CHAPTER XII.
THE CACHE.
There was absolutely no doubt about it. And therefore it was clear that Ballou and the others had not gone prospecting at all. Their camp was just visible through the trees, a hundred yards or so inland. There was a lean-to and a smoldering fire with a faint curl of smoke. But nobody was in sight.
"Well," said Jim Dunleath, "what do you think, Wally? Do you see anything resembling a fine, large double cross?"
Mr. Fothergill wagged his head helplessly, as if the irresistible conclusion were entirely too much for him.
"Tom Ballou!" he said. "Old Tom Ballou, of all men!"
"‘Brutus is an honorable man. So are they all, all honorable men.’"
"There may be some explanation."
"The explanation is very simple, and you know it as well as I do. Ballou deliberately misled us. He took us to a place roughly corresponding to the description we had, and allowed us to hunt until we grew discouraged. He hurried things up by a pretended strike of the men. This prospecting yarn was all bunk. As soon as our backs were turned, Ballou and our precious ex-employees came here. Louis was to herd us along, and that was at the bottom of his grouch. He didn't like the job, because he was afraid they would hold out on him. Of course, when he knew we were coming back to the real Ahtikamag, he had to get back ahead of us to warn Ballou. I don't know why he didn't destroy our canoe, but I suppose he thought we wouldn't find it as soon as we did. Well, that's how it stands. Ballou and the lot of them are in this to get the furs themselves. What are we going to do about it?"
Mr. Fothergill swore. It was hard medicine, after all his eulogies of Ballou. But for my part I was scarcely less surprised. In all the time I had known old Tom I had never heard of his doing a dishonest act. He was the last man I should have suspected of deliberate treachery. But here was proof.
"Well," said Dinny Pack, "if you're goin' to chaw the rag about it much, I'd do it some other place. I don't know this bunch, but if they was to come back and find us here I b'lieve there'd be the makin's of trouble. We know they're here, and they don't know we are. We got it on them that much. If it was me, I'd pull out till I figgered out the 'best play."
"That's right," Toft agreed. "I guess they're up the creek lookin' for the cache. "It's gettin' on time for 'em to come back to eat."
"Then we'll go," Dunleath decided.
We dropped downstream, and, keeping in close to shore, landed a mile or more below the creek. There we ate lunch. While we ate, we discussed the situation, but we did not get very far ahead.
To begin with, Ballou and his men outnumbered us. And then there was the strange canoe. Where had that come from? Anyway, it meant a couple more men. They were on the ground, in possession. Most of the canoes were theirs by right of purchase. As to the cache, though we had Nitche McNab's letter, of course that constituted no ownership that they would recognize. If they found the cache, they would keep its contents. But had they found it?
"Not likely," said Toft. "Even if they do, the furs may not be any good. And if they ain't, it might not be worth while hornin' in on that crowd at all. My tumtum would be to go slow on this till you know where you're at. If we was to strike back to where we could look down into the creek bottom at the foot of the cañon, we might find out something."
The suggestion was good. Toft led the way inland through heavy timber. It was a steady climb at first, but when we turned in the direction of the creek the going was better.
"Gettin' near to it now," said Toft. "We ought to be about. opposite the foot of the cañon. Go careful when you git close. A man shows up agin' a sky line."
We looked down into a deep, wooded gorge. Below us, the lips of the cañon spat a torrent of swirling water which, spreading, brawled noisily in a bowlder-strewn course of frosted silver. On our side the' drop was abrupt, rocky, gray with miniature slides of shale and small stuff. But across the creek the slope was easier, and covered with a growth of fir and, spruce.
"I guess that's your hawks' nest," said Toft. "I seem to remember it now."
It surmounted the broken top of a giant fir nearly opposite us. It was by far the largest nest that I had ever seen, a mass of weather-beaten sticks, the size of half a hogshead. Though the treetop was broken, the tree itself was living. Perhaps a century had gone by since the first pair of broad-winged fishers of the air had chosen that broken top for a nesting place and laid their first foundation timbers, wedging them cunningly with beak and claw. And since that time others had followed, adding to the structure as seemed good to them. Now the nest was deserted. No doubt the birds of that season had flown. But, strewn on the nest and caught in the bushy treetop, were the whitened vertebræ of the fish which had nourished them.
"And there is the red rock!" I cried, in excitement.
It lay downhill from the tree, a great bowlder, the only one on the hillside visible from our position. How it had come there was a mystery. Perhaps it was a solitary relic of a day when a great ice sheet overlay and overrode the land. But at any rate there it was, just as it had been when Nitche McNab and his henchman had packed in their spoil. And from it a line, like a survey line, had been cut through the undergrowth, no doubt to allow Ballou to sight along the mark for the cache.
Following this line with the eye to our own side of the creek, we could see where they had been working, moving a mass of rubble and slide stuff; and their tools lay scattered about as they had dropped them to take their nooning.
"Knocked off for grub and ain't come back yet," said Dinny Pack. "They've stripped off quite a bunch of stuff."
"Keep down!" said Toft. "They're comin' back now."
They came along close to the creek, Ballou first, walking by himself, then Hayes and McGregor, and the rest of the crew strung out anyhow. But with them were two men whom I did not know.
"By gosh!" whispered Dinny Pack. "Look-a there, Ike!"
"I see 'em," said Toft. "Was them two men in your outfit—I mean the big, black-complected feller and the older one with the whiskers and the handkerchief round his neck?"
"No, they're strangers to us," Dunleath replied.
"They make durn good strangers, too," Pack growled. "But you ought to know 'em, Bob. That big feller is Charlie Simmons—Nootka Charlie that got fresh with your sister—and the old pelican is Siwash George Collins. Both squaw men—more or less—and both bad actors. Me and Ike know 'em, don't we, Ike?"
"Some," Toft agreed briefly. "Which is this here Ballou?"
I told him, and pointed out the others. They picked up the tools and attacked the base of the hill with an energy that told of personal interest. Because they were almost directly below us, we could not see what progress they were making, but there was no doubt that they were working hard.
"Dig, ye gophers!" muttered Dinny. "I always did admire to watch other fellers work!" And quite unconsciously he began to boss them profanely, like a two-fisted Connemara foreman of a construction gang, only he did it under his breath.
We lay and watched them sweating and toiling among the hot rocks. It was evident that so far they had found nothing, but from their energy it seemed that they believed themselves on the right track. Suddenly one of the men shouted, and the others clustered around him, throwing away the dirt and rubble from one spot. Then Louis Beef sprang in close under the rocks and began to throw out small bowlders the size of a man's head as if they had been cushions. We heard him yell triumphantly.
"I guess they got her," said Toft calmly.
"Looks like it," Dunleath agreed ruefully.
Ballou went out of sight, and Hayes followed him closely. One by one the others disappeared.
"That's her, sure," said Dinny. "Nitche McNab's old cache that was all same fairy tale! Well, maybe there ain't a darn thing in her, after all."
But in a minute a man came out with a bale on his shoulder, and another and another similarly laden, and still they kept coming, and the first went back for more. On his last trip, Louis brought out a small keg.
"Them's the furs," said Toft. "I wish I had a dollar for every one of them things I've packed."
They dumped the bales on the ground, and Ballou ripped one open with his knife, while the others crowded closely around him. We watched breathlessly. Now it was to be known whether the contents of the cache was valuable or worthless.
Ballou had a skin in his hands. It looked like the pelt of a fox, and of a black fox at that. The men pressed in and helped themselves to other skins, holding them up, turning them to the light, blowing up the nap of the fur, pulling at it to test its condition.
And then somebody yipped shrilly like a coyote. Another jumped into a few quick dance steps and struck Louis a tremendous blow between the shoulders. Louis caught up the keg, and, holding it tilted to his mouth, made believe to drink from it. The pantomime was more convincing than words. The furs were still good.
They went into bale after bale, apparently with like result, and then they sat down, and the smoke of their pipes rose blue above them. Louis sat on the keg, his legs curled around it, and roared forth an old French chanson, beating a thunderous accompaniment on its sides with his great hands.
"What's in the keg?" I asked Dinny.
"Rum or high wines, I guess. Maybe brandy. Nitche must have lifted it from one of the posts. And lyin' there twenty years! She'll have a kick like mules." His tongue slid out a little and caressed his lips furtively. "It's six months and better," he said plaintively, "since I had a drink."
"You had enough then to do you six years," his partner returned unfeelingly.
But the inaction of the group below us did not last long. They shouldered a load each and started down the creek.
"Packin' them down to camp," said Toft. "I judge there's about four canoe loads there. Well, they'll have 'em all down by night, and like as not they'll pull out in the morning."
"Unless they're stopped," said Jim Dunleath.
"How was you thinkin' of stoppin' them?" Toft inquired mildly.
"There's only one way," Mr. Fothergill put in. "We'll hold them up, get the drop on them, make them put up their hands."
"Sounds all right," said Toft, "only it ain't always so easy to hold up a big bunch like that. What would you do if they didn't obey orders—when you told 'em to sky their claws?"
"Well"—Mr. Fothergill hesitated—"of course I wouldn't like to shoot a man. It wouldn't do—wouldn't do at all. There would be a devil of a row about it. But it won't be necessary to shoot. They wouldn't dare refuse, I'm quite positive of that. We can bluff them."
"That system is no good," said Toft. "You never want to start out to hold up nobody with the idee that you're runnin' a sandy. You may show it's a bluff, or you may be slow decidin' what to do if your hand's called. And while you're decidin' you get killed. You want to go in with your mind made up cold to plug any man that don't do what he's told to do and do it quick. With a bunch like this here there's always liable to be one man that'll take a chance. That makes a chance for somebody else, and then she's gen'ral. I don't know this crowd of yours, but I know Nootka and his partner, and I'm tellin' you that holdin' them up ain't no cinch."
"That's right," Dinny affirmed. "We know them two pelicans, and a couple of your crowd is bad-lookin' old-timers. If you want to make it a holdup, me and Ike's agreeable. Only it's got to be understood that if we fill our hands we play 'em for all that's in 'em. How are they fixed for guns?"
"Each of our men had a rifle," Dunleath replied, "and I think one or two have six-shooters. Hayes has—always wears it."
"Bad old rooster, is he?"
"I don't know. As for myself, I never shot anybody or at anybody, and I don't want to. I don't know whether I'm afraid or not. Perhaps I am. There are nine of them and only four of us."
"Five," I amended.
"I'm not counting you, Bob."
"Why not?" I demanded indignantly. "I can shoot a whole lot better than you can."
"Very true. But I'm responsible for your safety, and you won't be in any holdup deal if I can help it. I promised your folks to look after you."
"I can look after myself," I growled. "I suppose that's some of Peggy's foolishness. She thinks I'm a kid."
"So you are," Dinny Pack put in. "What your sister says goes."
"Mind your own business!" I snapped. "Where do you get action in this, anyway?"
He grinned at me.
"Don't get hostile for a minute, kid. There'll likely be plenty of trouble to go all around. Well, I dunno's I'm hankerin' after no holdup deals myself. I wisht I could work out some other way."
Now with his words suddenly an idea popped from nowhere into my head; but I kept it to myself partly because I was used to doing my own thinking and partly because I was angry with both Dunleath and Pack. They thought I was a kid, did they? Well, I would show them!