CHAPTER XVI.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
"By George," said Mr. Fothergill, "old Tom Ballou's straight, after all."
"About as straight," said Jim Dunleath, "as a clove hitch."
I had told them my story, receiving theirs in return. Briefly this was that they had been awakened—or, rather, Toft had been awakened—by the sound of shots. Finding me gone, he had sneaked up the shore, as I had done, and, coming within earshot of the camp, had heard enough to enable him to guess the rest. Immediately on his return, they had pulled down the lake in the hope of seeing me. We must have been within a very short distance of each other at one time. They ran clean down the lake, and in the morning searched the shores, beating Ballou to it, but found nothing. The next night they searched the islands, and found the canoes where I had left them. Thus they knew that I was neither shot nor drowned. Then they brought the canoes to the larger island and established themselves there, knowing that I had a canoe, and crediting me with more common sense than I displayed.
"I don't see why you should say that," said Mr. Fothergill, referring to Dunleath's comment. "Just look at this thing sensibly. We all make mistakes. Tom has owned up to his. His explanation is plausible, isn't it?"
"It's too plausible."
"Nonsense! What's wrong with it?"
"Mostly that I don't believe it. Without the canoes they're ditched, and they know it. They hope to get them back by a nice, smooth story. And I don't like the company Ballou keeps. Those two—Nootka Charlie and his friend Siwash George—are bad actors, aren't they, Dinny?"
"Plenty cultus, both of 'em," Dinny affirmed. "Rustlers, claim jumpers, whisky peddlers, squaw men—they don't make 'em much worse."
"But they haven't a thing to do with the case," Mr. Fothergill argued. "Tom met 'em by accident. They merely told him of his mistake, and came along to show him the ground. We ought to be grateful to them. You're prejudiced, Jim."
"I am," Dunleath replied. "I tell you, I don't trust Ballou."
"Oh, bosh!" Mr. Fothergill returned impatiently. "I've known him longer than you have. Bob's known him longer still. Bob, did you ever know or hear of anything to his discredit—anything he had ever done that wasn't straight?"
"No," I admitted, "I never did."
"And there you are!" said Mr. Fothergill triumphantly. "A man's reputation in the country he lives in ought to count for something. 'By their fruits ye shall know them!' That's Scripture—in case you don't recognize it."
"Speaking of fruit," Dunleath retorted, "did you ever hear of 'a goodly apple, rotten at the core'? Which is Shakespeare, Wally, if it gets past you."
Thus it was nearly a deadlock in opinion. Pack and Toft were conservative, expressing none. For my part, I was betwixt and between, doubtful, but hopeful.
In the morning things came to a show-down. Dinny Pack, who had been to the upper end of the island, announced that a canoe was coming down the lake.
As it reared our island we saw that Ballou was in the bow and Louis in the stern. Moreover, I recognized it as the one I had cached.
They made straight for the island, and Louis waved his paddle when he saw us. Without the least hesitation, Ballou stepped ashore and held out his hand to Mr. Fothergill.
"So Bob did find you," he said. "Well, I'm glad of that. It shows I had the right tumtum. I guess he's told you how come this mix-up."
"He's told us," Mr. Fothergill replied, "and it's all right with me, Tom. But Dunleath doesn't seem to understand it yet."
Ballou looked Jim Dunleath square in the face.
"What don't you understand?" he asked.
"If you want it straight, Ballou," Dunleath replied, "I find it mighty hard to believe any of it."
"That's plain, anyhow," Ballou acknowledged'. "I'd rather have you come out straight than be holdin' something against me. Well, I dunno's I can say any more'n I told Bob. The furs are yours any time you want to take 'em. That ought to be proof enough. But what I want to say special is that the boys feel kind of sore. You see, I had a hard job to get 'em to come back to make another hunt for the cache. They done it out of good will, and because I told 'em it was the straight thing to do; and they had the gold fever pretty bad. Then you come along and lift the canoes. Well, them canoes was theirs—some of 'em, anyway. They bought 'em. This here one belongs to Nootka Charlie. We found it cached a mile or so below camp. Somebody"—his eye dwelt on me for a moment—"landed there and left it. Nootka and his partner don't know you at all, and they're sore, too. If we'd found it before we'd have been here before, because I figgered you was on one of these islands. Now, the boys want to pull out for the place they was headed for before we turned back. They've lost a lot of time over this, and they want to go now. I ain't goin', and neither is Louis. And here's the proposition: Let the boys have two canoes—enough to hold them and their outfit—and buy the others back from them. You got two men here. Me and Louis is two more. We can handle the rest of the canoes, and they'll hold the load. Of course, if you'd rather not have me and Louis that goes without a murmur. Only we're goin' home, and we've sure got to have some way of gettin' there. I guess you wouldn't see us walk."
"No, of course not," said Mr. Fothergill. "Hang it, Jim, this is a fair proposition. What do you say? You're the only one that's hanging back."
Dunleath looked Ballou in the face, and the older man returned his gaze without a waver.
"All right," he said at last. "I'll go you on it, Ballou."
"Shake!" said Ballou, holding out his hand. "Darned if I don't like you better for talking out in meetin'. Now, the boys will pull out quick as they get canoes. So if you'll let us have the two now we'll tow 'em to camp, and you can come along when you get ready. You'll find us there. You see," he added, with a quiet smile, "I'm not stackin' you up against a crowd you maybe think is hostile."
They departed, towing the canoes. Mr. Fothergill would have followed them at once, to show that he held no mistrust; but Jim Dunleath would not go. A couple of hours afterward the canoes passed, the paddlers hitting a steady stroke. They waved at us, and went on without stopping.
"Just as I told you," said Mr. Fothergill. "You can depend on whatever Ballou tells you."
"Except as to lakes and such trifling things."
"I wouldn't have your suspicious mind," Mr. Fothergill retorted, "for all the furs between here and Point Barrow. Why did you shake with him if you're going to talk that way?"
As we began to stow our dunnage, Ignace Mountain held out his hand to me.
"Goo'-by!" said he.
"You come with us," I said, "and we'll pay you well."
"Certainly," said Jim. "Another good paddler will come in handy."
"No," Ignace refused. "Me klatawa now."
And, so saying, he shook hands all around, and, having received part of a sack of flour and some tobacco, got into his canoe and went down the lake with swinging, driving strokes.
"That Injun," said Dinny, "is lookin' for a fur district, is he?"
"That's what he told me."
"Well, he's sure got a poor outfit. I'll bet he ain't got fifty pounds of grub. And no traps that I could see. Course, he can make deadfalls. But he ain't got no outfit to winter on."
"An Indian doesn't require as much as a white man," said Mr. Fothergill, with an air of knowledge. "He can draw subsistence—food and clothing—from the wilderness."
"He'd a durn sight sooner draw them from the company," Dinny returned. "You read that stuff in books, but it don't go. I s'pose before there was tradin' posts the nitches wiggled along without 'em—had to. But you can bet that an Injun nowadays outfits the best he can. When he goes out for the winter he takes all he can pack—if he can get it."
"Perhaps he couldn't get it."
"A good hunter can always get it—unless he's crooked, somehow. This fellow ought to be good. He's a long way off his range. It don't look natural to me. I wouldn't wonder if he was in some sort of trouble."
"What do you mean?" Dunleath asked.
"Well, he may have slipped a knife into some other nitche, or shot him and had to pull out. You can't tell."
"That ain't our business," Toft pointed out.
"Course not," Dinny agreed. "Far's I'm concerned he could have cleaned out his whole band if he wanted to. If he come through that scrap with the bear, like he told Bob, he's a game nitche all right. Seems to be sorter lyin' low. I noticed he wasn't in sight while we was talkin' to Ballou and the Frenchman."
That was so, though nobody else had noticed it at the time. We embarked, and after bucking a head wind which had arisen reached the creek, and made up the stiff current, finding Ballou and Louis waiting for us, the latter with a good meal ready.
It was quite like old times to see Louis around the fire juggling grub. Dinny and he seemed willing to let bygones be bygones. All outwardly was harmony, and so far as I could see it was real enough.
Naturally I was jubilant. There were the furs. After all, things had turned out right. I saw opening before me the fulfillment of a number of boyish dreams. Now I would work no more on the ranch. Instead, I would go to the far North, with Dinny and Toft, if I could hire them, and hunt and fish and wash gold from the sands, and rove winter and summer to my heart's content. Uncle Fred should have money to meet his payments. And Peggy, who longed for cities and such truck, should have what her heart desired. For to me my share of the furs seemed wealth inexhaustible and limitless.
"Well, Bob, what are you going to do with it?" Jim Dunleath asked, and I started, for I had not heard him come up behind me.
"How did you know what I was thinking of?"
"Guessed, mostly. I've been making a few plans myself."
"What kind of plans?"
"You'll probably be surprised," he said. "But the first thing I'm going to do is to marry your sister—that is, if she'll let me. I haven't asked her yet."
I grinned at him.
"I suppose you think that's news. Why didn't you take a chance the night you said good-by? You held her hands long enough. I sure thought you were going to kiss her."
"What the devil do you know about that?" he demanded, reddening, and I told him.
"I guess Peg will marry you," I predicted confidently. "Any one could see she was gone on you. But you ought to have seen how hostile she got when I told her so."
"You told her so? You young brute!"
"That's what she said. I don't see what there was to get mad about, but she swung on my ear. It was a real punch, too. You want to look out for her right if you marry her."
"She ought to have taken an ax to you. That was a deuce of a thing to say."
"I didn't mean any harm."
"Hell's full of people who didn't," my prospective brother-in-law growled. "Well, the only reason I didn't ask her then was that I was as poor as Pharaoh's lean kine. I decided to wait and see how we came out on this. Now it looks all right—if we don't slip up somehow."
"What can we slip up on?"
"I don't know," he replied. "That's what bothers me."
Of course he was referring to Ballou, and I considered him unreasonable. The days that followed served to confirm me in that opinion.
We made an early start the next morning while the dawn fogs still hung heavy on the lake, shrouding island and bay and headland in clinging gray drapery.
Dinny Pack and I were together in one canoe. Bales of fur were piled between us. Ahead, in the fog, Louis Beef's big voice was raised in some almost forgotten voyageur's song, such as his kind had sung for generations on the water highways of the great North in red dawns and purple twilights. The tunk of unseen paddles punctuated it. I felt quite like one of the old voyageurs, companion of Champlain or Radisson, as I swung my own paddle, tracking the invisible canoe ahead by the running swirl of its wake.