CHAPTER XVIII

THE MAN HUNTERS

That evening was to begin the harrowing days and weeks of peril and hardship through which Kitchener lived in an incredulous daze, like a sleeper in the throes of a bad dream.

Kit and Oogly slept “cold” every night, and they never slept in the same place twice. The Great Owl woods was their refuge from the Indians, but there was a chance at any moment of Hell Bent’s creeping up and sticking a spear or knife into their fur bags. Asleep or awake the menace lurked behind them. Like a pair of homeless rabbits they dug-in under windfalls and brush piles, wriggled into hollow logs, or spent the frigid night huddled against some shaggy tree-trunk, where unseemly eyes glared down and giant wings fluttered in the eerie stillness.

Daytimes they skulked and dodged through the woods and paid the price of life with a vigilance that never gave them a second’s surcease. They were hunters, and at the same time they were ceaselessly hunted. Kit’s every waking hour was given over to a single, undeviating purpose--to find Hell Bent and take him alive. But the man was gifted with an uncanny elusiveness.

The ex-convict seemed to take an infernal delight in tantalizing his enemy. Kit often crossed the trail of the waffle-meshed snowshoes. He would follow with extreme caution, casting back and forth in half-circles to avoid the dangers of a deliberately planted ambush. But he never once caught a glimpse of the trail-maker. The waffle-webs always ended blindly in some well-traveled pathway, where the wearer shifted to his spare snowshoes and mingled his footprints with those of other passers-by.

So far the ex-convict apparently had made no attempt to recover the hidden sledge-load of loot. Presumably he was afraid to make any definite move while a policeman was on patrol in the neighborhood. Unhampered, he was able to evade his Nemesis. It would be another matter to attempt the long trip southward, dragging a heavily laden sledge through the deep snow. Before he could safely go ahead with his original errand he would have to dispose of Kit as he had dealt with Jerry.

Kitchener seldom left the Great Owl woods in the daylight, and he never showed himself in the open. Yet he was shot at mysteriously on several occasions. He would hear a bullet tearing through the thicket that he had thought was screening him, and an instant later the dry report of a rifle echoed somewhere through the rift in the trees. He would duck and scramble for a deeper cover, and later would maneuver around from the rear to find a departing trail at a place where a man had stood and a gun had rested for a moment in the snowy crotch of a sapling.

These wanton snipings he was inclined to lay at the door of Oogly’s enemies. He had seen their tracks criss-crossing the forest along the outskirts of the owl pits, and knew that some of them were always prowling in the neighborhood, waiting with a deadly patience for the Esquimau to come out. And their hostility towards Oogly naturally included Kit.

The Yellow Knives were good stalkers, but notoriously bad shots. The snipers so far had missed their mark, and that was one reason why he had blamed the Indians for these furtive attacks. He had a feeling that if Hell Bent ever glimpsed him over rifle sights it would be the end.

At least once every day Kitchener made it a duty to creep to the edge of the clearing and assure himself that the cabin door was shut and that smoke was still curling out of the chimney. Diane and Mayauk had not been molested.

So Kitchener was justified in his first belief that the occupants of the cabin would be ignored. The Yellow Knives would know that two armed and resolute women at loop holes might wreak havoc among an attacking party. They would know further that Mayauk would never let herself be taken alive. To kill her would be worse than futile. Mayauk and the baby were the anchors that held Oogly in this section of the wilderness. Let them die, and he would pack up his scanty belongings and vanish northward over night into the trackless barrens, where the Yellow-Knife vengeance could never find him. It was to the interest of Oogly’s enemies to allow his wife and baby to dwell unharmed in the cabin on Great Owl Run.

The January moon waned and black nights of storm and sleet and frightful cold set in, and the wilderness lay in death under the white scourge of winter. By craft and by stealth Oogly and Kit contrived somehow to eat and to sleep and to evade their enemies. And Kit hunted his man, and failed, so far, to get him.

The sun all but disappeared over the southern bulge of the world, and then gradually began to come north again, a hazy, pallid ball, lacking warmth and the power of giving life. Sometimes Kitchener encountered the two local trappers in the woods. He would gossip with them briefly, and then go his way, liking neither the sneaky-eyed Giffard nor the sullen, black-bearded Bruyas.

On one occasion Constable Devon made a patrol downstream to find out if all was well with the sergeant. Kit did not want police interference in an affair that was decidedly his own. He told Devon that he was still investigating the Yellow-Knife murder, assured the constable that he was in no need of help, and sent him back about his business.

Kitchener had not talked with Diane Durand in weeks, but one night, after the return of a full moon, he met the girl while roving the banks of the creek.

He was working his way downstream, hidden by the shadows of the willows, when there appeared above a snowy knoll a slender graceful figure in a hooded mackinaw and calf-length breeches.

The girl of necessity had become a huntswoman. A brace of partridges and two or three rabbits hung at her belt, and she carried a shotgun in the crook of her arm.

Kit held his position in the thicket, waiting for her to come opposite him. The moon-rays touched the curves of her cheeks and lips and her small, firm chin, giving her face an expression of childlike wistfulness. She looked thin and tired and most unhappy.

As Kit observed her calm and pensive features it struck him that nobody but a monstrous cynic could ever believe that she was actively involved in her uncle’s murderous schemes. Bent might have told her anything about the gold-sledge, but Kit would not let himself think that she knew the whole truth. If she were as bad as that, then nothing in the world ever could be right, and he would be glad to pass out of it. If, like her uncle, she looked on Kit as an obstacle that had to be put out of the way, here was her opportunity. She had her shotgun. He stepped suddenly before her with his hands in his pockets.

The girl halted as the tall, gaunt shape loomed in her path. She peered fearfully for a moment, and then her tense shoulders relaxed and she drew a long breath.

“Oh,” she said, “it’s you. Hello.”

She moved a pace nearer and her glance swept to his face. He had shaved that morning with ice water, but nevertheless he felt that he was not a very presentable object. His clothing had grown a bit seedy and he knew that his face must have taken on a few haggard and care-worn lines since he saw her last.

Diane seemed kindlier than he remembered her and just for a moment he thought he caught a trace of pity in her lovely eyes. “How are you and Oogly?” she asked.

“All right. We’re getting along.” He did not think it worth while telling her that they had spent every hour and minute of the last few weeks in the shadow of imminent death.

“Mayauk and Uttaktuak are well,” she informed him. “Particularly the baby. It does you good to see what a little husky he’s getting to be.”

“How’s Diane?” asked Kit.

The girl lifted one shoulder in a curt and reckless movement. “Well enough,” she said.

She pulled off her mittens and put her cupped hands to her mouth. Then she wriggled her fingers and beat them together, trying to restore the circulation. They were strongly shaped, competent little hands, chapped and rather grimy, more like a boy’s hands than a girl’s.

Without thought or actual intention Kit took one of them into his, and doubled her fingers under his warm palm. “I guess you’re not used to this sort of business,” he remarked.

“No.” For a moment or two she allowed her fist to lie quiet, as though she gathered comfort from the touch. “You can get used to anything, though,” she added sturdily.

Then she raised her eyes level with his. “Have you seen my uncle?” she asked with a directness that startled him. She released her hand and put it back in its mitten.

“No,” he said.

She looked around the thicket that sparkled in the moonlight in white, lacy designs. Her straight eyebrows met in a troubled pucker. “If he’s anywhere in this part of the world he should have heard that I’m here. And then he should come and find me. I don’t know why he doesn’t come.”

Kitchener faced her with a smile that had grown a bit acrid these days. She didn’t fool him. He not only believed that she had seen and talked with her uncle, but he rather imagined that she would know about where to find him at this minute. What was she trying to put over, he wondered? Probably fishing to find out how much he knew. His face had grown stony. She wouldn’t learn anything from him.

“Maybe he’s gone back south,” he suggested.

“I don’t know what’s happened.” Diane shook her head. “It’s funny I haven’t heard anything from him. It’s darned funny!”

Kit sat down on the edge of a snow terrace and brooded grimly upon the icy world. “I thought you were going back yourself,” he said after a moment.

“It’s easier to come in,” she told him, “than it is to get out.”

“I offered to help you out,” he reminded her. “But it isn’t too late. I’ll order one of the constables to escort you down to the rail head.”

“Don’t bother,” she said. “I’m in no hurry to leave.”

She moved to the snow-bank, hesitated for an instant, and then sat down beside him, crossing one booted ankle over her knee and clasping her leg between her hands. “This is a wonderful place!” she sighed.

“Wonderful for what?”

“For me.” She pushed off her hood, shook her ruddy hair in the moonlight, and gave him a full, close-up view of her darkly shimmering eyes. “Do you know, I’ve always had somebody to cook things for me and bring ’em in on a tray and clean up afterwards. I don’t believe I’ve ever washed a dish before in my life. And now--” Her mouth crooked ironically. “I shoot my own rabbits and clean ’em myself and scorch ’em without anybody else to blame, and eat ’em to the last scrap, and scour up the pans afterwards.”

“Is that supposed to be wonderful?”

“Isn’t it? I thought it taught you to be self-reliant and unselfish and a little humble. Everybody says so. If I ever get back, I thought I might be a better girl.” She turned to him appealingly. “Do you think maybe I might?”

Kit didn’t know whether she was laughing at herself or at him, or was really half in earnest. She was the most enigmatical woman he had ever met. There was no way of guessing the thoughts that kindled those deep eyes, with their singular trick of being serious and humorous at the same time.

“You’re a pretty good girl now, aren’t you?” he said, and stirred uneasily. He wished she wouldn’t sit so close and look at him so intimately. And then he began to despise himself for a fool, because he realized with a sudden shock that he wanted fearfully to feel her tangled hair under his fingers, to bring her face even closer and to find out the meaning of her disturbing eyes. In that moment he knew that if he ever lost his grip on himself, he was gone.

But he was watching himself to-night. He didn’t want any recollection of a foolish weakness and a softly moonlit evening to make life cruder by contrast and more unbearable. He stood up abruptly and looked away somberly into the thickets. Hell Bent might be creeping up even at this instant. “If shooting and cooking rabbits makes people good,” he said, “Oogly is a saint on earth.”

Diane half stretched her hand towards him, as though to invite him to come back, and then dropped it listlessly. “Well, I’m not,” she declared with a sudden harshness of voice. “If anybody wanted to know, I’m bad.”

Kit measured her quizzically. She sounded as though she were passionately ashamed of something, and yet she watched him with a queer glow of defiance.

“Not in any way you’d ever think,” she added morosely. “It’s not so much badness as--as just being idiotic.”

“We’re all of us a bit of that,” he said, and faced her wryly. “Just what form does yours take?”

“Think I’d tell you?” she flashed at him.

Kit started to open his mouth, and then shut it. Through the silvery night there ranged a queer, unearthly sound--something between a sigh and a croak and a hiss--a voice that was horrible because it lacked reality.

The girl started up to her feet and then sank down in the bank of snow. Kit saw her shiver, and he himself felt an electric chill running down his spine.

“It’s only one of the owls,” he told her, wondering why he never could get used to these ghostly disturbances in the upper air. This one in particular startled him every time he heard it. He had never seen the bird, but he knew it by its voice, which was hoarser and croakier than any of the others. Oogly told him once that this one was a spirit that had caught a cold on its way out of hell.

“I know it’s an owl,” said Diane. “And I know who he is. It’s Shedim. And I hate him worse than all the rest of them.”

Kit contemplated her face gravely. It was strange that she too knew this bird and had given him a name.

The voice crossed invisible above them, passed over the brook, and faded away somewhere in the north.

“They’re my bad thoughts,” said the girl at the end of long silence.

Kit peered down at her. She never had seemed more in earnest.

“Whenever I think something bad,” she pursued, “one of the owls comes. It always happens. As though they were something that had just been released out of my head.” She was not looking at Kit and he had a feeling that she had forgotten he could hear her.

“It’s the oddest thing,” she mused. “My bad thoughts are owls. And the night I thought the very worst thing I could think of, this one came for the first time. His name was Shedim. And I’ve heard him every night since, croaking in the sky.”

She raised her head and found Kit staring at her. “Honestly,” she said, “I almost half believe such truck.” She smiled somewhat grimly. “Maybe I’m going a little goofy from lonesomeness.”

“I’d kill him,” Kit advised.

“I can’t,” she said mournfully.

“You’ve got a shotgun. I’d wait up until daylight, and when Shedim comes back from the red hunting I’d let him have both barrels.”

“You can’t kill a bad thought with a shotgun,” Diane said.

“I can,” Kit told her soberly. “You lend me that gun and there won’t be any Shedim around here after to-morrow morning.”

She shook her head. “Suppose I don’t want him killed?”

“Why wouldn’t you? If I had a bad thought flying around in the air I’d knock him for a row of feathers.”

“No! The thing’s born and alive, and all the killing in the world won’t kill it. And what’s worse I wouldn’t want it killed--I couldn’t bear it--”

“Diane!” Kit sat down again and tried to see into her eyes. She was no longer the girl he had known--the competent, self-possessed Diane. She was beginning to sound hysterical.

“What’s this awfully bad thought about?” he demanded.

“Do you think I’d want you to know?”

“I do know!” he shot at her.

“You don’t. You couldn’t!”

“It’s about me,” said Kit.

Her lips parted and wild alarm showed itself in her eyes.

“I guess you can’t help hating me like that,” he said drearily.

“Hate you!” She turned to him and he heard her choking breath and felt the potency of her eyes, brought close and recklessly seeking his. “If I did--” She laughed crazily. “Oh, my God!”

Suddenly she was on her feet, standing over him. “What’s the use of our talking?” she said measuredly. “You and I have nothing to say to one another--ever.” Her high tone changed to something suspiciously like a sob. “If you ever meet me again, don’t stop me. Let me alone!”

She picked up the shotgun, pulled her hood down over her head, and before Kit had recovered from his astonishment she was gone.

He stumbled erect and stood with his left eyebrow perched at its highest attainable angle, gazing after her. He started forward as though to follow, and then he changed his mind and his feet anchored themselves in the snow. For an interval he waited, irresolute and dejected. He sighed and shook his head sadly. Then he turned decisively and strode back to camp.

During these recent moonlight nights Kit and his Esquimau companion had borrowed the habits of the owls that lived about them. They slept days and did their hunting under the cover of night. But this night Kit turned in early. He tossed and twisted in his sleeping bag and was unable to close his eyes until dawn. And then, just as he finally dropped off into a doze, Oogly came back from his night’s fishing.

The Esquimau brought four or five fish and a coiled line, which he dropped under Kit’s windbreak, while he yawned and sat down to pull off his frozen boots.

Kit opened one eye, started to shut it again, and then opened both. Fastened to the fishing line, a few inches above the hook, he noticed a battered slug of metal that glinted yellow in the early morning light. He suddenly sat up in his bag and snatched up the coil of line.

“What’s this?” he demanded.

Oogly looked around. “A sinking,” he explained.

Kit hefted the slug and turned it in his fingers. Oogly had split the hunk of metal with his knife and pinched it around his line for a sinker. It was soft, and heavier than lead, and there was no mistaking its glinting color. To weight his line the Esquimau had used a chunk of pure, raw gold.

“Where’d you find it?” exclaimed Kit. In one movement he was out of his bag and on his feet.

Oogly winked his slits of eyes. He saw no reason for excitement, and remained his placid self. “Fishing along fast bottom, hook ’em up. Plenty lots more.”

“Where?” cried Kit.

“You want to see ’um?”

“You’re darned tootin’. Come along and show me.”

Oogly was perfectly willing. He conducted his comrade through the thick timber to the bank of Great Owl Run. The two men made their way upstream through the thickets, and the Esquimau halted presently on the overhanging brink, not far from the cabin where the two women lived.

This was the place. In the snow lay a moss-covered pouch, from which spilled forth a double handful of blackish, corroded lumps like pebbles, but which, under Kit’s tremulous knife-blade, changed magically to the color of virgin gold.

Oogly pointed towards the stream, which, at this point, ran too swift to freeze. “I catch um fishing an’ hook um up,” he said.

Kitchener stared breathlessly at the boiling water. The Esquimau must have snagged the bag by accident, and after helping himself to one of the “sinkers,” which he needed for his line, he dumped the rest on the bank and unconcernedly went his way.

With shaking hands Kit crouched to lift the pouch. It was made of some sort of rawhide. But instead of rotting, some chemical action of the water had hardened and stiffened the bloated skin until it was like a sheet of stone.

For a space Kit squatted on his heels, dribbling nuggets through his fingers. All at once he stood up and looked down over the brook embankment. The racing water had cut its way under a shelf of the rock. The deep, black channel was farther out, but here it looked to be rather shallow. For just an instant he hesitated, and then began stripping off his clothing.

Oogly looked on wonderingly, but had nothing to say. Anything his friend did was correct in his eyes.

Kit stood in his underwoolens, and reached for the Esquimau’s hand. “Hang on and don’t let the current pull me out.”

He slipped over the curve of the shelf, held his breath, and then heroically dropped into the water.

The cold was like sharp blades cutting his flesh. But it was something that had to be borne, and he gritted his teeth with the desperate resolution of a martyr undergoing torture. The stream level did not quite reach his arm pits. By clinging to Oogly’s hand he moored himself against the gurgling current.

He trampled the bottom below the shelf, and found a heaped-up slimy mass, which he knew by the feel to be a pile of full, heavily-weighted bags. His toe groped along a mossy, waterlogged framework--the guard-rail, “gee” pole and upcurving runners of a long submerged dog-sledge.