Signs of fatigue showed upon Marshall Sothern an hour before they made camp. Drennen sought and failed to hide the restlessness upon him. The next morning, a full hour before the customary time for making the start for the day, Drennen had thrown the half diamond hitch which bespoke readiness. They reached Lake Nopong before noon and all day fought their way northward along its shore. Before night came they had heard a rifle shot perhaps a mile further on. A rifle shot might mean anything. No doubt it merely told of a shot at a chance deer. But Drennen's anxiety, already marked, grew greater.

Drennen left their camp fire when they had made their evening meal and climbed the little cliffs standing at the skirt of the strip of valley land east of Lake Nopong. Half an hour later he came back. Sothern, removing his pipe from his mouth, looked up expectantly.

"I think I can make out their camp fire," Drennen said, speaking slowly. "I imagine an hour would bring us up with them."

Sothern knocked out his pipe and got to his feet. Tightening the pack upon his mule's back he removed the rifle which had always ridden there and carried it in his hand. Drennen's own rifle remained on his pack; he did not seem to have noticed Sothern's act.

Two hours later, sending before them an announcement of their approach in a rattle of loose stones down a steep trail, they came up with the two men whom they had followed these last few days. They were Lieutenant Max and the big Canadian and the two were not alone. Drennen, walking a little ahead of his father, came to a dead halt, his body grown suddenly rigid. He had seen that there was a second camp fire, a tiny blaze of dry fagots not twenty steps from the first but partially screened by the undergrowth among the trees, and that the slender form of a woman bent over it. His pause was only momentary; when he came on his face gave no sign of the emotion that had been riding him nor of the old disappointment again as he saw that the woman was not Ygerne but Ernestine Dumont.

Lieutenant Max, a rifle across the hollow of his arm, stepped out to meet them. Not knowing who his guests were he moved so that the firelight was no longer just behind him, so that he was in the shadows. Kootanie George, upon his knees, holding a bit of fresh meat out over the fire upon a green, sharpened stick, turned his head but did not move his great body.

"Who is it?" demanded Max sharply. And then, before an answer had come, he saw who they were and cried out: "Why, it's David Drennen! And Mr. Sothern! Gad, I never thought to see you two here!"

He came forward and shook hands warmly, showing an especial pleasure in meeting Marshall Sothern again. The eyes of both men kindled as they gripped hands, in Sothern's a look of affection, in Max's an expression compounded of liking and respect.

Max had finished his meal; George, his appetite in keeping with his size, was doing his last bit of cooking; Ernestine, bending over her own lonely blaze, was seeking to warm a body which the fresh evening had chilled, a body which looked thinner and withal more girlish than it had looked for many a day. The face which she turned toward the new arrivals with faint curiosity, was paler than it had been of yore; her eyes seemed larger; there were traces of suffering which she had not sought to hide.

Lieutenant Max was unmistakably glad to welcome Drennen and Sothern to camp. The atmosphere hovering about the trio upon whom father and son had come was not to be mistaken even in the half gloom. There was nothing in common between the officer and the big Canadian beyond their present community of interest in coming up with the fugitives whom the law sought through Max and revenge quested through Kootanie. And Ernestine, though with them, was distinctly not of them. She was pitifully aloof, the broad expanse of George's back turned toward her fire speaking eloquently.

"You are on a hunting trip, I take it?" offered Max as they sat down, each man having brought out and lighted his pipe. "Just pleasure of course? There's no gold in here, you know," he ended with a laugh.

Sothern turned his eyes toward Drennen and brought them back to the fire without answering. Max's eyes upon him Drennen spoke simply.

"A hunting trip, yes. Hunting the same game you are after."

Ernestine looked up quickly, her hands clenching spasmodically. George turned his meat, spat into the coals, and sought for salt.

"Mr. Drennen," said the lieutenant coldly, "it's just as well to understand each other right now. I represent the law here; the law at so early a stage as this considers no personal equation. A private quarrel must stand aside. I know what you mean; you know what I mean."

"Lieutenant," answered Drennen gravely, "the law is not yet full grown in the North Woods. Here a man steps aside for nothing. Yes, as you say, I think we understand each other."

"By God!" cried Max angrily, "I know what is in your heart, yours and George's here! It's murder; that's the name for it! And I tell you that you are going to keep your hands off! When we find these people they are my prisoners, it's my sworn duty to lead them back to a place where they can stand trial, and I am going to take them. Remember that."

Drennen, having spoken all that he could have said if he talked all night long, made no answer. Ernestine, her two hands at her breast, crouched rocking back and forth, in a sort of silent agony. George, eating swiftly and noisily, did not look up.

In an instant the old atmosphere which had hovered over the camp came back, electrically charged with distrust, constraint, aloofness. Sothern's heavy brows were drawn low, the firelight showing deep, black shadows in the furrows of his forehead. In a moment he got to his feet and went to where Ernestine sat, his hat in his hand, kind words of greeting upon his lips for a lonely woman. She grew suddenly sullen; in a moment the sullen mood melted in a burst of tears, and she was talking with him incoherently.

George and Drennen had not met to speak since that night, long ago, when they had diced and fought at Pere Marquette's. Now neither gave the least sign that he had seen the other.

* * * * * *

When one, life ended, goes down into the grave that grass may grow above him and men walk over his quiet body, are the doors of his hell swinging open that he may enter, or are they softly closing behind him? Are the fires of hell venomous tongues that bite deep to punish with their torture when it is too late? or are they flames which cleanse and chasten while there is yet time? Ernestine Dumont, like many another, had lighted the fires with her own hands, seeing and understanding what it was that she did. For close to two years she had walked through the flames of her own kindling. And now, not waiting for the tardy retribution which comes all too late, she was already passing through the burning fires; she was closer than she knew to having the iron portals clang behind her, gently and forever. After labour comes rest; after suffering, peace.

Drennen had said, "There is no law here in the North Woods that a man may not push aside." He was thinking of such law as Lieutenant Max represented. Had he looked into his own heart; could he have looked into the hearts of Marshall Sothern, Ernestine Dumont, Kootanie George, even into the heart of Lieutenant Max, he would have known that his seeming truth was an obvious lie. There is another law which reaches even into the lawless North Woods and which says, "Transgress against me and not another but yourself shall shape your punishment." Had he looked into the hearts of Ygerne Bellaire, of Sefton and Lemarc and Garcia, he would have beheld the same truth. He might have looked into the hearts of good men and bad and have found the same truth. For soon or late each man, be he walking as straight in the light as he knows how, be he crouching as low in the shadows as he may, ignites the sulphur and tinder of his own hell. The hell may be little or it may be a conflagration; it may flicker and die out or it may burn through life and lick luridly at the skies; but a man must light it and walk through it, since he is but man, and that he may be a man.

If Ernestine Dumont's body had appeared to grow wan and slender, her soul, long stifled, had found nourishment and had expanded. Under a sympathy emanating gently from Sothern she grew calm and spoke with him as she had not known she could speak. She was not the woman she had been two years ago, and yet no miracle had been wrought. She had sinned but she had suffered. The suffering had chastened her. A rebellious spirit always, she had become softened with a meekness which was not weakness but the dawning of understanding. She had struggled, she had known fatigue after violence and the God who had made the Law had ordained that after fatigue should come rest.

There was much she did not say which Sothern, having trod his own burning path, could divine.

She had offered to David Drennen a fierce passion which he neither could nor would accept. The hot breath of it had shaken her being, seared through her breast, blinded her eyes. She had flung herself upon Kootanie George, still seeing only Drennen through the blur of her passion; she had awakened love in Kootanie George, the strong love of a strong man, and she had not so much as seen it.

She had humiliated the Canadian before men. Had she fired the shot because she loved him he would have been proud instead of ashamed. But he had known that she had fired only because she wanted to hate David Drennen.

Seeing dimly what she had lost only when it was gone from her she had sought to bring it back by throwing herself at another man. Garcia had made light love to her beautifully after the exquisite manner of his kind, and had gone away when Ygerne had gone, with laughter in his gay heart and his song upon his lips for the woman who had taken Drennen's love. George had seen, had understood and his heart had grown still harder.

But now, at last, Ernestine knew to the full what she had been offered and had thrust aside. She had come to see in Kootanie George the qualities of which a woman like her could be proud. She had come to feel a strange sort of awe that George, who was no woman's man but always a man's man, had loved her. And it had been given to her at last to know that her passion for David Drennen had been as the passion of the moth for the candle. A new love came into her heart, rising to her throat, choking her; a love that was meek and devoted, that was now as much a part of her as were her hands and feet; an emotion that was the most unselfish, the most worthy and womanly she had ever felt. She had followed Kootanie George; she had at last come up with him; and now, George's back to her, she sat at her own little fire.

"Life is hard for us, Miss Dumont." Sothern laid his hand very gently upon her shoulder and smiled into her face. "But, I think . . . at the end . . . life is good."

"I have done everything wrong," she said slowly. "I have never had anything in life worth while . . . but George's love. And I threw that away."

"When a man has loved once he loves always," Sothern told her quietly. "And a thing like that you can't throw away."

Presently, from deep thoughtfulness, she said hesitantly:

"I want to talk to Mr. Drennen. There is something I must say to him."

"Let it wait a day or so," Sothern answered. "He is not himself right now. And George might misunderstand."



CHAPTER XXI

CHANCE HEARD IN THE NIGHT

Before sunrise the five beings whose lives were so intimately intertwined and yet who were held by constraint one from the other, took up the trail. There was but one way to go and this fact alone held them together; they must keep close to the lake shore for upon the right the mountains swept upward in a series of cliffs and into a frowning barrier. Marshall Sothern and Ernestine, walking together in the rear, spoke little as the day wore on. Max, Drennen and Kootanie George, ahead, spoke not at all. In silence, never the elbow of one touching the coat of another, the three men felt and manifested the jealous rivalry which all day fought to place each one ahead of the others. George, fleeced as Drennen had been and at a time when the Canadian's soul had listened avidly to the voice of his wrath, embittered as Drennen was by the act of a woman, was scarcely less eager to be first than Drennen himself. And Max, reading the signs, grew watchful as his own eagerness mounted.

Before night they found the trail which Drennen knew that, soon or late, he would come upon. Here, perhaps a week ago, certainly not more than ten days ago, two or three men and one woman had passed. They had had with them two or three pack animals and the trail, coming in abruptly from a canon at the westward, was plain.

At nightfall they were at the foot of the sixth of the nine lakes, the broad trail running on straight along its marge. The fathomless, bluish water, looking in the dusk a mere rudely circular mirror which was in truth a liquid cone whose tip was hidden deep in the bowels of earth, lay in still serenity before them. On all sides the cliffs, sheer falls half a thousand, sometimes quite a thousand feet high, seemed actually to stoop their august, beetling brows forward that they might frown down upon their own unbroken reflections. There would be a pass through the mountains at the northern end of the lake, a deeply cleft gorge, maybe, but from here, with the first dimness of the new night upon everything, there seemed no way through.

Each man, the silent meal done, threw his bed where he saw fit, apart from the others. Sothern, having aided Ernestine, telling her good night and receiving a wan smile of gratitude, went back to the fire where Max was brooding. The lieutenant looked up, glad of the companionship. The two men from silence grew to talk in low voices. Max had something he wanted to say and the opportunity for saying it seemed to have come. He looked about him, saw Drennen's form and George's through the trees, saw where Ernestine was stamping out the glowing embers of her fire, and began to speak. Something else he saw and forgot, its being of no importance to his brain. It was merely the pipe which Drennen had laid upon a stone near the camp fire and had left there when he had gone away.

But Drennen, being in no mood for sleep, missed his pipe. Coming back toward the fire a little later it happened that he approached behind the two men's backs and in the thick shadows. It happened, too, that they were very deep in their own thoughts and conversation and that they did not hear him until he had caught a part of their talk. After that Drennen, grown as still as the rocks about him, listened and made no sound. He had caught the words from Max:

". . . a man named Drennen; an embezzler. Not a common name, is it? I've a notion that this David Drennen is the son of that John Harper Drennen."

Drennen, listening, got nothing from this, but stood still, frowning and wondering. His eyes, upon Max's face outlined by the fire, took no note of Sothern's.

"We've got the report," went on Max thoughtfully, "that the other Drennen, John Harper Drennen, is somewhere in this country. Lord," and he laughed softly, "it would be some white feather in my cap if I could bring the old fox in, wouldn't it, Mr. Sothern? He's given the police the slip for a dozen years."

Now, Drennen, with a quick start of full understanding, looked anxiously at the old man. Sothern's face stood in clear relief against the fire. There came no change into it; he looked gravely at Max, drew a moment contemplatively at his pipe, and then in a voice grave and steady answered:

"John Harper Drennen. . . . I remember the name. The papers were full of it. But wasn't he reported to have died a long time ago?"

"A dodge as old as the hills," grunted Max. "And God knows it works often enough, at that. No, he isn't dead and he is somewhere in this corner of the Dominion. By Heaven!" his young voice rising with the ambition in it, "if it's in my run of luck to bring him in I'll go up for promotion in two days! And I'm going to get him!"

Sothern's smile, a little tense, seemed only the smile of age upon the vaunting ambition of youth.

"I am not the man to doubt your ability to do pretty nearly anything you set your mind and hand to, Max," he said after a little. And then, "Isn't it a little strange that after all these years interest in John Harper Drennen should awake?"

"Not so strange," replied Max. "The odd thing, perhaps, is that David Drennen, the son, and the sort of man he seems to be, should have paid off his father's obligation of forty thousand dollars just as soon as he sold the Golden Girl to you people."

Sothern, offering no remark, looked merely casually interested. Max went on.

"That's the first thing which began to stimulate dormant interest," he said. "Queer, isn't it, that the most honest and unselfish and altogether praiseworthy thing he has ever been known to do should succeed chiefly in drawing attention to his father, so long thought dead? We've had our eyes on him for pretty close to a year now. I'm up a tree to know whether he knows his father is living, even."

"That's not all of the evidence you've got that John Harper Drennen is alive, is it?" Sothern's voice asked quietly.

"Lord, no. That's not evidence at all. In fact, there isn't any evidence; there's just a tip. There came a letter to the Chief in Montreal. I got a copy of it. It said merely: 'John Harper Drennen, wanted for embezzlement in New York, is in hiding in the North Woods country. He is the father of David Drennen of MacLeod's Settlement. Watch young Drennen and you'll find the thief.'"

When Max paused, leaning toward the fire for a burning splinter of wood for his pipe, Sothern passed his hand swiftly across his eyes. As Max straightened up the old man said:

"The letter might have said more. It doesn't give you a great deal to work upon."

Max laughed.

"But it does. The letter wasn't signed, even, and was typewritten, so you'd say it wasn't worth reading twice. And yet I know right now who wrote it."

"Yes?"

"Yes." There was triumph unhidden in Max's voice, in his eyes turned full upon Sothern's. "For I've been after that man for more than seventeen months, the man who has cause to hate John Harper Drennen like poison, the man who'd like to entangle both the father and son in the mesh of the law. It's the man I'm going to get at the end of this trail, a man calling himself Sefton. And when I get him he's going to talk, he's going to identify John Harper Drennen, and I'm going to put the two of them where they'll see the sun through the bars for more years than is pleasant to look upon!"

Again there was silence and the calm smoking of pipes.

"Why do you tell me this, Max?" asked Sothern after a little.

Suddenly Max's hand shot out, resting upon Sothern's shoulder. Drennen started, his hands shutting tight, as he waited breathlessly for the words: "John Harper Drennen, you are my prisoner!" He fancied that he saw Sothern's body shaken with a little tremor. The words which he heard at last in Max's quiet voice were these:

"I tell you, Mr. Sothern, because I come pretty near the telling of everything to you. Because for six years you have been more a father to me than my own father ever was. Because everything that I am I owe to you. You set my feet in the right path, and now that I am succeeding, for by God, success is coming to me, I want you to know it! I have never talked to you of the things which I have felt most. . . ." For a moment he broke off; Drennen fancied his eyes glistened and that he had choked on the simple words. "You know what I mean . . . you don't think I'm a sentimental fool, do you?"

Sothern, his face white but his expression showing nothing, his voice grave and calm, dropped his own hand gently upon the lieutenant's shoulder.

"Max, my boy," he said simply, "I know you'll succeed. I've always known that. But, old fellow, I think you've got the hardest work of your life ahead of you. No, I don't think you are a sentimental fool. We are just in the forests together, and the solitude and the starlight up yonder and the bigness of the open night are working their wills upon us. Just remember one thing, Max," and his voice grew a shade sterner, "when the hard time comes don't let your heart-strings get mixed up with your sworn duty. If you did I'd be ashamed of you, not proud, my boy."

Drennen slipped away through the dark. He came to his bed under the trees and went on, walking swiftly. For the first time in many long months a new emotion was upon him, riding him hard. He forgot Ygerne for the moment; forgot his own wrong and his own vengeance. He looked at the stars and they seemed far away and dim; the shadows about him were like blackness intensified into tangible things.

When at last he came back to his bed the fires were out; all the others had gone to their rest. He fancied, however, that none of them slept. He pictured each one, his own father, Kootanie George, Ernestine, Lieutenant Max, lying wide awake, staring up into the stars, each one busy with his own destiny. What pitiful pictures are projected into the calm of the star-set skies from the wretched turmoil of fevered brains!

"I must come to Sefton first!"

It was Drennen's last thought that night. His first thought in the dim dawn was:

"I must come to Sefton first!"



CHAPTER XXII

THE PATH DOWN THE CLIFF

In the thick darkness half way between midnight and the first glimmer of the new day Drennen awoke. That he must silence Sefton before Max came up with him was the thought awaking with him. He was fully conscious of his purpose before he knew what it was that had awakened him.

Quite close to him was the noise of breaking brush and snapping twigs. Evidently one of the pack animals had broken its tie-rope. He lifted himself upon his elbow, frowning into the darkness. The horse was not ten feet from him and yet it was hard to distinguish that darker blot in the darkness which bespoke the brute's body.

"What is it?"

It was the voice of Kootanie George from the big Canadian's bed some fifty feet away. It was the first time George had spoken to Drennen. Drennen answered quietly:

"One of the horses has broken his rope."

Knowing that the animal might wander back along the trail and cause no little delay in the morning, Drennen slipped on his boots and went to tie him. The horse, seeing where the man could not, drew back toward the cliffs. Drennen, led by the noise of breaking underbrush, at last was enabled to make out distinctly the looming form in a little clearing. Stooping swiftly, through a random clutch at the ground, he was lucky enough to seize the end of the broken rope.

"It's Black Ben," he thought. "Max's horse."

A sudden temptation came to him. Puzzling it over he led the horse slowly toward the grassy flat under the cliffs where the others were tethered. Suppose that he turned Max's horse loose? And Kootanie's? And that he should head them back along the trail? Not a pretty trick to play, but was now the time for nicety? It would mean delay, not for Drennen, but for Kootanie and Max . . . it might mean the opportunity he wanted, to come up with Sefton before the others.

He passed close to where George lay. The Canadian had again drawn up his blanket and was going back to sleep. The others were sleeping. It was too dark for them to see what he was doing. Too dark for him to more than make out the forms of the other horses when he came to the flat under the cliffs. And by that time he had made up his mind; he would take advantage of whatever came to his hand and ask no questions; he would find George's pack animal in a moment and would then lead the two of them around the camp and turn them loose.

Had he come to George's horse first he would have done so. But it chanced that the first horse across whose tether he tripped was a big black animal with the white strip from below the ears to the nostrils showing in the gloom to which Drennen's eyes were accustomed now. This was Lieutenant Max's horse, Black Ben! Then the horse he was leading . . .

He swung about swiftly, gathering up the slackened rope, coming close to the horse what had awakened him. It was like Black Ben, easily to be mistaken even in a better light than this . . . but it was not George's horse nor yet Max's. . . .

"A strange horse, here!" was his swift thought. "Whose?"

He ran his hands along the big brute's back. There was no saddle. About the neck only a knotted rope. His hands ran on to the dragging end of the rope. The strands were rough there, unequal, bespeaking a tether snapped. He noted now, too, that the rope was damp and a little muddy.

"He's come down the trail from the north. We are close to Sefton's camp."

From the north because there was no place which Drennen remembered having passed during the end of the day where a horse could muddy a dragging rope. The lake shore was sand and gravel. And, before he had gone to bed that night, he had seen a straggling stream which a little further on ran across the morrow's trail, making shallow ponds in the grass, the banks oozy mud.

Tying the strange horse swiftly, Drennen went back to his bed. He found his rifle and cartridge belt, filled his pockets hit or miss from his food pack, and, making no noise, returned to the flat. Again leading the strange horse he pushed on, up trail, toward the muddy brook.

Too dark to see more than the lowering mass of trees, the blackness of the ground looking a bottomless pit under foot, the wall of cliffs standing up against the stars. But slowly he could find his way to the creek, across, and along the lake shore.

Again and again he stumbled against a boulder or tree trunk or clump of bushes. He cursed his eyes for fools, drew back and around the obstacle and pushed on. He would make little speed this way, but there might arise the situation in which every moment would be golden.

After a little an inspiration came to him and he acted upon it swiftly. He let the rope out through his fingers and holding it at the broken end drove the horse on ahead of him, calculating upon the fact that it could see even if he could not, and having been over the trail once would travel it again in the darkness.

So Drennen made his way northward. Now he was making better time, perhaps a couple of miles an hour. By dawn he would be several miles ahead of the others, and then he could travel more rapidly.

But, before the dawn came, he must stop. He had come under the cliffs which stood tall and bleakly forbidding at the upper end of the lake. The horse came to a dead standstill. If there were a way up here, a trail through the cliffs, the animal seemed to have no knowledge of it and Drennen's blind groping could not discover it.

It was only through the mastery of a strong will, long seasoned and drilled, that Drennen could force himself at last to sit down and wait the coming of the light. His soul was in turmoil. His mind was filled with broken fancies, tortured visions. In him the simplicity of a normal existence had been phantastically twisted into complication. Before him were Sefton and Lemarc and Garcia . . . and Ygerne Bellaire. Behind him were George and Ernestine with their warped lives, Sothern and Max with their souls upon the verge of convulsion. Max, young and straightforward, his sky clear to the star of his duty, was sleeping in ignorance, while if he but knew he would be torn a thousand ways. And it seemed to Drennen that the restless thing in each of these lives, behind him and in front of him, raised its hissing head to dart venom into his own breast, to make for unrest and doubt there.

At last the objects about him were slowly restored to their own individual forms from the void of the night. The trees separated, the expanse of the lake grew grey and liquid, the cliffs showed their ancient battle scars. And the trodden earth held fresh and plain the trail he sought.

Leading the horse again, he climbed up from the level of the lake toward the cliff tops. The trail, hazardous enough at all times, looking now and then impossible, wound and twisted among the boulders, snaked its way into a narrow gorge, mounted along a bit of bench land clinging like a shelf to the mountain side, and in an hour's time brought him to the top.

Now the day was full upon him. Behind and below lay the lake he had just quitted. He could make out a plume of smoke where the impatience of Max and George would be bestirring Itself. Ahead and below lay Red Deer Lake, a thousand dizzy feet down, seeming impossible of achievement from where Drennen stood. He pushed a stone over the rocks with his boot. He saw it leap outward and drop, plummet wise, saw the white spray of the lake leap upward as the stone plunged into the water.

Drennen had turned the horse loose. From the hog's-back upon which he stood he could look down into a little valley lying to the eastward and could make out in it two more pack animals, tethered. He headed this one down the trail and then turned his eyes back toward Red Deer Lake and, across it, to the cliffs beyond. For there he had seen a second plume of smoke.

It seemed to him then that a man must have wings to reach that other line of cliffs, on the far side of the lake, from which the smoke was climbing upward. Everywhere the sheer precipices marched up to the rim of the blue laughter of the water below him, so that one might believe that neither man nor four-footed denizen of the forestland could come here to drink; that only the birds, dropping with folded wings, could visit its shore. But others had been here before him; and surely it was their smoke which curled upward from the far cliffs. If they had found a way to go on on foot, leaving their horses here, then he could find it. And he must find it quickly . . . before Max and George.

First he noted the location of the smoke toward which he sought to go, so that he would not miss it. Nature aided him, making the spot distinctive. Everywhere the cliffs were barren, just rock and more rock, a jumble of great boulders strewn along sheer precipices, everywhere save alone in this one spot. But there was a scant table land, and from it a small grove of pines rose high in the blue of the brightening sky, their gnarled limbs still and sturdy. It was above this single noteworthy clump of ancient boled trees to be seen upon these inhospitable heights that the thin bluish smoke arose.

To Drennen, frowning across the gulf separating him and his quarry, there seemed but one conceivable reason why a human being should have sought to win a way to that rocky aerie. From its nature it was all but unscalable; from its position it commanded in limitless, sweeping view all possible paths of approach. Did Sefton's party seek a hiding place where defence even against great numbers would be a simple matter, this nest upon the cliff tops was the ideal spot.

Thus Drennen answered the riddle. But there were other riddles which he could not answer and which he gave over. Why had the horses been left where they would be found so readily? Why that careless beacon smoke where no man could fail to see it?

Max would see it and he would be hurrying, swifter than Drennen had come because now it was daylight. With the need of haste crying in his ears Drennen experienced the slipping by of slow hours with nothing accomplished. Back and forth along the edge of the cliffs he searched eagerly, like some great, gaunt questing hound, baffled by a cold track. Sefton and those with him had come here, had found the way down, had gained the far side two miles away across the lake. They had gone before, so he knew that he could come after. But he grew feverish over the delay, thinking as much of Max behind as of Sefton in front.

Again and again he thought that he had found the way down only to be driven back and up when he had made a few perilous feet downward along the beetling fall of rock. He sought tracks and found nothing; there was nothing but hard rock here which kept no impress less than that of the tread of the passing centuries. He even went down into the little valley where the horses were, hoping that through some deep cleft chasm the trail led circuitously to the lake shore. But he came back, again baffled, again hurrying with the certainty upon him that Max, too, was hurrying.

The sun was three hours high when Drennen found what he sought. With the keen joy at the discovery there came deep wonder. It was the approach to the lake; but the wonder arose from the unexpected nature of the path itself. He had passed further and further north along the cliffs until a couple of miles lay between him and the spot where this latest quest had begun. And he came now to a cleft in the rocks. On each hand the cliffs fell apart so that at the top the chasm measured perhaps ten or twelve feet. The chasm narrowed fifty feet below until it formed a great V. Below that Drennen could not see until he had made his precarious way down into the cut. And when he had come to what had appeared from above to be the closed angle of the V he found the rest of the way open to him. And the wonder arose from the obvious fact that there were many rude steps not nature-made but man-made. There were hand-holds scooped out here and there in the rock; foot-holds chiselled rudely; and all bore the mark of no little age. Grass grew scantily in the cracks; a young cedar, hardy, with crooked roots like the claws of a monster, stood in one of the deeper scooped hollows; the debris fallen into the man-made steps had accumulated through the generations. In one of these places, when he had gone downward a hundred feet, he came to a little space of soft soil which held the trampled impress of boots.

Now, his rifle slung to his back, his fingers gripping at cracks and seams and little knobs of stone, he made what speed he could. The way he followed led along a long, horizontal fissure for a space, then dipped dangerously near the perpendicular, then slanted off so that the danger was less, greater speed possible. He did not look down to the lake, fearing the dizziness which might lay hold of him and whip him from the face of the cliffs like a fly caught in a rush of wind.

The thought entered his mind, "Ygerne Bellaire had gone on here before him!" He pictured her confident bearing as she climbed down, her capable hands clinging to the rocks, her fearless eyes as she looked down at the blue glint of the lake a thousand feet below, the red curve of her lips as she smiled her contempt of the danger. Be she what she might, Ygerne Bellaire was not the coward he had once thought all women.

He grew angry with himself for harbouring a thought into which a tinge of admiration for her entered. He was coming up with her soon; he sneered at himself and at her and crept on downward.

Again and again the way looked impossible; again and again he found the scooped-out handhold which carried him on. And yet it was another two hours before he had dropped the last ten feet to the narrow, pebbly shore of Red Deer Lake.

Now there would be no more lost time, no hesitation in finding the path he must follow. For here, at the marge, were the tracks of those who had gone before. And there was but one way these could lead. For upon the left hand the cliffs came down to the water and there was no path; upon the right there was a six-foot strip of uneven beach.

The sudden sound of a voice shouting dropped down to him. Jerking his head up he made out the form of Lieutenant Max at the top of this devil's stairway down which he had just come. Drennen laughed shortly and turned northward along the lake shore. He had lost time but he would lose no more. He still had two hours the best of it; it would take Max fully that long to make the descent.

"When he comes up with me," was Drennen's quick thought, "my work will have been done!"



CHAPTER XXIII

CHATEAU BELLAIRE

Now Drennen, having passed around the shore of Red Deer Lake, having often dipped his body into the icy water where there was little room to pass between the lake and the cliffs, having fought his way upward again much as he had travelled downward but by an easier path, came at last, in the late afternoon, to the grove of giant trees upon the crest of the great ridge. And, as he paused a moment, a new wonder was upon him.

He had expected to find here merely a rude camp; he found himself staring at a house under the trees! Such a house as he had never seen in all of his life, but a house none the less. It was screened from him by the tree trunks until he stood within fifty yards of it; it was disguised now in the very manner of its construction.

The corners were great stacks of high piled flat stones; across the rude columns lay tree trunks roughly squared with axes; the roof was a sloping shed-roof, steep pitched, made of saplings, covered a foot deep with loose soil. In this soil grew the hardy mountain grasses; even two or three young trees were seeking life here where the cones had fallen from the lofty branches of the mother trees. Over the great, square door was a long slab of wood, carefully cut into a thick board, the marks of the axe blades still showing. And inscribed deep into this board, the letters having been burned there with a red hot iron, were the words:

CHATEAU BELLAIRE.

Drennen's pause was brief. From the low, awkward building there were voices floating out to him. He had come to the end of the long trail. One voice, low toned and clear, drove the blood racing through his body. His hand shook upon his rifle stock. In spite of him a strange shiver ran through him. He knew now how only a woman, one woman, can bring to a man his heaven of joy, his hell of sorrows. And that woman, the one woman, was at last only fifty yards away! After all of these bitter empty months she was at last only fifty yards away!

He came on slowly, making no sound. He drew near the corner of the building. The voices came more distinctly, each word clear. The other voice was the musical utterance of Ramon Garcia. Again Drennen stopped for a brief instant. Were Sefton and Lemarc in there, too?

Ygerne's laughter drove a frown into his eyes. His hand was steady now upon his rifle. Her laughter was like a child's, and a child's is like the music of God's own heaven. Drennen came on.

In another moment he stood at the wide door, looking in. There was a hunger in his eyes which he could not guess would ever come into them. He did not see Garcia just then, though the little Mexican stood out in full view, making the girl a sweeping, exaggerated bow after his manner. He did not notice the long bare floor nor yet the rough beams across the ceiling; he registered no mental picture of the deep throated, rock chimney, the rude, worm eaten table and benches, the few homemade objects scattered about the long room. He saw only Ygerne Bellaire, and the picture which she made would never grow dim in the man's mind though he lived a hundred years.

She stood upon a monster bear skin. Upon the rug, strewn about her carelessly, their bright discs adance with reflected light, a thousand minted gold pieces caught the glint of the low sun. Her head was thrown back, her arms lifted. Her eyes were filled with light, her red mouth curved to the gaity of her laughter. About her white throat was the dazzle of diamonds; upon her bared white arms was the splendour of diamonds.

"My Countess!" murmured the Mexican, his eyes soft with the unhidden worship in them. "You are like a Lady who is born out from the dream of a poet! See!" He dropped suddenly to his knees, caught up the hem of her short skirt and pressed it to his lips. "You are the Queen of the Worl'!"

"At last," she cried, her voice ringing triumphantly, "I have come into my own! For it is mine, mine, I tell you! You shall have your share, and Sefton and Marc! But it is mine, the heritage of Paul Bellaire!"

As Garcia had stooped something had fallen from his breast. Rising swiftly he caught it up. It was a little faded bunch of field flowers.

"My share, senorita?" He laughed softly. "I am not come here for gol'. Me, I have this." He lifted the flowers, his eyes tender upon them. "With this I am more rich than the King of Spain!"

Drennen's dry laugh, the old, bitter snarl, cut through the room like a curse. They had not seen him; they had been too busy with their own thoughts. Now, as they whirled toward the door which framed him, Garcia's hand went swiftly to his pocket, Ygerne's face grew as white as death.

"So," said the Mexican softly. "You are come, senor!"

The muzzle of Drennen's rifle moved in a quick arc. It came to rest bearing upon Garcia's breast.

"Turn your back!" commanded Drennen sharply. He came well into the room, setting his own back to the wall so that, should Sefton and Lemarc come, he should be ready for them. "Do you hear me?" for Garcia had not stirred. "By God, I'll kill you . . ."

Garcia shrugged, and shrugging obeyed the command which he was in no position to disobey. And, as again Drennen's curt words came crisply to him, he obeyed, tossing his revolver aside so that it fell close to the wall. Then, with Ygerne's wide eyes upon them both, Garcia backed up to Drennen and Drennen searched him swiftly, removing a cruel-bladed knife.

"Your little flowers," sneered Drennen, "you can keep."

He caught a murderous gleam from Garcia's eyes.

"The man who would touch them, senor," the Mexican said softly, "would die if I have but my hands to kill!"

"And now, my fine Countess Ygerne," mocked Drennen, coming a step toward her. "Have you still your nice little habit . . ."

As though in answer her hand had sped toward her bosom. But Drennen was too close to her, too quick and too strong. His grip set heavy, like steel, upon her wrist, he whipped out her weapon and tossed it to lie beside Garcia's.

"You brute," she said coolly.

He regarded her in silence, insolently. His eyes were bright and inexorable with their cold triumph.

"So," he said in a little, having passed over her remark just as he had ignored Garcia's, "in all of your lying to me there was some grain of truth! There was a Bellaire treasure and you have found it."

"Yes," she cried passionately, her hands clenched and grown bloodlessly white. "And I'll spend every cent of it to make you suffer for the things . . ."

"Not so fast," he taunted her. "Do you guess what I am going to do? Do you know that I am the one who is going to deal out the suffering? There is nothing in God's world you love . . . except it be yourself . . . as you love gold! To find is one thing; to keep is another."

"You mean," she cried angrily, "that you will try to rob me?"

"I mean," he retorted grimly, "that in a little while you and I are going out there to the edge of the cliffs. You shall watch me; you shall see your diamonds circle in the sun before they go down into the lake! And then the gold is going where they go!"

It seemed to him that now, at last, was he Lucky Drennen indeed. Never had he known how to make this woman suffer; now he believed that the way was made plain before him.

"David Drennen," she said, the beauty of her face swept across with a fiery anger, "one of these days I am going to kill you!"

He laughed. He had waited long to stand there before her as he now stood, laughing at her. He had dreamed dreams of a time like this but always his dreamings had fallen short of the reality. He would hurt her and then, staring into her eyes, he would laugh at her. He saw the rush of blood flaming up redly in her face, saw it draw out, leaving her cheeks white, and the evil in him raised its head and hissed through his laughter.

"Sangre de Dios!" muttered the Mexican, twisting his head as he stood facing the wall. "He has gone mad!"

Suddenly Ygerne had whipped off necklace and bracelet and had thrust deep into her bosom the old famous French jewels which the gay Count of Bellaire had won across the green topped tables. It was Drennen's time to shrug.

"Put them where you please," he told her with his old lip-lifted sneer. "I'll get them. Put them between your white breasts that are as cold and bloodless as the stones themselves. I'll get them."

"You . . . you unspeakable cur!" she panted, in a flash scarlet-faced.

Garcia was edging slowly, noiselessly along the wall toward the two revolvers, his and Ygerne's. Drennen whipped about upon him with a snapping curse.

"Stand where you are, do you hear? You go free of this when I am through . . . if you are not a fool! It is this girl I want. Her and Sefton! Where is Sefton?"

Ygerne, biting her lips into silence, her eyes flashing at him, her insulted breasts rising and falling passionately, answered him with her mute contempt. Garcia lifted his shoulders.

"With el senor Marco he is away for the horses. . . ."

"Liar!" said Drennen sternly. "What horses can climb these cliffs?"

"Don't answer his questions!" commanded Ygerne.

"Silence is as good as the lies I'd get," retorted Drennen.

He closed the heavy panelled door behind turn, dropping into place an iron bolt which fastened staple and hasp. There was one other door at the far end of the long room; he moved toward it, at all times watching Garcia and Ygerne. Here was a smaller room, perhaps a third the size of the first, without doors, its windows boarded up with thick ax-hewn slabs. The floor of this room had been wrenched loose and torn away; there were big chests still sunken in the soil beneath, the boxes crumbling and evidently broken in their hasty rifling.

He came back into the larger room. Sefton and Lemarc, when they came, must enter through the door at the front. And he could do nothing but wait, his heart burning with the feverish hope that they would come before Max and the others. He drew a bench close to the door and sat down, his face turned so that he could at once watch Ygerne and Garcia and not lose sight of the door. He rose again, almost immediately, picked up the two revolvers and the knife, dropped them to the floor under his bench and sat down again.

Ygerne in a little, her eyes never leaving his face, sat where she had been standing, upon the rug amidst the scattered gold. Now and then her fingers stole from her lap to the old coins about her; once or twice her fingers travelled slowly to her breast where the diamonds lay hidden.

Garcia did not move. As commanded he faced the wall. Once or twice only he turned his head a little, his eyes paying no heed to Drennen but seeking Ygerne. And his eyes were not gay now, but restless and troubled.

In a deep silence through which the faint murmur of the branches above the Chateau Bellaire spoke like a quiet sigh, they waited. To each, with his own bitter thoughts, the time writhed slowly like a wounded serpent.

Upon a little thing did many human destinies depend that summer afternoon. Though a man's destiny be always suspended by a mere silken thread, not always is it given to him to see the thread itself and know how fragile it is. Had Lieutenant Max been five minutes later in picking up Drennen's trail . . . had Sefton and Lemarc returned to the "chateau" five minutes earlier, God knows where the story would have ended.

As it was it was Max's tread which Drennen's eager ears first heard drawing near swiftly. And a moment later Max himself, with big Kootanie George at his heels and both Marshall Sothern and Ernestine hurrying after them, came running toward the strange building. Drennen at the door, his rifle laid across his arm, met them.

"Well?" snapped the officer. "What in hell's name have you done?"

Ygerne had leaped to her feet, a little glad cry upon her lips. No doubt she had thought that this was Sefton returning, Lemarc with him. She stood still, staring incredulously, as she saw who these others were. A strange man, with an air of command about him . . . Kootanie George, his face convulsed with rage as his eyes met her own . . . Marshall Sothern . . . Ernestine!

"I came to find Captain Sefton," was Drennen's slow answer to the lieutenant's challenge. "He is not here. I am waiting for him."

"You have killed him!" shouted Max, pushing through the doorway.

"I have not," said Drennen quietly. "But I shall."

"The Mexican, Garcia!" snapped Max irritably. "And the girl. I have no warrant for them. Hell's bells! Where are the others?"

To answer his own question he strode toward the rear door. Half way down the long room he stopped with a muttered exclamation of surprise. He had seen the gold upon the old bear skin.

"Have they robbed the Bank of England?" he gasped.

From without came the sharp rattle of shod hoofs against the rocky ground.

"It is Sefton and Marco who return," murmured Garcia, his hand at his mustache, a look of great thoughtfulness in his eyes. "Now there will be another kind of talk!"

And he looked regretfully toward the revolver lying under Drennen's bench.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE SPEAKING OF GUNS

Max had heard, whirled and came running back to the door.

"Stand aside!" he called to Drennen. "Those men are my prisoners."

Drennen made no answer. Mindful of the weapons on the floor he caught them up and threw them far out into the underbrush. His rifle ready in both hands, his purpose standing naked in his eyes, he stepped out after Max.

"Curse you!" shouted Max over his shoulder. "If you interfere now I'll shoot you like a dog!"

Sefton and Lemarc, riding and leading two other horses, came into view through the trees. Evidently Garcia had not lied, evidently there was some roundabout trail from the far side of the lake, evidently, the treasure found, these men wished to lose no time in carrying it away with them.

They had not heard until they had seen; by that time they were not fifty yards away and Max's rifle bore unwaveringly upon Sefton's chest.

"Up with your hands, Sefton and Lemarc!" he called loudly. "In the name of the Law!"

"Fight it out, Sefton, if you are a man!" shouted Drennen, his own rifle at his shoulder. "I am going to kill you any way!"

Ernestine was crying out inarticulately; no one listened to the thing she was trying to say. She had waited too long. Marshall Sothern, a queer smile upon his lips which Drennen was never to forget, strode to his son's side.

"Dave," he said gently. "If you are doing this for me . . . let be! I have told Max."

"What do you mean?" muttered Drennen dully. "Told him what?"

"Who I am."

He laid his hand on the barrel of Drennen's rifle, forcing it downward. His son stared at him with wondering eyes.

"I don't understand. . . ."

Both Sefton and Lemarc, with one accord had jerked in their horses, their hands dropping the ropes of the animals they led and going the swift, certain way to the gun in the coat pocket.

"It's a hold-up, Marc!" cried Sefton, driving his heels into his horse's sides and coming on in defiance of the rifle still trained upon him.

"Garcia!"

Garcia shrugged his shoulders and watched, having nothing else to do.

"Wait!" screamed Marc after Sefton. "Can't you see the uniform? He's one of the Mounted."

Sefton saw. He saw too that at the door was David Drennen; that at his side was Marshall Sothern; that big Kootanie George stood out, a little in front. His face went white; he jerked his horse back upon its haunches; his teeth cut, gnawing, at his lip. He saw and he understood. He knew that for him the play was over; he knew that within the old house was a fortune for many men and that he had had his hands on it and that it was not to be for him. His white face went whiter with the rage and despair upon him.

"It's you that did for me!" he yelled. "You, John Harper Drennen! You! Damn you . . . take that!"

In the first grip of the fury upon him he fired. Fired so that the short barrel of his revolver, spitting out the leaden pellets, grew hot. He was too close to miss. Marshall Sothern clutched at Drennen's arm and went down, sinking slowly, not so much as a groan bursting from his lips. And as he dropped Kootanie George fell with him, the big Canadian's broad chest taking the first of the flying bullets.

Drennen and Max fired almost at the same instant, the rifles snapping together. Too close to miss a target like that, and Sefton, clutching at his horse's mane, slipped from the saddle and to the ground.

"Lemarc," shouted Max sternly, "come on! Your hands up or you get the same thing."

He had not seen old Marshall Sothern fall. Drennen was on his knees now, his father's head caught up in his lap, his face horrible with the grief upon it as he bent forward. The old man was badly hurt but conscious. His eyes went to David's, his hand sought to close about his son's. And Drennen, leaning lower as he saw the lips framing words, thought that he had not heard aright.

"Thank God!" was what Marshall Sothern was saying.

There had been the one sharp fusillade and the fight was over. Three men lay upon the ground, two of them having caught their death wounds. Sefton sprawled where he had fallen, alone. He would lie there until the life rattled out of his body. Ernestine, sobbing a moment, then very still, was over Kootanie George's body, her poor frail hands already red with his blood as she sought to lift him a little. George was looking up at her wonderingly. He did not understand; he could not understand yet. If she didn't love him, then why did she look at him like that?

Lemarc, his dark face a study in anger and despair, lifted his two arms. Max, his eyes hard upon his prisoner, strode forward to disarm him and take him into closer custody. So, even yet, since neither Marshall Sothern nor Kootanie had uttered a loud outcry, the lieutenant was unconscious of all that had happened so few steps behind him.

The sun was entangled in the tree tops far to the westward, the red sunset already tingeing the sky. In a little the cool sting of the dusk would be in the air.

Drennen, stooping still further, slipped his arms about Marshall Sothern's body. As his father had carried him to his own dugout, so now did he bear his father into the house. He wanted no help; he was jealous of this duty. And, looking down into the white face at his shoulder, it seemed to him that the pain had gone out of it; that there was a deep joy for this wounded man to be gripped thus in the arms of his son.

Garcia, obeying two curt commands from Drennen, cleared the bearskin of its golden freight and builded a fire in the rock chimney. Very tenderly Drennen lay the old man down, seeking to give him what comfort there was to give.

Ygerne, trembling visibly now, her face white and sick, watched Drennen wordlessly. She had seen everything; she had marked how Sefton lay where Max's and Drennen's bullets had found him; she had seen Kootanie George drop; she had seen Ernestine crouching over him; she had seen and had read the writing in the old man's face. Now her eyes were upon Drennen. And he did not see her.

"Dad," he said, a queer catch in his voice. "Dad. . . ."

The old man's stern eyes softened; a smile fought hard for its place upon his lips and in the end drove away for a little the pain there. There was just a flutter of his fingers as they sought to tighten about his son's.

"Davie," he whispered faintly.

Then he lay still, an iron will holding what little strength lay in him. David sought the wound and found . . . three. A harsh sob broke from him when he read the meaning that the three bleeding wounds spelled. He had seen men with their mortal wounds before. He knew that he might stop the outward flow of blood a little; that perhaps his father might live to see the sun come up. But he knew, and his father knew, that at last John Harper Drennen, good man or bad, was at last going to his reckoning.

Ygerne Bellaire, while she and Marshall Sothern had nursed David Drennen, had seen hourly all of the courtly, knightly gentleness and tenderness which was one side of the old man. Now she came swiftly to the edge of the bearskin. She, too, went down upon her knees at Sothern's side, just opposite Drennen. Her hands did not tremble as they grew red with the spurting blood. She said nothing, but she helped Drennen, who, having looked at her once with terrible eyes, made no protest. Together they made bandages and sought to do what they could, Ygerne fastening the knots while Drennen lifted the prone body. When they had done the old man thanked them both silently, equally, with his eyes.

So Lieutenant Max found them when, driving Lemarc before him, he came into the room. The officer's face, as hard as rock, softened wonderfully as he cried out and came quickly to Marshall Sothern's side.

"Mr. Sothern!" he said harshly. "He got you . . . my God!"

"It saves you a nasty job, my boy," Sothern said gently. "And me much unhappiness. I'm old, Max, and I'm tired and my work's done. I'm glad, glad to go. . . ."

For a little he was silent, exhausted, his eyes closed. Then, the smile seeming to come more easily to the white lips, his eyes still shut, he murmured so that they leaned closer not to miss the words:

"God is good to me in the end. I have always been lonely . . . without your mamma, Davie. And now I am going to her . . . with all I love in life telling me . . . good-bye. You, Max, my boy . . . you, Davie, my son . . . you, Ygerne, my daughter. . . ."

Ygerne, a sob shaking at her breast, rose swiftly and went out. But in a moment she was back, bringing with her a little flask of brandy. The eyes of Ramon Garcia, the only eyes in the room to follow her, grew unutterly sad.

A little of the brandy added fuel to the flickering fire of life in Marshall Sothern. At his command they propped him up, the rug under him, his shoulders against the wall at the side of the fireplace. Drennen's face again had grown impassive. Max had not opened his lips after his first outburst but in his eyes tears gathered, slowly spilling over upon his brown cheeks. Ygerne, as before, stood a little aloof.

"Davie," the old man said slowly, painfully, yet the words distinct through the mastery of his will; "I wanted to tell you the story while we were on the trail together . . . alone, out in the woods. But it is just as well now. Max, my boy, you will forgive me? I want just Davie here . . . and Ygerne."

Max turned swiftly, nodding, a new look in his eyes. He had said truly; this old man had been more than father to him. Like all men of strong passions Max knew jealousy; and now he sought to hide the hurt that he should be sent away even though it be to make place for the son.

Max and Garcia and Lemarc went out, the door closing after them. Coming to where Kootanie George lay they saw that Ernestine's face was against his breast, that George's great arms were at last flung about her shoulders.

Meantime John Harper Drennen told his story. Knowing that his time was short, his strength waning, he gave only the essential facts without comment, making no defence for himself which did not lie upon the surface of these facts themselves.

John Harper Drennen had been the second vice-president of the Eastern Mines, Inc., New York. He had made his reputation as a man of clean probity, of unimpeachable honour. His influence became very great because his honesty was great. The first vice-president of the company was a man named Frayne. Just now Frayne lay dead outside with Max's and Drennen's bullets through his body.

Frayne . . . or Sefton . . . while nominally first vice-president was in actuality the manager of Eastern Mines. He had always been a man without principle but John Harper Drennen had believed in him. There came a time when the Eastern Mines threw a new scheme upon the market. Frayne had engineered the plan and had made John Harper Drennen believe in it. John Harper Drennen, using his influence, had caused his friends to buy a total of one hundred thousand dollars of worthless stock.

Before the exposure came John Harper Drennen had had his eyes opened. He went to Frayne and Frayne laughed at him. He went higher up and found that the nominal president was under Frayne's thumb.

Drennen sought the way to make restitution to the friends who had been fleeced through his advice. He, himself, had not more than twenty-five thousand dollars available. Being in a position of trust in the company, he took from their vaults the remaining seventy-five thousand dollars. He gave the money, the whole hundred thousand, to a broker, instructing him to buy the worthless shares. He went to his friends, instructing them to unload. He saw that he had made restitution. Then, knowing that Frayne had cloaked his whole crooked deal in protective technicalities of the law, knowing that his act could be punished, he left New York.

He had sought to see his son, but David Drennen was out of town and there was no time. He went to Paris. At last, a body in the Seine gave him the opportunity to play at being dead. He wrote the note which later came to David. Then he came to New York to find his son. But David had left.

Through the after years the old man had sought always to do two things: to return to the Eastern Mines the money which he had taken from the company; to find his son.

That was his story.

He lifted his eyes when it was done, studying anxiously his son's face.

"I have sinned against the laws of man," he said simply. "I have tried, Davie, not to sin against the laws of God."

Therein lay his only defence.

"Dad," whispered the son, his voice breaking now, the tears standing at last in his eyes as they had stood in Max's; "it is I who have sinned, being a man of little faith! Do you know how I worshipped you when I was a boy? Do you know how I love you now?"

He bent forward swiftly and . . . he was the impulsive, warm-hearted boy again . . . kissed his father. And a tear, falling, ran in the same course with a tear from the old man's eye. One a tear of heartbreaking sadness; one a tear of heartbreaking gladness.

"You will tell Max?" asked Marshall Sothern. "Poor old Max. And now . . . let them come in. I have lived so much alone . . . I want to die among my friends."

They stood, heads bared, faces drawn, about the figure which had again slipped down upon the bear skin. Max knelt and took the lax hand and kissed it.

"You are the greatest man in the world," he said incoherently. "Do you think I am ungrateful? Do you think I'd remember a thing like my sworn duty and forget all you've done for me, all . . ."

"A man is no man unless he does what he thinks is his duty, Max. I have tried to do mine. You would have done yours."

Ramon Garcia, standing a little apart, came softly forward.

"You die, senor?" he asked very gently.

The old man nodded while David Drennen looked up angrily at the interruption.

"You love your son?" Garcia asked, still very gently. "This Drennen is your son and you love him much?"

"Yes."

"Then I, Ramon Garcia, who have never done a good thing in my life, I do a good thing now! I give you something filled with sweetness to carry in your heart? For why?" He shrugged gracefully. "It is so short to tell, and maybe the telling make others happy, too. See. It is like this: Your son love the senorita de Bellaire. She love him. Bueno. I, too, love her. I cannot make her happy and love me; so I will make her happy anyway. And you happy while you die, senor. And your son happy always."

They all looked at him wonderingly. He paused a moment, gathered what he had to say into as few words as might be and went on calmly.

"Senor David promise Miss Ygerne he stake Lemarc. He give Lemarc ten thousand dollars. Lemarc come back and say to the lady: 'He lie. He give me nothing. He say he give the money and more to the lady when she give herself to him . . . for a little while.' But the lady who had believe many lies will not believe this one. What then, amigos? Then Ramon Garcia, loving the lady for his own, tell Sefton and Lemarc what they shall do. He say Ernestine Dumont shall play sick; she shall say she die and that George hit her; she shall make Senor David take her in his arms, maybe. And we take the Senorita de Bellaire to see!"

A gasp broke from Ygerne; a look that no man might read sweeping into her eyes. Drennen knelt still, looking stunned. A look of great happiness came into the old man's face.

"Garcia," he said, "you are a gentleman! It is the truth . . . this is what Ernestine has wanted to tell David . . ."

Now, coming swiftly, came the time for a man to die. He died like a man, fearlessly. He had made his hell knowing the thing he did; a hell not of filth and darkness but of fierce white flames that purified. He had walked through it, upright. He had lived without fear; he had done wrong but had done so that another, greater wrong might not be done; he had trodden his way manfully. He had suffered and had caused suffering. But he had not regretted. He had committed his one sin . . . if sin it were. After that his life had been clean. Not so much as a lie had come after, even a lie to save his own life. And in the end, the end coming swiftly now, it was well.

With David Drennen and Ygerne and Max close about him, his last sensation the touch of their hands, his last sight the sight of their tear-wet faces, knowing that when he was gone there would be one to comfort his son, he died.

It was dawn. David Drennen and Ygerne Bellaire standing silent, head bowed over the still form upon the bear skin, knew in their hearts that there had been no tragedy wrought here. The lips turned up to them were smiling. The man had died full of years, honoured in their hearts, loved deeply. He had grown weary at the end of a long trail and his rest had come to him as he wanted it.

They did not see Ramon Garcia who came softly to the door. For a moment he stood looking in, seeing only the girl; slowly there welled up into his soft eyes great tears. From his breast he took a little faded bunch of field flowers. He raised them to his lips; for a second, holding them there, he knelt, his eyes still alone for Ygerne. Then he rose and crossed himself and went away.

They had not seen. But in a little they heard his voice as he rode down into the canon. It was the old song, lilted tenderly, the voice seeming young and gay and untroubled:

"Dios. It is sweet to be young . . . and to love."



CHAPTER XXV

THE BELATED DAWN

At last they passed out of the thick shadows which lay in the forest lands and into the soft dawn light of the valley, Ygerne and David, riding side by side. Behind them lay the hard trails which separately each had travelled; before them now had the two trails merged, running pleasantly into one; behind them, far back in the lonely solitudes of the mountains, was the old Chateau Bellaire wrapped about in its own history as in a cloak of sable; in front of them, dozing upon the river banks, was MacLeod's Settlement.

They were thoughtful-eyed, thoughtful-souled, their lips silent, their hearts eloquent, as they rode through the quiet street, passing Pere Marquette's, Joe's, finally coming abreast of Drennen's old dugout. Drennen drew rein as Ygerne stopped her horse. Her eyes went to the rude cabin, its door open now as it used to be so often even when Drennen had lived there. Then she turned back from the house to the man and he saw that tears had gathered in the sweet grey depths and were spilling over.

It was the time of rich, deep midsummer in the North Woods which had brought them back to the Settlement on their way to Lebarge. It was the season of joy come again, the warm, tender joy of infinite love.

A certain thought, being framed upon Drennen's lips, was left unspoken because to the girl the same thought had come and she had spoken swiftly after her own impulsive way:

"You asked me to meet you once . . . at dawn," she said softly. "Do you remember? And, instead of coming, I left you a note which I could not have written . . . if I had not been mad . . ."

"That is gone by now, Ygerne," he answered gently.

"But," she whispered, "the dawn has come!"

So at last they came to the old log where Drennen had come upon her that day he had hurled his love at her like a curse.

The flash of blue across the Little MacLeod might have been the wing of the same blue bird that had called to them here so long ago. A winter had come, had wrought its changes upon the earth and had gone; now it was a deeper summertime; but, for all that, to-day might have been the day set apart for this belated lovers' meeting.

Out of the thick darkness at last into the rosy dawn. Sorrow and tragedy behind, covered deep in those shadows; love in front of them and all that it promises to the man and the woman.

Ygerne slipped from her horse and went straight to the log, perching upon it as she had sat that other day. Drennen, in a moment, followed her.

"Ygerne," he whispered.

Everything forgotten but the Now, a thrill ran through the girl. She lifted her eyes to his and smiled at him, holding out her arms. But, in spite of her, her heart was beating wildly, the blood was running into her face until her cheeks were stained, red and hot with it.

"Do you hate me . . . because I made you love me?" she asked, laughing a little, holding him back from her for the last deliciously shy second.

"Do you hate me, Ygerne, because always I was brute to you?"

Then she no longer made play at pressing him back from her.

"We must begin all over," she said at last. "Love is not love which does not trust to the uttermost. We both have lacked faith, David, dear. No matter what we see with our own eyes, hear with our own ears, we must never doubt again. You will always believe in me . . . now . . . won't you, David?"

They were silent a little, busied with the same thoughts; they lived over the few meetings here; they remembered the rainbow upon the mountain flank, the dinner at Joe's Lunch Counter; they were saying good-bye to MacLeod's and were looking forward to Lebarge, the railroad and what lay for them beyond. . . .

Suddenly Drennen cried out strangely, and Ygerne, startled, looked at him wonderingly.

"What is it?" she asked quickly.

He pointed to something lying in the grass at the side of the log; just a few bits of weather spoiled cardboard which once upon a time had been a big box filled with candy for her. He told her what it was. Her hand shut down tight upon his arm; he could feel a little tremor shake her; then, deeply touched by this little thing, the girl was crying softly. A tear splashed upon his hand, a tear like a pearl.

"And there was something else, Ygerne," he said gently. "Look. The winter has left it and no man has come here to find it."

It was peeping out at him from the little hollow upon the log's uneven surface where he had dropped it, a glint of gold from under the piece of bark which he had put over it and which had not been thrust aside by the winter winds.

"I got it for you at the same time, Ygerne," he told her. "It was to be my first little present to you. . . ."

Winter snow and spring thaw had done no harm to the gold which could not rust nor to the pearls which could not tarnish. . . . Silently she bared her throat that he might fasten the pendant necklace for her. His hands trembled and a strange awkwardness came upon him. But in the end it was done.