The Long Portage Part 2

"Had George Gladwyne any immediate relatives?"

"One sister, as like him as it's possible for a woman to be. He wasn't greatly given to society; I don't think he'd ever have married. His death was a crus.h.i.+ng blow to the girl--they were wonderfully attached to each other--but I've never seen a finer display of courage than hers when Clarence cabled the news."

He broke off, as if he felt that he had been talking with too much freedom, and just then the report of a rifle came ringing across the water.

"That's a duck's head shot off. Jake doesn't miss," he said.

Lisle nodded. He could take a hint; and he had no doubt that Nasmyth was right regarding the shot, though it is not easy to decapitate a swimming duck with a rifle. He began to talk about the portage; and soon after Jake returned with a single duck they went to sleep.

It was clear and bright the next morning and they spent the day carrying their loads a few miles up the hollow which pierced the height of the divide. Part of it was a mora.s.s, fissured with little creeks running down from the hills whose tops rose at no great elevation above the opening.

This was bad to traverse, but it was worse when they came to a muskeg where dwarf forest had once covered what was now a swamp. Most of the trees had fallen as the soil, from some change in the lake's level, had grown too wet. They had partly rotted in the slough, and willows had afterward grown up among them.

Now and then the men laid down their loads and hewed a few of the still standing trunks, letting them fall to serve as rude bridges where the mora.s.s was almost impa.s.sable, but the real struggle began when they went back for the canoe. At first they managed to carry her on their shoulders, wading in the bog, but afterward she must be dragged through or over innumerable tangles of small fallen trunks and networks of rotten branches that had to be laboriously smashed. It was heroic labor--sometimes they spent an hour making sixty yards--and Lisle's face grew anxious as well as determined. Game had been very scarce; the deer would not last them long; and disastrous results might follow a continuance of their present slow progress. When, utterly worn out, they made camp on slightly firmer ground toward four o'clock in the afternoon, Lisle strode off heavily toward the bordering hills, while Jake pushed on to prospect ahead. Nasmyth, who was quite unable to accompany either, prepared the supper and awaited their reports with some anxiety.

Lisle came back first and shook his head when Nasmyth asked if he had found a better route on higher ground.

"Not a slope we could haul along," he reported. "That way's impracticable."

It was nearly dark when Jake came in.

"It's not too bad ahead," he informed them.

They were not greatly rea.s.sured, because Jake's idea of what was really bad was alarming. Nasmyth glanced at his companion with a smile.

"Is it any better than this?" he asked.

"A little," answered Jake. "An old trail runs in."

"Gladwyne's trail?" exclaimed Nasmyth. "The one we're looking for?"

"Why, yes," drawled Jake, as if it were scarcely worth mentioning. "I guess it is."

Nasmyth turned to Lisle.

"I was lucky when I lighted on you as a companion for this trip. You have been right in your predictions all along, and now you're only out in striking the trail a day before you expected."

"I know the bush," returned Lisle. "It's been pretty easy so far--but, for several reasons, I wish the next week or two were over."

Nasmyth looked troubled. One could have imagined that misgivings which did not concern his personal safety were creeping into his mind.

"So do I," he confessed, and turning toward the fire he busied himself with Jake's supper.

There was no change in the work the next morning, but in the afternoon it became evident that another party had made that portage ahead of them.

The soil was a little drier and where the small trees grew more thickly they could see that a pa.s.sage had been laboriously cleared. In the swampy hollows, which still occurred, trunks had here and there been flung into the ooze. This saved them some trouble and they made better progress, but both Lisle and Nasmyth became silent and grave as the signs of their predecessors' march grew plainer. By nightfall they had reached the second camping-place, which told an eloquent story of struggle with fatigue and exhaustion. Lisle, stopping in the gathering dusk, glanced around the old camp site.

"A good place to pitch the tent, but I think I'd rather move on a little," he said.

Nasmyth made a sign of comprehension.

"Yes," he agreed. "I couldn't sleep soundly here. Everything about us is too plain a reminder; I've no doubt you feel it as I do. A firm and trusted friend lay, famis.h.i.+ng, beside that fire, in what extremity of weakness and suffering I dare not let myself think. It's possible he cut those branches yonder."

Lisle's face expressed emotion sternly held in check.

"That was Vernon's work--no Englishman new to the country could have slashed them off so cleanly. But look at this small spruce stump. He was the better chopper, but it's significant that he used three or four strokes where I would have taken one."

Even the laconic Jake appeared relieved when they forced their way a little farther through the tangled undergrowth, until finding a clear s.p.a.ce they set up the tent.

CHAPTER III

THE CACHE

They spent the greater part of a week on the portage, crossing here and there a little lake; and then came out one evening on a river that flowed, green and tranquil, beneath a ridge of hills. Here they camped; and on rising with a s.h.i.+ver in the raw and nipping dawn the next morning, Nasmyth found Lisle busy at the fire. Jake was cutting wood some distance off, for the thud of his ax rang sharply through the stillness.

"I was awake--thinking--a good deal last night; in fact, I've been restless ever since we struck the Gladwynes' trail," Nasmyth began. "Now, I understand that an uninterrupted journey of about sixteen days would take us well on our way toward civilization. You say you apprehend no difficulty after that?"

"No." Lisle waited, watching his companion in an intent fas.h.i.+on.

Nasmyth hesitated.

"Then, considering everything, mightn't it be better to waste no time, and push straight on?"

"And leave the work that brought me here--I believe that brought us both here--undone?"

"You'll forgive me if I don't express myself very fortunately. What I feel is this--Gladwyne's story is a tragic one, but it's twelve months old. In a way, it's forgotten; the wounds it made have healed."

"Is such a man as the one you have described forgotten in a year?" Lisle asked with a hardening expression.

Nasmyth, being a man of simple and, for the most part, wholesome ideas, was in a quandary. His feelings were generous, but he shrank from putting them into words. Moreover he was just and was not wholly convinced that the course he wished to recommend was right.

"Well," he contended, "there are faithful hearts that never quite forget--with them the scar remains; but it's fortunate that the first keen pain does not last. Is it decent--I almost think that's the right word--to reopen the wound?"

He paused and spread out one hand as if in expostulation.

"Your late comrade has gone beyond your help; you told me he had left no relatives; and you have only yourself to consider. Can you do any good by bringing this sorrowful tale of disaster up again?"

"Are you pleading for your English friends, anxious to save them pain at my expense? Can't you understand my longing to clear my dead partner's name?"

A trace of color crept into Nasmyth's face.

"I suppose I deserve that, though it wasn't quite the only thing I meant.

I've an idea that you are somehow going to lay up trouble for yourself by persevering in this search."

"I don't want to be offensive; but can't you see that by urging me to let the thing drop you are casting grave doubts upon the honor of a man of your own caste and kind, one with whom you are closely acquainted? Are you afraid to investigate, to look for proofs of Clarence Gladwyne's story?"