For the Allinson Honor

CHAPTER XXVI

A SUSPICIOUS STRANGER

Andrew returned to Canada satisfied with his English visit. He had not convinced his relatives that his judgment was entirely to be trusted, but he knew that he stood higher in their esteem than he had done; and that was something to be thankful for. Leonard, he thought, would find it more difficult to prejudice them against his plans. On reaching the Lake of Shadows, he found Graham recovering and learned that the Frobishers had left for their home in Denver. After remaining a few days at the Landing he went up to the mine, where the ore showed no sign of improvement. For all that, he spent a month there, waiting until the thaw came and maturing his plans for his second journey to Dream Mine.

At last the rotting ice began to yield, and Andrew sat outside Watson's shack one day, watching an impressive spectacle. The river broke up with violence, the ice ripping and rending with a sound like the roar of artillery, and as the great torn masses swept away, the water pent up in the higher reaches poured into the gorge, swollen with melting snow. It rolled by in savage flood, laden with tremendous blocks of ice, some of which, cemented together near falls and rapids, were the size of small frame houses. Among them drove huge floes into which the floating cakes had solidified during the earlier frosts. Here and there one stranded upon a point, or swung in an eddy, until another crashed into it and both were shattered amid a bewildering uproar. Then, for a while, the stream was filled with massive, driving sheets of ice, which ground the banks with a tremendous din and scored the tops of projecting boulders, while waterlogged pines and stumps sunk in the river-bed were crushed to pulp.

Andrew had never seen any display of natural forces to equal this, and when he went into the shack for supper he found that he could not get the recollection of it out of his mind. The lonely North is a savage country, very grim and terrible in some of its moods. Andrew, however, had carefully considered and endeavored to guard against its dangers, and when a canoe which had been especially built for him in Toronto arrived, he set out on his journey with Carnally and Graham. There was now no risk of frostbite and the gray trout would help out their food supply, but they knew the trip would cost them much exhausting labor.

For some days they poled and paddled up the swollen river, spending hours in dragging the canoe and provisions across rocky portages to avoid furious rapids, and often wading waist-deep in icy water with the tracking line. At night they slept, generally wet through, among the stones, though there was often sharp frost and the slack along the bank was covered with fresh ice in the morning; but they made steady progress until the stream broke up into small forks and they must cross the height of land. This was singularly toilsome work. In some places they were forced to hew a path through scrub spruce bush; in others there were slippery rocks to be scrambled across, while two in turn carried the canoe, borne upside-down upon the shoulders. Then there were the provisions to be brought up, and in relaying them each difficult stage had to be traversed several times, so that once or twice, when they had made only a mile or two in an exhausting day, Andrew almost despaired of getting any farther.

At last, however, they found a creek rushing tumultuously down the back of the divide. They followed it, one of them checking the canoe by the tracking line while the others kept her off the rocks with pole and paddle. Their provisions were secured, so far as possible, from damage by water, but there was danger of losing them in a capsize, and boiling eddies and roaring rapids made caution needful. For a while the creek led them roughly where they wished to go, and then turned off, and they crossed a high ridge in search of another. Lakes and rivers abound in those wilds, which are almost impassable on foot during the short summer. As they worked north the sun grew warmer, but the temperature fell sharply at night, and now and then the waste was swept by piercing winds.

One of these was raging when they scudded down a lake on a cold and lowering evening. Gray vapor blurred the rocky shore, but here and there a few dark pines stood out, harshly distinct. The water was leaden-colored between the lines of foam, and short, slashing seas broke angrily about the canoe, which ran before them with a small lugsail set. Carnally knelt astern, holding the steering paddle; Andrew lay down amidships, out of the wind; and Graham, crouching forward, fixed his eyes ahead.

"There seems to be a creek abreast of us," Carnally said. "We're in shoaling water; watch out for snags."

A violent gust struck them and the canoe drove on furiously, lifting her bows on a foaming ridge while the water lapped level with her stern.

"Shoot her up!" Graham called out sharply. "Log right ahead!"

Andrew seized the sheet and Carnally plied the paddle; but the warning had come too late. While the canoe slanted over until her lee side was under water as she altered her course, there was a sharp crash. Her speed slackened for a moment or two. Then she lifted as a white wave surged by; and when she drove on again the water poured in through a rent in her side.

"Can't be kept under by baling," Carnally remarked. "We'll have to put her on the wind and make the beach."

He hauled the sheet, but she would not bear the pressure when she brought the wind abeam, and seeing the water pouring in over her lowered side, Carnally let her fall off again.

"Looks as if we had to keep her running," he said.

"The end of the lake can't be far off and the water's too rough to do much with the paddle."

They scudded on, Andrew and Graham baling as fast as possible, while the rising water gained on them, until blurred trees and rocks began to grow out of the haze ahead. Then as a strip of beach became distinguishable they lowered the sail, and soon afterward jumped over and carried her out across the jagged driftwood that hammered on the pebbles. There was a small promontory near at hand, and Carnally walked across it while the others made camp. Supper was ready when he returned, and after the meal was finished he lay down near the fire.

"The canoe wants a patch on her bilge," he said. "Could you sew on a bit of the thin cedar with the copper wire, Graham? There's some caulking gum in the green can."

"It would take me a day to make a neat job."

"No hurry," replied Carnally. "The outlet from the lake's just beyond that rise and it looks pretty good. When you have finished the canoe, you and Andrew could take her down and wait for me where the creek runs into the river we're looking for."

"It would be hard work at the portages. But why aren't you coming with us?" Andrew asked.

"I ought to make the creek where Mappin cached the first lot of stores for our other trip in about two days' march."

"We have enough without them."

"That's so. Anyhow, I want to look at the cache. Stores are a consideration on a trip like this; the less you have to pack over the portages, the quicker you can travel. Though we didn't find it, Mappin knows where the cache was made."

"I don't see the drift of this," Andrew said.

Carnally smiled.

"Hasn't it struck you that we might be followed? Sending up the canoe and camp truck would show the people at the Landing that we were ready to start, and Mappin knows our line roughly as far as the cache. You can't make camp and haul across brush portages without leaving a trail."

"Ah! That makes one think. Of course, we would have no legal claim to the lode unless we got our stakes in before anybody else."

"It's not enough. You have to get back to a government office and file your record before you're safe. Well, considering everything, I guess I'll start for the cache at sun-up."

The others agreed to this and after he left the next morning they set to work on the canoe and repaired her satisfactorily. Then they launched her on the outflowing stream and a few days later made camp on the bank of a larger river, where they sat beside their fire late at night. The gorge was filled with the clamor of rushing water, but the night was very still, and they could hear sounds in the bush through the deep-toned roar of the flood. Outside the glow of the fire, which fell on the straight spruce trunks, there was nothing to be seen; but they sat listening, for Carnally had been longer than he expected and Andrew was anxious.

At last, Graham raised his hand.

"I heard something!"

Andrew turned his head, but for a while could hear only the hoarse turmoil of the river. Then he started as a faint crackle came out of the shadows. It rose again, more clearly, and presently a man's dark shape emerged from the gloom. A few moments later Carnally threw off his pack and sat down by the fire, his boots badly ripped and his clothing tattered.

"I struck some pretty rough country," he explained. "The creek winds a lot and I came across the range."

"Did you find the cache?" Andrew asked.

"Sure! It had been opened not long before and provisions taken out."

Graham moved abruptly.

"I suppose the things couldn't have been taken by Indians?"

"No, sir! Indians would have cleaned out the whole lot. Whoever found the cache left some food to pick up when coming back. There were three or four white men in the party; I learned that when I struck their empty camp. Looks as if the hog was still getting after us."

"I'm afraid so," said Andrew, frowning. "What's to be done to shake off his men?"

"The fellows were heading down-stream, and I guess they'd hold on until they struck this river, where they'd make a base camp and look for our trail. Well, instead of keeping to the water, as they'd expect, we'll strike across the divide, though it will be an awkward traverse."

His companions approved the plan, and the next day they found a spot where smooth rocky slabs dropped gently to the water. Here they took off their boots, to avoid leaving tell-tale scratches, and then they hauled out the canoe. They were able to carry her some distance before they met with much brush, and when they had brought up the provisions, Carnally looked about with a satisfied air.

"This wouldn't strike one as an easy place to portage across, and the stream runs smartly past the stones we landed on," he chuckled. "I guess Mappin's boys will go straight on, and it may be some time before they get suspicious."

His opinion was reassuring, as far as it went, but Andrew felt daunted as he studied the rise ahead. The ravines were filled with brushwood, the spurs clothed with spruce, and he failed to see how the canoe was to be conveyed to the top. It must, however, be tried, and they set to work, laboriously carrying her up the steep slopes, a few yards at a time, until they reached a gully choked with brush, where progress became almost impossible. They were forced to drag her through thick bushes, stopping every two or three minutes for breath, while on the steeper pitches they buried knees and toes in the gravel as they passed her from hand to hand. The light was fading when they reached the crest, exhausted, and it cost Andrew a determined effort to go back some distance with Carnally for the provisions. Indeed, it was only hunger forced him to do so.

The nights had been getting lighter rapidly, but the soft dimness was puzzling when the two men faced the ascent. They could not judge the steepness of the slope; they plunged into bushes they had not noticed, and there were spots where they narrowly escaped dangerous falls. Slipping, scrambling, floundering, Andrew struggled up with his load, and sank down, worn out and aching, beside Graham's fire.

"You'll have to cook; I can't make another move," he said. "It strikes me that the man who finds a mine in this country deserves all he gets. That raises the question – how is it that Mappin can trust the rascals he has sent after us? Suppose they found the lode, why couldn't they stick to it?"

"A mineral vein is of little use to a man without money," Graham explained. "It would cost him a good deal in transport of provisions and tools before he got his legal development work done; and then he wouldn't be much farther on, because he'd have to put up expensive plant and clear a trail to bring the ore out. As a matter of fact, the fortunate prospector is forced to look for a capitalist."

"That," remarked Carnally, "is how we are fixed. You needn't worry about our going back on you."

"Rot!" said Andrew. "You know I'd trust either of you with my last penny!"

"It's your trouble that you're a confiding man. But I guess you have learned that it doesn't pay to take any chances when you deal with Mappin."

"I'm convinced of it. One experience of his tricks is enough."

"I'll confess it wasn't enough for me. When I'd fired him out of the store I felt so good that I set up drinks for all the thirsty slouches in the hotel; but I made a mistake I've been sorry for ever since. Instead of letting him walk off, I ought to have punched the hog until they had to take him to a Winnipeg hospital. For one thing, it would have saved us portaging over this blamed divide."

The others laughed, and though Andrew admitted that Carnally's methods were primitive, he thought there was some excuse for them. Mappin might be considered an outlaw, against whom any weapons could be used.

They went to sleep soon after supper, and resuming the march the next morning, they spent two arduous days transporting the canoe to the nearest water, and paddled down it, seeing nothing of Mappin's men. The canoe received some damage when running a rapid into a lake and it cost them a day to repair her, though Carnally showed much impatience at the detention. When dusk fell they sat smoking by the fire, for the night was cold. The wild cry of a loon rang at intervals across the palely gleaming water; the resinous smell of the spruces was in the air; and the soft splash of ripples upon the shingle accentuated the stillness.

The loon's call suddenly broke off in the middle, and Carnally got up sharply. A little later he pointed to a dark speck which appeared out on the lake.

"The loon," he commented. "It was in the shadow by the big stone and must have swum a good piece under water. Somebody scared the bird; now it's gone again!"

The black spot vanished and Carnally stood still in fixed attention while Andrew's heart began to beat quickly. He could hear nothing, but he knew that Carnally was seldom mistaken in matters of this kind. Some minutes passed, and then as footsteps broke the silence, Carnally beckoned Graham to give him a rifle they had brought.

"Come out of the bush so we can see you!" he cried.

A shadowy form appeared against the gleaming water and stopped.

"What do you want?" Carnally asked. "Are you alone?"

"Something to eat," said the stranger. "There's nobody with me."

"One of the Mappin crowd, I guess. Where's the rest of you?"

"I don't know. It's three or four days since I left them."

"Then you can come along. I see you have a gun. If you're wise, you'll keep it at the trail."