"I think that way, too—now. I didn't always."

The girl sighed.

"No."

The man seemed to have nothing further to add, and his smile died out. Jessie was once more reflectively contemplating the masses of overhanging ice on the opposite bank. The thoughts of both had drifted back over a space of seven months.

It was the man who finally broke the spell which seemed to have fallen. He broke it with a movement of impatience.

"What's the use?" he said at last.

"No—there's no use. Nothing can ever bring him back to us." The girl suddenly flung out her hands in a gesture of helpless earnestness and longing. "Oh, if he might have been spared to me. My daddy, my brave, brave daddy."

Again a silence fell between them, and again it was the man who finally broke it. This time there was no impatience. His strange eyes were serious; they were as deeply earnest as the girl's. But the light in them suggested a stirring of deep emotion which had nothing of regret in it.

"His day had to come," he said reflectively. "A man can live and prosper on the northern trail, I guess, if he's built right. He can beat it right out, maybe for years. But it's there all the time waiting—waiting. And it's going to get us all—in the end. That is if we don't quit before its jaws close on our heels. He was a big man. He was a strong man. I mean big and strong in spirit. You've lost a great father, and I a—partner. It's seven months and more since—since that time." His voice had dropped to a gentle, persuasive note, his dark eyes gazing urgently at the girl's averted face. "Is it good to sit around here in the chill evening dreaming, and thinking, and tearing open afresh a wound time and youths ready to heal up good? Say, I don't just know how to hand these things right. I don't even know if they are right. But it kind of seems to me we folk have all got our work to do in a country that don't stand for even natural regrets. It seems to me we all got to shut our teeth and get right on, or we'll pay the penalty this country is only too ready to claim. Guess we need all the force in us to make good the life north of 'sixty.' Sitting around thinking back's just going to weaken us so we'll need to hand over the first time our bluff is called."

Jessie's sad eyes came back to his as he finished speaking. She nodded.

"Yes. You're surely right. It's no use. It's worse. It's playing the enemy's game. Mother needs my help. Alec. The little kiddies at the Mission. You're right, Murray." Then, in a moment of passion her eyes lit and all that was primitive in her flamed up. "Oh, I could curse them, I could crush them in these two hands," she cried, suddenly thrusting out two clenched small fists in impotent threat, "these—these devils who have killed my daddy!"

The man's regard never wavered. The girl's beauty in the passion of the moment held him. Never had her desirability appeared greater to him. It was on the tip of his tongue to pour out hot words of love. To force her, by the very strength of his passionate determination, to yield him the place in her heart he most desired. But he refrained. He remembered in time that such a course must be backed by a physical attraction which he knew he entirely lacked. That lack must be compensated for by an added caution.

He shook his head.

"Don't talk that way," he said gently. "It's all been awful. But it can't be undone now, and—— Say, Jessie, you got your mother, and a brother who needs you. Guess you're more blessed than I am. I haven't a soul in the world. I'm just a bit of flotsam drifting through life, looking for an anchorage, and never finding one. That's how it is I'm right here now. If I'd had folks I don't guess I'd be north of 'sixty' now. This place is just the nearest thing to an anchorage I've lit on yet, but even so I haven't found a right mooring."

"You've no folks—none at all?"

Jessie's moment of passion had passed. All her sympathy had been suddenly aroused by the man's effort to help her, and his unusual admission of his own loneliness.

A shadow of the man's usual smile flickered across his features.

"Not a soul," he said. "Not a father, mother, relative or—or wife. Sounds mean, don't it?" Quite abruptly he laughed outright.

"Oh, I could tell you a dandy story of days and nights of lonesomeness. I could tell you of a boyhood spent chasing the streets o' nights looking for a sidewalk to crawl under, or a sheltered corner folks wouldn't drive me out of. I could tell you of hungry days without a prospect of better to come, of moments when I guessed the cold waters of Puget Sound looked warmer than the night ahead of me. I could tell you of a mighty battle fought out in silence and despair. Of a resolve to make good by any means open to man. I could tell you of strivings and failures that 'ud come nigh breaking your heart, and a resolve unbreakable not to yield. Gee, I've known it all, all the kicks life can hand a derelict born under an evil influence. Say, I don't even know who my parents were."

"I never thought—I never knew——"

The girl's words were wrung from her by her feelings. In a moment this man had appeared to her in a new light. There was no sign of weakness or self-pity in Murray as he went on. He was smiling as usual, that smile that always contained something of a mocking irony.

"Pshaw! It don't figger anyway—now. Nothing figgers now but the determination never to find such days—and nights again. I said I need to find a real mooring. A mooring such as Allan found when he found your mother. Well, maybe I shall. I'm hoping that way. But even there Nature's done all she knows to hand me a blank. I'd like to say look at me, and see the scurvy trick Nature's handed out my way. But I won't. Gee, no. Still I'll find that mooring if I have to buy it with the dollars I mean to wring out of this devil's own country."

Jessie's feelings had been caught and held through sympathy. Sympathy further urged her. This man had failed to appeal before. A feeling of gentle pity stirred her.

"Don't say that," she cried, all her ideals outraged by the suggestion of purchasing the natural right of every man. "There's a woman's love for every man in the world. That surely is so. Guess it's the good God's scheme of things. Saint or sinner it doesn't matter a thing. We're as God made us. And He's provided for all our needs. Some day you'll wonder what it was ever made you feel this way. Some day," she went on, smiling gently into the round face and the glowing eyes regarding her, "when you're old, and rich, and happy in the bosom of your family, in a swell house, maybe in New York City, you'll likely get wondering how it came you sat right here making fool talk to a girl denying the things Providence had set out for you." Her pretty eyes became grave as she leaned forward earnestly. "Say, I can see it all for you now. The picture's standing right out clear. I can see your wife now——"

The man smiled at her earnestness as she paused.

"Can you?"

Jessie nodded. Her gaze was turned upon the far reach of the river.

"Yes. She's medium height—like you. She's a woman of sort of practical motherly instinct. Her eyes are blue, and clear, and fine, revealing the wholesome mind behind. She'll be slim, I guess, and her gown's just swell—real swell. She'll——"

The man broke in on an impulse which he was powerless to deny.

"She won't be tall?" he demanded, his eyes shining into hers with an intensity which made Jessie shrink before them. "She won't move with the grace of—of a Juno, straight limbed, erect? She won't have dandy gray eyes that look through and beyond all the time? She won't have lovely brown hair which sort of reflects the old sun every time it shines on it? She won't have a face so beautiful it sets a feller just crazy to look at it? Say, if it was like that," he cried, in a voice thrilling with passion, "I'd feel I didn't owe Providence the kick I've——"

How far his feelings would have carried him it was impossible to say. He had been caught off his guard, and had flung caution to the winds. But he was spared the possible consequences by an interruption which would not be denied. It was an interruption which had claimed them both at the same instant.

A sound came out of the distance on the still evening air. It came from the bend of the river where it swung away to the northwest. It was the sound of the dipping of many paddles, a sound which was of paramount importance to these people at all times.

The girl was on her feet first. Nor was Murray a second behind her. Both were gazing intently out in the growing dusk. Simultaneously an exclamation broke from them. Then the girl spoke while the man remained silent.

"Canoes," she said. "One, two, three, four—five. Five canoes. I know whose they are."

Murray was standing close beside her, the roundness of his ungainly figure aggravated by the contrast. He, too, was gazing hard at the flotilla. He, too, had counted the canoes as they came into view. He, too, had recognized them, just as he had recognized the thrill of delighted anticipation in the girl's voice as she announced her recognition of them.

He knew, no one better, all that lay behind the shining gray of the girl's eyes as she beheld the canoes approach. He needed no words to tell him. And he thanked his stars for the interruption which had saved him carrying his moment of folly further.

His eyes expressed no anticipation. Their glowing fires seemed to have become extinguished. There was no warmth in them. There was little life in their darkly brooding watchfulness. Never was a contrast so deeply marked between two watchers of the same object. The man was cold, his expression hard. It was an expression before which even his habitual smile had been forced to flee. Jessie was radiant. Excitement surged till she wanted to cry out. To call the name that was on her lips.

Instead, however, she turned swiftly upon the man at her side, who instantly read the truth in the radiant gray eyes gazing into his.

"It's—John Kars," she said soberly. Then in a moment came a repetition. "Fancy. John Kars!"



CHAPTER VIII

TWO MEN OF THE NORTH

North, south, east, west. There was, perhaps, no better known name in the wide northern wilderness than that of John Kars. In his buoyant way he claimed for himself, at thirty-two, that he was the "oldest inhabitant" of the northland.

Nor was he without some justification. For, at the age of thirteen, accompanying his father, he had formed one of the small band of gold seekers who fought their way to the "placers" of Forty-mile Creek years before the great Yukon rush.

He was one of those who helped to open the gates of the country. His child's muscles and courage had done their duty beside those of far older men. They had taken their share in forcing the icy portals of a land unknown, and terror-ridden. He had endured the agony of the first great battle against the overwhelming legions of Nature. He had survived, all unprepared and without experience. It was a struggle such as none of those who came later were called upon to endure. For all that has been told of the sufferings of the Yukon rush they were incomparable with those which John Kars had been called upon to endure at an age when the terror of it all might well have overwhelmed him.

But he had done more than survive. Good fortune and sanity had been his greatest assets. The first seemed to have been his all through. Sanity only came to him at the cost of other men's experience. For all his hardihood he was deeply human. The early temptations of Leaping Horse had appealed to the virile youth in him. He had had his falls. But there was something in the blood of the youth which quickly convinced him of the folly of the life about him. So he, to use his own expression, "quit the poultry ranch" and "hit the bank roll trail," and good fortune followed hard behind him like a faithful spouse.

He became rich. His wealth became a byword. And later, when, out of disorder and vice, the city of Leaping Horse grew to capital importance, he became surfeited with the accumulations of wealth which rolled in upon him from his manifold interests.

Then it was that the man which the Yukon world now knew suddenly developed. He could have retired to the pleasant avenues of civilization. He could have entered public life in any of the great capitals of the world. But these things had no appeal for him.

The battle of the trail had left a fever in his blood. He was smitten with the disease of Ishmael. Then, before all, and above all, he counted the northland his home. So, when everything the world could yield him lay at his feet, the drear, silent north trail only knew him. His interests in the golden world of Leaping Horse were left behind him, while he satisfied his passion in the far hidden back countries where man is a mere incident in the world's unbroken silences.

Oh, yes, his quest was gold, frankly gold. But not in relation to values. He sought gold for the joy of search, to provide excuse. He sought gold for the romance of it, he sought it because adventure lay in the track of virgin gold as it lies nowhere else. Besides, the battle of it suited the man's hardihood.

Once, to his philosopher friend, Dr. Bill Brudenell of Leaping Horse, he said, "Life's just a shanty most every feller starts right in to set up for himself. And I guess more than half of 'em couldn't set two bricks right. It seems to me if you're going to make life a reasonable proposition you need to start in from the beginning of things, and act the way you see clearest. It's no use groping around in a fog just because folks reckon it's up to you to act that way. If you can't set two bricks right, then set one. Anyway, do the things you can do, and don't kick because you can't do more. The trail I know. Gold I know. The Yukon I know. Then what's the use in quittin' it fer something I don't know, and don't care a cuss for anyway?"

This was the man, simple, direct. Wealth meant nothing to him. It was there. It sometimes seemed like snowing him under. He couldn't help it. Life was all he wanted. The life he loved, the life which gave him room in which to stretch his great body. The life which demanded the play of his muscles of steel. The life which absorbed every mental faculty in its simple preservation. He was, as Bill once said: "A primitive, an elemental creature, a man destined for the altar of the gods of the wilderness when the sands of his time ran out."

What wonder then that Jessie Mowbray's eyes should shine with a light such as only one man can inspire.

Her delight was unrestrained as the flotilla drew near, and she descried the familiar figure of its leader. Then came the ringing greeting across the water. Nor could the manner of her response be mistaken. Murray saw, he heard and understood. And so the fixity of his smiling greeting which completely masked his feelings.

John Kars' manner owed nothing to convention. But it was governed by a sureness of touch, a perfect tact, and a great understanding of those with whom he came into contact. To him man was simply man. Woman was just woman. The latter claimed the last atom of his chivalrous regard at all times. The former possessed only the distinction which his qualities entitled him to.

He grasped the warm, soft hand outheld to him as he leaped out of his canoe. The girl's shining eyes looked up into his bronzed, clean-cut features with the confidence of one who understands the big spirit stirring behind them. She listened responsively to the simple greeting which fell so naturally from his firm lips.

"Say, it's good to see you all again. Home?" He glanced swiftly round at the scene about them. "This is home, I guess." Then he laughed. "The other," he went on, with a backward jerk of the head to indicate Leaping Horse, whence he had just come, "why, the other's just a sort of dumping ground for the waste left over—after home's finished with things. Bill, here, don't feel that way. He guesses we're on an unholy vacation with home at the other end. You can't get the same sense out of different heads."

He turned to Murray with a cordiality which was only less by reason of the sex of its object. "And Murray, too. Well, say, it's worth while. It surely is."

The trader's response was all sufficient. But his smile contained no added warmth, and his hand-shake lacked the grip it received.

In five minutes John Kars had made his explanations. But they were made to Jessie. Murray was left on the fringe of their talk.

He told her in his rapid, easy fashion that he was out for the whole open season. That he'd practically had to kidnap Bill from his beloved Leaping Horse. That his old friend was just recovering from his consequent grouch, and, anyway, folks mustn't expect anything more than common civility from him as yet. He said that he hoped to make Fort Wrigley on the Mackenzie River some time in the summer, and maybe even Fort Simpson. But that would be the limit. By that time, he guessed Bill would have mutinied and probably murdered him. He said he hoped to appease the said Doctor with a good bag of game. But even that was problematical, as Bill had never been known to hit anything smaller than a haystack in his life.

So he talked with the daughter of his old friend Allan Mowbray, knowing of the man's murder by the Indians, but never by word or sign reminding the girl of her loss.

Meantime Bill Brudenell deliberately completed the work of superintending the "snugging" of the canoes for the night. He heard his friend's charges, and smiled his retorts with pointed sarcasm. And Jessie understood, for she knew these two, and their great friendship. And Dr. Bill—well, she regarded him as a sort of delightful uncle who never told her of her faults, or recommended his own methods of performing the difficult task of getting through life successfully.

When all was ready they moved off the landing towards the Mission clearing.

Ailsa Mowbray was preparing supper. The scones were nearly ready in the oven, and she watched them with a skilful eye.

She looked still older in her moments of solitude. The change in her wrought by the last seven months must have been heart-breaking to those who had not seen her since that dreadful night of tragedy. But her spirit was unimpaired. There were her two children left, and a merciful Providence had bestowed upon her a world of maternal devotion. For all her grief, she had not been entirely robbed of that which made life possible. Her husband lived again in the children he had blessed her with.

Had she so chosen she might have severed herself forever from the life which had so deeply wounded her. Her fortune made it possible to seek comfort in the heart of the world's great civilization. But the thought of it never entered her simple head. She was a born housewife. The love of her home, and its care, was part of her. That home which had yielded her her greatest joys and her greatest trial.

Sometimes the thought would obtrude that Jessie deserved something more than the drear life of the northland. But the girl herself dispelled these thoughts. Like her mother, she had no desire beyond the home she had always known.

When Jessie hurried into the spotless kitchen her mother glanced quickly up from her cook-stove.

"What is it?" she demanded, at the sight of the eager eyes and parted lips. "You're——" She broke off with a smile. "There, child," she added, "you don't need to tell it. Your face does that. John Kars has come up the river."

The girl flushed scarlet. Her eyes were horrified.

"Why, mother," she cried dismayed, "am I so easy to read? Can—can anybody read me like—you can?"

The mother's eyes were very tender.

"I don't believe John Kars can anyway," she said reassuringly. "You see, he's a man. Is he coming along over?"

Jessie's relief was as obvious as her momentary dismay. The flush of shame faded from her pretty cheeks. Her eyes were again dancing with delight.

"Why, sure, mother," she cried. "He's coming right over—after they've fixed things with Father Jose. I don't think they'll be to supper. Dr. Bill's with him, of course. And say, aren't they just two dears? To see them together, and hear their fool talk, you'd think them two kids instead of two of the big men of the country. It must be good to keep a heart so young all the time. I think, mother, they must be good men. Real good men. I don't mean like Father Jose. But the sort who do things square because they like square living. I—I wish they lived here all the time. I—I don't know which I like best."

"I do."

The mother set the scones on the table and glanced over it with approving eyes. The girl's protest came swiftly but playfully.

"Be quiet, you mother dear," she cried, her ready blushes mounting again. "Don't you dare to say—things. I——"

The mother only smiled the more deeply.

"Best go and round Alec up. Supper's ready."

But the girl hesitated.

"He's at the barns fixing his outfit with Keewin," she said. "He reckons to break trail in a few days. Say, Murray's gone across to Father Jose with them. Will I get him, too?" Then she added thoughtfully, "Do you know, mother, I don't think Murray's glad to see John Kars. He's sort of quiet with him around. I don't know. I don't reckon he likes him. I wonder why?"

The mother's eyes searched her daughter's face. Her smile must have been full of meaning for any one less simple than the girl before her.

"There's no accounting the way men feel for each other," she said at last. "Maybe Murray guesses John Kars is butting into our trade. Maybe he's anxious to keep the country to ourselves. You see, these folks aren't traders, and we are."

The girl became indignant at once.

"But he's no right to feel that way," she cried. "The country's free. It's big enough for us all. Besides, if John Kars isn't a trader, where's the trouble? I think Murray's mean. That's all."

The mother shook her head.

"Best go and call the men-folk," she said, in her direct fashion. "Murray can see to his likes and dislikes the same as he can see to most things he's set on." Then she smiled. "Anyway, I don't suppose it figgers any with you around. John Kars isn't likely to suffer from it."

Just for one instant the girl's eyes answered the mother's gentle challenge. Then she went off firing her parting shot over her shoulder as she vanished through the doorway.

"I've always thought Murray mean—for—for all his fat smile. I—just hate meanness."

Ailsa Mowbray was startled. Nothing could have startled her more. In all the years of their association with Murray she had never before heard so direct an expression of dislike from either of her children. It troubled her. She had not been blind to Alec's feelings. Ever since the boy had grown to manhood she had known there had been antagonism between them. She was never likely to forget the scene on the night her husband's appeal for help reached her. But Jessie.

She was disquieted. She was wondering, too. And, wondering, the memory of her promise to Murray rose up threateningly before her. She turned slowly back to the stove for no definite purpose, and, so turning, she shook her head.

Later, Jessie returned, the last sign of her ill-humor completely gone. Behind her came the two men of her mother's household. And so the evening meal progressed to its conclusion.

Later still Father Jose and his two visitors foregathered in the hospitable living-room, and, for the time at least, Ailsa Mowbray gave no further thought to her disquiet, or to the appeal Murray had made to her.



CHAPTER IX

MURRAY TELLS HIS STORY

For a whole week Ailsa Mowbray was given no further opportunity of dwelling upon the possibilities of the situation between Jessie and Murray McTavish. John Kars pervaded the Mission with a personality too buoyant to allow of lurking shadows. On the mother he had an effect like the voice of hope urging her to a fuller appreciation of the life about her, an even greater desire for the fulfilment of those responsibilities which the passing of her husband had thrust upon her. His great figure, his strong, reliant face, his decision of manner, all combined to sweep any doubt from the path of the simple folk at St. Agatha's Mission.

The only person who escaped his cheering influence, perhaps, was Murray McTavish. Father Jose yielded Kars a friendship and liking almost equal to the friendship which had sent him to Leaping Horse in the depths of winter on behalf of Allan Mowbray's widow. This man was a rock upon which the old priest, for all his own strength of character, was not ashamed to seek support. To Alec he was something of a hero in all those things for which his youthful soul yearned. Was he not the master of great wealth? Did he not live in Leaping Horse, where life pulsated with a rush, and no lagging, sluggish stream of existence could find a place? Then, too, the instinct of the trail which the youth had inherited from his father, was not John Kars endowed with it all?

But the week of this man's stay had more meaning for Jessie than for any one else. Her frank delight in his presence found no denial. Every shadow was banished out of her life by it. Her days were rendered doubly bright. Her nights were illuminated by happy dreams. His kindness to her, his evident delight in her company, were sources of unspeakable happiness.

He had brought presents for them all, he had reserved the best and costliest for Jessie. Yet no word of love passed his lips, no act of his could have been interpreted as an expression of such by the most jealous-minded. Nor had the girl any thought but of the delight of the moments spent with him, and of the shadow his going must inevitably leave behind.

The mother watched. She understood. And, understanding, she dreaded more than she admitted even to herself. She felt that her child would awaken presently to the reality, and then—what then? Would John Kars pass on? Would he come again, and again pass on? And Murray. Murray was always in the back of her mind.

The last day came. It was a day of labor and preparation at the landing. Under the supervision of Kars and Bill the work went forward to its completion, with a precision and care for detail which means perhaps the difference between safety and disaster on the long trail. Nothing was too small for the consideration of these men in their understanding of the fierce wilderness which they had made their own.

Their spirits were high. It was the care-free spirit which belongs to the real adventurer. That spirit which alone can woo and win the smiles of the wanton gods of the wilderness. The landing was alive with activity. Father Jose found excuse for his presence there. Even Ailsa Mowbray detached herself from the daily routine of her labors to watch the work going forward. Nor was there a moment when a small crowd of the Indian converts of the Mission were not assembled in the hope that the great white hunter might be disposed to distribute at least a portion of tobacco by way of largesse. Murray, too, found his way thither. And his mood seemed to have improved. Perhaps it was the knowledge of the going of these people on the morrow which stirred his spirits to match their own.

And Jessie? Jessie found every excuse she desired to add her presence at the bank of the river. The day for her was all too short. For her it was full of the excitement of departure, with the regret at the going looming like a shadow and shutting out her sun. She concealed nothing from herself, while her smile and happy laughter banished every sign of all it really meant.

So the day wore on till the last of the evening light found everything ready for the morning's departure. All stores were bestowed under their lashed coverings, and the canoes lay deep in the water. Then came the evening festival planned by Ailsa in her hospitable home. A homely supper, and a gathering of all the white folk of the post. It was all so simple. But it was just such as these people understood and appreciated. It was the outward sign of the profound bond which held them all in a land that is eternally inhospitable.

It was nearly midnight when the party broke up. Farewells were said and the men departed. Jessie, herself, closed the heavy door upon the last of them. Alec bade his mother and sister good-night, and betook himself to his belated rest. Mother and daughter were left alone.

The mother's knitting needles were still clicking busily as she sat beside the great stove, whose warmth was a necessity in the chill of the spring evenings. Jessie came slowly over and stood gazing down at the fierce glow radiating beneath the iron door, where the damper had been withdrawn.

No word was spoken for some moments. Then a sound broke the quiet of the room. It was the sound of a stifled sob, and the mother looked up anxiously.

"Why, child!" she cried, and sprang to her feet.

The next moment her protecting arms were about the pretty figure of the girl, and she drew her to her bosom, with a world of tender affection.

For some moments Jessie struggled with her tears. The mother said no word. It was the gentle hand stroking the girl's beautiful hair which spoke for the lips which sympathy had rendered dumb.

Then came the half-stifled confession which could no longer be denied.

"Oh, mother, mother!" the girl cried, through her sobs. "I—I can't help it. I—I love him, and—and he's gone."

Dr. Bill had gone on with Father Jose. To Murray's surprise, John Kars expressed his intention of accompanying him up to the Fort, which was the former's sleeping quarters. Murray was astonished. Nor was it a companionship he in the least desired. The prospect even robbed him of some of the satisfaction which the departure on the morrow inspired. Still he was left with no choice. To refuse him on any pretext would only be to show his hand, and bring into active expression all the bitter feeling which lay smoldering behind his exterior of cordiality.

He knew what John Kars meant to his hopes with regard to Jessie Mowbray. He had admitted that he feared him. The past week had only confirmed those fears beyond all question. He realized, surely enough, that, whatever Kars' feelings, Jessie's were unmistakable. He knew that time and opportunity must inevitably complete the destiny before them. Just now it seemed to him that only something in the nature of a miracle could help him.

Reluctantly enough he led the way up to the grim old Fort. The path lay through the woods, which only extended to the lower slopes of the bald knoll upon which it stood. The moonless night made no difference to him. He could have made the journey blindfolded.

At the summit Murray led the way round to the gateway of the stockade, and passed within. He was still speculating, as he had speculated the whole way up, as to the purpose of this visit. He only saw in one direction, at the moment, and that direction was the girl he desired for wife. If she were to be the subject of their talk, well, he could match any words of this man, whom he knew to be his rival.

Inside the room, which served him as an office, Murray lit an oil lamp on his desk. Then he set a chair for his visitor so that he should face the light. Kars flung himself into it, while the trader took his place before the desk, and tilted his swivel chair back at a comfortable angle, his round smiling face cordially regarding his companion.

Kars bulked large in the light of the lamp. The chair under him was completely hidden. He was of very great size and Murray could not help but admire the muscular body, without a spare ounce of that burden of fat under which he labored. Then the keen eyes under the strongly marked brows. The well-shaped nose, so suggestive of the power expressed in every line of his features. The clean-shaven lips and chin, almost rugged in their suggestion of purpose. And above all the curling dark hair, now bared by the removal of his beaver cap.

Kars permitted not a moment's delay in announcing the purpose of his visit.

"I waited till now to have this talk, Murray, because—why, because I don't think I could have helped things for you folks waking memories before. I got to talk about Allan Mowbray, about the Bell River neches. And I take it you're wisest on both subjects."

His eyes were grave. Nor did Murray fail to observe the sternness which gravity gave to the rest of his face.

"I've had the story of these things as the trail knows it. An' as the gossips of Leaping Horse figgered it out. But I don't reckon I need to tell you Ananias didn't forget to shed his old wardrobe over the north country gossips when he cashed in. Do you feel like saying some?"

Murray's reply came without hesitation.

"Why, sure," he replied. "All I know."

Neither by look, nor tone, did his manner convey his dislike. His smile was amiability itself. Yet under it his feelings were bitter.

He stooped abruptly and groped in a small cupboard beside his desk. A moment later he set a whisky bottle and two glasses in front of him, and pushed one of the latter towards his visitor. Then he reached the water carafe and set it beside them.

"It's Scotch," he said invitingly.

"Thanks."

Kars helped himself and watered it down considerably.

"It needs strong water in the stomach of the feller who's got to raise the ghosts of Bell River. Gee, the thought makes me weaken."

Murray's smile had vanished. He had by no means exaggerated his feelings. The truth of his words was in his mysterious eyes. It was in the eagerness of his action in raising the glass of spirit to his lips. Kars watched him gulp down his drink thirstily. The sight of it prepared him. He felt that he had done more than well in thus delaying all reference to the murder of Allan Mowbray. If this were its effect on Murray, what would it have been on Jessie, or her mother?

The glasses were set back on the desk in silence. Kars had something of the waiting attitude of a great watchful dog. He permitted no word or action of his to urge the man before him. He wanted the story in Murray's own way, and his own time. His own reasons for requesting it were—his own.

"It's an ugly story," Murray announced, his eyes regarding his companion with a stare that passed through, and traveled far beyond him. "I don't just see where to start." He stirred in his chair with a nervous movement. "Allan was a pretty big man. I guess his nerve was never really all out, even in this hellish country. It was as strong as chilled steel. It was a nerve that left danger hollerin' help. He didn't know fear—which isn't good in this land. You need to know fear if you're to win out. There's times in this latitude you need to be scared—badly scared—if you're to make good all the time."

Kars nodded.

"I'm scared most all the time."

Murray's eyes became alert. A shadow of his smile returned to his lips. It was gone again in a second. He replenished his glass and produced cigars. Both men helped themselves, and, in a moment, the fragrant smoke clouded about the globe of the oil lamp.

"Allan was 'mushing' the long trail, same as he'd done years in the open season," Murray said, drawing a deep sigh as he opened his story. "I don't rightly know his itinerary. Y'see Allan had his trade secrets which he didn't hand on to a soul. Not even his partner. But," he leaned forward impressively, and Kars caught the full glow of his earnest eyes, "Bell River wasn't on his schedule. We'd agreed to leave it alone. It's fierce for a white man. It's been so years. The trade there isn't worth the chances. He knew it. I knew it. We'd agreed to cut it out."

"But he went there—why?"

Kars' question was the obvious one, and Murray's fleshy shoulders answered it. He sat back in his chair moodily puffing at his cigar. His eyes were on his desk. It was moments before he replied.

At last he reached out and seizing his glass drank the contents at a gulp. Then he leaned forward. His voice was deep. But his eyes were steady and questioning.

"That question'll never find its answer," he said. "Anyway he went there. It was from there we got his call for help. It came by a runner. It came to his wife. Not to me. He'd sent to me days before, and it hadn't come through. Guess that call of his was a farewell to his wife. The game must have been played when he wrote it, and I guess he was wise to it. Say"—he sat back in his chair and pushed his fat fingers through his hair—"it makes me sweat thinking of it."

Kars' silent nod of sympathy was followed by a kindly warning.

"Take your time."

"Time?" A mirthless laugh responded to the caution. "It don't need time. Anyway time's not calculated to make it easier. It's all right before me now, set out as only the fiend-spawn of Bell River can set it out." His tone deepened and he spoke more rapidly. "We got that call in the evening. An hour after I was hot foot down the river with an outfit of thirty neches, armed with an arsenal of weapons." His tone grew. His eyes shone fiercely, and a deep passion seemed to stir him. "Say, they reckon I can drive hard on the river. They reckon I've got neither mercy, nor feeling when it comes to putting things through. I proved all they said that trip. I drove those crews as if hades was on our heels. I didn't spare them or myself. We made Bell River a day under the time I figgered, and some of the boys were well-nigh dead. Say, I guessed the clock hands were runnin' out the life of my big friend, and—well, the life of my fellers didn't weigh an ounce in the balance. But I was late. Late by a day."

He broke off and dashed more whisky into his glass. He drank it down neat.

"Do you need more?" His eyes shone, and his voice rose. Then came his mirthless laugh again. "Yes, best have it all. Oh, it's pretty. As pretty as if demons had fixed it. We found him. What was left of him. He was well-nigh hacked to dog meat, and around him were the bodies of some of his boys. Oh, he'd put up an elegant scrap. He'd fought 'em at something more than man for man. The Bell River dead lay about round that bluff on the river bank in heaps. He'd fought 'em to the last man, and I guess that was Allan. He'd fought 'em as Allan Mowbray only knew how to fight. And he'd died as just he knew how to die. A man."

His voice ceased and in the silence John Kars drew a deep breath. A great sympathy was stirring him. But he had no words to offer, and presently the other went on.

"We gathered him up, and the frost helped us. So we brought him right along home. He's buried here inside this old stockade. His grave's marked. Alec made the cross, I set it up. An' Jessie—why, Jessie wrote some on it. That's all."

Kars rose to his feet. His cigar was out.

"Thanks," he said, with curious formality.

Then he relit his cigar. He stood for a moment as though debating with himself. Murray remained in his chair. Somehow his fat figure seemed to have become huddled. His gaze, too, seemed to have only his thoughts to dwell upon.

At last Kars went on.

"I didn't ask all this for any sort of curiosity," he said. "I asked it because I need to know. I'm mushing a long trail myself this year, an' I guess my way's likely taking me in the region of Bell River, before I git back here next fall. Guess I've got that yellow streak a feller needs to make good," he went on, his gravity thawing under a shadowy smile. "And you figger Bell River's mighty unhealthy for a white man about now."

While the other was talking the last vestige of Murray's preoccupation seemed to fall from him. He was alert. He rose from his chair. His decision was full, and strong, and emphatic, when he replied.

"Unhealthy? It don't say a thing. Avoid Bell River, or you'll regret it. They're devils let loose. I tell you right here you'll need an outfit of half a hundred to pass safe through that country. They got a taste for white man's outfit now. Time was when they fancied only neche scalps. It's not that way now. No, sir. I'm figgering now how long we'll be safe here, in this Fort. There's just two hundred and odd miles between us, and—— Say, when do you figger you're making that way? Fall?" Kars nodded. "The time they got Allan. Don't do it. I warn you solemnly. And I guess I—know."

Murray's warning was delivered with urgency. There was no mistaking its sincerity. He seemed to have risen above his antipathy for this man. He seemed only concerned to save another from a disaster similar to that which had befallen his partner.

Kars thanked him and held out one powerful hand.

"I'm obliged," he said, in a sober way as they gripped hands. "I've had full warning, and, maybe, it's going to save me trouble. Anyway if my way does take me around that region, and I get my medicine, well—I guess it's up to me. Good-night, Murray. Thanks again. I'll be off before you're around to-morrow morning. So long."

Murray McTavish accompanied his visitor to the door. There was no more to be said. His smile returned as he bade him farewell, and it remained for a few moments as he stood till the night swallowed up the departing figure. Then it died out suddenly, completely.



CHAPTER X

THE MAN WITH THE SCAR

Two men moved about slowly, deliberately. They were examining, with the closest scrutiny, every object that might afford a clue to the devastation about them. A third figure, in the distance, was engaged similarly. He was dressed in the buckskin so dear to the Indian heart. The others were white men.

The scene was complete in horror. It was the incinerated ruins of a recently destroyed Indian encampment, set in the shadow of a belt of pine woods which mounted the abrupt slopes of a great hill. The woods on the hillside were burnt out. Where had stood a dense stretch of primordial woodland, now only the skeleton arms of the pines reached up towards the heavens as though appealing despairingly for the vengeance due to them.

The day was gray. The air was still, so still. It reeked with the taint of burning. It reeked with something else. There were bodies, in varying stages of decomposition, lying about, many of them burned, many of them half eaten by the wild scavengers of the region. All were mutilated in a dreadful manner. And they were mostly the bodies of women and children.

Not a teepee remained standing. The mud walls of one or two huts still stood up. But all of them that were destructible had been devoured by hungry flames.

After half an hour's search the two white men came to the edge of the burnt-out forest. They paused, and John Kars' eyes searched amongst the charred poles. Presently he shrugged his shoulders.

"No use going up this way. We can't learn more than we've read right here. It's the work of the Bell River outfit, sure. That's if the things we've heard are true." He turned to his companion. "Say, Bill, it makes you wonder. What 'bug' is it sets folk yearning to get out and kill, and burn, all the time? Think of it. Just think if you and me started right in to holler, an' shoot, an' burn. What would you say? We're crazy, sure. Yet these folk aren't crazy. They're just the same as they were born, I guess. They weren't born crazy, any more than we were. It gets me beat. Beat to death."

Bill Brudenell was overshadowed in stature by his friend. But his wit was as keen. His mental faculties perhaps more mature. He might not have been able to compete with John Kars in physical effort, but he possessed a ripe philosophy, and a wonderful knowledge of human nature.

"The craziest have motives," he said, with a whimsical smile in his twinkling eyes. "I've often noticed that folk who act queer, and are said to be crazy, and maybe get shut up in the foolish-house, generally have an elegant reason of their own for acting the way they do. Maybe other folks can't get it right. I once had to do with a case in which a feller shot up his mother, and was made out 'bug,' and was put away. It worried me some. Later I found his ma made his life miserable. He lived in terror of her. She'd broken bottles over his head. She'd soused him with boiling water. She'd raised the devil generally, till—well, till he reached the limit. Then I found she acted that way because her dandy boy was sparking around some tow-headed female, and guessed he intended marrying her, and setting her to run the home his mother had always run for him. There's some sort of reason to most crazy acts. Guess we'll need to chase up the Bell River outfit if we're looking for the reason to this craziness."

"Yes."

Bill turned away and picked up a stained and rusted hatchet of obviously Indian make. He examined it closely. John Kars stared about him with brooding eyes.

"What do you think lies back of this?" he inquired presently. His manner was abstracted, and his eyes were watching the movements of the third figure in the distance.

Bill glanced at him out of the corners of his eyes. It was a swift, speculating glance. Then he continued his examination of the hatchet, while he talked.

"Much of what lies back of most desperate acts," he said. "Guess the Bell River folk have got something other folk need, and the other folk know it. I allow the Bell River folk don't figger to hand over to anybody. Maybe it's hunting grounds, maybe it's fishing. Can't say. But you see this crowd are traveling Indians, or were," he added drily. "We're within twenty miles of Bell River. If they were traveling, which the remains of their teepees make them out to have been, then I guess they weren't doing it for health. More than likely it was robbery of some sort. Well, I guess they were up against a proposition, and got it—plenty. It's going to snow. What are you figgering?"

Kars searched the gray skies.

"We'll make Bell River."

"I guessed you would. Maybe some folks would say it's you that's crazy. Ask Peigan."

Bill laughed. His clever face was always at its best when his twinkling eyes, as it were, bubbled over.

The men moved on towards their camp.

The threat of the sky added to the gloomy nature of the crudely rugged country. On every hand the hills rose mightily. Dark woodlands crowded the lower slopes, but the sharply serrated crests, many of them snow-clad, left a merciless impression upon the mind. The solitude of it all, too, was overpowering.

The long summer trail lay behind them, all its chances successfully taken, all its many dangers surmounted. The threat of the sky was real and they had no desire now to fall victims to a careless disregard of ordinary climatic conditions.

Kars' calculation had been carefully made. His plans were laid so that they should reach the upper stream of the Snake River, where his river depot had been established, and his canoes were awaiting them, with at least three weeks to spare before the ice shut down all traffic. The outfit would then have ample time in which to reach the shallows of Peel River, whence the final stage of the journey to Leaping Horse would be made overland on the early winter trail.

Peigan Charley joined them at the camp. The man came up with that curiously silent, almost furtive gait, which no prairie Indian, however civilized, ever quite loses. It comes from long years of moccasin use, and an habitual bent knee walk. Peigan Charley considered himself unusually civilized. But it was for his native abilities that Kars employed him.

His broad, bronze face and dark eyes were quite without expression, for all he had searched closely and probed deeply into the horrors of that desperate camp. Perhaps he had no appreciation of horror. Perhaps he saw nothing outrageous in the dreadful destruction.

He was carrying a broken modern rifle in his hand, and with a word promptly offered it to his chief.

Kars took the weapon. He examined it closely while Bill looked on. Then the white chief's eyes searched the Indian's face.

"Well?" he demanded.

The copper-hued expressionless features of the man underwent a change. They became almost animated. But it was with a look of awe, or even apprehension.

"Him Bell River," he stated bluntly.

"Yes."

John Kars had learned all he wanted from the scout. His own opinion was corroborated. So he handed the useless weapon back and pointed at it.

"Allan Mowbray's outfit," he said. "Bell River neche steal 'em."

The scout nodded.

The smell of cooking pervaded the camp. For some moments no one spoke. Bill was watching his friend, waiting for that decision which he knew had long since been taken. The Indian was silent, as was his habit, and Kars appeared to be considering deeply.

Presently he looked up at the sky.

"That snow will be—rain," he said. "Wind's got south. We'll make Big Butte to-night. Bell River to-morrow. Noon."

Bill was observing the Indian. Peigan Charley's bovine stare changed swiftly as the white chief whom he regarded above all men gave his decision. Its stolidity had given way to incredulity, and Bill found in it a source of amusement.

Suddenly Charley thrust up one hand. The long, tawny fingers were parted, and he counted off each one.

"One, two, tree, four," he enumerated, bending each finger in turn. "Him all big fool pack neche. No good. Plenty 'fraid. Plenty eat. Oh, yes, plenty eat. One, two." Again he told off his fingers. "Good neche. Fight plenty. Oh, yes. Peigan Charley." He held up one finger. "Heap good feller," he commented solemnly. "Big Chief, boss. Big Chief, Bill. Two." Again the inevitable fingers. "Shoot plenty much. No good. Five hundred Bell River devils. Mush gun. Shoot bad. Big Chief boss all kill up. Boss go Bell River. Boss crazy—sure."

Bill was thoroughly enjoying himself. Nor did Kars resent his smiles. He, too, laughed in spite of the Indian's growing concern.

"We make Bell River to-morrow," he said finally. "See the boys get busy with food. We mush in half an hour."

The Indian had made his protest. There was nothing further to add. So he went off and the white man watched him go.

"Guess there'll be something doing around the camp when he gets amongst the boys," Kars observed. Then he added, after a smiling pause, "That feller thinks me crazy. Guess Murray McTavish would think that way, too. Maybe that's how you're thinking. Maybe you're all right, and I'm all wrong. I can't say. And I can't worry it out. Y'see, Bill, my instinct needs to serve me, like your argument serves you. Only you can't argue with instinct. The logic of things don't come handy to me, and Euclid's a sort of fool puzzle anyway to a feller raised chasing gold. There's just about three things worrying the back of my head now. They've been worrying it all summer, worse than the skitters. Maybe Bell River can answer them all. I don't know. Why are these Bell River neches always shooting up their neighbors, and any one else? How comes it Allan Mowbray died worth half a million dollars on a fur trade? What was he doing on Bell River when he got killed?"

It was a wide flat stretch of grass, a miniature table-land, set high up overlooking the broken territory of the Bell River forge. It was bleak. A sharp breeze played across it with a chill bitterness which suggested little enough mercy when winter reigned. It was an outlook upon a world quite new to Bill. To John Kars the scene was by no means familiar.

These men gazed out with a profound interest not untouched by awe. Their eyes sought in every direction, and no detail in the rugged splendor was lost. For long minutes they stood silently reading the pages of the new book opened to them.

It was, in Kars' own words, a "fierce" country. It suggested something like desperation in the Creator of it all. It seemed as though imagination must have deserted Him, and He was left only with the foundations, and the skeleton walls of a vast structure upon His hands.

The horizon was approached by tier on tier of alternating glacier and barren hill. What lay hidden in the hollows could only be conjectured. In every direction, except the southeast, whence they had come, the outlook was the same. Hills, and more hills. Glacial stretch, followed by glacial stretch. Doubtless the hollows contained vast primordial woods, and fiercely flooding mountain streams, scoring their paths through wide stretches of miry tundra, quaking and treacherous.

This was the distance, than which nothing could have been more desolate. But the nearer view was their chief concern.

The gorge yawned almost at their feet. It was tremendous, and its vastness set the mind dizzy. Great circling patches of mist rose up from below and added a sense of infinity to its depths. So wide. So deep. The broad river in its bowels was reduced to something like a trickling streamlet. The woodlands crowding the lower slopes, dim, vague in the distance, became merely a deepening of the shadows below. Forests of primordial immensity were lost in the overwhelming nature of their setting.

The air of sterility, in spite of the woodlands so far down below, in spite of the attenuated grass on which they stood, inspired a profound sense of repugnance. To the mind of Bill Brudenell, at least, it was a land of hopelessness, a land of starvation and despair.

He turned to his companion at last, and his voice rang with deep feeling.

"Fierce? Gee! There's not a word in the whole vocabulary of a white man that gets nearer than ten miles of describing it," he exclaimed. "And the neches, here, figger to scrap to hold it. Well, it certainly needs attractions we can't locate from here."

Kars nodded agreement.

"That's how I've felt all through," he said. "Now? Why, now I'm dead sure. This is where they murdered Jessie's father. Well, even a railroad corporation couldn't advertise it a pleasure resort. We'd best get right on down to the camp. I reckon to locate those attractions before we're through."

Leaving the plateau they passed down the seemingly endless slope. Bill cursed the foothold, and blasphemed generally. Kars remained silent. He was absorbed with the task he had set himself in approaching this murder-haunted gorge.

The return to the camp occupied the best part of an hour, and the latter part of the journey was made through a belt of pine wood, the timber of which left the human figure something so infinitesimal that its passage was incapable of disturbing the abiding silence. The scrunch of the springy carpet of needles and pine cones under heavily shod feet was completely lost. The profoundness of the gloom was tremendous.

The camp suggested secrecy. It lay in the bowels of a hollow. The hollow was crowded with spruce, a low, sparse-growing scrub, and mosquitoes. Its approach was a defile which suggested a rift in the hills at the back. Its exit was of a similar nature, except that it followed the rocky bed of a trickling mountain stream. A mile or so further on this gave on to the more gracious banks of the Bell River to the west of the gorge.

Kars had taken up a position upon some rolled blankets. He was smoking, and meditating over the remains of a small fire. Bill was stretched full-length upon the ground. His philosophic temperament seemed to render him impervious to the attacking hordes of mosquitoes. Beyond the hum of the flying pestilence the place was soundless.

Near by the Indians were slumbering restfully. It is the nature of the laboring Indian to slumber at every opportunity—slumber or eat. Peigan Charley was different from these others of his race. But the scout had long been absent from the camp on work that only the keenest of his kind could accomplish successfully. Indian spying upon Indian is like hunting the black panther. The difficulty is to decide which is the hunter.

Bill was drowsily watching a cloud of mosquitoes set into undue commotion by the smoke from his pipe. But for all that his thoughts were busy.

"Guess Charley isn't likely to take fool chances?" he suggested after a while.

Kars shook his head at the fire. His action possessed all the decision of conviction.

"Charley's slim. He's a razor edge, I guess. He's got us all beaten to death on his own play. He's got these murdering devils beaten before they start." Then he turned, and a smile lit his steady eyes as they encountered the regard of his friend. "It seems queer sending a poor darn Indian to take a big chance while we sit around."

Then he kicked the fire together as he went on.

"But we're taking the real chance, I guess," he said, with a short laugh. "If the Bell River outfit is all we reckon, then it's no sort of gamble we made this camp without them getting wise."

Bill sat up.

"Then we certainly are taking the big chance."

Kars laughed again.

"Sure. And I'll be all broken up if we don't hear from 'em," he said.

He knocked out his pipe and refilled it. Once during the operation he paused and listened.

"Y'see," he went on, after a while, "we're white folks."

"That's how I've always heard. So was—Allan Mowbray."

Kars picked up a hot coal from the fire, rolled it in the palm of his hand, and dropped it on the bowl of his pipe. Once the pipe was lit he shook it off again.

"Allan got around here—many times," he said reflectively. "He wasn't murdered on his first visit—nor his second. Allan's case isn't ours. Not if I figger right."

"How d'you figger?"

"They'll try and hustle us. If I figger right they don't want folk around—any folk. I don't think that's why they murdered Allan. There was more to that. Seems to me we'll get a visit from a bunch of 'em. Maybe they'll get around with some of the rifles they stole from Allan. They'll squat right here on their haunches and tell us the things they fancy, and—— Hello!"

Kars broke off, but made no movement. He did not even turn his head from his contemplative regard of the white ashes of the fire. There was a sound. The sound of some one approaching through the trees. It was the sound of a shod footstep. It was not the tread of moccasins.

Bill eased himself. In doing so his revolver holster was swung round to a handy position. But Kars never stirred a muscle.

A moment later he spoke in a tone keyed a shade lower.

"A feller wearing boots. It's only one—I wonder."

Bill had risen to his feet.

"My nerves aren't as steady as yours. I'm going to look," he announced.

He moved off, and presently his voice came back to the man by the fire.

"Ho, John! A visitor," he cried.

The man at the fire replied cordially.

"Bring him right along. Pleased to see him."

But Kars had not moved from his seat. As he flung his reply back, he glanced swiftly at the place where his own and Bill's rifles stood leaning against the pale green foliage of a bush within reach of his hand. Then, with elaborate nonchalance, he spread his hands out over the smoldering ashes of the fire.

A moment or two later he was gazing up smilingly into the face of a man who was obviously a half-breed.

The man was dressed in a beaded buckskin shirt under a pea-jacket of doubtful age. It was worn and stained, as were the man's moleskin trousers, which were tucked into long knee-boots which had once been black. But the face held the white man's interest. It was of an olive hue, and the eyes which looked out from beneath almost hairless brows were coal black, and fierce, and narrow. A great scar split the skin of his forehead almost completely across it. And beneath the attenuated moustache another scar stretched from the corner of his mouth half-way across his right cheek. Then, too, his Indian-like black hair was unable to conceal the fact that half an ear was missing. Nor did it take Kars a second to realize that the latter mutilation was due to chewing by some adversary in a "rough and tumble" fight.

The man's greeting came in the white man's tongue. Nor was it tinged with the "pigeon" method of the Indian. It smacked of the gold city which knows little enough of refinement amongst even its best classes.

"Say, you boys are takin' all kinds of chances," he said, in a voice that had little pleasantness of intonation. "I had some scare when I see you come over the hills ther'. The darn neches bin out the way you come, burnin', an' massacrin'. How you missed 'em beats me to death. But I guess you did miss 'em?" he added significantly. "And I'm glad."

Kars was only concerned with the information of the Indians' movements.

"They're out?" he said.

"Sure they're out." The man laughed. "They're out most all the time. Gee, it's livin' with a cyclone playin' around you on this God-forgotten river. But, say, you boys need to beat it, an' beat it quick, if you want to git out with your hair on. They're crazy for guns an' things. If they git their noses on your trail they'll git you sure as death."

The warning received less attention than it seemed to demand.

Kars looked the half-breed squarely in the eyes.

"Who are you?" he demanded. Abrupt as was the challenge the tone of it had no roughness.

"Louis Creal."

"Belong here?"

Kars' steady eyes were compelling.

A flush of anger surged in the half-breed's mutilated cheeks. His eyes snapped viciously.

"This ain't a catechism, is it?" he cried hotly. Then in a moment he moderated his tone. "Fellers on the 'inside' don't figger to hand around their pedigrees—usual. Howsum, I allow I come right along to pass you a friendly warning, which kind o' makes it reasonable to tell you the things folk don't usually inquire north of 'sixty.' Yep. I live around this river, an' hand the neches a bum sort o' trade fer their wares. Guess I scratch a livin', if you can call it that way, up here. But it don't figger any. My ma come of this tribe. I guess my paw belonged to yours."

"Where d'you get your goods for trade?"

The sparkle of hasty temper grew again in the black depths of the half-breed's eyes. The man's retort came roughly enough now.

"What in——!" he cried. Then again he checked his fiery impulse. "Say, that ain't no darn bizness of any one but me. Get me? It's a fool question anyway. Ther's a dozen posts I could haul from. My bizness ain't your bizness. I stand pat fer why I traipsed nigh two miles to reach your darn fool camp. I handed you the trouble waitin' around if you ain't wise. I guess you're wise now, an' if you don't act quick it's up to you. If you've the savvee of a buck louse you'll beat it good an' quick. You'll beat it as if the devil was chasin' you plenty."

Then it seemed as if urgency overcame his resentment, for he went on with a sort of desperate eagerness. "Say, I ain't got your names, I don't know a thing. I ain't no interest if you're alive, or hacked to small chunks. But if you got any value fer your lives, if you've got folks to worry fer you, why, git right out o' this just as fast as the devil'll let you. That's all."

"Thanks—we will." Kars had suddenly abandoned all his previous assurance of manner. He seemed to be laboring under the influence of the warning. "Guess we're kind of obliged to you. More than I can say. Maybe you won't take amiss the things I asked. You see, finding a white man in this region seemed sort of queer since they murdered Allan Mowbray. I just had to ask." He turned to Bill, who was watching him curiously. "We'll strike camp right away. Guess we best get out west if the neches are southeast. Seems to me we're in a bad fix anyway." Then he turned again to the half-breed. "Maybe you'll stop around and take food? We'll eat before we strike."

Kars' changed attitude seemed to please the half-breed. But he shook his head with a smile that only rendered his expression the more crafty.

"Nothin' doin' that way," he said decidedly. "Gee, no!" Then he added confidentially: "I come two miles to give you warnin'. That's straight across as the birds fly. I made nearer five gettin' here. Maybe you'll get that when I tell you these devils have eyes everywhere. Since they shot up Allan Mowbray I'm scared. Scared to death. I've taken a big chance coming around. I ain't makin' it bigger stoppin' to feed. An' if you'll take white advice you won't neither. Jest get to it an' set all the darnation territory you ken find between you an' Bell River before to-morrow. I quit. So long. I've handed you warning. It's right up to you."

He turned abruptly away and moved off. To the dullest it was obvious he was anxious to escape further interrogation. And these men were not dull.

Bill followed him a few steps and stood watching his slim, lithe figure vanish amongst the close-growing spruce. Kars, too, watched him go. But he had not stirred out of his seat. They waited until the sound of his footsteps had died out. Then Kars bestirred himself. He passed from the camp to where his Indians were sleeping. When he returned Bill was standing over the fire.

"I've set a boy to trail him to the edge of the woods," he said. Then he returned to his seat.

Bill nodded.

"Well?"

Kars laughed.

"An elegant outfit," he said with appreciation. "I guess he's more scared of us than the Bell River devils. We're not to get the bunch of neches I guessed."

"No. He's a crook and—a bad one. When do we pull out?"

Kars looked up. His eyes were steady and keen. His jaws were set aggressively.

"When I've nosed out the secret of this darned layout."

"But——"

"Say, Bill," Kars' manner became suddenly alive with enthusiasm, "we've chased a thousand miles and more this summer, nosing, and scratching, and worrying to find some of the secrets of this mighty big land. We've sweated and cussed till even the flies and skitters must have been ashamed. I figger we've lit right on top of a big secret here, and—well, I don't fancy being bluffed out of it by any low-down bum of a half-breed. That feller wants to be quit of us. He's bluffing. We've hit the camp with the neches out. Do you get that? If they'd bin around we wouldn't have seen any Louis Creal. We'd have had all the lead poisoning the neches could have handed us. Wait till Charley gets back."

Peigan Charley was squatting on his haunches holding out the palms of his lean hands to the warming blaze of the fire.

Darkness had shut down upon the gloomy world about them. The air was chill. The fire was more than welcome. Kars was sitting adjacent to his faithful servant, and Bill was on the other side of him. The Indian was talking in a low voice, and in a deliberate fashion.

"I mak him," he said, in his quaint, broken way. "Neche all out. Only squaws, an' pappoose by the camp. Old men—yes. Him all by river. Much squaws by river. Charley not come by river. No good. Charley him look by camp. Him see much teepee, much shack. Oh, yes, plenty. One big—plenty big—shack. Squaws mak go by shack. Him store. Charley know. Yes, Breed man run him store. Charley, him see Breed woman, too. All much plenty busy. So. Charley him come. Yes?"

Kars smoked on for some silent moments.

"You didn't risk the river?" he inquired presently. "Just where were they working?"

"No. Charley him all get kill up dead by river. No bush. No nothing." He made a gesture that was unmistakable. Then he went on. "Charley, him go up dis way." He pointed at the hill directly behind him. "Him go up—up. Much walk, oh, yes. Then Charley, him go down. Plenty big piece. Heap down. So. Come by river. Much bush. Charley, him go on. Quiet. Oh, yes. Quiet—much quiet. Then no bush any more. Big rock. High. Much high. Wide. Dis way." He spread his arms out to their full extent, indicating the gorge. "Water so." He narrowed his hands together. "Squaws, him plenty much work by water. So."

Again the men smoked on in silence. Bill made no comment at all. He was looking to Kars. This was entirely Kars' affair.

Presently Kars looked round.

"Charley made good—very good," he said. "Charley good man."

Then he looked across at Bill. He was smiling, and the light of the fire made his smile queerly grim.

"That's all I need, Bill," he said. "The rest I'll do myself. I'm going to quit you for the time. Maybe I won't join you till nearly morning. I can't say. I want you to strike camp right away. Get on the move down to the river bank—above the gorge. Then follow it along for a few miles. Maybe ten. Then wait around, and keep an eye wide. Then send Charley back to wait for me on the river bank—just above the gorge. Get that, Charley?" He turned to the Indian. "I need you to know just where Boss Bill is waiting, so you can guide me."

"Charley git him plenty. Charley him wait."

"Good. You get it, Bill?"

Bill nodded.

"Right. Then I'll be moving."



CHAPTER XI

THE SECRET OF THE GORGE

Peigan Charley's belief in his white boss's lack of sanity was characteristic of Indian regard for the reckless. The reason, the driving power of his chief's character was lost to his primitive mind. The act was all he had power to judge by, and the act of voluntarily visiting the headquarters of the Bell River Indians said he was "crazy."

But Kars was by no means "crazy," nor anything like it. He had a definite purpose to fulfil, and, in consequence, all hazard was ignored. The man's simple hardihood was the whole of him. He had been bred in the rough lap of the four winds at his father's side. He would have smothered under the breath of caution.

He set out from the camp at the moment he had carefully selected. He set out alone, without a thought for the chances of disaster which the night might have for him. His eyes were alight with satisfaction, with anticipation. Invincible determination inspired him as he faced the hill which had served the Indian earlier in the day. He moved off with a swing to his great body which said all that his lips had left unspoken of the confidence which at all times supported him in the battle with elemental forces.

When he left the camp the blackness of the night had given way to the jewel-studded velvet of a clearing sky. The spectre lights of the north were already dancing their sombre measure. There was no moon. These things all possessed their significance for him.

The shadowy night light, however, only served him in the open, in the breaks in the deep woodlands he must thread. For the rest his woodcraft, even his instinct, must serve him. A general line of direction was in his mind. On that alone he must seriously depend. His difficulties were tremendous. They must have been insurmountable for a man of lesser capacity. But the realization of difficulty was a sense he seemed to lack. It was sufficient that a task lay before him for the automatic effort to be forthcoming.

He climbed the hill through endless aisles of straight-limbed timber. His gait was rapid. His deep, regular breathing spoke of an effort which cost him little. His muscles were as hard as the tree-trunks with which he frequently collided. And so he came to the barren crest where the fierce night wind bit deeply into the warm flesh.

He only paused for his bearings. The stars and the dancing lights yielded him the guidance he needed. He read these signs with the ease of an experienced mariner. Then, crushing his soft beaver cap low down over his ears, and buttoning his pea-jacket about his neck, he left the bitter, wind-swept hilltop and plunged down the terrific slope, at the far-off bottom of which lay the river, whose very name had cast a spell of terror over the hearts of the people of the northland.

Again he was swallowed up by the dark bowels of the woods, whose origin went back to the days before man trod the earth. And curiously enough a sensation of committing an intrusion stirred as the silence closed down about him. A dark wall always seemed to confront him, a wall upon which he was being precipitated.

The steep of the decline was at times terrific. There were moments of impact with trees which left him bruised and beaten. There were moments when projecting roots threatened to hurl him headlong to invisible depths. Each buffet, each stumble, however, only hardened his resolve. These things were powerless to deter him.

His descent of the approach to the gorge was a serious test. He felt thankful at least that his plans called for no reascent of the hill later. Twice he was precipitated into the bed of a spring "washout," and, sore and angry, he was forced to a blind scramble from the moist, soft bed.

Once he only escaped with his life by a margin the breadth of a hair. On this occasion he recovered himself with a laugh of something like real amusement. But death had clutched at him with fierce intent. He had plunged headlong over the edge of a chasm, hewn in the hillside by a subsidence of the foundations some hundreds of feet below. Six feet from the brink his great body had been caught in the arms of a bushy tangle, which bent and crushed under his great weight in a perilous, almost hopeless fashion. But he clung to the attenuated branches that supported him and waited desperately for the further plunge below, which the yielding roots seemed to make inevitable.

But the waiting saved him. Had he struggled while the bush labored under the shock, maybe his anticipations would have been fulfilled. As it was the roots definitely held, and, cautiously, he was able to haul himself up against the weed-grown wall of the precipice, and finally obtain a foot and hand hold in its soil. The rest was a matter of effort and nerve, and at last he clambered back to comparative safety.

So the journey went on with varying fortune, his blind groping and stumblings alternating with the starlit patches where the woods broke. But it went on deliberately to the end with an inevitability which revealed the man.

At last he stood in the open with the frowning walls of the great gorge far above him, like a giant mouth agape in a desperate yawn. At his feet lay the river, flowing swiftly on to join the great Mackenzie in its northward rush to swell the field of polar ice.

Here, in the bowels of the great pit, he was no longer blinded by the darkness, for, in the three hours of infinite effort he had expended, the moon had risen, and its radiance shone down the length of the gorge like some dull yellow search-light. The wood-lined walls were lit till their conformation was vaguely discernible. The swift stream reflected the yellow rays on the crests of its surging ripples. Then, far in, beyond the mouth of the canyon, the long low foreshore stood out almost plainly to his searching eyes.

His task was only at its beginning. He waited just sufficiently long to deliberate his next move. Then he set off, heading for the heart of the gorge itself.

It was a scene of deep interest for eyes backed by understanding.

A figure moved slowly about, searching here, probing there. It was a figure suggesting secret investigation without a sign of real secrecy in its movements.

The foreshore of the river was wide, far wider than could have been believed from the heights above. It sloped gradually to the water's edge, and the soil was loose, gravelly, with a consistency that was significant to the trained mind. But its greater interest lay in the signs of intense labor that stood out on every hand. Operations, crudely scientific, had been carried out to an extent that was almost staggering. Here, in the heart of a low class Indian territory was the touch of the white man. It was more than a touch. It was the impress of his whole hand.

The foreshore was honeycombed with shallow pits, shored, and timbered with rough hewn timber. Against the mouth of each pit, and there were dozens of them, a great pile of soil stood up like a giant beehive, Some of these were in the process of formation. Some were completed, and looked to have stood thus for many months. Some were in the process of being demolished, and iron-wheeled trolleys on timbered pathways stood about them, with the tools of the laborers remaining just where they had been flung down when the day's work was finished.

Each pit, each "dump" was narrowly scrutinized by the silent figure as it moved from point to point. Even the examination extended to touch. Again and again the soil was handled in an effort to test its quality.

But the search extended beyond the "dumps" and pits. It revealed a cutting hewn out of the great wall of the gorge. It was hewn at a point well above the highest water level of the spring freshets. And it was approached by a well timbered roadway of split green logs.

The figure moved over to this, and, as it left the beehive "dumps," a second figure replaced it. But whereas the first made no secret of its movements, the second displayed all the furtive movements of the hunter.

The cutting further revealed the guidance of the master mind. It was occupied by a mountainous dump of the accumulated "dirt" from the foreshore. It was built up, up, by a system of log pathways, till a rough estimate suggested the accumulation of thousands upon thousands of tons.

What was the purpose of this storage?

The question was answered by a glance in a fresh direction. Adjoining the cutting stood an iron winch. It was a man-power winch, but it worked an elevated cable trolley communicating with a trestle work fifty yards away.

Moving swiftly on towards the trestle work the man searched its length. He peered up, far up the great hillside in the uncertain moonlight, seeking the limits of its trailing outline in that direction. But its ascent was gradual. It took the hill diagonally, and quickly lost itself round a bend in the narrow roadway which had been hewn out of the primordial forest.

The end of this work in the other direction was far down on the foreshore, stopping short of the water's edge by, perhaps, fifty yards. It terminated at what was obviously a great mound of "tailings."

The man moved down to this spot. As he paused by the mound, and gazed up, the trestle work stood above him more than twice his own height. Furthermore, here the skeleton work gave place to built-out platforms, the purpose of which was obvious. A moment later his powerful hands were gripping the massive stanchions, and he was clambering up to the platforms.

It was a simple enough task for a man of activity, and he swarmed up with the rapidity of some great cat. He stood on the topmost platform, and his gaze ran down the length of the structure.

"A sluice-box and—conduit," he muttered. Then in a tone of deep appreciation: "Gee, and it's fixed—good!"

He bent down over the sluice-box, and groped with his hands over the bottom of it. There was a trickle of water flowing gently in its depths. He searched with his fingers along the riffles. And that which he found there he carefully and laboriously collected, and drew up out of the water. He placed the collected deposit in a colored handkerchief, and again searched the riffles. He repeated the operation again and again. Then, with great care he twisted up the handkerchief and bestowed it in an inner pocket of his pea-jacket.

After that he sat himself upon the edge of the sluice-box for some thoughtful minutes, and his mind traveled back over many scenes and incidents. But it dwelt chiefly upon Jessie Mowbray and her dead father. And it struggled in a great effort to solve the riddle of the man's death.

But, in view of his discoveries, just now it was a riddle that suggested far too many answers. Furthermore, to his mind, none of them quite seemed to fit. There were two facts that stood out plainly in his mind. Here, here was the source of Allan's wealth, and this was the enterprise which in some way had contrived to leave Jessie Mowbray fatherless.

He sighed. A wave of intense pity swept over him. Nor was his pity for the man who had kept his secret so profoundly all these years. It was for the child, and the widow he had left behind. But more than all it was for the child.

It was with something like reluctance that he tore himself away from the magic of the sluice-box. Once on the solid ground, however, he again turned his eyes to gaze up at the structure. Then he laughed. It was an audible expression of the joy of discovery.

"What a 'strike'!" he said aloud.

"An' one you ain't gettin' away with!"

John Kars started. He half turned at the sound of the familiar voice. But his intention remained incompleted. It may have been instinct. It may have been that out of the corner of his eye he saw the white ring of the muzzle of a revolver shining in the moonlight close against his head.

On the instant of the last sound of the man's voice he dropped. He dropped like a stone. His movement came only the barest fraction of a second before the crack of the revolver prefixed the whistle of the bullet which spat itself deeply into the woodwork of the trestle.

Thought and action ran a neck and neck race in Kars at all times. Now it was never better exampled. His arms flung out as he dropped. And, before a second pressure of the trigger could be accomplished, the man behind the gun was caught, and thrown, and sprawled on the ground with his intended victim uppermost.

For Kars it was chiefly a struggle for possession of the gun. On his assailant's part it was for the use of it upon his intended victim.

Kars had felled the man by the weight and suddenness of his attack. He had him by the body, and his own great bulk lay atop of him. But the man's arms were free. There was a moment's desperate pause as they fell, and it was that pause which robbed the gunman of his chance of accomplishing the murder he had designed. Kars knew his man on the instant. The voice was the voice of Louis Creal, the half-breed who had warned him of the danger of Bell River. He could have laughed had not the moment been too desperate.

On the instant of impact with the ground Kars released his hold of the man's body, and with catlike agility hurled himself at the man's throat. With the threat of the revolver over him there remained only one means of defence. He must paralyze all action even if he killed the man under his hands. Physically his assailant was no match for him, but the gun leveled things up.

His great hands closed on the man's throat like a vice. It was a strangle hold that knew no mercy. He reared his body up and his grip tightened. The Breed struggled fiercely. He flung up his gun arm and fired recklessly. The first shot flew high into the air but the scorch of the fire stung the face of the man over him. A second shot came. It cut its way through the thick muscles of Kars' neck. He winced under its hot slither, but his grip only further tightened on the man's throat.

Then came collapse with hideous suddenness. With a choking gurgle the Breed's arms dropped nervelessly to the ground and the revolver fell from his relaxed grip. On the instant the white man released his hold. He caught up the gun and flung it wide.

He had won out. The cost to him did not matter. He stood up and gazed down at the man on the ground. He was still—quite still. Then he searched his own pockets for a handkerchief. The only one he possessed had been set to precious use. He rejected it. So he bent over the prostrate Breed and unfastened the colored handkerchief about his neck. This he proceeded to fasten about the flesh wound in his own neck, for the blood flowing from it was saturating his clothes.

A moment later the half-breed stirred. It was what the white man had awaited. The sight of the movement brought a sigh of relief. He was glad he had not been forced to become the slayer of the man.

Five minutes later the dazed half-breed seemed to awaken to realities. He propped himself on his elbow, and, with his other hand, felt about his throat, whilst his dark, evil face and beady eyes stared malevolently up in the moonlight at the man standing over him.

"Feeling better?" the white, man demanded coldly.

As he received no answer he went on.

"Guess you acted foolish trailing up so close on me. Maybe you were scared you'd miss me in the dark? Anyway, you gave me a chance no real gunman would have given. Guess you weren't more than a rabbit in my hands. Say, can you swim? Ah, don't feel like talking," he added, as the man still kept to his angry silence. "Anyway you'll need to. You've got off mighty light. Maybe a bath won't come amiss."

He bent down and before the Breed was aware of his intention he seized him in his arms and picked him up much as he might have picked up some small child.

Then the struggle began afresh. But it was hopeless from the outset. Louis Creal, unarmed, was powerless in the bear-like embrace of John Kars. Struggling and cursing, the half-breed was borne to the water's edge, held poised for a few seconds, then flung with all the strength of the white man into the rapid waters of the Bell River.

Kars only waited to see him rise to the surface. Then, as the man was carried down on the swift tide, swimming strongly, he turned away with a laugh and hurried from the scene.

John Kars halted abruptly in response to a whistle. The sound came from the thick scrub with which the low bank of the river beyond the gorge was deeply overgrown. It was a whistle he knew. It came low and rose to a piercing crescendo. Then it died away to its original note. His answer was verbal.

"That you, Charley?" he demanded.

His demand was answered by the abrupt appearance of the figure of his faithful scout from within the bush.

"Sure, Boss. Charley him wait. Charley him hear much shoot. Boss kill 'em plenty good?"

Kars laughed.

"Not kill 'em," he said. "Half-breed wash 'em in river."

"Boss no kill 'em?" The Indian's disappointment was pathetic.

"No-o."

Kars passed a hand wearily across his eyes. There was a drag, too, in his negative. It was almost indifferent.

But the display of weakness was instantly swept aside by an energy which cost him more than he knew.

"It don't matter anyway," he cried. "We need to make camp—we must make it quick."

There was irritation in his manner, as well as energy. But then his neglected wound was causing him infinite pain, and the loss of blood aggravated it by a feeling of utter weariness.



CHAPTER XII

DR. BILL DISPENSES AID AND ARGUMENT

The fire spluttered just beyond the door of the tent. Its cheerful light supported the efforts of the kerosene lamp within. Peigan Charley squatted over its friendly warmth, his lean hands outheld to its flickering blaze in truly Indian fashion. His position had been taken up with a view to observing his wounded chief, whose condition concerned him more than anything else in the world, except it was, perhaps, his delight in driving the men of his own color under him, and his absolute contempt for his own race.

John Kars was lying on his blankets, yielding to the skilful attention of Dr. Bill. His final journey from the gorge to the camp, ten miles distant, had been perhaps the greatest effort of the night. But with Charley's help, with the dogged resolve of a spirit that did not understand defeat, it had been finally achieved.

His wound was by no means serious. He knew that. Charley believed, in his simple mind, that his boss was practically a dead man. Hence his watchful regard now. Kars' trouble was little more than loss of blood, and though his tremendous physique had helped him, his weakness during the last two miles of the journey had demanded all his resources to overcome.

The dressing was complete. The last stitches had been put in the bandages about the wound. Bill closed his instrument case, and returned the bottles of antiseptic drugs to the miniature chest he carried. He sat down on the blankets which were spread out for his own use, and smiled genially down at his patient.

"That's that," he said cheerfully. "But it was a lucky get out for you, John. Say, a shade to the left, and that Breed would have handed you a jugular in two parts. Just take it easy. You'll travel to-morrow, after a night's sleep. Guess you'll be all whole against we make Fort Mowbray. You best talk now, an' get rid of it all. Maybe you'll sleep a deal easier after."

"Thanks, Bill."

Kars' regard of his friend said far more than his simple words. But then the friendship between these two was of a quality which required little enough of verbal expression. It was the friendship of two men who have shared infinite perils together, of two men whose lives are bound up in loyalty to each other.

For some moments the wounded man made no response to the invitation. A pleasant lassitude was at work upon him. It seemed a pity to disturb it by the effort of talk. But it was necessary to talk, and he knew that this was so. There were thoughts and questions in his mind that must have the well-balanced consideration of his friend's calm mind.

At last he broke the silence with an expletive which expressed something of the enthusiasm he really felt.

"Gee, what a strike!" he said, in a voice much weaker than his usual tone. Then he added as an afterthought, "The gorge is chock full of color. Just git a holt on that handkerchief in my pea-jacket and open it. Say, handle it easy."

He watched the other search the pockets of the coat lying at the foot of his blankets. A great light shone in his gray eyes as Bill produced the handkerchief and began to unfold it. Then, with a raging impatience, he waited while the deposit he had collected from the riffles of the sluice-box was examined under the lamplight.

At last Bill raised his eyes, and Kars read there all he wanted to know.

"It's mostly color. There's biggish stuff amongst it."

"That's how I figgered." Kars' tone was full of contentment.

"Well?"

Bill carefully refolded the handkerchief, and laid it beside his medicine chest.

Kars emitted a sound like a chuckle,

"Oh, it was a bully play," he said. Then, after a moment: "Listen, I'll tell it from the start."

Kars talked, with occasional pauses, for nearly half an hour. He detailed the events of the night in the barest outline, and only dealt closely with the fact of the gold workings. These he explained with the technicalities necessary between experts. He dwelt upon his estimate of the quality of the auriferous deposits as he had been able to make it in the darkness, and from his sense of touch. The final story of his encounter with Louis Creal only seemed to afford him amusement in the telling.

"You see, Bill," he added, "that feller must have been sick to death. I mean finding himself with just the squaws and the fossils left around when we come along. His play was clear as daylight. He tried to scare us like a brace of rabbits to be quit of us. It was our bull-headed luck to hit the place right when we did. I mean finding the neches out on a trail of murder instead of lying around their teepees."