Chapter 20

THE FIRES WHICH PURIFY

The camp fire which the two men had seen had not been that of Ygerne and her companions. Upon the afternoon of the second day Drennen and Sothern, still working northward along the chain of lakes, came to unmistakable signs of a fresh trail, made by two men, turning in from the westward. In the wet sand of a rivulet were the tracks. One was of an unusually large boot, the other of a smaller boot with a higher heel that had sunk deep.

"Kootanie George and Lieutenant Max, I think," announced Drennen. "It's a fair bet, since they're both somewhere in the neighbourhood and may well enough be travelling together. They've gone on ahead. . . ."

They travelled late that afternoon, Drennen setting a hard pace, seemingly forgetful of the man who followed. Drennen's eyes had grown bright as with fever; for the first time he showed a hint of excitement through the stern mask of his face. He felt strangely assured that he had come close to the end of a long trail. But that was not the thought which caused his excitement. It was the fear that perhaps Kootanie George and Max might first come up with the quarry.

Signs of fatigue showed upon Marshall Sothern an hour before they made camp. Drennen sought and failed to hide the restlessness upon him. The next morning, a full hour before the customary time for making the start for the day, Drennen had thrown the half diamond hitch which bespoke readiness. They reached Lake Nopong before noon and all day fought their way northward along its shore. Before night came they had heard a rifle shot perhaps a mile further on. A rifle shot might mean anything. No doubt it merely told of a shot at a chance deer. But Drennen's anxiety, already marked, grew greater.

Drennen left their camp fire when they had made their evening meal and climbed the little cliffs standing at the skirt of the strip of valley land east of Lake Nopong. Half an hour later he came back. Sothern, removing his pipe from his mouth, looked up expectantly.

"I think I can make out their camp fire," Drennen said, speaking slowly. "I imagine an hour would bring us up with them."

Sothern knocked out his pipe and got to his feet. Tightening the pack upon his mule's back he removed the rifle which had always ridden there and carried it in his hand. Drennen's own rifle remained on his pack; he did not seem to have noticed Sothern's act.

Two hours later, sending before them an announcement of their approach in a rattle of loose stones down a steep trail, they came up with the two men whom they had followed these last few days. They were Lieutenant Max and the big Canadian and the two were not alone. Drennen, walking a little ahead of his father, came to a dead halt, his body grown suddenly rigid. He had seen that there was a second camp fire, a tiny blaze of dry fagots not twenty steps from the first but partially screened by the undergrowth among the trees, and that the slender form of a woman bent over it. His pause was only momentary; when he came on his face gave no sign of the emotion that had been riding him nor of the old disappointment again as he saw that the woman was not Ygerne but Ernestine Dumont.

Lieutenant Max, a rifle across the hollow of his arm, stepped out to meet them. Not knowing who his guests were he moved so that the firelight was no longer just behind him, so that he was in the shadows. Kootanie George, upon his knees, holding a bit of fresh meat out over the fire upon a green, sharpened stick, turned his head but did not move his great body.

"Who is it?" demanded Max sharply. And then, before an answer had come, he saw who they were and cried out: "Why, it's David Drennen! And Mr. Sothern! Gad, I never thought to see you two here!"

He came forward and shook hands warmly, showing an especial pleasure in meeting Marshall Sothern again. The eyes of both men kindled as they gripped hands, in Sothern's a look of affection, in Max's an expression compounded of liking and respect.

Max had finished his meal; George, his appetite in keeping with his size, was doing his last bit of cooking; Ernestine, bending over her own lonely blaze, was seeking to warm a body which the fresh evening had chilled, a body which looked thinner and withal more girlish than it had looked for many a day. The face which she turned toward the new arrivals with faint curiosity, was paler than it had been of yore; her eyes seemed larger; there were traces of suffering which she had not sought to hide.

Lieutenant Max was unmistakably glad to welcome Drennen and Sothern to camp. The atmosphere hovering about the trio upon whom father and son had come was not to be mistaken even in the half gloom. There was nothing in common between the officer and the big Canadian beyond their present community of interest in coming up with the fugitives whom the law sought through Max and revenge quested through Kootanie. And Ernestine, though with them, was distinctly not of them. She was pitifully aloof, the broad expanse of George's back turned toward her fire speaking eloquently.

"You are on a hunting trip, I take it?" offered Max as they sat down, each man having brought out and lighted his pipe. "Just pleasure of course? There's no gold in here, you know," he ended with a laugh.

Sothern turned his eyes toward Drennen and brought them back to the fire without answering. Max's eyes upon him Drennen spoke simply.

"A hunting trip, yes. Hunting the same game you are after."

Ernestine looked up quickly, her hands clenching spasmodically. George turned his meat, spat into the coals, and sought for salt.

"Mr. Drennen," said the lieutenant coldly, "it's just as well to understand each other right now. I represent the law here; the law at so early a stage as this considers no personal equation. A private quarrel must stand aside. I know what you mean; you know what I mean."

"Lieutenant," answered Drennen gravely, "the law is not yet full grown in the North Woods. Here a man steps aside for nothing. Yes, as you say, I think we understand each other."

"By God!" cried Max angrily, "I know what is in your heart, yours and George's here! It's murder; that's the name for it! And I tell you that you are going to keep your hands off! When we find these people they are my prisoners, it's my sworn duty to lead them back to a place where they can stand trial, and I am going to take them. Remember that."

Drennen, having spoken all that he could have said if he talked all night long, made no answer. Ernestine, her two hands at her breast, crouched rocking back and forth, in a sort of silent agony. George, eating swiftly and noisily, did not look up.

In an instant the old atmosphere which had hovered over the camp came back, electrically charged with distrust, constraint, aloofness. Sothern's heavy brows were drawn low, the firelight showing deep, black shadows in the furrows of his forehead. In a moment he got to his feet and went to where Ernestine sat, his hat in his hand, kind words of greeting upon his lips for a lonely woman. She grew suddenly sullen; in a moment the sullen mood melted in a burst of tears, and she was talking with him incoherently.

George and Drennen had not met to speak since that night, long ago, when they had diced and fought at Père Marquette's. Now neither gave the least sign that he had seen the other.

* * * * * *

When one, life ended, goes down into the grave that grass may grow above him and men walk over his quiet body, are the doors of his hell swinging open that he may enter, or are they softly closing behind him? Are the fires of hell venomous tongues that bite deep to punish with their torture when it is too late? or are they flames which cleanse and chasten while there is yet time? Ernestine Dumont, like many another, had lighted the fires with her own hands, seeing and understanding what it was that she did. For close to two years she had walked through the flames of her own kindling. And now, not waiting for the tardy retribution which comes all too late, she was already passing through the burning fires; she was closer than she knew to having the iron portals clang behind her, gently and forever. After labour comes rest; after suffering, peace.

Drennen had said, "There is no law here in the North Woods that a man may not push aside." He was thinking of such law as Lieutenant Max represented. Had he looked into his own heart; could he have looked into the hearts of Marshall Sothern, Ernestine Dumont, Kootanie George, even into the heart of Lieutenant Max, he would have known that his seeming truth was an obvious lie. There is another law which reaches even into the lawless North Woods and which says, "Transgress against me and not another but yourself shall shape your punishment." Had he looked into the hearts of Ygerne Bellaire, of Sefton and Lemarc and Garcia, he would have beheld the same truth. He might have looked into the hearts of good men and bad and have found the same truth. For soon or late each man, be he walking as straight in the light as he knows how, be he crouching as low in the shadows as he may, ignites the sulphur and tinder of his own hell. The hell may be little or it may be a conflagration; it may flicker and die out or it may burn through life and lick luridly at the skies; but a man must light it and walk through it, since he is but man, and that he may be a man.

If Ernestine Dumont's body had appeared to grow wan and slender, her soul, long stifled, had found nourishment and had expanded. Under a sympathy emanating gently from Sothern she grew calm and spoke with him as she had not known she could speak. She was not the woman she had been two years ago, and yet no miracle had been wrought. She had sinned but she had suffered. The suffering had chastened her. A rebellious spirit always, she had become softened with a meekness which was not weakness but the dawning of understanding. She had struggled, she had known fatigue after violence and the God who had made the Law had ordained that after fatigue should come rest.

There was much she did not say which Sothern, having trod his own burning path, could divine.

She had offered to David Drennen a fierce passion which he neither could nor would accept. The hot breath of it had shaken her being, seared through her breast, blinded her eyes. She had flung herself upon Kootanie George, still seeing only Drennen through the blur of her passion; she had awakened love in Kootanie George, the strong love of a strong man, and she had not so much as seen it.

She had humiliated the Canadian before men. Had she fired the shot because she loved him he would have been proud instead of ashamed. But he had known that she had fired only because she wanted to hate David Drennen.

Seeing dimly what she had lost only when it was gone from her she had sought to bring it back by throwing herself at another man. Garcia had made light love to her beautifully after the exquisite manner of his kind, and had gone away when Ygerne had gone, with laughter in his gay heart and his song upon his lips for the woman who had taken Drennen's love. George had seen, had understood and his heart had grown still harder.

But now, at last, Ernestine knew to the full what she had been offered and had thrust aside. She had come to see in Kootanie George the qualities of which a woman like her could be proud. She had come to feel a strange sort of awe that George, who was no woman's man but always a man's man, had loved her. And it had been given to her at last to know that her passion for David Drennen had been as the passion of the moth for the candle. A new love came into her heart, rising to her throat, choking her; a love that was meek and devoted, that was now as much a part of her as were her hands and feet; an emotion that was the most unselfish, the most worthy and womanly she had ever felt. She had followed Kootanie George; she had at last come up with him; and now, George's back to her, she sat at her own little fire.

"Life is hard for us, Miss Dumont." Sothern laid his hand very gently upon her shoulder and smiled into her face. "But, I think . . . at the end . . . life is good."

"I have done everything wrong," she said slowly. "I have never had anything in life worth while . . . but George's love. And I threw that away."

"When a man has loved once he loves always," Sothern told her quietly. "And a thing like that you can't throw away."

Presently, from deep thoughtfulness, she said hesitantly:

"I want to talk to Mr. Drennen. There is something I must say to him."

"Let it wait a day or so," Sothern answered. "He is not himself right now. And George might misunderstand."