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 b.u.t.te 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 amus.e.m.e.nt.
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.