Troop One of the Labrador Part 12

CHAPTER VIII

TRAILING THE HALF-BREED

Eli Horn paused in the enclosed porch to shoulder his provision pack, left there upon his arrival home earlier in the evening. He was pa.s.sing from the porch when Doctor Joe opened the door.

"Eli," said Doctor Joe, closing the door behind him, "may I have a word with you?"

"Aye, sir," and Eli stopped.

"I just wished to speak a word of warning," said Doctor Joe quietly.

"Be cautious, Eli, and do nothing you'll regret. Don't be too hasty.

We suspect Indian Jake, but none of us knows certainly that he shot your father or took the silver fox skin."

"There's no doubtin' he took un! Pop says he took un, and he knows.

I'm goin' to get the silver if I has to kill Injun Jake."

Eli spoke in even, quiet tones, but with the dogged determination of the man trained to pit his powers of endurance against Nature and the wilderness. He gave no suggestion of boastfulness, but rather of the man who has an ordinary duty to perform, and is bent upon doing it to the best of his ability.

"Don't you think you had better wait and start in the morning? It's a nasty night to be out," Doctor Joe suggested. "'Twill be hard to make your way to-night with the wind against you as well as the dark. If you wait until morning it will give us time to talk things over."

"I'll not stop till I gets the silver," Eli stubbornly declared, "and I'll get un or kill Injun Jake."

"See here, Eli," Doctor Joe laid his hand on Eli's arm, "your father says he was not shot until sundown. Indian Jake was at our camp at Flat Point within the hour after sundown. He never could have paddled that distance against a down wind in an hour. The boys and I were four hours coming over here from Flat Point Camp, and I know Indian Jake could not have covered the distance in anything like an hour."

"'Twere some trick of his! He shot un and he took the silver!" Eli insisted. "Good-bye, sir. I've got to be goin' or he'll slip away from me."

"Be careful, Eli," Doctor Joe pleaded. "Don't shoot unless you're forced to do so to protect yourself."

"'Twill be Injun Jake'll have to be careful," returned Eli as he strode away in the darkness, and Doctor Joe knew that Eli had it in his heart to do murder.

The night was pitchy black and a drizzling rain was falling, but Eli had often travelled on as dark nights, and he was determined. He chose a light skiff rigged with a leg-o'-mutton sail. The wind was against him and with the sail reefed and the mast unstepped and stowed in the bottom of the boat, he slipped a pair of oars into the locks and with strong, even strokes pulled away, hugging the sh.o.r.e, that he might take advantage of the lee of the land.

Presently the drizzle became a downpour, but Eli, indifferent to wind and weather, rowed tirelessly on. There was a dangerous turn to be made around Flat Point. Here for a time he lost the friendly shelter of the land, and continuous and tremendous effort was called for in the rough seas; but, guided by the roar of the breakers on the sh.o.r.e, he compa.s.sed it and presently fell again under the protection of the land.

With all his effort Eli had not progressed a quarter of the distance toward The Jug when dawn broke. With the first light he made a safe landing, cut a stick of standing dead timber, chopped off the b.u.t.t, and splitting it that he might get at the dry core, whittled some shavings and lighted a fire. His provision bag was well filled. No Labradorman travels otherwise. A kettle of hot tea sweetened with mola.s.ses, a pan of fried fat pork and some hard bread (hardtack) satisfied his hunger.

The wind was rising and the rain was flying in blinding sheets, but the sh.o.r.e still protected him, and the moment his simple breakfast was eaten Eli again set forward. Presently, however, another long point projected out into the Bay to force him into the open. He turned about in his boat and for several minutes studied the white-capped seas beyond the point.

"I'll try un," he muttered, and settled again to his oars.

But try as he would Eli could not force his light craft against the wind, and at length he reluctantly dropped back again under the lee of the land and went ash.o.r.e.

"There'll be no goin' on to-day," he admitted. "I'll have to make camp whatever."

Under the shelter of the thick spruce forest where he was fended from the gale and drive of the rain, he cut a score of poles. One of them, thicker and stiffer than the others, he lashed between two trees at a height of perhaps four feet. At intervals of three or four inches he rested the remaining poles against the one lashed to the trees, arranging them at an angle of fifty-five degrees and aligning the b.u.t.ts of the poles evenly upon the ground. These he covered with a ma.s.s of boughs and marsh gra.s.s as a thatching. The roof thatched to his satisfaction, he broke a quant.i.ty of boughs and with some care prepared a bed under the lean-to.

His shelter and bed completed, he cut and piled a quant.i.ty of dry logs at one end of the lean-to. Then he felled two green trees and cut the trunks into four-foot lengths. Two of these he placed directly in front of the shelter and two feet apart, at right angles to the shelter. Across the ends of the logs farthest from his bed he piled three of the green sticks to serve as a backlog, and in front of these lighted his fire. When it was blazing freely he piled upon it, and in front of the green backlogs, several of the logs of dry wood.

Despite the rain, the fire burned freely, and presently the interior of Eli's lean-to was warm and comfortable. He now removed his rain-soaked jacket and moleskin trousers and suspended them from the ridge-pole, where they would receive the benefit of the heat and gradually dry.

Stripped to his underclothing, Eli crouched before the fire beneath the front of the shelter. At intervals he turned his back and sides and chest toward the heat and in the course of an hour succeeded in drying his underclothing to his satisfaction. His moleskin trousers were still damp, but he donned them, and renewing the fire he stretched himself luxuriously for a long and much needed rest.

CHAPTER IX

ELI SURPRISES INDIAN JAKE

When Eli awoke late in the afternoon the rain had ceased, but the wind was blowing a living gale. There was a roar and boom and thunder of breakers down on the point and echoing far away along the coast. The wind shrieked and moaned through the forest.

Under his shelter beneath the thick spruce trees, however, Eli was well enough protected. He renewed the fire, which had burned to embers, and prepared dinner. The storm that prevented him from travelling would also hold Indian Jake a prisoner. This thought yielded him a degree of satisfaction.

He took no advantage of the leisure to reconsider and weigh the circ.u.mstantial evidence against Indian Jake. He had accepted it as conclusive proof of the half-breed's guilt and he had already convicted him of the crime. Once Eli had arrived at a conclusion his mind was closed to any line of reasoning that might tend to controvert that conclusion. He prided himself upon this characteristic as strength of will, while in reality it was a weakness. But Eli was like many another man who has enjoyed greater opportunities in the world than ever fell to Eli's lot.

Once Eli had set himself upon a trail he never turned his back upon the object he sought or weakened in his determination to attain it.

His object now was to overtake Indian Jake and have the matter out with the half-breed once and for all. Well directed, this trait of unyielding determination is an excellent one. It is the foundation of success in life if the object sought is a worthy one. But in this instance Eli's objective was not alone the recovery of the silver fox skin, though this was the chief incentive. Coupled with it was a desire for vengeance, prompted by hate, and vengeance is the child of the weakest and meanest of human pa.s.sions.

When Eli had eaten he shouldered his rifle and strolled back into the forest. Presently he flushed a covey of spruce grouse, which rose from the ground and settled in a tree. Flinging his rifle to his shoulder, he fired and a grouse tumbled to the ground. He fired again, and another fell. The living birds, with a great noise of wings, now abandoned the tree and Eli picked up the two victims. He had clipped their heads off neatly. This he observed with satisfaction. His rifle shot true and his aim was steady. What chance could Indian Jake have against such skill as that?

Eli plucked the birds immediately, while they were warm, for delay would set the feathers, and his game being sufficient for his present needs, he returned to his bivouac on the point.

It was mid-afternoon the following day before the wind and rain had so far subsided as to permit Eli to turn the point and proceed upon his journey. Even then, with all his effort, the progress he made against the north-west breeze was so slow that it was not until the following forenoon that he reached The Jug. Thomas saw him coming and was on the jetty to welcome him.

"How be you, Eli?" Thomas greeted. "I'm wonderful glad to see you.

Come right up and have a cup o' tea."

"How be you, Thomas? Is Injun Jake here?"

"He were here," said Thomas, "but he only stops one day to help me get the outfit ready and then he goes on in his canoe to hunt bear up the Nascaupee River whilst he waits there for me to go to the Seal Lake trails. You want to see he?"

"Aye, and I'm goin' to see whatever!"

While Eli had a snack to eat and a cup of tea with Thomas and Margaret he told Thomas of Indian Jake's call upon his father, of the shooting and of the robbery which followed.

"Injun Jake turns back after leavin' and shoots Pop and takes the silver," he concluded, "and I'm goin' to get the silver whatever, even if I has to shoot Injun Jake to get un!"

"Is you sure, now, 'twere Injun Jake does un?" asked Thomas, unwilling to believe his friend and partner capable of such treachery. By disposition Thomas was naturally cautious of pa.s.sing judgment or of accusing anyone of misdeed without conclusive proof.

"There's no doubtin' that!" insisted Eli. "There was n.o.body else to do un. 'Twere Injun Jake."

A s.h.i.+ft of wind to the southward a.s.sisted Eli on his way. Early that evening he reached the Hudson's Bay Company's post, twenty miles west of The Jug. Here he stopped for supper and learned from Zeke Hodge, the Post servant, that Indian Jake had pa.s.sed up Grand Lake in his canoe two days before. Zeke expressed doubt as to Eli's finding the half-breed at the Nascaupee River. He stated it as his opinion that if Indian Jake were guilty of the crime, as he had no doubt, he was planning an escape and had in all probability immediately plunged into the interior, in which case he was already hopelessly beyond pursuit and had fled the Bay country for good and all. Like Eli, Zeke convicted the half-breed at once.