The Forfeit Part 11

"Troubles?" Jeff smiled in his own peculiarly shadowy fas.h.i.+on. "You don't seem to figure this valley's any sort of trouble, nor its a.s.sociations. But maybe there's a bone or two hidden around you don't figure to show me."

Bud remained silent for some moments. Then he gave way to another of his joyous, deep-throated laughs.

"No, sirree! Ther' ain't no troubles to this valley fer me. None. I got memories I wouldn't sell fer a farm. Them wer' days you didn't find trouble in nothin'. No. It's later on you see things diff'rent.

Make good, an' you see troubles wher' there shouldn't be none. You an'

me we're guessin' to make a pile o' dollars, so we could set up a palace on 5th Av'noo, New York, if we was yearnin' that-a-way. I don't reckon there's many fellers 'ud find trouble in such a play as that.

Wal, I'd be willing enough to turn it all down, an' pitch camp right here among these hills, an' chase pelts for the few dollars needed to keep the wind from rattling my bones--'cep' fer Nan."

"Ah yes--Nan. There's Nan to think of. And Nan's more to you, Bud, than anything else in life. Say, your little girl's a bright jewel. I don't need to say a word about her value, eh? But some day you're going to lose her. And then?"

Bud's eyes came round upon him and for some moments encountered Jeff's steady regard. Then he looked away, and slowly all its simple delight dropped from the strong weather-tanned face, to be replaced by an almost painful dejection. Presently he turned again, and, in a moment, Jeff found an added interest in the wonderful scene that lay ahead of him.

"Nan's a fine, good gal," Bud declared, with simple earnestness.

"Guess she's her mother over again--only she's jest Nan. Nan's more to me than all the dollars in creation, boy. Guess you're right. Oh, yes, you're right--sure." The man brushed aside the beads of sweat from his broad forehead. "An' Nan's goin' to do jest as she notions.

She's goin' to live around her home as long as she feels that way.

When she don't feel that way she's goin' to quit. When she feels like choosin' a man fer herself--why, I'm goin' to do all I know helpin' her that way. But it's goin' to be her choice, boy. An' when that time comes, why, I'll get right down on my knees an' pray A'mighty G.o.d he's the feller for her, an' the man I'm hopin' she'll choose, an' that he wants her, same as she wants him."

Then he shook his head and a deep sigh escaped him.

"But I don't know. It don't seem to me reasonable. Y' see, the luck's run all my way so far, an' I don't guess you can keep on dealin' the cards without 'em gettin' right up an' handin' it you plenty--some time."

Jeff had no reply. Something warned him to keep silent. The older man in his earnest simplicity had opened out to him a vista which he felt he had no right to gaze upon.

As they jogged steadily along over the blue-green carpet, and the kaleidoscopic coloring of the distant slopes fell away behind them, his whole mental vision became occupied by the sweet picture of a brown-eyed, brown-haired girl. But he was regarding it without any lover's emotions. Rather was he regarding it as one who calmly appraises a beautiful jewel he does not covet. He was thinking of Nan as he had known her for some five years. From the days of her schoolgirlhood he had watched her develop into a grown woman full of all that was wholesome and winsome. She was her father over again, trustful, simple, fearless, and she was possessed of a whimsical philosophy quite beyond her years. Her beauty was undeniable, her gentle kindliness was no less. But the memory of these things made no stirring within him. Nan was just a loyal little friend whom he loved and was ready to serve as he might love and help a sister, but regard of her broke off at that. So, as he rode, the pictures of her failed to hold him, and, finally, his roving gaze became caught and held by a sudden and striking anachronism in the scene about him.

He claimed Bud's attention with a gesture which roused him from his engrossing thought.

"Fire," he observed.

Bud's gaze became rivetted on the spot.

"Yes, it's fire--sure," he admitted.

It was a long way ahead. Only the trained eyes of prairiemen could have read the sign aright at such a distance. It was a break in the wonderful sea of varying shades of restful green. It was, to them, an ominous dead black patch which broke the sky-line with unmistakable skeleton arms.

It was the only remark upon the subject which pa.s.sed between them, but as they rode on it occupied something more than a pa.s.sing attention.

With Jeff his interest was mere curiosity. With Bud it was deeper and more significant. Had the younger man observed him he might have discovered a curious expression almost amounting to pain in the deep eyes which contemplated the blackened limbs where the fire had wrought its havoc.

As they drew nearer it became apparent that the havoc was even greater than they had first supposed. A wide patch of woodland, hundreds of acres in extent, whose upper limits were confined only by the summit of the valley's slope, where it cut the sky-line, had been completely burnt out. Nor was it possible to tell if even that limit was the extent of the disaster.

Bud suddenly reined in his horse as they came abreast of it, and his voice broke with painful sharpness upon the deathly stillness of the world about them.

"It's gone," he cried, with a note of deep distress and grievous disappointment. "It's burnt right out to a sh.e.l.l. Say----"

"What's gone?"

The older man glanced round. Then his troubled eyes sought the charred remains of the splendid pines once more.

"Why--the post." Then he pointed amongst the charred skeletons. "Get a peek right in ther'. See, Jeff. Them walls; them fallen logs.

Burnt. Burnt right through to the heart of 'em. That's all that's left of the home that sheltered me for the first sixteen years of my life. Say, I'm sick--sick to death."

Jeff left his packhorse and moved forward amongst the blackened limbs.

The reek of burnt wood hung heavily upon the air. He threaded his way carefully toward the charred remains of an extensive abode, now plainly visible amongst the black tree trunks.

It was a wide rambling structure, and, though burnt to cinders, much of its general shape, and the great logs which had formed its walls, still remained to testify to all it had been under the hands of those who had originally wrought there.

Jeff glanced back at the man he had left behind. He had not stirred.

He sat in the saddle just gazing at the destruction. That was all. So he turned again to the ruins, and, dismounting, he proceeded on foot to explore.

They were eyes wide with repulsion and a certain horror that gazed down upon the object at Jeff's feet. It was the rotting, charred remains of a human figure. It was beyond recognition, except in so far as its human ident.i.ty was concerned. The clothes were gone. The flesh was seared and shriveled. The process of incineration was almost complete.

After a few fascinated moments his eyes searched further along the remains of the old post wall. Another figure lay sprawling on the ground. Near by it a heavy pistol had fallen wide. A rifle, too, lay across the second body.

Every detail was swiftly absorbed by the man's keenly active brain. He stood back from the gutted precincts and gazed speculatively upon the picture. His imagination reconstructed something of what he believed must have occurred in the deep heart of these wrecked woodlands.

What of the fire? How had it been started? Was it the work of an incendiary? Had the heat of the summer sun wrought the mischief? Had the hut itself supplied the trouble? None of these questions offered real enlightenment through the answers he could supply. No. He saw the superheated furnace of the woods blazing, and he saw men struggling with all their might to save themselves, and some of their more precious belongings. The reckless daring of those two, perhaps at the last moment, returning to their shelter on one final journey to save some detail of their home. Then the awful penalty for their temerity.

Perhaps overwhelmed by smoke. Death--hideous, appalling death. Death, a thousand times worse than that which, in the routine of their lives, it was their work to mete out to the valuable fur bearers which yielded them a means of existence.

A sudden question, not unaccompanied by fear, swept through his brain.

It was a question inspired by the belief that these men were fur hunters. Who--who were they? He drew close up to each body in turn, seeking ident.i.ty where none was discoverable. A sweat broke upon his temples. There was no sign in them. There was no human semblance except for outline.

"G.o.d! If it should be----"

His sentence remained incompleted. A dreadful fear had broken it off.

He was gazing down upon the second body, in earnest, horrified contemplation. Then to his amazement he was answered by Bud's familiar voice.

"It ain't the boy we're chasin' up, Jeff," he said, with a deep a.s.surance.

"How d'you know that?"

The demand was incisive, almost rough.

"These folks weren't pelt hunters. Not by a sight. I bin around."

Jeff had turned to the speaker, and a great relief shone in his eyes.

"What--who were they--then?" he asked sharply.

"Maybe it was a ranch--of sorts."

"Of sorts? You mean----?"

"Rustlers. Come right on out of here, an' I'll show you."

With gentle insistence he drew his friend away from the painfully fascinating spectacle which held so difficult a riddle. And presently they were again with their horses, which were grazing unconcernedly upon the sweet blue gra.s.s which the valley yielded so generously.