Munsey's Magazine/Volume 78/Issue 3/Wild Bird

by Hulbert Footner

Wild Bird

A STORY OF THE WILD NEW LANDS OF THE CANADIAN NORTHWEST

By Hulbert Footner
Author of “The Man Hunt,” “Country Love,” “Thieves' Wit,” etc.

 

ANN MAURY has come into the wilds of North Cariboo in search of her father, from whom she has not heard for two years. At the frontier settlement of Fort Edward, on the Campbell River, where his last letter was mailed, she consults Cal Nimmo, the unofficial “mayor” of the little town. Nimmo identifies Ann's father as a solitary trapper and prospector locally known as Joe Grouser, who did not come down the river as usual the previous year. He tells her that it is useless to search for him, and advises her—orders her, indeed—to go back to her home in Maryland, where she is a school-teacher.

Ann is staying at Maroney's place, which bears the high-sounding name of the Fort Edward Hotel, but which chiefly consists of a rough dance hall. The principal attraction of this establishment is a pretty girl named Nellie Nairns, and there are many fights among rival pretenders to her favor. Ann witnesses one of these battles, between a local bully known as Red Chivers and a young fellow called Chako Lyllac. She is greatly impressed by Chako, and as he is a skilled river man she engages him—in defiance of Cal Nimmo's order—to take her up the Campbell in search of her father. They slip away in Chako's canoe. Ann finds him a surly and unsympathetic companion, who orders her about roughly, and laughs at her without mercy when she falls into the water.

 

XIII

ANN issued out of her tent, the next morning, braced to meet Chako's renewed derision; but his mood had changed again. Apparently all recollection of the day before had been sponged out, and their quarrel and Ann's lamentable accident were alike forgotten. Perhaps laughter had purged his spleen. At any rate, he greeted her with careless good humor.

He was shaving. The sight gave Ann a little shock. She had seen pictures of men shaving, and had peeped into barber shops, but she had never been actually present at the operation. But why not, she asked herself? Chako was more sensible than she, she thought, because he took everything as a matter of course.

Fully dressed except for his outer shirt, he was squatting cross-legged in the grass, with his little mirror propped up on the grub box in front of him. The white singlet clung to his swelling breast like an outer skin. His arms were faintly golden with old sunburn. The hair stood out from his head in a wild, bright tangle.

An exclamation escaped him.

“Cut myself again! That damned mole! Got any court-plaster, Maury?”

“Yes,” said Ann.

She got out her indispensable little dressing case. Chako squatted on his heels, and Ann knelt beside him. This brought their heads on a level. Ann's heart beat like a bird's. Chako's freshly shaven cheek was peachy. Upon the point of his jaw there was a ruby drop that stirred a strange emotion in Ann. She hastily dried it with a towel, put the little square of court-plaster on her tongue tip, and applied it with a gesture that was like a blessing. She pressed it with a velvet finger tip.

“There, I think that will stick,” she said anxiously.

Chako suddenly turned his head. His eyes were dancing with the zest of earth, his lips turned up mockingly.

“Kiss!” he murmured.

Ann darted her head back as if he had stung her. Chako jumped up with a gay laugh, and, snatching up towel and shirt, ran down to the water's edge. A sound of splashing was heard.

He came back presently with all the kinks nicely dragged out of his hair, and with his shirt on. Ann was moving blindly around the fire, still in a very tumult of emotion. Chako appeared to have forgotten the incident.

Ann gave him a wide berth. A hot little flame of resentment scorched her breast.

“It means nothing to him—nothing!” she thought.

Chako always had an eye cocked toward the sky for weather.

“South wind to-day,” he announced. “We'll be able to sit back and sail up the lake. You watch the coffeepot, Maury, while I rig a sail.”

He used two of the little tent poles and one of his red blankets. The sail made a gay splash of color in the scene.

Presently he stuck his head up over the edge of the bank.

“Hey, Maury! Fetch me that coil of tracking line yonder.”

Ann looked at him without speaking.

Chako looked away across the river; he actually blushed.

“Please,” he mumbled.

Ah, how Ann's breast warmed over him! The dear, the dear! She forgave him everything on the spot. He had learned his lesson. He could learn a lesson! She flew to get him the tracking line. She could have hugged him.

When they embarked, Ann sat in the bottom of the canoe, with her back against the mast, facing astern. She held the sheet. Chako perched on the stern seat, steering with a paddle. They sailed out on the lake.

“I feel great!” Chako announced.

He looked it. But a sense of well-being only made him harder, Ann thought bitterly. There was still no humanity in him. His keen gaze was never still; it embraced the sky, the shore line, the sail, but never rested on her. His unawareness of her made her feel like nothing at all in the bottom of the boat. Sometimes Ann felt as if he must be aware of his cruel power over her, and was deliberately exerting it; but in her heart she knew that it was his unconsciousness, his spontaneity, that constituted his power.

The old songs rolled forth.

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“Tom Pearse, Tom Pearse, lend me your gray mare;
All along, down along, out along lee!
For I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair With Bill Brewer, Dan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davey, Dan'l Whidden, Harry Hawk, Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all;
Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all!”

“Where did you learn those old songs?” asked Ann.

“When I first came north, I batched with an old sourdough. He used to sing 'em,” said Chako. “He hadn't learned any new ones in fifty years, I guess. Those old ones roll out better than the ragtime the girls sing in the settlement.”

“Rather!” said Ann.

“Here's a funny one,” said Chako.

“Oh, sweet Kitty Clover, she bothers me so;
Bothers me so, bothers me so.
Her cheeks are round and red and fat
Red as church cushions—oh, redder than that!
Oh, sweet Kitty Clover she bothers me so;
Bothers me so, bothers me so.
She's three feet tall, and that I prize
As just a fit height for a man of my size.
Oh, sweet Kitty Clover, she bothers me so;
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!”

“Tell me more about the old sourdough,” said Ann. “It must have been a funny combination. You were fifteen years old, weren't you?”

“We meant nothing to each other,” Chako said coolly. “Just happened to be thrown together.”

Ann's heart sank. Did anybody mean anything to Chako? But perhaps it was just his pose to make out that he had no feelings. She tried again.

“Where did you live before you came north?”

Chako closed up instantly.

“Men up here don't talk about their beginnings,” he said.

That was the end of Ann's attempts to question him.

 

The south wind held during several days. For hours at a time they sat in delicious idleness, letting it waft them. The first lake was Beaver Lake; another stretch of river followed, then a lake without any regular name, Chako said, but called by some Breeches Lake, from its shape. A favorite joke of the country was to send tenderfeet down the left leg of the breeches, which ended nowhere. The last and the largest of the chain was McIlwraith Lake.

There were moments when Ann, quite without reason, became wildly happy; when she could throw back her head and shout Chako's songs with him, satisfied merely to be alive under such a sky. Such moments were brief, for Chako would always in some unconscious way be reminding her that she meant nothing to him, and the twentieth time hurt her just as sharply as the first. She kept her feelings to herself, of course, and on the surface they got along very well together.

Chako was really a first-rate companion, if you were content to take him as he was. He was willing to meet you on neutral ground, but he never allowed you to set foot over the threshold of his castle, and he didn't care in the least what was inside your castle.

While travel was so easy, Chako had to find other means of working off his superabundant energy. At their spelling places along the lakes, he would disappear, and presently Ann would see him swimming out with long over-arm strokes. He would tread water, wave an arm to her, and shout. Then he would swim on almost out of sight, while Ann waited in terror for his return.

After McIlwraith Lake, the final stretch of the little river was called Pony River. It went down steeply at the end, and the constant succession of rapids was highly exhilarating. They made a morning spell beside the Pony River, in a lovely spot beside a quiet backwater, with a rapid foaming down outside like millions of gallons of root beer. Great trees arched overhead.

After they had eaten, Chako took a snooze in the grass—he could always sleep. Ann climbed into an inviting poplar tree which, half uprooted from the bank, leaned out horizontally over the stony beach and the quiet water. She found a comfortable perch, swinging her feet, resting her arms on another branch breast high in front, and pillowing her cheek on her arms. A sweep of loosened hair crossed her brows.

There she sat for a long time, dreaming in a state of soft unhappiness—dreaming of Chako. The object of her dreams lay sleeping unromantically in the grass below her, a few feet back, but she had turned her head that she might not see him. It hurt her to look at him.

How could this go on, she was asking herself—this living in such a terrible physical intimacy with a man who presented an invariably glassy surface to her? The intimacy daily grew closer, and daily softened her heart more to her partner. Not so Chako—his glassy surface was unaltered. A dozen times a day she broke her soft heart against it. She had continually to restrain herself from quarreling with him insanely, even from striking him, in her exasperation. Anything to break up his inhuman indifference!

At the same time her better sense told her that if she did reveal the wild feelings that filled her, it would only make him stronger and more cruel in his callousness. It could not go on—but it had to go on! So it went endlessly back and forth in her mind.

She suddenly became aware that Chako had awakened, and was looking up at her with eyes full of sleep.

“You look like a wild thing up there among the leaves,” he murmured.

There was a new quality in his voice that set Ann's heart to beating wildly. She hastily worked herself along the branch, and dropped to the stones. Chako's sleepy eyes followed her about with a warm and dangerous look she had never seen in them before. He smiled mockingly.

“What's the matter with you?” Ann said sharply, in a panic.

“I was thinking,” he drawled, “how great it would be if there were really wild girls in the woods. That would be some hunting, eh?”

“Rubbish!” said Ann, but her heart beat tumultuously.

They embarked. She looked forward with dread to the next camp. If his hunting instinct was aroused, who would be the hunted one but herself?

XIV

Throughout the middle part of the day the little river kept them on the qui vive. On every bend there was a tossing rapid, and they were flung around, never knowing what they were to see below. It was madly exciting. They shouted together as they took the plunge.

Sometimes the stream spread out wide and shallow, and Chako had to leap overboard and let the canoe down slowly over the stones. In one narrow place a tree had fallen across from bank to bank, and they just escaped crashing into it. Chako chopped a way through.

Toward the end of the afternoon the country flattened out. The river now sucked swiftly and silently around low islands, covered with gigantic Cottonwood trees that made a green ceiling high above. All the lower world was filled with a cool, greenish light. Both scenery and lighting had a curiously theatrical effect.

They took their afternoon spell on a low, dry bank at the edge of one of the half submerged islands. During this stop there was bread to be baked. Ann had by now taken over the baking from Chako. Chako gathered dry wood, made her a hot fire, then sat down with his back against a log, to watch.

He was thoroughly aware of Ann now. His eyes followed her every movement with a secret and intent look that made Ann feel as weak as if he were the snake and she the bird. The suggestion of a mocking smile clung about his lips. He was aroused, but he was none the less savage.

That smile embittered Ann. It seemed to say that he was ready for her now—let her come, but no hurry. Never, she vowed, while he looked at her like that! To be held so lightly hurt her worse than not to be regarded at all. It was the crowning humiliation.

Chako picked up a twig and whittled it, glancing up to woo Ann with shameless, dancing eyes and smiling lips. He was trying to force her to meet his glance, to melt into laughter. Ann felt as if her fate depended upon not meeting his eyes.

“Think yourself quite a cook, don't you?” he drawled.

“A better cook than you, or I wouldn't have the job,” she retorted.

“Some little cooky boy!”

“If you're not satisfied with my cooking—”

“Oh, your cooking's good enough!”

What's the matter with me, then?”

“Oh, to see you skipping round in your little pants, I just got to laugh!”

And laugh he did. There was a warm quality in his laughter that melted Ann like wax. Warmth and mockery! He wanted her, but he wanted her lightly. She kneaded her dough desperately. She would not let herself meet his eye, but she could see him only too well. She was tinglingly conscious of him slouching there on the small of his back, his knees up, his broad-brimmed hat pulled a little forward, his wicked, laughing eyes glancing from the shadow.

She was divided clean in half. How his deep, teasing voice seduced her breast! How she loved to have him chaff her! And his eyes, asking, asking! Careless love—it was nature. Chako was pure nature. Was not all the rest mere imaginings? Wasn't she a fool to torment herself asking for more, when that was all he had to give? Wasn't she a niggard to ask at all what she was going to get out of it? How easy to let herself go!

But the other half fought hard. The sneering devil, how contemptuously sure he is of you! He only lays himself out to please because he hasn't got you yet. Once he had you, he'd treat you like dirt. Such is his savage nature. He doesn't even trouble himself to hide it. Better throw yourself in the river than give yourself in exchange for that!

Chako watched her agitated hands pounding the dough.

“Bet you'd like to do that to me,” he drawled. “I can see it in your eye. Go ahead! I'll hold my hands behind my back. Beat me up, kid! Make you feel better.”

“Don't be silly,” said Ann.

They embarked again without anything having happened, but Ann was despairing. She had resisted him for the moment. What good did it do her? There were still days and weeks of this ahead, and each day it would become harder. Nobody has unlimited powers of resistance. What was the use? She couldn't fight him and half of herself, too—an Ann that sulked when Chako sulked, an Ann that shrugged at the impending catastrophe with a devil-may-care grin like Chako's own.

Within a few hundred yards of their camping place they were suddenly shot out on the bosom of a great, brawling, whitish-green river, almost as wide as the Campbell, but shallow and without majesty.

“Rice River,” said Chako. “Going down like a locomotive.”

A violent, disorderly stream, continually eating under its banks and depositing wide bars in mid stream, on which the torn, wrecked trees grounded and piled high in fantastic jams. Some of the cut banks were two hundred feet high—towering slopes of sand, with a fringe of jack pines looking over far above. Harder strata stuck up through the sand in castellated masses, where shallows hollowed out their nests. A curious hissing sound filled the air.

“What is that?” asked the startled Ann.

“Nobody knows for sure,” said Chako. “I take it that it's the stones rolling along the river bed.”

Rapids followed one another at short intervals. Ann was alarmed by the speed at which they were carried down.

“How much of this have we got?” she asked.

“About a hundred and fifty miles.”

“How in the world can we ever get back again?”

“The water will be lower then. It's done all the time, but it's no cinch. Take us a week or more, this stretch.”

A wetting in a rapid obliged them to camp for the night an hour earlier than usual, in order to dry out. It was a dreary spot that they chose—a burned-over river bottom with jagged black sticks rising here and there, and charred trunks lying half concealed in the weeds. The high water covered the beach, and they had to pull the canoe up on the bank beside them.

When the supper was eaten, and the tents put up, it was still too early to go to bed. Ann got some sewing, and sat on a fallen trunk with an air of composure which she was far from feeling. She was making a cotton bag to hold the beans, which had burst their paper wrappings. Chako lay down on his back near her, watching her from under his hat brim.

Suddenly he tossed the hat aside, and, rolling over with graceful abandon, lay at her feet, with his cheek pillowed on his arm, and a hand behind his head. He looked up at her with his intolerable and alluring grin of mockery.

“You think I'm a pretty hard case, don't you?”

“Don't flinch!” whispered a voice within Ann.

“Why, yes,” she said coolly.

Chako laughed ruefully,

“The hell you say!”

“Well, you asked me.”

“Do you know you're damned pretty?” he said suddenly.

Ann shrugged.

“I didn't realize it at first,” he went on; “you keep yourself so much to yourself. In those clothes and all—say, I'm going to call you Billy. Why don't you let yourself go a little?”

“I like that!” said Ann indignantly.

“Hey?”

“You take pretty good care never to let yourself go!”

“Oh, when we started, I was sore on the world; but I'm over that now. Don't look so sour, Billy! Be my playmate.”

“No, thanks!” said Ann.

“What's the matter with me?”

“You're too condescending.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Too lordly.” She mimicked a lordly manner. “'You may play with me now, little girl. I am in a good humor.'”

Chako shouted with laughter.

“So that's me, is it? Well, here's you.” He gave what he considered an imitation of a little girl's prissiest manner. “'Run away, boy—you're too rough!'”

In spite of herself, Ann had to laugh. She quickly called it in. Laughter was so dangerous! Even that single note of laughter encouraged him to put up his hand in search of hers—daring her with his laughing eyes to refuse him. Ann delicately pricked the back of his hand with her needle. Astonished, he clapped it to his mouth.

“You little wasp! I've a good mind to pay you out for that!”

“You'll get worse!” warned Ann.

“The size of it!” he said, grinning. “Why, kid, I could keep you in the air with one hand, while I ate my dinner with the other.”

“Very likely,” said Ann. “What does that prove?”

“Proves yon better be polite to me, little feller!”

“Oh, you're big enough,” said Ann, with a scornful glance; “but strength isn't everything.”

“What else counts?”

“Will power.”

He laughed loud.

“Will power, eh? The little feller thinks he's got will power!” He suddenly scrambled to his knees and brought his face close to hers. It was all alight, joyous, devilish. “Want to match will powers with me, Billy? You say you won't, and I say you shall!”

Ann got up without haste.

“You're tiresome,” she said. “I'm going to bed.”

He followed her, scowling.

“Aw, can't you take a bit of fun?”

“Oh, it isn't that,” said Ann coolly. “The mosquitoes are coming around.”

“Then come sit behind my mosquito bar,” he suggested cajolingly.

“No, indeed!” returned Ann sharply.

He chuckled mischievously.

“What's the diff—a rag of mosquito netting? Here we are—you and I.”

“Good night,” said Ann.

He swore under his breath, and kicked a stump.

 

Next morning Chako was still sulky. His self-love had received a wound, and he regarded Ann with an injured scowl.

It hardened Ann. She regretted nothing that had happened. She ignored the scowl, and succeeded in giving a good representation of cheerfulness—which, in turn, increased Chako's rancor.

The weather turned bad. All day brief squalls of cold rain swept across the river. One after another the charged, yellowish clouds stuck their heads over the hills on the left bank. Sometimes by racing down ahead, sometimes by holding back, they could escape, but more often they were caught. Then they paddled doggedly through it, their shoulders hunched under the icy downpour. Between showers a hot sun made them steam.

Each time they went ashore to eat, Chako watched Ann, but with an ugly gleam in his half closed eyes to-day. Hour by hour his appetite became sharper, and he made no scruple of letting it show naked and unashamed. He intended to show her that he meant to satisfy it. This was the pure savage without the mask of mocking laughter, and infinitely more dangerous.

Nevertheless, Ann's spirits steadily rose. What terrified her had been that he would cajole her with his infernal attractiveness. When he became merely brutal, she grew strong. He could never intimidate her into giving in. He should never have her against her will.

She knew that the test would come when they camped for the night, and braced herself to meet it. They found a fine camping place on a high, dry bank under virgin pines. The canoe was pulled up on a lower level. Ann cooked the supper, while Chako made all snug for the night.

When they sat down opposite each other to eat, Chako's sullen eyes embraced her in an extraordinary look, cool and proprietary. In his mind he already possessed her. Her feelings were nothing to him. He had only to put out his hand when he was ready.

Ann's extreme danger stimulated her. She ignored his look, and contrived to talk as if she had nothing on her mind but the usual details of their journey. Chako never troubled himself to answer her; but she played her part so well that it intimidated him to a certain degree. It kept him quiet and sullen. Ann fought desperately against the realization that it was all for nothing—that he was content to bide his own time, sitting there, wary, contemptuous, crouched to spring.

This final meal of the day was always eaten late. The sun was down when they finished. According to their usual custom. Ann washed the dishes, while Chako gathered a store of dry wood for the morning's fire. Ann put everything in the grub box, and fastened down the cover against four-footed prowlers. She rose.

“Good night,” she said coolly.

He faced her from the other side of the fire.

“Wait a minute,” he said.

His voice was a little thick. Ann would not run from him.

“What do you want?” she asked.

With a spring, Chako was over the fire.

“You!” he said. Before Ann could gather her forces, he had flung his arms about her. “You pretty thing! You pretty thing!” he murmured, contemptuous even in his passion.

Only for the fraction of a second was Ann at a loss. All her faculties sprang into action. She fought him off, every fiber of her being charged with denial.

Chako began to laugh.

“Whoa, Emma! Whoa, Emma!” he murmured. “You little devil! You hellcat!” Delighted laughter rumbled deep in his throat.

His laughter angered Ann more than the original attack upon her, and nerved her to a still greater effort. She succeeded in tearing herself clear of him. She leaped down to the lower ground, where the canoe was, with Chako after her. There was a paddle lying there. Ann snatched it up, swung it high, and brought down the edge on Chako's head.

He grunted, and clapped his hands to the spot. It was a light stick, and he was not much hurt, but he was thoroughly sobered.

“What the hell? What's the matter with you?” he growled.

“Don't you touch me, that's all!” gasped Ann.

“Ah, what's the matter with you?” he repeated. “You like me.”

“What makes you so sure of that?” Ann cried furiously.

“All women do.”

Ann groaned in intolerable exasperation.

“Well, I'm not like all women,” she said. “You've known only cheap and common women. They've made a fool of you!”

“You do like me,” he grumbled, puzzled. “When I come close to you, I can feel it. Why deny it?”

“If I did feel anything for you,” she cried, “I'd never give in to it—never, never! I'd throw myself into the river sooner!”

“Yes, you would!” he sneered.

“You put your hands on me again, and you'll see!”

He made no move. He believed her.

“You're not worth it,” Ann went on passionately. “You're empty and hard and shallow. There's nothing to you but your strength. Well, a horse is stronger!”

This got under Chako's skin.

“I know what's biting you, all right,” he snarled. “You want a man to fall in love with you, don't you, and come crawling? Oh, I know women!”

“What sort of women?”

“Ah, they're all the same—not satisfied till they tame a man! I've felt it in you from the first. Well, by God, no woman's going to trim my wings! None of this love business for me!”

“But it's all right for women to love you, eh?”

“I ask for no more than I give.”

“You're incapable of loving!”

“All right! I'll take 'em and I'll leave 'em. That's all I want.”

“Ah, there's the truth at last! You despise women!”

“Why shouldn't I, when I see what they are?”

“And what are you? Selfish, stupid, and unfeeling!”

“Book words! Book words!” said Chako furiously. “You're no flesh and blood woman. You've read so many books, your blood has turned to printer's ink!”

“All right!” retorted Ann. “Treat me like a book after this. Books don't trouble you much!”

“You're damned right they don't! And you won't, neither! You've cured me of wanting you!”

“Thank God!” said Ann scornfully.

Shouting angrily at each other, they sought their respective tents. Within the shelter of hers, the inevitable reaction set in in Ann, and the scalding tears welled up. She wrapped her head in her arms, to keep any suggestion of a sob from reaching Chako's ears. She had won, but it was a dismal victory!

XV

The next day was a black one. If only they could have got away from each other! But there they were, tied hand and foot together. Ann was presumably the better off, because, at least while they were afloat, she could turn her back to Chako. On the other hand, Chako was the tougher of the two.

There was an absurd side to the situation, too. Ann was conscious of it while she suffered. Forced together as they were, each was pretending that the other simply did not exist. Ann waited until Chako put a thing down before she would pick it up. Chako did everything for himself sooner than admit that there was anybody with him. Dependent upon each other as they were, they nevertheless contrived the feat of not addressing a single word to each other all day.

Always, as they were hurried down the disorderly Rice River, the shores were becoming higher and bolder. Through gaps in the hills, to the east, they caught occasional glimpses of veritable snow-clad peaks, flung up calm and lovely against the blue.

At evening of this day, rounding the shoulder of a high hill, they issued into a sort of vast amphitheater. Ann supposed this to be the scene of the meeting of the rivers—the Grand Forks of the Spirit. The stony Chako volunteered no information.

The Rocky Mountains were now fully revealed, a company of Titans seated in noble dignity. There was a great gap in the center of the chain, where they drew back to give passage to the great river.

Presently, ahead, Ann could see the Stanley River, which was sharply differentiated from the jade-green Rice by its brown color. The two streams, which were of about equal volume, rushed at each other pell-mell, and tilted for possession of the channel to the east. At the moment the swollen Rice River had the ascendancy, and the brown waters of the Stanley were sullenly backed up as far as one could see. Some skill was required from Chako in order to nose the canoe from the rushing green torrent into the standing brown water safely.

Where the rivers came together there was a broad bar of white sand, and in the middle of the sand Ann beheld an astonishing sight after their many lonely days—a little weather-stained A tent, with a fire before it sending up a thread of smoke. A man came to the water's edge to meet them. Ann's heart went out to this fellow creature. Whoever he was, he must surely be more human than the stony Chako. He provided unexpected relief from an intolerable situation.

It was a very strange figure—a little, oldish man dressed in a rusty cutaway coat, of all garments. The coat was pinned across at the neck, to hide the lack of a shirt, and the man's feet were bare. His grizzled hair hung to his shoulders; his beard had perhaps never been cut, but both were scrupulously combed. He shook Ann's hand, and seemed as simple and full of pleasure as a little child.

“Shoot me if it ain't a little gal!” he cried. “A little gal! Ain't seen a little white gal in years and years!”

His bare toes dug themselves self-consciously into the sand.

“Hello, Tom,” said Chako, sulky and offhand.

“Interjooce me proper,” requested the little old man.

“Miss Maury,” said Chako, with a jerk of his head toward Ann. “Tom Catlett.”

“But most gen'lly called Hairy Tom, to distinguish me from Tom Holden, who traps down Fort Cheever way,” said the old man. “Some calls me the Hermit of Grand Forks.”

“I wanted to see you,” said Chako in his lordly way. “Thought you'd be down Selwyn way.”

“No,” said Tom, pleased and self-important. “In fine weather I gen'lly camps right here. 'Tain't much of a camp, with the sand and all. I eats sand with all my meals; but it's an elegant lookout. I can see up the Rice, and up the Stanley, and down the Spirit. Nobody gets by me. How'd you get them scratches on your face, Chako?”

Chako turned a dull red.

“Ah! I ran against a jack pine in the dark.”

“Must 'a' rubbed your face on him good,” said Tom innocently. “They're all up and down, like. I have tea on the fire. Sit ye down! Sit ye down!”

But the evening horde of mosquitoes was gathering, and before they could take any refreshments Chako had to pitch his lean-to tent. Hairy Tom seemed to be immune to mosquitoes; he didn't bother with any netting. He went to put on his moccasins in Ann's honor, and afterward the three of them sat in a row behind Chako's mosquito bar, and ate their supper.

Ann was unspeakably thankful to have the gentle, garrulous old man for a buffer between her and Chako. How could she have got through the dreadful evening without him? Companionship of any sort was a precious boon.

Hairy Tom did most of the talking. He chattered about his life. It appeared that he was a sort of innocent mendicant, who levied tribute on all travelers. A privileged character in the country, everybody contributed to his support, and took it out in playing harmless jokes on him.

Finally Chako said stiffly:

“Miss Maury is looking for her father—him that went by the name of Joe Grouser.”

Hairy Tom started, and cast a commiserating side glance at Ann.

“She!” he murmured. “She!”

“You think he's dead,” said Ann quietly.

“I wouldn't say it. I wouldn't say it,” said Tom distressfully; “but—”

A shake of the head completed it.

“You needn't hesitate,” Ann told him. “I've had it in mind from the first; but I have to go and see.”

“I knew him well,” said Tom. “Me and him were good friends, bein' as we were both on our own, see? Made a fellow feelin', like. Near every year I'd see him comin' out or goin' in, and we'd spell together, and sass each other. Last year, when he didn't come out, I thought perhaps he'd saved enough grub to see him through the summer, and was goin' to wait until fall and spend the winter outside, seein' as he hadn't been out for 'most as many years as I haven't. I never knew he had a darter outside, he kept his affairs so private. When the fall came, and he didn't show up, then it was too late in the season for me to go look for him. Nobody has dogs in these parts. In the winter we just got to hibernate. And when this spring came, and still he didn't come, then I knew 'twas no use to go after him. A queer old feller Joe Grouser was, to be sure! Me and him—”

Chako wearied of Hairy Tom's reminiscences. He broke in.

“What I want to know is, where was his range, his hang-out?”

“Somewhere up the Ouananeca River,” said Tom.

“The Ouananeca!” said Chako, surprised. “They say nobody's ever been up there. They say you can't get up.”

“Joe Grouser found a way,” said Tom. “Maybe he's the only one. Tell you how I know it. You can bet he never told anybody where he lived, but I stumbled on it by accident. Two years ago I was campin' with some fellers a couple o' miles down the river, when some other fellers come along in the morning, and they says they'd just left. Joe Grouser at the forks—overtook him comin' down the Rice River with his outfit. Well, I wanted to see Joe. I was countin' on him for bacca; so I gets in my canoe, and comes right back, and on up the Stanley. I reckoned, in my light bark canoe, I'd catch him in a couple o' miles, but she sprung a leak on me, and I had to go ashore and mend her. Still, that didn't take half a day to dry and all, and I made sure I'd come up with him where he spelled that night; but no, sir—I paddled all day without seein' him.

“I knew I must 'a' passed him somewheres, so next day I come back. Never thought of the mouth of the Ouananeca at first, 'cause nobody goes in there. It's just a what's-this—a colored sack, I guess they say; but I went in. You can only go up the Ouananeca a couple o' miles, and then you're stopped by a gosh-awful cañon. Well, I found Joe Grouser's skiff at the mouth of the cañon. He'd taken part of his load and gone on. I thought he might be sore at my stumblin' on his retreat, so I didn't wait for him to come back. I took the bacca and left my I. O. U., and I ain't never seen him since.”

“The Ouananeca comes in about thirty or forty miles up the Stanley, doesn't it?” asked Chako.

“About that.”

“If my father's skiff is still there, it means he has never come out again,” said Ann softly.

“It means just that, deary,” said Tom, his dim old eyes soft with feeling.

He stroked her hand.

 

Next morning Ann faced their departure with a heavy dread at her heart. In spirit, she clung to the kind old man as a child might cling to one who would save it from unknown terrors.

Tom was such a feather-brained old child himself, she was half hoping that the lure of a trip would stir him to accompany them. Throughout breakfast she listened with strained ears for some such suggestion to come from him; but it appeared he had no intention of forsaking his point of vantage right in the height of the season. There were several exciting events in prospect. He was looking for his friend Frank Bower on his way out to Fort Edward in ten days or so. Two explorers were due down the Stanley almost any day. Jim Sholto's boy had promised to come up from Selwyn to spend a Sunday with him.

Nevertheless, while Chako was away packing the canoe, Ann said with a painful attempt at a joking manner:

“Why don't you come with us, Tom?”

The old man's face closed like that of a secretive child's. He energetically shook his head.

“Me and Chako wouldn't hit it off,” he said. “He's too surly a lad for my likes. I like good fellowship!”

Exactly!

Ann was tempted to plead illness as an excuse to delay their journey; but while she played with the idea, her fate hurried her on. Chako called out that the canoe was ready. She went and took her place like one going to her doom.

For the first twenty miles or so, the current in the Stanley was sluggish, and they progressed upstream at a good rate. Ann was a full-fledged canoe man by now, and paddled every trick as a matter of course. She was glad of it. The scenery along the Stanley was wild and grand in the extreme. On either hand fine mountains rose close to the river, with higher and higher peaks ever peeping over behind. The forest swept up their flanks, unbroken and superb.

After their first spell they came to rapids, not dangerous, but tedious to ascend. They waded in the stream, dragging and pushing the canoe against the tearing current, and lifting her over ledges of rock. Ann worked like a man, but received no word of commendation from her flinty partner.

That night stood out in Ann's recollection as the worst night of the whole trip. Their camp was at the edge of the virgin forest. The ground was cumbered with fallen trunks, and so small was the clear space that the two little tents had to be pitched touching each other. Chako went to bed after eating, and, with his amazing insensibility, instantly fell asleep.

The awful stillness was abroad like a seeking creature. Ann's imagination pictured all the miles that separated her from a peopled land. She was obliged to lie there listening to Chako's deep breathing. She could have screamed at his lack of humanity.

Next morning found them, in the Ouananeca. It was a big stream, larger than the Pony River; it must have delivered a good half of the water that constituted the Stanley below. It was a deep, swift, narrow river, silently swirling between steep, high banks walled with pines. They could see nothing beyond the banks, except that occasionally the very tip of a mountain towered up, surprisingly close.

It was nip and tuck with the current. Chako, in his stubborn way, having elected to paddle up, would not give in and take to the tracking line. The two miles or so had all the effect of twenty. All the way up Ann was hearing a dull, insistent murmur that made her breast as uneasy as a native drum.

Finally they rounded a bend, and a cliff of naked, yellow rock, perhaps a hundred feet high, sprang out of the world of green. It ran right across the vista; the river seemed to end there. Ann did not need to be told that this was their present goal. That rumbling voice issued from somewhere within the cliff. Not until they got quite close could Ann see how the river snaked out sidewise through a cleft in the yellow rock. She searched the shores with strained eyes.

“We never asked which side of the river,” she said breathlessly.

“The backwater works in at the left,” Chako told her.

“There's no boat there.”

“He would draw it up out of reach of high water.”

Just before they landed, Ann had a peep into the narrow cañon—only a peep, because of a farther bend in the walls. The water came swirling out sluggishly, covered with stale foam.

The backwater led them to a natural landing on a little green bank. Without speaking, Chako pointed to some stumps of little trees that had been chopped. His landing-place, thought Ann! She looked under the pine trees that came to the edge of the narrow bank, and saw his boat. Her breast was somewhat quieted. She knew at least that they were on his track.

They landed, and went to the boat. Even Chako was a little moved by the sight of it. It had been pulled up under the shelter of the trees, and turned over. It was a skiff of clumsy design, made out of rough pine lumber. For further protection, pine branches had been thrown over it; all the needles had fallen off. Beside it lay the rough pine rollers upon which Joe Grouser had worked it up from the water.

Ann put her hand on the bottom.

“This carried my father!” she murmured.

Chako looked away with the hardy scowl with which he always faced any display of emotion.

“Which way do you suppose he went?” asked Ann.

“Around the cañon, most likely,” said Chako gruffly. “I don't see any way to get up the cliff, but I'll look around. You stay here.”

“Oh, do be careful!” exclaimed Ann involuntarily.

“Ah!” said Chako, scowling like a bravo.

He struck into the woods. Ann pulled the canoe up higher, and carried everything ashore. In a little while Chako came back to report that there was a way to scale the cliff, and that they could get the canoe up, too, though it would take some managing. They immediately set about their preparations to continue their journey. Chako made a fire for Ann, so that she could cook a meal while he was making the packs.

“We'll take all we can carry on our backs first,” he said. “If it's far to carry, we'll make camp on the other side. Soon as we make sure he took to the water above, we'll come back for the canoe.”

Presently Ann noticed that one of the packs was getting to be three times the size of the other.

“You're not giving me enough,” she said.

“I'm the best judge of that,” said Chako, instantly getting sore.

“I'm not going to let you baby me!”

“You 'tend to your cooking.”

Ann jumped up in a little tempest of anger. Picking up a bag of sugar from the big_ pack, she added it to the little pack. Chako snatched it back. Ann laid hands on it again. They glared at each other.

“Let go!” said Ann.

“Let go yourself!” said Chako. “By God, you try a man's temper!”

Suddenly he picked her up, and, carrying her back to the fire, dumped her there none too gently. Ann gave up the unequal struggle. Angry tears forced themselves to her eyes, but she called them in. It suddenly occurred to her that he was bullying her to save her strength. What an enigma he was!

They ate in a stiff silence. Afterward, leaving everything secure against marauders, they shouldered their packs and set off. Chako's big pack was partly supported by a canvas strap across his forehead. It secretly distressed Ann to see the proud head bowed under that weight. Her pack felt like nothing at all.

XVI

Striking back from the river, Chako led her around through the trees to a spot at the cliff's foot. All along the base of the cliff there was a great slide of broken rock fallen from the top in ages past. Chako started to clamber up these rocks on all fours. Ann followed, without any idea of where they were going, for there was nothing to be seen above but the smooth face of the cliff.

When they got to the top of the broken rocks, an exclamation of wonder broke from Ann. There lay the way! A great perpendicular slab had cracked away from the face of the cliff, leaving a narrow fissure behind. Into this fissure entered a well beaten path, which descended into the blackest of holes, and rose, beyond, by easy stages to the top of the cliff. High above, the trees looked over the edge.

Seeing Ann glance curiously at the hard-beaten path, Chako said laconically:

“Bears.”

They went in. In the bottom of the hole they crossed over a pool of ageless black ice. The way up the other side was harder than it looked. At the top Ann's burden seemed to have increased fourfold in weight. She was thankful to follow Chako's example, and cast it off, and rest. At their feet was a vast bowl of green, with the river finding its way out, and hills above hills rising steeply all around.

When she was a little rested, Ann crept forward, and looked into the cañon. It was a magnificent and dreadful sight, though she couldn't see very far into it, because of the bend in the walls. She saw the white water come tearing around this bend, sweeping high up one side with its impetus. From side to side it was flung between the smooth walls. Great billows crashed against the rock, sending up sheets of spray. One expected the rock itself to crumble under such blows. Then the water sullenly flattened down, and found its way out, heaving like a human breast after a storm of passion.

This was just the bottom of the cañon. Around the bend came a hoarse roar that suggested unimaginable terrors.

Shouldering their burdens, they plodded on. Chako professed to be following a trail, but Ann could not distinguish it. At intervals, though, he would point out where a fallen tree had been chopped to give passage, and Ann knew that her feet were upon the same earth that had been pressed by her father's feet before her. It was only here and there that the trail touched the edge of the cafion, and she could look into it.

One such look she never forgot. They came out on a little plateau of rock, and threw down their packs. Ann went to the edge. She was astounded. Here she could look straight up the cañon for perhaps half a mile.

The walls were not sheer here, though steep enough. It was like a steeply inclined trough down which that awful volume of water came leaping and crashing, as upon a gigantic flight of stairs. Like stairs, the huge, thick billows, regular in form and equidistant, converged from the sides to a point in the center. The noise was not loud so much as it was earth-shaking in volume. In all her life Ann had never received such an impression of power. She and Chako gazed in silence. The sight beggared speech.

It was difficult going, for the trail was of the roughest. Ann used up a good half of her strength in stepping over obstacles. They had many a stiff little ascent to climb. Ann conceived a new respect for Chako's strength, seeing how easily he carried his great pack, while she sank under her little one. It seemed to her as if they were hours upon the way, though she could not see that the sun altered his position much.

Finally, after a steep climb, the trail went down for the first time, the trees opened up, and a lovely, placid little lake of brown water was presented to their surprised eyes.

“We appear to be here,” said Chako. He looked about him. “Just as I thought,” he added. “He took to the water here. We'll have to bring over the canoe.”

“All that way!” said Ann, aghast.

“Matter of five miles,” said Chako coolly. “That's nothing.”

At first glance the little lake appeared to be landlocked, but they soon saw how the current began to creep slyly along the shore, ever gathering speed. Around at the right they felt rather than saw the cleft that sucked it in. Having divested themselves of their packs, they climbed around the rocky shore to have a look.

A ridge of brown rock ran across the end of the lake, like a dam. On the side on which they stood there was a break in it, not more than ten yards wide, and through this gap the whole volume of water poured smoothly, without a sound. It poured down a long, steep slide smooth as oil, boiled up madly at the bottom, and swept around a bend out of sight.

“There's all hell around that bend,” observed Chako.

They returned around the shore. Chako glanced at the sun.

“Not yet one o'clock,” he said. “We've got time to go back for the rest of the stuff, if you feel equal to it.”

“Certainly,” replied Ann, though her heart sank.

“Or you can wait here, and I'll make two trips,” he suggested, with his maddeningly indifferent air.

Ann flashed a hurt and angry look at him.

“I'll help,” she said.

“Well, you needn't get on your ear about it,” returned Chako.

Returning light was a simple affair. At the other end of the portage they ate heartily, and Chako said they had time for a sleep before starting to work again. They lay down, each in a blanket, on the pine needles. Ten feet or so separated them.

Ann flung an arm over her eyes, and watched Chako through a hole in the crook of her elbow. Sleep did not immediately visit his eyes. He lay on his back, staring up gravely at the pine boughs. What would not Ann have given to know his thoughts! There had been moments to-day when he had appeared almost human, only to become sullen again directly.

He suddenly turned his head and looked at Ann in an odd, intent way that startled her. He scowled, but not in anger—a hurt scowl, one might say, if one could conceive of anything hurting the self-sufficient Chako. Ann had been too sorely wounded to be easily convinced that Chako could be human.

They slept.

Of their second trip across the portage little need be said. It was just a dogged struggle for almost every yard of the five miles. How they got the canoe up through the fissure in the cliff Ann could never have told, but get it up they did. Ann did not see how Chako could have managed without her help, small as that might be, but she did not expect him to acknowledge it.

Up on top, Chako took the canoe on his back, the middle thwart resting on a blanket padded across his shoulders, his hands caught under the bow thwart. He was in continual difficulties with the trees. Though they left every ounce that could be spared, Ann herself had a heavier pack the second trip, and in addition she had to carry Chako's rifle, which always accompanied him.

The sun was going down when they arrived. Ann was all in. She sat down by the lake, white-faced and mute. Chako looked down at her with an odd shyness flickering in his face that made it wonderfully attractive.

“Tired, Billy boy?” he said.

Ann looked at him in speechless astonishment, then quickly turned her head to hide the springing tears. In the whole trip it was the first, the very first, word of human sympathy she had had from him. At such a moment it was too much. The tears gushed forth. Her shoulders shook.

“Oh, hell and damnation!” stormed Chako, striding down to the water in a rage.

 

Above the cañon the Ouananeca was a perfectly normal brown river, peaceful and charming in effect, giving no hint of the terrors below. Its course tended generally to the northwest—that is, parallel with the mountains. Close on either hand there was a high range, that to the east snow-capped, doubtless the main chain of the Rockies. The valley was invariably flat, and densely timbered with virgin pine. The current was moderate, but there were many little rapids, and progress was arduous and slow.

The relations between the partners slowly improved, but they were still wary with each other. They avoided frank speech. Ann's bitterness yielded slowly. She so passionately desired to believe that Chako was human and lovable that she was afraid to let herself believe it.

Chako was envious of Joe Grouser's old range.

“What a fur country!” he would say a dozen times a day. “And not even any Indians to compete with. They wouldn't come in here. Evil spirits live in the cañon, the Indians say.”

“I don't wonder,” said Ann.

They now had the added excitement of searching the shores for evidences of the man they were trailing. On every bend Ann held her breath a little, expecting a discovery; but the first day passed, and the second, and the third, and they saw nothing. Neither did the character of the river change.

“We must be nearly at the north pole,” Ann said nervously.

“Not at this rate,” replied Chako. “We're not doing twenty miles a day.”

“Could we have passed his camp, do you think?” said Ann. “He was so secretive. Perhaps he hid it back from the river.”

“Not likely,” said Chako. “A man's natural instinct is to build on a river. Who would ever follow him up here?”

“How did he ever get a boat up here?” asked Ann.

“Built it.”

“Dugout?”

“There are no cottonwood trees. It was a bark canoe. There were birches around the lake that had been peeled.”

“I see nothing escapes your eyes!” said Ann.

Chako was much flattered.

“But at that,” he presently added, “I don't see why he came so far. The fur would be about the same anywhere in this valley. He must have had a reason.”

“My father was a prospector, too,” said Ann.

Chako glanced at the peaks.

“Those don't look like gold-bearing mountains,” he said. “Pure rock!”

Like a turtle, Chako would sometimes come cautiously out of his shell, watching Ann suspiciously to make sure that she took no advantage of his exposed condition. Ann, with a wild hope at her heart, became very still at such moments, afraid of the effect of each word she uttered.

Little by little she made sure, from certain mute, boyish glances which she intercepted, that there was a Chako who longed to open his heart to her, but that the proud, savage, stubborn Chako stood watch over him like a jailer. The issue was always in doubt. Ann saw very clearly that she was likely to lose in the end. Years of indulgence had given the savage part of him an overwhelming ascendancy.

There was nothing that she could do. Her instinct told her that if anything was to come of it, he must work out his own salvation.

One evening they were sitting quietly on a point, watching the mountains darken against the western sky. Ann silently pointed among the shadows upstream, where a wild goose was bringing her yellow brood down with the current.

“You have good eyes for a person who reads so much,” said Chako, a little resentfully.

Ann smiled inwardly.

“Does reading spoil the eyes?”

“Sure!” said Chako. “Everybody who reads wears glasses.”

“Not everybody,” murmured Ann.

“I don't see what good it does you,” observed Chako truculently.

“I don't know that it does one any particular good,” said Ann; “but it's fun.”

“Oh, reading for fun!” said Chako. “I can understand that; but heavy stuff! What makes me tired is the way bookish people think themselves so much better than others.”

“Do I? “inquired Ann, hurt.

“Well, not so much as you did,” replied Chako grudgingly.

“It's true I used to set books too high,” said Ann. “I know now that life is more important than books.”

As soon as she took this side of the argument, Chako was bound to switch to the other.

“Oh, I don't know,” he said. “I suppose books form a person's character.”

“So does living a natural life,” returned Ann.

There was a silence. Then Chako blurted out with touching boyishness:

“Do you think I've got any character?”

How Ann's nature poured out to him in the dusk!

“Yes,” she replied simply.

“Not much, I guess,” said Chako gloomily. “I've got good feelings,” he went on, very low, “but there's a sort of devil inside me. It makes me do all kinds of crazy things—makes me say just the opposite of what I think.”

It was enough. All Ann's hurts were healed. Her spirit brooded over him passionately.

“My dear! My dear! I understand!” it cried.

Aloud she said soberly:

“Oh, everybody's got a devil to fight!”

Chako got up with a flippant, jarring laugh.

“Gee, what stuff a pretty evening will make a man talk! That's what women lay for, isn't it?”

“Never mind!” thought Ann. “If I am patient, he will come back again.”

On the afternoon of the fifth day from the cañon they rounded a bend no different from hundreds of other bends, and a little choked cry escaped from Ann. The paddle dropped from her limp hands.

“There! There!” she gasped. “We have found it!”

Ahead of them on the river bank, in a clearing just big enough to hold it, stood a little shack built out of logs that had been chopped down. It was roofed with sods. At one end rose a rough chimney, constructed of stones from the river bed. Alongside the shack a large bark canoe was turned over on the ground.

“Now we shall know!” murmured Ann.

Chako's voice came unexpectedly gentle.

“Not yet. You mustn't be disappointed. He's not there.”

“But his body?”

“Look at the door.”

Having no hardware of any sort, the builder of the cabin had contrived a swinging bar to hold the door to, while he was away from home. The bar was swung into place.

XVII

It was true that Joe Maury was not in his cabin, dead or alive. It was not merely for a day's journey he had set forth that last time, for everything had been carefully stowed in order. His hammock, too, was gone. Yet he had expected to come back, for most of his property was there.

The interior was quite ingeniously and comfortably contrived. It contained a little stone fireplace, and a table and chair made out of pine poles. There was even a glazed window sash. They wondered at the trouble he must have had to bring that all the way in intact.

This was his winter shack. Traps, snowshoes, winter moccasins, and fur garments were hanging from the rafters. In a corner was piled his winter's store of grub, all spoiled now, except tea and sugar. He must have set out from here two years before on his summer's prospecting, never to return.

“His bones may be lying anywhere in all this wilderness,” Ann said. “How are we to know even where to start looking?”

Chako betrayed a dawning solicitude for Ann. To be sure, these unaccustomed feelings only made him appear gruffer than ever, but Ann felt the change.

“Oh, well,” he said doggedly, “we've got grub enough to stay here ten days or so. We'll have a try, anyway.”

No use starting off at random, Chako said. They must remain where they were until they discovered some definite clew to the way he had gone.

Early next morning he started off to look. He bluntly told Ann that she only messed up the woods with her tracks, and bade her remain in camp.

He had no success all day. For three whole days he searched in vain.

“Beats all!” he grumbled. “I can't find anything but his fur trails, which he blazed plainly enough on the trees. They just take you around in big circles. He must have lived here all of ten years, and there's not a thing to show that he ever set foot to the ground when there wasn't snow on it.”

However, on the fourth day Chako returned triumphant.

“I've found it!” he cried. “By golly, a crafty old fox! If anybody came up the river, he was bound they shouldn't track him beyond this cabin; but I doped it out bit by bit. This is what he did—he started down the river shore, with his pack on his back. Who would ever have thought of that? He walked along the stones, to leave no tracks. At the first rapid, half a mile down, he crossed over to the other side. I found some stones that he'd placed in the shallow water; that gave the snap away. He came back on the other side as far as a stream that comes in on that side, and he turned up that stream, still walking over the stones, and climbing the fallen timber. Not an ax cut to give him away! In a quarter of a mile or so, thinking he was safe, he struck into the timber, and from that point on there's a trail anybody could follow. He must have gone the same way every year. Almost looks as if he had something in there worth going for, eh?”

With Chako's last words an oddly desirous look leaped up in his eyes. It caused Ann a vague disquiet.

But it was fine, after the forced inaction of the past three days, to prepare to move on again. Before they turned in that night, they were ready for a start in the morning. Enough food to carry them down to the cañon was to be left in the shack, and all the rest packed on their backs, together with absolutely necessary utensils, blankets, an ax, some ammunition, and Ann's little tent. Chako's tent was to be left behind. They were now rising above the altitude of mosquitoes.

In the morning, a few minutes in the canoe brought them to the spot that Joe Grouser had so laboriously reached on foot. They hauled the canoe up out of harm's way, adjusted their packs, and set off across the flat floor of the valley, through a forest of closely springing jack pines. Their predecessor had taken much pains to chop an easy trail.

“Each year he improved it some,” Chako said, pointing out the marks of the ax, some old, some new.

On the trail Chako became absolutely absorbed in his work, and Ann was no more to him than something that followed behind and had, provokingly, to be waited for. Ann, beginning to know him, was no longer resentful. His great preoccupation was with a water supply. They found a living spring at the root of a solitary spruce tree, and spelled forthwith.

Soon after the ground began to rise, and became more broken. The pines gave place to gigantic fir trees of a species strange to Chako. Hoary old monarchs they were, of an infinite majesty.

“Been here since the flood,” said Chako.

Each tree took a lot of room, and there was no undergrowth in the twilight aisles; but the fallen monarchs of ages past lay sprawling up and down and crisscross; some making stout bridges over which the trail carried them, some crumbling to powder at a touch. Cushiony green moss masked many a treacherous hole where a trunk had rotted out of the ground. Back and forth, in and out, among these obstructions the trail wound, always climbing. The whole way was made beautiful for Ann by the fact that once, on a sort of log bridge across a crevasse, Chako half turned, and extended an arm for her to steady herself on. Firm as an apple bough it was.

By and by they came to a steep plane of naked rock, up which they were forced to climb on all fours. The great trees ended at the foot of it, and at the top a forest of little sticks began. The way became steeper. Now, at intervals, they caught glimpses ahead of what seemed to be the summit of the mountain they were upon—a huge knoll of naked rock sticking up into the sky.

Chako became uncertain about the trail. Every now and then he slipped his pack and darted off to one side or the other to investigate, while Ann rested.

“Goat tracks everywhere,” he muttered. Finally they left the trees behind them altogether, and came out under the vastest sky that Ann had ever beheld. Nothing grew on the mountain above this line but scrubby bushes in the interstices of the rocks, different colored mosses, and strange, delicate flowers. A pair of black and white ptarmigan fluttered crazily ahead of them, the fool hens of higher altitudes. A higher knoll now poked up behind what they had at first taken for the summit.

Chako stopped altogether.

“We're on the wrong track,” he said, thinking aloud. “It goes straight up. Joe Grouser certainly wasn't aiming to prospect on top of the mountain. If he was going over to the other side, he wouldn't go over the highest part. He must have turned off on one of the tracks below.”

“What must we do?” asked Ann anxiously.

Chako had already slipped his pack.

“I'm going up to have a look,” he said. “You rest here.”

“Ah, be careful!” breathed Ann involuntarily.

Chako scowled in his hardy fashion, pretending not to hear, and set off.

He went up the mountainside with great strides. He never once looked back. Ann watched him with all her heart in her eyes. How tireless he was! How graceful in his strength!

He reached the first knoll of rock, and disappeared over it. Later, Ann saw him on the second knoll, a mere atom. He stood outlined against the blue, and waved both arms over his head. Ann could just get the tiny gesture. He was like an eagle up there. Her heart swelled in her breast.

In an hour he was back at her side.

“That's not the real summit that we see,” he said. “There's more beyond; but it was high enough to show me. If Joe Grouser wanted to cross this chain, he'd make off around to the right. We'll go back to the first track in that direction.”

They found a track that led them off around the face of the mountain, across a steep slide of broken rock. It took them in and out around an awful gorge. Chako, with an exclamation of triumph, pounced on a little object lodged under a stone and held it up—a sodden little mass.

“His moccasins wore out here, and he changed to a fresh pair,” he cried.

There in the empty, upper world the little human relic seemed doubly piteous to Ann. The tears sprang to her eyes.

Beyond the gorge the track started straight up the steep face of rock. It was grueling work for Ann, burdened as she was. Ten steps and a rest was the best that she could do. Chako, obliged to wait for her continually, scowled blackly out across the valley.

At last he said gruffly:

“Give me your pack.”

“I won't!” replied Ann hotly.

“This is no fit work for a woman.”

“It is for this woman.”

“Well, then, drop it, and I'll come back after it.”

“Go on,” said Ann stubbornly. “I'll follow as quickly as I can.”

But he would wait for her, always scowling and looking away.

When they finally reached the top of the ridge, Ann flung herself down, too exhausted even to look.

When the pounding of her heart eased down, she sat up. The ridge was about ten yards wide, of some shaly substance, flat and bare. It was not unlike the top of a vast cinder pile. Down the middle of it ran a curiously natural-looking path, worn by the goats in their journeys from summit to summit.

Looking back the way they had come, across the valley, twelve or fifteen miles away, the carved shapes of the Rockies faced them, stretching right and left as far as eye could see, glorious in the level rays of the lowering sun.

Chako had his back to this.

“Hey, Billy, come here!” he cried in an excited voice.

Ann dragged herself stiffly to his side. Quite unconsciously he dropped an arm across her shoulders. He pointed with his other hand.

“Look, kid!”

On this side there was a whole troubled sea of mountains close at hand; but Chako was pointing down. Below them lay a deep bowl in the mountains, and within it a little lake that caught at the breast in its strange intensity of color, which was neither blue nor green. All around it was a fringe of blackish pines, then the heights. For most of the way around sheer cliffs of gray rock backed the pines.

“See that white sand at the edge of the water yonder?” Chako said excitedly. “Looks like pay dirt to me!”

At the passion in his voice—a passion in which she had no part—Ann's heart sunk heavily.

“And look at the other side of the lake,” Chako went on. “Do you see what I see?”

Ann strained her eyes. Gradually a significant little rectangle shaped itself on the shore.

“A shack!” she murmured.

“Nothing else! There's the end of our journey!”

“Good!” said Ann. “Let's go on.”

Chako glanced in her face.

“From the look of you, we ought to camp right here,” he said.

“I'm all right,” said Ann. “There's no water here.”

“I could bring snow from the summit.”

“There's no wood.”

“True, and there will be frost to-night. We'll have to go down; but not all the way. We'll camp on top of those cliffs below.”

“It'll be easier going down,” said Ann stoutly.

“Easier on your wind, but harder on your legs,” said Chako.

They ate a little bread, and went on. They did finally make the spot Chako had in view—a grove of pines on top of the cliffs, a couple of hundred feet above the lake. A little stream came down from the snow-covered heights, and fell over the lip of the cliffs into the lake with a hoarse rumble that filled the whole bowl with sound. It was almost dark, and there was an insidious chill in the still air.

Ann was exhausted. She could but fling herself down on the pine needles, and bury her face in her arms. Chako, in his concern, looked absolutely brutal.

“You're a game pardner,” he growled, hating himself for saying it. “Dead game!”

Though his face was streaky with fatigue, he was all activity. He chopped poles, cut armfuls of pine boughs, and quickly constructed a little lean-to shelter, just big enough for Ann to lie in. In front of it he made a log fire. The heat was deflected down from the sloping roof of boughs over Ann's head, and she lay, deliciously warmed. She was. too weary to care whether she got any supper, but Chako presently brought it—hot rice and bacon and tea.

“You are too good to me!” she murmured, with the tears of pure fatigue rolling down her cheeks.

“Ah, forget it!” said Chako roughly.

When she fell asleep, he was still busy constructing a similar shelter for himself on the other side of the fire. At intervals during the night he got up and replenished the fire. Ann heard him dimly.

XVIII

In the cold, bracing freshness of the morning they came down over the last broken rocks to the lake level, and, breaking through the narrow belt of pines, saw the little shack before them. It looked strangely alone in that wild place. It was of similar construction to the other shack, and had a chimney, but no windows. The sod roof was sprouting greenly.

Slipping their packs, they circled around it with fast-beating hearts. The door had a bar, like the other door, but it was perpendicular.

“He's inside!” said Chako huskily.

A shuddering sound escaped Ann's lips.

“You wait outside,” Chako told her.

Ann turned away to the lake shore, fighting the hysteria that gripped her. Chako put his shoulder against the little door, but it refused to yield. He picked up a great stone and heaved it, and the door went in with a crash.

Chako paused on the threshold. He snatched off his hat. Ann's knees weakened under her, and she sat down on the stones. Chako went in.

He presently reappeared, glanced up at the bright sky with relief, and clapped on his hat again. He came to Ann. He had something in his hand.

“He's in there,” he said simply.

As Ann made a move to rise, Chako put a hand on her shoulder.

“Ah, don't go,” he said, strongly moved. “Let me 'tend to everything for you.”

She sank back.

“No need for you to see him at all,” said Chako. “Look, this will identify him to you—his ring.”

Ann took it—a plain gold band. Inside were some initials—” A.B. to J.M.“—and a date.

“My mother's initials,” murmured Ann. The tears began to fall. The horrible constriction in her breast was eased.

Chako's face was tormented at the sight of her tears.

“It's all right,” he said harshly. “He died real comfortable, sitting there in his chair before the fire. He hadn't been sick long, because everything is in first-rate order—his hammock all fixed ready for him to turn in. He died July 23, two years ago.”

“How do you know that?” Ann asked, surprised.

“There's a calendar on the wall with the days marked off. I take it it was a cold night like last night, and so he fastened the door and sat there comfortably in front of a good fire, and just passed out. No man could ask for a better death. Don't take on so!”

“I'm all right,” faltered Ann. “It's just relief, knowing at last.”

“Look what was on the table!” Chako went on in a thrilled voice. He had a colored handkerchief in his hand. Opening it, a handful of shining yellow grains was revealed. “The real stuff!” he murmured. “Must be a hundred dollars' worth in just that little bit.”

Ann had no heart for gold.

“Take it,” said Chako. “It's yours.”

“You keep it,” said Ann.

He thrust it into the pocket of his shirt.

“It can go against what you owe me,” he said coolly. “I'll fix everything seemly and proper,” he went on. “I can't make him a coffin, of course, and the earth on these rocks is too thin to make a proper grave. I'll tie him up in his hammock, and carry him to the top of the cliffs, where he can look down the lake. We'll heap a pile of stones over him, and put a cross on top. It'll be a fine grave for a man. You take a sleep on the pine needles while I'm fixing things. You need it.”

“Can't I help?” said Ann.

“I'll call you when I'm ready for you.”

The weary Ann thanked him with her eyes. She obediently went and lay down under the pines.

Some time later he called her. He had tidied himself as well as he could, and combed his bright hair. After all they had been through, the freshness of him was amazing. He had put on a great air of gravity, such as he thought suitable to the occasion.

Ann, though softened and tremulous, was inclined to laugh at him. The dear, simple fellow! For herself, she was unable to feel any normal emotion. She was just empty inside; immeasurably relieved that their journey was finished, and the result known.

They went soberly up over the rocks behind the shack, up to the top of the cliffs, and through the pines. The spot Chako had chosen was beside the little stream, where it plunged over into the lake. The body was already in place, and covered with stones. Chako waved his hand over the prospect—the green-blue lake like a peacock's breast, the bare, heaven-mounting heights full of lights and shades like beaver fur.

“He has a fine outlook,” he said. “I hope I may get a grave like his! It's fine to be buried alone and far off from people!”

“Alone!” Ann thought with a sad heart. She glanced at Chako through her lashes. “I wouldn't care where my grave was if it was beside yours!” was her unspoken thought.

“Too bad we haven't got a prayer book,” said Chako. “We ought to have known we'd need it.”

“He wouldn't care about a prayer book,” murmured Ann, looking down at the shape vaguely outlined by the stones. “If he can see in our hearts, he knows we wish him well.”

“You're right, we do!” said Chako heartily. “But say a prayer anyhow,” he added uneasily.

“I don't feel fit to pray for another—only for myself,” replied Ann.

Even as she spoke, the impulse to pray came to her, and she dropped to her knees and repeated the Lord's prayer. Chako stood with bowed, bared head.

“That's the dope!” he said quite innocently and devoutly. “By rights, we ought to sing a hymn now.”

“I don't know any by heart,” said Ann.

She was thinking that if he could sing one of his rollicking old songs with its strange undercurrent of wistfulness—so like life, so jolly, and so strangely sad—it would make a better requiem for this man than a hymn; but she was afraid the suggestion would shock Chako.

Chako picked up stones in the bed of the creek, and carried them to drop on the pile.

“I only started this,” he said. “I thought you'd like to help, out of respect, sort of.”

“Surely,” said Ann.

For a while they worked in silence, picking up the stones and dropping them, passing each other back and forth.

Ann, who had been blaming herself for her lack of feeling, was surprised when Chako stopped short, stared at her a little wildly, and let his stones drop with a clatter. Suddenly she realized that the tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“You mustn't! You mustn't!” he cried hoarsely. He indicated the cairn of stones with a passionate gesture. “He's all right! No more tracking up the rapids for him—no more rain on the trail, and cold grub, and soaked blankets at the end of the day! His work is done. He's gone home!”

“Ah, it isn't that!” murmured Ann. “One wouldn't regret a full life; but such a life! It's so pitiful! Not to love anybody—not to let himself be loved!”

“I wouldn't call it a wasted life,” said Chako queerly.

She looked at him. He had forgotten himself. The absurd, boyish braggadocio had vanished. His eyes met hers squarely, and the man himself looked out. In his eyes Ann saw the deep and wistful passion that she knew belonged there. At that moment his face had an inner beauty that made his physical comeliness seem like nothing.

“What do you mean?” she stammered.

“Well—he was your father,” said Chako.

Ann lowered her eyes. She could not bear his look. A quiet and tremulous joy stole into her breast.

“I was right,” she thought. “He has a soul!”

No more was said. The spell passed, and they went on picking up stones again. Soon they started back. Arriving at the little shack, they sat down on a broad, shelving rock at the lake's edge, and tossed pebbles into the water. A heavy constraint lay upon them. Chako still wore his Sunday gravity.

“Joe was a good man,” he said heavily.

At his tone, the shadow of a dimple appeared in Ann's cheek. Whatever befell, Ann had to be natural. In her, laughter and tears were twins. She loved the shadow that represented her father to her, but she had no illusions about him.

“How do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, he was square,” said Chako. “I never heard a man lay anything crooked or sharp or mean against him.”

“Did you know him well?” she asked.

“Nobody knew him well.”

“Did you ever have talk with him?”

“Once,” said Chako hesitatingly.

A dull red crept under his skin, and Ann's curiosity was strongly aroused.

“Tell me about it,” she said.

“It was nothing—not worth telling.”

Ann kept after him.

“You won't like it.”

“Never mind!”

“It was four or five years ago,” said Chako. “I overtook him tracking up the Pony River with his winter's catch. I offered to join in with him, but he wouldn't.”

“What did he say?” Ann asked slyly.

Chako got red again.

“He said—he told me—oh, he declined,” he ended lamely.

Ann pictured the scene. Chako glanced at her uneasily, and saw her eyes brimming with laughter. His face cleared. They suddenly burst out laughing together, and felt enormously refreshed; but Chako was presently overtaken by remorse.

“I don't mean him any disrespect,” he apologized.

“Why be so solemn about it?” said Ann. “Why act as if we were at a stuffy funeral outside? Here we ought to be natural, surely.”

“Gosh, it was a strain,” said Chako, grinning; “but I thought you'd expect it, being a woman.”

“You have a funny notion of women!” remarked Ann impatiently.

“What sort of notion should I have?”

“Not any sort of notion. Just treat us as human creatures like yourself.”

“Sometimes I treat you like a boy, and it makes you sore.”

Ann surrendered with a laugh.

“Well, maybe it does!”

“So you see!”

“Well, just act as if you liked me, and never mind my sex at all,” said Ann.

“You know I do,” confessed Chako, looking away.

“Most of the time you're doing your best to hide it from me.”

“I know it,” said Chako softly. “I'm a fool—always getting in my own light.”

Ann called attention to the extraordinary color of the water. She was obliged to change the subject. Her happy breast was lifted up so high that it hurt her.

Ah, how happy she was! Chako, with a great parade of unconsciousness, flung an arm around her shoulders, as he had done before,, and drew her warmly into the hollow of his breast—the very spot that throbbed under his shirt when he paddled. Ann pretended to take no notice of the act, though this time she knew by the curious still poise of his head—she dared not look into his face—that it was not unconscious.

They sat on, and Ann chattered away just as before, though she could hardly find the breath to speak. Chako, with his curiously brooding fair head, said never a word further.

Then they grew hungry. Getting dinner was an uproarious sort of affair. It seemed as if the solemn occasion of the morning forced them to be uproarious in order to strike a balance. The scornful Chako lighted up with laughter, and was as attractive as Satan. How they ate!

After dinner, Chako got restive. Ann was reminded that he was still the wild bird. Finally he said with a self-conscious air:

“Believe I'll run off for a while.”

“All right,” said Ann quickly. “Where are you going?”

“Just down the shore to have a look at that sand.”

Ann experienced the same unaccountable sinking of the heart. She said nothing. In her silence the queasy Chako found cause of offense. She could see hostility in his eyes.

“Are you trying to tie strings on me already?” they seemed to ask.

“You can see me from here,” he muttered sullenly.

“Run along,” said Ann, lifting her chin. “I don't want you hanging around here. Come back when you get hungry.”

XIX

When Ann had the afternoon meal ready, she went to the water's edge and shouted for Chako. He came in excited and, for him, strangely talkative. There was an unwholesome glitter in his eye that filled Ann with a dull, grinding anxiety. He took no notice of what he ate.

“It's richer than I ever expected! I've already got a fat pinch of dust—the first gold I ever washed. Joe Grouser's outfit is there just where he dropped it—the shovel and pans and all. The pans are in bad shape, but they'll last out our stay here. A wonderful place! You must come down there. It's only a small place—just about two claims, I should say—one for you and one for me. You get the side your father's already worked. That's only fair, of course. That's what you'd inherit from him.”

Ann looked at Chako in quick astonishment and pain, but he never noticed her look.

“A small place in extent,” he went on, “but as deep as the lake itself, very likely, and probably richer the deeper you go. You strike water at two or three feet, but it would be simple to sink a crib and keep her pumped out. That's for the future, though. At present there's plenty on top. You see, those mountains at that end are of a different formation from this big son of a gun we climbed up. They're streaked, you see; the tops are reddish. The gold is in them, and those two streams, one on each side, wash it down to the lake. They've filled up that end of the lake with the stuff they've brought down. That's what makes the beach. You can actually see the yellow grains in the sand, if you look close—enough to set a man crazy. There must be gold washed down on th(; other side, too. Some day I'll go look.

“We can stay here five days. I'm going to work my claim every minute of daylight. That 'll give me enough to buy a bang-up outfit. I'll carry my dust right through to Vancouver, so nobody will get on to it. I'm coming right back this summer. I can make it before frost. That 'll give me a whole month's start in the spring. I'll bring in a son of a gun of an outfit—enough to see me through to next spring a year. By that time I'll have a proper pile!”

“How about me?” murmured Ann.

His loud, confident speech was suddenly called in. He scowled at her through his lashes. It was only too clear that he suddenly found her damnably in his way. Ann lowered her eyes. She comprehended that a sort of struggle was going on in him. She would not stir to influence it. It was his struggle.

“Of course, you can come back with me if you want to,” he said grudgingly. “I suppose you have a right to; but it would be hell on a woman. Eighteen months without seeing anybody—two winters. You might get sick.”

“I don't want to come back,” Ann said quickly and softly.

His face cleared.

“That's right!” he said, with a sort of deceitful heartiness that made Ann a little sick. “It wouldn't work. You couldn't stand it. Anyhow, our coming in together again would start talk. They might come nosing around. If this got out, there'd be hell to pay. Wait till I come out, two years from now. I'll write to you. I'll find some way for you to work your claim.”

“Two years!” thought Ann.

The moment he had finished eating, he started back. He forgot that he had asked Ann to go with him. Ann had no desire to see those yellow sands. She hated the place without having seen it. Little yellow grains that in a moment could destroy all that was fine in a man! She felt no resentment against Chako, but only against that which had corrupted him.

She sought to buoy up her spirits by telling herself that this was but a temporary madness which had carried him off his feet. In a day or two he was sure to regain his balance. A nature so sane and healthy would soon throw off this distemper; but reason as she might, her dreadful anxiety remained.

When he came back at dusk, he was, if possible, more excited than before. He came in cursing the darkness that had interrupted his work. He was so full of it that he had to talk, though he already looked upon Ann with suspicion. Chako was by nature a silent man, and it was painful to Ann to see him so lose himself in gusty talk.

“It's rich—rich!” he cried. “In six hours I've washed enough to pay for a summer's grub. That handful of dust I found on the table in there, I figure that was just Joe's takings the last day he worked; and I can beat that. Suppose he got in here the 15th of June each year, and worked till the 1st of September. Maybe he could stay in a little longer; but say seventy days at a hundred dollars a day—that's seven thousand for the summer!”

“Little enough for what he went through,” observed Ann bitterly.

“Oh, you're a woman!” said Chako contemptuously. “You don't understand. A man would go through anything for a stake like that.”

“So it seems,” said Ann.

He did not hear her.

“Seven thousand's pretty damned good for seventy days' work, if you ask me,” he went on loudly. “And all the rest of the year your own to bat around and spend it!”

“You said you hated cities,” Ann reminded him.

“Oh, that was when I had a head on me,” he said, with an empty laugh. “It's different when you got money to spend. I'm not going to stop at a hundred a day, either. Why, in ten years Joe Grouser has scarcely scratched the surface with his trifling pans! I'll bring in a saw and make a sluice. I'll wash thousands for his hundreds!”

Suddenly Chako's thoughts took a new turn.

“By Gad, if he didn't die until the 23rd of July, he'd been here more than a month! There ought to be a tidy little sum in dust somewhere around the shack. Three thousand or more—all in a lump sum! By Gad!”

In the quality of Ann's silence he perceived something accusing, and pulled up.

“Of course that's yours,” he went on sullenly. He was silent for a moment, looking at Ann with eyes full of cupidity. “I suppose you'd divvy with me, wouldn't you?” he went on in a wheedling voice. “I brought you here. You couldn't have made it without me. It's only fair. If I'd known there was anything like this, I'd have stipulated it before starting.”

“You can have it all,” Ann murmured, sickened.

This angered him.

“Oh, you think you're very high and fine, don't you?” he sneered. “Above money and all that! And I'm a low hound to mention it. You know you're safe in offering it to me. You know I wouldn't take it all!”

He relapsed into a sullen silence; but he could not maintain it. He soon recommenced building his glittering plans for the future.

“I wonder if there's a book that would tell you the latest wrinkles in placer mining! I wouldn't dare ask any miner. If Joe Grouser could wash a hundred dollars a day in a pan, I ought to be able to take out thousands with a sluice and a few pounds of mercury. And of course I don't know that his last day was a good day. Maybe some days he doubled that.”

Chako's thoughts flew off at another tangent.

“You must be a pretty rich woman,” he said, with a sharp glance at Ann.

“Do I look it?” she returned, with a wry smile.

“How much dust did Joe Grouser send out to you the last ten years?” Chako asked boldly.

“None,” said Ann.

“Huh! Expect me to believe that?”

Ann was silent.

“Then what did you come up here for?”

This hurt her to the quick.

“Oh!” she breathed. “Do you think it was for that I came?”

“Then what was it for?”

Ann shrugged helplessly.

“He said in his letters that he had found no gold. In the settlement they told me there was no gold up here.”

“Oh, Joe Grouser would be cute enough to keep it from them,” said Chako scornfully; “but he could sneak it out to you in parcel post packages.”

“Four times during the last few years he sent me fifty or a hundred dollars, which he said he had left over after buying his year's supplies. I supported myself by teaching a country school. Six hundred dollars a year they paid me. That was my riches!”

Something in her manner convinced Chako that she was telling the truth. He stared at her across the fire. His face became livid with excitement, his voice husky.

“By Gad, if that's true, do you realize what it means? It means that all the gold he washed here in ten or twelve years is still here!”

For a moment they remained staring at each other. Ann froze with horror at the insane light that blazed up in the man's eyes.

“Chako! Chako!” she murmured imploringly, putting out a hand toward him.

He disregarded it. He was already on his feet.

“Gad, if I had a lantern—a lantern!” he cried wildly.

He ran to the little shack and disappeared inside.