Part 11

At that time, while surrounded by all the strange sights of that weird hollow, I was convinced with the others that the supernatural was enjoying full sway, and that what then occurred to us was entirely due to the mysterious appearance of the hairy, speechless being. A description may sound grotesque, but to me at the time it was more a thing to shudder at than laugh over.

A thunderstorm had been in operation for some time, the lightning being apparently flung just over the trees out of the low clouds which separated the hollow from the outer country. The thunder took the form of constant explosions, entirely different from the customary long-drawn-out rumbles and echoes. In addition to this intensely local storm, erratic sheets of light constantly flooded the bush, and the peculiar sour odour never failed to follow.

An unusually brilliant blue current thrilled, just as Hanafin walked round the fire to interview the monkey-like monster. Instantly the inspector vanished, and with him the entire camp. The fire, the bluff, the ground, everything was wiped out, even the rock we stood on; we might have been suspended on the edge of a precipice, peering hopelessly into a thick sea fog; the world seemed to have floated away from us, leaving us standing erect in space.

Whether the other men had any sensation beyond fright, I cannot say; but for my own part I felt mightily exhilarated, and with the elation of the sudden strength that thrilled into my body, as scores of minute blue sparks broke from our persons, I had a mad desire to relieve my energies by snatching up each one of my companions--Akshelah, who held to me, excepted--and hurling them one by one into the apparent abyss.

What would have happened had I attempted to do so is again impossible to say, because the gulf which had been so remarkably fixed about us, which entirely divided us from the planet our world, which blinded and deafened us, and made us helpless castaways upon the invisible rock, was purely magnetic. Backward we could move, but not an inch forward. There did not appear to be any particular resistance; it was not at all like trying to force a solid body; we were simply unable to move. The magnetic barrier was non-conducting; sound would not travel through it any more than eyesight. For all the assistance we could have rendered Inspector Hanafin, and for all our knowledge of what was happening on the other side of the current, we might have been placed respectively at the opposite poles of the earth.

The resisting fluid swept away with all the suddenness of its coming; and at the withdrawal of the magnetic force, the men scurried away from the rocks like so many jack-rabbits worried by a dog.

MacCaskill whispered to me hurriedly, and as we both preferred to face the chance of fever on the shore, rather than the unknown powers of natural forces, we made straight for our tools and packs, caught them up and ran, Akshelah leading our flight, away up the slope from the lights and explosions of the hollow, through the vines that caught at our legs and arms, and thrilled us like so many electric wires; past the pools that were black no longer, but living and dazzling, and where the gleaming balls were leaping excitedly; through the poison-grass, quivering and stiff in the electric air, and emitting bright sparks when touched by our hurrying legs; over the sand-dunes, and so out under the aurora, where the wind moaned out of the lake, and brought the foul odour of malaria through the “night.”

We looked down from the summit of the sand-hills, and, as in the early morning, the hollow was concealed by its roof of cloud, which spread beneath our feet like a smoky floor. We could make a good guess as to what was taking place in the depths by the manner in which the clouds were continually bathed in blue light, by the distant, but faintly audible, explosions, and the sour odour arising, until we turned to face the far more noisome miasma ascending from the beach of the great Lake Peace.

MATERIAL GHOSTS

On the day following our flight from the hollow, MacCaskill and I awoke with dry mouths, tormenting heads, and irritated bodies, the result of camping within the influence of the coast. Had Akshelah not been with us, we should have done no travelling that day. She collected some plants, squeezed their feeble juices into a tin mug, and made us swallow the abominable mixture. We were both violently sick, but at the end of an hour the fever left us. The exercise of walking restored us completely, though it was very possible that the healthy air, which met our faces as we ascended, had much to do with the cure.

For five days we journeyed over the Bad Lands, and during the whole of that time we did not sight a living thing, except insects in their millions, some white-headed eagles and magpies, and a few loons over the water, which was everywhere abundant. The country was heaped with rocks, interspersed with bluffs of arctic pine, and spruce, scraggy and stunted, the roots buried in thick tufts of the monotonous white moss. Only a few plants, resembling bunches of yellow feather, sucked an existence in sheltered niches; and a little bleached flowering grass, as dry as the rock, wearied our eyes all that journey.

At the end of the fifth day we came to the summit of an endless ridge, and looked down upon a gully, the sight of which made our hearts beat faster, because, by my father’s plan, we believed that we were then standing outside the door of Bonanza.

A narrow stream trickled among the rocks, and green banks of turf rose on each side invitingly. Here the vegetation was far more luxuriant; there were thickets of cranberry bush, hung with yellow and scarlet fruit, with raspberries nearer the water. Akshelah caught some arctic trout, strange-looking fish, having great fins like wings; we picked berries by handfuls, and fared luxuriously. When we settled to rest upon the cool, clean grass, I felt more content than at any time since our landing at Gull.

We noticed one curious thing while walking along the gulley to the camping-ground we had selected. We passed into a belt of cold wind, blowing strongly across the gulley, just as in swimming one enters an icy cold current of water. We escaped this wind almost directly, but we had time to observe that no vegetation flourished where it crossed. This wind cut a clean dry track across the coulee, and where it struck the rocks it was gradually wearing a cave by the power of its blast.

It was chilly, and as we sat round our fire after supper this passage of wind began to trouble me. I went on thinking, and presently exclaimed involuntarily, because I never liked to show that I cultivated an imagination:

“Is there anything in dreams?”

MacCaskill looked at me over his pipe, and I added:

“Can anyone dream of a place he has never seen?”

“Oh, no,” answered Akshelah. “When we sleep we see our people, who have gone to the Great Spirit’s country. Our people do not speak to us; but when they come they make signs, so that we may know that the season is good for them, and that they are having plenty of hunting. The ghost of the brave smokes the ghost of his pipe, but the man himself, and the pipe itself, have been destroyed in the fire.”

MacCaskill was no deep thinker. He merely discharged a cloud of smoke, grunted, and expressed his opinion that dreams were “no use anyhow.”

I saw before me two shining walls of rock, towering and shutting out the light, and I shivered, because the wind, which was whistling past, became very cold. I understood more than I could express, and when I tried to think again, my mind stopped short at an improvised bed in a cleft of the rock, a few bushes tossing just above, and the wind always pouring, and rushing, and moaning.

“I guess we’re almost there,” I said abruptly, and the factor started, looked at me curiously, and removed his pipe.

“I had a mind to say that.” He spoke more slowly than usual. “That yonder should be the Canyon of the North Wind, and up there we should strike Mosquito Pass. We’ll know to-morrow.”

Akshelah interposed. Without looking at us, she held out her arms against the faintly blue sky, and called:

“You see the ridge where the sun-colours are resting? I saw a man stand there, but while I looked he was gone. He is coming this way.”

We stood up and looked, straining our eyes along the defile, but could see nothing, and MacCaskill was disposed to think the girl mistaken.

“It’s no use shifting,” he said. “He will have seen our fire.”

“He is coming slowly,” said Akshelah.

Again she pointed, and now we saw the dark object crawling down the slope.

“See!” exclaimed the girl. “He is very weak.”

Directly the man entered the line of wind, the current swept him off his legs. We did not go out to help him, because we could not anticipate meeting a friend. Presently, the figure blundered up, and we recognised the ugly face of Jim Morrison. As usual, his own demands were uppermost.

“Gimme some grub; do ye now,” he whined, sinking upon the grass. “I’m ’most starved.”

“You have come through plenty of berries,” said Akshelah scornfully.

“And you can pick ’em for yourself,” added MacCaskill. “We ain’t runnin’ a gen’ral store to fellers that start trackin’ us. Your pard Leblanc with ye, I guess?”

The sailor blasphemously asserted that they had not followed, but had escaped from the hollow after us, and had not dared to return, because they feared punishment for their share of the work on the _Carillon_.

“All the boys have run,” declared Morrison, but we knew this was a lie. “We did track ye jest a piece,” he confessed at last.

“Ye don’t track another piece,” said the factor. “Ye get back to your pard, and sling yourselves out er this country before morning. We don’t call for a couple of dogs sniffin’ after us.”

At first, when a hoarse cry came along the defile, a distant human shout of undeniable fear, I suspected another plot; but Morrison, who had been stripping a bush with both hands, and gulping down the fruit in a beast-like manner, stopped and turned his head, blenching with unmistakable terror.

“’Twas Gedeon!” he gasped.

He went on to explain that he had left the half-breed, who had broken down with hunger and fever, upon the rocks on the far side of the ridge. Akshelah busily dispersed and stamped out our fire, and MacCaskill began to aid her, while I looked on stupidly, remembering that I was seeing how men live.

“Maybe he saw something to fright him,” muttered the factor, but not as though he believed in what he said; while Morrison forgot his own demands, and began to whimper.

We determined to go to Leblanc’s assistance, more, I fancy, because we were curious to discover what other force might be in the field, than from any desire to save the half-breed, whom we knew had been in this place twice before together with his master. We made a cache of our tools and supplies beneath a bush, scattered the dying embers of our fire, and began the ascent, passing on this occasion above the spot where the wind struck. The night was perfectly calm, the light soft and clear, although, it being well after midnight, a few shadows were faintly marked under the rocks. That the half-breed was alive soon became evident, because his shoutings and frightened appeals scarcely ceased for a moment. Presently Morrison sang out, and Leblanc’s note altered.

“Jim! Jim! I’ve ben hit wi’ a knife!”

Morrison was inclined to consider his own well-being, but we pushed him ahead of us. Hard by a patch of strong-smelling bush we found Leblanc, half in the light, half in the dim shadow, and writhing like a worm. An examination showed us that the man had been stabbed in the fleshy part of the shoulder; it was a very slight wound, the would-be murderer having evidently aimed at the back of the neck, and been frustrated by a sudden move.

“Who did it, pard?” Morrison called huskily, and backing away uselessly. “Who come to hit yer?”

“The country’s chocked wi’ ghosts!” wailed Leblanc, his face ghastly. “Old ghosts, an’ young ghosts, mostly old. One hit me dirty wi’ a knife as I set right here. I never see him. He hit quick, an’ was away. He’d have come to hit again if ye hadn’t scared him. Jim, I be bleedin’ dreadful!”

“Dirty coward!” muttered MacCaskill. “Ain’t nothing much worse’n a mosquito prick. Do ye good, ole woman. Let the fever outer ye.”

“I be dyin’,” went on Leblanc, blubbering. “I ain’t got religion. Jim, tell us if there’s a God.”

“There’s a God for decent folk. None for the like of you,” said the factor. “Shake yourself up, and tell who hit ye.”

“I didn’t see nobody. I heard a move, an’ made to turn, when it come right inter me shoulder all hot. A ghost it was, sure. They tell how awful some of ’em do bite. I don’t know where I be a-goin’, not havin’ religion, an’ don’t know whater say. Oh, Jim, tell us whater say!”

I stepped out.

“Tell what happened to old Fagge the last time you were here,” I said.

This was the first occasion I had actually spoken to the half-breed since the early morning at Gull, when I had mistaken him for the Icelander. The wounded man went on writhing, and tried to drag himself under cover by means of the long tufts of white grass.

“Is it a dyin’ confession, say?” he whined. “The last talk o’ me, Gedeon Leblanc, what never had no luck?”

“I guess you ain’t long for this world,” said the factor grimly.

“Talk at ’em, pard,” piped Jim Morrison. “Tell ’em what ye know.”

“We know you come here twice with ole man Fagge,” continued MacCaskill, smoothing the way for him. “We know you’ve been followin’ us. Well, I guess there’s lots of gold for the crowd, and if you talk straight, and don’t die quick, we won’t stop ye from stakin’ out your claim, after we’ve done first choosin’.”

Morrison was staggered by such generosity, which removed the necessity for much base plotting.

“Pard,” he exclaimed, “didn’t I talk to ye? Mister Petrie an’ Mister Factor MacCaskill ain’t Redpath, what can’t a-bear to share. Didn’t I talk to ye? Didn’t I? Gimme some eatin’ tobaccer,” he demanded, turning to me, considering himself admitted into our society by my partner’s concession.

Instead of the desired chew, he received a command to “quit his noise.”

Evidently the cowardly half-breed was in great fear of death.

“Mister Petrie,” he gasped, “your father never done it! No, sir. Ole man Fagge is planted not so far off. He was knifed, mister, an’ I’m the only man who knows who done it, ’cause I saw wi’ me own eyes. Yer father was a-standin’ close up when ’twas done, but he never done it.”

“Who killed Joe Fagge?”

The name of Redpath was shivering on my tongue.

“Olaffson,” blurted out the half-breed.

The Icelander again! Always Olaffson! I could have believed that Redpath had told me the truth, and that Olaffson was the originator of all the plots I had attributed to him.

By still playing upon the half-breed’s fear of death, we obtained the whole story. My father, Leblanc, and Fagge had passed into this defile, and had reached the Canyon of the North Wind, whose existence was at that time only known to us by the rushing breath below. The old man prowled about by himself, permitting no one to accompany him, as he would not give his secret away lightly, and in the course of his ramblings came across Redpath, whom he hated, and who had incautiously encamped just outside the canyon. Returning in a rage, the half-mad miner swore that he would abandon the expedition, and refused to give the key to the situation, which was the secret of the entrance into Mosquito Pass, the only way leading out from the canyon to the unknown land of Bonanza beyond. My father had seen the old man preparing a plan to aid his already failing memory, and he had acquainted Redpath with this fact.

One night--it was late in the season, and already some snow had fallen--Olaffson came up to the camp fire, where Fagge was sitting alone. My father was spreading his blanket under the shelter of the rocks; Leblanc, still farther away, was cutting logs for the fire. The Icelander flung himself suddenly upon the old man, stabbed him when he resisted; but before he could escape with the secret my father was upon him, and had knocked him down. Joe Fagge was dead. My father took the plan, which he kept with him the rest of his life; Olaffson picked himself up and went to report to Redpath, who came presently, and accused my father of having murdered the old miner for his own ends. They came to blows; my father had the best of matters there, and, after beating his late friend, went away, taking the secret with him, and Leblanc never saw him again. Redpath was left helpless, and when he failed to find the pass had to follow my father south. He only just escaped; had he remained another twenty-four hours, he would certainly have been frozen in and killed by the arctic winter.

Such was the story Leblanc told us, and when he had done, it must be owned that I spared a pitying thought for Redpath, who, according to the statement we had just heard, had cause to believe my father guilty. But had Olaffson attacked the old miner upon his own initiative, or had Redpath instructed him to obtain that plan at whatever cost?

Leblanc quickly reverted to his own condition.

“Be I a-goin’ to die soon, do ye think?” he went on whining. “I feel ter’ble queer-like.”

“Speakin’ the truth might make ye feel that, I guess,” said the factor, and with that we left the men, and made our way back to what had been our camp.

The invisible hand, which had tried to settle Leblanc, had passed there also, making a thorough sweep of our tools and our packs, even down to our one little tin mug, which I remembered having thoughtlessly left in the open.

I had never before seen MacCaskill in a thorough rage. His great body quivered with passion, and he put out his hammer-like fist, which anger caused him to move as though it had been a hammer.

“There’s no bit of mercy if we strike him. Golden gates o’ Jerusalem! If I get him into me hands, I’ll smash him up like a rotten melon.”

Akshelah was not one to waste time in threats; indeed, I have noticed that women always reserve their energies to meet a crisis. She was already upon her knees, patting the ground, as though it had been a rich fabric pleasant to the touch. Presently she stood up, and soon was walking, picking up a track which to me was invisible.

“You are wrong,” she said, as we followed. “The Iceland-man has a small foot. This is large.”

She tracked the footprints to the stream. We crossed by means of the rocks; and when on the opposite side, Akshelah was puzzled.

“I know,” she said presently; “he took off his moccasins. See! Here he put down the tools, and rested.”

We took her word for this, because not even my trained eyes could pick out the signs she tried to indicate. She took us along, and soon a deep, melodious sound came upon our ears, and the lights ahead shimmered before the shadows stopped them, as the haze shimmers on a hot day. We were near the mouth of the canyon, and soon we saw the narrow black entry, the straight cleft where the rocks lifted up to the clouds, with the torrent of wind booming forth. The air became moist, colder, and there was the smell of vegetation rotting in water.

Just outside, Akshelah stopped to announce that the tracks of the man who had robbed us went “up into the wind.”

It was the time of the shadow--the two hours after midnight when the light is perplexing. The canyon was very dark, because the summits almost touched far away overhead, horrifying, and very cold. We lost nerve; we were tired after a long day’s journey; we resolved to defer our entry into the north wind until the coming of the perfect day.

AN OLD CAMPAIGNER

I must have been dreaming, because I awoke with a cry upon my lips, and I thought I had exclaimed “Father!”

On one side MacCaskill breathed heavily, shifting often, as the ground chafed his bones through the white moss we had collected to lie upon; on the other Akshelah slept, her head upon her two hands, a pretty picture, and yet severe, for she might have been dead, so still was she, and so pale. Her little face was unhappy, and my heart reproached me, because I knew that she was enduring hardships for my sake. She understood more about my own people than I did myself. She thought that when I had found enough gold I should go away and find my own new place, perhaps in the world of that visionary London, where I had first seen the light, and she would see me no more. The unhappiness she would not betray by day Nature brought and left upon her face in sleep. She was young womanhood, I young manhood. If there was any gulf between us, she could not see it. Why should I try to find it?

The voice in which I had called “Father!” was not my own. It was a thin voice, peevish and frightened. “Take me away,” was my thought, before I entirely awoke; “I don’t like the wind and the noise.” But I was a grown man, abnormally strong, capable of protecting others. I could not understand my dream.

Certainly there was a noise which was not the work of imagination. I started up, wide awake; a few frogs whistled at the stream below--that was a natural sound. The wind brought a steady, metallic ring--that was not natural. It was the quick stroke of a mining tool upon rock. I rose quietly, and walked to the black mouth of the canyon; but a footstep followed, a hand touched me, and a voice spoke.

“Ah, you are going away!”

Akshelah had awoke after me, and had followed jealously.

“Don’t you hear that noise?” I whispered.

But the girl had no ears for it. She drew me away.

“See, he is sleeping, and will never know.”

“What do you mean, little squirrel?” I said, in the old foolish manner I had spoken to her at home, and she responded to my mood.

“I will find the trail across the Bad Lands. I will bring you down to the green country,” she whispered passionately. “We will go back to the Yellow Sands before the winds of Tukwaukin come. Your tepee will be ready. You can be happy there.”

“We will go together soon,” I said, wanting to make her happy, but not wishing to deceive. “I cannot leave him. It would be cowardly.”