Chapter VII: Bonanza (1)

WHERE THE SUN SHINES UPON THE SAND 315

I

YELLOW SANDS

BONANZA

WHERE EARTH AND SKY MET

The time was an evening in the spring when the atmosphere was all red and gold; the place the flowering grass mounds between the white poplar and birch beside little Yellow Sands River. I had walked out to haul up my sturgeon lines, and had reached the thicket of pines on the sand side of our snake fence, where I could begin to hear the splash of the waters, when my well-trained ears caught a new and different sound proceeding from the bush-bound trail. Curiosity led me to intrude, and I soon came upon a group of Indian maidens at play, pelting each other with soft green cones, and using their shawls as shields to protect their faces.

Directly they saw me a mischievous cry went up, and they united forces, their black eyes dancing with fun as they flung their dainty missiles in my direction with a pitiless accuracy. Presently I dashed forward and captured one of the girls, the most audacious, and, incidentally, the most handsome. She struggled with me, her great beautiful eyes two imps of laughter, but I held on, and, as a punishment, tried to force one of the cones into her laughing mouth. The soft scented thing crumbled upon her teeth; she twisted round, slapped me sharply across the cheek, and, with another deft twist, freed herself, her black hair dashing into my face as she escaped.

The other girls stood at a distance, and chaffed at my defeat.

“When did you come?” I called, in the Cree which I knew better than English, because the girls were strangers to me.

It was Akshelah, my chief tormentor, who replied from the summit of an ant-mound. The tribe had just come to Yellow Sands from Thunder Lake, where fish and fur-bearers had become scarce.

“Come with me,” commanded the girl, holding out her brown shapely arms. “I will take you down to the tepee, and the chief, my father, will give you some moose.”

“We have lots of moose,” I said. “Come with me, and I will give you a sturgeon for your father.”

“But the sturgeon is in the river,” said the bright girl, her head to one side.

“I hope he is pulling at my line,” I said.

Then the girl jumped from the ant-mound, and swung round, catching at my hand, and so drew me away from her companions.

“I will not walk over those stones,” said she, and I noticed then that her left foot was tied up. Yet she walked lightly enough beside me, through the thicket of pines, where some purple butterflies idled, and down to the yellow sands, where the surface was as soft and yielding as white moss.

This bright girl was full of talk, and as we walked she told me of the many things she had done, and all she had seen, the silver fox, the white bear, and Wepechenite, the walrus, himself.

“One day,” said she very sternly, “I shot a moose myself.”

“I will track a musk-ox for you, and you shall kill that,” I said.

“Perhaps I should be afraid,” said Akshelah, with a quick glance.

“You would not be afraid if I were with you.”

Said she more slowly:

“Perhaps you shall come down and dance with me at the lodge. But where is your sturgeon for my father?”

Line after line I gathered in out of the amber water, but there was no sturgeon that evening. When we had visited the last, Akshelah laughed delightedly.

“A fisherman!” she cried. “Such a fisherman! I am sure you could not catch the gold-eyes.”

These are stupid little fish, which will suffer themselves to be pulled out of the water with the hand.

“I will catch one, and put it down your back,” I threatened, but Akshelah went on laughing.

“The gold-eyes will have all sunk to the bottom because the sun is going,” said she. “You will have to go home empty-handed. We laugh at the young men when they come home empty-handed.”

“You are laughing at me now!”

“I laugh at everyone.” She tried to hush her merry voice. “In the morning sometimes I laugh into the face of the sun himself.”

Our homestead was encircled by rolling park-like country, which stretched away endlessly upon three sides; but on the fourth, the western, there was merely a strip of bush separating us from the Yellow Sands River, which made a winding course round Big Stone Point, and entered Lake Whispering some twenty-six miles lower down. Our log-house stood upon a clearing, with a little cow-byre adjoining which sheltered our few beasts in winter; both buildings were thatched with swamp grass. We had reclaimed from the bush about five acres of garden, where father grew what grain and vegetables we needed, and the flowers grew themselves. The willow scrub and the wood-ants were our principal difficulties; and Antoine, our Indian servant, whose duty it was to keep the ground clear, devoted more anathemas than labour upon his work. To this day I do not know who owns that land, whether the Crown or the Hudson Bay Company, but the matter is of no importance.

One night when I reached home father was smoking, sitting upon a log beside the door, silent as usual. Father had always been taciturn; had I not been provided with Indian companions, I might have altogether lost the use of my tongue. He eyed me more narrowly than usual, I thought, but he said nothing as I passed. We had our supper, and I was about to roam outside to watch the insects of the night at play, when my father surprised me by calling in a hoarse voice:

“Sit down, Rupert!”

I had always stood in awe of the unhappy-looking man who called himself my father. All my life I had lived with him at Yellow Sands, knowing no other relation, no other friend, except my Indians and morose MacCaskill, factor of the dying Hudson Bay Station. Why my father spent himself there I did not know, and the thought never troubled me, because I did not then know that there was any world outside that narrow circle of the horizon where earth and sky met. I had no learning; I could neither read nor write. I had often been to the lake shores, and I knew that boats sometimes came to the yellow beach; but where these boats came from I had no idea.

“Rupert,” began my father, “have I taught you anything? Do you know what London is?”

He spoke in the deliberate manner of a man little accustomed to speech, and he had his hand to his brow as though his brain were tired. I replied, not wishing to be ignorant:

“Is it anything like a moose?”

“It is not an animal,” said my father. I wonder now that he did not smile. “London is the name of a city, and you were born there.”

He stopped, and I could hear the throbbing murmurs of the night. There was no lamp in our shanty, but we could see by the northern lights, and by the fire which smouldered outside the open door to keep away the mosquitos. My father struck a match, rekindled his pipe, and, with the match still burning between his fingers, walked across to the far corner of the room, and opened a box; presently he came near, and I saw that he held a buckskin bag. He poured out the contents upon the table, but when I bent forward to look, as the light flickered up momentarily, I was disappointed. Only a few ounces of coarse dirt, and some small honey-combed stones.

“Is that stuff of any use, father?” I said. He looked across slowly, and I went on: “I picked some yellow stones like those out of the white rocks up Split Leaf Creek. I gave them to Factor MacCaskill.”

Turning upon me abruptly, my father went on:

“I have been for the best part of my life a gold-hunter. I, too, was born in London, and I was once what they call a gentleman. You may understand the meaning of the word some day. I have made more than one fortune in my time, but fortunes so made melt as quickly. During an exceptional period of prosperity I returned to my native city, there married, and you were born.” He started suddenly. “Come with me, Rupert.”

He had re-collected the gold, and now snatched at the bag and left the shanty. I followed, along the dark-blue trail, where I had lingered with Akshelah that afternoon, and out over the river falling in bars of alternate black and silver to its own soft music. Father held the buckskin bag swinging by one hand. It was large and heavy, but he launched it forth with one strong movement, and it went under the water with a sullen splash.

“When I am gone, you shall never say that I did not teach you one lesson, boy.” He went back, and I followed, wondering what this teaching meant. When we had passed the smoke of the smudge, and had regained our home, father seized my hand. “Gold has ruined me, Rupert.”

Then he went away, and I suppose to sleep, but I wandered outside, trying hard to think; and when the lights grew brighter, and the sounds of the bush more distinct, my untrained mind awoke, and I had dreams that night.

Father had always looked ill. One day I thought his face was whiter than usual. I ventured to ask after his health, and succeeded in again drawing him into conversation.

“I have only a little more time to be miserable,” he said, in his slow fashion. Then his manner became harsh. “Shall you stay here when I’m away, or will you go to find the world?”

I stared at him, and said the only thing I could: “Where is the world?”

“You will learn.” He looked up at me, his face twitching, and said more quickly, “I have seen you with that native girl. If you want to be wise, marry her when I am dead, and live your life away here. She is a natural woman. If you must be a fool, like your father, go back to the world. You will find the false thing there.”

I had picked up my muzzle-loader, thinking he had done, and was going out to the bush, but he stopped me, and his voice became nervous.

“If you ever meet with a man, a tall man, with loose white face--he would be elderly now,”--father hesitated, then laughed wretchedly, and almost shouted at me--“his name is Redpath. He has kept me here in hiding all these years.”

I did not shoot any partridges that morning. By chance I met Akshelah, and after we had been together a little while, I found that the morning had somehow slipped away. She showed me how to sew with grass upon buckskin, and all the time laughed at my clumsiness. The grass would keep breaking; she declared that I strained too heavily upon it. Her little brown fingers were so light that they might have sewn with gossamers, but when I told her so she only pricked me saucily with her needle.

Nearly every day Akshelah and I were together fishing or hunting. How stern her face would become, and how resolute, as she struggled with a wolf-like jack-fish, knee-deep in the yellow sands, and being drawn deeper every minute! She came with me to shoot tree partridges, and so sure was her eye, and so agile her every movement, that she would catch the great stupid birds as they tumbled headlong out of the black poplars. I was often at the tepee, and one midnight when the moon was large I danced at the lodge with Akshelah that exhilarating dance of friendship, which makes a man beside himself for the time with mad strength and passion. The tribe became as my own by the rights of the dance, and I was the son of the chief and the brother of each brave.

And yet nearer to me the cloud of sorrow gathered and darkened. In spite of the skilled attention of our native Antoine, father weakened fast, more quickly, perhaps, because he would not take to his bed, but insisted upon working as he was able.

Factor MacCaskill came over one day, and when he left I met him along the trail. He was a big, morose man, but his heart was sound.

“Rupe,” he said, “old man’s call is on the way. We’ll miss him hereabouts.”

That same evening I was cutting rye-grass along the snake fence, Akshelah near me hindering, when Antoine came running out of the shadows to startle me with the message that my father had fallen down unconscious. I ran back with him, and Akshelah sped to her own people to summon them to the passing of the white man.

Father was stretched along his bed, his eyes shut, his face grey-white, and I heard his hard breathing before I had entered the house.

The lamp was lighted. I sat by my father’s side, fanning the flies from his weird face.

“No good, boy,” muttered Antoine. “The Spirit call him, an’ he not say, ‘I cannot.’ He go.”

I had no religion, beyond the native belief in the two great spirits, Good and Evil, therefore I was relieved when there came against the window the deep red glow of the death fires, and I heard the solemn chant of my Indian friends beating upward. Round the house went the Cree doctors in their official mummery, marching in a solemn circle, making their incantations to keep the devils at bay, their voices rising to a dreadful yell, then sinking abruptly into a mere shivering whisper.

MacCaskill entered, and seated himself largely upon the chest in the corner. He smoked all the time, but never spoke.

“Maidens!” called a deep voice, and straightway the clear sweet voices of the maids ascended, singing the prayer of commendation to the Spirit. I heard only one voice, the clearest and best, the voice of Akshelah, and as I listened I forgot the presence, and began to dream again.

A heavy hand came upon my shoulder.

“Stir yourself, Rupe; old man’s away.”

Antoine moved about slowly, setting the house in order. The death fires were burning out, and the Indians departed in solemn file. Although I had never been what is known as friendly with my father, I felt unmistakably alone.

“Maybe ye don’t want to stop wi’ that,” went on the factor. “Come along over to the Fort, Rupe Petrie.”

I started at hearing that name. “Petrie?” I muttered.

“Ay, that’s your name. Old man went sudden, or maybe he’d have told ye.”

Rousing myself, I went out with the factor, and we walked over to the Fort through the silver night.

We buried my father the next day under a big pine a stone’s throw from the door, and Antoine heaped a mound to mark the spot. Akshelah stood with me beside the grave, her black hair wrapped in a red shawl as bright as her cheeks. We were alone.

“You will be lonely?” said she softly, her head to one side.

“I have you, and the factor, with your father and the tribe.”

“Oh, yes,” said the girl, and I saw that she was happy because I had named her first.

The evening found me turning out my father’s chest. There were letters and papers, which he would probably have destroyed, had not death tripped him up so suddenly. As I could not read, these were of slight interest, if I except one ragged sheet, half covered with writing, and the other half containing a rough diagram, where I thought I made out sea and coast, with rocks and hills behind. Always anxious to learn, I smoked over this torn sheet for a long time, and even after I had lighted the lamp I turned to it again. The letters I had put into a box and hidden.

It was a silent night. Antoine slept in the kitchen, and an electric storm might have passed leaving his slumbers unbroken. The door was open, and the smoke of the smudge hung between me and the night. I was about to go towards my bedroom, when my highly trained ears caught a sound, which was not made by any bird, or beast, or insect in the bush. I looked up, not afraid, but startled. I stepped forward, and put the lamp above my head. Through the flickering smoke I made out the figure of a man.

I took him to be an Indian, and called out in Cree. No answer came, but the man stood out from the smoke, and I then spoke to him in English, because I was sure he had mistaken my home for the Fort.

“An elderly gentleman of the name of Petrie lives here, I believe?” asked the stranger.

He was tall, loosely made, and his clothes hung on him badly. Unaccustomed to strange white people, I became confused.

“My father is outside now,” I said, not for the moment realising that my words contained a meaning I never intended.

“Ah, yes. And where, may I ask?” The stranger’s voice was smooth, and his manner deferential.

“Under the big pine.”

I indicated the shadowy outline of the tree, and immediately, to my great surprise, found myself alone. I had forgotten the sheet of paper, still spread out upon the table, and before I had collected my wits the man was back. He smiled at me with his large mouth, and looked over me with his cold eyes, making me more uncomfortable than I had ever felt before.

“I imagine it must be very easy to fool me,” he observed gently. “I have been deceived by so many people, your good father among them, and you have fooled me with your first word.” He smiled, still more guilelessly. “When did he die?”

“Yesterday,” I answered, but while I said the word his eyes started like those of a starving man.

I was too quick for him. I was nearer the table, and I snatched away the sheet of paper, as his long hands pounced at it.

“I really believe that is my property,” he said eagerly, yet backing indifferently. “My good fellow, I am positively convinced that is mine.”

“No,” I said simply.

The man felt in his pocket, and I suddenly picked up my unloaded gun.

“What are you about?” cried the stranger, with assumed horror. “Ah, you are Petrie’s son, I can see, hot, headstrong, and impulsive, mistaking a friend for an enemy, just as he always did. You must know that I’ve been searching for your good father close upon twenty years, and wasting my life doing it. He stole that plan from me. It is terrible to have to say so, but you require me to make good my claim. You know what it is, of course?”

I was quick-witted enough not to play into his hands.

“I know all about it,” I lied firmly.

The man changed completely. He made a quick move, leaned forward, his hands upon the table, his eyes freezing at me.

“Partners?” he suggested.

I could hardly guess his meaning, but I went on playing my own game.

“All right,” I answered.

He put out his long arm.

“We will make our arrangements in due time. For the present I must beg to retain my own property.”

I hesitated, and in a moment my father’s warning came. I looked at the flabby face, clean-shaven, with loose skin hanging in pouches.

“Tell me your name!” I called, but while my attention was distracted the long hungry fingers snatched the paper out of my hand.

“Redpath,” said the man, as he left me.

THE ADVENTURERS

For the first time in my healthy life I knew what it was to want sleep. After my father’s enemy had left me, taking that paper upon which he set so much store, I lay awake for hours. Despite my ignorance, I felt that the old idle life was done, that the new and stranger had already commenced, and the way ahead looked dark. At sunrise I went to the river and bathed, and after early breakfast set out for the Fort. MacCaskill was splitting logs in front of the store, and did not cease from his occupation while I was telling him of the coming of Redpath.

When I had done he sat down and refilled his pipe; after some storm-like puffs he asked me what I had made out of it, and when I helplessly shook my head, he spoke.

“What I know of your father ain’t scarce worth talkin’ about. He stopped here fifteen years, but kept himself buttoned up all the time. I knew his name. I knew he’d been a miner. I knew he was an Englishman. The rest is loose in me fancy. Like to hear?”

I was eager to hear anything, whether fact or fancy, and he went on:

“Ole Petrie never settled here, I guess, because he wanted solitude, nor yet because he liked it, but just because he was scared to live in the world. Lots like that, Rupe. He’d done something--or was suspected, and maybe wanted, and fancied he couldn’t clear himself. This Redpath knows all about it. Likely he’d run your father into doing it.”

“He was hiding from Redpath,” I said.

The factor nodded.

“There’s that bit o’ paper,” he muttered. “Why in Jerusalem didn’t I have a sight of that! Then his firing that bag o’ dirt into the river! Don’t you see, Rupe? No, course you don’t. He told me one time he wanted you kep’ ignorant, or I’d have opened up your eyes long enough ago. Old man struck a rich pay-streak one time, and all he knew is set right down on that paper. Golden gates! Why wasn’t I with ye last night? This Redpath has been hunting years for that secret.”

“What is the use of the gold?” I said.

The factor swore.

“Sit down,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll tell ye what you ought to have known soon as you was able to balance upright.”

Then he began to tell me something of the world--not the little outside world I had always lived in, but the great inside world which knew nothing of Yellow Sands, my home. He defined for me the two terms, poverty and wealth, and he told me incredible stories of lifelong struggle for that gold, which I had despised as gaudy trinkets for an Indian maid. He went on to describe to me the meaning of many things this gold will procure.

The abstract of this new learning showed me that I was a savage, a heathen, a man of no account, because I was outside. Much that MacCaskill told me remained then beyond my mental grasp, but I was naturally shrewd, and certain stupendous facts became uncovered, and stared at me nakedly. The dose of understanding was so powerful that my head ached with it, and my throat went dry.

The factor stopped and wiped his mouth. I found the voice to mutter:

“What can I do?”

The big man looked me up and down.

“Follow Redpath,” he said strongly.

The mere suggestion made me cold. My eyes rested upon the trees, the river and rocks, the Indian tepees, barely visible--all the surroundings that I had loved, and which had given me content, because I had thought the world had nothing better to offer.

“Leave Yellow Sands!” I exclaimed.

“Follow fortune,” muttered the factor. “Look at Redpath,” he went on warmly. “Fifty years old, I reckon, and maybe a villain in the first class. He’s after fortune yet. You’re twenty-one, though I allow you look five years older. You’ve got your chance. I know what you don’t, that you’re a grand specimen of a man. You can thank ole Petrie for that. Ye must stay by Redpath, and keep a strong arm over him, ’cause he’ll get ahead of you if he can; and if the gold pans out, and there’s a claim to spare, maybe you’ll mind ole Mac, who’s put you up to a thing or two to-day. Then you can go to London, where you were born, finish your education, and, if you’ve got the stuff, do any durned thing you want.”

“How did the man come?” I asked absently.

“Hudson Bay boat makin’ to Pine Island, I guess. They dropped him at the mouth of our river, and he worked up. He can’t get away till that boat comes back, which won’t be for three weeks. Where is he, anyhow?”

I did not know myself. Redpath had disappeared as he came.

“He’s got a camp in the bush. Look-a-here, Rupe. He don’t want to see ye again. He’s got what he came for--”

“He promised to be my partner,” I interrupted.

MacCaskill frowned.

“I guess I’ll be telling you now what sort of an insect a humbug is.”

I listened, as the sun rose up in the sky, until there came to me a desire for liberty, and a longing to see those things of which the factor spoke. If I were a strong man, if I were qualified to take a place among others, why, surely I was wasted in Yellow Sands, and lost in the bush, among the animals and the Indians. It would be better to go, even though the parting might make me unhappy for a time. MacCaskill went on:

“Antoine will go on livin’ on the homestead. I’ll be over once in a while, and if you do want to come back and waste like old man, why, you can. But you won’t.”

Then I went away to hunt for Redpath. I was as skilled in tracking as any Indian, so I quickly picked up the tracks at the entrance to the bush, and had commenced to follow them, when Akshelah walked sadly from among the trees. She had been tracking me.

“You are going away,” she said at once, and there was no trace of a smile upon her face.

“Who told you?” I answered, feeling uncomfortable about her sorrow.

“When a white man goes away, he does not come back. Never! never! He goes to his own people, and they hold him, and he does not want to come back.”

“Akshelah,” I said, “my father is dead, and I must avenge him.”

At once the girl’s face changed, even as water will change when the sun falls across it. Vengeance was a religious duty in her creed, and she would regard the man who should allow a dead father to sleep unavenged as something lower than a coward. She smiled again, though the smile was still sad.

“When you have done your duty, you will come back?” she said very softly, and I gave her the promise which her heart desired. “Those are bad men who came to you in the night,” said she. “He who is tall, with the great face, is a man of lies. The little man, who has a white face like the belly of a fish, will be moved like sand when it is dry.”

I looked from her expressive face down upon the well-beaten bush path. Now that she had spoken, I discovered the tracks of two men, and I also learnt that friends, as well as foes, had watched for me during the night.

“Listen,” said the girl. “One of the young men saw your enemies coming over the sand where the river touches the great water, and he came to tell me. So I told the young man to follow, and he saw the tall man come to your tepee, but the little man watched where the bush begins. The tall man came back, and the two went away together.”

I had moved on while Akshelah was speaking, but the girl’s eyes were keener than mine that day. She picked up a half-burnt match, and called, “This way the men went.” I joined her, and we passed on through the bush, seldom stopping, for Akshelah was never in doubt, and scarce an hour had gone before she whispered to me, “Smoke.” Presently I, too, caught the acrid odour above the sweetness of the pines. We went on cautiously, until we heard the cracking of sticks in the fire, and soon we were beside the camp, and saw a tent set among the pines, and a small man crouching beside the fire. We walked out, and I called:

“Where is Redpath?”

The little man started round, and his uneasy eyes passed from me to the girl, and then on blankly to the bush.

“I am Rupe Petrie, his partner,” I went on. “Has he gone to the Fort?”

“Gone shootin’,” said the little man shortly. “Might a-gone to the Fort. Ain’t my racket.”

“Why are you camping in the bush?” I said. “You can come to my shanty.”

“You may be eaten by flies here,” added Akshelah, somewhat as though she hoped the thing might come to pass.

The little man made a shuffling reply, and Akshelah availed herself of his discomfort.

“You are his servant,” she said, with much scorn. “I would not be that man’s servant if I were a man.”

The listener flushed faintly, and poked at his fire, but he would not give any answer, so I made to go.

“I have lots of food at the homestead,” I said. “If Redpath wants any he can come for it. I will share with him as I said I would.” And with these words we came away.

That evening I went to clean out the cow-byre, and while thus occupied I saw the tall figure of Redpath come clear of the bush, and after a certain hesitation, proceed towards my home. I was about to go out and meet him, when the lessons I had received from MacCaskill that day advised me to alter my mind. Obviously the man had come to discuss his plans, and it would only require a few questions for him to discover that I was in complete ignorance of what was written on the paper he had taken from my hand the previous night. I slipped at once round the building, and passed down to the river, and on to the native encampment. On my return Antoine informed me that Redpath had asked for some fresh meat, and had taken away with him the greater part of a quarter of moose.

At the dead of night another visitor came to me. I was aroused from sleep by a voice whispering hoarsely about the house, and when I had struck a light a small figure came towards me from the door, and I saw the white shifting face of Olaffson, the Icelander, for that was the name of the little man we had found by the camp fire in the bush. He made a warning motion, and then sat down beside me.

“Say, have you spoke wi’ Redpath?” he muttered. I was still so surprised at the strangeness of this visit that I did not answer him at once, and he went on: “He’s no pard of mine, see. I’m with him for what I make. If I came over to you I should make more, eh?”

“This is a trick of Redpath’s,” I said angrily, forcing myself up. “He’s waiting outside now?”

“He’s sleepin’ like a dead man,” said the Icelander. “See now. He got that paper from you, and he knows what’s on it. You know. I don’t. He carries it on him by day, an’ hides it nights. What d’yer say, eh?”

He little thought that I was as ignorant as himself.

“So you want to give your friend away?” I said.

“Redpath ain’t no friend of mine,” said the little scoundrel. “You ain’t either; but I surmise you’d pay me better’n he has. I’m square when I get good pay.”

His white face gleamed unpleasantly by my bedside.

“You want me to show you the place where the gold is?” I suggested, making a double hazard.

“That’s right. We’d go together an’ fight off Redpath, see! You’re strong. We’d work the place, share and share, or each for hisself. Redpath don’t mean you or me neither to have any.”

“There’s enough for all of us,” I said, again at a venture.

“That don’t do for Redpath. He never could share. Gimme a ear, pard. No listeners.”

The little wretch put his horrid face close to mine, and whispered the shocking proposal that, as a consideration for my letting him into the secret, he should murder Redpath in his sleep.

I rose in horror, but when I threatened to throw him out of the house, the Icelander grinned at me.

“Killin’ a man in the bush ain’t much of a job,” he muttered.

“Get out!” I said. “Get out!”

Olaffson backed slowly.

“If I ain’t wi’ you, I’m wi’ Redpath,” he threatened.

“If you were with me, you would sell me to someone else.”

“Not if you paid me well.”

“Take yourself out of the place!” I cried angrily; and the little scoundrel went.

By this I made myself the enemy of Olaffson, the Icelander.

Midway between my homestead and the native encampment lay an open space, where grass and flowers grew strongly, and butterflies played throughout the day. This had always been a favourite spot of mine. On the river side an untenanted ant-mound had become covered by natural green, and this afforded a very comfortable resting-place for one, and a possible one for two, as Akshelah and I had proved. It was our favourite meeting-place, and in order that it might not become invaded by the bush, I had lately given a day to lopping back the encroaching branches and tendrils, and cutting off the shoots of young trees which here and there had tried to take possession in the grass.

Upon the following afternoon, or it might have been the early evening, for I seem to remember that the sun was coming low, I was running to this open space--running, because I had promised to meet Akshelah, and I was well after the appointed time. I had been delayed at the Fort. Truth to tell, MacCaskill was teaching me my letters, and my eagerness to learn was so great that I had temporarily forgotten my beautiful country maid. I was nearing our patch of natural garden, when I heard the sudden sound of a human struggle.

The trained ear does not mistake such sounds, nor can it confuse them with the stir made by animals fighting or at play. For one moment I stopped, that I might be sure of my bearings, but while thus motionless, a cry rang startlingly forth, not of fear, but in defiance, and it was the cry of Akshelah; but it was cut short, as though a hand had closed upon her throat.

I had never known what it was to lose control over my strength, but I had learnt much since my father’s death, so that it became merely fitting for the animal side of my nature to receive its lesson. The trees seemed to rise and float away from me; a hot hand inside my body jumped up to my throat; a mist closed before my eyes, and the sunlight appeared to glint with a red glow. I felt my feet flying under me, and the bushes giving or breaking as they went by.

I sprang panting over the ant-mound, and two figures resolved themselves out of the mist--Akshelah fighting upon her knees, a thin line of blood joining her nostril and lip, and over her the tall, leaning figure of Redpath, his great hands holding her throat, his eyes hideous, and his flabby face white and slimy. I was mad. I was a wild beast, with no control, and with no human knowledge.

I crossed the interval of grass at one bound--another; and while I descended, I struck out with my left arm, and my wiry fingers met the dull, loose flesh of the adventurer with the hard shock of a great bullet smashing into a tree. I threw myself after the blow, and when that terrible heat of rage and brute strength had cooled, I was sprawling across the body of Redpath, and he was stretched as he fell, making a strange shape along the grass.

Akshelah wiped the blood from her face, and as I rose, she came upon me; and when I clasped her pretty body in my arms, she kissed me passionately. And while she kissed me, I wondered how it was that men set so much store upon gold.

I lifted Redpath’s head. He was breathing heavily; his skin was cold, and to touch it was like handling a fish.

“Run to the encampment, little squirrel,” I said, calling Akshelah affectionately after her totem. “Send a boy to bring the Icelander here.”

The girl came up to me, deliberately wreathed her warm arms about my neck, lightly caressed my forehead with hers, and went quickly to do my bidding, without a word.

Then I removed from Redpath’s breast-pocket a case, which contained the well-preserved piece of paper that had belonged to my father. Sitting upon the ant-mound, my body still quivering from its late passion, I awaited the coming of the Icelander.

So I made myself the enemy of Redpath, the Englishman.

A LAND OF HIDDEN TREASURE

The voices of the bush sang a changed song during my night walk. The moon came out over the ridges and lit up the flagstaff, and faintly illumined the thread of smoke ascending from the single stove-pipe chimney of the Fort.

I walked across the furrowed fire-break, where a few pink briars lingered, and opened the door of the low, whitewashed building, with the lack of ceremony to which I had always been accustomed.

MacCaskill sat at his table, making entries in a big ledger. He looked up morosely, nodded, and his big head went again over his writing.

“Three gallons fish-oil,” he muttered, speaking each word as he set it down, “at one blanket, value four, seventy-five. Profits ain’t what they was when furs were plentiful. Well, what’s the latest racket?”

I came over to his side and opened the sheet of paper upon the table, smoothing the ragged edges with my flat hand.

The factor’s face changed, and he stopped drawing in his smoke, but looked up from the table and scanned me narrowly.

“Which goes to say,” he said in a deep voice, “that you and Redpath have been havin’ a match, and you’ve come in Number One.”

“Not a word has passed between us,” I said.

“Give me deeds every time,” muttered MacCaskill.

He brought his head nearer the table, and I waited for his next word. “Bonanza” was that word; and then a silence came between us, until the factor left his seat, and stood upright against the stove.

“What does it mean?” I exclaimed.

MacCaskill drew a sulphur match along the top of the stove, and let it splutter and burn until the flame touched his fingers. Then he dropped it unused.

“You’re twenty-one, and I’m sixty-five. You’re fresh, and I’m spoilt. You’ve got everything before you, and all mine’s ’way behind. There’s that difference between us.” Then he burst out: “I don’t know that a man can get too old for this one thing. I’ve had a bad, lonely, useless life.” He struck another match violently, flung it away, as though he tried to throw off his weight of years. “Darn me if I don’t begin all over again!” He came to me, his great face agitated. “Redpath asked you to be his pard, did he? You’ve broke with him to-night; and if you want another pard, he’s right here before you. Is it a go?”

He gave me his strong hand, and I knew that I had won a friend.

Then he spoke to me regarding Bonanza, the place of gold, my father’s secret, while I told him of my meeting with Redpath, and of the punishment I had given him.

“For a woman!” the factor said grimly. “Wait till you know the world, and you’ll find that the woman comes in everywhere. Watch out when you’re walkin’ lone in the bush, and fasten your door nights. Redpath won’t forget that knock-down; and mind, you’re standin’ in his way all the time.”

I asked him what he thought of Olaffson, and he answered with scorn:

“Just a crooked tool. He’d stick a knife into his brother if there was anything comin’ to him for the job.”

The factor reached for his straw bonnet, and announced his intention of going down to the encampment.

“I must get one of the boys to start first thing in the morning, to take a message along to Fort Determination. I want someone to take my place here right away,” he explained. “Redpath’ll have to wait for the _Lac Seul_. We’ll go by canoe, and get ahead of him at the start.”

We had not left the sparkling river, after visiting the native encampment, when MacCaskill asked abruptly:

“Anything else in that chest of your ole father’s, Rupe? Always been thinkin’ of it when you weren’t handy?”

What a fool I had been! I had completely forgotten that packet of letters, after I had taken and hidden them in a box under the floor. My companion proposed that he should come at once and examine them, so we turned off into the bush, where the dew showed like points of light, and on to my homestead, which was dark and silent, for Antoine was already asleep. Entering, I closed the door, and after lighting the lamp I dug out the box, and handed its contents over to MacCaskill.

One by one he glanced them through, and pronounced them for the most part unimportant.

“No use worryin’ out old man’s back life,” he said. “Most o’ these are from his gal, your mother, addressed to him at Seymour Place, Hyde Park, London, England. A copy of his marriage certificate. Another of your baptism. Better keep that. You don’t know what it means, but you will one time, maybe, if you strike a missionary. Now, here’s something a bit different: ‘Your sincere friend, Francis Redpath’; headed, ‘Forsyth Mansions, Victoria Street.’ P’r’aps that is London again. Golden Jerusalem! He’s promising to be your father’s best man; postscript, ‘Anything from J. F.?’”

MacCaskill’s busy fingers pulled out another letter, and, as he read, he fell into indistinctness. At last his hands dropped.

“Shall I tell you, lad, or shall I just say it’s bad and burn it, and leave you to guess?”

“Tell me,” I said, as anyone else would have done.

The factor picked up the letter, and read:

“‘It is common knowledge that you killed Joe Fagge that night, and
there will be as little mercy for you as you showed to that poor
old devil, when you are taken. You have deceived and ruined me, and
though you are at present out of my reach, you must know, my good
Petrie, that I shall find you, if I hunt long enough. I have set my
mind upon having the old man’s secret, and I shall have it. If you
try to withhold it from me, I am afraid I shall have to kill you.
Remember me. I don’t give up a search, if I fail twenty times.’”

The factor folded up the sheet.

“That’s enough,” he said. “No address. I guess it was brought to ole Petrie by someone who wouldn’t give his hiding-place away. Now we know why he wasted his life away here. I thought maybe ’twas something like it, and Redpath’s got here, as he said he would, though he didn’t get in until old man had his notice to quit.”

His words came booming at my ears.

“Father was never a murderer,” I said.

“I knew old man, and now I know Redpath. If I was asked to pick out the murderer, I wouldn’t stop to choose. Now here’s something else. Golden gates! Listen, Rupe. Listen to this.”

He read out slowly:

“‘The true statement of James Petrie.’ That’s your father, lad.
That’s old man. And this is gospel, for he never wanted it to be
read while he was alive. Listen to this, I tell ye.”

I was listening with both my ears, while the night quivered and murmured around my home. MacCaskill began to read:

“‘It was late in the fall of 1874 when Joe Fagge made his accidental
discovery of Bonanza. He was accompanied only by the half-breed
Leblanc, who was in camp when the old man made the great find of
the hole, and who was kept in ignorance, I imagine, of the whole
thing. As it was too late to do anything until the next season, Fagge
returned south, and settled to winter in Portage la Prairie, where
he came against Redpath, who at the time was speculating in land,
and, as usual, doing no good. Both he and I knew Fagge well enough,
and we had often received from him useful hints regarding promising
localities for gold-finding.

“‘The old man was the cleverest, and most eccentric, miner in the
whole north-west; but in that winter of 1874 his brain began to fail,
and when given a little liquor he could be brought to talk about his
one great discovery. Redpath knew his weakness, and kept close to
the old man to hinder him from giving away the secret to others; but
Joe had a violent dislike for Redpath, and refused to give him any
details as to the bearings of Bonanza.

“‘I had just returned to the west, as my young wife had died shortly
after Rupert’s birth. I had spent all my money again, and came
out to find another good digging along the gold line. Redpath sent
for me from Portage la Prairie, but when I got up, Joe Fagge was
little better than a madman. I kept with him, and chained him up,
metaphorically speaking; but it was tough work looking after him and
my little Rupert, babies both, for the old man was always crying for
liquor. Redpath and I had quarrelled pretty badly just before--not
for the first time. His cynicism was intolerable. I had not been
what one would call a particularly straight man myself, and I knew
he wasn’t much better than a scoundrel; but on the “honour among
thieves” principle we hung together, and I trusted him part of the
way.’”

MacCaskill turned over the leaf, and read on, his face hidden. My eyes looked over him, and rested upon the window.

“‘Joe improved a lot as the winter went out, and finally he consented
to take me to Bonanza, although he would not hear of Redpath
accompanying us. The break-up came early that year, and we were
able to start in April. We hired a boat, but it pinched to find the
money--miners are poor in the spring--and set out from Selkirk,
getting safely out of the river, and away, though we found a lot
of loose ice floating about the lake. Our crew consisted of Joe,
Leblanc, a couple of nitchies, and myself. A boat which followed ours
held Redpath and his man Olaffson. I had arranged with him to wait
off the coast, until the old man had told me all he knew. I marked
the course carefully as we came along, and set it down in writing;
but it was plain sailing until we came under the coast, where Joe had
forgotten a good deal, and we had to try a lot of places before he
could recognise the shape of the beach. Leblanc, a half-breed of the
worst class, was of no use. On the previous occasion they had come
overland to the shore, and then worked back. The key of the discovery
lay in the finding of a tunnel out of a canyon, which we called the
Canyon of the North Wind, taking us through cliffs of a perfectly
inaccessible nature. This pass the old man had named Mosquito Hole,
and this is the name I have given it upon my map....’”

MacCaskill pushed himself back. My attention had been led astray, and the closing sentences of my father’s narrative had been lost upon me.

“The other half of the sheet’s torn away,” said the factor morosely. “Just as we were comin’ to the excitement. Old man must have thought better of it. Maybe he tore it by accident. There’s no more yarn, anyhow.”

“Don’t move,” I said softly. “There’s trouble. I have seen a face against the window.”

MacCaskill suddenly pulled a quick breath, then, throwing his body forward, burst into a hearty shout of laughter.

“Seen anything?” he muttered, after a pause.

“A shadow passed. The moon’s bright.”

“And Redpath’s worryin’ over the knock-down you gave him.”

The factor gave another loud laugh, then, getting up, pulled the blanket, which did duty for a blind, across the window. When we were concealed he turned and snatched up my late father’s old gun, while I caught at and loaded mine.

“We can step out by the window at the back,” I said.

“Leave the lamp burnin’. That’ll fool ’em.”

Passing into the kitchen, we shook up Antoine, who slept in his clothes. I carefully pushed aside the mosquito netting, and climbed through the window, which lay in darkness, for the shadow of the house fell that way, and a bluff of small pines grew right back to the wall. My companions followed, and we glided among the trees, climbed the snake fence, and entered the scrub, with the idea of working round, to watch from the bush what might be taking place in front of the house. I led the way, because I knew every inch of the ground, and MacCaskill followed, breathing like an ox, and Antoine came sleepily third. I had just reckoned that another twenty paces would bring us clear of the scrub, when I smelt smoke, and through the trees came a quick flash without noise, and the unmistakable odour of gunpowder. The factor gave a hard snort of rage, and Antoine muttered heavily, “Burn! Burn!”

“That’s powder out of their cartridges,” said MacCaskill. “Bet you they’re watchin’ that door, and think we’re trapped.”

Some rocks were scattered outside the bush, and behind one of these we took up our stand; a volume of smoke rolled over the ground, and when it had passed I saw a series of flames darting up and out suddenly. My home, the little log shanty that my father had made for a refuge, was burning, and it was useless to think of trying to save it. The loss of the shanty was in itself a small matter, because another equally good could be run up in a day, with the aid of my Indian friends; my few possessions were of very trivial value; but associations cling about a building, be it only a bush hut, when it has always been one’s home. I felt, for the second time that day, the hot, unreasoning strength coming over me from head to foot, and I rested my gun upon the shoulder of the rock when I saw a tall figure standing beside the door, leaning forward, and waiting, hoping for revenge.

“Don’t do it, Rupe,” said the deep voice behind me. “That sort of thing leaves a bad taste all a man’s life. Meet a rascal to his face, and knock hell into him, but don’t skunk behind a rock and pump lead his way, like he was a jack-rabbit.”

“Are we going to stand here?” I said, in a voice unlike my own.

“We’ll watch ’em away. You can’t save the shanty, boy, and if we go out you’ll make at Redpath. I’ll have to take on Olaffson for sympathy, and there’ll be a lot of trouble. You’ve got well out of this, and you don’t want to spoil the game now.”

The logs of my late home were cracking and splitting under the fire. Antoine was more philosophic than I, and accepted the inevitable with his customary indifference. The flames wrapped round the shanty, and the dry thatch roared, putting out the light of the moon. Then the roof smashed down, with an upburst of fireworks, and the two dark figures, the tall and the short, came together, and sneaked away, with backward glances.

My arms twitched again, and I must have made a threatening movement, because a great hairy hand seized the barrel of my gun. The figures became swallowed up, and we three were alone again.

“Say, Rupe”--MacCaskill moved back a pace, and put out his two thick arms--“I’m sixty-five, and I guess Redpath’s the wrong side o’ fifty. How should we go? If we stood together, wi’ our sleeves up, and wi’ tight waists, how would we go, eh?”

“It would be bad for Redpath,” I growled, and Antoine grunted his assent.

We three went back to the Fort. In the morning came Akshelah to tell me that a canoe belonging to the chief had been stolen during the night. Aided by a fresh north wind, which sprang up with the dawn, Redpath and Olaffson had made good their escape. At the time my maid spoke, the incendiaries would have been well away upon Lake Whispering.

II

THE LUMBER CAMP OF GULL ISLAND

LIFE!