The Sky Line of Spruce Part 14

"Tell me about it," he said at last, casually. "I was thinking of making a boat and going down on a prospecting trip."

"I'll tell you about it, and then I think you'll change your mind. The first cataract is the one just above where we first saw the river--coming in; then there's this mile of quiet water. From that point on the Yuga flows into a gorge--or rather one gorge after another; and sometime they'll likely be almost as famous as some of the great gorges of your country. The walls are just about straight up on each side, and of course are absolutely impa.s.sable. I don't know how many miles the first gorge is--but for nearly two hundred miles the river is considered impa.s.sable for boats. Two hundred and fifty miles or so below there is an Indian village--but they never try to go down the river from here. A few white men, however, have tried to go down with canoe-loads of fur."

"And all drowned?" Ben asked.

"All except one party. Once two men went down when the river was high--just as it is now. They were good canoeists, and they made it through. No one ever expected they would come out again."

"And after you've once got into the rapids, there's no getting out--or landing?"

"Of course not. I suppose there are places where you might get on the bank, but the gorge above is impa.s.sable."

"You couldn't follow the river down--with horses?"

"Yes, in time. Of course it would be slow going, as there are no trails, the brush is heavy, and the country is absolutely unexplored. You see it has never been considered a gold country--and of course the Indians won't go except where they can go in canoes. Some of the hills must be impa.s.sable, too. I've heard my father speak about it--how that if any criminal--or any one like that--could take down this river in a canoe in high water--and get through into that great, virgin, trackless country a hundred miles below, it would be almost impossible to get him out.

Unless the officers could chase him down the same way he went--by canoe--it would take literally weeks and months for them to get in, and by that time he could be hidden and located and his tracks covered up."

"And with good ambushes, able to hold off and kill a dozen of them, eh?"

Ben's hands shook, and he locked them behind him. "They call that country--what?"

"'Back There.' That's all I've ever heard it called--'Back There.'"

"It's as good a name as any. Of course, the reason they were able to make it through in high water was due to the fact that most of the rocks and ledges were submerged, and they could slide right over them."

"Of course. Many of our rivers are safer in high water. But you seriously don't intend to take such a trip--"

He looked up to find her eyes wide and full upon his. Yet her concern for him touched him not at all. She was his enemy: that fact could never be forgotten or forgiven.

"I want to hear about it, anyway. I heard in town the river is higher than it's been for years--due to the Chinook--"

"It _is_ higher than I've ever seen it. But it's reached its peak and has started to fall, and it won't come up again, at least, till fall.

When the Yuga rises it comes up in a flood, and it falls the same way.

It's gone down quite a little since this morning; by the day after to-morrow no one could hope to get through Devil's Gate--the first cataract in the gorge."

"Not even with a canoe? Of course a raft would be broken to pieces."

"Not a canoe, either, in two or three days, if the river falls like it usually does. But tell me--you aren't serious--"

"I suppose not. But it gets my imagination--just the same. I suppose a man would average better than twenty miles an hour down through that gorge, and would come out at _Back There_."

Their talk moved easily to other subjects; yet it seemed to Ben that some secondary consciousness held up his end of the conversation. His own deeper self was lost in curious and dark conjectures. Her description of the river lingered in his thoughts, and he seemed to be groping for a great inspiration that was hovering just beyond his reach--as plants grope for light in far-off leafy jungles. He felt that it would come to him in a moment: he would know the dark relation that these facts about the river bore to his war with Neilson. It was as if an inner mind, much more subtle and discerning than his normal consciousness, had seen great possibilities in them, but as yet had not divulged their significance.

"I must be going now," the girl was saying. "Father pretty near goes crazy when I stay away too long. You can't imagine how he loves me and worries about me--and how fearful he is of me--"

His mind seemed to leap and gather her words. It was true: she was the joy and the pride and the hope of the old man's life. All his work, his dreams were for her. And now he remembered a fact that she had told him on the outward journey: that Ray Brent, the stronger of Neilson's two subordinates, loved her too.

"To strike at them indirectly--through some one they love--" such had been his greatest wish. To put them at a disadvantage and overcome his own--to lead them into his own ambushes. And was it for the Wolf to care what guiltless creatures fell before his fangs in the gaining of his dreadful ends? Was the gratification of his hate to be turned aside through pity for an innocent girl? Mercy and remorse were two things that he had put from him. It was the way of the Wolf to pay no attention to methods, only to achieve his own fierce desires. He stood lost in dark and savage reverie.

"Good-by," the girl was saying. "I'll see you soon--"

He turned toward her, a smile at his lips. His voice held steady when he spoke.

"It'll have to be soon, if at all," he replied. "I've got to really get to work in a few days. How about a little picnic to-morrow--a grouse hunt, say--on the other side of the river? It's going to be a beautiful day--"

The girl's eyes shone, and the color rose again in her tanned cheeks.

"I'd think that would be very nice," she told him.

"Then I'll meet you here--at eight."

XVIII

Alone by the fire Ben had opportunity to balance one thing with another and think out the full consequences of his plan. As far as he could discern, it stood every test. It meant not only direct and indirect vengeance upon Neilson and his followers; but it would also, past all doubt, deliver them into his hands. That much was sure. When finally they came to grips--if indeed they did not go down to a terrible death before ever that time came--he would be prepared for them, with every advantage of ground and fortress, able to combat them one by one and shatter them from ambush. Best of all, they would know at whose hands, and for what crime, they received their retribution.

One by one he checked the chances against him. First of all, he had to face the great chance of failure and the consequent loss of his own life. But there was even recompense in this. He would not die unavenged.

The blow that he would thereby deal to his enemies would be terrible beyond any reckoning, but he would have no regrets.

There were two outstanding points in his favor, one of them being that the river was rapidly falling. By the time a canoe could be built the river would be wholly unnavigable. There were no canoes procurable in Snowy Gulch, if indeed a lightning trip could be made there and back to secure one, before the river fell. The conversation with the frontiersman at the river bank brought out this fact. Lastly, a raft could not live a moment in the rapids.

Very methodically he began to make his preparations. He untied his horse, leaving it free to descend to Snowy Gulch. Then he packed a few of his most essential supplies, his gun and sh.e.l.ls, such necessary camp equipment as robes, matches, soap and towels, cooking and table ware, an axe and similar necessaries. In the way of food he laid out flour, rice, salt, and sugar, plus a few pounds of tea--nothing else. The entire outfit weighed less than two hundred pounds, easily carried in three loads upon the back.

In the still hour of midnight, when the forest world was swept in mystery, he carried the equipment down to the canoe that Beatrice had left the evening before. He loaded the craft with the greatest care, balancing it now and then with his hands at the sides, and covering up the food supplies with robes and blankets. Then he drew from his pocket a sheet of paper--evidently a paper sack that had once held provisions, cut open and spread--and wrote carefully, a long time, with a pencil.

He had no envelope to enclose it, no wax to seal it. He did, however, carry a stub of a candle--a requisite to most northern men who are obliged to build supper fires in wet forest. Folding his letter carefully, he sealed it with tallow. Then wrapping one of his blankets about him, he prepared to wait for the dawn. Fenris growled and murmured in his sleep.

Ben himself had not slept the night before; and moved and stirred by his plan of the morrow, slumber did not come easily to him now. He too murmured in his sleep and had weird, tragic dreams between sleep and wakefulness. But the shadows paled at last. A ribbon of light spread along the eastern horizon; the more familiar landmarks emerged--ghosts at first, then in vivid outline, the wooded sky line strengthened; the nebulous magic of the moon died in the forest. Birds wakened and sang; the hunting creatures crept to their lairs; sleeping flowers opened.

Morning broke on a clear, warm day.

Ben devoured a heavy breakfast--all that he could force himself to swallow--then prepared to wait for Beatrice. He knew perfectly that explanations would be difficult if Neilson or one of his followers found him with the loaded boat. It was not likely, however, that any of his enemies--except, of course, Beatrice herself--would venture down that way.

Just before eight he saw her come,--first the glint of her white blouse in the green of the forest, and then the flash of her brown arms. Her voice rang clear and sweet through the hushed depths as she called a greeting. A moment later she was beside him.

"Go back and get your heavy coat," he commanded. "I've already been out on the water, and it'll freeze you stiff."

He was not overly pleased with himself for speaking thus. He had resolved to put mercy from him; and he was taking a serious risk to his own cause by the delay of sending her back for her warmer garments. She smiled into his eyes, but she came of a breed of women that had learned obedience to men, and she immediately turned. But Ben had builded better than he thought. His eyes were no longer on her radiant face. They had dropped to the pistol, in its holster, that she carried in her hands, preparatory to strapping it about her waist. It was disconcerting that he had forgotten about her pistol. It was one of those insignificant trifles that before now have disrupted the mightiest plans of nations and of men. His mind sped like lightning, and he thanked his stars that he had seen it in time. This pistol and a small package, the contents of which he did not know, were the only equipment she had.

"It's going to be a bright day," the girl said hesitatingly. "I don't think I'll need the fur coat--"

"Get it, anyway," Ben advised. "The wind's keen on the river. Leave your pistol and your package here--and go up and back at top speed. I'll be arranging the canoe--"

She laid down the things, and in a moment the thickets had hidden her.

Swiftly Ben reached for the gun, and for a few speeding seconds his fingers worked at its mechanism. He was busy about the canoe when the girl returned.

Evidently Beatrice was in wonderful spirits. The air itself was sparkling, the sun--beloved with an ardor too deep for words by all northern peoples--was warm and genial in the sky; the spruce forest was lush with dew, fragrant with hidden blossoms. It was a Spring Day--nothing less. Both of them knew perfectly that miracle was abroad in the forest,--flowers opening, buds breaking into blossoms, little gra.s.s blades stealing, shy as fairies, up through the dead leaves; birds fluttering and gossiping and carrying all manner of building materials for their nests.

Spring is not just a time of year to the forest folk, and particularly to those creatures whose homes are the far spruce forests of the North.

It is a magic and a mystery, a recreation and a renewed lease on life itself. It is hope come again, the joy of living undreamed of except by such highly strung, nerve-tingling, wild-blooded creatures as these; and in some measure at least it is the escape from Fear. For there is no other name than Fear for the great, white, merciless winter that had just departed.

High and low, every woods creature knows this dread, this age-old apprehension of the deepening snow. Perhaps it had its birth in eons past, when the great glaciers brought their curse of gold into the temperate regions, locking land and sea under tons of ice. Never the frost comes, and the snow deepens on the land, and the rivers and lakes are struck silent as if by a cruel magician's magic, but that this old fear returns, creeping like poison into the nerves, bowing down the heart and chilling the warm wheel of the blood. For the rodents and the digging people--even for the mighty grizzly himself--the season means nothing but the cold and the darkness of their underground lairs. For those that try to brave the winter, the portion is famine and cold; the vast, far-spreading silence broken only by the sobbing song of the wolf pack, starving and afraid on the distant ridges. Man is the conqueror, the Mighty One who can strike the fire, but yet he too knows the creepy, haunting dread and deep-lying fear of the northern winter. But that dread season was gone now, yielding for a few happy months to a gay invader from the South; and the whole forest world rejoiced.