"Not that boy."
"Murray McTavish?"
"He knows."
Kars nodded agreement.
"He knew when he was lying to me he didn"t understand Allan visiting Bell River," he said.
Kars" eyes had become coldly contemplative. And in the brief silence that followed, for all his intimate understanding of his friend, Bill Brudenell was unable even to guess at the thoughts pa.s.sing behind the icy reserve which seemed to have settled upon him.
But his questions found an answer much sooner than he expected. The silence was broken by a short, hard laugh of something like self-contempt.
"You an" me, Bill. We"re going up there with an outfit that knows all about sc.r.a.pping, and something about gold. We"re going up there, and d"you know why? Oh, not to rob a widow and orphan." He laughed again in the same fashion. "Not a soul"s got to know, or be wise to our play," he went on. "The strike they"ve worked won"t be touched by us.
We"ll make our own. But for once gold isn"t all we need. There"s something else. I tell you I can"t rest till we find it. There"s a gal, Bill, on the Snake River, with eyes made to smile most all the time. They did--till Allan Mowbray got done up. Well, I got a notion they"ll smile again some day, but it won"t be till I"ve located just how her father came by his end, after years of working with the Bell River neches. I want to see those eyes smile, Bill. I want to see "em smile bad. Maybe you think me some fool man. I allow I"m wiser than you guess. Maybe, even, I"m wiser than you, who"ve never yearned to see a gal"s eyes smiling into yours in all your forty-three years.
That"s why we"re going to b.u.t.t in on that strike, and you"re coming right along with me if I have to yank you there by your mighty badly fledged scalp."
Bill had turned over on his side. His shrewd eyes were smiling.
"Sounds like fever," he said, in his pleasant way. "I"ll need to take the patient"s temperature. Say, John, you won"t have to haul on my scalp for any play like that. I"m in it--right up to my neck. That I"ve lived to see the day John Kars talks of marrying makes me feel I"ve not lived----"
"He"s not talking of marriage," came the swift retort with flushed cheeks.
"No. But he"s thinking it. Which, in a man like John Kars, comes pretty near meaning the same thing. Did you ask her, boy?"
Just for a moment resentment lit the other"s eyes. It was on his tongue to make a sharp retort. But, under the deep, new emotion stirring him, an emotion that made him rather crave for a sympathy which, in all his strong life, he had never felt the necessity before, the desire melted away. In place of it he yielded to a rush of enthusiasm which surprised himself almost as much as it did his old friend.
"No, Bill." He laughed. "I--hadn"t the nerve to. I don"t know as I"ll ever have the nerve to. But I want that little gal bad. I want her so bad I feel I could get right out an" trail around these darnation hills, an" skitter holes, hollering "help" like some mangy coyote chasing up her young. Oh, I"m going to ask her. I"ll have to ask her, if I have to get you to hand me the dope to fix my nerve right. And, say, if she hands me the G. B. for that bladder of taller-fat, Murray, why I"ll just pack my traps, and hit the trail for Bell River, and I"ll sit around and kill off every darned neche so she can keep right on handing herself all the gold she needs till she"s sitting atop of a mountain of it, which is just about where I"d like to set her with these two dirty hands."
His eyes smiled as he held out his hands. But he went on at once.
"Now you"ve got it all. And I guess we"ll let it go at that. You and me, we"re going to set right out on this new play. There isn"t going to be a word handed to a soul at the Fort, or anywhere else. Not a word. There"s things behind Allan Mowbray"s death we don"t know. But that dirty half-breed knows "em, if we don"t. And the gold on the river has a big stake in the game. That being so, the folk Allan left behind him are to be robbed. Follow it? It kind of seems to me the folk at the Fort are helpless. But--but we aren"t. So it"s up to me, seeing how I feel about that little gal."
Kars had propped himself up under the effect of his rising excitement.
Now, as he finished speaking, he dropped back on his blankets with some display of weariness.
Bill"s eyes were watching him closely. He was wondering how much of this he would have heard had Kars been his usual, robust self. He did not think he would have heard so much.
He rose from his blankets.
"I"m all in, boy, on this enterprise," he said, in his amiable way.
"Meanwhile I"m dousing this light. You"ll sleep then."
He blew out the lamp before the other could protest.
"I"ll just get a peek at the boys on watch. I need to fix things with Charley for the start up to-morrow."
He pa.s.sed out of the tent crawling on his hands and knees. Nor did he return till he felt sure that his patient was well asleep.
Even then he did not seek his own blankets. For a moment he studied his friend"s breathing with all his professional skill alert. Then, once more, he withdrew, and took his place at the camp-fire beside Peigan Charley.
The first sign of dawn saw the camp astir. Kars was accommodated with one of the Alaskan ponies under pressure from Bill, as the doctor. The whole outfit was on the move before daylight had matured. Neither the scout, nor the two white men were deceived. Each knew that they were not likely to make the headwaters of Snake River without molestation.
How right they were was abundantly proved on the afternoon of the second day.
They were pa.s.sing through a wide defile, with the hills on either side of them rising to several hundreds of feet of dense forest. It was a shorter route towards their objective, but more dangerous by reason of the wide stretching tundra it was necessary to skirt.
Half-way through this defile came the first sign. It came with the distant crack of a rifle. Then the whistle of a speeding bullet, and the final "spat" of it as it embedded itself in an adjacent tree-trunk.
Everybody understood. But it took Peigan Charley to sum up the situation, and the feeling of, at least, the leaders of the outfit.
"Fool neche!" he exclaimed, with a world of contemptuous regard flung in the direction whence came the sound. "Shoot lak devil. Much shoot.
Plenty. Oh, yes."
CHAPTER XIII
THE FALL TRADE
The fall trade of the post was in full swing, and gave to the river, and the approaches of the Fort, an air of activity such as it usually lacked. Murray McTavish seemed to blossom under the pressure of the work entailed. His good humor became intensified, and his smile radiated upon the world about him. These times were the opportunity he found for the display of his abounding energies. They were healthy times, healthy for mind and body. To watch his activities was to marvel that he still retained the grossness of figure he so deplored.
A number of canoes were moored at the Mission landing. Others were secured at piles driven into the banks of the river. These were the boats of the Indians and half-breeds who came to trade their summer harvest at the old post. A few days later and these same craft would be speeding in the direction of distant homes, under the swift strokes of the paddle, bearing a modic.u.m of winter stores as a result of their owner"s traffic.
And what a mixed trade it was. Furs. Rough dried pelts, ranging from bear to fox, from seal to Alaskan sable. Furs of thirty or forty descriptions, each with its definite market value, poured into the Fort. The lucky pelt hunters were the men who brought black-fox, and Alaskan sable, or a few odd seals from the uncontrolled hunting grounds within the Arctic circle. These men departed with amply laden canoes, with, amongst their more precious trophies, inferior modern rifles and ammunition.
But these voyageurs did not make up the full tally of the fall trade which gave Murray so much joy. There were the men of the long trail.
The long, land trail. Men who came with their whole outfit of belongings, women and children as well. They packed on foot, and on ponies, and in weird vehicles of primitive manufacture, accompanied by the dogs which would be needed for haulage should the winter snows overtake them before they completed their return journey.
These were of the lesser cla.s.s trade. It was rare enough to obtain a parcel of the more valuable pelts from these folk. But they not infrequently brought small parcels of gold dust, which experience had taught them the curious mind of the white man set such store by.
Gold came in shyly, however, in the general trade. Indian methods were far too primitive in procuring it. Besides which, for all the value of it, traders in these remotenesses were apt to discourage its pursuit.
It was difficult to understand the psychology of the trader on the subject. But no doubt he was largely influenced by the fear of a white invasion of his territory, should the news of the gold trade leak out.
Maybe he argued that the stability of his legitimate trade was preferable to the risks of compet.i.tion which an influx of white folk would bring. Anyway, open trade of this nature was certainly comparatively discouraged.
But Murray was not alone in the work of the fall trade. Ailsa Mowbray supported him in a very definite share. She had returned to the work of the store, such as she had undertaken in the days when her husband was alive and Murray had not yet made his appearance upon the river.
Then, too, Alec had returned from his summer trail, his first real adventure without the guiding hand of his father to direct him. He had returned disillusioned. He had returned discontented. His summer bag was incomparable with his effort. It was far below that of the average river Indians.
He went back to the store, to the work he disliked, without any willingness, and only under the pressure of his perturbed mother and sister. Furthermore, he quickly began to display signs of rebellion against Murray McTavish"s administration of affairs.
Murray was considering this att.i.tude just now. He was standing alone, just within the gates of the Fort, and his meditative gaze was turned upon a wonderful sunset which lit the distant heights of the outspread glacial field with a myriad of varying tints.
There had been words with Alec only a few minutes before. It was on the subject of appraising values. Alec, in a careless, haphazard fashion, had baled some inferior pelts with a number of very beautiful foxes. Murray had discovered it by chance, and his words to the youth had been sharply admonishing.
Alec, tall as his father had been, muscular, bull-necked in his youthful physical strength, bull-headed in his pa.s.sionate impetuosity, had flared up immoderately.
"Then do it your darn self!" he cried, the hot blood surging to his cheeks, and his handsome eyes aflame. "Maybe you think I"m hired man in this layout, an" you can hand me any old dope you fancy. Well, I tell you right here, you need to quit it. I don"t stand for a thing from you that way. You"ll bale your own darn buys, or get the boys to do it."
With this parting the work of his day was terminated. He departed for the Mission clearing, leaving Murray to digest his words at leisure.