.

Could it be that the fault was his own, and that he had misjudged this man? He recalled how, when he had discovered Strangeways' body at the bend, and had thought it Spurling's, he had bitterly accused himself of all manner of unkindness. He smiled grimly at the remembrance—it was human nature to do that. He could quite well imagine that at some future time, when Spurling was truly dead, he might blame himself afresh, with an equal bitterness and an equal sincerity. It would be easy to judge charitably of him then, for he would be beyond power of working any further mischief to the living. It is fear, not cruelty, which lies at the root of all uncharitableness. If apprehension were removed from our lives, it would be possible for the weakest man to live well. It was the fact that, trusting in God, he took no thought for the morrow, which enabled Jesus to become Christ.

Gliding round the island, they came to a sandy cove, which faced the sunset. There they landed. Lifting the canoe a dozen paces up the shore and placing it in the scrub, where it might be out of sight, they struck into the brushwood by a narrow trail, which at once commenced to climb. After three minutes of travelling, they came out on to a tall bare rock, to one side of which grew a solitary pine. From there they could command a view of the river on every side.

Granger settled himself down, with his back toward his companion, propping himself against the pine-trunk, with his face towards the fading light. The huskies gathered hungrily round in a semicircle, squatting on their haunches, wondering whether the coming of these men meant that they were going to be fed. The frogs croaked in the river; the mosquitoes trumpetted about their heads; save for these sounds, and the continual low murmur of the river, there was absolute quiet. In this environment, his eyes upon the faery domes and fiery spires of the western sky, into the inmost mystery of which the Last Chance River led, that torturing and old desire, which had always made it impossible for him to enjoy the moment in its flight, again possessed his mind: he had known it from a child, the ambition to follow, follow, follow, in the hope that somewhere, perhaps behind the setting sun, he might arrive at the land of perfectness for which he craved.

His thoughts were disturbed somewhat brutally by a voice behind. "Still careless of your life! I see you hav'n't brought your gun with you. How did you know that it wasn't 'Die,' that I wanted to say?"

He turned lazily round, and was surprised at the altered expression which had come into Spurling's face. It was frank and self-reliant, and, oddly enough, had a look that was almost tender.

"What made you say that?" Granger inquired.

Spurling drew nearer. "Well, a fellow had to say something to break the ice," he replied; "so I thought I might as well give you your chance of taking the worst impression of me." He paused; then he asked in a low voice, "You were thinking of London and the old times?"

Granger nodded his head.

"I've often done that; I can understand. It was torture to me in the Yukon, and it was madness to me over there," pointing with his hand to the northward, where the Forbidden River lay. "What would you say," he added, "if I were to tell you that it could all come back again?"

Granger's reply was quiet and calculated, so that it seemed to be quite within the bounds of courteous conversation. "I think I should tell you that you lied," he said.

"But if I should give you proof that not only the old things were possible, but that El Dorado might come true, and that within a year we could seek it out together, as we have always planned to do?"

For answer Granger jerked out his foot, and sent a gaunt grey husky flying, which had come within his range. It was one of those which Spurling had left behind over two months ago at Murder Point, when he had exchanged teams with Granger in his endeavour to escape Strangeways. Spurling, when he saw it, recognised the meaning which Granger's action implied. It was as if he had said, "So the old things are possible, are they, you villain? What about that man whom you say that you killed, whose body was washed up near Forty-Mile?" He opened his lips to explain, and then fell silent. It was impossible to excuse himself in the presence of those wolfish beasts, who had been witnesses to all the degradation of mind and body which had overtaken him in that terrible escape. No man could estimate the penalty which he had had to pay for his moment's folly, except one who had endured it. When he allowed his memory to dwell upon it, that frenzied rush across half a continent seemed to have occupied all his life. The thought of it made him afraid.

"Good God! And my mother meant me for a minister!" he exclaimed, burying his face in his hands.

Granger looked up suspiciously, but he said nothing.

"No, I never told you that," he continued fiercely, "and I suppose you don't believe me now. Seems somehow odd to you, I daresay, that Druce Spurling should ever have thought himself worthy to talk to men about their souls and Christ. You'd have thought it a good joke if I'd told you even when you knew me at my best. When you knew me! Bah! You never knew me; you were always a harsh judge when it came to setting a value on things which you didn't understand."

When Granger still kept silent and gave no sign of interest, Spurling broke out afresh: "Damnation! I tell you you never knew anything about me. You were always too selfish to take the trouble to get into other folks' insides; yet you went about complaining that people were unsympathetic. Here's the difference between us; I may be a scoundrel, but whatever I've done I've played the man and never blamed anyone else for my crimes, while you—! You were always a weak dreamer, depending on others for your strength. You were discontented, but you never raised your littlest finger in an attempt to make men better. All you could think of was yourself, and your own ambition to escape. So though, perhaps, I've sunk to a lower level than you have ever touched, I want you to know there was once a time when I did reach up to a nobler and a better."

Gradually, as he had spoken, there had grown into his voice a concentrated fury. He was giving utterance to an old grievance over which he had brooded for many years; as happens frequently in such cases, only a portion of his complaint could be proved by facts, the remainder being an overgrowth of embittered imagination.

His eyes sought out the face of the man whom he accused, but it told him nothing; he sat there silent, with his head thrown back a little, unemotional as the distant stretch of cold grey river up which he gazed.

The sun had vanished, and the prolonged dusk of the northland was stealing from out the forest. At length Granger answered him: "It may be true, and if so, what follows?"

"Oh, nothing: only I thought I'd tell you this so that one man might not think too badly of me, if before long I should be called upon to die. I must have looked a horrid beast when I came to you last April."

Whether consciously or not, Granger nodded his head, as much as to say, "You did. Most certainly you did."

His companion broke into a harsh laugh. "The Reverend Druce Spurling! How d'you like the sound of it? That's what I might have been to-day, and a fat lot you care about it."

To Granger, as he listened, there had come the painful knowledge, bearing out the accusation that he had never cared for the inward things of men, that this was the first scrap of confession which Spurling had ever let fall in his presence. Why, up to that moment he had not heard a word about his mother, and had certainly never credited him with a pronounced religious instinct.

Yes, perhaps that statement, which had sounded so exaggerated at first, was true; and he was a hard and selfish man. Up to now he'd excused himself on the score of his superior sensitiveness and ideality. Probably it was this same error which Pere Antoine, in gentler manner, had tried to point out, when he said, "You will never help yourself, or the world, by merely being sad. No man ever has. It is because of your flight from sadness that you have met with all your dangers. All your life you have spent in striving to escape from things which are sad." His thoughts travelled back to those earlier days, when he'd poured out his troubles to Spurling, and told him all about himself; and always with the assurance that he would be understood and would gain sympathy. John Granger as he had been then, now seemed like a complaining child to himself. He was certain that, were he to be met by that old self to-day, he would have no patience with him. But Spurling had had patience.

So, when all was said and done, he must consider himself a pretty worthless fellow; and, after all, Spurling, despite his blood-stained hands, was probably the better man.

"Why Spurling failed to become a parson"—a strange topic for thought and conversation this, on the Last Chance River at nightfall!

But Spurling was speaking again, timidly and half to himself. "Suppose God should brand a mark on our foreheads for every crime which we have perpetrated, I wonder what kind of beasts we should appear to one another then?"

Turning his head, in order that his face might not be seen, Granger replied, "Much the same kind of beasts, I suspect, as we appear to one another now." Then, speaking more hurriedly, "It wasn't to talk of these things, and to ask me that question, that you required me to come with you to some place where we might be by ourselves. Tell me, what is it that you want me to do for you? You were good to me once, and I'm willing to help you in any way that is honourable, and that isn't too dangerous."

Spurling laughed shortly, and said, "It isn't your help that I'm asking; it's you that I'm trying to help. Here, look at that." He passed something to him. "I didn't act squarely by you in the Klondike, and I want to make up for it now. When we made that strike in Drunkman's Shallows, the success of it turned my head; even then, if you'd not been so impatient, I think I should have come to myself and have behaved decently. You put my back up with your suspicions, and by seeming to claim a part of my wealth as though it were yours by right. But I'm anxious to forget that now."

In the meanwhile, Granger had been examining the thing which had been placed in his hands. It was wrapped up carefully in several rags, which were knotted and tedious to untie. When he had stript them off, he found that they contained a nugget, somewhat bigger than the one which Eyelids had shown him, but of the same rounded formation, as though it had been taken from a river-bed. "Where did you get it?" he asked excitedly.

"Where the half-breed got his—from the Forbidden River. Does El Dorado seem more possible to you now?"

But Granger was thinking, and he did not answer the question. Suddenly the dream of his life had become recoverable. He had forgotten Peggy, and Murder Point, and even Spurling himself. Once more in imagination he was sailing up the Great Amana, following in his father's track. Once more he saw, as in Raleigh's day, the deer come down to the water's side, as if they were used to the keeper's call; and he watched anxiously ahead lest, in the rounding of the latest bend, the shining city should meet his sight and the salt expanse of Parima, from whose shores its towers are said to rise. In his eyes was the vision of the island near Puna, which Lopez wrote about, with its silver herb-gardens, and its flowers of gold, and its trees of gold and of silver; and in his ears was the tinkling music, which the sea-wind was wont to make as it swept through the metal forest, causing its branches to clang and its leaves to shake. He was far away from Keewatin now, making the phantom journey to the land of his desire.

"Does El Dorado seem more possible to you now?"

He turned to Spurling a face which had grown thin with earnestness, "Druce, tell me quickly," he said, "how long will it take us to get there?"

"To get to El Dorado? The answer to that you should know best. But to get to the place on the Forbidden River where this gold was found? Oh, about five days."

"Let us go there at once, then, before Beorn finds us out."

"Ah, Beorn! The old trapper who put that half-breed on my track!"

"Did he do that? Tell me about it."



CHAPTER XV

MANITOUS AND SHADES OF THE DEPARTED

"After I had left you, I journeyed three days to the northward, till I came to the mouth of the Forbidden River. There I found the cache which you spoke to me about; but I did not break into it at that time, as I was still well provided with food and ammunition. Because you had told me that the Forbidden River was unexplored and never visited, being haunted by Manitous and shades of the dead, I turned into it and travelled up it—I thought that I should find safety there.

"On the second day, just as evening was falling, I saw the flare of a camp-fire, about two miles ahead. You'll remember that my nerves were badly shaken when I came to you at Murder Point; and they hadn't been much improved by those five days of flight through the winter loneliness. When I saw that light blaze up in the distance, I began to be afraid—and it wasn't the fear of men that I was thinking about. I waited until it was utterly night and then, leaving my dogs behind, stole stealthily forward to prospect. As I drew nearer, I saw that a hut of boughs had been erected, and that a man was sitting, with his rifle on his knees, before the fire. He was very old and tall. But I had no opportunity to get a closer view of him, for, at that moment, he must have heard me; he put his head on one side to listen, and rose to his feet. Without the waste of any time, he fired in my direction. Luckily I had thrown myself flat along the snow, for the bullet whizzed over my head. He advanced towards me a little way, and then, thinking that he had been mistaken, went back to his fire, grumbling to himself, and sat down. The cold ate into my bones, yet I dared not stir until I was certain that he had gone to sleep. Presently he arose, looked suspiciously around, piled more wood on his fire, and went into his hut.

"I hurried back to where I had left my dogs, harnessed them in and, leaving the river-bank, travelled into the bush for a distance of about two miles; there I tied them up, and then returned to the river by myself, coming out at a point somewhat nearer to the old man's hut. I lay down behind a clump of trees and waited. Before day had come, I could hear that he was astir; but he seemed to be almighty busy for a Keewatin trapper, who was only changing camp. About midday he had made his preparations, and, stamping out his fire, set out down-stream, in the direction of the Last Chance River. I knew that in half-an-hour he must come across my trail, and have his suspicions of the previous night confirmed. Sure enough, after he had passed my place of hiding and had got below me about three hundred yards, he struck my tracks. He pulled up sharply, and wheeled round, as if he could feel that my eyes were watching him; he threw up his head like an old bull caribou scenting danger.

"I had left two trails leading from that point, the one towards his hut and back again, the other into the bush to where my dogs were tethered. If he was determined to follow up the latter and to trace me to my hiding, I was ready for him, and would have the advantage of knowing his whereabouts, whilst he was ignorant of mine. He must have been going through some such argument himself, for presently he whipped up his dogs and, with one last glance across his shoulder, continued on his journey. When he had vanished, and I had made certain that he did not intend to return, I went forward to inspect his abandoned camp.

"Inside the hut I found that the floor was of earth and below the snow-level, making evident the fact that it had been erected before the winter had commenced. When I examined the walls, which were constructed of boughs and mud, I came to the conclusion that they had been standing for many years, but had been renewed from time to time. All this made it clear to me that you had been mistaken in saying that the Forbidden River had never been travelled. The next thing to discover was what had brought the old man up there. The earth of the floor was not packed together, but looked loose and rough, as though it had been newly dug. This gave me my first clue to the secret. When I walked above it, it did not sound solid, so I commenced to scrape away the earth. Six inches down I came to branches of trees spread crosswise, as though to form a roof to a cellar. Pulling these aside, after another hour of labour, I looked down into a pit which had been hollowed out. It was getting dark now, so I lit a fire.

"I climbed into the pit, by some rudely fashioned stairs which had been shaped in the side of the wall, and soon found myself on level footing. Groping about down there, I could feel that the sides were tunnelled, and had been roughly timbered with the stems of trees. Going above ground, I fetched a torch and then saw all that I had commenced to suspect—and a good deal more.

"Piled up in one corner was an outfit of miner's implements, pans, axes, spades, picks, etc., and close beside them was a sack of moose-hide. Whipping out my knife, I cut through the thongs by which the sack was tied; it lurched over, letting fall a dozen ounces or so of gold dust. On searching round, I found in another corner a second sack containing nuggets. When I went about the walls, and pushed my way into some of the tunnels, I was made certain that I was in one of the richest placer-mines that I had ever set eyes on. Then I went up to consider what all this meant.

"Here was I, a man fleeing for his life, and here was this old man, a pioneer in an unexplored region, who, for some reason of his own, was keeping secret the knowledge of his bonanza, yet taking the gold out all the while. Couldn't I, by making the world a present of his knowledge, buy back my life? Soon I recognised that that was folly; the world would accept the present, but it would also demand my life. There was nothing for it but to act by stealth. If I could once get out of Keewatin with all these riches, I would be able to purchase my escape; especially if I should remain in hiding for a year or so, until the search had been abandoned, and I had been given up for dead. Then I could sneak out and get to South America, where I was not known, and commence life afresh. The thought of South America brought El Dorado to my mind, and then I remembered you, two hundred miles' distant at Murder Point. 'Why shouldn't I tell Granger?' I said. 'Then we could both escape, and go in search of El Dorado together, as we have always planned.'"

He paused and looked at his companion to see what effect his words had had. Granger was sitting with his head bent forward, his knees drawn up and his arms about them, all attention, with a strange look of hunger in his eyes. "Well, for God's sake don't keep me waiting, Druce. Go on," he said.