CHAPTER III
THE CRIME AT BIG TREE PORTAGE
I have sometimes wondered whether he was not irked at the prospect of my proffered companionship, and whether he did not at first intend to shake me off by obvious and primitive methods.
He has in later days assured me that neither of my suppositions was correct, but there has been a far-off look in his eyes while he denied them, which leaves me still half-doubtful.
However these things may be, it is certain that I had my work, and more than my work, cut out for me in keeping up with November who, although he was carrying a pack while I was unloaded, travelled through the woods at an astonishing pace.
He moved from the thighs, bending a little forward. However thick the underbrush and the trees, he never once halted or even wavered, but passed onward with neither check nor pause. Meanwhile, I blundered in his tracks until at last, when we came out on the bank of a strong and swiftly flowing river, I was fairly done, and felt that, had the journey continued much longer, I must have been forced to give in.
November threw down his pack and signed to me to remain beside it, while he walked off downstream, only to reappear with a canoe.
We were soon aboard her. Of the remainder of our journey I am sorry to say I can recall very little. The rustle of the water as it hissed against our stem, and the wind in the birches and junipers on the banks, soon lulled me. I was only awakened by the canoe touching the bank at Big Tree.
Big Tree Portage is a recognized camping-place, situated between the great main lumber-camp of Briston and Harpur and the settlement of St. Amiel, and it lies about equidistant from both.
Old fire-scars in the clearing showed black not more than thirty yards from the water. From the canoe we were in full sight of the scene of the tragedy.
A small shelter of boughs stood beneath the spreading branches of a large fir; the ground all about was strewn with tins and débris. On a bare space in front of the shelter, beside the charred logs of a camp-fire, a patch of blue caught my eye.
This, as my sight grew accustomed to the light, resolved itself into the shape of a huge man. He lay upon his face, and the wind fluttered the blue blouse which he was wearing. It came upon me with a shock that I was looking at the body of Henry Lyon, the murdered man.
November, standing up in the canoe, a wood picture in his buckskin shirt and jeans, surveyed the scene in silence, then pushed off again and paddled up and down, staring at the bank. After a bit he put in and waded ashore. In obedience to a sign I stayed in the canoe, from which I watched the movements of my companion. First, he went to the body and examined it with minute care; next, he disappeared within the shelter, came out, and stood for a minute staring towards the river; finally, he called to me to come ashore.
I had seen November turn the body over, and as I came up I was aware of a great ginger-bearded face, horribly pale, confronting the sky. It was easy to see how the man had died, for the bullet had torn a hole at the base of the neck. The ground beside him was torn up as if by some small sharp instruments.
The idea occurred to me that I would try my hand at detection. I went into the shelter. There I found a blanket, two freshly flayed bearskins, and a pack, which lay open. I came out again and carefully examined the ground in all directions. Suddenly looking up, I saw November Joe watching me with a kind of grim and covert amusement.
"What are you looking for?" said he.
"The tracks of the murderer."
"You won't find them."
"Why?"
"He did n't make none."
I pointed out the spot where the ground was torn.
"The lumberman that found him—spiked boots," said November.
"How do you know he was not the murderer?"
"He did n't get here till Lyon had been dead for hours. Compare his tracks with Lyon's . . . much fresher. No, Mr. Sport, that cock won't fight."
"Then, as you seem to know so much, tell me what you do know."
"I know that Lyon reached here in the afternoon of the day before yesterday. He'd been visiting his traps upstream. He had n't been here more'n a few minutes, and was lighting his pipe in the shelter there, when he hears a voice hail him. He comes out and sees a man in a canoe shoved into the bank. That man shot him dead and cleared off—without leaving a trace."
"How can you be sure of all this?" I asked, for not one of these things had occurred to my mind.
"Because I found a pipe of tobacco not rightly lit, but just charred on top, beside Lyon's body, and a newly used match in this shack. The man that killed him come downstream and surprised him."
"How can you tell he came downstream?"
"Because, if he'd come upstream Lyon would 'a' seen him from the shack," said November with admirable patience.
"You say the shot was fired from a canoe?"
"The river's too wide to shoot across; and, anyway, there's the mark of where the canoe rested agin the bank. No, this is the work of a right smart woodsman, and he's not left me one clue as to who he is. But I'm not through with him, mister. Such men as he needs catching. . . . Let's boil the kettle."
We laid the dead man inside the shack, and then, coming out once more into the sunlight, sat down beside a fire which we built among the stones on the bank of the river. Here November made tea in true woods fashion, drawing all the strength and bitterness from the leaves by boiling them. . . . I was wondering what he would do next, for it appeared that our chance of catching the murderer was infinitesimal, since he had left no clue save the mark on the bank where his canoe had rested among the reeds while he fired his deadly bullet. I put my thoughts into words.
"You're right," said November. "When a chap who's used to the woods life takes to crime, he's harder to lay hands on than a lynx in a alder patch."
"There is one thing which I don't understand," said I. "Why did not the murderer sink Lyon's body in the water? It would have been well hidden there."
The young woodsman pointed to the river, which foamed in low rapids about dark heads of rock.
"He could n't trust her; the current's sharp, and would put the dead man ashore as like as not," he replied. "And if he'd landed to carry it down to his canoe, he'd have left tracks. No, he's done his work to rights from his point of view."
I saw the force of the argument, and nodded.
"And more'n that, there's few people," he went on, "travel up and down this river. Lyon might 'a' laid in that clearing till he was a skeleton, but for the chance of that lumber-jack happening along."
"Then which way do you think the murderer has fled?"
"Can't say," said he, "and, anyhow, he's maybe eighty miles away by this."
"Will you try and follow him?"
"No, not yet. I must find out something about him first. But, look here, mister, there's one fact you have n't given much weight to. This shooting was pre-meditated. The murderer knew that Lyon would camp here. The chances are a hundred to one against their having met by accident. The chap that killed him followed him downstream. Now, suppose I can find Lyon's last camp, I may learn something more. It can't be very far off, for he had a tidy-sized pack to carry, besides those green skins, which loaded him a bit. . . . And, anyway, it's my only chance."
So we set out upon our walk. November soon picked up Lyon's trail, leading from Big Tree Portage to a disused tote-road, which again led us due west between the aisles of the forest. From midday on through the whole of the afternoon we travelled. Squirrels chattered and hissed at us from the spruces, hardwood partridges drummed in the clearings, and once a red-deer buck bounded across our path with its white flag waving and dipping as it was swallowed up in the sun-speckled orange and red of the woods.
Lyon's trail was, fortunately, easy to follow, and it was only where, at long intervals, paths from the north or south broke into the main logging-road that November had reason to pause. But one by one we passed these by, until at last the tracks we were following shot away among the trees, and after a mile of deadfalls and moss debouched into a little clearing beside a backwater grown round with high yellow grass, and covered over the larger part of its surface with lily-pads.
The trail, after leading along the margin of this water, struck back to a higher reach of the same river that ran by Big Tree Portage, and then we were at once on the site of the deserted camp.
The very first thing my eye lit upon caused me to cry out in excitement, for side by side were two beds of balsam branches, that had evidently been placed under the shelter of the same tent cover. November, then, was right, Lyon had camped with someone on the night before he died.
I called out to him. His quiet patience and an attitude as if rather detached from events fell away from him like a cloak, and with almost uncanny swiftness he was making his examination of the camp.
I entirely believe that he was unconscious of my presence, so concentrated was he on his work as I followed him from spot to spot with an interest and excitement that no form of big-game shooting has ever given me. Now, man was the quarry, and, as it seemed, a man more dangerous than any beast. But I was destined to disappointment, for, as far as I could see, Joe discovered neither clue nor anything unusual.
To begin with, he took up and sifted through the layers of balsam boughs which had composed the beds, but apparently made no find. From them he turned quickly to kneel down by the ashy remains of the fire, and to examine the charred logs one by one. After that he followed a well-marked trail that led away from the lake to a small marsh in the farther part of which masts of dead timber were standing in great profusion. Nearer at hand a number of stumps showed where the campers had chopped the wood for their fire.
After looking closely at these stumps, November went swiftly back to the camp and spent the next ten minutes in following the tracks which led in all directions. Then once more he came back to the fire and methodically lifted off one charred stick after another. At the time I could not imagine why he did this, but, when I understood it, the reason was as simple and obvious as was that of his every action when once it was explained.
Before men leave a camp they seem instinctively to throw such trifles as they do not require or wish to carry on with them in the fire, which is generally expiring, for a first axiom of the true camper in the woods is never to leave his fire alight behind him, in case of a chance ember starting a forest conflagration.
In this case November had taken off nearly every bit of wood before I heard him utter a smothered exclamation as he held up a piece of stick.
I took it into my own hands and looked it over.
It was charred, but I saw that one end had been split and the other end sharpened.
"What in the world is it?" I asked, puzzled.
November smiled. "Just evidence," he answered.
I was glad he had at last found something to go upon, for, so far, the camp had appeared to produce parsimoniously little that was suggestive. Nevertheless, I did not see how this little bit of spruce, crudely fashioned and split as it was, would lead us very far.
November spent another few minutes in looking everything over a second time, then he took up his axe and split a couple of logs and lit the fire. Over it he hung his inevitable kettle and boiled up the leaves of our morning brew with a liberal handful freshly added.
"Well," I said, as he touched the end of a burning ember to his pipe, "has this camp helped you?"
"Some," said November. "And you?"
He put the question quite seriously, though I suspect not without some inward irony.
"I can see that two men slept under one tent cover, that they cut the wood for their fire in that marsh we visited, and that they were here for a day, perhaps two."
"One was here for three days, the other one night," corrected November.
"How can you tell that?"
November pointed to the ground at the far side of the fire.
"To begin with, number 1 had his camp pitched over there," said he; then, seeing my look of perplexity, he added pityingly: "We've a westerly wind these last two days, but before that the wind was east, and he camped the first night with his back to it. And in the new camp one bed o' boughs is fresher than the other."
The thing seemed so absurdly obvious that I was nettled.
"I suppose there are other indications I have n't noticed," I said.
"There might be some you have n't mentioned," he answered warily.
"What are they?"
"That the man who killed Lyon is thick-set and very strong; that he has been a good while in the woods without having gone to a settlement; that he owns a blunt hatchet such as we woods chaps call 'tomahawk, number 3'; that he killed a moose last week; that he can read; that he spent the night before the murder in great trouble of mind, and that likely he was a religious kind o' chap."
As November reeled off these details in his quiet, low-keyed voice, I stared at him in amazement.
"But how can you have found out all that?" I said at last. "If it's correct, it's wonderful!"
"I'll tell you, if you still want to hear, when I've got my man—if ever I do get him. One thing more is sure, he is a chap who knew Lyon well. The rest of the job lies in the settlement of St. Amiel, where Lyon lived."
We walked back to Big Tree Portage, and from there ran down in the canoe to St. Amiel, arriving the following evening. About half a mile short of the settlement, November landed and set up our camp. Afterwards we went on. I had never before visited the place, and I found it to be a little colony of scattered houses, straggling beside the river. It possessed two stores and one of the smallest churches I have ever seen.
"You can help me here if you will," said November as we paused before the larger of the stores.
"Of course I will. How?"
"By letting 'em think you've engaged me as your guide and we've come in to St. Amiel to buy some grub and gear we've run short of."
"All right." And with this arrangement we entered the store.
I will not make any attempt to describe by what roundabout courses of talk November learned all the news of desolate little St. Amiel and of the surrounding countryside. Had I not known exactly what he wanted, I should never have dreamed that he was seeking information. He played the desultory uninterested listener to perfection. The Provincial Police had evidently found means to close the mouth of the lumber-jack for the time, at least, as no hint of Lyon's death had yet drifted back to his native place.
Little by little it came out that only five men were absent from the settlement. Two of these, Fitz and Baxter Gurd, were brothers who had gone on an extended trapping expedition. The other absentees were Highamson, Lyon's father-in-law; Thomas Miller, a professional guide and hunter; and, lastly, Henry Lyon himself, who had gone up-river to visit his traps, starting on the previous Friday. The other men had all been away three weeks or more, and all had started in canoes, except Lyon, who, having sold his, went on foot.
Next, by imperceptible degrees, the talk slid round to the subject of Lyon's wife. They had been married four years and had no child. She had been the belle of St. Amiel, and there had been no small competition for her hand. Of the absent men, both Miller and Fitz Gurd had been her suitors, and the former and Lyon had never been on good terms since the marriage. The younger Gurd was a wild fellow, and only his brother's influence kept him straight. So much we heard before November wrapped up our purchases and we took our leave.
No sooner were we away than I put my eager question: "What do you think of it?"
Joe shrugged his shoulders.
"Do you know any of these men?"
"All of them."
"How about the fellow who is on bad terms with—"
November seized my arm.
A man was approaching through the dusk. As he passed, my companion hailed him.
"Hullo, Baxter! Did n't know you'd come back. Where you been?"
"Right up on the headwaters."
"Fitz come down with you?"
"No; stayed on the line of traps. Did you want him, November?"
"Yes, but it can wait. See any moose?"
"Nary one—nothing but red deer."
"Good-night."
"So long."
"That settles it," said November. "If he speaks the truth, as I believe he does, it was n't either of the Gurds shot Lyon."
"Why not?"
"Did n't you hear him say they had n't seen any moose? And I told you that the man that shot Lyon had killed a moose quite recent. That leaves just Miller and Highamson—and it were n't Miller."
"You're sure of that?"
"Stark certain. One reason is that Miller's above six foot, and the man as camped with Lyon was n't as tall by six inches. Another reason. You heard the storekeeper say how Miller and Lyon was n't on speaking terms; yet the man who shot Lyon camped with him—slep' beside him—must 'a' talked to him. That were n't Miller."
His clear reasoning rang true.
"Highamson lives alone away up above Lyon's," continued November; "he'll make back home soon."
"Unless he's guilty and has fled the country," I suggested.
"He won't 'a' done that. It 'ud be as good as a confession. No, he thinks he's done his work to rights and has nothing to fear. Like as not he's back home now. There's not much coming and going between these up-river places and St. Amiel, and he might easy be there and no one know it yet down to the settlement. We'll go up tonight and make sure. But first we'll get back to camp and take a cup o' tea."
The night had become both wild and blustering before we set out for Highamson's hut, and all along the forest paths which led to it the sleet and snow of what November called "a real mean night" beat in our faces.
As we travelled on in silence, my mind kept going over and over the events of the last two days. I had already seen enough to assure me that my companion was a very skilful detective, but the most ingenious part of his work, namely, the deductions by which he had pretended to reconstruct the personality of the criminal, had yet to be put to the test.
It was black dark, or nearly so, when at last a building loomed up in front of us, a faint light showing under the door.
"You there, Highamson?" called out November.
As there was no answer, my companion pushed it open and we entered the small wooden room, where, on a single table, a lamp burned dimly.
He turned it up and looked around.
A pack lay on the floor unopened, and a gun leant up in a corner.
"Just got in," commented November. "Has n't loosed up his pack yet."
He turned it over. A hatchet was thrust through the wide thongs which bound it. November drew it out.
"Put your thumb along that edge," he said. "Blunt? Yes? Yet he drove that old hatchet as deep in the wood as Lyon drove his sharp one: he's a strong man."
As he spoke he was busying himself with the pack, examining its contents with deft fingers. It held little save a few clothes, a little tea and salt, and other fragments of provisions, and a Bible. The finding of the last was, I could see, no surprise to November, though the reason why he should have suspected its presence remained hidden from me. But I had begun to realize that much was plain to him which to the ordinary man was invisible.
Having satisfied himself as to every article in the pack, he rapidly replaced them, and tied it up as he had found it, when I, glancing out of the small window, saw a light moving low among the trees, to which I called November Joe's attention.
"It's likely Highamson," he said, "coming home with a lantern. Get you into that dark corner."
I did so, while November stood in the shadow at the back of the closed door. From my position I could see the lantern slowly approaching until it flung a gleam of light through the window into the hut. The next moment the door was thrust open, and the heavy breathing of a man became audible.
It happened that at first Highamson saw neither of us, so that the first intimation that he had of our presence was November's "Hello!"
Down crashed the lantern, and its bearer started back with a quick hoarse gasp.
"Who's there?" he cried, "who—"
"Them as is sent by Hal Lyon."
Never have I seen words produce so tremendous an effect.
Highamson gave a bellow of fury, and the next instant he and November were struggling together.
I sprang to my companion's aid, and even then it was no easy task for the two of us to master the powerful old man. As we held him down I caught my first sight of his ash-grey face. His mouth grinned open, and there was a terrible intention in his staring eyes. But all changed as he recognized his visitor.
"November! November Joe!" cried he.
"Get up!" And as Highamson rose to his feet, "Whatever for did you do it?" asked November in his quiet voice. But now its quietness carried a menace.
"Do what? I did n't—I—" Highamson paused, and there was something unquestionably fine about the old man as he added: "No, I won't lie. It's true I shot Hal Lyon. And, what's more, if it was to do again, I'd do it again! It's the best deed I ever done; yes, I say that, though I know it's written in the book: 'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.'"
"Why did you do it?" repeated November.
Highamson gave him a look.
"I'll tell you. I did it for my little Janey's sake. He was her husband. See here! I'll tell you why I shot Hal Lyon. Along of the first week of last month I went away back into the woods trapping musk-rats. I was gone more 'n the month, and the day I come back I did as I did to-night, as I always do first thing when I gets in—I went over to see Janey. Hal Lyon were n't there; if he had been, I should n't never 'a' needed to travel so far to get even with him. But that's neither here nor there. He'd gone to his bear traps above Big Tree; but the night Page:November Joe.pdf/62 before he left he'd got in one of his quarrels with my Janey. Hit her—he did—there was one tooth gone where his—fist fell."
Never have I seen such fury as burned in the old man's eyes as he groaned out the last words.
"Janey, that had the prettiest face for fifty miles around. She tried to hide it from me,—she did n't want me to know, but there was her poor face all swole, and black and blue, and the gap among her white teeth. Bit by bit it all came out. It were n't the first time Lyon'd took his hands to her, no, nor the third, nor the fourth. There on the spot, as I looked at her, I made up my mind I'd go after him, and I'd make him promise me, aye, swear to me, on the Holy Book, never to lay hand on her again. If he would n't swear I'd put him where his hands could n't reach her. I found him camped away up alongside a backwater near his traps, and I told him I'd seen Janey and that he must swear. . . . He would n't! He said he'd learn her to tell on him, he'd smash her in the mouth again. Then he lay down and slep'. I wonder now he were n't afraid of me, but I suppose that was along of me being a quiet, God-fearing chap. . . . Hour by hour I lay awake, and then I could n't stand it no more, and I got up and pulled a bit of candle I had from my pack, fixed up a candlestick, and looked in my Bible for guidance. And the words I lit on were: "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.' That was the gun clear enough. . . . Then I blew out the light, and I think I slep', for I dreamed.
"Next morning Lyon was up early. He had two or three green skins that he'd took off the day before, and he said he was going straight home to smash Janey. I lay there and I said nothing, black nor white. His judgment was set. I knew he could n't make all the distance in one day, and I was pretty sure he'd camp at Big Tree. I arrived there just after him, as I could travel faster by canoe than him walking, and so kep' near him all day. It was nigh sunset, and I bent down under the bank so he could n't see me. He went into the old shack. I called out his name. I heard him cursing at my voice, and when he showed his face I shot him dead. I never landed, I never left no tracks, I thought I was safe, sure. You've took me; yet only for Janey's sake I would n't care. I did right, but she won't like them to say her father's a murderer. . . . That's all."
November sat on the edge of the table. His handsome face was grave. Nothing more was said for a good while. Then Highamson stood up.
"I'm ready, November, but you'll let me see Janey again before you give me over to the police."
November looked him in the eyes. "Expect you'll see a good deal of Janey yet. She'll be lonesome over there now that her brute husband's gone. She'll want you to live with her," he said.
"D'ye mean . . ."
November nodded.
"If the police can catch you for themselves, let 'em. And you'd lessen the chance of that a wonderful deal if you was to burn them moose-shank moccasins you're wearing. When did you kill your moose?"
"Tuesday's a week. And my moccasins was wore out, so I fixed 'em up woods fashion."
"I know. The hair on 'em is slipping. I found some of it in your tracks in the camp, away above Big Tree. That's how I knew you'd killed a moose. I found your candlestick too. Here it is." He took from his pocket the little piece of spruce stick, which had puzzled me so much, and turned towards me.
"This end's sharp to stick into the earth, that end's slit and you fix the candle in with a bit o' birch bark. Now it can go into the stove along o' the moccasins." He opened the stove door and thrust in the articles.
"Only three know your secret, Highamson, and if I was you I wouldn't make it four, not even by adding a woman to it."
Highamson held out his hand.
"You always was a white man, Nov," said he.
Hours later, as we sat drinking a final cup of tea at the camp-fire, I said:―
"After you examined Lyon's upper camp, you told me seven things about the murderer. You've explained how you knew them, all but three."
"What are the three?"
"First, how did you know that Highamson had been a long time in the woods without visiting a settlement?"
"His moccasins was wore out and patched with raw moose-hide. The tracks of them was plain," replied November.
I nodded. "And how could you tell that he was religious and spent the night in great trouble of mind?"
November paused in filling his pipe. "He couldn't sleep," said he, "and so he got up and cut that candlestick. What'd he want to light a candle for but to read by? And why should he want to read in the middle of the night if he was not in trouble? And if he was in trouble, what book would he want to read? Besides, not one trapper in a hundred carries any book but the Bible."
"I see. But how did you know it was in the middle of the night?"
"Did you notice where he cut his candlestick?"
"No," said I.
"I did, and he made two false cuts where his knife slipped in the dark. You're wonderful at questions."
"And you at answers."
November stirred the embers under the kettle, and the firelight lit up his fine face as he turned with a yawn.
"My!" said he, "but I'm glad Highamson had his reasons. I'd 'a' hated to think of that old man shut in where he couldn't see the sun rise. Would n't you?"