The Snowshoe Trail

  XIII

  One clear, icy night a gale sprang up in the east, and Virginia and Billfell to sleep to the sound of its complaint. It swept like a mad thingthrough the forest, shattering down the dead snags, shaking the snowfrom the limbs of the spruce, roaring and soughing in the tree tops, andblustering, like an arrogant foe, around the cabin walls. And when Billwent forth for his morning's woodcutting he found that his snowshoes didnot break through the crust.

  The wind had blown and crusted the drifts during the night. But it didnot mean that he and his companion could start at once down thesettlements. The crust was treacherous and possibly only temporary.The clouds had overspread again, and any moment the snowfall mightrecommence. The fact remained, however, that it was the beginning ofthe end. Probably in a few more weeks, perhaps days, it would be safeto start their journey. Bill was desolated by the thought.

  The morning, however, could not be wasted. It permitted him to make adash over to a certain stream further down toward the Yuga River insearch of any sign of the lost mine. The stream itself was frozen toblue steel, and the snow had covered it to the depth of several feet,but there might be blazes on the trees or the remnants of a broken cabinto indicate the location of the lost claim. He had searched thisparticular stream once before, but it was one of the few remainingplaces that he hadn't literally combed from the springs out of which itflowed to its mouth. He started out immediately after breakfast.

  It was not to be, however, that Bill should make the search that day.When about two miles from the cabin he saw, through a rift in thedistant trees, a distinct trail in the snow.

  It was too far to determine what it was. Likely it was only the trackof a wild animal,--a leaping caribou that cut deep into the drifts, orperhaps a bear, tardy in hibernating. No one could blame him, hethought, if he didn't go to investigate. It was a matter he would noteven have to mention to Virginia. He stood a moment in the drifts, tornby an inner struggle.

  Bill was an extremely sensitive man and his senses were trained even tothe half-psychic, mysterious vibrations of the forest life, and he had adistant premonition of disaster. All of his fondest hopes, his dreams,all of the inner guardians of his own happiness told him to keep to hissearch, to journey on his way and forget he had seen the tracks. Everydesire of Self spoke in warning to him. But Bill Bronson had a higherlaw than self. Long ago, in front of the ramshackle hotel inBradleyburg, he had given a promise; and he had reaffirmed it in thegleam of the Northern Lights not many nights before. There was no oneto hold him to his pledged word. There were none that need know; no oneto whom he must answer but his own soul. Yet even while he stood,seemingly hesitating between the two courses, he already knew what hemust do.

  It was impossible for Bill to be false to himself. He could not disobeythe laws of his own being. He would be steadfast. He turned and wentover to investigate the tracks.

  He was not in the least surprised at their nature. Those that hadordained his destiny had never written that he should know the goodfortune of finding them merely the tracks of animals. The trail wasdistinctly that of snowshoes, and it led away toward the Yuga River.

  Bill glanced once, then turned back toward his cabin. He mushed thedistance quickly. Virginia met him with a look of surprise.

  "I'm planning a longer dash than I had in mind at first," he told her."It's important----" he hesitated, and a lie came to his lips. But itwas not such a falsehood as would be marked, in ineffaceable letters,against him on the Book of Judgement. He spoke to save the girl anyfalse hopes. "It's about my mine," he said, "and I'll not likely beback before to-morrow night. It might take even longer than that.Would you be afraid to stay alone?"

  "There's nothing to be afraid of here," the girl replied. "But it willbe awfully lonesome without you. But if you think you've got a realclew, I wouldn't ask you to stay."

  "It's a real clew." The man spoke softly, rather painfully. Shewondered why he did not show more jubilation or excitement. "You've gotyour pistol and you can bolt the door. I've got plenty of wood cut.There's kindling too--and you can light a fire in the morning. If youput a big log on to-night you'll have glowing coals in the morning. Itwill be cold getting up, and I wish I could be here to build your fire.But I don't think I can."

  She gave him a smile and was startled sober in the middle of it. All atonce she saw that the man was pale. He had, then, found a clew of realimportance. "Go ahead, of course," she told him. "We'll fix some lunchfor you right away."

  He took a piece of dried moose meat, a can of beans and another ofmarmalade, and these, with a number of dried biscuits, would comprisehis lunch. "Be careful of yourself," he told her at parting. "If Idon't get back to-morrow, don't worry. And pray for me."

  She told him she would, but she did not guess the context of the prayerhis own heart asked. His prayer was for failure, rather than success.

  Following his own tracks, he went directly back to the mysterioussnowshoe trail. He followed swiftly down it, anxious to know his fateat the first possible instant. He saw that the trail was fresh, madethat morning; he had every reason to think that he could overtake theman who had made it within a few hours.

  He was not camped on the Yuga,--whoever had come mushing through thesilences that morning. From the river to that point where he had foundthe tracks was too great a distance for any musher to cover in the fewhours since dawn. There was nothing to believe but that the stranger'scamp lay within a few miles of his own. He decided, from his frequentstops, that the man had been hunting; there was nothing to indicatethat he was following a trap line. The frequent tracks in the snow,however, indicated an unusually good tracking country. He wondered ifstrangers--Indians, most likely--had come to poach on his domain.

  He did not catch up with the traveler in the snow. The man had mushedswiftly. But shortly after the noon hour his keen eyes saw a wisp ofsmoke drifting through the trees, and his heart leaped in his breast.He pushed on, emerging all at once upon a human habitation.

  It was a lean-to, rather than a cabin. Some logs had been used in itsconstruction, but mostly its walls were merely frames, thatched heavilywith spruce boughs. A fire smoldered in front. And his heart leapedwith indescribable relief when he saw that neither of the two men thatwere squatted in the lean-to mouth was the stranger that had passed hiscamp six years before.

  Bill had old acquaintance with the type of man that confronted him now.One of them was Joe Robinson,--an Indian who had wintered inBradleyburg a few years before. Bill recognized him at once; he came ofa breed that outwardly, at least, changes little before the march oftime. There was nothing about him to indicate his age. He might bethirty--perhaps ten years older. Bill felt fairly certain, however,that he was not greatly older. In spite of legend to the contrary, aforty-year old Indian is among the patriarchs, and pneumonia or someother evil child of the northern winter, claims him quickly.

  Joe's blood, he remembered, was about three-fourths pure. His motherhad been a full-blooded squaw, his father a breed from the lake regionto the east. He was slovenly as were most of his kind; unclean; and themost distinguished traits about him were not to his credit,--a certainquality of craft and treachery in his lupine face. His yellow eyes weretoo close together; his mouth was brutal. His companion, a half-breedwith a dangerous mixture of French, was a man unknown to Bill,--butthe latter did not desire a closer acquaintance. He was a booncompanion and a mate for Joe.

  Yet both of them possessed something of that strange aloofness anddignity that is a quality of all their people. They showed no surpriseat Bill's appearance. In these mighty forests human beings were as rarea sight as would be an aeroplane to African savages, yet they glanced athim seemingly with little interest. It was true, however, that thesemen knew of his residence in this immediate section of Clearwater. Theloss of his father's mine was a legend known all over that particularpart of the province; they knew that he sought it yearly, clear up tothe trapping season. When the
snows were deep, they were well awarethat he ran trap lines down the Grizzly River. Human inhabitants of theNorth are not so many but that they keep good track of one another'sbusiness.

  But they had a better reason still for knowing that he was near. Theprevailing winds blew down toward them from Bill's camp, and sometimes,through the unfathomable silence of the snowy forest, they had heard thefaint report of his loud-mouthed gun.

  It is doubtful that a white man--even a resident of the forest such asBill--could ever have heard as much. He was a woodsman, but he didnot inherit, straight from a thousand woodsman ancestors, perceptionsalmost as keen as those of the animals themselves. As it was, he hadn'thad a chance to guess their presence. The wind always carried the soundof their rifles away from him rather than toward him; besides, theirguns were of smaller caliber and had a less violent report.

  Last of all, they had been careful about shooting. For a certain verygood reason they had no desire for Bill to discover their presence.There are certain laws, among the northern men, as to trapping rights.Nothing can be learned in the provincial statute books concerning theselaws. Mostly they are unwritten; but their influence is felt clearbeyond the Arctic Circle. They state quite clearly that when a man laysdown a line of traps, for a certain distance on each side of him thedistrict is his, and no one shall poach on his preserves. And theseIndians had lately been partners in an undertaking to clear the wholeregion of its furs.

  They had no idea but that Bill had discovered their trap lines and hadcome to make trouble. For all that they sat so still and aloof, Joe'smind had flashed to his rifle in the corner of the lean-to, six feetaway. He rather wished it was nearer. His friend Pete the Breed wasconsiderably reassured by the feel of his long, keen-bladed knifeagainst his thigh. Knives, after all, were very effective at closework. The two of them could really afford to be insolent.

  And they were considerably amazed at Bill's first question. He had leftthe snowshoe trail that evidently passed in front of the shelter and hadcrossed the snow crust to the mouth of the lean-to. "Did one of youmake those tracks out there?" he asked. He felt certain that one ofthem had. He only asked to make sure.

  There was a quality in Bill's voice that usually, even from such gentryas this, won him a quick response. Joe's mind gave over the insolenceit had planned. But for all that Bill's inner triumph was doomed to beshort-lived.

  "No," Joe grunted. "Our partner made it. Follow it down--pretty soonfind another cabin."