"I am not sure," he said. "But the only way to be sure is to go and find out."
So together father and son packed out of Belle Fortune, headed toward the Nine Lakes in the heart of the unknown land of Sasnokee-keewan.
Unknown because it is a land of short summers and long, hard winters; because no man had ever found the precious metals here; because there is little game such as trappers venture into the far out places to get; because it is broken, rough, inhospitable. But, for a thousandth time, a vague rumour had come to Drennen that those whom he sought had pushed on here ahead of him and methodically he was running down each rumour.
Perhaps not a hundred men in a hundred years had come here before them.
The forests, tall and black and filled with gloom, were about them everywhere. Their trail they made, and there were days when from sunrise to sunset they did not progress five miles. Their two pack animals found insecure footing; death awaited them hourly upon many a day at the bottom of some sheer walled cliff. They climbed with the sharp slopes on the mountains, they dropped down into the narrow, flinty canons, they heard only the swish of tree tops and the quarrelling of streams lost to their eyes in the depths below them.
And they came in two weeks to Blue Lake having seen no other man or other trail than their own.
They were silent days. Neither man asked a question of the other and neither referred to what lay deepest in his own breast. There was sympathy between them, and it grew stronger day by day, but it was a sympathy akin to that of the solitudes, none the less eloquent because it was wordless. Sothern informed Drennen once, out of the customary silence about the evening camp fire, that he was taking an indefinite vacation; that there was a man in his place with the Northwestern who was amply qualified to remain there permanently if Sothern did not come back at all.
They sought to water at Blue Lake, so little known then and now already one of the curiosities of the North and found its waters both luke warm and salty. Although the lake is less than a quarter of a mile long they were two hours in reaching the head. The mountains come down steeply on all sides, the timber stands thick, boulders are scattered everywhere, and it was already dark.
This is the first of the Nine Lakes when one approaches from the south.
Less than a hundred yards further north, its surface a third of that distance above the level of Blue Lake, is Lake Wachong. It has no visible connection with Blue Lake except when, with the heavy spring thaw, there is a thin trickle of water down the boulders. Here they camped for the night.
"We would have seen a trail if they had gone ahead of us this year, Dave," Sothern remarked, referring for the first time in many days to the matter which was always in Drennen"s mind.
"There"s another way in," Drennen told him. "They"d have gone that way. It"s north of here and easier. But we save forty or fifty miles this way."
There had been a recent discovery of gold at a little place called Ruminoff Shanty, newly named Gold River. This, lying still eighty miles to the north, was Drennen"s objective point. The old rumour had come to him a shade more definite this time. In the crowd pushing northward had been three men and a woman, one of the men looked like a Mexican and the woman was young and of rare beauty. But that had not been all. A man named Kootanie George with another man wearing the uniform of the Royal Northwest Mounted had followed them. These had all gone by the beaten trail; Drennen saw that if he came before Kootanie George and Max to the four he sought he must take his chances with the short cut.
The next night they camped at the upper end of the fourth of the string of little lakes. And that evening they saw, far off to the westward, the faint hint of smoke against the early stars, the up-flying sparks, which spoke of another campfire upon the crest of the ridge.
The old man bent his penetrating gaze upon his son. Drennen"s face, as usual, was impa.s.sive.
"My boy," said Sothern very gently, "you are sure that you have made no mistake? The girl is no better than her companions?"
"They merely kill a man for his gold," returned Drennen steadily. "She plays with a man"s soul and kills it when she has done."
There were deep lines of sadness about Sothern"s mouth; the eyes which forsook Drennen"s face and turned to the glitter of the stars were unutterably sad.
"The sins of the father . . ." he muttered. Then suddenly, an electric change in the man, he flung himself to his feet, his hands thrown out toward his son.
"By G.o.d! Dave," he cried harshly; "they"re not worth it! Let them go!
We can turn off here where the world is good because men haven"t come into it. The mountains can draw the poison out of a man"s heart, Dave.
There is room for the two of us, boy, for you and me on a trail of our own. Leave them for Max and Kootanie George. . . . Come with me. Do you hear me, Dave, boy? We don"t need the world now we"ve . . . we"ve got each other!"
Drennen shook his head.
"I"ve got my work to do," he said quietly. "I think it"ll be done soon now. And then . . . then we"ll go away together, Dad. Just the two of us."
CHAPTER XX
THE FIRES WHICH PURIFY
The camp fire which the two men had seen had not been that of Ygerne and her companions. Upon the afternoon of the second day Drennen and Sothern, still working northward along the chain of lakes, came to unmistakable signs of a fresh trail, made by two men, turning in from the westward. In the wet sand of a rivulet were the tracks. One was of an unusually large boot, the other of a smaller boot with a higher heel that had sunk deep.
"Kootanie George and Lieutenant Max, I think," announced Drennen.
"It"s a fair bet, since they"re both somewhere in the neighbourhood and may well enough be travelling together. They"ve gone on ahead. . . ."
They travelled late that afternoon, Drennen setting a hard pace, seemingly forgetful of the man who followed. Drennen"s eyes had grown bright as with fever; for the first time he showed a hint of excitement through the stern mask of his face. He felt strangely a.s.sured that he had come close to the end of a long trail. But that was not the thought which caused his excitement. It was the fear that perhaps Kootanie George and Max might first come up with the quarry.
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 sh.o.r.e. 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 f.a.gots 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 appet.i.te 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 G.o.d!" 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.