Part 2

But he had taken a lead which he meant to keep. He felt reasonably safe from surprise. If he could hold that gait they would never come up on him. And in another day or two he would be near the divide. At the first natural barrier he meant to cache the red canoe and on the ridges he would shake pursuit cleanly from his trail. Without dogs no man could follow him among the high places of the coast range.

So, thinking only of the men following him upstream, reckoning nothing of a possible danger from ahead, Goodrich turned a sharp bend in the river late that evening and blundered squarely upon a camp on the water’s edge. A dugout was drawn up on the gravel. A fire was burning, and a man beside the fire hailed him pleasantly. Goodrich knew he could not go on, he could not withdraw without arousing suspicion. He was very tired. The man couldn’t possibly know he was a fugitive. And the officers were too far behind to matter for that night at least. He returned the man’s hail, and beached his canoe beside the other.

For twenty-four hours he had kept going with only brief intervals to rest and cook food. He had traveled the last six hours on his nerve alone. His body was a worn-out shell. When he sat down beside the fire and took off his boots and hung his wet socks on a limb to dry, he grew drowsy at once. Every fiber of his body was slackening, crying aloud for rest. The strain of long-continued exertion had started an intermittent cough.

The man had a pot of tea brewed. There was fried venison and potatoes in a pan, bread--the staples of woods travel.

“Dig in,” he invited. “I just ate. No use you bothering about grub outa your own pack.”

“Thanks,” Goodrich accepted. “I feel sort of all in, all at once. Tough going.”

The other man talked a little. Goodrich learned that he was a trapper, going into a region he had trapped before. Goodrich knew that he ought to account for his own presence. No man bore so far up those lonely valleys without definite object. But he was too tired to care. And the man asked no questions, betrayed no curiosity whatever.

“I had an idea nobody trapped this far up,” Goodrich said at length, feeling that he must say something. “I figured on looking over the ground myself.”

The other grinned.

“There’s oceans of room,” he replied. “I kinda wish some good, square guy would run a line up here. It gets pretty lonesome before spring. I stick it out because it pays, not because I like the hermit life so well.”

Goodrich coughed behind his hand. He didn’t want to talk. He rose stiffly, sore in every muscle. It was pitch-dark now.

“I’m going to turn in,” he said briefly.

He gathered stuff for his bed, spread his blankets, laid the silk tent over these to fend off the dew. His eyes closed in sleep while the other man still sat humped beside the heap of glowing coals in an attitude of profound reflection. There was nothing uncommon about that. It is a woodsman’s habit.

Well toward morning Goodrich awoke, alert, refreshed, very much alive to his situation. He hadn’t reckoned on running into anybody. He had not meant to be seen by a soul in the valley of the Toba. But he had grown tired and less watchful and so blundered into this man’s camp. He lay now thinking upon his next move. The constables would come up with this man. They would learn positively that Goodrich was bearing upstream, so many hours ahead of them. They would hunt him as they would hunt any predatory animal. If there had been a doubt of his presence on Toba headwaters this hunt might soon have grown perfunctory. But coming upon this trapper they would know.

He couldn’t turn back now. He could, of course, lie up in the brush, and when the officers passed double back downstream. But he was aware of an increasing double risk in returning to the coast. He would have to dodge furtively to avoid recognition. And another sea level winter would kill him as surely as a jail. High in the hills, among dry snows, breathing dry sun-washed air, that sore spot in his lung would heal. He could win health and keep his freedom on the summit of the coast range.

A picture leaped up before his eyes with such vividness as to make him catch his breath. A gray mule, a black Stetson, and a .30-.30! He paralleled that with a red canoe, a 303 Savage, a black and green Mackinaw coat. On the beach lay a black Siwash dugout of cedar. The other man’s rifle stood within reaching distance. The man’s clothing lay beside his bed. The man himself slept soundly.

Bill Goodrich lay debating with himself. It seemed a rotten thing to do. Yet the man would suffer nothing beyond inconvenience. The officers would take him out. By the time he had established his identity Goodrich would be far in the depths of those grim mountains, his trail lost for good. With a week’s grace a hundred men could not locate him in that wild jumble of peaks and cañons.

Goodrich decided. He rose softly, took first of all the two rifles so that if the man did wake he would be safely disarmed. Then Bill packed his bedding. Moving stealthily he transferred his stuff to the dugout. Last of all, he crept furtively near the bed to exchange clothing. He brought with him his own rifle to set against the tree.

As he came near the foot of the bed he became aware of the man’s eyes, wide open, alert, fixed on him.

“What’s the idea?” the man asked casually.

“I’m pulling out,” Goodrich answered.

“With all my stuff? I guess not,” the other’s voice sharpened. “Don’t move. I got you covered with a .45.”

He sat up, baring the blue-barreled Colt. With his left hand he fumbled about and struck a match and took a steady look at Bill Goodrich.

“I don’t aim to rob you,” Goodrich said quietly, at last. “All I want is your canoe and rifle and your Mackinaw. I’m leaving you my own things. They’re better than yours. That ain’t robbery.”

The man struck another match. His eyes narrowed in scrutiny. He smiled suddenly, broadly, at last.

“Lay down the rifle,” he ordered.

Goodrich obeyed. The man let his revolver rest on the blankets. The match in his fingers burned out. The pale gleam of the moon through a tangle of boughs showed them dimly to each other.

“Let’s get down to cases,” he said. “What kind of jack pot have you got into?”

“I killed a man on Cortez Island a few days back,” Goodrich answered quietly. “There’s two officers about twelve hours behind me on the river. I figure I was justified. I don’t intend to be taken. I’ve got a bad lung--a touch of T. B. A month or two in jail would probably set me back so I’d never shake it off--even if I come clear on trial. I don’t like jails nohow. Life’s too short for me to lay in one. That’s all.”

“H’m,” the man grunted. “So you were going to swap outfits with me. I was to be the fall guy for these constables, eh? They’d grab me and turn back? Was that it?”

“Something like that,” Goodrich admitted.

“That’s a mean hole to put a man in,” the other commented. “What give you the idea?”

“A fellow did it to me once down in California,” Goodrich answered dispassionately. “It didn’t hurt me much, though I was pretty sore at the time. Spoiled a hunt in the Monterey hills was about all. These fellows don’t know me by sight. While they were taking you out and you were getting identified, I’d make my get-away clean.”

“Suppose I take you in myself,” the man observed suggestively. “According to your own account you’ve killed a man. You were going to put me in a nasty position. I might have got gay with these constables not knowing what I was up against, and got shot all to pieces myself. I don’t know but I ought to take you in myself.”

“You won’t,” Goodrich answered soberly. He meant this. There was no doubt in his mind; only a grim determination. “There’s times in a man’s life when he has to do something desperate. I didn’t shoot this fellow because I wanted to. I had to. I don’t propose to be penalized for it. No, you nor nobody else will take me in. At least, not alive.”

The man laughed softly.

“No,” he said, “I have no idea of even trying to take you in, either dead or alive. Look here, I’ll take a sporting chance on you. Go ahead. Take any part of my outfit you need. Leave me yours. I’ll go through with the play. You’ll get a week’s start. I don’t know as it’ll do me any harm. I kinda like the notion of helping a man out of a jack pot.”

“You mean it?” Goodrich asked, dumfounded at this turn.

“Sure, I mean it!”

Goodrich could see the man grinning as if the idea tickled his fancy. He dropped the six-shooter and began to roll a cigarette. Goodrich sighed relief.

“Well, I don’t know why you should,” Bill said. “But it’s darned white of you. I guess I’ll take you at your word and drift before you change your mind.”

There wasn’t much more to do. The man flung Bill Goodrich a cartridge belt to go with his rifle. Goodrich took the other’s gray Mackinaw.

When he had finished these simple preparations the man had got on his boots. He walked down to the canoe with Bill.

“Look here,” he said. “About twenty miles above here you’ll strike the head of canoe navigation--a sixty-foot falls. Three hundred yards above that a creek makes in from the nor’west. You go up that creek a half mile and you come to a big slide. Climb the hill to the east, and in the timber on the first bench you’ll strike a blazed line. Follow that till it runs out. That’ll be a matter of fifteen miles. When you pass the last blaze you’ll come out on an open fern sidehill. On the opposite side of the creek you’ll spot another big slide. You cross the creek, go up on the north side of the slide till you strike a narrow bench about five hundred feet above the stream. When you get on the bench face north and you’ll see a big bald mountain away off. There’s two sharp knobs on this mountain and a glacier between. Head straight halfway between the two knobs and keep going along the bench. You’ll come on a cabin inside of half a mile if you hold a straight line. There’s plenty of grub there. Nobody but me knows that cabin’s there. I got another one farther up the divide. The air’s like old port wine up there of a winter morning. Be good for that bad lung of yours.”

He hesitated a moment.

“You can stay at the first cabin till I come,” he said. “Unless you got a better plan; unless you aim to hit the long trail by your lonesome. They ain’t a ghost of a chance anybody will come in there after the first snowfall.”

“I’ll be there,” Goodrich said unhesitatingly.

“All right,” the man nodded. “Can you remember what I told you about the way?”

“I got a picture of it in my mind,” Goodrich declared.

“If you’re a woodsman you’ll find it, I guess,” the other said. “It’s going to be daylight soon. Better beat it. Good luck.”

He thrust out his hand. The hearty pressure of his grip conveyed to Bill Goodrich a great deal more than words could have done. Goodrich was almost gay as he drove the cedar dugout up the narrowing river, and the rising sun flooded the closing valley with warmth and light. He didn’t quite fathom the man’s readiness to shoulder a dubious load. But it showed that his heart was in the right place, Bill Goodrich said to himself. He was a little puzzled, too, by the quickness with which the man had grasped the situation. But it was a generous impulse for which Goodrich was deeply grateful.

He reached the big falls in time, hauled the dugout far into a deep thicket. Then he took a pack and bore on till he found the smaller creek and ultimately the blazed line. He had some difficulty locating the cabin, even though each mark stood in his mind’s eye like a beacon. But he found it eventually. And when he stood under its roof and slipped the pack from his shoulders it was like getting home.

The law would never come at him there. He was high in one of the ruggedest sections of the coast range. He could win back his health, grow a beard and mustache. When he went out among men again, with time to dim their recollection, no one would know him. A man could live in the hills a long time, if he were at home there.

He recalled Simon Gun-a-noot. Simon had been accused of killing a man. And Simon was a Northern Indian who feared the white man’s legal processes. So Simon had taken to the mountains and stayed there. For thirteen years the constable had hunted Simon Gun-a-noot. The chase cost the province thirty thousand dollars. And Simon had hunted and trapped in the highest and loneliest ranges until he learned that he was sure of acquittal if he gave himself up. The case of Simon Gun-a-noot comforted Bill Goodrich. He, himself, did not mean to be caught. He was no criminal. He felt no prickings of conscience. What he had done he had to do. There had been no way out of that clash save the way he had taken.

The cabin was roomy, built of heavy logs, roofed with split cedar shakes, tight, dry, and warm, with a rough fireplace at one end in lieu of a stove. The door was heavy, hand-hewed planks, oddly fitted with a heavy bar to be set in place from within. It stood on a narrow bench with a small spring bubbling out of a cliff that rose sheer behind. The front view commanded every possible approach. And it was very hard to find. To Bill Goodrich it seemed made to order for security. One man could hold that place against a dozen, if occasion arose.

So after he had made another trip down to the falls in Toba River and packed in the last of the supplies, he spent his days pleasantly learning the lay of the country for miles around. He shot a deer for meat. He watched bear feeding on the slides. The creek below was full of small trout. There was abundance of small fur sign. Goodrich was not lonely, but as the days passed he began to grow anxious for a sight of the man who had made this oasis of peace accessible to him.

He stood in the doorway of the cabin one evening at sunset. In the hush that shrouded those rugged solitudes a stick cracked sharply on the slope that rose steeply from the creek. Goodrich listened intently. At rare intervals he caught faintly the sound of something moving up toward the bench. He stepped back within the shadow of the door to watch, his rifle handy. Presently a head, and then a pair of shoulders, burdened by a pack sack, lifted to view. It was his man. He came up to the door, looked in.

“Hello, old-timer,” he greeted Goodrich. “I see you made it all right.”

He backed up to the table and Bill helped him slide out of the pack straps. They shook hands. The man wiped his sweaty face.

“I see you got some meat hung up,” he remarked. “Say, I could chew the leg off a deer raw, right now.”

“Sit down. I’ll get you some supper,” Goodrich directed.

When he had two big venison steaks sizzling over the fire, and a pot of water slung on the hook to boil, he asked:

“How’d you come out with them?”

The man laughed.

“All right. I told ’em who I was, but naturally they didn’t swallow it. They took me clear to Vancouver. I got identified there easy enough.”

“How’d you account for the red canoe and things?” Goodrich asked.

“I didn’t,” the other replied. “There ain’t no law against anybody having a red Peterboro, nor a 303 Savage, nor a black and green Mackinaw. I just stood pat about them things--like you did about the gray mule and the black Stetson that time in the Monterey hills.”

Bill Goodrich stared in sheer amazement.

“Was _that_ why you took it up so quick?”

“Sure,” the other man grinned. “I had a good look at you that night in the pines. I read the papers while I was making my get-away. I could easily see that you had stood pat on what happened that night. I thought you were just trying to get away with my outfit down there on the river until you told me what you were up against. It was easy for me to put myself in your place, seeing I’d been through the same mill myself. And--darn it all, Bill Goodrich, one good turn deserves another.”

What Bill Goodrich answered to that is neither here nor there. But it is a matter of record that he has never been brought to trial for that Cortez Island shooting.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the June 20, 1920 issue of The Popular Magazine.]