Part 8

In a grove of pines beside the trail Jack swung his axe, and the blows rang. His design was to make a flagstaff for the centre of the camp. There was an immense satisfaction in stretching his muscles and planting the blade true. The blood coursed through his veins, and he tingled to his finger-tips. He felt so much better that he thought he had solved his problems. This was what Jack called "thinking things out."

He was engaged in chopping the limbs from a trunk with the stern air of concentration that was characteristic of him, when something caused him to look up, and he saw Linda standing near with an appealing aspect. He frowned and went on chopping. Linda sat down on a stump and looked away with an unsuccessful attempt at unconcern. How astonished Vassall or Baldwin Ferrie would have been could they have seen their imperious little mistress then.

There was a long silence except for the light strokes of Jack's axe as he worked his way up the stem. Jack enjoyed a great advantage because he was busy. It was Linda who was finally obliged to speak.

"Haven't you anything to say?" she murmured.

"No," said Jack promptly. The light branches did not offer him a sufficient outlet for his pent-up feelings, and he wantonly attacked the bole of the biggest tree in sight. Linda watched the swing of his lithe body with a sort of stricken look. There was another silence between them.

"Jack, I'm sorry," she said at last in a small voice.

Jack was not so easily to be appeased. "You shouldn't come away from camp alone with me like this," he said. "Followed me," was what he had in mind, but he spared her pride that.

"I don't care what anybody thinks," she said quickly.

"I do," said Jack.

"Afraid of being compromised?" she asked with a little sneer.

"That's a silly thing to say," he answered coolly. "You know what I mean. I don't intend to give your father and the other men a chance to throw 'thief' in my teeth. When I've cleared myself I'll walk with you openly."

"I was sorry," she said like a child. "I couldn't rest until I had told you."

Jack was silent and uncomfortable. Whenever she sounded the pathetic and childlike note, the male in him must needs feel the pull of compassion and he resented it.

"Don't you care for me any more?" she murmured.

Jack frowned, and aimed a tremendous blow at the tree.

Real terror crept into her voice. "Jack," she faltered.

"I don't take anything back," he said stubbornly. "I'll tell you when I feel like telling you, but I won't have it dragged out of me."

He returned to his tree, and she prodded the pine needles with the toe of her boot. After a while she returned to the charge.

More like a child than ever, she said: "Jack, I acted like a little beast. But I said I was sorry."

"That's all very well," said Jack, "but you can't expect to make me so mad I can't see straight, and then have it all right again just for the asking."

"You're ungenerous," she said, pouting.

"I don't know what you mean," he said obstinately. "I have to be what I am."

There was another silence. They were just where they had started. Indeed no progress was possible without an explosion and a general flare-up. It was Jack who brought it on by saying:

"It's not to me you should be saying you're sorry."

Linda sprang up pale and trembling, and the flood gates of invective were opened. It is no advantage to a jealous woman to be a governor's daughter. Linda in a passion lacked dignity. Her small face worked like a child's preparing to bawl, and her gestures were febrile. What is said at such moments is seldom worth repeating. Jack did not hear the words; it was her tone that stung him beyond endurance. But at last a sentence reached his understanding.

"How dare you bring her here, and install her under my eyes?"

"Bring her here? What do you mean?" he demanded in a voice that forced her to attend.

"Oh, you know very well what I mean!" she cried. "You knew she was coming this morning. I saw it in your face. You didn't even pretend that you were surprised. And you took her part against me all the way through."

There was enough truth in this to make Jack furiously angry in turn. His voice silenced hers.

"I did take her part!" he cried. "And I'd do it again. What have you got to complain of? Just like a girl to fly into a rage and blame everybody all around, just to cover her own tracks! What did you mean by offering to engage her as your maid? You don't want a maid. You only did it to insult her! I was ashamed of you. Everybody was ashamed of you. If you're suffering for it now, it's no more than you ought."

Under all this and more she sat with an odd, still look from which one would almost have said she enjoyed having him abuse her.

And so they both emptied themselves of angry speech, and the inevitable moment of reaction followed. Both Linda and Jack began to feel that they had said too much.

"I'm sorry," she said humbly. "It's true, I was only jealous of her, because you seemed so glad to see her."

"If it's any good to you to hear it," said Jack sheepishly, "she's nothing to me--that way." Even as he said it his heart accused him.

"Besides," said Linda irrelevantly, "she's mad about you."

"That's nonsense!" said Jack. Nevertheless he quickly turned to pick up his axe in order to hide the telltale red that crept into his face.

"It's all right now, isn't it?" said Linda coaxingly. "Come and kiss me."

He obediently went, and, stooping, kissed her upturned lips. But for both of them the delicious sweetness had flown. Jack could not forget how ugly her face had looked in a passion, and Linda remembered how he had worked for Mary.

"You didn't do it like that last night," she said, pouting.

"I felt differently last night," said Jack doggedly. "How can I get up any enthusiasm when you make me do it?"

Her breast began to heave again. "You said you had forgiven me," she said.

"Oh, don't let's begin that again," said Jack with a dismayed look. "I haven't anything to forgive you. If you want to make things really all right, you can do it in a minute!"

She sprang up again. "I won't! I won't!" she cried passionately. "It's her coming that has made the difference since last night! How dare you suggest that I apologize to her! I'd die rather! I hate you! Don't ever speak to me again!"

Of a sudden she was gone like a little tempest among the trees. Jack sat down on the trunk he had cut, and rested his chin in his palms, terribly troubled in his mind. This sort of thing was new to him, and it seemed of much greater moment than it was.

Pretty soon she came flying back again, and casting herself in his arms, clung to him like a baby, weeping and whimpering.

"Take care of me, Jack! I don't know what I'm doing or saying!"

His arms closed about her, and he patted her shoulder with an absurd, sheepish, paternal air of concern. What else could he do? "There, it's all right!" he said clumsily. "Don't distress yourself. It'll be all right!"

"And you won't make me apologize to her?" she implored.

"No," he said with a shrug. "I don't suppose it would do any good if you did."

Linda lay perfectly still. A sense of sweet satisfaction stole into her breast. It had been a hard fight, but she _had_ made him do what she wanted.

"Hanged if I know what's going to become of us," thought Jack gloomily.

IX

YELLOW METAL

The fiction that coal was the objective of Sir Bryson Trangmar's expedition was scarcely maintained; indeed, once they got away from Fort Cheever the word was never heard again. On the other hand, a little word that resembled it circulated continually with a thrilling intonation. Stories of gold and gold-hunters were told over the fires in English and Cree. Baldwin Ferrie, the geologist, kept the subject agitated by cracking every likely looking stone he came to with his little hammer, and by studying the composition of the mountain tops all day with his powerful glasses.

We are told that the essence of comedy lies in the exposure of pretentiousness. That being so, the comic spirit is highly developed up North. In town pretentiousness is largely a matter of give and take; we are all pretending to something, and we are obliged to seem to allow the pretences of our neighbours in order to get them to allow ours. But up North they are beholden to no man, and, sardonic jesters that they are, they lie in wait for pretentiousness. Woe to the man who goes up North and "puts on side."

One like Sir Bryson was therefore bound to be considered fair game. His official position was no protection to him. There is a story current about a governor-general, and another about an actual prince of the blood, who did not escape. All of which is to say that Jack, notwithstanding his perplexities in other directions, was looking forward with keen relish to the return of Sir Bryson's "exploring-party." He only regretted that there was none at hand but Humpy Jull with whom to share the joke.

They landed toward the end of the day, Sir Bryson and Baldwin Ferrie looking very glum. Jack was sent for. He found Sir Bryson alone at his table, looking more than usually important and puffy.

"Do you know two men called Beckford and Rowe?" he asked.

Jack adopted an innocent-respectful line. "Yes, sir," he said. "They were working in the pass here at the same time I was."

"Are you, or have you ever been, associated with them?"

Jack shook his head. "I'm on my own," he said. "Always."

"What kind of a reputation do these men bear?" asked Sir Bryson.

"Bad," said Jack.

Sir Bryson frowned, and squeezed his pointed beard. "How, bad?" he wanted to know.

"Confidence men. They were square enough up here. They had to be. They saved their game to work outside."

"How do you know all this?" demanded Sir Bryson.

"It's no secret," said Jack. "Beckford bragged about what he'd do."

"And did no one take any steps to stop them?"

"It was none of our business," said Jack. "And if it had been we couldn't very well follow them all over, and warn people off, could we?"

Sir Bryson snorted. "Where have they staked out claims?" he demanded.

"Oh, all over," said Jack. "Anything good they keep dark, of course."

"Did you ever hear of Dexter's Creek?"

Jack bit his lip. "Oh, yes," he said with an innocent stare. "Those were what they called their sucker claims."

Sir Bryson swelled like a turkey-cock, and turned an alarming colour, but he said nothing. What could he say?

Your Northern humourist is merciless. Jack was not nearly through with him. He went on full of solicitude: "I hope you didn't fall for anything on Dexter Creek, Sir Bryson. If you'd only mentioned it before, I could have warned you, and saved all this trip!"

"I have nothing to do with Dexter's Creek," said Sir Bryson quickly. "I have other objects. I merely promised the attorney-general of the province to do a little detective work for him."

Jack could appreciate quick wits in a victim. "Well turned," he thought, and waited for Sir Bryson's next lead.

"Well, well," said the little man testily. "Explain what you mean by--by this vulgar expression."

"Sucker claims?" said Jack wickedly. It really pained him that there was no one by to benefit by this.

"You needn't repeat the word," snapped Sir Bryson. "It is offensive to me."

"It's this way," said Jack: "Most of the prospectors in the country are staked by bankers and business men outside. And when they at last make a strike, after years of failure, maybe, their backers generally step in and grab the lion's share. Consequently the men up here are sore on the city fellows; they have none of the hardships or the work they say; they just sit back comfortably and wait for the profits.

"Beckford said that he and his partner had been done a couple of times in this way, and they were out to get square with the bankers. When they found anything good they kept it dark, and went outside and sold some fake claims to raise the coin to work the good ones. Beckford said it was just as easy to sell fake claims as good ones, if you went about it right.

"I said," Jack went on, "they'll set the police after you. Beckford said: 'They can't. We don't make any misrepresentations. We're too smart. We make a mystery of it, and the sucker gets excited, and swallows it whole. We do the innocent game,' he said; 'we're the simple, horny-handed sons of soil from the North that ain't on to city ways. We make 'em think they're putting it all over us, and we sell out cheap. Two of us can work it fine!"

"I said," Jack continued, "'I don't see how you can get anybody to shell out real money unless you offer to come back and show them the place.' 'We always do offer to come back,' Beckford said, 'and we get all ready to come. But at the last moment one of us is took real sick, and the other refuses to leave his dyin' pardner. By that time the come-on is so worked up he comes across anyway!'"

During this recital Sir Bryson's face was a study. A kind of shamed chagrin restrained him from a violent explosion. Jack "had" him, as Jack would have said. The little beard was in danger of being plucked out bodily.

"You can go now," he said in an apoplectic voice.

"There was one thing more," Jack said at the door. "Beckford said that if you picked your man right there was no danger of a prosecution. 'Choose one of these guys that sets an awful store on his respectability,' he said, 'and he'll never blow on himself.'"

A deeper tinge of purple crept into Sir Bryson's puffing cheeks.

Jack lingered for a parting shot. "Any man who did get let in for such a game," he said with a great air of innocence, "hardly deserves any sympathy, does he, Sir Bryson?"

Sir Bryson was now beyond speech. He got to his feet; he pulled at his collar for more air, and he pointed mutely to the door.

Jack embraced Humpy Jull by the fire, and moaned incoherently. No amount of laughter could ease his breast of the weight of mirth that oppressed it. Never was such a joke known in the North.

During the rest of the evening Jack was in momentary expectation of an order to break camp and turn back, but none came. On the contrary, Humpy reported, from the scraps of conversation he had overheard at the dinner-table, that Sir Bryson, being convinced there was gold somewhere in the pass, was determined, with Baldwin Ferrie's assistance to do a little hunting on his own account. Jack smiled indulgently at the news. It was not long, however, before he had to change his superior attitude.

Early on the following morning he was fishing in the backwater below camp, while Baldwin Ferrie sat on a projecting point of the bank above, patiently searching the mountainsides with his glasses.

"I say," Ferrie suddenly called out, "how far is that peak over there, the pointed one?'

"About nine miles in a line from here," said Jack. "Fifteen, up the river and in."

"What's it called?"

"Tetrahedron," said Jack. "A surveyor named it."

"Do you know it at all?" asked Ferrie.

"Pretty well," said Jack, off-hand.

"The slope on this side," asked the geologist, "I suppose there is a stream that drains it? Could you take us to it?"

Jack looked at him hard, and reeled in his line before he answered. "There is a little stream," he said, approaching Ferrie. "It has no name. It empties into Seven-Mile Creek above here. Anybody could find it. Why do you ask?"

Ferrie was an amiable soul, and not at all secretive, like his master. He went into a detailed explanation of the geological formation of Tetrahedron peak. "You see, it's different from the others," he said, offering Jack the glasses. "There's a good chance of finding free gold in the bed of the creek that drains the slope on this side."

Jack whistled in his mind, as one might say, and looked with a new respect at Baldwin Ferrie and his field glasses. For it was on that very little stream he had washed his gold, and there his claims were situated. It had taken him months of strenuous labour to find what the geologist had stumbled on in half an hour sitting still.

Baldwin Ferrie toddled off to report to his master, and Jack sat down to do some quick thinking. This discovery came of the nature of a thunderclap. The possibility of their finding his claims had occurred to him, but he had counted at least on having time to prepare against it, and here it was only the third day. Jack had made sure of the choicest claim on Tetrahedron Creek for himself, and that, of course, they could not touch. But the two adjoining claims, practically as rich, were still vacant, and Jack meant to have at least the bestowal of those himself.

Sir Bryson presently ordered Jean Paul to get the dugout ready for another all-day trip. In excluding Jack from any share in the preparations he saved that young man from an embarrassing position, for had he been officially informed of the destination of the river party, Jack would have had to make explanations on the spot.

As it was, even before Sir Bryson was ready, he became busy on his own account. Finding Davy, he said: "Catch two horses, and saddle them for you and Mary. You've got to do something for me, and for her to-day. There's not a minute to lose. While you're saddling up, I'll explain everything to Mary."

Davy, who would have gone through Hell's Opening itself at Jack's command, raced away to find the horses.

Mary was at the door of her tent sewing. At the sound of Jack's step she lifted her quiet eyes. There was something in the uplift of Mary's eyes that stirred Jack queerly, seeing that he was as good as engaged to another girl, but he put that aside for the present.

Before he could speak she asked quickly: "What's the matter?"

He sat beside her on the ground. "Something doing," he said, "something big! Listen hard, and don't give it away in your face. Go on sewing as if I was just passing the time of day."

"I'm listening," she said quietly.

"You know I told you I'd been prospecting," Jack began. "Well, I made a rich strike on the little creek that comes down from Tetrahedron peak. I staked my claim there, and two claims adjoining mine for whoever I might want to go in with me on it. The names and dates aren't entered on the two stakes yet, and of course if these people find them they have a right to enter their own names. Baldwin Ferrie has doped it out that there's gold on that creek, and that's where they're off to now. You and Davy must get there first."

"But how can we?" she said. "They're starting."

"It will take them three hours to make the mouth of Seven-Mile Creek against the current," he said. "You can ride it in one. Davy is getting the horses. If you can get yourselves across the river before they come up, the claims are saved."

Mary went on with her quick, even stitches without a break. "Tell me exactly how to go," she said.

"Six miles west by the Fort Erskine trail, and then down to the river. You leave the trail where it turns to the north, under three big pines that stand by the themselves on the bench. Look sharp and you will find a trail that I blazed down to the river. At the end of it I left a little raft for crossing back and forth. If it has been washed down you'll have to knock another one together. Cross the river, and land at the lower side of Seven-Mile Creek. You'll find my landing-place there, and a good trail back to the little creek, and my old camp. The first square post is a hundred feet upstream from the campfire. You can't miss it. Keep on going until you come to the second post, and the third one."

"What must we do when we find the posts?" she asked.

"Read the notice on the first one, and that will show you. It reads: 'I, Malcolm Piers, hereby give notice of my intention to file a claim,' and so forth. And signed and dated at the bottom. The inscriptions are all written on the other two. All you have to do is to fill in your name on the second one, 'I, Mary Cranston,' and so on, and on the third post Davy writes, 'David Cranston, Junior.'"

Mary stopped sewing. "My name," she said, "and Davy's?"

"The second claim is yours in your own right," said Jack. Seeing her expression, he hastily added: "It was a deal that I made with your father before we started. As to the other, Davy can sign that back to me."

"So will I sign mine," said Mary quickly. "I couldn't take it."

"We can argue that out when you come back," said Jack. "There's not a minute to lose. Davy's got the horses. Make sure you have a lead pencil to write on the posts. After you've signed them get back without running into the governor's party if you can. I don't want the storm to break until I am there to receive it."

Ten minutes after Sir Bryson with Baldwin Ferrie and three Indians, had pushed off from the bank, Mary and Davy Cranston sauntered inconspicuously away from camp, and, mounting their horses outside, set off at a dead run west on the Fort Erskine trail.

X

A CRUMBLING BRAIN

Jack set about to fill his anxious day as full as possible with small tasks. Along the shore toward the mouth of the canyon he found another dugout sticking out from among the bushes, and he pulled it out to put it in repair in case a second boat should be required. It needed new cross-pieces to hold the sides from spreading.

While he was seated on a boulder whittling his little braces out of snowy poplar, Garrod came shambling over the stones toward him. Jack, seeing the high-powered rifle he carried, turned a little grim, and while apparently going on with his work, watched the other man narrowly. His ideas covering Garrod had taken a new direction since he had talked with Mary.

Garrod came slowly, pausing, starting jerkily, fluctuating from side to side. When he thought Jack's eyes were upon him he turned his back like a child, and made believe to look off up the river. His eyes were blank and lustreless, but close-hid under the thickened lids glimmered a mean furtive sentence. There was no striking change in him; the canvas suit was still in fair condition; he shaved every morning from force of habit; and when he was spoken to he could still answer with sufficient intelligence. But any one experienced in diseased mental states would have recognized at once that this man was in no condition to be trusted at large with a gun.

Among the members of Sir Bryson's party there existed an entire absence of formality together with an entire absence of intimacy. They were not curious about each other, consequently Garrod's state excited no remark. True, Mrs. Worsley wondered a little, but she had always felt an antipathy to Garrod; as for the others, they merely said, "Queerer than ever," and dismissed him with a shrug.

Jack, watching the wavering figure approaching him now, thought of the reckless, hawk-eyed youth of five years before, and was made thoughtful by the change. "Gad! Life has had him on the toaster," he thought.

When Garrod came close enough to be heard he stammered, avoiding Jack's eyes: "I--I want to talk to you, Malcolm."

"Put down the gun," said Jack coolly. "Out of reach."

Garrod immediately laid it on the stones. "You don't think that I----" he mumbled.

"I don't think anything," said Jack, "but I'm taking no chances."

Garrod's eyes strayed everywhere, and his voice maundered. "I suppose you think I'm an utter cur. I know it looks bad. But not that---- Maybe you think that I--your horse--on the cliff----"

"I'm not accusing you," said Jack.

Garrod sat down near him. "I--want to talk to you," he said, forgetting that he had said it before.

"All that you and I have to say to each other can be put in one question and answer," said Jack. "Are you going to square me?"

"I--I'd like to," stammered Garrod.