Chapter 22

OKANAGAN'S ROAD

The great cedar-boughs above the river bent beneath their load, and the scanty light was dimmed by sliding snow, when Seaforth and his comrade stood panting and white all over by the last portage. Okanagan by dint of laborious searching had found the canoe jammed between two boulders with her side crushed in, and had spent a day repairing her with a flattened out meat-can and strips of deerskin. The craft had notwithstanding this leaked considerably, but they made shift to descend the river in her, and now if they could accomplish the last big portage hoped by toiling strenuously to make the mouth of the canon by nightfall.

What they would do when they reached it neither of them knew, but they were too cold and jaded to concern themselves with more than the question how they were to convey their comrade over the boulders and through the thickets which divided them from the next stretch of comparatively untroubled water just then. They had spent most of the day dragging the canoe round the rapid which roared down the hollow in a wild tumult of froth, lifting her with levers from rock to rock, and now and then sliding with her down a declivity, but that was a mode of progression clearly unsuited to an injured man.

Alton lay in the snow beneath a boulder that but indifferently sheltered him, and there was a little grim smile in his face as he looked up at his companions.

"Isn't it time you got hold of me? We can't stop here all day," he said.

Okanagan turned, and stared sombrely at the wall of rock which dropped to the river close behind him, and the strip of boulders and great fallen fragments amidst which the undergrowth crept in and out between.

"There's a gully yonder, but if we worked back round the hillside I don't quite see how we're coming down," he said.

"No," said Alton dryly. "I'm not good at flying. Well, you had better start in and carry me."

Seaforth stooped and grasped his comrade round the thighs, which were lashed together with deerhide with a stiff strip of cedar-bark outside them. Okanagan passed his arms about his shoulders, and they rose with a jerk and stood swaying unevenly for a moment, while Seaforth wondered with a curious feeling of helplessness whether they would ever accomplish the journey to the canoe. It would have tested the agility of an unencumbered man, while he was almost worn out, and Alton cruelly heavy.

"Heave him up a trifle," said Okanagan. "Now then!"

Seaforth gasped, and floundered forward through a foot of snow that hid the holes he sank into and slipped away beneath him as he clawed for a footing on the boulders, but with strenuous toil they made a hundred yards or so, and then laying down their burden stood still, panting. Alton lay silent, with half-closed eyes and the soft flakes settling on his grey face, in the snow, while Seaforth gazed about him despairingly. There was rock and shadowy forest behind them, and in front the smoking rush of the river, while though it was but afternoon the light was failing.

"Get hold again, Tom. It's not good to wait here," he said with a shiver.

This time with infinite difficulty they made fifty yards, and Alton's face showed what his silence had cost him when they set him down again. Seaforth stooped and drew the blanket about him with a great gentleness.

"We did our best. I'd change places with you, Harry, if I could," he said.

Alton smiled a little, but said nothing, and in five minutes they went on again, Seaforth gasping from exhaustion, with a horrible pain in his side and his feet slipping from under him as they struggled up a sloping face of rock, but they had won forty yards when Tom went down and Alton, who fell heavily upon him, rolled over. Seaforth held his breath a moment until he heard the voice of the injured man.

"I wouldn't worry about my head. It would take an axe to hurt me there," he said. "Look at the lashings."

The lashings, however, had not slackened, the cedar-bark was intact, and once more they took up their burden, while Seaforth could not remember how often they had rested when at last they came out upon a smooth strip of sloping rock close to the last of the portage. He was dragging a clogging weight of snow with him, and the white flakes were in his eyes, while now and then his breath failed him and he heard Okanagan growling hoarse and half-articulate expletives.

"You have got to hold out, Charley. There's the canoe below you," he said.

Seaforth braced himself for a last effort, and was never sure whether he or Okanagan stumbled first, but his feet slipped from under him and he fell upon Alton as Tom went down. Then the three slid together down the slope of rock, and fell heavily over the edge of it. Seaforth was partly dazed when Okanagan dragged him to his feet, but, he could see that Alton lay very still with his face awry and that there was consternation in the eyes of his comrade.

"Have we hurt you, Harry?" he said hoarsely.

Alton groaned a little, and his lips moved once or twice before Seaforth caught any audible answer.

"I don't know that you did it, but I think that bone has gone," he said.

Okanagan, saying nothing, dropped on hands and knees, and while Alton groaned drew the bands tighter about the shattered cedar-bark. Then he rose up and looked at Seaforth, and the two stood silent for almost a minute with the snow whirling about them. There was something very like despair in Seaforth's eyes, and at last his comrade solemnly shook his fist at the forest.

"We have got to get him home straight off," he said. Seaforth did not ask how it was to be done when they had the range to cross, but as one dreaming laid hold of his comrade again, and floundered towards the canoe, which lay close by them now. He was still partly dazed when he took up the paddle and dimly saw the white pines sliding past through a haze of snow. Nor did he remember whether he or Okanagan set the tent up when they reached the island near the canon, but he was sitting inside it holding out a smoking can of tea to Alton when some time after darkness had closed down Tom came in. The snow had ceased in the meanwhile and a biting frost descended upon the valley through which the roar of the canon pulsed in long reverberations. Okanagan dropped the rifle he carried.

"I might have left the thing. The horse is dead," he said.

"Dead?" said Seaforth vacantly.

Okanagan nodded. "Yes," he said. "Somebody has saved me the trouble. Two bullets in him."

Seaforth was almost past anger now, but the tea splashed from the can he still held as he realized the thoroughness of the work of their enemy.

"Then how are you going to pack Harry and the other things over the range?" he said.

Okanagan's face was almost expressionless. "We're not going to. It can't be done."

Seaforth said nothing. The last fall had shaken him severely, and he had realized since they started that the task before them was almost beyond the power of any two men, but had refused to contemplate what must happen if they failed in it. Now he could see that it was impossible, but dazed with utter weariness as he was he could not think consecutively, and only felt a numbing dismay that in some strange fashion softened the blow, while in place of considering the future his memory reverted without his will to the incidents of that strange journey. They rose blurred before him as the creations of an evil dream, the wild descent of a rapid, the desperate effort of the portage, the long hours of toil at the paddle, and endless unrolling of whitened pines that crawled by them through the snow. Now at least, when he could do no more, that stupendous toil was finished. Turning, he glanced at Alton, who had with apparent difficulty swallowed a little of the tea. He lay amidst the blankets with eyes closed, breathing unevenly.

"Then you'll go on to Somasco, Tom, and send back the boys for us. They may be in time," he said.

Okanagan strode softly to the entrance of the tent and drew the canvas back. A moon hung red with frost in the pitiless heavens, the stars shone steelily, and it was evident that the cold of the icy North was laying its grip upon the valley.

"Harry wouldn't have much use for them when they came. There's an ice fringe round the boulders now," he said.

Seaforth stared out into the glittering night, and groaned, for he knew what happened to wounded men unsheltered from the frost. His voice was low and harsh as he asked, "Then what is to be done?"

Okanagan replaced the canvas before he answered quietly, "There's the canon."

"Yes," said Seaforth. "Still, no man has ever gone down it."

"No. But the water's lowest in winter, and a canoe once came through. I can't see why another shouldn't do as well with men in it. It's easy getting in, anyway."

Seaforth laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, yes. The question is, will any of us come out again alive?"

As he spoke the sound of the river's turmoil swelled in a great pulsation about the tent, and Seaforth involuntarily drew in his breath. The curious glow he had seen there before, however, grew a trifle brighter in his companion's eyes.

"That," he said solemnly, "only the Almighty knows, but if we stop here there'll be an end of Harry. Now, there are some folks in the old country who'd be sorry if you don't come back?"

Seaforth smiled a trifle bitterly. "I don't think there are. They had an opportunity of showing their affection before I came out to Canada, and didn't take it. I found the best friend I ever had in this country--and as there seems no other way we'll try the canon."

Okanagan sat down again, and hacked away with Alton's knife at a piece of redwood he was fashioning into a paddle. Both of them knew that the effort they were to make on their friend's behalf might well cost their life, but big, untaught bushman and once gently-nurtured Briton were in one respect at least alike, and that was a fact which would never again be mentioned between them.

It was an hour or thereabouts later when Alton opened his eyes.

"I don't know that I asked you, though I meant to, but you and Tom staked two more claims off?" he said.

Okanagan appeared a trifle embarrassed, but Seaforth laughed. "I'm afraid we didn't. You see, we started in a hurry, and I forgot."

Alton stared at him a moment in bewilderment, and then through the pain that distorted it a curious look crept into his face.

"I figure you're lying, Charley, and you don't do it well," he said. "Folks don't usually forget when they leave a fortune behind them."

Seaforth smiled a little. "Well, I may have been, but a fortune didn't seem very likely to be much use to me then or now," he said.

Alton gravely shook his head, but the two men's eyes met for a moment, and Seaforth felt embarrassed as he turned his aside. There was no need to tell the injured man that his welfare had appeared of more importance to his comrades than any profit that might accrue to them from the silver mine.

"Well," he said simply, "you or Tom should get through to Somasco."

"I hope so," said Seaforth, as Okanagan signed to him. "You see, we are all going there together by the shortest way, down the canon."

Alton stared at him a moment. "Now I had----" he commenced, and then stopped abruptly.

Once more Seaforth smiled. "Then you had thought about it, Harry?"

Alton's eyes closed a little. "I'm not one of the folks who go round telling people all they think," he said. "There's no way down that canon."

Seaforth understood what was passing in his comrade's mind, and knew that Alton had not kept silence because of the risk to himself, for whatever was done the chances were equally against him.

"I'm afraid we can't contradict you, but we shall discover to-morrow whether you are right or not," he said.

Alton's glance grew a little less direct. "I would stop you if I could."

"Of course," said Seaforth, smiling. "Still, you see you can't, and when you go out mining with feather-brained companions must take the consequences."

Alton, who said nothing further, apparently went to sleep, and there was silence in the tent save for the roar of water and the rattle of Okanagan's knife.

They launched the canoe with the first of the daylight, dragging her through the crackling ice fringe under the bitter frost, and as they slid down the smooth green flow towards the stupendous rent in the mountain side the river poured through, Okanagan glanced towards it and then at the still figure lying huddled in the blankets in the bottom of the canoe.

"That, I figure, is one of the most useful men in the Dominion, and between Somasco and the place in England he has a good deal in his hands," he said.

Seaforth understood him, and smiled grimly. "We brought nothing into this world--and we'll be very close to the next one in a few more minutes," he said. "Hadn't you better get way on, Tom?"

They dipped the paddles, and the canoe slid on smoothly under the clear sunlight and the frost towards the film of mist where the oily green now broke up into the mad white tumult that poured down the canon. Then the strokes quickened, the craft lurched beneath them, and the sunlight was blotted out as they plunged into spray-filled dimness. High through the vapour towered smooth walls of stone, and the river that rebounded from them was piled in a white track of foam midway between. The canoe swept onwards down it apparently with the speed of a locomotive, and Seaforth, crouching in the bows, gripped his paddle with bleeding fingers that had split at the knuckles with the frost. He watched the smooth walls whirl by him mechanically, and remembered that the canon could not last forever. There was comfort in the reflection, because the miles would melt behind them at the pace they travelled at. That was so long as the stream flowed straight and even, but he did not care to contemplate what would happen if it foamed over any obstacle.

For a time he saw nothing but froth and spray and flitting stone, and then the roar that came back from the towering walls swelled into a great diapason terrifying and bewildering. Seaforth glanced over his shoulder and saw that Okanagan was dipping his paddle.

"A fall or a big rapid. We've got to go through," he said.

Seaforth swept his gaze aloft for a moment while the bewildering roar grew deafening. Nothing that had life in it could scale the horrible smooth walls that hung over them, and through a rift in the vapour he could see a filigree of whitened pines that seemed very far away projected against the blue. They were, he fancied, at least a thousand feet above him, and he and Okanagan alone far down in the dimness of another world with their helpless companion. Then he nerved himself for an effort as he looked forward into the spray and vapour that whirled in denser clouds ahead. Nothing was visible through its filmy folds, but his flesh shrank from the tumult of sound that came out of it.

"Hold her straight," cried Okanagan, in a breathless roar, and Seaforth just heard his voice through the diapason of the river.

Then the canoe lurched beneath them, and sped faster still, plunging, rocking, rolling, while the froth beat into her, and Seaforth whirled his paddle in a frenzy. The shrinking had gone, and he was only conscious of a curious unreasoning exaltation. A pinnacle of rock flashed by them, there was a roar from Tom, and straining every sinew on the paddle they swung, with eyes dilated and laboured breath, sideways towards the wall of stone. Then the froth that leapt about it swept astern, and they were going on again, faster than ever, and apparently down a declivity, the spray beating upon them and the canoe swinging her bows out of a frothing confusion. Seaforth heard a cry behind him, but could attach no meaning to it, and whirled his paddle mechanically, until the craft appeared to lurch out from under him, and fall bodily with a great splashing. Twice, it seemed to him, she swung round a great black pool, and then they were driving forward again a trifle more smoothly, while here and there a stunted pine that clung to the rocks came flitting back to them. He felt Okanagan's paddle in his shoulder, and glanced round a moment. There was a green strip behind them that seemed to roll itself together and fall roaring into the pool, but a wisp of mist that blotted out everything drifted across his eyes.

Seaforth retained no very clear impression of the remainder of that day's journey, but it was late in the afternoon when the walls of rock fell back a little on either hand, and it seemed to him that they lay motionless in the bottom of a great pit while the hills slowly rolled away behind them. Here and there a strip of shingle now divided rock from river, and when presently Okanagan called out, Seaforth felt by the change of motion that he was backing his paddle. Looking forward he saw the cause of it, for there were boulders in the channel, and a great fir lay jammed across them. They were almost upon it when the bows reached the shingle.

Okanagan helped him to carry Alton ashore, and then stood still looking at the fir, which was of a girth seldom seen in any other country.

"She's lying right across, and we've got to chop our way through," he said. "You'll fix the tent and make supper while I take first turn."

He came back dripping presently, and Seaforth was waist-deep in icy water when he reached the tree. The shingle slipped beneath him, the stream frothed about his limbs, and he felt very puny and helpless with that great log before him. His hands were split and opened by the frost, and the wounds bled at every stroke, but while the red glare of the fire Okanagan was feeding with washed-up branches flickered about him he panted and smote, until the power went from him, and his comrade took his place.

It was apparently a task for demigods, but it is no unusual thing for the men who come to grips with nature unsubdued in the frozen North to attempt, and accomplish, more than flesh and blood seem capable of, and all night long they fought their grim battle, hewing until sight and breathing failed them, and then staggering back to lie dripping and gasping by the fire. Arms grew powerless, eyes were dim, the rents in their wet hands gaped, and there was blood upon their deerskins; but little by little the notch widened, until at last the steel splashed in the water that deflected it, and Seaforth fancied they were beaten. Still, there was no relaxing of effort, and as the stars were paling in the rift high overhead he heard a sound that was not the monotone of the river. Another man heard it, too, for Okanagan came floundering towards him through a tumult of foam and wrested the axe from his hand. For five minutes he smote fiercely, and then raised a hoarse, half-articulate cry of triumph.

"She's going."

There was a smashing and snapping. The huge trunk rolled a little, rent, and swept away, and Seaforth reeling shorewards sat down with bleeding hands in the ashes, laughing foolishly, until Okanagan stooped and smote his shoulder.

"Get up," he said. "It's time we were going."

There was not light enough to see by, and they had eaten nothing during all those hours of heroic toil, but Seaforth seemed to realize that the issue lay beyond them now, and it did not matter greatly what they did or failed to do. He was also consumed by a desire to escape from that horrible place of shadow, and striking the tent in clumsy haste they launched the canoe. After that he remembered little, though he had a hazy recollection of stopping somewhere and helping Tom to make a fire, for there was wood in abundance everywhere. Whether he ate anything he did not know, but all day the canoe slid on comparatively smoothly, and they toiled at the paddle until hands and arms seemed to move of their own volition. Seaforth felt that he would gladly have lain down and frozen, but an influence which had apparently nothing to do with his will constrained him to labour on.

At last, when the stars were shining and the moon hung red in a broader strip of sky, the curious sustaining animus seemed to desert him, and he lurched forward with a little gasp, while the paddle almost slipped from his stiffened fingers.

"Hold up," said Okanagan. "Stream's running slow, and the hills are opening there. I'm not sure that we're not close on the Somasco valley."

Seaforth made a last effort, but his fingers lost their grasp, and when he slipped forward again his paddle slid away behind them. Then he groaned a little, and lay still in the bottom of the canoe. The next thing he was clearly conscious of was the ringing of a rifle and he raised himself as the woods flung back the sound. They seemed some distance from him now, and the moon shone down on a broadening strip of water. Again the rifle flashed, and he wondered vacantly whether the twinkle that perplexed his hazy sight could be lights that blinked at them.

"Where have we got to, Tom?" he said.

Okanagan laughed softly. "Tolerably close on Somasco," he said. "I think they've heard us at the mill."

Then as Seaforth listened, a shout came ringing across the glinting space before them that seemed curiously still. "Hold on. We're coming. Is that you and the others, Tom?"

Okanagan laughed again, and the canoe stopped amidst the ice when the paddle fell from his hand.

"It's a good deal less of us than there was when we started out," he said.